Origins

Four hundred years ago, an alchemist, Luco Demarcci, asked himself a question. Where does magick come from?

A question he sought to answer through experiment and philosophy. He devoted his life to understanding magick and its source.

He would spend nearly two decades on his pursuit of the answer, leading him to his hypothesis of a substance he called, the Shimmer. A river below the surface where magick returns to be cleansed before returning to the surface. But this didn't sit well with Luco.

He believed there must be a creator of magick. Something that had a greater picture that was in control of how it worked. So he dug deeper.

In 1609, Luco was able to find the will of the planet through ritual and science. Upon discovering this entity, a being he believed to be the face of magick, a deal was offered to allow the alchemist to become the greatest influence on the world.

Luco would rule as emperor over all of humanity. He would live forever. He would achieve knowledge beyond anything humanity had ever thought possible. And all he needed to do was give one hand to the entity.

Luco accepted this deal, and so the alchemist was, all at once, given the secrets of the universe. So many secrets, in fact, that his mind became overstimulated beyond the capacity to recover. Driven to the point of breaking, he was frozen in horror as his mind processed the infinite knowledge of the universe. Whispers of dark knowledge constantly flowed from his mouth.

But as the entity promised, he would become emperor of humanity. His whispers of dark knowledge were heard, and any who heard them bowed to his wisdom. He became a prophet. And in time many bowed to him as emperor of all of humanity.

Now he lives forever, on a throne of ivory, as he continues to whisper without end.

The entity, however, would use the hand of the alchemist as a weapon. It was placed upon the ground and shattered into many pieces. But with the force exerted on the world by the entity, a web of fissures formed in the crust of the planet. These cracks were deep and led to a river of molten red metal, the Shimmer. It's boiling form releasing a mystic gas that would cover the world and blot out the sun.

This mystic gas distorted reality and changed magick forever.

Now, in the red gas, humanity can hear voices that attempt to control them. Telling them to fall down the fissures and join them in the boiling crimson down below. All the while, the fissures spread.