Sanctuary of the Odd

Lore Dump: The Divine Rush

Greetings! I am the Mother of Gods! It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance! I know it's probably odd to receive a greeting from a goddess, especially one that's supposed to be dead. But that's the thing about existing outside time and space, you kinda exist everywhere at that point.

I'm going to fill you in on a little of history today, so I hope you don't mind a bit of learning!

Ahem.

IT ALL BEGAN WHEN ALL THE GODS DIED.

There once was a great multiverse that spanned trillions of years. It all melded together into one big Final Timeline where a war between mortality and divinity would break out to decide the fate of all reality. It's an epic tale that we won't be delving too deep into today. (I'm actually kind of saving that one for much much later.)

To make a long story short, the mortals won in the end, and we all died. Our divinity was spread across all mortals and all of them walked away with a little spark of godhood inside them.

This was how Multiverse B was born, and thus began the rise of the era of magic.

You see, the power of the gods was the power of creation. You can use it to craft spells to alter the reality around you, or to even alter yourself. Every time you created, whether it be with magic, or heck, even writing a book or drawing art, your magic was slightly enhanced. As people understood their new found powers, one realization slowly dawned on them.

If I could get enough power, could I ascend into godhood?

Things really started to ramp up after they discovered a giant mass of magical power accumulating in a random fixed spot in space that would be called The Prize. Turns out, the death of all gods didn't stop people from praying, and when you pray, a little bit of your magical power was given to the god in question. Considering no gods existed, that magic was just floating out there, waiting to be automatically claimed by the first to ascend.

So not only would the first one to ascend would be the first god, but they would also be the most powerful god. They would be head god of the new pantheon, one that'll set the course of the rest of history.

And thus, the Divine Rush had started. The race to become the first ever god.

However, it wasn't going to be an easy feat. Not only did it take A LOT of magic to ascend, there were always people around who didn't want a specific person to become divine. This new god would set the course of the rest of history, after all. People didn't want someone they hated in that position.

Not to mention, it was discovered that people can absorb magic from corpses. The point is, things got bloody, FAST.

A species that really got into the Divine Rush were the dragons. Monsters didn't have magic originally, as they weren't around for the war of the gods. However, by crossbreeding with humans, early dragons were able to inherit magical power. From there, they just got bigger and fiercer, and lived longer and longer. If they had children, their kids would inherit their great power, and the cycle of magic and violence would continue.

Whenever someone got too far up the totem pole, someone would be there to stick a knife in their back. People would develop more effective way to kill high powered magic users, inventing stuff like void cannons and solar blades. 

It used to be that somebody could be sneaky and just, gain power in secret, and many got far doing that. Unfortunately, the Crossroads developed the Divine Rush Leaderboards that forced a lot of those people out in the open. Many would be hunted, others would be forced to flee into the cosmos.

It's been 10,000 years since the death of all gods. Many have gotten close to ascension, but none would achieve it.

The closest anyone has gotten was the sun dragon Marduk. He could have ascended a long time ago, but he was ashamed of the things his kind did to gain such power over the eons. As a consequence, he decided to gatekeep the top from other dragons until he found someone who he felt deserved the title more.

Despite Marduk's decision being well known, people outside the Veil of Dragons have long feared that he may one day change his mind. They fear a monster would take the crown after all these years. They fear what it could mean for the humans of the multiverse.

It's because of this that many would declare war on the dragons. They'll set up shop on The Odd, and launch a full scale war on the Veil hoping to take down the beasts once and for all. Berry Blitzkrieg is only the most recent to attempt this. Obviously, none have succeeded. Even though the dragons are all competing with each other for The Prize, they'll always team up whenever their turf is being threatened. It's like an unspoken rule among their kind.

And that's where we are now.

Hope you enjoyed this lore dump! I'll see you again sometime soon! Bye bye everyone!