Great Machine

Machina Sanctus
The Great Machine.

This is the architecture of the multiverse.

Innumerable wheels spun around innumerable worlds.

The Great Machine is a divine creation. It is all of creation. Divine energy flows through it like blood.

The gods guide this machine shaping and reshaping worlds to their liking feeding on the power granted to them via the faith of mortals.

The faith of the mortal feeds the gods. The gods empowered guide the machine.

These are not the gods as they are known in The Broken World, petty, vain, weak, mere imitations, eddies of faith given life. These were the true gods. Beings of immeasurable power. As vast and as distant to mortals as they are to the life of cells.

Machina Noctus
When the Great Machine was sundered a multitude of components flowed out along side the God's Blood. In the shadow of the stream the components of the Great Machine reformed. The gears of the divine machine reformed but are incomplete and damaged.

It does not tick with the divine heartbeat of creation any more. The Shadow of the Machine is broken and struggling to complete its purpose.

Arcane magic uses the machine as the source of its power. Within the Great Machine wizards were capable of feats of magic unimaginable. Outside, within the Broken Worlds arcane magic utilizes the Shadow Machine. However, the broken machine is dangerous. Spells are forcing parts of the Shadow Machine to complete complex formula. There is a real danger of the machine, skipping a note, slipping a gear, possibly warping the spell.

However, there remains a constant possibility of the machine breaking. When that happens anomalies occur and they vary greatly. Some are rents in reality leading to the void. Others warp space and time.