The world of Heartblood is built on the bones of ancient beings, the closest things to gods to ever walk the surface of the land. Each of these creatures, elemental spirits of life, death, rebirth and so many more base facts of the universe and of life. These beings create these base forces of the world, resurrection magic, rebirth, death and undeath, illusions, monsters and many other things.
Over the centuries these creatures have become relics of myths and religion, forgotten for their true nature. Except for a single cult, the Order of the Rose. This cult was formed by the survivors of a war against the last of the primordial beings, the being of Deceit, the being of Monsters, and the being of Eternity. The Order of the Rose guards the remains of the beings, at least those they can, some have slipped from their control. The order passes on stories of the war against them millennia ago, keeping great archives tracking their influence in the world. The Order’s Home is a massive keep hidden deep in the catacombs of Corim, a stronghold buried kilometres below the surface only accessible via the maze of the catacombs, or through rites of teleportation.
The order guards in the stronghold a secret, a tree that has roots into the centre of the world, it feeds on the blood of life in the core of the planet itself, and thus it’s fruit bears immeasurable power. The order believes the fruit may have been the birth of sentient life on the planet even, with the primordial beings being the first to consume it, and each generation after being weaker and weaker, their lives shortened, with humans being the youngest of all. The tree was picked bare before living memory, but of recent, a single peach blossom has bloomed, and developed into a single fruit. It hangs low in the branches, remaining perfectly ripe and tempting for the last century, waiting to be eaten.
The order believes that this fruit is the beginning of a new cycle, and to consume it would be to ascend to the power of the primordial beings, or further to a new level of power. Thus they see it as something to dangerous for anyone to use. They guard its garden, a sanctum in the deepest depths of the fortress called Eden. Most of the order believe that it is the being of eternity trapped down there, and that is why it is guarded so, as that being was impossible to kill, only being trapped in unbreakable chains.
The locations of the final three primordial beings are secret to most, but the truth is that in the south west is the remains of the being of deceit, to the north is the being of Eternity bound under a mountain now controlled by the Dwarves of Eretus, and the last lies as a holy relic in the sanctum of the catacombs, her body splintered and spread across the land but slowly being rebuilt, the mother of monsters.
Zoe Joy Blog 