The breath of a Goddess
The Haze is the Breath of Thera, though whether it is truly Her sigh for her lost son, or an unending wound from which Her power bleeds depends upon the scholar one asks. It first entered recorded history during the Godswar, when Entropy scarred Thera, scorched Theril and set Zoodotis ablaze. From the suffering body of the Mother rose a force touched by both the order of Harmony and the violence of Entropy, yet obedient to neither. It moves through rifts, seas, mists and living creatures causing the boundaries of reality to weaken, and transforming whatever remains within it for too long. Through the Haze, old races were changed and new ones emerged. Even the Thergen who crossed its reaches during their flight from Theril gave rise to bloodlines no longer wholly of stone, among them the ancestors of Kinetika’s Gnomes. Unlike the Dragon Grimoires, the Haze requires no inherited book, and unlike Divine Magic it answers no prayer. It is a power source present within the Haze rifts, but also extending to the world, accessible only to those born or altered with the capacity to endure it. Because its earliest users succumbed to obsession, madness and uncontrolled transformation, its disciplined practice was concealed. The Metron Monastery arose beyond Lakedawn under the guise of a religious sanctuary, while within its guarded halls the first true Haze Masters learned that restraint was the foundation of their survival.
Dangers of power
To draw upon the Haze is to see the world lose its certainty. Edges blur, distance folds and the feelings of living beings appear as colours or luminous auras surrounding them. A trained Haze Master may use this perception to sense fear before a blade is drawn, grief beneath a courtier’s composure or violence gathering within a crowd, and from that awareness shape spells of extraordinary magnitude. The Haze may rearrange matter, imitate familiar spell effects, alter movement, imbue qualities or impose the caster’s will upon reality with a directness that arcane scholars find both enviable and obscene. Yet desire is dangerous within it. A careless wish may become an action, an emotion may damage the surrounding land, and repeated use produces an addiction deeper than bodily hunger. The caster begins to prefer the blurred world, where every possibility appears close enough to touch, and may gradually lose the strength to accept an unaltered reality. Ruvaen Sontar and the few masters who have entered the Haze Rifts and returned are honoured because survival itself is an achievement. The beasts of Starfall that feed upon Haze’s magical emanations show what failure may become. Haze Masters are therefore carefully watched even when they are loved, and feared even where they are needed. Their greatest discipline lies in choosing not to act, for no other path places such immense power so near to impulse.
No other path places such immense power so near to impulse.
“The Haze offers the world without its edges. Wisdom is remembering why the edges were there.”
Eolon of Oemon · Loremaster
