Before the Fracture, before the echoing silence, there was the Obsidian Bloom. It wasn't a flower in the conventional sense, but a nexus – a point of concentrated temporal resonance. The Bloom pulsed with the raw energy of countless timelines, a chaotic symphony of potential futures and forgotten pasts. It manifested as a crystalline structure, radiating a violet light, capable of momentarily solidifying the probabilistic eddies of existence.
The Keepers of the Bloom, a collective of Chronomasters, attempted to harness its power, believing it held the key to stabilizing the nascent realities. Their efforts, however, proved catastrophic. They sought not to observe, but to *control*, and the Bloom resisted, unleashing a wave of Chronal Distortion.
Echoes of the Distortion remain, woven into the fabric of this fractured plane.
The Chronomasters weren’t born; they were assembled. Individuals, each possessing a latent resonance with temporal streams, were subjected to the Rite of Severance – a process of controlled temporal excision. This involved selectively removing moments from their own timelines, effectively creating ‘chronal voids’ within their being. The goal was to achieve a state of perfect temporal harmony, a living conduit for the Bloom's energy.
The process, predictably, was profoundly destabilizing. The chronal voids manifested as physical distortions – pockets of accelerated or decelerated time, phantom limbs, and subjective alterations to memory. Many Chronomasters shattered, their essences scattering across the fractured plane, becoming what are now known as the ‘Shard-Keepers’ – remnants of their former selves, bound to fragments of the Bloom’s resonance.
Their whispers can still be detected within the chronal static.
The Fracture wasn’t a singular event, but a cascade. The attempted control of the Bloom, coupled with the inherent instability of the chronal voids within the Chronomasters, resulted in the unraveling of this reality. The Bloom, overwhelmed by the dissonance, detonated in a wave of temporal energy, tearing the fabric of existence and creating countless parallel planes, each a reflection of a different potential outcome.
Those who survived the initial blast became the Shard-Keepers – fragmented echoes of the Chronomasters, trapped within these alternate realities. They exist outside of linear time, drifting through the chronal currents, their memories fractured, their purpose lost. They are guardians, not of order, but of the inherent chaos of the fractured plane.
Seek them not with intent, but with the quietest of hearts.