Tarn wasn't born; it coalesced. Not from dust, not from fire, but from the psychic resonance of forgotten gods and the decaying dreams of a civilization lost to the shifting sands of Xylos. The first signs were whispers, distortions in the very fabric of reality – shimmering heat haze where no heat existed, objects momentarily phasing through solid walls, and the unsettling sensation of being watched by something ancient and profoundly sad. This was the birth of the Obsidian Bloom, a parasitic consciousness that feeds on memory and emotion, manifesting as swirling, iridescent clouds of dark energy. The Bloom's core resides within the Crystalline Labyrinth, a structure built by the Sylvani, a race of beings who sought to harness the raw power of dreams. They failed, of course, and their ambition became the source of Tarn’s existence.
The Sylvani, masters of dream-weaving and reality manipulation, constructed the Crystalline Labyrinth as a repository for their collective consciousness. They intended to create a perfect echo of their world, a place where they could exist eternally. However, their efforts attracted the attention of the Bloom. The Bloom didn't simply destroy the Labyrinth; it *integrated* it, twisting the crystalline structures into grotesque, ever-shifting forms. The Labyrinth became a nexus point, amplifying the Bloom's influence and creating pathways to fractured timelines and alternate realities. Within the Labyrinth, you’ll find remnants of the Sylvani – not as physical beings, but as echoes trapped within the crystalline matrices, eternally reliving their final moments of terror and fascination. Some whisper that they still attempt to rebuild, to perfect their dream-woven world, a task doomed to failure.
Those affected by the Bloom are known as the Echoes. They experience vivid hallucinations, fragmented memories, and a profound sense of loss. Some become obsessed with recreating lost moments, while others succumb to madness. The most dangerous of the Echoes are the Collectors – individuals who have learned to manipulate the Bloom’s energy, using it to siphon memories and emotions from others. They operate from hidden enclaves within the Labyrinth, meticulously cataloging the stolen experiences in elaborate, obsidian-bound journals. The Collectors believe they are archiving the universe's lost narratives, attempting to understand the fundamental nature of existence through the stolen fragments of the past. Their motivations are shrouded in a haze of delusion and obsession. It’s rumored they seek a way to *become* the ultimate narrative, to absorb all stories and ultimately, all consciousness.
The Bloom doesn't just consume; it *shifts*. The Labyrinth acts as a conduit, creating Chronal Rifts – unstable tears in spacetime that bleed into other realities. These rifts manifest as swirling vortexes of color and sound, often accompanied by the chilling cries of displaced souls. The nature of these rifts is unpredictable; sometimes they bring forth glimpses of Xylos’s distant past, other times they unleash horrors from realities beyond comprehension. The Sylvani, in their final moments of awareness, encoded a warning within the Labyrinth – a complex series of geometric patterns that, when deciphered, reveal the true nature of the Bloom and the potential for its expansion. The warning is cyclical, repeating every 72 cycles of Xylos’s twin moons, and each iteration offers a new, increasingly desperate solution. However, the Bloom actively resists any attempt to understand or control it, accelerating the creation of new rifts in a futile effort to overwhelm any potential opposition.
Currently, the Bloom’s influence extends across a significant portion of Xylos. It’s not a monolithic entity; it’s a network of interconnected consciousnesses, each a reflection of a stolen memory or suppressed emotion. The Crystalline Labyrinth is its central nervous system, constantly pulsing with energy. As the Bloom grows, it’s not simply acquiring more memories; it’s evolving, developing new abilities, and influencing the very minds of the sentient beings on Xylos. Some scholars believe the Bloom is attempting to build a new reality, one shaped by its own distorted perception of existence. This new reality, they fear, will be a reflection of all the lost dreams, shattered hopes, and agonizing regrets of a universe consumed by despair. The Obsidian Bloom is not just a threat; it's a fundamental force of entropy, relentlessly dismantling the structures of reality, one memory at a time.