Guild Hearts

Guild Hearts are among the most coveted and mysterious magical artifacts in the known world. Few living beings have seen one, and fewer still understand their true nature. To scholars of arcana, religious historians, and high-ranking magical guilds, Guild Hearts represent a divine convergence of power, legacy, and cosmic inheritance—artifacts that are at once relics of the heavens and anomalies of the mortal realm.  

Origins and Divine History

While the true origin of Guild Hearts is a matter of theological debate, most traditions agree on one shared myth: before the gods turned their gaze upon the mortal realm, they too organized themselves into celestial guilds—great conclaves of power, purpose, and identity. These divine guilds are said to have governed aspects of reality itself: war, creation, time, justice, chaos, and more.   Each deity within a divine guild housed a Guild Heart within them, not as an organ, but as a core manifestation of their essence—a crystallized embodiment of their divinity, ideals, and power. When a divine being perished—either through sacrifice, celestial conflict, or betrayal—their Guild Heart would descend to the mortal world, no longer bound to the heavens.   These relics became instilled into the material fabric of the realm, transforming into magical items of staggering power. Each Guild Heart retains fragments of its origin god’s identity, and therefore no two are alike. Some grant unimaginable destructive power, others manipulate time, rewrite fate, or resurrect the dead at great cost. A Guild Heart does not simply enhance—it rewrites the rules for a brief moment.  

The Fall of the Divine Guilds

As the pantheon expanded and celestial politics grew more volatile, guild wars erupted in the heavens. Divine guilds, once created to preserve harmony, fell into rivalry, their cosmic clashes tearing rifts in both heaven and earth. The sheer scale of destruction—echoing through the very stars—led to the eventual abolishment of divine guilds by higher powers or unknown primordials.   By the time peace was restored, countless Guild Hearts had already fallen to the mortal realm. Some were discovered by early civilizations and worshipped as gods. Others were used in foundational acts of magic— the cursing of entire bloodlines, or the sealing of ancient horrors. Many were lost to time, hidden or consumed by the very world they reshaped.  

Modern Relevance and Theoretical Behavior

In the current age, Guild Hearts are rarely spoken of outside elite circles of magical academia or myth-chasing adventuring orders. Despite their rarity, they are known to still exist—embedded within the very fabric of the world, concealed in forgotten temples, buried deep within cursed lands, or disguised as mundane objects awaiting discovery.   The most critical feature of a Guild Heart is its single-use nature. When activated, a Guild Heart unleashes its godlike power in full, after which it evaporates from physical form, reabsorbed into the plane itself. From there, it is believed to reform somewhere else in the world, entirely at random—a rebirth that no diviner, oracle, or spell has been able to track.   This mechanic makes possession of a Guild Heart a heavy burden. Those who wield one are reluctant to use it, knowing they may never hold such power again. Kingdoms have fallen over rumors of one. Wars have been waged for a mere hint of one’s presence. Some suspect entire empires are unknowingly built atop the sleeping cores of gods.