The Altar of the Law
The Altar of the Law is a mystical and mysterious source of inter dimensional energy which lies at the heart of the Dark Domains and is closely guarded by the Ancient and Glorious and their most trusted servants, a priesthood of specially trained Verdarian adepts.
The exact location of the altar is usually indeterminate. It can only be fixed when "normalised" by the priesthood, or one of the Ancient and Glorious when it will manifest close to the centre of the continent, almost always within a circular locus representing the 99.9% confidence level, although 0.1% of the time it may be found further afield. There is something analogous to quantum mechanical uncertainly at a macro level operating here, but it is a poorly understood phenomenon outside the Dark Domains and perhaps even within them. The "orbit" of the altar is shown on the map of the continent where it will be seen that it includes the Erebus sea. When materialising at sea, the altar appears with a small island around itself, which vanishes with it when it returns to the unobserved, indeterminate state.
The Altar of the Law acts as a focus for the Binding Rules that forced an entry into Magicians' End during the metaphysical earthquake known as the Planar Conformation. It stabilised an invasion timed to benefit from those great chaotic shifts in the geometry of the Discontinuum that the Ancient and Glorious may have been able to predict.
Only one of the defenders of the realm has ever seen the altar with his own eyes. That one is the greatest of them all, the legendary prophet Hylacon, a strange wanderer between the worlds of unknown origin, who organised a defence the world still relies on today in a time long before the Stability Council existed.
The Altar of the Law struck me with fear when I saw it. It holds the Dark Domains together and in some sense I cannot fathom exactly, it moved them between the worlds - a great helm struggling to navigate a whole broken continent, tossed like flotsam across the tidal waves of stormy dimensions before it could find an anchor here just as the Planar Conformation ended. Who can say how far they came, the Ancient and Glorious who brought their land here? I cannot. All that is certain is that it was far, far away in the deeps of the Discontinuum. What is the Altar of the Law like? It is a cold circle of stone, surrounded by pillars and a frieze that is not frozen. A blue bowl of smoke stands ever at the centre, spreading the forces we seek to evict from this world forever and must contain if we cannot. Around the surface of the altar and on the frieze are carved graven letters that should be fixed, but slowly and ever shift and warp into different languages as though they were made of ink. I do not know what they say. Only one tongue did I recognise, and that the dread script known as the Dark Bleed which it is not safe for mortal men to read. Silver knives point ever to the centre and the servants of the Altar, move them in strange ceremonies that I believe conjure foreign energies to use against our world. Ah, if only I could have desecrated that altar! Our task might then have been so much easier! But it was beyond my powers to do so and indeed I was lucky to escape from that dread place with my life.
Comments