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【LORE DROP】
Welcome to a Dream
Spirits, Shrines, Kami
Welcome to the dawn of a new era! Things in this world are changing fast and even the local population is having a hard time keeping up! Up until five years ago, this world did not know that magic existed... but that doesn't mean the sudden spring of fantasy came from no where. Magic has always existed in secret here, but it was just that: A secret.
Spirits have always been in this world, but few people knew of them. They are souls that do not have a body. Spirits could see and hear the world around them like it was a dream, but they could not interact with it. Their lives were of lonely observers, doomed to eventually fizzle out when their magic was spent.
You see, spirits gained power by being acknowledged. Otherwise, their existing power burns up over time like lives normally do. Gaining power is very difficult to do when you're invisible and mute to the rest of the world! But possible if you tell a small lie. A spirit could inhabit a Shrine and take faith from it. And early humans loved to stick their faith to random things!
So for example, a spirit might inhabit the shrine of an imagined god of agriculture. They could take the god's imagined form and developed the imagined powers, thus creating a cycle of faith: The spirit produced the imagined miracles, they get more faith from humans, they get more power and make more miracles. Their power could eventually produce a body and allow them to exist.
Spirits who evolve in this way are called Kami and they were plentiful in the past. Some were extremely powerful, too, because their power could only be explained by magic. There was nothing else to believe in to grow your crops but a Kami, because no one knew what else had that power.
The flaw in this is rather obvious, then. Once science began to spread, the need for Kami went with it. Humans could explain things without magic, so they stopped believing in it. This caused the once-Kami to revert to powerless spirits. The "Golden Era of Kami," as schools now teach it, came to an end and the "Era of Learned Forgetting" began.
During this particular era, normal people could not see spirits. They did not know that they existed. Remnants of Kami still existed where faith was offered, but they were not nearly as strong as before. The few humans who could see spirits were called Sacred Children and acted as a link between the two worlds. Spirits would often form contracts with these people; The Sacred Child would spread rumors of a mystery and try to make people believe in it. Then the spirit would inhabit that mystery as a shrine. This mutually beneficial relationship gave the Sacred Child access to their spirit/Kami's powers while allowing said spirit/Kami to exist again.
Sacred Children were still, more often that not, quite weak. There were few ways to create tons of power for a spirit. That is, until the Great Awakening event, five years ago.
Spirits have always been in this world, but few people knew of them. They are souls that do not have a body. Spirits could see and hear the world around them like it was a dream, but they could not interact with it. Their lives were of lonely observers, doomed to eventually fizzle out when their magic was spent.
You see, spirits gained power by being acknowledged. Otherwise, their existing power burns up over time like lives normally do. Gaining power is very difficult to do when you're invisible and mute to the rest of the world! But possible if you tell a small lie. A spirit could inhabit a Shrine and take faith from it. And early humans loved to stick their faith to random things!
So for example, a spirit might inhabit the shrine of an imagined god of agriculture. They could take the god's imagined form and developed the imagined powers, thus creating a cycle of faith: The spirit produced the imagined miracles, they get more faith from humans, they get more power and make more miracles. Their power could eventually produce a body and allow them to exist.
Spirits who evolve in this way are called Kami and they were plentiful in the past. Some were extremely powerful, too, because their power could only be explained by magic. There was nothing else to believe in to grow your crops but a Kami, because no one knew what else had that power.
The flaw in this is rather obvious, then. Once science began to spread, the need for Kami went with it. Humans could explain things without magic, so they stopped believing in it. This caused the once-Kami to revert to powerless spirits. The "Golden Era of Kami," as schools now teach it, came to an end and the "Era of Learned Forgetting" began.
During this particular era, normal people could not see spirits. They did not know that they existed. Remnants of Kami still existed where faith was offered, but they were not nearly as strong as before. The few humans who could see spirits were called Sacred Children and acted as a link between the two worlds. Spirits would often form contracts with these people; The Sacred Child would spread rumors of a mystery and try to make people believe in it. Then the spirit would inhabit that mystery as a shrine. This mutually beneficial relationship gave the Sacred Child access to their spirit/Kami's powers while allowing said spirit/Kami to exist again.
Sacred Children were still, more often that not, quite weak. There were few ways to create tons of power for a spirit. That is, until the Great Awakening event, five years ago.
The Era of Awakening
Most locals don't remember the exact events leading to the reveal of spirits and magic, but they do remember one thing: It started about five years ago. Slowly at first and then spreading like a viral video... Because that's what it was, actually.
For a long time, there had been an unspoken rule that spirits were secret. They were weak and there were actual cults dedicated to spirit hunting, believing that spirits and Kami were a dangerous force that needed to be eliminated. You'll still hear of these groups from time to time, but that's another story entirely. What's important is that even Sacred Children operated in a somewhat secretive manner. They did not broadcast their magic to the public.
But five years ago, one Sacred Child decided to break this rule. She still keeps quiet about the exact circumstances that drove her to reveal magic. Usually, she'll say that it was time to make a change. Back then, she was the sixteen year old Sacred Child to the Kami of Antimatter. Her Kami was especially strong and allowed her to perform magic on a live news broadcast. She continued to make appearances on videos, which went viral. Eventually, so many people believed in her proof of spirits that those spirits became Kami. And the rest is history.
For some, these videos never crossed their screens. They heard from friends, response essays, news articles, or simply encountered a Kami one day on their own. As experienced added up, the world began to change to adapt. Spirits have now become an accepted part of modern science and their existence can be proven.
The Sacred Child who broke the news has been elevated to the role of Kami herself. Her and her old patron now watch over the Star Sand City. Not everyone knows their full history, but most residents do know that this pair protect the city from any dangerous rumors-- and the spirits that evolve with them.
SUB-HEADER
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