hy Players Fight (Progression Arc)
The reason a Suhodan recruit keeps going out into the corruption, told across four stages: a Local Threat near Seonhwa, the Spreading Darkness deeper in the wilds, the Pillar War at the broken-pillar sites, and Transcendence past mortal limits at level 99.
Players begin as new recruits of the Suhodan (수호단), the Order of Guardians, training in and around Seonhwa (선화). Every fight is set against the Fracturing (Cheonha Bunhae, 천하 분해): three pillars shattered, two cracked, the Gyunhyeong (균형) collapsed, and unfiltered Giun (기운) now seeping out as Maggi (막기). Maggi warps living things into monstrous, aggressive forms and traps the dead so they rise as skeletons and ghosts.
This is not a clean war of good against evil. Maggi gathers around grief and suffering, the places where people died badly or died with things unfinished. Killing a corrupted creature or laying a restless ghost to rest is closer to a mercy than a slaughter. The thing those creatures became is the true evil, and the worst of it traces back to whatever was created at the core of the Cheonmugwan (천무관) ritual.
Local Threat (levels xx-xx)
The early work is close to home. Corrupted wildlife, rat-infested cellars, bandits on the roads, restless skeletons. The threat is manageable, but it is getting worse. Recruits learn the shape of the problem here before they understand its scale.
Level band undefined in source.
Spreading Darkness (levels xx-xx)
Maggi intensifies the farther out a recruit goes. Deeper caves hold worse creatures. Ghosts encountered here carry memories of the old world, the time before the Fracturing. Rumors begin to circulate of surviving Cheonmugwan, the scholar-sorcerers whose ritual broke the pillars.
Level band undefined in source.
Pillar War (levels xx-xx)
The two remaining pillars are failing. Players reach the broken-pillar sites and face boss-level abominations born from the thickest pooled Maggi. The surviving Cheonmugwan are divided: some seek redemption, others want to finish the ritual they started. By now the fight is about the pillars themselves.
Level band undefined in source.
Transcendence (level 99)
The pillars were fractured into countless pieces, and players are only human. To stand against the Maggi-corrupted, they must become more than human. To take on the burden of the Celestial Spirits, to become one with their chosen spirit, a player takes in a shard of a broken pillar.
Taking in a shard gives a direct connection to the spirit and lifts the limits of mortality. Death loses its grip. But the cost is everything that made the player human, and the task taken on is never-ending. By carrying a fragment, the player becomes part of the pillar that holds the world together, an avatar of the spirits. Taking in more than one fragment is possible (il-san, then ee-san, and onward), and attempting it before the body is ready is deadly, which is why reaching each mark requires stats the body can bear.
This is not far from what the Cheonmugwan attempted. Where they tried to use the pillars to gain power, the player steps into the place of the fractured pillars instead. Not everyone will see that as a good thing.
See also
- The Fracturing (Cheonha Bunhae)
- The Age of Endurance
- Maggi
- The Celestial Pillars and the Gyunhyeong
- Giun
- Seonhwa
- The Suhodan
- The Cheonmugwan
- The Eclipse Court (Sig Beob-won)
- The Ashen Archivists (Jae-Giloggwan)
- Transcendence (Beyond Level 99)
- The Gloth Arc
- Bestiary Overview
Source: ETK Lore Bible, “Transcendence (Beyond Level 99)” and “Maggi” (General Lore Considerations) sections; Haneul foundation doc, “Why Players Fight.”