The five Celestial Stone Pillars that anchor and purify Giun and hold the Great Balance between the spirit and mortal worlds. Three are now shattered and two are cracked and failing.
What they are
The Cheonseokju (Celestial Stone Pillars) are five pillars planted beneath the earth by the Five Celestial Spirits after they shaped the sea of Giun into the world. Their purpose is twofold: to anchor and purify Giun, and to hold the Gyunhyeong, the Great Balance between the spirit realm and the mortal realm. While the pillars stood whole, the land of Haneul-ttang, the Sky-Earth, flourished, and the boundary between worlds held. When someone died, their spirit passed through that boundary and moved on.
Each pillar corresponds to one of the Five Celestial Spirits: Cheolbyeok (Iron Wall), Jeonghwa (Purification), Noeho (Thunder Tiger), Cheongan (Sky Eye), and Yeonghwa (Spirit Flame).
The Gyunhyeong (the Balance)
The Gyunhyeong is the equilibrium the pillars maintained between spirit and mortal realms. With the Balance intact, Giun flowed clean, corruption had no foothold, and the dead could pass on. The pillars were the structure that kept it standing. Break the pillars and the Balance collapses with them.
The Fracturing
The Cheonmugwan (Celestial Martial Court), an order of scholar-sorcerers, tried to tap the pillars directly to ascend to the level of the Five Spirits. Their ritual, the Cheonmyeong Uisik (Rite of Heaven’s Mandate), failed catastrophically. Three pillars shattered, two were badly cracked, and the Gyunhyeong collapsed. The boundary between realms tore open. This event is the Cheonha Bunhae, the Fracturing of the Heavens.
With the Balance gone, unfiltered Giun seeped out as Maggi (Obstructed Energy), the corrupting force that warps living things and traps the dead in the mortal world. The pillars were fractured into innumerable pieces. (See the Maggi and Fracturing files for the consequences in full.)
Fragments and shards
The broken pillars left behind countless fragments scattered through the world. These pieces still carry a connection to the spirits, and that connection makes them both valuable and dangerous.
Deep places near the broken pillars hold the worst of it. A pillar fragment was found in the depths of the Crypts, where the corruption there was at its source. Han-Gyeol reached for it believing the spirits had sent it to aid him, and was struck by the corruption instead and transformed into Gloth. (See the Gloth file.)
Becoming a pillar (Transcendence)
To face Maggi-corrupted forces, a human must become more than human. The path past mortal limits runs through the pillars themselves: a player takes in a shard of a broken pillar, which forms a direct connection to their chosen spirit and lets them transcend the limits of humanity. By taking a fragment into themselves, they become part of the structure holding the world together, an avatar of the spirits, in effect a living piece of a pillar.
The cost is steep. The shard removes the limits of mortality but also removes the peace of it. Death can no longer keep its grip on them, but they give up the elements of what made them human and take on a task that never ends. Taking in more shards goes further still (il-san, ee-san, and so on), and attempting it before the body is ready is deadly.
This is not far from what the Cheonmugwan did. Where the Cheonmugwan tried to use the pillars to gain power, the player takes the place of the fractured pillars. Not everyone will see this in a positive light.
See also
- The Five Celestial Spirits
- Giun
- Maggi
- Haneul-ttang (The World)
- The Creation
- The Fracturing (Cheonha Bunhae)
- Transcendence (Beyond Level 99)
- The Celestial Martial Court
- Gloth (Han-Gyeol)
- The Crypts
Source: ETK Lore Bible (Transcendence (Beyond Level 99); Gloth / Boss Lore); The World of Haneul foundation doc (Creation; The Fracturing).