In the beginning, mankind was born incomplete.
Bodies without sight, without sound, without smell, without taste, without touch.
To save them from eternal nothingness, the Lantern was granted.
And from the Lantern, Light was born.
But the world above was frozen.
A barren desert of eternal ice.
No humans dwell there, no beasts roam its fields.
No life, except for the polar fungi.
Each year, when the aurora splits the frozen sky,
the fungi rise from beneath the ice.
They are the only food of mankind.
They do not grow elsewhere, nor can they be replaced.
Thus, their harvest is sacred.
And so humanity was condemned to live beneath the earth,
an underground continent carved beneath the frozen wastes.
Their lives depend on the harvest.
If the Perceivers return with fungi, mankind survives another year.
If they fail, famine descends, and an entire generation dies.
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🕯️ On the Lantern
The Lantern is the covenant of humankind.
Every child is born incomplete, blind and deaf to the world.
When they come of age, they must bind themselves to the Lantern.
The Lantern is fed with candles, and the candles grant senses.
Yet the wax melts, and when it is gone… the body returns to nothingness.
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🕯️ On the Candles
🔵 Blue Candle: grants sight.
🔴 Red Candle: grants hearing.
🟢 Green Candle: grants smell.
🟡 Yellow Candle: grants taste.
⚫ Black Candle: grants touch.
Every Lantern begins with a single slot.
Those who endure ascend, their Lanterns widened to bear more flames.
Thus they rise, higher and higher,
until the people call them: The Perceivers.
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🕯️ On the Ranks
The Humans: those who never bound themselves.
The Voidborn: whose Lanterns were shattered; neither alive nor dead.
The Illumined: bearers of the first flame.
The Radiant: who wield many senses.
The Aware: who approach full perception.
The Enlightened: who ignite all five gates at once — the highest dream of man.
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🕯️ On the True Aim
The government's purpose is clear: preserve mankind through the harvest of fungi.
But within the hearts of the chosen elite, another fire burns.
Not mere survival… but the pursuit of total perception.
To hold all five senses at once.
To become the Enlightened:
the true human,
the flame that never melts,
the light that never dies.