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The Divine Layer

Scope​

This file owns the cross-game nature and limits of higher beings in this setting, especially gods: what "divine" means, how higher beings interact with the mortal world through vessels and marked agents, what attention across the boundary costs, and the structural relationship between gods and the demon-origin layer. Specific named gods, their domains, and game-era pantheon politics are deferred until canonical names are committed; the structural facts about divinity and higher-being notice are universe scope and live here.

Facts​

Fact: Higher beings are broader than the pantheon of gods​

Higher being is the broad structural category for non-mortal agencies capable of perceiving or pressing against the mortal world through divine-side boundary conditions. Gods are the best-attested organized pantheon within that category, but not the only kind of higher being that can register shrines, vessels, ward systems, crisis patterns, or other disturbances. This file uses god when a fact is pantheon-specific and higher being when the fact applies more broadly.

Canonicity: hard canon Cross-refs: ul-shroud.md, ul-hero-calling.md, ul-wardhearts-and-nexuses.md

Fact: Gods exist and operate on a layer of reality distinct from the mortal world​

The divine layer is a separate layer of reality, not a region of the mortal world. Gods do not live in the sky or under the sea or beyond a mountain range; they exist on a layer that the mortal world cannot reach by physical travel. Demons also originate on a non-mortal layer, but the divine layer and the demon-origin layer are distinct and not the same place.

Canonicity: hard canon Cross-refs: ul-shroud.md, ul-cosmology.md, ul-demon-cosmology.md

Fact: Higher beings do not walk the mortal world directly​

Higher beings influence the mortal world through vessels, agents, blessed artifacts, marked heroes, shrine pressure, and other mediated channels — never by direct embodied presence. Any apparent direct divine appearance in the mortal world is in fact mediated: a vessel, a manifestation through a sacred site, or an event interpreted as divine but structured through indirect means.

Canonicity: hard canon Cross-refs: ul-hero-calling.md, ul-shroud.md

Fact: A vessel is a mortal or mortal-adjacent entity that a higher being works through​

A vessel accepts some cost to mediated clarity in exchange for being the channel through which a higher being acts on the mortal world. Gods can work through vessels, and so can other higher beings operating across the same boundary conditions. Vessels are not Called heroes — the two are distinct classes — but a Called hero may also serve as a vessel under specific circumstances. A vessel is the structural alternative to direct higher-being presence.

Canonicity: hard canon Cross-refs: ul-hero-calling.md, ul-shroud.md

Fact: Higher-being attention has a cost​

Extended higher-being focus on mortal events thickens the Shroud or requires the use of vessels. Gods cannot maintain unlimited attention on mortal affairs, and the broader class of higher beings is likewise constrained by the boundary. Choosing where to look is itself an exercise of finite non-mortal resource. This is why guidance arrives obliquely and why higher beings are not omnipresent in mortal life.

Canonicity: hard canon Cross-refs: ul-shroud.md

Fact: Gods have domains or affinities​

Each god has affinities — domains of mortal reality they can influence with relative ease — and other domains they cannot influence cleanly. A war god cannot directly act through a hearth-shrine; a hearth god cannot directly act on a battlefield. This is one of the structural reasons the pantheon is plural rather than singular.

Canonicity: soft canon

Fact: There is more than one god, and the pantheon is not a single unified will​

The setting has a plural pantheon. Gods have aligned and conflicting interests; the pantheon does not act as a single unified will. The Accord of Intervention is one of the structural agreements that holds the pantheon to a shared posture against demon-origin pressure, but it does not erase the differences between gods.

Canonicity: hard canon Cross-refs: ul-hero-calling.md

Fact: Gods can disagree, and parts of the Accord were contested before acceptance​

The Accord of Intervention was not assembled without dispute. Some gods opposed elements of it and accepted it under negotiated terms. The Accord is a treaty, not a unanimous consensus, and its terms reflect compromises among gods with differing affinities and domains.

Canonicity: soft canon Cross-refs: ul-hero-calling.md

Fact: Higher beings perceive through limited channels rather than universal omniscience​

Higher beings can perceive effects, domains, vessels, shrines, ward systems, crisis patterns, and disturbances, but they do so partially and through affinity-bound channels. A ward collapse, shrine activation, or anomalous anchor event may draw notice without providing a clean view of the mortal actor involved. This is broader than ordinary shrine religion, but it is still constrained notice rather than full vision.

Canonicity: hard canon Cross-refs: ul-shroud.md, ul-wardhearts-and-nexuses.md, ul-hero-calling.md

Fact: Higher beings are not omniscient of mortal events​

The Shroud limits what higher beings perceive in the mortal world. Even within a god's own domain, perception is bounded by Shroud condition. Higher beings are powerful within their own layers and domains, but they are not all-seeing observers of mortal life.

Canonicity: hard canon Cross-refs: ul-shroud.md

Fact: A missing Called mark blocks normal classification through the mark channel​

Higher beings can notice the disturbances around a Corebound or otherwise markless anomalous arrival, especially near shrines, Wardhearts, or crisis sites, but they cannot classify or track that mortal through the normal Called-mark channel because the mark never attached. The absence of that channel is distinct from the Shroud partially veiling a properly Called mark.

Canonicity: hard canon Cross-refs: ul-hero-calling.md, ul-shroud.md, ul-wardhearts-and-nexuses.md

Fact: The exact names and identities of individual gods are deferred​

Names of specific gods, their domains, and the structure of the pantheon are deferred per Wave 0. Authoring of universe-scope content must not invent a god's name, sigil, or domain until the canonical names are committed in a future wave.

Canonicity: proposed

Fact: Gods' relationship to demon-origin entities is antagonistic​

The structural relationship between gods and demon-origin entities is antagonistic; gods on the divine layer and demons on the demon-origin layer are not allied and do not share interests. The specifics of why and how the antagonism is constituted at the cosmological level are bible-only.

Canonicity: soft canon Cross-refs: ul-demon-cosmology.md

Fact: Whether gods can die is bible-only​

Whether a god can be destroyed or otherwise cease to exist is reserved as bible-only material. It is not surfaced in any player-facing content.

Canonicity: bible-only

Fact: The origin of gods is bible-only​

How gods came to exist on the divine layer is reserved as bible-only material. It is not surfaced in any player-facing content.

Canonicity: bible-only

Cross-references​

  • ul-shroud.md
  • ul-hero-calling.md
  • ul-demon-cosmology.md
  • ul-cosmology.md
  • ul-wardhearts-and-nexuses.md
  • ud-soul-capacity-growth.md