Event Seed: Dimmets Ascendant.

Dimmets Ascendant – Google Docs

Dimmets Ascendant

These days are not the same as ‘Fridays the 13th:’ those ‘magical’ dates on the calendar have all the intrinsic occult power of a soggy napkin, although admittedly human belief can generate quite a charge of negative supernatural power if you don’t ground it properly.  No, Dimmets Ascendant are entirely a different sort of magical date on the calendar. Meaning that they’re older, meaner, and potentially a lot scarier.

Once upon a time, things were different. Many people have noticed that there is a huge gap between the dawn of modern man and the dawn of history, and have postulated any number of reasons for it.  Some of the reasons are rather alarming and esoteric; a few are downright terrifying.  And they’re all simultaneously true.  Or false! Or plaid! We’re honestly not sure, because whatever happened in that gap was later occultly destroyed so effectively that it never existed in the first place. The hero-mages that did this were likewise mostly erased from history, as part of their self-sacrifice on behalf of reality itself.

But nothing is ever entirely lost.  The oldest, most dubious (and thus most reliable) inscriptions insist that there were six hundred and eighty-eight of these hero-mages, and each one sacrificed him or herself on a specific day, over a period of no less than four hundred years.  As the years passed, the anniversary of each hero-mage’s sacrifice began to see a small uptick in the availability and power of magic.  Not much of one, but spells would be slightly easier to cast, curses would bite a bit more, monsters would find it slightly easier to operate, and so forth.

These days are called Dimmets Ascendant.  There is at least one of them in each of our calendar years, and sometimes as many as three.  Mages consider them to be rather unlucky days, despite the increased flow of magical energy. The occult ‘flavor’ of a Dimmet Ascendant is unpleasant; it’s like the entire day gives off a feeling of swallowed dust and sour water.  Mundane humans aren’t affected at all, but anybody touched by the supernatural will find that the shadows are crueler and the sun colder. And worst of all, these days, many mages will sometimes get an uncomfortable feeling that, on those days, something down at the ‘bottom’ of the magic is stirring.  Something that is deep, and protean, and very, very angry.

Because nothing is ever entirely lost.