Setting: The Seven Masks of the Wondersmith

The Wondersmith is an enigmatic figure in Outer World's mythology. A protege of the Creator who was present for the forging of Promise, it was their hands that crafted Outer World, the Sun Machine, and many other things at the behest of the Unshaped and their own whims. When the Unshaped were  defeated, the Wondersmith vanished from the lips and minds of balladeers and chroniclers - though obviously not from history entirely.

Throughout the aeons the Wondersmith has remained, though all that follow them are rumors and folktales. Strange towers and devices are attributed to them. They are added to many great and terrible events in history by whispers and tall tales after the fact. Folk just go along with it as well: of course, why wouldn't the Wondersmith be involved?

Descriptions of the Wondersmith are extremely varied. A bouncing, jocular toymaker. A plump and kindly baker. A wiry blacksmith who lets their craft speak for them, just to name a few. The only consistency is flowing red clothing and a golden mask of some kind. It is often assumed that those making these claims are mistaken, or coloring their experience in some way. But they are not - these individuals and more are all the Wondersmith. They are simply one of their 7 masks.

For you see, long ago, the Wondersmith realized that all things, even things that think they are forever, have an ending of some kind. The Wondersmith could craft a 1000 Outer Worlds, 10'0000 Sun Machines, and in spite of the skill and perseverance required for such a task, Ending would still find them and eventually grind them into gossamer and stardust. It might take multitudes of aeons, but it would still happen somewhere, someday, and this inevitability, this end of hope, was too much for the Wondersmith to bear.

So they came to a simple conclusion. They would outmaneuver Ending.

With their many tools they split their soul into seven parts, and gave each a mask: forger, cook, artificer, alchemist, tailor, gadgeteer and cartographer. Each was then granted a unique form and demeanor by the others, and went their separate ways and spread across the whole of Outer World, save the cartographer, who remains in a secret place that even their compatriots know little about. The exploits of each is shared to the others through their masks, and if Ending catches one through one of its many agents, the others will quickly know and act as needed.

So far, this final step has not been called upon. Each has wandered and even have settled into various places for a time, unmolested by the inevitability their grand efforts have sought to avoid for at least 2 ages at this point. But this has only made them more careful and worried. In the time they have spent apart, each has began to plot on their own, creating a great, increasingly wide and brittle web of schemes. Each believes they might have stumbled upon the answer, the thing that will grant them true eternity.

They are wrong, of course - but when has that stopped anybody, really?