Tenth Circle (The Titan’s Forge)

"The only spells that make even the gods kneel — for they remember who chained their fathers."

System Mapping (D&D-style):

Equivalent: Beyond Epic, outside even “Divine Rank” mechanics.
Effect: Rewrites physical laws, divine hierarchies, or cosmic constants.
Veil Risk: Complete collapse, not just thinning. A single Tenth Circle effect could permanently tear the Veil and unravel its foundation.
Survivability: Nonexistent for mortals. Even demigods are burned out by proximity. Only Merlin has managed to wield these without breaking into madness or annihilation.
Counterplay: The only way to resist a Tenth Circle spell is with a directly woven counterspell of equal Circle, crafted against it — a “lock-and-key” system from the Titan Age.

Nature of the Tenth Circle

Titan-Born Art: The Titans didn’t cast magic, they forged reality — sky, ocean, fire, time. The Tenth Circle is their inheritance.
Absolute Anchors: Unlike Ninth Circle “passives,” which are bound identities of gods, Tenth Circle spells are active sculptings of the cosmos.
Singular Effects: A Tenth Circle spell is always unique — once written into the Loom, it is a fixture of existence. You don’t repeat a Tenth Circle spell; it becomes history.

Examples of Tenth Circle Spells

Cronus’ Hourglass

The folding of time, allowing him to devour his own children before they could threaten him. Every manipulation of temporal flow since has been a degraded echo of this spell.

Gaia’s Verdant Dream

The primal flourishing of life. Entire continents burst with life when this spell was cast, embedding growth as a constant in the mortal world.

Maui’s Lasso of the Sun

Not just a feat of trickster bravado, but a binding spell that tethered a celestial body’s path permanently. Day-night rhythm as we know it is the result of this act, stabilized later by Merlin.

Merlin’s Patchwork (Unnamed 10th)

The only mortal-born wielder of Tenth Circle. Merlin cast countless “quiet stitches” to prevent gods’ antics (and Maui’s, Heracles’, etc.) from shattering reality. He never flaunted this power; instead, he became a caretaker of continuity, patching tears with subtle, hidden castings.

Ymir’s Breath

The spell of endless creation from which the Norse cosmos sprang — rivers, mountains, and races of giants all seeded from one casting.

Traits of Tenth Circle Spells

Singular, Irreversible, Absolute: A Tenth Circle spell doesn’t just affect the present — it is the present. Once cast, it is written into the fabric of what “is.”
No Scaling: They aren’t “big versions” of lesser spells. They are one-of-one laws.
Counterspells Only in Kind: If you want to unmake a Tenth Circle effect, you must weave its opposite with the same Circle’s weight. E.g., the only way to stop Cronus’ Hourglass would’ve been another Tenth Circle spell specifically written to “unwind” his devouring.
Reality Binders: Most cosmological constants (gravity, sunlight, tides, mortality itself) are thought to be remnants of Titan-era Tenth Circle workings.

Why the Gods Fear the Tenth Circle

Zeus’ Paranoia: Zeus forbids inquiry into Titan magic because he knows — their chains were forged of Ninth Circle power, but their rebellion was born of Tenth. If Cronus ever rewrote the script, no Olympian would be safe.
Merlin’s Role: The gods tolerate Merlin because they must. He is the only one who ever successfully stabilized Tenth Circle legacies. He makes sure Titan remnants don’t undo reality — and in return, the pantheons pretend he’s a meddling eccentric instead of the single most dangerous being alive.
Watchers’ Silence: The First Watchers keep no record of the Tenth Circle, not even hidden archives. They fear that even knowing the names of such spells gives them weight again.

Modern Implications

Fragments: Some magical bloodlines (Pendrakes, Vance, Ur’Vash) unknowingly carry “splinters” of Tenth Circle — echoes of Titan-born truth buried in their veins.
Veil-Born Hazards: The Veil occasionally manifests unstable “near-Tenth” horrors — entities warped by human belief that accidentally echo Titan patterns. These are catastrophic even for pantheons to engage.
Whispers: Cults and rogue scholars claim the Veil’s eventual collapse will expose the original Titan works beneath the gods’ revisions, returning raw reality to a pre-divine state.

⚡ Bottom Line:
The Tenth Circle isn’t magic. It’s the blueprint of existence, carved by beings who weren’t satisfied with inhabiting the world — they made it. Mortals and gods both fear it, because it does not bow to will, law, or pantheon. It simply is, and once invoked, it is forever.