Cosmic Keystone: Difference between revisions

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{{trope}}
[[File:TriforceALttP.jpg|link=The Legend of Zelda|frame|[-In a realm beyond sight<br />The sky shines gold, not blue<br />There, the Triforce's might<br />Makes mortal dreams come true.-]]]
{{quote|"Who designed this campaign setting? Why would you include four points of such catastrophic weakness that tampering with any of them results in the destruction of the global ecosystem? It makes no sense! A kind and loving creator would never have done this, and a cruel one would simply have made the air out of acid. And it wouldn't have evolved on its own, as there's no advantage to living in a world poised on the brink of annihilation!"|'''Red Mage''', ''[[8-Bit Theater|Eight Bit Theater]]'', "[http://www.nuklearpower.com/2004/02/28/episode-390-a-deal-with-the-devil/ A Deal with the Devil]"}}
 
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{{examples}}
 
== Anime & Manga ==
* In ''[[Digimon Adventure 02]]'', the Digital World has seven Destiny Stones which maintain the barriers between realities. Each universe seems to have equivalents, our world's being Kyoto shrines. If all of any one universe's set of seven are destroyed, all dimensions will collide, [[The End of the World as We Know It|destroying the multiverse]]. You'd think [[The Four Gods]] would have thought twice about leaving them all in plain sight and in the same city.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* In many fantasy RPGs is a common plot device used by [[Game Master]]s. Have the heroes find the Cosmic Keystone before the [[Big Bad]] can get to it and destroy it. Very much a form of stock plot.
* Used very literally in the ''[[Dungeons and Dragons|Dungeons & Dragons]]'' adventure module ''The Apocalypse Stone''. The ''Stone of Corbinet'' (which must always be italicised) is the Cosmic Keystone used by the gods to create whichever world you choose to set the campaign in, and which connects it to the other planes. As long as it stays in Castle Pescheour, the Axis Mundi, everything's fine. The castle is watched over and kept secret by the Pescheour family and their servants. The [[Big Bad]] is an exiled prince of the family whose brother was chosen to rule the castle in his stead, and who doesn't even know what the ''Stone'' really does, but wants to steal it so he can play king himself. He sets the player characters up in an elaborate [[Batman Gambit|Batman]]/XanatosGambit to have them steal it in his stead with no idea what they're actually doing. As the world starts to [[EndoftheThe End of the World Asas We Know It|fall apart]] gradually as a result and the heroes eventually find out what they've done, they must hurry to undo their mistake—the [[Big Bad]] certainly isn't going to that, being evil enough to [[Earthshattering Kaboom|let the world be reduced to nothing]] if he can't have his way with things.
* ''[[Exalted]]'' has a few examples, most notably the Elemental Poles and the Loom of Fate. Differ from most in that the Poles are incredibly durable and malleable (the four that exist at the edge of the world can adjust themselves to how far the edge happens to be), and the Loom is probably the best defended thing in the world.
 
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** The Time Gears from [[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon|''Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky'']]. Not only are the Gears needed to stop the [[Bad Future]] {{spoiler|(after the credits are over, they ''almost'' did)}}, they are also needed in order to take the "Primal" out of Primal Dialga, the game's {{spoiler|[[Disc One Final Boss|(fake)]]}} final boss.
* The first ''[[Ty the Tasmanian Tiger]]'' has five talismans that need to be recovered so the [[Big Bad]] of the series can't unlock the power of the Dreamtime and wipe out all the mammals. Incidentally, the place the talismans are returned to serves as the conveniently-located hub of the game.
* ''[[Wild ArmsARMs]]'' has the Tear Drop - a crystal with a link to the guardians and should not be in the wrong hands. There's also the Ray Line, a sort of underground conduit linking the guardians' powers. When the villains manage to damage it, the forces of nature go out of whack, wreaking havoc.
** And this makes more sense if you take into consideration [[Blind Idiot Translation]]: Ray Line = ''[[Ley Line]]''. Indeed, it was translated as Leyline in the [[Video Game Remake|remake]].
* In ''[[Mother 3]]'', the {{spoiler|Seven Needles sealing away the [[Sealed Evil in a Can|Dark Dragon]], although subverted somewhat by the fact that not just anyone can pull it - you have to have a certain special PSI power. It also helps that if a good-hearted person pulls the Needles, the Dragon wouldn't so much ''destroy'' the world as ''upgrade'' it.}}
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* [[Demon's Souls]] has the Monumentals and the Archstones in the Nexus. The Monumentals, willingly transformed into half-living magical statues, [[Sealed Evil in a Can|sealed]] away the [[Eldritch Abomination|Old One]] the last time it went on a soul-devouring world tour, and created the six Archstones to bind together the remaining fragments of reality. If the Monumentals completely die out, or the Archstones get destroyed, cue [[The End of the World as We Know It]].
* The Flame of Olympus in ''[[God of War (series)|God of War]]''.
* ''[[Nie RNieR]]'' has {{spoiler|The Shadowlord, the supposed [[Big Bad]] of the game. He's the reason that the Shades, AKA the unrelapsed souls of humanity haven't all gone insane and turned into monsters. Unfortunately, by killing him, Nier ends up dooming humanity to extinction.}}
* ''[[Dark Souls]]'' has the Lord Souls, fragments of the First Flame. These flames created disparity in a once ordered and gray universe, and the Lords wielded the power of these Souls against the everlasting dragons. The dragons were defeated, and thus began the Age of Fire, the age of Lords. The premise of the game is that the First Flame is flickering, and the world is slowly dying as a result. The mission given to your character is to rekindle the First Flame to save the Age of Fire. {{spoiler|But your ''true'' destiny according to Darkstalker Kaathe is to let the First Flame die so that the unique Lord Soul you inherited from your ancestor the Furtive Pygmy, the [[Title Drop|Dark Soul]], can begin the Age of Dark, the age of humanity.}}
* In ''[[Turok]] 2: Seeds of Evil'', the destruction of the five Energy Totems will release Primagen from his prison and [[The End of the World as We Know It|destroy our universe]].
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[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:Video Game Items and Inventory]]
[[Category:Cosmic Keystone{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Magic Items Index]]