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Death is pretty much universal in all the universes (yes universes, the multiverse does exist, if you know where to look). What most, (or nearly everyone) does not realize, is that each entity like Death, Life and Magic (along with many many others) is unique in all the multiverses.
What that means is, there is only one of each entity for the whole of the multiverse. They may be more focused in one universe or planet than the other, like Magic, who has her favourites, or not be present in some, like Life, who has her non-favourites (this includes both areas where there is no life now and where life never grew at all). Or the entity may be present everywhere, like Death, who does not have a choice.
So, when things like Master of Death are bandied about, they are more powerful than people realize.
All universes, ALL of them, have references to artefacts of power - this is by design. All entities can hand out powered artefacts, or powers themselves to anyone they please.
They mostly keep each other in check, especially Death, as he is everywhere and everywhen.
So, if Death is that powerful, what is this Master of Death nonsense?
Well, it is a misnomer. As I said, Death is everywhere and everywhen, but the entity Death does not have a physical form and cannot interact with Life, without serious issue, since it is opposite to the entity.
The obvious solution to this was to utilize the life that passed into its domain, so Death started by allowing some of the dead to retain a shred of life - forming the reapers.
But unfortunately, these were not able to interact with Life either. This was because one, Life did not have a physical form any more than Death does and the organisms given life are too weak to handle the amount of Death Magic in the reapers.
Then, via trial and error, both Death and Life figured out that they needed a Physical Form to interact. Various other entities had this idea already and had taken the form of small gems (Really?) but Life, Death and Magic did not like this plan. The Gems held the consciousness of the Entity and could be used to make the Entity do something it did not want to do if used correctly. Or made to do something that the other entities did not want. Gems were a risky idea. So they hatched a plan.
Several 'Artifacts of Power' were seeded through the Multiverse, in all universes with the patronage of Life. Stories were passed out about them. All three lent power for the artefacts, Magic made them, Death seeded them and their stories in the past and Life was the final arbitrator for the life form that would have the artefacts and their power. They planned to never be ruled without their acceptance and so they had criteria for the life form that got the artefacts.
It was possible to get the artefacts, but fail in the eyes of the Entities and so they could reject the life form - leading to the general perception of 'Myth' being associated with the artefacts. Some said you need a set of artefacts for the full power, some said it needed to be activated, some said there was no power at all.
But the truth was, all the artefacts were watched over by the entities and you could be evaluated and fail even without knowing about even having a very small connection to an artefact. The artefacts just made it clear which life form to focus their attention on.
And this is where our story starts.