"I have seen him! The one who keeps me shackled!"

~ Mesmer

The Collector is a deity outside of the Firmament and is spoken about by the Paragons as a being who sealed them. The Collector harvests planets corroded past its saving point, or no longer protected by their Patron Paragon, and puts them in artificial universes to preserve them.

The Collector created the Pariah experiment, which revolved around creating a melting pot of all the most "beautiful" creatures, a Zoo, and wanting to see how extremely different creatures and cultures would react to one another. The Collector is the single most powerful being.

When Jayus dreamt of life outside the firmament, he glanced at The Collector. Terrified of what he saw and the world outside, he made it a core principle of his entire being and sacrificed the fire given in him to create a firmament around the already made prison, that ensured anyone or anything that entered without permission would be immenetly deconstructed.

The Collector created Ithas as the sole paragon of the artificial universe and was surprised when it produced more; Out of loneliness, it thought that itself alone would not sustain the world, and split his fire into six. Four of them he gave out to create the paragons, one of them was sent out to seek for a host to bless, and the other was given to all life as a protection charm. Ithas perished, and with it, the sixth flame faded and was never fulfilled to its full potential until the Incursion Era.