A seven-star system on a collision course with either a supermassive black hole or a boson star.

[Ripheus23]

One of the seven is a pulsar, which almost destroyed the plot world long ago. The plot world, let's call it the Traveler, gets variously caught in the orbit of different stars as time passes, in an endless series of loops/cycles. So there are at least two general tiers of magical ability:

1. Can access a given kind of star magic when and only when in orbit of the relevant magic star (well, they're all magic). Known widely as Weaklings.
2. Can access any star's magic regardless of the current orbit. Known widely as the Anymen.

Some "special" stars:

• The Ring of Glory: a torus-shaped boson star. Its magic can be channeled only through rings made in part of gluonium, which rings themselves can be made only by using other star magics. Visible consistently, because of the Glimmer, a magical phenomenon that encases the Ring in shimmering power. The cause/origin of this phenomenon is unknown and is used by the Dancing Light cult as one of their "proofs" of an intelligent designer.
• There is one hypergiant star, known "affectionately" on the Traveler as the Doomgem because of the unusual danger of world-wrecking solar flares when in the orbit of this star. Two such flares have struck the Traveler before, though both were dampened by the planetwide use of defensive magic to avert greater calamity.
• The pulsar, the Dark Torch and the Light of Agony, which hit the Traveler with a gamma ray burst in the ancient past. The first use of planetwide magic defenses was the cause of the non-extinction of life on the Traveler during this terrible episode.

There is also the River of Grace, which is a progression of stars distant, but not too distant, from the seven-star system. There are hundreds of them spread out in a river- or some say dragon-like form, so there is in some cultures a reference to the Dragonfall instead. It is eventually discovered that almost all of the River is composed of quark stars, including strange stars. People who discover how to use the magic of the River are known variously as the Graceful or the Fell of the Dragon (in cultures where wielding River-magic is viewed negatively).

There are many factions, and indeed the Traveler is not the only place where life exists in this star system. There is a moon of the lone, relatively small gas giant which is inhabited.

Now two of the factions, at least, are more or less the seemingly primary "evils" in this context, because one "serves" the impending black hole, and the other "serves" the dire boson star. That is, they know how to use magic from those objects despite the vast distance between the seven-star system and the future threats (at least a few years, let's say). One of these factions is the Epoch Citadel, who are headquartered in the architectural expression of their cause. The other is the Cathedral of Roses, who are much more insidious than their name suggests.