User:Rellin/War of Sages

Yeah. War of Sages. The game idea that I attempted to turn into a fanfic before getting totally sidetracked with life. Not that surprisingly, though, I know every single detail of the story even though most of it hasn't been written down. It's been stewing in my mind for several years, and it's finally hit a point where I'm really happy with it.

I'm not totally sure if I'll start re-writing the fic in the future (when my life settles down a bit), so I don't know how much of it I want to reveal. Of course, just giving hints and whatnot would be total crap, so here comes the warning!

Background Information
It's been a little over four hundred years since the end of The Lost Age. Yeah, you read that right, 400 years. Isaac and the others are all dead and gone. Well, mostly, but we'll get to that later =P Anyways, Alchemy's return caused a lot of turmoil and confusion in the beginning, but thanks to the efforts of the heroes who brought it back and a good deal of divine intervention from the Wise One himself, everything gets settled out in a few years.

The Wise One didn't just give people the guidance and knowledge to understand what was happening, though. He also led their leaders in creating a group of massive temple-like constructions near each of the four Lighthouses. He also personally supervised the construction of Sol Lighthouse, the new Sol Sanctum. Naturally, everyone assumes that this is simply the "will of the gods" and goes about their business building them. But what kind of story would this be if it was that simple?

In truth, the Wise One foresaw was trying to manage a problem he saw developing at some point in the future, but was unsure of how long it would be before it came to pass. Under normal circumstances, the Golden Sun's initial appearance would've charged up the Stone of Sages within Mt. Aleph, imbuing Weyard with Alchemy and causing a golden age. And in truth, that did happen; the Stone was restored to power, Weyard has been growing again (slowly turning back into it's original form, the one shown in Lemuria by Hydros on the map), and Adepts are no longer reliant on proximity to Psynergy Stones or sources of Alchemy to develop their powers (though it's worth noting that only about half of the world's population actually are Adepts at present). The problem arose in the formation of the tangible power of the Stone of Sages; the part that caused Alchemy's sealing in the first place and became the object of Alex's desires.

Raw, unfettered Alchemy in its purest form is only found in the Golden Sun, and obtaining every bit of that at once would destroy a person. However, the closest thing anyone could get to that without disintegrating was in a crystalline object that was also called the Stone of Sages. In the lost age of man, this shiny little rock floated in the Golden Sun above Mt. Aleph, just waiting for somebody to come and get it. The fact that the closest a mortal could get to becoming a god was just there for the taking sparked the War of Sages, a massive conflict that nearly destroyed all civilization on Weyard and only ended when the Sages assembled and sealed Alchemy, thereby "destroying" the Stone of Sages.

Now, normally, when the Golden Sun forms and the Mt. Aleph Stone gets charged up, the floating-grabbable-crystal Stone would appear on Mt. Aleph's peak and just sit there. And had it not been for the Wise One's intervention, it would've appeared within Alex without any ill effects (speaking relatively, of course). Thanks to splitting the Stone's power between Alex and Isaac, though, our favorite cycloptic boulder prevented that from happening. And that's not a good thing, lemme tell ya.

The power of the Stone being divided wasn't necessarily catastrophic; after all, it's counterpart within Mt. Aleph was powered up, and that was all Weyard needed to survive. The crystal form of the Stone was just a nice little "extra." The problem lay in the fact that the stone was so powerful that it just had to stay together. It was eventually going to recreate itself, and destroy any person, animal or landmark in the way to do it. On top of that, an uncontrolled appearance would set off a massive discharge of Alchemy in the Golden Sun (read: Alchemic solar flare) that would cause such an enormous spike in the amount of energy being used by Weyard that it would stunt its growth.

The Wise One saw in the temples and Sol Lighthouse a safeguard against that. They were specially designed and given a sort of blessing by him to attract the component elements of the Stone should it start to reform; a safe, side-effect free way of dividing its power. In order to restore the Stone, the four individual elemental sections (called Shards) would have to be brought to Sol Lighthouse and recombined in a special chamber that wouldn't disturb the Golden Sun.

Of course, nobody has a clue that this is the actual purpose behind the temples. In fact, nobody even knows what's going on with the whole Stone of Sages thing. Kraden (who dies within a few years of returning to Tolbi, much to Iodem's dismay) does express concern about Alex's whereabouts, but when he fails to appear in a few years, the threat seems to be over. Isaac doesn't ever find out about the power contained within him, so he goes on about his life normally. In fact, just about everything seems to be in working order.

In the Past 400 Years...
A lot of stuff went down in the centuries after "The Return," the name given to the releasing of Alchemy.

Geography
As mentioned, Weyard has been changing to its original form. Indra broke free of Gondowan and Osenia, and started to drift northwest (eventually, it'll reattach to Gondowan, but not for a very long time). Several of the islands across the Great Eastern Sea have started to reposition themselves. Some are only minor changes, like Lemuria getting bigger and moving closer to Angara. Others are much more noticable, like Apojii spiraling outwards from the center island and taking on a whole new shape (Aqua Rock is now on the north end of the archipelago!) There's also the matter of Forsica, an island that forms from a volcano during all that time. Forsica's grown to be quite large in a short time, thanks to a combination of Alchemy's influence and the fact that the volcano that became it is ridiculously active.

The main continents have also been changing. Towns and villages have come and gone, and undergone drastic changes. Lunpa, thanks to the efforts of Donpappa (Dodonpa's son, remember him?) to rid his town's name as a hideout for dishonorable thieves, has become a huge player in the worldwide scheme of politics and trade; consequently, neighboring Vale and Vault have become much bigger (though Vale's size increase could be attributed to a lot of things; its refounding to the east and proximity to Mt. Aleph would've made its size increase anyways). Each of the towns where the Clans reside have become prosperous. Laliverans started developing latent Venus Clan abilities almost as soon as the Golden Sun appeared. Prox quit being so darn secretive and isolated. The people of Contigo embraced their newfound Jupiter Clan blood as the true power of the Anemos, and became the most powerful of all the clans. Somewhat ironically, the Mercury Clan was soon looked upon as the least of the clans; Alex's treachery was well known by that point, but most members of the Clan blamed outside influence for his betrayal. As such, Imil became rather isolationist and the Mercury Clan very snobby and pretentious.

There's new towns, too. Daig is the most important from a storyline perspective; it's the home of two of the main characters and has the most backstory. Founded about a hundred years before the present time, Daig is basically the offspring of the now-gone Kolima. As the Kolima Forest started to die (R.I.P. Tret =, the loggers moved to the rich pine forests to the west of Vault. Eventually, they created a very thriving, if humble, little town in the woods, and gained fame for the fact that during all the political strife that precedes the game (we'll get to that later) they always had a shockingly well-trained militia.

Daig's not alone; here's the list (UNDER CONSTRUCTION):


 * Xian and Altin have altered drastically, taking on new names with time. Nearby Champa also started refering to itself as Ankohl.
 * Lethe is the first truly new town encountered. It's built on a large island in the middle of the Karagol (sound familiar, anybody?). It's a quaint little town that gets its money from the ferry services across the sea.
 * Altmiller is a rather large town north of Tolbi (which is gargantuan by this point). It's nestled nicely into the mountains, and whole sections of it are underground.

Of course, with all the new towns, the many of the old ones are gone. Just to save time, here's a list of all the ones that are gone, complete with any forms they've survived on in(UNDER CONSTRUCTION):


 * Kolima (Physically gone, but acknowledged as the home of the Daigans.)
 * Xian and Altin (Explained above.)
 * Mikasalla (Geographical shifts merged it with Garoh.)

--Work in Progress