The Inner Flame Saga
Apologies if this is an overly long post.
With over a decade's worth of effort (since around 2012), I've taken this day-dream world that's existed in my head since 2005 or so and have given it a more solid foundation.
Basically a mixture of fantasy elements, some loose alternate history (while I try to learn as much as I can about history, I am no historian), some major liberties taken with old mythology (insert Crash Bandicoot WOAH sound here), and other weirdness.
**The Magic System:**
The magic in my world isn't necessarily breaking any new ground.
It's a classic will/desires made-into-reality kind of system--one that's centered on the Inner Flame, the projection of willpower.
Given enough concentration, imagination, knowledge, and practice--a sorcerer can (with limitations) manipulate elements and objects, conjur physical materials/items, enhance their physical abilities, and commune with/control spirits (the last case can extend the range/potency of other abilities).
The vast majority of sorcerers are either jack-of-all-trades with some experience and skill (enough to get by), while others are specialized in one or two categories of magic.
Almost none are capable of touching another being's soul or messing with the cycle of life and death. Both abilities are sealed in the Moonlit Gesture--a hand gesture crafted by Death over 400,000 years ago, and only known by a few across the entire world.
**The Foundation:**
From the 4900s BCE to the 1650s CE (roughly 6,550 years)-- our history's largely the same as you'd read in any textbook or historian's paper. The familiar stories of the first civilizations, the tribulations of classical antiquity, the complicated tapestry woven throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and the beginnings of the early Modern Age.
Magic, gods, and spirits only exist within folklore and legends-- purposefully hidden from humanity's view-- the old stories shaped by imagination and changing cultures. This was done to protect us, to prevent our self-destruction.
The cost--- an ancient dragoness and her human descendants forever branded as "Bringers of Dark," harbingers of some forgotten "original sin."
This was supposed to be our present and perpetual future.
**The Presceding Age:**
The 5800s BCE--The dragoness and her consort, Sharruma, were the inheritors of an incredibly old kingdom--a home to other gods, spirits, and even humans. When they took the throne, its sway had long since faded--the former lord, Teshub, had abandoned the throne nearly 500 years before--disappearing beneath the roots of the world.
For a time, the two ruled with prosperity, healing the scars left by the previous despot.
But humanity also continued to progress outside their realm, utilizing magic in both marvelous and destructive ways. The dragoness bore witness to our old conflicts--the carnage we could inflict with the help of supernatural means. She was horrified.
The 4900s BCE--
In desperation, she too travelled beneath the roots of the world and met with the Universe's creator--the goddess Chaos. With a divine wave of the hand, our connection and memories of magic were forgotten. History took its more familiar course from then on.
**The Point of Divergence:**
Teshub, the Fourth Shepherd of Storms-- a once magnificent god-king. Now a powerful, delirious husk that's trapped in Chaos' domain. He's festered among the world trees, sealed in their iron bark while being spoonfed humanity's dreams of the divine. He's become infantuated with our ideas of Paradise, the Garden, and many people's quest for salvation.
The 1600s CE--
A foolish distant descendant of his-- half-man, half god-- named Fursey, wanders into the Underworld and throws himself at Chaos' feet, begging for power. Out of disgust and curiosity, she turns him into a worm--a spiritual parasite that snatches onto its host's soul, sucking it dry in exchange for the goddess' magic. Teshub gladly becomes the wretch's first host.
The 1650s CE--
It starts in Vienna, a shadow of control that spreads across Europe, drowning the people in a silver delusion--a forced desire to turn the world into a reflection of the heavens above, while their Shepherd King creates a new garden and allows "Dusk to fall on Eden."
The Dusk of Eden spreads like a plague and conquest, nearly taking over the entire continent. The kingdom's last grasp of success scoops up North Africa and spears through Ottoman and Persian territory. Further success is stifled by the Daylight Kingdom, Sharruma and the dragoness' domain (situated in the Armenian Highlands).
A new status quo persists like a fever dream until the 1730s--when a band of warriors (an Irishman, a Frenchman, an Ottoman Turk, and a previously nameless maiden) uncover Teshub's history and the nature of his power. Taking advantage of his waning mind, they carve a path through his infected lands until they arrive in Vienna. There, the Irishman, Ronan Ruadh, slays the old god and takes the throne as the Fifth Shepherd of Storms.
**The Here and Now:**
The early 21st Century is here.
The Dusk of Eden remains a major world power, but it's gone through many shake-ups since Teshub's death in 1737.
* Ronan Ruadh reigned as the first human king until he became corrupted by his own power, allowing the kingdom to fall into civil war, ending with his self-annihilation and the complete destruction of Vienna in 1791. The title, Shepherd of Storms, died with him. * Rome becomes the new capital. * His estranged queen, Sionna Ruadh, ruled in his stead during a period of reconstruction, allowing the kingdom to mostly prosper throughout the 19th Century. She passed away in 1818 and was canonized as a saint in the mid-to-late 1820s. * From the 1850s to the 1920s, several border and colonial territories broke away from the kingdom and gained independence. The earliest to break away were the former Ottoman and Persian lands, while many North and Central American holdings became new republics (chiefly Mexico, the Louisiana-Virginia Republic, the Wyvernan Republic \[what we know as New England\], and St. Sionna \[what we know as Florida and the southeastern parts of Louisiana\]). * In 1940, King Anu Ruadh IV was assassinated in Rome and a second civil war erupted across the Edenic Kingdom. * After the civil war, Egon Ruadh, with the backing of Sharruma, consolidated his power over Italy, Central Europe, and North Africa with the newly formed Edenic Empire. Since the 1950s, a tenouous peace has existed over the continent--while insurgent movements across the southern and eastern borders stubbornly persist (not without good reason).
The focus of my stories turns us to the small republic, St. Sionna (showcasing my Floridian bias, lol). Forged from a decade-long revolution in the 1920s and barely surviving an invasion by the Wyvernan Republic in the 1940s, this little country has become a surprisingly prosperous nation. This is thanks, in no small part, to its supernatural connections and the trade network spanning across the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. But the nation also has no shortage of enemies:
* Fugitives from the fallen Wyvernan dictatorship (another product of Fursey's meddlings) * An Atlantic pirate group with ties to Sharruma's kingdom * And an eyeless ghoul with a vendetta against the republic's guardian, an old sage named Hedammu