Prologue

Explore Essentia

Slayers of Rings & Crowns takes place in the universe Essentia. Essentia hosts thirteen planets, many moons, a main sun and a dying star. Characters begin their journeys on the fourth planet, Zailister (Zail), which is Essentia’s most balanced planet between sorcery and technology, and is most rich in life-dependent resources.

Characters can explore the other planets and uncharted territories via rifts, trade post portals, space flight travel, summons, hell gates and even unwillful abduction.

Each planet has its own time period, distinct seasons, biomes and landscapes. Featuring two suns, the main life giving and magic emmitting sun, Adoria and the dying star, Tawdry Dwarf which lies between the ninth and tenth planets just barely provides enough resources to sustain life to planets eight through thirteen.

Sorcery and steel thrive on planets closest to Adoria, capturing the sun’s magic emmitting radiance and fire while technology progresses from planet to planet in an outward order.

Adoria is the Sun God of Essentia - lawful aligned and the origin of all magic flowing through the inner planets, with a particular and longstanding favor for Zailister above all others. Tawdry Dwarf is her twin sister - once lawful aligned herself, she has grown bitter over the millennia of her slow death, and behind her deteriorating mass an evil aligned black hole has been developing, growing stronger the weaker she becomes.

The first planet, Ingnis, too hot for humans to live comfortably, features prehistoric themes hosting dinosaurs, cro magnon, neanderthal, hominids, and many giant species of critters and flora and fauna. Ignis through Zailister are the sources of ancient magic and medieval steel, while sci-fi futuristic warfare has developed in the last four planets, holding onto Tawdry’s last bits of light and warmth.

The year is 10,023 EA (Eons of Adoria or years). The Omnè, natives of the twelfth planet, are aware of Tawdry Dwarf’s dwindling energies and have accelerated their technological advancements to preserve life as they know it. Uncertain of their fate, the Omnè have innovated by constructing atmospheric vessels and constructing a neighboring planet using non-organic technology to ensure survival. Fearing they may run out of time before Tawdry’s Denise, the Omnè target other planets, notably Zail, aiming to secure a new settlement that would provide an abundant amount of resources and secure their people.

The Omnè are aware of both possible scenarios of Tawdry’s fate - consumption by the black hole or a physical collision with their planet - but only Adoria, Tawdry, and the black hole itself knows of Tawdry’s true fate, to be consumed by the black hole, an event that will strengthen it enough to eventually threaten every planet from Tawdry’s orbit outward, Omnè included. The Omnè initially attempted to destroy Zailister remotely, but Adoria intervened and blocked it, though she mysteriously permitted the deployment of Omnè forces which began the invasion.

Zail is already war-torn, and it’s forces are spread thin, and although the neutrally aligned Noble and Feral forces stand together against the Omnè, the Purge forces are ambivalent to the destruction of Zail and all life on it and I vote them, even if it means fighting them, especially if it means fighting them.

Dating back 9,044 EA, The Age of Prophecy, Zail was witness to an ancient and practiced prophecy where nineteen crowns were formed in a cataclysmic event involving magic particles and debris of its surrounding Rings being drawn to enormous falling stars. These formed stars, visible to Zail’s inhabitants, shrunk to crown size as they fell through the atmosphere and became mystical crowns that hold unique magical properties.

One by one, the crowns struck the earth and seas of Zail and were scattered about the planet. Upon finding one, only a true bearer could wear their respective crown. Any usurper that attempted to wear the crown could not bear its weight or harness its power.

Desperate for their true leaders after losing them to war and coups, Zailians all across its lands knew the general areas of the crowns’ locations because of their atomic impacts and destruction left behind. Regardless of the lingering display, finding the crowns still took several hundred grueling years with only fourteen territories had crowned a true leader, many lineages past the unknown rulers at the time.

Some races, such as the Arch Elves, still honor the same crown bearer, 979 EA later. Before donning the crown, to no Fae’s surprise, Elendriel Dropleaf also held the Noble Forces together as a high ranking general.

Diplomatic actions of greed, chaotic events between believers and non-believers of the prophecy and war have scattered the fate of the nineteen crowns; five lost, three destroyed, and five never found, leaving entire races fractured, leaderless, and in some cases, teetering on the brink of extinction.

To be continued…