My game's lore

[Joyce]

Well, I've just updated my development blog with a piece of Lore which will be used to base the first bit of my game which it will have on the initial release(level 1-20) on, It's nothing fancy but it's quite a wall of text and I'd like to hear your opinions about whether it could use some more work or if it's a decent base to use and expand upon as I go along.

The original blog post can be found [here](http://sota-online.nl/?p=31), but I will simply quote the wall of text onto this site as well since I know clicking links makes everyone tired. ;D

> It was a rough time for us all.. Our corrupted landlords were pushing us all to our limits, we were forced to labor in the Mines of Agony as we called them. What we were there for nobody knew, not even the taskmasters did, there was no Ore, no Gems nor Gold to be found anywhere in that cave.. Yet, we were to dig further and further up to the point where there was no more pure oxygen, suffocating the ill and weak. It were harsh times for us all.
>
> I believe it was the second alignment of the sun I had seen in my lifetime, I was a mere boy forced to serve the lords just like everybody else, but rather then putting me inside the mines they forced me to study ancient artifacts, I did not understand why.. I did not understand how either, they gave me directions to ruins, caverns and various other locations, but everywhere I went I did not understand what to do.. I could not understand why they sent me there.. The only explanation I obtained was the ever same “You’ll know when you find it, boy.. And when you do you shall make us very happy”, after those words their eyes were filled with greed and the need for power.. But, I never understood why until that day.
>
> It was just another day like any other, I said goodbye to my family as they were dragged down into the mines, and reassured my little brother we would see better days some time before I headed off to get a new task for the day. Once I entered the great hall where the lords resided I had an eerie feeling, a feeling like there was something not quite right. But I shook it off and walked further to obtain my orders. “You are to search the ruins of an unknown city hidden within the mountains, there is a temple which might be of interest to us there.” was all they said before they handed me the map with its location.
>
> The journey itself wasn’t as hard as I had imagined, the climb was easy almost as if the air itself was pushing me upwards towards the giant plain up on the mountains. It took me almost half a sun-cycle to get up there still, but when I made it I was surprised, there was no city, there was no temple.. Had they lied to me? There were only a dozen statues, six on each side, aligned in straight rows towards.. I couldn’t see, there was a blurry figurine at the end of the display.. It almost seemed like a heathaze, but the sensation of just looking at it was.. Amazing! I’m not sure what it was, but with each step I took to get closer it felt like there were people touching me, dragging me closer and closer to the hazy bit.. And as I reached the end everything went dark around me, the haze spread and suddenly the fabric of reality was torn apart inside it, creating a small rip in everything where a small human-like creature walked out of staring at me.
>
> “So you have come..” was what I heard in my head, and it felt as if something stabbed a dagger deeper and deeper into my heart as the creature came closer. “Do you know why you’re here? Do you know what you are?” Were the words that come up in my mind.. But I couldn’t answer, my mind went blank but the creature nodded as if I answered.. And pointed to a flow of wind next to me, which seemed to take my shape. “You are nothing.. You are everything, you are the flow of air through their lungs, the air that keeps a bird afloat, and the air that suffocates people within the mines your so called ‘Lords’ are in..” I grasped for air, and fell down onto my knees even further, my vision went black alltogether and it felt as if my body was torn to shreds by a thousand blades. “They sent you here thinking I would let you help them accomplish their selfish goals.. But I won’t make that mistake again.. I was doomed to stay imprisoned here until the next one came along to take over my duties as an Ancient.. Now, your time has come to avenge the deaths of the innocent, and to set things straight in this world.. As it should have been.” The pain suddenly faded, and I couldn’t feel a thing.. at all.
>
> When I could finaly get myself to stand up, I saw the entire place had been ruined, everything turned brown and the trees and plants died as soon as I walked towards them. We all heard the stories of the Ancients, but we believed them to be false.. But this creature, talked as if he was the corrupted Ancient of Air! I looked around some more, trying to figure out the cause of this curruption around me, only to see my own body rotting away before my own eyes, I stood there looking at my decaying corpse which was lying beside me.. But I felt nothing, I looked at my hands only to see there were none. Just a flow of air, and heard the voice of the creature inside my mind “We are one, you are me.. and I am you.. We should head off now, and fix what I did wrong so many years ago.. Don’t mind the corruption, it will be dispelled by someone.. over time.” And so without any form of control over my body at all, everything went blank..
>
> The next thing I know was looking over the pit where the Lords their castle once stood, proudly next to the mine, but there was nothing. Everything was destroyed leaving only a few houses standing in a small town I had no memories of being there.. I wasn’t sure what I did, and I stood there for ages.. and ages.. And I still do as the corruption of my airflow slowly fades away, I watch this town stand against the horrors my corruption created.. Wondering why and how this happened, drowning in my own sorrows.

Note that this is NOT the complete lore which will be used, it's missing some bits of explanation, but those blanks will most likely be filled with in-game quests and scrolls/books for the player to read.

[Joyce]

*still wants to hear an opinion or two*
;D

[Kusy]

Well, this is not a lore really. More of a introduction, material for a trailer.
But I like it in the way it's writen… I just have no idea how this relates to what will be in game, so it's kind of out of place.

[Joyce]

Actually it's only vaguely related to it.. You'll be spending your time in that corrupted zone, as one of the few survivors trying to figure out what caused it and how to stop it. Eventually leading you to that guy and he'll yada yada yada.. life story.. yada, etc. etc. and well, the standard over-acted 'epic' lore moment in an RPG :)

And yeah it's more like a prologue thingy that'l get more in-depth explanations inside the game through scrolls, books, documents and quests really.

[Anna Comnena]

Main problem at the start is there isn't much indentifying who/what "we, I, us" all are.

The fourth paragraph the narrative gets a little flaky in my opinion, but I can't say why. Also you have fairly decent monologue dialogue that gets messed up with unnecessary descriptive details (or the context of their descriptions are out of place) (fifth paragraph mainly). Also I don't like how it doesn't really have an ending.

It's a good general story of how a poor oppressed peasant met up and displaced a powerful being which then used the peasant as means to undo or redo whatever the oppressive lords had done originally. I take it the game will be set during a period of recovery after this corruption, or during the corruption (where the corruption is an antagonistic force)?

[Joyce]

> Main problem at the start is there isn't much indentifying who/what "we, I, us" all are.

I didn't see the point in elaborating this in the story, I mean it's more or less a longer version of what the guy would tell in his state of mind the moment you find him in-game.

> The fourth paragraph the narrative gets a little flaky in my opinion, but I can't say why. Also you have fairly decent monologue dialogue that gets messed up with unnecessary descriptive details (or the context of their descriptions are out of place) (fifth paragraph mainly). Also I don't like how it doesn't really have an ending.

Not quite sure what you mean with the first bits, I'll look after it(I'm not English so it's a little tricky to get what people mean at times), as for the ending that's the entire Idea, this is the moment the player jumps into the story.

> I take it the game will be set during a period of recovery after this corruption, or during the corruption (where the corruption is an antagonistic force)?

Actually it takes place right at the moment this guy, which is now more or less the source of the corruption wakes up, not entirely realizing what had happened, but the humans down in the pit are fighting against the corruption both inside their own bodies as well as against the corrupted beings of nature, and will in the end meet the person who caused the corruption and help him to undo the first Ancient's mistakes. (Going to add Dialogue and actual speech to a Mirage game, oh my oh my :P) It'll be a bit odd at first, since he'll have two voices, one of his own and one of the being that turned him into this.