In Universe Lore/Story Masterpost (don't read if you don't want spoilers!)

[Kerrus]

Foreword: The concept behind story in universe is to reward players who are interested in the story of the server's setting, without making it necessary for players who just want a normal play experience to follow up. The stories and legends and other lore entries will appear in little fragmentary pieces scattered across the Nexus Worlds for players to gradually unlock. There may be achievements tied to lore unlocks, but these will have no mechanical benefit on gameplay beyond qualifying the player for special achievements.

Setting:

The Great Light Desert is the primary location where players will live and operate, the map being permanent (not resetting like the nexus worlds), with scattered ruins, towns, and all sorts of players. The concept behind the players is that each of them is a refugee, a pilgrim, or some other wanderer whom has been drawn to the Desert from across the vast cosmos of worlds.

The Great Light Desert is the last world, sitting at the end of existence. All things that die come to the desert to die, so any sort of ruins can be found, and people from every civilization and era wander its sands.

Meanwhile, out there among the stars, something is killing worlds. Stars are going dark, and civilization is dying in fire. These are the Nexus Worlds, vast worlds lush with civilization and nature and resources. The pilgrims of the Church of the Light control the Nexus, an ancient artifact of power that allows passage through to the Nexus Worlds.

It is the duty of the desert wanderers to traverse through the Nexus to the nearest Nexus World, to salvage resources, recover relics, study their history and try to save its people before the apocalypse arrives, and then further, to try and ward off the apocalypse, to fight its minions and kill its masters.

There is a puzzle, a mystery to the scourge consuming the cosmos, and it is up to the pilgrims, the wanderers and mystics to find and unravel its secrets. And to one day find a way to turn back the doom that comes to all worlds, to save the Nexus Worlds from their foretold end.

[Joannou1]

We were talking about this yesterday and still sounds like an awesome non-forceful way to work it in there and make it fun.

The lore itself is very solid, but aren't their attempts futile if every two week the world comes to an end even if they defeat the boss?

[Kerrus]

It's sort of a long campaign thing. I figure once we actually start generating non random custom worlds (with civilization/cities, named NPCs and specific lore), then if they save those worlds they aren't deleted at the end of the two weeks, but stay in rotation and can show up again later.

[Kerrus]

Heck, once we start doing specific custom worlds, we could maybe open up the making of outposts via towny (assuming we can synch them to towns in the normal world), so that players can actually have bases and the like to mount expeditions from, and need to protect when the apocalypse comes.

[Kerrus]

Wrote up some stuff for the lore books, namely authors and what they write about.

Kargas (Veteran Adventurer). Writes entries about exploring ruins, fighting monsters, and occasional set pieces about finding fragments of the Nexus Crystal prior to the creation of the Nexus. Is attacked by an assassin in the second to last book, but fucks the guy's shit up and drives him off.

Shann O'solei (Pilgrim). Writes religious hymms about the Great Light, talks about religious mysteries he's heard rumoured (that are above his station), follows his path through the Church seeking to learn the inner mysteries. Gets cut off/killed half-way through book five.

Eric Kfar (Scholar). Writes about ancient civilizations, nexus shards, and a strange cult he's encountered hints of that mirrors the Church of the Light and appears to glorify the Apocalypse (the Church of the End). Gets too close to things and ends up on the wrong side of the Nexus as the Apocalypse hits. Book 4 is his last book, ending on a somber note.

The One At the Begining (BBEG). Writes about the power he's unlocked, about how time is cylical, and how he's seen the world change twice over and plans to interfere with the gears of creation and take control of the new world from the shadows.

The Outsider (Wise NPC mentor). Author of Book 1, introduces the plot to the player, writes primarily tutorial type stuff, information about the world, the nexus, some minor storyline stuff. Doesn't have many books, but each book contains a sizable info dump which advances the metaplot. Claims to know the player from a previous existence.

D'an of the Western Shores (Mercenary Captain). Writes primarily about his recruits as they take on jobs for the warring states of the Desert. Mostly mundane stuff referencing wartime, raids, and using the Nether to link to portals inside secure towns. Fancies himself an infiltration specialist. Disappears under mysterious circumstances (not dead).

Zagarath (Sorcerous Smith). Writes about the strange magics of the pilgrims, the magical winds of the desert, and his attempts at forging a sword using a shard of the Nexus Crystal. Also comments periodically on a lucrative trade bargain that involves secretly equipping a city state with weapons in violation of his supposed neutrality as a Sorceror. He's eventually found out and disappears at the conclusion of a sorcerous duel with another spellcaster.

Varren (Assassin). Recruited by the Church of the End and details his various missions to assassinate promising leaders and destabilize nations. Has a special technique which lets him create sorcerous duplicates of himself, and never risks his real body. Reasonably successful but starts hearing rumours of a hero (the player) and plans to assassinate them. Has a chance to appear as a boss monster on the Nexus Worlds prior to the Apocalypse.

Gustaf Ivarson (Nomad King). Writes primarily about the difficulties of leadership, the brokering of a peace between his nation and a very fortification happy expy of Hatred which involves the trading of a captured mutual enemy to be executed (and the moral quandries within). Also writes about a very secretive plan involving the Seven Kings and an enemy whose name he dare not pen. Mentions the Outsider once or twice, and plans long term. His story and Varren's intersect, ultimately with Varren failing to assassinate him.

Note: It should be clear to the player after reading all the relevant books that Varren and his fellow assassins have killed all the other writers who have died or vanished under mysterious circumstances.

[Kerrus]

Ifaros (incredibly smug angel boss monster). Ifaros is an incredibly smug angel who frequenly shows up as a boss monster during the Apocalypse. He mologues in chat for the whole fight, and is one of the few bosses to do so. He also stalks the player, and will show up randomly in the desert and follow the player around, but vanish if they get too close to him. Over the course of the metaplot he gradually becomes obsessed with the player, and starts penning his own lore books, which are mostly just love letters but sometimes contain relevant information.

They start out with your basic secret admirer stuff (so the author is actually 'a secret admirerer'), but whenever a player kills Ifaros as a boss, he has a chance to drop his third book which is a half-written love ballad with his name on the cover. After that he only gets more and more aggressive in attempting to demonstrate his 'love' (he's axe crazy).

This cumulates in switching sides and spawning in to fight alongside a player who has all his lore entries during the apocalypse. And also openly following those players around the desert at random in god mode. Creepy obsessive angel that he is.

If the player unlocks the final lore quest, Ifaros will show up to aid them. He and The One At the Begining get into fight in the chat because TOAtB is trying to chant ominous magic and Ifaros is going on about his devotion to love. ' The fight ends with TOAtB vaporizing him with a meteor, whereupon he 'drops' a special feature item that can be used in the Legendary Item upgrade screen to unlock a special ability.

[Jeremy9600]

Can I have an appearance in the story by any chance? ;)

[Kerrus]

All staff members will feature in the story in some way, don't worry.

Ominous music plays

EDIT: If you want to feature in the storyline, make some suggestions as to a fantasy version of your name of choice and what sort of role you want to play, inspired by the new rank names and the like. Do you want to be a nomad? Okay! Do you want to be an ancient sage peddling lost knowledge? We can do that.

Do you want to be a villain? That's workable too. Give me some ideas and I'll figure something cool out. Well, in addition to the other stuff that's going on.

[Jeremy9600]

Dagon (Insane/Powerful Wizard) Banished to the nexus for eternity due to his mad beliefs about a second dimension, Dagon has since discovered the existence of powerful black magic and has used it to his advantage. Though he is still banished to the nexus for eternity, he can use his powerful black magic to inflict terrible and horrible diseases to anyone who dares to cross his path. He can also summon evil and dark spirits to fight by his side. If players come across a book written by Dagon himself, they will find that it contains gibberish and language that of a mad person would probably say.

Possibly could very rarely appear in the nexus world & attack the player at random times. If Dagon is 'killed', he will drop one of three books that may be collected, all, as stated before, containing gibberish and mad language.

I don't mind for criticism but if possible, I'd love to be him. You can tweak it, too, if you'd so like, but I'd appreciate it if you kept the base of his lore.

[Kerrus]

Okay, so your concept is okay, but definitely needs some tweaks. We can't use that name as it's from an existing mythos and people would confuse it. We already have one wizard and I'd like to try and enforce the one steve limit on those, but the whole mad hat thing gives me a couple ideas on what we could do. The 'belief in a second dimension' thing being seen as mad is rather derpy given how the Nexus works in the first place "Lets banish him to a second dimension because he beliefs in a second dimension!" and tbh sounds sort of derpy.

Lastly, the books just all being gibberish is both a bit hard to implement and to me seems sort of pointless given the intent for them to advance the lore.

Anyways, if we take the base concept as 'spawns enemies' and 'possesses forbidden knowledge' and 'has a two part name that starts with a D', and 'drops books when defeated that detail his descent into madness' I think I can fit him in, but he'll be a bit different than initially envisioned. One of those reasons is that a lore rule I'm trying to follow is that the villains aren't super obvious or fancy, so as not to detract from the actual main plot villainy and the big reveal down the road.

ominous music

With that in mind, I've put together a revised version of this character.

Delgan (Desperate Artificer). Once the greatest mind of the Nexus Worlds, Delgan studied the intricate math and technology behind the Nexus Crystal and the Creation Matrix that allows it to bend time and space to forge a path across the worlds. Unfortunately his attempts to decipher the ancient machine's secrets attracted the wrong sort of attention, with strange agents appearing to watch him, reporting back to strange masters. Eventually, when he seemed close to a breakthrough, an agent of a great enemy appeared and attempted to capture him, but the artificer evaded the enemy, escaping through his prototype portal and crossing the very stars themselves.

Delgan is a man on the run, having unlocked some of the secrets of the universe. He is perpetually chased by an army of spirits and other foul creatures and his conscience prevents him from taking refuge among any civilization he finds, lest he draw the doom that comes for him to those innocent people.

Unfortunately his enemy is canny and relentless, putting worlds to the torch just for the crime of having aided him in his passage- or so he believes. Delgan appears a short time before the Apocalypse arrives on a Nexus World. He is a friendly NPC, and will grant a player one of his journals if they interact with him, trusting them to keep its knowledge safe.

However he is also a threat, as enemies will be drawn to him like moths to a flame. Before the Apocalypse arrives this will mostly consist of the undead, who will rise to try and kill him (and anyone who happens to be in the vicinity), but after the arrival powerful specters will descend from the skies to try and capture him.

If Delgan would be killed he has a custom 'death' animation in which lightning strikes and a shower of light and portal sparks appear, as he uses his devices to teleport to the next world. This often leaves the player on the receiving end of several withers and a horde of undead, to say nothing of any spirits more foul than those, something they may not appreciate. There's a reason he's a pariah and always on the run, after all.

[Jeremy9600]

I love it.