Emfiral

"Do not pray to the gods. They will not work for you as you work for them."

Sea of Green (6520 E.D.)

Aria Naxos is the current century's Catalyst of her patron city's god Leviathan. Her mission is to defend the capital city of her faith from monsters of legend, along with other Catalysts hailing from different parts of the world. On the summer solstice, when their connection with the gods is at its highest, Ariadne and the Catalysts will perform the Centennial Ritual and seal the beasts away, preventing the downfall of humanity.

This is the mission Aria has been taught, the same one that the previous Catalysts have learned thousands of years before her. However, as frustration grows with her underperforming abilities, she begins to uncover the secret behind the true purpose of the Centennial Ritual, as well as the intentions of her perhaps not-so-benevolent gods.

The Sky Reigns Eternal (1-74 After Common Magic)

Caelua and Belorma have risen from the ashes of the mighty Areliene empire following a destructive nuclear war. Although the scale of devastation should have prevented any life on the surface for the next few decades, a miracle occurred. All radioactivity from the war has disappeared, and in its place, humans have gained access to supernatural forces that are believed to be what ancient texts described as magic.

Decades later, Harvey Aldebrand is an unhappy college student attending one of Caelua's top universities. He forgets to take his weekly medication after a heated argument with his parents, and suddenly receives recollections of a childhood he never had. He discovers he is the product of a classified government project. At the same time, the event leads to him reuniting with a long lost friend from high school, now working with an insurgency group against the Caelian government. Harvey has no other option than to join the insurgency because they have one goal in common: to find the Verboten Lab, the origin of his birth.

(this synopsis is crap because it's 1AM i'll write a better one eventually lol)

Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Action, Dystopia

Timeline is split up into three eras. Entity's Descension is used by the ancient people while the true gods still existed. The return of magic within the last century creates the Before Common Magic and After Common Magic eras, with B.C.M. replacing the E.D. era since the Seven Entities religion has become lost to time.

• Many countries attempt to colonize Areliene since they see it as a backwater, third world nation. Despite their technological advantages, none of them succeed against the combined might and wit of its people. They also receive weapons from their only ally Brulsturm, which is interested in establishing trade relations for its underground natural resources (~200 B.C.M.)


• Areliene has a bunch of smart people. On its own without any outside help, they develop nuclear bombs. (40 B.C.M.)


• Brulsturm calls on its alliance with Areliene. Nuclear war ensues. (1 B.C.M.)


• Magic is reintroduced to the planet three months later. Marks the start of the After Common Magic Era. (1 A.C.M.)


• Charles Gwenth wields the unrest of Areliene's citizens over the Sacrificial War and sparks a magician uprising in the capitol Alkae. In the Caelian Civil War, Areliene is overthrown, and Caelua is established in its place. (1 A.C.M.)


• The Sacrificial War ends in a truce after similar events occur in the (1 A.C.M.)


• Gwenth and a few others rule as an oligarchy, quickly rebuilding the land from the aftermath of the war. He is popular by the masses, but the magicless minority is skeptical of his authority. Skepticism increases after Gwenth vows to make Caelua a "magician safe haven" after news of mage oppression around the world arises.


• Construction on the initial Verboten Lab is finished. (10 A.C.M.)


• Gwenth dies from "food poisoning." New rulers take over Caelua with policies that bolster anti-magicless sentiments. (21 A.C.M.)


• The magicless-friendly west unites against the government by forming the nation of Belorma, splitting Caelua into its eastern half. They are not recognized by the international community as the nation of Areliene, but Belorman citizens refer to their country as West Areliene (26 A.C.M.)


• The Belorman-Caelian War begins. (27 A.C.M.)


• Countries truce due to dwindling resources. Cold War-esque conflict begins. (30 A.C.M.)


• The Caelian Army breaks the truce and invades a Belorman city near the border. The Arctic Dragon leading the invasion freezes the city, creating a permanent winter over the area and reinstigating the Belorman-Caelian War (64 A.C.M.)


• Caelua passes the Refugee Magicians Protection Act which is touted as a law that will bolster local police forces and increase available housing for international mage refugees. The law also made being magicless illegal to "protect the refugees," and combined with increased police funding, crackdowns on magicless residences swept through the nation. (68 A.C.M.)


• The vengeful grandson of Charles Gwenth sees the unrest of those protesting against the treatment of magicless within Caelua, the poor who cannot afford food and housing due to low wages and shortages, as well as the discontent toward the shrinking freedom of privacy and incites a revolution with promises of wealth and freedom if they succeed. He calls on the poor, the downtrodden, and those who long for the return of the great nation of Areliene.


• The revolution gains traction. Belorma begins supplying insurgents. (70 A.C.M.)


• Harvey Aldebrand, a failed human experiment from the Verboten Lab, reunites with high school roommate William Glacialis, now the deadliest insurgent agent in Caelua. First book begins. (74 A.C.M.)

The worshipping of the Seven Entities was widespread across the entire continent of Zieroph. Each Entity had their own patron city. Highly advanced magic-based technology runs the world, used for medicine, defense, construction, information, etc.

The Centennial Ritual occurred on the 20th year of every century. The Ritual took place at the beginning of the year. Seven adults on their 20th birthday become Containers: vessels for one of the Seven Entities to inhabit. They are blessed at the local temple, where then their town's patron Entity will descend to Earth and inhabit their bodies. The Container is still in possession of their own being, but they are aided by the Entity's power to make the journey across the continent.

The real ritual begins in the morning of the Summer Solstice six months later. All seven Containers will gather at the Temple of the Sacred Domain to initiate the ritual. Its purpose is to preserve order in the natural universe and stave away sin from mankind.

However, this year is when the last Centennial Ritual will occur.

• "Mana" - The energy value used to measure spells and how much magic one can wield before mana exhaustion sets in


• "Magic" - The practice of using one's mana


• "Spell" - The output of mana casted by a mage


• "Magician" (shortened form "mage") - Someone with the ability to perform magic by harnessing mana from one's own body
  According to the Tome of Divine Governance, magic was a gift to humanity from the Entities. However, this "gift" was actually half of Phoenix's power stolen from him before he was exiled to the physical world of Emfiral.

Every magician is limited to one type of magic. However, it is possible for that particular magic to have a wide jurisdiction over many factors related to the base type. Magic types are sorted into categories based on how they affect other humans.

Physical magic affects the physical matter of the world, hence its name. It is the most widespread category and contains the most common types of magic. Physical magic includes types such as water, metal, air, and rock, among many others. More uncommonly, some mages have magical jurisdiction over matter that is similar to their magic type. An example is a water mage being able to manipulate ice because water and ice are the same molecule, but in different states of matter. Healing magic is placed in this category because affects the body at a physical level.

Energy magic is a category created to sort magic types that can affect the human body, but are themselves non-physical. It includes magic types such as fire, electric, magnetic, plasma, and radiation. Energy magic is one of the rarest categories of magic, but since physical magic types make up the vast majority of mages, it can be argued that all magic categories other than physical are rare.

Mental magic has the ability to alter the human or animal conscious or perception. Examples include manipulation of senses, thoughts (a.k.a. direct mind control), or memories. In Caelua, many mages in this category are placed under strict government supervision throughout their whole lives as they have the greatest potential to threaten society.

Witchcraft is limited to witches. It is an abnormal type of magic because it lets the user cast magic from all categories including other abstract magic types found universal in all witches. Unbeknownst to the researchers and scientists of this world, witchcraft is actually the ability to manipulate the user's surrounding reality. It is the highest form of magic.

Witches themselves are a peculiar phenomenon. Outside of lineages, every mage has a 1/100,000 chance of being born a witch. A popular theory is that witches come from a genetic mutation that primarily affecting sex-linked genes since 9 in 10 witches are born female.

Functions the same as in our world. However, magic allows for manipulation of them.

Spells are categorized as either physics manipulation or reality manipulation. The two may sound synonymous, but they are not. Physics manipulation deals with any changes to the physical world, i.e. matter. The vast majority of spells fall under this category. Examples include controlling water, casting fireballs, bending light, etc. Healing and body-strengthening spells also fall into this category after research proved that such spells use mana as fuel to accelerate cell functions.

Reality manipulation is vaguely defined as anything not physically possible. Spells do not have to break the laws of reality to be considered reality manipulation, but any spells that do will certainly fall into this category. Powers such as telepathy and divining are considered reality manipulation to the degree that they do not affect the physical plane on a fundamental level. An example of higher reality manipulation that does is the ability to give shadows mass and form in the third dimension, and removing darkness's quality as "the absence of light" so that the physical shadows continue to exist in the presence of light.

Magic in the physical and energy categories is defined as having the ability to bend the laws of physics. Spells in these magical categories seemingly break the laws of energy, matter, and mass.

Caelian mages are often encouraged to pursue careers fit for their magic. Electric mages in the energy industry, mental type mages to become psychologists, healing mages to go into healthcare, etc.

The Sky Reigns Eternal and Sea of Green are two separate stories that take place on the same planet, but in two different points of time. TSRE is the title I'm currently working on and happens in the present, while Sea of Green takes place 1,000 years in the past. The events that take place in SoG affect the present in TSRE.

The whole "people using bladed weapons in a contemporary setting" thing came primarily from watching RWBY. People can complain about deflecting/dodging bullets, impractical battle attire, and all that other unrealistic jazz, but this world will run on rule of cool and anime logic. Otherwise, I'm not having fun with it.

Sea of Green was also originally going to be in its own separate universe, but after playing Nier:Automata and discovering how its writer connected all his games in the most insane ways, I wondered if I could make is so that SoG (what an acronym) happens in the history of TSRE. As a result, the events in SoG now directly affect the present era in TSRE.