The Second Age Saga

So, ever since we started discussing Non Player Quests, I've been thinking about doing a series set in the Second Age. With several unfinished projects already, I figured I probably shouldn't bother - but thoughts of this idea persisted longer than most of my thought's do, and I've decided it's time to at least get some of them written down. So here we go...



The Second Age Saga is, unsurprisingly, a series of quests set in the Second Age. You'll play as a human called Ivendir, an Icynae called Vivana and an Aviantese called So'kalan as they take on Mahjarrat, Demons, Vampyres and more in a struggle for survival.

The story begins humbly with a street urchin from Senntisten, Ivendir, breaking into a palace and stealing a staff to trade for food and climaxes with the epic battle for godhood between Zamorak and Zaros. Between, there are fights, puzzles and plenty of lore about the Second Age.



So let's start with the main characters. There are 7 major characters in the series - four already exist ingame, and the other three I mentioned earlier. They are:

Zamorak, the Mahjarrat

Hazeel, one of Zamorak's most trusted allies

Zemourgal, another close ally of Zamorak

Enakhra, eager to please Zamorak in the Second Age as she is now, Enakhra has left her temple in the desert in response to a request from Zamorak himself - how could she refuse?

Ivendir, the first of the new characters, Ivendir is a human who grew up in Senntisten. Ivendir was never strong enough to help build temples, and so found himself jobless and thus homeless when his Father passed away. Ivendir is weak and scared - good for nothing but running, but nonetheless has a great desire to become stronger and rise above his past. He also suffers from frighteningly real nightmares which some fear to be visions.

Vivana, the second of the new characters, is an Icynae heroine always looking for adventure. Bold, powerful and with a passionate hatred for Mahjarrat, she quickly offers to protect Ivendir upon his arrival in Hallowvale before the quest starts.

So'kalan, the third and final of the new characters, is an Aviantese who serves as a messenger between the Armadylian settlement of Lesarkus and Hallowvale. So'kalan is a close friend to Vivana and thus finds himself unwillingly involved in their adventures. Despite his desire not to fight, So'kalan is more than capable of battle should the need arise.

will it include the awesomeness that it's Zaros?

"The story begins humbly with a street urchin from Sennestein, Ivendir, breaking into a palace and stealing a staff to trade for food and climaxes with the epic battle for godhood between Zamorak and Zaros."

I shall try not to disappoint

make zaros look epic thought

Zaros cannot "look" epic if we don't see him

His shall be like the wind - you cannot see it, only it's effects. However, the effects you see will be epic - Zaros is the equivalent of an almighty storm, not a gentle breeze.

This is all for the finale though: you'll have to wait and see, my meaning will become clearer...

so when is first quest up

Plan is to write the whole thing as a story and then adapt it to a quest later - I've found in my previous quest writing attempts I've gotten too caught up in how the mechanics will work in RuneScape and believe this to be the solution.

The first chapter will come shortly after I finish ROTM

wich isn't out today

The Faceless Hunters

Chapter 1: Senntisten Burns

The night would've been pitch black if not for the fire. The giant fire. The fire that engulfed everything. Unnatural blue flames wrapped themselves around the buildings of a dying city. The cause was unclear: so many different races were fighting each other that it was near impossible to which one started the fire. All around the city icyene grappled with vampyres and aviantese fought demons. In amongst the carnage stood a human boy - around 16 years old, brown hair and emerald green eyes but thin, pale and not particularly tall - he looked out of place next to the muscular warriors that fought around him. His eyes glistened with tears as he watched the destruction unfold around him.

In the sky, a battling vyrewatch gained the upper hand on an aviantese. It knocked the birdman's spear out of his hands, slashed his flesh and pulled out his feathers. The Armadylian was helpless as the vyrewatch slammed its claws into his face, cutting right through the skull and sending the corpse plummeting to the ground. Right to where the boy was standing. It would hit him. The impact would kill him. Yet he didn't move. He couldn't move. And then...

The boy gasped for breath and sat upright, his sweaty sheets clinging to his body. He turned to his left and was relieved to see walls around him and a roof over his head, none of them on fire, and most of all he was relieved to see his icyene friend Vivana sat next to him, wings tucked in and arms folded.
"Another nightmare?" She asked.
"Yes." the boy replied. "Senntisten this time."
"You need not have nightmares, Ivendir. I promised I'll protect you, no matter who's chasing you, no matter why."
"It's not just that though." Ivendir whimpered
"I know, I know." Vivana said, her face betraying her concern for the boy. "You've been in Hallowvale five nights now, and each night you've seen a different city destroyed in your sleep."
"I think I've seen them all. I've had nightmares as long as I can remember. I think-"
THUD
"What was that" Ivendir panicked. Vivana got up, and picked up an ornate crimson staff that lay in the corner of the room.
"Keep hold of this, just in case" she whispered.
"Where are you going?" Ivendir whispered back.
"It sounded like something landed on the roof, I'm just going to check it out." Vivana said. She got up, left the room and walked down the corridor of the house she was in, opening a large front door clearly designed for creatures with big wings. She spread her wings and leapt into the air, landing on the roof of the house. "Thank Saradomin, it's only some aviantese" she said.
Without warning, a green ball of light crashed into her chest, sending her hurtling off the roof and smashing into a nearby building. With intense speed one of the aviantese shot over to her and grabbed her by the throat, pinning her against a wall. The other two so-called aviantese stood either side of it, one laughing evilly and the other holding another green ball of magic, ready to fire.
"Where is the boy?" growled the aviantese who had Vivana by the throat.
"I will never tell you." Vivana growled back.
"The I guess we shall have to persuade you" retorted the aviantese. "Enakhra, Hazeel, show the icyene scum what happens when you cross a mahjarrat"
"With pleasure, Zemourgal" they said as shed their disguises and gave dark, skeletal grins.

Senntisten, within the Arzonus saga, was a powerful city, ancestral home to the likes of the Magnus and Maelstrom families. During the time of the werewolve's exodus, the vampyres attacked Senntisten whilst some of the wolves led by their leader, chose to leave Kharyll. By the time they'd finished with Senntisten and planned to move out onto all the other fortresses, they were all empty!

It took a few decades before they came back for the werewolves still alive in captivity.

That's very interesting to know, Morb but I don't think I'll be putting the Arzonus into my works...

You will likely have to include werewolves though. Basically the entirety of the Saradomin and Zamorak GWD armies were living in assumed harmony during the time of Zaros.

True, 3mpty. A good point.

Still, I don't want the plot to be focused on the werewolves - I think I shall limit their appearances to battles and cutscenes (Ivendir will be having more nightmares that they can appear in). And I think they'll be normal werewolves, nor Arzonus werewolves, simply because I'm trying to make the lore as accurate to our current knowledge (from ingame sources) as possible.

Monster Concept: The Empty Guardians

I've been chatting to Viggora trying to gather information about the personal bodyguards of Zaros - they'll be playing a fairly significant role in the Second Age Saga. Information is a bit vague, but that gives us room to be creative. Viggora tells us:

That Zaros actually had bodyguards.
There were lots of them.
They had demons and warriors in their numbers - note that the warriors are not specifically mentioned as human.

Its plausible (in fact, I'd go so far as to say likely) that the other races that followed Zaros in the Second Age also contributed bodyguards - that's vampyres, dragon riders, humans, and possibly werewolves and mahjarrat.


So now we get creative. I have plenty of questions:

What do the Empty Guardians look like?

Obviously, if the Guardians are a group made up of many races, they won't all look exactly the same, so they need a unifying feature - something that allows you to instantly know "yep, that's an Empty Guardian" when you see one. A mask, a piece of armour, some symbol or something. I need ideas.

Next, there's the armour to consider - what will it look like? It's gotta have purple on it somewhere, but what other colours? Are the Guardians heavily or lightly armoured? I like the idea of not being able to see their faces, could that work?

And the weapons - I've been thinking, and I want the weapons to really signify the Guardian's prowess in their chosen combat. That is, I want them to be difficult weapons to use, eg really big swords or two small swords for the meleers (depending on whether we choose lightly or heavily armoured). But what about the mages and rangers? Should there even be rangers and mages?? (From a developers point of view, we have 5-6 potential races in the empty guardians, multiplied by 3 classes would give between 15 and 18 models to develop. Is that justifiable? Could we just have, say Vampyres as rangers only and Demons as mages only?)


So many questions there... Imaginary cookies to anyone who manages to answer them all.

The Empty Guardians, as their names imply, are void of common presence. They are a will that refuses to wither, to such an extent that their physical being not only died, but rotted away and crumbled to dust. Take away their helmet and there is literally nothing beneath the metal work of their body, however they don't move like a statue or animated armour as they are still technically living in thought.

They feel no emotion as even their souls have passed on, their mind being all that has survived after untold generations. This makes them unfeeling and merciless, making them the ideal warriors. You cannot bribe them, for greed is beyond them, you cannot demoralise them, for pleasantries and sadness are non existent to them. Spirit soldiers fight for righteousness, for power or for love, Empty Guardians fight to demonstrate their will is dominant if challenged.

These guardians were considered incredibly powerful and reliable as bodyguards, because they would not fall so easily. You walk away from them under the belief you defeated them and they just reappear. The knowledge of how they can be effectively defeated is rare to come by and is known to but a few priviledged slayers.

Combat wise, Empty Guardians are resourceful. Since their means to fight is through will alone, they could use anything around them as a means of combat. If they choose to fight with melee, they produce a weapon that will cover all areas of the main melee sector (crush, stab and slash) to take you on all sides. As for magic, they will work with ancient magicks as their lord demanded. Range simply uses telekinesis, in which the environment acts as their greatest weapon, with stones, discarded materials, thorns, dust etc. acting as their ammo.

Due to their lack of emotions, prayer is not something they understand easily, so cannot use it themselves, but do understand a player's use for it and work around their disadvantage. Summoning cannot be used either, as a derivative of spirit, they cannot use spiritual creatures to their aid.

Morb, while I appreciate the effort, it seems that you have missed the point entirely and it leads me to question how much of my post you actually read, beyond the title...

Either you've decided to establish the Empty Guardians as a race itself, in which case, one must question how on earth that works with the fact that many different races made up Zaros' bodyguards, as I stated earlier.

Or, you've decided that they develop from various races over time, in which case how could Viggora note that demons were amongst Zaros' bodyguards if the demon within the suit of armour had turned to dust long ago?

A third issue is that it's likely many of RuneScape's existing characters - Drakan, various Mahjarrat and perhaps demons like Delrith and Thammaron, were at one point bodyguards to Zaros (after all, why would he not utilise such powerful creatures for his protection?), yet they remain in physical existence in present day RuneScape. That would create an illogicality.

The concept, while very interesting, just doesn't work with the facts we already know about Zaros' bodyguards.

The name "Empty Guardians" was chosen because they guard the Empty Lord, not because they're empty themselves - I apologise if I failed to make that clear. Although I'll consider the idea of something being devoid, I won't be going as far as to make them nothing but a will. Sorry.

Chapter 2: The Crimson Beam will be written on Wednesday or Thursday, depending on how busy rugby keeps me. It'll probably be quite a short chapter, so Chapter 3: Forests and Footsteps (a working title) will be coming shortly after.

I plan on having the Empty Guardians in chapter 3, so if you have any ideas for their aesthetic, I'd appreciate it if you told me them as soon as possible. Thanks.

Hmm, not getting much interest here...

I'll make it easier. Let's just start with colours. Purple is a must, but which other colours should be on the Empty Guardian's armour?

Gold? For a royal look?
Silver? For a cool, sleek look?
Black? For a dark and intimidating look?
Another colour?

Feel free to pick more than one...

black

and cream blue

Why cream blue?

it's on the sentitsent temple

While I agree your logic is sound, have you considered the associations people make with colours?

Black has associations with authority, power and mystery, and I really want the Empty Guardians to have these. I'm glad it was the first colour you said.

Blue though... Blue is associated with peace and tranquility, as well as emotion. I don't really want the Empty Guardians to have any of these traits. In RuneScape, it also draws associations with Saradomin.
If I'm honest, I really wasn't expecting anyone to suggest blue, despite the colours at Sentisten temple...

Would that information make you reconsider? Or do you still think the Empty Guardians should have cream blue on their armour?


On a slightly different topic, should the Empty Guardians be lightly or heavily armoured? I think heavy would be more intimidating, but... A lot of the Empty Guardians would be shape shifters - Mahjarrat, Vyres and Werewolves have the ability to change their shape and size, from a logic point of view, heavy armour would be very restricting and unlikely to fit all their forms - light armour would be logical then.

Ok then Black, but I think it's not safe to asociate colours with aspects as Zaros is very mysterious and seems to have traits of all the gods, but then i choose black and heavily armoured

The colour associations are with the Empty Guardians, not Zaros himself, just so you know...