This forum houses many years of development, tracing back to some of the earliest posts that exist on the board. Its current use is for the continued development of the server and game it has always served: The Mana World.
Remember, the backstory is still in flux.Superkoop wrote:Deciding on a religious symbol and using it in a cemetery is actually a pretty big deal, because in order for it to make sense it would have to be introduced in a shrine/church along with a back story.
Furthermore, because there are four gods we would have to decide on a symbol for each one, and it would have to integrate into the religion's background. Or if we made mana a sort of religion, then we would have to have a symbol for it which actually makes sense with the back story.
Also, if we used a symbol in this cemetery, it would imply that this particular religion is dominant in the area; or if we used multiple symbols in one cemetery it would imply that the multiple religions get along well enough so that they will bury their dead in the same area.
So in reality, deciding on a symbol is going to require fleshing out our back story! Which is good, because the back story is something that should be finished ASAP to make the whole world make sense.
the Universe begins
Somewhere in purgatory, surrounded by a web of mental energy, there once existed an empty plane of dark space. Nothing ever happened there and it seemed like it would stay that way forever. Then in the center of the darkness, the universe suddenly began to emerge from one immeasurable point of pure and boundless energy.
the Elements come in to existence
What began as a single point of energy, suddenly split in to four new energies, which immediately rushed outward to fill the universe. These energies, called elements, make up and give definition to reality. When elements are manacled together, distinct sub-elemental products can be created.
the Spirits & the Gods are created
The elements flew wildly about for some time, perpetually crashing apart and mixing together. During this period, every possible elemental product was eventually created and subsequently destroyed to such an infinite point, that the original four elements seemed to reform at the end of the cycle. Instead of repeating the chaotic transmutation that once again seemed inevitable, the elements began to coalesce uniformly in to four, separate masses. After a moment of stillness, an implosion of elemental energies revealed four condensed masses of pure elemental energy, each located at a fixed point, in what now seemed like very empty space.
What would eventually be called "Spirits" suddenly and of course, quite miraculously, came in to existence. Miraculous as they might have been, the Spirits actually possessed no overt intelligence, because they did not exist within the boundaries of the mental plane. They did however, have a certain unconscious purpose and intent; more of a natural aversion toward imbalance in the universe. Unfortunately for the universe, all of the elemental energy it would need to have physical substance was now on the outer rim of the mental plane. With no creative thought, there could be no conceivable future.
So, in an act of pure instinct, each spirit simultaneously expelled half of its energy toward the heart of the universe. The four streams of energy managed to remain tethered to each spirit, even after plunging through the dark void of space and puncturing the mental plane. As they blasted through the astral fog, in to conscious existence, each elemental projection became immediately self-aware and began to question their own purpose. With no one to instruct them, the new entities were left to devise their own understanding of the universe, beginning with the first linguistic associations; they called their creators "Spirits" and referred to themselves as "Gods".
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