Year 3000 AE (After Empire)
Three millennia had passed since the unification. In the windswept northern territories, under a sky vast and indifferent, a lone farmer straightened his back, wiping sweat from his brow. His fields stretched before him, a patchwork quilt of life wrested from the rugged land. It was then he noticed it – the sky was bleeding. Ethereal ribbons of crimson and violet bled across the blue, swirling like paint in water, casting an unsettling, luminous glow. The air grew still, the familiar sounds of the wild muted. A deep, primal fear resonated from the bordering forests as beasts, large and small, fled in panicked disarray, not from a predator they knew, but from a point high on the jagged peak of the tallest mountain dominating the horizon.
There, reality itself seemed to tear. A colossal wound opened in the sky, a swirling vortex of angry red, pulsing like a malevolent eye focusing upon the world. From its depths, things began to emerge. Creatures unlike any recorded in the annals of Ashuran, defying the known shapes of life, spilled onto the mountain's summit. Some scuttled on four legs, others on eight, chitinous bodies scraping against ancient stone. Some slithered, eyeless and vast, while others crawled on countless segmented limbs. Their forms varied wildly, grotesquely, yet they shared a singular, horrifying purpose radiating from them like heat shimmer – an insatiable, blood-crazed thirst for the life that teemed across the continent.
Panic seized the farmer. Dropping his tools, he scrambled, heart hammering against his ribs, sprinting towards the distant smoke smudge that marked the local Imperial outpost. A message had to be sent. The Empire needed to know. But his sturdy legs, honed by years of labour, were no match for the unnatural speed of the scourge. A skittering horror, all needle-like limbs and snapping jaws, intercepted him long before he reached safety. His scream was swallowed by the unnatural twilight. No message was sent that day.
Like a plague, the portal creatures swarmed south. Weeks turned into months. Towns and villages fell silent, overrun, consumed. Hundreds became thousands, then tens of thousands, lives extinguished beneath the relentless tide. The northern lands became a charnel house.
Word, fragmented and terrified, eventually reached the heartlands. The Empire, slow to grasp the scale of the unnatural disaster, finally roused itself. Legions marched north, forming a desperate line of steel and courage against the monstrous wave. The war that followed was unlike any humanity had ever known. For years, they fought, human resilience pitted against otherworldly ferocity. They battled valiantly, their iron blades ringing against monstrous carapaces, but the line buckled, bent, and slowly, inexorably, retreated. The creatures, driven by unending rage and bloodlust, seemed inexhaustible. Hope dwindled.
Then came the discovery, a spark in the encroaching darkness. Not from the invaders, but from Ashuran's native beasts. Hunters and soldiers returning from the wilds reported strange, crystalline cores found within the carcasses of slain fauna – creatures that had lived for generations under the shadow of the bleeding sky and the mountain portal. Had the portal's strange energies mutated them? Or was it nature itself, desperately forging a defense, a counter-balance to the alien intrusion? The truth remained elusive, but one thing was clear: the portal creatures showed no interest in these shimmering stones.
These "Beast Cores" pulsed with latent power, glowing in distinct colours reflecting an affinity to the fundamental forces of the world. Blue cores hummed with the potential of Water, capable of unleashing torrents like mountain rivers. Red cores burned with Elemental Fire, radiating heat like a blacksmith's forge. Green cores held the essence of Wind, whispering of breezes and promising hurricanes. Yellow cores resonated with the solidity of Earth, the power to shape stone and raise barriers. And dark blue crystals crackled with the fury of Thunder, hinting at sky-splitting power. Whispers also spoke of rarer finds, from legendary beasts touched by multiple elements, leaving behind mutated cores of combined affinities.
Initially, these cores were inert curiosities. Humans possessed no innate ability to harness the potent energies locked within. But years turned into decades, generations lived and died amidst the ambient thrum of these crystals, used perhaps as trinkets, talismans, or hoarded as curiosities. Then, the change began. A child was born unlike any other. Legend leaves him nameless, his specific affinity lost to time, but it is said he was the first – the first human who could feel the energy within a Beast Core, draw it out, and command it. He became a beacon. As others like him emerged, born with innate connections to Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, or Thunder, they became humanity's unexpected champions. These first "Elementalists" turned the tide. Where steel failed, elemental fury prevailed. Walls of fire consumed the scourge, crushing earth swallowed them, lightning shattered their ranks, gales scattered them, and healing waters mended the wounded defenders. United, these nascent heroes pushed the invaders back, back towards the cursed mountain, until finally, the great red eye in the sky shuddered, constricted, and closed, leaving behind a scarred world and a silence heavy with consequence.
The portal was gone, but its legacy was indelible. The very fabric of Ashuran had been altered. The lingering energies had seeped into the land, the water, the air. Humans continued to be born with elemental potential, their powers growing more understood, more refined. The native beasts, too, were irrevocably changed, evolving heightened intelligence, developing unique abilities tied to their bloodlines, and continuing to form the Beast Cores that now fueled human power. But the portal's taint lingered in other ways. Some humans, exposed perhaps too long or too deeply to the raw, chaotic energies, found themselves twisted, corrupted. Their affinity wasn't to the elements, but to a shadow, a burgeoning darkness. Devoid of elemental connection, consumed by bloodlust mirroring the invaders, they developed strange, dark powers. Ostracized, feared, they became known as Demons.
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Ashuran was now a continent divided not just by ambition, but by power itself. The cold Northern Mountains, the sun-scorched Western Coast and Deserts, the river-rich Eastern Seas, the humid Southern Marshes and Plains, and the vast Central Continent connecting them all – each region held its own empires, clans, and tribes. Old conflicts over land and resources continued, now layered with the new dynamics of elemental power and the ever-present threat of powerful Crystal Beasts and the shadow of the Demon corruption.
The engine of power in this new era remained the Beast Cores. Sourced from slain or naturally deceased Crystal Beasts, their value was immense. The five primary affinities – Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, and Thunder – represented the vast majority of powers found in both beasts and humans. Yet, rarer affinities existed, whispered in legends: the purifying radiance of Light, the consuming grasp of Dark, the elusive manipulation of Time. And rarest of all, spoken of only in myth, were the god-like affinities of Divine and Death. Mutated beasts, holding sway over multiple elements, yielded correspondingly powerful and versatile mutated cores.
The chance of acquiring these cores depended on the might of the slain beast. A Rank 1 beast, weakest of the Crystal Beasts, offered a mere 5% chance of dropping a core. Rank 2 beasts yielded cores 20% of the time, Rank 3 offered even odds at 50%, while Rank 4 beasts almost always left one behind (80%). Rank 5 beasts and those of greater, terrifying power were guaranteed to drop a core reflecting their primary affinity upon death. The cores themselves varied in potency: Low Grade, Mid Grade, High Grade, and the incredibly rare Ultra High Grade, each containing exponentially more harnessable energy. Crucially, these cores often held echoes of the beast's own abilities, skills that adept users could potentially awaken and master.
Humans navigated this world of power in two main ways. Those born without elemental affinity could still absorb Beast Cores, becoming Physical Core Users. They couldn't command the elements, but they could enhance their bodies to superhuman levels – gaining incredible strength, speed, and agility, and learning purely physical skills from the cores. Those born blessed with an elemental affinity, however, were the true inheritors of this new age: the Elementalists, or Crystal Core Users. They could absorb cores matching their affinity to bolster both their physical attributes and their command over their element, unlocking devastating elemental skills, potentially even legendary abilities from the most powerful cores.
A user's standing was measured by the number of distinct Crystal Cores they had successfully formed and integrated within themselves. This formed a hierarchy of power: Rank 1 users possessed a single core, Rank 2 held two, and so forth, up to the theoretical limit of Rank 10. The overwhelming majority, perhaps 99%, would live and die as Rank 1, 2, or 3 users. Reaching Rank 4 or 5 marked one as an elite, highly sought after by clans, guilds, and empires. Those who ascended further entered the realm of legends. A Rank 6 earned the title Crystal Core Grandmaster. Rank 7 was known as a Crystal Core Lord. Rank 8 bestowed the legendary status of Crystal Core King. Rank 9 was the domain of Crystal Core Emperors. And Rank 10? A Crystal Core God, a being of unimaginable power, existing only in the most fervent dreams and ambitions of Ashuran's power wielders. The path was clear, paved with crystal and peril, and the age of elemental power had truly begun.
Ashuran Power System: Crystal Cores
- Source: Beast Cores, crystalline organs dropped by Crystal Beasts (native fauna mutated by residual portal energies).
- Acquisition: Obtained from slain or naturally deceased Crystal Beasts. Drop chance increases with beast rank:
- Rank 1: 5%
- Rank 2: 20%
- Rank 3: 50%
- Rank 4: 80%
- Rank 5+: 100%
- Core Grades: Determine the amount of harnessable energy: Low Grade, Mid Grade, High Grade, Ultra High Grade. Higher-ranking beasts tend to drop higher-grade cores.
- Core Contents: Contain elemental energy corresponding to the beast's affinity and often hold innate skills from the beast.
- Affinities: The elements that defines the powers of the beast and people of this world.
- Primary (Common - 99% of all users): Physical, Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, Thunder.
- Special (Rare): Light, Dark, Time.
- Ultimate (Legendary): Divine, Death.
- Mutated: Some beasts possess multiple affinities and drop Mutated Beast Cores granting access to multiple elements.
- User Types:
- Physical Core Users: Humans born without elemental affinity. Absorb any Beast Core to gain purely physical enhancements (strength, speed, agility) and can learn physical skills from a core. Cannot wield elements.
- Elementalists (Crystal Core Users): Humans born with an innate elemental affinity. Absorb Beast Cores matching their affinity to enhance both physical attributes and elemental power/control. Can learn both physical and elemental skills from matching cores, potentially legendary ones from powerful beasts.
- User Ranking: Determined by Cores successfully formed within the user's body. Each rank corresponds to successfully forming a new core.
- Rank 1 (1 Core) to Rank 10 (10 Cores).
- Rank Tiers & Titles:
- Ranks 1-3: Common User 99% (vast majority of core users fall into here).
- Ranks 4-5: Elite User.
- Rank 6: Crystal/Physical Core Grandmaster.
- Rank 7: Crystal/Physical Core Lord.
- Rank 8: Crystal/Physical Core King (Legendary Status).
- Rank 9: Crystal/Physical Core Emperor (Legendary Status).
- Rank 10: Crystal/Physical Core God (Mythical Status).