Season 2

Overview

Season 1 is a crucial series of events that resulted in the founding of the player nation, Astorea. It is the first time where the roleplayers' actions completely steered the direction of Terrasphere's main story and influenced the current landscape of the world.

The result of these events tie directly into Season 2, which is essentially a continuation of this storyline.

Important Characters

Jack Anders

Jack is one of the three co-leaders of one of the top leading guilds, Yulan Dragons [YULAN]. As a calculated pragmatist who is dedicated to his guild and those whom he considers his friends. Despite being a practitioner of White Magic, Jack's intention is never pure.

It was thanks to his smart planning that contributed toward the founding of a player nation.

Aaron Steele

Aaron is well-known for his grand ambition and obsession in becoming a hero that the world of Terrasphere would remember. Thanks to his huge fortune, he single-handedly established the Heroes of Falderen [VALOR], one of the three top guilds in Terrasphere.

Despite his righteous moral compass, he went along with Jack and Merkaba's plan, though not without a massive backlash from fellow guild members who thought that he had lost his mind.

Merkaba

Merkaba is a cold and quiet woman who was mad with delusion of Terrasphere being the 13th dimension. Thanks to her tenacity and obsessive grinding, she had enough wealth to single-handedly create the guild called the Cult of the Black Star [COVEN].

Aside from the occult and the prospect of being able to research demons in the north, Merkaba was indifferent to the war between Yladia and Falderen. It was ultimately her devious plan that lead to the result of the season 1 finale.

Events

The siege on Dormont

The woodlands neighboring Adecus Forest, the northernmost region of Falderen, were home to the Yladian elves. Things have always been tense between Falderen and the Yladians, and for a time they mutually kept a wary distance between them.

This unspoken agreement was shattered one day, as the Yladians launched a surprise attack on Castle Dormont, a fortress and the center of Falderen's presence in Adecus Forest. King Theodore de Falder, monarch of Falderen, sent a request to all players asking for their aid in defending the fort. Those who accepted were teleported to Dormont right in the middle of the battle where they could join the defenses at the walls, aid the civilians and support from within, or be part of a smaller team that would sneak behind enemy lines to launch a devastating attack.

Behind Enemy Line

As the Yladian siege on Castle Dormont rages on, a party of players including the three guild leaders departed from the castle, intending on getting behind the enemy line where they will launch their counter-attack. The group encountered many obstacles in their journey. One of the party members melted at one point because of acidic plants.

Once the group made it past the death field, they encountered a large Oakheart, which the Yladian army used as their living siege machine. After a lengthy battle with the Oakheart, the group managed to kill it, discovering that Oakhearts are Yladian druids. The naked woman who appeared when the Oakheart dissipated pleaded to the group to hear the Yladian's side of the story. The group decided to spare her.

To express her gratitude, she took the group to one of the Yladian siege camps where they learned that her name was Vlethela and she was a Yladian princess and priestess. Her father, a Yladian elder was mistrustful of the group, but told them about how King Theodore refused to let them escape the north, where they have lost the war against demons, and that they had no choice but to attack Castle Dormont so they can migrate southward.

Hearing this story, the group was caught in a moral quandary. The members bickered with one another about which country was in the right and where their allegiance lies.

The Betrayal

After a lengthy discussion, Merkaba suggested that they join the Yladian's side, which would put her closer to uncovering the secrets of the demons from the elves with every intention of betraying Yladian afterward. Although the rest of the group was rather reluctant about said plan, Jack Anders convinced Aaron Steele and the majority of the group to go with Merkaba's plan. In private, he worked out the details with the other two guild leaders. Should the siege on Castle Dormont succeed, the Yulan Dragons would assume ownership of it and seize Adecus forest as the player nation ruled by Astor Balthas and not one of them to prevent corruption. The term was that Aaron, Merkaba, and their guilds would become first class citizens. After much debate, the three guild leaders came to an agreement.

Finally, the three guild leaders used their position as guild leaders to pressure their guild members into betraying Falderen. They also sent out mass messages to all the players defending Castle Dormont, threatening to kill them if they don't join the Yladian forces. After these messages, a massive split started to happen on the wall, former defenders of the castle turned around and killed Falderen soldiers and players who did not comply with the order to turn their back on Falderen.

Astor Balthas who had previously commanded the defense of the castle had no choice but to go along with Jack's selfish decision, ending up murdering his co-commander, who was another player. Although the betrayal took the Falderen forces by surprise, they managed to push the betrayers out and retreated to the inner keep. the assault halted as night fell.

The siege on Dormont II

Now on the other side of the fortress walls, the players had to figure out how to take it over. During the night, players got a chance to rest and come to terms with suddenly switching sides, while others began forming plans to attack. Inside Dormont, the few remaining players who, for whatever reason, did not go with the guilds' decision spent the night resting, and the NPC soldiers littered the fort with traps.

At dawn, the attack was launched. The living elven siege engines launched players into the air so they could land on the walls from the skies, while another group of players simultaneously climbed up the walls. Unable to stand before the tide of players, the walls were quickly overrun.

It was not all in vain, though, as the attack was mainly to delay the invaders just enough so that the civilians and injured within Dormont could be evacuated through underground tunnels that linked Dormont to the nearby mountains.

The invading players split into three groups to simultaneously take over the fort. Slowly but surely, they powered their way through the traps until all that was left was to destroy a teleportation circle so that Falderen could not send reinforcements to retake Dormont. To do this, they had to make their way through a trap-filled corridor to place explosive barrels by the teleportation circle. Unfortunately, due to an accident, the explosive barrels went off early, setting off an enormous explosion that destroyed half the fortress and awakened an enormous vampiric Wurm that was inhabiting the tunnels beneath Dormont.

After a frantic battle, the Wurm was finally defeated. The Wurm's emergence demolished most of what was left of Castle Dormont--teleportation circle included--but Castle Dormont was now a keep for the players. Not only that, but Adecus Forest had been conquered and turned into a player-run nation. The three guilds agreed that Astor Balthas, leader of Yulan, should be the king of the new nation, now named Astorea.