When the universe restarted, there were four deities. Two deities, the Divine and Fae deities, were tasked with creating and overseeing the overworld realms of life. The other two, the Arcane and Beast deities, managed the underworld realms of the afterlife and its inhabitants’ journey to the final end. 

The first few realms created by the overworld deities failed. With unbalanced ecosystems, the apex predators quickly destroyed all other life forms and starved. The overworld deities were inexperienced in the craft of creating new worlds, and the underworld deities grew tired of waiting. They suggested a sandbox realm, where the deities could all practice with ecosystems before spending their power and energy creating full-sized realms. All four deities unanimously agreed with this idea, and Faia was created.

Due to several factors, Faia is an exception to typical overworld and underworld realms. It is separate from the two realmal wheels and has no counterpart realm to serve as the afterlife. However, spirits in Faia still need a place to go. So, the four deities each chose two afterlife realms and brought a simple stone from each of their chosen realms. They used their combined power to bless these stones and create eight keystones, which would in turn activate eight portals to eight different afterlife realms. Because of the sheer size of Faia, this would allow spirits to still experience the afterlife by personal choice without flooding a single underworld realm.

Faia consists of countless islands, large and small, both in the sky and on the vast ocean. Each island was created as a prototype of a realm to test the atmosphere and ecosystem. More complicated realms often required multiple prototypes, which can be seen from the larger island clusters with similar biomes, such as Lylluna Reef. Islands and island clusters were placed in their own ‘bubbles’, with different atmospheres and seasons. Due to the overall unpredictability of the realm, not many inhabitants left their island. The eight portals to the afterlife were placed on a sky island high in the sky, each with a keystone to activate it. To keep them secure, the deities created a race of guardians called Ruptours. 

Ruptours were lithe and feline-like, equipped with glowing sword-like tails and sharp claws. Because the Archway island was so high in the sky, the deities provided their new species with dozens of ‘dive points’ across Faia, that allowed them to travel quickly from the ground to the sky. The ruptours took great advantage of these points to build secret bases around dive points. In fact, one of the first things a ruptour kit learned was proper dive form. 

For generations, everything functioned smoothly. Ruptours kept mostly to themselves and diligently took turns guarding the archways. The deities grew more and more experienced in creating realms, to the point where they didn’t need Faia for prototyping anymore. While in earlier days the deities would visit and provide help where needed, their presence significantly lessened over time to the point where they didn’t visit at all. Many communities that inhabited imperfect ecosystems experienced intense hardships and began to feel abandoned; left to die, even. From this spiral of negative emotions, the wither entity emerged.

As guidance from the deities lessened, many ruptours began doubting their purpose as a species. War soon broke out between those still loyal to the deities and those who stopped believing. Due to the fog of war, the exact events are unknown. You will uncover the true history of this dark time through the upcoming storyline quests.