Beloved Rapture

[BlindMind]

Beloved Rapture - Theme Song
~Fallen~

Do you remember me,
I'm just a shadow now.
This is where I used to be,
Right here beside you.
Sometimes I call your name,
High on a summer breeze.
What I would give,
To feel the sunlight on my face.
What I would give,
To be lost in your embrace.

I've fallen from a distant star,
Came back, compelled because I love.
I'm caught between two different worlds,
I long for one more night of love.

Do you believe in dreams,
That's how I found you.
But I can't be with you,
Till you take a leap of faith.
What I would give,
To feel the sunlight on my face.
What I would give,
To be lost in your embrace.

I've fallen from a distant star,
Came back, compelled because I love.
I'm caught between two different worlds,
I long for one more night of love.

Song by Delerium

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~Introduction/ More Preamble

Before continuing, I just want to note that this basically the introduction game to the five part series I am planning to create, all of which are based a on a selection of short stories I wrote years ago. In this installment,  although it has a mild "climax," there is no real conclusion, the storyline simply continues directly into the next installment, which I am predicting for the end of this year.

This is, more or less, a love story. A tale of a forrbidden affair, a evolving friendship, and a gruesome betreyal. It does have its share of action- and your typical RPG adventuring in there somewhere, but the main emphasis is placed on a more personal level, not on saving the world. Beloved Rapture also helps to explain how alot of the main characters in LOA:OS (legend of Alexandria: Omegan Stone) came to be where they are, since the sequel has, for the most part, a different cast of characters.

The sections are composed in the following order. First comes the list/biographies of the important characters, the backstory of the main plot, and several screenshots. Lastly, my credits are displayed for anyone interested on the staff of this project (which, yes, includes more than me)

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~Characters - Images of Characters are located following the list.
(NOTE: Ages based on time frame at start of the game)

John
Age: 16
Weapon: Bastard-Sword
"Have you ever held a seed in your hand? Its hard to imagine something so small and insignifant will one day become something so huge."
BIO: Abandoned by his family at a very young age, John was taken in by another individual, Alex, when he was only 11 years old. John was raised by his father to be strong, powerful, and ruthless, and then discarded because of his mental weaknesses. John does have a strong sense of justice, however, as well as a lack of manners.

Omega
Age: 17
Weapon: Rapier
"If you need me, I'll be there... I promise."
BIO: Omega is the son of Alex, and a close friend to John for most of their lives. Most of Omega's personality is an enigma, as he often feels afraid to reveal how his true feelings to others, and hesitant to speak his mind. He does, however, respect everyone around him, and is not affraid to show compassion to others when they need it most.

Crystal
Age: 15
Weapon: Magic
"People are like snowflakes, each one unique... and beautiful."
BIO: The princess of Dornaga, the neighboring kingdom to Alexandria, Crystal met John one day years back while she was shopping in Alexandria's marketplace, and the two of them have remained close friends since then. Crystal likes to try to see the true beauty in everyone she knows, and believes all people are good at heart.

Alex
Age: 51
Weapon: Staff
"All the power in the world won't make you a better person."
Alex is respected by mostly everyone living in Alexandria, and is currently the owner and caretaker of the Shrine of the Sages, a large magical church in Alexandria. Alex is known to be wise beyond his years, and has control of formiddable energy attacks.

Violet
Age: 12
Weapon: N/A (she's a NPC)
"Please, daddy, don't leave me again."
A cheerful little girl, Violet is Omega's younger sister, and Alex's other daughter. She is loud and energetic, and loves her family dearly, fearing only of ever being seperated from them.

Jake
Age: 15
Weapon: Dagger
"Honesty is only the best policy when it dosn't get you in trouble."
The young, cocky, prince of Alexandria. Jake runs and manages the Alexandrian army training program, and is good friends with Omega and John. His is sometimes rude and snooty, but deep down he has a good heart, and wants only to be accepted.

Atrumon (NPC)
Age: 40
Weapon: N/A
"Love is but an abstarction, power defines human beings."
BIO: One of the top-ranking leaders of The Aeons, Atrumon is an practicing wizard know whos countless secrets regarding ancient dark magic. His power is not to be under-estimated.

Aqua
Age: 16
Weapon: Shuriken
"Ripples in the water are like  the chaos all around us, starting off small, and eventually getting bigger and bigger."
BIO: The daughter of a wealthy land-owner in Sandcaster (a sandy, beach-side town) Rita absolutely loves the water, and had adopted it into her nickname, which she now prefers to be called. Wanting nothing more in life than to see the world, Aqua eagerly joins John on his quest to stop the Aeons.

Zack
Age: 20
Weapon: Long-Blade
"Castles made of sand slip into the sea eventually."
BIO: Second in command of The Aeons, Zack fears no challenge and is read to stand up to any threat against him and his superiors. Once a childhood friend of John, Zack eventually becomes a bitter rival, with a main priority of killing John.

Draco (NPC)
Age: 45
Weapon: N/A
"Do not delude yourself with false hope, the path to truth is non-existant."
BIO: Draco is the Elite ruler of The Ascendants , and also is John's father. Having abandoned his wife and son shortly after John was born, Draco leaves the kingdom for long strecthes of time, and his motives are always a mystery to everyone. His swordmanship is rarely surpassed, and his knowledge of the Omegans' rivals Alex's.

Nyrule
Age: 16
Weapon: Healing Magic
"You know, sometimes, you can get yourself lost in a book."
Jake's book-worm girlfriend, Nyrule grew up in the Alexandrian library after her parents died in a fire. She absolutely loves reading books of all sorts, and is always trying to impress others with her knowledge of random things.

Enigma
Age: Unknown
Weapon: Staff
"Just forget the world you thought you knew..."
BIO: As his name implies, little is known of his past or motives. Appearing from time to time, Enigma's riddles help to lead the party closer to the wherabouts of the Ascendants .

Rachel
Age: 37
Weapon: Black Magic
"I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it."
A retired servant of the Alexandrian Army, Rachel was once a powerful witch under service of the king. Upon a disagreement with many of his decisions, she left and retired to her humble cottage in the forest, hoping to escape her dreary past in search of a more meaningful existance.

Lance (NPC)
Age: 22
Weapon: Sword
"Don't expect help... my only obligation belongs to the royal family."
A top-ranking soldier in the Alexandrian army, the King had ordered Lance to ensure the downfall of the Aeons before passing away, and as such, Lance now bears the life-long burden of avenging the king. Lance is also rather opposed to companionship, as he spends most of his time traveling alone.

Asema (NPC)
Age: Unknown
Weapon: Magic
"Nothing beautiful can last forever..."
BIO: Asema has been cursed since birth, being bound to the conditions of being partially a vampire. Though his lust for blood is mostly tame, he occassionally does have outburts and cravings. He is #4 (fourth in command of the Aeons) and is quite respected by Draco.

The Aeons
Besides Draco, Zack, Asema and Atrumon (whom are listed above) most of the other Aeons are listed here. Obviously, being the main antagonists, they are NPCS.

Xemoras
The oldest and arguably wisest member of the group, he is often found hanging around with Draco and giving tactical advice. Though he is considerably older than the other members, he is no less skilled in combat.

Shula
Shula has the perplexing ability to create and manipulate fire, making him quite useful to the Aeons. He does not, however, poccess much maturity or patience, and rarely thinks things through before acting.
 
Lucian
The "spy" of the group, Lucian is often wandering around and spying on possible targets. Further, he takes many of the solo missions assigned to him by Draco, who wouldn't mind all that much to lose him in battle.

Nikki
Zack's younger cousin. Nikki's parents were both arrested by Alexandrian soldiers, and she was taken in by Zack's parents. When the three of them joined the Ascendant forces, Nikki was brought along and Zack was forced to take care of her. She has occassional doubts on whether her actions are indeed moral by her standards, but this is often overshadowed by the will to please Zack, and she usually ignores her own opinions.



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Skiefortress' Sprites:

Skie is helping with the vast majority of the main character battle anaimations, meaning she will be editing and formatting them for use, as well as spriting the animations. I thought this would be worth mentioning- expect custom graphics for the characters.



BTW: I posted this WIP image so nobody would try and steal anything, sorry for those of you who are curious to see more. >_O

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~Random Screenshots


Hallway of Castle Alexandria's basement.


John's Bedroom.

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Character Growth:



As in all the games of this series, the characters not only get stronger as the story progresses, they also grow older. Different sprites define how a character looks every two or three years, and on average a character changes his or her look about 3-4 times.

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Transportation via Dragons:



Dragons can be purchased at Corona Castle (a city in the sky) at the kingdom's one and only Dragon farm. Once purchased, they can be flown around Alexandria, and even land in area's airships cannot. (some can even do special techniques, depending on their color, somewhat similiar to the FFVII chocobo system)

Horses are also available in some areas, too.

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~Backstory

Once upon a time, in an age when the earth had consisted of an endless void of nothingness, the presence that brought the emptiness to life arose. Oron, the divine creator, spread his flaming arms and shaped the earth to his desire, and incarnated three lone Godesses as his assistants.

Their power, flowing freely from the source of all energy, the Omegan Stone, was placed in the Divine Realm, exceeding far into the heavens. Forming the land, nature, the creatures that dwelled there, Rina, Rose, and Ruby retreated unto their ethereal Elysium, and sealed the pathway to where they rested.

However, Rina, being the pensive and thoughtful being she was, decided to leave a memorable artifact for their creations to admire. So, she secretly opened the portal leading to the Sanctid Stone, so that one day, one righteous enough may witness and admire her absolute power.

During the process of creation, they had created two distinct races, Humans, and their slightly superior counterparts, Sanctids. Similar to humans in most aspects, the most notable features of the Sanctid were their inviolable intelligence and precocious physical strength, which in their minds, made them far superior to humans. The reason dor dividing the races had gone unknown, but many estimate the godesses indeed intended a specific purpose for their decision.

Cenuturies past. After many years of struggle, one individual named Orex arose froma local Sanctid Tribe. He proclaimed all humans were insignificant "insects" that needed to be eliminated, leaving the earth for the obviously superior Sanctids. He gained many follows, and a civil war soon began. Many millions of lives were lost in the struggle, and the Omegan race, being far less in numbers then humans, became nearly extinct. Several hundred remained, however, and in hiding, they continued the bloodline.

1000 Years Later...

Alexandria, now in an age of serene, peaceful ways, has adapted from the war-hungry society it once was, into a lovely realm of immortal beauty. Unfortunately, remaints of Orex's ancient cult reamain, and are now bent on domination of Alexandria, leading into the downfall of the royal family.

Now, after a series of horrific murders and attacks, a group of peculiar yet determined friends join the Alexandrian millitary in effort to help stop the group, now named "The Aeons"- A malevolent cult determined to continue to preech the teaching's of the nearly-forgotton Orex, and obtain immortality, which would subconsciously make them "perfect".  

These young friends continue to endure many personal and physical challenges, while remaining blissfully unaware that the harpships they shall soon endure won't be easy, nor simple. Led by a partially sane man who wishes solely to become "divine" by ANY means nesscessary, the Aeons are no pushovers, and can't be defeated with normal methods. Coming across pain, chaos, death, and betreyal, the team struggles to maintain their determination... and sanity.

Experience the hatred, the struggle, the love, the joy, the sorrow, the courage.... the Legend.. of Alexandria.

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~Screenshot Gallery


Crystal's hometown Dornaga.


Part of the introduction.

 
Testing out the battle system.


The interior of a house in the market.


Exploring a forest.


Traveling across the fields of Alexandria.


A view of the overworld.


An attempt at a "romantic" cutscene with John and Crystal.


The gothic city, Trevonta.




Arriving at Castle Alexandria.  


Ruins of the ancient Sanctid City.


Alexandria Marketplace.


Lost in the desert.


A small grove area near the start of the game.


Another "personal" scene with John and Crystal.


The forest of Eternal Slumber~ which is purposely designed to have you get lost.


The port down 'Fremesk'.


Near the castle.


Ronya Cavern.


An in-game view of that map I posted earlier.


The buisness district of Alexandria Market, expect large crowds of NPCS.


A view of the worldmap - including the newly revamped weather and day/night system.



Castle BlackFang, of the northern region.


Halycon Fields.

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Random Quotes From other Topics at other sites: (just because)

"This looks great."
~Fire Mage

"I've been seeing this everywhere and I can't wait to play it!"
~Ice Puppet

"It looks like you really have a lot done. Your aging system sounds very intriguing, and the maps are above average."
~DragonHeartMan

"I love it."
~HolyFlame/Sion

"Your characters seem really well thought out."
~Legion

"The game looks really interesting."
~Jyakotu Kurayami

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~Credits so Far~

Main Staff:
-Storyline/Production: Blindmind028
-Battlecharset Sprites: Skiefortress
-Character Artwork: Lily Kat
-Original Soundtrack: Ocean's Dream (with songs taken from various other sources)

Beta-Testers:
-Legion
-DragonHeartMan
-Devin7
-Matt Hakor
-Ocean' s Dream
-Guardian
& many others!

Other Acknowledgements:
-Title Screen Illustarion: Brown

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Comments are welcome and thanks for taking the time to read this...

[Dragoon de Sol]

As I said for the last thousand times, looks good.

[Meiscool-2]

Sadly I didn't read all of it, and probally won't (I'll read the character bios though to see if they're too cliche or not), it overall it looks well thought. The character looks-changing system will certainly bring a feeling of how much time has passes to the game. Your mapping, though not the greatest, it respectible, and does it's job. I see you've got A LOT of characters though, and if you have to make between 3 and 4 different sprites and battle characters for each one, that must've been quite a deal of work.

[DragonBlaze]

It looks pretty nice so far. The maps are good for the most part. I'll be looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

PS. Don't quote anything from this message and post it on a thread on another site, I really hate it when people do that..

[Linkforce]

I read it all, and it seems a bit boring.  Don't know where this game will go, but the overall "look" of it is good.  I'll play it if it comes out, but I don't see what the plot is.  Anyways, good luck with the rest, and don't take what I said the wrong way.  The game looks good anyways, lol.
  :p

[aboutasoandthis]

I did read the entire thing. The story does have a lot of cliches but I can tell you're planning a good plot twist somewhere in there. The idea of one race fighting another because of superiority is a really good storyline, even though it's used a lot. I'm using it in my game too.

I don't really like the characters. They all have similar personalities to me. I got this from the quotes. No matter what their bios said, the quote made me think they were all very mellow, intelligent people. I'm guessing you wrote the entire story out and pulled the best quote you could find. I'm dissapointed.

Like Meiscool said, since you have an aging system and you have all those battle characters, you obviously put a lot of effort into this game.

Just so you know, you and I are using a lot of the same graphics. Suikoden and Theodore rule, don't they? The city maps are really nice but I only have two suggestions. One, I think you should match your charasets better. Seeing the REFMAP with the RTP style was a big no-no to me. Two, your maps are just okay nothing horrible and nothing excellent.

I'd like to see something on the battle system. This is just my opinion, but a game has to be a game to me. If it isn't fun, should I play? I'm not saying using the DBS isn't good. I'm using it too. It just has to have that thing that makes is excessivly fun, whether it be customization of your character, inventive boss fights, or some kind of reflex testing gimmick. If you do have an uninteresting battle system, as long as you have minigames and sidequests to balance the gameplay, I'll be okay.

Overall, this game just looks okay to me. I can tell you put in a lot of effort into this which is good. It just doesn't wow me at all. From what I can see though, this looks like a finished product. RPGMaker games should be finished and I think I'm seeing one right now.

[xJericho]

looks really nice,...

but John is 16 and weilds a swords nearly as big as himself??? *weird*,...

ok, its fantasy

[DragonBlaze]

Originally posted by xJericho
looks really nice,...

but John is 16 and weilds a swords nearly as big as himself??? *weird*,...

ok, its fantasy

I'm thinking he's 16 at the start of the game. He said that characters grow throughout the game, so I'm guessing he'll be older through a lot of the game. Unless he's 16 when grown up, which would be very wierd..

[Archem]

This looks nice, and I love those maps. I guess it's nice to see maps that are well constructed, but not too cluttered. There's been a real shortage of those as of late.

[Raen Ryong]

Looks interesting... I have a form of the aging system in my game. It's good to use as it's interesting to watch how a character develops as they "live" through the game...

Btw, the quote from Omega reminds me of FF8 for some reason...
is the quote taken from there?

So, yes -- I'll keep my eye on this game...

[Moosetroop11]

Looks really good, and the screens have a nice balance between looks and practicality. I like the way the graphics mostly tie together. Alas I didn't read it all, but yes the growth system sounds cool too.

[drenrin2120]

I think the main problem with the maps is a lack of a match in styles. I noticed that with some of the sprites too. Other than that, the maps are well put together, I definitely liked them. Just the style... well, only a few match.

[DragonBlaze]

Yeah, I have to agree with the style thing. Look at the grass and the trees from each map. Their style, color, and everything are differant. If you look at any snes game or whatever, you'll notice that they use the same type of grass tiles from map to map (unless its a swamp or something).

But you know, almost EVERY rm2k3 game that doesn't use the rtp gfx is like that. You're styles aren't that differant, and I don't consider it a big deal at all. But it was brought up, so I thought I'd say something.

If you really want to do something about it though, go through your tilesets and edit them so they all have the same types of grass and trees. In town tiles and wilderness tiles can be differant, but unless the style is meant to be differant (like a differant part of the world or something that looks differant) you could try to match the tiles a bit.