ABOUT THIS SITE
Welcome to the Story of Maple! I started this project both as a resource for those interested in the story, as well as for myself to further delve into the small details of the lore. I was first introduced to the game as a kid at my friend's house when he made an account for me and created my first character, a Dual Blade. For some reason, I never downloaded the game when I got home and forgot all about it until a few years later when the Legends patch came out. I remember being really excited to make a Demon Slayer, who was my first main until I switched to Phantom once he was released.
As the Heroes came out one by one, I had a lot of fun learning more about the story behind how they fought the Black Mage and his Commanders. I tried to play as many characters as I could to learn the story, which usually involved me getting them to level 30 and then getting bored. As such, most of my understanding of the lore at that time came from reading MapleWiki and watching the few clips that people posted on YouTube.
I stopped playing soon after high school started, though I kept tabs on the new stories being introduced in the meantime. Every couple of years, I'd hop back on for a few days to see what I missed. I was really excited when the Arcane River was released, thinking that it would only be a matter of time when the final battle against the Black Mage happened. As a kid, my friends and I would always talk about what the final boss fight would be like, and we all agreed that only the five Heroes should be allowed to fight him. This made me realize that that none of us should ever have a job in game development.
I finally got dragged back in June 2021 after driving up to meet a couple of friends and saw that they were playing the game. I decided to main a Hero after reading a theory that they’re the canon main character (more on this in the actual site), and somehow, I’ve gotten him to to 261 at the time of Khali’s story coming to KMS, which is honestly my second biggest achievement after writing this site.
I've had a lot of fun semi-casually progressing in the game since then, and I'm glad that I've been able to play the high-level stories that I've only ever watched someone else play in a YouTube video. The same friends who I visited were curious about the lore of the game, and so I started explaining as much as I could. It was then that I realized just how convoluted the game had gotten, and just how many plot holes and retcons there are. In order to help them make sense of the story, I started a Google Docs page to jot down the full story in chronological order, which quickly spiraled into something much longer than I ever thought it’d be.
I initially planned to complete the document with my own knowledge and just look up all the details I didn't have. Unfortunately, a lot of the storylines in the game simply haven't been covered by people online, meaning that I'd have to play them myself. The plus side of playing all these characters is that I almost have a 6k legion as a result of getting so many characters to level 140+ in order to complete their class storylines.
Working on this site helped reignite the passion for the story that I had when I was a kid. Despite the constant plot holes and retcons, which were absolute nightmares to reconcile while chronologically ordering this site, I'm really glad just how massive the story has gotten since the game first started. I never could have imagined that the story of five heroes fighting an evil wizard could have expanded into a colossal epic spanning across time and space: a battle against the gods, the philosophical struggle between fate and free will, and the emotional highs and lows of countless heroes striving to protect what they love.
A few months after writing the main story, I got invested in GMS-verse, the shared universe of overseas content in GMS. I ended up spending another couple months writing that up as well, and I'm really glad that I did, because many of the stories in GMS-verse are just as awesome as the main lore.
I hope that these two sections, which stand at over a whopping 2250 pages combined, can help those who are new to the story and those who are familiar but want to learn more. Full disclaimer, the reason why this isn't a Google Docs page like how I originally planned it is because I went over the character limit just as I was finishing up the Burning Cernium storyline. I wasn’t even aware that there was a character limit for Google Docs until then, but I guess I should’ve taken that as a sign of having gone a bit too far lol.
What the main section includes:
All canon class storylines (including job advancements and mount quests):
Explorer, Dual Blade, Cannoneer, Pathfinder, Cygnus Knights, Mihile, Resistance, Demon, Xenon, Aran, Evan, Mercedes, Phantom, Luminous, Shade, Kaiser, Angelic Buster, Cadena, Kain, Illium, Ark, Adele, Khali, Hoyoung, Lara, Zero, Kinesis
All officially licensed webcomics:
Damien, Wing Master, Child of the Goddess, Black Mage: Origin, Grandis: The Ancient War
All Grand Athenaeum chapters (including class-exclusive dialogue):
The White Mage, Empress in Training, The Black Witch, The Winter Bard, Shadow Alchemist, Sharenian Knights, Sefirot’s Gardener
All FriendStory chapters (including class-exclusive dialogue):
The World Beyond the Closet, Cygnus and the New Kid, Orchid and the Stalker, Hilla and Magnus Sittin’ In a Tree, Cassandra’s Tales of Totally Shocking Stuff, Students in Crisis, Damien and the Spirit of Rock
All canon and lore-relevant theme dungeons/storylines (including class-exclusive dialogue):
Riena Strait, Birth of an Alliance, Heliseum Reclamation HQ, The Silent Crusade, Ellin Forest, Evolution Lab, The Lion King’s Castle, Fight for Azwan, Root Abyss, Crimsonheart Castle, Gate of the Past, Dimensional Invasion, Stone Colossus, Henesys Ruins, Knight Stronghold, Kritias, Detective Rave’s Case Notes, Twilight Perion, Fox Valley, Kao’s Timeline
All Epic Dungeons:
High Mountain
All blockbusters (including class-exclusive dialogue):
Black Heaven, Heroes of Maple
All Arcane River storylines (including 5th job advancement and class-exclusive dialogue):
Vanishing Journey, Reverse City, Chu Chu Island, Yum Yum Island, Lachelein, Arcana, Morass, Esfera, Sellas, Moonbridge, Labyrinth of Suffering, Limina
All continental Grandis storylines (including 6th job advancement and class-exclusive dialogue):
Aftermath, Convergence, Cernium, Burning Cernium, Hotel Arcus, Karote, Odium, Shangri-La, Arteria, Carcion
What the GMS-verse section includes:
All GMS-verse canon class storylines:
Hayato, Kanna, Beast Tamer**, Jett** (including farewell quest)
All Masteria storylines:
Original Masteria storyline*, level 150 Masteria storyline, Masteria Through Time blockbuster, New Leaf City storyline, Phantom Forest storyline, Gollux storyline, level 190 Masteria storyline
All PULSAR storylines:
Captain Vaga**, Stellar Detectives
All Zipangu storylines:
Mushroom Shrine Tales, Neo Tokyo***
All Sengoku storylines:
Hieizan Temple, Asura Crisis
Independent GMS-verse storylines:
MONAD blockbuster**
*This is the original lore of Masteria, which was revamped in 2015 with the Masteria Through Time blockbuster. While it’s not canon anymore, I’ve presented it as fundamental background for fully understanding the lore of GMS-verse
**These storylines have been removed form the game, but as they were all part of the GMS-verse lore, I’ve chosen to keep them in
***This storyline was only released as an event. However, I’ve included it in the GMS-verse section due to its importance in the Zipangu storyline
What neither sections cover:
Classes not present in either canon:
Mo Xuan, Lynn, Pink Bean, Yeti
Storylines not present in either canon:
The Far East, Shaolin Temple, Singapore, Malaysia
Non-relevant storylines:
All party quests, all town storylines, Ellinel Fairy Academy, Gold Beach, Secret Forest of Elodin, The Afterlands, Mushroom Castle, Fantasy Theme World, Korean Folk Town, Golden Temple, Partem Ruins, Beasts of Fury, Commerci Republic, Kerning Tower, Omega Sector, Ramuramu
As I'd mentioned, much of what I've written comes from memory or from playing the storyline myself to hunt down specific details, with the exception of several indispensable resources which I found online, containing a plethora of content that saved me literal years of time. I'd like to give my heartfelt thanks to the contributors of the Maple Wiki (I’ll likely start contributing myself soon haha), a Korean wiki called Namu, as well as Shiang, PirateIzzy, Saught, and several others for their detailed storyline videos. Thanks to them, I've been able to piece together dozens of interwoven content in order to best present them as linearly as possible.
Compiling this site took over seven months - with many more hours of upkeep - because unlike most sites, I’ve tried to go beyond just a simple summary and instead, I’ve tried to cover as many details as possible, even the ones that might not be strictly necessary to explain the lore. That kind of content can only be determined through actually playing the different storylines and, at times, replaying them in order to ensure that I’ve captured the full scope of all the little nuggets of information that can be determined from the dialogue. This is largely why this site is so long, but I hope that it’s a testament to how much I’ve enjoyed the story.
Throughout this site, I'll occasionally add Author Notes (A/N: They'll appear like this) in order to provide callbacks, give contextualizing info, justify ordering, and offer personal speculation. I hope that they provide some insight into the inner workings of the story, as well as break some of the monotony of reading the same sentences of "they said... they did..." I tried to be as creative as I could to make the sentences flow well without sounding repetitive, but unfortunately there's only so much you can do with something that, at its core, is just a summary. There's also bound to be some mistakes that I've made, and I would greatly appreciate any constructive feedback! I hope to keep adding to this site as new lore gets added, but until then, I hope that you enjoy reading!