PART I: BEFORE THE SEALING OF THE BLACK MAGE

Chapter 4: Flora Civil War

With his madness getting worse, the God-King planned to execute Adelaide for her treason and begin his genocide of all the other races on Grandis. Deeply disturbed by what they were being asked to do, many within the Knights of the Einherjar began to rally behind Adelaide’s words of dissent and pledged their loyalty to Darmoor, hoping that together, they could stop the God-King’s senseless war before it could start.

Acting on Darmoor’s orders, Adelaide’s former sister-in-arms, Veronica, had her men free Adelaide from prison so that she could aid them in overthrowing the God-King. However, Adelaide - despite refusing to follow the God-King into battle - refused to turn against her liege and rushed to stop the traitorous knights from harming the God-King.

Elsewhere, Veronica led the revolt against the God-King and broke down the Einherjar, the palace gate, while Adelaide and those loyal to the God-King attempted to stop Veronica and her knights. (A/N: In Norse mythology, the einherjar are the warriors who died and went to Valhalla, where they prepare for the final battle during Ragnarok.)

Eventually, however, Adelaide’s knights were defeated and killed by Veronica’s faction, leaving Adelaide as the only survivor, with her magical conduits being burned out from the sheer amount of magic which she had channeled during the battle. For her alleged treason against Darmoor, Veronica banished Adelaide into a pocket dimension called the Void.

Meanwhile, the Verdant Flora came to learn that Darmoor planned to begin his father’s war against the other races of Grandis. As the coup to overthrow the God-King raged on, the Verdant Flora rushed to the High Flora capital, only to find Darmoor standing over his father’s body. Darmoor immediately called for the guards, claiming that the Verdant Flora had murdered the God-King.

(A/N: The Grandis webcomic shows that the murdered God-King was just a normal High Flora, even though we know that the God-King was a monster by now. It’s mentioned in the Sefirot’s Gardener storyline that the God-King had a body double, and so it’s very possible that it was the double who was murdered, while the real God-King might still be alive somewhere.)

With the Verdant Flora being framed for the God-King’s murder, the High Flora immediately retaliated and attempted to wipe out the Verdant Flora, thus sparking the Flora Civil War. The bloody conflict lasted for hundreds of years, with great casualties on both sides. As the civil war raged on, Darmoor assumed command of the High Flora and began his father’s war of genocide against the other races.

(A/N: There’s a lot of ambiguity in regard to this part of the timeline, as it seems that Veronica continued to loyally support Darmoor after helping him overthrow the God-King, even though Darmoor ended up inciting the war that her faction was working to stop. It’s strongly suggested that Veronica only sided with Darmoor to stay on the winning side, but there’s not much information at this point about what the other Knights of the Einherjar did after Darmoor ended up doing the very thing that they were trying to avert.)

Throughout the war, Darmoor made grand speeches to young High Flora in order to draft them into battle, calling their fight a ‘War for Peace’. One of them was a young man named Ark, who was inspired by Darmoor’s speech and enlisted in military school. There, he met another boy named Albaire, and the two became inseparable. They made a promise to always protect each other, and after graduation, they were both promoted to Second Lieutenants and sent to Verdel as part of the High Flora’s campaign in the Western Front, where only elite troops went.

(A/N: It’s well documented how Ark exhibits Gay Panic™ whenever Albaire is so much as mentioned. Symptoms include excessive joy, nervous laughter, dreaming about Albaire every chance he gets, and blushing as they gaze deeply into each other’s eyes:)

Under the leadership of Brigadier General Limbo, Ark and Albaire fought against the native species on Verdel. However, Ark soon grew disillusioned with the war, realizing that the so-called War for Peace was nothing more than a massacre. While eavesdropping on a private meeting, he was horrified to see that Limbo had the power to transform into a Specter.

(A/N: Given how many Specters we see in the game, you can imagine how many countless people Darmoor has sacrificed to build his army. It remains unknown how some Specters like Limbo have kept their original form and memories while retaining the ability to change into a Specter at will. It’s possible that they possess a special soul just like Ark, which prevents the Specter from taking over the host fully.)

Ark discovered that Limbo had learned of the enemy’s plan to launch a surprise attack on the High Flora base. Before he could warn the enemy that the Flora were ready for them, Ark was caught by Limbo. As Ark had revealed himself to be a traitor, Limbo decided to conduct a ritual that would transform him into a Specter.

However, Albaire found out about the ritual, and though he disagreed with Ark’s betrayal, he did everything that he could to stop the ritual because of the promise that they had both made to protect each other. With the ritual interrupted, Ark’s transformation into a Specter was disrupted, resulting in a large vortex forming that nearly obliterated the moon’s entire surface. As a result, the High Flora evacuated and abandoned their plans for the Western Front, leaving Ark to remain unconscious for many years.

(A/N: There’s an implication that Ark was unconscious for centuries because of a quest that he has in Savage Terminal, which states that hundreds of years have passed since the Flora Civil War. However, this is contradicted by the Nova storyline, in which Kaiser mentions that the High Flora had won the war just a few decades before the present day. Most likely, Nexon forgot the plot point that they had introduced with time passing slower on Grandis. Even so, it’s strange to think Ark was just lying unconscious in the desert for decades, if not centuries. It’s possible that the Specter inside him kept him alive, though we can’t say for sure.) 

During the war, Darmoor encountered Magnus, an exiled Nova and the former comrade of Kaiser, the legendary hero of the Nova who reincarnated throughout the ages. Conceited as he was, even Magnus felt the immense aura of death radiating from Darmoor, who revealed himself as the Transcendent of Life, and experienced true fear for the first time. He swore allegiance to Darmoor in exchange for gaining the power to become the strongest warrior in Grandis.

In the final stretch of the war, Darmoor ordered Magnus to sack the Nova capital of Heliseum. To prepare for the invasion of Heliseum, Magnus devised a strategy to corrupt two of the three Guardians of Heliseum. Magnus began sending spies to back the research of Treglow, a genius Nova scientist who specialized in chemistry. Magnus’ spies began passing on rare materials and books procured by the High Flora in order to win Treglow’s trust, and then sent him a cursed reagent that caused him to lose his mind and side with Magnus.

At the same time, Magnus learned that the second Guardian, a renowned painter named Victor, had fallen into grief after the death of his fiancée. Magnus anonymously sent Victor a canvas said to bring anything drawn upon it to life. Victor began obsessively painting his true love upon the canvas, which would only create dolls in her image. Over time, Victor’s soul was pulled into the canvas until Victor - unable to bear his pain any longer - killed himself, leaving his trapped soul within the canvas to paint minions for Magnus’ army.

With two of the three Guardians corrupted, Magnus took the Specter army and sacked the Nova capital of Heliseum. During the battle, every member of the Nova royal family was killed except for the princess, who was rescued by the general of the Nova army. As she had been wounded from Magnus’ meteor attacks, which had broken one of her horns, the general brought her to Gen, the Savage Terminal branch leader of the Shadowdealers, a trade organization that specialized in black market merchandise. As Gen had owed the General a favor, he took the princess in and treated her injuries with a special medicine, but the side effects of such a strong medicine put her into a coma for many decades.

Meanwhile, the conflict between the High Flora and Verdant Flora reached its peak in a final battle at the Verdant Flora capital of Aboris, causing massive death on an immensely large scale. During this battle, Darmoor finally revealed that he had awakened as the new Transcendent of Life after hiding his abilities for centuries. Because of his deception, it was mistakenly believed by the rest of Grandis that the bloody battle of Aboris had broken the balance of life on Grandis, which had resulted in Darmoor’s awakening.

With his powers, Darmoor obliterated nearly every living being on the battlefield. He then approached the wounded God of the Verdant Flora, who had managed to survive Darmoor’s attack, and sealed him inside the mytocrystal on the back of his hand. The surviving High Flora then successfully sacked Aboris, ending the war with the capture of the Verdant Flora capital and the near-total destruction of its people.

In the sanctuary city of Pantheon, Kaiser and the Nova knights received word about the fall of Aboris and Darmoor’s awakening as the Transcendent of Life. With the Verdant Flora all but extinct, and the Anima in hiding, Kaiser realized that only the Nova remained to oppose the High Flora. Believing that Darmoor would quickly target Heliseum, Kaiser rushed to the capital in order to defend it.

There, he encountered Magnus at the city outskirts, where he learned that Heliseum had already fallen with Aboris. Believing that his old friend had returned from exile to help the Nova reclaim the capital, Kaiser let his guard down, allowing Magnus to cut him with his poisoned blade. Though he was dying by the moment, Kaiser attempted to buy time for the survivors of Heliseum to escape to the sanctuary city of Pantheon.

He engaged Magnus and the Specter army alone in a fierce battle, and though Kaiser managed to cut off one of Magnus’ horns and left a scar on his eye, he knew that he would soon succumb to the poison. Realizing that there was only one way to stop Magnus, Kaiser sacrificed his life in a fiery explosion that wiped out the Specter army and severely injured Magnus, who was only able to survive through the power that he had received from Darmoor. Magnus fled the scene, but not before he stole Kaiser’s legendary sword, Kaiserium.

Through Kaiser’s sacrifice, Beldar of the Heliseum Council was able to lead the survivors of Heliseum to Pantheon. As the Nova were unable to bring their holy relic - a large, blue stone called the Outrigger, which had been given to them by the Ancient Gods of the Nova - the priests instead extracted as much power as they could from it and divided its power into four sacred stones, which were scattered across Pantheon and used to create a Protective Shield around the city, making it impossible for Magnus and the Specter army to enter.

Following the end of the Flora Civil War, Darmoor invaded the Chronica Sanctuary and attempted to convince Chronica, the Transcendent of Time, to join him. When they were unable to come to a resolution, Darmoor stole Chronica’s powers. However, the use of the stolen powers of a Transcendent came with consequences. Not only was Darmoor severely weakened, but several Interdimensional Portals that led to other worlds appeared throughout Grandis, and it was said that Darmoor himself used a portal to travel to Maple World.

(A/N: There’s a continuity error introduced in Esfera when the Black Mage’ stole Tana’s Transcendent powers. Rather than him being weakened, he grew strong enough to be considered a god. While this is most likely an oversight on Nexon’s part, I wonder it can be explained by saying that a Transcendent only gets weakened if they steal the powers of a Transcendent of another domain.

Stealing Tana’s powers also didn’t result in any additional Interdimensional Portals being formed, but this could be because several already existed, or because the three worlds were already converging into the Arcane River, meaning that all the worlds shared a single dimension, and so there was no way that a warp in spacetime could bridge two worlds.

For a time, it was also a possibility that dimensional instability is only caused by stealing the powers of a Transcendent of Time specifically, which was what Kaiser’s storyline suggests. However, this has been retconned because all future mentions of the topic in other storylines suggest that it can happen upon taking any Transcendent’s power.)

Even though the High Flora forces had been crippled at the end of the Flora Civil War, Darmoor nevertheless turned his focus on his war of genocide, which had been waged simultaneously with the battle against the Verdant Flora. Darmoor ordered his exhausted army to push forward and moved the High Flora capital to the former Verdant Flora capital of Aboris, where he ruled from the new God-King Temple at the Aboris Royal Palace alongside his twelve Apostles, of whom six are known:

• Havoc, a pure-blood demon from Tynerum who arrived in Grandis through unknown means and came into Darmoor’s service as his First Apostle of Lightning.

• Limbo, the partial Specter who had managed the High Flora campaign on the Western Front as Brigadier General

• Kaling, a defective Vessel of Odium who had created the Four Perils in the era of the Ancient Gods. Kaling had been sealed away by the great sage Tai Yu, but over the ages, Kaling’s seal slowly degraded. Eventually, she was rescued by the private investigators of Cheong-woon, who rescued her and took her in. Hoping to use them to find the Four Perils and complete her research, Kaling chose to stay with them and slowly began to grow fond of them until they were all killed when the seal on Qiongqi was broken.

  In the wake of her grief, glimmers of Kaling’s long-lost humanity that her contamination had erased began resurfacing. At that moment, however, Darmoor approached her and claimed that he needed her and her research. Hearing that someone believed that her research wasn’t a failure was all that Kaling needed to hear, and the contamination began taking her over further as Darmoor continued feeding into her obsession to fulfill her purpose by completing her Four Perils experiment and create an immensely powerful Adversary, thereby proving the elders wrong. Under Darmoor, Kaling became an Apostle and began hunting down the Four Perils using the private investigators of Cheong-woon.

  (A/N: Although I’ve listed Kaling as an Apostle here, she chronologically only becomes one a little bit before the start of Hoyoung’s storyline, which begins with Tai Yu leaving the Hermitage in order to investigate the seals on Qiongqi and Taowu breaking. The end of the Flora Civil War takes place several decades before the start of the present-day story on Grandis (taking into account that several decades on Grandis is the equivalent of several centuries on Maple World), which means that Kaling is recruited a few decades after the events of this section.)

• Ypsilon, a God of the High Flora who ruled the city of Erimos on continental Grandis as its lord. Ypsilon possessed the power to extract abstract concepts - from magic and life force, to loyalty and memories.

• Reina, a God of the High Flora who ruled as the lord of a snowy territory on continental Grandis, using powerful ice magic against her enemies. Though Reina was once a Priest of the High Flora, she faced the previous lord in a Syaman - an honor duel reserved for Priests and Gods. Though Syamans between Priests were meant for entertainment and bragging, a Syaman between a Priest and a God allowed for a Priest to replace their opponent as a God. As a Priest challenging a God - a person of higher caste rank - was considered a valiant act, a God was obligated to accept the challenge accordingly. By defeating the former lord in a Syaman, Reina took their place as a God and the lord of their territory.

  (A/N: The Arteria storyline reveals that Reina had only recently become a God by challenging the former lord of her territory. The chronology of this is left pretty ambiguous, but I’d hesitantly place Reina becoming a lord sometime after Khali’s class storyline based on the context clues that we learn about the lord of the snowy region there. Since there’s almost no way that a Priest could’ve become an Apostle, it’s also possible that Reina’s predecessor was a former Apostle of Darmoor, and that Reina took their position as both Apostle and lord through her Syaman. Because of this, it’s likely that - just like Kaling - Reina became an Apostle several decades after the events of this section.)

• Baldrix, a Knight of the Einherjar who had once served the former God-King. Despite his immense magical power, Baldrix had held loyalty only for Prince Darmoor, enough so that he had refused the position of Captain under the former God-King’s command, demonstrating his sole devotion to the prince. After helping Darmoor overthrow his father, Baldrix became an Apostle and ascended to become the new Captain of the Knights of the Einherjar, serving as Darmoor’s close confidante for his true aims and goals.

Ruling from the capital city of Aboris, stolen from the Verdant Flora, the High Flora held six territories in continental Grandis, including Erimos, which were led by Gods, who served as regional lords. Additionally, the High Flora began spreading their influence across Grandis and began creating colonies by driving out and purging the native races of those regions.

To defend their cities, the Zealous - the royal guards - were established to serve the lords and people of their respective regions. Meanwhile, the Central Army pooled together soldiers from all six regions in order to conquer more land. To increase the Central Army’s numbers, Darmoor hired tens of thousands of mercenaries as common low-ranking soldiers, while the High Flora served as their officers.

After conquering Heliseum, Magnus returned to Darmoor to receive treatment for his injuries, though his lifespan was nevertheless shortened by Kaiser’s attack. Darmoor then ordered Magnus to travel to Maple World in order to find a way to extend his lifespan back to normal, as well as to learn more about the other world.

Meanwhile, the surviving Verdant Flora retreated from Aboris. Agate, the disciple of the God of the Verdant Flora, took the Elder Crystal and led the survivors into a pocket dimension called Sanctuary. There, the Verdant Flora lived in secrecy for many decades. Agate became the Headmistress of the Crystal Academy, where she would oversee the training of future generations of Verdant Flora, hoping that one of them would grow up to become the hero that would save their people.

Around this time, the defective Vessel who had created Karote founded the Angler Company, a national-level arms dealer organization that used the technology stolen from Odium in order to create powerful weapons that would be sold to the warmongers of Grandis, including the High Flora. He named the company and created its logo in the image of the anglerfish, whose light had helped him escape the bottom of the sea. The Company founder then gave himself the surname “Angler” and also created four cyborg children - Cosim, Senya, Nicky, and Laha Angler - to carry out his will and to prepare to one day invade Odium once a Vessel would open the path. The Company founder attempted to create an imitation Godsphere, placing a failed copy into his first creation, Cosim, and ultimately creating a perfected heart for himself.