Realms

Realms was a forum based textual RPG setting. I was a part of Realms for several years, often as the head Admin and plot writer. During its peak, Realms boasted hundreds of members. The forums had several incarnations, but were closed in Autumn of 2009. Though I was a founding member, I left the forums in 2007 due to severe disagreements with another founding Admin, who happened to be friendly with the forum's host...

Origins
Realms was founded by a member using the alias Dyew after he was banned from another popular forum, Aoyn. In the beginning Realms was an admitted rip off of the Aoyn setting, which was itself a rip off of many other settings that were popular at the time. The first year of Realms' existence was dedicated to being a replacement for Aoyn, after Aoyn's Admin made it clear he could not keep OOG and IG separate.

Schism
Over the years, various schisms occurred between myself and the two other founding members, Dyew and Keeper. One such schism occurred during an invasion plotline, with Dyew threatening OOG violence against me. He was forced off the forums for such behavior, and Keeper went inactive. For the next year I ran the forums on my own, choosing moderators to serve beneath me, and crafting plot to keep players interested. It was during this time that I introduced the concept of Terra, a replacement for the original Aoyn style setting. After my time of running the forums, Keeper returned and attempted to assert herself as head Admin. This was cause for another schism, and I was eventually banned from the forums for my disagreements.

Terra
The Terra setting was introduced to remove the taint of being a rip off from the forums. While it maintained similar names to the original setting, it grew into its own unique world. Terra had its own pantheon, native races, and unique landmasses.Terra also was given a unique plotline, referred to as the Terra plot. Unfortunately this plot was never completed, due to OOG interferences by other Admins, and a fatal glitch in the forums that wiped away the database. After my ousting from Realms the setting was destroyed and a new one created by Keeper et al.

The Plot
The Terra Plot began with a basic adventure role-play, focusing on a voyage of two vessels. It grew from there to include a large war, a battle to stop a group from summoning a powerful deity, and was intended to go further when that deity was, in fact, summoned. The deity, sadly, was never summoned due to interference by Keeper. The plot outline below will be written the way the plot was intended, without interference.

Jollygood
The Jollygood was one of two ships that set sail from Potestas, the known continent of Terra, to explore the newly discovered continent of Veneratio. Both ships were loaded with PCs and NPCs alike, though the Jollygood was home to the most PCs. Early on both ships were caught in a Mana Storm-- a storm fueled by mana, and growing stronger as more spells were cast near it. During the storm a hapless PC disturbed a Kraken, which rose up from beneath the waves to utterly destroy one vessel. The Jollygood barely survived the storm and the Kraken, and was severely damaged when it reached the shore of Veneratio.

The Ruins
While the Jollygood was being repaired, the PCs explored the foreign shoreline. A ruined city was discovered, and the PCs entered it. They plunged down into its depths, through a massive temple, in the hopes of finding some information on who had lived in the ruins. To their surprise, the PCs encountered a resident of the ruins and were engaged in battle. The man who fought the PCs was named Dwin Kalos, and was a Storm Knight. His abilities with elemental air were great enough that he held the PCs off, and even beat them back, in the close confines of the temple's catacombs. When he was near to defeating the PC's party, Dwin was stopped by a Storm Lord named Raine. Raine addressed the PCs, declaring that their invasion would fail, and that the Nahuat were preparing to launch an invasion of their own. He ignored statements of confusion from the PCs and left with Dwin, but not before using his magic to summon a Mana Storm within the temple.

The Invasion
True to Raine's word, the peoples of Veneratio had launched an invasion force at Potestas. The first Nahuat blows against the lands of Potestas included summoning meteorites to demolish Potestan cities, the use of Earth quakes to shatter small Kingdoms, and Mana Storms that scoured the continent's surface. Though these attacks were devastating, they were only the opening salvo of the war to follow. A sizable Nahuat force landed in Eden, a subcontinent of Potestas, and launched a full scale battle against gathered Potestan defenders.

Terra's Summoning
The Battle of Eden was focused around a Nahuat attempt to summon their Goddess to the field. To do this they needed to create a gateway of sufficient size and power, allowing her to enter the physical world. Their gate was constructed of a crystal that was unknown to the defenders of Potestas. As the defenders hurled spells at their enemies, the gate simply grew larger and more powerful. After long hours of fighting the gate was completed by the devastating spells of Eden's own defenders, and the Goddess came through. The battle was won by the Nahuat, and not a single Potestan defender remained.

Jollygood's Return
While the Battle of Eden raged, the surviving members of the Jollygood had returned to their ship and repaired it as best they could. The ship was sailed across the ocean again, and arrived on Eden's shores only to find them occupied by the Nahuat. The Nahuat crystal had spread by the time of Jollygood's return, and had killed off and replaced the majority of Eden's ecosystems. The crew was promptly captured by Nahuat patrols, and brought before the Goddess for justice. It was there that the PCs learned that the Goddess was, in fact, the sentient spirit and mind of the planet given physical form.

Infodump Time
The world had once been covered in the Nahuat crystals, and populated entirely by the Nahuat races, until colonists from other worlds began to arrive. Terra existed as a hub world, with gates to many other settled planets. It was through these gates that the colonists had come, with deadly weapons, to burn the Nahuat from their homes. In the wars that followed the Nahuat were driven from Potestas, and the world's natural crystal ecosystems were destroyed in favour of the ecosystems native to the colonists' homeworlds. The Nahuat retreated to Veneratio and began a military buildup to take back their lost continent. The Goddess herself, however, urged them to be patient with the newcomers. The Nahuat had agreed to remain on Veneratio, so long as the colonists remained on Potestas. Distrustful of the colonists' intentions, the Nahuat maintained their military, ready to strike at a moment's notice. Over the years the colonists had forgotten about the natives they had displaced, and came to consider themselves the true natives of Potestas, going so far as to fight off new groups of interplanetary immigrants. It was only when the Jollygood reached Veneratio that the Nahuat launched their long awaited campaign to retake Potestas.

The Choice
The captured PCs were given a choice: join the Nahuat in liberating the continent or die. With such a simple choice, the PCs joined the Nahuat campaign. It was only then that they were informed of the true threat to the Potestan civilization; while the Nahuat would allow Potestans to live, while only fighting the political leadership, Terra herself was angry with the destruction wrought by the colonists' war machines and industries. She had given a warning that, if the Nahuat and Potestans could not begin healing the damages caused to her, she would wipe the continent clean of all colonist life and restore its balance herself.

Fomenting Revolution
The PCs, knowing that the Nahuat would not be well received in Potestan lands, volunteered to travel through the countries to warn the peoples there of the Terran threat. Though they traveled through the capitals of many nations, they were rebuffed at every turn. None of the leadership wished to turn over power of their nations to the Nahuat, or to dismantle their industries for fear that a rival nation would take advantage of the situation and invade them. The PCs returned in defeat to Eden, to inform the Nahuat of their failure.

The War
With the PCs' failure, the Nahuat host marched from Eden. Battles were fought in several nations, and the PCs fought beside their former enemies. The Storm Lords of Nahuat brought down the wrath of the sky on their enemies, while the Stone Lords shattered the very ground beneath the defenders' feet. The Nahuat burned a path through the Potestan countries, marching toward the hub of gates from which all colonists had emerged.

Battle of the Hub
When the Nahuat army reached the hub they discovered a new threat waiting for them. A mechanical army, headed by a giant mechanical monstrosity, had come through the gates while the colonists were weakened by their defensive wars. That army, having learned of the Nahuat advance, had fortified itself and awaited the Nahuat. Battle was joined, and the Nahuat were repulsed three times, before the invaders made their own advance. The mechanical monstrosity at their head was able to launch attacks that shattered the Nahuat crystal, and cleared the way for the invaders' casters to fling their deadly spells. The Nahuat host was forced back and away from the hub, until they had no more room to retreat, for a mountain was at their backs. There beneath the mountain the final battle took place, and while the Nahuat and Potestans fought together against the mechanical invaders, the PCs snuck through the invaders' lines. When they reached the mechanical monstrosity they engaged its guardians in fierce battle, fighting long enough for one of their number to sabotage the machine. The surviving PCs fell back to Nahuat lines to inform the defenders of the mechanical monstrosity's inability to fight, allowing the Nahuat and Potestans to surge forward and beat the invaders back through the gates.

Aftermath
With the hub held by the Nahuat, any colonist who did not desire to live in the world was allowed to leave safely. Those that remained were allowed to choose their own government, so long as they did not profess a desire for war, and did not harm the planet's ecosystems, which had spread to cover much of Potestas in the wake of the Nahuat advance. Terra, pleased with the progress, dismissed her physical form and returned to a dreaming state.