This post was inspired by a very amazing (and very scary) animation made by Mirage. The animation can be found here.
Okay, so the general gist of this AU is that the barrier that keeps the Atlanteans confined to the Dark Sea has been breached, allowing the Atlanteans to escape and invade the Bronze Sea. Due to their sheer strength and overwhelming numbers, most islands are quickly overrun as their populations are either killed or turned into more Atlanteans. The only islands left standing are those that are heavily defended (Fort Talos, Silverhold, etc.) or the sky islands.
To survive, most people have either fled to one of these safe zones or adopted a nomadic existence, staying on the move to avoid being caught. The Grand Navy and Ravenna fleets would be engaged in near-constant battles with the never-ending hordes of Atlantean ships that continuously pour in from the Dark Sea.
But with all this being said, where does the player come in? Well, theyâd still wake up on Dawn Island thanks to the Pelion Rift preventing the worst of the Atlantean hordes from reaching the northern half of the Bronze Sea, but theyâd wake up to find the world in ruins and on the brink of total collapse. With their team of friends, itâs up to the player to find out how to restore the barrier and drive the Atlanteans back from whence they came.
If you wanna write something in this AU, feel free to give it a shot! Iâd love to see what kinds of stories are spawned from this little idea.
once I make a post similar to this (probably in the art category again), Iâll have a list of instances to what happened to specific locations/characters
for starters though, this AU (or at least, my interpretation of it) doesnât follow the normal AO plot, with the MC trying to discover secrets of the Order after escaping them.
The Order does still exist, and has a similar purpose still, but they are now the typical apocalypses âshady testing facilityâ that experiments monitors the mutated. All canon members of the Order are still part of the Order in this universe.
true, though I cant imagine how someone would get there without their ship being immediately rushed with atlanteans you gotta have balls to go out sailing in this au
(Elius and Carina actually start off okay, she makes it to the Stepstones, but while fighting off Atlanteans she gets infected and Elius has to watch it all happen)
lol do like the idea but how would the normal story even work cuz we have to sail around a lot so it would be cool if lets say the people that live in the sky islands mod the sky boats and making them be able to fly almost anywhere as i do believe that in the normal story of arcane they have to go down sometimes for stuff and also mb this is long ;-; i saw something about someone saying why wonât the redwake people be able to live in the spikes i feel like they could make there towns on them ig and them being outcast bc they could be half mutants from the fish and stuff idk just an idea
The normal story doesnât exist in this universe, as the player character does not exist. This is so we can freely explore characters that were affected by the playerâs actions (which, looking back on it now, is kinda redundant, since Fort Talos crumbled, Argos is mutated, Carina died, and Calvus is sick, so the same events kinda happen, despite the player having nothing to do with it.)
Sailing has become EXTREMELY dangerous, most islands have been on lockdown, receiving airdrops from Cirrus.
Nice A.U, i like the whole thing.
i think i can try sharing my ideas for the lore:
Lore Reasons as of why they are invading
Durza:
Its known that the Dark Sea is filled with magic pollution created by Durza & Theos, which can mutate people.
The Dark Sea already existed during Arcane Adventure and earlier lore events, being created from Theos & Durza last fight. But since Durza nuked the Earth again uppon dying agaisnât PK which was known as the âWrath Of Godsâ, it would have logically created even more magic pollution world wide, polluting the previously safe areaâs of the War Sea?
Sea Curse related accident:
Maybe someone with a Sea Curse adventured too deep into the dark sea, causing them to be driven even more insane (they were already insane due to their curse) . The best fit would be the Tide Curse that is now free to be used by anyone (Arthur is dead), that curse can manipulate the sea which would include the Dark Sea & maybe allow its user to expand it further?
Death Curse could also work
Chaos:
Chaos is basically a semi sentient infinite source of energy / magic that is attracted by evil deeds & actions. So maybe Aesir experiments got so bad throughout the War Sea that chaos was attracted to the entirety of it and caused magic pollution to rise, allowing atlanteans to enter?
Order Of Aesir:
Aesir could have discovered the potential of magic pollution to be used as an energy source, trying to construct a machine to harness it only for it to horribly fail?
AWE / Sea Beast:
Info: Sea monsters are attracted to sea curse users
Sea monsters of higher tiers are known to consume literall magic pollution to live & mutate, especially Alpha White Eyes. Resulting in those big fish being filled with pollution
1 - A extremely powerful sea beast could have died near the Bronze Sea specifically, releasing large quantities of magic pollution from their body.
2 - The Sea monsters are becoming more interested in regular seaâs due to the high amount of curse users and the battles they have, causing these sea monsters to adventure out of the dark sea while emitting large amount of magic pollution, leaving a trail of it that allows Atlanteans to enter the regular seaâs?
Idk if i was cooking with any of those, i just like AWE
I remember reading about curses actually behaving like well, curses, it was from a old trello : Lore encycopledia or somethiing which is outdated.
âIn the case of some of the strongest Elemental Curse Users, their mere presence may disrupt the environment and cause storms and other environmental disasters.â
i was thinking of making it that inside the A.U, Curses effects are much more potent due to the dark sea pollutions infiltrating the regular zones? Or chaos got involved and messed with curse users control of their own power
When a Sea Curse user stays near concentrations of populations or one area, theyâll begin bringing in the âCatastropheâ attributed to their element, the âCatastropheâ enhancing directly with how long they stay in that area & how many people are present. At a certain point, the catastrophe would trigger, causing a disaster related to the sea curse to occur.
External:
External Curses manipulate outside factors, so i guess the catastrophe for external curses would be that they enhance any disaster or event related to their curse. Tide Curse would be enhancing the tides and cause enormous tsunamiâs they cannot themselves control
Elemental:
Elemental Curses Catastrophe manifest directly around them or come off the user, reducing the control of their own power.
Using the Fire Curse could lead to its user randomly shooting out fire balls depending on how.
Death Curse would result in the user slowly spreading diseases imbued with their curse power, which grow stronger the more âCatastropheâ they bring.
Fire Curse would randomly set ablaze things nearby
Glass Curse would cause shards of glass to grow inside those nearby
And so on
