Copywriting for Games: Mystic Searches (one sheet with lore introduction)

The goal with this copy was to give the player narrative perspective in under 500 words.

Myrinda. Playground of deities. The fabled continent where the makeup of corporeal reality is still malleable. To the mundane world, sacred accounts of the strange land are no more than a collection of allegories on which the world’s cultures were founded. But make no mistake, the place is real, as is all of its wonder.

As the oldest stories tell it, the Paramicha Darane (translated loosely as the Age of Wonder, and more directly as the old stories of superstition) saw brave explorers from long extinct races converge on Myrinda’s shores. They came to cheat death, or to create life. They came to heal the sick, or to curse the fortunate. They came to learn the secrets of divination, or to take militant command of their fate. They came to find balance, or to invoke entropy. They all came with personal motivations, and they all recklessly tapped supernatural agencies with no regard to consequence.

As word spread of the region’s magical properties, the scattered, rumor-fueled pilgrimages became mass migration. The sparse, supernatural wells were torn open. Whether the response came from external deities or from the elements or from nature itself, the consequence was violent and beyond explanation. The global cataclysm known as the Samudaripen consumed the world. Entire civilizations were lost. The Age of Wonder ended. As the generations passed and the embers of memory went cold, stories of Myrinda and its magic devolved into myth.

Which is the exact intent of its protectors. After the Samudaripen, Myrinda was vacant save for those who were capable of the strongest communion with the mystical elements. A rigorous, dogmatic order was established. Rigid boundaries were created. Individual caretakers took on the responsibility for magic within each boundary. Each caretaker acted as both vanguard and regulator. These were the first of the Mystics, and through thoughtful discipline and careful control, they have existed as custodians of magic, keeping Myrinda safely hidden from the world for generations.

But not everyone in Myrinda values the strict, regimented control over the world’s magic. Racial rivalries have divided the population. The wildlife has become restless and aggressive. Politicians have marginalized the salience of magic entirely. And a rogue cult has been infiltrating all communities, spreading a manifesto which seems aimed at undermining faith in the order of the Mystics.

From the Celestial Observatory at the Sage Lakes, Mystic Paen reads the warning spelled across the night sky. The pattern in the stars warns of something ominous. Something that the Mystics will be powerless to prevent. And in the stars, he reads that Julian, the young vagabond who hears the song of the world, will have a vital part to play. This is where our story begins.