The Great Northern Saga

The Great Northern Saga is a series (one that is planned to be incredibly long) of stories based on The History of the Great Knights and other groups in Cranium (Northern Inamorta), such as the Marrowkai and Rovalians. This will integrate at least two stories which have not been written by Pax Orderia, but are the founding basis of the series (at least for actual writing purposes) alongside Eclipse of the Knights - they are Juggerknight's Reminisce and The Last Wingidon. Here are all the books and stories in the series (including those that have been planned):

The Stories:

The Knight's Oath

• When almost all of his family and friends are slaughtered by the genocidal Serpentine, Belfaenar Rochir, the Great Knight, swears an oath of revenge that will forever shape the history of Inamorta for centuries to come.

Dead Winter

• The Serpentine are defeated. Victorious, the Great Knights begin constructing a nation of their own to cement themselves as the defenders of Inamorta. However, as tensions rise amongst the knights and mysterious events befall the capital connected to the discontent high mage Tarconencis, the new nation's future already hangs on the precipice.

A Little Gift (short story, by Pax Orderia)

• A recovering and vengeful Medusa begins her plans of Northern Domination, beginning with the fall of the leader of the Great Knights, orchestrated by several unwitting Dirvishes.

First Into The North

• Reunited at last in friendship, the Havik Kingdom and the Great Knights spearhead their first major expedition to the North in pursuit of knowledge and wealth, only to find nations crumbling at the hands of a newly-resurrected force of evil and darkness: Chaos.

Magi Libertatis

• Dissatisfied by the authoritarian control put in place to restrict unwarranted forms of magic, Lainnauth Maerocui travels far into the North, braving the horrors that await, in a bid to establish a new, free school of Magic, far away from the clutches of the Magikill.

The Nebulae

• Hired by the Dark Mage Maerocui, Jihng Hoeng Gu and her pirate fleet begin to carve out a secret slave trade in the Northern Oceans. But this is threatened by a single young rogue slave named Astrius Tianius, whose escape spells doom for the pirates, and indeed, the Dark Mages.

The Legend of Star Sky

• Following his wife's kidnapping and his village's destruction at the hands of his former slavers, Astrius Tianius embarks on his vengeful quest to bring about justice and be returned to his family. But all quests have their challenges, and soon Astrius and his companions venture deeper into the unknown lands of the North in their mission for revenge.

The Knights of the North

• Devoid of all hope, the remnants of Astrius' once infamous party stagger back home without their leader. Tracked by Dark Mages and betrayed rebels, the survivors will know the price of intertwining with the powers of the North, and now, so will the Great Knights.

False King

• Acting as a double for the Rovalian King, Ashangul, a struggling low class citizen, becomes ensnared into the malicious world of Rovalian politics, as the royal court struggles to balance progress and tradition in an age-old strict society of intolerance, loyalty and xenophobia.

The Last Wingidon (short story, by Simsim40, remastered)

• Negus, the son of the Rovalian king, reflects on his experiences of the Fall of Rovaltinny, his homeland, before his transformation to one of the first proto-Eclipsors.

Eclipse of the Knights

• Now experienced knights, Vince and his companions are summoned on the Eclipse Expedition to aid the distant Rovalians against an unknown threat. But this is incomparable to anything they have faced before. The Great Knights have found Chaos; their downfall begins.

The Night Is Dark

• In the face of an impending Chaos invasion, the Great Knights begin to fragment as factions vying for freedom, reform and conservatism all begin shattering the unity that once held them all together. In the midst of all the political turmoil before Chaos' arrival, the Knights must decide their own fate: join, fight or run from the darkness.

Final Dawn

• Having hid for years in the mountains, the Great Knights led by Halm Hallstav and Vince Sihanouk strive to resist Chaos occupation and build a new nation from the ruins of their old, corrupted system. The light must rise once more, but darkness will tolerate no such thing.

The Last Knights

• With the Resistance collapsing, Vince Sihanouk must come to terms with his accomplishments and the price of betraying his friends to uphold his dream of a new, uncorrupted state. Now, all of Chaos is out to finish him off once and for all.

Juggerknight's Reminisce (short story, by BINARY10101ERROR)

• Made immortal for his service to Medusa, Samson reminisces about his past life, the fall of the Great Knights, and how Chaos, not this foolish 'order', is the only way for Inamorta.

Trivia

• I first conceptualised this series from reading The Conquering of Chaos, a page on the older Stick Empires Wiki. Although some of the ideas could have been executed better, it formed the beginning of my interests in the north, and was the origin of the character of Vince, one of the most important characters in the Saga from Eclipse of the Knights onwards (being the main character for all of them), who will appear in all the books (although not the short stories) from The Legend of Star Sky onwards.
• The Legend of Star Sky was my first book idea of the series, from which I took inspiration from the Two Steps From Hell song "Star Sky" (a song which almost made me cry initially from its beauty). The lyrics would effectively determine the climax of the series, and Astrius Tianius, the main character of this book and The Nebulae, has name derivations from the words "Star Sky". After I read all the stories on this wiki, I formally decided that Vince, Samson and another character named Delphius would all be included as young pages or squires at the time, all essentially as cameos. Samson especially would be stealing artefacts as a young boy from the Great Knights, a complete reference to Juggerknight's Reminisce.
• The name of the saga itself was simply built from the focus of all of the stories: on the Great Knights, from their rise to their fall, and all of it occurring in the North of Inamorta, in Cranium. Hence, The Great Northern Saga was named.
• Eclipse of the Knights was the first book I ever had the courage to write, stemming directly from the existence of this wiki, particularly the stories of Juggerknight's Reminisce and The Last Wingidon, the former of which introduced the character of Samson to me. The combination of both ideas allowed the development of some of the Great Knight characters introduced in The Legend of Star Sky, including the son of Carolus Franciscus, Pepin. For more information on the story inspiration, see Eclipse of the Knights - Characters and Locations.
• First Into The North is currently being explored as a scenario for roleplay due to the wide-ranging possibilities for the exploration of the North, and therefore all three potential expeditions will be covered in the book. As of the 21st of May 2018, the Northern Expedition has begun as a roleplay scenario, with False Herodotus (that is, Pax Orderia) as the GM. On the 23rd of May 2018, this was moved to a new discussion post here, and once completed, will form the first section of the book, utilising the characters created by all of the current editors on the wiki who participated. As of the 17th of August, this has now been moved to the wiki's Discord server, but has since been pronounced dead after fizzling out in October 2018. It was moved to the archive section of the server on the 17th of March 2019.
• The title "Dead Winter" was first planned while listening to the Blind Guardian song "Noldor" AKA "Dead Winter Reigns" (you can see the similarities) based on J.R.R. Tolkien's Silmarillion (which was also the influence of The Knight's Oath), and it depicts the crimes of the Noldor, one group of Elves, against their own kind, which consequently leads to their banishment from the Undying Lands, which in effect, curses them. However, the actual concept behind Dead Winter was that Tarconencis would curse the Great Knights for the crimes he had perceived - especially the death of Tarramiso-Katos - and foreshadowing their downfall. This curse was more than a simple spell, since Tarconencis also conspired with Dirvishes to attack the Great Knights, beginning a long-running conflict between the two that would last until the destruction of the Great Knights by Chaos. As a result, "Noldor" can be sung from the switching perspectives of Tarconencis, Jygarn and possibly Tarramiso-Katos.
• There is a possibility of an additional story arc based around Parean, Nircurus and Rethdurk/Tarramiso-Katos, which covers their defection from Chaos some time after the events of The Last Knights. However, this is yet to be confirmed, due to the lack of a developed plotline.
• False King was developed while brainstorming ideas for the Rovalian King, the politics of Rovaltinny and discussions about Amharia, an illegitimate child of the king, who would have been lynched had she been exposed, with trusted aides of the King. Eventually, the idea of Ashangul being a double for the king came to mind (hence being a false king, and foreshadowing his later insane claims to be the actual king), and that he discovered how Amharia was an illegitimate child, and was mentally tortured as a result. However, the reason for this was because the King was unwilling to kill him - one of his aides much have had the brutality to find other ways to suppress the rogue Ashangul other than kill him, and isolation was not on his mind. A name sprung to mind: Arcturus, an Eclipsor general introduced in Stick War Heroes: War of Inamorta , something else I had read from the old Stick Empires Wiki, who was discriminated against for being an Eclipsor adopted into the House of Tolip.
• The title of "False King" draws influence from the Two Steps From Hell piece of the same name, which was originally just a nickname given to Ashangul.