It is 3000 years past the conclusion the The Planeswalkers, and it is high time for a sequel to the story that the author is happy with.
While writing Twins of Destiny, I came to the realization that I would probably never be able to cover the span of the mass continuum that I had planned for the LEA at the rate I was going. I have confessed numerous times to having an overactive imagination, but it was when I began conglomerating with a few other well known authors (Nanaki, Nightsong, Cain and NeoKefka, in the order I ‘joined’ with them) that my universe began to get out of control. This was mostly due the fact that it was by no means only my universe anymore. It had become the universe of four other extremely talented authors as well. And, especially following my extended conversations and growing friendship with Nightsong, I realized that we had created far more than could be encompassed in any amount of writing that either of us would get done within the time that we were still pursuing merely an undergraduate education.
It was coming to this realization that led me to also conclude that the amount of story which I wanted to encompass could never be told by writing tales that took place a mere two years apart, as it was with Planeswalkers and the Twins of Destiny.
The LEA, of whose creation The Planeswalkers was designed to lead up to, ended up existing for over 1500 years, as did Lathain of Zeal and his endeavors to eliminate the Lavoids once and for all. To be able to tell the individual quests and adventures each in novelized form (one being what Twins of Destiny was designed to do) would not only be impractical, it would also prevent me from telling the full breadth of stories that I and the other authors had created.
So, Twins of Destiny, a story which I feel was (and still is) promising, needed to be bypassed in order to allow me to get on with the epic of the LEA, Lathain, and his descendents.
This new story, therefore, is as much a sequel to The Planeswalkers as Starcrossed is to Chrono Continuum or Tempo Trigger is to the Origin/Aftermath of Mount Woe. The only difference is that I am not dealing with the same characters; I am merely dealing with the same elements. In this regard, it is the best way of fleshing out the Multiverse (Word of Imagination) that I write in. There is still so much that needs to be covered with respect to the origins of the Lavoids, the Eldar, the Queens, the Finori, Zohar and Deus (yes, Zohar and Deus), the Dominion and the Union, the rise and fall of the LEA, and, most importantly to this tale, Lathain’s son, Duncan.
For those of you who were enjoying Twins of Destiny, I have every intention of continuing to write it. In the prologue of this new epic, the history of the LEA is outlined, including the events of the Celes Incident, so you will find out what happened, but I’ve left it as vague as possible to simply provide the most crucial info. So, fear not, Twins of Destiny will be continued alongside this new story.
Night and Cain and Nanaki and Kef and I have spent countless hours discussing this continuum so that its full encompassment can be paralleled to that of the worlds of Tolkien or Jordan: fantasy worlds that you can become immersed in.
Also, I realize that I’ve thrown out the words World of Imagination pretty liberally, assuming that you already understand what they mean. Looking to what my collaborators have written about it, I see a lot of “Ask Mox what this means.” So, what better place to explain it than at the beginning of a new story? Of course, it’s explained on the website which is always available to be linked to (http://members.tripod.com/worldofimagination), but since no one wants to take the time to click and look, I may as well explain it again here.
The World of Imagination takes its roots from when I started to refer to the Origin of Mount Woe while I was writing The Planeswalkers. I had always been fascinated by Nanaki’s fics, and so when he let me tie into them, I jumped at the chance. All the events which take place in Zeal in The Planeswalkers, you’ll notice, match up to the events in the Origin/Aftermath of Mount Woe. Then again, I doubt there’s a person on this page who hasn’t read those works, so if you’re reading this and you read The Planeswalkers, you probably know what I’m talking about anyway.
Through my writing of the Planeswalkers, I started to collaborate with another guy by the name of Nightsong. Some of you may not remember the time before he was a big-shot moderator on the forums and regular at the IRC meetings, but it was around then that we started to work together. Dark Angel took off around this time, with inspiration and concepts taken from both Nanaki and myself. Night and I then decided to just write our stories together when we discovered we had a lot of similar theories, anyway (the most notable being Chaos, a concept which we had created separately, our theories turning out to be nearly identical).
Since I was working with Nanaki and Nightsong was working with me, Nanaki and Nightsong were sort of working together, too. I think I ended up getting credited with the creation of the World of Imagination because of this, but we’ll say it was more a group effort.
Skimming along, when I finished the Planeswalkers, Nanaki thought the LEA was a cool concept and asked me if he could play around with it. Of course I said yes and with Nanaki’s use of my concepts, the worlds really ran together. Around then, Cain also joined up with us, Cain and I worked out some continuity issues, and the things gelled nicely.
I should note that Cain and Nanaki write in slighty alternate timelines, as they both use Magus in their differing fics. Other than that, since we were all using different characters, we avoided stepping on each others toes and used each other’s over-active imaginations to really flesh out the world. NeoKefka joined the ranks about six months later, his fic Kami Trigger bringing in more concepts and worlds to the Multiverse.
Currently, the world is encompassed in nine different novels (complete and incomplete) spanning Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Xenogears, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, and SaGa Frontier. We deal with an entire galaxy with governing bodies, culture, magic, war, and a history dating back to the Creation. The overriding forces that bear on our universe, Order and Chaos, the Ethereals and Dark Ethereals, are present in all our stories, and we proudly claim to the most developed fantasy world on Icy Brian’s page.
For the best understanding, you should probably read the stories in the following order, as this was the rough order in which the ideas were built on each other. The ones which slashes can be read in either order:
1: Origin/Aftermath of Mount Woe
2/3: The Planeswalkers/Chrono Continuum
4: Dark Angel/Twins of Destiny
5/6/7: Tempo Trigger/StarCrossed/Flames of Vengeance
Well, I’m done for now, as its time to move on to the story. I hope that is helps add to your enjoyment of the universe that we have created (and entertains you a bit, as well). I know just telling you that it is going to be good won’t really help, so just take my word for it and get on with reading it. The writing (getting better each day) hopefully speaks for itself.
So get on with it! Go read! If you haven’t read Dark Angel or Chrono Continuum, go read those too! All the books make more sense if you read them together, probably the best in the above listed order, so get reading! Until later, may you never hit writer’s block and may your computer never crash,
Peace Always,
Mox