Locked inside a royal crypt...is the founder of Boletaria. The Last Hero:
Old King Doran. The Last Hero is Old King Doran.
King Doran is the everlasting one, founder of Boletaria and protector of the Two Swords.
Hah hah, of course, only according to legend! But for him to be a hero, there must have been a
crisis all those years ago..and the most likely scenario is that Wyverns were terrorizing the
land. Doran's jewel set bronze armour, is highly resistant to fire damage..as is the brushwood set,
an "old armour owned by the Boletarian Royal Family since long ago."
The brushwood set is intentionally painted the colour of brushwood,
suggesting it might have been coloured this way to disguise the wearer as kindling..when in reality,
they were the opposite. With the dragons baited, they could then be dispatched. After all..
Foolhardiness, aptly wielded, is said to be the mark of a king.
And Doran had all the marks of a king indeed. His weapon, the Northern Regalia, requires strength,
dexterity, comprehension, and conviction to wield..and just as well - for this sword
was left in this world to represent a choice. It's a weapon made up of two blades - Soulbrandt,
a weapon for those who seek soul power at the expense of others, and Demonbrandt,
a demon-rending blade that represents the clarity of man., and rejection of soul power.
Doran speaks on the power of souls, and likely understood the temptation that comes with them.
So in the years to come, Soul Arts, and the choices they presented, would remain hidden.
It was safer for mankind to be ignorant. And so, after the need for his superhuman
strength had faded, he entombed himself with the two swords. The Key would remain with the
Boletarian Royal Family..but Doran himself, a veritable demi-god..would pass into legend.
But in the dark state of our land, legends are all we can depend upon…
No thanks to Boletaria, the world saw the rise of Monumental civilisation, a magic-based society
that "controlled the world" owing to their mastery of the soul arts. In their insatiable pursuit of
power, they discovered the Old One, and worshipped it as an unfathomable deposit of Soul Energy.
Alas, this lust for power was exactly the warning posed by Soulbrandt..and it awoke the Old One,
marking the beginning of the First Scourge. Demons ravaged the world, amassing countless
souls, and covering the world in a deep, impenetrable fog.
By the time the Monumentals had fought off the demons and led the Old One back to slumber,
the world as they knew it was lost. But Boletaria, had survived.
In order to mend the fabric of what land still remained, we entrusted six leaders with six
precious Archstones. ...
One to the king of a small, yet industrious land...
In the original Japanese text, rather than the king being "industrious", the king is called
"Ambitious". This is an important distinction..for an ambitious king would have envied the control
the Monumentals once held over the world..and spied a chance to take it for himself.
For the time of the Monumentals had passed - and the Soul Arts had been banned,
so that their mistakes could not be repeated. But Boletaria didn't need soul power - they never had.
Not since the days of Old King Doran, who had set in stone a legacy that represented caution against
the Soul Arts. Unlike the rest of the world, Boletaria had survived on their own strength,
fostering a culture of honour and discipline, and a strength in steel and stone. Now the titans
surrounding them were wounded fledglings, flailing helplessly without their magic.
Who can blame the fox to pounce? Over the span of twelve generations,
the bloodline of King Allant worked to expand this small nation. We see evidence of their conquest in
most areas of the game, after all. In Stonefang, miners fuel the Boletarian war machine, extracting
and forging ore under the watchful eye of the fat officials. In Latria, the King's own son
has departed with some of their rarest treasures, and a legendary archer from the Shrine of Storms,
now commands her phalanx for Boletaria. Generations of war gave rise to many famous
heroes - Alfred, the Tower Knight..a mobile fortress. Metas, the Penetrator, a walking
cavalry..and recently, his Majesty's Twin Fangs - Biorr, master of the Greatsword..and Vallarfax,
who held both wit - and the blade. Heroes to inspire the common troops,
who head off to war, clad in iron, and clutching their blue lotus..a token from their loved ones,
who pray they do not bleed out in battle. But not all soldiers in Boletaria
drop the blue lotus.. These "dreglings" are actually called
"slave soldiers" in the original Japanese. They are the lowest of the low - victims of conquest,
mercilessly sent back into war by their new masters. In fact,
the one dregling who speaks on the matter comments slyly that the demons themselves,
may make better masters, for at least the demons don't send them into impossible battles.
But hell, at least the demons don't send us to our deaths in battle!
But what choice do they have? Stationed on the castle outskirts are the execution grounds, where
the King's own executioner Miralda is tasked with eliminating his enemies. Defy his Majesty's will,
and Miralda will make an example of you - with many a slave soldier already condemned
to become a raging spirit, even in death. You wretched traitor to the king!
So they stitch themselves up, and strew together what defenses they can scavenge - living corpses,
paving the way for the.."great heroes" of Boletaria.
The king, his knights and his subjects were modest and plain, but also steadfast and compassionate.
I have spent much time in my studies in the cultured countries of the south, yet
no country holds my heart as does Boletaria.” History is written by the victors, after all.
May light shine upon our Lord and our proud Boletaria!
By this point, magic, and the soul arts, were but a distant memory. Yes,
Boletaria had thrived without their use - but their other
sins had become too numerous to count. Slave soldiers, conquest, deception.. This
is the legacy King Allant the Twelfth inherited on the day of his coronation. To his credit,
it is said that he cared for his subjects, and fought valiantly on their behalf..but remember:
Boletaria is the conqueror..not the conquered..and Allant was facing pressure to expand the kingdom,
as his fathers had done before him. honour and chivalry would have to be
put aside - for there were still frontiers yet to conquer, and he had a familial duty to see
it through. Twelve generations of Allant kings had led to this point by any means
necessary..and by all means, it would continue. And so, for the first time in twelve generations,
he decided to take up a sword from the Old King's Mausoleum.
But which would he choose? His hand passed over Demonbrandt, to pull Soulbrandt from its grave,
keeping it ever by his side. There were no demons where he was slaying, after all..only men.
His path from here was to become increasingly lonely: by the time he reached old age,
only two were left in his life: his son, Prince Ariona..and Rydell, Lord of the Frontier.
Despite being middle-aged, Lord Rydell is referred to as "Little Allant", implying that he is the
elderly King's younger brother, or a similarly close relative. He certainly takes on less
responsibility than King Allant - donning dirty leather instead of royal garb, and enjoying more
of a reputation as an adventurer, than a Lord. For there is a legend associated with Rydell.
It is said that the weapon he wields, the Phosphorescent Pole..was stolen - from a
witch in the sky. These words bring the Maiden in Black to mind. A witch, who favours a long pole,
living in a sky temple that hovers above a hinterland of icy mountains..
The exact same mountains, that Rydell was stationed to look over. It's too perfect.
All evidence points towards the King venturing to this land, and the two brothers staging a raid - a
heist upon the temple, to take from them as they had from so many others. But what the elder Allant
saw there, changed everything. The King learned about the “soul”
and could see the potential it carried all around him. With this knowledge, he returned
home to share these “soul arts” with his subjects, and sorcery spread like wildfire, once again.
Spells and magic rings exploded in popularity and began leaking out across the continent.
Having finally embraced the power of the soul, Boletaria flourished like never before, so much so
that even poor commoners could afford luxuries like jade. If Allant cared for the impiety
inherent in him propagating these soul arts, their utility far outweighed it. By every other metric,
Boletaria was undeniably better off. Within this new era of discovery, Prince
Ariona embarked upon on his own investigation, this time to tour the more advanced countries
to the kingdom’s south. To learn unimpeded, the royal dressed as your average knight in the region
by the name “Ostrava”. But to be safe, his father sent one of his Twin Fangs as an escort, leaving
Biorr to become the best known user of his weapon and armor over other Boletarian knights. With the
warrior’s companionship abroad, the prince acquired all manner of strange inventions
both mundane and magical alike. Everything seemed to be going so well..but was it, really?
King Allant the 12th stood in his tower, finally looking back at his own shadow.
And it was ugly. An empire built on the ambition of his bloodline,
rooted in generations of cruelty and bloodshed. This was the rotten legacy he inherited,
and he was had done nothing to stop it. He was now totally alone - his son was abroad,
his wife is never mentioned, and so must be assumed to be dead or absent..and Little Rydell
is last seen in Latria, locked up in a cell. His disaffection with humanity reflected in his royal
appointments - The Kingdom's day-to-day operations were being run by the Fat Officials, openly shady
sycophants who were only too happy to indulge their King's apathy for his kingdom..abusing
their subjects at home, and abroad. On the day of his coronation, Allant had
chosen Soulbrandt, the bane of men. With none abroad left to conquer, he turned
his attention inwards, to his own kingdom. Allant had stolen the Soul Arts from the Nexus,
so it follows that the monumentals there would have warned him of the consequences. Beneath the
Nexus was an ancient evil, a poison God placed upon the world to combat man's own evil, should
they use the Soul Arts for their own power. "Surely you have seen for yourself… the pain
and suffering that fills this world! But fight poison with poison. God is merciful,
and so, created the Old One. Without even the protection of his knights, the
King departed for the Nexus, and unsealed the Old One.
Back in the time when I lived below Boletaria castle,
King Allant left on some strange business, then returned with horrible Demons in tow.
Soon, the land was ravaged by Demons and soul-starved madmen.
He had fought like a demon for the sake of this legacy - now
it was time he actually became one. The Old One will feed upon our souls, and put
an end to our tragic realm of existence!" However, fate toyed with him..for
Allant is not the demon atop Boletaria - instead, he became a wretched abomination, barely able to
lift himself off the ground. This Demon Form more accurately reflected his suffering..and
even if imperfect, he had still gained the powers of an Archdemon, and that was enough.
Within the fog, reality was whatever Allant made it - and so we see the demons of his imagination.
Artifacts like the Purple Flame Shield had pointed back to Wyverns for generations,
so Allant let them return, as demons. His new knights towered higher than ever,
and his most precious demon - a doppleganger, presided over it all.
Betrayed by their liege, each heroic knight was killed, save for Vallarfax, who escaped
to the fog’s edge. Despite the mortal injuries he suffered, the Twin Fang still managed to tear
open a fissure in the fog and warn the outside world of what transpired before he died.
Refusing to believe the revelations, Biorr entered Vallarfax’s tear only to be defeated by the
castle’s wyverns and black phantoms, the spirits of his friends enslaved by the very traitor who
corrupted them. With the warrior thrown in jail under the fat officials’ care and left to rot,
Prince Ariona never heard back and ultimately decided to enter the fog alone years later,
where his inexperience shines through. A dead-end? No! Help Me!
I'll never make it! I'll be killed! At least Biorr survives through his
incarceration, unlike Rydell who ended up dying in Latria’s prison, his resulting phantom soon after
recaptured in another cell. And while Biorr will eventually come to terms with the truth about the
King he admired, Ariona can’t accept what his father has become, and will take his own life
in the face of that reality. I began this quest to ask my father his reasons,
to drag him back to the path of righteousness. But it seems it was all in vain. *death*
Their King truly no longer cares for his subjects. He is happy to now stand by and
watch his kingdom burn, slowly starved of its souls as death and misery prevail.
Now the land is again beset by wyverns, requiring a hero to face them once more.
But in the words of Ostrava, "In Boletaria’s darkest hour,
legends are all it can depend upon"
And in the deep fog, the line between legend and reality is blurred. The hero’s spirit
can be roused from its slumber. His form can be made flesh, along with his fabled weapon
and armor. And he can be bound as the eternal guardian to the last sword in his crypt.
Demonbrandt - the sword Allant should have chosen from the very beginning. Only those equal to the
crown may take it, souls that rival a demigod. Well..are you worthy?