The World of Darien
Total Annihilation: Kingdoms is set in Darien, a world that was once ruined by magic and then learned to fear it. The story is told in the game's manual, The Chronicles of Darien, and in a lore atlas installed with the game.
The Kingdom of Kandra
Long ago, Darien was ruled by the Kandrans, a people who had mastered mana, the power behind all magic. Five Wizards ruled them through magic and a code called the Laws of Life.
The Wizards worked their magic at sacred sites marked by circles of standing stones. These sites still hold their power, and in the game every house builds its Lodestones on them. The Kandrans also owned the Heart of Thesh, an artefact of great power.
When mana was used on a huge scale, it sometimes left behind a rare mineral called mogrite. Mogrite gave great magical power and a very long life. The Kandrans set the only five mogrite stones ever found into the Five Legacies:
| Legacy | Stone | Stands for | Later held by |
|---|---|---|---|
| A pendant | Stone of Darien | Earth | Elsin of Aramon |
| A bracelet | Soul of Kandra | Wind | Thirsha of Zhon |
| A sceptre | Angvir's Flame | Fire | Lokken of Taros |
| A ring | Macha's Tear | Water | Kirenna of Veruna |
| The Throne of Ludd | Modron's Eye | The whole world | Garacaius |
The Great Calamity
The Wizards passed the Legacies between them every year. Over time they learned that the stones also gave near-immortality, and that Modron's Eye was the strongest. The same Wizards ruled for generations, and they began to compete for the throne.
Exactly 427 years after the Wizards took the Legacies, disaster struck. For a moment the laws of nature stopped working, and nearly all life in Darien died. No record shows who or what caused it.
The few survivors came to hate magic, and started a new calendar on the day of the Calamity. Over thousands of years the land healed and the tribes found each other again. Magic remained a shameful subject.
Garacaius
On the last day of the Fourth Millennium, a fisherman named Pesco found a baby boy alone in a forest by the shore. A pouch of strange grains was tied to the baby's foot. Pesco threw the pouch away, but he kept the child.
The boy, Garacaius, later studied at the Ugarit Academy in Taros. His final essay was about mana, and after it no employer would take him. He went back to Pesco and built a new kind of boat, with a deep hull and a sail.
After Pesco drowned, Garacaius sailed to the island of Irgiron. Its merchants paid him to build ocean-going ships, and he grew rich in the city of Estoril. He returned from a long journey to Zhon with a dark-haired woman named Lasha.
The Great Civil War
By then Darien was at war. The war began in Taros as a feud between two clans, and alliances spread it everywhere. It lasted 8 years.
A federation of islands that wanted peace chose Garacaius as its leader. It took the name Veruna, an old Kandran word for deep respect for the truth. Veruna took Zhon in the seventh year and invaded Taros in the eighth.
When the defenders of Elam, the capital of Taros, used magic against him, Garacaius answered with magic. A dark mist covered the city, and its people vanished. Garacaius became the Mage Emperor of Darien. He revealed that he held all Five Legacies, and swore in his Oath to Darien to use magic only in the greatest need.
The Four Children
Garacaius married Lasha, and they had four children. Years later, a sudden storm overturned the family's boat, and Lasha drowned. Garacaius could have saved her with magic, but he hesitated because of his oath.
Grief left him unable to rule. When the nobles demanded a change, he gave each child a realm and one of the Legacies:
| Child | Realm | Known as |
|---|---|---|
| Elsin, the elder son | Aramon, the most developed continent | Elsin the Fair, the Mage King |
| Thirsha, the elder daughter | Zhon, the wildest continent | The Huntress |
| Lokken, the younger son | Taros, an ancient and troubled continent | The Necromancer |
| Kirenna, the youngest child | Veruna, the island federation | The Sea Mage |
Ten years later, on the morning of the celebrations for the four coronations, Garacaius was gone. The Throne of Ludd stood empty, and Modron's Eye had been taken from it.
Darien When the Game Begins
The game starts 1,527 years after Garacaius disappeared. His children still rule, kept alive by their Legacies. Each realm now has its own god: Anu in Aramon, Lihr in Veruna, Belial in Taros and Tammuz in Zhon.
Darien is divided between West and East. Aramon and Veruna still keep their father's oath against magic, and grow strong through industry and trade. In Taros, Lokken uses magic openly and even reshapes the land. Thirsha of Zhon also practises magic, and defends Lokken's right to do as he wishes.
Old grievances divide them. Aramon and Veruna have fought over the barren land of Kuvera. Zhon pirates attack Verunan ships, and Taros and Aramon have fought several wars. As the game opens, all four monarchs are preparing for a new one.
Creon and The Iron Plague
The Iron Plague expansion adds a fifth house, Creon, a nation built on science and machines rather than magic. Its campaign takes the four monarchs into a war with Creon, told on The Iron Plague page.
The Atlas of Darien
The game also installs a lore atlas, a set of web pages in its atlas folder. Each realm has a different voice:
- Aramon: a guide to its cities, rivers and forests.
- Veruna: the travel diary of Horvino, a rich young man of Lendra, as written by his scribe Abel.
- Zhon: the journal of Ferrix the Finder, an adventurer who seeks a great emerald near Thirsha's hidden city.
- Taros: the memories of Grandmother Eder, who escaped from Taros as a girl and settled in Aramon.
Sources
- Total Annihilation: Kingdoms manual, The Chronicles of Darien (1999)
- The lore atlas in the GOG release of Kingdoms (the atlas folder)
- Game data extracted from the GOG release: units and their build lists
- Total Annihilation: Kingdoms, Wikipedia