Drakan
Drakan is an action-adventure video game series developed by Surreal Software and set in a high fantasy world simply referred as Drakan by gamers. So far, only two titles have been published:
- Drakan: Order of the Flame (1999, PC)
- Drakan: The Ancients' Gates (2002, PS2)
As of 2015, there is still no further title in this series, and most likely none will ever be released, as Surreal Software, the owners of the Drakan series, were bought by Warner Bros. However, all of Surreal's IPs up until their prior purchase by Midway Games, went to previous publisher Sony Computer Entertainment, which would include Drakan.
World of Drakan
The world of Drakan is a fictional planet on which the two Drakan games above are based. It is a world of varied lands similar to our world and harbors a variety of life ranging from mighty dragons to humans. It is one of two planets orbiting a single sun and has four moons with its planetary neighbor, Sessool, always visible in both the day and night skies.
Not much is known about the history of the world before the Order of the Flame was established around 1000 years before Rynn was born, but the gist of the back story to Drakan: Order of the Flame below gives some idea.
Long, long ago, the world of Drakan was tormented by an endless war between all tribes and races, but the bitterest fight was that between Dragons and Humans, the two superior races of the universe. But after centuries of fighting, the two races came to realization that only a mutual peace is a key to the future and slowly ceased the hostilities. As a trust between Humans and Dragons grew, a new symbol of peace and mutual support was created – The Bond. The Bond is a magic ritual that binds a human and a dragon being so that their spirits become intertwined forever.
The Bonded formed the Order of the Flame, a voluntary organization of peacekeepers and evil-fighters (much like Jedi Order of Star Wars) that soon spread its philosophy all over the world. Thus began the Golden Age for Drakan. But humans cannot be happy for so long and very soon a secret society, the Dark Union, whose members strived for personal power rather than the equality proclaimed by the Bonded, was formed to destroy the Order of the Flame once and for all. By the end of the Golden Age, the Order was betrayed by the man, of whom nobody even dared to suspect a betrayal. Navaros, a brilliant war mage and a prominent member of the Order, was also a secret member of the Union and its self-crowned leader. He was the one who started the Dark Wars.
The Dark Wars have devastated the world of Drakan. The foul and evil creatures created by the Union have replaced animals and minor races. Whole continents were scorched but neither side was able to win. It was then that Navaros had used his last resort—by twisting and perverting the ancient Bond ritual he devoured the soul of his dragon companion, Keiross, and became a beast of dragon power and human cunning. The new Navaros was nearly invincible, but a mighty hero named Heron and his dragon companion Arokh were able to face him, armed with the Runeblade forged for the purpose with all the magic power that the Order had left.
In the last fight between the Order and the Dark Union, Heron thrusts the Runeblade into Navaros' heart while he was performing his final act of evil magic; after this, when the smoke cleared, both armies lay decimated, and where Navaros had stood, Heron lay dead in a smoldering crater with the Runeblade broken in two at his side. Arokh retired to a small cave deep in the mountains for eternal sleep. The remaining dragons soon followed his example. The Dark Wars were over and both Order of the Flame and the Dark Union were no more. At least, so it seemed back then.
After the war was over and the Dragons had retreated from the world, life on Drakan once returned to its pre-order state of lawlessness and chaos. The human despising alien race known as the Desert Lords banished from their homeworld of Sessool, one of the so-called "Demon Worlds" and Drakan's neighboring planet saw this as an ideal time to invade and soon took a strong foothold on the world quickly enslaving or killing most of the remaining human population. Unfortunately, some of Navaros's shock troops, the Wartoks and Grull became allies with the Desert Lords thus ensuring their triumph.
600 years later however, there were now two main groups of armies in the world; those supporting the Desert Lords and the other being the remnants of Navaros' Dark Union. A race of winged human like creatures called the Succubi had decided they had had enough of the Desert Lords and amassed a great plan to rid the world of them. They needed help however and this involved the bringing back of Navaros from the rift through which he was cast when struck with the Runeblade bourne by the warrior Heron. Navaros however, had only a spirit form and hence he needed a new body to inhabit, which through a long turn of events happened to be Rynn's brother, Delon. Succubi, like the Desert Lords also despised humans and Dragons (of the Order) and were supporters of the Dark Union.
This story formed the basis of Drakan: Order of the Flame where Rynn, after learning the whereabouts of Arokh's cave, eventually awakened him and they subsequently bonded. Together they defeated Navaros but at the cost of Delon's life. The sequel, Drakan: The Ancients' Gates follows on the story and tells us more about the Desert Lords with the ultimate goal of the game being to defeat them and re-establish the Order.
Creatures
Some of the native creatures to the planet consist of: Dragons (all breeds), humans, Succubi, Trogs, Orcs (Grull) and Wartoks. The scavengers and giants are genetically or magically, or in both ways, enhanced versions of other creatures and were created by Navaros's Dark Union. The Succubi, Grull and Wartoks were never evil and were converted by the Dark Union and many of them remained loyal to Navaros and his Union long after its demise.
Land
The world has several land masses. The largest continent called 'the great continent' covers the central area of one side of the planet. There is a central mountain range that runs from east to west which is where the Order of the Flame originated from. Rynn's village and Surdana are situated in the foothills of these mountains near the west coast.
There is a south eastern continent which is where Alwarren, the Succubi lair, Mount Tibor & Drakan City can be found. This is mainly a tropical climate and is where the final battle against the Dark Union took place 600 years before Rynn's time.
There is a northern continent, which covers the top of the planet and stretches down to almost meet the great central continent on its north western side. The Andrellian islands can be found in the short span of sea between these two continents. Ravenshold is on the southernmost tip of the northern continent.
The other two continents lie to the east and west of the central continent with the western one being unexplored and largely unknown to the inhabitants of the central continent. This continent can possibly harbor new species and civilizations unknown to the old and new Order of the Flame. The eastern continent is where Navros retreated to and is rumored to harbor vile magic and travel to this part of the world was forbidden by the Order of the Flame.