Akiyama Universe

~~[ATTENTION] This world is HEAVILY outdated and updates are coming soon! Everything below is old old old.~~

Akiyama is a dark fantasy series heavily inspired by Monster Hunter, Bersek, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Shadow of the Colossus. It takes place in a medieval-like time and features a world dominated by 3 main races: Humanity (who evolved from apes), Iferna (who evolved from drakes), and Canis (who evolved from dogs).

The story follows a young Ifernian man who inexplicably wakes in the hollow darkness of an old ruin with seemingly no memory of who, what, or where he is. He finds his way out of the ruins to see that he is atop a mountainside, just one of many rolling off into the distance. After aimlessly wandering about while fruitlessly trying to recover any details about himself, he comes across an elderly human woman and her young adult grandson; both originally from a land far away, having come here years ago to start new lives. The woman insists on helping the confused Iferna, to her grandson's reluctance, and puts him to work on their farm while giving him a place to stay. In the absence of his name, the woman decides to give him the name "Akiyama", a word from her homecountry that translates to "Mountain in Autumn" because of his earthy-toned skin and vibrant orange hair, to which he gratefully accepts.

Many months later, the woman passes away, but not before pleading to Akiyama for him to convince her grandson, who has lived with her on their farm for nearly his whole life, to leave the farm after her passing and travel with Akiyama so that he may open up to the world and truly experience it, wherever he chooses to go. Determined to fulfill her dying wish in payment of her extensive kindness, Akiyama does just that and the two travel out into the countryside, hopping from town to town performing oddjobs for their locals, while Akiyama probes them for possible information to help him regain his memory. But his questions are only met with answers that raise even more questions: Why are there seemingly no others of his kind to be found anywhere? Why are so many humans hostile towards his presence? The answers would soon come to Akiyama, but in the form of a rude awakening from an ominous encounter...

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Humanity heavily populate the nation in both enormously expansive castle-cities and small country towns alike. In this universe, they're known for their technological prowess, with such technology harnessing the power of steam and combustion. The advancement level of their engineering is in a sort of fusion of The Renaissance and early Victorian era. Sword, armor, and arrows, horse-drawn carriages are still widely used, but gunpowder, steampunk, and other machineries are on the rise [early motors, early forms of automatic guns, and hot air balloons]. The general aesthetic of human civilizations are castle/kingdom cities with a gothic architecture. Humanity is the youngest of the 3 species. Their lifespans average between 70-100 years.

Iferna once lived similarly to humans, in small settlements and villages dotting the countryside to larger, decorated cities, though nowhere near as expansive as humanity's. However, all that is left of these settlements and cities are abandoned ruins, reclaimed by nature, or serving as refuge of other kinds of life. The Iferna, while not nearly as technologically advanced as humanity, are known for their mysterious abilities. Their lifeblood, known as vigor, is a highly volatile substance posessing many incredible, strange properties. On the inside of an Iferna's body, vigor remains in a liquid state like blood while flowing. If released outside of the body, vigor quickly ignites into a fiery, sometimes even plasma-like substance. The Iferna have developed ways to conduct and manipulate their vigor throughout their body, bending it to their will to assist in feats of great physical strength, endurance, and agility that seem almost supernatural in nature. A much higher understanding of one’s vigor could even allow accelarated bodily regeneration, extended longevity, and the altering of one’s body. Iferna are the middle-oldest of the 3 species. Their lifespans differ depending on their sub-race, but typically reach at least 200 years.

Canis live all across the nation in small settlements and tribes. They have remained somewhat primitive throughout their entire existance and are even far less technologically advanced than the Iferna, building their settlements and villages out of wood and using tools of crude metal and stone. Despite this, the Canis have remained versatile in nature thanks to their masterful skill in taming and utilizing animals and creatures of all kinds, including drakes which are notorious for resisting any kind of domestication by any other race. Their close relationship and proximity to the fauna of their world has granted them extensive knowledge about nearly every creature known that surpasses even humanity's obsessive studies and research. Canis are the oldest of the 3 species. Their lifespans average between 30-50 years.