Ekkalis Central
Overview
Ekkalis is a small, but complex, world. Filled with the magic of life and death, the human world has begun to expand beyond the limits of their homeland, Ukkan Isle, forced to remain isolated without the true ability to fight back against the Okkenan who occupy the Open Expanse. The human world is run by skilled Oath Assassins, the Factions reigning over Ukkan Isle as time spins and The Imikka toy with humanity. Magic is both used and forbidden, costing a life when weilded by human hands. But, all is not as it seems, as humans still have a fighting chance. A winning chance. That is, if they can first unite as one against their enemy.The Cycles
Read More
The time system within Ekkalis is based on the cycles of the Imikka. While the cycles are known to be connected to the rise and fall of the groups of the Imikka, the way that humans record said cycles seems to vary based on each of the Imikka.The Cycles are unique as, when it's time, the change spreads across Ukkan Isle almost instantly. I've got no idea why, but it happens without fail every cycle.
The Okkenan
Overview
The Okkenan are the Immortals that stalk Ekkalis, given the power of Arcanics and immortality. Each Okkenan has a unique ability, an aspect of the natural world, that they have control over.
Born with the belief that they are greater than humans because of their immortality, the Okkenan take enjoyment in messing with the lives of humans.
They think that they're better than humans, they feel that Arcanics are their gift as Oathseekers are ours. They enjoy messing with our lives because of it, a reminder to them that they are Gods to us.
Read More
Imikka
The Imikka are a key part of the understanding of time, the shifting of their ranks being key to the Cycles. How their new members are conveyed to humans is mainly unknown, but the information quickly spreads across humanity.
The main power of the Okkenan, The Imikka are a group of the most powerful Okkenan known for being the pantheon of Gods worshiped by humans. The Imikka are regarded as the most powerful of the Okkenan of the time, considered the most dangerous to humanity.
Little is known about how The Imikka are chosen or why their ranks change at all when the Okkenan are an immortal species. Despite these unknowns, The Imikka remain the most well known Okkenan.
Read More
Arcanics
Overview
Arcanics is the Magic used in Ekkalis. In simple terms, Arcanics is the use Arcanics Energies to influence the world. Used by both Okkenan and Human Arcanists, albiet to different degrees, Arcanics is one of the most important parts of Ekkalis.
However, Arcanics can be used in a number of different ways depending upon the source and desired effect. Standardly, Arcanics will be used by sourcing from either Bloodstones or Oathstones but there are also a number of different variations upon these methods.
Not included here is information on Bloodstones and Oathstones. Each are the sources of Arcanic Energy. All information on them is detailed and thus only provided in the linked articles.
Read More
Variations of Arcanics
There are 3 main variations of Arcanics, though with different purposes. These are Dark Arcanics, Blood Arcanics, and Oathseekeres. The first two are simply unique ways in which Arcanics can be summoned, diverging from the standard way. The latter, however, is far more important as it is the main method of Arcanics used by humans.Read More
Dark Arcanics
Dark Arcanics involve using one's own life-force to summon Arcanics, most often correlated to killing as Dark Arcanics were rarely used for more standardized purposes such as manipulation of the natural world. The most common usage involved directly manipulating a target's body to remove a Bloodstone.
Dark Arcanics is the only known cause of Breaking, a deadly disease known for it unique effects.
Blood Arcanics
Blood Arcanics were vastly less well known and widely used as Dark Arcanics. This stems from the fact that Blood Arcanics provide such little Arcanic Energy that it only can be used for summoning Oathseekers.
Another banned practice in the world of Arcanics, Blood Arcanics require the sacrifice of blood, representational of the life force stolen from. The effects of Blood Arcanics are lesser than Dark Arcanics as it provides less energy, however, the use of Blood Arcanics is still forbidden.
Oathseekers
Read the article for more detailed explanations: Oathseekers
Oathseekers are the main form of human Arcanics. The name of both the item and the form of magic, Oathseekers are swords summonable via Bloodstones. While using Arcanic Energy, Oathseekers are standardly considered to be a different form of magic due to their unique properties. This especially stems from the fact that Oathseekers are physical objects with the occasional magical property in the form of their stances.
The Factions
Overview
The Factions are the main government organizations ruling over humanity. Each is closely tied with an assassination organization, the two groups closely connected in their actions. The Factions each arose with one of the assassination organizations, controlling a different section of land on Ukkan Isle. While the factions are all on positive terms with each other, holding meetings occasionally to discuss important events, each faction runs on its own laws, rules, and cultural concepts having diverged over the numerous centuries. The factions each work on their own as well, known for constantly waging hidden political wars and redefining borders as the assassination organizations work to remove the others from power.The Three Factions
Appearing in order of creation
The Faction
Founded during the Second Cycle by Lilimer Kark and her then-husband, The Faction was the first Faction to form originally controlling all of Ukkan Isle with a steel fist.
Following the rise of the other two factions, The Faction now controls the North-West third of the continent as well as a small island just off the coast.
Date of Founding
15 i2
Associated Assassination Organization
Assassins' Guild
The White Faction
The first rebellion able to win, the White Dagger rose during the beginning of the Third Cycle. Their founding was lead by Opal Shou, who used her connection with Lilimer Kark to prevent the The Faction from continuing to fight back.
The White Dagger now owns the South-West half of Ukkan Isle as well as two islands in that area.
Date of Founding
54 i3
Associated Assassination Organization
White Dagger
The Black Faction
The Black Faction is the most recent faction to rise, being born only around 48 years prior to the current date. Due to this, it is still stumbling to find a balance of power and jobs on Ukkan Isle.
Following their victory over both The Faction and the White Faction, the Black Faction was give a large expanse of land along the Eastern coast and inward.
Date of Founding
1368 i5
Associated Assassination Organization
Black Cloaks
Meta
The following section of the article delves into the behind-the-scenes information as well as begins to break the general third-person, professional writing style I uphold.
The Purpose of Ekkalis
Ekkalis is presently my main novel setting. I've been working on a few different writing projects, consisting of one novelette and a future novel. The development that has occurred in the world, to this point, has been focused on preparing for my novel projects.
The Future of Ekkalis
This world presently hasn't been involved in any of the community challenges, mostly based on inspiration and the subject. However, for as long as I am using this world, I will likely join in challenges as I get the inspiration.
RPG Features
I am aware that a heavy focus of World Anvil is for the creation of gamemastery and tabletop games, however, as I have no experience in this field, there are no current plans for any such features. If any people would like to use the setting for any type of tabletop game, feel free to contact me for further information.Navigating the World
Navigation is a major part of Ekkalis' design. I have, yet again, made heavy use of containers to create the navigation containers along the left side of the screen. There are currently between 4 and 8 navigation features made to inform the reader of information regarding the world.Constant Tabs
The first panel is the "Search Bar," which has been relocated for ease of access. No other features have been changed, meaning the tab simply pulls out and the search feature works as normal. The second design using a compass, , is the article navigation where I place links for jumping to specific header or back to the top. Since all my articles make use of custom-made headers, I have chosen to creative per-article navigation. While this feature isn't useful for initial reading, the main purpose it to allow old readers to selectively re-read specific sections of information. The atlas navigation panel, , is the main form of world navigation. The "World Table of Contents" has been placed within the container, allowing reads to jump through articles as they read without requiring the links in-article.
The final constant tab, making use of the , is the "Settings" tab. In this tab, all of the self-assignable roles appear. Presently, the only self-assignable roles only are used to alter the tabs that appear on the left.
The current roles are "Updates" and "Featured"
The settings tab will continue to appear for an undecided amount of time. The limitations that are important to understand come from my current guild rank, Grandmaster, as I only have 20 subscriber slots. Should my world continue to grow and I run out of available slots, I will remove this tab and simply have the following tabs always appear.
Opt-in Tabs
The first opt-in tab is the "Updates" tab, appearing with the (Bell) icon. This tab will be used for updates to the world meaning the promotion of new features, updates on writing projects, and other important notes including future plans. The second tab, making use of the medal, , icon, is the "Featured" tab. The articles included are those that I am the proudest of, appearing in reverse order of creation. These articles are meant to be a way to get an initial opinion on the world and find featured articles. Based on the [userstate:follower] vs the [userstate:notfollower], the following tab, using the icon, encourages those new to the world to follow for more content. This disappears once following and is intentionally unobtrusive, meant to simply be an additional remind. The final icon may or may not remain depending on future CSS developments. Because of the design of the world, the letter spacing and other features of article templates are based on a PC design. The CSS slightly breaks on mobile, thus a red notification appears at the bottom of the tabs as a reminder to use PC viewing mode whenever possible.Understanding Containers
Throughout the world, I use a large number of custom containers. These are designed to create a more interesting appearance on first glance, meant to pull a reader in and create a deeper sense of engagement within the world. There are currently 6 main containers that I make use of, listed below.
Quotes
Quotes are useful to get a sense of character and an in-world view of the features being written about
Aloud
Aloud are used as notifications; occasionally, they are used to highlight key prices of information
Container 1 -- Facts
Fact containers originally were meant to serve the purpose of adding pieces of related information that don't quite belong in the given article's main content. However, as they developed, they now also are used for adding additional information to the main article.
Container 2 -- Text Excerpts
Text excerpts are exactly as they sound, pieces of the written work within the world. This gives a sense of the world and character where used.
Container 3 -- Caption
Captions are used in character articles, placed underneath character portraits to give an image of what characters are like.
Container Combination
Occasionally used with [container:col-sm-4] to recreate sidebars, these panels are useful for stating direct information in lists or linking to other articles, as seen in this article.
Navigation
The Navigation of this article has intentionally been broken down into two parts: Overview and Meta. This is because the article has in-world summaries as well as meta information on the world. Navigate through the information as you feel the need. Return to TopOverview
Meta
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments
Author's Notes
Thanks for reading and welcome to Ekkalis. In an addition to the information provided in Navigating the World this section is a good place to always check for navigating advice as I will be linking related articles here in the future.