NCsoft Europe reveals the intriguing back-story to Lineage II's next instalment – Lineage II Chaotic Throne: Gracia. Lineage II is revered as the premier player-versus-player (PvP) MMO and, since its launch in 2003, has enticed more than seventeen million players worldwide.The goddess Eva so loved the world and its creatures that to protect it from the rising tide of monsters, she summoned the Kamael. Her desire was to bend their original god-killing purpose, and harness their immense strength to defend Aden. The results were, unfortunately, disastrous.

The awakening of the Kamael came at a high cost. To push them into the service of the Light shifted the natural balance of the universe. Just as there cannot be light without shadow, or summer without winter, so the benefits of the Kamael's service to Aden offset the balance elsewhere…

The Doom of Aden
Without warning, the easy confidence of the people of Aden was shattered. Sudden disasters were reported throughout the land: whole fields of healthy crops blighted overnight, unknown plagues laid waste to villages, and the weather itself became strange and unpredictable.

People began to pay attention to what they had previously dismissed as the ravings of the "lunatic fringe." Now those same dire prophecies of revelation and doom took on fresh and terrifying meaning. The sages sought to reassure the people, but their words lacked conviction—they had gazed into their crystal balls and read the cards; they too felt foreboding deep in their bones. Even the Orc shamans had prophesied that a long winter was finally about to descend.

The land's adventurers and other citizens had been having strange dreams, where they fought against endless hordes of shadowy enemies until overwhelmed. Some would wake up with headaches or wounds; some wouldn't wake up at all. The sages determined that the increasing tales of a dream world and the tales of prophecies had to be connected. They studied the bodies of the dream-killed and listened to the tales of the survivors. They offered a slew of competing and contradictory theories, speculations and conjectures, but there was one thing all agreed on: this was an omen of a great evil advancing towards Aden. To discover the exact nature of the threat, the sages feverishly scanned the stars and gazed deep into their crystals.

The Discovery of Kamaloka
It was a tremendous undertaking, but the sages' efforts finally bore fruit as the symptoms of the crisis revealed their true nature one by one. The deadly dreamland was, they determined, a realm created by the power of darkness. The sages named it "Kamaloka," the place between the real world and Hell. It was an apt name—the monsters encountered there, the Kaneus, were the stuff of nightmares.

The sages were unified in viewing Kamaloka as a threat. Some grasped the truth: it was a dimension that had broken off from the cosmic ether through the power of the goddess of death, Shilen. Although similar to the subterranean dungeons of the Seven Seals, it was far more dangerous—those, at least, were controlled by the Priests of the Seals—this hellish dimension was under no one's control. According to the Priests, the doomsday scenario centered around the possibility that the dark force ruling Kamaloka could join its power with the dungeons of the Seven Seals. If that happened, they said, it may rupture Shunaiman's great seal and threaten the very existence of the world of Aden.

The course of action was clear: Kamaloka must be stopped before it unites with Seven Seals.

Following the Giran Assembly, representatives of the Ivory Tower contacted the Priests of the Seals with the Assembly's demand: since this darkness threatened all life on the continent, the Priests must share their knowledge of the Seven Seals with the Wizards of the Ivory Tower. The Priests agreed. It was best to strike directly at the foe's heart, they said; better to defeat the enemy before it comes. The magicians at Hardin's Academy subsequently hired masses of dreaming adventurers and used them—inhumanely, perhaps—to find the best route to strike deep into Kamaloka.

Fortune smiled on their efforts, and through a series of favorable accidents they finally found the combination they sought. In fact, their results exceeded all expectations: they managed to create a new dimension adjacent to Kamaloka into which adventurers from this world could teleport. They named the discovery the Rim Kamaloka and adventurers actively attempt to enter from this point to defeat the evil that lurks within Kamaloka.

The Source of Darkness
To the west of Aden lies the land of Gracia. Ages ago, the empire of the Giants flourished here, but when they dared to rebel against the main god Einhasad, she smashed their civilization into ruination with the Hammer of the Stars., Gracia became infamous as the wretched place where Emperor Shunaiman of old Oren expelled the worshippers of Shilen. It is a hard, harsh, and barren land where survival is equally a matter of luck and skill.

Upon the death the first king of a unified Gracia, the throne was contested by Karneia, the king's heir, and Kuserus, the king's brother. The resulting civil war caused a new level of suffering for a people already accustomed to hardship. In the midst of these troubles, the darkness began to whisper to the people of Gracia. The worshipers of Shilen, long hidden but still faithful to their dark mistress, began to spread their gospel of destruction. Inexorably, their influence spread across the land and the seeds of discontent grew into hatred. Gracia was plunged into darkness and chaos, affecting animals, commoners, royals, adventurers, and even magicians.

Though she did not fully recognize its significance or origin, it was her anxiety over this supernatural darkness that prompted Eva to summon the Kamael. She did not realize that in Gracia, Shilen's realm was regrouping and descending upon the world until it was too late. Like the outermost ripple of a great wave, Kamaloka was simply the first indication in Aden of a far greater threat beyond its shores.

The land of Gracia had been reborn, as a land of darkness and death…

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