Requiem of a Black Sun Volume I: The Ebony Shogunate

Chapter II: The Otaku, The Princess, and the Personal Computer

The game of Siegstreit Online was a feat to be appreciated by even the least technologically savvy of society. Never before had a game developer come up with a map greater than the size of a decently large city or about 1300 square kilometers before Ragnarok Studios released plans for a map boasting of over 20 million square kilometers worth of playable landscape (not including bodies of water and sizable chunks of land added later on), all in stunning next-gen, ultra-realistic graphics.

The world of Siegstreit Online is set in the storied realm of Kveljastheim, a somewhat stereotypical fantasy world complete with all the works: swords, sorcery, and a whole smorgasbord of races. The land includes the typical mankind race, classified into a race known as the Demons, the Elves, the Descended, the Hunters, the Seraphim, and the omnipotent Banished Ones. Divided into four continents for each of the races excluding the Banished Ones and the Seraphim, Siegstreit Online revolves around the concept of online players banding together with their respective races in order to conquer the entire world map, bringing about an endgame of purportedly massive proportions.

Even after a year of release, while the Elven Dominion proceeds to encroach on the holdings of the Demons, the Descended, and the Seraphim, together with their conquered allies from once-splintered Southern Elven domains, the inferior Demon race continues to be embroiled in a brutal civil war between the Northern Empire and the former ruling party of the demonic continent, the Federation of the Twelve Tribes. Even still, no race seems to have made reasonable gains within the first year of gameplay given that they lack a true sense of unity and instead focus on levelling.

Each race has its own unique abilities in the game that are balanced evenly so that no single race has a definite advantage over the others. The well-trained members of Demonic factions are born with a Blood Rage ability which enables them to channel blood-borne demonic power into their bodies and manifest themselves into a true Demonic Warrior of old during battle; they also have the ability to hone this ability the more they train, allowing them to become more powerful each time. However, the inability of most warriors to have the power to use this ability severely limits the military progress of Demonic entities.

The Elves are born with the natural ability for increased diplomatic skill and proficiency with magic as well as archery but are subject to having significantly less damage resistance than the other races.

The Descended, a race of corrupted fallen angels from the Overworld before the conception of Kveljastheim, are born with the ability to fly given their hidden wings and have superior intelligence as well as many of the combat and magical attributes of the Elves. To combat their superiority, the Descended have a considerably smaller population, making the armies they can raise significantly lesser in numbers than those of the other races.

The Lycanids, as their name may suggest, are a race of mixed humanoid blood nomads who are advanced physically and instinctually beyond the capacities of mere humans and other races of humanoid origin. They were exiled from the lands of the various other races shortly after the Great Collapse and forced to life in the swampy forests of Kveljastheim on a hostile archipelago off the coast of the continent of Immelisia where the Descended and Seraphim share joint custody. The Lycanids are primitive yet skilled in combat and very knowledgeable of the world around them as well as the flora and fauna within it. They are born with the natural ability of superior strength and senses in addition to their skills with very heavy weapons; however, they are not as proficient in intellectual arts which limits their development as a nation.

The Seraphim are the 'failed experiments' of the Descended's attempts at creating a massive army of all-female super soldiers to overwhelm the gilded city-states of the Elven Dominion. They are proficient in both numbers and ability yet lacked the skill to maintain their subservience to their Descended overlords. After they were proven to be fully self-aware, they rebelled against the Descended using superior technology and formed their own military nation in the territory they seized during the war. Reports from the brave explorers that visit the dictatorial state (those who make it out alive) claim that they are white as snow in color and lack the wings of the Descended, although their technology is said to be centuries ahead of the other races. To balance this, they are given short life spans, relatively low damage resistance, and a lack of wings, hence, the ability to fly, as well as an inability to use any sort of magic.