(Seiken Densetsu 1.5)
An unofficial WorldBook for the Returner Final Fantasy RPG
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| Using the power of Mana,
a civilisation had grown strong... In time, Mana was used to create the ultimate weapon: the Mana Fortress... This angered the gods. They sent their beasts to destroy the Fortress... A violent war rocked the world, and Mana seemed to disappear... Before all was lost, a hero with the Mana Sword smashed the Fortress... Though the civilisation had been destroyed, the world was peaceful again. But time flows like a river... and history repeats... - Secret of Mana All the information contained within these pages is the result of a very strange idea I had whilst reading messages from two different mailing lists. One of them was the list for the Returner Final Fantasy RPG. The other was the Star Wars RPG Mailing List. The main topic of discussion on the Star Wars list was, as you might expect, The Phantom Menace. This set me off thinking. Everybody on the entire planet was going nuts over a film in which they knew what was going to happen. A lot of the plot "surprises" would be obvious to anyone who had seen The Empire Strikes Back; Anakin Skywalker, aspiring Jedi, is taken under the wing of Obi-Wan Kenobi who attempts to train him and fails. Skywalker turns to the Dark Side and becomes the ultimate evil that is Darth Vader. Except, despite the fact that several integral components of the plot were already widely known, this was one of the most anticipated films of the decade. Therefore, there must be something in a prequel that draws people in. Meanwhile, having recently discovered the FFRPG, I was thinking about all the different things that I could do with Secret of Mana, my all-time favourite Squaresoft game. As there was already a WorldBook for it (which, in the process of producing a history for my own game, I seem to have completely and flatly contradicted...), there didn't seem to be all that much, short of producing a full bestiary for it (watch this space...) Then I thought about that little bit at the start of the game, reproduced above. The whole focus of SoM is the possible return of the events of the Mana War, some 15 years before. We are told very little about the events of the War, except for some key moments; some force builds the most powerful weapon in the world, the Mana Fortress, which is destroyed by the hero, Serin, wielding the Mana Sword. There are other mentions of key players; Sir Jema of Tasnica, Sage Luka, the Empire, and a few more. Then again, maybe the real saviours of the world were a little group of mismatched adventurers who met in a bar one day... So, if you'd like to read some information on a campaign that's shaping up to be epic and fun in roughly equal proportions, just follow the links below. Feel free to use any of this in your own campaigns. And enjoy! Walk with Mana around you, David Mowatt Disclaimer: Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Saga Frontier, Secret of Mana, Seiken Densetsu, and a number of other games and their characters referred to in this role-playing game are copyrights of Square Ltd. This game should not by any means be seen as a threat to those copyrights. This has always been a product of our affection for Square's games.
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