Darth Wiki / Dark Before The Dawn

Dark Before The Dawn is a forum RP on the There Will Be Brawl forum. The members of the forums play themselves; ordinary humans who have been summoned against their wills to the High Fantasy world of Dragnia, told they are The Chosen Ones and are expected to fulfil a heroic destiny.

The world is divided into two regions: the Northlands, which is split into 8 independent city states, and the mysterious Southlands. An evil dark force, the Nameless Army, under the ruthless Big Bad- the High Commander- is sweeping its way into the Northlands, commencing a blitzkrieg and slaughtering its way through the city states. Unable to form a coherent defence on their own, some have turned to an ancient prophecy that foretells that heroes from another world will arrive in their hour of need and drive back the forces of darkness. They ended up with the forumites instead.

The RP focuses on the adventures of the forumers as they travel the land, attempting to unite the city states and drive back the Nameless Army. But with shenanigans, trying to control their new powers, their own slew of personal drama and angst and the threat of perma-death, will our heroes overcome their challenges and save the world?

This ain't no game, after all.

The roleplay can be found here. It began in 2010 and was abandoned in 2014, with two unsuccessful attempts to reboot it in 2016 and 2018.

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Dark Before The Dawn contains examples of:

• Anyone Can Die: Anyone can die in Dragnia. Once more, this ain't no game. Spont died in the very first encounter, even; cut down while heartily charging forward to attack.

• Barred from the Afterlife: The remaining dragons voluntarily trapped their souls in the mortal realm to prevent the murderer of their kind from achieving daemonhood.
• Barrier Warrior: Avalanche can summon up shields of holy magic.
• Battle Cry: PEEEERRRRRRYYYYY GOOOOOOOOAAAAATTTMAAAAAANNNN!!!!!!!

• Chivalrous Pervert: ANSEM. Can't enter a town without trying to enter all its NPCs.

• Collateral Angst: Several examples, mostly centered around characters' deaths:
  • About five characters have a subplot revolving around how useless or helpless they feel, or how they can't protect those they care about.
  • Weldar's death was particularly notorious in this aspect. Coupled with the Hierophant turning out to be Quaetam, this caused Avalanche, Camilla, Raya, and the Hierophant himself to sink into despair. This was especially appropriate for the Hierophant however: he was the one who killed Weldar. Perry outright ragequit the party before being captured by the demon-worshipping High Justice Ashvald, leading to a rescue mission.
• Combination Attack: Avalanche and Sahrimnir combine their attacks whilst fighting a demon and unleash a HOLY LAZOR.
• Convenient Slow Dance: Whilst Raya and Ansem are drinking at a bar during the festival a slow dance starts playing. Ansem takes the opportunity to force her to dance.

• Department of Redundancy Department: "With those words, Sahrimnir again charged forward with his charged sword and charged the demon."
• Dreaming of Things to Come: The eruption of essence from the dead Shu'Sharradin inflicts a vision of the future on everyone. What they see isn't pleasant.
  • They don't care for you. Your loyalty is weakness. Destroy it!
  • It's not about what is just, but what is right!
  • You are nothing like them, you belong with us!
  • No, no, I trusted you, I-ah!
  • This world is nothing but pain, just leave it, leave them all behind...
  • KILL THEM KILL THEM KILL THEM
  • This is your fate! You cannot escape your destiny!
  • Not her, not like this, oh please no, no…
  • Oh God what have I done, what have I done?!
  • DON'T LEAVE ME!!
• Elephant Graveyard: The Isle is a dragon's graveyard.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • The city state of Leknaat is extremely intolerant of the non-human races, to the point of calling them sub-humans and treating them like animals.
  • The faefolk of Sylvania are mentioned to be the same against the non-fae, though they haven't been encountered yet.
• Fantasy World Map: Lovingly hand-drawn by the GM herself◊ and coloured in by Perry.

• The Ferry Man: Requiem, having won a ship during a poker game.
• Fog of Doom: The fog shrouding the Isle is actually the graveyard's magical defence, killing intruders with illusions and driving them mad from terror.
• Forceful Kiss: Ansem does this to Raya as a way of confessing he likes her.

• Full-Frontal Assault: Technically Perry. Luckily he's censored by a lot of fur, otherwise being charged by a giant rampaging goatman would be a LOT more terrifying.
• Fully-Embraced Fiend: Michael Vinters likes being a werewolf.
• Genocide Backfire: Kilranirax attempted to wipe out his entire race to gain ultimate power. The last few bound their souls to the mortal plane, preventing him from completing his ritual and causing him to be dragged into the daemonic realms instead.

• Good Angel, Bad Angel: Played with. Rather than having two angels, Sahrimnir has got five representing Justice, Compassion, Self-preservation, Curiosity and Fun respectively.

• Heroic Sacrifice: Vandir stays behind to try to fight Victor and fend off the Nameless Army so the Champions can escape.
• Hidden Elf Village: The entire city state of Sylvania is closed off to the non-fae and few (if any) know what goes on inside its borders.
• Horror Hunger:
  • When Fedaykin's body sustains serious damage, the instinctual Hunger takes over and he goes into a feeding frenzy to heal himself. Being undead, that feeding frenzy tends to involve live human beings.
  • Raya has started indulging in cannibalism when berserk, much to her dismay.
• Identity Absorption: The identities of people Fed has consumed remain in the deep recesses of his mind.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Quaetam did some pretty terrible things as the Hierophant, only with the intention of gaining enough power to stop the greater evil of the Army.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: Raya tries this when Fedaykin gives into the Hunger. It's less effective than a severed human arm.

• Ironic Fear: Sahrimnir is terrified of heights. Sahrimnir has got wings.
• I See Dead People: Requiem has the ability to see ghosts.

• Last Stand: The Highland army make one after liberating a camp from the Army's clutches, only to find it was only a scouting outpost and the main force of the Army is heading straight at them. They stand their ground to defend their homeland to the last. We later see the aftermath of the battle. Absolutely nothing survived.

• Love Confession: During the festival, Ansem confesses to Raya that he has feelings for her.]]

• Mama Bear: Raya said she'd get the others back home safely, and she takes her job very seriously.
• Manipulative Bastard: Quaetam did this to Damian, and then to Claudius, using each of them and playing on their weaknesses and emotions to get his way.]]

• Mugging the Monster: A random thug attempts to mug Raya at the festival. Assaulting the currently emotionally-fragile berserker turned out to be a very bad idea indeed.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Quaetam on realising he's killed his close friend Weldar without realising who he was.
• Naked on Arrival: Technically Perry.
  What was going on here? What happened to the class room? What was with his legs?... WHERE THE HELL WAS HIS PENIS?!
• Never Found the Body: Spont's body was tossed off a cliff. Turns out he's still 'alive', except without a physical body in the demonic realms.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: Werewolves are intelligent and capable of speech when transformed. They still enjoy ripping off faces though.

• Poke in the Third Eye: Done quite literally and with extreme overkill when Avalanche and Sharimnir combine their powers to blast the future-seeing demon Shu'Sharradin's head in half with a holy lazor.
• Power Copying: Requiem is able to absorb part of the lifeforce of his dead friends and gain a watered down version of their main ability.

• The Prophecy: Apparently great warriors from another world were foretold to save Dragnia. Rather than wait to see if it would come to pass the inhabitants cut some corners and forcibly summoned them instead.
• Rescue Arc: Perry gets kidnapped, leading the party to gatecrash a party and kick demon butt to save him.
• Running Gag: The mafia game the forumers were all playing before they got sucked into the world.

• Spirit Advisor: TD rescued a spirit, Aurora, from Ashvald's mansion and she now accompanies him.
• Technical Pacifist:
  • Snake hasn't killed a single person. The only time he came close- stabbing the Hierophant- he was repulsed by his actions.
  • Avalanche never killed a person, but this might have more to do with his role as obligatory white mage.

• Tempting Fate: "And after all," Raya cracked a weak smile "Things surely can't get any worse."
• Tin Tyrant: The High Commander is clad entirely fullplate that covers him head to foot, including an ornate draconic helmet.

• The Undead: Fedaykin didn't arrive in the world fully alive.

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YMMV

• Complete Monster: The High Commander is implied to be one.
  • ERNSTRAD-The General who turns the living and dead alike into flesh golems on a whim, who tortures and corrupts people with dark magic? Yeah. Complete monster.
• Epileptic Trees: It was once theorised that the High Commander was actually Quaetam, a forumer not present in the game itself. As this was proposed before the Hierophant was revealed to be Quaetam cue the GMs attempting to keep a straight face whilst denying Quaetam had anything to do with the game.
  • Then the mafia game based on DbtD happened. Quaetam was the High Commander.
    • He won.