Welcome to Planet Earth, full of adventuring guilds, invasions from other dimensions, an army of warriors created to fight Humanity's wars and tons and tons of magic. On this Earth, in the city of Baltimore, exists a guild called The Century Corps dedicated to defending the city. One day during a patrol, one of the guild members is killed in the line of duty. The friend of this fallen member, Gladian, along with his friends in the guild, begin to set out on a revenge quest and things devolve from there.
The Centennials series was originally created as a Video Game concept on Fantendo made by Throw More Grenades, also known as Bnbhfujdbtu or Doctor Proctor depending on where you're reading the Centennials stories. While the pages for the games themselves can be found here
, you can also read the stories written for each entry that would be the story of said Video Game if it was a real Video Game, written in script format.
There are five entries in the Centennials series, 4 mainline ones following the same timeline and one in an alternate universe.
The first Centennials entry was created back in November 2020 and the most fourth mainline entry was created in March 2023. The entire Centennials story minus the alternate universe entry up to Centennials 3 was put up on Royal Road in late 2022 and early 2023, with Centennials 4 joining it later. The Royal Road version of Centennials can be found here and is what's considered the definitive version of the story due to poor formatting for some sections on the Fantendo Wiki.
One more thing to note is that this series is not for the faint of heart as blood and gore are super common early on, especially in the very first entry. With gruesome scenes and dark content aplenty throughout the series, it's not for everyone and has three of the four content warnings on Royal Road attached to it.
This series provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Indica's Parents treated her incredibly horribly during her childhood and after she ran away they began kidnapping orphans all across Canada for their dark experiments.
- And This Is for...: Starting as a revenge story, you can bet that this happens quite a few times
- Indica does this to Cendial in Chapter 4 of Centennials 1
- The entire final battle of Centennials 3 is dedicated to avenging the deaths of Xen and Beline
- Juni blames Nolan for the amnesiac slump of Husk/Hyane so when Zaylee dies in front of her, she misattributes her death against Nolan and begins pummeling him
- Neve does this to Keighan in Chapter 9 of Centennials 4 and wants to do this against Kiqi by the end of the story
- Artificial Human: The titular Centennials function like this
- Apocalypse Cult: The main threat of Centennials 2 is this
- Back from the Dead: Happens to a few characters
- Happened to Beline in Centennials 2's last act
- Although she would later die again in Centennials 3, undoing this
- Hudson was fatally wounded as a child but was brought back due to Indica's tears revitalizing his soul
- Happened to Beline in Centennials 2's last act
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Century Corps operates on this, while they are an organization that does good, they have characters like Husk (a serial cannibal), Indica (a murderhobo who loves violence), Vendil (the host for an ancient god), Necra (Necromancy is generally frowned upon) and Ihw (a dentist who got fired for medical malpractice for taking the teeth of his patients)
- Cast of Snowflakes: Despite having a large cast of 100+ characters, a large chunk without speaking roles, they all have somewhat unique designs
- The Chessmaster: Quite a few examples in relation to twists that happen with the story
- Optica is revealed as one in Centennials 2, having manipulated not only the events of that story but also the story of Centennials 1 via manipulating some of the characters with their emotions and desires
- Neve manufactures the conflict in Centennials 4 between Department X and Sinners Sextant to get the plot rolling so The Century Corps can collect all the portal batteries and hand her the Adamite Key
- Elghene sends Woelyn deep undercover into the Cult of Sheyane so the Century Corps can take control of the Portal Batteries in their custody and then out-gambits Neve in the final stretch of Centennials 4
- Cosmic Horror: Vendil carries around the Eldritch God Gorbuch inside his body. Vendil is joined in the guild by Whoyn in Centennials 3 and Whoyn carries around a different eldritch entity in his body. The final villain in Centennials 2 is also another eldritch entity that wants to send the entire present into the future
- Benevolent Abomination: The eldritch deities Gorbuch and Gyhall count as this in the main timeline.
- A Day in the Limelight: The Bonus Chapters and Tales serve as this for characters who had minor or no roles in the main story.
- Enemy Mine: Zenial teams up with Gladian, Indica, Atoll and Viridian to fight against Acantha
- Expy: One of Sherlock Holmes has become somewhat of a recurring character
- Experienced Protagonist: The protagonists are all members of an adventuring guild so they all had some stuff under their belt before the events of the series unfolded.
- At the beginning of Centennials 1, Gladian, Indica and Viridian have all been in the guild for years and gone on plenty adventures before, it's just the scale that things are happening is new to them
- Atoll who joins midway through the adventure has never been in a guild before but has ran away from home and knows how to fight so he catches up quickly
- Centus has fought in every single war waged by Humanity as their first immortal soldier and thus has thousands if not millions of years of experience under their belt, so by Centennials 4 there's nothing they haven't seen already, in fact their long experienced history of war is what compels them to try to destroy The Adamite Key
- Garden of Eden: The race to the Garden of Eden forms the central conflict of Centennials 4
- Genocide from the Inside: Neve wants to do this on a wide scale level to the other Pionin because she feels like they are a mockery of the people she thought she was the last of. Her desire to do this kickstarts the plot of Centennials 4
- I'm a Humanitarian: Husk and it's Played for Laughs throughout almost the entire time Husk is in the story. When Husk gets his memories of his old life back, this is looked back on as a horrific act he must atone for
- Eating the Enemy: Something Husk does often as part of this.
- Functional Addict: Husk's diet of fellow humans escalates him to this in Centennials 2 as he is constantly looking for other humans to eat but still remains an effective and deadly fighter
- In Harmony with Nature: A good chunk of Century Corps members are, but the biggest example of this trope is Nest, who is so in harmony with birds that they feel comfortable leaving eggs in her hair and taking direct orders from her
- Last of His Kind: Neve is the last of the Pionin, later subverted when she learned that more existed in the nightlands
- Like a Duck Takes to Water: What happens with most people as soon as they join the Century Corps, we see it happen with Atoll in Centennials 1 and Hudson in Centennials 2
- The Lost Lenore: Quite a few examples of this trope are in effect
- Hudson was this for Indica until Hudson returned to life, funnily enough Hudson's return does not result in a romantic relationship between the two of them
- Following his heroic sacrifice, Hyane/Husk becomes this for Falconer
- Multi-Part Episode: The Book of Tales is presented as these.
- Negatives as a Positive: Indica's violent nature is seen as this, as she's so merciless that she's one of the Century Corps's best warriors.
- Never Was This Universe: Even though the planet is called Earth and a bunch of cities and countries have the same name, it's clear that is not the Earth we're familiar with.
- Only in It for the Money: What Ghice and The Sinners Sextant claim to be after The Adamite Key for
- Out-Gambitted: Elghene sees through Neve's deception and discovers her plot, so she sends Woelyn deep undercover into The Cult of Sheyane because they have two of the portal batteries. After Woelyn breaks her disguise there, Elghene comes up with a new plan involving Centus and Darsah. Woelyn and Elghene switch places, Woelyn in disguise goes with Centus into The Garden of Eden and stage a final battle to stall for time as a seed Darsah gives them grows into a living trap to keep Neve in The Garden of Eden forever
- Retired Badass: Iseri used to be a member of the Century Corps and guard of the Emperor of Japan but now runs a shop in Baltimore
- The Runaway: Quite a few examples: Indica, Gladian, Hudson, Atlantic and Atoll all qualify for this trope.
- Shout-Out: In a Bonus Chapter for Centennials 4, Iaray homages The Thing by saying his famous catchphrase
- Terrible Trio: This dynamic happens in Centennials 2 with The Solar Scion, Henry Gavel and Wentus forming this for the bulk of the story
- By the time the final battle happens, Wentus has been killed, The Solar Scion's true identity as Optica is revealed and Gevhim has possesed Henry Gavel's body and formed a duumvirate with The Bled who was just Gavel's underling for most of the story
- Tomato in the Mirror: Gladian has this revelation about his behavior throughout Centennials 2 when Optica reveals she was using his romantic feelings towards Indica to manipulate his actions to benefit her plans
- True Companions: The entire Century Corps is this to each other
- Wham Episode: Often happens near the end of certain entries with Centennials 2, Chapter 7 probably being the biggest Wham Episode in the entire series.
- Work Hard, Play Hard: A big part of Larkin's character, while he is a stalwart member of the Century Corps, he is a major goofball outside of active duty.
