- "Lemme at him, he's my nemesis!"— Toffee, upon realizing Mytharo is close-by.
Chronicles of Threa is a Tabletop RPG campaign with its own rules (although inspired by Savage Worlds to some extent) and universe created by its GM Quiv', and is also a big reboot of his previous campaigns Team Space Hobos RPG and Shards of Stellmare. Once again, the team of players has changed, though Dinomax, who was there during the majority of Space Hobos but absent during Shards of Stellmare; came back. Yakah also took part in it but eventually left due to his lack of familiarity with the new setting, inability to get used to it, constant attempts at using information and tricks that only worked in the previous campaigns and that his character shouldn't have access to; and general incompetence despite years of roleplaying experience. As well as Quiv's intense Enraged by Idiocy tendencies and lack of patience.
The new setting doesn't involve ponies or space travel anymore, instead taking place on Threa, a relatively traditional Fantasy world where magic and gods are very real and widespread. Several kingdoms and factions with various views on how to use magic and act towards the gods that gave it to them are constantly feuding and making alliances, and at the time the campaign takes place, most kingdoms are involved in a cold war with the Sybel Empire, who quietly plans to conquer the rest of the continent, makes liberal use of Black Magic and are unapologetically ungrateful towards the Gods for their gifts.
The players start the campaign as novice members of the order of the Almesian Guardians, elemental knights who aim to use their magic abilities to protect the weak, smite evil and spread justice, which makes them the polar opposite of the Sybel Empire.
As the players complete missions for the order, explore Threa and see the conflict unfold and escalate around them, they gradually discover that there is more at hand than a simple conflict of ideals between two kingdoms; and will come across things such as wandering, error-prone mages, dragons from the Tartarus, an insane steampunk Big Bad Wannabe, unusually organized mercenaries and a mysterious Necromancer.
The players/characters are as follow:
- Quiv': The GM, still relatively inexperienced in his role due to his refusal to use any kind of already-known rules or settings, let alone read an actual rulebook; instead creating every aspect of his game from scratch, though with some inspiration from the rules Dinomax uses in his own campaigns. Aside from that, Quiv' tends to improvise a lot during sessions due to only planning major events and doesn't always have anything prepared to link them together, on top of having to deal with his unpredictable players; but always ends up creatively making everything stick together somehow.
- Dinomax: Experienced player and GM of his own campaigns, some of which Quiv' participated in. Plays Tundrum, a half-rabbit, thunder-using, spear-wielding man who enrolled in the Guardians at the same time as Toffee and Yakah's characters from the very start of the campaign. After his death during Lumaro's attack on Almesia, got ressurected as Karröth, still half-rabbit, but this time much bulkier at the cost of not having access to magic anymore. Usually plays in a down-to-earth, story-focused way, although like his character, doesn't want to think too much; which makes things a bit complicated due to the campaign's Kudzu Plot and large cast.
- Toffee: A new player who also participates in Dinomax's campaigns. Plays as Toffee, a half-spider, earth and darkness-using, cross-bow wielding man. [[spoiler: After his death, gets ressurected as... himself, only with a slightly different appearance. Has a very eccentric and cartoonish personnality, both as himself and as his character, often making reckless decisions and generally doing things for the lulz.
- Félix: A friend of Yakah who doesn't have a lot of experience in RPGs, but started taking part in Dinomax and Quiv's campaigns at around the same time. Plays Cono, an ice-using, sword-wielding man, in fact one of the only two regular humans of the team with Clément's character. Plays rather passively by nature and has a bit of trouble getting involved in the story and his own role, not helped by how overwhelming the plot and its high number of NPCs can get; sometimes forcing Quiv' to fill the blanks for his character's personnality and backstory himself when needed.
- Clément: Another friend of Yakah who joined a bit earlier than Félix, but has some difficulties being regular. Plays Clémian, a fire-using, steampunk crossbow-wielding man. After his death, gets ressurected as Brutus Maximus... but doesn't change his appearance, personnality, magic element or fighting style. Lacks experience in roleplaying and often tries to call shots instead of the GM, such as what happens to his character, what he encounters, where the enemies are or what he finds before actually searching for information or rolling the dice; irritating Quiv' and forcing him to regularly remind him that RPGs do not function like that. But otherwise keeps an active role in the story and fights.
- Yakah: Took part in a lot of Quiv's and Dinomax's previous campaigns, and went through most of this one's first arc before leaving because his incompetence in the game, impeding his enjoyment of it; as well as Quiv's unbridled tendency to yell at him for his incompetence, further impeding his enjoyment of it. Played as Yakardine, a half-goat, fire-using, sword-wielding man. Died alongside Tundrum, Toffee and Clémian, and was supposed to be ressurected with them, but due to Yakah leaving before his character could be revived, Yakardine was indeed ressurected but as an NPC. Wanted to be very active in the story and fights, but tried too hard to negociate with major Non Player Characters, either unintentionally antagonizing them or losing credence in their eyes; and was the first to get hit with the negative side of the game's Karma Meter through reckless decisions and constant, obvious attempts at playing meta at the expense of any coherent form of roleplaying.
Chronicles of Threa provides examples of:
- The Big Bad Shuffle: Even after a couple dozen of sessions, there is still no clear Big Bad. Every time someone seems to be the main threat, they either turn out to be not that bad and reasonable like Emperor Ixion, or isdefeated earlier than expected to then be replaced by someone else, like Kompozyte. And among all this, the "cheater", who is supposed to be The Man Behind the Man, can only be percieved by his influence but hasn't been identified yet.
- Black Magic: The corruption element allows users to do things such as mind control, summoning creatures from the Tartarus and even necromancy. Darkness also has a lot of applications that can be seen as negative, but like other dangerous magic elements such as fire or thunder, is merely seen as a weapon that has to be used wisely.
- The Corruption: Corruption is a form of magic energy that can be found in some places or generated directly from withing malevolent people. Unlike darkness, it's considered 100% bad, and people like the Guardians aim to purge the world of it. People who are malevolent enough can see corruption replace their own magic element, and people with weak minds, shallow personalities or that are plain dumb can attract corruption towards them, with the potential of making them especially vulnerable to Demonic Possession or making them Obliviously Evil. Ironically, even people who use light magic can be malevolent or extreme enough in their actions to become corrupted, for example, Calvin worries that Maximillian might become corrupted due to his Knight Templar tendencies.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Darkness is a magic element, but is not seen as evil, at worst unpredictable and kind of untrustful. People who use dark magic tend to have rather pragmatic and cynical personalities, but aren't more prone to evil than any other element. In fact, nothing stops darkness users from living in Almesia or even becoming Guardians, despite their big emphasis on light and justice. If you're afraid evil people and the kind of magic they use, corruption magic is what you need to be wary of.
- Dumb Muscle:
- Markus Drazoff, a dog-loving Manchild who has the size and strength of a bear.
- Dinomax's character turned into this after reincarnation, and Clemmian's character might be a bit of it as well despite his focus on ranged weapons and magic.
- The Empire: The Sybel Empire, obviously, although it isn't as stereotypically evil as Almesia makes them out to be. Sure, the Emperor wants to conquer the rest of Threa, his people do not express any kind of gratitude towards the Gods for their gift of magic and the Imperial army uses corruption magic like any other elements; but the inhabitants of Sybel seem relatively happy and safe, especially due to the surprisingly benevolent and regulated mercenaries guild. The nobles themselves tend to be corrupted but only feud among themselves, and the Emperor respects and agrees with some of the more progressive nations' way of ruling, to the point that he considers finding compromises between their way and his own after annexing them.
- Good Is Not Soft: The Almesian Guardians after one of the Gods attacked their city. They were already seeking to get rid of corruption and fight the Sybel Empire, but now that the Gods have vanished and lost their leader, putting his son Maximillian to their lead; they now seem hell-bent on their objectives; attacking any form of corruption on sight and constantly trying to get through Sybel's borders to directly attack the Imperial Capital despite the Empire keeping quiet for months.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking: Though he's only been seen in action once so far, the Emperor of Sybel is said to be the strongest Vanguard on Threa, and doesn't really need his three generals as he's said to be able to defeat all three of them by himself, and they're no pushovers. The one time we've seen him in action? He fought one of the other strongest Vanguards in Threa, won, then survived a point-blank blast from a God that destroyed part of a city and killed hundreds of people including a chunk of his army and four player characters. He simply got up after it and walked home.
