#lore drop!

starting off with the Final War saga: this is the part of the AU that takes place in the Final War. there are three separate powers involved in the war, which are the Allied Powers, the Axis Powers, and the Pacifist Powers. i won’t go into too much detail on those, but every earthmover is part of one of the three powers (except for one…. exception).

the earthmovers of the Allied and Axis powers are the main ones that fight each other, while the Pacifist earthmovers kinda do their own thing. Both the Allied and Axis earthmovers are mainly herd and combat focused, while Pacifist earthmovers are usually used for experiments or just wander around on their own.

at the end of the Final War saga comes the Long Night, all the earthmovers die yadda yadda, which then begins the Hell saga. But wait a minute, back up. How did the earthmovers get into Hell? well i’m glad u asked (*crickets*)

remember the “exception” that i mentioned when i talked about the three sides of the war? that “exception” is an earthmover known as Draconis. it is an unknown class, does not belong to any one side, and there is barely any info about it.

the thing about Draconis was that it made contact with Hell during the Final War and effectively made a deal with it. Hell wants to find a way to manifest souls in machines, and promises Draconis eternal paradise if they can find out how to do so. Draconis is then granted Hell energy and is sent on their way.

after effectively kidnapping and experimenting on multiple earthmovers as well as making themself a smaller form to do the same for non-earthmovers machines, they find a way to manifest souls into machines through some weird cultish Hell energy ritual.

Hell then tells Draconis to do the soul-manifestation again, but on very specific earthmovers. earthmovers that have committed large amounts of specific sins, which are:

Remedia: a Pacifist striker who tried to promote peace, only to fail miserably and become forcefully placed into a combat herd. they represent Limbo

Boa: a… uhm… an Allied concursus who… was really weird. he represents Lust. no further comment.

Verchlingen: an Axis Gula who specifically ate other earthmovers for fun. it represents Gluttony.

Avere: an Allied Citykeeper who had a huge surplus of supplies that she refused to share, not even with other Citykeepers with populations that were actively dying. she represents Greed

Tiamat: an Axis aquatic Striker who lost her entire herd, eventually becoming a powerhouse and destroying anything relating to the Allied powers. she represents Wrath.

Savior: a Pacifist Unknown that was basically a glorified radio station trying to achieve contact with Heaven, which Heaven obviously did not like at all. it represents Heresy.

Draconis itself represents Violence btw.

Yggdrasil: an Axis Hortus that purposefully poisoned their harvests, then went undercover as part of the Allied powers and giving their poisoned crops to Citykeepers. they represent Fraud.

Machiavellian: an Allied Tyrant that was so paranoid about running low on fuel, he found ways to indirectly kill off all of his herd members. he represents Treachery.

Draconis gathers all of these earthmovers by promising them eternal paradise as well, then doing the soul-manifestation, killing them, and killing itself shortly after.

now that Hell has acquired all of the earthmover souls that it needs, it combines them, attaches them to the Violence layer, and makes this:

this is the Null Ouroboros: Hell’s machine soul harvester and transporter. when a machine dies, the Null Ouroboros will make contact with its corpse and manifest a soul, then bring the soul down to Hell and send it off to its designated layer, where the soul will then form into the physical embodiment of the machine that housed it.

each section of the Ouroboros is connected to each layer, and the center of each section is known as the nucleus, which houses the soul of whatever sinner earthmover represents a layer.

Name: Ieyasu Kazamynov Title(s): The Last of His Name and Blood of Inyr, later known as the Lord of the Ashes

As the last surviving descendant of his bloodline, in his first life Ieyasu stands as the final bearer of the white dragon's cursemark. The dragon soul* bestowed upon Inyr, Ieyasu's ancestor, by Aun Ghoul Arjakhov over a century ago acts as the only anchor to his homeland after it is lost to the ashes. The curse embedded deep within his psyche, his relationship to the white dragon borders that of a personal religion. Seeing apparitions of it within his dreams, he witnesses the dragon's past** as it unraveled while it lived within the body of Aun Ghoul. He believes these fragments of memory to be his future, and they spur much of his decision-making. His first life brought to a cruel end through coercion into suicide by life-long mentor and captor, Ieyasu's soul remains anchored to the living world for a little over a decade, his ghost entwined with the dragon soul bound to his own. Ieyasu's death happens simultaneously as the resurrection of Aun Ghoul, sent back to the living world to retrieve the dragon soul he had borrowed from Azak-Har. Arriving just a moment too late, the dragon's soul follows Ieyasu into death.  Ieyasu's own resurrection occurs through possession of his mentor's son, killing him in the process. His first act in his new flesh is the murder of his mentor, the Riverlord, to finally take his vengeance. Previously appointed as the Riverlord's heir before Ieyasu's death, he assumes his position as lord. Aun Ghoul Arjakhov can now seek him out, both alive again against all odds, to reunite with the dragon at last. Both sharing a bond with the dragon's soul, Aun Ghoul as its first bearer, and Ieyasu Kazamynov as the last, they become inseparable over time. Separated once Ieyasu's city falls under siege, Ieyasu is imprisoned. There, he gets gravely injured, and nearing death the dragon soul abandons him, escaping to the only other soul that is familiar to it - Aun Ghoul. As the bearer of the dragon's soul, Ieyasu couldn't have utilized its power to transform, but now fully entwined with Aun Ghoul again, he is able to assume its shape, and rescue Ieyasu. To heal his wounds, Aun Ghoul transfers a half of his own soul's life energy to Ieyasu, binding them for life. As a price of this act, neither can stay separated from the other for long, lest they begin to suffer sickness, and have to reunite often in order to restore their life energy.

*The dragon soul - a fragment of the divine soul of the god Azak-Har, fallen on the Western Highlands in the form of a star, where gravely injured it binds itself to Aun Ghoul Arjakhov, who discovers it. **Visions of the dragon's past - deities within the New Cosmos(where this story is situated) do not have a linear view of time, but see time as a flat disc. They can see all of the events they have been personally involved in at once. Being a fragment of a divine being in nature, the dragon's soul only allows brief insights into the future and past through dreams as beings who are limited to a linear comprehension of time cannot have full insight. This exchange of dreams through time is reciprocated in the past as well, as during Aun Ghoul's first life, he witnesses visions of Ieyasu in the distant future.