The Art Of Summoning, By Korpg

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The Art of Summoning, by Korpg
 Asura.Korpg
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By Asura.Korpg 2009-06-20 21:32:45
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The Art of Summoning
By Korpg

Many people know the complexities and science of Summoning, but not many know the rich history behind the avatars. This story is about the starting, development, and decline of today’s summons.

Chapter 1
The Beginning


You may know of the oldest magic around; the divine power of white magic and the destructive power of black magic. There are many experts who will make their marks towards those magic, and their uses and evolutions that bring them to light. It wasn’t until the third great story that the art of summoning, or at that time was called green magic, was perfected and used. Many attempts were made before the third great story, many lives were lost trying to evoke the ancient deities of yesteryear, but it wasn’t until the Japanese perfected the lost arts on April 27, 1990 during the third great story that summoning came into being.
At that time, the people who could summon were divided into two categories, the Conjurer (otherwise known today as the Evoker) and the Summoner. While the weaker Conjurer was able to summon, it wasn’t able to control its avatar, which made the Summoner the more powerful and lethal of the two. Because this was a new concept, there were only a few avatars that the Conjurer and the Summoner can evoke:

The ice queen: Shiva

The devilish beast: Ifrit

The wise sage: Ramuh

The brave protector: Titan

The swift bird: Chocobo

The master swordsman: Odin

The water serpent: Leviathan, and

The king of all summons, the master dragon: Bahamut

With the fourth great story comes the disappearance of the weaker class of summoning. However, the concept of summoning continued and thrived into the fourth great story, by discovering the so called “Land of Espers.” The story of the espers (otherwise known today as avatars) became clear the summoner by showing the “human” side to the esper. Summoners were able to summon more summons than before, but the newer summons were weaker, but took less power to summon, than the older, and more powerful espers. With more avatars, Summoners were able to control and become stronger allies to the heroes of the time, and was also able to control other magic along with their own brand of summoning. It was possible at that time for Summoners to be able to master both of the divine and destructive magic of the period, which led them to be considered the main banishers of any party’s enemy, however powerful the enemy is.
The fifth great story brings with it more concepts into the art of summoning, and shows how deep summoning really is. Avatars were discovered to not only destroy their enemies, but also to protect their allies, which banished the idea that the magic of summoning was part of the destructive, black magic part of the magi tree. The discovery of the avatar Golem showed that the summoner can protect their allies from physical damage better than any knight or paladin could possibly do. Remora, the fish avatar, stopped their enemies in their tracks. Sylph, while was in the fourth great story, brought along the idea of healing their summoner by sucking the blood of their summoner’s enemies. Even Phoenix, the newest great avatar, brought back their summoner’s allies from the dead by damaging their opponents. This concept of healing by damaging brought an end to the ideas by the great scholars of the time that the magic of summoning was a destructive force magic only.
These marked the beginning stages of what would be the most powerful class of warrior anyone has ever seen, but later, would become what later would be called the “biggest nerf of them all.”

Chapter 2
The Dark Ages


The sixth great story was the most tragic of the summoners and avatars alike. The avatars, long abandoned their names as “Espers,” wanted to continue their glory days by resurrecting that long-forgotten name. They were starting to be feared by most by their destructive forces, and were hunted down during that time. Summoners were killed left and right until nothing but the espers were left. Without their masters, the espers grew and developed their own world which to live in peace. Unfortunally, during this time, the art of summoning was lost and the only way the espers were able to be called out into battle was not through magic, but through the dead bodies of the avatars themselves. Once the espers were turned into stone, however, they imbibed more than their deadly skill, but some of their old magic into the person who evoked them. Unfortunally, the person could only call out one esper at a time, since it was impossible to hold more than one stone at a time. Thus, this was the start of the dark ages of the summoning magic.
The seventh and eight great stories also continued this downward path of development, where none were able to summon any avatars on their own free will, but had to rely on stones or “Guardian Forces” to help them with the summoning process. Because of the handicap placed on people at this time, the avatars did not increase in power, and slowly became obsolete as the avatars were used for other purposes only. Increase in magic power, increase in each individual avatar’s strengths and abilities became the norm during the dark ages of summoning. Pure summoning was a lost art, and people forgotten about who the avatars really were, and some avatars went through radical changes. Ramuh, the lighting sage, became a bird named Quezacotl. Some avatars split into many different versions of itself, like Bahamut. Some avatars died during this time, like Sylph. Many disappeared into the mists of time, some of the stronger survived, but weakened. Bahamut, long noted to be one of the most powerful avatars in the history of summoning, lost that title during this time to newer, more adaptable avatars like the Knights of the Round and Eden.
While summoning did lose some of its magic, it did gain some newer abilities during this time period. The idea of junctioning occurred during the eight great story, and inhibited the person with very strong power whenever it was “junctioned” with magic. Eden, the new powerhouse, became the first avatar to break the “man-limit” meaning doing more than 10,000 damage (man in Japanese, when this was first discovered, means 10,000). People were able to take the abilities from the avatar and use it as their own. These discoveries would help later generations with their new research into magic.

Chapter 3
The Warring Ages


The ninth and tenth great stories, along with some of the minor battles between those stories, like the War of the Lions, helped revived and shaped summoners into powerhouses of the time. The ninth great story had several avatars destroying cities and countries alike. The entire war during that period was nothing but a war against the avatars. Nobody during that time would forget the Bahamut verses Alexander battle in Alexandria and the following destruction of Alexandria after Alexander turned on its summoners. The summoner tribe, however, nearly died during that period, as the last two survivors of that tribe, happened to be women. Their bloodline survived, but strongly weakened through the heirs.
The tenth great story was also another war pitting avatars against avatars. The greatest avatar known to man, Sin, was an everlasting destructive force that was uncontrolled as it ravaged the land and nearly wiped the population in its 1,000 year long warpath of terror. The only way during those 1,000 years of chaos to defeat Sin was to sacrifice a summoner and one of the summoner’s fellows just to have the summoner’s fellow take the place of Sin. The loss of the summoner’s abilities caused from the tribe’s destruction during the ninth great story’s generation is blamed for the lack of control from this new avatar’s ability to self control its power.

Chapter 4
The Decline and Hope for the Future


The decline of the summoner’s abilities during the ninth and tenth great stories could explain the decline of the avatar’s abilities starting from the eleventh great story and beyond. While Bahamut regained its status as the king of the avatars, its strength died that a mere alliance can defeat the once powerful avatar, the destruction of all it sees. Summoners are no longer able to summon the most powerful avatars of yore, and those they can summon take too much energy from the summoner to keep out for an extended period of time. The abilities that were easy to yield during the third to ninth stories could not be yielded as easy as before. During the eleventh great story, it would take two hours to maximize the avatar’s strength, and even then, it would take all the strength of the summoner away, and not hit as much damage as before.
The abilities of the summoner continued to decline to the latest great story. The avatars of yore can no longer be summoned, and in place, much weaker versions of those great avatars replaced them. Summoners were unable to control those weaker avatars and, like before, lost all their power from summoning them just once. The avatars themselves, however, do not imbue the summoners with newer or stronger power, so these newer avatars aren’t even summoned as much anymore.
This story shows the glorious history of the Summoner Tribe, and why the current summoner lost its glory. Every day to this day, summoners pray to the gods to send them some hope that their power will be restored to its glory, and that the tools used to learn and know the ways of the summoner reaches into this generation’s hands for the next great story.
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 Asura.Ludoggy
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By Asura.Ludoggy 2009-06-20 21:35:07
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tl;dr
sorry did you just make up a story...holy crap @_@
I'll read it when I'm not farming
 Asura.Korpg
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By Asura.Korpg 2009-06-20 21:35:52
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/slap you and wanting to post first >.>

Yeah, its a story. Read it next time before you bother posting >.>
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 Asura.Ludoggy
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By Asura.Ludoggy 2009-06-20 21:37:52
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Don't care about posting first or not.
ok just noticed the "by korpg"
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 Asura.Korpg
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By Asura.Korpg 2009-06-20 21:42:04
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Meaning I wrote it.

Its a story about the history of Summoning on FF games. Made in a way that ties them all together.
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 Asura.Ludoggy
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By Asura.Ludoggy 2009-06-20 21:47:19
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yeah but...this isnt ffVI
Bahamut isnt king of summons in this game >=\
 Asura.Korpg
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By Asura.Korpg 2009-06-20 21:50:31
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Stop +1 your post count and actually read the story
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 Odin.Blazza
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By Odin.Blazza 2009-06-20 21:55:09
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Too long, got bored. Unless it gets a lot more interesting after chapter 1 then it's just not very interesting. You mention numbered "Great Stories" waaay too much, without any reference to what they actually are, although I'm guessing you're trying to make it sound like LotR's ages, but tying them in with different versions of FF games?

Your English and editing could also do with some serious attention, as your sentences are just plain bland. And sentences like "Summoners were able to summon more summons than before, but the newer summons..." are just... that hurts man.

Considering it's an entirely made up story, it could do with some actual topic of interest, instead of an encyclopaedic style list of events.

Overall, I rate this tl;dr with a side order of zzzzzzzzzzz.
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 Asura.Korpg
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By Asura.Korpg 2009-06-20 21:57:45
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k, thought so.

Thanks for your input Blazza. Glad I wasn't the only one who thought this sucked. Train of thought was interrupted past Chapter 2, so I didn't think it would have come out as my best.

Just wanted opinions really.
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By Shiva.Daimos 2009-06-20 21:58:51
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Gotta admit, I liked most of it. Although a bit hard to read with out formal paragraphs. Only part I could complain about was the mention of the whole 10,000 damage part, and the "nerf" (because it made me think it wasn't a story any more)

Edit: I did enjoy the part of ff9 (shameful to be my favorite of the series)
Alexander ftw
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 Asura.Korpg
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By Asura.Korpg 2009-06-20 22:03:02
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tbh, I'm trying to practice writing again, for college when it starts in August.

This was a nice little 30 minute piece of work, so I thought, since it has to do with Final Fantasy, let me throw it at you guys and see how it rates.

You try doing a year in Japan learning a language you didn't want to/go there to learn and write essays the next year. I just don't want to get a F on my first business proposal of the year.
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By Odin.Blazza 2009-06-20 22:03:17
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Spend more time on it, edit the crap out of it, revise your sentence structure, add something interesting.

There's certainly a worthwhile base to a story there, but perhaps one that doesn't fit the role of a short story.

In reference to LotR yet again, you have a story that spans 1000's of years, work out how you can keep that interesting the whole way through, break it up into smaller stories perhaps (which is where it came from anyway), create an immortal character (the player?) that has lived through all of these stories. Most importantly is to have SOME sort of strong link from one story to the next. It doesn't necessarily have to be one thing that spans across all stories, but each part needs to roll on to the next by more than just subject.
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 Asura.Korpg
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By Asura.Korpg 2009-06-20 22:05:10
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I don't have time to write a novel though. This was just practice.

No research or anything was done into this story. Just ***on the top of my head. Half asleep also, since I had a shitty day today, and another one tomorrow.
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By Valefor.Integral 2009-06-20 22:06:47
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You forgot garuda: the tempting temptress
 Shiva.Daimos
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By Shiva.Daimos 2009-06-20 22:07:08
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Korpg said:
You try doing a year in Japan learning a language you didn't want to/go there to learn and write essays the next year. I just don't want to get a F on my first business proposal of the year.


Japanese is easy... except for kanji... KANJI BAD

I suppose if you didn't know any it would be pretty rough... I know I'd be intimidated
 Asura.Korpg
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By Asura.Korpg 2009-06-20 22:11:23
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Daimos said:

Japanese is easy... except for kanji... KANJI BAD

you try to learn something that you are very weak with.

Languages are my kryptonite. I have a horrible time with English, and I'm a native English speaker.

I didn't go to Japan to learn Japanese, I went there to learn about Japanese business models and to figure out a way to convert it into the American business structure so I can improve the world by taking the best of both worlds: Individualistic ideas with a social network.
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By Shiva.Daimos 2009-06-20 22:14:25
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Well, business makes my brain hurt. Tu che.
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By Ramuh.Thunderz 2009-06-20 22:59:04
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SMN! power to you

I like the lore :3

gogo keep it up