AION 2 lore: the full story of Atreia, from the Tower of Eternity to the Veil of Light

AION 2 takes place in Atreia 200 years after the original AION, in the same world with the same two Daeva factions and the same enemy, the Balaur. Below is the story in order, from the god Aion and the Tower of Eternity to the state of the world when AION 2 begins. Names are spelled the way AION 2 spells them.

We wrote this from NCSOFT's own story text and the AION community wikis (sources at the bottom). Where they disagree, or where the original game rewrote its own history later on, it says so.

  1. The Tower of EternityAion shapes Atreia and its first peoples.
  2. The BalaurThe Drakan turn on Aion and take a new name.
  3. The Empyrean LordsTwelve guardians, Aether and the first Daevas.
  4. The Millennium WarCenturies of war around the Aetheric Field. Legions are born.
  5. The CataclysmPeace talks fail and the Tower breaks in two.
  6. Elysea and AsmodaeTwo halves, two peoples, and the Abyss between them.
  7. The Final WarThe Tower of Aion falls. The Veil of Light goes up.
  8. AION 2200 years later: Ishtar, Fafnir and the hunted Daevas.

Atreia and the Tower of Eternity

The creation of Atreia is a mystery even to its oldest inhabitants. The one certain thing is Aion, the god who made it. Aion took the shape of a colossal tower at the heart of the world: the Tower of Eternity. It pierced the sky and joined one side of the world to the other. It anchored the planet, and it nurtured the people who lived in its light.

The first species Aion made were the Drakan, powerful dragon-like beings. Later came other peoples, among them humans, who served Aion humbly and lived well under the Tower for thousands of years.

The Drakan become the Balaur

The Drakan were meant to be stewards. Over time they grew tired of serving, and then cruel. They turned on the other peoples of Atreia, wiping out some and enslaving others. Humans were the only ones who kept fighting back.

In the end the Drakan turned their backs on Aion altogether. They gave up the name Aion had given them and took a new one: the Balaur. They were led by a ruling caste, the Dragon Lords. In the original game's backstory the five were:

  1. FregionThe Arch Dragon Lord, emperor of the Balaur. Fire.
  2. MeslamtaedaWind.
  3. EreshkigalIce.
  4. BeritraDarkness.
  5. TiamatEarth and death. She got her seat by killing the earlier fifth Dragon Lord, Apsu.

Only Fregion is said to know where the Dragon Lords' power truly comes from: a source outside Aion's reach, which very few Drakan could fully take in.

The twelve Empyrean Lords

Humans could not stand against the Balaur alone. In desperation, Aion created twelve guardians to protect them and the Tower: the Empyrean Lords, winged and shining demigods. Aion also created Aether, the energy that gives strength and power to those who can wield it.

You meet all twelve in AION 2. Each Daevanion board and each divine-power stat on your character sheet carries one of their names:

Seraphim Lords Elyos

  • ArielLight · leader
  • KaisinelIllusion
  • NezekanJustice
  • VaizelFreedom
  • YustielLife

Guardians of the Tower

  • SielTime
  • IsraphelSpace

Shedim Lords Asmodian

  • AzphelShadow · leader
  • LumielWisdom
  • MarchutanDestiny, or Fate
  • TrinielDeath
  • ZikelDestruction

The sides are the ones they took after the Cataclysm. Ten of the domains are exactly what AION 2 prints next to the names, like «Justice [Nezekan]» or «Time [Siel]». Light and Shadow for Ariel and Azphel come from the original game.

Aether, Ascension and the first Daevas

Aether could only be used by the pure and devout. The Empyrean Lords chose humans to go through Ascension: a change of body and spirit that filled them with Aether and made great wings break from their backs. These ascended humans were the Daevas.

A Daeva is hard to kill for good. When the body falls, Aether can make it whole again. Daevas were revered as demigods, given the right to rule over ordinary humans, and given the duty to protect them.

The Millennium War

With the Daevas at their side, the Empyrean Lords went to war with the Balaur. Ten Lords led the Daevas into battle, while Siel and Israphel stayed to guard the Tower of Eternity. This war lasted for centuries and became known as the Millennium War.

To protect itself, Aion raised an Aetheric Field around the Tower. No Balaur attack could break it. But everything outside the field lay open, and the Balaur burned it: rivers ran red and mountains turned to cinder. The war locked into a stalemate. The Balaur could not break into the field, and the Lords and their Daevas could not leave it long enough to win.

Where legions come from

To bring order to their growing armies, the Empyrean Lords founded a body called the Nobelium, which organised the Daevas into combat groups. Those groups were called legions. So legions are older than the Cataclysm itself.

The Cataclysm

In the end Israphel proposed peace with the Dragon Lords. The Empyrean Lords argued about it for a long time.

In the end the field was lowered. The five Dragon Lords came to the Tower with only a small escort and were asked to enter alone. The talks started calmly.

Then someone tried to assassinate one of the Dragon Lords. Nobody on either side remembers clearly what happened next. Fighting broke out in the heart of the Tower so suddenly that the field could not be raised again, and the Tower of Eternity began to break apart. With it, Atreia began to break apart too.

Israphel and Siel gave their own lives and Aether to save what they could. They held the world together, but the Tower was split in two, and so was Atreia. This disaster is called the Cataclysm.

What the original game revealed later

Later chapters of the original AION retold the Cataclysm. In that telling, the peace talks hid a trap: Israphel wanted to destroy the Dragon Lords, and a hero known as the Archdaeva led a charge against Fregion when the talks broke down. Israphel was believed to have died a hero's death, but survived in hiding. Siel had not simply died either: she froze the two halves of the Tower in time, which held only for a while.

AION 2's own story says only that the Cataclysm happened. It does not say which version it follows.

Elysea and Asmodae: two halves of one world

After the Cataclysm the ten remaining Empyrean Lords split into two groups of five. Each side blamed the other for the disaster.

The Elyos of Elysea. Ariel's side, the Seraphim Lords, settled the lower half of Atreia. It was sun-soaked and peaceful. Its people, Daevas and humans alike, called themselves the Elyos. Their capital was one of Ariel's sanctuaries, raised and renamed the Sanctum.

The Asmodians of Asmodae. Azphel's side, the Shedim Lords, took the upper half. It was cold, dark and harsh after the Cataclysm. To survive, its people changed: their hands and feet became claw-like, and their eyes glow red with anger. They became the Asmodians, and their capital is the great castle Pandaemonium.

Each side still blames the other for breaking the world.

The Abyss

When the Tower split, the flow of energy at the centre of Atreia became unstable and formed a new place between the two halves: the Abyss, also known as Reshanta. Through rifts into the Abyss, the Elyos and Asmodians found each other again, after about a thousand years apart. They met as enemies, and the Abyss has been a three-way battlefield between Elyos, Asmodians and Balaur ever since.

AION 2 keeps that battlefield. The Abyss opens to players at level 45, and it is where your legion fights for artifacts.

The Shugo

The Shugo stay out of the war. They are small, cheerful and very good at business. They trade with Elyos and Asmodians alike. Before the Millennium War they built aetherships and had the largest shipyard at the foot of the Tower. The Balaur crushed them and stole that technology. During the war the Shugo took over trade and commerce in the cities instead, and some of them still smuggle goods across the Abyss.

AION 2: 200 years later

The Final War and the fall of the Tower

The war between Elyos and Asmodians ended in disaster. In NCSOFT's words, at the end of the war the Tower of Aion collapsed. The two sides did not trust each other enough to form the barrier again, and the clash of three races (Elyos, Asmodians and Balaur) «swallowed the light of the world». The day became known as the Final War, also called the Last War.

The Veil of Light

When the Tower fell and its barrier vanished, the Balaur poured into both halves of the world. The remaining Empyrean Lords used the last of their strength to raise a new wall: the Veil of Light, which rose between Eltnen and Heiron, split the world and sealed it off. The story text for each faction calls this wall the Bulwark.

Both sides paid for it:

The Dragon Lords Ishtar and Fafnir

Beyond the Veil, Atreia became a battlefield ruled by two Dragon Lords: Ishtar and Fafnir. They engulfed Poeta, the Elyos homeland, in fire and shadow. On the Asmodian side they crushed Ishalgen and devoured the continent. The Bulwark stopped their advance, but the land beyond it is theirs.

You meet them from the very start. The Elyos prologue sends you into Ishtar's Castle, the Asmodian prologue into Fafnir's Fortress.

The fall of the Daevas

In AION 2, becoming a Daeva is no longer a blessing.

So in AION 2 you start out as a Daeva in a world where Daevas are hunted.

The Dawn Legion

The Dawn Legion is a group of Daevas trying to survive and take the world back. Its secret command centre, the Base of Dawn, is hidden in a gorge in Cantas Valley in Verteron. Cantas Valley was once rich in Odium and served as a supply point for the Daevas. It was abandoned when the Odium ran out, and the Dawn Legion has since set up Aether Collectors there to harvest what little Aether remains.

NCSOFT's official site also names other forces in the story: the Ishtar Legion, the Fafnir Legion, the Notos Legion and the Illusion Cavaliers. It also names Urd, one of the Three Sisters of Fate, who leads the Nornir Assembly.

Your server's namesake

Servers come in Elyos and Asmodian pairs, and many of them are named after people in this story:

Elyos server on the left, its Asmodian partner on the right. Tap a server to see its legions.

Find a legion on your server in the legion directory, or see the AION 2 legion guide for how legions work today.

Where the sources disagree

Sources

AION and AION 2 are trademarks of NCSOFT Corporation. Legionhall is a fan-made legion tool and is not affiliated with NCSOFT. This page is written in our own words.