¶ The World
¶ The Formation and Reincarnation of the World
The world was originally a mass of chaos, from the centre of which a seed sprouted. As the seed grew, chaos split into two: Yin and Yang. From the energies of Yin and Yang, the world and the two gods, Sunwing and Moonbane, was born.
Many things in Naraka's lore is based on Chinese mythology. Sunwing is based on the Sun Crow, and Moonbane is based on Zhulong.
In Morus Isle, the centre of the world, the seed blossomed into a giant tree - the Aegis Tree - that connected heaven and earth, with the God of Yang (Sunwing) perched on its crown, and the God of Yin (Moonbane) perched at its roots. The two gods were constantly at war because of the differences in the nature of their powers.
The world NARAKA: BLADEPOINT is based on is from "The Ten Continents and Three Islands", Morus Isle is called Yuku Continent in that text. The Aegis Tree (Fusang) usually refers to as the "tree of life" in Chinese mythology.
Each divine war resulted in the death of the two gods. All life in the world, with the exception of Morus Isle, which is sheltered by Fusang, perish as a result of the divine wars.
After each divine war, the dissipated bodies of the two gods return to the world, nourishing the rebirth of all things. When the two gods of Yin and Yang once again have their souls reclaimed and their physical bodies restored, they will repeat the previous divine wars, causing the world to be in eternal calamity.
The Chinese name for Naraka: Bladepoint (永劫无间) loosely translates to "eternal calamity".
¶ The Birth of the Lunazra Kingdom, Man and Faith
After one of the divine wars between the two gods, a race of people who had both Yin and Yang in their bodies was born.
Attracted by a powerful bond, the elites of this race settled around the Aegis Tree in Morus Isle.
When the next divine war ended, the elite of this race and their civilisation survived thanks to the shelter of the Aegis Tree.
The survivors called themselves: the Lunazra Kingdom. Having seen the great power of the two gods, the Lunazra Kingdom set out to study the origins of the world and the power of the gods.
After the last divine war there was yet another race born from the ruins of the earth. Their appearance was very similar to the people of the Lunazra Kingdom, but the Yin and Yang in their bodies was not pure.
When the people of the Lunazra Kingdom found this new race they called them "humans", and occasionally gave them knowledge to help them build their own civilisation.
Matari is from Lunazra Kingdom. Lunazra Kingdom literal translation is "Hidden Race", the battlepass quest coins from season 1 was called "Hidden Coins" and was related to Lunazra Kingdom). Sometimes Lunazra Kingdom is referred to as "The Hidden temple" ingame.
Lunazra Kingdom ancestral hall mural
¶ Kunlun and the Embers
The humans formed two tribes worshipping the gods: Kunlun, who worshipped Moonbane, and the Embers, who praised Sunwing.
The Embers and Kunlun both sacrificed many from other tribes to the gods, in exchange for power.
Kunlun is another place described in "The Ten Continents and Three Islands", and Viper Ning is from Kunlun. In-game Kunlun is sometimes referred to as Yushan or the Yushan Whisperers.
Sunwing Mural
¶ Shooting the Sun
A few years later, in a small tribe within Kunlun's sphere of influence, a man named "Yi" was born.
Yi was born with a rebellious spirit and possessed leadership qualities, and eventually he rose up and united the leaders of several tribes to fight back against Kunlun's tyranny.
This Yi character is based on the mythological Chinese archer Hou Yi.
The fighting lasted for more than ten years, and Yi continued becoming stronger and stronger.
Kunlun was greatly weakened by the constant uprisings. As a result, the Embers grew stronger and more captives were sacrificed to Sunwing than Moonbane.
Due to this imabalance, Sunwing's power grew tremendously, and Sunwing split into ten bodies, whose power far exceeded that of Moonbane.
With the world on the verge of destruction and everyone was shrouded in terror before the worlds destruction.
Under the mediation of Lunazra Kingdom, the war between Kunlun and Yi was stopped, and Lunazra Kingdom brought Yi to the Aegis Tree - where the divine war was raging.
As Yi arrived to the scene, Sunwing launched a final attack, Moonbane's flesh was shot into holes by Sunwing's golden light, and even the Aegis Tree started crumbling. At the critical moment, Moonbane plucked off his scales and turned them into a mask (Naraka's Mask of Immortality), which he gave to Yi to put on. This mask contained the last of Moonbane's divine power.
Yi borrowed Moonbane's power, picked up a handful of scattered branches from the fallen Aegis Tree; smearing them with Moonbane's blood, and loosing them as arrows Sunwings ten bodies.
In Chinese mythology, Hou Yi shoots down 10 suns that were scorching the earth.
Sunwing's attack was interrupted by the arrows made out of the Aegis Tree, causing the energy inside Sunwing's body to burst, Ultimately, Sunwing's soul exploded, and Moonbane's body was gone with his soul put into a deep sleep. The collapsed Aegis Tree shielded against most of Sunwing's power and protected the world from destruction.
¶ Eternal Calamity (Naraka)
With Moonbane scales transformed into the Mask of Immortality, Yi's ability has far exceeded that of Lunazra Kingdom, who were previously regarded as gods by humans.
Yi returned to the mainland and established Eternia, where he drove the Kunlun Clan to the high mountains in the northwest and the Sun tribe to the canyon in the southwest. The Sun tribe named the canyon "Dusk Valley" in memory of Sunwing.
A few years later, Yi's messenger went to Morus Isle to ask for help from the Lunazra Kingdom. The original Yi, who wore the Mask of Immortality, had became increasingly cold, and his body even grew purple and black scales. It was with sadness that Yi found himself tainted by Moonbane's divine power. So Yi asked the Lunazra Kingdom people to come to Eternia and take the mask away.
Lunazra Kingdom took the mask away. And it wasn't long before they discovered that the Immortal Mask was absorbing the power of the world's Yin. They deduced that the mask was Moonbane's key to his quick resurrection.
If Moonbane comes back to life alone before Sunwing's resurrection, the world will perish because it is out of balance. So the Lunazra Kingdom had to find a way to emit the power from the mask to delay Moonbane's resurrection. By wearing the mask, they were able to delay his ressurection, but it corrupted their pure Yin. Nevertheless, the people of Lunazra Kingdom wore the mask until they were contaminated by the power and died. The rate at which the people of Lunazra Kingdom were contaminated by the mask was much faster than humans, perhaps due to their pure Yin, what made matters worse was that the population of Lunazra Kingdom was already small.
After a certain incident, Wanxiang become the leader of Lunazra Kingdom and proposed a solution: in order to delay Moonbane's resurrection as long as possible, a powerful human hero must keep putting on the mask and using the divine power in the mask, and the Lunazra Kingdom must ensure that the hero who receives the Mask of Immortality is under the control of the Lunazra Kingdom.
The Lunazra Kingdom deceived the heroes who wanted to take the Mask of Immortality, saying only that the mask has great power, not mentioning the side effects of the mask. Under the Lunazra Kingdom's lies, generation after generation of heroes continued to delay Moonbane's resurrection at the cost of their own lives. The eternal calamity of the world was replaced with the eternal calamity of heroes...