The Myth: A Legend of Loss
In the old tales, Atlantis was a continent swallowed by the sea — master of arts beyond its age, gone in a single night. Its name belonged to myth, never to chronicle.
In Cinder & Crowns, Atlantis is no longer a tale. It is the ground beneath your feet. The Season 0 scenario sets the story on the shattered continent of Atlantis: mountain ranges divide it into four marches, each split into two districts, where the city-states of older powers once stood.
The Atlantis of myth sank beneath the waves; the Atlantis of the game broke apart on dry land. The old world did not vanish. It shattered.
The Last Sanctuary After the Golden Age
The starting isle fixes Atlantis in time. After the Golden Age came and order broke down, one place remained: "the last unspoiled sanctuary of the Atlantis continent — a reef isle facing the lost land."
The Golden Age is over. The collapse has already happened. You arrive in the ember-light that follows, when the Old Empires have fallen and no new empire has risen to replace them.
That reef isle blends European and ancient Roman architecture, washed in gold and yellow-green. Exiled lords from every land gather here, then set out to march across the broken continent. This is where every Lord begins: standing in Atlantis's last safe corner, looking out at the ruins of the broken continent.
Lost Arts, Buried Veins
The lost arts of Atlantis are not written in grimoires. They lie beneath the bedrock.
Under the whole continent runs a vast network of gold veins — a metal the ancients called Everburning Gold. Unlike common gold, it never cools and never sleeps. It burns on: a spark the collapse could not put out. Whoever holds the veins can power a new empire. The lost art of Atlantis is not spell or sigil, but buried metal that still burns.
In form, Atlantis draws on ancient Babylon — concentric rings, cities laid out along a strict central axis. Every player's home city wears the Atlantean style by default; the East Asian, European, and Middle Eastern styles unlock at VIP levels 6, 10, and 14 respectively. It is a quiet design choice: every Lord begins on the ruins of Atlantis.
The water lingers, too. In the troop designs, a spearman's strike surges "like an undersea torrent." The drowned city of myth never truly left. It sank into the fabric of the game.
The Golden City Question
The records never state outright that the Golden City stands on Atlantis. But the evidence leans one way:
- The Golden City's continent is said to flow with countless gold veins underground.
- Beneath Atlantis lies exactly that — the veins of Everburning Gold.
- In Season 0, players set out from the Atlantean reef isle on an expedition for new territory.
- Explorers claim to have found ruins on distant shores, carved with clues to the Golden City.
Nothing welds the two together. But the narrative gravity is plain: after Atlantis broke, the Golden City became the name for its lost heart. Every Lord's expedition to find it is, at bottom, an excavation — archaeology in the old capital of Atlantis.