"I, Aku, the Shapeshifting Master of Darkness, unleashed an unspeakable evil. But a foolish samurai warrior wielding a magic sword stepped forth to oppose me."
Wait... Wait! Wrong reference. While I adore the cult classic Samurai Jack and I think of it everytime I sit down to work on the game, before that, Aku was the name given to the capital city of Uttaku. Who? What? Let me tell you more about them.
At the Court of Hidden Faces, no one is who they seem. The sinister lords of the Uttakin go masked to hide their treachery. The secret police of the god Ebron kill those who flout their fanatical codes. In this tyrannical realm of betrayal and assassination, life is cheap. But rich rewards await the adventurer courageous enough to penetrate this hostile land.
Will you uncover the secrets of the High King’s citadel, where no mortal has trod for ten generations? Or wrest the holy sword from the crypt of Kizil Irmak, the Harbinger of War? Or find the key that unlocks the greatest secret of all – the means to open the gate of Time and travel back into the past?
The land of Uttaku
Hundreds of years ago, the Uttakin were a tribe inhabiting the Blue Grasslands and the Desert of Bones of Ankon-Konu. They united under the banner of Ebron and their first king, Ammunas the Baptizer. The Uttakin struggled with another tribe, the Golden Men, for dominance. The Uttakin began to get the upper hand, until the Golden Men started using flying chariots, known as arkships. How they came to use these ships is unclear – all you know is that the arkships were powered by the magical selenium ore. The Uttakin were defeated and driven out of Ankon-Konu. They sailed across the Violet Ocean, and invaded Harkuna, where they overthrew the people there, and re-established their ancient kingdom, renaming the land Uttaku.
From a distance the towers of Aku seem to hover in the air like a city in a mirage. Gardens of riotous foliage cascade like green waterfalls from the elegant pinnacles and domes. Windows of brightly stained glass glint and sparkle in the white sea-cast sunlight. Choir music drifts languidly from the highest minarets. Men and women in gorgeous silk robes glide decorously along the raised esplanades and balconies. For the masked nobles of Aku, life is one long round of banquets and masked balls.
Not so for the poor. The city is built right across the top of a narrow river canyon hundreds of feet high. The rich live in the city proper, the better-off merchants have mansions on the upper ledges of the canyon walls, and the slums of the poor cluster far down below. There they must endure the daily shower of sewage and refuse from above but, even so, many covet the sites directly under the city. This is because the nobles sometimes toss scraps of meat or half-eaten fruits from the balconies, or even whimsically drop coins off the marble balustrades; a desperate man can always dream of a windfall from on high.
On your way through Uttaku, make sure to stop by at the Hall of Heroes. Nice place, good drinks, or so I've heard...
Ever wanted to become a noble?
Aku isn't like anything you have seen in your adventures in Harkuna so far. There are loads of quests to do and a lot of ways to get rich. Not only that, but you can try and play the political games of the Court of the Hidden Faces, gain enough renown and enter the ranks of the nobles of Uttaku yourself!
Prison? Dungeons? Slave pits?
However, there are even more ways to find yourself thrown in the dungeons, sold to the slave pits, or sentenced to death... in the gardens. Those are no ordinary gardens, I can tell you that!
But you know what? Who says this needs to be the end of your adventuring career? Remember how in 1982's Conan the Barbarian, little boy Conan was enslaved and chained to work a large mill, the Wheel of Pain. Surviving into adulthood, becoming a massive, muscular man. With the entirety of the movie ahead of him?
That's right, you unlock a whole new adventure potential if you survive long enough! Such as stealing a flying carpet and escaping or becoming a gladiator. Gaining valuable experience teaches you much to be a better mage or warrior, for example, altering your abilities in the process.
The release of the full game is getting closer and closer! With only one month left, be sure to wishlist the game so that you don't miss it:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1299620/Fabled_Lands/