#battle for meridell

[masterhallmark]

[wispyvee]

Rekindled my love for neopets <3

[problematicperiwinkleplum]

An objectively correct tier list of every Neopets event and plot

[chocodile]

N...Neopets AU Hyden......bro would be the first cybunny to end up in the Gallery of Evil

Gallery of Evil - Lord Hyden

Lord Hyden was advisor and high court wizard to Lord Darigan, serving under him alongside Lord Kass during the events of Champions of Meridell. Scheming, duplicitous, and power-hungry, the Cybunny advisor had his own motives, playing the two against each other and eventually assisting Kass during his hostile takeover of Darigan Citadel. However, when Kass fell and the citadel was reclaimed, Lord Hyden was nowhere to be found.

Some say he was defeated during the battle. Others say Lord Darigan sentenced him to jail for his crimes during the war and that he is currently being held in a high-security prison cell deep within the citadel. Still others claim he fled after his betrayal was discovered and is currently living in disguise, hiding somewhere in Neopia.

Some years after his disappearance, rumors began to circulate of a powerful Kyrii wizard taking up residence in an old castle in the Haunted Woods. It is said that he offers travelers dark spells in return for signing dubious magical contracts. Could there be any relation...?

Additional period-appropriate art of this totally real Neopets character. First is him during his Darigan years with his evil bride Milana... er, "mate", sorry child-friendly censors! Second is him post Mutant Kyrii-fication, lording over his "neutral gray with transparent black shading" evil castle in the Haunted Woods.

[rainbowswirlything]

I have a Neopets lore question.

I've never played the Neopets: The Darkest Faerie PS2 game, so it's possible I'm missing out on some lore, but...

...the impression I had was that the land of Altador--and everyone within it--was completely sealed off from the rest of Neopia for the 1,000 years in which the Darkest Faerie was a stone statue at the bottom of the ocean, with anyone inside Altador at that time only able to re-enter the rest of Neopia after TDF was freed (at which point several of the Founders did indeed enter Neopia in disguise, where they assisted the game's protagonists).

However...

Psellia, one of the 12 Founders, played a role in the Battle for Meridell plot at a time when Altador was still very much sealed away.

Which seems to show that either

A) It was entirely possible for people to come and go from the time-bubbled Altador during that 1,000 years; they just chose to let the rest of Neopia think Altador had been completely destroyed for whatever reason

or

B) When Altador was time-bubbled, Psellia was trapped outside, completely separated from her Altadorian friends for a full millennium (and she may or may not have known what happened to them, or if they were even still alive).

Well, I guess there's also C) There are two Psellias running around with a penchant for catching Neopets that fall from floating landmasses... but I'm inclined to think it's one of the others.

So if anyone is more familiar with the lore from the Darkest Faerie PS2 game, I'd like to know if there's any info in the game that points more towards option A or B.

[alien-aisha-vending-machine]

Theory: How Neoquest was the first appearance of the Wraith threat.

i've always had the theory that the madness/dark magic from the two ring castle -> dark magic that infected darigain -> the madness that affected modern neopians during TDF -> wraiths & how it's all related to faeries being a possibly unnatural presence in Neopia

Part 1: Neoquest, or, "What do you mean Neopia is post-apocalyptic?!"

NQ1 is possibly the earliest version of Neopia we have or have ever gotten (if one doesn't consider Tyrannia as "a slice of the prehistoric era".) Notably, it's never been "debunked" in the same way that NQII has (tho, aspects in NQII imply that there are some canon aspects, or that the story itself is true- while the version we PLAY is a re-enactment or simulation.)

Though, while these days, Neoquest, (be it 1 or 2) is often considered "fictional" within the worldbuilding, a lot of early site lore really leaned on Neoquest for it's foundations. Toys, weapons, stories. monsters... a lot of this was based on Neoquest. it's a story that's been long forgotten by the site itself, but I still feel that in terms of the greater story of "Neopia", it is the most reliable glimpse into the ancient past and the sort of idea of what Neopets' original trajectory was.

It's also notable as being a version of neopia without the influence of Faeries. In fact, most neopians are neopets, and not a faerie is found in all the game.

Neopia is described ingame as a not-so-friendly place that is swarming with monsters and animals.. many of which are other neopets. The structure of this version of Neopia is very very interesting, as instead of faeries, it seems like it was ruled by a Council known as the "Circle of Twelve" who used what was known as "circles" of magic instead of the more well-known schools of Faerie magic (Fire, Ice, Shock, Spectral, and Life magic vs the Faeries' Dark, Light, Earth, Air, Fire and Water magic)

The lore goes back even further, mentioning a Great Empire and a Civilization known as Keladrian- a civilization of powerful wizards that was ancient even before the already-ancient Great Empire.. which was 1000 years ago during NEOQUEST.

Upon using the amulet on Faleinn, the leader of Kal Panning, she has this to say:

So ultimately, after a great scuffle between Kal Panning and the Circle, the Circle destroyed Kal Panning over the course of a month- afterwards, they realized what they had done and their leader, Jahbal, was banished to the Two Ring Mountains- from therein he used his evil magic to... corrupt the outside world. This long-form campaign to ultimately reduced the world to a few pocket civilizations, wrought with monsters.

A lot of the monsters are very clearly neopets, though- mad, mindless, and slowly warping from their less-crazed counterparts. They are sort of.. feral, in a way. Why.. it seems to remind me of...

Notes to Carry Forward:

No Faeries were present in Neoquest times, or before then either.

... note that there is no Faeries in Tyrannia, either.

Neopia thrived on Wild Magic.

Neopia, at this point, is a twice-over post apocalyptic civilization

There is a Dark Magic spell that is causing Madness, Mutations, and Violence.

Part 2: Champions of Meridell, aka the one without Kass in it.

Meridell is planted firmly "in the past" described ingame as a forgotten land of heroes. With Meridell and it's surrounding areas being such big players in the larger story of Neopets, it's easy to forget the world of Neopia is a very modern sort of place.. roughly pre-industrial, and while these days- Meridell and the other fantasy-themed lands often stand next to other lands as if they exist in the modern settings, Access to these areas are through a time portal.

I find Champions an ultimately more interesting tale than Battle, as it's the introduction to Meridell as a whole and contains a hugely important aspect of the land. Meridell was once suffering under famine, and under the advice of a seer, the King sends his knights to locate an Orb.

Meridell, which was once ridden with disease and famine, began to burst into life and lush greenery.

It's notable that Skarl does not know, or does to wish to share the fact that he knows, that the knights he sent to retrieve this orb had ultimately stolen it from the kingdom of Darigan.

When the orb was stolen, Darigan took a huge dive-

seemingly ending up worse than Meridell ever was. But.. why? Why did Darigain's citizens mutate when Meridell did not? Perhaps the orb was used to suppress something darker? More ancient?

In the Twisted Histories Capsule Adventure, we are presented with an alternate timeline where Meridell was defeated by Darigan. I think it's genuinely one of the coolest set of items ever introduced (the whole alternate timeline thing as a whole), as it not only implies that Darigan not only defeats Meridell, but merges with it to become one land....

Another aspect I would like to point out is that as Darigan citadel approaches Meridell, Spiked tentacles begin to grow and thrash.

Notes to Carry Forward:

A magical orb is used to bring health to the land around it.

While no faeries are explicitly mentioned in the story, we know Illusen is around, and that an air faerie saves jeran in the direct sequel.

Without the protection of the orb, the land turns Dark and pets begin to mutate. Ultimately, their leader falls to madness.

prev mentioned spiked tentacles.

Part 3: The Darkest Faerie, or- why is all the best lore hidden in the TCG?

There is a lot of lore snuggled away in TDF. It's one of my favorite cornerstones of Neopets' history- even moreso than Neoquest. A lot of it's personality does get lost in the game, but the cards are a huge contributor to really getting a glimpse into what the world was intended to be.

An interesting aspect is the concept of becoming "Tainted." Not only can pets and petpets be "tainted" but so can locations. In fact, with spiked tendrils echoing the corruption of both Meridell and Darigain in Champions, it makes it easy to draw comparisons.

In-game, the pets simply turn purple and their eyes glow, but the cards show off some more intense mutations.

That sounds a lot like "Darigainification".. except possibly more intense. The land withered, pets mutated and went crazy, and darkness fell. The designs look very similar to darigan as a color.

Note that this darkness.. didn't start when The Darkest Faerie was released, mind you. It happened after Illusen was dispatched... and one of the major quests involves a magical orb that is used to dispel the darkness.

Faerie Magic is suppressing this darkness. Perhaps specifically earth faerie magic... These Orbs- both Illusen's and the nameless one that Skarl/Darigan has, are possibly infused with faerie magic and are keeping the darkness, whatever it is, at bay.

"This, the orb that froze her in time. Fyora used it to turn the darkest faerie to stone, and imprisoned her under the sea."

With Illusen's Orb (Globe ig) and Jerdana's orb (revealed to originally belong to Fyora) being sugnificant players in the story, These orbs are very clearly a huge thing for Faeries, either powerful or special in nature.

Stepping aside to a really obscure concept, Darkest originally was an ally to the altadorian council, before her dive into betrayal.. but what caused this? This book seems to suggest that she.. dug too deep, perhaps. Maybe she too went mad with what she knew- I think in that sense, she was a lot like Xandra... well, speaking of-

Notes to Carry Forward:

A magical orb is used to dispel dark magic from the land.

Without the protection of a faerie or their artefacts, the land turns Dark and pets begin to mutate.

It is implied that Darkest fell to madness, and she uses this magic to try and destroy the land.

While not depicted in-game, Altador and Meridell are infested by spiked tentacles.

Part 4: The Faerie's Ruin, aka the one that killed off Hubrid Nox (the only sugnificant thing that happened in this plot for realsies 100% no foolin')

So, we all know and love the faeries ruin. and I'm not gunna play recap since tumblr is already starting to lag at the length of this post. But ultimately, when the faeries were turned to stone.. what began to happen? Dark creatures began to crawl from

Xandra may not have been right, but she may have been onto something.

Her neopedia entry says a lot. Neopets ruled by a Neopet? I think once upon a time, the world used to be like that.

...without the faeries' power holding Neopia together, dark creatures emerged and preyed upon the very Neopets that Xandra hoped to empower.

In the wraith resurgance, it is canonized that Neopets can become wraiths- or at least, wraith-like. However, I struggle to accept the resurgance as genuine to the canon, since it a post-staff-purge/Jumpstart-era plot. Plus, it's impossible to navigate what is left, so it's hard to glean info about it.

Stars above, the Ruin plot really did have some of the most gorgeous art neopets ever put out, huh?

Notes to Carry Forward:

Without the protection of the faeries or their artifacts, the land turns Dark and monsters begin to infest the land.

Neopets can adopt the form of these creatures. While Darigan pets are corrupted, they also exist as a color outside the lore. It is unknown for sure of Wraith pets are corrupted like Darigan pets are.

Xandra, while initally "well-intentioned", ultimately falls to madness, and she uses this magic to try and destroy the land.

Part 5: So.. what are you saying?

So, I'm just gonna cut the guff and state my theory outright: Jahabal's Curse from back in NQ still plagues Neopia to this day, and the only thing keeping it from destroying the world is interference from the faeries & their magic. The curse is the direct cause of turning neopets into monsters, and the corruption timeline as Feral and/or Tainted -> Darigain -> Wraith.

I don't think it's all intended. But I think it's interesting how this all slots together super easily.

[nettleneopian]

Kass spotted!!

For context this suit was made about 20 years ago by @furtech for use in promoting the battle for Meridel tcg sets. The suit was never paid for but furtech let neopets use it on the condition they returned it afterwards. They did not.

It sat in storage until it resurfaced at Jumpstart's neopets party a few years ago but disappeared back into storage.

The company that owned jumpstart 'netdragon' went under and neopets was sold to dom and went independent. It was unclear if they still had it but pictures and videos of the neopets warehouse were posted recently to Instagram and ticktok showing parts of it

Since there is an ama tomorrow I submitted a question asking if dom would consider returning the suit to furtech. I know its a long shot and he only take softball question but I thought it would be nice to just try. If you see my question while voting please consider giving it a tick

With them making room in the warehouse Im a little worried the might throw him out which would be a shame

[adobe-outdesign]

[ninebaalart]

Darigan Porygon

Based off the Darigan War Machine from the Battle for Meridell plot

[kayla-zafara]

Kayla the Zafara, alchemist of Meridell ask & roleplay blog

Please read below before submitting an ask!

☆ Lewd asks are discouraged. While Kayla will be portrayed as a young adult, I'm not entirely comfortable with lewd scenarios with the character. However, I do not mind asks regarding conflict and/or harm to the character. Attempts to "kill off" Kayla will be ignored (that'd ruin the point of the blog, after all!)

☆ Multiverse scenarios are okay! You can play or ask about characters from other medias. I also do not mind asks about OCs, so long as I have some information to go off... Unless you just want Kayla to judge by appearance, that's cool too.

☆ This blog has no specific timeline, but takes place after the event of Battle for Meridell. If you really want, you can ask her about the current events of The Void Within, go crazy I guess!

☆ Long-term roleplays (if any) will be tagged uniquely as not to flood the neopets tag.

Have fun interacting, if you choose to do so! ☆

[bunnyneobody]

(I wanted to remain anonymous but apparently I can’t put links in an anonymous ask. XP I get why but still.) I was researching the neopets timeline and found the Battle for Meridell plot as well as several other lost plots (and some you already have documented) preserved here.

Dude, that's awesome! I love the format they used to read it with.

It's good to see the old plots won't be reduced to lost media. 😁 Thanks for showing me this!

[masterhallmark]

Their Crimes:

Skarl: in order to save his kingdom, he had his men steal The Orb from another kingdom, cursing the latter PERMANENTLY. He then lied and claimed the cursed inhabitants were monsters trying to steal what was rightfully his. His actions resulted in TWO wars. Never formally apologized.

Kelpbeard: Banished a girl for having visions of bad things to come, claiming she caused the disasters. Had her sister who also had visions of the future regularly report to him, and at one point locked her in her room because he saw her swim to the surface. Later banished the latter because she saved a surface dwellers life, and imprisoned the surface dweller for trying to warn him about an upcoming attack, accusing him of selling their location to his enemies.

[neopetsitem]

Battle For Meridell: TCG Booster Packs

Source: https://www.neomerch.com/item.php?id=2066

[ladala99]

Neopets Plots/Events/Plevents; My Experiences

Going by JellyNeo's Book of Agest for a most comprehensive listing, because late Viacom Plevents are so unmemorable that I'd never be able to do it by memory.

2004

Battle For Meridell I joined while this plot was ongoing. I didn't even know it was happening, other than when I finally realized I didn't need to give my pets special abilities before going to Explore, finding Meridell in complete ruin. By the time I actually found the plot comic, it was over.

Hannah and the Ice Caves I didn't have a battle pet. I followed the plot comic closely and very much enjoyed it. I love the Hannah games. I hope they come back someday.

2005

Curse of Maraqua Happy there was a non-battling option, I joined as a Supporter for this plot! Points were, supposedly, gained by both turning in items the NPC requests or playing specific Flash games. I turned in one item and played a whole ton of the Flash games, but I only got credit for the item.

According to the Editorial at the time, there was a glitch where the Flash games weren't counting for certain players. You had to actually send in a ticket to get this fixed for your account. I did not send in a ticket, assuming some big fix would be pushed, but nope. Even when the Editorial said all affected players had been fixed, I wasn't. So I got two points for turning in a single healing potion. At least I got the avatar and site theme.

Darkest Faerie This is a video game, not a plot! I got it, still have it, didn't finish it until 2018 I believe. Fun game!

Lost Desert Plot I had like an hour computer time per day max and that was not enough to figure out what I was doing with the Temple of 1000 Tombs. I got a couple of points for happening to play a game of Pyramids, but that was the extent of what I did that actually counted.

I did wander the Temple of 1000 Tombs for fun a lot, and I helped out on the furniture-moving step if I remember right? That was open for everyone I think.

Loved the comic, though. I became absolutely obsessed with the storylines that came out around this time (both Darkest Faerie and Lost Desert Plot) and those characters still resonate with me the most today.

2006

Altador Mini-Plot The first plot that went right start-to-finish! I followed a guide and got everything done as it came out, having a blast.

Cyodrake's Gaze This happened at this time? Well, it was just a comic with making some guesses as to who did it. I guessed Anshu and was wrong(sorry Anshu! Just thought your version of the story was more different than the others!), but I got the other questions right.

Tale of Woe First real plot that I completed start-to-finish! And my favorite to this day. I was obsessed with Sophie the Swamp Witch since I got her TCG card so I loved seeing her with a real personality and backstory in the plot.

The only parts I didn't do were some of the higher-level battles and the harder version of the Potion step. I was too obsessed with digging to bother figuring out the puzzle there.

Wand of Wishing This is a video game, not a plot! I have it. I still haven't beaten it. I should add that to my to-do list.

2007

Journey to the Lost Isle My memories of this plot were that it was okay. Kinda fun, but nothing to write home about. I did not become invested in the characters. I remember a few steps being basically rehashed from Tale of Woe, which isn't a bad thing by itself.

2008

Operation: Petpet Park I remember this being an interesting diversion, and I played it all the way through. Didn't really catch me and get any lasting memories, though.

Puzzle Adventure This is a video game, not a plot! I have it, and I did not finish it. I did not find the gameplay fun and all I wanted was the site them.

My step-dad wanted the book, so he redeemed the first code, which locked our Wii's codes to his account and I quit once I realized that.

Then, years later, I played on my aunt's Wii and one of the prizes was already redeemed by someone else somehow. Despite the first code supposedly locking all of the prizes to my account. Since I wasn't going to suffer through this game if there was any chance I wasn't getting the site theme at the end, I quit.

And now the codes from this are locked because some cheater figured out how to guess them. Which is probably how one of my codes was already redeemed. So I'll never get the site theme. I hate whoever did this with a burning passion.

Return of Dr. Sloth I got stuck on the codebreaking part and wasn't able to participate in most of this plot. Didn't find the comic all that interesting, either.

2009

Atlas of the Ancients I recall this plot but as another kinda boring one. I got all the way through and finished with a good, but not the highest, trophy. Mostly because I didn't grind some of the steps enough.

But hey, I can turn my pets Magma at will (now that the glitch keeping me out is fixed), so worth it!

Quizaria's Curse This is a video game and not one I got. I do not have a Leapfrog.

2010

Faeries' Ruin I, at this point in my Neo-life, went on hiatus every year from the start of the Altador Cup through the Advent Calendar. So I didn't know about this plot until it was halfway through!

I had a good time while I was there, but was a bit salty about missing the beginning.

2011

Krawk Island Disappearance Crewdoku was fun. That's all I remember from this.

2013

Spooky Food Eating Contest I took a bunch of screenshots of the catacombs so I'd actually remember this plevent. I remember setting timers and having a blast.

War of the Obelisk Finally, a battling plot I could make it all the way through! I joined the Order of the Red Erisim and was actually able to beat the other team leaders on Easy! It reinvigorated me into training for the next war.

2014

Desert Diplomacy I enjoy logic puzzles, so I enjoyed this (and the Negg Fest one that happened one year. Not listed on this list.)

Portal Activation Centre I completed this but have very faded memories of it.

2017

Wraith Resurgence This was. . . a real disappointment. I got through it and was super happy defeating the Darkest Faerie at the end (She is in my account's canon an important character in my battle pet's past so him beating her up was so satisfying), but the actual plot had bad art, bad story, and moved entirely too slowly.

2018

Lyra and the Lost Heirloom I followed the plot for the first few steps but got bored because it took too long and took a hiatus from the site. By the time I got back, the prize shop was closed, so even though I earned some points, I wasn't able to use them!

Bad, bad feelings about this plot all around.

2019

Legends and Letters This is a mobile game that I did not play because I wasn't interested in the gameplay.

2024

The Void Within Looking above at the recent plots that took too long to get going so I took hiatus and missed most of them. . . I'm hoping I somehow like this plot. I like the buildup during the events last year and actually got me to be more active. I might even participate in the Altador Cup this year (haven't since the Flash versions went down and were replaced with awful HTML5 versions).

But those NC cookies and the fact that one achievement you absolutely needed to log in on a Sunday make me nervous. Like, Sunday. Really? I thought for sure since it wasn't obtainable by Friday it wouldn't be obtainable until there was an actual step to do. And right after they say that there's some leeway with not being on every day.

I got the achievement, but still. Weekends are the times I'm most likely to accidentally miss a day since I'm not on my normal routine.

[neoluca]

alright well thank you all for joining me 2nite!!! i had half a bottle of wine and im fucking feeling it.

ill see u all later when we tackle these bad boys!! (and maybe even get started on battle for meridell...?!)

lets gooo

[nettleneopian]

I finally got an ao3 account so I started working on my Neopets fanfic again. I fixed up the first chapter and posted it, the second chapter is done I just need to edit it first

Fall of Galgorroth

The events of Battle for Meridell from Galgarroth perspective

https://archiveofourown.org/works/65325235/chapters/168078064