The first game's story in plain words: who made what, who turned on whom, and how one world became two. Everything here is background that AION 2 builds on.
The god AION made the world of Atreia and set the Tower of Eternity at its heart. To guard it he made the Drakan, a dragon-like people, and put five of their leaders over the rest: the Dragon Lords.
The Dragon Lords came to want more than guarding. They gave up the name AION had given them and took a new one, Balaur, and the Balaur turned on the world they were meant to protect. Fan sources disagree on whether the Balaur or the Drakan came first; what every account agrees on is that the Balaur began as guardians and became the enemy.
To stand against the Balaur, AION created twelve Empyrean Lords. With aether they raised a barrier around the Tower. The humans who sheltered inside were changed by it: they gained flight and abilities beyond mortal limits, and were called Daevas.
Ariel, Kaisinel, Nezekan, Vaizel, Yustiel
Azphel, Zikel, Lumiel, Marchutan, Triniel
The remaining two, Siel and Israphel, belong to neither side. They come into the story at its worst moment.
The Daevas and the Lords fought the Balaur for a very long time. That war is known as the Millennium War, and neither side won it.
A peace conference was held at the foot of the Tower. What exactly happened next is told differently depending on who you ask. In the version we found, a Balaur lord was left wounded and the rest attacked the Tower. Siel and Israphel gave their life energy to save as much of the Tower and of Atreia as they could.
It was not enough. The Tower broke, and Atreia broke with it, into two halves: bright Elysea and dark Asmodae, with the Abyss torn open between them. The survivors on each half became the Elyos and the Asmodians. The Elyos hold the Asmodians responsible for destroying the Tower, and the blood feud between the two peoples runs from there.
Two hundred years later the feud between the two peoples and the Balaur are both still there. For what that time did to them, go on to the AION 2 page.
Written in our own words. The facts come from the game's own main-story quests and from the AION and AION 2 fan wikis (CC BY-SA), with press summaries for the timeline. The sources do not always agree, and where they do not, the page says so. This is a fan reading of the story, not official lore.
Sources: AION wiki: Lore, Empyrean Lords, Balaur, AION 2 wiki: Story, Solashur: the story of AION, GamersTogether: AION 2 story, LootWoW: AION 2 story.
This hub is made by the team building AION Companion, an AI companion for AION 2 that reads your HUD from the screen and the game's own event log on your PC, and talks to you out loud. Out now for Windows, with a free account.