The Kingdom of Atlantis is a submerged kingdom of aquatic peoples and beings located underneath the North Atlantic Ocean between the United States of America and Europe, until it was raised above the surface by the phenomenally powerful magic rediscovered and wielded by Corum Rath near the end of Atlantis: The Throne.
One of the first and most highly advanced cultural societies on Earth, dabbling in both magic and advanced science, Atlantis is also one of the most reclusive, actively avoiding and abhorring contact with the "surface world".
Ruled by a monarchy whose bloodline dates back to before the age of antiquity (9,600 BCE), while long-lived, Atlantis has never been a nation to know peace for very long. Over the span of four-thousand wars, it has seen conflict from the surface world, from within its own borders and even from beyond the stars.
History[]
The Hunter/Gatherers and the Atlantean Empire[]
The continent of Atlantis was first temporarily settled 65,000,000 years ago by a humanoid extraterrestrial race known as the Hunter/Gatherers. Choosing the dominant life form, dinosaurs, as their prey, the Hunter/Gatherers' actions led to the dinosaurs’ extinction and when they returned to space the terrible shape they left the planet in led to an ice age.
Come 1,045,000 years ago, the Hunter/Gatherers later came to regret what they had done to planets such as Earth, a colony of Hunter/Gatherers returned to Earth and aided humanity's development, with some members of the colony interbreeding with the Homo erectus in the area while others bred with Manta rays and later created the Atlantean city of Hy-Brasil on a small continent in the North Atlantic Ocean. Meanwhile, the Hunter/Gatherers in space were conquered by dragon-like aliens called the Anunnake.
Over time, as their culture developed far faster and further than any other species on Earth thanks to influence from the Hunter/Gatherers, the culture began referring to themselves as "Atlanteans" after the continent that they occupied and began to learn to harness and control the magical energies around them and migrated across the globe. Energy in particular was often harnessed from an otherworldly dimension called Darkworld, which had come into being more than one billion years ago when an other-dimensional being fell asleep and it's dark dreams created a magical realm bathed in its power. One of the first and greatest Atlantean sorcerers, Calculha, discovered how to harness Darkworld's energies and learned to manipulate white magic. From this dimension the Atlanteans discovered unique beings and creatures of vast power and began to worship them as their gods. Amongst these beings were the first Lords of Chaos and Order; Chaon (god of evil and chaos), Gemimn (goddess of order), Tynan (balancer of order and chaos), Weaver (guardian and master of multicolored threads of magical energy), Deedra (goddess of nature) and Jheryl (goddess of truth and knowledge). To ensure access between both realms, Darkworld was tethered to Atlantis by a massive "chain" created by Deedra, goddess of nature.
The ancients carved the Twelve Crystals of the Zodiac to further increase Atlantis' power and tap into the mystical energy within the Earth. Distributing the gemstones at even intervals across the planet in areas that will become America, North Africa, Mexico, Europe, Scandanavia and India, the Atlanteans built twelve major city-states over each site of power. Each stone had unique properties to which sorcerers of that house owed their particular powers and each city-state was ruled by a sorcerer-monarch. Together, the rulers were called the Conclave of Twelve.
The first and largest Atlantean city-state was called the "City of the Golden Gate", built atop the ruins of an ancient civilization that practised psychic magic. Slain in an earlier Ice Age, this race was called the Rmoahal. One of other city-states was Hoshan (located somewhere in modern-day China). Meanwhile, Hy-Brasil became heavily armed as the nucleus of defense for the continent against savage societies such as Mu, Thamuz and Khe-Wannantu.
Calculha and the Twelve Crystals of the Zodiac[]
527,654 years ago, though prosperous, the early Atlantean empire was not a peaceful society. During its early years, the conclave was a body of mad sorcerers. However, these sorcerers were eventually wiped out and replaced by peace-seeking rulers. The greatest of these new rulers was Calculha and his only living equal was the Atlantean sorceress Dark Majistra from the Kingdom of Mu, who was a practitioner of dark magic.
Through their combined influence, the pair created a harmony between chaos and order and Atlantis flourished and grew into an advanced community unlike any other on the planet. Although magic was the dominant means of power throughout the continent, noted intellectuals began to also recognize the wisdom of advanced science. While the rest of the world had yet to benefit from inventions such as the wheel, the Atlanteans were already developing highly advanced technological wonders.
Calculha and Dark Majistra decided to consolidate their mystical prowess and experimented by breeding with one another. Their union produced twin offspring, Garn Daanuth and Ahri'ahn (the elder). Separating once the twins were born, Calculha took Ahri'ahn under his wing and apprenticed him in the arts of white magic while Dark Majistra schooled Garn Daanuth in the dark arts. The children, like their parents, each grew to become powerful mages in their own right and remained unaware of their family ties for hundreds of thousands of years.
152,000 years ago the presence of magic in the Atlantean empire had led to the evolution of a second hominid species. The generations of interbreeding between the Homo erectus and the Hunter/Gatherers, in combination with the high levels of unharnessed magical energies in the continent, resulted in the creation of the Homo magi; a species of human that evolved parallel to the Homo sapien species. This species possessed an innate understanding and control of mystical forces, while Homo sapiens found their path by pursuing the laws of nature and science. Atlantean Homo sapiens still possessed the resources to learn magic, but a rift grew between the species. Curiously, as Homo sapiens' scientific knowledge increased, so did their number. The pure blood Homo magi, however, dwindled due to persistent intermarriage between Homo magi and Homo sapien as, for some unexplainable reason, whenever members of the opposite species met (Homo magi and Homo sapien), they were immediately attracted to each other. That being said, pure blood Homo magi coexisted with other societies for millennia.
Eventually, the Homo magi decided that the only way to preserve their pure lineage was to isolate themselves. In 30 BCE, the Homo magi sealed themselves off in a society in modern-day Turkey.
145,000 years ago Atlantis thrived for nine hundred thousand years under the guidance of Calculha and the Conclave of Twelve. Calculha had received a prophecy of great destruction for Atlantis and convened the Twelve to discuss it. Calculha believed that the zodiac crystals were the key and that it was vitally important that they remain protected. His former wife, Dark Majistra, countered that they should unite the crystals instead and use them to defend against potential danger. The Conclave sided unanimously against Majistra, and so she undertook a plot to steal the crystals herself.
Their twin protoges, Garn Daanuth and Ahri'ahn, though still adolescents, had been warned by their parents/masters to be wary of each other; with Calculha telling Ahri'ahn that he was destined to become Atlantis' protector and that he would one day wear a special garment woven with the magical strands of power from Darkworld, while Dark Majistra employed Garn in her scheme to draw the twelve crystals away from their homes. Majistra knew that this disturbance would wreak great chaos but she assumed that the crystals' power would grant her godhood sufficient to create her own world.
To stop her, Calculha made a grave request of Ahri'ahn and the boy flung himself amidst the crystals and disrupted Majistra's spell; this set off a chain reaction that caused Majistra to explode. While Calculha and Ahri'ahn sent the crystals back to their rightful places, the ambient power of the crystals ravaged Ahri'ahn's body. The surge from this power traveled back through Ahri'ahn's mindlink to Calculha and flung the elder into the realm of Darkworld itself. From there, Calculha managed to protect Ahri'ahn's energies and send them into the sun. Meanwhile, Majistra's son, Garn, was left alone on Earth and his skin had turned snow white due to exposure to the energies.
Garn dedicated himself to the study of magic, hoping that one day he would have the opportunity to avenge his mother. Over the next 100,000 years, Garn mastered dark sorcery and succeeded his mother as the leading sorcerer of Mu. A large portion of Earth's magical energy was lost in the struggle between the two brothers and a great ice age slowly blanketed the once-mighty Atlantean empire. Thanks to their aggressive pursuit of science, Atlantis would survive this cold and continue to prosper while the rest of the world had yet to benefit from inventions such as the wheel.
Though Calculha managed to save the Twelve Crystals, their remaining power was further curtailed by greater cosmic forces. Far away in space, a major sun went nova, and the violent emanations of its explosion had vast repercussions on the mystical as well as physical planes. Great zodiacal alignments were disrupted and a flux resonated through the magical field that permeated the universe. The ultimate result was that Earth, once a great epicenter of mystic concentrations, lost even more of its magical potential.
As the rulers of the twelve great Houses discovered their loss, they sought to save themselves and the rest of the mystic community of the world. They knew that once the magic was gone, they would be reduced to the level of ordinary humans, and the rich profusion of beasts and wizards, gryphons and faeries, unicorns and dragons — would cease to exist. The masters of the twelve Houses poured all their powers into a single vessel, a young witch named Citrina. They bade her seek out a suitable, unformed mystical realm, a dimension far removed from the earthly plane, and there create a new world for the magicks of Earth.
At last Citrina succeeded and created a new home named Gemworld. Most of Earth's mystic community migrated to the new land. Being a mystical realm, Gemworld stimulates, but is not bound by, the laws of physical reality. It consists of one great land mass surrounded by a sea, with several clusters of islands laying offshore, and its sun is a living entity. Every morning the sun surges out of its home in the eastern sea. The Twelve Houses ruled Gemworld, much as they had in Atlantis, with each of their realms within the land aligning its character with the properties of a gemstone: Amethyst, Emerald, Garnet, Ruby, Diamond, Moonstone, Sapphire, Sardonyx, Topaz, Turquoise, Opal and Aquamarine.
50,000 years ago Atlantean society experienced a period of scientific growth and experimentation. In one such experiment, the resident Lord High Mage fashioned an exploratory vessel and hurled it to the stars with magical energy. Some have speculate that the crew of this craft may have populated the nearby human worlds of Rann, Thanagar, and Krypton.
5,000 years later, though it was a shade of the wonder it had been before the ice age, Atlantis remained a glorious civilization. Science now dominated the twelve great cities, with only some remnants of sorcery. Empires rose and fell over the centuries, and many cultures lost all ties with mighty Atlantis. Former colonies began to evolve into civilizations of their own, but carried reminiscences of their heritage in rituals or words.
It was around this time that Vandar Adg (later known as Vandal Savage) and his nemesis, the Immortal Man, became immortals and the New Gods of New Genesis visited and experimented upon a Neanderthal named Aurakles, endowing him with abilities far beyond normal humans and providing him with technology so that he could lead his people and defend the Earth for centuries against the 666 Monsters of Chaos as the world's first superhero.
Arion Lord of Atlantis and the Great Migration[]
The Atlantean exodus to Gemworld left the Earth with precious few sorcerers. As such, Atlantis was left vulnerable to the power of Garn Daanuth. Garn became the greatest sorcerer on Earth and planned to conquer Atlantis just as his mother had once tried. But Calculha, from his long exile in Darkworld, developed a near godlike mastery of magic. To save Atlantis, Calculha gathered Ahri'ahn's life energies from the sun and drew them to Earth in the form of a blood-red gemstone.
A young Atlantean, Wyynde was born to Sh'roco, king of the land of Khe-Wannantu. But the young boy could not bear the thought of sacrificing his freedom to one day succeed his father and he fled Khe-Wannantu and became a soldier for the City of the Golden Gate, serving under the captain of the royal guard, Lady Chian of Hoshan. When his troop clashed with a group of "Sub-men" (savage cavemen that populated the area around the city during the ice age), Wyynde was wounded by the primitives' arrows and became separated from the rest of his patrol. He became lost in the snow-covered wilderness and the glare from the snow rendered him blind.
Choosing the soldier to aid his son's resurrection, Calculha guided Wyynde to the blood-red gemstone and instructed him to climb an ancient pyramid and set the gem upon its summit. This act restored Ahri'ahn to human form and cured Wyynde's blindness. Assuming a new name; "Arion", to better fit modern verbal traditions, Ahri'ahn and Wynnde returned to the City of the Golden Gate as protectors of Atlantis, and Arion became the Lord High Mage of Atlantis; driving Garn's forces back but not before Garn destroyed Calculha's essence and learned of his relation with Ahri'ahn.
As Arion became lovers with Lady Chian; Arion, Chian, Wyynde and a shapeshifter from the city of Thamuz named Mara, shared many adventures defending the civilization of Atlantis from various threats.
Upon the death of his father, Wyynde returned to Khe-Wannantu to become their new king and he married a women named Fawndancer, who had been pledged to him before her birth. But soon after his reign began, the land of the Khe-Wannantu was sunk beneath the sea by Garn. The only survivors of the tribe were Wyynde, his brother Nightfire, and Fawndancer, who was permanently transformed into a creature of the sea.
Wyynde's grief, combined with the strain on his mind when Garn temporarily took control of it, caused him to withdraw from reality mentally for a time. Later, Wyynde was genetically altered into a beast-man but Arion succeeded in restoring Wyynde to his true form and Wyynde was once more in good mental condition.
After the Atlantean king, D'Tilluh, committed suicide D'Tilluh's daughter, D'Galla, returns to the City of Golden Gate to take up rulership after her father's death but Arion would assume the throne of Atlantis instead due to his popularity within the kingdom.
His tenure is cut short, however, with the return of the space-bound Atlantean exploratory vessel. The vessel, which was launched in the name of science by Atlanteans eons before, returned to Earth with alien conquerors. This drew the attention of the Darkworld god, Chaon. Chaon attempted to take advantage of the empire's vulnerability and launched his own attack. While Arion and his friends resisted both Chaon and the aliens, they were only able to stop one of the threats and, while the aliens were defeated when one of their number, Etok, betrayed them and sent their ship into the sun, Chaon released a massive bolt of black magic which struck the City of Golden Gate. This set off a chain reaction that triggered the tectonic forces beneath the continent. As a result, most of the continent sank below the ocean, including the cities of Hy-Brasil and Mu.
Believing that the entire country of Atlantis had been completely destroyed, Arion, Wyynde and Lady Chian led a band of adventurers to rebuild their society. Arion sent out six expeditions to seek out new homes. This era became known as the "Great Migration" and would result in the creation of several ancient cultures that exist in present day.
As Arion and Lady Chian married and established their own colony during the Great Migration, an Atlantean expedition led by General Rugero found its way to the other dimensional realm of Skartaris through a portal near the North Pole. One of his comrades, Lord Norrad, founded New Atlantis there. A second group of Altanteans from this group settled elsewhere in Skartaris, but were eventually destroyed by nuclear war.
Wyynde later led another expedition that never returned. It is theorized that he settled in North or South America and became the ancestor to modern natives of these lands.
One tribe of Atlanteans settled inside a Himalayan mountain, creating the Dreaming City, a place of spirituality.
Soon the magic levels on Earth began to drop further due to the entity that created Darkworld beginning to wake up. All the remaining sorcerers of ancient atlantis were left virtually powerless and as Darkworld ceased to exist, even its gods were left adrift, yet immortal, on Earth. When the magic faded, Mara was in the form of a dog and she remained thus. Also during this time, Vandal Savage found his way to Arion's new home, where he formed a partnership with Garn and together they formed the secret society called the Illuminati.
Meanwhile, while the City of the Golden Gate; and indeed all of the surrounding area, had fallen below the seas, the area further inland remained as an archipelago of islands and upon these islands new cities were created and developed as a new Atlantean nation in isolation from the rest of the world.
The Great Deluge and the Curse of Kordax[]
11,000 years ago (9,600 BCE), while relatively isolated from rest of world, what remained of Atlantis was still thriving. The small continent was content to develop by itself although occasionally, small bands of savages would attack the cities. When Atlantean King Thorvall died, his elder son, Atlan, ruled Atlantis. Atlantis expanded under his leadership with its land growing into seven different kingdoms. When his brother, Orin, became disgusted with Atlan's open race policy, he usurped power from Atlan "to protect its people from the foreigners polluting their bloodline". During the coup, Atlan was injured and he retreated into the ocean and Orin murdered Atlan's wife and children while he was not there to protect them.
Under King Orin and his wife, Queen Narmea, the nation's capital was renamed Poseidonis after the Greek god Poseidon.
Just and fair, Orin oversaw Atlantis alongside his younger brother, Shalako. While the two brothers were close to one another, they differed greatly in terms of philosophy and ideology. While Orin was a technocrat, Shalako was a mystic, who followed in the traditions of the great Atlantean sorcerer's like Arion.
When Orin's best friend, Rajar, had visions of a coordinated attack by the savage tribes on the city, Orin fully dedicated the nation's resources to scientific endeavours and defended Atlantis using laser cannons. Shalako, on the other hand, called upon his goddess, Suula, to strike at the attacking savages instead.
After the attack was thwarted, Orin ordered a transparent dome be erected over the city for protection. Shalako felt this would anger the gods (Suula, the Goddess of the Sky, in particular) and so he began praying to other "Dark Gods" to protect them. Meanwhile, Shalako's son, Dardanus, developed an unhealthy attraction to Orin's newborn daughter, Princess Cora.
Meanwhile, Atlan had forged seven weapons using Nth-metal; the Atlantean Helmet, Atlantean Key, Atlan's Scepter, Globe of Transportation, Manacles of Force, Power Glove, and the Seal of Clarity, to help him in retaking Atlantis, however, his grief and rage soon turned him to using the weapons to destroy the kingdom.
The continent soon came under threat by a skull-shaped meteorite that was set to collide with the Earth. While Shalako believed that the meteor was sent by the goddess Suula in retribution for Orin's heresy, the meteorite was actually an Anunnake ship that had come to conquer and destroy the remaining colonies of the Hunter/Gatherers after having enslaved the race 1,034,000 years before. The ship's impact somewhere near the North Sea and Atlan's usage of his scepter created large earthquakes that destroyed the remaining archipelago and sent the continent to the bottom of the ocean. The city of Poseidonis came to rest atop the Anunnake ship at the bottom of the ocean. Though nearly all of Atlantean culture had been wiped away forever, those of the capital city of Poseidonis managed to survive due to the erection of the giant dome that shielded the city.
While it is unknown what became of the Anunnake that were on board the skull-shaped ship, at least one of their number remained on Earth. This female became feared and worshipped in several cultures as the ancient Babylonian goddess Tiamat. After she is "slain" by the Sumerian god of water, Enki's, son, the storm-god Marduk, Tiamat places herself in suspended animation inside the ship beneath Poseidonis.
As years passed, the surviving Atlanteans attempted to eke out an existence within the domed city but tensions continued to mount between those loyal to King Orin and his science (becoming known as "Technocrats"), and those who were desperate for spiritual guidance who pledged themselves to Shalako (becoming known as "Shalakites").
While the Atlanteans adjusted to underwater life, Orin sent out six exploratory vessels to discover the fate of rest of world. When two exploratory vessels discovered the meteoroid that sunk Atlantis, they were whisked through the ocean to Egypt. The natives there welcomed the Atlanteans as gods alongside the Egyptian Pantheon and the Green Martians who had remained on Earth to undo the damage their White Martian cousins had done to humanity, and together they helped guide the Egyptians in developing their society and mated with best of them to strengthen their lineage.
When no explorers returned, Orin assumed that Atlantis was all that remained of life on Earth and Shalak and his followers were no longer willing to live with the Technocrats and, deeming that Poseidonis was an "unclean" city, they decided to leave the city and forge a new destiny for themselves. Discovering a series of subterranean tunnels linking all of the old cities together, Shalako used his magic and led a mass exodus to establish a new Atlantean legacy in the ruins of Tritonis. When Shalako called upon his dark gods to create a hard-water dome to cover the city, so that his people could survive, he had to offer a sacrifice to appease them. Murdering his beloved wife (one of 11 wives), Loma, in front of his son, Shalako offered her blood to satisfy the gods and the hard water dome around Tritonis was erected.
Three years later, a scientist from Poseidonis developed a serum that would allow all Atlanteans to breathe underwater. Unwilling to risk the lives of his people should it not work, King Orin was the first to test the serum and was elated to discover that it had worked and the Atlanteans were no longer confined to Poseidonis. Orin and his entourage traveled to Tritonis to share the news with his brother. Shalako scoffed at the Poseidonians' technological accomplishments and suspected that Orin was secretly trying to unseat him as ruler of Tritonis. Not wanting the people of Tritonis to be denied such an opportunity just because their ruler was stubborn and paranoid, when Orin offered the miracle serum to any in Tritonis who would accept it the Shalakite citizens accepted.
Feeling betrayed by his own people, an infuriated Shalako called upon the dark gods to curse the Tritonians who had drunk the serum; horribly mutating their bodies and giving them scaly, green legs and webbed feet. Blaming the mutation on Orin's serum, Shalako attempted to lead Tritonis in a coup against his brother but Shalako's son, Dardanus, appeared before them and revealed that his father had cursed his followers for abandoning him and that he was also responsible for the death of his mother. The people of Tritonis turned on Shalako and destroyed everything they could find even remotely related to him before running him through with a spear. Dardanus, meanwhile, went into hiding.
As the monarchy of Tritonis passed to the venerable, but wise, King Stearn, Dardanus came out of hiding and returned to Poseidonis on Princess Cora's fourteenth birthday and debutante ball. King Orin greeted his nephew with open arms and the two had a long discussion. As the party continued, Dardanus began dancing with Cora and he admitted a deep affection for her. When Dardanus' behavior became aggressive, Cora's friend, Bazil, tried to break them apart and when Bazil punched him, Dardanus stabbed Bazil in the chest with a dagger. While Bazil was not fatally injured, Dardanus was tried for his crime and sentenced to house arrest in Tritonis.
On Cora's wedding night to Bazil, Dardanus eluded his house arrest and snuck into Princess Cora's private bedchambers in the middle of the night where he raped her and left her pregnant. The offspring from the union was born with monstrous features, blond hair and green scales. Named Kordax, the child was exiled from the city to die after it mutilated Cora's breasts while feeding.
As time passed, Atlanteans of both cities noticed changes in their biology. In general, the undersea people aged at a slower pace. Poseidonians began to grow small fins on back of their legs and the Tritonians were born with fishtails instead of legs. Later, unaware of the existence of his son, Dardanus (who had become King of Tritonis) addressed the Atlantean court. He argued that the people of Poseidonis treated their neighboring Tritonians with nothing but disdain for their monstrous appearance. He also blamed King Orin's actions for producing the mutation of Tritonian children, presenting a Tritonian child, born with the lower body of a fish. King Orin took these concerns to heart and opened the floodgates to the city dome, letting the water in so that both populaces lived equally as aquatic beings.
Back in Tritonis, a group of hunters captured a strange beast inside one of their nets and Dardanus was shocked to discover that the creature they captured was actually his own son, Kordax.
When Orin retired as King of Atlantis, Princess Cora took the crown and lead their people as their new Queen. Cora's first act as Queen was to announce her daughter, Fiona, as the heir to Atlantis. Dardanus challenged the decision, saying that, by right of birth, it was Kordax who should inherit the throne instead of Fiona. It was at this point that Cora revealed that she was raped by Dardanus and left with child. The scandal caused heated tension between Poseidonians and Tritonians. Before long, both city-states went to war.
Dardanus and Kordax (who had the power to control the sea creatures) led the Tritoneans against Poseidonis' forces lead by Orin and Bazil. During the fight between Orin and Dardanus, the spirit of Shalako suddenly appeared. With Orin distracted by Shalako's magical spirit, Dardanus plunged his sword through Orin's heart, killing him. Shalako then began fighting Dardanus until the Spirit of Orin appeared and defeated the Spirit of Shalako, but not before the spirit killed Dardanus as well.
Meanwhile, after being defeated in battle by Princess Fiona, Kordax lost control of his sea creatures, which then turned on the Tritonians. Both peoples were forced to battle the sea creatures together and the war ended. Queen Cora ordered Kordax's left arm to be amputated at the bicep (as that was what his sea creatures had done to her husband during the battle) and he was banished from Atlantis to be forever known as Kordax the Cursed.
Curious over what had become of their home, a small group of Atlanteans who had settled in Egypt returned to the ocean. When they found Poseidonis and Tritonis at war, they returned to Egypt.
Also during this time, a group of Poseidonians migrated to the ancient city of Hy-Brasil and "merged" with their "manta brothers," transforming into white-skinned humanoid creatures with manta-like wings. Their king known as Guardian of Hy-Brasil.
Another group of Atlanteans found the city of Thierna Na Oge, a stronghold of sorcery. These, inhabitants developed orange skin and the kingdom developed as a female dominated society.
When Fiona inherited the crown from her mother, she married her love, the Atlantean historian and chronicler Regin, and together they would have a daughter named Fatima and a son named Kalunga.
Believing it inappropriate that the next official chronicler (which was passed down from parent to child like the crown) would be a direct blood descendant of the royal line (as it would call their objectivity into question), Fiona requested that her husband also sire a child with another woman outside of wedlock. Complying with his wife's request, Regin found an unnamed Atlantean woman to continue his bloodline and he impregnated her with a child who would inherit his role as chronicler and historian.
Inheriting the crown from her mother, when Fatima's daughter, Manu, was born, a mysterious woman named Gana (rumored to be the daughter of Kordax) came to Poseidonis. When Kalunga (who would become known as Kalunga the Imbecilic) fell in love with Gana and married her; they sire a villainous heir to the throne named Nala who frequently came into conflict with Manu as one of most formidable villains in Atlantean history.
Vandal Savage came to Atlantis and battled his nemesis, Resurrection Man, who was resurrected as a fishtailed Tritonian at the time.
The House of Atlan and Modern Atlantis[]
Some 3,000 years ago in 1200 BCE, Poseidonis and Tritonis lived together peacefully and the bloodlines of Manu and Nala eventually merged with the union of their descendants, King Honsu and Queen Lorelei and they are eventually gifted with three sons; Kraken, Atlan, and Haumond. While their first borne, Kraken, followed in his father's footsteps in becoming a great warrior, their youngest child, Haumond, was a peace keeper who detested needless violence. When their second borne, Atlan, was revealed to have blonde hair, he was banished from the city in fear that he would become another monster like Kordax.
Years later, "Atlan the Loner" returns to Poseidonis to reveal that there were civilizations on the surface world. Deciding to attack before the "surface dwellers" become strong enough to become a threat, King Honsu and the Council of Ten decide to invade surface world.
The Atlantean Shayera and a group of pacifistic Atlanteans known as the "Idyllists" objected to the war plans, however and left Poseidonis to form their own colony in the Hidden Valley. Before they embarked, Atlan, who was also a skilled mystic, tells Shayera to "beware children with purple eyes". Settling within the Hidden Valley, the Idyllists founded the city of Shayeris/Crastinus and became rabid builders and collectors, architects and artisans, that eschewed physical violence at all costs. The Idyllists also became practitioners of magic and kept an extensive library of mystical texts and scrolls.
Urged by his wife to conquer the surface world as she secretly wanted her husband to die in combat so the her son, Kraken, would rule Atlantis under her own command, King Honsu had a great island city built near Europe to act as an Atlantean colony during the campaign named Bazilia (after King Bazil). From this colony, King Honsu and the Atlanteans swept through Europe and the Middle East, battling Vikings, Chaldeans, Babylonians, before setting their sights on Egypt in 1175 BCE.
Invading Egypt during reign of Ramses III, the Atlanteans fought valiantly but could not endure Egypt's hot sun and deserts. Ordering his troops to retreat back to Bazilia, Prince Haumond was thought dead and left behind. Brought before Ramses, the Egyptian king revealed to Haumond that he was actually a descendant of the original Atlantean explorers sent out by Orin.
Ignoring Egypt, the Atlanteans continued their conquest of Europe into Greece. However, Honsu's soldiers were tired, they had fought too long and too hard. So Honsu told the Greeks that if they can defeat his greatest warrior, his son Kraken, in battle, he would go back to the water and never bother them again. Upon this declaration, a brave Greek warrior stepped into the fight and killed Kraken after a long battle. Then, Honsu realised that the greek warrior was Haumond. Eventually, he left Greece and returned to the oceans with the Atlanteans and Bazilia sank. Prince Haumond, however, returned to Egypt and became a priest.
As Atlan's powers grew, he gave Haumond a potion which allowed him to live on land longer than other Atlanteans and extended his life span. However, after living for centuries, he ceased taking the potions during the rule of Amasis II and told Solon (an Athenian statesman, lawmaker and poet) the ancient story of Atlantis when he visited Neith's temple at Sais sometime around 595 BCE. After his death, Atlan released Haumond's body back to the ocean, where he belonged.
Meanwhile, in Atlantis, Prince Kraken's offspring continued the royal family line and after supplanting King Honsu they continued to fight amongst themselves.
Sometime after this, the Hunter/Gatherers (now loyal servants of the Anunnake) returned from space and dredged Bazilia up from ocean. Improving its technology to the point of enabling it to levitate, the Hunter/Gatherers charged a man named Spought to monitor the Earth from the island.
Come 1043 BCE, the Atlanteans' longstanding fear of Kordax drove them to expel another blond-haired child, this time a girl named Gamemnae, from the underwater empire. Somehow, the girl survived much like Atlan and became a great sorceress. Twenty-three years later, she sought vengeance on her people for her banishment and returned to Atlantis and raised the city above the water; binding her soul to the continent in the process (a bond that could not be broken unless the continent itself was destroyed). Then she gave the people a choice: denounce her and suffer another catastrophe or become her servants and remain on the surface. She uses her magic to change her followers into air-breathers, and those who refused suffocated in the air. Convinced that it was her destiny to complete what King Honsu began and lead the people of Atlantis in conquering the world, Gamemnae established herself as ruler of her people and gradually learned further spells to increase her power.
Ensnaring the Rama Khan of Jarhanpur as her king, Gamemnae led the nation to greatness. This era would become known as Atlantis' "Obsidian Age."
In 1015 BCE, this age was disrupted when Atlantis from the 21st Century was shunted 3,000 years into the past as part of a magical contingency plan set up by Aquaman and Tempest in a desperate attempt to save the city from the Imperiex War. Orin had read in the Atlantis Chronicles that during this time, Atlantis experienced a long period of peace and stability. But when his people arrived, they found that the city had been raised above sea level. Many of the refugees suffocated in the air before Orin led the survivors into the water. Gamemnae approached Orin as a friend but soon became outraged to learn that Atlantis would become a race of water-breathers once again in the future. Magically turning Aquaman into a water spirit and trapping him in a pool of water, Gamemnae then enslaved the remaining future Atlanteans beneath the water.
Realizing that Aquaman's friends, the Justice League, would inevitably come looking for him, Gamemnae formed a plan with the Rama Khan to form a "League of Ancients" to defeat the heroes. To do this, she arranged for the Rama Khan to receive false visions of the future to perceive the Justice League as a group of destroyers - referred to as the "seven-headed hydra" - and that the Ancients needed to be assembled so that they could defeat these threats.
By 1004 BCE, Gamemnae had further expanded her dominion and she and Rama Khan had recruited heroes from across the globe to form the "League of Ancients": the Anointed One, Manitou Raven, Sela, Tezumak and the Whaler. In response to a "dire prophecy" by Gamemnae, Manitou Raven and Tezumak travelled to the 21st century in a pre-emptive attempt to destroy the Justice League. They did not succeed, but instead set the JLA on the path to locating 21st Century Atlantis.
When the Justice League arrived in 1000 BCE the heroes located the enslaved Atlanteans, who were being protected by Mera, their 21st century queen. Gamemnae's Earth-driven powers were too strong for the JLA and the Ancients prevailed in killing the League. Once this had been done, Gamemnae to advantage of the group by using the power of Atlantis to absorb the souls and powers of the League of Ancients, and use this new power to conquer the world for Atlantis. However, one of the Ancients, Manitou Raven, discovered Gamemnae's insidious intentions when he confronted her on her intentions for amassing such a powerful group. At the last minute of their battle with the JLA, the bravery of Green Lantern convinced Manitou Raven to change sides and oppose Gamemnae. He used Green Lantern's heart as a sacrifice in order to save the JLA's souls. The power of the sacrifice enabled Raven to cast a containment spell around Atlantis, effectively trapping Gamemnae and everyone on Atlantis within until the spell was broken in the 21st century.
After Gamemnae was awakened in the twenty-first century, she began hoarding all of the world's water to force humanity to submit to her, but only to find herself opposed by a reserve Justice League, created by Batman as a contingency in the event that the original League was killed or defeated. Gamemnae, however, was too powerful to be defeated by the reserve League, of which resulted in some of them being absorbed by her, as her power is fueled by her bond with Atlantis. Fortunately, an elderly Manitou Raven, who survived through time, helped the Leaguers by sending them back in time to disrupt Gamemnae's connection to Atlantis, freeing Aquaman, who was forced to break Gamemnae's soul-bond to the continent and nullify her magicks by re-sinking the city. At the same time in the present, Gamemnae was battling both the reserve League and the resurrected corpses of the League she had already killed; unable to absorb the dead, Gamemnae was forced to resurrect them to kill them properly, but only to realize too late that this had been their plan all along. In an act of desperation, Gamemnae threw the water she hoarded into space, disrupting Earth's orbit. Manitou Raven, with assistance from the League, battled Gamemnae while the League kept Earth's orbit stable. The battle ended with the future Gamemnae being erased from existence as her past self was overwhelmed by her body-absorption spell due to her broken link with Atlantis and was burned to death via her stolen powers of the Ancients. The Atlantean people from the 21st century were returned to their own time, while Manitou Raven and his wife, Dawn, also chose to emigrate to the future.
In shame, the Atlanteans of the "Obsidian Age" removed any trace of this horrible time from the Atlantis Chronicles. It was this very omission which created the false impression of peacefulness in the Chronicles, and which will lead Aquaman to bring his people back to this time.
At 30 BCE, in order to retain the purity of their race, the Homo magi seal themselves off from the world in the mountains of Turkey. Also, at around this time another group of Atlantean magicians from Poseidonians and Tritonians left to found two new cities. They became known as the Sher'Hedeen; a race of shark-finned Atlanteans known for invoking black magic rituals including raising the dead.
During World War II, the Creature Commandos encountered the remnants of a Pacific colony of Atlantis. Atlantean science had created a group of robots to carry on the work of Atlantean conquest.
Come the 21st century, Atlantean history repeats itself again when Orin, son of Queen Atlanna of Poseidonis and the ancient mage, Atlan, was born with the blond hair. Left on a reef to die like all other blonde-haired Atlanteans, Orin's ability to communicate with sea life allowed him to immediately bond with a school of dolphins who accepted him as family and raised him into his teenage years.
Eventually, Orin found his way back to Atlantis and assumed his royal destiny as king. But his presence in Poseidonis brought unwanted attention to the sea floor. A string of tragedies led to Orin's abdication of the throne. The state was then left to King Thesily and Orin's aide, Vulko, while Orin lived among the surface dwellers. In his wanderings on land, Orin was dubbed "Aquaman" and he became a founding member of the Justice League of America. This led him into contact with his half-brother, Orm Marius, who desired everything that the hero possessed, including the throne of Atlantis.
Orm's hatred of Orin drove him to uncover an ancient Atlantean library containing the secrets to Atlantean magic. As his power grew, he was able to locate and collect six of the ancient Zodiac Crystals; one had became a holy relic called the Lia Fail to the people of Thierna Na Oge, another served as a governmental seal in Poseidonis. With the help of Nuada Silverarm of Thierna Na Oge, Aquaman was able to overcome his brother on the astral plane. In the end, the two known crystals were returned to their homes. Presumably, the others were kept for safekeeping by Nuada or Aquaman.
When Orin began having visions of an impending threat to the undersea realm, which included the return of the prehistoric Hunter/Gatherers, Kordax, and Tiamat.
Orin's connection to Poseidonis led to the gradual rise of the ancient alien ship buried beneath that city. As it stirred, Tiamat was awakened below, and the city began to rise up off the ocean floor. Since Tiamat had been on Earth for millennia, she was unaware of the truce between the Anunnake and the Hunters. She became an ally to Kordax and sought to subjugate humanity. Meanwhile, Orin instinctively acted to unite the extant cities of Atlantis against the Hunters. The Hunters had already arrived on the surface and made an alliance with the United States. They had long since made peace with the Anunnake and promised to help lead Earth to a new golden age. Orin was not swayed by this altruism and set about uniting his Atlantean kin. He found friends in Thierna Na Oge, but encountered vicious resistance in Hy-Brasil.
In the Dreaming City, he found that his brother, Orm, had taken over and eventually destroyed the city. Lastly, he located the ancient island city — Basilia. It's ancient caretaker, Spought, had been left in charge by the Hunters. When Poseidonis began to rise, its residents fled to Tritonis. They were led by Vulko and Orin's son, Koryak, who demanded that the Tritonians show the way to a lost city in the tunnels beneath Tritonis. The Tritonian King Iqula and Queen S'ona eventually acquiesced and Koryak's expedition awakened Kordax. Kordax quickly set about using the Poseidonian refugees as his slaves. Koryak killed many Tritonians before he was stopped.
Orin successfully turned the island city against the Hunters, but it was destroyed in the process. The Hunters realized that they were up against formidable opposition and eventually stood face-to-face with Orin himself. Orin had surmised the truth before the Hunters could reveal it: though they were a truly peaceful race, the Hunters' "golden age" for Earth would first require the annihilation of its entire civilization. The Hunters acknowledged defeat and left Earth.
When the cosmic menace called Imperiex threatened the Earth, Aquaman enacted a magical contingency plan to save Atlantis. With the help of magicks conjured by Tempest, he transported 21st century Atlantis 3,000 years into the past. According to the Atlantis Chronicles, this was a peaceful time, but Orin was deceived by a falsified record. In truth, the city had been brought to the surface by the tyrant sorceress, Gamemnae.
When the Justice League traveled into the past to rescue Aquaman and his people, they were all captured by Gamemnae. A new JLA rescued them with the help of Manitou Raven. In order to finally defeat Gamemnae, Aquaman was forced resink Atlantis in the distant past. But even though he had saved his people, Orin was branded a traitor and cast out from Atlantis again.
Involvement[]
- During the Tides of War, Ocean Master incites a mutiny in an attempt to claim Aquaman's throne. As the battle between Atlantean and Mutineer frigates moves into the strait between Metropolis and Little Bohemia, Oracle instructs New Heroes to assist Aquaman in quelling the coup while Calculator shepherds New Villains into supporting Ocean Master's mutiny.
- In the Deluge episode, Atlantis established a embassy to the surface world, but it is sabotaged by Corum Rath and his allies, The Deluge, Black Manta, and Morgwar.
- Atlantis (Episode) is released in November 2018.
- In Atlantis: Royal Palace, the Atlantean Royal Court deposes Arthur and Corum Rath becomes king. Unleashing the ancient magic, Crown of Thorns, he severely wounds and captures Arthur, forcing all those who oppose him to flee.
- In Atlantis: The Silent School, heroes and villains must infiltrate the Silent School of arcane arts together with Aqualad and King Shark to find a way to get past the Crown of Thorns.
- In Atlantis: Crown of Thorns, channeling the crystal obtained in Silent School, the team tunnels through the Crown of Throns and battle Corum Rath's minions and finally Murk, who reveals to Mera that Arthur is alive and recovering upon defeat, and he is freed.
- In Atlantis: The Throne, you must face and destroy Corum Rath, who is now empowered with ancient magic of the dark zodiac and control over Atlantis, the horrors of the ocean, and death itself, for once and for all!
Heroes
- Circe in the form of Queen Mera has mesmerized Aquaman into leading his forces into attacking Metropolis.
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Trivia[]
- Atlantis first appeared in Action Comics #18 (November 1939)
- A trio of clocks within the JSA Metropolis Wing reveals that Gotham City, Metropolis and Atlantis exist in different timezones.
- If it is taken that Metropolis is a stand-in for New York City, it would mean Atlantis is on the eastern edge of the Atlantic Ocean.
- The history of Atlantis was recorded in a series of ancient texts, by the time of Arion's rise as a hero, the chronicles were called the "Chronicles of Choloh". During the reign of Orin the First, the texts became known as the "Chronicles of Atlantis". Orin entrusted the Atlantean historian Albart-Son-of-Yarrow of Ancinor with maintaining the chronicles. Albart died shortly after the Great Deluge, and his nephew, Britton-Son-of-Cole, became the second official keeper of the chronicles. Approximately a decade later, Britton succumbed to the Black Flu and the upkeep of the Chronicles was passed on to his younger sister Illya until, when Poseidonis went to war against Tritonis, Illya insisted on being on the front lines to document the event and was killed during the fighting. The task of maintaining the journals then went to her son, Regin, who would go on to marry the Queen of Atlantis, Fiona, and have a child with her before, on his wife's request, also siring a child with another woman to maintain the Chronicle's separation from the Atlantean crown. During the time of Atlan, Helios was the new Chronicler. In the modern era, the last official keeper of the Chronicles was Atlanna, former queen of Atlantis and mother of Aquaman. With Atlanna's passing, the chronicles went to Aquaman who keeps the tome in a special place inside the Aquacave.
- Atlanteans can only exist outside of water for a limited period of time or else they will dehydrate, asphyxiate and ultimately die. A typical Atlantean can exist outside of water for around 2 hours before needing hydration; due to his enhanced biology, Aquaman can exist for around 24 hours before needing hydration.
- The "Curse of Kordax" is an omen that dates back to the time shortly after the Great Deluge when a tyrannical aquatic man known as Kordax helped plunge the realm into civil war. Because Kordax was distinguished by his blond hair and his ability to telepathically communicate with marine life, it was believed that any Atlantean born with blond hair would grow-up to become like Kordax and as such should be effectively "disposed of".
- Modern citizens of Atlantis follow four religions, with worship of the Greco-Roman/Olympian pantheon being the state religion, with particular focus on the sea-oriented deities and the sea gods Neptune and Poseidon in particular.
Gallery[]
See Also[]
External links[]
- Atlantis (DC Comics) Wikipedia
- Atlantis DC Database