★ CODE_XIVIL ★ (Lore Post) (Patreon)

I'm trying something a little different, I'm not sure how many people are actually interested in reading about my OCs lore xD, but I figured I'd give it a try

Since I want to share more CODE_XIVIL animations in future posts, and the descriptions on Toyhouse are very outdated, I thought it was finally time to make a huge lore/info dump to go along with them

I just reorganized all the notes I had with pieces of lore of CODE_XIVIL and refining more of the worldbuildingThis isn't the "official" story, it's more like my giant notebook filled with ideas/concepts and story notesSome details are still subject to change as I continue developing the project, so I'll probably update this post whenever I add or refine new info

If enough people enjoy this kind of post, I'll try to do the same for my other stories too :3(This took way longer to put together than I thought, I hope you enjoy!!)

So let's start with the founder of XIVIL?

Captain Mar's life changed forever after coming into contact with a fragment of "The Anomaly"He used to be a renowned merchant captain and explorer, and spent his life transporting goods across the seas while safeguarding the ocean's hidden treasures and using his gifts to bring prosperity to his hometown.Alongside his wife, Rain, and his son, Prism, he built a peaceful life.

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His vessel, The XIVIL, was a 19th century medium-sized steel-hulled sailing ship inherited from his father, built for maritime trade, it transported cargo such as fish, coal, timber, and other goods across the world's oceans.The XIVIL featured a three-masted fully-rigged layout: a foremast, main mast, and mizzen mast, and was painted predominantly white, accented with black and gold details.

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Everything changes when an unknown catastrophe strikes the world, and Ocean City begins to collapse as its inhabitants flee, Rain disappears with them.

(I know Rain dies in the official backstory, but I kinda like the mystery,, idk yet)

Mar and Prism set sail into the unknown.During their voyage, a mysterious light appears over the ocean and a violent storm engulfs their ship, separating father and son and leaving Mar shipwrecked in the ruins of an abandoned city.

There, he discovers Prism's lifeless body.Consumed by grief, Mar attempts to revive Prism with one of his treasures, the "Soul Gem". Instead, the artifact triggers its encounter with a fragment of the cosmic anomaly that erases his memories and fuses Prism's soul with his own, although they are no longer Mar nor Prism.

With his identity fading away, Mar abandons his past. The only memory that remains is the name of his ship "XIVIL".He leaves everything behind and begins wandering into the unknown.The ocean gives him a new name: Prismarine.

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As time went on, darkness started to consume him, driven by an overwhelming desire to reclaim what had been taken from him, he decides to recruit members to join his cause, offering powerful relics in exchange for their loyalty.The Anomaly gave him a vision, that's how he raised an army called XIVIL, and eventually the promise of a new civilization.

In his vision, he believes XIVIL can only be complete through five generals:Coal, General Of The Undead.Quartz, General Of Mind.Glass, General Of Repairment.Snow, General Of Precognition.and █████, General Of █████████.

They were people who, like Prismarine, where desperate to hold onto the last remnants of hope, and saw in XIVIL a chance to give meaning to what they had lost.

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Extra notes

Prismarine undergoes a mental and physical transformation, Mar and Prism ceased to exist, and Prismarine is an entirely new person whose personality was shaped by both of them.Mar's expertise as a captain gives him the authority to command his crew (army), he inspires loyalty and leadership.From Prism, he inherited a child's innocence and curiosity, he sees the world with absolute certainty and does not worry about the consequences of his actions.

I haven't really justified his physical transformation, besides looking cooler and more intimidating.he does have 5 tails though, probably one for each general. I had the initial idea that Prismarine would gradually gain a new tail with each general he recruited until it reached his "true form" and make his transformation slower, but I'm not entirely sure about that yet.

Also his dead or alive status is... complicated, because Mar didn't technically die unlike Prism, the Anomaly erased both of their identities in the process to create a new oneIt's like the Ship of Theseus paradox in a sense, which is quite fitting lolThere isn't a correct answer for "who is Prismarine".

He isn't really a villain with "evil plans", unlike a tyrant driven by ambition, his original identity is dissolving and gradually transforming him into someone who sincerely believes he's the only savior, he doesn't remember what XIVIL used to be, but he creates a new meaning from the only fragment of his past that remains.

Prismarine's ultimate goal is to build a new vessel to replace the one he left behind, that will be used to save life from the planet (cuz he somehow plans to bring a biblically accurate flood over the world??)The new ship will be known as the XIVIL V.

The city was originally built by an exiled robot civilization.In the distant future, people and AI once coexisted, until an unknown event led to the robots being banished from society.

As a "peaceful" compromise, they were allowed to establish their own city on the outskirts, where they could live independently, but over time, the government grew suspicious that the robots were secretly preparing for war (since a good part of robots served in military roles before, they began building their own military installations and expanding the city more than what was established)so in a classified operation, they deployed an EMP-based atomic weapon that wiped out the entire city.Years later, one of eight fragments of a mysterious anomaly entered Earth's atmosphere and crashed into the ruins of the city.This fragment created a space-time anomaly that isolated the city from the rest of the world, and the anomaly began slowly expanding.

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XIVIL seized one of the abandoned military at the outskirts of the abandoned city, and eventually planned to expand across the city, but discovered that there were also people trapped there.Prismarine was drawn by an inexplicable force he cannot explain, hidden inside the city.He believes that finding it could uncover the cause of the space/time disruption and the strange phenomena that have trapped people within its confines, and use it to his advantage so that they don't leave.But at the same time, the original citizens will do everything to prevent this from happening, as some speculate potentially finding a way to escape.Prismarine becomes a powerful force, ready to take everything no matter the cost.

As he delves deeper, he begins to uncover clues about the force that wiped out his old city and the nature of the Anomaly.Among the trapped inhabitants, he encounters people from different places and even different points in time, each with their own story of how they arrived. Those who encounter Prismarine are given the choice to join XIVIL and follow his vision, or remain independent within the city's uncertain future.Many reject him, but others are drawn by his charisma, conviction and the promise of purpose.

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THE ARCHITECTURE

I also wanted to delve a little deeper into the architecture, as there is a reason why it looks so alien and machine-like.XIVIL didn't build its military headquarters, they settled on one out of the many bases scattered around the city which they will try to conquer.Their main operation headquarters is located in the outskirts of the city.

The rest of the city features huge tubes and satellites, many interconnected cables, and is generally very gray, with exposed concrete blocks and brutalist-style geometric angles.Some buildings are built with absolute symmetry, highly repetitive, massive steel beams, and heavy iron framing, and it lacks decorative ornamentation, prioritizing pure functional survival.

Much of the city's expansion has been built in a vertical multi-layered design stacked on top of each other.The city was never finished and was under construction when the attack occurred, so many areas feature exposed utility infrastructure, thick networks of pipes, ducts, and ventilation shafts running along the exterior walls.

Also the entire city is enclosed by a massive defensive wall, with limited access points designed to tightly regulate movement into and out of the city.

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Extra notes

Since the Anomaly is distorting the city's space-time continuum, causing fragments of its past and present to overlap, as a result, some of the dormant robots have been reverted to a state before they were shut down, slowly awakening the city's original inhabitants once again.

Already mentioned that the Anomaly is what attracts people to the city, often with no understanding of how they arrived, and once inside, escape becomes nearly impossible, as the city cannot be reliably mapped or reached through normal navigation.

The city has multiple "layers", as it's built vertically, it also goes underground.Upper City / Middle City / Lower City / Deep City

Due to the height, several buildings in the city are interconnected by high bridges.

The city didn't originally have an airport, as the robots were not permitted to maintain independent air travel or establish connections with the outside world.only specialized military aircraft and cargo transports were authorized, used exclusively for operations such as transporting resources, equipment, and newly relocated robots into the city.these aircraft were eventually recalled by the government.

However, the primary method of transportation withing the city was a fully autonomous magnetic rail system. Trains travel through elevated tracks between buildings, allowing fast travel across the city's multi-layered districts.

The city is powered by a network of small modular fusion reactors distributed throughout its districts.

I also want to give the generals a deeper explanation of their motives, and why they became generals with their respective archetypes (and not-so fun-facts):Coal - DeathQuartz - MindGlass - RepairSnow - Precognition

so I thought maybe something like they represented ways of coping with loss

Coal: He doesn't just command an undead army, but he refuses to let anything die and resurrects everything, even when they shouldn't come back.The death of both of his parents at a young age left him with an overwhelming fear of losing the people he cared about, though every resurrection brings someone back with something missing.Fun fact: He carries the weight of every life he restores, with every person he bring backs to life, he experiences a brief glimpse of all their memories, and they are stored in the Soul Gem.Coal tends to keep record of memories he considers relevant, since some people lose their memories after being revived.He also finds it very difficult to say "goodbye".

Quartz: She has the ability to manipulate memories, emotions, and even a person's perception of reality. Ironically, the more she uses her powers, the more unstable her own memories become.Before joining XIVIL, her past memories have become fragments she can no longer piece together at cause of her death (revived by Coal). She remembers everyone else's stories, except her own.Fun fact: Quartz secretly keeps a box with a mysterious object of her old self. Every morning she looks to remember who she's supposed to be or what it meant to her, but the memories never fully return.She is the only general who can make Prismarine question himself (important)

Glass: He grew up admiring his father, desperately wanting to make him proud, but no matter how hard he tried, he always felt like he fell short of the expectations placed upon him, until he decided to follow his own path.His relationship with him is something he wasn't able to repair, and once it was too late, it became something he deeply regrets.So he repairs everything he can with the gem, but repaired things aren't always the same afterwards, broken cracks always resurface over time.Fun fact: I think he likes plants.Glass is known as the "healer" withing XIVIL, but his Repair Gem can't magically heal injuries on living beings, it only works with inanimate objects. However, he taught himself medicine to bridge the gap. Also he's pretty good at comforting people, it seems like he always knows what to say.

Snow: Possesses the ability to see countless possible futures, he and Coal were friends when they lost their parents in the same tragic accident.Originally, they both dreamed of a brighter future among the blue sky, but once they joined XIVIL, they began having different views, especially Coal.Snow refuses to stop searching for a future that can still be saved, but not a single one stood beside Coal.Still, he continues searching, because if even one future exists where everyone can be saved, he believes it's worth finding.Fun fact: Snow only uses one eye at a time to see the future, since they're pretty fragile and can break easily, whenever the damage becomes too severe, Glass painstakingly repairs them (since his eyes are made out of crystal)

(never ask Snow what happened with his original eyes </3)

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THE RELICS

Prismarine (Mar) guarded several powerful treasures, these relics were ancient artifacts whose origins were unknown, one of them the "Soul Gem" used to revive Prism.Prismarine dragged them to this reality when he abandoned the ship, technically they shouldn't work in a world without magic, but the Anomaly is doing its thing where 2 realities collapse, so they just kinda exist(?As Prismarine rebuilt XIVIL, he offered these relics to those who proved themselves worthy, granting each chosen general a fragment of their power in exchange of their loyalty.

THE FIRST GENERALS

Coal and Snow weren't the first generals to join XIVIL, before them, there were other two, but as time went on, Coal and Snow proved their potential and quickly rising through the ranks and becoming Prismarine's closest commandersfor a time, the four worked together as the foundation of XIVIL in search of the 5th generalhowever, the first two generals eventually uncovered something they were never meant to know, and without warning or explanation, both generals disappeared.

THE CURSE

I also though about the "5th general curse", it's more of a rumor that started circulating among the membersPrismarine believes his vision cannot be fulfilled without five generals standing at his sideyet every attempt to appoint a fifth general has ended in failure.OR!! the 5th general works in the shadows, who knows...

THEIR NAMES

And one last thing I wanted to reveal is that the generals titles are not their real birth namesupon joining XIVIL, each member abandons their former identity and adopts a new name, symbolizing their commitment to leave the past behind and devote themselves entirely to the CODE.(more mysteries eheheh)

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I also wanted to expand on Coal's and Snow's relationship since there were some doubtsI wasn't originally planning to go too deeply into the relationships between the generals, but these two are worth explaining because they're central to each other's story :O

At one point, I considered making them siblings because of how close they are, but I decided to keep them as lifelong friends instead.I think it makes their bond even stronger because they chose each other rather than being connected by blood.Since they survived the same accident, grieved together and built each other back up, in many ways, they became the only people who truly understood what the other had gone through.

Initially, Coal was the one who prevented Snow from giving up after the accident, and Snow motivated him to find a bright future together.They shared the same dream, but their philosophies split as they grew up, even though both came from the same tragedy.Coal's conclusion was "no one should ever die again", while Snow's conclusion was "no one should ever have to experience this again", they sound similar but are fundamentally differentCoal wants to defeat death and change the past, while Snow wants to prevent tragedy and change the future.

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Within XIVIL, everyone trusts Snow's judgment, because his visions dramatically increase the chances of success for every mission, of course they're not always perfect, every decision weighs on him, because choosing one future means abandoning countless others that might have led somewhere better.and this takes a toll on Snow, whenever he foresees failures, or uncovers truths that should remain hidden, he is forced to carry those visions alone, or even lie to them,,

Coal, meanwhile, genuinely believes he is saving lives, the more people he resurrects to join the army, the better, right?Every undead soldier is another promise he thinks he's keeping.Snow understands the consequences of Coal's actions, yet he also knows the danger of revealing too much, he's seen futures where trying to change Coal's path only drives him further toward it, so telling him what lies ahead may be the very thing that causes it to happenthey are trapped in a paradox where each desperately wants to save the other, yet their motivations keeps driving them apart, and both of their abilities break them mentally in their own way.

look at my baby boys, I hope nothing bad happens to them!!

XIVIL is fighting against the city's inhabitants, where a new faction called "Project AER" has emerged, and like Prismarine, ended up on this city due to the cosmic anomaly.The AER initiative is led by Avia and E.B, two aeronautical/aerospace engineers whose plan is to build an aircraft large enough to escape the city, as well as a jet fighter to combat XIVIL, thus dividing the city into two factions.XIVIL is seen as an evil force because they're stronger and more oppressive But joining XIVIL actually comes with real benefits, food, equipment, protection, etcand the certainty that they will survive the flood, while AER has to build everything from scratch, suddenly citizens face a moral dilemma.But at the end of the day, both factions are trying to survive the anomaly by building machines, one reaches for the sky, while the other returns to the sea.Project AER solution is rational, as they still believe science can solve the anomaly, while XIVIL (Prismarine) has lost faith in solving it, instead he accepts it and it's ready to survive what comes after, the anomaly has become almost divine to him.

Neither XIVIL nor AER truly understand what they are fighting over (the Anomaly), and the origin of the inhabitants, but they will try to uncover these mysteries.They represent two different responses to the unknown.

OK SO, I already talked a lot about the anomaly before in E.B's backstory, and how it was the catalyst for all of these stories.

The Void doesn't affect everyone the same way because each mind interacts differently, some lose consciousness, others lose control of their bodies, while some suffer memory loss or psychological changes, like Prismarine, whose mind was profoundly altered after coming into contact with one of its fragments.

The whole region is under the influence of the "anomaly", an invisible space/time disruption that keeps its inhabitants trapped (the anomaly targeted this city in specific because of its electromagnetic field?)Because of it, the city has effectively become a hole punched out of reality.This is also the reason why no one has been able to localize the city, not even from satellite view, navigation systems, etc.Everyone who gets caught up in the exclusion zone can't leave, and Prismarine knows that, if he cannot return to the ocean, then he will bring the ocean to it.

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THE FLOOD

SO about the flood thing,The void in the city has actually opened a portal into the ocean, so there are parts in the city where it began flooding, but nobody knows where this water is coming from, but Prismarine recognizes it as the ocean calling to him.(Fun fact: I actually animated the underwater scene in Everything Black completely randomly just because I thought it looked cool LOL, but I think finally giving it an explanation adds a lot to it)

Project AER wants to stop the anomaly from expanding, while Prismarine wants it to take over completely, while being unaware of the catastrophe that could be (since he's being influenced by the anomaly).Because Prismarine carries a fragment of the Void within him, finding the anomaly's main core would unlock its full potential.That's why both teams are against the clock to see who finds the anomaly first, the city is HUGE, Project AER has to search the massive city for the anomaly's core while XIVIL continues to seize more territory.(I won't spoil who finds it first yet)

Each character deals with a piece of the anomaly in some way, but they don't find out much about its origin in this part of the story, the anomaly is only one piece of a global problem.

WHAT EXACTLY IS THE "CODE"?

When Mar forgot his identity, one thing remained, the name XIVIL.He couldn't remember the ship, his old life, but the name refused to disappear, so Prismarine gave it a new meaning, the principles upon which the new XIVIL will be built.Almost like the ark who carries only those chosen by XIVIL.

The CODE is more like a philosophy, and you can kinda view Prismarine as a prophet that spreads a belief/ doctrine, a set of principles that every XIVIL member follows.That also fits the military organization, since groups often operate under a code of conduct.The rank is reserved for those who embody the CODE without hesitation, making it the highest honor within the organization.Those who betray it are no longer considered members of XIVIL.

(I never thought I'd end up incorporating religious symbolism into my sci-fi post apocalyptic fantasy military cosmic horror story, but the parallels between the flood and the ark make for an interesting underlayer)

But yeah, he "resurrected" in some way, and spends the rest of his life unconsciously trying to rebuild something he can never truly remember.The CODE become darker as Prismarine loses more of himself.

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THE HIDDEN MEANING

Another idea I had, instead of the "CODE" being his philosophy and the rebirth of the new XIVIL (ship) was that CODE could be an actual encrypted message, like seen in A Lump Of Nonsense AMV, where 10, 1, 5, 1, 50 = XIVIL (maybe not the word XIVIL specifically, but there's some kind of cipher that has to be solved in the story, I'd have to come up with my own encoding system tho, and I'm not sure about this concept yet) But what I'm actually certain is, what if the CODE were actually coordinates? since the story revolves around navigation, and there's the mystery of the anomaly location.And it's the method by which Prismarine learns to navigate an impossible world.A standard GPS provides latitude, longitude, altitude, and time, but the anomaly requires something else, maybe every location needs.Something like the void offset, dimension?? and without the fifth value, you can never reach your destination, which would be the fragment within Prismarine that subconsciously tells him the missing coordinate. That's why XIVIL can keep expanding through the city while everyone else gets lost.And this code concept could expand toward the rest of the stories after the XIVIL arc ends, to reveal the true nature of the anomaly, as the coordinates don't exist on Earth, they're coordinates inside distorted space-time. (and you already know who's going after it, yeah yeah)

Anyways, IT'S FINISHEDDD!!!If you made it all the way to the end CONGRATS!! and thank you for taking the time to read about my silly little characters and worldI didn't go too deep into each character's individual backstory since I'd like to properly update their Toyhouse profiles someday, but this should hopefully give a good overview of the ideas behind themIf you have any questions, theories, feedback, or just want to ramble about the lore, feel free to leave a comment! I'd love to hear your thoughts, especially if something caught your attention or left you curiousI also wanted this post to go public, so more people can learn about them

After all...Would YOU join XIVIL?