Ways of Darkness

Ways of Darkness is a high Fantasy media franchise with additional elements and inspiration from dark fantasy, science fantasy and steampunk; set on the planet of Artograch; authored and developed primarily by Zsolt Tóth (more widely known as Metalhead33), and to a lesser extent by various other contributors.

Originally beginning as a message board roleplaying game in late 2009, the primary author of the franchise, Metalhead33 always sought to expand it onto new horizons, always having dreamt of making a video game adaptation, which he attempted twice, once in 2012, and again in 2013, both resulting in a failed project. Currently, there is a 3D project on hiatus.

The Wiki devoted to this franchise was first created on July 20, 2015.

History
As of 2020, the history of the Ways of Darkness franchise can be neatly divided into two parts, albeit they actually overlapped for a period of four months (from July 20, 2015 to October 15, 2015). The so-called "" was the era that began with the creation of the FRPG, and ended with the final post on the Hungarian version of the forum (even though the forum is still standing and open for new registers and posts, it's effectively a virtual ghost town), meanwhile, the so-called "" coincides with the existence of this wiki.

Legacy Era (December 19, 2009 - October 15, 2015)
The era from before the 15th of October, 2015 is called the "Legacy Era", and it corresponds to the period of time when there was any sort of activity on the original FRPG.

The last four months of the "Legacy Era" also overlap with the first four months of the so-called "".

ProBoards era (December 19, 2009 - April 7, 2010)
The forum-based RPG was first conceived of by Zsolt Tóth and Kriszta, who decided to create it on ProBoards, the same place where they created the previously failed "Doom FRPG". Initially rather cliché'd and not so different from other fantasy worlds, the world grew more unique as its history got fleshed out. Zsolt and Kriszta were quickly joined Ádám Nyiri - also known as "Jaszami" - who became the third co-admin. Only two roleplaying sessions took place on the ProBoards forum, and the team quickly got shocked by news of ProBoards removing non-English language forums.

phpBB2 era (April 7, 2010 - October 15, 2015)
Hearing the news of a potential deletion, the admin team migrated the forum to a phpBB2-based engine hosted on Forumotion - the original ProBoards forum was never deleted (at least not until the 2th of October, 2020, standing as a virtual ghost town until that date). The new forum became more fleshed out than the original, the lore got augmented more, more players came, and there were no less than 25 roleplaying sessions between April 7, 2010 and October 15, 2015.

The various religions of the world got fleshed out during the early phpBB2 era with the help of Ádám Kalocsai, some of the was ironed out, the lists of monarchs of the various countries were defined (during the ProBoards era, there was no list for them, no information about the past and much of the history), more races were added (such as Nereids and Winged Cobras), the Principality of Artaburro and Empire of Neressa were added (previously absent from the ProBoards version). On the 26th oc October, 2010, an English-language version of the forum was launched, but it never attracted any players, thus no roleplaying took place on them.

This era was also the era when Zsolt attempted various breakthroughs, to make Ways of Darkness more than just an FRPG, to make it into a full-on video game franchise of sorts. In 2011, he released the Alternate World game, which was partially adapting the Ways of Darkness franchise, at least during one of its arcs. In early 2012, he tried to continue up with the cancelled game Emergence of Darkness. In late 2012 and 2013, he had more two failed projects to create a video game adaptation of the FRPG (see Ways of Darkness (2012 game) and Ways of Darkness (2013 game)). In 2014, he swore to one day a 3D video game, but nothing has come out of it so far. It was during that era - in 2012 - when Zsolt Tóth got acquinted with Zsolt Ábrahám, a later contributor.

During the closing days of the era, the forum effectively became sort of a personal playground for Zsolt Tóth, Kriszta and Mónika Sebestyén, but it eventually just died off... Finally, on the 2th of October, 2020, the forum was finally removed.

Wiki Era (July 20, 2015 - present day)
The first four months of the "Wiki Era" also overlap with the last four months of the so-called ""

Wikia Era (July 20, 2015 - January 27, 2016)
In late 2014, Zsolt took his character Stephánus Tavilrond with himself to various roleplaying sites, and he inquired about the possibility of having a place where he could store all the information about his character(s) and related lore about the world in a convenient way that people could easily navigate through. On a roleplaying website that he no longer visits, someone suggested him to create a Wiki, and pointed him to Wikia, a website that since has rebranded itself as Fandom.

A wiki was created, and information was copied over first from the English version of the phpbB2 forum, then written from scratch, with the pre-existing lore being expanded upon. For the first time, there was more to the (canon) lore than just the forums, albeit the process of recycling and archiving everything that was on the forums wouldn't be complete until the early April of 2020. Kriszta got onboard, and she somehow got László Dornfeld onboard too. The latter of which left the team acrimoniously in November the same year (2015). Despite his short presence, he did end up contributing to the franchise and the lore, and came up with the idea of adding another continent, or even two.

Sonck Era (January 27, 2016 - present day)
In early 2016, Daniël Sonck gave Zsolt Tóth an offer he couldn't refuse, hosting Zsolt's wiki on his own server. This transition was a huge boon for the site's content, as the two could manage extensions and could customize content much better. On the darker side, this was also the era in which Zsolt effectively became the single, the solo author of the franchise, with Kriszta having gone semi-retired and contributing rather sparingly, Dornfeld long gone, and even Ábrahám not as nearly as active as before. This slowed down the expansion of content, which caused Zsolt to shift focus to recycling and archiving existing off-wiki (FRPG) content, and then expanding upon them, rather than blindly running onto new horizons.

Ever since that, Zsolt has been looking for a new co-editor.