Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem: Encyclopedia II - Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem - Plot synopsis

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem - Plot synopsis

The plot of the game revolves around protagonist Alexandra Roivas, who is investigating the mysterious murder of her grandfather Edward Roivas. While exploring his Rhode Island mansion, she discovers a secret room containing, among other odd items, a tome bound with human skin. When she reads this book, The Tome of Eternal Darkness, she experiences a scene in the life of Pious Augustus, a respected Roman Centurion from 26 BC. Pious is lead by mysterious voices to an underground temple, where he chooses one of three mysterious artifacts. The artifact transforms him into an undead warlock, the Liche, and makes him slave to of one of three Ancients, powerful godlike beings whose "Essences" are incarnated as the artifacts. As the plot unfolds, it becomes clear that Pious is attempting to summon his Ancient into this reality, while the powerful fourth "Corpse God" Mantorok is bound on the Earth already, helpless to stop it.

As the player discovers more chapters of the Tome, Alex finds herself reliving the experiences of several (player-controlled) individuals who have crossed paths with Pious or other servants of the Ancients over the centuries, and as a result come in contact with the Tome itself. While many of these individuals meet a sinister fate, their cooperation ultimately gathers the Essences of the three remaining Ancients in the mansion. Alexandra's own ancestors discover the long-deserted City of Ehn'gha beneath the family mansion, and powerful magickal machinery inside. Alexandra powers up this mechanism with the Ancients' essences, and summons a rival Ancient to fight Pious's.

While the two Ancients fight, Alexandra engages in combat with Pious with the aid of the spirits of his victims, ultimately destroying his Ancient's essence. It loses the fight above as Alexandra kills Pious. Then, realizing that the Roivases and their allies have just brought another powerful ancient into the world, Edward's spirit quickly sends the other Ancient back where it came from. He expresses pride in his granddaughter before he disappears.

After completing the game under all three alignments, it is revealed that all three ancients have been destroyed — "All at once, separate and simultaneous, for the universe is made of many timestreams, many possibilities, all in harmonious synchronicity." Because he was bound, and not powerful enough to stop Pious Augustus himself, Mantorok manipulated the Roivas family, and other chosen ones, into completing the work for him. He orchestrates the deaths of all three ancients, in separate timestreams, and then connects them all, resulting in the annihilation of all three alignments. In the end, only the corpse god Mantorok is still alive, festering somewhere in his hidden tomb, plotting.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Plot synopsis", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki