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Here is what Maya knows from the Echo:
> There's a Mark of Mastery exam for people who carry around giant keys
> There were four people in the room. She knows vaguely what they look like, and that the young man failed because of "darkness"
> She has no idea what Aqua looks like, she just knows that she had the point of view here
> One quote: "There are no winners -- only truths. When equal powers clash, their nature is revealed."
***
Differences in the Starheart Key:
> Maya decided that giant keys are goofy, so instead they have smaller, palm-sized keys they wear around their necks, which are heirlooms. These keys do grant magical powers
> They use magic swords instead
> Their outfits are less, um, KH-y.
***
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Nerida -- The Aqua counterpart, the main character. People have assumed that Nerida is a self-insert, and Maya has admitted that Nerida is something of a reflection of her 18 year old self: tied up in duty and trying to do the right thing all the time, even at the cost of her happiness. Nerida carries the Waterheart Key, which gives her power over water.
She was originally from a desert planet, and was given the Waterheart Key to bring rain to the land.
Kun -- the Terra counterpart, Kun is Nerida's love interest, though Key Keepers aren't supposed to fall in love. He fails his first Mark of Mastery exam due to a great shadow on his heart, and spends much of the series trying to overcome it; he initially thinks it's his love for Nerida which clouds him, but it turns out to be equal parts his desire for power, his anxiety over not doing well enough to protect his friends... and a deliberate poison by Master Yaotl. Much to everyone's shock, he actually dies tragically at the end of the second book.
Kun was from a tropical world of great mountains, and was given the Earthheart Key to help till the land.
Zephyr -- the Ventus counterpart, Zephyr is a young Apprentice, that is, a trainee. He's young, very optimistic, and best friends with Nerida and Kun, who treat him as a younger brother.
Zephyr has the Airheart, as he came from a world of floating islands; the Airheart Key lets him fly.
Master Agni -- the Master Eraqus counterpart. Current head of the Keepers, he presides over the exam, and is killed early in book one when the Keepers are overwhelmed by Shadow. He once held the Fireheart Key.
Master Yaotl -- The Master Xehanort counterpart. Another Master of the Keepers, Yaotl is secretly a traitor to the Order, who kowtowed to the Order of Shadows and their minions in exchange for power and his life. He once held the Frostheart Key, this was corrupted into a Shadowheart Key for his services to Shadow.
PEOPLE WHO AREN'T REALLY COUNTERPARTS TO ANYTHING
Prince Lagos of the Azure Steppes -- shows up in Book 2; he's a Lagomorph, which is to say a rabbit man, and jokes that his name is like Prince Humans, and that it was a great joke. He's a trickster and sort of a jerk; he's also one of the Keepers, and holds the Greenheart Key, which controls plant life. Also, he has blue fur.
***
BOOK ONE -- THE SHADOW PLAGUE
On the galactic capitol of Solaris, three friends, Nerida, Kun, and Zephyr, are all training to become Key Masters. All of them took on the mantle of Key Keeper at a young age according to the traditions of their home worlds. Nerida took on the Waterheart Key at age ten to save her village from a terrible drought. On Kun's world, the burden of Key Keeping is passed down family lines, and his father died in a terrible accident when he was but eleven. And on Zephyr's world, it is mystic priests who choose their world's Keeper, and Zephyr was chosen at the age of six. They are thus some of the youngest candidates for Mastery in years; most don't take the exam until the age of thirty at least, and the last youngest was 25. Kun and Nerida are only nineteen and eighteen, and while Zephyr at thirteen really IS too young to take the exam (sixteen is the minimum age), he's still of a skill level comparable to Kun and Nerida.
For generations, the Keepers have guarded the Heart Keys, magical artifacts from a forgotten era that allow the holder to "unlock" aspects of the universe. There are thousands of these, with aspects as diverse and strange as Glass, Illusion, Flower, and Moonlight, or even Pride and Sorrow. There was once even a tiny Sneezeheart, held by one Bzza', a small beetle-man. It lets him make people sneeze. Those who hold Keys are called Keepers, and those who gain Mastery are, well, Masters. While Keys can be taken up by anyone, it does take skill, training, and dedication to keep them and forge a bond, and once a bond is forged the key cannot be stolen unless the Keeper is slain.
Over the past generations though, the worlds have been in such an unprecedented era of peace that few have taken up the call of the Keys, as it is a terrible burden. Nerida is the only one of her friends who voluntarily took on the Key, and even she did so out of desperation and at an age where she didn't fully understand the consequences. There are a few other Keepers in the galaxy, but by and large they are not the galaxy-wide enforcers they once were. Indeed, such it was that only two Masters presided over the Mark of Mastery examination for Kun and Nerida, those being Master Agni and Master Yaotl.
That being said, there were rumors and rumblings of war on the edge of the galaxy, strange shadowy beasts appearing and dragging people off into the shadows. Nerida found this worrying, but the other students (most in training to even receive keys in the first place!) dismissed her fears. There hadn't been war for centuries, everything was probably fine.
The first part of the exam consisted of fighting back against a pair of summoned Elementals, creatures born of the Key's power -- basically practice dummies. But halfway through the exam, the Elementals went berserk, threatening to rampage throughout the monastery complex. Nerida, Kun, and then Zephyr (despite Nerida telling him to stay on the sidelines) managed to defeat the Elementals, and Master Agni considered this part of the test, but the event left everyone with a deep sense of unease.
During the second half of the test, Nerida and Kun sparred, but again, halfway through, Kun suffered an upswelling of dark power centered around his Key. He could not identify its source, but since the Dark powers were forbidden, this meant that he failed the exam, much to Nerida and Zephyr's surprise. The comforted their friend, but in the end the whole exam had a dark cast over it.
Even so, Nerida had succeeded, and there was a great celebration over the induction of a new (and so young) Master into the ranks. Indeed, at this point in time there were only three Masters left, which made Nerida the fourth Master.
Halfway through the party, disaster struck. The monastery was overwhelmed by dark creatures that flowed and changed form, and in many cases seemed to reflect innermost fears and nightmares. Master Agni was slain trying to protect his youngest students... and failed to do so. Nerida, Zephyr, and Kun only escaped with the help of Master Yaotl.
Thus began a saga of traveling across the ravaged planet to try to reach the Solar Spire, the planet's primary spaceport, so that they could leave the world in search of the source of the Shadow Plague. Nerida and Zephyr start to notice that the Shadows actually seem to be following them, rather than them coming to towns already plagued by Shadow; they begin to suspect their friend Kun, namely that the Darkness within him drew the Shadows to him. Yaotl, meanwhile, drives a wedge between Kun and his friends, saying that he should have succeeded at his test, that their mistrust came of jealousy. Kun, meanwhile, feels caught between his friends. He wants Nerida and Zephyr to trust him, but at the same time implores them to trust Yaotl, since he's the senior authority figure... even though technically Nerida holds as much power as he does (she doesn't assert it yet, however...)
This all comes to a head at the Spire when Nerida discovers by listening in secret that Yaotl had been behind it all along, conversing with a dark figure of mysterious origin. It turns out that said dark figure had promised Yaotl great power in exchange for his help in destroying the Order, and that in fact they were all being used, especially Kun, in whom a dark seed had been planted to corrupt his heart and soul and turn him into a living bomb to be sent off to other worlds. Things come to a head, and the climax of the first book has the Trio fighting Yaotl off and trying to defend a peaceful world from utter destruction. They do not defeat him, but they do save the planet and drive him off.
Nerida and Zephyr agree that they'll do everything in their power to save their friend Kun from the poison within. Kun objects, saying that he should die as if they try to search for a cure he'll only be doing what Yaotl wanted all along. Zephyr says that there may well be a way to save Kun, and stop the Shadows -- a legendary weapon called the Starheart Key. And that even without it, the monk traditions of his own home had a way to at least hide Kun from the Shadows: a protective spell that would prevent the Shadows from finding him. Unfortunately, his heart would still corrode under the Shadows weight, unless the Starheart Key was found.
AND SO BEGAN THE QUEST
BOOK TWO -- THE RIVER OF WORLDS
This book is your typical second book filled with a lot of in-between stuff going on... at least at first. The three travel from world to world, discovering that the Plague is much, much worse than expected... and finding out more about the secrets of the universe besides. The Keys, as it turns out, are each Keyed to the hearts of worlds... and that the Starheart Key was the key to them all. This allowed them to lock and protect the worlds that corresponded to their keys... but no others. Along the way, they encounter Prince Lagos, who at first seems like he might be a rival or antagonist, but then turns out to be a valuable ally.
In the end of this book, they finally discern the location of the Starheart, but Yaotl catches up to them. Kun goes to face Yaotl and hold him off while Nerida and Zephyr escape. Kun dies in the process. It's very tragic.
BOOK THREE -- THE SOURCE OF SHADOWS
Prince Lagos now accompanies Nerida and Zephyr. Zephyr starts to take on more of a role as he gets older. Adventures are had, the two discover the secret truth behind the Shadow attacks: that the Shadows come from another reality, and that Yaotl was only a pawn. They are bent on unmaking the universe... and that in fact this has happened before, hundreds of thousands of times back into infinity. the Keys are in fact the crystallized souls of dead worlds from ages past, given purpose to try to stop the next Cycle... and in fact, the Starheart Key isn't in a particular location, but is in fact the sum power of ALL the Keys. And their old enemy Yaotl has one... so they have to track him down and get that Key.
So they do. Pretty straightforward, actually... except as it turns out Yaotl DOESN'T have that Key, and that the Iceheart Key had been corrupted into a Shadowheart Key.
at this point, the series splits into two different groups, the Chronicles of Prince Lagos, and then the main Starheart Saga.
CHRONICLES OF PRINCE LAGOS SERIES
This is a three book series about Prince Lagos' adventures after Yaotl is defeated; he goes in search of more keys and keybearers. It's known for having a very different style than the main books despite taking place in the same universe, namely a mythological style that has caused people to compare it favorably to the Journey to the West, with Lagos being a Monkey-type character.
BOOK FOUR -- RIVER AND WIND
Lots of piecemeal slice of life style adventures as Nerida and Zephyr gather all the Keys... discovering that other Keepers have been corrupted by power and become bearers of Shadowheart Keys, while their real Keys lie in slumber. Nerida begins to come into her own as a true Master, finally taking full responsibility for herself and her actions as a leader. Zephyr becomes her apprentice. They slowly gather all the Keys. This installment isn't viewed very favorably by most fans and is considered a bit of series padding, despite the character development in it.
BOOK FIVE -- THE STARHEART KEY
Zephyr gains the Mark of Mastery; he and Nerida travel to the heart of the universe to forge the Starheart Key. They fight Malice, the Lord of Shadow. Prince Lagos shows up again (yay!). They forge the key, Nerida defeats Malice, order is restored, everyone's happy.
OTHER WORKS
STARHEART STORIES -- short stories set in the Starheart Universe.
CRYSTAL AND CLOCKWORK -- A stand alone steampunk novel from before steampunk was cool
CITY OF BROKEN GLASS SERIES -- A series of dark urban fantasy novels. Very popular with the tween set. Kind of Dresden Files with a female protagonist.
SUNWARD HOME -- A hard sci-fi series with big generational ships.
Maya wrote a few episodes of Inspector Spacetime which are highly regarded, and led to a really ridiculous Inspector Spacetime / Starheart Saga crossover. She also wrote a few Galaxy Quest tie-in novels, and is one of the few authors known to have worked on both Inspector Spacetime and Galaxy Quest. Finally, she wrote a couple of obscure adventure games in the 90s, and consulted on the obscure Japanese RPG adaptation of The Starheart Saga, which is now really rare and goes for thousands in the collector's market. You can't even pirate that shit man.
> There's a Mark of Mastery exam for people who carry around giant keys
> There were four people in the room. She knows vaguely what they look like, and that the young man failed because of "darkness"
> She has no idea what Aqua looks like, she just knows that she had the point of view here
> One quote: "There are no winners -- only truths. When equal powers clash, their nature is revealed."
***
Differences in the Starheart Key:
> Maya decided that giant keys are goofy, so instead they have smaller, palm-sized keys they wear around their necks, which are heirlooms. These keys do grant magical powers
> They use magic swords instead
> Their outfits are less, um, KH-y.
***
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Nerida -- The Aqua counterpart, the main character. People have assumed that Nerida is a self-insert, and Maya has admitted that Nerida is something of a reflection of her 18 year old self: tied up in duty and trying to do the right thing all the time, even at the cost of her happiness. Nerida carries the Waterheart Key, which gives her power over water.
She was originally from a desert planet, and was given the Waterheart Key to bring rain to the land.
Kun -- the Terra counterpart, Kun is Nerida's love interest, though Key Keepers aren't supposed to fall in love. He fails his first Mark of Mastery exam due to a great shadow on his heart, and spends much of the series trying to overcome it; he initially thinks it's his love for Nerida which clouds him, but it turns out to be equal parts his desire for power, his anxiety over not doing well enough to protect his friends... and a deliberate poison by Master Yaotl. Much to everyone's shock, he actually dies tragically at the end of the second book.
Kun was from a tropical world of great mountains, and was given the Earthheart Key to help till the land.
Zephyr -- the Ventus counterpart, Zephyr is a young Apprentice, that is, a trainee. He's young, very optimistic, and best friends with Nerida and Kun, who treat him as a younger brother.
Zephyr has the Airheart, as he came from a world of floating islands; the Airheart Key lets him fly.
Master Agni -- the Master Eraqus counterpart. Current head of the Keepers, he presides over the exam, and is killed early in book one when the Keepers are overwhelmed by Shadow. He once held the Fireheart Key.
Master Yaotl -- The Master Xehanort counterpart. Another Master of the Keepers, Yaotl is secretly a traitor to the Order, who kowtowed to the Order of Shadows and their minions in exchange for power and his life. He once held the Frostheart Key, this was corrupted into a Shadowheart Key for his services to Shadow.
PEOPLE WHO AREN'T REALLY COUNTERPARTS TO ANYTHING
Prince Lagos of the Azure Steppes -- shows up in Book 2; he's a Lagomorph, which is to say a rabbit man, and jokes that his name is like Prince Humans, and that it was a great joke. He's a trickster and sort of a jerk; he's also one of the Keepers, and holds the Greenheart Key, which controls plant life. Also, he has blue fur.
***
BOOK ONE -- THE SHADOW PLAGUE
On the galactic capitol of Solaris, three friends, Nerida, Kun, and Zephyr, are all training to become Key Masters. All of them took on the mantle of Key Keeper at a young age according to the traditions of their home worlds. Nerida took on the Waterheart Key at age ten to save her village from a terrible drought. On Kun's world, the burden of Key Keeping is passed down family lines, and his father died in a terrible accident when he was but eleven. And on Zephyr's world, it is mystic priests who choose their world's Keeper, and Zephyr was chosen at the age of six. They are thus some of the youngest candidates for Mastery in years; most don't take the exam until the age of thirty at least, and the last youngest was 25. Kun and Nerida are only nineteen and eighteen, and while Zephyr at thirteen really IS too young to take the exam (sixteen is the minimum age), he's still of a skill level comparable to Kun and Nerida.
For generations, the Keepers have guarded the Heart Keys, magical artifacts from a forgotten era that allow the holder to "unlock" aspects of the universe. There are thousands of these, with aspects as diverse and strange as Glass, Illusion, Flower, and Moonlight, or even Pride and Sorrow. There was once even a tiny Sneezeheart, held by one Bzza', a small beetle-man. It lets him make people sneeze. Those who hold Keys are called Keepers, and those who gain Mastery are, well, Masters. While Keys can be taken up by anyone, it does take skill, training, and dedication to keep them and forge a bond, and once a bond is forged the key cannot be stolen unless the Keeper is slain.
Over the past generations though, the worlds have been in such an unprecedented era of peace that few have taken up the call of the Keys, as it is a terrible burden. Nerida is the only one of her friends who voluntarily took on the Key, and even she did so out of desperation and at an age where she didn't fully understand the consequences. There are a few other Keepers in the galaxy, but by and large they are not the galaxy-wide enforcers they once were. Indeed, such it was that only two Masters presided over the Mark of Mastery examination for Kun and Nerida, those being Master Agni and Master Yaotl.
That being said, there were rumors and rumblings of war on the edge of the galaxy, strange shadowy beasts appearing and dragging people off into the shadows. Nerida found this worrying, but the other students (most in training to even receive keys in the first place!) dismissed her fears. There hadn't been war for centuries, everything was probably fine.
The first part of the exam consisted of fighting back against a pair of summoned Elementals, creatures born of the Key's power -- basically practice dummies. But halfway through the exam, the Elementals went berserk, threatening to rampage throughout the monastery complex. Nerida, Kun, and then Zephyr (despite Nerida telling him to stay on the sidelines) managed to defeat the Elementals, and Master Agni considered this part of the test, but the event left everyone with a deep sense of unease.
During the second half of the test, Nerida and Kun sparred, but again, halfway through, Kun suffered an upswelling of dark power centered around his Key. He could not identify its source, but since the Dark powers were forbidden, this meant that he failed the exam, much to Nerida and Zephyr's surprise. The comforted their friend, but in the end the whole exam had a dark cast over it.
Even so, Nerida had succeeded, and there was a great celebration over the induction of a new (and so young) Master into the ranks. Indeed, at this point in time there were only three Masters left, which made Nerida the fourth Master.
Halfway through the party, disaster struck. The monastery was overwhelmed by dark creatures that flowed and changed form, and in many cases seemed to reflect innermost fears and nightmares. Master Agni was slain trying to protect his youngest students... and failed to do so. Nerida, Zephyr, and Kun only escaped with the help of Master Yaotl.
Thus began a saga of traveling across the ravaged planet to try to reach the Solar Spire, the planet's primary spaceport, so that they could leave the world in search of the source of the Shadow Plague. Nerida and Zephyr start to notice that the Shadows actually seem to be following them, rather than them coming to towns already plagued by Shadow; they begin to suspect their friend Kun, namely that the Darkness within him drew the Shadows to him. Yaotl, meanwhile, drives a wedge between Kun and his friends, saying that he should have succeeded at his test, that their mistrust came of jealousy. Kun, meanwhile, feels caught between his friends. He wants Nerida and Zephyr to trust him, but at the same time implores them to trust Yaotl, since he's the senior authority figure... even though technically Nerida holds as much power as he does (she doesn't assert it yet, however...)
This all comes to a head at the Spire when Nerida discovers by listening in secret that Yaotl had been behind it all along, conversing with a dark figure of mysterious origin. It turns out that said dark figure had promised Yaotl great power in exchange for his help in destroying the Order, and that in fact they were all being used, especially Kun, in whom a dark seed had been planted to corrupt his heart and soul and turn him into a living bomb to be sent off to other worlds. Things come to a head, and the climax of the first book has the Trio fighting Yaotl off and trying to defend a peaceful world from utter destruction. They do not defeat him, but they do save the planet and drive him off.
Nerida and Zephyr agree that they'll do everything in their power to save their friend Kun from the poison within. Kun objects, saying that he should die as if they try to search for a cure he'll only be doing what Yaotl wanted all along. Zephyr says that there may well be a way to save Kun, and stop the Shadows -- a legendary weapon called the Starheart Key. And that even without it, the monk traditions of his own home had a way to at least hide Kun from the Shadows: a protective spell that would prevent the Shadows from finding him. Unfortunately, his heart would still corrode under the Shadows weight, unless the Starheart Key was found.
AND SO BEGAN THE QUEST
BOOK TWO -- THE RIVER OF WORLDS
This book is your typical second book filled with a lot of in-between stuff going on... at least at first. The three travel from world to world, discovering that the Plague is much, much worse than expected... and finding out more about the secrets of the universe besides. The Keys, as it turns out, are each Keyed to the hearts of worlds... and that the Starheart Key was the key to them all. This allowed them to lock and protect the worlds that corresponded to their keys... but no others. Along the way, they encounter Prince Lagos, who at first seems like he might be a rival or antagonist, but then turns out to be a valuable ally.
In the end of this book, they finally discern the location of the Starheart, but Yaotl catches up to them. Kun goes to face Yaotl and hold him off while Nerida and Zephyr escape. Kun dies in the process. It's very tragic.
BOOK THREE -- THE SOURCE OF SHADOWS
Prince Lagos now accompanies Nerida and Zephyr. Zephyr starts to take on more of a role as he gets older. Adventures are had, the two discover the secret truth behind the Shadow attacks: that the Shadows come from another reality, and that Yaotl was only a pawn. They are bent on unmaking the universe... and that in fact this has happened before, hundreds of thousands of times back into infinity. the Keys are in fact the crystallized souls of dead worlds from ages past, given purpose to try to stop the next Cycle... and in fact, the Starheart Key isn't in a particular location, but is in fact the sum power of ALL the Keys. And their old enemy Yaotl has one... so they have to track him down and get that Key.
So they do. Pretty straightforward, actually... except as it turns out Yaotl DOESN'T have that Key, and that the Iceheart Key had been corrupted into a Shadowheart Key.
at this point, the series splits into two different groups, the Chronicles of Prince Lagos, and then the main Starheart Saga.
CHRONICLES OF PRINCE LAGOS SERIES
This is a three book series about Prince Lagos' adventures after Yaotl is defeated; he goes in search of more keys and keybearers. It's known for having a very different style than the main books despite taking place in the same universe, namely a mythological style that has caused people to compare it favorably to the Journey to the West, with Lagos being a Monkey-type character.
BOOK FOUR -- RIVER AND WIND
Lots of piecemeal slice of life style adventures as Nerida and Zephyr gather all the Keys... discovering that other Keepers have been corrupted by power and become bearers of Shadowheart Keys, while their real Keys lie in slumber. Nerida begins to come into her own as a true Master, finally taking full responsibility for herself and her actions as a leader. Zephyr becomes her apprentice. They slowly gather all the Keys. This installment isn't viewed very favorably by most fans and is considered a bit of series padding, despite the character development in it.
BOOK FIVE -- THE STARHEART KEY
Zephyr gains the Mark of Mastery; he and Nerida travel to the heart of the universe to forge the Starheart Key. They fight Malice, the Lord of Shadow. Prince Lagos shows up again (yay!). They forge the key, Nerida defeats Malice, order is restored, everyone's happy.
OTHER WORKS
STARHEART STORIES -- short stories set in the Starheart Universe.
CRYSTAL AND CLOCKWORK -- A stand alone steampunk novel from before steampunk was cool
CITY OF BROKEN GLASS SERIES -- A series of dark urban fantasy novels. Very popular with the tween set. Kind of Dresden Files with a female protagonist.
SUNWARD HOME -- A hard sci-fi series with big generational ships.
Maya wrote a few episodes of Inspector Spacetime which are highly regarded, and led to a really ridiculous Inspector Spacetime / Starheart Saga crossover. She also wrote a few Galaxy Quest tie-in novels, and is one of the few authors known to have worked on both Inspector Spacetime and Galaxy Quest. Finally, she wrote a couple of obscure adventure games in the 90s, and consulted on the obscure Japanese RPG adaptation of The Starheart Saga, which is now really rare and goes for thousands in the collector's market. You can't even pirate that shit man.
