This is the tale of the kingdom Zukanov, made up of three distinct races. Nature, Fire, and Water. Each of these people have one unique ability that relates to their element. One day, a man named Zandox was born. His parents were homeless and jobless and the king of Zukanov, Yaxkin, would not help them. When he was 10, Zandox discovered he could use all three of the elements, and began training to one day overthrow Yaxkin, and he did. Zandox had full control of the nation, until one day, a man believed he was the one who would end Zandox's madness. However, he had no special abilities of his own, so he found three companions to help him end Zandox's rule. They were Semula of Nature, Garra of Fire, and Jezero of Water. With their knowledge of elemental weaknesses, The Hero and his companions defeated Zandox, but not without The Hero losing his life. Zukanov was seemingly brought to peace, until the three companions began to fight over how the country should be ran. In the end, they divided the country into three sections that were separated by the rivers that naturally cut through the land. Peace had been obtained thanks to the elemental advantages each nation had over another to keep them in check, until one day, an attack was launched.
Playlist for the entire series (and some bonus content) can be found here
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The show was announced by Aquablade 11 after he announced the cancellation of The Aquablade Chronicles, his first sprite series. He promised a completely original series made up of original sprites, backgrounds, and music. The story was written by Aquablade 11, the sprites were made by SuperSonicGX, and the music was composed by ThePhantomCorrector.
The world later crossed over with Kruxor, the sprite world of The Aquablade Chronicles, in The Aquablade Chronicles season four, "Sunrise", after a portal was activated.
Zukanov provides examples of:
- All Your Powers Combined: The Hero's weapon has the ability to absorb a person's special ability when they die in close proximity to it, allowing its wielder to use said abilities. Lyron takes advantage of this in the finale to gain Zandox's power and go One-Winged Angel.
- Back from the Dead: Zandox is revived as a part of the climax. Later happens en masse to a bunch of other people when the threat has passed.
- Badass Normal: The Hero had no special abilities, but he successfully lead a revolt against Zandox. Turns out to be a subversion, as Zandox reveals that The Hero actually had the ability to absorb powers and attacks for his own use, which proved necessary in defeating him.
- Badass Pacifist: Harthon gets fed up with having to fight so often by the end, that he resolves to become this. He's pretty good at it.
- Chekhov's Gunman: So many individuals come back with a greater importance then they first seem, that you could almost make an army out of them alone:
- Verutas starts out as just the general of the Semulan army, then it turns out he was in league with the people behind everything and is an Anti-Villain; also, he isn't actually Semulan, but a Garran-Jezeroan hybrid.
- Lyron starts out as just Hathon's best friend who had to stay home when the adventure started. Turns out, he was the Big Bad responsible for almost everything that has happened in the story, manipulating everything from behind the scenes.
- Kodil leaves the group after his first task is done, then he returns latter as a permanent ally.
- On a less important note, near the start a Semulan couple are saved by Harthon and Kodil when their house is burning down. Latter on, when Raythur was hurt and dying, the same Semulan couple got him back to good health, not caring about his status as a Jezeroan because another Jezeroan (Kodil) helped saved them before.
- Disk One Nuke: Kodil serves this purpose at the start, being significantly stronger then most of the Semulan soldiers he allies with, and is actually strong against the Garran soldiers attacking, making his fights very one-sided. After that fight, he leaves the group and when he returns, the other main characters have caught up to him in strength.
- Elemental Nation: Semula, Garra, and Jezero are Nature, Fire, and Water respectively.
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: This is how the three companions defeated Zandox. It also keeps the three nations from attacking one another. As Nature attacks are good against Jezeroans, Water attacks are good against Garrans, and Fire attacks are good against Semulans.
- Elemental Weapon: Semula, Garra, and Jezero used these to defeat Zandox.
- Green Thumb: The people of Semula have powers related in some fashion to nature and plants.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: Harthon's only natural ability is to make plants grow really fast. All his special attacks put this to good use, either by making trees pop out from under his enemies as an attack, raising nearby grass for defense, or growing roots out of yarful seeds for healing.
- The Hero: Harthon is the main protagonist of this story. Also, there is a character in the old legends literally called The Hero (though if Zandox is to believed, that one is a subversion).
- Logical Weakness: Xylee's Smokescreen attack isn't all that effective against those that can function well when relying on senses other then sight. Also, Harthon's ability to grow plants isn't all that helpful in areas lacking vegetation, since he can't actually create plants, only make pre-existing ones grow really fast.
- Making a Splash: The people of Jezero have powers related to water
- The Nose Knows: Xylee is able to tell that a disguised Harthon and Raythur were Semulan almost immediately because they “reek of Dravo”.
- Playing with Fire: The people of Garra tend to have fire-related abilities.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something:
- Almost every member of a royal family in any of the three nations is shown getting into at least one fight.
- Inverted with Zaxkin, who actually didn't do anything to help the people of Zukanov because he believed it's up to people to solve their own problems.
- Technical Pacifist: Harthon is this through most of the story, but close to the end, he gets fed up with it and resolves to become a Badass Pacifist instead.
- The Usurper: Zandox took the throne from Yaxkin and placed Zukanov under his complete control.
