What happened before The Strands of Fate?

I've previously written about the setting of Angels with Scaly Wings, Part 2: The Strands of Fate, but not a lot about what happened immediately after the end of the first game.

TSoF picks up 4 years later with the player character having spent the vast majority of that time in isolation.

When I set out to write TSoF, the main question was what would naturally happen next to these characters, and the world at large. And how did they affect each other?

Being true to that was my biggest priority, and those considerations shaped what players will see when they start the game.

Angels with Scaly Wings ends with the dragons relocating from their threatened world into the future - the world and time of humans.

While the player character was glad for the success of that mission, the necessary and extensive use of the portal did not come without consequences.

The many teleportations the player character undertook over the course of the game combined with the additional damage to the Veil (the barrier between the timelines) due to the portal use from saving the dragons at the end resulted in the worst case of teleportation sickness in history.

Not that having to live with events witnessed during certain endings wasn't bad enough on its own, being reminded of what happened only caused flashbacks and aggravated the symptoms.

It all culminated in an eventual collapse, visits to professionals and being sent to a farm to heal. Isolation from aggravating elements, simple living, and a stable routine.

To eliminate any risk in the healing process, those in charge decided any potential contact with the outside must be prevented by any means possible. After all, everyone was curious about the mysterious hero who had saved 2 civilizations.

It meant a new identity, and even planted rumors of death. For the rest of the world, the player character vanished without a trace.

It would take 4 years and a request from the leaders of the 3 cities to be present at a congress where Reza's fate would be discussed to get the player character out of that isolation, and to finally catch up with the world - and dragons not seen in years.

What does that mean for their role in the sequel?

Simply put, all 5 main characters from AwSW will have either a main or secondary character route in TSoF. Adine for example will have a main character route again, whereas Anna will have a secondary character route in TSoF.

It bears to mention that on average, a main character in TSoF will have more content than a main character did in AwSW, and a secondary character in TSoF will have more content than a secondary character did in AwSW as a result of the increased scope in TSoF.

As mentioned before, after the events of AwSW Anna ended up in a research position in Covenant City, which is exactly where she is when the player character comes by for a visit...