Wizard101's Best World

It's standard to feature a Write-a-Post contest winner in the September Series, but this is the first year we'll get to draw on new contest winners! Blaze was one of a few winners of last year's contest, and you'll get to hear from him about what his favorite Wizard101 world is.

I have been playing Wizard101 for a long time now. I have played each World multiple times on multiple accounts. I have enjoyed playing every world but none of them have been as fun to play as Khrysalis. I am aware that this is not a popular choice but in next few paragraphs I will try to explain my perspective and hopefully will get some of you to agree with me by end of my post.

Quest by Quest

The storyline of Khrysalis is very good. We do get to do some important quests and progressive storyline there. By contrast other worlds like Zafaria or Polaris have many quests which don’t contribute much in the main storyline and are more like "fillers." These Worlds mostly consist of fillers that have nothing to do with the overarching plot and the events weren’t interconnected with each other. So the storyline of Khrysalis is much better where the quests progress the main storyline in a positive way and lead it to a resolution. Khrysalis is not only the magnum opus of Wizard101, but should be the model of how Kingsisle writes and designs quests for future Worlds.

In Khrysalis every event is interconnected and has a purpose and serves to further hurt Morganthe and shatter the Umbra Legion. And help further restore Khrysalis. From liberating Bastion and Sardonyx, beating the warlords, defeating Atlach-Leng, restoring the Astral relics, learning Shadow Magic and controlling it, crossing the Starfall Sea and descending into the Black Hole. All these events further our journey to reach the Shadow Palace and break apart the magical and military high ground that Morganthe has. All while learning about the suffering that the people of Khrysalis had to endure under Morganthe’s reign and foreshadowing the Grandfather Spider arc.

Big Bad Guys

The main villain of Khrysalis, Morganthe, is probably the most formidable enemy that we have ever faced. Even though Malistaire, Old Cobb and his children get a bigger buildup and more hype, only Morganthe ever lives up to her reputation. This is evident when Morganthe is compared to them.

In Khrysalis, the Spider told his Children to "Marry and make war! Build fleeting empires and towers of cards and beautiful disasters!" and to "sow Chaos to one day reap." But the most evil thing Rat did was hypnotize Urville Station's mining workforce, and enslave that town. And the Scorpion did nothing significant at all! He only showed up two times in Mirage, one in Alkali Barrows and one in Aggrobah. That is not causing Chaos!

Grandfather Spider's prophecies made them seem like extremely dangerous Chaos Bringers, who would cause unimaginable Chaos. But the Cabal, and even Malistaire, seems like a bigger threat than the Rat and the Scorpion. And the plans to sunder Land and Sky, and reverse the Sands of Time aren't as chaotic as they should have been. I don't even see how reversing the Sands would have caused unlimited Chaos.

Morganthe on the other hand was everything the Children should have been but were not. She was dark, devious, intelligent, extremely evil, and used Shadow Magic. Even if the spells she used was a very small portion of Shadow Magic. Her actions made us terrified of her. To the point where she committed genocide upon the people of Azteca by destroying the entire world! She also indirectly plunged Avalon into disarray and crystallized the City of Bastion. And committed many more evil acts! A true villain indeed!

The Children of Shadow were hyped up to be even more dangerous and powerful than Morganthe, and have a connection to the Shadow Web (whatever that is). But they failed immensely, and the story suffered for it. By stark contrast, Morganthe personally took part in the story, and we saw the evil she's capable of doing. She was a very dangerous threat to the Wizard and the entire Spiral.

Story Structure

Khrysalis also has another thing going for it and that is the gradual build up to the resolution of the arc. Like Dragonspyre, Khrysalis benefits from being the last World of a story arc. But even then, it surpasses Dragonspyre in every aspect- be it grandiose, story depths or the epic feels. Throughout the second arc Morganthe's master plan and backstory was revealed little by little, the major event in each world affected the overarching story. The purpose of Morganthe's plans in each world was a piece of her master plan to rewrite the Spiral. And the final battle with her in Khrysalis was built up. We liberated Bastion and Sardonyx, raised an army of Mantis Warriors and Mouse Knights, learned the process of how she became so powerful in the Solar Arc and the Hive, and dissolved the Umbra Legion by fighting members of it from the bottom to the top of its ladder (culminating in defeating the second-in-command Archmagus Lorcan).

Usually comedy, puns and humor add extra layer to a World but the lack of humor helped Khrysalis become a great World in my opinion. With a build up to a story that was grim and scary, we satisfactorily get a Khrysalis story which is more grim and less funny, and rightly so. In Khrysalis we raced against the clock to reach the Shadow Palace and rescue the Lords of Night, before Morganthe rewrites the Spiral in her image. And the situation felt tense and dangerous because not only was the confrontation between Morganthe built up, but Khrysalis itself was written to be as serious as possible. The jokes were subtle and subdued, and there was a grim tone in Khrysalis, fitting for a world pinned under Morganthe's tyranny for centuries. The characters took Morganthe's plan seriously and were dead set on helping the Wizard reach the Shadow Palace, all the while freeing the people of Khrysalis through the various events.

So in conclusion, keep everything in mind, I would say that Khrysalis is the best Wizard101 World till date and hopefully Empyrea will be able to successfully topple it from the position to become Wizard101’s best World. Fingers crossed!

Thanks to Blaze Hexcaster for this post!

Thanks for reading and see you in the Spiral!