Welcome New Reader!
You are about to journey into the Wayrift, a fantasy webcomic first launched in 2021. It's based on the merging of two fan worlds, inspired by the classic SNES game Final Fantasy IV, and written by long-time friends Aywren and Syntyche.
The good news: We have quite the sizable archive to binge! (Each chapter allows you to read in infinite scroll or page-by-page format.)
The bad news: We have quite the sizable archive to binge! (It might feel a little overwhelming at first!)
So, where do you start? You can choose one of several paths!
Choose your Wayrift Adventure!
Book 1 Introduction
Want to get right to the comic from the very start?
Don’t want to spoil yourself with overviews, lore, history or any of that stuff? We got you!
Just hop straight to the very first introduction chapter in the Book 1 archives!
History/Lore
Are you new to the lore and world of Final Fantasy IV?
While we try to write Wayrift in a way as to not require prior knowledge of FFIV, here’s a quick overview of the most important story beats of the game. This should be enough to get you going!
There’s also an introduction to the stories of the Darkstar world – also not required, but very much a part of the history and lore that makes up Wayrift.
Book 1 Overview
Want to start with a quick overview summary of Book 1?
Wayrift has been around for quite a while (since 2001). That means we have a pretty large archive! Due to that, we’ve worked at putting together full book overviews. This will give you a summary of each chapter, the most important plot points that happened, as well as the characters and the locations.
Consider it like Cliff Notes for Wayrift!
Additional Notes
You’ll see a major shift in artwork style and writing tone as you read. The Introduction through the beginning of Chapter 3 were re-worked in 2004 to help clarify the story and update the oldest art. In 2011, Wayrift finally made the shift to full color!
Note that in some of the early chapters, you'll run across old anime tropes - this was meant as harmless humor at the time and doesn't persist into the later chapters. It was just a sign of the early days of a webcomic written by younger folks.
The foundation of this story grew out of the classic SNES version of “Final Fantasy IV.” However, characterizations, locations, concepts, plots and many characters are completely original. So this is not as much of a “fan” comic as it is an exploration and inspired work.
This comic, like most things in life, is a work in progress!