Sun Tribe ARG
 | This page is a work in progress. Please add more developments from this recap post to the page. |
| The Dark Legacy of the Sun Tribe | |
|---|---|
| Type | Official |
| Creator | Red Candle Games |
| Discovered | 2025-09-09 |
List of Investigations > Sun Tribe ARG
The Dark Legacy of the Sun Tribe was an ARG run by Red Candle Games, involving their game Nine Sols.
Sun Tribe Exhibition
From October 12-27, 2024, Red Candle Games hosted an exhibition of historical artifacts at the Pier-2 Art Center in Taiwan.[1]. These artifacts were purportedly from the Sun Tribe: a legendary civilization that possessed technologies and knowledge far beyond its time.
After the exhibition concluded, Red Candle Games posted security footage taken from the exhibition hall to X.[2] In the footage, two masked individuals are visible: one person uses a hammer to break open a display case and steal a clay tablet, while the other person marks the display case with graffiti of a sea turtle. Additionally, the overlay of the footage is written in the Solarian language from Nine Sols.
Hours after the security footage was posted, an X account named @DiverYuuki07 replied to the security footage.[3] Notably, this new account had a profile picture that matched the sea-turtle graffiti design. The reply linked to this website, titled "Truth Beneath Shadows: Unmasking the Fusang Conspiracy".[4]
According to the website, Fusang was a secretive organization working to unlock the potential of the Sun Tribe's artifacts. Allegedly, Fusang silenced others that tried to investigate the Sun Tribe, including an archaeologist named Wu Haimin. Fusang also shares its name with a primordial entity from Nine Sols.[5]
The final page of the Fusang Conspiracy site[6] hosted an image that concealed two faintly-visible halftone designs:
- The same sea turtle design that had been stenciled on the display case
- The URL https://forms.gle/hJ4iybcnivgxYYSHA, which led to a Google form.[7]
The Google form asked visitors to leave their name and email address.
Trailhead
On September 9, 2025, Red Candle Games posted a video entitled "The Dark Legacy of the Sun Tribe" to their YouTube channel.[8] The narrator of the video introduces themselves as Yuuki, and takes credit for the break-in at the Sun Tribe exhibition.
In the video, Yuuki tells the story of Wu Haimin, an amateur archaeologist. Through unofficial channels, Wu Haimin acquired ancient bamboo scrolls, dating from around 200 BCE. Wu Haimin thought the scroll was written by Xu Fu, a prominent alchemist who lived during the Qin dynasty. At the emperor's orders, Xu Fu had sailed east in search of the secret to immortality, and had never returned. According to Yuuki, Wu Haimin became obsessed with the scrolls.
One night, Wu Haimin awoke to find an old man beside his bed, who told him to journey to the "immortal island." After this hallucination, Wu Haimin realized that Xu Fu had been in search of the Sun Tribe, an unusually advanced civilization that existed around 8000 BCE. Wu Haimin formed a research team to continue investigating the Sun Tribe, and received a threatening call from the Fusang Foundation. After this, Wu Haimin became paranoid, and eventually disappeared. Furthermore, in every photo where Wu Haimin once appeared, his face had been scratched out.
Xu Fu's bamboo scrolls were recovered from Wu Haimin's house, and eventually landed in Yuuki's posession. In the video, Yuuki translates a portion of the scrolls, and they mention the "ancient capital" Penglai, which shares its name with the Solarian home planet from Nine Sols.[9] Yuuki asked viewers to join him in searching for Penglai, and explained that there is a way to contact him hidden in the video.
Yuuki's video included a key that allowed the substitution of symbols with English letters. Throughout the video, these symbols appear near Yuuki. By excluding symbols where Yuuki is not holding up his hands, the following text can be translated with the substitution cipher:
DRAGONPALACEM
By combining this text with the Tumblr logo hidden at the end of Yuuki's video, players discovered the Tumblr user @dragonpalace4, which used the sea turtle design as its profile picture.
Tumblr Blog
Yuuki's first post on the Tumblr blog included a more complete translation of Xu Fu's bamboo scrolls.[10] In the post, Yuuki asked for theories on where the location described in the scrolls might be. Based on the description of stone tombs in the translation, commenters suggested the location could be Gangwha Island. Yuuki travelled to South Korea to visit Gangwha island, and kept a log of his travels on the Tumblr blog.
South Korea
First, Yuuki visited the Gangwha Dolmen Sites (the stone tombs mentioned in the scrolls) but found them to be a dead end.[11] However, Yuuki was followed by a strange person who tried to speak with him in Korean before vanishing.[12] Yuuki then tried to track down the "fermented dried fish" mentioned in Xu Fu's scrolls by visiting a fish market, where he identified the dish as hongeo before being kicked out of the market.[13] Yuuki felt he was being followed again, and headed into a café.[14] Yuuki fell asleep at the table, and when he awoke, he was holding a drawing of same the sea turtle he used as his profile picture.[15]
While visiting a museum, Yuuki had his wallet and passport stolen by a pickpocket posing as a "private tour guide."[16] Yuuki traced the thief to his address and met the thief's grandmother, who apologized profusely for her grandson's behaviour.[17][18] After understanding that Yuuki was looking for hongeo, the thief's grandmother gave Yuuki a note to pass to the same fish vendor that had previously kicked Yuuki out of the fish market.[19][20]
The hongeo vendor set up a meeting between Yuuki and the hongeo supplier.[21] After a night of drinking with the hongeo supplier, Yuuki recovered a painting passed down by the supplier's ancestors, and recognized that the painting pointed to the next point of interest.[22]
Japan
Four days later, Yuuki travelled to Japan to visit an unnamed shrine.[23]
Later, Yuuki also visited Mount Takamikura.[24]
Yuuki Mindscape
Minecraft Server
Sources
- ↑ Red Candle Games [@redcandlegames] (October 11, 2024). "🌞 The Lost Sun Empire Exhibition in Taiwan!" (Tweet). Archived from the original on November 26, 2025 – via X.
- ↑ Red Candle Games [@redcandlegames] (October 28, 2024). "Strange men. Took clay tablet on 27th. I. provide. footage. please. watch." (Tweet). Archived from the original on November 26, 2025 – via X.
- ↑ Seaturtle_Yuuki [@DiverYuuki07] (October 28, 2024). "You’re looking for me, aren’t you?" (Tweet). Archived from the original on November 26, 2025 – via X.
- ↑ "Truth Beneath Shadows: Unmasking the Fusang Conspiracy". Archived September 10, 2025 from the original.
- ↑ Nine Sols Wiki. Fusang.
- ↑ THE LOST CITY OF PENGLAI. Archived September 17, 2027 from the original.
- ↑ Join me if you also seek the truth. Accessed November 26, 2025.
- ↑ Red Candle Games [@RedCandleGames] (September 9, 2025). The Dark Legacy of the Sun Tribe (YouTube video).
- ↑ Nine Sols Wiki. Penglai.
- ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 9, 2025). Congrats on making it here. (Tumblr post).
- ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 12, 2025). So this is the stone tomb Xu Fu wrote about in the scroll. (Tumblr post).
- ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 12, 2025). Something weird happened. (Tumblr post).
- ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 12, 2025). At the fish market now, going after Xu Fu's dried fish. (Tumblr post).
- ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 12, 2025). I just dropped into some random café and grabbed whatever. (Tumblr post).
- ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 12, 2025). Back. Had to bounce, just left the café. (Tumblr post).
- ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 13, 2025). Finally got a second to type. (Tumblr post).
- ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 13, 2025). Pulled the audio, traced the guy to his registered address. (Tumblr post).
- ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 13, 2025). Can’t believe shit like this actually happens... (Tumblr post).
- ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 13, 2025). Got a little too emotional last night. (Tumblr post).
- ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 13, 2025). There’s some weird gravity pulling me back to this place... (Tumblr post).
- ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 13, 2025). Just left the market. (Tumblr post).
- ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 14, 2025). Done. Back somewhere safe. (Tumblr post).
- ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 18, 2025). Made it to the shrine. (Tumblr post).
- ↑ Dragonpalace4 [@dragonpalace4] (September 20, 2025). Fuck! I turned on GPS like you said and this happened. (Tumblr post).