![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethAttempting to take a day off from Wrath of the Righteous just leads to thinking a lot about Wrath of the Righteous.
All the companion and NPC stuff fits together thematically with the Big Secret really Well:
On my fourth complete play through I have trouble approaching the thing like it is a secret, but the reveal of where your powers come from and who gave them and why, that's a big thread that is on the first try a secret.
So you get Companions who are all about what the Worldwound, the Abyws, and the war do to people. The PTSD, the moral erosion, the screaming spirits of battle, all that is obviously about corruption on first play through. But it gets so much nore complex once you know and think about it.
Areelu Vorlesh tore the world open to go and get her child out of the Abyss.
But you read the books and letters lying around, you listen to NPC stories, you listen to your companions stories, and you realise, there were a set of choices that happened before the world knew about that.
What do you do when your famioy member, loved one, child, turns out to be... Abyssal? A monster? Corrupted by demons to the point they do monstrous things?
What do you do when you only have one living child for some reason? Lann's stories about dead siblings look different from his Mom's point of view. And he was so mad at her, and at himself, for what can't be his fault. Lann is how he is because the abyss got to his ancestors and they did terrible desperate things and, while I hate the idea of disability as a result of moral corruption or visible signs of moral choices, the kids were paying for their parents mistakes for generations, dealing with environmental poisons and societal prejudice, so that's a very layered story. And Lann proves their present appearance has nothing to do with morality. They just got poisoned by the war.
There's a bit of paper you can pick up somewhere, I think in a cultist temple, which is written from the point of view of a woman who really wanted a baby, prayed for one, and then got one. Cool so far. But. She wouldn't take any warnings. She wouldn't trust other people when they said the baby was doing bad things. She kept looking after the baby. Until she found the bodies. Then she didnt reckon she'd survive, so she left those notes.
Horgus Gwerm knew a little about Camellia, or a lot, never followed her story down far enough to be sure. So he got her a tutor and figures he did his best by her. But how much of how she turned out was shaped by his choices? Could he have done different by her? And what should he do, now she's all grown up and Like That? She liked the Abyss. Player characters can find a lot to like there too, what is the Battlebliss but the game's main mechanic writ large? So she's all 'the world in crimson' and he got her training and now...
What is a parent to do when they realise their child is headed for the abyss?
Daeran got the very best tutors and a genuinely loving home... for a while. And then the war ripped it all away. And he turned out as someone very eager for everyone to know how terrible he is as a person.
Which you read at the start as a story of how free will matters and having every advantage of birth, blood, and teaching, sometimes just pisses people off. Daeran gets told who he obviously will grow up to be? Daeran sets out to prove them all wrong.
Teensy bit more complicated though that turns out to be.
It's another story about parents and children. He's visually so much like his mother, from a long family line that grow into the same job, so she teaches him what she needed. And he learns a lot and well, you can have conversations abiut a lot of nobility related topics. But that doesn't mean it ever suited him, or would have been what he'd have chosen if he had choices. ... yes he has money and that looks like choices, but his money is tied to place and position in a non portable way, so actually he has to out up with high handed treatment from his cousin just because nobility works that way. Being sentenced to the crusade is for the worst criminals... and Daeran, who pissed her off by pissing in the wrong places. Choices, what choices.
... reasons I can't be having with the Queen. She looked more reasonabke on first play through but she makes the same mistakes over and over because you can't infouence her much, and that feels more true every time.
So you look at Areelu Vorlesh. Who had one child, and tore apart the world for them. No other parent in the story, so you are left to wonder. Not the only child in the story like that, Camellia's parents turned out to be a story of class prejudice and lies, Daeran's mother gets mentioned but who else? Racial prejudice tells them the celestial bloodline matters more than... anything, really. Children filed neatly in boxes. Woljif dealing with his grandma hating him for looking like his grandpa, after his parents plain walked out on him. Layers of possibility but we don't actually know. Just a lot of interesting to think.
You can go into the story with a character with a back story, but it turns out you don't know the other half of it. Secret ancestors revealed all over. Dealing with the choices of your family, that leave you constrained.
So you've got a kid, we don't know how old, who is summoning demons when he gets killed. Evil spells? Evil alignment to get that out of a neutral spell? We don't quite know.
But we do know that their mother saw them in the abyss and decided
No.
No to the abyss, as well as no to being dead?
Well she ties herself to the abyss, but she doesn't do that in the next experiment, she doesn't tie her child there. Could have made a half fiend but instead refined and refined until there were Choices.
It's possible to read Areelu as seeking not just ressurection but redemption/enlightenment/atonement for her child.
Certainly seeking freedom.
But would have been fine with them turning out to be an exceptionallly powerful demon.
What that says about parenting gets *complex*, especially once you weave in the context, what the game gave us being all on theme.
Sarkoris had many good points and one lethal prejudice. Every sort of divine magic was accepted (unwisely ignoring good and evil), but no sort of arcane was permitted (unwisely ignoring good and evil). We gets scraps from arcane magic users back then and they get sentenced for any tiny thing. We get scraps from the hunters and we see genuinely terrible things being done. You see how the prejudice was born. But Ulbrig lived the down side of being too inclusive about the divine, so prejudice did not serve them well as a defence. Arcane wasn't the source of the problem.
But if the kid really was a sorcerer like the witch hunters said, that's magic born in the blood, no choice about it, no more than being aasimar or tiefling or mongrel.
And character creation rules suggest it gets more common in the children of magic users.
So Areelu the witch was giving her child a solid magical education, but might have made all the choices for them, some as accidental consequence and some on purpose.
Layers!
There's just a lot going on about the abyss and corruption and war, yes, but also about family and betrayal and keeping faith and how literally any position can go so horribly wrong you get... the Wound.
Lots to think about, even before you get to the unique myth paths and how they change how you can act and react. Because to start with you have choices, but once you choose your path their are things you can't say because on that path you'd never think of them. So you can get locked in by the power in some ways, ways that are about how you treat other people and their sins. But you wouldn't have been able to make it stick without some myth power in the first place.
... not my favourite bit, I like choices and consequences but the idea you need otherworldly whammy to make them work isn't the best.
But still. Means you're playing a slightly different game on every myth path. And that changes their world.
... I'm going to go play again in the predictable near future.
... shall make sure I eat properly first...
All the companion and NPC stuff fits together thematically with the Big Secret really Well:
On my fourth complete play through I have trouble approaching the thing like it is a secret, but the reveal of where your powers come from and who gave them and why, that's a big thread that is on the first try a secret.
So you get Companions who are all about what the Worldwound, the Abyws, and the war do to people. The PTSD, the moral erosion, the screaming spirits of battle, all that is obviously about corruption on first play through. But it gets so much nore complex once you know and think about it.
Areelu Vorlesh tore the world open to go and get her child out of the Abyss.
But you read the books and letters lying around, you listen to NPC stories, you listen to your companions stories, and you realise, there were a set of choices that happened before the world knew about that.
What do you do when your famioy member, loved one, child, turns out to be... Abyssal? A monster? Corrupted by demons to the point they do monstrous things?
What do you do when you only have one living child for some reason? Lann's stories about dead siblings look different from his Mom's point of view. And he was so mad at her, and at himself, for what can't be his fault. Lann is how he is because the abyss got to his ancestors and they did terrible desperate things and, while I hate the idea of disability as a result of moral corruption or visible signs of moral choices, the kids were paying for their parents mistakes for generations, dealing with environmental poisons and societal prejudice, so that's a very layered story. And Lann proves their present appearance has nothing to do with morality. They just got poisoned by the war.
There's a bit of paper you can pick up somewhere, I think in a cultist temple, which is written from the point of view of a woman who really wanted a baby, prayed for one, and then got one. Cool so far. But. She wouldn't take any warnings. She wouldn't trust other people when they said the baby was doing bad things. She kept looking after the baby. Until she found the bodies. Then she didnt reckon she'd survive, so she left those notes.
Horgus Gwerm knew a little about Camellia, or a lot, never followed her story down far enough to be sure. So he got her a tutor and figures he did his best by her. But how much of how she turned out was shaped by his choices? Could he have done different by her? And what should he do, now she's all grown up and Like That? She liked the Abyss. Player characters can find a lot to like there too, what is the Battlebliss but the game's main mechanic writ large? So she's all 'the world in crimson' and he got her training and now...
What is a parent to do when they realise their child is headed for the abyss?
Daeran got the very best tutors and a genuinely loving home... for a while. And then the war ripped it all away. And he turned out as someone very eager for everyone to know how terrible he is as a person.
Which you read at the start as a story of how free will matters and having every advantage of birth, blood, and teaching, sometimes just pisses people off. Daeran gets told who he obviously will grow up to be? Daeran sets out to prove them all wrong.
Teensy bit more complicated though that turns out to be.
It's another story about parents and children. He's visually so much like his mother, from a long family line that grow into the same job, so she teaches him what she needed. And he learns a lot and well, you can have conversations abiut a lot of nobility related topics. But that doesn't mean it ever suited him, or would have been what he'd have chosen if he had choices. ... yes he has money and that looks like choices, but his money is tied to place and position in a non portable way, so actually he has to out up with high handed treatment from his cousin just because nobility works that way. Being sentenced to the crusade is for the worst criminals... and Daeran, who pissed her off by pissing in the wrong places. Choices, what choices.
... reasons I can't be having with the Queen. She looked more reasonabke on first play through but she makes the same mistakes over and over because you can't infouence her much, and that feels more true every time.
So you look at Areelu Vorlesh. Who had one child, and tore apart the world for them. No other parent in the story, so you are left to wonder. Not the only child in the story like that, Camellia's parents turned out to be a story of class prejudice and lies, Daeran's mother gets mentioned but who else? Racial prejudice tells them the celestial bloodline matters more than... anything, really. Children filed neatly in boxes. Woljif dealing with his grandma hating him for looking like his grandpa, after his parents plain walked out on him. Layers of possibility but we don't actually know. Just a lot of interesting to think.
You can go into the story with a character with a back story, but it turns out you don't know the other half of it. Secret ancestors revealed all over. Dealing with the choices of your family, that leave you constrained.
So you've got a kid, we don't know how old, who is summoning demons when he gets killed. Evil spells? Evil alignment to get that out of a neutral spell? We don't quite know.
But we do know that their mother saw them in the abyss and decided
No.
No to the abyss, as well as no to being dead?
Well she ties herself to the abyss, but she doesn't do that in the next experiment, she doesn't tie her child there. Could have made a half fiend but instead refined and refined until there were Choices.
It's possible to read Areelu as seeking not just ressurection but redemption/enlightenment/atonement for her child.
Certainly seeking freedom.
But would have been fine with them turning out to be an exceptionallly powerful demon.
What that says about parenting gets *complex*, especially once you weave in the context, what the game gave us being all on theme.
Sarkoris had many good points and one lethal prejudice. Every sort of divine magic was accepted (unwisely ignoring good and evil), but no sort of arcane was permitted (unwisely ignoring good and evil). We gets scraps from arcane magic users back then and they get sentenced for any tiny thing. We get scraps from the hunters and we see genuinely terrible things being done. You see how the prejudice was born. But Ulbrig lived the down side of being too inclusive about the divine, so prejudice did not serve them well as a defence. Arcane wasn't the source of the problem.
But if the kid really was a sorcerer like the witch hunters said, that's magic born in the blood, no choice about it, no more than being aasimar or tiefling or mongrel.
And character creation rules suggest it gets more common in the children of magic users.
So Areelu the witch was giving her child a solid magical education, but might have made all the choices for them, some as accidental consequence and some on purpose.
Layers!
There's just a lot going on about the abyss and corruption and war, yes, but also about family and betrayal and keeping faith and how literally any position can go so horribly wrong you get... the Wound.
Lots to think about, even before you get to the unique myth paths and how they change how you can act and react. Because to start with you have choices, but once you choose your path their are things you can't say because on that path you'd never think of them. So you can get locked in by the power in some ways, ways that are about how you treat other people and their sins. But you wouldn't have been able to make it stick without some myth power in the first place.
... not my favourite bit, I like choices and consequences but the idea you need otherworldly whammy to make them work isn't the best.
But still. Means you're playing a slightly different game on every myth path. And that changes their world.
... I'm going to go play again in the predictable near future.
... shall make sure I eat properly first...