Lore speculations / discussion (spoiler alert!)

res7less

Jumpkin
Reposted this post due to some new speculations (at the end) based on the same topics.

Since we're getting closer and closer to the core of things, I just wanted to get out some thoughts out there. They didn't result in full "disclosure" yet, but I think it's pretty interesting to note those things.

I was kinda thinking about that story that we find in the desert temple where a myth is told about the Archdragon who lays an egg that later becomes the world. I've been trying to place that story into overall context with barely any success and initially put it off as some cool gimmick on how it's theorized the world came to be. The questions remained just questions. Is the egg physically the world of Grindea? Is it more of symbolic nature? That was until I was watching a stream not that long ago with the player frolicking around Evergrind Fields when he looked at the signpost of barely any notability that's simply there to show the way to Evergrind City and Mt. Bloom which looked like this:

mtbloom_sign.png

And then I noticed something. That little seemingly insignificant depiction of Mt. Bloom with that ring of clouds around it looks an awful lot like an egg sitting in a nest. And I would have put that off as an odd coincidence if not for the fact that the picture becomes even clearer when looking at the world map where Mt. Bloom looks like this:

mtbloom.PNG

It looks like the top of a an egg's broken shell with something coming out of it, on top of which is nothing other than Tai Ming, the most important location to the ingame lore yet. I couldn't believe that egg symbolism has been hidden in plain sight all this time. Additionally, there are wall carvings within Mt. Bloom that look like this:

inside_mtbloom.PNG

You can see the same sun and moon that we also see in the temple where we are told the story of the Archdragon. They aren't aligned in the same way, which is why one can still argue about a coincidence but the thing is, those carvings are right next to the entrance with the dragon above them where supposedly the treasure room is where Charlotte died.

Myths are known to be exaggerated and altered in time by being told over and over again until details change and so the egg might not have been the world, but just a mountain.

So what does it mean? Well, according to that prophecy, when the egg hatches, the world will be destroyed and from it a new world will be born. And that arguably comes close to what actually happened. Tai Ming was where Zhamla grew up and caused what has become known as the Cataclysm. He started destroying everything but the was prevented from completing his task by being sealed away. The prophecy that we're being told in the desert temple already began coming to fruition 1000 years ago, but was delayed for the time being. And one of those who helped delay it was surprisingly one of the Bishops, who are themselves great riddle and prophecy tellers. Although it's still unclear whether they are guiding the main character or using him.

The flashbacks that we get also don't tell us much about it. Zhamla's flashback only confirms that he's from Arcade Mode which was already established before when he was reading that book on monsters with Tessen and Mana. But how he broke the cycle of respawning and came to Story Mode or why it is important that he's a monster still remains unclear.

Update: Actually, when taking into account the Desert Bishop's prophecy/riddle, some plant symbolism is being added into the fray as well. And seeing as Mt. Bloom is called Mt. Bloom, one might also consider the egg actually being a seed. Of course, it might be either a stretch or a misinterpretation of the egg in the first place.

Seeing as the Bishop directly says "The flower blooms" might mean Mt. Bloom itself, or rather whatever came out of the seed. And seeing as according to the prophecy, some new world is supposed to grow from the seed, it just might be the connection to the Arcade Mode that we've been looking for. The way the Arcade Mode stretches upwards could be interpreted as a huge plant stretching out from its seed. That would explain why it looks similar to the world we know and yet different - it's like a world growing, forming, not having reached a distinct shape yet.

Following that logic, some of the Bishop's lines also start to make sense. Mt. Bloom is the seed, Tai Ming is like the inner part of the seed from where the new world can grow. Or, as Shinsai called the spell that caused it: "a bridge between worlds" - the old world and the new. We have plenty of NPCs seemingly having no trouble reaching Arcadia so there has to be a way between those worlds - maybe Tai Ming is where NPCs can get there.

Then: "Whetstones the shape of leaves" - meaning the Arcade Mode's floors with "blade sharpened upon them" meaning the Lost Souls gaining their abilities, growing stronger. And finally "Will the stem be cut or the weapon shatter?" that can have a variety of meanings if the Lost Souls are the "weapon" and the new world is the "stem" of the plant.

Making it more meta, you could even say that Story Mode is the old world and Arcade Mode the new one. Switching between the modes is basically like creating alternate timelines that are, in a way, connected to each other. I mean, the main character even receives some items in Story Mode that the player has gained in Arcade Mode. And funny enough, that would even align with players being Grindea as it's in our power to open and close those timelines at will, making it some "spell" that NPCs can't comprehend. We might be the ones who "awaken" and "put to sleep" the worlds.

And Story Mode basically has an expiration date while Arcade Mode is potentially infinite, so at some point Story Mode will inevitably end to be replaced by Arcade Mode, thus fulfilling the prophecy.
 
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Brennfeu Cthulhu

Green Slime
I'm joining the theory party !

What if Zhamla when being sealed was set to slumber as a dragon in Mt. Bloom ? If the theory of Bag being a bad guy is true, then Bag wanted to get back to his master aka Zhamla. But he doesn't try to do this with us (player) because he realizes he could use us to gather artefacts (and maybe bring them to Zhamla ?).

Also I'm pretty sure there isn't a human card because humans aren't tagged as "thing we can kill" (when bag is threatening a rockling (or whatever it's called, frostling-likes in Mt. Bloom), he answers with something like "you can do nothing to me, Collectors can't harm things that aren't monsters").

(I haven't looked at the lore for a long time so there might be mistakes :/)
 
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KoBeWi

Jumpkin
I DON'T KNOW HOW TO TAG SPOILERS
S0LbW4P.png


Collectors can't harm things that aren't monsters
That's more a law than hard restriction. You could kill a Caveling, but that counts as murder, just like with humans. Well, maybe that's what prevents humans/cavelings/fae from dropping cards. They are arbitrarily regarded as "choosen race" (arbitrarily, because Frostlings are relatives to Cavelings and they are monsters; although maybe it's not about intelligence, but being "peaceful"?). Probably someone theorized it here already, IIRC.
 

rinthian

Green Slime
Has anyone come up with a theory that Zhamla may actually had been possessed by the artifacts he was carrying at the time when we defeat him?.
 

res7less

Jumpkin
"With knowledge of the past, I believe we can gain an increased understanding of where we're heading into the future!"
- Linn, passionate linguist and lab assistant, 1081 A.C., colorized

I've been wanting pick up on the races and factions of the SoG world for some time now and I guess the fact that I knew it's gonna be a long write kinda intimidated me, but the recent patch gave me the final motivation to do so, so here we go.

We meet a lot of people during the game and only catch glimpses of their origin, be it things they say about each other, things they say themselves, or visuals that hint at their background. There is a ton of various bits and pieces that one can pick up on, so I'll try to piece together the vague picture as best as I can.

Since we know now that Grindea is the merely the name of the continent we start out on (and that of the Goddess), it appears we still don't know what the world is called. So for accuracy's sake, I will just call the world... "The World" ™, instead of Grindea from now on.

At first it appears there was one major faction with Randi, Terra and Link, who were blessed by the Goddess, as its leaders. (story told by Preia in Tai Ming) At first they were working together, had common goals and followers. But, as with many factions, over time sub-factions spawn due to the differences in priorities either between leaders or their followers which cause leaders to take different approaches. And so, in time the leaders took different paths and founded their own factions each, who became The Collectors (led by Terra), The Merchants (led by Randi) and the Priests (led by Link).

We can see a picture of Terra in the Collectors' HQ and we receive Angel's Thirst, her sword, the power of which grows with collected cards - both indicates that she was the leader of the Collectors. The other two are just educated guesses - Link's reference alter ego is known to wear a hood, which the Bishops also do (connection from Priests to Bishops later). And by method of elimination Randi would be the leader of the remaining faction.

The number 3 continues to play an important role in Tai Ming, with the 3 emblems continuing being basically the key to the three factions' mutual origins. From Tessen's expertly history lesson we gather that it were the High Priest, the Master Collector and the Mayor (who is, I'm sure, some rich dude), who held one key each. All three still represented the three factions long before Tai Ming (although Tessen's "back in the day" is as accurate as an epileptic surgeon) and they somewhat continued to exist through Tai Ming's prime time. Although, long before we arrive in Tai Ming the Merchants already had sailed out to discover their own land that later became known as the Merchant Isles.

If we remember the story, the three factions were supposed to discover, grow and collect. The Collectors still do what they do best, honoring the Goddess by collecting. The Merchants are also growing and collecting, just not with swords. However, it seems the Priests, ironically, are the only faction that failed the Goddess. They were supposed not to pray to her, but honor her with deeds which is exactly the opposite of what the Priests started doing. While the Collectors and Merchants were still strong, the Priests started to weaken by going against the Goddess' will which is probably why they split into another sub-faction - the Bishops, who were then free to pursue their own goals unchecked. So, in a way, unlike the Priests, the Bishops retained their powers and used it to assist the Goddess in bringing an end to the old world (us, finishing Story Mode?) while helping the new world grow.

Based on those three factions and their origins we can begin to understand the World a little better, for example by trying to place the individual characters' motivations into the overall context. And yet, it's still difficult to say what role the different races play and how they are mixed into the factions. Good thing there are still a couple of updates to go!

We have the same power of 3 here. The sun, the moon and the dragon. The shield, the sword and the card. The humans, the fairies and the dragons.

One might think the races are the factions but they are so mixed-up that it's difficult to keep them apart.

- We have Fait, who is from the Merchant Isles but is a priest.
- We have Ivy, who is a human but is probably in league with the Bishops. Which would explain why she is also after the artifacts and why she is wearing a hood.
- We have Marino whose father is a Merchant but his name follows the same rules as the fairies' (maybe his mother is of fairy origin?).
- We have Mandrake whose name and physical appearance indicate his dragon origin.
- We have Pott who has elven(?) ears.
- And we have monsters.

Speaking about monsters. Since the Ancient Ruins area was added to the game, I've been wondering why there were slimes. There is no gameplay reason to put slimes there, no quests lead there, there is literally nothing, so why randomly place slimes there? Well, I've been asking myself if it's possible that slimes are dead humans. There is a passage in the Flying Fortress where it's told about the death of Tannie's sister. And there is a cutscene where Dr. Pine explains how the civilians around Aitem are defenseless. So, one could assume those Ancient Ruins was the town of Tannie's sister which Zhamla destroyed. And that symbolism is being picked up again on the Ghost Ship where, during the Curse of the Moon (are Merchants the Moon and the Shield?), there is an animation where a woman melts into a slime whereafter slimes begin to appear everywhere, bearing names of probably every character in the game.

So, the barriers between the races are pretty blurry and it isn't known if bloodlines play a role. But it might be important to keep in mind that some characters' very distant ancestors might be Link, Randi or Terra. Or the Archdragon?

Anyways, I hope I didn't let any details out. I'm actually happy not everything is clear already and there is still enough room for speculation despite the plot nearing its conclusion. Thank you for reading, whoever had the patience to make it until here!
 

KoBeWi

Jumpkin
Since the Ancient Ruins area was added to the game, I've been wondering why there were slimes. There is no gameplay reason to put slimes there, no quests lead there, there is literally nothing, so why randomly place slimes there?
So the place is not empty?
 

res7less

Jumpkin
Yeah, maybe but that wouldn't be fun, would it? Also, why create a zone with no purpose in the first place when you know it will seem empty if you don't put something there? Or maybe it will be the final destination in the next update?
 

The G-Meister

Giga Slime
The slimes are clearly there so the player doesn't have to go all the way back to pillar mountains in order to tame a slime pet with the apple they just got from Oak :p
 

KoBeWi

Jumpkin
Also, why create a zone with no purpose in the first place when you know it will seem empty if you don't put something there?
It will obviously have a purpose later. It might feel weird, because every other area already had content when it was added (Early Access stuff).
 

res7less

Jumpkin
I've been actually wanting to write about the other side of my usual theories for a very long time but it always just kinda seemed that it would be more obvious and straightforward than the far-fetched theories and overthinking that I enjoy writing about most (like the game is supposedly breaking the 4th wall, hell yeah!), but the recent updates (especially the one that enabled Twi-Sight) contained more and more "hints" towards this direction so it would be a shame to just ignore them.

So this time, I'm trying out a contrary approach - instead of following hints and trying to assemble the puzzle piece by piece, I start with one general idea and see if the previously acquired pieces fit based off of that. The general idea would be:

Grindea, the Goddess of Death (what a shocker, I know)

I always like to think in terms of scenarios like betrayal, corruption, manipulation, plot-twists but maybe there is none of those and the Bishops are just serving and not controlling the Goddess like they say they do. Perhaps there is no good vs. evil, no cosmological duality, and only a single being in the form of Death that comes for all. Imagining a Goddess of Death as their master, the Bishops visuals suddenly don't seem weird at all. When picturing a divine being that symbolizes death, the image of a hooded figure, clad in black, wielding a massive scythe automatically comes to mind. Except for the scythe, the Bishops do meet those criteria.

Furthermore, when speaking about a personified aspect of Death, the symbolism of such a divine being brings with it the association with "The Reaper", as known from mythologies and folklore. And there are a lot of use of the word "reap" and its derivations. We have again Preia, who spoke about how the Goddess taught her first acolytes about the importance to reap. We now have the Bishops in Arcade Mode who consider the loot "the reap". Seeing how there seems to be an whole cult dedicated to reaping, created by the Goddess and passed down through generations that resulted in three branches including the Collectors, and considering the way how the Bishops use "collecting" and "reaping" interchangeably indicates that this might be the Collectors' original purpose. And we, as Collectors, are part of it.

There is further evidence of this in the skills. The most obvious one is Reaper's Blade - a skill the sole purpose of which is to finish off enemies. But there are also Spirit Slash and Shadow Clones - while those don't contain the words "reap", their visuals come eerily close to the shadow tendrils that can be seen on snow and Tai Ming water via the Twi-Sight. Those things are somehow connected by a common source. The Death/ Shadow/Darkness/Reaping/Souls/Collecting symbolism is basically everywhere.

There is also a very rare dialogue between Shiidu and Bag which I'm not going to fully spoil but instead going to hint at by saying that you should visit an old friend of the past. In this dialogue there is a strong implication towards what I already mentioned.

And we have again Angel's Thirst that, if it is indeed Terra's, would make her an Angel of Death. Grindea and her three Angels of Death leading some sort of dark cult sounds pretty cool, to be honest.

Thinking about this larger, it somewhat reminds me of a mix between the games "Prey" (the first one, I haven't played the more recent installment) and Ash of Gods: Redemption (which I strongly recommend to anyone interested in games with deep lore and A+ world building). The first time I thought about the idea of a recurring cycle of gods where a divine being comes to consume the souls of mortals, it just seemed like a cool idea but when reading the dialogue between Bag and Shiidu for the first time, it suddenly seemed like a possibility. From the library books and Dr. Spengler we know a bit about the "other world", so maybe it's someones realm, who needs to visit the mortals every couple of millennia to sustain that realm. All those ghost quests on the ship along with the theme of being stuck between life and death or, however one prefers to view it, maybe interdimensional existence plays with the idea of "ghosts" or "souls" having escaped the grasp of whoever reaps/collects those. Because otherwise they would have landed in the vast pool of conscience out of which the being forms his warriors to send them to our world.

So, if there is indeed a being that has come to collect, having established a cult to basically prepare the world for consumption to avoid tummy ache or whatnot, then we are just a tool that is supposed to initiate this process. And as a tool, we must become stronger to serve our dark lord, thus, before we can arise as the Death's herald in the world of the living, we must first become a capable fighter. Which might finally be the answer of the Arcade Mode's purpose. It's basically a boot camp for souls to see which soul would have the potential to represent Death in the world of the living. Out of past consciousnesses a Lost Soul is formed and is being grinded until it is strong enough to surpass the strongest resistance that the world has to offer and fulfill its purpose, delivering the living from their souls that Grindea can then add to her collection. If every millennium has such a warrior, then Zhamla was the previous one while we are the current one.

This concludes my take on the Grindea, the Reaper. I was also about to take a shot on the artifacts purpose but there still seems to be something that eludes me. While the artifact are also a form of an artificially created conscience which implies that they were also made by Grindea, it is weird that the artifacts seem to have the power to resist her. Specifically Braazletta's "you shan't ever fear the Reaper" implies that the Artifacts can be used to oppose her, as demonstrated by being unable to kill someone wearing her and perhaps even the capability to shelter souls from the Reaper's grasp. That might be why the Bishops needed to corrupted them first in order to not be used against ther master. That might be what the Spell of Sealing really is but that would only make sense if someone created the artifacts to oppose her. But who would have the power to mold otherwordly consciousnesses into inanimate objects beside a divine being? We shall see. Thanks for joining in if you made it to the end! <3
 
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