Story and Lore of Altar of Malice

Discussion in 'History and Lore 2' started by Casimer, Dec 31, 2014.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Casimer New Member

    I had a few questions about this expansions, and am also a little confused with a few things as well.
    First, what is the main story of this expansion, who is the bad guy, why is it called Altar of Malice?
    Second, I know that Kithicor Island is what used to be Kithicor Forest in Everquest 1, does anyone know what these other islands might of been in respect to the old everquest zones?
    What is up with all of the pygmies? Why is there so much dealing with the pygmies?
    Why in the world are there Grimlings and Akhevan all over the place? I know they are from Luclin, and I know that Luclin has been reformed, but didn't think this meant all of the creatures that lived on it too.
    With all of the Grimlings and Akhevan everywhere, does this mean the next expansion might be about Luclin, or maybe take place on Luclin?
  2. Ragna Well-Known Member

    Lorewise, it seems SOE packed 2 expansions into one.
    We have 2 mains threats :
    - The Dark Elves in Kithicor want to revive Lanys T'Vyl, daughter of Innoruuk and goddess of Malice (hence the expansion's name)
    - Shissar's threat : now that Luclin is reformed, the Shissars have managed to restore teleportation to Ssraeshza Temple (the temple landed on Norrath when Luclin blew up)

    The Northern island in Phantom Sea is a fragment of Luclin and was part of "The Grey" in EQ1. The other AoM's islands weren't any notable places in EQ1 AFAIK.

    They're just indigenous people and really we don't have that much dealing with them other than in a small part of the Sig line.

    They're all over the place because the Shissars reopened the teleportation system to Ssraeshza Temple.
    Akhevan were immortal spirits so it doesn't surprise me to see them still there, Shissars are a notoriously hard to exterminate race and Grimmlings, well, that's another story. We don't know how they survived yet - probably something about Luclin (the goddess) keeping some of her creations alive.

    I'm confident that a future expansion will take place on Luclin, maybe not the next one tho.
  3. Rainmare Well-Known Member

    this expansion has some continuity issues, that's for sure, mostly dealing with the Akheva and Shissar. since Luclin was Pre-PoP, we can take the stories/lore of Luclin at face value, and it basically says that what's going on right now in Eq2 shouldn't even be possible.

    the Grey and Ssaraezea Temple were the only place Shissar were on Luclin. the fact the Temple is buried upside down on Norrath means that there should be no shissar on Luclin. at all. the Akheva were another extremely xenophobic race. they had a civil war over the idea of speaking to other races. so why would they be working with the Shissar, much less seemingly under the Shissar?

    and of the Shissar in the temple, only a handful were still 'alive' most of them were undead/liched due to the Grey and lack of resources/food/etc because they were terrified to set foot/scale outside of the Grey fearing the Greenmist would come eat them.

    So I don't get how there are suddenly living Shissar on Luclin, much less the 'army' of them we claim to see in the sig line. and why the Akheva, who are true immortals, would even talk to the shissar, much less make some deal that put the shissar, a lesser race, in the driver's seat.
  4. Rotherian Well-Known Member


    I hope so. Maybe they'll throw in an optional player model upgrade (combining the bodies of the original EQ2 models with the heads of the SOGA models), like they did with Shadows of Luclin in EQ.
    flameweaver likes this.
  5. Malleria Well-Known Member

    I agree, the shissar/akheva alliance makes no sense, even if you can explain away their somehow existing on a moon that until very recently was blown apart, and who's chief residence crash landed on Norrath years and years ago.

    My other beef with the lore this go around is the whole Primordial Malice thing. It could easily have been expanded and been an entire expansion unto itself. Instead we touch on it, slightly, in the sig line and then immediately forget about it. It looks like that lore is going to be fleshed out a bit in the raid content (Tserrina shows up for god's sake! Where is THAT in the sig line?!), but it really deserves it's own sig line to fully expand on what's happening and why it would be bad (and how we can stop it for that matter).
  6. Meirril Well-Known Member

    To be fair, the Shissar had a few hundred years to prepare for The Shattering. If I was going to hazard a guess I'd say that the Shissar escaped to Ulteria or one of the many pocket dimensions that exist in the EQ universe. They wouldn't of wanted to do this until the gods had withdrawn so they would take less of a chance of Cazic sending a force after them.

    Or this could all be explained as a side effect of the chronomagic used to put Luclin back together. Take your pick, I'm sure dev has a story we won't hear.

    Now why the Akheva are serving the Shissar? I can see only two reasons. The first being the most obvious: After Luclin withdrew with the rest of the gods the Shissar enslaved the Akevah (and Grimlings). Without the gods to keep the Shissar hiding in their temple they probably marched on any force they though they could easily control. The grimlings would of been super easy to enslave. The Akevah were disorganized and in decline. The other 4 societies on Luclin were in much better shape and would of been harder to conquer.

    The other possible reason is because Luclin (the goddess) was defeated and trapped (to stop teleportation) and the Akevah are desperate enough to seek the Shissar as allies against the gods. That could actually explain the rise of malice and hate in Kithkor with the Akevah active there.

    From what we can piece together the Shissar magic has been active for years. But it looks like it was the pirates doing that, not the Akevah. The Akevah seem to have only recently become active, but its hard to say for certain considering we don't know how long it took them to subvert members of the Far Seas Company to their loyalty. Maybe years, maybe months?

    Considering that the Far Seas people didn't know what Grimlings were I'd say that everything in AoM is due to the chronomagic that put Luclin together one way or another. Otherwise they should of been able to recognize that there was an island just north of their headquarters that had the Grimlings on it.

    And yes, the whole resurrecting Layns thing got swept under the rug real fast. It just feels tacked on which is bad considering the expansion is named for it.
  7. Rainmare Well-Known Member

    except we know that they didn't. we know that they would not set 1 scale outside the Grey, terrified of the Greenmist. we know that maybe out of the entire temple, only 3 or 4 of them were even still living. the rest were all undead/liched, due to lack of food/resources thanks to the vaccum of the Grey. all their slaves were undead. there was no way for them to know about teleportation being cut off, they had no insight into Shadowhaven, or the events that transpired there. the Akheva had no fear of any race, and thier civil war over speaking to lesser, which those in favor lost, was long over. and it's not like the Shissar could threaten them with death, they don't die. they just become shades. There's no reason for them to communicate with the Shissar, and the Shissar would be too terrified to leave the Grey, nor would they know anything about the God's councils as the Shissar don't worship them nor do they risk translocation because of the fear of the Greenmist.
  8. Meirril Well-Known Member

    If Solusek and Rallos conspired to take Luclin out of the picture by capturing/binding her so she wouldn't meddle during the god's absence then they might of set the stage for this whole play.

    Imagine this: The Dresolic stone wasn't used as a bomb to blow up the Nexus, but rather in a complicated ritual to capture the goddess Luclin, which also resulted in the Nexus ceasing to function. Flash forward 100 years. Adventurers still trapped on Luclin try various schemes to get back to Norrath. One group of adventurers decide to invade Ssraraeshza Temple in an attempt to learn how they teleported to Luclin. The luckless adventurers are captured and added to the slave population. After examining their journals the Shissar interrogate their new undead slaves to find out that the gods influence is gone.

    After several cautious expeditions the Shissar begin to expand their influence by capturing weak groups to bolster their ranks. They also begin a breeding program to help them take over the moon. Eventually they encounter the Akevah who are in a desperate state to rescue their goddess. The Shissar "help" the Akevah but instead of releasing Luclin they take her hostage to make sure the Akevah obey them.

    It begins to dawn on the Shissar that the Chelsith Calendar predicts the destruction of the moon. Using their planar knowledge they open a portal to Luclin's home plane and decide to transport the Ssraraeshza Temple back to Norrath with a force of Akevah and lesser slaves to prepare a portal for them to invade Norrath, once they are sure the prophecy has been averted.
  9. Rezikai Member


    D'Shinn's isles used to be on/near the... southern end of the Serpent Spine mountain range as D'Shinn's redoubt. If memory serves it was a Teir'Dal house/fort that had taken up residence... maybe less of a house and more of a group. It was relatively on the banks of the Serpent river up more north before it flows south and splits into the Lifire river heading to Oasis. D'Shinn's was on the southern side of the river near which had a burned human village nearby on the northern side which I forget the name of.

    The southern end of the mountain range may have split and the D'Shinn area they claimed stayed in their groups possession after the cataclysms for some time to keep the name the same.
  10. Rainmare Well-Known Member

    except the temple is buried upside down on Grimshale, obvious blown there from the Shattering. Odds are Luclin didn't give a damn about Rallos and Sol Ro, or she gave permission because thier actions affected norrath, not her moon. Cutting off teleportation doesn't affect those on Luclin that she wanted there.

    we also know that the whole purpose of the Dresolisk Stone was essentially a nuclear bomb. it was designed to be used to set the surface of norrath of fire, delivered by the manaetic behemoth, with no spell needed to activate it obviously if it was just supposed to be set in the Behemoth which was a clockwork.

    I also imagine that if Luclin needed to be 'subdued' that the most likely ones to do it quickly and effectively would be Fennin/Rathe/Xegony/Tri of Water, as they obviously outpower her and would be able to stop her without a conflict causing problems, like it might if Sol Ro or Rallos were to try it.

    and considering the Temple was blown to luclin, and contained virtually all thier magical toys they had on Luclin, it seems very unlikely that they were able to 'plan' for the Shattering.

    now I'm sure there's some Time travel/chronomancy paradox thing that happened to cause it. or that'll be their explanation. somethign like they chronomancy of forcing the moon back together made some kind of super Nexus effect that merged multiple versions of Luclin into one so there's an army of Shissar...and they'll prolly explain the Akheva being servants as Lucling pulled all the ones in Vex Thal into the Plane of Shadows when the gods all left, leaving those few that were outside of Vex Thal (the losers of the civil war) were able to be conquered.

    but without some pardoxial time travel stuff being thrown in there..yeah. an army of shissar should be impossible. especailly living ones.
  11. Meirril Well-Known Member

    Couple of problems with that conjecture.

    First: None of the elemental deities participated in the council of gods. All of the gods that spoke were gods of influence. All the gods that acted and placed avatars were gods of influence. There is no evidence that the elemental gods participated.

    Second: The only remnants of the rebels were called "whisperlings". They gave a few quests. They couldn't manifest themselves at all. All of the Akevah you see on Luclin including the shades were loyalists. So all of those outside of Vex Thal were loyalists.

    Third: The Temple complex was also attached to a series of mines. It isn't like a huge chunk of Luclin crashed into Grimshale Island. If that was the case there should be glowing green stone and undead everywhere just like everywhere else on Norrath where chunks of Luclin came crashing down. I think its safe to say that the Temple was moved on purpose, even if it is upside down and planted quite firmly in the ground.

    So it is possible that the Shissar used the shattering to get the temple back to Norrath so they could open a portal to where ever they hid themselves to survive the Shattering. What is surprising is that there were no Shissar Liches in the temple. A lich should of been able to survive the trip. Well, they might of had their physical vessel shattered but the lich would reform eventually as long as the phylactery survived.

    The other thing is explaining the long delay between the temple crashing to Norrath and the Akevah taking action. I assume it has to do with the Prophecy being defeated, but that is a big assumption. The Shissar probably knew what was coming, but again that is an assumption. A good one since they used the calendar to avoid the Greenmist, and the calendar predicted the council of gods. The Shissar might even have triggered the Shattering so they could control the timing and ensure the temple arrived on Norrath while the gods were away.

    The even bigger question would be why they are trying to invade now? Shouldn't they still be worried about the Greenmist and Cazic Thule?
  12. Rainmare Well-Known Member

    the Elemental Deities were at the Council. they were the ones that specifically gave Quellious the floor, so she could propose her plan of drawing away from Norrath and severing ties.

    as to the Akheva..then that just makes even less sense. why woudl the loyalists, who believed that even talking to another race was treasonous and sacreligious, make a bargain, much less be subservient to the Shissar. it just doesn't make any sense. the Akheva have no fear of Death, they are immortal. so it's not like the Shissar can threaten to kill them.

    as to Grimshale and the Temple...you coudl conjecture that the peices on Norrath now, particularly the piece out there by Gorowyn, are the catacombs from under the Temple itself. since why it is in some many tiny bits, it's peices of the mining tunnels and such blown out, and that would also explain why we haven't seen any remenants of say, Sanctus Seru, Shar Vahl or Katta Kastellum.

    but even if your right, and they sent it there on purpose, though they prolly didn't intend to bury it in the ground upside down, it still doesn't explain an army of living Shissar. we know that only the Emperor, and a handful of his highest ranking officers, were alive. all the rest, including Rhag'Zdune(sp) were liches or just basic undead. we know that the only amount of thier race living (at least before the 'time split') were in the temple. the rest were eaten by the Greenmist.

    maybe it'll get explained in the Raid zones. or at least the Akheva/Shissar relationship. just like it looks like everything going on with the Primordial Malice is going to be told int he Raid zones.
  13. Enkefalos Member

    Heh logging in I saw your sig, and checking a quick map appears to be the case, but just checking. This is from EQOA right? Was there any lore or quests associated with the area?
  14. Rezikai Member


    Whew... making me remember...lol. Yes there was, but it's kind of a blur. I remember the burned village had human skeletons in it and there may have been a quest for someone's blacksmith item in it. Eh man your making try to remember stuff from 2003/04 - 2008/09.

    I had a buddy who was a hard core fan of Teir'dal houses/lore so when we came across D'Shinn's we labeled it a House like U'Dedne, or J'Narus etc... but it being in a much more secluded area with not much contact to anything (that I can remember at least) gave rise to the thought they may have been an old outpost forgotten or a renegade group. Unlike places like the EQoA's non-starting port city of Hazinak a big teir'dal port on the southeast coast of the Ro Desert, or EQoA's Green Rifts teir'dal expeditionary forces with Neriak reinforces in the jut of green hilly area between Nektulos and Kithicor (may be good reference to use in the other thread btw). Even Lake Nektulos in EQOA had a decent sized fort called Fort Seriak on its banks and had at least a few small quests there helping give the semblance of Neriak overland power structure. (BTW im not sure if there's a language mechanic that cities/forts in tier'dal lore often come w/ the -iak on the end or it was just a coincidence.)

    It's hard to say, i'm sure there's more background lore at SOE regarding the zone from EQOA's zone write-ups but who's to say when someone could take the time to go through all the old Eqoa stuff and find it. *shrugs*
  15. Enkefalos Member

    Thanks for the reply. I never got to play EQOA, so almost quite fascinated when they weave bits of it into the background of EQ2. There was on North Dshinn that ratonga quest about Tier'dal ruins so I wondered if it was related.
    Rezikai likes this.
  16. Meirril Well-Known Member

    I did some looking through Zam at Ssra in EQ1. Most of the mobs actually look alive, including some of the slaves. The guards might be a mix of undead and live Shissar, but from the mob list they had a sizeable population of living Shissar.

    I'd agree that threatening the Akevah directly wouldn't get them to serve. That doesn't mean it isn't possible. If they can threaten something the Akevah hold dear then they could get them to serve. It is also possible that they practiced a charm magic similar to the charm magic used to enslave the Giants in Kunark. That would also explain why the few Akevah we can understand say they have been freed when killed.

    The island of Lucanite by Gorowin is very consistant with any other chunk of Luclin found anywhere else in Norrath: Its crawling with skeletons. Since we can't actually visit it (though it looks like it might of been meant to happen earlier in development and been cut for some reason) its hard to say anything more. Luclin was riddled with caverns so that could be from anywhere on Luclin.
  17. Anaogi Well-Known Member

    There is a third thread to consider--the Allu'thoa. Remember how their bid for the surface came from that vision--which sounded a lot like the reformation of Luclin? Remember their "effigy" and their "Faceless" deity? Cazic Thule is definately in play here. He hasn't missed the Shissar's return--or forgotten the grudge, I'd wager.

    But he may be off balance from the events in Ethernere...and there may be other forces in play. I keep seeing Innoruuk's fingerprints in events, so I kinda have to wonder...
  18. Meirril Well-Known Member

    Our Cazic Thule was only on the edges of what was going on in the Ethernere. The only thing that would of thrown him was noticing the portal the other CT was trying to open into his realm.

    But yes its obvious that the Allu'thoa god is Cazic Thule. As our characters say the Allu'thoa are probably mis-interpreting the visions they are receiving. Probably. Maybe. Hopefully?

    Cazic hasn't been the conquering type. He seems to only be concerned with fear, respect and his own created races well being. Any conflict raises fear, and the most anti-fear movement on Norrath (the Combine Empire) didn't get him to take action. Defiling his temples and enslaving his people gets him to take action.

    Maybe Cazic Thule is sending them visions about going to the newly formed Luclin to claim it. That would make a bit more sense. I doubt the Greenmist can get to Luclin, but the Allu'thoa are able to use more conventional means to travel there. If they can find a portal that is. Like us now that we've absorbed the power and information from the spell book used to open the first portal.

    Or it could be that Cazic wants them to occupy the surface world to counter a Shissar invasion. The Allu'thoa would be a stronger resistance to them than the Far Seas or any other group in those islands.
  19. Innania Member

    One thing to remember is that since the breach in the Ethernere, some parts of the EQ1 and EQ2 thread are touching.

    A perfect example is that the current EQ1 expansion deals with a similar storyline (although the EQ1 Lanys was never killed).

    In EQ1, Emporer Katta was never taken to Luclin (although much of his army fled there, and Seru gave chase). He was kept in magical stasis, and the remnants of the Combine created a very Atlantean underwater city beneath a part of Norrath known as The Buried Sea. The Combine, ever trying to preserve knowledge and maintain relations with other races, invited the Sphinx, Kedge and a small contingent of Shissar who had not yet succumbed to the Greenmist to hide in their city.

    In the most recent expansion, Lanys kidnaps Katta (still in stasis) and flees with him to the floating fortress created by the remains of Seru's original forces that were left on Norrath. I haven't played in the new expac myself, but from what i hear Lanys is trying to create a new version of the Lifestaff from EQ2 that was used by Lady Lendinaria to close the rip in the Ethernere.

    I would guess that the islands in AoM are part of the Buried Sea, and the Shissar are there were probably part of the population hiding in Katta Castrum. In EQ1, the Shissar were trying to overthrow the Combine and take over, so it's possible that in EQ2's thread the coup was successful.
  20. Rainmare Well-Known Member

    Except none of the expansions past PoP were 'canon' for Eq2 until the touching from Ethernere. for Eq2, there was no 'atlantis'. and even then that entire expansion of the buried sea is all wonky lorewise because like you mention, the Shissar should have never been there (the Greenmist eating them was long before the combine) nor should the Kedge have been there ( Phinny's ritual killed his entire race to give him thier life as a form of immortality). it was a cheap ploy to get 'liked' races on Norrath into the game.

    Also, the Buried Sea was between Odus and Antonica. Kithicor wasn't part of it. and that wouldn't explain the Akheva at all. and even in this expansion for eq2, the Shissar is a odd man out. they shouldn't be there, alive at least. Liched? sure...that's feasible. they were liching themselves already in Eq1. should they still be on Luclin? no. should they be alive? no. Should there be an army of living shissar? not a chance.

    How do you make an alliance with a race that sees you as a bug? the Akheva had a civil war about taking to other races. much less working with them...even more so being on the lower end of the deal.

    Maybe it's explained more in the Raid instances.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.