Story and Lore of Altar of Malice

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

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  1. Lucida Member

    I find it interesting in the involvement of the Shissar in everything. We know that A) the far seas company got tangled in it because they were examining Shissar relics including a particular relic which contained the energy of the Shissar B) They enslaved several races from Luclin in order to assist them in their ritual to bridge the bond between Norrath and Luclin so they may summon their army and C) they could have been summoning their super mutated army in hopes of either getting the remaining pieces of Luclin or to recolonized on a more fuller planet considering their precious home is already in shreds. I mean it took them centuries to get one heck of an army we manage to block out something tells me there's a possible Shissar invasion of Norrath approaching ...
  2. Rainmare Well-Known Member

    probably becuase the Shissar are NOT the actual threat. they are stopped, for lack of a better term, after the Sig line ends. you closed the portal, took the only means they had of reopening it (for now) and we've got our bargain with the FSTC.

    However, using bloodmagic to bring an evil Demi-god back to norrath IS a big issue, considering what damage Lanys could do, especially if she was able to siphon/utilize the Hate/power in Kithicor Forest, being a daughter of Inny after all. but it seems like most of that story/event is locked in the 2 raid zones in the ossuary
  3. Meirril Well-Known Member

    I still say this expansions should of been called "My Island Vacation". It would of been just as informative. If Layns is going to be the next long term problem in Norrath then this should of been all about the Shissar or the Akevah. Calling it "EQ2: The Akevah Incursion" or better yet "EQ2: Trouble in the Far Seas" since it really was all about the Far Seas Trading Company.

    If the Shissar are going to be the major thrust of the next expansion then it is appropriate to name this one for Layns. She is a major player in Lore and getting no real mention is a bit disrespectful to her if she isn't going to pop up again right away. Though this would be the first expansion where there is a title subject and it isn't the primary threat.

    As for the Shissar being the primary threat...for this expansion they are the brains behind the collapse of the Far Seas Trading Company and everything bad happening. What goes on with the Primordial Malice isn't good, but it wasn't like the Primordial Malice is attacking anybody. The main thing they want is to keep what they are doing a secret. We find out about it because we disturb the "peace" on the island.

    Now where we go in the future is a huge question. Are we going to follow up on Layns and the Primordial Malice as the next big bad guys? I actually don't think so. Unless the Primordial Malice has a plan to steal a weakened Layns from Inny and then immediately start a plot to rip power from one (or more) other deities to repower her without consulting Layns they shouldn't be enough of a threat to base an expansion around. Unless dev goes nuts and decide that we adventurers are going to help this oppressed maiden regain her rightful position in the pantheon?

    We know the Shissar have an army ready to invade Norrath. We know they are controlling the Akevah (who can summon Centi who appear to be elementals now), and the Grimlings. We know the Ssarashza Temple somehow made it to Norrath. Probably during the Shattering, but we can't be certain. That is all we know. Lucan, Antonia and the Duality are aware of the situation to some extent. There is a good chance that both leaders would want information on this potential enemy. The Duality has the best chance of coming up with a method of getting to Luclin. It really might be as simple as entering the Farisian Nexus. More likely it will be somehow charging the Super Spire in Teran's Grasp. There is actually a very good argument that the Nexus has been destroyed and the Spire Network can't link to that location. However, there is a possibility that we could link to Greig's work in Mons Lethari since he partially completed his teleportation device.

    An even crazier idea would be that the Dreadnever gnomes develop another rocket and establish a new beachhead on Luclin including a new Spire.

    The funniest though would be that we go through a lot of effort to reach Luclin and the Shissar forces might not even be there. I did propose that the Shissar might of used their knowledge of the Planes to find a hidden fortress to avoid the destruction of Luclin (and Norrath). It wouldn't be too strange to have the Luclin expansion be about finding out what happened to the moon for the last 500 years and then get called back to Norrath to deal with the actual invasion. Or maybe for the last thing in the Luclin sig line to be finding clues to where the Shissar went and the Duality figures out how to send us there at the start of the next expansion.

    Where we find out that the Shissar are the liest of our problems.
  4. Loshal Member

    Hrm. In EQ1, in Katta Castrum (yeah, the undersea one) you can pick up lore books that talk about the Great Spires in The Dreadlands/Teren's Grasp. They were powered by a combination of necromancy and planar teleportation magic like Wizards use. It talked about the sacrifice of 'countless' slaves to move the temple. So, there's two people on Norrath that on their own could turn the things back on, though the cost would likely be horrendous. Mind you, those two may not care about that cost too much either. The Duality and Miragul. The Duality actually has an edge in this case, as Al'Kabor is already familiar with accidentally triggering a Luclin portal via Combine spires. If he put his mind to it, he could likely figure out how to force the issue intentionally on the Shissar Spires. Those spires don't appear to require a connecting point either, as they originally dumped the temple into what became The Grey, which has no signs of a spire setup at all on it, and is a good ways from the Nexus.

    If that's the case, we may have to bring the Mons Letari spires online to get back from Luclin (likely making the Luclin Sig line begin with helping charge the Great Spires, perhaps with massive guilt afterwards for some people, and culminating in the activation of the Mons Letari spires to link up with the Ulteran Gate Network.)
  5. Meirril Well-Known Member

    Until the dev team in EQ2 decides to acknowledge any of the Castrum lore it doesn't exist here. Simply put all of that was introduced after the split and this game isn't responsible for it until they decide to include it.

    But the mention of a Luclin portal does remind me that there is a portal to Luclin that might still be open in the newer section of Chelsith. Either the portal could be permanent, or the erudite that we rescued in there might be able to help us open a new portal.

    And there is the knowledge each of us absorbs during the AoM sig line. We're basically a walking talking tome of opening portals between Norrath and where ever the Shissar currently are. It might not even be Luclin. Once again our good friend the Duality would probably know more about what we can do than we do.

    ...or our good friend (and Landlord) Mayong could show up to "call in a favor" and trick us into opening a portal. I think he has reasons to re-establish contact with Luclin.
  6. Loshal Member

    That's shudder-worthy, Meirril. Mayong has ties to Lord Inquisitor Seru and Valdanov Zevfeer. And has been doing a lot of research on a lot of things. If he makes contact with them, who knows what he'd get up to. Then again, I doubt it really could be worse than the Shissar so close to a trapped Kera and Theer. Might even set the stage for Seru to shake off Innoruuk's taint and redeem himself if a way was found to get him out of the Arx Fortis without him turning to dust, and toss him into battle against actual villians again, instead of his paranoid xenophobic delusions about Tsaph Katta. Even corrupted, the Sword of Truth is a beast. If restored, it could possibly be what it once was...the most powerful weapon of good ever placed in mortal hands. I'm sure Mithaniel would like to see it cleansed.

    And it is true that the Shissar may not be on Luclin, but it seems the most likely, with Grimlings running around. While Akheva could survive the trip, Grimlings are entirely mortal. My best guess from the sig timeline is that when the kid read the book, and the portal system started to flicker, it was enough to let the shissar squeeze the grimlings through, though they couldn't get through safely themselves at that point. Which is why the area around Malvonicus' Tower quickly became suffused with them, and the area around Ssra as well. Sure, it's a lot of them, but we do know that the Shissar care about as much about their slaves as they do about a randomly useful bug. Even if only one in ten, or one in five made it through the portal alive, the Shissar would keep marching them through, no hesitation or regrets.

    Since the grimlings were swarming around hoarding artifacts from Luclin, seemingly shissar and akhevan artifacts, they're likely gearing up for something else that we haven't seen yet. And we do know from throwing magic fire at dead iksar that those most certainly are from Luclin (but could have come down with the temple easily)...however he mentions that various artifacts have the same signature, as well as other creatures. Wish we could have had him take a look at the Shissar and confirm their point of origin. Are they a result of the chronomancy on the moon, giving them the chance for this, or are they the result of the whole ethernere/nexus snafu that tangled up timelines? Or both?

    We probably won't know until we get to Luclin and have the chance to poke around. And if Ssraezha Temple is still there in the grey, I'm gonna have a little talk with Kodlak about his education on history and how it can affect his chronomancy.
  7. Rainmare Well-Known Member

    I think if the Shissar on on Luclin, it would be due to the Chronomancy, that pushed back time and put them there right after they got their Temple to Luclin, which would give them a bunch of live shissar, and the Temple on Norrath merely made a connection with that. but we'll find out eventually. there's probably even more information on Mayong/Tserrina in Ossuary raids (Tserrina is a raid boss) and more on the Akhevean/Shissar connection and hows and whys in the Ssra raid zone.
  8. Malleria Well-Known Member

    Speaking of the EQ1/2 timeline split... that happened after the Luclin expansion and during the PoP expansion, correct? If so, Seru should be dead (we killed him in EQ1), and the Mons Letalis spires were never completed, so activating them from Norrath seems unlikely. Same with Emperor Ssra, he's dead, and as far as I know he was never a lich, so it's not so easy to explain away how he'd suddenly be back. Rhag'Zadune at least you could say his phylactery survived and he was able to reform after EQ1 adventurers killed him.
  9. Meirril Well-Known Member

    Technically speaking the split happened when Zeb was re-sealed/released at the end of PoP. Luclin is assumed to be part of our lore because it gets mentioned in the EQ2 story that covers the 500 years between the two games. Also because it happened very close to the event that caused the split, and as the story goes the divergences are small but the farther you get from that point the more obvious the differences become. Like how everybody uses a form of magic in EQ2. Being a fighter in EQ2 is way different than being a warrior in EQ1. EQ2 fighters and scouts have an understanding of what Mana is and develop it into their weapon techniques (combat arts). EQ1 warriors and rogues don't. Even bards are barely aware of mana.

    The whole Lost Dungeons thing more or less was completely ignored in EQ2. Instead of getting modern day uber-hero Morden Rasp EQ2 got an ancient uber-hero Bayle who probably doesn't exist in EQ1. Well, actually he probably does exist thanks to the link EQ1 and EQ2 share...called Legends of Norrath. But I don't think they would of given him as much face time there as he got in EQ2 (which wasn't much). But what do I know? Bale and Morden Rasp could be knocking back ales talking about a job well done on that big boat.

    As far as raid targets and storylines are concerned...that has always been a mess for Lore. Unless you hear from the story later that the raid targets are dead, assume they are alive. After all everybody assumes that Veniril is alive, Mayong is alive (?). Actually lore-wise most of the dragons are dead, but we had to kill Gorgair like 3 times before he was dead. Who actually dies and who lives is determined by story. EQ2 does a decent job of having raid bosses escape as part of the script. EQ1 just didn't do that. But story wise a lot of the raid bosses lived. Heck, half of our raid bosses were EQ1 raid bosses.

    Also we retcon'ed the heck out of EQ1. Story wise the Sleeper kills every dragon in Skyshrine, the Temple of Veeshan and Veeshan's Peak before he disappears. In EQ2 its like pokemon, he only knocks them out and doesn't finish any of them because the crusaders are chasing him. So we're not totally sticking to EQ1's story when its really important for it to be different here. Even stuff that happened pre-PoP.
  10. Loshal Member


    Always assume raid targets are alive until the Devs say otherwise. Their deaths at our hands are non-canonical until otherwise mentioned. Lord Nagafen, Trakanon, Miragul, Venril Sathir, Lord Bob, Tserrinia, Mayong (a few times), Cazic Thule, Innoruuk, Tunare, Pretty much every single thing in Freeport, Qeynos, Erudin, Paineel, Rivervale, Grobb, Guk, Cabilis, Sebilis, Felwithe, Kaladim, Kelethin...basically, if it was in EQ1, someone has slaughtered it at some point. And there wasn't really some big plotline behind taking out Lord Seru, Valdanov Zevfeer, the Thought Horror Overfiend, Grieg Venificus, Emperor Ssra, and everything in Vex Thal. It was just 'raid targets'. They were ganked, storyline ignored, in the name of loot for the most part. People even took out Lycea Katta on a regular basis. Pretty much the only things that didn't get ganked constantly were Soulbinders and Priests of Discord, and that's only because they were given such massive stats that it wasn't really an option, plus they dropped no loot.

    And even if we take them out as part of EQ2's storyline, unless the storyline makes it absolutely unequivocally plain that they died in that fight, assume they found a way to survive, even if their plans were stopped. Vespyr was one of the first times PC kills of raidmobs were ever shown to be utterly canonical in any MMO...and even then, they hand us quests to go on. :)
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