Why do Mystics do extra damage to 'shadow folk' ?

Discussion in 'History and Lore 2' started by Lovestar, Oct 22, 2014.

  1. Lovestar Active Member

    I notice a few Priest spells do extra damage to certain types of creatures:
    • Druids vs. Elementals (disrupt the natural order because they come from other Planes)
    • Clerics vs. Undead (D&D-style RPG + Holy Person = Hurts undead)
    But the Mystic bonus is vs. "nightbloods" and "shadowed folk". And Defilers don't get any sort of bonus like this on any of their spells.

    I'm curious why the "nice" / "happy" / "Prozac" Shaman deals extra damage to these 2 odd creature types while the "mean" / "brutal" / "raging alcoholic" Shaman doesn't.

    Basically, I'm still getting my head around the EQ franchise's sprawling lore, and I feel like this is referencing some aspect of the lore which I don't know about yet. =)
  2. Meirril Well-Known Member

    Shadow Men are servants of Rohen Theer and Anashti'Sul. Formerly the race of Jal'Rath that were banished to the void (for unknown reasons, though in EQOA they had an unhealthy fascination with death) they could eventually send their spirits to Norrath. First as invisible stalkers, then later as the Shadow Men we know. Also they could take over specially prepared vessels (animals and humanoids). Shadow Men are known to have some kind of corrupting influence they can use on other races. It isn't really well understood, but from tomes found in the Obelisk of Lost Souls we understand that a corruption similar to the corruption the halflings in the Enchanted Lands are experiencing is responsible for the creation of the Nightblood and Succubus on other planets.

    So Mystics are basically responding to the corruption of the spirit in these creatures and combating it. Defilers are all about causing corruption of the spirit. Since these races are considered corrupted spirits, they are not especially affected (or resistant) to a different kind of corruption.
  3. Lovestar Active Member

    Ah ah ah, okay.

    So basically both of these things are 'unnatural' or 'corrupted' Spiritual beings, which is the domain of the Shaman classes. (And in the context of EQ2 Spirit is not the same thing as Ghost/Undead, which is why Clerics handle that stuff)

    And since Mystics focus on maintaining spiritual order in Norrath and cleansing spiritual corruption, they're opposed to these creatures especially.

    Whereas Defilers probably just find these negative phenomena amusing, or are even scheming ways to harness the corrupted power for themself and/or reverse-engineer it to create their own enthralled shadowfolk / demons.

    Oh hey while I've got the lore junkies' attention about Shaman stuff:
    • What is "The Grey" ? It gets mentioned frequently in Mystic abilities.
    • What exactly is the "Truespirit" ? Same deal.
    I notice Defiler abilities completely omit mention of either of these things, so I assume that whatever they are, the power isn't open to / granted to 'disrespectful' Shaman.
  4. Meirril Well-Known Member

    The Grey could refer to two things. Either a zone in EQ1's Luclin (airless expanse surrounding the Ssra Temple) or The Grey Fields (aka Elysian Fields, aka The Grey). More or less a spirit plane that lies next to Norrath but touches other planes of (spiritual) existence as well. You can visit or see it on various mystic and beastlord quests. This is the realm where the True Spirits dwell.

    The native creatures to the Grey are the True Spirits, and apparently other spirits can enter the Grey and even attempt to become True Spirits themselves. The True Spirits are believed to come from other realities but its also possible that they originated as mortal creatures (both animals and beings) and evolved into what we refer to as the True Spirits, possibly by several lesser spirits combining together or being absorbed by a more powerful spirit (like you see in the Channeler pre-quest). The True Spirit is actually a collective of various spirits that embody a primordial force and lend guidance to both shaman and the spirit world. They act as guardians and observers of the natural flow of spirits.

    Defilers have managed to corrupt True Spirits, though very rarely. These debase creatures enter a very tight contact with the defiler and share their existence. It is debatable if the True Spirit is weakened by this or empowered. The corrupted spirit does have a lot more influence on the real world through the defiler. I can't think of an example but they would of been a raid boss at some point.
  5. Lovestar Active Member

    Thanks! Tons to absorb, as usual. :p

    Hm, another question actually:
    Looking at the spellbook a little more carefully, the only Mystic spell that actually does extra dmg to Shadows / Nightblood is "Plague" (and Plagueish Strike, the melee version).

    The Cold & Divine damage attacks don't have any bonus.

    That's a little odd that the Disease-based attack (which is explicitly labeled Plague) is the one that deals extra damage to corrupted spirits, since Diseases/Plagues are usually nasty and corrupting things in Norrath.

    Is there some kind of story to this, too? Like why Mystics can cast some kind of uhm... anti-corruption... fighting... disease-spreading plague? o_O
  6. Finora Well-Known Member

    Each priest class that has the bonus damage to whatever (the original good/neutral classes Templar, Mystic, Fury, Warden) gets it on whatever their second single target damage spell is, the one that they get at level 3. Only that spell and it's upgrades have bonuses (that I remember anyway).

    I don't think there is any story behind it other than that was the spell they got at that level and the devs had it in their minds that the good/neutral priests would be able to do bonus damage on those spells on certain creatures because they weren't evil. It's Icefall for wardens, Tempest for furies, Divine Strike for templars and Plague for mystics.
  7. Lovestar Active Member

    Oh =(

    Well in my head I'm going to explain that the Mystic is drawing the corruption out of the ambient spiritual energy environment new age mystical crystal resonant frequencies bath salts,

    AND THEN SENDING IT BACK INTO THE EVIL SPIRIT THINGS THAT CAUSED IT KABOOOOOOM

    Like uhm... a Ghostbuster ghost vacuum thing sucking up bad spirits and then shooting it back at others as deadly malignant spirit energy of vindicating retribution! Or something!

    So yeah. They're like a Spirit Vigilante, spreading Plague-ness to evil things, using as base materials the corruption they draw out of good things!

    It's a Plague... OF JUSTICE!
    Finora likes this.
  8. Finora Well-Known Member

    I rather like your explanation =)
  9. Meirril Well-Known Member

    Something to consider is a few years back several of the exact same spells had different names at different levels. At level 3 'Plague' probably wasn't named 'plague'. To make the spell upgrades less confusing the names were consolidated and given numbers to indicate they were just more powerful versions of previous spells. Each class got to vote on what names were kept from the 5 or 6 different versions of each spell they had. Most classes went with either the highest level name, or the lowest level name.

    So Plague is the name that spell has now, it might of made more sense with the original name but that has unfortunately been lost to time. (unless someone remembers?)
  10. Lovestar Active Member

    Digging into the dark guts of the Wiki suggests the original level 3 spell was called "Fever"

    guess you started small with your bio-terrorism :p
  11. Rainmare Well-Known Member

    I always considered it as a method of 'killing' the infecting spirit with something that was fixable to the human host. like a possessed Fae coudl be infecting with 'plague' killing the Shadowman, but potential being able to save the host.
  12. Lovestar Active Member

    ooooh like the story trope of making the body so uncomfortable to inhabit that the evil spirit is driven out?

    That's a good explanation too! :p

    Mystic: "OUT! OUT YE EVIL SPIRIT! OR I'LL MAKE YOUR HOST SNEEZE AND/OR VIRAL HEMORRHAGIC FEVER MORE!"
    Shadow: noooooooo and I would have won too, if it weren't for those meddling Mystics!

    Faerie: TY for saving me. But now please cure this ebola I seem to have contracted :eek:
    Mystic: GRANDMASTER ANCESTRAL BALM DEPLOYED

    And then they ate jumjum cookies.
    Finora likes this.
  13. Lovestar Active Member

    Thanks for all the Shaman-lore details, Meirril. I got a little distracted but now I've had time to read over this again and it answers a lot of my questions.

    So if I understand correctly:
    • "The Truespirit" is actually not one thing but a lot of different things, so Truespirits plural, and they all live in The Grey Fields (which is not The Grey from Luclin :p), which is a Spirit-Plane that's not part of Norrath but exists in its own unique way adjacent to other realities. (whew.)
    • Truespirits are like... VOLTRON ... Super-Spirits ... made by combining lots of minor spirits into a super transcendent form that represents the ultimate essence of that spiritual concept. Kinda of. Sort of?
    • Well-behaved Shaman commune with Truespirits and this is how they gain their power over the essences of the natural world, which is different than Druids, who use more literal / direct nature magic to affect the physical aspect of the natural world. (whew.)
    • Spirits (which are not ghosts or undead, but more like ethereal / otherworldly concepts and essences) watch over the aspects of the world (not just Norrath but all worlds) which they have domain over, kind of like the primordial/natural version of Norrath's gods. (? kind of flailing wildly at this point)
    • Defilers are Shaman that have figured out they can stop chatting and instead just enslave, control, and corrupt Spirits to achieve short-term personal power or otherwise further their goals. This disrupts the balance of the spiritual order and creates angry crazy spirits and generally spreads negative voodoo, which is why Defiler abilities are mostly themed around rotting and decay and disease.
    ... I think. Or maybe I'm still getting half of this wrong :p
  14. Meirril Well-Known Member

    Well, your probably getting it as wrong as I am. Some lore points to the Truespirts as being one individual. Other bits of lore point to the possibility that they absorb lesser spirits. Some lore even suggests they are worshiped and become more powerful. I don't think its safe to say that all of the Truespirits came into existence in the same manner. Maybe they did, maybe some are different. The gods are like that, so why not the Truespirits too?

    One thing to say is that most of the Truespirits are ancient. They know each other and they go back a long way and have a complicated hierarchy where they defer to each other. Most of them cooperate, though a few dislike some of the other Truespirits. All of the current Truespirits seem to be attempting to prevent any new Truespirits based on a corrupting influence being created. The channeler class is an example of this.
    Lovestar likes this.