Lore inconsistencies in starter books

Melestav

Melestav

Dalayan Beginner
*Nerdcore alert*

To the best of my understanding there are some inconsistencies in the start of game lore books, specifically dealing with Iksar history, I'm sure there are some more but this one jumped out at me.

From: Book: A Look at Racial Histories, Life Before Kaezul
The end of the first Iksar Empire was not to come from ambition, internal strife or hybris - the fates which has taken the greatest death tolls among kingdoms - but rather the random forces of nature itself. A series of natural disasters, unprecedented in frequency and power. Earthquakes split the land. Volcanoes erupted among the mountain chains, covering Iksar cities in lava, and under the water, sending massive tidal waves surging over the shores.

[A great chasm torn into the land near Ikild itself swallowed the very center of the Iksar mages, the temple-city of Yclist, taking most of the race's skilled enchanters along with it.]

Unrestrained by the mind-warping magics, the Orcs broke free, using the chaos to incite a brutal uprising. Iksar and slaves clashed across the continent.

Current lore indicates that Yclist was attacked by paranoid fellow Iksar due to their growing power. The enchanters ceased their orbital mind control ray of the entire continent or whatever and raised the Veil around the city. The timeline also breaks down when you consider the disasters and this fact (in fact, were there even disasters? they aren't represented ingame, afaik the orcs just killed everyone and then went and made happy in Tur'Ruj)
 
hmm, maybe the lore books are wrong, but that's just because the in-game people who wrote them did not have reliable knowledge of what actually happened in ikisith?
 
If you read the Yclist books you will realize that there was growing tension in the empire between the Yclistian scholars (and there newfound magic) and the current Shamanic Triumvirate in Ikild. The Yclistians think that the Cataclysm and disasters that started to occur was the Triumvirate attacking them before they can perfect their new magic. Because of this they raise the shield around the city - which protects them albeit ends up causing their death. The cliff side in Emerald Jungle and between Murk and Remnants is evidence of some of the rifts that opened up during the cataclysm.

The question remains - were the Yclistinians correct in assuming the cataclysms were caused by the Ikildian shamman playing with the properties of yclistinite? Was it an attempted attack on the magic of Yclist because of fears of losing power?

The orcs did have an uprising and did pretty much destroy what was left of the old empire. That is where the storyline comes from of Kaezul united the disparate Iksar tribes and driving all the Orcish tribes into Elael - a place Kaezul does not really care about. What is left of each orcish tribe is attempting to unite some sort of resistance to kaezul. This is where the Saitha Tower raid storyline comes into play as well as the Tur Ruj storyline.

Hope that helps and I hope its legible. Someone else proof it or something!
 
Interesting Wold, thanks for the writeup. I haven't been thru the raid content/seen the lore for Yclist or Tur'Ruj unfortunately, so my only real issue was the line stating Yclist was swallowed. While it is all junky and destroyed, it is clearly still there.
 
It was swallowed! The ward preserved it almost eerily in tact. The starting book over embellishes it a little but the idea is that the new world had no idea it survived and only knew it from legend.
 
Waldoff said:
If you read the Yclist books you will realize that there was growing tension in the empire between the Yclistian scholars (and there newfound magic) and the current Shamanic Triumvirate in Ikild. The Yclistians think that the Cataclysm and disasters that started to occur was the Triumvirate attacking them before they can perfect their new magic. Because of this they raise the shield around the city
Click to expand...
erm... Not to contradict you here Woldaff, but a certain text in a certain zone doesn't mention any natural deasaters, but an army sieging a certain city, with the defenders doing a certain act of magic as their last option.
 
The book says that the Triumvirate is attacking. Thats what they thought was happening. Tensions were mounting between the Ikildians and the Yclistians due to the Yclistian scholars having access to a non shamanistic magic (IE enchanter/yclistinite magic). The tensions mounted until some sort of insane magical "attack" happens and the yclistians seal themselves away. If you read the journal entries after where the Prime Enchanter is going "Woe as me I sealed us and saved us from the attack we are starving and are going to die" it shows that they themselves were cut off from everything. If you read the Old Ikild lore books it talks about the asshole enchanters sealing themselves away to save themselves from the cataclysm.

The unknown is whether the cataclysm was indeed caused by the shaman council fucking around with yclist magic to their own ends/attacking yclist or just something unrelated. Either way it coincided with this increasing tension between the two major old empire cities that led them both to make conclusions about each other and the nature of the cataclysm.

This is the sort of problem when writing lore books to convey info to players. You can either assume full symmetrical information and have it be really clear or you can write from multiple perspectives and have it be confusing!
 
This kinda highlights an issue with SoD's very very secretive endgame. I like that lore is a pulling force for people like me to succeed and advance up the tiers (and I'm in the VAST minority I have to assume, since most people just like big numbers and evidenced by the piss poor turn-out and challenge of the recent trivia event) Buuuuut, my odds of seeing the very highest end of the game (and therefore the lore therein) is frankly nil in the foreseeable future.

You've made some awesome content on both the raiding AND the lore side of things that very few people get to witness. Coming in as a longtime EQ player into a WoW player into a SoD player the philosophy is so completely different as to be astonishing.
 
The phrase "in the foreseeable future" stood out to me.

Don't overlook tiers 1-10. There's a lot of raid content out there to keep you busy for a long time before you're ready for Yclist. The storyline for Azzerach, the Forsaken Realm (informally called the Plane of Fire) is pretty awesome, for example.
 
I even enjoy the lore for the Storm Giants vs the Scale Alliance. Beyond just raiding the zones, doing some of the PoLore stuff gives you more fun insight.
 
I freaking love the lore for Azzerach. I went there one day when the first half of the zone was down and I had to spend a solit 30 mins to an hour reading all the stuff and actually processing it. imo there should be more zones with that in-depth kind of lore, which also involves other zones (ToT) (and having a friendly faction in there is nice so you don't have to kill to see lore!)
 
I like posts like this that let me get this lore out of my head and onto the forums. Maybe I should do a lore Q/A with some more specifications than the gerick one that just went through.
 
I would very much like that woldo, it would make some unclear zones lore wise much nicer. Especially if some of the lore is in a mob that is like perma camped :D
 
PoFire Lore would be cooler (I still like it but...) if it was actually finished and there was a tiny bit more information about what exactly is going on.

Also the horrendously long and complicated names makes it hard to tell who is who :(
 
That zone is pretty complete lore wise. It's just tricky as you don't get the whole story if you don't finish the quest chain. That and you need to identify certain items to clarify certain things.

There is a book in the zone that translates the names, The tough part is it can be confusing what part is the name and what part is the title...
 
Dragon lore is one of my favorite storylines in any game I've played. If you like lore stuff, start checking all that out.
 
EDIT: tacky quest-bug question about Gorzenath redacted; not really lore related.
Azzerach does have cool lore though. Lots of zones in the game do, really. Even some of the lower tier planes like Entropy and Nightmare and Torment.
I was going to say that Water is a little lore-light compared to the other zones, but I remember somebody saying once that the fact that players always raid the plane of water makes them seem pretty bad from an in-game perspective. Is that just because Tarhansuar is a good deity? Maybe I didn't pay enough attention during the old PoW raids.
 
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You guys have to remember too, that when lore books are written, they are 'written by' in-game authors who are writing them according to 'their' understanding of events. They could even be lying in their writings deliberately to mislead others. Just because devs know the *real* truth doesn't mean that's what you'll see in a book.

For a great example, look at the 'history as given by this great historian oh crap it's Baldakos' event - how well can you trust what HE said?

=D
 
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