METAPLOT EXPERIMENT: Share your headcanon!

[WhiteNightingale]

Have you tried to advance the metaplot regarding the default in-game factions? I'd like to pick the community's brains. Who knows? Perhaps enough of us may agree on a couple elements.

 

Anyway, I'll start:

 

* The Syndicate briefly co-alesced after the mass migration to Primal Earth, but has since then merged with The Family. The Family now has access to Praetorian tech and much more capable psychic operatives.

 

* The Legacy Chain has been infiltrating MAGI for years and discreetly poaching magic-type heroes of higher threat level and dissatisfied with the status quo in order to bolster their ranks. They'll soon be ready to start a grand-scale crusade to become the world's totalitarian magic police. The Freedom Corps seem to be A-Ok with this development and is still as chummy with them as ever. Their first target may or may not be the Midnighters.

 

Your Turn.

Edited July 1, 2021 by WhiteNightingale

[GraspingVileTerror]

Manticore and Captain Mako were secret lovers, but busy-body duo Statesman and Sister Psyche didn't approve.  Psyche being not too different from her Praetorian counterpart believes she is helping people by "curing" them of their true identities (Malaise says "hi," by the way).  In subverting Manticore's true identity, she imprints herself as "ideal" to him, which carries us down through those years of their marriage.   But something is always gnawing away at the back of Manticore's mind.  It drives him to more and more severe anger, as his true self rages to be set free from the psychic prison ("hi again," says Malaise).  Likewise, Captain Mako is already a blood-thirsty psycho, but without the one shining beacon in the form of Manticore's love, he goes off the deep end and we see him at his most savage through the majority of the narrative which takes place during the game years.

Then we come around to Who Will Die, and Manticore offs Psyche, when other options were available.  It doesn't free him from the psychic prison, but now the warden is gone, and over time he can break free.  Likewise, hearing that Psyche is dead helps mellow Mako out, which is why he's so much more agreeable in that arc released shortly before Sunset.

[rookery.]

Someone in the US government decides that opening portals to other dimensions and other realities ON EARTH is probably a BAD THING^(tm).  

As such, Portal Corp in Peregrine Isle is slowly fazed out. A new project, Protect Magellan is begun. Portal Corp moves to the Moon and only opens a single portal to one location. Universe 3791a. This universe is unique in that it is nearing Heat Death(a few million years left)...almost all the stars have faded, ejected their cores and have grown cold. The last black hole has dissipated As such, time moves at a glacial pace here.  Five years in this universe is only a month on planet Earth. This has lent to the universe being nicknamed the Tar Pitch universe.

 

Free to open portals they were unwilling or unable to due to various safety concerns, Portal Corp builds Magellan Station. A vast complex of portals that can be opened in a controlled environment. They have begun forays into alternate dimensions and universes. Given the nature and potential threats from their explorations AND from threats here on Earth, they have recruited superheroes to help safeguard the site. 

 

Edited July 1, 2021 by rookery.

[Coyotedancer]

*eyes her time travelling magi from Ordus Chronos and their whole post-Battalion wars Nova Primeva thing...*

 

Nah. I've never done that. 

[Take One]

• The Council have bases all over the world, Striga just happens to be the closest one to Paragon City. Their main base is of course located on Antarctica and from there the Center controls everything in a new global empire that he is forming while Recluse was busy competing with Statesman and everyone was busy fighting Praetorians. Now that Statesman is dead, and Red Widow is alive, Lord Recluse is once again turning his gaze away from Paragon City and thinking about the rest of the world. Inevitably the two groups will clash, when the Center decides that the Rogue Isles would make a much more comfortable and accessible world head quarter than Antarctica. Having already eradicated the remnants of the 5th Column, they know exactly how to deal with splinter groups. Warburg is the first to fall, and the rogue Arachnos there are quickly integrated into the Council ranks, pulled apart, investigated, and put back together again once their loyalties have been adjusted. Any useful Arachnos technology is reverse engineered and put to better use. And of course the Warburg nuke factories are reactivated. From Warburg and Striga, the Council now wage war on the Rogue Isles, starting with Sharkhead where they already have a beach-head.

[Darmian]

Head canon contained in 45 missions in the AE.  No spoilers.*

 

*HAHAHA!

[WhiteNightingale]

9 hours ago, Take One said:

• The Council have bases all over the world, Striga just happens to be the closest one to Paragon City. Their main base is of course located on Antarctica and from there the Center controls everything in a new global empire that he is forming while Recluse was busy competing with Statesman and everyone was busy fighting Praetorians. Now that Statesman is dead, and Red Widow is alive, Lord Recluse is once again turning his gaze away from Paragon City and thinking about the rest of the world. Inevitably the two groups will clash, when the Center decides that the Rogue Isles would make a much more comfortable and accessible world head quarter than Antarctica. Having already eradicated the remnants of the 5th Column, they know exactly how to deal with splinter groups. Warburg is the first to fall, and the rogue Arachnos there are quickly integrated into the Council ranks, pulled apart, investigated, and put back together again once their loyalties have been adjusted. Any useful Arachnos technology is reverse engineered and put to better use. And of course the Warburg nuke factories are reactivated. From Warburg and Striga, the Council now wage war on the Rogue Isles, starting with Sharkhead where they already have a beach-head.

I have plans for the Council in my head too, I'm just not sure whether I myself would want to deal with a rise of fascism in CoX. I'm happy with CoX' history diverging from ours from the Cold War on and not sure how much of our RL to let seep in... but then both the Council and the Column already exist as legitimate in game elements, so might as well use them.

[GraspingVileTerror]

I dunno.  The Centre always struck me as a desperate ageing man struggling to remain relevant in the face of a world that is mostly trying to leave relics like him behind.  But due to the continued efforts of larger shitheels (notably Nemesis), there's still a sizeable population of potential victims to brainwash in to cruel jackboots.

Meanwhile, the Column recruits the truly hateful dregs while simultaneously growing more and more outlandish in their desperation.  A prime example being their haphazard screwing of the space-time, which I contend is one of the leading causes of all the screwy timeline crap which permeates the entirety of the game narrative.  The Column's time-fuckery is, in my head canon, one of the leading causes of how we can have people saying, simultaneously, that it's 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2021 while standing in the same room at the same time, and all still being accurate from their personal points of view.

 

Both the Council and Column are threats, but more in the way a cornered animal is a threat.  They'll lash out and struggle to the bitter end, but they're both far too narrow in vision to pull through while other factions remain powerful, let alone all the heroes who take the fight to them daily.  People love to hate nazis (and fascists), and for good reason.

And frankly, I would like them to both stay on the back foot for tonal reasons as well.  Let players have their fun beating them up, but don't let those groups actually start gaining any grounds.  What they stand for is too ugly to reward them in that way.

 

Like many other players, I like the idea of Lord Recluse taking some time for a little soul-searching.  Reprioritize.  While, unlike @Darmian, I don't think Recluse should retire and lurk in the shadows, I do think it's high time that Arachnos bares its teeth and actually demonstrates the cohesion that clearly exists.  I mean, an organization with such a vocal and public acceptance of Recluse's form of "Darwinism" (and I do emphasize that it's Recluse's vision), there HAS to be something which allows them to keep a densely-populated archipelago nation like the Etoiles fed and functional.  Despite the constant threat of random violence, people choose to live and work in the Etoiles.  There's something to that worth exploring.

And the things like Project Destiny and the Arachnos bank heist excursions should be revealed to be mere confidence schemes and distractions.  Or at the very least, more heavily implied to be (since there are Police Radio missions which hint that Arachnos isn't actually robbing banks for the money, but instead to lure out specific heroes).  If played straight, then both the heists and Destiny are totally irrational and run contrary to the established functional operation of the Etoiles as sovereign territory.  (Though, like I said in that other thread recently, that nonsense may have been the intent of the Legacy writers.  Doesn't mean it's worthwhile, though.)

[Darmian]

11 minutes ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

 While, unlike @Darmian, I don't think Recluse should retire and lurk in the shadows

Now, I don't think he should permanently retire, but as you say reprioritize.  Him being away for a bit, in character dealing with the fact that despite his oldest frenemy being dead (and AFAIK Libby's only remaining family), he STILL isn't the top of the food chain. So vanish for a bit, get his act together, then come roaring back as the threat he really is. Actually smart, actually a good leader. There were reasons troops followed him and Marcus Cole over the top of trenches in WW1, so let's get him filled out more. 

 

My suggestion involved Daos being effectively Prime Minister of the Etolies while the King is away, and if you thought Old Stefan was cold...well now.

 

And while I was cheeky above, I'll mention in passing some of what is in my headcanon AE that would feed into that:

Spoiler

The original pre Recluse Arachnos, or its remnant, is still embedded in the heart of the current organization, those that bent the knee to Il Recluso when the Weaver was murdered, but vowed vengeance against him no matter how long it took or what they had to do to get it.

 

Edited July 2, 2021 by Darmian

[WhiteNightingale]

26 minutes ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

Like many other players, I like the idea of Lord Recluse taking some time for a little soul-searching.  Reprioritize.

 

Indeed, i25's mission arcs implied that, since the Red Widow's revival, Recluse had retaken a lot of unconcluded programs and their R&D was working like crazy, we just never got to see Arachnos' new toys, or their new mission and vision. I'd like to see someone take that loose end and run with it.

 

All we have from the isles is that they're the paradise of anarcho-capitalism and eugenics (yet Doctor Aeon won the Nobel for nearly ending world hunger with nutripaste), and that the only reason NATO hasn't ended Recluse is because of a psychic army pre-empting the Corps' moves 24/7 and because of the Isles having the biggest metahuman population on virtue of his "Gadafi gambit" decades ago.

[GraspingVileTerror]

I imagine that there's also no shortage of world leaders who are either on the take, or actively support Arachnos' "good work" in the field of scientific inquest.  Remember; the rest of the whole world doesn't have to be populated by good, moral leaders.

 

Quite likely the opposite, frankly . . . 

[Take One]

3 hours ago, WhiteNightingale said:

I have plans for the Council in my head too, I'm just not sure whether I myself would want to deal with a rise of fascism in CoX. I'm happy with CoX' history diverging from ours from the Cold War on and not sure how much of our RL to let seep in... but then both the Council and the Column already exist as legitimate in game elements, so might as well use them.

 

I just wanted more cool snow-covered maps when we go to Antarctica to fight the Council. Maybe even a snow-and-ice zone.

Edited July 2, 2021 by Take One

[Coyotedancer]

Now that I have time to make a serious post...

I actually do play around quite a bit with some very "head-canon only"-ideas with the parts of my crew who are focused around the Circle of Thorns.

 

The Circle, as it exists for the Sanctum magi and their associates at the Temple in Primeva, isn't a monolithic entity. In their world, the Oranbegans have several distinct factions, who don't always see eye-to-eye. While any of them would (and do-) grump extensively and often about people from the surface world invading their space, taking their stuff and generally making a mess of the place, they're not in agreement about what to do about it. A lot of them are still your typical City-canon "Burn their souls and steal their bodies!"-types, but there are others who are much less "Feed them to the demons!" 

 

Those tend to look at the modern world, see opportunities and would prefer finding a way to co-exist.... at least on some level. Even within the 'peaceful' factions, there are still some arguments about just how much interaction ought to be encouraged. One set just wants to be left completely alone, another doesn't mind interaction with the surface-folk but won't tolerate the constant pillaging and theft of their books, a third is all-in on raising a chunk of their city and joining modern humanity for a night of pizza and club-crawling. They're curious about everything that's changed, and fascinated by the weirdness of the modern world. (My own Oranbegan characters tend to be in the later groups. The Temple magi are very much type 2, while the voyagers of Ordus Viatoris, and Tavaris and his Sanctum magi would fall in with the third. Nova Primeva, the post-Battalion future that my Ordus Chronos time travelers come from, is what happens if the coexistance faction becomes the dominant Circle ideology.) 

 

I just never liked the idea of an ENTIRE CIVILIZATION having exactly the same ideas and opinions, with very little variation. I mean, there's no way Akarist could be the *only* Circle mage who wasn't all-in on being a body-snatching evil ass-hat. The older ones, the magi, may not always see things in the same way modern humans do. Fifteen-thousand years as disembodied ghosts is going to leave its mark... But they are still people, and people aren't all going to react to their circumstances the same way. Add in interactions with the more recent, mortal minions that have been recruited into the group, and the experiences of the ones who have been out and about more than their comrades, and it just seems reasonable that there would be more than one potential track to take. 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 2, 2021 by Coyotedancer

[GraspingVileTerror]

That's really the biggest stone in my craw:  This overwhelming attitude of oversimplifying and disregarding nuance and depth in the lore, tone, and themes.  The Circle are a faction ripe for Machiavellian plots and contorted cultural touchstones . . . but they often come across in the official writing (particularly on Blueside) as self parodies*.  The Orenbegans are an entire civilization with tens of thousands of years of culture!  I mean, I know the lore loves to say "the dead can never change," but it also goes out of its way to give us plenty of examples of that not really being true either.

I know @Piecemeal has said that they don't want to write every faction as undergoing a civil war, but there's a wealth of interesting depths to plumb with a lot of these factions if they were to be explored as being less unified than the hammier writing implies.  Circle especially. 

And I know that my Commandant Nongratis (and a few other) character(s) have a particular antipathy toward the Circle, but as a player I really like the potential the Orenbegans have.  @Coyotedancer deserves kudos for making some really interesting Orenbegan characters.

 

*And then there's how some content tries too hard to be "ha ha, lol, funny," and just ends up undermining the more interesting parts of the narrative, rather than enhancing it.  I think comedy needs to be skilfully applied and have a good contrast with seriousness to really deliver something meaningful.  Even when that comedy is pure silliness.  I'd much rather a Monty Python's Holy Grail or an Airplane, over a Dumb and Dumber or a Meet the Fockers.

 

(While you're here, Piecemeal; I hope this thread is inspiring and enlightening!)

[rookery.]

Agreed. Not every faction needs a civil war...some could have completely successful coups. Someone or something sneaks in and decimates all opposition and takes over. Hellion bodies start flooding the streets, the remainder are dark, more feral, rumors are they have a new boss. Something that answered their calls and was more than happy to take over. Those who complained or were squeamish were disposed of, completely and totally.

 

 

[Piecemeal]

Factions that may or may not get touched upon with a metaplot advancement in my roadmap are:

 

Quote

YogPCi3y1KiRl1tvY0AJFfNsK7qQurd+dac1Kkuwrw8pR7vBiWtFupHWVSzQKLdAmPEF8dNsfHeG8D+GqN1gFWyb+53Ptadfp/zx7CF3enNEcx/2MWtwuZCEapo8EUGG3PXp+OBxwO+UQaQAL87PDMyi7obDztQQoJ4nSgphmsA=

 

[Coyotedancer]

Did you mean for that link to be a mess, Piece?

[Coyotedancer]

15 hours ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

That's really the biggest stone in my craw:  This overwhelming attitude of oversimplifying and disregarding nuance and depth in the lore, tone, and themes.  The Circle are a faction ripe for Machiavellian plots and contorted cultural touchstones . . . but they often come across in the official writing (particularly on Blueside) as self parodies*.  The Orenbegans are an entire civilization with tens of thousands of years of culture!  I mean, I know the lore loves to say "the dead can never change," but it also goes out of its way to give us plenty of examples of that not really being true either.

I know @Piecemeal has said that they don't want to write every faction as undergoing a civil war, but there's a wealth of interesting depths to plumb with a lot of these factions if they were to be explored as being less unified than the hammier writing implies.  Circle especially. 

And I know that my Commandant Nongratis (and a few other) character(s) have a particular antipathy toward the Circle, but as a player I really like the potential the Orenbegans have.  @Coyotedancer deserves kudos for making some really interesting Orenbegan characters.

 

*And then there's how some content tries too hard to be "ha ha, lol, funny," and just ends up undermining the more interesting parts of the narrative, rather than enhancing it.  I think comedy needs to be skilfully applied and have a good contrast with seriousness to really deliver something meaningful.  Even when that comedy is pure silliness.  I'd much rather a Monty Python's Holy Grail or an Airplane, over a Dumb and Dumber or a Meet the Fockers.

 

(While you're here, Piecemeal; I hope this thread is inspiring and enlightening!)

 

I've intentionally avoided the "actual civil war" track with my Oranbegans... They may not all agree on things, and their disagreements can certainly be very fierce and sometimes very personal, but that hasn't really turned into any large-scale flinging of fireballs and tentacles at other cabals over philosophical differences of opinion. (It seems to me that the magi would consider themselves too civilized for that kind of thing, given the way their culture has been described. ) Working at cross-purposes, sure. Plotting and scheming to get political or material advantage for their own cabal, absolutely. Using tradition or existing social conventions to support their particular point of view, without a doubt. But outright physical or arcane combat? Nah. That's for barbarians and the Mu. 

 

Nova Primeva happens because of gradual cultural evolution, exposure to the modern world, and something of a collective reawakening and remembrance of what the Oranbegans, as a civilization, had once been. The Battalion Wars were sort-of the final catalyst in that process, forcing them to take a stand with the rest of Humanity.  

 

As for the whole "the dead can't change"-thing... I'd argue that the old devs wrecked that idea themselves when it comes to the Circle. If they were unchanged from their state at the time they gave up their bodies, they wouldn't be the murderous jerks we all love punting off of rooftops in Kings Row. Remember what got them into the fix they're in. They had to dodge the demons' retribution because of an intentional act of mercy.  They had collectively looked around and realized that they'd done a Very Bad Thing... 'That the war had turned them into the same kind of genocidal jerks they were fighting... and they said "Nope. We're not going to let the demons kill the last of these Mu, even though the Mu were all in on destroying us." There was some realization there that two wrongs weren't going to make anything right, and that story just doesn't say 'Civilization of Total Evil' to me. It involves realizations that don't jive with how the Circle is presented in the current day. 

 

The official line was that being disembodied and isolated for so long made them "inhuman". That it changed them.

 

So. Yeah... 'Shot that whole the-dead-can't-change business in the foot there, right from the start, just to make the Circle yet another gang of monotone bad guys rather than something more interesting, more nuanced and ultimately, I think, more tragic.  

 

ETA: Oh, and that big, spikey tree on Thorn Island? In my personal storylines, she's a she. And an elemental Entity that the Oranbegans have considered sacred since long before they became ghosts. And she reflects the state of her people.... Which is why she's currently mostly-dead, very grumpy and generally in a pretty dark place, figuratively speaking, In the Nova Primeva timeline she's a little like a localized version of Yddrasil. 'Leafy, green, very much a protective presence... and every spring she covers Thorn Island and neighboring parts of Primeva and Agincourt in drifts of white blossoms. The locals use the tree blooming as an excuse for a week-long, region-wide party.  

 

 

Edited July 3, 2021 by Coyotedancer

[Darmian]

I sometimes imagine the internal workings of the CoT to be a lot more collegiate than we see, with demonstrations of new spells, summoning paths, whatever. Including the shared schadenfreude when the latest display leaves the would-be super mage a smoking pile of ash, and the watchers clean up and wander back to the cafeteria for wine and cheese.  Barbed comments being flung back and forth on who didn't get an A+ grade in Thaumaturgy 4 centuries ago getting uppity now. Along with all the real world shenanigans obviously.

[Coyotedancer]

3 minutes ago, Darmian said:

I sometimes imagine the internal workings of the CoT to be a lot more collegiate than we see, with demonstrations of new spells, summoning paths, whatever. Including the shared schadenfreude when the latest display leaves the would-be super mage a smoking pile of ash, and the watchers clean up and wander back to the cafeteria for wine and cheese.  Barbed comments being flung back and forth on who didn't get an A+ grade in Thaumaturgy 4 centuries ago getting uppity now. Along with all the real world shenanigans obviously.

 

Absolutely. 😆

[GraspingVileTerror]

Not fair, @Piecemeal!  Whenever I post messages like that I at least make sure that I'm only filtering my messages through four or five standard ciphers, and always try to leave a hint as to the last cipher on the pile.  I don't have the computational brute force to break the encryption on yours, and I see no hints as to which key or - oh.

 

"Warriors||Circle of Thorns//Legacy Chain??Outcasts!!Hellions}}Longbow``Arachnos**Council@@Fifth Column&&Devouring Earth"

 

Looks like I found a browser-based decrypter that was mostly accurate while searching for a website to remind me of the word "mode."

 

*coughs nervously*

 

So . . . 

The (True) Banished Pantheon is up for grabs, then?

 

*revs up the chorus of Lugbehu-chanting cultists*

[Darmian]

30 minutes ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

The (True) Banished Pantheon is up for grabs, then?

 

*revs up the chorus of Lugbehu-chanting cultists*

I'm thinking of doing an AE around this eventually.  Who knows when.

[Piecemeal]

On 7/3/2021 at 6:40 PM, GraspingVileTerror said:

Not fair, @Piecemeal!  Whenever I post messages like that I at least make sure that I'm only filtering my messages through four or five standard ciphers, and always try to leave a hint as to the last cipher on the pile.  I don't have the computational brute force to break the encryption on yours, and I see no hints as to which key or - oh.

 

"Warriors||Circle of Thorns//Legacy Chain??Outcasts!!Hellions}}Longbow``Arachnos**Council@@Fifth Column&&Devouring Earth"

 

Looks like I found a browser-based decrypter that was mostly accurate while searching for a website to remind me of the word "mode."

 

*coughs nervously*

 

So . . . 

The (True) Banished Pantheon is up for grabs, then?

 

*revs up the chorus of Lugbehu-chanting cultists*

 

I wasn't going to post amazing ciphers. Most web-based ones **seem** to end with the = so 6 hours isn't bad before someone looked. Next time, I'll pass it through an encryption key and flanglebort post random words in my posts that, at times, may or may not be the key to the cipher.

 

As for BP, I ultimately achieved a level of plot burnout with Night Ward on live, and when the game came back I simply forgot I hadn't paid any attention to it.

 

*throws their hands up in the air expecting retribution*

 

I hear that some other BP gods show up in there? TBH the Wards content was... an endurance test. Will have to go back soon.

[GraspingVileTerror]

I hear you on the Wards thing, @Piecemeal.

I was making good progress on my main villain doing all of the content at each level, freezing Experience gain to track down Contacts and earn Badges and Temp Powers.

Then I hit a particular arc in First Ward that deals with robbing the player-character of their free will.  It hits a particularly raw nerve of mine, which comes in to conflict with my OCD.

I've been stuck on that arc since . . . February 2020?  It's stalled me out and really sucks any enjoyment out of the content for me.

 

Before jumping back on to the original topic of this thread, though, I'd also like to share some suggestions for games which I think could be of value in the future development of content in City.  Please consider checking out:

FTL:  Faster Than Light
Darkest Dungeon
World of Horror

Disco Elysium

Hades

(and then search "procedural ludonarrative" in Google or Youtube, and just bounce around filling your brain with all the juicy research, opinion pieces, and analyses out there.  I think that it will potentially spark some interesting ideas)

 

Anyway.

Another head-canon of mine which is supported by a couple secondary sources (the official comics and the old lore bible) is the Grand Scheme of Lughebu!

The Banished Pantheon consumed the corpses of their fellow gods and fed off the misery, sorrow, terror, dread, and anguish of mortals.  This is what got them banished.  Trapped in a spirit world with only micro-fissures to reach out and affect the mortal world with whispers to drive humans to madness (Banished Pantheon Cultists), these banished gods (Ullutay, Tomdala, Rambetu, M'Teru, and Leghebu) sustain themselves on what little negative emotional energy they can siphon through the fissures.

This is canon.

 

Mot is a different god; a Sumerian embodiment of death which . . . somehow . . . came to rest in the area which became Moth Cemetery.  I haven't finished the NuDark Astoria content yet, and last I checked the wikis were still incomplete for those pages, so I don't know if any major revelations on this were discussed, but the short of it:  Mot isn't Banished Pantheon.  Mot was "The Sleeper" which Lughebu was compelling the Banished Pantheon's mortals Cultists to try to awaken, so that the level of misery, grief, terror, dread, et cetera would be sufficient enough for the Banished to finally break free of their astral bonds and return to the mortal world.

 

Mot was ridiculously powerful.

But I don't remember seeing anything about Mot having consumed other gods for their power.

Which suggests to me . . . when the player-characters defeat Mot, then it was all a part of Lughebu's contingency plan, and the now-defeated Mot has also be consumed; siphoned through those micro-fissures . . . feeding the Banished five . . . 

 

Mot was merely a means to an end . . . and that end will be the Banished Pantheon's return to the mortal world.

[Piecemeal]

1 hour ago, GraspingVileTerror said:

I hear you on the Wards thing, @Piecemeal.

I was making good progress on my main villain doing all of the content at each level, freezing Experience gain to track down Contacts and earn Badges and Temp Powers.

Then I hit a particular arc in First Ward that deals with robbing the player-character of their free will.  It hits a particularly raw nerve of mine, which comes in to conflict with my OCD.

I've been stuck on that arc since . . . February 2020?  It's stalled me out and really sucks any enjoyment out of the content for me.

 

Before jumping back on to the original topic of this thread, though, I'd also like to share some suggestions for games which I think could be of value in the future development of content in City.  Please consider checking out:

FTL:  Faster Than Light
Darkest Dungeon
World of Horror

Disco Elysium

Hades

(and then search "procedural ludonarrative" in Google or Youtube, and just bounce around filling your brain with all the juicy research, opinion pieces, and analyses out there.  I think that it will potentially spark some interesting ideas)

 

Anyway.

Another head-canon of mine which is supported by a couple secondary sources (the official comics and the old lore bible) is the Grand Scheme of Lughebu!

The Banished Pantheon consumed the corpses of their fellow gods and fed off the misery, sorrow, terror, dread, and anguish of mortals.  This is what got them banished.  Trapped in a spirit world with only micro-fissures to reach out and affect the mortal world with whispers to drive humans to madness (Banished Pantheon Cultists), these banished gods (Ullutay, Tomdala, Rambetu, M'Teru, and Leghebu) sustain themselves on what little negative emotional energy they can siphon through the fissures.

This is canon.

 

Mot is a different god; a Sumerian embodiment of death which . . . somehow . . . came to rest in the area which became Moth Cemetery.  I haven't finished the NuDark Astoria content yet, and last I checked the wikis were still incomplete for those pages, so I don't know if any major revelations on this were discussed, but the short of it:  Mot isn't Banished Pantheon.  Mot was "The Sleeper" which Lughebu was compelling the Banished Pantheon's mortals Cultists to try to awaken, so that the level of misery, grief, terror, dread, et cetera would be sufficient enough for the Banished to finally break free of their astral bonds and return to the mortal world.

 

Mot was ridiculously powerful.

But I don't remember seeing anything about Mot having consumed other gods for their power.

Which suggests to me . . . when the player-characters defeat Mot, then it was all a part of Lughebu's contingency plan, and the now-defeated Mot has also be consumed; siphoned through those micro-fissures . . . feeding the Banished five . . . 

 

Mot was merely a means to an end . . . and that end will be the Banished Pantheon's return to the mortal world.

 

Please, then, go and pore over the Dark Astoria content. Mot may have (unclear) permamently consumed Tielleku. Also, what I consider to be a non-negotiable plot point going forward is how badly Mot's gambit destroyed the ranks of the Circle of Thorns.

 

You'll also get your answer as to how the idol got where it's going, and for what it's worth, I thought the entire arc was phenomenal in that regard. There are some plot points I didn't like, but nothing I couldn't live with.