Stormwaltz 2016 Q&A/Full Q&A

Question 1: Introduction

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: When did you stop working on the Asheron’s Call franchise, and have you followed the development of the games since then?

A: I was hired in May 1999 as an intern on the first dedicated pre-ship content team, and left Turbine at the beginning of September 2002. I didn't follow the development of either AC title afterwards.

All my answers are therefore largely ignorant of the later and current states of the game(s), both in regards to mechanics and lore canon. General rule for everything I say here: if it isn't said in the game, it's not canon. It's just my own opinion/interpretation.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 2: Origin of the Empyrean

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: There are a few scraps of lore that hint at the Empyrean not being native to Auberean, but it has never been stated outright that this is true. What was the origin of the Empyrean? Are they from somewhere else, and if so, where? Why did they come to Auberean?

A: (I'll address this further down.)

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 3: Cosmogony

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: The history of Auberean involves great struggles between godlike beings. These beings include Au (the sun/light), the Nameless (the shadow), the Kemeroi (also shadow related), the Slithis/Old Ones, the Gromnatross, and the Deru Trees. The Menhir rings and Ley Lines are also related to all of this. How are these beings and objects related to each other? What was the world creation story?

A: Pour a coffee, this will take a while.

I'll summarize to begin. There are two axes in the cosmogony, lying orthogonal to each other:

There is a struggle between divine forces of order/awareness and of chaos/madness.

There is a struggle between natural forces of growth and of decay.

In the beginning, there was the Nameless. It was not a creature or god as we would understand it. It had no consciousness and no true form, though it was composed of matter; an infinite sea of matter, non-discriminate, constantly changing form and composition. An entire universe composed of a single entity of pure, unrelenting, reflexive action and change; all-encompassing and all-consuming.

This came out of an idea I had, strongly influenced by HP Lovecraft, that "god is a verb." A deity is an entity that causes change to the reality around not due to any conscious effort, but because its very nature causes it. I liked to describe the Nameless as "a virus with the power of god."

You don't get to look upon the Nameless and keep your brains. Or your eyes. Or anything, really. Long before you could get close enough to perceive it, it's already ripped apart your soul and body. This is described in "Brink of the Abyss." Evaen experiences the Nameless' presence when he enters portalspace during a Shadow Spire pulse:

We thrash. No. No arms. No legs. What struggles? Only essence, stripped of ego. Who are we? We are….

Coming apart.

We do. We are nothing. There is only all. We are the Hand. We grow.

To quote an old dev doc, "It is an impression of looming, suffocating darkness; a cold, damp touch that causes flesh to run like water; gibbering madness; the moment of uncomprehending, recoiling horror between a nightmare and full waking."

The Nameless is a universe of pure matter and pure chaos.

But there's another universe.

It's a place devoid of matter entirely. There's only energy. It's a place devoid of change or chaos. There's only pattern. This is the home of what we call the Light -- "Au" in Yalaini. They're not only entities of light in the sense of physical illumination, but also in the sense of intellectual comprehension.

Why are the Light plural versus the Nameless' singular? I don't remember. I may never have answered that at all. There's a good possibility it came out of my personal belief that what we tend to define as "evil" is ultimately selfishness, and that which we call "good" is ultimately selflessness. To be good, there have to be others to be selfless towards.

The Light are also described in "Brink of the Abyss." When Asheron's steps forward and says, "Zojak Quaau," he's invoking the Light, and Evaen feels their touch:

Although she was behind me, I could sense Kei as a radiant impression of curiosity and wonder, a warmth on my back. Celdiseth, at my side, was a dark, mighty knot of worry, fluttering like a proud old hawk with a broken wing. I could smell the small flowers being crushed beneath my feet, and hear tiny insects frantically digging themselves deeper underground. I could see every leaf on every tree along the shore as they showed their pale undersides in the wind. I saw a miniscule hole in the bark of a sapling on the shore, and knew that it was the abode of a small worm, hibernating until it could be reborn as a tiny winged insect that would live but one day. I could have wept for its tragedy.

This is not our magic. Our magic doesn’t do this. It was as if I’d spent my life half-asleep, and had only now woken fully.

The Light are "an impression of clarity, heat, and contemplation; a feeling of being watched and considered from a great distance; a sudden flash of understanding that makes even a drop of water seem both simple and miraculous."

Two universes, polar opposites, each inimical to mortal life as we understand it.

Between them, a third universe containing nothing at all.

A world without form or void, energy or matter, change or pattern.

The Light stretched forth their powers. They passed into the third universe and blessed it with their own essences, transmuting themselves to pattern and light, imposing structure and rules.

Then they moved beyond. They opened a path to the Nameless' reality. From that entity, they blessed the third universe with matter, and the capacity for change.

There spun forth clouds of dust and gas, and stars, and worlds uncounted. Drops of teeming matter between empty void, islands of change bound by patterns of natural law.

Everything. Creation.

In one place, a great outpouring of radiance marked the place the Light had entered the third universe. Uncounted years later, the Lugians would regard this nebular complex, filling one-third of their sky, and come to the understanding that led them to create forges. They now call this astronomical object the Forge of Heaven. Indeed it is.

But as there was a "hole" to the universe of the Light at one place, in another location there was also a "hole" through which the Light had brought forth the raw stuff of the Nameless.

The Nameless was not asked its opinion on this. Not that it would have had one. But it reacted to the actions of the Light. Evaen sees this too in "Brink of the Abyss":

It is all. They take It away, piece by piece. Cruel with fire. Burning away the beauty. It squeals and recoils, lashing at them. They imprison It in small patterns. It is not theirs. It precedes them. The great crime. We make it right. We take it back. It becomes again.

Everything on Auberean (and Ispar, Tuu, Ezheret-Hazahtu, wherever the olthoi are from...) comes apart by reflex at the approach of the Nameless and its minions because every bit of matter in this universe was once part of the Nameless. While the Nameless doesn't "want" anything, its matter reflexively tries to return to it, and it reflexively "reaches out" to take it back.

The Kemeroi are extensions of the Nameless' essence extruded into the third universe, given quasi-intellect by the nature of this realm's patterned reality, and trying to reabsorb its stolen matter. They have no form of their own, but possess and adapt the matter of this universe. Thus the translator's note in the text of Aerfalle's Letter:

By turns, kemeroi is used to express the concepts of stillborn offspring, unwelcome emissary, unseen or stealthy movement, corrupter or tempter, nightmare, madness or terrifying hallucination, unbidden thought, parasite, scream uttered at awakening from a nightmare, thing that causes melting, liquid given form by a vessel, the touch of something frozen, and night that moves as a liquid.

Jhirvall, the Kemeroi that turned Ilservian, had infested the Nameless-matter that composed a massive cave spider. Thus, the creature Ilservian spoke to was perceived by him to be a monstrous, shadowy spider.

So. At this point we have the Light with their precious new matter/energy universe, and the Nameless trying to reabsorb they matter they stole to make it by sending forth what would become known as Kemeroi. How to stop this?

Soldiers. An army that could seal the breach between the created universe and that of the Nameless.

The Light touched matter and imposed patterns upon it, creating warrior-entities of tremendous wisdom and power, blessed with wings to travel the void that lay between spinning motes of matter.

Much later, these entities would be known as Gromnatross. They are the archangels of Asheron's Call.

The Gromnatross fought the Kemeroi, and slowly coalesced a vast shaping of mass and mana-energy in the void surrounding the portal to the Nameless' realm. Bound by the patterns of gravity, it assumed a spherical shape.

Then the Light created a second order of "angels." They would not need the ability to fly, but they required a greater facility with manipulating mana-energy. This was built into their pith and essence. They would perform their work on the surfaces of the mass moved around the Nameless' gate by the Gromnatross. They were given legs to move, and hands for detail work.

The Empyrean.

Millennia later, the Dericost undead Talaagran would unwittingly hint at the Empyrean's origin and purpose in his Scrawled Note. While describing the Virindi surgically implanting organs in Drudges to allow them to manipulate mana, he notes; "This is, naturally, sacrilege, as we all know the ability to wield the subtle energy is a gift from the gods. It is long proven that no particular organ in the Empyrean species circumscribes the ability."

This is true for the Empyrean and the Gromnatross, but not necessarily for other species. Mana was part of their nature, an integral part of the whole. Every cell of their bodies naturally affects mana. That's why they don't need to wield a casting foci.

As the shell of matter solidified around the Nameless' abyss, the Gromnatross and Empyrean wove the mana of the universe into a vast binding pattern of ley lines. Anchored by nails of menhir rings, the ley lines formed the bars of a cage, locking the gate to the Nameless within the depths.

The Nameless and its Kemeroi fought these efforts, in their own way.

The Gromnatross, though immensely enLightened, were ultimately made of the same Nameless-matter as anything in this universe. That matter could be corrupted. The curse inflicted on the Gromnatross Auraken spread like an infection, and over time the once-divine race fell to madness and barbarity. A relative handful of uncorrupted survive to this day.

The Empyrean were differently gifted. Though also creations of Light, their abilities dealt more with physical matter than the energies of the soul. The Gromnatross could only be corrupted; the Empyrean could be wholly subsumed. The Kemeroi stole the Light from uncounted numbers of them, changing them into Shadows. (The power of the Nameless did not manage to absorb a Gromnatross until the coming of Bael'Zharon. He was the one who blended the flesh and soul of a single Gromnatross and many Empyreans to make his "Thorns," the Shadow Spires.)

The Gromnatross and Empyrean completed their great cage. The last portion of the web was a door of sorts, a final gate slammed shut behind the Nameless and its minions. It barred a path straight through the shell of matter, down into its fiery core and beyond, to the maw of the Nameless' realm.

As the shell of matter aged and changed, the hole to the center was filled with earth. Later still, it flooded with water. The structure of gateworks would later be known by many names - Killiakta, Ireth Lassel, Dereth - but far below the caved-in door of the Inner Sea, the Nameless still gnawed restlessly.

The world called Auberean spun through the void, confining the maw of hell deep within itself.

The Gromnatross that hadn't lost their gifts from the Light remained as stewards, watching from on high. To their dismay, over generations their lesser siblings, the Empyrean, did not remain as true. Always more worldly than enlightened, the mass of them slowly forgot their purpose and divinity. Facts blurred into legends; commandments into mere habits. Even their kinship to the Gromnatross was forgotten. Though the Empyrean always revered the Gromnatross, the madness of the corrupted left many viewing them as animals.

Some of the Empyreans' creeping ignorance came through their own foilable natures. Some of it came from lies spun by Auberean's native life.

You might have noted that all the players I've discussed so far - Kemeroi and Shadows, Gromnatross and Empyrean - are ultimately the creations of actors from outside the universe.

As Humans rose on Ispar, and Tumeroks, Lugians, Olthoi, etc. rose on their own worlds, so did life evolve on Auberean. But here, intelligence came to the plant kingdom rather than the animal. Largely sessile, the creatures bred incredibly slowly. But they gained intelligence the more they grew, and they never entirely stopped growing. They went undiscovered for millennia, because there were never many of them and their native language was one of scent.

They led lives of slow contemplation, growing in knowledge, ignored by the evanescent attentions of animal life. Yet over time, even the plant-intelligences were influenced by what lurked at the world's core.

Those that remained on the surface evolved into gigantic, immobile trees; avatars of growth and wisdom that fed on sunlight, soil, and rain. This race was later called the Deru by the Falatcot. To the Yalain, who never recognized their intelligence, they were larchess trees. The largest could be hundreds of meters tall.

Others withdrew underground. They evolved into a more fungal aspect; avatars of decay and egoism that fed on rot, darkness, and stagnant water. They kept their ability to move, though only in their most distant extremities, which would thrust up through the soil. This race attracted many names, for they liked to be flattered by titles. They were known as the Watchers, or the Old Ones, or the Slithis. The largest could be the size of mountains. Wise by their own estimation, the Slithis each sought to overturn and devour their kin, to be the final and ultimate power of the world.

They felt the dark power sleeping in the depths beneath them, and sought to draw upon it. But they were cautious, then. They wanted only to tap the darkness, not release it.

Eventually, the Slithis of Killiakta were discovered and contacted by a regressed Empyrean culture known as the Falatacot. The bloated fungal intelligences were only too happy to represent themselves as gods to the swamp-dwellers. Over time, they corrupted the Falatacot, teaching them magics of decay and entropy in exchange for service. The Falatacot tribes warred against each other for the benefit of their vile gods. The avatars of decay grew fat on the corpses of their sacrifices.

At the behest of the immobile Slithis "gods," the Falatacot dug geomantic dungeons into the earth, intended to draw up the power that lurked deep in the world. But the Slithis were clear to their followers - they mustn't disturb the menhir rings. That would release the power which they wished only to steal from. Aerfalle's Note recalls:

The texts of the Falatacot are maddeningly vague about the constructs. I doubt they knew much more than we, only that they stood before their forefathers crawled in the mud, and are places of great power. The only words the Old Ones ever spoke of them, if speech it may be called, amount to, "Do not ask us of these artifacts, and do not disturb them."

The Slithis/Old Ones/Watchers didn't know where the menhir came from because the stones long predated them. But they were loathe to admit their ignorance, and had realized their importance in holding the darkness in the earth at bay. So they simply told their worshippers, "don't ask."

The Deru were honest about the menhir to their followers. The Tall Trees on Marae Lassel whisper:

Beast you are, Watcher, and no planter of stones. We shall have our own. Her eyes shall be clear water. She shall stand at the side of the great and chosen, though not always both at once. She shall whisper in the dark, and that shall resound evermore.

The woman who was "the Deru's own" was Adja of Ithaenc. Prophetess and priestess, she was the last full-blood descendant of a line of Falatacot who communed with the Deru. (Her ancestry is suggested by the distinctive Falatacot turquoise eye color.)

The Deru spoke to some among the Falatacot in growing alarm at the actions of their cousins. They never presented themselves as gods, but as wisdom-keepers, sharing a scope of experience that dwarfed even the long-lived Empyrean. Their priestesses represented a synthesis of half-remembered Empyrean divinity and the Deru understanding of the natural world. They did not flinch from blood-letting when necessary (in battle, or during ritual vision questing), but any sacrifices were self-inflicted and made of free will.

The priestesses of the Slithis sacrificed victims to seize immortality through undeath. The priestesses of the Deru transferred the life-energies from one person to another they loved, granting long life and protection... but never eternity. Death was part of the cycle of life. The Deru and their followers accepted this.

Another important point of the Deru-Falatacot philosophy was that of avoiding the use of magic for trivial purposes. The Deru had perceptions different than the Empyrean, and had lived long enough to notice that every use of magic drained the mana bound in the ley lines. It would replenish over time, but excessive use might weaken the cage. They didn't know precisely what was held within, but knew it unwise to risk. Centuries later, Maila's Journal noted:

In the darkest hours, Adja brought me a thick blanket. Imagine, a powerful sorceress giving her fellow a blanket instead of a small warming spell! She has never offered an explanation for her people's belief that every use of magic has a consequence. I think it may be the influence of the swamp people that once called her island their home.

Eventually, some of the Slithis had their minions dig too deeply and too greedily in their quest to tap the darkness and overpower one another. Some of the Kemeroi slipped into this universe again. They pulled the Watchers down into the depths.

The Falatacot who worshipped the Slithis were likewise devoured... until the Deru and their witches triggered the Cooling of the World, a mini-ice age.

The remaining Slithis went into a torpor from which they never fully awakened.

The remaining Deru went to sleep, like trees through a long winter.

The Kemeroi secreted themselves in places of power, and waited.

The Falatacot survivors fled to Dericost, and you know the story from there.

Here's a summary image I made during the preproduction of AC2:

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 4: Locations of Menhir Rings

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: Do the Menhir rings only exist on Dereth, or are they elsewhere on Auberean?

A: They're everywhere. They're atypically dense on Dereth because it was the gate mechanism. I imagine that they were built differently elsewhere - perhaps large complexes a mile or more in diameter.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 5: Origin of Umbris and Panumbris Shadows

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: Are the Slithis-worshipping Falatacot witches that were consumed by the Kemeroi the beings that became Umbris and Panumbris Shadows?

A: Correct. Some of the oldest ones remained hidden in places of power throughout the ages. These were the ones who created the more "impressionistic" messages in the Fourth Sending arc; the Fleshy Lump (from "Taste of Twilight"), the "sibilant" chants in the Herald dungeon, etc.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 6: Corrupted Slithis

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: Were the Slithis that were pulled down similarly changed into some form of Shadow Slithis, were they destroyed, or did something else happen to them?

A: It's possible and a fun idea. We didn't consider it at the time, so far as I recall.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 7: Black Rains - Natural or Divine

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: There is a historical event known as the Black Rains. Through various bits of lore, we know that this was the result of a celestial object impacting on Auberean. With the new knowledge about the origin of all matter in the universe, was the celestial object drawn to Auberean because it was returning to the Shadow plane? Did the Kemeroi draw it to Auberean?

A: It was not drawn there. It was a random act of nature, as might have inevitably occurred.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 8: Black Rains - Location of Impact

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: Was it decided where it impacted? Given the significance of the Inner Sea, did it impact near there, and create the crater-like structure that is Yaraq, the A’mun Desert, and the Yushad Ridge? We know (or rather, Alatar Locke speculated) that the A’mun Desert was once lush and fertile.

A: It was never discussed, but I'd added a structure on the global map that I'd intended to be the point of impact. I placed it as far away from the known civilizations as was possible. There was lore mention of the fireball being sighted and the subsequent ash cloud, but no talk of seeing the actual impact or of a tsunami, which I felt would have been noted by the island-dwelling Yalaini.



For a long time, there was no global map of the planet. There was a rough sketch of the area surrounding Dereth in one of the old "Empyrea" history docs. It appears to have been made with MS Office drawing tools, possibly by Eri Izawa:



While I was on the team, there was no mention of Falatacot habitation on mainland Haebrous; we tended to regard them as a culture unique to Killiakta.

I made the original version of the global map myself, scribbling it on a 3-by-5 inch index card. Sean Huxter turned that abomination into the version in-game.

A personal friend of mine, Robert Wild, later used Photoshopped satellite imagery to make a version now only found on The Imaginary Atlas.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 9: Lights of Alb'arel

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: What are the lights on the moon Alb’arel?

A: Maila's Journal:

My mother said that during the Black Rains, the gromnatross had flown away into the stars, for there was no place on the face of the world which knew happiness.

The Tall Trees:

"Auraken. Wind-Lord. Go not among your people evermore. Fly, fly to the high home..."

The archangels still keep their vigil, in gleaming cities of light.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 10: Jhirvall and Auraken

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: You mentioned two specific beings: Jhirvall, the Kemeroi that changed Ilservian, and Auraken, a cursed Gromnatross. Both of these are only mentioned by name once in AC1. Was there more information about either of them in AC1 or AC2?

A: I don't believe there ever was. Which is odd in the case of Jhirvall, now that I think about it.

The Gromnatross were proto-content I intentionally mythologized during my time on the game; they were not archangels in the original 1996-1998 vision of the lore. Before alpha, the intent was that Gromnatross would be actual creatures in the game world, with gromnies representing their juvenile form. The engine wasn't up to handling anything as large as they intended, and it was abandoned early on.

Jhirvall, on the other hand, is one of the oldest names in the lore. Even in the oldest internal Empyrean history doc (by Toby Ragaini, Eri Izawa, and Michael Howrilka - a developer who left before I was hired), Jhirvall appeared as the figure who tempted Ilservian:

Ilservian met that black night a being that named itself Jhirvall (the name was actually that of a type of underground spider), which at first crept up on five legs and then took the shape of a man. (Ilservian saw this through the light of a lone candle.) Jhirvall spoke (hissed) in the old tongue of Dericost to greet Ilservian.

Ilservian learned that, just before Dericost’s fall, his ancestors had made contact with a shadowy race of beings. The race of beings was, Ilservian fancied, the original lords of the world, who had reigned in dark splendor. But needing servants (Ilservian was told), the shadow people had somehow brought the Empyrean to the world. But the rebellious Empyrean had brought light instead.

We called you; we brought you; you shall bow to us and we shall make you part of us like you were meant to be, Jhirvall chanted.

In the early production of AC2, the artists concepted a Gromnatross based on the lore that had built up in AC1. It was beautiful, though it appears I never saved a copy of it. It doesn't seem to be on the internet, either, so I have to imagine it's lost.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 11: Heads of Tafelicor

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: In the The Mysterious Portals article The Stony Stare, we learn that the Empyrean stone heads are Falatacot ruins known as The Heads of Tafelicor, and they may have some thirst for combat. Later in AC, there a few of these stone heads which are called Watchers - the Devastated Watcher, Ruined Watcher, and Watcher of the Deep - which are all related to accessing a lost Falatacot island. What relation, if any, do the Heads of Tafelicor have to the Old Ones / Slithis / Watchers?

A: Those three named "Watcher" heads were added after my time on the team, so I can't answer what was intended with them specifically.

Stone heads in general were intended to be Falatacot artifacts, built so their eyes were fixed upon places and items the Falatacot felt should be guarded. It never came up at the time, but it would make sense to me that they were enchanted in such a way that someone who knew the appropriate spells could look out through the "eyes" of any of those heads.

The shorter Mysterious Portals articles were written by the web team at Microsoft, often with minimal or no feedback offered by Turbine. They occasionally contain information of less-than-perfect canonicity.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 12: Gromntross and Kemeroi in Space

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: Did the Gromnatross or Kemeroi ever go to other planets, or are they unique to Auberean and its moon?

A: The Gromnatross could travel anywhere in the universe by their own powers, and may have done so. The Kemeroi can exist in any matter within the universe, and may have done so. I imagine that there were battles in many locations before the Gromnatross finished accreting Auberean around the gate to the Nameless' realm, which focused the fighting there.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 13: Deru vs. Larchess

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: There are two types of magical trees mentioned in lore, the Larchess and the Deru. Are they supposed to be two words for the same thing, or are they different kinds of trees?

A: They're the same trees. The Falatacot who spoke with them knew them as an intelligent race called the Deru, while the Yalaini didn't recognize their sapience, and called them larchess trees.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 14: Evolution of the Deru and Slithis

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: Did the Deru and Slithis evolve on Dereth around the same time, or did one pre-date the other? Was their evolution natural (for this universe, anyway), or were they guided by the divine forces?

A: I saw them as concurrent evolution away from whatever their original form was.

The evolution of the Deru and Slithis was entirely natural and unaffected by any conscious or unconscious meddling by the divine forces around them... at least until the Slithis started trying to tap the power of the Nameless. Their fictional role was to grandly represent the ordinary living things that were affected by the struggle between the divine powers, but allied with neither.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 15: Evolution of Plant Beings and Empyreans' Forgotten Origin

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: Did the Deru and Slithis come into being before or after the Empyrean had forgotten their origin and purpose?

A: Both evolution and forgetting were long processes. I expect there was quite a bit of overlap.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 16: Beginning of the Arelis Eipoth

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: What event marked the beginning of the first era of the Yalaini calendar, the Arelis Eipoth or Golden Age? All that we know is that during the reign of Alaidain, the Yalaini calculated backwards to an event known in their legends.

A: That was never discussed or finalized among the team, but I always imagined it started with the final sealing of the Nameless.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 17: Ending of the Arelis Eipoth

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: What marked the end of the Arelis Eipoth and the beginning of the Dericoi Eipoth?

A: The Cooling of the World. The Yalaini calendar was invented in the time of Alaidain, so they fixed the start of that age in retrospect.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 18: Sendings of Darkness

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: The Sendings of Darkness are very important to the story of both AC1 and AC2. What, in a general sense, is a Sending of Darkness?

A: I don't think we ever sat down to strictly define it beyond "the Shadows did something catastrophic." Maybe the people who were on the team before I arrived had a specific idea in mind - I don't recall asking. My own interpretation was that in a Sending, some fragment of the power of the Nameless escaped its realm, leaked through the menhir web, and infected Auberean.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 19: First Sending

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: What was the First Sending of Darkness? We never received any information on this Sending.

A: This is the taking of the Slithis and the corruption of the Falatacot.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 20: Second Sending

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: What was the Second Sending of Darkness? Based on Aerfalle's Letter, and a few other bit of lore, it appears as though the Second Sending is the Empyrean Shadow War - the War between the Yalaini and Bael’Zharon.

A: Correct.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 21: Third Sending

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: What was the Third Sending of Darkness? The description from a Pack Doll states that the Third Sending is the Empyrean Shadow War. I’m not sure if this is was always the case, if it was a retroactive continuity change, or simply an error.

A: That's either a canon change after I left, or an error. The Third Sending, as originally described in the old lore documents, was Asheron's discovery of portal magic, and the subsequent release of the Olthoi.

The logical question to ask here is, what do the Olthoi have to do with the Nameless? In the pre-ship version of the backstory, the portals Asheron experimented with had wards such that they could only connect to "safe" locations. The portal that ended up opening to the Olthoi's world was affected during casting by a portalspace "aftershock" from the entrapment of Bael'Zharon, which ripped those wards away. Asheron and his adepts investigated that portal anyway, were immediately attacked by Olthoi, and ran back without being able to close the portal.

In the canon as of my departure, the concept of the warding spells never existed. The Olthoi were brought to Auberean deliberately by the power-hungry Kellin II, who planned to harness them for use as an interplanetary army of conquest.

So what qualifies the Olthoi as a "Sending" in the final analysis? I see two possibilities. The first is that portal magic is directly connected to Bael'Zharon's capture. Without that, there would be no portals, and the Olthoi would never have arrived. This isn't a satisfying interpretation to me, but the argument can be made.

The second possibility is to interpret Kellin's villainy as indicative of his corruption by the Nameless, or by forces aligned therewith. I don't recall anything in the AC1 story that suggests this - Kellin's evils appear to be due to his own ambition.

However, in the early iterations of AC2's backstory, the Empyrean returned between games - before the Fifth Sending. Shortly before the Fifth Sending occurred, one of Kellin's closest advisors, "Sa'resh," was revealed to be Black Ferah in disguise. She slew the Emperor, splintering the Empyrean into factions fighting over the throne when they most needed to work together.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 22: Olthoi - Natural or Divine

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: Are the Olthoi natural creatures, no different in origin from say a Shreth, or did they have a more malevolent purpose? I ask because the Tumerok refer to Olthoi as the children of Wharu, and Wharu is, essentially, a Tumerok demon, the spirit of decay. I believe in AC2, Wharu was revealed to be a Kemeroi.

A: During my time, the Olthoi were considered a completely natural form of life. They were a menace because they the evolutionary product of a far more aggressive insectoid-fungal ecosystem. If there was a later change to that, maybe it was intended to reconcile the absence of direct Nameless intervention in the Third Sending, as I discussed above.

The Tumerok references, at the time of ACDM, weren't intended to be literal truth, but an expression of how they think about the world in mythological terms. The Olthoi filled a biological niche they identified as akin to their spirit of decay, so they considered them to be an expression of Wharu's hand in the world.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 23: Book of Eibhil

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: Related to Sendings of Darkness is the Book of Eibhil. It was quite important to AC2, and later in the life of AC1 it became the focus of a story arc. What is the origin of this book? Who wrote it? Where does it get its power?

A: That's not a question for me, I'm afraid. I invented the Book of Eibhil as a toss-away reference when I wrote "Our Great Work" for Frore. I wanted something that sounded old and ominous, and went with a shabbily disguised reference to the "Book of Eibon" used by H.P. Lovecraft (actually invented by Clark Ashton Smith).

Everything beyond that initial reference is the creation of later Live Team members. Unfortunately, I can't even guess who should be properly credited for that work.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 24: Origin of the Virindi

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: Where did the Virindi come from, why did they come to Dereth, and why have they kept the lost Empyrean trapped in portalspace?

A: The Virindi were more Dave Javier and Ken Troop's creation than mine, though the last things I wrote for the game were about them. The Scrawled Note was a literal handoff by me, from my Fourth Sending undead to Dave's New Singularity Virindi, expanding on concepts created by Ken in his Martine sequence of stories. Kim Payson later asked me (while I was working on AC2) to write the dialogue and visions for the Yalaini Man (Raen Ameranten), Yalaini Woman (Resanne), and Lilitha the Huntress in her Portalspace Dungeon.

The Virindi are an intelligence native to portalspace. In their own realm, and within the safety of the obscuring garments they wear, they resemble three-story tall, luminous jellyfish or squid. I'm afraid I was probably too influenced by the Vorlon of Babylon 5 there (their true form, seen in the episode "Falling Towards Apotheosis"). Their bodies can only exist within a vacuum or an environment of pure energy; when they're killed, their protective measures are breached, and they literally burn away in an instant from the air. This is implied in the death message of the Marae Lassel Virindi Collector:

Through the shredded mess of the Collector's black cloak, you catch a brief glimpse of a silver-tinged violet light... but it quickly fades, turning to a fine white ash that is torn away by the wind. An echo of entity's hollow voice booms in your mind, "How curious. The vapor-sea burns. Perhaps we should hollow the experiments, and inhabit them.

And also in the Scrawled Note:

"The space around you is not an abeyance, but a vapor-sea. We take the insubstantials and alter arrangements so they assume solidity." The Director added that, "In this, your location is convenient to us."

Stripped of mystery, the Virindi (as I understood them in 2002) are science fiction hyperspace aliens who find themselves in a high fantasy world of magic. In the Scrawled Note I tried to describe technological effects from the perspective of a magical culture. Lasers are "focusing electrical blasts to such a fine point that they could be used to slice and cauterize flesh." What the author calls "crawling magic," and the Virindi creation of tools from a "vapor-sea," are descriptions of advanced nanotechnology.

They started investigating the region around Auberean when the Empyrean starting poking holes through their reality. When Asheron sent the souls of the Empyrean into portalspace for shelter, it was like an explosion, and brought them in haste. But it took them a long time to find a way into our reality, and survive in it.

The fabric of their world - of portalspace - was damaged by the sudden, massive influx of alien and otherworldly energy; the energy of disembodied Empyrean souls. Over time, portalspace has become more frayed. This caused the creation of random portals leading from the worlds visited by the Empyrean to Dereth, where the original damage was done. So far as I recall, this damage to the fabric of portalspace was only directly mentioned in the visions of the Yalaini Woman:

The tunnel does not collapse as it always does. It peels open. You are weightless, formless, tumbling through an empty violet abyss. So tired... Sleep...

And something, somewhere, tears a little more...

The Virindi found the Empyrean souls to be a tremendous and utterly unique source of energy. They've been trying to draw on it ever since, fighting with Asheron. He wants to bring the Empyrean back to Auberan; the Virindi want to keep them in portalspace and harvest the energy of their souls. It was a stalemate when I left; Asheron couldn't bring the Empyrean back because of Virindi interference, and the Virindi couldn't obtain the energy they desired because of Asheron's interference.

As a side note, the behind-the-scenes rationalization for Vitae penalty was that Asheron's Lifestones took a tithe of the players' lifeforce to fuel his spells protecting the Empyrean from the Virindi. I'm not sure if that was said anywhere, or if it's even canon anymore.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 25: Magic of Virindi Augmented Creatures

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: If Virindi magic was, at least partially, advanced technology, what about Martine’s magic, or the magic of other creatures augmented by Virindi?

A: That's "actual magic," with the means to manipulate it artificially replicated by the Virindi after decades of study into the physics of this universe and the biology of Auberean. They spent years dissecting and studying - notably on their two Yalaini captives and Lilitha - until they were able to grow artificial mana-manipulating organs and surgically implant them in their experimental subjects.

This was shown fairly literally with Hea Tuperia's hunting reedsharks. Sahkurea and Utelari dropped organic "Virindi Implant" orbs that allow their bearer to cast the same spells those creatures did in combat.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 26: Martine's Fate

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: Was Martine’s fate ever truly decided? Gaerlan tempted Martine with a portal to Ispar atop his floating citadel. Martine may have been killed while he destroyed Gaerlan’s citadel, or he may have escaped to Ispar. The conclusion of the Gaerlan arc occurred as you were leaving Turbine, but perhaps you had some insight into what was planned.

A: I'm afraid I don't know.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 27: Witch Cave

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: In an interview, you mentioned the first dungeon and quest you designed for AC1, Witch Cave. You said it would have spanned half of Dereth, and involved some characters that already existed in the game. Could you provide more details on the Witch Cave quest?

A: Witch Cave was learning while doing, getting used to tools and processes... and not necessarily by doing it right. I started it the first week I was at Turbine.

The good news is, you don't really need me to tell you about it. I was surprised to find that at some point after I left, someone dug up the bones of the quest and put it in game: it's the Temple of Xik Minru.

I'm not sure what to think of that. Someone took this thing I abandoned in June 1999 to add to the game in September 2005. Did they like the basic ideas? Were they looking to save some implementation time? Was it a test for some new content developer; "here's an old piece of junk, make it work with the modern game?" I'll probably never know.

The original plot was essentially the same as what you see now, though their revisions made motivations and context much better than where I'd left it. Branwyn's husband Geowulf went someplace he shouldn't have, and she asks the player for help. I cracked open the doc for what must be the first time in 15 years, and I'm struck by how awful my original writing was. It's stuck in the Ultima Online mode of thees and thous, no contractions, and excessively proper grammar. That was normal in 1999, I suppose.

From the wiki I see they dumped all the original dialogue and notes, and replaced them. Good. My stuff sucked.

I wish they'd changed Geowulf's name too. It amused me at the time, but to English speakers it seems goofy for a dramatic story. I'd pulled it from a doc full of hundreds of possible Aluvian names. We had such a doc for each player heritage group; pages full of hundreds of names that "sounded right." We'd grab them as needed for NPCs, strike through the ones we used in the doc, and move on.

I don't remember who put those together, but it sounds like the sort of job Chris Pierson would have done. Before I was hired, he actually did the linguistics to figure out what phonics the original tusked Tumeroks would have been able to pronounce, and wrote a doc on that... which to my chagrin I didn't know existed when he came to me slightly irate about our Tumerok names in ACDM.

Anyway. The general idea was that the cave (the quest was originally set in a natural cave that changed to dungeon architecture at the bottom) was a Falatacot temple where they made sacrifices, and as millennia passed a few of them just sort of... hung out down there, sacrificing each other to stay alive until just the one was left, preying on passing Isparians who came hunting Empyrean treasures. I think there may have been Shadows involved somehow too... it's hard to tell from the doc I have. I was just starting to understand the lore when I came up with this, and a lot of the details hadn't been invented yet.

As you went through the cave you'd find notes dropped by Geowulf talking about what he faced and his sketchily-developed relationship with Branwyn. Honestly, Greg Slovacek later worked the same tropes to far better effect in his Frore expedition notes, and by that point I had a grasp of the lore that allowed me to better stitch his superior writing and dungeon design into the greater continuity.

As in Xik Minru, you find Geowulf's ring on his corpse and bring it back to Branwen, who gives it to you because she "can't bear to look at it." It was intended from the start to be the Rose of Celdon, as described in "Reign of Alfrega," though at first it was identified to the player as "Branwyn's Tear."

A bit of trivia about "Reign of Alfrega." When I wrote the first draft, I was obsessed with the idea of using an authentic mediaeval literary voice for that sort of in-world "primary source." So I used an old writer trick and read a bunch of Boccaccio's Decameron, then mimicked its style.

If you think text that made it in game was dry, you should have seen the draft. You know how most medieval literature seems dull and grammatically overcomplicated to modern readers? I nailed that, unfortunately. Eri Izawa must have wondered if I could write at all after seeing it, because she sat down with me to rewrite it line by line.

Anyway (again). As described in "Reign," the Rose disappeared into history on the night the Orts were betrayed to the Queen. Here was my first draft on what happened, from the Witch Cave design doc (rev 1.04, June 7, 1999):

Using the powers of the ring, a young forester named Bannhorn managed to escape the slaughter, and fled to the woods. Most of his comrades were put to death by Alfrega, though a few, still moldering in the dungeons, were freed when Osric the Wise came to power. With no further use for magical protection in the budding golden age, Bannhorn locked the Rose up in a trunk. Years later, he would, upon being smitten with the daughter of a merchant, use the Rose as an engagement ring. He never told her the true extent of its power, only that it would protect her from harm; neither she nor her family would have approved of his participation in the Alfregan underground.

Bannhorn had planned to tell his young son about the ring upon his majority, but, unfortunately, he was set upon by brigands on his way home one day, and the truth was lost.

The Rose of Celdon was passed on in that family through the centuries, becoming a heirloom wedding ring. To find out the ring's true identity, you had to give it to Harlune the Misanthrope - who I invented for Witch Cave, but didn't make it into the game until later. Pretty much the same path as what made it in game, but they made everything a lot clearer in their implementation.

My plan was that Harlune would start you on a chain of quests taking you hither and yon across Dereth, leveling up the number and power of spells on the ring while you dug up its lost history. My vague goal was to keep adding new quests as time went on, as quest ideas occurred to me, and the power level of players grew. I had a vague idea that it should be an heirloom players could carry throughout their career, that would grow with them.

I was terribly fond of this kind of obscure "traveler" quest in 1999. You find an item, you read a seemingly unrelated piece of lore / NPC dialogue and (theoretically) realize what the item's for, then go on a long walk to execute on it. (In beta, MS' QA department referred to AC as "Microsoft Jogging Simulator.") Mount Lethe was another relic of that period.

The only other thing worth noting is that Witch Cave was the first place I suggested the use of translator NPCs at the racial libraries. It made no sense to me that everyone would know these ancient languages, so I thought a "bonus quest" to translate obscure lore at the capital city libraries would be interesting for people who wanted to know the full story. That's a bit of design that probably wouldn't fly these days.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 28: Viamontians and Rennaj

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: When Asheron’s Call was first released, there were 3 playable human heritage groups - Aluvian, Gharu’ndim, and Sho. During the development of the game, however, there were plans for more. A map from Beta has a region labeled “Viamont,” and another race called Rennaj were also mentioned. Do you recall any details about the Rennaj, the Viamontians as they were planned during beta, or any other races that ultimately were never implemented?

A: I don't recall anything at all about Rennaj. I'm not even sure I've that name before now. But bear in mind, when I came in AC had already been in development for many years. There were a lot of early ideas that got tossed as the game's vision was refined. To me, that design looks Yalaini Empyrean - a blend of Neydisa Castle up top with the floating Sentinel Spire below.

The Viamontians ("Viamonters" in the early docs) were always solidly based on Venice. They had been a small merchant realm with lethal internal politics, whose fleet and wealth gave them power out of proportion to their size. I suspect they were cut originally because the Aluvians were a more classical fantasy take on Europe, and how many do you need in one game?

I do recall, because it was so unusual, that Viamontian troops had firearms. There's a painting that's been in the game since ship that shows Viamontian arquebusiers/musketeers in their invasion of Aluvia:



I alluded to those weapons a few times in things I wrote, but as with the Virindi, I described them using magical language. Because they sounded like thunder and threw off clouds of dark smoke, I had the Aluvians refer to them as "storm staves."

The other Ispar nations I remember even less about, and I haven't reread the source material in a dreadfully long time. The Silverans were broadly intended to be "snow elves," sophisticated and rare. The Rouleans were Romans, a militarist empire on their way down. Milantos was supposed to be a dark and gothic realm of blood magic. Maybe the intent for them was something like Tevinter in Dragon Age? The last I recall - barely - is the Souia-Vey. They were a mercenary warrior culture, possibly intended to be Mongol-inspired.

In the early development of AC2, there was serious talk about adding the Zefir as a playable race, since they were unusual and didn't have any lore to speak of.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 29: Inaccessible Islands

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: In the original version of the game, there was a large, inaccessible island on the eastern edge of the map, beyond Asheron's Isle. During the first year or so of the game, a frozen wasteland island was also added to the north of Dereth, but was never fully implemented and was later removed. What was planned for these islands?

A: They were test areas to refine landscape art. We didn't have a separate branch for testing, so experiments with landscaping had to be done someplace remote on the live world map, that people couldn't walk to.

When we started considering land additions for expansion content, the art department pitched three biome-centered experiments in landscape design. The first was "volcanic island," which became Aerlinthe, the second was "jungle island," which became Vesayen, and the last was ice island.

We decided to pursue volcanic first, then jungle, and ice ended up set aside in favor of other content. Its art was never sufficiently refined to be playable. People who managed to reach it noted that even without spawns, they suffered serious graphics lag. I imagine some of the work for it ended up being used for Halaetan.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 30: Wisps and Zefir

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: Wisps and Zefirs are two types of creatures that have been in the game since the beginning, but have never had any backstory. Was there ever any lore written for them?

A: None that I recall. I tended to treat wisps as naturally occurring "energy golems." The zefir were briefly considered as a player race in AC2. I think that was Chris Foster's idea, but it's possible he was just the one who told me about it. That idea got binned before any significant work went into developing them. The zefir in AC1 would have been considered juveniles, and the playable versions roughly the same size as humans. They would have focused on magic and mobility, and filled an "elf" role in opposition to the "dwarven" Lugians.

I don't remember this piece specifically, but it appears to be a concept for the playable AC2 zefir by Cyril van der Haegen:



I imagined zefir would live on levitating islands called "aeries," the largest of which was "Gaeaviel."

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 31: Ben Ten

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: Ben Ten was a hero of the Sho in their early days on Dereth. In The Story of Ben Ten and Yanshi, it is rumored that Ben Ten may be the legendary Sho folk hero Koji from Ispar, but her true identity was a mystery. Later in AC, Ben Ten and Harlune worked together to form the Celestial Hand, an alliance between the Isparians and few remaining Empyreans on Dereth. While you at Turbine, was Ben Ten’s identity decided? Was she actually Koji? Was Koji actually an Empyrean?

A: Ben Ten was Eri Izawa's character well before I was hired, and she always intended her to be Koji. During the "Fiery End of Beta" event, Eri wandered the world as +Ben Ten carrying an admin-edited tachi she named "Koji's Sword." I don't know if anyone noticed.

Koji was an Isparian when I was there. If that later changed, I imagine it was because Koji was a Harlune-like case of a human living abnormally long with no real explanation. In those pre-Live years, there was a vague assumption that Isparians could occasionally gain mastery over death through life magic or philosophical discipline. We moved away from that idea later.

I got the idea for Harlune being Empyrean from fan discussions on the Crossroads of Dereth lore forum. They came up with a great explanation for his lifespan discrepancy, so I used it.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 32: Geraine's Fate

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: What happened to Geraine at the end of his story arc?

A: I'd left long before that. I can't guess what the AC2 team intended. :)

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 33: Identity of the Imperator

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: Who/what was the Imperator, the leader of the Virindi kingdom? Was it supposed to be a known Virindi from AC1’s lore, or was it a new character?

A: When I left in 2002, it hadn't been decided.

It's important to understand the difference in content processes between the two games. AC1's story was built from the bottom up, haphazardly. Though there was a background to inspire and pull details from, it existed as documents on a server, divorced from the design of gameplay systems. In practice individual content developers added small details that eventually piled up into the greater whole.

There's no particular lore to the original magic system of reagents, for example. It was just an interesting mechanic. Likewise there was no overarching plan to AC1's pre-launch content design. When people had spare time they'd crack open the worldbuilding tools, pick a spot on the landscape or an empty dungeon template, and slap things together to see what worked - what looked interesting.

AC2's story was built top-down, with structural goals and content approaches determined at an extremely high level of the company, and lore rationalizations left for content developers to work out later -- which is the way it normally works in game development. AC1 was made by a startup full of recent college grads shipping their first game and playing it by ear in every imaginable way.

There was a desire to make the story of AC2 more intuitive and understandable. AC1's lore was and is convoluted, bizarre, full of greeble-y details, and often deliberately built at a tangent to conventional fantasy tropes.

If I had the skills I do now, I could have boiled AC1's story down to digestible trope-spaces. Fourteen years ago I thought nearly every detail was important, so when someone asked me, "what's the story?" I'd vomit up a wall of text and made-up names, and they'd walk away shaking their head.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile

Question 34: The Spawn

September, 2016 - [No Link]

Q: What were the Spawn, and how did they relate to the Old Ones/Slithis of AC1?

A: You'd have to ask a member of the AC2 team to know for sure. I can only offer my post-fact interpretation.

As with the greater story goals, creation of creatures in AC2 often came down to, "That's the most interesting-looking concept we have. Make up a story for it." Which is great! That's how all the monsters from AC1 were designed. You can get great results when you let artists explore on their own. I remember in particular the wonderfully bizarre creations of Sonny Liew, who's since made a career in comics. I was fascinated by his revolting mucor.

An infinite amount of weirdness could be swept under the rug of the Fifth Sending between the two AC games. The spawn was a design that looked good, and might have got in on that alone. Are they Slithis? Sure, why not? They look about right. Say they're very young ones (those things had lifespans measured in tens of thousands of years), mutated by exposure to the reality-warping powers of the Nameless, like everything else not locked in the shelters by Asheron.

Chris "Stormwaltz" L'Etoile