Embers of Rage Lore - Discussion, questions, etc.

[twas Brillig]

Thanks. I knew it was a w word, but...yeah.

I could swear they were created by the Sher'tul, and the reason the gods hated them was because the gods were kind of dickish progenitors who harshly criticized everything the Sher'tul created. But you're right that they were calling the Sher'tul their brothers, and not their parents, so I have no idea. They mention that last part of themselves was spread throughout the stars, and was returning, I kind of assumed that was related to the stars growing brighter.

[Ravenholme]

Thanks. I knew it was a w word, but...yeah.

I could swear they were created by the Sher'tul, and the reason the gods hated them was because the gods were kind of dickish progenitors who harshly criticized everything the Sher'tul created. But you're right that they were calling the Sher'tul their brothers, and not their parents, so I have no idea. They mention that last part of themselves was spread throughout the stars, and was returning, I kind of assumed that was related to the stars growing brighter.

Specifically, the last part of themselves they spread across the stars was their knowledge, and they said that they had put it in enough places that enough would filter back to them in time for their rebirth.

I have to wonder if the Mal'Rokka are bringing parts of it with them.

[cybaster]

It might be entertaining to play through the majority of the campaign that I skipped with that mysterious Amulet of Gardanion equipped, though I get the feeling that the "Read and Speak Sher'Tul" property is just there to torture us.

It is not

Oh, man. Time to get cracking, I guess. That's irresistible encouragement.

Oh wow, nice work! Guess I've got some writing to do

I'm looking forward to it, with a due sense of horror at having to pull this off again to read it.

The no-elf kill, no-bridge-cross win would make for a pretty cool achievement, now that I think about it.

[cybaster]

Well, I completed the rest of the game, as far as I could tell. I could find nothing at all after equipping Gardanion and going through all the areas I skipped. The Weissi psy-machine quest and all of its dialogue, including the tablet, was identical after turning in four yeti parts.

The only other things I have to report are sequence-break related (bugs?) - after completing all of the content across the bridge, the steam vent quest activated normally, and I could break the steam pipes (again??? - memory is a little fuzzy). I also had the quest to clear the palace and the council - but there was still no council to kill.

Two things I can think of that I have NOT tried are:
refusing the Weissi psymachine's quest outright with Gardanion equipped, and
trying to vault a pristine (never been equipped) Gardanion.

The latter would be pretty easy for anyone to do normally, and the former could be done simply by avoiding the Weissi ruins until you had Gardanion equipped. Try it out and let us know!

Related, uh, Grey - you tell us the amulet isn't just to torture us with a useless property. I'm not interested in asking what it does, exactly, but would you happen to know if it's something it can do now, or if it's going to do something in the future, i.e., updates or expansions? It would be a poor thing if we were chasing unimplemented content.

[Grey]

Related, uh, Grey - you tell us the amulet isn't just to torture us with a useless property. I'm not interested in asking what it does, exactly, but would you happen to know if it's something it can do now, or if it's going to do something in the future, i.e., updates or expansions? It would be a poor thing if we were chasing unimplemented content.

Oh, I was mostly teasing, and referring to the fact that in the main game the ability to speak Sher'Tul has one application. There's been discussion of potential other applications. Not sure if anything specific is currently implemented.

[Hogulus]

The Sher'Tul translation effect has no use within Embers at this time. The Loyalist's notes were planned to be written in that language, but a: he probably would've written them in some magically-translatable text so all could hear his praises to Amakthel, b: he considers Sher'Tul in general to have been a prideful, treacherous mistake, and might consider it sacrilege to write in their chosen language, and c: that'd deprive me of the chance to make the Slumbering Caves lore into the climactic build-up that it is.

[cybaster]

Thanks for the info! I'll find other ways to amuse myself.

[Ramidel]

Are the Atmos Tribe supposed to be a satire of modern America, or am I reading way too much into it?

[Hogulus]

Eh... I had two goals with the Atmos Tribe, one being showing that they were once a great and noble people, but have since declined so far that their society's demise feels more like a mercy kill than a great tragedy; the main inspiration for that aspect was the difference between what people think Ancient Greece was like (noble, wise paragons of civilization) and what it was actually like (bickering petty classist politicians that made ours look positively philosophical). The other goal was to make them foils for the Kruk Orcs, by way of being their opposites in some ways (driven by frivolity vs. identified by necessity, forced into a corner by avoiding conflict and eventually victorious due to a respected and capable leader vs. picked a fight purely out of convenience and got their asses handed to them due to a Council with no clue what it was getting into, reclusive and cautious vs. bold and instinct-driven, pompous and artistic vs. gritty and practical...) and similar to them in others (resourceful and clever, love of competition and testing one's skills, leadership rife with power struggles but with a system that theoretically lets them be led by the most capable individual(s), a macho streak leading to berserker-like bravado and a deep love of explosions and the elaborate death-machines that make them(DESTRUCTICUS, IMPOLITE PENETRATOR OF THE SKY might be the orkiest thing in ToME), being utter terrors on the environment in their respective ways).

The resulting society has some of the same strengths and flaws as the modern USA, but that was mostly by accident - the only part where I actually had US politics in mind was Tantalos' method of taking power, promising a quick and easy solution to a serious problem that wouldn't require the populace to have any personal responsibility or sacrifices involved in fixing it, whilst gaming the system by turning a respectable competition into a cheap slug-fest (i.e. pretty much what's happened to debates since the League of Women Voters stopped running them). None of that's unique to the USA, though, or even to this era. I feel I should make special mention, given how many comments I get about it, that Councilor Tantalos was in no way inspired by Trump (although I'll still giggle every time I hear "Make Var'Eyal great again!").

That said, even though it wasn't my intention, the Atmos do seem to work pretty well as satire, at least in some ways. Maybe it was some subconscious influence on my depiction of them? Feel free to take it as one - death of the author and all that.

[Mephisto]

Did you ever write an alternate ending text hogulus?

I really want to get Embers of Rage, but I dont really like having to kill all the humans and elves...

Its okay though, but i really dont like idea of killing the people of gates of morning, since i work so hard to help them in regular TOME.

Is there alternate ending text? Is there a way to beat this expansion without killing to many elf/humans, and def not killing Aeryn or Gates of Morning?


Plz make this happen I want to buy this expansion and beat it without killing too many of them even if it is hard.


Bring peace to the orcs and humans even? It feels really wrong to me destroying everything I helped create in regular TOME.
Is there really a way to beat the Embers campaign without fighting the Sunwall faction?

plz Darkgod spare the gates of morning

[HousePet]

What makes you think it isn't possible?

[emblempride]

What makes you think it isn't possible?

In his post, he specifically asked if Hogulus wrote alternate ending text because Hogulus had said in this thread that HE didn't even know this was possible. Gameplay wise, yeah, you don't have to. It's also a bit tricky to pull off. But I'm pretty sure it has more to do with the lore stating that the Atmos freak out after the assault on the Gates of Morning and skipping that leaves a hole in the plot. I don't mind it, just clarifying

[HousePet]

I'm reasonably certain it can be done and there might be alternative text there already.

[Hogulus]

The actual lore changes are pretty tiny - really, all that needs to change is that the Council panics because you're already at their gates rather than because the Gates of Morning fell, and a couple of things about the ending text need to change - but I have a couple of interesting mechanical changes to suggest alongside it to DG, who I haven't seen online recently. (As one example: since Kasyros didn't have time to hijack the Atmos' largest airship, the military's using it to bomb you in the Steam Quarry.)

[grobblewobble]

I can't help but wonder what a living Weissi would look like.