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Legion of the Fallen
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The Warband covers the lore of the Legion of the Fallen!
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https://malediction.gg/story/avakras-dusk/
https://malediction.gg/story/oerikan/
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Transcript
Intro
00:00:08
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome back to episode eight of our into the malediction podcast. I am Garrett also known as Admiral Tater joined by my cohost Alan and Nick.
00:00:23
Speaker
Howdy everybody. It's Alan. And this is Nick Fetty 315 in the discord. And today, we're going to tackle the Legion of the Fallen.
00:00:35
Speaker
So this is going lore-heavy episode. And we are, again, graced with another awesome short story provided to us by the Lore Masters over at Loot Studios.
00:00:48
Speaker
Today's episode. article i'll cover it and this can be accessed through don't know if it's on the newsletter yet it should be by the time this podcast is out but it's also in the announcements on discord the malediction discord and today's title is avacra's dusk uh by chiago bonifacio i think i got that right this time uh so another another wonderful author we have right in these for us uh this one's really good it's uh i know we're talking about the legion but this one is about the primal
00:01:21
Speaker
primal blood and it's about ingor and it starts with a super cool quote um i don't want to say it's grim dark but it's pretty grim dark uh and it it goes the takra of spirit teaches that warana is avakra's final gift to us but i see it differently what lies rooted in avakra's dusk is less of a tree and more of a towering lesson one that should be carried with us to the darkest corners of the world.
00:01:48
Speaker
It says, you will be betrayed, you will be punished for the crimes of others, and you will fall. Yet, you will endure. Endure and blossom into something greater.
00:02:00
Speaker
And that quote is supposed to come from Ingor, our
00:02:05
Speaker
Legion and Primal split seeker. I love that. Anyways, the story goes on, and it expands the Primal's lore even more. And it starts off by talking about, uh, the heart of Avakra, uh, still beating. And I love this visceral image of this heart from Avakra still like just, just pumping, uh, like magical blood, ay inside the giant that it's ah placed in and the tree comes out and it's, you know, this there's shamans harvesting red sap and this fruit, the fruit, uh, the, the warana, um,
00:02:43
Speaker
And it mentions a battle against this giant. I don't know if you guys remember. i I guess I forgot this maybe when we did this. I forgot that Akna and the Orokin, when they left Olim and went to the Paxos to bury the heart or whatever, ah they had to actually kill the giant.
00:03:03
Speaker
I completely forgot about that. That's another really cool detail. And it says the giant was under control of the enemies. And so I guess this giant was under the control of the Triumvirate. which is really interesting, and they killed it.
00:03:17
Speaker
And then the idea was that they buried the heart that Ivakra herself would be reborn, but instead the tree um comes out. right and and then it goes on to talk about ah this warana fruit and it's like if it's a physical fruit that comes off the tree i i like to imagine like a pomegranate because it's like red and gross but and then it said it is deadly poisonous to those who are not anointed i remember we talked about how you know once you become like a shaman or whatever and that you don't go the way the warrior and they you go the way the the shaman and
00:03:54
Speaker
If you aren't one of those and you touch this, at you'd like die immediately or something horrible happens to you. um And then another interesting detail talks about is the shamans are taking the warana and planting it in the Paxos forest and beyond.
00:04:13
Speaker
i Now they don't always take root, but sometimes they do grow and these grow into lesser shrines, lesser tree shrines. And it said that the shamans mix the sap of these tree shines with the blood of the enemies, their own shaman blood, and the soil, which is the flesh of Ymir, to create the foric primordial clay that makes weapons and armor specifically.
00:04:35
Speaker
ah So it's like this... this tree can't create like the abominations we see in the paxos it only take weapons and armor um really cool and then then the article ends with a really cool drawing of the actual fruit i'm assuming it it has to be um so that was that was a really good story think actually my favorite so far i just like the idea of of these like outpost trees where they can like re-arm uh their war bands so that was that was really cool but anyways uh would you guys do you guys have any thoughts on that before we continue on
00:05:11
Speaker
I mean, for me, it reinforces for me the, mean, Shaman's a good title, but I'm going to with Blood Druid. Yeah, I like that. That seems a lot more accurate to what they do.
00:05:24
Speaker
Yeah, it um it really helps establish too that like, because it's, you know, when we cover the Primal Blood and you have like Avakar's Dusk and you have the tree and when you have everything has to come from the sap, everything has to come from the tree, then it's like you constantly have to have your warbands like coming back all the way to Paxos every time, you know, that's the only place they can refresh. ah Having the lesser shrines out helps really establish the Primal Blood is like a very nomadic, very like um diaspoag like um ah diaspora, where they just, they just go out. Like these kits can leave, they can travel and they can find like,
00:06:00
Speaker
root somewhere else in the world that they can still connect with their goddess. And I really like that they, no matter where they go, if they bring these seeds and they are they able to establish like a lesser shrine, like they're always in connection with their goddess.
00:06:15
Speaker
Yeah. I think it ties in and we'll, we'll talk about the legions and limits today, but like with the conclave, they're limited to Leigh-Eystrom is like a physical finite resource. So they have to go back home to get it or it has to be brought to them.
00:06:30
Speaker
The primal are limited to having to get these shrines to get their armament and all that kind of stuff. The Legion has their own limitation. I don't remember a limitation on the order's magic.
00:06:42
Speaker
What's there? It's a soul bank. Soul bank. Yeah, they got to fill up. Yeah, but there's no range on the soul bank that we're aware of. Like, if they want to go to another continent, as long as the bank has rank, they're good to go. Where else everyone else can't necessarily do that.
00:07:00
Speaker
Yeah, somehow the this the soul magic is able to be transferred through the priests. Yeah. Yeah. I really want to see more into, I want to get more into that, especially as we see more order.
00:07:14
Speaker
Um, you know, we see future cards and and seekers come out. I want to see more about like the religious side of the order. Yes. what I'd be interested to see if they have some of the darker sides where, yeah, you're going to get more power from someone that's, you know, fanatical about the order, but do they have spells or abilities that allow them to sap or steal someone's soul?
00:07:37
Speaker
Even if it's a weaker, like it provides them less fuel. Can they just steal an entire free towns souls? That'd be interesting. I mean, it would definitely into their mantra.
00:07:49
Speaker
I think we're definitely going to get that right with the... Because the last last episode, we talked about the spoilers for the expansion, and it'll be all about priests. And so I think we're going to get that for the Order.
00:08:01
Speaker
Yeah, hopefully. Now, going forward, the rest of the episode here will be about the Legion of the Fallen. And I really enjoyed researching this one this time. i and We were talking before we started that now that we've covered like all four of them,
00:08:18
Speaker
the context for the world is much more clear now. um Because, you know, we've we've read it, we've read it again, but it now that we've, like, i guess percolated on all these ideas a lot more, I just have much more to say about the other factions than when we first did them.
00:08:32
Speaker
So we might revisit things in the future as we've just discovered more connections and learned. But we're going to have Nick start off here with our introduction to the Legion.
00:08:45
Speaker
Yeah, certainly. Yeah. So I'm, I'm excited for this one. The more I've read, the more, i think the Legion is probably my favorite faction in lore. So let's just get started with, with the, or the history of the Legion. So ah first off, everything about the history of the Legion, the fallen is just steeped in tragedy.
00:09:06
Speaker
And yes, you can kind of say that about every faction. um Nobody really has had like a great time in Slejia since the fall. ah But the Legion, I think especially, have have a very tragic root.
00:09:21
Speaker
So we start with one of the Everlasting, Batan Ravalum. No idea if we're saying that correctly, but that's how we're just going to go with it. Sounds good. ah She basically, after the after the Wounding, the Great Wounding, after the, or I guess maybe kind of before, or maybe at the start of the Everlasting War,
00:09:43
Speaker
um she basically came to her people and instead of living like demigod, like the triumvirate, she came down and chose to like live amongst her people and her followers.
00:09:55
Speaker
And they built a city in Belios and they put everything into it too together. um She, you know, she didn't see herself as any, even though she was an everlasting, her,
00:10:09
Speaker
ideology, it was really a lot more grounded in the fact that like all the people here are just trying to, to live. And now that the curse of death is upon the land, like everybody is trying to find a way to overcome it and go back to how it used to be before the wounding.
00:10:24
Speaker
And so they put all this magic into the city, Abisola, and literally take it off the ground. They have a flying city over the land. And they want, you know, everybody's working together, magic and scholars and everybody, to try to find a way to end the curse of death so that all of the now mortal denizens of the world could be free from that mortality.
00:10:50
Speaker
So immediately the triumvirate is opposed to this because they are ruling... the largest you know population center, they're overlooking the thorn of Olum and they see themselves as gods. you know they The Triumvirate, the Everlasting are meant to be the rulers of the world, unopposed, with no equals.
00:11:09
Speaker
And so they immediately are just like, no, you can't, like we're not working towards some like ending the curse of death. The mortals are here to worship us, serve us, and we are their shepherds and not not their equals.
00:11:25
Speaker
So we don't know how they do it, which I really want to see. I wanna to guess i want to get a lore article on this specifically. ah But we're told that around 700 years before the fall, ah the Triumvirate cast down the flying city of Abisola and every everyone except for B'Tan Ravalum and her three children are killed in the incident.
00:11:48
Speaker
Now this includes ah B'Tan Ravalum's consort, She took a human, like, mortal lover and kind of made him, i don't know if they had a queen or king situation at the time, but he was her consort and father of her children, Carrick.
00:12:08
Speaker
Yeah, Carrick. Yep. So in the ruins of the of the of the now broken city, um you know, she's cradling his body.
00:12:20
Speaker
And she cries out. she makes She takes him, his body, and makes him into a legacy. They call the scepter. And that so that she can always have him with her.
00:12:32
Speaker
um And this is the first time we see what we're going to call it. So it's the Anishvah as the magic that separates kind of the veil between life and death. This is the magic that the Legion uses to raise the dead, and we'll get into a little bit more of that later, but this is the first use of it in history.
00:12:52
Speaker
She uses the Anishfah, and she raises all of the dead of Abisola into just one massive city of fallen. And yeah, and then this is what like, this is what sparks the actual war, like this is the last straw.
00:13:09
Speaker
They raise all these dead. And then everyone's like, you know what, let's unite essentially and let's go after these the Triumvirate, the criminals, basically, right? The evil empire.
00:13:25
Speaker
Yeah, there was, because this is, you know, this is before there are factions, you know, like, if in a way, the Legion of the Fallen is like kind of the first faction that we know of today. um to like exist because like the triumvirate, like the order of the shattered throne didn't really exist. It was just the triumvirate.
00:13:40
Speaker
Um, the conclave didn't, we don't know the timing on that. We could probably look at the timeline and see exactly when. may Yeah. It's just, he, it's like, he, he doesn't, um, die until into the war, right? Like way later. Yeah. Cause the war happens for years. Right. Cause it's like a 700 year war essentially.
00:13:58
Speaker
um And he dies like 150 years into it. And the Conclave is not really involved. It's really, we don't really know. i mean, I would guess that Abysola makes up a huge bulk of the army that's actually besieging Ostroth.
00:14:15
Speaker
Yeah, I would imagine. Um, there, you know, maybe we'll get more, like, there was larger, like, nation states that existed, like, the free cities came together. Um, because, yeah, like, looking at the timeline, like, the fall of Abisola and the start of the war is the same year. Like, it's around the same time.
00:14:31
Speaker
all Right. Everything before this, which is kind of, like, everlasting kind of infighting, um, because, again, Avakar was murdered a couple hundred years before this. Um, they had already built the wall of Galdron around, you know, um,
00:14:45
Speaker
Yep, they've got the enslaved Orican inside the wall. So yeah, I guess like the the future residents of the Legion are are a huge bulk of the the army.
00:14:58
Speaker
dead and Dead and alive. so Yeah. So this kicks off the Everlasting War. ah And now we have you know our first like really big schism with the Legion.
00:15:10
Speaker
Now, so Tan Ravalum super pissed off right she's leading this war however the further she tries to push into the center of the continent like weaker the magic gets um she's not able to like wield everything herself against the triumvirate she's just which in fact even if you just put it out she's one against three on the everlasting side and so instead of
00:15:38
Speaker
spending herself trying to like wage this war, she binds her own soul to it and creates a vestige. And it's be called the Amatrix. And this is going to sit at the heart of the Legion of Fallen's um hierarchy. The Amatrix and the Scepter combined to form a pair of artifacts that will in the future continue to lead the Legion in her initial vision.
00:16:06
Speaker
And that was, the you know, that initial vision of, bringing about the end of the curse of death.
00:16:13
Speaker
Yes. um So yeah, so so now we've got like two really important pieces here. We've got the Scepter, we've got the Amatrix. And the Amatrix really limits the reach of the Legion itself, but it's definitely far enough to reach, obviously, um the the walls and the city.
00:16:34
Speaker
So as we know, everything goes down, the siege is successful, the fall happens uh we enter the age of strife and then the legion exists in this state uh that it's left in basically uh they rebuild on the the the ruins of the city that fell from the sky right and A bunch of other cities are built in this area and they continue to operate with their undead society and living because there's both. It mentions, you know, the workforce is mostly undead, like tilling fields. So like they're growing food for the noble class and probably other people because like you have to keep creating corpses to keep this engine running. So like living people have to be alive to be able to die.
00:17:25
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And so for roughly, after, um, the age of strife, which is like 500 years, right. Uh, the malediction, uh, and seekers stuff starts to, to happen.
00:17:40
Speaker
Um, and there's not a whole lot about the Legion in this time period. Uh, I'm sure they did have people who went into them cause they did have a gate, the spirit gate. Uh, but for a thousand years, um, not a lot happens until,
00:17:57
Speaker
ah we get to what we're gonna call the modern rise of present day Legion. And Alan, we're throwing it to you, here we go.
00:18:08
Speaker
What happened? Yeah, so it is Legion in their current form because, We know between now and when she sacrificed herself that her her children fought amongst themselves for control.
00:18:23
Speaker
But current Legion is, you you know, reunified and about 200 years prior to our current, where the game stands today, there was an event called the Luminous Crusade, which the results of that war is, you know, put the current Legion on the map.
00:18:43
Speaker
What happened was the the Order, being the Order, wanted to dominate all of the free cities. They couldn't stand people not being in the rule, also because you know they need souls.
00:18:58
Speaker
So they used the assassination of one of their priests who was out preaching, trying to convert people in Veloma. The priest was assassinated. The Order blamed the Legion for it to try and you know make them the bad guys.
00:19:13
Speaker
And then they went on their own crusade and they were gonna punish Veloma for allowing the Legion to assassinate their priests. So they besieged Veloma.
00:19:25
Speaker
The Legion, know not really needing souls, but needing bodies. They, Vordenhall particularly, went to the queen and said he could win the war and proceeded to do so.
00:19:38
Speaker
He broke the siege, defeated the order and sent them running. and in doing so became the the second in command. But the Veloma is a as far as we know, it's the largest of the free cities.
00:19:56
Speaker
So the amount of souls that they could have gathered or the soul will or what what's it called, the ah both bound light, had they controlled Veloma would have been much greater than it is now.
00:20:10
Speaker
So they could have potentially started to crusade in other parts of the land that they might not otherwise have access to. And it would have given them a second gate. They would have been able to block everyone that's not themselves or the other three factions from going into the malediction.
00:20:25
Speaker
because the Triumphant Gate, the one that's controlled by Veloma, is the only neutral gate. you if If you have the coin, you can pay them to go in. So it have been a a very strategic thing for the Order to conquer. So Vordenhall went in and stopped them.
00:20:42
Speaker
And we can only assume that the Free Cities kind of view the Legion the legion in a much ah softer light now, because the Legion could have taken the city. but they didn't. They repelled the order and then they retreated back to their own domain.
00:21:02
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I wonder how much that is influenced by the, the the distance. Cause we're kind we're going to talk about it a little bit more too, but um the further you get from the Amatrix, the weaker the necromancy with the Anishvah,
00:21:15
Speaker
will be. So I wonder if the Legion just sees it as not worth trying to hold Veloma when they know they can't use their magic as effectively. Yeah, although it was interesting that Ferrandil was able to raise as many corpses as he was. and i wonder yeah i wonder if that's a he I wonder if he raised them before he got there while he was still in range. Well, it was him raising well Yeah, we'll talk about it when you're just... Yeah.
00:21:41
Speaker
Okay, sorry. I'll just say, we go into detail on that. in his backstory we do because he's he's much less uh necromancer than he is warrior i mean he's he's still a necromancer because most of the people there are but uh i don't think he depends on the uh the magic as much as some of the other people do i think i think it's his legacy i think his legacy gives him something um but we again we don't know exactly how it works right Now the big thing here was this was the moment that the Order of the Shattered Throne overreached. You know, i my my personal belief, theory, is that they did the assassination themselves all in a way to provoke this crusade.
00:22:26
Speaker
Because the the population in the Order, they... the soul oath bound light is more powerful when it's powered by like actual believing martyrs so this assassination happens they blame the legion this creates a bunch of propaganda back uh at home and then ah a bunch of people like willingly martyr themselves, potentially, powering the Oathband Light.
00:22:57
Speaker
This huge crusade goes there. And obviously the actual goal of the Order is to conquer that area, like Alan was talking about, take Veloma. But the fact that the Legion um was able to repel this huge ah conquest um sets the more of a ah Cold War situation between the Order and the Legion, where the Order can't advance into the Free Cities, or they'll have to fight the Legion.
00:23:26
Speaker
And so it leaves a bunch of these Free Cities free, essentially. right so And it sets a stage where um you know the Order is probably buying weapons from the Conclave, and maybe the Legion is too.
00:23:42
Speaker
Slowly, you know they both have to keep large armies to combat the situation between themselves, but also to fight off the raiding primal bloods, right?
00:23:53
Speaker
So that happens. um The next thing we're gonna talk about is ah the actual like countryside of the Legion, the lands of the Legion.
00:24:05
Speaker
ah So the Legion is on the eastern part of Silesia. And we were talking about this little bit. We were looking at the map, and one of the artworks has Abasola, and it looks like it's covered in ice and snow. And so we were looking at map, and we're like, okay, maybe we're on the southern hemisphere of the planet or in the northern hemisphere, and the artwork is just that area. But maybe we are in the southern hemisphere because the map is orientated north, south, east, west.
00:24:37
Speaker
And it's like maybe they're at that you know the Argentina-type bottom of the world and because there's also a city think it's called Frosthaven or something it's owned by the conclave down there so I think that was really interesting and I didn't think about it being so cold and icy there but maybe they have a you know seasons like we do but um anyways
00:25:02
Speaker
the capital Evisola is centrally located in what's called Aferdis and that's in
00:25:11
Speaker
It's like, i'll I'll call it like a a ah state of Belios. And they also control the Spirit Gate that we mentioned earlier. That's on the southeastern point of the Malediction Circle.
00:25:23
Speaker
And then to the west of Abysola, and this is like west, so it's sandwiched between the Malediction itself, and Abysola is what's called the Umberlands.
00:25:37
Speaker
And this is really important area in Legion, Lots of war happens here, but it's this it's a flat, plain area. I kind of like to imagine it if you guys, obviously you've probably seen Lord of the Rings, but the the marshes or um the battlefield, it's the name escapes me right now. But anyway, it's like when...
00:25:57
Speaker
when Sam or ah Frodo looks down and he sees the dead like the dead marches. Yeah, that 100% what this reminds me of. Yeah. It's got wandering souls. And because they're so close to Abysola and the Ametrix, these souls can exist and are powerful and can hurt people who go through this area.
00:26:16
Speaker
And this is also where the Countess Morita Umberlin lives. Funny enough, with her name, and is surrounded by all these souls where she likes to be and then still looking at the map especially if somebody's following along with the war primer it's a really good really good idea i love this map the south is what's called the ash roots and i don't i think this is like a mixed control area there's primal blood cities or don't know we can call cities probably like uh like tribal camps or something. Stomping grounds. Yeah.
00:26:49
Speaker
And what we just learned from today's short story, I'm sure they've tried to plant those Warana trees everywhere, right? The tree shrines?
00:27:00
Speaker
That's probably where they they take hold. I mean, they they're going to build around them. Right. So there's definitely some stuff down there. So that's a dangerous area. And I'm sure that's a really good place. The Legion actually probably harvests dead um primal souls too right because they're always looking for corpses and then now now another now this is probably the most interesting piece of the legion map so to the east of abisola and this is along the coast of the continent itself is what's called the whispering peaks and this is a mountain range and it has two super important cities uh the first one is the epitaph now the epitaph
00:27:43
Speaker
is what is called the library of corpses. And so a couple of things happen, I'm sure we'll talk about this a little bit more, but maybe not, is when somebody dies in the Legion, ah there's three things that can happen to you.
00:27:56
Speaker
The first thing that can happen is if you're just a standard soldier, let's say, just an average peasant, standard soldier, you are reanimated and are put to work either in the army or as a worker.
00:28:14
Speaker
However, if you're like, let's say, an educated teacher that dies, you have valuable wisdom and knowledge. And so you are sent to Epitaph. And this is the library of corpses. And this is where probably the most extensive knowledge base in Silesia exists.
00:28:33
Speaker
And it's because like you can talk to people who were there 3,000 years ago, like Elrond says, right? ah And so, and interestingly enough, in the lore primer, there's a quote from one of these corpses in this library that talks about being at the fall.
00:28:52
Speaker
And so he was at the battle, he was at the siege when everything goes down and like the maleditions created. And so he had a firsthand account and it's one of the only firsthand accounts available in the in the in the continent period.
00:29:06
Speaker
So I thought that was really cool. And it's really the university of... the legion this is where they send everybody to learn everything because you can learn everything from people who have been uh there for some of them uh more than a thousand years right and then and this is also where the countess uh goes and learns uh and learns about her uh her abilities we'll talk about that when we go over her as a seeker And then another interesting part about epitaph is it's, it's situated either at the base of the mountain or in the mountains, it's hard to tell, but there is a, a river that flows out of it It's called the oblivion.
00:29:45
Speaker
Uh, and it flows from, ah epitaph and it flows all the way into what's called the Bay of tears. And there is a, a little lore snippet that says those who are soaked in its waters return changed. Like their memory is washed away.
00:29:59
Speaker
And I really thought about that for a while. I wasn't hundred percent sure what that meant. Um, Like, it sounds like if your memory is washed away, it it's not very it's not very useful. ah So i don't i don't i don't know I don't know. It's like, i don't know what you gain from being in it. Maybe like if you have terrible post-traumatic stress or PTSD or something, and go in there like fix yourself in the in the river.
00:30:21
Speaker
um well it's also Any ideas about that? I think I see it more as a punishment, right? because the Legion has demonstrated that even in death, you persist, right? Like your soul can be called back. Your mind can be called back in epitaph. So like, even if you die, your secrets don't die with you.
00:30:41
Speaker
And so like the oblivion is like the only place that you can truly lose like your, yourself and your humanity. like that. I like that. That's beautiful. I love it. Uh, and, and so, okay, so that's epitaph. And then after that, the other, the third thing that can happen, uh,
00:30:57
Speaker
It happens at the necropolis and I think I didn't say the other two, but so you can either be smart, you can be a soldier or, or, uh, you're deemed pretty useless and you're just using spare parts. You don't get to get reanimated. You're just a spare parts boy. Uh, truly the worst fate of all, cause you're not useful.
00:31:14
Speaker
Uh, only your hands and organs are, but anyways, The necropolis, the necropolis, I love this name, is also in the mountains. And this is where they have the corpse vault.
00:31:26
Speaker
And this is, in my mind, where they're storing the armies. um And so it's just a a giant city just filled to the brim with bodies.
00:31:38
Speaker
And so when, you Vrandal or whoever needs soldiers, they fill out a requisition slip to the necropolis and they get delivered a skeleton army or zombies or whatever they're coming out of there.
00:31:52
Speaker
So i think I think that's pretty cool. but So that's the lands. And now we're going to move on to the the social structure and how the politics work. see Before you do that, though, one thing I want to point out is it's a map and it's geographic features.
00:32:10
Speaker
The entire coastline of the area that the Legion controls is nothing but mountains. So they don't necessarily have access to the ocean. They have Velshor, which is on the Bay of Tears.
00:32:24
Speaker
But it's going really hard for them to get into the ocean that's just on the other side of those mountains. uh, doesn't look like they have very many passes through to the other side of the mountains.
00:32:36
Speaker
Yeah. so they're essentially In a corner. Yeah. I would say Vail shore and the Bay of tears that flows into the actual training season, probably their main, whatever, whatever, uh,
00:32:48
Speaker
merchant fleet situation they've got going on happens in the bay of tears just don't get in the water stay in the boat stay boat that's what that's what the dead are for right that's the fallen fallen fishermen fallen sailors yeah but abalosa is at the uh intersection of two of the rivers where they come together and then form one the uh Ravelin's Tears, and then it goes up to the Bay of Tears. So it's situated in a good place. And a lot of it looks like the Faradis and Cravenia look like they're plains.
00:33:28
Speaker
And then the Uberlands looks like it's a swampy type area. So I mean, they're geographically, they appeared to be back into a corner, but they do have what looks to be fairly easy access to agriculture that some of the other people don't have.
00:33:46
Speaker
They do like that corner, though, because it's where the power is. So the big, big corner fans. Yeah, they have a large, ah large amount of territory.
00:33:58
Speaker
We don't really know the extent that the order rules outside of their kind of like circle of cities, but I'd be just kind of like eyeballing it, willing to guess the Legion probably controls a larger straight square mileage.
00:34:15
Speaker
I don't know anything about the Cravenia. like We have the name of that region, but there's nothing there. It's nothing there. Very odd. it's probably I would say that's probably all farmland.
00:34:29
Speaker
Yeah, probably. Because it's all flatland. It's protected by the mountains. So yeah, because they don't really have to deal with like the the order. ah They have the main primal ah ah society directly on their borders.
00:34:47
Speaker
so What a pain. But like, you know, the Legion only has like a what's it called? Yeah. couple small fronds from the Legion on the south Yeah, small fronds.
00:35:01
Speaker
Satellite. Satellite cities. Satellite war bands. That's the word I'm looking for. Yeah, but ThunderSax can show up anywhere. Yeah, he moves, man. He travels.
00:35:11
Speaker
he but He gets around. He gets his steps in. ah But anyways, um on to you, Nick, on this yeah and this complicated social situation that you're going on.
00:35:24
Speaker
Oh, it's not complicated. I'll sum it up for you real quick here, Derek. So we're gonna talk about social hierarchy and the structure Legion the Fallen. Now, we know that in the fall, Talon Ravulum's three children survived.
00:35:39
Speaker
Now, each of those children would grow up and start their own families. And we start we see the um origination of three like royal families. Now, decades and decades go on and these families grow and they each have an equal claim to the throne because they are all direct descendants from Batam Ravalum.
00:36:03
Speaker
So we see a lot of civil war and a lot of infighting within the Legion, especially in the earlier days. until eventually, ah basic we don't have a name, i wish we I wish we had a little bit more of a snippet, but basically one of the descendants comes forward and basically says, hey guys, instead of the three of us fighting, like literally fighting each other to rule, the three of us should step back and appoint a monarch.
00:36:30
Speaker
And then that monarch is consulted by the three of us as a council. And that's where we get the Court of Whispers. So now we have a heart we have a succession, we have a hierarchy.
00:36:43
Speaker
um The ah leaders of each of the noble houses will create this line of succession where everyone who is worthy and and shares in P'tan Ravalum's original vision of ending the curse of death, of that kind of like sense of equality among all the, all the mortals in Silesia.
00:37:03
Speaker
Somebody who's true to that path, they will put place in the line of succession and, Whoever's up first gets to become the queen or or king of the dead.
00:37:15
Speaker
ah Currently, we have a queen of the dead. Now, the monarch, um the way I envision this is the Amatrix is a, you know, this like massive, um almost like throne that they have to rule from.
00:37:32
Speaker
We know that the Amatrix will consume the monarch over time. And so I don't think the monarch has the ability to leave. I think they are kind of trapped on the throne with the scepter and through the vestiges and and the legacy, they are able to give like wisdom beyond, you know, beyond the veil.
00:37:52
Speaker
And so the queen, the monarch of the dead sits on the throne with the scepter and makes the decisions for the Legion guided by the wisdom of Ptan and Carrick souls, you know,
00:38:05
Speaker
through that. Now we still have the three families and they have basically all devolved into their own like personal philosophies. And so we'll talk about those real quick.
00:38:16
Speaker
So the first, the Asghari is the first of these like tenants. ah This is the militaristic arm of the Legion. They manage the military, they manage the expansion and they wage the wars against the other followers of the Everlasting.
00:38:31
Speaker
The Inashir are going to be the necromancers and more of the scholars who have taken up ah taken up the purpose of ending the curse of death and experimenting with the Anishvah and the magic of the Legion.
00:38:47
Speaker
and then the Masarin are going to be the third class. Uh, they're kind of described as being like more virtuous and focused on like self-improvement.
00:38:58
Speaker
And they really kind of described as they are just trying to live, um without getting involved. Um, and so like, you know, i kind of describe it as like, almost like they're looking for the good, not the perfect.
00:39:15
Speaker
Right. Um, There are people who have already accepted like, Hey, we're all, you know, we can't end the curse of death and rather than wait, everybody spend their entire lives like futilely trying, like, let's just take solace in the world around us and pursue our own like crafts and our own like personal purpose.
00:39:36
Speaker
ah So because we have these three family like philosophies, They don't always see eye to eye. And so there's always going sense of infighting and kind of pulling away from one facet or another of Legion culture.
00:39:57
Speaker
ah But yeah, so these are the three different philosophies that guide the court. You have the monarch that sits at the top of it, who is kind of plugged in, right? And over time, they will be consumed.
00:40:09
Speaker
And once that happens, the next in line will become the monarch of the dead. And this kind of long line of people has created a very cutthroat kind of a maybe something will happen to the guy in front of me situation, right?
00:40:24
Speaker
ah that the families can kind of manipulate. And so we do get like, this is where we get like assassinations and, you know, political scandals because, you know, if you're 17th in line, you got to find a way to up that number.
00:40:39
Speaker
Awesome, yeah. Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt taylor you. You're going through it. That was good. um Interestingly enough, talking about succession, they even wanted to have the Countess Morita come in and take over, and she declined.
00:40:54
Speaker
So they do look for people who would potentially be worthy. So I guess that's why the Legion still exists, right, and is a functioning society. So I guess they try and look for at least ah competent potential.
00:41:09
Speaker
So unlike, you know, the Roman an Empire, who just, ah you know, it was whoever the Praetorian Guard chose. so Yeah, but I mean, if you're chosen, you're probably shorting in your own life because you're to consumed. so yeah no matter what, you're pretty screwed.
00:41:31
Speaker
I was going to say, if the Amatrix is a throne that you sit on and you can't get up and it consumes you, hello, 40K. Yeah.
00:41:41
Speaker
Yeah, very Golden Throne-inspired, potentially. I love the idea of it just being like, you know you're just like surrounded by green stuff and surrounded by corpses and just just this weird, awful existence, but yet you still care for... don't know if you it's... just if it's It's kind of a selfless position too. Yeah, it's a sacrifice for for the greater good.
00:42:05
Speaker
Right. So what ah what philosophy, if you're a listener, leave a comment. I'll put a poll on the the thing too. But what philosophy? The Oscarry?
00:42:16
Speaker
Nick, say that Y1. I'm not going to attempt that. Inishir. which yeah Which one of the three would you take part in or be part of?
00:42:30
Speaker
think yeah I think it's really interesting that the Legion's whole like goal at the top, top-down idea is they don't want to be corpse, right? They want to just be immortal.
00:42:45
Speaker
And so they're stuck in this like death cycle of the only way they know how to be immortal is by resurrecting these bodies. um and which kind of sucks because like you're not really immortal you're like in living in the worst way possible you're still alive but it super sucks i don't know because uh warden hall is fallen and i'm pretty sure it doesn't suck for him i mean the the fallen art The fallen themselves aren't like we typically envision like zombies or skellies. There's varying degrees of fallen.
00:43:18
Speaker
Some of them are very, ah very, very human like, like Warden Hall. And then you do of course have your skellies. So it's just going to depend on probably the method in which you were killed. Well, i I think it all depends on whether you have a relic or a legacy powerful enough to stay alive.
00:43:37
Speaker
Yeah, because that's that's what Vorndahl's, you know, his legacy, I think, is a big part of his fallen status. Grease is technically, I think, considered fallen because he's a spirit.
00:43:48
Speaker
But then also that's a legacy that's kind of pulling him. So like. You know, I don't know how many examples we're going to get of, like, Fallen that have, like, a true sentience in that kind of sense. We do get the story, but again, we're going to cover all it later, um where, like, Morita has a conversation with, in Epitaph, with a character that has, like, emotion.
00:44:12
Speaker
So you kind of, that you have to assume that it's not just... um You know, you're not just reading the memories of these like dead minds. You're also getting like their personality.
00:44:23
Speaker
Yeah. The library of corpses is ah yeah it's ah it's full of like the teachers are the corpses. Yeah. So it's just like, theyre to what extent are like, are you preserved as a spirit? And that goes into, you know, our next part, it's Legion of the What, because...
00:44:41
Speaker
there is an entire group an entire industry quote unquote called soul whisperers which are people that barter with the souls of the dead for information so just because you're dead or you died doesn't mean it's the end now what they're bartering with like what the head of a person who has been reanimated to be in the library what they could possibly want or need that these soul whisperers barter with them that's anyone's guess ah but the fact that you still have to barter with them to get information from them is pretty interesting they don't just willingly always willingly give it up they may try to protect their secrets
00:45:24
Speaker
and then that, because the epitaph is, it's essentially your head. It's not your whole body. It's just your head. There is a sect within the Legion called the Silent. They have their tongues removed, so they can't speak, and they are assassins is a good word for it, but they're sent out to claim secrets, and the way they claim secrets is they kill the person bearing the secrets,
00:45:51
Speaker
remove their head from the body, bring the the head back to the epitaph, where people in the epitaph, ah
00:46:01
Speaker
we don't know how that the means, but they force the head, the the previous person, to give up their secrets.
00:46:09
Speaker
thats I love that idea. That is so cool to me. That assassin, like you send an assassin out after like a master... Conclave mage and then all you have to do is all I have to do is get the head and bring it back and you have all of that information
00:46:26
Speaker
Yeah, and yeah there is you know the other fallen are I mean, they they make up the the lower rungs of society. So they are the farmers. They are the construction workers. They are the soldiers. they you know All the hard stuff the fallen do, whereas the the still living within the legion don't have to typically toil. So they're allowed to lounge, leisure.
00:46:53
Speaker
They can study. So they're able to advance. Whereas somewhere in like the order, unless you're powerful, you don't have those luxuries. You are uh, you're the cog in the will. Yep.
00:47:09
Speaker
Yep.
00:47:11
Speaker
All right. And like, how, how do we raise these guys? So we've said this a lot, but the, uh, the magic in the legion is called the, uh, ah And so this is there their version of how they do magic.
00:47:28
Speaker
So this is this brings our this is the fourth of everyone's thing. So we've got the original that the primal uses that's corrupted Emery's. Oh, excuse me. And we've got the Oathbound Light from the Order and then Lyastrum from the Conclave. So this kind of this this is the end. This is like, ah instead of using kind of living people's souls that the Order do, these use ah your soul as you're dying.
00:47:58
Speaker
um it's The idea, i think, is super similar to the Orders, except that it requires this Amatrix to function while the Order requires ah whatever they're using to store their Oathbound Light in.
00:48:16
Speaker
it's They're both using people's souls to to like power the magic. Um, so maybe we'll get more information about how both these magics work more, but, uh, anyways, the, they call it the soul breath and this is the, the living force of nature, kind of like the star was a living force, but, uh, so, but the Anushva was created by Patan Ravalom and her goal, think it's a girl. Yeah. Yeah. it's a girl. yeah Her goal.
00:48:46
Speaker
was to i stop death, right? And so if you can control the soul breath and basically keep it inside somebody, ah they don't die. And so you're immortal in a non-corpse kind of way.
00:49:00
Speaker
However, she kind of died and Abisola fell and all this stuff ah has occurred. And I don't think she really got to finish her research because she had to create, become the Amatrix, right? so Necromancers in the modern Legion, they draw the soul breath from the world around them.
00:49:22
Speaker
and i It says the force of nature that's living, so I guess this could probably come from trees, animals, and everything. And you can force this into a corpse that's lost its soul breath, you force it back in, and now the corpse is alive again.
00:49:37
Speaker
I do know they say ah that the longer a corpse has been dead, the harder it is to bring it back. And so I guess you you want fresh bodies to reanimate quickly.
00:49:50
Speaker
And I'm guessing that's, you know, the the real, if you're an important person and need to go the library of corpses, I bet they got a necromancer on standby of your deathbed to make sure that they can shove soul breath in you to keep you as fresh as possible.
00:50:06
Speaker
now But ah anyways, And the other thing Soul Breath can do, especially if you're really close to the Amatrix, so like in the land of Belios, you can use it to control other people.
00:50:20
Speaker
And in the same way that you use it to random it corpses, you can send it into them and control their minds. And I know there's a card that lets you like take control of an enemy unit, which is really cool, and make it attack its own people. I love it.
00:50:36
Speaker
ah And then... can cause pain, fear, all kinds of stuff. However, if you're a scrub, you know, a a weak necromancer, if you're outside of Belios, you can't do any of this stuff. But the stronger ones, and especially at the Seekers, who go into the malediction itself, can continue to use the power.
00:50:56
Speaker
They're just better at channeling. and so But that is Dinesh Va. you guys have anything to say about that?
00:51:04
Speaker
and pretty You probably summed it up.
00:51:08
Speaker
Yeah. Phenomenal. Well, Alan, ah that's the end of our lore segment for the Loit Legion. Now we're going to go into our main characters, the Seekers. And we're to start off with the Lord, Stevis Vrendal, the Dreadheart.
00:51:25
Speaker
Take it away. Yeah, and we don't know if it actually is his real name. No one does, except for maybe him. He is your...
00:51:39
Speaker
your counter to a knight in shining armor. He is a knight in dark armor. A black knight. Yeah, so... ah Basically... Yeah, but he's got some great hair.
00:51:51
Speaker
Great hair. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. He has the right product, right? ah well Also, his hair doesn't age, we would assume, because he himself is fallen.
00:52:02
Speaker
He is not a of the living anymore.
00:52:07
Speaker
But he...
00:52:11
Speaker
is very ambitious, very thirst for power. He's after, he wants to be the king of the dead. And this set him on a path to try and find a legacy or a vestige or a relic he could control.
00:52:27
Speaker
So he met a ears here. I'm Acryphistia. She was a keeper from a nomadic clan that we know nothing about other than nomadic clan that this part yep and that protects relics, legacies, magical items.
00:52:47
Speaker
And this is the first time that we have where Vordenhall charmed someone to get information from them and then bounces or kills them or whatever. But he charmed her. He found out information about the heart lock.
00:53:02
Speaker
and then bounced, went and got the Heartlock, replaced his own heart, which I'm going to assume that's what made him fallen because he killed himself, returned to the Legion, and then presented himself to the Queen, saying that he could you know defeat the Order's army in the Luminous Crusade, and did so.
00:53:25
Speaker
He did raise his own army using his necromantic powers that were empowered by the Legacy, the Heartlock. But yeah, he
00:53:38
Speaker
went there and won where all of his contemporaries, the other generals, the other commanders said that it's a battle that couldn't be won. And he proved them all wrong, which elevated him to number two in the Legion.
00:53:54
Speaker
Let's see. which is it That's a huge step up. Oh, yeah. from From being just a normal, normal general all the way up there. Which was a bad idea. They they should have never like made him number two. made him Way too ambitious.
00:54:08
Speaker
Well, you think about what's going to happen down the line. Because if the queen goes away, he even though he's number two, he doesn't automatically get promoted. The council has to pick him as the monarch. And they may or may not pick him. What's he going to do if he's not picked?
00:54:24
Speaker
I mean, his history says that he's going to be extremely... ticked off about it, but we'll see as the lore progresses. but it's leads us perfectly into his, that we know of his second, uh, charmed person that he then, uh, deceived being the countess, Morda Umberlin, which, uh, Nick is going to take.
00:54:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so countess, uh, Morda Umberlin, uh, love her, her backstory here. So, um, She was born into one of the noble families. We don't know which one, but she was kind of, I'm guessing probably the seventh or eighth child of the family. She was known for no particular talent.
00:55:13
Speaker
And so her family basically just sent her off to Epitaph to be an archivist, just to work in the library because they, she wasn't a powerful necromancer. She wasn't particularly gifted.
00:55:24
Speaker
ah and so, over time as she was pouring through books and and doing her job, uh, she just kind of realized that like her family abandoned her and just left her to kind of just rot in the, in the bottom of this vault.
00:55:38
Speaker
Well, Vorondahl shows up epitaph, probably regularly, just whatever he's doing. And she kind of, you know, she kind of entertains him a little bit. He's charming. He's,
00:55:50
Speaker
You know, yeah you've seen his hair. So he starts kind of pushing her in different ideas instead of like the rigid way that she was taught necromancy.
00:56:02
Speaker
And he introduces her to a corpse of an Aresir woman named Akrifista. And so Morda learns more about, yeah, Morda learns more like magic that was like, you know, learned like the Conclave or like from the Aresir.
00:56:18
Speaker
um And that the way that she was taught the Anishva was like very orthodox and it didn't allow her to like be creative. And so it is all of a sudden this opens up to the idea that like, Hey, it's not as in the box as it has to be. There's more ways to experiment.
00:56:35
Speaker
And so she's excited. She wants to tell Vorondahl. So she tells Akrafista that like, I can't wait to tell Lord Vorondahl about this new discovery. And she flips out. Um,
00:56:47
Speaker
The heiress here freaks out and is just like, that is literally the dude who killed me. He betrayed me when I told him about heart lock and killed me and brought me here to be just like a trapped teacher.
00:57:00
Speaker
And so Morda is like completely caught off guard. She's like, oh my God, like, I can't believe he would do that. That doesn't sound anything like the man that I know. ah So she confronts Vorndahl directly and he like strike her strikes her across the face, leaves those big old scars on the left side of her cheek and tries to kill her. The man's got a temper. Yeah, so she freaks out. She affiches her own death and she Get out of there. She goes all the way to Quinvala, getting away, and she starts experimenting with different like relics and legacies and stuff that the Conclave has.
00:57:38
Speaker
And she finds the Soul Stitcher, which nobody knew how to use. like None of the mages really figure out how to use It it was just kind like left in a drawer somewhere. But she feels the power in it realizes that the Anushva, combined with like this more artistic, outside-the-box thinking of magic,
00:57:54
Speaker
is exactly what the soul stitcher is for. So she takes it back to Abelios and is, you know, seen as like this, you know brilliant seeker. That's when they present to her be like, Hey, we want to put you in line of succession to be queen of the dead. And she's like, I've had enough with politics and being betrayed and scheming.
00:58:13
Speaker
I just want a region of land. I can be alone. So they give her the Umberlands, which I believe that's her name comes more from the title rather than it was her name before. um So now she's she sets up in, a I'm guessing, a castle up in the Umberlands where all the spirits walk around and the only people that she entertains now are the corpses that she creates and the necromancers that come to study under her. It's beautiful. Love it. She's, I think, my favorite...
00:58:44
Speaker
backstory um so far i don't know what it is about it but it's just like ah it's like ah it just it's a well constructed weave story of yeah start to beginning i really feel the same way yeah and i also there's like i i want to know what happens next to her um right uh some of the some of the characters um i i kind of know where they're going but um i really want to know what she's going to do with this her maledict, because eventually she's go to get something really important out of malediction.
00:59:13
Speaker
yeah um What's her goal, right? Well, he even mentions in her her little blurb that like the the Legion requests her to go into the malediction for relics, and then she just kind of uses that as an opportunity to like further her own power.
00:59:25
Speaker
ah Because I think like the last line of her little box is like you know in order for her to be truly free, like she has to be more powerful than people who want to control her. Yes.
00:59:37
Speaker
And so it's just very much like this. She she's lived a hard life, which which is wild because she was also offered basically the keys of the kingdom and was like, no, I don't want that.
00:59:49
Speaker
She like didn't want to die She definitely wants to live forever and have her own. think she wants her own faction, I think is her long term goal is to be countess that doesn't have to die, but also wants to maybe break free from happened to have the Amatrix, right?
01:00:07
Speaker
And so maybe her idea is that she could use the Liastrum to power Anushva without it. I don't know. Maybe. maybe yeah Yeah. and im Even in her artwork, I'm looking at right now, her artwork, she has like one of the spheres of Liastrum on her belt.
01:00:22
Speaker
So like she really does like blend kind of both magics together. Amazing. Next, we're going to about Angor. Angor...
01:00:35
Speaker
So she's really interesting. She's she's primal. he I keep saying she. i always do. I always think it's a girl. It's a he. ah He is the most unconnected of all the all the seekers i think because he's primal in legion but i feel like he's the most his connection to the legion is very loose i think um he's he's mainly still like primal i he's like equal as thunderstuffs but let's talk about him so uh ingor is from the ingrok dynasty which used to be ah the ruling kith of the primals right uh however
01:01:19
Speaker
When Big Daddy Thunder Steps showed up, he came in, slapped that kith down, and he was in charge. Now, when Ingrok was born, or Ingor was born, his whole thing was he was going to be a great warrior, grow up, and beat up Thunder Steps.
01:01:36
Speaker
Take back the throne, right? However, he's born as like a cripple. He I like to imagine under underneath all his all his gear. He's like a Quasimodo looking guy.
01:01:51
Speaker
Because he's not he's weak. He's lame. And so he's he's not the hero that they'd hoped for. However, he's he's taken in by the shamans, right.
01:02:01
Speaker
And he goes through the the the tree ritual and the anointing and all that stuff. And Uh, so what he does is he's got defeat Thunder Steps. That's still his primary goal. So good on him for like pushing forward, right?
01:02:18
Speaker
What a, what a monumental task. Uh, so he takes his father's legacy, uh, the effigy of chaos. And he heads into the, uh, malediction.
01:02:33
Speaker
So he he heads in there. And he he finds a big old massacre of legion corpses. And it says they're like stood frozen in time.
01:02:43
Speaker
So that's interesting. Yeah, what does that mean? but I was like, are they? So they're like, it's a grim massacre, but they're all standing. So it's like like a magical outburst happened. And they just all died standing up or like lost their soul breath manipulation standing up.
01:03:03
Speaker
ah but their souls are still there also in them. So what he does is he performs some sort of ritual and like sucks in.
01:03:17
Speaker
ah we We got a lot of we all lot of keyboard action happening right now. ah he so He sucks in all the souls from these
01:03:27
Speaker
frozen in time legion soldiers and it works and now he's he's feeling he's feeling strong he's feeling uh he's feeling chuffed all right he's feeling ready to go he comes out of the malediction ready to throw down with thunder steps um and with everybody watching guess from his kid he challenges thunder steps because it's got to be like a public display uh they throw down for a couple hours he's using a shaman magic and uh oh man uh thunder steps beats his beats his ass again so he loses the thunder steps and he runs back the malediction because he's like uh all right i gotta find something else in here that will actually help me defeat thunder steps so and that's so that's where we leave ingor so he needs to expand his legion knowledge uh
01:04:22
Speaker
to perhaps come back and try again. So that's his whole thing. His whole thing is trying to find relics and legacies to overthrow Thunder Steps so that he can have his kit back in charge of Primal Blood.
01:04:36
Speaker
that's That's the end of that. You guys got anything to say about that? I don't know.
01:04:41
Speaker
I mean, I like Ingor. I like Ingor mechanically. i like i really love his his deck and the way he plays. Yes. i I like the character. ah It's not as compelling for me as like Morita or we're going to get to Grisa here in a second. I like this idea that, you know, he opened himself up to these like fallen spirits and he doesn't know how to like control them. So he's just kind of being plagued constantly with like possession.
01:05:10
Speaker
It's really interesting to have like a character that you don't fully know, like if who's in control.
01:05:20
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't even think about that, like being tormented by the possessed spirits. That's a good, I like that. That's good. good But yeah, no, Big Daddy Thunder Steps is not going let some Quasimodo come back here and take charge. That's what happened. He'll attack when Thunder's out on his, getting his steps in.
01:05:41
Speaker
On the other side of the continents. Oh, man. All right. We got one last, and that's Grieza, who's actually super interesting. I'm going to let Nick talk about that. Yeah. So Grieza, again, it hard for me to say my favorite. um He's definitely up there, though. I love Grieza.
01:05:57
Speaker
ah The Lingering Wound. So we've talked about it before. Grieza is a tragedy, which is going to be not just a single spirit, but a collection of spirits with similar, um like, unfinished business.
01:06:12
Speaker
Now, so Grieza... was born into existence when the legion had killed a knight from the order ah so the whole setup to this was the legion because i'm going to talk about the legacy more than greeza himself because legacy is really where his his story comes out so iraniv was a devout knight back in the time of the triumvirate And he was so loyal, so faithful that they gifted him a golden helm that was completely like solid facing so that faith alone would guide his sword.
01:06:49
Speaker
And so right off the bat, we have awesome setup here. Irnith, this knight. Now he has a woman he he loves, but she dies. we don't know how, um,
01:07:03
Speaker
But she passes on. He is distraught. So he pleads with the triumphant bring her back because they're demigods or they can do anything. They're like, no, we can't do that. We're not messing with life and death. like that's just just This is reality now.
01:07:16
Speaker
So he is beside himself. He travels all the way to Belios and he has cultists return her to him. And so they do, they bring her back, but the, he, they tell him you can't like, she can't leave Belios now because the magic that keeps her alive or you know risen is here. Like she can't leave.
01:07:38
Speaker
So he says, well, then I'm not leaving either. So the triumvirate get all mad about this. And they send a force out there. They kill his, his beloved and they break him down body and spirit.
01:07:53
Speaker
And so his, um, they drag him back to the triumvirate and basically, uh, execute him and they put his soul into the helm.
01:08:08
Speaker
ah So that it's forever like, you know, he they basically were like, you know, you were supposed to loyal to us. You have an oath to us. We're putting your soul in this helm as a warning for anybody who's who's thinking about breaking their oath of following the Triumvirate. So that's Iriniv.
01:08:24
Speaker
This is the legacy. The Legion gets their hands on this helmet. And they try messing with it. They can't make the magic work whatever. um So they just kind of, throw they're thrown around. Like we we say, we see so many of these legacies in these stories where it's just like, there's just a bunch of legacies out there that nobody knows what that what, how to use them or what they do.
01:08:45
Speaker
So we, we have this helmet and they are putting on different people. They have a night of the order of shattered to throne that they, I'm guessing like a prisoner of some sort. And they're putting it on there. and just torturing him, just see if they can make something happen. When he dies wearing the helmet, he just like explodes out into it as a revenant and just goes crazy, kills all the captors and necromancers, and then just starts going towards the malediction.
01:09:11
Speaker
And so now he just leads like a collection, a war band of like spirits that he commands by force of will. And he just has an oath, which is to discover Like there's a vestige somewhere in the malediction that he has to find.
01:09:29
Speaker
And that's his only purpose now is to just go find it and uphold his oath. Yeah, I love this. we've We've got a clear like this guy is on a mission, um like a clear cut, like he knows he's looking for mission.
01:09:48
Speaker
I wonder what this vestige is, and I really want to know. I want to know what is what is going on. What is this oath? Who is this guy? What's happening? it's All we know is it's a vestige that could awaken an everlasting.
01:10:00
Speaker
So that means that maybe there are some that aren't fully dead. They're just comatose or or imprisoned. Kind of Lorandrel, is that her name? the The Ipia that was encased in i and at like a coffin inside the malediction.
01:10:15
Speaker
yeah maybe Yeah, who knows? like we there's a lot There's a lot of room to grow the lore. so But yeah, that's Gariza. Awesome. Well, ah that is it for our Legion lore today.
01:10:30
Speaker
The last segment, as always, are events coming up, which will be covered by Alan.
01:10:39
Speaker
Hey, actually, Garrett, we have ah another story we're going to read. we We're trying to catch up on the release schedule here. So we're going to go ahead cover the most recent short story that dropped, the lore drop, The Orokin, True Children of Ymiris.
01:10:58
Speaker
So, ah yeah, I'll just go and take it from here. We got an awesome quote. Again, we got another Primal Blood story here. And this first quote is going to be from Akna, who is, if you remember, the leader of the rebelling force that we kind of get in the Age of Legacy.
01:11:16
Speaker
And it goes like this. We were warriors bound to loyalty and they made us thralls bound to service. They erased our history, our way of life. Do not forget who you were, my kin, nor the gifts you carry in your very flesh and blood.
01:11:30
Speaker
We are unshaped clay, the primal blood that gave birth to all the children of the mirrors who would not bow. One day we shall rest, but until the all mother is freed rage.
01:11:42
Speaker
So awesome, awesome fighting words, I think. like it. He sounded just like an Orican. So ah just a quick refresher. I know we covered this in Primal Blood story, but the Orican are Avakura's... I don't want to say children because we use we use children a lot in this in this world. um ah But yeah, so Avakura the Everlast and the Dreaming Warrior that was deeply regretful in her ah deception during the Great Wounding.
01:12:16
Speaker
ah after Emiri's was imprisoned and everything, everything changed. She felt all this deep regret and traveled north past the pale expanse, which is described as a great desert. So now we actually have a little more description on, on what that is.
01:12:34
Speaker
ah She finds the continent of Ori and basically leads a bunch of the first children up there. They become the Orican or i guess she meets the Orican. I'm not sure.
01:12:46
Speaker
how that works out. But the um yeah, she she acts instead of it as like the god, like, you know, they we have the triumvirate in the order being like the demigods, like the rulers. Avakura sees herself more of like a spiritual like leader and not so much as ah like a ruler.
01:13:05
Speaker
And so teach she teaches the Orican how to commune with the Miris and connect with their goddess. And the Orican eventually come back into Slejia in these like massive hordes led by Avakra.
01:13:19
Speaker
They settle down in Paxos somewhere, somehow. And the Triumphant gets word that the Orokin are going around basically preaching about freeing Amiri, freeing the goddess, and raising kind of this large like movement across Slejia of returning you know before the wounding.
01:13:41
Speaker
The Triumphant doesn't like it, so they have Avakra killed. And her soul is kind of trapped into her heart and it makes that the first vestige. We've we've talked about, I think, like two or three different episodes now.
01:13:54
Speaker
All of the Orkin, yeah, all the Orkin are crushed in battle and the the survivors are enslaved. They're taken back to Olam and to kind of just put into servitude and and labor.
01:14:07
Speaker
I think like hundreds and hundreds of years will go by. And they're like, and that's the thing. it's It's crazy to think about their entire history. Everything is just like forgotten. You know, whatever's not passed down um by like word of mouth, like they don't have scholars, you know, they're all enslaved and and subjugated. So like they're not preserving their history other than just the stories they can tell each other, you know, in their captivity.
01:14:30
Speaker
Yeah, they were enslaved for a thousand years. Yeah, so it's a lot it's a long time. It's a long time, especially like, you know, ah it's just, it's it's sad. It's sad because the Orokin seem like, yeah know, they really weren't bad people. They were like, hey guys, we should free our goddess.
01:14:53
Speaker
So, ah yeah, eventually another warrior prophet is born, and this is going to be Akna. and We talked about him before. He leads this rebellion. They steal the heart of Akra from the Triumvirate, from the Astarian Paradox, and him and a bunch of followers, they get out of there, they break out of the walls, however they do so. They leave and they flee to Paxos, and where they come across a giant. They kill it, or Akhna defeats it in battle. We don't know the details of the battle.
01:15:24
Speaker
They do kill it. They do say that. Yeah, they but they they bring down a giant and he plants the heart of Avakra into it, and that's where the tree will grow. And that's, I think, what we talked about earlier with the um the fruit.
01:15:39
Speaker
yeah so i think one of the this this story does make a couple confirmations on things we we kind of uh either inferred or we didn't know in that the orican uh or descendant uh evolution mutations of the first children yes they're like surviving first children who escaped from the everlasting taking over stuff And then we also know that Ori, where they were or went to, is a separate continent.
01:16:12
Speaker
Yeah. We don't know anything else about it, but we do know there's another land. So maybe we'll see something in the future.
01:16:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's probably like connected. i imagine. um Think about how, you know, Europe and Asia two continents, but connected by land. Right.
01:16:30
Speaker
So probably like across that pale expanse desert. there's another, I guess, landmass, as we're going to call it, ah
01:16:42
Speaker
north. um Past the desert. Where more stories can be told. I don't know. That's that's interesting to think, because like that means there's there's more first children out there. Yeah, the ones that didn't come back, because it didn't say that they all followed Evok or back. Some of them probably stayed. yeah Right, right. And they even say the people of Ori, so we don't even know if like there's other people out there other or otherwise, right?
01:17:06
Speaker
<unk> And then let's see, what else do we have there? Ah, no, was a new new dreaming prophet. So he could dream just like Avakura did.
01:17:19
Speaker
Probably not to the same extent, but yeah, they specifically called out dream the magic. So yeah, like another type of magic. I wouldn't say another step. I think it's original original Yimri magic.
01:17:34
Speaker
humorous magic uh but you know subconscious different plane and then new artwork at the bottom like every other story it's had new artwork in it uh so go check it out it'll be uh you want to describe it a little bit or do we just want to make them have to go to the article i think people i think people need to to go give give give maldiction some love and go check it out read it themselves I'll have the link to the story in the show notes.
01:18:03
Speaker
Or if you are a subscriber to the newsletter from Malediction, you should have got it this past Friday in your email and or on the Discord. So with that, I think we're going to move into the events. But before I go through the list of events, I am going to...
01:18:24
Speaker
chat about I had a demo at Copperhead Brewery this past weekend on Saturday. It was really, really cool because two local guys showed up and brought two or three of their friends.
01:18:36
Speaker
And the two guys already had like the entire game. So while I was doing demos, they were over there playing a one v one Then they did a Nemesis game. we even got the two owner sons came over and did demos and watched. And the owner immediately like probably about an hour and a half in,
01:18:54
Speaker
He asked if we could come back and do it in July. so we're probably going to turn into a regular game Saturday once a month at a brewery. That's pretty cool. Actually, yeah. so And then there's like not a brewery, but there's like a wine bar that's in town that I've had game nights at where I actually live, because this one's in Conroe.
01:19:16
Speaker
So I'm going to try and do some stuff at that wine bar also. So those they're pretty cool spots to see. You get a different crowd.
01:19:27
Speaker
But a lot of, like the brewery had board games on their shelves. Like they encourage gaming when you're there. So trying to do that. But other events for June, we have the Trials of the Everlasting that Monday evening, if you're US Central, Garrett and I will be playing the Australians that are in the tournament.
01:19:49
Speaker
So it is... Tuesday morning for them because they're time travelers, but Monday evening for Garrett and I will be streaming on my YouTube. I'll leave a link in the show notes.
01:20:01
Speaker
And then on June 27th, Nick will be having a demo day at Chaotic Good Games in Kentucky. Or I'm sorry, in Lexington. You got anything you want to say about that, Nick?
01:20:14
Speaker
No. Yeah. if ah If you're in Lexington, the area, you want to come out. We'll be at Chaotic Good from noon to 6. And it's just kind of a walk up. There's no like a registration list or anything. We'll just have several tables set up.
01:20:29
Speaker
All right. August 1st. Actually, we'll do on June 25th in Nova Scotia, Canada,
01:20:40
Speaker
Toke Tamish will be doing a three-round tournament at XOR Games from 6 to 9 p.m. He did say it's a casual friendly one. So just, you know, if you want to come with a hardcore list, just understand that as with all of our games in Malediction, no matter how competitive it is, just casual friendly.
01:21:04
Speaker
And then August 1st will be Lone Star Open in Dallas where I'll be the judge. I think we have with the new guys from the brewery, I think we're going to have roughly about 10 people signed up so far.
01:21:17
Speaker
and We're about a month and a half out. It's just a four round on Saturday. And then Gen Con, same weekend, Gen Con on July 31st will be the 2v2.
01:21:29
Speaker
August 2nd, which is the the next day, is the 1v1. And then August 29th and 30th, so later in that month, TacticCon in Denver, they will have either a tournament or demos there. I can't remember which one it was.
01:21:43
Speaker
That is our events.
01:21:47
Speaker
Awesome. Well, thanks everybody for listening to another great episode. At least I hope it was great. And we'll see you next time on Into the Malediction. I've been Garrett. I've been Alan. And I've been Nick.
01:21:59
Speaker
Great. Goodbye. Thank