Transcript
Garrett: Hello everybody and welcome back to episode 10 of Into the Malediction. I am one of your hosts, Garrett, also known as Admiral Tater, joined by my two co-hosts, Nick and Alan.
Nick: everybody, this is Nick or Fetty315 the Discord.
m3rcier: Howdy all, this Alan or Mercer.
Garrett: And today, our episode topic for lore is going to be the magic, the magics of Silesia. of Arnor.
Garrett: And as always, well, not as always, as we try and do, we're going to have a...
m3rcier: Oh, oh, oh, oh, you said Arnor. This is not Lord Rings, buddy.
Garrett: It's Agnor.
Garrett: Listen, my bad. All right, listen.
Nick: said
Garrett: People don't know this, but we're recording some of these back-to-back, all right? We were just talking about it. Okay. All right.
Nick: yeah the world of agnar
Garrett: Anyways, back... Back on topic, we have another short story. This one is called The Stalwart Volker. And it is going to, we've been trying to do this. we start with the sweet quote that it starts with. So here we go.
Garrett: They, our purpose, made flesh true and unrelenting. While we spend our lives praying for the confidence to stand in the face of abdominal evil, the Volker seemed to have been built to endure.
Garrett: I've been a Volker cobbler rushed towards an abomination of the conclave with more courage than a human princeps could ever dream of. They aren't corruptible.
Garrett: However, it brings me no joy to say that I've seen this very strength being used against our brothers in faith. A quote by a character named Septus Lardini.
Garrett: ah Okay, so this short story, definitely read it. It's basically about Galdron, one of the everlasting, the guy who built the wall, the wall of Galdron, and he created the Vol'kyr to help him build this wall.
Garrett: And in the world of malediction, these are kind of like the dwarves. However, they're not dwarves. They are, layer imagine a dwarf, but then they're also like seven feet tall.
Garrett: ah So, which is pretty awesome.
m3rcier: Pure muscle.
Garrett: Not like not it's like it's like not just muscle. It's like literal stone. Like they're actually made of like granite. so um So basically it talks about how different they are than humans. So it they don't age like they don't get old.
Garrett: ah They like they like grow up. I'm assuming from baby and they heat peak ah physical condition. And then once they they reach their apex, they're but they don't age anymore. Instead, their skin becomes more and more like stone as they live.
Garrett: And they've got a pretty hard cap of 80 years old on their life. And as they approach that 80 and they their skin turns more and more to stone, they ah become actual statues.
Garrett: And the less they can move, means the less they can work. Instead, they turn into ah the foreman, relaying orders and passing on wisdom to the younger Vol'kyr.
Garrett: And as a last parting thing they do, as they turn into into stone, they they strike a sweet pose and go to the the Garden of Stone and take their last place.
Garrett: And it's like this sacred place. It mentions not even the primal. It will desecrate the area. But I bet Thunderships would.
m3rcier: Thank you.
Garrett: Now... ah This is pretty cool. However, i will note, because we learned this in the last one, if you are killed in combat, if you're killed in combat, and your skin is, like, broken because the king...
Garrett: his like his iron his his stone skin was shattered by Thunder Steps, which is how he got the plague in him. ah He was not able to be turned into stone, so he did not get to go to the Garden of Stone.
Garrett: So you have to live to old age successfully to take your place there. um So that that's a cool short story. Check out the link to it. And Alan, you've got a teaser for us.
Garrett: Tell us about it.
m3rcier: Yeah. So before I do that, though, the you were talking about the Garden of Stone where the the Volker go to die. ah Very much like the Purgles from Star Wars, where they all will return to a a certain area of the galaxy to die. And those gardens are sacred to the Volker, even the Volker that are the primal blood.
m3rcier: they will not despoil those gardens. It is unforgivable for any Volker to do that kind of stuff. I found that pretty interesting because there's some other fantasy realms that have similar things for some of their their species.
m3rcier: But the teaser, as Garrett said, an upcoming... I don't want to say short story because that's not a word. that The current story is like the one that Carrot just reviewed.
m3rcier: Those are roughly probably about 500, 600 words. They're short, short stories or, and had to look this up on one of the search engines. They're flash fiction.
m3rcier: We are going to get a proper short story sometime in July. believe it's going to be 7,000-ish plus words and written by George Mann himself.
m3rcier: It is going to be very character-focused, whereas the current ones have been more of expanding the setting, the factions, the... the map, so so to say. This one is going to be very character focused.
m3rcier: It's going to follow one of our current seekers on their expedition into the Malediction.
Garrett: this This would be our first account of what it's like in The Malediction from a character's point of view. Well, I guess that's not true because we got to see a little bit of Ingor's venture.
Garrett: But this would be like the first like like real deep dive. So it's going to be kind of interesting to see what it's like, you know, not in the context of playing the game, but what it's like in the world.
Garrett: of what ah of going through the game and checking things out.
m3rcier: Yeah, I'm excited for it.
Garrett: So that's gonna be it's gonna be awesome. If you don't know who George Mann is, Google him. The guy is stacked, stacked with experience.
m3rcier: Yeah, and it's, i think we talked about this earlier, it's going to be probably a long enough short story where one of our episodes in July will be, that will be the main topic, that short story.
Nick: Yeah.
Nick: Yep.
Garrett: Amazing.
Nick: Exciting.
Garrett: All right.
Nick: Yep.
Garrett: We are moving on to the main topic of today's podcast, and that is magic. Nick, introduce us.
Nick: Welcome, everybody. So today, oh not that one, not that one.
Garrett: No, not not that one. Not that one. Move on next.
Nick: no So, ah yeah, so today we're going to talk about the magic of Agnar.
m3rcier: yeah
Nick: So we know that prior to the Great Wounding, when Emiri's created everything, the first children had some form of magic. We know they were all like walking around in communion with Emiri's at all times, and they were able to kind of pull from her echo and kind of create things uh we only have a couple i think the we have like one page of lore on like the emirian age so we don't have ton to go on uh again love to see some more some more lore in the future on kind of like the ancient history but we know that like the original first children were able to like create they're able to do things and then of course the the everlasting or the 13
Nick: um of the first children that would go on to create the Thorn of Olym, drive it and create the, you know, and and cause the Great Wounding and seal the rest of the world from from the Goddess.
Nick: That introduces us into basically the four alternate forms of magic that we're going to discuss today. We've covered all of them in previous episodes on our faction overviews, but we're going to go into more detail and kind of talk about magic in general.
Nick: as well as maybe some of our favorite spell cards.
m3rcier: Yeah, and some of this is what we're able to pull off of spell cards the from the lore primer, from the short stories, and then some of it is going to be conjecture or assumptions on our part because we don't have a lot of hard info on each one of these types of magic.
Nick: Yeah. So, well, I guess we ahead and get started with... Echo. yeah,
Garrett: That sounds familiar, big time.
Nick: yeah so echo Echo is the resource that we actually use in the game to play all of our cards. But it's are in within the world, Echo is the magic of Emiri's.
Nick: um So we know the Primal Blood are connected with the goddess, the All-Mother still, and they feel her pain, they feel her rage, and they use the blood from Avakra's Dusk, and the, I guess, you know, the shamans must be able to draw something from their communion with the Miris to work the echo and create magic.
Garrett: Yeah, I think it's because they're Oricans. I think that's like an important part of that, actually, for being a shaman.
Nick: Mm-hmm.
Garrett: The actual race of being ah one of the first children.
Nick: Now, do we know if there are any human? Are there any human primal blood cards? I want to they must be, right?
m3rcier: I'll take a look while y'all dig a little bit deeper into...
Garrett: I think there you can join, but I don't know if you can become a shaman. I think you might be stuck on the berserker path.
Nick: Hmm.
m3rcier: Well, you might be able to be a shaman. I mean, we know there's Vol'kyr in Primal, Oregon. Yeah, because you have the Boneclaw Raider. He's a human unit in Primal.
Garrett: Yeah, but what what's that's the berserker.
Nick: Yep.
m3rcier: Yep. Yeah, but we there's also... no There's future guards, but yes, the only other human is going to be the twin blade skirmisher, but he looks like he's probably more order, so he came with Auric.
Nick: Yep.
Garrett: Yeah.
m3rcier: Otherwise, most of their units are either going to be Auricun, Beast, Shifter, and Abominations.
Nick: Yeah. Beast and Orokin, yeah.
Garrett: I think this this first children thing is pretty critical to communicating directly with the the girl, the the goddess, Emerys.
Nick: Yeah.
Garrett: I think this is really interesting. i didn't I didn't think about this, ah but it's like been in my face the whole time, and you wrote it down really well. aye So like relics, relics are made with echo, um, or filled, not made, but like, well, they are made, they're made and filled with echo.
Garrett: Legacies are made with the souls of somebody using, the echo or whatever magic was available to them to make a legacy. And then the vestiges are the souls of everlasting.
Garrett: And I, that was a really cool, uh, breakdown that I have not even, I didn't put it together until you wrote it like that.
m3rcier: Yeah, legacies and vestiges require souls, whereas relics don't.
Garrett: Uh,
Garrett: Yeah. Um, so, all right, Echo, Echo. So it's the classic, the original, and then, but now in the context of the game, it's been completely corrupted and ruined, uh, and it's full of rage and sadness and heartbreak.
Garrett: Uh, and they, we, like when you're actually playing malediction, right? youre Everyone's dial says echo, but I think it'd be kind of cool if maybe some of the dials, instead of saying echo, it would say like oath bound light or anushva or a liastrum, because that's really what they're using.
m3rcier: Yeah.
Garrett: And only the primal are using echo. So it's kind of an interesting idea.
m3rcier: Yeah, well, and see, I want to go back to the whole the shaman thing where you said echo because ah you skipped over the notes, but the triumphant used the raw echo that hadn't been corrupted yet to create humans.
Nick: Well, and I,
m3rcier: So humans are like pure echo, so they have to have some level of connection to Ymiris.
Garrett: Yeah.
m3rcier: It's probably just blocked when they when they bind themselves.
Garrett: Well, she didn't make him though. She didn't make the humans.
m3rcier: No, but they're made with her. i mean, Echo is essentially her soul from what we can tell. So they're made of her, just not by her.
Garrett: Yeah.
m3rcier: So there's got to be some level of connection there.
Garrett: i don't i I think that's an important distinction, but maybe not.
Nick: Well, and and it could be a big, like, it you know, it's, we start getting, it we start getting into like the, the philosophy and cosmology of this world.
m3rcier: Yes.
m3rcier: She might have blocked them because...
Nick: Like, right.
Garrett: That's what we're here for, Nick. Okay.
Nick: So but i have I'm saying, so, you know, Amiri's is the all mother, right? And so all of the children, all the creations come from her, you know, when the everlasting creates something, is it, is it less perfect than when she creates something because they are one step removed from her.
Nick: Um, You know, so the everlasting creating humans with Echo, like do humans have a weaker connection to the goddess or or maybe like you said, maybe they can't even commune with her at all because they're, you know, they're they're they're severed, right?
m3rcier: She hit the block button.
Nick: They're severed. Yeah. So how, yeah, how does that work? Right. And then does that, would that push the humans to be more ah follow the Oathbound Light?
Nick: Because, you know, if you are, you know, you're born in this world and you're told that like, oh, well, you know, that goddess that the Auricun worship, like you can't even commune with her.
Nick: So don't even try.
m3rcier: And then also, you know, just note that the primal don't use the same echo. Well, it is the same echo as what the everlasting had access to or the first children had access to before Ymiris was imprisoned.
m3rcier: But the primal focus the echo they use through the heart of Acre, which tempers it, but also lowers its power.
Garrett: Yeah, it's...
m3rcier: And they do so to not be fully corrupted by the raw echo.
Nick: Mm-hmm.
Garrett: Well, I would say it's it's still the same echo. It's just...
m3rcier: No, it's the same. It's just been ah tempered.
Garrett: It's being handled through a filter. A really bad one.
m3rcier: It's been processed.
Garrett: Yeah. Tainted. But, like, even, like the like, the original magic doesn't exist anymore, though, because we've wounded Ymiris and...
Garrett: ah wounded her children and caused these problems so like we're never going back to like pre unless she can like heal herself i don't know but like it is the same echo it's just it's just bad it's just poisoned
m3rcier: Yeah, and they they use this echo in combination with, because a Valker's heart is in a giant, and giants are undying. So the giant's body regenerates, the heart always bleeds. So they take the blood from the heart, the flesh, the bone, the sinew of the giant that renews.
m3rcier: And they use that to craft arms and armor for their warriors. They use the blood to create primordial clay. So they mix the blood with ah dirt, with the earth.
m3rcier: And that primordial clay is, as we've said before, lighter than steel, stronger than stone. They also use the blood to mix with other substances to make concoctions to enhance their warriors, fuel their transformation, and for their own magic. So they're pretty creative with ah what they use, echo, and then some physical magic, all of which was sourced from echo at some point.
m3rcier: But it's a very brutal magic of blood magic, in my opinion.
Garrett: Well, it is, i mean, yeah, it is brutal.
Nick: Yeah,
Garrett: You're right. ah Nick, you've got some spells of note written down here, including my favorite. um
Nick: yeah. I put that one up for you.
Garrett: Would you like to tell me why these are important to Echo?
Nick: Right, so um I pulled out some list of spells that really fit the primal blood um kind of manifestation, right?
Garrett: Wait.
Nick: so We know that the Shamans, when they tap into their communion with All-Mother, they use the blood, they use the Echo.
Nick: And because they are, like you know, it's a tempered blood, but they still are, when they're in communion with All-Mother, they feel her rage and her pain. And so we see a lot of spells that are very aggressive, very just, you know, um so the thr off the blat right off the Right off the top, Cataclysmic Blast is everybody's favorite, well, except for Garrett's favorite Primal Blood spell.
Garrett: It's good.
Nick: which
Garrett: It's good.
Nick: So, great.
m3rcier: It's so good. It's so good.
Nick: It's so good. Yeah, exactly. It's such a good spell. so choose point in the battlefield, deal five damage to all units within three inches. um And not we're not going have to go over every card, what they do mechanically, but just kind of in the feel of what they are. You know, it's just an explosion, right? Raw magical energy just explodes forth um you know, and I put kind of Nature's Wrath in there too. It's another like AOE damage spell, you know, so these shamans can tap into when you are playing as a seeker, um you know, you're playing as the seeker controlling the warband or whatever we, our role as a player in the game is, you know, we spend the echo, we make these things happen. When you play Primal Blood, you're playing these aggressive spells, explosions, pain, damage, damage,
Nick: it's It's a consistent theme, right? We see a lot of that.
Nick: um I put on like Adrenaline Rush, Unstoppable Rush. They kind of similar things. Again, it's aggression. it's It's these fast movement. It's getting up there and and attacking and pushing yourself forward, using the power of the goddess to like keep the pressure up, the aggression, the berserkers. Yeah.
Nick: yeah
Garrett: Love it. I love it. And then Seize the Initiative, which because Emerys understands how the game works, she added that to her magical abilities for to use.
Nick: Yep. yep
Garrett: um All right, moving on from Primal. Listen, they use Echo. It sucks. We get it. ah And then the Oath Bound Light.
Garrett: The Order of the Shadow Thrones. Golden, white, bright ah magic. I don't think so it's like contained because they collect everyone's souls right there is slicing off soul ties or martyr and whole villages and collecting a bunch of both down light soul the juice.
Garrett: um
Garrett: What in my head I'm like, they don't have like a because you know how the the conclave because they have the the Oracle that I kind of imagined like stores it.
m3rcier: Yeah, but we do.
m3rcier: Yeah, they have like little little spheres they carry around full of it.
Garrett: Yeah.
m3rcier: I don't think the Order have anything like that.
Garrett: Yeah, where are they storing this?
m3rcier: i envision, well, I think the Oathbound Light is like the Stargate, the Ori.
Garrett: Where is this coming from? um They got to put it somewhere.
m3rcier: It's just a magic that is inherent in your surroundings, but it does need to be topped off.
Garrett: yeah that's really interesting. i what is What are we topping off? Because they're topping something off. There's like some well somewhere that they understand has to be filled with souls.
Garrett: um i I would like that answered.
Nick: Well, and we do, I think, I'll see if I can find it somewhere, but I think we talk about in the lore primer about how the Valkar's priests are able to tap into it. um So it's it it's got to be a real pool of magic that is shared.
Garrett: it's It's a ball of stuff somewhere.
Nick: Yeah.
Garrett: um Maybe in the Sanctorum.
m3rcier: We just don't know where.
Garrett: or the Citadel or the Reliquary. i don't know. It's in one of these places, but it's really interesting the idea that they're definitely filling something up and drawing from it. Yeah.
Nick: I wonder if it's like dimensional, it could be, you know,
Garrett: yeah
Nick: but yeah, so like, you know, it's, it's drawn about it's a, yeah. So it can be accessed by any person who has been soul bound to it, but in practice, only the clergy and a handful of other selected faithful are permitted to draw on its benefits.
Garrett: Yeah, it's crazy they control that system because they can also take it away from so other people.
Nick: And so they permit, yeah.
Garrett: Like, they can give you access to the Oathbound Light and they can take it away because they can also, like, extend your life with it or they can shorten your life with it.
m3rcier: Yeah, you probably also have to be taught how to access it, and they're not going to teach everyone how to access it.
Nick: Right.
m3rcier: But it is a ah magic that is very much focused on healing and protection with very few even among the powerful within the order are able to wield it to harm others.
m3rcier: So it's, I mean, if anything, this type, this magic itself, I don't really, not a supporter of the soul bounding part of it, but the fact that they focus it and make it so it's healing and protection magic, I think is one of, if not maybe the only redeeming quality of the order.
Garrett: Yeah, it's like it has rules. um like The way they feel it sucks, but I guess at least it's like a noble magic when they're actually employing it to whatever they're doing.
Garrett: So do we know who came up with this system or did it just exist after the fall?
m3rcier: Well, so the Rite of the Valkyris, or the Rite of the Order that maintains the Oathbound Light. And it came about, there's an agent ancient met magic pact that was made. We don't know any details of it.
m3rcier: But it is enforced by the will of the Everlasting. I'm going very much assume that it's only the Triumph that enforced this. But we don't know how it was created, when it was created, or any of that.
Garrett: I wonder if it only functions because Oster's soul is still in the throne shards.
Nick: ah That'd be interesting that the the vestige is like what is like the center of the focal point for the light.
Garrett: What if that is what is required to transmute the magic? Because like Siggy, Scott, or Shield, which has a piece of it, right And so that allows the priest to pull from her. And so maybe if expeditions go out, they have to have a piece of this throne room with them.
Nick: be interesting. Yeah. Hmm.
m3rcier: cause we don't As far as we're aware, we don't like unlike one of the other magics we're going talk about next, this one doesn't appear to have a range restriction from Astartes. Seems like they can use it wherever they want to go.
Garrett: As long as it's topped off.
m3rcier: yeah as as long as it As long as there are souls in it to allow them to.
Nick: Yeah.
Garrett: It's like...
m3rcier: Which when they know they need to do a crusade, they go to little village A and say, hey, we need fuel for the war. Go ahead and murder yourselves or we're going to Oh, they probably do it to their least favorite villages.
Garrett: Yeah, I'm not telling the Order how to like do their jobs, but wouldn't it be smarter to like kill like one out of every 10 people in each village? That way you're just not like wiping out whole
Garrett: economic zones. Probably, I guess. I don't know. I guess you don't do that many Crusades. You gotta keep it keep it light.
Nick: Right. It's more like it's, I think, I think it's more of a desperate times kind of situation.
Garrett: Maybe, yeah.
m3rcier: But this is why they have to expand. It's why they need more people believing in the order so that they can have fuel for what they want to do.
Garrett: Yeah. um i You know, maybe that's, ah maybe they'll be the first faction to, go to another continent to gather more bodies.
m3rcier: more people and then Garrett you hit on earlier but observers have noticed that some amongst the order are blessed with very long lives while others are cursed with much shorter lives and suspiciously the ones with longer lives are probably always the ones that are in the upper echelons of one of the rights whereas the ones with shorter lives are dissidents or ah criminals or people who go against the order
Garrett: Troublemakers.
m3rcier: Yeah, and the rights merely claim this is the will of the everlasting, very convenient out.
m3rcier: So while it is, you could you could say a noble magic, it can be misused and is misused.
Nick: So are you implying that somebody is using the magic or you think it is truly a side effect?
m3rcier: Listen, I live in Veloma, so I think they're using the magic for corrupt purposes. And I can say that because i'll live in Veloma.
Garrett: uh yeah no i think this is i think that's ah the most interesting uh part about their things because each faction has like these limits on how their magic's used but uh the order's just uh they can just head out and use it wherever um okay anyways all right let's uh uh spells of note spells of note next section spells of note
Nick: Yeah.
Nick: Yeah, so ah the most obvious when you think Order the Shattered Throne, right? We all think of Shield of Andravos and the Ward of Volcaris. Everybody's played against Sigurath at some point, and you've been hit with that. Nope.
Nick: Prevent five damage. Prevent ten damage. ah It's the that And then you have a Healing Light and the Rites of Healing. Those sets of cards are kind of like your classic order spell cards.
m3rcier: everyone else hates.
Nick: And i it's they're so good. It works so well with the way you play order when you can just keep these tough units on the table longer and really make your opponent work for it.
Nick: But another so couple of other cards I want to talk about. Enforce Balance is a bomb that every Sigurth player loves to run. and And everyone else.
m3rcier: and everyone else hates
Nick: Yeah. Yeah. I hate seeing this card hit the table. So but like, you know, what are your guys thoughts on some of the spells on how the Oathbound Light is kind of represented and in the game?
Garrett: I think they're pretty good. I think they're going to get a lot better when that expansion comes out this potential summer. But anyways, I think ah the the healing spells are right up the alley of how the Oathbound Light is be used, right?
m3rcier: Thank you.
Garrett: Because you're taking the souls of people who tithed, and i and the way I look at it is they're there's they're filling the person who's dying in with some new, some fresh soul, some fresh, uh, uh, vitality.
Garrett: Um, and then of course the, the shield of Androv, Androvus, I, and this is what makes me think that the Oathbound Light is connected to Oster himself and his soul.
Garrett: Uh, because the way that the shields also works with how, uh, it absorbs the damage, right? Um,
m3rcier: Yeah, I think the spell that probably most encapsulates the Order and you know the Oathbound Light is probably Death Undone. for those of you who don't know, Death Undone, it's a two-cost elite, so there's two of them in your deck, or can be.
m3rcier: It's a swift spell, return an ally that has been defeated this activation from a discard pile to its owner's hand. And the reason I think it encapsulates it the most is it's just I mean, I don't use the spell at all.
m3rcier: No matter what, you know, if I'm playing Laundriel or Cigarette, I don't use the spell. I don't think it's worth the echo. And the reason I think it encapsulates the most is because if you're an Order Priest, you're only going to bring back someone that's like, you know, that's mighty, that that's worth bringing back. Because in bringing them back, not only are you expending some of the Oathbound Light, you are also denying their soul to the Oathbound Light.
m3rcier: So you're like double spending the light just to bring this person back. So I don't see it used on like a normal night. So I think that one's probably like in game mechanics, it's not used all that much, but I think it i think that perfectly i illustrates the order.
m3rcier: If I had to put the order into a spell, it'd be death undone.
Garrett: like it.
Nick: yeah Yeah, I'm curious to see what they what they come out with in our reinforcement pack.
Garrett: I like it.
Garrett: Um...
Nick: I really want to see if maybe we see with this, like, what is it? Hands of the Church?
Garrett: Yeah.
Nick: was the Yeah. I want to see, like, a smite. Yeah, i want to see I want to see Order get, like, some kind of a burn card.
Garrett: Cataclysmic Blast Smite card. Yeah.
Nick: Yeah, you know, something like that. You know, make it make it you know a little different, but feel, you know, appropriate.
Garrett: Yeah.
m3rcier: Trying to still see East Thunder here.
Garrett: Um, all right. Now, all right. Next is a new Shva. Um, we talked a lot about this two episodes ago. Now, uh, this is the legions, um, magic. This is like, i guess the, ah least refined magic, uh, because it it does not do what they intended. Um,
Garrett: Right? Because the time Ravalaam's like her intention was to make humans and other non immortal beings immortal, right?
Garrett: Like, i if I if I use this.
m3rcier: Yeah. A way to defeat the curse of death.
Garrett: Yeah, but instead, all it does is bring back corpses that retain the memories, and i guess, personalities of those who die.
Garrett: so Um, this is, it was made by, Patan Ravalum and she, and it, but it had, it had serious limitations.
Garrett: Um, it has to have a well, before she became the vestige of the Amatrix, uh, she had the legacy, right? That was her lover, Katak, or whatever, K'Karak his name was.
Nick: Carrick. Yep.
Garrett: Yeah. Uh, And it has, it has a serious range problem. Um, it has, and the range was improved when she became vestige right at, at a solo.
Garrett: However, um it's, it's still like the reach of this stuff is still limited to basically, um, the malediction and Veloma. Veloma is like, I guess, like for this point out from the Anna tricks that works that, i that we know of, right. We don't really know if they can extend it. There's like, like repeating.
Garrett: Amatrix Beacon Towers or something. But and instead of souls from ah living beings, you're taking the soul breath as like you're dying. i I think it's like two sides of the same coin here.
Garrett: They're both using the same people's souls, but Anushva uses it to
Garrett: resurrect corpses. And Oathbound Light takes that and instead of using it to resurrect corpses, their magic is to use it defensively and for healing on living beings. ah that that's That's where I'm at. That's where I'm at.
Garrett: Your turn.
Nick: I mean, I think you you covered it.
m3rcier: Yeah, we don't really know the difference between soul breath and a soul. i mean, it's named it differently. And we do know that like your soul leaves your body when you die.
m3rcier: Soul breath also leaves your body when you die. But I guess I'm going to make a very large assumption that your soul is you. The soul breath is whatever power allows your soul to control your body.
m3rcier: ah Kind of like when you come, and I may screw this because it's been a while, but the when it comes to like technology, you have firmware that is and the interface from software to a piece of hardware.
m3rcier: I know that's probably not nearly accurate, but that's that's what I'm going to go with.
Nick: yeah i'm Yeah, I think I kind of agree. I think the Anishvah with like the soul breath is like it's like life magic, whereas the Oathbound Light is like soul magic.
Nick: But then because we have the word soul breath, i you know like I picture Anishvah cultists as pulling the life energy from like the plants and animals around them and manipulating it and it's causing like you know it's like it's causing like decay know you're taking the life the number of years some these animals and plants have the let on their lives away from them in order to manipulate something else whereas like the oathbound is like it's it's weird because you tithe to your soul to it but then if you die you join the oathbound light so like we don't really know like when the magic is expended are you actually like burning the souls like how does that work
Garrett: Yeah, it's like this the souls are the the fuel.
m3rcier: or the fuel.
Garrett: Fuel for these vestiges to use to create magic. yeah I don't know. yeah it's hard It's hard to think about.
Garrett: cause like
Nick: Yeah. Yeah.
Garrett: it's It's really clear where Primal Blood's magic comes from. cause it's It's from an actual of goddess. Like underground or whatever. um And then but then Legion and Order are using in mortal beings' souls.
Garrett: And then we'll go to the Conclave. We got to do these. We got to do these. Our our Nick's spell card section first. but And then the Conclave is totally different.
Garrett: Totally out there. Totally on a ah whole other wavelength. But anyways, let's let's do these cards real fast. um These are awesome. These are all about... ah basically ah killing things, which is great.
Nick: killed yeah yeah back back for more uh is like an iconic and i don't see it hit play a lot uh but it's iconic i think mechanically for the legion of the fallen um when enemy is defeated you can play a fallen unit from your discard pile just put it in there and equip a relic that they were holding i love the just implications of that right
Garrett: And bring you back, bring back. More necromancy.
Garrett: Yeah. Oh, I forgot mention this because I just saw it in Trapped the Mind. The other thing you can do with Soul Breath is, unlike Oathbound Light, you can use Soul Breath to torture people, which is awesome.
m3rcier: Yeah. So you can take the soul breath. It's not of that creature. It's like you killed someone else. You take the soul breath from their corpse. You can inject it into a living person to harm them, to manipulate them, control them, which would be, uh, entrapped the mind.
Garrett: Or control them.
Garrett: yeah and that's okay that's a huge one because now now the magic if you have if you're in range of the amatrix you can take a soul and shove it another person's body but you cannot do that with oathbound light stuff it does not let you like you don't get to retain control over a soul out of oathbound light uh you retain soul control with anushva
Nick: Well, and it's, it's, and it's, the way it's described in the, in the the lore is that it's, it's not that you're necessarily like taking a completely like separate soul. It's that you're like corrupting the soul that's bound to that body.
Nick: And so it's, you you're using the soul breath, like you're forcing the soul breath into them and yeah in, in doing so are like cursing the soul of that body for a short period of time. Now, again, we're getting a very metaphysical, like, what does that mean sense?
Garrett: Yeah.
Nick: um But yeah, so like, yeah.
m3rcier: Listen, it means I get to control your unit to kill you. That's what it means.
Nick: And I would love to see some expansion. I put but know i put a note here on it, but like, we, you know, we see curse as like a keyword ability on several units ah where you can drain your opponent's echo.
Nick: And, uh, You know, think it's really interesting because it's like the only faction the game that can do that. Like no ah no other faction. I can't think of a card off the my head that can ah directly impact your opponent's resource.
Nick: Can you? Do you guys think of anything?
Garrett: No, just curse.
Nick: Yeah. And ah I don't know.
m3rcier: but Best ability in the game.
Nick: I think Yeah, curse is definitely, I think, needs something. I would I would honestly be fine with like, what if curse was as it is now, but then like you gain half the echo that you drain or something.
Nick: um
m3rcier: Yeah.
Nick: That'd be neat.
m3rcier: one and in
Nick: But.
m3rcier: A new Shva actually ties into the Conclave, which is the next magic we're going to talk about. But Merida's legacy, the Soul Stitcher, it stems from Patan sending her followers out into the rest of the world to learn other magics and then bring them back.
m3rcier: Because remember, Anushva is an incomplete magic. So we have Merida's Legacy, the soul stitcher, that uses Leil Aishram and Anushva to stitch souls, to create abomination and that type of stuff in within the Legion.
m3rcier: Which is very interesting, because I don't know the other... and don't see anywhere in the lore for the other magics where they're combining and using... multiple magics to do one thing other than echo, which seems to be like the foundation for everything except for our next magic.
Garrett: Yeah, that's that's a good point. I'm trying to think. um Because even Laundriel, she doesn't mix Oathbound Light and Leostrum. She uses them separately. And then Auric is pretty much ah it's it's separate as well because he uses Primal and Oathbound Light.
Garrett: No combination. Really, I'd say he doesn't really use primal. It it feels like he mostly just uses... mean, it's weird. I don't think he's using it. I think the shamans that he brings with him can use the primal stuff.
Garrett: And then the other mixed guys, I think Kriza. Kriza is really... We'll talk about him in a second, but Grisa is a really interesting one of of how he's comboing ah the two soul magics, basically.
Garrett: And is also on a crazy quest. um Anyways, but yeah, the Soul Stitcher, because it's a legacy made from the soul of a necromancer.
m3rcier: And then our next magic is the one that is not of Agnar. and doesn't even seem to be of Ymiris. It is Lystrom.
m3rcier: Is it dimensional magic? Is it poison? It is Molech's gift to the Conclave. It's a substance that's usually blue in color and that all Conclave majors depend on, but it's still a mystery to almost everyone within the Conclave. You know, they know parts of it, but not all of it.
m3rcier: It's only known source in abundance is the Oracle of Moloch. There is a source in Lyanna's legacy, but it's not like a tremendous amount, probably only enough for the seeker that wills it to use.
m3rcier: But it is controlled by the Conclave because, of course, they control the or the Oracle and they divvy it out as they see fit. It does appear in my mind, I mean, the Echo is corrupted, but this one seems to be the most corrupting.
m3rcier: ah Because unless...
Garrett: I don't, well, I don't think it, corrects I think it corrupts humans, uh, but it it does not corrupt, uh, the Ipryor.
m3rcier: Yeah, but it it probably corrupts Vol'kyr and Oriton too.
Nick: the
Garrett: Yes, probably. i don't, I don't even know. I, it's, I would be kind of cool. Actually, a Volker can do the Astrum, but, um, Yeah, it's... it he Like, Moloch specifically designed it, or however he did it, or he'd made the Iprior so they wouldn't be corrupted by it, perhaps.
m3rcier: Yes, what says. He made them with natural resistance. And the way you the way he accessed this is he made the oracle, which is just an ori. He aimed at the sky and he pierced the veil between Agnar and some other place. We don't know.
m3rcier: And what came through that piercing is the Lelistrom.
m3rcier: And it's not just a magical source, it's also a energy source.
Nick: Mm-hmm.
m3rcier: They use Lyostrum to power their constructs, the teleportation towers, all types of things along with magic. And unlike the other forms of magic, this one, it's physical. They carry it with them. They had to create containers, which are those little spheres you see on their belts.
m3rcier: They have to have gauntlets that are specially designed to actually use it So of all the magics, this one is very physical. like We can see it. We can say, hey, that is the ice room right there.
m3rcier: The other three, we really can't see the magic. It just happens.
Nick: Yeah. Yeah. And it's also, I mean, like, and like you said, with the transportation of it, with the manipulation of it, it's all very um like technological.
Nick: You have to like learn, you have, somebody had to actually figure out like, how can I use, you know, probably Moloch, but they had to figure out like, how can I use this? Had to build the first gauntlets. They had to build like the first spheres to contain it.
Nick: um It's, it's interesting. It's, it's really, it's a really cool, like, wizard magic source, right? Because it involves like, you have that natural like curiosity of like, I want to know what this is, how it works, and you have a limitless amount of discovery involved with that.
Garrett: Yeah.
m3rcier: And it was Moloch found it because, ah he didn't believe that, uh, Ymiris was all powerful, all knowing, like he, will he wanted to know where she came from. Uh, this was his first step. He found, know, tried to look elsewhere and found a, a new magical source.
m3rcier: Uh, it's also noted that it is the most, uh,
m3rcier: ah versatile because you could use it to produce almost any other effect. And you do so because it this destabilizes reality around the mage and then bends it to the mage's will, which I'm pretty sure Mirrors probably would not like like that, you know considering everything that's here is her creation.
Garrett: Yeah, it's almost like he's getting magic from another, like, like let's say she's from a pantheon of gods, right? ah And he pierced the veil to almost like a mere universe.
Nick: Well, and you start, yeah, you start getting to almost like Lovecraftian kind of like, well, Amiris came to Agnar and created Agnar to get away from like this other, you know, evil or you know maybe rival god that was dangerous.
Nick: And now, and now we're, you know, Malak is like, well, what's out there?
Garrett: Right.
Nick: You know, it's peering into this, you know, the thing that Amir is trying to get away from. Right.
Garrett: Right.
m3rcier: Yeah, like in Diablo, they created the planet where the humans are to get away from heaven and hell.
Nick: Yeah.
Garrett: Yeah, right.
Nick: So it's like, yeah.
Garrett: but um So i think I think it's, I think last room super interesting because it is
Nick: Hmm.
Garrett: not from this world at all uh it's it's good yeah um and we're going to talk about it here in a second after we go through some of these spell cards but the fact that moloch
m3rcier: Alien. the only alien thing we know.
Garrett: created like Leandro's got her little pocket oracle basically. um And like there's more of those in the malediction, but it's also like, what is the, what are the consequences gonna be for when like this veil piercing technology eventually has a catastrophic collapse.
Garrett: Because like the way I see this going is story wise is eventually like this veil is gonna be totally shredded and something's gonna come through ah from that other dimension into our malediction dimension.
Garrett: Like there's so much chaos happening on the on the continent itself and now we've got the chaos of ripping you know time and space from somewhere else potentially
Nick: Yeah.
m3rcier: And then the spells for the Conclave that you know have to do with Lai-Eisrm. Of course, Lai-Eisrm Stride probably one of my favorite spells. You have Ambulus Transportation and Telekinesis that kind of embody the, along with Stride, the movement aspect, moving things around using Lai-Eisrm, changing the reality that's there, demanifest,
m3rcier: And then, of course, the two the two or three counter spells that are probably the favorite spells of every Landriel player or Polynor player in the bane of literally everyone else in the game.
Garrett: That's a that's a good one.
Nick: Yeah, yeah. Everybody's favorite to play against.
m3rcier: So, yes, we actually at at Copperhead this weekend, ah one of the new players... He played a a spell, i camera I think it was Twin Flames, but it was with Polinor, so it was empowered, and it would have killed a couple units for for him, but the other guy played a ah counterspell, played Ward, I think, or Runefold, one of the two wards.
m3rcier: And then the guy that cast Twin Flames had it in his hand, so he countered the counterspell so that he could do his Twin Flames. it was like That was a ridiculous amount of Echo spent just to do six damage.
Nick: do to do that.
Garrett: understand assessment
m3rcier: But it worked. it it helped him win the game, so
Nick: There you go. Yeah, the counterspells. And the counterspells, I feel, you know, it a lot of games involve counterspelling in some kind of aspect. But the fact that like we have Liastrum as like this, you know, even the lore recognizes that Liastrum is capable of like destabilizing like even the magic of Agnar itself.
Nick: And so now you can see the like, oh no, like you can use Astrum to like literally stop Oathbound Light and Anishvah from functioning. You know, you can control them to to an extent.
Nick: um And I like that that's that's even backed up in the lore.
m3rcier: but
Garrett: Yeah, on like it like, outside of the balance of the game, like in the actual world, Ligastrum just trounces these other magics, which why I think Countess is really smart ah in lore-wise because, you know, she understands that comboing these things is the only way to actually win against somebody who's just like only using Anushva, which should probably be like, if the story ends in a ah kind of good-ish way, she's probably the only one who can actually stop Verandl in the end.
Nick: Yeah, like I'd like to see that story.
m3rcier: Yeah.
Garrett: Because they got beef.
m3rcier: All right. They have great beef. It's awesome. ah But moving on from the the magics themselves, we're going talk about the vestiges, which are the artifacts that are empowered with the soul magic.
m3rcier: ah But the souls that are put into them are those of the everlasting themselves. Whereas a legacy is an artifact that was created with the soul of someone loyal to an everlasting.
Garrett: Yeah, these are the headings.
m3rcier: So same type of setup, just different in scale.
Nick: Yeah.
Garrett: i kind i So I wrote these down a little out order. I think the first one we should talk about is not the first vestige, but the unknown vestiges. And so there's this throwaway line in talking about the everlasting war that as an unknown number of everlasting are killed, they are turned into vestiges by the everlasting that killed them.
Garrett: And we do not know what these are. We have no idea. And then the next and then the ah to connect to these, ah the Grisa is searching for a vestige in the malediction that can awaken an everlasting and forever change the fate of the world.
Garrett: ah So I...
Nick: Yeah.
Garrett: Yeah, i was that's that is great.
Nick: What does that? What does that mean?
Garrett: That is great, right? um Because that's his that's his last... ah
m3rcier: Yeah, now I'm going to guess my guess here on what vestiges.
Garrett: his oath he's gonna fulfill.
m3rcier: So we know of the triumphant, we only know of Auster's vestige, his throne. The other two everlasting, we don't know what their vestiges are or where they are.
m3rcier: So I think he's looking for one of, if both of those vestiges.
Nick: Yeah, that would make sense to me.
Garrett: So eventually that's going to happen, ah I would assume, in in in future Seekers and and stuff that's dropped in the game.
Nick: me see.
Garrett: So I'm really excited about that. but
m3rcier: And then the vestige that I don't think it's going to be the large, physically the largest vestige in the world. And the one that no one can actually use or carry.
m3rcier: It's the wall of Galdron. It's the vestige that is currently holding the male and malediction back and saving the rest of the world.
Garrett: Definitely the most important one. No, no doubt. Um, I, I was thinking about this when I wrote that, i was like, can I just like take a piece of the wall off and do something with it?
Nick: yeah
Nick: Maybe the whole thing collapses.
Garrett: Right. Yeah. Maybe naturally it can't be touched or something like you like can't magically manipulate it
Nick: Yeah.
Nick: Yeah, I'd be curious.
Garrett: Um,
Nick: It's not really stated, but i would imagine, right? These vestiges like indestructible, right? Like you can't you can't break them. You can't harm it, except maybe with like a legacy or another vestige, because it's like a...
Nick: I don't want say perfect creation, because it's it's they're just everlasting souls put into relics, but like it's this super powerful artifact that is like immune to like erosion and like decay.
Garrett: Right. Because it's made with like original, pure people.
Nick: Yeah, like the yeah the it's it's like true magic kind of stuff, yeah.
Garrett: Yeah. um and so And then we have the heart Acre, which is the first vestige made. And I guess that's where they probably figured out that they could make these things.
Garrett: um i don't I don't know if they knew they could do that.
Nick: Yeah, just it just has the triumvirate. They just did it. Yeah, they they killed her and put her soul into the heart as like a warning. And it's like, ah did they know they could do that?
Garrett: Well, i were i it does say they put her in there because they thought they might need her to operate the thorn later.
m3rcier: Yeah, they didn't want to outright, i don't even know if they knew they could outright kill, but they were trying to, the heart was kind of like their backup plan. If they needed her, they had they had a way to get her.
Nick: Yeah.
m3rcier: Or at least her essence.
Garrett: And then, of course, the ah throne of Oster, where he put his soul in multiple pieces. and This is the only one that's like shattered.
m3rcier: Yes, it is in seven pieces.
Garrett: It's is all over the place.
m3rcier: Each right of the order has one.
Garrett: So that's interesting. and like deep do ah like hot If they want to bring him back, do they got to like combo these back in the same room and then do something with it?
Garrett: like it's kind of like Voldemort, right? i Or like can like each piece of the vestige bring back Oster?
Nick: Yeah,
Garrett: um
Nick: yeah who knows?
Garrett: don't know. Yeah. but But I but like um but kind of got off topic when i was talking about these, but the the Heart of Vakra is a clear connection to the to the magic of the Primal Blood.
Garrett: The Throne of Oster is not a clear connection. We do not know if that is connected to the Oathbound Light.
Garrett: It's unknown, but that's what makes me think it is because the Amatrix is obviously like the thing that is the engine of Anushva.
Nick: Yep.
Nick: connected, yep.
m3rcier: Yeah, and then the Oracle is the same way.
Nick: And the Oracle, yep.
Garrett: Yes. And then the Oracle is our last tidbit of of good stuff here. I i don't know how I missed this reading Polynor's thing like five times, but I just not noticed it. And I didn't realize the Oracle is not finished.
Nick: Mm-hmm.
Garrett: I didn't realize it was was broken.
m3rcier: Yeah, they don't and they don't got all the parts. They weren't able to smuggle all the parts out of a the Olam before it fell.
Nick: though ah We're talking about the Polinor, the Oracle.
Garrett: Yeah.
m3rcier: Yeah, they had, they they remember they captured, i believe I have to go back and read, but I believe it was captured and they had to smuggle it out part by part or was that the throne?
Garrett: I thought it was built in Quinvala.
Garrett: I don't...
m3rcier: I can't remember.
Garrett: That's a throne.
Nick: I don't...
Garrett: That's a throne. The Oracle is definitely built on Quinvala, for sure. because Because Moloch, while all this other crap was going on, was making Liastrum, like, on the side.
Garrett: Cause he made that thing that Leondra has her little ball of portable, uh, her gym thing.
m3rcier: Mark.
Garrett: And then he built that out on the, ma on the islands. And I'm assuming he was doing that to, you know, ah so people wouldn't bother him while he's building this machine to access the last room.
Garrett: Uh, because when he dies, he's there for his soul to go into it. Um, but now the now the polynore the big conclave story is polynore is like trying to i guess finish it uh i don't i don't i don't know how he's gonna know how to do that
Nick: Yeah. It's the... Yeah, the Oracle's described as a prototype.
Garrett: yeah it's pretty good prototype
Nick: So, yeah. Yeah, it's been running for who knows how how long now. But yeah, Paul Norris saw when he did his... um the gays um When he overcame the gaze of Moloch and he was like in the liastrum, he saw like that it was incomplete and like falling apart. So he's like, well, now gotta fix it somehow.
Nick: And, ah you know,
m3rcier: Yeah, well, Moloch actually talked to him and told him that. Because Moloch's soul, ah not only his soul, but him, he is he is still alive. And I say that with air quotes.
m3rcier: He bound himself to the Oracle, and he's been yeah he's been hiding his presence within the Oracle.
Garrett: He's got consciousness.
m3rcier: And the only one that knows he's there is Polonor.
Garrett: And probably Leondrel knows too now, because she was his apprentice. I would assume he'd let her in on the secret. Yeah,
Nick: It depends on if this before or after the trial.
Garrett: they're still kind of friends.
m3rcier: because he was made aware when he did his days. That's when he was made aware. So he's known since probably before she was his apprentice.
Nick: Since the.
Nick: Yeah.
Nick: um
Garrett: Amazing.
Nick: Yeah.
Nick: Did we cover everything we do talk about?
m3rcier: All right.
Nick: Did we talk about Amatrix at all?
Garrett: Yes, we did.
m3rcier: We did.
Nick: Or did we just mention it? Yeah.
Garrett: Uh, we get, we've talked about it quite a bit in the last two episodes.
Nick: Man.
Garrett: So figured we had pretty covered.
Nick: Well, as I say, I know it sounds like it all runs together.
m3rcier: Yeah, right.
Garrett: Um,
Nick: We've talked about it so much.
Garrett: Well, all right, boys. that's I think that's it for the lore today. We're going to have more for next time. ah We're going to sign off with our events as usual.
Garrett: Alan, what you got for us?
m3rcier: Yeah, so ah we will have the July Trials of the Everlasten started on July 12th, going through August 1st. We're going to go back to a 1v1 format.
m3rcier: Again, August 1st, we have the Lone Star open. august or July 31st, August 2nd, and i'm sorry August 1st and 2nd will be Gen Con.
m3rcier: ah Two co-hosts will be there. I believe they're both going to be playing in the 2v2 and the 1v1, and then Nick will be running Learn to Plays also.
Nick: Mm-hmm.
Garrett: It's going to be a great time.
m3rcier: And then tactic on in Denver, Colorado on August 29th and 30th. Again, if you're a store, uh, organizer, a Harold or anyone else that wants us to feature your event on the podcast, send us an email emails in the show notes, uh, or DM one of us on the discords.
Garrett: Phenomenal. All right, everybody. Thank you for listening to another episode of Into the Malediction. have been your you one of your hosts, Garrett.
m3rcier: This is Alan.
Nick: And this has been Nick.
Garrett: Amazing. Goodbye.
m3rcier: Goodbye.
Nick: See y'all.
