Transcript
Speaker: Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Into the Malediction. I am Garrett, one of your co-hosts, joined by Nick and Alan.
Speaker: everybody, this is Nick, known in the Discord Petty315. It's Alan, Mercer in Discord. And I'm back this time, for the full episode.
Speaker: So I know you're all super excited about that. ah News though, news, before we get into what this episode is going to be about. Admiral Tater, Malediction Products. So that's me, Admiral Tater.
Speaker: um Again, just shouting out that we've launched our first wave of, you know, rulers, echo mastery trackers, tokens, damage dials, damage tokens. So you can check those out at AdmiralTater.com.
Speaker: And then, Even bigger news, the reinforcement packs for all four factions are coming August 26th. And of course, as usual, it comes with the STL files. So you can print these sweet new units and then plenty of cards to make deck building even more interesting than it was.
Speaker: And then also they're releasing a terrain pack. So if you don't have one of the starter kits or one of the old boxes, faction boxes, and you just bought individual seeker decks, now you can get a terrain pack.
Speaker: ah Or if you only have like Thunder Steps and Sigurus, two-player starter, now you can have and ah way to get the Starcast Halls and Death Shroud Mire.
Speaker: Oh, and also there's standee boxes coming with these reinforcement packs. So again, that's August 26th, so get ready for those, I'm pretty sure. us and many other podcasts will be discussing those uh soon um and then gen con we just got done with gen con uh nick and i ah went up there i got to participate in the festivities and nick did a lot of learn to plays um nick how were the learn to plays they were fantastic um it was it was absolutely ah like mind-boggling how popular this game is
Speaker: um every learn to play session was basically sold out. We had 12 tickets available every two hours for three days. And every single one was sold out. We had a lot of no shows, but like you could only count like on maybe you can count on two hands that people that did not show up. So there was hundreds of people that came through, Gen Con for learn to place. Yeah. And we shoved in people who were like walking by, that when we had open seats, we'd we'd put them down. and it was pretty good too. Cause like, i think we noticed we did the learn to play and then like, you know, the next day or an even an hour later, they'd come back to the table with the bag full of malediction stuff. So I guess mission accomplished.
Speaker: Yeah. It was it was fantastic. Uh, lots of people came back and, uh, were watching and, like you said, with with their bags, their starter star boxes.
Speaker: and We had a lot of people who showed up who had already bought starter boxes but had not played the game. And they were just doing learn-to-plays to like learn how to play their game and that they that they had at home. And you know it also speaks a lot for the game itself. Tons of people were showing up because they were Adepticon or at Genicon last year, and they just saw the game advertised. they were like, oh, that looks cool. I want to try it.
Speaker: Yeah, this is such an easy sell. ah Once you have somebody sit down and play it, the mechanics are just so, so fluid, so catchy. um And then we also had two official tournaments at Gen Con, a 2v2 and a 1v1. The t v two was, we had 12 seekers, including myself and Joel. We played on one team. Joel is my employee here at Tater.
Speaker: And we had a lot of fun in that. Got absolutely smashed. the he he He drove the meatball in and the meatball got killed a lot. Poor meatball. Karma month. And then we also did one v ones And that was a ton of fun.
Speaker: And we had 13 seekers for that. So we did have a buy ah during that. So that went well. We had some awesome prizes, trophies handed out.
Speaker: And you can check out the winner's list on Longshanks for both of these and see their lists there. Again, that's on Longshanks. i And then can also see the post interviews should be posted on Play Malediction's social media.
Speaker: And I know they're on Instagram and Facebook. ah And then we had Lone Star open. Tell us about that, Alan. Yeah, Lone Star was ah was a blast. It was easy to find us because we were dead center of the event hall.
Speaker: Didn't have a sign up from shorts because we're a smaller game, but we had 11 seekers. We only had a 1v1 on Saturday. and four rounds, so we weren't really well. After the event, FLG did ask if next year we can make it a two-day event, so we'll probably have 1v1 and 2v2 next year.
Speaker: But no, 11 Seekers played all day. The night before, we had opennight open play. So on Friday, we got a couple games in. The Oklahoma crew came in.
Speaker: And I actually got to play some games since it was open play. So it was a blast. I will say that not only did they ask us to expand Malediction at Loan Start Open for next year, they also asked about LVO.
Speaker: So Malediction won't be at LVO this year. but there is a very, very, very good chance it will be at LVO next year for 27. Yeah, I want to make concrete plans to go to that next year.
Speaker: My plans are already getting set. Now, one thing that Garrett didn't mention, because don't know why, because normally you're shameless when you plug stuff. Admiral Tater did support both of these tournaments with prize support.
Speaker: We had a great prize support package for Lone Star Open with... Echo Mastery Tracker.
Speaker: Some of the Flex Rulers. And bags and bags of damage tokens. Oh yeah, the tokens were popular. like I gave those out during the event. Once I knew I could... We had 11 players and before the event we only got probably support for 10 because that's what we guesstimated.
Speaker: We had a few extra. So one of the other heralds decided not to take anything. uh and then were able to hand it out i'll uh i'll mail your person if you give me their name um i'll mail to them but anyways i didn't want to agree uh but uh yeah okay no they had a blast though those were the uh the tokens were probably everyone's favorite yeah they're double-sided one five which i think is a it's nice instead of like the two separate ones um Okay, well, that is the Lone Star open.
Speaker: And now we're going to shift gears into the lore part of our podcast. And I've got to remember how to do this. It's been a couple weeks. Today, we're talking about two articles, two articles, and they're focused on the Legion of the Fallen. And we are getting extremely specific in how the legions, uh,
Speaker: political courts work. It's very Game of Thrones-y, I feel like. um All right, so I'm going to let Nick lead this off. And the first article is from Malediction, The Court of Whispers.
Speaker: The Court of Whispers surely seems like the peak of Bellios' society for those who look from the outside, and maybe it is. There is simply much more under the superficial glamour of it all. The pretty faces and sweet smiles hide venomous words and treacherous plots that will kill as surely as any blade.
Speaker: A noble from the Legion of the Fallen doesn't have friends, but allies, and only for as long as they are useful. Even the monarch of the dead is not beyond playing these games. That quote is attributed to Countess Morida Umberland, Seeker of the Legion Fallen.
Speaker: like it. That was a good Countess voice. Thank you
Speaker: Yes, so this i have been waiting for this article. I love Legion the Fallen. Again, you very games is throw are any games of throney.
Speaker: The Legion is all about that political intrigue, whereas you know the the order is much more structured and very hierarchical. The primal are very disconnected and kind of, hate to say like random or chaotic, but ah they just don't have like,
Speaker: societal structure in the same way and then the conclave is so much more what's the what's the word for it that makes it different from the intrigue of the legion oh there's just business yeah yeah it's just it's just business so it's more like business as usual so it's less about who you know and more about like what you can accomplish yeah it's it's like the legion it's much more structured like a traditional uh like medieval. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. And don't, and don't be, don't hate to say it. Primal is pure chaos. They know that they are chaos chaos incarnate and that's what they want to create.
Speaker: Yeah. So, uh, getting into the quarter whispers, very, uh, very interesting. So they do, this article does, something we've kind of talked about, in previous episodes was basically we couldn't really infer whether or not the fallen outnumbered the living, um which we we made assumptions, but we didn't have it. This states it out specifically that the living are the minority of the population.
Speaker: So we definitely know now that the fallen outnumbered the living.
Speaker: Yeah, well i well, I was, so when I was reading it, I was like, okay, it says that in, uh, in the capital, essentially, like in the capital, you know, if you're living, you're part of these noble houses and then it's surrounded by undead.
Speaker: And perhaps there's just more, you know, mortal living people out in the surrounding towns, perhaps. Um, cause like we still gotta create, you know, population for, for all this stuff.
Speaker: bye But, um, But anyways, that's that was my that was my thought when I was reading that part.
Speaker: But there's a lot of noble houses, like 40 plus. Yeah, yeah. And um each one of them has to descend from one of the original three, right? so that's the only thing we kind of knew beforehand was that we knew it started with three. We had no idea how widespread the the court had grown.
Speaker: Yeah, and they're keeping like tabs on it too, like you know strict records. And then the fact that ah you're keeping the corpses right of the dead family it makes it like an easier, like here's our this this straight lineage from this dead corpse all the way to me, and like the existence of our house counts.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, so um moving forward into that, We do know that Tan Ravalum, so like let's kind of refresh on our Legion ah history. Tan Ravalum started the Legion with this vision, this idea that the Everlasting and the the mortals, right, the people of Slejia should still be treated as equals. She still saw them as equals.
Speaker: And so she kind of ruled her people as one of them rather than than where like the Triumvirate saw themselves as like the new gods on the block. So here we are, thousands of years later.
Speaker: Tan Raffelbum's teachings, her vision is still kind of enshrined in some of the ideology, but not in all of it.
Speaker: The current monarch is a Tan Octavia. And we don't really get much about her other than just her name.
Speaker: And she's of Nishir lineage. The Nishir lineage. But yeah, so getting back into that, we've covered, like again, we covered this in the Legion episode, but we had three like philosophies that descended from the different, the three children.
Speaker: um So Ascara are the expansionists, the military, and the warmongers. That's where I pictured, you know, you see something like, you know, Vorondahl coming from that kind of discipline, this idea of, you pushing the limits of the fallen and defeating their enemy. you know they see the other factions as as their enemies.
Speaker: um The Inosh or Inoshir are the like scholars of necromancy who still follow like the rigid teachings of the Anish Fah.
Speaker: They are still kind of beholden to like the, the magic of the fallen. And then the Masar or Masarim, are are artisans, craftsmen, their philosophy was much more like in some kind of self-perfection rather than looking for ending the curse of death.
Speaker: They were just, they they they seemed to be more content to make the most of what they have. That's how I kind of took it. I did too. And we'll talk about them more later with their experiments.
Speaker: Yeah, so... Yeah, let's talk, so like, So you know Tan Octavia is the current monarch. So how does the how does the court, how does the house ah put forth a person and then has that person get put in that position?
Speaker: Yeah, so um the Court of Whispers is very judgmental and very restricted on how you grow to be part of the court. Obviously, everybody has some kind of descendants, some kind of lineage.
Speaker: But it's a little bit more complicated than that. One, you have to be able to prove it, which I don't know how they can't, and I don't really don't know how they do, um I guess, other than just record-keeping.
Speaker: Well, that's what I'm saying. They have like actual corpses in the epitaph who keep track of these things to an extent. Yeah, so it's just like, oh, go ask my great-great-great-grandfather. Exactly.
Speaker: so Yeah, so you have to prove that you are um directly linked to one of the lineages that come directly from ah Tan Ravulum. You then have to receive sponsorship from three ah already established houses within the court.
Speaker: And we're going to get over how some of that how how the how some of that can be done, but think of it as pretty typical, very aristocratic... ah mingling, socializing, know, maybe political marriages, stuff like that.
Speaker: Got to keep the riffraff out. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I mean, the the three things you have to do, you had said, you have to prove your lineage. you have to have three other houses support your claim, but your founder also has to be recognized by the monarch.
Speaker: That's why after what a thousand years, something like this, there's only 40 families because, uh, It's not an easy thing to do. And I think it, and there was a sentence about like, this is just not happening anymore at this point. Like all the houses that can exist basically do exist. I think this is part of Vorndel's problem as well is he's like not in a house.
Speaker: Or, or he can't get to the leadership position of of the house he's in because none of the leaders want to share any more influence. Yeah. Vorndel's in a weird situation because we don't really know anything about like any kind,
Speaker: any kind of family ties, which normally wouldn't be an issue. None of other Seekers, well, with a couple exceptions, have like family as a part of their story. You know, they can all kind of be there own there are other their own characters. But in the Legion, it seems much more important to actually have like that established route.
Speaker: um So Vorndahl kind of breaking away and being his own person seems very interesting. And we I want to know more about where he came from.
Speaker: hint hint maybe we get a uh a full-blown c siggyish story on warndall maybe a backstory yeah yeah prequel so uh yeah but yeah definitely so you have to be recognized by the monarch for a great service and like what can that look like so we know that um morita right in her story kind of guess morita is recognized for kind of gaining control of the soul stitcher in the way that she does and creating this new style of necromancy.
Speaker: You blending the Anishva with this kind of unorthodox thinking and stitching the, you know, doing this, the actual soul stitching, stitching the corpses together. And so things like that, I guess, are are what you must do for the Legion.
Speaker: Agreed. Yeah, no, everybody wants a piece of Morita, man. Everybody. She knows what she's doing. Because she was like, I think in her her lore, they like wanted her to become like monarch.
Speaker: Yeah, she was offered a place in the line of succession. And she turned it down because she was like, no, i'm not i don't I don't want to play these politics games. She's like, my entire life has been ruined from these games of this backstabbery.
Speaker: she's like I'm going to give me a man give me an estate in the Umberlands I'm going to go live out there with the spirits and nobody nobody will talk to me it's very like dead people except for dead people it's very like you know dark necromancer like living alone in this like massive castle just surrounded by corpses setting yes ah and in spirits because she lives in the land of the spirits too so she's kind of like double layered her protections From the living.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Even for the Legion, it's not a not safe.
Speaker: So, yeah. So that's how you become a member of the Court of Whispers. Now, once we get into like that, once you're in the court, now you're in the game, right? You're part of the the nobility. You're part of the the aristocracy. Well, it's not over. You still have more work to do.
Speaker: And this is where we get all of the fun, classic, you know medieval and like you know reis historical inspired aristocratic games.
Speaker: So you have families making political marriages, setting up trade with each other, but then also spying on each other, assassinating each other.
Speaker: You know, all of the all of the things that seems like the Legion really has no lack of excitement for. For their nobility. Yeah, and they it seems like they do a good job of like keeping it inside the court, because for the outside looking in the Legion is pretty.
Speaker: What's it called? Unified, like one goal, one one system. Yeah. Yeah, and it seems like the Legion has, like the I mean, I guess the Order has the most like top-down authority, where if the church says something, everybody kind of falls in line. The Legion seems like they could maybe even do it better with the Monarch of the Dead basically just being like, you know what? No, like you guys, we're we're doing we're all unifying, we're doing one thing, and we're all going to listen to it. But, you know, it's similar to like the Conclave, where
Speaker: these houses see each other as rivals and not necessarily as like brothers in arms. Yeah. And so every opportunity becomes like, well, we can let them take the fall. And all of a sudden now we are going to be more respected within the Legion higher up in the succession.
Speaker: Yeah. And the the monarch is not immune to the game either. he or she also has to play play their part. So if they did put their foot down and say, this is what we're going to do, they could accidentally wind up an actual fallen.
Speaker: or part of Well, no, they'd they'd be part of the the vestige. Yeah, right. That's like long-term for any monarch. I guess like you become monarch to push forward your house's specific interpretation of how, you know,
Speaker: Tom Pavolom's goal is supposed to go. And so each and then next we'll talk about how, you know, the main notable houses and like, it's got it's just like the spheres of the Conclave where each of them have like a very specific skill set that they share.
Speaker: And then they try and perfect that inside the Legion. Yeah, yeah. And and and I think it's gonna be similar to like how the Conclave like the next see you work where it's like, some Some of the houses, are their skill set is just more useful to the Legion as a whole. And others will just simply be like, well... And we talk about this with conclave. It's like, what about a sphere that's just like, well, we do like maps and like navigating really well.
Speaker: And we're really useful, but we're never going to be like one of the five. And i think there's going to lot of houses like that in the Legion where it's like, no, we're really good at farming. That's the thing. We're really great at making these farming fallen.
Speaker: yeah but like it's never going to be recognized as like cotton gin running skeletons yeah
Speaker: uh yeah so um notable houses yeah all right let's kick it off with the house eldris now this is the current uh monarch uh because they descend from ah then the the the nashir and these names killing me um deep underground ah near Necropolis. So if you've got your sweet map of Silesia out and you're looking over at the ah the bottom right hand, Necropolis is up there in the mountains.
Speaker: And so these guys um have a like an underground system that they experiment on the fallen with. So that their whole,
Speaker: um House Eldris' whole plan here is to perfect the body. And so, and trying to find a soul to it.
Speaker: And the whole idea is like, you know, if you create a perfect mortal body essentially, and then can make it so the soul can't leave, you've solved the curse of dying or whatever.
Speaker: However, it's it's ah it's not going well, as far as we know. And so they're desperate, desperate for some of that Countess Morita, trying to get her to marry in all for her soul-sitcher abilities.
Speaker: Because they, I guess, feel like that's probably the missing piece of the puzzle. Obviously, Countess Morita is not about that. She's not going to... She knows what they're doing, so they're not going to gain that by...
Speaker: um any sort of negotiation it will have to be by force i don't know how they would force her but we'll see um and then the next house is house branchia ah which would alan you want to take this one Yeah, we're just really short here, though, because this is the other articles about this house specifically. But this is the house that focuses on spirits, whereas, you know, as far as we know, other houses, it's typically going to be horrors or the fallen themselves, the stitched, you know, the actual undead that have a physical form.
Speaker: This house specializes in spirits themselves. This is where the original soul whispers, formed before other houses started picking up on it.
Speaker: Yeah, it's very it's really interesting because it mentions how they don't really understand how these spirits are created. ah And they can't replicate how to make it happen.
Speaker: And I think they make some leeway here or headway into that. In the next article, talks a little bit, but you know, they're really good at stitching together these corpses and like reanimating, you know, simple things.
Speaker: But you know spirits and fallen are two different things and and two different things in the game too. And don't know, it's like the power, like, you know, spirits are the actual,
Speaker: conscious or like it's that that is the person instead of just the physical form the fallen body the spirit is like who they were so it's like how do we maybe that's the key to keeping yourself alive right is how do we get these spirits um don't know bound to a physical form, which is kind of what House Eldritch is doing.
Speaker: So i mean really it really sounds to me like these two houses should probably like work together a little bit. But but what know would have specifically basically they don't care about the physical form. They write. They would rather just become a a soul and get rid of the physical form. So Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. I can't really do anything. You can't do anything as a spirit, though. So I don't know how they get around that. You taught don't know. You tell it to Greza. Greza does fairly well for himself. Greza's got his fancy legacy. all right. Yeah.
Speaker: No, that's why i do like that. We really get a lot about spirits in this pair of articles because they do really go to show that like spirits kind of are a force of themselves. ah They don't know how to control them.
Speaker: Like they Greza is kind of an anomaly. because his legacy is what gives him the power. But like, uh, Bronchia goes into study and like, how do they control spirits? Because if they can figure that out and then that's a whole nother wing of necromancy, you know, and an honest father, that they can start to work on.
Speaker: And that study, uh, I would love to see in the future, like maybe some cards where we have like and and untamed spirits where like, They take like random actions or something and you can't like actually direct them exactly, but they're really powerful. You know, they're really powerful. So it's kind of the trade off.
Speaker: Kind of like the, was that the practice gore horn that charges at the beginning? Activates first and the charges if it's not engaged.
Speaker: So that'd be cool. But yeah, moving on. We'll cover more. We can go back. We can come back to house bronchia with the second article. Yes. Yep. um House Letharry.
Speaker: authority ah These are from the Maserin lineage. ah These are our diplomats. They're also known as the puppeteers. So these are our silver-tongued, kind of very politicking nobles, I think in the most classic sense.
Speaker: And so, um you know, the this article goes on and talks about the manipulation with the Anish Fah, like they understand how to manipulate people both just with their words, but also with their magic.
Speaker: And so they kind of weave that together. And this is where we would see more of that kind of mind control that that control the soul breath that we talked about in the Legion that, you know, you never really know when you're talking to somebody and all of a sudden you feel that creep and like your mind and your body start doing things that you're not telling it to do. Right. Yeah.
Speaker: So one thing that's interesting about them is they maintain their own library. ah So and outside of Epitaph, Epitaph is where the Legion collects all their histories, all their bodies and and corpses and heads.
Speaker: um House Letharry collects their own library of fallen. And they're allowed to keep it by, you know, by by gift of the Legion, by the monarch.
Speaker: ah Because it allows them to do their work as envoys and diplomats to other factions and all the espionage that comes with that. And so it's very interesting because they hold a lot of power in that same, you know, same sense. as like, you know, knowledge is power, information is power.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: um Yeah, and it can't be shared, right? I think that's like the epitaph. Anybody can go to the epitaph and, you know, you know pull out a corpse and talk to it. But this thing is like, you know, this is household secrets of wherever they're at in Avasola.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, definitely gives me a... um There's definitely a good point of conflict here because now you have... You know, how how does the Legion get access if it's like, oh, there was this conclave mage that died 700 years ago, that was the last known person to hold these secrets. And it's like, we can't find him an epitaph.
Speaker: And it's like, oh, House Letharri has him in their library. They kind of they have to storage. They have to yeah they have to like negotiate be like, well now, you know because if the Monarch of the Dead comes and says, hey, I need something, it's like all of a sudden, boom, that's leverage.
Speaker: It's like, oh, you need something from us? Okay. So it has to be like worked out in the sense of like, no, it's not you know I don't need something from you. It's like, this is an opportunity for you to show your loyalty to the Legion by granting us access. you know it's It's that politic, politic and game.
Speaker: And we we do also get a name drop here. Yeah, this is the best part. This is the best part. So the head of the house, Lord Nodum Lethari, is a preserved head. Head of the house. So his head is still guiding the house in death.
Speaker: So he has been not placed in the library yet, but essentially library he he is a library priest now, but he still leads the house. so what So this is back to another... I get confused about the Legion because we talk about spirits Fallen being different, but then we have like these corpses that you can talk to that are still like who they were.
Speaker: So are there spirits trapped inside their corpse still? How does that... but i think i think that's the role of the Soul Whisperer, right? is they have to They have to connect the body with the spirit so that the body can then...
Speaker: Like they have to kind of invite the spirit back into the body for a short period of time so that you can communicate. um I think I mean, it's again, we don't we're not given step by step instructions on how it works. That's just kind of the vague description we get. for soul numbers Here's my pitch.
Speaker: Lute Studios. malladdesh Here's my pitch. Let's take his head. Let's put it on another thing that we construct that he can control. And he's a new seeker.
Speaker: That's it. Well, that wouldn't fit in with his house because, you know, the next house is the house that creates the horrors. Listen, I'm not going to worry about that. We're going to put him on a construct. All right?
Speaker: Well, I think this is the one house that would probably, like, try to keep their creations to... ah the type of creation that is not repulsive to you know the other factions because they're the diplomats. thing Although a head by itself is pretty repulsive.
Speaker: Yeah, but he probably doesn't go out that much. It's probably his offsprings offspring offspring that goes out. But like the previous house, Renchia was spirits, and then the one before that was ah you know undead, undead. So like the the hordes of undead.
Speaker: This one's probably more of very uh pleasant i don't know how you can make a corpse pleasant but uh they probably try their hardest to make sure that their entourage are falling or not as off-putting as some of the other houses i appear to want to be i do wonder if marita with the soul stitcher can essentially because can already like combine things perhaps she could put this head on another corpse and make it be able to control the legs or something. I don't know. well That's not important. But ah anyways, next house, next house, house of Vermont.
Speaker: It's another Masarin. um So these this is a really old house. It predates the malediction and the age of strife. ah The Vermont created the whores,
Speaker: And these are like the the super... ah We're going to see some of these in the Reinforcer packs. and Because there's no horrors in the game yet, right? o Right, we had one article about them.
Speaker: Yeah, so they're coming. and she As a mortician, she created these. So she molded the flesh into shapes similar to how the um like the shamans do over in Primal Blood.
Speaker: ah And so they're they're looking to push their house up by expanding their their horror creation. um and There was something else I remember reading. i it's It's passing by now. If people don't know, what do we do these? We we like read these articles, we write these scripts, and then we try to get ready for the next ah episode and we read more articles. And so this is like four articles behind. I'm trying to think, what else were they doing that was interesting?
Speaker: Oh, she doesn't like keep it a secret. Right. Like she shares like how to do it, essentially how she's. been english So how she figured out how to do that like Unlike the Countess, who doesn't share soul stitching, Isa shared how to flesh shape, which is what elevated their house so quickly.
Speaker: Yeah. Compared to other houses like they they rose very fast because they shared so much knowledge.
Speaker: And if you were watching the Instagram or Facebook, Loot Studios posted a picture, and I think the card, too, of the Legion. Yeah, of the Drax guy that's there at the bottom. the Champion of Drav. Yeah, it's pretty sweet.
Speaker: And this house this house is in decline for two reasons they shared. one People consider their flesh shaping too traditional. Like they're not being, they're kind of using the same things over and over.
Speaker: But also because the Conclave has recently stolen one of their family legacies from them. So it appears more than just the Order care about legacies being stolen from them.
Speaker: you have a legacy and you're part of a faction and you lose it, yeah, you might want to go find a new house, a new sphere, a new Order, a new right. Yeah. It's not troned upon.
Speaker: Definitely. No, it's... a Yeah, I can't imagine it's in any of the factions losing a legacy. like every Any kind of leader is going to recognize the opportunity there.
Speaker: Power's gone. Now, okay, so next... So now we're getting into a more specific about House of Branchia. And this is... a Branchia, Branchia is the next article by our man Chaga.
Speaker: ah All right, I'm going to read the quote from this the start of this one.
Speaker: Ynash dedicated her life to ending the curse of death. In her name, we preserve on this goal. But what if there is a different path altogether? What if we could simply ascend beyond the curse and the frat the frailty imposed upon our bodies?
Speaker: Our spirit is immortal and unbound. We must only take the reins of our deaths, and what comes thereafter. of and other that quotes Franchia Nashear?
Speaker: ah Okay. and This goes back to what Alan was talking about. I'm going to throw it back to Alan and ah the spirit situation here. Oh, yeah. So, it's going to start off just by making it clear that the no one within the Legion, as far as we know, outside of the Legion,
Speaker: has discovered a way to reliably create the spirits, much less control them. The only entity on the planet that we're aware of that can control them reliably is Grieza, through his legacy, the Irinov helmet.
Speaker: He can command them against their will, whereas no one else can. If you anyone else tries to command a spirit against its will, it's usually going to try and kill you for it. That's because in this setting, spirits are the physical, corporeal manifestation of your soul, usually through sheer where willpower. So the spirit, the soul, you did not want to die when you were killed.
Speaker: And for some reason, you became a spirit.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yeah, so... on You want keep going? Yeah, I was going to say during, let's see, in this year, and they actually discovered all this during the Age of Strife, so that 500 years, was it? Years of between essentially darkness is when they first figured this out and created the first Soul Whisperers.
Speaker: So they're the ones, just like we have a certain sphere in the Conglave that can teleport you and or transport you via boat. Within Baleos, you have Branchia that will help you navigate the Umberlands to get in and out of Legion territory.
Speaker: So that's where they make a good deal of their money is traversing the lands that are just utterly infested with spirits.
Speaker: Yeah, Umberlands. so The more we hear about it, the more like absolutely no-go zone it seems to be. The amount of spirits just roaming around, no wonder Marita lives there.
Speaker: It'd be impossible to get to her. um Yeah, so like Soul Whispering is us as a special ability. I do like how in the game it's it's an elite unit instead of some basic thing, kind of like how the the priests and shamans are.
Speaker: ah But Yeah, so like their whole idea, and it's I don't, because I, you know, their whole idea is, you know, how do we make, how do we on purpose create a spirit?
Speaker: Because they don't get it, but they the part they did figure out was how to make tragedies. And whatever, think of tragedy, i just think, you know, it's the hand thing Risa has, but um the giant hand. But so they know how to do that, but they don't know how to create. Yeah, but they don't know how to create a spirit who's like, maintains their consciousness on purpose.
Speaker: Clearly spirits are created, and there's just a ton of them. And perhaps part of it is because i'm kind of I'm kind of foreshadowing another another article. it's like, you know, because of the malediction and like the thorn of all and all this crap.
Speaker: When you die, the system of where your echo and life is supposed to go has been broken. And so there's just like the, uh, uh, Silesia is just filling up with spirits and dead.
Speaker: And it's just like, it's growing because there's nowhere for them to like peacefully go. uh, what do you guys think about that? Maybe. Well, we, we do know, um, that spirits are more likely to manifest in the, um,
Speaker: in Belios because like the Amatrix and we do get, that it true we get, we get a couple of little like tidbits. So like, you know, we know about the revenants of the order are like spirits that have like still have an oath unfulfilled.
Speaker: So they like come back. um And who, we don't know if maybe that involves the oath down light or, You know, yeah know up light i thought just like, you know once you die, it sucks your whole soul up and shoves the into the ah right spirit is a thing of will. So if you are a faithful of the order and you have a very strong will and your will is to fill your oath.
Speaker: Yeah, that like maybe you're back as a spirit because of that. The Oathbound Light's pulling you like your soul to it, but then like your will, your oath is still there. So you pull a little bit back and the Oathbound Light that you pull back with you allows you to manifest as a spirit, you know?
Speaker: And so like the Revenants are still walking around because they still have unfinished business, but with a more noble purpose. But we do know that I think it's choice of brutality.
Speaker: in the lore primer talks about the primal spirits and how like, you know, even when ah when a berserker dies in such a frenzy, and their blood even will even like burst forth from their body to make battle one more time.
Speaker: Yeah. And so i even that- The spirit itself is frenzied. yeah but Yeah, exactly. And so it's like, you know, even the primal blood have spirits that come like in in the aftermath of battle.
Speaker: ah but in a much shorter like period of time. It doesn't seem like They they don't roam. They finish fighting, and then when the frenzy subsides, they just kind of melt back into blood. away Yeah, to the tree. This also gives us a glimpse into the darker side of the Legion.
Speaker: like it They tell us here that tragedies are the ones they know the most on how to create, so they have been able to recreate tragedies, just not reliably,
Speaker: but we kind of know what goes into creating a tragedy. So they're doing some pretty messed up stuff just to try and experiment. So, uh, again, just reinforces that none of the four factions are, wholly good or wholly bad.
Speaker: depending on where you are on them, it could still be a bad day for you, which again is why we should live in the sovereign cities, but but maybe that might not even be that great of a life either. We don't know too much about them. Um,
Speaker: Yeah, I would say the one thing we don't know about spirits is that we don't know in the Conclave if they have any unique interactions with spirits. I'd be curious to see how the Astrum, you know, if you're exposing yourself to the Astrum constantly when you die and your your spirit lives on, um how does that manifest?
Speaker: Yeah, well, i guess we do know about the... ah the Ippier that lived in Epitaph that taught Vorondahl and Morita. So maybe there's, I mean, maybe it doesn't have too much of an impact. I don't know.
Speaker: or or Or maybe the... Morita uses Leastrom, so some of some of her units are across. Yeah. Yeah, the Umblin shades are... And maybe Leastrom is the key.
Speaker: Like, it is what is needed to to finally do what they're trying to do. Right, like, extend life... Because it's a power from outside of the realm right that we are aware of. So it might be another an equal to Ymiris. It might be like that.
Speaker: We don't know any of that stuff. so maybe maybe we'll have a Maybe we'll have a big happy ending in the Malediction when all the factions come together like a ah Captain Planet style and use magic to power curse the power of friendship magic. Yeah, exactly. That's what they're missing. They're missing heart. That's it. That's that's what's going to go. Okay, well, youve been ah what have you been drinking today?
Speaker: oh
Speaker: Happiness. um Let's see here. ah So that's it for House of Rantia and their spirits. And that's it for this episode. Before we move on to that, though I wanted to say one thing I really enjoyed at the end of this article.
Speaker: Uh-huh. One of the very last lines is that, ah we they so we know they're trying to make spirits. and It has rumors that they have some have succeeded in becoming spirits themselves.
Speaker: And it's some will say that House Bronchia is being guided and counseled from the shadows, while others say that the spirits that with are found within the holes are nothing but shadows of their former selves.
Speaker: And so who really knows who's guiding House Bronchi anymore? Yeah, it's the hearsay. right, hearsay. I don't believe any of that. Yeah, okay. Get out here. ah No, no, no. It's like, yeah.
Speaker: And it could be getting manipulated by our boy Virondal, perhaps? Thorndall? However you say his name. Seems too subtle for him. That's for sure. Probably the the monarch, if I had to give it to anybody. I don't know if I would give it to Thorndall. He's much more direct.
Speaker: Or the Conclave. Yeah, I mean, the Conclave did steal some legacies from the Legion, so who knows? They should probably work on getting those back. Anyways, all right.
Speaker: To wrap this episode up, that's that's our current state of allegiion the Legion Fallen. Community spotlight time. Community spotlight. Alan, who we spotlighting?
Speaker: Yeah, we're going this week, it's going to be Deviant Dice. So, Harold Toxic Spunk. This is a community in the New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia, and Delaware area.
Speaker: Toxic has created a website called Deviant Dice that has... digital echo and mastery and round trackers. It has some, you can report your matches and it'll give you statistics. He has an accolade system, forums for discussing and sharing stuff, and then all the local events in the area. So it's a community site for that area.
Speaker: But anyone is free to join and use some of the tools there. They also have the Beyond the Conclave malediction podcast. He's got two episodes on YouTube.
Speaker: I'll link in the show notes if you want to go give him a listen. But just another Herald trying to build a community up in that part of the country. So if you're in New Jersey, New York, Philly, or Delaware, hit it, DeviantDice.
Speaker: And it's deviantdicerollers.com is the actual yeah URL. It's always good to see heralds out there making it easier for people to jump into a community. Because that is a large area with a lot of population.
Speaker: um Awesome. Okay. Events. Events. All right. Yeah, we're just going to do tournaments this week. ah Trials of Everlasting started today. So I announced the pairings this morning.
Speaker: uh tacticon in denver it's gonna be august 29th and 30th that is harold ogrekin we're gonna have both allegiance and clash there uh tournament of the everlasting at pandemonium games in michigan on august 29th harold matt which is nurgle painting on discord it's gonna be a clash event tournament at the forge in chaska minnesota think i'm saying that right probably not uh september nineteenth Harold Kvelja.
Speaker: That is also a clash. Warzone Houston, September 26th. I am the TO and it is a clash event.
Speaker: The first Conclave tournament, September 5th. That one is Harold Toxic. So that will be in the New Jersey, New York, Philly, and Delaware area.
Speaker: And then one in Germany with Harold Janica. It's going to be in Bad Imstall, Germany. And it's at Strategies... Spielfrunde? I have no idea how to say that word. Spielfrunde?
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, that's difficult. Those are our tournaments for the the next few months. And then we're going to give a shout out to some weekly or monthly play nights.
Speaker: So Harold Hines Dehammer in Cape Town, South south Africa. Thord and Board. couldn't didn't know which night he's having that. Pensacola, Florida at Level Up Gaming, Tuesdays at 6 p.m.
Speaker: Valencia, Spain. There's a store. Couldn't get the which store it was. I'll try and have that for the next one, but it's Tuesdays at 4 p.m.
Speaker: Orion Township in Michigan, Games for Life. Harold Schreicher, Tuesdays at 4 p.m. In Greenlee, Colorado at the Nerd Store, Harold Allen or Crimson Wrath on the Discord, Tuesdays at 5.30 p.m.
Speaker: Odin's Place in Houston, Texas is going to be Harold Titan Return to Myself at 6 p.m. on Tuesdays. Hamburg, Germany at Tabletop Food Better, Harold C.K. Wednesdays at 4 p.m.
Speaker: In Lodz, Poland at Base Stack, Harold Kamkol, Wednesdays, 7 p.m. And then one Saturday a month at Copperhead Brewery, I have a Learn to Play and just, you know, open play.
Speaker: That's going be Saturdays at 12 p.m. But once a month. Brickhouse Game on Saturdays in Dallas, Texas, it's Harold Ravens. And then Harold Jackal in Roswell, New Mexico at Alien City Tabletop, Mondays at 530 and Saturdays at 1 p.m.
Speaker: so about a dozen of our weekly events if you're a Herald or a store you email us your info we will try and give it a shout out when we do all this that is lot it's a lot malediction going on yeah that's good lot of international malediction cool well that's the end of this episode I've been Garrett I've been Nick I've been Alan okay goodbye See everyone.
