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QCF Design Community • View topic - Desktop Dungeons backstory thread


Desktop Dungeons backstory thread

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Re: Desktop Dungeons backstory thread

Postby squirrelnest on Thu Sep 18, 2014 1:52 am

Wow, thanks. I wasn't going to get all this on my own.

Btw, only game I've ever played where a dev pops in, says "You have some of the story, good job" then leaves. This game, lol.
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Re: Desktop Dungeons backstory thread

Postby flap on Thu Sep 18, 2014 6:04 am

About Horatio's origin, we should read again the Dairy Diary, and the hints about other magical goats lying around around. If remember correctly, horatio started as a simple goat who liked greasing, but who trained to get more power.
My idea on his motivations, was that after he and his fellow goats have once again been persecuted by humans, he decided to get rid of them from the region, returning it to the goats. Hence, the manipulation scheme, a scheme has been a great success : every civilisations from the area collapsed and the place the kingdom settled in was literraly goat ridden.

I also suspects that Horatio's story started in the goat glade, where there is powerfull goat magic.

A hint to the goats persecution is the subdungeon with the Migthy Lost Lekon (who grants piety for killing goats), and other sacrificial goats.
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Re: Desktop Dungeons backstory thread

Postby sitnaltax on Fri Jan 02, 2015 12:27 am

I have been poring over the sign stories and Codex entries, and I tried to put together a timeline of the events of the realm, from the earliest histories hinted at to the player's actions in the Kingdom.

-1. At some point, the Dragons create Horatio the Immortal. They are unsatisfied with this creation and go on to create Dragonspawn and Humans. Horatio is bitter at this abandonment and stalks off to create the Tower of Gaan-Talet in the Northern Desert. (There's no goat civilization, but Horatio is a powerful illusionist and deceiver, so getting whatever early inhabitants of the land to help create it is well within his powers.)

0. Earliest Known History. The geographic layout is this:

* Dragons live in the forest to the West.
* Spiders live in the swamp to the South.
* Naga live in the meadow to the East.
* The desert in the North is uninhabited (except for some Spider colonies that become their refuge after the Naga/Spider war).

At this point, human druids live amongst the Dragons. Humans are variously described as the cousins and children of Dragons, and for the most part the Dragons seem to be revered.

1. A bunch of humans, the "heretic clans", are exiled by the Dragons far south beyond the Swamp. I think these humans began the worship of the "new gods", as opposed to the Dragon, Snake, and Spider. The Dragons tolerate the remaining humans, but they don't forgive the heresy. In the modern timeframe, Horatio tries to get the remnants of Dragon civilization, the Dragonspawn, to ally with him against the Kingdom, citing this old grudge.

2. The Naga of the East and Spiders of the South go to war. If the event that triggered this war is hinted anywhere, I can't find it. I would love to blame Horatio but there are lots of clues about his involvement in the Naga/Human war but nothing about this one. It may be a religious war--the Naga worship light and the sun (in its aspect as the Great Sun Serpent), and refer to the Spiders as "the dark ones".

3. The war goes poorly for the Spiders, and perhaps in desperation, they destroy the Dragon's Sapphire at Hexx, the Dragon's only temple. This must have seemed like a good idea at the time, but as soon as it was done, they say "oh crap" and flee en masse to the Northern Desert. The naga expand into the Southern Swamp.

4. The Dragons are super mad about their temple and Sapphire being destroyed. I suspect this loss is why the Matron of Flame is the last of the true dragons--this wasn't "just" a holy site, it was the source of the divine power of the dragons. The remaining Dragons were angry at the Naga, but furious at the Spiders.

5. Although some of the human heretics were exiled, the heresy could not be stamped out entirely. The Dragons sent further human heretics North to wipe out the remains of the Spiders and build a civilization there to make sure the Spiders stay dead.

6. The humans do so. The Spiders are thought extinct and eventually the memory of their very existence fades into legend. The civilization the humans build thrives, embracing in particular the worship of Jehora/Mystera. At this point, these are the same god.

7. Grand Architect Hobb takes the Northern civilization to new heights, creating his Golden City with the Transmuter/golem magic that is also used to create golems.

8. Sensing an opportunity for revenge against the humans he views with jealously, Horatio now sets his Big Plan into motion. Using his mastery of deception, he convinces the Naga to go to war against the human kingdom to the north. Meanwhile he convinces the humans of the North to use their Avatar-summoning spell to fight against the Naga.

9. The war rages on. Eventually the Naga gain the upper hand and claim or destroy the Transmuter/golem hearts that Hobb used to shape the Northern civilization. Over Namtar's objections (Namtar at this point is a wise and benevolent wizard), the other wizards of the North summon the Avatar.

10. All hell breaks loose, as Horatio knew it would. Northern civilization is quickly reduced to ruins as the survivors go insane. I believe that this is the incident that finally breaks Jehora/Mystera into the two separate aspects of the modern day. Namtar, badly scarred from the experience, escapes to the East. He swears vengeance on Horatio.

11. To gain power to defeat Horatio, Namtar joins the cult of Dracul. He rises to great power there, but in defiance of Dracul's command that all creatures must die, he ventures into the heart of the Underworld. He finds the secret to immortality there and returns--the only being to have done so. However, the experience breaks him. He forgets his vendetta against Horatio (seeing only the hooded figure in his dreams) and becomes the evil necromancer that we know and love.

12. Namtar's evil magic turns the East from a grasslands into an undead-infested tundra. The Dragons command the druids of the West to deploy the remains of the Dragon's Sapphire, which still have at least some power, as a ward to contain the evil from spreading further. The Naga can no longer live there, but carry on in the South.

13. Some amount of time passes. The new geographic layout is this:

* The West contains the remains of Dragon civilization, continuing to wither with the Temple gone, including dragonspawn, the life druids, and of course the Matron of Flame.
* The South contains the still-surviving Naga kingdom, built where the Spiders used to live. The Spider temples still stand, but nobody goes there.
* The North is a demon-haunted, ruined magical wasteland.
* The East is Namtar's frozen tundra wasteland.

Note that in this point no worshipers of the new gods remain. They are exiled from the West, dead, insane, or transformed in the North, renounced Dracul in the East, and never existed in the south.

14. The player enters the Kingdom. These humanoids are the descendants of the exiles from way back in Item 1, returning on the Exile's Path.

15. The Kingdom begins discovering temples to the new gods and reviving their worship.

16. The Naga begin to prepare for war against the Kingdom, following their Prince who believes this batch of humans must be dealt with in the same way as the old Northern civilization. However, this view is not universal, and other Naga preach coexistence and avoiding the mistakes of the past. Eventually this leads to the Naga City plotline, where the player hero defeats the Prince in single combat and defuses the incipient war.

17. Horatio tries to drag the remains of the Dragons into war with the Kingdom, citing the old grudge between the Dragons and the worshipers of the new gods. The player finally finishes the conflict between the Dragons and the human exiles by killing the Matron of Flame.
Last edited by sitnaltax on Fri Jan 02, 2015 2:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Desktop Dungeons backstory thread

Postby sitnaltax on Fri Jan 02, 2015 12:38 am

To answer a couple of the questions Sidestepper posed originally:

* The Dragons stopped directly interfering in mortal affairs because of the destruction of the Sapphire and their temple. Whether this was direct--as in, it was the source of their power--or just caused them to slowly withdraw from the mortal world, a la the Elves of Middle-Earth, is difficult to say.

* Jehora and Mystera were once the same god. I don't know if the Avatar summoning (and subsequent need for justice to be meted out) was the event that finally broke the two aspects of the same being up, or if they were already broken at that point, but they were definitely separate after. My evidence that they were once the same:

- The sign: "Two faces? Same being. - The Mad Heretic"

- The sign: "This has always been a Civilization built on Magic and Chaos. It seems a fitting end."

- Both Mystera and Jehora are described as magical and insane. Mystera is the wrathful but pacifistic side of the coin. Jehora is the cold and unpredictable side.

- The Mystera and Jehora puzzle dungeons. Pre-break Jehora is styled as a monotheistic God and only gives boons, for both discovery and magic. Post-break Jehora is the capricious, vindictive Jehora we all fear. The colored text and bizarre sayings of the Mystera signs definitely echo Jehora's style.

- Their altars. I mean, they even look the same.
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Re: Desktop Dungeons backstory thread

Postby sitnaltax on Fri Jan 02, 2015 12:50 am

Oh hey, two more quick things.

1. At the very end of the Codex, after the Credits, there are a bunch of blank pages. If you keep flipping through, there is one with a small Titan Guitar and the text: "In Memoriam A.E.J." I suppose this isn't lore, but it was an interesting and sad thing to stumble upon.

2. Speaking of the Codex, many of the bosses have additional lore that appears only there and nowhere else. For example, the Avatar is described as clutching prayer beads. This makes the message near the end of The Portal Perilous where killing the last of the mirror Avatars sends prayer beads scattering along the floor make more sense. Also, the Indomitable is described as wearing sapphire armor. This, along with various other clues (his text, the Wand of Binding, the Dented Helm sign story) suggests that the Indomitable is in fact the trapped spirit of the original Hero, the Sapphire Knight, bound into an animated armor.
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Re: Desktop Dungeons backstory thread

Postby Astral on Fri Jan 02, 2015 11:06 am

Nice job sitnaltax!

I only have small bits of DD lore uncovered, but I'm sure the Nagas and Spider went to war with each other thanks to Horatio.

About the council members who wanted to bring in the Avatar, they didn't do so on their own will. The 3 members who voted in favour of it were mind controlled. There's a subdungeon which contains exactly 3 magical earrings, they have text saying you feel compelled to take them on. When you pick them up a msg appears: bring in the Avatar!

Also I found a post sign saying the Eastern Meadow was not uninhabited. It was the home of a large Naga Empire ruled by some Light Soaked Emperor.

Btw, can someone help me out what these things refer to?

The Cursed Dragon in CO says his soul was stolen by Hobarix(Namtar), is it true? And why did he do that?

The Cha'Dylan subdungeon mentions an agreement of the 3. Who were they, and what was the agreement?

What was the purpose of freezing the Eastern Meadow? To preserve the undeads? :lol:
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Re: Desktop Dungeons backstory thread

Postby sitnaltax on Fri Jan 02, 2015 2:17 pm

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Re: Desktop Dungeons backstory thread

Postby Astral on Fri Jan 02, 2015 2:52 pm

Wow, I somehow missed your paragraph 0, or forgot about it by the end :P

I checked out the wiki, and these 3 signposts make me believe that the Nagas were influenced by Horatio:

1. The hooded creature has approached me regularly, providing news of men and urging war. Our magi can smell the heavy stench of illusive magic, but the stranger's information still prove reliable and thus remain welcome at court.

2. I fear it would mean my death if the Emperor ever discovered my plans. But they have to undertsand what they are doing.
I've been speaking with one of their leaders. He claims to be of high influence. I have told him of our secrets, our shame and the mistakes that do not bear repeating - this time, it could risk dooming us all.

3. While I'm certain that our mysterious informer is a friend - a powerful one at that - he often has more anger than sense. I hope the Emperor is careful with such counsel.

I can't remember what signpost tells us about Horatio's manipulations on Spiders, and sadly found nothing on it in the wiki either.

EDIT: Is it just me, or the Sapphire Knight is a reference to the alpha version of the game? Back there the fighter wore blue armor.
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Re: Desktop Dungeons backstory thread

Postby sitnaltax on Sat Jan 03, 2015 12:07 am

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Re: Desktop Dungeons backstory thread

Postby sitnaltax on Sat Jan 03, 2015 12:19 am

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