This has always been the biggest downer for me - why isnt the player given a choice once we reach Korvaak:
Fight him and serve the three (As-Is option)
OR
Support him in his rightful vengeance towards the three with a pact that Korvaak will not unleash his wrath on all of humanity but be an ally vs Yugol/Chton
If the player chooses the 2nd - you get Byscilla, Draelus etc appear each under their respective thrones and you haveto fight the 3 of them helped by Korvaak who is constantly buffing you up.
This should really not be difficult to implement - the 3 models exist, so its a matter of tuning and few extra bits of dialog.
This would not only close in a complete state the overall storyline but also bolster that feeling which GD has to give the Player a choice at some instances.
Also majority of players despise the Three - give us at least the Choice do we help them or not.
I know. From the beginning i didnt like the idea of cavorting with witches, but you cant proceed without choosing one. And Solael is the worst.
So im not up to speed on the relationship between the Three and Korvaak. They are rivals? What makes them so?
But yeah, i wouldnt mind actually joining Korvaak and fighting the 3 Witches. That would definitely be a challenge. But the arena has gotta be a little bigger than Korvaak’s chamber…
Plus, we’d hafta work out the powers of the 3 and the dynamics of how they would choose to fight; the AI has got to be exceptional. They would want to work together, instead of just throw down with whatever they have like the Council members at the end of Port Valbury.
Elite would introduce their summoning powers and in Ultimate they also morph into something stronger a la Warden Krieg.
I’ve not dabbled into modding tools beyond using them to make bosses fight one another, but IIRC Grim Dawn story events require a lot of custom scripting and aren’t exactly made easy by the engine.
Which is why I’m not sure if the engine is even capable of supporting lots of C&C. Or if the issue with implementing something like this is a question about dev hours/reward ratio.
Either way, something I hope Crate keeps in mind when working on their in-house engine is to add some sort of robust event system that simplifies creation of branching story paths. It’d help them create small/huge story branches based on player actions. Some good examples of multiple choice quests would be Prelude to Darkness and Arcanum. On the ARPG front, Svarog’s Dream is a good frame of reference for C&C and reactivity.
For the current GD, while I like the suggestion, it doesn’t seem practical.
Because the Three are the lesser evil compared to Korvaak. Being able to join him would never make sense given everything else the Taken does in the game.
I don’t buy the idea that Korvaak is the lesser of these evils.
Consider the followers of these gods. 100% of Korvaak’s are homicidal lunatics who consider it an honour to have an incinerator installed in their stomach. Followers of the Three are generally sane and on the right side.
If we were to implement it then the devs might as well let us side with Ch’thon who is the only real victim in this whole thing (ignore my username).
Jokes Aside
Like I said. I’m all up for more C&C but this doesn’t seem like something that’s easy to implement or practical from a dev effort perspective.
Additional C&C can be something the devs consider for their future project(s).
He isn’t.
If the lore tidbits expertly laid out by the devs for Rayloth are pieced together properly. It’s heavily implied that the psycho God of that world was none other than Korvaak.
None of the Gods that we have interacted with have shown any redeeming quality -
Deer Hobo - Useless idiot who wants to throw hands because he can’t take an L. Tries to sell his revenge match as a way to test us for what’s to come.
Solael - Psycho, plain and simple. He isn’t above killing his own cult members.
Korvaak - The OG psycho.
Ravager - Not exactly a deity but is treated like one. He’s worshipped by Scorv, so clearly very trustworthy.
I’d say that Dreeg and Bysmiel seem to be somewhat reasonable? Dreeg seems to only go feral when someone is trying to poke their nose into Eldritch affairs. Bysmiel is hot, that has to account for something.
If Ulgrim is indeed an Ascendant, he’s the only true bro in the game. I also want to take this opportunity to say that the VAs that Crate picked for Ulgrim does a fantastic job, all the VAs are awesome but Ulgrim’s VA really stands out alongside the VA for Bourbon.
Also lets keep in mind Korvaak was doing everything to prevent Yugol from spreading -from the grand scale of things he does seem like the better choice.
The Three dont have the power to stop Chton or Yugol, Korvaak has.
I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that Korvaak was doing something to actively stop Yugol. Maybe Primordials can repel the creature by simply existing.
Even if he was actively preventing the eternal night from spreading, it’s not like he was doing it out of the goodness of his heart. Gods seem to feed off human worship. The fealty of his subjects is what kept him around, who knows when he would have changed his mind.
I feel like we know very little about the grand scale. Even if Korvaak can help Cairn in the short term, we still don’t fully know if he’s on our side.
I mean, look at the war of Primordials. Korvaak was injured by the side that tapped into the void, does that mean that the Primordials that tapped into Ch’thon’s power were evil? No. It’s possible that he was the aggressor in the conflict.
So far, it doesn’t seem like a single entity has the power to stop Ch’thon. Korvaak’s powers are usable against Ch’thon but I’d wager that the aether would be just as effective.
Yugol is fine, The Three likely can’t hold dominion over the Eldritch Realm without their Primordial battery. So, they’ll likely keep Korvaak alive and that should deter/slow down Yugol’s approach.
From all the Lore in game it does sound like Yugol is held back by new Suns/Stars,
Only primordials are able to Create new Stars/Sun.
The lifespan of a Star/Sun seem to be connected to its Primordial creator - like some kind of energy upkeep or whatever - so they can stop supporting it and it dies = opens way for Yugol (like happened with Ralyoth).
I also tend to believe the Primordials when decided to kill Chton was to use his body to create all those thousands of stars - to slow/prevent Yugol.
What i dont get is how does Chton stand next to Yugol - are they like the Yin/Yang of the cosmos/existence?
The snatching of power could’ve been motivated by plain ol’ greed.
I just don’t think we have any reason to believe that there any good deities. Certainly no good Primordials.
This is a good question.
Zantai once said somewhere that Yugol is closer to a force of nature than a proper villain like Ch’thon. But, your point about them being yin-yang makes sense.
"I think the issue/confusion here may lie in thinking of Yugol as an antagonist whereas it is more of a constant of the universe.
It cannot be reasoned with, it cannot be killed, it cannot be undone. It is the essence of nothingness.
In contrast, Ch’thon is a primordial elder god, the progenitor betrayed by his children, torn asunder and cast into the abyss. Incapable of ever truly dying, he yearns for the return of what was taken. His return to the mortal plane would herald a reckoning never before seen."
"The void is a hellscape, a place of misery and pain, the antithesis of life. It is where the dying god was cast out when he was torn asunder, never quite capable of fully dying.
Yugol on the other hand is nothingness, the antithesis of existence itself. It has no goal, it simply is; and where it spreads, nothing remains."
I always figured that Yugol was a manifestation of anti-reality. Where there is no something, there is nothing. In this mythology, as a result of the laws of physics, all things deconstruct and simplify — they are naturally becoming nothing.
The void though is what you might say the last stop to nothingness. It is the last gasp at somethingness, even in its desolation, and the “struggle” between the god of the void and the antiforce of nothing as typified in Yugol is that of the last gasp at breath, the last fight for existence and life before becoming consumed into complete destruction.
In this respect, Yugol is everyone’s “enemy,” but unlike other gods, he needs no worship, he cannot be reasoned with, he accepts no prayers, loyalty, or fealty. His existence is mandatory because he existed before all was created.
The bargain between the god of creation and the god of nothing has never been known by mankind, and kind of doesn’t matter. But the void was a result of creation, and the most undesirable part of it, because it lies on the fringes of the light of creation, the Outer Darkness if you will. Beyond the void, there is the realm of Yugol — nothingness.
Nyet, he’d long farmed out the anti-Yugol work to Dreeg, as Korvaak was far more interested in play as a God-Emperor. Also it’s hinted heavily The Three have usurped all of Korvaak’s power when we defeat him, but even then, post the war of heaven Korvaak was scared and weakened and in no position to fight.
As for stopping Ch’thon, it seems none of the “Gods” have any interest in doing so, they consider it a fate that can not be avoided, even by the power of the old gods. For the power that struck down what became Ch’thon has long been lost and Ch’thon has grown strong in his madness and the suffering of those spawned from his blood and flesh.
Such that not even Korvaak pre War could stand alone against him.
Anyhow, it’s rather obvious from the lore Korvaak is a total bastard who made Solael look “reasonable” in comparison even before the War in Heaven broke him. And is responsible for wiping out multiple civilisations on Cairn when he got annoyed with them, 2 of which we have hints for. One in the Askerkarn/Homestead region and one where ever Kymon found the Herald of Korvaak. Further reinforced by lore entries dating back to before the fall of Korvan civilisation where ancient books hinted at Korvaak’s petty tantrums.
The Three in comparison demand no worship from the masses, or ask for mass sacrifices, haven’t destroyed multiple civilisations and kept Yugol apparently at bay. Though frankly slacked off on the Grim Dawn badly because “it’s too hards lawl”, same as Mogdrogen. All because these gods think fate is a trap and not something that can be changed via action.
Or perhaps because they don’t want to risk their own arses.
