I’m a big fan of GD since day one and now I’m planning on running a Dungeons and Dragons campagne in the world of Grim Dawn. The campagne will be focussed on a remote region of the Erulan empire that is not overrun by Etherials or Cthonians yet and will be rebellion-themed.
I did some research, but did not find answers to everything I wanted to know. I hoped some of the people here have some more insight into the ingame lore - or maybe even a dev?
I’m not booking on facts alone - I’d also love to hear ideas and speculations!
Here the questions:
How long is the Grim Dawn passed when the game’s events take place?
What exactly happened at the Grim Dawn?
What is the Etherial’s end game? What do they want and how do they plan to achieve their goal?
Why did the Cthonians appear at the same time and what are their plans?
Why would somebody even join a blood cult of Cthon?
What languages could be used in the world of GD? Erulan (Common), Old Arkovian? Korvaan? Etherial? Cthonic? More Ideas?
Aetherials revealed themselves and activated their sleeper agents, creating widespread chaos and destruction. Countless people died or were captured for possession or the fleshworks.
What do YOU think their endgame is?.
Ch’thonians have always been present and their cults have existed on Cairn for centuries, waxing and waning in their strength and influence across time and cultures. With the world in chaos, there was little authority to stand in their way.
Desperation, promises of power, hopelessness.
It would depend on the area and the culture. Erulans have their own language, and the game takes place in Erulan lands. The Arkovians were wiped out as far as the Erulans know. The Korvaan people were largely wiped out centuries ago by a certain cataclysmic event. The Aetherials do not have a spoken language. Ch’thonic is sometimes used in rituals, but not translatable to the human tongue.
This is the biggest lore discussion thread on the forum… and longest running. If memory serves you will find plenty of ideas and speculation if you dig deep enough through it…
Thanks very much Zantai! You’re infos helped a lot!
That helps a lot!!!
So far that is what I have figured from the ingame notes and other speculations. But why are they installing the fleshworks? What’s the purpose of the fleshworks? Just to create more “soldiers”?
I dunno - I guess something like “terraforming” caern to live in it? But seems like they have to deal with the Ct’thonians before that.
Ok, but are they the reason that the Aetherials haven’t eliminated humanity completely? Where do their troops come from and why did they show up so quickly after the Etherials revealed themselves?
Yeah and I guess a normal cultist wouldn’t be told, that they want to “devour” all creation…?
I would just like to have some other options for my players to choose from, other than Erulan (which they will all know). Maybe some scholars still know/knew the languages of Arkovia and the Korvan. Might the Rovers have an own language? Might the Aetherials have some kind of telepathic language, that some psychics might have discovered? Maybe some cultists have made up a Ch’thonic language for themselves? Have you got some more ideas?
In my native language it has two
Thanks, I’ll look into it - but god, it’s nearly ten years long -.-
Something that I’ve been wondering is the Glorious Dawn only happening in the Erulan empires? Like when aliens invades US, while the rest of the world is business as usual.
This is something in my mind actually since the FG expansion, since the desert area is untouched or lacking aetherial corruptions. Makes me thinks that there is other nations or groups that is not on the receiving end of the dawn
This could be logical, as it seems that etherials are not omnipotent and are also limited in their resources. And apparently, they need a lot of biomass for their purposes, which is why they targeted a densely populated country. It doesn’t seem like their plans involve the destruction of all life, like those of the Ch’thonic. From Erulan, they could have subjugated the other regions, or simply left them as they were, since their goals might have been limited to Erulan alone.
Oh man, yeah! I havent given up on the Grim Dawn deckbuilder CCG concept. I have had to give the original design some overhauls because, though fun, some of the mechanics were a bit too complex.
Im currently working on a streamlined version that provides the same level of depth without bogging the player down with a billion stats and mechanics. Focus right now is definitely a single player deckbuilder experience, but with room in the design space to expand for player vs player matches as well. This has been a bit complicated to design as I am just an amateur, but for the sake of the community I havent put out the update until I can be sure I wont have to change it a bunch of times again (the problem I ran into with my original thread).
EDIT: Also had to switch some things around based on a few other games that came into existence during my designing phase, and used similar concepts and in better ways. An example being, Flesh and Blood TCG (Gear/equipment). That card game is brilliantly designed, but also quite different from this design. Taking inspiration from that card game, I have been trying to redesign the gear cards in a way that feels better and can create some powerful turns. I like the idea of equipment and gear being single use, and as this is a deckbuilding game, you are gaining new equipment and gear as you play. So the implementation and mechanics are a bit different, but there could be some similarities depending on power levels, flavor, and fun factor.
