Were the tales of Korvan legends untrue? Were we led astray by false promises? What of the white-hot energy that once warmed the foundations of Korvan City?
There is nothing, no revelation, no great power. The temple runs cold, its heart a hardened mass of blackened glass. The great god who once dwelt here is gone. To where? I do not know. His fate is irrelevant to me. I care only for the power that lingered here and it is all gone.
I am alone now, a lifetime of work and friendship gone…wasted. Roderick lies dead, struck down by the ancient guardian of this place; the only indication that this place was ever worth a damn. Roderick gave his life so that I could reach the heart of the temple. His sacrifice was rendered pointless as the history that led us here proved to be no more than fables. I am certain a great power dwelt here once but it is long gone, perhaps claimed by another.
There is nowhere left for me to go, no reason for me to pursue an existence beyond these walls. And so I shall perish here as well, with the knowledge that my life’s work, my very purpose, was to waste. Or perhaps I should return to the guardian that felled my friend and allow it to take me as well, a final tribute to the Eldritch Sun of old.
O.K. So I seem to be missing something in my timeline here.
-In the beginning there was Ch’thon.
-Ch’thon was deposed by his children the Primordials, lead by Empyrion (see Kronos in Greek mythology).
-The new Primordial Gods use the Blood of Ch’thon to fashion all mortal life.
-The Primordials rule humanity, again lead by Empyrion (see Zeus in Greek mythology).
-The dominant Primordials were Empyrion and Korvak, both Gods of Light.
This is the Golden Age of Cairn. The Gods walk among men, miracles are common, the Gods are largely benevolent. The darker beings are locked firmly away (as Ravager informs the player when questioned about his hatred for Mogdrogen).
-SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAPPENS HERE
-Empyrion is gone. Korvac and Ulzuin are terribly wounded. Once benevolent Gods are now increasingly cruel and distant. Their power is but a shadow of what it once was. The last lore entry mentions enemies and the Primordials tapping into a forbidden power to defeat them. Either the unnamed enemies defeat them anyway, or the forbidden power destroys/corrupts them.
-The wounded and twisted Primordials continue to rule for some time, maybe decades, maybe centuries, maybe even longer. It’s unclear.
-In this time the Gods no longer walk Cairn and Mogdrogen withdraws from Humanity almost entirely. Korvac tries to regenerate in the Eldritch Realm.
-The Witch Gods rise. They supplant the twisted and wounded Primordials who are still far too weak and/or apathetic to stop them.
-The Aetherials begin their preparations for invasion.
-The Witch Gods do not hold Ch’thon or the Aetherials in check. It is unclear whether this is through ignorance, apathy, or lack of ability. Both Ch’thon and the Aetherials grow steadily in strength throughout this time -THE GRIM DAWN HAPPENS HERE-
-Long forgotten and suppressed Gods begin to rise.
-The Gods once again walk Cairn and miracles are common.
-But not in a good way.
So, my question here is, what happened between the Golden Age of Cairn and the Rise of The Witch Gods?
Who were the Primordials fighting against (and loosing, badly, it would seem)?
My thought (based purely on speculation) is that Yugol is at the root of everything happening here.
I’ve re-read pretty much all of the Lore I’ve found and come up zilch. I’ve gone through hundreds of entries in this list (all 1900+ entries will have to wait until I have a LOT more time, maybe when I retire in 30 years ) and found nothing else.
So, anyone know what I’ve missed here? Or is it not in game yet?
the witch gods does know about grim dawn and tried to held it in check by using dreeg’s future vision and bysmiel’s web of informant. bysmiel’s web does suffer almost complete destruction when grim dawn happens, but there’s still remnant of it working with what they can after gd. the eldritch catastrophe happened at the covenant of the 3 in east marsh adds a lot of problems to the 3 so they went into hiding to build up their strength against korvaak/aetherials/chthonians. there are some lore notes in conclave of the 3 where solael states that bysmiel’s web should be capable of holding the aetherials and chthonians for a while until the korvaak threat is dealt with.
the primordials (empyrion’s group) lost against their brethren who taps into the forbidden dark power of the void in the war of the gods. most of are banished into the far away celestial tapestry (probably another galaxy), destroyed, or went into hiding. korvaak got weakened by this lost of war too, and the 3 witches start their coup against korvaak due to dreeg’s vision of what’s the best path for humanity to reign supreme.
in the beginning of war of the gods, the primordials fight amongst themselves due to jealousy and hunger for supremacy. then some primordials started to use the forbidden and corrupting power of the void, which also meant they join the imprisoned and tortured chthon to fight against empyrion’s group. empyrion’s group got defeated and scattered all over the place.
maybe. the primordials and celestials are aware of yugol’s threat (based on yugol constellation’s description). dreeg is also aware of it (vision of terror lore note in conclave of the 3), but there is no concrete evidence that yugol is behind everything. yugol just appear suddenly in forgotten gods lore and stay in obscurity most of the time. it is very likely however that yugol will be a major threat in grim dawn 2 or something in future content.
Thanks so much for the info!
There is a huge hole in my collection of data regarding the War Of The Gods.
I’ve literally missed the whole thing!
And it explains so much.
Could you let me know where that info is found?
I really want to collect those Lore Entries!
if you don’t have time to find the lores in game, grim tools or this site (https://grimdawn.gamepedia.com/Notes) collects all known lorenotes in game.
this is the lore note that says sagon/solael is confident that bysmiel’s web can hold the aetherials/chthonians at bay while the 3 visit korvaak to retire him permanently into other galaxy:
this is korvaak’s thought/lore note embedded within his flesh (don’t ask me how it works, its magic), which details the aftermath of war of the gods, the treachery of several brothers and sisters of korvaak and empyrion that joins chthon and the void, and his humiliating imprisonment by the 3.
Or if you want to read the localization files online, in where you can see the npc conversation dialogues, lore notes etc. And where you can search for words.
Do you think Empyrion is still alive? Does he hold back Yugol?
And you noticed that we do not have an image of the Empyrion? We have the constellation Light of Empyrion and the Spear of Empirion, but not the Empyrion himself.
Quite strange, given his huge role in the universe.
empyrion is still alive. according to korvaak’s rumination, he’s banished to the celestial tapestry (more like cast away into far away galaxy). yugol is still looming on the edge of gd galaxy (its black hole/oblivion incarnation anyway), so i think empyrion is busy holding him at bay with what little power he has. because all the celestials know the danger yugol poses against all creations.
my theory is that empyrion is wounded heavily by the chthonian deities and minions, so he knows he lost the battle, then retreat far away with only a few strength he got left, closer to the edge of gd galaxy. It’s to recover his strength while holding yugol at bay with his remaining light. since yugol can’t be left unchecked. empyrion’s light still shone through the grim dawn universe (several items and skills (particularly oathkeepers) still retains a residue of empyrion’s blessing.
its strange that empyrion has no physical depictions at all other than a swirling galaxy radiating light. erulan empire devotes itself to empyrion, yet we didn’t find any single facial depiction of empyrion. maybe the chthonians are defacing and destroying every single building/statue that honors empyrion, but its unbelievable that none of them survive the grim dawn. perhaps if we visit the erulan capital in gd2, we’ll get to see remnants of the empyrion temples. korvaak has a lot of statues depicting him in his past perfect form. and we see him in the flesh. so yeah, its weird that his brother empyrion who has bigger influence on cairn doesn’t have any statues/temples in gd.
he’ll return at some point… maybe not in the flesh, probably a disembodied voice/fragment of his essence gaining consciousness or possessing some mortal vessel because yugol is seriously going to be a major threat in gd 2 imo.
The Empyrion was not banished, he simply disappeared, it is even possible that he merged with the universe and ceased to be a person and became more like a force of nature
that is plausible. i merely consider in empyrion’s case banished has the same meaning as disappears. when we defeat korvaak, according to the emissary, korvaak is banished far away into the celestial tapestry, where his influence to the physical world become so weak since the taken and the 3 dealt a crushing blow to the korvan cults. in empyrion’s case, kymon’s chosen who believe sister rasomething-something’s news of kymon betraying them chose to keep believing in empyrion and holding back the chthonians. and empyrion is majorly worshipped by erulan empire, so there is a lot of empyrion worshippers out there, in towns or in the wilds.
i still wish to see any remnants of empyrion temple, at least to read lores about empyrion from the past.
To be fair, misidentification is a common mistake. One god with light and fire and another can be so alike…
Name’s Sister Girra by the way. You warp her to Sorrow’s Bastion. IDK about Haggan or whoever the Bysmiel cult needs the artifact off of. Can we warp him too?
yeah, korvaak and empyrion’s element is very similar: fire and light. korvaak seems more focused on the fire and rage part, while empyrion has both fire and light but in a balanced kind of way. this is just my interpretation from both god’s constellation.
funny thing though, korvaak’s mask give bonus to piercing and elemental (inquisitor stuff…). i don’t understand if the piercing part has any connection to the lore, but the elemental part do ties strongly with the power of eldritch realm. in fight with korvaak, he shouts “REALITY. BECKONS. TO MY WILL” when he’s dropping those purple slow lethal meteors. this seems to imply that korvaak has strong connection to the 3 elements through his position as eldritch sun. other than the eldritch realm, aether realm has connection to the element too aside from aether and vitality (arcanist skills and gears support this).
we can’t warp haggan and those ex-korvaak cultists to sorrow’s bastion. if we let them escape without the artifact, they just part with us in uneasy peace, and the bysmiel cultist woman who gave us the quest will be astonished by your decision to let them go, then call you a pervert (lulz), then shrug off about all that mess since she believes haggan and his company won’t survive the korvan desert. if we choose to not let haggan and company go, they’ll just end up dead in our hands.
I don’t think that the gods keep to a certain damage type. They could probably use any sort of magic they want. And that confuses me about Ulzuin using whine and concubines.
Could it be that the Messenger is actually Ulzaad?
I am still wondering what Byscilla was actually doing to slow down the aetherials in Malmouth.
More curiously about Mogdrogen on how he got ascended and his part in the war of the gods (besides beating Ravager).
while that might be true for top class gods like korvaak and empy, some gods like mogdrogen (lightning, beast summons) have limited domains and probably can handle non-dominant damage type albeit with weaker results.
Ulzuin’s deal with wine concubines are just a case of a god wanting to enjoy mortal pleasure with no cares whatsoever because they’re gods. pride, hubris and all that.
ulzaad? that herald of physical and internal damage? he’s more likely to be the temple steward who has a halberd MI that dealt heavy physical damage from the power of stars themselves or so. Korvaak has many generals, the herald and the messenger are most likely to be different beings. yet the messenger’s perpetual state of rage and fire seems to be heavily influenced by korvaak/ulzuin? i myself think that there’s a part of ulzuin that’s infused into the messenger. though the messenger never mention any specific hatred toward bysmiel, so this theory is unlikely.
some people says that she places a sigil around the steelcap district’s rift or something like that. probably to limit the strength and numbers of aetherials that can exit that rift. i dunno. bysmiel has webs all around the place, so she definitely has part in defeating loghorrean too.
we still lack the infos for mogdrogen’s creator/tales of his ascendancy. gonna have to wait for those.
so some random hobos could bring yugol closer by choosing builds that uses yugol constellations. this is the same logic as chaos builds using dying god constellation to destroy loghorrean. or even more hilarious, fire builds using korvaak constellation to usurp korvaak himself.
derpy taken: “hi korvaak, i’m gonna kill you by using powers i gained from worshipping you! too bad you can’t respec my constellation!”
) and found nothing else.