the grim dawn pantheon is still incomplete and shrouded in mystery. we haven’t even saw any of the empyrion temple who is the main deity of erulan empire, only some temples which has no designation to whom they were devoted to on malmouth. perhaps in gd 2 we will be able to visit the erulan capital and the major empyrion/menhir temples.
as for the positions and priority of some of the pantheons, i think yugol (nothingness) and c’hthon (the ancestor celestial that predates every celestials) are the oldest.
then c’hthon probably start spawning his own celestial childrens from his own essences, which result in the 1st celestial children (empyrion, korvaak, and other celestials which were direct 1st descendants of c’hthon, we don’t exactly know who were they, some are probably the celestials we know like aeon and such).
then the celestial children start becoming envious of c’hthon’s power, and empyrion lead his siblings in the rebellion against c’hthon.
they succeed in shattering and trapping c’hthon in void dimension, and they get his blood to be used to make various creations they wanted to in their own realms (such as korvaak with his eldritch realm, empyrion and many celestials in cairn’s realm, and the unknown celestial who create the shattered realm).
at this point, the celestials, like c’hthon, most likely also spawn their own children (whether with their spouse or solely with their own body is unknown). for example, ulzuin, the MALE (i noticed you mislabelled him as a goddess…) fire god of ceremonial healing calls empyrion as his father in one of the korvan elegy lore notes. which means ulzuin’s a celestial spawned by empyrion and entrusted to korvaak as his right hand.
the celestials like to make many creations in their realm. like the ever obedient aetherials, and the titans (such as mogdrogen the beast god) as their servants. they were notably used to full extent in the war of the gods where the celestials battle amongst themselves but ultimately got mostly crushed by the celestials that embrace the void powers.
some of the celestials like the arkovian celestials feels like altogether different pantheons compared to empyrion’s pantheons. imo the arkovian celestials are NOT celestials at all, but they are just mortals ascending into celestials and masquerading as gods amongst the arkovians. because uroboruuk himself in korvan capital stated that he lived in the age where celestials are absent and ascendants rule cairn. this complicates the classifications of the celestial pantheons, because mortals like the 3 witch gods, olenor and perhaps the arkovians ascendants CAN become celestials and muck things up in the heavens (which support your theory that the 3 witch gods corrupts the eldritch realm when they usurped korvaak, turning it from a fire dominated realm into a poison-vitality-whatever dominated realm). lets not forget that mogdrogen, who was a titan celestial, was also capaable of usurping the ravager and becoming cairn’s god of beasts and the wilds (and the storm)…
yeah… lots of ascendants and perhaps titans warring and doing whatevers to become celestials will bring headaches to any lorekeepers of cairn… becoming gods is a trivial effort in cairn these days.
i really hope ulzuin won’t appear out of nowhere and hunts you down for calling him as a female god… just jk he’ll most likely stay in hiding until gd 2.
So having finished the MC on all the expansions, I am blown away by the lore notes. But still slightly disappointed that we didn’t really learn anything about Lokarr master of the Crucible. He’s a celestial and his gear reads “Demi-god.” So is Lokarr like the three witch gods maybe? Knowing what we know about Lokarr he seems to revel in combat and bloodshed. Maybe when he was human he was some kind of gladiator/sadist? Then he ascended? Maybe he’s a creation of one of the gods, he runs the Crucible for their amusement? I know Crucible doesn’t really have anything to do with the story, but Lokarr is in the game behind a very well hidden secret quest, which made me think that if there was some backstory for him it would be awesome!
Well, @Lokarr might be around here somewhere, we should ask him.
On topic: there is so much too explore with Cairn, so many possibilities it’s very imaginative. I will say though, I hope however they choose to ‘explore’ in the future they don’t feel the need to answer EVERY burning (see what I did there all you Korvaak devotees) question. One of the things that drives me batshit about fandom is this incessant need to have every little thing some how be a huge development. SERIOUSLY NO ONE GIVES A DOOK ABOUT LUKE’S HAND OR HIS ORIGINAL LIGHT SABER!
has anyone ever noticed that of all the ancient factions from the war of the gods era, the c’hthonians (the demon ones. not the bloodsworn cultists) are the only factions that doesn’t have any of its members telling us about its own kind or the good old days. none of the c’hthonians we ever met offer us any conversations whatsoever. they all just behave like beastly demons that also likes to torture people and even their own bloodsworn cultists.
oh i just remembered. there’s one c’hthonians that talked with us. a unique c’hthonian fiend that possessed a poor little rhowari girl from her birth. sadly its only interested in burning everything and bathing in blood. thats about as interesting as yugol chewing a realm to nothingness. maybe we should blame empyrion for shattering c’hthon so thoroughly that c’hthon’s remnants were all reduced to rabid beasts.
i kinda hoped there’ll be some more c’hthonians/remnant of chthon/celestial survivors that embrace the void that can give us more insight about the c’hthonians and the celestials that embraced the void in war of the gods.
because the aetherials/korvaak/3 witch gods/mogdrogen/uroboruuk had been very helpful in describing us their good old days. more boomers in cairn please.
Yeah @fordprefect I think that is a very good description of Chthonics. But then again, they don’t attack humans who are bloodsworn. All these questions and no answers lol.
nah. the c’hthonians are as eager to torture their own bloodsworn. there are some bloodsworn imprisoned and tortured by a bloodkeeper in AoM. and the bloodsworn need sacrifices to summon c’thonians. even if its from their own ranks (most are glad to be sacrificed)
there’s a randomized void portal in the mournweald near malmouth that leads to the imprisoned bloodsworns. you have to scour the entire bloodsworn camps in mournweald since the portal can change location like the void portal in blood groove and near fort ikon.
perhaps some c’hthonians operates under hive minds. but some c’hthonians like the ryloks have hierarchy based on their power according to zantai’s AoM misadventure.
i dunno. when a godlike being in fantasy got shattered to its very core, how do you glue all the pieces together? maybe dreeg’s mucky n sticky poisonous wisdom can offer some insight.
yeah, it goes like this: mourndale>cinder wastes> fringes of sanity. the bloodworn damned who were imprisoned by a unique bloodkeeper Lunal’Valgoth are located in the fringes of sanity. enter fringes of sanity through another void portal in the middle of cinder wastes.
those location names makes me wonder: who had explored those areas before us and make those names? i marvel at their ability to distinguish each void spaces with ‘edge of sanity, fringe of sanity, sanity is overrated’ etc etc when everything there just looks like black rocks, bones and reddish-black auras for me.
Don’t forget the frayed ends of sanity. It’s the level Luna’het and Grava’lars hunt down those who dare enter in the hopes of rescuing an NPC name Clifton Burt who wandered in seeking solace.
I think its less about specific locations in void and more like layers. Similar to Circles of Hell. If its indeed layers they might be distinguished by some secondary attributes, like fauna living there or maybe even level of “void charge”
there’s a tragic ending option to the skinner family miniquest (in kymon’s retreat) where the dad - stephen skinner will burn down his own house along with himself, his wife and daughter if the taken fails to convince him there’s still safe places after grim dawn and portal him and his family to devil’s crossing.
fail to convince him, and he attacks you in despair and madness after burning his house and family. kill him, and he’ll drop this:
this quest (and its torch reward) is eerily similar to what happens with ulzuin (the way it happens, the symbolism), when he realizes bysmiel had manipulate and betrayed him and he’s too late to save his lord korvaak. trying to call empyrion for help only add further despair as he realized empyrion has gone after the war of the gods (korvaak probably make sure ulzuin doesn’t know this to keep him loyal to korvaak).
the pain is too much for ulzuin’s heart to endure, so he lashed out in madness, burning and destroying his own beloved korvan capital and his temples, not caring of his own follower’s cry for help. and he vanished soon after, most likely to grief for everything that had happened and planning revenge against the 3.
this kind of tragedy had many parallels IRL.
i recommend all grim dawn players to never fail (and don’t ignore this quest) in convincing stephen skinner that there’s always safe places in the world. whether it’s physical or metaphysical.
thats unfortunate. whats more unfortunate is that stephen skinner had the speed of super celestial to burn his house and family the moment you fail to convince him. no matter how fast the taken is, or how wet/anti-fire the taken’s power is, stephen skinner will always succeed in burning down his house and family.
kinda makes me suspicious that ulzuin directly blesses him when the fire started.
