Hello folks. I was just back from that particular forum and I just noticed that there isn't really a thread dedicated to talking about the game's lore and worldbuilding in general, so I decided to create one, as well as drop a few lore questions: The Mother. Why didn't she intervene during the Incubus War Aftermath when her realm was literally on fire? Previous discussions seemed to hint that she is almost on par with the Fucklord in chapter 4 (the Fucklord thought he could beat her, but not with the DK around). What's stopping her from just showing up and curbstomping Fuzkao's remnants? The Order of Silence and what on earth they're actually fighting for. Despite being allegedly neutral (if they're just neutral and not do anything why do they exist?), they actively joined the war against the Fucklord among other things. How did the DK gain control of all of the IK's domain? What did Ardoheim, Aram, etc get from the peace negotiations?

She can have significative personal power, but even the IE cannot win a war alone. you need an army and the mother guard it's to small to do the fighting, so the burden of the fight was over the darghelon and gheldaron armies. and they take order form the queen, the mother actualy force them to the fight. the order isn't aligned with the church or the crown, but belive in the protection of common people (at least the ardan). the fucklord is a clear threath to them. help bring down that madman with a little contingent of knight in a multi country effort it's right for them. new givini was created exactly to cockblock any ardoheim annexation, the area close to aram is a inospitable wasteland, so of little value for them, i think significative economical help were used to quell the request (and the aram front was the more battered and even with exceptional result on that front aram army was seriously depleted, not count the total disaster of the holy legion)

Independent knightly order without any political allegiances, meaning they cannot be commanded by the crown or the church to do things they are morally opposed to, but also won't take sides in power struggles or political upheavals. Realistically, their main advantage is that they will draw in any warriors that don't want to join the forces of any other institutions for ideological reasons, and they can act as a small safeguard against tyranny. What Fulminato said, New Givini being created was the compromise on splitting the land on the Ardan front. Aram's front kinda got fucked, economic pressure was exerted in the post-war to keep them away from the Chalice, and Tak'kan was seen mostly as wasteland so they probably didn't try to fight for it much. They might have gotten a bit of extra land on the border between Aram and Tak'kan, but it would mostly be just a token prize so they don't come out of the war empty-handed.

Fulminato The_Scoutman Fair point, I still think she could have managed a bigger impact by coming down and smacking a few uppity orcs down there though, could boost morale aside from the direct impact. Edit: I've been walking around and an elf in theltiar asks, "where the hell was the mother during all that?" Good question, random elf in an inn that may as well not exist given how there is literally no plot or quest-based reason to enter it lol. Hmm, still not sure about the OoS. I'd rather see the "safeguard against tyranny" aspect more fleshed out, because drawing neutral warriors is good and all, but they don't really do anything (in theory), do they? I think the OoS is screwed the moment they took money from Simon lol, they've done him so many favours. Ah, right. I remembered Aram getting cockblocked either by the DK's army or by Qum's bomb. What I just remembered now was Alonon teleporting his niece to stop that one commander continuing to invade north. I think Ardoheim could have at least taken some land if not for that intervention.

Battlewarrior form the first dialogue with bartholomew Sir Bartholomew: I am seeking to revive the Order of Silence. I hope that warriors like yourselves might be willing to assist, in one way or another. Simon: Hmm, I'm not familiar with that Order. Sir Bartholomew: It has been gone for some time, but it is clearly listed in many lists of respected orders. Sir Bartholomew: Unlike many orders of knights, the Order of Silence was explicitly separate from both Church and kingdom. Sir Bartholomew: Though it fought for both at times, it refused to speak on matters of politics or religion. It fought for balance silently. your are talking of the aftermath, the peace treatise, with the exact border location are successive

Lore Discussion

Battlewarrior

Hello folks. I was just back from that particular forum and I just noticed that there isn't really a thread dedicated to talking about the game's lore and worldbuilding in general, so I decided to create one, as well as drop a few lore questions:

The Mother. Why didn't she intervene during the Incubus War Aftermath when her realm was literally on fire? Previous discussions seemed to hint that she is almost on par with the Fucklord in chapter 4 (the Fucklord thought he could beat her, but not with the DK around). What's stopping her from just showing up and curbstomping Fuzkao's remnants?
The Order of Silence and what on earth they're actually fighting for. Despite being allegedly neutral (if they're just neutral and not do anything why do they exist?), they actively joined the war against the Fucklord among other things.
How did the DK gain control of all of the IK's domain? What did Ardoheim, Aram, etc get from the peace negotiations?

Fulminato

She can have significative personal power, but even the IE cannot win a war alone. you need an army and the mother guard it's to small to do the fighting, so the burden of the fight was over the darghelon and gheldaron armies. and they take order form the queen, the mother actualy force them to the fight.
the order isn't aligned with the church or the crown, but belive in the protection of common people (at least the ardan). the fucklord is a clear threath to them. help bring down that madman with a little contingent of knight in a multi country effort it's right for them.
new givini was created exactly to cockblock any ardoheim annexation, the area close to aram is a inospitable wasteland, so of little value for them, i think significative economical help were used to quell the request (and the aram front was the more battered and even with exceptional result on that front aram army was seriously depleted, not count the total disaster of the holy legion)

Battlewarrior

Fulminato
The_Scoutman

Fair point, I still think she could have managed a bigger impact by coming down and smacking a few uppity orcs down there though, could boost morale aside from the direct impact. Edit: I've been walking around and an elf in theltiar asks, "where the hell was the mother during all that?" Good question, random elf in an inn that may as well not exist given how there is literally no plot or quest-based reason to enter it lol.
Hmm, still not sure about the OoS. I'd rather see the "safeguard against tyranny" aspect more fleshed out, because drawing neutral warriors is good and all, but they don't really do anything (in theory), do they? I think the OoS is screwed the moment they took money from Simon lol, they've done him so many favours.
Ah, right. I remembered Aram getting cockblocked either by the DK's army or by Qum's bomb. What I just remembered now was Alonon teleporting his niece to stop that one commander continuing to invade north. I think Ardoheim could have at least taken some land if not for that intervention.

The_Scoutman

Independent knightly order without any political allegiances, meaning they cannot be commanded by the crown or the church to do things they are morally opposed to, but also won't take sides in power struggles or political upheavals. Realistically, their main advantage is that they will draw in any warriors that don't want to join the forces of any other institutions for ideological reasons, and they can act as a small safeguard against tyranny.
What Fulminato said, New Givini being created was the compromise on splitting the land on the Ardan front. Aram's front kinda got fucked, economic pressure was exerted in the post-war to keep them away from the Chalice, and Tak'kan was seen mostly as wasteland so they probably didn't try to fight for it much. They might have gotten a bit of extra land on the border between Aram and Tak'kan, but it would mostly be just a token prize so they don't come out of the war empty-handed.

DukeLeto7

I always thought Lore was kind of lame character, existing only to give Brent Spiner more diversity in acting range.

Fulminato

Battlewarrior

form the first dialogue with bartholomew
Sir Bartholomew: I am seeking to revive the Order of Silence. I hope that warriors like yourselves might be willing to assist, in one way or another.
Simon: Hmm, I'm not familiar with that Order.
Sir Bartholomew: It has been gone for some time, but it is clearly listed in many lists of respected orders.
Sir Bartholomew: Unlike many orders of knights, the Order of Silence was explicitly separate from both Church and kingdom.
Sir Bartholomew: Though it fought for both at times, it refused to speak on matters of politics or religion. It fought for balance silently.
your are talking of the aftermath, the peace treatise, with the exact border location are successive

Battlewarrior

Moving on to another topic, I've always been fascinated by TLS' major powers. Obviously power is hard to quantify as tower magic is involved, but I've assembled a motley rank:

Hester/Anak
Obvious. They're probably roughly equal, but I'm putting Hester ahead as the one "battle" they fought, Hester won (granted it was in her turf, but still ... she cast out the Anak AND Wendis). Hester in particular sealed every. single. incubus king. Except the weird ones.
Simon
Thanks to the Incubus Prison, Simon has absorbed all the shards inside him (including at least 2 major shards from the IK and Lustlord, almost a full one from the Fucklord, and a bunch of small ones).
Wendis
Everyone is scared shitless of her. Wendis is presumably really, really hard to kill as the Anak didn't even bother trying to kill her when she was weak as it would take way too much effort. Recent achievements include curb-stomping Nyst and Tanurak simultaneously. Also, at the start of chapter 4 when Sabitha tried to bait the Fucklord into facing Wendis (and failed), Xestris seemed to imply that (weak, bodiless) Wendis would win.
Alonon
Is the sole reason Hester/Anak hasn't won. Banished them both to a labyrinth at the cost of his own life. Is also able to hide himself from the Anak.
The Lustlord
Outright beat Esthera in a 1v1 duel, and still have enough energy to fend off the DK and co. Required Esthera to weaken him, Simon to bind him, Xestris to seal his regen, and a strike team to finally kill him.
Esthera
Could singlehandedly take down parts of the LoB's fleet. Strong enough to spook LoB and pressurize the IK. Bent the shard to her will via the tower and is mentioned as having tower-level defences by the Anak. Record a bit stained by her loss to Lustlord.
Fucklord
Beat Sabitha, obviously. Is definitely weaker than Esthera, but has beaten Antiala/King Kanfuor.
Mithyn
Constructs wards strong enough to fend off Tanurak. Insta-killed the Lord of Blood, but was left hapless afterwards.
Great Sage of Ghenalon
His entire record is kicking Tanurak's ass, and then getting his ass handed over to him by the Anak. Is said to be powerful by the latter.
The Mother
The Fucklord thinks he can beat her if the DK's not around, but then again he's the Fucklord. Track record isn't great as she hasn't really done anything direct.
Tanurak
Doesn't have much raw power, but is incredibly slick. Defeats Ulrissa.
Ulrissa
Talks a lot about balance and neutrality and stuff. The one time she actually tried to fight, she got her ass handed over to her by Tanurak. Also failed to expel Simon when he was still beginning to explore the tower.
King Kanfuor/Antiala
Props for pulling the biggest con of all time. He's weak enough that the Anak could discern him, and also weak enough that the Fucklord could kill him.
Nyst
Despite having no army, was able to fight on par with the LoB and his airships as well as Simon and his (admittedly rather small as the Incubus War was sudden and so he couldn't mobilize) fleet and ground troops. Eventually managed to escape Wendis' grasp if not weakened enough.
Lord of Blood/Fuzkao
Doesn't seem to have much in personal power.

Others:
-Goddesses that are on theory major powers but haven't fought directly like Ivala, Tertia
-Lilith and Mestan; just not enough info
-Minor IKs with no achievement or significance whatsoever
-Simon's harem members

The_Scoutman

Battlewarrior Wendis as an abomination (bodiless) is not really the "weaker" version of Wendis. As an abomination she could accumulate a lot of power if she kept to the depths of the Tower, reach a critical mass, and then violently crash against the normal world as a world-destroying power.

She chose to gave up on that once she met Simon again, presumably this stagnated her power growth as an abomination as she divided herself in two (weak one in the skeleton body, strong one still maintaining her abomination form). When you finish giving her a fully formed body you just allow her to merge again and bring all the abomination power she had to her body in the normal world.

Point is, the Wendis that would have killed the Fucklord shouldn't be any weaker than the Wendis we have during the IK war.

Battlewarrior

The_Scoutman Wendis was rapidly gathering power though, and there is a span of maybe some months or a year between the Fucklord meeting Wendis and Simon meeting Wendis (and thus Wendis stops gathering power), so I'd say the Wendis in Incubus War would be a bit stronger than the Wendis that Sabitha showed.

Named Current lore is practically you have stated. There has been attempts to unify them, like the succubus-human couple who gave out pins before the 3AW. There is also Divine Magic, which is practically just the opposite of Sexual Magic, I think.

Named

Are there previous discussions of how Arcane and Sexual (and for that matter Physical) magic relate to each other somewhere? I recall conversations in game about how they may unify at a deep level, but they're mechanically different and behave in quite different ways (such as Arcane subdividing into the elements, which tend to oppose each other, whereas Sexual stays unified and is opposed only by anti-sex). So I'd like to catch up on existing thought.