Lore from the Sister's Grim Contest

One of the fun things about working with authors through contests and just general submissions is discovering new lore within the stories. Now I say discovering because authors may not even realize that they are creating lore.. albeit in an unofficial capacity.. but still creating lore.

Now that our first contest is over and the winners have been announced, here are some of the items I've pulled from the winning entries. We will be doing this for ALL the stories btw and not just the winners but for now here is the lore from the top 5.

Now my disclaimer here is that this is the lore *I* have picked out. Others may find something I missed.

From Moonlit Vigil
The existence of card games in New Britannia. This may seem odd but official canon to date has no reference to card games in New Britannia society. This little bit comes from the figure of speach refering to the cards one has been dealt.

Although this piece is a work of fiction, the phrase must be commonly understood by the reader. Meaning cards games would be common enough.

From The Smokehouse
What I took from this story is that smoking is a common practice for food preservation in New Britannia. To what extent we can't really say but a smokehouse would probably be a common site in rural areas.

From the Journal of Derek Warden
This one has a surprising amount of little bits. It also raises a couple of questions.

Confirmation that Ardois has.. or had a one point a flea market.

The Obsidians had at least one cipher that was used attributed to them. In retrospect describing the cipher as ancient probably isn't appropriate unless it was adopted by the Obsidians and used to the point where it became associated with them. If they created it themselves it wouldn't be more than decades old.

The story takes place after the construction of Hilt but possibly before the end of the Obsidian war or not long after. Reference to thief who worked for the Obsidians and Obsidian sorcerers exist at the time of the story but Hilt appears to be abandoned.

Question: What is the current status of the Obsidians? Do any still exist? I personally haven't not heard a solid answer to this. This has bearing on dating the journal.
Obsidians incorporated “shard-metal” or shard material and magic in construction of some objects (ie locks).
Story heavily implies that Mimics were created by the Obsidians and that Mimics are made partially from shard material/metal.
Question: Were creatures incorporated into Mimics in the same way humans were transformed? It seems like the same principles would be in use in both cases. What creatures would have been used?

Further question: If Mimics can be counted as fomorian creatures like those created from humans and they do indeed incorporate some type of animal.. can they be considered a race capable of reproduction? If no the implication is that ultimately there is only a finite number and will eventually die out. The alternative is that somewhere, more are or can still be created. (The magic to do so is not lost).

From Mirror, Mirror
Implications that trade routes and market activity are influences by seasons. This may seem like an obvious assumption but it speaks in regards to several factors. Safety and condition of roads, the types of products traded etc.

From A Tale of Braemar
If non-fiction, story takes place prior to “Body Count in Braemar”. The entire story itself may be based on a true story and tells of how Ravensmoor became active. In a sense, dialogue aside we can almost consider the entire story to be lore. This is the awakening of whatever undead that controls the rest in Ravensmoor.
2 boys went to the beach, entered the cave and opened the wrong stone sarcophagus.. one never returned and now the place is crawling. Some time after Body Count in Braemar occurs.

This is the sort of lore we will be adding to the SotA Wiki.. Not only did it pass our lore check but also Portalarium.

Will post lore from other stories as time permits unless someone beats me to it.

 

Good stuff.

I suppose mine has no lore since I purposefully wrote it to not have any =p

and to be a metaphysical reflection on death.

Maybe next time!

 

You never know. We just might find something. I will probably look at a few more stories myself later tonight or tomorrow-ish..

 

If only I knew more lore when I was writing it

Anyway Hilt was not supposed to be abandoned in the story, only the lost secret underground fortress was. It was not supposed to be Obsidian fortress but rather more ancient one that was used by Obsidian sorcerers.

Ancient was not probably the best word to describe the cipher, I meant something more like outdated. I would assume that more advanced ciphers such as Vigenère cipher were known to Obsidians (most likely under different name). I think that state-of-the-art Novian cryptography would be at the level of Enigma. However, I have no idea what is Portalarium thinking about it, I just wanted some ciphers to be in the game, at least simpel ones like Caesar cipher.

I am quite curious what is the origin of Mimics myself. Are they animated/transformed chests? Were sapient pearwood or shard material used for their construction? Are they transformed animals?

This is spoiler about the truth of my story, be sure you want to know it before you open it.

Spoiler

The story is just spooky story. It is written from the view of unknowing guard. And the whole journal is fictional, it is meant to be fiction that is meant to look like a real thing. I am quite fond of that, but it does not matter how much of it is real and how much of it is author's imagination.

 

To be honest, there are some details from the stories still being discussed. I really liked the Journal personally cause it makes good use of information from one of the live chats. As a journal with a verifiable location as the setting I always thought like it read more like non-fiction.. even though the nature of the contest very much leaned towards fiction.

Hilt was built (or rebuilt?) by the Obsidians though during the war.

 

Continuing on.. and this is open for discussion btw.. my disclaimer here is that these are my opinions. Other scholars have their opinions and may see things I don't or pull things from a story I wouldn't. We will probably discuss any differences privately or otherwise but we'll definitely work something out to put on the SotAWiki.

It's a little late tonight so I'm only going to do one story here but will get around to doing all of them. Whether the story is intended as fiction or non-fiction plays a part in what I take from a story.

From The Windows are Open
This story presented us an interesting challenge to lore. I would like to think the solution was an elegant one. The story centers around Obsidian transformation magic. What little we know about this magic is that at the time of BotA there was still a great deal of trial and error and may have required multiple casters. Yet in this story, a single caster transforms a girl apparently into exactly what he wants.

1. It must be possible to master the obsidian transformation magic so the it can be used by 1 caster.

This procedure was performed in proximity to a shard fall. Where the Obsidians normally performed this process as Desolis which is approximately 100 or so miles away by my last calculation (which is another subject we/I might bring up later). There are a couple of implications here.

2. Proximity to a shard fall is required for transformation magic..

3: The amount of power one can tap into from a shard fall depends on proximity. This might also be one reason the mage in the story is able to perform the procedure alone.

4: Other creatures can be made besides those specifically mentioned in BotA.

The major issue from this story was the girl was originally turned into an imp but we needed to change it to something less specific. The name imp couldn't be verified with certainty and there is question to whether they are created vs a summoned creature. Also based off the homunculus from BotA which only stands at 6" tall we couldn't use homunculus because Obsidian transformations preserve the mass of the subject (ie trolls) as the term seems exclusive. A child would have simply been too big to produce a 6" creature. So we went with 'fomorian creature' which is used in the book as a general reference to transformed creatures.. that way we didn't have to worry about any other details.

This was also based partly off the premise that, as the process was developed there certainly would have been successes that were never mass produced. The girl in the story could represent one of those successes.

That's a bit off topic for what I'm doing here but I've wanted to explain what we did in this story as I found it particularly interesting to work on it and discuss. I'm also very happy to have found a solution we could all live with that was simple and required no other changes. A very creative story.

 

Bowen, I'm really enjoying your lore analysis, keep it coming!

 

Well, I now have my answer to why the finished representation used Formorian creature rather than imp or homunculus. I worked under the same assumptions about the Obsidians, in that the mass used was conserved in some fashion, and that certain structures would be more dense (tough, scaly hide that I imagined almost rock-like in composition, kind of like a gargoyle more than just a reptile, and claws and musculature to match) and so the re-shaping of a seriously malnourished, catatonic child could possibly be compressed into something the size of the homunculus. Regardless, I like that she is something more unique now *grins*

As for the obsidian magic, it all started (restarted? Who wrote the book...?) with one person, and so I gambled with some smaller feats (such as the transformation of a small child) being well within the purview of a single sorcerer. The wild transformational powers of the Shardfalls that are already an established part of the lore seemed to be the direct corollary to the Obsidian's ability to reshape the physical, and so I made the assumption that the closer an Obsidian was to a Shard or Shardfall, the greater the transformational power he was able to tap into.

That being said, the Obsidians in BotA being able to practice their art so far from known Shardfalls could be due to a couple of things:

• The Obsidians of Desolis are almost certainly practicing ceremonial magic or spellweaving of some sort
  • Perhaps the sheer amount of Shards embedded within the world at large provides a baseline power level that allows sorcerers to perform at a particular level (based on their innate ability to draw on that power), and when sorcerers link together, it allows them to effect changes that are far greater than the sum of their parts.
• There is something more in Desolis
  • a hidden Shard or Shardfall perhaps, that is behind their choice of a seat of power so far from any known Shards.​

Something else that I hint at and played around with in the story (that may or may not play out in actual lore), is that the state of mind of a subject, as well as the makeup of their character and soul, may also play into whether or not a transformation will succeed. The sorcerer in the story is drawn to the girl not just because she still lives and can be turned to something more useful than she currently is, but because he feels the desire to find something, as well as the torment and deep-seated (if unremembered) rage and shame stamped in the girl's soul, both of which play into the creature he desires her to become. Virtue, and/or the lack thereof, may be one of the primary driving factors on whether or not a transformation will succeed. This may be why the sister in BotA was a failed attempt at transformation into an Elf (I think that is what the target form was, I may have misread that): She did not possess the qualities in her mind, character and soul to allow the transformation to something more warlike and combative to succeed. This may also be why they need so many people as fodder for transformations... it isn't just the failures that they end up discarding, but the need to winnow out the people who will best suit their need.

Also, failures and the way they are treated by the Obsidians (i.e. they can only be discarded, rather than reshaped by sorcerers who profess to be able to transform the world), hints at a limitation to the power of the Obsidians: Those who have failed to be transformed cannot be used for future attempts. Perhaps the transformations, enabled by the target's lack of virtue or active disregard for one or more principles, are the ultimate embodiment of the victim's soul, and a failure produces a particular and unavoidable result: the failure to identify the proper hook (forsaken virtue) that would have allowed the transformation to succeed creates the failure, and the use of the power on the victim alters them in a much more subtle fashion, which prevents the power from working a second time.

Anyway, thanks for the praise on the story itself, and the deeper look into what was/has been going on behind the scenes!

 

I do wonder why this was changed... formorians that I have heard of are adult size or even giant-esque (D&D). Is there another place where formorians are small?

No matter, yours is an excellent vision and I hope it gets developed further.

 

Bowen makes mention of it in his analysis: they felt that the mass of a young girl couldn't be compressed into something the size of a homunculus (my original vision), and the imp (my original wording) wasn't anything that could be tied to definitively in lore as an obsidian creation, so they went with the more general term Formorian to mark her as an Obsidian crafting, but not tie her to any one crafting in particular.

 

I hadn't really given much thought as to why a failed transformation couldn't be 'fixed'. I had just thought of it as a limitation of the magic. Very interesting hypothesis.. I like it. I can really see that working since in many ways the mind & soul is being transformed along with the body. The successful transformations have "nothing left" of their past self.

My priorities have shifted slightly so I will have more time to look at some more stories which I'm sure I will do later tonight.

 

From A Warning, Transcribed.

I had the pleasure of acting as scribe for this one. Which I'm pleased to say was a relatively easy job.

One of the interesting aspects of the story is that it focuses on an other worldly threat and the author is an Outlander from that world. So there isn't a lot of New Britannia lore to be had here.. or.. is there?

There are two primary items of interest for me in this story. The first is that the description of this threat heavily implies that the other world is not Earth. As in Ultimas, Britannia was connected to many worlds. Evidenced in Serpent Isle, Underworld II and Pagan. The Outlander from this story isn't from Earth either sharing the same origin world as this malevolent thing and also through use of an unknown language. So in many ways this is affirmation for me that not all Outlanders need to be from Earth.

The 2nd major item is the threat itself. We can now lay claim to something being out there in the world. Some evil scroll of some kind and if found things can turn nasty. In could be anywhere. Anyone could find it.

As a DM for SotA RPers I really like stories like that this because it can later be used as the basis for a player driven storyline we can have a lot of fun with. With the author's permission I might try to do just that some time down the road. In my capacity as DM I hope to see more stories like this. One of my favorite storylines from my NWN days was inspired by an in-game book someone had written. I had a lot of fun bringing that story to life and to a final conclusion over the course of several events.

 

From Dolly

As I'm taking a closer look at all the stories I find that I'm getting a lot more very cool bits of lore than I expect. I'm suddenly feeling quite nerdy actually.

Dolly gives us a nice look at a little bit of culture. Dolls themselves are not at all surprising but the style and craftsmanship of a doll is telling of the culture it came from. The doll in this story is obviously of very high quality. It kinda makes me wish we could craft high society children's toys.

Perhaps a more applicable piece of lore to take from this story is the tradition of lighting fires and 'making noise' to ward off evil during the night on the anniversary of the Cataclysm. Also the believe that on this night, the "wall" between this world and the next is weak. I'm pretty sure the author intended for this to be a Halloween tradition but we weren't comfortable naming a specific date for the Cataclysm itself.

What isn't certain is that whether this believe and tradition are local to a town, region or more wide spread. Either way I think it's a very cool idea and I'd love to see someone carry this tradition out with events. Some folks may know I was pushing for cultural events awhile back so I'm pretty happy to see an idea like this come through in a story.

Also if I may add some commentary about the Cataclysm itself. There's a lot we don't know about the event or even the time frame of the event. We've been told a number of times that it occurs about 400 years ago.. BUT.. there are two major indicators that suggest that it may have lasted for as long as several generations.

The first of these was Stephan's "Lurker" concept. This was done on an episode of PotA and some comments in Dev chats indicated that a side effect of the Cataclysm was the mutation of plants and creatures. Lurkers were once human. This I believe would've had to have taken several generations.

The second indicator was one of the Scene Jams. We were asked to basically build underground dwellings where people would've taken refuge. If the Cataclysm was an overnight event, taking refuge would've been unnecessary. Damage was done. The need for long term underground dwellings implies they were needed at least a number of years. Long enough for living conditions to stabilize.

Now these issues are really another fun discussion I hope to have at some point. What I infer from all this though is that when the devs tell us "about 400 years ago" that what that most likely means is that it was all over about that time and the people started living on the surface again. This is the assumption I currently work with.

 

Captain Jack wonders if Bowen can square this away? How is unofficial if Portalarium then passes it? So, someone writes, scribes pick what they like for lore and if passed it goes up to Portalarium for a second stage pass. If Portalarium passed it, then wouldn't the writer be creating lore in an official capacity?

Captian Jack no understando.

Are other scribes going to be posting their finds in here also? Creating their own threads? Wouldn't it make more sence to just wait until all of you scribes who review lore to finish and post a conceise and clear result?

Further, there are only two examples in your OP here that are listed in the OP itself where you state Portalarium have passed it. Is that it, or is everything you are saying in these threads also passed by Portalarium? Also sometimes you use bullet points, sometimes not?

Captain Jack could benefit from a more clear process flow here, from start to finish with multiple streams from finish for a lore based process.

 

From Danse de Macabre

This one is a little interesting as there is no new lore from the poem itself but carries implications because of where it was discovered. Scratched into a sarcophagus in the ruins of Ravensmoor.

The reference to heaven or hell heavily implies that the author is an Outlander from Earth. Ultima has never shown signs of belief in a heaven or hell. Rather spirits pass on to the Void unless something prevents them from doing so. The poem does seem to affirm that this still happens in SotA as it did in Ultima.

Now, Avatar or not it isn't very likely that anyone would stop in a place swarming with undead in order to take the time to scratch out a poem. So this would have had to have been done during a time when Ravensmoor was relatively peaceful. Likely also is that the discovery of the poem would also have occurred prior to A Tale of Braemar and Body Count in Braemar.

The significance you ask? Not all Outlanders are arriving in Novia at the same time. This has been going on for years. According to Firelotus' stories, she herself has been in the Hidden Vale for a year or two. Ravesnmoor became active just before or during that time.. probably. So the author probably has been in New Britannia for some time before that. At least long enough to be comfortable exploring old ruins.

This plays into the idea also that many of our characters arrived some time ago. We already own houses and established ourselves in the world. Some of us may even be considered nobility of some level. That doesn't happen over night.

 

Good questions.. glad you asked. When I say it "passed" Portalarium I mean FireLotus read them (as our guest judge) and didn't express any issues or concern. There is no official stamp of approval as it were and I don't think there is going to be to be honest.

I think ALL player written lore will stay 'unofficial'. It's really a matter of consistency and acceptance by the community. If the community accepts any piece of lore, it may as well be as good as official cause that's what people will work with. So I guess it's less of a matter of "passing Portalariun" and more a matter of "passing the community" as it were.

It probably would be good to talk it all out first and post what we agree on.. but I guess I'm a bit gung-ho for the public discussion and we had decided we wanted to do more in the public eye. Also each members availability isn't the same and if we wait on everything it will take awhile.

Besides, all of the finished stories have passed the keen eyes of all the lore keepers who looked at them. So there isn't going to be any conflict that the lore is good. We just might have a different outlook on what we pull from it.

Let me give an example. Take the Journal from the above post. Fact or fiction? Is the expedition itself.. the names of the characters to be considered lore? I personally passed on that data.. to be honest I forget why now. I was focusing on mimics, time periods etc. If the journal was a factual account we would probably include names and events.. but as a fictional account those people never existed. In this case the author has said it was intended as fiction.

As for bullet points.. that's just my writing style. Depends how I'm feeling at the moment.

We are still in the process really nailing down our procedures. As you know we had a pretty rough start.. our first contest took longer than we hoped in part to unavoidable circumstances (ie guest judge being very busy).

This thread and hopefully others is one of the new things we're doing.. I hope others will jump in and do some of their own stuff as well but I also think we all should be able to stick to our interests.. and I'm having a lot of fun just talking lore.. so maybe these posts will be my thing?

All I can tell you is that I have enough free time on the computer to do a lot of stuff on the forums. Can't speak for the others on that and right now I'm jazzed to be able to do this. When the guys adding stuff to the wiki have the time I'm sure we'll get together and discuss some of these things in more detail.

 

Thanks for starting on this, Bowen. As some may know, I am also a Lore Keeper with the Scholars. Unfortunately, I'm also very busy so I probably won't get anything like my thoughts up until next week. But I am loving the conversation so far!

 

Ok I'll do one more tonight. These are in no particular order btw. We have them all posted in our private forums as separate posts and I'm just going down the list.

From Awoken

This story is difficult to draw any lore from. If for no other reason than how the story focuses very heavily on the little girl in it. There are no cultural references or anything of the nature. I would like to make a personal comment though, which is I love the role reversal in this story.

If there is lore to be taken than it lies in the girl herself. I take this as a fictional story but those interested in the undead may find an interesting discussion to be had here. Does this type of undead creature exist? What exactly is she? Could we call her a wraith perhaps? Does she truly need to eat or is that need a response to someone being nearby? What happens to her if she doesn't eat? What about the experience she went through before she remembered what she was?

The fact that she didn't remember at first is in itself interesting. Why voices? Where do they come from? and what role do they play in her condition?

As a fictional story there is no pressing need to answer any of that but if such an existence is possible then I would hope that those inclined towards necromancy might explore questions such as these.

 

"Acceptance by the community" is a concept that's hard to define. First, what constitutes the "acceptance" and second, what constitutes the "community". There are many scenarios that could be imagined. Even because a lot of people accept something as part of the way they like to RP doesn't automatically baptize it "as good as official". Trying to specify "fanon" (a great term) is a great way to stir up controversy as well, especially for a game that has not even been "lived in". I agree that all lore has to be unofficial, but I would say leave it at that.

The discussion of whether unofficial lore is consistent with official lore is, of course, possible to define and should be the only qualification worthy of mention at this point.

 

I find it very interesting what Bowen found so far. Some points seems so trivial but he is right to mention them, because we don't know much about this world so far. I can't wait to see what he will find in my story or which facts he has to deny.