Wacky theory time

A little something that came to my mind. May not the first want to think it, but a quick search indicates I'm the first to write it.

The Iron Clan. We know that it was an technologically advanced society (the Iron Clan Armor being arguably the best piece of armor known to ever exist the world of Arcanum) and that despite its advancement, it somehow disappeared without a trace.

Next point - the so called "Secret Entrance to the Iron Clan" we find in the game is most disappointing. The gear is incredible, but the location is very small, consisting of a handful of mechanical guards, three containers and a throne. No inaccessible passage suggesting that there is/was anything more to be found there implies that the location is merely a storehouse for the Durin Stone and a few other odds and ends while the proper clan (or the ruins of it) is to be found elsewhere.

So the technologically advanced Iron Clan resided in a different part of Arcanum, disappeared for some reason and we never even find the ruins. Or do we?

What do we know about the inhabitants of Vendigroth, exactly? Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know their race was never really made clear. There are no bodies to be found nor any images or pieces of armor/clothing which would at least suggest if they were a small or a medium-sized race.

The Vendigrothians might have very well been a society of dwarves, which is in fact the first race that comes to mind when one mentiones technology, especially advanced one. As far as we know, Vendigroth and the Iron Clan were both ancient technologically advanced nations which seem to have suddenly disappeared in a more or less similar time.

They didn't have to perceive themselves as the Iron Clan or even as a clan at all. "The Iron Clan" could in fact be an artificial name later dwarves, used to categorising themselves by clans, created for the society of dwarves that they remembered for their technological prowess and input to the dwarven philosophy and yet forgotten to the point that their true name was no longer known.

The half-buried statue in the Vendigroth Ruins is that of a beardless figure and the names of Vendigrothians are different than those of known dwarves, yes, but it could be rationalised that both the beard-related tradition and naming trend we know from modern Arcanum are younger than 2000 years.

One of the main flaws in the theory is that both Vendigroth and the Iron Clan have layouts which are well-defined and, at the same time, visibly different from one another.

Also, they sure would decide to build the chamber for the Durin Stone a long way from their homeland, which would be strange if the situation were an isolated case.

On the other hand, there is a Vendigrothian sprocket found in the Bessie Toone mine in Shrouded Hills. It could be brought there from the other end of the known world, or it could be found in the general vicinity of the village. The Secret Entrance to the Iron Clan happens to actually be quite close, as it is. Perhaps the builders of the chamber left behind some spare parts here and there which can be found rusting in the ground even today.

 

What about Nasrudin's retelling of the war between Arro and 'groth? Based on the cinematic I'd say 'grothians are a wee bit tall for Dwarfs.

 

The cinamatic shows the remains of the armies of Nasrudin and Arronax confronting each other at the Black Spire after Vendigroth was already destroyed.

 

The Iron Clan entrance and Vendigroth couldn't be further from each other. Why would they ever go there, into the middle of the desert? And an entire clan migrating would leave SOME evidence.

 

Vendigroth wasn't a desert before Arronax rearranged it.

Unless... technological teleport!

I'm not saying the whole clan migrated through Arcanum, though. I'm saying that the society - by whatever name it was known at the time - lived in Vendigroth all along while a small group of their builders left their homeland to build a fitting chamber for the Durin Stone.

If I was to think up a reason to move such a great distance to do so, I'd say it would be something special about the particular mountain at which the chamber was build.

 

Or they were deliberately hiding somewhere.

The Iron Chest in the dragon's lair, with a map to the place of lost voices and the trail of clues leading from the northeast to the southwest, supports your theory, sir.

The Iron Clan may be the equivalent of the Enclave after the destruction of Vendigroth.

The fact that there are heirlooms and thrones in the Iron Clan, and little else, suggests a bunker for the elite of vendigroth, becoming the seed of the Iron Clan legend.

I like the idea.

 

An excellent theory; very sound. Pity about the endgame Vendigroth scene, but that's easily explained away. Vendigroth could just as well have been a multiracial society that the dwarves of the Iron Clan either founded or survived. Either way, awesome.

 

Epic concept... but the end game cinematic for the resurrection of vendigroth shows one of the taller races, either human, half elf or elf it looks like.

 

I thought that was Arronax himself, in the new age... Cyberarronax.

 

The beardless statue clearly disproves your theory entirely. Dwarf beards are living breathing sentient entities, as precious to his dwarf as a child. Shaving it off is like smothering your child. No society of Dwarves would idolize such criminal behavior by memorializing it in a statue of that nature. :lol:

 

Well, I disagree.

Vendigorth ruins does not look like anything dwarven or so. Velorien is not a dwarven god and I don't think dwarves would have created automaton which are as tall as humans.

 

It's a nice theory but I don't think it's the right one. Don't know which NPC said it (God of Thanatos maybe), but there was a mention in some of the dialogues that Vendigrithians were technologicaly highly advanced even before dwarves.
Next thing to weaken your theory is the name of the Iron Clan. In the place of Lost Voices the "answering machine" says something like "Listen to the message passed down by The Iron Clan". So this ancient clan considered themselves as the Iron Clan.
But you're right in one thing. Both Iron Clan and Vendigroth locations could have been much more better than they were in the game.

 

Iron Clan pretty sucks because it's very small but Vendigroth ruins is definitly my favorite location. So unique and the ambient is like whooooo !

I felt Bioshock similar to Vendigroth...

 

the automatons that are located in the iron clan's home are effectively the same as the ones located in vendigroth

 

oops, you are right... I still don't really get why the would built automation except for being eternal guards... I actually don't think that automaton are dwarven creation. Devs might have made a mistake putting automaton here.

 

Automations might not be native to the Iron Clan entrance. Why would they attack someone who has a legitimate key?

 

I very much like your input here, ytzk. I'm going to use it a bit lower.

Why? I don't see it as necessarily disproving the theory I suggested. More on that below.

I disagree. I don't think we can really estimate the height of the car drivers in the Vendigroth cinematic.

What we do see is that they are beardless figures. If Arronax restored Vendigroth along with its inhabitants, those could be the shaved ancient dwarves of Vendigroth. If all Arronax did was restore the infrastructure and technology but not the inhabitants, new Vendigrothians would consist of technologists from all over Arcanum who wished to live in this new-old city. There would be many humans as well as members of other races among them, I'm sure.

Two thousand years is a lot of time. Compare what is considerd standard/normal about male/female haircuts, facial hair, house decorations, etc now and what was 2000 years ago.

Look as Magnus, one of the last descendants of the Iron Clan. He needs a badly written book to know what it means to be a dwarf. It's not something that his father could teach him after he himself learned it from his father and so on.

It could be theorised that this shows that the modern definition of being a dwarf is something that was created by clans younger than the Iron Clan, which is why an isolated family of Iron Clan descendants had no idea about such things.

As above.

Is he a human god any more than he is a dwarven one?

Just browsed through the God's dialogue in-game and haven't encountered such a mention. I'd appreciate if there would be anyone capable of confirming it and stating where it is to be found, for the existence of such a line is a key issue here.

Influenced by what ytzk wrote, I would be inclined to say that rather than "Iron Clan = Vendigrothians", it's "Iron Clan = remnants who survived Vendigroth's destruction".

Perhaps a group of dwarves was ordered to leave Vendigroth with the invaluable Durin Stone as soon as possible when Arronax started acting nasty, just in case the words would happen. And when it actually did, they called themselves the Iron Clan, the last keepers of Vendigroth's knowledge, dedicated to preserve as much of it as they can.

That could mean that what we find as the ruins of the Iron Clan actually is everything to be found. After Vendigroth destruction, the last survivors did their best to stay hidden, afraid of being found by Arronax or any other maniacs from that so called Elven Council, built the treasury in which they hid the Durin Stone and other valuables, then created the Place of Lost Voices and the Iron Chest, wrote the Book of Durin's Truth and finally dispersed.

Modern dwarves might believe that the Iron Clan was at least as big as the Wheel Clan, but it would be because - unknown to them - when they think about it, they actually think about what stands behind the clan's glory - Vendigroth.

Why? Also, do you think the same about the mechanical arachnids at the Place of Lost Voices?

Being eternal guards sounds like reason enough to me.

Those automatons are ancient. Perhaps their "combat inhibitors" simply rusted away.

That or they were meant to be hostile by default and the Iron Clanners devised a way to turn the automatons off without even entering the throne room. Something a Iron Clanner with the proper knowledge would know and the Living One does not.

 

I can only offer this: "Why would the 'grothian survivors take the moniker "Iron Clan"?"

Oh, and: "Are we sure 'groth wasn't home to multiple races?"

Other mentions could go to the difference in 'grothian names and more standard Dwarf names, but that's neither here nor there.

 

You need to think about it technologically, and view the order of events backwards. Dwarves didn't migrate to the coast, the Iron Clan started there. Later, when the need for ore in larger quantities appeared, they built trains/mechanical carts to travel across the land. As their growth continued, they began building societies in the hillsides, for the purposes of mining ore and safety (i.e: houses carved into the stone are safe against dragon attacks). One of these outlying communities was the one that hid the Durin Stone, rather than the Iron Clan central. Then, when Vendigroth is destroyed, these outlying communities are isolated. Not solely from the core of their society, but from each other, and thus rises the distinction of "Clans."

 

I thought I'd contribute to both sides of this discussion; though personally I think Vendigroth was a largely human city.

Firstly as stated many times dwarves don't like technology which does work for them - so why then would they build cars? I guess you could argue that even the most pro-active of people use cars, and also that dwarvern culture has changed since then. However I think dwarves would resist using cars themselves and surely their culture would only change so much in a few thousand years, especially given their longevity (we're talking massive cultural changes in approximately 6-8 dwarven generations, unless they purposefully shed their culture to throw the elven council off their scent).

Next "The Pagan Gods of Arcanum":

All these statements about how deeply and for how long Alberich featured in dwarvern culture makes it seem weird that they'd use Velorien as their patron god in Vendigroth - and I know culture and religious beliefs change but as stated before it's unlikely they'd change dramatically is 6-8 generations; families that are Christian now would have been Christian 6 generations ago most probably. I guess Aldous T. Buxington III could be full of crap and an unreliable source of information, but he is employed by the university so you wouldn't think his work would be total bs.

Next "The Book of the Twelve Powers" by Mazzerin (featured in "The Pagan Gods of Arcanum"), in reference to the people of Vendigroth:

Now to read between the lines here (which trying to play the historian you would have to do) Mazzerin is said to be an elven mystic, so it is weird that he says these things were never seen before by the eyes of man rather than his own race - therefore you would think he must be referring to the race that was most populous in Vendigroth who were wowed by what Velorien enabled them to do. Either this or much less likely many many humans visited Vendigroth, in both cases it is implied enough humans knew about this technology to be awed by it.

However on the flip side of the discussion from "On the Races of Arcanum" (*cough* game manual *cough*):

=> Vendigroth, or settlements that were direct offshoots from Vendigroth.

=> Arronax's apocalyptic wobbler.

On top of this dwarves are the technological race in Arcanum, it stands to reason they would have built its leading technological city. They indirectly had a hand in Arcanum's current technological boom, logically they should be partly responsible for the one that came before.

As I stated previously I think Vendigroth was a human city, largely from what I quoted from Mazzerin - but I realise that the evidence from that quote is by no means concrete and can easily have different interpretations. The thing that mufti said about Vendigroth being technologically advanved before the dwarves also pulls at my mind; it might just be what Jason C. Guy says but that is only theoretical anyway so that wouldn't be much good as support for this side of the argument.