Vendigroth and Void Structures

Discussion in 'Arcanum Discussion' started by Anonymous, Jun 3, 2006.

Remove all ads!
Support Terra-Arcanum:

GOG.com

PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!
  1. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Has anyone else noticed just how similar the architecture of Vendigroth and the Void is? In full brightness, the two are close enough to be interchangeable.
     
  2. Xiao_Caity

    Xiao_Caity New Member

    Messages:
    3,691
    Likes Received:
    0
    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2005
    Gee, I thought I was the only one who saw that. Good call!
     
  3. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    As much as I'd like to accept your praise, I only noticed it after going through the facades docs. Then all of a sudden, click!
     
  4. Wolfsbane

    Wolfsbane Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    4,498
    Likes Received:
    4
    Joined:
    Nov 11, 2005
    Actually, you're quite right. But then again, Arronax destroyed the entire city, didn't he? By "destroying", Nasrudin could've meant that he... He banished almost the entire city to the Void! Jehesus Christ! That would explain why there are floating platforms in mid-space in the Void: They came there when Arronax destroyed the city!
     
  5. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Unless you add a time warp into the equasion, that just doesn't work.

    The Council had banished the Bane of Kree, Gorgoth, etc, before Arronax.
     
  6. Xiao_Caity

    Xiao_Caity New Member

    Messages:
    3,691
    Likes Received:
    0
    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2005
    Well, he managed to obliterate an ENTIRE CITY. A very big city, at that. I reckon that amount of desctructive energy could very easily have warped space-time enough for it to be in the Void when he arrived.
     
  7. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    OK... Now we're getting somewhere!

    And the twisted trees and weird animals are mutations caused by this?
     
  8. Grossenschwamm

    Grossenschwamm Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    7,630
    Likes Received:
    4
    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2006
    If you don't kill Arronax at the end of the game before fighting Kergan, you get a narration of how Arronax raised the city of Vendigroth-ALONE-from the sands of the Vendigroth Wastes.
    Now, this may mean that he created all of the machines and buildings of Vendigroth from the ground, using his magick to create the same materials of which everything was made, or the city was actually under the ground, as the ruins and half-buried buildings demonstrate. Or he somehow bridged the void and Arcanum and brought all of that crap back.
    I can see that some of the buildings and land masses were "banished", but not all of it. I think that the void is simply a dead world that used to be at the pinnacle of technological achievement, and then was abruptly destroyed by some massive cataclysm. Kergan says himself that all of the land and buildings were already there when he had arrived.
    Maybe Arronax sent all of the crap from Vendigroth back in time (and into the void), but this would also mean that there is a parallel reality (in Arcanum) in which the void has no land, and everything banished to the void is free-floating in a haze of nothing. This would fit very well with the description of the void by those who "use" it. Of course, they have no idea what's actually inside, since none of them were ever there.
    I've way too much time on my hands.
     
  9. Xiao_Caity

    Xiao_Caity New Member

    Messages:
    3,691
    Likes Received:
    0
    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2005
    Actually, I deal with Arronax's raising Vendigroth in my fiction. Long story short, it came this close *holds fingers maybe a micron apart* to killing him stone dead. Because, of course, the rise of Technology reduced the background magic of Arcanum.
     
  10. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    The ideas that have been put forth here has given me a wonderful idea on how to close the loop on something that had always bugged me. Liam Cameron's portal.

    Here goes:

    In my hack you deal with that portal as usual. Much later in the game, when you're in Vendigroth provence, I'm going to scatter a few odds and ends of buildings (and rescript Weldo to match) which should lead you to a archeological dig along the coast.

    Of course, the professor, laborers, ship's crew, et all, have been killed by Insect Huntresses and spiders. The ship is overrun, blah, blah, blah - but in the ruins of the ancient port town, there is a passage leading down to the appropriate ruins and for those who explore further - a vast black area that bridges Arcanum with the Void. Think of it as the interface between the two realms. Tile scripts will allow me to add things like "This area has an unearthly feel about it".

    While I was typing this another thought hit me. I mentioned the energy used to destroy Vendigroth mutating the plants and lifeforms. What if the void lizards (I haven't figured the floating jellyfish out yet) were the wolves and such of Vendigroth? They got mutated into a reptilian form. That kicks open the door to use the Lizardmen for the "human" population.
    The Bedokaans' ancestors had successfully escaped, but one or two other attempts didn't work.

    Why don't they just walk out the way you came in? Generations of living in the Void - can't survive the prolonged exposure to the nothing between realms?

    As for the portal: That was their latest attempt to use scavenged technology to escape from the Void! They gathered what they needed, found a weak point between the realms, set up the portal, sent through the reciever - and then got over-run by the wildlife which blundered through for Liam to find.

    Your quest: find all the components, return to the Bedokaan village (if you're friendly, and convince the chief to allow the new portal to be set up.
    Otherwise, leave the Vedigrothians to their fate.

    What do you think?
     
  11. Xiao_Caity

    Xiao_Caity New Member

    Messages:
    3,691
    Likes Received:
    0
    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2005
  12. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Consider it done, good lady!

    However, I would still welcome any and all other ideas, like how to explain the Arraya.
    (I hope I spelled that right)
     
  13. Xiao_Caity

    Xiao_Caity New Member

    Messages:
    3,691
    Likes Received:
    0
    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2005
    Hrm, the Araya... That's a point. I'll think on it tomorrow.

    Y'know, before I got working on my current fic, I was working on a sort of wonky romantic thing between my then-current PC and Arronax... I only bring it up because there's one point when they get ambushed by the elemental Araya and Tal got almost killed by one of the electric ones. So of course the little group legs it - Tal being as tough as you can be without being an Orc or Ogre - and wind up with half the party trapped in the cave where you get that ungodly kick-ass Falchion while the rest of the party tries to find a tree or something so that they can bridge the new gap...

    Don't give Virgil the Falchion, it causes chaos...
     
  14. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    That's nice to know. Thanks.
     
  15. Xiao_Caity

    Xiao_Caity New Member

    Messages:
    3,691
    Likes Received:
    0
    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2005
    Thing is, it's a VERY good sword. Those stairs didn't stand a chance once he started 'showing off'.

    Arronax and Tal are planning revenge upon return to Arcanum.
     
  16. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

  17. Grossenschwamm

    Grossenschwamm Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    7,630
    Likes Received:
    4
    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2006
    Are you guys talking about Kryggyrd's Falchion?
    I love that sword! It's the best naturally occurring sword in the game! (next to the Bangellian Scourge)
    I can totally see a newly amassed army coming from the void with the leader carrying the Falchion. Unless it's just going to be Arronax and Tal. Some void lizards should follow.
     
  18. Xiao_Caity

    Xiao_Caity New Member

    Messages:
    3,691
    Likes Received:
    0
    Joined:
    Oct 11, 2005
    Tal's going to take the sword, obviously. Although the idea of Tal leading a barbarian army with Arronax as her consort... Bweeeheehee.
     
  19. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    What an image...

    Back to the Arraya, what do you think about mutated Will-o-Wisps and Volar's Wisps for the background?
     
  20. Grossenschwamm

    Grossenschwamm Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    7,630
    Likes Received:
    4
    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2006
    The Arrayas are pretty tough to place...Considering the names and the different types of Arraya, I'm thinking they might've been the original inhabitants of The Void, along with the lizards. Then again, not everything with a social structure is intelligent...
    I like the Wisp idea. They ARE brightly colored.
    They just look so much like jellyfish to me. I'm trying to think of some strange banishing that may have been done at sea. Seeing how simple jellyfish are, the magic could have fundamentally altered their bodies. That, and the strange properties of the Void could have lead to their current evolution. What I don't get is how they have such a large population in the Void. If time doesn't pass normally there, how did they mature enough to bear offspring?
     
Our Host!