new lore is given by Divinia in the 3.22 sanctum, she confirms that the newcomers are from a different planet or plane, as their language uses grammar that makes no reasonable sense to anyone from wreclast. I always assumed that the newcomers were aliens of some kind since the cleansing fire is an entity to which space means very little, and if the cleansing fire were to have visted wreaclast before why would it have limited itself to a small portion of the planet when it is an omnipresent entity, it has always made more sense that the victims of the fire in another solar system or dimension escaped the twin powers of the fire and the tangle to wreaclast, where Maxerius found them.
Seems likely, yeah. They probably used a Map Device to escape, and ended up inside that shrine they emerged from in the flavor text for "Crystallized Omniscience".
The Lake is a time pocket, a timeless structure that's embebed to Wraeclast, a time anomaly that creates negative reflections of the people that come in contact with it, it can be a defecto giant floating time machine that can sift through the entire history, making it's inhabitants absolute and unbound by the possibilities of time. Atziri holds a mirror that is a window to said realm, in the reflection a red haired woman stares back, stuck in the lake. At some point, at some time, at some place, a red haired woman entered the lake, and atziri replaced her. that's why Atziri's rise is so important Wraeclast, because the time anomaly bounds the destiny of the woman into the continent, without time there's no meddling of chance or alternate results of what can or not happen, Chaos can not explain the absolute rise of the queen, because her actions are unbound by chance and time. Atziri may be one character that has absolute free will over destiny and her link with the woman behind the mirror. ...and then Zana just decided to run off... somewhere
Adding to this: What is Atziri's most ntoable move? Her Mirror Clone Phase What is Atziri's most notable mechanic? Her built in reflect What div card does the Alluring Abyss drop? The House of Mirrors Then look at the art for the Beauty Through Death, The Queen, Volatile Power, The Devastator, and Reckless Ambition divination cards
Hi ! I've been binging you channel for the past couple of days and I wanted to congratulate you and thank you for all of this. I've been playing this game for a decade and never really took the time to learn what's under our noses. I knew bits and stuff from doing the campaign and listening to Izaro so many times but beside that... You've given me (and us) another reason to be excited for the future of PoE :)
Awesome!! Love to hear that. It’s so easy (and tempting) to skip past the story, and so much is hidden behind things like flavor text… it’s a great story and I’m happy to dig it up and put it together!
Hello, can I give you my theory? I've been trying to workshop it but I can't tell if it's actually meaningful. Your idea is that the Empty-eyed Fiend of the Kalguur was The Elder but I have a slightly different interpretation. Here's my suggestion: the empty eyed fiend was Beidat. Beidat and the pale demons are known not to eat material things but to feed on fear. The Empty-eyed Fiend is said not to kill or hunt to eat but just for the fear it creates. Beidat is spiky. The Empty-eyed Fiend is spiky. Beidat is literally a demon from the beyond. The great enemy of the Kalguur seems implied to have come from the beyond. Beidat's gaze/eyes seem to be notable, and they seem to be literally a void in the sense that his head is just a skull. The Empty-eyed Fiend's empty eyes are its defining characteristic. One of the things we are specifically told about the Scourge is that some of them are headless but live on anyway. The Empty-eyed Fiend is infamously beheaded but something about it seems to continue to live on. Also and this is a bit more dubious considering the nature of GGG's production pipe-line, it's fascinating to me that Vorana's model gets reused as a new character in Sanctum. It doesn't per-se mean anything and in universe it's meant to represent something to do with the Templars but it is perhaps notable that GGG's heads were in the same design space for an Expedition boss and a Sanctum/Scourge related boss. If we pretend for a moment that the reused model has some meaning if not a literal one then maybe it means something like a Kalguuran was involved at some point with the sanctum, not a literal clone of Vorana or anything.
Yes Vorana’s model being reused for the 3rd boss is something I forgot to mention, but it’s super interesting! I totally think that the Empty Eyed Fiend could be something other than the Elder, and it definitely could be Beidat. I like your theory and it’s good crafting! Divinia talks about necromancy when discussing that boss, so maybe Lycia was reanimating Vorana, who had been killed by Beidat (and maybe other Scourge) while defending the last remaining Kalguur on Wraeclast.
Three new Unique Relics were added to Sanctum in the "Trial of the Ancestors" patch - patch 3.22 for the more numerically inclined. The Power and the Promise | Tome Relic "Building on the fear and hatred that deified him, Innocence threatened an eternity of flames for nonbelievers. The newcomers wailed and threw themselves at his feet in the thousands." The Chains of Castigation | Processional Relic "The mysterious traveller saw the vilified brother chained to a cliff, where all could point and shout and deride him. In one fell swing, she cracked the mountainside, freeing him."" The Blood of Innocence | Censer Relic "After weeks of being pursued, the veiled traveller made her stand in a sandstorm. Somehow, she wounded a god. Innocence relented; his brother and the traveller made good their escape." Also I think you should check out the new story circumstances where we first encounter Divinia, and how Sanctum runs are now accessed. It involves finding books that somehow came from another Wraeclast.
My Theory is that Chaos simply gave the crucible so that humanity defeats the scourge, as He is interested in change and the scourge is basically the antagonist of him as it brings total order by assimilating everything. If everything is scourge, there is no Chaos left, only order so its his final goal to defeat the scourge
Either that or he gave them the blood crucible because he's chaotic. If "all things that can happen, do" then of course he has to create the blood crucible in one universe.
So the scourge are like the reapers from mass effect. As always the lore you uncover absolutely blows my mind and the video was amazing. I'm gonna have to watch it again to really wrap my head around the multiple lasts to dies/alvas.
Regarding the line of dialogue of chaos and order and impulse I think it's important to note the capitalisation and choice of words. Just as the trialmaster capitalises Order and Impulse, so too does the Envoy in his introduction of the progenitor and light keeper. "the lightkeeper are not for our understanding. He illuminates the way forward, but our eyes are ever locked downward on the steps we take, marking each moment in tireless sequence. Only the progenitor may cast its gaze forward, birthing new ambitions apace as the old turn to dust in the light. In this cold conflict, an Impulse emerges. "
This was the video that introduced me to the channel, I watched all other complete lore series and not back to this one with more context Honestly incredible work
Can't even begin to explain how amazing this video was! I need to watch this at least another 10 times to get everything. The visual connection between the symbols of the Templars and the Cleansing Fire has been bothering me since the start of the Siege expansion, and I needed this explanation. For the music nerds out there, there is a short reference to the Cleansing Fire theme in the Sanctum trailer music. I can't say for sure whether it was intentional, but the lore connection is just too good to dismiss it. I'm also curious whether the Scourge might be related to the Tangle? I don't see much of a connection other than tentacles and the desire to consume worlds, but it definitely seems like everything is leading back to the Eldritch with all of the new lore reveals. Maybe the Tangle is the mind behind the Scourge that both Divinia and Last to Die reference? It might also support the necessity of Eldritch power to fight the Scourge if they are Eldritch in origin themselves. Thank you so much for your hard work combing through PoE lore! It was so awesome to be able to understand some of the lore of Sanctum while playing through the league because of your past videos.
Mini Theory: The Cleansing Fire threatened to invade Wraeclast when the Elder first appeared. The Elder won the Turf War, claimed the world as his hunting ground and the Survivors thus were left with memories of the burning calamity that was upon them. The Cleansing Fire moved on to find new realms to study, Innocence saw his oppurtinity and proceeded as you said...
I definitely think a Struggle between the Cleansing Fire and the Decay took place. However, I don't think the Cleansing Fire threatened to invade Wraeclast; I think it just tried to take over the Elder's "Dreamlands". And from there, points two and three in your post play out. The Elder successfully defended its territory, and the Cleansing Fire moved on, and those who survived getting caught in the middle of that Struggle - the "scorched refugees", the "newcomers" - ended up on Wraeclast, to be found by Maxarius/Innocence. And... yeah, if the Cleansing Fire won that Struggle, it's very likely that it and its champions would get unobstructed access to Wraeclast like the Elder had, and history would've played out really differently. From there, that would mean that those "newcomers" specifically came from the Elder's Dreamlands. The shrine they emerged from maybe had a Map Device in it, who knows. Whether those survivors were native to the Dreamlands, or were brought there from Wraeclast (or other worlds/continents), or a mixture of both, is anyone's guess.
Well put Madam ! I'm a bit surprised that none of the Syndicate and so little of the Heist lore was included in this elaborate peer at this game's lore. I somehow expected those bandits and rogues to have more to contribute with their fabled relics and paraphernalia. The fact of the matter is , I just realized that there is NO complete list available for all contraband items , which also contains a fair portion of hidden lore 😲
Damn, usually i have pretty horrible attention span but somehow this video managed to keep me interested the full 58minutes without any pauses, very nice and interesting, hoping to see bunch more lore and theories with future leagues
47:19 The one exception Trialmaster is mentioning, where Order unifies humans (and defeats Chaos?) may be the world where High Templar Venarius defeated Scourge. So right now there are two outcomes we know, Scource consumes all or Order wins. Chaos most likely does not want any of those "boring" outcomes and thats why he gave a tool to find another way.
My theory on Chaos vs. Scourge is that they are opponents because Scourge represent order in a fashion. See, you have to see it not from our perspective, but from the trialmaster's ; that The scrourge, like Atziri, are one stable course that doesn't change, which is the antithesis of chaos's desire to say fluidity and changing outcomes. There's no outcome where the scourge decide to not consume or change their desires. The same way the trialmast admonished Atziri for being an island of stability, he would find the same fault in the scourge as they always do one thing and one thing only across any and all dimensions. The difference is that Atziri was one insignificant mortal, while the scourge maybe a force strong enough to challenge Chaos itself, and are able to end the stream of coin tosses by eradicating the tossers altogether, something that Chaos can't allow. There's merit to the theory that the scourge maybe a tool to the lightkeeper, the patron of the Maven, who is a champion of Order and thus would find obvious issue with Chaos, with scourge bosses and trialmaster being the respective lieutenants just like the unending hunger and black star are the leiutenants of the eater and exarch, who in turn are champions of tangle and the fire. Since the envoy did note that such powerful entitiies fight by proxy and not directly. So Chaos hires trial master, who hires the last to die (or vaals or humans in general), while lightkeeper hires Scourge, who make deals with other humans like Lyciah. But until we can verify that the scourge are indeed hired as an agent of order, this is only speculation.
Watching this only now, on the eve of Crucible league, I'm eager to see how everthing will fit into this new theory. And also how all will culminate into PoE2 in the future. Hope you have a great league start. Cheers!
totally agree with you for the "preparation" of a new narrative arc with poe and poe 2 (and the "seed of corruption" of poe 2 we seen in the trailers etc, looks like a scourge stuff)
*Imagine the Templars knew of the Combine from half life if they truly did know about interdimensional threats.. Just that they did not survive. hundreds of years much later a resonance cascade event occurred.*
My condolences on the loss. This league was fun and I LOVED the lore drops. I didnt get a ton of notable stuff but my burnout aside, the mechanic was fun. The lore however saved last league and was a huge bonus this league.
29:21 I think the important part is the fact that even if Sin became a god unwillingly, he still became a god. And that is most likely why Sin didn't "forget his humanity". Makes you wonder if other deities exist out there who were forced into that position like Sin was, and who thus still have humanity in them. Could they be potential allies for the ordeals ahead?
Thank you Beyond-Demon Noodle! Always appreciate your in-depth lore series, which gives my hack'n'slashing more purpose. Also great content as a bedtime story to put little ones to bed =P
Nice, I never got the memo that Innocence was just an exarch imposter. That puts things into perspective. Really like that everything'S coming together as it really seemed like there were just random leagues on a heap which it probably was. Maybe they just ramp it up with cosmic threats until PoE2 comes out and they'll dial it down again.
50:20, 53:10 - 53:40 One correction to state, about Utzaal. The name "Utzaal" WAS mentioned back in Ultimatum League. Back in that league, you could get Inscribed Ultimatums which you can put in your map device to tale on a tougher "Ultimatum" challenge. The name of the location the Inscribed Ultimatums all lead to? "The Utzaal Arena".
Don't know if you read comments for lore suggestions, but if you look at the concept art for the Forgeguard mtx, there's concept art for a Forgeguard stash mtx that has a symbol on it clearly resembling the sigil of Purity but more dissimilar than any other sigil of Purity we've seen previously. Thought it might be of interest for future videos since it seems like the upcoming league will be related to the Forgeguard theme.
Thank you for your work. Again it's amazing. I myself suspect that indeed, we're caught in a war between eldritch entities. I suspect that Chaos also is one, and that the Scourge is the manifestation of another, or rather, controlled by another. That's so intriguing! I do hope we'll learn more in the next expansion.
Lore collecting was really fun and I've been looking forward to this video. Lore crafting this league took me to some INSANE extremes. I mean for base example: is Lycia the name of kalandra human form. It would explain kalandra hatred of Gods, how she's not considered a god, her creation, her being trapped. The quote similarities between Lycia and kalandra (ofcourse the visual similarities) it also plays into the last to die's idea of all the versions of wraeclast. Also when kalandra paraphrases zana in Lok(that league was miserable but the lore crafting material was nuts) Also it would explain at least possibly how she knows sin ,why she gets along with a God, the ONLY god she likes might I add. The reaction to greed and power when you saved rewards for completion of the sanct. Why does she like or take a softer approach to sin? Because she learned the truth about innocence and perhaps through all that she sees sin as worthy to keep around. People may say kalandra was always there, but the thing is which wraeclast? Assuming its ours she was at the start of , between the time travel and inter dimensional travel,Lycia wanting to live forever is a big point, however living alone forever is a hell of a prison.that kind of prison would make anyone want to escape. She wants you to play trading spaces with the KFC lady. Similar to "Us" the horror movie where there can only be one copy in the world at a time and dark versions always want out .
I suspect the ''shade of venarius" could refer to cavas, in the reality where he wasn't stopped as part of synthesis, and succeeded in returning to wraeclast with power
this was absolutely amazing! i love the lore of PoE...if only it wasn't so difficult to find and connect! One could write a whole series of books about all the lore...maybe somewhere in the future we will get a chance to get a packed summary of all the lore so i can enjoy it without the need to read all item flavors, lore pieces in the world and conversations in the entire game.
Well done, btw I've been always so intrigued by the lore behind Oni Goroshi. She has quite a number of dialogues and interactions. I'm just wondering if you could cover her lore.
Is it possible, that Betrayal-Elreon had knowledge about the Innocence-Original-Story? His lines giving at least hints in that direction ("Not the first time I've been betrayed for my faith").
One thing that i think GGG's going to have some trouble with is combining Wraeclast lore with Atlas lore. Scourge demons devouring Wraeclast really doesn't seem like that much of a threat when we have literal cosmic horrors eager to bring the hammer down on us. That being said, i'm curious as to whether the Scourge's "beyond" is the same "beyond" Sirus(and the Elder) went into.
Still curious about the Cleansing Flame just "visiting" as it seems like their schtick is to, ya know, cleanse everything they encounter with fire. Also, aren't the newcomers just Kalguurans?
It makes very much sense that the scourge is the force of Order, in my opinion. It is not the order, which we imagine usually, but an order where nothing except itself exists anymore. And since they are governed by some mysterious entity with only some being able to communicate this would impose total order by a single being. The one exception, where the conflict has ended, would then be the same one which The Last to Die talks about, where Venarius rules. Edit: A note on the mortals Order brings together: Lycia is very much one of these mortals being influenced by Beidat, who is probably just an extension of Order capable of limited thought and communication. Chaos giving the vaal priests the blood crucible to fight the scourge further strengthens this theory imo. Chaos has only been observing as far as we know, except in this instance to specifically counteract the scourge.
Finally, a core lore for POE... A multiple dimensional demon armies, gods and godesses who seemed to have stemed from cosmic Eldritch beings.. This is exactly what POE lore lacked before, the core story! It can't be just us exiles waiting for Eldritch invasions.. Now, anyone, any league can be brought into this core story!! One reason why Diablo was so successful and popular still is it has a rather simple, easy to understand core lore where "There is an eternal struggle between the heavens and the burning hells, and the creation of sanctuary and naphalems by Inarius and Lily" that's about it, you can throw anything into the core story from there. Thank the gods KCN is here to do this for the game we love.. Keep it coming! SPOILER! Zana coming back fullt cladded in Sirus' armour and possibly his power or better still, resurrected Sirus and both returning :D
Also zana wasn't referred to this league .. or was she. Something to note is also that this league still has zana after the fight with sirus still says "1 monster remains" Maybe that's a reflection of zana being a big bad...or that we have become the monster that zana feared we would become by always returning to the maps
What if the newcomers became the abyss creatures? That ring said they were plunged into eternal darkness and abyss is one of I think two lore elements with darkness as a theme.
What if the breach lords are preparing to fight the scourge. I was looking at the flavor text on Uul netol’s vow and how it mentions war has come, maybe the breachlords are also dealing with the scourge Demons
Omg throwing in Avanash the Bones Guy, I know Dimension 20 is getting more popular but I never expected a random Brennan Lee Mulligan cameo here hahahahaha, easily the best moment of escape from bloodkeep.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Lycia fearing for her bones… glad you got the reference. I am a HUGE Brennan fan and that whole scene always cracks me up!!
Small point to one of your final theories: The Utzaal-Chaos connection existed even in Ultimatum. The Trialmasters challenge in 3.14 took place in a zone called "The Utzaal Arena". But I agree, LoK spelled the connection out much more explicitly.
Finally we have a league with some good lore AND, more importantly, it isn't new lore - by which I mean it actually connects with and builds upon pre-existing lore rather than just tossing out some random new shit to feebly justify its league mechanic (looking at you Ultimatum!). This league actually reveals some stuff that goes right to the heart of one of the core game factions (the Templars), and even has some tantalizing connections with both past expansion and other league content. It also confirms that Innocence is even more of a dick than we had thought he was. Really this whole religious manipulation schtick the story is going down now kinda reminds me of one of the main themes of the Dune story as well. It also makes me wish we could tell Cassia all we've found. She won't believe any of it of course, but it'd still be fun to hear her reactions to it all. :p Oh and now I'm really doubtful Innocence is ever gonna do any real penance or soul-searching down south. PoE 2 is set 20 years down the line from our time, so it leads me to wonder if he's gonna be mixed up in all the mess that crops up then as well. Oshabi summed him up perfectly - "those who believe themselves golden gods can never return to the humility of a pauper". She predicts more trouble.
What if the future of innocence and the templars coming together for the purpose of order is what chaos fears and it utilizes the existence of the scourge to distract them from fully unifying in many realities. Proposing that without the blood crucible every world would end but in reality it’s just given out because that opens up more possibilities. What if it actually strengthens the connection the reality has to the scourge every time it’s used, you may win the battle but you’ll slowly lose the war. Even so, this might be done to elongate the existence of said worlds, because without fighting the scourge they would ultimately fall prey much faster than from just what the side effects of the blood crucible may incur. In the end chaos has no stake in any reality other than that one might be more interesting than another. Chaos is probably an entity that exists beyond creation, if every reality were to end and the cycle of creation began anew chaos would still be there. Watching and waiting, but he’s not a time traveller. It gets boring when there’s nothing but raw creation repeating the cycle, but on the other hand many realities converging to a single outcome of neatness and order isn’t interesting at all either and is just as boring to an entity such as it. If the scourge wins eventually it still stops this outcome and destruction of every reality would repeat a cycle with different outcomes. Anyways it was just a cool idea, probably not anything with weight
i think its possible that the scourge represent order in a "Heat death of the universe" sense everything reduced to unending sameness after they eat it
Would it be possible that when Baran put himself as God and us as the Devil back in the Elderslayer Arc ("Like Sin and Innocence before us, we two are bound forever; God and his shadow") he somehow made a contact with the Cleansing Fire and had a revelation about Innocence's origin?
great video! was wondering if you'll ever do a video about divination card lore. like what divination cards actually are within the world of wraeclast and some of the stories behind certain cards. doesn't seem like any other youtuber has made a video about that and I think divination cards are really cool and have some of the best flavor text in the whole game. ps i was your 1000th like on this video haha!
The Ezomytes mention the Great Fire. Could that be related to the Cleansing Fire? Could the First Ones be how they tried to make sense of their encounter with the eldritch entities? Could Ezomytes (or at least their ancestors) be the newcomers?
When she said she didn't want to be forgotten, what did she mean beidat?
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57:08 If Order is really the forces behind the Scourge, I can honestly understand why! Chaos knows every outcome ever exist but yet we are the one who choose that outcome for ourselves, we "entertain" Chaos with twist and turn in our lives as we do with violence for the Maven. We ourselves are a force of Chaos . If Order is all about its name then the Scourge can be view as "order" themselves since they only want one thing: Destruction of humanity aka destruction of Chaos. This can also explain why Chaos give The Last To Die the blood crucible: He saw the outcome of every dimension when they got invaded by the Scourge, so it might be the only way for humanity to truly stay free. Even in the reality when Venarius triumph, he'd probably enslaved everyone hence no more freedom aka Order is in place. If this is true then we truly are just a ragdoll being played by greater forces in this universe :(
They don’t tell us much, besides that it’s necromancy. Xenathar looks like Vorana (expedition boss) which I thought was interesting, but that’s all I could find
@@KittenCatNoodle My theory is that it's just easier to reskin Vorana, but could be something else here. Very well put together video, now I am off to waste the rest of my day on becoming the next PoE scholar
Regarding most of the bosses we see in the sanctum are simply recycled assets (old bosses reused).. Xenathar is Vorana clad in gold, Scriptorium room boss is the Crimson Mayor from Crimson Township map, Bellum room is the Purifier (Elder guardian) enlarged, another boss is the High Lithomancer from Primordial map boss... There might be others... and The guards are Rogue Exiles in different MTX armour sets! GGG like recycling assest.. In POE2 we will have Marceus Lioneye's skill (from Legion) as our skill..There will be alot more..
we knew about the templars being older than the eternal empire from the start. again they were made by innocence, which would have made them older than the beast. we also knew from base game that oriath is just colonized never were native to it.
Hell yes! Now i dont need to read the notes anymore! Thank you!
new lore is given by Divinia in the 3.22 sanctum, she confirms that the newcomers are from a different planet or plane, as their language uses grammar that makes no reasonable sense to anyone from wreclast. I always assumed that the newcomers were aliens of some kind since the cleansing fire is an entity to which space means very little, and if the cleansing fire were to have visted wreaclast before why would it have limited itself to a small portion of the planet when it is an omnipresent entity, it has always made more sense that the victims of the fire in another solar system or dimension escaped the twin powers of the fire and the tangle to wreaclast, where Maxerius found them.
Seems likely, yeah.
They probably used a Map Device to escape, and ended up inside that shrine they emerged from in the flavor text for "Crystallized Omniscience".
The Lake is a time pocket, a timeless structure that's embebed to Wraeclast, a time anomaly that creates negative reflections of the people that come in contact with it, it can be a defecto giant floating time machine that can sift through the entire history, making it's inhabitants absolute and unbound by the possibilities of time.
Atziri holds a mirror that is a window to said realm, in the reflection a red haired woman stares back, stuck in the lake.
At some point, at some time, at some place, a red haired woman entered the lake, and atziri replaced her. that's why Atziri's rise is so important Wraeclast, because the time anomaly bounds the destiny of the woman into the continent, without time there's no meddling of chance or alternate results of what can or not happen, Chaos can not explain the absolute rise of the queen, because her actions are unbound by chance and time.
Atziri may be one character that has absolute free will over destiny and her link with the woman behind the mirror.
...and then Zana just decided to run off... somewhere
Adding to this:
What is Atziri's most ntoable move? Her Mirror Clone Phase
What is Atziri's most notable mechanic? Her built in reflect
What div card does the Alluring Abyss drop? The House of Mirrors
Then look at the art for the Beauty Through Death, The Queen, Volatile Power, The Devastator, and Reckless Ambition divination cards
Babe, wake up. Noodle posted Sanctum lore video.
Hi ! I've been binging you channel for the past couple of days and I wanted to congratulate you and thank you for all of this. I've been playing this game for a decade and never really took the time to learn what's under our noses. I knew bits and stuff from doing the campaign and listening to Izaro so many times but beside that...
You've given me (and us) another reason to be excited for the future of PoE :)
Awesome!! Love to hear that. It’s so easy (and tempting) to skip past the story, and so much is hidden behind things like flavor text… it’s a great story and I’m happy to dig it up and put it together!
Hello, can I give you my theory? I've been trying to workshop it but I can't tell if it's actually meaningful.
Your idea is that the Empty-eyed Fiend of the Kalguur was The Elder but I have a slightly different interpretation. Here's my suggestion: the empty eyed fiend was Beidat.
Beidat and the pale demons are known not to eat material things but to feed on fear. The Empty-eyed Fiend is said not to kill or hunt to eat but just for the fear it creates.
Beidat is spiky. The Empty-eyed Fiend is spiky.
Beidat is literally a demon from the beyond. The great enemy of the Kalguur seems implied to have come from the beyond.
Beidat's gaze/eyes seem to be notable, and they seem to be literally a void in the sense that his head is just a skull. The Empty-eyed Fiend's empty eyes are its defining characteristic.
One of the things we are specifically told about the Scourge is that some of them are headless but live on anyway. The Empty-eyed Fiend is infamously beheaded but something about it seems to continue to live on.
Also and this is a bit more dubious considering the nature of GGG's production pipe-line, it's fascinating to me that Vorana's model gets reused as a new character in Sanctum. It doesn't per-se mean anything and in universe it's meant to represent something to do with the Templars but it is perhaps notable that GGG's heads were in the same design space for an Expedition boss and a Sanctum/Scourge related boss. If we pretend for a moment that the reused model has some meaning if not a literal one then maybe it means something like a Kalguuran was involved at some point with the sanctum, not a literal clone of Vorana or anything.
Yes Vorana’s model being reused for the 3rd boss is something I forgot to mention, but it’s super interesting! I totally think that the Empty Eyed Fiend could be something other than the Elder, and it definitely could be Beidat. I like your theory and it’s good crafting! Divinia talks about necromancy when discussing that boss, so maybe Lycia was reanimating Vorana, who had been killed by Beidat (and maybe other Scourge) while defending the last remaining Kalguur on Wraeclast.
Three new Unique Relics were added to Sanctum in the "Trial of the Ancestors" patch - patch 3.22 for the more numerically inclined.
The Power and the Promise | Tome Relic
"Building on the fear and hatred that deified him, Innocence threatened an eternity of flames for nonbelievers. The newcomers wailed and threw themselves at his feet in the thousands."
The Chains of Castigation | Processional Relic
"The mysterious traveller saw the vilified brother chained to a cliff, where all could point and shout and deride him. In one fell swing, she cracked the mountainside, freeing him.""
The Blood of Innocence | Censer Relic
"After weeks of being pursued, the veiled traveller made her stand in a sandstorm. Somehow, she wounded a god. Innocence relented; his brother and the traveller made good their escape."
Also I think you should check out the new story circumstances where we first encounter Divinia, and how Sanctum runs are now accessed. It involves finding books that somehow came from another Wraeclast.
My Theory is that Chaos simply gave the crucible so that humanity defeats the scourge, as He is interested in change and the scourge is basically the antagonist of him as it brings total order by assimilating everything. If everything is scourge, there is no Chaos left, only order so its his final goal to defeat the scourge
I have a personal theory that Chaos IS the Scourge, not the creatures but instead the hivemind, after all you don't control the bacteria in your gut.
Also by giving powerful warriors the means to jump between dimensions they might stumble onto some insight on that Atziri anomaly.
Either that or he gave them the blood crucible because he's chaotic. If "all things that can happen, do" then of course he has to create the blood crucible in one universe.
There is still chaos in the chance outcome of which demon in particular gets to eat this specific flesh bag.
not simply order... if the scourge are headless/thoughtless demons, there's no agency and no point in testing ones odds.
So the scourge are like the reapers from mass effect. As always the lore you uncover absolutely blows my mind and the video was amazing. I'm gonna have to watch it again to really wrap my head around the multiple lasts to dies/alvas.
Yay! A streamer who knows the lore... Found one! 😄🤟🤟
Regarding the line of dialogue of chaos and order and impulse I think it's important to note the capitalisation and choice of words. Just as the trialmaster capitalises Order and Impulse, so too does the Envoy in his introduction of the progenitor and light keeper. "the lightkeeper are not for our understanding. He illuminates the way forward, but our eyes are ever locked downward on the steps we take, marking each moment in tireless sequence. Only the progenitor may cast its gaze forward, birthing new ambitions apace as the old turn to dust in the light. In this cold conflict, an Impulse emerges. "
This was the video that introduced me to the channel, I watched all other complete lore series and not back to this one with more context
Honestly incredible work
Man, I lost it at the middle. Might need to watch it again... and again, and again...
Can't even begin to explain how amazing this video was! I need to watch this at least another 10 times to get everything. The visual connection between the symbols of the Templars and the Cleansing Fire has been bothering me since the start of the Siege expansion, and I needed this explanation. For the music nerds out there, there is a short reference to the Cleansing Fire theme in the Sanctum trailer music. I can't say for sure whether it was intentional, but the lore connection is just too good to dismiss it.
I'm also curious whether the Scourge might be related to the Tangle? I don't see much of a connection other than tentacles and the desire to consume worlds, but it definitely seems like everything is leading back to the Eldritch with all of the new lore reveals. Maybe the Tangle is the mind behind the Scourge that both Divinia and Last to Die reference? It might also support the necessity of Eldritch power to fight the Scourge if they are Eldritch in origin themselves.
Thank you so much for your hard work combing through PoE lore! It was so awesome to be able to understand some of the lore of Sanctum while playing through the league because of your past videos.
Mini Theory:
The Cleansing Fire threatened to invade Wraeclast when the Elder first appeared.
The Elder won the Turf War, claimed the world as his hunting ground and the Survivors thus were left with memories of the burning calamity that was upon them.
The Cleansing Fire moved on to find new realms to study, Innocence saw his oppurtinity and proceeded as you said...
I definitely think a Struggle between the Cleansing Fire and the Decay took place.
However, I don't think the Cleansing Fire threatened to invade Wraeclast; I think it just tried to take over the Elder's "Dreamlands". And from there, points two and three in your post play out. The Elder successfully defended its territory, and the Cleansing Fire moved on, and those who survived getting caught in the middle of that Struggle - the "scorched refugees", the "newcomers" - ended up on Wraeclast, to be found by Maxarius/Innocence.
And... yeah, if the Cleansing Fire won that Struggle, it's very likely that it and its champions would get unobstructed access to Wraeclast like the Elder had, and history would've played out really differently.
From there, that would mean that those "newcomers" specifically came from the Elder's Dreamlands. The shrine they emerged from maybe had a Map Device in it, who knows.
Whether those survivors were native to the Dreamlands, or were brought there from Wraeclast (or other worlds/continents), or a mixture of both, is anyone's guess.
This video is incredible! If only I could do Sanctum, haha.
I really like this format with items favoured text. Great work
proud and grateful to have you as a member of this community KCN , your videos are awesome =]
Well put Madam !
I'm a bit surprised that none of the Syndicate and so little of the Heist lore was included in this elaborate peer at this game's lore. I somehow expected those bandits and rogues to have more to contribute with their fabled relics and paraphernalia. The fact of the matter is , I just realized that there is NO complete list available for all contraband items , which also contains a fair portion of hidden lore 😲
Damn, usually i have pretty horrible attention span but somehow this video managed to keep me interested the full 58minutes without any pauses, very nice and interesting, hoping to see bunch more lore and theories with future leagues
"This will be a long video." That's all I needed to hear Noodle
Watched it once to know the topic.
Now imma watch it again and fall asleep to it.
Lovely content as always.
Still listening to this but wonderfully done already as always. I was waiting for it. Thx.
Aaaa noodle you make me so hyped about the game. Great job.
47:19 The one exception Trialmaster is mentioning, where Order unifies humans (and defeats Chaos?) may be the world where High Templar Venarius defeated Scourge.
So right now there are two outcomes we know, Scource consumes all or Order wins. Chaos most likely does not want any of those "boring" outcomes and thats why he gave a tool to find another way.
daaaang son 1-hour video, im waiting for the Extended Edition ❤
My theory on Chaos vs. Scourge is that they are opponents because Scourge represent order in a fashion. See, you have to see it not from our perspective, but from the trialmaster's ; that The scrourge, like Atziri, are one stable course that doesn't change, which is the antithesis of chaos's desire to say fluidity and changing outcomes. There's no outcome where the scourge decide to not consume or change their desires. The same way the trialmast admonished Atziri for being an island of stability, he would find the same fault in the scourge as they always do one thing and one thing only across any and all dimensions. The difference is that Atziri was one insignificant mortal, while the scourge maybe a force strong enough to challenge Chaos itself, and are able to end the stream of coin tosses by eradicating the tossers altogether, something that Chaos can't allow.
There's merit to the theory that the scourge maybe a tool to the lightkeeper, the patron of the Maven, who is a champion of Order and thus would find obvious issue with Chaos, with scourge bosses and trialmaster being the respective lieutenants just like the unending hunger and black star are the leiutenants of the eater and exarch, who in turn are champions of tangle and the fire. Since the envoy did note that such powerful entitiies fight by proxy and not directly.
So Chaos hires trial master, who hires the last to die (or vaals or humans in general), while lightkeeper hires Scourge, who make deals with other humans like Lyciah. But until we can verify that the scourge are indeed hired as an agent of order, this is only speculation.
Our true MVP is back and delivers. Amazing work as always.
Watching this only now, on the eve of Crucible league, I'm eager to see how everthing will fit into this new theory. And also how all will culminate into PoE2 in the future. Hope you have a great league start. Cheers!
Great video,dude!! Just found out, you're literally doing such an amazing job explaining this gorgeous loree
Yay a new video. These are so awesome. Thanks *Noodle*
totally agree with you for the "preparation" of a new narrative arc with poe and poe 2 (and the "seed of corruption" of poe 2 we seen in the trailers etc, looks like a scourge stuff)
*Imagine the Templars knew of the Combine from half life if they truly did know about interdimensional threats.. Just that they did not survive. hundreds of years much later a resonance cascade event occurred.*
My condolences on the loss.
This league was fun and I LOVED the lore drops. I didnt get a ton of notable stuff but my burnout aside, the mechanic was fun. The lore however saved last league and was a huge bonus this league.
This video made it click that Sanctum makes us into the orbs that open Beyond portals.
Awesome video!
Is the cleansing fire's arrival the cataclysm that destroyed the vaal?
I had to miss most of the league myself so I was looking forward to this video, and oh boy its a doozy. Future PoE Hype increases :D
Thank you for this and all the lore videos and condolences to you for the funeral.
29:21
I think the important part is the fact that even if Sin became a god unwillingly, he still became a god.
And that is most likely why Sin didn't "forget his humanity".
Makes you wonder if other deities exist out there who were forced into that position like Sin was, and who thus still have humanity in them.
Could they be potential allies for the ordeals ahead?
You are like the Necrit of Path of Exile! Thanks and well done.
32:23 whats inside the holy see apostolic archive
Thank you Beyond-Demon Noodle! Always appreciate your in-depth lore series, which gives my hack'n'slashing more purpose. Also great content as a bedtime story to put little ones to bed =P
Little ones? Do you mean… mini Scourge?
Such an awesome video covering an awesome league. Thanks Noodle!
Nice, I never got the memo that Innocence was just an exarch imposter. That puts things into perspective. Really like that everything'S coming together as it really seemed like there were just random leagues on a heap which it probably was.
Maybe they just ramp it up with cosmic threats until PoE2 comes out and they'll dial it down again.
"and birds on a lake..."hahahaha that's a good one
Wow, this was really interesting despite of me having not played for quite a while. Thanks for making this!
50:20, 53:10 - 53:40
One correction to state, about Utzaal. The name "Utzaal" WAS mentioned back in Ultimatum League.
Back in that league, you could get Inscribed Ultimatums which you can put in your map device to tale on a tougher "Ultimatum" challenge.
The name of the location the Inscribed Ultimatums all lead to? "The Utzaal Arena".
Bringing all mortals together in Order (templar), one exception, when Venarius battled them and WON.
Don't know if you read comments for lore suggestions, but if you look at the concept art for the Forgeguard mtx, there's concept art for a Forgeguard stash mtx that has a symbol on it clearly resembling the sigil of Purity but more dissimilar than any other sigil of Purity we've seen previously. Thought it might be of interest for future videos since it seems like the upcoming league will be related to the Forgeguard theme.
Im glad you made this video.
Thank you for this great video! You're great
Thank you for your work. Again it's amazing. I myself suspect that indeed, we're caught in a war between eldritch entities. I suspect that Chaos also is one, and that the Scourge is the manifestation of another, or rather, controlled by another. That's so intriguing! I do hope we'll learn more in the next expansion.
Lore collecting was really fun and I've been looking forward to this video.
Lore crafting this league took me to some INSANE extremes.
I mean for base example: is Lycia the name of kalandra human form.
It would explain kalandra hatred of Gods, how she's not considered a god, her creation, her being trapped. The quote similarities between Lycia and kalandra (ofcourse the visual similarities) it also plays into the last to die's idea of all the versions of wraeclast.
Also when kalandra paraphrases zana in Lok(that league was miserable but the lore crafting material was nuts)
Also it would explain at least possibly how she knows sin ,why she gets along with a God, the ONLY god she likes might I add. The reaction to greed and power when you saved rewards for completion of the sanct. Why does she like or take a softer approach to sin? Because she learned the truth about innocence and perhaps through all that she sees sin as worthy to keep around.
People may say kalandra was always there, but the thing is which wraeclast? Assuming its ours she was at the start of , between the time travel and inter dimensional travel,Lycia wanting to live forever is a big point, however living alone forever is a hell of a prison.that kind of prison would make anyone want to escape. She wants you to play trading spaces with the KFC lady.
Similar to "Us" the horror movie where there can only be one copy in the world at a time and dark versions always want out .
I suspect the ''shade of venarius" could refer to cavas, in the reality where he wasn't stopped as part of synthesis, and succeeded in returning to wraeclast with power
this was absolutely amazing! i love the lore of PoE...if only it wasn't so difficult to find and connect! One could write a whole series of books about all the lore...maybe somewhere in the future we will get a chance to get a packed summary of all the lore so i can enjoy it without the need to read all item flavors, lore pieces in the world and conversations in the entire game.
This looks really interesting.
I'll be right back.
as always. absolute amazing job. love listening to these
Well done, btw I've been always so intrigued by the lore behind Oni Goroshi. She has quite a number of dialogues and interactions. I'm just wondering if you could cover her lore.
great addition Ms KCN
Great video .. very well done!
I know this is 3 months later but I really just want to say how much I absolutely loved this and how it opened my eyes to how deep PoE lore can be
Is it possible, that Betrayal-Elreon had knowledge about the Innocence-Original-Story? His lines giving at least hints in that direction ("Not the first time I've been betrayed for my faith").
Always looking forward to your summary and theories!
Another banger!
My favorite content to listen to while playing POE :3
One thing that i think GGG's going to have some trouble with is combining Wraeclast lore with Atlas lore.
Scourge demons devouring Wraeclast really doesn't seem like that much of a threat when we have literal cosmic horrors eager to bring the hammer down on us.
That being said, i'm curious as to whether the Scourge's "beyond" is the same "beyond" Sirus(and the Elder) went into.
Still curious about the Cleansing Flame just "visiting" as it seems like their schtick is to, ya know, cleanse everything they encounter with fire. Also, aren't the newcomers just Kalguurans?
Here from Path of Exile thread, thank you.
It makes very much sense that the scourge is the force of Order, in my opinion. It is not the order, which we imagine usually, but an order where nothing except itself exists anymore. And since they are governed by some mysterious entity with only some being able to communicate this would impose total order by a single being.
The one exception, where the conflict has ended, would then be the same one which The Last to Die talks about, where Venarius rules.
Edit: A note on the mortals Order brings together: Lycia is very much one of these mortals being influenced by Beidat, who is probably just an extension of Order capable of limited thought and communication.
Chaos giving the vaal priests the blood crucible to fight the scourge further strengthens this theory imo. Chaos has only been observing as far as we know, except in this instance to specifically counteract the scourge.
Awesome video!
Finally, a core lore for POE... A multiple dimensional demon armies, gods and godesses who seemed to have stemed from cosmic Eldritch beings.. This is exactly what POE lore lacked before, the core story! It can't be just us exiles waiting for Eldritch invasions.. Now, anyone, any league can be brought into this core story!! One reason why Diablo was so successful and popular still is it has a rather simple, easy to understand core lore where "There is an eternal struggle between the heavens and the burning hells, and the creation of sanctuary and naphalems by Inarius and Lily" that's about it, you can throw anything into the core story from there. Thank the gods KCN is here to do this for the game we love.. Keep it coming! SPOILER! Zana coming back fullt cladded in Sirus' armour and possibly his power or better still, resurrected Sirus and both returning :D
been waiting for this one
I want to believe the one connection bringing people together is Zana. I have nothing to back this up but it would be cool.
Phenomenal video.
This one's very much appreciated, ty! 👍
Thank you for all that you do. Wraeclast is safer because of you Exile.
Also zana wasn't referred to this league .. or was she. Something to note is also that this league still has zana after the fight with sirus still says "1 monster remains"
Maybe that's a reflection of zana being a big bad...or that we have become the monster that zana feared we would become by always returning to the maps
What if the newcomers became the abyss creatures? That ring said they were plunged into eternal darkness and abyss is one of I think two lore elements with darkness as a theme.
What if the breach lords are preparing to fight the scourge. I was looking at the flavor text on Uul netol’s vow and how it mentions war has come, maybe the breachlords are also dealing with the scourge Demons
Omg throwing in Avanash the Bones Guy, I know Dimension 20 is getting more popular but I never expected a random Brennan Lee Mulligan cameo here hahahahaha, easily the best moment of escape from bloodkeep.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Lycia fearing for her bones… glad you got the reference. I am a HUGE Brennan fan and that whole scene always cracks me up!!
You are a real gem. Thanks!
I'm curious if the lightbringer or the progenitor because the more one looks the more links to everything can be seen.
Thanks for this. I didnt pay much attention while playing POE. its got a pretty bad ass story
Small point to one of your final theories: The Utzaal-Chaos connection existed even in Ultimatum. The Trialmasters challenge in 3.14 took place in a zone called "The Utzaal Arena". But I agree, LoK spelled the connection out much more explicitly.
Instant sub
Finally we have a league with some good lore AND, more importantly, it isn't new lore - by which I mean it actually connects with and builds upon pre-existing lore rather than just tossing out some random new shit to feebly justify its league mechanic (looking at you Ultimatum!). This league actually reveals some stuff that goes right to the heart of one of the core game factions (the Templars), and even has some tantalizing connections with both past expansion and other league content. It also confirms that Innocence is even more of a dick than we had thought he was. Really this whole religious manipulation schtick the story is going down now kinda reminds me of one of the main themes of the Dune story as well.
It also makes me wish we could tell Cassia all we've found. She won't believe any of it of course, but it'd still be fun to hear her reactions to it all. :p Oh and now I'm really doubtful Innocence is ever gonna do any real penance or soul-searching down south. PoE 2 is set 20 years down the line from our time, so it leads me to wonder if he's gonna be mixed up in all the mess that crops up then as well. Oshabi summed him up perfectly - "those who believe themselves golden gods can never return to the humility of a pauper". She predicts more trouble.
What if the future of innocence and the templars coming together for the purpose of order is what chaos fears and it utilizes the existence of the scourge to distract them from fully unifying in many realities. Proposing that without the blood crucible every world would end but in reality it’s just given out because that opens up more possibilities. What if it actually strengthens the connection the reality has to the scourge every time it’s used, you may win the battle but you’ll slowly lose the war. Even so, this might be done to elongate the existence of said worlds, because without fighting the scourge they would ultimately fall prey much faster than from just what the side effects of the blood crucible may incur.
In the end chaos has no stake in any reality other than that one might be more interesting than another. Chaos is probably an entity that exists beyond creation, if every reality were to end and the cycle of creation began anew chaos would still be there. Watching and waiting, but he’s not a time traveller. It gets boring when there’s nothing but raw creation repeating the cycle, but on the other hand many realities converging to a single outcome of neatness and order isn’t interesting at all either and is just as boring to an entity such as it. If the scourge wins eventually it still stops this outcome and destruction of every reality would repeat a cycle with different outcomes.
Anyways it was just a cool idea, probably not anything with weight
amaaaaaaaaaaaazing job - as usual; kudos!
great video
i think its possible that the scourge represent order in a "Heat death of the universe" sense everything reduced to unending sameness after they eat it
maybe there is a third Alva from another dimension which the last to die never visited. she may be the one bringing the documents to divinia
58 minutes 58 . Thank you so much for this 💙
Oh its 59 even bettter
Would it be possible that when Baran put himself as God and us as the Devil back in the Elderslayer Arc ("Like Sin and Innocence before us, we two are bound forever; God and his shadow") he somehow made a contact with the Cleansing Fire and had a revelation about Innocence's origin?
You are absolutely awesome.
Astounding!
great video! was wondering if you'll ever do a video about divination card lore. like what divination cards actually are within the world of wraeclast and some of the stories behind certain cards. doesn't seem like any other youtuber has made a video about that and I think divination cards are really cool and have some of the best flavor text in the whole game. ps i was your 1000th like on this video haha!
The Ezomytes mention the Great Fire. Could that be related to the Cleansing Fire? Could the First Ones be how they tried to make sense of their encounter with the eldritch entities? Could Ezomytes (or at least their ancestors) be the newcomers?
When she said she didn't want to be forgotten, what did she mean beidat?
57:08 If Order is really the forces behind the Scourge, I can honestly understand why! Chaos knows every outcome ever exist but yet we are the one who choose that outcome for ourselves, we "entertain" Chaos with twist and turn in our lives as we do with violence for the Maven. We ourselves are a force of Chaos . If Order is all about its name then the Scourge can be view as "order" themselves since they only want one thing: Destruction of humanity aka destruction of Chaos. This can also explain why Chaos give The Last To Die the blood crucible: He saw the outcome of every dimension when they got invaded by the Scourge, so it might be the only way for humanity to truly stay free. Even in the reality when Venarius triumph, he'd probably enslaved everyone hence no more freedom aka Order is in place. If this is true then we truly are just a ragdoll being played by greater forces in this universe :(
I wished to find out more about each boss of the floors, especially Xenathar, since the others feel like simply Lycia's creations
They don’t tell us much, besides that it’s necromancy. Xenathar looks like Vorana (expedition boss) which I thought was interesting, but that’s all I could find
@@KittenCatNoodle My theory is that it's just easier to reskin Vorana, but could be something else here. Very well put together video, now I am off to waste the rest of my day on becoming the next PoE scholar
There's nothing about any of them of any note anyways.
Regarding most of the bosses we see in the sanctum are simply recycled assets (old bosses reused).. Xenathar is Vorana clad in gold, Scriptorium room boss is the Crimson Mayor from Crimson Township map, Bellum room is the Purifier (Elder guardian) enlarged, another boss is the High Lithomancer from Primordial map boss... There might be others... and The guards are Rogue Exiles in different MTX armour sets! GGG like recycling assest.. In POE2 we will have Marceus Lioneye's skill (from Legion) as our skill..There will be alot more..
What is Utzaal was flooded and other cities weren't because they were keeping something from outsiders? Related to Chaos maybe?
I think that Alva and LTD are NOT the same person, but are still of the same bloodline.
we knew about the templars being older than the eternal empire from the start. again they were made by innocence, which would have made them older than the beast.
we also knew from base game that oriath is just colonized never were native to it.