Whag do you think about the new lore?
Xirkaali Empire is a whole new bunch of lore.
New species, cultures and parts of the map.
Plus Uraeus from Ophidia still seem to be around and hated by the hemicyons
I wonder if hemicyons and Rankin will have skme kind oc kinship from their similar origins?
I don’t see Imperial Dwarfs submitting to the Xirkaali Empire, but don’t see much reason for the two empires to fight if they agree to leave each other alone.
It’s adding to an opening for Ophidia to be added down the line.
Xirkaali give you a chance to submit and join the empire or they destroy you. Can’t see many factions submitting so war it is. However they aren’t evil.
Ratkin surely won’t ever want to be dominated again and have already been fleeing west.
I think the Dwarf books will ultimately say more on the state of the 3 dwarves factions. But halpi and the rift maybe more of a priority for xirkaali. They look like they use witches to shut down magic?
Elf background story will be fleshed out when they get the mantic ip which we may have had a snippet in this build up.
The vampiric shogunate briefly mentioned in twilight kin politics secions maybe appear down the line?
I’m very curious about these guys their gods.
*Sidurgu and Sokhatai “Four-who-are-two.” * Wonder what they could be.
Maybe two of the progenitor gods doing the same thing Korgaan is doing, a botched attempt by Shinning and Wicked ones merging like the Green Lady did or something else? I doubt it are Gods from the Void.
I’m curious about Sidurgu and Sokhatai, the Four-Who-Are-Two – revealed themselves and forbade magic too
My guess would be celestians who pulled themselves together after the split, to some extent, and then decided that enough of mortals with magic.
Good shout, 2 celestians that were on the far side pannithor near xirkaali empire is located that they were able to hide escape the split.
Well the naming definitely points to Celestians - and there are still plenty of unnamed ones, both Shining and Wicked halves, floating around.
Okay so rather big reveal in todays short story.
Turns out the Northern Alliance are guarding a Celestian. Azuon The Oracle.
I thought it was going to be Winters Shining One counterpart but this is quite the surprise.
While we were guessing something like a celestial of shining aspect. A new character is a surprise.
My guesses were all names already in the lore.
It’s a little sad that they’ve ignored all the existing characters to add another, again.
The “white pylon” is curious?
It sounds like Azuon is trapped and/or being protected from the split by some structure.
The background states there were 60 Celestians - 3 are definitely dead/no longer exists, one remains intact (the green lady) and the others split into shining/wicked halves.
Only about a dozen Celestians are named and not all of those have their S/W halves identified - similarly there are S/W ones given names/titles without specifying the Celestian they split from.
So while not named before, Azuon could have been floating around somewhere in the background.
[FYI - only recorded reference to Azuon is for a cheap flights search engine! Wonder if Matt G had been planning a holiday 
]
I’ve been told that Aurora and Azuon are the same enity.
https://kingsofwarwiki.com/index.php/Celestians thats the current list I have
I believe they are the “Twins” which are referenced in Rise of the Celestians (which the writer of also wrote the Xirkaali Empire stuff)
Yeah I think Sidurgu and Sokhatai are almost definitely the twin Celestians who originally went east.
Referring to them as the “Four-Who-Are-Two” has some interesting implications about their story though. On the face of it, I’d guess they were split into their Shining/Wicked halves like the other Celestians. But unlike (eg.) the Green Lady, they never merged together, perhaps instead coming to some sort of accord between the four of them? It also implies that their nature (two gods divided into four) is common knowledge within the Xirkaali Empire.
This might be my Dwarf bias coming through, but I’m not convinced that the Xirkaali Empire are entirely honourable. I mean sure, they Think of themselves as honourable… but staging a mass invasion of Mantica to subjugate the locals and ban magic use? “Arrogant” and “Authoratarian” are the words that come more to my mind!
So that leads me to wonder whether the depiction of the Xirkaali Empire will reflect that false honour more over the course of 4th Ed? Maybe the grim reality and challenges of invading an entire continent will force the mask to slip, as they abandon those pretences of honour in favour of securing victories?
Hell, maybe it will force a split in the Empire, with some factions seeking to dominate the “lesser races” while others cling onto the old ways of honour?
I can’t say a force that invades because its “our beliefs or die” can be seen as honourable. I haven’t seen the Xirkaali Empire as the good guys at all.
Yep - that’s just my point.
BUT all the talk from Kyle and the Mantic Staff regarding the Xirkaali Empire is about how honourable they are. How they’re so honourable that they’re beloved by their human subjects, and that they’ll free dwarf captives if they prove their worth in a hunting game. But even those stories have a tinge of authoratarianism and arrogance to it. The humans wear collars but they’re “totally not slaves”. The Dwarf is still forced into a one-sided hunt to the death, and after watching them kill all his comrades, no less.
So there’s a disconnect between what the staff and the lore is saying on the surface, and what it actually looks like when you read between the lines. And i find that fascinating.
My guess would be the twins split into their 2 halves but through willpower, magic, item or simply being near each other at that moment it allowed both good halves to merge with the other twins bad half.
Then realising the mistakes of the celestians vowed never to dabble with magic again.
I don’t feel they are worse than dwarves, elves, basilia, forces of nature etc, who will fight for the beliefs over their neighbours though they mostly get along.
Guess they are trying to get across they aren’t twilight kin, abyss etc who just will kill you outright.
3 offers to surrender maybe more than dwarves and elves would give.
I’m sure every faction if they had numbers probably would invade pannithor for their justified cause. It’s just they don’t have the numbers.
Oh, I’m definitely not arguing that they’re less good than other “Good” Races. Most of the races are at least morally grey in some areas, and the notion of “good” is pretty subjective anyway.
The elves are arrogant to a fault, Nature is the very definition of neutrality, Basilia have all the hallmarks of an authoritarian theocracy and Dwarfs… Well… I’ve often argued that King Golloch and his Empire are ALL the bad things. Xenophobic, Expansionist, Authoritarian… they’re definitely not friendly.
As a comparison, I think the Xirkaali are about as bad as the Imperial Dwarfs. They’re both secure in the righteousness of their cause and consider themselves “honorable”. But their definition of “honor” is not the same.
Imperial Dwarfs put loyalty to the King and their Clan above all else. So their honor is more internalised - they care more about respecting their Elders and the proper ways of fighting, but their treatment of other races is given little thought.
The Xirkaali profess to be honorable toward their enemies - 3 offers to surrender and all. But their idea of “honor” seems to include taking slaves and hunting POWs for sport - something the Imperial Dwarfs would consider downright Abyssal.
It’s a strange thing that we want Fantasy to be at least inspired by history, while it is by nature romanticized.
Which always raises the question of how grim and close to history or how idealized do we want things to be?
Nor is it the same as our modern morality standards, which don’t seem to place much value in honour.
The Enlightenment was 2 or 3 centuries ago. Out of the 60 in history.
Before then honour was important to cultures that did not consider slavery obviously wrong.
Sounds like an empire.
I don’t know of any (historical) empire that did not consider it’s people superior to “barbarians”, even as barbarians are slowly brought into their culture.
Mighty Empires are not built by being nice. Once people are conquered, they need to be kept obedient to the central authority.
The Xirkaali lore seems to be trying to strike a balance between presenting a mighty empire, with the violent honour culture that entails, and something sympathetic to modern sensibilities.
I would say you could say they are honorable, but not good.
They would be honorable dixxx, like the Predators aliens.
But if I take my idea of good as a starting point, then there are actually almost no good factions.
Basilea? Religious zealots who are not really open to other views. More like crusaders, and their goals cannot be considered good either.
Dwarves? They have a tyrant as their leader, who came to the throne through intrigue and ruthlessness.
One could go on and on.
And are GW orcs evil ? They do take pleasure in their actions, but not necessarily in a sadistic way. It’s just their nature and they don’t even think about the damage they cause.
Such factions certainly exist at Panithor as well.
