EitB Civilopedia Updates Thread

[Qgqqqqq]

Something else to fit in, though it'll be a bitch to format:

At my hand the first empire of man was won
For me long faithful men bled and died
Yet I was the one to which this treachery was done
This truth I knew but my timid lips denied
That a disloyal heart each night beside me lied
My queen who spent her love upon another man
That heart, which I desired most, I could not command

To flee that gilded hell I sacrificed my life
From the tower into empty night I'd fly
What pain is death compared to faithless wife?
What hope exists to one who'd rather die?
So I stood upon the parapet and cried
"Come death, rend my flesh, gather my soul
Tear from me, this tragedy, this gaping hole"

No answer came from chill November night
Only wind and echoes from a city far below
Until from deep within the pale moonlight
Came a goddess wreathed in a pallid glow
"Answer me, most mortal king, for I would know
If I returned your love and you weren't dead
Would you forget your oaths and follow me instead?"

I'm not mad enough to think that burning spirits can
Remake this loss, restore my past undone
And you cannot make us understand
That with even the most silvered tongue
Loves remains can never love become
Or heart won through cheat is ever truly got
Or that this pain would cease if mind forgot

"If you've no hope left then leap to death"
"Else hear my words and enter this shadowed door"
"But I promise even if you don't draw breath"
"This pain will follow you to Arawn's shores"
"And in death you will possess hatred even more"
"For I know the dead, they are wounds unhealed"
"And if you leap now, to this your fate is sealed"

So came I to learn from the goddess of pain
Ceridwen, breaker of men, maiden of the mask
Many aspects she has and more vile names
She taught me how to revenge my past
And have my wife reborn so that our love might last
Sorcery, her gift to me, would sustain my life
And instead of death would reincarnate my wife

Born anew I could find and woo my wife again
Her mistake erased I'd have my perfect queen
With her death and newfound life she'd make amends
And I would remain forever as a king
In time the happiness she'd bring
Would make worthwhile this twisted sacrifice
For Ceridwen's gift had come at a price

Two hundred years I stayed as undying king
My lands, once fair, ruled now by arcane might
Through generations of my people and my queen
I alone remained and changed to Ceridwens delight
A cruel terror who commanded flame, death and night
I demanded that every man should come to obey
The least of my desires, which grew each passing day

Another Eve had passed, this time by my hand
After a break of years I went to seek her out
I found a young woman working on my lands
I approached and told her all about
The bond between us but she had only fear and doubt
Those eyes, once trusting, were now full of tears
Seeing the monster I'd become in all these years

She destroyed me in the centuries before
And now thought for this I was the one to blame
I returned to the life she now claimed to abhor
And left her in the fields her life unchanged
I approached her reborn forms but it was the same
Always revulsion at what I had become
And through any lie her heart remained unwon

My mages maintained Ceridwens demands
Most of which had been trained by me
My kingdom destroyed by my own hands
The first empire of man a cruel theocracy
Devoted to Cerdiwen, enforced by sorcery
And I alone remembered times more fair
It was far more than my guilty heart could bare

A bloody rebellion started, which I lead
My empire became an arcane battleground
As the gods had warred now man did instead
Landscapes were lost, forests, mountains, towns
Untold numbers unto Arawns shores were bound
In the end the great empire of man was gone
From it only shattered countries would go on

As ages pass these countries war against
Each other, forgetting once they were as one
Or how their bitter squabbling commenced
With an ancient love betrayed their war begun
Loves remains can never love become
The same is true for kingdoms split apart
Warring nations shattered by my heart

What of my queen across these centuries?
At times I glance her as our fates entwine
Sharing a few words or lives married
Occurs unforced as allowed by time
Loves strongest bonds are those that loosest bind
Her life to me, and mine spent trying to repay
My debt of sin to the men my acts betrayed

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Idk, Creation Mana isn't in the main mod. What are the "gems of creation" even used for, lore-wise?

Creation Mana =/= the gems of creation. I don't actually know much about it, because I'm pretty rusty on the lore, but the gems of creation were stolen by Agares from The One, and were then used in his corruption of the world; and in turn by all the "gods" as part of creating their armies and servants. They are, basically, what caused the betrayal of the gods to The One, and, in turn, made Him retreat from creation.

They were later stolen (at least some of them) by humanity, and used to channel powerful magics. (There's definitely more to it than that, but again I'm not much of an expert.)

Creation mana is an entirely different kettle of fish. I agree it neither needs or wants to be in the main mod, but it's clearly FFH canon despite it (with the Kuriotates being strongly associated with Amatheon).

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This is inspiring me to write a Skele pedia:

I always imagiend that undead were souls bound in the world. But that there was a difference between binding the soul and binding the mind and various levels of undead may have differing amounts of conscious thought available to them.

As such a skeleton is a soul bound to bones with little brain power to back it up. It hates and it wants to kill things but it cant talk and occasionally you may see skeletons fixated on weird things (one carrying and protecting a doll, another ignoring living creatures entirly to focus on tearing apart pieces of an old wall).

But unless magic is used to control them skeletons are of little use to necromancers except as guards (if they can keep them from attacking those the necromancer doesn't want attacked or wandering off) or maybe to harass enemies by releasing into the wild. One would assume that a necromancer powerful enough to create a skeleton would also be powerful enough to not fear the skeleton turning on him, the skeletons may sense his power and fear him.

Not sure when I'll get to it, though.