Warlocks and The Void

[Ryoko Hakubi]

<DIV>Hi all,<BR><BR>I've been wanting to ask this for quite some time but never got around to it!<BR><BR>My main is a 62 Warlock. After learning about the Obelisk of Souls and Shadowed Men, I've come to suspect that there is some connection between Warlocks and, well.... whatever the Shadowed Men get their power from.<BR><BR>If you take a look at our spell list <A href="http://eq2.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=114&meid" target=_blank>http://eq2.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=114&meid</A>= you will see the words "Null" "Void" "Nihility" and, most importantly, "Vul." Oh, and our pet is a nightblood (Netheros). I'm not sure what the T7 upgrade pet is - I'll have to check.<BR><BR>Has anyone else suspected this connection, or has it been discussed? Does anyone know where to find lore on Warlocks?<BR><BR>Thanks</DIV>

[Renita_Serafim]

I've noticed this before, but I, too, had not gotten around to mentioning it. It's a pet theory of mine that warlocks are leeching off of the Void for their own benefit.

[Cusashorn]

<DIV>Hey didn't the original Sorcerer trainer in Qeynos (before he was removed from the game) mention something about how warlocks had discovered a way to channel energy and mana without needing to rely on the faith of the gods to provide it? Hmmmmm..</DIV>

[Ama]

<P>I did the warlock quest in qeynos not freeport so I cannot speak for the freeport side on this matter.  However in the qeynos part when you decide to take your final test as a warlock you promise the to study the intricacys of poison and disease to benefit the city of Qeynos.  Commanding the power of disease and poison is a very heavy task just like wizards commanding the elements of fire and ice. </P> <P>If I may Astralmage I will expand upon your "pet theory" offering up my own theory.  My theory is that based upon the warlocks intentions they can do one of several things.  If they are evil warlocks most common they can concievably "leech" off the powers of the void using its powers for a dark purpose.  This going from infecting people, entities and nature itself on a mass scale to the tinest of things killing off a single person with a massive dose of poison. </P> <P>However if Warlocks are benign or good in their research they will not "Leech" off this power but supposedly "Harness it".  This harnessing where they study the power of "The void" learning to not control it but to "Guide it" using that power against the warlock's enemies. </P> <P>But like in starwars with the jedi it maybe a matter of time before that power can corrupt even the most sane of individual's twisting their purposes. :smileywink:</P>

[Nocturnal Aby]

Yes, I think they do draw some of their power from the void, and it wasn't the sorc trainer, it was the guy who let you choose what type of priest you wanted to be (shaman, druid, cleric), and may have also been mentioned when crusaders were inquiring about their class.  Clerics learned a way to gain divine magic without the use of gods.  Wizards/Warlocks/Chanters/Conjurors never relied upon faith in a deity to use mana and cast spells, so the absence of the gods didn't really effect their craft (especially since they seem to still be able to manipulate and pull matter from the elemental planes.  Poor earth elementals, hanging out in Vegarlson, minding their own business when ffpt! "Where the hell am?  Who the hell are you? Woah!  You want me to do what?  Alright, if I do that, can I go home?").  Also Nil and Nihilist don't really have anything to do with the Void, except Nil is synonomous to nothing or zero.  Nihilists were actually what the iksars called their necromancers, heh, and all a nihilist is is someone who believes in a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths, which is no doubt why they had no problem practicing experiments on their own kind.  Essentially, a Nihilist is someone who believes there is absolute no right or wrong.

[Ryoko Hakubi]

<div></div>Thanks for the input, guys!Nocturnal, I mentioned Nil and Nihility because it seems as if they are just looking for synonyms of Void. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Nihility meaning nothingness/nonexistance, that is.I was hoping someone knew of a book or Warlock mentor I could learn from. I guess they are still a bit of a mystery, eh?edit: whoops typo!<div></div><p>Message Edited by Ryoko Hakubi on <span class=date_text>06-02-2006</span> <span class=time_text>08:32 PM</span>

[Renita_Serafim]

It should also be noted that one of the named Shadowed Men in the Obelisk of Lost Souls is called "the Keeper of Nihility".

[Worrick]

<DIV>Warlocks provide a valuable service tp norrath. All things sprung from nothing. A warlock uses the power of poison and disease to decay things back to that nothing so that it may be recycled and reborn into the continueing cycle. All things must die and become nothing in order for life to continue. Without things becoming nothing the world would be full and no new life could spring. If all matter was used up and no decay then an inbalance would occur causing the void to leak into the world rendering everything into nothing and no longer recycling into life.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>In short, we must poison the world inorder to save it from itself.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>At least thats my take on the matter.</DIV>

[Schaestm]

<DIV>Worrick, that has to be the most druid-like view on being a warlock I have ever heard.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>~Morb</DIV>

[SageGaspar]

One of the books in the Obelisk actually has lore that ties it to Bertoxxulous' raid zone in EQ1. Someone said that it was the creation story of Bertoxxulous, but having never read any sort of creation story on Bertoxx I'd be interested in knowing if that's true or confirmed anywhere. The connection between Bertoxx and the story I looked up myself though.I'd be interested in knowing if somehow the Obelisk and the shadowed men (and maybe people's souls!) are the source of magely power in EQ2, and perhaps even behind-the-scenes in EQ1 as well.<div></div>

[Cusashorn]

<DIV>Hmmm. the Obelisk of Lost Souls may somehow be connected to the Ruins of Lxanom?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>interesting...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I really wish i had a chance to find those books so I could complete them. Who knows when they'll put the pages in for the books in the indoor dungeon zones like that?</DIV>

[SageGaspar]

<div></div><div></div><b>I dunno if you count it as cheating, but here you go, courtesy of Lore of Norrath:</b><font color="#ffffff"></font><font color="#ffffff">This odd tome appears to be a chronicle of some sorts. You're not sure who, what, or where it's about, however. At first it appeared as if it was written in a different language, but the more you look at it, the more you realize it actually was transcribed in your native tongue this whole time. Unfortunately, most of the pages have been ripped out of the book. The two words on the cover of the book are "Remembrances - Berrox". </font><font color="#ffffff"></font> <font color="#ffffff"></font><font color="#ffffff">The obelisk appeared in the center of the marketplatz on Jallows Day. A great black structure, it spindled higher into the sky than any of the surrounding buildings. At first the citizens of our capital, Darrow's Hollow, had believed it to be some sort of elaborate magical prank. We couldn't have been more wrong. </font><font color="#ffffff"></font> <font color="#ffffff"></font><font color="#ffffff">At first King Adan summoned all of the wise men of magical learning. They came from far and near - from the desert lands or Naragin to the floating jungles of the Desolation. Not one of these great wizards could explain what it was or how it came to be. </font><font color="#ffffff"></font> <font color="#ffffff"></font><font color="#ffffff">Then King Adan summoned forth all of the bards and jongleurs to see if they had any tales of this forbidding structure. Listening to endless hours of tales of boldness and courage, the King came to the conclusion that they knew as much as the wizards. </font><font color="#ffffff"></font> <font color="#ffffff"></font><font color="#ffffff">Finally King Adan called upon all of priests of the Heavenly Pantheon to ask their frightening gods for some insight. After hearing gruesome threats of death and destruction, the King remembered why his ancestors drove the holy men into the wilds. It would seem as if no one could answer the mystery of the obelisk. </font><font color="#ffffff"></font> <font color="#ffffff"></font><font color="#ffffff">Messages would come from the marketplatz of frightening creatures lurking near the stalls at night. Being described as creatures straight out of nightmares, the good King feared for his people and began sending adventurers to do combat with these horrors. This would continue until the day that Ultor Szanvon would appear before the court, proclaiming he knew the secrets of the obelisk. </font><font color="#ffffff"></font> <font color="#ffffff"></font><font color="#ffffff">Ultor explained to King Adan that the answer lay not with magic or gods or stories, but rather with his ancestors. He claimed to know how to speak with the dead and offered to show the King how to do the same. Both intrigued and at his wit's end, the King agreed to listen to this stranger. </font><font color="#ffffff"></font> <font color="#ffffff"></font><font color="#ffffff">For then next month, the king would watch as Ultor would speak with the spirits and would reveal their secrets to the ruler. Ultor would rise to the position of Chancellor, both due to his wisdom and also coincidental deaths among the king's advisors. In the end, Ultor told the king that it was time for the regent to learn the answers of increasingly menancing obelisk. </font><font color="#ffffff"></font> <font color="#ffffff"></font><font color="#ffffff">Chancellor Ultor advised King Adan that his forefathers, kings of times gone by, would know about the truth of the obelisk. Knowing the answers were close at hand, the King ordered his squires to bring him the oaken box from within his sleeping chambers. Inside held the key to the burial crypts of the noble line of the Adan Kings - King's Rest. </font><font color="#ffffff"></font> <font color="#ffffff"></font><font color="#ffffff">Preparing for a long journey to the mausoleum of the ancient kings, the Chancellor advised that it should be only the King and himself who went. Claiming that the spirits of the fallen regents would be offended at being disturbed by anyone other than nobility, Ultor and King Adan were the only ones to enter the Crypts of King's Rest. </font><font color="#ffffff"></font> <font color="#ffffff"></font><font color="#ffffff">And thus is the tale of how the people of Berox would lose their king in these dark days. The obelisk still stands within the center of the twisted ruins of Darrow's Hollow, having never changed. Just as we lost our king in his search for answers to the obelisk, so too would we lose armies great and small in their own search. Countless parties of adventurers have ventured into that now opened doorway on the side of that blackened obelisk... but none have yet to return.</font><font color="#ffffff"></font><b>Now the relevant part of the Bertoxx ring event that I took from<span class="postbody">Planes of Power Progression FAQ by Crydee Ossiriand, Torvonnilous Server <a href="http://www.questing-ranger.com/" target="_blank">http://www.questing-ranger.com</a> Version: 2004.04.28 </span></b><b>:</b><span class="postbody"> Part 4 - Tarkil Adan, Ruins of Lxanvom This next part is a ring event in the upper section of the Ruins of Lxanvom [Crypt of Decay] that requires a raid force to complete. You start by killing Abroan Drian, Breddan Rutyl and Fran Prisoal to spawn Carprin Deatharn. When you defeat him, Avhi Escron will spawn somewhere deeper in the zone. You'll then need to fight your way to him and kill Avhi Escron to spawn Bishop Toluwon. Taking him out spawns, Raex Pwodill and Vindor Mawnil. You'll need to defeat both of them to spawn High Priest Ultor Szanvon. Once the high prist is take out, Tarkil Adan spawn. You need to stand very close to him in order to get the message when you hail him. You will not get a flag message but "Key to the lower depths of the Ruins of Lxanvom" will be listed if you type /key. Additionally this event will only flag up to 36 people at a time, so it will be necessary to do it more than once. You say, 'Hail, Tarkil Adan' Tarkil Adan lets out a groan and then whimpers saying, 'Yes great ones yesss I was king once I wasss. ' The creature then mutters under his breath and passes you a small glowing bone fragment etched in runes. Then speaks again saying, 'The tortured ones oh the tortured ones, you must go to the depths of Lxanvom and free them. Go to the bone throne at the ruins entrance there you will find access to the depths.' He then goes back to whimpering and rocking back and forth. The wretched creature whimpers and begins shaking in fear then whispers, 'Oooh massster, nooo massster!!!!' Then he vanishes into the nothing from which he came. Part 5 - Bertoxxulous, Ruins of Lxanvom The fight with Bertoxxulous is also a ring event, which takes place in the lower depths of the zone. You can access this area by clicking on the chair at the zone in after getting keyed from Tarkil Adan. For this event, you will need to defeat the twelve corrupted kings of Lxanvom as well as the rest of Bertoxxulous army. When the last king you fight is defeated, Bertoxxulous himself will show up. Defeat Bertoxxulous to spawn a planar projection. <b>According to ogaming, most if not all of the people you fight in the Bertoxx ring event are Adans.</b></span><b>Finally from Lore of Norrath the Bertoxxulous book for your reading pleasure:</b>In a Norrathian age long past, when dragons ruled the lands, seas, and skies, an ancient race did spring forth from the will of an unknown god. They were a cunning and powerful race of beings, able to survive in a harsh world ruled by the scaled children of Veeshan. The true name of this extinct civilization has been lost to the mists of time, the evidence of their existance buried and all but destroyed by the elements and the forces of change. The eldest of dragons sometimes whisper tales of this lost race of beings who were the first to stand against and slay the great children of Veeshan. They speak of them to their young, as a human mother would tell ghost stories to her child. The dragons whispered tales of a great kingdom of wicked yet noble beings that built cities from the bones and sinew of the slain children of Veeshan. This is one such tale, passed down to the scribes of New Tanaan many years past by the dragon sorceror Ulvaxazoviak. Many ages ago, in a time that only the spirits of the ancestor dragons can recall, a long dead ancient race, The Xulous they are called in the tales of my kind, did build upon the lands that would become Tunaria a great necropolis to house their dead kings. The crypts of the necropolis were fashioned from preserved remains of slain dragons and it was called Lxanvon, which means in the tongue of the Xulous, 'Kings Rest'. As the necropolis filled with the dead Xulous royalty, honored and revered in death as much as in life, a festering evil began to take over in the lowest bowels of the crypts of the kings. The Xulous, through their adoration and reverence of their rotting kings, their defilement of the dead children of Veeshan, and their dependence on the deaths of dragons for the expansion of their kingdoms did unknowingly bring a powerful and ancient evil to Norrath. As years passed, the evil presence in the bowels of Lxanvon grew stronger, and there, within the rotting corpses of those ancient kings, Bertoxxulous was born.<center>---------------------------------- </center> The royal priests of the Xulous kingdoms often journeyed from their ivory cities to Lxanvon on behalf of their people, to deliver offerings and praises to their dead kings. Bertoxxulous, donning the decaying bodies of the dead Xulous nobles, appeared before these royal priests demanding obediance, reverence, and sacrifices. Bertoxxulous deceived and corrupted the minds of the royal priests and their allegiance belonged to the Lord of Death and Decay above their living kings. Amidst these firsts priests of decay, one was held above the others, Ultor Szanvon the Putrid; he led the priests of decay in the spreading their dark doctrine. Ultor, an influential priest in service to the mightiest of the Xulous nobles schemed and murdered his way into the position of chief advisor to the living Xulous King. Ultor convinced Xulous King to visit the tombs of his ancestors, and there within the presence of Bertoxxulous' full might he performed a dark ritual, sacrificing the king in the bowels of the crypt. Through the dark ritual Ultor summoned twelve spirits of previous Xulous kings and bound them to his service. The risen undead kings rose armies of the dead from the necropolis of Lxanvon and spread across the lands ravaging all in their path, and leaving only death and destruction in their wake. Those who were not destroyed by the weapons of the undead armies were killed slowly by a deadly plague, carried by the risen kings, and spread like wildfire amidst the Xulous. Their entire race succumbed to the pestilence and the Xulous were no more. Bertoxxulous, pleased and swollen with pride by his genocidal accomplishment called his minions back to the necropolis that had served as their resting place for so many years. The risen Xulous kings gathered in the bowels of their crypts as a great mist enveloped Lxanvon. The ancient dragons watched from afar as the mists cleared, revealing only a barren and broken landscape where the necropolis had once lied. It is said that the necropolis of Lxanvon still exists in the Plane of Disease, unchanged from when the ancient dragons witnessed its vanishing from Norrath, and that the form Bertoxxulous favors when visiting Lxanvon is a twisted visage of the long dead race he destroyed, so many ages ago.<b>Finally I must mention that while I compiled this information through my own searches, it was originally someone else who mentioned that the Adans were connected to Bertoxxulous somehow after seeing the text of this book. So I don't get credit for the connection.</b><div></div><p>Message Edited by SageGaspar on <span class=date_text>06-06-2006</span> <span class=time_text>12:19 AM</span>

[Worrick]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Schaestmos wrote:<BR> <DIV>Worrick, that has to be the most druid-like view on being a warlock I have ever heard.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>~Morb</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>It's the only explination I can think of as to why warlocks are neutral and not evil. It is somewhat similer to some views on druids but more on a cosmic/celestial scale of destruction and rebirth, whereas druids are mroe of a specific ecosystem type. Warlocks are much mroe machiavelian in there methods as well. The goal is to bring more into the nothingness in order to continue the nateral cycle, whithout being so picky as to only destroy the weak and elderly. As long as stuff dies and becoems nothign the cycle continues, so strogn and weak alike work just fine.

[SageGaspar]

Not to rez an old post, but I was just poking through EQ1 lore (been spending some time back there), and one of the NPCs in Mistmoore, a renegade Shadowed Men, says that the Shadowed Men have beef with the Norrathian pantheon because they view themselves, and not the gods, as being the source of magic.So we ask again, where do casters (esp warlocks) get their magic from, even with the gods gone?I dunno, just got me thinking.<div></div>

[Kannab]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Schaestmos wrote:<BR> <DIV>Worrick, that has to be the most druid-like view on being a warlock I have ever heard.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>~Morb</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>LOL!