Rise of Kunark Lore

[Bionickai001]

<p>When looking around this forum, I've found lore for every expansion but ROK. COuld someone fill me in on what happened to lead into this expansion and the lore surrounding it? I know it had something to do with pirates and the Chelsith Stone. What happens to Venril Sathir?</p>

[Meirril]

<p>The short version. Rending + Shattering destroy Cabillis and nearly destroys Chardok. Venril Sathir takes advantage of the power vaccum to install himself as the emperor of a new Sathirian Empire. Also replaces the traditional worship of Cazic Thule with the worship of an ancestor worship cult branded Syloc. Sathir is apparently attempting to use Syloc to make himself a god.</p><p>During the Rending + Shattering + New Satherian Empire the outpost of Firona Vie and the Overthere were lost to the non-native Norrathians. Hunted by the various factions, Terran (formerly a guard at the Firona Vie outpost) managed to gather them together and clean out the undead from the pyramids near the Great Spire and druid rings. Somehow the other smaller combine spire was lost... The area has been renamed Terran's Grasp and is the last refuge for the survivors and the place adventurers are most welcome. The outpost residence fear that one of the major factions will take offense at their existance and send an army to wipe them out. Somehow they believe their existance is a secret...</p><p>Somehow Trakannon is able to remove his half-dead curse and take over as leader of the Ring of Scale. He abandons Sebilis which Venril takes as the capital of his new empire. It is highly suspected that some sort of deal was made here, but there is no confirming information. Also if this happened pre-shattering or post shattering is not clear.</p><p>The Ring of Scale, the new Satherian Empire, and the Sarnak Empire are still at odds. The Ring of Scale actively sends Draconic raiders to test the defenses of Chardok and Garnak's Battlement. The Iksar and Sarnak seem to have a cold war going on, neither of them ready to commit to a full out war. Chardok due to a lack of troops, and the Iksar due to the questionable loyalty of the empire Sathir has managed to cobble together.</p><p>Recently Veniril resurrected several of the past emporers as liches. He uses them as governers and generals, holding their phylaseries hostage to insure their loyalty. Somehow Rile's phylasery has fallen into YOUR hands if you do all of the City of Mist quests. Rile, knowing that Veniril doesn't have it is quietly working against Veniril once again.</p><p>Even more recently a force calling itself The Rime has invaded the shores of Kunark. Deploying its forces quickly and efficently they have managed to establish forward bases all over Kunark. The Rime apparently aggressively recruits canidates (i.e. kidnaps people and forces them with magical curses to work for them) for their army. Their leader is apparently looking for some kind of magical artifact that he suspects is in Kunark. While it isn't clear where exactly The Rime comes from, it is highly suspected to be Velious due to the huge amount of ice they use, and the presence of ice giants.</p><p>About the same time we learn that the shadowmen infiltrated Kurn's Tower and turned it into a void anchor years ago. This was hidden by magic until Najena used her elemental magic to reveal it.</p>

[Morghus]

<p>Aside from what was posted above, there are clearly many large, and GAPING blank spots in the lore which will never be clarified upon because it is no longer current, and the devs never seem to revisit old lore as usual.</p><p>All raid based lore of this expansion was 'back-loaded', as in you get almost no information until the end from a certain vampire. Nevermind the fact that you essentially cripple/devastate all the major factions and their leaders.</p><p>You kill a group of greedy 'fellow' adventurers and then destroy the golem in an old Iksar tomb.</p><p>You kill a large Drachnid Queen.</p><p>You kill a Drolvarg.</p><p>You kill Selrach Di'zok, the former prince now Overking of the sarnak of Kunark.</p><p>You kill Venril Sathir, though with him being a lich it is debatable if its truly permanent, but as with most cases all past expansion NPCs are forgotten the moment the next expansion comes so it is best to assume such individuals as Perma-dead unless they happen to be Mayong.</p><p>You kill the leviathan, the 'god' worshipped by the Yha-lei.</p><p>You kill every single dragon, wurm, wyvern, etc in Veeshan's Peak.</p><p>You kill Trakanon, the leader of the dragons and take a medallion/amulet from him that was part of the Chelsith Stone.</p><p>You speak with Mayong.</p><p>End. There is almost nothing inbetween each of those steps, no exposition or discovery of motives or plans from any you kill, the entire expansion was mostly a hit-list to get rid of those NPCs since the only major characters allowed any form of plot/character development are Mayong, Antonia Bayle, and Lucan. In other words, you didn't miss much.</p>

[Bionickai001]

<p>Yikes, seems like this expansion's lore was kind of broken. How about the lore surrounding its rediscovery and what exactly happens with Mayong?</p>

[rattlebonz]

<p>Can someone expand on The Rime? I just recently came back to the game having left a few months after RoK went live. I was in Rilis(?) making my way towards Sebilis eventually and got straight steam rolled by one of their guys riding something, maybe a bull dozer, on my way there. He rolled over me so effeciently I had to look him up and found very little other than half giant, half barbarian, turtle-dragons pulling icebergs, etc etc.</p>

[Cusashorn]

<p><cite>Bionickai001 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Yikes, seems like this expansion's lore was kind of broken. How about the lore surrounding its rediscovery and what exactly happens with Mayong?</p></blockquote><p>It was hidden actually. It wasn't until well after Beta finished up that we first found the "Fate of Norrath" questline, and only then we found out that Mayong tells us how the Shissar predicted the end of days, which is currently going on with Kerafyrm in Sentinal's Fate and Velious. His involvement has been non-existant since then.</p><p>As for the Rime storyline. We don't know who they are. They just came from somewhere north one day, and the leader knows about the orb that the final boss inside Kurn's Tower has, and he wants it, because he knows about the Ethernaut stories and how they once saved the world from the Void before.</p>

[Misiakpisiak]

<p>So, not all Sarnaks are evil, right? Otherwise my Froglok Paladin wouldn't be consorting with them (after being transported to Gorowyn by her travel voucher).</p>

[Meirril]

<p><cite>Broadhead@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So, not all Sarnaks are evil, right? Otherwise my Froglok Paladin wouldn't be consorting with them (after being transported to Gorowyn by her travel voucher).</p></blockquote><p>The Gorowyn Sarnak are...interesting. The result of an experiment by the Sarnak to create a super soldier. Much like their former Iksar masters they tried to raise these soldier to be slaves. In the final stages of testing, things went wrong and a Sarnak named Gorowyn lead a revolt. The revolt was put down but the secret labratory that contained the research was abandoned.</p><p>Decades later the parot headed birdmen discovered the labratory and fiddled with it. They managed to hatch a new clutch of these super soldiers. After throwing off the shackles of slavery again, these soldiers discovered clues about what happened before. They named their city and themselves after Gorowyn. They won't ally with the Chardok Sarnak because they are aware of their previous slavery to them. They are big time anti-slavery.</p><p>Despite all of this, they are still considered evil. While they freely accept outsiders traveling through their city they fully embrace necromancy and everything else evil. Generally speaking, they don't worship dieties. None of them can directly claim to have created the Sarnak, and they haven't been given a reason to embrace one. They are heavily militant, so they might lean towards Zek but they could just as easily embrance any other diety.</p>

[Cusashorn]

<p>The Gorowynian Sarnaks being evil is really just a game mechanic. They take a more militaristic stance because the race they were created from are quick to raise arms against outsiders, and they need to protect themselves since they're still very young as a race. Sure, they acknowledge that they were created by more malevolent forces, and some of them consider Cazic Thule as their creator just as rule of thumb.</p><p>Basically, their hostile environment has lead them to resort to more drastic measures for survival. It works for them though.</p><p>They're actually quite hospitable towards outsiders though. They're eager to open trade with outsiders and really arn't politically involved with the going-ons of the rest of the world.</p>

[Misiakpisiak]

<p><em></em></p><p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">Fantastic, thank you guys very much for the explanation! <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></span></p>

[Stubbswick]

<p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The Gorowynian Sarnaks being evil is really just a game mechanic. They take a more militaristic stance because the race they were created from are quick to raise arms against outsiders, and they need to protect themselves since they're still very young as a race. Sure, they acknowledge that they were created by more malevolent forces, and some of them consider Cazic Thule as their creator just as rule of thumb.</p><p>Basically, their hostile environment has lead them to resort to more drastic measures for survival. It works for them though.</p><p>They're actually quite hospitable towards outsiders though. They're eager to open trade with outsiders and really arn't politically involved with the going-ons of the rest of the world.</p></blockquote><p>I get what you're saying with respect to the other player races.  I don't know if any guards in Gorowyn will kill a good player, but I haven't encountered any.</p><p>But you have to remember that the newbie questline in Timorous Deep involves attempted genocide of two sentient races.  One you don't succeed (and end up allying with, go figure), but the other one is a more successful effort.  No only do you kill them, you poison their eggs so their hatchlings will die.</p><p>I guess my point is that I think the Gorowyn Sarnaks fit nicely into the "evil" category, even if it's not the traditional "evil" we see in MMOs/fantasy games.</p>

[Cusashorn]

<p>Like I said, they're a young race (literally only 50 years old), and they have to take more drastic measures due to the hostile environment they live in. Some of them don't know better, and some do.</p>

[Misiakpisiak]

<p><cite>Stubbswick wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The Gorowynian Sarnaks being evil is really just a game mechanic. They take a more militaristic stance because the race they were created from are quick to raise arms against outsiders, and they need to protect themselves since they're still very young as a race. Sure, they acknowledge that they were created by more malevolent forces, and some of them consider Cazic Thule as their creator just as rule of thumb.</p><p>Basically, their hostile environment has lead them to resort to more drastic measures for survival. It works for them though.</p><p>They're actually quite hospitable towards outsiders though. They're eager to open trade with outsiders and really arn't politically involved with the going-ons of the rest of the world.</p></blockquote><p>I get what you're saying with respect to the other player races.  I don't know if any guards in Gorowyn will kill a good player, but I haven't encountered any.</p><p>But you have to remember that the newbie questline in Timorous Deep involves attempted genocide of two sentient races.  One you don't succeed (and end up allying with, go figure), but the other one is a more successful effort.  No only do you kill them, you poison their eggs so their hatchlings will die.</p><p>I guess my point is that I think the Gorowyn Sarnaks fit nicely into the "evil" category, even if it's not the traditional "evil" we see in MMOs/fantasy games.</p></blockquote><p>That I can dig though; the 'parrot men' are traditional enemies that the Gorowyn Sarnak are at war with, or at the least fighting a very up-close territorial war with.</p>