What would the full name be?
It would be “Athanasios” , that being “Immortal”. It’s a rather Christian name today but like most Greek Christian names it was a semi-common name in the Hellenistic world.
Oh, so that’s how Thanos got his “I… am… inevitable…” line in Endgame!
PS: Before any language nerds roast me—yes, yes, I know “inevitable” and “immortal” aren’t exactly synonyms. “Inevitable” is something guaranteed to happen (like me inevitably making jokes nobody asked for), whereas “immortal” is living forever (like my posts lingering endlessly in forum archives). Both imply something annoyingly certain and lasting, but I admit, they’re not interchangeable.
Hello, after a long while I decided to try reaching the source of the Xaos storms; now, I have two questions for you all: first off, what exactly do we find there? And second, do you think it is key content to try getting once the full game is out? Can’t wait to hear your thoughts on it.
It can actually be argued the Aristotelian metaphysics actually imply 2 rather than one supreme principal already.
Pure Potential/Prime Matter/Xaos
Pure Actuality/Form/Xthonos
Potency vs Actuality and Matter vs Form are fundamental dualities in Aristotelian metaphysics. All things in the material world are composed of these opposites.
I don’t think so, really Western Shayardenes are possibly more related to Wiends or Karagonds than to any Abhuman. Their cultures don’t seem to have any major similarities.
The Wiends are most likely related to Karagonds, Shayardenes and Erretzans. Since havenstone stated them to be slavic adjacent sometime ago and slavic is related to the cultures that base Shayard, Karagon, and Erretza. Their uniqueness from their southern and eastern relatives is the region they hail from which is mountainous and saved them from the shayardene conquests allowing them to keep their culture.
Due to the very… particular usage of consonants, it’s very hard not to read them very specifically. Then again it may be an audience thing. I can very well imagine most readers having a different read.
According to Jevahir, Old Braurarch was formed by Neres, who were formed by a proto-Halasurq raiding party that somehow crossed the extremely mountainous Erezzin Isthmus around 500 years before the Hegemony was proclaimed. I assume that it would take at least a century for a full society to form in Nyryal before it would enter the Bloodless Reach (presumably before the Liches took over it) and then enter the future Xaos-lands only 400 or 300 years before Hera. If the land was so fertile that it achieved a much larger population than Nyryal, then why did nobody live there before? Did the Brauracha know some Goety that MADE the land fertile? Considering that the Xaos-lands seem naturally arid (the ground is entirely stony; there is no dirt), I don’t believe that there was anything that they could have done to make it fertile, even if they wanted to.
NGL I always thought they just took Thanatos and cut a bit out. Finding out it’s a diminutive is kinda funny.
“Billy the Mad Titan.”
There are plenty of indications somebody did as some of the ruins we can encounter seem a lot older than 800 or so years. My guess is that the bruarachs were conquerors who just formed a new elite in what is now the Xaos lands on top of a much older culture/civilisation. Like the period of the mongol (Yuan) dynasty of old China. There’s also the ballad of “cunning-quick” which may be a very short, very general overview of how the braurachs and their great leader conquered or came to dominate the civilisation that was there before.
We also know that similar ruins can be found in the oldest parts of Corlune and Shayard. This is why I place the Seracca and western Shayardenes as stemming from the same origin point,which would be this precursor culture that also included the pre-Braurach inhabitants of the west.
That would make sense, it does lead to the interesting question of what caused the split between the proto-Shayardenes and the Seracca that so fully separated them. The tale you can hear about the gryphon knights calls the Abhumans child-stealing werebeasts, and modern Shayardenes don’t seem to really recognize them as humans (not that the Abhuman view on Udud is much better).
I don’t understand how Corlune and Sojourn, which were separated by a huge distance, desert, and forest, could have had the same architecture because they had the same culture over 800 years before the present, without us knowing about it. I think that the definition of “similar architecture” should be interpeted more flexibly
The same way Syria and Scotland both have Roman ruins? Traces of architecture can span a long geographic distance.
Every Syrian and Scot has heard of the Roman Empire, yet nobody in the story even hints that any large civilization had existed in the region before Grand Shayard.
I repeat that there there was a huge forest and desert between Corlune and Sojourn, so I do not believe that any single culture could have dominated that entire area
How many truly knowledgeable people have we met yet that might have an interest in obscure archaeology? Also the Hegemony is quite isolationist and very inward focused. But my guess is Corlune might have been a colony or distant outpost of that civilisation once upon a time since Corlune is a good port town with access to the sea said civilisation need not have dominated all the land in-between Corlune and its homeland given enough naval prowess.
They could but they don’t do it because there is nothing for them to trade in Sojourn and even if there was they’d be Harrowed for doing business in the Xaos lands in addition modern Hegemony merchants don’t do much trading outside of the Hegemony as the import export parts of trading seem to be dominated by foreigners right now.
How on Earth could that civilization have accessed Corlune from the sea? Did it sail there from Sojourn?! Not even modern Hegemonic merchants do that.
They could… walk? And build a port? Plus if they already had a settlement at Grand Shayard or further south on the east coast its hardly a long boat trip at all.
In Yemen you see Roman and Chinese coinage.
I’m going to jump in here apologetically, because I don’t like throwing cold water on anyone’s theories…but the intent of the line,
“Corlune has some buildings that look as old as these, and they’re older than the Hegemony.”
was not actually to hint at a precursor civilization that spanned both places, or to convey a similarity of architectural style between the buildings Herne’s talking about. He doesn’t say “Corlune has buildings that look like Sojourn’s” in any dimension other than age.
Maybe I should have said that a couple years ago, when people first started reading the line that way. But my intent was just to convey that some >300 year old buildings in Corlune have similar wear and tear to the ones in Sojourn.
The precursor civ theory isn’t inherently implausible, but it’s not what I have in mind. Sorry for not making that clear earlier.
Edit: in the next update of XoR 2, expect the line to read “Corlune has some buildings that look as worn-down as these.” Hopefully that’ll be less misleading.