Who is Oryx the Mad God? Where did he come from?
- Obligatory Time Lord entry, anyone want to expand on that?
- Jossed: Oryx is a warrior from the Shatters who descended into villainy to fuel his insatiable ego.
What does Oryx really want?
- He's a Death Seeker of the Nothing Left to Do but Die variety. His minions and simulacrum encounters are designed to be Training from Hell for the Player Characters, and he hopes that someday one (or a group) will be strong enough to kill the real him permanently.
- He's a Blood Knight who Needs You Stronger to give him a challenge. Similar to above, he intends his minions as Training from Hell for the strong, and to weed out the weak that he can't be bothered fighting and killing personally.
- He is using the players to train himself - or training the players in order for them - to face something stronger than himself. The Mysterious Crystal and Crystal Prisoner are probably forerunners of this greater evil, its scouts or minions, hence why Oryx has locked them up. Evil Versus Oblivion.
- All of the above have been effectively Jossed: Oryx seems to simply desire uncontested authority over the Realm to sate his ego. If he even knows about the Void Entity, the source of the only Evil Versus Oblivion conflict in the game, his beef with the Entity is solely to maintain his control over the land.
Who is the Crystal Prisoner, and what did it do to piss Oryx off?
- A Gone Horribly Right fusion of a number of (or all of) the Realm Gods. Its self duplication ability is reminiscent of the Sprite God summoning Sprite Childs, it bears some physical similiarity to both Medusa and Djinn, it shoots white shots resembling both Djinn's and White Demon's, its steeds are very similar to imps in attack patterns...
- A probe, forerunner or small part of an Eldritch Abomination which threatens Oryx. See above.
- A lesser deity which is a threat to Oryx.
- Oryx having a laugh at the players' expense.
- A former mentor or forerunner of Oryx.
- A Stealth Mentor on your side.
- Mostly Jossed except for the second theory: she's the queen of the Shatters, who was corrupted by the Void Entity and sealed inside a crystal upon being captured by Oryx's forces.
What is The Shatters, and why does Oryx seem so afraid of it?
- Its heavily implied that something horrible (implied to be the Forgotten King) is sealed there. Oryx possibly sealed him there out of fear.
- The first two bosses in the Shatters might not only be trying to keep you out: they're trying to keep the Forgotten King in.
- The Avatar's internal name is the Shatters Defense System. Perhaps Oryx created it to try and stop the entrance from being revealed?
- The Steam Trading Card for the Avatar states that something in the Shatters (also implied to be the Forgotten King) once tried to take over Oryx's Realm. Maybe he was sealed there by Oryx as punishment.
- The entire dungeon has a ruined look, but some of the scenery seems to suggest that it once was very grand. After all, the Forgotten King probably has a forgotten kingdom...
- Lore has revealed that it was simply the kingdom he came from, destroyed by the king making a pact with the Void Entity. The Avatar is a spiritual manifestation of the king's madness designed to infiltrate the realm, and Oryx himself is not confirmed to have sealed it, that having been done by the Bridge Sentinel. As for why Oryx is afraid of it, he either harbors some resentment for his former home, is still bitter about how he failed to conquer it due to the Void's intervention, is worried about the Void-corrupted king trying to steal his realm, or any combination thereof.
The Forbidden Jungle and Mixcoatl the Masked God have a connection to the Crystal Prisoner.
They have a similar colour scheme and appearance, especially the Basilisks. They both try to mess with your head, the Crystal Prisoner through lying and then his Doppelgänger Attack, the Forbidden Jungle through the Hallucinating status effect.- The AoE totems which Mixcoatl the Masked God attacks you with? They're not his to control. They're a defense grid trying to keep him contained, like the Mysterious Crystal holds the Crystal Prisoner. They activate shortly after he wakes up because they sense his activity.
- Jossed: the Crystal Prisoner has no relations to the Forbidden Jungle.
Realm of the Mad God is (an alternate version of) the world of Puella Magi Madoka Magica After the End.
- Oryx is a super-powerful Witch who managed to make the whole world, or most of it, into his Barrier/Labyrinth. The player characters are either all Magical Girls, or Kyubey has expanded his recruitment criteria. Quite possibly, with an uber-powerful Witch on a rampage destroying everything, EVERYONE has enough despair to be useful to him, not just prepubescent girls.
- Given that Oryx now has a backstory, possibly Jossed...?
The Forgotten King's Sanity Slippage is not only because of the Void, but also because he's The Fatalist.
- From his perspective, the Realm is locked in an eternal three-way: Oryx, the Void and himself, and the heroes of the Nexus. Oryx's betrayal from his lack of loyalty and devotion to glory set in motion the events that caused the Shatters to fall through the King's rash decisions, and now the heroes of the Nexus are dead-set on trying to usurp his power as well, with a mindset that eerily echoes their mutual enemy with the Exaltation system glorifying their achievements.
- Upon dying, the King takes note of this, and asks his slayers if they honestly believe they won't ever meet the same fate as him: murdered in cold blood by a powerful adversary who believes themselves better or more worthy of supremacy. He isn't wrong either, per se, as many Realmers will likely die to the Void Entity controlling him, the Void's other victims, Oryx himself, or even the King in another instance of the Shatters; all of which desire to take over the Realm for the simple reason of supremacy, and which will likely be defeated themselves in the name of glory through becoming Exalted.
- Perhaps in addition to whatever influence the Void has on him, the King has gone stir-crazy because of how little the outcome of the eternal conflict matters in the end if all the different sides have exactly the same intentions in mind... And Then What?
