For Simplicity's sake here's is a list
[X] The Signals disrupting our thoughts
[X] The Host that was here before us
[X] The City on the Moon
[X] The Missing eleven days
[X] The Earth is Hollow
[X] The Wagtails
[X] Portals in time and space
[X] The Bees returning
[X] The Eight that watch over us
[X] Solomon's key
[X] The Tower of Babel Mentioned in the Phoenician Lore.
[X] The Old Gods
[X] Atlantis
[ ] The Ark of the Covenant
[X] Stonehenge's beacon
[X] The Fountain of Youth
[X] Immortal beings
[ ] The Planet's aligning
[X] The End of Days
[ ] The Dark Places
[X] The Filth
[X] The Morning Light
[X] The Dreamers
[X] The Demons marching against us
[X] Lilith's Children
[ ] The Blight in the Garden of Eden
[X] Digging too Deep
[X] Pandora's Box
- Partially confirmed as they return in the Manhattan raid zone.
- The London instance will take place on either:
- Trafalgar Square
- Buckingham Palace
- The Tower of London
- The Seoul Instance will take place:
- Cheonggyecheon
- Seoul Olympic Park
- Japan
- Confirmed. Issue 9 is the start of the Tokyo arc.
- New Orleans/Louisiana
- Various characters have mentioned it in passing several times as a supernatural hotbed.
- Venice, as home of the Council of Venice, could serve as a neutral hub.
- If so, then Venice's story segment will also have more focus on Investigation and Sabotage Missions working to smoke out the moles on the Council, Orochi or otherwise.
- Confirmed. Issue 8 unlocks the Council of Venice headquarters in the Sunken Library as a neutral hub. No quest-givers, and you don't visit the surface city proper, but it does come with the simulator and its challenge missions, and the story mission in Venice has you chasing down a Phoenician spy.
- Greece, see below to the whereabouts of the Sanctuary of Secrets.
- Area 51, with the revelation that the Aliens are actually a type of supernatural creatures the US Government has kept contained 'till now.
- One could include the surrounding Nevada desert for some Western influences — a Wild West Ghost Town turned tourist trap, Donner Party-style escapades, the ghosts of old gunfighters, a lost Mormon colony, Native American lore (specifically Paiute or Shoshone instead of Wabanaki), etc. And of course, giant radioactive (or Filth-infected) bugs from the more modern age. (Speaking of, how does radiation affect the Filth?) Alternatively, instead of Area 51, they could use Dulce Base in New Mexico instead for much the same feel, which would also allow them to get in the Anasazi ruins.
- Central America, given the importance of the Maya. This could also be where they implement dinosaurs.
- Antarctica
- According to sources from Issue 11 a Gaia engine was unearthed from a ruined city in Antarctica.
- Amusingly, because your character is occupied in South Africa during Dawn of the Morninglight, a crisis in Antarctica comes and goes without the player ever taking part.
- The Congo
- Some of the lore in Issue 10 mentions the Congo. Also a different strain of Filth in Tokyo came from cargo aboard a ship from Africa.
- Confirmed in Dawn of the Morninglight, the factions have set their sights on the Congo as it is the reported location of Phillip Marquard.
- The Moon
- Norway. The Vikings have played a role in the lore, being the origin of the Draug, and it would also be an opportunity to mine Scandinavian folklore — trolls, huldras, nattmaras, Norse Mythology, etc. The country's occupation by the Nazis during World War II also creates an opportunity to bring in the Ghostapo, much like how Transylvania was filled with Soviet Superscience. It doesn't hurt that the game's developers, including the original designer Ragnar Tørnquist, are Norwegian.
- Scotland, Cassandra King was last sighted there and it is inevitable that she and the players will meet again.
- Incorrect, there are several cutscenes with gestures, as well as quests that require your character to communicate. Also, you can quite clearly ask questions about specific subjects. It is possible that characters are mute, but telepathic, but it is very clear that characters can communicate.
- In some cutscenes we're clearly trying to say something only to be interrupted - being mute you'd try to jesticulate or mime, not open oyur mouth, judging by short real life mute experience.
1. If the bee chosen people are to effectively fill their expected roles of protecting the world from filth issues, it makes sense to make sure they join the right faction. (The most extreme example of this might be, say, a rule focused "know your place/bonds of loyalty" person joining the Illuminati, but certainly having a more independent minded person in the Templar might not go well either. The Dragon could maybe work with most personalities, but some would likely be better fits as well for that faction.)
2. The bees have been gathering all sorts of personal information about all sorts of people for a long time, and with this history likely have the ability to accurately determine who would work well as a secret worlder and which faction each of those people would best fit with.
3. In a metagame sense, it would be a useful back explanation for why many players will dress, act, and think of their characters as having the personality of the factions, but almost no players will act as if their characters are misfits.
There are two ways I could see this working: either bees simply choose people of a particular personality who are at the right place/time to get noticed by the appropriate faction, and/or they influence faction communication to ensure the "correct" faction is chosen.
- Then what does that say about the Bee Infused that are taken by The Hive?
- Literally anyone else. Nyarly's already been referenced and conflated with Akhenaten, who is, like Nyarly, called the Black Pharaoh. He even serves as the Mouthpiece of the Outer God Aten, just as Nyarly serves as the mouthpiece of Azathoth.
- Since Lovecraft was on Solomon Island visiting the Franklin mansion at some point of time it's likely that he knew about the Secret Word. However, this knowledge was given to him indirectly because of a deal with Dr Armitage. In Real Life he confessed that he got inspiration from his nightmares, just like Sam Krieg. So in his dreams Armitage revealed to him certain things about the world, like the existence of the Deep Ones, the Ur-Draugr and the Ak'ab, the Black Pharaoh and the Dreamers but didn't explain anything, allowing him to fill the holes with his own theories, explaining how he was aware of the existence of previous Ages but wrote them as when the Dreamers were awake and before mankind and was completely oblivious to Gaias or the Host's existence.
- Since the release of Tokyo, we can say that Nyarly's role is solely occupied by John. He fits both in role and personality, outside his cowardice.
- Jossed according to the Buzzing Lore in Issue 11 Ishtar is identified as being Lilith. Additionally, the same person was also implied to be Athena and Juno.
- Somewhat jossed in Issue 11. There are individual sections which may be infected. But as a whole the organization is surprisingly filth free. That doesn't mean things don't go horribly wrong for them despite that.
- CONFIRMED: Buzzing Lore indicates that the end of the Third Age was so bad that Gaia had to do a Cosmic Retcon to repair the damage made by the Dreamers. Worse, it's stated that the Gaia Engines had to do that previously and, giving the strain that work makes on the Engines, it's unlikely that it would work again. What this means? If a single Dreamer manages to awake GAME.OVER.
1. When explainig about the Truce that Cucuvea enforces the Zmei are NOT mentioned.
2. In the Lore they are stated as characters of fairy-tales.
3. The Bees seem to NOT know what they are, explaining that Whatever they were, between story and reality, has been corrupted by a parasite.
4. Connecting with the former, all of them are infected with the Filth. Of course the Bees say that they bathed in the Filth-infested hot springs.
5.Lastly, the last line of the Lore is Where once they were the dreams of frightened children, now they are the walking dreams of the Dreamers who sleep just beyond space. What other things were Dreams until the Dreamers infected them? The Draug.
It's possible that, following the kidnaping of children by Dr. Schreber's minions the Dreamers connected with them and manifested their boogeyman in reality, turning a tale with no truth into predatory reality. If they did it before, why not again?
Samael met her and decided that having a Bee as bodyguard and helper was not a bad idea, with her being distracted by his good looks and the plan of the Nephelim to create a New Gaia using the Dreamers. Eventually they took a Relationship Upgrade and Samael betrayed the Nephelim, making them lost the war as the First Age was destroyed around them.
During the next Ages they continued researching how to harness the Dreamers power and creating monsters, most of them being considered failures, until the end of the Third Age. Watching how Lilith's arrogance nearly cost the end of Gaia, Samael realiced that they must guide humanity to a point where they will be able to at least imitate First Age Tecnology to repair or even create Gaia Engines. However, Lilith was blinded by her need of revenge over Gaia and that strained their relationship. It's only then when Lilith began to take other lovers like Mozart and the brothers of Babel along with experimenting and creating cults like Sol Invictus and the Deathless, still believing she has a chance of controlling the Dreamers to have her revenge.
Considering that she A)is inmortal; B) can travel to Agartha without problems; C) her attacks during the fight against the minions of the Black Signal are very similar to the ones the player character does; D) her obvious resistance to the Filth; and E) her absolute betrayed look when Emma choses the player character and the rage and sadness she shows when talking about her relationship with Samael, this story seem likely. The sad thing? If she had follow her husband sugestion and just rule the world using Orochi the events of the game would likely never happened and the two would be still happily married.
- Most likely she actually predates the Bees - she's one of 'the' first humans ever. As to her abilities - her body was remade by Samael to better suit his needs, and later by herself in her experiments. After all, they both had access to knowledge and powers, surpassing what we in 4th Age would call god-like.
- Dreamer cults worship scorching and cruel sun, while Amaterasu possessed mercy and kindness.
Somewhat alternatively, Bong Cha wasn't brainwashed, the stress of being the Voice of the Dragon caused her to have a stroke that genuinely caused her to suffer from amnesia. Even more alternatively...
Seriously, there could be a whole page of WMG just on The Dragon.
- Or she was just a figurehead, meant to distract factions with more traditional structure from how the Dragon really does their job.
Of course, the big question the becomes whether or not this will be successful in cleansing Solomon Island the way we hoped.
Now, "The Seven Silences" reveal that Lorraine possessed latent supernatural traits that, combined with her exposure to the Park's eldritch aspects, made her very desirable to the Council of Venice as a test subject: we don't know how long she spent as a test subject and how long she worked as an agent of the Council, but it's not unfeasible that she might have had another child at some point in either stage. Maybe she was artificially inseminated as part of the Council's experiments, maybe she had a desperate and loveless fling with a fellow agent, or maybe she actually managed some kind recovery from her depression long enough to start a committed relationship. Suddenly very interested in seeing what happens when Gaia's Chosen breed, the Council put Lorraine under observation until she finally gave birth, and then took the child away from her - naming the baby Emma as a token nod to the mother's wishes. Unable to track down her lost daughter and haunted by the loss of another child, Lorraine descended into the final stage of her depression and set out to make her suicidal impulses permanent.
Elsewhere, Emma was found to be possessed of improbable magical powers as a result of Lorraine's numerous supernatural traits, eventually making contact with Gaia and becoming the Immaculate Machine's emergency successor. Trouble is, all this got the attention of the Dreamers and their followers (hence the Issue #7 comic featuring tentacles creeping towards a young Emma) ultimately resulting in the fire that features so prominently in her dreams of the past: in the aftermath, Emma was put up for adoption, and the Orochi Group snapped her up before the Council could move to retrieve her.
- Her name before the fire is unknown - she's called Emma because firefighter misheard "Anima", and the name before the fire, if it was different, is never mentioned at all.
- Yes, but the theory here isn't that Emma is her real name: it's that Lorraine might be Emma Smith's biological mother, the illegal Bee unwittingly serving as a means of producing Gaia's daughter/substitute. In any case, "Emma" is just a codename, adopted out of apathy by the Orochi Group, and out of a cynical attempt to honor Lorraine's wishes by the Council - if it ever was used by the Council. As far as the theory goes, Anima is the name she's been given while adopting the role of Gaia's daughter: in this theory, Anima might not be her birth name, but it's the only one that matters - perhaps because it's the only identity that hasn't been forced on her by human agencies.
- Too convoluted, sounds like Brazilian soap-opera, and so far the game shown no signs of being one. Orochi knew very little about the girl - they just followed reports about her powers and picked her up, with Emma the only name known, and that name comes directly from firefighter's report on rescued now-orphan, and it's misheard Anima as we can see in Issue 7. Anima isn't her birth-name, it's the name imprinted in her mind by Gaia, either at birth or during the Infusing, whatever the way she's made. And if she really was a Council's experiment, she wouldn't be so easily lost, since she would've been under observation, and she would've had a file in Council's database, which would be mentioned in one of her missions. Even if that was really secret business with none of factions allowed in, Lumies and Dragon couldn't not sniff it out, but earliest info they have comes stolen from Virgula Divina project and Orochi group.
- Yes, but the theory here isn't that Emma is her real name: it's that Lorraine might be Emma Smith's biological mother, the illegal Bee unwittingly serving as a means of producing Gaia's daughter/substitute. In any case, "Emma" is just a codename, adopted out of apathy by the Orochi Group, and out of a cynical attempt to honor Lorraine's wishes by the Council - if it ever was used by the Council. As far as the theory goes, Anima is the name she's been given while adopting the role of Gaia's daughter: in this theory, Anima might not be her birth name, but it's the only one that matters - perhaps because it's the only identity that hasn't been forced on her by human agencies.
- Jinn lore says the First Age means "First Age of the Man", with Jinn predating it. People were born as "accident" from the primordial chaos of possibilities (it can be read as accidental modification of existing apes, yes), and later chosen for reasons explained by Samael in Issue 11. Most likely the system wasn't finished yet and the Host and Gaia intentionally tapped the potential of Dreamers for more ideas before locking edits and imposing more strict rules of the actual First Age.