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How did they even get there?
- How does the whole plot of Overlord even work? So the moment the servers shut down, is the entire setting of the game taken into another world?
- It has not yet been explained just how it happened even in the Light Novels, only that it did and that this isn't the first time either.
- Depending on what the explanation turns out to be, it may also put the overpowered nature of the immigrants into perspective. After all, whatever entity or phenomenon it was that gave ordinary real-world human beings and game characters quasi-godlike power they never had before in their actual lives (and apparent sentience ex nihilo in the case of the originally purely coded NPCs), it would seem to necessarily have to be considerably more powerful than even they are at their peak in order to be able to do so in the first place... and we don't know what, if anything, its intentions behind setting all these events into motion may be.
- There have so far been (4) confirmed groups of Yggdrasil players transported - the Six Gods of the Slann Theocracy, the Eight Greed Kings, SOME of the Thirteen Heroes, and now Momonga. There are several theories - all of them were still logged on when the servers went down and just got transported to different times, that somehow something targeted and pulled in everything in proximity to a World-Class Item due to unknown circumstances, or that the entire thing is just a dream/simulation and the real Satoru Suzuki is the subject of an experiment by the government/company running Yggdrasil. Nothing has been confirmed as of yet.
- In the recent bonus novel, Elder Coffin Dragon Lord calls Satoru the "Dragon Emperor's filth". This implies that the Dragon Emperor was responsible for bringing the Players and other YGGDRASIL items to the New World. This could tie into the theory that something was trying to pull in the World Class Items to the New World and got the Players too, with that something being the Dragon Emperor.
Memories?
- I'm curious, were the Floor Guardians conscious of the activities of Ainz Ooal Gown before they gained self-independence? We're informed that they have memories of their creators but does that actually mean they were alive back then rather than just being obedient guardians?
- It seems like they really were just non-sentient game characters with programmed personality settings at first. Being transported to the New World is what granted them true sentience. As to how they remember their creators' conversations, maybe the saved chat logs became memories when they were given life in the New World.
- The NPCs seem to have at least some memories of the players' activities, as above said it's probably due to event logs and chat logs being saved around them, it has also been revealed that, being simple A.I.s when they were still game characters, their personalities had holes in them, which were filled out somehow by taking some of their creators' personality traits, such as Albedo and Shalltear having some enmity because their creators did, as well as Shalltear being sisterly with Aura due to their creators being siblings, and Sebas and Demiurge heavily dislike each other because Touch Me and Ulbert had a massive argument, it seems that their personalities are also heavily influenced by the Flavour Text each creator gave characters, like how Albedo is in love with Ainz, which he wrote in just beforehand, if he hadn't changed it she would apparently have been a massive slut.
Undead Sentience?
- During Shalltear's invasion of Brain's bandit hideout, she has two undead vampire brides accompanying her. Now from what I can read, they can at least think and act on their own but are totally submissive to Shalltear. When Ainz summoned his Death Knight in Volume 1 during the invasion of Carne Village, it was just a mindless warrior that listened to his orders. Why is it that his undead can't think for themselves but Shalltear's can?
- It appears that some undead can and some can't, and that it varies by type. Volume 4 gave a good example of both, where the undead army lost specifically because they were mindless drones that had no one giving them orders while the lich in command, Iguva=41, was clearly capable of thinking.
- The Death Knight was actually not as mindless as you say. During the battle the soldiers note that it's specifically picking out the escapees, seeming to enjoy itself as it's cutting them down. I would assume that higher-tier undead might be more sentient than lower tiers.
- It's not unusual in Role Playing Games for there to be non-sentient undead as well as sentient undead in the same setting. Vampire brides might simply belong to the latter class.
- A short story included in the first Blu-Ray volume shows a Death Knight summoned by Ainz do so some work for him is sentient.
- Yggdrasil is influenced heavily by D&D; in D&D even sentient undead could be placed under the control of a necromancer, its possible the death knight and undead brides are Sentient but still lack free will and must follow commands, while Ainz and Shalltear are free undead having both Sentience and free will to act on
Karma Influence?
- This has been bothering me for a while but if the Karma readings on each character's sheets are to be believed, then how in god's earth is Ainz such a level-headed person despite being Extremely Evil. By all rights, he should despise and think lowly of humans just as much as Demiurge or Albedo does but instead we've seen him save villages, offer rewards, and even invite humans over for dinner in his home. I get that he's a player and so his mind won't be totally affected but surely he's currently being influenced by his Karma?
- Ainz is "Extremely Evil", but the karma scale is, quite literally, nothing but measuring the results possible and the moral qualms felt. Demiurge and Albedo actively feel pleasure in doing evil and would in most circumstances be flat out Chaotic Evil, while Shalltear is simply a hedonist and gets off from it, so her rating is slightly better - it's not the evil that pleases her, it's the fact that she gets wet from doing so. Ainz's -500 in this case refers less to the concept of always doing evil, but the concept of being able to feel absolutely nothing when ordering the extermination of a continent's population. Ainz would correctly be classified as Lawful Neutral (Neutral in that he is working for his group and not himself) in D&D, as he doesn't act out of malice or out of a desire to do harm but out of a desire to improve the situation of himself and his close allies. Karma doesn't measure intentions though, but morality - and Ainz, despite being very nearly Blue and Orange for more or less viewing humans scientifically, as pieces of meat, would fall even further down the ladder than Albedo or Demiurge - at least they acknowledge that their victims have life as something precious even while taking it away; Ainz simply views killing a person with as much interest as we drink a coffee.
- This troper always thought it was similar to the planar races in D&D. For example, an angel could actually be the worst
Chaotic Evil Jerkass ever, but Good is so imbued into his being that he will still be listed as such. (Admittedly, this is the kind of thing that, while possible, is very hard to find.) This could be the same with Ainz, who is an Elder Lich; Evil is such a part of his race that, no matter who he is on the inside, he will always be listed as Chaotic Evil. It is also to be noted that Overlord takes a lot of inspiration from D&D. - He's not Stupid Evil. He does good things when it's in his best interests to do so. Rescuing Carne Village, for example, gave him a very valuable source of information that he desperately needed to survive the New World. Rewarding his "guardians" is also a very pragmatic method to ensure they stay loyal and hard working.
- Plus, just being "Extremely Evil" apparently does not necessarily mean that you have to hate everybody. Demiurge, for example, respects Ainz to the point that he's willing to throw his life away for him, which is never a trait found in a Complete Monster.
- Also there is a case to be made for him gradually Becoming the Mask. Over time he has fewer and fewer qualms about extreme methods. For example, in volume 6 Men of the Kingdom where he condemns all the captured kingdom citizens (men, women, and children) to death, though he makes a point to forbid inflicting unnecessary pain on innocent victims. The narrative notes that this act of kindness is the vestige of the human Suzuki Satoru, which implies that it is being progressively erased, by the setting and the character he inhabits.
- The Alternate Timeline in the Bonus Volume suggests that he is Becoming the Mask due to a lack of genuine social interaction, given that the version of himself that exists in that timeline is much kinder.
- In that timeline, he also identifies himself to Keno as Suzuki Satoru, whereas in the main series, he explicitly abandons his former identity by taking up the name of Ainz Ooal Gown, the Supreme Overlord of the Great Tomb of Nazarick.
- It might be that Ainz is Extremely Evil but falls under the Neutral Evil end of the scale, i.e. "evil for profit" rather than "evil for fun". If he sees no value in perpetrating an evil act, then he won't. Even attacking the Lizardmen was meant to provide corpses capable of becoming stronger undead than what humans could provide.
- While he is influenced by his game avatar, deep down he is still human. That human core is presumably what is keeping the monster Ainz would have been, had he been made from scratch like the Non Player Characters, in check.
- It's a Yggdrasil mechanic. Where the NPC are those mechanics brought to life, Ainz is a man inhabiting his avatar.
- Presumably his karma was set at extremely evil while he was playing Yggdrasil since he was role-playing an evil overlord his karma was set as low as it goes and it carried over into the new world and hasn't gone up since, since he hasn't done anything so far that could really be qualified as a "Good" action.
- Karma rating is probably a purely YGGDRASIL mechanic that has no real bearing on the New World. Ainz is not evil because he has -500 karma. He is evil mainly because of a combination of his circumstances and his racial skills suppressing his emotions. He is simply what happens when you take a person and remove, or at least severely blunt, everything that would normally prevent them from committing evil acts. Ainz lacks the ability to feel sharp empathy or remorse, his Protection From Behavioral Disturbance effectively turning him into a socio/psychopath. He also has no fear of consequences, because he is so powerful that almost none can apply to him. If a different Supreme Being with -500 karma came to the New World, there is no guarantee they would become as evil as Ainz.
Resurrection of Shalltear
- So way back in the beginning while Ainz watches the people of Carne Village bury their dead, it is revealed that he has a stockpile of Resurrection Wands that can bring people back to life presumably without spending any money. Flash forward to when Shalltear is brought back to life by spending literal mountains of gold. Is there any reason other than him simply not thinking clearly that he wouldn't just use the item and spare a whole bunch of cash? It seems like a huge waste of money to me.
- It's possible that Resurrection magic won't work on an Undead being.
- It's most likely because this was a game-mechanic in Yggrasil. If one could resurrect Floor Guardians on the spot, it would make assaulting any Clan Dungeon impossible, since the defenders could just rapidly resurrect them over and over. It would also serve to make them more "valuable" in terms of gameplay.
- Also, keep in mind that the one-shot revival item Shalltear had. It's heavily implied that the thing's one-of-a-kind (or at least obscenely rare) back in Yggdrasil. Rez wands would not so easily be obtained so that Ainz had literal handfuls of them if they had the sort of power that revival item had, even if there was an additional requirement was that a PC had to administer it at close range. Relatedly, even the rez wands could have had a monetary cost attached to them, but level 1 civilians are likely to be insanely cheap to rez compared to such a high-level hybrid class like Shalltear.
- There's 'Resurrection', and then there's 'Resurrection with all abilities and power intact.' Ainz wants Shalltear the Level 100 Floor Guardian back, not Shalltear the Level 95 Floor Guardian. The other methods of Resurrection we've seen Ainz use on beings like Zaryusu or Naia explicitly leave them weaker after the Resurrection (although in Naia's case this was a bonus as it removed levels in crap classes like Servant that give no real power value). Yggdrasil Resurrection is easier to come by, but still comes with a cost. This was also explicitly stated to be the downfall of the Eight Greed Kings - they kept fighting each other, killing each other, and Resurrecting each other, but every time they came back weaker and weaker until they were finally put down for good. Ainz wanted Shalltear back at full power, and was willing to pay the exorbitant cost that required.
Yggdrasil Invaders
- With the revelation that Ainz and the Tomb of Nazarick just happened to have been next in line for invading the New World, was it ever mentioned that Ainz had known about the disappearance of other Yggdrasil players before him? More importantly, were the disappearances fairly recent, with time working very differently in the New World (the sort of thing where a year here is a century in the New World), or has Yggdrasil been a game/franchise that has been running for a considerably long time?
- Yggdrasil ran for 10 years and was notorious for not sharing information or downright spreading misinformation. Even if they had heard of a couple of players disappearing from a game played by untold thousands, most players would probably believe it was a ploy of some kind if they were savvy.
- This troper assumes that there had been no disappearances. All the players pulled from YGGDRASIL to the New World were likely people who, like Ainz, decided to stay until the shutdown - they were simply scattered across different eras of the New World's history as a quirk or malfunction of whatever (likely Wild Magic-based) spell that brought them there.
Money Woes
- Ainz can create high-level magic items. Why is he still worried about money? Even if he doesn't go to the 15 million gold per day
extreme or conscientiously decides to avoid crashing the economy, he could still magically create very high-end gear and sell it to the rich.- His created items are either temporary, so low-tier as to be worthless, or consume the now-finite Yggdrasil resources he acquired before arrival.
- I dunno about worthless, the items Ainz feels comfortable about giving out like the Horn of the Goblin General he refers to as Shop Fodder, but in the new world the horn is worth several thousand coins.
- Yggdrasil items are indeed generally worth ludicrous sums in the New World. A humble healing potion that Ainz gave to Brita, for example, is regarded as precious enough to murder for. However, Ainz has two major concerns not already mentioned. For one they are so valuable that only a select few individuals can afford them. On the other hand, Ainz is loathed to allow Yggdrasil "technology" to fall into the hands of New Worlders since he fears that they may be employed against Nazarick.
Memory spells
- How do memory-altering skills work in-game (in YGGDRASIL, that is)?
- Presumably, YGGDRASIL has/had a variation of a Speech/Persuasion skill tree that this fell under, with the only other prerequisite being particularly skilled in Illusion magic, and thus acted in a similar vein to how they work in games like Skyrim where they only work if the player has invested enough points in them to pass the skill check during certain parts of dialogue. Obviously, it would only work on the NPCs.
- It's also possible they could be used to alter a player character's "Memory" but not the players, things such as removing mapped areas requiring them to do it again, it could even have been used as a sort of minor re-spec, maybe letting you go back on your last level, or to change what skills someone knows, or to share "memories" i.e. map data, spells known, etc.
Pandora and the New Worlders
- It’s been established that the personalities of Nazarick’s NPCs are at least partially inspired by that of their creators, as well as their general opinion of humans. Pandora’s Actor is somewhat of an unusual case, since he was created during Ainz’s “Edgelord” phase, and his creator is still around, obviously. So what does that leave for his opinion of humans? Does he have a dislike/hatred for them because of a particular holdover from Ainz’s “Edgelord” days, or does he have neutral feelings towards them?
Why don't the guildmembers exchange info?
they all seemed to be rather close-knit(or at least close to Ainz) and considering how much they worked together over the years, it's pretty much impossible they just saw each other as "that person I roleplay with" and not true friends, especially since its established DMMOS are a second life to most people do to how much there real world sucks, even if they quit the game surely they could have had a discord chat or something to stay in touch
- They did. Ainz is explicitly stated to have invited the entire guild for one last gathering the day the Yggdrasil servers were shutting down, implying that, at the very least, they shared email addresses. But, between Touch Me’s and Ulbert’s massive falling out and whatever real-life issues they had to deal with, only Herohero and Ainz showed up.
Ainz and Momon have the same voice
Won't anyone in the New World would notice that the two have similar voices?
- It’s not uncommon for different people to share remarkably similar voices, and the only currently living New Worlders who know that Ainz and Momon are the same people are Nphirea and Jircniv’s wizard advisor Fluder, though, only the latter knows Ainz is an undead Lich in disguise. Both aren’t keen on revealing this fact to others for their own reasons (Fluder wants to be immortal while Nphirea was sworn to secrecy). As for the rest, Ainz doesn’t really interact with anyone who knows him as Momon, and vice versa, presumably because unless someone putting two and two together proved to be somewhat beneficial for Ainz, he figured it would be best to avoid such situations that could prove problematic. Especially since Nphirea doing it proves that there are New Worlders out there who would be smart enough to figure out that Ainz and Momon are one and the same.
- Prior to the founding of the Sorcerous Kingdom, very, very few people ever meet Ainz in person and even fewer survive the experience. Now that he is a king, Ainz uses a lip bug supplied by Entoma to change his voice since there are plenty of people in the city that have met Momon.
- Not to mention that having Ainz and Momon (Pandora's actor, disguised as him) out in the open can probably deter people away from that line of thinking as well.
NPC Roles and Hierarchy
- I don't know if this is elaborated better in the novels, but what exactly is the role of Overseer? From what I can gather, Albedo, who holds this office, is supposed to be the leader of the Floor Guardians. But since the primary purpose of Floor Guardians is to defend the Tomb from invaders, and Demiurge is in charge of defense, doesn't this make Albedo's position redundant? Likewise, the Pleiades is supposedly led by Yuri Alpha / Aureole Omega, but they all answer to Sebas Tian? So, can anyone explain to me how the roles and hierarchy of the Nazarick NPC work?
- Overseer simply means that Albedo is Ainz’s second in command, and thus oversees the day-to-day happenings within the Tomb itself, but she also takes a more direct command over the Floor Guardians when necessary. Demiurge, however, is the Tomb’s chief strategist, so while he has to answer to Albedo, his authority takes greater precedence in the event of an invasion (assuming Ainz himself is not present to issue orders), as well as any military action. Sebas, in a similar vein to Albedo, more or less oversees the Pleiades whenever they’re not under Ainz’s personal command, while Yuri simply keeps them in line and helps settle any disputes or arguments that arise between her sisters.
Fluder and the Death Knight
- In episode 6 of S3, is that particular Death Knight one of Ainz’s? If so, how did it end up there? Or has it been there for far longer and meant to further support the idea that Ainz wasn’t the first Yggdrasil player to make it to the New World? Moreover, if it wasn’t his, if he ever found it, would it immediately submit to him?
- If I'm not mistaken, it's stated in the novel that undead such as death knights and liches occasionally spawn on Katze Plains.
- Correct, the light novel explicitly spells out that places like graveyards and battlefields randomly spawn undead, although most are relatively low-tier and easily dealt with - it's the whole reason the graveyard where Ainz fought Clementine had a giant wall and gate around it, to begin with: the guards would patrol the graveyard and periodically wipe out any incidental low-level undead. Katze Plains was the site of battle after battle for many years, leaving untold thousands buried or left to rot on the surface, turning it into a breeding ground for higher-level undead, and it eventually spit out a Death Knight that they were able to capture. Elder Liches were also immediately identified by the adventurers that tested Nazarick's defenses, so they're not unheard of in the New World, either.
Leaving Shalltear behind
- Why did the people who mind-controlled Shalltear leave her behind in the forest? They had subdued a very powerful vampire, Shalltear is explicitly one of Nazaricks most powerful warriors (at the time she was a level 100 NPC), something like that would be very useful to study, but they just left her, and no reason at all is given why.
- In the Light Novel it's explicitly stated that before Shalltear could be fully mind-controlled she killed Lady Kaire the person using Downfall of Castle and Country to mind control her, because of that she never received any orders so she defaulted to standby mode where she attacks anyone who attacks her or gets close to her, and they weren't able to subdue her so they left her there and were planning to send the God-kin to deal with her until they heard Momon killed her
- Correct, she defaulted to 'guard mode', simply attacking anything that was perceived as a threat or came within a short distance, but otherwise did nothing. The novel also stated that they suffered further casualties trying to 'retrieve' her, and they were forced to abandon her. They may have been watching when Platinum Dragon Lord got rolled by Shalltear before Ainz showed up, and decided that since she was just sitting there doing nothing, they were in no hurry. Most likely they were planning to find and train a new person to use Downfall of Castle and Country again. In the meantime, what's the rush? She's not actually a threat to anything they care about and already rolled the single most powerful Dragon Lord currently active, they didn't think anybody else COULD get rid of her before they had a chance to retake her.
Why Does Re-Estize Have So Many Nobles That Apparently Can't Tie Their Own Shoelaces?
- How are the nobility of the Re-Estize Kingdom so utterly moronic? Zanac, Renner, and Raeven appear to be the exceptions rather than the rules, as the King regularly makes horrible judgment calls whenever he even deigns to make a decision at all, Barbro screwed up so royally that it turned the Battle of Katze Plains into a massacre, and don't even get me started on Philip. One could excuse Barbro for insulating himself so much in an echo chamber of his fellow nobles that he completely lost touch with any conflicting information, but it didn't help that his father gave him a detachment of several THOUSAND troops for what was ostensibly a fact-finding mission in a gross misapplication of force and manpower. And then Philip causes an international incident with the nation that curb-stomped his own nation once before, all for the chance of a SMALL profit from the grain shipment. I just don't really get how that kingdom could have survived for so long with their nobility seemingly unable to have any independent thoughts.
- That's because the Kingdom is in late stage decadence. In the novels it is explicitly stated that the Slane Theocracy conspired to have the Kingdom founded to be a breeding ground for heroes of humanity. It shared no borders with demihuman or monster polities that could threaten it so theoretically the Kingdom could go from strength to strength enjoying the bounty that came with mostly assured national security. Instead this made the Kingdom and its ruling class fatuous and corrupt. With naught but a play-pretend annual war with the Empire to engage its military forces, the Kingdom's war making ability atrophied. With no apparent existential threats, organized crime catering to the hedonism of the aristocracy flourished and was consolidated into the Eight Fingers crime syndicate. With its export of narcotics, the Slane Theocracy regarded the Kingdom as a net drain on humanity's strength and chose not to intervene too much when the Sorcerer Kingdom came for them. Basically this is what you get when people enjoy a long period of relative peace and prosperity without having to work for it coupled with a powerful criminal element that likely encouraged the worst habits of the nobility.
- Because the Re-Estize Kingdom was on the verge of collapse - even if Ainz hadn't showed up the Baharuth Empire was likely to conquer it very shortly. Plenty of real world nobility and royalty have been just as incompetent, stupid, and corrupt - it's why countries, kingdoms and empires have collapsed without being conquered all throughout history. The Re-Estize Kingdom is on the verge of collapse because of the stupidity of its nobles, which is the reason Renner sells them out in the first place - she's smart enough to recognize that it's effectively unsalvageable.
- It was explicitly mentioned in the light novel that after the massacre at Katze Plains so many noble heirs died that basically every noble who wasn't too old to join the battle was either a backup or the backup of the backup with most of them having only taught to be butlers or maids meaning about half the nobles after the massacre had never set foot in a court once in their life before.
