Thread by @tripthemains, here is the start of my official "lore ramblings" thread, discussing the [...]

here is the start of my official "lore ramblings" thread, discussing the new Aval information as well as general SC lore from the Hwang soul chronicle and the side stories/library entries that came with DLC13+14

if you don't want spoilers or just don't care, mute this

a disclaimer that I'm literally going to just ramble, this won't be entirely comprehensive or even cohesive, I may make lore mistakes and you're free to correct me/help me out or contribute screenshots & stuff, I'll RT and add to the thread

*cracks knuckles* hoooooo boy here we go.

let's start simple with the new Aval members.

we have Calvin, Archibald, and Mayhem. they are all a part of The Twelve, alongside Dion and Natalie https://twitter.com/ktovhinao/status/1333825156523962368

https://twitter.com/ktovhinao/status/1333825156523962368

(quick aside, I'm guessing dion and natalie were promoted to the twelve after the events of libra? i don't think they were a part of it before unless I'm mistaken, they were essentially pupils of groh and curtis if I recall right)

so Calvin:

was BFFLs with Orzal. is heartbroken that Orzal died. wishes he could have avenged him, but is happy at least natalie/curtis did. says an interesting thing about the Conduit maybe "kickstarting the organization's heart again" - lot to unpack, we'll get to it later.

Archibald:
is basically darth vader thanks to Azwel's technology/surgery after nearly dying. has lost* all his senses but still communicates through writing. is Aval's adjudicator, makes the most of his circumstances. blames himself for curtis' death.
*can still slightly hear

Mayhem:
there's no easy way to say this. she's fem!Groh, essentially. and she hates it, bc no one will shut up about her similarities to him. she's his direct successor and shares a LOT of traits. got hella buffed by azwel's surgery, pain makes her stronger now?? she's. something

part of me worries for her and the direction that the writers will take with this character, should they choose to keep going. I want to see more of her personality other than "groh but to the left" and hope she is not as unlucky as he was. there's a lot of interesting potential.

I also wonder what on earth would happen if she were to encounter groh. that would be....an experience. it doesn't seem like she was in the org when he was around. she supposedly harbors resent towards him but also could learn a hell of a lot from him, so...

moving on-
if someone with more knowledge on this subject wants to chime in and help me figure out:
what the hell is going on with wilhelm?
is he just working with Aval as an ally or is he part of it? he has the Aval uniform on but no eyepatch...I didn't look @ his library entry

i want to talk about sword of the inquisitor and the conduit and more, but in order to do that I gotta quickly set up other lore elements. so I'm pretty much gonna dumb this down as much as possible just to keep moving forward, here we go

nightmare is (regretfully) back. and he's got a whole new army chillin' in ostrheinsberg castle. each of the ppl under him have a vessel who are their servants, named after german numbers (Acht being 8, Vier being 4, Zwei being 2, etc). here's more about the vessels work

the folks under him include johan durer (yes, that johan. the one who led hilde into a trap, then dipped when his plot was foiled by wilhelm. he hinted to hilde about nightmare's potential plans in her Soul Chronicle - it appears those plans were already in motion/he was in on it

johan's codename is "greatblade"
the others helping nightmare's plans aside from the vessels include
azola (sword of the betrayal)
won gabok from hwang's story (sword of cursed flames), tl:dr MAD xenophobic azwel-to-the-left
and...sigh.
the sword of the inquisitor. aka...curtis.

so naturally, you're like all of us. you're wondering:
didn't curtis die, like, twice? first when groh killed him, then when the conduit slay him that time he hopped out of the astral fissure as a berserker?
here's a rudimentary explanation of wtf happened https://twitter.com/DilaNeko/status/1333803997900075008

https://twitter.com/DilaNeko/status/1333803997900075008

(to think we all sat there like "oh honey you're in denial" when groh was talking a bit too optimistically about seeing curtis again someday in his Side Story 1...you gotta wonder if he somehow knew/could sense he was still alive. WE were the ones in denial i guess smfh)

so this form of curtis is...a wild fuckin ride to process. because he supposedly can remember his past and the ppl in it, he remembered groh in his dying moments according to last tweet (maybe even remembered natalie when he died at the fissure too) but is also Hella Out Of It??

so now you're probably wondering, is there really a chance that curtis and groh might see each other again? is there a chance curtis might "snap out of it" right before groh is forced to kill him again? sure. but aval/natalie/conduit might get to him first. (sorry 4 bad pic)

(commercial break: the fact that natalie is stirred by the Inquisitor name...i can't get into details in this thread, but if that Does Something for you, you might wanna pick up a copy of Lionhearted when it drops bc boy do I have the short story for you :] )

i realize i'm skipping a lot of lore things, I will likely circle back around to them, currently I'm just getting most of my own talking points off my chest before I pass out from exhaustion for the night

let's talk about the conduit!
not me, the real conduit.

the conduit makes an appearance in hwang's story! they meet with dion and hwang and they showcase some fancy technology that is the result of the conduit's astral fissure powers that we see throughout libra of soul, and dion's research/development of them

(another aside, i LOVE LOVE LOVE the portrayal of the conduit here. they made them as neutral, genderless and formless as possible. this kicks ass. also I totally called that ppl who didn't play libra would be like "who tf is this" when they saw them...clown shit)

the conduit is absolutely just as important to aval/the grand scheme of things as they were during libra. this tech that dion's research of the conduit helped create would essentially allow for astral fissures to appear onsight AND become potentially a method of transportation??

aval realizes how wild and important this is, which brings us back to Calvin talking about the conduit "kickstarting the organization's heart" - supposedly, reformists in aval are thinking of ways to use this power to support the organization's mission to deal w/ outsiders

and while we know aval is very divided from groh's soul chronicle among other things, something about this makes me mad bc *gestures vaguely at everything Groh related* we could have avoided so much hurt if y'all would have let groh use his powers for the same thing but oook then

but with this in mind, it makes me wonder how groh would be perceived NOW if he came back to aval. surely there'd still be some folks who would find him irredeemable as an outsider, but overall things would be very different from how they were when things began...food for thought

and now the last point of discussion for the night. maybe. we'll see

all we know is that he lived through the events of libra. in hwang's story, we learn that his Qualifiers group has morphed from a cult into a full on ideology called the Society of Salvation. it's just as gross as it was before, but more ppl. yet azwel is not mentioned

is he behind this whole operation? is he working under nightmare? it's not really clear at least from the information I was gathering tonight, but I'll try to dig deeper over the weekend when I get a chance to play some more. but he's out there somewhere doing some sketchy shit

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