Can't enjoy the Defiant lore, anyone else with me?

[Kreiri]

Don't forget Mona's ableism. If she stopped being "get away from me, you useless nalthema", she'd remembered that Sylver can resurrect people, and I don't think getting a cart of sourcestone for Jace's new body would be a problem for Kelari leader. Instead she got temple spirit killed.

[Maeloda]

Don't forget Mona's ableism. If she stopped being "get away from me, you useless nalthema", she'd remembered that Sylver can resurrect people, and I don't think getting a cart of sourcestone for Jace's new body would be a problem for Kelari leader. Instead she got temple spirit killed.

Yeah. I just saw no evolution of her character. She went from "spirit stuff is more important than anything" to "magitech and ascended are useful, but everything is good now that we have another spirit protecting Atia"

Whoop di doo. She won't ever change her spots.

[Milyssa]

This is probably the best thread to ask in... since I am still confused about defiant lore and really need to sort it out before I complete my RP story.

Guardian ascention I get. You're in the shade wars, You're killed, you get raised up.. its still your body and original soul, but you get to add new souls.

I cannot find a single quest to explain defiant ascention. Or, at the very least, very few and very .. fractured information.

You wake up and Sylver Valis asks you "How does it feel to be alive again". But I don't know if I am still in my original body or did they transplant my soul into a new body. He says "And your new body?".. which leads me to believe new to me... but there is a very big difference for RP stories and both run into their own problems.

If you are your original body, did you die recently? Meaning that if I am anything more than 20 years old, I could be sent back in time to a timeframe where my present self was just being born or was a young child.
If I am from the Shade wars or the Blood Storm, I am sent back to a place that exists long after my time, but I could possibly run into my decendents or future generation family members.

But if I am in a new body, as Sylver's quote suggests, where did the body come from? Is it a body from Terminus. If yes, then that person's family might recognise me in Meridian and that would just be akward. This makes me guess I'm not a new body.. so where's the body from?

Am I from the shade wars or the blood storm? I can't find that missing piece. There is this piece.. a lore snip from Terminus about how they had to be careful with the bone segments they used ...

1) never use a skull, pelvis, or any other large bone to begin the regeneration process. Instead choose a small bone, so that if there is a slight mismatch with the subject's original skeleton it does not end up a fatal problem. [.......] 4) A soul must rate at least 5.0 on the Valis-Farwind scale to be deemed worthy of regneration.

So it seems I could be regnerated... but from where. That's what I *think* i'm missing. Unless I've missunderstood the whole thing. And he says "... mismatch with the subject's original skeleton.".... It's all so confusing.


I suppose I could write the story around dying in present day telara and being ascended with the information that some other Defiant brought back. That would solve that little detail.. but I'm still really curious.

Insite people! HELP! Maybe someone among you has read a lore book that I have not yet found that sheds light on this.

[Maeloda]

This is probably the best thread to ask in... since I am still confused about defiant lore and really need to sort it out before I complete my RP story.

Guardian ascention I get. You're in the shade wars, You're killed, you get raised up.. its still your body and original soul, but you get to add new souls.

I cannot find a single quest to explain defiant ascention. Or, at the very least, very few and very .. fractured information.

You wake up and Sylver Valis asks you "How does it feel to be alive again". But I don't know if I am still in my original body or did they transplant my soul into a new body. He says "And your new body?".. which leads me to believe new to me... but there is a very big difference for RP stories and both run into their own problems.

If you are your original body, did you die recently? Meaning that if I am anything more than 20 years old, I could be sent back in time to a timeframe where my present self was just being born or was a young child.
If I am from the Shade wars or the Blood Storm, I am sent back to a place that exists long after my time, but I could possibly run into my decendents or future generation family members.

But if I am in a new body, as Sylver's quote suggests, where did the body come from? Is it a body from Terminus. If yes, then that person's family might recognise me in Meridian and that would just be akward. This makes me guess I'm not a new body.. so where's the body from?

Am I from the shade wars or the blood storm? I can't find that missing piece. There is this piece.. a lore snip from Terminus about how they had to be careful with the bone segments they used ...




So it seems I could be regnerated... but from where. That's what I *think* i'm missing. Unless I've missunderstood the whole thing. And he says "... mismatch with the subject's original skeleton.".... It's all so confusing.


I suppose I could write the story around dying in present day telara and being ascended with the information that some other Defiant brought back. That would solve that little detail.. but I'm still really curious.

Insite people! HELP! Maybe someone among you has read a lore book that I have not yet found that sheds light on this.

As far as I can tell, its whatever you want.

To make it easier on yourself though, I'd make your original self to be EARLIER than 20 years ago from Terminus.

Eth - I'd put it to be either after or before the Shade, or even during it. It makes the quests make more sense, at least, if your character wasn't from the Blood Storm Wars. IMO you could still do it though.

Bahmi - Same. Old enough to have the recent Bahmi lore to sound new, but new enough that you're not one of the first Bahmi hybrid-beings ever.

Kelari - Basically from some time that the Kelari existed as they do (as 'dark elves' in physical appearance). So starting from some time after the Kelari left mainland Telara. You could even be from the Exodus from Ember Isle, as the 1.6 trailer shows.

You could still be from the 20-year time between Fall of Port Scion and Terminus, but you could find it easier to RP as one that was a 'no-name' person in life, who didn't affect the conflict at all, but upon your resurrection, you're now able to make a true name for yourself and stop the madness of the Guardians, the cults, and Regulos.


Sylver is generally good at what he does. You're almost guaranteed to be exactly as you were in life, except with Ascended power, being technically a sourcestone being, and that you can hold all of those souls inside your own body/spirit. You've went from nobody (depending on what you RP as), to a demi-god.

And then, from so many other Terminus futures, come other potential heroes. Together, you'll ensure the survival and brighter future for your forsaken races. The Eth fell to the Wanton and Golden Maw - you'll stop that. The Bahmi fell to ???? - you'll stop that. The Kelari fell to the Wanton and the waves of Akylios - you'll stop them. And the world fell to Regulos - you'll stop them too.
(the only plane/cult not so strongly related to the Defiant story is the Aelfwar/Life/Greenscale. All the rest are strongly important in some way.)

[Maeloda]

1. Get sourcestone. Used correctly and infused with itself in pure form, it is the essence of creation itself. The trick is making it create what you want.

2. So you get a piece of the original body. So yes, they find skeletons from deceased Kelari (pretty rare imo), Bahmi (somewhat rare), and Eth (probably plenty) during their research while the world was still rather intact (but falling - remember it seemed to have taken 20-years for Telara to fall, even though Meridian seemed to fall rather early).
You infuse it not with, say, shadestone (HELLO undead slave!), but all the pure sourcestone that a faction could ever gather, using the machinery (which they will never explain, so whatever) that can channel the planar energy correctly.

**OR**

This actually sounds like how to resurrect one who is dead, and mortal (not Ascended). It sounds more like how Asha came back.

IMO all they need for an Ascended are:
-a truckload of pure sourcestone (enough for only the Ascended you quest along with in your Terminus starter instance)
-a way to tap into the Soulstream (hello? The world is being devoured by the Plane of Death, so this shouldn't be hard)
-a process that we'll never know all the details of, but trust Sylver, its VERY scientific ;)

So that makes Asha alive, but ...'deathtouched' by the power of Regulos as he tried to make her his own, before she was snatched away. (I wonder if this will be important in the future..)
But it makes YOU a very very very advanced sourcestone construct. Your soul is yours, plucked by the soulstream, but you are also able to attune (like a radio? ha...) yourself to the soulstream, to those powerful heroes of the Blood Storm Wars. Forget about years of training...pfft...we have instant superpowers! (This doesn't mean that say, a paladin in life, brought back as an Ascended, is cheating when she attunes to the Paladin soul - it only means that she bolstered her own power tenfold)

As much as Ascended are beyond death, we are also attuned strongly to Death itself. We will always be connected to the Plane of Death as long as we can soul attune for our powers, which means Regulos is one of the few that can absolutely, completely, and possibly easily destroy an Ascended. He owns us, which makes his dialogue in the River of Souls raid quite worrisome.

[Milyssa]

Thank you both.

Just so I am sure I have understood. They have used one of my bones (maybe a finger or an elbow or whatever the could find) and worked some scientific stuff with the pure sourcestone to create an ascended.

And this could have happend 1) in Terminus - more likely for Eth but not impossible for Kelari or Bahmi or 2) any time in modern Telara but after the defiants returned with the instructions.

So, in short, I can choose for my own story when I lived and when I was resurected.

That was all very helpful. Thank you.

[Maeloda]

Thank you both.

Just so I am sure I have understood. They have used one of my bones (maybe a finger or an elbow or whatever the could find) and worked some scientific stuff with the pure sourcestone to create an ascended.

And this could have happend 1) in Terminus - more likely for Eth but not impossible for Kelari or Bahmi or 2) any time in modern Telara but after the defiants returned with the instructions.

So, in short, I can choose for my own story when I lived and when I was resurected.

That was all very helpful. Thank you.

Well no..

It's not entirely clear.

I THINK they only needed Asha's bones to resurrect her.

But for Ascended, they may not have needed anything from you except your soul from the soulstream.

Frankly, you can make up whatever you want, for the most part. It's not like you're a Guardian which has the restriction of having to be in Mathosia during the fight against Aedraxis.

[Caydin]

But back on-track to the enjoyability of the Factions' lore -- I'm beating a dead horse when I say it's all about attitude for me (both sides have caused pain in the search for a rescued tomorrow). The Guardians never struck me as needlessly domineering. Ignorant at times, yes, plenty -- all in the wrong of course, and the Guardian Ascended learns better than his/her patriots. But I won't abide someone who believes they have the power (not even the right) to rule over someone else, and that's the only impression I was able to get from the technologically-awesome Defiant. They saw allies as single-use advantages, more annoyed by the necessity to save countrymen than delighted at the prospect of returning peace to the land. I'm sorry, am I inconveniencing you with my imperiled family, undying super-soldier?

Basically, it's going to take a lot more than steampunk magic and a shiny robot horse for me to overlook the personality flaws in the Defiant philosophy. I hope to one day at least complete the Defiant lore for myself rather than fill it in with Wikis.

Do you have any examples of this said desire to rule? I never got that vibe. The leaders of the Defiants, Asha and the others, continually stressed that the Defiants needed to build relations with their neighbors. It's a common theme that the Defiants are initially viewed with mistrust, so they work hard to earn the support they need to survive. The Defiants have no desire to rule over Freemarch, Scarlet Gorge or Scarwood Reach, they just don't want miscommunications with the locals to interfere with the job that they need to get done.

The whole point of the Defiant faction is that they are initially very weak. Their number of Ascended is much fewer, canonically, than the Guardians. Their focus is securing their position so that they can ensure their survival.

[Maeloda]

Do you have any examples of this said desire to rule? I never got that vibe. The leaders of the Defiants, Asha and the others, continually stressed that the Defiants needed to build relations with their neighbors. It's a common theme that the Defiants are initially viewed with mistrust, so they work hard to earn the support they need to survive. The Defiants have no desire to rule over Freemarch, Scarlet Gorge or Scarwood Reach, they just don't want miscommunications with the locals to interfere with the job that they need to get done.

The whole point of the Defiant faction is that they are initially very weak. Their number of Ascended is much fewer, canonically, than the Guardians. Their focus is securing their position so that they can ensure their survival.

This is very true.

They have no wish to conquer the Wardens of Freemarch, ever. They're happy to live in co-operation with them, and the Wardens come to recognize the dire situation with the cults, and are therefore more open to the idea of magitech and the Defiant races helping them.

Almost to compare, the Guardians come to *annex* Argent Glade at the end of the Silvermoon quests, making it entirely their own. Not that they'll meet resistance to it, but still.

The Defiants then:
-simply assist Stonefield, though their Titan accident takes some points off
-are the true, 'direct' assistance to Scarlet Gorge and Scarwood, while the Guardians operate encampments instead
-etc

Both factions have the bit of the 'ram' (hello Conquest) in them, but for the most part, the Guardians are still all about protecting the world, and the Defiants are truly about saving it.

And when they thrive, I get nearly no sense that they want to start some new Ethian Empire (with Bahmi and Kelari added). They would leave Freemarch to be Free, Lantern Hook to be its own entity, etc. They would simply start their own land for their own works. Their 'remaking the world' is simply their efforts to utilize magitech in order to actually take the fight to the dragons, cults, and planes - and take the spoils of those efforts, instead of destroy them. A new civilization may come out of this, yes, but a new Ethian Empire, slavery and all? No. Defiant Eth are not ancient Eth, and are about self-determination above all. Except this time, its not just for the 'enlightened Eth', but for anyone who wishes to come to them. Just as Sanctum is there for anyone wishing to be enlightened by the Vigil.

[Maeloda]

Asha - seemingly no desire to actually rule. She's a commanding person though, and placed in her position by majority consideration. Her main focus is only to defeat Regulos, and sometimes this does involve her urging a measure of *co-operation* with the Guardians. Yes Morvick, this happens in this world event questline, and it happened in Port Scion, and I'm sure it'll happen again.

Sylver - He only wants the sourcestone and labs to do his work. He's the perfect example of the Defiant scientist.

Orphiel - He's his own thing though. If anyone wants domination and empire (even secretly), it could be him.

Unseen - None of them are about dominating the world.

Rahn - Nope. He just wants a safe home for his people, not some grand revenge against anyone. The Bahmi even historically are not utter warmongers (though they are warriors), but instead like to foster local communities. In some ways, they even temper the Eth personality.

Mona - She just wants Ember Isle. She got it. She holds contempt for High Elves, I think, but its not like she wants to kill them all, by far.

Yeah.

Like I've said before, the only possible insider danger to the Defiants would be Orphiel. Everything else would sort itself out, at most. The Defiants just want the freedom to do the science they want to do. It's the faction-conflict that this utilization of sourcestone is SO counter to the Guardians' morality, for also good reason.