test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Zorran, the Unknowable One
flyingfinn
Posts: 8,408 Arc User
Is he like actual lore?
Or just some made up?
Or just some made up?
CHAMPIONS ONLINE:Join Date: Apr 2008
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
0
Comments
However, Zorran the Artificer is an official Champions villain, fully written up in Champions Villains Volume Three: Solo Villains. He's an exiled Lemurian, and one of his people's most accomplished practitioners of their unique mechano-mystical sorcery. In Lemuria Zorran discovered a fragment of the Philosopher's Stone, a potent magic talisman which can literally transform anything into anything else. With it he strove to seize the throne of Lemuria, but was defeated and exiled. Zorran hasn't lost his ambition, and aspires to rule first Lemuria, then the world. He seeks to increase his power, most pointedly by finding more of the Philosopher's Stone (he has already found a second piece).
There are two key pieces of information that Zorran is unaware of. One, his Philosopher's Stone is actually a fragment of the Mandragalore, that ancient Lemurian super-weapon. When the Lemurians first attempted to use the Mandragalore against the Empyreans, it malfunctioned and exploded, sinking Lemuria and scattering its fuel core over the Earth. Two, King Arvad of Lemuria secretly monitors Zorran's activities. Arvad knows what the Philosopher's Stone is, but the knowledge of how to make it has been lost. Arvad accepted exile for Zorran rather than death to allow him to gather more of the fuel core, which Arvad will use to restore the Mandragalore's full power.
Thank you. But now I wonder what this "Unknowable One" is that he's supposedly looking for. (I'm not currently playing CO so I'm not up on the latest mission details.)
That costume is supposed to be based on styles common to Lemurian nobility, including the demonic mask.
Although this isn't an official concept, for my own PnP games I paired Zorran with the Atlantean supervillain Stingray. It struck me that they have a lot in common: both from antediluvian civilizations now lying beneath the sea; both scions of their peoples' ruling elite, with aspirations of taking the throne of their homeland; both practitioners of magic. Stingray has considerable prowess in hand-to-hand combat while Zorran is wholly a ranged fighter, so they'd complement each other in battle. Them being man and woman means a potential romantic link as well.
Just please don't let it be another incarnation of Shadow Destroyer.
You just said his name. You know what that means!
"To speak his name is to give him power."
By my estimate everything published in Champions books that has anything to do with the Qliphoth is less than 20% of the lore. And that includes things written after Cryptic bought the IP.
The order moved the prison to the moon in the '60s for safety. They later helped found -and infiltrated- Until to build a moon base around the prison to keep watch.
Now the current story (as scrambled and confusing as it is presented), also spelling is a bit random, sorry:
The Cobra Lords gather technology from around MC guided and helped by Hydrophis a Lemurian that masks himself as a Cobra Lord. Hydrophis provides the Lemurian Magitech weapons to the Cobra Lords to make them more effective.
With the gathered technology Hydrophis manages to teleport to the moon prison and meets there with Graknash (a powerful Lemurian mage) to free an ancient Bleak One imprisoned there, the Unknowable One.
In this arc the players (with Ladyhawke) uselessly try to foils their plans, since they are always a step behind.
Then the confusion starts with the second arc:
Graknash wants the support of the Lemurians to stage a coup for the Lemurian throne. To do so they need to recover ancient Lemurian scriptures that relate the story of ancient Lemuria (which of course are in MC museum and not in Lemuria?!!?). Graknash and his Lemurian allies seek the ancient lore with the help of the Sovereing Sons and Talisman (why?!?)
The players fight against them with the help of Dr.Ka, who tries to solve the mystery of the ancient scriptures and to find the real identiy of Graknash (whom Dr.Ka suspects not to be truly Graknash). In this arc Dr.Ka seems to be a prime target of the assaults by enemies, much more than the players...
Randomly Ladyhawke discovers a family of exiled Lemurians in Vibora Bay who hold information about the Unkowable One and the rest.... We discover the existence of the Order and of the Unkowable One and a bit of their story from one of the safe-houses of the Order in Vibora bay. The house is now empty since Ladyhawke led the minions of Graknash to it. We also discover that Graknash (likely thanks to his link to the Unknowable One) is able to control Carybdis a powerful Bleak One.
Finally, the Third Arc so far (the confusing part is that the second and third parts seem a prequel to the first one not a sequel... unless we are missing some key information):
Graknash is revealed to be Zorran the Artificer by Dr.Ka, but Zorran uses the help of the Unkowable One to gravely wound Dr.Ka and flee.
Ladyhawke and the heroes try to find more clues about the plans of Zorran (i.e. she goes around and the players fight the War on Peace mission without any clue as to why this would help) and end up in a secret library -again in MC- that tells them -not much- more of the story of the Order and of the Unkowable one.
Apparently, Zorran faked to be Graknash to enlist the Lemurians, and the coup to take the throne was a cover-up to find info about the Order and the Unkowable One.
He just needs more knowledge to ??? (control the Unknowable One/free him completely/do something else???)
My Characters
It's not impossible for the Lemurians to have reached the Moon at some point. One of the books mentions an ancient Lemurian facility still in Earth orbit. But they've since lost the knowledge and means to reach space, so using tech instead makes sense.
As you point out, SuperA, what Zorran hopes to accomplish is the biggest question. He's previously displayed no support for either side in the Lemurian civil war, and he's no fan of either the Bleak Ones or King Arvad. The fate of Luther Black has hammered home the Mystic World's consensus that it's impossible for a mortal to control a King of Edom. But Cryptic devs have repeatedly shown themselves to not be overly concerned with lore consistency, or even logic at times.
Also, yeah, more Qliphoth.
The reason Dr. Destroyer does not matter is because he is Tech based and the focus of CO is mostly on magic themed entities and events (Mechanon and Teleios being welcome exceptions).
And aliens, of course. Very little magic among them, aside from the Elder Worm.
Sadly this, speaking of Elder Worms tho, if they focus on Magic it should be as said non Shadow Destroyer related at least. We have as example unused content in the Desert were DEMON seemingly summons Elder Worms there with a Lore Book near. But the place itself is never used for anything like a mission or so.
I simply hope, with Lemurians, now having a focus story wise, that other factions will get such as well from now on. So we can explore each faction more in detail and be more in focus than just something on the sideline.
No worries, it was helpful for me as well to understand the story a bit better.
I always read your nice recaps of Champions Lore, you are a precious source of info!
Anyway, this serial story has indeed a mystical focus, but so far the Qliphotic realm seems to stay out of it. Nevertheless, we know that often, in the end, we finish there. I wish we finished underwater for once with a confrontation in the underwater temple ruins between us and Zorran.
Btw, you are right, we need more enemy supergroups to fight in non-mystical content.
My Characters
Did you at least get more Zorran?
Come the Confrontation in the Rampage, and Zorran still isn't fully ready to go through with his main plan for Lemuria, due to not having full control over the Unknowable one but thinks he does have enough power/control over the Unknowable one to make use of it to get rid of LadyHawke/Dr Ka/The Players. Cue Villain Speech (at least he gets to ham it up a bit).
Dr Ka has predicted this, and has a countermeasure, so when Zorran binds a fragment of the Unknowable One's power (specifically, he call it out as it's aspect as the Primordial Hunger of Predation) into an Avatar to weaponise it, (this being the Giant Intangible Damage reflecting Ghost Shark) The Players are able to counter it using the Magically-charged Mines Dr Ka has emplaced, neutralising that part, at least, of the Unknowable one's power.
Zorran, however, sees where this is going and does one once he realises which way the tide is turning; ergo he can turn up later.
It's not clear whether he still has a handle on the Unknowable one's power, and how much of the Unknowable one's Power was tied up into that Avatar or if it can separate more of itself off, so in Theory, it could be back too.
This may tie into him describing it as a Primordial Force of Predation: to Know something is Hunting you, preying on you, gives it a power over you Psychologically, and in Champions-verse, presumably also Magically, which may be why it's Unknowable - to try and deny it that power of Fear, it was purposefully forgotten.
However, Dr Ka's reverse trap also counters that effect - if you know that the Hunter is about to become the Hunted, it's power is inverted.
As for the Ghost Megaladon Boss, while I agree it was somewhat disappointing after all the Buildup, it's also sort of applicable
as a representation of Predation that's also tied to the Ocean, and certainly Sharks have a psychological presence that makes that appearance somewhat justifiable; it's also something that Cryptic can actually represent reasonably simply on screen, and that can fit with an Underwater combat environment.
So, All told I think it's a bit of a Damp squib, but going more ambitious might have turned out a lot worse.
And they can always create a new, more Gribbly representation for later on if Zorran continues yanking it's chain.
Reminder: Not only he doesn't play CO at all, but doesn't even know who GRAVITAR is
As for ZORRAN, they said during the Kaiju DEV CC that they are planning a last additional content to wrap up his story!
Now that would be either an Alert or additional story mission! We have to wait and see Y E S
You could say, that the series! Jumped the Shark!
If you wanted to make a Megalodon Cosmic or Rampage, make it so, but this is lazy!
What's next? Hyping the next series boss only for it to end on a Rampage while fighting Grond with a Purple aura and a different name? Instead of making Grond into an actual cosmic?
I guess we peaked on Eldritch abomination with Lemurian Invasion's boss design!
If they heavily edited the Megalodon's model instead of slapping a ghost aura and calling it a day, perhaps things would been better!
Use the existing Model as base and take advantage of the Shark's 3D skeleton to create an entire new creature
Absolutely! That boss is far more suited for an "Unknowable One" than a big ghost shark. I think it makes it even worse that we just got done fighting this exact enemy as a cosmic level boss during the April Fools Day flood. And sure, there are people afraid of sharks, but most of that "psychological presence" of fear has faded as we've learned over the years that there are much scarier looking creatures in the deep of the ocean. The could have gotten really creative with this boss, but as jaazaniah and avianos said, they just took the lazy route.
Not only did it stick you in a mobfest start, it heavily based the final boss around vehicles. One could argue the entire rampage itself was originally to sell vehicles, especially since one of the rewards WAS A VEHICLE. Naturally the gameplay suffered and hasn't aged well at all. I'm happy to see it gone, and hope that if it ever does come back, it gets some serious adjustments.
That said, and to get back on topic, I do feel like the boss design was a major cop out, and I wish they had spent more time on it. But frankly, I just hope we get some powerframe reworks soon.
Honestly I don't mind the ghost shark because I have very low standards for these, I'm just happy for any story content (although I really wish the series had stayed just a casual solo thing. Seriously, the Rampage is already dead so I can't finish the series on my alts, and that's only if I could get a War on Peace done which is also dead but slightly easier to recruit people for).
That little oasis, with DEMON just hanging around doing whatever, was one of my favorite discoveries way back when.
But yeah. No story, just some lore discoveries with DEMON goons hanging around. Seems a waste.
I agree.
I hated the vehicle concept that they built the rampage around, but the enemy was there. Rather than build a new rampage around the Megalodon assets, why not build it around the Primordial One assets?
Or if they are going to go this way then why not keep both of the rampages in the game?
Adding a shark demon doesn't have to mean getting rid of the giant seaweed monster.
Just alternate the two, and eventually maybe make even more new rampages that they can alternate with Sky Command, Fire and Ice, and Gravitar.