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Kings of Edom

Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
edited October 2010 in Champions Pen and Paper RPG
Okay, lets have chat about the kings.

I was reading one book, I think Arcane Adversaries and it mentioned a number of the Kings of Edom. So I put these on the wiki. It also mentions that DEMON also serves the Kings of Edom, so I figured these were the same.

It mentions Vulshoth, Deizzhorath and a few others. They all look a little different, Vulshoth has 5 eyes and a beak, one is in the center of a planet, one kinda looks like spaghetti. So the point being that none of the resemble humans.

So when I ran through Demonflame, I said to Thundrax and Loganius, how do we know which avatar is which.

But then I was doing a little more reading and I realized, on top of the weird guys there are also those 5 kings that are trapped in the Cannibal Hall. The lore on the wiki hadn't made sense up until now.

The 5 avatars (in Demonflame AP) are of the ones trapped in the hall and the lore says that before each king is the left arm of the one who sits besides him and in the right hand holds a rusty knife. So I am assuming in some fashion they have arms which leads me to believe they have human form.

So, does that mean that the kings in Cannibal hall are human like? If they are human in appearance, why the decision to go that way and not make them things? If they aren't human and are actually supposed to be things, why do we have this and this?
Post edited by Archived Post on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    I thought we only ever saw the Avatars with those names, and never saw hide nor hair of the Kings of Edom at all, ever? In the cutscene at the end of Demonflame, the creatures that look like those pictures were the Avatars talking about "stealing our Masters' powers" and such, right?

    Did I misunderstand something about it or what you were saying? As far as I understand, it seems the Avatars could be humanoid for Kings of Edom who look like anything, and I'm not sure if the context of that left hand/right hand stuff is metaphorical or not.

    From a practical standpoint, humanoid things or domed brains on platforms are probably easier than what would be required...but it did occur to me that mosaic or crude sort of stylistic representations of the associated Kings of Edom would have been interesting to have in the final rooms of each tower and the Edomite Tower in some form, if possible.

    ...

    While I'm discussing it, the cut-scene is odd in that it doesn't pan to show the guys on the "announcing Avatar's" "left", which should probably change...not sure what's up with that...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Aye, they're the avatars instead of the actual Kings. Would have been nice to have representations of the actual Kings in the final rooms, though since they're actually prisons instead of temples; it might not make too much sense in the overall story.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Well if you go by the description in cannibal hall, they have at least two arms and given sexes. So I guess was the intent for these 5 to be human like, at least in the pnp? if they weren't why go the route of having the avatars look human? Cryptic could have easily have done "things", right?

    Oh, I guess there are two females, the queen and the muse.

    In theory, those are their avatars, so wouldn't they themselves chosen those forms?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Lohr wrote:
    Well if you go by the description in cannibal hall, they have at least two arms and given sexes. So I guess was the intent for these 5 to be human like, at least in the pnp? if they weren't why go the route of having the avatars look human? Cryptic could have easily have done "things", right?

    Oh, I guess there are two females, the queen and the muse.

    In theory, those are their avatars, so wouldn't they themselves chosen those forms?

    I'm of the opinion that the lore about Cannibal hall is symbolic in nature, explained as best as a man going insane could.

    Any other representations of the Kings of Edom as humanoid are avatars of them, rendered into a format that a human mind can conceive of without being blasted into insanity trying to encompass a view of a fifth dimensional creature.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Oh yeah, crap! I just read it again (been a while). Yeah, it's symbolic. It means that the 5 Kings prison is that they are constantly dependant to each other to recieve their own individual sustanance. The reference about the left/right arm is refering to a "symbolic" table setting and not their individual features.

    i.e. fork on the left, knife to the right, etc.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Rune wrote:

    I'm of the opinion that the lore about Cannibal hall is symbolic in nature, explained as best as a man going insane could.

    Any other representations of the Kings of Edom as humanoid are avatars of them, rendered into a format that a human mind can conceive of without being blasted into insanity trying to encompass a view of a fifth dimensional creature.

    I totally agree.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Rune wrote:

    I'm of the opinion that the lore about Cannibal hall is symbolic in nature, explained as best as a man going insane could.

    Any other representations of the Kings of Edom as humanoid are avatars of them, rendered into a format that a human mind can conceive of without being blasted into insanity trying to encompass a view of a fifth dimensional creature.

    Which makes sense. Though I wonder why the other kings have descriptions the these 5 are lacking. I kinda wanna know if the art guys at cryptic talked to Steve before they decided what to make.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Lohr wrote:
    Which makes sense. Though I wonder why the other kings have descriptions the these 5 are lacking. I kinda wanna know if the art guys at cryptic talked to Steve before they decided what to make.

    Even better, I just realized that the description is an allegory of a pentegram. :)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Is it just me but isn't there a Queen of Edom? In fact I know this from seeing the preview of the kings from the adventure pack? So, why are they not called the 6 Kings and 1 Queen of Edom. :rolleyes:
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    wrote:
    Is it just me but isn't there a Queen of Edom? In fact I know this from seeing the preview of the kings from the adventure pack? So, why are they not called the 6 Kings and 1 Queen of Edom. :rolleyes:
    Don't worry, thats the first thing I said when i saw the demonflame press release ;)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Lohr wrote:
    Well if you go by the description in cannibal hall, they have at least two arms and given sexes. So I guess was the intent for these 5 to be human like, at least in the pnp? if they weren't why go the route of having the avatars look human? Cryptic could have easily have done "things", right?

    Oh, I guess there are two females, the queen and the muse.

    In theory, those are their avatars, so wouldn't they themselves chosen those forms?

    Either way, I'm sure that the Kings of Edom are quite powerful enough to appear as whatever they want. It could very well be that the hall they're trapped in is totally symbollic, or that they're forced into human forms as part of their punishment - spend your entire existence trying to enslave/torment/destroy humanity, (among other creatures/worlds), be stuck in that form for all eternity!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Is it just me but isn't there a Queen of Edom? In fact I know this from seeing the preview of the kings from the adventure pack? So, why are they not called the 6 Kings and 1 Queen of Edom. :rolleyes:

    Honest question? Are you bad at math? Cause there were 5 total pictured in the preview. 1 Female and 4 male makes 5, not 7. There are 5 kings/queen in Cannibal Hall, those that relate to Demon and Luther Black.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Lohr wrote:
    I kinda wanna know if the art guys at cryptic talked to Steve before they decided what to make.

    I don't know if that's a concern of theirs. The Gadroon are pretty much a point of history in the PnP, but they are an entire villain group in CO. Cryptic owns the IP and nobody reads, so who will notice? We won't.

    Just run with it. It's the best we are going to get....If you can justify it by thinking of the Kings in-game as the real Kings' avatars, go with it.

    I don't mean to be mean, but hey.....
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    I kinda wanna know if the art guys at cryptic talked to Steve before they decided what to make.

    No, they generally don't. I'm more likely to be asked questions about characters' abilities and backgrounds (e.g., "We need an X that does Y, is there anyone like that?" or "Are there any psychic vampire villains?") than about their appearance. As the game was being developed I did get a lot of "sneak peeks" at what everyone was going to look like, though. ;)
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    HeroSteve wrote:
    No, they generally don't. I'm more likely to be asked questions about characters' abilities and backgrounds (e.g., "We need an X that does Y, is there anyone like that?" or "Are there any psychic vampire villains?") than about their appearance. As the game was being developed I did get a lot of "sneak peeks" at what everyone was going to look like, though. ;)

    How did you envision the Kings in Cannibal Hall?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    I don't know if that's a concern of theirs. The Gadroon are pretty much a point of history in the PnP, but they are an entire villain group in CO. Cryptic owns the IP and nobody reads, so who will notice? We won't.

    Just run with it. It's the best we are going to get....If you can justify it by thinking of the Kings in-game as the real Kings' avatars, go with it.

    I don't mean to be mean, but hey.....

    Apparently I fail because no one seems to understand what I am trying to ask. Cryptic does whatever it wants to do with the characters, I get that.

    I'm not asking for justicification, I want to know from the PnP side how they envisioned the kings in Cannibal Hall. Cryptic made the avatars human-like, i don't care about that. I want to know what was the idea of the PnP.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Lohr wrote:
    Apparently I fail because no one seems to understand what I am trying to ask. Cryptic does whatever it wants to do with the characters, I get that.

    I'm not asking for justicification, I want to know from the PnP side how they envisioned the kings in Cannibal Hall. Cryptic made the avatars human-like, i don't care about that. I want to know what was the idea of the PnP.

    I believe anything representing the Great Old Ones.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Old_One

    EDIT: I didn't see Steve replied, he could correct me.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    How did you envision the Kings in Cannibal Hall?

    I can't say for certain -- I haven't had a chance to log in and see them, so I don't know if Cryptic's using one of the half-dozen or so that have been named and described in books, or making up their own.

    For the most part, though, I don't really "envision" them too much. Most of them are so odd by humanity's standards that thinking about them should make your head hurt. ;) Some of them have even been described in terms that are basically impossible to illustrate, much to our artists' annoyance.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    HeroSteve wrote:
    I can't say for certain -- I haven't had a chance to log in and see them, so I don't know if Cryptic's using one of the half-dozen or so that have been named and described in books, or making up their own.

    For the most part, though, I don't really "envision" them too much. Most of them are so odd by humanity's standards that thinking about them should make your head hurt. ;) Some of them have even been described in terms that are basically impossible to illustrate, much to our artists' annoyance.

    for some reason the thought of your frustrated artists struck me as funny. i can hear them now:

    "for gods sake, be LESS creative!"
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    On an interesting note...in canada there is a mish where you receive a crystal spider symbol. This (in arcane adversaries) is listed as one of the great foes of the kings of edom. And (like the elder sign in lovecraft) could hold a king at bay or banish him with the proper ritual.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    On an interesting note...in canada there is a mish where you receive a crystal spider symbol. This (in arcane adversaries) is listed as one of the great foes of the kings of edom. And (like the elder sign in lovecraft) could hold a king at bay or banish him with the proper ritual.

    Hmm...that's pretty neat, especially as I think there are following missions related to that artifact as well (the West Side buyer mission and a Lemuria/MI mission later...there might be one in between I'm forgetting too?).
  • Archived PostArchived Post Posts: 1,156,071 Arc User
    edited October 2010
    Aye thats the one.....its unlikely..but it would be interesting if that item granted some ability against the creatures of the qliphothic realm :P
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