Revelations from Patch 4.5

[Brightamethyst]

How exactly are the 13 shards linked? Like, the Warriors of Darkness came to our world (The Source) in order to usher in a calamity of darkness, in order to counteract the calamity of light happening on their world (The First). This then proposes that these 2 worlds are linked in some way, or that 2 worlds can be linked together by some action.

Since, one would think, that if one of the things is that several of the worlds have been engulfed by darkness or light, surely if they were linked in some way, or COULD be linked, then some of the worlds would counterbalance each other? Like a world engulfed by darkness being linked to a world engulfed by light, that would essentially fix them right? By the same premise that the WoD's were trying to cause a flood of darkness in our world to combat their world being flooded by light?

I mean, unless everything happened to be extremely coincidental? So that all the worlds flooded by darkness were linked and all the worlds flooded by light were linked. With our world happening to be linked to the first...

It's possible that the shards are all linked to the Source but not to each other.

Also, if a flood of light/darkness on a world can influence another world (See: The WoD's motives for causing a flood of darkness on our world), would that not mean that this influence can happen even when there isn't currently a flood happening on both worlds?

We don't actually know if that's true. We only have the word of the ascians on that, which casts doubt on everything.

This post now has ten words instead of ten characters.

[ObsidianFire]

None of these are spoilers, so I'm not going to bother with the boxes.

The Flood of Darkness on the 13th Shard influenced the Source by introducing Voidsent to the realm. Which has created issues for mages in general. Those creatures love to feast on Aether and our world has plenty of Aether to go around. Given the differences between a Dark Void (Life, but no Aether) and a Light Void (Aether, but no Life), it's quite probably a Flood of Light would have some kind of effect on the Source. Only since that wouldn't be the introduction of some new kind of life, it would probably be the introduction of some kind of aether.

Floods of Light/Darkness are not caused by an imbalance between Dark and Light. The 1st Shard has always had more Light in it then Darkness just as the 13th Shard always had more Darkness in it then Light. That goes for the rest of the Shards (and the Source) as well. Their balance between Light and Dark is never even. What does cause a Flood of Light/Darkness is a sudden shift between Dark and Light. From the sound of it, Dark and Light are always fluctuating somewhat, but that fluctuation is rather slow. So long as it remains slow, that's fine. On the 13th Shard, Igorym caused Darkness to gain power too quickly. The same thing happened on the 1st when the WoD killed their Ascian Overlord. That might (emphasis on might) be happening with us too. It's not that we are winning that is the problem. The problem is more that we are winning too quickly. And then on top of that, Solus seems to be wanting to mess with even more Light...

In an ideal world, the Shards and the Source wouldn't be connected at all. As it stands, it doesn't look like how the Shards and the Source are connected is that important. It looks like there an "In-between Space" that the Ascians hang out in that simply isn't a Shard or a Source. And that "In-between Space" can't be accessed unless you have the Echo and have given up your body. The Source is the Source because it's what all the other Shards originally came from. And go back to when the walls between a Shard and the Source are broken...

[YianKutku]

Floods of Light/Darkness are not caused by an imbalance between Dark and Light. The 1st Shard has always had more Light in it then Darkness just as the 13th Shard always had more Darkness in it then Light. That goes for the rest of the Shards (and the Source) as well. Their balance between Light and Dark is never even. What does cause a Flood of Light/Darkness is a sudden shift between Dark and Light. From the sound of it, Dark and Light are always fluctuating somewhat, but that fluctuation is rather slow. So long as it remains slow, that's fine. On the 13th Shard, Igorym caused Darkness to gain power too quickly. The same thing happened on the 1st when the WoD killed their Ascian Overlord. That might (emphasis on might) be happening with us too. It's not that we are winning that is the problem. The problem is more that we are winning too quickly. And then on top of that, Solus seems to be wanting to mess with even more Light...

I mean, we as the WoL killed Nabriales (who was of another Shard) and Igeyorhm (who was of the defunct Thirteenth). If anyone could be blamed for potentially causing a shift in the amount of Light and Dark due to "winning too much too quickly", presumably it would be the one who actually killed the Ascian Overlord of the Source, Lahabrea. In other words, Thordan.

And Thordan could kill Lahabrea because Lahabrea was overconfident about his rudimentary plans, so it could be said his death was his own fault.

Clearly Ascians ruin everything, including themselves.

[Tinibou]

I really like this part of the lore and story about the Shards and all. I'd love that in the next expansion we'd visit the other Shards !
After all, what will be the whole purpose of the story of Shadowbringers ? Sure we may end the war with Garlemald but what about the Ascians and the part around the Shards and the balance between Light and Dark ?

I think the story with Garlemald will end with the expansion itself while the rest of the story will come to an end with the following patches.

[CaesarCV]

None of these are spoilers, so I'm not going to bother with the boxes.

The Flood of Darkness on the 13th Shard influenced the Source by introducing Voidsent to the realm. Which has created issues for mages in general. Those creatures love to feast on Aether and our world has plenty of Aether to go around. Given the differences between a Dark Void (Life, but no Aether) and a Light Void (Aether, but no Life), it's quite probably a Flood of Light would have some kind of effect on the Source. Only since that wouldn't be the introduction of some new kind of life, it would probably be the introduction of some kind of aether.

There's been some misinformation in this thread on a few points that I might want to clarify. First off, Igeorythm did not introduce the voidsent to the shard. What she did was introduce some sort of substance similar to Auracite that caused a horrific succession of wars and the like that eventually lead to the dangerous imbalance of dark and light that caused the flood. The mystical substance caused people to gain great power, but also slowly change and mutate into strange monsters. Voidsent such as Cu Chullain are said to have been former grand heroes who are but mutated mockeries of their former selves. The Voidsent that inhabit the former shard now known as the void were originally its mortal inhabitants. Over time through a mixture of this strange substance and some other factors they were mutated into the aether hungry creatures that now plague the source and (quite possibly) other realms.

Additionally, if I remember correctly the plan for Arbert was most definitely not to cause a Flood of Light or Darkness on the Prime. That would probably mean the destruction of all worlds. Their goal was to either try and mess with the balance through the Shard to reduce the Light on their home shard, or, failing that, cause a rejoining. Compared to the absolute lack of existence that would come with a Flood of Light, having their shard absorbed into the prime and the aether brought to the Lifestream seemed a better alternative. Granted, they were manipulated by Elidibus into going through with this plan, so it is very likely they were misled or wrong about certain aspects. Indeed, the closes thing to salvation for their shard came not through their brute force methods, but through a hopeful appeal to Hydelyn who sacrificed her avatar to try and protect the First Shard. Granted...that might not be working out too hot...

[Daralii]

I mean, we as the WoL killed Nabriales (who was of another Shard) and Igeyorhm (who was of the defunct Thirteenth). If anyone could be blamed for potentially causing a shift in the amount of Light and Dark due to "winning too much too quickly", presumably it would be the one who actually killed the Ascian Overlord of the Source, Lahabrea. In other words, Thordan.

And Thordan could kill Lahabrea because Lahabrea was overconfident about his rudimentary plans, so it could be said his death was his own fault.

Clearly Ascians ruin everything, including themselves.

That would certainly explain why Thordan's final view of the WoL was engulfed in darkness.

[Bright-Flower]

I mean, we as the WoL killed Nabriales (who was of another Shard) and Igeyorhm (who was of the defunct Thirteenth). If anyone could be blamed for potentially causing a shift in the amount of Light and Dark due to "winning too much too quickly", presumably it would be the one who actually killed the Ascian Overlord of the Source, Lahabrea. In other words, Thordan.

And Thordan could kill Lahabrea because Lahabrea was overconfident about his rudimentary plans, so it could be said his death was his own fault.

Clearly Ascians ruin everything, including themselves.

To be fair, Lahabrea was also weakened by losing the fight to us before Thordan walked in...though I doubt that he could have taken on primal Thordan on his own anyway in a direct fight. My main question is why the two of them didn't use their portal away powers. I mean we'd already killed one Ascian. They knew we had a method, were they too tired after losing the fight or something?

[Cilia]

To be fair, Lahabrea was also weakened by losing the fight to us before Thordan walked in...though I doubt that he could have taken on primal Thordan on his own anyway in a direct fight. My main question is why the two of them didn't use their portal away powers. I mean we'd already killed one Ascian. They knew we had a method, were they too tired after losing the fight or something?

Igeyorhm attempts to use her Dark Crystal to flee following our battle with the Ascian Prime. Key word here is attempts - she manifests it, but before she's able to escape the Warrior of Light throws the White Auracite at her and then blasts it with Nidhogg's Eye.

As for Lahabrea... well, following Igeyorhm's death he's too arrogant to flee. We'd spent the Eye's power and had no more White Auracite to capture him in, so at that point he believed that no matter what we did he'd be able to get away. Again, he's extremely arrogant - Archbishop Thordan using the powers he'd granted him against the Ascians wasn't something he'd considered, so he was too shocked and incredulous to even try running away.

[Zohar_Lahar]

I'm really surprised no one apparently tried using the power of primals/eikons on Ascian overlords before Thordan. With his personality, you'd think Lahabrea would've had many attempts on his lifeforce in the past ages.

[Brightamethyst]

I'm really surprised no one apparently tried using the power of primals/eikons on Ascian overlords before Thordan. With his personality, you'd think Lahabrea would've had many attempts on his lifeforce in the past ages.

Maybe they did try and it just didn't work. Remember, Thordan also had the eye so it wasn't a standard summoning.