WILD BAND OF BLADES LORE SPECULATION
Band of blades, page 30: “the cinder king appears: The Cinder King gains a nine-pointed crown of True Fire and emerges in the west. He uses
powerful sorceries to slay a city and build his first army.
page 38: “At the center of Dar is a basalt throne, which once had a ten pointed crown of True Fire flooating above it.”
I have a strange feeling this is not a typo 0_O
maybe he is the tenth point of his crown?
or got Chosen by it?
is there any connection to the “unheard-of nine Chosen” that rose to oppose him?
or maybe there is some connection to the living god?
there is something fishy with the number nine in this setting.from Render’s handout – “The Living God of the Zemyati ages ago created nine Chosen, and unlike the Chosen of other gods they’ve never burnt out or faded, only dying when called to their task.” maybe the cinder king is the tenth chosen of the living god?
from Zora’s handout:”Zora, however, did not end. She broke Dar long ago, and ended the Godwar using some terrifying magic”. so, maybe the Cinder king is a Darian, chosen by the living god and fucking hate him now because of the whole cataclysm thing?
if the campaign we have in YouTube is a sort of Word of God source, the Cinder King have something personal against some forest. but it was the cursed forest of the weird forest folks, not the Zemyati’s place with the weird-ancestral-blood-ritual-trees, so maybe it’s a point against the living god chosen theory. maybe he just hate trees.
anyway, feel free to post wild speculation 🙂
It was not a typo ^_~
Zora also wields a fiery circlet above, and that combined with all the other Dar shenanigans you pointed out lead me to a similar conclusion of her having some connection to the Cinder King. She also wields terrible sorceries that can strike at the god within the chosen. There’s so much going on with her that I’m wondering if it’s a bit of a misdirect…
I definitely assumed that the Cinder King is somehow a result of Zora breaking Dar. But I suspect we’ll never get any more on the subject than we already have. There is the skeleton of a story here with blanks left for us to fill and find out during play.
If you ask single yes or no questions on lore I will answer them ^_~ But I won’t comment on wild speculation. Mark is right though, that there will never be a tie-in novel and 300 page history.
Stras Acimovic Is the Cinder King the result of Zora’s actions (directly or indirectly) when she broke Dar?
Is the use of the word “broke” in the description of what she did to Dar related to how the Cinder King breaks chosen?
Does Dar have one or more patron gods? Will you tell us who they are?
Yes.
No.
I can’t answer the last two because to say “no” to the first question is to mislead, and the second question is cheating (it leads to a non-yes-or-no response) ^_~
Stras Acimovic did Dar previously have a patron god?
Is the breaking of Dar related to the cataclysm and curse in any way?
Duan—this is an excellent question, but it’s hard to answer clearly because of the phrases ‘patron’ and ‘god’. I’m going to say No but it’s complex (it’s not like the twins for Aldermark).
Yes.
Hm. I’ll have to formulate a proper yes and no question in that case!
In the meantime… If Zora succeeds in killing the Cinder King, will CK be “Chosen” and return in a new Dar body? If she succeeds, will she finally burn out?
And a mechanics question: is the specialist clock useful for anyone besides rookies/soldiers? I didn’t think so but now I’m wondering why all of the special actions (including weave) are listed when you’d only ever be able to get two of them at most?
Duan Bailey I assumed that anyone could learn any specialist action by filling up the clock. But also you need to fill that clock to increase the rating of your own specialist action.
Man Duan you’re dancing all around some very interesting points. ^_^
When you say “killing” be precise, what precisely do you mean? And what do you mean by succeeds?
And to answer the mechanics question – yes, a Heavy can pick up grit. Or a medic some channels to help equip their squad up. If someone get’s an artifact that uses weave they may want a few points. If you don’t find the other skills useful you don’t have to grab any of them.
And Mark: your skill is raised through insight, the only real difference being that you can get it up via some desperate rolls.
I don’t know why I didn’t pick up the obvious… I knew that you could get an artifact and that it uses weave but for some reason I just figured you’d always suck at it. Your guys way makes more sense.
You’re right Stras Acimovic, I actually meant two different things there. For “killing” in the first instance, I meant if Zora destroyed CK’s body, without “breaking” him/reaching out into the divinity insde.
For the second, I was wondering if Zora would complete her assigned task if she is able to utterly destroy CK the way she broke Dar the first time (but now I realize that it’s an assumption that would even work).
Um… would breaking CK like she broke Dar work?
Lastly, it seems the Living God Chooses multiple people at a time. Is this true of any other god?
1. Maybe. It’s not a clear ‘Yes’, because clearly there’s more to the Cinder King, and the future is not written. But it is theoretically possible.
2. You have assumptions here, not all of which work with each other. So this is not yes or no.
3. No.