Destiny Lore Thread

Mainly because I imagine there are places where Transmat won't work or work properly and shit's heavy so you use this all terrain vehicle to move the shit to spots where your ship can transmat it into it's cargo hold and you go back and get more of it.

Just a though. I imagine it goes without saying but they never did say what happened to the Hive on Earth. I imagine a majority of them were Crota's ilk so after the MC Guardian's fireteam got done fucking Crota with his own sword it must have been mostly clean up duty to clear the Cosmodrome of the Hive infestation there so now all we have to deal with are Taken.

Then again, it's also possible that Oryx "took" Crota's brood and they became the bulk of the Taken army along with the Cabal and Fallen.

I find the factions as a whole interesting in that they seem like the lighter mirror images of the non-vex enemies: Dead Orbit is analogous to the Fallen in that they have the nomadic raider schtick, the Future War Cult is like what the Hive would be if the Hive weren't completely disgusting, and the New Monarchy just needs either an albino with a warboner or a big guy who likes dogs and wine (and maybe a superweapon or five) to be the Cabal.

The entity that first really interested me, and continues to do so, is Rasputin. I'm really looking forward to that second DLC.

Isn't the Reef the home of all Awoken? Or did some humans "Awake" on Earth separate from those of the Reef?

I do know that the Queen called to those Awoken Guardians of Earth to follow their Queen, but her call was never answered. Not by a single one.

Allow Guardians to take potshots from Sparrows with Hand Cannons/Sidearms. Happens in at least one cutscene. Maybe also throw grenades and use melee powers if the sidle up alongside and enemy.

Again, if the Guardians need to bring the pain, they should have opportunity to dismount. But Sparrow fights should be fights that run fast and light, trying to keep from crashing while trying to take a shot at your opponents. Plus a good deal of outmaneuvering. Basically 2D dogfighting.

I'm wary of Palladium books, but dipping into RIFTS, I'm actually seeing the potential for it to pan out into a good system in which to base a Destiny game.

...

Who wrote the grimoire?

Seth Dickinson

>tfw you will never see a ghost discover Sangunius’ corpse

Spotted the intolerant heterophobe. Don't hate the awoken because they're so straight, you fucking queer.

Seth Dicks his son

Desu I think I'm making good progress on the wargame.

You think? What's the basics you have right now?

And does it involve d12s? I do like those dice and they work for theme because engrams are the same shape.

>You think?
Yes. Core mechanics are done, although still need to define how Guardians gain and use Light.
>What's the basics you have right now?
Movement, shooting.
>And does it involve d12s? I do like those dice and they work for theme because engrams are the same shape.
Yes, using D12s right now. Have found them to be good for the naval wargames I've played, so I'm using them here too. At least for no.

The idea of that glorious resurrection gives me powerful wood.

What the heck is Ether and why do the Fallen need it?

It's artificial light. They became dependent on the Traveler.

Take from that what you will.

Let them build up light over time for use of big skills. If they kill something with that skill it can produce motes of light that can be spread out among the guardians available to either contribute towards their big skill or regenerate a minor skill (grenades, class specific abilities).

For the sake of fairness this should all draw from the same pool so you have to decide if you want to pop Sentinel shield or drop a baracade

I don't recall what it is sepcifically but it's how the Fallen grow in size and strenght. You'll notice Dregs have only two arms while Vandels and up have 4. they are given just enough ether to keep them that size and their lower arms are docked until they earned the right to advanced.

Big dosses of Ether leads to big fuckers like Captains, Barons, Archons, and Kells

artificial light, as in artificial magic?

Something of the sort.

that sounds ridiculous, there is no such thing as knock off energy

Each faction could have powers they could use, like calling in reinforcements or using abilities. Could be it's capped every turn and you only have, say 3 Energy to choose from to deploy abilities. Guardians don't need a 1:1 for Light powers like the videogame, it just needs to work well on the tabletop to make a fair fight and generally represent what's happening with the team.

Anyway, it sounds neat from what you have. I want to see this come to fruition.

If you're comparing it to electricity or just general energy. But each faction has its own powers and abilities that are a manifestation of the philosophies that they champion.

So, in a sense, Light isn' electricity but a philosophy. And you can have knock off philosophy. The Fallen have lost theirs, the Traveller and the Light, so they have to make due with a shadow of what they once were champions of.

It's magic I ain't got to explain shit.jpg.

I see what was done there Oh Bearer of Mine.

>motes of light
It's been so long since I played I forgot that's how they were made. Will incorporate.
>Each faction could have powers they could use, like calling in reinforcements or using abilities. Could be it's capped every turn and you only have, say 3 Energy to choose from to deploy abilities.
Interesting. I'll consider it.
>Guardians don't need a 1:1 for Light powers like the videogame, it just needs to work well on the tabletop to make a fair fight and generally represent what's happening with the team.
Yeah, that's what I'm aiming for.
>Anyway, it sounds neat from what you have. I want to see this come to fruition.
Thanks for the encouragement user, I hope I don't disappoint.

...

Some killer heels on that Warlock. I guess Vex infection turns you into a fashion diva

because those boards are cancer and never bother to talk about lore of things anyways.

I think Future War Cult is the Vex, user.

Always training for the coming threats, trying to learn everything possible to make themselves the best guardians. That's exactly what the Vex do, always trying learn and gain information to be the perfect machine race

Well the Future War Cult was born from Vex tech wasn't it? Like they looked into a vex future machine and saw a lot of bad shit and were able to predict the red war and stuff and now want more future visions so they can spot problems ahead of time.

Of course they're also a literal cult - if you hang around their representative he starts talking about how "of course we'll help [refugees], convert them, but only the best will we induct into the mysteries"

Is there a connection between the D2 Leviathan and the Books of Sorrow Leviathan?

Different beasts entirely. One's a creature, and the other is a space ship/city.

Yeah, one of the founding members/founders of the order that precedes it was also one of the researchers that got caught in a vex simulation.

So tell me about the Fallen.
Who are they?
Are they evil?
Who do they serve?
Do they serve the Darkness?
Can they be reasoned with?
Is it possilbe for them to become guardians and such?

The Fallen were a race uplifted by the Traveler the same way it uplifted others, including humanity.

They referred to the Traveller as the Great Machine because they worship machines (because Servitors produce Ether which they need to survive).

However, it's implied that when the Traveler left the Hive attacked them in an event known as the Whirlwind and the Fallen not only lost their homeworld but their cultural identity as well and were forced to become scavengers and pirates.

They arn't captial E evil but they certain have no qualms about killing anything and anyone to survive and they despise humanity because they have the Great Machine.

However, over time and fighting with the guardians and other forces their leadership was devestated until they eventually merged into a single house we see them as now.

So no. They are not minions of the Darkness and Guardians is something unique only to humans because the Traveler decided to stand and fight and created the ghosts then to raise humans and not anyone else.

So tell me about the Fallen.
>Who are they?

A race who were chosen by the Traveler before the Darkness attacked them and the Traveler left them to their fate. This is known as the Whirlwind. Now they are a scavenger race stuck in the Solar System.

>Are they evil?

They're trying to survive in a universe with gods and aliens with advanced technology. The Hive have magic, Cabal have super technology, Taken have the Worm Gods, Vex have other dimensions and timelines, Guardians have the Traveler, but Fallen have none of these. Only each other. They aren't exactly evil but more pragmatic.

>Who do they serve?

Machines known as Servitors that give them Ether which they need to survive. They are split into Houses buy as of Destiny 2, they seem to have merged into 1 House. Each House is lead by a Kell and a High Servitor. The Kell makes general decisions while the High Servitor spawns Servitors. The High Servitor is protected by an Archon.

>Do they serve the Darkness?

Only if they are Taken. Generally the Fallen are thought to be nothing more then scavengers who want the Traveler to comeback to them and view humanity as Traveler thieves. Incidentally, Traveler thief is a massive insult in Fallen culture.

>Can they be reasoned with?

Seen in Destiny 2, a Fallen Captain will give you what you're looking for in Titan if you assist him in taking down a Hive Knight. The only reason Fallen and Humans won't team up regularly is due to the bad blood between them after years of constant raiding and warfare.

>Is it possilbe for them to become guardians and such?

Unknown since the only time the Traveler decided to stand and fight was with humanity, something the Fallen also hated.

>Who are they?
What humanity would be if the Traveller hadn't stuck around.
>Are they evil?
Kinda, but not in a metaphysical way. They're just assholes.
>Who do they serve?
Themselves
>Do they serve the Darkness?
No, not intentionally though by accident they tend to.
>Can they be reasoned with?
Yes.
>Is it possilbe for them to become guardians and such?
No. Ghosts, and guardians by extension, were all made at the same time. The Fallen weren't included in that.

If one were to run a destiny campaign with the players as guardians, (supposing there's even a system that could run it) how would you challenge players where death is not a deterrent?

Interesting, what about House of Wolves who served Mara Sov?
Also what house did they all merge into?

Fates worse then death like Hive trying to nom you, Vex trying to convert you, Fallen and Cabal gunning for your Ghost, and Red Legion trying to destroy your loot.

Many foes in the Destiny universe exert a darkness around them that prevents ease of resurrection. Also, lots of enemies in Destiny know about ghosts, and know that they can kill ghosts.

Well they merged into the House of Kings, but the Kings ditched their yellow colors and symbol for the purple and new symbol. This is because Mara Sov's brother is leading them now. The Wolves got broken free from their control back in House of Wolves DLC, we curtailed them by hunting down their leaders and either killing or capturing them.

Wait Maras brother is now leading them? And they are still enemies? How did he even do that? And shouldn't he lead the Reef right now or is Mara back?

After Oryx scattered the Awoken fleets, they went dark. Mara Sov and her Witches disappeared and the Crow (her brother and prince) got sent spinning out of control onto Mars. From there he met with the House of Kings who captured him and brought him to the Kell of Kings, who bowed to him and made him Kell. After that it's unsure, but Destiny 2 says that the fallen all packed up their banners and put aside their grudges, ghost mentions that all their call signs incorporate the House of Kings data and some other hints. Its unclear why he's decided to do this, but I have an inkling that he fears Variks, who became the Spymaster in the Crow's absence. His house symbol, of which he is the only one, Judgment, is placed in open places as if in a manner of "threat".

I might work in a "Light" stat that works like hollowing. The more you die, the more you lose light. Of course, visiting the Tower/being in close proximity to the Traveller, winning victories, resting in refuges, whatever, can help players restore it.

In the overworld, resurrection should be no big deal, but where things start getting bad, it gets harder and harder because Light starts draining as you get deeper and deeper. And enemies starting pulling out fates worse than death like and . So playing in the overworld is rather low-stakes, and Light probably regenerates at a good pace up there, but when you start delving into dangerous places, things get serious.

As an addendum to this post, the Fallen were once chosen by the Traveler, which might explain whatever kind of deal or plan Mara's brother might have with the Kings.

Crota straight up ate people's light and his sword devoured ghosts when he hit guardians with it. Big deal enemies should not be something to mess around with.

Basically they look like tyranid genestealers but they're the most comprehensible and reasonabe aliens in the setting - though how "nice" they were used to depend on which house (and thus, which giant space ship) a fallen belonged to - house of judgement ran a fighting pit/prison under the city at one point, house of wolves used to work for the queen in the reef, house of devils was inevitable and house of kings didn't even like other fallen that much.

The bit where they become weird aliens is that they worship giant eyeball machines who may or may not be the ones really running things, and even the fallen don't really know because the kells and acolytes call the shots, but they're also interceding between the fallen and the giant eyeball machines.

The other weird thing is that they rely on a substance called "ether" to survive, and not just survive - the justification for acolytes, kells and some captains being about 12 feet tall is that they've gotten more ether so ether might just be a really addictive growth hormone.

It is thus possible that the traveller does not share her light with them because Winners Don't Do Drugs.

Where did I say big enemies should be no big deal? Throw in light-draining effects for the toughest bosses, and they get even worse to face because the whole party could wipe, with no one to resurrect each other.

Of course, player death and party wipes are fine in the videogame, because you can restart the raid until you give up or decide to try something else. In an RPG, it necessitates making a new character. So if you want the system to cover that, you'd have to make character creation more streamlined.

Oh, no I wasn't saying that you weren't gonna make them a big deal, just pointing out that there are ways to deny people "free rez"

>The other weird thing is that they rely on a substance called "ether" to survive, and not just survive - the justification for acolytes, kells and some captains being about 12 feet tall is that they've gotten more ether so ether might just be a really addictive growth hormone.

The way I interpreted it is that Captains are actually the natural size for fallen, but everyone else is stunted because they don't get enough ether. The same way people who are chronically malnourished are shorter than those with good diets.

Well, yeah. Team members would be the ones reviving downed squadmates when things get dark, but they might have to use Light to do so. Something that illustrates how narrative teams have wiped, and how Guardians have died before.

>Shaxx's redjacks are constantly being updated with their predecessor's deaths, making them constantly improving AI death machines

Worried laughter

Who, or what, is Nezarec? How does he predate the Golden Age? I thought widespread use/understanding of space magic was a post collapse thing?

actually what happened to all the shit the house of judgement had locked up below the city when the cabal took over?

death isn't that big of a deal in regular D&D - and it's also really core to the lore of the series, to the point that really all the extra powers and shit guardians get is secondary to the core power of being able to respawn and respawn again.

And honestly having an easy respawn option doesn't remove problems caused by:

The respawn location being far enough from the battle that it makes it hard or frustrating to go through the same maze again.
Respawn taking long enough that by the time you get to respawn whatever target or time constraints for your mission are fucked.

It'd also make bit of 4e mechanics make some more sense - instead of "when your HP hits zero you're downed" you're literally just a glowing sphere around your ghost that other players can revive at the cost of a turn's worth of action or whatever.

Basically the only limitations on respawning I'd have is that you stick to Strike rules - so you can only really respawn yourself if everyone else is also downed and then you can all respawn as a group a bit aways from the immediate encounter, but until everyone's down your team mates can revive you if they're still around.

Similarly though, enemies actively blocking you off from reviving downed team mates/setting traps around downed team mates to lure you in would also be a thing, especially with the hive and taken.

I'd also have it so a ghost can only be killed while the guardian it belongs to is up and about - when "downed" the ghost forms a sort of barrier that protects it and your light from harm and it can do emergency short distance teleports to places it's recently been.

But again, doesn't matter if PCs can return and return again if the hive or taken have stolen Vuvazela's birthday cake by the time you get back up, his birthday party is ruined now.

After a while, exponential learning systems like that hit the top of the curve and can only get so much further without some kind of tactical breakthrough. With how many fights Shaxx has put them through, they could only get better by a scant few degrees.

Should we be worried about his two redjacks that are sentient then?

it kinda depends on whether the ether as a natural nutrient or like the white juice the gem'hadar were addicted to in Deep Space 9, which is kept kinda ambiguous, especially given how much the ghost in D2 seems to really fucking hates the fallen's worship of giant spherical machines, and the writing in Destiny is bad enough that I'm never certain if that's deliberate irony or

>everything you've been taught is a lie.

>that story about Shaxx and his dodgeball children

I think Ether is just a substance they need for survival. I might be a dependency brought about by the Traveler's abscence or it was a thing that was relevant before hand. I'm pretty sure their machine worship is a direct result of the Traveler as well. "I am a marvel with ten thousand arms"

Probably not. I mean, consider who they're working alongside and what they're up against; soldiers who can come back from the dead and aliens and horrors with space magic.

Mankind has had friendly AIs in the past, and works alongside them currently in Destiny. There's not really a threat of an AI uprising when there's already good precedent for working with artificial intelligence, and there's not much they can do to harm you, and you're all allied on a team against things a lot worse.

Really, any AI that gains sentience in that position (who doesn't have the power to play by their own rules like Rasputin) would probably consider themselves in good company.

And then you kill him at the end. Titan's world quest was great up until I had to kill the Fallen dude

I don't actually think you have to kill him if you only kill the knight.

>Future War Cult is like what the Hive would be if the Hive weren't completely disgusting
FWC is directly tied to the Vex, idiot. Praedyth, the Warlock who got trapped in the Vault of Glass was a member of the FWC and used his imprisonment to learn about why the Vex fear the Taken and Lakshmi has even been to the Black Garden.

Don't be a fag.

>You'll notice Dregs have only two arms while Vandels and up have 4.
The default state of an eliksni is four arms. Dregs have had their arms docked for some crime or failure against the House. Renegades that lack access to an Archon Priest to regenerate arms such as Variks and Taniks have replaced their docked arms (Variks was docked by Skolas for betraying House of Wolves to ally with the Awoken and Taniks had all four arms docked by a Baron for being a kinslayer) with mechanical ones in an attempt to retain their status since arms are associated with status to the Fallen

Dregs also have their arms docked if they're newbies and haven't yet earned them. That's most Dregs you'll come up against.

> hates the fallen's worship of giant spherical machines
>Humanity fucking worships a giant spherical machine
Double standards much?

I didn't fire on him and he fought me. Just sat there taking shots and he wouldn't fucking leave. Though, I guess I might have glanced him.

Humanity doesn't typically worship the Traveller. Well, not Guardians, at least. Guardians are generally more secular in their beliefs, and many times skeptical of the Traveller and the Speaker.

It'd make sense if Ghost, as a being of the Traveller, doesn't want his patron being or possibly creator as being treated like a god. Maybe it has to do with the Light being the true object of worship, or that worship perverts Light or distracts from the real objectives or focus of Light itself.

He mocks the Servitors as false prophets, basically, despite them having been originally probably created in the traveler's image. We know from records that Servitors are the only way they can create and distribute mass amounts of ether other than in personal tanks.

>Asher Mir is bleeding radiolaria while Eris Morn is out seeking the shapes of the Darkness

somebody help these peopoles

Fallen were taught Taking by the Darkness, but it only really took hold in the form of petty theft. The Traveler also left them during some worldly calamity that claimed the majority of their race and Houses, which allowed the Darkness to infect their philosophy in the first place. "Respect only that which can steal from you" became their new defacto code of living, an echo of the standard "might makes right" of the Darkness, and you can see it in everything they are. They have a disturbing ability to punch up on the more powerful species and Jack their shit. Skolas hijacked the Vault of Glass in an attempt to revive his species and house from across time, House of Devils stole both SIVA and fucking pillaged a Hive nest for an ogre to experiment on. And in the World Quest for the EDZ, Fallen were toying with Cabal smart matter (their black oil stuff) to create enhanced ether.

If you want a good look into Eliksni history and culture, read Variks' journal. As Variks puts it, "Hive have their gods, Vex their time portals, Cabal their reinforcements, but Eliksni have none of these things. All we have is dreg's strength. The strength to hold on to something when nothing is left."

"I KNOW WHAT NO ONE ELSE KNOWS I AM A MARVEL WITH TEN THOUSAND ARMS"

gimme my fucking fallen guns back bungo

Don't forget that everywhere you see a House Judgement banner in D2 it's accompanied by some skulls, often Fallen ones.

We finally got a slug rifle in Destiny 2 (that kinda sucks) and Linear Fusion Rifles are now a standard gun, so we're getting there. Maybe D2 Lord of Wolves can be a real fucking shrapnel launcher instead of some dinky burst "shotgun"

>where death is not a deterrent?
Reminder that a basic bitch Wizard permakilled a Guardian by catching him alone and draining his ghost. Also read up on the Iron Age when "Guardians" fought against one another to the death and fairly easily killed one another. Basically, hit the ghost and they're done.

It's odd to me that they would be at odds, Variks wants to bring the Fallen back up, to end the "Fall" as he calls it and make them back into the noble Eliksni they once were and maybe even help the Traveler. Uldren is building up the fallen together into one house, the House of Dusk, but maybe Variks finds his manipulation of his people distasteful. But Uldren is having them use new tactics, like empowering their ether, pushing their technology, learning from the blueprints of devil splicers to make the Heavy Shanks, improved tactics like sending prime servitors to the field as ether generators.

What we really need to do is fucking call up the goddamn reef and find out what's going on over there. We didn't bother to send like, a message?

Yeah I hope they buff the slug rifle a bit, and we even get the new shotgun the cabal use. Hive Boomer grenader launcher and Shrapnel Launcher shotgun fucking when lol

I swear Destiny is second only to Star Wars as a setting with amazing lore and background stuff that the devs continuously squander or just flat out fuck it up in the main series. FeelsBadMan.
But beyond that, what system would you all recommend for running Destiny as a TTRPG?

I shilled for RIFTS earlier, but be wary of Palladium Books. It feels really easy to accidentally make something that ends up a lot like a Guardian. With a few tweaks, it seems like you can easily make that happen.

But I'd love to know what other systems would work for it. Possibly the Infinity RPG, but that's much more cyberpunk with Hacking and all that, where Destiny seems more about shooting.

>This item has the following lore associated: “He is that which is end. That which covets sin. The final god of pain—the purest light, the darkest hour. And He shall rise again. When the guiding shine fades and all seems lost He will call to you. Fear not. All He offers is not as dark as it may seem. For Nezarec is no demon, but a fiend, arch and vile in ways unknown. He is a path and a way, one of many. And his sin—so wicked, so divine—is that he will never cower when dusk does fall, but stand vigilant as old stars die and new Light blinks its first upon this fêted eternity.”
> Passage from Of Hated Nezarec, a pre-Golden Age text.
>pre-Golden Age

Huh? Wouldn't that make it from basically now?

>It's odd to me that they would be at odds
They might not be, those could just be execution sites of dissenters or Variks could be running his own version of the Prison of Elders again. Or hell, maybe he's gone full Fallen Batman on House Dusk and is murdering them and leaving their skills as warnings.

I'm just pointing out that there's a definite pattern to the House Judgement banners, we just don't know what it is yet.

I think the Golden Age started around 400 years in the future, when the Traveller arrived, so there's still a lot of future to cover before that.

if this location never gets used I'll be saltier than a motherfucker. Also I think Nezarec is supposed to be like, some kind of wizard that never existed in our reality who understood how Void worked. Like the mad wizard in Lovecraft's novels with his necronomicon.

Nezarec seems to be a "part" of reality, as theorized by MyNameIsByf and the hints given in his "Poem". A very *Evil* part mind you, but a part of the cosmos none the less. He likely isn't affiliated with the Darkness because of this, simply due to the Darkness' nature as being utterly anathema to existence and Life itself

Looks like a Throneworld. Could also be used for Fundament.

I have nothing to back this up, but to me it looks like a City the Jovians might live in.

I'm almost tempted to give it a go with that new generic system that FFG is releasing. Their Star Wars system hit that relatively nice middle ground in the crunchy / narrative scale and the Force dice work for that "Guardians are outside of fate" bullshit metacurrency. Hopefully the new core book will have rules for making the space magic that Guardians use, because the current force powers don't quite cut it for shit like Nova Bombs.

I'll be looking into FFG's system as well. Seems promising. I don't care about proprietary dice, though I understand it's a sticking issue for some.

There is going to be a magic system in there for the Fantasy ruleset, so it should be easy to attach it to the Sci-Fi ruleset.

That doesn't really make sense. The mars lander, space suits, and guns all look incredibly similar to modern stuff. Not to mention things like the civilian cars in Trostland and Ishtar.

youtube.com/watch?v=6yXoAK1sDls&ab_channel=MynameisByf

Just started searching Nezarec up, and found this lore breakdown to instruct me.

Thinking about it, I think Nezarec might actually have more to do with Dredgen Yor, and his motivations, than the Darkness. Yor himself gives strange and non-committal answers as to his nature, and lets his opponent fill in the blanks, or the reader of the Grimoire, for that matter.

But Dregden Yor seems to toy with his opponents, rather than simply destroy them as the Darkness seems to want. He actively seeks to encourage the blossoming of hope, so that he can snuff it out. Because "Nothing dies like hope..."

I think this might be a continuation and a delving into what Yor was or became or was subsumed by, something stranger and less direct than the dark, but no doubt evil.