#Vessel Group includes the Deepnest Vessels

[fungal-wasted]

I'm having Colosseum of Fools thoughts now and I should be doing literally anything else. None of them connect to each other into coherent ideas so these are just stuff I've noticed and that I wanna rotate.

The fools are all infected, and every common fool besides God Tamer has Colosseum specific dream nail dialogue.

If the fools are infected are they being forced by someone else to fight? I kind of doubt it since their thoughts seem to imply they know they're fighting and see themselves as the strongest.

God Tamer has the same thoughts as any other infected husk though. Could it be that she didn't choose to be like this? Or perhaps it's just a detail Team Cherry didn't check for.

Who is putting all those cages in the arena? Does the Coloseeum have staff?

They seem to get bugs from far corners of the map including Queen's Gardens and Deepnest. No bees though, no Waterways creatures (flukes, pilflips) either.

Zote being in a cage implies they do capture some bugs to fight. Including "sentient" ones.

They have a bunch of sharp baldurs yet we never see adult ones, to the point where even the Hunter isn't aware if they're allowed to reach adulthood.

The public watching the arena

uses Geo

seems uninfected

Travels other areas of the kingdom like the Crossroads hotsprings

Comes from other lands (like Tiso)

Do you ever think about the Soul Scholars in the third trial? Did they ditch the Sanctum once they found it more motivating to join the arena? Were they taken away by others looking for recruits? The Volt Twisters imply willing training, even learning to use electricity in combat.

What about the mantises? Do they have a settlement? Would they be the same tribe that went to Queen's Gardens or is this a separate group? If they're different groups, which formed first?

Why can God Tamer be spared if her beast is killed before her? She definitely puts up a fight of her own to be considered dangerous, but she somehow maages to be spared if avoided. Why would the knight allow it? Why does the public do it as well?

Honestly just, Lord Food as a whole. Why is that corpse still there.

You ever think how this is the only place outside of the dream realm where we see a crowd? Maybe the kingdoms in the area are gone but there are definitely communities Still Doing Things.

Dude imagine a Colosseum vendor. You get charms from them or temporal upgrades for battle. Little Fool but Better.

Shade room. I mean, that one is probably there for game mechanics but could you imagine if they ever got any other void beings or even vessels to fight?

[cluescorner]

Who knew about the Abyss?

Ok, so this is more of an idea/speculation post than anything. IDK if I’m gonna do anything with it. 

So, who knew about the Abyss? Obviously the Pale King and Hornet, as we have canonically seen them both in that area. And we can presume that the White Lady knew much of what was happening with the Pale King’s dumbass plan, so it’s safe to say she knows about the Abyss. 

But what about the other people involved in the kingdom’s leadership/the plan? Like, did the 5 Great Knights know? Ogrim obviously knows about the vessels (implied in one of his dream-nail lines) so it feels like the other knights should know too. But did they know how the vessels came to be? Did they know about the millions of dead ones or only the Hollow Knight? Maybe that caused a splintering in the group, causing many to abandon their oaths because WHAT THE FUCK. Or maybe none of them knew and the Pale King kept it a secret. Seems like something he’d do. 

The group that’s most interesting to me is the Dreamers: Lurien, Monomon, and Herrah.

You see, I think Monomon knew. Or she at least knew about the attempts to create a hollow being, based on her lore tablets. But as a scientist and teacher, I can also see her directly helping in the plan, maybe running some tests to see if the vessels are truly ‘hollow’. I also can’t see her agreeing to go along with the plan WITHOUT having intimate knowledge of it. So I feel like she should have known about much of it, likely including the Abyss. After all, if she knows about void she should probably know where it came from. 

Lurien knowing could go either way. I don’t think that he would have ever betrayed his oath, based on his dream-nail dialogue. Even with the knowledge that there are a metric fuck ton of child corpses at the bottom of the Abyss, he wouldn’t have stopped. He would have sealed regardless. But because of this blind loyalty, I can also see him not caring enough to know. So, it’s a toss up. 

There’s NO FUCKING WAY Herrah knew. Like, fucking none. Herrah would have abandoned the plan, stolen the Hollow Knight away from the Pale King, and flip off everyone involved for good measure. First of all, she already probably hates the Pale King because he’s trying to colonize her kingdom. She only agreed to help him to get a demigod heir for deepnest/ a child of her own. She does not need further excuses to loathe everyone involved in Hallownest. Second, Herrah is Hornet’s mother and the Pale King is her father. If Herrah figured out that the father of her only daughter killed the rest of his children by putting them in the Abyss and saying “First one up gets abused, the rest get dead”, it doesn’t exactly leave a good track record for Hornet. Third, Herrah would be so horrified at the idea of these two parents, who pride themselves on establishing ‘civilization’ within the area, killing literally all but one of their children that she’d probably bail on the plan right then and there. Not to mention that she’d take one look at The Hollow Knight and go “Yeah, this is fucked. I’m your mom now, come to Deepnest with Hornet and I.” and not take no for an answer. 

TLDR; Monomon probably knew about the Abyss or at least knew enough to know how exactly the Hollow Knight happened, the 5 Great Knights and Lurien are a toss-up, and I want an AU where Herrah found out about the Abyss because it DEFINITELY didn’t happen in canon. 

[flame-shadow]

I suppose I should start by expounding on why I ask the question. It's been something in the back of my mind for about two years now, ever since I tried to write a fic and realized that I couldn't remember any mention of time or timekeeping, and it was taking me out of the story to have a bug say "in five seconds..." when they might not even know what a second is. Or a minute. Or an hour. Or a day in the way that we know it, as surface-dwellers with a reliable sun that isn't linked to or influenced by a jealous deity.

[fun fact! Elderbug's beta dialogue includes two uses of the word "day" which were removed in the final game dialogue. In the cut content section of the wiki, there are a couple notes for removing terms like "day to day" and "today" to take away time specificity and emphasize the long night]

For these speculations, I will try to take into account the culture, the established technology as evidenced from the game, and what seems likely based off my interpretations of the world in general. Unless specified otherwise, all of these assume a regular flow of time (a.k.a. before the extended night and the kingdom's stasis, and also no other shenanigans from higher beings). I will also exclude anything that directly relies on a celestial body, as the reliability of the sun pre-sealing of the Radiance is unknown and likely inconsistent.

Timers: These aren't clocks, but they're still useful. Customizable increments of time allowed.

-Water timers where a consistent amount of time can be measured from the level of water in a basin or other vessel. Can be made of metal, clay, wood, shell/bone; just as long as the interior is waterproof and it can be shaped for the need. Note: water flow is inconsistent from a basic basin-like timer.

-Sand timers (aka hour glasses, though the "hour" part isn't always relevant) are another simple way to measure increments of time. Make sure all the sand is the same size and flows well. If we assume glass is used for the container, then I think only Hallownest bugs would've had this type of timer to begin with, though perhaps trade would spread it.

-Candles. Likely limited to the Hive, since from what I recall, they were the most isolationist and uncooperative of the groups. If they did trade for anything, there's not much evidence of inports in the Hive itself, though perhaps they had a small export of wax that could be used by the richer of the Hallownest bugs. Lurien had candles in his tower.

Clocks: Cyclical keepers of time.

-Given the mechanical inclinations of both the Mantises and Hallownest, clocks similar to how we know them could be made and maintained. I think it would be very cool if the Mantis Village had a large pendulum clock (similar to a grandfather clock) visible and accessible to the community. Young mantises would challenge each other to fly past the pendulum without being struck.

-Watches were likely made by Hallownest bugs with their more detailed metal working capabilities. City bugs might have these to keep up with events and obligations.

Plants/fungi:

-A flower species that blooms rarely but consistently, marking the beginning of the next cycle (year). A festival marks the first day of bloom, and the celebration lasts as long as the flowers are open (roughly equivalent to a week, though factors such as temperature or soil condition or air quality could affect the length of the bloom or even when it actually opens. It is considered an unlucky year if someone tries to begin the festival before the flowers have truly bloomed. This would be something the Mosskin practiced, though perhaps a patch of flowers were kept in the Queen's Gardens for the spectacle or event too.

-A mushroom which releases spores at regular intervals.

-A mushroom whose cap changes colors with the seasons. Which seasons? Try asking Mister Mushroom.

-Bioluminescent mushrooms' glow cycle in Deepnest. Or maybe a specific kind pulses in time with "seconds" or "minutes." Similar to the above, perhaps the glow changes with an environmental change, marking a new season or cycle, however that is defined.

-A slime mold which grows steadily when fed enough of what it likes. Held within a restrictive container, it is encouraged to grow in one direction, marked at regular intervals. Perhaps this container is circular, and after the slime has traveled a certain distance, the area "behind" is cleaned and prepped for the cycle of traveling growth to perpetuate.

Misc:

-Soul. While not a widely accessible (nor accepted) material, the Soul Sanctum perhaps found a way to use it to keep or track time. Perhaps through a decay/dissipation rate, perhaps based off strength of glow, or a certain inherent pulse of the stolen life itself.

-Lumaflies. I had only had a vague thought of "these could maybe be used somehow" and @abarelysapientpairofshoes stepped up and suggested the lifespan of a lumafly in a lantern, which is a sad but practical and relatively portable method.

And, uh, yeah! That's all I got for now. Some of these ideas are more developed than others. I've used the flower blooming concept for something already, so it's a little more fleshed out, but not by much. If you have other ideas or want to build off one or more of mine, I'd love to see what you think up!

What are your thoughts on how the passage of time is observed and kept in Hallownest and/or one of the other cultures (Mosskin, Mantis, Deepnest, Moths, Fungus, etc) during the time they were thriving? Clocks, calendars, holidays, seasons... Anything time-related is up for speculation. Feel free to come up with methods that wouldn't work in our world due to a fantastical element but which would work within HK's world.

[astronomy-two-worlds-apart]

OMG YAY IVE BEEN WAITINH FOR A CHANCE TO DO THIS IM SO EXCITED

might take a while but i will eventually finish this. even if it stays in the drafts for a bit

okay okay okay so hollow knight is a metroidvania video game with bugs as the characters in the game. the player plays as the knight, a creature that traverses the world of hallownest, an old abandoned kingdom that was once a really active city filled with all kinds of bugs from all around. hallownest was home to a bunch of civilizations of bugs, some under the rule of the pale king, the last and only king of hallownest.

there are multiple different areas in hallownest, and some were under the rule of the pale king, others remained independent but within the kingdom’s limits, such as a place called the hive, and also what’s known as deepnest

all the areas include kings pass, howling cliffs, dirtmouth, forgotten crossroads, greenpath, fog canyon, fungal wastes, resting grounds, the abyss, white castle, crystal peaks, kingdoms edge, city of tears, ancient basin, deepnest, the hive, and royal waterways :)

anyways so moving on the pale king had a wife, the white lady, and they ruled all of hallownest together. there were also 5 great knights of hallownest, who protected it and where very tightly knit together. then at some point before the beginning of the game, hallownest started to become infected thanks to the radiance, a being of light (moth)

the pale king knew the radiance needed to be stopped, so he and his wife started to try and create completely empty vessels, with a thing called void. basically making more and more children until a perfect and pure vessel would be created. any of those not deemed to be worthy were locked in a room within the area of hallownest called the abyss, with a lighthouse, not enabling them to escape because they are beings made of void

the pale king also had another child with a different woman, herrah the beast, which his wife knew completely about and was part of a deal with the weavers, another group of bugs in hallownest, in order to store a dreamer in their kingdom.

the dreamers are three, lurien the watcher, herrah the beast, and monomon the teacher. they are the three that put a seal over the black egg temple, where the hollow knight resides guarding the infection. you can collect their essence using what is called the dream nail, a nail used to absorb the dreamers and open the black egg once more as well as defeat dream bosses (updated and better and faster versions of normal bosses) and the dream warriors, get hidden dialogue, and collect essence.

anhways back to the child. that child is named hornet, a character in game that you fight twice and is your sibling bc of the pale kind being her father

the hollow knight was chosen to be the vessel, but now the infection is escaping again, meaning that he was not completely hollow, marking the beginning of the game

the player’s character, the knight, is the actual pure vessel, just not fully grown to its ideal size.

the point of the game is to traverse through hallownest and find all three dreamers, unlocking the black egg and allowing the player to fight the hollow knight, and maybe even the radiance (fighting the radiance gives a different ending rather than if you just keep fighting the hollow knight, with 3 different endings possible i believe)

and that’s about all i got without giving hugeeee spoilers abt the game :))

*chnating* hollow knight, hollow knight, hollow knight, hollow knight, hollow kni-

i tried to look that up cause i know very little about it and tumblr IMMEDIATELY logged me out smh