#book 3 dragesvard

[thatvampireenthusiast]

alright so like. the hollow creatures in book 3 dragesvard are Horrifying. and it is still unclear to me if they are merely mimics or something much, much worse. kord the dragonslayer said that the fungus just makes them somewhere but like. is the fungus making them *out of the deceased*? because we know from the sirius quest line that nature necromancy is a thing that exists, and we don't know what the spores do, and sure i'll accept that it could just be mimicry but the hollow dragonslayers have actual armor and spears and not just fungal approximations of them and anyways I Am Afraid

[jhonatheshiny]

Post Book 3 Jhona!!

After the events of the Dragesvard rift, Jhona had died from one of the fungal monsters. Suut decided to call in a favor to Zorbak to bring him back so he can achieve his dream:

To open a tavern in Doomwood, so he can share his cooking with weary travelers.

So now, Jhona functions as Zorbak's undead champion. That said, he mostly leaves Jhona to his own devices, aside from helping revive the Ask Zorbak series via livestreams on Twitch!

[cyraen-ae]

Hi, I just recently got back into DragonFable and saw your post where you welcomed people coming back to the game to ask you questions about story elements we've forgotten. I've caught up with all the quests and replayed a few arcs (Sulen'Eska, the First Weaver) and I remember most of the plot, but I can't for the life of me remember what happened during (1) the Vilmor arc, (3) the Theano arc and was wondering if you know of any summaries of those arcs that I could read. The most recent quests (especially retaking Dragesvard and Convergence) have made me feel like those plot points are going to be relevant again soon. Thanks so much!

Hmmm, I don't quite know where to find summaries, but I can try to briefly summarize the two

Vilmor arc : Vilmor is presented as this evil dragonlord who betrayed her companion dragon, who happened to be the prime elemental dragon of ice, Cryozen, leading to her being imprisoned by the Dragonlords. After some frozen storms, Vilmor escapes and the hero tries to chase her down, only to be no match against her in a direct confrontation. Trying to uncover more of Vilmor's backstory, we go to a city supposedly destroyed by her and meet Circe (yes, that Circe, the same one working for Victoria), who claims to be a survivor of the city and to have witnessed Vilmor's attack.

Cut forward a bit, turns out Vilmor never actually betrayed her dragon and was instead framed by her childhood friend, Dragonmaster Frostscythe, who also hired Circe to lead us astray. Circe betrays Frostscythe because he didn't want to pay her, Frostscythe tries to break Cryozen to his control, eventually leading to its death and Vilmor is finally proven as innocent, left with the egg of her once partner dragon, who will hatch into Cryozen Jr.

A brief conversation in Book 3 Dragonsgrasp reveals that even if she was proven innocent, she didn't feel comfortable alongside the other dragonlords after how they viewed her, which is why she's not present with them then

Theano arc :

Theano is the leader of the Thorns, some more openly evil subset of the Rose who are more willing to commit atrocities than Jaania. They keep it under wraps to avoid her learning, although Akanthus seems aware of their existence and just doesn't care. The Hero is accompanied by Belle, a soulweaver spy of the Vind, who infiltrated the Rose, alongside her soulally Vitael.

Theano at firsts awakens a bunch of mana-draining machines, who, in a later quest, try to drain Belle, but seem unable to fully drain her, instead overloading on mana.

This leads the Hero to go talk to Warlic about her, who discovers that she lacks a "filter" to the Mana Core, meaning she's basically able to draw as much mana from it as she wants, though she has to be careful as drawing too much at once would be deadly to her. She discovers she'd be able to literally weave the world around her with that power.

Meanwhile, Theano seems to be attempting to cast some ancient spell, gathering a shard of the Ultimate Orb from Book 1's finale and a spellscroll, all revealed to be a spell of resurrection.

We eventually learn more of Theano's backstory through a flashback. He was someone from Azaveyr who enlisted the help of a mercenary named Sobieslav (commonly theorized to be Akanthus's real identity due to him also being a green eyed criminal from Azaveyr) to steal an Ignominious, using its mana infused blood to save his pregnant wife. Unfortunately, it was supposedly unsuccessful, and he burned down his house with her in it to escape the guards who were pursuing him for his crime, although they found something (or rather, someone) within the ruins.

Back in the present, Theano is revealed to want to resurrect his dead son to use as a weapon, so off we go to stop him. In the confrontation with him, it's revealed first that Belle was his "son", adopted by Tomix's father, who he just never realized would be a daughter because he was a misogynistic jerk, and second off, that the spell actually was just Death messing around, and that instead it will inflict its user with the ever lingering image of Death, reminding them of the inevitability of their own death.

Theano is eventually defeated by Belle calling upon her newly explored manaweaving ability to literally remove Theano's arms, although doing so corrupts Vitael and leaves her unconscious, hair bleached white (she'll eventually ask warlic to form an artificial filter because she believes no one should have as much power as she used that day)

Eventually, Theano is sent to Jaania, where she apologises for the crimes he committed in the Rose's name and punishes him by removing all of his senses, leaving him trapped in a black void of his mind with nothing but the cursed image of Death keeping him company.

Belle eventually moves to Ravenloss, where she'll meet Khvorost from the main story

[vaalthus]

Threat of the Fungus

Ya know when it was initially mentioned that the Proclamation Rift located near Dragesvard was producing nothing else but fungal growth I immediately thought to myself oh this will probably have something silly like foot waves of those mushroom creatures we have fought in the wild from time to time.

Even as Niki showed up ten seconds later mentioning that Dragesvard had been overtaken by mushrooms I thought the only real threat were the obvious structural damages and loss or injury of human life from massive spontaneous growth of large mycelium structures and the usual spores that you’d expect in general to be toxic to human health, mold and what not. But still nothing that would present a feeling of...wrongness

For all intents and purposes I thought this was going to be a rather straightforward conflict. After all, mushrooms in this game have always been still rather comedic in their presence here despite the technical threat they bring on a regular day. To me, at the time, the danger in concept posed no more of a threat than say Kinori from MHA who held the power to produce a variety of mushrooms practically anywhere. Something that could be lethal sure but something that would to a death no more different than being poisoned

....And then we journeyed across the Depths to Dragesvard...and then I saw them

The unfortunate hollowed Killguins and Tuksers that have fell to perhaps one of the most disturbing fates out there

And then I remembered that 1) We’re in Book 3 of Dragonfable and 2) Fungi, particularly, parasitic Cordyceps, can produce one of the most horrific deaths imaginable for creatures of our size if they ever evolved for our species. Losing the ability to think as your body slowly turns into nutrients for fungi that will just spread more spores is...yeah

And then I remembered En from Dorohedoro as well as the infected variants from the Last of Us games that proved why underestimating the destructive potential of fungus on a regional scale is no laughing matter.

AAAND what’s worse is this little guy right here

This thing that looks like a beefier and tankier version of the normal shroom people we faced that looks like he could punch you to death if he was a bit taller

AND THEN! ONLY THEN DID I REMEMBER THESE WALKING CONCUSSION INDUCING MADLADS RIGHT HERE!

I don’t think I need to explain the horrific possibility of them walking right past this dude’s corpse and not even realizing it. 

Moral of the story kids is fear the power of the shrooms and the horrors they bring

[tmae3114]

okayokayokay, I've got some thoughts in order, by which I mean I have got Some Thoughts into The Order In Which Stuff Happens In The Quest:

EIRN???

Eirn, buddy, why are you here???

the framing suggests to me that it's related to the airship so I really hope he's here to cause Problems for the Rose about it. iirc, isn't the design partially based off of the VS Unity, with stuff like the protective trithril coating?? if Eirn shared that stuff with his fellow gnomes, I don't think he'd be happy about what they're using it for...

speaking of....

the Rose's airship is HERE, it is FUNCTIONAL, and IT HAS A SHADOWSCYTHE MANATECH CORE IN IT AND I AM TERRIFIED

.............it has a Shadowscythe Manatech Core in it

Eirn is friends with Kordana

Eirn, my friend, please oh please be here to Cause Problems On Purpose for the Rose about this airship, you have so many reasons to

"The airship is an unequivocal statement to all that The Rose is not an oppresive force but an uplifting benefactor" Jaania that is the biggest load of nonsense I have ever heard come out of anyone's mouth ever and I don't think even you believe it

if you want to present yourself as an "uplifting benefactor", generally speaking, MAKING YOURSELF LITERALLY VISIBLY AND PHYSICALLY ABOVE EVERYONE WHO CAN SEE YOU AND ALSO UNREACHABLE IS NOT THE WAY TO DO IT AND ANYONE COULD TELL

side note: it is absolutely hysterical irony that Jaania is trying to sell this airship as a refutable of the Rose being opressive when the thing is, again, powered by a Shadowscythe Manatech core

I know Jaania doesn't know that but still. Still.

"I will not make the same mistake again" says woman who has spent the past several years of her life making the same terrible life choice over and over and over again

endlessly delighted that Jaania seems oblivious to the fact that Victoria's distrust of her means that Victoria is actively trying to learn what Jaania is hiding from her

I recognise that explosion. RIP Danyel......

Vseslava and Ostromir are alive though! There's that!

delighted by our dragon just playing in the background while all this is going on

"a certain treasure", "the Shapeless' gift". Curious about Vseslava using these terms to describe the Mana Core piece. I'm unsure if those're, like, actual terms the Magesterium themselves use or terms for the general populace? and how secret is it that it's a piece of the Mana Core bc Danyel knew exactly what it was but also Danyel was Headmaster of Edelia so he had Access To Restricted Information and Tkaanie is the Empire's nextdoor neighbour....

Vseslava is visibly compartmentalising hard and that's going to be interesting to see develop

Neron!!! It's been a while!!

Thursday and Raven's panic that oh we're going to be in so much trouble was very funny

the bit with the Hero going "guess it's up to me to go get Neron" has big "guess it's my turn to do the dishes" energy

the using the text popups as travel dialogue between story companions is a fun new addition! I hope we see more of that in future!

(I did use it to help me navigate the quest a little too XD I used whether or not I was getting new Mritha & Raven dialogue to tell if I was going in the right direction)

also the little bit abt Raven not really knowing what the Rose has done outside of Doomwood is fun ("Oh.")

DRAGESVARD HAS FALLEN????

I guess we kinda should've seen that coming since we knew there was a rift there but Dragesvard has fallen, we're never going to see Book 3 Dragesvard, that is a CHILLING reminder that the other Rifts are happening at the same time, not waiting around for us to be able to get to them, time is so, so of the essence....

I suspect those coloured text boxes are A Dragon Talking but I can't tell if it's one or two. I'm assuming one, in which case, v curious to know what the colours changing like that means

did the Dragesvard refugees go to Dragonsgrasp???

[flamestoillusions]

Rune actually has changed his cloak a lot since the beginning. A lot of the time it is exactly how you think of a hooded cloak. His first cloak was actually really simple with only minor elemental resistance. However the first time he had to replace it was after the Wrath of Xan. Tannim actually didn’t notice as Rune already had his new one by the time they met again. And he kinda switches with weather along with his clothes. He has a denser one when he heads to the permafrost area that is Dragesvard that helps keep snow from getting on him and helps with snow flying. His normal one gets used more like a scarf and hood when he travels to the hot and dry desert of the Sandsea. 

After nearly falling to his death in Ravenloss and breaking his dragon amulet, Rune also replaces his clasp with his new dragon amulet. It fits his style better and it actually is a bit of ‘good luck’ charm as the dragon amulet is placed over his heart and actually prevented a strike that would’ve gotten him otherwise. And when learning about soulweaving from Tomix, he worked on making his cloak from soulthreads so that it can always fit and wouldn’t need to be cleaned often.

It stays for most of Book 1 and then Book 2 it gets higher resistance when on good terms with the Atrea. It certainly makes it more useful with all the fire beings running around. He can use it actually shield some hits although it doesn’t stop it from getting hot or cold. 

However, Noita actually switches what she uses in Book 3. Her cloak is more of a jacket robe, much like that used for the tactician class in FE:A. It maintains the same dark colors that she used before but felt necessary for a change with the changing world around her. It has all the perks of the previous cloak but also has...pockets. Look, this sounds insignificant but extra weaponry or magic stuff goes a long way.

With the allies that she helps against the Rose, Noita--as she always does when having new encounters--always adds something to her arsenal. After helping the MageKnight, Sir Leon, she experiments with layering mana into the cloak itself allowing for it to be used in a pinch or if needing an advantage. 

Since it doesn’t work the same way, Noita doesn’t wear her dragon amulet on the outside anymore. Rather, it is tucked in an area within the jacket and it is still over her heart. Just in case. 

However after her major work as a hero, which until a next Book actually comes out is assumed to be 3, Noita actually doesn’t use a cloak anymore. It is very situational despite its usefulness. But after then, she no longer feels the need to ‘hide’ and doesn’t use her cloak as proof of that. But she actually doesn’t get rid of either. In Book 3, she keeps her old cloak in her bag in case she feels acting as Rune. Afterwards, they are usually kept somewhere in her residence.

It is always a thought that in paths where Rune does end up with someone that his kids know of the cloaks. I can’t say for sure each path has a kid that likes them but in two of the biggest ones, they do.

Ashling actually has played around with it, thinking it just something left around Noita’s things. He actually uses it when he accidentally gets sent back in time to hide himself. It’s a nice accessory on occasion but doesn’t think he pulls it off the same as she did.

Selim actually knows what it is and kinda likes it. Her Book 3 one was something of a comfort blanket when she was gone as a child. Her prior one is one that Selim prefers to use when he gets older. It seemed the closer to Rune that he’s heard about from the tales people spread about him. 

[thatvampireenthusiast]

oh noooooooooo

[thatvampireenthusiast]

well this is less than ideal