#sky elder lore

[plutonium-sky]

Okay so I named this sideblog "plutos-THOUGHTS-and-sketches" so it's time to take up my promise on that

This is gonna be my ancestors, elders, and a little bit of skid, spirits (I'll elaborate on them in another post) and some miscellaneous hcs that should line up together and i hope that it doesn't interfere with any lore. Buckle up this is gonna be a long one

So! Let's start off with ancestors. What are they?

I like to think that they used to be skids but then willingly gave away their light. They're just tired of existing for eternity, you know? So they dropped their eternality (they could still be killed but then would be reborn- like through eden! But there weren't any widespread methods of doing that before and they still got reborn :( ) and became a mortal species we now know as ancestors. They. Well. Reproduced. And forgot their roots. They forgot why they always feel like they're missing a major part of them (their light), and they didn't understand why light healed them and made them feel euphoric. (Note that only some light can properly heal them. Like. They're basically humans. Fire WILL burn. But, say, a manta's light will feel caressing.)

So what's up with Elders, then?

Basically! They're normal ancestors. Except, with a twist: they didn't give away ALL of their light. Only some of it, really. But it's a permanent move anyways. They continue to have limited lifespans, but they're much, much longer than normal ancestors. And some of their skid physiology (is that the right term?) kicks in, letting them grow and grow for as long as they aren't dead. (They can't be reborn, though.) (And does that mean that skids before used to be giant? Yes. Does that also mean that skids who don't eden run get to be taller? Also yes.) so they just get to be the cool guys, who remain to be above the rest, containing the knowledge and power and potential.

And now I'll elaborate a bit on some of the specifics about all of this. Healing is basically relighting another skid, and there is a whole, high paying, high status job that's basically having the right type of light that can heal others instead of burning them. (Without it, all krill attacks would have been lethal. Even then, it's expensive as hell.)

Ancestors have the lifespan of a normal human and elders are basically five times that. Magic (spells) exist and they can only be cast by the most talented, the most full of light ancestors. This means that basically all elders can do spells if they put their mind to it.

Anyways about the thing where i said they always feel like they're missing a part of themselves. So they die, wake up (I'll elaborate on that more in another post that will include my spirit hcs) and go like "wow i feel great" because eden basically inserted some light into them

They all have normal names, but the Elders that we know don't share theirs anymore with normal ancestors because of an.... Event. (This is bordering on my au stuff so we'll skip over that. Let your imagination go wild) Which means that if a skid (i hc that all skids know elder names (search sky cotl elder names if you don't know them, they have names)) suddenly calls one by their name ancestors would be confused and Elders would be flashbanged and wary

Masks are a traditional thing! Some people replace them with face markings instead and some don't wear anything at all (but those are few), which means that some cultures that are disconnected from the norm don't wear masks (like the nine colored deer spirits. Take a look. Feudal lord is the only one with an actual mask and even then you can't convince me that it isn't just giant eyebrows)

Eden exploded (shattering) from darkness corruption overload. How that happened is up to you but I hc that Resh is a skid and was tired of seeing everyone dying so he researched and came up with that solution to make everyone immortal

Anyways thank you for coming to my ted talk there Will be a part two

[baudshaw]

ITS HERE. THE NEW SYMBOL IS THE ARAMAIC SYMBOL FOR *RESH*. RESH IS USED IN THE CONCEPT ART TO REFER TO THE EDEN ELDER. THE NEW SEASON IS TWO EMBERS AND SPECIFICALLY EDEN ELDER RELATED STAY CALM. OR DONT TWO EMBERS T-MINUS 2 MONTHS

[black-suns-rim]

Ethereal Star AU

Daleth - he leads the travelers into the realm of sky and guides them to where they need to go next. The ferryman is the least respected out of the elders since he chooses to live his life among the people of his village.

Ayin - He strives to collect and harness the vast power of the soul flames. He’s obsessed with their wonders and wants to use their light magic for his own gain. He’s a very powerful light magic user because of his obsession and his knowledge on light magic only rivals that of Lamed.

Teth - she’s obsessed with dark stone and harnessing its full potential through inventions she has created. She is an artificer and she will have nothing stand in her way of her goals for a forever lasting machine…

Samekh - competitors and rivals, the king’s announcers. They spread his propaganda and promises of riches, advanced technologies, arts and a bright future under his rule. Their naive and inexperienced selves are blinded by the king’s empty promises…

Tsadi - he’s too loyal to his king to see what the kingdom has become. He’s the protector of the oracle, the keeper of the vault. Loyal to protect her and her centuries of knowledge.

Lamed - she’s an oracle and highly respected amongst the people of all the realms along with the elders and the king. She has the ability to foretell future events, whether they be good or bad. She keeps to herself in the vault and rarely leaves, only venturing out for what she deems as “special” events.

Prince Alef/King Resh - a child ruler foretold by lamed to have risen out of the four sacred elemental trials. He was orphaned at a young age but taken under the wing of Daleth. A highly gifted child with the weight of high expectations put onto him after he was pulled into the role of ruling over the entire kingdom not by his choice… behind all his ambitious goals, one has remained with him ever since childhood that has pushed him for selfish reasons…

[manuellarts]

The King's Secret?!

since there is a whole debate that has been sparked regarding resh being bald or having hair . . . it seems the twins have their own conviction, that they decided to bring up during a meeting 🫢 . . .

[skykid-nadir]

You are three years old. Your mother tells you a story about a child who fell from the Sky. You don't understand it yet, but that child was you.

You are six years old. Your parents agreed to take you into town, but only if you stay close to them. You ignore them, wander off and find a group of other kids. Playing with them is the most fun you've ever had. But when your parents find you later, you will never forget the scolding they give.

You are nine years old. The older kids play terrible pranks on you, stealing your mask or trying to snatch away the crystal at your heart. They don't say it to your face, but you know they think you're a freak.

You are twelve years old. The Elder arrives to take you away. He says you're special but you don't believe him. You just want to stay with your parents.

You are fifteen. The Elders argue about your future. Daleth reminds them that you're only a child. Teth counters that no one knows what you are. The others say nothing, but you know they agree with her.

You are eighteen. Your body hasn't aged in years. You hear murmurs in the crowd as you take your place on your throne. The Realm of Eden needs a new Elder, and the others finally agreed that it should be you.

You are twenty one. The pressure is too much. You never wanted this. You never wanted Eden. You feel like you'll never live up to their expectations of you. But you learned long ago to keep your mouth shut about that. You saw what happened to Daleth when he dared suggest that you choose your own path.

You are twenty four. You've finally done it. You've finally found a way to make them proud. If they knew that you could harness the power of Darkstone... Surely that will impress them, right? Maybe you'll finally be enough.

You are twenty five. You were wrong. They hated it. They feared it. You should have known. You will never be enough. How far do you have to go to make them respect you? At night you dream of your family, but you can no longer remember their faces.

Who are you? What are you? What do you have to do to prove yourself? Your inventions have done horrible things. But how can you turn back now? You're so close to changing the world. No matter the lengths, you will make them see that you are good enough.

[twinsoftriumph]

[leaf-in-a-flower-garden]

I redrew that one drawing of child elders, with much more effort lolz

(click for better quality)

[soysaucepastry]

SKY: COTL THEME LYRICS TRANSLATION.

Introduction

Sky: Children of the Light, just like most games, has its very own theme melody. A tune that is heard throughout the game in various events.

For those who aren't familiar with the theme, you may have heard it in the opening of Isle of Dawn or the Orbit scene after completing Eye of Eden.

(Search "Flight" on Vincent Diamente's music compositions, and you may recognise it!)

TGC collabed with famous singer Aurora. If you didn't know, Aurora has been the main vocals for the theme song. Besides the instrumental parts, she sings during Isle of Dawn and Orbit. The beginning and finishing lines of the game.

Relating to Auroras' participation, they released the full song of Sky's theme. Which was called "Constellation." Constellation was noticeably a lot longer, but also had its own lyrics.

Lyrics In a theme song usually relates itself to the subjects lore. This is an excellent opportunity for the Sky Theorist to formulate speculations to Sky's timeline using these lyrics. However, the only problem was...

THESE LYRICS ARE IN A MADE-UP LANGUAGE!

Translations

Sky has a fictional language used in the song. This was already a challenge for us because it required a lot of analysing. To our fortune, the lyrics were actually words taken from existing languages. Each syllable was from different languages, and some just had meaning.

Now, enough talking. Let's begin!

The first lines were: "Menori eno, foto fola."

Menori: Initially, I believed that "Menori" meant "Memory" since both words were somewhat similar. However, if you split the syllable into 2, it creates a different meaning.

It's difficult to find out what "men" means. Although, I decided that "men" just means person in general. "Ori" is interesting because it translates to "my light."

Mashing the words together, you get: "Person, my light." Otherwise known as "Child of Light"

Eno: "Eno" is the Latin verb of "swim out." However, not everything has to be accurate to its initial meaning. "Swim out" could be a metaphor for" "emerges", " "show," and "appear." I'll get to this later, but hopefully, you get the meaning.

Foto: Foto is an easy word to identify because it's "photo" with extra fancy spelling. In this case, like I've said before, not everything has to mean what it initially represents. Again, Foto could most likely be a kind of conjuction.

Fola: This word translates to "crazy, mad, and foolish." A word that best represents a person or individual. This highly relates itself to a specific character in the sky, too.

--

So let's squish together all the words.

"Child of light swims out, photograph foolish."

The sentence is grammatically incorrect. But that is OK! Since it's made-up language, we have the ability to imagine the sentence in a more grammatically correct and sky-related way. The way I interpret it is quite simple.

"A person of light appears, only to become a foolish king."

Clarifications:

Menori could be "Child of Light," or "Person of light." Synonyms are valid.

Eno doesn't necessarily mean "swim out." Again, it's basically like a metaphor for "emerge," "show," and "appear."

Foto could be a word that represents something. Like how a photograph represents something. It's not necessary to include it in the actual sentence!

The following line is: "Nisoro mahori eh lossora."

Nisoro: Typically, this word was the hardest to translate. It isn't as simple as searching "Nisoro" meaning. However, after a while of digging, I was able to conduct a translation.

"Ni" in Yoruba means "in." And "Soro" in Yoruba means "difficult."

Combining the words would be "In difficult." So, in short, it means: "Difficult times."

Mahori: Mahori is much more different than the rest of the words. In this case, Mahori is an existing word that takes part in human activity.

Mahori is a Thai classical music genre. Played by a group of musicians, performers, and actors for the genre. However, mahori is commonly played in royal courts or royal events. This is very related to Sky Lore. More on this later.

Eh: Most likely a conjuction like: "and."

Lossora: Similar to the previous words, it requires breaking down each syllable.

Los means "the" in Spanish. (According to translator heh..) However, Los also means "Path they took along"

Sora means sky. This word is the smoking gun of this translation. Confirming that we're at least on the right track.

Combining the two, you end up with "Path they took in The Sky" (The Sky= the Sky kingdom. Aka, the main setting in Sky.)

--

So let's combine the words.

"Difficult times, Royal music and path they took in the sky"

Again, correctly repositioning the words together creates: "It was difficult to play music for our King, so they decided to take another path in The Sky."

Clarifications:

Nisoro could also represent the difficulties during the current time.

I included "King" (Our beloved Eden Elder) because of Mahori. Mahori is music for royal subjects.

The third line is: "Neyo neyoterra, foto men"

(This section of my Translations is much shorter, mainly because I don't have too much to discuss.)

Neyo: An easy word to translate. It simply means "New"

Neyoterra: This word includes the previous word, "Neyo."

This word is still quite easy to understand. "Terra" means: "Earth," "Place," or "World."

So, new (Neyo) + place (Terra) translates to: "New world," "New place," etc!

Foto: As I mentioned before, it means photograph.

Men: The word is harder to crack. However, I concluded that men most likely mean people in general.

--

All the words together create: "New, new world. Picturing new people."

There isn't much to clarify for this one. It's very simple, but I'm open to any questions.

The last line is: "Nikolo, nikomo sora."

Nikolo: The word nikolo is a name that means "Victor of People" or "Peoples Champion." However, it could also be a metaphor for people proclaiming victory.

Nikomo: Another word that requires breaking down of syllables.

Niko means smile in Japanese. A friend of mine helped me discover the countless meanings, but I affirmed that this is most likely the best choice. "Smile."

Omo means "short period of time." It's very self-explanatory.

Combining the words, Nikomo translates to "Smile for a short period of time." That's pretty depressing!

Sora: As stated before, Sora translates to "Sky."

--

The words all together create:

"The people proclaim victory. They smile only for it to be gone in a short period of time. Then creating Sky."

(Slightly unrelated, but this is a major help for Sky Theorists! This is potentially the biggest clue for the Sky War (I'll make a blog about the war too.))

Clarification(s)

Despite Nikolo meaning "Peoples Champion," which is different from what I translated, please keep in mind that we have the ability to interpret these meanings into something that'll fit for the sake of it fitting.

----

SO! We have finally translated this bad boy! From what I could tell, this is a MAJOR help for understanding the Sky Lore. Even a major help for giving clues about the Sky War! I was happy to know that these translations mirrored the actual Sky Lore, which really made me excited.

Now, to make this all cinematic and exciting, I prepared a video ~

I am incredibly excited for the future of Sky. I really hope my first blog was understandable, I'm aware it might be a little too long or boring aaaa.

And if you're wondering, you may use this as inspiration for your new sky theories! I don't mind. It would be nice if you gave credit just in case you want to use my Translations word for word, haha.

PEACE OUT!!

[skykidsam]

Forest Temple and Darkstone Production:

How this elaborate door may tell us more about the process than we originally realized

Yesterday, I believe I had an epiphany. When I was watching this door activate, I realized that it quite literally might be giving us the recipe for darkstone production.

Let's outline what we're seeing.

First, the major structure on the door seems to represent the inside of the Temple and the machinery within. We see two people on boats above with jars full of golden-white light - the signature color for regular, non-colored light. We also see two cyan-colored lights below, not in jars, but seemingly in some mechanism in the machinery. This light must first be retrieved before it is taken by boat to the center of the machine.

Let's look at some concept art from Tom Zhao to compare.

Here we can see a little bit of what they imagined the darkstone refinery process would look like. We see raw material goes in the center golden chamber, it gets stamped into a diamond shape, the refined "artificial star" gets imbued with energy while still in the chamber, and then it rolls out the troughs, presumably ready to use.

Something that stands out to me is that the cyan-colored light in this concept art matches the cyan-colored stones on the temple doors, making me wonder if those stones represent the energy that is used to fill the darkstones. That energy, as seen in this next concept and also in the Abyss murals, comes from trapped light creatures.

It's important to note that these are concepts, not the final design, so things likely won't add up 1 to 1. However, we can at least try to glean some of the core ideas that were being captured.

These concepts appear to be:

Collect raw darkstone

Shape raw darkstone into diamond shape, creating refined darkstone

Imbue darkstone with light, creating charged darkstone

Whether or not all darkstones required the light of light creatures is up for interpretation, but we do know basically for certain that creatures have been used for that purpose at some point in Sky's history.

So let's look at the door again.

Two cyan-colored lights from below

And two golden-white lights from above

To make one singular darkstone

So what are these ingredients?

I have two theories.

The first theory is that the golden-white light represents natural, regular light (like the light that the Prairie Elder hoarded in jars), and that the cyan color, in this instance, represents light drained from light creatures. Combining these ingredients creates a charged, refined darkstone, ready for use.

The second theory is that the golden-white light represents any light used to charge the stones (including light from light creatures), and that the cyan-colored stones represent uncharged darkstones. Combining them, you once again get a charged, refined darkstone.

What brought me to these conclusions? Why do I think the colors represent certain things over others?

Well, let's look at some more concept pictures.

The color scheme in Sky is very important - we can see how orange and white represent the closest things to pure Light and when we start getting into blues and greys, it represents a lack of connection to The Light.

So, I think the golden-white lights speak for themselves - they are natural light in some form or another.

The cyan ones are more ambiguous. I think it's relatively safe to rule out Cyan Light itself, the element associated with wind and Valley (although, I guess you could go that route and maybe assume the cyan light is meant for the stones to be able levitate or something, idk).

I'm more inclined to believe this represents something with distance from The Light, whether that be the refined stones themselves, which are often represented with a similar color in the concept art, or the light from drained light creatures, which may also be represented with a similar color scheme.

What this really pokes at is the fact that we genuinely have no idea what the extraction process of light creatures looks like - the only thing we can compare the process to is ourselves as skykids and the way we react to losing light (which is not foolproof because skykids and light creatures are pretty different in a lot of ways).

We could also maybe look at things like manta projections/spirit mantas, as well as the eel from Treasure Reef to take note of the other unusual ways light creatures can present so we can try to discern whether they are that way due to light extraction or other factors.

Ultimately, though, we know so much and still so painfully little about this process, so please enjoy these crumbs lol

[nexkove]

[📖] Thoughts on Nesting Guide...

A silly lore post with my day 1 thoughts on our new seasonal guide!

Please don't take anything I say too seriously, this is all for fun!

Share your thoughts, I'm very interested!

Is this an excuse to make Nesting & Flight guide close friends?... Yes!

Discussing the Whale in the room...

Nesting Guide's ties to the Forest Elder

TL;DR: Nesting guide was a former apprentice of Forest Elder, due to them having a photo framed with the two & seemingly being more powerful than typical ancestors.

Now for typing's sake, I'll be referring to the Forest Elder as Teth.

I couldn't see it clearly in the trailer (nor in beta), but the photo framed of Teth and Nesting got my brain going wild with thoughts.

The first thought I've had is that Nesting was an apprentice of Teth, similar to how Flight was an apprentice of Ayin.

From the first cutscene after we revive them, they already seem more powerful than the other spirits; they're able to lift up seemingly heavy objects with barely any trouble (ESPECIALLY multiple objects at once.)

Nesting also seems to be able to spawn furniture items whenever, whether this is a game mechanic or not I don't know! But it's a fun idea to play around with.

That's basically my day 1 thoughts, I may come back and make more posts similar as the season goes on! 9CD wasn't all that interesting so I'm glad I can finally talk about a season like this again!

Now... Some final notes from me...

I don't think Teth and Nesting are related as iirc Elders and Ancestors are completely separate beings. I barely got to test this season in beta, so I'm fully blind on future quests (besides quest 2,) so some stuff may get debunked, but that's ok!! I'm just very excited to see another Spirit with close ties to an Elder. It makes me wonder if there's any other spirits with close ties. (I have more thoughts on that, that I may put in a separate post.)

Thanks for reading! Don't be shy to share any thoughts you have on this! Just please be civil.

[thegreatcrowdragon]

Redemption sm au makes me think a lot like do you think he has claustrophobia. Do you think he has severe separation anxiety. He has nightmares so bad that Elder Faerie has to physically shake him awake and he just holds him while he sobs into his arms. Do yo-

[abhorrenttheorizer]

Some Sky titling nomenclatures or some shit

So a HC of mine I wanted to briefly mention is naming titles for Sky's people, and how children, adults, elders, and Megabird are addressed. I may expand on this later.

Firstly, Skids and child spirits (at the time they were alive) name themselves, as to their people, identity is very important, so parents will not name their children and instead leave them to choose when they're old enough. Sometimes the results are disastrous, and you'll have adults in esteemed positions named "Grass" or something.

Rythulian naming customs tend to keep to what is natural, visible, tangible, and so on. So names such as "Butterfly", "Cliff's Edge", "Dove", "Meteor", "Beetle", and so on are quite common. Symbolic or implicit names are less common, only found in those who have changed their name later in life, or didn't choose a name for themselves until they deemed themselves old enough to do so.

Lastly, is the usage of pronouns and gendered titles.

Idk if I should link an earlier post, but I hc that Sky's people and Rythulians in general, through all stages of their development, are physiologically hermaphrodic. When relating to gonochoric specimens, they will use separate nouns, but for themselves, pronouns are largely used for titles, and not for denoting any kind of gender.

"They" or "He" is used for children, adolescents, and adult Rythulians, and they may be used interchangeably. The elders are almost exclusively referred to as "He". "She" is almost exclusively reserved for Megabird.

Megabird is referred to as "she", because she is the only entity that brings the birth of new children, as adults of their species neither give birth nor lay eggs (I may briefly go into how I imagine these things reproduce, but that's a post for another time), instead relying on their unborn to be gestated in stars within the body of Megabird. Without her, new souls cannot be born and those who have died cannot be reborn.

Daleth, who shepherds newborn children down to the Isle, among other things relating to the guidance and guardianship of newborns to young children, may also be referred to as "she", thanks to his role in aiding the birth of new Rythulians. However Daleth is only referred to as "she" in the context of shepherding souls. In other contexts, he is 'he' along with the other elders.

Elders are referred to as "he" because they aren't explicitly joined within Megabird like the people they guard over are, and besides Daleth, have no role in facilitating or aiding the birth of new souls. Because of this, they are farther away from the connected existence descendant Rythulians have.

As for titling, it's fully dependent on the role that the descendants, ancestors, elders, and Megabird herself have.

Words like "king", "lord", and "god", to name a few have female counterparts such as "queen", "lady", and "goddess", since they are high esteeming titles that may be applied to Megabird.

However words like "prince", "sir", "mister", and so on only have their masculine counterparts with no feminine equivalents, since they are lesser esteemed titles that, if applied to Megabird, would be considered disrespectful.

[starfactor]

Friendly reminder to all of you skykids that this is probably what the Kingdom of Light saw before their capital fucking exploded

[black-suns-rim]

Samekh - Ethereal Star AU

“I’ve been curious… What happened to you?”

“We don’t like to talk about it…”

[manuellarts]

Mother 🤍

⎯⎯⎯

Me posting this with the fact that only myself and two other people in this world are aware of the heart wrenching LORE behind this picture and I'm not okay 😞💔

[skykid-nadir]

This is likely old news to the lore community, but I'm thinking about the fanon names for the Elders and their Hebrew meaning, and there are some interesting parallels:

Daleth: Gateway to Alef

Ayin: to see

Teth: the serpent

Sahmek: glory

Tsadi: Righteousness

Lamed: Wisdom/teacher

Alef: One with God

Resh: used to denote the grave of a spiritual leader