#xol will of thousands

[violet-919]

We joke about how we kill gods all the time but… do we have an actual tally of how many?

We do now!

The Black Heart

Atheon, Time’s Conflux

Crota, Son of Oryx

Oryx, The Taken King

Light-empowered Ghaul

Panoptes

Xol, Will of the Thousands

Nokris, Son of Oryx

Hasladûn, Daighter of Crota

Savathûn, The Witch Queen

Rhulk, The First Disciple

Nezarec, Final God of Pain

Honorable mentions:

The Undying Mind

Alak-Hûl, dark/lightblade

Quria, Blade Transform

Aksis, Archon Prime

Riven of a Thousand Voices

The Sanctified Mind

In conclusion, we’ve killed 12-18 gods, depending on what your criteria for “god” is.

[kelgorath]

one asexual man’s quest to out-pizza the hut

[slayanyhivegodslately]

So they really need to fix that weird ass Witherhoard glitch where the blight from the gun will just, hang in view after you stow it sometimes.

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

Whisper of the Worm

A Guardian’s power makes a rich feeding ground. Do not be revolted. There are parasites that may benefit the host… teeth sharper than your own.

Type: Sniper Rifle

Slot: Kinetic | Energy | Heavy

Element: Arc | Solar | Void

Perk: White Nail - Higher base precision damage. Rapidly landing three precision hits will refill the magazine.

Masterworked Trait: Whispered Breathing - Aiming this weapon without firing for a brief moment grants bonus range and precision damage while it remains zoomed.

Ornaments: Bound Hammer, Between Breaths, Roar of the Wyrm

Origin & Description: Whisper of the Worm is that rare Exotic important in all three ways an Exotic can be: important to lore, important to gameplay, and important to the history of the community. Lorewise, there’s no nice way to say it: Whisper of the Worm is the distilled being of a Hive Worm God who decided to become a weapon for us to use so it could feast on the violence we create. We’re okay with this because…it makes a super strong weapon. Really that’s a reason to be more wary of the arrangement, but Guardians never met a problem they didn’t want to shoot nor a gun they didn’t want to improve, and thus the Worm stays well-fed.

Whisper of the Worm is the essence of/was created by the Worm God Xol, Will of Thousands, after its death at our hands on Mars in the Warmind DLC. Post-death Xol retired to Io, where the Taken worshipped it and asked for direction, but…you know what, I’m just going to paste Whisper’s lore tab:

Xol, the Will of Thousands, perished but was not destroyed. Death is a road, death is metamorphosis, the unsacred union between destroyer and destroyed. The might which defeats a god is also the ambrosia that god craves, the meat-sweet logic of Existence-Asserted-By-Violence, the binomial decision between two ways of being which deny each other. In dying, Xol fed richly. Now came Xol unto the Taken upon Io, who fed Xol with plunder and tried to make of it an idol and a commanding will. Yet Xol was bound joyously to the very logic that sustained it in its death. It wanted the sword proof, the single proof. It wanted to become a rule which divided the mighty living from the mighty dead. So it whispered the Anthem Anatheme, the temptation to dominate the objective universe with the subjective will. It said, I shall be an engine to make your desire hegemon over your conditions. It said, WIELD ME, AND USE ME TO TEST YOUR FOE. This was its worship. Aiat.

So yeah. I’m sure this will be fine.

Problem is, Xol wasn’t exaggerating about “teeth sharper than your own." Whisper has a maxed impact stat (base damage relative to other weapons of the same archetype) plus an extra precision damage bonus from its intrinsic White Nail* perk. For a long time I didn't realize the symbol for its perk is its dragon-mouth barrel - I thought it was just a Whisper round shattering its target, bceause that's pretty much what happens to whatever you point it at. Xol turns out to pose far more of a threat as a sniper rifle than as an actual giant Worm God, which begs a lot of questions such as, "Is Whisper a really good gun or was Xol a really shitty Worm God?" But I guess the other great part about turning into a gun is you don't have to talk much anymore.

* So why is Whisper’s perk called White Nail? In Destiny 1, the Hive Prince Crota, Eater of Hope, wielded a rifle called Black Hammer. Guardians could get Black Hammer as a random drop from the Crota’s End raid, and it came with the original White Nail perk - Black Hammer, White Nail, you get the idea. In Year 2 of D1, dismantling a Black Hammer had a chance to give you some odd objects that led to a complicated puzzle-quest ending with Black Spindle, an exotic retooling of Black Hammer made by Crota’s twin sisters, which also had the White Nail perk. Whisper of the Worm, though it has a different origin, is mechanically a D2 version of Black Spindle and hence inherited the name “White Nail” even though it no longer makes any sense.

The text for White Nail doesn't end at "base precision damage," and that leads us to the Year of the Whisper aka July 2018 - June 2019. Consider White Nail’s second sentence: landing three precision hits refills the magazine. Not “from reserves.” Just refills it. For free. With no additional consequences or downsides. In boss fights & raid encounters, where player damage is often constrained by the availability of power ammo, Whisper’s ability to regenerate ammo forever is nothing short of godlike - especially since raid bosses with damage phases usually expose a large, stationary target during that time, making it far easier to land multiple rapid precision hits. And since White Nail regenerates directly to the magazine instead of to the player’s reserves you don’t even have to stop firing to reload all that sweet sweet free ammo. Pretty much every raid encounter during the year of gun-Xol's ascendance came accompanied by the thin click-drop of Whisper firing in six-part harmony. It wasn't universal - a handful of raid encounters needed different tactics, and there were always players like me who for whatever reason couldn't hit three Whisper shots to save their lives - but its dominance strangled both other Exotics and raid encounter design. After experimenting with other raid mechanics and debuffs to circumvent Whisper's obscene DPS, Bungie finally gave up and nerfed White Nail in June 2019. Whisper still deals backbreaking damage, but now it only ("only") auto-refills from ammo reserves instead of regenerating it out of thin air.

Whisper is as famous for the method of its acquisition as for its performance. Take a trip with me down memory lane back to July 2018. It's still Year 1 of Destiny 2 and things are not going well in the solar system. Much of the player base still misses Destiny 1 and any change to D2 is met with unflattering comparisons and demands of "When are you going to add [X]??" A lack of endgame content on launch plus a disappointing first expansion has soured a lot of people on the game entirely. They miss the experience of Destiny 1 and players are starting to feel like that magic is gone for good.

It's the weekend of July 20th, 2018. Io is the flashpoint and players dutifully gather on the little sulfur-coated moon to shoot their way through adventures and public events. Then someone takes a wrong turn in the Lost Oasis public patrol zone, and...

"Ran into this weird boss on Io today named Urzok?? It was a Taken Knight. Wasn't Urzok in Destiny 1? Never seen this guy spawn before so just wondering if I missed something."

"Landed in Lost Oasis to do a PE and there was a weird portal thing on the cliff so I went over to it and it said 'Enter the Anomaly' so I pressed interact and it took me to the Lost Sector (Grove of Ulan-Tan) but it was empty. I thought it was a weird bug but there was a timer counting down 20 minutes and my objectives said 'The Whisper.' After 20 minutes it warped me back outside and the portal was gone."

"Anyone know why Drevis from House of Wolves is suddenly spawning in Lost Oasis? I think it only happens with the Taken Blight public event."

Suddenly, silently, Lost Oasis had begun to spawn hidden extra bosses - one of three possible bosses hidden somewhere in the public patron zone who, when defeated, caused a weird Taken portal to open on a cliffside. Standing in front of the portal gave you a prompt to "Enter the Anomaly." Take that prompt and you found yourself in a deserted, shadowy version of the nearby Lost Sector, the Grove of Ulan-Tan. Your objective banner changed to "The Whisper" and a timer began counting down 20 minutes until "Anomaly Collapse." It's impossible to figure out who exactly made first contact with The Whisper, since while the bosses are out of sight they're still in places any random player might stumble across them by accident. But people began to post on forums and word spread like wildfire through the community: come to Io. Something's up. Something's here.

After a few hours of attempts - and total silence from Bungie - players had the basics figured out: whenever the Taken Blight public event fired, a giant Taken version of one of three D1 bosses - Drevis, Wolf Baroness; Urzok, the Hated; or Valus Ta'aurc - would appear tucked away nearby. Killing that boss opened the portal to the "Lost Sector," except now on a high ledge near the entrance a small Taken Blight had spawned over a hole in the ground. Kill the Blight, jump down the hole, and you would find yourself in an environment totally unlike anything in Destiny 2 at the time. The first portion of this special timed dungeon was a complex jumping puzzle that had you leaping from ledge to ledge across vast open spaces foggy with distance amid an eerie, discordant soundtrack. Until you made it through the huge, half-ruined labyrinth the only signs of "life" were chunks of dead Vex and a handful of (max level) Taken snipers. Xol's booming voice arrested you at a couple of stages, threatening you the same way he had in the Warmind expansion, but he gave no further explanation. Make it through the maze and your reward was a no-holds-barred combat gauntlet of some of the nastiest enemies in the game. Two major and two minor rooms stocked with massive Taken foes all at max level and arranged such that there was nowhere to hide and no way to progress without killing them all led to a final colossal battle against all three of those yellow-bar Taken bosses. At once. It took hours of falling off ledges, dying to hobgoblin snipers, and of course loudly complaining while waiting in Lost Oasis for the Taken Blight PE to spawn again, but at last a fireteam conquered The Whisper and seized the prize.

Over the next few weeks Whisper would unfold additional secrets: a second run dropped the catalyst and five hidden chests progressed it, with a sixth locked behind yet another puzzle that awarded the blueprint for a beautiful, strange new ship. That last chest closed an old time loop in Vault of Glass, Destiny 1's very first raid and an aesthetically-similar space. D1 players found six hidden chests in the Vault and, knowing Bungie's love of 7s, became convinced there was one more to be discovered. They even fixated on a broken Vex gate on a lonely rock spire as its location. Somehow there must be a way to activate that gate! But there wasn't, because there was no seventh chest...or was there?? ...There wasn't. But now there is! Whisper's last puzzle starts at a broken Vex gate on a lone rock spire and requires knowledge from Vault of Glass. When completed, the activated gate shows a view through to the Vault and produces Whisper's - and by extension the Vault's - final secret chest.

As time went on strategies developed, Light caps rose, gear improved; players solo'd Whisper, solo flawless'd Whisper, speedran Whisper, solo speedran it with a Guitar Hero controller, whatever. The uniqueness of it faded. But the mystery of its appearance and the excitement of hunting, solving, and hacking their way through to emerge, bloody and exhausted, with its spectral prize had re-energized a community that badly needed something to go right. Destiny had fulfilled its most fundamental promise: to create stories. We as players experienced something together. A fan-favorite weapon returned with a beautiful new appearance and stunning damage, and it did so in a haunting, thrilling fashion that the community would retell for years. It wasn't the first time Bungie had done a hidden quest/puzzle/adventure leading to a new exotic, and it definitely wouldn't be the last - Whisper set the standard for future Exotic dungeons like Zero Hour and The Other Side - but it hit at just the right time and with just the right mix of beauty and terror in its design to make a lasting impact on Guardians.

With the vaulting of Io as a destination at the beginning of Year 4, the Whisper dungeon finally vanished into the mists of memory, and new players now pick up its eponymous sniper rifle at the Monument to Lost Lights in the Tower. But the Vault of Glass returned the same year, and in the updated raid that lone original gate became the source of the Vex Mythoclast catalyst. When activated, it shows the corresponding view back through Whisper's own gate, one last, lingering glimspe of the dungeon's hazy blue. Listen when a veteran shows the new Guardians that gate and you'll hear them start with a story: it was a Friday in July in Lost Oasis when we heard the strangest thing...

Destiny 2 Compendium Armarum Exoticarum

[ Ace of Spades | Ager's Scepter | Anarchy | Arbalest | Bad Juju | Bastion | Black Talon | Borealis | Cerberus+1 | The Chaperone | Cloudstrike | Coldheart | Collective Obligation | The Colony | Crimson | Cryosthesia 77K | DARCI | Dead Man's Tale | Deathbringer | Dead Messenger | Devil's Ruin | Divinity | Duality | Edge of Action/Concurrence/Intent | Eriana’s Vow | Eyes of Tomorrow | Fighting Lion | The Fourth Horseman | Forerunner | Gjallarhorn | Grand Overture | Graviton Lance | Hard Light | Hawkmoon | Heartshadow | Heir Apparent | The Huckleberry | Izanagi’s Burden | The Jade Rabbit | Jötunn | The Lament | The Last Word | Legend of Acrius | Leviathan’s Breath | Lord of Wolves | Lorentz Driver | Lumina | Malfeasance | Merciless | MIDA Multi-Tool | Le Monarque | Monte Carlo | No Time to Explain | One Thousand Voices | Osteo Striga | Outbreak Perfected | Parasite | Polaris Lance | Prometheus Lens | The Prospector | Queenbreaker | Rat King | Riskrunner | Ruinous Effigy | Salvation's Grip | Skyburner’s Oath | Sleeper Simulant | Sturm | Sunshot | SUROS Regime | Sweet Business | Symmetry | Tarrabah | Telesto | Thorn | Thunderlord | Ticuu's Divination | Tommy's Matchbook | Tractor Cannon | Traveler's Chosen | Trespasser | Trinity Ghoul | Truth | Two-Tailed Fox | Vex Mythoclast | Vigilance Wing | The Wardcliff Coil | Wavesplitter | Whisper of the Worm | Wish-Ender | Witherhoard | Worldline Zero | Xenophage ]

[dngrs-untld-hrshps-unnmbrd]

Dating Nokris would include

Kind of problematic, but then he is a necromancer with abandonment issues. NSFWish.

An extremely cold and distant first encounter in which he probably tries to kill you

Following him into his Throne World after the other Guardians think they’ve killed him

Earning his respect and admiration when he discovers you’ve been spying on him for days

His embrace feeling cold despite his solar abilities

Lots of bite marks all over your body

Menacing silences that you quickly figure out mean he wants to fuck you and is probably about to

Telling him that Xol is the Will of Thousands and that worm is less stubborn than he is

Him suddenly materialising by your side and demanding to know where you’ve been and who you’ve been talking to

Practicing Thanatonutics and necromancy at the same time with him and becoming so euphoric that the Hive feel more like your brothers and sisters than any Guardian does

Gifts of lavish robes with strange sigils

Plots against Rasputin, his ultimate nemesis

Feeling hypnotised and unnerved by the green soulfire that dances in his eyes, but even more drawn in by its beauty

Hiding away from everything in his throne world together for hours that last a century and decades that last a minute

Pledging your soul to his for enternity, and knowing that he will guard it jealously and protect with all his power

—

Requested by several nonnies. Thank you, you adorable little deviants.

Find the full list of dating headcanons here.

[fire-mage-719]

And here's the gun we made from Xol, Will of the Thousands. And here's the gun we made from Oryx, the taken king. And here's the gun we made from Savathun's worm. And here's the gun we made from a bunch of vex. And here's a gun made from that one tech disease that Rasputin made, don't worry he's cool now. And here's a gun we made from Mara's old space wish dragon pet who got Taken-- was named Riven so you know. And here's the gun we made from some taken things, I don't think how it works ask Drifter. Anyways here's a gun from the Golden age of humanity that was just laying around when we woke up. No we don't know why it works.

so I got into Destiny 2 recently

[sun-singer]

Inktober day 30: slither

“You shall drift. You shall drown in the deep.”

[anactualmoth]

Xol and Riven quote wallpapers/digital art by me

Maybe we can’t keep these cosmic monstrosities in our backpacks as guns in real life, but we can have nice wallpapers of them on our phones. Feel free to use for whatever they were actually pretty simple to make.

[xbuiox]

x. Headcanon

The Deep is like the traveler , it can create and it will take those unworthy of its gifts.

Xol is not a risen of the Traveler. He is a risen of the Deep.

[lilredhoodie-not]

Wormgod Caress

[bonesingerofyme-loc]

>I am AKKA behold my ponderous length, the wind of my passage, the breadth of my being. Truth and lie are mine to shape, and lo, see how the universe bends to me.

>I am EIR, patron to the TAKEN KING. To me flows the tithe of a god, but what is a god to a worm?

>I am UR, the Hunger, to whom all things turn - the Witch herself abased before me, to beg respite from the claim of my teeth.

>I am YUL, the pebble that began the avalanche. I am the font and the source of the Hive, I am the bane of Fundament and Leviathan-murderer.

>I am XOL and imma gun lmao

[artemis-crimson]

[egg-baby-official]

Nobody: puppet: *walks*

Oh lawd she comin!!!

[dredgenridge]

I was doing Strikes for the first time im a while and well... Xol took me out twice.

[xbuiox]

x. when xol was ‘killed’ by the guardian, his soul never went to the great beyond. instead his soul drifted in the Deep for ages, healing and making deals with more guilable guardians feeding on their light for strength. 

[crimson-bolts]

An Offer from the Deep

An Offer from the Deep

The Valkyrie flew through the air with a sole purpose: to sunder the hide of the Worm-God Xol, Will of the Thousands.

And sunder it did, as a blast of energy tore the once great and powerful entity almost cleanly in half, the gaping maw of the immense worm falling first before its body followed suit.

“I can’t believe it! You actually took down a-“

And then....all became black.

The Guardian paused at this; the sounds, the sights, the smells that had once filled the air of Mars had disappeared. What replaced it was quiet and cold, but also gentle....unnaturally so.

A voice soon passed through the air, first a whisper, then a murmur. Growing ever louder as the sound seemed to approach like it was solid, before finally echoing into the Guardian’s mind; clear as if Ghost was there.

It was then that the Guardian realized it: Ghost was gone. The Light was gone. But weakness hadn’t followed...Why?

“Greetings, creature of the Light....”

The voice trailed and repeated in soft whispers, clinging to the edge of the Guardian’s mind, almost dragging across the surface like nails while it continued.

“Or perhaps....You would prefer your proper title? The Guardian, hmhm...”

A chuckle followed, low in timbre and almost vibrating to the core. Whatever was speaking, the Guardian knew that it possessed power; immense power, that could easily dwarf the great creature that had just fallen on Mars.

A step back into the inky blackness seemed to prompt a response to this unspoken worry: “Do not be alarmed; you will not meet your Second End today.”

The Guardian knew fear was the appropriate response, but the voice carried with it something....calming. Muscles relaxed, as the mind opened further and the voice became more clear.

“You have amused me, Guardian. Upon felling Crota...both in physical and true form...I did not bat an eye; such entities rise and fall like the sun and the moon. Like crushing an insect underneath one’s boot without so much as a thought.”

The fear returned; but was soon struck down as the voice continued.

“Your clash with Oryx was what truly drew my attention. Standing tall against my Taken King; sending him cowering back to our Ancestral Plane upon rending his power from him...My Navigator did not witness this outcome, and he has witnessed the final, true shape...”

A breath followed, and a wave of cold irradiated over the Guardian; it embraced armor and cloth, almost squeezed with intent.

“But your actions today....felling one of my closest Apostles, Xol. Now that is cause for congratulations.”

This surprised the Guardian; by now the voice had revealed what it truly was, and yet fear or anger did not take to the mind; almost as if it was being restrained by....something else. Something that now congratulated them for slaying one of its kin.

“Guardian...When Oryx, my Navigator of Death and King of Shapes, stole life from Aka, my Child of Secrets, he sought to commune with me. He sought the truth of the universe...”

In that moment, something hovered inches from the Guardian’s face; breath left them, and was immediately sucked free by the inky blackness.

“Tell me....what is it that you seek?”

The Guardian collapsed, gasping upon their knees as that chuckle resumed again. Weight full upon an armored shoulder, an intangible attempt to console...

“You need not speak; I already know. You do not seek truth like my King of Shapes. You seek an end; to conflict, to death...to the struggle between forces in our universe.”

The presence returned, once again inches away...

“You have slain Xol, my Child of Will; you have gained my favor. We offer you a chance to be that end; champion for both your Light and my Darkness. Bear the weight of both and bring this world, this universe, into its true and final shape: everlasting.”

The Guardian could not find words; not even sound presented itself as the seconds passed in silence. Another chuckle rumbled through the darkness, as that intangible essence seemed to finally drift away.

“Ah...you still do not completely understand. This is...disappointing.”

The embrace the Guardian once felt loosened; the voice softened to a whisper.

“I will wait then...you will soon understand. Amuse me once more; gain my favor again, and then you will truly know.”

“-a Worm-God!”

The Guardian was once again standing on the platform before Rasputin, just as the last fragments of the once great Xol dissolved into nothing.

“We all did, Ana. We make a pretty good team.”

Ghost was back; the darkness that had enveloped was gone. But there was still a whisper that clung to the chambers of their mind, even as the Guardian left the platform to the Warmind’s Chamber....

“Return to me soon...My champion of the Light...”

(A little drabble I had that came to mind after the fight with Xol. A headcanon I have is that similar to Oryx slaying Aka, our defeat of Xol leads us to accidentally commune with the Deep for the first time. This is how I think it would go down; again, all headcanon!)