Think I figured out the skill-gem lore

"

MaraWuti wrote:

Why the hell would you necro this thread after 2 years. So, so much outdated and false info in this thread.


As the above poster mentioned, it all started with Zerphi. Whatever he was doing, it was the underlying demonic ritual that gems are based on. He figured out how to harvest the energy of life, death, and suffering. Through experiments, Atziri basically discovered how to create batteries for this energy - the gems. They store, refine, and concentrate it.

But then she took it a thousand steps too far. "Either immortality for all or death for all" is a line on Doryani's Catalyst. She had Doryani gather all the gems into Doryani's Cradle and perform a "Communion". "You never know who will answer" is a line on some unique item relating to this event. The Vaal Oversoul was probably a beta test of this process, or the process of creating gems. It's all very vague, but the implication is that the so-called Nightmare answered - obviously some kind of demon - and unleashed the first cataclysm in exchange for Atziri's immortality. Nightmare eats nearly every Vaal citizen -> grows stronger, gains small amount of influence on material plane, but still not enough.

Time passes, Eternal Empire mines the location of Doryani's Cradle, finds buried gems. They figure out using gems bestows a certain amount of power, but implanting them makes them superhuman. Then Maligaro uses the reverie device in the Chamber of Sins to discover that virtue gems contain souls, and again decides to take things a thousand steps too far. Instead of merely implanting gems, he extracts their essence and injects it directly. Just as implanting has more effect than wearing, injecting has more effect than implanting. Unfortunately, their mutagenic qualities are magnified as well. As someone said, it really is a lot like Fullmetal Alchemist. Alchemists could hold and use Philosopher's Stones without danger, but injecting a stone is what created Bradley - after hundreds of fatal failures.

Then the Purity Rebellion happens. Voll wins, but most Eternal citizens already have surgically implanted gems, and he can't just remove them all or make them illegal (backed up by comic issue #3, which shows gemling citizens existing after the Rebellion). So he makes a deal with the devil, so to speak, and enlists Malachai to find a way to remotely turn off all gems everywhere. Malachai creates the machine called The Twist, described by Dialla. They take it to Doryani's Cradle in Highgate, and activate it. Dialla's dialogue implies that SHE was the equivalent of the gem trove Aztiri brought together (which a Vaal letter says also contained living people "stuffed" with gems) - Dialla mentions being full of gems, whereas other gemlings seemed to only have one. Malachai intended to sacrifice her, just as Atziri did, to make a deal with the Nightmare. In this case, the deal was for a negation of magic, rather than immortality. But she said no, and as a result the machine/Nightmare backfired. Instead of negating magic, it allowed the Nightmare to remotely devour the life of every gemling, in much the same way as it did with the Vaal. All that was left were zombies.

This second Cataclysm gave the Nightmare enough power to finally affect Wraeclast directly. This was the Black Storm that gets mentioned often - it raised the dead, drove mortals insane, and mutated the wildlife. High level Tora dialogue mentions that something intelligent had mutated the wildlife and accelerated their growth/reproduction in order to create bloodshed and suffering on a grand and unnatural scale, for an unknown purpose.

The purpose is simple, and obvious. The Nightmare is harvesting the power of death the same way Zerphi did, but on a continental scale. Whatever we see in Act 4 won't be pretty. For all we know the Nightmare IS Zerphi, in a disembodied/ascended state. Maybe that was the goal of his ritual killings all along.

Marveil could be explained using the radiation analogy. Virtue gems are clearly magically 'radioactive', warping reality and biology within a radius, with some being far more powerful and mutagenic than others (Baleful Gem being the equivalent of a tiny Chernobyl, etc). Marveil's was likely more radioactive than most gems, either from its point of creation or as a result of still being inside someone DURING the process that made them Undying. The gems players use may not have actually ever been inside anyone, and are thus less damaged/corrupted.

There's also the strong possibility that the exiles that use gems ARE being mutated. I mean, think of how inhumanly fast a high level character can move and attack, even without any gems or equipment. The skill tree, then, could in fact be representative (at least in part) of the mutation process. The longer we're on Wraeclast, the more powerful and inhuman we become. It may take a lifetime, but it's possible all exiles end up as monsters eventually.

"

MaraWuti wrote:

Why the hell would you necro this thread after 2 years. So, so much outdated and false info in this thread.


As the above poster mentioned, it all started with Zerphi. Whatever he was doing, it was the underlying demonic ritual that gems are based on. He figured out how to harvest the energy of life, death, and suffering. Through experiments, Atziri basically discovered how to create batteries for this energy - the gems. They store, refine, and concentrate it.

But then she took it a thousand steps too far. "Either immortality for all or death for all" is a line on Doryani's Catalyst. She had Doryani gather all the gems into Doryani's Cradle and perform a "Communion". "You never know who will answer" is a line on some unique item relating to this event. The Vaal Oversoul was probably a beta test of this process, or the process of creating gems. It's all very vague, but the implication is that the so-called Nightmare answered - obviously some kind of demon - and unleashed the first cataclysm in exchange for Atziri's immortality. Nightmare eats nearly every Vaal citizen -> grows stronger, gains small amount of influence on material plane, but still not enough.

Time passes, Eternal Empire mines the location of Doryani's Cradle, finds buried gems. They figure out using gems bestows a certain amount of power, but implanting them makes them superhuman. Then Maligaro uses the reverie device in the Chamber of Sins to discover that virtue gems contain souls, and again decides to take things a thousand steps too far. Instead of merely implanting gems, he extracts their essence and injects it directly. Just as implanting has more effect than wearing, injecting has more effect than implanting. Unfortunately, their mutagenic qualities are magnified as well. As someone said, it really is a lot like Fullmetal Alchemist. Alchemists could hold and use Philosopher's Stones without danger, but injecting a stone is what created Bradley - after hundreds of fatal failures.

Then the Purity Rebellion happens. Voll wins, but most Eternal citizens already have surgically implanted gems, and he can't just remove them all or make them illegal (backed up by comic issue #3, which shows gemling citizens existing after the Rebellion). So he makes a deal with the devil, so to speak, and enlists Malachai to find a way to remotely turn off all gems everywhere. Malachai creates the machine called The Twist, described by Dialla. They take it to Doryani's Cradle in Highgate, and activate it. Dialla's dialogue implies that SHE was the equivalent of the gem trove Aztiri brought together (which a Vaal letter says also contained living people "stuffed" with gems) - Dialla mentions being full of gems, whereas other gemlings seemed to only have one. Malachai intended to sacrifice her, just as Atziri did, to make a deal with the Nightmare. In this case, the deal was for a negation of magic, rather than immortality. But she said no, and as a result the machine/Nightmare backfired. Instead of negating magic, it allowed the Nightmare to remotely devour the life of every gemling, in much the same way as it did with the Vaal. All that was left were zombies.

This second Cataclysm gave the Nightmare enough power to finally affect Wraeclast directly. This was the Black Storm that gets mentioned often - it raised the dead, drove mortals insane, and mutated the wildlife. High level Tora dialogue mentions that something intelligent had mutated the wildlife and accelerated their growth/reproduction in order to create bloodshed and suffering on a grand and unnatural scale, for an unknown purpose.

The purpose is simple, and obvious. The Nightmare is harvesting the power of death the same way Zerphi did, but on a continental scale. Whatever we see in Act 4 won't be pretty. For all we know the Nightmare IS Zerphi, in a disembodied/ascended state. Maybe that was the goal of his ritual killings all along.

Marveil could be explained using the radiation analogy. Virtue gems are clearly magically 'radioactive', warping reality and biology within a radius, with some being far more powerful and mutagenic than others (Baleful Gem being the equivalent of a tiny Chernobyl, etc). Marveil's was likely more radioactive than most gems, either from its point of creation or as a result of still being inside someone DURING the process that made them Undying. The gems players use may not have actually ever been inside anyone, and are thus less damaged/corrupted.

There's also the strong possibility that the exiles that use gems ARE being mutated. I mean, think of how inhumanly fast a high level character can move and attack, even without any gems or equipment. The skill tree, then, could in fact be representative (at least in part) of the mutation process. The longer we're on Wraeclast, the more powerful and inhuman we become. It may take a lifetime, but it's possible all exiles end up as monsters eventually.

"

MaraWuti wrote:

The longer we're on Wraeclast, the more powerful and inhuman we become. It may take a lifetime, but it's possible all exiles end up as monsters eventually.

"

"

gabeshave wrote:

waaaaaaat

The necroing starts here...again.