Board Thread:The Last Sovereign Discussion/@comment-39332473-20190808194309/@comment-39120971-20191128214325

It's been such a long time since I posted here. And so much great speculation has passed since then! I'll try to limit myself to quoting and responding to specific messages that interested me, but this post will still be really long, I'm afraid, so apologies in advance.

2601:586:4B01:CF0D:B17F:4D25:E8C6:312C wrote: WaxerReds wrote: Actually a thought occurs. Probably the best way to to kill The Lustlord is to stage a falling out between the Empress and the Doom King. Set up a fake fight between them. Since he has literally shown up 100% of the time to scavenge,  he might come in expect two weakened targets, not a massive trap waiting for him. Considering he still isn't aware that his understanding of the situation (ie. the Doom King isn't a puppet that was chained in a moment of weakness by the Empress scheming) is completely wrong, it wouldn't surprise me if that would work as a trap. I bet he never would have guessed the Empress is actively propping up the Doom King to overtake her, though to be fair to him that's probably never happened in the entire time he's been an Incubus King. I like this idea a lot. I'm not sure if Simon will go out of his way to set up a trap like this, but I can see him improvising it if the opportunity presents itself, perhaps during the hunt for Estaven's scattered shards, if and when Simon and Esthera meet in the field. Surely the Lustlord would jump at the opportunity to snatch the shard fragment before the Doom King or the Empress can claim it.

Aosdh wrote: @The Scoutman Just imagine the gathering starting and someone like Antarion showing up with a shard, it cracks me up. Me too, don't know how likely that is, but that would be a fun twist. I rather like Antarion, myself, not in the same way as our party members since he's a deeply flawed character, but at the same time it's someone you 'love to hate' or at least see knocked down a peg. For that reason I'm hoping we'll see more of him, at the very least he better show up again for the next stage in 'who wants to be the King of Ardoheim?' when Tyna will be fending off her many suitors.

77.111.246.30 wrote: ... I can see it now. The true tyrants behind the Incubus Kings I fought for so long. They seek to bring cold light, a peaceful gray or a terrible warmth... It doesn't matter, I am not the tyrant slayer anymore.

What jumped to my mind was the meeting with Sarai (cold light, destruction of all shards), Janine (peaceful gray of retirement), and Riala (terrible warmth of palaces filled with sluts) when they were proposing their futures of the world to Simon. However as Ginasta implied that those are the tyrants behind ALL Incubus kings, she highly likely was referring to something more primal than that meeting.

One can argue that purity (as concept) is "cold light" and lust is "terrible warmth", what is peaceful gray? Apathy? Death? And how could Tower's balancing mechanism consider concepts underlying the reality (and therefore Tower itself) as tyrants? Although one can claim that its not too dissimilar to Alonon's preception. Maybe she and Varia can go give destiny some magic stabbing together. Their conversation on destiny must really sink in to Ginasta now. I thought back to that conversation ending chapter 1 as well. There are obvious differences, of course, but I think it's no coincidence, and while the ladies and Simon were discussing the fate of Yhilin, the country, I wouldn't be surprised if three more powerful entities meet with Simon and offer him the choice among three possible futures, only this time, for the entire World.

I don't think Tanurak himself is that 'terrible warmth', but rather, Tanurak himself is an agent of the greater force. Everyone we've met so far are just agents, the Anak, Ivala and the other goddesses, everyone. And only by the end of the game, prior to the epilogue, we'll meet the forces themselves: the Chaos Lord of the 'terrible warmth', the Lady of Order for the 'cold light' and the One of Balance for the 'peaceful grey'. They have all the answers, though how much we'll learn as opposed to just making the decision they expect of us, that is an open question.

I know it's far-fetched, but I don't mind taking long shots, there's more ammo still waiting, so heh.

77.111.246.98 wrote: From interlude:

T:The untouchable Ivala, reduced to this. I can imagine how pleased you are with your little Church, hmm?

This is evidence of church of Ivala being responsible for the current state of the goddess (at this point, I will consider this a power level, not the prisoner status, as latter would implicate the Church directly). This need not imply that they are aware of what they are doing, at least not the majority of them, however they ARE draining her. This will also explain why the rank-and-file priestesses are losing their connection to Ivala - she is simply becoming weaker. We have learned that the power of shards is limited. Most of her power is being drained to allow church crazy things like 3AW wall.

It is possibble (even probable) that Ivala was the one who initiated direct connection to her worshippers originally, however the church, given a finger, bit off the arm. For the greater good - they needed a tool to fight the IK(s).

Now it is technically possible that the leadership of the Church is completely oblivious. They think that they are using these massive spells and the power is coming from nowhere, or that Ivala is infinite and therefore they can keep pulling more and more power. In fact, I suspect that vast majority of priestesses (including most High Priestesses) think that way. After all the Church was established long ago, and likely operated with consentual links. However at a certain point something happened. The power that Church started drawing increaed. When Simon confronted Hester on the Ivalan wall he explicitly asked what price they had to pay for it, which she dodged with 'is it that hard to believe that devotion can produce these effects? Well, not telling you anything'. This leaves me with one out of two options - either Hester is more oblivious than she looks or she knows what she is doing. Even in the latter scenaro she need not be the captor, simply someone who is utilizing the link to the maximum.

So it is possible that whoever the captor is, they are not affiliated with the church. They either were ok with church draining their goddess, or simply wanted to remove Ivala from being able to influence the world, and not care about what church does to her. Out of characters we know, Anak could fall into that category. The pros of this theory would be another reason why Ivala is weak (theosen collection from prelude) and the fact that Anak likely has Zelica as captive and therefore knows something about imprisoning goddesses. Zelica being drained is implied from the fact that Wendis stopped hearing her after a while. The cons is that during the conversation between Mythin and Ivala where they talked about "monster who has Zelica" to be different from her captors. Also in his conversation with Ivala, Tanurak explicitly used Anak by name (technically title), but did not name the captor.

So I keep my speculation. Hester is the the last Arclent Tower walker and "the" captor of Ivala who found a way to exploit consentual links and drain the godess for the greater good - fight with Arclent IK.

On a tangentially related note, the Totally Normal Girl has blonde hair with blue eyes, same as Ivala. If we assume that she has a direct link to Ivala, letting her drink from the shard might help sustain the drained goddess for a while longer. I think you're onto something here, A Fandom User. I won't go over every point but one thing stuck out to me, namely the point also touched by WaxerReds in a later message.

WaxerReds wrote: Another note from the update Robin mentions, "Incubus King shards dominate surrounding the world, but these (divine shards) draw power from it." Makes me think that is the reason why the goddesses demand worship. Just like how the Fucklord wanted to ride a wave of "Fear" to gain power "Faith"  might be how they draw Goddesses strength. It'd explain why The Prudish Mother was pushing for her followers to start breeding like crazy. More babies means more followers in the future. (Edit Also why she demanded that the Yhilin elves stop being 'forced' to worship Ivala and come over to her side.) Would also explain why the GOM uses arcane magic, with so few followers she relies on her own magic power. I may be overreaching here, but I suspect there are more similarities, or rather symmetries, between the Incubus Kings and Goddesses than either side would like to admit. Incubus Kings have terrifying sexual magic and are effectively immortal, however they need to have regular sex or their powers and health will leave them. In the same vein, Goddesses receive power from the prayers and devotion of their faithful, and then bless them with divine magic that is accessed through those prayers.

But what happens if someone starts to twist the teachings of a Goddess to their own liking?

What if someone can intercept all the prayers and send a new message to the faithful, and direct them to other activities, more suited to their interests? What if there is an intermediary between the Goddess and her faithful, someone who is allowed some direct interaction, who then shares the words of the Goddess with the others?

We have seen this play out already, to an extent. The Goddess of Magic relies on Vera, the leader of her cult, to guide her faithful and carry out her plans. Her believers can pray and ask questions of her, too, and she answers, or so we've been told, but for a lot of things they seem happy to listen to Vera and follow her orders, trusting that she proclaims the will of the Goddess of Magic so they can all make their deity happy. Even though they could commune with the goddess directly, perhaps the faithful prefer some more human interaction, with somebody they can see? Or maybe Vera is uniquely chosen by the Goddess of Magic because she is the most devoted, the most trustworthy, or otherwise suitable for her purposes?

With all this in mind, I suspect what actually happened to Ivala is that she fell victim to the inner schisms of the High Priestesses. When instead of one cult leader, there are several leaders competing for power, and even pushing different doctrines, conflict is inevitable. The Consectrationists, Desecrationists and Subsecrationists proclaim some very fundamental and mostly incompatible interpretations of Ivala's will, after all, but that conflict wouldn't exist if Ivala herself simply announced the truth to her faithful, right? But that would upset the power balance, and so, the High Priestesses don't want that.

I am not sure how they feel about draining Ivala's power, but I'm guessing they aren't aware of how weak their Goddess has become lately. They think she's omnipotent and don't care about limits, perhaps? And each one is convinced they are carrying out Ivala's true will, while the others are pretenders, but in fact, everyone has twisted Ivala's teachings in some way, and without any true believers (save for a couple individuals as devoted as Carina was) Ivala grows weaker and weaker, deprived of the sustenance true prayers bring. Yet she still answers the prayers of her faithful, why? Is this her way of proving she remains a true Goddess? Is she that devoted to her duty? Or maybe... she actually doesn't have a choice in the matter, whoever performs divine magic in her name automatically drains her power for the magic to work?

Arakhne wrote: From a (2019-09-22) Patreon-locked post from Sierra Lee, which has pretty much been quoted in its entirety at this point, even if indirectly, so I guess it's fine to simply repost it talis qualis:

''Though I've done the best I can with TLS, there are a few assumptions built into the design that I think are limitations. I expected more insecurity, so there aren't many good male characters. I expected the female characters to be viewed as waifu/fetish collection instead of taken seriously as characters, so there are honestly more than I think is ideal. In theory, I could build a new game with better assumptions.''

So yeah, "no male other than Simon" is more of a prudent (and perfectly understandable in that context) business decision than a real story choice. If TLS had been written in a vacuum, Wendis would probably speak of her other male partners as eagerly as of the female ones and Trin fuck (with) the Impaler (random absurd pairing, since, well, there are indeed no really shippable male characters). And it's unlikely at this point that this rule will be broken, for that particular game at least.

Note that Sierra did try to make a game with many complex male characters: Kingdom of Deception. In 1.0, maybe (?) the version closer to her initial design, there were four main male "love interests" (partners? friends with benefits?) (Lutvrog, the three captains) and two secondary male ones (the warchief, the bartender) for only one secondary female one (Neve).

Public reactions were mixed to say the least. Just wanted to quote the message explaining Sierra's reasoning for the almost all-female cast we see. I don't have anything to add to that discussion really, but for what it's worth I am alright with TLS as we have it now, I see the wisdom of that choice and honestly think that Sierra Lee indeed spoils us through this wonderful game. At the same time, I wouldn't mind seeing some more variety of characters and themes, maybe in other titles, and I look forward to her other creations.

WaxerReds wrote: Wow did not expect so many reposes to my query! To avoid walls of text I'll refrain from triple quoting.

DukeLeto7

I don't think having a country was a prerequisite at the gathering. Simon for example had nothing, same with the Lord of Blood and Skullcrusher (RIP).

The Fulminato

But why would the Anak give a toss about War? Or conquering? If you think about it, the higher you go in tower matters the less and less conventional armies matter. The Anak doesn't seem to care about armies or conquest, just in 'smoothing out' any tower walkers or entities that make trouble.

Videospirit

I'm not sure there is anything to support your first point of there being risks of long term tower exposure. Ulrissa for example did have a tower in the physical world, but it looked like no one had step foot in it for decades. As for the second point you may have a 'point' as anchors in the real world do seem like a must. But still keeping an ENTIRE country just for that aim seems like much. Last point might be the most likely as rulers do seem to become tower walkers more then anyone else. I think Videospirit and Fulminato have the right idea. If "Power is Power" and thus kings and rulers tend to be Tower Walkers, but one can also become a King through Tower Walking, like Kanfour did, then maybe loss of power in the world can lead to losing that Power in the Tower as well? Ulrissa may have withdrawn but she's maintained a link to her tower, at least, and even as the Goddesses withdrew deep into the Tower, they stay connected with the world through their many followers, aren't they? So I suspect that the Anak must maintain the country in order to stay connected to the Tower and explore it in peace, either to keep his own power stable, or to prevent some new King from appearing and interrupting him.

Considering he already focuses almost exclusively on the Tower and lets Xestris run the country in his place, it really seems like it's a means to an end for him, and not the main benefit. You could almost say that Anak being an Incubus King is sort of an accident - he could be a powerful being simply as a Tower Walker, but by walking the many Paths of Power, maybe he'd found and chosen to absorb a Shard because his long term plans require hundreds or thousands of years to bear fruit, hence he'd need it for immortality, which King Alonon and King Kanfour apparently do not possess.

Okay, this will be the last quote, honestly.

Fluid-decanter wrote: The Crystal of Ivala looks an awful lot like a big divine shard, much bigger than the one in our Tower HQ. It can't be, though, because they're going to let people touch it - and therefore risk absorbing it, as the succubi had to consciously resist doing when they sucked lifeforce from the small one.

But wait, the promise is that touching it will cure all disease. All disease. Chronically sick people are likely going to test that out with conditions that have defied normal healers for years. And if it's just a crack team of super elite healers casting spells on supplicants from behind the wall tapestries, people will notice that. So either they're going to restrict access to this miracle very carefully, and look like stingy frauds (which they probably are in that case)... or it's really a divine shard, a crystallized source of pure vitality.

Given its colossal size, could it really be Ivala's shard, which Riala speculates someone else has taken captive even though we know Ivala isn't dead?

There's something we know about the dark shards that power Incubi: It's possible to wrap them in a magical cocoon that controls what power leaks through. Robin did this so that Simon would slowly transform the Incubus Emperor's shard while it did not transform him. Perhaps this Crystal of Ivala is a real divine shard, within a layer of protective magical barrier that only allows it to revitalize and heal those who touch, without allowing them to draw it into their bodies and become goddesses?

Surely that would justify the expense and secrecy of the new facilities in Ardford - that, and a truly godlike level of security in case anyone tries to break through to the shard itself.

As a bonus, this may answer where Hester got the power for Ivala's Wall back in 3AW. I suspect that crystal is indeed a real divine shard, and indeed it does explain Ivala's Wall from the 3AW. I don't know what the Church is plotting with it, but it's an awfully bold move of them to just set it on display like that.

We've seen that soul shards can exist without any specific owners and that they can remain even after their death, although they tend to get snatched up rather quickly by IKs seeking to grow even more powerful. But if you can give up a shard without dying, whether it's a divine shard or a soul shard, then that suggests... well for one thing, it suggests that Ginasta could've extracted them without necessarily killing the owners (although leaving a tyrant alive, even robbed of power, seems like it would go against her Modus Operandi), but more importantly...

... if another goddess, like the Mother, approached that divine shard, could she absorb it and add it to her own, to grow even more powerful, in the way the Incubus Kings absorb shards? Because if that's how it works, then...

Maybe the Church is really setting a trap to capture another Goddess to drain, in case Ivala's power really runs out?