sk-lore

[lethal burrow]

The only solid answer to that is "after hollow knight" lol

[raven oak]

i mean maybe, but also hornet used silk in hollow knight as well

[cloud mesa]

who knows if silk was supposed to be a special power at all

[summer mauve]

Damn. Is there no entry that officially calls Herrah a weaver? I assumed there was but can't think of it

[cloud mesa]

or just a technique hornet knew

[lethal burrow]

Weavers were never just the only spiders though, at least originally

[cloud mesa]

theirs that one tablet about herrahs mate

[summer mauve]

That being said, with Hornet being pretty explicitly part weaver, there seems only one place that could have come from. There's way less evidence for the Pale King being a weaver

[raven oak]

i can't remember, was she in the hunters journal in hk or in any lore?

[pastel timber]

there is a completely different type of spider just sat in the spirits glade

[raven oak]

i can't remember if its stated that shes explicitly a weaver anywhere

[cloud mesa]

no i dont think

[lethal burrow]

Nothing in the first game

[cloud mesa]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KdenmYHRdO_zNFlAlDNoPwtMmNKp6jwW50SLhG-2xPQ/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.34ojtgue8ovc u can look for it

[pastel timber]

biggest plot twist of all time: herrah is the wyrm and the pale king is the weaver

[cloud mesa]

herrah's only called the beast and like brood mother

[pastel timber]

most info youll get of her is from the dreamers statue

[lethal burrow]

biggest plot twist: the pale king gave birth to hornet and cheated on harrah with one of the Weavers

[raven oak]

yeah i just find it weird that its not stated in hk while hornet uses silk a lot in her fights, maybe silk wasn't related directly just to weavers in the first game or the explanation was that hornet just used the weaver's silk?

[noble magnet]

Maybe herrah is just a different kind of weaver, underwent some kinda metamorphosis or something

Like the queen of the colony or whatever

[cloud mesa]

Their dead sire, once of honoured caste.
Their sealed mother, but the common beast.
No peace with them we make.
this lore tablet feels like directly retconned

[lethal burrow]

yeah, she was either born massless or she gave birth and transformed

[pastel timber]

my bets on she cocooned and metamorphised to become queen of deepnest

[cloud mesa]

no shot weavers are common beasts

[pastel timber]

remember theyre refugees in deepnest, it could probably just mean "not nobility"

[lethal burrow]

they were in hallownest.

I doubt the king of Korea would mean much to the land of Scandinavia.

[cloud mesa]

they're pale tho

[noble magnet]

Yeah I don’t think the people of hallownest are really into weaver lore

[cloud mesa]

no?

[noble magnet]

Made by Silk but not pale

[lethal burrow]

I don't think there's anything to suggest that

[brisk thunder]

white no equal to pale

[pastel timber]

the pale king really liked the magic properties of silk but before that was made known they were likely just nothing special

[cloud mesa]

also silksong having no mention of herrah's ex( dead husband?) is lame

[noble magnet]

They’re basically mutants

[noble magnet]

it ain’t about him

[lethal burrow]

yeah, they were basically just foreign mages to the people of hallownest

[raven oak]

maybe the old lore they made for hk was too convoluted or there wasn't a good place to put the lore in the base game

hoping for it in the dlc maybe

[noble magnet]

He’s long dead and has like no connection to Hornet beyond being Herrah’s dead ex

[pastel timber]

or its just not relevant, the king of deepnest was just some noble who got the throne, hes not important to anything more than that

[raven oak]

yeah just the shrine feels too important to ignore, like its not some throwaway thing in deepnest but a whole screen of a room is dedicated to the shrine of likely the king

[cloud mesa]

i dont get how one can be a beast and a weaver they just seem incompatible

[lethal burrow]

hornet was born after the king died, the two of them never even met each other.

The biggest connection you have ever had in the entire lives is the theoretical scenario that hornet once looked at his corpse while walking down the hallway.

That's about it

[raven oak]

yeah thats what i was thinking already, just didn't fit in with silksong's story

i just wished there was a better explanation for why the kings body was probably put in a weird floating shrine

[noble magnet]

They lived in horrible dark fuckoff nightmare land in hallownest with the dirtcarvers and corpsecrawlers

[lethal burrow]

tbf the term beast is only used by the people of the pale king and all that.

The people of deepnest call harrah of lower cast sure, but that's not to say these are the same.

beast could have been a derogatory term for any of the people of deepest by the city of tears or whatever

[pastel timber]

what if this, grimm's chart, the collectors grub rune, all these strange shrines and practices are all left intentionally vague and unknowable to remind us that these peoples and cultures are so foreign to us that we might never understand them

[lethal burrow]

deepnest culture, I guess

[cloud mesa]

but herrah is like the beast

[raven oak]

ig yeah, just to flesh out the world and make some things just never known

[pastel timber]

have you seen her, shes massive compared to everyone else

[cloud mesa]

shes not a beast shes the beast like thats her title

[raven oak]

it just feels annoying when so much of the other deepnest lore with weavers was expanded upon but not about the king

[pastel timber]

exactly!

[noble magnet]

Admittedly the collector’s weird grub drawing could literally just mean nothing because they’re insane

[pastel timber]

that shrine is probably the other half of deepnest, reminding us its not just weavers, or at least thats how it can be spun now

[lethal burrow]

so spoken in the resting grounds in the city of tears about harrah.

I think beast might've been a somewhat derogatory term for deepnest folk in some capacity

[cloud mesa]

and hunters journal

[pastel timber]

all the same the shrine could just be an art piece cause they were bored, anything could mean nothing

[raven oak]

yeah ig that makes sense

[cloud mesa]

oh and hornet calls her that

[lethal burrow]

maybe beast is just a term for non-bugs

[cloud mesa]

hornet calling her mom the beast is lowk real

[lethal burrow]

I forget when

[noble magnet]

she says it when she goes Beast mode

[raven oak]

maybe beast isn't a bad term in the world of hk, as the things in deepnest are called that, like beasts den and herrah the beast

[eternal sigil]

alright, question about an observation

[cloud mesa]

oh and midwife calls her the beast

[eternal sigil]

Void Masses seem to faintly play the music box song one hears from Shades under their normal SFX

at least I am almost certain of this

what the fuck does that song mean?

[lethal burrow]

I must be forgetting a lot of this could you find the dialogue, please?

[lethal burrow]

I have no idea what you're talking about. I need you to get a clip.

[pastel timber]

oh my god its a grub map theres 46 of them

[cloud mesa]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oaED7I6xL5NItD-wKyDB455f58d3weLz8OMIkRyEQlo/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.hpwojtjnlrxo

hollow knight script document is very usefull during these discussions

[lethal burrow]

lmao seven years and somebody figured it out

[noble magnet]

I’m pretty sure I heard that one before

[raven oak]

i think hes saying the void mass things that spew void in silksong act 3 play the song that plays when you are near your shade in hollow knight

i never heard that though or noticed it really

[eternal sigil]

can try but I might have to just say "trust me bro", I don't know how recording software and crap works

[cloud mesa]

A spritely thing, isn't she? Pale gift to the Nest and the Beast, and fair trade for sacrifice made.
midwife on the topic of hornet

[pastel timber]

wait no scratch that not a map theres already a map, this is a grub spell that needs 46 grubs and thats why the collector is collecting them trust me

[noble magnet]

pale king expose thread link

[lethal burrow]

I don't know how to find words on mobile

[eternal sigil]

here and again I hear those distorted music box notes under the wind howling though and it seems to follow the same rough melody procession as the shade theme

[pastel timber]

pale king uncancelled after pharloom economy exposed

[cloud mesa]

So you've slain the Beast... and you head towards that fated goal.
I'd not have obstructed this happening, but it caused me some pain to knowingly stand idle.
...What? You might think me stern but I'm not completely cold.
cropped hornet dialogue

[pastel timber]

i only ever heard that theme once myself and it was in the red memory, which makes sense given its the nursery theme and hornet is the pale kings daughter

[raven oak]

yup its crazy to think how actually unobtrusive the pale king was for the existing kingdoms compared to what weavers+gms did in pharloom

[sullen cave]

Were the snails actually part of the ancient civilization that worshiped the void, or are they not and ||the snail shamans in Pharloom just using the void as a means to an end?||

[noble magnet]

Beast could just be a cool title too

Like Ivan the Terrible

Or Vlad the Impaler

[cloud mesa]

pale king for ever personally

[eternal sigil]

I feel like the snails are their Own Special Thing and exist outside of the system

[raven oak]

im not sure, i think its implied even more in silksong that they are made of void, but idk if they are from the ancient civilization or actually void beings because they still have relatives

[pastel timber]

hot take i think the snail shamans just think magic and the occult is cool and interesting and soul/void are the two main substances they can play with

[eternal sigil]

they use Soul, they use Silk, they use Void

[cloud mesa]

vlad did impale ppl tho

[eternal sigil]

They don't seem to be void worshippers, otherwise Jiji would probably be way less spooky about player shades in Hollow Knight

[noble magnet]

I think the snails are probably descendants since void stuff has a lot of deep sea motifs what with the ammonite fossils and shit

[raven oak]

like why else would the shamans die from hornet getting the everbloom thats not because they are void unless maybe they just used all their energy/life performing the spell

[edgy barn]

Monomom is the Teacher becquse she is a researcher, Lumen is the Watcher because he watches over the city, Herrah is the Beast because she uhh, does beastly things?

[pastel timber]

theyre so casual about it in act 3 too like "oh cmon you know what we like to play with"

[brisk thunder]

there was a void cult in previous planning，but cut out in actual game，and there is a quest regarding void in steelsoul mode

[cloud mesa]

i want team cherry to leak the original plans for hornet dlc

[noble magnet]

Herrah went beast mode

[pastel timber]

its almost certainly the latter, the snail shamans are not void i will die on that hill

[raven oak]

there still is a kinda void cult little thing with the guy who summons the void thing

[noble magnet]

Who

[pastel timber]

that was more of a "i heard theres a thing that can free me" rather than a cult

[sullen cave]

That tracks, they seem like the "crazy witch in the woods" kind of characters.

[eternal sigil]

yeah I think the shamans either exhausted their life force putting pizzazz in that spell, or they tired themselves out and are dormant as a result of it

[pastel timber]

steel soul exclusive npc

[noble magnet]

Oh

[raven oak]

im pretty certain they are void, but i don't think there is complete confirmed evidence for either void or not void, though imo void has a ton of evidence for it now

[eternal sigil]

If they were void then like, what's the hold up, why would they agree to this in the first place.

[cloud mesa]

are there other people that have reached pharloom and hallownest besides weavers , ancient civ, and snail shamans?

[pastel timber]

i rewatched the mossbag shaman video yesterday and the evidence was like "they burst into black balls and you get void spells" but having played through silksong i firmly believe youre just absorbing their power/knowledge in order to mix the spells you have with your own internal void

[raven oak]

they are somehow obssessed with void, die when hornet gets the everbloom that resists void, explode into void spells that the knight absorbs, and know a lot of the abyss and of lore in general (calling hornet "old one" like the maskmaker)

[lethal burrow]

At which location

[eternal sigil]

consider that big shell we find Howling Wraiths in in Hollow Knight; its inhabitant seems to be dormant in some capacity

[eternal sigil]

multiple of them where there are intact Void Masses

[sullen cave]

I also doubt they are void beings. Too expressive for what I'd associate as realized emptiness.

[edgy barn]

Snail shamans being void would mean that the one in the first game was either incredibly stupid or was lying for no reason with the player having no way of knowing he was doing so

[eternal sigil]

I haven't ruled it out being paredoilea but it happens too often for me to think that is the case

[spare pendant]

snails are strictly not void

[pastel timber]

we know what wild void likes to look like and its tentacles, not snails

[spare pendant]

snails have soul, void doesn't

[pastel timber]

do the siblings in the abyss give soul when you dream nail them

[raven oak]

why would the shamans in pharloom though be obsessed with void when its extremely hard to even get to there? did they just travel there from a place that has easily accessible void?

[sullen cave]

I think they're dead. Bridging the gap between the dream of the past and the reality of the present to materialize an extremely rare and delicate resource that could repel what is otherwise too powerful for even gods to survive sounds like the kind of thing snail shamans would die for.

[raven oak]

or do they just somehow know of it

[lethal burrow]

What platform are you on? I can tell you how to record it pretty easily.

[edgy barn]

iirc they just get one shot without giving any

[pastel timber]

void is literally everywhere, they like playing with magic, void is magic

[cloud mesa]

im sorta fairly sure snail sharms are related to ancient civ

[lethal burrow]

no they just go back into the ground

[pastel timber]

yeah then theres definitely no soul in the void, given that void goes and eats all the soul it can find

shamans cant be void

[brisk thunder]

i still think that the white blast attack by Groal is actually the same Vengeful Spirit that the knight used

[raven oak]

wdym, void not anywhere pre act 3 in pharloom, unless they somehow had some alternate entrance to the abyss that isn't through the diving bell

unless they traveled to pharloom from somewhere else

[spare pendant]

void is everywhere under the world

[pastel timber]

ok well, void is literally underneath everywhere, hornet says it herself, the abyss can always be found if you go deep enough

[raven oak]

yeah but thats implying that shamans came from somewhere else, went deep, learned of it, and went to pharloom and just chilled there? that seems kinda random

[pastel timber]

besides the snail shaman family is a very old lineage, and the abyss used to be travelled to before the haunting (as per the diving bell)

[lethal burrow]

what about the bottom of dream realm

[pastel timber]

shamans say themselves that nobodys dived that deep "in a long time", but not in forever

[spare pendant]

they possibly predate pharloom

[raven oak]

i know its everywhere but saying that they are obsessed with void but then went somewhere where its very deep is strange

[cloud mesa]

im guessing weavers had another way to get to the abyss

[pastel timber]

considering the dream goddess was eaten by void i think the dream realm is pretty firmly all void now

[lethal burrow]

they definitely predate the citadels primacy considering what the chapel maid says

[cloud mesa]

or maybe in pharloom past their wasn't all that lava and their was a easier way down

[sullen cave]

I agree. We know that anything that goes into and is "reborn" the void is basically just a shell of their former self and not even really alive (take the Vessels, for example). What use would such beings have for being able to reproduce, and being able to reproduce sexually (they have to be able to, otherwise the snails wouldn't have family trees)

[raven oak]

yeah, thats my guess whether or not they are void, but the reasoning for their knowledge/obsession with void despite the lack of it in the main areas of pharloom is kinda weak imo

[pastel timber]

that lava has been there the whole time but they had ways of getting under it, because we got under it using their ways of getting under it

[cloud mesa]

did the weavers use that bell?

[lethal burrow]

They wouldn't be big enough to fit in the door with their big heads

[raven oak]

probably, there is a weavenest down there so they had to have got down there

[meager raft]

The fact the weavers built a weavenest in teh Abyss is pretty funny

[cloud mesa]

the bell feels very not weaver

[sullen cave]

Gotta be. Groal had a dead snail shaman in his hut surrounded by containers of Soul.

[eternal sigil]

Windows PC

[pastel timber]

theyre witches that kill bugs to play with their souls the reasoning of "they find it deeply fascinating" holds up

[brisk thunder]

snails are shaman，obsessed with void，used void to power up their spell

[eternal sigil]

would also need to actually hunt down some Void Masses I hadn't killed yet

[sullen cave]

The First Sinner can teleport. That likely wasn't a problem IF they used the bell.

[edgy barn]

Yeah but the weavenest is like, a very long way from the bell. I think is more likely thhey used some other method

[spare pendant]

they can clearly access the void

[raven oak]

that doesn't connect them to void though, unless they just somehow researched it across kingdoms because they are like that

[cloud mesa]

can we discuss the arcane egg in pharloom abyss

[lethal burrow]

hmmmm, you could just hop in a call and stream your display then

[pastel timber]

or they/their predecessors just explored pharlooms abyss themselves

[spare pendant]

arcane eggs are a remnant of the abyss civilization

[raven oak]

only because they made a trap that i think attracts the void using a large amount of soul, they don't just have it from my knowledge

[lethal burrow]

fair.

[pastel timber]

we know there was an ancient civilisation in pharlooms abyss too, they clearly had similar knowledge/practices as hallownests, i doubt that directly links the two but implies something about the way void works

[cloud mesa]

did the ancient civ reach pharloom? did they run into the weavers?

[lethal burrow]

I think Weavers explored the void as an option to deal with grandmother silk, but decided against it

[lethal burrow]

The ancient civilization is older than the Weavers by a good margin it seems

[raven oak]

yeah that makes sense from what we see in the tablets and what they end up doing

[edgy barn]

Does she actually teleport in-universe or is she just moving really fast?

[eternal sigil]

true

[raven oak]

its weird though how the ancient civilization is both in hallownest and in pharloom despite falling because of their want to expand

[eternal sigil]

Give me some time

[craggy smelt]

both areas held arcane eggs
I think the ancient civilization was just way more widespread than a lot of people thought

[raven oak]

maybe arcane eggs were universal before both kingdoms

[pastel timber]

if radiance is a pale being that means 3/4 pale beings we've seen have been killed by void which is a pretty good track record to be fair

[cloud mesa]

the radiance isnt pale

hes yellow

[pastel timber]

i mean do we know that though

[sacred heath]

where there was void, there were peoples to worship it

[lethal burrow]

Why not just say higher beings you don't need to bring this division here

[pastel timber]

gms being pale opens a lot of questions

[pastel timber]

cause unn and grimm are alive and that makes the ratio way less interesting to say out loud

[edgy barn]

PK is also unlikely to have died by Void in my opinion

[lethal burrow]

ok

[eternal sigil]

meanwhile on this topic, I get the notion that whatever ancient Void-worshipper civilization there was, it was similarly cosmopolitan as the Abyss and its ecosystem

[raven oak]

PK dying by void would make sense imo also thematically but there isn't really too much evidence for it

[eternal sigil]

Hornet talks about running across crawlers everywhere she wanders if she goes deep enough

[pastel timber]

the void particles in his throne room make me think he just slowly got poisoned by surrounding himself with it constantly

[spare pendant]

there are void particles in the throne room and dead void constructs outside

[raven oak]

yeah maybe they are across the abyss and their desire to expand up was what led to their downfall maybe

[brisk thunder]

Weaver tried to create life (Eva) - give hornet upgrade on crest

Weaver wanted to fight - invented guns

Weaver wanted to run away - found a way to speed up and had an escape plan

Weaver wanted to leave abyss - developed silksoar

[pastel timber]

we did get told at one point that the ancient civ tried to claim all of hallownest and that was their downfall

[raven oak]

yeah it makes sense, but has about as much evidence as we have for shamans being void imo

[eternal sigil]

The other thought coming to mind is that the void "civilization" might actually be a bunch of parts of other old civs that explored down there and were enthralled by the depths and their power, thereafter assimilating into its mold somehow

[spare pendant]

it has significantly more lmao

[raven oak]

yeah i know, im just speculating because it would be weird for their expansion to be their downfall when they were also in pharloom

[eternal sigil]

Admittedly my only evidence for this is how weird the Weaver writings in Silksong's Abyss are

[half cobalt]

so ||lace|| is hornets ||aunt||?

[raven oak]

like their desire to expand into other existing kingdoms up above was the catalyst for their destruction, not just expanding in general

[edgy barn]

There are no void tendril nears his corpse, nor does the corpse have the distinct signs of dead by void

[eternal sigil]

Some of them were clearly "on that stuff"

[pastel timber]

i dont think theyre the same civilisation tbh, hallownests ancient one seemed to want to expand, to study and learn, whereas pharlooms was going "please let us stop thinking we hate it"

[cloud mesa]

theres void in his throne room so maybe

[eternal sigil]

correct

[spare pendant]

void tendrils aren't physical things that remain when void pulls from the area

[lethal burrow]

there's void around his throne, void particles within it, the kingsmold his palace is within his void tentacles going into it
He has a heavy ass association with soul (colour, KINGSOUL, he's heavy usage of soul, his infinite soul totems, etc)
which we know the void seeks out and devours soul.

I could go on, but you get the point

[brisk thunder]

Well, the abyss might be linked to surface in somewhere, since the knight too appeared from somewhere in the first game

[raven oak]

maybe, that implies though that arcane eggs were universal a long time ago, which seems like a cool concept

[half cobalt]

man second time in this franchise where the char i ship turn into family smh

[spare pendant]

the only alternative to pale king dying to void is that he died of grief/suicide before the void got to him

[raven oak]

yeah i already know the evidence (i watched the mossbag vid) but if thats the case, i think shamans are void imo although i could be forgetting details

[pastel timber]

maybe not universal, but obvious technology to anyone living in the abyss, its not impossible that two different civs in the exact same environment create the same writing style, like two different cultures inventing paper or something

[lethal burrow]

Only if you consider the Weavers to be the children of grand silk

[spare pendant]

shamans being void has no connection lol

[raven oak]

yeah i guess that makes sense, like how lemm just says that eggs are a good form of writing storage somehow

[cloud mesa]

the ancient civ and snail shaman being the only 2 people beside weavers that were in pharloom and hallownest makes me think hey're related

[pastel timber]

doesnt he say in the video that his reasoning was weak and likely wrong

[eternal sigil]

||it would be like if your grandma had a child in her teens and then one in like her late 40s-50s, and your mom had you fairly young in life, to the extent that the aunt acts younger than you are or similar to it||

[spare pendant]

i dont watch mossbag

[raven oak]

there is def more connecting void to pale king's death, but also some evidence for shamans being void

[half cobalt]

with a name like ||grandmother slik|| its hard to think otherwise

[pastel timber]

the steel seers were also in both

[lethal burrow]

wow mossbag knew void seeks out and devours soul before silk song came out and told us that! Did the guy have early access for seven years? Crazy...,

[spare pendant]

shamans literally can't be void...

[cloud mesa]

oh who knows what their deal is

[raven oak]

how

[spare pendant]

soul

[cloud mesa]

grand mother silk!!! not grandmother silk

[pastel timber]

we'll find out in the third game which can only be played in steel soul mode whos hyped

[raven oak]

explain more?

[half cobalt]

freaky ass granma

[eternal sigil]

I think the use of the title "Grand Mother" with what can pretty closely be construed as Hornet's divine grandmother is no coincidence

[raven oak]

knight and thk have soul too

[cloud mesa]

wait steel soul roguelike

[lethal burrow]

because of the shell.

[cloud mesa]

tc could make a roguelike in their sleep yesssss

[lethal burrow]

once again, it's the pale king that's associated with soul.

[pastel timber]

knight and thk store soul in their divine shells, unless the snail shells are made of magic god soul material theres not really any precedence for them having minds and feelings and stuff

[raven oak]

yeah, whos saying that snail shamans aren't in a similar situation? i think its possible they could be void, just not possible to conclusively say one way or the other

[eternal sigil]

also holy sjit I just beat the true ending and I am so hyped up about ||GHOST COMING IN CLUTCH AND SAVING HORNET||

[half cobalt]

ah

[lethal burrow]

The fact that they don't have a noticeably white shell is what says that.

[raven oak]

yup its sick

[edgy barn]

Snail shamans have genders. Void degenders you.

[lethal burrow]

there's another clear visible aspect to the vessels that makes it certain where their soul comes from.

The shamans have no such thing if they're void

[brisk thunder]

Snails are just snails

[cloud mesa]

putting a void creature in a sacoughpagus would be weird

[lethal burrow]

eh gender is a social construct.

The vessels don't have genders because they were just seen as tools for the pale king, and thus weren't viewed as having gender

[pastel timber]

i mean its reasonable to wonder, if the knight can have a mind (cause we know for a fact its not hollow now like be real) while being just a shade, then why cant snail shamans be so expressive while being pure void? but theres really nothing besides "they have dabbled in void" and "theyre black with white eyes" to imply theyre void

[raven oak]

bro what
i think the gender argument is valid, just the shamans giving void spells is weird in hk

cause the vessels were essentially dead

[cloud mesa]

void does not equal hollow tho

[lethal burrow]

their family is long fascinated with the void so it's spoken

[spare pendant]

void beings do not produce soul and cannot have soul without a vessel to hold it. snail shamans both produce soul and hold it, the former of which is literally impossible for void. also, they don't consume soul

[pastel timber]

it kinda does, pharlooms ancient civ prayed to the void to literally hollow them out in the abyss tablets

[spare pendant]

not to mention we see shamans die

[cloud mesa]

maybe they store the soul in the shell

[spare pendant]

dying void constructs disappear into void particles

[cloud mesa]

collector is void nd he has a personality

[spare pendant]

then they still can't produce it

[brisk thunder]

We don't get soul when hitting shades in the 1st game as well

[raven oak]

doesn't it also say in silksong that gms is the source for shamans soul or something?

[spare pendant]

what????????

[lethal burrow]

if void equals hollow then what about sister of the void ending where the knight saves hornet?

[edgy barn]

No?

[raven oak]

i remember reading that somewhere, can't remember exactly

[lethal burrow]

[spare pendant]

that's never said

[edgy barn]

Or when hitting the Collector.

[pastel timber]

i suppose thats the question, the entire game tells us that void = hollow, and yet the whole point of the first game is that thats not true

how can the knight exist entirely made of void and still be its own being

[raven oak]

i might have misread the part that the caretaker says that they are using the stored soul, mb

[lethal burrow]

perhaps it's more fair to say that void is naturally hollow, but can be made unhollow through means

[edgy barn]

I think that's suppossed to tells us that the PK got the idea for the vessels by studying the Ac.

[brisk thunder]

Hollow = empty
Put void inside an empty vessel = Hollow knight

[lethal burrow]

he looked at the ancient civilization and saw the void has the potential for hollowness, but he never considered that was what the ancient civilization was working towards and instead assumed it was a more immovable trait of the void.

[eternal sigil]

for what it's worth, I suspect in the wake of the true ending, Lace will probably stick around Hornet and be effectively her ward; for one she seems to be stuck in a childlike mental state due to the nature of her construction (and could use a decent parent/caretaker/mentor figure), for another with the death of GMS Hornet might well be the only readily available source of Silk in the world to keep her going

[pastel timber]

i mean its strange cause soul is the "essence of life" and void is seemingly the inevitability that opposes and destroys that, almost a metaphor for oblivion, entropy, the return to dust, so how can you turn that into a being? with feelings?? it almost makes no sense unless everything we're told about void and soul is completely wrong

[raven oak]

yeah i think its strange how the knight (who's essentially made of mostly void and is technically dead) somehow stores and can use soul

[lethal burrow]

The pale king saw a canvas left blank for many ages of the world and wrongly assumed it was a trait of the canvas that it could not be painted as opposed to a trait of the painters that they wished to see it blank

[pastel timber]

from what i gathered her childlike mental state was less of an affliction and more of an act, "this is the role i was made to play so i will play it" type beat, but given that she needs silk to survive and hornet just killed the only other known source of silk she definitely has to hang around her to live

[eternal sigil]

This also fits well with both the game's overarching themes of parenthood and what that means, and for Lace as a sort of dark/dysfunctional foil of Hornet, who herself was raised in tumult but brought to new heights by those who raised her.

[spare pendant]

Soul animates life, Void is a substance that can consume it. But just like how Void is seen corrupting people's minds, it's also capable of animating life

[pastel timber]

the pale king is like the god of soul so it makes sense even his childs corpses can focus it, whats weird is that its the shade, the void itself that holds the mind of the vessel, something that void was meant to destry

[edgy barn]

The Knight can store soul because of their shell

[eternal sigil]

the GMS quotes about "better a child born frail/born mad ... than none at all" suggest that the mentality is either deliberate or a sort of defect

[edgy barn]

Which is that of a half-wyrm, half-root being

[cloud mesa]

the knight is void soul hybrid hes special

[eternal sigil]

She is immature because GMS wanted a daughter and didn't write in how that daughter would grow up

[pastel timber]

frail is physical, silk constructs are "fragile forms of life", but she certainly seems lucid rather than mad, though hornet describes her as "manic", if i were constantly on the cusp of death i think i'd go insane too tbh

[eternal sigil]

And so she is stuck there

[raven oak]

yeah ik, it just feels like a weird cop out "it works cause his shell + kid of pale being" from team cherry when its also said that hes literally dead and his actual form is just his shade

it makes some sense though ig with how fluid some of the lore is

[pastel timber]

but given that lace says "imagine how it feels knowing it was your frail, broken daughter to feel the final blow" almost seems mocking, like shes entirely lucid, not mad nor childlike

[spare pendant]

what

[edgy barn]

How is it a cop out? The game establishes repeteadly that vessels are the union of two things, not just void.

[raven oak]

it just contradicts some of the other info about soul with it being life force

[pastel timber]

well we know its the shell cause the shade we leave when we die attacks us with void based spells not soul ones

[lethal burrow]

The mind was imprinted upon the shade, hardly surprising when you consider the same thing was ostensively done with the Kingmoulds

[raven oak]

yeah i get it, it just kind of contradicts other info

[spare pendant]

no?

[lethal burrow]

inprinting a mind upon the void was done before, even a whole personality with the collector.

[raven oak]

how can an essentially dead being have life force

[cloud mesa]

oh yeah is the knight a child of the pale king or is the body the knight posseses a child of the pale king?

[spare pendant]

It doesn't, it steals and stores the lifeforce of others

[pastel timber]

the crux of the first game is that void isnt dead, its not hollow, the void beings are alive in their own right, they can develops thoughts and feelings, the whole game happens because the pale king was wrong about void

[spare pendant]

both kinda

the knight was born from an egg inseminated by the pale king and imbued with void

[raven oak]

yeah i know thats the point, but void reanimated dead kids being alive just feels kinda weird

it makes some sense story wise but not in depth lore wise with everything in the game

[eternal sigil]

The frailty is definitely in reference to her constitution but given how critically disabled Eva is, I feel like some of Lace's issues being inherent due to the nature of her make is implied. Could be wrong though, we lack info

Poor Eva. I was hoping there was a means to commander one of the automaton shells somewhere around Pharloom and get her mobile

[pastel timber]

i see a lot of discussion around laces true nature and its super interesting but yeah, i'd need to go read more into it and we'd need it to be clearer to come to anything conclusive, for now it seems theres a bunch of different interpretations floating around

[eternal sigil]

I honestly thought that's what the thing you got after the 12th Architect died would be used for

[pastel timber]

god yeah i was so hoping we could use her to depose gms instead of us having to become the new monarch and that was true ending

[lethal burrow]

Exposure to pure void kills but what if you're exposed to it before you're even born?

We know i suppose

[cloud mesa]

fr bind eva to one of those robots

[raven oak]

that would be funny, throw her in the other fourth chorus robots and have her help out

[eternal sigil]

holy crud yes. Eva becomes an EVA

[brisk thunder]

Get into the robot EVA

[cloud mesa]

i wish eva did a q&a before she died i have questions for her

[eternal sigil]

Get in the robot EVA

[lethal burrow]

they should make a show about that and call it evangelion

[cloud mesa]

hornet never asks good questions

[pastel timber]

to be fair she is busy

[cloud mesa]

not till act 3

act 1 and 2 shes just hanging out tryna figure why these bugs r beefing with her

[brisk thunder]

Busy playing with flea

[edgy barn]

I feel like you are being unnecessarily rigid with this. The fact that vessels, beings that are the offsprings of two pale higher beings atleast one of which is heavily associated with soul, is able to hold and manipulate with soul, is not contradicted by anything.

[pastel timber]

she tells the ladybird to leave her alone until she hears she could benefit from playing games and thats like act one

[raven oak]

yeah i find it a bit funny and weird that shes supposedly in a rush to free pharloom from void but also has the time to do random other quests like fight the pinstress, like its explained in her dialogue that she thinks of it like practice for the ending but its kinda funny

[lethal burrow]

Something I've noticed about hornet is that she's an active force for her own motivations, but she's a very passive force when it comes to the affairs of others

unless pushed to it

This even extends to her manner of speaking

[pastel timber]

yeah the baseline is what happens in game is all we know, and what we see happen is more reliable that what we're told in written word, if the game contradicts itself either what we've been told is wrong because the characters are wrong, or we're wrong about our interpretation

[cloud mesa]

i rlly like hornets character

[pastel timber]

"her own motivations" so far have been "prevent hallownest from exploding", "kill my kidnapper", and "prevent pharloom from exploding" so i think its fair honestly

she helps out a ton in pharloom for free though

[spare pendant]

"kill that slut wearing my clothes"

[pastel timber]

TRUE

[eternal sigil]

Hornet showing character growth over the game, while it also keeping in mind her established figure in measuring that, was really cool. Starts out with an extremely objective/utilitarian mindset and cold detachment to most people, but as time goes on she discusses remembering the warmth in helping people and doing good for goodness' sake

[raven oak]

yeah its cool to see her go from "ill do what is convenient for my own benefit" to "i want to help these guys" in character development

[lethal burrow]

ye I hope more games in the future are going to have actual protagonists with characters that have interiority and personality instead of just silent protagonists or every mans.

I don't want a character I can insert myself into, I want someone cool! Kratos is cool! Hornet is cool! wander is cool!

(of course I'm only speaking about games that have set protagonist in the first place if it's like an RPG or has a character creator or something that's a whole different deal)

[eternal sigil]

Remains reserved and objective but lets down the guard and takes more initiative. But not ground shakingly so - these are all still mortal bugs she will long outlive

[pastel timber]

its such good continuity from her character and purpose in the first game too, where she goes from the cold stone protector to slowly becoming softer towards the knight as she begins to feel some hope

[cloud mesa]

hornet realizing that pharloom is her home now and she has to save it

[eternal sigil]

And then the Mr Mushroom questline which I actually thought was one of the strongest emotional points in my playthrough

This sounds a bit stupid but I can elaborate

[pastel timber]

her dialogue to mr mushroom was so interesting honestly

[lethal burrow]

I wouldn't go that far

[pastel timber]

yeah i got the idea that she was intending on leaving

[cloud mesa]

i dont see ghornet returning to hallownest any time soon

[pastel timber]

i think she just goes off to explore with lace

[lethal burrow]

she could go to the city of steel..., that would be cool

[cloud mesa]

hallownest is notihng but bad memories

[raven oak]

yeah she says she will get a home in bellhart but more as a resting spot than an actual home

[pastel timber]

she sets up shakra and second sentinel and all these protectors, as if shes not intending to stay

[cloud mesa]

and lilke literal manifestations of bad memories that fight you

[pastel timber]

hallownest: a land where your regrets come to life and kill you

[cloud mesa]

also pharloom is her homeland

[blissful canyon]

whats this guys job?

[pastel timber]

i did notice a parallel, where jiji says the weight of regrets, the dead, are crushing hallownest, "how much longer can it last", whereas with pharloom, with bonebottom, the dead are the "foundation" that pharloom sits upon, polar opposites

[eternal sigil]

It is the single Wish in the game that is Hornet's. All others are done on someone else's behalf, Hornet completing the various odds and ends at our behest and in so doing making the world better, being the hero and watcher that she has shaped into over the centuries/millennia. But this one is a honest desire of Hornet's own, and it is up to the player to fulfill.

[pastel timber]

conductor, hes like one of the big bosses of pharloom, he literally "conducts" how the citadel and its bugs act, what projects they undertake, etc...

[cloud mesa]

i think hornet knows that hallownest is too far gone, but its not to late to save pharloom and restore it to the mighty knigdom it used to be

[pastel timber]

"heavy is the head that wears the crown" typa thing

[pastel timber]

yeah grimm troupe arriving in hallownest was a death knell but she saved pharloom, and put sherma in charge

[raven oak]

the mr mushroom quest was funny cause hornet kept asking him but he just didn't respond and rocketed off until the last one

[eternal sigil]

And what does that wish amount to? Having a frank discussion with the singular familiar face Hornet has come across in Pharloom, one of the very few beings who is simultaneously ancient enough to share her perspective, wise enough to tell her things she doesn't know, yet also below the level of the Higher Beings and their inscrutable natures

[cloud mesa]

at best hallownest becomes wilderness at the end

[eternal sigil]

And that discussion is basically Hornet asking him for advice and reassurances

[pastel timber]

they do sound like old acquaintances, it really felt like she could drop whatever mask she put on to save pharloom, and just talk to someone, like old friends, its so insanely sweet

[eternal sigil]

It is the one part in the present world of Silksong that she is able to display some measure of vulnerability, not being the hero of myth

[spare pendant]

pharloom wasn't really a mighty kingdom before the haunting to be fair

the citadel did that, not gms

[eternal sigil]

And it comes in a ray of pale moonlight just beneath the crust of the distant surface

with a simple but beautiful ambient tune

[visual glacier]

chad hollownest vs loser pharloom

[cloud mesa]

remind me waht the herald signifies

[pastel timber]

i mean its way more impressive than hallownest

hornet says as much herself

[eternal sigil]

Aye, precisely

[visual glacier]

ages end

[cloud mesa]

WAIT THEORY

i think hornet saw the herald before when she was young

[pastel timber]

the age of gms is over, long live god king sherma

[cloud mesa]

when the age of hallownest peak was ending

[visual glacier]

she mightve seen him when the knight was following him around

[cloud mesa]

hornet lived throguh the falal of hoallownest completly

[pastel timber]

the implications of the weavers fleeing on the timeline are interesting

[visual glacier]

they were presumedly caught by grandmother silk

[eternal sigil]

Something big is happening in the world that will change a part of it forever

[cloud mesa]

surely the herald was there when hallownest fell orignially

[pastel timber]

deepnest already existed by the time the pale king arrived, and assumedly the weavers were already there, which puts hallownests entire history between the weaver rebellion against gms and the haunting

[cloud mesa]

then appeared again once the knight returned

[pastel timber]

pharloom is old old

[eternal sigil]

Mr Mushroom straight up tells Hornet that he is here because of what her presence implies and has affected in Pharloom

[pastel timber]

it never fell, it was in stasis, suspended mid air

[cloud mesa]

when city of tears became cannibals

[muted lantern]

I think we should be more concerned about the craws harnessing the power of the iron crown

[pastel timber]

interesting then that binding gms doesnt create a "new age", hornet really does just become a replacement in the weaver queen ending, saving nobody, changing no outcomes

[pastel timber]

if crows ever learn metallurgy irl then human society is over

[cloud mesa]

well its the first time in a very long time gms isnt in pharloom anymore

[lean temple]

We don't know if it's like HK where Mister Mushroom canonically leaves no matter the ending or whether you found him or not

[spark valve]

He probably does if you do te

[pastel timber]

well doesnt he say that he only arrives because of the snared silk ending, gms binding doesnt attract his attention

[eternal sigil]

I would be curious to know if any fullblood Weavers actually remain in the world as of Silksong, be they in stasis (Sinner) or not (Widow). There were a decent number among the Hallownest refugee population, going off of the Red Memory and parts of the Beast's Lair, but that was a damned long time ago

[muted lantern]

But seriously tho is the court of craws wearing the iron crown from darkest dungeon

[pastel timber]

we know of one living weaver besides hornet (because she killed widow) and its the one that runs away when you leave weavers den in deepnest

[lean temple]

We only find him in act 3, but idk if he was already there waiting

[pastel timber]

i'll have to recheck his dialogue but i dont think he is, i think he says so

[cloud mesa]

we dont know anything about the weavers who left hallownest back to pharloom right

[eternal sigil]

well, depends; you can also do the true ending without finding Mr. Mushroom at all, same as in HK where you can do anything with or without Mushroom acknowledging it

[spark valve]

The tablet speaking his path is exclusive to act 3 stuff since it talks about black threads

[lean temple]

Good catch

[spark valve]

It’s not just gated by hornet’s ability to access it the tablet itself is specific to that act

[eternal sigil]

I think he is going to do his thing regardless of what Hornet does, but only in limited circumstances is Hornet able to actually get on the trail for a rendezvous rather than just be unwitting of his movements

[pastel timber]

his dialogue isnt specific, "i would not have sought the lands below if not for your grand actions within them", whether that means that hes only interested in the snared silk ending, or if he was interesting in something else hornet did, i cant tell

[spark valve]

Snared silk is the only thing she really does to trigger the change of an age

[sullen glacier]

wait whats the lore behind First Sinner (besides the fact she was locked up)
Was it that she died and she was moving again from our silk? Was this some kind of dream thing like in hk1 and thats why we don't loose a cocoon?

[pastel timber]

memory realm fight assumedly

[lean temple]

Assuming she would just become GMS 2.0 otherwise, then that seems the most likely

[sullen glacier]

i see

[cloud mesa]

imprisoning someones ghost is a dick move

[pastel timber]

yeah thats what im saying, binding gms doesnt change the age, it just makes the haunting worse, nothing gets fixed, bad ending

[eternal sigil]

This does raise a whole buttload of questions though. That tablet specifically that is:

• Was the tablet written/manifested into being upon certain things happening? Or is it prophetic? What would it have said absent the void snare incident?
• Is fate deterministic or indeterminate in this universe? It seems that a specific ending got canonized in HK for what that is worth
• Most intriguingly, reading the text on that tablet prompts the breathy whisper sound effect that in Hollow Knight is exclusively seen on the Pale King's writings

[spark valve]

The first game implies the tablet is accessed via connection to the mushroom hive mind so it would be able to update (Mr mushroom is also connected to that which is why you can only understand him with spore shroom) but uh that’s no more

[pastel timber]

mr mushroom assumedly originates from hallownest given the fungal core there, we see he spreads some mushrooms to pharloom, god knows if theyll take root and make a new fungal wastes, but theres something going on with the mushrooms and its hive mind properties
"We speak the path of the master herald"
who is the "we" unless the hive mind is still connected

[spark valve]

And the tablet predicting the end of an age doesn’t necessarily mean anything is deterministic

[lethal burrow]

Hornet regards herself as a higher being

[lean temple]

I mean it just spawning into existence seems on par with Mister Mushroom's shenanigans

[pastel timber]

shes half wyrm and half divinely imbued spider shes at least like 75% god it definitely counts

[eternal sigil]

I think the hive mind being completely defunct is bogus, nothing confirms it and this tablet being as it is would basically reject it

[spark valve]

Very much so

[eternal sigil]

Agreed, and while in Hollow Knight this stuff could kind of diegetically be written off as weird and tongue-in-cheek bullshit, in Skong it is taken seriously enough to merit actual consideration

[lethal burrow]

especially since there is no more team cherry games for it to just be a reference to.

[pastel timber]

mr mushroom was literally just "strange cryptic rambler joke character" but is taken so seriously in silksong

[muted lantern]

Do we know if the craw bugs are haunted or are they just like that

[lean temple]

I believe it's the Fungal Wastes that originates from Mister Mushroom and he is eons older

[pastel timber]

what do we think about the "to be continued" again is that just a bit or will there be a third game

[lethal burrow]

Who knows maybe the Mr. mushroom dialogue is hinting towards future projects

[muted lantern]

I don't think there will another game

[pastel timber]

i'd say that myself if not for the big huge mushroom that seems like the centre of the hive mind in the fungal core

[spark valve]

Mister mushroom is a meta character he could return even in a non-hk game

[muted lantern]

Mister mushroom will be in GTA six

[pastel timber]

i really hope there is, they love making these games and we love playing them and theres so much more potential to explore

[lethal burrow]

he's the patches of team charry

[cloud mesa]

hollow knight is just such a good ip i doubt there won't be a third game

[lean temple]

Doesn't negate Mister Mushroom's connection to it

[lethal burrow]

I doubt they would abandon it unless they thought that they had done everything they possibly could with it

[lapis creek]

is this true

[pastel timber]

"we were having too much fun making silksong" theres no way they dont make a third game

[spark valve]

They have said on a few occasions that they were planning on not making a third game

[lethal burrow]

Whether she's correct is.... debated

[lapis creek]

she certainly regards herself as capable of killing a higher being but regardless makes a distinction between herself and gms

[pastel timber]

when was this though, theyve gone back on older statements like "all endings are canon" before

[lean temple]

I still believe her and people like Maks Maker or Shamans still regard her as being above common bugs

[spark valve]

They could change their mind but there’s no reason to assume that they will as the default

[cloud mesa]

pale ✅
magic powers ✅
inteligent ✅
immortal ✅

[muted lantern]

Sometimes I think an IP loses its power of it gets expanded too much, I think endless sequels will dilute the story and it will stop being as interesting.

[lapis creek]

when does she say she's a higher being

[spark valve]

Sure but she’s not a god

[spark valve]

She doesn’t

[pastel timber]

there is the big huge "to be continued" and the "we'll meet again on the road ahead"

[lean temple]

Yeah ik

[spark valve]

.

[eternal sigil]

I think it's a mix

Papa Craw and his company seem to be lucid

[cloud mesa]

i think crawbugs are just assholes

[eternal sigil]

and the one in the nest addon to the bellhome seems to be placid

but several also become voidtouched and that means they were Haunted beforehand

[lapis creek]

i dont think there will be a third game in the series because they weren't even interested enough in pharloom's story to write a third act that didnt rely on void to move the plot forward

[muted lantern]

Until we kill them all

[pastel timber]

the judges still retain their ability to judge, given they let sherma pass, and the fat fly in the slab breaks its role to play dressup, the exact nature of what the haunting does to you is incredibly unclear

[raw pewter]

The Craws are interesting, the small ones are treated like pest by the Innkeeper at Greymoor, but we know they are intelligent enough to create a sort of justice system

[lapis creek]

they clearly havent run out of ideas

but their interest in exploring them is questionable

[eternal sigil]

If they were Haunted in act 3 they would have gotten voidtouched, no?

[pastel timber]

they didnt like their ip enough to not bring back one of its main forces and mysteries </3

[lethal burrow]

mask maker: "it is a rare want of your caste to serve us mortal bugs."
Hornet: "I am not my kin, Maker. I have seen enough pain born of their dominion."

hornet speaking to green prince: "You were mortal bugs, caught beneath a being pale... Devotion or destruction... these are the only fates my kind allow."

[pastel timber]

not everything haunted gets voidtouched

[muted lantern]

Crows have a long generational memory and are very vengeful, they remember faces and will torment people who have wronged them, I presume the craw bugs have a lasting grudge against the people of pharloom for the citadels actions, so the young craws tend to stir up trouble

[eternal sigil]

Fair, but in their case not a single one of the Jury Craws has void issues

[spark valve]

I can’t think of any indication of any craws being haunted

[pastel timber]

it is curious, maybe they were safe underground like how the shopkeep just shut her door

[muted lantern]

The craws are the most dangerous group in the game, they've harnessed the iron crown and will wake the one true God, very concerning.

[pastel timber]

we can just go check, do they flash the strings towards the cradle when they die

[lethal burrow]

there is a distinction between haunted people that have the immortality granted by the experiments of the white ward and the haunted people that do not have the string within them seeded deep from long lines.

At least to me

[eternal sigil]

mechanically speaking I've been of the general assumption that the state of silk infestation across Pharloom is like that of actively malignant microplastics, and that Act 3 basically makes it so that all of the microplastics are also beset with evil black oil

[rancid violet]

The next evil we go up against has to be a craw. THE NEXT PALE BEING IS BIG BIRD

[muted lantern]

If anyone doesn't get the reference look up darkest dungeon 2 cultists and then look at the judge craws

[eternal sigil]

not sure if this is supported but given what happened with GMS it has been what I have been running off of

[muted lantern]

It has to be a reference

[spark valve]

Which is why getting voided doesn’t necessarily imply being haunted

[cloud mesa]

theres a lot of references to other games in hollow knight

[pastel timber]

it looks more that the void is physically climbing up out of the strands that gms is shooting out, her "death throes shaking pharloom" are her literally clinging onto the caverns for dear life, while the void climbs up out of the abyss and infects everything, so it doesnt instantly manifest void into every haunted creature, but the void is slowly rising and we wanna stop it

[muted lantern]

Court of craws is just really on the nose imo

The middle and right cultists are the ones with iron crown on

[cloud mesa]

or this guy being a chozo statue

[lapis creek]

so in the first one she says she is not her kin i think this is self-explanatory. she's related to the pale beings but doesn't possess the power that would be needed to set herself 'above all others'

[rancid violet]

isn't gms causing the void to act out alot by holding up Lace desperately?

[lapis creek]

her dialogue with lace reflects that

[eternal sigil]

Big (bird) if true

[cloud mesa]

grimm being dracula

midwife is no face

[pastel timber]

shes not causing the void to act out, the void is just like that, but her strands of silk shooting out from the abyss are giving it a path to crawl up, while simultaneously she is also literally collapsing the caverns by tugging on every wall with said silk

[lapis creek]

she doesnt believe she is powerful enough to kill a god she instead appeals to the fact that those who present themselves as gods are underwhelming and vulnerable

[eternal sigil]

fair enough; I figured that if Haunting is basically GMS taking direct control then anything so tethered would be vulnerable to the void but I suppose some elements are going to be disconnected from that web/network

while still having it in them or something

I still don't think at minimum the Craw Court is haunted, and if nothing else not all Craws are haunted or else the Bellhart nest wouldn't be a thing

[raw pewter]

There's Garmond who isn't haunted and yet he got voided

[pastel timber]

its really wishy washy from time to time, like the shopkeep can avoid widows strings by just. shutting the windows? apparently
but we are also told that yeah, most citadel bugs imbued themselves with silk for its magic properties and that made haunting them way easier (though even wild bugs could succumb to it)

[muted lantern]

He got haunted and voided at the same time as that point the haunted threads are voided

[lethal burrow]

also court of owls form batman

[eternal sigil]

He is a Pharloom native and has therefore been exposed to Silk his whole life, that plus him getting voided when at the point of exhaustion tells me he had the potential for it and it struck when his willpower gave out

[pastel timber]

you probably dont need to be haunted to get voided, since theyre different things, he likely just got too much void on him trying to fight things

[eternal sigil]

True though

[muted lantern]

The darkest dungeon cultists are just so perfectly identical crown wise, the five pointed crown is a big part of darkest dungeon lore

[pastel timber]

it is interesting how the void can be so organised, like void masses automatically voiding any enemy in the same rooms, it sets up nexuses, forms into tentacles, climbs up silk, its definitely not just mindless death liquid

[eternal sigil]

agreed here too, most obvious example being the Vessels themselves as products of void infesting baby gods

[eternal sigil]

It reminds me a lot of ferrofluid, if you have heard of that

[pastel timber]

i have and thats an interesting point actually

[lethal burrow]

I don't think that's the correct interpretation.

She is saying "I am not my kin" in the sense that they are her kin but she is not like them in proclivity, as she doesn't have the desire to rule.

I didn't think this part of the quote was originally relevant, but I will share it in full

"I am not my kin, Maker. I have seen enough pain born of their dominion. As much as I may, I choose to stand apart"

[pastel timber]

this is seconded by her talk to the caretaker about having the desire for domination from her father, but choosing a different path anyway

[eternal sigil]

Yeah, my read of that is basically "just because I'm part of the family doesn't mean I partake of the family business"

[pastel timber]

"its in my nature, but i can overcome it"

[eternal sigil]

"I'm built different, trust"

[pastel timber]

immediately dooms everyone

[lapis creek]

ok in that case the discussion about her kin is regarding a desire for domination idk how this implies that she thinks of herself as a higher being

[muted lantern]

Do you guys think lace can eat food, or does it just fall right through her

[lapis creek]

why would it fall through her

[eternal sigil]

Lace can probably physically eat food but probably gets nothing out of it and doesn't process it

[foggy fractal]

she is silk and song

[pastel timber]

she eats silk like spaghetti

[eternal sigil]

like a robot eating food

[lethal burrow]

lmao

[muted lantern]

She's made of silk, and implied to be empty physically

[lapis creek]

yeah but its a solid substance

actually

[pastel timber]

given the red memory i doubt she thinks herself as anything more than just, herself, she knows shes part weaver part wyrm but that doesnt mean much to her

[lapis creek]

i guess if she's empty physically then there is just a through hole passing through her body somehow

[eternal sigil]

this is assuming Lace has a mouth instead of like, a smooth fabric face/head

[lapis creek]

she is homeomorphic to a donut

[pastel timber]

silk - solid soul
soul - liquid soul
dream essence - gas soul?
this is my crack theory, dream essence is just another form of soul when its like a gas

[eternal sigil]

deuterostomic Lace confirmed

[zinc pivot]

The infection is just bug smoking orange zaza

[dapper willow]

Is lace a state machine?

[pastel timber]

no lace is alive

[eternal sigil]

don't smoke Zaza, she is traumatized enough

[muted lantern]

A what now?

[lethal burrow]

because she sees it as a trait of higher beings.

Higher beings, especially in silk song, are portrayed as having the proclivity to dominate others. This is what the mask maker dialogue is talking about here

"Ahh. Know you distort the order of things, Old One. It is a rare want of your caste to serve us mortal bugs."

and many other instances that that's the subject as well

hornet: "The bugs of your land, I have watched them, climbing towards their absolution without the flicker of a thought to what it means."
mask maker: "Aye. But isn't it always such for those snared to serve your higher caste?"

[pastel timber]

shes made entirely of physical soul she has more soul than anyone else in the series except actual gods

[lethal burrow]

also, there's the green Prince exchange I mentioned earlier

[eternal sigil]

I think if you don't count Pure Vessel as a god (debatable) they would contain more given their specific parentage

[lethal burrow]

what about plasma soul?

[pastel timber]

PV is pretty big to be fair

[eternal sigil]

also has a dad who seems to have just oozed the stuff

[pastel timber]

plasma soul is what the soul sanctum works in, i mean have you seen those projectiles

[eternal sigil]

Soul Sanctum and Groal possess it

[lapis creek]

the green prince exchange is about pale beings

[dapper willow]

So the thing is that Lace was artificially created and I was making a joke about wether she is programmed or has a "natural" personality
Acutally this is an interesting question that we will never find an answer to

[zinc pivot]

Thats no plasma, just infection soul ball

[lethal burrow]

bit of both

[neat sandal]

can you fight phantom at act 3

[lapis creek]

hornet has some kinship with them

[zinc pivot]

Shes pretty much programmed, forever stuck in a mind of a child

[eternal sigil]

also WRT this theory I think it has merits but also that gaseous Soul is just gaseous Soul like seen in the jars in Soul Sanctum. I think dream essence is something completely different

[dapper willow]

So she is a state machine
Confirmed

[pastel timber]

also i say "dream essence = another form of soul" but i do genuinely think theres evidence for that given that radiance calls void the ancient enemy and we know that void only goes after soul (or silk, which is a form of soul), which also makes me wonder then if radiance is a pale being given that the common link between pale beings we know of is that they have a strong link to soul

[lapis creek]

we've known that hornet isn't a higher being at least since godmaster

[muted lantern]

Not entirely, her being manic and violent wasn't intended

[zinc pivot]

Though because she has a soul, she still can think outside the curve(judged by how she despised her nature)

[lapis creek]

and again her dialogue with lace in choral chambers doesn't really make sense unless she considers them a separate group

[eternal sigil]

There is actually some direct support for the theory linking dream essence with Soul, in how the Dreamnail works in Hollow Knight

[lethal burrow]

I don't know why you're inserting this halfway sort of measure thing.

She always just confirms in full, "my kin" "my kind"

Now whether you think she's correct about her self evaluation is another conversation, but she seems to regard herself among their few.

[pastel timber]

thats what im thinking

[eternal sigil]

Not sure if that is causatory or just a correlation though

[pastel timber]

ghosts made entirely of dream essence when we know life is composed of soul too

[eternal sigil]

It could just be that dreams are able to siphon soul more directly than physical strikes

[dusty sparrow]

when is the 14 hour mossbag video dropping

[zinc pivot]

Having ability to be aware of her dream fight suggests shes higher being in nature

[spark valve]

no it doesn't

[zinc pivot]

Or at least very special

[lapis creek]

the godseekers don't have any particular reverence for her

[spark valve]

higher beings are gods hornet isn't a god

[lethal burrow]

it could

[lapis creek]

but im willing to accept that they are imperfect

[pastel timber]

oh speaking of manifestations of soul, theres that room in whiteward that implies the glowy white birds are silk beings, made of dead bugs souls turned to silk, could lumaflies be the same thing, souls turned into lanternflies, explaining why they can last forever inside glass spheres with no air or food

[zinc pivot]

Godseeker reveres every fucking bug as a god, even MOSSY

[dapper willow]

we are waiting eagerly

[lethal burrow]

define the criteria for a god

[pastel timber]

yeah do we actually know what makes something a higher being

[dapper willow]

most of the lore videos I have seen seem to be not torough enough

[zinc pivot]

Their reverance means jack

[lapis creek]

pale king, white lady, unn and radiance are special to them

[eternal sigil]

Now this discussion does raise the point that, with the discussions of it in Silksong, it is possible for an entity (specifically Hornet) to be "pale" but also not a Higher Being

[lapis creek]

they get their own break areas where godseeker muses on their nature

[pastel timber]

a lot of the early ones are mostly gonna be recaps or timelines of things you can find out yourself, if you want the deep dives theorycrafting fun stuff we gotta wait

[eternal sigil]

Making it even more of a mystery as to what the hell "pale" means

[dapper willow]

no lumaflies are different

[lethal burrow]

lace seems to fit that

[lapis creek]

yes i agree with this

[pastel timber]

at this point i just assume its to do with connection to soul

[dusty sparrow]

and ultimately the knight's void form

[lapis creek]

yes

[spark valve]

soul-y particularly in connection to a soul god

[zinc pivot]

Lumaflies and silkflies are pretty much too on the nose to not be different

Especially after the whole seer thing

[eternal sigil]

That is my theory due to another specific set of things in Silksong, the correlation of the term "pale" with "sylph"

[spark valve]

though not everything described as pale is

[lethal burrow]

One of them has two wings and the other has four

[eternal sigil]

which is linked to Eva, who seems to be made of basically soul in a metal can

[pastel timber]

well do we like, know that

[eternal sigil]

and whose essence conferred gives Hornet an internal soul wellspring

[lethal burrow]

ye...

-# One of them has two wings and the other has four

[pastel timber]

theres the sylphean slug, with a pale oil gland too

[dapper willow]

they have a different name
Produce electricity
Aside form that we don't know what they are made out of

[eternal sigil]

yep, I didn't mention it but that was the bridge I was using between pale -> Eva

[zinc pivot]

This is like saying herrah isnt a weaver because she has a huge body

[pastel timber]

"they have a different name" is crazy cause plasmium is also called a different thing in pharloom

besides the silkflies are specifically silk

[eternal sigil]

oh hey Plasmium

[pastel timber]

im wondering if lumaflies are more like soul wisps

[dapper willow]

thats why I think palsmium is totally differetn from lifeblood

[pastel timber]

canon

[zinc pivot]

Well, silk and soul is synonymous

[lethal burrow]

no it's not because she's a unique case among her own people as opposed to two distinct things that have many instances displaying this difference.

[pastel timber]

not quite, silk is a specific form of soul, like ice and water

[zinc pivot]

I bet if you play music to lumafies they will lead you to exhaust organ too

[dapper willow]

maybe
Maybe pale beings are beings who are literally pale
Very desparate theory but its a theory nonetheless, also crack

[eternal sigil]

vro it is literally lifeblood with the serial number filed off and a new one slapped on with a labelmaker

[pastel timber]

all roads lead to rome
all lumaflies lead to exhaust organ

[eternal sigil]

Hornet is white confirmed?

[dapper willow]

her mask is very white

[lethal burrow]

Propaganda.

lumaflys only have 2 wings

[pastel timber]

maybe pharloom souls are just twice as powerful

[lethal burrow]

another moth L

[pastel timber]

that explains the double damage

oh wait i forgot my one piece of evidence for lumaflies being someones soul
the seer literally turns into one

[lethal burrow]

lmao

[eternal sigil]

the funniest explanation I recall for the double damage phenomenon in Silksong is not that Pharloom is particularly juiced, but rather that Ghost of Hallownest was just built different

[foggy fractal]

one piece... ?

[dapper willow]

Looks like we are desparate for a third game to explain what the hekk pale beings are exactly

[eternal sigil]

Twelfth Architect as well. Look closely on entering her workroom when she dies for the first time, and you can see a little fly leave

[pastel timber]

like how do we have silkflies made of souls and then lumaflies that look almost exactly the same that we see someone turn into and say that no the two cant possibly be similar

[eternal sigil]

Notably this is the case with every single Pharloom automaton

[spark valve]

The knight is much more powerful but that’s probably mostly just a gameplay thing

[pastel timber]

all the cogwork constructs have them inside iirc

[eternal sigil]

oh wait you were talking about the moth seer

[pastel timber]

i think this more implies theyre putting those souls inside robots so they can continue to serve after death, fnaf style

[lapis creek]

honestly given that you need steel spines to pierce hornet's shell in infestation operation i'm willing to accept as a headcanon that most damage that hornet takes is blunt force trauma that damages her insides

[eternal sigil]

yeah I getcha

[foggy fractal]

speaking of gameplay
Karmelita is such a fun fight, the grass is green ahh comment ik but its still peak,,,

[lapis creek]

whereas the knight has no relevant organs and thus need not worry

[zinc pivot]

Another case on lumaflies is the fact that
Watcher Knights got reanimated by them

[lethal burrow]

She's using beast crest

[dapper willow]

FIRST TIME?????
I can't handle best architect dying multiple times ;-;

[pastel timber]

wait youre actually so right

[zinc pivot]

And automatons are powered by silkflies

[pastel timber]

oh this is a very good point actually

[foggy fractal]

🐺 beast crest

[eternal sigil]

I figured that the "deal" there was that lumaflies were what granted Pharloom constructs properties of true life, at least that discussed in cases like the bestiary entries or discussions with 12th Architect and Second Sentinel

[dapper willow]

Are they really lumaflyes?
I gotta check

[eternal sigil]

Kind of like in some ideas of alchemy how you need a little bit of life as a base component to make a larger or more elaborate homunculus

[dapper willow]

Those are not lumaflies

[pastel timber]

funnily enough my background noise video just hit watcher knights lemme check

[lethal burrow]

there are no lumaflys in Pharloom lumaflys have 2 wings!!!!!!

[pastel timber]

those are infected lumaflies

[eternal sigil]

Look closer bud, your eyes have yet to open

(/s)

[dapper willow]

that sounds really weird
That they can be infected
But its possible

[lethal burrow]

they can be put in the vat they're clearly physical

[pastel timber]

hear me out
dream essence is a type of soul
radiance infects through dreams
lumaflies composed entirely of soul
radiance can infect lumaflies
my two theories patch each others holes how convenient

[dapper willow]

Dream essence is the layer between soul and the real world

[pastel timber]

i mean we physically see soul in the real world on dozens of occasions

including manifested as silk

[lapis creek]

i feel like if lumaflies were some type of soul creature they would be everywhere and not just in hallownest

[pastel timber]

well im saying that, i think silkflies and lumaflies are the same concept, just a bit different given pharlooms silk presence

[dapper willow]

soul can exist on its own in the real world
The dream essence is just some funky middle ground between the two
As Seer says

[lapis creek]

if they were naturally occurring

[dapper willow]

We need a dreamer dlc

[lethal burrow]

i can live with that

[pastel timber]

oh she does? lemme check the dialogue

[lapis creek]

doesnt the citadel have a silkfly factory

isnt that where they come from

[pastel timber]

in whiteward

[lapis creek]

im not prepared to back this up idk where it is

[dapper willow]

Something something "Dreams are the bridge between the soul and the waking world"
Thats what I remmber

[lapis creek]

ill get the quote

[blissful canyon]

guys what happens to lace after you save her from the void?

[lethal burrow]

she is as she was

[dapper willow]

who got nuked by the anticheat,

[blissful canyon]

I'm kind of stuck on the lost lace fight for like 10 hrs now and I thought why not just watch the ending on youtube myself

[pastel timber]

"[the dream nail] can cut through the veil that separates the waking world from our dreams"

[pastel timber]

iv drip straight from hornets silk gland

[dapper willow]

so I guess there are 4 layers

[lethal burrow]

you will get spoiled on a nuclear level if you stay in this channel

Your fate has been told

[dapper willow]

The fates are sealed

[blissful canyon]

I don't mind spoilers, already completed the game pretty much

[lapis creek]

ash has been flagged as a spammer for some reason

[blissful canyon]

like not the extra stuff but I've done the story

[lethal burrow]

Well, this is the place for questions

so if you have any

[blissful canyon]

so what happens to lace :p

[lapis creek]

as long as lace gets enough silk she will be fine

[pastel timber]

newer server member? maybe

[lethal burrow]

she returns to as she was pre-void

[blissful canyon]

do we find her anywhere or like is she gone

[lapis creek]

theres no postgame

[neat sandal]

there should be mercy button in silksong.
phantom, garamond, karmelita or green prince would be alive if we never fight them

[lethal burrow]

uhhh. You save her.

[lapis creek]

you just reset

[pastel timber]

once you save her from the void shes fine, but we're told she needs a bunch of silk to sustain herself, and hornet is the only surviving silk source in the game, so hornet probably adopts her and keeps her alive

[lapis creek]

to the bench

[dapper willow]

They are all different
Lifed from reddit

[pastel timber]

lost lace is the final boss

[blissful canyon]

dawg why did I do allat instead of just binding and becoming a tyrant 😭

[lethal burrow]

Thank you

[dusty sparrow]

the abyss one is so creepy lowk

[lethal burrow]

You save the world now it's not going to end or have a shitty ruler

[pastel timber]

cause its about the journey not the destination <3

[blissful canyon]

truer words have never been spoken

[pastel timber]

maybe the real silksong was the friends we made along the way

[lethal burrow]

it's also about sherma becoming pope

[lapis creek]

it's very nice that pharloom gets to escape from the cycle of tyranny inviting more tyranny

[pastel timber]

all hail god king sherma of new pharloom

[blissful canyon]

sherma takes the place of the songclave leader guy?

[lapis creek]

apparently the solution to authoritarianism is void

[dapper willow]

I'm wondering if a normal bug could ascend into becoming a higher being

[lethal burrow]

The whole game is basically an anarchy metaphor

[pastel timber]

yep, also hornet says to sherma that the future is up to him now, pharloom gets hard reset and the survivors get to rebuild it from scratch

[blissful canyon]

I mean hornets mother was pretty much a normal bug if you consider weavers as normal

[pastel timber]

we have no idea where higher beings even come from

[lapis creek]

yeah but void is anarchy and void is bad too

[blissful canyon]

but then the pale king made her mother a dreamer and hornet was a pale being

[dapper willow]

I feel like it may be possible to achieve similar levels of power without being one

[lapis creek]

so we cant have tyranny and we cant have anarchy either

[viscid ridge]

Guess we know where the missing area was supposed to be

[pastel timber]

well, they did try this in the game, with eva, it failed miserably

[dapper willow]

AYO???

[lethal burrow]

source?

[dapper willow]

eva is different because she was made to be a higher being
And just because they failed doesn't mean its impossible

[lapis creek]

cant wait for hornet to play sea shanties on the needolin while sailing to the city of steel

[dapper willow]

its so small 😭
Team cherry please make it bigger

[forest blade]

So is Eva a higher being?

[terse wadi]

Stop size shaming

[lethal burrow]

no

[dapper willow]

No

[twilit current]

Is there a clear timeline for what happened in Pharloom between the old kingdoms and the haunting? I still don't fully get what happened during that time, I know that Grand Mother Silk, the uplifting of the weavers, the construction of the citadel of song and the betrayal and fleeing of the weavers happened, but I don't really know what order they happened in

[pastel timber]

eva is a failed imitation of one

[lethal burrow]

yes, but I'm tired.

[dapper willow]

there is so much space left over under it that could be filled in

[lapis creek]

pretty much in the order you've described

[dapper willow]

also SOURCE???

[neat sandal]

Eva have GMS crown

[lapis creek]

i think the fleeing may have been before the citadel

[lapis creek]

does the knight count

[twilit current]

Did the betrayal happen before or after the citadel was constructed? I'm still not entirely certain if they first trapped Grand Mother Silk, then built the citadel to keep her trapped and ended up fleeing later, or they built the citadel first, then learnt the truth and trapped her, fleeing afterwards

[dapper willow]

the weavers built the citadel to put Grandma to mimimimi

[lapis creek]

or weaver queen hornet

[dapper willow]

the knight has 2 higher being parents so not really

[dapper willow]

Maybe
But its by stealing the power from a higher being

[pastel timber]

old tribes reign
gms arrives
gms ascends the weavers
the early citadel civilisation begins
as it grows, the first sinner finds the truth
imprisoned for this revelation (the slab is created here)
revolt brews
some weavers flee, some lull gms to sleep
citadel shaped (repurposed or built up from whatever they had) to sustain the lullaby that keeps her asleep
weavers die, hibernate, whatever
haunting happens

the citadel didnt pop up overnight, the whole civilisation was slowly being built up along the timeline

[quartz salmon]

It's in the game files, however it's just called like "bay" and is not coloured like everything else in there

[twilit current]

I don't understand why the first sinner was still trapped there if the weavers were able to repurpose the citadel and flee though

Is it a case of keeping her there so the citadel remained convinced of the illusion of the weaver religion even as the rest of the weavers fled?

[pastel timber]

forgotten about most likely, the hunters journal entry says so itself

[spark valve]

She may also have just been imprisoned by other weavers

[pastel timber]

or was already entombed at the point of imprisonment

[spark valve]

At the time the weavers were presenting themselves as divine leaders of the citadel, fs coming along and saying the weavers weren’t divine would be an affront to them

[blissful canyon]

it's almost like I was in greymoor cheesing moorwing yesterday ♥️

[twilit current]

Are there lore sources for the weavers lulling GMS to sleep and the citadel being repurposed? I get that it's implied to happen, but I couldn't find something describing when it happened in the timeline (or is it just inferring from all the other sources)

[spark valve]

Hornet: You speak of the Citadel? Its former function has failed, but I can still sense its purpose, some. It is church and cage both.

Mask Maker: Aye. Devised by your ancestors that monstrosity, and their wicked, clever minds. A system, or a web they'd likely call it, a way to keep their mother sealed in slumber, and themselves free to lavish in their false rule.

[pastel timber]

the weavers are referred to deragatorily, a "nasty sort" by the time the game takes place, i wonder why that is

[twilit current]

But that implies that the citadel could have came after trapping GMS rather than being repurposed, or that it was created with the secret plan of trapping GMS all along

[spark valve]

Conductors take over, seem to replace a lot of weaver iconography, dunno if they’d leave much around to remind people they weren’t always in power

[lethal burrow]

why is there rain in greymoor

[pastel timber]

its not rain its silk falling from the citadel

[neat sandal]

cause simple bug take power from weavers
Like real life rebel, you would call old regime with nasty name too

[twilit current]

Or I guess it could be a case of unreliable / incomplete narrator and we just have to infer the most likely timeline of events

[pastel timber]

it might be that the citadel was built during gms' reign but the weavers secretly made it to lull her to sleep, and that the first sinner was imprisoned after its creation for going against the weavers "divine heritage" narrative

[lethal burrow]

really tho?

[pastel timber]

yeah its left vague we dont know for sure

[pastel timber]

yeah thats why theyre waving silk catchers in the air

[fringe iris]

thought it condensation from the steam or something

[lethal burrow]

That's bullshit. Silk doesn't fall that fast.

It like wisps in the air like paper

[pastel timber]

i swear theres a piece of dialogue somewhere that says the weavers passed the burden of running the citadel onto the other bugs on purpose

[pastel timber]

its magic silk

[dapper willow]

thats dumb
We see the silk particles in other places and they fall slow

[twilit current]

Ooh if that's a lore tablet or conversation somewhere, that would be great

[lethal burrow]

[twilit current]

Also, does the capture and return of the weavers start happening during the haunting?

I was wondering how haunted choristors could write stuff lol

I guess haunted bugs are smarter than infected bugs

[pastel timber]

there is silk in the air that they are catching
it looks like its raining
either those are the answer to each other, or you have two questions with no answer

[pastel timber]

the biggest evidence is the blasted steps judges are still judging

they let sherma through cause hes sinless

[twilit current]

Are the judges haunted?

[pastel timber]

yeah

[twilit current]

I didn't see threads connected to them though, unless it's implied nearly everything in Pharloom is haunted except the NPCs we can still talk to

[pastel timber]

im gonna run there and kill some to see if you can see thread come off them at death rq

[twilit current]

Which kinda makes me wonder why Pharloom is considered a living kingdom on its last legs while Hallownest is considered a dead kingdom when both are filled with "infected" bugs, I guess the difference is that the Radiance doesn't care about the Pale King's civilisation while GMS would probably want to exert direct control over the citadel civilisation to keep it going

[pastel timber]

hallownest has like, 6 living bugs and the mantis lords

pharloom has pilgrims rest, bellhart, songclave, and tons of other living bugs scattered about

[twilit current]

Yeah that makes sense

I was wondering what Hornet was doing after the Radiance was destroyed in Hallownest lol

[pastel timber]

no threads but silk does come out of them

[muted lantern]

Does second sentinel call themself it or do they not refer to themself at all

[twilit current]

Living in a dead kingdom doesn't sound the most interesting, although Hallownest is still a pretty pleasant place to be even after being dead for quite some time

[pastel timber]

i think they say "i"

oh no

[twilit current]

Ah yeah that makes sense, hitting creatures literally hits the haunted silk out of them (how did I not make that connection lol)

[pastel timber]

"woken, is this sentinel"
"our eternal duty"
"while its shell is functional, this sentinel will hold true to its duty"

[muted lantern]

Okay so it does

Hornet calls them they but it calls itself it, I guess it's up to interpretation if they choose it as pronoun or it's just because they don't see themself as a living being. Kinda like how thk is referred by the fandom.

[pastel timber]

im not insane right surely this "rain" has to be the silk in the air that the catchers are collecting

this is underneath the thicket and cauldron theres no blue lake to justify water rain

[muted lantern]

That would make sense

[twilit current]

I love how the true ending completely debunked the whole "vessels are hollow" theory

[muted lantern]

Since it's said silk dregs fall from the sky

[pastel timber]

yeah!!!!

[pastel timber]

i find it funny when people say "hot take vessels arent hollow" cause wasnt that the whole point of the first game

[muted lantern]

I mean it was always pretty blatant that was the case in the first game, otherwise thk would have succeeded

[pastel timber]

it also solidifies that the two bad endings are really bad endings

[twilit current]

I guess you could try and say "oh vessels are hollow until they meet people, then they become not hollow", but I prefer the interpretation that they're just straight up not hollow and the pale king was being a little stupid

[pastel timber]

yeah PK was just wrong about the void

[twilit current]

Like, those millions of vessels the pale king left to rot in the abyss were all sentient like they always were

[pastel timber]

and so are we i think

[muted lantern]

Pale king never understood the void, and how could he

[twilit current]

To be fair, he didn't really have any better ideas and tried his best, but still, a little stupid lol

[muted lantern]

Pale king was a terrible parent

[pastel timber]

but a great ruler

[rancid violet]

well the ancient civilisation seemed to think that void could take away all their pain and wants so maybe thats what PK was going for

[twilit current]

Didn't even appear in Hornet's memory lol

Absent father

[pastel timber]

apparently they were wrong too

[muted lantern]

Eh his civilization was a little fucked up, and God kings and monarchy in general are not usually good for society.

[pastel timber]

void is seen as the "inevitability" its like a metaphor for entropy but like, its not

[twilit current]

Well, I think the pale king is the least bad ruler rather than a great ruler

[rancid violet]

probably, kinda feels like everyone finds the angry black liquid and assumes its the mind killer

[twilit current]

His realm is implied to have some unpleasant parts, like the maggots, class society and dropping waste into the fungal wastes, but it's nowhere as bad as Pharloom

[pastel timber]

what if its like antimatter to souls matter, its the same thing but opposite, it can sustain its own life but completely opposed to any soul it comes across

[pastel timber]

fungal wastes vs bilewater

[twilit current]

Fungal wastes at least has cool mushrooms

[pastel timber]

the mushrooms probably eat the sewage they probably asked the pale king to not process the wastewater

[twilit current]

Maybe they even liked the waste, idk

[muted lantern]

Bilewater wasn't even that bad

[twilit current]

Sorta like a symbiotic relationship

Bilewater is bad in lore

[muted lantern]

Some of y'all have never been to blight town and it shows

[pastel timber]

the music makes it all worth it thank you christopher larkin i love you

[twilit current]

A beautiful region of plants and lakes rendered completely polluted and destroyed by the Citadel's waste

[rancid violet]

It is drawn to soul... it would make sense since many forces in the HK world are opposed. like dreams and nightmares, the pale beings and the radience

[twilit current]

The pure hatred of the Stilkin says it all

But I agree, gameplay wise I found bilewater fine

[pastel timber]

dreams and nightmares are fractures of the same whole
the radiance isnt opposed at an instinct level shes just pissed off that PK stole her fangirls

[rancid violet]

her fault for being a dimmer lamp

[pastel timber]

im still dying on the hill that the radiance is a pale being

[lethal burrow]

What justifies the silk then?

[pastel timber]

the dialogue in game that says silk dregs from the citadel are constantly falling on greymoor in large volume

and thats why theyre not farmers anymore

[rancid violet]

the radiance isn't white tho

[twilit current]

Is there a lore tablet or dialogue that describes when Greymoor was created?

I don't know if Greymoor was created before or after the citadel

[pastel timber]

whatsit and whatsit in sinners road talk about it

[lethal burrow]

in the void the pale king saw a canvas left blank for many ages of the world and wrongly assumed it was a trait of the canvas that it could not be painted as opposed to a trait of the painters that they wished to see it blank.

[pastel timber]

depends what you mean by greymoor and what you mean by the citadel

[twilit current]

As in, is Greymoor a settlement that existed independent of the citadel civilisation before it was created, then subsumed by it, or was it created by the citadel civilisation

[twilit current]

Same thing with bellhart, although that I'm assuming was a part of the citadel civilisation because they're obsessed with bells

[pastel timber]

greymoor used to be farmers but then the citadel told them to catch silk instead and thats all we know of the specific relation between the two places

[twilit current]

Or maybe Pharloom was already obssesed with bells and the citadel just took that part

[lethal burrow]

so silk can phase through rock though

[pastel timber]

the world is 3D

canonically speaking

[lethal burrow]

hm hm

[pastel timber]

the only things there before gms were the ants, the coral tribe, verdania, and shellwood

any towns or settlements beyond those tribes were post gms as far as we know

"before the citadel" feels way too vague, since the citadel will have started as a small town and been slowly built up over time

[twilit current]

Are those the only tribes, or were those just the strongest tribes

[pastel timber]

as far as we know thats it, every civilisation or tribe we know of in the hk universe has been headed by a strong leader or succumbed to the elements, so assumedly any other small tribe died out anyway

[twilit current]

I guess the snail shamans probably existed before the citadel

And the void civilisation before all else, but that's just background lore

[rancid violet]

snail shamans seem to have been everywhere there's void

[lethal burrow]

The chapel in the moss grotto

[twilit current]

Yeah that's what I was thinking

[pastel timber]

theres void everywhere

[lethal burrow]

even inside hornet?

[rancid violet]

that we know of so far

[twilit current]

The stilkin probably existed at some point then right?

Since it's very heavily implied the citadel destroyed and polluted their land

[lethal burrow]

them to yes

[pastel timber]

do we know anything about that at all

[twilit current]

And wormways, which isn't really a civilisation but is just there lol

[lethal burrow]

a snail shamen is a chapel maid there

[twilit current]

I don't really know why it's there other than just to be there, but I like that Silksong has these weird border regions that just exist to make the world feel a bit larger

[pastel timber]

again "the citadel" didnt pop up overnight, it was built up slowly, eventually turning into the brass industrial polluting behemoth it is now, remember it had to invent metallurgy and steam power before it starting polluting bilewater, that takes a long time for most civilisations

[rancid violet]

the moss grotto chapel snail lady says that her chapel is what happened to those that chose a path other than GMS

[pastel timber]

yeah but does that tell us anything related to the timeline, chapel of the reaper is a chapel that definitely got made post-citadel-industrial era

[pastel timber]

thatll do it

[prime gorge]

someones probably already mentioned this but are elder hu and shakra related? very similar clothing and both seem to use some sort of ring weapon

[lethal burrow]

Can you get the exact dialogue?

[rancid violet]

gimme a sec

[lethal burrow]

could be no strong connection though

[pastel timber]

it looks like team cherry took inspiration from backer characters for silksong designs, given not only the elder hu / shakra connections, but also one of the spirits glade ghosts looking a lot like a coral soldier

[rancid violet]

"Aye! Gone! The lot'o them, fled and hidden. But I'm not leaving till I've set this place right... It's that Citadel above, you see. Even now, in Pharloom's long decline, the simple bugs, they're witless before it. Too grand. Too majestic. Too powerful. This building's state is a sad example of those who'd dare suggest another path..."

thats the exact wording, I misremembered slightly

[pastel timber]

its very vague, did the citadel destroy the chapel? religious zealots acting alone? gms herself?

[rancid violet]

well its right next to bone bottom so I doubt any of the pilgrims are opposed to it outright

[jaunty elm]

does hornet destroy pharloom and turn it into a new deepnest or smth

[pastel timber]

silksong is just "what if we remade hollow knight but we only kept deepnest"

the whole thing is just a new deepnest

[rancid violet]

they're 7 years deep in deepnest, they've drilled to the center of the nest and found the angry white ball

[lethal burrow]

this implies that the citadel is the other path, and that she's blaming the others for leaving the chapel which is the "main path" thus leading to its decline

or at least that's what I get from the phrasing

[rancid violet]

she isnt leaving until she sets it right, so was she around for when it was right and before the citadel fucked everything

[pastel timber]

she says in the quote that the chapel is an "example" of suggesting another path, its not the main one

[rancid violet]

I mean its her main path, she aint leaving but she isnt putting that on anyone else

[lethal burrow]

no, it's a sad example of those who would suggest another path

[pastel timber]

i fear that those two words dont reverse the meaning of the statement, just personifies the chapel

[lethal burrow]

they don't change your interpretation, but they do change the interpretations that can be drawn from the statement

[pastel timber]

i guess what the "main path" is is entirely subjective anyway

question is path to what

[rancid violet]

Given what snail shamans are known for, is the other path void related

Since that seems to be their answer for everything God related

[pastel timber]

god problem? dunk it in void

[rancid violet]

It's reverse oreos

[lethal burrow]

it DOES have a good success rate

[pastel timber]

the shamans are seemingly a stand-in for paganism so it makes sense the citadel doesnt want them going against orthodoxy

[rancid violet]

Given what they did to the first Sinner I'm surprised that a snail shaman made it to the first shrine

[lucid fossil]

Silksong

[pastel timber]

given what they did to shade soul shaman and seeker shaman im also surprised a snail shaman made it to the first shrine

escargot is a delicacy in this franchise

[rancid violet]

Oh yeah, 3 living snails is the most we've seen so far

Rip the fourth, he was just trying to build alliances

[lucid fossil]

well wasn’t the shade soul one captured for different purposes

[pastel timber]

not really, both were captured for exploiting their powers over soul

[lucid fossil]

also umm wtf are the snail shamans… r they part of the ancient civilization… cuz lik… howling wraiths spell can be upgraded in abyss

[pastel timber]

snail shamans are crazy witches who like playing with soul and void cause its fascinating

[lucid fossil]

i think i forgot who the seeker soul shaman was which one was that

[pastel timber]

the dead one in bilewater, past groal

[lucid fossil]

ohhhg

okay yeah that’s two shamans that were murdered in cold blood for their power 😭😭

[lucid fossil]

did they like allow the void to consume them or something? are they like the collector

[rancid violet]

Also it seems like all the snails that settle in a kingdom are related

Which feels weird

[pastel timber]

theyre not void they just play with it

[pastel timber]

its a species theyre all gonna be related, looks like its tight knit though oddly

[lucid fossil]

is there a reason why TC left in the detail of soul seeping out of their shells when you hit it

[pastel timber]

they use their shells to focus soul so i guess its residue?

[lucid fossil]

do you think they were hinting at them being like soul creatures or something

[rancid violet]

I think they just have some in a vial somewhere in their shell that they play with, and the store soul in their shell too

[lucid fossil]

we will never know 🤫

[pastel timber]

i never saw any soul seeping out

[lucid fossil]

and we will also never know why they all collectively use Oho!

[pastel timber]

then again i never hit them after they died

[lucid fossil]

go to the room in the ruined chapel where they were having a meeting with hornet, you can hit their shells and soul will fly out

[rancid violet]

That's just what being a whimsical magic user does to you

[pastel timber]

im gonna go do that rn

[lucid fossil]

i only hit their shells once I don’t know if they run out or not

if they don’t then maybe they are connected to soul in a way that isn’t just storing it in vials

[pastel timber]

every living thing has soul in them

[rancid violet]

Well they say that they've been storing soul in their shells before they hand it over for the snare. The bell hermit seemed to compulsively collect it

[lucid fossil]

yeah but it doesn’t seep out like that

[pastel timber]

it does when the knight hits them

[lucid fossil]

i thought that was just bug juice effects

it didn’t look like soul to me

[rancid violet]

Mmmmm bug juice

[pastel timber]

when you hit the shell 4 soul particles come out of the opening and dissipate

[lucid fossil]

but even then it’s their shell that seeps soil and not their corpse (which vanishes may i add…)

[lucid fossil]

does it ever run out

[pastel timber]

i think its 100% just residue from their magicking

[pastel timber]

doesnt look like it

[lucid fossil]

mayb..