lore-discussion-spoilers

[north bronze]

this is usually for a first playthrough in my personal experience. then if i enjoyed it enough or felt invested in the vibes enough, i find myself wanting more, and more, and eventually growing a hyperfixation on the world, story, characters, everything

[grizzled vector]

Well, all I can say is, not everyone is like that. Admittedly I haven't played many MMOs, but my impression was always that people who actually cared about lore and story and/or want to roleplay in that context are in the minority. Even in a heavily story-oriented MMO like SW:TOR most people seemed to just care about getting gear and cosmetics and PvP ranks

[north bronze]

i just have to disagree with the sentiment that lore-consumers are a minority, but i come from a presumably different crowd and playerbases

i mean, there's lore now, we're in the lore channel, clearly there was some kind of a need for lore in their emotion-evoking world made for connection

it would have been a pretty empty experience to just collect emotes & candles for cosmetics in a world that doesn't even have a story or a reason for being there outside of the emotes and cosmetics

[grizzled vector]

There's also Eve Online (admittedly also very different game) which also has fairly developed backstory (and I think even has books published) which is still mostly known for emergent storytelling based on what the players are doing. Most of said players also don't really care about lore or roleplaying so much as pragmatic goals such as controlling territory and resources. In the end it still generates newsworthy stories

[north bronze]

i'm more affiliated with series like Elder Scrolls, Zelda etc - franchises with heavy emphasis on lore and theorizing

[grizzled vector]

I mean... obviously there are enough of us to warrant a lore channel, but we are what, about a dozen regulars in a playerbase of millions? I'm not saying lore isn't important or isn't worth the effort, I'm saying it probably wasn't their primary focus (especially given it was a small team with limited resources). They just wanted to make a "game as an art piece" (and an art piece it sure is). It's nice if it also has lore that makes sense, but I don't think it's realistic to expect this game to have Elder Scrolls-tier lore

[north bronze]

an art piece it sure is.

but no i would never expect it to reach Elder Scrolls-tier lore. that place is an absolute universe of information, it's literally overwhelmingly crazy

[grizzled vector]

At the end of the day, a game as a medium still has to center the player. And a multiplayer game especially has to center around player-to-player interactions. If you want to tell a story it's still best to write a book.

[north bronze]

i really can't agree with writing a book if you want to tell a story - too many movies, games, shows and even ARGs(i can't remember the word i'm looking for but it isn't ARG) have proven that there are many amazing stories to tell in many different formats

[north bronze]

a lot of stories began as non-books, rather than based-on-books, too

[grizzled vector]

Granted, there are also cases where demand for storytelling can result in reams of lore where it wasn't really intended. Warhammer, for example, was originally a tabletop wargame where "lore" was mostly flavor text whose main purpose was to help sell the minis. But over time it seems to have accumulated a following of people who take its lore way more seriously than I believe it was originally intended. Disturbingly so, I would say

[north bronze]

i never really got into warhammer/it doesn't appeal to me; the most i've seen on it is Aspartes animation during a college class

[spiral vault]

It feels like it's ignoring the sky world, and instead of having it all connected together, it makes it feel isolated and separated

[north bronze]

as fair a reason as any, i'd say

sadly i'm not really sure where they'd place it on the map :/

[grizzled vector]

Different mediums have different strengths. As old-fashioned as they are, I would argue that books are still the best medium for storytelling specifically. Of course, "storytelling" itself is a pretty broad concept. Some stories can greatly benefit from music and visuals, and don't lose much when translated from books. My point was that to make a game to tell a story is like opening a cafe so you can make some coffee. Bit of an overkill

[north bronze]

same for DOOM to be honest. it started off with the most dumb intentions in the world, but after DOOM 2016, people got obsessed with the lore (and i admit i took interest too - it's very cool)

[north bronze]

it really depends how you want to tell your story imo - is it really overkill if storytelling is as broad a concept as it is + different mediums have different strengths? sometimes a book just isn't enough, and sometimes your target audience may not be the "book" type, and again, it really depends on how you want to tell your story + what kind of story it even is

[grizzled vector]

I'm not into Warhammer either, I was just giving an example of lore becoming a thing where it most likely wasn't seriously intended to be a thing. Maybe decades later Sky will come to be something similar. There sure seems to be interest. But I don't think having deep lore was a key goal throughout the development process since 2012

[grizzled vector]

It also really depends on the budget. If you have money (or investors with money) you may be able to go to town with visuals and music and costume design etc and it will certainly help the story come to life in ways that would be difficult to pull off with just words alone. But the core of a story is still generally described with words alone. The rest is nice to have if you can afford it.

[north bronze]

it doesn't necessarily have to boil down to "whether one can afford it" - people can make games, animations, and music from their own bedrooms these days. with enough passion (and given the right software), anyone can create anything

of course, software costs money, and so does other things. but not everyone lives their lives by legitemate means, sadly

-source: am artist, musician, and was artist for friend group's game project

and whatwith Indie companies (in any media) having such popularity in the last 10 years - publishing isn't even in the question

[grizzled vector]

Sky was also partially based on (unexpected) success of Journey which showed that there could be demand for a space for people to just interact. Journey barely had any lore, and you could barely even interact with other players at all, but people did find it engaging. In spite – quite possibly even because – of the fact there weren't any traditional goals like cooperating to kill monsters or other players. I think exploring that direction was a much larger part of the intention when creating Sky than coming up with yet another detailed story of how the world may have come to be and how the civilization could fall apart. There are enough of those stories out there that you can kinda infer and fill in the blanks to understand what happened without really needing to be told in detail

[north bronze]

i'm pretty sure Journey does have lore - though rather than worldbuilding or anything deep, it's more just religious symbolisms and a couple of things that are similar to sky, however i haven't actually played Journey - only watched videos about it

*LoreLite™️

there was one particular video i remember that went on a bunch of speculation and mentioned that the player character is the embodiment of the Hebrew "word of god"

[grizzled vector]

People can make a lot in their bedrooms, but it takes a lot of time (on the order of years) to get really good at it. Especially if you also have to work for a living, etc. It is hypothetically possible to make an entire game by yourself and publish it on itch or even Steam. Still, if your intention is to tell a story I would argue the best way to start is to try and write a book. You will likely have something finished and presentable/marketable/sellable much faster than you will get good at programming and music and 2D and 3D art and writing on top of that

[north bronze]

i'm sorry, i just have to disagree, having had my own experience. *and i feel like this isn't particularly going anywhere. not to sound rude or anything, as i've been known to in the past.

[grizzled vector]

Journey has lore like Sky has lore. It's hinted at that the world has some backstory, but aside from some drawings on the walls nothing is ever really elaborated upon. So like, there is "a story" (people consumed magic and nature until none was left, then killed each other fighting over remaining scraps) but the story wasn't the primary focus

[north bronze]

uh huh

[grizzled vector]

"Telling a story" is a very broad concept. "A person walking on a sidewalk slips and falls" can be considered a short story. You can make an animation project around it. You can make a music project around it. In sound design, the way the door creaks when opened can be said to "tell a story." In a sense, almost anything can be considered some small story in a way

[north bronze]

mhm

have a nice night, tem. i'm getting hungry. later. you're going in circles and i'm not going to acknowledge your factually wrong statements, since i have my own experience that contradicts almost everything you've said in this debate.

[grizzled vector]

A multiplayer game is a platform that enables people to interact with each other. It can also be used to tell them a story but you have to deal with a ton more challenges to get to the same result, assuming your players even want to see your story rather than honk and crab dance at each other

[pastel brook]

[grizzled vector]

In any cause, hope you have a nice night as well, and best of luck if you ever try to tell a story through a multiplayer game

[copper obsidian]

i agree today i tried to be a magic gnome but no one got the reference

[rain frost]

putting the Two Embers seasons in the collab room would feel a little weird given it's still solidly within Sky's world, not a combo of another story like TLP, but i think it would give them more creative freedom than placing it within one of the realms. after all, there was a discussion a few weeks back that this show seems to take place across the kingdom so plunking it in one realm might not feel right.

also maybe the guides for these seasons wouldnt be the children themselves but someone/something important to them. it may sound goofy but maybe Dusk's season guide would be their manatee - it could even be the first spirit manatee we see. as for the Dawn ember, we havent seen enough of him yet so im not rlly sure, but it could be someone he knew

[autumn narwhal]

Hey lore ppl, I've got a question. These symbols on these bells around Sky, are they following an alphabet of sorts or are they just random symbols that mean nothing?

[noble ferry]

To my knowledge, I think they're just random symbols
I do believe they're actually based off tibet spinning prayer bells, I think?

[inland cliff]

A star is just a burning comet and consider how Megabird is made of literal stars and planets it makes sense for us skykids

Relating to the light and dark dynamic graph, we can view the skykids as a "falling star" literally and symbolically, how we're hybrids of light power and ancestors body

[inland cliff]

I believe they're magic symbols people carved in bells so they can call the light creatures

[fervent knoll]

No character card about Duet Guide?

[rain frost]

either to avoid spoilers or it'll drop later / when the season starts

[grizzled vector]

From what I understand there might actually be two guides, with the second one being introduced later in the season. But also yea there might be some history between them to discover so they might not want to give it away all at once

[leaden onyx]

I wonder if this is what holy city was like before everything went sideways( sorry if this is known info)

[inland cliff]

Has any1 analyzed the snippets of Sky:Two Embers ep1 yet?

[arctic sphinx]

Is anyone have dusk ember trailer?

I didn't record it on second session with Jenova 😭

[waxen ermine]

Why can crabs float?

[polar forge]

Magic

[rapid latch]

Wanna hear my headcanon about the war in Sky?
The soldiers on the darkness side had darkstone-powered pistols

[twilit patio]

Interesting 🤔, explain your theory pls I wanna hear it

[rapid latch]

no theories, just that darkness side had more tech

[inland cliff]

The most "techy" weapon we've seen in sky is a gun used by the laughing spirit from season of abyss

[strange flare]

cackling cannoneer?

[twilit elm]

Hi lorechat, i took screenshots from the whole concept Art Gallery Tour! If anyone wishes, i could send them? Theres many tho 🤔 is there an archive or something for skystuff..? I'll add one interesting pic here!

[waxen ermine]

Yes please! I missed the events due to timezones

Can you also said what was said about this?

[twilit elm]

Is it ok to send so many and kinda clog the chat with pics..? I can send in parts tho, please tell me someone if it's too much i took pics of the art mainly, some comments too from the Dev guiding

[waxen ermine]

Yes please

[north niche]

i think you can open a thread nevermind that requires a different permission i think

[twilit elm]

That would be perfect, does anyone know who could i ask for permission for art-tour thread then? should i just message to contact the mods

[north niche]

no, it's fine without. i think it would be a lot of trouble for the mods to make a new role. i agree it would be useful for some stuff though, maybe we can bring it up to them just in general for lore related topics

[twilit elm]

Ok let me know if this gets too much, i think it was very interesting to see this art with context too!

This was the start of
Guided Tour of Sky's Art with the Devs in Hidden Forest's Skyfest gallery. Enjoy!
Part 1 - all of it is now in 9 parts below.

Guided Tour of Sky's Art with the Devs part 2, about Skykids and the core pillars of Sky thematically, tonally and emotionally

[inland cliff]

Yea that's their name

[twilit elm]

Guided Tour of Sky's Art with the Devs part 3, light and dark / the light and the void, & Sky creatures
I find it interesting how they mention "the void" as opposite of light and corrupting creatures, not "the darkness" even if they mean the same thing, word "void" in Sky i thought mainly shattering void

[inland cliff]

Has there been a lore discussion about the art gallery and the Two Ember snippets in this chat? If so then can you link me to it?

[brave patio]

Ooo these are super cool! Again mentioning the “void”, which I feel is sort of a Megabird opposite?

[blissful palm]

It appears to be just a place, absence of light, sort of is the opposite, but not god-devil kind of way

[twilit elm]

Guided Tour of Sky's Art with the Devs part 4, early art about Skykids and concepts of WONDER COMMUNITY HUMANITY

[serene rampart]

Absolutely screaming at the dark creatures art

[blissful palm]

wonder, community, humanity, and grind

[twilit elm]

Guided Tour of Sky's Art with the Devs
Part 5: early artwork of the kingdom's realms, and the visual moods of the emotional arc. +Some of Ash's comments included

Guided Tour of Sky's Art with the Devs
Part 6: Eye of Eden, Orbit and Death concepts This ended the guided part of the tour, and I started exploring rest of the Gallery!

Guided Tour of Sky's Art with the Devs
Part 7: The Elders and the Ruler.

In my opinion this is a must see for lore / King fans! has it been canon before, that "the Ruler sacrificed himself to birth a new generation of children of the light"!? Or is it an early concept in these

[blissful palm]

The two embers trailer didn't seem to be about self sacrifice

[twilit elm]

Right? I find the wording v interesting in these Gallery texts maybe it's a early concept idk

Guided Tour of Sky's Art with the Devs
Part 8: introducing Ancestor Spirits and civilization. Texts include "motes", "ember", "worshiping the soul cycle"

[waxen ermine]

Just realized the word they use here, “birth”
Meaning they’re not the king himself as a reincarnation, but his direct children?

[twilit elm]

Guided Tour of Sky's Art with the Devs
Part 9 (last part): Ancestor Spirits of the Realms "Their memories offer ... layers of lore and discovery around each corner."

I really enjoyed the art tour and hopefully someone who missed it can enjoy it too through my sharing And for lore enthusiasts, feel free to use and share the pics - no credit needed but tagging me is appreciated so i can see the discussion of art or loreeeee Thanks

[soft timber]

Oh these are so nice!!!!

[blissful palm]

Like a seahorse lol

[waxen ermine]

Thank you so much Potatochip!!

[twilit elm]

Ur welcome thank u for encouraging me to post!

[spiral vault]

The void as storytellers? Is that me, perhaps?

[rare ruin]

I understand the light in the chest but is that a wheel in their head?

[brave patio]

Skykid brain??? I really don’t know but it’s such a cool piece of art

[nimble ingot]

lore lore lore. Yay, new art and lore.

[rare ruin]

100% agree, Jacky Ke Jiang is such a talented artist 😊 all the art in the art gallery tour were so amazing!

[nimble ingot]

Thank you PotatoChip for sharing the delicious screenhots.

[copper stump]

looks to me as possibly one of these photo wheels that you look at in a cassette agains the light, although that would not really make that much sense, maybe thats just their soul.

[twilit elm]

My pleasure! I took pics to look at the art better later in peace, now they're in one place & sorted - for me too to enjoy

[copper obsidian]

are these “things” in the dark supposed to represent the elders? because if they do, the valley of triumph elders are not split up. which means the priestess is somewhere here :o

[plain fern]

I wonder what the elders look like as children

I wonder who the first child was in sky lore

[copper obsidian]

i’ve seen it somewhere in this channel that the elders were always elders. they haven’t been kids and skykids do not become elders. they do come from another world and they knew themselves before they came in the sky kingdom

[plain fern]

Could elder be a position?

Could the elders be the founders and creators of each the land

[copper obsidian]

yeah totally. elders are “the leaders” of sky children. they help them continue their soul cycle.

[plain fern]

Could there have been different elders before sky fell to darkness

Could there ever be new set of elders one day or in a new generation?

[copper obsidian]

i don’t have much information on that. only that the elders “landed” in each kingdom.

[plain fern]

I wonder what their lives were like before this

I wish we could have a post sky storyline about the elders and their beginnings

[copper obsidian]

there’s always was darkness i believe. in one of the pictures that potatochip sent (thank u), it said that since there were light creatures (and when there’s light there’s also darkness), dark creatures were born. so as long as light creatures existed, dark creatures did as well.

[plain fern]

Maybe in a different timeline there were different elders and groups

[cobalt palm]

Slowly catching up on skyfest stuff, and this one pretty much confirms that the king/ruler was the one who initiated the Skykids creation through their own sacrifice

[plain fern]

Since they became spirits, that would mean that they had died and may have had a life before hand

[copper obsidian]

yeee. they said “birth” so we are more like prince Alefs children than his reincarnation

[cobalt palm]

Yeah, just what the king was is still in question, were they an ancestor, like the spirits, or Skykid, or proto-Skykid, or something else entirely

[copper obsidian]

i also like the small detail where the elders kinda “bow” to the little moth as they see prince Alef in it

[cobalt palm]

And importantly that's only after Vault, so it implies the journey has changed us in some way, from our first meeting with them at their temples (especially snatchy forest elder )

[plain fern]

I wonder what the days were like in the days of the elders

[copper obsidian]

the king was a part of the “6 stars that fell from the sky” or in other words - the elders. he fell later tho

[spiral vault]

I assumed to they were bowing to the skykid helping them

[copper obsidian]

oh well that’s just what i see. most of sky lore is open to interpretation

[plain fern]

What if aurora was megabird 🤔

[grizzled vector]

That looks like some sort of a fractal/mandala type thing you tend to see in illustrations discussing chakras, spiritual energy, and other stuff of that nature. It's probably meant to represent their mind as a spiritual "organ"/"structure"

[grizzled vector]

What if Resh was megacrab

Fun fact, I think Aurora might be the only entity in Sky that has an actual proper name

Actually never mind, Cinnamoroll is another. Cinnamoroll as a creature of darkness hypothesis intensifies

Though we're apparently getting a collab with Moomin and several others, so there will likely be more of them

In any case, "Megabird" seems to be more of a concept for the collective consciousness of all living beings (or at least all beings of Light). But Aurora does come off as the closest thing to a personification of the Megabird. Or at least "spirit of the world" (the Megabird seems like more of a galaxy-scale or even universe-scale entity)

[copper obsidian]

Yep. The Megabird is hugeeeee. Actually, the light we enter at the end of orbit is the Megabird itself (: fun fact

[grizzled vector]

More specifically, that looks like a "seed of life" or "flower of life" pattern in what's known as "sacred geometry"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Overlapping_circles_grid

[cobalt palm]

New thought: Aurora is the only character from history who can canonically "talk", all of the other spirits use gestures and chirps (and murals)

[copper obsidian]

I don’t think the collabs have any lore in them (: they’re just collabs after all

[cold sparrow]

The little prince also used dialogue, even if it wasn't voiced. But yeah, the collabs find themselves in a curious semi-canon niche.

[cobalt palm]

I always read the popup textboxes as being a sort of "translation" so humans can understand what is being said in the world, I probably should have been clearer to say, the only character with a voice we can understand without reading the text, though the text does still appear

[iron forum]

@north bronze
not only yours but others' speculations stump quite a few bits trying to unravel the spirits' correlations about who is ascended into constellations and who stays in Aviary Village keyword being "god's special chosen" - tbh which isn't a obnoxious point of view but we could have a better justification which is why the two marbles (my braincells) in the frantically shaking tupperware i call brain finally collided and i've experienced a Thought so get this:

Imagine the King's Catastrophe - the birth of the Eye of Eden, Krills being let loose, the Kingdom's downfall all in all - had a "shockwave" happen, spanning across all Realms dilating itself with distance (like how the Praire's buildings are well more better kept than the Wasteland's since the former is farther from Eden and how the Vault's structure seems to be devastated except for the first floors of the place since taking the map as reference it's near the King's Castle and Eden by consequence). Now imagine that every Spirit on its path that got hit with it (who didn't take cover that is, the Prohecy's storyline talks about only Resh's coming and crowning, not that Eden would happen meaning it was unexpected, which also explains why there's so much Spirits in areas closer to Eden while areas far from Eden have so little) became their state in the game now: statues who can only do so much as relive their memories before their life got crushed by and with the Kingdom's ruin.

Now let's see:

Dreams Guide's lifelong wish was become a ice rink performer. We find her turned to stone. We relive her dream and not only discover it but also realise it. All characters who accompany her ascend to a constellation. She goes to Aviary.
Memories Guide passed his whole life living on and tending to the Praire Peaks, his purpose and routine and situation all simple. We find him turned to stone. We reunite his friends and take a photo together, something he always liked. They ascend, he goes to Aviary.
The Season of Performance Spirits were an indie theater group which had some internal conflicts due to struggles with each member. We help tend to their theater and aid them getting better. It's a crevice here since all of them stay on Aviary, all of them are on the same shop, not just Performance Guide by themselves, but not only is it it the same line of reasoning it's also fine because differently than the other two Guides, they were a group. Different issues, same dream, same resolve, same situation: Aviary.

It is not every Season (e.g: Prophecy) that has this pattern but it's clear: the distinction here is the Spirits who STAY have either survived Eden's birth, like what seems to be the case with Steward, the Enchantment and Assembly(??????) Guides and others, or have indeed been affected by Eden but found themselves attached to their past lives pre-Ruin and by own will couldn't just sit and accept Eden - instead, decided to be better than it.

I think this way bc Sky's thematic message of community makes PERFECT SENSE. Sky's world is ruined, forgotten - the Golden Era has passed. The King is gone, the Eye of Eden roars and storms, the Spirits are no more. There's no hope. It's in the past. Which imo I personally think the player's duty here is not clichéd "save the world of Sky from the darkness like the prophecy intended", it's sparking up Renaissance.
Aviary Village is its embodiment. Maybe, just maybe, the world has no hope. Maybe the good ol' days can't return. But that's okay because we can rebuild it. We can be better than it. We can make something beautiful out of it. It's the best we can do. It's small but it's fine.

and this is the moment i come here and say no this is not a theory and its not a headcanon either i had half of that entire daydream bc i genuinely find sweet the apartment nesting guide builds for us and i want to show our girl more appreciation. tall cool carpenter mom shopkeeper lady deserves all love and the moon and more and i wanna kiss her (affectionate)

[rain frost]

i feel like this gives even more meaning to stewie's name. there's a reason they're not just "Revival Guide" - they're the Steward of Hope, and yes I switched up the wording intentionally because they're not just someone who has hope personally but who spreads hope to everyone around them e.g. by helping all the other seasonal spirits to find peace or relive happy memories or whatever. (yes this is also just me being a stewie enjoyer what of it?)

[iron forum]

i want to friend everybody in sight but i also want stewie's hair how do i mournDNSMRJSLSNHRSKBDND
the lil postman. the lil manager. the lil "tries their hardest to be optimistic but is actually in immense emotional distress due to countless things but doesnt want to show it bc it threatens derailing everybody else"

[trim gull]

What would hopeful steward's name be if it was like the fanon hebrew names the elders have?

[spiral vault]

Collabs still have lore, since they're in the sky world and have sky themes and stuff

[spiral vault]

I think it would be Tav ת

It's the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, symbolizing the last 'Elder' (at least in concept) and it fits with Alef, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet

[grizzled vector]

Those aren't technically "fanon" names, they're just not really official names either. They're used in really old concept art, but they're not really meant to be used as names for them in the finished version of the game

Also I'm not really an expert on symbolism in Hebrew language and alphabet so I can't really suggest a name but I'm pretty sure there's more to it than "last letter of the alphabet would work well for the last Elder"

But yea they're not even actual Hebrew proper names, they're literally names of individual letters. They more or less named the Elders ABCXYZ in the early concept art (there's more to it but it's also kinda like that)

[grizzled vector]

For what it's worth, I think the Aviary is currently populated mostly by the original realm spirits and Season guides mostly for gameplay mechanics reasons and new player experience considerations.

A new player who just went to Eden for the first time will not recognize most of the season spirits. New players don't even see season spirits until they've been through Eden at least once (or at least that used to be the case, I'm not 100% sure what their NPE is anymore). Season areas are also out of the way of the main path.

The original spirits will be more recognizable to a new player, which makes the impact of "reviving" the Aviary more meaningful (the player goes "yay, those are friends I made along the way" rather than "who are all these people?"). The player is further rewarded for recognizing these spirits because most of them respond to their own emotes. This wouldn't work with season spirits since again, the player most likely hasn't met them, so they won't have their emotes yet either.

The original spirits also have a more consistent overall appearance, despite being from different realms, which also makes the Aviary look more visually consistent.

[spiral vault]

Oh, by the way, two embers content should be available in the next few hours

[grizzled vector]

Also worth noting that from the SkyFest presentations it seems like they're planning to do more with spirits, rework their relationships, etc. I think one of the slides mentioned that they're planning to add a daily quest system where spirits will hang out outside the cafeteria and doing dailies will also affect their relationship trees in some way. So we may potentially see season spirits in the Aviary (and their trees accessible outside the "few days every few years" window)

[inland cliff]

Isn't the Dream girl (who wears the ult cosmetics) and Dream guide a different person?

The guides serve as the main narrator and the point of view of the story in the season, they're not always the main char of the season so idk if most of the guides in Aviary even share the same trope of "Dreams come true"

[grizzled vector]

I kinda assumed the Dreams Guide is the parent of the skater kid but tbh it's kind of a unique situation because there isn't really an actual proper spirit of the skater kid. We see "spirits" of memories in several different locations, but never "meet" the kid spirit the way we can meet most spirits. So it is possible the Guide is actually the adult who used to be the kid the season was about

[waxen ermine]

But we see dreams girl hug dreams guide excitedly after being gifted a cape and mask

[blissful palm]

Dreams guide time traveled to gift it to themselves

[dire night]

Holy F did the new sky scenes in the birthday event just show the Kings first appearance in Sky.

[north bronze]

please tell me you're talking about the SkyCinema streams, and not something completely new that i missed from today. the FOMO in this game is horrible and i need to sleep

[twilit patio]

Wait so the spirit is someone already dead and have some unresolved wish or survivor from Eden? I'm confused

[twilit elm]

Feel u but luckily most of it someone posts. But rest is important i gotta sleep now too🥱😴
If u or anyone missed the Guided Tour of Sky's Art with the Devs or wants to see them again, i posted screenshots of all artworks here #lore-discussion-spoilers message

[north bronze]

much apprecciate

[twilit patio]

what cause Eden become the Eden that we know today?

[blissful palm]

It was overloaded with light and then blew up. It was using light creature ascension beam as light. It being the giant crystal

[north bronze]

at the risk of sounding sarcastic...

...yes, the spirits are people who had died in the past

[north bronze]

as for "unresolved wishes", i believe that part is the part that's open to interpretation

all of the spirits failed to "Ascend" as per the normal cycle of life/death, and we're there to help them "Ascend", or "move on", or "resolve their wishes", i guess that part is really up to how the player sees it

[twilit patio]

Ow man, I thought the spirit are their race, turn out they are dead, that's sad 😦

[north bronze]

their "race" (if we can even give them one), i've seen closest described as "Ancestral stars"

[blissful palm]

Nah don't be sad, they brought it upon themselves

[rain frost]

yes, they're commonly called Ancestors while we (skykids) are called Descendants

[twilit patio]

So we are the only living being in the lore?

[north bronze]

living, yes

*with the exception of the animals

don't worry, even though they're spirits, they're still "here", maybe not "living" per se, but they are still consciously with us, aware of their surroundings. it isn't so bad. Death in Sky isn't like death IRL

[rain frost]

i dont think this is true of all of them, plenty seem like innocent bystanders or victims of the kingdom's downfall. see: the season of remembrance spirits, as well as plenty of others (my personal favourite being Tearful Light-miner because they lost their friends to the darkness)

[twilit patio]

It's more sad if u put it this way because we humans are also like this

[blissful palm]

Yeah except now İ gotta clean up their mess, and forgive them for putting light creatures into a blender because they really needed a floating chair

[north bronze]

it's really the "world leader(s)" of the sky kingdom who brought it upon everyone else. just like the real world and our real world leaders who are ruining our real world gasp

[blissful palm]

They could've rebelled, maybe they did but it seems it was too late anyway

[north bronze]

oh there were most certainly rebels and a a good couple of wars going on

but yes, too late. the world was already doomed from the moment Alef beccame Resh

[blissful palm]

More like when they put the giant diamond at eden, there still was time before that

Heck maybe even prophecy murals warned about this, it depicts krills which didn't exist back then. But ofc nobody did anything until too late

[north bronze]

as is the nature of human-esque civilizations

[north bronze]

"Isle of Dawn - Wisdom
Daylight Prairie - Empathy
Forbidden Forest - Resilience
Valley of Triumph - Excellence
Golden Wasteland - Courage
Vault of Knowledge - Faith
Eden/the Ruler - Sacrifice"

this is incredibly interesting to me. i've never seen the realms be described as emotions, only day/life cycles. admittedly, i left the Art gallery early because Festival Tech was lagging my iPad

[rain frost]

yeah i didn't get to that part either

the Vault one seems the least obvious to me. could Faith be a reference to like, the spiritual/religious elements of that realm? e.g. Praying Acolyte - who are they praying to? Megabird? and other spiritual/magical stuff like Levitating Adept

[north bronze]

perhaps another "open for interpretation" thing

i believe it means both the religious aspects of the vault, as well as "faith in our Ruler" for a number of reasons including a couple of snippets we get in the trailers of Vault Elder

[grizzled vector]

I think the snippets from the art book posted previously also referenced the Elders that way

[north bronze]

do you mean the post i was replying to in that message

[grizzled vector]

I was referring to the artbook (Art of Sky). People were posting photos of excepts from their books in this channel earlier (like, a week or two ago)

[north bronze]

right

[grizzled vector]

You can meet Praying Acolyte in the Aviary, and if you use the praying emote next to them they will actually recharge you with their light. I think in this case it might be less of a prayer in a sense of asking a deity for something and more of a focusing/meditation type of thing. Of course I'm not sure "prayer" is really the most fitting way to describe that, but I'm also not sure there is an entity in Sky they would be praying to in a traditional sense. Megabird isn't really a deity so much as a collective consciousness of souls.

Granted, the Ruler could arguably qualify as a "deity" of sorts, depending on how you define "deity" in this case. Being a powerful magic user, the Ruler would be the most obvious choice to ask for a miracle in this case

But given that Praying Acolyte is praying over what appears to be graves, I'm not sure what exactly they would be asking for in this regard. I doubt even the Ruler had the power to resurrect people. Normally it would make sense for the Acolyte to pray for something like safe passage to the afterlife for the soul, but in this case their entire civilization was kinda built on disrupting that, and the Ruler's power was derived from that disruption...

[north bronze]

i'm certain that prayer in the sense of "asking a deity for something" mostly correlates to Christian religions

Sky most definitely takes more inspiration from Buddhism

prayer is definitely a thing that exists in the world of sky. but it does seem more like a meditation practice, sharing your inner light, or paying respects, than asking a deity for anything

and before someone comes in with an "um actually..."

if you've played the game at all, it's pretty darn obvious that it takes inspiration from both Christianity and Buddhism. but it takes more from Buddhism.

and this gives implications that there are more than 1 religious practices in the world of sky. more than just 1 belief system. adding to the realism of the world

[grizzled vector]

I am pretty sure prayer in a sense of "asking a deity for something" is not specific to Christianity. But I'm not starting an argument over religion, at this point I kinda need to get some sleep myself

[north bronze]

"mostly correlates to christian religions". i didn't say it was specific to Christianity.

i agree, don't start an argument over religion in a lore channel of a children's game, please

[grizzled vector]

Anyway, I think in some real life cultures one might actually pray to the ancestors, e.g. for wisdom, not necessarily for a miracle. It could be what's happening here.

But given magic is a thing in the world of Sky, it also would make actual sense to pray to a powerful magic user, regardless of whether they're technically a "god" or "simply" very powerful mortal. But I would also imagine that if the Acolyte wanted to ask something from the Ruler, it would seem to make more sense to try to get an audience rather than just "pray"

Then again, considering they are basically using technology powered by magic powered by souls/spirits, it could also be that "prayer" in this case is a functional equivalent of sending an email. So there is also that

[copper obsidian]

Also, in the Vault of Knowledge artwork we see what seems to represent the elders. But in the picture they’re actually
6 and not the 7 we all know and love. Does that mean that the valley elders actually fused back together?

[north bronze]

I'm outside right now - I can't see the details of the image on my phone, I'll check again when I'm on the train. but from what I understand, the valley twins used to be "the valley priestess" - a scrapped character in favour of the twins

the community made the valley priestess into the valley twins mother, none of this is canon, but fandom and interesting nonetheless

fanon* not fandom

[brave patio]

Yeah it used to be a single character

[leaden onyx]

Spotted this guy in gw yesterday

[dark wing]

There's nets and fishing gear around the concert place. I'm assuming the treasure reef spirits were there at one point

[iron forum]

it's not necessarily "they fused back together", more like they share the Valley Elder's title and position due to splitting into two when their star was falling long ago along with the other elders (not the King though since he came after them)

[north bronze]

supposedly, the king fell at the same time as the Elders. some Tumblr post claimed that it was confirmed by the devs, i tried to share the post in question before, but was not allowed

-rather, that is how i interpreted it
*#lore-discussion-spoilers message

[north bronze]

to the far right - "Samekh", the original concept of the Valley Elder

a fun design choice to have made her the literal shape of a jagged mountain, just like (what would have been) her respective realm

[copper obsidian]

Cool!!!!!!

[north bronze]

notice "Alef" in the middle :]

[solar bane]

dont know where to ask this but does anyone know the official height of skykids?

[north bronze]

please forgive me for the vague answer, but "many heights", and also "child-sized"

i personally can't give exact measurements, since everyone is a different height

i think even upon character creation, all moths are similar (but sightly differing) heights

assuming the average adult male Ancestor Spirit is ~6ft (i'm just assuming), then around half of that?

[solar bane]

thankss for the answer

[strange flare]

I cant quite read the one between Tsadi and Teth, what is it?

[north bronze]

Aylin!

left to right: Tsadi, Aylin, Teth, Alef, Daleth, Llamed/Lamed, and Samekh

for anyone else :]

[copper obsidian]

A sky kid is 120cm which is 3ft so yeah a sky kid is half of an elder

[dreamy saddle]

Anyone thinking this season could have lore connections to abyss?

There’s a place you can dive down leading to a cave with this old boat and some shiny things. Also guide has seahorse mask yeah?

[copper obsidian]

Darkstone :o that might be from the darkstone-powered boats

We’ll have to wait for future quests to see if it has connection to abyss

[dreamy saddle]

It has abyss and revival symbol so I’m wondering if spirits from abyss found this area in aviary or something. But yeah we need to wait for more info haha

[dire night]

No, you can clearly see the twins on the right. My guess is either that the Vault elder would've been telling a story amd thus would've been offscreen.

[soft timber]

These also fit the general theme and life cycle of a child growing up as well! Before we even begin to walk and talk, kids are taught things from a very early age. As we grow older and older, we are taught other things like empathy and courage

[dire night]

I just started today, but my guess is the boy was originally from the reef, while the girl was originally from the aviary. We can see those 2 seasons simbols by the mannequins and the door at the start. I have no idea how they would've met considering the 2 places are so far apart 🙂

[dreamy saddle]

Oooh yes it’s in the door I didn’t even notice that!

[dire night]

Also i guess the boy was from reef cause he has a sea horse mask, which naturally makes me thing of sea creatures so thats my argument of why i think so

And if we assume that one of them comes from the reef originally, that would change my original view of the reef, as i have always thought it was a secret laboratory and/or testground. I would've never thought normal people would live there.

[north bronze]

ohhh good point!

[dire night]

And lastly i was wondering if there are any new concept art shown in the birthday event, because as far as i have seen everything in the event was already shown in the past. If yall have screenshots that would help a ton 🙂

[spice sun]

I was just about to bring this up too!
We see shells being used as a music player/recorder (as shown in the poster of the first image)
Maybe the shells/sea has a connection to music?

[dire night]

So here is a screenshot of the King and the Vault elder shown in the event

We also have clarification on what the massive pipes that go from Wasteland to Eden actually are. Apart from a sludge like substance we see polluting the wasteland it also seems to have transported the Embers to the Eden where i assume it would've been used to create the Kings Darkstone

Here is what i assume to be the floors of the Vault that we dont get to see. My guess is this is what it originally looked like, but by the time the skykids came, it looked like the spacy dream space illusion it is now.

Then i was wondering about these 2 scenes. In the one we see the krill attacking the Kings guard. Im just wondering where exactly this would be in the timeline, because the Krill would have had to attack them after the civil war, as we dont see any gaurds with suns on their shields. Maybe it implies the Dark side won over the Sun side and the Krills attacked right after. (My personal opinion is that the King used the Krill to win the civil war, but after they had no one on the sun side to eat, they turned on their own side leading to their deaths). Thats just my theory tho, i would love to hear other's interpretation of when and what exactly happened here.

(Sorry this one is for the previous point)👇

Sorry lol my internet is kinda whack so some stuff might come late or out of order 😅

[grizzled vector]

There's some controversy on which side was which. Some people are saying the sun side was King's side and the diamond side was the rebels. It's also theoretically possible the diamond side were Hidden Forest troops, who may or may not have had official endorsement from the Elder. But even if they didn't have the Elder's blessing they probably would have just used the equipment they had, rather than damage their shields trying to remove the diamond shapes off of them

That of course still raises the question of why the Forest had its own troops in the first place

[blissful palm]

Security detail, it's diamond factory zone too

[dire night]

Yeah, ans what exactly forest troops would do all the way out in wasteland.

Im still pretty sure the diamond shields were the kings army while the sun was the rebals, being the ones who wanted to protect the light creatures he was hunting.

[grizzled vector]

Yea, that's my view as well, but the argument for the sun shield being the King's guard was that the sun shields are facing outwards on the Battlefield (and there is a sun shield near the Wasteland Elder's shrine). To me it means the Wasteland "temple" must have been overrun in the end (and possibly that the Elder defected in the end) but the art book seems to suggest that never happened so 🤷

[dire night]

Them both fighting for innovation of light vs preservation of light

[grizzled vector]

The thing is, from what I've seen suggested about the storyline of Two Embers, it seems like the Ruler was in fact the supreme ruler of all realms from the beginning, when they spread out from the Isle and discovered darkstone etc. So it wouldn't have really made much sense for individual realms to have their own standing troops since they never really were autonomous entities needing to protect their own territories against each other

[dire night]

The first point unfortunately isnt true cause the shields are scattered all over the place with no real direction. The second i think is to show the growth of the Wasteland elder. My personal but very likely theory is that he fought for the King and had a diamond shield, but when he found out what he was fighting for( the darkstone and murder of sky creatures), he changed sides. This is shown by him having a sun shield. He also seems to have a whole arc of regret in his cutscene( my personal interpretation) This is just a theory but is what i personally believe.

[grizzled vector]

Right, but the art book's excerpt seems to suggest that Elder was loyal until the end (though exhausted and tired of fighting by the end of it)

[dire night]

Is the artbook out yet?

[blissful palm]

Yes

[grizzled vector]

Of course I haven't seen the full art book so I don't know if it actually cites the lore as such or just what the original ideas for the story were

[dire night]

Ooooh 😮 i should get my hands on it 😄

[grizzled vector]

I'm not sure you can. I believe it was a pre-order type deal where you can't really buy it anymore. They have started shipping them in the order of when people bought them, though they still haven't sent them out to everyone who did

[dire night]

Yeah, although i think he was loyal up untill he died, as we can see in the shattering memory i think. He and all the others seems to have tried to stop it.

This is just speculation tho, in no way should you take my word as gospel. Thats just what i take from the scraps we're given.

[brave patio]

I think someone actually figured this out on the sky wiki hold on

Page seems to be in the void now but I think it was about 3 feet

(Help this should have been a reply to the height of a skykid)

[dire night]

Sorry what are you referring to?

[grizzled vector]

Yea, one argument against some of the Elders rebelling is that we see them all standing together in the end. Unless it was a last-minute thing where the rebels have entered the "throne room" or whatever the diamond place was, but then the Ruler decided to end the war rather than watch everyone fight

[brave patio]

It was supposed to be a reply lol

[dire night]

Oh heheh i was a bit confused about it 🤣 don't fret

[grizzled vector]

more like three inches

[dire night]

Im still very confused as to when all these events happen. All the stuff ive seen are from YouTube videos cause its never there when im online 🥲

[grizzled vector]

So far I've only seen them happen at night (US time) at the most inconvenient times tbh, when I'm about to go to sleep or between presentations. I'm hoping now that the real-world SkyFest in Japan is over, they might put the events and presentations on a rotation more evenly spread out throughout the day

[dire night]

Honestly i dont have a problem with them doing it at certain times, what bugs me is that they dont have a squedule for them.

Nevermind just got the repeat squedule. Here if anyone is interested

[grizzled vector]

Where did you get the schedule by the way? I'm seeing the Cinema Programming on https://www.thatskygame.com/news/skyfest-2024-an-anniversary-celebration-like-no-other/ but not the rest of them (unless the page is broken for me)

[north bronze]

there are old (scrapped) concepts of the Wasteland Elder depicting him to have been corrupted, and i'm sure i read somewhere that there were story ideas of him having been on the side of the King, but later, having a change of heart and turning to the light side. this might help speculation on why he has a sun shield in his temple

[north bronze]

#lore-discussion-spoilers message

[edgy kernel]

I'm probably pretty late to the main discussions on it, but noting in the new videos for two embers, they actually show the pipes in wasteland and eden were actually meant to transfer light towards eden, and were quite functional even with cracks and holes in them. Does away with the various theories i had on water flowing through those

I find it most interesting they still worked despite being broken already, like the light wanted to flow through the pipes.

For a new theory I actually think that it might have been safe to activate a few times, like the darkness they had created in the world would creep up on the city, and they'd activate the eden diamond to blast it away, for a time. but every time they did that, the light they used caused more of a strain on the land, and sent shockwaves through the kingdom which damaged their homes and structures. A final city holding desperately to their ways, the only thing that lets them hold on slowly making things worse.

I wonder if the king kinda clenching his hand a bit on the railing was a show of frustration from them, being told that the darkness is coming again and they have to use their power and activate the eden diamond, and maybe they know it might be too much for it to handle again.

And just an extra last thought... I'm not too sure on this but i remember light creatures and people from the city fighting was a big thing in the aurora concert, but here, presumably right before the shattering, it was krills fighting them. ( and small krills in the aurora memory ) Light creatures maybe were fighting in a desperate attempt to stop that light harvesting, lost, and then krills rose from them as stronger and darkness corrupted fighters that still had the same desire to stop that.

[dire night]

I think the King's Darkstone was mainly used as a power source. There are also evidence to suggest that the Darkstone maybe could've been used to absorb the light of the stars, as a result of the light creature population starting to decline. If this is true this would be the cause of the Falling of the stars we see in the Prophecy caves murals, The Aurora concert and the Isle murals.

And i sincerely don't think that the krill still had the same goal in mind as the light creatures. They seem to just want destruction and seem to be more like feral animals that just wants to eat anything that moves. We do see the first Krill eat a manta and we see the countless amount of creatures the Leviathan ate before we inevitably freed them.

[lucid bridge]

We actually do see in-game a flock of birds flying into one of the giant pipes in Eden

[edgy kernel]

yeah, i wouldn't necessarily say they're the same, but they have the same action in mind, attacking into the kingdom which has the eden crystal, even if its not the same goal exactly. I kinda see it like the krill were born maybe of that darkness and desperation, and rose up to continue the fighting, that made things even worse, which caused them to have to use the eden crystal beyond its limits, causing the shattering.

[dire night]

Yeah but i think those are just the birds trying to find a safe path to the top for migration. In the trailer its original use seems to have been the transportation of embers. I must admit tho, you got a fair point there.

[dire night]

Why would the Krill attack the King's Darkstone? We see them live in the storm that it creates and i think we also have confirmation that the Darkstone itself created a few krill when it shattered.

All im getting at is that i dont really see a reason as to why they would want to attack the Darkstone. All their motivations seems to be lead by a desire to eat.

And (sorry for infodumping im so sorry 😅) I also think its confirmed somewhere (im not sure tho) the reason that the light creatures started attacking the wasteland is because the temples blocked their natural migration path. Im not sure tho I'll have to fact check.

[edgy kernel]

well its full of light, to be fair
that seems tasty enough for a krill i'd say heh

[edgy kernel]

To me it just seems in a way they're carrying on that maybe last feelings of desperation for those light creatures, fighting and hunting for light as they were probably starved of it

[copper obsidian]

If prince Alef (the Ruler) sacrificed himself to birth a new generation, and we are “Children of The Light”, does that mean The Light and prince Alef could potentially be the same thing?

I know that The Light is like the Megabird that we all come from (and lately go to) but I think it’s weird that prince Alef sacrificed himself to birth a generation

So are we a reincarnation of the Prince or are we his children?

( also sorry if this was talked about before I’m just pretty new to Sky lore and I’ve got a lot of questions )

[austere coral]

doing the forest tour and omg i love me some confirmed lore

[north bronze]

"The Light" or "Megabird" is the collective nebulous consciousness of all souls and all "light" (whether or not they be the same)

prince Alef is just a spec of that collective consciousness, just like every Ancestor, Descendant, Elder, and Creature. there is something in the lore called the "Soul Cycle", where all souls are reincarnated by The Light, and sent back to the world in an endless cycle of new life

the sacrifice...given that it apparently took decades (or centuries, can't remember) between the death of the old world & the birth of the first Descendant, i personally interpret his sacrifice to be him ending his life and putting his soul back into the cycle, as nature would intend had he died naturally. i'm not sure if this is scrapped lore; but i'm sure that it was canon at one point in time, that Prince Alef was "the first Skykid" of sorts (or in all ways). this could explain why only his light/soul created us, rather than the Ancestors

[north bronze]

i really like most of this to be honest
i never was a fan of the "king being redeemable" but tbh this makes sense if you look at the trailers the right way, and media loves to set up false expectations

all this time, us descendants thought of him as evil, because of the lack of information we were given as a new race who barely understands the language and lore of the old world

[edgy kernel]

Its quite possible from their perspective, the eden diamond was the only way they knew how to stop the darkness, even if it used up so much light in the process. maybe "they didn't care how much light they used" was instead ignorance on the part of most people not knowing life outside the city too well, but the king knew very well the cost, and wanted to protect his people in the only way he knew how, even at the risk with it. Or just... they had no other way to survive, locked into relying on that diamond until it could handle it no more.

makes him a bit tragic in a sense, that there's "nothing left of him to save" whereas we're able to help some of his people, as the spirits they are now.

[north bronze]

still, if the method in getting that light was to harvest the light creatures and animals..hmm i dunno

[edgy kernel]

yeah, i would see them as probably extremely desperate, willing to go to such extreme lengths to survive, even if it meant doing horrible things. and, maybe in a way its right for them to end, so the world can heal and a better place can be made, learning from them to adapt before its too late

[north bronze]

yeah ends "justifies" the means. it's just not in my skykid's personality to see eye-to-eye with that, but i do really like your take on the lore

[edgy kernel]

sky kids are better than that atleast now

[inland cliff]

The king at the end may have had a heroic moment of sacrificing himself, maybe to lessen the power of the crystal? It makes sense consider how it doesn't villanized him like he used to be seen

[edgy kernel]

maybe, yeah. to my my initial thought is that him floating up there next to it is part of how he would activate it, and he willingly accepted his duty to do it one last time, even though it might be his last, and it might go wrong, pushing it so far.

[brave patio]

Other concepts (earlier ones) have his soul being trapped in Eden, which makes sense given that apparently the sound when hugging the glowing child in orbit is called “king hug”

So maybe he instead used his last act to free all the souls trapped in the shattering diamond, destroying himself in the process?

[north bronze]

plus it's absolutely no doubt from the recent trailers that it's him in the "punishment room" as the darkened child

[north bronze]

looks like he's in a shared space, lol. obvisouly he isn't, it's just art direction

[inland cliff]

Wow, the name of the void room actually has a meaning here...

[jovial roost]

sad that he became white somehow but still traped there

[north niche]

oh I didn't notice the juxtaposition of how it is in the game with the bright child being angsty

[jovial roost]

Im wondering if the fact that the king in punishment room has the same size as our sky-kid has a real meaning

[north bronze]

yeah, maybe something to do with Dusk fusing with him? *the fact that he's a light child in the game's punishment room

[brave patio]

The King makes me think of that one monument valley level subtitled “in which there is nobody left to forgive us”

(It’s a really cool game and I think would collab well with Sky)

[brave patio]

Ooo that’s what I was thinking 👀 given that there’s clearly only one child there now

[north bronze]

dawn + dusk = light child

[edgy kernel]

oops. seems i've sent too much at once lol and my message got blocked

i'll try and send this in two parts -

something else interesting i can now kinda picture from this trailer's depiction of the light transfering pipes, is that... maybe the eden diamond is actually a really rather old thing, been in use for a long time. bear with me here as there might be a lot to word about it, lol.

From my previous thoughts regarding the realms and elders and light transfer, we can see in prairie they jar the butterflies, those are carried in boats through to the forest temple and stored in darkstone/power diamonds - there's a bit of a break here with valley, but when we get to wasteland, we can see the pipes now heading through wasteland, out of the various temples and towards the mountain. And notably there is a huge abandoned ship full of golden containers in a big polluted area in the right path of wasteland. If i assume those golden containers used to hold light ( possibly the reason krill are attracted to them ) Then i have some interesting thoughts.

When we see that ship ingame, its clearly been there a long time, but we cant really place it. did it crash after the shattering?
When we see that same ship in some of the two embers footage, wasteland is still under a nice blue sky and the sand is not green. this leads me to believe it was abandoned long before, and that it was an old method to ship light to eden. eventually it was unneeded and left to disrepair after the light pipes were installed, being not needed any longer.

[edgy kernel]

With all the realms like prairie and forest being a part of light collection, and that being a huge part of what they do, It leads me to believe that the eden diamond has been around a while, and they've used it to protect against darkness for a long time.
As darkness crept in due to their new methods of using darkstone though, more and more was needed to keep it at bay, so things like the jars the prairie elder brought were not long enough, then the boat convoys from forest, then the massive cargo ships that made their trips at wasteland, and then the constant flow of light through the pipes, all for the eden diamond...

[north bronze]

what you're writing is very similar to a blog post i read on the wiki last year, it was super in-depth with lore theories and i was heavily agreeing with most of it
*sorry to interrupt lol

[edgy kernel]

no worries that was the entirety of it
if you have that link i'd love to see it, heh

[north bronze]

gosh i'd love to find it again, i've tried a good few times, but i've stumbled upon Isopod's wiki posts instead lol (which are similar, but the one i read was super long. took me 3 hours to get through)

if i do find it again (i'm definitely gonna be looking for it again in the future for reference) i'll be sure to send it in here!

[brave patio]

Yeah I need to fix mine lol

[fluid oxide]

:0

so much lore

[glacial salmon]

Can someone hit me with any theories why Abyss and Revival logos are in the Duet's backstage?

[ebon wind]

My theory is that the revival logo is there since the concert hall is located in aviary village, and the abyss logo is because there is water.

Alternatively they are sponsor logos...

I have absolutely no idea if you couldn't tell

[wicked sphinx]

i was guessing maybe it indicates smthn abt which part of their lives tht they wore these outfits for, maybe they have connections to other spirits and seasons?

[ebon wind]

Oh maybe

[spiral vault]

Maybe the Abyss crew helped build the area or something

[ebon wind]

It could be their home towns. Or they could both be from treasure reef, likely before it was flooded if we assume it wasn't flooded to begin with, and left to seek refuge in aviary village.

Alternatively

The season of Abyss is about a group of seafarers that gather treasure within the reef presumably for monetary gain. It's possible the crew had a part in sponsoring the construction or management of the concert hall. As for the revival logo representing the village's original town hall(or adjacent body) who would likely have been involved in the hall's construction as well.

[spiral vault]

Also, finally the two embers scene in live official footage

[ebon wind]

Which part?

[nimble siren]

Does anyone know of a good writeup on Sky’s leitmotifs?

[waxen ermine]

Nope but I can try!
I’m giving them names that aren’t official but I think connect

Flight/Light: That song you hear pretty much everywhere. In orbit, when riding a manta in prarie, remixed for that party radio. You hear a sad version of it at Wasteland entrance. The full song is in orbit but often they take two parts as a lone thing

Part 1: Heard in party radio, Wasteland after the vortex, butterfly charmer’s theme for some reason
Part 2: Heard in isle during flight, prarie when riding a manta, valley race

Community: The motif you hear for dreams village and in nesting workshop

Eden: You hear the sad song when in Eden and during shattering events (I believe in the void of shattering as well?)

[waxen ermine]

Parts 1 and 2 I am referring to

The “community” song

[grizzled vector]

The Abyss/Treasure Reef symbol is by the costumes labeled Pianist/Cellist Beginnings and the Revival/Aviary symbol is by the costumes labeled Cellist/Pianist Flourishing. I take it to mean they are from Treasure Reef and later moved to the Aviary once they became more successful

The "Flight/Light" theme is called The Light Beyond

The other one is called In the Middle of a Dream and is part of the Season of Dreams soundtrack, but I also heard it was originally from an event before Season of Dreams (I think it was New Year/Lunar New Year fireworks but I forget). They also have used variations of it for Revival and Nesting seasons.

Most if not all of them are on iTunes as Sky Original Soundtrack by Vincent Diamante if you want to find their official names

The song you hear when entering the Isle of Dawn is called Constellation and is part of Sky: Concert in the Light album by Aurora (it's actually her singing)

I don't know of a good writeup on individual leitmotifs though, and I do believe there are some throughout the songs

[rare ruin]

Been questioning this for a bit but why do sky children close their eyes when they take their masks off? They are fully capable of opening it and blinking when the mask is on, so what is the problem when off?

I theorize that sky kids may be naturally blind and the masks allow for sight. (Sky children can still maneuver themselves using their honking as a sort of echo-location and can track light naturally)
I also read that they purposefully close their eyes because they shine to bright and the masks help reduce that brightness.

All very interesting, i would like to hear what others may think about it.

[edgy kernel]

It kinda mirrors light creatures in a way, they seem to see through a part around their head which almost looks encased in stone. I would maybe imagine that its almost like a mask for them, and if sky kids are part light creature maybe thats an imitation of them or something.

oddly though the mantas we see ingame dont have that, and for the creature on the right the ropes seem attached to it. So i wonder maybe if they were crafted for these creatures, and for what purpose.
I've seen the right compared to blinders for a horse, which i believe are there to help keep it focused on where its walking. as for why sky kids use something similar, im not really sure.

[grizzled vector]

The art gallery says masks were added as a way to give players more ways to express individuality. If they expected most people to wear masks most of the time then from a pragmatic standpoint it makes sense they wanted to make the head models as simple as possible. I suspect it's most likely just that

Humans are also pretty much hardwired to recognize eyes and pay a lot of attention to their shape and expression, so it's simply much easier to have them be closed on the model (and have minimal facial features overall) than to make an actual model that does not look cursed

Same thing with mitten hands, I doubt they're really meant to literally have no fingers in-universe, but it just didn't make sense to add complexity to the models and animations where they wouldn't have made much of an impact

I remember someone posting a picture earlier, most likely from Art of Sky, that basically showed a human-looking skykid with an actual detailed face and open eyes, and the caption was saying that that level of detail raised concerns over uncanny valley effect

As a random note, there is a game called Absolver that came out in 2017. It's a fighting game but it's mostly notable for its art style (and trying to make footwork actually matter but that part arguably didn't really work out that well). In that game, everyone also wears masks.

In-universe, the masks connect them to some spiritual dimension and it allows them to do magic, resurrect themselves when killed, and so on. ||Most of them are also slowly getting corrupted by a powerful entity from that spiritual dimension||.

But you can also catch a glimpse of the character's face behind some masks and it's pretty obvious it just doesn't look that great. You also run into a few NPCs that don't wear masks and their faces look pretty hilarious as well (eyes in particular).

I have no idea if Absolver was an influence on Sky in any way, shape, or form, but I do suspect Sky has masks and no detailed faces for similar reasons. Faces are just really hard to get right.

Sky lore-wise, Season of Passage suggests that masks are culturally important for people in Sky. They may normally need to be earned, and at least some might be more than simply a fashion statement. But both Ancestors and skykids clearly can survive without wearing masks, so it must not have been strictly essential to wear one

Also worth noting that the ancestors that don't wear masks do seem to have eyes, but they are really low-detail and do look pretty cursed, reinforcing my earlier point

[ebon wind]

Those eyes...

Perhaps not wearing a mask is a shame so they close their eyes/j

[mellow ermine]

So that explains why the Elders have more detail when it comes to masks

[ebon wind]

Yeah it seems masks are used for status and occupational purposes
As well as cultural reasons

As in the elders all have masks that represents the occupations of their realms
Isle having a boat and prairie having a pot for example

[mellow ermine]

Forest’s shape relates to them working in the forge or producing the dark stone/gems we see in-game possibly?

[ebon wind]

Yeah that's the logical reason

The valley twins have very simplistic masks likely for practical reasons due to their acrobatic and athletic reputation

[mellow ermine]

Wasteland’s shape looks like armor, a part of a helmet and similarly to the whale creature see in-game.

[ebon wind]

Yes, and the vault mask has text upon it, shaped as a tablet representing their archive of knowledge within the vault

It seems that the more simplistic masks are everyday and occupational masks as opposed to the more elaborate ones like passage and days of fortune masks which seem to be more ceremonial

[mellow ermine]

That’s so interesting honestly. But overall I have a question about the Megabird. Have they ever shown themselves to anyone in-game or has there been a hinted at existence or even a physical form they take besides what we’ve seen in concept art or even an actual name for them?

[ebon wind]

We do technically observe the Megabird during our ascension to orbit and before queendom in the musical voyage. But so far there hasn't been any concrete communication between anyone and the megabird in the game

The game usually refers to the megabird as "The Light"

[ebon wind]

Back to this for a second.

This explains why there are a lot of lesser spirits with more elaborate masks than that of the elders. They are wearing a sort of uniform for everyday use. As opposed to a mask for ceremony or performance.

As of recent updates these masks have been turned into accessories so it's reasonable to assume that most spirits would own a simple mask (default mask model) and adorn them with an accessories to show personality or occupation

[mellow ermine]

Talking about the whole mask thing I think that the concept art of the Eden King/Resh with their mask showed that he was the ruler/leader of the kingdom

[ebon wind]

Yeah it was a lot more elaborate if I recall correctly which fits the roll as king

[rain frost]

imagine if the guide for the Dawn Ember's season was just a floating King Mask lol
it could actually be kinda ominous, like foreshadowing of his fate if the season is abt him as a child

[grizzled vector]

Not sure about the masks as an occupational uniform though. The spirit with the diamond mask is a lumberjack, even though there is a spirit who is actually a miner. The spirit with the boat mask doesn't seem to have anything to do with boats. The dockworker did move the jars though, I suppose

I feel like masks could be more along the lines of visual "nicknames" though. Maybe Lumberjack had a diamond-shaped mask because the community considered them to be "precious" in a sense. No idea why Rejecting Voyager's mask would be a boat but it could be some sort of an inside joke (Boaty McBoatface the Traveler)

[north bronze]

that'd be cool. makes me think of the visuals in the Aviary mask shop

i wonder if Ancestors were actually able to take off their masks, or if the masks were an organic part of their body. i mean we see so many who have grown facial hair from their masks. to say that wearing masks is a part of their culture doesn't really answer why they're able to grow facial hair from them. and there is no legitimate official answer as to what reason the masks have, other than the choice to keep the design of characters simple

i'm not looking for anyone to randomly make up an answer on the spot, or reach as far as possible for an excuse. it's just an *observation, since so many people ask why we, or Anscestors wear masks. there is no official reason other than simplistic design choice

[grizzled vector]

Presumably masks don't grow hair. One could make a mask that has hair attached to it, natural or artificial. The ones with facial hair are presumably something along those lines

[north bronze]

well, sadly we don't have a reason as to why they wear masks, or why some have facial hair.
it could be that they're organic parts of their body, and do grow hair

[rain frost]

its said our hair is made of light or wax, which is why we lose it when we lose light and how we can mold it into different shapes based on what spirits teach us. could it also be smth like that for the masks? that or the fully artifical glued on idea like tem said.

[north bronze]

our hair, not Ancestors

[grizzled vector]

The Passage kids start out with basic Boogie Kid style masks and upgrade to the masks made for them by the Guide. I would assume there was no surgery involved

[north bronze]

again, there is no official reason and i'm not looking for anyone to reach as far as possible for a made-up answer. it's just an observation

[rain frost]

we dont know every difference between us and ancestors tho. how do we know they couldnt do that?

[north bronze]

we don't, you're right, but again, there is no official answer

there isn't even an official answer as to why Descendants wear masks

let me have my morning "routine", without it i'm probably gonna be the big meanie i usually am - brb

[grizzled vector]

The official answer is that they wanted to give us a wardrobe option, and that masks looked less uncanny valley than the faces they were able to model

[rain frost]

yeah i know, i was just havin fun speculatin lol, sorry if i got too into it 😅

[north bronze]

the official lore answer. this is the lore channel
not the official "gameplay reason"
and if you're going to claim that it's official, please provide sources so we know you're not just pulling it from your behind

i know everything i think about is super crazy interesting, but i really don't intend on being the center of attention every time i make a tiny little post

[north bronze]

brb

[grizzled vector]

One of the SkyFest exhibits (in the Forest I believe) mentions that they added masks to give players more options to "express themselves"

[north bronze]

ahh, a blank, expressionless, featureless mask. no better way than to represent my emotionless expressions

besides, i was talking about ancestors masks, and lore. not Skykid masks, and gameplay intent

[grizzled vector]

The uncanny valley thing was posted in this channel previously (probably over a week ago by now), pretty sure it was a photo of an Art of Sky page

[north bronze]

brb...

honestly, it could very well be what Fae said, that their hair is made of light too

and i would like to beleive the thought that their masks aren't organic, too. that they're* simply crafted, and facial hair may be a part of the craft

but we just don't have an official lore answer behind any of those questions sadly

i really should stop myself from posting in here until after i've done my morning things tbh

so many poor impressions could have been stopped

[grizzled vector]

I do strongly suggest you visit the exhibits and watch the presentations if you can. Because they really give a lot of context for how and why they designed the game. And it confirms what I said earlier about their design goals being less about lore and more about trying to create an experience, evoke feelings, create opportunities for meaningful connection between players, etc. Lore was literally an afterthought when designing this game.

[north bronze]

i've been to the art exhibit, but the thing is, Tem, this is the lore channel. we're looking for actual lore reasons, despite having known that the game is more about connectivity and less about story. we all know that, but we're here for established, and establishing lore.

otherwise i'd be in the "meta-discussion-spoilers" channel (a little sarcasm, there is no such channel)

[grizzled vector]

If you're looking for lore reasons for why masks have hair then you're looking for something that simply does not exist.

[north bronze]

i urge you to read my post again - i'm not looking for anyone to make up a random answer. i was just putting out an observation.

in fact, a lot of the time i post, i'm hoping people will see it, but not reply to me (though this is mostly because i know what i'm like, and what people in here are like, and how easily i get fired up - love sky, its community and its lore, and i don't feel great about the fact that i'm often a negative impression on a wholesome community)

[grizzled vector]

Ok, and your observation is that masks may be part of their bodies?

[north bronze]

may be, yes, or rather, the facial hair on adult Ancestors' masks

the masks could be organic, or they could be crafted, with the hair crafted like you suggested, or the hair could be made of light, like Fae suggested

to be honest, all 3 are really good reasons. i'm just not too long awake, so i'm a little moody and sassy

oh yeah, i sent it in the first place because i was looking through "masked" spirits in the trailers to add to your discussion earlier about the lumberjack, dock worker etc & i incidentally saw that mustached Ancestor

[grizzled vector]

Honestly, all of it could be anything. I'm sorry to get meta but I do feel like it's important to keep in mind that like... the whole reason Ancestors even exist at all in Sky is more along the lines of "we played with the idea of having ruins of an ancient civilization because it would give us a reason to add puzzles to the game. Then we started brainstorming who these people could have been and what they could have been doing." Et cetera.

Like, their thought process for adding the creatures was apparently "clouds by themselves are boring and birds in sky is not very original so we decided to add flying whales because the way they move looked elegant." Like, it's that level of thought put into it all. I'm not trying to be condescending but just like sometimes you gotta suspend disbelief when dealing with fiction, sometimes you also gotta suspend the urge to analyze every little detail because you're gonna run into a wall if you're putting more thought into it than the creators themselves.

Ancestors might not even be organic. They could be all made of stone. I'm not sure what in the world of Sky even grows hair to begin with

[north bronze]

"** I'm sorry to get meta but I do feel like it's important to keep in mind**"
-i usually come into conversations assuming that we're all on the same page, and that there are things we'd have in the back of our minds while considering/creating/discussing observations and theories, this being one of them, which is why i'm usually so quick to dismiss it, admittedly i could also go about this in a better way

[grizzled vector]

There also is no plausible evolutionary lineage for the Ancestors to have appeared from. Their closest evolutionary relatives seem to be crabs

[north bronze]

like, "it goes without saying" kinda thing. but i forget that not everyone is an old or seasoned player

[grizzled vector]

I'm sorry, maybe I'm just tired and cranky, but I just felt like "are masks an organic part of their faces" is the level of thought that might be too deep

[north bronze]

the Ancestors are often referred to as "Ancestral Stars" and i'm sure i've read (outside and inside the game) that they, too, fell from the stars like the elders did, just not at the same time

i think that Descendants are the only "human" that have gone through any form of evolution (equivalent to the world of sky)

[north bronze]

lol it's fine, i often see posts in here and think the same kind of thing. i usually try to stop myself from posting like "omg you're reaching so hard"

it's never good to discourage other people from innocent fun

[grizzled vector]

I don't want to police what people find interesting to discuss, but as an avid overthinker myself, sometimes I have to ask myself, does it actually matter? Why does it matter? Like, lore-wise, it might be productive to discuss things like how did the civilization develop or how did their war progress because as a result we might come up with a story, or details for a story, that might even be incorporated into the official lore of the game. Since it's a story that deals with themes that are kinda at least somewhat relevant to current real life issues, the game having more meaningful commentary in that regard could hypothetically be valuable. Discussing whether masks in Sky grow hair... I mean... if you're having fun discussing it I don't want to stop you but I don't think it's the aspect of the lore worth spending significant brainpower on

[north bronze]

well, that's your own opinion, i myself have seen that very subject being discussed by other people & there's literally no harm in discussing interesting topics, like the anatomy of a Descendant or Ancestor, whether or not it matters. you yourself have been a very part of topics like these that don't matter in the grand scheme of things

from my perspective, it just seems like a bias related to your tired/crankiness

i think if you don't enjoy spending brainpower on topics such as these, i suggest you spend it on the people who ask lore questions that were previously already answered in here, and help teach those who want answers to the questions that do matter.

[grizzled vector]

Maybe I do need to take a break from this channel tbh

[north bronze]

same tbh. i keep saying to my partner "idek why i go there". i'm constantly getting into arguments, it's not healthy

[winged bison]

The masks are definitely not organic as there is art of spirits without masks on, Passage Guide's art is a great example of it. And how the Performance Spirits made their own masks if I recall. Almost every single beard cosmetics, besides Isle Elder's hair [well beard], is a mask.
This is probably going into more guess thought territory, so could be wrong, but since spirits appear to all be genderless [for interpret reasons]. Perhaps that growing beards organically is not possible, so the only way a spirit could have a beard is wear a mask that has a beard

[nimble siren]

Do we know how telekinesis worked for Ancestors? Was it common? It seems we only see scholars using it during the base game, but I seem to recall it being used by other spirits during the days of nature cleanup. How does it work for Descendants?

[slate pawn]

Not a lore but from what they show us in game cinema the elder are supposed to give us some sort of challenge before letting us go to next realm I think they should just do that so that will be more challenging

[strange harness]

Still reeling over what we saw on The Two Embers during the 2024 Keynote

[scarlet flax]

Isn't it weird that one stone is already lit? It's like someone is still in the isle of dawn waiting for anyone to come along. Maybe they're still there, this may be the reason there are still spirits in isle of dawn

[celest birch]

Lore people, once you´re butterflies in Seed of Hope-part of the AURORA concert, try flying as close to shielded spirits as possible! We have a sun-shield here. :D

Barely seen, but that´s definitely a sun-shield ... and most dead ones besides the gate to the Temple bear sun-shields as well.

[solid dove]

i know im late to this but im pretty sure the beared is sewed on like those fake ones actors wear but instead of on the face its on a mask

[edgy kernel]

I think it might be maybe a little silly to argue only from points of official knowledge, since most stuff is quite left up to interpretation and i don't believe there is much in the category of completely confirmed while there is no official answer on the hair, i think people might enjoy discussing their wild theories in here, which i think is part of the fun of this channel.

Something i do note, none of the frozen spirits have any hair - and while that could be just a gameplay decision, I might interpret that as the ancestor's hair being somewhat light based too, and disappearing when they die and are frozen. Its all the same white colored hair too, and i do think we're some kind of descendant hybrid of the ancestors and light creatures.

Personally i always thought that there would've just been holes in the mask to let their beards or mustache go through, but i dont know if we've ever gotten a close enough view to really be able to tell

[spiral vault]

https://www.tumblr.com/lelanida/749918328355717120/the-dualism-of-sky-a-small-essay?source=share

There's two main ones, one that plays during the morning intro, and one that plays in the day intro, they appear in many other places as well

There's also other leitmotifs, such as the Elder leitmotif that appears in many places but notably elder areas such as the Isle temple, as well as Dias Irae appearing in eden

[spiral vault]

Is it always lit, I assumed it was another skykid

[strange flare]

I'll do it at some point

[rare ruin]

Very interesting to see all the mask theories whether in game or from a game developers perspective 😊

I hope that two embers shows us more in detail sky peoples culture when they were all alive.

[rare ruin]

I agree, if we go by the “sky people don’t have gender” assumption most likely sky people could have chosen whether they want to look more feminine or masculine by preference

[solid dove]

I feel like some retain there gender before they became a spirit while others don’t

[dire night]

I do think sky people have genders, because most of them have clear male and female characteristics with a few exceptions. I think TGC doesn't state the spirit's genders so that the players can have their own interpretation.

[dire night]

I think a more likely explanation is that it was lit by one of the skykids who came before us. They also had to go through the isle temple to be able to get to Eden 🙂

[dire night]

Telekinesis seems to be a skill they could all learn, and is separate from Magic, which requires light to be able to work. My guess is Telekinesis just needs a strong mind, which the Spirits, Elders and Skykids all share.

[dire night]

I do however think that the people of sky may be born with their masks in some way. We see all the spirits with the basic default mask, and we also see the Skykids be born with it on. My guess is that its just a natural extension of their anatomy, but can be removed and changed to another one. Also i do think the reason why most beards are on masks isn't because of the people being genderless, but because TGC doesn't have a proper way to be able to equip masks, hair and beards at the same time.

We also have to take in mind that the Spirits are not organic beings. Its stated that spirits are made of coal or stone, making them more like golems than actual organic organisms. Thats also why i feel the masks are just part of their anatomy. The basic masks seems to be made of stone, while mask like the gratitude, rhythm, performance, lightseekers etc seems to be more plastic(idk how else to describe it, it looks artificial is what im getting at). It may also be possible that people who don't have a mask are just born with a birth defect, but its just a theory of mine, not fact.

[fast cave]

Hey so I was wondering, does anyone know why some of the bells in that aviary building are destroyed and at the bottom of the building?

[solid dove]

i feel like i'd be because of decay most buildings are in ruin whether it be from wear and tear of no one tending to it or hostil creatures ruining it in the long term i feel like the bell tower in aviary fell into disrepair since no one could maintain it

[shrewd zenith]

Hi hello been a while XD

So I saw the newest trailer for the Two Embers and guys I had a thought (as someone who has missed a lot of lore in the past couple of months) are we retracing the 2nd Ember's footsteps through the realm and is the figure we hug at the end the King???

[midnight root]

Hello!

Weird observation/question, but I just saw that the new Duets spirits have the Abyss and Revival symbols near them. What is that all about? Does it have some lore implications that I am not aware of? Or should I just let it be and wait for the season to unfold because maybe we'll get more answers later?

[rain frost]

It had been discussed that those symbols may indicate where those spirits come from - perhaps one is from Treasure Reef and one from Aviary, or both from the Reef but moved to Aviary together, not sure yet, I'll link an earlier message so you can backread other interpretations if you want
#lore-discussion-spoilers message

[midnight root]

Okay that kinda does make sense. Personally, I would also opt for the place-of-origin interpretation too.

So like... 2 spirits came from Treasure Reef and the others came from Aviary. No idea on how they met or how they would relate to music - like the person in the thread above said, Treasure Reef spirits are resource gatherers, carrying kind of a negative connotation - we all know Abyss' moral conclusion of "don't destroy nature for monetary gain, don't be a literal and metaphorical pirate". To me they don't seem exactly like the artistic type like say Performance spirits, but I may be biased/wrong cause other spirits have instruments all over the game regardless of their realm/season.

It's just that I feel there might be a deeper story somehow

[copper obsidian]

We’d have to wait for the season to progress

[grizzled vector]

The Abyss spirits are not the original inhabitants of the Reef. It seems to have been a research facility of some sort, but it could have simply been a remote settlement before it became a research facility. Even in a research facility, not every single person would have been a researcher. There would have likely been people like cooks, janitors, maintenance technicians, etc – and a couple of them could also have been playing instruments as a hobby

And if most people there would not have been artistic types it would explain why these two moved elsewhere later

But yea, there's likely more history to uncover with these two. Granted, if this season will be like most of them, five short quests, it probably won't be a particularly intricate story, but there could still be more hints as to who they are and what happened

[trim gull]

the light child in the void in the two embers trailer is probably the steward judging by the haircut. I'm thinking Resh died and the steward was the first light in the void in eden... then maybe Resh actually took the steward's place to let them go maybe? if the light in eden is steward then i dont know how the spirit steward is in the game

[trim gull]

yeaah maybe being male/female was like. a fashion thing or something

[midnight root]

Hmm interesting input. Could I bother you to elaborate on that cause it seems really interesting - could you be referring to the drawings on the tunnel with stairs?

In my own personal view, always saw Treasure Reef as a regular/ordinary place and it happened to be full of resources while the 4 spirits (plus the season guide) arrived to the Reef and use it as a playground for their resource gathering/depletion. Was there some other activity going on (i.e. research facility like you've mentioned) before their arrival? Was the Reef flooded before or after they (i.e. "our" 4 spirits and the season guide) arrived?

Now I'm diving in deep (no pun intended) so please excuse my enthusiastic spam, I just want to understand the story.

[grizzled vector]

Have you played through the actual season quests? I don't want to spoil but the island is full of structures that are very artificial in nature. They were not built by the merry band of scavengers we meet as part of the Season. And the resources they were there to gather were "power crystals" that were used throughout the Ancestor civilization. They weren't just natural resources.

Looting them was a bit shortsighted because they were powering some important containment mechanisms. But there was more going on than some spirits looking for power crystals, and there is a reason the place was abandoned when those spirits got there

And yea, there was at least one other "mural" on a wall deeper inside the facility, and a piece of concept art in the style of those wall murals that apparently wasn't put in the actual game for whatever reason

Basically there isn't much that's explicitly known, as usual, but everyone's general impression is that they were either experimenting on the "krill" or experimenting on the light creatures in a way that turned them into the krill

[midnight root]

Yes, I've played, but don't remember much. All that I can undoubtedly pinpoint are the seasonal quests which consisted largely (yes, I am aware of the other quests shiver) of helping the spirits scavenge the resources.

To the other point you made, yes, I am fully aware that the 4 (5 including the guide) goofballs we know as the Abyss spirits did not build the place, nor did I imply that whatsoever. My question was more like "when they arrived was the place already flooded?" or did it happen later after the cataclysm hit and only we, the skykids, can experience it in this state provided that we've arrived in Sky many many years after the event hit. Because if it's the first option, that would imply the existence of a timeline for the Ancestors. We tend to generically clump them together as "spirits", but maybe there was some other group of Ancestors who ran the place (the original inhabitants of the Reef) and after some other incident (other than THE cataclysm) it flooded - sort of like the ancestors of the Ancestors. The murals you are talking about heavily hint towards that - and honestly, it would make sense across the whole game: a timeline of uncertainty.

[grizzled vector]

Going back to the area, it does seem like they may have been mining "darkstone" at some point

But also the murals seem to hint at the fact that there was some research taking place

Or at least there was something going on involving light creatures, "clerics" (normally associated with the Vault), and darkstone crystals

The hypothesis that makes the most sense to me was that they were trying to figure out a way to charge darkstone without killing light creatures outright (as opposed to the normal procedure, which seems to have been more or less throwing light creatures into a "juicer" of sorts and letting the light get absorbed by the darkstone)

The issue with that being the fact that "darkness"/"void"/"corruption" is a result of absence of light, so draining light from light creatures would likely corrupt them even if it didn't outright kill them per se

Another possibility is that they may have been trying to "force" the creatures to grow/"evolve" somehow, since elder creatures can yield more light. But in the process they may have forced them to "mutate" and again, corrupted them

As far as "was the place already flooded" it's difficult to say. It sure does seem like the place must not have always been like that. It may have gotten flooded as a result of the Shattering or it could have been the result of some mishap that happened there and killed everyone. It's also possible they deliberately put the facility into lockdown and evacuated once they discovered that what they were trying to do to the creatures was even worse than simply killing them

I'm not honestly sure how they would have kept it unflooded in the first place, considering it's underwater. Possibly some forcefield barriers were put up during the mining operations days

Some have also theorized that the place may have originally been a floating island that crashed into the sea after the Shattering. Seems unlikely to me but not so unlikely that it couldn't have happened in the world of Sky

[midnight root]

Hmmm interesting points.

Exactly. Either there was a mishap during the experimental phase (i.e. there were ancestors of the ancestors) or it was flooded after "the Shattering".

As for the "unflooded", that's easy. They (ancestors of the ancestors) had developed to such an extent that magic literally blended with technology (i.e. darkstone). Treasure Reef is an appendix of Wasteland after all, one of the most technologically advanced realms - perhaps the Reef is a prime example of Wasteland's "steampunk" vibe. So yeah, draining light creatures of their light and further experimenting on them in the name of "advancement". Thank you for explaining!

Guess we're deviating here cause my initial question had to do with the Duets spirits and their Abyss label.

Seems like we'll never know for sure (thinking about the upcoming content that might shed some light on the intricacies of Ancestor civilization) neither why do the Duets spirits have Abyss symbols or the complicated general lore...

[grizzled vector]

They were all "Ancestors" and their civilization seems to have spanned "generations" (although we don't strictly know how exactly they reproduce, or whether they do in fact reproduce or just have baby meteorite showers every once in a while)

Their civilization has developed from the earliest stages of worshipping fire and/or The Light to discovering they can use darkstone to "forcibly" use the power of the light (that coming with the caveat of corruption)

The Reef facility definitely dates back to the later stage of the civilization, but it's possible the Duet spirits are from an even earlier age when the Reef was just a mining town, or even just a small town on a remote island

I doubt they're directly affiliated with the spirits from the Season of Abyss, but we also don't technically know what the Abyss symbol represents in-universe. It has also been pointed out that the Abyss Guide wears a cape that looks very similar to a cape worn by a spirit in one of the Two Embers trailers – but that spirit doesn't look like Abyss Guide. So the "Abyss Logo" could be a symbol for something else entirely

Could be Sky universe's equivalent of Aperture Science for all we know <_<

Vortex Tech? >_>

[midnight root]

True.
Guess the only thing we can do is wait and see - Duets unfolding and the general lore deepening with the Two Embers and other official content...

Thank you so much for this back and forth! It really did clear up some things for me. Once again, thank you!

[spiral vault]

I think the Two Embers version of Abyss Guide could just be a younger version, a parent, or such

[strange flare]

I think there's one cutscene of the first sky kid being found by a couple (in Isle of Dawn) when they fall, it seems they don't have a mask yet?

please correct me if I'm wrong (back reading rn)

[rain frost]

I'm not sure about the mask, but I have another question about that child:
In the Stargazer's memory, he falls from the sky. In this aurora memory, he arrives on a boat. Why is this? Does this take place sometime after his falling from the sky? Why was he on that boat by himself?

[slow portal]

i feel like the kid in the aurora memory is supposed to be Running Wayfarer

[rain frost]

oh i didnt get that, the kid looked so similar to the fallen star and that adult spirit has the same hairstyle as the Stargazer

[north bronze]

it's a shame, Tem and i both expressed that we needed to take a break from this channel, and you tried to reel me back in! it seems tem failed in their attempt

-as i've said yesterday, too, there is no official answer. so please don't speak to me as if it's 100% fact unless you can provide official sources
-edit 2: as i've said yesterday, i need to take a break. be nice, and DON'T reply to me. for the sake of my health and yours.

[plush cave]

@north bronze hello, there is absolutely no reason to be rude - please keep in mind that players do not need to backread the entire channel to catch up on members’ personal preferences.

Peter was simply replying to a comment about an actively discussed topic in the channel. They also did not turn on the ping, which means the comment can easily be interpreted as an addition to the conversation, rather than a scheme to “lure you back in”.

Members are welcome to discuss the topics they like, and are not responsible for your own activity in this channel. It is completely up to you to decide whether or not to chat actively here, but blaming another member here for “reeling you back in when you explained you didn’t want to” goes beyond the scope of what we can allow in the server.

Let’s all remain kind and respectful, everyone is welcome to chat here. Thank you!

[north bronze]

i'm trying to remain respectful by asking others to stop replying to me - i'm aware of how discussions turn out when i'm a part of them, and i'm trying to take a step back from the channel. it seems others don't understand this and still feel the need to ping me.

i have tried explaining this yesterday.

[plush cave]

They did not ping you, the ping was turned off - when the @-symbol does not show up in front of the name, the ping was turned off and you did not receive a notification.

If you’re trying to take a step back from the channel, that is fine too! But don’t blame members for your activity here, when there wasn’t a ping in the first place.

[north bronze]

please allow me to step away from this channel, it stresses me & anyone who talks to me out, and i would very much like to click away without necessarily having to leave the server. i don't enjoy making a negative influence, please refrain from replying to me.

[north bronze]

i get notifications regardless of @'s, all someone has to do is click "reply" to one of my messages.

[plush cave]

As this channel is for discussing the lore of Sky, I suggest moving on from this. You can contact Discord support if you do receive a notification - that is a bug and is not something we can expect members to take into account.

[north bronze]

for the third time - please allow me to step away, and refrain from replying to me.

[cold sparrow]

You can just mute the channel, buddy

[thorny sundial]

how did the spirits become spirits? are they dead sky kids that have been reincarnated into spirits? what if spirits were deceased sky kids? are spirits.. just like us? the sky kids? are spirits deceased skykids that belonged to the kingdom of sky?

[sick owl]

I personally like to think that the spirits were the people who devoted their whole life to the light and even during the war
Sort of like praying if I say
So as a reward they got made into a spirit to roam the land in which they lived and died

[thorny sundial]

i like your theory

[waxen ermine]

Theory from my friend!
The giant orbs in citadel are like, windmills! Remember how the king gave the twins the air element?
And what’s recharging us anyway?

[sick owl]

Thanks

[sick owl]

It can also be like this but another way
Like these spirits prayed to the elder and were the most devoted ones
So the elders gave them their light to tell the story of the realms to the sky kids
Since aren't elder the strongest spirit or light user why can't they counter it?
That's my theory anyways that the elders gave their light to the most devoted ones and trust them to pass the stories to the sky kids so one day the elders can be revived again
Since we go to the elder's temple and kind of give them the light don't we?

And in the case of wasteland
I think that their was so much fighting that almost all the population was krilled
And the elder was on the verge of dying
So the elders gave it's remaining light to anyone that was alive
That's why I think there are not many spirits in mainland wasteland and most of them are in areas like forgotten ark where there may not be much destruction

[thorny sundial]

np

[manic cave]

This is such a fun theory, allow me to nerd out for a moment: The orbs are called armillary spheres and are a real life structure ! Theyre early astronomical devices, and the rings represent the great circles of heaven. In more elaborate devices like the big one in the middle, things like the horizon, equator, an eliptic loop and more are included. The centre is a supposed celestial globe and the rings are for angular measurements; so perhaps the way they recharge us has something to do with stars and the sky in general

Also unrelated theory:
Has anyone else made a theory of the abyss and revival symbols in the concert hall? Personally id like to believe thats where the pianist and cellist are from, the pianist has a seahorse mask and a lot of musical devices in the game are conch shells, not to mention the fact that you get to the concert hall by boat, so i think it wouldnt be too far fetched that they might originate from treasure reef?

[gentle gate]

I feel like Spirits are simply echoes of the past – essentially souls (or fragments of light that did not return to the life-cycle, as motes of light are called souls). This means they wouldn't be selected by Elders, but are simply lost fragments who, once relived, return to the stars (constellations). Kind of like how Children Of Light are essentially parts of the Sky King Aleph/Alef that remained behind.

[spiral vault]

Spirits were a different species from us, they're not directly related to skykids

[sick owl]

Is it kind of like moksha
Like you devote your life to good deeds so you become one with the god (in this case stars) and not go into a cycle of rebirth?

[grizzled vector]

In the concept art, the spirits were blue to denote their lack of "light" (which in turn was due to "corruption" which in turn was due to how their tech worked through sapping the light from everything because it was made of darkstone)

[spiral vault]

This isn't concept art though, now the blue seems to represent their soul

[grizzled vector]

What happened to "Alef" (the Ruler) was more like the other way around. They may have had good intentions but ultimately ended up hoarding "light" until it interfered with the natural cycle to the point of darkness starting to take over the world. Then the Ruler performed some sort of self-sacrifice that released the hoarded light and that somehow led to skykids being born

[sick owl]

Please ping when you reply cause I can't see
Anyways I don't know much about the ruler as I have not been active in this channel since a long time
But what I took from that message is that they escaped from the cycle of rebirth

[grizzled vector]

The cycle of rebirth in Sky was inspired by the water cycle – how rain droplets fall to the ground, spend some time as part of the ecosystem, then eventually evaporate and ascend to the sky to be part of clouds for a while before falling down as rain again. There is some superficial similarity to the cycle of samsara but I don't think the goal of living creatures is to escape it

[celest birch]

Interesting you mention it, givem how Journey is vaguely being inspired by the cycle of Samsara and how the Kingdom´s realms are meant to be a life metaphor.

[grizzled vector]

The way it seems to work in Sky is that souls ascend to "orbit"/"megabird"/"The Light" and become part of this "greater consciousness" for a while, good deeds or not, and then get sent back to be reincarnated for the cycle of life to continue. Part of the reason might be that the being a constellation in space is not very fun, so the "megabird" collects experiences through this cycle. Another part of the reason might be that lack of "light" seems to result in "darkness" taking over. So if everyone who was doing good deeds in life permanently stayed as part of the megabird it would be very bad news for everyone else

[grizzled vector]

I'm not aware if Journey was "officially" inspired by the cycle of samsara. In-game we seem to be sent back to collect the "light"/"magic"/"souls" left behind in the world. But Journey is up to interpretation to an even greater degree than Sky

[celest birch]

Thus vaguely (as it has inspiration from multiple sources, both Western and Eastern) and it´s mainly through one really great video that I really thought about that connection when it comes to Journey (as well as how the only collectible in it are symbols that elongate your flight-scarf, which allows you to unlock a special light-regenerating White Robe if you collect them all once you return back to Chapter Select, which is pretty much a sort of a "hub" like how Home is for Sky).

[proper cosmos]

hahaha. folks
why is there a giant dark plant in the clouds of aviary

OH MY GOD IT JUST DISAPPEARED

[grizzled vector]

It seems to bear superficial similarity to a variety of sources, but as far as I can tell at any rate, it mostly bears visual resemblance. One of the things that kinda goes against the idea of "escaping samsara" in Sky is that the whole concept of creatures of light is fundamentally about community and connectedness. And as "hybrid descendants" that's presumably part of the nature of skykids as well. Escaping samsara, to my understanding, involves cultivating detachment from the world and meditating on its illusory nature. In Sky, isolation and detachment seem to be associated with "darkness" and "corruption" and are kinda not really a good thing

Like, you could argue that the Ancestor spirits escaped the cycle of rebirth but it sure doesn't seem to resemble nirvana "as advertised"

(In a meta sense, to truly "escape samsara" in Sky you would have to quit the game. Which obviously won't be advertised as a positive goal within the game)

[grizzled vector]

The Aviary will continue to be expanded in future seasons, so there are likely whole parts of it we haven't really seen yet

[celest birch]

Honestly, I more see Sky as a game that tries to explain the meaning of life, the value of connections/relationships and to honor the sacrifices made to both create and nurture both connections and the life of the world/game.

The "meaning of life" bit being how do we use our time given inside the game, like do we help other players, hang out with friends, go adventuring, relaxing, playing music ... assist players ascending Eden and such. 🤭

[grizzled vector]

I wouldn't go as far as saying that Sky "tries to explain the meaning of life" so much as it tries to bring people together and show them that there's more to life than competition

[proper cosmos]

my response is based on the two embers leaked pictures and just, sky lore
||it's like, how the king gets corrupted and starts isolating themself (based on the pictures) being alone more and losing that connection that sky just, has.||

[grizzled vector]

Then of course it also runs into the wall of the fact that it's an online game operating in a capitalism-oriented economy so it still ends up really being about the grind and accumulating cosmetics before they're gone. But I digress

[celest birch]

Which is what devs did NOT wish the game to be, but too bad.

[grizzled vector]

I mean, it is a game. Hugs and handholding are great but by itself it's only fun for so long. And I mean, at the end of the day the irony is that once you start truly connecting with someone in Sky, the game starts to kinda get in the way and make it difficult to stay in touch (compared to, say, Discord). But also part of it is the fact that they don't really seem to trust the players to support the game monetarily for the sake of supporting the game, rather than buying cosmetics. Which, in all fairness, can't blame them, but it's also a vicious cycle because that self-selects for players who stick around to collect cosmetics

They are trying to do something different and props to them for that. But part of doing something different is they have to figure out how to do it best because it hasn't really been done before. So getting there is definitely a process

Anyways, back to discussing spirits and stuff

[thorny sundial]

hello, please post this in #sky-memes or #screenshots-and-videos as this isn’t relevant to this channel

[north bronze]

darkness spreading through the kingdom to the point that it reaches "safe" areas such as the Aviary could very well be relevant to the lore channel
-of course it likely isn't lore related. but it's been there since the Aviary was in beta, and hasn't been removed - so there must be a reason it's there

[grizzled vector]

The real question is the fact that the plants are growing in the clouds. You can't even move through clouds as a skykid. What are clouds in Sky anyway?

[waxen ermine]

Thank you so much!! That’s so informative and interesting!

[north bronze]

i did manage to OOB and i think it starts just below the clouds/it kinda jutts out from the wall? i'd have to check again, it's been a while

[grizzled vector]

Also, some random thoughts on spirits and "the light"

In the Season of Enchantment, the Guide wants us to collect "six lights" four of which seem to correspond to the "classical elements" (earth, water, air, fire). The other two have been mentioned to correspond to "mind" and "void"

In various real-life esoteric traditions, the classical elements are also sometimes associated with either "spirit" or "space" as the "fifth element"

[north bronze]

worth noting that as well as the 4 elements, red and* purple, there are 2 other forms of "light magic" - being pink when you ride mantas, and ordinary "yellow" light seen throughout the entire game in many forms (catch light quests, migration patterns, orbit etc)

[grizzled vector]

Setting aside the discussion of whether any of that meaningfully describes the world in real life, it may have been an inspiration for the world of Sky

Also yes, there are likely more than six of them, and the Days of Color event suggests there are at least eight, but the "main six" seem to be the "classical elements" plus "mind" and "void" (I'm not sure as to the source on the last two, but it would make sense)

[thorny sundial]

i don’t wanna be rude, but they aren’t talking about lore or darkness or stuff like that. “hahahahah folks” and “oh my god it just disappeared” isn’t something you’d say in discussing sky lore. also, they’re talking about why there’s a giant dark plant in aviary. i hope this doesn’t offend anyone but this post about the cloud with the dark plant in aviary should either belong in #screenshots-and-videos , #sky-memes , or #bug-reports-switch . ||not trying to offend or cause a scene btw||

[north bronze]

the way i read it was them just asking why there's a darkness plant in the aviary - and the answer could very-well be lore related as well as game-related
personally i just don't see the harm in it being in this channel, no offense taken

[grizzled vector]

With all due respect, if you're a moderator you can just remove their post if it doesn't belong. If you are not, I would kindly suggest leaving it to the moderators. We already moved on from discussing the plants in the Aviary and at this point you're the person who is bringing the discussion back to it

[north bronze]

let's all just move back to colourful light magic, i've already killed the mood once today, let's have a good one

[thorny sundial]

uh, im not a moderator, im just telling them that this post isn’t relevant to this channel. but okay. you do you.

not trying to be offensive btw

[grizzled vector]

Unless it completely derails the channel for an extended amount of time, mentioning things that are not technically part of the channel topic is probably fine. At this point discussion of the fact that it didn't belong in the channel is derailing the channel more than the post itself. Not trying to be offensive either but seriously I'm pretty sure we can just let it rest

[north bronze]

the thing is, it kinda is relevant to the channel though, isn't it*? again, there could be lore reasoning behind it, people could end up speculating from it and coming up with all kinds of theories

it's a darkness plant, and it's in the aviary - somewhere that's supposed to be a safe home for us. there could be a number of lore-related reasons for it being there (none of which i'm thinking of right now)

again, no offense taken, it wasn't even my post lol. i just see it as a harmless question

[thorny sundial]

okay, im sorry. it’s just that i dont like posts that are not in their relevant channels

[north bronze]

perhaps i'm failing to see what makes it irrelevant to this channel..

[dark patio]

completely random question but im new to sky lore and was wondering were there multiple wars or just the war between the ancestors and nature

[grizzled vector]

Anyway, where I was going with this is, life in Sky could be made up of combinations of different elements. I think in real life, the human body was said to be made up of five (the classical four and the "spirit") but in Sky, people (or at least Ancestors) might just be made up of two ("mind" and "earth")

[north bronze]

if we take away the 8th colour ("natural"/yellow light), we could also correlate the elements + 2 + pink into chakras (especially given that Sky takes inspiration from Buddhism in some areas)

[grizzled vector]

It isn't really clearly explained. In concept art the idea seems to have been that the Ancestors were fighting nature directly, but in the finished game it seems more likely they were fighting each other over the impact their technology was having on the world. And there seems to have been an extended conflict, not just one battle (Bereft Veteran spirit had a child who grew up and also went to war)

[grizzled vector]

My point is mostly that, for example, the spirits could be made up of "mind" and "air" (they used to be "mind" and "earth" in life but now the mind left the "earthly body" and only really has enough strength left to have a "body" made of air)

[dark patio]

thank you

[grizzled vector]

The additional colors could also be their own elements or emotions or whatever, but I'm not sure there is much life made up of whatever the pink element is

[north bronze]

i just remember someone mentioning pink existing back when we were talking about it a couple of months ago, and i never really took the opportunity to look for myself (despite having many chances to ride mantas since), but i'm not sure either. Love? Life?

a pink light whenever we ride mantas to represent the love or bond between descendants and light creatures? who knows

[grizzled vector]

Other thoughts – the "light creatures" might be made up of a combination of elements like water (in some of the concept art they start out on water) and air (they float) and fire (real life fire obviously doesn't mix well with water but maybe in Sky it can)

The krill seem more likely to be made of stone and void, which raises the question of how the process of corrupting the light creatures into the krill would have worked

It would have to be a process of not just drawing "light" from them but also replacing it with "void" (and stone?)

Maybe that's what made "darkstone" special – it wasn't "just" stone but stone "filled" with "void"

Another thing I would point out is that "void" is not necessarily "opposite" of "light" (in fact it seems to be a kind of light). If anything, it's "opposite" of "mind"/"spirit" (but not necessarily incompatible with it, just like fire is not necessarily incompatible with water as constituent elements of a creature)

In fact, The Light (the "megabird") is supposed to be white light because it's supposed to be the sum of all kinds of light, presumably including even the void

But also void by itself seems associated with darkness, likely because void left to itself kinda tends to lead to extinction of light in general

[north bronze]

gasp space is one big void gasp the Bird of Light lives inside the Void gasp

a little joke but i do see where you're going

[grizzled vector]

Yea, I think the Shattering mentioned that a conflict between "the light and the darkness" not "light and the void" but really it's unclear what the "red element" is really called in-universe

[north bronze]

the way you're making me think of the Void reminds me of...i think it's called Vanta Black? it's that black paint, that's so black, it absorbs literally any light it comes in contact with (IRL)

*yes vantablack

perhaps darkness is the absence* of light, but the void is the absolute version of the darkness

like how Wax is a "smaller" version of light(? idk what i'm talking about atm)

[grizzled vector]

Kinda sorta. It doesn't absorbs literally all light but it reflects very little (which is actually a problem because it also heats up very significantly as a result). It's also toxic and generally a pain to use from what I remember

I mean, I'm calling red light "void" because that's what I remember someone calling it earlier in this channel. Just like purple light has been mentioned to be a reference to "mind" but I'm pretty sure those are not their official names. In-game, the "Void of Shattering" is not even red

Also, most of the time we deal with "light" in the game we are really dealing with "flame light"

[north bronze]

yeah i do remember that conversation, we were all trying to figure out what each light means in Enchantment #lore-discussion-spoilers message

as for red light, i read in the concepts that the colour red signifies "false flame", but this doesn't necessarily mean the same for the red enchantment light

[grizzled vector]

In real life, flame is a temporary process of combustion, but in Sky it seems to be an element, so "by default" it just exists. Like a rock left alone would stay there for thousands of years, presumably so would flame in Sky

[north bronze]

my interpretation of Sky's "flame" is the same as a beating heart. like, we have light & flame inside of us - blood and heart

i.e. flame is life

[grizzled vector]

Or at least "life as we know it" because there might be life not animated by flame

Again, the krill might just be "stone" and "void"

[north bronze]

yeah, i highly doubt crabs (presumable neutral creatures, not light or dark) have a flame core like us Descendants, and i can't really say the same for Ancestors either - my interpretation "blood and heart" comes solely from us as a species, and that we have a flame inside our chest acting as a life source

[grizzled vector]

The krill are said to want to "devour" our light but it's unclear if they really feed on it or want it destroyed

The crabs are capable of growing red crystals on them though

[north bronze]

everyone is capable of corruption exposure - even Descendants. we grow corruption crystals on our body during Stormlock

[grizzled vector]

Which by the way reminds me of the crystals we grow on us when we are hurt. Though those are smaller and not red. But it's possible they would become red if they absorbed enough red light

[north bronze]

crabs are an interesting one, for sure. there are crabs that hang out with spirits, as friends and pets. there are crabs that are included as "good guys" in some quests (9Coloured Deer)

i really do think they're meant to serve as a neutral animal

[grizzled vector]

I don't know if the crystals themselves are corruption or just "bleeding" or something else crystallizing. But it seems the play a part in corruption somehow

The concept art gallery says they tried to present light and dark creatures "neutrally" (without painting them as "good" and "evil"). I'd say it's debatable if they succeeded but it's possible that even if crabs are meant to be "dark creatures" it doesn't necessarily mean they're some corrupting evil beings

Anyway, I gotta go do stuff in real life. Take cares and have fun speculating!

[north bronze]

#lore-discussion-spoilers message
#lore-discussion-spoilers message

fun, unlikely thought: the Two Embers collab season(s) will be held in an expanded Aviary Village

*didn't mean to set this as a reply, oops

[proper cosmos]

no worries broski!! it was meant to be lore related, i love talking about dark plant lore and how you can never get rid of them and they spread if they're not handled like the baobabs on the little princes asteroid designated as b612 and the fact there is such a big one hidden is. concerning. (lore wise)

i just got distracted 💀 /gen

[copper obsidian]

I thought lil elf noob retired from sky lore

[north bronze]

well, you thought wrong

[copper obsidian]

Just like matpat retired but still reacts to fnaf lore 😭

[north bronze]

sometimes i find myself either:
-accidentally stumbling into arguments
-accidentally starting arguments

often times when i feel this happening, i attempt to take a step away, because arguing isn't good for anyone. and i know especially how "spicy" i can get. so i usually (in my still fired-up state) ask that people don't reply to me
-this doesn't usually work out and the situation escalates

this however doesn't mean i'm retiring from the lore, lol, just that i try to step away from time to time. i do enjoy talking about lore when things do go well, and i'm self aware enough to know that i'm likely disliked in this channel, but i'm not really here to be liked (though it is a bonus), i'm here to talk about lore :]

[copper obsidian]

You’re like the matpat of sky lore what do u mean

You’re liked
Never stop talking about sky lore you make such good points

[north bronze]

awch stop, we all make good points

[cobalt palm]

If you need to take time away, mute the channel, taking time away doesn't hurt, don't let the fomo nag you

[livid crypt]

Asking people not to reply is almost a guarantee that you'll get replies. here's some advice (for everyone) on managing yourselves, rather than managing others to suit your needs. if you want to stay out of a conversation, you can:

1. choose what to respond to. even with notifications, you are not required to respond
2. mute a channel if conversation there is not feeling positive for you
3. mute all discord notifications. You can use "focus mode" to disable for a period of time, or turn off all notifications for a server or the whole app
4. remove yourself from situations that are causing you stress. this might mean leaving a server for a time, or turning off a device, or any number of other things. leaving and joining a server repeatedly is perfectly ok!
5. if you find yourself feeling upset, defensive, or otherwise not fully in control, you should remove yourself from the situation
6. I know that when I get upset about something, anger can distort my own understanding of what other people say, and my ability to communicate clearly takes a hit. take a deep breath, find ways to calm yourself, do something that's rewarding and constructive, and come back when you feel ready!

[north bronze]

hey guys, i was just explaining to Ibbi that i wasn't retired from the channel. i already do excercise these practices - though not entirely leaving the server. i click away and ignore it. it's hard to ignore, however, when a large (1) appears on the server icon

anyway it's all been dealt with and i was just replying to what Ibbi had said regarding me retiring

anway, lore:
i think i finalyl figured out the structure, after so long of playing and trying to figure it out. sometimes i feel so silly.

[livid crypt]

ok! let's keep the lore chats moving! if anything is difficult here or in any channel, we're here to help

[north bronze]

"Asking people not to reply is almost a guarantee that you'll get replies"
-i agree, it's a double-edged sword, but emotions triumph over logic more often than not sadly

[livid crypt]

btw, I love the new lore (both about how the game was conceived, and about the in-game story) and took this still from the art book and turned it into a sticker. I don't think the expression is quite what was originally intended, but I'm glad they recognized how uncanny realistic-looking kids could get

[north bronze]

to be honest, i think this actually works! not for Sky, obviously, but i can totally see this design work in an indie title or something i'd see on the Switch's Estore

[soft timber]

This looks unbelievably amazing but also uncannily cursed, love it

[brave patio]

GUESS WHOS COPY OF THE ART OF SKY ARRIVED!!! Very excited to open it up when I get home from work, people have already shared a lot here but I’ll share any of my findings anyway (maybe one of us will see something from a new perspective)

[celest violet]

So I don’t know if anyone can answer this but is it intentional that the Rain chapter in the Art of Sky has a different type of paper than the rest of the book?

[celest violet]

Mote 🥺

This would’ve looked dope in the game

Alright, I need a Sky sequel that these show up in. Cause I can’t believe these awesome designs were scrapped. And the concept of a giant maze

Continuing to read through the book. I think making the Isle of Dawn the “tutorial” realm was such a terrible idea. Like just from the concepts alone makes me wish the Isle of Dawn was something more

[bronze quail]

I feel like they didn’t add them because it would make the game “too scary”, but damn these ideas are amazing. I hope they implement these amazing designs and more horrifying ones because this game has so much potential

[celest violet]

I think a Sky sequel should be less family and kid friendly and more akin to the older ideas of the game, make it something bigger and darker. But still keep the idea of a mmo

[celest violet]

Hmm I find it interesting that a light version of the crabs never made it into the game

This is going to get me asking questions. Like are there potential plans for new realms outside of the existing ones+ realm expansions.

[bronze quail]

Yeah I agree. I think most of the fan base are teens-adults so there shouldn’t be a reason to keep it subtle and innocent. They’re able to set the scene and environment amazingly well (wasteland and Eden) and krills were amazing although they feel underwhelming and predictable now, it’s time to introduce more unique and terrifying ideas like the ones shown in the books

They’re really free to do anything at this point, the world building allows it

[cold spire]

somebody explain the elders outside of the war NOW‼️

[cobalt palm]

So there were the elders, and they built stuff, and went to war, dangit

[cobalt palm]

I love this, I've now been saying "mote is precious" during candle runs

[celest violet]

Oh and don’t forget how way before there were elders that these terrifyingly awesome creatures used to guard the different realms.

[cobalt palm]

I would love to see a side area of each temple be a giant golum like animal structure puzzle, kinda like breath of the wild's temples, but Sky flavoured

I do miss forest's old mask, but so happy they left it in the game

[celest violet]

Wdym Forest’s old mask?

[spiral vault]

They ruled the realms and did stuff

[copper obsidian]

Weren’t the elders the ones to help things with their life cycles or am I wrong

[bronze quail]

Where do you get this book?

[celest violet]

I stole it from TGC

[bronze quail]

Those monuments kind of remind me of when I went to Petra

[cobalt palm]

The one that's above the temple, you can see it in the early concept art

[whole quartz]

Okay, I have a question for the devs. Does this have a translation? If not, I’m making a sky conlang. This is my summer now.

Because I can AND WILL construct a group of dedicated skykids to decode this “sky glyph” writing.

[celest violet]

So reading through the book it doesn’t mention why TGC scrapped the reveal of the ruler/king/Eden elder. Is there any reason why that decision was made?

[cobalt palm]

I think there's already a translation in the pins for that language

[whole quartz]

[grizzled vector]

The Forest art gallery currently available through the SkyFest/Anniversary area has a slide that mentions these proto-elders and also mentions it was "costly" to add them. My guess is they were probably really difficult to animate. Humans are comparatively straightforward, you can record yourself for a reference or even use a console motion tracking camera for a quick and dirty mocap to start from. Animating some catlike creature is much harder

[cobalt palm]

#lore-discussion-spoilers message
I'm sure someone setup a table of letters at some point, still trying to find that

[whole quartz]

I swear to god if someone has the whole thing translated I’m gonna run laps around my house

[cobalt palm]

OK it's not exactly the same, but same language

[whole quartz]

The skykids boutta learn how to read today, boys!

[grizzled vector]

From what I understand they just couldn't get it to work well enough. They were trying to prototype it as some sort of an endboss "battle" where he would throw spears at you and you would have to move up to him from cover to cover to give him a hug or something idk. And it just didn't work that well because it's a dark area with a dark storm in the background and you'd have this dark guy throwing dark spears at you and your point of view is a camera looking down to the ground.

Even the current Eye of Eden can be really awkward and disorienting for a beginner. Imagine if the diamond was an angry demigod actively trying to kill you

[cobalt palm]

Here's the rosetta stone of Sky
#lore-discussion-spoilers message

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/632004389137154048/673789905532354570/image0.png?ex=66996aff&is=6698197f&hm=eef1fc3dcaee563c34c27c15f62eb078217742dcf0b52af14a6dca12f4ff7af3&

[whole quartz]

Thankyouthankyouthankyou!!!

[celest violet]

Would’ve been more interesting if an angry corrupt demigod was actively trying to kill us

[whole quartz]

I’d fight him. We can dodge his rocks if we naruto run

[north bronze]

dont mind me, just adding to my Eden ramblings from earlier

i never noticed before today that it has textures (the Eden in the background of all realms), and you can see these textures upon some OOBs

[celest violet]

We can Naruto roll but can’t Naruto run unless we’re a chibi

[whole quartz]

Ooo good point

This gonna be like the Area 51 raid all over again
“LETS SEE THAT LORE!” But it’s a bunch of flying children swarming like bees.

[slim mango]

is that the image from mousepad?

[cold spire]

Guys did it hurt our skykids when we stabby ourselfs with the candle at the start of the game

[whole quartz]

I don’t remember that

[north bronze]

during the new introduction of the game, once our Skykid falls and wakes up, we get given our candle, which we then put into our chest cavity, rather than spawning in with it

[whole quartz]

Wait really? By who?

[copper obsidian]

Why are some of the letters repeating 😭

[north bronze]

oh, i think we just pick it up from the ground, not actually given it

[cobalt palm]

Translations, and ginbeans translation sheet I was working from, a couple confused me, and so I used the first as a guide to the multiple letters, I made assumptions with a few multi letters

[cobalt palm]

Sometimes languages are like that

[whole quartz]

It looks really similar to Arabic!

[cold spire]

weh ig its new i started an alt (i deleted later) and i saw it

[wary fossil]

Ok but how

[cobalt palm]

Oh actually 2nd from right could be
ba m/n d/t i d/t s
But I still can't make it out

[whole quartz]

Perhaps by referencing the existing language, we can infer the sounds of each letter.

[cobalt palm]

Bandits perhaps?

[copper obsidian]

This cool guy at the far right end is called “night ancestor”

[whole quartz]

Lemme write it out

[copper obsidian]

It looks more like English with a font. Coming from a person that knows how to read Arabic.

[whole quartz]

So for the first spirit, here’s what I was thinking. I think it’s this because it’s the same spirit who used to give out tasks/quests everyday.

[bronze quail]

It’s kinda like Greek and Hebrew

[copper obsidian]

It’d most probably be a bunch of honks.

Considering the fact that that’s how we talk in the game. Probably that’s just how you type out a honk … I guess?

[cobalt palm]

cu d/t g/k e
Cudge
Cutge
Cudge
Cutke
Not sure I recognise any of those

[bronze quail]

Vocalization is probably a lot different in that world. Like considering how animals communicate and understand each other, honks probably have some type of way to communicate. That is to say, our sky kid can adapt to every creatures honk in the game which is an interesting detail

[whole quartz]

I CRACKED IT

[cobalt palm]

Updated one, now seeing bandits, I can't see anything else tbh

[whole quartz]

Okay so I think the unknown one is Judge. Because the letters are all there for D/j and G/k. We don’t know what J is so we can assume that J and C have the same lettering like p and b for example.

[cobalt palm]

OMG yes, J isn't listed!

[whole quartz]

AAAAAAAAAA IM SCREAMING!!! J IS C LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[copper obsidian]

So is this meant to be a hierarchy?

[whole quartz]

Holy motherbird I think we just unlocked more lore by cracking the code.

[cobalt palm]

@spring blaze sorry for the ping, but we may have discovered the J letter in your translation sheet, could be the same as C by the above "judge"

[whole quartz]

I need to shake something violently. We about to crack this case wide open like how they did with the runes from Madoka Magica.

Someone’s gonna put the translated text on the sky wiki and we’re all gonna go down as the ones who wrote the Rosetta Stone.

[whole quartz]

What I find interesting is that in Japanese, native speakers are unable to notice the difference in L and R in English like how native English speakers can’t pick up extended Japanese vowels as well. This suggests that the J and C sounds are phonetically indistinguishable from the sky resident’s ear. So for example, “Jalvin” and “Calvin” both sound the same to these people.

[whole quartz]

With this information, we can infer what a “sky accent” might sound like if they speak English. I’m assuming that the spoken language is the same as English but have a different system of writing.

Perhaps, this is why beings from another world like the little prince and Aurora are able to understand sky’s spirits.

[cobalt palm]

This is only one writing system, and not the one ingame unfortunately, which is still a mystery, but the two embers may have some clues on that, as the crabs in their animations stills do have the ingame glyphs carved into them

[whole quartz]

Let’s wait till the series comes out and let’s decode the crabs!

[cobalt palm]

It was laying next to the stewards darkness shell before we light them up

[whole quartz]

Perhaps the glowing murals of Sky are similar to old Christian stained glass depictions of the Bible in churches, which were historically used to convey the stories within the Bible to those who could not read. Perhaps, not everybody in the kingdom could read and was a special skill like our history irl?

[copper obsidian]

I don’t know if this was done before but I translated all of those guys. Apparently there is male and female civilians. But the skykids are … genderless? Also the elders have funny names

[cobalt palm]

Crab glyphs #lore-discussion-spoilers message

[whole quartz]

You know what? They might have had two writing forms. Like how the Japanese have three writing systems.
Alternatively, these could be similar to Baltic symbols. Baltic tribes used symbols to represent things like the sun, the moon, the stars, etc. perhaps one of these two theories could be the things written upon the crabs.

I had a feeling Sky had some Eastern European inspiration there! My friend from Ukraine even said that a lot of the apparel looked Latvian.

This is starting to feel like some James Cameron’s Avatar level of worldbuilding with the whole language and stuff.

[grizzled vector]

Would be funny if the crab glyphs mean something like "made in USSR"

[cobalt palm]

Could be a general use language and mystic language that imbues power as the crab glyphs are the same as the ones on the bells, and floor of the abyss containment tower

[whole quartz]

Is it possible that crabs are a form of artificial life like powered by dark stones similar to the guardians from Journey?

[copper obsidian]

Do we see glyphs on any other creatures?

[cobalt palm]

United Sanctuary Section of Resh

[cobalt palm]

Not that I've noticed so far

[whole quartz]

By extension, is it also possible that the Krills are also a form of artificial life?

[copper obsidian]

I’ve seen theories on here saying that the crabs used to be light creatures. Since we save a “light crab” (?) in the nine-coloured deer season

[grizzled vector]

We also see crab spirits/souls in some of the red shards. Which wouldn't make much sense for them to be there if they're dark creatures. Unless dark creatures are also somehow needed to charge the crystals

[cobalt palm]

The chances are dark creatures are void corruptions of light creatures, in the keynote animation we see a manatee with darkness growing on them, and the IGN trailer, an ancestor with dark crystals growing on them too.
Could be krill were corrupted that way through ancestor made causes rather than natural causes

[whole quartz]

True, there are crabs that become infected, but what about the krills? They reek of darkness and we’ve never seen anything else like it in the light fauna of sky. Plus, the newest trailer for the dusk ember suggests that maybe, just maybe, the krills were created by Resh as biological war machines. We still don’t know the extend of what he was capable of, after all. Furthermore, could the darkness from the krills have polluted the rain in the forest, or the mind of the crabs which seem to be at base value, neither light or dark unless covered in that sort of darkness crumbs? It’s the same particle effect.

[grizzled vector]

I think one of the images from the Forest gallery also shows crabs in the same lineup as light creatures (almost implying they progress/evolve from crabs to whales)

[copper obsidian]

There also a scrapped whale in the art book it looks weird

[grizzled vector]

There is also a "ghost" centipede whale/manta in the Vault. If krill are indeed corrupted light creatures, my guess would be it's those

[whole quartz]

Most creatures in sky share similar designs which leads me to believe they all share one common ancestor. So that means the krills are either artificial, genetically manipulated light creatures, or just absolutely jumped the evolutionary gun and went full emo.

I’ll try to make an evolution chart based on the physiology of each creature.

[grizzled vector]

It's actually possible they straight up develop through stages from butterflies to elder whales. Not how animals work in real life but very few things in Sky really work like real life

[whole quartz]

Maybe they change their appearance based on their environment. Like an eevee touching a dawn stone.

[grizzled vector]

Also given their lifecycle involved going to space and back to merge with a godlike entity in the process there's not much reason to believe evolution is at play as we know it

Yea, if they "evolve" at all they most likely evolve like pokemon rather than how evolution would work in real life

[whole quartz]

Man my head hurts

[copper obsidian]

When we are in orbit we can change our looks so maybe other creatures can do that too? Like before they restart their soul cycle they can choose to look differently or choose to be the same.

[sick owl]

What's the stone stuff sticking out of mountains in the prairie peaks??

[grizzled vector]

The pollution in the Forest could just be the byproduct of harvesting light. I think Art of Sky mentions that darkness is fundamentally a result of removing light from nature. There is a hypothesis that the "krill" are a result of trying to "milk" light creatures for their light rather than just "juice" them

[grizzled vector]

Some say it's "darkstone" but it doesn't look the same as the rocks that were being mined in the Treasure Reef (presumably also darkstone). Could just be developers being inconsistent but could also be something else

[sick owl]

Wouldn't dark stone take our light??

[copper obsidian]

We got the vaccine against darkstone

[sick owl]

Elders finally did something for once

[grizzled vector]

Maybe? Who knows? It's possible there are other steps involved. I think the process of charging darkstone from light creatures involved basically squeezing them against it with a lot of force. Also, unlike light creatures, we ourselves might be made of stone so it could work differently

[cobalt palm]

I took the diamonds we collected at treasure reef to already be refined in one of the forest temple like factories, where as prairie peaks, and Aurora's concert jellyfish forest caves had the raw crystal stuff

[pastel brook]

shards, you keep me crawling on my knees

[whole quartz]

I love the golem skykid theory. It implies our limbs could break off and all we gotta do is use candle wax as glue and stick it back on like in Land of the Lustrous.

[cobalt palm]

The ones in Abyss feel like we're recovering them from an already collapsed civilisation, and that's why when we take the big one, the doors stop functioning, releasing the ||big guy||

[sick owl]

What if Eden was like a big castle with like a very large backyard and ground where most king's subordinates lived

[cobalt palm]

Tbh that does look a bit like what we see in the two embers trailer

[copper obsidian]

It was a place where creatures go to die. Literally. To ascend to the Light

[grizzled vector]

Darkstone presumably would steal our cape light but to be honest the only time we see that happening is with stones that are already charged (most notably with red shards but also in a lesser way with the colored diamonds during Days of Color). Maybe darkstone draws more light the more it already has and "pure" darkstone would be relatively harmless to us unless we rub our faces all over it

[sick owl]

Like before the war stuff?

[sick owl]

I still haven't seen the trailer smh

[whole quartz]

Brb gonna go eat darkstone

[grizzled vector]

The mountain was a holy site before there was a castle on top of it. Creatures went up there so their souls could ascend and rejoin "The Light" (most likely because it was the tallest peak)

[whole quartz]

Gonna go test the rock theory. If I don’t come back, call an ambulance. Do sky people have emergency transportation?

[copper obsidian]

No but if you honk hard enough someone might hear you

[whole quartz]

Nvm just tie me to the tail of a manta and have it fly Mach Jesus to the nearest bonfire.

[grizzled vector]

The krill can emergency transport you to The Light. Other than that, none that I know of

[cobalt palm]

Possibly in Eden, possibly in vault, possibly in a pre-war wasteland/dusk?
it's unclear

[grizzled vector]

There seems to be a sky in the clouds, so probably not in the Vault. The Vault is pretty much built i to the mountain Eden is on top of though. And Wasteland is basically all around that

[copper obsidian]

I think it’s in Eden considering the fact that the elders sit in their temples most of the time

[cobalt palm]

Yeah the immediate scene before gave me heavy vault vibes

[spring blaze]

sorry for ping but yippee!! 4 years later actually it’s still exciting 4 years later

[cobalt palm]

But the establishing shot did show an undestroyed floating Eden directly above what could be vault

[grizzled vector]

btw i still think it might be "pantists" since those pants do look stylish. But I suspect I'm in the minority on that

[copper obsidian]

It would translate to “pantits” then 😭 there’s no extra “s”

[cobalt palm]

Unfortunately it's missing an s, but good try

[grizzled vector]

a typo 🤷

[whole quartz]

It is missing an S?

[cobalt palm]

Everyone knows the ancestors were obsessed with pants

[grizzled vector]

it's clearly a single pantist, not multiple bandits

[copper obsidian]

A single pantit

[cobalt palm]

Pant bandits
Pantits / Pandits

[whole quartz]

The pants spirit

Wait I thought it was a B. Don’t B and P have the same lettering?

[cobalt palm]

Yeah

[copper obsidian]

It is a B

[grizzled vector]

they do, that's why i'm saying it's a "pantist" not "bandits"

[whole quartz]

The joke went over my head

[grizzled vector]

but yea i'm really just messing around tbh, i'm not seriously arguing that. what were we discussing anyway?

[whole quartz]

WE’VE LOST THE PLOT

[cobalt palm]

I was frame by framing the new trailer

[copper obsidian]

I was trying to explain evolution 😭

[whole quartz]

I was… eating rocks

We need to start a little Sky language decryption team.

[copper obsidian]

Do you think there’s glyphs in the trailer? Like in the background or somewhere

[whole quartz]

I suggested runes, different from glyphs, but have the same concept as Baltic runes where each symbol represents an aspect of the physical or theological world.

And by Baltic I mean mostly Latvia.

[sick owl]

Sorry for pinging an old msg
Yeah so like they made a very religious or holy site as a castle??
It actually does not make sense that there are big doors in a mountain that is considered holy site
And not to mention there are big pipes too and many more stuff

[grizzled vector]

They didn't make it a holy site. It was a holy site by its very nature as a place closest to the sky. It was where all living things came so their souls could ascend to "space" and rejoin "the light"

[sick owl]

That's what I'm saying
That it was considered a holy site
Then there wouldn't be big pipes lying around
And at this high mountain it would be a pain to make big doors like we see in Eden
So my point is that the mountain was made into a castle or something like that type

[grizzled vector]

The thing about the Ancestor civilization is that it was powered by harvesting the light from the souls of the living creatures. The desecration of the mountain was just the logical conclusion of it

As they developed technology they stopped worshipping the light and started exploiting it as a resource. It was no longer holy or sacred for them

[whole quartz]

Okay so here’s my collage of Latvian/Sky similarities. In Latvian/Baltic culture, there are various glyphs/symbols that represent the sun, moon, etc. these known shapes are usually sewn into the clothing in intricate patterns. In sky, we she the player character with their own similar motif, the most common being stripes, diamonds and triangles. I think these could be representatives of various aspects, too.

[grizzled vector]

Then everyone died because exploiting the light as a resource also came with quirky side effects like creatures turning into ravaging monsters, apparently

[sick owl]

Yes it can also be that they made a castle at the holy site which just made them go further from the light

[grizzled vector]

The pattern motifs on this season clothing reming me of Greece tbh but they could be drawing from multiple sources

[whole quartz]

Because, like in traditional Latvian clothing embroidery, we see these exact same shapes in almost everything we wear. I don’t know if this part of the game was inspired by Baltic culture specifically but it’s the comparison that makes the most sense to me.

The triangle on sky clothing is frighteningly similar to the Latvian symbol for Dievs, which means god.

[grizzled vector]

Alright this is the third time this channel just straight up ate my message split second after I posted it. I suspect it was triggered by some keyword in it but yea I'm not typing all that again

[whole quartz]

In our case, it would possibly be the unnamed higher power we call Motherbird. Ancient Baltics believed in multiple gods, so maybe this triangle represents the collective afterlife of the motherbird, or the highest point at which reincarnation can be achieved.

[sick owl]

I ain't typing allat🗣️🔥🔥

[sick owl]

I know nothing about the Baltic culture and what you are getting on here but it may as well be right
And do we know about gods in sky?? Like there were actual god?

[grizzled vector]

I'd say the bottom of your skirt is an odd place to put multiple patterns representing god. Could just be triangles because triangles are neat. But they could be borrowing from Latvian culture, with or without understanding what they are borrowing

[copper obsidian]

I love this a lot!! Even tho I’m Eastern European myself and I haven’t seen any resemblance in the clothes yet 🙂 Having in mind that Eastern European culture most of the time looks the same

[whole quartz]

Also, this excerpt about the line below the triangle from the website:

[grizzled vector]

The Light/"megabird" is the closest thing we have to "god" but also we have magic and elders who are powerful magic users. So although they are not technically worshipped as gods they are similar to what would be gods in other fantasy settings

There is also "ancient darkness" ("megacrab"?) of which we know almost nothing about

[whole quartz]

The similarities are just too similar, we both have our own Dievs and Māra within Sky, and they are used in tandem with one another constantly. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

[grizzled vector]

Like I said, it could be symbolism borrowed from that culture. But could also be lines and triangles because, well, it's lines and triangles. There is nothing inherently divine or symbolic about lines and triangles

[whole quartz]

And then the diamonds on the clothing. In Latvian, it means Saule, or Sun. So, in conclusion. The motifs on sky clothing represents the unity between the sky, megabird, and the earth

If anybody wants to try to make more connections between the two, here is the site I used: https://latvians.com/index.php?en/CFBH/Zimes/zimes-00-sheet.ssi

[grizzled vector]

Interesting. They do put that pattern all over the place. It's also on some of the shields in the Wasteland Battlefield

[whole quartz]

I just have a gut feeling that these are somehow connected.

[grizzled vector]

Of course the most natural assumption within the context of Sky is that it would reference darkstone "power diamonds" but those could be shaped after this

[whole quartz]

I would literally die if they actually did take Baltic inspiration for Sky’s worldbuilding and design.

[grizzled vector]

Well I hope they didn't because we'd hate to lose you. But it is possible

[whole quartz]

Every time I come here, I am amazed at how endlessly deep the world is, and how they’ve managed to not wordvomit the whole lore onto us, but opt to make us figure it out ourselves. If it were me, I’d spoil everything.

Anyway, I’ve always wondered about sky agriculture and plants. Like, what are the cinnamon buns made of?

Do they grow wheat? What do they put in teas?

How do we see the same grass on every single floating island? How do they spread their seeds? Through the wind? Does the grass flower like dandelions?

[rain frost]

wheat field biome in sky when 😩
but fr thats a good question. we do see a lot of vegation growing from grass to flowers to trees, so some of that could work for baking/cooking. in particular i think some teas are made with flowers so that could be one answer. not sure about wheat honestly but their bread is probably made differently from ours anyway.
also i would presume that anything that would typically involve dairy in our world (e.g. bread and the icing on the cinnamon rolls) is just vegan in the sky world bc i dont see any light creature cows or goats lol

[whole quartz]

I’m also inclined to believe that most plants reproduce by the wind. How else would we see the same grass everywhere had it not evolved to be able to spread seeds on the wind?

[grizzled vector]

We do see an example of spirits trying to grow something – in the middle of a desert, ironically (the Forgotten Ark area). But it does suggest they do grow food. Where it happens is a good question, but considering they're opening up a new area every few months it's quite likely there's much to the world of Sky that we haven't seen yet

[whole quartz]

Since there’s a lot of clouds, I feel like the climate is very humid.

[grizzled vector]

There's also lots of birds everywhere so they could be spreading seeds as well

The climate is a bit of a mess since it goes from prairie to rainy forest to icy mountains to a desert to a storm in the middle of it all. But there might be a lot of humidity

[sick owl]

Would sky people have pollen allergy?

[grizzled vector]

Admittedly, if their world is really based on the four classical elements, a lot of things might not actually work the same way it works in real life

[grizzled vector]

If they're made of stone they'd have no reason to. But we do see at least one spirit sneezing (which they would also have little reason to do). Granted, that spirit is from TLP so they might not be a normal Ancestor

[sick owl]

Wait so Collab spirits are not considered as a main sky lore?
Or just the event area is not considered a canon area

[rain frost]

Whether or not Collab material is canon is often up for debate, especially ones like TLP and 9CD because they're separate stories that have been transformed to fit Sky's world, but they're not necesarily part of Sky's world. It's up for interpretation I think.

[grizzled vector]

It's a bit of a contested subject. Some people don't consider collabs part of the lore at all. Some people don't take "lore" quite that seriously. Personally I think the fact that Sky is a game is "part of the lore" and they did modify TLP and 9CD to the point where they kinda sorta fit into the world of Sky and make at least as much sense as the world of Sky itself

[sick owl]

Do you people think that wasteland was just like prairie or valley before it got like a deserted realm?

[grizzled vector]

But there is also the part that even Sky labels Starlight Desert as a place "where dreamlike worlds collide" which implies these spirits could be from another world even if they're "part of Sky"

I.e. the world of Sky could be part of a multiverse (which really is the only explanation for collabs like Cinnamoroll, the upcoming ||Moomin|| collab, and quite possibly other future ones)

[sick owl]

Starlight desert fits in the place near vault
Because after wasteland we never know what lies outside the big tower
And the landmass continuing to be a desert feels right to me
But I don't think it's canon since wouldn't there be destruction here considering there was something like a prince

[rain frost]

It definitely looked different before. There's been some shots in the trailers for The Two Embers where it is still a desert but the air is clean - hence, the Golden Wasteland actually looked Golden! I think there was some older concept art of it having grass but I'm not sure if that's accurate anymore.

[grizzled vector]

In the really old concept art that area had something resembling a large modern city

[sick owl]

I contradict my own theory by saying this but.....
Why would it be called a golden wasteland if it was golden and was a lively place
Are all the places named on the way our sky kid sees them or was it actually a big wasteland???

[rain frost]

Yeah Wasteland was probably added later. Wonder what it was called originally...

[sick owl]

I think that but by who? there wasn't anyone left after this....or wasteland was the first to fall so any alive elder named it that

Also wind path
It connects to every realm in the world of sky yet no darkness could take a hold of that place?
It would be a genius idea to just take hold of the main checkpoint and just start spreading darkness everywhere

[rain frost]

Yeah I think Wasteland was struggling for awhile so there could've still been someone around to rename it

[grizzled vector]

Hard to say for sure what it "was" since I don't think there's any concept art of it ever being anything but a wasteland. Throughout the development of the game it seems to have always been the "dusk realm" at least thematically. But hypothetically, considering it's right by the place where creatures came to die for who knows how long, it presumably should have been quite fertile.

[grizzled vector]

When you first enter the Wind Paths it is kinda overgrown with darkness. That's why you have to do the quests before you unlock the passages. But it's also mostly clouds so there isn't much to take hold of

[sick owl]

Kinda makes me think that before dying was vault of knowledge the place where spirits came to learn about their birth place and where they are going next
Or was vault of knowledge just a big elevator type stuff
I don't think it would be a elevator only since it's known as vault of Knowledge

[grizzled vector]

Darkness also doesn't seem to be some intelligent evil entity bent on taking over the world. It's more like mold that just kinda spreads and grows wherever conditions are right

I think the Vault of Knowledge was built last, in an effort to at least preserve the memory of the civilization once it started to become increasingly clear that the civilization itself is doomed. But I forget where I saw that

[sick owl]

But then what about krills and wasteland
There was a war we know that and we have bones of big animals and the castle is almost at the point of falling?

[grizzled vector]

The war was likely between the Ruler's loyalists and those who thought that maybe destroying the entire ecosystem for short term profit isn't a very smart idea. It's up to debate what the krill actually are

I mean... they probably weren't destroying it for "profit" per se, it's unclear how their economy worked. But it did seem to depend on harvesting light

[sick owl]

What if krills are corrupted Manta?

[grizzled vector]

That is a possibility

[rain frost]

I like that idea personally. Some ppl also think they may be machines / robots, because they make a mechanical / metallic noise when they pass by

[sick owl]

The season of the deer (I forgot the name) is also located near vault of knowledge and we see that we have to face a krill before we can actually get to the area
So that means the dark stuff did try to take hold of places like vault of knowledge but stuff like the deer helps us fight the krill? So they weren't able to
But it also makes me think that vault of knowledge is in some way connected to the elder's temple in wasteland
Maybe the only reason vault of knowledge is safe is just because the wasteland temple was not taken down
And if that is the reason then it's probably true that the wasteland elder fought hard to protect the knowledge because if the darkness got its hands on that there wouldn't be anyway to know about the civilization

[dreamy pond]

To drop my two cents, I see most collab seasons so far as being stories in the Sky Universe. Aurora being the exception since it takes place in a very tangible area of the world, makes physical changes to the area, and with it showing off new aspects of the world.
The other two taking place in Vault (an already ethereal and otherworldly area) gives me the idea that they’re stories passed down and achieved.

[spiral vault]

Here's the thing, the map shrines and showcase of Eden, plus shards/events/wind paths being there, makes me think the areas are physical places in the sky workd

[sick owl]

They are not?

[grizzled vector]

Well, the current wasteland "temple" is basically at the entrance to the Vault at the base of the mountain. It's possible there was another temple previously, at the ruins of the darkstone processing factory at the entrance to the Wasteland, but it was kinda... ruined

[gentle gate]

Hello! I just noticed a few details in the Two Embers trailer (new one).

*Is that kid.. the Hopeful Steward?

TCG announced Hopeful Steward with these traits:
👀 Patient and wise beyond their years.

💪 Stubborn and strong-willed, doesn't back down easily

🧠 Had to be resourceful, and got by on very little

🥰 Beneath their guarded exterior lies a caring and warm heart

(Sorry, a better picture from the trailer)

[grizzled vector]

Yep, there has been speculation that Stewie might be the kid from Two Embers (now known as the Dusk Ember). I don't think it has been explicitly confirmed, but it seems unlikely this similarity is just a coincidence

[hushed steeple]

now i'm thinking about the sky kid in isle of dawn adopted by the people there (?) showed in Aurora's quest, hhhhhmmmmhhhhhhuuuhh

[gentle gate]

That has an enormous amount of implications.. that I'd fear to mention even though this is a spoiler zone

[grizzled vector]

The kid in the Aurora quest is the spirit from her season (Running Wayfarer), not the Dawn Ember

[rain frost]

even with the little we've seen of them in the trailers so far, those traits suit the Dusk Ember quite well i think...

• "Patient and wise beyond their years." not sure of context for this yet but them potentially being the voice of reason and a call to stop the destruction is giving Wisdom of a Child trope

• "Stubborn and strong-willed, doesn't back down easily" same reason as above, if they went to the Vault or Eden to talk to some of the highest ranking people in the kingdom to try and convince them to stop darkstone production, they must be determined

• "Had to be resourceful, and got by on very little" the series is stated to be abt two orphans, the dusk ember seems to be one of them given they're not traveling with an adult in most clips

• "Beneath their guarded exterior lies a caring and warm heart" just look at how they are with their manatee <3

[arctic sphinx]

hmm, is anyone think that first season of two embers is the dusk one first then the dawn one?

[gentle gate]

Precisely! The hair, even from a backside view, is essentially identical – though it stands to reason that the Hopeful Steward we see is a more grown up version.

Now, our Steward gives the ultimate rewards of a cape made of different colours.. and a hair with colourful tags in them. Here's my thought – after being rejected by the Vault, the Dusk Ember went on to unite the lands and travel throughout the Sky kingdoms ‐ meeting 'tribes', perhaps after the collapse or just before, where they likely collected the different-coloured fabric strips to represent the people he has met – they adorned his (or her, perhaps) hair with colourful fabrics too, viewing him as a.. well.. Hopeful Steward. Hence why in the game, he is helping build the Aviary Village! To unite people.

[fervent turtle]

I wonder... Though a long shot cause they were already from a past Season but the lore through it is kinda curious and I wonder if anyone's brought it up about the Teo Embers. 😲??

Season of Shattering: we get those dark memories when we finish the Red Shards and there's also Winged Light every Memory.
|| ... Anyone rememeber getting the WL in the Elders' Memory? It was the only different WL that had 2 SkyKids hugging each other. 💔 I'd show a screenshot of the WL but gonna need to perish at Eden to get them up there again. ||

[rain frost]

I gotchu, I have pics from when I went there awhile back.
This wl is very reminiscent of the hug in the void after we die, but both children are sitting instead of standing, almost like they're huddling together for safety. Reminds me of some of the statues in Eden more than anything.
But yes it could also be represented in Two Embers, given that shot of Dawn and Dusk in the void.

[fervent turtle]

Oooh, thank-Q so much! It's been a minute seeing this WL so I can't remember how far back in the screenshots to find it.
Oh, does slightly reminds of our revival too. 🤔 I just thought this WL stood out of the Shattering Memories being the only different one, being 2 SkyKids. So that's why I said it was a long shot relating to Two Embers. It's just a fun speculation~

[gentle gate]

Where is this? 😮

[rain frost]

The final red shard memory, the one with the elders.

[versed mirage]

The only thing I really notice visually different is the mask in the two embers is darker than the one in game, but that might just be some aesthetic thing.

[spiral vault]

I don't think the two seasons refers to the tv seasons, but the sky game seasons

[spiral vault]

The name Hopeful Steward is interesting, they probably don't start the series being called that, but the name is important. Steward can mean "the responsible management of something under one's care", which could refer to the manatee

[inland cliff]

Is the Two Ember series on a streaming service or on ytube?

[vale sonnet]

Not released yet
Sobs

[inland cliff]

Sorry I mean WILL IT be

[vale sonnet]

I honestly have no idea

Please don’t use caps in such a way
I feel screamed at and have enough of that irl

[inland cliff]

Srry I didn't mean to replicate scream I was just highlighting it

[vale sonnet]

Oki Dw abt it

[spiral vault]

I think it will be on youtube

[grizzled vector]

From what I understand it was supposed to release on Netflix. But it was also supposed to release around March of this year. At this point it sounds like they're pushing in back at least to next year so idk where it's going to be released at that point

[nimble ingot]

This got me thinking.
Would this have some connection with the hug scene with out own skykids (a child of darkness and a child of light)
Or the scene in Aurora's climatic song where 2 embers spark up light to bring mega-Aurora (which I believe is a reference to the "Bird of Light", aka Megabird)

[grizzled vector]

The spirit hug between Eden and The Light is probably meant to reference what happened at (presumably) the end of Two Embers (though we as the players have no way of knowing that). The scene in Eyes of a Child was, according to the SkyFest presentation, designed to kinda direct the flow of the "emotional rollercoaster" (by varying how many players are on the screen and how closely they are to each other they indirectly influence the mood of the scene). But yea, there's kind of a similarity there, whether intentional or not

also apparently that other butterfly at that moment is another player even if they only have control of honking at that time (if even that)

[pulsar oasis]

And as I could remember something big like The King Emblem is right on the top of the broken red crystal. Once I feel like I saw The King himself instead of his emblem

[celest violet]

There’s so much interesting information in the art book that I need more explanation on.

[still condor]

I received my art book today and read through the whole thing in one sitting! I just wanna shared some of the post card art I received along with other art (marked for possible spoilers)

[inland cliff]

An animated show airing on Netflix... I'm biased

[karmic veldt]

This picture made me realise that the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th anniversary hats have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 stars / points respectively 🤯

https://x.com/miyuko_sky/status/1813907157668225237

[versed mirage]

First one used to have the number 1 on it

[sturdy onyx]

Guys any Moomin theory for the season ? Or expectations

[waxen ermine]

Look at the number of stars each have!

[karmic veldt]

I realised that the 2nd anniversary beret has 2 tassels too

[grizzled vector]

I forget, did they confirm it will be an actual season? I kinda expect it to be an event similar to Cinnamoroll, a bunch of limited-time-only IAPs and a few collab-specific dailies like "smell the flowers with Moomin"

[grizzled vector]

Thanks! I always wondered why 2 was a beret

[manic cave]

I believe they did? Id suggest asking in #questions-and-help maybe for confirmation

[north bronze]

i thought it would be the same as Cinnamon Roll, too, but i recall it being described by YT creators (and Jenova Chen during the streams) as a collaborative Season (as well as it being mentioned in "5 upcoming seasons confirmed" )

to be honest, if it's due to release in Fall, it would be tricky to make it a Days of/Event, since there are already so many events happening this year, i don't think it would be able to squeeze in there

i feel like it will be the Season directly after the current Duets

[bronze quail]

$125 dollars for the art book? 😭

[north bronze]

i don't really have anything to say with this, but i know that Season of Enchantment & the coloured lights are a popular topic of speculation, so i crudely put this together after a little noseying around the Forgotten Ark yesterday

ah of course i forgot to complete it

[north bronze]

tbh i'm thinking maybe the enchantment spirits began as Lightseekers before becoming what they did; travelling merchants & farmers, and that isn't necessarily the Lightseeker spirits from that respective season the Lightseekers gifted light to the Enchantment ancestors by the looks of it

*posted the murals without my crude pasting together

just one last mess

[grizzled vector]

I don't honestly know enough about Moomin to speculate much on it (I know of it, but I never got around to reading those books). I do recall the Moomins being rather light on clothing so I expect it to be another furniture season. It could be nice though

[north bronze]

i'm not overly familiar either. my mother used to expose me to it when i was a child, but it was more her thing than mine :p

[grizzled vector]

They could have been lightseekers. From what I understand it's more of a profession similar to bounty hunting, not the name of the specific group of spirits from that season. It also seems many of them were monks/clerics/scholars/whatever those "intellectuals" from the Vault are.

It's still difficult to say what's going on with the mural, even moreso than usual. The swirly in the sky does look like Megabird but I can't even tell if those are meant to be umbrellas or pickaxes. I would assume they are telling their story as a group though. But it could also be snapshots of individual memorable moments, not a coherent story from start to finish

[north bronze]

the second mural from the left says to me that they're in the forest, but, as you said, it could be umbrellas or pickaxes, since the forest is known for its rain as well as its richness on ore, (edited to say:) however, these objects in question are being held above the ancestors heads in the murals, and the hats resembled double-five lightseeker to me, which was another selling point

[grizzled vector]

One thing to note about lightseekers is, I think they were supposed to be from a time late in the kingdom's history, when the natural cycle was heavily disrupted and light was supposed to be getting really scarce. It seems a bit odd that the Megabird would be gifting them not just light but essentially keys to "bending the elements" in a sense

[north bronze]

mmm true, good point

regarding it being a cohesive story, or just individual snapshots..gosh i wish i took pictures of the back of the Ark for this, lol.

the swirly lines/"megabird" seem to be hinting that it's a structured left-to-right story, as they flow from the front left, all the way round into the back-right, as if it were a circle or clock

also worth noting that the Ark seems to crash through a lightning storm on the front-right mural, which suggests to me that it's a linear telling

this is just my perspective however

the murals on the back are just a depiction of orbit/starway, with swirly lines of light and images of mantas/other creatures flowing through. i didn't really think it worth taking pictures of, since i felt it didn't add much context at the time

[grizzled vector]

It also seems like it shows lightseekers bringing the light to the scholars and the scholars "packaging" it into those orbs (and later releasing it to start a fire and some fireworks). Fireworks again being a seemingly wasteful application for scarce light, especially in the middle of a desert. But it's possible those spells weren't just simple fireworks. During Days of Bloom we actually see Lightseeker spirits sending spells into the sky and it causes rain to start. Also worth noting there's at least one "scholar" among the Lightseekers from the Season

[north bronze]

yeah, my thinking was that they aren't fireworks, but how they use the light magic, as in the cutscenes, we see the spirits doing similar things with their coloured light before changing the surrounding land. i think it's just their way of utilizing magic to spread it, like an AoE attack, hah

and yes, it looks to me like these Scholars eventually became the Enchantment group (despite my previous message about the Enchantment group previously being Lightseekers)

[grizzled vector]

The mural shows them all with the scholars' signature head accessories but it's possible it's a way to denote that they're scholars rather than a statement that they wore those at the time the ship crashed

Just like there's more than one person shown with that umbrella hat, possibly just to suggest those are lightseekers

[north bronze]

no that's what i'm thinking too. i feel it's obvious that they look the way they do in-game when they began setting off for their travels, and the "scholar ancestors" on the murals are just how they're to be depicted in the murals, nothing more

i also noticed, but i could be wrong, that "regular" spirits in the murals are just plain figures, but "Seasonal" spirits in the murals are represented as Seasonal by this sash? might need confirmation, this is just an assumption i made

-this isn't talking about the murals in Enchantment, but rather, all murals. this assumption is based on the Enchantment murals

[grizzled vector]

It's also possible they're part of some last-ditch project to try and restore the ecosystem or something along those lines. This specific Enchantment group might be part of a fleet, just like the Lightseekers we are familiar with might just be one band of many. Though I also suspect that specific band of Lightseekers are familiar with that specific Enchantment group

[north bronze]

that would make sense

[grizzled vector]

The "sash" also kinda reminds me of the one worn by the Ascetic Monk from Moments (there's a name for those but I forget what it is). I haven't really been paying attention to them on the murals though, to be honest, so can't comment off the top of my head. Could represent rank or something else (some sort of a faith affiliation? Trying to revive the tradition of worshipping the Light?)

The Monk is the only one we explicitly see wearing anything along those lines though, that I recall. There's also the Remembrance Guide wearing that "stole"/"scarf" looking thing but it's most likely something completely different

[north bronze]

for the purposes of making slightly more sense than the upload before: a re-upload

[north bronze]

it could be anything. in the murals, the scholars "sashes" are straight-diagonal, and the "Lightseekers" are rounded, a bit more weighty-looking, as if they're dangling down

[red pond]

Is it possible that we as the moth are immortal? Idk I thought about this random idea; like we get rebirth again and again from the Eye of Eden, right?

[north bronze]

yes, infact it is to my knowlegde canon that we are immortal and are destined to be forever reborn, whereas the ancestors (and other light creatures) are reincarnated instead, meaning they are not immortal

[red pond]

So it seems to me that we’re not like any other ordinary moth, compare to the pasts civilizations and ancestors.

[north bronze]

my assumption is that the Ancestors we see in-game (regular & seasonal spirits alike), aren't the entire population of the kingdom, and only those who were somewhat "chosen" to be kept back to live as spirits and help the Descendants (us)

and technically, we are like any other ordinary moth, since we are the only kind of our own species :) ancestors didn't have moths, as they weren't able to fly

[red pond]

Oh, how is that exactly? I thought most spirits you encounter were one; I mean there’s a few of them that has those cape/wings.

[north bronze]

those only have 1 (or 0) stars on their backs! unable to fly

i think it was just a style choice, as you see ancestors in the Two Embers trailers wearing capes, too

[red pond]

Hmm, I see

[grizzled vector]

yea, they have one star on their back and those are more of a visual bug, supposedly it's been confirmed that they could not fly

[north bronze]

a VERY layman's* version:

so the Ancestors inhabited the Sky Kingdom centuries before even the first moth/skykid was "born"

a lot of bad things happened, everyone died, and god said "i'm going to make a better version of this species, and they'll be able to fly and harness light energy", and so we were made

[grizzled vector]

Yea, more or less that. We might be "related" to the "Ancestors" in a sense that we are not totally different, but we are also not really the same exact kind of being

[inland cliff]

This has probably been brought up before but in tlp the sneezing scholar was studying a book that depict a scholar meeting the little prince , it could be that the role of the pilot in the original story was replaced by them

This also implies tlp somewhat canon, which is debatable for their unlogical reasons but then we see how Vault of knowledge has those weirdness as well, floating skeletons, rooms seem to exist in a void, basically doesn't follow any logical rules. Plus tlp shares lots of symbolic themes with vaults. So what I meant to say that tlp weirdness is not something you only see in collab seasons, so it COULD be canon to Vault

[red pond]

Seems that my theory of the topic is a little off

[inland cliff]

Basically

If ancestors can fly, why'd they make flying boats in the first place?

[red pond]

Oh, true dat

[north bronze]

as you can see, the Vault of Knowledge is a tall tower at the base of Eden Mountain

while i agree that it's weird, ethereal, and some parts are inexplainable by me (why the skeleton floats), it's not exactly a void - there are certain OOBs you can get to on each floor where you can see that it's supposed to be a very wide structure, and if you fly far enough towards the walls of each level, you will see a very faint outline of how the exterior could look (i don't have pictures of the oobs or walls on my laptop, i will try to remember to gather some later)

as for the Sneezing Scholar, they are meant to represent the Geographer in the story. the pilot is a stand-in for the reader

i feel like the implication of the Enchantment group being Scholars/Intellectuals from the Vault, also implies that the Vault is a place where people would study and mediate on magics, and this could explain why it seemingly bends a lot of rules of logic

the floating skeleton i feel is there to represent that those creatures in the vault aren't actually memories - but infact the spirits of deceased creatures, but i still don't know why it's floating there

[grizzled vector]

My impression was that the Vault is built into the mountain. I.e. "the exterior" of the Vault is the mountain itself

[north bronze]

at the "wall OOBs" i mentioned above, if you go far enough past the "walls", you can see rocky textures on the "outer-wall" signifying that it's a tower inside a mountain. i will really have to get some pictures later, it's fascinating to me, to figure out the structures of maps, buildings and stuff this way

Kiwi & I are gonna go do some photography, i'll be afk

[grizzled vector]

As far as the Vault having weird floating skeletons and stuff... if you look at the concept art you can kinda see how it looks like the intention was to give the impression that you kinda "lose yourself in a dream" as you go higher. Which would also fit considering the Vault is the Night realm. So all those floating skeletons are not necessarily "real" but this is also a setting where even spirits have some "materiality" to them, and dreams are not necessarily "just dreams"

[inland cliff]

I meant that the pilot got replaced not by sneezing scholar,but the scholar in the mural on the book sneezing scholar was studying, implying that the little prince ACTUALLY landed on the planet sky is in and met the scholar, in the pilot role here

I reckon the vault was a mix of magic architect, we know the tower is finite but it feels, and looks like an infinite space

[grizzled vector]

I don't know if OOBs really count as part of the canon per se tbh. It might suggest that the Vault was meant to be a standalone building at some point, but it doesn't necessarily mean that is still the case

[north bronze]

there are certain OOBs that do help figuring out some lore and how things work, this is one of them, though i agree for the most part, not all OOBs are contributive to lore/speculation

[grizzled vector]

I thought the Geographer was looking at a "prophecy" of sorts. I.e. the scholar in that picture was the Geographer, and they were so preoccupied with studying the prophecy they failed to recognize it happening

[inland cliff]

That sounds pretty good and fitting !

[inland cliff]

The skeleton along with other anomalies in the vault is so much so a dream manifest in reality, has the ancestors magic power gone so far as to have crazy abilities like that?

[north bronze]

and here is the view from the bottom floor, looking up. it seems that floor 3, 4 & 5 are the more spacious floors without any clear indicator that there are walls. would make sense to me

[sacred mauve]

How does the home island fit into the lore?

[north bronze]

i thought about this yesterday, i personally think that Home Island is a skykids mental space of sorts

mainly because the "Punishment room" (the room where we die and hug ourselves) is also placed in Home Island, and i feel like that room is a mental space, though it could be there simply because the game needed somewhere to put the room

[inland cliff]

I think you've mistaken for the room where you would just collect a winged light after losing all your winged light. They're technically the same "pity room" but this one is actually the one in home, not the hugging one

Also as for home, they might've just been a pocket dimension space, as people also pointed out how home should've been bigger but was flooded

[north bronze]

no, i believe theyre the same room, just that one is an OOB version of the other (much like how most OOBs are a "dead world" version of their respective place, this OOB is devoid of a Winged Light and a Child of Light)

[north bronze]

an attempt to describe how I see the vault

despite my crude efforts, i am an artist 😐 just not with a mouse

[waxen ermine]

Well done!
I wish there was a way to skip through vault like the treehouse in forest

[north bronze]

there is!!! you just need a friend, the ability to piggyback, and enough white candles to "offer" (but NOT confirm) to unlock a new friendship node

that's right, the rocket glitch :D

*i misunderstood lol

[waxen ermine]

Rocketing!! Of course!

[spiral vault]

It's just a random island, although it was probably inhabited by the Ancestor Spirits at some point

[north bronze]

i didn't actually see this reply, so that's my bad! seems you got a satisfying answer, though (and it's been a while since i've relived le Petit Prince's spirits)

[waxen ermine]

Speaking of little prince, I don’t remember if anyone connected the spirits so I’ll try here? (To each realm I mean)

-Lamplighter: ???
-Narcissist: Valley for the valley twin body, stage for cheering
-Soldier: Wasteland for obvious reasons
-Geographer: Vault for the intellectual pursuit
-Star collector: Because prarie had a lot of stuff hoarded in jars
-Ruler: ???

We have isle of Dawn and forest left

[north bronze]

funnily enough, Yamose and I briefly did talk about this, courteous of their thoughts! and yours is pretty darn similar
#lore-discussion-spoilers message

[waxen ermine]

Ooh thank you!!

[north bronze]

my thoughts on the Star Collector was that they represented the forest:

"it may also be worth noting that the greedy stargazer (i can't remember their name) is hoarding artificial stars/refined darkstone, reminiscent of the Forest Elder's fixation of darkstone"
-me, a while ago

[waxen ermine]

I see!

[river parcel]

The Eye of Eden…
Eden in most abrahamic religions, is the original garden after God’s creation. Adam and Eve were kicked out after their sin. Ofc this could be nothing- but “Eden” in other video games (Binding of Isaac: Rebirth) the character “Eden” is the reborn Isaac after death. Like I said, this could mean nothing. On the topic of religious things, the monster in Abyss reminds me of the Leviathan- a sea creature of chaos from Hebrew mythology.

Tying religion into video games isn’t entirely unheard of (Binding of Isaac again).

Interesting to think about.

[north bronze]

an interesting addition: the megabird, our "god", could also be seen as the Ziz. all we need is the Behemoth and the trio is complete

[river parcel]

That’s a bull-style, right?
Or mammoth

[north bronze]

"tying religion into video games isn't entirely unheard of"

i agree, and i think that Sky CotL features extremely heavy themes & imagery of Christianity & Buddhism

[north bronze]

the land creature yeah. i'm not sure if it's a bull, mammoth, rhinoceros, or what lol

[river parcel]

I’ve never understood the bird thing- is there a post about it somewhere?
Or can it be explained?

[north bronze]

it does get talked about a lot in here, but the "Megabird" (or Bird of Light, as i prefer to call it), or "The Light", is, in short, our god/creator. it's a nebulous mass of lights & souls in orbit that recycles experienced souls and reincarnates them into new souls back to the world

we (Descendants/Skykids) do not get reincarnated - we get reborn

[river parcel]

Tying into the Eden and Christianity bit…
———
@north bronze
The cool down betrayed me XD
a lot of Buddhist and Hindu(?) elements:
Karma, Statues, Creatures of light having souls, a final destination that takes work to get to (“enlightenment”), etc.

[north bronze]

yes, it's very heaven-esque in visuals. but very buddhist in thematics

[river parcel]

The way Eden looks, it’s almost as if Fire and ash is coming from the sky

The sky is red and such.
This reminds me of how the end of the world is described in the Bible/Revelation

Slight off topic:
And I am always under the impression that the “creatures of darkness” are not evil, rather they are vengeful.

I’ve posted the whale > krill pic here before, and I’ve talked about how the crabs are more scared/worried for their safety.

You’ll notice that the graveyard holds large skeletons, similar to that of the whale skeleton we see in the hidden forest. The wasteland seems as if it was left to pollute into the water and kill the whales. This would make them angry/aggressive towards the spirits and thus us as well.

And in Treasure Reef krill are in the water. Those are a LOT harder to dodge than the flying ones. If the water is where they STARTED as whales, then they would be far more dangerous there.

Sorry for the long rants, I often forget to put my thoughts here, so when I put a little bit of em I remember the rest and dump em all here

[north bronze]

hey it's all good i do the same! i'm just watching as i'm diong the red shard lol

[river parcel]

I would really like to hear what others have to say about this, cuz I wanna make sure I’m not crazy-

[north bronze]

i definitely agree with your viewpoint on crabs. i've said in the past that i believe them to be neutral creatures, rather than light or dark

the Krill? my personal views are that the krill are more machine-like in nature. empty husks of what used to be creatures full of life, stuck to guard their watchposts even though there's nothing left to watch, only doing what they're "programmed" to do
-it's evidenced in Treasure Reef's underwater murals that the Krill originated from experimentation on Manta & their eggs, which may be the explanation for them being underwater (the pods that we free the manta from during the quests are where they're presumably kept, pre-krillification)

though, them being "machine-like in nature" is just my own thoughts. there is no real concrete truth out there as to the nature of a Krill (yet), so your perspective is just as valid as mine is

[north bronze]

though, i don't disagree with this one, everything is harder to dodge underwater 😅

though, i believe the Krill are mantas, not whales (not that whales can't be corrupted either, who knows?)

[north bronze]

to save you from going around looking in-game, here are the murals, courtesy of the user "Secretly a Giant Isopod":
https://sky-children-of-the-light.fandom.com/wiki/User_blog:Amity206/Sky_Lore_Theories#The_First_Krill

[bronze quail]

Where do the elders abide? When we light the temples we see them somewhere in space, but I’m not sure if it’s confirmed where exactly they are

[north bronze]

i've read in multiple non-official sources that it's "outside of time & space" and it's basically inside a dream-like state, somewhere between life & death

but we also see them in ||orbit/the rebirth room, when we summon them down from their constellations||...this moment other than their cutscenes seem to be the only moment in the game where they are intentionally moving as if they were tangibly there, so that's my guess (their cutscenes being kind of like a telepathic dreamspace, and they're actually in the afterlife)

[bronze quail]

So what lead them to be there? Like weren’t the elders once alive but then (if I remember correctly) they fell and something happened to them? And what connects us to them through the temples

[spiral vault]

I think the "something happened to them" is being blown up by the giant crystal in Eden

[bronze quail]

Oh interesting, what caused the giant crystal in Eden

[spiral vault]

You can see it here

https://sky-children-of-the-light.fandom.com/wiki/Murals?file=Mural-eden-second-room-wall.png

#news message

And it being built here
#cozy-sky-discussion message

It was probably a large power source of some kind, but it shattered and exploded, destroying eden

[bronze quail]

Thanks!

[brave patio]

Fun fact from the art book! The reason the prairie temple has all those butterfly jars is because the prairie elder, fearing disaster, stockpiled light to ration out to their realm

The art book has so many juicy details, I’m going to try and form a new timeline based on that info

[fast cave]

Hey what is the story behind this void place? What's it called and why is it here?

[dire night]

Its called the Void of shattering. It seems to be a place that stores memories, kinda like the memory lanterns in Vault, which would make sense since those lanterns also use darkstone. We also see this void be able to trap stuff, like the Prince's Winged Light we hug in the end of the game.

[brave patio]

So I think the “void” is kind of like the opposite of the light/megabird, and so that place is like the opposite of orbit?

[edgy kernel]

it is hard to tell sometimes, i kinda note that you meditate near the shattering crystals to enter, but it still seems almost like a physical place, and you return to home and not where you came from when you leave.

two other locations ingame are similar and have the same echo-ey floor, that being inside the leviathan and where you go after you die in eden. so there's some kind of connection there, but im not sure what to make of it.

[cold spire]

if the spirit memories are the memories they held dear than why are 3 of the passage spirits just being shunned(?) by the other students

[versed mirage]

My guess is that place is a form of limbo of sorts. You’re not really dead or alive there.

[spiral vault]

There is a connection between the void of shattering (the red, floating shattering guide crystal) and the void of shattering (physical void lovation), they are probably the same thing

[spiral vault]

Not all of the spirit memories are pleasant, some show gruesome death and devastation

I think it's not the favorite memory, but rather the most important memory or the one that exemplifies their character the most.

[blissful palm]

poor bumbling boatswain and tumbling troublemaker being forever charactersized as clumsy

[north bronze]

either memories that they held dear*, important memories, regrets, or just before they died

[ionic lake]

Something interesting on the description for the giant manta plush on thatgameshop it says "One day in Sky unfolds,
One year on earth goes by." does that mean that lore wise our skykids are super old in human years?

[waxen ermine]

Other way around
While a human is 5 years old, the skykid is 5 days old

[errant summit]

Never realised there's actually a lore discussion channel....I am writing the Sky story in my POV....

[hushed steeple]

Hello, I want to know what the sections of the game mean

Or what they mean for you
Because the cyclical nature of the game makes it really deep
Every part is so meaningful

[grizzled vector]

It's all "up to interpretation" but again, I think it's supposed to be more of a "meditation in the Vault put you to sleep after a long day" than "the Vault makes your dreams physically manifest"

I think "physically" the Vault is most likely just stockpiles of memory lanterns on every floor, one per realm. The first floor stores memories from the Isle/history of the Isle, the second floor stores stuff from the Prairie, and so on. It would have been a very boring location if they did literally that though (since they would not have been able to let you actually examine the memories, it would have been a ton of work)

Though I think dreams in Sky are also more than just your own personal hallucinations while unconscious. "Meditating" at the Elder shrines takes you to a place that's not really physical, but what happens there does have an effect on the physical world. Heck, regular spirits can have an effect on the physical world. Part of the concept of Elders seems to have been the idea that they have powers like moving the day along (though I'm not really sure if that's still a thing). The distinctions between "dreams" and "reality" is kinda thin in Sky (especially since Sky universe is created to be "dreamlike" to begin with, and even can "collide" with other "dreamlike" universes through collabs)

[faint pawn]

so in "light' of me discovering the abyss today... what exactly is the abyss eel? is it it's own thing or an overgrown krill? any lore on it at all?

[grizzled vector]

Probably not a krill. It could be a corrupted "whale" or a corruption of some completely different lifeform we've never seen uncorrupted. It's also possible that some creatures are simply creatures of "darkness"/"the void" (we don't even technically know what the krill are, canonically)

[edgy kernel]

there is this mural which depicts it, considering the other creatures nearby and the similarities, it looks like some kind of extremely long manta with many many wings

but obviously it was terribly corrupted, most likely by all the light which was taken from it. some kind of jumbo shrimp krill though i'd say, at this point

[grizzled vector]

The "long manta" might be the origin of the krill. We see a "ghost" of a similar creature on the Wasteland level of the Vault (the one that carries four lanterns on its back then calls for more "ghost" mantas to help lift you to the final level). The "leviathan" is huge even compared to the krill, to the point it's unlikely it would have really fit anywhere in the facility where light could be drained from it, and it does not really resemble mantas or krill at all. It does resemble a sort of an eel-like fish, but we don't really see those anywhere in Sky (we do see some fish but those are tiny in comparison)

[faint pawn]

i just thought it didn't look "natural"... like it has eyes growing everywhery asymmetrically, and has like one of those mouth spikes that are supposed to prevent prey from escaping despite it being larger than literally whales

[edgy kernel]

The way I think I understand it, they kept the creature in the abyss below the facility, and were able to semi-remotely take light from it, if you see the bottom floor in the mural it looks like they're probably trying to take light from it there. The whole of the abyss then sorta becomes like one big fish tank for it.

Related to the creature though there's also this fella you can spot over in sanctuary isle, which might be the closest to the almost serpent like depiction of the creature under the abyss facility.

We've seen krill of a few different sizes now, being the tiny ones in anxious angler's memory, the regular sized ones we see in wasteland or eden, the smaller one in crescent oasis, the leviathan itself, and the different sized depictions on the world map. From what i've been thinking we dont ever really see if a krill can grow any larger, but with the many size differences and noting the abyss mural there had many of different sizes, I might think that mantas turned primarily into krill, and the size of them before the transformation became what they were afterwards.

I also remember in the aurora memories/concert in wasteland, many mantas fought and died there and there were also smaller krill around, too.

[faint pawn]

actually speaking of memories, wasn't there also gigantic krill in one of the red shard memories? or maybe those just had their sizes exaggerated for dramatic effect

[edgy kernel]

those were rather large, yeah. assuming the eden crystal next to them was also the same scale as normal, then they would be quite large

I might think that those much larger ones came from mantas with something like 10 or 12 wings.

I actually hadn't thought about it, but the legs on a krill could quite well be a relation to a manta's wings, seeing as they can grow so many

[faint pawn]

maybe, considering that mantas seem to grow more in length than sheer size
the large mantas definitely felt longer than regular ones at least while i was in prairie

[edgy kernel]

i wonder if it was more common for them to grow that long in the time long before the shattering, or maybe only in rare areas like sanctuary isle. the ancestors seemed like they were interested in capturing both

[faint pawn]

im guessing the eel didn't come from any sort of manta, though

also was kinda strange that the inside of it looked like the inside of the eden crystal/shard

is that just a thing that occurs when something completely devours our light

[grizzled vector]

It wasn't the literal inside of it. I think it was more along the lines of, when you were about to be "eaten" the spirits of the light creatures trapped in there already reached out to you and you freed them in this sort of meditative state (while time essentially froze) and that ended up saving you too since all these light spirits came pouring out afterwards

[summer loom]

Not a theory but a somewhat lore related question:
Would it be possible for a skykid to eventually become a krill through a darkness related disease? Though theoretically krills may be immaterial (then again so may butterflies and mantas and birds)...

[blissful palm]

We just seem to petrify and die before such thing can even happen. And then get sent to respawn room
So I think not

[summer loom]

Hmm... what if the skykid were corrupted (Also keep in mind there are also different definitions for corrupted depending on how you use it, like for example "The power corrupted him [In a sense it made him evil]", using an example like this because the character I'm trying to get ideas about felt lonely and sort of became mentally corrupted, becoming friends with people again didn't really fix it) (Adding this back on here but also kinda like how data can be corrupted)?

[blissful palm]

And only mantas appear to be corruptoble

Well if you're making fanfic then you are not heldn to canon, especially when such part is left blank

[summer loom]

Well the thing is that this AU is more like the game, and even considers Light Awaits in there in addition to beta, plus the AU is more lore oriented

Actually never mind, sorry for asking
Have a good day everyone
Also if someone can point me to some theories about megabird that would be great, gotta go write some stuff down but I can add the stuff about megabird to my notes

[rugged obsidian]

What are light seekers and enchantment spirits?

I'm really confused