Umor

Shhh! We don’t want everyone to know his name.

Shhh! We don’t want everyone to know his name.

Oh come now. It is not like is a big secret, What was his name again? I think it starts with a C….

Anyhow, it isn’t like we are all walking around with his symbol branded into our forearms….

Hello,

Since we killed (at least to our knowledge) Manetas at the end of the last campaign, the future has changed in some ways.

Manetas was trapped – sucked into whatever Realm was opened by the ritual. The Heroes at that time saw his angry face as the floor of the Imperial Throne Room solidified, cutting off his screams of rage.

Gee – I hope he doesn’t get out.

Oh, I know at least one character who is bothered by the loss of all that power to the side of good. If only there was some way to transfer the power from a Valinor to a person who would use it like it should be used…. like you might transfer an organ, say. Seems wrong for all that power to be lost to the side of the light. He wonders if you could summon the fallen Valinor from that prison singularly, and in a controlled manner, and siphon of the power for good causes, since they aren’t doing anything good for the plan of the gods where they are now, and they can’t be trusted free with the power. Seems only right to take the power and give it to someone more responsible…

(And just for the record, that isn’t my main character Kavaris thinking that)

Yes, but in his vision, “He watched as the Dark One made pacts with the enemies of his creations and the breaking of the world.” So if he was Umor (the dark one?) than how did he fulfill this?
You are assuming Umor is the Dark One, and that assumption is based on Umor being evil. Umor is only considered evil by the PoM. Not by the Elorii or by the Ssethrics. The Dark One must be a yet unidentified being in league with the Silence. A being who Kassegore would consider an enemy.

Hmmm, considering that Umor was hanging with Belisarda, the goddess of life and plants, right before his imprisonment, I’m much more inclined to guess the “green goddess” was Belisarda, rather than Yig.

Unfortunately you’d be wrong with that. The description specifically mentioned Belisarda being placed into a void by Umor (the double loop dragon) to hide her. So her picture is already known to the reader of the wall. And the exact wording of the goddess is “a new deity, a strange green skinned woman.” The entire story is of the arrival of the PoM to Arcanis. There is only one new deity at the end of that story that the PoM would trust with half of Umor, Anshar.

Additionally, everything we’ve seen about the black moon ties it to the silence. It’s appearance over the citadel at the defeat of the sword of the heavens, the ritual you can almost see during the attack on the citadel, the epilogue of the Codex Arcanis, all point to a darker inclination to the moon than as a prison of a benign being.

That is not true either. Everything we know about the moon ties it to the PoM. It didn’t exist until they arrived. The Elorii mention this specifically in Vision of Lives Past. Also the darker inclinations of the moon come from human beliefs, the other races don’t have the same fears of that moon. In the story The Storm it talks about humans doing an important ritual on the moon. Again in For the Lesser Gods it mentions the creation of the moon. The exact text is half of Umor “is wound up by a deity playing a lyre into what looks like a black moon or planet”. Sounds like a prison to me. I found this surprising because I always thought the moon was a means of transport that brought the PoM to Arcanis, hence why it appeared after they arrived, but this is much more interesting.

Kassegore didn’t need to fool Belisarda, he needed to convince her to go along with his plan. He could have very well told her the complete truth. His identity, what he did, why, and what to do to stop the future. Or maybe he left some things out. Whatever he did Belisarda seems to have agreed. Also it’s important to know that if Belisarda is the living spirit of Arcanis as everything seems to point, then the Ssethric are not her enemies because she would be on the side of life itself.
I have thought of both of Hara’mia siblings. His brother who was allowed by Cadic to flee into the shadow realm, and his sister Leeata of the Whispers who Illiir allowed to live. It’s possible that his brother is the Dark One (after living in the Shadow Realm) made a pact with the Silence for revenge, it makes sense and fills in some holes. Also it’s possible that Leeata is their creation god, and Illiir just let her go and killed all the rock people, and she was crying/raging in that cave for thousands of years to be found and call herself Belisarda. But I wondered more if she was prophetic (what else could “of the Whispers” mean) and Larissa absorbed her. And then looking into the future made Larissa go mad, hence why she went mad after arriving on Arcanis. I mean if she had prophetic powers before arriving here, why not use them during all that fighting in their homeland. What’s it called, The Gods’ War in the Eastern Continent? But she didn’t, she used them here, and went mad here on Arcanis.

The epilogue of the Codex Arcanis, which doesn’t appear to be present in the electronic versions says this:

Within the Black Citadel, a father gazes one last time upon the face of his son.

“You have read it all,” He asks between bloodied coughs?

“Yes, father. It is a confusing mass, but that should assist our goals.”

“You will stand aside Him within your lifetime, my son and face the coming time of Silence together. It has been written already.

“My time here is done. Go now and finish what I and so many others have set into motion.”

A final cough wracks he old man’s body once, the he was gone.

With a final glance at his father, he donned his obsidian mask and stepped through the Portal.

Within moments, the Dark Moon was still once more.

Go back into Ambassador Tukufu’s letters discussing his recent excursion onto the Isle (the post is from about a year ago). Something about “Soldiers of Oblivion”. . .

I’m not assuming he’s the Dark One, I’m giving supporting evidence for it. I started my description of my thinking by indicating I specifically started with the premise that he wasn’t, but the data didn’t appear to support that hypothesis. The question to answer then is, if Umor isn’t the dark one, who is?

I believe that any attempt at this time to give anyone the title of Dark One (threat foretold by Kassegore that caused him and Yig to put a yet unknown plan into motion) is premature and useless. No god or powerful being that we are aware of is the perfect match. As for Umor/The Other and his/her/its identity. That is a different story. All information provided by the Mother Church calls Umor a human god and evil including claiming Umor killed Belisadra, but the story of Umor provided by the Elorii says Umor came peacefully, PoM were the aggressors and Belisarda is not dead because they can feel her. The final piece of info is from For the Lesser Gods. Where Umor is represented by a double loop dragon, and is portrayed as not evil. Knowing that Henry loves to provide biased information as the truth. I am more willing to believe the Elorii and For the Lesser Gods, then common rhetoric spewed but the humans on the subject of Umor anyway. For the Lesser Gods is the secret history of the Gods War and closer to the “Truth” then common information. If you are going to believe Umor is evil and connected to Silence why not also believe that Belisarda is dead.
A very simple example of the truth being hidden from players both IC and OOC is the Val. In the old campaign Val bred true, everyone knew this, it was common knowledge right in the Race section of the PGtA. But Henry knew at some point, perhaps the very beginning that was a lie. When he was ready to reveal it, he would, and it opened up the possible of having human children with Val parents. And we as players finally learned the truth when we met Eloric val’Sheem. We should have learned to not take common knowledge at face value.

I agree with the reasoning at that point of the green skinned woman possibly being Anshar. Though I don’t think anything we’ve seen depicts her as greened skinned. It makes me wonder about the skinless lady.
While Anshar may be depicted as a human God, OOC it is widely know she is not a human god at all. Anshar would never be depicted as having green skin by the common folk or the MC. As for why she look humanoid with green skin, look into what happens to val’Inares when they reach a certain age in adulthood. It is green skin for that reason.
We learn that the pictograph story in For the Lesser Gods, come from Umor himself, passed along before his imprisonment. He was able to see Anshar in her true form, not as the PoM saw her.

I disagree. The source of the moon obviously appears to be the imprisonment of Umor by the PoM. I’m not discussing source – I’m discussing connections in writing. Its appearance over the citadel, the “important” (which I read as to be dangerous or threatening) actions taking place on it during the Storm, the epilogue of the Codex Arcanis, and the time-travel module all indicate a connection with the Silence. The epilogue is vague about whether the connection is opposition or support, but the others all appear to be pretty strong connectors to the moon being “bad.”
I believe we agree on much but I disagree with your conclusion about it being connected to Silence. We can agree the PoM created the moon as a prison for half of Umor. We can agree that the Storm and the removed Epilogue talk about it being a place of importance for humans, more than any other race. And considering it is a prison for half of a powerful god that the humans consider evil, that any association with the black moon is consider negative when coming from the perspective of humans. Full moons, should it look bigger, or brighter etc. Finally we can agree there were two visions of the future with that moon, one it being destroyed and burning the face of Arcanis, and the other in a future where Manetas rules Arcanis the moon is already gone, and Manetas has created a stalemate with the VO. But nothing connects the moon to the Silence. The vision of the moon being destroyed could be taken literally or it could mean that if the moon is destroyed then Arcanis is doomed because it has lost a force that was opposing the Silence. And to the point it should not be taken literally in that alternate future with the moon gone the Silence has not automatically won, they have been held at bay by Manetas until he could flee.

Considering the “as below, so above” premise of divine and racial conflicts that we believe play out when races fight, than we have to assume that Belisarda and the Elemental Lords probably had a fight against Kassegore and Yig when the Elorii revolted. I can’t imagine she would immediately trust him as she appeared to in the stories, if she knew Umor was Kassegore.
The “as below, so above” is actually a Ssethregore belief. Not human, not Elorii, not dwarven. It was that belief that lead them to the use of the Portals that that Issori had mastery over. When they had defeated the Issori, so their gods had defeated the Issori gods, either Kassegore or Yig, had to have learned how to use the Portals. After much mediation, drug use, and starvation, Yig told them how to use the Portals. At least that’s how the story goes. Of course there is no proof this belief has any truth to it. So jumoing to the conclusion that Kassegore and Yig fought, Belisarda, and the Elemental Lords would be wrong. In fact in all the stories of Belisarda and the Elemental Lords, they are quite Arcanis bound. Living with their people, and no mention of actually meeting Yig or Kassegore which would have been a huge deal to the Ssethrics and worthy of being recorded had it happened.

I understand your argument that she would be on the side of life itself on Arcanis, but that doesn’t make her dispassionate and logical. After all, using that logic she should be supporting the PoM whole heartedly right now since they’re out fighting entropy, but it would appear she holds a grudge still. Right? Additionally, if his logic was so strong as to win over her, why try to trick the PoM and be partially imprisoned? Why not just have the same talk with the PoM and get everyone on the same page with reason?

Perhaps she is supporting the PoM after all, a beautiful Ardekene seer told the Elorii to leave their forests and seek out good humans for the coming war, hence their emergence. And who knows what she has been doing since her disappearance. True it’s not openly, but there are many mysteries with the Elorii. As why Umor couldn’t just speak with the PoM. They couldn’t be reasoned with, they blame Umor for kill one of their own. But you did give me an idea. Perhaps the “Gentlest of them” who Umor supposedly killed was, like Belisarda, hidden to get the PoM to follow him to Arcanis. Just came up with that one, thank you.
Just like my theory in a prior post that Kassegore is Umor and after his vision, he and Yig went to the Eastern Continent to bring the PoM to Onara. If the PoM fought amoungst themselves as much as the Mother Church says they did, perhaps it would be useless trying to get them to work as a team. Perhaps the easiest way to bring them all back to Arcanis was to make himself the common enemy they could band together against. Maybe he did kill “The Gentlest” or Yig did, or the Gentlest’s death was faked like Belisarda. What ever the reason the PoM banded together and followed Umor to Onara.

I just reread To Peel the Veil of Lightness and Dark. And I realized I made an assumption based on information from the newer module Visions of Lives Past. There is zero mention of whether the dark moon is in the sky while the players are in the future. Sorry about that. I should explain how I came to the conclusion that there was no moon.

To Peel the Veil of Lightness and Dark states when the players land in the future

there can be no mistaking the large, dark ring that now surrounds the world. The sky is punctuated by streaks of light that seem to streak across the heavens.

.
And Visions of Lives Past states

Even the new dark moon, which inexplicably replaced the stellar ring that once surrounded the world just a short time ago, hangs low in the sky

I made the assumption with the return of the stellar ring in that far future, that the dark moon was no more.
Because there is no mention either way you shouldn’t assume that the dark moon is still there.