[PoE 2 Lore] The Story of Act 4 – The Karui, Kingsmarch, and the Twilight Order

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1. Pinning since so many helpful lore nerds mentioned – there is a clue about Sin and Innocence sister, added recently to the Fellshrine Ruins of PoE 1, Act 2. There is text that says “The Mother of Two, once the Mother of Three, weeps eternal” and you fight a boss called The Forgotten Sister. This is definitely about said sister, but also puts into question my interpretation of the Mother of Two – making it more likely that the Mother is the actual, precursor mother (rather than a Templar fairytale or Azmeri caretaker).

2. I wish the conversation thing is added to all dialogues it was pretty awesome , i especially liked the mercenary dialogues

3. I think Asking us to hate Kanu for his betrayal and be happy hes dead, but then expecting us to forgive Tavakai for his betrayal in which he gets to live is a very VERY weird story beat.

4. Babe wake up, new kitten cat noodle video just dropped!!!

5. I think the First Edict is the gods themselves, seeing as they were a response to the Lightless. Continuing from that thought I believe the Edicts are as follows First Edict(gods) in response to the Lightless, Second Edict(beast) as a contingency for the First, Third Edict(weapon) for the Second, and finally the Fourth Edict(mother soul) is a MAD device in case all else fails

6. What was super funny to me, was when you don't listen to Kanu when he's yapping about the area he just brought you to, he always has a comment, like (not quotes) "yeah yeah you're in a hurry" or "why am i even talking when you're not listening anyways"

7. @KittenCatNoodle – mark my words, the Kalguuran King is looking for his Queen. That is why he's collecting Vaal artifacts. Prepare for a return of Queen Atziri in a future league.

8. Loved act 4, definitely my favorite so far

9. I'm also frustrated about the prisoner real identity and his lore, what did Izaro really do or it's another Perandus blame shift?

10. Assuming the third edict relates to the elimination of corruption, and the seed od corruption itself is the instrument of the second edict, I'm guessing the second edict is the elimination of gods. First edict may relate to the precursors or the elderich?

11. Just made a lasagna while listening to this, seems fitting to share. Thanks for All your work this is great!

12. Will there be a video about the new Abyss League lore?

13. I didn't pay a lot of attention to the lore of act 4, so I was waiting desperately for this video, thank you a lot ! Great like always.

14. Hey Noodle. Have you considered letting some of the more important voice lines play out for us to listen? I love voice acting and for me if you explain what's going on and then let the relevant dialogue play out, that is the best experience.

    Would this make the video/editing too long for it to be feasible? Or is there another reason why this is not your style?

15. THEORY STUFF FOR YOU KCN:

    The Precursors were extremely advanced technologically – the most obvious evidence being the Precursor towers literally magically terraforming the land.
    In ongoing attempts to better themselves, they theorized a way to create a substance that could elevate them to a more conceptual and significantly more powerful state, that which Wraeclast now calls ascending to godhood.
    They devised some method for channeling energy through the earth and extracting or collecting Divinity in the process. Basically, they cause Divinity to become an actual thing, which made Corruption as its counterpart. They created a "Divinity Engine". (Possibly involved Well of Souls and immortality?) This absolutely could be coincidental but the Precursor beams remind me of other ties to Divinity.
    They assumed they had things under control, but knew that both Divinity and Corruption could destroy the world if not kept in check.
    They put safeguards in place:
    Edict 1 – Something that led to their civilization being destroyed. Closest lore bits are early passages about seeing the sky burn, but not connected to the Winter of the World. In any case, it left VERY few traces of their civilization.
    Edict 2 – If Divinity gets into the hands of random people and isn't controlled, it'll wreck havoc on all other living things, so we make a Corruption-Lock that can suck up Divinity (putting the gods to sleep) – the Seed of Corruption.
    Edict 3 – If the Seed gets out of hand, we have a weapon that can destroy it.
    Edict 4 – I'm not clear on if it ever states this outright, but there is at least an implication with the Arbiter of Ash that the plan is to just clean the slate.

    – In the end, something went wrong and they triggered the first Cataclysm (and therefore the First Edict, or the two are synonymous), centered around the place now called Highgate/Mount Kalisa. It became Corruption central, likely even before Sin planted the Seed there. Alternatively, it's where he found the Seed, and he didn't have to take it to the mountain at all, that's just where it was and where he activated it.
    – The Primevals triggered the second Cataclysm, the Winter of the World and, at some point, got in contact with Kulemak and caused the Lightless (made by the Titans, apparently!) to come to 'life'.
    – The Vaal triggered the third Cataclysm when the eternal Atziri "communed" (if you know what I mean) with the Beast
    – And then the Empire, or rather Malachai specifically, triggered the fourth Cataclysm, once again by unleashing the Beast's power

    I actually suspect that Mount Kalisa (or whatever mountain is at Highgate, if not Kalisa) IS the volcano that erupted during (or synonymous with) the second Cataclysm, causing the Winter of the World and the layer of ash ground. I think it's notable that the ground is altering plants but not corrupting them, and yet the corrupted ground of Wraeclast is a key part of (why it seems nothing dies permanently on this continent) the endless undead. I suspect that the third Cataclysm, the Vaal's, was the first major spread of Corruption. Very few, if any, bits of flavour text explicitly talk about the Primevals struggling with Corruption. I think the Winter of the World and the toll it took upon the Maraketh (which he was a part of/his wife/etc) was one of the driving forces behind Sin wanting to put the gods to sleep.

16. GGG is, true to form, still building the lore airplane as it takes off the runway. And here once again to help us try to make sense of it all is Lady Loremistress KCN! So many thanks for hunkering down and stitching together a coherent narrative thread for us to follow.

    My one attempt at a contribution here is just to observe how curious it is that Count Geonor's obsession with his lineage correlates with his descent into madness in such a way that one could call a blood fever dream. Is it possible said lineage includes Karui blood? Said blood's reaction to the presence of the Beast would have made him very susceptible to deranged compulsions–like purity of bloodline–that gripped him seemingly out of nowhere and drove him to turn his blades on the very Ezomytes whose culture he claimed as his ultimate birthright. What a neat little package of tragic irony that would be…

17. My favorite interaction in Act 4: Literally every conversation between the Mercenary and Tujen. The Merc has excellent banter with the people of Kingsmarch in general but good god the conversations between him and Tujen are so fun.

18. I think i know who the mother of two is, its alva.

19. been waiting for this since i beat act 4 when it first dropped, thank you

20. Those with the way in their heart give willingly to their chieftain

21. Hell yeah. Another hit for the sleepy time rotation.

22. My favorite conversation from act 4 is when the Witch and Navali are talking about the cyclical nature of time beside Navali's body. Navali gives a very specific but mysterious timeline for the end of the world. I think it might be referencing the Elder…

23. Still no clues to the mystery of the identity of King Smarch

24. Well the obvious guess would be that Oriana is Sin's sister, or her host (like innocence being embodied by a mortal). The second obvious guess would be that the 1st edict is a way for the precursors to achieve divinity, with the 2nd edict, the beast, being a fail safe for that and the 3rd one to stop the beast. The twilight order symbol being so similar to both innocence and sin's could be a clue. Perhaps Oriana did not ascend, maybe she despises all gods – her former peers – for what they did. It would explain how she knows so much about the beast, the forge and sin.

    I don't think it will be that simple though. Maybe divinity wasn't the actual goal, but a gross overuse of some power – and corruption wasn't meant to counter divinity specifically, but the original idea for that power (sin does make it sound as if he jury rigged the beast from corruption to stop the gods, rather than following a manual – unless he simply forgot that it was always meant to be used that way). As for what the 1st edict was really meant to be, I have no idea. Maybe just magic – and the act of ascending to godhood was akin to doing way too many (magic) drugs, hence the 2nd edict failsafe and perhaps Oriana's disgust for her peers and her motivation to remove all "gods". As for the 3rd edict, what if corruption was intended as some kind of sponge that sucks up any excess magic and the "weapon" is just a syringe to extract that magic from the beast and repurpose it – the whole beast thing just being a gross abuse of corruption, like a wildfire is to a campfire

25. Regarding character dialogue, with 0.3 and Act 4 they changed Mercenary to be from Trarthus, or at least made it more clear (What are we, some kind of… Mercenaries of Trarthus?)

    This included cutting out the Oriath bit from his Geonor intro on the character select, and in A2 town he mentions Trarthus on the slave caravan interaction vs saying how everyone sucks

    He's still an ass and full of sass and my favourite

26. So, one thing which has bugged me a bit: The intro cutscene to Act 4 is inaccurate, we don't go to Southern/Main Ngamakanui, but rather Northern Ngamakanui, as Kingsmarch and Ngakanu, as per Settlers map, is kinda North-East-ish of Lioneye's Watch and such. It's a small thing overall but still an oversight on GGG's part in terms of geography

27. THANK YOU !

28. So my obvious issue with the story of Act 4 is their choice to fully ignore Oriathan survivors and Citizens Vanguard. It's not too surprising, as any mention of them will open a massive can of Atlas-shaped worms you'd really rather keep closed if you're a PoE2 writer, but still, an entire community of outsiders doing their own thing in the Karui Archipelago not even being mentioned by Tavakai with his heavy distaste of outsiders is iffy.

29. Was waiting for the A4 update and it's finally here, I'm loving this! Hoping for A5 next patch. Great job as always!

30. I didn't know what many men was really saying until I heard the AI. It was easier to consider the possibile emotion that the beat hides

31. I have theory on what the seed of corruption might be a response to divinity and gods. Perhaps the precursors also had issues with divinity on their early history. Wheter it was natural ocurrance or their own making is up to debate. But I do lean towards being caused intentionaly, because that might had been their 1st Edict.

    So seeign as the gods where causing trouble for them they ended up creating the seed of curroption, the Instrument of the 2nd Edict. and then they created the Weapon as the Instrument of the Third Edict. And then sphere that we see on the Arbiter of Ash's fight is probably the instrument of the 4th Edict and what cause the great fire that wiped the precursors.

    But that's just my theory.

32. The Betrayal Connection Board is nothing compared to PoE convoluted lore.
    The second instalment story is sold only slightly better than in the first.
    It's good that you're still writing. If it weren't for you, if it weren't for this accessible format, we'd be living in abyssal darkness.
    Thank you.

    PS: Where are my blue friends? What role do the Dabudajs play in all of this? And why do they keep mirror fragments in their pockets?
    I hope that one day we will learn the origins of blue tigers, crabs, and The Beachhead itself.

33. The best interaction of Act 4 is the Mercenary being tricked into freeing Tangmazu. Through his love for older women.

34. Aren't witch, ranger and other poe 1 classes are the same ppl in poe2?

35. Awesome video ! Thank you so much !

36. Nice video and channel. Is there something in the game to fish about this Lumerius guy ?

37. Regarding Kalandra saying the seed was "always" Sin's, I think there's another interpretation. When you talk to Navali next to her physical body, she speaks about the Cycle of Time. That Hinekora doesn't so much know the future as remember previous cycles. If you take what Kalandra says literally, it's possible that the seed is something that survives each loop into the next, being used over and over and over again by Sin. She also says we're closer to the end than not. Perhaps what is about to happen is what ends this loop and starts the next one?

    But wait, there's more. Navali, when asked how long a "cycle" is, says: "The life of an Elder, but twice, a hundred times over, then thrice and once." If you assume an "Elder" is 78 years, that gives you 78*2*(100+3+1), which comes out to 16,224 years. This is just shy of 16,383, which is notable because that's the maximum value a 14 bit integer can have. What happens when you add 1 to a max value integer on a computer? It wraps back around to zero. Like a loop. If that's a coincidence, it's a pretty neat one.

    I have no idea, if this is true, what the implication would be. The whole PoE universe is just a simulation that exists inside a computer? Seems unlikely.

    (You can hit exactly 16,383 by using an "Elder" age of about 78 years, 9 months, 5 days.)

38. Great video! I really enjoy the lore videos.

39. Together with Act 3 my favorite Act. Can hardly wait for Act 5.

40. A little correction, we also didn't get to kill napuatzi since she is stolen into a legion crystal. 😂

41. In the earlier videos in this series, you mentioned that you were going to make some more in-depth videos where you deep dive things more. Are they still happening or have you moved away from that idea again? 😊

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