Mind Blown~Kresselack the Black Wolf and his "afterlife"

Grum

When trudging through the Vale of Shadows I saw something strange. A Temple Guardian said "Intruders! We are under attack! To arms, bretheren, to arms!"

What does this mean? It means that all of the undead you face in the tomb...they are sentient. This isn't like Pressio who speaks through an undead shell. This is one henchman talking to the henchman around him.

The implications of this?

(1) Kresselack was not doomed to a life of lonliness, surrounded by vacant shells. Instead, there is an immortal community around him.

(2) He created the tomb with all of his most loyal soldiers and servants from life. This means that they, because of his decisions, are forever doomed to 'live' in that tomb. The fact that he saws "to arms!" means that they many of the assorted undead likely had to go and grab their weapons. Further showing that they don't just wait around all day doing nothing but waiting for adventurers to come through.

(3) Even if you destroy everyone and everything, when you rest more skeletons will keep spawning. This means that even after going through the areas, those who are cursed will continue to be cursed to their unending existence.

The first dozen or so times I went through the area, I always thought that there was just Kresselack and 2 named priests stuck together for eternity. Now that I saw this, I realize that his fate his less grim, but far more people are damned besides him.

And why do I say mind blown? Because I am blown away by the fact that after years of playing this game, little details like this continue to pop up.

Rodrian

Huh! I bet that after what he  did to them, they are pranking him aall the timee. .

Kilivitz

SPOILERS:

I also feel bad for all the souls you seemingly destroy in the Vale, only to find out they weren't actually evil, but prisoners of Lysan's incantations.

Grum

Kilivitz said:

SPOILERS:

I also feel bad for all the souls you seemingly destroy in the Vale, only to find out they weren't actually evil, but prisoners of Lysan's incantations.

Kind of like the undead you destroy in Dorn's Deep. The shade of the priest of Moradin in the forge-temple explains that the necromancer has enslaved *all of the dead* of Dorn's Deep. In his journal, the Liche wrote that while enslaved, the dwarven dead were not only denied their afterlife but also had to give up their secrets to him...which hints that the souls of the dead dwarves were tied dragged back to their bodies. When you chop your way through the undead ranks, how many of the unliving slaves had to witness their 'death' a second time?

SharGuidesMyHand

Kilivitz said:

SPOILERS:

I also feel bad for all the souls you seemingly destroy in the Vale, only to find out they weren't actually evil, but prisoners of Lysan's incantations.

Thank you!! So glad that I'm not the only one who feels this way.

moody_mage

It could just be a single stored memory inside a virtually mindless undead skull shorting out and firing up with your attack. It could repeat the same phrase in any situation as that is all the sentience available to it rather than being fully coherent.

BelgarathMTH

Hmm. Before I read @decado ' s post, I thought "Well, that *is* sad.". But that last post made me think of something - one of the most common bits of folklore about ghosts is that they relive the same painful memories over and over forever because of some kind of lack of resolution.

So maybe when you destroy an undead, you are actually releasing it from that endless cycle of suffering, and perhaps also from involuntary servitude to the necromancer who created it. So, it might actually be a mercy that frees them to go to their afterlife. That's another, more pleasant way to think about it, to me.

Rodrian

. . like in the Severed Hand.

Grum

One more piece of evidence on the individual undead in Kresselack's tomb having individuality.

"This sarcophagus is open and empty. The lid has been carefully placed against the nearby wall."

"This sarcophagus is open and empty. The lid has been carelessly thrown aside and lies shattered on the floor nearby."

Rodrian

Someone has overslept clearly. .