New Twitter post with an image of the map of the Mansus in-game.
"There are map-legends, there are maps of legends, and there are legends of maps. Aspects of the Mansus subsist in all of these, in much the same way that you find water in a swamp and in a cup and in the sky." - Lars Westergren, explorer and murderer.
Oh, and here’s a new update from the Weather Factory blog!
edited by illuminati swag (Benthic) on 2/9/2018
I can’t overstate how excited I am to see that map of the Mansus. Catherine Unger’s art style is fantastic and utterly perfect for this game. So beautiful, but just surreal enough around the edges that it’s unsettling even when nothing too unnatural seems to be going on.
As fun as it was imagining the landscape of the dream world, it’s nice to see it fleshed out and given some depth. It gives a much needed level of scale that establishes just how large the place is and how varied the geography of the "house" is. It really drives home how small these beta builds are and how massive the finished game actually will be.
All this Catherine Unger, bizarre houses, and alien gods are giving me A House of Many Doors flashbacks, which is an UTTERLY AMAZING game I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys Failbetter’s work.
I was very interested to see that the Tree of Lights and the Red Church are actual places in the Mansus and not just strange dream analogies. I look forward to see how exploration and interaction with the hidden world will go, as we’ve got art for rooms and a navigation map now. Perhaps we’ll have a Rogue-esque text adventure in the Mansus and the card interface in the waking world? I’m very interested in learning what the inhabitants of the Mansus will have to say, as what little occult lore we can scrounge out of our texts is heavily coded and riddled with metaphor to avoid the censors. Some raw, undiluted truth that-should-not-be-known will be refreshing.
Some speculation on the map:
Now to analyze those delicious early tarot cards.
edited by Edward Warren on 2/11/2018
[quote=illuminati swag (Benthic)]Oh, and here’s a new update from the Weather Factory blog!
[snip - entire blog post][/quote]
You don’t have to repost the entire blog post :P
So I’ve been meaning to ask: What is this? Is it easy to get in to or start off? What do you do? How is it played? I’ve been on and off curious for a while now, but with the dlc for life offer ending soon I was thinking about taking a look. Anyone got some footage too, preferably not of the corrupted to turn people to darkness variety?
[quote=Anne Auclair][quote=illuminati swag (Benthic)]Oh, and here’s a new update from the Weather Factory blog!
[snip - entire blog post][/quote]
You don’t have to repost the entire blog post :P[/quote]
Well, it’s spoilered, so it shouldn’t be taking up too much space. I figured some people might want a quick version without having to go through the link, and it’s not like it was particularly difficult on my part to copy and paste the post.
This is Cultist Simulator. It is a game about secrets behind the skin of the world. I think it’s fairly easy to get started in, but I got started early enough that I don’t actually know if it is. You buy ancient texts to learn secret knowledge, recruit cultists to assist you, get investigated by authorities, and so on. (The next build will include more stuff involving the performance of forbidden rites to, for example, summon the power of the Ring-Yew into the body of the formerly troublesome investigator to animate it for a short time before it sprouts roots.)
The way you play is that there are two sets of things - cards, or objects, and tokens, or verbs. Each token has a slot to hold a card, and certain cards, when put into tokens, open up extra slots. You put a card into a token to do the verb with that object, which means there are multiple options - for example, you could Study with a book to learn secret lore, or Study with secret lore to learn a ritual. Or you could Work with a job to make money, or Work with secret lore to write an essay on it, and then Talk with a potential patron to sell them the essay. Part of the game is to find out what you can do with your tokens and cards, so make sure that you try as many things as possible.
Here’s a video of someone playing it for what I think is the first time. There isn’t really a "corrupted to turn people to darkness" path in the game, but neither is there really a "not corrupted to turn people to darkness" path. Cultist Simulator doesn’t really care about good or evil. Maybe you just want to learn ultimate truth, maybe you want to gain unearthly power, but neither of those is really "good" or "evil", and the game plays out the same way regardless.
The DLC for life offer is ending soon for the pre-release period - it will also come with any purchase in the first week after release. Buy it then if you want a finished game; buy it now if you want to help test the game and give feedback to the devs.
edited by illuminati swag (Benthic) on 2/11/2018
I wonder if the Grail ever gets mad at the Sun-in-Rags for stepping all over her turf. Like, the two beautiful endings that we know of (Elagabalus, the BYT) involve people being duped into lives of pleasure and excess that ultimately conclude with premature death. Of course they might be working together, but the Grail seems to hang out an awful lot with the Thunderskin, who abhors endings.
Alexis referenced this thread for somebody on Twitter who was wondering why ‘Mother of Ants’ had serpents rather than ants. Yay us!
I just checked Alexis’ twitter, and totally freaked out when I saw that as well. Uh, hi Alexis!
I was checking out some of Catherine’s art, and I just realized that the Glory was teased to us months ago, and we just didn’t know what we were looking at!
Take a look at the Concursum again and compare it to the Mansus map. What I assumed to be some sort of massive window in the background is actually The Glory! This room has to be really important to be located practically at the door of the Sun’s sanctum sanctorum.
[quote=Edward Warren]I just checked Alexis’ twitter, and totally freaked out when I saw that as well. Uh, hi Alexis!
I was checking out some of Catherine’s art, and I just realized that the Glory was teased to us months ago, and we just didn’t know what we were looking at!
Take a look at the Concursum again and compare it to the Mansus map. What I assumed to be some sort of massive window in the background is actually The Glory! This room has to be really important to be located practically at the door of the Sun’s sanctum sanctorum.[/quote]
Given the new map of the Mansus, it’s probably worth bringing up the old map:
This is presumably not 100% canon anymore, but I’m sure there are some interesting points to be drawn from the differences between this and the new one. The new one is a lot less square; I had a theory about four cardinal directions from the Mansus (and then the fifth one being the Mansus), but it doesn’t seem to be reflected in the new map, so I’m not sure how solid of ground it’s on. It looks like the "Wrong Door" may have been replaced with the Wood, and the "Front Door" given an official name of the Tricuspid Gate. Anyone have anything else to suggest? I’m sure that’s not everything.
edited by illuminati swag (Benthic) on 2/12/2018
[quote=illuminati swag (Benthic)]
Given the new map of the Mansus, it’s probably worth bringing up the old map:
This is presumably not 100% canon anymore, but I’m sure there are some interesting points to be drawn from the differences between this and the new one. The new one is a lot less square; I had a theory about four cardinal directions from the Mansus (and then the fifth one being the Mansus), but it doesn’t seem to be reflected in the new map, so I’m not sure how solid of ground it’s on. It looks like the "Wrong Door" may have been replaced with the Wood, and the "Front Door" given an official name of the Tricuspid Gate. Anyone have anything else to suggest? I’m sure that’s not everything.
edited by illuminati swag (Benthic) on 2/12/2018[/quote]
[spoiler] The White Door and Tree of Lights seem to be on the opposite side of the map now as well. Additionally, the Painter River area isn’t even included in the early map.
Also, "Galmier’s Lodge" is notably absent from the map. What is there however is The Lodge of the Sage Knight. Assuming Galmier hasn’t been cut, we can assume that she successfully entered the Mansus and became a Knight, whatever that means. That term comes up a few times in the lore books, with the Pine Knight and Sir ____ of the Bloody Cup. Is that a state of being in the hierarchy like Long and Names? And alternative title for one of those?
On the subject of the House changing shape, anyone else just notice it looks vaguely similar to the All Seeing Eye now?
Keep in mind that while it’s more fleshed out now, it’s still an early map. We know from the Chamber of Conclusion that there are still more locations we’ll visit beyond the ones on the map. Perhaps we’ll unlock them on the map as we discover them in our exploration, and we’ll be able to view and fast travel there from the map from thereon out? I’d love to see a CA rendition of the Red Church or Worm Museum.[/spoiler]
On an unrelated note, there are now 108 days until the release of the finished game!
Double post, but according to Alexis’ twitter, we’ve got some more Red Grail goodness coming to us in the next build. Some of the new rituals will allow us to get some new occult endings!
Shame about our humanity, though…
edited by Edward Warren on 2/13/2018
The White Door was originally going to be the one with the valves, I think; now it’s like a pair of crossed tusks or teeth, and the valves belong to the Tricuspid Door. To me, the Mansus map now looks like a bit like a cross-section of the Great Pyramid of Giza:
And on the far-right of the Mansus map, there’s a Mount Doom-style peak belching out smoke. First notion: of course that’s where the Forge lives; second notion: maybe not. Could it possibly be another Mansus in the throes of destruction? I dunno.
There are also the two curiously-shaped floating blocks, one labelled the Worm Museum, and the other, The Malleary(?) - a name which would seem to suggest Forging things. They’re not directly connected to the Mansus but they have the same sort of stepped outline, which makes me wonder of they could be visible entry points to alternative Histories.
The face on the right looks like the stable complacent Sun of Tarots and sundials, and is helpfully labelled ‘Sun’ in the original sketch; the face on the far left looks like a ragged mutable thing that I’m tempted to conclude might be Winter/the White.
RE: The Mother-of-Ants. I don’t know how reliable a source Theresa Galmier is once she gets to Volume III of The Locksmith’s Dream, but I got the impression that the Mother-of-Ants has two heads: ‘The stairways of the Mansus go ever up. Death is down. The Mother of Ants guards both directions with each of her heads, and so the passage must always be through a wound.’ Apart from the strong implication that the player must Dream about their Injuries, what gives? Either the lady has a second head on her unusual shoulders, or she’s something along the lines of this (but maybe longer in the middle):
…or I’m being excessively literal. After all, she’s clearly not all snake, all the time. I do see some possible ants, though, on her robes.
There’s only one Grail for the discerning Bacchanalian: the Lycurgus Cup, in the British Museum (may involve some waiting time. Or a highly-skilled burglar).
Despite looking like a film prop, this is a genuine Roman sacramental vessel, and was probably crafted without a foot, so it couldn’t be laid down until it was drained. The exact chemistry of the glass wasn’t worked out until the C20, and there is no other piece like it in the world.
Did some thinking on the whole Knight angle, and I think I’ve uncovered yet another level of symbolism in the game. Just how far down does this rabbit hole go? Alexis said in an interview about Cultist Simulator:
"I have read a certain amount of Arthurian poetry and commentary (Ritual to Romance, Green Knight, and so forth…"
I wondered a bit about the Galmier’s connection to the Sage Knight and did some digging into Arthurian Legend, and found something very interesting.
Discounting King Arthur, there are twenty-four knights of the round table.
A round table is essentially just a flat circle. Know what else is a flat circle? A clock.
Each of the Hours is -or is at least symbolized by- a knight of the round table, and The Sun is their King.
If we can determine who’s who, we might have a better understanding of the dynamics of the relationships between each Hour. At least one of the knights has been outright told to us already. We know that Percival is the Red Grail, because Skeleton Songs calls him "Parsival of the Red Cup". Percival is the earliest knight to be affiliated with the quest for the Holy Grail.
This is important because if we can match up the knights, we might have an idea of who Lancelot is. Lancelot is the knight that betrayed and helped kill King Arthur. We know that at least one of the Hours attacked and split The Sun, but we don’t know exactly who it was.
It’s also worth noting that before Arthur could truly die, he was taken to Tir na Nog -also called Ildathach, multicolored place, remember that colors beneath the world’s skin angle- and it was said he would one day come again in glory. Discounitng whayever the Sun-in-Rags is, the real Sun is conspiculously absent from its own house, supposedly choosing to reside far away in the Glory. Perhaps that’s what we’ll do when we bring the Dawn? Restore and return to power the Once and Future King?
edited by Edward Warren on 2/14/2018
The Forge of Days divided the Sun. We know that with quite a bit of certainty, I think. The Seven Letters on Necessity say that the Sun can be divided, but requires the Forge of Days for its division, and there’s a quote somewhere - maybe in a Weather Factory post - that mentions that, even after the Sun’s division, the mortal pawns of the Forge of Days remembered it fondly.
The Mother of Ants derives her name from the amphisbaena, a mythical snake with a head on both ends. There was a discussion of this at some point in this thread that should have more details, but it’s entirely expected that she has two heads.
edited by illuminati swag (Benthic) on 2/14/2018
[quote=illuminati swag (Benthic)][quote=Edward Warren]
This is important because if we can match up the knights, we might have an idea of who Lancelot is. Lancelot is the knight that betrayed and helped kill King Arthur. We know that at least one of the Hours attacked and split The Sun, but we don’t know exactly who it was. [/quote]
The Forge of Days divided the Sun. We know that with quite a bit of certainty, I think. The Seven Letters on Necessity say that the Sun can be divided, but requires the Forge of Days for its division, and there’s a quote somewhere - maybe in a Weather Factory post - that mentions that, even after the Sun’s division, the mortal pawns of the Forge of Days remembered it fondly.[/quote]
The Forge of Days brings change, and dividing the Sun was as big a change as you can get. But I doubt she was alone in this. The Forge seems to require other parties.
The Mother of Ants derives her name from the amphisbaena, a mythical snake with a head on both ends. There was a discussion of this at some point in this thread that should have more details, but it’s entirely expected that she has two heads.[/quote]
Perhaps she also has two forms. A form for meeting petitioners and a form for when she’s dealing with trespassers.
Gods shape-shift, it’s one of the things they do. The Grail is also a Mother who might also be a Knight.
edited by Anne Auclair on 2/14/2018
Yeah, it was probably the Forge of Days. It was a bit poorly phrased on my part, but what I found the most interesting about the whole Lancelot angle is how it could shed some light on the reasons behind the Division. Because remember, even the Forge didn’t immediately change The Sun, something changed between them at some point that prompted the Forge to do it.
We’ve known for awhile that love and perilous longing are big themes in Alexis’ work, and this fits perfectly in with the story of Lancelot. In Arthurian legend Lancelot betrayed Arthur because he was having an affair with his wife Guinevere. When they were found out, Arthur tried to burn his wife alive, forcing Lancelot to rescue her.
I assume the Arthurian narrative isn’t being followed exactly here, but the connection is too big to be ignored. If the Forge is Lancelot, who is Guinevere? We know already from The Thunderskin that the Sun has some serious issues when it comes to former lovers. Attempting to burn its "wife" alive is totally the angry, lovecraftian Sun would do if it discovered it was being betrayed. What other Hours have ties to the Sun? The Grail? A Hidden Hour?
On the Mother of Ants thing, I agree that the Tarot image probably isn’t supposed to be a 100% accurate representation of her. The Hours are outright stated to be utterly incomprehensible to mortals, and the only way we can get any idea of what they are and what they want are through symbolism and only the broadest definitions of their desires. The bunch of symbolism in each card is just a giant summation of what each Hour wants. The Red Grail wants to eat everything, The Thunderskin wants constant motion. If that Tarot is in any way an accurate portayal, it’s probably a Name or some sort of lesser incarnation that the Mother of Ants uses to communicate with people. Who knows, maybe there’s another face on the back of the woman in the card’s head? Maybe that’s what the nun headdress is for?
Also, I just noticed that there’s rain in the Mother of Ant’s picture. Does that mean that the "House" is big enough to have its own weather? What bizarre sorts of weather can happen in a dream world? Is that going to be a factor in the game?
Did everyone miss you when he brought up the stag door in the Twitter feed Introduce us the first name? Data mining section he dropped release the process of what is to become a Know
Oh, I noticed. I was just kinda hoping someone else would bring it up so it felt less like I was the only one screaming into an empty void-
-I mean, posting to the thread.
In more hilarious news this is now a feature in the game:
[spoiler]
That’s right. In true cult leader fashion, it’s now possible to sucker in new devotees by spouting off mystical-sounding nonsense. Hey, if it works for made up religions, why not a honest-to-God eldritch cult, right?
KIFFLOM!
Oh, I noticed. I was just kinda hoping someone else would bring it up so it felt less like I was the only one screaming into an empty void-
-I mean, posting to the thread.
In more hilarious news this is now a feature in the game:
[spoiler]
That’s right. In true cult leader fashion, it’s now possible to sucker in new devotees by spouting off mystical-sounding nonsense. Hey, if it works for made up religions, why not a honest-to-God eldritch cult, right?
KIFFLOM![/quote]
I was considering posting it, but I had posted the last few Twitter updates so I figured someone else could get this one. Anyway, the Stag Door being a Name is a really interesting development, particularly given that the current build has pieces of content that say that a. becoming a Know is passing through the Stag Door and b. that you, the cultist, are already a Know, and what distinguishes you is your knowledge of the Secret Histories. I wonder if the implication is that you have previously passed through the Stag Door unintentionally in dreams, and that’s what sparked your interest in the Mansus.
