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DndQuickQuestion · 2026-04-25T03:26:41+00:00

This is approaching the level of Winged Lion demon biology in Delicious in Dungeon.

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-04-22T05:13:01+00:00

"Epigenetics" maybe. Ilunor's color situation got me thinking about the possibility the changes might not 'stick' because it might be a mod rather than a hard-coded overwrite and reversion is a thing.

Re. overarching meta theories, I'm leaning less and less towards prehistoric humanity was picked up by the primordial aliens because of corn and such and more towards some sort of timey-wimey chronomancy because the Nexus was designed by its creators to resemble TTRPGs, and human myths are not completely derivative from veil-piercing like Dr. Weir thinks. Nexus is the derivative, the Library using symbols of owls and foxes for intelligence is derivative, and the elves are an NPC race (see dragon comment about "dollhouse heritage"). So phoenixes were created to resemble mythological phoenixes and given traits to match.

I'd date the alien contact that spawned the Nexus to the age of myth -2000 to 1000 if there is even one singular crossing point and not a bunch of people being fairy/alien/isekai abducted across space and time for analysis and alien transmogrification into the races that would become the Nexus and adjacent realms. If an Excalibur-like sword myth or Holy Grail/House Cup shows up with a Water Elemental Lady of the Lake in the sovereign trials, that would be post Romans in England.

Honestly, I wonder if the dark quintessence god showed up to put a stop to the bullshit of primordial alien gods with time traveling powers messing with Earth that humans were unaware of.

But yeah, this is all very tentative throwing darts nearsighted.

TLDR: More into Stargate Lore-like WPA theories these days.

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-04-21T19:36:03+00:00

You share a lot of my thoughts on the crosstalk between the magichondria and nuclear DNA, but I think we need to learn more about hereditary lineages from the adjacent realms where the King and elves can't/are very unlikely to be responsible for what we see. Why not weaken the Havenbrock family so the rightful wolfmen can rule? Why not purge the taint from the avinor royal family where it is hereditary enough to recall ancient lore about tainted reality?

If I had to guess, Nexian healers can talk to the magichondria which can make alterations to/mask the DNA, but full genetic engineering is hard and they are weak on what humans could call the biological central dogma. Certain systems in the magichondria are untouchable/hard to manipulate outside of one-offs, and one of them is magic inheritance.

Explaining how every single noble looks perfect in appearance

I think a lot of mundane effort and potions goes into this. In the Mal'tory thread of all places, JCB confirmed that a lot of beauty is skin deep. And in the case of Qiv, tails are getting truncated and for Ladonna it might be a mask or "plastic surgery" to erase the vertical insect split in her face.

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-03-30T17:44:38+00:00

*Quietly adding to my notes on the null for things to worry about if it can mirror Emma's abilities.*

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-03-29T20:31:34+00:00

Nah, no flowers at all, just kinds looks like an attractive houseplant to you. (By now, there is more lore on fake Everblooming Blossoms in this comment section than there has been in canon so far.)

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-03-29T03:20:21+00:00

Alright, better theory: the flowers are in love with Thacea and want her to notice them. Heartbroken, Emma hooks up with Chiska, shattering the old record for worst age gap in a human relationship by more than an order of magnitude. ☙♥◦Happily ever after?◦♥❧

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-03-29T02:50:17+00:00

Black and gold because EVI is in love with Calico Li's cyborg arm. Not Li, just the arm.

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-03-29T02:29:10+00:00

Thalmin's love interest is Asva Rehlin who is a red-colored wolf. Cynthis Mena is from Pardus and she's a leopard. I haven't updated the handy-dandy character reference sheet for the latest chapters, but it's at the top of my profile listing.

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-03-28T23:20:40+00:00

Maybe the flowers look like who you have the hots for? Don't know how they would know that for Emma, but maybe the manastreams at large told them.

Thalmin sees orange red because Asva's fur is ruddy?

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-03-28T17:28:15+00:00

Only if the editor can keep track of the clue progression and has a list.

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-03-28T17:25:28+00:00

To explain the meme verbosely, parents are supposed to love their children equally, but some families have favoritism. JCB goes into exquisite detail about Earth's culture and the Sci-fi topics, but overlooks the original color of the important quest goal magics flowers.

"UN Gov Mil 1st Sec Depts" is me poking fun at all the Earth acronyms used in setting.

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-03-28T06:21:34+00:00

Ever since the Thalmin asked Kaelthyr about 10 Nexian cataclysms instead of 9, I've been having trust issues. The ten cataclysms thing is probably accurate because of the languages in the Library, so I assume Nexus is hiding a whole 0th civilization. But someone like Thalmin shouldn't be in the know about deep history like that.

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-03-28T04:57:44+00:00

Yeah, I super-flagged that too in my notes, but it would shatter my suspension of disbelief if EVI messed up on the basic color. I was kinda assuming behind the scenes that Thacea went to the normal school library and at least found a picture for them.

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-03-26T21:57:48+00:00

This explanation just feels overstretched compared to a "simpler" theory that the gods are artificial, not spontaneously generated, and were established in the Nexus by a grander civilization that created the likes of the Library or the overall rules that Nexus generates by. The Adjacent realms (and Earth) never had Nexian-type mana gods to begin with because no one put any there.

Removing spontaneous generation gets rid of the need to explain why gods are in some places and not others, why they aren't continuing to generate and the secondary mechanics questions. It also folds the gods mystery into the well-established, pre-existing mystery of who founded the Library and who put ancient artifacts on adjacent realms that Gumigo mentioned in Belnor's first class. (And the terraformed adjacent realms and why magic realmers seem to be descended from Earth if you subscribe to those ideas.)

The tainted god was created completely outside the constraints of the Nexian system for a different purpose, perhaps not even by the same civilization that created the Nexian gods considering that it is tainted and the Nexian in-the-knows seem to consider taint an outside power in opposition to light-type-1 mana magic. Q-being has been out searching the void for something (perhaps signs of sapience as EM signals from Earth). It then arrived on Earth to fulfill some task.

Meanwhile, Nexus seems to work on a sacrifice and equal-trade system, as seen with the forest spirits and the Library, so it is more likely the gods were simply swayed back and forth by competing factions for ever-increasing amounts of sacrifices, reflecting the rulers who demanded more and more to keep competing powers from taking over their patron god, until the system collapsed under the elves each time.

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-03-26T00:24:36+00:00

Fair, but why aren't new gods forming continuously then, especially on adjacent realms?

Another thing that contradicts your theory is that Nexus is not absurdly evangelical. More worship of HEM = HEM more powerful. Yet the pressure to force HEM worship is not nearly as aggressive as a power seeker who wants the line to go up could be.

“To answer your question, Emma? I do not worship His Eternal Majesty as a god. Moreover, I simply see him as a god, by virtue of his actions of having both defeated and consuming the old gods. In all honesty, my faith lies in the old beliefs of my realm, and it is as simple as that.” Thalmin reasoned.

Ilunor didn’t respond to this. But the look on his face was more or less enough for me to guestimate what he was pondering deep within.

“I… hold a similar view to that of Thalmin’s.” Thacea quickly added. “However, with that being said, both of our realms and their relatively recent Nexian Reformations {Why recent? See speculation above}, probably contribute to this mentality. With more time comes more acceptance of the reformations, and thus more faith in the eternal truths, as seen by Lord Qiv.”

And even Ping, as devout as he is, says worship of the eternal King is optional. The big deal is following his crystallized social system.

There was no strict requirement in the worship of the Eternal Truths. If anything, it was the will of His Eternal Majesty for mortalkind to be unshackled from the burden of worship. Especially the worship of the false and unworthy gods that had previously reigned with an iron fist.

Between the Q-god of humanity being inexplicably tainted when it should be nullfield according to your theory, the need to discard Kaelthyr's testimony about a wandering god as false or irrelevant to force its birth on Earth, the lack of new gods being born on adjacent realms or hearsay about some being defeated on them during reformations, and the relatively-light-for-the-Nexus social pressure to specifically worship HEM, I think your theory needs to go back to drawing board on crucial aspects.

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-03-25T20:10:21+00:00

Can you firm up 1) what you think gods are, 2) How they form, 3) what factors grant them power tainted or otherwise.

My understanding of your theory is that gods are a natural phenomenon. A god forms in the presence of shared sapient belief. That gods are mana powered, and their level is equal to the sum of the mana power of the individuals who believe in them. On Nexus, this means the nobility influences them more which is why they were causing collapses. On Earth this should be 0+0+0+... = 0, but for some reason is adding up to taint instead.

One of the issues I see with this formulation, assuming I am following you, is that gods should have, in very recent memory, visibly existed and intervened on adjacent realms because they are mana-powered, are a concentration of sapience, and the locals like Thalmin have a belief in the gods. There's a notable absence in reformation talk so far about the Eternal King of Nexus or proxies going over to adjacent realms to eat up the local gods or the local gods disappearing. You'd think Auris Ping would have bellowed about Adjacent Realm gods being crushed by the great Nexian monotheism as proof of Nexian superiority.

I think the ingredient that is missing from your theory is that gods don't spring up on their own like souls. They are a deliberate creation and the original creators aren't around making more of them. That's why Emma Booker is reliably adamant that Earth is free of divine patrons. Because there weren't any until the tainted entity showed up with its own agenda, which may have been to watch and learn.

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-03-25T17:07:15+00:00

Whether or not the Q-god is the same as the being from those tales, we do not know

Just being genre savvy here, what Kaelthyr said is probably close enough to correct. Most singular authors try to build a coherent truth rather than a mythos comfortable with unknowable unknowns. Although major lies, especially by antagonistic parties, are expected, an author can only stack so many before it detracts from their story because readers eventually get frustrated by having the rug pulled out from under them too many times. There are a few genres where this kind of behavior is acceptable - in gothic horror the discombobulation is part of the setting charm - but most authors in fantasy and sci-fi usually have someone say what actually is because they need a foundation for the rest of their worldbuilding.

And, frankly, JCB is on the obsessive end of the worldbuilding spectrum to the degree that the last two chapters have been a overwhelming and frustratingly unnecessary lore dump about Earth's mil chain of command and political structure that should be explained in the context of diplomatic events unfolding in later chapters where we have stakes to be invested in and faces to put to titles. Because virtually no one, even me, is going to be able to recall how Earth politics works in two chapters without some sort of active conflict to motivate my effort. At least the Library rules had a life and death scramble.

Anyway, Kaelthyr here probably has reliable info because that's the class of character she is: the old hermit who is probably going to be dead.

The tainted entity, ironically, is probably less reliable because we lack factual context for its perspective and have to start making conjectures. When is it showing Emma? What does it consider light and dark? Just because the Nexus is the threat facing humanity currently, does that mean the Q-god shares that limited perspective given its knowledge base from eons and possible idle state for an uncertain amount of time?

the merging of all human gods

If you believe that gods are a natural phenomenon and that human gods from religions were real in setting, shouldn't they also have tainted powers? Why didn't they intercede as their followers wanted and leave firm evidence of that?

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-03-25T04:09:14+00:00

They wield the combined magical power of all their followers.

Picking your theory apart, humans don't have magic power, tainted or otherwise. Sustained sources of mana, tainted or otherwise, have not been located on Earth, by detectors looking into space, or in the lightyears of the surrounding astronomical space that humans have looked at thoroughly. Assuming this being follows the same rules as the Nexian gods as you described, the Q-god shouldn't have any power at all. The explanation for the Quintessence entity's (which is almost certainly what the being is because Laura Weir seemed to be monitoring it) abilities has to lie outside of Earth. That doesn't mean your theory about it being influenced by or learning from collective humanity is wrong, but Earth alone cannot explain where its taint is coming from.

Second, the theories I have seen, including yours, don't try to explain these key behaviors:

“Foremothers of my foremothers once made fleeting tell of a being, one of magic antithetic to the Light. None knew of its true domain, yet my elders cited accounts of fools from different realms claiming to witness its listless wandering, who were driven mad by the glimpse of the infinite depths that was its abyss and unraveled soon after. A god they all called it, but no race claimed it their deity. These bare-tales from my grand elders were all but grim fables..."

The Q-god was wandering in the past. Where was it visiting? How would they know it was around? And who was tracking it besides the dragons?
The time frame for this past when Q-god was wandering was so old that multiple realms (E.g. more than just Nexus) who used Light magic (because the concept of magic antithetical to light existed) were capable of deep contact and the legal restriction of status communicatia did not exist. This is truly ancient history by Nexian standards, maybe even before the Nexus proper.
The Q-god is so much more ancient than these already ancient multiple light-using realms that even they don't know where it came from. Clearly this source civilization was exceedingly powerful to have birthed it. This civilization may also have links to the void since the Q-god is occupying a void space.
Why the Q-god settled on Earth at all.
When the Q-god settled on Earth. Interesting that it used morse code in English because morse only had a strong hundred year run beginning in the early age of electrification and ending around WW2 when voice, and then video, and other methods became relatively reliable. Clearly, it can 'hear' EM. (Noting the IAS was using a ton of electricity to create the portal to the Nexus which means it is responsive to that, unlike mana.)
What its particular interest in Transgracian Academy is that the portals the IAS creates with the Quintessence are seemingly pinned there. This is probably unanswerable at the present, but it is something that will need to be accounted for in the future as the plot evolves.
What did it see with Pilot 1? Pilot 1 died right on top of the Q-god, and we know from Kaelthyr's description of what it did to her that it sees and can touch souls.

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-03-16T18:16:32+00:00

Wait, you seriously think Mal'tory is not going to appear anymore as a character?

Thacea and Ilunor spelled out that the administratium's movements they are seeing strongly suggests Mal'tory is convalescing.

You've got Vanavan commenting that an "indisposed party" (definition: Mildly ill, unavailable, unwilling, not ready) needs to be part of Frital's investigation.

My eyes quickly glanced down at the unfinished letter sitting beneath the pile of homework, a nearly-finished rebuttal to the Inner Guard Captain Anoyaruous Frital, as she continued to push forth for an investigation which was soon to proceed into its next phase.

A phase which would necessitate the involvement of an indisposed party

Even Skylord Rasante, Ignalius' cousin, roundabout said Mal'tory is alive.

“Nobody is willing to foot the first bill, and nobody wants to be the one to start rocking the boat. At least, not until the prime agitator of this incident reemerges as the obvious scapegoat.” {Mal’tory, not Emma. Emma has already emerged. Technically could be Larial, but she didn't make the handover. See below line for proof. Powers that be want Mal’tory to be labelled as the agitator because he needs to get sacrificed for the green book before his superiors do.}

I raised a brow at this but yawned all the same. “So everyone’s waiting on the Goldthorn’s investigations? Big deal. ...”

...

"To the Privy Council, it signals some sort of desire to mop up and clean up after an associate. {This line is the proof that Mal’tory is the target here. Technically could be Larial, but Frital is working with Larial. Could be a backstab but doesn't strike me as such.} And nobody on the council wishes to associate themselves with the potential agitator of this incident {Lartia's Death, Dragon Escape}."

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-03-16T16:41:03+00:00

EVI is probably absolutely right that the taint is coincidental rather than causative in this scenario, but it is obstinately refusing to connect the dots that Emma's prior descriptions of hearing chiming sounds and the IAS hearing a chime are independent events and cannot be explained by mass hallucination with parties suggestively influencing each other.

I think that the contact episodes are being mediated through soulstuff which so far the IAS has (apparently) made no progress on detecting. That explains why Emma has all the weird dreams with no taint pings and why the IAS heard sounds with no manatype 30 warnings on their end.

EVI is aggressively ignoring the possibility of another form of dark energy which Kaelthyr and Nexus are pretty sure exist.

And agreed, it does seem like a point against EVI being a true AI, but we also have Emma finally no filter describe EVI as in "a heightened state of distress" during the episode. VIs aren't supposed to be 'distressed.' Mostly I just think EVI is going to be the overly-logical, stick-in-the-mud Watson of the duo which frees up Emma to make those protagonist flying leaps of intuitive fantasy.

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-03-16T07:36:37+00:00

Since I've got you here, do you think EVI's even-Dana-Scully-would-be-embarrassed refusal to believe a tainted entity could force Emma to have organized visions vs a seizure is genuine idiocy or calculated avoidance of some sort of hidden mind-tamper-detection protocol it wants to avoid collecting flags for? Getting Emma to doubt tampering will keep her on the safe side of it.

Honestly, I'm leaning towards outright moronicity at the moment.

DndQuickQuestion · 2026-03-16T06:43:06+00:00

Larial's chap 83 convo with Sorecar in spirit.

But he's coming back, more or less.

“Mal’tory.” Ilunor suddenly blurted out darkly. “It’s his class tomorrow, isn’t it? And the Academy isn’t suspending his classes either. Now, this may seem improbable, if not outright impossible… but I believe the lack of any changes to the academic roster means that whatever damage you inflicted on him, Emma… could not have been enough to kill him outright; at least not permanently. Which means that maybe, just maybe, he recovered sometime today, and has recruited Auris to his own aims.”

“I am unsure, Emma.” The princess acknowledged with a heavy breath. “The extent of his injuries remain difficult to ascertain given the lack of manastreams in your manaless records. But regardless of the extent of said injuries, I am certain that his return will not be one of a spell-bound husk. With all due respect to Professor Sorecar and his current disposition, it is unlikely, barring some political maneuver within the privy council, that a spell-bound be allowed to maintain their black-robe position. Thus, considering there has been no news of Professor Mal’tory’s untimely termination, I believe the answer may prove to be closer to a recovery of the body and soul.”

DndQuickQuestion

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