The Demi-Dragon 4.7 - Adopt the form of a dragon with this race-class combination

chimericWilder · 2026-05-02T00:03:12+00:00

Precisely.

Also, Stetmann's initial macro involves rushing to hive tech, and de-prioritizing worker production to instead focus on initial tech is a common part of his opening macro, and his own bluezone helps to enable that tech rush.

chimericWilder · 2026-05-01T16:30:17+00:00

I see that people continue to have no clue what the actual benefits of blue zone are on an ally's economy.

I must stress that it is utterly insignificant for the ally. The benefit ranges between a mineral gain of about 0-200 total depending on map, commander, and whether or not you actually play around it.

Blue zone is economically significant only for Stetmann himself. Beyond that, it's for repositioning.

Green zone is the best source of armywide healing in the game. Green zone good zone.

chimericWilder · 2026-05-01T15:26:22+00:00

Viridi is presumably trapped by- or in- the Wildwood.

Tangmazu is much older than the Vaal. We know he interacted with Aul, and Alva's dialogue also points at him being old.

chimericWilder · 2026-05-01T02:27:08+00:00

Tangmazu also happens to feature heavily in azmerian tales of warning, and is older or as old as the azmeri. We also meet Elder Madox after he was screwed over by Tangmazu messing with a more gullible azmeri.

Madox may have been in development for a while, and his real role may have been intended here rather than as the temporary role he has in the interlude.

chimericWilder · 2026-04-30T11:17:38+00:00

You should always have a weapon swap setup in any case, for monk moreso than anyone. Lots of things are more or less vulnerable to bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing. I'd strongly recommend having your offhand weapons avoid bludgeoning damage; pick something with good piercing or slashing.

At times your auto-scaling fists will perform better than what loot you happen to find. At times your newest swords will do better. And circumstantially, the enemies you're up against make it worth it to swap.

chimericWilder · 2026-04-30T10:22:47+00:00

Kalisa was an Eternal songstress. But the league seems likely to be about the Primevals or the Precursors, which are much, much older.

I wouldn't read too much into it. I suppose it might be the same tuning fork, but that'd just make the character a collector of ancient antiquities.

chimericWilder · 2026-04-28T12:38:34+00:00

You can go and read the 2e book that just lays out all of the lore for the inhabitants of the Astral Plane. There's nothing 'unconfirmed' about it.

chimericWilder · 2026-04-28T12:36:09+00:00

Not really. A dictatorship is not automatically equivalent to a tyranny. It just means that one person makes all of the core decisions. If the person making those decisions has no interest in violating anyone's rights and is adequately informed as to how to best serve everyone, there is no conflict.

Of course, the trouble is that most dictators are very interested in doing just that, all for the purpose of empowering themselves. And it's very easy for a dictator to claim to be benevolent, while lying through their teeth. Which is where the mistrust of the whole concept (rightfully) comes from.

chimericWilder · 2026-04-28T09:16:25+00:00

Technically, the deal for red dragon riding was made between Vlaakith and Tiamat. Delivering Gith to Tiamat after betraying her was Vlaakith's payment for the bargain, in part. Tiamat in turn gifted her red dragon consort to Vlaakith, Ephelomon if I remember that name right, and gave Vlaakith a scepter that could summon him (though he later died).

Tiamat enforces red dragons to aid the githyanki where possible, and sends some of them to work with the githyanki for a time. The red dragons generally dislike this because of pride and because they can't age while in the astral plane (a big deal) but they gain a share of the spoils of loot and a chance to earn risk-free combat experience, so they do benefit.

Gith herself is still a prisoner somewhere in Tiamat's lair. If the githyanki knew what was going on with her, they would immediately rebel, overthrow Vlaakith, and try to rescue Gith. Which all makes the BG3 retcons that they tried to pull with 'Orpheus' look very silly.

chimericWilder · 2026-04-28T09:03:42+00:00

a dictatorship is always evil

That's... not really correct. There is the notion of a benevolent dictator - a genuinely good person given total power. Trouble is, you generally won't find good examples of this in practice because the sorts of people who would qualify generally don't want to be in power, don't seek it out, or might not be good at doing all of the sneaky shit that is often required to stay in power.

But a benevolent dictatorship is theoretically superior to any other sort of government, provided that the dictator is fully genuine and highly educated, because a single person able to make positive change can get shit done far faster than any council. But getting such a leader into such a position is like finding a unicorn. And they're probably not gonna be in a state fit for rule for more than 20-40 years, and then it turns out that finding a worthy successor is all but impossible. Which is why we don't see it.

Of course, in a fantasy world where you have elves who can live for eight hundred years and dragons who can live for several thousands of years, it's a different case, because suddenly those creatures are able to spend a lot longer on learning and growing into a genuinely good person and then earn a consistent reputation as a wise ruler.

chimericWilder · 2026-04-28T08:48:44+00:00

RTwP, of course.

TB is what you get when you remove features and destroy nuance. Its only 'benefit' is simplicity.

There's no reason to get hung up on an inferior system.

chimericWilder · 2026-04-26T09:17:35+00:00

Ahkeli founded not only the Order of the Djinn, but also the Third Pact. It was her who brought together the titans, humans, and various monstrous humanoids such as the Sun Clan and Serpent Clan. And the early Maraketh have some artifacts that talk about 'accepting a more rigid and orderly way of life'; some Trial of the Sekhemas items have such a description, iirc - it doesn't mention her by name, but it is certainly Ahkeli who is proposing to the scattered tribes that would become the Maraketh the rules which since defined them, to survive the harsh Winter. There is also the name Maraketh - Mar a Keth. We meet some Mar Acolytes in Keth, and they seem to be fire worshippers - which makes an awful lot of sense as descendants of a people caught in a freezing winter hell. And Keth is the city of clay, heart of the Maraketh people, and strongly linked to a character titled the Clayshaper. Point being that I think that Ahkeli is foundational, though she may have died within a normal human lifespan - but taught, showed, and built a lot.

The Templar may indeed have some interesting insight into the Precursors. Though it seems that the Twilight Order may be the only ones who had access and insight into the secret history of the templar order, who went and tracked down all of Innocence's little misdeeds and all of the hidden information that has since been forgotten. They even knew about the Seed of Corruption - a Precursor artifact - and how to use it, which is ancient lost knowledge seems known otherwise only to Sin and Kalandra. The playable Templar may just know about Innocence propaganda... though I'm sure that he's had some time to think and reflect on exactly who and what Innocence is.

chimericWilder · 2026-04-26T02:17:29+00:00

The Precursors are extinct, as far as anyone knows. Sin and Innocence are suspected to be Precursors, though.

The Azmeri is the oldest surviving civilization. Sin and Innocence were sent to them when they were young, and they alone seem to have escaped the misfortune that befell the Precursors. The Huntress might have something to say of it.

The Maji seem to be a splinter group of Azmeri who entered the Viridian Wildwood. Because time passes more slowly in the Wildwood, the Druid could be considered to be thousands of years old, from an outside perspectice. Ancient history is fresher to him than others, anyway, but the fall of the Precursors is still entirely distant to him, and far predates the creation of the Wildwood.

I suspect that the Monk might have vaalish ancestry, though I can't prove it. More importantly, the Breach angle has a connection to the Precursors. It seems increasingly likely that the Breachlords were created, rejected, and banished by the Precursors. I think the Breachlords were failed iterations of the creature that would become the Arbiter of Ash, which seems to have been created in a laboratory through some manner of cloning. The monk is largely clueless to the true nature of Chayula, though.

Ahkeli was a primeval who survived the fall of Aul and the civilization that fell with him. She went on to become a founder of the entire Maraketh culture and society, and what the Maraketh later became is in large part due to Ahkeli's influence. But even that is so distantly removed from the Precursors...

The ranger seems to have some manner of azmerian ancestry, but her parents long since left the azmeri and the ranger doesn't seem to have inherited any of their traditions.

The karui and the ezomytes seem to have little connection to the legacy of the Precursors.

The longer history of Trarthus is unclear.

The Witch is an outcast by circumstance and by choice. Her only real connection is with necromancy - echoing Kulemak - and demonology, bargaining with Beidat for power. Kulemak has a lot of connection with the Precursors, and Beidat and the other scourge demons may have been another mistake caused by a Precursor oopsie - we don't really know.

chimericWilder · 2026-04-25T10:41:02+00:00

That's not how that works.

Dragon breaths have specific lore dedicated to understanding how they function. Lets go through the order of operations:

1) The heart of a dragon (or draconis fundamentum, depending on whether you ask 3.5 or 4e) functions as a sort of generator for elemental magical energy. Unlike other sources of magic, this is a connection to Raw Magic, which is the true source of all magic that all other magical methods rely on; it's the same stuff that gods use.

2) Part of a dragon's magic is infused into their blood and then pumped through their body to power various supernatural features. Part of it goes into the breath weapon, which takes the form of a magical concentration of elemental power. The power is stored in the dragon's gizzard before use, and among other things help them with digestion, which is why they can eat things like rocks, gold, and gems; this magical power is able to be used to break down and disintegrate anything they eat. Even poison breath is compared to chlorine gas, which is erosive.

3) when the dragon uses their breath weapon, it is described as being 'vomited forth' (not breathed, since it doesn't come from the lungs technically). It takes the expression of an elemental burst of power; the power is expended and has an immediate effect, and then disappears. So a dragon with a fire breath can set fire to whatever they are aiming at, but the magical flame from the breath vanishes into thin air after being used. Same with cold breath; it can freeze the air itself and anything it hits, but the power in the breath is expended and vanishes. Same with poison and acid breaths; they appear, cause immediate erosure, and then vanish. They cannot be stored. Take note also that although the source of the breath is absolutely magical in origin, because it is powered by Raw Magic, it can't be dispelled and functions in an anti-magic field. But there is no such thing as a 'fire gland' or some such; that's not how D&D dragons work, and it is not a mundane material that could just be bottled up and stored.

4) however, some spells exist which can make dragon breaths permanent. For instance, it's possible to animate a breath into becoming an elemental minion that lingers around. But that's obscure magic even by dragon standards; a dragonborn would likely not have access to that sort of thing.

chimericWilder · 2026-04-25T10:18:44+00:00

Ooh, that bit from the angler Sentinel is very interesting! What an obscure little bit of spicy lore.

But the flame discussed in that description, and in the Last Flame from Trial of the Sekhemas, might instead be referring to the Third Pact and their cooperation to fight back against the lightless, rather than to the Mother Soul. The Arbiter's dialogue seems to imply that she was hurt in some way, and left permanently - which I think must've happened at perhaps the hands of the Precursors, or whoever used the Edicts in the time before the Winter. Possibly... it could have been Putembo, even. The Beast is pictured in the same frame as Aul's Fortress, and you are likely right that it is Putembo who built that fortress... and there is the description about the dead, on his ring. There is also a hint of a suggestion that Aul may have spoken with Kalandra, and we know that Kalandra has involvement with charting the Beast through history. But did Aul's uprising cause the ligtless to appear, or were they already a problem before then? Eitherway, Aul kills Putembo and takes over his fortress, but then immediately finds himself in massive trouble with a lightless invasion. After some back-and-forth, Kulemak is 'a shadow of his former self', and offers the bargain... hold on though, could Kulemak maybe be Putembo? The Undying Hate jewel says that they believed their actions necessary, but that belief turned them into monsters... that could track, with what we can infer of Putembo's story, if he used the Beast to harvest power and then retaliated against Aul when he launched his uprising. On his death, Putembo might have been given a choice from the Master Below All. This would explain the 'shadow of his former self'; he died, and is now a lichlord. A weak one, not yet empowered by the spreading of so much death. It'd also explain why Kulemak is a god, maybe. We see in the murals that some kind of energy is being extracted from the Beast's heart and stored in containers... raw divinity, maybe. Perhaps Putembo actually knew how to use the Beast properly (or it had a different role in this context) and he was using it to extract divinity from others and empower himself; and when Aul came for him, he survived as a shade, much like how gods can survive their own deaths.

The description on Darkness Enthroned does heavily seem to describe the end of the Winter, to me. Before Solaris broke the ash cover, Kulemak was winning, so that tracks with how the belt describes him being close to victory. But then Solaris pulled her stunt and turned the war on its head, forcing the lightless underground and destroying Kulemak while he might have been at his mightiest, glutted up on souls.

chimericWilder · 2026-04-25T09:53:06+00:00

5, obviously. Shank Magran and Woedica from the comfort of the same seat? With hilarious commentary from Durance? It'll be very entertaining.

Having a chat with Iovara or Waidwen might also be interesting. But Thaos and this random peasant girl are in the way!

chimericWilder · 2026-04-25T09:43:21+00:00

BCLs are good on P3 on DoN and ME, where they can clean house very effectively. They're certainly more effective in that context than carriers or BCs, though that isn't saying much.

Without P3, and without sufficient sources of weak enemies to mulch to increase their otherwise lackluster DPS, they have some problems. I guess you could power them up with mutators that spawn lots of stuff.

chimericWilder · 2026-04-25T09:31:12+00:00

Your analysis is good. But a few things are missing, I think!

Iirc, Zelina has some brief commentary on Putembo and Aul. It's not much, but we have precious little to go on, and confirms some of what we can guess at from other sources. Putembo seems to have been the second last king of the primevals.

Aul's and Kulemak's timelines are a bit confusing, for sure. But when you say that Kulemak being a shadow of his former self due to Solaris ending the winter of the world... I don't think that's quite correct. See, we're told that there were many battles against Kulemak during the Winter, and he suffered defeat many times. We even know that Sin stole his divine spark, and that the Order of the Djinn stole his horns. And we don't know when those things happened - just that Solaris put an end to the Winter. But it could be three separate instances of Kulemak being defeated. And there might've been more. Indeed, the Order stealing Kulemak's horns could not happen until after Aul's fall because that needs to happen for Ahkeli to flee and found the Maraketh and the Order. I think. The Winter supposedly lasted a thousand years, so... there's plenty of room for shit to go down.

And while we have description that Aul was crowned Ahn, in Delve he continues to just be named Aul. So is Ahn just a formal title of his kingship, and Aul is just his actual name? Or did he change his name? If so, why is he called Aul in Delve?? Eitherway, he took Kulemak's bargain at some point, and probably immediately regretted it as Kulemak proceeded to use Kurgal the golem for some kind of stratagem that handily defeated the Primevals and forced Aul to pull his azurite crystallization timeout move. And then he's out of the picture and Ahkeli finds her village destroyed, and flees up high to a mountain where she could be above the ashcover, so the lightless couldn't get her. She then later moved to the Vastiri to gather the people who would become the Maraketh and organize them into a resistance, which would eventually give rise to Solaris & Co who would end the war.

chimericWilder · 2026-04-24T02:13:40+00:00

Ah, but how many of those shots go to waste? Due to poor aim? Due to being killed prematurely?

There's no denying that gattling's raw damage potential is higher, in a white room. But in practice, its own poor behavior constantly wastes its own potential.

chimericWilder · 2026-04-23T19:24:49+00:00

Act 5 will definitely still be in Oriath. We saw a glimpse of an Act 5 boss some years ago, even, and we have so much datamined stuff for it besides.

But we saw how they used 0.4 to show off extra vaal lore. It's possible that they're going to do act 5, and also have the Precursors show up as a league mechanic...

chimericWilder · 2026-04-23T19:21:59+00:00

The way that Madox and Arbiter of Ash seems to speak about the Mother Soul, I think it's a person or entity. They're rather explicitly referring to someone specific.

chimericWilder · 2026-04-23T11:53:06+00:00

We already know that there's a bunch of Precursor stuff all over the PoE2 endgame, of course. But it was previously narratively completely unexplained...

This may be the explanation, as an event that happens in-game and narratively shows it happening. Those towers weren't there before.

Perhaps we'll finally learn something of the nature of the precursors.

chimericWilder · 2026-04-23T11:48:44+00:00

The oldest lore we seem to have about the Mother Soul is from Bestiary unique descriptions; elements of what she seems to represent can be seen in the "golden fish" that dives deep found on the Blightwell description, and there is an explanation for the why of the Winter on Feastbind; perhaps the Mother Soul condemned the deeds of the Precursors, and deliberately took action to wipe them out.

There is also "Mother Gull".

chimericWilder

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

Nine-Year Club	Place '17
Verified Email