Kurak is a time traveller - Theory

Conan Exiles General Discussion Creative Corner
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As with all my posts, this will recieve ongoing edits as I flesh it out. Enjoy.

I am under the belief that Kurak is a time traveller. In this thread I will detail why I think this, how he’s done it, where/when he came from, and most importantly - his plans.

MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE THREAD

Come back later if you have yet to finish the new dungeon

Chapter One: A New Sorcery

To start this thread off, I’m going to start at the beginning of the Age, and chronicle forwards. Given the complexity of today’s topic; there will still be jumping around in time, but I will try to minimize that as much as I can. This will also act as a sort of “recap” for everyone.

The age begins with chaos; tendrils in the sky bridging our world with Yuggoth. Sorcerers summoning demons from the Dreamlands. The serpent-men attempting to rebuild their cult.

Through the chaos and at the heart of it all, an invitation; a whisper. Kurak. The one who subverted the bracelets, and found a way to wield powers long thought to be suppressed.

So the groundwork of the mystery is laid; who is Kurak and how has he done this? What is the source of his power?

My original theory which is now proven to be true is Nyarlathotep. He is the only god who is affiliated with sorcerers, Mi-Go, and serpent-men. In fact, we know with absolute certainty the visuals used in Portal to Yuggoth were borrowed assets from Nyarlathotep himself during the early days of Isle of Siptah. The cut and later re-added then re-cut Blowback event as well mirrors this, acting as a sort of reverse controlled wild Surge, invoking a being from the Dreamlands once again at the end.

But the question still lingered; why, and what was Kurak’s part in all this?

Chapter Two: The Hunt

Sharing in our line of thinking comes an old friend, Mek-Kamoses. For years, an exile like us; trapped and searching for an escape. Once a powerful sorcerer as well, his powers were sapped and stolen by the bracelet.

He has made contact with a group of exiles, the Khitan, to ally with and gain their freedom by taking power from Kurak.

How does Kurak have power to wield, while Mek-Kamoses has none? The question lingers, and we are rewarded for bringing the remains of Kurak’s acolytes alive or dead to him for study.

Overall, this chapter doesn’t really explain anything from the first one, but it acts as a solid progression of the narrative. The conflict rises, and sets up the next chapter perfectly.

Chapter 3: Answers & More Questions

This is the best chapter from a narrative standpoint. Mek-Kamoses has cracked the secrets of obtaining Kurak’s sorceries; and utilizes them to his own gain.

The secret lies within the blood stones, remnants of the Giant-Kings’ power wielded and shaped into new forms. This allows the lesser races to harness a fraction of their power.

But Kurak is above that.

In the battlepass artwork, we see Kurak walking with the Black Pharaoh, one of the most powerful avatars of Nyarlathotep. We’ve seen this avatar before, the orb outside the Tower on the Isle of Siptah reveals him and his involvement in the story for that map.

This avatar also is the one who inducts people into signing the Book of Azathoth, an immensely powerful and otherworldly tome.

The Book of Azathoth

When we finally battle Kurak, he tells us he’s removed his name from the Book of Life and added it to the Book of Azathoth. Killing him is exactly what he needed to complete the transformation; and in his death he is reborn immortal, a servant in the court of Azathoth.

The Book of Azathoh is a mysterious tome, presumably older than time itself. Signing the book pledges the signer to Nyarlathotep, and they take on a new name and identity. To complete the pact, death is needed, such as the witch Keziah Mason burning at the stake so that Nahab could live eternal.

Even before death, the book and Nyarlathotep grant immeasurable power. One who has signed can traverse time and space within their dreams, moving their bodies alongside their consciousness in this traversal.

This is the means of how Kurak is a time traveller, but how do I know he is in fact from the past? Do I know specifically when he is from?

Kurak

Yes. Kurak is a true Serpent-Man, from before the degeneration and devolution of his kind. He appears as a man, and only in death does his true form show. This ability to masquerade as a man is an ancient magic the serpent-men of the Thurian Age held, lost with their destruction at the hands of King Kull of Atlantis.

In the closing years of the Thurian Age, the serpent-men of Valusia were exposed, having been hidden among Valusian society for thousands of years in secret, scheming in disguise and replacing prominent individuals with disguised members of their own kind.

Driven out and purged as the united fury of mankind sparked the second uprising against them, the serpent-men fled into hiding.

One of these hidden away remnants dwelled in the Well of Skelos, refugees seeking shelter in the land of the Giant-Kings. Kurak was among this group, as he wears the bracelet. The bracelet was initially made to allow communication easier, and traversal using the map room system.

When the Giant-Kings allowed mankind to shelter in their lands after the sinking of Lemuria, Kurak was sent to live among them as a spy. For a time, humanity did not know their age old enemy lived in the volcano, but this discovery sparked the war, the activation of the death weave, and the inevitable destruction of the Giant-Kings.

With the death weave in place, Kurak’s bracelet became a shackle as it did for all mankind. Trapped, he made a pact with Nyarlathotep, who would become not only his jailer but also his new master.

His powers limited, Nyarlathotep imparted to him a new magic, wisdom from the Book of Azathoth. This allowed him to regain sorcerous powers while still held by the bracelet. Seeking a way out, Kurak attempted to escape via the dream travel, but as his power and his cage are both Nyarlathotep, he was unable to escape. His only option was to go forward, to a time when the stars and the moon are right.

Preparations were made, Kurak awoke months before the ritual was to take place. Still in the disguise of a man, he wrote the Tome of Kurak and imparted some of his knowledge on to others, building a following that he could manipulate into serving him for the promise of freedom.

With the counsel of his master, Kurak knew of his own impending death and knew it was necessary to escape, his immortal ghost would be able to escape the prison.

Our arrival was foreseen, his tome an invitation and a gift to us for our hand in all this. Under the eclipse, the servant of the Moonbeam Messenger sheds his mortal body destroying what is left within, freeing his soul without.

The Age of Sorcery may be drawing to a close, but this is far from the end of the story. Kurak will return, and most certainly his master is only beginning to lay greater events into motion. The death of Kurak is not the end, but rather the beginning; the beginning of a new Age.

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I’ll edit the main post when I have more time, but for citations outside of the in-game lore resources, the biggest one is HP Lovecraft’s Dreams in the Witch House; where the Book of Azathoth is first mentioned. Highly recommend reading for everyone

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Interesting read. However, would “survivor from the Thurian age” not be a better description?

I mean, we all “travel” in time, i. e. slowly forward. But we usually associate some unnatural jumping around when calling somebody a time traveller.

A Thurian age survivor, he may be, though. Or a rare non-degenerate descendant. Maybe, we’ll learn that there are more and stronger survivors of the Serpentpeople than we have seen so far?

There is a weird connection to the old animated TV Conan show btw.: The serpentmen of that show were vulnerable to Starmetal. Serpentman Kurak’s golems are so, too.

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@Jimbo 's head will explode when he realizes talking tiny phoenix’s are lore friendly.

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The show isn’t canon just because the game has star metal. Conan the “stealing is wrong” adventurer is not in any way accurate to the true canon.

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He just has a very complex persona…

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Not necessarily. I don’t know that Kurak was around before the Cataclysm. If anything, the bracelet and human disguise suggest the opposite, and I can’t just assume he was already old enough to have been there. Centuries passed between the Cataclysm and the giant-king war.

He didn’t travel “slowly” forward. He physically took his body and moved it forward in time, it’s not like he just slept for a few millenia.

There’s less evidence to support that than what I’m suggesting. If anything, the fate of the serpent-men on both maps pretty much contradict that idea entirely.

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What about the other non-animated show with the old crazy guy who kept throwing his jewelry in a pot that some skeleton dude was taking a bath in?

I bet that one’s canon!!! I mean look at that female “armor” on the cover… it’s like it was taken straight out of the battle-pass :smiley:

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However, he knew that he had actually become a somnambulist; for twice at night his room had been found vacant, though with all his clothing in place.

Still too dazed to cry out, he plunged recklessly down the noisome staircase and into the mud outside; halting only when seized and choked by the waiting black man. As consciousness departed he heard the faint, shrill tittering of the fanged, rat-like abnormality.
On the morning of the 29th Gilman awaked into a maelstrom of horror. The instant he opened his eyes he knew something was terribly wrong, for he was back in his old garret room with the slanting wall and ceiling, sprawled on the now unmade bed. His throat was aching inexplicably, and as he struggled to a sitting posture he saw with growing fright that his feet and pajama-bottoms were brown with caked mud.

His right hand fell on one of the projecting figures, the touch seeming to steady him slightly. It was too much, however, for the exotic delicacy of the metal-work, and the spiky figure snapped off under his grasp. Still half-dazed, he continued to clutch it as his other hand seized a vacant space on the smooth railing.
…
At once he saw there was something on the table which did not belong there, and a second look left no room for doubt. Lying on its side—for it could not stand up alone—was the exotic spiky figure which in his monstrous dream he had broken off the fantastic balustrade. No detail was missing. The ridged, barrel-shaped centre, the thin, radiating arms, the knobs at each end, and the flat, slightly outward-curving starfish-arms spreading from those knobs—all were there.

- Dreams in the Witch House, HP Lovecraft

To clarify; Kurak didn’t just ‘sleep’ for a few thousand years. One moment he was in his original time, and another he is in the future. He was nowhere in between. Vacant from our reality, when he began his dream traversal his body moved along with his consciousness.

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That’s a lot of reading. I can’t see it very well till I get my new glasses. I wish someone would sum up.

Thinking about it however I don’t think he is a time traveler for one simplistic reason. He was a time traveler he would find a way to subvert or derail his own demise or any sense of the word harm.

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There’s plenty of free text to speech programs out there, I’d suggest checking one out and putting my thread into it.

Kurak’s death was planned and intentional, I cover that in my thread. The only way he could escape the Exiled Lands was with death, and it’s only made him stronger.

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Oh okay thank you for the sum up. Well if it makes sense I ain’t touching it. If you got it covered and squared away then you got it. No arguments here then.

However what’s the difference in that form of transitioning then trying to jump parallel dimensions or alternate realities? Not really time traveling but rather a divergent. That’s something I know a lot about but that’s not something I’m willing to get into here. Actually I’d rather not talk about it too much. But cool thank you for the notion I’m sure it’s probably a really good read as most things are when they put a lot of heart and soul into a thing.

As for getting a speech to text or text to speech thing which one ever you said I’m going to have to wait till I get a new phone for that cuz this phone’s acting a bit janky. It keeps telling me the memory is full. And I used to have a LG quantum and I could put 20 times as much at least on that phone in fact I’ve tried to fill it up and I never could. So this one here you save a picture I have a text then you get a warning of the memories full. I think someone may have hacked it at some point. but I have to have a good talk with Patriot mobile and I’ll probably do that Monday. Decent company but with limitations because they are small company trying to do the right thing with what little they got to work with and I would rather have that than the luxury and the lack of integrity of another company.

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The Exiled Lands are a prison, powered by Nyarlathotep. Kurak’s ability to travel across space and time also comes from Nyarlathotep, and given he can’t escape by traveling across distance likely means the prison is stronger than the travel.

The Exiled Lands themselves are in an alternate dimension already as is, existing in connection to the Dreamlands, a domain Nyarlathotep has significant power within. This fact also would be a factor in blocking his ability to escape

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Why the prison in the first place? Why a bunch of random exiles in the first place? Honest and genuine questions.

I saw all the older and original Conan movies and I don’t see how that ties into exiles at all or maybe I’m missing something. Of course I had to deal with real life and work and whatnot so I may have missed a lot throughout the years.

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The lore that’s available in the game.

You learn bits and pieces by reading random journals and notes / item descriptions and most of all interacting with tablets that will playback old “voice recordings” presenting each notable landmark to the player - or rather what it used to be like in the time of the Giant-Kings, before they got wiped out.

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That’s an entire other thread of equal length to explain. But to summarize, the giant kings and humans were once friends and the bracelet allowed for communication between them. War broke out, and the giant kings turned the bracelets into a trap, anyone who wears one cannot ever leave their domain.

It doesn’t. None of the movies are canon, the game is based on the original books from the 1930’s.

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So you mean like in the original book there was this mention of dream space that Conan had to deal with? Because I don’t ever remember that like at all. But then again that’s been a well, longer than most people live nowadays.

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Depends on which books you read. Conan Exiles pulls from more than just the core Robert E Howard stories. All of HP Lovecraft’s works are also canon, as is much of the works of Clark Ashton Smith, namely his Hyperborean Cycle and contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos; plus many other later authors who expanded the worlds of both Howard and Lovecraft

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Perhaps most importantly, Dagon’s avatar in the Sunken City. He makes it pretty explicit that the Exiled Lands are an alternate plane outside of space and time.

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Oh yes :slight_smile: we have a picture of him… it’s a bit of a headshot portrait thou…

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