These swirling portals in The Temple of Frost

Conan Exiles General Discussion Players Helping Players
21

Interesting idea.

So far, I assumed that the giant-kings built their kingdom first, and accepted the serpentpeople later as refuges, just as they accepted the Lemurians long after.

But let’s investigate this.

The serpentpeople are a very ancient race. We do not know if the giant-kings are an even older race; both is possible.

The giant-kings are followers of Set, just as the serpentpeople (see below). Would make sense if they’re related, and be consistent with the serpentpeople being their progenitor race.

The serpentpeople did try to breed with non-serpentpeople. The game only talks about couplings with reptilians, but who knows, may be possible.

The serpentpeople live right next to the frost-giants. The serpentpeople probably wouldn’t like the icefields the frost giants inhabit and vice versa, but hey, people accept a lot of hardship for some snu-snu, especially with a sexy frost giant or an unusually, uhm, flexible serpentperson.

The Staff of the Triumvirate says something about their relationship:
" Though they would never admit it when I dwelt among them, they had the Serpent Ring of Set, stolen from my peo… the serpent people who went extinct thousands of years ago."
That would also fit with the serpentpeople being older, the original followers of Set and maybe the cultural and biological ancestors.

The description of the Shining Trapezohedron, howerver, goes against that:
"Perhaps fleeing their genocide at the hands of the legendary Kull of Atlantis, they made their way to the Exiled Lands where they befriended the Giant-kings through worship of their deity, Set. In return they were allowed to live in the Caldera of the volcano and build their cities there. "
This assumes that the giant-kings already lived in this land before the serpentpeople fled there. It’s a speculation, but…

… the Isle of Siptah strongly supports that. On of the vault lorestones says:
“But then Others of our kind made contact from the mainland. They had made a pact for safety and secrecy–hidden beneath a volcano in the lands of the Giant-kings. They had birthed a crèche of young.”
It is still possible that the giant-kings somehow are descendants of the serpentpeople, but at least they claimed the Exiled Lands before the serpentpeople came. Else, they wouldn’t refer to the lands as being the giant-kings’.

So… I’d not support that theory, at least not without further evidence.

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22

There’s a Giant-king lorestone west of the Temple of Frost on a high peak that mentions a “clashing of sorceries” in some distant time. I believe the Disjunction is the direct consequence of that “clash” and is the source of the magic that has removed the Exiled Lands from both space and time, likely because it was accidentally confined after the Ghostfence was activated - thus separating the EL from the rest of the world physically and metaphysically.

I think it’s also the cause of all the unusual and unnatural phenomena that occurs in the EL; the undead wandering the land, the presence of avatars, etc.

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23

Conan is the only human in the Exiled Lands who entered willingly and has no slave bracelet. He doesn’t seem to be fully aware of the artificial nature of the Exiled Lands, but does seem to be very suspicious of it. Conan is an interloper here and is not bound to the same conditions that the rest of us are. While he was never crucified in the desert like we were, after flirting with all of the girls, he will freely leave the Exiled Lands again to go to Khauran and be crucified by Salome and Constantius instead.

It is, that is pretty direct, but

probably not.

I do not think the Disjunction played that significant of a role. I think the Exiled Lands were already an alternate dimension before the Disjunction.

Some of the undead are not all the way dead. The Silent Legion and Tyros are actually still alive, cursed through the power of the Diadem of the Giant-Kings with eternal life that does not preserve their bodies.

The rest of the undead are more likely just the results of plain old ordinary necromancy. The Giant-Kings had a lot of difficulty maintaining their army against the humans, so it would be a natural conclusion to raise the dead to keep on fighting.

The avatars are a different matter. If Nyarlathotep is behind everything, then the avatars are all probably just his own creations.

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24

Yes, but if we are a dream. And if exile lands is a dream, an illusion, then how Conan is entering physically? So either Conan is a dream too, either these lands really exist physically. Yet the dimensions that we see might fit in a handful, but they physically exist.

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25

Keep in mind that within the universe of Conan and Lovecraft, dreams are physical. All of the universe is the dream of Azathoth, and the Dreamlands are a physical world that people can enter through their dreams.

However, I am not sure the Exiled Lands are a dream, I think that is just the way the Outcast interprets it. I think the Exiled Lands are simply an artificially-created pocket dimension.

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26

Thank you . This is the only thing that makes sense to me too.

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27

Recently I got around to finishing the Sunken City and there was one line Dagon said that more or less confirmed this isn’t a real place in Hyboria (like The Outcast suggested). He (it?) said, that after the Lemurian Remnant managed to bind him, he reached out to a “place beyond places, the land of Exiles”.

Maybe it’s a part of Dreamlands? Nyarlathotep is said to be quite active in that realm and he certainly is VERY active in The Exiled Lands (poor Kurak).

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29

In the novels Conan entered many extradimensional places, so this one wouldn’t be out of place, especially that he’s said to be backed by certain gods, who want the humanity to survive.

I absolutely love all these lore answers from you, folks.

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30

Kurak got exactly what he wanted. The players are completely manipulated by him from the start, guiding them to his tome, giving them a sample of his power, using Mek-Kamoses to lead them into his lair. After he signed his name in the Book of Azathoth, his physical body was only holding him back. Killing him was merely releasing him into a higher state of being.

Kurak’s death was not the ending of his machinations, but only the beginning.

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31

[quote=“Nestorian, post:27, topic:243015”]
Recently I got around to finishing the Sunken City and there was one line Dagon said that more or less confirmed this isn’t a real place in Hyboria (like The Outcast suggested). He (it?) said, that after the Lemurian Remnant managed to bind him, he reached out to a “place beyond places, the land of Exiles”.[/quote]

That is a hint, but not proof, in my view:

  1. Dagon is not a reliable source. He’s an Outer God and as crazy and deceptive as the rest of 'em. Their reality and perception is so different from ours, that he may see the bakery around the corner as a place beyond places.

  2. Dagon’s words don’t have to be meant in a supernatural way. Taken literally, the pizza place behind the shoe store behind the food shop is a “place behind places”. The Exiled Lands are a desolate, nearly unknown place probably in some far-off corner of the world. Someone might call that “a place behind places” without wanting to convey andything supernatural at all.
    For Dagon, an extraplanar creature, distance and what constitutes a place can be very different. Our reality or even dry land is to him, I assume, a very distant place. A walled-off corner of that very distant place may be a “place behind places” for him.

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32

I could swear I saw the in-game connection about frost giants and giant kings being distant kin, but for the life of me I can’t remember it right now.

I just discovered something interesting. The Disjunction giant king lorestone says:

North of here, Bounded One, is a valley.
Do not approach this place too closely.
There was a clashing of sorceries here in the past and it created a… disjunction.
Belief can be a powerful tool that shapes the will.
In this place, belief can shape the world.
If enough believe it to be so, the gods themselves can manifest.
This is too much for mortal minds to handle.
Stay away from the disjunction, child of the bracelet.
Stay safe and serve another day.

Hrungnir of the Frost hated “thinking” and almost killed The Outcast for it. Maybe he knew that thinking the wrong ideas around the Temple of Frost would end up badly for everyone in.

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33

Interesting idea.

Maybe things are the other way round? Maybe the chieftain send him away to prevent the Outcasts delusions* from becoming real?

*Delusions from the viewpoint of the chieftain. The Outcast may even be correct, but still, the chieftain might have cast him out because of his deviant thoughts.

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34

Exactly what I thought. Then again, why would an idiot like Hrungnir know something like that?

Unless the notion of “it does not think or it gets the mace to the brain again” has been put in his head by some other supernatural agency, intent on preserving the status quo of the Exiled Lands (some Outer Dark entity? The Serpentmen? Nyarlathotep?).

35

Well, is Hrungnir that stupid? The frost-giants seem stupid. Big, brutish guys that don’t seem to talk.

But they can

  • use fire,
  • craft items,
  • have division of labor,
  • have posted guards in a more or less useful way to guard against attackers,
  • have either created or at least read the runestone that teaches frost forging,
  • seem to use magic to craft their weapons and
  • mayyyyybe caught that frost dragon benath the ice forge.

I’d say their intelligence is at least similar to humans, and their minds or culture may be alien, but even superior.

So, is Hrungnir stupid? Maybe. Maybe not. And even if he’s stupid, he may still know about the reality-bending nature of that place.

To post really wild theory:

The frost-giants were pretty smart. But The Outcast believed them to be stupid, and they actually became stupid, grunting beasts.

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36

That was written on the wiki (until I deleted it) and you may have seen it there, but I am quite certain it was just made up.

While it is possible Atali is different from her brothers mentally in the same way that she differs from them physically, the fact that they played a role in her ambush against Conan seems to indicate that they are not stupid.

They can talk, as proven by The Outcast. He also speaks of the insults the others of his kind called him, which proves his ability to speak is not unique. They just have nothing to say.

It’d say not. Just opposed to what The Outcast has to say. He did say that his “kin found my philosophizing tedious.” Tedious seems to imply that it took time for them to become so intolerant of it as to toss him out.

His description, “Hrugnir was a creature of instinct. He existed in the immediate present. Battle and blood and the steam rising off a slain enemy - these were all he valued” sounds like it could just as well describe Conan himself, who was quite intelligent.

I do not think the magic there is that powerful. The lorestone says, “If enough believe it to be so,” which indicates that it takes a collective will to cause change, not the random ideas of a single individual.

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37

Very possible. :slight_smile:

38

The Wiki is like the Disjunction, you write something there and it becomes real.

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39

A very real place on the map of Hyborian Age. Allocated from the possessions of a very specific king for completely earthly purposes. Where bands of neighboring tribes go to purge and where Stygia is now sending his armies.

40

What bothers me is the inconsistency of the place. Sure, there are strong signs that the place is physical and exists in reality - but at the same time, it’s a pretty small place with a crazy variety in climates. The Sandstorm isn’t the only unnatural natural phenomenon going around.

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41

So, initially there was no climate diversity. There was one hot climate. Zones added later are at the discretion of the developers.

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