Stath MIA on 4/5/2009 at 02:17
In all of Thief Deadly Shadows there were only two levels which, to me, lived up to the classic Thief experience, these were the Cradle and the Sunken Citadel. As the title implies, we will be talking about the latter. To get the ball rolling, the Kurshok's society seems quite self-sufficient while simultaneously being heavily cut off. Thus arises the question of how they survived for so long without a stable supply of food without stumbling onto the City. And inversely, how on earth did the City's denizens fail to stumble upon it sooner?
jtr7 on 4/5/2009 at 02:48
Sadly, one of the casualties of unswimmable water was the loss of pools, a waterfall, and fish in the Sunken Citadel. The Diamond Lights and inexhaustible Blue Flames would provide the light and heat they'd need in place of the sun.
Quote:
DUNKurshokCaveCrystal_001000, m06c0501: "(Click) Where you go?"
DUNKurshokCaveCrystal_002000, m06c0502: "(Click, click) Rest me."
DUNKurshokCaveCrystal_003000, m06c0503: "Go you crystal cave?"
DUNKurshokCaveCrystal_004000, m06c0504: "Yes...light...renew (click) rest."
DUNKurshokCaveCrystal_005000, m06c0505: "Yes...diamond light. (Click, click) Kurshok like."
DUNKurshokCaveCrystal_006000, m06c0506: "Diamond light. Good for Kurshok."
They battle the Rat Beasts often enough, and sometimes the Pagans as they try to retrieve The Crown back for their Woodsie Lord. No mention of Kurshok eating Rat Beast flesh or the flesh of the Pink Ones, though their huge predatory teeth suggest some meaty diet (missing fish?). The Woodsie Lord has banished them without killing them, and seems to have imprisoned them with Rat Beasts as guards and population control.
A-Ha! If these are even used in-game (Kurshok 1 says no such things):
ku2_cini2: "I cut you and feed you to hatchling!"
ku2_ckil1: "I feed you to hatchlings!"
ku2_csur2: "I cut you and feed you to hatchling!"
If the Rat Beasts and Pink Ones kill the Kurshok young, they would not live long enough to hear their histories:
ku2_idle1: "Count the hatchlings, (click click click). Count one for the molting, until the growth. (Click). Count two for the hungry child. (Click click).
Count three to learn the telling."
ku2_idle2: "Count the long longago, the burrows, the hatchlings. (Click click). Count each life, so many to count. Count the now, count the empty."
ku2_idle3: "The wise ones tell, the light and the air. (Click click) The telling is no sense. How can the light sit on nothing?"
ku2_idle4: "The hatchlings, they grow so slow. (Click click click) They eat so small. Not enough."
Stath MIA on 5/5/2009 at 02:12
Have you memorized every quote:cheeky:? Indeed, swimmable water would have greatly improved all attributes of DS, oh how I longed for the freedom to hide from the city watch underwater or blissfully lure them over the edge to watch them drown screaming curses at me all the way (having them just vanish wasn't nearly as satisfying). So, maybe the Pagans had the Kurshok pinned down the whole time? That would explain why they never wandered to the surface and why surface dwellers never stumbled in on them, but still at some point you'd think the city watch might think to investigate the little tunnel which people kept vanishing into. I really wonder what the watch thought when they captured that Kurshok guy? It's not every day you discover a new sentient species (well, it might be more commonplace in the City than it is in our world).
jtr7 on 5/5/2009 at 02:48
With Crayman-, Cobrabeast-, and Burrick-head trophies in many rich folks' homes, Gruvat may have been a mere curiosity. There were rumours about the "Giant Rats" and that may have been enough to convince people not to stir a potential hornets' nest, having no clue what lay beyond the Rat Beast caves. Although...the Pagans have made it all the way in, and they may also have a role in keeping Cityheads out.
Now, with Garrett and the Pagans stealing the Diamond lights, the race would die off, but if Gruvat made it back alive and was able to convince just enough of his fellows to just look with him at the upside-world, they could make the decision, each one, to try to reclaim their place back on the seas, and live outside The City up the coast, or stay behind and die in the only real home they've ever known. So there's hope for them. Maybe they could come back, remember Garrett's "kindness", and come in handy, forgiving him as the Hammers and Pagans did more than once for the ultimate good he brought.
Looking through the maps, there are no eating utensils, plates, or bowls. It makes sense if they just speared fish with their (unimplemented) tridents and gulped the fish down. There are huge vessels and containers, with unknown contents, not including the ones that are obviously for holding liquid. I was looking to see if there were mushrooms or other signs of plant life (of course not, but glowing mushrooms would've been appropriate in the game), and all that remains are broken tree roots coming through the ceilings, hanging off of staircases, and on the floors (especially in areas patrolled by Rat Beasts and Pagans). Keeper Rafe wished he could eat and drink Glyphs.
Stath MIA on 5/5/2009 at 03:11
I wonder how the City would receive the Kurshok if they made it to the surface, I bet they would probably just be massacred. What a tragedy that would be. But maybe they could manage to make a run for the ocean where they could miraculously swim to safety. That would be an interesting way to go for Thief 4.
jtr7 on 5/5/2009 at 03:19
If they could come up out of the entrance from Docks, they might find the ocean to their liking (if only they had pools of ocean water in the Citadel to keep them acclimated), and after Gruvat's experiences, they could just skip introductions with the City Watch. The ocean predators and hatchlings would be their biggest concern, though they might have to shed their armor first.
CEEtheDinoman on 10/5/2009 at 00:20
I've always found it interesting how both the Sunken Citadel and the Lost City were beneath the City, and both had to be near the water (The Cetus Amicus for the Lost City and the fact the Sunken Citadel's in the Docks) yet neither were in contact with each other or the surface dwellers. Well, not really.
Anyways, I see the Keeper's Door Glyph as only visible to Garrett and ignored by everyone else, possibly by some telepathy. I mean, Garrett managed to enter the Keeper libraries through a window, no one did that before? I just think the Glyphs (on top of physically barricading something) also have some sort of persuasion on people to ignore it.
P.S. Another question: In Songs of The Caverns, why wouldn't the Keepers just throw a door glyph on that? Or at least a Lost City-esque lock?
jtr7 on 10/5/2009 at 00:33
With Glyph magic that concealed the entire identifiable Keeper Compound, Glyphs only Keepers can see is a given. The only Glyph visible to all, but never more than a fraction at a time, is the Final Glyph.
I think the Sunken Citadel is intentionally repeating the Lost City themes with a different kind of tragedy: the loss of knowledge and technology...and maybe magic, if they ever had it. I think the intention is to give more clues about Karath-Din. The Citadel contains many old fan speculations about the Lost City, showing us that those concepts we had were possible...now a part of official canon. The fanon speculation about The Eye and Trickster involved with the destruction of Karath-Din seems to have been morphed into the Crown given by the Trickster and the severing of Gruliac's hand over it while the ground gaped to swallow the Kurshok and Citadel. The near total sealing in and covering over without crushing the buildings much, allowing them to remain standing for centuries, and not filling them in with dirt, lava, or the ocean, are parallels.
Garrett goes to the Lost City to get a "key" to retrieve The Eye Artifact. He goes to the Sunken Citadel to retrieve the Crown Artifact.
What we don't know for sure, but the Precursor Masks may be hinting at, is if the two civilisations knew each other, or knew of each other.
One is dry and fiery, and the other is waterlogged.
Stretching it, one has "magical" blue lights, the other has magical big blue flames.
ShyGreenMoon on 10/5/2009 at 03:56
Scary thought, but you don't suppose the three Precurser masks that show a progression of fish to fish-man to man (as posted by Jtr7 here (
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=102367) ) imply there was cross breeding between the Kurshok and the Precursors do you?
I hope not.
jtr7 on 10/5/2009 at 14:38
You know, I can't remember if anybody ever suggested cross-breeding before. Someone correct me if I'm wrong. That's never occurred to me. Yeah, scary thought.:erm: We can only speculate about their breeding habits from those huge eggs in the hatchery. And unless this is like a Star Trek universe where different races can interbreed, it would mean they already share DNA. It occurs to me too that those eggs, coincidentally, are about the size of the Maw foetuses' membranes coming through Constantine's portal. As you probably know, the common speculation has been the possibility that one race evolved from the other, and that would bring new meaning to the Keeper's words calling the Kurshok a Pagan off-shoot race.
