Soulbound Studios have a released a new layout for their updates and I was happy to see one of the topics they will cover on a regular basis is lore. In fact, this week’s KickStarter update did indeed include some more gorgeous concept art of the characters in the games story and an explanation of who they are believed to be. Though that is not all we have for you this week as we managed to get Jeremy ‘Caspian’ Walsh to drop some lore over in the IRC channel too.

One important thing that Caspian also confirmed was that the lore we are getting is just a part of the overall fabric of Elyria. There are many different religions in the game, in fact, he confirmed there would be five of them! They all have different beliefs of the world, different explanations for what is going on. Neither we as players nor our characters know which is the ‘true’ story of Elyria. For example:

Only the Qin recognize the Qindred, per say. Their belief that all Mann-kind has descended from Qin is a belief held by them alone.

Speaking of Qin, why don’t we meet two more:

In the beginning, there was just the one. Her name was Angelica. Angelica was alone in the vast emptiness and so she brought light into the world so she would feel warmth and see color. At the moment she created the Light, the cosmos spread out around her, expanding, filling the world with hundreds of billions of spiral and elliptical light sources, each themselves filled with hundreds of billions of lights.

But with the Light also came the Darkness, for one day Angelica looked out and saw her silhouette, cast a shadow upon the world itself. At first, she was entertained by how it followed her, but she was lonely and got bored, and so she gave life to it. Her shadow, which she named Luna, became her twin. A darker version of herself, which she kept as her constant companion.

The Qindred believe that the Qin out our ancestors so that we all descend from Angelica. These beings are not Gods, more ancients that really roamed the world. They are also referred to as the Antepyrovians, which links back to the lore regarding The Burning which tore the world apart. There is also a lot of debate about Luna, is she evil just because she represents a darker side? Or are things far more complicated and there is do black and white here?

Though while not all religions believe in the Qin we have not heard much about what they do believe in. We had a slight insight into the Virtori after the lore video but nothing since then, until now! Caspian was obviously in a very generous mood and spit quite a lot of lore which I have paraphrased here:

The Virtori believe there are powerful Gods and their Guardians, each represents one of the seven Virtues and seven Vices. The Virtue and Vices came from their own worlds, a plane above and below our own and introduced their ideas to the mortal world. These planes share their names with those believed in by the Qindred, Haven which is thought to be a place mostly of Virtue, while Karcion is a place of Vice.

Though it is believed these Gods are now sealed away. After Mann-kind was caught in the middle of a war between the Virtues and Vices we sealed them away to protect Elyria.

The names of Haven and Karcion appear again, but it was confirmed while these two religions do agree on this description of the cosmos we might well find that others do not agree. Even now the two can not agree on what these planes are like with the Virtori have the very black and white view of them as a place of Vice and another of Virtue, while the Qindred do not think things are that simple. They believe that in fact before the burning Karcion was a beautiful world.

We also got an insight into what sort of players might be attracted to following the Virtori:

The Virtori are paladins and clerics.

Which sounds brilliant to me as I love those sort of roles that really focus on their beliefs as an essential part of their character. Already I am torn about which religion I will be following in the game and we still have three more to find out. Which are you leaning towards so far? Do you believe in Ancestors or Gods?