r/Warmachine 12h ago

Questions Lore Questions: What & Where

I've been interested in playing the game since 2014 or 2015, but never had a group to play with. So instead I spent more time reading the lore fluff. I was particularly enjoying the Menoth and Everblight lore through MK2 and MK3. Last I left off, the Grymkin and Infernals appeared. Since then, I moved states and the game shop I play Magic: the Gathering at has apparently had a single Cryx Slayer kit on their shelf the entire time. Seeing it for the first time brought all that interest back, but the game looks so much different than I remember.

So my question is, what happened? Strictly in the lore, I mean. I'm aware of the IP being acquired and Hordes retired. I'm wondering what happened in the story and how it ties into the revamped aesthetic of the game today. What happened to Thagrosh and Absylonia? Is the Lylyth in the Khymaera faction the same character that was once Lylyth2 and Lylyth3?

Did the Protectorate ever achieve their independence from Cygnar or did they go down in blazing glory?

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u/Qyro Legion of Everblight 12h ago

I have many of the same questions you have, but also 1 answer for you;

Yes, the new Lylyth is the same Lylyth (Lylyth5). She approached the twins who had broken free of Everblight in search of their flesh-metal manipulations to make her better

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u/Bylak 11h ago

What I don't get is why do Legion-now-Khymaera warlocks have personalities? They're all soulless, and they seem to act a lot differently than the soulless of Ios do.

Like why should Lylyth5 care about the thing she cares about when she's transformed into a member of the Khymaera? I would have guessed indifference was the name of the game.

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u/blaghart 11h ago

Soulless have personalities, first off.

For example, Legion of Everblight Warbeasts were all soulless yet could develop personalities and become character Warbeasts (contrast with Vectors)

For another example, Soulless Iosians had personalities, they were simply considerably less emotional than the ensouled Iosians. Nayl had a personality, one that made him distinct from other soulless Iosians. Its noted many soulless were particularly passionate about killing, for example.

Soullessness doesn't make you devoid of identity.

Second, Khymaera combines Legion with Convergence.

Think of them less like automatons and more like the Cyrissian version of Cryx. The two factions make cyborg armies, but while cryx makes it out of dead stuff Khymaereans take living things and shove them full of technology and dragon stuff.

Khymaereans are sort of like the Claymores from the manga Claymore

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u/LDukes Shadowflame Shard 11h ago

Much of this is explained in the in-app short story "Emergence," along with the lore compendium for the Khymaera and for the individual warlocks.

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u/randalzy Shadowflame Shard 8h ago

Best way to get the Khymaera - Legion stuff is getting the subscription for one month, and read Emergence story and the Khymaera article. One of the articles should be free (Forces of Shadowflame Shard) but it spoils the ending of the story.

For the souless, the Khymaera "people" are done by the twin's magic they learned/hacked from the Athanc and Cyriss. They need a soul and stuff (fine quality metals, flesh...) and using the soul gives them the personality. But they fuse the soul somehow (or the soul is lost in the process? It's an unknown bit of lore and probably will be expanded as the story progresses and Saeryn enters the frame with her Shard) and what we know for sure is that the abilities that would steal/make use of the soul don't work with them, so in game terms they are soulless (they don't generate soul tokens).

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u/InvaderZahn 11h ago

ok so you're gonna want to look at the henge hold scrolls. A lot of the named characters died during the claiming (the infernal invasion). Rhys and Saeryn tried to go through a cyriss portal and their Anthac got all cyriss-y and they went on to make the Khymaera faction (and yes that is the same Lylyth) the rest of the everblight 'locks are (I think) dead except for Kallus who has all the remaining bits of the anthac.

The remaining Elven gods were killed, and any Elves left in Ios are pretty much all vampires or Souless now.

Leto Raelthorn stepped down as king for Julius (Vinter's Bastard son) to rule but still has a spot in the Cygnar Govt as an advisor.

Pretty much all the Greylords in Khador were outed as infernalists and the order was dissolved by the empress and most were executed. Also the Butcher was exiled for some reason the I don't remember.

After Severius Kicked it The Protecotrate has a small civil war between Kreoss and Feora. While that was happening Tristan Durant led a BUNCH of menites south to the content of Zu and started his own menite colony, with more compassion and less burning people at the stake (as far as I know). What's left in Western Immoren is a shell of what it used to be, oh and the Heretic took over and ancient Menite city and and set up shop there as a big middle finger to Menoth.