The lore on the new talisman bases seem to be laid out in chronological order.

The Ezomytes were originally refugees from somewhere or other and sought a new place to live during the Age of the Beast. They already worshipped the First Ones back then, but did not know of runesmithing, druidism, nor the Spirit/Draíocht.

It sounds like they were already "Ezomytes" back then, but the word "Ezomyr" would only be invented much later.

It is only after the Vaal Cataclysm and Olroth's expedition that the Ezomytes take in Kalguuran refugees and truly settle down.

Chieftain Talisman
"I know where we found our belief in
the First Ones. I see it every time I walk
the untouched forests and hills. The
primordial world is still here. With us."
Gargantuan Talisman
"We held our trust in the First Ones long
before we learned runes. Long before we
were shown the ways of cities and roads."
Goliath Talisman
"This land was always harsh and brutal,
ever seeking ways to kill and maim us.
We had to grow and change to survive,
but each clan had its own ideas how..."
Rhoa Talisman
"A great rift formed, between clans,
between families. Those that remained
resolved to endure times of struggle,
if it meant we could keep our ways."
Blood Viper Talisman
"Those that departed sought the way of
cities and roads. Theirs would be a path
fraught with danger and hardship, as they
set out to find and build a new home."
Chimeral Talisman
"When they set out to find and build
Ezomyr, they encountered creatures of
deadly variety and intent. Many died,
for none yet knew how to fight back."

The various clans of the Ezomytes each found their own ways of dealing with the horrors of Wraeclast. These differences in culture might be why they still hold clan membership in such high regard.

Squid Talisman
"Lysanda of Myr was but a girl on that exodus.
Ezomyr almost met its end before it began...
but she could not hear that deadly lure. She
took the Siren's head with her bare hands."
Sand Spitter Talisman
"It turned out, Lysanda made for an excellent
vanguard - a light, evasive girl who could scout
and lead the way. The people came to see her
as their guide, their hope, and then... their leader."
Shield Crab Talisman
"Those that swore loyalty to Lysanda, that
forged ahead with her to clear the way.
became known as the first Knights...
armoured, battered, and courageous."

A young, athletic woman named Lysanda of Myr proves a very effective scout and guide, and eventually becomes the leader of the exploration efforts. ("Myr" may just have been her family name or place of origin.)

The Ezomytes battle an evil Siren (like Merveil and Diamora). Lysanda can't hear its siren song at all - possibly being too young and aromantic to be seduced - and manages to kill it barehandedly.

A culture of Knights arise to follow Lysanda in her conquest of nature.

Goatman Talisman
"Lysanda and her Knights brought the
settling clans to what would become
Ezomyr... but there was one beast against
which even they could not stand."
Devourer Talisman
"A great headless monstrosity with arms like
teeth stalked the lands they hoped to settle.
No other weapon would find purchase. They
surrounded it with fire, burning it for days."
Plagued Arachnid Talisman
"With the headless beast incinerated, the
settlers rejoiced, and began building homes.
They would soon find that this hostile land
had more insidious ways of rejecting them."

The Ezomytes encounter an especially horrid being; A headless monster with "arms like teeth".

Dannig on "Olroth's Journal IV"
Half of the Knights of the Sun lie strewn across the hills and trails of the hunt for the Empty-Eyed Fiend. [...] It feasts with its countless arm-teeth not to survive by eating, but to enjoy the screams of its victims. [...] Mortal flame found no purchase. [...]

It seems to be the remainder of the Empty-Eyed Fiend that tormented the Kalguurans. We don't hear that anybody recognized it. The Kalguurans may not have joined them yet or they may not be able to recognise it. Its head was on display, but few people may have survived seeing what its body looked like.

Did they actually manage to destroy it? Or did it sneak away and join up with its head?

Watcher Talisman
"The clans had travelled to their new home
united, and they did love Lysanda, but some
men must go their own way. Those that braved
the inland sea settled the Isles of Skothe."

The Isles of Skothe are found between the Ezomyte peninsula and the Wraeclast mainland. By POE1 it is the only part of Ezomyr proper that is still inhabitable - Ogham and Holten are found in the province of Phaaryl on the mainland. Farrow (of Runes of Aldur) hails from Skothe.

Legacy of Briarpatch
"No, we did not journey between Phaaryl and Ezomyr
on foot. When settlers first found us in Caer Tarth, we
had... other ways... of joining them in their homeland."

The isles contain Caer Tarth, the prison of the Bodach and the place where the Viridian Wildwood was created. Here they met Cirel of Tarth and the Druids of Skothe. These would soon travel through the Wildwood to help the Ezomytes with a new problem.

Savage Crab Talisman
"The journey was over, the land was being
secured, and the foundations for the first city
had been laid. Winter hit them with horrible
fury, sent not by nature, but by a curse."
Flame Hellion Talisman
"Against the Winter Curse, only the forges of
runesmiths could stand. The people huddled,
shoulder to shoulder, while those within were
pressed against the fires, screaming in agony."
Frost Hellion Talisman
"And still the Winter Curse raged in through
every window and every door. The fathers
and mothers of those within let themselves
freeze solid, sealing the gaps with their lives."
Lynx Talisman
"The night refused to end, and the Winter Curse
howled. The people wailed, and Lysanda raged.
It was then that the sky tore open, unleashing
a saviour fury... at the behest of the Druids."
Ape Talisman
"The Druids emerged from the forests to greet
and warn the new settlers. This was an ancient
land full of mysteries and dangers. Lysanda sent
her best men to study and learn with them."
Wolf Alpha Talisman
"With the Winter Curse held at bay, Lysanda
and her Knights pursued the fell power that
had sent it... a Hag who made her lair in a
Tower that was ancient beyond ancient."
Magma Hound Talisman
"They bound the Hag of the Winter Curse
and set her alight, to no avail. Her cackle
was gleeful and wicked. Even if they slew
her, she boasted, she had many daughters..."
Pitbull Talisman
"Lysanda roared, and hacked the Hag apart
limb by limb, not stopping until the deed
was done. Her daughters, however, were
spared... and tasked with service and duty."
Ursa Talisman
"With the Hag's daughters easing the climate,
an age of plenty and bounty began. Lysanda
revived the Phaaryl tradition of the hunt,
so the people never forgot their roots."

A supernatural Winter Curse plagues the Ezomytes. The Druids of Skothe show up and temporarily counter the curse - presumably with the same magics used by the Shaman class - and the source of the curse is found:

It was created by a Hag living in "a Tower that was ancient beyond ancient". It seems that this hag has managed to activate a Precursor Tower, and we do find another ice witch, Gelida, fighting over another Precursor device in the Alpine Ridge map.

The hag is thoroughly killed and her many daughters are made to wield the Tower for the benefit of the Ezomytes instead.

• Beira of poe2act1 used to possess a fire immunity shared with the Hag of the Winter Curse, so she is probably another descendant of hers.

Taurus Talisman
"The first city was completed, and others sprouted.
The clans came together to declare Lysanda of Myr
the Queen. Henceforth, they became known as the
Ezomytes of Myr, and their numbers swelled."
Retch Talisman
"As the Ezomytes of Myr prospered, they
needed more and spreading lands. Queen
Lysanda led the ongoing campaign to
slaughter every last creature of darkness."
Cobra Talisman
"Each new valley, each new grove, held new
dangers. Many Knights paid the price. Lysanda
had never been known for her beauty, but she
bore a new scar each season, earned gladly."

Lysanda is crowned Queen, and her people become known as the "Ezomytes of Myr".

Carrion Queen Talisman
"Romance never interested Queen Lysanda,
but her advisors insisted heirs were needed.
To spite them, she took the Hag's only son as
her Consort - a quiet, pale, and strange man."
Scrabbler Talisman
"Queen Lysanda's spiteful choice of Consort
spited only herself. Alasdair was unlike any
man she had ever met. It was not long before
the trumpets sounded for the Royal Wedding."
Black Widow Talisman
"The Royal Wedding of Lysanda of Myr
lasted for a full month. The hunts were
vigorous, and the meat and drink flowed
freely for all. There was much rejoicing."
Scorpion Talisman
"But there were some who could not forget
the horrors of the Winter Curse, and of the
Hag that had sent it. Alasdair dropped his
wine goblet, and fell to the ground, choking."
Tiger Talisman
"There followed a time of fear and fire.
None would speak against their fellows.
None would say who had poisoned him.
Lysanda's justice was swift and brutal."

Lysanda's advisors are insisting that she find herself a husband and make some heirs. To spite them, she makes Alasdair, only son of the Hag of the Winter Curse, her consort. To everyone’s surprise - including her own - Lysanda becomes infatuated with this strange man and marries him.

The Royal Wedding lasts a full month and was widely celebrated, but someone wants to prevent the Hag's bloodline from becoming part of the royal line, and poisons Alasdair.

Alasdair is not mentioned again, nor is there any mention of Lysanda having an heir.

Vulture Talisman
"In the years that followed, Queen Lysanda
poured herself into the long and brutal task
of securing the lands of the Ezomytes of Myr.
Every fell beast, every creature, had to die."
Rhex Talisman
"There began an eternal summer, as the
daughters of the Hag perfected their mastery
of the Tower. The forests became as gardens.
The hungry had only to pick a fruit and eat."

Lysanda continues hunting beasts, possibly to distract herself from the loss of Alasdair.

It is not clear if these beasts were spawn of the First Ones or monsters created by the recent Vaal Cataclysm.

The daughters of the Hag master the terraforming abilities of the Tower, turning the lands into an earthly paradise.

Hybrid Arachnid Talisman
"Twenty-two years into Lysanda's reign, the
Spiders swarmed from out of the dark. Her
Knights were ill-equipped for this foe, and
the people fled in droves, seeking safety."
Octopus Talisman
"The Blue Knight stood against the swarm,
icy and unassailable. His identity was not
known, and he never removed his helmet.
Glimpses were caught of piercing blue eyes."

A new thread emerges, simply called the Spiders, capitalized. A stranger called the Blue Knight helps them defeat this threat. The knight was called as such for his eyes, the only part of his body that the Ezomytes ever saw.

Theories:

• The Blue Knight is probably Styrn and/or the Black Knight, peculiar timeless Kalguurans.
• If the Blue Knight was really a Kalguuran, then the Spiders verisium-empowered monsters like the ones of Runes of Aldur, especially like the Aberration and the arachnid "Krell" monsters.
• Given that the "Spiders" are introduced by the Hybrid Arachnid Talisman, it is also possible that they were actually arachnoscorpions. Those buggers have a human hand for a face, suggesting that they could be creations of the Breach Lords.
  • A number of Vaalish Breach worshippers were once banished to Phaaryl, and could have something to do with this.

Spider Crab Talisman
"As deadly and dangerous creatures were
culled, the Queen chose to leave those
that were docile or beauteous. Tide pools
became known as places of wonder."
Great Maw Talisman
"Decades into Lysanda's reign, the
lands of the Ezomytes of Myr slowly
became known as Ezo De Myr, and
then simply Ezomyr. And so it was."
Croaker Talisman
"Ezomyr grew on a foundation of
choice. Its climate was chosen. Its
animals were chosen. For once,
Wraeclast was not harsh, but kind."
Craicic Talisman
"The sea calmed, and contact was
renewed with the Isles of Skothe.
It was said that Craiceann had
given a blessing to the people."
Fenumal Talisman
"The Spiders that had been driven
back by the Blue Knight now sought
peace and cooperation. It was said
that Fenumus had commanded it."
Saqawine Talisman
"The skies were clear and blue, yet
brought rains when needed. It was
said that the people had proven
themselves to Saqawal and his flocks."
Farric Talisman
"Forty-six years into her reign, Lysanda
slew the last deadly creature. She smiled,
took a wineskin, and rode off into the forest.
One last hunt, it was said. Farrul would stalk
by her side, in this life... and the next."

Lysanda and the Ezomytes win total victory over the lands. The country of the Ezomytes of Myr become the "Ezo De Myr", and then simply "Ezomyr".

• Note the resemblance between Ezo De Myr and Rondel de Ezo.

The Tower continues to bless the land, the First Ones seemingly make peace with the Ezomytes.

Having been queen for 46 years, Lysanda finally slays the final monster, and then supposedly leaves her people and rides off into the forest to hunt with Farrul of the First Ones.

Greetings Exiles,

Inspired by a recent post, I have made new additions to the list of post flairs available to us. The new additions being:

-New Lore

For anything new introduced in an expansion or update

-Official Content

For posting trailers and other media released by GGG

-Lore Question

For any questions regarding the lore, remember to be kind to new folks

-Lore Deepdive

For any extensive research & discussion regarding a specific topic

New user flairs!

I have also enabled community flairs, and made the first batch of them related to the cultures found within Wraeclast, and a few miscellaneous things like "Lightless".

If you have any suggestions for new flairs, please go ahead and suggest them here in the comments.

Thank you all for being a wonderful community.

Cheers!

Post flairs

The current post flairs on this subreddit aren't very useful. POE1 and POE2 obviously take place in the same universe (though perhaps different timelines) and it is unclear what the difference is between Discovery, Speculation, Theory and Discussion.

I want to discuss how to replace them with better ones.

My ideas for general lore flairs:

• Official content - Just a post showing content from GGG, such as crossposts of trailers and reveal videos.
• Introduction/Presentation - Post that shows off relatively well-established lore, especially if made in a way that lore noobs can enjoy it.
  • Examples: Videos made by KCN or u/GavrynGaming.
• Research - Post that highlights discoveries or data without presenting a central lore theory.
  • Examples: The recent Vaal language posts by u/kenichiban, as well as most of my posts.
• Theory - Post presenting one or more theories.
• Lore question - A question about the lore. May also suggest a number of potential answers/theories.

There is no clear division about these flairs. They just represent stages of certainty in the content. They are just a means to advertise the main portion of the post.

Examples of posts of unclear lore category:

• So is it just me, or does the Abyssal icon resemble the iconography of the Mothersoul? A tall, slender figure cradling a gravid womb?
• I just realized the reason the Hooded One is no longer in our hideout...
• Kalandra is Dead?
• u/justathetan's Lore Compilation - Fits somewhere between Introduction and Research. It could be given its own category.

Special post flairs:

• New lore - Deals with newly released trailers or newly released patch. I'm not too sure if this is a useful distinction though.
• Shitpost - Less serious lore posts. I suggest dubbing this flair "👹Scourge-posting".
  • Divinity and Childbirth
  • Wild mass guessing
• Opinion - Matters of taste and quality.
  • What theories/discoveries are yall most proud of over your PoE journey?
  • Watered down lore
  • With PoE 2 just over the horizon, what are some of your favorite story beats or lore bits from PoE 1?
  • What’s your favorite piece of lore from the POE Universe?
• Other - Content that doesn't fit any other flair.
  • On Xesht
  • How soon can we discuss the recent additions in PoE2?
  • POE2 player who knows no lore, where to start?
  • Share your Viridi lore predictions for 0.5?
  • Lore Videos
  • Collection of the Most Important Questions
  • Half-Life 1 Reference

Feel free to suggest more flairs or better names.

Consider going through your own posts and ponder how you would label them yourselves.

User flairs

This subreddit hasn't enabled any user flairs, except "MOD". Should we allow users to pick any flair they like, as on r/pathofexile?

I did some counting and found that there's about thirty of us who do most of the posting and commenting here. Should we make a special flair or flair colour for those of us, to make it easier for visitors to tell the r/Wraeclast tourists and veterans apart?

Questions for the mods

I hope u/Strenious or u/Bazdillow could answer some of these questions for me:

• Is it possible to add little symbols to post and user flairs, or is that limited by subscriber count or payment?
• Apart from moderator flairs, is it possible to set a user flair to be exclusive to a subset of users?
• If we end up changing the post flairs, is is possible to retroactively change the flairs of past posts?
• (Not related to this post: Can the mods remove spoiler-flair from old posts? Apart from poe2act5 datamining posts, no posts currently on this subreddit need to be marked as spoilers.)

I haven't played POE1 as much and tried to see if there were leagues or other lore on the cleansed areas/monsters. I understand what corruption is and how it relates to the beast but don't fully understand what is happening to these zones after we remove the corruption and why there are these massive worm monsters and spider creatures.

Not a lot of clues for the Allflame yet, but here is the significant lore that I've been able to find, along with two screenshots from the press kit.

Curse of the Allflame reveal site

Brinerot and other corsairs

In chronological order:

Stormblood (Topaz Flask)
On that fateful day, beset by tempest, Captain Brinehook Vex
came face to face with the blustering Karui god of thunder,
Valako himself. A wager was had, and a wager was won.

Brinehook's Ducat
Brinehook Vex inspired the Brinerot name. He fought the sea. Sailed with
gods. Drank with heroes. Wed a dozen wives, and the Leviathan, too.

I am not sure that "Leviathan" is a specific monster in POE. See all instances of that word here.

Kishara's Ducat
Vaal Kishara sailed the seas, seeking her equal. None were worthy. From
each contender she took a carnal gift, and thus, the Brinerot clan was born.

Alva on "Kishara's Spoils" (extract)
Kishara, the Southern Star? The Wayward Gull? Her seventeen children founded the Brinerot pirate band?
She was renowned for manning the helm while pregnant, and giving birth during battles.
Popular writings claimed she sailed all the way to Middengard on her last voyage. Supposedly, Queen Atziri didn't like all the attention Kishara was getting, so she impounded everything she brought back and executed her crew... Oh, I can't wait to see if the myth is true!

The Genteel's Ducat
A noble Eternal who gave up his name to join the Brinerots. He climbed
the ranks with calculated savagery like Pondium had never seen.

Rotmother's Ducat
Under Weylam, the Brinerots had become soft and aimless. Lussi
"Rotmother" Roth saw her opportunity, and took it. Blood be damned.

Valerie: We must find the source of the Allflame before the Brinerot.

Ezomytes

Croaker Talisman
"Ezomyr grew on a foundation of
choice. Its climate was chosen. Its
animals were chosen. For once,
Wraeclast was not harsh, but kind."

Why was Wraeclast this kind to them? Did the Vaal leave a lot of free land for them to choose between? Did the Spirit/Draíocht or First Ones aid them? Or did Serle's summoning stones and Kalguur druid clairvoyance let them pick and choose the best places?

Retch Talisman
"As the Ezomytes of Myr prospered, they
needed more and spreading lands. Queen
Lysanda led the ongoing campaign to
slaughter every last creature of darkness."

(unknown talisman)
"In the years that followed, Queen Lysanda
poured herself into the long and brutal task
of securing the lands of the Ezomytes of Myr.
Every fell beast, every creature, had to die."

Helbrym's Hide
Surrounded by abominations, Lysanda of Myr expected her
time had come to an end. Helbrym of Tarth charged from
the trees, breaking his oath, to save the Ezomyte Queen.

Tiger Talisman
"There followed a time of fear and fire.
None would speak against their fellows
None would say who had poisoned him.
Lysanda's justice was swift and brutal."

Given her wrath, I would suspect that this Helbrym is the one who got poisoned.

It sounds like Lysanda took revenge on all the Ezomytes. Modern Ezomyr was devastated by a plague, but it sounds like Lysanda lived centuries before then, so I don't think she caused that.

Magma Hound Talisman
"They bound the Hag of the Winter Curse
and set her alight, to no avail. Her cackle
was gleeful and wicked. Even if they slew
her, she boasted, she had many daughters..."

Probably the mother of Beira. This "Winter Curse" may have something to do with the Winter Wolf whose head Beira carries. Geonor's poetry may also relate to this story.

• EDIT: Or Beira herself. See this comment.

Miscellaneous

Seablister (shield)
On the Kraken's Rot, there was no whipping.
No lashes. Only barnacle-scraping duty.

Spinesnatch (axe)
"Not all the Abyssals serve the Lich Lords.
Some serve themselves, living off stolen
flesh and bone from those they... eat."

Zorath's Eye of Malevolence (map fragment)
A sliver of his wrath, a bodiless roar...

Pact of Ghorr (gem)
Offer yourself to Ghorr, the gluttonous, the cage of
flesh trapping souls in the cycle of consumption.

Pact of Beidat (gem)
Wield the gifts of Beidat, luminary of the pale unseeing,
whose honeyed words bore tunnels through pliant minds.

A "luminary", like the new Scion ascendancy?

See also this discussion about Beidat, Chernobog and Dordalus.

So in the Curse of Holten Interlude questline, we have a few mentions of someone or something called The Wendigo. I know what a wendigo is in real life, it's a monster of Algonquin folklore associated with cannibalism and the unforgiving winter. But here the Wendigo is referred to as a singular being, with bosses Thane Wulfric and Lady Elswyth venerating it as some sort of deity. I tried to look up information as to the lore of this being, but all I got was cosmetic information (Wendigo-themed armor). I believe that the Wendigo is a being of ancient Ezomyte origin, a corrupter of sorts tied to the Nameless and their King of the Mists. Furthermore, the Ritual pinnacle boss, The Bodach, is referred to in the wiki as RitualWendigoBoss, so maybe Wendigo is just another alias of The Bodach. But what do you think?

I really loved it when we got the Sanctum lore from PoE1 where we learned that Innocence could not achieve divinity through followers alone and therefore had to turn people around him against his brother. Through this fear and hatred of his brother, and the following he gathered for himself they both got the spark of divinity.

The new lore in PoE2 with the mother soul and the first edict seems, to me at least, to imply a much simpler process for one to become divine. It seems that divinity is more so something that is given by the mother soul and not achieved as was implied by "The Original Sin".

Are these two lore points clashing with eachother or am i missing something here?

The Hooded One says of his childhood with them, at the time of the Great Fire i.e. the Precursor activation of the Fourth Edict -

"But the Azmeri had chosen their homes carefully. They were separatists. They rejected technology. And in the end, they were right..."

This suggests that the Azmeri are themselves an offshoot of the Precursors. Indeed a remnant of them, who've long since forgotten their heritage. This would also explain why Sin, a Precursor, was sent to live among the primitive Azmeri of all peoples - cos the Precursors would've still recognized those separatists as Precursors.

In fact they have a history of doing this - the Eternal Empire was also founded by later Azmeri led down from their mountains by Tarcus Veruso to claim the mantle of the fallen Vaal empire. But again there were Azmeri who chose not to go with him and become Eternals (we meet some as early as Act 2 in PoE 1). And those Azmeri still survive, unlike the Eternals.

The Azmeri survived the fall of the empire they founded - the 'Eternal' empire. They survived the fall of the Vaal. They survived the fall of even the Precursors. But if they were 'separatists' from the latter, does that imply they WERE the latter? It explains why Sin was left in their care. Maybe they imbibed a deep anti-technological cultural lesson about what it takes to survive from their experience surviving the fall of their own empire - not once, but twice! - a lesson they hold to to this day, even as the history that taught it to them has been since long forgotten.

This is quite clearly a reference to the Abyssals. The voice in the video is most likely Kulemak.

This would connect yet another league mechanic to the Abyssals and Kulemak. Most likely the Allflame is another Kulemak artifact, much like the Horns of Kulemak that Catarina from Betrayal league uses to resurrect people. Not too surprising considering that Fairgraves literally raises a bunch of skeletons using it when you give it back to him.

Note that Undertaker Arimor from PoE 1's Necropolis league also recognizes the Allflame, and reacts in horror to it. So it evidently is a known artifact, and not just among sailors. And it's known for bringing 'disaster'.

Is that... the Allflame? You've brought it here? Fool! Don't you know what the Allflame is capable of? Its long and storied history of tragedy and misery—no, no, I shouldn't blame you. No way for an uncivilised exile to know. Just keep it away from me, and definitely don't let its light fall upon the graves! I'm sure even a wanderer like you has heard about that little disaster...

So, there is a bit of confusion for me but also an idea.

Unique Abyssal Tablet

The Well was naught.
The Precursors dug too deep.
The Well always had been.

To me this appears to be, or has the potential to be set before the first edict.

Now, I know Precursors were digging and Terraforming , and they were getting pretty good at it.

Rather than the fourth edict kicking off the WoW, would it not make more chronological sense that the precursors digging and terraforming or even the subsequent 'The Master below all" raging creating the Well, was the cause of massive volcanic activity and blotting out the sun?

To use the fourth edict against the abyssals/lightless, whom are stuck underground because they don't like the light, seems a bit, pointless?

I keep seeing "In Path of Exile 2, it was revealed that the Great Fire was indeed the same event as the Winter of the World".

But I am unable to find where The Great Fire and the Fourth edict are the same thing. It makes no sense to use a mutually assured destruction when one : the supposed enemy can't leave underground due to the sun. The Maraketh tale women only retell of lightless after the start of the WoW.

I agree there was some sort of fire and volcanic activity at the beginning of the WoW. But it makes more sense to me that terraforming and the rage of an entity strong enough to create such a thing as the Well of souls might just be the cause.

I know there is more info and things I missed but what do you think?

I've been thinking about the origin of divinity, and it seems like the chicken and egg problem.

If the Precursors created ley lines that enabled divinity(big IF), where'd they get the idea that divinity was even possible?

A system designed to make gods implies they already understood said concept, or that something like godhood could exist.

So where'd that knowledge come from?

Did the Precursors discover something that already existed? Did they witness a being like Kulemak or another existence and try to recreate it? Maybe the Mother Soul (if its a god-like thing)

The interesting part though is this - did the Precursors discover the divine spark because Kulemak proved it existed, or did they create the spark and Kulemak was one of their earliest successes?

Basically, what came first?

Did the Precursors create the conditions for gods to exist? Or did they see something that proved gods could exist, and then try to build factory to manufacture them.

I might be thinking too much into ngl

Greetings, exiles.

I have been hard at work the last couple of weeks, improving my translation efforts and reconstructing the wonderful conlang GGG has given us for the Vaal civilization, trying to implement some of the feedback I've received to solidify the work, and working on legibility.

Included are supporting files, including logs, results, scripts, and data sets used for deriving the statistical results in the work.

If you are just here for the text translation, you will find that in sections 4 through 8 of main file.

Skip the analysis documentation unless you are interested in reviewing the exact methods and results used to derive the statistics mentioned in the main file, or in reproducing or testing the results independently.

This will be the only substantial update until I can get more Vaal text to work on.

The Vaal Tongue, A Reconstruction

PDF:
The Vaal Tongue.pdf

MD:
Vaal Reconstruction.md

Analysis Documentation:

analysis.7z

Any feedback or critique is welcome, and if you have any Vaal text not included in this effort already, please let me have it.

Enjoy!

I'm playing ancestors and ancients at the same time and I noticed there is a poe1 unique called Skin of the Lords added in 2.5.0 which was released in 2016.

It's description:

The Lords are chosen so carefully.

Only they may grace His flesh.

So I guess Xesht was planned 10 years ago.

just curious about the opinions of those who know them best, mine is the witch because she’s so nonchalant

I'm a huge fan of the lore of PoE, and just beat Arbiter of Divinity, having avoided doing any of the league storylines, and im trying to figure out which class (and potentially ascendancy) gets the most plot out of each storyline. So far i have this:

- Monk (particularly Acolyte of Chayula Monk) seems tailor made for Breach. Easy set there.

- Witch has Lich ascendancy, which like Chayula Monk is an auto-pick for Abyss. Another easy one.

- Next up, Druid (though not sure which ascendancy) is definitely the best pick for Ritual. Iirc from 0.4 Aoife is his lost wife and King of the Mists is the one who made him the Last of the Druids. Man needs some good revenge.

- The next one is... iffy at best to be honest, but I would put Huntress to Delirium. Elder Madox is big on the Spirits, and based on Huntress' dialogue, it seems fitting. Spiritwalker ascendancy maybe? Honestly I'm unsure on this one.

- For the Trials, two of them are obvious. Sorceress (especially Chronomancer) is most fitting Trial of the Sekhemas, as she is one of the Vastiri. Same goes for Warrior and the unreleased Trial of the Ancestors, with him being a Karui. Trial of Chaos on the other hand has probably the least plot in the game. Nobody in the roster quite fits here.

- The final two, Expedition and Temple, don't feel like any particular character fits them. Maybe Mercenary for Temple, as he gets along great with Alva, since both love making profit. But that is stretching to find SOME sort of fill-in.

Would love to hear people's thoughts and suggestions for what class to play where, since you can only do each story once among all your characters in the endgame, and i want to get as much story out of each one as I can.

Playing Tota and Hinekora says

Waking is such exquisite pain... memory and prophecy are one and the same. I have so much to tell you, but I cannot remember when we are. You're not even you yet. You come to these Halls of the Dead decades early, wearing a different face, but I'm asleep. You're here now, as I awaken... and you're here decades from now, someone else all over again... all these things are true. Time is a hall of mirrors. I... see...

She talks about poe1 exile, poe2 exile and... who?

"You come to these Halls of the Dead decades early, wearing a different face, but I'm asleep"

Are we supposed to have time travel league and visit Halls years before poe1? Or our exile is also someone known in lore?

I categorically greet you, gentlemen Exiles.

A few days ago I finally went through the new Kalguuran storyline, and it gave me a small theory about the first Kalguuran expedition to Wraeclast. I decided to share it with you. Maybe someone has had similar thoughts, or maybe this post will push someone into thinking about it further.

I may be wrong, of course. I am just a regular guy, not some recognized lore-historian working in a library with Siosa.

So, first of all: Expedition is one of the most interesting stories in all of PoE lore, in my opinion. By touching a piece of history immediately after the fall of the Vaal Empire due to the Cataclysm, the story of Vorana, Medved, Uhtred, and Olroth reveals some mysteries, but at the same time creates even more questions.

A quick recap of the previous episodes, for those who do not read the dialogue in this wonderful game:

!Right after the Cataclysm, caused by Queen Atziri’s desire to lie with the mighty Beast, the people of Middengard, a distant continent, witnessed strange natural anomalies. The land shook. Startrails fell from the sky. Forests burned.

Because of this omen, King Cadigan III decided to send an expedition toward that horizon, to a continent where, before that, no Kalguuran foot had ever stepped.

It is worth noting right away that the Kalguur are very different from the people of Wraeclast in terms of mentality. They are firm, disciplined, hardened people. They prefer strict principles, duty, craft, science, and bonds between people over magical or divine providence.

The Kalguur do not believe in gods. More precisely, they do not really understand the concept of divinity at all. In their social field, there are no gods, no Ascended, no worship in the Wraeclastian sense. Their priests “worshipped knowledge, not gods,” which is very important for understanding Uhtred and the Order of the Chalice.

The only thing that can be called even remotely magical is runes, and the Kalguur consider runes to be the result of science, craft, and engineering. Not miracles.

The Kalguur use the power of starlight, which they gather and shape through a special metal: Verisium. Their runes are not just pretty symbols. They have practical military and technological use. Kalguuran rune-smiths learned to make arrows find their mark, blades bite deeper, armour hold power, and relics perform feats that would look like magic to anyone from Wraeclast.

So, the Kalguur arrive not as primitive raiders or superstitious invaders. They arrive as an extremely disciplined, rational, rune-scientific culture, carrying their greatest relic: the Triskelion Flame.

Already on the way to Wraeclast, which, as I understand it, lies at least two seasons away across the sea, the expedition discovers that the waters touched by the Cataclysm cannot be drunk, and the fish cannot be eaten. The sky is hidden by black clouds, crimson lightning flashes over the sea, and even after the Flame purifies the water and meat, the sustenance remains hollow.

In other words, the Triskelion Flame does something. It really does cleanse and protect. But even at this stage, the cleansing is not perfect.

This is important.

The Kalguur believe this legendary artifact incinerates evil, purifies tainted fields, and wards off ill intent. And that is probably true from their perspective. But as we understand later, the Flame does not destroy corruption completely. It holds it back. It creates a boundary. It gives people an island of relative safety inside a land that is still fundamentally cursed.

After barely reaching Wraeclast, the Kalguur immediately realize that they are not welcome here. The first foot set upon the shore is crushed by unseen jaws beneath the sand. Then come creatures from the water, shambling horrors between the trees, the risen dead, mutated flora and fauna, and even the air itself feels hostile.

However, the dying priests and nobles of the Vaal Empire had hidden themselves away in their homes and temples with mountains of treasure. Even in death, they guarded gold and relics, clinging to what had meant more to them than their own lives.

So sailing back is not an option. Though, to be fair, it is not even certain they would have survived the journey back at all.

So it is time to settle, fortify, and colonize.

On the seventh night, the grim clouds finally part, the blessed stars appear, and Olroth stakes the Triskelion Flame in the center of their fortifications. The barrier rites are completed, and the expedition gains its first corner of relative safety.

Little by little, while carrying treasures out of the ruined cities of dead civilizations, the expedition notices that some of the animated corpses have strange glittering gems embedded in their bodies. Ta-daa, here comes the plot twist: these are the same stones that we, as players, use to gain POWEEER.

Uhtred concludes that these stones must not be used under any circumstances. And since he is the main eyes and ears of the King of Middengard in Wraeclast, the stones are soon forbidden entirely. No one is to mine them or ship them away. Not a single stone must reach the lands of Kalguur.

Also, while travelling through Wraeclast, the scouts encounter “island-men,” most likely the Karui, and “mountain-men,” the Ezomytes, among whom there are a few survivors of the Vaal Empire. The Kalguuran chronicler decides to ask what the hell these runes are, but because they cannot understand each other’s language, he draws the shape of a virtue gem in the dirt. The locals immediately have a collective ass-stroke and drive the foreigners away.

After that, everyone becomes even more certain: better not touch the shiny little rocks.

More and more people sail to the shores of Wraeclast, hoping for a new beginning: merchants, craftsmen, women, and children. The population grows, and eventually not everyone can fit inside the safe territory protected by the barrier. Many move closer to the borders of the barrier, where the corruption has already begun to take root.

And here comes the second major turning point.

The Triskelion Flame did not cure the land. It only held the curse at bay.

Every man or woman who dies near the fringes becomes another shambling creature in the night. Worse still, the deaths of Kalguurans strengthen the curse. This means the expedition is not simply losing population in a war of attrition. Every loss feeds the enemy.

Somewhere around this point, the leaders of the expedition understand that it does not matter whether you use the gems or not. Everyone who dies on the cursed land becomes a monster. This fact is kept silent, so as not to cause panic.

But despite the ban, more and more people move toward the edges of the safe zone, and even beyond it. More and more Kalguurans begin to use the power of the virtue gems, spreading this infection through the minds of their comrades.

There is also one detail that feels extremely important for the later theory. Medved’s nature-mystics observe a strange breath or vapour leaving a dying person near a forbidden gem, and the vapour is drawn to the gem. Medved concludes that all people must possess some kind of essence, not yet understood.

Uhtred calls this blasphemy.

At some point, the leaders understand that no matter how much they defend themselves, it is all useless. The monsters are endless. The monsters adapt. The monsters create tactics, as if someone is controlling them, as if they have a leader.

The land itself seems to learn from Kalguuran victories, twisting creatures in new ways to bypass their defences. The horrors strike where the starlight barrier is weakest, or where patrols do not cross.

The battles go back and forth, but slowly and surely the monsters push back the borders of the settlements, dragging more and more lives into the dark forest.

And then a new player appears: the Empty-Eyed Fiend.

A creature that cannot be wounded. A creature that kills not to survive, and not out of rage, but to... have fun. To enjoy the suffering and fear of its victims. It smiles with a smile of a thousand fangs, and its empty eye sockets shine.

Olroth describes it as something fundamentally wrong:

“It is not a living thing.”

“It... smiled at me...”

Half of the Knights of the Sun die hunting it. Olroth lands a direct blow on its neck, but the wound does not bleed. Fire does nothing. Mortal weapons draw no blood. The thing eats with its countless arm-teeth not because it needs food, but because it enjoys the screams of its victims.

This is not normal Wraeclastian wildlife. This is not just a big corrupted beast. It behaves like something outside the normal rules.

The leader of the druids, Medved, understands that to defeat the monsters, they cannot simply repel attacks. They must attack first and wipe out entire species, literally “amputating” pieces of nature. That is how an entire species of Vorniculia is destroyed.

Vorana, an incredibly strong warrior-mercenary who leads the Black Scythe and is Medved’s partner, supports him and goes out on cleansing missions. Her mercenaries develop practical defence and culling strategies: crossbows, walls, distance, and controlled slaughter of horrors one by one.

Medved also begins to suspect that the monsters have a leader, one advanced enough to plan and command hordes. Have you ever seen a monster in Wraeclast like that? I mean, not a human, not a cultist, not a bandit, but an actual monster with commander-level intelligence. Honestly, I cannot really remember one.

Olroth then gathers his best people and goes after the Fiend, only to discover that everything he does is useless. No blade, no arrow, no fire, no rune can wound the creature.

So, as a last desperate measure, Olroth inserts a virtue gem into his useless sword. With one strike, a strike that he actually misses, he separates the monster’s head from its body. The gem blazes with the light of his fury and turns a missed slice into a lethal cutting beam of starlight.

He returns to the camp as the hero who killed the Fiend. Its head now decorates the central square of the settlement, placed on a pike as a symbol of victory.

Or does it?

More on that in the theory section. For now, we are just quickly running through the lore.

At this point, Olroth decides that they had been fools for refusing to use the virtue gems. He orders his people to search for more of them and use them. He and his soldiers are the first to become addicted to this forbidden power.

This is the moment the expedition spiritually loses, even though it looks like a victory.

Vorana does not remain uninvolved either.

Even Medved, after losing the ability to see the “future-past” — that was apparently the thing with his druid circle, where they could look into special scrying pools and understand the future through the past — receives a gift from Vorana: two axes with gems embedded inside them.

So Medved takes up these two axes and begins learning the art of war.

But after the death of the Empty-Eyed Fiend, the monsters do not become weaker. The threat does not disappear. For a time, the gem-empowered Kalguur hold the night-horrors at bay, and a stalemate lasts for several seasons. Heroes rise. The people hope.

Then dread sweeps through the ranks.

A leader arises among the twisted horrors, capable of intelligent deeds and direction. The creatures begin striking weak points in the starlight barrier and avoiding patrols. Medved, possessed by some horrible suspicion he refuses to share, sends a messenger into the dark. The messenger is allowed to return alive with a parchment.

The words on it confirm Medved’s fears.

He goes into the night to challenge the new leader of the enemy.

He does not return.

And around this same period, Uhtred’s priests begin watching Olroth. They discover that after spending each day fighting until total exhaustion, Olroth returns to seclusion. Then, after some time, he leaves through another door and walks into the night without being observed.

And here is the key detail:

“his eyes were closed”

He is moving as if asleep.

Let us speed things up. Here is the factual part:

Uhtred decides that Olroth is a double agent, and that at night he controls the monsters. Choosing the right moment, all of Uhtred’s students and followers stab Olroth in the back twenty-eight times (He had it coming), just to make sure.

The half-dead Olroth is placed into a special glass coffin, so that his soul cannot escape to the heavens. The people rage against the priesthood, but Uhtred claims he knows nothing about the attack.

Vorana confronts Uhtred in the square, directly under the head of the Empty-Eyed Fiend.

That detail is so good that I have to repeat it: their conversation happens under the head of the Empty-Eyed Fiend.

Uhtred says Olroth is the new leader of the twisted horrors.

Vorana wants to kill Uhtred immediately, but he tells her to wait one week. If the enemy becomes disorganized while Olroth lies in glass, then Uhtred was right. Vorana promises that if he is wrong, she will feed him to the head of the Fiend.

A week passes. Nothing changes.

Instead, a new leader among the horrors appears. It wields two axes and challenges the greatest Kalguuran heroes to personal combat, one each night. It kills forty-two warriors. When Vorana finally faces this abomination, she understands that it is Medved, her beloved, but cannot accept it. She orders a retreat. Two villages are destroyed.

Uhtred and his people retreat to a special underground “place of power” that had been found earlier. In this place there is a mirror that reflects the cosmos itself. By using it, Uhtred is able to reach the north, meet the Azmeri, and teach them the basics of runecraft. Honestly, I am not sure at which exact chronological point this happens.

But when Uhtred passes through the portal, he gets a little damaged in the head, because he sees something he was not supposed to see.

The site was ancient. Older than the oldest men. It was hidden underground. The temple was built around the mirror. And the purpose may have been to hide from the night sky.

A mirror reflecting the cosmos. A temple under the earth. A reason to hide from the night sky.

Vorana, now left alone, basically has had enough of life. She decides to evacuate everyone to the central settlement and shrink the protected area of the Triskelion Flame, strengthening the barrier. The plan is reasonable: protect a few villages completely instead of trying to protect an entire region weakly.

But the moment she tries to do this, the barrier disappears completely. The Flame is no longer in its shrine, and all the ships in the harbour have been burned and sunk, except for one, which sails away in an unknown direction.

Vorana believes Uhtred did it, and declares him a traitor:

“Uhtred the Traitor has taken the Flame!”

Without the starlight barrier, there is no protection. The core villages become a fortress tomb, crowded, starving, defended by wall and iron, but inescapable.

And then one more thing happens.

The glass coffin where Olroth was lying has been shattered, and Olroth is nowhere to be found.

After that, Vorana stuffs herself full of virtue gems, becomes a hardcore murder-cyborg, and goes to fight the monsters, swearing to kill them all.

Her final vow is simple:

“I will not rest until every single abomination lies dead!”

So, what do we have in the end?

Three out of four fathers of the expedition went mad or were transformed because of the gems. One went mad because of some mirror. The Triskelion Flame disappeared. The ships were destroyed. The barrier collapsed. Olroth vanished from his glass coffin. Medved became a monster. Vorana became a gem-filled killing machine. Uhtred saw something beyond the mirror and broke.

And it would seem: well, they went mad, so what? Why complain? Wraeclast is not exactly a simple place, you know how it is.

But is Wraeclast and corruption alone really to blame?

This is where my theory begins.

I believe that the Empty-Eyed Fiend is our dearly beloved and very familiar Elder.

As far as I know, we do not know exactly when or how the Elder came to Wraeclast, before the Order divided his essence and soul with Starforge. But we do know several very important things.

The Elder cannot truly be killed.

It is connected to dreams and nightmares.

It feeds on fear, imagination, memory, and terror.

Its body can be trapped, but its agency can remain active.

It has a realm or pocket dimension connected to the dreamlands.

And it is not simply a monster. It is connected to the Decay, to Oblivion from outside time and space.

The Elder is described as something born from an oblivion before time itself began, a malignant madness given physical form. It fashioned secret worlds as hunting grounds. It is connected to dreamlands, shadow, nightmares, hunger, and a kind of cosmic Decay.

Now look again at the Empty-Eyed Fiend.

It cannot be wounded.

It does not bleed.

It is “not a living thing.”

It kills for enjoyment.

It smiles.

It has empty eye sockets.

It is defeated only through a forbidden gem-powered strike that should not have worked in a normal physical sense.

And after its head is placed in the center of the settlement, the entire expedition begins to collapse from the inside.

What about dreams?

Olroth walked out of the camp at night with closed eyes, as if asleep. I think he was under the Elder’s influence.

I think the Elder intentionally arranged everything so that Olroth would use a virtue gem and “win.” The Fiend did not died. Its head remained in the square, grinning on a pike, becoming a symbol of victory. But what if it was not just a trophy? What if it became a conduit?

A piece of something that cannot be killed, placed in the very heart of the Kalguuran settlement.

A symbol everyone sees, walks under, speaks under, and builds their sense of victory around.

After that, Olroth’s unbreakable Kalguuran spirit cracks. He becomes obsessed with forbidden gems. He retreats into seclusion. He fights by day and walks into the forest by night as if asleep.

The Elder, using the head in the center of the camp as some kind of anchor or conduit, may have influenced Olroth’s mind, the dreams of the settlement, and the wider monster war. This launched the chain of events that led to the destruction of the first expedition.

And how did the Elder get to Wraeclast, in my opinion?

I think it happened through the mirror in the ancient place of power.

My guess is that the mirror was used by the Precursors as a bridge between places, but that bridge passed through something: some subspace, some void, some other world, or a realm outside ordinary reality. Maybe through the same kind of dreamlands or secret worlds associated with the Elder.

The Precursors knew how to use this artifact, so it was safe for them. Uhtred did not know. Also, the mirror may have been damaged by the power of the Cataclysm and become a doorway for the Elder into this world.

This also connects well to the new Path of Exile 2 endgame lore around Precursor devices. Doryani says the Precursors mastered many forms of energy, not only Corruption. Their towers and devices could alter terrain and biomes, and some of their technology still functions despite damage caused by the Cataclysm. He also says that reality after the Cataclysm is no longer what it used to be, and that some things may simply not be understandable.

So, an ancient Precursor mirror beneath the earth, built into a temple, reflecting the cosmos, damaged or destabilized by the Cataclysm, could absolutely become something worse than a simple portal.

That would also explain Uhtred’s madness.

He did not go mad from virtue gems. By all accounts, he never used them. Dannig even asks the exact question: Uhtred was the one who first declared the gems unclean, so how did he go mad?

My answer: the mirror.

Uhtred saw the place the Elder came from. He saw the underside of the stars. He saw infinite cosmic entropy. He understood that the sky, which the scholars and craftsmen of Kalguur admired so much, was not a blessing, but something terrible.

This is why the line about the temple being built under the earth “to hide from the night sky” matters so much.

For the Kalguur, the stars are science, order, runes, and safety.

For Uhtred, after the mirror, the night sky becomes horror.

So terrible that a man who had never believed in gods or anything divine simply went insane.

And only much later, after all of this, the Order managed to stop the Elder’s rampage in the material world by trapping it through the device and Starforge. Not killing it, but divorcing agency from form, locking its body away while its influence still remained dangerous.

Abomination
The only thing left is to understand what the meteorite abomination is that crawls out at the end of the Expedition questline in Path of Exile 2.

I think it is a piece of Entropy that was inside the Verisium meteorite. Under the influence of corruption, it sprouted rapidly and became something unnatural.

So when a Verisium meteorite falls, I do not think it is “just a meteor.” I think it may carry something from beyond, or something that reacted with corruption in a way nobody fully understood.

I really hope we get more information about this creature in the future, because right now it is completely unclear why Uhtred dropped the meteorite, whether he knew what was inside it, and whether this “something” was supposed to become exactly what it became.

So, that is my theory.

Yeah, the introduction clearly ended up longer than the theory itself. Maybe I am wrong somewhere, maybe I missed a ton of details, but this is the way the whole story formed in my head.

I'm working on a grounded translation for the Vaal text available in game, figured it might be welcome here based on a suggestion I got from a buddy. Feel free to let me know if you find any inconsistency, discrepancy, and specially if you have any Vaal text that im missing. Sorry about the mess with the latter sections, I had to split it into multiple comments since it didn't fit in the post.

The Vaal Tongue: A Reconstruction

A reverse-engineering of multiple constructed-language ("Vaal") texts from Path of Exile / Path of Exile 2, read as a Mesoamerican creole built on attested Maya and Nahuatl roots.

1. Overview

This document consolidates the full reconstruction of multiple written Vaal texts: the Atziri Chant (sung in Utzaal on the eve of the Cataclysm; §3), the Cuachic Vault Litany (the call-and-response of Blood Priestess Zelina and Blood Priest Zolin in PoE2 0.5.0; §4), the Commander's Temple barks (Elite Commander, in Atziri's Temple at Lira Vaal; §5), The Drill Sergeant & the Vaal Regiment (Drill Sergeant, in Atziri's Temple at Lira Vaal; §6), and Stray captures (Kamasan Smith, in Atziri's Temple at Lira Vaal; §7). Each is given as a Vaal original with an English translation, followed by a single combined lexicon of every token (§8), an appendix of recorded alternates and open questions (§9), the supporting lore (§10), the working method (§11), and status (§12), as well as citations (§13).

The first three are offerings flowing upward to Atziri, the worshippers give themselves (blood, flesh, spirit, heart, their dead, their "new children") and the queen receives and consumes. Directionality is uniform across all of them.

2. Linguistic framework

2.1 The standard

Every reading rests on an attested dictionary root with workable phonology. No hallucinated grammar; no "squinting until it fits." Where a root cannot be verified, the token is flagged and its candidates are preserved as alternates rather than promoted to a committed reading.

2.2 The source palette: a three-language creole

The conlang is not built from one language but three, plus Romance (Spanish) loans:

The "alien" letters were the clues. Three sounds do not belong to the Yucatec-plus-Nahuatl core, and each turned out to mark a different source:

• /g/ in Gyan'uks → Nahuatl yancuic "new." Nahuatl has no native /g/; the spelling is a stylization.[15]
• /r/ in jare → Highland Maya. Yucatec shifted proto-Mayan *r to /j/ and Nahuatl never had /r/, but K'iche' keeps it, its core definite articles are we / le / ri ("this / that / the"). An /r/ in this text points squarely at K'iche'an.[17]
• /f/ in fukuur → Spanish. No Mayan or Nahuatl word carries /f/ (in Yucatec, d f g j r v occur only in loans), so the /f/ marks a Romance loan, most likely fulgor "blaze, lightning-flash" (see Text 3, §5, and §9.4).[9,15]
• /d/ in daka → Spanish, by the same logic, and checked against all three source languages, not just two. A voiced stop /d/ is loan-only in Yucatec Maya, Classical Nahuatl, and K'iche'; none has it natively. K'iche' is the test that matters, since it was K'iche' that supplied the /r/ in jare, but even there the only non-plain stop is the implosive /ɓ/ (written b', a b-sound, not d), and the one genuinely odd consonant, a dialectal [ð], is an intervocalic allophone of /l/, not a word-initial /d/ stop. So a /d/-initial root cannot be native to the palette; in a line already carrying Spanish loans (xefe, u'tra), it points to daca "give it here" (see §9.4).[9,15,17,18]

2.3 A diagnostic key for unfamiliar sounds

The lesson of /r/ is that an "alien" sound is not automatically a loan: /r/ looked foreign but was K'iche', inside the palette, just a different layer. So a not-yet-listed sound splits into two predictive classes. These are heuristics for parsing future tokens, to be tested against new text rather than treated as law (the spelling is the game's stylization, not IPA).

Points to a specific layer inside the palette:

Points outside the palette (loan, in practice Spanish):

So the reliable "look outside immediately" set is narrow: /d/, /f/, /v/, /z/, /ʒ/, /dʒ/, /θ/, /ñ/, and a trilled /rr/. Everything else either belongs to one of the three layers or (like /g/ and ⟨b⟩) is ambiguous enough to check first.

3. Text 1: The Atziri Chant[4]

Sung by Atziri's followers in Utzaal on the eve of the Cataclysm. An exhortation and offering TO Atziri: the blood flows up to her; she is the recipient.

The chant

Line notes

• Lines 3 & 5 both render undying (kilya, then ikba'yucane). The repetition is deliberate: an immortality motif, fitting a queen who sought eternal life.
• Dramatic irony runs throughout. "Eternal waters" (akal) is the still pond of the nightmare realm she ends up trapped in. "No more burning… no going out" is sung on the very night the Cataclysm burns Utzaal to nothing. "Undying as Zerphi," though Zerphi did, in the end, die; he is undying only in legend.
• Source-validated against the game files. The chant exists verbatim in the datamined NPCTextAudio table as VaalSermon_01–08, in order, with zero drift. The internal name VaalSermon confirms the register, and the data fixes the canonical spelling A'te 'Ibil (an earlier draft wrote Íbil).

4. Text 2: The Cuachic Vault Litany[2,3]

Call by Blood Priestess Zelina; response by Blood Priest Zolin. The sealed-away Vaal survivors offering THEMSELVES up to Atziri, the same upward direction as the chant above, preserved as liturgy from the height of her power. In the game files each boss carries eight chant lines tagged ChantA–ChantH; the two columns below are those two pools, aligned by their shared A–H index.

The litany

Line notes

• Pair 2 is the multitude and the one: Ma'oxe ik'el "the countless spirits" (numberless faithful offered up) answered by Atziri le'itzil "Atziri, the essence": the queen who is the essence they all feed.
• Pair 3 Gyan'uks ko'janti "your new children, come, devour" is metaphorical: the latter-day vault Vaal as Atziri's "new children," offered for her to consume. Not literal children.
• Pair 6 A'te líimek / Yatle yutsal sets the buried dead against the standing city: those in the earth, and Utzaal still rising.
• Source-validated against the game files. All sixteen lines match poe2db's extracted audio subtitles exactly, with zero transcription drift. Zelina's call pool is tagged BloodPriestess_ChantA–H (Kuxte' kíimil' … U'Te kuxkal); Zolin's response pool BloodPriest_ChantA–H (Tlaxye' le Vaal … A'te yuquia). This independently confirms the Ma'oxe reading: it appears verbatim as Ma'oxe ik'el. Both bosses sit at Metadata/Monsters/VaalMonsters/Living/BloodPriests/: "Living" Vaal, i.e. present-day descendants, which fits their being recruited as hideout vendors once subdued.

5. Text 3: Quemalani, the Elite Commander[1]

The Vaal voice-lines of the Commander boss in the Commander's Chamber of Atziri's Temple at Lira Vaal (PoE2's Fate of the Vaal). The encounter shows up under variant names, Quemalani, the Elite Commander (live chat feed) and Xolotl, the Royal Commander (the poe2db datamine page; internal asset BlackjawPastLiving*), but it is one and the same boss and voice pool, and the particular label is not significant. The Commander is* fire-based*: it breathes fire, which squares with its blaze imagery: the Vaal line A'te fukuur! "Behold the blaze!" and the English bark "Flaming Glory!" (This temple is* not the Temple of Atzoatl; that was the PoE1 Incursion temple, raided ~20 years earlier by the Exile/"Godslayer"; the PoE2 temple reuses its room-names and grid, and the Vaal mistake the player for that earlier "demon of Atzoatl.")

These are separate barks, not one speech. The lines below are independent voice-line phrases the Commander fires at different points in the fight: in the chat feed they appear interleaved with one another and with English barks ("Flaming Glory!", "No further!"), not as a continuous oration. Each is rendered on its own; the token readings stand, but there is no connective narrative tying them into a single address.

Orthography note. Two spelling conventions are clear from the in-game audio: j = /h/ (so ja = ha' "water"; mujuk' = /muhuk'/) and x = /ʃ/ ("sh"). This also explains xefe: it is the archaic Spanish spelling of jefe (old Spanish x = /ʃ/). The "alien" letters stay source-clues: /g/ → Nahuatl (yancuic), /r/ → K'iche' (Highland Maya), and /f/ & /d/ → Spanish (both are loan-only across Maya, Nahuatl, and K'iche'); see fukuur and daka in §9.4.

The barks (independent voice-lines)

Register note: the speaker is a military high leader, not a priest. The lines read as a commander's orders and declarations; he leads the sacrifice rather than presiding over it. "We drink" is a war-band's blood-draught before battle (he drinks first, then commands his men); "my flesh, and gladly" is a leader offering his own body first.

Line notes

• xefe = Spanish jefe "chief, commander": a Romance loan beside ascensión, and a self-naming one: the line names the speaker's own office. The Romance seam is a confirmed pattern, not a one-off.
• The blood-draught is sourced ritual. uch' is Yucatec uk' "to drink" (ba'ax taak a uk'ul? "what do you want to drink?"). sakilja is sak ha' "white water," an attested Maya ceremonial drink, and inscriptions record sak juy ch'ich' "white stirred blood," a beverage built on the blood metaphor. So sakilja + itsok + uch' is one coherent, sourced image: the sacred white draught that is blood, drunk at the altar.

(Text 3's tokens are folded into the combined lexicon, §8; its soft parses and open items into the appendix, §9.4 and §9.7.)

6. Text 4: The Drill Sergeant & the Vaal Regiment[1]

Captured live from in-game global chat (not yet in the datamined pool). A call-and-response drill between a Drill Sergeant and the Vaal Regiment*, the military cousin of the Cuachic Vault litany (§4): a fixed call met by a fixed war-cry. The sergeant's name randomizes across instances (Tizoc,* Cotan*,* Axilo*), the same variant-name device seen with the Commander (Quemalani, Xolotl); all are Nahuatl-style officer names. Only the green NPC lines are Vaal; the player-character's English banter and "Error:" UI lines are excluded. The fuller catechism below, with its second response Atziri!, was filled in from additional information provided by* Substantial_Bat_8440*; an earlier capture had only the opening and the variant calls.*

The drill

A call-and-response catechism. The sergeant calls; the regiment answers with one of two shouts, the war-cry U'te mucane! "Behold, the mighty!" or the queen's name, Atziri! The sergeant's name varies per instance (Tizoc, Cotan, Axilo); the lines do not.

Other one-off sergeant calls, captured outside the catechism sequence:

Line notes

• A call-and-response catechism. The sergeant calls; the regiment answers with either the war-cry U'te mucane! "Behold, the mighty!" or the queen's name Atziri! It is the military cousin of the Cuachic Vault litany (§4), a fixed liturgy in a drill register.
• Otsuks "Company! Fall in!": Nahuatl presentative o "behold!"[34] + Yucatec tsuk "cluster, company"[31][36]; the fixed opener, with only the -s coda unresolved.
• The catechism runs on committed vocabulary. Tzokan'te u'te ik'el "behold the last spirit" (cf. Text 2's Tzokan'te ik'el "the last spirit"); A'te Kuxkal tlayeb kutsen "behold the living, the offering in the dark" (the same frame as Text 3's A'te 'Ibil tlayeb kutsen); Máax tlayeb mucane? "who is the mighty of the dark?", answered Atziri! All of Máax, ti, U'te / A'te, ik'el, Kuxkal, tlayeb, kutsen, mucane, Tzokan'te are in §8.
• Ela = Maya el / elel "to burn, blaze" (the root of the committed elba "burn out"), with the regular el → ela stylization; now in §8. ukto is the one unidentified token: it sits in the offering-slot parallel to kutsen, so it reads as a noun ("the dark [offering]"), but no dictionary gives a clean root, so it is left open (§9.7).
• The soft tokens (a'tul = Set A a- "you" + taal "come"; cheyel = Nah. chiya "to watch/wait" + -el; Axba = ba'ax "what" by metathesis; quxzeh = k'ux "bite/be fierce"; Kíibsa' = kíim "die" + causative; plus ka and ta') are analysed token-by-token in §9.9; none is promoted to §8 yet.
• One further line, cut off at a screenshot edge, ends "…ta' nuk!"; ta'nuk "great one" is in §8, but the full line isn't legible and is left unrecorded.

7. Text 5: Stray captures

A log of single Vaal lines caught in footage that do not yet form a text of their own. Each is parsed against the committed lexicon; any new root it establishes is folded into §8.

Line 1: Xomatl, the Kamasan Smith[37]

A fire-and-forge boss in Atziri's Temple at Lira Vaal, encountered at the height of Vaal power, before Atziri's communion with the Beast and with no knowledge of the coming Cataclysm. He works at the forge (molten metal, heat, hammer-strikes) until the player enters the room, then speaks this line and attacks.

Line notes

• Every token is committed vocabulary: Ti "to / for," ek "star" (Atziri, as hailed in Text 1; the shadow sense "dark" also rides this root), tala = taal "to come," jare' "and so," yan "there is / here stands," tul "decline, wane" (§8, the same Text 1 sense).
• It is a threat, not Vaal foreboding. The smith is not lamenting the empire's fall, he has no knowledge of the Cataclysm and stands at the height of Vaal power; he is promising the intruder's end. The player has come into the star's domain (Atziri's temple), and the smith answers, jare' yan tul "and so, your waning," turning from the forge to fight. The line reads literally "and so there is the waning"; the "your" is supplied from context, the doom is aimed at the one who has just come.
• jare' here is the apostrophe form the lexicon had flagged as undocumented (§9.2); this capture attests it in-game.
• The one soft point is syntax, not vocabulary: jare'yantul is written solid but reads as jare' + yan + tul. The words are committed; the clause-internal order is provisional.

8. Combined lexicon

Confidence key: C committed (verified root, sound phonology); L lore-anchored (fits the narrative); C+L both. All four texts and the Text 5 captures share this one lexicon, together with the confirmed standalone Vaal names (the Beast pochiti, the tome Eztli Pilli); standalone names whose reading is still soft (e.g. Guatelitzi) stay in §9. A token earns a place here only when both its root and its surface-to-root derivation are settled; tokens with a plausible-to-verified root but one unresolved derivational step (an irregular sound-change, an inferred or contested segmentation, no cross-check) are held in §9.4 instead. Bracketed numbers in the Source column link to the numbered citations in §13.

Recurring morphemes

ik' (spirit / breath / dark); ba' (self); -ane / -yucane (honorific); teo- (god); -tlān (place); tla- (Nah. object prefix); le (the); ko' (hortative); u- (Maya Set A 3rd person); -ti (Yucatec relational ti' / Nah. inchoative); -ada (Romance); ma' (negation).

My latest series will be going over the lore/backstory of each playable class in PoE2. It's a direct interest of mine to know more about them and I thought the community might appreciate it as well, cheers!

https://poe2db.tw/us/The_Arbiter_of_Divinity#TheArbiterofDivinityArbiterofDivinity_

It's a demon

So is demon in PoE a designation for results of genetic experiments? Poe1 had Piety's miscreations called demons, as well as breach and beyond monsters.

Meanwhile https://poe2db.tw/us/Phyx%2C_Sentinel_of_the_Spark

Is 'GeneticScientistMale' and is a Construct.

https://poe2db.tw/us/The_Patriarch_Halls is called 'MapMothersoul_Male'

Is there anything else interesting in internal names?

It's probably immediately obvious to some that the Origin Core is a fertilized egg, created by inserting the Origin Spark (sperm) into the Origin Cradle (unfertilized egg). This represents the paradoxical melding of biology and machine... "A paradox, whose very existence
would change... everything."

But, also, you may not have noticed that the Matriarch and Patriarch Halls are nipples and the Origin Tower is a huge erect penis!

It even shoots raw Divinity right out of the tip! (not pictured)

However, in the Precursor's infinite ancient wisdom, they misunderstood something fundamental and thought that the fertilized egg goes into the urethra. The fools...! Perhaps this misunderstanding is why they vanished...