The dark underbelly of Tegrith – Pyrocord’s Crackpot TFSMP (Scott and Pyro centric) theory:
Woolhaven is a recently released DLC for the game Cult of the Lamb. You may ask why the fuck that is relevant to TFSMP but HEAR ME OUT.
TF!Scott and TF!Pyro both hail from a small mountain town nestled in the norths snowy peaks known as Tegrith. So far Tegriths lore has been lightly teased, Pyro mentioning it having “An almost paganistic religion” and “Ancestral worship”.
On the second day of TFSMP after awakening their powers TF!Scott and TF!Pyro concede to set aside their differences to focus on the recently occurring arcane revelations. Pyro states, “We’ll talk about the Folkfire, we’ll talk about Yngya – we’ll talk about your folks and everything later. Once this is all done we’ll get to it. [5:07:35 Pyro POV DAY 2]
Here’s where things connect, as recently as two weeks ago streamed Pyroscythe streamed the game Cult of the lamb - including its previously mentioned DLC Woolhaven, in which the player character returns to their ancestral home, a small snowy town deep in the mountains watched over by the goddess of winter, Yngya. Pyroscythe seemed notably enamoured by the concept of Woolhaven, its lore and aesthetics.
A snowy mountain town is one thing, but Yngya is such a specific name, and the choice to use it was not coincidence. With all this in mind, it is very likely that Tegrith is at least partially inspired by Woolhaven.
From this realisation myself and other Pyrats began to wonder if there could potentially be more connections between Tegrith’s lore and COTL, particularly the cult aspect. The concept of which was further consolidated as the connection was made to Pyro’s own TF!Pyro character playlist which features the song “Assimilate (Cultists Theme)”. This playlist is relatively short, only featuring ten songs curated to fit Pyro’s character, its inclusion could have deeper implications, and with a title like that the link to be made is pretty obvious.
And so we come to the crux of our theory, what if Tegrith also had cultish elements to it?
Such a thing would wildly change the context of Pyro and Scotts backstories as well as the relationship between them. Scotts anger towards Pyro for leaving suddenly becomes much more sinisterly charged with the background of Pyro having fled not just his “responsibility” as Scott claims but a potentially oppressive environment. This could also tie into Scott saying that he is unsure if Pyro would be allowed to go back for the Folkfire as he says he intends to [4:55:34 Pyro POV DAY 2]. Though on a surface level this references Pyro’s absence having hurt his hometown and put into question his place in inheriting the Folkfire it could also be interpreted to imply Tegrith being more insular community that could now consider Pyro an outsider or betrayer having forsaken their beliefs/leaving.
On the flip side of Pyro and Scotts relationship, theres potential that Pyro himself may hold the internalised exclusionary values of a cult, still perceiving scott as an outsider for having been adopted and not born in Tegrith. This could be manifesting in lines such as “I wouldn't expect you to get it. It's complex. There's thousands of years of history that goes into these things.” In relation to the Folkfire and the traditions involved.
Another area that the darker tone of a cult would change is the inheritance of the Folkfire itself and what that actually entails. The probable answer in canon is that it is some kind of community storyteller or archivist with the responsibility of keeping and sharing Tegriths history and culture with future generations – but what if it were something more horror adjacent. All kinds of extreme cult practices come to mind, what could TF!Pyro be running from?
It could be argued that these theories don’t align with the central themes of Pyro’s POV of ambition and detracts from themes like ego as in changing the context of his exit from Tegrith it takes what was a choice willingly made to go out adventuring and make a name for himself into a cornered situation where he needed to flee, potentially for his safety and wellbeing. However, the same suppression of individuality and his ambitions that is implied to be present in his life in Tegrith as we know it could also be applied within this cult scenario – if not more so. Amongst the brainwashed and compliant his free spirit would cry even louder for escape.
This is all mostly silly... but also a tiny bit deadly serious. Special thanks to everyone involved in this madness from Pyrocord who’s thoughts I have compiled in this post after our mass hallucination of this scenario.
The real Tegrith is almost certainly a million times more tame (but still plenty tragic) however its still fun to speculate on all the horrifying possibilities.
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