!!PLEASE READ!! This blog is now inactive and will not be updated further. Thank you. Hey everyone! This blog is dedicated to lore from Sky: Children of the Light, the newest game by Thatgamecompany.
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Hello! First of all, I would like to thank everyone for the support I received on my last lore post; all of it absolutely blew me away and Iām incredibly grateful for it.
For this post I want to talk about what is likely one of the most popular topics in conversations on Skyās lore: the war in Wasteland.
Despite being the central focus of an entire realm and its elderās story, as well as maintaining a looming presence in the background of many spiritsā lore, little is commonly known about the war. This post includes my best speculation on the events leading up to, during, and after it, backed up with observations from around the realms and pictures from my dear friend @alasdair-pl to help illustrate everything.
This was not a war against creatures, as is often assumed. The ancestors (and elders!) involved were fighting each other. But why?
A brief content warning! The text below the cut includes the sort of topics you would expect during discussion about a fictional war: violence, death, occupation, invasion, and destruction of peopleās homes, as well as the inequality that caused it. It also includes brief mentions of animal harm and death, although it doesnāt go into as much detail as my darkstone post.
In my previous post on darkstone and its role in the civilization and later kingdom, I described how the places where darkstone was produced often werenāt the places it was used the most. Hidden Forest is a bit of an exception to this, as itās partially themed around the era when darkstone was first discovered and the civilization was experimenting with its capabilities as much as they could, but for yet-unknown reasons it was not involved in the war. For this post, there are two specific realms I will focus on.
This is the Citadel in Valley of Triumph, my favorite place to illustrate how much Valley loved darkstone. You find refined darkstone almost everywhere in the city; in the Citadel, massive discs of it make the intricate golden orreries ā which serve no purpose other than decoration ā spin endlessly even centuries after their creators died. The entire structure is suspended above the clouds, presumably by a massive crystal we canāt see, and the inaccessible height of some of the buildings implies that darkstone-powered elevators were necessary to reach them.
The rest of Valley contains similar cutting-edge infrastructure that relies heavily on darkstone. The gondolas in Village of Dreams are the most practical way to reach Hermit Valley and require refined crystals of great size to work. The remnants of an entire floating obstacle course can be found in the flying race. The Village Theater uses darkstone devices to provide the backbone of its special effects and to automate things such as certain props or the curtains moving at the pull of a lever. The Coliseum includes more of the already-mentioned orreries as well as fancy hidden mechanisms to shoot off fireworks or provide special lighting to the ice rink in the center. Thereās even more ways darkstone is used in Valley than just this; listing them all would derail the post, but Iām sure you get the picture.
In contrast, these are the two of the darkstone mechanisms in Wasteland. The first is an inner mechanism from a darkstone refinery, meant to automate a job apparently too difficult for ancestors to perform. The second is meant to lift a heavy stone grate built to keep krill from entering the temple.
Other uses of darkstone in Wasteland include powering a large cargo ship (crab fields shipwreck), the towering anti-krill turrets, and the alarm system and lighthouse in Treasure Reef. (The Ark is not included in this since it likely came from another realm).
None of these are purely decorative or not necessary for survival like the orreries and the fireworks and the floating obstacle course are. There is, overall, less darkstone in Wasteland than Valley; and what darkstone you do find is used for mechanisms that both handle something that could not be done manually and that perform a function that helped keep ancestors alive and the realm functioning on a basic level.
Wasteland is also, coincidentally, the place where we find most of the kingdomās refineries. It is also the place most harmed by the effects of darkstone pollution: almost every creature you meet is corrupted, the land is unlivably polluted, and the water shines like oil and saps your light. Dark, hardened sludgy waste from refineries slithers out of gargantuan pipes and into the neighboring ocean. The Graveyard is piled high with the skeletons of creatures that died either to light harvesting or to the pollution that ravaged the landscape in its wake.
There is no feasible way that all those refineries and all that pollution came solely from the production of just the darkstone mechanisms in Wasteland, and Valley, with a whole infrastructure built on using darkstone to its fullest potential, has no refineries or pollution in sight.
The conclusion is clear: the main producer of Valleyās darkstone was Wasteland (and to a lesser extent Forest). Part of the reason Wasteland is a wasteland now is because of the numerous factories built and creatures killed to power mechanisms few of its ancestors would ever see the benefit of.
It is easy to see why there would eventually be conflict.
These pictures show two shields from Wasteland with two very different symbols. One bears a stylized sun, the symbol of light all around the kingdom, while the second depicts a diamond in reference to darkstone.
The prevailing theory on what these shields mean is one of the oldest theories in Sky lore discussion, was originally titled the ātwo shields theoryā, and has changed only slightly over the years. It essentially states that each of these emblems is in reference to a different side: a āsunā anti-darkstone side and a ādiamondā pro-darkstone side. This, several memories in Season of Remembrance, and Seed of Hopeās quest, show that the war was almost definitely between two groups of ancestors.
My current theory is that the āsunā side represents Wasteland, fighting to end the industry that has tattered their home beyond repair, and the ādiamondā side represents Valley, fighting to regain control of the substance that both literally and figuratively keeps their city afloat. While a basic āgood sun side versus evil diamond sideā dichotomy often gets applied to the war, I think this is a heavy oversimplification of the situation. Valley would (again literally) crash and burn without darkstone and entire tracts of it would be rendered inaccessible. Wasteland was on the verge of losing their home. This oversimplified perspective also forgets that, at its core, this war comes from a story meant to make the humans playing it reflect on themselves, and because of that, some touting it may relate more to the diamond sideās experiences without taking the time to realize it. In the end, both realms involved fought to preserve themselves.
We donāt know exactly how the war started yet; my personal favorite idea, developed with friends, is that Wasteland refinery workers participated in a massive strike that evolved into riots and finally into outright violence. However, we can very easily guess how it ended.
One of these realms is wealthy enough to outfit all its soldiers and even some athletes with armor, is largely intact, and is called the Valley of Triumph.
The other is almost entirely destroyed, has numerous soldier characters either without armor entirely (courageous soldier, lookout scout) or with reused armor that doesnāt fit them (wounded warrior), has an elder that seems to be visibly wounded in their cutscene and from the massive cracks on every version of their statue, and has an army that apparently got pushed back so far that their final stand battlefield was right in front of their temple, where they physically couldnāt retreat any further.
The war was all but unwinnable for Wastelandās army. In the end, their fate had been decided before the fighting even began.
NOTE: This is by no means going to be the last post I make about the war; it skips past some really interesting details about Valley and Wastelandās themes, as well as Vaultās involvement, in favor of a summary that is about as short as I can manage while still adequately explaining the basics. I will hopefully talk about those later. For now, I hope all of you enjoy this absolute monster of a post!
also, not to add salt to the wounds butā¦ uhā¦
have you noticed that the spears being thrown at the spirits are really big?
ā¦
too big for any regular spirit to throw.
I know this place has been marked as inactive but I'll give this a go. Lore fans needed. I am trying to make a discord server centered around sky lore for my yt channel and any help would be greatly appreciated. I plan to make this the 1st place to have all the needed resources and lore faqs in one place so this needs lot of work! If anyone is interested in helping please dm me on Kostas#6502 on discord. Once the server is up and running I promise to give anyone who helps staff role for contributing to this effort :) have a nice day
As much as there are problems in this season, this particular ancient memory struck me.
We've never seen this many mantas before. The only place that came close to this size is the herd in sanctuary islands, and they are no where near the amount in this memory.
We know that in the past, the manta juicing thing was real and mantas were killed or transformed for their light. I don't know if the civilization has made an effort to keep the manta numbers populated, but since I've never seen such a huge herd before, I figure they didn't.
It made me wonder what the sky world was like before the dark stones. How flocks of mantas like this were common and they would fly over you like a wave in the ocean. How they chirpped at each other and soar across the skies as you look on with wonder, before they were snatched from their homes and stripped of their life to fuel machines for the kingdom.
Their numbers dwindled, and now there's only a handful left that survived. And when the kingdom fell, they were free to fly the skies again, letting the past go and growing from the pain.
Iām going to share my theory about how all the seasonal guides became what they are.
Oh, and I will be adding a seasonal guide everytime a new season comes, that being in reblogs or under the cut.
Gratitude:
regarding the masks, all of them seem to be experts on their own talent, and since all of them are experts, they all agreed to make deer mask the guide.
Lightseekers:
Itās the opposite case in here. All of them have simple masks, even the guide. So maybe they were still learning how to ponder the orb work with the light, and the guide was the leader of all the group, the one who started investigating the light.
Belonging:
They are just a very united family, and we see that only the adults have more decorated masks. Maybe Belonging grandma was a guide because she reunited the whole family.
Rhythm:
Hoot hoot was an apprentice, but maybe a good and charismatic person who changed the path the crew was getting into. They, despite having come recently to the group, gained a place in everyoneās hearts.
Enchantment:
I donāt really think the masks represent anything in here, but even if we didnāt see it, the guide mightāve also been the leader of the group. Maybe they helped the crew reinstall themselves after their ship crashed. Maybe they were a big part in making a progress in a barren land.
Sanctuary:
They were seen helping and spending time with each member of their crew. Maybe they were the one who had the idea of bringing back the creatures to the Sanctuary Islands. Maybe that initiative inspired the rest of the group, even the most moody of them all.
Prophecy:
All of them seem to have well-made masks, and that means everyone was an expert in reading and interpreting the prophecies shown. But maybe the Guide was also the first prophet, the one who taught the rest a long time ago.
Dreams:
This is a complicated one. The skater was the main character, she moved the world of all the spirits around her, and my theory is that she was about to be given the role of questguiver, but she gave it to her mother as a āthank youā.
Dreams mom did a lot of things for her daughter: she supported the skater with her dream, she raised her daughter healthily, and she gave them the Phoenix costume, which was the last step the skater needed to be on stage.
While the skater moved the spiritās path, there was also someone helping her, and who holds a big place in her heart.
Assembly:
They were just a group of kids who created a scout group with a treehouse, they were not experts in anything, but maybe apprentices in building and wood-carving.
The assembly guide created the group, and as the leader, they painted the logo in their mask, while the others added their own creativity to their masks.
Little prince:
itās simple, The Little Prince wanted to return to his planet to see his Rose, so he loves her, and while he is the main character, his care for the Rose is what makes her a guide.
Flight:
None of the spirits have masks, but since the guide was confirmed to be Ayinās apprentice, I guess everyone there are beginners too, but instead of learning from the elder, they learnt from the guide.
Abyss:
It was seen in the concept art that she was the youngest and the Captainās daughter, so I suppose that she gained some respect from being the daughter of the leader.
But also, she gained even more respect from the crew when she started to learn cartography. Now she joined with the rest of the spirits, and she draws and marks the way in the maps. The captain gives the mission, but she guides them to the place.
Performance:
A teacher who gained their place as an expert actor, and who started to teach a little group of beginner artists with different talents.
They taught with patience and gave a lot of support to their students when they felt like they couldnāt deal with it, that is exactly how a teacher gains the hearts of their apprentices!
Shattering:
I said that seasonal guides mustāve done something to be remembered by their group/populationā¦. Well, the eden diamond certainly did a change in everyoneās lives. Of the ancestors as well as in our time.
Not been to Eden for ages, so Iāll reblog in a bit with some screenshots but
You know in Valley, when you go through the races and you can see those big temple looking houses, the really big ones. You can see some in the bit between Valley and Wastland too. When youāre flying through the castle, as you start to go up you fly past at least one of them partially covered in clouds.
Thereās also a large curved arched wall, and the whale creature smashes through another temple-city building just before the bit with the Vault statues. All of these building bits are in the same architectural style as Valley, which suggests that they are individual buildings rather than just a tower from the castle itself, as the Eden Castle looks a lot different - more elongated, dark and pointed, rather than the broad blocky shapes of the others.
If we consider that Eden itself is basically a realm, and was the capital of the sky world, that area is probably the bulk of the ārealmā with the previous areas as an entrance or walkway up to the main castle/city.
Thereās a few more things to point out but I need photos so Iāll be back in a sec
Iād also like to mention that when you go out of bounds on the first floor, the whole structure looks a lot like classical depictions of the tower of Babel. Here, comparison:
Says a lot about how the king ran the kingdom and who he was, symbolically. (Donāt forget the vault mural where heās eating the apple in Eden!) So close to heaven, and still reaching ever higher, with a cityās worth of (workers?) insideā¦ Hubris, ambition, prideā¦
Havenāt been able to compare the sizes of the buildings to those in Valley, so everythingās a rough guess but this seems to be the general route we take in the current version of Eden. I hope Tumblr doesnāt ruin the quality too much so my writing is slightly legibleĀ
After the top breaks off we can see that theĀ ācouncil roomā with the Elderās statues is basically in that second tier of the castle section directly below what I would assume was Kingās private area of the castle? The section that is floating away.
The underground city area also seems to border on a cylindrical core? Its the curved arched wall we fly along after passing the buildings but before the whale. I have no idea what this section would be, but it rises from ground level to just below the council room.
The Eden Castle itself has a really inconsistent shape, and if I have time Iād like to make a comparison of all the times it changes. For example in the stage before the statues it looks like its made out of pipes for some reason?
Hi! I have a small question, (this may be changed in the future depending on in-game lore-) I'm writing the base structure for a roleplay and/or fanfiction for Sky, and it takes place in the past- When the ancestor spirits were alive. How would I refer to them now that they're living? Just as sky people, maybe?
A fanon name for the world of Sky is Horizon, so Horizians perhaps?
>The new Switch Trailer fucks this section up and so does the new Intro
>Every Vanilla Spirit in this realm is related to the Prophecy to some effect
>POINTING CANDLEMAKER/PILGRIM
>Candlemaking is a learned art from their family; descended from Fire Prophet Disciple
>When the Realms slowly rotted away, the Candlemaker went on a journey across the Kingdom to pay their respects to the fallen
>They were once a Pilgrim under Daleth, learning and spreading stories about the Prophecy until the Prophecy was shunned as per the orders of the Vault Scholars. Isle is exempt from this rule as at this point Daleth is in exile
>Friends with the Courageous Soldier as their families were close due to their shared histories as descendants of the Fire Prophet Disciples
>Simply died watching the Isle slowly become deserted
>USHERING STARGAZER/MIGRANT
>Their family was nomadic and moved from place to place before the stars fell, and they just happened to come across the Child of Propechy when on a walk one twilight evening with their brother
>Decided to give up the nomadic life and raised the Child of Propechy alongside the Isle Temple residents (then, the Prophets)
>Gave the Child of Prophecy their clothes as a parental gesture
>Died of grief when they learned what became of the Child of Prophecy
>REJECTING VOYAGER
>A descendant of the Ushering Migrant's who settled in Isle upon hearing the lost Prophecy
>Studied under Daleth and grew to respect him and his leadership- after the Elders had been sealed and Daleth was gone they stayed in Isle to guard it and its history
>Died trying to stave off bandits and scavengers from desecrating the Isle Temple
>>>SEASONAL SPIRITS
>SASSY STANCE (Gratitude)
>The Gratitude Group are descendants of affilates of the Prophets- Sassy Stance is directly descended from one of the disciples
>Found dead near the desecrated entrance of the Cave of Prophecies; died of initial Eden blast
>PIGGYBACK LIGHTSEEKER (Lightseekers)
>Lightseekers are affiliated with the Enchantment Scholars- Piggyback's mission in Isle was to learn more about the nature of light from the Cave of Prophecies and the Light Tunnel
>Died in the Light Tunnel after an unexpected cave-in following a strong earthquake
>BOOGIE KID (Belonging)
>Youngest of the Belonging family that somehow found their way to Isle when the family was on a trip around the Kingdom
>Trapped in the area to the right of the Isle Temple, but remained in the area to wait to be rescued
>Died of initial Eden Blast
>TROUPE GREETER (Rhythm)
>Part of the Rhythm Troupe that did a Kingdom-wide tour before the discourse between Isle and Vault started regarding the Child of Prophecy
>Troupe Greeter was delighted upon seeing the Isle Temple for the first time when practicing their part in the performance
>Died outside of the Kingdom; Rhythm Troupe are not Kingdom Natives
>>>SEASON OF PROPHECY
>PROPHET OF WATER
>Once the Element of Water had been retrieved, they went to work with Teth in Forest in order to show her how to master its power
>Teth had taken to confiding in this Prophet at times because of their similar personalities, before the industrialization across the realms had hit a spike
>Publicly executed along with the other prophets after the Isle lost its discourse between it and the Vault of Knowledge*
>PROPHET OF EARTH
>Went to study the Element of Earth's effects on the environment when it was entrusted to Ayin in Prairie
>Got along with their assigned Elder the most because for the most part, Ayin was a passive soul and only cared about the betterment of the ecosystem
>Publicly executed*
>PROPHET OF AIR
>Founded and helped with the construction of the Orrery and the Flying Race in Valley
>Fought with Samekh over the creation of the storm between Wasteland and Valley alongside the Fire Prophet
>Publicly executed*
>PROPHET OF FIRE
>Formed the foundations of the Kingdom's first generation of soldiers alongside Tsadi- among these soldiers were their disciples
>Fought alongside the Air Prophet regarding perceived misuse of the Air and Fire Elements and staged an attempt to take them back
>Publicly executed*
>PROPHECY QUESTGIVER
>Daleth's apprentice
>Surrogate father to the Child of Prophecy; has grown attached to the child in the time they spent in the Cave of Prophecies preparing for the Trials and teaching them all they learned
>Felt great regret when they saw what became of the Child of Prophecy- Daleth was distraught for a while, knowing that they could not prevent the execution of the Prophets by order of the Prince*
>Considered every resident in the Isle of Dawn his family and siblings in the same fashion that Daleth looked after the Isle residents as if they were his children
>Sealed off the Cave of Prophecies and hid the murals the day before the public execution was carried out
The king krill in the new Season of Abyss area could have rammed into the spiritsā ship. This krill is bigger than the others, and dwells underwater. Maybe the krill were once full and not decaying, but when the explosion happened, they were damaged and started to fade away. This krill was underwater, so it was untouched by the explosion and maybe it was what the krill once looked like.
I am pretty well-versed in the lore of Sky, with the war and the corrupted King and megabird, but I think that krill/Dark Dragons were created using the dark stones for the war, and that they are machines. Also, krill make a sort of grinding noise, likea bunch of gears being moved around. Do you think that this theory might make sense?
Why do sky kids have masks-IK this is probably a stupid question, but if your masks were really to channel your abilities, then why would we have maskless?
There are many different theories as to why skykids wear masks. The most popular one Iāve seen is to conceal our face, for protection or style reasons unknown.
snowghoul
blakekathryn
dailybridgerton
romaincrisis
