There is an optional side quest involving Ratoo where if the lamb has a follower become the demon Hathor, it given can be given to him for a health upgrade.
Considering how hidden and easy to miss this interaction is, it got thinking about somethings. Like how did Ratoo lose his heart, how is he still alive, how did his heart become a demon? Who or what is Hathor, what exactly are demons in COTL. After some research and alot speculation here is my interpretation of it all.
(This headcanon is incomplete because I lost inspiration halfway through but already put alot of time into it sooo, here. I didn't want it to live in my drafts...)
Demons in COTL
I will expand more on this later but this is a small exert of what I learned. Demons in COTL are all named after IRL gods, as in, NONE of the demons are named after actual demons, of which there are many. I found this odd since there are characters that are named after demons, like Baal, Aym, and Forneus, the bosses at the end of crusade dungeons and all the witnesses. Why then would the only creatures specified as demons in this world be named after IRL gods? Irony, maybe? We'll come back to this.
Who is Hathor?
The IRL namesake of the demon Hathor is an Egyptian Sky Goddess of music, dance, joy, love, sexuality, and maternal care. Her nature was multifaceted as she could also be wrathful and bloodthirsty.
"Hathor was often depicted as a cow, symbolizing her maternal and celestial aspect, although her most common form was a woman wearing a headdress of cow horns and a sun disk. She could also be represented as a lioness, a cobra, or a sycamore tree."
"Hathor crossed boundaries between worlds, helping deceased souls in the transition to the afterlife."
This aspect may be relevent later.
In game the demon Hathor will fly away and returns with red hearts. If you are at max health then you will have no use for the heart it has brought you. In this way it acts very similar to The Hearts II tarot card. And the many hearts Ratoo has pulled through his summoning circle. Like Ratoo, it seems as though Hathor is also looking for hearts, for you, the player or for someone else...
Ratoo's Dialogue about Her...
"My love took my heart to the sea, the sea, she took my heart to the sea... 'Tis where my heart will be, will be, in her bed at the bottom of the sea"
"Welcome crusader, take a moment to join me in my search. I look for the heart that once beat in my chest. That is until it was taken by... her. I have been sitting here for so many years, even her face has faded from my mind, yet I keep searching. Always searching. I've a dozen hearts you see, but none of them are mine. They are yours if you wish to have them, crusader. They are worthless to me. I care only for the heart that was once mine... so that I might look upon her face one last time... sigh."
A moment of respite in the eye of the storm!"
"I'll trawl the depths, for the heart she took from my chest!"
"Crusader you have come to join me! I am glad for the company, for this can be such a lonely place."
"I need only find it and I will see her again. I have waited here for so long and all I want is but a moment together once more."
"Oh! Oh! I am happy and I am sad, I weep and I laugh, and I love! Thank you, crusader, for what you have done."
My analysis.
Ratoo seems to be under the notion that his heart is in the watery depths of... somewhere. Not the ocean though as we don't every find him near the piers. Instead Ratoo has etched a summoning circle to someplace unknown where lost hearts can be found but, not his. The circumstances surrounding the loss of Ratoo's heart must be different from the others that he caught if it could not be found by this method. Not that he knows this. The fact this his heart has been very obviously removed from his body could be a factor as to why it can't be found.
I feel as though Ratoo's situation is a metaphor made manifest. His heart was, physically and metaphorically, taken by someone he considered his lover, we do not know if these feelings were reciprocated. Ratoo's memories of his lover are seemingly kept in his heart, which he needs to remember her. His heart has somehow become a demon that finds hearts and brings them to it's summoner. The two are able to be reunited but nothing really changes. The player is still able to summon Hathor at the Demonic Summoning Circle (this is very likely just a game mechanic though).
Because of how open-ended and indefinitive theory crafting is, I couldn't settle on any one in particular that could explain who Ratoo's lover was so, these are the ones I liked best:
My theories
1.
Ratoo's lover was once the goddess, Hathor, that he worshipped dearly. In an act of devotion he gave his heart to her, literally. Some time later, Hathor came into conflict with the old faith and was killed. Now all that remains of her is Ratoo's love for her in the form of the demon Hathor.
11.
111.
Demons in this world are remnants of deposed gods, Hathor being one of them. In this world Hathor is/was a goddess if love and preserving it. Hence Ratoo being drawn to a Hathor, demon of hearts.
Ratoo's in his feeling of love and longing for his lover, elevated his lover to godhood status after her death. Now empowered, she manifests hathors out of love for him. When we give him one in game it's like he is given a love letter from beyond the grave.
I gotta resist the urge to draw every demon in my temple AU so far but ghhhghhhh the brain rot.
So I will ramble about them instead
1.
Name: Paean
Title: Father Superior (since they are only summoned by godly followers they felt apt for the head of the temple)
Species: Cat
Gender: Man (He/him)
Description: A curly coated, light gray cat with a deep scar on the underside of his left jaw, leaving his profile uneven. A heretic once missed his jugular but sliced his jaw down to the bone.
2.
Name: Vesta
Title/Role: Prior/Cook
Species: Undecided/Monster
Gender: Woman (She/Her)
Description: Short, orange
3.
Name: Vosegus
Title/Role: Prior/Hunter-Gatherer for the temple
Species: Black puddlepointer dog
Gender: Man (He/Him)
4.
Name: Hathor
Title/Role: Monk (lower than a prior)
Species: Cow
Gender: Genderqueer (She/He)
Description: A red-belted Galloway cow with brown eyes. She has a widow’s peak, short mottled (red/white) hair, and two upright horns.
Because its been a while- just kidding more Narinder talk.
Haro says he
has appetency to invite the novel and the new, break ancient vow and primordial bond alike.
But what primordial bonds has he broken? Not his familial bond, not yet at that point. No, I pose a more interesting theory.
Meet your demons.
Edit: made my own picture as images were messing up
Vesta: Goddess of hearth home and family
Orcus: God of the underworld and punisher of broken oaths.
Vosegus: God of hunting and forest.
Hathor: Egyptian sky goddess of many things but who also guides souls to the afterlife.
Fornax: Goddess of the oven, sacrifice cakes in her honor. Later absorbed into Vesta's domain.
Paean: physician to the gods, an aspect of the God Apollo, or a god of his own right. Could also be a race of angelic healers, whose to say.
---
In a world where many people have the names of demons from the Ars Goetia: the acolytes of the other gods, NPC's like Forneus and Berith, Baal, etc. Why are your demons named after gods?
Because Narinder bound them to serve him eternally. Of course.
Some are more obvious than others, Hathor and Orcus. But others aren't too far fetched. Wheat has a long association with death, so Fornax is a natural inclusion. With her being bound up with Vesta, Narinder must have fought her and transformed her as well. One of Vosegus's symbols is pine cones and The cult grounds have evergreens, (if you want to attach it to irl, then Vosges is where he's from, placing cotl cultgrounds somewhere between France and Germany. Which explains the vaguely French shrimp.)
And Paean could have been his personal physician, since Kallamar may or may not have been up for that job.
Thus, Narinder's first transgression may have been experimenting with his godly acolytes. Apparently, transforming mortals into monsters is fine, but turning gods into demons is too far.
This may not have been malicious... initially... perhaps he did this after they had died as a way to keep them with him forever before he discovered resurrection. In any case, those are the primordial bonds he's broken and ancient oaths usurped.
