What makes a Wizard-King?

[Goblin-Cookie]

Aow 4 lore section does have this to say about wks:

View attachment 1250269

"No longer limited to their original mortal form" pretty much covers that they can change appearance. It could also mean they can transfer their consciousness to another body. But later is speculation. Though it essentially happened in the finale of aow2 and with Melenis.

It kind of says they *recently* developed the ability, but none have actually been observed in the game to use it. It may be talking about transformations, as in applying transformations to themselves alongside their races.

They did not have the ability to change their form back in the olden days of Age of Wonders II, so whatever the Wizard Kings are depicted as being is what they were born as.

Problem is, Archons are known for having life/order affinity. So why would they suddenly be fire, water, earth, death, air?

New forms/races and stuff like that have way less assumptions to add, than going the race that embodies life/order suddenly has subtypes fully dedicated to the other elements/affinities.

There is also a part in aow2 about nimue where she has a bathing place with her nymphs with tons of signs about voyeurs not being allowed. Why does she have nymphs there? Only because of water affinity? Or maybe she feels connected in another way to them? Like maybe some kind of family bonds? If she is an archon, why aren't there archon girls bathing with her?

View attachment 1250280

If they all are archons, why do they rebel against Gabriel, a fellow archon?

Why does Nimue have nymphs? That might be because they are Nimue's lovers,
and they also join her at her city if you get too close.

The Archons are not canonically associated with Life/Order affinity, they are associated with Pure Goodness. They aren't the same thing and they never actually were. In the Tutorial mission of Age of Wonder II, Gabriel appears to have created some undead for Merlin to destroy. Gabriel is not the wizard of life but rather the wizards of ALL elements.

The Wizard Kings rebelled against Gabriel because they refused to leave the Blessed Continent and return to Evermore as they were ordered to. That is the basic lore of Age of Wonders II and I am surprised you even need to ask.

 

[Orinsul]

Archons are the worst form of empire, they exterminate the native populations of world after world after world after world so that humanity can flourish and dominated, apparently so that Archons can rise from humanity. they aren't associated with goodness, they are associated with opposing evil undead, but not for good, for evil order/life. for human destiny.

 

[Kitschy]

Archons are the worst form of empire, they exterminate the native populations of world after world after world after world so that humanity can flourish and dominated, apparently so that Archons can rise from humanity. they aren't associated with goodness, they are associated with opposing evil undead, but not for good, for evil order/life. for human destiny.

Yes! Join Urrath and spread the love of his embrace. ^.^



And speaking about WKs, what makes it a bit weird and inconsistent is depiction of Inioch. He just rolled over and died to what looks like a rebellion of a free city and not just get banished but actually died.

 

[STARSDragoon]

Yes! Join Urrath and spread the love of his embrace. ^.^



And speaking about WKs, what makes it a bit weird and inconsistent is depiction of Inioch. He just rolled over and died to what looks like a rebellion of a free city and not just get banished but actually died.

Because he wasnt a full wk yet.

There is a scenario mission where yaka, meandor and Julia duke it out i think. About the secrets inioch stole from yaka. Though, i think its a (semi) official one posted on the forum back then in aow2 times.

It was about wizardtowers making wks immortal.

 

[STARSDragoon]

It kind of says they *recently* developed the ability, but none have actually been observed in the game to use it. It may be talking about transformations, as in applying transformations to themselves alongside their races.

They did not have the ability to change their form back in the olden days of Age of Wonders II, so whatever the Wizard Kings are depicted as being is what they were born as.




Why does Nimue have nymphs? That might be because they are Nimue's lovers,
and they also join her at her city if you get too close.

The Archons are not canonically associated with Life/Order affinity, they are associated with Pure Goodness. They aren't the same thing and they never actually were. In the Tutorial mission of Age of Wonder II, Gabriel appears to have created some undead for Merlin to destroy. Gabriel is not the wizard of life but rather the wizards of ALL elements.

The Wizard Kings rebelled against Gabriel because they refused to leave the Blessed Continent and return to Evermore as they were ordered to. That is the basic lore of Age of Wonders II and I am surprised you even need to ask.

Read the screenshot again. There is no mention of recently. "No longer" is not a synonym to recently. It can as well mean with becoming a wizardking, they are no longer bound to their form. So the moment they change into one, they get that ability.

Archons are the race associated with holy, life and order. Yes, they are good. They are soldiers of natural order and good. Have the holy power of life and fight for justice. You just need to read their SM entry.

The only known archon that has also other magic than life is Gabriel as leader of the wizards circle. And for him its most likely he had to master all spheres to become the leader and to use the wizards throne. You cant just go from the infos we have to "yeah, yaka lost all holy powers and is now a cruel firegod".

There is also no mention of gabriel trying to expell all the wizard kings. The story of 2 is, that a bunch of catastrophies struck the humans (probably the rebelling wizardkings under necron) and Gabriel chose Merlin to fix it while his power wanes.

 

[STARSDragoon]

Archons are the worst form of empire, they exterminate the native populations of world after world after world after world so that humanity can flourish and dominated, apparently so that Archons can rise from humanity. they aren't associated with goodness, they are associated with opposing evil undead, but not for good, for evil order/life. for human destiny.

They dont exterminate worlds to settle humans. They did make deals with the elves to restore worlds so they can get recruits from the humans there to protect the cosmos.

The goal is to have free humans, so they have a chance to turn into archons. Doesnt work with a powerhungry elvenking in the picture.

 

[STARSDragoon]

They did not have the ability to change their form back in the olden days of Age of Wonders II, so whatever the Wizard Kings are depicted as being is what they were born as.

Why does it matter that they havent shown or mentioned that ability in 2? Allfather and urrath havent been mentioned before 3 at all. Yet lorewise they are driving forces in the cosmos from way before aow1.

Also, are you aware how hypocritical you currently are? In your other post you did defend your worldgates have timetravel shenanigans with something along it hasnt been mentioned yet because it didnt matter for the story.

Yet if the wizardkings ability to change forms has been mentioned first in 4, that is an issue? You are aware your defence works even better for wizardkings having shapechanging abilities since ever? Because that is official and we can suspect it was always like that. But in 2 it didnt get mentioned because it didnt matter for the story. After all, how would it matter if yaka changes his appearance every few centuries if the story takes place in something closer to a few months. Or that karissa probably looks sexy to every observer and seems to be the observers race for anyone.

 

[Orinsul]

They dont exterminate worlds to settle humans. They did make deals with the elves to restore worlds so they can get recruits from the humans there to protect the cosmos.

The goal is to have free humans, so they have a chance to turn into archons. Doesnt work with a powerhungry elvenking in the picture.

they settle humans to exterminate worlds for human domination
their goal doesn't work with any non-humans left to restrain or oppose humanity on 'garden' worlds. that doesnt work with an elven king who doesn't want to see all he rules, loves and knows destroyed in the picture.
Inoich's problem was keeping the plan a secret and not being courageous enough to act openly against the archons, not hungering power. If he'd wanted power the archons would ahve given him kingship of a whole new world to mould, thats what he turned down, to stand up for the many peoples of Athla against the human invasion.
The non campaign historical scenarios of AoW1 paint a clear picture of the conditions before the fall of the court, none of the humans actions are what a force of good would back, much less engineer.

Yes! Join Urrath and spread the love of his embrace. ^.^

Yaka also opposed Urrath, opposing Urrath doesn't make you good, it makes you not shadow.

 

[STARSDragoon]

they settle humans to exterminate worlds for human domination
their goal doesn't work with any non-humans left to restrain or oppose humanity on 'garden' worlds. that doesnt work with an elven king who doesn't want to see all he rules, loves and knows destroyed in the picture.
Inoich's problem was keeping the plan a secret and not being courageous enough to act openly against the archons, not hungering power. If he'd wanted power the archons would ahve given him kingship of a whole new world to mould, thats what he turned down, to stand up for the many peoples of Athla against the human invasion.
The non campaign historical scenarios of AoW1 paint a clear picture of the conditions before the fall of the court, none of the humans actions are what a force of good would back, much less engineer.


Yaka also opposed Urrath, opposing Urrath doesn't make you good, it makes you not shadow.

There are a few points here. Humans just need to be free. Not need to eradicate all. To my knowledge a human ruled World would just be fine.
But archons cant tell the humans to be nice. They have to do that on their own. On the way there, war and stuff could happen. Maybe they never become archons even.

I think oppossing urraths makes you a protector of the universe/cosmos. Not necessarily good or evil. But its the right thing to do. So maybe a step towards good.

Problem with inioch is. He was power hungry. He tried to steal yakas secret of how to become a wizardking. (There was a kinda official scenario on the forum about that i think). He never planned to step back after his traditional 1000 year rule. He made the keepers to lie to the archons about his plans because he knew they would sense his lies. He kept the elves in the dark about the Deal with the archons. Meandor instigated raids on the humans via proxy, but vastly underestimated them, which led to the death of inioch.

To my knowledge the elves would get sent to their World. Inioch probably would habe lost all power on arriving there. On athla he was king. On their World he just would be the youngest retired king. On top of that, athla is full of magic secrets. Way easier to become godlike there than on a peacefull elvenworld.

 

[Orinsul]

All that can be explained by just assuming he was secretly evil and mad for power sure, but it's more reasonably explained by the secret, He couldn't retire at the end of his term, because it would be the death of the court of wonders and the fall to humanity, he made the keepers to keep the peace, but chose to lie to them because he felt, wrongly or rightly, that that knowledge would escalate the conflict not hold it off, he dealt with the archons because they were in charge and he was buying for time to prevent the fall of Athla to humanity, etc etc Even meandor raiding humans in proxy conflicts, Meandor intervening in human occupations, displacements and massacres of Keeper allies and native peoples. Hardly leading to the death of Inoich, anything accept total surrender and compliance to the Archons or somehow a victory against them (like say the seals he didn't know about, if Sealing a world would even keep Archons and their human colonists out) would have lead to his death.
every point you raise can just as easily cast him as a tragic villain trying to stand up to an unstoppable all powerful tyranny, desperate last stands or desperate ill-fated attempts to build peace out of a rigged situation, as it does cast him a 'powerhungry' tyrant
you can put dozens of narratives on what we have been presented in the lore, none of them come out as objective or unquestionable, especially not that he was powerhungry or the real villain, he chose to establish the KEEPERS after all, he could have, and easily justified himself in doing, a cult of storms like grow to exterminate the humans in the face of the threat and crimes they'd carried about, but he didn't he set up a peace keeping compromise to mitigate the humans advance, not push it back, not even halt it. Just slow it down and allow the natives to escape sometimes. Because he lied about some aspects of the situation and kept closed council doesn't make him all the way to unquestionable villain, much less make the Archons or Gabriel unquestionable heroes when again, their plan is the releasing and backing of humans on world's and support of them doing exactly that Inoich didnt when he set up the keepers, not the CoS.

 

[STARSDragoon]

All that can be explained by just assuming he was secretly evil and mad for power sure, but it's more reasonably explained by the secret, He couldn't retire at the end of his term, because it would be the death of the court of wonders and the fall to humanity, he made the keepers to keep the peace, but chose to lie to them because he felt, wrongly or rightly, that that knowledge would escalate the conflict not hold it off, he dealt with the archons because they were in charge and he was buying for time to prevent the fall of Athla to humanity, etc etc Even meandor raiding humans in proxy conflicts, Meandor intervening in human occupations, displacements and massacres of Keeper allies and native peoples. Hardly leading to the death of Inoich, anything accept total surrender and compliance to the Archons or somehow a victory against them (like say the seals he didn't know about, if Sealing a world would even keep Archons and their human colonists out) would have lead to his death.
every point you raise can just as easily cast him as a tragic villain trying to stand up to an unstoppable all powerful tyranny, desperate last stands or desperate ill-fated attempts to build peace out of a rigged situation, as it does cast him a 'powerhungry' tyrant
you can put dozens of narratives on what we have been presented in the lore, none of them come out as objective or unquestionable, especially not that he was powerhungry or the real villain, he chose to establish the KEEPERS after all, he could have, and easily justified himself in doing, a cult of storms like grow to exterminate the humans in the face of the threat and crimes they'd carried about, but he didn't he set up a peace keeping compromise to mitigate the humans advance, not push it back, not even halt it. Just slow it down and allow the natives to escape sometimes. Because he lied about some aspects of the situation and kept closed council doesn't make him all the way to unquestionable villain, much less make the Archons or Gabriel unquestionable heroes when again, their plan is the releasing and backing of humans on world's and support of them doing exactly that Inoich didnt when he set up the keepers, not the CoS.

I dont really think its assuming he is evil, when the devs talked in the forum about stuff like him never wanting to retire, trying to get the wizard kings Power for himselve. Obmitting the Deal with the archons to his people.

Points for me a pretty clear picture of tyrant in the making, bent on increasing his personal Power. He just hasnt had a chance to show his true colors yet.

 

[Orphalesion]

They did not have the ability to change their form back in the olden days of Age of Wonders II, so whatever the Wizard Kings are depicted as being is what they were born as.

Wrong.
I literally pointed out in an earlier post that Karissa's bio in AoW2 says that the seductive, red-haired woman is a form she takes on when dealing with humans, so she must have other forms.

And the (non-campaign) scenario with Larissa and Artica from SM points out that they are Primal beings believed to be sisters. Sounds more elemental than Archon.
Yaka is also said to act as "god" to whole civilization which he creates and destroys at a whim. Not really Archon behaviour.

Really, none of the WKs who started slaughtering orcrorrupting humanity in the leadup to AoW 2 (Yaka, Tempest, Nimue, Nekron) could have been Archon.

 

[STARSDragoon]

Wrong.
I literally pointed out in an earlier post that Karissa's bio in AoW2 says that the seductive, red-haired woman is a form she takes on when dealing with humans, so she must have other forms.

And the (non-campaign) scenario with Larissa and Artica from SM points out that they are Primal beings believed to be sisters. Sounds more elemental than Archon.
Yaka is also said to act as "god" to whole civilization which he creates and destroys at a whim. Not really Archon behaviour.

Really, none of the WKs who started slaughtering orcrorrupting humanity in the leadup to AoW 2 (Yaka, Tempest, Nimue, Nekron) could have been Archon.

Her Bio in 2 you say? Have to check it later. Didnt notice it mentioning her appearance changes. But it would make sense if she at least projects an image into the observers mind, so all see her as seductive woman.

Though, the karissa vs artica maps description sounded a lot like a myth to me. But its the best hint towards their origin we have.

 

[Orinsul]

I like the idea of Karissa looking different, as it means orcs would see her as an orc, with whatever orc standards are? massive ultra-warrior with muscles big as trees and then they run into humans and start talking up how STRONG their wizard is
No idea about canon, but it'd be funny so I approve.

I dont really think its assuming he is evil, when the devs talked in the forum about stuff like him never wanting to retire, trying to get the wizard kings Power for himselve. Obmitting the Deal with the archons to his people.

Points for me a pretty clear picture of tyrant in the making, bent on increasing his personal Power. He just hasnt had a chance to show his true colors yet.

I feel being king for 1000 years gives you the chance to show just about everything

zombie inioch though, that guys trouble

 

[STARSDragoon]

I like the idea of Karissa looking different, as it means orcs would see her as an orc, with whatever orc standards are? massive ultra-warrior with muscles big as trees and then they run into humans and start talking up how STRONG their wizard is
No idea about canon, but it'd be funny so I approve.

I feel being king for 1000 years gives you the chance to show just about everything

zombie inioch though, that guys trouble

Yeah, something like that for karissa and the orcs. Though, she has an axe in 4 i think? So she probably is anyway.

He is an elf. He has all the time in his life to decide now is the time to show his colors. The only thing to keep in mind for him was that 1000 year Mark. Thats when he needs to finish it up to claim somehow he shouldnt/cant retire. Ideally by being powerful enough, that no one could challenge him.

We also dont know anything about if he was nice or not. He was the unquestioned ruler of the valley. So keeping the status quo was the only thing needed to stay in power, so he can gather power in secret.

Maybe he also only started it at the 9th century, when he noticed his time as King nears its end and he doesn't want it to end.

 

[Orinsul]

The Verdant Court held a unipolar superpolar role over the whole blessed continent, if not the world. Especially once the keepers started acting as peacekeepers between humans and native peoples across it. It's hard to conjecture he was itching to oppress it all when he could have done that at any moment and didnt, when we know or can infer what most peoples of the continent thought about the Court and the Keepers under his rule by their nostalgia for it and how, and why, they sided with Keepers or CoS after it fell.

While we explicitly know what the humans relationships with those same peoples were, and the consequences of them being warcrimes, which is what the Keepers AKA the certified canon good guy faction AKA the Inioch's set up faction acting in his memory, are wholly defined around preventing. so again, we can't 'know' if Inioch was good or bad, but we can know that the Archon's aren't good unless by good you only mean good for human domination and power not in any respect, any moral alignment definition of good, in the context of the events that lead to the fall of the court, the age of wonders or fate of Athla, there's a reason the canon ending of AoW1 is the keeper victory and it's that an Archon victory like an undead of CoS victory wouldn't leave a diverse and fantastical world for AoW2 to happen in and later games have doubled down in that being the archons goal.
They're order, they're enforcement of their plan, they're pro-life as in opposed to shadow and undead which yay good for them, but they're also a unknown countless numbers of world spanning empire of archon/human supremacy who were 100% prepared to and would have seen all nonhuman sentient life on Athla killed to make way for a human utopia and would have succeeded if not for Inioch's defiance and later the events of AoW1 and 3.

we can imagine what was in iniochs mind and if his secret feelings might have been selfish, but created the keepers to prevent the humans from exterminating the native and earlier peoples of Athla as part of a grand plan by the Archons to seed them exclusive dominion of athla and usher in an age of man, without returning violence in kind and then died because that mercy, weakness, whatever to refuse to kill the humans as the humans would have killed all of them, left open that door. If we're going to spin and black and white no nuance good and bad narrative on that, he's not the one who comes out drapped in the black cloak and hat.

 

[Blanch Warren]

so again, we can't 'know' if Inioch was good or bad

What little impression there is of him to me is that he was not entirely cooperative with the archon project of cultivating and giving the world over to humans as per their arrangement. Providing little aid, he would have largely attempted to manage them with subtle tactics as he would have the shadow races.

If not more directly aligned with the dark elves, or at least a supremacist for elves and the power of his court, if nothing else, he would just assume have kept the humans low for a millenia until they became more enlightened. I take him as a perhaps darker LOTR Elven type figure who would have more directly attempted to preserve the Elves in Athla in an Age of Wonders, if he didn't eventually cultivate an Elven empire.

 

[Blanch Warren]

we can know that the Archon's aren't good unless by good you only mean good for human domination and power not in any respect, any moral alignment definition of good, in the context of the events that lead to the fall of the court, the age of wonders or fate of Athla, there's a reason the canon ending of AoW1 is the keeper victory and it's that an Archon victory like an undead of CoS victory wouldn't leave a diverse and fantastical world for AoW2 to happen in and later games have doubled down in that being the archons goal.
They're order, they're enforcement of their plan, they're pro-life as in opposed to shadow and undead which yay good for them, but they're also a unknown countless numbers of world spanning empire of archon/human supremacy who were 100% prepared to and would have seen all nonhuman sentient life on Athla killed to make way for a human utopia and would have succeeded if not for Inioch's defiance and later the events of AoW1 and 3.

While there is a scenario in AOW2:TWT with rogue Archons I don't remember the specifics of, the Archons are presented as a race that is good alignment even compared with the elves, albeit in a Zoroastrian type scheme. I don't have any reason not to take the devs presentation at it's word.

They may not have been all that interested in preserving Orcs and Goblins in their then state, but AOW1 didn't have Tigrans anyway. AOW4 has guardian type figures who aren't simply humans. The Archons don't appear to have gone out of their way to exterminate bird people. The humans probably would have exterminated them, the Archons locked then away from interlopers in their own "garden of eden".

I don't have lore from newer games to suggest Archons as a "grey" force who are more simply humans supremacists. They probably are willing to accept other peoples, even if they considered humans most suitable for their cosmic war against darkness scheme. If some souls that developed in bird form or whatever eventually have something to contribute, it's whatever.

 

[Orphalesion]

Her Bio in 2 you say? Have to check it later. Didnt notice it mentioning her appearance changes. But it would make sense if she at least projects an image into the observers mind, so all see her as seductive woman.

Though, the karissa vs artica maps description sounded a lot like a myth to me. But its the best hint towards their origin we have.

On Karissa
"She appears unto men as a scantly dressed, voluptuous woman with flaming red hair"

I have also found this in relation to Fangir that, imo, at the very least point towards the Wizard Kings being able to alter their appearance, and might even say that he was not originally a dwarf:
"he appears among mortals as a Dwarf of desticntion, great strength and a long, flowing beard" <- the key part being "appears among mortals".

Mab, Yaka, Nekron, and Anon also use the same wording in relation to their physical forms, but make it a bit less clear:

"She appears dark as the earth"
"He appears as a man dressed in scarlet and brass"
"He appears pale as death, his limbs thin and skeletal with the grinning face of a skull"
"He appears as an ordinary man with dark skin, but those who are careful observers are said to see visions and feel the wisdom he emanates."
It's always "appears as" not "is". To me this hints towards their appearances not being their original ones but something they choose and possibly use to mask their true nature and powers, as the Anon one might hint at.

Arachna's bio also says "her image, when visible without veils of cobwebs and shadows is both a thing of beauty and spidery horror"
But here I'm not secure enough in my English to tell whether "image" here would necessarily point towards something assumed.

In contrast Serena is flat-out said to be an Elf:
"This ancient Elf woman is a strange mixture of beauty and sadness."
Here there is no "she appears as an Elf woman" or "she appears among mortals as an Elf woman of great beauty and sadness". With Serena it's just "this ancient Elf woman".

 

[STARSDragoon]

On Karissa
"She appears unto men as a scantly dressed, voluptuous woman with flaming red hair"

I have also found this in relation to Fangir that, imo, at the very least point towards the Wizard Kings being able to alter their appearance, and might even say that he was not originally a dwarf:
"he appears among mortals as a Dwarf of desticntion, great strength and a long, flowing beard" <- the key part being "appears among mortals".

Mab, Yaka, Nekron, and Anon also use the same wording in relation to their physical forms, but make it a bit less clear:

"She appears dark as the earth"
"He appears as a man dressed in scarlet and brass"
"He appears pale as death, his limbs thin and skeletal with the grinning face of a skull"
"He appears as an ordinary man with dark skin, but those who are careful observers are said to see visions and feel the wisdom he emanates."
It's always "appears as" not "is". To me this hints towards their appearances not being their original ones but something they choose and possibly use to mask their true nature and powers, as the Anon one might hint at.

Arachna's bio also says "her image, when visible without veils of cobwebs and shadows is both a thing of beauty and spidery horror"
But here I'm not secure enough in my English to tell whether "image" here would necessarily point towards something assumed.

In contrast Serena is flat-out said to be an Elf:
"This ancient Elf woman is a strange mixture of beauty and sadness."
Here there is no "she appears as an Elf woman" or "she appears among mortals as an Elf woman of great beauty and sadness". With Serena it's just "this ancient Elf woman".

Thanks. Will check them later myself. But so far it sounds like a strong hint in retrospect.

Its probably part of their lore since 2, but just never really came up as interesting enough for the story to matter.

And yes, i too get strong "appears to be" vibes from that image line.