#borderlands lore

[freyholland]

Borderlands Lore book misgenders Lor

Edit: People keep saying the “her” is referring to Lilith, but that’s wrong. You don’t get coffee for “Lilith’s troops” (the Vault Hunters ARE Lilith’s troops), you get it for Lor’s troops. Lilith is barely involved in anything on Promethea in BL3. It’s definitely a mistake.

[caffeinatedowlbear]

Some Mercenary Day Lore, courtesy of yours truly

Merry Mercenary Day to all you Vault Hunters and corporate scum-- *checks notes* Ahem, I meant to say: season's greetings, esteemed fellow capitalists and dirty bandits!

Much as I wanted to get the new L&F(A) chapter to you guys by now, I'm still editing. It's a big one, in every sense of the word. But it'll be worth the wait, I promise. (Said the author of the 300k slow burn.)

In the meantime, I thought I'd share a couple of BL holiday myths I made up as and when writing called for it!

The Reason for the Season

According to Marcus Kincaid, Mercenary Day was invented by the the Dahl Corporation. But Rhys, who claims to have done extensive research, says that the holiday actually goes back a long way. Its real origins, somewhere on Old Earth, are lost to history, but it is widely considered a time to be with your family. It can be biological family, or family of choice, but either way, this is a day to spend with people who’d be there even if you weren’t paying them.

The Holiday Sweaters

Once again, as per Rhys's findings, gifting and wearing decorated sweaters on Mercenary Day is a tradition that goes back a few centuries, to early colonization of the six galaxies. As courageous space explorers of yore had set out to forge new frontiers, their tearful parents back on Old Earth would send handmade sweaters to them halfway across the galaxy, to remind them of home and keep them warm as they conquered the stars.

The Honest Mercenary

Considered by many the spirit of Mercenary Day, the Honest Mercenary can bring you good or bad luck in the coming year, depending on whether you've been naughty or nice: by mercenary standards, of course, where 'nice' means honoring the contract to your original employer unless the competitor outbids them by 100% or more. It is customary to leave out whiskey and bullets casings for the Honest Merc, and if they're gone by morning, you can rest easy: he's decided you deserve good luck (and good aim!) in the coming year. (If you're worried you might've been a bit too naughty, don't lose hope! Remember that, honest or not, the man is still a mercenary, so you can always try to bribe him with the most expensive booze you can find.)

Hope you enjoyed these lore-lets! And if you haven't read my holiday-themed Rhack fic Meet Me Halfway, in which Rhys and Jack keep trying to steal a Mercenary Day market from each other, no time like the present-> this way for fic.

💰🔫💰 Merry Mercenary Day! 💰🔫💰

[sketchinfun]

I saw the Borderlands movie……..

2/10….but more like 1.1/10…….It was so boring, uninspired, bad writing, bad vfx, and just really bad film making in general.

[katagawajr]

BORDERLANDS 4- the lore so far

a post compiling all the tidbits from the trailers/descriptions, about everything we know about the story (so far).

wanted to make this post because i may be borderlands' biggest hater, but this new stuff looks really intriguing so far! call me optimistic but i'm definitely interested for now...

(speculation/theorizing involved here. i'm not actually 100% knowledgeable on all the lore but this is just what i'm gathering from it. if it turns out to be true then i called it here first <3)

so here's the timeline we know so far:

-> At the end of Borderlands 3, Elpis is crashing into Pandora. To save everyone (on both places), Lilith flies up and teleports Elpis away. Presumably, just like Sanctuary in BL2, she can't exactly control where it goes.

-> Where it happens to go is the planet of Kairos: a planet hidden in space- it's insinuated that the "protective barrier" surrounding the planet (made of glass?) turned it invisible. Or at least undetectable.

-> This "revealed" Kairos to the universe. Elpis presumably has been pulled in and is now orbiting Kairos.

-> Kairos is currently being controlled by "The Timekeeper." The Timekeeper is not a PERSON, but rather an Eridian Guardian. AKA... A Vault Monster.

-> This is explicitly stated in one of Nyriad's diary entries from BL3. She mentions the Timekeeper by name as an "Eridian Creation," in the likes of Graveward (BL3) and the Traveller (TFTBL). It's also obvious by the images above that it isn't Human- it has robotic limbs, floats, and seemingly harnesses/is connected to the Vault Gate behind it.

-> The Timekeeper is described as a dictator obsessed with Perfect Order, furthering the idea that this hidden planet was in a perfect state of "Order," with only the Timekeeper + its "synthetic" army. Remnants of whatever Eridian Society created it, and hid it away, for whatever reason.

-> Elpis crashing into Kairos, and breaking the barrier, has enraged the Timekeeper, who's planet is now visible to the galaxy. And a big hole in the ceiling of it's house. Damn.

-> It's confirmed there's a few years' time-skip between the crashing of Elpis and the start of the game. The SCAVS of Elpis (and bandits of Pandora most likely, however they hitched a ride) have now made their way to the surface of Kairos and are causing mayhem. They seem way more mechanical in nature than the last time we saw Elpis, but similar vibes. Very tech-y, robotic, etc. -> These bandits become their own faction known as "The Rippers," and their leader is a robot lady named Callis.

-> Queen Callis is shown in the trailer to ALSO be not human (robot? something else? Kairos's influence, or Elpis tech? who knows.) But apparently she also has the power to control the bandits, through their masks. She puts the masks on them and their eyes turn red, matching hers. So it's possible she's just mind controlling every bandit.

-> Anyways, it's a "robo-bandit" VS. "synthetic Eridian" civil war deal. The Timekeeper appears to be attempting to subjugate the entire planet again, especially based on all the "break free" wording of the teaser descriptions. Whether you're fighting WITH Callis's army or just as a third party, it appears the Vault Hunters are from Elpis (or, were on Elpis when it got yoinked at the very least). And they're trying to escape this planet. -> The last description does mention "cast of characters, new AND old," so it remains to be seen in what capacity old characters are involved. It IS a time-skip, so maybe Sanctuary finally tracked down Lilith's whereabouts and she's stranded on Elpis. Maybe Ava is an adult now and leading the Crimson Raiders. Maybe the whole "Timekeeper" business means there will be timeline fuckery- pulling alternate timeline versions of old characters, bringing back dead ones, who knows.

-> (I'M PERSONALLY INCLINED TO BELIEVE that Sasha and Fiona will also play a role in this game? Because New Tales called specific attention to Sasha being in a different part of the galaxy unable to be found (hidden planet? wink wink?), and Fiona's talk of Sasha's anahatium pocketwatch, with the etched phrase "TIME HEALS ALL WOUNDS.")

-> (Who knows if that is true, or what that really means. Just speculation here. I miss Sasha and Fiona, and they've been hyped up with BL3 Echoes, New Tales stuff, and even their own book. Give us the two best Borderlands characters back please.)

-> Last thing as an aside, it DOES show that we will be getting a Siren VH again. So she either needs to have Steele's unknown power, the Leech power, or some secret third thing. Maybe she isn't a real siren at all. The device on her arm could either be a way to REPLICATE a siren's power (like Anu, making her a "fake siren") or possibly as a way to enhance/contain the Leech power, like Tyreen alludes to in BL3. Interested to find out.

TLDR: we're finally getting the Eridian War plotline! They didn't forget guys! AND it directly involves Elpis, like the game where we first learned about the Eridian War!

Synthetic "Eridian" army led by a Vault Guardian/Monster, THE TIMEKEEPER, vs. the robotic bandit army, the Rippers, led by QUEEN CALLIS. Time-skip again (intrigued to see how long this time. It's canonically been at LEAST two years since BL3.) New + Old characters. New Eridian planet, like Nekrotafeyo. 4 New VH's, either FROM Elpis, or wayward travelers who accidentally crashed onto Kairos.

“Early 2025” gameplay reveal, unspecified 2025 release date.

[comma-tose]

I never understood the people who say that no-one plays borderlands for the story like uh yes we do? Some people might not care about it sure but take a look at Tumblr where we riot about characters being mischaracterized or forgotten or about story plot points being ignored. Tales is a hell of a good example of people playing Borderlands purely for the story.

A lot of us absolutely do play it for the story, and I'm not sure why those guys think they are the only people in the fanbase.

[angelonhelios]

i loveee giving my ocs eridium accessories. girl watch out. your ostentatious and ultimately meaningless display of wealth is slowly rotting your body.

[fried-trash]

other scribbles from my discord art streams

[startstatic]

bugs. Bugs anyone. Anyone want some bugs

[arachegeek]

the more i learn about bl4 the worse it gets

[phenikas]

Reposting this one cause I was very dissatisfied with how the lighting looked. Original request from @/lore_selector on Instagram, @hyperion-birb asked for a fully body shot, so you can thank them ;)

[peached-moons]

silly recent rhyper doodles….pls throw trash at them

[freyholland]

Also who decided this was acceptable to write about the series’ only canon autistic character lol … ??

[krotiation]

So like. Did we know sleeper sirens were a thing before or is this a double reveal, along with Steele's background?

[magnuficent76]

Hi guys. I missed Radha so much. Here's a lore dump on her !!! Don't mind her blood it gets explained. [under cut]

Radha (No Known Last Name) is a Pandoran Legend, someone whose title of fighter was earned through unimaginable amounts of effort and blood, and with that kind of reputation you have to be constantly on top of your game, which is why she is constantly pushing herself to the absolute limit of what a human being should be able to accomplish. And that IS a bad thing for the record she should NOTTT be doing allat (examples of what she does is do strength training with trains, boulders, people AND animals, run several miles every single day while being chased by people shooting at her, undergo mutations to be stronger still, have Eridian technology implanted into her arms, etc).

She is Not your average girl, and by that I mean she's completely deranged and should not be replicated under any circumstances because she's genuinely on some different shit. For a couple years now, she has been completely banned from every single legal AND illegal fighting tournament planetwide for how excessive and violent she truly is, even to the degree bandits go to, so now she just roams around without any purpose trying to find a new role for herself. This gets combined with how she feels like she's never going to find a true opponent to match her strength, which sucks because she has spent her whole life fighting and now there's nothing else to gight. For a while she just wastes away in the desert, annoyed that the universe would stop her at her peak (she won every single competition she has ever participated in and it was unfair to everyone else every time) (she's got alien rocks in her that make her more powerful) (she should not be allowed and that's why she isnt).

That is, up until one day, she meets some guy offering her a free tour, who then fails to knock her out Twice before he steals her wallet and runs away. This guy is Archer, and he just showed the world's most violent woman his entire ass before running away with one of her belongings /silly

Having some weird little 17 year old twerp be genuinely so ballsy as to actually attempt to scam Radha, who in her eyes is the ultimate life form from just how insanely strong she is, and who has, again, won every single fighting competition she's ever been on to the point of using the medals and belts she's won as armour, gave her some perspective on what she could potentially be missing out on. Radha figured that if there was courage out there to rob a 7 foot tall woman with muscles larger than their own head, then there was opportunity to be had with them, that maybe what she needed was to find out what gave them the sort of drive to be so ridiculously reckless. So she goes to find him again.

Of course, tracking Archer down was the easy part, convincing him that she wasn't just going to immediately kill him for his transgression was the hard one. This woman hasn't been in touch with her feelings since she was 8 obviously she's not gonna know how to soothe a lanky child. Ever since then, Radha's been working as muscle for Archer and Jonah more out of a sense of "I need to learn what it means to be alive outside of fighting", but she'll still gladly do fighting the second it pops up. She's not quite sure what she's learning because she's not paying attention to the friendship lessons out of a sense of superiority, but they still rub off on her sometimes.

And heres some fun facts about her to close this all off :]

- Radha's strength comes from messing around with Eridian artifacts... kind of. They overstimulate her adrenaline receptors so she doesn't notice pain or overworking herself, but otherwise they're just there to look cool. The artifact in question is mildly radioactive and her eyes glow in the dark about it. Don't worry she's fine, that's like the least of her worries

- When she was fighting, she worked with sponsors that would ensure that she could keep fighting for as long as physically possible, and while that never took away her enjoyment of fighting it did make it so all her free time was gone CONSTANTLY, and so she basically only existed to take aggression out on things. Don't worry about her she's normal once again

- Radha doesn't have a lot of memories of her childhood, or teenagehood, and really not even really of her early adulthood, because she views them only as displays shows of weakness (why are you a baby ? Just fucking grow) and so she repressed them so hard they may as well not even exist anymore. She took a lot of memory erasing procedures to make sure she wouldn't remember. Which is the sign of a good normal and well adjusted woman <3

- Has like a million hobbies now to get herself out of just Fighting Constantly, and even though she doesn't like committing too hard on them, she still has her fun and enjoys what she does.

- Loves fishes :) thinks they're very sweet lookin

[shadowolf188]

to celebrate my 2 year borderlands interest, I'm redrawing some of my Borderlands art from 2022. (DBH au. woohoo)

[xdeewolfx]

ok . so whos gonna help me decipher these