#pandyssia

[redadm1ral-moved]

Has anyone written about Pandyssia? I'm not talking fanfiction, I mean like, analysis. Meta. Especially in the context of colonialism and empire, and Pandyssia's parallels to Africa and the Americas (specifically South America). I'm planning an essay about it myself and I'm wondering if anyone has touched on the subject.

[tatchianamichaela]

Reveal! People are posting them now so here's the full piece that I created for @cobbledbitsofbonezine 😁

I really wanted to paint the fateful first meeting of the Outsider and Vera Moray/Granny Rags during her expedition to Pandyssia. I tried a few new tricks and I think the finished piece turned out pretty good!

The zine is free, go check it out for all the other amazing contributions 🥰

[neriad13]

I finally sat down and worked out the mechanics and history of Marked plant powers in that story set in Pandyssia that I’ve been working on forever and I’m really happy with the result! =D

To clarify: the source of the rat plague, as marked on the official Dishonored map, is the center of a ruined city (Arouraíos Póli. Translation: Rat City) which was once ruled by a Marked king whose name has since been scrubbed from history. His ghost still dwells in the jungle and grants power to any who draw the Outsider’s mark on their hand.

When marking one’s self as a member of the Nameless King’s coven one gains the ability to:

Control plants, including both the stimulation of growth within (somewhat - they can’t grow a bush in five minutes, but they can make it happen in a couple of days) reasonable parameters and physical movement 

Subpower: implanting a person with seeds or cuttings and stimulating them to grow under the victim’s skin and inside them. Grants the Marked complete control over the person’s movements. Long term use results in a plant golem with no humanity left to speak of. The golem will die when there is nothing left of the victim’s original body to feed on. Extremely taboo in Pandyssian society.

Offensive capabilities: manipulation of fast moving carnivorous vines to trip or ensnare opponents. Manipulation of poisonous spores and pollen targeting the opponent’s airways. Most Marked also use the former method to pull other people out of danger, do acrobatics the human body is otherwise incapable of and travel quickly through forested areas.

Other capabilities: stimulating the harvest to produce more of a bounty than it is capable of without assistance. Any garden tended by a Marked blooms with immense vigor.

Mentally tap into the mycelium network that connects all plants in the Pandyssian jungle

Subpower: Marked may use this connection to look through the eyes of other Marked. Canny Marked realize when this is happening and may be able to tell who is spying on them by the feel of the other person’s mind. Messages cannot be transmitted over this connection, but emotions can. Experienced Marked are able to block off this connection at will.

Subpower: Marked may use this connection to “see” things that are happening in other parts of the jungle. Works best within a range of several miles. A skill that improves with experience.

Subpower: ability to see the “echoes” of those who have died in the jungle and became imprinted on the mycelium network, whether animal or human. They normally present as semi-ephemeral beings who are caught in loops of what they were doing when they died, though there is an extreme minority of those who do not follow this pattern. The most well known of these is the golem of Arouraíos Póli, who has guided lost Marked out of the maze of the inner sanctum for generations. Newly Marked have difficulty distinguishing between echoes and living beings. They eventually learn to recognize their lack of shadows, sound and substance.

Drawbacks of being marked:

The echo of the Nameless King from which power is drawn exerts a profound influence on the minds of those who have been marked. He is a caught in a loop consisting of the sacrifice of the person who betrayed him and the subsequent unleashing of the rat plague upon the world. This loop is imprinted on the minds of the Marked and while they are marked, they are continually drawn to Arouraíos Póli and into this loop themselves. This is why candidates with strong mental fortitude are chosen to be marked and given extensive training in resisting the lure. Even so, most Marked do succumb to the pull of the Nameless King eventually.

When the person whom the Marked has designated as ‘the betrayer’ is chosen, that person’s stomach becomes a vessel of the rat plague and their sacrifice almost always results in the death of the Marked. The rare ‘betrayer’ who has broken free before being sacrificed gets horribly ill but is able to live a normal life if treated with King’s Mercy (also known as Plaga Perrit, a common remedy against the rat plague in Pandyssia) soon enough. If the sacrifice is successfully carried out, a wave of plague rats are released into the surrounding jungle. 

The Tradition of the Marked in Western Pandyssia 

by Dr. Kathryn Derring

Every village has at minimum, one Marked within its borders. Their duties are to prevent the jungle from encroaching on the village, protect its inhabitants from injurious flora and fauna, keep watch for danger coming from the depths of the jungle, ensure that the harvest is good and when needed, to guide people safely through the jungle. They are financially supported and treated with reverence (which is not untinged with fear) by the village in which they live. 

Candidates are chosen and trained as children, preferably by the village’s current Marked. If the current Marked has died suddenly or given into the Nameless King’s lure, this duty falls to the village elder. 

Traits looked for are willfulness, confidence, mental strength and strong emotional bonds, whether with friends or family. All genders are considered. A child and their family are free to refuse the appointment, but there is often significant pressure from the community to accept if the village has suddenly found themselves lacking a Marked to protect them. In these circumstances, a Marked from another village may be summoned to fill in the gap while the child trains.

The training consists of long hours of meditation, practice in emotional regulation, study of the local wildlife and combat training. Another important part of their education is helping out around the village wherever they can. The reason for this is that it encourages the child to form stronger bonds with the people they’re training to protect. The stronger the interpersonal bonds they have, the better they’re able to resist the Nameless King’s lure. 

Traditionally, the child is ready to be marked when they reach 15 years of age, though their training might go on for longer, should their mentor deem it necessary. The ceremony in which they are tattooed on the hand of their choice coincides with the planting of the first harvest of the Pandyssian New Year (usually within the Month of Nets, according to our calendar). 

In the week that follows the newly Marked is given a special hut to rest in, the village healer pays close attention to them and friends and family are encouraged to keep them company at all hours. The ability to see echoes (quite possibly of their deceased relatives) and the pressure of the Nameless King’s compulsion are difficult things to adjust to. It is not uncommon for the newly Marked to fall ill after being marked or suffer some sort of emotional breakdown. It is during this stage that candidates who were not fully prepared for the role most often try to kidnap a person they perceive as having wronged them and take them to Arouraíos Póli for sacrifice. 

In this scenario, if the Marked cannot be made to see reason, they must be killed. This is an exceedingly dangerous prospect, as the powers of even a newly Marked are considerable. It is likely that the Marked and their hostage will escape into the jungle, never to be seen again. 

Should the worst happen, the Marked’s mentor loses considerable face in the village. Village elders have stepped down because of circumstances like these. Marked mentors often pay restitution to their student’s family and that of their hostage. 

But, should the newly Marked come through that week having adjusted to their new reality successfully, they take on their full duties as the village’s defender and the cycle begins anew.

Most Marked succumb to the lure eventually, as their will erodes over time and the bitterness of living in a continent so dead set against life itself builds up inside them. The villages they live in know this and are careful to treat the Marked with utmost respect and do their damnedest to stay out of disputes with them, lest they end up becoming a sacrifice. This can end up breeding a whole different type of resentment which well trained Marked are coached to avoid. 

Some Marked see their death in Arouraíos Póli as their destiny and plan ahead for it. Some, instead of a person, take a thing which has wronged them and symbolically “kill” it in the inner sanctum. A faulty weapon which caused the death of a loved one. The parasite which destroyed a harvest. The fortune which caused a bitter family dispute. One man cut off the fingers of his marked hand which had failed to defend his village from the plague of biting insects that killed many of his charges.

But how are all these stories known, if Arouraíos Póli is the place the Marked go to die? 

Because these are the ones who came back. When the ritual is complete and the Marked still lives, the compulsion ends, its conditions fulfilled. 

Only those who are strong enough to destroy the parts of themselves that hold them back are able to return.

On Temporary Marks

Anyone with a stick of charcoal or a pot of ink can mark themselves with the greatest of ease. As far as power is concerned, the material with which one draws on their hand makes no difference. Mud works just as well as painstakingly drawn tattoos. 

The difference is that when the mark is washed away, so too are the powers lost. A common thought is that a village in danger might be better served by having multiple Marked on hand who are able to wash away their powers once the danger is passed. 

This is generally regarded as a spectacularly bad idea by most competent village elders. Without the proper training, marked villagers are at a heightened risk for succumbing to the Nameless King’s lure and harming their neighbors in the process. A village very rarely has the resources to train multiple Marked, let alone Marked who would only be Marked part of the time. 

Thus, there is a long ingrained taboo in Western Pandyssian society against marking one’s self, even in jest. Bedtime tales of naughty children who did just that and then vanished into the jungle never to be seen again abound up and down the coast. 

Then there is the other type of story - the ones about travelers lost in the forbidding jungle, on the verge of death from starvation, injury, poison - who mark themselves in a last ditch effort to preserve their lives and are then guided to safety by the ghosts of their ancestors. 

Not all of them are bunk. In 1799, a group of woodsmen from New Cullero found themselves lost in the depths in the jungle for weeks. When things became dire, they chose the one man whose will had not yet broken to mark himself. He was able to tap into the mycelium network and find the path that would lead them out. He reportedly suffered no ill effects before or after the mark was washed away.

The lesson here is that some people, without training, if the matrix of their personality is one capable of overpowering the compulsion of the Nameless King, are perfectly able to wield the mark for a short while. 

But the stories concerning an unprepared Marked murdering their rival, themselves and the village the resulting plague of rats overtook are by far the more numerous of the two.

[tooquirkytolose]

I know arkane is probably done with dishonored after death of the outsider, but also like...where the fuck is my pandyssia spin off?? where is my magical jungle exploration game with deadly plants and giant monsters??? Where is it arkane?!?? Where??!?!!?

[justdishonoredthings]

[img source]

JDT: Wanting to visit Pandyssia!

[artvinsky]

Not jojo’s related but this was my entry for the dishonored zine by @elsewherecharityzine / @functionalfutch. I

wanted to highlight the juxtaposition of the local pandyssian fisher ladies’ sailing smoothly against the rough seas versus the industry of whaling that’s so prevalent in the games’ canon.

The $300 worth of profits from the zine went off to the Trevor Project so this has been an amazing experience to be a part of 😭❤️

[knifemetaphor]

details from “Vera Moray on the Pandyssian Continent”

Full piece appears in @elsewherecharityzine, a Dishonored fanzine focused around exploring the parts of the world that aren’t featured in-game, which you can purchase here. All proceeds benefit the Trevor Project for LGBT youth.

[suaveassassinart]

some previews of my spread in @elsewherecharityzine, which is now up for sale on gumroad for $8! all proceeds go towards the Trevor Project, an organization providing crisis intervention, suicide prevention, and resources for LGBTQ youth!

>> check it out right here!! <<

[wehavekookies]

Road to Pandyssia.

For Dishonored Pirate AU.

[kiwimemer-moving]

Draft of mine and @pandyssiaa ‘s Overwatch OC bc we wanted a Vietnamese Hero. Haha ayyyyy, reppin’ ^q^ Still figuring out her weapon and name and… basically a lot LOL. Bottom version is a more concrete version of her design.

- Born in VN, raised there half of her life. - Moved to the Bay Area later on and worked in a boba shop - She’s a transwoman 

[justdishonoredthings]

Consider: a game set in pandyssia where the first 1 or 2 missions take place during the voyage there. Sneak around the ship, put down a mutiny, break into the captain's quarters, steal his private reserves.

There’s only so much chaos you can spread on a single vessel before the consequences come back to bite you. I’d be interested to know why the player character is already only looking out for theirselves before everyone else. What is their origin, their backstory, their motivation? Do we judge the crew, and the captain, based on their current behaviour, or their future intentions? - Do the crew have a good reason to stage the mutiny? Is the captain planning something nefarious once they land in Pandyssia? Why are we stealing the captain’s private reserves (of… king street brandy? whale oil?) is there a trader on the ship, or are we planning to trade with the Pandyssian natives?

[zlukaka]

(First Part) | (Next Part)

Heathen-Go-Lucky: Part 29

So now that Renard is finally over trying to destroy Micino, maybe they can survive this encounter with the infamous Pandyssian bearcat. 

Renard is referencing the prophecy that was kind of explained over here.

This took forever. I changed my initial plan for how the jungle part of the adventure was supposed to go. When the comic is finished I will reveal the bit of story I resigned from (that involved introducing a new character). I think the finally version is better for the overall plot and coherence.

I’m sorry for taking so long. I will try to release the next strip in a month or earlier. I wanna be finished with the comic before Dishonored 2 comes out.

[dishonoredtoo-blog]

Dishonored 2: EVERYTHING we know so far

TRAILER The trailer for dishonored 2 recently came along, and with it a lot of questions. Let’s see how many of them I can answer here. I shouldn’t have to tell you that this post is full of spoilers.

The Trailer

As seen in the trailer, the game will take place in the city of Karnaca on the Island of Serkonos. In the orignal Dishonored there were alot of brittish influences but according to Harvey Smith the general population will have similar ethnicity to Italy or Spain, with “major waves of immigration from Morley”.  The parasites seen in the trailer is called bloodflies and infect living humans. “Like the plague rats in Dishonored, these can be a natural hazard. This species lays insects in corpses and hatches out of them. If they get into a certain distance of their lifespan they become harmless like a dung beetle, but if there are too many of them at one point in adolescence they become hostile. The more bodies you heap, better chance these hostile outbreaks happen. This can be used to harass guards.” The man behind the desk in the trailer is called Kirin Jindosh. He is a former student of Sokolov’s and the inventor of the clockwork soldiers also seen in the trailer. “What you see in the announce trailer you can do in the game. This particular mission is called the Clockwork Mansion. Here you must kill the grand inventor of Serkonos or find another way to eliminate him in his moving house.”

The Story

Dishonored 2 takes place 15 years after the finale of the original game. We won’t see the Pandyssian content in the game. The game starts with a day in the life of Empress Emily Kaldwin Corvo is (like in the first game) strongly implied to be Emily’s father. Corvo will be wearing a mask for sorts, along with an updated outfit while Emily will not be wearing a mask.

The Canon will be a mix of the High and Low chaos endings of the original game, “We tend to chose the elements we like”. The game itself will offer a “modified high/low chaos system that offers more granular, direct consequences.”

Technical Stuff

The game will have improved graphics from the original game, but the engine is a well kept secret for now. However, gameinformer.com reports that ”Arkane isn't going into details yet, but it says that its technology base has dramatically improved. "You know how last time we had really strong art direction and okay technology? Now we have really strong art direction and really strong rendering tech," Smith says.” This has been confirmed by Harvey Smith. “For Dishonored 2, Arkane has enhanced the A.I. in a couple of ways. First off, guard search patterns have been revamped. In the first game they would follow bread crumbs but there were opportunities to trick them. Now they search for real. Several A.I. characters will get together and split up the territory to canvas the entire space. They will not recheck a spot another soldier has already investigated.  The A.I also have increased situational awareness. For instance, if two grunts realize they are with an officer who has a ranged weapon, they understand that he should hang back and they should move forward.”

General Game Info

You won’t be able to import older save files to get a different story.

Dishonored 2 will play like the original Dishonored, with handcrafted sandbox-style missions. No open world Both Corvo and Emily will be voiced ingame, similarly to how Daud was voiced in the DLC “Knife of Dunwall” and “Brigmore Witches”. 

Dishonored 2 will have more options to make the game more challenging than original game.  You will be able to play as both Corvo and Emily, and you  choose one after a dramatic sequence. This should give the game a bunch of potential for replay since Emily and Corvo each have their own unique powers with Corvo’s powers being different from the original game. Together with a potential New Game+ mode, this should give the game a lot of replay-potential. “Each character plays through the same series of missions, but each has different perspectives on the world. By playing through the campaign with both characters you will learn different things.”

Powers

Emily’s blink-style power seen in the trailer is called Far Reach, and while it may have similarities to the classical blink the two powers will be different in terms of “approach, upgrade and overall experience”. Far Reach, unlike blink, pulls Emily towards the target location. Emily’s powers also include “Shadow Walk, and Mesmerize. She is also capable of crafting bone charms, and there are more than 400,000 combinations in the game.” “For Dishonored 2, Arkane is taking a new approach to upgrades. The last game offered upgrades that strengthened your powers. Dishonored 2 has powers, but from there it offers a bunch of skill trees that allow you to upgrade in asymmetrical ways. For instance, you could upgrade Far Reach to yank guys to you and assassinate them mid-air, grab objects with it, or pull objects.” However, according to Harvey Smith they’re not really skill trees, but more like “asymetrical upgrade trees” Will keep updating this post, stay tuned! ------------ Update log: EDIT: If you have anything specific you want to know, reblog this post and add the question to your reblog and I'll see what I can dig up EDIT: Updated with latest news 12am GMT+6 22/06/2015 EDIT: Updated with the things from Gameinformer’s article 1pm GMT+6 23/06/2015 EDIT: Restructured everything with titles. 2pm GMT+6 23/06/2015 EDIT: So many new stuff with E3! I’m making a completely new post and linking it hear instead.

[sarlyneart]

Dishonored - young Daud

"Amir said something very silly today, mother! He said soldiers are the strongest people in the world because they know how to fight.

 "So I said: 'Well, my mother knows how to fight, too, because she came all the way from the dangerous Pandyssian continent to Serkonos on her own; she can survive in the jungle and the desert. She gave birth to me, earns money, and knows how to make poisons and medicine. Your soldiers are weak - when I grow up, I want to be a woman!' "

If you don't agree that young Daud was bragging about his super cool mother (who everyone thought of as a witch) all the time, we have a problem, mate.

Inspiration for Daud's mother is drawn from the Maori culture.

[neriad13]

Ghost 3

[intellectually-absent]

Ancient Pandyssia: A Study

[Excerpt from a Natural Philosopher's Journal during an expedition to the Far Continent, Day 12, Month of Earth, 1842]

Contrary to the belief of those uneducated buffoons that prowl the streets of most major cities of the Isles, the Imperial Capital of Dunwall included, the land of Pandyssia is NOT home to dread creatures, a portal to the Void, or men with the heads of dogs or lizards (I had to stop my research on the last myth, after an associate of mine took a perverse interest in that legend). Rather, it is a place where all life has blossomed over untold aeons, creating an amazing organic patchwork that even the great trees of Karnaca or the shadowy moors of Morley could not even rival. However, let me take my time to introduce to the simple minds that drool at the idea of the exotic and lurid, the reality of the Far Continent, and its inhabitants.

Now, you may find yourself wondering, does the Far Continent even have people populating its red cliffs, vast deserts, and ancient jungles? Just as our remote, isolated Islands created industrial civilization, the far continent birthed unique civilizations on its own. The Abbey may speak of them as thick-skulled brutish subhumans that practice obscene rituals in a vain effort to commune with Void spirits, but the reality is that they are simple (although not necessarily friendly) hunter-gatherer folk, the descendants of a greater civilization lost to time. These people, who seem to dwell on the coasts, vary in form of culture, although many of them seem to possess the same level of technological advancement--a rather primitive level, admittedly, that one seems to forget once you immerse yourself in the ornate carved jewels and necklaces, the esoteric and bizarre rituals, (and, for some of the men that accompanied me, the fact that the women lacked the modesty of clothing so common to us more civilized people in the Isles.) But it becomes more apparent that these people were descendants of an even greater civilization that flourished in these dense jungles, that built temples and shrines to unknown gods. The question I ponder to you, dear reader, is how exactly did a civilization as grandiose--probably even greater--than the builders of the ancient ruins beneath Dunwall--fall from grace?

Based on my research in a structure I have taken to referring as the Temple of the Moon, (given its unique astronomically-aligned positioning in accordance with the lunar cycle), this civilization worshipped a plethora of deities, all of which inhabited the same realm. To these deities, the concept of time was, apparently, non-linear, as many of these deities apparently vanished or faded into the "ethereal medium", according to my own translations of the petroglyphs found in the temple. Given that one would consider this as the idea of a "God" dying, these people apparently, did not have concern over the death of their "Gods", as they believed that their attributes were transposed through the ethereal medium into various shamans that could channel their power through what appears to be "runes inscribed on the body" (some of which looked oddly familiar to some cave paintings I had found on a rocky island off the coast of Potterstead.) By worshipping these Gods' attributes and channeling it into their shamans, the shamans, which were considered leaders of this civilization, managed to gain powers beyond that of the average human, powers which, after a translation of the inscriptions in hallway B, involved (pulling men and beasts from one place to another with otherworldly [arms]? or vanishing from place to place). Indeed, many of the folkloric legends of the modern-day Pandyssians speak of heroes that possessed similar powers, although their usage of them in these newer folktales were less grand in terms of scale when compared to these ancient shamans.

Furthermore, these ancient shamans had the ability to enthrall others, based on the petroglpyhs I deciphered in the tomb discovered beneath the temple (apparently that of a shaman.) They could grant lesser variants of these powers to mortal men, and these mortal men would join in their cult, apparently keeping said powers as long as the shaman lived (apparently, these shamans were not immortal.) Disobeying the shaman meant instant exile from society by the rest of the cult, although it is apparent that they still retained their powers up until the death of the shaman. These outcasts, however, could never attain the "demigod-hood" of the shamans, nor commune with the ethereal medium.

So how exactly does my discovery on their beliefs translate to the story of their fall? Apparently, there seems to be no further information (although I have dated their fall, based on a study of the stones in the temple, to have taken place sometime in the year -100.) As such, while the Overseer that accompanied me attributed their fall to "heretical worship and the misuse of said powers", I will simply assign these legends and stories as nothing but simple mysticism, superstitions from a bygone age.