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The Player's Humanity

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Farming Egg

Farming Egg

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Since it appears the BE has control over time thanks to Aeternam, it’s possible its speaking of a future event involving the PC’s death or is simply able to view one of many possible futures. It could even be speaking of Aeternam, mistaking the second World Guardian for the first. Regardless, its clear that the BE isn’t the most trustworthy source of information, making this theory uncertain.

An unknown relationship with Xau-Tak

As stated earlier, we know little about Xau-Tak although it’s clear that for whatever reason that it has an interest in the PC. Of course, this interest could easily be due to the PC and Xau-Tak having opposing goals. The PC wants to protect Gielinor and its denizens and has the power to do it and Xau-Tak to put it simply, does not and must defeat the player to complete its plans.

However, this interest could be for a different reason. We know that Xau-Tak has predicted the PC’s arrival thousands of years before their birth, shown in a diary’s of Sliske’s called Death at Sea, which the PC discovered during Kindred Spirits. In the diary, Sliske is investigating the fate of a Zaroisan ship that disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Throughout Sliske’s journey, it becomes clear that Xau-Tak is responsible for the ships disappearance, with the surviving crew being scarred by their encounter and more importantly, seemingly under the gods control. This control is shown when a former member of the crew being held in an asylum says this:

“Do you really think you can save them, Player? You can’t. The spiral of time leads only to the gaping maw of eternity. And this is Xau-Tak.”

30-Apr-2018 12:39:09 - Last edited on 30-Apr-2018 12:42:03 by Farming Egg

Farming Egg

Farming Egg

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This raises quite a few questions, the most important being, why would Xau-Tak have the man say that. It would be thousands of years before the PC would be born, and it seems like a longshot for it to assume that the PC would happen to come across and read this diary. One possibility is that Xau-Tak can see into the future, and knowing the PC would read the diary, had his puppet say what they did. Another is that Xau-Tak already knew the PC and was attempting to contact them through his puppets.

We know very little about the PC’s past, so it could very well be possible that in the past they knew Xau-Tak somehow, and for whatever reason the PC has forgotten. Furthermore, it has already been established that time travel is possible, so perhaps the PC somehow knew Xau-Tak thousands of years ago, and through unknown events ended up in the Fifth Age with no memory of their past.

This could be supported by the lack of action Xau-Tak takes to stop the PC. Despite potentially being a threat to Xau-Tak, the god has taken very few steps to actively stop the PC. In fact, it has seemingly dedicated much of its time hinting about its existence and taunting the PC, rather than outright trying to harm them. However, there have been attempts by the god to harm the PC, so maybe this is all part of its plan.

30-Apr-2018 12:40:05 - Last edited on 30-Apr-2018 12:41:21 by Farming Egg

Farming Egg

Farming Egg

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Of course, all of the above is just speculation, but at the very least it clear that Xau-Tak is using the PC as a pawn in its plans, as is shown by this dialogue in Pieces of Hate:

Player: “What is going on here? How did I get here?”
Kitten: “Something led you here. Pulled your strings and made you follow.”
P: “Rabid Jack”
K: “That is but the name of one of the strings.”

A Short and Sweet Conclusion (also a TL;DR)

There is some evidence that the PC isn’t human. This evidence is found in dialogue with characters encountered during their adventures. While this dialogue cannot always be totally trusted, due mostly to the untrustworthy nature of characters themselves, it is interesting and an important point to consider about the PC when looking into who/what they are canonically.

30-Apr-2018 12:40:33 - Last edited on 30-Apr-2018 12:40:46 by Farming Egg

Uncle Harper
Jul Member 2015

Uncle Harper

Posts: 396 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Good stuff, and it has long been hinted that the PC isn't human or at least not a normal human. I have no concrete evidence of exactly what the PC is but if I had to guess Xau plays a big part in it. All the prophecies tend to point to this. Even the stone tablets "All consuming darkness will rise from the sea" many think this is the dagganoth but it could also be seen as Xau-tak. My guess is that the PC and Xau are opposite sides of the same coin. Either the both exist or neither exists. Funny how despite many deaths, the PC keeps coming back... I have seen the dark universe yawning, where the black planets roll without aim;
Where they roll in their horror unheeded, without knowledge or lustre or name.

30-Apr-2018 15:19:09

Deltaslug

Deltaslug

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As much ad i hate to say this to a lore thread, you might want to pull out any comments based off the Ashdale Tutorial.
The jmods are seriously looking at pulling it with a return to the older Tutorial island.

The next detail is there is a reason jagex didn't get too deep into the player character's pre-adventuring phase: it breaks your individual identity.

Games kinda go either way: you have a fully fleshed out history (ie bioware's Dragon Age charcters or Mass Effect' Shepard), a rather generic background (ie: you were only known before the start of the game as a soldier/convict/amnesiac), or you have no background story at all.

The last one was done back in the day to avoid work on dialogue or scripts and to jump right into the action.

Nowadays, you have role players who prefer to fill in their charcter history on their own terms, not dictated by a script they consider inferior to their own ability (in some cases this is justified), or they just don't like to be hamstrung by some cliche persona (why be the Mary Sue hero when I want to be a murderer masquerading as a hero)

Ashdale was written without input from the Lore QA ... So you had a team doing a story with absolutely 0 oversight.
What you ended up with was something that broke the precedence of not going to deep.

Next, we have another major detail: the player character could be making it all up.
Have we met ANY NPCs that knew the player character before the start of their adventuring?
Where are the parents? Siblings?
I can just as easily say my player character was just mouthing it off because it is a common phrase or a metaphor.
Perhaps your pc is an orphan that grew up with others that were "like family"
Or pergaps the player character is psycho and imagined that past as a justification to become the greatest serial killer and thief in history, all to the tune of "saving the day" (given the quest story lines, i kinda think this makes more sense to our true personality)

30-Apr-2018 18:19:40 - Last edited on 30-Apr-2018 18:24:52 by Deltaslug

Deltaslug

Deltaslug

Posts: 32,671 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
we probably just need a business card that says:
[Player name], psycho for hire. Pay me to solve your problems and kill your enemies for you because you know they will hire me too.

30-Apr-2018 18:27:30 - Last edited on 30-Apr-2018 18:28:12 by Deltaslug

Solmestix
Aug Member 2020

Solmestix

Posts: 477 Silver Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Uncle Harper said :
Good stuff, and it has long been hinted that the PC isn't human or at least not a normal human. I have no concrete evidence of exactly what the PC is but if I had to guess Xau plays a big part in it. All the prophecies tend to point to this. Even the stone tablets "All consuming darkness will rise from the sea" many think this is the dagganoth but it could also be seen as Xau-tak. My guess is that the PC and Xau are opposite sides of the same coin. Either the both exist or neither exists. Funny how despite many deaths, the PC keeps coming back...

What if Xau-Tak is actually an ascended, evil version of the PC from another reality? We know for fact that the different realities exist, with Dimensions of Disaster and the Damned.

30-Apr-2018 18:50:04

Byzantinist

Byzantinist

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You have brought together some intriguing dialogue from quests all throughout Gielinor, and it seems you’re onto something, so it's worth taking your theory into account.

However, I'd like to stick to your thesis we're just a superhuman for now - until Jmod confirmation or some NPC or litterature states that we're some other race instead: explicitely .

One thing that came to mind is that in the Monkey Madness quest, the gnomes required a human to be able to transform into monkeys, as we resembled them the most compared to gnomes for this feat to be magically possible.

Strictly put, we are very, very closely linked to monkeys according to that quest, creatures that are ninety nine percent human as is commonly claimed. This has made me tempted to interpret those NPC’s quotes on us not resembling a human in a more metaphorical sense. Sometimes one must operate within the
shadows
to serve the
light
. For a man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes on to another as a vine to bear fruits again in season, in order that the world may ever be new.

30-Apr-2018 20:32:20 - Last edited on 30-Apr-2018 21:49:02 by Byzantinist

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