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Pieces of Hate Xau'tak theory

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Hguoh

Hguoh

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Jakir said :
The black stone is used to reanimate corpses and it comes from the body of a god. Doesn't take a genius to crunch the numbers on that one. Also Gielinorian obsidian is opaque evidently so they are basically the same stone.

1. You are assuming Xau is a god and not just a being of comparable power to a god (like Hostilius the Autocrat).
2. There is little to indicate that the zombification effect of the stone has anything to do with inserting a piece of Xau-Tak's divinity/consciousness. Given the ex-ex-parrot's dialogue and statements made by Rabid Jack, there appears to be none of Xau-Tak's rather distinct 'personality' present. Also, no other form of necromancy requires inserting divine power. At best, they require some sustaining magic (often they don't seem to), so you can't conclude that the effect of the black stone lies in the divine.
3. I don't care about the opacity, I care about the difference in ductility. TokHaar obsidian can be hammered into armor (ductile), while Xau-Tak black stone must be carved with a chisel (not at all ductile).

Jakir said :
Ripping holes between the realms of the living and the dead

Source please? Cause we've seen Xau open interplanar portals (Rotten Journal) and come partially out of a similar portal (Pieces of Hates). But as for the realm of the dead, we've only ever had it talk to us there. Yes it can do some marvelous works of necromancy, but that doesn't require opening portals between the world of the living and the underworld or even entering the Underworld.

21-Mar-2018 23:15:09

Hguoh

Hguoh

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Jakir said :
terrorizing an entire ocean with undead pirates

We only figured out it was behind said pirates when its name was dropped in the 6th age and we began inferring connections that Jmods confirmed. Canonically, we only figured it out when Xau-Tak hijacked the last Kitten censor and appeared in Pieces of Hate.

Jakir said :
destroying sanity

When you see the hands. When you are already almost in it's grasp. Otherwise, it has just been a mysterious whisper, beckoning you to seek it out, to give in to its will.

Jakir said :
recruiting Sliske

It didn't. Sliske learned of Xau-Tak during the events detailed in Death at Sea. After which, Sliske researched Xau-Tak further. In Sliske's Endgame, it is even revealed that Sliske detests Xau's inaction:

Sliske: Xau-Tak writhes, twists, and beckons but never DOES anything!

Sliske was recruited by (and abused the misunderstandings of) Jas, not Xau-Tak.

Jakir said :
being active in a realm monitored specifically by a Guardian of Guthix

Said Guardian never even noticed Xau-Tak's actions with necromancy, when we know he monitors such things (his vendetta against Nomad, recognizing and intervening in Nomad's scheme in the Underworld to create a god, and putting down Zemouregal's flesh giant in Roots in the Community).

Jakir said :
leaving traces of what it plans to do thousands of years ago because it can't help warping reality around it

Traces that are addressed to us and that only makes sense in the present because we now exist.

21-Mar-2018 23:31:07

Hguoh

Hguoh

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Jakir said :
alerting the cosmic cat guardian of the underworld

And this has to be the kicker. The cosmic cat? That was no guardian of the underworld. It wasn't even an actual cat (it tells you as much in the quest). That was all in our heads as nobody else could see them.

That 'cat' was Xau-Tak speaking to us. I shall present my evidence:

Hguoh said :
At different points in the quest, you can see and interact with a blue kitten full of stars.
If spoken to, it cryptically foreshadows events that will soon happen in the quest.

Normally, this would be a bit of an oddity, but once you unleash the Rum-Pumped Crabs on the zombie pirates of Braindeath Isle you get these flashes of kittens playing as the crabs eviscerate the pirates. The messages to you while these images are on screen start off innocent enough like a censor in a children's cartoon, but it quickly becomes clear that they are Xau-Tak is speaking to the player.

Which means that it is entirely possible, and in my opinion likely, that when faced with intrusions into their mind by Xau-Tak the player's mind coped by envisioning it as an adorable cosmic kitten.

Uncle Harper said :
Near the end of the quest you mention that the kitten isnt really a kitten to which it replies "Well youre not really a human now are you? Do you really think you can save them?" Found that interesting.

That last bit is Xau-Tak's usual dialogue to the player.

Hguoh said :
And when you ask Madame Shih what was up with all the kittens, she asks what you are talking about and states that there are were no kittens. Plus, the insanity debuff is a picture of a kitten.

Xau-Tak was speaking to the player character all throughout that quest, and our character's mind coped by picturing the cosmic horror that is Xau-Tak as a kitten.

So it was subtle enough to fool you.

21-Mar-2018 23:37:39 - Last edited on 21-Mar-2018 23:40:40 by Hguoh

Jakir

Jakir

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Hguoh said :
1. You are assuming Xau is a god and not just a being of comparable power to a god (like Hostilius the Autocrat).
2. There is little to indicate that the zombification effect of the stone has anything to do with inserting a piece of Xau-Tak's divinity/consciousness. Given the ex-ex-parrot's dialogue and statements made by Rabid Jack, there appears to be none of Xau-Tak's rather distinct 'personality' present. Also, no other form of necromancy requires inserting divine power. At best, they require some sustaining magic (often they don't seem to), so you can't conclude that the effect of the black stone lies in the divine.
3. I don't care about the opacity, I care about the difference in ductility. TokHaar obsidian can be hammered into armor (ductile), while Xau-Tak black stone must be carved with a chisel (not at all ductile).

1) Irrelevant. Either way his stone is used to provide the juju.
2) False. Everything indicates that. You need the stone to raise the dead, the stone comes from Xau's body, the stone clearly contains his energy-his anima. You can't just create undead armies with fragments of any god so clearly it has something to do with his nature. Otherwise Seren and Bandos shards would be wreaking havoc right now. Even if Xau isn't a God it is clearly his power that is the catalyst for this. You can't argue his power isn't used in fragments from his body. As for Xau being a God or not V talked about him in his list of Gods he encountered and we have no reason to believe him to be incorrect or lying at the time.
3) When beings ascend they change, we have no idea what kind of change occurred in Xau. God only knows why a Saradomin, a normal human, became a giant smurf. If all that changed is his density increased that's pretty reasonable.

If you continue to reply without making any valid points I won't bother responding.

23-Mar-2018 08:37:22

Hguoh

Hguoh

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Jakir said :
1) Irrelevant. Either way his stone is used to provide the juju.

So what. Power =/= Consciousness. And in no case ever have we witnessed necromancy that necessitates one put a part of their own soul or consciousness into what they animate.

Just because it does necromantic stuff does not mean that it holds consciousness like TokHaar/TzHaar obsidian.

Jakir said :
2) False. Everything indicates that. You need the stone to raise the dead, the stone comes from Xau's body, the stone clearly contains his energy-his anima. You can't just create undead armies with fragments of any god so clearly it has something to do with his nature. Otherwise Seren and Bandos shards would be wreaking havoc right now. Even if Xau isn't a God it is clearly his power that is the catalyst for this. You can't argue his power isn't used in fragments from his body.

First, you are still jumping to the conclusion that the hands are part of Xau's body and not just something it uses as a tool.

Second, the stone clearly hold some necromantic power, not consciousness. Whether that power is innate to Xau's body or something Xau must imbue into the stone is not yet made clear. Furthermore, if it is a god, the ability for it to accomplish such things with fragments of its body or any substance it chose to imbue becomes utterly unremarkable.

We know pieces of Zaros and Seren hold bits of their power. Seren's can even hold her consciousness (which was made clear with the Dark Lord, while Xau-Tak lacks any such clarification) as can Guthix's power (as we saw with Kami and Treborn). We've seen Bandos imbued an amulet with enough power to make an avatar, and Tumeken was able to partition its power to make avatars or imbue other people/objects with power to make avatars.

And if it isn't a god, we have no reason to suspect a substantial change to the nature of the TokHaar/TzHaar obsidian.

23-Mar-2018 12:21:48

Hguoh

Hguoh

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Jakir said :
3) When beings ascend they change, we have no idea what kind of change occurred in Xau. God only knows why a Saradomin, a normal human, became a giant smurf. If all that changed is his density increased that's pretty reasonable.

Fair point. But in that case, you lose all ground for speculating on what Xau was before ascending (if it ascended) since any sort of change could have happened. The best we know of so far is that traits gods had before ascending get heightened after they ascend, and I see no connection of this manner between Xau and the creatures of the Elder Kiln.

Jakir said :
As for Xau being a God or not V talked about him in his list of Gods he encountered and we have no reason to believe him to be incorrect or lying at the time.

He never claimed to have encountered those gods. Here's the actual quote:

V: I have seen worlds where the gods have been victorious. Most of them were...adequate, if a little stifled. But so many of the so-called good gods terribly oppress the mortals that worship them. And that's not even counting the evil gods and the worlds they ruin! The desolation of Tuska. The battlefields of Bandos. The fire-wastes of the Queen of Ashes. The corpse oceans of Xau-Tak. Every time I see one of these broken worlds, I remember why it was agreed with Guthix. Gods and their wars are something to be rejected.

He encountered a world Xau had taken over, but not Xau itself. He assumed Xau was a god, but never met it to confirm that suspicion. Even the mention of Xau in V's book of the gods only claims:

[V] can even feel the tendrils of Xau-Tak have already taken root somewhere on [Gielinor].

So, again, we see no claim of V ever actually encountering Xau, just recognizing it's power/the signs of its infestation.

V assumed Xau was a god. Nothing more, nothing less.

23-Mar-2018 12:37:31 - Last edited on 23-Mar-2018 12:37:45 by Hguoh

Uncle Harper
Jul Member 2015

Uncle Harper

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Wanted to touch on the kittens once more. We see the kittens, obviously a coping mechanism. The other pirates at the end of the quest say they saw swimming horrors. Yet the player doesn't. Could it be possible that we were speaking with the horrors which we perceived as kittens? Hell, when we telepathically learn Wilsons name he smiles at us and says "meow."

The significance of the kittens could be important. The only Lovecraft story I can recall is the Cats of Ulthar (close in spelling to Ulthven Kreath) but that story has little to do with cosmic deities and more to do with a cat killing couple and an orphan whos only friend is his cat and the couple capture and kill it to which he places a curse on them and the next day all the cats of the town eat the couple.

Speaking of Ulthven Kreath, it is possible that that was the name of the cursed Archipelago and not just the temple. Meaning if the Dragonkin razed it...they made an entire archipelago sink (likely causing the eastern tidal waves mentioned in death at sea that the glory of zaros was sent to inspect). What could they have possibly done to cause such destruction?

Finally, the chest Madame Shih takes off with a chest at the end of Pieces of Hate. My first reaction is this was the same chest Jack had jumped into the sea with in Rocking out. Are we ever told what was in it? 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.

23-Mar-2018 17:47:47

Handkerchief

Handkerchief

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There's another Lovecraft short story with a cat... but it's extremely offensive (the name of the cat). The rest of the story is about standard Lovecraftian subhuman horrors.

When I couldn't reactivate my MQC override after the quest, I anticipated finding and talking to Captain Shih to be one of the new tasks (I didn't want to check to see) so I searched (mostly) all over the Eastern Lands for her, to no avail. She did have that ominous skin tone that suggested untoward attributes yet to be unearthed, although Jack certainly saw them. As to the chest, I'll give good odds it's the same one. Whether she was just using us and has equally nefarious designs in mind or whether she's on the greyer side is a bit unclear. Continual disappointment is the spice of life.

23-Mar-2018 18:30:46

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