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History of Wraeclast
An attempt to piece together the history of Wraeclast from clues dropped in NPC text in version Path of Exile 0.11.0.
There's probably more information that can be extracted from unique items' flavour text and the like, but I don't have that collection to hand at the moment.
MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Vaal
The Vaal are the oldest known race in Wraeclast, almost completely forgotten in modern times[1]. They built the Vaal Ruins that entombed the weird darkness the player releases in Act II[2], they built the Ancient Pyramid at the end of Act II [3], and presumably they also built the Vaal Oversoul, or at least its mechanical frame. A number of the monsters in the Vaal-created areas are called "constructs" (Ancient Construct, Vaal Construct, Serpentine Construct) so presumably they had some biological or thurmatological technology.
The Vaal had a queen named Atziri who owned fabulous treasure[4].
The Vaal were also the first to use virtue gems[5].
The Eternal Empire
The Eternal Empire was founded by a race called the Azmeri[6]. We don't know exactly when the Empire was founded, but Azmeri civilisation began before the Vaal civilisation fell[7].
At some point in the Empire's history, there was a thaumaturgist named Maligaro (his equipment and laboratory is found in the Chamber of Sins, whose architecture resembles Lunaris Temple in the Empire's capital). Maligaro's research centred on virtue gems and how their qualities might be transferred to humans. His main technique was to inject the "essence" of a gem via a device called Maligaro's Spike[8] although it never seemed to work terribly well[9]. Apart from the Spike, Maligaro created elementals[10] and a mysterious darkness that covered the land[11] At the end of his life he created the Baleful Gem—either a synthetic virtue gem, or a corrupted one—for an unknown purpose[12].
The Last Days
The last days of the Eternal Empire occurred over two centuries ago[13]. From the wreckage of Sarn, we can assume the Empire was fairly prosperous up until that point, and some cataclysm destroyed it.
As well as the main population of Azmeri, the Empire had a slave population of other races, including Ezomytes, Maraketh and Karui[14]. It seems these other races were not native to Wraeclast, or at least not the part of Wraeclast covered by the Empire[15][16], but were separate civilisations contemporaneous with the Empire.
At the time, the leading thaumaturgist was Malachai. Like Maligaro he experimented with virtue gems, but unlike Maligaro he just surgically implanted them into his test subjects[17], and his efforts met with far more success than Maligaro's[18].
Malachai
- Chitus
- Malachai and the Gemling Queen
- Victario, the poet
- Voll of Thebrus, High Templar
- Purity Rebellion
- Ezomytes? Maraketh?
- Lioneye, Shavronne (with Brutus) and Kaom
- Voll as Emperor
- The Twist (and the Gemling Queen)
- What created the Undying? Note that Daresso the Daring cut a virtue gem from the throat of a "gemling"; presumably after the fall of the Empire, but apparently before the gemlings became Undying.
Karui
- Post-rebellion, in Act 1
- After the defeat of Lioneye, the Karui colony flourished for a little while, although we don't know how long. Until after the fall of Voll? Longer?
- Then, there was "black storms [...] from the north".
- Then, the invasion of the undead.
Modern Times
- Oriath, Theopolis
- Dominus
- Piety
- Piety experiments with gems via surgery (from Grigor), but apparently she wanted to experiment with the Spike too.
- Judging by the detritus in Lunaris 3, it's taking her a while to get back to Malachai's tech-level.
- Dates (IC?) are much larger than 250, so they're probably from the founding of the Eternal Empire, or perhaps something from the Templar faith.
References
- ↑ Eramir: "a culture I've seen mentioned here and there in some of the most antique of texts"
- ↑ Eramir: "These artifacts, and that ancient gateway to the northwest... crafted by the same hands, I'd venture. Vaal hands."
- ↑ Helena: "A man-crafted mountain of four sheer sides? Sounds like a pyramid. That's Vaal architecture."
- ↑ The Vaults of Atziri map
- ↑ Eramir: "It is the Vaal who began the use of virtue gems, well before our imperial ancestors."
- ↑ Eramir: "The Azmeri. The culture that descended from the Azmerian Mountains and founded the Eternal Empire, so long ago."
- ↑ Helena: "A people who, to the stone age Azmeri, appeared godlike."
- ↑ Helena: The thaumaturgist Maligaro used the Spike to inject the essence of the virtue gems into living subjects.
- ↑ Helena: "Maligaro injected Raulo with both immortality and deformity in equal measure."
- ↑ Helena: "Maligaro and his kind warped the very earth and water with thaumaturgy. The masters are long gone, but those poor golems must continue to obey their instructions."
- ↑ Helena: "This twisting of our surroundings, it's happened before. Maligaro conjured up a creature of the purest, darkest thaumaturgy."
- ↑ Helena: "Maligaro was mortally ill, degenerating in body and mind. It was in this state that he created the Baleful Gem. His final words are burned into my mind. 'This gem is my salvation. Today I join Fidelitas.'"
- ↑ Hargan: "I know that Emperor Chitus was overthrown by Voll of Thebrus, roughly two-and-a-half centuries ago"
- ↑ Lady Dialla: "Malachai had his slaves mine it, carry it from northern mountains to the refinery by the docks. Ezomytes, Maraketh, Karui... it killed them all."
- ↑ Grigor: "Only the Isles of Skothe were spared. Once, a backwater of my proud civilisation, now... all that remains of the Ezomytes." (apparently the Ezomytes had a separate civilisation to the Empire)
- ↑ Karui stone: "Kaom's canoe struck this sand with the force of destiny. At his back, the greatest war host in Karui history tamed the wild sea, their canoes coupling with the land, one by one." (if the Karui attacked by sea, presumably they are native to some land outside Wraeclast)
- ↑ Grigor: "...that's what [Piety] told me when she opened me up and buried a Virtue Gem in my entrails. Malachai did the same in the name of the Emperor, centuries ago."
- ↑ Lady Dialla: "Once beautiful and arrogant Gemlings..."