HMMMMMM on the inside cave wall is written, “The phrase that pays”… The gnome said he was never able to turn on the golems. What if the command phrase is “I have a tie just like yours, but the pattern is reversed.”??? 

If we could control the golems, including the remaining Ravage, and the BIG one?!?!?!?!?! And if they follow the basic golem guidelines, we could have one fudge of a personal defense force!!!

Stuff I found while digging! 

(1)

In lore, I think the Worm is just a higher-dimensional being that perceives the universe on a level we can’t comprehend, and produces paradoxes by existing (or perhaps exists only within paradoxes). I think its otherworldliness is succinctly described with a quote from its quest chain; “time is sight, gravity is desire.”

I think I might know why it is specifically a WORM though, from a meta perspective. There’s this old idea; imagine that you are a higher dimensional being, existing independently of time. You look upon our universe from an outside perspective, with all of time already played out, the great chain reaction of the Big Bang recorded from start to finish. What would that look like, each instant in time existing all at once in our three-dimensional space?

Copies upon copies upon copies, overlapping with literally the tiniest difference possible between each iteration. Each human’s whole life, a single stretched out shape, traceable from their death and all the way back to the moment they branched off of their mother, and so on. All of humanity and perhaps all of life would appear to be one big branching tree, a great hydra with infinite heads, stretching through a long world. And it gets even trippier when you consider we’re on a rock rapidly hurtling through space, also stretching out across the universe. So the gist is, to a being outside of time, everything inside of time looks like a mess of very long detailed roots and/or spaghetti growing through space. We are all “worms through time.”

So yeah, I think that might be why this spooky time god was written to be a worm; it’s just a reference to that concept. Though if you want to further tie that into lore or roleplay, perhaps the Worm isn’t truly anything like a worm at all, but when your scientists/citizens look upon it, they simply have its entire existence through time forced into their minds all at once due to its Eldritch nature (or maybe it is just so excited to meet us that it wants to show off its whole “body” on purpose), so they perceive it as a big ol confusing snake weaving in and out of our universe through paradoxes, and hence call it a “worm”. And said experience probably drives them insane, cause you know, we’re not really supposed to experience things that way.

(2)

Also probably some allusion to Edgar Allen Poe’s poem The Conqueror Worm, “An audience of weeping angels watches a play performed by “mimes, in the form of God on high”, and controlled by vast formless shapes looming behind the scenes. The mimes chase a “Phantom” which they can never capture, running around in circles. Finally, a monstrous “crawling shape” emerges, and eats the mimes. The final curtain comes down, “a funeral pall”, signaling an end to the “tragedy, ‘Man'”, whose only hero is “The Conqueror Worm”.

(3)

The worm is intended to be beyond comprehension. It’s a 4th (or more) dimensional being. Say that 4th dimension is time, for example. It experiences time as we do one of our 3 dimensions.

Pulling on my religious studies background from college, the worm we get in the game functions a bit like a mystery cult. It thrives on the fact that it can’t be comprehended. It also has a bit of a Gnostic flavor to it as a herald of a greater beyond that we cannot innately comprehend but you can choose to experience.

Above all, the worm is love…gravity is desire…time is sight…what will be was…what was will be.

1,2,and 3 are not my thoughts, just info I dug up. Then there is this too!!!

This is fantastic!

I was also thinking it could be a radio signal lost in time. Coming from like a modern age city of new orleans, some place famous for brass bands, and music??? So many possibilities.

So, some things hit me as I went to sleep. Something I should have asked the Necro and we should have asked our selves. What does Vecna want with a gold mine? Im thinking it isnt gold! There is a elite team of bad guys headed there right now, part of that team is stone giants. Why stone giants? Because they have the strength and digging/stone work skills to “unearth” something, something probably LARGE??? I would like to propose and idea to Otto, that we begin a “disinformation campaign” As of now we are still a unknown wild card. Since the hoard that attached BarrenFort then came north to fight us was wiped out and the northern undead forces were wiped out. No one on their side is left to tell just how bad condition the 2 strongholds are in. So with Vecna now in the pic we also need to think 4th dimensionally (adding time to the math) We need time to reach the mines ourselves, so we need to delay their attack. We need Otto to plant information (talk in front of the 2 clerk spies) mentioning things about the massive damage to BarrenFort and the overflow of refuges at Ironstead. And how more troops / supplies are needed. One of the Society of the Magi (SOM) can then suggest pulling all the military forces out of the local mine since the danger has passed and it was never sieged. And using those forces to aid the local city and fort in structural repairs, defense, etc. Explain that full withdraw of the troops is possible, but will take most likely 2-3 weeks. If the Vecna forces get this info, they would be smart to delay their attack until the troops are gone completely, thus maximizing their chance for success! But in reality it buys us the time to reach the mine, figure out what they are after, and destroy or take it! And set up a proper counter attack! The SOM can keep the spies around, until they no longer serve a purpose, then they can be “removed” however they see fit. Then while my ring is recharging (1 point per day) if Otto can tele us back to the subbasement we set up as a tele point, I want to buy maybe 10K worth of supplies (food, blankets, clothing, outdoor survival gear, tools, etc.) to bring back there to the fort residents and the refuges. We buy a lot of future “good faith” for the SOM & SOG. Then we put the TOM quest on hold (we know were the only ones making a push for it now) and we double-time time it to the mines!