Rambling: Eldritch Themes, Gods, Temporality, etc. [Spoilers]

[cjc813]

Massive spoilers, obv. Stop reading and go play if you haven't already experienced most of the story.

But, having spoiled for myself (but not yet played) Chapter 2, I've been thinking a ton about the lore and how it might all fit together. I've got some rough hunches/theories that I wanna ramble about. I might not have the details 100% correct (esp. re: The Lens and the chapter 2 content), since I'm currently piecing together what I've Googled, and I don't currently have time to play chapter 2. (I'm debating just creative-mode-flying to the Lazaret, etc. But I kinda want to experience "The Journey," so...)

I also don't have the time/energy for a more organized writeup, so this will be very speculative and rambly, but here we go.

Let's talk first about Eldritch themes, which we know Vintage Story is inspired by. Just how deep the Lovecraftian roots of this game's story go isn't clear; is the story just borrowing thematically here and there or is it a whole-ass Eldritch story? Not yet clear, but my gut tells me that the cosmic horror elements of this narrative go a lot deeper than we currently see (which, itself, is very Eldritch).

Couple things we can pull away from Tyron and Luke's Eldritch inspirations.

One: to an extent, this story isn't going to make logical sense, and at certain points we're probably going to have to pull away from firm, logical theories, the kind of which we would craft around, say, a hard sci-fi story. This story is a good bit more mystical, I think, and perhaps even a bit timey-wimey (for any Whovians reading). The unease of Eldritch horror stems largely from things that are cosmic and beyond human comprehension. I think, ultimately, a lot of Vintage Story is going to have a "beyond mortal comprehension" vibe.

Two: where are the gods of vintage story? (Dave!? lol, Dave the Elder God, imagine that! ) If Vintage Story is full-on Eldritch, then malevolent, cosmic entities are at play. Not much is said about it/them in the current lore, but my gut tells me that at least one is there. (And he's underground.)

Couple times where gods are mentioned: when you're talking to the trader, asking about drifters (or maybe just the monsters of VS in general), he says that these creatures are cursed by God/gods for their hubris, essentially. So, at the very least, deities are believed-in in the VS world, and there's this association with evil and the underground. (More about drifters in a minute.)

Second is in the story of "The Morning," which is a whole other narrative ball of wax. I want to do a whole post about Bearfirth at some point. But, essentially, she digs deep underground and what does she find? Seems to be a g-dang elder god, with whom she makes a pact: power, in exchange for her loyalty.

https://www.vintagestory.at/stories/storyexcerpt-themorning.html/

Now, this story could be a myth written by humanity emerging from the wake of its rotten apocalypse, so it might not all be historically accurate, so to speak, but it is very interesting, no? The suggestion that there is a deity beneath the earth willing to bestow a powerful madness on anyone devoted to him?

We see something also interesting in Blind Bat Rickhart; He finds *something* down there that's metal, and it seems to peer into his soul. Again, how much of this is myth/folklore of a re-emerging humanity, and how much is *true* isn't clear. But again, there's another suggestion that there's something evil deep beneath the earth.

Talking about the underground, we also can't ignore The Rot and the quarantine efforts lead by Jonas. Which also ties in, I think, somehow, to the appearance of monsters underground.

During the accounts of The Rot, I don't *think* drifters are mentioned; at least, they aren't mentioned often. The people underground were more worried about starving than anything.

But *now?* After the use of the machine? The underground is just chock full of abominations. And the deeper you go (i.e. closer to the god?), the more horrifying they get. Coincidence?

[Potential inconsistency: Bearfirth flees underground to *escape* from the monsters. Not sure what to make of this.]

We can also talk about the monsters in detail, but I want to chew on it a bit more first, look closely at the models of the new mobs, and probably play Chapter 2, before I say more. I will say this, though, especially about drifters -- I don't think they're organic. They seem almost like they're made of metal (and maybe cloth/flax?), almost as though they're mechanical material come to life. (Are we dealing with a medieval, metal, mechanical time god and his abominations?) 

Let's talk for a second about rot and rust, too. What happens to metal when left to the ravages of time? What happens to *flesh*? See!?

I think The Rot was/is more of a temporal curse than it was a biological plague, where living things grew necrotic and began to, well... rot. And I think "rust" is a sort of analogue. In both cases, time is affecting the bodies of these creatures in an *unnaturally fast* way. (Though, the bodies of the monsters seem, themselves, unnatural, so there are differences, too.) But, I think there's something there.

I also think this ties into the prima materia somehow. This material seems to relate to autonomy, energy, and time. It's used in the automatons, in temporal gears, in power generation, and in the "Salvation" machine. It also seems to relate to your immortality and respawning as a seraph. Narratively, it could just just be "essentially magic," or it may end up being more well defined. I guess we'll have to see.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_materia

Lastly, what about the Lens? The Lens seems to be how Jonas got a lot of his inspiration/ideas. Did he make it? Find it? This might be revealed in parts of Chapter 2 I haven't played yet, as I know it's... YOU KNOW WHERE, but... I haven't been able to Google much about it. For the sake of time, I'll stop there. Though I will mention Blind Bat Rickhart as well as that one Jonas journal/letter again, and simply say: In the narrative, scrying through time/reality is an established theme. Here again, something is going on, and I think all these things are related.

TYING IT ALL TOGETHER. TL;DR. ETC.

Long post short: I think Jonas somehow brought about the apocalypse in Vintage Story by dabbling in cosmic matters he couldn't understand/control/predict.

I think he was smart from birth, but his real progress started when he got ahold of the Lens, and that's when all the cosmic/Eldritch shit started happening.

I think he drew the attention of a malevolent deity (a deity somehow related to metal, rust, and time), and that deity is ultimately responsible for *everything.*

I think the deity noticed Jonas and our world, and creeped his way in. I think the deity looks back when the lens is used. I think it caused the rot, and influenced Jonas's plan to move humanity underground.

I think it influenced "The Project," corrupted Jonas's automatons, and influenced humanity toward the big, cataclysmic event. (Jonas notes how everyone seems super fervent about the Salvation machine/project, and it *scares* him.) I think the machine was/is a way for this god to ultimately influence/control our world somehow, I think the machine still exists underground, and I think that's what caused (or at least made worse) temporal disturbances, monsters, and so on.

I think *that* is the sense in which this elder god is underground; he's somehow tied to the machine itself, and...

I think he's still there, and I think *he* is the threat that Tobias is so afraid of.

But hey... that's *just* a theory... a gam... anyway. Gotta go to work now. 

Edited February 26, 2025 by cjc813

[idiomcritter]

as good a spin as all the other spins, nice speculations and gap filling

personally I like fragmented stories that allow speculation on the bits invisible.  

also, being familiar with the developing story has yet to demand real scrutiny (solving hat on), for answers that would allow the story to unlock/continue into the next phase.  at the moment its an optional glance to those that might have a curiosity?

[Maelstrom]

My take on all of this.

First - I always wanted to read Lovecraft and this game pushed me over the edge (and seeing a big fat tome of Lovecraft for sale at Costco).  Having read almost all of that tome I will say that Tyron and Luke have done such an amazing job of weaving an eldritch story that I swear Lovecraft himself is consulting them.  They definintely love Lovecraft!

On rot/rust - it didn't appear until Jonas had started using the Lens, peering into another dimension.  Opening a crack, if you will, into that other dimension.  And something came back through that crack causing the Rot.  This is exceedingly Lovecraftian.  All of his stories are about what happens when alternate dimensions (usually entities) impinge upon earth.  Those that attempt to fix the problem end up at least questioning their sanity if not losing it completely.  As Jonas himself records in his later writings, Confession specifically.  But the problem is that Jonas is also the cause for the inter-dimensional shenanigans, which is also a trope Lovecraft used often - someone on earth seeking arcane knowledge from alternate dimensions which then causes problems on earth for someone else to fix.

On Thunderlord/Thunderwarden Dave - It could be (exceedingly doubtful to me) that Dave is just an ordinary guy in the rust dimension.  Given his Cthulhuian size, I'm of the mind he's an elder god, likely responsible for the Rot.  As you mentioned, there seems to be another god, more malevalent that Blind Bat Rickert found and possibly mentioned in "The Morning".  Here is another typical trope of Lovecraft, humans recieving knowledge from extra-dimensional beings.  Those beings always have an agenda of their own which is malevalent to the protege asking for the knowledge and usually to that person's physical degradation.  Could it be that this, as yet, unnamed antogonist is responsible for the Mad Crow and the malicious eidolons?

Some seraphim praise Jonas.  I almost curse him.  I am a seraph that will work to return it to the state it had before Jonas' misguided curiousity wrought it's destructions, even if it means (and I expect it does) the death or removal of the seraphin from this world.

I am more than excited to see what is revealed in chapter 3!

[Tuxflop]

I was thinking about the myth of Bearfirth and how there was supposedly a god deep beneath the earth that she encountered and I wanted to propose a rough theory that popped up in my head:

The Salvation Engine is a god. The only solution Jonas could come up with to stop the unstoppable force of nature that was the Rot was to create a god to smite it from the earth. It's not what you'd expect a god to look like; from the Salvation tapestry, it evidently takes the shape of a massive machine with no face or arms or anything remotely resembling a humanoid, but it is still a god, and it still hides deep within the earth where it was constructed centuries ago. It would explain why the empowered humans it created are called seraphim; the humans involved in the god's creation became its angels.

It's possible that the Engine ended up kind of being like Vintage Story's equivalent to GLaDOS from Portal, in that it was a being they created and then, in Jonas' words, "awakened". In Portal's case, it was a giant computer containing an AI that instantly went rogue and killed everybody, but in the case of the Salvation Engine in Vintage Story, it's hard for me to say exactly what it did upon awakening.

Think about the eidolons; they're robots with some degree of independence - at least enough to go mad and start killing their creators, as does the one in the Archives we encounter. I don't think it'd be a stretch to think that the Engine is something similar; an artificial intelligence - a robot, essentially - but instead of being a soldier/guard/worker like the eidolons were, it's a god with the abilities to warp space and time.

When Bearfirth fled beneath the surface, she actually stumbled upon the facility containing the Engine, and the Engine spoke to her. I would elaborate more on the possibility, but I 'm not confident I know the game's lore well enough.

[ifoz]

4 hours ago, Tuxflop said:

but in the case of the Salvation Engine in Vintage Story, it's hard for me to say exactly what it did upon awakening.

From what we know happened, it seemingly emitted a blast of energy (?) that ripped all who were nearby out of time. Those same people were later pulled back into this world by Tobias, becoming the Seraphs we know today from their vacation spent outside of time.
Aside from that, we know is there was a "great rumbling of earth" and then the Rot was wiped from the world. Temporarily. Tobias says it's going to return, so it seems this was more of a stop-gap solution, though I'd wager that getting rid of the Rot forever was the intention.

It also scrambled the world geographically. Tobias no longer knows where the archives lay, as the "world has shifted since the old days".
We know VS takes place on Earth due to the mentions of various real world places, people and events. The globes found in ruins also have a texture of what looks like a real world map, though obviously in-game none of the terrain geologically matches that of real life.

Edited November 11, 2025 by ifoz

[LadyWYT]

6 hours ago, ifoz said:

Aside from that, we know is there was a "great rumbling of earth" and then the Rot was wiped from the world. Temporarily. Tobias says it's going to return, so it seems this was more of a stop-gap solution, though I'd wager that getting rid of the Rot forever was the intention.

Adding on to this, there's also that mysterious inscription in the Lazaret, that may or may not have been made by our good friend Tobias. I forget how the inscription reads exactly, but it references a crack in the firmament and witnessing the gears of the mechanisms that make the world turn, among other things. Now, from the sounds of it, whoever wrote it was not in their right mind, however, the passage likely points to the author witnessing the Rust world bleeding through into reality. Of course, the author could have also been telling the truth, in that if the premise of Vintage Story's reality is an antiquated theory of the world, the gears we see during temporal storms could be part of a literal mechanism(not the Salvation Engine!) that makes the world turn.

 

11 hours ago, Tuxflop said:

The Salvation Engine is a god. The only solution Jonas could come up with to stop the unstoppable force of nature that was the Rot was to create a god to smite it from the earth. It's not what you'd expect a god to look like; from the Salvation tapestry, it evidently takes the shape of a massive machine with no face or arms or anything remotely resembling a humanoid, but it is still a god, and it still hides deep within the earth where it was constructed centuries ago. It would explain why the empowered humans it created are called seraphim; the humans involved in the god's creation became its angels.

I don't think this is quite right. It's possible some survivors took to worshiping the Great Machine, but the lore suggests that the survivors were turning from whatever their prior faith was and worshiping Jonas himself as a deity.

 

On 2/26/2025 at 8:53 AM, cjc813 said:

Two: where are the gods of vintage story?

Tying into the above, I'm not sure that there's a specific answer to the question, as much as it is left up to player interpretation. The main setting of the Old World seems to be central Europe, so Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy would have been the most prevalent religions, though I would say that most religions prevalent in Africa, Europe, and Asia during the late medieval period likely had some sort of following among humanity's survivors. It also stands to reason that the survivors carried on those traditions over the years as a way of maintaining their heritage and some sense of "normal".

However, as I mentioned before, the lore also makes it pretty clear that many survivors had turned to worshiping Jonas as a deity. It's clear from NPC speech that at least most of them believe in some sort of divine figure, but whether they're referring to an actual deity or to Jonas himself isn't clear.

On 2/26/2025 at 8:53 AM, cjc813 said:

Now, this story could be a myth written by humanity emerging from the wake of its rotten apocalypse, so it might not all be historically accurate, so to speak, but it is very interesting, no? The suggestion that there is a deity beneath the earth willing to bestow a powerful madness on anyone devoted to him?

Honestly, I basically just chalked up "The Morning" as more poetic myth than actual fact. Things do seem to get worse the deeper underground one ventures, yes, but I don't think that's due to an eldritch entity as much as it is a separate dimension trying to merge with reality, or perhaps literal machinery that operates reality having a major malfunction.

 

On 2/26/2025 at 8:53 AM, cjc813 said:

We see something also interesting in Blind Bat Rickhart; He finds *something* down there that's metal, and it seems to peer into his soul. Again, how much of this is myth/folklore of a re-emerging humanity, and how much is *true* isn't clear. But again, there's another suggestion that there's something evil deep beneath the earth.

This one I think is both a legend of surviving humans, and actual fact. From the sounds of it, a young lad from one of the remaining settlements ventured too deep, found a ruin, was chased deeper into said ruin by a shiver, and encountered an active eidolon before somehow managing to escape in...well, mostly one piece. For whatever reason, the mechanical horrors seem to mostly only be found deep underground, presumably lurking around what were once underground bunkers and workshops. My guess is that after the cataclysm that ended the Old World, such mechanical monstrosities eventually faded from memory and become more the stuff of legends. The occasional explorer would manage to encounter one and survive, thus keeping the legends alive as cautionary tales rather than being forgotten entirely.

 

On 2/26/2025 at 8:53 AM, cjc813 said:

We can also talk about the monsters in detail, but I want to chew on it a bit more first, look closely at the models of the new mobs, and probably play Chapter 2, before I say more. I will say this, though, especially about drifters -- I don't think they're organic. They seem almost like they're made of metal (and maybe cloth/flax?), almost as though they're mechanical material come to life. (Are we dealing with a medieval, metal, mechanical time god and his abominations?) 

I think they're a mix of both, really. Certain dialogue from Tobias suggests that some individuals were turned rather than disappeared like the seraphs, which points to the rotbeast monsters perhaps having been human once. If they were human and twisted to such horrible forms, that might also explain why they have such murderous intent toward human survivors and seraphs alike, but leave other living creatures alone.

 

On 2/26/2025 at 8:53 AM, cjc813 said:

I think The Rot was/is more of a temporal curse than it was a biological plague, where living things grew necrotic and began to, well... rot. And I think "rust" is a sort of analogue. In both cases, time is affecting the bodies of these creatures in an *unnaturally fast* way. (Though, the bodies of the monsters seem, themselves, unnatural, so there are differences, too.) But, I think there's something there.

I also think this ties into the prima materia somehow. This material seems to relate to autonomy, energy, and time. It's used in the automatons, in temporal gears, in power generation, and in the "Salvation" machine. It also seems to relate to your immortality and respawning as a seraph. Narratively, it could just just be "essentially magic," or it may end up being more well defined. I guess we'll have to see.

Possibly. I suspect the cause will become more clear in later chapters, but I am inclined to think that the Rot was an unintended side effect of messing around with prima materia/temporality. It seems to be implied that even Jonas himself didn't fully understand what made his creations tick, however, I get that impression that Jonas(and at least most of his actual followers) were smart enough to realize that caution should be exercised while exploring the tech. However, I have the suspicion that others perhaps didn't have such caution and tried to hijack Jonas's work for their own selfish ends, and created a disaster in the process. Of course, it's also possible that Jonas perhaps made some sort of a Faustian bargain with an otherworldly entity in exchange for knowledge of prima materia, and gotten way more than he bargained for in the process.

 

On 2/26/2025 at 8:53 AM, cjc813 said:

Lastly, what about the Lens? The Lens seems to be how Jonas got a lot of his inspiration/ideas. Did he make it? Find it?

I'll post this behind spoilers just in case, but:

Spoiler

Tobias confirms that Jonas made the Lens, and if I'm recalling correctly it was the first invention that Jonas came up with. He seems to have used it to peer into a different dimension--the Rust world, although it was not full of rust at the time--and drew inspiration from what he saw, essentially reverse-engineering these otherworldly things into his own creations. 

 

On 2/26/2025 at 8:53 AM, cjc813 said:

TYING IT ALL TOGETHER. TL;DR. ETC.

Long post short: I think Jonas somehow brought about the apocalypse in Vintage Story by dabbling in cosmic matters he couldn't understand/control/predict.

I think he was smart from birth, but his real progress started when he got ahold of the Lens, and that's when all the cosmic/Eldritch shit started happening.

I think he drew the attention of a malevolent deity (a deity somehow related to metal, rust, and time), and that deity is ultimately responsible for *everything.*

I think the deity noticed Jonas and our world, and creeped his way in. I think the deity looks back when the lens is used. I think it caused the rot, and influenced Jonas's plan to move humanity underground.

I think it influenced "The Project," corrupted Jonas's automatons, and influenced humanity toward the big, cataclysmic event. (Jonas notes how everyone seems super fervent about the Salvation machine/project, and it *scares* him.) I think the machine was/is a way for this god to ultimately influence/control our world somehow, I think the machine still exists underground, and I think that's what caused (or at least made worse) temporal disturbances, monsters, and so on.

I think *that* is the sense in which this elder god is underground; he's somehow tied to the machine itself, and...

I think he's still there, and I think *he* is the threat that Tobias is so afraid of.

I agree with most of this, save for I'm not sure it's an eldritch deity as the mastermind behind it all, as much as it is basic consequences for tampering with esoteric forces that really shouldn't have been tampered with. Or at the very least, I think it's a lot more unsettling if the feeling of some malevolent eldritch entity is there, without any actual confirmation that one exists. 

As for what happened to Jonas after the cataclysm...hard to say for sure. I'm quite certain he's still alive...or at least, as much alive as the player is, anyway. As for what state he's in, that I'm not sure. I doubt he's human anymore, since anyone who was at "ground zero" when the Salvation Engine was activated seems to have either been turned into a monster, or a seraph. I don't think Jonas was turned into a monster, since Tobias seems to have had some interaction with him after the cataclysm, so it's more likely that Jonas is either a seraph(or a super-seraph, if such is possible), or in a state similar to Tobias--ie, not a seraph but not quite a typical human either. As for what Jonas is up to...based on the "Breakdown" lore entry, and what Tobias said in passing, I think Jonas most likely suffered a complete mental break after the Old World was brought to an end, and went into hiding, likely swearing to never pick his old work back up.

[cjc813]

8 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Or at the very least, I think it's a lot more unsettling if the feeling of some malevolent eldritch entity is there, without any actual confirmation that one exists.

I honestly feel like this is actually how it's going to play out.

Assuming they actually finish the story any time soon.

[Tuxflop]

12 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I don't think this is quite right. It's possible some survivors took to worshiping the Great Machine, but the lore suggests that the survivors were turning from whatever their prior faith was and worshiping Jonas himself as a deity.

Even if I am wrong, I'm glad me bumping this summoned you here because your analyses are most of what I tend to work off. lol

(I should probably go find the odd few scrolls I haven't read yet...)

[LadyWYT]

7 hours ago, Tuxflop said:

Even if I am wrong, I'm glad me bumping this summoned you here because your analyses are most of what I tend to work off. lol

(I should probably go find the odd few scrolls I haven't read yet...)

Oh nice, I'm glad my rambling helps somebody.  Picking apart the lore and trying to figure out how it all fits together is a favorite hobby in the game, although it's been a while since I've done any written delves.