Best Community Lore Theories: Building the Lore of Vintage Story

[cosmobeau]

This post is for compiling information on the lore of Vintage Story: What is the player in this story, how did Seraphs come to be and where did they come from, how did the world end up the way it did, and the truth behind Jonas Falx, Prima Mata, & the Rust. (SPOILERS)

HUGE shout-out to u/GraduateStonefly for compiling all the in-game lore including tapestries & item lore notes.   

u/GraduateStonefly's document is incredibly useful for understanding the lore of Vintage Story, especially since it's all cannon. That being said, here's some of the best posts in this forum & reddit I've seen so far, I've incorporated it into my server through inspired written work transcribed into books & scrolls in game.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/104QhqbAe6EF5M4KWuBieBhchOZiWhe8-uMcoVwz4PKI/

Seraphs, their abilities, & tying the player experience into the lore:

The Apocalypse, Rust World, & Temporal Stability's effect on Seraphs

Jonas, his machines, & Drifters

On the Resonance Archive:

A Lost Civilization born from Pandora's Box:

Exploring the Eldritch themes of the Lore:

Evidence behind Seraphs once being human:

Humans made Godlike: 

 https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageStory/s/SW4at8AEDO

u/iunoyou "From what I've gathered going through the new lore content:

Seraphs are ex-humans, specifically they're humans who worked with (or at least in proximity to, depending on your class choice) Jonas Falx and his entourage in the construction of his "great work" in an attempt to stop the rot from consuming the world, or at least to save whatever remnants of humanity were left behind. They were thrown out of the world in the process and ended up being "returned," albeit in a different form. 

Seraphs are specifically post-humans or ex-humans, they have a bunch of interesting features about them, being able to slip in and out of time in unstable regions and not aging. Regular humans also exist, such as traders, and it's implied that there are human settlements out there.

Something VERY VERY BAD happened when that great work was turned on and the Seraphs were all cast out "beyond time", but Tobias (the guy who woke up and wrote that set of lore books) was far enough away in the Lazaret that he wasn't directly blown out into oblivion. He awoke some thousands of years in the future, finding himself free of the rot. He crawled out of there and found a group of primitive humans that he taught the secrets of metallurgy, science, and basic medicine to. He stayed in that village for a very long time, recovering from his injuries, learning things, and waiting hundreds of years for others to appear, but he quickly realized that he was totally alone (though it's implied that Jonas also survived somehow).

He managed to rope the people of the village into building a new construction in an attempt to drag all of the lost souls back into the world and did something VERY VERY BAD in the process, completely destroying a huge swath of the land and forming The Devastation. Some time afterwards the Seraphs started popping up all over the place, "leaking through" the holes in reality back into the world. Tobias wisely decided to become a hermit after that and most of the villagers think he's dead now since another \~100 years have passed in between that and the player's return."

u/iunoyou also has a new discussion around the lore behind the new mob types, with great reference photos and gifs of the in game models:

https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageStory/s/F5tbw2KWyV

u/ander_hominem's incredibly in-depth critique of all the new 1.20 Lore content:

https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageStory/s/ERMNy0ellI

(Mostly practical gameplay critiques, some discussion of lore, spoilers for new buildings/lore items/progression)

I will update this post as I find more fan theories on the game lore, mostly compiling for inspiration for my server's lore. If you'd like to join, here's the info below:

 

 

Edited March 1, 2025 by cosmobeau
Adding more Lore Posts

[LadyWYT]

Oh wow, two citations for one's personal lore library, I'm flattered! I've got a write-up coming on the events of Chapter Two...I just need to finish hammering out my thoughts and stop procrastinating on writing it.

[cosmobeau]

On 2/27/2025 at 5:27 PM, LadyWYT said:

Oh wow, two citations for one's personal lore library, I'm flattered! I've got a write-up coming on the events of Chapter Two...I just need to finish hammering out my thoughts and stop procrastinating on writing it.

Absolutely, love your posts! I've had some difficulty finding good story posts tying the vague bits of the lore together, your have definitely helped in the RP department on my server, along other posters. Can't wait to see your next post!

[cosmobeau]

I'm now writing canonical lore based off our server's Story Location Progression! With explanation of the Resonance Archive, here: 

Theories before Full in-game Story Completion here:

Roleplay post here:

 

Edited April 20, 2025 by cosmobeau