KOTCL Dev Diaries - Midian’s Chronology

Knock, knock!

The patch we promised has been released, all technical issues with the patch have been resolved, and the patch notes can be found in the post below. This is the main news of the week — the one you already know.

For the next patch we’ll work on fixes for both notes in the book of knowledge, and achievements that are now impossible to open, or can’t be opened under certain circumstances. The book of knowledge is so voluminous that figuring out and solving all the problems will be hard, but thrilling.

All the accompanying bugs will be eliminated too, of course. We read your feedback, so please keep it coming! And thank you for participating. We’ll do our best to respond promptly, especially to bug reports.

And Now…

An opinion was expressed in the comments that for a literary contest the players don’t know much of the backstory. And although the game itself has enough content for a decent novel based on it, not everyone will be able to reach that content. Well, let’s fix that—without any spoilers, of course. I’ll share with you Midian’s chronology which extends beyond the game’s timeline and gives deeper insight into the universe.

Midian’s Chronology

1. Creation stage. First Agreement

Before finally splitting into gods and demons (read about the reasons for the split in one of the previous diary entries), the ancestors created Midian and put their children (humans) there. But, if we’re being more precise, they created not Midian, but the Primordial Spirits—so that the latter, in their turn, would create Midian and rule it. Such intermediation was necessary because the future Supreme Gods and Elder Demons agreed to not meddle in the affairs of Midian. Subsequently this agreement of theirs was called the First Agreement.

2. Primeval Period

Boring! All the races of Midian were in the primeval state. Scattered tribes roamed across the vast continent, sometimes running into each other, getting along or clashing.

Gradually, tribal unions and the first proto-states started emerging. In those distant and unknowable times, elves could easily unite with goblins against other elves. It was a common occurrence. And it was a stage in Midian becoming the world we know today.

The prehistoric period ended when national identities came into existence—the elves realised they were elves, the humans realised they were humans, same goes for the dwarves and the others. At the same time cultural differences between Midian’s nations started to show.

All the races, except humans, revered the Primordial Spirits. The elves favored the spirits of Forests and Water, the orcs found the Spirits of the Steppes, the dwarves preferred the Spirits of the Mountains. Only humans didn’t worship any spirits. Their beliefs boiled down to the idea that they were the children of the Supreme Gods.

3. First Age of the Champions

And now for something more interesting. The most powerful and zealous worshippers of the Primordial Spirits secured the spirits’ support and became their champions.

On the one hand, a champion is a servant of the spirits and a conduit of their will. On the other hand, a champion has a free will and can use the power in their own interests.

I remind you that there were no humans among the first champions, which brought the humans to the brink of extinction.

Having obtained the power of the Primordial Spirits, the champions fought each other, simultaneously killing the defenceless humans. All this time the humans pleaded with the Supreme Gods for protection. The gods looked on in horror as they couldn’t do anything because of the First Agreement. The demons couldn’t care less, but not all of them.

One of the first demon-borns named Zaratoch wilfully decided to stand up for the humans.

A Little Digression (on the Essence of God-Borns and the Demon-Borns)

It’s pretty simple: the demon-borns (or young demons, or simply demons) and the god-borns (who are called angels) were born after their ancestors split into demons and gods.

4. Last Battle

Now this is really interesting. Under the threat of complete extermination, the remaining humans united into one great army to fight the orcs. However, they stood no chance, because the orcs had champions and humans didn’t.

At the decisive moment of the last battle, the leader of the humans, Ingvar the Bright (not that Ingvar, no) pleaded with the Supreme Gods for the last time.

But his plea was answered by Zaratosh, who then made Ingvar his champion. With his help, the humans won and defended their right to existence.

However, evidently the First Agreement was violated. Observing that, the Supreme Gods and the Elder Demons still refrained from interfering. Meanwhile the angels and the young demons started siding with the humans one by one, creating champions among the humans. This domino effect was stopped only with the help of the New Agreement.

Read in the next diary log:

1. New Agreement

2. Sprouting of the Shoots (the events of KOTCL take place somewhere around this time)

3. Second Age of Champions

4. Rise of the Shoots

5. The End of Everything and a New Beginning (I’m not actually going to tell you about these, I only wrote that to tease you)

I would love to tell you about the mixing of the races as well; it’s a very curious topic too—half-elves, half-orcs, and so on. But that can wait for now. Stay tuned!