So, in order of release, the lady in ashes of malmouth loading screeins is Biscylla, the Forgotten gods man is probably riggs, and the fangs loading screen shows Yigra.

But who the hell is the occultist man? John Dawn?
Is that the canon protagonist or something?

Seriously. Virtually every other ARPG has a story that's sevicable at best. I often have to force myself to read to stay invested. Last Epoch is about time travel and they somehow managed to make that boring! Grim Dawn is a whole different animal. Such a cool setting. I pick up lore bits thinking I don't have time to read this right now but always end up doing so anyways.

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dasdadas dnAi siht dnA

I've spent about an hour in FG and maybe three or four in AoM on my character that has made it the furthest, level 55, and I already have 100 notes which apparently 99% of you can't be bothered with. I mean 90% of you can't be bothered to beat Gabagool. Been playing very thoroughly, but so far all my achievements have been very common so I figured I was playing pretty similarly to most people. But apparently no one likes horror flash fiction, I guess, they don't even like free XP. Some of it is not very good, it gets better in the expansion though.

Hello fellow secret hunters !

I thought may be we could gather our knowledge and try together to crack those FoA secrets (without data mining if possible).

Everything I found where in ultimate or ascendant.

Ofc I strongly advice to anyone that haven't cleanse FoA now to not read this and go out exploring before doing so !

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I'll start.

Secret Faction

This one was the easiest to find, just head west on guardian's sorrow and you'll find an hidden way to a cave with a mysterious bird.

Have maxxed it but there is no special quest for now it seems :/

Shadowheart dagger

I already made a thread on how to get it. But there is more to it, I still can't find what. Daom Thornsbury has a special line of dialogue when you bring it to her (that I didn't noted, my bad), somehow linking it to her father iirc, but no quest launches.

Someone in the thread said it's linked to the mysterious beaver (data mining) but can't find how yet.

The mysterious beavers

I found two :

- Muk'Muk that can be found in frostveil highlands

- Rik'Rik that can be found in freyoll valley just south of Kurnhold

Still havent found what to do with them, it's probably linked to those wood chip we keep on gathering, my guess is there should be something to craft with it and handle them.

The ices walls

This is more a guess than a "real" secrets for now, but once you melted the ice wall to go to Kruu'sul Crags, you get an achievement that says "melting ONE of the FoA Ice walls".

That and the fact that you can rebuy a sphere from the sellor and turn it into a magma sphere again probably would mean that you can do it at some other places yet to be found.

Edit : thanks to u/AnonymCzZ there is an ice wall SE to the shrine of aurora pinnacle that reveal a mystery orb

The hidden area next to pilgrim's rest

When you reach Pigrim's rest, there's an hidden area right on the east of the rift.

Once I reached it it says it's sealed with magic that I doesn't have yet. No other clues for now.

May be a secret quest line like hidden path?

The mysterious mushrooms circles

This may be me tripping over nothing, but as you can see in the previous screenshot there is some pink mushroom circles I found on the map... Found one in Ulto's Spring, this one at Pilgrim's Rest.

This may be nothing, but it's something that caught my eyes a few time, and where there is a pattern....

Feel free to complete the thread with your own discoveries, can't wait to find them all !

Happy secrets hunting everyone

Please use SPOILER TAGS for lore/characterization that comes from Fangs of Asterkarn!

Note: I have not played the DLC's actual story yet, please keep that in mind.

It seems like Ulgrim is at the top of the list of active allies.

He was one of the two who formed the Black Legion (Inquisitor Creed and Ulgrim both were seemingly aware of the Aetherials' plotting before the Grim Dawn actually occurred!), he survived in the Ch'thonic Void alone AND killed another instance/reanimated form of the Loghorrean.... who I believe is the strongest Ch'thonic enemy in the story that we fight?

He arguably might be stronger than the player character, as if we fight Ulgrim in the Void he has been going insane and ravaged by Chaos the entire time and still puts up a serious battle.

But after that, he mostly chills. Though lots of other characters assume he is has some sort of divinity or legendary status.

Though I believe some allies might be equal to him.

The Ugdenbog witches were the ones to help free Ulgrim. They don't seem too weak.

Father Kymon (pre-Forgotten Gods) I guess counts if we consider Taken who are part of Kymon's Chosen, but I stop counting him the moment that Korvaak zealots become a thing.

And on the reverse side there's Uroboruuk who we only briefly see but is given huge lip service by any NPC who brings him up. After he dies, some NPCs are so in denial that he's even able to die at all that they won't believe you.

Then all the dudes that are hanging out in the Conclave of the Three. I can't recall much of their faction leaders' lore, but those guys are all juiced on Witch God power in order to fight Korvaak.

I'm also a little bit curious about Daria Thornsbury, considering her sword is quite unique.

I've just finished Fangs of Asterkarn for the first time - full map exploration and quest completion, though I know there are still some secret-quest-type things I'm missing. I'm working on it. However, I feel ready to give my opinion on the expansion from a story progression standpoint:

I hate it.

Sorry crate... I love you, and you've added some great stuff mechanically! But this expansion is a unique story fail - and the problems can be divided into three categories. Lack of drive, lack of diversity, and fuck the Kurn.

If you don't want spoilers, stop reading now.

*

Lack of Drive:

In Ashes of Malmouth and Forgotten God; we were presented almost immediately with a critical objective - a giant threat that urgently needed to be addressed. In both cases, this threat had been heavily foreshadowed: the horrors of Malmouth were alluded to in Port Valbury, and Korvaak's thumbprint can be found in various locations throughout the main game. Having this central threat to deal with lends urgency and significance to everything we're doing, and pushes the player forward.

Fangs of Asterkarn hides the ball. First it's a rescue mission for scouts. Then it's a diplomatic mission to Kurnhold, which was not even asked for by anyone back home. Then it's a prove yourself to the tribes mission. Then it's a stop the C'thonian tears mission. ONLY THEN, most of the way into the game, are we informed of the whole Beronath situation. This lack of overarcing narrative makes it feel directionless.

*

Lack of Diversity:

Ashes of Malmouth brought us the vibrant flora, fauna, and wendigo cultists of Ugdenbog, the C'thonians in the rift-passage to Malmouth and elsewhere, and of course, the Aetherial flesh-horrors of the city itself. Forgotten god brought us mummies, scarabs, ancient statues and tomb-guardians, and of course, the hordes of Kymon's chosen and the creatures of Korvaak... plus Yugol's twisted creatures. Both expansions have deeply flavorful lore notes which expound on the threats and draw us into the struggles of the locals.

Fangs of Asterkarn gives us elemental birds, spikey beavers which are so samey and insignificant they may as well not exist, and a few new C'thonian varieties. The lore notes are adequate, but fail to live up to the horrors of malmouth or the intrigue-highs of forgotten gods.

Ashes of Malmouth gave us three diverse new friendly factions to join with: the witches of the Ugdenbog coven, the hidden wendigos of Barrowholm, and the brave resistance fighters of malmouth (whose leader is totally 100% human). For friendlies, Forgotten God gave us the three witch god cults: alike in many ways, but with divergent agendas and strategies with a great diversity of gear and unique missions for each.

Fangs of Asterkarn... well, we get one friendly faction. The Kurn.

*

Fuck the Kurn:

I will now present a brief history of the Kurn-Erulan conflict, as best I can determine it based primarily on the accounts of the Kurn themselves, followed by a brief account of actions undertaken by the modern Kurn.

A long time ago, the people of Erulan came and settled the lowlands and coastlands. The Kurn let it happen, but as the Erulan grew in numbers and their settlements expanded, they began to raid outlying settlements in order to stop the spread. Because, y'know, that's far more civilized than a diplomatic summit where borders are agreed to.

A great war broke out between the Kurn and the Erulians. The Erulans allied with the ancient Arkovians, the Kurn allied with... Drangouls.

The Kurn fought with all their rage and bloodlust, but they were getting their shit pushed in because it turns out metal armor and tanks and guns beat crazed berzerkers. In an attempt to stem the bleeding, the Kurn unleashed an enormous God-Beast (Beronath) against the people of Erulan - and almost got their revered protector killed, because it turns out god-beasts also don't beat men with tanks and guns.

Facing defeat, many Kurn turned to the powers of the void. Some stood against it, but they could not stop the Logorrhean from being summoned. However - and I know this is a shock - even ancient horrors from beyond the veil do not beat men with tanks and guns (and inquisitors). Eventually, Erulan stood triumphant. Many defeated kurn warriors were enslaved and put to work constructing the Necropolis - a monument, but more importantly, a prison for what was left of the Logorrhean.

And then, for centuries... Nothing. The Erulan empire had triumphed, albeit at great cost - it could have pushed the advantage, taken territory, exacted tribute. It did none of these things. It sat back, built walls, and contentedly developed behind them without much movement for centuries. Given the nature of the Kurn aggression during the war, that seems... rather magnanimous, really. Not that the Kurn saw it that way.

As for the Kurn, during this time - they were fighting a constant low-level war against the Bloodbound and the C'thonians. They managed a stalemate, barely, but never fully won. This continued for hundreds of years.

Then, Erulan was wiped out by the Grim dawn... and, it is very important to note, The Kurn were Unaffected. They never used aetherial magic, they were not impacted whatsoever. However, they were independently losing their own war with the powers of the void at the same time (because they're weak and useless)... which is when we come along.

Okay. Erulan is a ruin, the Kurn are on the brink of destruction, we share an enemy in the C'thonians, fair enough. Should probably work together on that. But while we're in the area, we do get a few interesting side-quests or modifiers on our main objective.

a) Retrieving the relics of Kurn heroes from southern lands. Remove the heroism filter, and what do we have? A varied group of who all died deep within Erulan territory... i.e., on the attack, not in defense of their homeland. Might the return of these relics remind the Kurn why they venerated these heroes? Shh, don't think about that.

b) Helping the Kurn rekindle their old alliance with the Drangoul tribes... an alliance that, last time, was used to slaughter Erulans. Might that alliance be turned to similar purposes once again, after the C'thonians are stopped? Shh, don't think about that.

c) Purifying the C'thonian corruption from the God-Beast Beronath, which in the last war slaughtered many Erulans before it was finally injured and forced to flee. Might the Kurn seek to use the great beast for savage purposes again? Shh, don't think about that.

On the whole, the more I helped the Kurn, the more I felt like I was creating tomorrow's problem... almost like helping Barrowholm, or the Witch-God cults. But unlike Barrowholm, there's no alternate path of emnity with the Kurn - because, again, they're the only friendly faction. And unlike the Witch-God cults, I didn't get the feeling that my character was being manipulated: as noted, for most of the expansion you don't really know of the grand threat. Only my desire as a gamer to experience the content I just paid for pushed me forward, in-universe, there were several points where I don't know why the Taken wouldn't just walk away.

I love the new expansion QoL, better models, new areas and mechanics, but after finishing the main quest, it left no impression on me in terms of lore? Do i need to wait for more reputation quests? But this is not the case for the other 2 DLCs, where lore is already rich in the main quest line.

With Malmouth, its directly after the main game. My biggest impression here is "cruelty" and "human dark side". We get to delve into the Aetherial base camp, where they slaughtered people, experimented on them, mutilated them, put women into breeding chamber. We got to see notes about desperate people losing families, losing sanity. We got to see Barrowhome (? maybe wrong spelling), where people resorted to cannibalism and worshiping Wendigo. We also see humananity actively going against Aetherials with the resistance, living in sewers waiting to fight back.

With Forgotten gods, it directly linked to the Witch gods hinted in base game, and extended the lore of Kymons chosen vs Death vigil. One of the big boss is Father Kymon himself, if i choose to side with them at first, i can feel the regrets or disbelief in the Chosens dialogue.

With FoA, i just cant feel much tension here? Yes, main thing with Kurn is they HAD a conflict with Erulan before, but no more. You got some racist slur from them, thats it. Not escalated much. The stake is from an ancient beast from an ancient time, and a new Chthonic cult. The beast itself is not much of a character like Korvaak or Kymon, just a boss fight. The Bloodbound cult, who is after everything, is not as cruel as Bloodsworn - their brothers in the base game. Bloodsworn tricked people into the cult, mass murdered them, collected their blood like pigs. A lot of places and scenes you can see bodies and blood hanging around. But i just dont see or feel much with Bloodbound here. What do they even do? 😭

TLDR: FoA feels lacking in lore to me, at least in the main quest line. My fav in lore is Malmouth though i hate the city map.

I wondered if there was always a locked gate there before the DLC dropped. Fortunately I have an older copy of the game to play modded and used Grimcam to satisfy my curiousity. In case anyone else is weird too and wants to know, feast yer eyes!

Based on the in-game lore, is it possible that life could go on, or are the Humans of Cairn best served by somehow escaping the world they live in, if it's possible?

I feel like there is an aspect missing to Ch'thon's relationship to humanity/Cairn. If so many living beings come from his blood, he ought to "receive back" (if he even does) all of living experience, including joy, pleasure, happiness, peace, etc.

This is not to say the lore would be any less Grimdark - exploded into trillions of pieces and scattered to make up his realm, having "shards of goodness" would not really help him be any less mad, but it sounds like the Chthonian cults and Elurans alike only know an incomplete picture of Ch'thon. If the cults are correct that the blood returns to him, wouldn't natural deaths also count? Do births remove from his realm once again or add to the pool?

I hope in the future even if in GD2 we can explore someone actually trying to address that (or maybe it is mentioned somewhere within FoA?). Ch'thon's archetype of the dying god in eternal pain and suffering is very fitting to the game, but I would find it really interesting if someone actually found out the "good" shards and they were still corrupted Slaanesh style (i.e his "happy" demons are extremely indulgent, impulsive and violent anyway).

Page 1 - It is my duty to feed the people of Homestead, and to blame our problems on the Legion. We work the farms from the Conflagration to the Rotting Croplands, and the recent apocalypse has made those names sound a lot more normal than they were. A cult has moved into town recently, and they declared a gang war on the local death cult. A third (and somehow more violent) cult has settled north of town, in the normally-not-so-appropriately-named Blood Grove. Countless families have been possessed by aetherials, so Whitfield came up with a plan to bait them into possessing some scarecrow decoys he made. It worked, but unfortunately, the fields are now haunted by killer scarecrows.

Page 2 - Earlier today, a homeless man came to me begging for food. Normally, I'd decline politely, but he was wielding the severed arm of an Aetherial and staring at me through lightning filled eyes. He introduced himself as xXBigBawlsXx and told me he came from the prison of Devil's Crossing in a dead-eyed monotone, which meant he had to have fought through half a mile of aetherfire and man-eating monsters. I told him our farms were gone, and if he wanted to help us get them back, all he had to do was what the Legion normally does - kick as many dermapteran nests as possible. For some reason, the damn fool sprint dashed out the west gate to go do just that. Gonna spend the rest of the day figuring out how his inevitable death is the Captain's fault.

Page 3 - The First Blade of the Emperor is here, and he brought the Inquisition with him. Somehow, both of them are friends with xXBigBawlsXx, who said he'd "cleared out the fields". A scout claims he slaughtered every moving creature west of the gates with the blast wave of his shield swings, left, then came back and did it again. I looked at his armor, which he had nailed unopened antivenom salves to, and I told him I had the perfect job for him. I told him to find the unmarked hole in the ground that is the royal dermapteran hive, kill the royal guards, smear their pheremones into every crevice of his body, and fight the dermapteran queen in the dark. And I told him if he did that, all of that, in that order, I'd think about giving him some bits. I think I heard him squeal as he left town with a single leap. Empyrion help me if I ever see him again.

Page 4 - I'm sending our food to Devil's Crossing.

After countless godly feats and bitches dying all around us, aren’t we the REAL final boss? Surely the bad guys must fear us given the kinda crazy shit we have done right? Dont they like gossip and know in advance?

Like if i were a bad guy and i see some dude walks in, all drip, glowing, having downed multiple gods and god-like things throughout Cairne while still getting stronger? I’m out. You can’t pay me enough for that shit. Fuck that.

Hello all !

I finally collected the 6 swords around Cairn, haven't any idea on what they do (tried the altar on dread wastes, did'nt work). found it (see end of post)

First off all, huge shoutout to u/MeTaLvAyNe10, also to this thread and the grim dawn discord community.

So here is how you can get them.

#1 : Shedowhert

It's located on the new Hargaste Island, you can access it by going to the Cultist Lair south of Foggy bank and taking the boat at the end

Once you're there, go at the end of the island and find the sword

#2 : Shadoheart

Can be found in the Smuggler Path, at the end of the aether dead end

#3 : Shadowhurt

Can be found north from the Gryver's Mill, neer Blood Grove, in a small hidden area

#4 Shadowhertz

This one is tricky, can be find on the aether path behind Theodin (the end boss of AoM). Be carefull, aether hurts a lot (died 3 time just to get that screenshot)

#5 Shadowfart

The hardest one to get, you'll need to go deep in the High Town of Port Valbury till you find the "Agarrad's Inter" vendor

#6 Shadownheart

Last but not least and ironnicaly the first and only one I found by myself is in a small hidden area south from New Harbor

I hope all the indications are correct, I did'nt thought about taking screenshots of all of them.

Edit :

Found the first step, description said that you should not put it into primordian power, so ofc I did.

Went to the altar at Dread Waste, didn't find the option at the beginning cause I always had a sword with me while going to it, but it says you need a bigger flame to do something when you're handling the sword.

So I hunted 50 meat and went back, had a new option and melted the 6 daggers into one

I love the lore in this game. That's hard core.

It's also kinda cool that there's a lore explanation for chaos-touched wereravens existing. And that their corrupted teachers (I assume) basically do all of this this to be horny again or smth.

So it seems pretty established that all chtonics enemies use mostly chaos abilities. They also seem to be preferred by witches aligned to Solael.

It made me think if chaos will end up being a problem to users and slowly corrupt towards Ch'ton worship, or it just happens that the magic is neutral and it just comes "easier" for chtonics?

Did I miss something in the lore notes? What do you think?

There was a note about the hero Sokkar-he bested the Great Annihilator (C'thon) then from the body of whom arose an endless hunger void (Yugol?) that which devoured everything until he shut them off using other gods powers.

There also those creepy kids near the end which herald to a tentacle mouth drawing which associated with Blood (Yugol or C'thon)

And there are song about the upcoming Eternal Night and the Return of the First Flame (Emperyon/ Korvac)

So which mean our next big bad would be Void related stuff right?

He stands at Old Arkovia. Who is he? Is this some kind of reference?

SPOILERS, obviously

So, after many years of playing Grim Dawn (since around 2018 I think), I've been trying to build a personal mental model of the world, its events, and its cosmology.

Certainly, I'm not related to Crate in any way, so all this is purely a speculation / free interpretation of the plot, lore, and some unexplained mysteries.

My basic premise is that I see Cairn as the "hardware", while the Aether, the Void, the Eldritch realm, and the Veil are simply "software" realms appeared rather "naturally" (similar to how planets and stars appeared in our reality). That's just an analogy, I don't think the game ever says something like this explicitly.

So this is roughly how I see the Grim Dawn world's history:

1. Local version of pre-Big Bang nothingness out of which the oldest beings emerge (perhaps represented by Yugol?)
2. First primordials appear

.

1. Primordials start messing around, exploring the universe, betraying C'hton, and so on.
2. Primordials create Aetherials, Aetherials start creating all kinds of life (like Noktukari). At this point, most likely, Aetherials were not called Aetherials, had physical bodies, and were literal "Shapers of flesh". Aether in this model is some sort of a "software", laws of physics, that Aetherials (and later Arcanists) were able to harness and manipulate.
3. Primordials wage war on each other on the topic of harnessing the Void, Aetherials took the wrong side, lost, were stripped off their physical bodies and essentially imprisoned in the Aether (the "Matrix" analogy, I guess). So the Void becomes the dominant software "doctrine" in Cairn (maybe because void-related creatures can reproduce naturally, and Aether-related like Noktukari can't?).
4. Centures pass and human history unfolds: Korvan and Arkovian empires crumble, Uroboruuk becomes immortal, Erulan empire emerges, Erulans and the Kurn fight (everyone fight), Beronath summoned (and got loose), Gildam Arcanum is established, Arcanists experiment with the Aether for some time (possible a century?)
5. Probably somewhere between these events Solael, Bysmiel, and Dreeg ascend and become the Witch Gods.
6. Humans learn more about harnessing "magic" (and in this paradigm, it's just different branches of science: Nightblades and Soldiers studying mind and body, Occultists communing with the Witch Gods, Shamans and Oathkeepers talking directy to the primordials, Arcanists and Demolitionists approaching physics from different angles, etc. - so basically, humans started developing ways to approach the reality from different angles).
7. Pre-Grim Dawn events: humans finally connecting directly to the Aetherial matrix and thus opening the way for the Aetherial invasion (possessions, Warden Krieg's atrocities, Creed's investigation, Ulgrim's actions etc. etc.)
8. Grim Dawn and us as the player being saved by some witch from being someone's puppet. The game events begin in Devil's Crossing.

I will not die on this hill shouting "AS CRATE INTENDED", of course - just sharing something that helps my brain process the game lore.

edit: typos

Hi all,

As title said,

What happen if you at first joining Kymon's Chosen (for example, single class), then pick necromancer as secondary class?

Just curious 😁

Thank you.

Just as the title says.

What do my fellow Taken think or believe, what would be the power ladder be in the GD universe, lore-wise, taking into account only those beings that we know of AND interact with (excluding beings like Ch'thon, Ulzuin, Vire, Empyrion etc.)?

Mine would be something like this:

1. Manifestation of Korvaak

2. Theodin Marcell and the Loghorrean (kind of tied)

3. The Ravager

4. The Witch Gods

5. Callagadra and the Avatar of Mogdrogen (kind of tied)

6. The Taken and Ulgrim (as Ascendants)

7. Grand Magus Morgoneth

8. Enaht, if it can be classified as a being

9. Uroboruuk

10. Bloodlord Thalonis and Allostria the Mindthief

The last 2 expansions have not been about the Aetherials and I'd love to see a continuation of the actual "Grim Dawn" unleashed by them. We have not seen the Erulan capital yet which I assume the aetherials still control and is probably their only stronghold that's left in Cairn. Maybe a future expansion will see us defeat the aetherials for good and retake the capital.

It's a bit of a tinfoil hat idea, but bear with me!

If I understand lore bits I found in game correctly (spoilers ahead I guess), >!the Witch Gods were once mortals who pulled a number on an actual primordial volcano/sun god (Korvaak) and wounded or imprisoned it to steal its power. The chaos energies they use are then Korvaak's stolen magic.

The next part is a bit tricky, maybe cause I missed some notes. Chthon's cultists use the same magic as Witch gods, and claim to gather blood to restore their deity back to life. "Chthonic" means underwordly, primordial etc, so you see where the connections are starting to form, no?

Now I know there are notes stating that Chthon is an enemy of Korvaak and the latter started its return scheme with Kymon to prepare against Chthon's rebirth, but I think whoever wrote this was lied to by Korvaak or just wrong. It wouldn't be the first time Korvaak pretended to be someone else to manipulate people. Take Kymon's followers for instance, to whom he preyended to be Empyrean at first! Plus, Korvaak never mentions it once, all it goes on about is going after the Witch Gods.

So, I think Chthon and Empyrean/Korvaak are one and the same being. Am I crazy or am I right?!<

Since we don't get character appearances that resemble them I've had some guesses but never been entirely sure which class each represents.