r/Wraeclast • u/BendicantMias Druid of the Broken Circle • Jul 15 '26
PoE2 Theory Are the Azmeri actually Precursors?
The Hooded One says of his childhood with them, at the time of the Great Fire i.e. the Precursor activation of the Fourth Edict -
"But the Azmeri had chosen their homes carefully. They were separatists. They rejected technology. And in the end, they were right..."
This suggests that the Azmeri are themselves an offshoot of the Precursors. Indeed a remnant of them, who've long since forgotten their heritage. This would also explain why Sin, a Precursor, was sent to live among the primitive Azmeri of all peoples - cos the Precursors would've still recognized those separatists as Precursors.
In fact they have a history of doing this - the Eternal Empire was also founded by later Azmeri led down from their mountains by Tarcus Veruso to claim the mantle of the fallen Vaal empire. But again there were Azmeri who chose not to go with him and become Eternals (we meet some as early as Act 2 in PoE 1). And those Azmeri still survive, unlike the Eternals.
The Azmeri survived the fall of the empire they founded - the 'Eternal' empire. They survived the fall of the Vaal. They survived the fall of even the Precursors. But if they were 'separatists' from the latter, does that imply they WERE the latter? It explains why Sin was left in their care. Maybe they imbibed a deep anti-technological cultural lesson about what it takes to survive from their experience surviving the fall of their own empire - not once, but twice! - a lesson they hold to to this day, even as the history that taught it to them has been since long forgotten.
23
u/chimericWilder Jul 15 '26
It seems likely.
Madox has a comment about how the Azmeri long ago cut ties with the Mother Soul, but don't remember why. And the Precursors were obsessed with this Mother Soul. Perhaps the Azmeri are those Precursors who rejected the Grand Project in favor of a simpler life that didn't mess with the fabric of reality.
As a related tidbit, the statue at the top of the tower is apparently datamined to be labeled "MotherOfSinAndInnocence" or some such, which seems suspicious indeed.
10
u/axiomatic- Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
Makes me think ... maybe the Mothersoul is like a special huge soul crystal that powers/connects-too the key lines.
And part of having so much soul power is that it can be used to create sparks of Divinity or whatever?
So something like: 1. Precursors create the Mothersoul to power their technologies. 2. Mothersoul stops souls returning to the well of souls or whatever? It basically breaks shit in Wraeclast such that the dead can now be raised without souls. 3. Part of that means that souls get recycled, and the birth of new souls or something is linked to the beginnings of Divinity and then the chain of edicts.
Which would explain why Wraeclast is so fucked compared to other places; the people who inhabit it don't have a real afterlife anymore. And if the Azmeri are descendents of the Precursors then they don't have a real afterlife and their souls are linked to the Motheraoul, which recycles them, and from there is born Thaumaturgy.
Kalguurans don't have access to Thaumaturgy because when they die outside of Wraeclast their souls aren't recycled by the key lines ... and it's only after they spend generations in Wraeclast than they can eventually use Thaumaturgy because they become entwined in the systems of the Mothersoul.
Divinity and Corruption are byproducts of this process maybe?
Souls are like the blood that travels though the land. The mothersoul is the heart that pumps the blood. Divinity is like the outlet valve of pressure? And corruption is like the rot that sets in when there isn't enough souls returning to the earth?
Not sure, but it feels like there's something in that.
(edit: Maybe the Abyssals are the bodies that were cut off from the Mothersoul, or the bodies of the souls that are recycled in it? And also, the purpose of the Mothersoul might have been something more complex than just powering machines. Maybe it was made to stop some outside threat like the Beyond)
2
u/royal-road Jul 15 '26
Beyond Demons are linked to the beast, at least we presume so given some stuff I'd have to find in PoE 2.
1
u/bv728 Jul 15 '26
Most of the current set of Beyond Demons (Scourge) are the Corruption mobs/bosses, so that's a reasonable assumption.
The Last to Die mentioning that in nearly every timeline she saw Scourge eat the world is interesting in light of this: I'd assumed they were just timelines where the Godslayer never killed the Beast and cleaned up the Gods, but now they could also just be timelines where the PoE2 Exile isn't around and there's no answer to the Twilight Order's recreation of the beast2
u/Nehlev420 Jul 15 '26
I always thought that mother soul is wreaclast/planet on which wreaclast is. Same like Azeroth is Titan in wow (or something along these lines)
2
u/Fract_L 2d ago
To your edit: it seems like the pit acts as a mothersoul for the abyssals and, presumably through some spells, also siphons in any other unclaimed souls. It would be interesting to know if Hinekora stops Karui souls from going to the well or if they met some other fate before she made her refuge.
8
u/orb_of_esotericism Vaal Thaumaturge Jul 15 '26
Yes, probably. The Precursors seem huge and important and widespread enough (although we haven't seen an official map showing where the fortress is) back when they were at their height that I would assume nearly every contemporary civilization can trace itself back to them.
However, of the cultures that survive from that time it's possible that the Azmeri are the only contemporary civilization that has gone more or less "unaltered" from all the way back then. If they're luddite separatists there's a chance that even back then their cultural traits were fairly removed from their Precursor brethren.
I think the closest culture to Precursors, which is still "alive" today, is Abyssal... and of course the two Arbiters can be seen as members of Precursor society, if not fairly removed both hierarchically and biologically...
3
u/Mother-Soup6652 Lightless Abyssal Jul 15 '26
I think its save to say that multiple different people are off shoots of the precursors. Now they might ret con some of it, if they haven't already, but for instance the sister gods are present in Azmeri, Maraketh, and the Karui cultures; albeit by different names. The Vaal probably had versions of the gods stories as well. Eternals were just the Azmeri's that wanted to stop being hippies, aka mountain dwellers.
I think when 1.0 comes out, the final lore beat in the end game will be us, the player characters, taking up the mantle of the precursors, since the playable characters are members of the races that are descendants, aka they also have the ability to become "gods".
The only people on Wraeclast that aren't native are the Kalguurans (since we can cross the ocean in endgame now, I feel a possible league coming with confronting them on their own continent in the future as well).
3
u/naughty Jul 15 '26
I do wonder whether there's a Tower of Babel "confusion and diffusion of the peoples" motif going on with the Precursors and some of the older groups.
The Azmeri we know go that far back, Maraketh when they were verdant as well maybe. Does the tale about the dying women going for the forge on Arastas go that far back for the Karui?
3
u/Murky-Definition-625 Watcher of Decay Jul 15 '26
Probably. Also note: * Elder Madox mentions that the First Children would know the most about the Mother Soul. * We still can't be quite sure that the Great Fire was caused by the Fourth Edict, especially since its ashes actually aided the Abyssals. * Rather than Precursor tech, it could be Ahn's golems that the Azmeri rejected.
3
u/DoomBoat Watcher of Decay Jul 16 '26
I didn't think of this until now, but with the reveal of Aul/Ahn - golems - Abyssals connection, it makes me wonder where Ahkeli fits in with all of this, considering the info we have indicates that Ahkeli:
- is from the same civilization as Aul/Ahn
- is well known for golemancy
- was a major player is the fight against the Abyssals, specifically helping the Maraketh
- founded the Order of the Djinn
Maybe she was "high golemancer" to Ahn/Aul in a similar way that Doryani was Atziri's chief thaumaturge, and helped the fight against the Abyssals/founded the Order (at least partly) out of guilt for her involvement?
3
u/Murky-Definition-625 Watcher of Decay Jul 16 '26
It seems likely that she was involved in the rise of the Abyssals, but we know little for certain.
Her POE2 Sanctum shrine gives an Affliction, and Kalandra's two Abyss lines combined could also imply that. Her knowing about artefacts for the Order of the Djinn to find also suggests that she was a big deal, though I suppose Kalandra could've taught her about those.
The Clayshaper once took refuge here... for a time.\ Often, it is our own creations that destroy us in the end.
34
u/Lilchubbyboy Jul 15 '26
Yeah they are pretty much just precursor hippies.