Lore Question on True Kin and Mutants

[DJKingGhidorah]

I've been playing Qud for a while, and finally finished a full run. Really enjoying the game and the setting/lore/worldbuilding, but after reading up on the wiki etc. I still have plenty of questions. Obviously most of these are unknowable right now and will hopefully be revealed in time, but there are two general questions I'd be interested to hear people's views on.

Firstly, just to ensure I haven't missed anything, summarizing my understanding of the high-level background:
Thousands of years ago, the world was host to a highly advanced civilization, known in latter-day Qud as the Eaters of earth, or simply Eaters. True Kin, who live in isolated arcologies, are apparently the "pure" descendants of Eaters, while humanoid mutants evidently have more complex genetics. The Eaters built the Spindle (originally a space elevator) and travelled the stars, becoming a member of a coven of spacefaring peoples. But at some point, they "succumbed to some terrible temptation" (in Barathrum's words) and the Coven placed an "injunction" upon their world, cutting it off from space travel. This seems to coincide with the beginning of a long period of stagnation and technological decline (of several thousand years, if the dates generated in Sultan histories can be believed). Resheph, the last Sultan, seems to have defied this injunction (Starfarer's Quay etc.), but if lifting it was his goal he apparently didn't succeed, and dissolves the Sultanate. By the time the game begins 1,000 years later, even basic Eater technology is a mystery to most, and Qud generally seems to have been mired in a dark age for a long time.

Naturally there are a lot of mysteries here, but there are two high-level questions that I've been particularly wondering about:

1) Were the Eaters all, or mostly, human? All True Kin sprites are visibly human, as are the Templars (who are also seemingly True Kin), while mutant player characters are explicitly called "humanoid mutants" along with many unique NPCs. Resheph appears humanoid based on his statue, and the generated sultans usually are too (something like an 80-90% chance, if I'm reading the script right). Human Eaters would also make sense if (as is heavily hinted in various places) Qud takes place on a future Earth . However, the statues and holograms of Eaters found in Omonporch and the Tomb are visibly *not* human, or even humanoid, in many cases. Furthermore, the only individual Eater physically encountered so far (Saad Amus) is a humanoid bear - and still explicitly a True Kin and not a mutant (per his character blueprint).

2) Conversely, what's up with all the mutation? I find it odd, given the thought and detail evident in the world-building, that nothing seems to address why they are so common. They seem way too rapid (both in an individual and evolutionary sense) to be "natural". This "everyone is crazy mutated except for some isolated descendants of the old elite" trope is a fairly common one, but is usually attributed to radiation or chemical contamination or something (Fallout being an obvious example). So I find it striking that there aren't any references to this (or any other explanation) in Qud's narrative. Did I miss something here?

[glass zebra]

As you found not all True Kin sprites might be visibly human. Saad Aamus is a True Kin and maybe some kind of bear-like being. It is a bit unsure who build the statues and when, but that describing on how they feel to be entwined does sound a lot like they are not just randomly put mutant statues. It is likely that Eaters delved both into cybernetics and mutation to change. Being in an arcologies probably helped to cut down a lot on DNA changes in the True Kin population, hence the Nooks still recognise the "Aristorcrat" DNA (which might have build them). Most humans probably did not have access to any of that stuff back then and it was mostly for the richer population (mentioned here). Templar instead do inbreeding and probably kill every newborn that seems to have mutations.

Resheph is also somewhat hinted to be probably at least somewhat a machine. He lived long, tended to the sick without getting infected, the dialog with Yla Haj hints that "healing" should not be seen only for flesh and Rebecca probably had some tinkering relation (also some hints to her connection with Barathrum by the Dialog with one of the Yd denizens.. forgot which one). I would not take the sultan statues too literal, since even the history on them seems to be written from the eyes of the at least somewhat current inhabitants of Qud. A lot of them had accidents with chariots in the world history, but in the Tomb history they are often riding space glider spheres or stuff like that

Stuff like the Gamma World RPG was probably a big inspiration (both seem with the mutation + dark age + Knights of Genetic Purity), but I am not aware of any ingame reason that is *recent* to explain this. What happened is probably so long ago that nobody can remember it anymore (or wants to? Phytas seem really proud), but they might just have atomic bombed the planet a bit after the injunction. What happened directly after and until Sultans is not directly described.

The world has more than just mutations though. Stuff like the Moonstair or many of the normality affected phenomena are also a bit heavy in influence. There is also stuff like holographic bleeding and holographic templars. Both with can kill you and do actual damage.

I am not sure if the mutations players can choose are actual "choices" or just already in the DNA and come up when you "grow older". Since there are a lot of clear mutation strains (like Dromads) it seems those are not still rapid (except for chimeras and maybe Cultists), but maybe the remains from some bigger old event. Could also just be experiments from the eaters having reproduced, but you would probably find a lot more True Kin around if that was the case. Across Moghra'yi, Vol. III: Oth, the Free City might hints that those were maybe not seen eye to eye with some powerful forces though or might simply not have reach Qud much.

[wizardlibrarian]

Saad Amus is as far as I can tell not actually a bear or bear-like physiologically (he drops a human corpse, for instance). I think it far more likely that the Sky-Bear title is more about things like his ferociousness and the like.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by wizardlibrarian:

Saad Amus is as far as I can tell not actually a bear or bear-like physiologically (he drops a human corpse, for instance). I think it far more likely that the Sky-Bear title is more about things like his ferociousness and the like.

Are you telling me that Richard the Lionheart was possibly not actually a humanoid lion's heart? He can still be a humanoid with bear features though. A lot of mutants drop humanoid corpses and his stats are not all that normal True Kin-like. My head cannon needs more to disprove than not having proof!

His clones are also not True Kin, making it seem like this unaltred DNA is the thing that makes him "True" and not so much how he seems like. The clones have the exact same description. That said, mutated True Kin are still True kin.

[Vivisector 9999]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Stuff like the Gamma World RPG was probably a big inspiration (both seem with the mutation + dark age + Knights of Genetic Purity), but I am not aware of any ingame reason that is *recent* to explain this. What happened is probably so long ago that nobody can remember it anymore (or wants to? Phytas seem really proud), but they might just have atomic bombed the planet a bit after the injunction.

It's also worth considering that even in the real world, there are many events and even innovations which were once commonly known but never recorded, and so over centuries they were forgotten, and remain unknown to us today. The formula for "greek fire" is probably the most famous example of this.

I can actually see this being the case with Qud's rampant mutations. Something happened to mutate wide swaths of the world's population, everyone at the time knew about the mutations to the point where it became too redundant and boring to even write about, and now here we are milliennia later with mutants everywhere and no one, not even that ridiculous ancient tree mayor of Ezra, can explain why.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by Vivisector 9999:

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Stuff like the Gamma World RPG was probably a big inspiration (both seem with the mutation + dark age + Knights of Genetic Purity), but I am not aware of any ingame reason that is *recent* to explain this. What happened is probably so long ago that nobody can remember it anymore (or wants to? Phytas seem really proud), but they might just have atomic bombed the planet a bit after the injunction.

It's also worth considering that even in the real world, there are many events and even innovations which were once commonly known but never recorded, and so over centuries they were forgotten, and remain unknown to us today. The formula for "greek fire" is probably the most famous example of this.

I don't think Greek Fire was "commonly known" though. They deliberately kept it hidden. We also had that whole Dark Ages + Renaissance stuff or fairly tales vs research, propaganda etc. To this day I keep people hearing say "eating lots of carrots make your eyes better". There might be some place or some people who know some stuff, but for the most part you will hear stories like how someone became one with chrome and made some kind of guitar solo big bang.

[Cascomp2]

Originally posted by DJKingGhidorah:

2) Conversely, what's up with all the mutation? I find it odd, given the thought and detail evident in the world-building, that nothing seems to address why they are so common. They seem way too rapid (both in an individual and evolutionary sense) to be "natural". This "everyone is crazy mutated except for some isolated descendants of the old elite" trope is a fairly common one, but is usually attributed to radiation or chemical contamination or something (Fallout being an obvious example). So I find it striking that there aren't any references to this (or any other explanation) in Qud's narrative. Did I miss something here?

There's no canon explanation, but my head-canon is that at some point someone released something similar to Fallout's FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus) that is causing everything to mutate unnaturally rapidly, radically and usefully (defects being a minority result of mutation instead of the norm). I also think this is why there's so many different intelligent creatures; some contagious version of Spray-a-Brain is uplifting creatures and objects at random.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by Cascomp2:

Originally posted by DJKingGhidorah:

2) Conversely, what's up with all the mutation? I find it odd, given the thought and detail evident in the world-building, that nothing seems to address why they are so common. They seem way too rapid (both in an individual and evolutionary sense) to be "natural". This "everyone is crazy mutated except for some isolated descendants of the old elite" trope is a fairly common one, but is usually attributed to radiation or chemical contamination or something (Fallout being an obvious example). So I find it striking that there aren't any references to this (or any other explanation) in Qud's narrative. Did I miss something here?

There's no canon explanation, but my head-canon is that at some point someone released something similar to Fallout's FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus) that is causing everything to mutate unnaturally rapidly, radically and usefully (defects being a minority result of mutation instead of the norm). I also think this is why there's so many different intelligent creatures; some contagious version of Spray-a-Brain is uplifting creatures and objects at random.

It could very much be that defects were not the minority, but those put you at a disadvantage and a lot of heavily mutated strains that were not able to compete simply didn't make it up to the current time. The event was not like 5 years ago.

[Percussigant]

TL;DR : nobody knows for sure.

These are difficult questions to answer, in good part because afaik we do not have a clear idea of the timeline of Qud before we come along, and in equally good part because, by design, a lot of the history of the world is meant to have been lost to time and therefore difficult to piece together.

From the cherubim in the Tomb of the Eaters being mechanical from the 4th sultan's tomb on, we could infer that the 4th sultan period corresponds to a time where technology (specifically, the "coupling of machine and folk") became a dominant social concern in Eater society. We aren't clearly told so though, so it could very well be that technology was already extremely advanced before mechanical cherubim came into fashion, but if nothing else, it is a hint that cybernetics & technology in general had become a prominent (if not outright religious) symbol of status in Eater society by the time of the 4th sultan.

On a side note, since cherubim come in both biological and mechanical flavors, it is likely that the Tomb of the Eaters had already been there for a while before tech-implanting came into fashion, otherwise I feel it's more than likely that a culture that placed such a big emphasis on mixing biology with technology would have made *all* cherubim mechanical. This doesn't help us much to pinpoint when mutations started to appear, but it does help in pinpointing the relationship of quddians to technology somewhat - as glass zebra pointed out, despite what statues suggest, Resheph himself might have been entirely mechanical : the earliest element of his biography was that he was found as an infant with "circuits in his mouth", and if years in Qud are similar to our real-life years, he's also lived a suspiciously long life.

Mutations are imho tougher to pin down in the chronology. We do know that there were both settlements and Eaters before the time of the sultanate (cf. "In Maqqom Yd"), and there are mentions in "Across Moghra'Yi, vol.I : the Sunderlies" (which, on a side note, is written by a sentient plant, Baccata Yewtarch, and already looks somewhat ancient by the time we get the chance to stumble upon it, which says something of the chronology of sentient mutants in Qud) of a time where a group of people who sound like they're the ancestors of modern-day True Kin (because they're named "true folk", "remained stalwart to their holds" (holds = early freehold/arcology cultures maybe?), and considered other groups and their "cursed offspring" (mutants ?) as inferior and developed a master/slave or master/servant relationship with them (which is where the term "aristocrat" used by becoming nooks might come from ?)).

But that is about all we know. The sultanate seems *relatively* recent in the grander scheme of things ; whatever the sins committed by ancient sultans or ancient Eaters that warranted the wrath of the Coven, I'm inclined to believe rampant mutation was not the punishment - I believe the crime had something to do with Ptoh, and the punishment was the Gyre and the Girsh Nephilim.

I imagine there are many points where other viewpoints would disagree with mine - again, I think the honest short answer is that nobody really knows for sure. For what it's worth, if the lore we find in the various literary classics of the land is anything to go by, I think it's fair to say that mutants have been around for longer than True Kin have : "Across Moghra'Yi" mentions "Ophaedians" (=snake folk) and manscorpions predating what it calls "true folk".

Speaking of which, also from reading "Across Moghra'yi", a possible theory is that modern-day True Kin are heirs to a culture that arised around (or shortly before) the time of the 4th sultan (when technology became prevalent in social life) from a subgroup of humanoids who were genetically somewhat close to real-life humans, were originally related to Eaters (who did not seem like they would shy away from remolding their bodies entirely once they got past the point of replacing their skin or organs with more efficent, synthetic substitutes, to loop back to your original question - because have you even experienced life if you haven't once been a cupboard (Eater statues can spawn as furniture), after all), and had somehow remained isolated from the rest of Qud since then. Coming from a troglodyte and probably very tribal lifestyle, they experienced the sort of brutal first contact with high-end technology from which religious beliefs are born. They took it in stride, came into power, and retained the isolationist and suspicious-of-strangers mindset that they came into the wider world of Qud with - and that isolationist mindset might have been the reason why modern-day arcologies are so different culturally and genetically from the rest of Qud's humanoid population.

If you subscribe to this theory, it's also quite likely that both the Mechanimist church and the Putus Templar appeared at around the same time (4th sultan) the ancestors of True Kin did, give or take a few decades or centuries.

[Cascomp2]

Across Moghra'yi, Vol. I: The Sunderlies also mentioned an ice age; it's clear that Qud is both set a long, long time in the future and has gone through multiple worldwide collapses and disasters that were large enough to erase most of the known history of the time. The odds are good that nobody living knows where and why the unnatural pattern of mutation in the setting comes from. Most probably don't even realize it is unnatural.