Future 2 Season Of The Want Story Catch-Up: What’s Up With Riven, The Ahamkara, And The Dreaming Metropolis?

The Season of the Want has dredged up some previous Future 2 storylines–elements of the sport which have been left hanging for practically 5 years. Central to these tales is Riven, the final Ahamkara, a creature that we, uh… killed. Again within the Final Want raid. Within the Forsaken marketing campaign. In 2018.

So what is the cope with Riven, and the wishing wall, and the Dreaming Metropolis, and the Ahamkara on the whole? There’s rather a lot occurring right here, that is for positive, and even in case you’ve been by Forsaken’s story, you may be somewhat misplaced in all this intermingling lore. We’re right here to catch you up on all the pieces you do not keep in mind from Forsaken and Final Want, all of the related lore, and what it’s worthwhile to know in regards to the Ahamkara, among the weirdest and most fascinating issues hidden on this planet of Future 2.

If you’d like an excellent larger rundown on all the pieces that is occurred in Future, take a look at our full Future 2 story recap.

All of the stuff earlier than Forsaken

First, a fast catch-up on what occurred within the Forsaken marketing campaign, which isn’t solely related to what is going on on with Riven, however can also be related to character improvement we’re seeing with Awoken Queen Mara Sov, her lieutenant Petra Venj, and Crow, the resurrected Guardian who was previously Mara’s brother, Uldren Sov.

Within the aftermath of the unique Future’s The Taken King enlargement, everybody thought Mara Sov had been killed in an enormous area battle with the Hive god Oryx. Mara “survived” the battle with the identical immortality trick the Hive use: She’d created a throne world within the Ascendant Airplane, and when her bodily physique was destroyed, she was whisked into that different dimension. Although Mara made it out alive, she vanished into the Ascendant Realm for fairly a white within the aftermath, and most everybody thought she’d died within the battle–including Uldren.

Not lengthy after the battle, Oryx and his Taken invaded the Awoken’s hidden dwelling, the Dreaming Metropolis. There, on the heart of town, he found that Mara had one other secret. She was maintaining an Ahamkara known as Riven within the metropolis.

Ahamkara are, primarily, dragons that may grant needs. They’re unfamiliar beings that appeared after the Traveler and have related “paracausal” powers, which exist exterior the traditional legal guidelines of the universe. They’ll reshape actuality to grant their needs. Ahamkara are predators that feed on the distinction between actuality because it exists and actuality because it’s desired, so granting needs sustains them. Riven, then, was form of held captive by Mara, and form of had a mutually helpful relationship along with her. The Ahamkara was granted the desires to feed, and Mara gained entry to its unbelievable energy.

When Oryx found Riven, he used his energy to “Take,” a form of dimensional thoughts management, on Riven. However not like most creatures, who lose their wills once they’re Taken, Riven outsmarted Oryx; she tricked him into wishing she had been Taken, and in so doing, maintained a few of her will.

Guardians killed Oryx throughout The Taken King, leaving Riven caught within the Dreaming Metropolis with a bunch of boring Taken Awoken of us and nothing to do–that is, till she was ultimately contacted by Savathun, the Hive god of Crafty and Oryx’s sister. Savathun had gained management of the Taken and now struck a cut price with Riven to assist her achieve entry and take over the Dreaming Metropolis. Riven simply needed to open the best way in.

That is when Uldren began to listen to the whispers.

The Nice Hunt

Earlier than we get into Forsaken and what occurred to Uldren, it is price a brief diversion into the lore to be taught somewhat extra about Riven. From Season of the Want and the Final Want raid, we all know that Riven is the final Ahamkara.

For some time, the Ahamkara had been everywhere in the photo voltaic system. They sought folks out to grant needs, and had been apparently most involved in, and fed essentially the most off, these folks with the strongest will. For that motive, they tended to go after Guardians. What’s extra, Ahamkara weren’t benevolent about their wish-granting–they appreciated to attempt to twist their needs like residing monkey’s paws, bringing smash on these silly sufficient to cut price with them.

After some time, the creating Vanguard determined that Ahamkara had been simply too harmful, particularly with a bunch of immortal supersoldiers who love weapons utilizing them to make unintentionally evil needs. They determined the Ahamkara wanted to be worn out for the security of all. That started a Guardian genocide towards the Ahamkara known as the Nice Hunt.

Throughout this identical time, the Awoken had been working with Ahamkara secretly, though they got here to grasp the risks. The creatures had helped create the Dreaming Metropolis by want magic, and had been principally allowed to wander the streets of the place freely. That’s, till issues began to go incorrect. There are tales within the lore of Ahamkara seeming good after which going dangerous, just like the time an Ahamkara magically tricked a giant group of individuals into strolling off a cliff. At this level, Mara already had Riven hanging round as her private Ahamkara, and she or he and her private group of witches, the Techeuns, created the Wall of Needs, a particular pictographic system meant to make it so Riven would have a tougher time misinterpreting and twisting Mara’s needs by eliminating among the vagaries of language.

Even nonetheless, for some motive, the Ahamkara as a species appear vaguely evil, and although they had been extraordinarily helpful to the Awoken, they created issues as nicely. So after a bit, the Awoken determined to assist the Guardians within the Nice Hunt, offering particular weapons that might be used to kill the dragons.

At this level, Mara already had Riven in her possession, and Mara desired to have an asymmetrical supply of power–something distinctive that solely she possessed and will give her a definite benefit within the photo voltaic system. It is not clear if it was due to Mara’s want or due to her personal agenda, however the lore does make one factor apparent: It wasn’t Mara who determined to assist the Guardians in wiping out the Ahamkara, it was Riven. The Nice Hunt drove the Ahamkara to extinction, save for one: Riven.

Final time, in Forsaken

Uldren Sov was a multitude after The Taken King. He’d survived the area battle towards Oryx’s fleet however crashed on Mars. He believed his sister had additionally made it by the battle somehow–Mara was a strategist with plans on plans–and got down to seek for her. Uldren all the time had a mushy spot for the aliens referred to as the Fallen, a few of whom had served her sister, and sought their assist. Within the background of The Taken King and Rise of Iron expansions, Uldren was working to unite all of the Fallen below a single banner.

Finally, Uldren began to lose religion in Mara’s plan and her survival, and that pushed him towards the brink of insanity. However then he began to listen to whispers that Uldren believed had been the voice of Mara, guiding him. Working with the Fallen, he betrayed the Awoken folks throughout the Pink Battle, the story marketing campaign of Future 2. Sooner or later later, he found a Fallen Archon named Fikrul, badly wounded after being attacked by Guardians. Uldren made an unconscious want to save Fikrul’s life, however he did not know that Riven heard him. Fikrul was resurrected because the Fanatic, the primary of the Scorn.

Fikrul and Uldren created extra Scorn, however they had been ultimately captured by the Awoken and jailed of their huge Jail of Elders. They stayed there till Uldren and his Scorned Barons managed a jail break. Petra known as Cayde-6 for assist in placing down the escape try and the following riot, however Uldren and the Barons killed Cadye earlier than absconding.

At this level, Uldren wasn’t simply listening to voices, he was really seeing manifestations of Mara, telling him what to do. What he did not know, nevertheless, was that the visions had been coming from Riven. She manipulated Uldren into opening the Watchtower, the hidden path into the Dreaming Metropolis.

As Uldren was making his solution to the Watchtower, the participant Guardian had hunted down and killed every of the Barons as vengeance for Cayde’s loss of life. They lastly caught as much as Uldren on the Watchtower and, along with Petra, executed Uldren. (He was later resurrected because the Guardian Crow, who did not keep in mind his life as Uldren and is due to this fact a unique person–but then Savathun restored his Uldren recollections, which have been fairly haunting for him.)

However by that time, the injury was already carried out. By opening the best way to the Dreaming Metropolis, Uldren allowed the Taken and Savathun’s forces to invade the Awoken’s dwelling.

The Final Want

Petra known as on the Guardians to assist struggle the Taken within the Dreaming Metropolis, a marketing campaign that ultimately culminated within the Final Want. The raid despatched a group of Guardians to the center of town to kill the Taken Ahamkara and put an finish to the risk that was both below Savathun’s management or working as its ally.

What the Guardians and Petra did not know on the time, nevertheless, was that Riven hadn’t simply anticipated the Guardians’ assault, she’d deliberate on it. The Guardians ultimately killed Riven and cleansed the Ahamkara’s coronary heart of Taken power. However life and loss of life do not work for Ahamkara the identical approach they do for all the pieces else. They appear to live on, retaining sentience and reaching out to new victims by their stays, like bones. The Final Want referred to within the identify of the raid was Savathun’s, and as soon as freed of the Taken corruption, Riven granted it–as deliberate.

The want devastated the Dreaming Metropolis, locking it right into a time loop that repeats each three weeks. The defenders of the Dreaming Metropolis are frequently attacked, killed, and resurrected, unable to alter their actions or their fates as occasions play out over and over. This was Savathun’s precise plan, and to at the present time, nobody has been in a position to break the curse. The Ahamkara’s magic seems to be not possible to counter. For the final 5 years, the Dreaming Metropolis has been repeating the identical three weeks in an terrible cycle of warfare that nobody caught within the curse can escape.

Riven’s agenda and the Season of the Want

That brings us, roughly, to now. As gamers labored by the Dreaming Metropolis again within the Forsaken enlargement, they found the Wall of Needs, and 15 distinct needs had been described within the game–but gamers solely ever uncovered 14 of them. On the finish of the Season of the Witch, Eris and the participant Guardian found clues left by Savathun that exposed the presence of the fifteenth want, which might enable the Guardians to observe the Witness by the portal into the Traveler created on the finish of the Lightfall story marketing campaign. However they wanted an Ahamkara to grant it, and people had been all useless.

Or had been they? The Season of the Witch additionally noticed the invention of an Ahamkara egg. In Forsaken, a bunch of Riven’s eggs had been floating across the Dreaming Metropolis, however they had been corrupted by the Taken and Guardians destroyed them. Now, it appears some nonetheless exist hidden within the Ascendant Airplane by … somebody. (We noticed one in Mara’s chambers again within the Season of the Misplaced, although it is unclear how that elements in.)

However Ahamkara eggs aren’t Ahamkara and we will not watch for these to hatch or determine the right way to hatch them. So as a substitute, Mara Sov and her Techeuns resolve to do a ritual to summon again Riven’s spirit. As talked about earlier than, Ahamkara do not appear sure by our regular sense of life and loss of life; they persist even after they’re destroyed in a sentient type. Individuals who wield Ahamkara bones are identified to listen to spooky whispers trying to get them to make needs, and even throughout the Nice Hunt and the Final Want raid, not one of the Ahamkara appeared particularly perturbed by the concept of being killed. So whereas bringing again Riven is not trivial, it is also not essentially all that troublesome, as a result of Ahamkara are bizarre.

When gamers head to the Dreaming Metropolis to get Riven’s coronary heart for the ritual, they uncover a complication within the type of the Vex, who’re attacking the Dreaming Metropolis and apparently attempting to get Riven’s coronary heart for themselves. These are a really particular faction of Vex, in reality, known as the Sol Divisive, who worship the Witness as a deity. You may discover these Vex are all coated in leaves and moss, and that is as a result of they’ve come from the Black Backyard. You fought these forces within the Backyard of Salvation raid and within the Season of the Timeless, again on the launch of the Shadowkeep enlargement. It is fascinating that they’d be right here.

When Riven was summoned again, although, she refused to grant the fifteenth want. She demanded that gamers observe down all her Ahamkara eggs throughout the Ascendant Airplane. Solely when all of the eggs are recovered, and Riven’s race may be introduced again from extinction, will she agree to assist us out.

What is going on on with Riven?

That is all a bit unusual, truthfully, and raises plenty of questions the season is already coping with. First, that is the primary time, so far as we have heard, that an Ahamkara hasn’t leapt on the chance to grant a want. In any case, needs feed them. They love granting needs. However this is Riven, again from the useless, keen to carry again to get one thing else she needs.

There’s additionally the concept that Riven is attempting to avoid wasting the Ahamkara from extinction. In any case, the lore is fairly express about the truth that Riven, not Mara, made the choice to assist the Guardians within the Nice Hunt. Whether or not that was, itself, a want granted or not, Riven remains to be not directly chargeable for the extinction of the Ahamkara within the first place. If that was one thing she was anxious about, she might have most likely interfered with the Nice Hunt on the time, quite than ready till a lot later.

That means that Riven is working on another agenda we’re not absolutely conscious of. Possibly she does wish to carry again the Ahamkara, however solely as her youngsters and due to this fact as beings she has some measure of management over. Or perhaps the eggs themselves are some form of ruse, the ends of which we will not see but.

Riven’s additionally stitching plenty of doubt between us and Mara, since neither of them belief each other, and Mara’s typically a identified schemer. Who scattered the eggs on the Ascendant Airplane, in any case, and why would they achieve this? Mara does have plenty of entry to that realm–but then, so do Savathun and others.

And what’s up with these Vex? The Sol Divisive had been the precise group of Vex who cared for the Black Coronary heart, the bizarre goop factor gamers destroyed on the finish of the Future 1 vanilla story. We have since realized the Black Coronary heart was an try to create a replica of the Veil, the unusual Darkness object found below Neomuna on Neptune. Although we nonetheless do not perceive all of that, we do know the Sol Divisive is intently linked to the Witness. It appears doubtless they’re attempting to stop us from following the Witness, but it surely’s robust to say for positive what their agenda may be total.

Lastly, there’s the query of the Scorn, and particularly Fikrul, the Fanatic. The Scorn are principally undead creatures raised by Ahamkara magic, however of the Taken selection, and so they’re a bizarre race. A few of them, just like the Barons, are fairly useful greater life varieties like, say, vampires on the living-dead monster spectrum, however plenty of the Scorn we struggle are a lot nearer to zombies. Within the Season of the Misplaced, we had been seeing fascinating moments the place it seemed just like the Scorn had been brute-forcing their solution to creating their very own tradition. On the identical time, a lot of the Scorn we have handled recently have been just about below the management of the Witness by their connection to the Darkness energy, just like the Taken.

With the Witness gone, each the Scorn and the Taken have been floundering considerably as factions. Lore from the brand new dungeon, Warlord’s Spoil, means that Fikrul needs to free the Scorn from the Witness’s management, and he sends brokers to collect Ahamkara bones to do it. The Scorn are intently linked to Ahamkara typically and have extra of a component to play, and we’re uncovering it by replays of the dungeon and because the season progresses.

We have had plenty of dangerous guys floating round as non permanent allies in Future 2 recently, and so they all appear to be working towards their very own secret agendas. Add Riven and, doubtlessly, Mara to that record as nicely. We’ll should see how issues develop within the Season of the Want (and perhaps past, for the reason that first of Future 2’s episodes that observe The Ultimate Form enlargement seems to be to be targeted on the Scorn) to see the place these items are going, but it surely looks like a good suggestion to count on some issues sooner or later from the nice guys’ actions to cease the Witness right now.