My biggest interest in Stonehearth other than building is the lore, or should I say potential for the lore. My interest in the lore is probably the Phoenix Empire, because the stuff we know comes from small hints within the game or is mentioned by the developers.
So when I first saw the alert about my blacksmith leveling up to his max level, mentioning “the forgotten Phoenix Empire”, I couldn’t help but think about it over and over, the same question: “What is the Phoenix Empire?”
At first, it seems pretty oblivious, “They were an empire, duh! It don’t need much explanation.”. That’s true to an extent but the whole empire thing brings me to my other point; since they were an empire, was it large or small? And yes, this actually matters. Since we don’t have a clue in the slightest as to its actual size, it leaves us with quite a lot of possible reasons as to why your citizens are capable of building these weapons that are implied to be from a forgotten empire. I’ll list two possible ideas:
Culture remained, Empire fell: It is possible that the remnants of the technology from the Phoenix Empire survived the downfall of the Phoenix Empire, and that your hearthlings require experience to actually craft such items.
Half-Collapsed: Simply put, your settlement resides in a section which was at one point part of the Phoenix Empire, but now goes by a different name. Much of the culture and inventions still remain from the older days of the Phoenix Empire, but are so complex and time consuming that they require a blacksmith to have had years of experience.
If any of you have anything to say about my ideas or have some of your own feel free to reply to the post!
i think its the Second one. If we look at the outlook, we see
there are some jobs which not implemented now. like the engineer or geomancer.
Thats are jobs which a high tech standart, so we need a high culture,
These two quotes combined make me think of a third ideal. Both the Ascendants and Rayya’s Children have the same kind of blacksmith using the same tools, ect (this could be a development thing, but let’s assume for now it’s not). With that noted, and both taking something from the Phoenix Empire, it would mean they have a common ancestry. In other-words the two groups were one at one time.
Now, the Phoenix Empire is also “forgotten”, meaning it was a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Thus my theory is this;
A long time ago, all the hearthlings lived together in harmony, living under the single rule of the Phoenix Empire. For some reason, the empire was taken down (maybe the fire nation did it?) in such an extreme, that the different parts of the nation were torn apart into different groups. The higher ups could eventually then have became Rayya’s Children, knowing that money and trade were what made them rich. The lower class workers could then have became the ascendancy, as their dreams were to work their way up to the top. I don’t really know anything about the third nation, but I’m sure they fit in there too.
All that aside, I love lore! More importantly did your hearthlings seek refuge from the Phoenix Empire, or did it fall apart and your settlers split up?
From what is given to us via hits in the actual game, the hearthlings themselves don’t seem to know much about it either. Keep in mind they refer to the Empire as ‘forgotten’ implying that it once existed or still exists today, but much smaller than what it was at the height of it’s power.
I’d imagine a civil rift between the high castes of society and the lower castes, which tears the whole empire apart leaving both weakened from fighting each other.
I didn’t read all the replies, but here’s a thing.
The you’re Hearhtlings are definitely Not the descendants of the empire if it fell. (And also it’s unlikely that the place was once under a empires rule)
why?
If you look into the Hearhtling’s profile(the stat thing) there’s some text that they have
One of the states that they ‘ran away’ from civilization,
And also that they came to a remote place(or something like that)
If they are the remaining people of te empire; they’d say something that emplies that they returned or something
So that also means this place isn’t a place that once was ruled
My theory is that in their search for power, the Phoenix empire found themselves delving into dark magic that eventually lead to their downfall. Perhaps the black cord was a faction of the Phoenix empire that broke off and rebelled.
Whenever I see this I always think of how Chaos forms in Warhammer 40k, they cause internal instability usually by influence of god like forces.
My thought is that the Black Cord was created as a result of the experimentation within new realms of magic, specifically Necromancy. In other words, the Black Cord was to be a branch of the Imperial Army in which all soldiers within this branch would’ve died in battle but later be resurrected. And that the Necromancers in charge of raising the dead would go insane, becoming unpredictable and gaining the ability to control their resurrected minions (I call it Mentimancy).
