Grimoire Card: Osiris

Hi, new user to this community here as I’ve fallen in love with the lore to the game.
I’ve been doing research on lots of different lore in the game, but never shared any of what I’ve found as I’ve always ended up on a conclusion that I’ve found logical if you pay attention to the details in the game.

During my research on any connection between the Red Death and The Nine, as it is stated by Myelin Games in one of his videos that the Red Death got 9 kills/Marks for each kill. I stumbled across the Grimoire Card:Osiris.

Now I know the D1 is “folklore”, but you can’t deny that lots of it still fits to D2.

Here’s the thing caught my eye.
I don’t know where you have gone, but I can no longer send Ghosts out to find you. Some come back— with tales of your death or how you went seeking answers from the far reaches of space and time. That you found a way to explore the Vex gate networks. That you’ve made breakthrough after breakthrough as to their origins— theories that a Guardian could not be simulated, that the Traveler might be an ontoformer or a god-incubator, that the Vex had diverged into multiple groups in order to secure ‘an end state for every possible configuration of reality’

Let me break it down:
I don’t know where you have gone, but I can no longer send Ghosts out to find out. Some come back— with tales of your death or how you went seeking answers from the far reaches of space and time.
This is true, he did stop looking for Osiris and Osiris went seeking answer from the far reaches of space and time in the Vex Simulation.

That you found a way to explore the Vex gate networks. That you’ve made breakthrough after breakthrough as to their origins
Yupp, spot on.

theories that a Guardian could not be simulated
Again, correct.

that the Traveler might be an ontoformer or a god-incubator,
Say what? As everything else in this card seems to be quite related the story given in the last DLC and Comic releases, this sentence is in a card which seems to be 100% related and correct to our DLC.
Even the next sentence goes as following:
that the Vex had diverged into multiple groups in order to secure 'an end state for every possible configuration of reality’
Hi Inifinite Forest, still spot on and related to our DLC.

Any thoughts about this?

  • Tyto
1 Like

If the assumption that you’re talking about this video is correct, then Myelin says this:

Well, I speculate that[…] like all good Hunters, he kept a trophy, a tally of his kills, 9 skulls etched into the frame, 9 guardians who had fallen to Red Death.

As he says, this is speculation. It’s not completely without merit, obviously, but it’s important to keep in mind.

A shameless copy-paste from a reply I made last week that addressed a similar topic:

Omitting all D1 lore from our discussions would be both unhelpful and unwarranted. We should be aware of the biases they hold, but that should be the case regardless of the “folklore” comment.

The prefix onto- has been used many times in relation to both the Light and the Darkness. Given its meaning of “being/existence,” this makes sense- the Gorgons are “ontological weapons” capable of “rewriting reality to their advantage,” for example. The Traveler being an [existence]-former lines up with what humanity saw during the Golden Age as the Traveler transformed the Solar System, though the idea that it’s incubating a god is obviously impossible to prove at the moment.

The Traveler itself is referred to as a god pretty often:

A universe full of weaponized puppets, enacting a genocidal war against the servants of a rival god.

We were fools to trust this god-machine, this bringer of death and Darkness.”

We chase a god called the Traveler, a huckster god who baits young life into building houses for it.

These are all pretty subjective, of course, but the precedent for the Traveler being ‘godly’- or having godlike powers, at least- is extant. The possible idea of there being multiple Travelers (from the Worm Gods saying “A Traveler” in XIV), while still mostly spinfoil, does line up with the theory.

There’s also the fact that, leading up to and following his exile, Osiris’ prophecies were often heavily twisted. He says the Followers’ beliefs are based on the distortion and misinterpretation of his works, and this distortion could have very well spread past the Lost Prophecies and to his other ideas. The other retellings of Osiris’ discoveries were correct, but that doesn’t mean all of them made it back untouched. Given that Ghosts were coming back with “tales of [his] death,” it’s not impossible that ideas and theories were scrambled or even fabricated along the way back to the Tower.

4 Likes

To add to Erin’s comment, it was never said that all of D1 is now folklore. This is what Margaret Stohl, a Narrative Director at Bungie, originally said:

grimoire is considered folklore, even to the inhabitants of the universe: true as far as they & we know!

She later clarified what she meant:

Let me reassure you - we all agree destiny’s lore is one of the great gifts of the universe & we don’t ever want it to go away - if anything, we want to explore more & more of it in the future - huge apologies if my tweet last month (below) threw you off - not my intention!

Christopher Barrett also provided clarification as to what she meant, as Erin has mentioned. It was never said that the grimoire was going to be retconned, or that it is no longer canon. There have been numerous references in D2 to the grimoire in D1 which shows that it is still considered to be part of the lore. For example, the quest for Saint-14’s shotgun in Curse of Osiris, which involves your guardian going to Mercury to find out what happened to Saint-14, ties in with the Legend: Saint-14 card, which showed that Saint-14 travelled to Mercury years ago in search of Osiris.

That said, I do not agree that all of the grimoire is folklore, although some of it can be considered to be folklore. Nor is it all from a biased or unreliable perspective, although, again, some of it is.There are many cards that include recorded conversations, letters, and messages to people. The content of these conversations etc may be false or biased but they are still accurate records of what was said. Of course, this assumes that these records have not been tampered with or altered. A few text logs, such as Ghost Fragment: Thorn 3 may have been altered considering that Dredgen Yor’s original name is not mentioned but instead shows up as [REDACTED]. However, the vast majority of text logs etc, such as the recorded conversations in the ghost fragment cards for the crucible maps, do not show any signs of tampering or alteration. Recorded conversations, letters etc are generally taken to be an accurate record of what was said, so why would the writers include these cards in that format if they’re not actually accurate after all? And if they aren’t meant to be taken as being accurate, then why have the writers not included a clear explanation on why they’re not accurate? For example, if the Vanguard or the Consensus has a history of altering records to suit their purposes, then this could explain why records may have been altered, but aside from the redaction of Dredgen Yor’s original name in the text logs there hasn’t been any hints that the Vanguard or the Consensus regularly alters records.

The cards on the enemies, places, weapons, etc, such as The Fallen and Earth cards, also do not fall under the category of folklore. These cards are written to sound like encyclopedia entries that provide factual info. The purpose of these cards is to provide a brief, concise summary about, say, a particular character or enemy to people who are new to the world of Destiny or who don’t know much, if anything, about a particular topic. For example, if a player has just met Ikora and they want to know more about her, they could look up the Warlock Vanguard card. Considering that these cards are meant to provide basic information about the world of Destiny to players, why would the writers include information in them that is not accurate and true? It would be very confusing, particularly for players who are new to the game, if they read, say, the Goblin card and it said that goblins are one of the Hive rather than the Vex.

It’s also worth mentioning that even cards which could be considered to be folklore, since they are from a biased and/or unreliable perspective, still include information that is known to be canonically true. For example, the Books of Sorrow are told from the perspective of Oryx, his sisters, the Worm Gods, and others, so it is likely that parts of it are biased or exaggerated. However, it still includes information that has been confirmed elsewhere to be true. For example, we know that Oryx had a son called Crota and two daughters named Ir Anûk and Ir Halak. We also know that Oryx had a massive ship called the Dreadnaught and that this ship has a very powerful weapon, as described in XLI: Dreadnaught, which was used to attack the Awoken forces in The Taken King. The numerous references to Savathun in D2 also make it highly likely that Savathun does actually exist, and that she is one of the Hive, although at this point it hasn’t been confirmed outside the Books of Sorrow if she is Oryx’s sister or not.

2 Likes

Thanks for the media update. I’ve been reading, watching lore videos and playing the game itself, rather than paying attention to the Bungie Team twitters. What she said about Destiny and reactions on the bungie forums made me believe that most of Destiny 1 content is now classified as folklore to fit their new plan, if they have/had any. But that doesn’t change the fact to me that the story is highly interesting.

2 Likes

Unfortunately I’m at work for 4 weeks where I’m limited to articles only and not videos (I’m a sailor).
It’s been some time since I’ve watched the video, but it was about Red Death.
Even if it is a speculation, it’s an interesting one! Which I intend to dig more into.

Thanks for this! The word “ontoformer” has no meaning/description in my language and I did not google it beforehand. It was the word “god-incubator” that caught my eye.

I know that his prophecies were twisted but almost viewed as facts by the Cult of Osiris. This card is The Speakers thoughts about Osiris is it not? And how The Speakers has been the biggest denial of Osiris prophecies, him mentioning the only parts that so far has been true made sense to me that this line had also the need to be true then.

How loosely the word “god” are used and definition of it in this lore, its only the matter of perspective in this game. I haven’t read up much about Ahamkara, but these are supposed to be gods because they could give The Guardians whatever they wished, for a high price.
Then how exactly did the Ahamkara-hunt operate, as The Guardians killed a bunch of gods?
Looking at Oryx who seemingly possessed the most accurate description of a god, he used the Sword Logic to kill Akka, the gift given by Ahamkaras, or am I wrong here? This war against him and the taken seems to be one of the highest accomplishment to The Guardians.

Anyways, thank you for your reply, it was highly informative. I know I lost topic in the end there sorry.
Good talk :smiley:

Definitely! After such events as the “Rasputin Shot The Traveler Debate,” though, we usually lean on the cautious side when it comes to making sure theories are outlined as such. Either way, your upcoming research sounds interesting!

You’re correct that it’s the Speaker talking about Osiris in the card. There is the matter of timing, though; House of Wolves (in which the Osiris card was released) is from May of 2015, and its campaign takes place well before the events of Curse of Osiris- before The Taken King, even, hence the Speaker’s reference to Osiris’ knowledge of Oryx as “insane prophecies about pits and dead Hive kings.” Up until COO, these theories had not returned with Osiris, and they were not exactly common knowledge. The idea that they have diverged, for example, was only thrown around as a theory:

Perhaps the Vex use closed timelike curves to solve unfathomable computations. Or the Vex may seek to transcend a physical substrate, and move their thoughts directly into the fundament of the universe.

If physics is a set of rules that the cosmos uses to calculate itself, perhaps the Vex seek to worm their way into these calculations: to become a law of reality, inseparable from existence. A virus in the system. […]

But we must accept that all of this is speculation.

It’s important to take this into account, because it’s possible that the Speaker was rattling off prophecies he thought were incorrect only for them to be true several years later. There’s still the fact that the “god-incubator” line was not mentioned in COO, but the other theories had not yet been proven true by Osiris, still floating around as rumors. As mentioned earlier, the Speaker also calls his ideas on Oryx “insane,” which doesn’t carry the most confidence.

It is tossed around quite a bit. Regarding the Ahamkara, I’m not aware of them being described as gods themselves- they’re called the “dragon[s] that made promises,” but never gods. In XLV, Xivu Arath does say this:

THE DRAGONS. Our gods should be ours alone. Their smug freedom is an insult to me. I’d shut them all in cells. Bring them to me!

However, the gods she’s referring to are the Worm Gods, not the Ahamkara.

The only lore we really have on the Great Ahamkara Hunt is in GF: Legends 3, which is fairly vague. All we know is that the Ahamkara were supposedly hunted to extinction, while their bones remain and continue to influence their wearers.

Oryx did kill Akka, but Akka was a Worm God, which exist and function separately from the Ahamkara. The Ahamkara were on Harmony in the Books of Sorrow, where the Traveler took up residence before the Hive arrived. Akka was extant in the BOS long before the Ahamkara were mentioned- Akka was mentioned the first time in IX, alongside the other Worm Gods. Additionally, Oryx killed Akka in XXVIII, or verse 3:8, while the Ahamkara are mentioned first in verse 5:3.

You’re fine! The best conversations always wander a little. :slight_smile:

3 Likes

This was new to me, I don’t know why or where I’ve gotten the idea but I thought the Ahamkara was the Guardians word for The Worm Gods. I thought I saw a cinematic video by Byf where he went through the Book Of Sorrows. I’m pretty sure The Worm Gods looked quite like dragons. Backed up with the curse of Oryx powers (feeding the worm inside, otherwise death) and that Ahamkara’s offers had a high price to the Guardians. I think this is where I’ve gotten the idea that these were both the same race/entity.

^This line sums up it up pretty much doesn’t it? xD
Thanks for clarification, I’ll continue to dig around on this forum and the collective.
Best website I’ve found in years :smiley:

2 Likes

This is a common misconception owing to XLV and Xivu’s declaration about the somewhat interesting connection between the Worm gods and the Ahamkara, e.g. “our gods should be ours alone”. I think what she meant is the Ahamkara used a mechanism similar to how the Deep works, e.g. there’s a price for power, and it was an affront to her personally.

4 Likes

The person who said that the grimoire is “folklore” does not understand, and probably hasn’t read half of the grimoire. I believe the person who said this has only been hired at Bungie for a year. She also said that the new guy who writes the comics never messes anything up, which he does many times. Bold out right opposite mess ups as well. Christopher Barret is just trying to hold the company together and keep the fans moderately happy. Records and programs of sentient computers can not be considered folklore.
When a YouTuber who is nicknamed “Joker” pointed around 4 blatant lore and story mess ups in the 2nd Osiris comic out, and tweeted it to the person who called grimoire folklore, she blocked him. Some parts of the comics even contradict parts of the “lore tabs” in Destiny 2. So even if the Grimoire is folklore, the writer still messed up and doesn’t know the story. Then after she blocked Joker, she tried to rebuttal his arguments, but failed drastically. Ill link the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mklueWU9qvQ

The person who originally posted about grimoire being “folklore” was Margeret Stohl, the Narrative Director at Bugnie. She is not the same person who Joker tweeted to, and who subsequently blocked Joker. That would be Christine Thompson, a Senior Narrative Lead at Bungie.

To be fair, although Joker didn’t directly attack Christine, he could have phrased his comments to her in a better way than he did. Phrasing what he’s saying as “a few corrections” to one of the people who actually wrote the comic makes it sound like he thinks he knows the story better than someone who actually worked on it. Even if he had noticed inconsistencies in the comic, he could have politely asked her about these inconsistencies, or said something like, “I’ve noticed some issues with the comic, could you please clear this up?” It’s arguable whether what he said was enough to get him blocked or not, but he should have gone about things in a way that didn’t make him sound so arrogant.

I agree with Joker that there are inconsistencies in the comic. I wrote a post about them here. However, there is no concrete evidence supporting his claim that the Crucible didn’t exist prior to Twilight Gap. The main piece of evidence he uses to support this claim is the last line of Ghost Fragment: The City Age, which says:

Now onto the next order of business…Shaxx is here with another proposal for his Crucible.

We know that this card is set after Twilight Gap since someone says, “The Speaker’s anxious to regain ground we lost after the Gap.” However, there is nothing in the quote about Shaxx’s proposal which suggests that the Crucible didn’t exist prior to this point. He is not proposing that something like the Crucible be established, which would support Joker’s claim. On the contrary, the mention of “another proposal” indicates that this isn’t the first time Shaxx has come before the Consensus with a proposal for his Crucible, which implies that the Crucible has been around for at least some time before this meeting.

Furthermore, when Jon Goff, the author of the Last Word/Thorn story, was asked - funnily enough, by Joker himself - whether the story of Dredgen Yor is set before or after Twilight Gap, he said that “it’s safe to assume before”. There are two references which indicate that Dredgen Yor took part in the Crucible. Firstly, the Cloak of Dredgen Yor says:

Before he took Pahanin’s Light, Dredgen Yor ruled the Crucible, the notorious Thorn at his side.

Secondly, the Mark of Contention says:

The mighty Thalor was invincible in the Crucible - until Dredgen Yor, and his Thorn.

Given that Dredgen Yor’s story is most likely set prior to Twilight Gap, and Yor was involved in the Crucible, then it follows that the Crucible existed prior to Twilight Gap. So Shaxx speaking about the Crucible in the comic is not an inconsistency, contrary to Joker’s claim.

4 Likes