I Did 3g Of Shrooms And Played Cult Of The Lamb

Stop trying to be productive

some Trod au Bishop Family warm up doodles + a lil chart about everyone's opinions on cannibalism. i should do a chart for everyone on all the doctrines tbh

Like to charge, reblog to cast

isaac calling up the discord server in his mind give him a minute

Dissecting the Watcher's story & characters

⚠️ BIG EDIT ⚠️ I want to share a much, MUCH more compelling reading of the DLC's primary ending, courtesy of @characteranalysisthethird. You can find it in this reblog, spoilers of course.

I've seen a number of people claiming that the Watcher DLC has no story and that the slugcat has no characterization, but I definitely think it's there.

(SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE DLC!) There are no spoilers for the secondary ending until about halfway down, where there is a warning.

Adventurous...

Since this post gets a bit meandering, I will spell out the general framework of the story here:

The Watcher is a shy, lonely individual who desperately struggles to find companionship after their childhood was cut short. They will go to great lengths to achieve this connection.

Timid mouse

"And through the middle of it all, a lonely lost slugcat trying their best to outlast the ravages of a warped world."

Why are they called the Watcher? It's due to their nonconfrontational, withdrawn demeanor. This is immediately apparent in the intro dream:

When Watcher's parent steps up to fight the aggressive slugcat, Watcher's sibling joins in. But Watcher just hides away, afraid to confront the danger. It's unclear if their family survived the tussle, but they never reunite again. Watcher's shy demeanor has severed them from their family.

Time passes and Watcher grows a bit older, wandering around in what seems like a futile search for their family. Here, they meet Spinning Top, the child Echo.

A desire to bond

Within the DLC's story, youthfulness is tied to a fear of isolation & loneliness.

Spinning Top has been lost & drifting for a long time. When they ascended, they feared the loss of connection to their old life and their loved ones. So they remained on world, searching for a sign that their loved ones still miss them.

This desperate pursuit has led them to travel across reality for eons and eons. By the time Watcher meets them, Spinning Top is now combing through places that have no relation to their life. Spinning Top won't find any sign of grief or remembrance in Coral Caves or Rusted Wreck, so why are they drifting along these pointless locations?

Spinning Top's loneliness and persistence arose because, as a child, they lacked the experience of maturing and could not handle the radical acceptance required to ascend. They are scared to accept the truth: their childhood has come and gone. Their loved ones eventually moved on and also left the world behind. Spinning Top is the only one holding onto this long-defunct family.

Shadow reflecting radiance

Watcher and Spinning Top are very similar characters. Both are lonely children that have been severed from their parents and siblings, and wish to revive the childhood that was ripped away from them. They're desperate to rekindle some kind of connection.

Throughout the campaign, Watcher continually searches for Spinning Top because they're the only individual that Watcher has seen who could bring a greater connection than chomping, fleeing, or stabbing. They even give Watcher the gift of infant godhood!

These childlike characters both find companionship in each other. In fact, Watcher's companionship is what gives Spinning Top the strength to return to the location of their actual memory, and confront the truth of their loneliness.

"All my mothers and fathers and crechemates who went along without me… Do they note my absence? I've traveled from the furthest future to the very seed of our past, and I see no evidence. Only echoes and strays. Aloof. Alone. Afraid."

Spinning Top accepts that it is best to grow up and move on, and so they disappear, finally ascending for real. Watcher, however, does not seem to learn the same lesson from this journey.

I NO LONGER AGREE WITH THIS READING! Instead, I believe that the ending shows Watcher having accepted their isolation in the same way that Spinning Top did, which is why they're content... and alone. I discovered this reading courtesy of @characteranalysisthethird, and you can find a reblog of it here.

While they may seem happy playing with toys, it's still a symbol of juvenility. Despite everything that has happened to them, they still embody a desire to recapture their lost childhood.

And now, Watcher is alone once more. Soon, they will seek out a new companion.

Ripplespace as a symbol of isolation

Before I discuss the second ending, I want to talk about Watcher's abilities and the symbols they embody.

The ripple-world that Watcher is (accidentally?) transported to by Spinning Top is a continuation of the aching, drifting nature of these two characters. They are unable to stay in place for long, constantly seraching for a sign of connection.

Watcher's "gift" of invisibility is a clear extension of their characterization. They tackle threats by hiding away, slipping past unnoticed. As their Ripple level rises, the cloak begins pushing Watcher further out of their typical plane of reality, creating tears into a wholly different plane. And when they reach the (as of now) maximum Ripple level, Watcher is fully pulled out of the material plane and into Ripplespace. Here, they are truly alone except for the primitive, gnawing voidspawn.

Every gift seems to give way to a curse of isolation. Watcher has to detach themselves from reality itself to survive, and the gift-giver Spinning Top leaves them behind.

Endless hunger

SPOILERS FOR THE SECOND ENDING.

SPOILERS FOR THE SECOND ENDING.

Here's a cool divider.

While the purple Throne Rot seen across the campaign may not play by the same rules as Five Pebbles' Rot, its behavior is equivalent. The Rot is the ultimate embodiment of primal struggle, a collective consciousness of brain meat that forever hungers to consume as much of the world as it can reach. It is not unintelligent, but it is very one-minded.

From The Throne itself, a giant flower blooms and gives birth to the Prince.

The Prince is a piece of the Throne Rot that has partially separated itself from its collective consciousness. It is an individual connected to the Throne Rot, but it has its own mind. "STARVING, pressing, grinding, SQUEEZING against... us? But now... I? A... SELF. And… an OTHER."

The Prince is an imitation of an Iterator puppet. This part of his identity causes him to believe that he was born to solve the Big Problem, by assimilating the entire world into the Throne Rot. "The imperative that was in THEM [the Iterators] remains in me." "Imagine: a single substrate… Life! (...) Nothing lost. No one lost. From bug to god, all as one. A TRUE end to the pattern."

I personally don't believe this was the original goal of the Throne Rot, but rather the Prince instinctually assigning purpose to his new life as an individual. He rationalizes his intrinsic hunger to consume in the lens of a "higher" ideal.

You can see how the Prince reflects Watcher's desire for connection in a deeply twisted manner. They're both in an endless pursuit to connect—Watcher offers itself to others as a companion, while the Prince takes companions and forces them into himself.

Opposing will

The Prince loves Watcher. He considers them to be a great friend, as they are the primary individual responsible for spreading the Throne Rot and the only one to have witnessed their genesis. "You have done so much for me, I will not burden you with my troubles. Please, rest here as long as you wish. You are always safe here, my dear friend. You, who were there for me."

Watcher has finally found it—a new companion, who showers them with praise and affection. Out of an acute desire to retain this friend, they go on to spread the Throne Rot across all the threads that connect the ripple-world. Every viable world is corrupted.

Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—something goes terribly wrong for the Prince. "I can almost feel... a will... at odds with my own."

Karma is antithetical to corruption. When the Throne Rot sufficiently engulfs the "fringes" of the ripple-world (Outer Rim and the Rotted vanilla regions), these regions become unstable and you cannot create a warp to escape them. However, there are pockets in The Throne where a bed of Karma Flowers allows you to exit. It's unknown if the phenomenon is natural or intelligent, but Karma inherently opposes the Rot.

When Watcher returns after corrupting all the regions, Karma Flower begin sprouting from the ground of The Throne. The Prince attempts to keep them in, but he ultimately fails—he freezes up, and countless Karma Flowers sprout from the corruption. The Throne Rot might not be outright dead, but its power has clearly been drained. The Prince has failed.

Karma Flowers are all over the map now. The "unstable fringes" have also been stabilized by their presence. You can create a warp to leave Outer Rim and the Throne from anywhere, and the same goes for the Rotted vanilla regions.

Going by the tone of the select screen art, Watcher just seems to mourn their loss. Another new friend, unceremoniously ripped from them.

Moving forward

Watcher cannot seem to find connection. Their family left and possibly died. They helped Spinning Top mature, but Spinning Top left—given that they viewed corporeal and primal life as absurd, they were bound to do this.

Watcher may have attained infant godhood, but their powers encourage them to hide away and detach themselves from the world, concealing them in the desolate Ripplespace with nothing but occasionally violent voidspawn.

It's almost scary how this godlet is willing to go such great lengths to secure companionship, falling for the Prince and corrupting the entire accessible ripple-world to make their friend happy. This friendship ends fruitlessly, too.

Watcher will eventually have a full conclusion to their story. So where will they go from here?

Narratively, I don't think Watcher will get what they want. Their next (and final, I believe) venture for companionship will end in ruin once again... but possibly, Watcher will recognize that while other people come and go, the only constant who will always be there for them is Watcher themselves, and they will learn to overcome the trauma and yearning of their lost childhood.

^ (I think this theme is actually what the Spinning Top ending is already trying to say, andWatcher realizes this very principle thanks to Spinning Top.)

That's my slightly blunt prediction for the overarching theme of the Watcher.

Extra thoughts

Scav Prediction

I personally believe the next arc will involve Scavengers. In the old pre-release Watcher concept, Watcher journyed with an enlightened Scavenger. While James Primate has stated before that Downpour kinda stole the old concept's thunder (i.e. with Artificer), I get a strong indication that the next arc will still involve Scavengers because of the new Acolytes.

Acolytes are Scavengers who are BRIMMING with attributes that reflect a knowledge of Karma and Ripples.

Acolytes wear glowing golden masks and clothes

A faint Karma symbol between 6-10 surrounds them, suggesting that they are already enlightened (or their armor is imbued with some kind of karmic concentration)

When they are grabbed by a predator, they initiate a crazy karmic retaliation blast to free themselves (which I failed to get a GIF of)

The blindfolded Disciple Acolytes emit a sort of karmic echolocation ping that detects entities from a distance

The definition of an "acolyte" is "a person assisting the celebrant in a religious service or procession". The celebrant is someone performing a rite; often a priest. This implies the acolytes are carrying something out for a leader who is almost certainly not the Chieftain Scavenger in Downpour.

Overall, these guys know something, and I think we're going to find out why.

Can you draw maid red crown please with cherry on top?🥺🙏🙏

Red Crown ain’t got no clue what’s going on

New to posting on Tumblr BUT I fought the social anxiety demons long enough to allow me to actually click the post button. Enjoy this doodle of my Kallamar as a first actual post!

It's hard to get a grasp on Heket's personality and character voice, largely because she cannot use it. But when she can, what we gather at first glance is...

She's so obnoxiously self centered it is honestly hilarious. If you open Anura before defeating Leshy, she will say this line.

"The Bishops… my family. Have they not suffered enough? Have I not suffered enough? We fought, pathetic vessel. We bled. We grieved. And yet the Red Crown wants more. No more."

Like, genuinely, I can not imagine unironically saying this. Complaining about your struggles, your family suffering... to the last lamb left in the land?!?! You sacrificed them! Girl, time, place, and proper audience, please. Oh, and she can't help but insult you during her pity party. Absolutely top-notch. No notes.

But yes I do have notes. The fact that she's saying this to the lamb implies something more than just simple irony.

She feels she has no-one else she can share this with.

When Leshy has died and after you have your first encounter with Heket in her domain, Shamura comes this sequence of dialogue happens:

Heket: "Shamura! We did not wish to bother you, but-" Kallamar: "Shamura, the Red Crown grows stronger by the day. Already it has succeeded where he has failed before. Leshy has been slain!" Shamura: "Five becomes four becomes three becomes two becomes one becomes nothing." Heket: "...Shamura, rest. We will deal with this. Won't we, Kallamar?"

She is apologetic, a bit surprised, but clearly ready to seek advice before being interrupted.

Perhaps Kallamar thought she was going to be too slow to say it, but in any case, Shamura is in no state to deal with it.

Heket's reaction is not to show her frustration in front of Shamura, but can't help letting a little of it creep in towards Kallamar demanding he agree instead of taking it as a given.

She then turns her anger towards you, an acceptable target.

You there, vessel of the Red Crown! Bow to me, or you will regret it!" [Refuse] Heket: "You will bow, or I will make you!" [Bow] Heket: "Ha! Cowardly vermin. You disgust me."

She demands you bow. Leshy and Kallamar never do the same, so this is something she's doing mainly to copy Shamura and how they behave. She isn't happy no matter what you pick, but instead of inflicting more famine upon you, she changes all the rooms to combat rooms, something closer in line with Shamura's element than her own.

Heket is more or less trapped in the position of needing to be the pillar of support for her siblings. She cannot express her doubts or fears, as when she is less sure of herself, Kallamar cuts her off. Shamura is not in their proper mind. And Leshy...

"We are far older and more powerful than dear brother Leshy was."

Leshy is her baby brother.

And you can tell Heket is the main pillar for the bishops because if you kill her no two bishops are ever seen in the same room again.

Thus, before she has a true reason to hate you, the lamb is the only person she feels safe enough to talk to.

She needs to be strong for her siblings and followers, but you? You're already a heretic. It doesn't matter what she tells you. Her followers know not to listen to heretics. It's safe.

And thus, how you get the line about her family having suffered enough.

In fact, this one moment is the only time outside of threatening you that she uses "I" terms instead of "We".

"Before us stands the last of its kind. All others we have hunted down and put to the blade."

"We need not bother Shamura with this. Deal with it, brother"

[..]"You have felled the youngest of us. We are the Bishops of the Old Faith. We protect against heresies such as yours. We are the guardians of the true word, and we will not tolerate such blasphemy."

"[..]we cast out the Red Crown."

"The one you serve, that monster we have put in chains, will not be satisfied until you have killed all four of us."

Vs

"I will not suffer the same fate as Leshy... Find me in my temple. You will join your kin in slaughter!"

"Finally. I have been looking forward to this. Make your peace, creature. You will not be leaving this temple."

"If you insist I suffer, so shall you."

So at the very least she recognises why you might be trying to kill her, since she mentions your kin.

But it's obvious Heket hasn't really had time to be herself and that her duties, aside from gratuitous violence, don't really allow her to express herself. That makes finding her character so much harder, since until the update all we had was that one melancholic line to define her by.

Before we go on to her quest line, we do have one more bit of dialogue to go over.

"It was not so long ago that we cast out the Red Crown. A mere thousand or so years. The heresy it preached could not be tolerated.

Such noxious ideals... it could not be allowed."

That pause after noxious ideals, that is Heket burying her emotions. She does it once before when she realises Shamura can't help her.

So why the pause here? Does she think that the ideals honestly weren't worth the sacrifice, could have been worked with? That everything was for nothing and now she has to live with it? Or does she truly feel such deep rage and disgust she has to force herself to calm down.

Perhaps she simply misses her brother in that moment, and hates that this is what had to be done.

Again, she redirects her anger onto you, but this time as herself.

For this most damning of sins, the retribution must be slow and painful. I cast a famine upon your Cult!

--

Onto her post relic quest, Heket still has difficulty speaking, but what she does say shows us some of her character growth.

"...we were happy... once. Surprised, Lamb? Monsters like us..."

Instead of referring to Narinder alone as a monster ("The one you serve, that monster we have put in chains,") She can now see how the bishops looked to you and everyone not in the old faith.

You might see our misery as justice... fool. There is no justice in this world. No matter how... how loudly you demand... urge... beg..."

"...Let us leave... Anura... is no longer mine."

This is also not about you. She's not thinking of you when she says this.

You have just made the choice to free her from suffering. You had the choice to not give her throat back, and yet you did.

If you don't

... my punishment... continues. Wounds to externally... fester.

"Fate is for God's to dictate... I would have done the same."

She admits that she wouldn't have shown you the same mercy. But now that she's mortal, she can't see things the same way anymore. She's had time to live outside her doctrine and power. Consider a different perspective. She knows she's been unfair.

She's speaking of herself and her rule.

"No matter how... how(..)"

This is the first time she's ever doubled up her words. The concept of justice is very important to her as the previous arbiter of it. And now she's empathising with the mortals who were under her care. Under her sibling's care.

She's never had to reckon with the idea that her choice to follow the old faith doctrine was wrong. Or with the idea that she herself is no longer a god and that basic rights to her own body can be denied to her. (Assuming you've been a gentle cult leader, as the return of the relic implies.) The kindness she overlooked is becoming very clear to her, and she can't help faltering.

She's still too prideful and self absorbed to thank you, or give any indication she understands this, as she's still processing it as she's talking. But this mid sentence realisation makes her... embarrassed? Ashamed? Regretful? At the very least, a lot more conflicted than when you first gave it back.

To only visit where I once ruled... to only borrow powers I once commanded." [...] "There is no justice in this world."

Vs

"...Let us leave... Anura... is no longer mine."

She speaks haltingly when emotional, and while you can say she's just having difficulty speaking for so long, two things can be true.

And the truth is Heket is a very melancholic character under all the hotheaded violence and power. This is perhaps because she's based so much of herself upon it that without it she's lost.

-

She's usually the most grandiose speaker, discounting Shamura's poetic leanings. So it's probably from her and not Shamura that Leshy has been copying all his ambitious words and turns of phrase from. Yet, when she speaks of things outside the old faith and its teachings, her dogmatic and not-quite use of the Royal "We" disappears into much more casual speech.

And in spite of only speaking about herself in terms of her relationship to her family, she still feels like she can't connect or open up to them.

Technically in your cult if you spy on her thoughts she IS getting better at using I statements and expressing her personal desires, alcohol, food, missing anura, etc.

So here's hoping for more of the frog in the future so I can understand what her deal is.