Canon Fodder/2009-06-17

When Kheldians join with a human, do they produce a new singular personality or do the two still exist separately in the same mind?

The two personalities merge together into a new single entity. In the case of Peacebringers and Warshades the personalities influence the whole. Nictus, on the other hand, do their best to dominate the host and take complete control. It is possible for the Kheldian to depart the host and the host can actually force a Kheldian out with enough focused willpower.

A question on Lord Recluse. Are the eight legs on his back actually spider legs covered in proto-steel or are they just mechanical proto-steel legs?

Lord Recluse's legs are powerful flesh and bone covered in man-made prot-steel.

A question on the 5th Column. Are they from our world? When did Reichsman declare himself their new leader? Why did Mueller suddenly decide to follow him?

The 5th Column has it's origins firmly planted in Primal Earth. For more information about the return of Reichsman and the 5th Column check out this Developer Diary [1]

Do the Furies still run the Three Sisters Restaurant?

They're silent partners.

what is the lore of COX actually? there is no line of story anywhere and we're always left with lose ends.

Well this seems to be a pretty deep and philosophical question, but I'm gonna take a swing at it. I've always viewed the lore for CoH as a HUGE tapestry. It has many character and story threads that are being woven together to form a (hopefully) cohesive whole. In fact, I wrote an article about it.[2]

Obviously our storytelling tools have increased since then. More varied missions, cut scenes, and Flashback just to name a few. We've also learned some lessons about what works better when trying to tell stories in our game. CoH is immense, there are bound to be loose ends for any individual player. We hope you all will discover some of the things you missed on your way up the food chain through other players. We think we have the best MMO community out there and you should all take advantage of that!

We also designed the background of the game to keep the world growing. We knew we had to cover more than a few months of gameplay. Here we are 5 years later and we're building on stories that were written back in 2003 or even earlier. Let me give a couple examples. The 5th Column, which was one of the first enemy groups designed, is coming back courtesy of our Issue 15 Strike and Task Forces. The Praetorians were a villain group created to help flesh out our high level content. Now Praetorian Earth is going to be one of the primary content features in our upcoming Going Rogue expansion. If we tie every loose end off then we don't leave ourselves anywhere to go.

Of course we want our players to have triumphs too! That's why some of the less powerful groups stories end as you work your way up in level. After defeating someone like Frostfire, the Outcasts don't hold a lot of challenge for a hero and it's time to move up to greater threats.

So...where is the lore? It's all around you in contact and NPC dialogue, missions and story arcs, world and holiday events, Strike and Task Forces, our Dev Diaries and web fiction, comics and novels, and more. There are also great fan resources for lore and although I can't vouch that they are 100% accurate or canon, I can give a shout out to places like Paragon Wiki and Red Tomax's Guide. So start digging...the lore is out there!

The Lost are the Rikti right? It is HEAVILY implied, but is never confirmed. When I say The Lost, I mean the mutated homeless refer to their leaders as The Lost, rather than themselves, and these leaders are the Rikti, so-called because they are lost in this world with no way to return?

The Lost are humans that are being artificially mutated into Rikti.

Are we gonna see anything of the guy who started Arachnos? By this I mean, THE WEAVER!!!

At last report the Weaver is dead, assassinated by the Red Widow at Lord Recluse's request. You know how it is though...it's hard to keep a good villain down.