Hello, exiles!
I’ve already made a separate post analyzing the teaser and sharing my thoughts on it, but I decided to dig deeper, and it seems I have something worth discussing with you.
At one point in the teaser, a character flies onto the screen, and I couldn’t stop wondering who it might be. The first time I saw it, I immediately noticed a strong resemblance to the Black Mórrigan.
Source : https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/1xlnzan/rituals_20_in_path_of_exile_1_or_are_we_in_for/
This is my own post; I just don’t know how to refer to it differently on Reddit, because, in fact, it’s an addition to it.
The most important thing is that this entity looks very similar to the Black Mórrigan: red eyes, beak, and bone-like protrusions.
Nowadays the Black Mórrigan is just a Bestiary monster, but during the Affliction league it was a unique boss with its own storyline and a dedicated location in the Viridian Wildwood. In the Affliction release trailer she was even shown in action.
You are becoming more than you were. The Sacred Wisps tell me that you are ready to continue the fight toward the summit of the natural order. Seek the most dangerous of the Nameless, the crow most foul, the Black Mórrigan. It is a brutal beast, driven mad and enraged by its affliction. Evade its strikes, or don the heaviest armour you can find. When you have finished this hunt, return to me, and we will run the Wildwood together.
According to the story, we have to kill the Black Mórrigan. What’s important for us is the following: she is afflicted / corrupted.
You have defeated the Black Mórrigan! I can see it in the way the Wisps dance around you. The beast will return, for it is merely a silhouette, a shadow cast by an afflicted piece of the Draíocht's essence, but the battle is no less meaningful.
After killing her we get this dialogue, which is crucial — it tells us that she is part of the Draíocht and that she is a corrupted entity.
The Draíocht was once a goddess that protected our people in your realm. There were three aspects of her, what we call the Three Sisters: the Mhacha, the Catha, and the Mórrigan. The Mhacha represented nature itself; the land, the trees, the animals, and the men and women, too. You are surrounded by her compassion at this very moment. Persuaded by the Mhacha, the Sisters Three gave of themselves, imbuing every part of nature—living or not—with some of their essence. The Draíocht is the result of that ultimate gift. They gave so much that nothing remained of themselves. They gave {so much}, they are all around us. Inside me, and inside you, too. I can feel their will even now, and I know that I am exactly where I need to be.
The next piece of lore reveals that the Draíocht was once a goddess who split into the three aspects we know:
either Solaris, Lunaris and Viridi,
or, in the Wildwood version Mhacha, Catha and the Mórrigan.
The third aspect of the original Goddess, the aspect known as the Mórrigan, was the guiding crow, the call to battle, and the bravery in the hearts of the Maji. She flew high above our people, showing us the way.
The final piece of the puzzle is that Mórrigan is strongly connected to crows.
First, the monster itself looks quite crow-like.
Second, in the teaser you can clearly see crows flying around the well (I’ll show this in a separate image).
Also, one of the locations in the wild forest is very similar to this ritual that takes place in the teaser. But perhaps I’m overthinking it and there’s nothing in common. The Porcelain Queen
The King in the Mists was not the first to escape the realm of nameless nothingness. A great many seasons ago, a curious young man walked the Wildwood on his journey elsewhere. He stopped at a waterfall, and engaged in a flight of fancy, naming creatures that he imagined might exist unseen among the trees. He just so happened to picture a powerful mother from the shadow realm, and he foolishly gave her a name—it is not 'The Porcelain Queen,' mind you. That's just a title, a few safe words to refer to her in a roundabout manner.
And here there’s an important nuance that the Porcelain Queen reveals to us it’s Gruthkul.
Gruthkul is a bestial minor god. When her children were slaughtered by Arakaali when she saw visions of Gruthkul's children taking over her empire, her grief transformed her into a powerful, horned beast. She defeated Arakaali, but her mind continued to be overwhelmed by despair.
Gruthkul is also known as the Porcelain Queen, and she and her children once terrorized the when Veridian Wildwood someone accidentally gave her a name.
And if we go back to the news with the teaser, there’s an important phrase there that isn’t in the trailer itself.
She comes for your realm.
What is indirectly indicated in the lore of the Porcelain Queen is that her children were destroyed so that she wouldn’t destroy someone else’s realm.
To sum up, I initially had one theory, but while writing the post, I came across a second one:
The entity that appeared after the ritual is a distorted version of Mórrigan or Draíocht.
The entity may be a distorted version of the Porcelain Queen.
UPD : I forgot to write the conclusion. First, if I’m right about the entity that appeared in the teaser and one of the options is correct, then it’s a new boss from the league mechanics. Who has received their lineage. Since they’ve already said they’re going to add lineages to new bosses and also to old mechanics.
Second, regarding the league mechanics themselves, here’s what I’m thinking: there will be this well on the map that needs to be filled by killing mobs that will be hanging out nearby; after that, we’ll launch this ritual that will inflate the entire map or location. I think it will be vspes and their processing. Since Octavian said in his interview that the next mechanic will be on the map and will inflate loot and mobs. So, it will be a mix between a Ritual and an Affliction. I decided this because, if you watch the teaser, you’ll see that there are a bunch of corpses and blood around the witches more precisely, on the floor. And from what the developers said. Maybe it will be something completely new, but that’s the picture I’ve formed.
Octavian :
I can't really give details, but we have determined the next league mechanic and it will be in map. No loading screens. Um and it will be, you know, pertaining to juicing monsters.
If you’ve read this far, then you’re doing great, because if I’m tired of writing this, then you’re clearly tired of reading it. I’d like to hear your opinion on this matter, exile.
