Dear Mr. WhiskyBreakfast.
We have completed the analysis of the work you have entrusted to us, and it has a most interesting story to tell. The work tells us much that was previously unknown about Bor Mazeconstruct, one of the more mysterious museum adventurers.
The first hint about it's origins can be found in the top left corner, there we find the sign of a blueberry bush, the coat of arms of the Walled Dye, the dwarven civilisation that has shaped much of recent history. This tells us of a connection between Bor and the Walled Dye.
This is confirmed in the lower part of the painting where we find a scene with two dwarves and a lot of gremlins.
We have identified these dwarves as apprentices to Midas Squarewheel, a previous adventurer of the museum, who has brought many gremlins into our realm from an unknown location. We are fairly certain that Bor was one of his apprentices too, and that together they brought another large number of gremlins into the world. The dwarves stayed behind and took care of these gremlins, and play no further role in Bor's adventures.
It is noteworthy that one of the gremlins is carrying a gremlin baby. We are quite certain that the mother gremlin in this picture is none other than baroness Riraci, from Mischieflaws.
On the left side of the painting we find a curious scene:
The necromancer depicted here is without a doubt Moldath Mournsaints.
Bor has admitted himself that he stumbled upon the secret hoard of Moldath early in his adventures. According to legend this is a collection of weapons, armor, slain creatures and unimaginable treasures that rivals the collection of the museum itself. The painting shows him stealing an adamantine axe (recognisable by it's blue glow) and a murder monster feather from this collection. Though Bor never encountered Moldath, he later feared the items carried a curse, or that Moldath himself did cast a curse upon him from the shadows.
The scene in the painting right below is a familiar one:
This is a well documented event! It happened right here in the museum at a time when Avolition Holyblood was here, working under the name "Crystalcrab the Ruler of Jewels"
This made the staff uneasy as they knew his history and they wanted to to keep him away from.. certain museum exhibits. It all went wrong the day when Bor Mazeconstruct walked in. Avolition Holyblood immediately called out at him and accused him of thievery.
There was no way a nobody like Bor could be carying an adamantine axe. To provide further proof he animated the murder monster feather in Bor’s backpack, another item that someone like Bor should not be carrying. The reanimated demon corpse immediately attacked Bor, and it was only through the lady of the museum’s quick intervention that nobody was seriously hurt.
Avolition came close to killing Bor, but let him leave alive, after Bor told Avolition about the location of Moldath’s secret hoard. Not much later Avolition left in the direction of Lawtaker.
The museum still has the mangled murder monster feather in it’s collection, and considers it an official submission, even if it was kind of involuntary.
Back to the painting. There is a small scene with two wolves, we can only assume that Bor must have encountered wolves on his travels, but then again, who has not?
We know Bor travelled extensively after his encounter in the museum, and that he became a more experienced man.
On the bottom right we find one of the key scenes in the painting, it depicts Bor Mazeconstruct, once as Bor the saint, and once as Bor the corrupted:
We know that after leaving the museum Bor became obsessed by fighting the undead and necromancers in particular, and he was often referred to as a holy figure. His methods though were unorthodox. To fight necromancy he wanted to study it, but he did not want to corrupt himself. His methods involved dragging dead animals to cursed ground, and camping out near the dead creature, sometimes for days, waiting for it to reanimate, something that happens naturally in some areas. While staying in these areas Bor had to fight many undead creatures.
At some time during one of these journeys Bor was assaulted by a terrible vision; In his writings he even claims it was not a vision, but that he really lived through it. He claims that he experienced a future where his efforts to conduct and test necromancy without corrupting himself, would corrupt and destroy the world instead. On the painting this is depicted by the torn map of Orid Xem. The experience apparently drove Bor to madness, and he embraced necromancy. He now claims he took the burden of corruption on himself, to save the world.
The main focus of the painting is this scene:
It shows the main work of Bor Mazeconstruct, the turning of the age. An hourglass, toppled by a Roc. Many have claimed that the Rocs of the age of Myth have returned but a close look at this painting shows this is not the full truth:
A close view shows an aura of death around the roc's head, but more importantly, her whole body, including the beak, appears to be made from feathers! The Rocs that were raised by Bor were butchered by Moldath centuries ago, and Bor only managed to find the feathers, which, when raised, somewhat convincingly form the body of a Roc. but they are only a shadow of what once existed.
The painting also clearly shows that Bor raised two rocs. The one in the foreground is Calovi Morningwhisker the windy beans, recognisable by her association with the wind, the sky, and hunting. We think it was raised when Bor was still known as Bor the Saint, the cursed land from which the bird took to the sky is visible:
Some people claim that it's method of creation was it's undoing, and that Calovi no longer exists, or worse, that she will cause the destruction of the world. Time will tell.
What we do know is that the other Roc in the background was raised from death by Bor the corrupted. It is Lefari Birdbean the Rapid.
Then we are left with two other interesting scenes, the first is on the top of the painting:
It shows the fortress of Razorbridge. Dominating over the view is the detached hand of Bralbaard Hammerfishes, the former king of the Walled Dye. The eye is a symbol for the fact that the old king has seen everything there is to be seen, both in life and death. He has crossed it's boundaries so many times, some have lost count.
That the hand is the old king is confirmed on the bottom of the painting where the hand is shown as a companion to Bor, this time with a crown referencing his old position:
In this second scene the hand is seen as a companion to Bor the Saint, and this is the subject of much debate, and to be honest some pretty outlandish stories.
The legend told by poets and storytellers is that he was raised twice: The first time resulting in the complete destruction of Orid Xem. The second time, legend says, Bor took the corruption on himself, to protect the world.
This concludes what we have learned about this particular painting. But please do not lose sleep over some of these fantastic stories. Certainly the whole story about the destruction of the world must be the product of too much imagination...
Best regards,
The museum curator
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OOC: so after raising Bralbaard from death the first time I switched control with the bodyswap command from Dfhack, so that I could play him later. This however resulted in a terrible monstrosity, when loaded he would not be an undead, but just a detached hand that would die of suffocation after twenty turns, and there were weird glitches with all kinds of stuff. I managed to mess up trying to fix it and the save game was corrupted beyond repair.
Apparently undead created from natural reanimation are not saved properly, or in a very different way from other undead. It was interesting, to say the least...
Also, as a result of interrogations, AvolitionBrit has a PM with some further information...
Author
Topic: Museum III, adventure succession game (DF 0.47.05) (Read 409490 times)