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goatedmilk14 days ago(+2)

The whole cycle of rebirth is touched on in the magic crash course in Alon's route, which also has hints of a past connection between Luke and Alon, so maaybe play that route again to see if you can answer your own questions on the reread.

And v47 does mark the end of Alon's route...hence the quite drastic menu changes upon completion.


And...everyone in Shelter is focused on preserving their freedom, and everyone else is too focused on cross-species conflict to care. That is, if they even know humans exist, let alone what they really are.

For most, I imagine they just take it for granted. For them, this is how the world has always been. If they dig, they're only met with insanity, when they're missing the key component to seeing the Truth.


Burry's whole arc was learning to do things for himself...he never wanted the knowledge, he just wanted to make his superiors proud-- then subsequently, to bring his brothers back. Why would he want to look back at this point when he has everything he ever wanted?


But above all, and this is established pretty early on in all routes, most canines are, by nature, dumb (and horny but that's besides the point). It's only through absorbing human mana that they could begin to have these complex thought processes that might lead them to any sort of conclusion for these big questions....yknow, if it didn't drive them mad whenever they tried to use it.

I think the only character we've seen even interested in finding out the history of their world is Alon, but, being who he is, he's definitely an exception.


Also, respectfully disagree on the music thing. Sic 'em, Freedom, and White Wolf are all playlist worthy imo.

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drakoky4 days ago (1 edit) (+1)

Oh yeah, I already replayed Alon’s route. English isn’t my native language, so there were some things that escaped me the first time I read it, but I still didn’t notice anything too major.






Aside from Luke, ever since the Third Howl I expected that he knew them in certain timelines or past lives, because he says he has lived for thousands of years. He also said Alon was important to him, but that he traded his memories of him for the power of Ablaze. At the same time, Moon seems to have met one of Alon’s past lives too, based on what Doom Moon says when he sees puppy Alon: “I forgive you.” That made me expect that Alon’s past self and Moon had some kind of connection at some point, but with Luke... isn't totally clear for me.

I know the dogs are dumb, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be curious, those things aren’t mutually exclusive. Aside from Luke and the Observer (and Alon, who learns things from Luke’s other timelines after tasting his blood), there doesn’t seem to be anyone else interested in the world itself. Like you said, they’re more focused on their own problems than on bigger questions.

I just don’t want everything in one big info dump explaining the whole world (but I also don’t want a vague ending like Soulcreek, where many things stay a mystery), especially since there’s only one Howl left: the final Fifth Howl. At the very least, I’d like complementary side stories that expand the lore a bit. Like the crossover with "Demons Within", in chapter two Cooper saying he is Mother Earth’s shepherd, which I found funny because “shepherd” translates to pastor in Spanish, and pastor can also mean a religious leader.




And about the music, I know there are some tracks that are really good. "Sic ’Em" and "White Wolf " definitely have a place in my playlist. I just meant that most of the soundtrack works very well in context, but it isn’t the kind of music that gets stuck in your head.

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goatedmilk2 days ago (1 edit)

*Spoilers*







Was it ever stated that Luke's lived for thousands of years? I don't remember reading that during Luke's ablaze scene...


But, to my knowledge, there's no indication that he was created differently than the other humans. My best guess to how he was acting during his Ablaze is that humans can gain access to the memories of their past lives once they become adept enough at burning their mana. After all, if they can see the future, why not the past? 

So, yeah. As far as we know, Luke and Alon only share history with each other in this life. (I mean. Alon knows pretty much everyone, but that's besides the point)

I'm sure some more scholarly dogs have been curious about it, but that's not really going anywhere without the complex thought to back it up-- as well as all the pieces (i.e. human mana, which is exceedingly rare). Shelter's leaders have their own reasons for not digging into it, and the Canine country is under the Observer's rule, who is unlikely to want his dogs looking into history to make them easier to control. 

We don't know about the other races, and I doubt we ever will in this game.

Ooh, lore tidbits in the crossover, ey?  I gotta catch up on those 👀

And Cooper lore in particular?? He's the one boi (on the game's banner) we haven't reached yet!! Wonder how important Shepherds are to this world...

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drakoky9 hours ago(+1)

⚠️SPOILERS⚠️








Let's start with the short part: Cooper. In the crossover with "Demons Within", Thistle talks about Cooper with Resnick. Later, Cooper pulls out what looks like a bible or religious book and starts talking about Mother Earth, but since it's Resnick's POV, he gets lost in his own thoughts and stops listening. By the way, you need to play the first chapter of "Demons Within" to get the code for chapter two.

Now, the dream scene between "Luke?" and "Max?" is weird, but there's this line that stands out:

"Well, it's been like a thousand freaking years and I've been dying for one of those herbal coffees."

He seems to at least remember his life before the world broke. And since Luke can loop through time, what feels like a couple of years for the dogs could be hundreds of years for him, kind of like what the Observer tells Gunner after Alon's vision:

"To you it felt like no time passed at all… but to me… FUCK!!"

So when Luke says "a thousand years", it's genuinely unclear whether that's an expression, literal, or just his skewed perception of time.

There's also Alon's theory that humans shatter when they overuse their powers. According to him, Luke has been unusually careful, and maybe that's exactly why he lost his memories: as a way to protect himself from breaking apart.

In Alon's route, when he describes his vision of a future Luke:

"You talked about yourself. About the nature of our realm. About the Humans, the Monsters and us. How everything came to be. At least as much as you knew yourself."
"You were there when everything started and, as fate would have it, you were there to see the end too."

Luke never explicitly says he's thousands of years old, but the context makes it pretty clear he's been around longer than anyone else.

One last thing, the Observer recognizes Luke immediately and says:

"You... I know you. You are Dawn's brother, aren't you?"

And we're definitely not talking about his lion brother Sansun.

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goatedmilk1 hour ago (1 edit)

Fascinating....

‼️SPOILERS‼️







I completely forgot the Observer's dialogue there, purely because a lot of his scenes aren't replayable 😭

I still don't think he's literally lived for thousands of years; he still grew up under the care of Tharros, and Alon mentions him appearing young when he first sees him. But if the Observer recognises him, that means that every time someone reincarnates as a human, they become the same one every time -- likely the one they lived thousands of years ago. So for now, I still subscribe to the theory that humans are able to gain back all their memories through Ablaze (a bit paradoxical considering Luke's Ablaze required burning his core life experiences, but he said himself that he forced it when he wasn't supposed to, so that seems to be an outlier)

And...it sounds like they knew each other? Or were at least acquainted (before the world shattered and, presumably, the World was born). It'd be most reasonable to leave it up to coincidence for now but...that is very interesting. Do they both have something binding the fragments of their soul together so they come back whole?

Either way, I'm hoping we get to meet this 'Dawn' at some point, seeing as she is their common link -- despite never being mentioned before by Luke >.> (I hope we meet any of his family really, past or current! but I'm getting off topic -w-)


Resnick is a gem, but him listening to the boring exposition would make these lore conversations a whole lot easier 😭

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