Charon lore rework or expansion

Before we start I feel obligated to mention that the last time I talked about a lore overhaul it became a long discussion about how horribly conveyed the canonicity of Wynncraft lore is and how outstandingly unclear it is whether a place or character's lore is even being worked on. I mention this because I can to some degree understand how that original post could have been misinterpreted the way it was.
There's no chance of that here though; Charon is a character that hasn't had his lore changed since it was first introduced in 2017, and literally nothing about his outdated lore has been even remotely changed, nor has there been so much as a single addition to it; and there is not any reason to believe there are any changes or additions in the works. As far as I or anyone else knows, he has been completely abandoned as a character. I just wanted to clarify that.

Anyways, Charon is long overdue for a lore rework, or at least a lore expansion because there is just so little about this guy that we know about. He seems to be undead and commands undead armies, so is he corrupted? But then what's his dynamic with Bak'al? Why do they never interact with each other despite being both scourges of Wynn? And what's with the monotone realm he has to himself? Is the dungeon itself a different realm? How'd he get all this power in the first place?
None of these things are explored at all, and all we know is that he has his own realm, he's really strong, and he has an army. That's... it.

It really is an absolute travesty that Charon in-lore is arguably way more successful than Bak'al, destroying an entire major city like it was nothing and is therefore presumably more powerful than him and yet he's relegated to just being a low-level dungeon boss whose lore is never returned to again. I mean, he's not even mentioned ever again. I think the only dialogue in the entire game that mentions him is that which is directly related to the quest and dungeon.
For a character that single-handedly wiped out an entire major city in Wynn like it was nothing, he has absolutely zero relevance in the rest of Wynncraft's lore.

It's pretty crazy though that despite how little lore there is of Charon, he still manages to be way more interesting than Bak'al, even though Charon literally has the same powers that Bak'al has: fire magic and summoning undead. But Charon also has his own realm which makes him inherently more interesting than Bak'al.
I would love for Charon to return as a character and be more relevant, maybe even with a more fleshed out personality than just "generic evil villain". I mean, Charon and Bak'al literally have the exact same identical personality. Apparently Bak'al is getting more lore but there was some unspoken implication there that his personality was going to be the same, so at least one of them should be changed. If it's not going to be Bak'al, then why not Charon?
Heck, his personality doesn't even have to be changed; Charon could come back and be a rival for Bak'al, or even outright antagonistic to him. I for one can imagine Charon taking issue with how Bak'al now serves the Dern Beast, so there's some potential there for an interesting dynamic, and I do love a good "evil guy hates the other evil guy" dynamic. It would definitely add to both characters' lore in a great way.

But anyways, what do you guys think?

 

first for the love of god dont use Italics nobody can see them. Second PurpleEmerald already did a sick one https://forums.wynncraft.com/threads/charon-the-ferryman-of-styx.308230/
and we should use it.

 

There is a reference to his influence on Ancient Nemract in Elemental Exercise, but that's still very little. (Also those are corrupteds Charon sent, so it's implied he's corrupted. Except he can still be corrupted in Forgery? What??)

Though of course, like I mentioned on the Bak'al post, I thought Watchmen was about Charon attempting to take Ragni, so... (I needed more Charon so I saw more Charon.)

 

PurpleEmerald's post while incredibly high-quality focuses too much on Greek mythology for my liking. I like the subtle references like the idea of him being a ferryman, but I believe that alone should be the extent of those references. This Charon for all intents in purposes should take priority as a Wynncraft character, not a Greek mythology character;

Spoiler: similarly to Emet-Selch

who is a FFXIV character, and Emet-Selch being "Hades" is referenced by no more than his name and him watching over the "Underworld" aka the Lifestream.

This is what I believe Wynncraft's Charon should be in relation to Greek mythology.
I really love that he adds more to Charon, but what he adds is either more of what we already know or more based on Greek mythology.

Also I really don't like how his post portrays the player character in dialogue. It only makes Charon look stronger by making our character weaker and more pathetic in almost all of the dialogue choices. If I wanted to play as a scared pathetic baby whose main defense is to scream and cry, I would have named my character Shinji.

Also how do you know I'm using italics? And why don't italics even work? I don't need sleep I need answers

 

when you quote a message you see the italics in the text inside the

 

Witherhead, Old Garoth, and Theorick also do this ... ?

 

Yes but the more obvious direct cultural references are being removed every update, like the LotR references, Harry Potter references, etc. I'm surprised Sherk has survived this long, but my point still stands.

 

I tended to assume that Witherhead was already corrupted in some extent, it just became full at the dungeon

Were the dinosaurs zombies the whole time?

That's fair (though ice magic!) and probably a sign that the Forgery showing you corrupted versions of things on the whole makes no sense.

 

Forgery is just incredibly outdated tbh

 

Those are large references to other media.

Most games incorporate real world mythology into their lore and storytelling, and using real world mythos as a foundation for lore is not the same as making a quest just a book or a movie.

Also JK Rowling sucks, and that's why we removed a fair bit of the Harry Potter references.

 

Yes but when you have just straightup Shrek in there it calls into question how canon the character is. Like it's not even a normal ogre with a similar name, and there's nothing wrong with a joke character even in a game that takes itself more seriously (Drale for example or Puddingway in FFXIV), but in this case it's quite literally just Shrek, design and all just with one letter changed. For all I can tell, Sherk is just as canon to Wynncraft as Aledar and that's... not right.

But regarding Greek mythos, I don't have a problem with loose references but the way it's handled in the other post opens up a whole can of worms that can't be closed. I would argue that the way FFXIV handles various mythos is perfect, with only names, visual designs, and a few character traits being related to the mythos.
I mean, Athena in FFXIV is absolutely nothing like how she is in Greek mythos. She's Athena in name alone and that's perfect. Same with all the other Greek-named characters.

Personally, I would argue that straightup taking a mythological figure like Charon and haphazardly putting all of his mythological lore including the existence of Hades into Wynncraft and then making him evil would be incredibly lazy from a writing standpoint and it defeats the purpose of wanting a lore expansion of his character. I don't want a lore expansion of Charon the Greek mythological figure, I want a lore expansion of Charon the Wynncraft character and his relation to all the Wynncraft lore, not Greek mythos.

Also please tell someone to fix italics :(

 

with the "curtural references" thing, i meant what deus said. On the sherk point, the story is different, and I don t see whats wrong with "sherck being as canon as aledar" like that doesnt make so much sense. I agree we shouldnt copy/paste Charon from mythology

also i REALLY need italics to understand your messages, i always quote them before readfing them. maybe use bold or underline instead 0f italics?

 

Sherk being canon is a problem for the same reason as the old Lord of the Clock quest, which was why it was removed. Yeah the story of the quest is different, but Legally Distinct Shrek™ doesn't make sense to be in a game that is trying to take its lore more seriously than ever before, especially on the cusp of a massive brand new lore expansion.

Wynncraft's humor isn't based around breaking the fourth wall like Deadpool, Sunset Overdrive, or Kid Icarus Uprising, it's a lore-heavy fantasy game that is really starting to take its lore seriously since they've dropped the idea of just being "Minecraft, but as a funny MMO with references xD".
The humor nowadays is more based around randomness than just references.

 

not really. a lot of the 'random = funny' humor (like tunnel trouble) is old.

 

While most of the "reference = funny" humor is gone while the old "random = funny" humor stayed, there are occasional new ones, such as the grook in the (new) Cook Assistant kicking a guard's ass into the shadow realm

 

it was pretty rampant in spellbound, and rekindled world onwards haven't changed/added much content that can have humour

 

Wait which ones? Grookwarts is still in the game no?

 

no dont get rid of grookwarts

she was talking about the Lost Sanctuary quest studying the corrupt

 

That was a Harry Potter reference? I thought Studying the Corrupt was removed because it’s associated dungeon still didn’t make much sense lore wise and the remake was better in almost every way?

 

some character names (like Volmor) and other minor references

Unfortunately Grookwarts is too big to remove the reference of without a full rework & rename