SPOILER The Pre-dern Dern Study

AS A DISCLAIMER, THIS STUDY WAS MADE BEFORE THE ROAD TO DERN AND DERN ITSELF WAS RELEASED. FACTS IN THIS STUDY MAY HAVE CHANGED IN LATER UPDATES.

This is, more than anything, a study more than a theory that I’ve been trying to get out for a while.
I’m not going to force you to scroll past page and page of theory. Before I say anything, here’s a summary:

Dern is darkness. It is not a province, it is darkness. It spreads, and far before the land shows any signs of taint it is doomed. There is no way to stop it once it gets out of hand. Only one item has been seen to contain it and that item only exists in one specific place in the entire game. The entire Wynn region, and eventually the Gavel region, is doomed to die.

With that being said, if you choose to read on…
welcome to something I’ve worked on for a long time. I hope you enjoy.

The corruption is the first major force we learn of in the wynn universe. It reanimates almost all mobs (but not villagers) and uses them to create its own armies. It’s spread by roots that stretch out through a vast underground network. When these roots grow large enough, they burst through the earth, physically corrupting nearby land. Corruption’s spread is physical, and is said to occur where light and dark have equal influence. It seems that this demonic force will destroy the entire province, with its powers of reanimation and the insanity it causes, along with the will to corrupt others it gives its victims.

But there’s a force out there that’s much darker than the corruption could possibly be.
…I mean that quite literally, I’m not trying to be edgy here

Dern.

The word itself is an enigma, and not much is known about the “province.” I say “province” for a good reason I’ll explain later on in this study. Its old english synonyms include “hidden” and “dark,” and it more than lives up to that name. Dern as a “province” hasn’t even been formally released yet, so it’s safe to assume that Dern has no major effect on the story so far, other than being responsible for the corruption, right?

Wrong.

Let’s take a look at the places where Dern has affected the Wynn and Gavel provinces.

Quick vocab information:
Corrupted will only be used to describe places and people that are affected by the Corruption, not Dern.
Tainted will only be used to describe places and people that are affected by Dern, not the Corruption.

THE ANCIENTS:


Let’s start from the beginning. Dern is not a nice place to live in. It’s so horrible that a group of people/endermen/beings decided to leave, by any means possible. These Dark Inhabitants used a spell to leave Dern to escape to the province of Wynn. They then proceeded to set up camp in the Ancient City in the Dernell Jungle (whose name amazingly is unrelated to any of this). The spell, however, was so powerful that many of these Dern inhabitants later went insane. We know all of this because of a single basement in the Ancient City where a single ancient lives and a bunch of placed signs with messages can be found. Luckily for us, this Ancient has already gone through his temporary insanity and allows us to gather up on our Dern lore in peace.

Let’s talk about the Ancients themselves. They’re big, tall inhabitants from a dark land, and their supposed escape is to flee from their “god”, the Eye. The Eye is supposedly the ruler of Dern, and the Ancients manged to get it to focus on them. This led the Ancients to run, though even in their massive underground city the Eye watched them. “Even here, we cannot escape from the Eye” is written on one of the signs in the basement. We can assume that being under the watchful eye of the Eye of Dern is not a good thing, then.

(Note: The wiki page calls the aggressive Ancients “corrupted Ancients” to distinguish them from the peaceful Ancients but they are also called Ancients ingame, simply with a red name. This indicates that they are aggressive. There is no evidence that they are corrupted.)

And that’s where it ends. No more Ancients, no more secret basements, no more story. Let's shift the focus to Dead Island.

DEAD ISLAND:

Dead island is not a nice place to go on a vacation. But it wasn’t always this way. Years ago, this now decaying island was a thriving, beautiful land with blooming plants and a wonderful sight.

Alive island is shown above. The trees are large and healthy, homes are in good state, and villagers are still found.

Dead island has none of those, and it’s all caused by one thing.

An egg.

This egg released so called “Dern Beasts” in the cave that it was placed in, and later, the island began to decay. Dern minions and Dead villagers began to roam the land. We’ve seen Dead Prospectors and Dead Suburb Residents before, clearly resurrected by the corruption of wynn. But we’ve never seen undead villagers, because they simply can’t exist. The corruption has no affect on villagers whatsoever, and villagers aren’t even targeted by undead mobs. Yet on Dead Island, Dead Villagers roam free. Which leads me to believe that Dernic/Dark forces don’t even bring the dead back to life. They simply control the corpses of any dead entity, even entities the Corruption could not bring to life, and twist the souls of living beings.

Another interesting feature to note before we leave dead island is that an entire “cloud of gloom” hangs over the island. This cloud of gloom is not only physical- anything in its vicinity begins to decay, and the dead continue to move, not reanimated, but controlled like puppets. Tainted land spreads instantly. Bring an object from Dern to another region of the world and it will be tainted, as we have seen with Dead Island and as we will see with our next destination. Physical taint doesn’t even have to show- the “dark blocks” of physical spread commonly associated with Dern only appear when a physical Dernic object or Dernic influence has affected a particular area for a long time. In other words, the world doesn’t have to physically blacken for it to be tainted.

Next, we'll discuss the Dernel Mansion and the Darkness' effects on it.


DERNEL MANSION:

Welcome to the Dernel Jungle Mansion. Falling into decay since a mysterious dark trader sold the mansion’s owners a pair of Abyssal Boots that taint the nearby land, darkness has beguns spreading ever since the boots have been removed from their protective case. In the Lost Soles quest, the boots must be returned to the Boot Case to prevent the spread of darkness and the tainting of the mansion and surrounding land. Luckily, the player stops the taint from reaching the outside of the mansion (the mansion above’s exterior is almost completely unaffected), and the spread is halted. This offers a brighter future for any Dern-spreading item, as now we know it can be contained. However, only one of these cases that we know of so far has been found, and various other locations seem to have been tainted so much that it seems it’s impossible to prevent the spread of Dern. However, we now know that even if darkness begins to spread locally, its spread can be almost fully, if not completely halted simply by containing the source. Now, let’s talk about the most severe example of the darkness.


GAVEL’S DECAY:

(The most low-quality image on the wiki.)

Beautiful. Just beautiful. Why can’t anything related to darkness be sunny, for instance? The Kander and Dark forests have been affected by Darkness for the past 1000 years or so. Starting in the middle of the light forest, a dark influence ruptured through the ground. Here, some parts of the world are physically tainted, with black blocks peppered across the landscape. The world is dark, and the spirits of the dead as well as dark creatures run wild. A villager in Olux even mentions that this force is not the same as that of the corruption, but something darker and more mysterious. This is the third time Dern visibly taints the land, and this time its consequences are disastrous.

Let’s go specifically to the Caritat Mansion, the former home of Mr. and Ms. Caritat and their children. The home was built directly on the spot where the darkness began to seep into Gavel.


The Darkness began to seep into the residents, and eventually Mr. Caritat went full-demon, killing almost the entirety of his family. When tainted however, instead of speaking in red text the corrupteds speak in, he spoke in a dark purple text, the same as found in two other Dern locations. When the player must finish him off, he is referred to as the “Remains of Mr. Caritat.” This is in the same format as the dead villagers, and since Mr. Caritat was a villager, no corruption could have brought him back to life. Also important is the fact that he is referred to as “Remains”. This suggests that his bones are simply being propelled forward without any mind controlling them. Both of these points were seen with Dead Villagers in Dead Island, confirming that these are the effects of Dern. In Mr. Caritat’s last moments in the land of the living before he is presumably killed by the spreading taint within, he prophesizes that a dark servant will plant the seeds of darkness that will bring about the Darkness’ rise.

Speaking of dark seeds…

THE REALM OF LIGHT:
This is the Realm of Light:

This is also the Realm of Light:

(Photo credit to Olinus10 on youtube).

Darkness has a way of getting around places, especially when there’s a beautiful patch of land involved. The realm of light is no exception. You might be asking why I’m talking about dern in a place where the corruption is clearly the attacker. True, the corruption is threatening the entire realm, but something much darker is going on in the background.

Recall the names of the seeds we are sent out to get- the Seeds of Desolation and Darkness. Neither of those suggest corruption. Morover, recall the prophecy that the Tainted Mr. Caritat gave us in Memory Paranoia- “HE WHO STARTED THE WAR SHALL RISE ONCE MORE. FROM THE REALM OF SHADOWS, DECEIPT AND PAIN. FOREVER TRAPPED, FROM WHENCE HE CAME. THROUGH THE WEAK POINT BETWEEN REALMS HE. WILL. RISE. AGAIN!” The seeds of desolation and darkness seem to relate pretty well to these prophesized items, and the fact that they’re in the light realm would count as an invasion of the realm.

So why the corruption? Why is that all we remember?

Because corruption is formed between light and dark. You’d expect the dark to be snuffed out by the surrounding light before any major corruption could occur, but this is not the case. In fact, a single seed was capable of not only causing corruption due to all the light around it, but also withstanding this corruption whereas light fell to it. This seed of darkness stays strong, in the middle of it all, and while the dark core of every “corruption location”, whether it be a boss room or simply a room with a seed in it, remained uncorrupted with dern’s signature dark blocks, the light around it became corrupt. Light cannot fight the corruption- it is simply fuel. These seeds of Darkness must be immensely powerful if they can not only survive their resulting corruption but control it to their advantage.

LUSUCO’S LIBRARY:

(The house of twain, near dern.)

Lusuco’s library features an important description of the house of twain- being right next to Dern, corrupted creatures would not go near it. It’s almost as if the darkness itself repels the corrupted. The house itself is full of restless spirits, much like the ones found in the Kander forest in Gavel, where the Darkness has a significant hold on the land.





DERN’S EFFECTS RECAP:

Dern is darkness incarnate. It spreads, and it seems to be stronger than the corruption itself. It spreads, it taints, and it becomes anything that it touches. Anything that wanders into its clutches becomes dark, any corpses in its vicinity begin to walk, and any living beings that escape it are changed forever. Thus, as Grian said, Dern isn’t considered a province, but it should be treated of as one. It spreads, and thus cannot be a province, but the main land of Dern itself can be considered a dark territory.

Before we visit the final destination, we have one more topic to discuss.

SLYKAAR, DISCIPLE OF DARKNESS:

(Photo credit to Olinus10 on youtube.)
Slykaar wasn’t a nice person to begin with. But he was anything but a corrupt servant. His experiments all used dark magic, magic that would destroy the undead. This alone might remind you of darkness, but the most important part of the Slykaar study is the following phrase when you are in his quite literal dark realm: “Then I found this place. A dark land. A dark god. A source of power.” Slykaar wasn’t a corrupt magician who slowly went insane. He saw darkness. He saw the dark realm that serves as the spiritual center of Dern. His experiments created monstrosoties that made dead cells begin to move and have shape without any life in them. These slimes should begin to ring a bell now. Remember Dern’s powers of using dead entities as vessels? This may be the same power that granted Slykaar the power to create his slimes. Keep in mind that when the slimes split, their still dead chunks may still attack in the forms of smaller enemies.

BOB’S LAST STAND AGAINST DARKNESS:

(The Dark Realm. Photo credit: Hippiesnuggles)

The final piece of Bob’s letter could be found in the tent at gateway island. When completed, the letter reads of Bob’s last stand against a creature of a land of night far away. While some people think of this creature to be the Corruptor of Worlds, the words “land of night” suggest a different territory. After all, the Corruptor was never really sealed- he only took refuge in the cave for reasons unknown.

This is when the speculation comes in:

Bob may have faced off against a creature of Dern, possibly the Eye. This most likely happens in the Shadow Realm (essentially the equivalent to Gavel’s Realm of Light) rather than the physical Dern territory, as the letter piece is found on Gateway island, the entrance to the shadow realm.

We know that Bob came home after being mortally wounded and losing the battle, and immediately after he sealed himself in his tomb, never to be heard of again.

All this to say…

The greatest warrior of Wynn couldn’t kill the potential source of darkness. He tried, and he failed. His last actions were one of sealing away the source. As seen with the abyssal boots, even when the boots aren’t in their proper location, the location’s taint still continues to spread. The second the boots are sealed away, no matter where they are in the world, the taint stops spreading. Had Bob sealed off the potential source of Darkness, the entire spread of Darkness would have likely stopped. Which can only lead me to believe that Bob failed.

Bob could not take down the Dark god, the Eye, or whatever it may truly be. The most he could do was lock it away from the physical world. As Mr. Caritat mentions, the dark god is “FOREVER TRAPPED FROM WHENCE [IT] CAME.” But that does not stop the Darkness from spreading. Whatever the source of the Darkness may be, it may be trapped in the Dark Realm but that does not stop it from spreading. Dern will continue growing, and as long as the source is not sealed away forever (via closing of the portal to the realm or other methods), Dern will continue spreading.

The abandoned mines that the miners caved in to stop the spreading Darkness? Rocks won’t help stop the taint from reaching Wynn. The Kander forest and Dark forest Gavel citizens are trying so hard to cure? Mess around with the Realm of Light all you want, but the Darkness will still spread.

If the greatest warrior in all of wynn couldn’t stop the Darkness, who says you can?

 

hi you spelled Slykaar wrong smh

 

If I submitted this for my APs it would’ve done better than my actual essay

 

nice finds

 

Corruption is where Light meets Dark, Corruption is what spreads though... if the Darkness of Dern spreads, then why not the light of Gavel?
Still, I agree with all of the points except for this, as Gavel is the land of Light, Dern will be the opposite, the land of dark.

 

Ah, thanks for the catch! I'll go fix that.

 

I definitely agree that Bob didn't lose to the CoW because that's pretty dumb. Master of all weapons, losing to an enemy that we, only trained in 1 weapon, beat fairly easily? I think not.

 

I thought Bob planted a decoy and faked his death, and simply disappeared to fight whatever it was that he had to seal away

 

He did plant a Decoy (in the form of Bob the Zombie), but real Bob lost the fight against the being he tried to seal away, too. The real bob is in a much deeper part of his tomb, and you'll see him in the quest Reincarnation.

 

For some reason I'd always thought that the reincarnation was the fake. I guess it never clicked that Bob the Zombie/whatever is in that small tomb thing was the fake
I feel like I mentally just tripped down the stairs

 

While a lot of this knowledge is already known because all of this info is bought from the wiki, the Olm may have to ring a bell with the Ancients, it's not clear what the difference between the races are, but it's clear they both have a black/gray skin color, it does not mean that the Ancients are just endermen, they could have a different appearance whether not if their body was physically changed by any sort of darkness, the Ancients were most likely not as tall as they seem, also the screenshots that Grian spoiled of Dern appear to have their own spikes as well, and the architecture there resembles what is seen in Time Valley, so the races may be the same overall, the Olm fell for a reason, they were escaping from a un-named entity, what is the most recognized mysterious entity in Wynn? Well of course it is the Eye, the Ancients held immense magic, and the Olm held time magic, to say, they are the same race but different groups who work together in attempt to save themselves, the Ancients created strong magic to combat the Eye, but only doomed themselves in doing so, the Olm decided to try to reverse time itself before the eye reached power, but may have got their selves stuck in a paradox or an alternate universe like Asher did in Deja Vu, marking the fall of an entire race, Slykaar's magic is shaman magic, interaction with souls and the dead, the realm resembles a green-gray combination of colors, not a purple and black one, and he apparently used DNA splicing in making his creations? I don't know but I feel more science in this, but apparently there's a vial in his DNA collection named "Vial of D----- -------" now it may seem apparent right on the brain that the first word is "Dernic" but it could be any other combination ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°), and we have no idea what the second word is. Dern is not apparent to have a appearance in Gavel, sure it may be darkness, but it ain't Dern, it's shadows, Dern and the Realm Of Shadows are different in their own ways, does Naragath resembles the Dern theme? No, more thoroughly corrupt, it's to admit that there may be something bigger than the Eye, who controls the Corruption? Definitely not Bak'al as he says the he will make Wynn pure in the name of his master. Who is the true creator of this universe? Salted in technical terms, Bovemism is more of a joke really, so not clear at all. This thread isn't much of a theory, it's mostly known information but this is info is fairly useful to some, if Dern was an infection rather a realm or province it would've taken its toll on Wynn if it had that much time to decimate the Ancients and you say that Dern spreads quickly, so why not do it before the Humans arrive? Also the one who gives the inhabitants of Dernel Mansion the Abysso Galoshes is obviously Bob, because he has gray skin as said from his story lore which may or may not be changed, it's best not to get tangled up in a bunch of vines before the lore is completed, we know Bob is a Human-Olm hybrid because grey skin and her mother which apparently got um... well now we're entering a different territory but let's suppose she did not mean it purposely.

________________________________

I just replied to your thread so you can see my comment.

 

Not necessarily. It's more of a study than a theory, really. And you're right, we don't know what race the ancients could have been. But that doesn't necessarily mean that Wynn is Olm. Also, almost none of this info is on the wiki. I took snips from the wiki in a few distinct places. Had the wiki supplied all the information, I wouldn't have made this thread. Also, Slykaar literally mentions that his source of power is darkness. It's simple as that.

Finally, Eye of the Storm was a mistake.

But yes, I do see a few points.

 

The greatest warrior that I slaughtered 26 levels before I kicked the shit out of the strongest being in Gavel? That one?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure we'd have better chances than he did.

________________________________

Alright, real reply here.

I really do like this. Seems self evident that based on everything you've shown here; Dern is darkness itself, and it spreads constantly, as does anything tainted by it...

..Doesn't the Corruption do this as well? I know that from the Nether portal, it spreads underground and shoots up where it can, but then there are corrupted spots in say, Gavel that has a pretty tough defense against Corruption, seeing as even though the Ocean can recieve corrupted spots, its pretty much pristine aside from the Decay shooting up everywhere as well... but then there are Corrupted areas still left there. Some guy earlier brought up an interesting theory that some villagers might have brought corrupted stone, seeing as it produces emeralds, and then shoved it into the ground and from there it sprung up.

Anyways, nice theory.

 

Time to put on my lore glasses

 

@SPYROHAWK

 

a few things from this thread:
https://forums.wynncraft.com/thread...-and-the-eye-in-wynnexcavation-site-d.112303/
The Ancients (most likely the Dern that escaped the darkness) had immense magical power and the stones that they used were strong enough to combat the darkness, but the darkness needed to reclaim them, which drove the Ancients crazy. Could the effects of the Ancients escaping to Wynn have caused the corruption and decay, as the Eye is trying to take back the ancients?
idk this was a bad idea
also i was wondering did anyone try to put the eye of the storm into the old ender portal near detlas?

 

If you didn't know, you can either turn off chat colors or look in the logs for deobfuscated text. Here's the deobfuscated quest text for Slykaar.

Spoiler

Experiment Notes: Project "Slingra"
Entry 1: Began collecting jungle animals of all types. Placed them in cages to insure they won't escape. Will begin extracting DNA soon.
Entry 2: All animal DNA has been extracted. Starting mutation of DNA; will collect results when finished.
Entry 3: All animal DNA failed to mutate. Turned into a slimy mass upon completion of mutation process. Will continue testing to get better results.
Entry 4: Still not getting substantial results. I have found however that the undead produce slime masses closer to a successful mutation.
Entry 5: Had the first successful mutation today. Achieved by combining two undead animals together. Very powerful; could be a good candidate for a soldier.
Entry 6: I have discovered something darker. Stronger. If I can harness this power, I can become the GOD of this world.

You find a chest filled with dusty vials of...something. You begin to read the labels...
Jungle Ocelot DNA. Dire Wolf DNA. Even Jungle Fetish DNA? You begin to feel uncomfortable, but you keep looking.
You find a vial at the very bottom. It seems to have burned a hole of darkness right through the bottom of the chest...
You try to read the label, but it strains your eyes just looking at it. All you can make out is "Vial of Dernic Essence"...
...it's probably best to stop looking now.

 

The Ancients have nothing to do with the creation of Corruption or the Decay.

The Decay was caused by the greed of the villagers beginning to consume Orphion through the larger Succoru Parasite.

The Corruption was caused by what I presume is either the first or most powerful and violent clash of Light & Dark. Something that caused an entirely new force to spawn from the pure violent energies of two incomprehensible powers moving towards eachother.

The Ancients found the Corruption & drew a portion of its power into the Crystals, which is terrifying to think about, that the Corruption that we see is weaker than in its original form.

 

Well, we still have the rumored Gravel hero that, to my knowledge, originated from Corkus.

Then we'll likely have a final and difficult quest that when Dern is released could allow the player along with, most likely, a scientist's or Dern resident's help to stop the darkness.

 

What an essay.

And yes, the Eye should have immnuity to bands of teenagers and love triangles.

But, in the realm of light, doesn’t a heliolux say something along the lines of ”Seeds are gone now, but damages will remain” and it seems somewhat hasty to make conclusions based on little evidence (Dern shattering if source is broken)
I know it might be because it’s actually Corruption, but as we know, corruption spreads rapidly, then bursts out from under the ground, resulting in spreading. So why does the corruption in RoL stop when you destroy the seed?