SPOILER THEORY: Emeralds are ORGANIC

I lied. Well, kind of. I don't necessarily mean organic like grass, but rather organic like Pearls are organic. Let me explain:

Last year, me, Etherweaver, IndecisiveMax, and TrapinchO (it was mostly us but we also had help from Olinus10 and hmtn) Conspired to get together and brainstormed a theory to explain why Emeralds are the way the are. Why the drop from mobs, why villagers are attracted to them, and perhaps most importantly, why they can be condensed into a liquid that is so much smaller than a full block.

This is that theory:
How do they grow?
Emeralds, while called Emeralds, are not formed like Emeralds in real life.
We theorized that when an Influence came into contact with an object, whether living or inanimate, the influence would fight against the ambient mana therein (ambient mana is assumed, since the mana is used so often in the world. It has a higher density in living things in the form of a soul, but even rocks have ambient mana)
That conflict has side effects, namely, emerald growth. In living things the soul fights back much harder, so the emerald growth on a being is extremely limited and often doesn't produce anything. (This explains why when you kill a grook it will sometimes drop an emerald)
Dead things, however, have no such soul. When they die the soul gets trapped in the being, but is weakened. Thus emerald growth is much much faster, since the mana struggles more. When the Influenced creature dies, their soul is released in an explosion, causing Emeralds to fly everywhere.

As for growing in rocks, when influence fights mana in stone it slowly grows emeralds. This is why emerald mines are so often near places of influence (And why it was always emerald miners who found things)

Why are villagers etc. Attracted to emeralds?
Villagers are magically inclined, yes? Very much so. The 3rd most inclined actually, even moreso than Humans.
We theorized that the more magically inclined a species is, the higher it values Emeralds.
Villagers are lack self dicipline, which is why they are such a weak race when they could be super magical. Thus they don't really restrict themselves from emeralds. Humans are more strict but still willing to do stupid stuff for emeralds. Dwarves horde huge amounts of emeralds while using Gold as a currency.
But why aren't Elves and Doguns obsessed with Emeralds then?
Well, Elves practice self control above all, and everyone who practices greed has no place in Aldorei. Basically, they know it's a weakness and eliminate it.
Doguns are a slight flaw in this theory, but there are 2 possible options:
1. They have no access to Emeralds due to where they live. There is not enough influence to generate Emeralds in rocks, so they just kinda, don't really know they exist. They don't get them from beasts because they don't kill.
2. They have bigger things to worry about. In other words, they are just too busy for shiny rocks.

Why does half of Gavel still drop emeralds?
This was tricky. We know the parasites can't make it past the Canyon of the Lost, so why do they still drop emeralds?
What we ended up agreeing on is that Garaheth counts as an Influence, as well as the Collossi. It's a bit of a stretch, and there are definitely improvements to be made here, but that's as far as we got.

What about Corkus and the islands?
First, the islands are not immune to influences. We saw in Craftmas Chaos that Selchar was corrupted.
Half Moon Island is full of cultists, and there are other possible influences that we might not know about (in other words, we never got this far in the theory) As for Corkus, maybe Electromagic is a sort of Influence? Or perhaps Antikythera purposely puts them in the bots. Again, we never made it to Corkus.

How are emeralds turned into Liquid Emeralds?
Essentially... oils.
Or rather, essential oils.
The derived essence of an object. In real life it can be taken from anything ranging from seeds to flowers to fish.
In all of those cases, the original object is bigger than the essence of the object by orders of magnitude.
We theorized that specific Refineries extract the Emerald Concentrate and bottle it. It can still be reconstituted, since the only thing that matters is the draw of emeralds, so the essence still works.

Why do emeralds spawn in chests/raid rewards/stealing?
Chests: Animals scrape the emeralds off of themselves and leave them in piles with other trash, such as weak weapons and items that have their magic sealed.
Raid rewards: each raid is based off or around some sort of influence, and emeralds are a type of waste. Basically you get the trash left behind after the raid is over.
Stealing simply knocks emeralds off of a being.


Please let me know what yall think about our crazy theory, and remember: An LE a day keeps the sneezes away!

 

I would have to agree.

 

no but this is cool
also Yoo Ether and Hmtm worked on this, AND olinus? this has sure to be based

 

The entirety of Gavel is influenced by Light.
(Well, except for areas that have been completely decayed)

 

This theory is good-ish at the start and gets worse over time.

I think the idea that emeralds are organic is somewhat interesting, but ultimately you have to accept that monsters don't have emerald-based biologies and that monsters dropping emeralds is a gameplay abstraction. Besides, a currency that bursts into existence upon the death of any organic creature wouldn't be a very valuable currency, especially in Wynn.

 

I would like to have liquid emerald and vodka to drink the souls of beings and get drunk.

 

If mobs are made up of emeralds, then this also implies that some mobs- even those of the exact same type which have absolutely no other distinguishing factors- are also made up of things other creatures of their kind aren't. Is the blood of most enemies encountered healing potions? Are the remains of the body refashioned into various gear, even the ones which have their lore stated to be of a completely different origin? You tell me.

 

You say it wouldn't be valuable and yet people pay millions of emeralds for single items daily. I know people with huge hordes of LE and they just stack up more. On top of that, Humans aren't even the most magical of beings. Which means each villager probably has a higher net worth than the average player.
Let alone Item Identifiers.

It may not work IRL because people arent technically magically attracted to money, but villagers, humans etc. ARE. Thus it still holds value, even if it actually doesn't

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?? Im confused. You seem to have misunderstood.
Mobs are not made of emeralds, they have emeralds growing in them similar to how pearls grow in clams.
It's not a part of their body, it's a growth that happens in everything, just sped up because the living thing has a soul. A tumor or wart of sorts.
And though it isn't part of this theory at all, items dropping makes some sense, even from a non weapon weilding creatures. They found something shiny/moving something. The issue with just using the same idea for Emeralds as well is that Grooks drop emeralds and Stealing procs on everything. You can't really just say "oh this grook had 2 emeralds stored on its person haha" but you could say "this dog was carrying this stick... oh wait look it's a spear!" (Or bow, or relik, or wand, or even dagger)
As for healing potions... what? They aren't even suspected to be made of blood. Healing potions are crafted in game with oil and grains

 

On second thought I think I have misunderstood. I should probably consume the specified liquified beryl variety to cure my short term attention span...

wait a minute now I'm curious to think if some creatures could manifest gems like aquamarine which are more or less chemically similar to emeralds (from the repeating unit of beryllium aluminum silicate) with the only difference being some other atoms lodged into the chemical structure. With emeralds using chromium as the main impurity giving it a green color, would it be possible for mobs to use Fe2+ ions instead of chromium to get aquamarine?
or maybe my brains on autopilot idrktbh

 

game theory:

 

I don't think you need to come up with an in-universe explanation for every game mechanic. Feels like you'd eventually end up trying to have the people just... fully aware of the game mechanics.

For one, I don't think there's any explanation for random immobile chests located everywhere, which have unique contents for every person who opens them, and which are more valuable if they are found at the end of a cave, and also locked, with the 'key' being an automatic effect from killing nearby monsters. But I'd like to hear you explain it anyway. Possibly on crack.

 

of all of the examples you could've given you chose one that's brought up in-universe

kelight's holiday book reward has a random chance of mentioning that chests containing magical loot spontaneously appear at the ends of dangerous tunnels after their formation and are guarded by the nearby monsters, which may as well be chalked up to him knowing how the game mechanics of caves and loot chests work

even if the above is him exaggerating an in-universe coincidence, you can't really explain the final line where he plans to seed the world with loot chests by building random empty caves without assuming that loot chests in-universe work very similarly to loot chests as a game mechanic

this is also corroborated by the loot symposium monsters looking like loot chests, holograms and all

 

Well I was having a hard time thinking of other major game mechanics! So there!

I'd have to guess that Kelight's cave-building thing is a meta-joke anyway. Or a fourth-wall break. The Seaskipper can hear Shouts and perceives time relative to the real world, so I'd imagine Kelight being able to see cave chests is the same shtick.

I haven't played Loot Symposium, but given it's a cave, could be chalked up to being mostly gameplay.

So, for a different elementary game mechanic, raids. Why is it that you can fight the same raid over and over again, that you have to fight it with three other people who happen to be both identical to you and very different, and that, upon completing it, you're given a chest containing books, enchanted rocks, and a lot of emeralds? How exactly do Gambits work if they exist in-universe? Is Silverbull giving you them? Why would Silverbull want you to be weaker?

Really, just, Silverbull in general. It's a giant thorn in the fourth wall. How canonical is Silverbull? Is Silverbull giving you end rewards from the chest? Makes no sense if it is, because there's a Silent Expanse lootrun which you apparently set up yourself despite the fact it has a local lootrun master. Also you? Are you just insane?

Why does Silverbull have ranks for raiding, given how every raid is something the player, and only the player (plus their alternate timeline duplicates), does, and only once (canonically)? How does lootrunning work, given how you revisit the same areas over and over? Do the beacons exist in-universe? Why does every monster in the area become stronger when a lootrun is ongoing? How do Boons and Curses work? Who's giving you the Missions? Silverbull? What's the deal with End Reward Pulls, and Rerolls, and Sacrifices?

 

literally all of this can be explained if you use Time Troubles to extrapolate that the Olm set up a Recursion Time Operating System replacing a Linear Single-Threaded Time Operating System world-wide. It explains other players, classes, everyone having the same quests, and Silverbull everywhere.

 

explain it like I'm five

 

Olm: Looks at timelines
Olm: "Wow, these are... identical."
Olm: "Maybe, if I just... put them together..."
cataclysm
Olm: "Ah, crap, Time Valley's broke. Well, guess I'd better do capitalism about it. And go build a city in the middle of Nightmare Town."

my italics...

 

that's not what a recursion-based operating system timeline is

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basically, that would be if time repeated over and over again with slight variations, and they're subdivided (so for instance, each playthrough would be a Large Recursion, with Smaller Recursions happening whenever you complete a re-doable piece of content that cannonically Does Not Happen (dungeons, raids)). With this logic, some time mages out therewould be able to slip through the cracks via point jumping (linear time travel), explaining Silverbull.

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to add Time Troubles, Time Valley could be its own recursion exempt from the General Recursions, which is why Time Troubles function on their own Recursion Loop.
So either: The Game was already set for recursions, The Olm knew, and made gaps in the system (such as Time Valley). Or: The Olm did something that caused the Entire Game to enter a recursion loop (thus creating replayable content and classes.)