Saw that yall were posting some fan art- this is my first post ever on here.

“And when I sleep, I will dream of their lamentations and be glad of heart.”

The rape of Omindalea at least points to the fact that procreation between the two is possible and at least one Non-man did not consider it beneath him to mate with a human woman.

So especially after the plague of wombs, why did they not take human women as wives?

Was it inspired by the crusades

shimeh seems like it's Jerusalem, of how everyone wants it.

I have only read The Darkness That Comes Before, but Kellhus has ensnared my mind and I decided to do my best to recreate him as he is by the end of the 1st book. Let me know what you all think!

Level 1 (Rogue1)

Variant Human

Acolyte background

Stats: standard array

Str: 8

Dex: (15 +1) 16

Con: 14

Int: 10

Wis: 13

Cha: (12 +1) 13

Proficiencies

Armor: Light armor

Weapons: Simple weapons, hand crossbows, longswords, rapiers(katana?), shortswords

Tools: Thieves' tools

Saving Throws: Dexterity, Intelligence

Skills: Athletics, Deception, Perception, Persuasion

Acolyte Skill Proficiencies: Insight, Religion

Expertise: Insight, Persuasion

Languages: Two of your choice plus common and 1 additional from Human race.(I'd argue to remove the 3 additional languages for a homebrew rule to rapidly learn a language when interacting with someone speaking a language you dont understand.)

Starting Feat: Alert

Level 2 (Rogue1/Monk1)

First multiclass for flavor and stuff down the line.

Gain Unarmored Defense and Martial Arts

Level 3 (Rogue1/Monk1/Fighter1)

Second multiclass

Gain Fighting Style: Dueling, and Second wind

Level 4 (Rogue2/Monk1/Fighter1)

Gain Cunning Action

Level 5 (Rogue3/Monk1/Fighter1)

Roguish Archetype: Swashbuckler

Gain Fancy Footwork and Rakish Audacity

Level 6 (Rogue4/Monk1/Fighter1)

ASI time! Plus 1 to Wis and Cha

Str: 8

Dex: 16

Con: 14

Int: 10

Wis: 14

Cha: 14

Level 7 (Rogue4/Monk1/Fighter2)

Gain Action Surge

Level 8 (Rogue4/Monk1/Fighter3)

Gain Martial Archetype: Battle Master

Maneuvers: Commanding Presence, Precision Attack, Riposte

Level 9 (Rogue4/Monk1/Fighter4)

ASI +2 Dex

Str: 8

Dex: 18

Con: 14

Int: 10

Wis: 14

Cha: 14

Level 10 (Rogue4/Monk2/Fighter4)

Gain Ki and Unarmored Movement

We now have our Level 10 Kellhus that should be pretty close to his abilities by the end of The Darkness That Comes Before.

Initiative is +11(+4 from Dex, +2 from Cha via RakAud, and +5 from Alert)

AC is 16 with Unarmored Defense

Movment is 40 feet with Unarmored Movement

I’m sure this has been posted before, but given recent discussions about sequels and such, I thought I’d post this clip from Zaudûnyainicon where Bakker talks about some truly tantalizing ideas for further writings—it sounds like he’s not working on a sequel exactly, but perhaps the discussion of a prequel I’ve recently seen might be something like the “meta-Silmarilion” he talks about here. I dunno, a humble slogger-of-slogs can hope!

Edit: Here’s the full playlist of his discussion at Zaudûnyainicon, I figure folk might be interested—every video is worth checking out, in my opinion.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdq_jy3KxJ9OgommNw_A7be58oeMmmi1S&si=JrCZVQnyafXCvQXZ

He even looks a bit like our favo Daimotic sorcerer!

Had a nightmare on Sunday. Went to bead feeling peachy - no, not that kinda peach - and woke in abject dread. Moments before I'd entered the climax of my nightmar

My folks were dropping me off at my college dorm. I walked up the stairs to my room somewhere on the 7-8th floor. After a knocked failed to elicit a response, I opened to door to find Inrilatas strapped the lower bunk, foaming at the mouth with shit smeared across his face. The room was a total disaster.....seed, spittle, vomit, urine and shit everywhere.

Someone halp!!! What does this mean?

I'm near the end of the 3rd book and have been experimenting with making scenes from the books.

I have just finished book one, "The darkness that comes before" and I am torn on continuing or not. On one hand I really liked the semi historic setting and the politics. The best part of the book for me was by far the audience with the emperor and the rivalries around leading the holy war.

Not a big fan of Kellhus and the magic schools, but I can accept it. And I see potential in building the consult into an interesting antagonist.

However the depiction of the only two female characters with any meaningful story is.... well dog shit. The end of the book written from the perspective of Serwe and Esme really soured my perception. Their characters are flat and written with a level of ... rapist fanservice (?) that I find boring and badly written to the point of it being annoying.

How will it change in the subsequent books? Can I hope that the parts I enjoyed will be developed further or should I give up on the series?

I browsed here for a while and have read different theories for why the series has not been continued so far. No publisher, Bakker no longer being interested, etc.

Has Bakker himself ever actually commented on this directly? I know at some point he said he just considers himself another reader, but has he confirmed any of these theories directly or are people just making shit up?

Interest in Bakker is going up this past year.

And I believe that it’s time for Overlook to give Bakker the respect he deserves by releasing a set that has better and more fitting cover art.

The current cover art for all the paperbacks is lazy, uninspired and pretty insulting to Bakker as an artist.
These images have next to zero relation to anything within the story, and was slapped together probably in 30 mins with images from other really ugly book covers.

Why did no one live here?

i’m about half way through The White Luck Warrior when the Great Ordeal has split up to forage for food while Sranc is beginning to Horde when I ask myself: why not a tasty slow cooked Sranc thigh?

So I was just reading about the 2026 Nobel Prize winners in medicine and reading about optogenetics. Sounds like it has eerie potential to be exactly what Bakker described in Neuropath. Lighting up extremely specific neural circuits in the brain to do just about whatever you want.

It seems like it has amazing health implications for a lot of things, like removing the fear associated with specific memories, fixing circuits that are supposed to fire but don’t, or suppressing certain ones, removing craving for opiates, or regulating things like depression and PTSD.

Butttttttttttt…. I mean, again, Neuropath seems like a perfect example of things that could go terribly wrong. You suppress fear neurons associated with a painful memory, you remove PTSD, you suppress fear and empathy circuits associated with murder, and crank up the circuits that desire sexual gratification attached to a specific associate, and you have…. The chiropractor serial killer from Neuropath.

This technology is truly fascinating, but there’s something incredibly uncanny valley about it. Like stripping away the illusion we are all these islands of unique impenetrable cognition, and revealing the machinery underneath. Propaganda, manipulation, influence… these were all things that a conditioned mind could resist; external forces pitted against your mind, but rearranging the circuitry directly? You can’t do anything against that. Like removing your heart and willing your blood to circulate. It’s mechanical.

I am not a neuroscientist so I have no idea if I’m extrapolating way too far out for this tech, but like many things, it’s both fascinating and terrifying, and just like AI, Bakker was talking about it decades before it really hit mainstream awareness.

5th read through of both series. Aspect Emperor book two, The White-Luck Warrior. During the slog, on the Istyuli Plains, Mimara talks with Sarl. At the end of the conversation, Sarl saying:

"Seju bless you girl."

"It's been lonely" through rotted teeth.

Of all the horror and terror of these books, of all the abuse and debasement, this part always chokes me up.

So, this has been bothering me for awhile. I keep seeing people on this sub saying "no weepers on the slog", but in my books it's "no sobbers on the slog".

Do i have a different book?

I read the Prince of Nothing trilogy years ago, and I quite enjoyed it. I've never seen the Aspect Emperor in stores, and I've been thinking lately I'd like to finally get around to reading them. I want to find physical paperbacks that don't cost multiple times the cover cost to get. The best I've found so far is Indigo that has all 4 for $121, but that's hardcover prices for paperbacks. Ebay's even worse... Best I could find was someone who had them all for $146 after shipping. (that is all 7 including the first trilogy, but I already own that, so it's worth $0 to me) All the individual sellers have them for really high prices, especially the last two. Does anyone know somewhere I can get them for something closer to cover prices?