Ascended Gods are just as strong as Elder Gods are, from an IC standpoint.

I'm telling you, that doesn't work...

@Ildaudid - a typo, I mean "-they don't posses souls, only worms"

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY! Ayridion vs. Charune in the Ultimate Battle! Come on down! SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!

Well, I just can't see how a shard is going to ascend to being bigger than the thing it started out as a shard of. But I suppose until they actually duke it out, an argument can be made that we don't know. "Equal" is the most I'm willing to believe (and that's what Ayridion is saying above), and even that seems a strain to me.

Actually, Ayridion fought off Morgfyre during that thing with Isune's tomb. Judging by the fact that Ayridion held him back, I'd say equal isn't as much of a stretch as you claim it is.

I mean, to me it's logical that Ascended are equal and Vernal are not. Vernal are mortals filled with tons of power. Nice, but not quite the same as the Elders. Ascended (based on watching Soll ascend and on the very beginning of HELP AYRIDION) seem to be supercharged by the Seals, and since cumulatively they are apparently far more powerful than the sum of their parts it would make sense for them to be as powerful as Elders.

Bad analogy time:

Elder gods = Bonfire

Dead elder/mortals = Bonfire stepped on, and sparks flying all over the place, stayin as slightly burnt umbers in the sand.

Asceded god = burnt ember in the sand, crawling back to the bonfire and starting a bon fire again.

Vernal gods = burnt ember in sand catching a twig on fire.

Bad, but it gets the idea across. I'm kind of curious how all that power would affect a Vernal God's mind.

*points at Tzaraziko*

Except that the discussion in the latest history made it sound like the Soulless do, in fact, have souls. They were simply called Soulless by the Elders due to their uncaring natures. Orclach states that because of the ruthless massacre at the hands of the Heralds, the Elders began to call them Soulless.

Also, animals and such in Lusternia have souls, but don't have shards, so its likely that illithoids have shards, but not souls. Its the shard that allows a mortal to become Demi, Vernal, or Ascended, not their soul. So an Illithoid can still reach all of those goals.

Extensive argumentation on Skype suggests that histories are of about five minds as to whether the Soulless have souls or not.

Will have to find the exact quote, but it states somewhere that Soulless Gods consume things in order to try to fill the void within themselves that exists because of the lack of a soul.

But yes, see, there's about twelve excerpts talking about their souls, lack of souls, and equivalence to primal gods, and they contradict.

Why do people keep forgetting that each book of history is written by a different author with a different perspective?

Several of the contradicting excerpts I was talking about were all from Cosmogenesis, which is from one author omniscient perspective.

Personally, I think the history is supposed to be complex and multi-layered. I think there's a lot more to the Soulless than just "Lovecraftian themed" beasts. It appears there's a Qliphoth like quality to them. I'm sure it's gonna take a few real world years for us to get to the total truth.

I wonder if the Illithoids are going to be the race that fits with the new monk class coming out...

Actually... Kephera are going to teach martial arts to Serenwilde and Celest while Illithoid will be teaching it to Magnagora and Glomdoring

I hadn't thought about that before, but that does make a lot of sense.

I always thought of them as destruction as a form of construction, but klipot makes more sense and fits into more areas of Lusternia.