Wouldn't this be considered a spoiler, especially since we haven't been introduced to them yet? Not to mention the context for the picture is MUCH later in the game.
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All Aboard The Magic Hellbus! Let's Play Limbus Company
- Thread starter ZerbanDaGreat
- Start date
- Let's Play
Wouldn't this be considered a spoiler, especially since we haven't been introduced to them yet? Not to mention the context for the picture is MUCH later in the game.
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
Mate, it's a funny meme pic with zero discernable spoilers to anybody who doesn't already have context. Shhh. Relax.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well, it wasn't much of anything until you pointed out it could be a spoiler
(It doesn't say anything that a brand new player couldn't encounter themselves by pulling the right character, just a (very blurry) design and an attack name)
Wiadi
Uncompromising Radical Leftist
- Location
- Something Clever
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Speaking as someone who has minimal prior exposure to Project Moon (mostly just very confusing osmosis from around this forum) this juxtaposition is pretty funny
But in all sincerity, looking forward to seeing how this goes, and I'll trust that Zerban knows what they're doing re: what background knowledge is actually necessary.
So, since Zerban mentioned talking about the literary inspiration of characters being fine, I decided to give a primer on Faust's, given her prominence/evident knowledge of the situation in the prologue.
Johann Georg Faust is an actual historical figure, an alchemist and magician (actual jobs one could have in the Middle Ages/Renaissance, society has declined), though not one we would consider particularly influential or notable. At most he might have been the subject of one particular monograph or academic work, examining the fragments of information we have to reflect on the role of and place of the occult in the German Renaissance, were it not for the Renaissance equivalent of "pulp" fiction.
The Historia von D. Johann Fausten is a fairly brief work - the first English version produced comes in at around 82 pages - and covers the adventures of Faust, an intelligent and educated man with no respect for God who pursues occult studies (Necromancy and Conjuration, explicitly) who summons Mephistophiles/Mephostophiles/Me- you know, there's a lot of variations in spellings, you get the idea. Faust gets Mephistopheles as a servant in return for his soul, swearing enmity against Christians, etc. The Faustbook (available here) can broadly be separated into three themes - chapters concerning knowledge (Faust explaining the reason for falling stars or thunder), chapters about the fact that Faust is going to hell (concentrated towards the end) and chapters about Faust doing funny shit, like trapping a bishop's butler on a tall tree and then drinking all of said bishop's wine with his students.
Marlowe's Faust draws heavily from the the Historia, echoing many of the scenarios from it. Much of the middle of the play is comic in tone, and it's only towards the end that Faust's damnation is echoed and reinforced, in part by his own hand as he seesaws between repentance and going full force on the Lucifer train. The addition I find most interesting is the approach it takes to Mephistopheles, as a semi-tragic figure who seems to almost warn Faust away from the deal he makes at first, a sharp contrast to the brutally comic Mephistopheles of our final entry-
Goethe's Faust, his magnum opus, which reimagines Faust away from a didactic lesson on Christian morality and casts him as an Enlightenment scholar, turned despondent by his own genius butting against the limits of human knowledge. While much is made of Faust intellect and learning in the prior Faust's, Goethe's Faust heroically battled against a plague as a young man. Faust becomes the subject of a wager between Mephistopheles and God, that Faust cannot be fully tempted away from the path of goodness, and makes a bet with Mephistopheles in turn, that Faust will never stop stop striving onwards and want a moment to last forever. Over the two parts, Faust is embroiled in multiple fantastic scenarios, and much tragedy - his romance with Gretchen ends with her imprisoned and dead, with only a heavenly choir announcing her salvation. At the end of his life, Faust loses - old and blind, he thinks of the work he has done to try and help others, and yearns for the moment of realisation to last forever. He dies, but his pursuit of righteousness means that God has won His wager, and so Mephistopheles can only watch in furstration as Faust is raised up to Heaven to be with Gretchen once more.
This last Faust is the one I find most interesting in the context of Limbus Company, because one can find a certain echo between the man guided from Hell, to Purgatory and then to Heaven, where Beatrice awaits, and Faust reuniting with Gretchen once more in Heaven.
Johann Georg Faust is an actual historical figure, an alchemist and magician (actual jobs one could have in the Middle Ages/Renaissance, society has declined), though not one we would consider particularly influential or notable. At most he might have been the subject of one particular monograph or academic work, examining the fragments of information we have to reflect on the role of and place of the occult in the German Renaissance, were it not for the Renaissance equivalent of "pulp" fiction.
The Historia von D. Johann Fausten is a fairly brief work - the first English version produced comes in at around 82 pages - and covers the adventures of Faust, an intelligent and educated man with no respect for God who pursues occult studies (Necromancy and Conjuration, explicitly) who summons Mephistophiles/Mephostophiles/Me- you know, there's a lot of variations in spellings, you get the idea. Faust gets Mephistopheles as a servant in return for his soul, swearing enmity against Christians, etc. The Faustbook (available here) can broadly be separated into three themes - chapters concerning knowledge (Faust explaining the reason for falling stars or thunder), chapters about the fact that Faust is going to hell (concentrated towards the end) and chapters about Faust doing funny shit, like trapping a bishop's butler on a tall tree and then drinking all of said bishop's wine with his students.
Marlowe's Faust draws heavily from the the Historia, echoing many of the scenarios from it. Much of the middle of the play is comic in tone, and it's only towards the end that Faust's damnation is echoed and reinforced, in part by his own hand as he seesaws between repentance and going full force on the Lucifer train. The addition I find most interesting is the approach it takes to Mephistopheles, as a semi-tragic figure who seems to almost warn Faust away from the deal he makes at first, a sharp contrast to the brutally comic Mephistopheles of our final entry-
Goethe's Faust, his magnum opus, which reimagines Faust away from a didactic lesson on Christian morality and casts him as an Enlightenment scholar, turned despondent by his own genius butting against the limits of human knowledge. While much is made of Faust intellect and learning in the prior Faust's, Goethe's Faust heroically battled against a plague as a young man. Faust becomes the subject of a wager between Mephistopheles and God, that Faust cannot be fully tempted away from the path of goodness, and makes a bet with Mephistopheles in turn, that Faust will never stop stop striving onwards and want a moment to last forever. Over the two parts, Faust is embroiled in multiple fantastic scenarios, and much tragedy - his romance with Gretchen ends with her imprisoned and dead, with only a heavenly choir announcing her salvation. At the end of his life, Faust loses - old and blind, he thinks of the work he has done to try and help others, and yearns for the moment of realisation to last forever. He dies, but his pursuit of righteousness means that God has won His wager, and so Mephistopheles can only watch in furstration as Faust is raised up to Heaven to be with Gretchen once more.
This last Faust is the one I find most interesting in the context of Limbus Company, because one can find a certain echo between the man guided from Hell, to Purgatory and then to Heaven, where Beatrice awaits, and Faust reuniting with Gretchen once more in Heaven.
Sightedjt
Everlasting Flames
That's also probably the one they're taking from the most for this Faust? Since if we look at her prerelease character promo trailer, "Man errs as long as he strives is one of the taglines, along with the lines talking about a moment of satisfaction.
Prologue: Selva Oscura (Part 2)
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
Dante awakens, at last ready to make proper introductions with the rest of the crew.
Man With Red Eyes: "It's not morning, but I could guess it's refreshing. How do you feel, Dante?"
Dante: <What the hell do you mean by 'you could guess it's refreshing'.>
Man With Red Eyes: "Tick-tocking like a clock... Sigh, some language barrier this is."
Dante: <But you replied to me when I said you came too late to->
Dante nods. Satisfied that the manager has their wits about them, Vergilius gives Charon the go-ahead to set off. Charon, her tone flat and disaffected as it has been and will always be, announces departure with a 'cheery' "Vroom-vroom." The bus rumbles to life, at which point Dante realises they are on a bus, reflecting that they can't even be sure if they've ridden one before in their pre-clock life.
Vergilius keeps this practical. Does Dante remember who they are? Dante shakes their head. Dante probably wants their memory back, right? Dante nods.
He's so sassy
At this point Faust enters the conversation with a small exchange I honestly struggle to parse.
Vergilius: "Any words of yours, Ms. Faust?"
Faust: "Faust will kindly turn down the offer. I doubt we'll have that much freedom over our own bodies most of the time."
Like I assume Vergilius is pulling her into the conversation via a sarcastic offer for her to communicate via gestures now too and Faust is replying that that would be logistically difficult but the way it's phrased makes it rather opaque in a way that PM games usually aren't. It's pretty minor in the grand scheme of things all the same.
Getting back on track, Dante once more questions the fact that Vergilius and Faust are referring to them as 'Dante' - or 'Dantehhh', as is the case with Vergilius' disaffected drawl. Faust remarks that the amnesia must be affecting them rather severely, reassuring them that they'll get used to it with time, which only causes Dante to question how she can understand them when the three assassins and Vergilius have all claimed to hear nothing but mechanical ticking.
Except that one time when Vergilius appeared to directly reply to Dante - let's all keep our eyes peeled for times when it seems like Vergilius is either pretending he can't understand Dante just fine or making the wildest crits on his Insight checks.
Then again perhaps not if Dante's saying shit like "Vergie" within earshot.
Faust: "Faust can hear what you intend to speak."
Dante: <You really can...? But how? I don't even have a real mouth.>
Faust: "Outdated ideas must be one of the side effects that came with your head replacement. It's anachronistic to think that vocal organs such as the cords or tongue are necessary to participate in conversation."
Faust got jokes, honestly. <How can I speak without a mouth?> "Skill issue." She even says that Dante can limit their words to a single person or make them audible to all, which is either an overstatement or a retcon because I'm pretty sure Dante has been overheard while having a private conversation with one Sinner before as of this writing.
Faust does clarify the limitations of Dante's particular gift of conversation - only Sinners can hear and understand them. The Sinners, of course, are the twelve contracted to Dante's time, who were healed from their gruesome deaths once Dante turned the clock. This at last makes Dante aware of the other 11 people in the bus sitting scattershot behind them, followed by some untagged interjections by the recently deceased.
??? (Sinner #3, The Saint Of Silly): "What hooo!!! So thou art the final piece that completes our journey's cast! How I have yearned for this moment!"
??? (Gregor): "Say, pal, where'd you sell your old cranium off?"
??? (Ishmael): "So it was you. Thanks for putting my spine back into one piece. Were you a surgeon or something in the Nest?"
Vergilius immediately tells them all to shut the fuck up and go one at a time, because he was assigned the role of teacher on this particular field trip and he sounds like he wants to kill everyone on the bus and then himself any time he has to act accordingly. Gregor is the first target of his ire for the crime of sitting closest to the front of the bus, much to his consternation.
We'll find out what Greg means with this aside quite soon, never you fear
Gregor: "Heard you were gonna be our boss, or... yeah, our manager."
Dante: <Manager?>
Gregor: "Yep, which is why I was real curious to meet you, and... Uhm... Hmm, tsk. Forming the right sentences is tough work. Dunno what you did with your old head, but I guess everyone has their story."
CV: Choi Han
Source Material: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. The story of a man named Gregor Samsa who wakes one morning to find himself transformed into a massive cockroach, or Ungeziefer (literally meaning 'monstrous vermin'), hence the cursive above his name, and the tattoo on his human arm.
Greg is one of the most chill Sinners, but not by choice. His cockroach arm is a real handful, causing him to suppress his emotions as much as he can for fear of setting it off, and we'll see in short order just how much strife that thing has caused him throughout his life. One of the few Sinners whose info has accidentally been revealed without redaction, letting it slip that he's canonically 35. Still somehow the most babygirl of the bunch, not helped by being a 5'6 pocket prince, and one of only two smokers on the bus.
Gregor: " 'Greg'...?"
Dante: <Rich? What's that about?>
Refusing to elaborate, Rodion assaults them with her title card.
CV: Yoon A-young
Source Material: Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The story of a man named Rodion Raskolnikov (РАСКО́Л being the first half of that surname, meaning 'split' or 'division' on its own, and inscribed on this Rodion's axe) who murders and robs a pawnbroker in the hopes of at last changing his fortunes.
Rodion is another of the more chill Sinners, though where Greg is laid-back and nonconfrontational she's quick to lighten the mood. The Backstreets as a concept will be revisited in relatively short order as the bus makes its way to its first destination, but suffice it to say that for Rodion to hail from there means that she comes from extreme poverty. Honestly she's likely the poorest and lowest-class of the entire bus, and it shows every time the gang start debating a social issue. She's also 6ft tall and a Skilled Gambler, making her iconic and beyond reproach.
She also either has a very loose grasp of what the company's goals are with this expedition, or is doing a silly to break the tension, because she's quick to claim that since Dante used to be such a big deal back in the Nest (more on Nests as a concept will follow) clearly once their memories come back everybody's gonna be in the money easy-peasy.
Then she kicks it to Sinclair because the boy must suffer.
Sinclair: "Good day..."
Rodion: "Aw, boring~ That's it?"
CV: Kim Da-ol
Source Material: Demian - The Story of Boyhood by Hermann Hesse. The story of a young boy named Emil Sinclair struggling between two worlds, one of illusion and one of reality, in the process of becoming a man. 'Vogel', meaning bird, taken together with his icon of a cracked egg, alludes to the idea of a bird fighting to free itself from its shell in order to be born. VOGEL is also inscribed on his halberd.
Out of all the other info in this title card I am immediately locking on to the fact that Sinclair canonically has resting bitchface, because that makes him so much like me fr fr. Any time I would have a photo taken for some kind of ID I would look like a future serial killer.He's also very trans coded and dude same- The second-shortest Sinner of the bunch at 5'5 and highly unlikely to be any older than 20, he speaks in a timid and high-pitched voice that further emphasises his relative youth and immaturity among the Sinners. Made a brief early cameo in the resurrection CG, having been offscreened to smithereens by the Furries.
Even Dante can tell that Sinclair looks viscerally uncomfortable to be here, referring to him as a 'boy' and wondering if he joined the company by choice. Personally, Dante, I think when everyone's called 'Sinners' and bound to you via some kind of profane pact I'd sooner assume nobody here has a happy story.
Rodion: "Well, you'll learn the ropes in the coming days. 'Kay then, how about you next, nerdy pal!"
CV: Min Seung-woo
Source Material: Unique among the Sinners in that he is not himself from a work of fiction. Instead his namesake is the penname of one Kim Hae-gyong, a poet and writer who lived during Japan's occupation of Korea. The hangul text, Ha Yung, is another alias he used - rarely visible ingame not on his knife, but the book he carries beside it. Most influential in his role in Limbus Company are his poetry anthology Crow's Eye View, notorious for being so difficult to understand that only 15 of the 30 poems were ultimately published, and The Wings, the source of the evocative phrase "Have you ever seen a taxidermied genius?" used in Yi Sang's character promo.
I could gush about Yi Sang for paragraphs, but the textual equivalent of that one gif of a cat getting vigorously patted by like a dozen guys will have to wait until his time comes. Until then, I'm deeply amused by the fact that his official company blurb stops just shy of saying "look he has autism just try to be understanding".
Case in point. Dante even waits a little while longer, expecting him to be fucking with them like Faust already has, only for Yi Sang to immediately disengage and stare out the window. Sigma researcher grindset.
Ever the one to position herself as the voice of reason, Ishmael steps in to take her turn with a trademark exasperated sigh.
CV: Jang Ye-na
Source Material: Moby Dick by Herman Melville, the story of one man's Luciferan ego and self-destructive obsession with vengeance upon nature itself, of which Ishmael is the only survivor to tell the tale. Ishmael's subtitle, Hearse, seen printed on her shield is likely a twofold reference - the 'two hearses' Ahab is prophecised to see before he dies, one being Moby Dick itself and the other his very own ship, and Queequeg's coffin, which goes unused by the man himself but ultimately saves Ishmael's life when the Pequod goes down with all hands.
Her company primer is as relatively straightforward as she is herself - she's the closest to Normal of the bunch and she generally knows what she's doing, but taking her for granted will fast-track you towards a problem. She is also oomfie and I would sacrifice many of my material possessions to her.
Ishmael thanks Dante for the save with their clock-turning, the first to properly acknowledge that that was their doing. Hilariously, she even bows to Dante before sitting back down. In an interesting parting observation Dante is socially conscious enough to notice that while Ishmael was unfailingly polite and appropriate in her introduction, they didn't get a vibe of genuine friendliness from her the same way they did Rodion.
Heathcliff takes his turn next without prompting, though hardly out of a sense of decorum like Ishmael did.
CV: Hong Seung-hyo
Source Material: Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Bronte. A tale of toxic love, obsession, the inhumanity of class division, and the howling vortex of suffering paid upon suffering that is generational trauma. His subtitle is kind of a no-brainer, seeing as Wuthering Heights revolves around Heathcliff's Count of Monte Cristo-esque twelve-step plan to wreak catastrophic vengeance upon the family that raised him only to deny him happiness.
I would sacrifice life and liberty for Heathcliff, but that's for much further down the line. To focus on the company blurb, it says little that you wouldn't be able to surmise from just meeting Heathcliff, or indeed the one line he had in the previous update before getting Snapped out of reality - he's a straightforward bruiser and he doesn't like to stop and think things through.
Heathcliff: "Not under anyone's orders, mind you. I only did it to buggers that got on my nerves."
Heathcliff: "I'm deathly allergic to cocky gaffers who think they can boss me around."
Dante, with a faintly nervous air, narrates that they don't think they've done anything to give him that impression yet.
And then
La Creatura cometh
CV: Kim Yea-lim
Source Material: Don Quixote, a novel by Miguel de Cervantes depicting a delusional chivalryboo who LARPs as a knight-errant and travels the country with his 'squire' Sancho to generally be a fucking nuisance to everybody. However her subtitle, 'SUEÑO IMPOSIBLE' or IMPOSSIBLE DREAM, visible engraved on her lance is a reference to the 1965 musical Man of La Mancha (itself inspired by an earlier non-musical play I, Don Quixote) where the story of Don Quixote is a play performed by Miguel de Cervantes himself while in captivity by the Spanish Inquisition - The Impossible Dream is the musical's headliner song, its very own Defying Gravity if you will, sung in full and then partially three times more over the course of the play. The musical connection is even more apparent due to the word choice of "exaggerated mannerisms akin to those of an actor" in her company writeup.
Man this bus has everything - we got chronic depression, manic depression, OCD (listed on Ishmael's anger management issues, autism and ADHD. Don's enthusiasm for the job is as boundless as her delusion about what a Fixer really is. We'll be meeting some normal Fixers very soon, so we'll save any deeper discussion about how insane her beliefs that they're defenders of justice are for later. Instead we'll talk about how Don is very small but very powerful, boasting some incredible pipes on her notorious for jumpscaring players who leave their game idle on the top menu too long. MANAGER-ESQUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE, WHERE DID YOU GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Dante: <A Fixer...? That definitely feels like a term I used to know...>
Don, seeing a chance to ramble about her hyperfixation, gets stars in her eyes.
No, literally.
Don stops herself just short, however - to realise that Dante probably doesn't know about the City either. She revs up to start eleven breathless paragraphs of exposition before mercifully being cut short by Vergilius with a reminder that this is meant to be for short introductions. Don badly misses an opportunity to say that all introductions are short coming from her because she is 5'4 and could fit in your inside jacket pocket to give you strength for the many trials ahead.
:O
Next up is the Notorious Hongler, Project Moon's favourite princess and the most interesting boy in the world.
CV: Kim Sin-woo
Source Material: Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin. I have little to say about it as Dream of the Red Chamber is, according to my research, a Big Fucking Deal to the point that it makes for a very intimidating approach. My understanding is that it's the story of a magical piece of jade being incarnated as a human by the goddess Nüwa in order to learn more about the world, with Hong Lu being unique in that he doesn't share a name with that incarnated character (Jia Baoyu), but one derived from the jade itself. His icon too refers to his heavenly origins, being a jade-coloured eye (the same as his own left eye) encircled by clouds. His subtitle translates to 'unreal' or 'illusory'. This is one of the ones where I invite any more knowledgeable readers to please share what they know in the thread.
And here we have the inverse of Rodion, the richest Sinner coming from a place of truly absurd affluence. A fusion of Greg and Don in terms of being both chill and silly, he's something of a cipher even as of writing, though there have been tantalising hints as to just what may be cooking under the surface scattered about here and there. Amusingly his company primer amounts to "look he's so rich he thinks a banana costs 10 Ahn just try to ignore him". Made a brief cameo in the resurrection CG, stretching and smiling through it all despite having been reduced to paste by the Furries.
Hong Lu: "Wow, and look at you! Isn't that a fascinating head there? A popular model these days, I suppose?"
Dante: <No, this isn't that kind of...>
Hong Lu: "It's not of my interest, though."
Heathcliff understandably is ready to decapitate Hong Lu for that weird-ass conversation, only for a death-glare from Vergilius to put his ass back in its seat where it belongs. Ryoshu takes her turn next.
CV: Lee Sae-ah
Source Material: Hell Screen by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, the story of the greatest artist in the world making manifest a vision of Hell for a lord's commission - and in the process, losing all that he cares for. Ryoshu is named after an alternate reading of the characters used for the protagonist Yoshihide's name. Her subtitle, printed on the scabbard of her odachi, means... 'Frantic, Screaming, Incoherent'. A foreboding thing to carry with her at all times but I don't know what you can expect from the artist who painted Hell.
Ryoshu is a fucked-up cycle path and the company primer makes no bones about it. The caution tag about her 'background' is no fucking joke either. You see those shapes behind her in her character art? Let's get a better look at them from a different promo piece.
A colossal grasping hand looming from the void behind her as she stands in an ocean of blood. Those fingers are each styled after an immensely powerful criminal syndicate known as, well, the Fingers - I especially love the Thumb's lil hat, it looks so silly. We'll be learning more about the Fingers as we advance through the Inferno so I won't bog this down any further, but suffice it to say the implications of this art are staggering. It's like one woman getting literally every mob family pissed at her at once, as well as the Yakuza and the Triads and the Cartels. Insane behaviour. She also had an early cameo in the resurrection CG, looking entirely too excited about watching the gore reverse itself.
And she follows it up with a shitty pun, then proceeds to snort at her own shitty pun.
I forgot about this moment and I'm glad I get to revisit it because that's insane coming from Ryoshu of all people.
Next up, Meursault.
CV: Kwon Sung-hyuk
Source Material: l'Etranger by Albert Camus, alternately known as The Stranger or The Outsider. The story of a man named Meursault who appears to feel nothing and so becomes slowly estranged from society, culminating in being cast as an inhuman monster when put on trial for shooting a man dead under dubious circumstances. His subtitle, Soleil (or Sun) is likely a reference to the same blinding sunlight that gave Meursault heatstroke and impaired his judgement before he was confronted on the beach, and caused the blade of the knife in the man's hand to gleam prominently before Meursault shot him - the literal cause of his downfall, and a metaphor for the burning, torturous glare he's endured from others.
I was going to just post 'Meursault (Meursault)' for a funny gag at first but no, best to hold to the pattern. He's a real cipher of a man, and the words that follow only reinforce that.
Dante: <You're pretty polite.>
Meursault: "This isn't anything special. I'm simply behaving normally."
Dante: <I'm almost touched. Merci.>
Meursault: "Yes."
Dante is floored by the neurodivergence on display, but is unable to pinpoint exactly what is wrong with Meursault, and so decides to leave it be. Instead they turn to Outis to answers with a long, long note of silence. Dante is so overwhelmed by the pressure of her evaluating gaze that they start to bow to her, only for her to mercifully stop them.
Man With Red Eyes: "It's not morning, but I could guess it's refreshing. How do you feel, Dante?"
Dante: <What the hell do you mean by 'you could guess it's refreshing'.>
Man With Red Eyes: "Tick-tocking like a clock... Sigh, some language barrier this is."
Dante: <But you replied to me when I said you came too late to->
Dante nods. Satisfied that the manager has their wits about them, Vergilius gives Charon the go-ahead to set off. Charon, her tone flat and disaffected as it has been and will always be, announces departure with a 'cheery' "Vroom-vroom." The bus rumbles to life, at which point Dante realises they are on a bus, reflecting that they can't even be sure if they've ridden one before in their pre-clock life.
Vergilius keeps this practical. Does Dante remember who they are? Dante shakes their head. Dante probably wants their memory back, right? Dante nods.
He's so sassy
At this point Faust enters the conversation with a small exchange I honestly struggle to parse.
Vergilius: "Any words of yours, Ms. Faust?"
Faust: "Faust will kindly turn down the offer. I doubt we'll have that much freedom over our own bodies most of the time."
Like I assume Vergilius is pulling her into the conversation via a sarcastic offer for her to communicate via gestures now too and Faust is replying that that would be logistically difficult but the way it's phrased makes it rather opaque in a way that PM games usually aren't. It's pretty minor in the grand scheme of things all the same.
Getting back on track, Dante once more questions the fact that Vergilius and Faust are referring to them as 'Dante' - or 'Dantehhh', as is the case with Vergilius' disaffected drawl. Faust remarks that the amnesia must be affecting them rather severely, reassuring them that they'll get used to it with time, which only causes Dante to question how she can understand them when the three assassins and Vergilius have all claimed to hear nothing but mechanical ticking.
Except that one time when Vergilius appeared to directly reply to Dante - let's all keep our eyes peeled for times when it seems like Vergilius is either pretending he can't understand Dante just fine or making the wildest crits on his Insight checks.
Then again perhaps not if Dante's saying shit like "Vergie" within earshot.
Faust: "Faust can hear what you intend to speak."
Dante: <You really can...? But how? I don't even have a real mouth.>
Faust: "Outdated ideas must be one of the side effects that came with your head replacement. It's anachronistic to think that vocal organs such as the cords or tongue are necessary to participate in conversation."
Faust got jokes, honestly. <How can I speak without a mouth?> "Skill issue." She even says that Dante can limit their words to a single person or make them audible to all, which is either an overstatement or a retcon because I'm pretty sure Dante has been overheard while having a private conversation with one Sinner before as of this writing.
Faust does clarify the limitations of Dante's particular gift of conversation - only Sinners can hear and understand them. The Sinners, of course, are the twelve contracted to Dante's time, who were healed from their gruesome deaths once Dante turned the clock. This at last makes Dante aware of the other 11 people in the bus sitting scattershot behind them, followed by some untagged interjections by the recently deceased.
??? (Sinner #3, The Saint Of Silly): "What hooo!!! So thou art the final piece that completes our journey's cast! How I have yearned for this moment!"
??? (Gregor): "Say, pal, where'd you sell your old cranium off?"
??? (Ishmael): "So it was you. Thanks for putting my spine back into one piece. Were you a surgeon or something in the Nest?"
Vergilius immediately tells them all to shut the fuck up and go one at a time, because he was assigned the role of teacher on this particular field trip and he sounds like he wants to kill everyone on the bus and then himself any time he has to act accordingly. Gregor is the first target of his ire for the crime of sitting closest to the front of the bus, much to his consternation.
We'll find out what Greg means with this aside quite soon, never you fear
Gregor: "Heard you were gonna be our boss, or... yeah, our manager."
Dante: <Manager?>
Gregor: "Yep, which is why I was real curious to meet you, and... Uhm... Hmm, tsk. Forming the right sentences is tough work. Dunno what you did with your old head, but I guess everyone has their story."
CV: Choi Han
Source Material: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. The story of a man named Gregor Samsa who wakes one morning to find himself transformed into a massive cockroach, or Ungeziefer (literally meaning 'monstrous vermin'), hence the cursive above his name, and the tattoo on his human arm.
Greg is one of the most chill Sinners, but not by choice. His cockroach arm is a real handful, causing him to suppress his emotions as much as he can for fear of setting it off, and we'll see in short order just how much strife that thing has caused him throughout his life. One of the few Sinners whose info has accidentally been revealed without redaction, letting it slip that he's canonically 35. Still somehow the most babygirl of the bunch, not helped by being a 5'6 pocket prince, and one of only two smokers on the bus.
Gregor: " 'Greg'...?"
Dante: <Rich? What's that about?>
Refusing to elaborate, Rodion assaults them with her title card.
CV: Yoon A-young
Source Material: Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The story of a man named Rodion Raskolnikov (РАСКО́Л being the first half of that surname, meaning 'split' or 'division' on its own, and inscribed on this Rodion's axe) who murders and robs a pawnbroker in the hopes of at last changing his fortunes.
Rodion is another of the more chill Sinners, though where Greg is laid-back and nonconfrontational she's quick to lighten the mood. The Backstreets as a concept will be revisited in relatively short order as the bus makes its way to its first destination, but suffice it to say that for Rodion to hail from there means that she comes from extreme poverty. Honestly she's likely the poorest and lowest-class of the entire bus, and it shows every time the gang start debating a social issue. She's also 6ft tall and a Skilled Gambler, making her iconic and beyond reproach.
She also either has a very loose grasp of what the company's goals are with this expedition, or is doing a silly to break the tension, because she's quick to claim that since Dante used to be such a big deal back in the Nest (more on Nests as a concept will follow) clearly once their memories come back everybody's gonna be in the money easy-peasy.
Then she kicks it to Sinclair because the boy must suffer.
Sinclair: "Good day..."
Rodion: "Aw, boring~ That's it?"
CV: Kim Da-ol
Source Material: Demian - The Story of Boyhood by Hermann Hesse. The story of a young boy named Emil Sinclair struggling between two worlds, one of illusion and one of reality, in the process of becoming a man. 'Vogel', meaning bird, taken together with his icon of a cracked egg, alludes to the idea of a bird fighting to free itself from its shell in order to be born. VOGEL is also inscribed on his halberd.
Out of all the other info in this title card I am immediately locking on to the fact that Sinclair canonically has resting bitchface, because that makes him so much like me fr fr. Any time I would have a photo taken for some kind of ID I would look like a future serial killer.
Even Dante can tell that Sinclair looks viscerally uncomfortable to be here, referring to him as a 'boy' and wondering if he joined the company by choice. Personally, Dante, I think when everyone's called 'Sinners' and bound to you via some kind of profane pact I'd sooner assume nobody here has a happy story.
Rodion: "Well, you'll learn the ropes in the coming days. 'Kay then, how about you next, nerdy pal!"
CV: Min Seung-woo
Source Material: Unique among the Sinners in that he is not himself from a work of fiction. Instead his namesake is the penname of one Kim Hae-gyong, a poet and writer who lived during Japan's occupation of Korea. The hangul text, Ha Yung, is another alias he used - rarely visible ingame not on his knife, but the book he carries beside it. Most influential in his role in Limbus Company are his poetry anthology Crow's Eye View, notorious for being so difficult to understand that only 15 of the 30 poems were ultimately published, and The Wings, the source of the evocative phrase "Have you ever seen a taxidermied genius?" used in Yi Sang's character promo.
I could gush about Yi Sang for paragraphs, but the textual equivalent of that one gif of a cat getting vigorously patted by like a dozen guys will have to wait until his time comes. Until then, I'm deeply amused by the fact that his official company blurb stops just shy of saying "look he has autism just try to be understanding".
Case in point. Dante even waits a little while longer, expecting him to be fucking with them like Faust already has, only for Yi Sang to immediately disengage and stare out the window. Sigma researcher grindset.
Ever the one to position herself as the voice of reason, Ishmael steps in to take her turn with a trademark exasperated sigh.
CV: Jang Ye-na
Source Material: Moby Dick by Herman Melville, the story of one man's Luciferan ego and self-destructive obsession with vengeance upon nature itself, of which Ishmael is the only survivor to tell the tale. Ishmael's subtitle, Hearse, seen printed on her shield is likely a twofold reference - the 'two hearses' Ahab is prophecised to see before he dies, one being Moby Dick itself and the other his very own ship, and Queequeg's coffin, which goes unused by the man himself but ultimately saves Ishmael's life when the Pequod goes down with all hands.
Her company primer is as relatively straightforward as she is herself - she's the closest to Normal of the bunch and she generally knows what she's doing, but taking her for granted will fast-track you towards a problem. She is also oomfie and I would sacrifice many of my material possessions to her.
Ishmael thanks Dante for the save with their clock-turning, the first to properly acknowledge that that was their doing. Hilariously, she even bows to Dante before sitting back down. In an interesting parting observation Dante is socially conscious enough to notice that while Ishmael was unfailingly polite and appropriate in her introduction, they didn't get a vibe of genuine friendliness from her the same way they did Rodion.
Heathcliff takes his turn next without prompting, though hardly out of a sense of decorum like Ishmael did.
CV: Hong Seung-hyo
Source Material: Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Bronte. A tale of toxic love, obsession, the inhumanity of class division, and the howling vortex of suffering paid upon suffering that is generational trauma. His subtitle is kind of a no-brainer, seeing as Wuthering Heights revolves around Heathcliff's Count of Monte Cristo-esque twelve-step plan to wreak catastrophic vengeance upon the family that raised him only to deny him happiness.
I would sacrifice life and liberty for Heathcliff, but that's for much further down the line. To focus on the company blurb, it says little that you wouldn't be able to surmise from just meeting Heathcliff, or indeed the one line he had in the previous update before getting Snapped out of reality - he's a straightforward bruiser and he doesn't like to stop and think things through.
Heathcliff: "Not under anyone's orders, mind you. I only did it to buggers that got on my nerves."
Heathcliff: "I'm deathly allergic to cocky gaffers who think they can boss me around."
Dante, with a faintly nervous air, narrates that they don't think they've done anything to give him that impression yet.
And then
La Creatura cometh
CV: Kim Yea-lim
Source Material: Don Quixote, a novel by Miguel de Cervantes depicting a delusional chivalryboo who LARPs as a knight-errant and travels the country with his 'squire' Sancho to generally be a fucking nuisance to everybody. However her subtitle, 'SUEÑO IMPOSIBLE' or IMPOSSIBLE DREAM, visible engraved on her lance is a reference to the 1965 musical Man of La Mancha (itself inspired by an earlier non-musical play I, Don Quixote) where the story of Don Quixote is a play performed by Miguel de Cervantes himself while in captivity by the Spanish Inquisition - The Impossible Dream is the musical's headliner song, its very own Defying Gravity if you will, sung in full and then partially three times more over the course of the play. The musical connection is even more apparent due to the word choice of "exaggerated mannerisms akin to those of an actor" in her company writeup.
Man this bus has everything - we got chronic depression, manic depression, OCD (listed on Ishmael's anger management issues, autism and ADHD. Don's enthusiasm for the job is as boundless as her delusion about what a Fixer really is. We'll be meeting some normal Fixers very soon, so we'll save any deeper discussion about how insane her beliefs that they're defenders of justice are for later. Instead we'll talk about how Don is very small but very powerful, boasting some incredible pipes on her notorious for jumpscaring players who leave their game idle on the top menu too long. MANAGER-ESQUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE, WHERE DID YOU GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Dante: <A Fixer...? That definitely feels like a term I used to know...>
Don, seeing a chance to ramble about her hyperfixation, gets stars in her eyes.
No, literally.
Don stops herself just short, however - to realise that Dante probably doesn't know about the City either. She revs up to start eleven breathless paragraphs of exposition before mercifully being cut short by Vergilius with a reminder that this is meant to be for short introductions. Don badly misses an opportunity to say that all introductions are short coming from her because she is 5'4 and could fit in your inside jacket pocket to give you strength for the many trials ahead.
:O
Next up is the Notorious Hongler, Project Moon's favourite princess and the most interesting boy in the world.
CV: Kim Sin-woo
Source Material: Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin. I have little to say about it as Dream of the Red Chamber is, according to my research, a Big Fucking Deal to the point that it makes for a very intimidating approach. My understanding is that it's the story of a magical piece of jade being incarnated as a human by the goddess Nüwa in order to learn more about the world, with Hong Lu being unique in that he doesn't share a name with that incarnated character (Jia Baoyu), but one derived from the jade itself. His icon too refers to his heavenly origins, being a jade-coloured eye (the same as his own left eye) encircled by clouds. His subtitle translates to 'unreal' or 'illusory'. This is one of the ones where I invite any more knowledgeable readers to please share what they know in the thread.
And here we have the inverse of Rodion, the richest Sinner coming from a place of truly absurd affluence. A fusion of Greg and Don in terms of being both chill and silly, he's something of a cipher even as of writing, though there have been tantalising hints as to just what may be cooking under the surface scattered about here and there. Amusingly his company primer amounts to "look he's so rich he thinks a banana costs 10 Ahn just try to ignore him". Made a brief cameo in the resurrection CG, stretching and smiling through it all despite having been reduced to paste by the Furries.
Hong Lu: "Wow, and look at you! Isn't that a fascinating head there? A popular model these days, I suppose?"
Dante: <No, this isn't that kind of...>
Hong Lu: "It's not of my interest, though."
Heathcliff understandably is ready to decapitate Hong Lu for that weird-ass conversation, only for a death-glare from Vergilius to put his ass back in its seat where it belongs. Ryoshu takes her turn next.
CV: Lee Sae-ah
Source Material: Hell Screen by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, the story of the greatest artist in the world making manifest a vision of Hell for a lord's commission - and in the process, losing all that he cares for. Ryoshu is named after an alternate reading of the characters used for the protagonist Yoshihide's name. Her subtitle, printed on the scabbard of her odachi, means... 'Frantic, Screaming, Incoherent'. A foreboding thing to carry with her at all times but I don't know what you can expect from the artist who painted Hell.
Ryoshu is a fucked-up cycle path and the company primer makes no bones about it. The caution tag about her 'background' is no fucking joke either. You see those shapes behind her in her character art? Let's get a better look at them from a different promo piece.
A colossal grasping hand looming from the void behind her as she stands in an ocean of blood. Those fingers are each styled after an immensely powerful criminal syndicate known as, well, the Fingers - I especially love the Thumb's lil hat, it looks so silly. We'll be learning more about the Fingers as we advance through the Inferno so I won't bog this down any further, but suffice it to say the implications of this art are staggering. It's like one woman getting literally every mob family pissed at her at once, as well as the Yakuza and the Triads and the Cartels. Insane behaviour. She also had an early cameo in the resurrection CG, looking entirely too excited about watching the gore reverse itself.
And she follows it up with a shitty pun, then proceeds to snort at her own shitty pun.
I forgot about this moment and I'm glad I get to revisit it because that's insane coming from Ryoshu of all people.
Next up, Meursault.
CV: Kwon Sung-hyuk
Source Material: l'Etranger by Albert Camus, alternately known as The Stranger or The Outsider. The story of a man named Meursault who appears to feel nothing and so becomes slowly estranged from society, culminating in being cast as an inhuman monster when put on trial for shooting a man dead under dubious circumstances. His subtitle, Soleil (or Sun) is likely a reference to the same blinding sunlight that gave Meursault heatstroke and impaired his judgement before he was confronted on the beach, and caused the blade of the knife in the man's hand to gleam prominently before Meursault shot him - the literal cause of his downfall, and a metaphor for the burning, torturous glare he's endured from others.
I was going to just post 'Meursault (Meursault)' for a funny gag at first but no, best to hold to the pattern. He's a real cipher of a man, and the words that follow only reinforce that.
Dante: <You're pretty polite.>
Meursault: "This isn't anything special. I'm simply behaving normally."
Dante: <I'm almost touched. Merci.>
Meursault: "Yes."
Dante is floored by the neurodivergence on display, but is unable to pinpoint exactly what is wrong with Meursault, and so decides to leave it be. Instead they turn to Outis to answers with a long, long note of silence. Dante is so overwhelmed by the pressure of her evaluating gaze that they start to bow to her, only for her to mercifully stop them.
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
CV: Kim Bo-na
Source Material: The Odyssey, by Homer. The story of the King of Ithaca and his ill-fated journey home from the Trojan War, beset at every turn by the whims of the gods and monsters he encounters. Outis is unique in that not only is her name not Odysseus, her name and subtitle are the same thing - Outis, meaning 'Nobody', the pseudonym that Odysseus gave to Polyphemus as a precaution in their disastrous meeting. Outis is also carved on the blade of her kopis as is the general trend among Sinners, but she has something like a second subtitle in the form of the engraving around the face of her watch icon - "I have my family. They had theirs." The symbol on the face is, of course, the famous Trojan Horse.
The company primer is the first real sign of exactly what makes Outis so great; it all but points directly at her face and says "RAT". It can barely get through two lines about the positives she brings to the company without warning you that she's going to be annoying or try to Get Back On Her Bullshit if she catches you lacking and we love this for her.
Outis: "I knew at first glance that you have what it takes to lead us."
Dante: <... Huh? Sorry?>
Outis: "While most humans cause noise and friction as a result of confrontation... some are able to reap mutual benefit from coming head-to-head. It could be compared to the relationship between a blade and a whetstone. I vow to serve you with unrivaled devotion, Executive Manager. My blade is yours to wield."
Dante: <Th-that's reassuring... Thanks.>
Case in point - when she makes this face and just starts Saying Shit. Get you a woman who is Treacherous Vizier-coded. A woman who'll sacrifice six men to Scylla and call it the best trade deal in the history of trade deals, maybe ever, what a fantastic plan you hatched Executive Manager, all glory to Limbus Company.
Dante gives her an approving nod, wondering all the while what she means by 'rudeness'.
Dante: <Oh right, the part after all the chains where my bones became squishy.>
As presumably Outis retreats to hatch a plot to poison Ishmael for her insolence, Faust steps in as last-but-not-least.
CV: Park Ji-yoon
Source Material: Faust, by all indications specifically the play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The story of a man named Faust who is beloved by God and desired by the Devil, making a Job-style bet that he can be lured away from righteous pursuits. The play finds Faust having reached the apex of what he can learn in life yet struggling to know more, turning to magic in the pursuit of infinite knowledge, and in doing so is tempted to make a contract with Mephistopheles. Her subtitle, Walpurgisnacht, refers to the gathering of witches and spirits to which Mephistopheles leads Faust - and a recurring event in the game itself, but we can discuss that later. Her icon is a brain in a flask, a clear reference to the homunculus of the play who goes with Faust and Mephistopheles to Walpurgisnacht and there attempts to truly become human, only to die when its flask shatters.
And yep, here's our first official mention - the bus is named Mephistopheles. The engine that carries Dante, Faust and the other Sinners into the depths of the Inferno, guided only by Vergil(ius), is Mephistopheles. Faust clearly got jokes so I can't imagine naming it the Lim-bus wasn't on purpose.
Hilariously the company primer is at a complete fucking loss as to what Dante is supposed to do with Faust. "Yeah she regularly claims omniscience and is casually condescending to everyone she meets, I don't fuckin know, you work this one out yourself, chief".
Dante: <Mhm...>
Faust: "Sounds like you aren't convinced, Dante. Well, it's fine. You'll come to learn, all in due time."
Dante: <Learn what...?>
Faust: "When a proverbial tree falls, the fact of its sound cannot become truth when the outside observer fails to recognise it."
Dante: <Okay...>
Case in point, she just starts Saying Shit and Dante could not be more clearly praying to disengage from the conversation as fast as humanly possible. Mercifully(?) Vergilius provides just that opportunity to engage by explaining to them their role as Executive Manager of this particular Limbus Company.
He doesn't mince words, and the Cantos will keep proving him right.
Dante, understandably, is not super stoked about going to Hell and asks (through Faust) why they'd want to. Vergilius tries to blow them off with a vague comment about "treasure" waiting for them at the end of that road, which Dante takes far too literally, to his frustration. Vergilius drops even that faint attempt at a softsell and states bluntly that listening to him is the only way to get their memories and head back - a tempting offer, but still not enough to get Dante fully on-board.
Faust: "Preposterous. Faust anticipates every possibility. Dante, once you've completed all your missions... You'll be able to engrave the Aspect. I can promise you that."
Vergilius would never even dream of showing this kind of deference to any of the other Sinners, though Dante themself fails to take notice of that in favour of what Faust says - the mention of 'the Aspect' strikes their mind and every underlying instinct they have reacts to it strongly. Even without memories, they know that this is the prize their old self sought more than anything else. This is what finally gets Dante to give the ol' nod of approval, and the green light to continue.
At which point Vergilius finally realises that the bus hasn't been moving for a while, asking Charon if she dozed off. She replies that no, a random encounter has just spawned in to serve as the next leg of the combat tutorial, to which Vergilius gently admonishes her that she's meant to tell him straight away if something's happening with the bus. Charon calling said bus 'Mephi' gets Dante asking who that is, and thus Faust explains that Mephistopheles is both the name of the bus and the engine that runs it, "Faust's magnum opus cordis" - presumably 'heart of [Faust's] great work'.
Vergilius: "An ideal ferryboat to bear us across the Inferno. Wouldn't you agree, Dante?"
This mental image is fucking hysterical. So many people have been saying so much odd shit to Dante that they have no idea how to respond to in such a short span of time that they've finally resorted to just wordlessly disengaging from the conversation. Mildly surprising is that Vergilius isn't even offended at getting ghosted by Dante, instead remarking that "another pack of dirty Rats living in the Backstreets" will make perfect fodder for the next stage of the combat tutorial.
Faust: "Dante, I skipped over many details during our battle."
Yeah no shit sis, we got our asses beat so fast we didn't even see anybody's skill coins.
Faust: "However, we'll be slaughtered frequently if no improvements are made to your strategy. And in turn, you'll have to endure senseless pain over and over again to revive us."
Dante: <Pain... Revive? You mean, what happened earlier was...>
Faust: "Yes, we were brought back to life because you "turned back the clock"."
Vergilius decides that Faust has yapped enough and sends the Sinners packing off the bus to go kill the impoverished.
Alright lads, let's knuckle down. On this first round none of the Rats are even attacking, making things even simpler. The Sinners' stagger thresholds have been added, and though the skill deck is obscuring it a little you can see now that Greg and Ishmael have only two while the rest have three - on launch everybody had three stagger gates placed in roughly the same locations across the board, which was an awful idea that made some units far too fragile for their jobs. Then came the great rebalancing, and now you have units who are meant to be tougher actually being tougher implemented as having fewer Stagger thresholds placed at more convenient points along their health gauge.
The UI you're seeing right now is also new, overhauled at some point during the time between launch and now, I forget which. Here you can see at a glance what Rodion's damage affinities are - she takes reduced damage from Pride and Slash damage, but increased damage from Gloom, Envy and Pierce. Some of these affinities you can change and some you can't, we'll put a pin in that for a little later. More important is that you can finally see her skill 1 in all its shitty, shitty glory.
Limbus Company is in many ways just a streamlined version of the battle system seen in Library of Ruina, Project Moon's previous (and not gacha) game. There everything revolved around dice, randomly rolling within a given range to find the power of offensive and defensive skills. In Limbus Company skills instead have a base power, a certain amount of coins, and the power of those coins. If you flip heads, the coin's power is added to the base power. If you don't, get fucked. This means that for a single-coin skill like Rodion's here, it can have a value of either 2 or 9 before modifiers, no more and no less. It's showing '+100%' and gold, modified final power numbers because the Rat she's targeting has x2 slash affinity. The status effect part we'll get to later.
After a single round of beating the shit out of the poor, Faust chimes in to inform us of another feature of normal battles which was again skipped over during the disastrous bout with Lion - every turn another action slot will be added to the skill deck, starting in the order that you added each Sinner to the team in the deployment screen (skipped over here because of the forced team comp of course).
Like so
Longer, larger normal battles can rapidly turn into absolute clusterfucks as the skill deck grows to stretch from edge to edge of the screen. The absolute maximum seems to be 12, one for each Sinner, but as of this writing we are nowhere even remotely close to reaching that limit in terms of actual deployment size. On this second turn the Rats will actually fight back, leading to actually getting to learn what clashes are.
Me when my head game is unsatisfactory: <Weak Blow>
What Faust fails to mention, and what even the tutorial popup right after her dialogue also fails to mention, is how this concept of clashes intersects with the Resonance thing she kept banging on about all last fight. Observe, if you will, the numbers. Greg's skill is a single-coin with a floor of 2 and a ceiling of 9, while Starving Homeless Man's is a two-coin with a ceiling of also 2 and a floor of 4. This matchup is actually worse than the 50-50 the UI presents it as, because when a clash begins both parties flip all their coins and compare the total, destroying one of the loser's coins and repeating the clash until all coins on one side have been destroyed - meaning that if Greg is unlucky and rolls a 2, Starving Homeless Man has not one but two chances to beat his total and destroy his coin. To make it worse, clashes go until one side has lost all of their coins, meaning that Starving Homeless Man is again advantaged, because Greg may destroy one of his coins only to be beaten by the surviving coin when they clash a second time. He would take less damage from this because Starving Homeless Man would subsequently only hit him once, whereas if no coins were destroyed he would bash Greg twice.
Now, you see that lil sword icon? That's Offence Level. It scales with the user's level, plus or minus a certain per-character multiplier we won't get into right now. Offence Level is used in part to determine final damage, but what's important is that it helps determine clash power. Simply put, every difference of 3 Offence Level translates to +1 clash power for the superior party - only clash power, that bonus added to the skill's base power vanishes once it comes time to actually deal damage. So if Greg here were level 5 (because he has a -1 Offence Level bonus in base form) he would be rolling 3+9 and have a staggeringly better chance of overcoming this wiry crackhead who cornered him at the park for his wallet. Resonance and Absolute Resonance are useful precisely because they boost the participants' Offence Level, allowing them to win clashes more easily.
How much does it raise their Offence Level? Er- uh- LOOK OVER THERE
(The answer is it varies a lot and it scales very weirdly so it's best not to think of it in terms of guaranteed returns and more as a magic spell you cast by matching the funny colours)
And sure enough, my prediction comes true. The Starving Homeless Man loses the first clash and one coin, but overpowers Greg's shitty skill with the second and is able to whack him once across the face. The game keeps track of the total clashes that occur before a victor is finally determined, both because it provides a final damage bonus to the victor (something pathetic like 1% per total clash you'd never see real returns from) and Sanity gain, something you sure do see returns from. Base sanity from winning a clash is 10, +1 per total clash starting at 2 (so 10, then 12 like this gentleman here, and so on). Sanity or SP directly affects your chance to flip heads on every skill coin at a rate of 1% per 1 SP, so at the cap of 45 SP you rig the dice with a whopping 95% heads rate. This is so you have evidence and witnesses at your eventual court case when one of your Sinners fucking throws entirely and flips 4 tails in a row so they can die anyway. SP is very good for your units to have, and usually pretty bad for your enemies to have! Situations like this are why it can often be a better move to just wait it out with a defensive skill rather than LET'S GO GAMBLING on bad odds. What're defensive skills? Wait for the next gang of bicycle thieves and loiterers.
With these starving homeless men in the woods armed with sharp sticks, the Sinners have finally found a foe worthy of them. Here we can see some more effects of SP - Faust won a 1-coin clash last round (+10) and subsequently killed her foe (+10), and this hyped up everyone else (+5). The Rats, meanwhile, lost an ally, which as determined by their unique low sanity effects caused them all to immediately crater to -45 SP. This is the lowest limit of SP you can reach, and if you reach it during a turn it locks in no matter what else happens before the end of the round that might otherwise raise it. Enemies with SP always Panic, with effects determined by their Panic Type viewable on their information sheet - in this case, the Rats are getting the fuck out of here, so they don't fight back and any kind of attack will defeat them. The Sinners can also Panic, which just means they freeze up and can't act at all for a turn before resetting to 0. They can also Corrode, which is far worse, but that's for later.
With victory a foregone conclusion, we return to the bus.
Vergilius: "Nice job killing those homeless men, Dantehhh. Once you kill your way up the ranks of the unhoused maybe you'll be ready for sick children one day."
Dante awkwardly asks if they're supposed to pursue the survivors, since the four panicked Rats hightailed it out of there the second their buddy died. Vergilius merely remarks that they're headed in that direction anyway (because we still have more combat tutorial to go) before Ishmael elbows her way into the circle to question Faust about something.
Ishmael: "But right now... it's nothing but meaningless violence, like we're Rats or something.
Don Quixote: "I object to its meaninglessness! Those were evildoers who attacked us!"
Ishmael: "Don shut the FUCK-"
Ishmael: "If all we're gonna do is beat up people under orders like hired thugs, I'll have to consider changing jobs sooner or later."
Faust: "Haven't you read your contract?"
Ishmael: "... Do you think the contract has any sway if it's based on lies?"
Faust: "Of course it does. There were no lies on it."
Ishmael: "... huh?"
Faust: "You didn't think Mephistopheles was built to be a mere means of transportation, did you?"
Dante: <The bus gets hungry?>
Faust: "When the engine 'ingests' fuel, it yields a byproduct. Using that, you can grow more powerful. I'm sure Yi Sang knows this well. When all possibilities are drawn from the mirror..."
Yi Sang: "There is no limit to one's growth."
Ishmael is clearly not taken in by all this mirror shit, though we'll learn the truth of Faust's words soon enough, and Vergilius quickly shuts down her complaints by telling her that more important jobs will follow the longer the bus trundles on. Ishmael isn't happy, but acquiesces to the assurance that we won't be acting like cops forever. Faust forges on ahead with her description of the power Mephistopheles offers as if the interruption hadn't even happened; "whisking [...] limitless possibilities from the mirrored world", and having their memories overwritten by them.
Rodion is initially alarmed by the implications of this process, though she tries to play it off cool.
Vergilius is stonily silent.
Faust tells the gang not to "mistake yourselves for the Ship of Theseus", and that there are safeguards in place to preserve their egos against being permanently overwritten by those they mantle in combat.
Yi Sang is unusually talkative on the subject, speaking with a certain sense of forlorn experience. He does not elaborate, however, and Faust picks up the thread by advising Dante that it's ultimately their decision what fragments of possibility they draw out and equip on them. Outis chimes in to say that you might call the process a metamorphosis - Rodion asks where she picked up big words like that.
Greg has a somewhat more complicated history with the concept than the other 11, though.
Vergilius, testier than ever, tells the gang to shut their yaps and go brutalise the poor again because they're have more time together than they could possibly want to continue it later. The bus group descends for another round of tutorials.
This round of tutorials is about the kinds of skills you can generate on command no matter the state of the skill deck, but it brings with us a rare opportunity to talk about reverse coin skills. Famished Hooligan over here has a base power of 5 and a coin power of -3, uniquely giving him worse odds the better his SP, and making him more dangerous the lower it sinks. Smart cookies in the room may have already discovered the unique benefit to this kind of skill, and it won't really be relevant until Canto 3, so we'll see if the folks at home can figure out what that is!
This turn forces us to generate all three types of defensive skill; Guard, Counter, and Evade. A Guard is exactly what you might assume it'd be, generating a small amount of temp HP for the Sinner which is consumed before their real health when struck. Not very good since any riders attached to those soaked hits will go through no problem, and guard skills trend towards being very weak, but better than a hole in the head. When exactly a guard is triggered depends on speed ranges, but things like interception and redirection can wait for a later lesson. A Counter is also what you might assume it'd be, soaking the hit raw in exchange for immediately launching a counterattack on the foe that struck you that can't be intercepted or clashed with. In most situations this is a really bad trade when you can just Win Clashes 4head, but newer units bring more appealing incentives. Counters can be aimed at specific attacks, but will automatically trigger retaliation against the first source of direct damage the unit suffers that round regardless. Evade is the strongest kind of defensive skill because not only does it completely negate damage and status effects unlike the other two, it can remain active the entire round.
Let's take Faust, with her Evade power of 2+10. When Famished Hooligan over there attacks her with a 2+1+1 skill, it operates like a combination between a clash and actually launching an attack; Faust flips her first and only coin, Famished Hooligan flips his first coin, and both are tails, so both end up with a final power of 2. Defender wins ties so Faust dodges the first blow. Famished Hooligan moves on to his second coin, flips it, and Faust flips hers again. She gets heads for a total of 12, he gets heads for a total of 3, and whiffs again. If she didn't get heads, he would still only get to smack her once, because the first coin was wasted when she schmoved past him. Then, to add insult to injury, even if the other four Rats all took turns swinging on her, so long as Faust kept rolling heads (or they kept beefing) she would just keep Matrix dodging the entire team until the round ended or one of them finally beat her score. Once an Evade coin is destroyed it's destroyed for good that round, but still, there's a reason that Evade skills tend to have as much total power bound up in the coinflip - and why particularly strong IDs tend to have guards or counters as a balance measure.
You may also have noticed that the guard and evade are a neutral beige, while Rodion's counter is red for Wrath. This is important, but we'll get into that later.
Anyhoo the Rats get mulched and the gang return to the bus, where Charon tells "Verg" that she could've just ploughed straight through them in Mephi.
Dante makes a train whistle noise when sufficiently angry or agitated and I need you to know that because it's adorable.
Vergilius senses Dante's agitation if not their words, and explains patiently.
Vergilius: "It's not right to ask a toddler to run when it has yet to take its first steps. You'll need every opportunity to try and walk before you're made to run. Furthermore... Dante."
Vergilius: "As the manager... it's your job to 'manage' your staff. And I... am the guide. I decide where we go and how we arrive there. Do you get it?"
Dante surprisingly does not let out a burst of mechanical shitting noises, and instead wonders aloud how they're supposed to not question a stranger who can't even hear them. Unfortunately, Vergilius may not understand them, but he's still cognizant of the fact they backtalked him somehow.
Vergilius: "I heard ticking, so what did they say, Ms. Faust?"
Faust: "Nothing much."
Vergilius: "Some verbose agreement that was. A nod should be enough to let me know that you approve, Dante."
Faust wisely decides to be economical with the truth and therefore saves Dante from an asswhupping so severe it'd make them forget memories they never even had.
The last leg of the tutorial awaits, and we must awkwardly skip over the extraction tutorial here because that part can't exactly be replayed. Lucky that too is completely deterministic, and every account will always get the Shi Association (South Section 5) Identity for Ishmael. Identities come with their own story content and cool art, but this update is already very big, so I will be skimming over that for now. Particularly relevant IDs will get spotlight when appropriate, and other miscellaneous IDs might make for good fodder to dripfeed the thread between bigger updates.
Faust directs us to the info tab, where we can see everything you could possibly want to know about a Sinner. Being able to see their Stagger thresholds and exact placement on the health guage down to the healthpoint value is very new, and having to eyeball it was quite annoying. Here we see that Shi Ishmael has only two Stagger thresholds, very close together and very high up on her health gauge, because the Shi Association are a Fixer faction hailing from Library of Ruina where their gimmick was that they would show up with their health bars already drained down to 50 or 25% to represent their extreme exhaustion, and their pages would have benefits when used at low health. Correspondingly Shi Ishmael wants to take a lot of damage early so she can drop below 50%, which unlocks benefits to all of her skills, and her counter helps her do that while still contributing damage and sin resources. She is, however, uptie 1 for the purposes of this tutorial, so she's weak and slow as shit and doesn't have her skill 3.
Now, you'll notice the x3 and x2 beside her skill 1 and skill 2. An Identity has a full deck of six skills - three s1, two s2, one s1. The ID begins with two random skills playable in the deck and a third visible translucent above them, ready to feed in from the top to replace whichever one you use that turn. Replacement skills feed into the skill deck in this manner one at a time until all six skills have fed into the deck, at which point the process starts over again with a new randomised pattern. Defensive and EGO skills are generated by converting the skill in the bottom slot of that character's column in the skill deck - this can be an effective way to get rid of otherwise dubiously useful skill 1 copies, resources permitting.
Faust subsequently demands we close the info screen and play another round of combat before telling us what passives are, possibly because she's embarrassed to admit that Shi Ishmael is Uptie 1 and thus doesn't actually have her passive yet. She of course demonstrates with her own passive, Analytic Eye, which causes her to deal 10% more damage to units with negative status effects. This is a brand new effect because there was a massive sweeping balance change a while back and Faust's initial passive was arguably too good. Or was that her EGO passive? I don't remember any more.
Passives come in two kinds: Combat (meaning the Sinners deployed in the field) and Support (meaning the Sinners riding the bench). Every ID has both a Combat and Support passive, which are fuelled by sin resources either owned or resonating - so a x5 Envy Owned passive will activate and stay active so long as you have at least 5 Envy stocked, but a x2 Pride Res passive like Faust's requires you to chain 2 Pride skills that turn to gain its benefits. There are occasionally passives that are truly permanent, or clauses within otherwise conditional passives that are always active, but they're the exceptions to the rule. The seven Sins used in this game are Wrath, Lust, Sloth, Gluttony, Gloom, Pride and Envy descending in that order down the side of the battle UI you've seen previously, and one resource is generated every time you use a skill of the corresponding affinity. This is where Guards and Evades having no affinity by default can really bite you in the ass, because you'll want those sin resources to fuel your EGO.
What's EGO? Well I'm glad you asked.
EGO skills can be generated at any time so long as you have the resources for it, much like defensive skills. I'm posting this frame mostly so I can rant and rave about how fucking bad the UI was at launch. You see how Rodion and Faust have those blue bars beside their portraits glowing like rave lights? Imagine that at about 15% opacity and that's how the game gave you a heads-up that your big spenders were available, genuinely almost indistinct from the darkened colour of 'your Sinner has an EGO of this threat level equipped but not ready to fire'. It was intolerable, I had to keep click-holding Sinners' portraits to manually check if their nukes were online or not.
Click-hold shows you cards for every EGO the Sinner has equipped whether they're ready or not so you can see at a glance what their options are and what they can do. In this case of course Faust only has Representation Emitter, her inherent ZAYIN-class EGO (hereafter referred to as 'base EGO'), ready to go. It costs x2 Gluttony and x4 Pride to fire as well as a whopping 20 SP, quite a dear cost to pay (especially when at launch every Sinner's base EGO was actually totally free as far as SP goes), though not quite as bad as it seems. First because it grants +10 SP to the 4 allies with the least SP on the team after firing, which considering the SP cost of firing it will undoubtedly include her. Secondly because EGO are usually very good at clashing, having insanely high base power and the ability to be generated on command, and will only actually drain your SP upon successfully firing them. So Faust this round is going to win a clash with Representation Emitter (+10 SP), then fire it (-20 SP), then benefit from its SP heal (+10 SP) for a net neutral position on SP.
... or at least she would if her target didn't get staggered first. But shhhh.
Additionally, you'll notice the card has three yellow pips under Attack Weight. Attack Weight is basically how the game refers to AoE abilities, called such because there's a corresponding concept of Slot Weight. ATK Weight 3 theoretically means that Faust target 3 'action slots' worth of enemies and thus can bean three people in the head with the incomplete manifestation of her innermost self, but practically speaking she's probably only going to be hitting two, maybe even one, because the game loves to give enemies extra slot weight all higgledy-piggledy or just kind of forget that some enemies are still targetable in the hustle and bustle of normal battles. Still, more effective damage is more effective damage. We can talk more about the intricacies and nuances of AoE targeting at a later date, when it becomes more relevant. EGOs also have their own passives which take effect upon the start of the next turn after firing them, but we'll get into that later too.
For now, Faust needs to get on her Hot Girl Shit.
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ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
There's plenty to talk about here, both in what's shared across all Sinners and what's unique to Faust. Firstly, the coloured gradient background is something unique to base EGO - all other extracted EGO have a custom background graphic unique to the Abnormality it was extracted from (we'll get to that later), whereas the Sinners simply have an empty void tinted the same colour as their dialogue tag. Every EGO also comes with its own temporary outfit, with some later EGO being dripped out of their goddamn minds. The Sinners are all stuck with their own unique variant of a prison jumpsuit, also seen in their base EGO's corresponding artwork you caught a glimpse of just now. There's no time to run through everybody all in a row, but since Faust made an example of herself let's take a look at hers.
In her EGO awakening animation, her greatsword transforms to resemble a witch's broom, and taking it in hand she shatters reality underfoot, allowing fragmentary equations and diagrams to filter through the cracks. Her art depicts her standing alone in a room, unrestricted but unquestionably a prisoner, recording every piece of knowledge she's gifted on the walls of her cell in the light emitted by her witch's broom - and standing in that light she casts far too many shadows from too many angles, shadows that loom over her and around her in silent dominance. Her pose is clearly submissive, almost bashful or shy. And through the window of her cell can be seen the heart of Mephistopheles, another shadowy figure cast in silhouette by its light.
So clearly Faust is having a fantastic time and she has no problems at all. Her innermost self just felt kinda quirky that day.
Also I am just now realising that I ordered this wrong and the EGO tutorial should've come before Dante asking why they fought instead of hitting the Rats with their car but I cannot even begin to tell you what a pain in the ass it would be to go back and reorder the screenshots to reflect that while keeping the image limit in mind so let's all shut our eyes and cross our fingers and pretend very hard.
Back on the bus, Charon is all too happy to get a move on.
Vergilius: "How are you feeling, Charon?"
Charon: "Extreme. Excitement. About to walk on air, reports Charon."
It's beyond questioning at this point that Vergilius has a fondness for Charon that he doesn't share with another damn person on this bus. Why that is, he's in no mood to share, and if he gets his way he may never be. I know why, but I'm curious to see if any of the non-spoiled readers can guess.
Dante asks Vergilius where they're going, relayed via Faust. Vergilius merely gives a put-upon sigh and replies that he already told them that. Dante asks again, because he said some metaphorical shit about going to Hell and they want to know the damn street address, postcode at minimum, but Faust wisely doesn't waste time bothering to translate again.
Instead, we have a far greater reward awaiting us for our patience.
New Mili song.
View: https://youtu.be/HTRQgFYCXHY?t=11
Come along every body, it's time to ride the Magic Limbus into the depths of Hell!
NEXT STOP - CANTO I: THE OUTCAST
(and special thanks to @Squirtodyle for gifting me a sub to make this a little easier)
- Location
- Ireland
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Vergilius: "Yeah it turns out when you can make your eyes glow red on command you can just say shit and people won't question it, really helpful in this fucking nightmare of a company—"
I'll never get over how fucking tiny Gregor is compared to Vergilius. Bro barely comes up to his shoulder, we can't really blame Vergilius for going after someone prey animal-coded like Greg.
I don't have much to say here besides her hair being absolutely nuts, she's fully subsidising the profits of at least twelve shampoo companies throughout the City.
Absolutely adore the effort put in to accurately localize Heathcliff's dialogue, it's peak.
Meursault (Meursault).
Words can't describe how much I love Outis.
It's important to note that pre-launch, back when all we had were the character trailers, people had like a handful of lines from Outis, the company primer, and her E.G.O to go off of, and in almost all cases people depicted her as a cold and composed worker with a ruthless side that needed to be worked around like a landmine. The game launching and revealing that Outis is instead committed to doing a full power Yakuza 7 Apology Pose before lunging at Dante's boots to slobber all over them is one of the funniest aspects of the entire game.
This primer was absolutely written by someone else in the company who has been forced to deal with Faust for longer than any human can reasonably be expected to deal with her and is unfathomably glad to be able to dump her onto some other dipshit and finally breathe a sigh of relief.
The funny part about this is, given all the other literary names we've seen so far, there's a solid chance that Faust is referring to an actual story about some asshole named Theseus who tried sailing and wasn't very good at it.
Faust proving that she does understand social interaction enough to be deft about deflecting and avoiding Vergilius's ire makes it even funnier how arrogant and unpleasant she is, she understands exactly what she's doing and does it anyway because she's a Genius. Absolute queen.
Really really loving this LP, excited for more!
he prefers to be called sinclair but i'm glad he worked out for you
The biggest sellingpoint of limbus reveals themself: the lovable idiots we call sinners. Your desire to play Limbus is 100% based on how much you like them.
Personaly I love each and every single persone on that bus. They're my favourite bunch of murdertruckers and I wouldn't trade them for the world.
Personaly I love each and every single persone on that bus. They're my favourite bunch of murdertruckers and I wouldn't trade them for the world.
It was her ego passive giving 1 power attack power up the first 10 turns before giving 1 defensive power up after. Kinda insane to just give something like that to a ego passive and they woulnd't do that again right. Right?
GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
I'll note that this exchange is a pretty untranslatable (but funny) joke - in the original Korean it basically goes something along the lines of:
Yi Sang: "Yi Sang."
Dante: <<Yisang?>>
Yi Sang: "Mm. Yisang."
This is because the game loves to make puns about Yi Sang's name and the many meanings of "yisang" - whether that be "ideal," "that's all," "odd" or a myriad other possible meanings that I don't know enough about the Korean language to list here.
- Location
- Portugal
I have some familiarity with Limbus Company from indirect exposure, and've seen some of the later story highlights more directly, so I've thought it looked interesting for a while now. But just like with Library of Ruina, I haven't been able to bring myself to play it. So this is a really neat and useful let's play to get me contextualized, I'll be following!
That said, wow I didn't know that Dante's clock was because they'd swapped out their own head. That's not even the most out of pocket detail in this opening, it's pretty funny that the Sinners' quirks didn't help them at all not get wiped out and they had to get bailed out by Vergilius, who I can't help but describe as sharing some vibes with Chainsaw Man's Kishibe. There's a lot of kinda concerning and ominous set-up in the introductions proper, and I'm sure we'll see soon enough how dysfunctional the group can get.
Your explanations of the gameplay are pretty extensive and sensible, but the amount of dynamic details does have me lost. I think I'd have to actually play to grasp how most of it works.
That said, wow I didn't know that Dante's clock was because they'd swapped out their own head. That's not even the most out of pocket detail in this opening, it's pretty funny that the Sinners' quirks didn't help them at all not get wiped out and they had to get bailed out by Vergilius, who I can't help but describe as sharing some vibes with Chainsaw Man's Kishibe. There's a lot of kinda concerning and ominous set-up in the introductions proper, and I'm sure we'll see soon enough how dysfunctional the group can get.
Your explanations of the gameplay are pretty extensive and sensible, but the amount of dynamic details does have me lost. I think I'd have to actually play to grasp how most of it works.
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GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
The long and short of it is that each Sinner draws two cards per turn (with a third visible if you squint to show you what you'll get next turn) and you pick which one to use for each action. The first and most plentiful skill in each deck is a weak filler ability, the second skill is a stronger "bread and butter" move that you'll typically be trying to use most of the time, and the third skill is a more powerful attack that is either the biggest number in your arsenal or ties your kit together somehow (the most basic example of this are units where their S1 and S2 builds a resource and their S3 spends it to do big damage).
You also have up to five EGO super attacks available, which typically have bigger numbers than your normal attacks (ie a standard S2 skill rolls an 18, a given EGO can potentially roll anything up to 42), have unique effects (Faust's Representation Emitter EGO restores an amount of sanity to a set number of allies), may target more than one enemy at once (Representation Emitter hits three enemies) and activate some kind of unique passive effect for the rest of the battle (Representation Emitter protects your allies sanity when Faust staggers an enemy). To use these you need to fuel them by generating a number of colored Sins by using your normal attacks (Representation Emitter requires you to use two green skills and four dark blue skills to activate it).
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- Location
- Florida
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Outis, Don, and Ishmael supremacy.
Some of you may be wondering why Greed isn't one of the sins used in the game. As we go through the various Canto's you'll see why Greed isn't considered a Sin in The City.
Also, the music is really good. I'd post some for the stuff we've already seen, but the Youtube recommendations would spoil stuff that comes later.
Also, the music is really good. I'd post some for the stuff we've already seen, but the Youtube recommendations would spoil stuff that comes later.
MiracleGrow
Miracles for only $19.99 [They/Them]
- Location
- DOOR STUCK DOOR STUCK PLEASE I BEG U
CV: Choi Han
Source Material: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. The story of a man named Gregor Samsa who wakes one morning to find himself transformed into a massive cockroach, or Ungeziefer (literally meaning 'monstrous vermin'), hence the cursive above his name, and the tattoo on his human arm.
Greg is one of the most chill Sinners, but not by choice. His cockroach arm is a real handful, causing him to suppress his emotions as much as he can for fear of setting it off, and we'll see in short order just how much strife that thing has caused him throughout his life. One of the few Sinners whose info has accidentally been revealed without redaction, letting it slip that he's canonically 35. Still somehow the most babygirl of the bunch, not helped by being a 5'6 pocket prince, and one of only two smokers on the bus.
I am extremely not normal over Gregor. Fucking love these intros as well, really good at setting the tone of the merry band.
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- Location
- madison
Yeah, it's mostly very surface level stuff, and it serves as a good way to show how most people view the sinners. It was very much written for a conventual manager in a conventual situation. So the advice in it is mostly all but useless for Dante.
Dream Logic
An offseason swallow
- Location
- In transit
That is true. Their advice on Outis is presupposes that she is a deeply untrustworthy individual. Obviously, that cannot be the case.
I'd put forward further evidence but her entire file seems to be [REDACTED] for some reason...
Wiadi
Uncompromising Radical Leftist
- Location
- Something Clever
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Presuming (possibly inaccurately) that this is declined correctly, it'd be closer to "the great work of Faust's heart," which makes it sound like more of a passion project in particular. No idea if that lines up with the actual situation, of course.
I'll try to summarize this as best as I can, but it's been a while since I read the book so there may be inaccuracies.
Dream of The Red Chamber is one of the Four Great Classical Novels in Chinese literature, alongside Journey to the West, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and The Water Margin. Mostly written by Cao Xueqin in the Qing Dynasty over 20+ years, the last third of the book was not written by him on account of his death in 1765. The book is mostly a slice of life about the rise and decline of the Very Rich and Very Powerful Jia family, following a large amount of main and side characters. I can't really get into a deeper plot summary, because 1, the book is very long, 2, there are scholarly debates about which version is more accurate to the original, and 3, I haven't read it in a long time.
The main character we're concerned with, and who Hong Lu is based upon, is Jia Baoyu, the jade incarnated as a human. He can be said to be the main main character, since the entire book begins with his previous life as a stone and ends with him becoming a monk. Depicted as a free-spirited and compassionate young man who is more interested in poetry than bureaucracy, Jia Baoyu is one of, if not the most emotionally intelligent people in the whole book, and frankly does not deserve the sheer amount of suffering he goes through. Like holy shit give him a break-
E: okay, upon revisiting a bit of the book, part of the shit that happens to him he does deserve
E2: The last 40 chapters can be described as a fix fic for the first 80, so I'm not sure how much of the book PM will use for Hong Lu
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Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
As someone who tried Limbus Company but didn't even get this far due to the obtuse combat mechanics, the surface level reason I get for Vergil's affection for Charon is something like 'well they're the only two actual employees and everyone else is some sort of slave/prisoner (Sinners) or a weird clock-headed manager/employer/client (Dante)'. You could also assume they're in a relationship, or that Charon is Vergil(ius)'s daughter.
There could instead/as well be some sort of metaphysical reason, like Charon being Vergil's literal other half (his shadow, maybe, given her palette?), or them being connected via some 'guide and pilot' link.
It's interesting so far, and without the gameplay getting in the way is far more enjoyable than my experience with the game.
There could instead/as well be some sort of metaphysical reason, like Charon being Vergil's literal other half (his shadow, maybe, given her palette?), or them being connected via some 'guide and pilot' link.
It's interesting so far, and without the gameplay getting in the way is far more enjoyable than my experience with the game.
GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
Their relationship is detailed in free webcomic/webnovel (it swapped formats after the artist and Project Moon had a falling out) Leviathan, which is a direct prequel to Limbus Company that covers Vergil's backstory (but it also contains spoilers for Library of Ruina's ending). I will not discuss it further due to rule 1 from the OP, but if you want to know more about them it's there.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Due to some... more, additional falling out from the artist and Project Moon recently, the first half of the webcomic/webnovel is currently not publicly available actually aha.
I mean, it exists in Certain MEGA or Google drives, but you have to go hunting for them now.