EverQuest Legends: Where’s the lore?

We’ve been told EverQuest Legends will have its own lore, separate from EverQuest.

My immediate reaction was: Wait, EQ has lore?

Yes, I know all about the gods. Killed them all back when I was a raider. But the game does a really poor job of explaining the lore to players while they are in the game. This is something, by the way, that World of Warcraft excels at. There are books lying around all over the place to let you know everything that’s going on.

Take the low level dungeons that Kasul and I have been exploring as we level up our first combos in EQL.

Crushbone: What is Emperor Crush emperor of? Just Crushbone? All orcs? Why are Faydwer orcs blue while Antonica ones are purple? Is Crush emperor of the Antonica orcs as well? If not, do the Antonican orcs have their own emperor? Is this related to Ambassador D’Vinn visiting the emperor?

I wrote an adventure in Neverwinter’s Foundry that explained the actual plot, as I knew it, including the Brenclog story and why the Teir’Dal were sneaking around in the Faydark:

It continues.

There’s several stories in Befallen (and I did a Foundry mission set in Befallen as well that told one of them), but unless you’re actually on one of the quests that go through there, you’re not going to learn anything about how that dungeon came to be there. I do have source books from the EverQuest tabletop role playing game that explains many of these things, but in game? In game, it’s very hard to find this information.

And it’s all changed in EQL! There’s a whole new crew of NPCs who have taken over the dungeon. Who are they? What do they want? I don’t know! (I just logged into EQ Live and went to the basement of Befallen to check, and nope — all those Teir’Dals there are unique to EQL).

Runnyeye looks the same as it does on EQ Live, but I still don’t really know the deal there. There’s goblins on top with one faction, and the goblins below that are on another faction, one that is shared with the goblins in the Beholder Maze. The sporelings seem to have their own thing going on, and there are slime elementals. There’s a story there, but the goblins in the actual game won’t tell it to you. They will tell you how to say “I hate you” in Goblin, as they die, but they won’t tell you why they’re fighting with the other goblins in the place.

Najena’s Lair! (And yes, I also did a Neverwinter Foundry mission set there, see above). Who is she? Why is she there? There’s a whole story behind it! But you can go up and down and through it and the game won’t tell you a word about her history and how she came to be there.

Now as I mentioned, such lore does exist, if you go looking for it out of game. But this is more of a problem with EQ Legends, in that I have not seen one word as to who the Baron is baron of, or why the Teir’Dal have kicked the undead out of a portion of Befallen’s bottom floor… questions.

Anyway, we spent some time in Crushbone, Befallen and Najena’s Lair last night and I hit 21. Kasul is playing EQL right now (while I sit in EQ Live waiting on placeholder respawns in Actual Befallen to see if a Baron ever shows up). I ended the night running through a Runnyeye where the goblins didn’t hate me, due to all the clay and ore farming I had done that morning in the Beholder Maze. Though they stopped liking me quite so much after I killed the Pickclaw Lord for his Blackened Alloy Bastard Sword 😉

Black looks good on me. Every kitty should have a little black dress armor in their closet.