[Spoilers] The Farang, a thread about all the known facts so far

[leacim88]

Hello!
I was thinking, whats all the known facts of the Farang so far. Can you help me collect all the facts?

It would bee cool to get information if the fact is from the GM turn or the live play and what episode it’s from.

Feal free to tinker, but be clear if its a theory or fact.

This thread will most likely be spoiler heavy, so be warned to enter.

Facts

The first mention of what could possibly be the Farang comes in the very first hour of Court of Swords.
A rumour was growing of a race of supposedly immortal creatures. These ethereal, long-eared beings were reportedly beautiful but had the nasty habit of driving people from their homes and building structures out of the living wood of the jungle. Whether they were a threat or not, no-one knew, but there seemed to be more and more of them as the seasons went on…

They’re tall, thin, long pointed ears with faintly glowing pupil-less white eyes.
The Farang is foreigners from a different world
Two factions in war with each other (Gold and Silver)
They speak elvish
Beetles surround them (sapphire and gold) Constructs from a delicate craftsmanship
Pyramids and Polygons is conected to them
There was one being trapped in a crystal that also emitted a comforting tone. It granted visions and powers to the party
When Sali cast Identify on the Apology and Berg, they had a void in the center of them, which had a similar description to the gold beetles in Utrix’s throne room
They use Psychic powers instead of magic and they are extra vulnerable to psyonic damage.
They emit nostalgic emotions to people and may appear like someone you want to see.
A (Silver?) Farang is leechig on Bergs soul, the dark passanger is named Tulpa and have made a deal with Berg.
Kalimat let one out of it’s prison in Utrix’s lair (Golden?)
The Farang feads on other energies like the magic from the Fountain
Bergs gift from the Farang transformed from life stealing to psyonic.
Azriels gift from the Farang was an owl named Balder. The owl was later spoted in the basement of the house of the falcon amongst some vampires. He did even have some contact with Zhiva in visions. (Why??)
They use hi-tech full-plate armour shaped like an insect that are equiped with wings and can fly. (and maybe armour and vehicles shaped like squids?)
They got self-destruction wired in to their armour. And they appear to not be immune to their armour self-destruction, even if they are also wearing armour
They use magic dampener beacons and they hesitate leaving their areas of effect. When the beacons gets destroyed their armours need to reboot.
They are outside the fountains influence and their soul doesn’t work as the souls in the known world
The Farang began invading the city of brass about the same time as Utrix fell. The invading forces seems to be of the opposite faction of Tulpa
The Heavens knew that the invasion was a possibility beforehand.
Tulpa transformed The apology of emperor Fei into a new crystal weapon named Tulpa’s Conduit, witch appear to be non affected of the Farags anti-magic zones.

[AdamKoebel]

This is a good idea. I wanna see what y’all know!

[Insanescotsman]

Hey! This seems like a good idea for a thread, excited to see what I may have missed clue-wise. I had a fact that isn’t strictly from the show but is nonetheless interesting, I decided to look up the word Farang and found that it is essentially the word for foreigner in Thai (specifically a westerner) which seems pretty apt seeing as they are supposedly extra-dimensional in some way. Just a cool little tidbit I’m sure Adam liked including!

[sinderfell]

It’s been a good long while, but if memory serves the very first prep sessions before CoS (I think it might have even been a stream playing around with Campaign Cartographer) involved him just kind of lobbing out ideas about the world that would eventually be built. I distinctly remember a tangent about how porting generic fantasy elves into the setting would be boring, and the most against-grain change that could be made is if their magic wasn’t drawn from/supporting nature, but literally consumed it. Like, any elven colonies operating under that idea would look like Mordor because they had an outright cancerous effect on the natural order. And considering the part of the world Adam was aiming for when creating CoS, the idea of an occupying foreign force eventually looped in the colonial French.

It’s not exactly in-game or even in-universe information, but it’s super interesting going back and seeing where these ideas got their start.

[Pierzing]

I’ll try to lay out some of the meetings we’ve had with them so far along with some of my theories. There are two factions to the Farang that I think Adam has referred to in his prep videos as the Gold and Silver Farang. It seems like we’ve had a couple close encounters so far (please correct me with ones I’ve missed :< I’ll try to think of the episodes and write them):

1. (Week 15/16) In the Shu-Lin Valley, there were the sapphire beetles, the Farang in the battle armor that shot lasers, and the cataclysmic explosion with the pyramidal device. There was the burned out crop circle thing as well that seemed to suck the magic out of the area and evoked nostalgia (?) out of the party. Likewise, Ramus had a vision through the air orb of these Farang destroying a city and pouring out of the sky.

2. (Week 27) There was the being trapped in the crystal that also emitted a comforting tone. It granted visions to the party (the imprisoning of this being, visions of their homeland, and in a battle with similar creatures) and boons as well. Berg gained the passenger, who I think is one of the Silver Farang. Here we learned that they have some kind of soul sucking necrotic powers from Berg’s vision and his new life steal ability. Shortly after we saw Jubilant cast feign death on Berg and Berg became trapped in a crystal in his soul by a shadowy entity.

3. (Weeks 57-59) Zeke seemingly met one of the Gold Farang and released it from its dark prison, as evidenced by the gold constructs and beetles that the party battled. There was also the shadowy figure that killed Xeritas that might’ve been the Gold Farang, but it wasn’t super clear. The pseudo-Fountain was contaminated by the Apology that has been falling apart, and I believe to be the work of the Silver Farang (when Sali cast Identify on the Apology, it had a void in the center of it, which had a similar description to the gold beetles in Utrix’s throne room).

The strangest thing to me, which I was just thinking about the other day, is the relationship between the sapphire Farang that we first encountered in the adventure and the Gold and Silver. I assume they’re supposed to be the Silver, but what if they’re not? Are there even more factions of Farang? If memory serves, that Sapphire Farang battle armor did force damage and not necrotic, which makes me think they are different (besides the color).

Let me know if I missed something significant. I’m prepared to put my dukes up and engage in lore combat.

[leacim88]

I love to have your blessing

Fact:
The Farang is two factions in war with each other
They Speak elvish (week 16, part 1) Ramus learned their language througe old texts in the monastary

[leacim88]

I edit in that the void was in Berg too. Realy good and clear facts there. I like it

I will try to collect in your facts in short in the starting massage.

[Plan_A_Has_Failed]

Theory-but-most-likely-Fact - the Farang are psionic creatures by nature and use that in lieu of magic. Psionic power and its use read as a ‘void’ or ‘absence’ to anyone trying to detect the use or presence of magic.

Theory - the Farang manipulate how other beings feel/see them, specifically by evoking thoughts of familiarity, comfort, and family. Hence why the crew felt ‘nostalgic’ in the Shu-Lin Valley, why Khali saw the imprisoned Farang as one of his own kind, and why Utrix had a vision of his mother before he was killed by that same Farang.

Theory - the Farang currently living in the Shu-Lin valley are what remains of the Silver faction who lost the war with the Gold.

Theory - the Farang are somewhat insectoid in appearance beneath their armor

Theory - the Farang seek to feed off the energy of the Fountain itself to sustain them. This would cause something akin to what happened when Berg dropped his hammer into the replica-Fountain at the Seclusium, except on a much larger scale. In the words of Egon Spengler, “it would be bad.”

[leacim88]

yes they use psychic powers, it’s from a GM prep but I do not know which

[Pierzing]

On the topic of nostalgia and family, I could swear that every time we get a flashback to the Farang from Berg’s perspective, they always say or think about “seeing their wife and children one more time.” Am I crazy, or is that a thing that’s been happening?

[TheFacecake]

From what I can remember from Prep Sessions, the Farang’s two factions (Silver and Gold) do not get along with each other and I believe Adam compared it the Catholic Church and Protestants. I might be totally remembering it wrong though…

I also remember that the whole thing with the Farang is nothing about them makes sense to anyone in this realm including gods. There magic and souls are completely different then anything in the plane of COS.

[Tiberius1403]

First off, awesome idea. I love shit like this. Here is my general idea, mostly just theories but maybe worth looking into.

I think it is important to look at the events immediately before and after Utrix’s death. First, the whole place went to shit, the demon was released, the ‘others’ found the place and invaded, and it started falling apart. However, Utrix still appears to be alive at this point, the PC’s talk to him in the loot chamber. If we assume it is Utrix’s power that is holding the place together, perhaps the Farang was able to severe his connection to the fountain? We know the fountain is the source of all magic and, although Utrix attempted to create his own source, he ultimately failed. This would also explain why his soul was not taken to heaven. Of course this could just be because this takes place outside the prime material plain, just a thought.

Also interesting that Zeridas had no idea what was in the Ubliette, but mentioned that it was there before Utrix built his seclusium (week 58 part 2). I wonder what it’s original purpose was.

The PC’s now also have a piece of Farang tech(?) in the beetle in the glass jar if we can assume the Farang was responsible for Utrix’s death. Worth keeping an eye on that for more clues.

[Veirdan]

I wish I could “like” this post more than once, these are great insights that I intensely agree with.

[sinderfell]

Something else I recall from the early episodes in the Xu Lin valley. If memory serves, the first encounter with the Farang’s beetles (constructs?) was coming across a body that had been reanimated by them. The encounter treated them as zombies, but a use of detect magic after the fight registered an overwhelming amount of Transmutation magic, not necromancy.

I’m guessing a lone beetle by itself doesn’t really amount to anything, but if they’re released in swarms they seem like some kind of bio-arcane terraforming tool. If that’s the case, and considering the Farang are a psionic race, it almost feels like @AdamKoebel has created a terrifying and non-jokey version of the Cranium Rat.

[leacim88]

That part hade i forgotten. That might partly explain why Utrix was still alive. Now i got a craving to look back att that episode

[Kol_Saresk]

Has it been noted that since Berg pulled the Apology from the fountain, his lifesucking power is now psionic instead of necrotic? I only bring it up because it might hint to a relationship between the Farang and the Fountain where the Fountain is some sort of purifying force for their species. Or I might be crazy.

[leacim88]

The one from week 16 part 1 used hi-tech Golden full-plate armour shaped like an insect. It hade saphire sensors .

[Pierzing]

That effect might also have been because Berg drank the water from the fake Fountain. We know that it killed the Slaad egg, but it could have had an effect on the Passenger as well. The Passenger has spoken through Berg and said how sweet the waters of the Fountain are, so it kinda got what it wanted it that moment and may have gained those psionic capabilites, which is a good question why it didn’t have that already instead of the necrotic powers.

[Kol_Saresk]

Yeah, that was kinda the point I was going for, it’s just that we weren’t shown the change in abilities until afterwards. But it’s also possible the Passenger used the Hammer as a conduit to break the fake Fountain, after Berg was purified perhaps?

[grahamtugwell]

The first mention of what could possibly be the Farang comes in the very first hour of Court of Swords. When asked whether humans make up the bulk of the population in the riverlands of the Court of Swords, @AdamKoebel replies that humans constitute most of the population of the planet, but that recently there were rumours growing of a race of supposedly immortal creatures. These ethereal, long-eared beings were reportedly beautiful but had the nasty habit of driving people from their homes and building structures out of the living wood of the jungle. Whether they were a threat or not, no-one knew, but there seemed to be more and more of them as the seasons went on…
The case could be made that Adam was referring to another race of creatures, but ‘ethereal’ and ‘long-eared’ in particular scream ELF to me.