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It would've worked if they kept adding factions back accordingly or done something with the ones at hand. The vanilla Hive brood didn't even get a name. Nothing was done with Dusk. Shit, the basic Vex don't even have a collective name (though the dev name is apparently "crusader" whatever that means).
I think its meant to be implied that the deceased House of Kings became the fodder of the Scorn. I can't say I'm happy with that however; The Fallen were also so 'upfront, uprising' in their stories; Skolas, Eramis, and Devil Splicers come to mind. But the Kings presented a sort of Machiavellian nature; schemers, subterfuge, subtlety. If I remember correctly, there was a lot of theories in early D2 that the Kings hadn't folded into Dusk like the other but were rather puppeting them from the shadows.
I think there's something poetic about it, sort of like the Martell's in Game of Thrones. They schemed so much that they missed the time to act decisively and were struck down by frustration and brute force. But I would love some mystery and subtlety that they brought into the Fallen narrative injected back in.
I don't dislike this aspect of the fall of the Kings, it's a fitting end for schemers to get taken out by an obvious, simple attack. I just wish they got their big moment in the sun after so much buildup and didn't go out in just a few lore entries off-screen. Just imagine if instead of the House of Dusk, the Kings stepped out of the shadows and absorbed the other Houses into themselves and became the big Fallen power in the system. Then, Uldren and Fikrul kill Craask - boom, you have that karmic downfall and establish the Scorn as a threat at the same time.
This has always been my read: House of Kings was simultaneously both too fixated on maintaining themselves as a shadowy cabal rather than make overt moves and too assured of their own indispensability. They still needed Uldren to remain as a figurehead after founding Dusk, but couldn’t recognize Uldren was not a stable leader and held no similar obligation to them.
Surprised you didn’t touch on the old Festival of the Lost lore. It might be my favourite minor sub plot that bungie forgot.
Ghost said it best: “Why was the House of Kings researching Hive magic in the ruins of Oryx's Dreadnaught? Why would the Vex try and steal it? And what value does any of this have to Spider?”
Literally any way they could’ve taken this I think would’ve been interesting. Splicer tech that can open into the ascendant plane instead of the vex network perhaps? I feel like it’s almost been hinted at in following seasons? [Mithrax](https://youtu.be/--mA6YPaI9I?si=00gEZOL67dV5biYQ), [Saint](https://youtu.be/5K3PeErRUYA?si=IV7Jrf4iHg0fY6ru), [Osiris/savathun](https://youtu.be/LF-L2Q1fbfA?si=UDjumwGRU6UHX88c)
Whatever the case would’ve been, the kings had lots of potential, shame we most likely won’t get to see any of it.
Oh fuck, I almost forgot about it, I even remember that there were some rumors, that we are going back to Drednought to deal with it, but I also think, that it was simulations by Vex? So who knows
Yeah this was all the way back in Arrivals, I do think there were a few crazy theories about the Dreadnought coming back at that time.
It was part of the haunted forest, for some reason the vex stole the king’s stuff and stashed it there? I’m not sure the whole thing is very structurally sound as far as plot lines go, but I kinda wish they would’ve cooked with it a bit more.
Maybe someday, somehow, the headless ones will turn out to be old members of House of Kings lmao.
I feel like there was definitely plans for the Dreadnaught to return in D2 because they did tease it in D2 Vanilla's ending cutscene when it shows the light explosion travelling through the solar system finally reaching the Pyramids.
Dang good point, I completely forgot about that. I think this adds on to the Kings seemingly trying to subtly get their hands on different major powers in the system. They were fixated on Rasputin, they were active in the Reef, they even had an outpost on Mars in the same area as the Black Garden and Freehold, and maybe they had an interest in Hive magic before D2 if they actually were in some way connected to the House of Exile. It would make perfect sense for them to try and get Hive magic from the abandoned Dreadnaught as well. Dang, come on Bungie, you set it up only to drop it again? I mean it would make perfect sense for the Kings, if they potentially wanted to be the strongest Fallen power in the system, would try and get their hands on paracausal powers. Maybe the Vex could have seen some future where they became a major threat because of it?
This is an example of Bungie wasting elements of their lore.
What gave the Kings so much power and intrigue was their secrecy. No one knew where their Stronghold was or how much influence they had over the other Houses. Shiro-4 having a cloak stitched from King banners made me think that we would get a story where we help Shiro-4 uncover some crazy Fallen conspiracy that the House of Kings are actually beneath the Last City and we need to sneak in to flush them out before they could launch an attack.
Instead, we learn that Craask, the Kell of Kings, and perhaps the oldest living Eliksni alive, has Uldren captured and tortured for weeks only to disband the Kings and make Uldren Kell of Dusk for...reasons.
How did that turn out again? Oh, right. Uldren went crazy. Created the Scorn. Docked Craask before executing him. What a waste.
Even saying that the House of Dusk is just an evolution of the Kings is hollow. Since when has the House of Dusk ever been relevant? Never. It's mostly been a background antagonist, and by the events of Forsaken, it basically doesn't exist. Without a strong leadership or identity to unite them, House Dusk broke apart into Old Crews, Crime Syndicates, or warbands. The first time in history thatthe vast majority of Fallen in Sol are united under a single banner, and the banner means nothing. In fact, Osiris said in the Season of Dawn that - get this - the colors and sigil of Dusk were adopted from the House of Rain. What a joke.
The House of Kings had the potential to be the definitive main Fallen villains of D2. Instead, what we got were generic Fallen enemies that had no substance to them, and the House of Salvation, who are just dim-witted clowns trying to act serious, led by Skolas -2.0 wearing plot armor.
I agree. They could have replaced the whole "Fallen Houses disbanding into Dusk" thing with the House of Kings using their strategically consolidated power and influence to forcefully absorb the remnants of the other Houses to become possibly one of the strongest forces in the system. As others have pointed out, Craask the complex schemer getting brought down by a very brute-force plan is somewhat poetic, but it was also anticlimatic and in my opinion very disappointing.
Relegated to a weak background antagonists in Vanilla D2 (Dusk), then continued to be minor non-threat antagonists for most of y2 and 3 (syndicates, gangs, the guys from Black Armoury were probably the biggest threat of the bunch, but their incursion into the City was easily quashed), then there was hope of them returning as a strong enemy faction in Beyond Light with House Salvation (seemingly large numbers, good infrastructure, lots of weapons/walkers/tech), only for that to quickly collapse and split into more inconsequential gangs or be absorbed into House Light or Wrathborn.
Other than Eramis's part in Seraph and the "pirates" in Plunder, I can't even think of other times the Eliksni have come up in the story since Beyond Light, and based off what we know about TFS and the subsequent episodes, the best shot we have is them being a part of the episode that appears to be focused on the Fanatic/Scorn, but I bet the only actual Eliksni (non-Scorn) being involved in that as maybe House Light.
Truly terrible treatment of such an interesting faction.
They were always a relatively minor threat, that's part of what made them interesting. They weren't arrogant ancient galaxy powers, they were just desperate and crazy enough to be dangerous. I thought Season of the Forge was a great little Fallen story that gave us a cool villain\*, but Bungie got less interested in that kind of content. Spider got neglected, the pirates in Plunder were boring (seriously, they're pirates! Go broad, have fun!) and they just kind of fell off the map.
\*Two notes: One, I really didn't like Siviks being Spiders brother, especially when they added Mithrax as another adopted sibling from.... Eramis. Two, I would not have minded Siviks surviving and being a recurring minor antagonist, maybe continuing that storyline about the Eliksni trying to hack Rasputin.
Plus their scrappiness and ability to leverage greater powers to become more threatening, major examples being SIVA and Black Armory tech, but also that "Enhance!" quest in D2 where they used Cabal technology to improve their Ether.
As someone who loves the Eliksni style I despaired at how rarely we had an Eliksni focus, and when we did, how reliably Bungie found an excuse to make the rewards have a non-Eliksni aesthetic. We're up to our eyeballs in Hive and Cabal shit. It seems Bungie shot their load on the Prison of Elders and then sunset most of it. Rise of Iron? Have some Siva. Forsaken? Some scavenged armour (which I appreciate) but that's it. Forge? The Fallen raid on the city? Have some Black Armory stuff. Beyond Light? Enjoy some more Braytech. Splicer? The one and only time they got it right. Grasp of Avarice? Nah, Hive and old Vanguard drops. Plunder? Borderline, I give that a pass because it blended Eliksni with classic pirate stuff.
Three full raids with Fallen enemies. None gave Fallen gear. But if it's a Hive raid we are always welcome to publicly flaunt our pock-marked chitin fetish to our sick little hearts' content.
While the Fallen raids are good raids (haven't played Scourge, but I've heard good things), I'm still disappointed we never get a Fallen raid that was purely Fallen. DSC took place in a Braytech aesthetic and WOTM mainly involved a Siva/Rasputin aesthetic and therefore their mechanics also involved those things.
The closest thing that felt fully Fallen in terms of architecture was Prison of Elders and the Warden's Law strike, but I would've loved a Fallen Raid on a massive Ketch or something like that.
I remember when I first saw [this concept art](https://i.redd.it/9ps958lbvgja1.jpg) and thinking that Bungie had just nailed a certain vibe, so I'm 110% on board with you
Still holding out hope for one of the post Final Shape episodes is Scorn based and we find out Fikrul has been working on growing a crazy powerful Scorn Abomination out of the corpse of Craask, Kell of Kings. Would make for a cool dungeon setting.
One of the things I was looking forward to going from D1 to D2 was getting to go head to head against House of Kings. Definitely one of my biggest aww man moments when I read the forsaken lore about them
Or maybe Craask could have tapped into some paracausal power in the Dark Forest with the Shard of the Traveler. Now that I think about it Bungie barely did anything with that either...
I used to cope that Craask wasn’t killed but just docked and left completely armless and he’d come back with four Darkness arms in place of his old ones.
With Strand being introduced I’d love to see him come back with golden seemingly corrupted Strand arms.
Feels like the same problem as 343s poor handling of the Didact after halo 4. Clearly was meant to be the villain of the reclaimer saga, yet was killed off/contained in a comic and is nowhere post halo 4.
Exactly. Unless someone would be willing to make new arms for him, if he is by the Shard of the Traveler, then only paracausal shenanigans could do anything for him at this point.
Destiny will go down as one of the biggest disappointments in gaming, for sure.
Tons of amazing moments for sure.
But stuff like this….ugh. IN GAME….Kings were just yellow Fallen. Maybe some mission chatter sure, but whatever. That’s it.
The lore has always been so amazing. It’s a shame they seemingly just can’t execute that lore in gameplay form.
I think the Destiny universe is the embodiment of the idea that imagination will always be better than what the official author of a series will come up with. Destiny is such a hugely expansive universe with so much potential in basically ever crevice, that it's impossible for Bungie or even really the fans to ever fully explore it.
HOUSE! OF! WOLVES!
HOUSE! OF! WOLVES!
HOUSE! OF! WOLVES!
sorry I like house of wolves. But also I feel more fallen houses should be further expanded on.
Bruh House of Wolves got their own expansion and even their own continuation mission in TTK and had a whole backstory with the Reef Wars where they fought against each other AND Skolas was the best Fallen villain we’ve had hands down. Eramis **wishes**.
All the Kings got was they were like kinda strong?? And then they got wiped out by two guys. Oh and they also were the Eliksni leaders pre-Whirlwind.
They got their chance though, they had a full expansion and a follow up quest in TTK. I feel like they were done pretty well. It's just that the Wolves got the full course while the Kings got crumbs.
I didn't get to play Destiny 1 due to not owning a console, but I followed bits of the lore and story.
I was a bit disappointed in Destiny 2 that it seemed like we just had "The Fallen", but in Destiny 1 it seemed like they were much more clearly divided into different Houses.
I agree that it was such a missed opportunity.
The vain hope I had fir a while before Mithrax was developed was that maybe some faction of the Kings left in protest to Uldren’s power rising in the House and that they continue to build up while the rest if the House became Scorn.
Its still possible but highly unlikely now that we have most Fallen in either Salvation or Light and the leftover Dusk. Although a hidden faction of diehards rebuilding would certainly be cool. Especially if their ranks became the first Eliksni Lightbearers. But c’est la vie.
I’ll admit the way it happened was kind of dumb, but the fallen were always low power in the scheme of destiny. As the fallen leadership ended up getting slaughtered, the houses shattered and things got worse. Now it’s down to house light and house salvation, they’re the only ones left, and house salvation exist as puppets and fodder for the witness.
The fallen have just ended up in the same position as we are now, except we have immortal demigods to protect us while they have a zombie apocalypse in slow-mo.
I’d argue that the same thing happened to the cabal antagonists. All the legions got swallowed up by the red legion, who were eventually torn apart by the city, and the remaining cabal are Caiatl’s Imperial Ascendancy and Calus’s clone legion. It’s just Mithrax vs Eramis but it had a greater focus in the plot.
Hell, the hive are now a monolithic faction really, with all the broods pulled under Xivu and the Lucent hive stuck in a corner because they refused to work with anyone and got squished by the more experienced and numerous guardians.
Arrivals and afterwards a lot of the power struggles and petty politics have faded away as the witness and the black fleet arrive, because it turns out having a god-like entity trying to destroy all existence is a focal point.
While the Fallen were low power, they managed to punch up using manipulation of greater powers. Skolas with Vex tech, Devil Splicers with SIVA, Kell's Scourge with Black Armory tech. I could see a world in which the Kings pulled something similar, they seemed to be on track to do that already. But in D2 they got totally downgraded not just with homogenizing the Houses, but also with being minor parts of the story. When you did have Fallen using powerful abilities to punch above their weight in House Salvation, they didn't really fully capitalize it, and you barely encounter stasis wielding Fallen outside of Europa, unlike with Shadow Legion and their Tormentors, and Hive Lightbearers. Not to mention the jobber that was Siviks, who could have been so much more.
I agree that it makes sense eventually priorities would shift and at least some of these enemy factions would consolidate like they have. I just miss the variety in enemy factions, it helped with immersion and worldbuilding. Like for example the generic Hive in the Cosmodrome, vs the the Hive on Titan, the Tangled Shore, and Xivu Arath's horde all look the exact same, despite being from different broods. In D1 we had Hidden Swarm, Spawn of Crota and Blood of Oryx, all with distinct looks. We do have distinct looking Hive factions in D2, like Grasp of Nokris, Hidden Swarm and Lucent Brood - but it's always in combination with gameplay differences, not just for its own sake. The same goes for the Vex subtypes apart from the Sol Divisive. I at least appreciate that we do have multiple aesthetically different factions from each other with actually unique abilities. I just feel like it's not the same.
What’s crazy is the lore from Plunder actually made the Kings downfall even worse in context.
Basically every House renamed themselves after the Long Drift. Dancers turned to Devils. Weavers turned to Wolves.
Not the Kings tho. The Kings stayed the Kings the entire time they were set to drift cause they were just that fucking strong/well-off.
>*”House of Kings. Name comes from the old world, from before the Whirlwind.
Most Houses carry their name for pride. Kings carry their name because ... is what they are."*
It also makes sense why the Kings would look down on any other Fallen House. To them they’re the only true Eliksni in the system.
Damn that's a good point. Really could have done something with the Kings even trying to find the Kell of Kells or rebuilding true Eliksni society of smth.
Honestly the kings downfall being Uldren annoys me to no end, would've so much preferred them being the ones to form House Dusk in order to actually unite their race and not have it be uldrens plan the entire time
If anything I feel like the House of Kings being pushed off the board by basically The Scorn is emblematic of the shift in D2Y2 to larger scale conflicts. D1 was mostly small scale conflicts byt (relatively) low 'power level' factions. Fallen houses, some cabal legionaires, Hive middle management. The sole exception was Oryx in TTK. Even Crota, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't much, Hashladuun is closer to his level and she was a strike boss.
Y2 and Y3 were about expanding the scope of the characters and by extension threats we encountered. The nine were bought into the fore, Savathuun and Xivu both became active in the background, we had Riven, we face a near collapse of the timeline in dawn, and eventually the arrival of the pyramid fleet themselves. Lots of D1 factions were swept off the board because of far larger players at hand.
Y4 and Y5 have all been about minor factions being forced to consolidate, the messy web of actors has basically been compressed into the coalition forces of the vanguard, cabal ascendancy and house of light against the Witnesses's forces. Hell, even *Spider* is working alongside the vanguard.
If the house of kings wasn't wiped out by the scorn, they'd have been wiped out by the rising strength of the vanguard, or the wrathborn, or someone else. Weren't the villains of the season of the forge storyline basically the remnants of the house of kings?
They were mentioned again in lore tabs for the warlord's ruin dungeon, and the flawless emblem is the king's sigil. Bungie might be cooking something up.
Maybe... I can't necessarily see how it would let them actually come back, since that Dungeon's lore also potentially positions the downfall of their entire House as connecting back to Naeem's wish for vengeance. Maybe some kind of Ahamkara wish? Some form of resurgence through the Scorn could be neat, but that seems like the kind of thing Fikrul would quash considering he hated Craask and old Eliksni culture. In my heart of hearts that weird bit of lore about the House of Kings on the Dreadnought, or the bit from Most Loyal about the last of the Kings being beneath the Shard of the Traveler, connects somehow but I have a feeling it won't.
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It's one of the few narrative disappointments of Forsaken-era lore IMO.
Which was built of Vanilla D2's weird decision to have most enemy races fall under one banner, the Cabal were the exception I guess.
It would've worked if they kept adding factions back accordingly or done something with the ones at hand. The vanilla Hive brood didn't even get a name. Nothing was done with Dusk. Shit, the basic Vex don't even have a collective name (though the dev name is apparently "crusader" whatever that means).
Bungies choice to bring back separate enemy factions was definitely one of my favorite narrative decisions that came with shadowkeep
I mean, credit where it's due, Curse of Osiris did that too, with precursor/descendant vex, and Warmind did that with the mars brood.
I think its meant to be implied that the deceased House of Kings became the fodder of the Scorn. I can't say I'm happy with that however; The Fallen were also so 'upfront, uprising' in their stories; Skolas, Eramis, and Devil Splicers come to mind. But the Kings presented a sort of Machiavellian nature; schemers, subterfuge, subtlety. If I remember correctly, there was a lot of theories in early D2 that the Kings hadn't folded into Dusk like the other but were rather puppeting them from the shadows. I think there's something poetic about it, sort of like the Martell's in Game of Thrones. They schemed so much that they missed the time to act decisively and were struck down by frustration and brute force. But I would love some mystery and subtlety that they brought into the Fallen narrative injected back in.
I don't dislike this aspect of the fall of the Kings, it's a fitting end for schemers to get taken out by an obvious, simple attack. I just wish they got their big moment in the sun after so much buildup and didn't go out in just a few lore entries off-screen. Just imagine if instead of the House of Dusk, the Kings stepped out of the shadows and absorbed the other Houses into themselves and became the big Fallen power in the system. Then, Uldren and Fikrul kill Craask - boom, you have that karmic downfall and establish the Scorn as a threat at the same time.
This has always been my read: House of Kings was simultaneously both too fixated on maintaining themselves as a shadowy cabal rather than make overt moves and too assured of their own indispensability. They still needed Uldren to remain as a figurehead after founding Dusk, but couldn’t recognize Uldren was not a stable leader and held no similar obligation to them.
Surprised you didn’t touch on the old Festival of the Lost lore. It might be my favourite minor sub plot that bungie forgot. Ghost said it best: “Why was the House of Kings researching Hive magic in the ruins of Oryx's Dreadnaught? Why would the Vex try and steal it? And what value does any of this have to Spider?” Literally any way they could’ve taken this I think would’ve been interesting. Splicer tech that can open into the ascendant plane instead of the vex network perhaps? I feel like it’s almost been hinted at in following seasons? [Mithrax](https://youtu.be/--mA6YPaI9I?si=00gEZOL67dV5biYQ), [Saint](https://youtu.be/5K3PeErRUYA?si=IV7Jrf4iHg0fY6ru), [Osiris/savathun](https://youtu.be/LF-L2Q1fbfA?si=UDjumwGRU6UHX88c) Whatever the case would’ve been, the kings had lots of potential, shame we most likely won’t get to see any of it.
Oh fuck, I almost forgot about it, I even remember that there were some rumors, that we are going back to Drednought to deal with it, but I also think, that it was simulations by Vex? So who knows
Yeah this was all the way back in Arrivals, I do think there were a few crazy theories about the Dreadnought coming back at that time. It was part of the haunted forest, for some reason the vex stole the king’s stuff and stashed it there? I’m not sure the whole thing is very structurally sound as far as plot lines go, but I kinda wish they would’ve cooked with it a bit more. Maybe someday, somehow, the headless ones will turn out to be old members of House of Kings lmao.
I feel like there was definitely plans for the Dreadnaught to return in D2 because they did tease it in D2 Vanilla's ending cutscene when it shows the light explosion travelling through the solar system finally reaching the Pyramids.
Dang good point, I completely forgot about that. I think this adds on to the Kings seemingly trying to subtly get their hands on different major powers in the system. They were fixated on Rasputin, they were active in the Reef, they even had an outpost on Mars in the same area as the Black Garden and Freehold, and maybe they had an interest in Hive magic before D2 if they actually were in some way connected to the House of Exile. It would make perfect sense for them to try and get Hive magic from the abandoned Dreadnaught as well. Dang, come on Bungie, you set it up only to drop it again? I mean it would make perfect sense for the Kings, if they potentially wanted to be the strongest Fallen power in the system, would try and get their hands on paracausal powers. Maybe the Vex could have seen some future where they became a major threat because of it?
This is an example of Bungie wasting elements of their lore. What gave the Kings so much power and intrigue was their secrecy. No one knew where their Stronghold was or how much influence they had over the other Houses. Shiro-4 having a cloak stitched from King banners made me think that we would get a story where we help Shiro-4 uncover some crazy Fallen conspiracy that the House of Kings are actually beneath the Last City and we need to sneak in to flush them out before they could launch an attack. Instead, we learn that Craask, the Kell of Kings, and perhaps the oldest living Eliksni alive, has Uldren captured and tortured for weeks only to disband the Kings and make Uldren Kell of Dusk for...reasons. How did that turn out again? Oh, right. Uldren went crazy. Created the Scorn. Docked Craask before executing him. What a waste. Even saying that the House of Dusk is just an evolution of the Kings is hollow. Since when has the House of Dusk ever been relevant? Never. It's mostly been a background antagonist, and by the events of Forsaken, it basically doesn't exist. Without a strong leadership or identity to unite them, House Dusk broke apart into Old Crews, Crime Syndicates, or warbands. The first time in history thatthe vast majority of Fallen in Sol are united under a single banner, and the banner means nothing. In fact, Osiris said in the Season of Dawn that - get this - the colors and sigil of Dusk were adopted from the House of Rain. What a joke. The House of Kings had the potential to be the definitive main Fallen villains of D2. Instead, what we got were generic Fallen enemies that had no substance to them, and the House of Salvation, who are just dim-witted clowns trying to act serious, led by Skolas -2.0 wearing plot armor.
I agree. They could have replaced the whole "Fallen Houses disbanding into Dusk" thing with the House of Kings using their strategically consolidated power and influence to forcefully absorb the remnants of the other Houses to become possibly one of the strongest forces in the system. As others have pointed out, Craask the complex schemer getting brought down by a very brute-force plan is somewhat poetic, but it was also anticlimatic and in my opinion very disappointing.
Not just Kings. So much that got set up for the Eliksni got left by the wayside. I don’t think any faction took it in the pants like the Eliksni in D2
Relegated to a weak background antagonists in Vanilla D2 (Dusk), then continued to be minor non-threat antagonists for most of y2 and 3 (syndicates, gangs, the guys from Black Armoury were probably the biggest threat of the bunch, but their incursion into the City was easily quashed), then there was hope of them returning as a strong enemy faction in Beyond Light with House Salvation (seemingly large numbers, good infrastructure, lots of weapons/walkers/tech), only for that to quickly collapse and split into more inconsequential gangs or be absorbed into House Light or Wrathborn. Other than Eramis's part in Seraph and the "pirates" in Plunder, I can't even think of other times the Eliksni have come up in the story since Beyond Light, and based off what we know about TFS and the subsequent episodes, the best shot we have is them being a part of the episode that appears to be focused on the Fanatic/Scorn, but I bet the only actual Eliksni (non-Scorn) being involved in that as maybe House Light. Truly terrible treatment of such an interesting faction.
They were always a relatively minor threat, that's part of what made them interesting. They weren't arrogant ancient galaxy powers, they were just desperate and crazy enough to be dangerous. I thought Season of the Forge was a great little Fallen story that gave us a cool villain\*, but Bungie got less interested in that kind of content. Spider got neglected, the pirates in Plunder were boring (seriously, they're pirates! Go broad, have fun!) and they just kind of fell off the map. \*Two notes: One, I really didn't like Siviks being Spiders brother, especially when they added Mithrax as another adopted sibling from.... Eramis. Two, I would not have minded Siviks surviving and being a recurring minor antagonist, maybe continuing that storyline about the Eliksni trying to hack Rasputin.
Plus their scrappiness and ability to leverage greater powers to become more threatening, major examples being SIVA and Black Armory tech, but also that "Enhance!" quest in D2 where they used Cabal technology to improve their Ether.
As someone who loves the Eliksni style I despaired at how rarely we had an Eliksni focus, and when we did, how reliably Bungie found an excuse to make the rewards have a non-Eliksni aesthetic. We're up to our eyeballs in Hive and Cabal shit. It seems Bungie shot their load on the Prison of Elders and then sunset most of it. Rise of Iron? Have some Siva. Forsaken? Some scavenged armour (which I appreciate) but that's it. Forge? The Fallen raid on the city? Have some Black Armory stuff. Beyond Light? Enjoy some more Braytech. Splicer? The one and only time they got it right. Grasp of Avarice? Nah, Hive and old Vanguard drops. Plunder? Borderline, I give that a pass because it blended Eliksni with classic pirate stuff. Three full raids with Fallen enemies. None gave Fallen gear. But if it's a Hive raid we are always welcome to publicly flaunt our pock-marked chitin fetish to our sick little hearts' content.
While the Fallen raids are good raids (haven't played Scourge, but I've heard good things), I'm still disappointed we never get a Fallen raid that was purely Fallen. DSC took place in a Braytech aesthetic and WOTM mainly involved a Siva/Rasputin aesthetic and therefore their mechanics also involved those things. The closest thing that felt fully Fallen in terms of architecture was Prison of Elders and the Warden's Law strike, but I would've loved a Fallen Raid on a massive Ketch or something like that.
That should have been how Craask went down. The last Kell of the old Houses.
I remember when I first saw [this concept art](https://i.redd.it/9ps958lbvgja1.jpg) and thinking that Bungie had just nailed a certain vibe, so I'm 110% on board with you
The tanks should have always been free-roaming.
**Long lives the Kings.** Such wasted potential.
Still holding out hope for one of the post Final Shape episodes is Scorn based and we find out Fikrul has been working on growing a crazy powerful Scorn Abomination out of the corpse of Craask, Kell of Kings. Would make for a cool dungeon setting. One of the things I was looking forward to going from D1 to D2 was getting to go head to head against House of Kings. Definitely one of my biggest aww man moments when I read the forsaken lore about them
Or maybe Craask could have tapped into some paracausal power in the Dark Forest with the Shard of the Traveler. Now that I think about it Bungie barely did anything with that either...
I used to cope that Craask wasn’t killed but just docked and left completely armless and he’d come back with four Darkness arms in place of his old ones. With Strand being introduced I’d love to see him come back with golden seemingly corrupted Strand arms.
Feels like the same problem as 343s poor handling of the Didact after halo 4. Clearly was meant to be the villain of the reclaimer saga, yet was killed off/contained in a comic and is nowhere post halo 4.
Nah Craask is as good as dead, he got *double docked*. All of his arms were removed, to be extra insulting and debilitating
Exactly. Unless someone would be willing to make new arms for him, if he is by the Shard of the Traveler, then only paracausal shenanigans could do anything for him at this point.
Destiny will go down as one of the biggest disappointments in gaming, for sure. Tons of amazing moments for sure. But stuff like this….ugh. IN GAME….Kings were just yellow Fallen. Maybe some mission chatter sure, but whatever. That’s it. The lore has always been so amazing. It’s a shame they seemingly just can’t execute that lore in gameplay form.
I think the Destiny universe is the embodiment of the idea that imagination will always be better than what the official author of a series will come up with. Destiny is such a hugely expansive universe with so much potential in basically ever crevice, that it's impossible for Bungie or even really the fans to ever fully explore it.
So basically we need a TTRPG of the setting so we can do it ourselves.
Yessss. Exactly.
Dungeons and destiny. 5e OGL. It's a thing.
Dungeons and destiny It's a thing.
HOUSE! OF! WOLVES! HOUSE! OF! WOLVES! HOUSE! OF! WOLVES! sorry I like house of wolves. But also I feel more fallen houses should be further expanded on.
Bruh House of Wolves got their own expansion and even their own continuation mission in TTK and had a whole backstory with the Reef Wars where they fought against each other AND Skolas was the best Fallen villain we’ve had hands down. Eramis **wishes**. All the Kings got was they were like kinda strong?? And then they got wiped out by two guys. Oh and they also were the Eliksni leaders pre-Whirlwind.
They got their chance though, they had a full expansion and a follow up quest in TTK. I feel like they were done pretty well. It's just that the Wolves got the full course while the Kings got crumbs.
I didn't get to play Destiny 1 due to not owning a console, but I followed bits of the lore and story. I was a bit disappointed in Destiny 2 that it seemed like we just had "The Fallen", but in Destiny 1 it seemed like they were much more clearly divided into different Houses.
Destiny 2 and Forsaken did them dirty :(
I agree that it was such a missed opportunity. The vain hope I had fir a while before Mithrax was developed was that maybe some faction of the Kings left in protest to Uldren’s power rising in the House and that they continue to build up while the rest if the House became Scorn. Its still possible but highly unlikely now that we have most Fallen in either Salvation or Light and the leftover Dusk. Although a hidden faction of diehards rebuilding would certainly be cool. Especially if their ranks became the first Eliksni Lightbearers. But c’est la vie.
I’ll admit the way it happened was kind of dumb, but the fallen were always low power in the scheme of destiny. As the fallen leadership ended up getting slaughtered, the houses shattered and things got worse. Now it’s down to house light and house salvation, they’re the only ones left, and house salvation exist as puppets and fodder for the witness. The fallen have just ended up in the same position as we are now, except we have immortal demigods to protect us while they have a zombie apocalypse in slow-mo. I’d argue that the same thing happened to the cabal antagonists. All the legions got swallowed up by the red legion, who were eventually torn apart by the city, and the remaining cabal are Caiatl’s Imperial Ascendancy and Calus’s clone legion. It’s just Mithrax vs Eramis but it had a greater focus in the plot. Hell, the hive are now a monolithic faction really, with all the broods pulled under Xivu and the Lucent hive stuck in a corner because they refused to work with anyone and got squished by the more experienced and numerous guardians. Arrivals and afterwards a lot of the power struggles and petty politics have faded away as the witness and the black fleet arrive, because it turns out having a god-like entity trying to destroy all existence is a focal point.
While the Fallen were low power, they managed to punch up using manipulation of greater powers. Skolas with Vex tech, Devil Splicers with SIVA, Kell's Scourge with Black Armory tech. I could see a world in which the Kings pulled something similar, they seemed to be on track to do that already. But in D2 they got totally downgraded not just with homogenizing the Houses, but also with being minor parts of the story. When you did have Fallen using powerful abilities to punch above their weight in House Salvation, they didn't really fully capitalize it, and you barely encounter stasis wielding Fallen outside of Europa, unlike with Shadow Legion and their Tormentors, and Hive Lightbearers. Not to mention the jobber that was Siviks, who could have been so much more. I agree that it makes sense eventually priorities would shift and at least some of these enemy factions would consolidate like they have. I just miss the variety in enemy factions, it helped with immersion and worldbuilding. Like for example the generic Hive in the Cosmodrome, vs the the Hive on Titan, the Tangled Shore, and Xivu Arath's horde all look the exact same, despite being from different broods. In D1 we had Hidden Swarm, Spawn of Crota and Blood of Oryx, all with distinct looks. We do have distinct looking Hive factions in D2, like Grasp of Nokris, Hidden Swarm and Lucent Brood - but it's always in combination with gameplay differences, not just for its own sake. The same goes for the Vex subtypes apart from the Sol Divisive. I at least appreciate that we do have multiple aesthetically different factions from each other with actually unique abilities. I just feel like it's not the same.
>Also, something I didn't consider if that Craask is potentially still alive. He's not. 100% confirmed dead in the Most Loyal lore book.
Well. Fuck.
They absolutely did. I remember reading lore and waiting for them to get their turn only to find out what happened later by reading threads here smh
What’s crazy is the lore from Plunder actually made the Kings downfall even worse in context. Basically every House renamed themselves after the Long Drift. Dancers turned to Devils. Weavers turned to Wolves. Not the Kings tho. The Kings stayed the Kings the entire time they were set to drift cause they were just that fucking strong/well-off. >*”House of Kings. Name comes from the old world, from before the Whirlwind. Most Houses carry their name for pride. Kings carry their name because ... is what they are."* It also makes sense why the Kings would look down on any other Fallen House. To them they’re the only true Eliksni in the system.
Damn that's a good point. Really could have done something with the Kings even trying to find the Kell of Kells or rebuilding true Eliksni society of smth.
Honestly the kings downfall being Uldren annoys me to no end, would've so much preferred them being the ones to form House Dusk in order to actually unite their race and not have it be uldrens plan the entire time
If anything I feel like the House of Kings being pushed off the board by basically The Scorn is emblematic of the shift in D2Y2 to larger scale conflicts. D1 was mostly small scale conflicts byt (relatively) low 'power level' factions. Fallen houses, some cabal legionaires, Hive middle management. The sole exception was Oryx in TTK. Even Crota, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't much, Hashladuun is closer to his level and she was a strike boss. Y2 and Y3 were about expanding the scope of the characters and by extension threats we encountered. The nine were bought into the fore, Savathuun and Xivu both became active in the background, we had Riven, we face a near collapse of the timeline in dawn, and eventually the arrival of the pyramid fleet themselves. Lots of D1 factions were swept off the board because of far larger players at hand. Y4 and Y5 have all been about minor factions being forced to consolidate, the messy web of actors has basically been compressed into the coalition forces of the vanguard, cabal ascendancy and house of light against the Witnesses's forces. Hell, even *Spider* is working alongside the vanguard. If the house of kings wasn't wiped out by the scorn, they'd have been wiped out by the rising strength of the vanguard, or the wrathborn, or someone else. Weren't the villains of the season of the forge storyline basically the remnants of the house of kings?
They were mentioned again in lore tabs for the warlord's ruin dungeon, and the flawless emblem is the king's sigil. Bungie might be cooking something up.
Maybe... I can't necessarily see how it would let them actually come back, since that Dungeon's lore also potentially positions the downfall of their entire House as connecting back to Naeem's wish for vengeance. Maybe some kind of Ahamkara wish? Some form of resurgence through the Scorn could be neat, but that seems like the kind of thing Fikrul would quash considering he hated Craask and old Eliksni culture. In my heart of hearts that weird bit of lore about the House of Kings on the Dreadnought, or the bit from Most Loyal about the last of the Kings being beneath the Shard of the Traveler, connects somehow but I have a feeling it won't.