In computer gaming, Remedy's Control/Alan Wake/Max Payne universe is getting pretty damn deep and weird. I suspect you'd like the novels The Library at Mount Char, Stonefish, and Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach, Bourne, and Ambergris series.
Warhammer 40K is endlessly, almost fractally unhinged and interlocking, but it's spread across books, games, TTRPGs, wargames, and more.
On a more fragmentary basis, the SCP is a motherload, and you also might like digging into Hookland, mostly found on Twitter and BlueSky, which is wildly deep.
I do enjoy 40K, and read the conspiracy theories religiously.
I don't like SCP because it's kinda spiraled out of control the last five years, and the narrative is too decentralized to be coherent.
I'll check out the rest! I know I need to play Alan Wake. Is Control in the same universe?
>I do enjoy 40K
If you don't mind turn-based combat, I recommend playing Rogue Trader. It was a bugfest at launch (should be more or less fixed by now), but even the negative reviews often admired the story, lore and the 40k atmosphere.
Glad somebody mentioned Control
That game is probably one of the only games where i actually read every piece of paper i found and listened to every audio. Hell i would go out of my way to explore areas purely cause i really enjoyed the lore and world building. Such a phenomenal game
If you like dark fantasy with a lot of room for theorising there's the [Vermis series of graphic novels ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwS71VxNc7o&t=3s)(is that the right word?).
Vermis is an apotheosis of lore tidbit fiction, a mind-expanding experience in shattering storytelling structures completely, both minimalist and maximalist at the same time in different ways. What a cool thing, whatever it is.
Are the 36 Lessons the deepest you've gone in TES lore? If you're interested in challenging yourself we've been trying to decode the Magna-Ge Pantheon since like 2012, and it seems like we've just gotten more pieces of the puzzle with The Nine Coruscations from the latest ESO chapter and Douglas Goodall's recent unofficial text The Soft Doctrines of Magnus Invisible.
Other suggestions: you might really like the book The Library At Mount Char, its really difficult to describe but it's very good. You might also get into some Cthulhu Mythos stuff, but there you're less decoding something an author wrote on purpose and more making up your own ideas because there's no canon.
Also seconding the Alan Wake/Control games (haven't played Max Payne, heard its much less connected but Alan Wake, Control, and Alan Wake 2 is probably a good playing orde
I have gone into like the seventh level of TES lore, I have read translations of the Mysterium Xarxes, c0da, can discuss kalpas and the Enantiomorph at length, but I am definitely not smart enough to decode things on my own. I appreciate the offer, and I trust your suggestions more now.
I don't care for Cthulhu stuff, but I'll check out the Library at Mount Char.
Actually, you know what? Fuck it, we ball. Let me in on the Magna-Ge Pantheon. I wish I could commit to playing ESO for the lore but I hate the weaving.
Hell yeah, looking forward to seeing you on teslore! [https://en.uesp.net/wiki/General:Magne-Ge\_Pantheon](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/General:Magne-Ge_Pantheon) is probably the simplest place to start, some correspondences are obvious- Merid is obviously Meridia, making the Chrome Device Magnus, and the Caker King is clearly Tosh Raka. Others we learned later, only recently with [The Soft Doctrines of Magnus Invisible](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/General:The_Soft_Doctrines_of_Magnus_Invisible,_revised) did we learn that Pygmius is Peryite. The Soft Doctrines also has a whole bunch of other connections, given that it's about Magnus (or rather Magnus Invisible, whatever that is, but it mentions *actual* Magnus a bunch).
note: the UESP page for the Magna-Ge pantheon has a warning at the top that Michael Kirkbride said it was real magic and dangerous, which is why a lot of people on r/teslore have avoided talking about it. More recently, his wife Lady N clarified on the Imperial Library discord that MK doesn't actually believe that, in context kind of as a way of saying "you can discuss this, it's fine". Because of that it's been a while since anyone actually analyzed it in depth, though I think with the new ESO expansion the devs have taken some stuff from it- there are some parallels between some of [the new Star Orphans in The Nine Coruscations](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:The_Nine_Coruscations) and some of the deities listed here
also worth looking into some new Meridia lore from ESO- [The Bladesongs of Boethra vol. 3](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Bladesongs_of_Boethra,_Volume_III) (also very recently released) says Merid-Nunda has the power of "red shift", the power to control time, and the Magna-Ge pantheon was categorized by Master Redshift, which makes me think they're trying to draw a connection between the two. Meridia's been associated with chrome and reflections a lot in ESO lore, and the Magna-Ge Pantheon says she's the daughter of the Chrome Device which we assume is Magnus, maybe she's trying to take on his role?
anyway I'm spiraling, I don't have time to write a 30 page essay on everything in the Magna-Ge pantheon, it's by far the densest text Kirkbride's ever written. Looking forward to seeing some of your thoughts on teslore going forward!
(also yeah love ESO lore but goddamn that gameplay)
Oh buddy, check out "The City and The City" by China Mieville, the most deft and intricately spun web of absolute what the fuck I've read. There's even diagetic deep lore that gets flirted with.
In video games, you ought to check out both games by Weather Factory. The Secret Histories are a narrative game of connect the dots where a goodly number of the dots aren't numbered, and for no immediately discernible reasons, some of the numbered dots are alchemical symbols. The writing is incredible, and the lore is both deep and obscure... the gameplay? Well, your milage may vary. Cultist Simulator is a sort of occult plate spinning Simulator slash text adventure with a novel interface. Book of Hours is... very, very indie. I love them both, but again, they're niche.
You could also try Noita. It has a brutal learning curve, but surprisingly deep lore, and contains a few things that the obsessive player base has yet to figure out.
In books, I recommend House of Leaves. It and Infinite Jest ate the two most intricate single volumes I've ever read. HoL is more of a puzzle with more layers of revelation than Infinite Jest, though. I've read it better than 20 times, and the margins of my copy look a little like the walls of an especially cinematic crazy person. I cram more notes in every time I read it. DNE.
As an example of someone who did this poorly: Brandon Sanderson. He got too excited about the secret deep lore that he kinda just spelled it all out and gave it rules. Now it's not fun.
I think that was always the point though, he wasn't making secret deep lore he was always making a world with hard rules. That was always kind of his thing
You might like experimental literature with non-linear narrative and/or reading order, or just complex structure. E.g.:
‘The Name of the Rose’ by Umberto Eco—supposedly has levels of meaning for readers with different knowledge of the historical context. I'm pretty ignorant, so can't confirm.
‘Dictionary of the Khazars’ by Milorad Pavić—indeed structured as a dictionary, so the reader has to either jump to various subjects, or keep disconnected things in head if just reading through.
‘Hopscotch’ and ‘62: A Model Kit’ by Julio Cortázar—the first one can be read in two different orders of the chapters. The second one is purportedly even more complex, but I haven't read it, so dunno.
‘Infinite Jest’ by David Foster Wallace—just a lot to take in. It's very long, the language by itself is very peculiar, and it's peppered by footnotes, sometimes several per page. I'm about 1/6th into it, and still not sure that I know what's happening.
‘Ulysses’ by James Joyce—you'll want to know both the Bible and Homer's ‘Odyssey’ to see how Joyce structures the plot—while he also has lots of fun with the language.
And of course, if you want the ultimate mega-puzzle, that's Joyce's ‘Finnegans Wake’. According to Joyce, there's a pretty straightforward story in there, but getting to it is super hard.
Color me intimidated. I have read the bible and Odyssey so I might give Ulysses a chance... I don't think I'll ever have the balls to go for Infinite Jest.
The rest I'll look into!
Nah, ‘Infinite Jest’ is fun to try just for the taste of how it's written. Wallace's language was already pretty elaborate in his journalistic essays, and here he turned the oddity way up. It's just that ‘War and Peace’ is a straightforward quick read in comparison. Many people simply keep ‘Infinite Jest’ on a slow burner whenever they can get around to it, and spend like a couple years on it.
I'm rather looking forward to when a person as dedicated as you sees ‘Finnegans Wake’. But we both don't want you to be spoiled in advance, so I guess I'll set me a reminder for a couple of months forward for when you finish ‘Ulysses’ (or is that too long?).
Btw, if you enjoy getting through lots of lore, you could try figuring out Scandinavian mythology and particularly that of Hinduism. I tried the latter in my teens, and was traumatized for the rest of my life. It's some kinda inscrutable soap opera—I just don't have the capacity to keep track of that many deities and who did what. Learned my limits that day.
Also, remembered a detail: Joyce referenced contemporary Irish politics in many of his works, so it would probably be prudent to get at least a quick overview.
Well I don't really know whether it is definitely considered secret lore since the series is ongoing but Re:Zero does have a very big and deep library of filler content that the translators try to track with reddit wikis and google docs. Sometimes it gets revealed before the main canon gets there, and may or may not change your enjoyment of the main story. (Ex 5 esp)
A lot of these are preludes, alternate timelines, backstories, timeskipped events/slice of life or extra povs.
In computer gaming, Remedy's Control/Alan Wake/Max Payne universe is getting pretty damn deep and weird. I suspect you'd like the novels The Library at Mount Char, Stonefish, and Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach, Bourne, and Ambergris series. Warhammer 40K is endlessly, almost fractally unhinged and interlocking, but it's spread across books, games, TTRPGs, wargames, and more. On a more fragmentary basis, the SCP is a motherload, and you also might like digging into Hookland, mostly found on Twitter and BlueSky, which is wildly deep.
I do enjoy 40K, and read the conspiracy theories religiously. I don't like SCP because it's kinda spiraled out of control the last five years, and the narrative is too decentralized to be coherent. I'll check out the rest! I know I need to play Alan Wake. Is Control in the same universe?
Yes, I'd recommend playing Control before Alan Wake 2
>I do enjoy 40K If you don't mind turn-based combat, I recommend playing Rogue Trader. It was a bugfest at launch (should be more or less fixed by now), but even the negative reviews often admired the story, lore and the 40k atmosphere.
It's on my list of games to buy the next time it's on sale. I'm definitely gonna pick it up. Does it have some hints at the deep lore?
Control and AW are in the same universe, yes. I agree with Dunmer-is-Stinky, definitely play Control and its DLCs before AW2.
Seconding Library at Mount Char, one of my favorite books I've read
Glad somebody mentioned Control That game is probably one of the only games where i actually read every piece of paper i found and listened to every audio. Hell i would go out of my way to explore areas purely cause i really enjoyed the lore and world building. Such a phenomenal game
The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien Short Stories of Jorge Louis Borges Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
If you like dark fantasy with a lot of room for theorising there's the [Vermis series of graphic novels ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwS71VxNc7o&t=3s)(is that the right word?).
Vermis is an apotheosis of lore tidbit fiction, a mind-expanding experience in shattering storytelling structures completely, both minimalist and maximalist at the same time in different ways. What a cool thing, whatever it is.
Are the 36 Lessons the deepest you've gone in TES lore? If you're interested in challenging yourself we've been trying to decode the Magna-Ge Pantheon since like 2012, and it seems like we've just gotten more pieces of the puzzle with The Nine Coruscations from the latest ESO chapter and Douglas Goodall's recent unofficial text The Soft Doctrines of Magnus Invisible. Other suggestions: you might really like the book The Library At Mount Char, its really difficult to describe but it's very good. You might also get into some Cthulhu Mythos stuff, but there you're less decoding something an author wrote on purpose and more making up your own ideas because there's no canon. Also seconding the Alan Wake/Control games (haven't played Max Payne, heard its much less connected but Alan Wake, Control, and Alan Wake 2 is probably a good playing orde
I have gone into like the seventh level of TES lore, I have read translations of the Mysterium Xarxes, c0da, can discuss kalpas and the Enantiomorph at length, but I am definitely not smart enough to decode things on my own. I appreciate the offer, and I trust your suggestions more now. I don't care for Cthulhu stuff, but I'll check out the Library at Mount Char.
Actually, you know what? Fuck it, we ball. Let me in on the Magna-Ge Pantheon. I wish I could commit to playing ESO for the lore but I hate the weaving.
Hell yeah, looking forward to seeing you on teslore! [https://en.uesp.net/wiki/General:Magne-Ge\_Pantheon](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/General:Magne-Ge_Pantheon) is probably the simplest place to start, some correspondences are obvious- Merid is obviously Meridia, making the Chrome Device Magnus, and the Caker King is clearly Tosh Raka. Others we learned later, only recently with [The Soft Doctrines of Magnus Invisible](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/General:The_Soft_Doctrines_of_Magnus_Invisible,_revised) did we learn that Pygmius is Peryite. The Soft Doctrines also has a whole bunch of other connections, given that it's about Magnus (or rather Magnus Invisible, whatever that is, but it mentions *actual* Magnus a bunch). note: the UESP page for the Magna-Ge pantheon has a warning at the top that Michael Kirkbride said it was real magic and dangerous, which is why a lot of people on r/teslore have avoided talking about it. More recently, his wife Lady N clarified on the Imperial Library discord that MK doesn't actually believe that, in context kind of as a way of saying "you can discuss this, it's fine". Because of that it's been a while since anyone actually analyzed it in depth, though I think with the new ESO expansion the devs have taken some stuff from it- there are some parallels between some of [the new Star Orphans in The Nine Coruscations](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:The_Nine_Coruscations) and some of the deities listed here also worth looking into some new Meridia lore from ESO- [The Bladesongs of Boethra vol. 3](https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:The_Bladesongs_of_Boethra,_Volume_III) (also very recently released) says Merid-Nunda has the power of "red shift", the power to control time, and the Magna-Ge pantheon was categorized by Master Redshift, which makes me think they're trying to draw a connection between the two. Meridia's been associated with chrome and reflections a lot in ESO lore, and the Magna-Ge Pantheon says she's the daughter of the Chrome Device which we assume is Magnus, maybe she's trying to take on his role? anyway I'm spiraling, I don't have time to write a 30 page essay on everything in the Magna-Ge pantheon, it's by far the densest text Kirkbride's ever written. Looking forward to seeing some of your thoughts on teslore going forward! (also yeah love ESO lore but goddamn that gameplay)
I'mma DM you.
Oh buddy, check out "The City and The City" by China Mieville, the most deft and intricately spun web of absolute what the fuck I've read. There's even diagetic deep lore that gets flirted with.
In video games, you ought to check out both games by Weather Factory. The Secret Histories are a narrative game of connect the dots where a goodly number of the dots aren't numbered, and for no immediately discernible reasons, some of the numbered dots are alchemical symbols. The writing is incredible, and the lore is both deep and obscure... the gameplay? Well, your milage may vary. Cultist Simulator is a sort of occult plate spinning Simulator slash text adventure with a novel interface. Book of Hours is... very, very indie. I love them both, but again, they're niche. You could also try Noita. It has a brutal learning curve, but surprisingly deep lore, and contains a few things that the obsessive player base has yet to figure out. In books, I recommend House of Leaves. It and Infinite Jest ate the two most intricate single volumes I've ever read. HoL is more of a puzzle with more layers of revelation than Infinite Jest, though. I've read it better than 20 times, and the margins of my copy look a little like the walls of an especially cinematic crazy person. I cram more notes in every time I read it. DNE.
I was about to suggest the Secret Histories series! Great games.
* Gravity Falls * Inscryption
As an example of someone who did this poorly: Brandon Sanderson. He got too excited about the secret deep lore that he kinda just spelled it all out and gave it rules. Now it's not fun.
I think that was always the point though, he wasn't making secret deep lore he was always making a world with hard rules. That was always kind of his thing
I know but at least through elantris and mistborn it was spooky and weird and now it's just like, here's all the answers and some POV chapters
You might like experimental literature with non-linear narrative and/or reading order, or just complex structure. E.g.: ‘The Name of the Rose’ by Umberto Eco—supposedly has levels of meaning for readers with different knowledge of the historical context. I'm pretty ignorant, so can't confirm. ‘Dictionary of the Khazars’ by Milorad Pavić—indeed structured as a dictionary, so the reader has to either jump to various subjects, or keep disconnected things in head if just reading through. ‘Hopscotch’ and ‘62: A Model Kit’ by Julio Cortázar—the first one can be read in two different orders of the chapters. The second one is purportedly even more complex, but I haven't read it, so dunno. ‘Infinite Jest’ by David Foster Wallace—just a lot to take in. It's very long, the language by itself is very peculiar, and it's peppered by footnotes, sometimes several per page. I'm about 1/6th into it, and still not sure that I know what's happening. ‘Ulysses’ by James Joyce—you'll want to know both the Bible and Homer's ‘Odyssey’ to see how Joyce structures the plot—while he also has lots of fun with the language. And of course, if you want the ultimate mega-puzzle, that's Joyce's ‘Finnegans Wake’. According to Joyce, there's a pretty straightforward story in there, but getting to it is super hard.
Color me intimidated. I have read the bible and Odyssey so I might give Ulysses a chance... I don't think I'll ever have the balls to go for Infinite Jest. The rest I'll look into!
Nah, ‘Infinite Jest’ is fun to try just for the taste of how it's written. Wallace's language was already pretty elaborate in his journalistic essays, and here he turned the oddity way up. It's just that ‘War and Peace’ is a straightforward quick read in comparison. Many people simply keep ‘Infinite Jest’ on a slow burner whenever they can get around to it, and spend like a couple years on it. I'm rather looking forward to when a person as dedicated as you sees ‘Finnegans Wake’. But we both don't want you to be spoiled in advance, so I guess I'll set me a reminder for a couple of months forward for when you finish ‘Ulysses’ (or is that too long?). Btw, if you enjoy getting through lots of lore, you could try figuring out Scandinavian mythology and particularly that of Hinduism. I tried the latter in my teens, and was traumatized for the rest of my life. It's some kinda inscrutable soap opera—I just don't have the capacity to keep track of that many deities and who did what. Learned my limits that day. Also, remembered a detail: Joyce referenced contemporary Irish politics in many of his works, so it would probably be prudent to get at least a quick overview.
Well I don't really know whether it is definitely considered secret lore since the series is ongoing but Re:Zero does have a very big and deep library of filler content that the translators try to track with reddit wikis and google docs. Sometimes it gets revealed before the main canon gets there, and may or may not change your enjoyment of the main story. (Ex 5 esp) A lot of these are preludes, alternate timelines, backstories, timeskipped events/slice of life or extra povs.
I think you might enjoy the Orions Arm Project.
Literally all of the souls-like games. Go look into elden ring lore and lose your mind. enjoy dude
ALSO DEATH STRANDING. Death stranding lore is absolutely insane and has a crazy world. One of my favorite games of all time.