Dota 2 Hero Lore - The Lonely Crystal Maiden
Rylai the Crystal Maiden and her sister, Lina
the slayer, were both born with an affinity
for each their element. Lina got a fiery temper
and would grow up to be a hot babe, and so
her talents with fire fit her character well.
While crystal maiden on the other hand, got
the opposite. Her powers over ice were not
as immediately destructive as lina’s, but
none the less she was continously freezing
and ruining things around her, such as crops.
Rylai did not share her sisters temper, but
instead got traits influenced by people avoiding
her. Crystal maidens personality is, intentional
or not, one of the best ones in my opinion,
because she is not a cold person. That would
be lazy writing - too obvious. Instead, she
suffers from poor communication skills, reclusiveness
and an altruistic need to please everyone
around her. All signs of someone who has been
neglected socially. Her temperamental and
bullying sister, overwhelmed parents, guilt
over spoiling crops, and later exile, would
all contribute to her now lonely existence.
When she and lina were sent to each their
part of the world, lina was sent to a nice
family and would later get lots of attention
from men. Rylai on the other hand, lived alone
in a glacier with nothing but an old wizard
and the walrusbear people of icewrack. So
during both early childhood and adolesence
she was never able to properly socialize,
which further strengthened her already aloof
personality.
Like i mentioned, both lina and rylai were
sent off by their parents when they became
too powerful to handle. Crystal maiden ended
up in the realm of icewrack, under the wing
of a hermit ice wizard who taught her how
to use her natural talents. Tusk is also from
the north, and both a comic and the siltbreaker
event suggests that everything north of the
barrier is populated by his people. Tusk and
rylai grew up playing with eachother as kids,
and whilethey havent seen eachother in a while,
they have remained close. ““ Her master,
the ice wizard we dont know the identity of,
would eventually descend into the blueheart
glacier when he figured crystal maiden was
ready to too study magic in solitude. And
since, she has become so powerful, nobody
matches her skill with ice magic. She has
also become icewracks warden, and has for
example as we saw in her comic, saved her
people from auroth the winter wyverns harassment.
She is not part of the sapphire conclave,
the magic authority inthe dota world, but
she does colaborate with them in keeping magic
crime in check. And thats what her artifact
lore is about; “'Warden of Icewrack' It's
a fancy title. In theory it means I'm responsible
for maintaining law and order, collaborating
with the Sapphire Conclave on magical crimes,
and protecting the weak from all manners of
nasty things. In practice I help farmers fix
fences. So I decided to go on a little sabbatical.
Besides... I couldn't stay in Icewrack. It's
cold. It's boring. And I heard my sister was
planning on visiting so I definitely had to
get the hell outta there.“ Her relationship
with pierpont is a bit unclear, but we know
that hes part of the sapphire conclave and
that he had high hopes for rylai. ““ The
sapphire archons are in charge of keeping
magical peace, but dont confuse them with
the quorum. In weeping rose, the rules of
the outside world dont apply, and they have
their own system with the quorum and tyler
estate. But everywhere else, the sapphire
archons rule the arcane. Pierpont is one of
the characters that has been hinted about
a lot, but we know very little concrete about.
Vanessa from artifact talks about him, and
theres a drew wolf artwork that may hint about
what he looks like. She seems to be his failed
pupil. “Pierpont always warns me about 'dabbling
with things you don't understand'. Most of
the time he's being a sanctimonious bastard...
unfortunately sometimes he's right. Well,
mostly right, I mean I've never died permanently.
Ya know, now that I think about it, he's basically
always just being a sanctimonious bastard.“
“Pierpont and I don’t agree on a lot of
things, but he was wise to recognize the dangers
of angering The Faceless Void. I'm not super
wild about the Claszureme Treaty, Chronomancy
was a lot of fun. But you know what's also
fun? Not having your timeline obliterated.”
“claszureme hourglass” Here with the claszureme
treaty, we get a first hand description of
the sapphire conclave monitoring magic use.
But like i said, CM is not in the conclave.
Pierpont may have his eyes on including her
in the future, though.
From underlords we learn that crystal maiden
used to always help people, but nowadays doesnt
hesitate to freeze them. But since this comes
from carl, an undead possibly future underlord
who doesnt seem to be a particularly good
person, i think its fair to assume CM only
freezes bad guys and protect the innocent.
Rylais dota 1 lore is actually really dissapointing.
Theres no story what so ever, just basically
a description of her. Shes an elegant ice
mage trained by a wizard.
Her original dota 1 name was rylai crestfall,
but this was changed in dota 2 so they could
make her and lina siblings. Crystal maiden
is one of the oldest dota 1 and dota 2 heroes,
as well as in both artifact and underlords
at both games’ release. in WOW theres an
NPC named rylai crestfal, which is a homage
to the dota character. Her scepter has even
somehow found itself in league of legends
as an item. Crystal maiden is also very frequently
cosplayed at events, and so its pretty fair
to say that shes popular. Or maybe shes just
a tumour that spreads everywhere it touches.
Rylai is incredibly talkative, and especially
to icy heroes like jakiro, lich and tusk.
Her allies are jugg, sven, tusk, phoenix and
phantom lancer, which are like the most stereotypical
good guy hero types. Maybe its because of
her big selection of male buddies, but qop
is questioning her maidenhood. ““ Other
rivals cm has, is lich, storm spirit, tinker,
jakiro and ancient apparition. Winter wyvern
would later become her ally, as we have seen
in her comic.
but as you all know, her most prominent relationship
is with lina. They especially founght a lot
in their childhood, but are not afraid to
speak their minds on the battlefield. ““““ Pangolier
is trying to have them make up though, and
is working like a middleman between them.
““
But the one biggest discussion people have
about rylais lore, lies in her title, and
was commented on by qop. Is she actually a
maiden? Its become sort of a joke, that she
ironically enough maybe is one of the more
promiscuous heroes. And while i think that
discussion is a bit “XD im twelve”, it
is interesting that such an extraordinarily
attractive girl is celebate. It could be by
choice, because of some religious belief or
because shes married to her job as protector
of ice wrack. But i dont think so. I think
shes actually an incel. OKAY hold up, before
you give me that look, hear me out. Most of
her life shes either been neglected or alone.
Calling her socially awkward would be the
biggest understatement in dota. Her sister
also arguably has much more sex appeal than
her, which could get her self esteem down.
Maybe she wants to interact with more than
just some old grandpa and walrus furries,
but because of past experience shes afraid
to. If you look at many of the incels IRL
that blame their celebacy on their skull shapes
and height, and dont realize that the mentality
is poisoning their personality, its not that
hard to imagine this might have happened to
CM too. Shes beautiful, and means well, but
her low self esteem makes her socially awkward
and incapable of forming a relationship with
anyone. Theres a theory in psychology that
people who experience loneliness for a long
time, actually starts to think drastically
different from other poeple. A regular person
will assume good things or neutral things
about a strangers actions. A normal person
is aware that most people are good and nice
by default, because nobody wants to admit
that theyre a bad person or evil. You always
have an excuse for why what you did is right.
And most people know that since IM a good
person, then most likely, every other individual
must be the same. While their actions may
be bad, their intentions are good. But a person
who has been lonely for a long time, actually
changes this outlook. They will see someones
action as bad and evil by default, so an innocent
action might look like an attack. If you say
hi to someone you recognize and they ignore
you, a regular person will probably think
“oh he just didnt hear me, probably deep
into his own head”. whereas a lonely person
will think hes an asshole who hates you, and
is ignoring you on purpose.
Speaking of incels and other lonely people
out there. Holiday season can be very difficult
for those who are alone - not just because
they dont have anyone to spend it with, but
also because people left and right are wishing
them merry christmas and asking what they
will be doing. Theres also those social media
assholes that post pictures all the time everywhere
of how happy and perfect everytthing is, when
we all know that theyre misreable in reality.
Just remember - the louder someone is about
something, the more insecure they likely are
about it. Dont let it get you down if you
see huge family gatherings with mountains
of presents. Instead, lets be greatful for
what we do have, and stop being so materialistic
and superficial. The past coupla years ive
gotten more mindful about this, so instead
of wishing you all a merry christmas with
your perfect family, my thoughts go out to
those who either are alone, in a dysfunctional,
drunk household, or maybe even those who are
hosting more than they can handle and are
really stressed. Christmas is great if youre
in a bubble, but the reality for a lot of
people is loneliness, fear or stress.
By the way, in case you have noticed i havent
been uploading as frequently the past like
3 weeks, thats because i noticed i had become
a bit more neurotic than usual, and i think
its burnmout building up. I actually wrote
most of the CM script a while ago, but thought
it was crap so i was reluctant to continue.
I know its bomb now, but at the time i just
felt like i couldnt produce good enough shit.
So ive taken some time off to game, reflect,
and i also started going to the gym. From
2020 onwards i will continue with a goal of
2 videos each week indtead of 3, and perhaps
cool down the streaming a little bit. I will
be back sometime the first week of january.
Im leaving for about 2 week starting today,
and will not be uploading while away. Instead
i will work on my lore website, dotaverse.net.
My vid about the new underlord, jull, will
have to wait until next year. Theres not much
new about him anyway that i havent already
talked about.
Hope you spend the holidays the best way for
you, and good luck in 2020. Thank you so much
for watching, and take care. PEACEE
