Considering writing a story...

[Kurshok]

I was thinking if writing a story about the fate of the Manbeasts between the original Thief Trilogy and Thief 2014. I know any reference to that makes people RAEG, but I feel it should be stated. The Primal Mutants in Thief 2014 are called Manbeasts in a newspaper article, so,knowledge that they existed or still exist somewhere is still common knowledge. They aren't present in game, and the only other magical creature present is a few Burrick corpses which were presumably mauled by Primal Mutants, and some mounted Burrick heads. I wanted to write a story about the fate of each Manbeasts species, as the Baron Northcrest family, post-Thief 3, decided to crack down on magic. The outlawing of the Hammerite faith and the bloody clashes that must have followed, the Pagans being pushed out of the city in bloody pogroms, the diaspora of beastmen out into the far wilderness and underground, etc. The Kurshok in their wet caves and their cannibalistic fights with the ratbeasts, who consume their eggs. The Apebeasts, losing hope and wandering off to live as hermits in the deep woods. The craybeasts return to the sea, to live in lonesome small communities off coast. Perhaps some Pagans still hold out hope for the Trickster's return, as references are made of moss expert tribesmen in the swamps outside The Eternal City. The Bugbeasts most likely went deep underground, to live in isolated hives. The frogbeasts seemed nonsapient, so they probably still infest the swamps as vermin. A lot can change in a couple hundred years. The undead probably were wiped out in a concentrated effort, and mages outlawed and executed or exiled. I feel that is why Thief 2014 is not as good, to me. The world is an emptier place, the fantastic inhabitants gone off to greener pastures to long dead. What's worse, is that the inhabitants of the world of Thief probably are happy to forget them.

[Kurshok]

Perhaps, in our world, there were once majestic, seemingly magical things. Things we pushed away or actively destroyed with our so-called "civilized" ways. The mammoths no longer trundle about the snowy fields of the north, and woolly rhinos have all but been wiped out, the last hairy rhinos of Sumatra hunted to critical levels, beyond hope of repopulation. The Stella's Sea Cow, gentle beasts of the sea, eaten in a feeding frenzy by sailors from the frozen realm of Russia. The rainforests and jungles get smaller every year, overlumbering and poaching wiping out countless species of scintillating arthropods, colorful reptiles and amphibians, and exotic mammals. We kill and cannibalize our primate cousins, using those we kidnap as test subjects for diseases. We declare certain plants "illegal" due to their possible use as drugs, and burn down the fields of poppies and marijuana. Where forests filled with stag and doe, wolf and bear once stretched on proudly, block after block of cheap apartment complexes and belching smoke towers are. The mighty aurochs no longer stampede freely through the German plains, their cousins,the common cow, raised in tiny concrete cells,fattened up horrifically, and slaughtered at a young age to make veal and steaks for the rich, and cheap patty meat for the common man. Diseases run rampant due to a lessening of natural deterrents, the falling amphibian population allowing massive swarms of mosquitos carrying debilitating disease to plague the poorest villages. The earth's soil garments are torn open and Mother Earth itself is raped by its own children, with young children dying in cave in for blood diamonds, and those who try to sneak out some to feed their family more than slave wages are shot dead at best, tortured to make an example of at most. We have set up religions of cruel old men who demand we obey or suffer eternal torture and flames. Society was never meant to be this way, but it morphed into this over time, like a perversion of a butterfly metamorphosis. The whales, gentle behemoths of the sea, those singing and frolicking leviathans, are dragged barely breathing onto whaling ships, then butchered alive for meat and, until a few hundred years ago, oil, which would quickly be rendered obsolete. We travel in machines that belch out a toxic gas that burns a hole in our ozone, and slowly makes it so that this planet's getting hotter. The ice melts, and more poor die of sunstroke and exposure. Petty tyrants rule their distant kingdoms, ruling by rape and hate and blood, while those with the goods are content to hide like cowards. The sea is being emptied of fish and shellfish, the great elephants and mighty rhinos of Africa are slaughtered en masse by poachers for bogus PENIS GROWTH POWDER, and the beaches are choked with garbage. A floating continent made of garbage is forming in the Sargasso Sea, choking and strangling turtles. Jellyfish populations and algae blooms are swarming, the seas own mosquitos and mold. The threat of nuclear annihilation hangs in the hands of two politically opposed groups of countries, a green poisonous cloud of radiation that could end all life on Earth, forever. The age of beauty and youth is dying, while an age of darkness seems to grow.

[jaxa]

Thief is post-apocalyptic future confirmemed

[Kurshok]

It makes me wonder how the last surviving members of the family homo felt before homo sapiens sapiens took over. Sad? Did they mate and interbreed with a us to have a part in our legacy? Were they proud of us? Apathetic? Jealous? Angry? Or maybe they didn't care and just thought it was time to go. Makes me feel kind of sad.

Edited December 13, 2017 by Kurshok