"From Beyond" speculation (megathread?)

[Skelewar]

After hearing everything Klei had to share about their future plans for the From Beyond chapter, such as an equivalent shadow rift to be found in the caves, and experiencing the current in-game content, I have so many thoughts and speculations I want to share. So far the two paths we have are the Celestial Champion being defeated to start lunar rifts and presumably Ancient Fuelweaver being defeated to spawn shadow rifts. I hadn't actually realized how well these two paths mirror each other, all the way down to both requiring moving heavy objects and even an event relying on opposite phases of the moon.

Gear Speculation

Revealed for the shadow side of things are:

• the Dreadstone Helm and Armor, created with dreadstone and pure horror. I feel that with an appearance of dreadstone in the "Taking Root" video, it's safe to say these materials are going to be sticking around and there will be more in the future. It's special perk is it regenerates durability and drains sanity when worn it notably doesn't regen durability when affected with enlightenment.

on the lunar side we have

• Brightshade helmet and armor
• Brightshade bombs 
• Brightshade staff
• Brightshade sword
• Brightshade pickaxe/hammer
• Brightshade shovel/hoe
• as well as a dedicated crafting station

these are all made with pure brilliance and brightshade husks. One dichotomy I noticed between the two if you get a lot of dreadstone and few pure horror for shadow, and a lot of pure brilliance and few brightshade husks for lunar.

The special perks of these items are that they deal with the new "planar damage" stuff and deal increased damage vs shadow aligned creatures and even more when used in tandem with each other. 

Considering the pre-existing shadow and lunar type gear, like glass axes and dark sword, I think I see a trend. Lunar gear tends to hit hard and have low durability. You break out the glass cutter to farm nightmare fuel or kill specific enemies, not on your day-to-day adventure. When you use it though, it gets the job done. On the other hand, the shadow aligned gear I speculate will be mainly based on regeneration and resilience. Dreadstone armor can be carried around as emergency armor since it is basically immune to chip damage, but you may be a bit hesitant to bring it into a boss fight where it may be destroyed. Additionally, many things are refueled with nightmare fuel. This extends even further to the eye mask and shield refueling mechanic, which you may not initially consider to be shadow aligned but the shield does count as shadow stuff for Maxwell's duelist purposes so idk. I expect the downside to these speculative reusable shadow items would of course be sanity drain, to keep them from being without any drawback.

TL:DR- Lunar gear seems to be about quick power, burning bright and burning out. Offense. Shadow gear seems to be about longevity, being refuelable and durable. Defense. 

You could even extend this to the boss drops. While their use cases are reversed (You wear the crown all the time and the bone armor only when necessary, opposite of what I predict for the other tools) Lunar gives extra offensive power while shadow gives total invincibility at a small cost.

I expect that future shadow gear will be a rechargable axe, a shield weapon similar to the shield of terror, and a crafting station- maybe even one that lets you craft ruins gear similar to how the upgraded celestial orb lets you craft lunar gear.

Creatures/Enemies Speculation

Lunar creatures are obviously plant-based. Most lunar-originating mobs like saladmander, carrat, mush gnomes, even wormwood, are plant based, and the new brightshades follow this trend. Creatures that are pre-existing in the constant seem to be mutated by lunar influence and grow moon glass and other stuff, but honestly I don't think we'll see much of that. I expect more plant-based creatures.

Shadow is much more interesting because obviously it's not revealed yet. Shadow creatures seem to be simply made of shadow, but that's a little boring. There's the nightmare werepig, a living warm blooded creature, but I honestly can't really imagine actual mammal type monsters as the special shadow mobs. When I think of nightmare aligned creatures... I think clockworks. Maybe the clockworks are just remnants of Maxwell's rule, or maybe they are connected deeper to the shadows than we know. After all, the shadow pieces fight is basically just nightmare versions of a clockwork set. I could totally see the shadow monsters being robotic, metal machines. Perhaps instead of coming out of a rift they are instead called to the rift and dig out of the ground beneath us - buried relics of the ancients lying below us all along. It could be another cool duality one side being plant and the other being metal, both vastly different from flesh and blood we're made of but in totally different ways. Also, Wormwood and Wilson would be lunar leaning (scientists and plant) while Maxwell and WX would be shadow leaning (magician and metal) which could give some neat connections between survivors that don't interact all too much. ALSO also, from WX's short we already know it has something against Wagstaff, so that could influence it even further.

TL:DR- I think lunar mobs will be mainly plant based and shadow mobs will be mainly robot based.

 

What do you think? Am I right on target or way off?

[Antynomity]

i just hope we get to see the funny shadow eye thingy in-game in the next update

[Zeklo]

I like to think of it simply as: Lunar for organic (plants & animals), and Shadow for inorganic (metal & bones).

[BezKa]

22 minutes ago, Zeklo said:

bones

There is a skeleton inside you right now

[Copyafriend]

9 minutes ago, BezKa said:

There is a skeleton inside you right now

Your skin. Tear it off.

[Skelewar]

1 hour ago, Zeklo said:

I like to think of it simply as: Lunar for organic (plants & animals), and Shadow for inorganic (metal & bones).

I agree for the most part, but the Celestial Champion kind of stands out as a robot? rock? thingy?

[bloopah]

1 hour ago, Skelewar said:

I agree for the most part, but the Celestial Champion kind of stands out as a robot? rock? thingy?

Celestial Champion could be considered an antibody of an immune system, with Alter being the organism it belongs to and Wagstaff's experiment being the antigen. We know that Alter sheds its skin in the form of Meteors, and Wickerbottom stated that Moon Glass could be organic in nature.

[goblinball]

You guys forgot about the roadmap image. In the bottom left corner, on the “lunar side” of the image, there’s a vine which teased the brightshade plant stuff. In the bottom right corner we can see some shadow fire. The shadow rift content will probably be shadow fire themed. This lines up with what klei said about the shadow rift content being able to counter the lunar rift and bright shades. Any wormwood main could tell you that fire is super effective against plants, especially lunar plants, so it makes since for shadow fire content to be strong against lunar plant content.

[MadMatt]

11 minutes ago, goblinball said:

shadow fire

please please please actually deal fire damage

Weremoose 90% natural armor becoming relevant i am ECSTATIC 

[-Variant]

1 hour ago, goblinball said:

probably be shadow fire themed.

The over the top in-me was hoping for some giant mutated bugs, as the Ancients are very bug-like. I want giant nightmare fuel corrupt locusts to eat away at the plants!

As a Willow main myself, I am VERY open to fire though. Either way, I think I'll be happy.

[dzzydzzy]

2 hours ago, goblinball said:

You guys forgot about the roadmap image. In the bottom left corner, on the “lunar side” of the image, there’s a vine which teased the brightshade plant stuff. In the bottom right corner we can see some shadow fire. The shadow rift content will probably be shadow fire themed. This lines up with what klei said about the shadow rift content being able to counter the lunar rift and bright shades. Any wormwood main could tell you that fire is super effective against plants, especially lunar plants, so it makes since for shadow fire content to be strong against lunar plant content.

I also wonder if this teaser in the bottom left is actually referencing something else down the line, since brightshade vines look almost nothing like this. Color, shape, and gesture are all very different, which could be a lack of communication between the in-game artists vs the promo artists, but I'd like to hold out for more plant-themed content updates. Especially since this update was released with Wormwood still lacking a new perk in relation to lunar-plant mobs being added.

[Mike23Ua]

2 hours ago, goblinball said:

You guys forgot about the roadmap image. In the bottom left corner, on the “lunar side” of the image, there’s a vine which teased the brightshade plant stuff. In the bottom right corner we can see some shadow fire. The shadow rift content will probably be shadow fire themed. This lines up with what klei said about the shadow rift content being able to counter the lunar rift and bright shades. Any wormwood main could tell you that fire is super effective against plants, especially lunar plants, so it makes since for shadow fire content to be strong against lunar plant content.

Omg.. your absolutely right.. Ignore the vine on the bottom left and whatever that is on the bottom right, split the image right down the center.. CC (& Wagstaff) trigger the Vines in the bottom left Corner (Brightshades) and gives access to the new Lunar Tier Brightshade Gear/Tools, With the Moon itself (the main known entity in control of all the lunar side of stuff) hovers overhead and over on the right side of the image.. You have the Nightmare Pig that drops the new DreadStone Resources & Armor which will likely trigger the Nightmare side of things and whatever’s in the far bottom right corner, with Charlie (the main known entity for the shadows) hovering overhead.

This isn’t a coincidence..

[minespatch]

I want to see those amoeba clones the gesalts make based on your character that I saw in the Newhome leak.

[Skelewar]

4 hours ago, Mike23Ua said:

Omg.. your absolutely right.. Ignore the vine on the bottom left and whatever that is on the bottom right, split the image right down the center.. CC (& Wagstaff) trigger the Vines in the bottom left Corner (Brightshades) and gives access to the new Lunar Tier Brightshade Gear/Tools, With the Moon itself (the main known entity in control of all the lunar side of stuff) hovers overhead and over on the right side of the image.. You have the Nightmare Pig that drops the new DreadStone Resources & Armor which will likely trigger the Nightmare side of things and whatever’s in the far bottom right corner, with Charlie (the main known entity for the shadows) hovering overhead.

This isn’t a coincidence..

Interesting that the ancient fuelweaver is missing, replaced with the shadow pieces. I wonder if there's any reason for that or it just wouldnt make sense for him to be on the surface

[maciu67]

3 hours ago, Skelewar said:

Interesting that the ancient fuelweaver is missing, replaced with the shadow pieces. I wonder if there's any reason for that or it just wouldnt make sense for him to be on the surface

I suppose Ancient Fuelweaver only used shadow magic and he was more like Ancient Gateway guardian. Charlie need him defeated and when it happened she kiddnaped him for unknow reason (maybe for revenge).

19 hours ago, Skelewar said:

these are all made with pure brilliance and brightshade husks. One dichotomy I noticed between the two if you get a lot of dreadstone and few pure horror for shadow, and a lot of pure brilliance and few brightshade husks for lunar.

Charlie - magic, darkness, Wagstaff - science, light

19 hours ago, Skelewar said:

on the lunar side we have

I suppose Celestial Champion is now Wall of Flesh of DST and Pure Brilliance and Brightshade being a hardmode materials (but why Daywalker appears before Ancient Fuelweaver?).

19 hours ago, Zeklo said:

I like to think of it simply as: Lunar for organic (plants & animals), and Shadow for inorganic (metal & bones).

I would paraphrase it as "Lunar for living (plant & animals), and Shadows for dead (metal & bones)".

[bloopah]

5 hours ago, Skelewar said:

Interesting that the ancient fuelweaver is missing, replaced with the shadow pieces. I wonder if there's any reason for that or it just wouldnt make sense for him to be on the surface

Nightmare Werepig is also on the surface there, so...

[Zeklo]

2 hours ago, bloopah said:

Nightmare Werepig is also on the surface there, so...

It was originally meant to be on the surface. I'd say there's a good chance the art was made before/during that time.
And... to be frank, I kind of hope they put it back?

Lore-wise it's neat in the caves, but gameplay wise I really prefer it on the surface.

Maybe if it took longer than 2 days to appear it wouldn't seem so whacky, but alas.

[lakhnish]

11 hours ago, dzzydzzy said:

Especially since this update was released with Wormwood still lacking a new perk in relation to lunar-plant mobs being added.

The perk is that these plants will kill Wormwood too.

That is why he says they are mean friends and takes great joy in using their parts to make new gear (as per his quotes).

[Baark0]

4 hours ago, Zeklo said:

It was originally meant to be on the surface. I'd say there's a good chance the art was made before/during that time.
And... to be frank, I kind of hope they put it back?

Lore-wise it's neat in the caves, but gameplay wise I really prefer it on the surface.

Maybe if it took longer than 2 days to appear it wouldn't seem so whacky, but alas.

caves are starved for content as is, personally think the pig should stay in the caves

[maxwell_winters]

43 minutes ago, Baark0 said:

caves are starved for content as is, personally think the pig should stay in the caves

Nightmare Werepig added nothing to the caves. In most cases, you find him on your way to the ruins, and it requires a ruins item to summon. I see him as a ruins boss that slightly didn't fit in the ruins.