History VideoGame / DrownedGod

* [[UsefulNotes/{{Alchemy}} Alchemy]]: The Philosopher’s Stone is one of the four relics, and the alchemist The Count of St. Germain (or maybe an animatronic version of him) holds one half of it.

* OurAngelsAreDifferent: [[spoiler: When Edgar Cayce reaches out to you towards the end, he explains that there exist some individuals who used to live during Atlantean times in a past life, and that they're called "Lost Angels", some of whom currently fighting a battle which will determine the fate of the world. Given that the Majestic 12 messenger back in Binah referred to Kether and Malchut as "Lost Angels", and that the two speak about wanting to go back to the Garden of Eden/Atlantis as if they have personal experiences with it, this means that like your player character, Kether and Malchut are also reincarnated individuals, but their Lodges have different interpretations on what the Garden ''should'' be like if they return to it, causing their clashing ideologies.]]

** 666: [[spoiler: It's very subtle and easy to miss, but it refers to the Legion, as Baphomet relates how Isis once wrote, "When every sign says 6, when the book says 6, 6, 6, make it 7, 7, 7"; later on, one of the alien autopsy photos you can see in the Hacker's files shows that the alien corpse has 666 tattooed in its palm.]]

* WhenThePlanetsAlign: Throughout the game and in the manual, several characters such as the Relic Hunter and Baphomet predict that when "the Four Creatures" align, these being the constellations of the Leo, Taurus, Scorpio, and Aries, an apocalypse will happen that will cover the world in fire. [[spoiler: It's all but stated that this would be caused by the nuke in the Ark of the Covenant, but these predictions didn't come to anything in any of the endings.]]

** The Kether Lodge worships Osiris, though it's only mentioned once, and he is considered "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit". The imagery of the Lodge with their heavy focus on technology and control has predominately associated with patriarchies.

** The Malchut Lodge venerates Isis (they have no problem with Osiris, but consider Isis more important), and exalt nature over technology, emphasizing emotion over hard logic, which have typically seen throughout history as feminine ideals.

* HeroOfAnotherStory: Within Din you find the hideout of the Hacker, a prominent member of a rebel group called the Aviary who work to expose the secrets of the government. It’s on the Hacker’s computer where you find out what’s been going on all along.

* InfoDump: The game is mostly vague with its story until you find the massive load of files on the Hacker’s computer explaining in great detail the history between aliens and humans beginning from pre-history all the way up to modern day, as well as what the plans are for the future for both of them. It’s a long read, but it actually does answer a lot of the questions the game has been building up.

** [[spoiler: It turns out the Legion were either created or became allies of Horus, as his silhouette can be seen in the center background during their ending. It's heavily hinted that the Legion are artificial creations, as they have numbers on their hands, have genetic disorders that have become worse over time, are called "barcoded automatons" by Baphomet, and the fourth DNA sample you place into NOAH possibly says "Horus gene" which creates an unknown hybrid that sets an alarm off in NOAH. Whether Horus created them or not, he's currently working with them in their efforts to influence the world and continue their genetic experiments on humans.]]

* {{Baphomet}}: Instead of the classic goat-person interpretation, he appears in Din as a seemingly organic severed head stuffed into a mechanical shell connected to tubes, asking you to get the two pieces of the Philosopher’s Stone so he can make it whole. As in many centuries-old conspiracies, he is connected to the UsefulNotes/KnightsTemplar in some way since he calls himself their “talking head”. The main account of Osiris’s murder that is relayed throughout the game is said to have come from Baphomet’s testimony of the events.

* AllThereInTheManual: As detailed in BigLippedAlligatorMoment in the YMMV, the Relic Hunter's presence in the game comes across as inexplicable. The [[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BMhT-7X_gR5nw5egfKrD65MJieuU8ZZp/view manual]] details his backstory that he, like your player character, was once chosen to retrieve the relics from the realms, but that he failed at the task. The manual also provides a glossary for much of the people, places, and things that are namedropped throughout.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: After the Relic Hunter gets killed by his doppelganger (or vice versa, it's not clear), the surviving half walks off and you never see him again. The manual indicates that at some point he becomes a FishOutOfTemporalWater by ending up in the future shown in Chokmah, where he is viewed by psychologists as being a lunatic trying to make a hoax, but it's unknown if this happens before or after your encounter with him in the game.

* GovernmentConspiracy: [[spoiler: Agencies within the U.S. government, particularly Majestic Twelve, made a deal with the alien collective known as the Legion after Roswell, where the government can use alien technology and have them protect the Earth from asteroids, and in return the aliens can use humans for their experiments and eventually create a New World Order by 2025.]]

* TheGreatFlood: Happened as a result of asteroids from an alien civil war hitting Earth, which destroyed Atlantis.

* [[UsefulNotes/TheKnightsTemplar The Knights Templar]]: Another one of the secret societies who protected the hidden knowledge of history. A drunk Templar guards the Holy Grail, and it is said that famous luminaries like Creator/LeonardoDaVinci and [[UsefulNotes/IsaacNewton Isaac Newton]] were members of their spiritual descendant, The Priory of Scion.

** Besides the previously mentioned Morgana, the Templar you meet above her in the Tower has been inside there for so long that his eyes have rotted away into cavernous black holes and his skin resembles that of a mummy.

* DoubleMeaningTitle: “Drowned God” could be a subtle nod to some versions of the Osiris myth where his body is thrown into the water, and it could also refer to the burial of the ancient knowledge regarding humanity’s true origins.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler: You fail to retrieve the Ark of the Covenant, and regardless of which ending you choose, humanity is probably screwed. Two of the endings plunge the world into submission under either the Illuminati or the Nephilim Lodge, and the third, which is probably the canonical ending and doesn’t have the Earth immediately dominated, has a promise that the Legion will arrive someday, but they have already been shown to have collaborated with various world governments to influence modern history.]]

* EnfantTerrible: Horus, maybe. He resembles a fetus when you meet him, while the other [[TheGreys Greys]] you see do not, and he calls himself “just a child.” If he really is a child, he has a [[VocalDissonance very deep voice for one]]. It's possible that by his species' standards, he's still quite young, but his intelligence at least matches an average human adult.

* TheGreys: Of course, but it seems at least some like Osiris had a more, ''ahem'', human-like anatomically correct appearance that differed from the usual BarbieDollAnatomy that Greys are depicted with.

* TheIlluminati: One of the many SecretSocieties running around. Malchut accuses Kether of being part of it, though he doesn’t say if he is.

* NoBiochemicalBarriers: In one of the strangest nuggets of conspiracy theory this game throws out, which is saying a lot, apparently HIV/AIDS was the result of an alien autopsy gone awry, which implies that the U.S. government blamed it on the gay community in order to cover it up.

* TheUnintelligible: An unfortunately unintentional example, as one of the main problems with ''Drowned God'' since its release is that inconsistent audio mixing renders half the dialogue extremely difficult if not impossible to understand, with no options for subtitles or changing the volume of the BGM, making an already hard-to-follow game even HARDER. It's only by extracting the raw voice lines from the game files that it becomes more comprehensible. Some examples can be found on [[https://www.youtube.com/user/PhillipOliverWholes this channel]].

* EnfantTerrible: Horus, maybe. He resembles a fetus when you meet him, while the other [[TheGreys Greys]] you see do not, and he calls himself “just a child.” If he really is a child, he has a [[VocalDissonance very deep voice for one]]. It's possible that by his species' standards, he's still quite young, but his intelligence at least matches a human's.

* AdaptationalVillainy: [[Myth/EgyptianMythology Horus]] takes the place of Set in this game as the one who killed Osiris, although the circumstances are ''very'' different than in the myth. However, Horus claims that it wasn’t he who betrayed Osiris, but Isis. Not many other characters take his side in the story, with most others as well as the official testimony saying he did it. Also, he might be the Serpent from the Garden of Eden. Either way, he doesn’t seem like a pleasant fellow when you meet him.

* AdaptedOut: Set and Nephthys are ignored and not mentioned by anyone else, which is strange since the reinterpretation of the Osiris myth makes up a large chunk of the backstory. Set is listed in what looks to be a family tree (or perhaps a list of names of the people who passed down the secret of the Drowned God) in the book in Leondardo da Vinci's Workshop along with other figures like Baphomet, Anubis, and Merlin, among others, but Nephthys is not.

** One section of the Relic Hunter's handwritten notes in the game manual has him describe how he found other Relic Hunters wandering around who have had plague doctor masks permanently bolted onto their heads, presumably as punishment for their failures, and that the masks feel like human skin to the touch. [[FridgeHorror Consider that we find the "main" Relic Hunter wearing a plague doctor mask himself by the time we see him in the game...]]

The plot itself revolves around your character inheriting a mysterious device called the Bequest Globe, and upon entering your name you are shown several of your past lives and are assigned a number between 1 and 9 as well as a planetary symbol. The disembodied voice of your benefactor tells you to use the Globe's Cryptowheel to travel through time and discover the secret of the Drowned God.

* {{Nephilim}}: The group that Malchut says she is a part of, and the closing speech at the end of the game refers to them as the people of Isis; it's not entirely clear what they are, but they're most likely either the "manimals" that resulted from the genetic experimentation ''or'' they're the offspring of aliens, replacing angels, with humans, and if so then that would make Horus a Nephil if Isis is indeed a human.

* TheReveal: The titular Drowned God is Osiris, who turns out to be an alien who fled to Earth following the destruction of his home planet, and afterwards founded Atlantis (the Garden of Eden is just another name for Atlantis), where he took Isis as a wife and shepherded humanity before Atlantis was destroyed by the Great Flood, and he was eventually betrayed by either Isis or Horus. It’s not really a spoiler since the game reveals this pretty early on in an InfoDump book passage. The rest of the game then becomes a JigsawPuzzlePlot where you have to figure out the context behind the story and how it had a domino effect on human history.

* TheUnintelligible: An unfortunately unintentional example, as one of the main problems with ‘’Drowned God’’ since its release is that inconsistent audio mixing renders half the dialogue extremely difficult if not impossible to understand, with no options for subtitles or changing the volume of the BGM, making an already hard-to-follow game even HARDER. It's only by extracting the raw voice lines from the game files that it becomes more comprehensible. Some examples can be found on [[https://www.youtube.com/user/PhillipOliverWholes this channel]].

** The old man Relic Hunter in Din at least seems to be an intentional example as probably a rare attempt in this game at comic relief, as he tends to mumble and trail off while speaking at a distance about the Philosopher’s Stone and doppelgangers.

* VillainousBreakdown: [[spoiler: In case you still thought Kether was trustworthy, at the end of the game he goes on a temporary rant, raving about how there are no real conspiracies, and that the world is governed by chaos, but the entire story leading up to this point has shown that these are BlatantLies. He manages to compose himself soon after, but any remaining doubts you might have had about him are thrown out the window.]]

''Drowned God: Conspiracy of the Ages'' (1996) is the brainchild of political cartoonist/children's book author/illustrator/musician Harry Horse (real name Richard Horne), and is the result of a creator being inspired by the likes of ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'' and ''VideoGame/TheSeventhGuest'' to collaborate with the short-lived British publisher Inscape and release a point-and-click adventure game based off a forged manuscript Horse created in the 80's that the buyer of said forgery mistakenly believed was the work of a real poet named Richard Horne (who coincidentally happened to share Harry's birth name).

* AdaptedOut: Set and Nephthys are ignored and not mentioned by anyone else, which is strange since the reinterpretation of the Osiris myth makes up a large chunk of the backstory. Set is listed in what looks to be a family tree (or perhaps a list of names of the people who passed down the secret of the Drowned God) in the book within Binah along with other figures like Baphomet, Anubis, and Merlin, among others, but Nephthys is not.

* AncientAstronauts: Osiris and others were aliens who set up shop on Earth in Atlantis and not only did the classic Series/AncientAliens type things like help create the pyramids, but also created humanity itself by genetically altering the animals on Earth, which is the Missing Link. According to WordOfGod, the knowledge of humanity’s origins was stored in the Library of Alexandria, being burnt down for not following religious doctrine, and so multiple secret societies were created to preserve the truth.

* AncientConspiracy: The subtitle “Conspiracy of the Ages” is there for a reason, the big overarching conspiracy is that aliens created and influenced humanity, and at the same time there are ''multiple'' smaller ancient conspiracies all working against each other simultaneously in order to control history and by extension humanity, as well as a few more recent ones.

* {{Baphomet}}: Instead of the classic goat-person interpretation, he appears in Din as a seemingly organic severed head stuffed into a mechanical shell connected to tubes, asking you to get the two pieces of the Philosopher’s Stone so he can make it whole. As in many centuries-old conspiracies, he seems to be connected to the UsefulNotes/KnightsTemplar in some way since he calls himself their “talking head”. The main account of Osiris’s murder that is relayed throughout the game is said to have come from Baphomet’s testimony of the events.

* CircusOfFear: Part of Din takes place in a 19th century/early 20th century carnival called the Theatre of Memory where you speak to UsefulNotes/CarlJung and a demented Creator/AleisterCrowley in a jack-in-the-box. There’s also a very creepy pair of large marble child statues.

* CreatorCameo: Richard Horne provides a few voices such as one of King Arthur's knights, a few of the radio transmissions, and the Majestic 12 messenger in Binah, the latter of which is depicted as a video of his mouth. And those are the ones that are obvious, it's possible that he voiced other characters, though it's hard to tell since the game doesn't list who voiced which characters.

* DeadlyGame: The drunk Templar in Binah challenges you to a board game where you have to drink a poisoned wine every time you lose, and if you lose twice in a row you die, and the Templar always wins no matter what in the first round. Luckily, there’s an exploit where the game will reset if you turn away from the board and come back.

** Binah: Air. You start off in the windy plains of Stonehenge, which you use as portals to sling yourself across great distances, and there's a fairy who shows you which way to travel sometimes.

** Din: Earth. Based around machinery inspired by the Industrial Revolution era and mostly takes place underground, and you travel around via subways.

** Chokmah: Fire. Takes place in the arid southwest region of America, the sky is an apocalyptic shade of orange, and there's talk that the world is about to come to an end. [[spoiler: Also, the Ark of the Covenant that's located here turns out to contain a nuclear warhead.]]

* EnfantTerrible: Horus, maybe. He resembles a fetus when you meet him, while the other [[TheGreys Greys]] you see do not, and he calls himself “just a child.” If he really is a child, he has a [[VocalDissonance very deep voice for one]].

* TheGreys: Of course, but it seems at least some like Osiris had a more, ''ahem'', human-like anatomically correct appearance.

* GovernmentConspiracy: [[spoiler: Agencies within the U.S. government, particularly Majestic Twelve, made a deal with the aliens after Roswell where the government can use alien technology and have them protect the Earth from asteroids, and in return the aliens can use humans for their experiments and eventually create a New World Order by 2025.]]

* [[UsefulNotes/TheKnightsTemplar The Knights Templar]]: Another one of the secret societies who protect the hidden knowledge of history. A drunk Templar guards the Holy Grail, and it is said that famous luminaries like Creator/LeonardoDaVinci and [[UsefulNotes/IsaacNewton Isaac Newton]] were members of their spiritual descendant, The Priory of Scion.

* LastOfHisKind: Horus claims that he is the last of his kind, with the other aliens either having died during their civil war or during their time on Earth. [[spoiler: He's either wrong or he's lying.]]

* LeftHanging: Due to the restrictions of the time, Harry Horse was unable to incorporate all of the story elements he wanted to, which shows with the final area Chokmah being short and the game ending abruptly with many, many questions still in the air. Horse considered making a sequel titled ‘’CULT’’ which was supposed to focus more on Area 51 and give out the last pieces of the puzzle, which of course never happened.

* MegaCorp: A company in the near future within Chokmah called Arcadia has advertisements on the radio (which itself is a product of theirs) offering things like VR vacations and an energy drink called Watermelon Sugar that they are [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial strangely insistent contains no harmful additives whatsoever]]. Given that their radio has the triangular All-Seeing Eye that’s often associated with groups like the Illuminati, [[spoiler: and they’re implied to be connected to the alien Legion,]] they’re probably up to no good, but it’s ambiguous what their goals are.

* MoonLogicPuzzle: [[SubvertedTrope Less than you would think for a game like this.]] A lot of the more difficult puzzles are actually just established strategy board games like Nine Men’s Morris, but those games ''are'' difficult since most players aren’t familiar with them.

* DiabolusExMachina: [[spoiler: A man-pig hybrid in a cowboy outfit teleports into the Chokmah diner to warn you about the experiments on humans that’s happening, but as soon as he leaves the Man In Black suddenly appears behind you and knocks you out, transporting you back to the Bequest Globe where Kether and Malchut admonish you for failing to get the Ark of the Covenant.]]

* {{Nephilim}}: The group that Malchut says she is a part of, and the closing speech at the end of the game refers to them as the people of Isis; it's not entirely clear what they are, but they might be the so-called "manimals" that are the result of the genetic experiments where human-animal hybrids were once created.

* TheGreys: Of course, but it seems at least some like Osiris can change their appearance.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: After the Relic Hunter gets killed by his doppelganger (or vice versa, it's not clear), the surviving half walks off and you never see him again. The manual indicates that at some point he becomes a FishOutOfTemporalWater by ending up in the present-day, where he is viewed by psychologists as being a lunatic trying to make a hoax, but it's unknown if this happens before or after your encounter with him in the game.

* LeftHanging: Due to the restrictions of the time, Harry Horse was unable to incorporate all of the story elements he wanted to, which shows with the final area Chokmah being short and the game ending abruptly with many, many questions still in the air. Horse planned to make a sequel titled ‘’CULT’’ which was supposed to focus more on Area 51 and give out the last pieces of the puzzle, which of course never happened.

** Chokmah: Fire. Takes place in the arid southwest region of America, the sky is an apocalyptic shade of orange, and there's talk that the world is about to come to an end. [[spoiler: Also, the Ark of the Covenant that's located here turns out to be a nuclear warhead.]]

* ArtificialHybrid: Part of the aliens’ experiments on humans involves using the NOAH machine, which stores DNA of every animal, to create half-human/half-animal hybrids called manimals, which explains such creatures from mythology like the minotaur.