No Gods, No Masters.
There are no gods in Thief Universe. There is only chaotic magic and pseudoscience.- The Trickster a.k.a Constantine is just a overly powerful beastsie mage. He patronized various species such as the Kurshok. He didn't object technology at first as indicated in Kurshock's records, until Kurshok got too full of themselves and declared their king was greater than him. So he buried them along with the Precursors. Later in his endeavour to stop human from leaning to technology, the human banded together to thwart him. This also explains why Constantine was so much weaker compared to his creation-god-like version in folklore that he had to rely on Garrett and the Eye for his Dark Project.
- From the battle against the evil mage Trickster came the myth of The Master Builder. That's right. The Master Builder does not exist at all. Figures like St.Edgar who participated in the struggle against Trickster may exist, but are heavily mystified. That's why the Metal Age featured an antisocial prophet a.k.a Karras instead of an Avatar of The Master Builder or The Builder Himself.
- The Precusors worship elemental deities which Garrett kept shooting around. The four elements are subjects of SCIENCE! and the Hand Brotherhood is a science community.
- The Hag IS Keeper Gamall who was among the four keepers who discovered the Transmutation Glyph. She alone was seduced by its power and began using it to prolong her own life. For some strange reason she wants to use her own name now, so she had to destroy or remove all Keeper's records about herself before wearing the little girl Lauryl's skin, which causes much confusion among folks. However it's clear that she was not a god nor deity.
- The One True Keeper is not god. Garrett is.
Garret is still stuck in the Cradle.
Garret never actually was able to leave the Cradle, the last part of the mission was simply a trick by the Cradle to make him think he left. In reality, he is now the Cradle's newest patient, and the rest of the game, and any future games in the series that feature Garret, are halucinations by him as he roams the halls.- Alternatively, he was inside the Cradle all along, one of the orphans who died in that fire, dreaming a Dying Dream of becoming a great hero of the City.
The trickster deity is HP Lovecraft's Great old one/Outer god Nyarlathotep.
Nyarlathotep, like the woodsie lord is a trickster who manipulates people. Plus the precursors mention in a scroll that they made offerings to a deity called N'lathotep to stop the catyclysm and appease his anger. Also the Cthulhu statue raises the question of whether Cthulhu had a part to play in their downfall.- Also of note is that both beings have a close association with chaos (Nyarlathotep's very title is the Crawling Chaos) and seem willing to teach humans what could easily be perceived as magic (as indicated in the Haunter of the Dark). The cults of both even made sacrifices, as was implied by the corpse in the City Watch morgue that was said to have been killed by Pagans.
The girl from the Deadly Shadows final cutscene will be the protagonist of the next game
Or was it a boy? Anyway, they were certainly going for the Book Ends effect in that scene, probably implying that Garret will assume Artemus' mentor figure role in the next game.- It was a girl. Cutscene script files use the article "she" in refference to her.
- Recently, it was revealed that Garrett will still be the protagonist in Thief 4.
Thief is set in the same universe as Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura
It very well could be, but probably on a different landmass than Arcanum's main continent (this would explain the absence of Tolkienian humanoid races and the bigger amount of Beast Man races). Besides, during the course of the trilogy, we never really leave the City and its environs and only find minor references to the outside world. Who knows, maybe the City originally started out as an overseas colony of humans from the main continent in Arcanum... Also, the elements most notably shared by Thief and Arcanum include themes such as the transition of a gritty late medieval fantasy world to a more technological and industrial one, The Magic Versus Technology War and the overall decline of magic and wizards. And both settings feature locations with ruins and advanced technology left over by a mysterious precursor civilization.- Interesting idea, but there is a problem. In both games, magic is experiencing something of a decline, albeit not a catastrophic one. However, in Arcanum, civilization is growing and thriving; in Thief, there is The City and not all that much else. The overall level of social development just isn't compatible, unless you set the games centuries apart with an apocalypse in between.
- As I said, it's set on a different continent. One that is, outside of The City, economically poor and mostly backwards when compared with the main Arcanum continent.
The Machines are in Charge in Thief II: The Metal Age
The clue is in the name "Soulforge". Karras managed to make a thinking machine; maybe it's the huge computer that you find in one room in Soulforge Cathedral. He believes that it is the Builder; his apparent conversations with the Builder in his journals aren't voices in his head but chats with the AI. The machine wants to take over the world and is using the Mechanists to further its goals, with Karras as a mouthpiece. The Hag is single-handedly responsible for all the bad things that happened in the Cradle
Consider this: aside from the physicians' sadism and the patients' reasons for being inducted into the asylum, prior to Lauryl's death, there is no concrete indication of the Cradle displaying a malevolent, supernatural sentience. Therefore, one can assume that, after killing Lauryl and stealing her skin, Gamall, probably out of sheer malevolence, used her glyph magic to cause the Cradle to come alive and develop an evil sentience, becoming powerful enough to trap the souls of all inside it potentially forever. This has the happy-ending implication that Garrett's activation of the Final Glyph put and end to the horror. Thief Takes place in an alternate universe/Alternate reality of Medieval Europe where the Romans kickstarted the first Industrial Revolution before falling
As in, the Romans successfully started an industrial revolution which eventually led to the downfall of the Roman Empire and most of Civilization within Asia Minor (probably some sort of zombie apocalyptic), hence the weird Hammerite-Abrahamic religion mixed with Pagan Beliefs. Karras has bad hayfever
He talks like his nose is bunged up and believes all plants are evil. The Thief series is set in the same universe as the Shrek series
You know? both have Modern/Medieval elements in those 2 franchises. Threads is supposed to be set in the game franchise's very distant past.
