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Wargoth & congruence with other Infernals

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4/15/2025 19:52:18   
TFS
Helpful!


 This is a super niche and pointless topic, but a surprising number of people are pretty passionate about it - so I thought I'd formalize it somewhere outside of the Discord goon caves.

So, Wargoth is the origin point of Infernals (and later Celestials) as a concept in DF's lore. However, the concept has since moved way past Wargoth as a character and he's been left pretty incongruent to every other Infernal and Celestial in the game. He looks drastically different (more like a World of Warcraft character than a biblical angel) to the rest of his race, he's aligned with an element (rather than a unity of all elements), and he effortlessly wields world-ending power (when the 'world' and its fate are Aequilibria, a much higher being responsible for the creation and eventually destruction of the Infernal race).

The first point is one that I've seen brought up a lot, and I kind of agree with it. Wargoth - besides being a really busy, laggy, hard-to-parse design who's often shown next to simple 2005 designs like Xan - lacks the design elements shared between the Infernals and Celestials seen later in the game. Or perhaps earlier in the game, if you actually play through True Mortal for some reason. Chains, eyes, blades, gold, and gowns - the art direction of every other Infernal/Celestial shares a coherent theme (and also looks really good), and even a naive player will assume these elements are related or connected in some way without even knowing the lore. This is the art direction working as intended - rewarding attentive players with an 'aha!' moment, while also creating a coherent and internally consistent world. Wargoth falls far outside of this paradigm, and it's kind of unfortunate that he does - he's not only one of the main villains of the game, he's the only Infernal/Celestial that's actually directly plot-relevant at all rather than being relegated to background lore. Every player is going to be familiar with Wargoth, while not every player is going to be familiar with Caeternam or Yaphael - it's kind of a missed opportunity that when you see Infernal/Celestial remnants in True Mortal/Maleurous/Exaltia/Convergence players won't see these design elements and immediately think of Wargoth. It'd be cool to have the same neurons firing as when players see Aequilibria and recognize it from Pride and The Apex, yk?

my guy's fit is mid, and maybe if he fixed that yee-yee haircut he'd get some lore nerds on his questline. discuss

< Message edited by TFS -- 4/15/2025 20:46:54 >
DF  Post #: 1
4/15/2025 20:17:20   
lucennia
Member

Completely agree. I’ve always been a huge fan of the Infernal/Celestial designs introduced in the Exaltia Tower—easily the best in the game imo (love the Peter Mohrbacher inspiration)—so I was a bit disappointed to see that Wargoth didn’t receive an updated design to match those aesthetics.

I’ll admit that on my first playthrough, I didn’t even register that Wargoth was an Infernal until the Book 3 finale arc brought that lore back into focus. His design just feels completely disconnected from the rest of the Infernal/Celestial visuals we see later on—like Caeternam, the Exaltia Tower, Sirius, Notha’s tech, and the Aequilibria reveal. Even (human) Warlic's magic beams in the Fissure are Infernal/Celestial-coded.

I totally understand that updating older art takes time and resources, but I do think Wargoth deserved that attention. He’s not only the main antagonist of Book 2, but also a major NPC’s alter ego and the player’s first real glimpse into the greater cosmic conflict that becomes central to the endgame. A visual update could have really helped reinforce that narrative connection.
Post #: 2
4/15/2025 20:29:07   
FireyBombz
Member
 

 TFS brings up some valid points. Of course, this is contingent on Wargoth being the same type of Infernal as the ones from the Exalted Alliance, but I think that is pretty clear, given that they all generate mana, as well as the three-part connection from Warlic placating the Avatars, to Wargoth overpowering the Avatars, to finally Warlic and friends sealing Aequilibria (the elements). It's very clear that the art design for Wargoth and the other Infernals are separated by more than a decade, but that really only exists to give more weight to the argument for updating Wargoth's design. If nothing else, it would be really good for his titan form to have more shared features.
Post #: 3
4/15/2025 20:58:47   
Baron Dante
Member

I think this makes sense, but I think it's also pretty hard to cohesively redesign something like this.
Book 2 isn't changing, story-wise. Therefore, Wargoth is still bound to be fire-aligned etc. which still needs to be reflected in the design, and it'll still clash with the lore of the Exalted stuff.
That said, the Book 2 revisit should expand on the barebones story, so stuff like this could, and maybe should be explained somewhere along the line.
Understandably, it might be hard to change Wargoth's design as it's arguably somewhat iconic, being the main villain of Book 2, plus having to reskin/remake the multiple fights with him.
What comes to mind is the cryptic cutscene showing Wargoth (Original) getting shanked by Wargoth Jr. that left them as silhouettes... for some reason.
This could possibly be leverages to show what he "should" look like, while having some kind of justification for the current design (Such as, well, being half of Warlic, essentially)

Still, it is something that could use a closer look in terms of worldbuilding and all.
AQ DF MQ AQW Epic  Post #: 4
4/15/2025 21:07:26   
Zeldax
Member
 

 Agreed. The design choices for every other Infernal/Celestial in the game are very deliberate and cohesive, so Wargoth getting an updated design to match them would be great and tie him closer to them as part of the race. And as others have mentioned, he's a major character that's very much relevant to one of DF's main stories, so giving him an updated design would be fairly justified.
Post #: 5
4/16/2025 4:45:41   
Aethervic3
Member
 

 Logging in for the first time in ages to agree with this post. Not just because I think the current wargoth design is ugly and doesn’t really fit in with the characters he appears next to but because I agree that a good opportunity to unify the designs of the infernals was missed.

Wargoth is the first Infernal a player is likely to encounter and also their likely introduction to the concept. Currently most of the exalted lore in the game is placed in out of the way areas or is introduced by the malerous saga, which is commonly criticised for dense lore that is hard to parse and, for some, hard to care about. I feel like more clearly linking Wargoth to the exalted would help at least a bit in alleviating those complaints, since it would at least give the player an idea of what the infernals are and what they are capable of. It would also possibly make the player more interested in learning more about them, which is a good benefit when much of the backstory of both the main story and many side stories involves them.

As it is currently I have met some players who did not even realise that the infernal Wargoth and the infernal contingent of the exalted were supposed to be of the same species. At the very least a redesign would provide some clarity on that.
Post #: 6
4/16/2025 5:00:30   
DMBY
Member
 

 I have no new talking points but I 100% agree, as it stands the gap between the designs of Wargoth and the other Infernals we see in the game is very noticeable.

If possible, I'd love to see the former brought more in line with the latter.
Post #: 7
4/19/2025 23:52:08   
The ErosionSeeker
*insert cheesy pun here*


 This makes sense. Because the idea of the book 2 reimagining is to expand it and make it better align with the rest of the game's lore (especially because it's a direct consequence of book 1 and directly causes book 3), it's definitely reasonable to confirm once and for all whether all infernals are the same kind of entity. True Mortal is supposed to be before book 2, so stumbling upon Caeternam then Wargoth then Exaltia Tower monsters makes him seem like something unrelated entirely.
Definitely wouldn't be a simple change though, because there would be his base art, side/monster art, and titan art to deal with, as well as that this would be changing a 12+ year old character that people are already familiar with.
If it really comes down to that, updating the titan art only (explained in-universe as him turning into his true form) could be a viable compromise.
DF AQW  Post #: 8
4/21/2025 19:08:08   
TFS
Helpful!


 Thanks for the replies fellas

quote:

I’ll admit that on my first playthrough, I didn’t even register that Wargoth was an Infernal until the Book 3 finale arc brought that lore back into focus. His design just feels completely disconnected from the rest of the Infernal/Celestial visuals we see later on—like Caeternam, the Exaltia Tower, Sirius, Notha’s tech, and the Aequilibria reveal.

I'll admit, as someone who's been playing continuously since Wargoth's inception this isn't something that had ever occurred to me. Newer players not even realizing that Wargoth/Warlic is even supposed to be the same type of being as the Infernals and Celestials seen in more recent releases is probably the single best demonstration of all the points in the OP.

quote:

Currently most of the exalted lore in the game is placed in out of the way areas or is introduced by the malerous saga, which is commonly criticised for dense lore that is hard to parse and, for some, hard to care about. I feel like more clearly linking Wargoth to the exalted would help at least a bit in alleviating those complaints, since it would at least give the player an idea of what the infernals are and what they are capable of. It would also possibly make the player more interested in learning more about them, which is a good benefit when much of the backstory of both the main story and many side stories involves them.

This is another excellent point! Again, this is the kind of thing foreign to my perspective, but conflating Exalted lore with a portion of the story players are more likely to care about would be a clever way to generate interest in portions of the lore with less appealing presentation. I can definitely see Book 3 being retroactively improved through cohesion with Book 2.

quote:

Definitely wouldn't be a simple change though, because there would be his base art, side/monster art, and titan art to deal with, as well as that this would be changing a 12+ year old character that people are already familiar with.

To play Infernal's advocate, Wargoth's NPC model is never actually used outside of quests that are already slated to be reimagined (and one that was just reimagined this month, I guess). Wargoth's Monster model is only ever used twice outside of these quests, in non-canon boss rematch zones, and his Titan model is only ever reused for one of Archivist's attack animations. The old art isn't super heavily incorporated into the game, outside of quests that are already being remade with explicit intent to improve them anyway.

quote:

Warlic placating the Avatars, to Wargoth overpowering the Avatars, to finally Warlic and friends sealing Aequilibria (the elements).

This is a really cool observation, but seeing as it's never highlighted in-game I'm not sure it's intentional lol
DF  Post #: 9
4/22/2025 13:32:45   
Dratomos
Helpful!


 This is a good idea and I hope it will be implemented.

This actually reminded me of something. Back in Book 1's Ravenloss Saga, we saw some hints about Sk'aar. And more of his symbols during Exalted Tower and Pride. And then finally we saw Aequlibria and how they could be connected. It was great to see all that foreshadowing matter. And updating Wargoth's design you could do the same for new players when they start Exalted Tower and Maleurous saga.

If not outright change the design immediately, maybe have Wargoth gradually evolve from the original form we saw in Rising Fire's Harbinger quest and then change to full Exalted mode during The Merge's reimagining? Maybe explain it that the more Wargoth used his mana and embraced his Infernal side, the more he starts to resemble other Infernals? And his original form is amalgation of his Infernal side and leftovers of Warlic's human side? That could also be interesting to see.
DF AQW  Post #: 10
4/27/2025 8:14:56   
Bluu
Member

quote:

If not outright change the design immediately, maybe have Wargoth gradually evolve from the original form we saw in Rising Fire's Harbinger quest and then change to full Exalted mode during The Merge's reimagining? Maybe explain it that the more Wargoth used his mana and embraced his Infernal side, the more he starts to resemble other Infernals? And his original form is amalgation of his Infernal side and leftovers of Warlic's human side? That could also be interesting to see.

I meant to respond to this thread a while ago but I didn't really have the motivation to. That being said, I think this is the best solution to the issue without having to completely rework quests that were already just reworked. Everyone in this thread, especially TFS and Lucennia, brought up some great arguments in favor of a Wargoth redesign to be more consistent with the overarching lore and story built into the rest of the game.
Post #: 11
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