There’s Tibia as many of you know it, and then there’s the Tibia that’s right in our faces, yet hidden behind the curtains, and it has over ten thousand hours of playtime to uncover, while constantly evolving.
It’s absolutely filled to the brim with puzzles, and you don’t even have to like lore to enjoy it.
I myself had no aspiration for lore at all before dipping my feet into Tibian lore, I couldn’t even read books.
If you love puzzles, mostly spoiler free, this could very well be the best thing you’ll ever experience. (I’m not kidding)
Let me show you some puzzles, interactively!
What does the lever in Tom’s house do?
Click below to get some leads:
{more-Tom’s Lever-1}
{more-1. Try This}
Imagine you literally are Tom and you have a lever in your house.
- What would you use it for?
- What purpose would it serve?
- Why would you hide it under a bucket?
Think about it for a while.
{/more-1. Try This}
{more-2. Open Sesame}
There is no handle on the bars sealing his valuable storage. The lever is most likely used to open the bars, else Tom might have a hard time to get in.
It’s also close by, so he can easily access it.
The reward of this little mystery is knowledge, and you learnt how to think, how content creators think, and how to immerse yourself.
And we can wonder, what about the levers by the goblins?
Or the lever in Ab’dendriels wasps nest?
{/more-2. Open Sesame}
{/more-Tom’s Lever-1}
Why does Munster drop “Die”?
{more-Munsters Die-1}
{more-Hint}
Someone likely dropped the “Die” in the well or grate in the town, which is above Munsters location. I would talk to the NPCs to see if there is anyone who might have some information on someone who at any time had some “Die”.
Why not try it ingame?
{/more-Hint}
{more-A Lead!}
Huh! So Billy or Willy might have dropped the “Die” in the well.
Player: billy
Norma: He got lucky when Willie and him played a game of dice about who gets to farm on which side of the river. Ever since, Willie holds a grudge against him.
What next?
Now it’s quite obvious, we should go and talk to them and see if any of them knows more.
Can you spot the sneaky answer before going further?
{/more-A Lead!}
{more-Resolution}
Billy has something interesting to say:
Player: Rat
Billy: If you bring me a fresh rat for my famous stew, ask me for a trade.
Billy is very poor and likely collects rats himself, and while rummaging around the sewer, he likely lost his dice.
Could’ve been a fight with Munster!
Could’ve been lost in the well!
These are extremely rewarding to find yourself, and you will find that the content creators have thought of everything.
To learn this mystery, without spoilers, you would have had to randomly find Munster, have it dropping a rare “Die”, and then piecing together the clues.
So it’s actually a really hidden and fun little mystery.
Would you ever think that the talk with Billy could’ve been a hint to a hidden mystery, without previous knowledge?
Player: Rat
Billy: If you bring me a fresh rat for my famous stew, ask me for a trade.
Me neither.
{/more-Resolution}
{/more-Munsters Die-1}
1. What is the lore?
The lore of Tibia is truly unique and nothing like you’ve seen in any other game, and I really mean it.
There’s over 25 years of lore, set in an open-world environment, the lore is vast and complex.
Hundreds of quests, well over a thousand books, over a thousand NPCs, with their gods and beliefs- gossip and lies.
It can provide answers to every single mystery in Tibia, both big and small. Once you’ve learnt something new, five more mysteries arise you’ve never even heard or thought of. You’ll see that a big majority of the mysteries are never even discussed online.
Once you’ve understood a concept, it’ll completely change the way you look at Tibia forever. This is described by the content-creators as different meta-levels, and they are explained in a multitude of different ways.
A mystery in Tibia can have several solutions, just like a riddle.
One solution will feel correct, but then somehow another answer pops up that feels even better. It’s important to have an open and flexible mindset. Follow Tibia.
The lore is deeply contextual, and every NPC, ground item, book and quest serves a purpose. This includes seemingly insignificant details like short books containing only a title or quests that may appear as fool’s errands.
With tens of thousands of mysteries in Tibia, the lore contains various explanations and intricate riddles.
2. How does the lore work?
The lore works in several different ways depending on what you like to do. Some people like to focus on single characters such as Ferumbras, others might dedicate all their time to deciphering 469- and others like to read all about the culture of the elves.
What I found to work best when unveiling the lore is as follows:
- Have fun
- Self explanatory. If you don’t have fun doing it, then it is not for you.
Contained lore
-
This is the lore of a city or a place, where there are several stories told from the views of its inhabitants.
Minotaurs in Mintwallin might describe the events that occur(ed) there from their point of view, their legends and their upbringing. The deathly city of Ankrahmun might have competely different views and ways of describing their lore and upbringings. You can explore every single nook and cranny of a place to get a contained picture. -
Question everything.
Every single item, every single NPC, every single book, every single quest. They are all there for a reason, and they all have a story to tell.
Another example of a larger contained mystery in Ankrahmun: Pt. 1, Pt. 2
Many mysteries can be explained in contained lore, but far, far from all.
After and only after you’ve searched every nook and cranny of a contained place, you will feel there are some loose ends you cannot explain within. These leads will only emerge once you’ve properly explored a place, read their books, completed their quests & talked to its inhabitants. This is the only way of feeling and seeing the importance of certain ‘mundane’ leads that others don’t care to even think about, because frankly It’s impossible. This is when we get to the next section.
Overlapping lore
- After following leads from contained lore, you might find yourself reading the philosophies from another race & place. They will use different words to describe certain effects and events. A common example is Divination, Dream magic & Spells. Each of them being the same thing. However, figuring this out is not as easy as it might sound.
- The genesis and framework for all lore was engineered by Knightmare. All succeeding lore and content is built upon this framework and thus, in a similar way as Knightmare started it.
- Interview with Knightmare 2010:
“People tend to think what they read in (real life) history books is the one and only, true and definite history of the world. Well it isn’t. What we read in books was pictured out by historians from several source texts that they took as reference. Those texts are often biased and sometimes forged, sometimes based on misconceptions or hearsay. Instead of providing a definite history without doubts of blind spots, I try to give the players source material. In most cases they have to picture out the course of events on their own. It’s their choice which text or NPC they believe. It’s up to them to cross reference texts to figure out what truly happened.”
We find several historians within Tibia that will tell you their research, but keep in mind- it is not the true and definite history of the world of Tibia. After exploring every nook and cranny of your leads in another ‘contained place’, you will find some similarities- while they’re not exactly the same, there is a reason behind it. The texts are often forged and based on legends, misconceptions and lies. The NPCs you stumble upon might be lying and have an ulterior motive. They might also tell you everything they know- which likely is not the true version because oftentimes they read the works of other historians, or have been lied to.
{more-More Knightmare}
Knightmare: The background that is provided by books. In many areas, those books are extensions of the genesis. Even more than the genesis, which tries to describe in parts the not-understandable, books in Tibia do not include hard facts. They were written by fictional people who did some research on their own. They have faults, intentions, prejudices. Their only advantage, so to say, is that they are possibly writing something about a time period they lived in or about something they heard from people who cannot be accessed by players. Then there are the NPCs. They are even more prejudiced and less focused than the book writers. Yet, they might offer valuable information about certain topics. The “ordinary” NPC might give you clues about certain people and organisations. In their case it’s extremely important to understand how the person you talk to is related to the topic. A citizen in Carlin might hail another person as a hero, while a guard in Thais calls the same person a traitor, yet again, somebody else might consider the whole affair an unintended accident. It is up to the player to decide which claim has more validity, so the player becomes an actual part of the story and works out his very own personal Tibian genesis.
{/more-More Knightmare}
Scattered lore
- This is when you start to see commonalities everywhere, or the hints are all over the place. The lore of Tibia is heavily interconnected and you might find bits and pieces scattered all over. A lot of the older mysteries you know and love are scattered, the hints thin and far between, in very unexpected places and in very unexpected ways.
This is where we get to the last section which is the most difficult yet extremely rewarding.
Solving big mysteries!
- Cross-referencing several contained places, you might stumble upon that little something, that something which you cannot stop thinking about.. You are sitting on information that does not make sense at all if you take the words for granted, yet you are constantly pointed towards this information. There are too many connections to ignore and you can feel it just like you feel the leads of a contained place, you can now feel the culmination of all these different leads and a riddle emerges that cannot be seen nor emerge in any other way. Discussing, putting all these leads on a paper or mind-map and trying to reason about it might make something click. And now you are laughing your ass off because the answers are oftentimes funny and completely unexpected. The dopamine release is like nothing else.
Congratulations, you now know what really transpired. You have now reached another “meta-level” which you can use to solve even more riddles & mysteries of your already visited places or future ones. Oftentimes you get the answer to what you initially thought were completely unrelated mysteries.
Here we follow the leads of a contained place into another area and answer a riddle in a most unexpected way. Remember, a riddle can have several different solutions.
3. Where do I start?
By jumping in!
- I recommend to choose a place you have an interest in.
- My favorite is Zao, but why not Rookgaard? or Demona? Ab’dendriel elves? Ankrahmun pharaoe? Thais vampires? Venore trade syndicate? Kazordoon dwarves? Svargrond barbarians?
- If you want some tip on where to go for you first, I’d suggest Kazordoon as it has a lot of mysteries that are not too difficult- and it gets you started. Consider speaking to Emperor Kruzak- and then visiting every nook and cranny of the mines that Malech is guarding. And maybe the surrounding surface.
- Visit their libraries in-game, talk to the NPCs- they usually have a lot to tell you without even trying keywords in the dark.
A couple of keywords I tell every NPC is ‘name’, ‘job’, ‘<name of city>’, ‘<name of other NPCs>’ - Perhaps try to complete a quest without spoilers. I recommend Jakundaf Desert Dungeon or The Hidden City of Beregar. This is not only fun, it also teaches you to think like the content-creators leads you on. Try to think how something was completed, how the leads were designed. A good example of this is the Paradox Tower quest and Dreamers Challenge. Talk to the Thaian pig if you feel like completely losing your mind.
You can also ignore everything I’ve written, and do your own thing.
Do what you feel like. Do what you think is fun!
Common pitfalls
- Thinking that a reward is around every corner.
- The thrill of figuring something out or seeing something new might convince you that there is a physical reward just around the corner. While it might be fun to try and come up with ideas, it’s easy to get stuck in this phase. The lore is HUGE and the mysteries are endless. My opinion is that any mechanical quest / physical reward will emerge just like the solution to the various riddles and mysteries.
- Getting put down by the lack of confirmation.
- We are given source material instead of a definite history without doubts of blind spots. It can be demotivating at times, but after solving a couple of riddles yourself- you will understand why the lore cannot be done any other way. Would we have ANY mystery to solve otherwise?
- Involving real life into the lore.
- There are countless allusions within Tibia. They serve as a way to lighten up the mood to a rather gloomy and dark world, and many enjoy finding them. The content-creators have stated numerous times that everything can be solved within Tibia. An explicit exception to this is the Mysterious Ornate Chest quest- where we have to know some binary, use a graphical program such as Paint, and visit tibia.com.
- I’m sorry, but Kaballah, Hebrew Gematria and Aleister Crowley will not get you anywhere in Tibia.
- Discarding lore as allusions.
- I have seen many people discard certain characters or places as only allusions.
- I’ve seen people think that Hugo Chief from Venore is just be an allusion to Hugo Boss- and then missing out on one of the richest (also lore-wise) characters in Tibia.
- Only getting your information through the internet
- It’s paramount to visit the places in-game. It’s a LOT of fun, highly immersive and there are hundreds of details you only find visually and contextually. (Tom’s Lever!)
- Every. single. thing. is put there for a reason and frankly it’s frighteningly consistent.
- Distractions
- Knightmare introduced distractions as to not give away and to avert from the obvious.
-
Knightmare: “There are so many secrets hidden in my areas that never ever where found, only the obvious things seems to attract peoples attention and possibly distract it from other things that would be too obvious else ;o)”
- It’s paramount to explore every angle and think about every item. Keep asking yourself questions and try to find explanations for them. The lore is just extremely consistent.
- Believeing that things introduced in the same update will give you answers.
- As seen again and again, such as the tower of Caramellia- or Opticording Sphere, quests and mysteries are introduced spanning updates over several years. Tibia lore has been ‘cooking’ for over 25 years, it’s a great time to begin now!
- Forcing a theory
- You will get many ideas along the way, you might have a theory that you’ll do your darndest to fit in. This could make you ignore contradictions and only focus on the bits that fit into your theory. Again, a flexible mindset is paramount.
-
Eudocia: Whilst it is worth keeping an eye on the mysteries, a fresh perspective never hurts and focusing too intensely on one part of a puzzle or mystery sometimes blocks any prospect of the actual solution. And sometimes, if not almost always, the solution is quite different from what you expect.
- Spending all your time on a mystery where you don’t have all the clues yet.
- The answer is out there and you will find it when you least expect it. Follow all the leads! Take a break, visit some other places and come back to it.
- Thinking it’s just unfinished quests.
- What if I told you, it’s all finished, still developing, extremely deep lore? And what you are looking at, is instead a huge hint to something else?
Most Importantly
Have fun!