Improvement of lore

Clound

WHILE READING DBD LORE, ONE MIGHT THINK IT'S BLAND. BUT WHY?

I'll be honest here, I know a good bit of Dbd lore, but not everything. I still feel confident and competent enough to talk about it and its current state.

It might be bland, even boring, but why is that?

I believe it is because the stories/bios are sort of short, uninteresting. They give us the general background and the reason the entity snatched them up but not much more besides that (Claudette is an exception here because of the archives, we get her story in its entirety).

Take Wraith's/Philip's story for example.

It's in no way badly written, but it gives us just the instance, the event that lead to him becoming a killer and it gave the entity a reason to take Philip.

You might argue that lore is there only to show us how and why these characters got to the campfire but I would disagree. When you decide on which killer or survivor you want to play, do you know who you are playing? Do you know what kind of person Meg is besides being an athlete? Do you know what Philip was like before becoming a killer?

What I'm saying is that you don't know who you are playing. You don't know what they are like. The character is exactly what it is. Just a playable character in the game.

On the other side, as more and more killers and survivors come into the game, their lore keeps getting better and better.

The Oni and the Spirit are great examples of this.

Starting from the Spirit.

While reading her story you know that she's in college, her family is dept and her father is mentally deteriorating as bills pile up. She also worked part-time to help her family. Then once when she comes home from work, her mother is slashed up into pieces, a gruesome sight to behold. Her father is behind all of that and right there we get a very vivid description of the fight between Rin and her father.

She barely survives the encounter but how? The entity. It made a promise of revenge to her, it created a bond with her, making her into a killer.

What's so different from say Spirit and Wraith is the reason, the backstory, why and how they became what they are. In Philip's case, the entity took him because he pulled out a guy's spine and murdered him like he used to murder other people. No specific reason for it, right?

When it comes to the Spirit, the entity created a bond with her. It seeks power in revenge, in madness which is exactly what Rin is filled with - the drive and desire for revenge, blood and the death of her father.

Then Oni.

Another descendant of the Yamaoka family tree. The Spirit's ancestor. I can't say for sure what he is to her (most likely her grand grandfather) since they don't know of each other. All they have in common is the Yamaoka family name.

Blinded with a false concept of honor and the will to surpass his father, Kazan noticed the samurai culture growing quiet and ignored. Villagers would pretend to be Samurais and Kazan just had to stop that. He needed to stop this ruining and disaster. He would go around villages and massacre false samurais, bathing entire villages in blood and gore.

Making his way out of the lord's town, he stumbled upon a Samurai who stood in the Oni's way. In a moment of hesitation the Samurai lost the upper hand as quickly as he got it. The Oni on the other hand, did not hesitate and quickly crushed the Samurai's head. Upon finding out it was his father, the Oni wept.

Lost in his rage, Kazan adopted a new nickname, one he was not fond of - Oni-Yamaoka. A noble Lord of a land gave that name to him. The name would both confuse and disgust Kazan and he murdered anyone who would dare use it. He set out on a journey to avenge his name and kill that lord for giving him such a hideous name. Which he did. Exiting the lord's residence, the Oni found himself surrounded by villagers. There were too many of them for Kazan to overwhelm them.

They brought him to a mill to end his life in a slow and painful death but when they returned to it, the Oni was gone and a black fog surrounded the mill.

Now what's good here?

We are met with Kazan and from the first moment of knowing him we get the information that he is a very honorable man, a bit too honorable, blinded by it. We know something is going to go wrong with it. And it does. He goes on a killing spree with his signature weapon, the kanabo, seeking to purify and get rid of the impostors.

We know why he is known as the Oni - it's an insult. It wakes up a rage within him. On top of that, we still are met with the human side of Kazan. He killed his own father and he regrets it clearly. He weeps upon his father's body. A single moment in his story where he lets go of his rage and will for purification.

Only at his weakest moment is he taken by the entity. We know all there is to know about Kazan. Why, how and what lead to him becoming a killer.

How lore improved.

In the conclusion, over time lore has improved drastically. I did not touch upon the Watcher and the Alchemist (Vigo). They are NPC's and I know that many people want the Alchemist to be a killer in the game but I'd argue against that.

I just gave some examples of how DBD lore is improving and what's good, what's bad (in Ojomo's case) and I hope I somewhat cleared up how lore is important in any game because it's honestly much better to know who you are playing then just that one killer with a cool power.

That'll be it for me. Hope you enjoyed.