This is a repeat thread, these topics have been discussed multiple times throughout this community’s history. However, there isn’t much new to talk about, so I thought I’d try to revive this discussion.

First off, the prophecies of Neleneus the Savant, starting with #1:

The day of the Tyrants shall be numbered,
And it shall end with a new order.
The exiles shall return,
And with them, a new leader.
The people shall rejoice,
And Six of them shall rise.
When the Voice of a God speaks
So shall be the first sign.
That which was Lost shall try to return,
But now is not the time for that to be.
The Voice must be destroyed,
For it speaks not the truth.
So shall the last act of the Tyrant be,
Before the Wanderer comes.
With the guidance of a fool,
So shall a new Age begin.

The first prophecy seems pretty straightforward, not as ambiguous as its sequels. It seems clearly to prophesy Alaric’s rise to power (though that does make me wonder, how long ago did Neleneus live?). The only thing slightly confusing to me is "that which was lost shall try to return." I’m assuming that refers to the Abydos mages? But what does trying to return mean - trying to rejoin the rest of civilization in eastern Cythera? They must have had some presence in eastern Cythera, because they initiated people into their cult in the maze under Cademia. Perhaps the Undine always teleported them there and back, like Omen did Bellerophon? (Or is Omen’s Test merely a replica of the original Maze of Initiation?) I’m guessing the prophecy just means "the Cult of Scylla mages snuck back into eastern Cythera and tried to be accepted there, but it ultimately didn’t work out because the Tyrant decided to kill them."

The second prophecy:

Ye shall know the Signs of the Coming of the Second End.
They shall be plague, violence, and treachery.
The Traitors shall be guided as the Hidden were before them.
The Traitors shall not, however, fail as the Hidden.
Look ye, then, for the Omens Five, Proof of the End of the Age.
Sons shall slay fathers, in a game of Power. So is the first Omen.
The Seas shall rise, and the Dead shall walk. This is the second Omen.
A Stranger shall come, and with him Nightmares. This is the third Omen.
The Hidden joining the Traitors, to overcome the Master. This is the fourth Omen.
That which was sundered to four shall be joined, Opener of Ways. This is the fifth Omen.
Against these five Omens, none can stand.
And so shall pass the Age of the Unifier.

First off, the phrase "Second End" - refers to Alaric’s death? Without our knowledge of the plans for Cythera 2, Cythera appears to be a game about saving Alaric. But I wonder if "Second End" is a hint.
"Traitors" - most obvious interpretation is that the Traitors are the Comana brothers, but it’s puzzling that the prophecy says that they will not fail. They seemed to be dead by the end of the game.
"the Hidden" - could refer to the Undine (then who is guiding them?) or the Cult of Scylla mages/liches (then how do they join the Traitors?).
"the Master" - seems like it must refer to Alaric, though in the game fake-Pelagon is the one referred to as master.

I’ve asked Shorty about the prophecy and his explanation was something like this:
"The Comana Bros will be guided (by Undine) as the Cult of Scylla was before them, but the Comana Bros will not fail to upset the balance. …. The Undine (referred to by the same term as the Cult of Scylla because they became part of the cult) will join the Comana Bros to overcome Alaric."
I feel that this must be how we’re expected to interpret the prophecy, but I’m not altogether satisfied with the Hidden referring to different things in different places. Any other interpretations to post? I know we had some interesting ones generated during a Discord discussion a couple of months back.

Third prophecy:
And in the End of the Second Age, the Great Unifier shall pass.
Upon this leaving, shall chaos and disaster come.
Land and Sea shall part, the middle can not hold.
Air and Fire shall wreck havoc, and Night shall fall.
From the Night to the Next Dawn, what was One shall become Many.
The Bird of Two will bemoan his fate, and that of the Third.
The World shall be sundered before the Coming of the Dawn.
And shattered shall it be ever after.
The void shall not keep the parts of the Whole,
For the powers of the Four Directions shall form a Fifth.
The Four parts of the Opener of Ways, Made One.
This shall be the Key to the Fifth Element.
Those that walk the Fifth Element will Bring the Dawn.
And from those Walkers will be brought a New Order.
Only the Walkers of the New Order shall have the Unified Power,
And those of the Four Directions shall be at their mercy.

How much, do you think, of this prophecy would have taken place behind the scenes before Cythera 2 began, and how much would have taken place during the game?
The first half of this prophecy seems to make sense because of clues that Gandreas has given us. Alaric will die, the island of Cythera will shatter, Magpie will grieve. But all that about the fifth element (aren’t humans the fifth element?), I feel like we haven’t heard much about.

Since any discussion about the third prophecy is also a discussion about Cythera 2, I’m going to include some Gandreas quotes with hints about Cythera 2 (mostly from Seldane’s previous Gandreas quotes topic, but also from the 20th anniversary livestream):

It will involve the Undine, but it will involve some very big events..

The sequel is set "a ways" in the future from the first - and its critical that your character leave for certain key events to happen. Basically, the Undine have lost their most powerful artifact to the hands of their most hated enemy, who now has the opportunity to learn to use it and transcend even his current ability. And the sequel is set after that is "resolved".

(The sequel also requires a new engine, since a certain critical "feature" of the world isn't possible with the current one, and, as far as I know, has never been done in any other CRPG).

Omen will actually be part of "Cythera II:Shattered Realm" (or perhaps "Cythera II:Quest for Alaric") - after all, he has a major score to settle, and can turn up like the cockroach he is (though this time you might even have to trust what he is saying, or then again, maybe not).

Gandreas: Hint: Don't trust anyone - they may be helpful but everyone has their own motives.
This applies to Omen, Magpie, all the Seldane, urSlyph, Tavara, the Mages, even Alaric - basically everybody that has any interests in the actions of the hero/heroine. There is no "good" or "evil" there.

gandreas13: After 20 years, here’s the spoiler: [The Crolna] is an anagram for Loc Nar, which is from the film Heavy Metal.
gandreas13: It was supposed to hint that "hey, this might give me power, but it will go bad for me in the end if I use it"
gandreas13: Don't trust anyone
Mercy453: Don't trust anyone... sounds like a hint about Cythera 2
Mercy453: We trusted the Seldane when we beat the game, now there's going to be consequences
gandreas13: Cythera 2 would have had the subtitle "Shattered Realm"
Mercy453: I wonder if the island of Cythera would have been shattered, or the entire Reality.
gandreas13: It would have been broken into separate floating chunks (which would occasionally line up to let you get from one to the other)
gandreas13: Yeah, one of the first parts would have caused you to find Magpie, who would be driving around a cart with an ornate coffin in the back
Mercy453: Oh my! Was Alaric in the coffin? :o
gandreas13: Maaaayyyyybeeeee

References:
Neleneus prophecies discussion in "Omen’s little reward"
First prophecy discussion
Second and third prophecy discussion
Third prophecy discussion
Seldane’s collection of Glenn Andreas quotes

Thanks Wizzy! I'll test this out:
TXT.rtf
This is kinda weird, it appeared as a separate document somehow inside my textedit document, but meh, whatever works.
I had tried the code block thing earlier, but maybe I did it wrong. It didn't seem any different than any other text.

It's so much cuter when you do it in Japanese ^_^ I don't know how to upload attachments either. I can only see eight buttons when I'm typing a message so my options are super limited. There's a button to upload an image (I'm not sure if I could lie and say the text is an image?) but I don't have image-uploading privileges.

Thank you for all the work you did figuring out the technology to make this happen, Wizzy and Fiery! Thank you to Gandreas and Bryce for returning to the Cythera community to share some of their extensive Cythera knowledge. And thanks for all the Cytherans who showed up and made the event so fun ^_^ This event revitalized the community for the couple of weeks leading up to it, and that was really pleasant. Thank you for continuing to love Cythera, everyone!

Edit: I guess I'll see if I can post the text-chat transcript in here. Edit 2: Sorry, I can't figure out. On the old forum I would have used maybe the "code" tag so it wouldn't take over the entire page and the weird symbols like smilie faces wouldn't mess up the whole message.... but the code tag here does not seem to do those things. Sorry, I haven't experimented much with the new forum.

Wow, that checklist has everything! I can see that I would need to make something similar if I were to truly speedrun the game. But I probably won't, since I find it more stressful than enjoyable :\ But watching you and Wizzy do it is fun!

Notes on Buzzy's fourth (18 min) video:

• How did you come up with the brilliant name 'abc'?
• Hector had way too easy a time with those polyps in the citadel!
• Did you speed up the going to sleep and waking up process? I know that just clicking the mouse can speed up the fade-out, but this seemed faster than I’ve seen before.
• Attack a trapdoor. "You could have simply opened it." I kinda agree with the log there - was 'A' easier to hit than 'U'?
• Maayti: Another instance of giant crabs being considered dead bodies or blood @_@ I never knew crabs were so glitchy.
• Did I ever mention how awesome I think it is that your Cythera machine has lasted at least 3149 days? ^_^

Comments on Buzzy's third (20 min) video:

• Do you think it was quite safe to throw the map onto the lamp?
• So one bomb doesn’t kill Eudoxus?
• I appreciate that you included the log in the video ^_^ Especially when you were attempting to get the kelp from the vat of wine. "The vat isn’t locked…" "You can’t take a vat!" (: I love it because that’s totally me when I’m trying to be fast. (I also hate how you have to actually click on a locked door to use your keys, you can’t just use an arrow button.)
• You made that Sapphire glitch look so easy! I always thought the glitch required throwing the false books on the floor and picking them back up. It looked like you could move them from your pouch into your inventory, while still keeping them in your pouch?

Idea: Would the Cythera Menu Patch save any walking time?
I tried to do a "speedrun" using Ignae as my character (invincible, can fly), but it still took me about an hour! I forgot to check exactly how long. Speed is so stressful for me, I want to do everything "right" and I end up having to backtrack. I also neglected to get any followers, which forced me to fight my way out from enemies surrounding me on a few occasions. I obviously was a pretty weak character, so that was time consuming even though I was in no danger. Got slowed down by harpies both times I visited Jhiaxus...

In summary, I have much respect for how well you've been able to speed through the game, Wizzy and Buzzy ^_^

Edit: I've installed the menu patch now and I feel like it speeds up travel significantly. However, it may also make it harder to control your character, so I'm curious whether this feature would be helpful for a speedrun.

Comments on Wizzy's third (23 min) video:

• Did you mess up the final buttons-puzzle, but finish it just as quickly anyway? Nice.
• Polyp cave didn’t go great… Hector died and then Timon refused to go through the hole, costing precious seconds! (And then later Timon died, so maybe his reluctance to descend to the next level of the cave was justified?)

Not much to comment on anymore since y'all seem to seriously have this down to a science. I don't know how I feel about skipping the whole Jhiaxus plot, which I feel like the game really intends to be mandatory, but it is undeniably effective at reducing play time ^_^

I think you can actually just kill the beggar without anyone caring. Would even technically increase your karma... Kinda sad.

I experimented a little bit with awakening Charax to set up the distiller. I'm now pretty sure Wizzy's mistake was in his position. In Cythera, characters can not move around obstacles diagonally. So when Wizzy stood between the wine urn and the desk, he effectively blocked Charax from getting to the distiller. This can be fixed by standing by the head of Charax's bed when awakening him (though if you have any followers, you probably have to make sure they're out of the way too). My original idea of blocking the door was a terrible one; if Charax can't get to the distiller, it doesn't matter if he's inside or outside. I crashed my game too :x

Interesting, thanks Wizzy! I want to experiment with that a little bit sometime.

Comments on Buzzy's second (29 min) video:

• Ahh, so that’s how you got the bombs! I was wondering if you’d found some way to skirt around Omen teleporting you back to LKH, so that you could steal the bombs there. You could potentially get a fourth bomb, if it would be worthwhile, just by taking the one intended to complete the test.
• In contrast with Wizzy’s videos, you took the time to beg Emesa for food. Food seems like it could be worthwhile, to protect your followers’ regeneration rates. However, you can’t divide food without risking someone eating Jinrai’s bread…
• Do you always play as a female character? Or does she just look faster than the guy?
• You took Eudoxus’ helmet, but not his mace. I think if I try this again, I’ll try mace as my primary weapon. It’s nearly as good as a short sword, and much better at bashing doors.
• I can’t believe Ariadne never gets killed by Eudoxus’ henchies. Once I forgot to destroy the spike trap and she was killed by that on the way back through -_-
• You must have been so frustrated when a random beggar blocked you in an alley and wasted five seconds :P
• I am super confused. When you’re going up toward the magic staff, it sounds like three spells are being cast. The log isn’t shown in the video, so I have no clue what’s going on. You haven’t learned magic, and don’t have Timon in the party…
• For a second I thought Dryas was going to get blasted by the bomb! Good thing you didn’t have any followers besides him and Hector!
• Interesting - there’s no need to get Halos’s side of the story at all during the murder.
• Steal a potion in order to get Palaestra to stop teaching her class and talk to you about wine was really clever! I would not have thought of that.
• The number of arrows or Mystic Arrows that are needed to take down the hydra seems to vary wildly :\

@Wizard said in Cythera Speedruns:

As far as I can tell, Ake will talk to you as long as no other NPC is on the screen. I've had her tell me everything through the window if the other NPCs are out of sight, but it's definitely easier to go into the house.

Really? That is interesting! I always thought she had to be closed off. Why then did she refuse to talk to you un the video? Because there were chickens on screen?