Makrinaos lore has had my mind hooked all day. When Vetex said it was going to have lore, I assumed he meant it would be stuff like “Ooooh look at these remnants of war! Did you know the Assassin Syndicate used to be fighting this kingdom?” And then I found my first secret on the island, and my first thought was “WHAT DO YOU MEAN RITUAL CHAMBER???” Then it got darker, and darker, yet darker and I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve got this wildly speculative theory I want you guys to help me on.
Let’s start with the obvious. The Seekers of Sight are a cult dedicated to summoning Chaos, which they know a lot about (except its true name, as they call it the “Sight”). They know it takes the form of teal light, they know it’s incredibly “potent” (likely referring to it being the strongest of all magic energies), and they were hoping to summon it, implying they knew of Chaos’ attraction to evil acts, and weren’t just sacrificing humans randomly or for made-up reasons.
An NPC also believes the Sight is what allowed her to become a ghost, a connection I’m sure many of us forumers have made as well. Ghosts only appear in Akursius Keep and the Abyss of Charon, both locations ravaged by Chaos, or in the Dark Sea which is incredibly dense with the magic energy of an evil wizard, and was the result of an explosion that wiped out 80% of all life (and we know how much Chaos loves mass-killings).
Now, let me bring in a very important detail. The Seekers of Sight are not the only faction involved in this, there’s TWO.
The Seekers of Sight banner seems to be the first one… I mean, it has an eye on it, and it’s teal, the same color the faction’s name is highlighted in dialog. We don’t need to debate this. The second banner however, while ambiguous, I believe to be a kingdom.
The ghosts mention a king and a master. At first, I absentmindedly thought they were the same person, but I no longer believe this to be the case. “Master” is always highlighted in a dark, desaturated purple, while “king” is always white like the rest of the text. This is consistent, which leads me to believe they’re separate characters.
Notice the text colors
So, what do we have here? A kingdom that became secretly entrenched and puppeteered by a cult with the goal of conjuring intense magical power. A king beloved and trusted by his people only to end up betraying them for the cult’s goals. Now where have we seen this before?
Compare this ghost trusting their king to find a way out for them, to the Tiberians hoping the Caesar kings would finally give them support, only to be betrayed in the end. Compare this king who likely facilitated human sacrifice, to Calvus who slaughtered his own people in search of the Death Curse, both kings ultimately meeting a grim fate.
While far from an exact match, there are many clear parallels between this and what happened with Ravenna and the Order. This cult seems to operate similarly. Infesting and controlling kingdoms from the shadows, fixating on powerful magic/magical entities, and committing unspeakable acts. (Also they both wear hoods but I didn’t wanna mention that as evidence because every shady organization wears hoods.)
I believe the Seekers of Sight and Order of Aesir are connected, and the Seekers wanted to summon Chaos in order to harness its energy, “furthering the power of magic at all cost” you might say. Here are a few ways they may have been related:
- The Seekers of Sight were a separate branch of the Order of Aesir that was operating at the same time. Why would they do this, you may ask? Well, the Order of Aesir has been through some rough patches. We know from Warren that they used to be more well-known (which is a bad thing for an organization like them), and eventually had to disappear without a trace.
What does an organization that works by controlling kingdoms do when every kingdom knows they’re evil? Rebrand, of course!
The Seekers of Sight were an experiment, a way of testing out different, more covert methods of operating. They were more covert. Seekers had even less of an idea about what they were getting themselves into compared to Order initiates, and they were likely lied to about the true dangers of the Sight.
Instead of the power-hungry cult the Order framed itself as, the Seekers likely promised less off-putting things, such as enlightenment, or immortality for you and your loved ones (aka becoming a ghost). - The Seekers of Sight were an offshoot of the Order of Aesir. Rivals to them that did not want to be affiliated but still operated in much the same way as when they were one.
Perhaps the Order knew that attempting to harness Chaos was too dangerous and impossible to get working, and ultimately excommunicated the extremist members who kept advocating for this. - Most likely, the Seekers of Sight were the original Order of Aesir, predating them.
We know the Seekers are extremely ancient, and also operated for an incredibly long time. Landen, who was sacrificed a long time ago, called some of the other ghosts “even more ancient.” If the ancient guy is calling others ancient, you know these sacrifices were going on for a loooong time.
However, the Order of Aesir only went into hiding a few hundred years ago according to Warren, which no one in this universe would consider anywhere close to ancient. So the Seekers of Sight could not have been a front for the Order, a rebranding brought about by the blowing of the Order’s cover, as option 1 suggested. (Sorry I kinda wasted your time with that one, I thought it was fun food for thought.)
If the Order’s goal has always been furthering magic’s power, it only makes sense that its founders would look to the strongest source of magic power, Chaos itself. I believe the Order started with the Seekers, but when those experiments went horribly wrong, they begrudgingly gave up on that path to their goals. But it would be strange to remain as the Seekers of Sight even when their plans no longer involve the Sight in any way, so they rebranded into the Order of Aesir.
Alright, I’ve gone over the main theory now. So sorry for all the text, and thanks to anyone who’s beared with me 
These next bits will be my most wildly speculative theories, but I think they’re well worth thinking about.
The Order is going to to restart their predecessors’ experiments:
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Why would all of this Seekers of Sight stuff be on an Assassin Syndicate island, other than the fact it’s freaking awesome? What relation does the Syndicate have to this lore, if any?
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Well, the Syndicate is acting a bit suspicious (secretly trying to fan the flames of the Sameria-Keraxe war), which has led some to speculate they’re affiliated with the Order of Aesir. This is reinforced by the fact that the Grand Navy has hired the Assassins on multiple occasions (as revealed by an NPC in the Red Corner).
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And the Navy has been even more heavily suspected of being affiliated with the Order, due to Kai’s dialog and Edward’s recounting of their horrific acts. Why would two seemingly-polar-opposite organizations actually collaborate behind the scenes, unless they were both puppeteered by the same group?
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And even without all this suspicious stuff, we could be pretty confident the Order has some ties in the Syndicate. Warren said that if the Order got to Ravenna’s king, they probably have high-ranking members in every kingdom. And the Syndicate, immoral masters of secrecy and hiding who would do anything for a buck, would obviously be a prime target for the Order to spread their roots to.
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Where am I going with all this? Well… if the Order has influence over the Assassin Syndicate, and the Assassin Syndicate is in control of an island that holds the last remnants of the Order’s ancient predecessor’s work… Who’s to say how long it is before the Order of Aesir decides to dig up that old project, and give it another go?
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The Seekers succeeded in summoning Chaos, and the knowledge of how they did it has not yet been lost to time. All the Order would have to do is execute the plan after Chaos’ arrival a little better than the Seekers did. It would certainly be tempting to them, and they may very well believe it’s possible. After all, that failed experiment was likely millennia ago. Their understanding of magic, and advancements in general, are much greater now.
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The Syndicate came to Makrinaos twenty years ago, so it’s not too long ago that the Order would’ve still been in hiding. Did the Order convince the Syndicate to choose this island in particular?
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Admittedly, probably not. It’s said even the higher-ups didn’t know about the catacombs… But the point still stands that, whether this was originally part of the Order’s plan or not, they have access to their old work again, and they might wanna do something about that.
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Lastly, a theory that the king is still “alive”:
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Something very interesting my brother pointed out is that the king does not have a ghost, even though seemingly everyone else who died does. And even if not all of them got converted, you would think the guy whose corpse is still radiating Chaos would have gotten a ghost, since Chaos and ghost-making seem connected? The king’s exposure was strong, and yet there’s nothing to show for it.
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But what if Chaos didn’t kill the king? What if he didn’t even die at all? I think the Seekers might have used him as the test subject for their goal of giving a human the power of Chaos; merging their energies to truly strengthen humanity’s magical potency to its limits. Since magic energy as potent as a sea curse is enough to make you un-aging, and Chaos is even stronger than a curse, it stands to reason that the king could have remained alive all these years. But the power was too much for his mortal body, so he has remained in stasis, possibly in an eternal nightmare full of the worst insanity effects you could imagine.
Okay, lastly lastly, see those runes on his hammer? Whatever those say is probably a crucial piece to solving this mystery. I don’t know the first thing on how to go about solving it, so I’m gonna ask for help on this one. There is an interesting detail we’ve already garnered from it, however. I asked @BlueYonder about the runes and he told me they’re Nordic. And “Aesir” is also Norse. It’s nothing too substantial, but continues to favor the idea that the Seekers and Order are connected, or even the same.
