The Ultimate List of Arcanum's Easter Eggs

[Annie Mitsoda]

From a Troika dev.

 

[Redeye]

The "eat drink and be merry" quote isn't just an American proverb, it's biblical.

Sounds like Epicureanism, but Epicurus didn't say it.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

Gilbert Bates, the presumed inventor of the steam engine, who holds the monopoly on making steam engines, is a reference to Bill Gates of Microsoft.

some of these are just :facepalm:

 

[Wilco]

I just realised Leni Riefenstahl looks like the Half-elf female portrait. Troika sure liked their Nazi references.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Nah, don't think so. Also, keep in mind that almost all portraits are actually tracings, so unless you find a photo taken at the same angle/with the same expression/etc, we can't be sure if it was really the source. Additionally, some portraits were based on private photos, e.g. I remember Leonard mentioning in one of the chatlogs that a photo of his relative was used for one of the human portraits, so we may never find the original source for some of the portraits.

Troika sure liked their Nazi references.

There are more Confederate references, actually.

 

[Luckmann]

http://www.euroartmagazine.com/artUps/1207131103.jpg

http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/images/avatar ... male09.jpg

I just realised Leni Riefenstahl looks like the Half-elf female portrait. Troika sure liked their Nazi references.

Wow, the resemblance is uncanny.

 

[filogreek]

I'm not sure if this has been discussed before and/or ignored, but another pop-culture reference might be:

Playing as an unintelligent character, I think you talk to the halfling(?) called Simon Plough who wants you to clear out the warehouse on the Tarantian docks, the one full of rats.
You can ask him something along the lines of 'Wot dat name again' during dialogue, he angrily yells 'THAT NAME AGAIN IS MISTER PLOUGH!'. This is a reference to the advertising jingle on the Simpsons when Homer started the Plow business.
I'm preeety sure that it is something like that, I haven't played a low-intelligence character in Arcanum for years. Someone try confirm this for me, it is only a vague memory and I just hope my brain didn't just make it up out of nothing (I can't seem to find any reference to it after a google search)

edit-
Ah good, found another confirmation from some other forum 3 years ago:

zellos
04-11-2006, 09:19 PM
ah i remember that game, in fact i still have it :D (gotta find it though)
the great thing about it though was that your speach was affected by your inteligence (or if you chose the "special person" background) and playing the game as an idiot yealeded some damn funny lines
eg. going to kill rats in plowghs warehouse.

half ogre player - uh.. waht you say name was?

plough - THAT NAME AGAIN IS MR.PLOUGH!

lol

 

[Zalg0]

Awesome! Thanks, DrogDrog.

 

[ArcturusXIV]

Another game that somehow slipped under my radar. Should I play now, or later? And what are the best updates, patches, whatever to install? I still need to finish Bloodlines & Silent Hill 2. God I'm behind!

 

[Azrael the cat]

Wow. So recently that Drog was a well-liked and highly productive poster. Nice easter eggs, but I get the feeling that the popularity of these things has spawned a monster. Some developers seem to be so determined that all players will find and get the reference that they've stopped doing 'easter eggs' and started shoving them into the main campaign.

 

[Kz3r0]

Another game that somehow slipped under my radar. Should I play now, or later? And what are the best updates, patches, whatever to install? I still need to finish Bloodlines & Silent Hill 2. God I'm behind!

http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic ... mp;start=0

 

[Wilco]

Just in case anyone still gives a shit, I found another while randomly looking through old pictures on google:

This is a Daguerreotype of businessman Edward Knight Collins.

Source

 

[Kz3r0]

Just in case anyone still gives a shit, I found another while randomly looking through old pictures on google:

This is a Daguerreotype of businessman Edward Knight Collins.

Source

I always thought that that was an unnatural expression, go figures.

 

[deuxhero]

Added a few more references and a large section dedicated to the epitaphs found in Arcanum's cemeteries.

Also apparently there WERE Bloodlines developer quotes - Troika tradition - but Activision wouldn't let them get put in the game.

Interesting. Is that a rumor, or did you hear that from a Troika developer?

She's fucking the writer.

 

[Something]

Tarant figures as a pro-technology "empire" ("the Tarantian empire," as I think it's called in the game). This empire takes over and oppresses magical and "primitive" (superstitious) societies such as Dernholm's.

That part is obvious, but if you look at the names Tarant is quite close to "tyrant," and indeed the empire seems a bit aggressive. Looking at the name "Caladon," we can see that it resembles "Caledonia," an old word for Scotland. Thus Tarant seems partly inspired by the British Empire, and Caladon seems a rather clear reference to Scotland, which was for a long time a rather "civilized" place that nonetheless opposed British rule and oppression. Now things are more integrated, of course, and you have the option int he game of bringing Caladon in and under Tarant's wing, so to speak.

Just a random thing I realized. It makes the game that slight bit more interesting for me, as do many of the scattered references.

 

[JarlFrank]

Tarant figures as a pro-technology "empire" ("the Tarantian empire," as I think it's called in the game)

The Unified Kingdom, actually.

 

[Something]

I disagree, since Scotland is an original part of the United Kingdom, and in the game it is not yet part of the empire. I see this Empire as that of the late 16th Century, when there were distant "colonies" but not yet a true union between Scotland, Ireland [now just part of it], and England. But I suppose this is a small disagreement, and my thoughts on it aren't final. Regardless I thought it was interesting! And thanks for the thought.

 

[JarlFrank]

My point was, the official name of the country that Tarant is the capital of is "Unified Kingdom", which is an obvious reference to the UK, of course.

I think we discussed the real-life inspirations/references in Arcanum here before, and came to the conclusion that Tarant is obviously Britain, Caladon maybe Germany (as a new industrial nation that started out later than Tarant but now is quickly catching up in tech), Dernholm probably Russia (slow in industrializing, still very old-fashioned).

Obvious is that some of the races are parallels to real-world races: gnomes are jews (who control the government through a world-wide gnomish conspiracy) and orcs are blacks (factory slaves).

 

[Something]

Ah--I'd forgotten about the "Unified Kingdom" reference. I've just begun a new playthrough, actually, and I'm not far in this time. It's been a couple of years.

I agree that Caladon's somewhat foreign feel and actual distance from Tarant make Germany a better candidate than Scotland (as a counterpart to "Caladon") in many ways. I do like the Caladon-Caledonia connection, though, which makes Scotland an interesting part of the metaphor--for me at least. I guess that's my only contribution here, but I've learned a bit. Thanks Jarl.

 

[Konjad]

It always annoyed me that I couldn't choose that portrait for my own character.

Indeed, this is my favorite portrait in both Arcanum or in games in general. Very monocle