What Downpour Gets Wrong | Rain World Vs. Downpour Lore

I DID NOT pull an all-nighter to get this out before the watcher.

*Thumbnail Slugcats by Tarigon:*

*Big thanks to MEBI and Darthzz for letting me use some of their illustrations in the last section:*
+ thanks to Sunfish and Darthzz (again) for all of the feedback & reviewing my script!

*Resources:*

*RW music used:*
Trusted Component
Orange Lizard
Lovely Arps
Ascent
Ancient
Old Growth
Floes

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Discord: uraniumeater

*Timestamps:*
0:00 - Introduction
1:28 - Development Differences
8:45 - Iterators Built Only to Help Sentient/Organic Beings
11:56 - The Aging Pipe: Survivor/Monk Timecuts
13:01 - Void Fluid Requires Highest Karma (Urges are Vices)
16:25 - Lack of Karmic Balance
17:59 - Rhinestones on The Cycle, Life, and Ascension
21:28 - Definition of a Living Block
22:40 - SOS is the only iterator to have died
23:58 - Graffiti in LTTM
24:35 - Saint’s Echo Art
25:47 - Conclusion

#rainworld #rainworlddownpour

[UraniumEater]

FYI for those who didn't make it to the end:
Watcher is being developed by Videocult (which now includes some Downpour devs) and contracted modders/artists. However, unlike Downpour, the original devs (Joar & especially James) seem to be much more involved this time. There's been both green and red flags, but I'm personally (albiet cautiously) optimistic that Watcher won't have consistency issues. I say all of this with Watcher less than a week away...

[perplexedon]

Rhinestones doesn't deny the cycle exists, they say that it shouldn't be thought of as a prison. It's like how you might tell some billionaire wanting to leave the earth for mars "Why do you always search for an escape from earth, as if you were imprisoned?". You aren't denying gravity exists, you are saying the deficiency exists principally the person, and their environment is only a prison because of their interpretation.

Pebbles assumption that every living being wants to leave the cycle is not him stating a fact, but projecting his (and his creators) perspective onto all beings.

[Stimpaec]

going from rhinestones and anti-ascension to discussing the rw equivalent of an apartment block is awesome lmfao

[Bliss]

I think we can say pebbles and moon have different definitions of what constitutes a “dead” iterator. He says SoS is the only dead iterator because he refuses to accept that iterators in a state that moon is in would be “dead” due to his guilt, while moon said SoS was one of a handful of iterators that “died”, among which she would count herself.

Essentially, a dead iterator is one which ceases to function in its purpose, and pebbles would add to that “permanently and provably irrevocably”

[isaic]

The whole "How can one know what lies beyond a threshold without crossing it?" part of the lore is critically overlooked. Perhaps the only way to understand ascension is to forgo the prospect of understanding it to begin with?

[mxyzptplk]

i'm glad someone's making a video on this as a lot of people don't know about this rabbit hole of rain world lore. it's good for people to realize that rain world and downpour conflict lorewise as that's probably going to become more relevant in about a week. i do get why downpour still became a dlc with these inconsistencies, the dlc is good enough to outweigh the issues for me (and videocult too i assume). i wonder if modded regions in watcher could potentially have these sort of conflicts too.. most likely just some tonal inconsistencies with base regions that are more subjective and not too important
edit: yeah lore doesn't matter. although the tonal inconsistencies are a bit bigger than i'd like for a certain region (or 5) in particular

[TarigonTetradactyl]

Something funny about Hunter's karmic imbalance too is that it's never mentioned to be related to any urges. We don't even know why its like that. Freak

EDIT: Oh I do know what it was about. It was stated that Hunter's ailment was because of a rot-related illness, AKA an illness of the mind. Very likely caused by the stress of forcing itself on a carnivorous diet and trying to break out of its natural role without being prepared for the consequences. Similar to Five Pebbles trying to break his taboos. "Spiritual shunning" is just a fancy way of saying Causality

[the_phantom_cat]

Rhinestones's dialogue doesn't at all say or imply that the cycle doesn't exist, and I have no idea how you came to that conclusion. It just says that they are content to live in the cycle and don't understand why so many others wanted to leave. Rhinestones just doesn't view it as a prison.

[Juhnte]

The endless wars between Base Game Fundamentalists and Downpour Revisionists still rage on to this day...

Will the Watcher bring peace between those two factions? Or will he accelerate things further into madness and chaos?

The question is still in suspense until March 28th 2025...

Wawawa TV 08:55 PM 22/03/2025

[Zenala]

15:53
When we talk about Buddhism here, I do want to point out that while Buddhism doesn't have sins like Christianity, they do have Five Precepts - one of which includes violence, Ahimsa. While it is possible that Artificer's campaign was based on the idea of it being a sin, I think you can make the point that it could've been based on the idea of Ahimsa.
"The interruption of another jiva’s spiritual progress causes one to incur karma—the accumulated effects of past actions, conceived by Jains as a fine particulate substance that accretes upon the jiva—keeping one mired in samsara, the cycle of rebirth into mundane earthly existence." [Note that I am not a buddhist, this is all personal research. Glad to be corrected if something is off!]
You can make the point that it is never stated in the game's lore that ascending VIA VOID with low karma makes a difference (as pointed out by that pearl, void was more effortless), but if we are to use buddhism to exemplify - it does say that some things bind you to samsara. A failed ascension because of urges could make sense that way. And a failed ascension doesn't have to necessarily mean an echo all the time - Artificer could've just died and gotten reincarnated into the cycle again. Especially since we have seen someone get echoed on-screen and it did not look like whatever was going on with Artificer.

On another note, 17:45
I think it's very easy to argue that Hunter failed their ascension somewhat (to what extent, I am unsure). In the final cutscene, Hunter is seen falling before reaching the final light, and then seemingly being back in NSH's arms, perhaps in a loop. What bothers me is the inconsistency between them - which could've been attributed to Artificer being too low on karma because of the excessive violence, and thus literally unable to reach karma 10 -differently from Hunter, whose karmic unbalance was only because it is carnivorous (Gourmand and Spearmaster be damned. inconsistencies). The karma flower commentary is valid, though. I like it as a storytelling method of Artificer being unable to see the echoes without it, but the inconsistency is too big compared to Hunter.

[archdruidbookwalter]

Regarding #3, I think the base-game does actually imply that Max Karma is required to ascend, it's just that the Benefactors were not entirely aware of how ascension worked, and the Iterators inherit their ignorance. Moon says that Void Fluid made resisting the Five Natural Urges unnecessary, but is that really true? The ancient civilization that created the Depths clearly thought otherwise, as their temples are filled with the symbol of Karma 10 and the Guardians prevent anyone without Max Karma from reaching the Void Sea. The achievement icon for Ascension is also literally just the symbol for Karma 10, certainly implying a connection between the two concepts.

[murro]

I think the ancients didn't really know themselves what lies beyond the void fluid. They knew that you can jump in there even if you are bound to the urges/sins, but they didn't know what will happen with the person like that on the other side. Perhaps that's why the guardians existed: just in case

[InternetHydra]

My interpretation of the Artificer ascension, partly fueled by the updated character portrait in the character selection and the achievement label, was that Artificer couldn't fully ascend due to it's permanent crippling of it's karma and the dip destroyed it's physical body effectively functioning as just a typical "death" leading to "rebirth" where it last rested. However it got close enough to ascension to see the spirits of it's slugpups and reach a form of Acceptance allowing it to let go of it's vendetta. The game ends because there's no point to playing further, Artificer moves on with it's life and doesn't pursue the scavengers anymore.
I am more bothered by the inconsistency on the state of immortality in this setting. Species can go extinct, Artificer's slugpups died, etc, but how is that possible if everything never dies?
...and I gotta say that not knowing what's going on exactly in the Hunter ascension is more of a hair pulling thing then anything in Downpour, and that's a vanilla character.

[egguca]

Thank you for making this; It's really helpful to have a resource summarizing these differences (not just in lore, but in the fundamental structure of their developments) in one place. (And in a YouTube Video, which is a format a lot of people find friendlier than a big text post)

I feel like it can be really daunting for new players to try and figure out the differences between DP and the Vanilla Game, so this is super helpful!!

Thank you!! 🙏 I will get a lot of use out of this 🎉

[CalebB]

23:17 "The only confirmed thats dead"
That could still be a mistake, but confirmed is what makes it stand out.
Yeah, other iterators are probably dead, but they probably don't even know. Like with Moon. The Iterators probably thought she was dead, too, until Spearmaster came along.
24:26 This could be caused by just water washing it off over-time, but I get what you mean. The developers could've just not seen it and didn't add it.

[odusseusxvi]

So I understand most of this, but there IS one or two points I don't agree with : Mostly the 18:01 on ; How would any living being, Ancient or Iterator, KNOW that all living things desire to escape the cycle, this is the words of someone more than it is a objective statement about the world. This might be what the Ancients believed sure but there is no proof in any way that this would be real. I do agree that Ascenscion isn't negative, but In no way does it surprise me that beings like some Ancients, and others would be reluctant, cause again, the only thing they DO know about ascenscion, is the Echos, no one else comes back from there, it IS a religion, WE know that Ascenscion and escaping the cycle is a thing solely because we see it in game once our character does it, before, we don't. It makes sense that a couple of people would be unsure if it's pefferable than remaining in the cycle.

[borb]

i also have a problem with reading up old kickstarter entries
i get your point that its written by the original writers/devs, but you still have to be careful with this practice
not everything THE dev has written whenever whereever is objective canonical truth, especially not a kickstarter update
are just doesnt work that way, ideas evolve and change, even today shows and movies or books have to work around concepts set up in older entries of the universe to make new ideas work. look at star wars and how it completely abandoned george lucas' original solid world building element of the midichlorians, later authors just didnt resonate with the idea and dropped it, overall degrading the quality of the art as a whole.
but as an artist myself i also scrap old ideas i had, explanations and solutions that i found a better direction to go in with

[Corvidiot_YT]

12:55 imo the time skip removal is actually a good cut to the lore, from the player perspective getting the intro cutscene and then being dropped straight into the chaos puts you in the exact same position as the survivor without this time skip. It also helps with the lack of experience the player would showcase, as so too would the survivor in this new ecosystem.

[cloudeddaze]

I recognize these inconsistencies and that vanilla came first, but I will say as someone who operates mostly with the downpour lore over vanilla, just out of personal preference, my BIGGEST pet peeve is when people say that doing anything creatively based on downpour things rather than vanilla is doing it wrong. Like, there was an amv where someone used a certain symbol to show like, warning? Like it’s used in moon’s chamber in spearmaster, and the comments was filled with “oh haha that means predator he’s gonna eat hunter” they’re literally using it the same way it’s used in game. Or like. When I say that the outer expanse endings for survivor and monk are more likely canon in downpour because monk always sees survivor in its OE ending so survivor has to go there, only for everyone to tell me “that defeats the themes of the (vanilla) game and also ascension was the only ending for years”
I appreciate vanilla a lot more than I used to but. The whole reason I was so put off by it was how people act like it’s soooo much better. It’s good! It’s a beautiful game! I appreciate it on its own a LOT nowadays! But downpour is why I got so into rain world and feeling like there’s this huge divide between vanilla and downpour made me resent it for a good while

[mothifier]

enjoyed your breakdown a lot!! especially the starting segment displaying just how different vanilla and downpour's developments were; the intended purpose of downpour as just a mod definitely affected it.

i'm surprised at how many of these points i disagree with, though. i have some counterpoints;

2a. gs' dialogue can easily be interpreted as an iterator who has just gotten sick of solving the great problem after who knows how many thousands of cycles of trying. also, where does the 'commonly agreed' opinion come from?

2b. there's no conclusive evidence that all beings have some inherent urge inside of them to ascend. the iterators and the benefactors are highly intelligent, so their ability to even grasp ascension might just be linked to that. compare it to a human's concept of the afterlife vs a lizard's. you can make the argument that the slugcat does immediately seek ascension after learning it' possible, but this is after attaining the mark of communication. there's no saying the natural fauna cares about ascension at all

5. someone already commented on this, but rhinestones doesn't comment on the reality of the cycles. they only comment on their fellow benefactors seemingly seeing it that way

9. i agree that having saint's echo art switched with a regular echo would've been better! would have portrayed the same story beat while remaining truer to established lore. i don't appreciate the phrasing of "slapping things on" though, i can still appreciate the artistic liberty taken without agreeing with it

mostly, i think we should capitalize on the original, intended purpose of downpour when critiquing it: it was never supposed to fully align with vanilla lore, which would be why it's not canon, either. i commend downpour as a project on its own for being extremely fun and introducing new and compelling concepts to the game, which *was* its purpose. calling a mistake appalling strikes me as pointless when that was never the primary focus

i think the best description i've heard of downpour i've read is that it's akin to a fanfic to vanilla. it's not everybody's cup of tea, but it's still impressive on its own as a cohesive gameplay experience and i greatly enjoyed the new perspectives it added regardless of minor lore differences!