Heretic and the Heresiarch

i recently got heretic and decided to go kill D'Sparil. after killing the little bitch, right after it said "what about the other serpent riders?", there was a pic of the heresarch(sp?). He isn't a serpent rider iirc

Actually, it's Heresiarch, and no he's not.

The Heresiarch is the most powerful of Korax's minions - he was probably shown in the end of Heretic as a teaser for the (back then) upcoming mission pack for Heretic which eventually turned into a whole new game called "HeXen".

Speaking of HeXen..I still need to get that...heh

..Man, Im slow for getting the good games.....hmmm, I wonder if they have HeXen at any stores...

..Ill check the web, checking the stores would require me to *gasp* ...Go outside...

Computer shows tend to have it. I've seen several copies at the last few I went to. One of them was attached to Deathkings of the Dark Citadel, but that was the only time I've seen that expansion pack in a long time.

footman said:

i recently got heretic and decided to go kill D'Sparil. after killing the little bitch, right after it said "what about the other serpent riders?", there was a pic of the heresarch(sp?). He isn't a serpent rider iirc

Neither were Korax and Eidolon technically, but it would be repetitive to make all three final bosses ride serpents, I guess. Good idea for heretic though. :)

The Heresiarch has to be one of my favorite bosses from the FPS genre.. he's just a very well-rounded enemy with many different offensive/defensive spells. I would have liked to see more enemies like him rather than some of the bosses ID came up with... Shub Niggurath, ugggghhhh. ;)

It would have been better if Shub Niggurath actually did something besides just sit there like some big plant blowing in a light breeze. And the way to kill it was far too easy, once you figured it out, and even that didn't take long. You had a much harder time with all the Shamblers and Vores hanging around.

Vile said:

The Heresiarch has to be one of my favorite bosses from the FPS genre.. he's just a very well-rounded enemy with many different offensive/defensive spells. I would have liked to see more enemies like him rather than some of the bosses ID came up with... Shub Niggurath, ugggghhhh. ;)

Only problem with him is that he's too easy under skill 5. He's great on skill 5, unless you try to beat him with that lousy bloodscourge when playing as a mage.

But I agree that it's a great boss. Dammit, if ever they do a HeXen 3, they oughta include as many modified versions of the original HeXen 1 enemies as possible and the Heresiarch has to make a reappearance! Not to mention the more badass weapons from both HeXen games.

"And what about a continuation of the Heretic/Hexen universe? 'I'd say there's always a chance, but we have no plans to continue the series at this time." Hoekstra said. "Hexen II and Heretic II are enjoying new life on the Mac thanks to MacPlay. Perhaps that exposure and, say, a petition with a few hundred thousand signatures on it will get the franchise rolling again. I know there are a lot of people at Raven who would love to dive into the Heretic/Hexen universe again. After all, if Eidolon were a Serpent RIDER, then his six-headed flying Dragon mount must still be out there somewhere, right? :)'"

From raven-games.com, a quote taken from "John [JCal] Callaham over at HomeLan FED." If there's any reason to hope for a new Hexen game (which would be awesome) then that's the best chance we have. :)

Vile said:

"And what about a continuation of the Heretic/Hexen universe? 'I'd say there's always a chance, but we have no plans to continue the series at this time." Hoekstra said. "Hexen II and Heretic II are enjoying new life on the Mac thanks to MacPlay. Perhaps that exposure and, say, a petition with a few hundred thousand signatures on it will get the franchise rolling again. I know there are a lot of people at Raven who would love to dive into the Heretic/Hexen universe again. After all, if Eidolon were a Serpent RIDER, then his six-headed flying Dragon mount must still be out there somewhere, right? :)'"

From raven-games.com, a quote taken from "John [JCal] Callaham over at HomeLan FED." If there's any reason to hope for a new Hexen game (which would be awesome) then that's the best chance we have. :)

I remember having read the premise of the story for HeXen 2: Portal of Pravenous where a former warlord under Eidolon's command has stolen some items containing the life essence of the three serpent riders - I dunno how that mission pack ends, but I sure as Hell would like to see all three serpent riders return in a blast of a sequel to the first two HeXen games where you get to fight all three of their reincarnated forms or something.

Ok, now I've actually tried and beaten the first three episodes of Heretic and I have the following to say:
Just because the monster on the end pic wears Heresiarch clothing doesn't mean that it IS the Heresiach.
Actually, it's face kinda reminded me of Korax's but with red skin, but it could just as well be Eidolon (Afaik, Eidolon is red).
But what if it's just Korax undergoing his metamorphosis to his true form?
I mean, D'Sparil has a somewhat human form when you bag that sorry little bastard and he wears a red robe - maybe the serpent riders change shape as they gain power - and I mean, Korax is a lot more powerful than D'Sparil (and Eidolon correspondingly more powerful than the two younger ones) and controls a more powerful realm in HeXen.

Of course it *could* also just be the Heresiach, but the Heresiarch has a large hood which covers its face and I also have my doubts about the actual shape of the face.

Oh well.

My personal opinion is that the monster at the end is a Heresiarch, but that's based on no actual facts.

The idea about Korax going through metamorphosis is not too far off in my opinion though. Its clear from the general themes of Hexen -- old dry corpses everywhere, especially in the temples and notably right outside Korax's own citadel, as well as the fact that he granted "unlife" to the three leaders of Cronos society -- that Korax is a necromancer. Its generally agreed that the long-term use of necromancy (literally, death magic) will disfigure the magician to the point where he's not much more than a skeleton himself.

Interestingly, Korax looks a bit like a Chaos Serpent skeleton. In fact I've kind of wondered if his sprite wasn't based on the Chaos Serpent's. Its easy to see how they could have thinned out some areas, turned him black, and added more arms. Maybe I'm just crazy, but I'm sure the resemblence is at least somewhat intentional.

Also, I recall something in the official manual description of the Heresiarch that made it sound like he himself was also once human. It says something to the effect of "As far above the Bishops as the Bishops are above normal men, there's almost nothing human left in this fiend" or something like that.

I always thought Korax looked like he was inspired by Aliens, esp the Queen.

I'm also pretty sure that in one of the html game manuals (Hexen II ???) there was a gif of Korax called something give-away like Alien.gif or Geiger.gif or something.

dsm said:

Just because the monster on the end pic wears Heresiarch clothing doesn't mean that it IS the Heresiach.
Actually, it's face kinda reminded me of Korax's but with red skin, but it could just as well be Eidolon (Afaik, Eidolon is red).
Oh well.

I always thought it was Eidolon (because of the red skin), but he has big horns so that rules him out. But having just looked at the heresiarch sprites in Wintex, I can say it is the heresiarch (as he is red skinned, and you can just make out a spot of red face in the shadows of his hood)

when me and my friend were playing hexen on N64 co-op, I thought that korax as a robotic chaos serpent, but I couldn't see much on a half screen, lowered detail, and 13 inch TV.

Korax is probably his mount and himself morphed together into one terrifying unity.

Ultimate DooMer said:

I always thought it was Eidolon (because of the red skin), but he has big horns so that rules him out. But having just looked at the heresiarch sprites in Wintex, I can say it is the heresiarch (as he is red skinned, and you can just make out a spot of red face in the shadows of his hood)

Well, as I said above, the Serpent riders could slowly be morphing and changing appearance - maybe Eidolon does not get his horns until later. Oh I've looked at quite a dozen Heresiarch pictures and yes, that demon could easily be the Heresiarch, but it could just as well NOT be it. I still like to think of it as either Korax (because there's something about the shape of the demon's face that makes me think of Korax) or Eidolon in a yet not fully morphed state, because I can't see why the Hell the Heresiarch would be watching Korvus in a magic crystal ball since it's merely a pawn of Korax - that role would rather be reserved to the Serpent Riders themselves if the story is to make any sense.

dsm said:

Korax is probably his mount and himself morphed together into one terrifying unity.

quite possible. I was also thinking this possibility for his appearance.

I don't think that's Eidolon. Instead, I think that's his hand at the Hexen end screen.

That's definitely true, although I think the hand actually looks more like the Demoness's hand from the mission pack....

I remember an old joke released by the people at Raven during the development of Hexen 2, where a supposed screenshot of Eidolon was released to the public... except it wasn't the red-skinned reptilian Baron of Hell lookalike (which kicks ass, IMO) but that if a gigantic snail. Maybe I'm the only one who remembers this, but Raven eventually confirmed that it was just a joke, but had a good laugh in the meantime. They released the actual model later, and it's probably still available somewhere...

As for the questionable characters showing up in those screens:
1. The red guy at the end of heretic definitely looks like a Heresiarch, but that's just my opinion, sooooooo... :)
2. I'm pretty positive that the red hand at the end of hexen is Eidolon's; I recalled a time on a hexen news site (basically to confirm that the giant snail was bs, hehe) that they had sent an email to Raven reminding them of the red hand, and they replied with a thank-you basically saying that they had forgotton about the ending and were just about ready to skin Eidolon, so they would make him red like the end pic. I'm surprised I still remember these things, but I guess I like the series that much...