The Destiny 2 expansion Forsaken brought the Guardians to the Dreaming City. With the Curse of the City, the story continues each week, and the NPCs tell it.
What is happening in the Dreaming City? The Dreaming City is the secret retreat of the Awoken, which holds a dark secret: At the heart of the city, the Ahamkara Riven was imprisoned.
The Guardians were sent to kill Riven, which inadvertently set something much worse in motion. With Riven’s death, the city was cursed and now must go through a three-week cycle in which each week the corruption from the Taken increases, only to reset afterward.
How is the story told? While the events in the city repeat each week and during each cycle, like in the movie “Groundhog Day”, the NPCs in the city are aware of the curse and comment on their fate accordingly.
The characters know exactly that everything repeats over and over again, but they claim they cannot act any differently than in the previous weeks.
For instance, Petra Venj was initially shocked at the beginning of the curse that everything in the Dreaming City repeats. Over time, however, she sees the cycle as something from which one can learn.
The Corsairs you meet in the city are initially suspicious of your Guardian. However, over time they warm up, thank our character, or talk about considering leaving the city to escape the curse. Some of their friends have already left the Dreaming City.
However, Amrita has the most to tell you about the curse. Amrita is the Corsair who is injured when the Taken steal the Awoken’s relics. At first, she asks you for help. In the next cycle, she reveals her name to you and explains that the curse is like a memory game, and you are forced to repeat everything exactly or you will die.
In the next cycle, she greets you and asks you why you allow the cycle to happen to you over and over again. In another week, she tells you about her theory that small deviations might influence the outcome of the curse.
In one of the last weeks, Amrita even joked about the curse:
‘Help, help, the Taken are stealing our hard drives. Uhhhh, they shot me, oh no.’ I’m actually a good shot. A good fighter. I didn’t think the story would remember me like this.
In the Destiny subreddit, the Guardian dobby_rams collected the dialogues of the NPCs in the city over 21 weeks. A nice detail: If your Guardian is an Awoken, the characters in the city react accordingly.
The dialogues of the Ghost with Queen Mara Sov have also become noticeably more hostile in recent weeks, although the anticipated climax on January 29 was absent.
Where does the curse come from? As with many things in the story of Destiny, the crazy family of Oryx has a hand in this too: Oryx sneaked into the Dreaming City and corrupted the Ahamkara. After Oryx’s death, his sister Savathûn took control of Riven and struck a deal: Riven’s freedom in exchange for this curse, which further empowers Savathûn.
