Unraveling the Secrets: Exploring Riven, the Ahamkara, and the Enigma of the Dreaming City in Destiny 2 Season of the Wish

The Season of the Wish has brought back some old Destiny 2 storylines that have been dormant for nearly five years. At the center of these stories is Riven, the last Ahamkara, a creature that was killed in the Last Wish raid during the Forsaken campaign in 2018.

If you find yourself lost in all this intertwining lore, we're here to help catch you up on everything you may have forgotten from Forsaken and Last Wish, including the relevant lore and what you need to know about the Ahamkara. These are some of the strangest and most fascinating things hidden in the world of Destiny 2.

All the stuff before Forsaken

First, get up to speed on the Forsaken campaign, which is crucial to understanding the current situation with Riven. It also sheds light on the character progression of Awoken Queen Mara Sov, her right-hand Petra Venj, and Crow, the revived Guardian previously known as Mara's brother, Uldren Sov.

Following the events of the original Destiny's The Taken King expansion, it was widely believed that Mara Sov had perished in a massive space confrontation with the Hive god Oryx. However, it was later revealed that Mara had actually utilized a similar immortality technique as the Hive, creating a throne world in the Ascendant Plane. When her physical form was destroyed, she was transported to this alternate dimension. Despite surviving, Mara remained hidden in the Ascendant Realm for an extended period, leading many, including Uldren, to assume she had succumbed in the battle.

Shortly after the conflict, Oryx and his Taken forces overran the Awoken's clandestine sanctuary, the Dreaming City. It was there, at the heart of the city, that Oryx uncovered yet another of Mara's enigmas: she was harboring an Ahamkara named Riven within the city.

Ahamkara are essentially dragons that have the ability to grant wishes. These unique creatures, which appeared after the Traveler, possess "paracausal" powers that exist outside the conventional laws of the universe, enabling them to alter reality in order to fulfill wishes. Ahamkara are predatory beings that sustain themselves by fulfilling wishes, feeding on the distinction between the current state of reality and the desired state. Riven, a specific Ahamkara, had a complex relationship with Mara, being both held captive and also providing her with access to its incredible power in exchange for granting her wishes. When Oryx discovered Riven, he attempted to control her using his power to "Take," which is a form of dimensional mind control. However, Riven cleverly outwitted Oryx by tricking him into making a wish for her to be taken, allowing her to retain some of her will despite being under his influence.

The Guardians defeated Oryx in The Taken King, and Riven found herself in the Dreaming City with the unexciting Taken Awoken residents. However, her situation changed when she was approached by Savathun, Oryx's sister and the Hive god of Cunning, who offered her a deal to help her takeover the Dreaming City. All Riven had to do was open the way in. It was around this time that Uldren started hearing the whispers.

The Great Hunt

Before delving into Forsaken and the fate of Uldren, it's important to take a brief detour into the lore to gain a better understanding of Riven. From Season of the Wish and the Last Wish raid, we have come to know Riven as the last Ahamkara.

At one point, the Ahamkara were scattered across the solar system, seeking individuals to fulfill their wishes. They were particularly drawn to those with the strongest will, often preying on Guardians. However, the Ahamkara's wish-granting was not benevolent; they enjoyed twisting their granted wishes, much like living monkey's paws, often leading to ruin for those who dared to bargain with them.

After some time, the Vanguard leadership deemed the Ahamkara to be too perilous, particularly given that immortal supersoldiers with a fondness for firearms were using them to unwittingly make malicious wishes. As a result, they concluded that the Ahamkara needed to be eradicated in the interest of safety, leading to what became known as the Great Hunt - a Guardian-led genocide against the Ahamkara.

Simultaneously, the Awoken had been covertly working alongside the Ahamkara, albeit with an awareness of the associated risks. These creatures had contributed to the creation of the Dreaming City using wish magic, and were generally permitted to roam the city's streets freely. However, things took a turn for the worse when stories emerged in the lore of seemingly benevolent Ahamkara turning malevolent, such as the instance when an Ahamkara duped a large group of people into walking off a cliff using its magical abilities. It was at this stage that Mara already had Riven in her midst as her personal Ahamkara, and with the help of her coven of witches, the Techeuns, she devised the Wall of Wishes - a specialized pictographic system intended to minimize the potential for Riven to misconstrue and distort Mara's desires by removing the ambiguities of language.

Despite being useful to the Awoken, the Ahamkara were seen as vaguely evil and created problems. Eventually, the Awoken chose to assist the Guardians in the Great Hunt, providing them with special weapons to eliminate the dragons. By this time, Mara already possessed Riven and sought an asymmetrical power source unique to her. Whether it was Mara's desire or Riven's agenda, one thing is clear: it was Riven, not Mara, who decided to aid the Guardians in wiping out the Ahamkara. The Great Hunt led to the extinction of the Ahamkara, except for one: Riven.

Last time, in Forsaken

Uldren Sov's life took a turn for the worse after The Taken King. Despite surviving the space battle against Oryx's fleet, he crashed on Mars. Convinced that his sister Mara had also survived and was out there somewhere, he embarked on a quest to find her. With a penchant for the Fallen, some of whom had served his sister, Uldren sought their assistance and worked in the background to unite all the Fallen under a single banner during The Taken King and Rise of Iron expansions.

As time passed, Uldren's faith in Mara's plan and survival began to waver, driving him towards the brink of madness. However, whispers that he believed to be the voice of Mara started guiding him. Collaborating with the Fallen, he betrayed the Awoken people during the Red War, the main story campaign of Destiny 2. Later on, he stumbled upon a wounded Fallen Archon named Fikrul, who had been attacked by Guardians. Uldren unintentionally made a wish to save Fikrul's life, unaware that Riven was listening. Fikrul was resurrected as the Fanatic, becoming the first of the Scorn.

Fikrul and Uldren increased the number of Scorn, but were eventually apprehended by the Awoken and imprisoned in the massive Prison of Elders. They remained there until Uldren and his Scorned Barons orchestrated a jailbreak. Petra reached out to Cayde-6 for assistance in quelling the escape attempt and the resulting riot, but Uldren and the Barons fatally wounded Cayde before fleeing.

At this stage, Uldren not only heard voices but also saw manifestations of Mara, who directed his actions. Unbeknownst to him, the visions were actually orchestrated by Riven, who manipulated Uldren into unlocking the Watchtower, the concealed entrance to the Dreaming City.

As Uldren journeyed towards the Watchtower, the Guardian player had tracked down and eliminated each of the Barons in retribution for Cayde's demise. They eventually confronted Uldren at the Watchtower and, with the help of Petra, brought him to justice. (He was later reborn as the Guardian Crow, devoid of memories as Uldren and thus a different individual--but then Savathun restored his Uldren memories, which proved to be quite haunting for him.)

However, the damage had already been done. By opening the way to the Dreaming City, Uldren had paved the path for the Taken and Savathun's forces to attack the Awoken's homeland.

The Last Wish

Petra enlisted the aid of the Guardians to combat the Taken in the Dreaming City, leading to the culmination of the Last Wish campaign. The raid tasked a team of Guardians with journeying to the heart of the city to vanquish the Taken Ahamkara and eradicate the imminent threat under Savathun's influence.

Unbeknownst to the Guardians and Petra at the time, Riven had not only foreseen the Guardians' assault, but had orchestrated it. Despite this, the Guardians ultimately succeeded in slaying Riven and purifying the Ahamkara's heart of its Taken corruption. However, the unique nature of Ahamkara meant that they persisted beyond death, retaining their sentience and influencing new victims through their remains, such as bones. The Last Wish alluded to in the raid's name was indeed Savathun's, and once liberated from the Taken taint, Riven granted it as intended.

The Dreaming City was devastated by the wish, trapping it in a recurring time loop that resets every three weeks. The defenders of the city face relentless attacks, deaths, and resurrections, unable to alter their actions or change their fates as they are forced to relive the same events repeatedly. This was Savathun's true intention, and so far, no one has been able to break the curse. The Ahamkara's magic seems impossible to counter, leaving the Dreaming City trapped in a never-ending cycle of warfare for the past five years.

Riven's agenda and the Season of the Wish

This brings us to the present moment, more or less. As players explored the Dreaming City during the Forsaken expansion, they uncovered the Wall of Wishes, where 15 distinct wishes were described in the game. However, only 14 of them were ever discovered by players. At the conclusion of the Season of the Witch, Eris and the player Guardian found clues left by Savathun, revealing the existence of the 15th wish. This wish would enable the Guardians to follow the Witness through the portal into the Traveler created at the end of the Lightfall story campaign. But there was a catch - they needed an Ahamkara to grant it, and all of them were dead.

However, Ahamkara eggs were not Ahamkara. Despite this, Mara Sov and her Techeuns decide to perform a ritual to summon back Riven's spirit, as Ahamkara do not seem bound by the normal sense of life and death and persist even after being destroyed in a sentient form. People who wield Ahamkara bones are known to hear spooky whispers attempting to get them to make wishes, and even during the Great Hunt and the Last Wish raid, none of the Ahamkara seemed especially perturbed by the idea of being killed. So while bringing back Riven isn't trivial, it's also not necessarily all that difficult, because Ahamkara are weird.

Upon journeying to the Dreaming City in search of Riven's heart for the ritual, players encounter an unexpected obstacle in the form of the Vex, who are besieging the Dreaming City in an attempt to obtain Riven's heart for themselves. These particular Vex belong to the Sol Divisive faction and revere the Witness as a deity. These Vex are distinct for being cloaked in leaves and moss, evidence of their arrival from the Black Garden. Players have previously faced off against these forces in the Garden of Salvation raid during the Season of the Undying that was released alongside the Shadowkeep expansion.

Despite summoning Riven, she refuses to grant the 15th wish. Instead, she tasks players with locating all her Ahamkara eggs scattered throughout the Ascendant Plane. Only once all the eggs are retrieved and Riven's race is revived from extinction will she agree to assist the players.

What's going on with Riven?

It's all quite peculiar, to be honest, and raises numerous questions about the current season. Firstly, it's unprecedented that an Ahamkara has not seized the opportunity to grant a wish. After all, wishes are their sustenance and they delight in fulfilling them. Yet here is Riven, resurrected, holding back to pursue a different desire.

There's also the notion that Riven is attempting to prevent the Ahamkara from facing extinction. The lore clearly indicates that it was Riven, not Mara, who decided to assist the Guardians in the Great Hunt. Whether it was a wish granted or not, Riven indirectly played a role in the Ahamkara's demise. If she was concerned about their extinction, she could have intervened during the Great Hunt instead of waiting until much later.

This indicates that Riven is pursuing an alternative agenda that we may not fully comprehend. It is possible that she desires to resurrect the Ahamkara, but only as her offspring, allowing her to exert some level of control over them. Alternatively, the eggs themselves could be part of an unknown scheme with hidden motives.

Riven's actions are also sowing seeds of doubt between us and Mara, as neither of them trust each other, and Mara is known for her deceitful nature. Who dispersed the eggs in the Ascendant Plane, and what is their purpose? While Mara has significant influence in that realm, so do Savathun and others.

What's the deal with the Vex? The Sol Divisive was a specific group of Vex responsible for guarding the Black Heart, the strange entity that players destroyed at the end of the initial Destiny 1 storyline. It was later discovered that the Black Heart was an attempt to replicate the Veil, a mysterious Darkness object found beneath Neomuna on Neptune. Although much remains unclear, it is evident that the Sol Divisive is closely associated with the Witness, and they seem to be trying to hinder our pursuit of it. However, their overall agenda remains uncertain.

Then there's the issue of the Scorn, particularly Fikrul, the Fanatic. The Scorn are essentially undead beings brought back through Ahamkara magic, but with a Taken twist, making them a peculiar race. While some, like the Barons, exhibit a high level of functionality and can be compared to vampires along the living-dead spectrum, many of the Scorn we encounter are closer to mindless zombies. In the Season of the Lost, we observed intriguing instances where it appeared the Scorn were attempting to establish their own culture. At the same time, the recent Scorn encounters indicate that they are largely under the control of the Witness, similar to the Taken, through their connection to the power of Darkness.

With the departure of the Witness, both the Scorn and the Taken have been struggling as factions. Lore from the new dungeon, Warlord's Ruin, indicates that Fikrul aims to liberate the Scorn from the Witness's control by dispatching agents to collect Ahamkara bones. The Scorn have deep connections to the Ahamkara and will play a significant role, which will unfold as we replay the dungeon and progress through the season.

Destiny 2 has seen a number of antagonists acting as temporary allies lately, all with their own hidden agendas. This list potentially includes Riven and Mara as well. It remains to be seen how things will unfold in the Season of the Wish, and possibly beyond, especially since the upcoming episodes of Destiny 2 following The Final Shape expansion appear to focus on the Scorn. It's wise to anticipate complications in the future as a result of the actions taken by the good guys to stop the Witness today.

Editor's P/S

As a Gen Z netizen, I am thrilled about the return of Riven and the exploration of the Dreaming City in Destiny 2 Season of the Wish. The storyline is captivating, and I can't wait to unravel the mysteries surrounding Riven's agenda and embark on an unforgettable adventure. The game's developers have done an excellent job of bringing back old storylines and intertwining them with new content, creating a rich and immersive experience for players.

The lore behind Riven and the Ahamkara is particularly intriguing. The concept of wish-granting dragons that feed on the distinction between reality and desire adds a unique and fantastical element to the game. I appreciate the depth and complexity of the storytelling, which encourages players to delve deeper into the game's universe and engage with its intricate narrative. Overall, I am excited about the Season of the Wish and look forward to discovering more about Riven, the Ahamkara, and the secrets of the Dreaming City.