IVAN References

Hey, I got bored and decided to list all the outside references in IVAN I could find... in the dialogues, mainly, there are some other ones obviously in this great game (hattifatteners, etc.).

"The belt of levitation is really useful for large people!"
- Huang Ming Pong

Dune reference (Baron Harkonnen and his levitation belt)

"New Attnam, shit, I'm still only in New Attnam. Every time I think I'm gonna wake up back in the dungeon."
- Rookie Guard

Apocalypse Now reference.

"We are the Imperial Guard. Bow."
- Elite Guard

I'm not quite sure, but isn't this Star Wars reference?

"The Wise know that the world is really a square pancake which He carries on His back."
- Priest of Valpurus

Reference to Hindu/Arabic/Discworld beliefs.

"Can you believe it, the dude tried to take from us our natural right to carry a spear in the street!"
- Hunter

An obvious Second Ammendment reference.

"You will install the One OS. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be assimilited."
- Pure Mass of Bill's Will

Star Trek AND Microsoft reference!

"Leg bone is connected to the hib bone, hib bone is connected to the rib bone..."
- Skeleton

The song reference.

"'Tis but a scratch." and "That's just a flesh wound!"
- Dark Knight

Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference.

"I see dead people."
- Necromancer

Sixth Sense reference.

And my favourites:

"Vodka strong, but meat rotten."
- Ivan

A reference to an anecdote in machine translation, where "the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak" was turned into the above when auto-translated into Russian and back to English.

"Ivan meet Vladimir first in magic test area near Voktsovadil."
- Ivan

Voktsovadil is an anagram of Vladivostok.

Anything else? I may have missed something

Edit: Oh, yes. The Gods' and archangels' names are all obviously Latin words (apart from Scabies, I guess), which most folks know about. "Vesana", as in Genetrix Vesana, is also apparently a Finnish word for "sprouting". "Genetrix" in Latin is a fancy term for "mother".

Nice, there were many i couldn;t place before. thanks

I always wondered about the significance of the invisble stalker saying "The gods are away"

Vesa means a sprout, offspring.

Mjolnir was Thors hammer. I don't remember the rest, but most original artifact weapons were a reference to real life. Someone should check the original forum...

Octiron is a metal from Discworld

...Discworld being the world of Terry Prachett. Great author, by the way.

Yeah, I remember seeing that post... Mjolak references Mjolnir. Turox may reference Turok, the game series. No idea about Vermis or Saal'Thul - oh, and CVS holy hand grenade of Antioch is also obviously a Monty Python reference, complete with the voice counting to three.


Yup! I wonder if there are any more - as I mentioned, the "world is a flat pancake resting on Valpurus" may also be one.

Oh, and Mithril is a Tolkien reference, but it's pretty common in RPGs of all sort.


"God's away on business" and "Misery's the river of the world" are both songs by Tom Waits, apparently!

http://www.ripcat.free-online.co.uk/waitshtml/godsawayonbusi...
http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/tom_waits/misery_is_the_ri...

By the way, my image of invisible stalkers was absolutely ruined when after a long dying spree I started to name my characters bizarre names, and the one I named "Masturbator" turned into an invisible stalker after drinking from a fountain several turns into the game.

Currently, having deciphered Voktsovadil, I'm wondering whether some other names may be anagrams... Tweraif or Oily Orpiv, anyone?

I'm also wondering about the following:

"When I was here, I wanted to be there, when I was there all I could think of was getting back into the dungeon." - Shop Guard

(also Apocalypse Now, maybe?)

"Humie friend. Many mommo we kill. Many spider we eat." - Goblin

(I was thinking Gollum from LoTR, but may be wrong)

"I am the Great White Hunter. Get out of My way!" - Hunter

Oh, and by the way, I love how IVAN combines all these with a brilliant and distinct atmosphere and world of its all... something that some reference-heavy games often can't balance.

Edit: LMAO! Read Neerc Se-ulb backwards and don't you dare tell me you don't get it

Yes, Blue screen. =D There is also Bill's will... Somewhere... Here! Aaah! *crashes*

Oh yeah, and the Vermis is a part of brains. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermis

And arcanite really exists, I think... At least in some form. There was a discussion about that recently, right? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_sulfate Also, it seems to be a fictional metal from Warcraft.

Oh, I know another! Eddies in the time space continuum are a reference to the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy.

As are sofas! Sure thing, stupid me...

Ah! I can't belive I got eddie but not the couches

Each major version of IVAN must include a new reference to Monty Python.


I thought it's a Monkey Island II reference, but maybe MI2 just used the song, I'm not sure.

Mondred (which is not in current official IVAN, I think, but anyway) is an anagram of Redmond.

"A "cheap copy of Petrus's left nut" seems to be a NetHack reference.

Nice! I've read HGttG, a long time ago, and I didn't remember the eddies

Masamune and Muramasa in the CVS are both references to Japanese swordssmiths, which are also made popular by various j-RPGs (Final Fantasy and the sort).

Also, I had some fun with Andy's Anagram Solver... nothing serious, but just for kicks, some of the more funny anagrams:

Ischaldirh - radish lich / chili shard / hard chilis
Tweraif - fat wire / wet fair / fit wear / tar wife
Oily Orpiv - privy olio*
Golgor Dhan - Arnold Gogh
Sherarax - Sarah Rex
Richel Decos - screech idol / lecher disco / delhi soccer
Huang Ming Pong - nagging on hump / hugging Ann mop
Guugzamesh - zeugma gush
Enner Beast - bane enters / ban entrees / eastern Ben
Haedlac Galladon - loaded Callaghan / a God-led Callahan

Then again...

Adolf Hitler - dollar thief / filet harold
Jesus Christ - chess jurist
George Bush - shoe bugger

* "olio" is apparently Finnish for "thing", so "privy olio" does make a bit of sense... Compare ADOM "si" for "strange item". Holybanana is also one of the dev's nickname.

Also, Tweraif contains letter for "fire", "air" and "water", but I doubt it's significant.

Wow, some of these I never knew.

Still others are stretching it a little bit though.

Dolphins with high intelligence - isn't that yet another Hitchiker's Guide to the Universe reference?

+1

Kaethos the village elder gives the following anagrmas:

Seek gravitated hellhole
Shovel leek, tilt headgear
Light shovel, alleviated leek
Averaged teeth hole kills
Her hostel alleviated keg
Devastate heel killer hog

Confucius references? Or am I thinking too hard?

Oh, and i admire your skill with a wand of resurrection. Impressive!

Those aren't actually things Kaethos says; they are just anagrams that Eagle V came up with using the anagram link Cerumen posted (far as I can tell, anyway).

Almost correct, I used an other link

Also, it gave me 10k results, so it took me a while to filter these out

And anagrmas was not a typo, it's an anagram of anagrams.

How on earth did I miss this the first time around?

Neither are in the CVS, they're additions other people have made.

Yeah, I know that by now, they're from LIVAN and I mistook that for a feature from CVS

Something you probably already know - apart from dark knights that lose a limb stating "it's just a flesh wound", if you manage to chop off at least 1 leg and his sword arm (i think) he'll say "I'll do you for that! I'll bite your legs off!", again Monthy Python and the Holy Grail.

An anagram for new attnam: went atman (atman=soul in Hinduism I think). A hint for us to kill everyone?
Attnam: mat ant

kinda amusing thing is that anagram thingie.