Tibia and The Number 7

This is one of the articles that was submitted to the Secrets of Tibia 3 contest. It was written by Leon Nake.

Tibia and The Number 7

“The number seven has numerous meanings in Judaism and Christianity and is noted frequently in the Bible. Seven is also an important number of spiritual significance in Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. In the Old Testament, God had created the world in six days while resting on the seventh day. There are seven deadly sins in the Bible, seven layers of purgatory, and seven sacraments in the Catholic church. The Book of Revelations speaks of seven stars, seven trumpets, seven seals, seven angels, seven churches, and seven plagues.” Julieanne Klein 

It is not new that the content team insert external references into the game in the content creation process. We see several of these examples such as ancient Egypt and Ankrahmun, pirates, secret services, NPCs that have easter eggs with famous actors and various concepts such as relativity, parallel universes and even the most diverse religious references. Today we are going to address another external reference that goes very unnoticed by most people in the game's daily life, but the more we investigate it, the more new things we discover and show us how well everything is thought out and calculated to be introduced to the game, especially when it comes to the lore.

7

Content creators seem to have adopted the superstition of the number 7. Seven is present within the game in countless quests, dialogues, bosses, missions and even in sets. We pass before this Kabbalistic number, full of spiritual meaning, a number linked to luck, faith, creation and destruction. Today we will see some examples of this within the game. Hope you like it.
 

In the beginning, there were 3 creative entities: Fardos, Uman and Zathroth. Then Tibiasula. However, she is murdered and with her death, her body gives rise to the 4 elements we know. If we look at this process mathematically, we have:
 

Fardos, Uman-Zathroth and Tibiasula = 4 Creator Gods.
 

There was the murder of Tibiasula and the elements emerged.
 

Fardos, Uman-Zathroth and the 4 elements.
 

In mathematical expression, it means:
 

4 Gods = 3 Gods + (Water, Earth, Fire and Air) = 7 agents responsible for the origin of creations.
 

The combination of the 3 Gods with the 4 elements gives rise to the creation of 7 Gods: 

1 Fafnar
2 Suon
3 Crunor
4 Nornur
5 Bastesh
6 Urgith
7 Toth

Moving on to deities, we also have the 7 Celestial Paladins, worshiped by the Elves.
 

Are they:
 

1 Mortiur

2 Nera

3 Dseyvar

4 Priyla

5 Krynierr

6 Azmoda

7 Evicor

Coincidence? Maybe not.

When it comes to missions, we see several examples of this. First, we'll start with the Queen of the Banshee Quest.
            

 

We have to complete all 7 seals to finish the quest.

Also, the Queen of the Banshee is on the 7th Floor below the surface.

                                                  

 

Following the classics, we go to the Pharaos of Ankrahmun.

7 Traitor Pharaos (Mahrdis, Rahemos, Dipthrah, Morguthis, Omruc, Thalas and Vashresamun).

7 Tombs

7 Parts of the helmet to create the Helmet of The Ancients.

      

Still in the classics, let's go to Pits of Inferno (POI). There, we again find more references to the number 7. We have:

7 Seals for each of the Ruthless Seven.

7 Thrones to pass to complete the quest.

7 Bosses specific to each seal (Dracola, The Imperor, The Handmaiden, Countess Sorrow, Massacre, Mr. Punisher and The Plasmother).
 

Not convinced yet? Calm…
 

Let's go to another classic quest: The Inquisition Quest.
 

The quest has 7 missions:

In mission 7, we have to defeat…you guessed it…7 bosses. Are they: 

And the 7 doesn't stop.
 

Let's go to the Heart of Destruction Quest:
 

Where we also have, which is no surprise anymore…7 Bosses.

                                      

Then we arrive at the Dream Curts Quest which… well, it doesn't have the same quantity as the other previous ones, however, the number 7 would never stop appearing, right?

      

Boom! And it's there again. Speaking of Seven Seas, the number 7 is also written in several books and achievements. I'm going to bring you some as they are not few and I invite you to research them.

    
                                  
                                
                              

Ok, now let's go back to one of my favorite quests and as the rule dictates, number 7 is the base. Let’s look at the famous Ferumbra’s Ascendant Quest.

Our mission is to forge the Godbreaker.

Yes, 7 parts. 
How do we do it? 
Facing 7 different bosses and recovering the 7 parts to forge a special item. 
Wait a minute…
I've seen this film before in Ankr…
Nevermind.

 

We have 7 bosses along the way and each of them represents one of the Ruthless Seven. Each of them has one of the 7 parts of the GodBreaker. As if it weren't so obvious to understand that the creators love the number 7, each of the bosses also drops items belonging to a set exclusive to the quest:
                          

All these seven items were developed with the same color palette. At the end of the quest, we get an achievement with another seven reference: 

Last update introduced the 20 Years a Cook Quest. With that, we got two new boss challenges: Mitmah Vanguard and Dragon Hoard.

Dragon Hoard consists of 7 dragons that we must kill one by one, and the ability of that boss passes to the next dragon in an interesting and nice battle. And again, the seven is there.  
             

It seems crazy, but it's really easy to find patterns that encompass the very powerful number 7 in Tibia. Last but not least, we have a rather mysterious item. An item that is strange in itself but still causes mystery: Shimmer Swimmer.
 

A fish that transforms into…7 different shapes:
 

1 Shimmer Sword

2 Shimmer Wand

3 Shimmer Rod

4 Shimmer Bow

5 Shimmer Glower

6 Shimmer Ball

7 Babel Swimmer (we haven't figured out how to create it yet).
 

Some of them expire in 7 days.

 

I think this is enough for us to realize how important the number 7 is in the creation and elaboration of the game's content, showing that there are signs that everything is thought out and put together purposefully in this way. We don't know if it refers to faith or if it's just the superstition of having such a strong and powerful number, inserted in the most diverse contexts of a game in which everything is thought out and shaped, in an intelligent, attractive, mysterious and above all way, fun.

I hope you enjoyed it and if you die, don’t forget to buy the seven blessings. 

See you around.


Leon Nake - Gladera. 

References:

Intro: https://study.com/academy/lesson/number-seven-symbolism-facts-numerology.html
Surveys, Images and Tutorials: https://www.tibiawiki.com.br/wiki/Home 

Dialogue Bozo: https://talesoftibia.com/npsearch?s=demoncarving