Larian Studios Forums Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga / Flames of Vengeance (English) Divinity II - The Dragon Knight Saga How substantial ARE the Black Ring forces?

MASSIVE SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!









Throughout DKS, Damian is made out to have massive armies under his control, but how massive are the Black Ring's forces, and how big of a dent did your actions in DKS put in them?

Let's break this down:

1: You kill several of what apparently are top generals of the Black Ring. To name some names: Stone, Xanlosch, Raze, Rayhun, Geshniz, Kali, and Keara. That's seven generals, and apparently their fortresses with them. And these aren't just floating battle stations. It's clear these generals performed and spearheaded massive research into several fields, including necromancy, emon summoning, enchanting and smithing, botany (mixed with dark magic), and alchemy. So losing the generals AND their fortresses is alone a pretty catastrophic loss.

2: Damian's Aleroth assault force is destroyed at the end of FoV. The entire massive armada he assembled is all destroyed, either by the Dragon, or by the Eye/Device. Considering how high a priority Aleroth's destruction must have been, this should've been a sizeable chunk of his total forces.

3: Along with his armada, Damian loses Ygerna (for good this time, apparently) in the battle at the end of FoV. She is portrayed as a very powerful sorceress in her own right, so she's at least equal with the generals in point 1.

4: Damian loses the support Behrlihn would have provided. He is an ancient disciple of Chaos, powerful enough that he was feared even by the combined might of Zandalor and Bellegar (and possibly Maxos, too). But one option is he is left either to rot beneath the re-fortified Aleroth (as opposed to the undead-stricken mess he found when he launched his attack at the end of ED), Bellegar and Zandalor's protective spells no doubt renewed and strengthened. The other option is worse: if released, he gives you the Eye of the Patriarch, an instrument of mass destruction that ends up being used to destroy the very armada Damian had sent (and injure Ygerna).

So here's the score:
-Seven top generals dead.
-The massive production and research facilities of those generals (and their soldiers!), gone.
-Ygerna, Damian's lover, also dead (after having her body damaged in the fight).
-The foe's final bastion (Aleroth) has plenty of time to rest, rebuild, and reinforce its defenses.
-Behrlihn, a great asset, is sealed beneath said city, or, worse, had his soul destroyed in combat with you.
-Sealed with him, or given to the Dragon, the Eye of the Patriarch (apparently the Divinity version of a mini-nuke) is lost: either deep beneath Aleroth, re-sealed, or having been used against Damian's own forces.


So my question is actually simple: How much of Damian's forces were destroyed? How incomprehensibly massive are his forces that he has enough manpower under his control even now to rebuild himself into a threat, as opposed to on the run from pursuing forces who would want to strike while he's injured?

I wouldn't expect clarity on this from Larian.


In Divinity 1, the Black Ring that appeared on screen consisted of 5 guys. Those 5 generals were destroyed along with the Demon of Lies. Yet 15-20 years later, there's a massive army of ground forces, including some on another planet. The 20-year time frame between the end of BD and the Divine's removal from the field was when the forces of light were powerful, I'm not sure how the Black Ring conscripted or recruited so many humans.

The story also suggests that Rivellon has mostly been at peace, which suggests that Damian hasn't been conquering and enslaving other countries.

The only clue about the lands the Black Ring still has under firm control is a couple of guys in the mining office mentioning the bases in Yuthul Gor, where orc slaves work on building Flying Fortresses.

It's already quite mind-boggling how a 14-year old Damian, after the execution of his lover, apparently managed to raise a vast army to challenge the Divine.

I guess he's... unusually charismatic?

The Black Ring was already organized, and attempting to cultivate Damian's power (they sent Ygerna to him). All he had to do was show up and claim his birthright.

The events in the Beyond Divinity novella do demonstrate that he is very charismatic and manipulative, though (like many megalomaniacs). can someone sum up the story

Anyone else think the Cult of Abraxas will be the antagonists in the Project D game? FoV seems to hint at it.

The Black Ring brought fourth Damian to lead them, so the Black Ring is his army. Damian had an army since the events at the end of Divinity: Sword of Lies.

We only know of one region of the world these events take place in. I'm sure the black ring is all over the world. It was never revealed how vast the Black Ring is as they remain secrative and until this war, didn't show themselves often.

They can have hundreds of "top" generals.

As for the next game. I'm expecting the Black Ring to have suffered many defeats and a lot of land reclaimed. A possibility of the Dragon Knights to return as this hero I'm sure will have passed the gift on to others (keep in mind that it isn't sexual as in having to bear offspring to gain this power). So a possibility of seeing into their past and maybe why they were not seen in Divinity.

Between Divinity and Ego, I predicted Damian would have a vast army that we'd fit threw. That came true. So my prediction here is more of conquered land where neither side is no longer winning but plotting against each other holding renegade like attacks. Which could be things we'll do in the next game that will be similar to the raids we did in the first one.

How powerful is the Black Ring? Powerful enough to hold down some claimed ground essentially making it their own country I'd assume at this point. Most likely the waste land and orc region with spies living in the Kingdom Ferrol (if that still exists).

I wondered the same on my last playthroughs and a lot on the last. Thankfully, this thread is here just when I finished blowing up Ygerna (again).

The Black Ring seems to be a massive army with vast resources which now had decades to build up. Even if it can take the blow the Dragon Knight gave it, it still must be crippling.

If normal people are around the range of level 1 to 10 (Richard of Aleroth is level tenish as are seasoned bandits and most of the footsoliders of the black ring) and elite captains and leaders level 20 to 30, the Black Ring has lost 100s of very able soliders + a massive amount of non-standard fighters in the low and high 20s.
Plus a lot of generals, specialists, fortresses, and one main-attack fleet. Plus a lot of demons and flyingbeasts (demons as well as corrupted-dragon-things).

Whatever plans Damian had for now, he can totally forget about them. This does not matter as he does have time. What are another 20 or so years to rebuild his army? But the point stands, the Dragon Knight caused some massive damage to Damian's Campaign (apart from screwing up his personal life due to killing Ygerna).

Damien also has access to an army of demons doesn't he though? Let's say, in the next Divinity game, the Lord of Chaos (the demon inside him) reaches his full potential and truly awakens. Then what? Maybe he'll summon more demons (assuming there was a limit to what Damien in human form could summon) and compose his army's ranks up with demons. 100 demons are better than 1000 human soldiers. If he summons a few demon lords (there must be other demons like Ba'al), say around 10, then 10 is enough to defeat 100 human soldiers. So his army might be small but he still has enough to defend what fortresses and lands that he has.

The Black Ring also seem to be more advanced in technology, necromancy and magic than everyone else and this can be seen when you explore their fortresses from the inside, so who knows what defenses Damien has.

I'm still waiting to kill him in the next game to take his armor...

Well, his Demon Army got much smaller since I killed them in flocks last time I raided a fortress.

100 demons are still better than 1000 human soldiers. I believe that if we could spawn enemies and NPCs in the game, we could see what would happen between 100 demons and 1000 human soldiers and I'm sure the demons would win.

Dead demons go to hell only to return... that is the problem with those damn things! The exception is anything killed in the Hall of Echo's as those demons/souls are lost.