Larian Studios Forums Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga / Flames of Vengeance (English) Divinity II - The Dragon Knight Saga Mr Dragon goes to Washington

Hi!

Let me begin by thanking everyone who has taken the time to read and reply to my previous posts. I've found the spirit on this forum to be very open and generous, and it is on this note that I move on to a somewhat broader subject.

The Dragon Knight Saga is my first encounter with the Divinity series and I've not been playing it for very long - I'm still only att level 12. So I guess the questions below would be a typical 'noob' thing.

Anyway, and to put it bluntly: Is there any information around about the society and the world at large?

I start the game as a Dragon Slayer. This obviously means that I'm supposed to slay dragons (I got that part), but on top of that I seem to function as some sort of general free-for-all troubleshooter as well. People come up to me and ask me to help out with all kinds of problems, many of which require a violent solution. What, if any, are my actual duties and obligations? Do I have a license to kill? Do I answer to my superiors, or to any sort of higher authority (such as the law, or my liege lord, or the king)?*

How do people get recruited as Dragon Slayers? Do you have to be of noble birth, or do you have to have a talent for magic, or what?

What is my status as a Dragon Slayer compared to that of, say, the Town Watch or the Defenders of Aleroth? Is there a noble class and a clerical class to be aware of? Is there a church, or if more than one, which ones exist? (There is some kind of Divine Order, which I have concluded to be a priestly order dedicated to the Divine, but I seem to recall some NPC mentioning an Old Order, or someting like that. If so, how do they interact?)

Is it a feudal society or a republic? Is there a king, an emperor or a High Priest around somewhere? (Or is everything anarchy after the Divine got bumped off?)

It is obviously a High Fantasy world, in the sense that magic wielders are a normal and accepted part of society. I've seen a number of female guards around, so I would say that the society is egalitarian in principle (at least according to species; apart from a few well-spoken undead I've yet to encounter any non-human species that I'm not supposed to kill on sight).**

Maybe I'm asking the wrong questions here. I've been thinking that maybe my general knowledge of the world and the society I live in was wiped out alongside my training memories during the initiation, and everything will be revealed gradually over time. I've been buying, stealing and reading every book I can get my hands on (this worked in Oblivion), but so far there is very little real information to be found in these musty old tomes.

Or maybe there are no definitive answers, and the players are supposed to fill in the gaps themselves?

I might be treading over ground that has already been thoroughly mapped, but I thought it could be fun to discuss these things...

Procrastes

*Of course, my day-to-day duties as a Dragon Slayer would be somewhat redundant now that I'm a Dragon Knight. By all accounts, I should currently be on the run, dodging hunting parties and assassination attempts from those whom I once called friends and colleagues. It hasn't happened yet, though.

**I've heard rumours of elves and dwarves etc in previous chapters of the story line.

There is a few books around about the history of Dragon Slayers and Dragon Knight with a bit more information. According to me, it's a kind of elite warrior class, but also a sectarian-tendancy order. If I remember well, the first dragon slayers were from the noblety, but it's maybe not the case anymore. It has little importance since they don't remember their familly.

Yes you have the right to kill (as far as you don't get killed back ;)), Rhode is theorically your hierarchically superior but she tends to neglect you when a dragon is around... Dragon Slayers only answer to their own autority, but they must anyway obey the law of local autority (Rhode is going to discover it soon or later :P).

There is two other elite warrior faction: the Champions of Aleroth (like Richard) and the Seekers of Rivertown (there is a bunch of them in Brokenvalley). Basically they both claim themselves as the legacy of the Divine One, but they differ someway in their phylosophy. They are in full concurency.

About politics, in Divine Divinity Aleroth and Rivertown were part of Dukedom of Ferol. However, the last Duke die in the end, so I guess the political scene changed. We meet the rulers of Aleroth (an Archmage and a Champion), but not those of Rivertown so I don't know how it works over there. Far East, there is also Verdistis, a big merchant-ruled city you cannot reach in Divinity II. Far West, in Broken Valley and Orobas Fjord, it's mostly wild, so I would say town watch and seeker basement are the highest autority - not to mention bandits.

About races, you won't meet a lot of peacefully non-human species. At least no elves and dwarves anymore, since they hide themselves (according to some books). In Divine Divinity, I would say those races were even more egalitarian than humans (all their females could actually fight, and fight quite well). Anyway, in Divinity II there is only goblins, and I didn't notice any female NPC amount them.

Well, I hope I answered all your questions

You did - thanks a lot!

I seem to have missed out on a lot of background knowledge by not playing the earlier games in the series.

The society you describe is more or less as I thought it would be - little or no effective central government, and local order being kept (or not) by the one with the biggest sword/bow/staff. (I guess it's a good time to be a Dragon Knight - if it weren't for those pesky slayers.)

However, the Watch captain in the village in Broken Valley complained that he had been recruited with promises of "Join the Watch - see the world". This would suggest that the Watch is not kept and paid locally, but that it serves under a central authority. Which one would that be? For that matter, I don't recall having met either a land lord or any kind of elected official in Broken Valley...

I guess Broken Valley village is ruled by Rivertown, at least it would explain the high concentration of seekers (-> here to seize food, it means they have the right for).

That sounds reasonable!

The "seize-food quest" was actually the point in the game when I started thinking about all this stuff with duty, obligation and the society at large. Was I some kind of official and thus obliged to uphold the law? Were the Dragon Slayers affiliated with either the Seekers or the Defenders? Or could I do pretty much what I wanted? In the end I decided that Richard had put up no argument to show that Rivertown needed the supplies that much better than Aleroth - and then I had to kill the sod. What a waste; especially since I hadn't sold all my goblin hearts to him at that point...!

Thanks again for your kind reply!

I thought the same, but I changed my mind after reading a note in Watch tower. It told the food was only for the riches not to miss any sunday meal (or something like that ^^). I eventually decided to help Richard, since seekers weren't honest with me.

Note; there is a peaceful way to help Richard.

I remember that somewhere in the net(or in this forum) was writed that first slayers were from divine order and

As noted, the highest authority mentioned in Divine Divinity was the Duke of Ferol, who had a sizeable castle. Aleroth was a little village that took care of itself and there was apparently a merchant class mixed with nobility who ran things in Verdistis.

All that went to hell after Divine Divinity: as far as I can tell, The Divine One (being the incarnation of the Seven Gods - who aren't mentioned EVEN ONCE in Divinity II) set up his Divine Order and became the law and religion of the land. And after his death the Order persisted and you had the various factions rise to power like the Seekers and the Slayers. The old nobility of Ferol and Rivertown seems all but forgotten.

There were also formerly churches and priests in Rivellon - the religion was mainly founded on the Seven Gods, and the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy of Reuben Ferol, who prophecied that he would be reincarnated when the Black Ring and Lord of Chaos rose to power again. This prophecy was fulfilled in Divine Divinity by your player character, so the Divine Order became both the new religion and the new law. So, in a way, you are right to wonder why the in-game history and lore of Divinity II seems to be shallow - but the reason is that so much of was rendered obsolete by the recent wars - the current state of affairs is pretty much all there is to see - various 'orders' all sort of bumping elbows trying to maintain power and prosperity.

Hm, just I don't think the Divine One is a reincarnation, for me he looks more like a 'champion;' before he received the blessing to be the Divine One, he was called the Marked One. It's a detail, but it makes him a divine human instead of a human god.

You're right, in my post I said both a incarnation of the Seven Gods and a reincarnation of Reuben Ferol - only the latter is true (if you believe the prophecy). He did go to the afterlife and get imbued with some sort of essence from each of the seven gods though. I guess when I said 'incarnation of the seven gods' I really meant he completely took the place of the Seven Gods in the religion of the people. No one references the Seven Gods in Divinity II, it's like they never existed. It's always "By the Divine! You killed the goblins!" or "Divine be praised!"

EDIT: Maybe "avatar of the Seven Gods" would have been a better definition.

Well, Now when Divine is back let's hope that he and Zandalor can knock some sense into both people and power structures and made them stand agains real treat of damian. (And disband dragon slayers or give them chance at redemtion.)

About god-like status of Divine ,I think that people of Rivellon started to worship him and treat him like god after Only why they Forgotten about seven Gods so fast?

Let's hope that larian will patch some plotholes in div 3: (insert epic title here).

My speculation: Larian downplayed them because each of the Seven Gods represents one of the Seven Races, and since all but three are completely removed from Divinity II (no elves, dwarves, lizards, or orcs to be found), the Seven wouldn't be all that relevant to anything.

There was going to be an area containing dwarves and elves in Divinity 2, but it got dropped during development.

can someone sum up the story

I found that note, too, but pegged it down as mere traditional gribe from the man on the street vs. the high and mighty. Maybe it had a deeper moral meaning...?

And I would have been happy to discuss possible peaceful solutions with Richard. But he gave me no choice of a middle way; it was either him or them. Sorry, Richard... you shouldn't have put me on the spot!

Thanks! I'm beginning to put the pieces together here.

Is there a formal tenet of the church of the Divine Order, such as rules of conduct, or commandments? Do they have the promise of an afterlife, with a background threat of eternal damnation? (There is evidently a Hall of Echoes, but what else do they have?)

The idea of an old, sidelined nobility and/or priesthood is intriguing. It would open possibilities of a manysided powerstruggle beetween the old and the new, now that the Divine is out of commission.

Yes, I was actually hoping we'd get to see what the state of things was in the familiar eastern regions of Ferol, Rivertown and Verdistis in Divinity II, but new places are always nice too. Maybe there still is entrenched nobility, maybe it's pretty much the same as in the west, we can only guess, since there aren't too many clues in Div II. I could definitely see power struggles arising because of it though.

Well, I'm mainly going from my memory of Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity, but I would be willing to bet the transition from the Church of the seven gods to the Order of the Divine was pretty smooth, because the latter is the natural progression of the former. It's similar to the messiah coming back and ushering in a new era, except in this case, the messiah only half succeeded in his task.



Now, the following is based off of what Zix-Zax the imp historian tells you in Divine Divinity: Chaos was first, a primal void, blackness, darkness, basically all that is metaphysically and philosophically negative. The Seven Gods came next, and crafted the worlds, life, and the Seven intelligent races: Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Imps, Lizards, Orcs, and Wizards. Naturally, Lord Chaos hates this, and constantly works to destroy all creation.

So what you have is not so much a Christian-style religion of an omnipotent creator, sin, salvation, afterlife and punishment/reward, but instead a kind of Manichean duality of the opposing forces of chaos vs. creation. I don't remember any kind of moral codes from the Churches in Divine Divinity, beyond sort of universals like "don't steal" and "don't pee in the sacramental wine." They were very much focused on the prophecy of Reuben Ferol that the Divine One would appear in darkest times. All the races recognized and we were willing to submit to this prophecy, despite their cultural differences (some needed more persuading than others).

One thing I notice each of the seven races tended to worship its own patron god (e.g., the dwarves would praise Duna, etc.) And, they all had their own specific forms of worship and culture of course. I remember it being a very odd rarity to find a dwarven priest, for example, but they had an absolute King. Side note: There was so much more politics and culture to absorb in the first game, all other things aside.

Once the Divine took over, all you really learn about the Divine Order from Beyond Divinity is that he creates an Order of Paladins whose jobs it is to eradicate the Black Ring, necromancers, witches, and the like. It seems like it was designed to preside over war-like times.

Beyond that, I can't add much else that you couldn't learn from Divinity II, since I'm currently still working on the FOV campaign on my first playthrough. The Hall of Echoes is completely new to Divinity II. There were ghosts in the first two games but anyone could see and talk to them, and no mention of an afterlife.

A cosmology based on the duality principle makes sense; it's a neat way to provide a base for the whole good vs. evil thing that is the backbone of fantasy heroics. The fact that chaos isn't inherently 'evil' is often overlooked, and I suppose that anyone with the desire to make an End of All Things (Damien?) would find himself to be morally blamed by most of those he met along the way.

Even an outlook based on the duality principle does not, however, let a religion avoid the issue of the Great Divide. Whether a shaman or a priest, a spiritual leader who doesn't provide an answer to the question of "what happens when we die?", must be said to have failed in his mission. This is doubly true in a world where people can actually see ghosts everywhere (although I suppose they could just ask them).

As I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

And when the Lord my soul has got
He'll leave my soulless husk to rot
Where it will slowly liquefy
`Cause that's what happens when you die.

Definitely, don't! *smile at the memory*