Information on the Orders of Dagath

Marleh · Post by **Marleh** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 6:52 pm

Dagath's personal information is listed on the wiki, but the description of each of his orders is missing. I know there was a detailed description for each order on the boards here, but for the life of me I cannot find it. Can anyone point a page or wiki entry out to me?

Danke

Post by **Urizen** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 7:10 pm

I like this one from Orleron from "Confusion on Divinity" thread in Avlis General Discussion:

Dagath is about the cycle of life and death, correct. Each part is a necessary thing for perpetuating the universe, as Dagath sees it. He cares not HOW people live, or HOW they die (, or even how they're reborn.) He simply cares that they DO live, die, and are born again. Dagath can be thought of as the wheels on which the tricycle of mortal existence rides on. (How's that for a deep analogy? lol) The wheels don't much care where the bike goes...only that it is able to go.

For this reason, Dagath's church is unique among Avlis' organizations. It's a coexistance of all alignments, because no matter who you are, if you're a mortal, you're part of this cycle. So anyone can ascribe to it.

The Order of Life concerns itself primarily with life, and getting people through life, whether by feeding the poor, or giving other kinds of charity, or overseeing life events. However, the Order of Life accepts that things must die sometime.

The Order of Death takes care of these incidents. Most of the time, the Order of Death concerns itself with the dying or the ones who have just died and need to be properly interred. But the Order of Death also has a responsibility that the overall rate of death in the world does not slow down too much. These are the only rare times that you'll see them doing things like killing commoners in overpopulated areas where death has not visited often enough to keep the cycle going.

The Order of Life does not help them with these killings, but they do not oppose them. Their god tells them that it is necessary to let the death order do their thing because it's their department, so to speak. Each order sticks to its own department.

This makes for some interesting implications for the responsibilities of each order with respect to undead.

Alphonse · Post by **Alphonse** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 7:14 pm

The following is from the old World info thread on Intermediate Gods:

Dagath
Alignment: N
Worshipers' Alignment: Any
Area of Control: Life, Death & Rebirth

Dagath was born of a union of Mikon and one of his mortal followers. Because of the unusual nature of his parentage, he was born a god but had to watch his mother grow old and die eventually. However, he realized that when this happened, her soul went somewhere else and that she was in fact not obliterated, she was just changed and living somewhere else. All mortals shared this fate, and he soon became aware that all mortals are actually immortal and capable of rebirth.

Thus he took on the mantle of Life, Death, and Rebirth. Political matters of nations and cities do not concern him as much as actual life and death itself. He oversees changes in life such as the birth of a baby, marriage, retirement, death, and even the afterlife. Sometimes his job is pleasant, and sometimes not. Dagath cares not about one's personal trials and tribulations. Dagath cares about the cycles of Life, Death, and Rebirth.

Because of the wide nature of his ethos, Dagath has all kinds of worshippers ranging from saintly to vile. He is one of the few gods who's worshipers can be of any alignment. His priesthood is divided into three orders that deal with his charge: The Order of Life, The Order of Death, and The Order of Rebirth.

The order of Life:
By and large, the Life clerics are good aligned. They see the cycle of life as their pervue, they oversee marriages and supporting people in their day to day life. They would look upon undead as an abomination, beings that have fallen out of their cycle. These priests are those that see to the helpless, the poor and the hungry

The order of Rebirth
The clerics of this order are generally neutrally aligned. They see the cycle of the afterlife to be in their dominion. To them It is a blasphemy to summon the spirits of those resting in Dagath's care back into the world and thus interrupt their well-earned peace before their rebirth into a fitting new body, they might despise Undead and seek to return them to their slumber, until the time of rebirth.

The order of Death
These clerics are evil aligned and will summon undead to their aid with no compunction whatsoever. They are the grim reapers of Dagath's fold, they seek death out, and they handle the funerals, last rites and oversee all that deals with death. A death priest will generally see undead as normal people who are stuck in the "death" phase of the circle.

Death priests are often the hand of retribution of the church. For instance, if the Order of Life feels that a living being has been wrongfully killed, they will often enlist the Order of Death to take revenge for the killing. The Order of Rebirth is usually there to clean up the mess.

The cycle of life is never-ending, death is merely a stage, you go into the afterlife until such a time as you are reborn into a fitting new body, the cycle of life restarts and you begin your journey anew.

Dagath sees the forest as the greatest example of the cycle of life in existence, and for that reason if no other, he takes an interest in it. Druids of Dagath tend to feel that balance is their highest calling that life must be allowed to go though its cycle the way it was intended to.

They protect the forest to prevent someone from altering the cycle or causing premature death. They care for the forest so that life has a chance to flourish. They allow destruction to come, because death is a necessary part of life, and from time to time the forest must be cleansed by the touch of fire or flood. Druids of Dagath, only get involved, if they feel an event might somehow alter the natural cycle of the forest.

Marleh · Post by **Marleh** » Mon Jun 12, 2006 8:27 pm

Thanks guys, Alphonse's info was what I was looking for, but the other quote gives some interesting angles I hadn't considered before.

If no one minds, I'll crop the info about the orders into the page for Dagath.

apandapion · Post by **apandapion** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 12:38 am

I've always felt that there really isn't enough solid information on how to play a member of the order of death... so I've been winging it for the last 8 months. There is a huge diversity, I have observed, among the members of the Order of Death I have met...

pstanton · Post by **pstanton** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 1:16 am

I think it would be nice if that bit could be made into an IG book.

We really don't have very many books on Avlis, how do we justify only having one book per bookshelf in all the libraries?

Marleh · Post by **Marleh** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 3:18 am

If memory serves, there is a bit of information about the orders in an IG book. I just couldnt find it, being at work when I made the request.

Intermediate Dieties volume 2 I believe, though I'll double-check that.

Moredo · Post by **Moredo** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 3:36 am

pstanton wrote:I think it would be nice if that bit could be made into an IG book.

We really don't have very many books on Avlis, how do we justify only having one book per bookshelf in all the libraries?

There are 226 custom books in the palette. I'd say that's quite a few.

Only one book spawns per bookshelf due to the spawn script, and it's meant to be that way.

Moredo · Post by **Moredo** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 3:39 am

Marleh wrote:If memory serves, there is a bit of information about the orders in an IG book. I just couldnt find it, being at work when I made the request.

Intermediate Dieties volume 2 I believe, though I'll double-check that.

Correct!

Intermediate Deities of Avlis, Volume 2 wrote:Dagath (Life, Death & Rebirth)

Dagath was born of a union of Mikon and one of his mortal followers. Because of the unusual nature of his parentage, he was born a god but had to watch his mother grow old and die eventually. However, he realized that when this happened, her soul went somewhere else and that she was in fact not obliterated, she was just changed and living somewhere else. All mortals shared this fate, and he soon became aware that all mortals are actually immortal and capable of rebirth.

Thus he took on the mantle of Life, Death, and Rebirth. Political matters of nations and cities do not concern him as much as actual life and death itself. He oversees changes in life such as the birth of a baby, marriage, retirement, death, and even the afterlife. Sometimes his job is pleasant, and sometimes not.

Because of the wide nature of his ethos, Dagath has all kinds of worshippers ranging from saintly to vile. He is one of the only gods who's worshipers can be of any alignment. His priesthood is divided into three orders that deal with his charge: The Order of Life, The Order of Death, and The Order of Rebirth.

By and large, the Life clerics are good aligned, the death clerics are evil aligned, and the rebirth clerics are neutral aligned. They all have different ways of dealing with things, and sometimes they work together. For instance, if the Order of Life feels that a living being has been wrongfully killed, they will often enlist the Order of Death to take revenge for the killing. The Order of Rebirth is usually there to clean up the mess.

Buy the book at your local IG bookstore (or steal it) to read the rest.

Marleh · Post by **Marleh** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 6:11 am

The library in Visimontium is a bit different than that. The books are part of the bookshelf's inventory, and are sorted by categories which are marked with signs. The books cannot be removed from the shelves, per the librarians instructions... and a nice little script taken from the Mikona mod.

loki70 · Post by **loki70** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 6:28 am

Some characters have a HUGE selection of books, nearly all of them on the palette. If you want some info, you can always ask around IG or at least on the boards, IC. Just say that you are looking for different views on your deity, since most churchs have their own dogma that differs from the outsiders view.

Post by **Urizen** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 3:37 pm

I had the thought the other day that religious orders or priests or whatever could us the in game scribe or in game note system to create their own (unique) treatises on religious points. The Newspaper Gnome did a good job of this mechanically, in newspaper style of course. Orders or whatnot could store these documents in their holy temple p-chest/bookshelves, make copies of them, or whatever. Sorry to make a side note from the original post, but it does address the dissemination of notes on Holy/Unholy scriptures in-game, which could add a lot of flavor.

Marleh · Post by **Marleh** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 3:58 pm

I know that some of the holy orders are getting books made to be added to the pallete. I've also heard that Tissa was working on a IG book that can have pages added to it as they are written using the note system. From the description of it in the Wiki I wasn't sure if it was available yet or not, but its certainly a neat idea.

Tigg · Post by **Tigg** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 6:37 pm

Moredo wrote:There are 226 custom books in the palette.

Ah, I've often wondered that. *says semi-mysteriously* so I'm not even halfway finished, then..

Li'll Divvil · Post by **Li'll Divvil** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 7:27 pm

loki70 wrote:Some characters have a HUGE selection of books, nearly all of them on the palette. If you want some info, you can always ask around IG or at least on the boards, IC. Just say that you are looking for different views on your deity, since most churchs have their own dogma that differs from the outsiders view.

Right, I know of two chars *winks at Loki* that between them probably have almost 200 different volumes of lore collected (might be a bit less due to duplicates, but my main has over 110 unique ones stored now, I need more chests

)

The are many other lorewardens and Vorinites around that store books, also mages tend to collect knowledge. I bet if you ask a few people you'll be able to get what you need.

pstanton · Post by **pstanton** » Tue Jun 13, 2006 8:40 pm

I can understand why we don't have 9 books per bookshelf, lag among other issue. But still, its nice to dream about....

Tissa · Post by **Tissa** » Fri Jun 30, 2006 12:21 am

Marleh wrote:I know that some of the holy orders are getting books made to be added to the pallete. I've also heard that Tissa was working on a IG book that can have pages added to it as they are written using the note system. From the description of it in the Wiki I wasn't sure if it was available yet or not, but its certainly a neat idea.

The mechanism has been in game for a long time and I think a few of the books were added. Note these books are very large and can not be moved about.