it should also be noted that the void dimension in grim dawn are sometimes used as the garbage dump of the celestials’ ‘failed’ creations.
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i had some thought on what dreeg’s ultimate goal is when he conspires with bysmiel & solael to usurp the eldritch sun’s throne. some parts from his personal correspondence in korvan elegy part 2 shed some light on that goal:
“Blindly have I stared beyond the curtain of reality. Agony met me partway. Beyond…magnificence.”
dreeg was awed by korvaak’s power when dreeg succeeded in piercing the eldritch veil & stared directly into korvaak’s true form. he began to wish he had such power.
“For my achievement, I was punished. My wounds weep, but my eyes are open. That was to be my gift, my bane, for staring into the Eldritch Sun. Dutifully, I kept others at bay for centuries, filled their minds with horrors and visions of their own demise that they not repeat my mistakes.”
korvaak knows the greed in dreeg’s (dreeg greed… that rhymes nicely) eyes for power like the celestials. so he humbled dreeg with his brute power & mind wrecking threat. dreeg was humbled & grudgingly served as korvaak’s watcher for his throne.
“Yet this one confounds me. He is undisturbed, driven, power-hungry. The priests made threats, and he laughed in their faces. Such arrogance in a such a fragile fleshy thing. And yet, he is brimming with potential.”
dreeg was confused by solael’s arrogant behavior toward the all powerful cult of korvaak. he was impressed that solael’s fragile mortal form can hold great potential for power that can truly back up his arrogance.
“My open eyes peer through the possibilities. The one that holds the leash is wounded, broken. Given these circumstances and enough attempts, the mortal may eventually succeed in satisfying his hunger. But would his reign be any more just? His heart is as black as the writhing darkness, but he is not mad; he could be reasoned with.”
dreeg, given the power of vision toward strands of fate itself by korvaak, is worried by korvaak’s near mad obsession for revenge towards the c’hthonians. when he peers toward the possibilities of mankind’s fate, he knows korvaak would eventually sacrifice the entire mankind into becoming disposable weapon against the c’hthonians. perhaps relying more into his eldritch creations as main force after that.
but dreeg also saw the possibilities that solael could chip on korvaak’s grasp over the eldritch throne bit by bit, eventually gaining the eldritch throne for himself. dreeg had some reluctance of switching over his allegiance from korvaak to solael, due to solael’s evil way to gain power by any means. but when he compared solael’s evilness with korvaak’s slow descent toward madness/shattering, he know he had to switch side. at the very least to save himself.
“Many roads to follow, but only one shines clearly before me, but one leads to my ultimate victory. The Eldritch Sun must set, and a new order must rise in its stead: the sorcerer, the priestess and the guardian, equal and not. Yes, it will not be enough to merely bring the sorcerer to his goal. The Everliving Flame needs to be extinguished from the path. His immortal heart shattered by betrayal; and the one that wraps her web around his very soul will be the very same that binds our prize.”
dreeg starts to hatch his plan for bringing solael into power over the eldritch throne, together with bysmiel. he most likely whisper secretly into solael & bysmiel’s mind from his hidden position far away in the eldritch realm. the spider that whispers secrets into bysmiel’s ear in bysmiel’s origin might very well be dreeg himself. dreeg’s kinda like a spider too in his analogies with strands of fate.
dreeg knows the possibilities that solael could usurp the eldritch throne by himself, but that way would have ravaged cairn in more devastating wars between solael and korvaak’s army including ulzuin. he knows such wars would only lead to prolonged chaos in cairn, making cairn more vulnerable to attacks by c’htonians or vengeful aetherials. so… dreeg conspires with bysmiel & solael to usurp the eldritch throne together & share its power between them, so that there is only a short time for power vacuum after korvaak was toppled from his eldritch throne. the 3 could immediately establish secret illuminati-like order over cairn after usurping the eldritch throne, thereby minimizing the potential damage to cairn from their usurpation of the eldritch throne.
why is control over the eldritch throne is so important for cairn? most likely because korvaak had a very long grip on cairn with eldritch realm’s wild power. this in turn ties up cairn very closely with the eldritch realm. notice that in some bounty quests for the 3 witches cults, the 3 wants the taken to destroy some eldritch beasts that corrupts the ecological balance in some areas of korvan basin. the 3 witch apparently knows they had the mandatory job of keeping up cairn’s ecological balance when they usurped the throne. kinda nice of them.
“No doubts remain in the infinity. My course is set. Now I must merely ensure that the other pieces fall in line. All other threads will be cut, until the one true path remains…the path of Dreeg.”
this is where dreeg state his clear desire to control fate of mankind with him in the lead (secretly. solael lead as the official head figure)
he doesn’t tolerate any forces that doesn’t support this goal. if solael & bysmiel’s cults shows sign of being naughty, he’ll strictly remind them with force of their original goal. this could be one of the reasons for why there are wars between the 3 cults in their origin story. perhaps solael & bysmiel gets closer after they usurp korvaak’s throne, but their differences eventually led to them having lover’s spat & then the 3 goes to war between themselves. but solael finally stopped all that nonsensical fighting & form the covenant of the 3 cults. thereby restrengthening the 3’s grip over cairn.
the c’hthonians of course are not idle at all. they assault the eldritch realm from time to time. on of dreeg cult’s augment are the ash of c’hthonians that invade the eldritch realm after all. it is possible that after the taken banish korvaak from cairn in fg, the 3 hurriedly returns to the eldritch realm to stabilize the damage in both eldritch realm and cairn after war with korvaak in fg. and they also have to defend the eldritch realm again from the c’hthonian invaders, thereby making the 3 seem absent in the taken’s quest into stopping morgoneth’s attempt to invite yugol to cairn.
speaking of yugol, here’s my thought on dreeg’s rumination over yugol’s apocalyptic threat:
"Before I could utter a word, he said: Yugol. I was taken aback and blinked. The Oracle continued by describing exactly what I had seen in my dreams, as if he had been there to share them with me. The Insatiable Night, he called it, the eternal darkness that exists in the beyond. It is primordial, unfathomable to the human mind. We see it as a mass of writhing tentacles, but what it truly is cannot be described in words. Yugol exists to consume everything, its endless pursuit halted only by the light of the celestial stars.
I was told that it is a gift and a burden to bear witness to the makings of reality. What I had seen cannot be unseen. When I started visibly shaking, the Oracle placed his palm upon my forehead and for a moment I could swear his eye tattoos were staring at me. Yet I found myself instantly calmed.
When I asked what he had done, he would not say, but he offered to teach me a technique to calm myself and banish the darkness from my nightmares. It is a lucid method by which I would conjure my own stars into the dream, brighter than the desert sun.
I thanked him for his wisdom and promised to return the next eve for my lesson. As I stood to leave, I glanced in his direction. He was staring ahead, as before, a somber expression on his face. His tea remained untouched. I said no more and closed the tent flap behind me.
It would seem my visions have disturbed the Oracle as well, but I trust that his judgment and foresight will carry us through whatever darkness looms on the horizon. I pray to Dreeg that the Oracle’s teachings will spare me further nightmares."
here, the oracle (draellus/dreeg) seems shaken by yugol’s ominous appearance in one of his apprentice’s dream. he could be worried that his cult members could possibly suffer the same fate as morgoneth, who lost faith in his patron celestial ateph & korvaak due to their absence of presence after the war of the gods. morgoneth falls into yugol’s influence because of that, so some of the dreeg cult members could have possibly fallen into yugol’s influence too.
dreeg devise a solution to prevent that problem. he teach that apprentice to basically emulate oathkeeper’s presence of virtue & ascendance skill, but with the main purpose of strenghening their own ‘star’ in their dreams, to the point of even eclipsing the desert sun (korvaak). this implies dreeg wants his followers to continue his footsteps should he fall in the future. to emulate the celestials’ power and go beyond that. in order to seek new solution to end yugol’s eventual victory of returning everything to emptyness. because the celestials’ historical solutions against yugol & the c’htonians ended in failures.
basically dreeg eventually wants humanity to be like diablo’s nephalem race. ascending & standing independent from the grasp of celestials/c’hthonians/yugol. should the 3 witch gods fall from their position of power.
all that insight into dreeg’s mind can be concluded like this imo:
dreeg is a very ambitious korvan priest who succeeded in learning the truth about eldritch realm, korvaak, & fates of grim dawn universe itself. his ambitions got destroyed by korvaak’s eternal punishment for him. but after seeing korvaak’s weakened body & mind, solael’s arrogant rise to power, & the potential fates of humanity & cairn, his ambition rise again: to lead humanity & cairn’s fate from shadow with solael & bysmiel, and save them from the threat of c’hthonians, aetherials, celestials, & yugol. he turned into the wise & grieving old eternal guardian for mankind’s fate after that. dreeg accept that to succeed in his personal ambition for power, he had to tie cairn & humanity’s fate with his own forever. even though his wounds are bleeding & weeping forever.
is dreeg a bad or good person? that can’t be answered straightly. but personally i think dreeg starts out as a bad guy. but after seeing the secrets of the universe, he knows there is only the path of redemption for him in going forward, and he chose to embrace it.
grim dawn is not grim (or green) dawn without dreeg (& greed)
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Nice analysis, I pretty much agree on everything, but I’d be less…confident in Dreeg’s leadership. I don’t think he seeks redemption, but I do agree that his goal is to manipulate the other Witch Gods to maintain balance in the triumvirat. Of course, I’m pretty sure they’re very aware of that fact, and that’s maybe what lacks to Dreeg, imho, he’s not the only one playing that game.
out of the 3 witch gods, dreeg is the one with the most clear personal background information so far in the game. bysmiel/byscilla only offers riddles & vague stories about her. solael/sagon is just angry if you ask too many questions to him.
dreeg sealed his own fate into redemption path when he peered into the eldritch realm & saw korvaak’s true form. korvaak’s punishment for dreeg last forever. otherwise, we would have heard tales of dreeg finally being able to relieve himself from the eternal wounds that bleed on his skin. he might not be killable anymore. korvaak himself had bound dreeg to his eternal fate of painful punishment:
“My loyal Ulzuin watches over me now along with the many-eyed fiend I’ve bound to his fate.”
“As for the duplicitous Dreeg…the agony I’ve instilled upon him will be a mere trickle compared to the torment he will suffer for eons!”
yep. korvaak basically yeeted dreeg’s mortality. even if cairn and its whole inhabitants got destroyed, dreeg will probably still be there. stuck weeping & bleeding forever alone.
i think dreeg had a soft side for his followers and mankind (at least just for its whole survival), based by draellus’ interaction with that apprentice, & dreeg’s theme of defense & healing in his repertoire of skills & items (not including his favoritism toward (acid/poison/pierce)).
even so, dreeg’s gift of vision into fate itself for his followers are both blessing & curse. weak minded followers would succumb to madness when they hear his voice in their mind. he can’t just totally give pure blessing to them. the eldritch realm’s magic are very wild & difficult to control. just like how chaotic human heart is.
solael & bysmiel are obviously aware of dreeg’s scheme from the start. they are not fools. this is also probably one of the reason they warred with dreeg in the witch gods war. but eventually solael saw that dreeg’s path is the best way forward for them all. so he grudgingly agrees to dreeg’s scheme. the 3 are still trying to outpower each other though in secrets. for example, this is bysmiel’s scheme herself to rule over the 3:
“You will also be pleased to know that the grand web is working amongst the ranks of the Solael’s and Dreeg’s followers. They will make no move without our knowledge, and certainly they will make no discoveries in this land that we cannot take advantage of.”
one of these days, you can’t help but wonder how the 3 are constantly allied with each other while also scheming to steal powers from each other from time to time.
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dreeg crave control over the fates of humankind. and one of the manifestation of this desire is his power over plague.
there are collection of dreeg items that tells about the 6 (or 7? 9? cmiiw) plague of dreeg. we know that mankind both in real world & fictions suffers from poverty & wars when overpopulation happens without proper attempts to combat it. power over plague is one of dreeg’s way to control the population numbers of cairn to acceptable levels that will allow both cairn & mankind to survive.
there hasn’t been any stories about huge plague epidemic events greatly reducing mankind’s populations though in any stories in the game. so dreeg must have been very subtle & careful in his way of handling the plague power.
there’s also an item, touch of purity, that shows sign that dreeg might also be going undercover in disguise around cairn to heal people from his own plague power, regardless of their affiliations:
dreeg is both a killer & a doctor. he’s the personification of cairn’s poison & medicine.
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I’m a bit skeptical about the cloaked figure mentionned in Touch of Purity being Dreeg. Dreeg items have this acidic eldritch look, Touch of Purity looks more like an item linked to Empyrion or Menhir (yellow glow).
But in any case, your posts are super interesting to read! I love your theories!
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well, since many oathkeeper skills implies heavily that empyrion/menhir’s time has long passed, and now it is the age of dreeg (look at how much transmutations from fire/physical into acid & vitality in oathkeeper skill tree. path of dreeg is also one of the penultimate skill), coupled with the emissary being former priest of menhir but switched allegiance to the 3 once he learn the truth about what happens to the gods, it isn’t far fetched that dreeg also likes to play doctor roles once in a while. after all, dreeg knows that empyrion & many of his pantheons including menhir was destroyed/banished away by the c’htonians. he had to fill in empyrion/menhir’s roles as healer of cairn from time to time.
just remember to count how many grim dawn occultist players that doesn’t use blood of dreeg for panic healing button. and look at the +blood of dreeg & +mend flesh bonus on the item.
but still, its just my theory. it could be that the cloaked healer with touch of purity is just a random priest of menhir/empyrion that wants to heal people & cairn using whatever method of healings he could use. gotta remember that even though most celestials are gone, remnants of their power/essence still exist around cairn. which also means these resources could be tapped into by individuals with the right knowledges. ascendants are the most likely groups that would seek out these divine essences & harness them for their own goals.
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Hold your horses…
The skill is the path of three, not path of Dreeg.
Empyrion wasn’t destroyed by chthonians, he has gone to the celestial tapestry We don’t know what exactly this means by it implies he is still out there doing some stuff for Cairn, maybe he is keeping Yugol at bay, who knows.
The emisary is either brainwashed or is a manipulated fool who doesn’t know that the eldritch realm is Korvaaks and not the realm of the three. So much about him knowing the truth…
yes the skill name is path of the three. but it gives boost to dreeg theme damage. so many dreeg related theme in oathkeeper instead of bys & sol, making me think of that skill as path of dreeg.
the meaning of going into celestial tapestry was vague. but all i read from wiki about tapestry is that once the wapr threads are sewn in, it is completely hidden from the completed work… or something like that:
pardon my wording about empyrion being dead before. maybe stuck in limbo would be the better phrase. the emissary says after taken beats korvaak, that celestials can’t be truly killed. only banished for a long time from cairn. even if korvaak can reenter cairn due to revival of his cult, he will never reach his previous state of power.
yeah you’re right that empyrion maybe fled to the edge of the galaxies to keep yugol away forever in his weakened state. like how ra struggles against apep the serpent of darkness from his sun chariot. like ra, empyrion requires worshippers’ devotion to keep yugol from devouring the galaxies. this make me think that perhaps after the c’hthonians defeat empyrion’s celestials, empyrion knows he & his celestiala are on the brink of disappearing forever by yugol’s jaw… no longer will they be able to enjoy creating & ruling realms. instead they are stuck in limbo having to forever play guard on yugol in the edge of galaxies.
which makes korvaak’s emotional statement of empyrion gone forever being somewhat right. empyrion barely living but cannot enter cairn is the same as being nonexistent in cairn anyway. korvaak have truly known that empyrion is stuck in the edge of galaxies with yugol, and he doesn’t want that happened to himself.
if empyrion is capable of entering cairn after losing badly from the c’hthonians, then korvaak would have called for empyrion’s aid to rescue him from the 3 & help restore celestial order in cairn. instead korvaak disguise himself as empyrion to steal the flow of devotions from empyrion’s followers in cairn throughout the centuries. is there any figures on cairn with omniscient power as strong as korvaak when he convince himself that empyrion is gone? no, there isn’t. which makes korvaak’ ruminations the most credible source for insight into empyrion’s whereabout.
that makes me wonder… maybe the 3 knows that they need empyrion to have daily sustenance of worshippers so he’s strong enough like ra/atlas to hold yugol away? maybe that’s why the 3 allows the cult of empyrion to persist over the centuries, to the modern day of erulan empire & luminari inquisition. until the aetherials ruined everything. i dunno, the 3’s preferred style of governing cairn from the shadows ala illuminati while allowing cult of empyrion to flourish as the leading force in cairn after korvaak’s fall seems to support this theory.
then again, after grim dawn, & the banishment of korvaak, & with the recent updates showing yugol’s influence appearing more & more frequently in cairn… i think the 3 are in desperate position because the cult of empyrion had weakened greatly after erulan empire’s fall. they really need another ways to at least slow down yugol’s influence over cairn. which is why they are showing great interest in exploring the hidden secrets & powers in the shattered relam.
i don’t think empyrion will ever appear in cairn. his powers might appears occasionally though.
regarding the emissary being a manipulated fool… that’s possible. but remember that there are 3 parties trying to order the emissary around. so the 3 would have grudgingly accept having to share control over the emissary fairly with each other. gotta remember that the 3 could possess any of their followers momentarily if the followers are strong enough to endure the possession.
i think the moment when the emissary aggressively denies the taken’s question if the eldritch throne was korvaak’s is a moment where the 3 & the emissary agreed unanimously that the taken must not believe that korvaak owns the eldritch throne. because if the taken believes that, it’ll probably make korvaak capable of entering cairn again sooner in a surprising manner. having the taken belief that the eldritch throne belongs to the 3 would give the 3 huge belief bonus from the taken to stabilize their control over cairn’s survival. therefore, the 3’s deception over the taken was necessary. because belief is a very strong force essential for the survival of any divine beings in grim dawn universe.
Hey there,
Sorry for this completely side-note-ish question, but I´m sure it´s a one liner for you guys, not worth a new thread:
What kind of race is a “Riftspawn”, and what´s the lore behind it?
If you talk with Kuldo from the rovercamp:
The material world you see around you is not the limit of reality, nor is this the only realm of existence. Our folklore tells of travelers who have found hidden paths to slip through the veil between realities and pass into other realms of existence. Those who have returned tell of fantastic worlds, vastly different from our own. The coming of the Aetherials is proof of that and the rifts they use to cheat distance and time, to travel instantly from place to place, are wounds in the veil of reality. We rovers have seen many things, not Aetherial, pass through their rifts to enter our world. Even if we could drive them all out, will these wounds ever heal?
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so basically riftspawn are like otherworldly beasts who roam between the rifts of worlds. probably created by celestials for amusement or experiments. because they just behave like wild beasts.
maybe beronath the legendary beast is originally a riftspawn too.
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So, this would mean they´ve been around Cairn even before the Grim Dawn?
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well, rover’s kuldo from above post’s story was sourced from cairn folktales. cairn was a world that could act as crossroad between physical, void, aether, eldritch, and other uncountable realms. so it is very possible that some riftspawns or various otherworldly creatures could travel around cairn or get stuck in cairn since ancient times. cairn is a world filled with magic and mysteries. it wouldn’t be surprising if in grim dawn 2 there’ll be several new types of creature groups appearing in cairn.
speaking about riftspawn & rifts, i wonder why there isn’t much exploration about the nature of the taken’s personal rift in game. its weird that the taken or people they choose could travel safely to any riftgates around cairn, without having any aetherials/c’hthonians/riftspawns attacking those in the middle of rift travel from the personal rifts. it would be a surprising jump scare feature when you’re just travelling to another town but suddenly you’re forced to drop mid travel into some random c’hthonic traps.
maybe the taken was once a test subject of the aetherials in their hidden research project of teleporting armies across cairn with riftgates? because ulgrim in devil’s crossing told us that before fleeing from the capital he heard some top secret erulan military project that sounds like that.
that safe personal riftgate ability could have been created to support the aetherials wanting to conquer other worlds left behind by their banished celestial masters… or worlds under domination by the c’hthonians…
its like grim dawn in space!!! but without astronot suits. instead people travel between worlds with magical gates. its not spacetastic, but it works i guess.
perhaps if we can explore erulan capital in gd2 we’ll get the answer about mysteries surrounding riftgates
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I feel like rifts can be manipulated easily into getting interrupted by specific threats or not. It seems like that it does depend on how alot of factions can use them because of the existence of aetherial, ch’thonic and personal rifts.
I really appreciate that idea about getting into detail on the history of riftgates and how they’re used to manipulate space.
Got another question:
Those Aetherial Gazers.
What are they actually?
I mean, aetherials are bodyless, they can possess whatever roams cairn, and eventually they can alter their vessel to a certain extent.
So how come, this “aetherial” gazer is just a huge-eyed blob that hovers??
aetherial gazers are classified as aetherial corruption, just like the aetherial walker zombies & scarecrows. some lore notes said that the aetherials only like to possess powerful humans. but they can also infuse corrupted aetherial energies into intact corpses to turn them into puppet armies.
the aetherial gazers are probably made out of amalgamation of flesh and then infused with corrupted aetherial energy to give it sentience. kinda like the aetherial flesh golem, amalgamation & worm tendrils.
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My little contribution to the lore, in the form of a question - what purpose would there be to the defeated gods banishing aetherials to the aether? Perhaps it was one of the nature of binding aetherials to the gods. If the aetherial servants required “upkeep” of some sort, the defeated gods, needing to recuperate as fast as possible, would cut them loose to save on that “upkeep”. Maybe it wasn’t a banishment at all - maybe the defeated gods did what they thought would be a kindness and put all their aetherial servants in the one place they could exist without “upkeep”, the aetherial realm.
Naturally, for an aetherial servant used to having a physical form, this may seem like a punishment instead of a kindness. But maybe this is also why there are aetherial factions - some (maybe a lot?) have discerned over time that there was wisdom in what the defeated gods did.
Just my two cents.
this is an interesting theory… there’s no signs that shows every all celestials treat the aetherials as failed disposable assets. there could be some celestials that adores the aetherials as their favorite creations, and they could be banished together with the aetherials. perhaps they got punished too along with the aetherials, thus their powers got weakened heavily like the aetherials.
i also want to clarify that it’s still somewhat vague which parties had banished the aetherials to the aether. was it the c’thonians? was it some celestials who was angered & disappointed with the aetherials’ defeat against the c’hthonians? was it another 3rd parties entirely? was it some internal groups within the aetherial factions? or was it the combinations of all those parties?
the aetherials are still shrouded in much mystery. it’s fitting that their great mystery would be unravelled in a more proper stage -> grim dawn 2 (or some spinoff).
I don’t understand why you think it’s vague on who “banished” the aetherials. The only way that word makes sense in the context of who is saying it is the gods they served.