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From the Divine Mysteries web supplement:
Areas of concern "Destruction, greed, wicked dragons". Cool. Pretty classic for a formerly Evil dragon deity.
Edicts "Kill dragons, destroy things at your whim, study past disasters"
Bolded for emphasis. Not kill benevolent dragons.
Kill. Dragons.
Seems odd that his concerns include those which he seeks to destroy.
Is this any intentional shift from the older "Kill metallic dragons" towards kill all dragons? If so, why are wicked dragons a particular area of concern?
Or is it meant to be more akin to Kill benevolent dragons?
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From the Divine Mysteries web supplement:
Areas of concern "Destruction, greed, wicked dragons". Cool. Pretty classic for a formerly Evil dragon deity.
Edicts "Kill dragons, destroy things at your whim, study past disasters"Bolded for emphasis. Not kill benevolent dragons.
Kill. Dragons.Seems odd that his concerns include those which he seeks to destroy.
Is this any intentional shift from the older "Kill metallic dragons" towards kill all dragons? If so, why are wicked dragons a particular area of concern?
Or is it meant to be more akin to Kill benevolent dragons?
Well, considering that the write up specifically notes that Dahak is "notorious for not maintain love for his followers", I think it wouldn't be surprising that he'd encourage his draconic followers to kill each other to make sure he only gets the strongest to help him kill Apsu.
I also wouldn't be surprised if he considers all dragons (benevolent, malevolent, or in-between) that don't worship him to be enemies, in an extreme example of "With me or against me" mentality.Otherwise, I also won't be surprised that, given his love of destroying whatever the rest of his family creates, that Dahak sees each dragon slain as another "middle claw" to Apsu and the rest.
Evil Overlord list #38:
If an enemy I have just killed has a younger sibling or offspring anywhere, I will find them and have them killed immediately, instead of waiting for them to grow up harboring feelings of vengeance towards me in my old age.
Works just as well for enemies that I may have yet to complete the killing of and for all relatives no matter how distant the bloodline.
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Evil dragons kill each other all the time without any sort of divine urging- they're just big, powerful, selfish, antisocial jerks. Dahak doesn't want you to stop to think "but they're just like me" when it comes to destroying that dragon who stands in your way and refuses to submit to your authority. They can avoid your wrath by submitting, which is right and proper. Edicts are more like "general guidelines" than "things you have to do every time you have the choice."
Like Shelyn has as an edict "be peaceful" but that doesn't mean you can't engage in combat!
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One of the gods he personally slay in War of Immortal is a dragon empyreal lord that dares to have a higher (evil) dragon kill count because his kill count might actually eclipse his. SO no, it's definitely not only "evil dragon".
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All well and good, I suppose.
But given he's so pro dragon death, why are wicked dragons in his area of concern?
Well, as the intro area notes:
Areas of Concern: The topics that the deity cares most
deeply about.
Edicts: These are things that the deity urges their
followers to do. Followers must adhere to these as closely
as possible if they wish to gain favor with this deity.
Anathema: These are things that are absolutely
abhorrent to the deity; committing these acts will likely
earn a follower disfavor or punishment.
As it states, an Area of Concern is something the deity cares about, doesn't mean they'll spare them, though.
Heck, the last paragraph of his entry notes the following:
Dahak is notorious for not maintaining love for his
followers. He will just as readily revoke his gifts in favor
of another worshipper if it suits him. This, in turn, has
become a key teaching of his church: trust only in your own
power and your own ability to reach your goals. While this
seems like a lonely and alienating attitude to most, many
worshippers of Dahak believe that it is simply the way of
all mortal endeavors.
So if I had to guess, his attitude is as follows:
"A worshipper of mine killed a dragon that also worshipped me? Guess that dragon wasn't worthy of my favor."Also also, it's not like he has "killing wicked dragons" as an Anathema.
All well and good, I suppose.
But given he's so pro dragon death, why are wicked dragons in his area of concern?
I'd say it does make a certain twisted sense for a god of wanton carnage to direct his weaker followers to seek out and kill wicked dragons, because it would give said wicked dragons plenty of creatures to murder, and a reason to perpetuate the cycle of enmity and destruction. Historically, though, Dahak is an evil dragon who loves killing his own kind, and so it would make sense for dragon followers of his to do the same. Ideally, they'd direct their violence towards dragons aligned with Apsu, but Dahak was never that discriminating, they don't need to be either.
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Dahak’s edicts do seem contradictory—wanting to destroy dragons while also focusing on wicked ones. Maybe it’s about dominance rather than total destruction? Speaking of deeper meanings, I often explore spiritual insights, like in https://suraheyaseen.com/, which offers guidance on life’s challenges.
Umm…that is an odd segue. And for your second post too.
I wonder if the semi-relevant bit was written by AI? That's the first I've seen on this board.
I think Dahak's edicts make sense in context of evil draconic deity If there was a god of evil people, then they might very well have an edict of "kill people".
I'm pretty sure it was.
Not my area of expertise, but it seems trivial to write a chatbot that would read what other people have posted in a thread, make some sort of statement regurgitation what has already been expressed, and then find a way to relate it to shilling whatever product or website you're getting money for.
Especially with the already existing chatbots that you could probably feed the data too.
Anyways, I imagine Dahak as a dragon sociopath.
He wants the adoration, because he thinks he's the best. But he also doesn't value any single individual. To me it makes perfect sense that he wants evil dragons, but would also encourage them to fight each other to the death (because it's not explicitly seek out evil dragons, it's just seek to kill other dragons).
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Granted this is my first time reading it, but I'm interpreting it as "Kill one another so that only the strongest survive to worship me." Dahak doesn't just want any old wimpy dragon to follow him, he wants the strongest, most vicious, vilest dragons to follow him an unleash carnage.
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So he doesn't actually care about that thing mentioned in that list of things he cares deeply about?
He cares about evil dragons as a whole, but that doesn't mean he cares about the life of any one evil dragon. IN the same kind of twisted way that a tyrannical leader of a country "cares" about the people of the country (more how they can be useful to him) but probably has 0 qualms about killing an individual to keep others in line.
Basically he wants to be in charge, and wants the other best evil dragons to help him. And if you get killed, you clearly weren't the best.
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So he doesn't actually care about that thing mentioned in that list of things he cares deeply about?
He probably doesn't care about the weak ones that die and aren't any use to him. Areas of concern doesn't immedietly mean that you care deeply about it.
GM Core 140 defines it as
"Areas of Concern: Each deity has one or more areas of concern they have divine influence over."
Dahak has divine influence over wicked dragons, he doesn't have to treat them very well.
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So he doesn't actually care about that thing mentioned in that list of things he cares deeply about?He probably doesn't care about the weak ones that die and aren't any use to him. Areas of concern doesn't immedietly mean that you care deeply about it.
GM Core 140 defines it as
"Areas of Concern: Each deity has one or more areas of concern they have divine influence over."Dahak has divine influence over wicked dragons, he doesn't have to treat them very well.
Areas of Concern: The topics that the deity cares most deeply about.
Related, does he care about the strong ones that die?
And spare me the "if they were killed, then they weren't strong enough" replies. PCs kill plenty of strong, wicked dragons. They're probably the #1 killer of high level dragons, most of whom are wicked.
I would suspect that Dahak probably has a few evil dragons that he does care about, even if he views them only as pawns. Well maybe not pawns, but bishops or knights. And he would probably be upset if they were killed, but only because they're his best tools.
