The gameplay is concluded, and now I want to look back at all my posts and try to assemble an Enneagram from the plot.
Caveat One: This is a videogame, and a rudimentary story has proven sufficient for the genre. Will Dogma show itself to have more?
Caveat Two: This story never ends. For me, that’s what makes this one of the best games. A cycle of reincarnation, not just “New Game” mechanics, is so unique. The Nine will always come back to the One, spiralling in place. And yet, we also spiral upward, not restarting but building from the last run, experiencing the same story but interacting with more experience, skill, and gear.
Let’s play.
ONE
From nowhere and with no warning, a humongous dragon lands on the beach of a fishing village and destroys things. We, the untested Arisen, pick up a sword and battle something so large, we’re the size of its toe.
As we lie in the surf, knocked aside, the dragon plucks our heart from our chest. It balances on his talon, beating. Then he swallows it and flies away.
We awaken in a hut. Our chest is brutally scarred and we have no heartbeat. Quina wants to help us, but at this point none of us knows anything.
On the way out the gate we’re greeted by a Pawn, our first. He explains to us about Riftstones and helps us prove ourselves. Afterward, a voice from the Rift offers us our own Pawn and allows us to now hire two others for adventuring.
TWO
A foreign warrior, Mercedes, invites us to rest. We are awakened by an attacking hydra. After we cleave off a head, it slides away. (To where? From where? Shh.) Mercedes, impressed, arranges for us to join her on a trip to the capital city, Gran Soren. We will show the Duke this beast head.
Meanwhile, Quina has gone missing. We track her down in the Witchwood. Hoping to learn more about the dragon, she seeks the local witch there. Instead we find the granddaughter, a young woman who hasn’t been taught wyrm lore. She does mention, though, that the Church knows about such things. Quina now has a plan.
We escort the hydra head to Gran Soren. While Mercedes leaves to inform the Duke, the Pawn Guild is suggested to us. We find the room and the guildmaster, who asks us to investigate a strange occurrence in the caverns beneath the guild.
THREE
We descend into the Everfall, spiraling downward until we arrive at the bottom. There, we see an unearthly glow. When we touch the ground, snaky worms erupt and attack us. We run back up, worms emerging and chasing us.
FOUR
It’s after this adventure that the Duke invites us to the Wyrm Hunt, giving us specific quests to complete.
Two of the missions, the trip to recover ancient stones and the one to secure a border fort, don’t pertain to the main story. The other two, though, lead us to a confrontation with the Salvation sect and to a meeting with a former Arisen.
With the completion of these quests, we’re invited to meet the Duke.
Handsome, bearded, powerful, the Duke is all archetype. We make a fool of ourselves (with help from the Fool), but we bow and leave. On the way off the grounds, we see the Duke’s new young bride, another archetype. We’re smitten, and she seems to like us, too.
Now we learn and hear more about the dragon, the Duke, and Pawns. The young witch we met is actually a former Pawn, now living a life under her own will. The Duke once fought the dragon himself and gained the throne. Underneath it all is Salvation, the cult that welcomes the destruction the dragon will bring. We accomplish a few tasks — help a man accused of treason, defeat a griffin that attacks the troops, discover a malicious sorcerer — that don’t seem to relate to the main plot.
However, we are also asked to attend the Duchess secretly at night. As soon as we arrive the Duke unexpectedly shows up. Hiding behind a screen, we witness his attempt to strangle her while calling her by a strange name.
Other than our brief stint in prison for invading the royal chambers, we seem in good graces. While preparing for a mission, we’re frantically sent to the castle. A cockatrice, planted by Salvation, is attacking the craftsman’s area.
After defeating it, we’re now sent to the Great Wall. Salvation has invaded the fort in anticipation of the dragon. We’re to defeat Salvation and take it back, which we do, and then head up the mountain to confront the dragon himself.
Face-to-face with Grigori, we’re reminded of how huge the dragon is. Our beloved (the Duchess in this playthrough) is threatened by him. We can sacrifice her, leave her to die, and go home peacefully. We can even, like the current Duke, rule the land. Or, we can save our beloved by attacking the dragon.
SWITCH
Of course we attack. Eventually we kill him.
FIVE
It’s all confusing at this point, but an apocalypse happens. Gran Soren collapses, a bottomless pit forming in the middle of the city. The Everfall, basically, dropped away, leaving random columns and stairways clinging to the pit walls. The countryside is now riddled with beasts, and the sky has gone dingy.
When we make it back to Gran Soren, the Duke insists on meeting with us. In his solar, we see he’s become decrepit. All the vitality given to him by the dragon is gone, and his true age shows. He accuses us of making a deal, the thing he actually did, and tries to stab us with his feeble arm. We’re chased out of the castle by guards and driven over the edge of the pit.
SIX
Eventually we stop falling forever and grab onto a ledge. A Pawn, a stranger, greets us. We are tasked with gathering wakestones as we battle through the rooms in the Everfall. Return to her with 20, and the next event will happen.
SEVEN
Hydras, magic-casting dragons, liches and golems — some of the most difficult monsters inhabit the rooms. We succeed, though, and deliver our wakestones. The two adventuring Pawns leave, and just I and my own Pawn venture forward. Over the edge we go, into the abyss.
EIGHT
We land in an open, eternal space, all mist and darkness. The one spot of light is a human figure, the Senechal. He (the tutorial avatar in this playthrough) challenges us to a duel.
(In future playthroughs, the Senechal changes. Sometimes it’s another player’s character and their pawn, loaded from the server, and sometimes it’s the last iteration of us and our pawn. The Senechal levels up with each playthrough, becoming more difficult to defeat. The process reinforces the role-playing aspect of the reincarnation.)
After besting him, the Senechal will answer all of our questions. He — rules the world like a demi-god? oversees the world like a caretaker? — is in some position of authority due to his ability to exercise his will. He can’t die, which is wearying, until another Arisen comes along who can take his place. Because I have arrived, he can now pass on the mantle. We kill him with the special blade, but then we also kill ourselves with the blade. (I guess this is where the previous-version-of-yourself logic comes in. We rule for a while, presumably, until the next Arisen, which is actually me again, arrives.)
NINE
Our Pawn, watching over us, is devastated we die. Both of us fall through the sky, my dead body merging with their live one, until the Pawn becomes one with us. We land on the beach, a new creature with its own will. Our beloved, waiting, recognizes something about us and welcomes us.
This story is over. With a New Game we are reincarnated and can start the cycle again. We can take a new face, a new gender, whatever we choose, while keeping all our gear and achievements. Go round and round forever, or until we hit level 200, which is cap.
CRITICAL NOTES
Look at that Three/Six! Wow, gorgeous. The first trip into the Everfall, mysterious but relatively normal, and the journey after the pit collapses. That is a beautiful, meaningful mirror.
And that Seven! The game only moves to conclusion when I decide to hand in the wakestones. I could, in theory, play forever without taking that action. Truly consequential.
The Eight is not an ultra-climactic battle. It’s visually very quiet, and the fight is bland in a game with the most epic fights imaginable. Philosophically, though, it is the apex of everything that’s happened. Whatever wisdom the game imparts (and some of it I find incomprehensible), this is the moment for it.
The hydra head is the Two not because it is our first big monster, but because it sets us on the path to the Duke. Understanding the Arisen, including the Duke’s choice to ignore becoming the demi-god at the end, is our Trouble. I guess I would also say that Quina plays a similar role, although the Church’s influence and wisdom is not clear to me. Its connection to the Senechal is undeveloped, at least in any way I could glean. Her journey is in the Two slot, though, and I think that’s a legitimate choice.
Doesn’t the dragon battle have to be the Switch? It comes late in gameplay. Many people will assume it’s endgame. A whole new realm is created by his destruction, though. I tend to not play much during this stretch, anxious to get to the reincarnation, but that’s just my choice. Missions are few, but a lot of battle exists if I want it. I guess if I were to find fault with Dogma’s structure, this would be it. What if the dragon fight came earlier, in a more central structural position, and more missions were designated for after? This game is not as popular as it should be, and I think this is why. It has a false endgame, and people don’t follow through to realize the true ending.
Overall I’m quite gobsmacked at how beautiful the Enneagram is. This was a worthwhile journey!