Can someone clarify on what caused the city to become a haven for undead? Was it Anashti Sul deceiving everyone promising ever lasting life and giving them undeath or was a Dmorte vampire poisoning the paradise of the city. I was unclear on this
When the races of Norrath were first put upon the world by the Gods, one of the first were the elves. At that time, the elves were one race, and they called themselves the Elddar Elves. They lived in the Elddar Forest, and from what we know from EQ1 they remained there until Solusek Ro raised the Serpentspine Mountains and choked out the forest, turning it into the Desert of Ro. In the Desert of Flames, we find out something a bit different. A faction of the Elddar Elves actually split off from the empire before the Curse of Ro and formed their own city. They turned against the teachings of Tunare and instead worshipped Anashti Sul, The Goddess of Life. They called themselves the Sul'Dal. It happened one day that a Dark Elf, fleeing from his home, came across the city. He possessed a powerful artifact, the Ewer of Life. The Sul'Dal allowed him to live in their city, even granting him a high rank, in return for this Ewer which they believed was tied to their Goddess. D'Morte, as the Teir'dal was named, lived in the city for many years and conducted some very bloody rituals. All of this was overlooked by the Godking, the leader of the Sul'Dal, since D'Morte had given him the Ewer. One day a great tragedy happened... the Curse of Ro. While the Elddar Elves fled the forest, the Sul'Dal refused to leave Akhet'Akhen, their city of Life. The Godking promised his people that they would be safe in the city and that the Ewer would grant them eternal life. Wrong. Anashti Sul was more of a Goddess of Undeath rather than life, and the power of the Ewer eventually killed off all the Sul'Dal, raising them again to wander the halls of their city for eternity as undead. Eventually, the city was covered with the sands of Ro and laid in ruins, undiscovered throughout EQ1 and EQ2 until the Desert of Flames. Through the Godking questline, we learn all of this and we meet D'Morte, who is actually a vampire, who is trying to get his Ewer back. In the end, you defeat the Godking and destroy the Ewer so that its evil cannot be unleashed ever again.
^ That's actually a very good summary of the history of the Sul'Dae. I would add one detail though. Anashti'Sul really was the Goddess who ruled over the domain of health and life (which Rodcet Nife currently does). While she was the goddess, the concept of undeath pretty much didn't exist. If you ever do her deity questline, you'll learn that she truly believed that undeath would be the next step of life, basically giving you a form of immortality where you could never get sick and always be in good health, so to speak. It was basically the Ewer of Sul'Dae which caused Anashti'Sul to create undeath all across Norrath, but it didn't go as she had hoped.
So it wasn't until the Curse of Ro happened which caused the Sul Dal to drink the tainted water from the Ewer. So there was some grace period where Dmorte arrived with the Ewer to the city and the citizens drinking. I wonder what the Godking did with the relic during this time.
Oh so Anashti wasn't knowingly behind the undeath process. Dmorte used the ewer to turn himself into a vampire I assume. Where did he get the Ewer from
She wanted the process of undeath to basically be more akin to "Heaven on Earth" rather than malicious mindless zombies and skeletons that attack anything that moves out of a pure emotional connection to spite and regret. I actually don't remember that far back into the storyline as to where the Ewer itself came from.
The Ewer was created by Goddess Anashti’Sul to fight her enemy Goddess Xul'Varien, the God of disease as she wanted to grant the gift of eternal unlife to the creatures of norrath. Despite her good intentions the other gods seized Anashti’Sul and banished her to the Void for her crimes. And as we know, some time later, the Ewer caused a lot of issues so you can say the other gods were right in banishing her to the Void. Dmorte had it because.. In EQ1 the adventures (players) actually destroyed it, but the D'morte family rebuilt it in Neriak. If the Indigo Brotherhood and the Spires of Innoruuk had their way, there would be nothing but Teir'Dal in Neriak, Cristanos the Heretic would be dead, and Prince Tarant Thex would rule. The vampires would have been purged. This does make the lore in EQ2 somehow odd though, because the Indigo Brotherhood and Gates of Omen never happens in the EQ2 universe and I have no idea how they tied it up. - Maybe someone here can explain it to me too? And from that arc you then get to Innoruuk creating Ydal, the most well known Ydal being Mayong Mistmoore and a brand new god arrives, Cazic Thule, Lord of Fear... And the hamster wheel continues and continues. In the book, in EQ2, called "1001 Tales of Maj'Dul" (Sitting next to Antiquitor Kantus Mor'Tael in Maj'dul) the Ewer of Sul'Dae is the "... vessel that sprang life to the Fyr'Un, the river of Life that ran through the celestial worlds" Phar'Ahkt (A shackled ghost in The Living Tombs )says of the Ewer: "The Ewer of Sul'Dae bleeds the river of life. The great flow, the Fyr'Un, winds through the land of Anashti Sul. The river runs free with her gift of eternal life. The ewer is a direct connection to this immortal flow. It is the ewer we shall drink from to taste the gift of Anashti Sul." I think the last we ever hear about the Ewer is Innoruuk using it to create Ydal and no one knows where it is today. Although, Seeker Abdeef (also located in Maj'Dul) says the Ewer was removed from the city by Fadid, a crypt raider who was turned into a zombie by the Peacock Club to stop him talking about an artifact he found. Fadid spawns near the Pool of Anu'ish in the Trade court during the quest A Final Note and attacks you together with his wife Hakfsa Ka'lin and her ex lover Kahil Baldoras. Kahil is a member of a secret assassins guild, who was persuaded to hunt down the members of the Peacock Club
Yeah, Anashti's desires were still misguided, but that was her vision. I honestly didn't know that the Ewer had existed in EQ1. I remember when DoF came out and I started engaging in the storyline that the word "Ewer" was something brand new to me. I'd never heard of that word before in my life. I remember the existence of D'Morte in the background of EQ1's lore, but don't remember directly encountering non-Mistmoore vampires before the time split.. Anyway, since Omens of War didn't happen in EQ2's timeline, it'd be easy to state that any developments that happened during it just never happened. I always assumed that the presence of the vampires in Neriak was because they were created by the Ewer after Christanos got her hands on it after the events of Desert of Flame. I think there's some dialogue by the vampire citizens that mention it, but I never found enough context to directly correlate one with the other.
Yeah there are some weird goings on in the 3 Neriak gates in EQ1. Lots of hidden lore and strange NPCs. But thanks you two for the in depth explanations on the path of the Ewer, awesome.
