Dota 2 Hero Lore - Undying & The Dead God’s
Nihilosophy
“In some ways, you're more alive than most
mortals will ever be.”
What is the meaning of life? Is there even
a goal? Or is the meaning simply to avoid
suffering and try to be happy? How can you
achieve that when time is so cruel to you
and the ones you love? and life in general
seems an awful lot like forced labour? Almost
like we are all listening to a song that tells
us what to do in order to play our part in
society. Nowhere by no one has happiness ever
been guaranteed, and far from everyone achieves
it. Most gods we believed in are dead, or
at the very least we care less about them.
Perhaps thats because we are less superstitious,
or perhaps… God simply hid his identity
among things we consider rational and logical.
Happiness, structure, love, wealth… instead
of promising a good afterlife, the modern
god promises a good future while living. You
never fully achieve it though, its always
a few steps ahead. When we get one we move
on to the next, and the more we have the more
we want. We are still slaves to a god, he
just doesnt appear like the classic kind.
This god has no greater meaning, no afterlife,
only a reward you get for working hard and
serving the greater good. But what then, hapens
to the losers? The ones who cant find love,
grind careers, or develop high self esteem?
They go to modern hell, and the devil of the
21st century is nihilism. But what is nihilism
and nihilosophy anyway? We will dig deeper
into this and the dead god after we have briefed
over undyings basic lore, relationships and
trivia.
Undying, the almighty dirge, is basically
a zombie, sort of similar to pudge, death
prophet and necrophos. I have a two-part video
about the undead in th etop right corner if
you want to know more about them in general.
Undying can no longer recall what his life
was like when he was alive. The only thing
he remembers is a battle, before he was torn
from his horse and thrown into the pit of
th edead god with his brothers. In the dark
pit, slowly over time their minds got eroded,
until time, their thoughts, and eventually
their sanity were gone - replaced by an insatiable
hunger. They started attacking eachother,
tearing eachother apart and consuming one
another. ANd then… a faint sound of a song
came. It grew louder andlouder until he became
consumed by the dirge song, and he accepted
his new fate - to spread the the dead gods
influence. He was now the herald of the dead
god, undying the allmighty dirge. And it was
his job to guide the undead in their battle
against the living. As the last sentence in
his lore says his job was now: “To trudge
on through death unending, that the Dirge
might never end.”
Okay, so important note: the dirge is both
the name of undying the hero, AND the song
the dead god uses to enslave the undead legion.
It is both a person and a song. a dirge is
IRL a song typically sung at funerals, or
while mourning the dead. NOw that we have
that out of the way, lets look at his relationships.
The most interesting ally who speaks to undying,
is kunkka. “Ah, Undying, we'll make a ghastly
crew.” here kunkka once again confirms that
he is too an undead, just not the same kind
as dirge. Theres quite a lot of heroes who
have voicelines when killing dirge, but none
interesting. Mars says this, though: “Listen,
you don't need to actually hum the dirge.
It does just fine on its own.” This means
that maybe the source of the song isnt the
uindead singing it, but the dead god himself?
Void spirit says this: “In some ways, you're
more alive than most mortals will ever be.”
I will come back to this.
The most interesting voicelines, are the ones
coming from undying himself. “We welcome
kings and tyrants.” which is a bit strange.
So the dead god is fine with having ambitious
people beneath him? hes not threatened by
their unavoidable plotting? Another nice one
“Does it end, Death Prophet?” Death prophet
can tell anyone when they will die, except
herself. Its interesting that undying wants
to know, like hes secretly wanting to stop
following his gods bidding. “Become us,
Necrolyte.” “Much is owed to the Necrolyte.”
These are interesting, because it means necrophos
is NOT on the dead gods side already, despite
his quarrel with the rumusque faithful. I
have vids that go more in depth about this,
such as my dota theology video, but basically
put, the rumusque is a religion similar to
christianity, who have had many feuds against
the living dead, such as the fields of endless
carnage, necrophos’ shenanigans and also
the dead god.
Undying has a lot of references to left for
dead. Ive never played that game so i dont
know them all, but it seems to be that he
calls dota heroes by characters from the game.
there is an ominous presence that for hundreds
of years, if not since the dawn of the first
day, has plagued some of the living. He is
called the dead god, and with the power of
the Dirge, a hypnotic song, he converts the
living and rises the dead to do his bidding.
Saying they worship him is not entirely accurate,
as they don’t really have a choice and are
more his puppets, but regardless he controls
endless armies of dead soldiers. But… other
than his followers not really consenting to
their commitment, theres 1 other thing that’s
a bit off. The dead god doesn’t convert
just anyone, if he did as many as he could
the entire dotaworld would be consumed by
now. The dirge song, and the god himself,
has the power of poisonous nihilism. Toxic
darkness and fatalism. Is the dirge, and the
force that rises the dead, just the thought
that life is meaningless? And then, ironically,
that turns you into a literal zombie, not
dead neither alive?
The dead god and his influence, is the mortal
enemy of the rumusque faith. the rumusque
faith has been around for centuries, but it
is unknown what exactly they believe in. necrophos
who was previously a cardinal in the religion,
references biblical verses, and theres many
other details that makes it extremely similar
to catholic Christianity. Necrophos was the
scamming cardinal of the rumusque, taking
advantage of a plague perhaps conjured by
himself, slowly killing most of the rumusque
while taking a lot of money for healing a
last few survivors. As punishment he was sent
to the plague ward, where he was supposed
to die a long painful death to illness, but
he turned out to be immune, and instead it
made him the powerful pope of pestilence.
The cathedral of rumusque is where the worshippers
reside. They have a lot in common with both
omniknight and chens gods, and are perhaps
the same. We know that they purged the fields
of endless carnage, where corpses don’t
decompose. The pangolier has described the
purge as “dark”, so maybe the fields of
endless carnage weren’t evil at all… in
artifact, we have a few sources that also
support this, that they were in fact peaceful
people, even civilized. The clerics and warrior
priests as we know purged them still though,
and were led by lady ashnu. Lady ashnu is
also not a fan of necrophos, as pudge hints
to when he tells necro that maybe if he gave
lady ashnu his head, she would stop harassing
pudges undead friends. By the way, in artifact,
chen is seeking out the rumusque and specifically
lady ashnu, and he wants to do it to convert
them to the holy knights of the fold. But
he also mentions that lady ashnu might be
the second coming of “crella”. Crella
was an extremely powerful priestess from the
cathedral of the rumusque a long time ago.
She formed the chains of abscession from pudges
dota 2 arcana cosmetic. The chains were meant
to bind the servants of the dead god, but
over time they became corrupted by the dirge
instead and took a mind of their own, and
destroyed her homeland.
The rumusque is basically catholic Christianity,
and perhaps one of three interpretations of
the same god, like in our worlds Abrahamic
religions: Christianity, islam and judaism.
Chen and the knights of the fold worship obelis,
who they consider “the one true god”,
which they violently force victims to convert
to. That, and the fact that he knows crella
and wants to convert rumusque faithful specifically
to the knights of the fold, makes me suspect
that they actually worship the same diety.
But what diety is that? There is one more
religion, and god, which also practices the
violent obsession of monotheism.
The omniscience, the all seeing one. Omniscience
means the state of knowing everything, and
is often associated specifically with monotheistic
gods. The omniscience faith has scripture,
and members go on bloody crusades. Purist
thunderwrath, the omniknight, is one such
crusader. But seeing his associates die around
him over a very long period of time, wore
down his faith, and he started questioning
it. This doubt was quickly erased though,
when he actualy got to meet the all seeing
one, and his faith grew stronger than ever.
Another hero that confirms the omniscience
is real, is zeus, who claims to know him.
Bloodseeker too, or at least his gods, the
flayed twins, wants the omniscience as a sacrifice,
implying they know he is real.
Okay but why did i tell you all this about
the different christian gods, and also different
undead people? Well, because if the christian
-ish gods are maybe the same, maybe the undead
are also the same. What if pudge and undying
are clinging onto life using the same power
source? Unfortunately i dont have an asnwer
for you, its just an interesting thought and
question to think about. Maybe it has to do
with rix taking the oath in artifact, raising
the dead in roseleaf, but the timeline ie
so messy at this point its hard to promise
anything.
In anti-mages lore, he describes the ideology
of the dead god as “poisonous nihilosophy”.
Nihilosiophy translates to study of nothing,
or study of nothingness. but anti-mage could
also mean nihilism in specific, which usually
means the rejection of morals, because life
is meaningless. Some people will argue what
the ACTUAl definition is, but dont listen
to them. Language changes always, and the
definition of a word is how poeple use it
- not how some boomer wrote down their generations
definition in a book. Nihilism is essensially,
when most people use it, about how nothing
matters, we are all gonna die, there is no
meaning, ergo life is meaningless. You might
as well do bad, or just simply do nothing
at all. THATS what i meant earlier, when i
said “The dirge song, and the god himself,
has the power of poisonous nihilism. Is the
dirge, and the force that rises the dead,
just the thought that life is meaningless?
And then, ironically, that turns you into
a literal zombie, not dead neither alive?
“ . People who subscribe to this philosophy
will often feel both inadequate and superior
at the same time. On one hand, youre useless
to society and cant perform, but on the other
hand, you see all these people, the normies,
the NPCs going about their day never questioning
meaning other than god or zodiac signs. And
thats what void spiriot means, at least thats
how i interpret it. “In some ways, you're
more alive than most mortals will ever be.”
the thing is, i myself am a nihilist. But
not in the sense that im a depressed little
asshole whos bitter and just wants to lie
in bed and do nothing. Or, well, maybe i am,
but additionally, the nihilism is kind of
liberating too. If theres no meaning to life,
theres no meaning to death, and if theres
no meaning then you can basically not mess
up. no matter how ridiculous life gets, its
pointless, so who cares? NIhilism can open
up a door to something you were previously
too afraid to pursue, because the stakes are
too high. And knowing that there is no god,
no anything, can similarily to how the solidarity
religious people feel, make you too feel like
youre part of somethign greater. nihilism
doesnt close the door of ambition. It opens
it and makes it far more attractive with the
rigth attitude.
im anger, thanks for coming to my ted talk.
PEACEEE
