The Spell of Embodiment

Art by Lindsey Crummet

Once again, we're discussing the nature of the divine in the Dragon Quest series. There are two separate occasions in the Erdrick Trilogy where we see a ritual performed to summon a divine entity into the physical plane. The first of these occurs at the climax of Dragon Quest II, in which the high priest Hargon performs a ritual to summon Malroth, the god of destruction, and ends up offering his own life in a ritual suicide to complete the ceremony when the party attempts to cut it short. Going next by release order but not chronological order, in Dragon Quest III we see a similar ritual being performed by gathering six magical orbs at the temple of Leiamland to summon the god-bird Ramia.

I don't think that the developers intended for a connection to be drawn between these two rituals. Summoning rituals have always been a trope in fantasy literature, and they make good climactic setpieces, offering both spectacle and a chance to race against time to stop a villain from unleashing a greater threat. But my pattern recognition can't help but find it rather curious that both these rituals are used to summon gods, not demons or other lesser spirits. As such, for The Saga of the Ortegids, I've chosen to interpret these two instances as examples of the same sort of magic, something I'm calling the Spell of Embodiment. This spell is a very powerful one, and may even be the most powerful in existence - through it, a god can be summoned into the mortal plane, and incarnated in physical form.

There's a few implications this has on worldbuilding. I'd like to point out that the existence of spells like these confirm that ritual magic does exist in the world of the original Dragon Quest trilogy. None of the games have ever let the players use similar spells - unlike in Final Fantasy, "summon magic" isn't really something that factors into the Dragon Quest games' mechanics - but we still see them being used in the backstory and by NPCs. We can assume, then, that the spells that exist in this world are not limited to those that can be used by playable characters. This fits with my goal in this project to investigate what setting the Erdrick Trilogy implies when game mechanics are taken out of the equation - we can assume that the spells available to the player are merely a representation of the in-universe magic system, and not what it's limited to. That's how I prefer my magic systems anyway - nothing kills the vibe of magic and mysticism more than locking it to a prescribed list of consistent fixed effects. There are clearly more spells in this world than those an adventurer might cast on the fly, and they may have different effects or means of being cast.

Secondly, the Spell of Embodiment is clearly more demanding than other spells in the setting - which one would hope would be the case if you're summoning something as powerful as a god. Malroth needs a long ritual in order to summon, and is ultimately invoked via human sacrifice, while Ramia is summoned using a set of powerful artifacts. If we are to interpret these rituals as different expressions of the same power, it seems that summoning a god requires a great expenditure of power. Sacrifice might be one way to harness that power, but the orbs might provide an alternative source of the same mystic energy in the right quantities. It does raise the question of where the orbs came from, and why they possess this much power. Given that they're only found in Erdland, I'd like to assume that they were created by the ancient Aliahanian Empire to harness its advanced magics.

Third, as I've discussed before, there seems to be a difference between lesser gods like Aurhea and the priestesses of Leiamland, who can exist on the mortal realm without issue but seem to have much more localized spheres of influence, and greater gods like Malroth and Ramia that must be summoned through complex rituals. Rubiss is a bit of an outlier - in DQ3, you encounter her imprisoned in a tower in Alefgard, apparently fully corporeal - but she was imprisoned there by Zoma, who appears to be a deity of equal power to her. In fact, I'd argue that, under this theory, Zoma was likely summoned through a similar Spell of Embodiment. We know that he isn't originally from Alefgard because one of the dungeons there is said to be where he clawed his way into the physical realm. This could be the result of the Spell, or it could be something that occurred in an earlier war between gods that led to him overcoming and imprisoning Rubiss. If we assume an event like this took place in the setting's past, it might explain why powerful gods are more limited in their ability to directly interface with the mortal plane of existence. They were more liberal with it in the past, but the results were catastrophic.

Having the Spell of Embodiment in a setting could provide some compelling adventure hooks. Perhaps the most obvious is to have a villain who wants to use the Spell to summon their dark master, or maybe a god that they foolishly believe they can control to further their aims. But it could be just as interesting if the PCs have to perform the Spell in order to combat a threat so great that only a god could possibly deal with it. Either way, gathering items powerful enough for the ritual - either so they don't fall into the wrong hands, or to use them onesself - could provide a good structure for a campaign, giving the party a good reason to scour the world and collect treasure. And if you're looking for a tense encounter, you can't go wrong with the party having to defeat the villain before they can unleash a terrible force of destruction on the world.