Beliar

A shrine dedicated to Beliar

Beliar is one of the three major gods of the Gothic series.

He is the god of the night and death. He is in an eternal battle with Innos, in which Adanos tries to keep the balance between the two.

Role in Creation Myths

The Words of the Gods

This series of books from Gothic chronicles the very beginning of the world.
When Innos created the world, life and the sun, the sun was too bright for his creations, so he divided himself and created Beliar. Beliar then created the night enabling human life.
Because humans slept at night and did not worship him, he created another man, who was supposed to worship only him. That man however did not act any different from the existing people, so Beliar got furious and killed him. That was the creation of death.

The Sermon of Vatras

In Gothic II the water mage Vatras holds a sermon in Khorinis, which centers around the struggle between Innos and Beliar.
The light of Innos tormented Beliar, so Beliar destroyed all of Innos's creations. Adanos tried to stop their fight without success and in his realm the sea, the land and all creatures came to be.
Beliar chose a beast and gave it a part of his divine power to destroy the land while Innos chose a human to fight the chosen beast of Beliar.
Beliar in return chose another being. Adanos in return killed the newly chosen being with a great flood and forbade both Innos and Beliar to step on his land.
The chosen beast and human kept fighting until the human killed the beast and it entered into Beliar's realm. Adanos fears that the beast will return one day.

In the Games

Gothic

In Gothic Beliar is only rarely mentioned outside the Words of the Gods described above:

• When the Nameless Hero becomes a Water Mage or Fire Mage he makes an oath, which is valid until his body returns into Beliar's realm.
• Inside the Morgrad lies the darkness of Beliar.
• The spell Breath of Death is Beliar's breath.
• Beliar's powers reside in the Ring of Death spell.
• Glen claims that minecrawlers are from Beliar's realm.
• Saturas asks why in Beliar's name the Fire Mages were killed.

Gothic II

In Gothic 2 Beliar's role expanded greatly:

• Beliar is described as the god of death, destruction and all unnatural things.
• The main enemies, the dragons, act against the Nameless Hero on the command of Beliar.
• The Undead Dragon is the chosen of Beliar and resides at the Halls of Irdorath, an invocation temple of Beliar.
• When Xardas absorbs the power of the defeated Undead Dragon, he gets chosen by Beliar.
• The seekers are the henchmen of Beliar.
• Creatures of Beliar can enter the world due to the cosmic boundary between the dimensions growing weak.
• Few humans worship Beliar, but they receive great power in return.

Gothic II: Night of the Raven

Raven with the Claw of Beliar

In The Night of the Raven the Claw of Beliar plays the pivotal role. The Claw already caused a civil war in Jharkendar in ancient times due to its corrupting influence. After the banishment of the Sleeper Beliar sends his henchmen, among them Raven, to search for it. Raven eventually finds the Claw inside the Adanos Temple. The Nameless Hero kills Raven in battle and has the choice between either destroying the Claw or using its powers for himself. As a Fire Mage, the player can turn the Claw into a rune containing one of several spells of Beliar.

Additionally Beliar shrines have been added, at which the player can sacrifice health points or mana in exchange for money.

Gothic 3

Innos is weakened. The servants of Beliar have successfully conquered the continent.

• Varant is ruled by the hashishin, human followers of Beliar lead by Zuben, who is the chosen of the dark god.
• Myrtana is ruled by the orcs now; every city except the former capital Vangard, where the King hides under a magical barrier.

The Nameless Hero can choose to side with the hashishins and become the new chosen of Beliar and the hashishins ruler after Zubens death. Then Beliar will give him orders to end the war of the gods and make Beliar its winner.

However the canon way is that the Hero kills Zuben and takes his artifact, the staff of the eternal wanderer, and leaves the world with Xardas to ban Innos' and Beliars influence on the world.

Magic

Gothic

Gothic has a color code for its spell scrolls and runes, which assigns each spell to a deity. Breath of Death has the wrong texture, but is described as being Beliar's breath within the game.

Scroll	Rune	Description	Stats
		Death to the Undead Affects only undead creatures.	Circle: 4 Damage: 9999 Mana: 5 Scroll value: 110 Rune value: 1100
		Breath of Death	Circle: 6 Damage: 100 Mana: 5 Scroll value: N/A Rune value: 1500
		URIZIEL's Wave of Death Also called Ring of Death. It contains the power of the sword Uriziel. It creates a wave, which extends from the player's position and damages everyone it touches.	Circle: 6 Damage: 200 Mana: 10 Scroll value: N/A Rune value: 10000
		Summon Skeletons Summons two skeletons and one skeleton warrior who fight for the caster.	Circle: N/A Damage: - Mana: 10 Scroll value: 350 Rune value: N/A
		Summon Golem Summons a golem who fights for the caster.	Circle: N/A Damage: - Mana: 15 Scroll value: 450 Rune value: N/A
		Summon Demon Summons a fire demon who fights for the caster.	Circle: N/A Damage: - Mana: 20 Scroll value: 550 Rune value: N/A
		Army of Darkness Summons six skeletons and three skeleton warriors who fight for the caster.	Circle: N/A Damage: - Mana: 25 Scroll value: 666 Rune value: N/A

Gothic II

Gothic II has no clear grouping of spells and no reference to Beliar is made, when describing individual spells or their origin. However spells from the previous game such as summoning spells, Destroy Undead, Breath of Death and Wave of Death reappear. See the articles Magic (Gothic II) and Magic (Gothic II: Night of the Raven).
Only the addon Night of the Raven added a series of runes, which Fire Mages can obtain in exchange for the Claw of Beliar:

Rune	Description	Stats
	Root Snare The victim is held by spiky bushwood for 20 seconds.	Circle: 1 Damage: - Mana: 50 Scroll value: N/A Rune value: 2500
	Steal Energy For 9 seconds the life energy of the victim is transferred to the caster. The victim retains at least 1 health point.	Circle: 2 Damage: 100/s Mana: 50 Scroll value: N/A Rune value: 3500
	Beliar's Wrath	Circle: 3 Damage: 200 Mana: 100 Scroll value: N/A Rune value: 3500
	Create Guardian Summons a Stone Sentinel which fights for the caster.	Circle: 3 Damage: - Mana: 60 Scroll value: N/A Rune value: 2000
	Create Zombie Summons a Zombie who fights for the caster.	Circle: 4 Damage: - Mana: 80 Scroll value: N/A Rune value: 2000
	Insect Swarm For 6 seconds the victim has his life drained by insects up to the minimum of 1 health point.	Circle: 4 Damage: 80/s Mana: 20 Scroll value: N/A Rune value: 1500
	Cry of the Dead It drains all mana from the caster upon casting. It has a small area effect.	Circle: 5 Damage: 666 Mana: 250 Scroll value: N/A Rune value: 2000

Gothic 3

• Transfer disease - Transfers a disease to the victim
• Poison - the target gets poisoned
• Lightning bolt - a lance made of pure energy
• Fog - a standing bank of fog forms around the mage and protects him from the eyes of his enemies.
• Terror - the mage is surrounded by an aura of fear, which only the strongest enemies can withstand.

-

• Bloodlust - the target falls into an uncontrolled frenzy of bloodlust. It will attack anything, friend or foe.
• Amnesia - the target forgets all of the mages crimes
• Summon skeleton - Beliar demands service even beyond death.
• Summon demon - Beliar has many servants. Demons are among the most powerful.
• Soul travel - The mage frees his spirit from his body. His spirit can walk unseen among enemies.

-

• Night to day - Beliar grants the mage power of day and night. The time until the next dawn passes swiftly and the mage feels as though he had rested during all the time which has passed. This magic only works at night.
• Summon lightning - The conjurer calls the powers of Beliar to slay an enemy.
• Army of darkness - The mage summons an army directly from Beliars realm. It will follow him and fight at his side in battle.

Symbols

• Beliar's most prominent symbol is a mask with six horns. He is portrayed by this symbol on his shrines and even his Avatar, the Sleeper, wears it. It's also used on the banners of the hashishins.
• His second symbol are two stylized hands pushing down to the ground, which symbolizes oppression.

• 

  The mask with six horns

• 

  The symbol on the Bakaresh teleport stone

• 

  The symbol on a bloodlust scroll

• 

  The symbol on a hashishin banner

• 

  Explanation for the symbol

Colors

• One of his colors black as the night.
• Another is purple like the Wave of Death, the smoke in the Bakaresh temple and his rune stones and scrolls in Gothic I.
• And his runes glow in a deep dark red.

Trivia

• Mike Hoge said in a forum post between the releases of Gothic 1 and Gothic 2, that praying to Beliar carries the death penalty and that it is forbidden to erect temples or shrines for him.
• Mike Hoge said in an interview, that Beliar's role changed from god of death to evil god after Gothic 1, because Björn Pankratz advocated for a simplified narrative. In the same interview he also said that Beliar's invocation temples were created by his human followers.