ThomasD313: I have only played G2 and G3, but this is my opinion:
1.) I think it is both, but in my opinion it should be an Ore daemon, because the Ore is magical and I think it was the guard of the ore or a daemon that was attracted by the ore, so that it got its name from the ore. Also the common name for the sleeper is in German: "Schläfer" what is the direct translation for sleeper.
2.) Yes.
3.) There is no clear good or evil. Just let us talk about Innos. Innos is the god of order that punishes those that offend the order with fire. So stealing is against the order but what happens if someones has to less money to pay the food and have to steal it? In a world ruled completely by Innos this guy will be prisoned or even killed. Do you think this is what a good god would stand for?
In the other hand Beliar is the god of the live after death. Let us say that someone you know dies, would you really think that the death is good, just because this is the natural order?
The point is that there is no real good or evil, like in the real world. I think this was the message behind the 3 gods.
In gothic 3 you learn that the player itself is a chosen of Adannos (the neutral god and the creator of the whole world). To be the chosen one means that you arent the servant of any of the gods at all, so that you are completely free to choose the god you will serve.
But if Xardas is as much a servant as the player of any of the gods, this could mean that Xardas is also a chosen one of Adannos that isnt influenced by any god, but can freely choose which gods power he is using. Another hint for this theory is that he was first a servant of Innos and later on started to serve Beliar while he seem finally to serve Adannos as implied at the end of Gothic 3.
4.) Maybe the book is talking about the orcs as the evil which attacked the kingdom. Those orcs couldnt leave so they couldnt bring back the ore to their comrades and use it against the kingdom.
5.) The orcs were controlled by the god Beliar (maybe Ur-Shak wasnt affected, like the hero or xardas werent affected by any god). At the end Xardas collected the essence of Beliar and became immediately something like a god that gained control over the orcs. This changed many things also it is mentioned that there exist many Orc tribes, some of them are more human like and others are more animal like.
6.) To get strong enough to be able to deal with the chosen one of Innos, the king (his own father as I understood it), maybe because Beliar thinks that the anger (of being prisoned in the colony for nothing) about the king is big enough to do so.
Another answer could be that Beliar is the god that controls the death and his servants will come to him, also I doubt that he really cares about the death at all.
3.There is no clear indication of Innos punishing people with fire if they do something Innos, if people do something bad they are just punished by the law accordingly.Innos would care for fair trials and judgements !
There is actually evidence of Beliar bringing punishment . Looks here in WORDS OF THE GODS,, volume 1(Gothic 1) "The word of Beliar: But whosoever shall do wrong and go against the will of the gods, him I will punish. I will plague his body with pain, suffering and death, but his spirit shall join me in the shadows forever more.".
Beliar basically says that he will punish you if you go against the will of the gods, bring you death and disease and that you will go to his realm as a ultimate punishment. And his realm is the Gothic version of hell ! So yeah, bringing death and disease for something like that is pretty evil. So yeah, there is real good and evil with these gods, like in human society !
" In the other hand Beliar is the god of the live after death. Let us say that someone you know dies, would you really think that the death is good, just because this is the natural order?" That's just factually wrong, there is no proof or source which says that Beliar is the god of life after death ! There is only this passage "But whosoever shall do wrong and go against the will of the gods, him I will punish......... but his spirit shall join me in the shadows forever more", so Belair basically says that you go to his realm ONLY if you go against the will of the gods, it's not a standard afterlife !
Also, there is a misunderstanding of people going to Beliar's realm after they die on the OATH of the water magicians ! But they don\t say that you "SOUL" goes to Beliar's realm, they only say that your body goes to Beliar's realm, which is linked to the fact that Morgrad(the earth) is at the heart of Beliar's realm.So, ended up misreading this and taking it as lore !
So, to summarize, you only go to Beliar's realm if you basically go against the word of the gods ! And his realm is not a actual spirit realm, there is only evidence to the contrary, it's just a dark place linked to the material world and a place most of his followers go.
Also, Adanos is not a "morally neutral God", he just makes sure the battle between Beliar and Innos(which was started by Beliar", doesn't destroy the world ! That counts as being a benevolent god ! While Beliar is the one who started all this mess and doesn\t really care about the well-being of the world, meaning that he ain't benevolent in his actions.
4.I don't remember what that almanac book says, but the G1 intro movie has Xardas's voice saying that " something distubed the delicate structure of magic and made the barrier much larger".The mages, and not even Xardas, expected the barrier to get so big, and it became bigger cuz of the SLEEPER, he is the one who disturbed the structure of magic and made this happen.
Mad3: I have played g1+2 again and there are some questions left:
1.) In german, the sleeper is called "Erzdämon". Erz can mean "ore" or "arch". In the beginning of the game I learn that ore is very importand in this world. So when I foud out that the sleeper is an "Erzdämon", I thought it to be an ore-demon. Later I played another game were I had to fight an archdemon and I thought back on g1.
Is the sleeper an ore-demon or an archdemon? In case of the ore-demon, is it the "demon made of ore" or "the demon who rules over the ore"?
2.) The sleeper and the undead dragon are both avatars of beliar, right?
3.) Beliar is an evil god, Xardas is a priest of Beliar (the other 2 mages say this when we repair the eye of innos) but Xardas is not evil (He helps me to save the world). At the end of g2 Xardas tells me "He (Xardas) is not a servant of Beliar as much as I (the player) am not a servant of Innos." Is this correct?
4.) At the end of g2 I find a book that says, that the mages (or maybe Xardas alone) intentionally made the magic barrier so large so that the evil forces connot get the ore. But the sleeper is IN the barrier and you can get ore out of it. Does this book make any sense?
5.) Why do the orcs attac the humans anyway? In g1 all orc are hostile exept Ur-Shak who was exiled because he said that the sleeper is evil. In g2 I meet him again and he tells me that the other orcs still do not like him. When I tell him that the old orc leader is dead, he becomes the new orc leader and he tells me that he has come to know that all humans are evil and he will kill me next time we meet.
In G3 the orcs cooperate with all humans who accept the leadership of the orcs.
6.) The undead dragon tells me that everything I did was part of his big plan. Why did he want me to kill all of his servants?
4.I don't remember what that almanac book says, but the G1 intro movie has Xardas's voice saying that " something distubed the delicate structure of magic and made the barrier much larger".The mages, and not even Xardas, expected the barrier to get so big, and it became bigger cuz of the SLEEPER,you find out THE SLEEPER is the one who disturbed the structure of magic and made this happen. Xardas actually started to study the black arts to find a way to bring down the barrier, so they barrier being bigger was not caused by Xardas, but by the Sleeper.
