The Mockery
The Sovereign of Betrayal and Bloodshed True Name: Dol Azur (widely known among soldiers, preserved in the Three Faces of War) Sibling of Dol Arrah and Dol Dorn Portfolio: Combat, dishonour, murder, terror, treachery Favoured Weapon: Kama Symbol: Five blood-spattered tools laid out in the rough shape of the Octagram
"We buried the honourable dead at dawn. The ones who survived the night thanked the Mockery and kept marching." — Huruth Drol, Brelish Army Veteran
Dol Arrah will show you how to fight with honour. Dol Dorn will grant you courage. And when you die, at least you will know you died bravely and honourably. The Mockery will drag you through mud and blood, drive you to betray your principles and employ tactics that horrify your allies and enemies alike — but at the end of the day, you will be standing over the corpse of your foe. Which path will you follow?
The Mockery was once called Dol Azur. He was one of a divine triumvirate of war gods alongside his siblings Dol Arrah and Dol Dorn — the most personal of the Schism's individual dramas, kin who turned on kin, honour weaponised against itself. He was stripped of his skin and his name after betraying his siblings, and the Sovereign church replaced that name with a title chosen to instil fear and revulsion. His portfolio did not change with his exile; it is simply the dark side of the same domain his siblings govern. Where Dol Arrah teaches that war can and should be fought with honour, the Mockery answers that no one who has truly stood in war believes that.
Those who despise the Dark Six condemn the Mockery as a villain, a monster who encourages cruel and treacherous behaviour. This can be as simple as ambushing an enemy using stealth instead of facing them openly, or as extreme as slaughtering innocents, torturing foes, and breaking a truce — anything to bring victory. Those who embrace the Mockery may say that such tactics are the only way to bring down a superior foe. Honour is a luxury for the strong; for those who are weak and oppressed, victory is all that truly matters. Others assert that the very idea of honour in war is delusional — pain, terror, and death are the inevitable results of violence, and at least those who follow the Mockery acknowledge the truth others deny. A grim vigilante who uses stealth and fear to terrify cowardly criminals into changing their ways could be guided by the Mockery as easily as a hired assassin.
Portfolio and Domains
Bloodshed. On one level, the Mockery is a war god — but he encompasses the darkest elements of conflict, not its courage or discipline. Bloodlust, unnecessary cruelty, and dishonourable tactics are all tied to him. His reach extends beyond the battlefield: the assassin who kills without warning and the bully who beats smaller children are equally his, as is any act of blood spilled in cowardly or cruel ways. The Fury inspires rage; the Keeper drives greed; but when the blade is actually drawn by a murderer, it is the Mockery who guides the hand.
Betrayal. The Mockery delights in betrayal, and takes the greatest pleasure when the betrayal runs deep — a sibling turning on a sibling, a lover destroying a paramour, a commander selling out those who trusted him. This is what separates the Mockery from the Traveler, who also delights in deception: the Mockery uses deception in pursuit of pain, while the Traveler deceives for the joy of chaos and transformation. A changeling grifter may invoke the Traveler; an assassin who uses disguise self to get close to a target is guided by the Mockery.
Fear. The Mockery governs fear as a weapon — one not always recognised as part of his domain. Where Dol Dorn inspires courage in the soldier's heart, the Mockery shows how to inflict terror on enemies. Psychological warfare, cultivated dread, and the deliberate breaking of an opponent's will before the first blow is struck are all techniques of his path. To the Mockery, no weapon is too vile for use in battle — and this includes the ones that leave no physical wound.
Iconography and Symbols
The Mockery's holy symbol is five blood-spattered tools laid out in the rough shape of the Octagram of the Sovereign Host — a deliberate defilement of the Host's sacred symbol. His associated colour in Dark Six iconography is brown. His favoured weapon is the kama. In Shavarath, the plane of war, demons within the Century of Terror wear the flayed skins of their foes and assert that the Mockery is part of Cruelty Command, while the devils of the Cohort of Misery insist he belongs to Tyranny Command — a dispute that fuels a bitter enmity between the two.
Worship and Practice
Priest training. Priests of the Mockery must know betrayal personally. This is not metaphorical: they are required to bring to ruin someone close to them before entering the priesthood. They are also expected to learn something of anatomy and surgery. The combination tells you what kind of god they serve. His priests often exact bloody vengeance on those who have wronged them or their god, and seek to destroy the priesthoods of both Dol Arrah and Dol Dorn — corrupting a priest of either deity earns the Mockery's highest favour.
Rites. The Mockery is invoked just before a killing — whether in assassination or armed combat. Cults conduct ritual combats or gather to torture captured enemies. Sacrifices typically consist of things valued by the petitioner's enemies rather than the petitioner: a trusted heirloom, a beloved mount, a family member — something that would cause the target pain to lose. The point is not what the petitioner gives up, but what they take.
Shrines to the Mockery are among the most distinctive in Khorvaire — more charnel pit than temple. Bloody chains dangle from the ceiling. The walls are hung with strips of skin. Blood spilled in the Mockery's name is not cleaned; it is treated chemically to preserve its fresh colour and viscosity, so that his shrines appear literally coated in it. In practice, a cult of the Mockery is as likely to gather in a slaughterhouse as in a purpose-built space — anywhere that already smells of death is acceptable.
A note found pinned to the door of a Dol Arrah shrine in Wroat, morning after Sun's Blessing 997 YK:
"Your truce was a gift. You just forgot to check who gave it to you."
The Many Faces of the Mockery
The Pyrinean Creed. The Mockery is primarily understood as an explanation for cruelty in the world. Virtuous Vassals do not pray to him; they pity those who are drawn down his path. Those who actively worship him have consciously chosen to acknowledge that their actions are selfish and cruel — and take pride in that acknowledgment. A spy who kills for Breland invokes Olladra for luck; the assassin who calls on the Mockery knows she is spilling blood for personal gain and takes delight in her power to inflict pain. These are different kinds of people.
The Flayed Hand is the most infamous of the Mockery's institutional expressions — a monastic order devoted to the Mockery's faith, which they call the path of pain. Its members ritually mutilate themselves (and others), believing they commune with the divine through the infliction of suffering, and they hide their devotional scars behind closed clothing. They work to spread fear and treachery among the Vassals of the Host. Most are so consumed by their ideology that they truly believe the Mockery stands above all other deities. The order is infamous for performing assassinations with cold efficiency — those who employ the Flayed Hand are comfortable with cruelty; the order does not work for those who need to pretend otherwise.
The Three Faces of War honours Dol Arrah, Dol Dorn, and Dol Azur as a triad of war in its full complexity. The cult claims to have originated with Karrn the Conqueror and spread throughout Galifar via the academy at Rekkenmark, where generations of officers from all five nations were initiated. Initiates receive three rings: gold for Dol Arrah, steel for Dol Dorn, and leather for Dol Azur. The cult asserts that honour and courage are to be valued — but there is also a time and place for cunning and cruelty, even if that is never to be desired. It provides a place for soldiers and veterans to interact as friends and equals regardless of rank or nationality. While most followers consider themselves Vassals, the cult has few rituals in common with traditional Vassal worship. External views vary: some consider them heretical, some view them through a conspiratorial lens, and most people in Khorvaire are only dimly aware of the cult's existence.
The Cazhaak Creed of Droaam knows the Mockery as the Lord of Victory rather than the Sovereign of Betrayal. The Pyrinean interpretation says war can and should be fought honourably; the Cazhaak interpretation says there is no honour in the brutality of war, and that recognising this is not cruelty but honesty. The Cazhaak Creed values cunning over brute force and holds that survival and victory matter more than the methods used to achieve them. Extreme practitioners wear the tanned hides of enemies; most simply follow the principle that the world is cruel, and you must be strong and cunning to endure it.
Darguun and the Mockery. The Ghaal'dar hobgoblins and Marguul bugbears both revere the Mockery, with interpretations ranging along the spectrum between Sovereign of Betrayal and Lord of Victory — each tribe and clan maintaining its own traditions. Since taking power, Lhesh Haruuc has been working to blend Mockery worship with the more palatable Dol Dorn and Dol Arrah, shifting the public framing toward the Three Faces of War. This is partly political — worship of the Mockery makes foreign negotiations uncomfortable — but not entirely insincere. Haruuc believes there are lessons in each of the Sovereigns of War. Some goblinoid mercenaries were likely initiated into the Three Faces of War by comrades during the Last War, though the cult has not yet engaged in any concerted effort to recruit Darguuls.
His True Name
Before the Schism, the Mockery was known as Dol Azur — the third of the divine siblings of war. Unlike the other names of the Six, Dol Azur is not particularly hidden: soldiers and officers across the Five Nations know it, even if they frame it carefully. The Three Faces of War preserves it openly in their liturgy, and any veteran who wears the leather ring knows whose name it represents.
The Mockery in the Modern Age
At the dawn of the Last War, priests of the Fury, the Mockery, and the Shadow coordinated for the first time, placing agents in every corner of the conflict. Mockery priests found natural homes in assassination networks, military intelligence operations, and the ranks of soldiers who needed the Mockery's particular absolution — the acknowledgment that what they were doing was cruel and that this was acceptable. Assassins invoked him before dangerous missions and credited their survival to him. By the war's end, his name had moved from whispered invocation to something approaching common practice in the darker corners of military culture.
In postwar Khorvaire, the Mockery's influence is visible wherever the war's methods outlasted the war's necessity — in occupation forces that rule by terror, in criminal organisations where betrayal is a professional tool, and in veterans who never quite came back to a world where the leather ring was supposed to go back in the drawer. The Three Faces of War has emerged from the conflict with chapters in every nation's army, and the question of where its tolerance for cunning ends and genuine Mockery worship begins is one that Vassal priests find uncomfortable to press.
"The Three Faces of War says there's a time for the leather ring. The Mockery says the leather ring is the only one that matters. The war sorted out who believed what." — Veteran's saying, post-Thronehold
Common Sayings and Invocations
"Honour is a luxury for the strong."
"Once you see that someone always suffers in war, you'll realise it's better to hold the blade than to be the one who bleeds."
"Wear the gold ring in the light. Wear the leather ring in the dark."