Dragon's Dogma Lore - Secrets of The Brine 

Big thanks to The Pawned Pawn and Flyoutfate from our discord. They have done an amazing job researching and creating the script for this video, with almost no lore available on the brine in game or the wiki. We have a discord dedicated to Dogma lore discussions, but it's also a nice place to share your pawns, fashion and experiences with the community: discord.gg/J7frnuY7ut

Makes you wonder how people ever have the courage to brave the seas to visit Gransys (like Mercedes) knowing the travel requires being surrounded by constant threat for an extended period of time. It's like being in outer space knowing your suit is the only thing keeping you from a swift death. Maybe this gets more into the idea that spaces beyond the land of Gransys are the "edge" of the world and that's why it's like traveling through "space" in a sense.

The real lore: We have no budget to develop a swim system.

2 years later... the brine... once an implementation due to old technology and limited time, turned into the main antagonist of the sequel.

You know it kinda sucks the brine exist. Swimming under water would’ve been dope for the second game.

Brine is the strongest creature that can even drown the Seneschal.

I'm really Glad that you guys are still finding ways to make more content out of this amazing game, can't wait for the sequel

My theory on what the Brine is... Since Water creatures is not harmed by it, but creatures of Land is. What if the Brine is one of the Gods? Considering that the temples around the land are crumbling and damn near Desecrated, what if the Brine is the Water God, or rather, it is the water god's Creation/Punishment for allowing his Temple to crumble and be abandoned. A Constant reminder to the land creatures that because of their actions for no longer welcoming the Water God on land, as so are Land creatures not welcome in the water because of their actions, human or not.

The Brine: the most Lore Effective invisible barrier

I'll be honest as I've said it before, I considered this one of my weakest works. There's so little to go on, only so much ability to speculate, and in the end it mostly amounts to explaining and researching what is effectively a game mechanic created in a crunch to hide the fact there wasn't any time or budget available to program in swimming... ...Then you get ahold of it and narrate the hell out of it. Major thanks and mad respect to you, as well as Flyoutfate, Jappards, ChainsawMcFacepunch, and everyone else that contributed anything to the research. Without everyone pulling together I'd be writing nothing but personal opinion pieces and sounding like a lunatic.

The reality is that it's a convoluted explanation to "please dont go swimming, we don't have an animation for it"😂😂😂

I know the Brine is just basically an invisible wall of the game, but sure the idea of invisible creature, near eldritch, lurks in the water is interesting. Hope they bring this up in the upcoming sequel

Norwegian Vaati strikes again with another amazing video! You guys did a great job on this, as usual. Despite just being a quick way to avoid implementing swimming into the game, the concept of The Brine is truly terrifying. Somebody falls into the water and within seconds, their entire body is gone. Nothing remains, not even bones. They're just completely gone. If the water is shallow, they struggle above the water for a few seconds before sinking below, never to be seen again. The fact that nobody even knows what The Brine is makes this even creepier. It gives it an almost Lovecraftian vibe. If all water is infested with The Brine, it makes you wonder about drinking water in Gransys. Is The Brine edible? Can people consume it like it consumes them? What does The Brine taste like? Does The Brine attempt to eat them from the inside out? Humans are 60% water, does that mean that people are also composed of The Brine? Does this make The Brine cannibal? So many questions...

I've always been curious about the Brine, it's nice to know a little more about them. I remember the first time I found out these things exist, it was horrifying to watch my character get consumed, I thought it was game over but no, it does count how many times one is taken by the Brine which is a cool little detail. As much as I avoid the water, I still manage to trip up or miscalculate a jump or I accidentally walk into a Cyclops club or something, to borrow a line from my Pawn followers "I was clumsy". But still I learned a valuable lesson: don't go skinny dipping in Gransys unless you are a Saurian, or Death, and listen to the advice Npc's give. And thank you, I enjoyed the video!

Hey I just want to say I love this video, and I'd like to throw my hat in the ring for discussion about how people in this world even LIVE on the coast with threats like the Brine existing. Firstly I want to put the Brine into perspective with our real world, which honestly DD is an amazing medieval fantasy and one of my favorites just because of how grounded it is in realism, like Berserk, the Witcher, A Song of Ice and Fire, etc. and hopefully it stays with any coming sequel. The world of Dragon's Dogma, or at least the lens we see from Gransys, is a world in the equivalent of a High/Late Medieval period, based on clothes, armor, weapons and general technology. When it comes to how people lived in our equivalent time, as well as before and after, water was essential to life and just as readily a threat. Most major cities in Europe to this day reside near major rivers, and things like fishing and sea-trade were essential to many times and civilizations for food, wealth and travel, as well as general hygiene and survival. That being said, water could be a killer, from sailing the seas to just washing your laundry. Oftentimes, say at sea, if you fell into the water you were as good as dead unless someone else could help you before you drowned. Firstly, swimming isn't a universal skill and even less so without things such as "swimming classes" or being taught HOW to swim, with some it comes naturally but most aren't really great swimmers and some people simply sink like rocks no matter how hard they try. Add that to things like woolen clothes (worn by everyone in Medieval Europe, high and low) which soaks up water so much that it can sink you like an anchor, and water ends up being pretty deadly, not including if storms hit. Even something as simple as washing your clothes or fetching water for cooking and cleaning, or even just trying to get a drink, could end up killing you from falling in, due to shock from cold water on top of lack of understanding how to swim and woolen clothes. All that together explains why humans have a very natural fear of water and swimming, as all apes do, and why we created water monsters to explain WHY people drown suddenly. From Vodyanoi to Kelpies, we have an instinctive fear of drowning via water monsters, and funnily enough those are fresh water monsters thought to be found in lakes, ponds, rivers, streams and marshes, let alone the deep sea. Let's also not forget, pre-modern people BELIEVED these things existed, just as readily as DD people believe in the Brine and the other monsters that exist. You may say "Well, the difference is that in DD they are actually there, they can't be denied, unlike the real world," to that I reply that people just as readily explained Cindy being found drowned in the river being the cause of a Kelpie as they did just drowning by accident, thus biased evidence. Now, putting all of that into perspective for DD, and how people in our world still did what they did in spite of how dangerous water was for them, there still being coastal towns makes perfect sense. Humans have a funny knack for being stubborn and living in environments that we honestly really shouldn't, from the freezing Arctic to the scorching deserts and everywhere in between, dealing with our real life equivalent of monsters, Mother Nature. Add to that, DD's world still has hunters, farmers and other professions that actively put them at threat of monsters, only really starting to hide in the safety of walls when monsters problems spike, such as the times leading up to and during the appearance of a Dragon. If the Brine, much like other monsters, only gets worse during Dragon periods, then perhaps it's more livable than we make it out to be. That being said, if the Brine are always as bad as they are in-game, they're still super livable even for coastal peoples, and honestly require very little change in lifestyle than equivalent from pre-modern people of our world. At the end of the day, the Brine are just Super-Drowning, it's not a problem as long as you don't fall in, or go too far away from shore, which is what most people do anyways, the difference is it's really just more lethal. That being said, it's still survivable, even if you fall in, as long as you get pulled out. As a player you can run into the water and just as the Brine appear run away again before it overtakes you, and as a result people would have to be pulled out of the water before they're taken, much like drowning except you may have to be pulling harder thanks to the victim not just sinking, but being drug under. As a result, ships are just as feasible as they are in our world, sailing the seas for travel or going fishing, just don't fall overboard and don't get your ship sunk, which people aren't trying to do in the first place. Honestly if anything the Brine is a really good explanation/reminder to modern people that our ancestors died from drowning all the time in the pre-modern era, and that you have no right swimming if you're wearing anything short of thin linen clothes with nothing more than a spear or dagger as a weapon. That being said, I think it'd be cool for DD2 to remove the Brine from freshwater bodies and restrict them to the sea, allowing for water exploration while avoiding problems with invisible walls when exploring the sea.

Spoiler warnint: it seems DD2s "true" ending heavily plays into the brine. When you and the dragon fall into the water the camera zooms out and both of you are completely surrounded by the brines tentacles. You wake up a month later with all the water gone and it's explained that the oceans rose to swallow the sky, which is now completely red. The new dragon-like bosses you have to fight all bear tentacles now too, along with the out of bounds areas also having a brine like animation. So it seems they really wanted the brine to become something far more dangerous than just a reason why you can't swim. The pathfinder mentioned how the worlds would always be swallowee by oblivion until the great will created the cycle of dragon and arisen to ward it off so could the brine have something to do with that oblivion? Since the true ending has to do with the world facing oblivion

now with DD2 we finally have answers to what the brine is , its basically a safe guard created by one of the god entities to keep people from straying from the cycle and leaving

I didn’t even give it much of a thought on my first playthrough. I just thought it was just a game mechanics to keep players from crossing the game boarder. lol

Brine seem like the curse of the game. Im not gonna ruin it but the reason that the brine exist may aswel be because of the worlds will.

Brine was created because developers didn’t want to design swimming animations 😂

The brine always looked and sounded like a type of “Water Blight” (corrupted water element/spirit) to me.

I personally like that they did something with the brine in DD2

Would have loved to seen all of your livestreams if the sequel. With how invested you are in the game and its lore, it would have been great to see your initial reaction to the brine involvement in the second game!

I always assumed this was just a Very creative and awesome way to put up invisible walls so the devs didn't have to deal with more than just gransys

Ugh so many waa, waa "they didn't want to add swimming! " comments. Im curious if most of these people have even touched the first game like YES we get it, it was probably a CREATIVE way to avoid water interactions at the very least, but they went the extra mile and gave it actual story relevance and lore this time round.

Haven't seen it yet but imma alredy go with "Nice video! Keep up the good content"

Loved the hydroid thumb

Very interesting video, I've always been curious about the Brine. Hopeful for a DD2 teaser/reveal this year at TGA, no other action RPG has captivated me for years as much as DD has -- I'm hopeful Capcom has allowed Itsuno to work on this, especially after having created a Netflix series inspired on the game.

Seneschal: “I am a God amongst mortals!” The Brine: “And I took that personally.”

I remember watching this video and now it's actually really important to the plot, I wonder if Capcom saw this or it was planned all along

Recently in Dragons Dogma 2 my first Dragon kill was thanks to the Brine. I had spotted a Drake by a river/small lake and decided to engage it. It took to the air and sprayed the area in jets of fire. Its large form slowly floating back into the pool of water whilst doing so. And then it dropped, struggling and splashing as the Brine over took it. While I lost all loot and exp for the kill it was an incredible sight.

Ho boi ! i've been looking for this for so long :D

Ah yes, water. Not even Simon Belmont himself could withstand it. A number of other video game characters couldn't either when programmers decided they didn't want swimming in their video game...

one of the things I noticed is that everything in the world of dragon's dogma has a counterpart and everything in the world serves the cycle, so what if the Brine is natural counter to the Senschal? The Senschal Creates the world but the Brine's purpose is the control the growth of the world to keep it small enough to better control to make sure it serves it's purpose to the cycle but large enough to eventually birth the arisen. If that is true then whatever first created the Senschal must have also created the Brine.

This video gave me chills, good job!

All this lore for a mechanic that's just there to keep the player in the game boundaries.

I hope you can talk more about the brine in dragons dogma 2 because its an important character

Im not proud of how i discovered the brine existed, I wanted to see if children knew how to swim.

crazy how spot on about a greater being then the "god" of the dd world having been responsible for things

A fun fact is that in the french game translation brine is refered as "the kraken"

When I first play this game I was suspicious because the pawns treat it like a monster and hear me then hmmm maybe we shall fight this beast later but I didn't and I leave at that cause there's nothing I could do to it then. Thank you man for this wonderful narration and to pawn for the script

Brine didnt kill the pawn it washed up on the beach, after transmigration of Souls in the last cut-scene. Quina says the Arisen is still here at the scene. How did that happen? Maybe the brine exists as long as Seneshal exists.

Incredibly intresting story 😍. Love your lore vids 🥰

That's awesome! I really hope they take cues from your videos for the upcoming game - maybe some further elaboration as to their creation as you mentioned! Legend! I don't agree though with the sentiments of making it a boss which other viewers expressed - I think a tangible explanation of its creation and maybe some further interaction will be awesome enough. Something a little dark like the souls of the arisen who betrayed their beloved - once dead become part of the spirit of the brine - which explains their hatred for humans and pawns...

The spirit angle makes sense wheb you think about the Water God's altar, what it represents, and how corrupted and overrun it constantly is.

This game is so deep its crazy. I wonder if they have been working on another since even dark arisen was held high

This video needs an update, DD2 has twisted some little things.

Maybe its like a curse since the people stop praising the old gods

I just realised that the brine has tentacle monsters, as well as the Flame servant's throne. Considering that they both may have connections to the elemental gods, the tentacles could be servant's of the element gods. I wonder what the earth and wind ones look like, and more importantly, if they'll be the villains in the sequel

Most likely devs didnt want to waste time making swimming animations..... But it would be cool if its an Cthulhu like monster. Eating until its strong enough to eat the land.

Man I really do hope for a second game as so much was cut from this game they could use and I just started my journey recently but have been loving this games lore

Developers really made a lore out of it just to prevent players from going out of map. Genuis I'd say. I think games like Mercenaries have also out of bounds for the map, you can go further out of the map without getting stopped by magical invisible wall however once you reach a point jet planes will come at you with missiles killing you slowly through explosions. I think brine is simply that. Because of tech limitation at the time being released on PS3, I kinda wish dragon dogma 2 will allow us to explore deep water with a chance to kill brine and also meet sea serpents but also implement that invisible wall theory that if you go further the map on the ocean, you either start losing stamina drowning or plenty of brines comes at you attacking at high level while at the same time losing stamina.

Really very interesting! In my project, I gave a slight importance to the brine, but it can still improve. In the Italian language it was given the name of Abyssus, not brine. (yes, I'm Italian) xD Think how much confusion on the internet to look for something about the Abyssus and then I find that they are called differently in English. xDDD

While Dragon's Dogma 2 sets place in a similar but different world thatn Dragon's Dogma 1, I do believe a lot of lore and how the world functioins is connected. Think of it in that way, we get more answers about the Brine in DD2's story from context and visual clues. It might be worth revisiting this topic!

Just need an update to this now dd2 is out, an saureans cant swim anymore, like the brine evolved

Brine is going to be a secret endgame boss in Dragon's Dogma 2!!!

Tfw you create an invincible god so you don't have to program swimming into the game

Ya viste el nuevo juego que saldrá, está inspirada en DRAGONS DOGMA DARK ARISEN se llama ARISEN OF AWAKENER Sube el vídeo para que sepan los demás

I feel like saying the brine holds power over the seneschal is a bit of a stretch. Lets be real it was probably just an excuse to not make you have to reload a save just because you cant swim.

I respect DD insert lore in their limitation. Lets be real. Tech limitations is real reason why we cant swim in first DD. But they create lore around it and bring it to DD2. But man, we need some island/aquatic adventure DLC with islands map are apreciated

I’m fairly certain in DD2, during the true ending post-game, the pawns refer to the serpent creature at the pillar thing by The Arbor as a Brine

Given the Brine's more apparent role in DD2, I wonder if you'll make a new video about it.

*Stagger's Death into the water below in BBI* Oh god... Brine murdered Death.

Gotta give them props for creating lore around why they were too lazy to create swimming mechanics.

To put it simply, it's a game mechanic. Capcom doesn't have the budget to implement swimming and create traversal ocean so they created the Brine lol

Don’t you destroy the brine In the second game when you finish the true ending?

What is the Brine? Answer: A lore excuse so that programmers don't need to implement swiming mechanics.

The Brine is actually a developer of the game.

Love the warframe thumbnail

Brine=our tech isn’t good enough to make swimming available. Cool let’s turn it into lore 😂

I like to imagine the Brine to just be a very touchy feeling giant squid that feels you up like " _ooh, what is you?_ " and then throws you back up. But more interestingly, how did you unlock the camera?!

I was playing Fallout 4 today, I saw a super mutant behemoth with OCD close to sunshine tidings settlement. I shot it in the face and it covered it's eye. I knew that was it's week spot.......... I tried to climb it

I do kinda wonder why the tentacles from the Maker's Finger arrow looks similar to the Brine tentacles. Maybe the Brine is from the Maker?

I would love to see how they expand It in DD2, giving Lore to something not implemented due to Time and budget is quite unique. It could be the old water god or maybe its creation. Could be a creature outside of our world/dimension that uses water as a mean to get food. Or It could be the remains of an ancient curse, where only those of strong Will (arisen) can survive It although not being able to fight or get in the water

Damn devs create whole mythology so that they woudn't animate swimming kinda genius tbh

What if the Sea IS THE BRINE

Maybe the brine is immortal, but the chance of the brine returning to Dragon's Dogma feels really dimm.

Water spirits will attack land creatures but not aquatic. Makes you wonder how important the Water Gods' Altar is? Humans must have made them mad.

The brine should have been an optional boss like the ur dragon. Once defeated, it would've left the Arisen alone. Missed potential there...

Goblin

They need to remove the brine and add actual underwater enemies and stuff.

Hope they turn it into a boss in DD2, a design that would look great for it would be something like Haos from RE6

I love pawned Pawn such an awesome dude

I think the "brine" is nothing more than a gimmick by the developers so they wouldn't have to make swimming an in depth part of the game.

they added more detail to the brine in the second game but I won't say too much

Does it need such a myth and background to explain why the dev did not want the water area to be a playable zone?

A complicated way to say that we don't have a swimming mechanic and dont want to use invisible walls

Devs : damn bro, we just didn't want to add swimming and wanted to make traversal more annoying

I see... so the dragon isn't the same all the time it changes after its killed, ok

The Brine were clearly only put into the game so that swimming mechanics wouldn't have to be made. Think of them as an invisible wall, but for the water.

Interesting video to watch after getting the dd2 true end…

nah fam, they just didn't want a swimming feature.

It's called budget limitations

I love the comments that are just "Or tHey DidNt wAnt To iMplEMenT swImmIng" like yeah youre not a genius we ALL know this but they decided to have fun with it, such party poopers

I mean, to be fair I don't think we should take the fact that in the game the Brine beats the Seneschal as lore and just take is as a game mechanic

I think the brine attacking you as a seneschal is just a gameplay mechanic, meant to enforce a world border. I mean a seneschal has all sorts of powers like teleportation and stuff, but when you play as it, you can teleport either, you can't create life, you can't do anything, so my bet is just gameplay mechanics limitation.

Brine is more powerful than the God (Seneschal), I tested this at Cassidis

im so curious what the blue armor you are wearing

SPOILERS. The creator of the brine was probably the (Daimon's) Second Form demon. Bear in mind that the entire cycle in an illusion, designed to ensnare the Arisen. That would suggest their potential godhood is also an illusion, and the brine was probably put there by Second Form to prevent anyone entrapped in his cycle from straying too far, including the Senechals. It should in fact be a clue to the Senechals that the role they think they must play is a lie they are living while Second Form feeds on their wills.

Thank yooou so much, this channel its the best ever made in content of dragons dogma lore!!! Please continue talking about lore mr rift🙏🏻😺