Dhall "the Scrivener" is an extraordinarily old and sickly scribe found on the 2nd Floor of the Mortuary in the Receiving Room. He is of the Dustman faction and is key to the Nameless One finding out how he got to the Mortuary.
History
"You have been brought here many times before, I had hoped that this time would be the last."
The Nameless One has met Dhall many times before and over time has come to see him as part of the Mortuary itself. Although he says that he has never truly known who he is because he has never known himself. His entire life he has searched for a state of emotionlessness so as to be able to cross the Eternal Boundary and reach True Death. He has been covering up the Nameless One's immortality for some time now.
He has grown a particular dislike for the collector Pharod and feels as if the man is robbing the dead bodies he brings in of what little dignity they carried in life by stealing their belongings. Over the course of many years he has grown very sombre in his beliefs although he has come to accept that he should not try to force his beliefs on people. He has saved the Nameless One from cremation a score of times by postponing the cremation until he awakens from his death, he is an unusually loyal friend in comparison to the peoples of Sigil, probably due to his Githzerai nature.
Disposition
Appearance
The scribe looks very old, his skin is wrinkled and has a slight trace of yellow, like old parchment. He has charcoal-grey eyes that lie within an angular face and a large white beard flows down the front of his long black robes. He has an unhuman face and his ears narrow to points. He wears long black Dustman robes with pride and respects and obeys Dustman beliefs. He is thought to be a Githzerai due to his pointy ears and generally different coloured skin.
Wasting Sickness
"The weight of many years hangs upon me Restless One... but I do not yet count deafness among my ailments."
Dhall himself says that he is approaching the "True Death" and that is does not worry him due to his beliefs. He is very old, even for Githzerai standards. His breathing is ragged and irregular and he frequently bursts into violent fits of coughing during his words. He does not let his sickness get in the way of his work as a catologer and "his coughs do not get in the way of the scratching of his pen." He believes that it will not be long before he crosses the Eternal Boundary and he says that he is tired of this "mortal sphere" as:
"The planes hold no more wonder to one such as I."
He does not in any way wish to live forever and would not take up the option to be reborn again as it would go against his Dustman beliefs. He wants to reach a state of True Death as it is the aim of one such as him.
Job
Template:See also
Dhall is a scribe for the Dustmen, a cataloger of all the shells (corpses) that enter the Mortuary. He writes, with a quill pen, in a giant book the size of him that comprises the names of all the dead that pass through the Mortuary Gates. He is always very busy. Dhall calls the Receiving Room he works in the "Waiting Room" for those about to depart the Shadow of Life. He does this job because of his philosophies as a Dustman. He is possibly the most important man who resides in the Mortuary itself and certainly the most intelligent. He has written an entire logbook, entitled Receiving Room Logbook. He is also presumably a necromancer, as it is the scribe who performs the act of Raising the body. He could also be called a writer or a statistician, and a diagnostician as he writes in the cause of death for all of the shells, relatively accurately in fact. Dhall is also the one who keeps the Preparation Rooms and an instructor in the Philosophical Arts to those who train at the Mortuary.
Also, because he is the only person who sees the faces of those who are dead, so long as he stays alive and at his post, the secret of the Nameless One's immortality is in his safekeeping as he is the only Dustman who recognises him in the Mortuary.
Personality
In Dhall's many years he has come to see the world as a place of cruelty, filled with torment and despair. He has grown very somber due to old age and the "reality" of life that the Dustmen see. He is a depressed person who certainly wishes to leave the world and reach peace via a True Death. While he is a very strong believer in his faith he has come to accept that the way in which Dustmen compose themselves in trying to force people into their religion is wrong and disregards this part of his faith for one of his own.
He is a very wise and philosophical person, with an abnormally high intelligence, he thinks a lot about many things although focuses very hard on his work and is mostly consumed by his job and his logging. He has views on several people, such as Pharod and the Nameless One and Deionarra and stays true to his faction's beliefs. Dhall is one of the most revered of the Dustman faction, has meditated much on the nature of the True Death, and is an extraordinarily wise man.
Information Told
Dhall in the Receiving Room.
"Know you...? I have never "known" you. No more than you have known yourself."
Dhall tells the Nameless One about the Mortuary, he explains several of the philosophical views of the Dustmen, such as the Eternal Boundary, True Death and the Shadow of Life. He tells him that the dead are brought to the Mortuary to be cremated or interred. Dhall also says that the Nameless One has been brought to the Mortuary many times before. He tells him that he arrived on a cart in the middle of a load of other bodies and that Pharod was paid 3 common coppers for his body. He tells him how to leave the Mortuary also, saying that one of the guides has the key. He tells him that there were others on his journeys before and speaks of a woman interred on the floor below. However he advises him not to take anyone else on his journeys.
Philosophical Views
Views on Life and Death
"What is it that makes you think that this life IS real? Do you not feel something lacking?"
Dhall believes in the faiths of the Dustmen. Believing that the life that everyone lives is but a shadow of a life and that every person is weighed down by the passions and emotions that they go through in their lives and that if they are free of these then a state of True Death can be reached, for:
"Passions carry weight. As long as one clings to emotion they will be continually reborn into this life, forever suffering, never knowing the purity of True Death. To achieve True Death you must kill your passions and strip yourself of the need for sensation. When you achieve this you achieve peace, past the Eternal Boundary lies the peace all souls seek.?"
Dhall feels that the lives of everyone in Sigil are ones of sorrow, misery and torment and that they are the elements that sum up living in a cage. He wishes to be free of his life and searches for a true peace, a state of void and believes that he can achieve this through an emotionless life because True Death is a state of purity, devoid of reason or sensation. It is a state of non-existence. He believes that life is an illusion.
Views on the Nameless One's Immortality
The Nameless One.
"Know this: I do not envy you, Restless One. To be reborn as you, would be a curse that I could not bear. You must come to terms with it. At some point, your path will return you here. It is the way of all things flesh and bone."
Dhall is different from other Dustmen in that he does not believe that he should force his religion onto people as it would not be just and believes that the people should make their own choices which is essentially why he does not want the Nameless One dead, because he wants him to choose to die rather than be forced. Even though his existence as an immortal is unacceptable to his beliefs, a blasphemy.
He calls him Restless One because there is something that must be resolved, some passion quenched before he can reach the True Death. He says of his wounds and scars that they are very little in comparison to the wounds of the mind and says that these wounds are possibly the reason for his amnesia.
Thoughts on Pharod
"Pharod is a Knight of the Post, cross-trading filth of the lowest kind."
Dhall does not respect Pharod because he does not respect the dead in any way and profits from the misery of others. Pharod kills people and steals them of their possessions and "what little dignity they carried in life". He also believes that Pharod probably stole the Nameless One's journal. He is unwilling to tell him the whereabouts of Pharod as he fears that it will come full circle and that the Nameless One will die again and it will all have been for nothing. He does eventually say that he inhabits the Hive however.
Combat stats
If killed, Dhall drops his Quill Pen (see below).
| Dhall | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Level | HP | Attacks | AC | THAC0 | Str | Dex | Con | Int | Wis | Chr |
| 2 | 4 | 1 | 10 | 20 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 |
| XP Value | Saves vs. | Death | Wands | Poly | Breath | Spell | ||||
| 0 | 16 | 18 | 17 | 20 | 19 | |||||
| Resistances vs. damage type | ||||||||||
| Fire | Cold | Electricity | Acid | Magic | Mag. Fire | Mag. Cold | Slash | Crush | Pierce | Missile |
| 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Dhall's Quill Pen
- Main article: Dhall's Quill Pen
Dhall has kept this quill pen his entire life and has written with it every day. As such it is embued with certain magical properties, in that it contains some of his knowledge, experiences and memories. The Nameless One has the option of either killing Dhall or pickpocketing the item from him. By snapping the item, one would absorb a small portion of the giths' knowledge, giving them a permanent +1 Lore bonus. Although this can only be used by mages, which is why it is believed that Dhall was in fact a mage, or a necromancer to be more precise. It weighs nothing at all.
The feather is from that of a Vrock, one of the many races of Tanar'ri that inhabit the Abyss, they resemble huge vultures and are often used as scouts for the Tanar'ri forces in the Blood War.
Quotes
- "The Mortuary is almost your home."
- "Your life and mine, are shadows, flickerings of what life once was. This life is where we end up after we die. We remain trapped, caged, until we can achieve a True Death."
- "As always the question and the wrong question as always."
- "Where you walk, so walks misery."
- "I know scant little of you, Restless One."
- "For you have forgotten, have you not?"