#pillars of eternity spoilers

[tarbuchyloewenthal]

can we talk about how much i fucking hate skaen?

like, i loathe woedica like i loathe any authoritarian figure. skaen, on the other hand is worth nothing but disdain, derision, and disgust. oh he's the god of uprisings and rebellion? yeah but only so that can be subsumed into the existent hierarchy and crushed from within.

you're really going to scold me for killing your bloodthirsty cultists and then come to me to try to convince me to give an entire generation's worth of souls to woedica? woedica the ur fascist? the shittiest plant of all time, i swear.

god i hate him so much. what a beautiful concept for a god that makes so much sense for the engwithans to make. well done obsidian.

[herearedragons]

...okay this was supposed to be a tag rant on another post I was drafting, but this kind of makes a better point than what I was writing originally so let me try that again.

The thing about Edér Pillars Of Eternity and his theme of second chances is that not only that theme is everywhere for him (seriously. I did Not remember it being that present in his early dialogue but IT IS) but that his relationship with it changes over time.

At first, he's a worshipper of the god of second chances. Then, he is the one being offered a second chance, not by his god, but by a stranger who saves him from being hanged by literally just giving him something else to do with his life. Then, in Deadfire, he is the one delivering the Watcher's second chance, dragging them out of Caed Nua after it's been destroyed by Eothas. At that moment, he's closer to the embodiment of second chances than Eothas himself, which is kind of wild and exactly the kind of character arc I find fun, apparently.

[glamfellens]

ALEXA PLAY ALL GODS BY JUSTIN E BELL FROM PILLARS OF ETERNITY 2: DEADFIRE (2018) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[sweetmage]

Obsessed with Sagani being like "cover your ears, Kana 😨 " meanwhile Kana is already picking out his prize before we even start the quest sljkflk

My boy fucks!!! Good for him!!!

[couchtaro]

In the Pillars of Eternity games one of your first party members is a farmer/fighter named Edér. He is all but stated by the game to be your best friend - holds you when you have nightmares, always checking in on you and making jokes to cheer you up, adopts an (animal) son with you. Minor spoilers for the second game, but when the player character is in trouble he drops EVERYTHING to come to your aid, carries your unconscious body around until you wake up from a soul coma, and even sails off to a whole different part of the world for you. But when romance becomes a possibility in the second game he really just wants to be friends. He values your current relationship much more than anything romantic. And I love it

SOBBING what a king!!!!! We love to see it! I love a joint pet ownership bestie who carries your unconscious body around. All devotion Zero romantic expectations. That’s love babey. Thank you for sharing

[mxanigel]

Incoming Pillars of Eternity rambles! (I tried to make my thoughts coherent. Emphasis on tried.) Now that I've reached Defiance Bay, I've been devouring the game this weekend to help me recuperate from recent life stuff, but this morning I had to pause to digest how much the events have affected Natsuki.

For context, Natsuki is a crime-solving moon godlike scientist ranger who initially leans clever, rational, stoic (except for certain things). Diplomatic tendencies partly arise from navigating her pursuit of science and clues and from being a moon godlike. Rational thinking because scientist and because that mindset helped her develop archery skills early on. Prefers honesty to lies but will bend the truth if it helps someone else. Yet becoming a Watcher and learning more than she ever wanted to know about Awakening and soul manipulation… well, that understandably changes a person. She never expected to be considered benevolent. But benevolence is understandable when you're able to read someone else's soul, isn't it?

-----

Recent Caed Nua things:

Natsuki explored more levels in the Endless Paths and got gut punched by Kana's discovery of the truth of the Tanvii ora Toha (Book of Virtues, ooooof)

Was called to court over a dispute of ownership and ended up able to keep Caed Nua because said disputer is a pathetic person

Loves her Mechanics bonus from resting at the stronghold -> she's much less likely to trigger traps now! to her companions' relief

Recent events:

Natsuki imprisoned the impostor of a drug dealer (who later escaped…) and probably meddled too much in the relationship between the real drug dealer and his ex? fiancee

She helped a kid get a fancy dagger and totally burst his bubble by revealing she'd already discovered the secret stashing spot near the amphitheater

Wandered catacombs in search of the source of a long-dead voice and accidentally moved forward a main quest by stumbling into the temple of Woedica (a moon godlike trying to wear a hood doesn't go well, haha) -> ended up taking down creepy catacombs dude and then convincing the quest-giver to destroy the amulet

Spoke at length with a talking statue and has a growing concern with how souls are treated in this world (okay maybe that's more me than Natsuki) with a side effect of starting to wonder whether pursuit of science is worth the cost

Was a bit too giddy about offering Aloth as a "volunteer" to investigate his soul duality condition (she made the two of them talk to each other like adults and was adamantly against him destroying the data gathered in the process)

Retrieved a scroll and instead of returning it, she buried it because a god(?!) asked her to

Discovered Durance's involvement with the Godhammer

Later stumbled across a piece of the Godhammer bomb

Was wholly unprepared to enter the North Ward of the Sanitarium (what. the. fuck.) and ended up killing Azo

Found a ghost who didn't realize he was a ghost playing guide at the above-ground entrance(?) to the temple of Woedica

Drooled with Kana over the bookshelves in the Hall of Revealed Mysteries but came to her senses long enough to use Grimda's key to help an animancy researcher get a text useful in their studies

Figured going to Heritage Hill wouldn't be a big deal and then got wrecked

Also now they're getting attacked by assassins in Defiance Bay

But hey, at least those events boosted Natsuki's reputation enough for Edér to access the records he's been seeking…

Okay. So the Heritage Hill thing. It was bad enough to stumble across the plight of a terrified child surviving amidst the unliving. And then find that an undead soldier was luring her compatriots to their deaths. But that damned tower. Specifically, talking to Icantha about it. The pride of hers that Natsuki felt, the pride Natsuki had to chip away from to reach a rational conclusion, the pride that resonated with Natsuki's own sense of identity. The pride that casually manipulated countless souls… for what purpose? Knowledge? Power? Control? People aren't playthings, aren't resources, aren't materials. They are people. The living shouldn't be abused by the dead.

Yet what it takes for Natsuki to chip away at that pride… is talking like she once herself did about being a scientist. About pursuing knowledge and understanding and wisdom. She convinces Icantha to give up that pride under the hope that Natsuki will carry the knowledge forward on her behalf. And then Natsuki overloads the tower so that no one else can abuse those souls. Despite knowing the souls would be destroyed, it's better than them being abused. Isn't it?

Now Natsuki has too many questions storming through her already overly-taxed mind: What does it mean to be "good"? What does it mean to pursue knowledge? Can knowledge be gained without harm or sacrifice? When is that knowledge worth the cost?

Her remaining tether is helping her companions. Who occasionally seem to notice when she's faltering. Thank the gods for Sagani and Edér and, well, everyone in her party.

[witsserviceablesubstitute]

As an Australian the Huana are always the obvious choice for me in Deadfire. Given that I come from a settler colony in an Archipelago that was brutally subjugated by Imperialism, strip-mined of resources, and whose various native people and cultures were shattered (in many cases beyond repair). It's so unbelievably erroneous to think Aboriginals on the mainland and the Polynesian and Melanesian on the Islands were less sophisticated in their sociopolitical understanding of eachother and the world around them.

An example being how the various different cultures within Australia, Polynesia and Melanesia, and South East Asia had the most complex maritime trading system in the world before it was thoroughly destroyed by the ignorance, arrogance, greed, and xenophobia of Western Imperialism. But, really, understanding that there are more ways than pastiche-Roman to exist well as a society should go without saying by now. So too should it be understood that you don't have to display sociopolitical complexity to have a right to freedom and sovereignty.

It's interesting, though, how many people choose the VTC. I understand the attraction given its unregulated philosophy on animancy— which is vital to uncovering how to move forward without the Gods messing with everyone in Eora any more than they already do (imagine if Gods and their drama were real and they were actively meddlesome, how much of a nightmare that would be). However, it is also an extremely American choice to make because the VTC is private enterprise and unregulated industry. It's baby Capitalism. I can't help but look over at the US and the philosophy of The Outer Worlds and think about how choosing the VTC isn't going to end as ideally as hoped.

I'm sure choosing the Huana won't for me either— especially if the caste system and isolationist tendencies get worse over time— but I stand by it because the caste system isn't any more extreme than how other factions subjugate people. Nor are the Huana wrong to be weary of outsiders considering the state you find The Deadfire Archipelago.

Mostly I wish there was a Pillars 3. 😔

[sun-marie]

.

[rileyisclass]

I have thoughts about overlap between Pillars of Eternity and Pentiment and don't want to spoil either, but have an overwhelming need to write it somewhere

So I think that Pentiment does a stronger job at exploring the same themes of how myths change with time and culture as well as how religious authorities suppress narratives in order to maintain control over a populace. The villains of both games have the same motivation afterall. Fantasy holds the mirror up to nature, Pillars was already about the real world. They clearly had pre-christian gods becoming saints in mind. And like, I don't know about you, but the second I saw the shrine to the Saint Satia in the woods in Act 1 I knew that was Diana, as Diana is Artemis. But I think part of what helps with Pentiment is the entire game is about this in a broader sense, rather than trying to be for a twist at the end. The entire game is about how history is passed down from the past, to future generations, what is forgotten and what is changed in the telling. And how we are but one part in a chain, stretching into the past and onward towards the future. Pillars trying to say the gods weren't "real" when it's more accurate to say the gods were "artificial" was also a bit of a bugbear for me, even if I got what they mean. And hey, if we're talking thematic overlap in Obsidian games, there a lot of Mask of the Betrayer in here too. But I love the concepts, so it's nice to see what I think is a more solid execution.

[orcboxer]

ill have to replay deadfire now you hooked me w that souls rotting thing i completely forgor abt that

but i do remember the flow of souls before they built the wheel was chaotic and "uneven" and soul maladies like the hollowborn were not unheard of, so i got the impression eothas wants us to rebuild the wheel just w/o the gods to lord over everything

i could be wrong, but im 99% certain there were no gods on eora before the engwithan pantheon, thats what caused them to create them, iirc their animancers searched the adra for their then gods and didnt find any, so they decided to create them

I'm thinkin you may be right about that! That last bit sounds familiar. And now that you mention it, you're totally right, I do recall them mentioning there used to be hollowborn on the reg. So maybe the soul cycle has to be like, cultivated or something. That would actually be a pretty cool direction for the setting to take.

God I'm gonna end up talkin myself into playing both games again lmao. I never did finish that druid playthrough 🤔

Anyway, thanks for indulging me with this convo! I looove babblin about PoE. Outta curiosity, what kinda build do you think you'll use for your next playthrough?

[tarbuchyloewenthal]

i loved it in pillars of eternity when i put this bitch in a pillar for eternity

[herearedragons]

thinking about how the gods of Eora being Like That is 100% the Engwithans' fault. "we studied all existing lore and crafted a perfect pantheon" you made your gods full of contradictions is what you did. look at them. they're killing each other

[battybiologist]

It's kinda funny that Colin Provolone's story is so similar to Aloth's from the first Pillars of Eternity (evil dad, brought into a cult, realized it was fucked up, joined a person with weird visions, kills the leader of the cult and dedicates his life to ending), considering the voice actor for the latter

[solas-backpack-mug]

avowed gameplay!!!

a summary of the video:

game mechanics:

there is parkour

the five ability trees are: Fighter, Ranger, Wizard, Godlike, and Companion

there is swimming

lore that people in-game know (tiny spoilers):

sargamis may have named himself after one of the early figures in eothasian scripture (dialogue option available for arcane scholar background)

in-game lore explanation "(...) Eothas was destroyed, but later rose again in the Deadfire Archipelago. What happened to him there is a matter of speculation."

in kai's words "Eothas is a dangerous god associated with Eora's bloodiest wars, and he recently killed thousands of people in Deadfire."

sargamis has this cool sword

plot of a part of the game and some fresh lore (bigger spoilers):

sargamis built a statue of eothas and has some animantic devices near it

sargamis is looking for a relic called Splinter of Eothas. "You see, this construction beside us is no mere statue, but a reliquary I have built to house the Splinter of Eothas in its appropriate grandeur. It is nearly complete, and ready for the Splinter to be interred, but I can no longer reach the relic on my own". that relic was also sought by the aedyran expedition team the player character is looking for

the expedition team is found dead without a single wound. some dialogue options about it are "I've seen something like this before, in the creation of animats" and "They remind me of the bodies of the godlikes who died a few years ago". this implies that some godlikes lost their souls somehow (imo most likely the gods fed from them because they were starved of essence)

kai theorizes sargamis put the sould of the expedition team into that statue of eothas in the main chamber. one of the dialogue options that requires intellect 2 is "Could the oracle's plan have something to do with Eothas' vanishing at Ukaizo?"

sargamis, upon being confronted about killing the expedition team: "Ah. I did not expect you to be so thorough in your explorations. Nevertheless, am impressed. As to whether I killed them, well, that is a matter of semantics. Does death occur the moment the heart ceases beating, or when the soul is broken upon the Wheel? In one sense, then, they are quite dead. In another, they remain very much alive.

sargamis intends to redeem eothas

sargamis: "The relic you have retrieved was stolen from Eothas' body. He is bound to it, or it to him. And before the events at Ukaizo, he would speak to me through it. He speaks to me no longer, but I believe he resonates with the Splinter yet, as I do. If I am correct, when it is placed in the statue, the magnifying power of the adra will draw him into it, and he will be trapped. Locked into the reliquary with a chorus of furious souls acting as his conscience... He will finally begin the work of making right all the wrong he has done."

if the pc agrees to help sargamis and does what he asks, the process fails. sargamis then asks the pc to lend their godlike chime

[valensolo12]

a couple more pages of my pillars of eternity journal, finally getting into the part of the game i didn't reach on my first (unfinished) playthrough!

[springacres]

"Today is not that day" and yet you left all this in the tags?

It may not feel complete to you, but at the very least it's a damn good start!

One day I'll get my braincells together and put it to paper how the pillars of eternity games manage to make the player feel powerful without making the Watcher a power fantasy character but like... this is not that day