Dinapuff

What was it made of? Did you not talk to durance? They all forged staves with runes - injected this with their beliefs and asked / prayed for the power to kill Waidwen the mortal man. This culminates in meeting the saint on a bridge and smiting him with everything they have, uncaring or unknowing that such an act would tear apart or use their very souls for fuel. It's very implied that the runes on the staff are that of the dozen, which basically is giving the staff carte blanche to consume and tear atthe souls of all twelve, while also functioning as a channel or funnel for their collective wills (all directed at Waidwen). It is up to the player what exactly Magran intended for the dozen there. You can speculate that she wanted them dead so that knowledge such as this would not be easily discovered again, or if she merely needed them to slap Waidwen around abit and hadn't thought they'd actually go so far as to actually destroy themselves so thoroughly in their zeal. T_T

Pallegina by far. She's basically a lore exposition character, and her motivations / dispositions hardly made sense to me. Then again I didn't exactly include her much in my party aside from doing her quest and the ditching her.

I passed that mechanics test too - where you tell him you think she wanted to kill him. But after I tell him that he looked blurred in the vision and I think Magran can't see him as he was, he thinks about it and then dismisses me because I have no proof. It is frustrating to be so close to a resolution! I think it might have something to do with disposition, but just to be certain, What's your int?

I thought the talk about the godhammer revealed enough about such things to safely assume that it's merely divine power linked with the god, and that to destroy these avatars you have to destroy the man so as to sever the link.

Oh, there's more to it? I have to admit I found it hard following his ramblings and reasoning at times and by the end I just wanted to finally resolve his quest before going after Thaos, but the only option I've had in the dialogue was "I think Magran was working with Woedica against Eothas". So... was there more to this? Are Magran's role and motives actually plainly revealed anywhere or left up for speculation just as Eothas? And while we're at it, why would Skaen suggest to the player to install Woedica as the ultimate big brother master? Theres more to what? Yes - there is more to Magran and the Godhammer. She was definitively not working with Woedica against Eothas. It's more that Eothas's avatar was overstepping his bounds by a great deal, and stepping into the territory of war (Magrans territory). Durance only got half a soul left, and there are two ways you can interpret this. <snip> As for Skaen. He is the Quiet Slave, the god of secret hatred, resentment, and violent rebellion. He stands to be second in power should Woedica get her souls as she wants. These gods all act according to their aspects. Where the other gods stand to loose should Woedica succeed he has many followers to gain. Meh, somehow somewhere my dialogues left only "Magran conspired with Woedica" option available, which left me scratching my head: "She's what now? Where did that come from? And I've just convinced Durance of this? [in Sagani's voice] What? What just happened!? " I should probably go back and re-read that conversation. And definitely should've given Skaen more thought, from this angle his peculiar behaviour makes perfect sense. Oh, the finer subtleties we might miss when rushing towards the end. It's a reflection of your watcher's own interpretation based on past dialogue. I think you have some different outcomes before it gets to that point if you act inquisitively enough. I guess it is important to note that whenever we finished a conversation Durance would often rebuff me with insults layered around talk of Wael. Yeah, pretty much anything your character says is just your own interpretation, which is quite interesting. Nobody ever comes along to tell you "This Is the Official Explanation". You have to decide what you think on your own, which is the recurring theme of the game--do you take other people's interpretations at face value and do what they say, or do you try and figure out your own path, knowing that the "answers" may never be clear? All the sub-plots basically revolve around the concept of coming to terms with uncertainty in some fashion. At the end, I basically took it as one thing: the motive of the gods in general is to maintain the status quo. Woedica and Eothas both upset this at various times and got squashed for it--now Woedica is out for revenge. She is basically like the Rogue Cop of the gods, breaking the rules and dishing out her own brand of "justice". You know, it just occurred to me that Waidwen's entire invasion of the Dyrwood may have been an attempt to put an end to Woedica's schemes in some way. Look at this: 1. Woedica gets uppity and the other gods squash her. 2. She sends Thaos to gather power for her using ancient Engwithan artifacts. He forms the Leaden Key toward this end. 3. Eothas, the god of forgiveness and redemption (and thus most directly opposed to Woedica) gets wind of this and can't figure out a way to counteract Thaos except by creating his own avatar. 4. Eothas selects Waidwen to be his avatar, possibly because conditions in Raedceras have driven enough people to the worship of Eothas that the god has sufficient power there to accomplish this. 5. Waidwen frees Raedceras and then, under direction from Eothas to stop Thaos at all costs, invades Dyrwood to try and accomplish this. 6. Eothas' actions piss off the other gods, particularly Magran, and she inspires her followers to create the Godhammer and blow Waidwen to Kingdom Come, thus leaving Thaos free to finish carrying out his schemes. So, in a sense the Hollowing really IS "Waidwen's Legacy", because this is what Eothas was attempting to prevent by invading the Dyrwood in the first place. That's speculation, but it does hang together nicely. The time line does not work out for your 6 steps there. 1) happens quite a while back (her temple in Defiance bay was burned during the rebellion against Aedyr, which was decades before), and background books point to her being squashed awhile back as well. 2) Thaos and the leaden key date back centuries, if not millennia. thus 3) falls apart 4) is questionable. There is nothing to suggest gods get anything from worship in this setting.. the forge god abydon (or whatever) seems to be pretty much abandoned. Souls give them power (and made them in the first place. Worship seems to serve just the basic function of social control. 5) there isn't any indication that thaos is in the dyrwood at this point. The 'legacy' (brought about by manipulating the machines) happens after the end of the war. 6) I'm not particularly convinced that Magran inspired the bomb. They may well have done it on their own, which explains several things, including the fires being out at the shrines in Defiance Bay, despite wider worship of Magran. Talking with Galawain, Magran and Abydon, its pretty clear what motivates Thaos (and therefor the Key), is animancy. The new science is explaining the world and moving people away from the gods. Those three accept that, due to their natures, but it makes everything Thaos has ever done pointless, and he can't accept that. He must keep the world the unchanging ball of misery he created, or every atrocity he ever committed was worth nothing. THAOS dates back a long ways, but the Leaden Key is specifically devoted to restoring Woedica to power. I didn't find any evidence in the game that the Leaden Key is an ancient organization. Thaos has created a number of organizations when and as he needed them, but his original group is only referred to as the "Inquisition" in game as far as I could tell. And the gods clearly DO get something out of worship--they apparently can't influence anyone EXCEPT their followers (or people who actively pray to them, at the very least). I'm somewhat assuming that Eothas couldn't just take over any random person in the world. It would have had to be someone who followed him (Waidwen), and for his plan to work it would have to be in a place where that person could conceivably raise an army instead of just getting whacked by the locals as a nutcase and a heretic. Conditions in Raedceras were ideal, so it's possible Eothas seized the opportunity. The machines that Thaos was planning to use to resurrect Woedica were in the Dyrwood, so he *necessarily* had to go to the Dyrwood. And Eothas, having been created by those same machines, would know this. There's nothing ELSE there that would inspire Eothas to invade (at least, nothing that was revealed in the game), so if there's a motivation to be found, that's the one. Whether he knew substantial details of Thaos's *exact* plan is unknown, but all through the game people keep wondering "why did Waidwen come HERE?!" . . . well, there IS a rather solid reason, as you discover. And animancy isn't a "new science" that could "move people away from the gods". Animancy CREATED the gods--it's ANCIENT. Thaos probably doesn't care one way or another about the study of animancy, it's merely a target of convenience to blame the Hollowborn on--possibly an excuse for a good old-fashioned crusade once he gets his goddess back up and running. His efforts are focused more specifically on getting people *angry* at animancy than on wiping it out--otherwise he would have stuck around in Defiance Bay post-assassination to continue rallying the mob. But he doesn't, he leaves IMMEDIATELY without even waiting to see what happens, only pausing to take out your biggest source of info on his movements. The leaden key is a branch of the same organization that set out to preach the work of these false gods at the start of the entire thing. Woedica is the goddess of secrets, and she is merely invested in keeping secrets, and as such has more influence over this ancient organization than the other gods. The primary purpose of that order is to ensure that the status quo is maintained, or at least the ghost you talk to before fighting thaos says as much. That's why the question you ask Thaos when you meet him is "Is it true that there are no gods?" That is why when you talk in the audience chamber that you blame the leaden key and point to them having a history that spans back far enough to be the only org capable of trapping souls and maintaining the waidens legacy charade. This status quo existed until the other gods rekt her ****, and even then Thaos still maintains the balance while carrying out Woedica's vengeance, or else there would be a lot more assassins after the player character.

See. It wasn't Eothas that did those things. It was his avatar, a mortal fallible man. Waidwen was blessed with the gifts of Eothas for sure, and disposed to doing certain things as pretaining to his gods nature, but he is still mortal, and as such subject to all mortal failings. The reasons Waidwen acted as he did were mortal reasons. Most likely influenced by the leaden key / Thaos, but also by his own arrogance and conceited interpretation of how Eothas wants him to behave. Like Thaos says when confronted at the shrine to Woedica. He can commune with her there. But that is the ways of a man who has had decades to cement himself in Woedica's favor, and even he has to enter her most sacred of places to properly get messages across. Thaos's soul is touched and blessed thousand ways backwards to sunday whereas Waidwen was a peasant, and nobody knows how Waidwen would commune with Eothas. No doubt the logistics of the thing would be horrible given the amount of followers a god of rebirth and benevolence has. The gods themselves are subject to mortal interpretation, and when those mortals die, there's always second hand interpretation, or third hand, or the words of this or that particularly blessed saint (not to mention conquered peoples adopting a new god and putting in their own traditions and take on things). These gods and the faith mortals put in them is as multifaceted as it can get, and not one of them is the right answer to how any of them actually behaves. Try to do the mission for Magrans high priest in defiance bay, and listen closely on the discussion when you turn the quest in. Do try some of the multiple answers that exist. You can force her to resign her post because she sent an adventurer in her place to complete the trial Magran put before her, or you can make her believe all manner of varying degrees of self delusion / ignorance which Durance will comment on.

Oh, there's more to it? I have to admit I found it hard following his ramblings and reasoning at times and by the end I just wanted to finally resolve his quest before going after Thaos, but the only option I've had in the dialogue was "I think Magran was working with Woedica against Eothas". So... was there more to this? Are Magran's role and motives actually plainly revealed anywhere or left up for speculation just as Eothas? And while we're at it, why would Skaen suggest to the player to install Woedica as the ultimate big brother master? Theres more to what? Yes - there is more to Magran and the Godhammer. She was definitively not working with Woedica against Eothas. It's more that Eothas's avatar was overstepping his bounds by a great deal, and stepping into the territory of war (Magrans territory). Durance only got half a soul left, and there are two ways you can interpret this. <snip> As for Skaen. He is the Quiet Slave, the god of secret hatred, resentment, and violent rebellion. He stands to be second in power should Woedica get her souls as she wants. These gods all act according to their aspects. Where the other gods stand to loose should Woedica succeed he has many followers to gain. Meh, somehow somewhere my dialogues left only "Magran conspired with Woedica" option available, which left me scratching my head: "She's what now? Where did that come from? And I've just convinced Durance of this? [in Sagani's voice] What? What just happened!? " I should probably go back and re-read that conversation. And definitely should've given Skaen more thought, from this angle his peculiar behaviour makes perfect sense. Oh, the finer subtleties we might miss when rushing towards the end. It's a reflection of your watcher's own interpretation based on past dialogue. I think you have some different outcomes before it gets to that point if you act inquisitively enough. I guess it is important to note that whenever we finished a conversation Durance would often rebuff me with insults layered around talk of Wael. Yeah, pretty much anything your character says is just your own interpretation, which is quite interesting. Nobody ever comes along to tell you "This Is the Official Explanation". You have to decide what you think on your own, which is the recurring theme of the game--do you take other people's interpretations at face value and do what they say, or do you try and figure out your own path, knowing that the "answers" may never be clear? All the sub-plots basically revolve around the concept of coming to terms with uncertainty in some fashion. At the end, I basically took it as one thing: the motive of the gods in general is to maintain the status quo. Woedica and Eothas both upset this at various times and got squashed for it--now Woedica is out for revenge. She is basically like the Rogue Cop of the gods, breaking the rules and dishing out her own brand of "justice". You know, it just occurred to me that Waidwen's entire invasion of the Dyrwood may have been an attempt to put an end to Woedica's schemes in some way. Look at this: 1. Woedica gets uppity and the other gods squash her. 2. She sends Thaos to gather power for her using ancient Engwithan artifacts. He forms the Leaden Key toward this end. 3. Eothas, the god of forgiveness and redemption (and thus most directly opposed to Woedica) gets wind of this and can't figure out a way to counteract Thaos except by creating his own avatar. 4. Eothas selects Waidwen to be his avatar, possibly because conditions in Raedceras have driven enough people to the worship of Eothas that the god has sufficient power there to accomplish this. 5. Waidwen frees Raedceras and then, under direction from Eothas to stop Thaos at all costs, invades Dyrwood to try and accomplish this. 6. Eothas' actions piss off the other gods, particularly Magran, and she inspires her followers to create the Godhammer and blow Waidwen to Kingdom Come, thus leaving Thaos free to finish carrying out his schemes. So, in a sense the Hollowing really IS "Waidwen's Legacy", because this is what Eothas was attempting to prevent by invading the Dyrwood in the first place. That's speculation, but it does hang together nicely. The only thing i would say to your list is that the leaden key's purpose is to maintain the gods that were set up. Thaos is just running a smaller part of a larger whole towards Woedica's revenge which does not conflict with maintaining the leaden key's primary function, and they have existed for much longer than what you imply.

Oh, there's more to it? I have to admit I found it hard following his ramblings and reasoning at times and by the end I just wanted to finally resolve his quest before going after Thaos, but the only option I've had in the dialogue was "I think Magran was working with Woedica against Eothas". So... was there more to this? Are Magran's role and motives actually plainly revealed anywhere or left up for speculation just as Eothas? And while we're at it, why would Skaen suggest to the player to install Woedica as the ultimate big brother master? Theres more to what? Yes - there is more to Magran and the Godhammer. She was definitively not working with Woedica against Eothas. It's more that Eothas's avatar was overstepping his bounds by a great deal, and stepping into the territory of war (Magrans territory). Durance only got half a soul left, and there are two ways you can interpret this. <snip> As for Skaen. He is the Quiet Slave, the god of secret hatred, resentment, and violent rebellion. He stands to be second in power should Woedica get her souls as she wants. These gods all act according to their aspects. Where the other gods stand to loose should Woedica succeed he has many followers to gain. Meh, somehow somewhere my dialogues left only "Magran conspired with Woedica" option available, which left me scratching my head: "She's what now? Where did that come from? And I've just convinced Durance of this? [in Sagani's voice] What? What just happened!? " I should probably go back and re-read that conversation. And definitely should've given Skaen more thought, from this angle his peculiar behaviour makes perfect sense. Oh, the finer subtleties we might miss when rushing towards the end. It's a reflection of your watcher's own interpretation based on past dialogue. I think you have some different outcomes before it gets to that point if you act inquisitively enough. I guess it is important to note that whenever we finished a conversation Durance would often rebuff me with insults layered around talk of Wael.

It's like everyone collectively took a look at wizards in early DND and then said. "Yea, I'm gonna nerf the **** out of you until the only advantage you have lies in specialized lore, a few places to hang out with other wizards, and nostalgia." By this point the Cipher is better at CC (not reliant on rest), paralyze can be used with emergency scrolls, and the druid has better aoe.

Oh, there's more to it? I have to admit I found it hard following his ramblings and reasoning at times and by the end I just wanted to finally resolve his quest before going after Thaos, but the only option I've had in the dialogue was "I think Magran was working with Woedica against Eothas". So... was there more to this? Are Magran's role and motives actually plainly revealed anywhere or left up for speculation just as Eothas? And while we're at it, why would Skaen suggest to the player to install Woedica as the ultimate big brother master? Theres more to what? Yes - there is more to Magran and the Godhammer. She was definitively not working with Woedica against Eothas. It's more that Eothas's avatar was overstepping his bounds by a great deal, and stepping into the territory of war (Magrans territory). Durance only got half a soul left, and there are two ways you can interpret this. 1) He acted against her will, and the dozen used too much power when wielding the godhammer to do more damage than what was intended, and thus lost her favor. There is much talk about trials of the flesh, and the trials of Durance (one of many interpretations of Magrans teachings). 2) He was intended to die on that bridge, and Magran does not care about the most devout of her worshippers. The gods are more like corporations than anything else, and they have to act through mortals mostly. Their wills are hard to make clear because it's never a direct order. Durance and the dozen wanted to fight Eothas's champion. He and the others were blessed with the Godhammer, and she had to trust he was going to remain true to her teachings. That is the problem of having your will being carried out by mortals. They are prone to delude themselves / act out of self interest, or act in ways counter to the nature of the god because there are dozens of different teachings of the same god. Mortals pick up the god that they already have dispositions towards, and the gods make sure to promote certain attitudes and take on aspects to keep a balance between themselves. Eothas is a kind benevolent god, and as such when he steps into another gods territory (war) then Magran must respond in some way through her followers. Magrans motives are reflected in the conversations you have with durance, and the quest related with the temple of Magran. You can push him towards 2) or 1) respectively which reflects more on your watchers nature than Magran. She would never work with Woedica, but the Leaden Key has no doubt influenced followers of all religions. You can be certain that they were heavily invested in Saint Waidwen. As for Skaen. He is the Quiet Slave, the god of secret hatred, resentment, and violent rebellion. He stands to be second in power should Woedica get her souls as she wants. These gods all act according to their aspects. Where the other gods stand to loose should Woedica succeed he has many followers to gain.

Thaos is sworn to Woedica. Not just her ally. His immortal soul is bound to her as surely as she is bound to him. Woedica wants to discredit animancy, and keep her secrets safe, she also wants a large pot of vengeance over the other gods as they rekt her **** (ruined temple in defiance bay backstory). There is a reason they call her "The exiled Queen," and it's not because she's very regal. It's because the other gods made short work of her once she massed too much power. So to your questions. Why is Thaos working with Woedica? Because he is the closest thing she has to an avatar in the world of the living. He is her most trusted minion, the close confidant, the immortal Jason Bourne or 007. A long time sworn ally to her and party to orchestrating the entire "Gods are real" deception scheme they invented. As a reward for his service he doesn't have to struggle with awakening every time he is born. He is born with all his memories and all of his soul remembering everything. Was it Thaos's plan or hers? It is her will, and Engwithan machinery is being used so she probably knows about that too, but it is probably his plan. How does making her stronger help his cause? She is his cause. Was he working with her from the beginning or only enlisted her help after Eothas things and decided to put a stop to them? -.- Dude, did you not read the lore? he was working for her since Engwithan times. The sole purpose of his order is to maintain that gods are real, and it worked that way for a long time until the gods turned on Woedica for amassing too much influence and burnt her avatar to a crisp (much like what happend to Eothas's champion). Talk with Durance about Magran and the godhammer. If you completed the Durance quests you should have gotten to the point where you can either convince him that Magran did not want Eothas's champion killed and that he betrayed her, or that she betrayed him. Animancy = stealing fire from the gods. Woedica wants to stamp it out. Revenge over the other gods / power over them. Woedica wants this. Thaos = He is Woedica's queen on the chessboard - moving through the centuries to carry out her will, but because he is such a trusted pawn he is left to decide how to carry it out himself. Plot to steal souls to give woedica power over the gods, and wipe out Animancy in the region all at once is the work of Thaos, but he is carrying it out for Woedica. She wants him to do all of this. Hopefully that helps.