Primislas

Galawain's way is actually probably the best for Dyrwood judging by slides. I'm going with Wael for Deadfire (that has to have some impact, right? RIGHT?), but all in all an ending that makes me stop and think long and hard on what to actually do is a great ending imo.

They aren't absent, they either just won't talk to you or are in a group. The twins outside tell you straight up the gods aren't always "present" and even if they are don't always respond. I got the implication the altars were not dedicated to specific gods but were just there to commune with the god closest to that alter. That maybe you could come back next week and only berath and skaen might by hanging out and the others may be absent entirely. If that was so, then why have separate altars for each deity at all, instead of altars that you pray at, and pick your deity? And then why would you be punished if you said the "wrong" prayer at the "wrong" altar? And that still wouldn't explain why you can't say a prayer to Eothas, it would just make it even weirder. Even the specific altars to Woedica and Wael are explicitly non-communicative, you cannot even attempt to use them, and they are clearly intended as the altars of Woedica and Wael, respectively. The shrines are just shrines, they aren't dedicated to any particular gods. Recipients of prayers are defined by constellations closest to an altar. Dryads outside say that you should pray [at the altar] closest to those you want to be heard by. I guess designers created only 6 altars because the game had 6 groups of gods at this particular point in time. 5 useless altars (technically 7 with Woedica and Wael) with the extra space required to clearly show the PC that no god is near them was probably too much. Edit: Oh, right. What Karkarov said in that quote above. Edit2: But Woedica and Wael are present as constellations next to free altars, that's why altars are 'dedicated' to them (but not really). Again trying to second-guess designers I figure they wanted to have all the active gods present in the scene and that's all there is to it.

Given the way Woedica intends to strengthen herself and given the final memory of Thaos used to activate the machine, it only seems reasonable to conclude. What else? The vision itself. (Apparently I can't wrap multiple paragraphs into a single spoiler. >.>) With a deep breath, you plunge into Thaos' soul, and where in Brackenbury it had been a maze of narrow corridors and dead ends, now it is expansive and borderless, its walls crumbling into heaps like the ruins of Engwith as you pass through them. You travel for what seems like ages, rushing to a known destination, a memory you glimpsed once before. At last you see it, no more than a pinprick of light at the end of a long tunnel, expanding slowly at first, then quickly as you near. You come out in the room you are standing in now, but it is new and pristine and filled with people - thousands of them, all turned towards the great adra pillar and the machine that encases it. Thaos stands at the machine, and you are one with him now. You look out at the crowd, at faces of shriveled old men and cherub-cheeked little girls, at mothers bouncing infants to quiet them and fathers clasping their children's restless hands and watching you with somber acceptance. A woman with tears in her eyes gives you a small nod. You turn back toward the machine, your breaths constricted beneath the weight of unwanted knowledge, preparing yourself to set out alone on a journey without end. You close your eyes and open them again to find the machine still in front of you, beckoning. You take your place in front of it and place your hands upon a large mechanical disc at the base of the great crystal column and speak a single word. Giant rings creak to life, building speed, setting arrays of carved draconic mouths aglow and sending tremors through the platform beneath you. The entire room shakes now with the force of the accelerating machine, all sound drowned out by its deep, deafening thrum. Brilliant tendrils of light arc outward from the pillar in all directions, and you look over your shoulder to see them engulfing the crowd, burning them brightly like hot iron. One by one, the tendrils disappear, leaving ashen effigies where people once stood, many of them disintegrating into gray heaps under the stress of the tremors. You look above to the adra pillar, and a glowing spherical mass has begun to coalesce atop the column where the arcs converge. It grows and pulses, translucent and bulbous like some immense chrysalis, suspended in slow rotation as though it were being spun from the arcs of light. When the last arc disappears, the spectral mass hangs a moment, no longer rotating, so bright you must shield your eyes with an outstretched hand, and it seems to you as though it is looking at you. You bow your head in acknowledgment, and look back up to see it melt into the pillar like warm candle wax. The pillar flares with a flash of light bright as the sun itself, then fades to darkness. The machine slows down to an abrupt halt, and when the last echo of its grinding cogs has passed, the chamber is still, and you are alone. From all sides, reality begins to bleed in through the memory, and you find yourself in your own skin once more, looking down on Thaos' lifeless body. "He was good at serving his god, I give him that. But he should've picked a better one."

Can't disobey an authoritatively cute avatar. - The Grieving Mother draws back in horror. "What evil is this? To murder a child over a matter of politics?" Her face twists into a mask of fury. "We cannot allow this corruption... this madness... to thrive." - Her face is carved with stern, rigid lines. "We must not do this, Watcher... We have come to save the children... the future of the Dyrwood. I will not stand by you if you do this evil." - "Such evil this crisis has wrought... to force a child on the daughter of one's own blood... unthinkable." - The Grieving Mother's hands fly to her ears, and her mouth frames a silent scream. Only her mind speaks. "Evils that magnify tragedies... this is what we must stop..." - The Grieving Mother closes her eyes and gives you a single deep nod. "It has been an honor to journey with you... to help you purge Thaos' evil from the Dyrwood." - "The rîow of my circle believe the Autumn Stelgaer to be a heinous abomination - it is said that if it eats you, your soul is invariably lost. As this was my first and most intuitive form, they deemed me a carrier of its evil." - "And what even defines 'help' in this situation? Even if they tell me what I think to be true - that it's just fur color, not some mark of evil - then I can't exactly take that news back to my circle and expect them to believe it." - "I [Watcher] need to fix the evil he's [Thaos] perpetrated on the Dyrwood." - Aloth shakes his head. "Men and women turn to this evil to cure Hollowborn? Madness." - "And now... he has joined Kolsc against our lord, and lingers in the dungeons. I fear he may already have fallen victim to Osrya's evil designs." - "I used to spend a lot of time reasoning about good and evil, right and wrong." (Watcher's background dialogue option with Calisca.) - "The children they keep down here... pure evil in their eyes." - "That evil woman will pay for her crimes over a dozen lifetimes." - He pauses. When he speaks again, his voice sounds dry and cracked. "It's a sickness. Some evil polluting my soul. I've tried everything, but watching Lumdala's performances soothes me in ways those treatments at the sanitarium never can." - "If what I've told you about that evil, deceitful man hasn't swayed you, I don't know what else to say." He turns back to his papers. "Trust him at your own peril." This is pretty much it for evil. Now if you'll excuse me, I feel I'm in a dire urgent need to find something better to do with my spare time. ><

Pillars of adra - that green semiorganic material you encounter all around that has a particular property of being able to serve as a conduit and an accumulator of soul essence. So I figure the gods are actually adra pillars (as seen during dreams and conversations with deities) infused with souls by Engwithians.

Eder is wielding a poleaxe because why not.

Before the final fight, Aloth asked my pc if the Leaden Key should remain without a leader once Thaos was dead. Ugh, by Rymrgand's hide, so now I have to bring him along for the final fight on my perfect playthrough? Oh well, maybe it's time to master all those "OP CC" spells everyone's swearing by.

"Don't experience the world"? What about eye-witnessing and dealing with consequences of hollowbirths left and right, taking part in political upheaval of Defiance Bay, seeing Glanfathans first-hand with all their quirks, studying Engwithian language and exploring Engwithian ruins, observing all sorts of cults in action and finally communing with gods themselves? What constitutes experiencing the world?

There's one additional annoying feature - hirelings don't recover their health between manual resolves. Not sure if intended.

Well, the stash just needs a sort button for all the tabs. Group herbs together, potions together, scrolls together, sort each according to their levels (required lore). Group swords together, daggers together, pikes together, light armors together, necks separately from rings. Meats go with meats, herbs with herbs. And, naturally, books hug each other and are sorted alphabetically. Not sure how the ocd target audience didn't push for it during beta. On a side note, maybe merchants can stack otherwise unstackable items purely as a UI feature? Having sold gazillion xaurip shields and Doemenel daggers it's becoming tedious to scroll through merchant inventories.

I believe there's a special auto-save generated for each separate character when you complete the game. So I'm willing to speculate it should carry over. Personally I'm waiting for bug fixes though anyways.

Yeah, well, there're seven gods telling you that the souls, being severed from their bodies in such a brutal traumatic fashion, are damaged and unfit to make a return. So much so that six gods speculate the souls aren't even fit for the cycle. Whereas the Watcher can't rely on hindsight like we do here.

That's correct. And I have a strong suspicion that Gilded Vale folks give the Watcher heads up should he choose to revisit. (E.g. to rest at an inn while after some bounties.) I have played Act 1 and 2 two times for that reason, but it seems like animancy can't really be saved. Does one have to pass a certain amount of checks during the hearing to achieve this ending? Or are there other requisites for it? I wish I knew. The images are taken from the wiki, wiki itself having no definitive answer yet. Vehemently defending animancy during the hearing didn't help in my case. Being sent as a Dozens representative I lied that they supported my investigation. End result: animancy survives as an underground endeavor.

That's correct. And I have a strong suspicion that Gilded Vale folks give the Watcher heads up should he choose to revisit. (E.g. to rest at an inn while after some bounties.) I have played Act 1 and 2 two times for that reason, but it seems like animancy can't really be saved.

Well, I killed her because I wanted to get as many achievements as possible on the first playthrough (including slaying all dragons, which didn't trigger :| ). ...and I would do it again. Too much Shadowrun. Never, ever cut a deal with a dragon. Besides, unleashing a beast, accustomed to feasting on souls, upon unsuspecting world perturbed me the wrong way.