Yria

Did you actually read his dialogue? He joins you to investigate the watershapers going to the Gullet, either because you can take him to the prince without the guildmaster vouching for him or because the prince already told you to pick him up and take him to the Gullet. Getting away from the guild is just a bonus for him.

In theory, yes. I kept hoping she would come to fight me on Ukaizo or at least resurface in the epilogue, but nope. But who knows. Mad Morena is really angry about the whole thing by the way, she runs out the Balefire Beacon swearing revenge on Furrante for fabricating charges against Aeldys (yes, she didn't even do anything wrong, they had to frame her to pull it off. I don't like Aeldys, but even I felt bad for her after this quest).

Important addition to the previous post: note that as far as I can tell Aeldys' life isn't really spared in this scenario. She simply gets the punishment that is called Clussa's voyage instead of hanging, but that's basically another method of execution: She sails into Ondra's Mortar, and you never hear from her again. If there is a way to convince Furrante to spare her for real, I didn't find it.

I can confirm it, this is exactly what happened in my game.

He sure can, but you have to keep Ngati's covenant from him to get this particular ending, and that doesn't sit right with me from rp perspective. "Here's the very thing the Huana have been looking for since forever, now let's not give it to them"? Umm feels weird. I could come up with motivations for some Watchers to do it, sure, but it wouldn't fit the Watchers I've played so far. There is no proof Eothas is going to stomp anything aside from Port-Maje at that point. Some believe the statue is gone for good, and people at the palace even laugh at you when you suggest that it was the giant who destroyed Hasongo. That's a problem with the Deadfire writing in general, not the companions. Everyone just ignores the big secret. You can discuss it with Aloth openly or even take Xoti and Tekehu to Ashen Maw and have Eothas say it to their faces that he is a former Engwithan, but they won't react to it in any way. This was probably the biggest "wtf?!" moment for me in the entire game.

Sure, I'm not saying you should like his choices, I was only arguing with the "but he has no goals" part. He does have his own goals, just because you or I might not like them doesn't make them nonexistent. And apparently the only two ways he can go if you let him recover the secrets of watershaping on Ukaizo is either making sculptures or uniting the Huana in the name of the gods, and I'd rather not do anything that promotes the gods, so that's another reason for me to support his desire for independence (thoughI admit this is a bit metagamey). Imo better if he "wastes" his talent on creating stuff rather than on inspiring faith in the entities that proved their utter incompetence in Deadfire.

It's not what others want from him, he is expected to unite the huana in the political sense and lead them into a better future... simply because he was born with scales and tentacles. Great reason to push a person to do something they don't want to do, about the same level as "You're ginger so you should fight for animal rights". And even if his watershaping can be used to save lives directly, it doesn't mean he has to dedicate himself to it, or that any other applications of his gift are somehow unworthy and devoid of meaning. I think this is a rather dangerous territory to tread, we can't decide for others what their lives should better be spent on.

That kind of is his goal though. He keeps repeating it again and again that he is an artist and wants to be perceived as one, so he goes around creating works of art in the end. And after encountering some unsusal and marvelous things while sailing around Deadfire, like that adra sculpture of unknown origin or semi transparent whales, I actually appreciate that. The more miracles for people to run into at sea the better, I say.

Her story is interesting and unusual, but her personality? Not so much because she barely has any. I like my companions to be people, not just walking storytelling devices.

Your idea sounds interesting but I think it would require to change the characters' personalities quite a bit to make it work. Xoti doesn't view herself as a victim, she thinks herself chosen for a sacred duty and she is pretty excited about it, even though it comes with suffering some nightmares. Why should Pallegina consider her a victim then? In her eyes it's probably the same naivete taken to the extreme. I can easily see her being even more annoyed with Xoti because of that: the gods are making her suffer, yet she still wouldn't abandon them, gah, what an idiot! Especially since Xoti isn't really that young, she is 27 - about the same age Pallegina was in PoE. In Pallegina's eyes Xoti is a grown woman who acts like a dumb teenager, praises her god for sending her horrible visions and can't stop fangirling over the said god even when he himself tells her to bugger off because he doesn't care about the souls she's been collecting. Also, Pallegina herself suffered sort of a trauma and can't always be expected to stay rational and sympathetic. It would be cool if she did, but not being able to is perfectly human. The fact that she manages to get over her anti-godlike issues and make up with Tekehu was enough to make her seem less petty and elevate my opinion of her.

That's the thing though, Aloth is nothing like Sand even if one's first reaction upon meeting him is "Well, yet another elven wizard, been there, done that". What. This is priceless. Do you need to be at -2 to hear it?

At first I thought Aloth was too cliched as well, but his backstory sort of makes up for it. "Well, another snotty tidy elven wizard, long time no see, Sand", I thought upon meeting him in Guilded Vale. Then boom, he has multiple personality disorder. "Shame he talks so little, he has so very few topics to discuss, I'm losing my interest again", I thought near the end of act two. Boom, turns out he was a Leaden Key member. The archetype itself may be boring as it has been used so many times, but they did put a few neat twists on it.

I wouldn't call her interesting, but I like the tiny bits of personality that she shows in her recruitment conversation, like her taste for Vailian fashion and the fact that she sews her own clothing. Because she is one (though technically the proper word would be fampyr here). Her soul is disconnected from her body, same as Icantha or Aldhelm from the first game. If she doesn't consume enough soul essence she will turn savage. But you have to pass a ~10 metaphysics check to get this information if I remember correctly.

Tastes differ. GM was the only companion in the two games I disliked so much that I don't even pick her anymore. Her backstory was interesting to get through on the first run, but after that she has absolutely nothing to offer: no real personality beyond "My precious babies!", no interactions with other companions, nothing. Even the moral dilemma about controling others that she presents is buried beneath so many layers of purple prose that I can't be bothered to dig for it after my first run. I can't thank Deadfire's writers enough for not giving us another Grieving Mother type of character.

i think it depends on whom you tell her to pursue. She asked me for advice on how to approach Maia when they were at +2 with each other. Maia also asked me about her and Xoti once, and I could either support their relationship or tell them to drop it. Then at some point near the end of the game Xoti asked what I thought about her and Eder, I told her she was too young for him, and she tried to hit on me in responce. I said "Whoa, girl, I thought you liked Maia", she agreed, and boom, they were together in the ending slides (while Maia returned to Rauatai, and Xoti stayed in Neketaka, so the slides contradicted themselves).

I'm not sure. There is that bit of dialogue with the factions representatives after the Ashen Maw when somebody (Aeldys I think?) asks what will happen when there is no Wheel anymore. You then get three or four reply options ranging from "We are all dooooomed" to "To be honest, I have no idea, it's not like this ever happened before". It left me with impression that the Watcher is supposed to be somewhat ignorant about how things really work.

Resolve =/= bravery. If you look at the companions stats (and those tend to be more or less in character), for example, Tekehu has fairly high resolve, but he gets scared all the time lol. I actually like it that Resolve doesn't affect conversations as much as it did in the first game. I don't min/max, but spending 4-5 points on a stat that I absolutely don't need for combat just to pass persuasion checks still doesn't feel right.

From what I've seen so far, companion banter isn't influenced by their rep with each other (aside from those conflicts that may or may not trigger). But who knows how much of it is currently bugged. It's not just him disagreeing with people though. Disagreeing is perfectly fine, but I'm mostly talking about stuff like "Serafen, you only ever talk about unimportant things!" or "Tekehu, stop tugging on your hair!" (srsly Aloth?). In the first game, it was Pallegina who would start conversations like that with other companions, and she came off as a rather harsh, standoffish person sometimes. Aloth mostly minded his own business and only snapped back if someone (*cough* Durance *cough*) was rude to him.

Durance participated in religious purges and openly brags about killing lots of innocent people, how is it any better than what Montaron was (I'm leaving Xzar out of it because he is a clearly a psycho)? As for Aloth, I wonder if his weird reactions (or lack thereof) are caused by the badly designed approval system alone. I have a sinking feeling that maybe, just maybe he was actually meant to be written this way. He is way harsher in conversations with other companions than he was in PoE, and those happen outside of the approval system. We also didn't have this system back then and have no idea how he would react to things if he was able to sigh through his nose and roll his eyes at the time. But then again, all the companions tend to ignore your good deeds unless it alignes with their specific dispositions, it's not just Aloth. So maybe he just got hit the hardest by this superficial system.

I think it's the faction you helped most after the one you support. I went with VTC in the end, didn't make any contact with RDC or Onekaza after the Ashen Maw aside from what was necessary for the VTC questline (blew up the warehouse and attended the hearings at the palace to save Castol). But I did help Furrante get rid of Aeldys, acquired the Hangman for myself, and the Principi followed me to Ukaizo. Who would it be if I ignored Furrante and Aeldys, I wonder.

That really depends on whether you support Governor "Money money money" Alvari or Director "For science!" Castol.

Are you sure it was the game and not just Wael being his troll self?

I thought Berath only sends you back to the Wheel if you ask her to? Rymrgand just goes "Lol silly Watcher why shouldn't I disintegrate you?" and does exactly that unless you beg him not to.

Seriously though, all the gods are jerks. Wael doesn't even stand out that much. At least he doesn't kill you in a conversation just to prove a point like a certain three-eyed cow.

Hey, you take back what you just said about my priest's god! Actually, don't, you're right about him. Wael steals all the scrolls you have in your inventory during one of the meetings with the gods.