SeferZohar

Is that specifically stated in the conversation? If Eothas only intervened in the first place to try to prevent Woedica's plan from coming to fruition, it doesn't seem to me that there'd be any obvious reason Magran would want to kill him unless she was already implicated in the plan in the first place, in which case it can't have just been a reactive attempt to conceal the secret about the gods, right? She was implicated as being an Engwithan construct, as all the gods were. Eothas' victory would've allowed that to be discovered which Woedica was trying to ensure would never happen (hence the Leaden Key). Yes, it is revealed in the conversation with Durance. If you prod him about the other 11 being dead he eventually comes to grips with it and renounces his faith (and uses Magran's power to help defeat Thaos to spite her). Well, I know what happens at the end of The Trials of Durance; I mean specifically whether there's anything in the conversation that points to the desire to keep their origins secret as the issue at stake. I've just re-read it in the game files and it doesn't seem to me that there is, at least not directly. As I understood it, Eothas was aiming to prevent Woedica's return to power. Now either Magran secretly outright supports the return of Woedica, which seems wrong, or she only intervened independently to destroy Eothas after his precipitate action and was otherwise uninvolved with Woedica, but I'm not sure that's the case either -- the conversation makes it sound like there's a deeper scheme going on between Magran and Woedica, which then contradicts Magran's stance at Teir Evron.

Is that specifically stated in the conversation? If Eothas only intervened in the first place to try to prevent Woedica's plan from coming to fruition, it doesn't seem to me that there'd be any obvious reason Magran would want to kill him unless she was already implicated in the plan in the first place, in which case it can't have just been a reactive attempt to conceal the secret about the gods, right?

Yep, and I'd also add that

None of those questions are directly answered in game as far as I know, but: 1. My guess is they're the soul towers/machines of the Engwithans, but they could also be the soul prisons as you suggest. The towers are more important in the story, though. 2. This is a bit of a mystery. Magran's being a little dishonest when she's talking to you alongside Galawain, I think, because they're annoyed by Woedica's intervention in mortal affairs yet Magran's construction of the Godhammer was itself such an intervention. (Yes, it was ostensibly directed against Eothas breaking the pact, but Magran still tried to conceal her involvement so she evidently thought she was doing something dubious.) It might be as simple as Magran siding with Woedica temporarily against Eothas and then aligning against her when Woedica's getting too close to power, but this nonetheless strikes me as one of the biggest unresolved questions, and it might be being deliberately left for the expansion. 3. There were still Engwithan missionaries operating at the time of the inquisition against Iovara, and we know from past-life-Watcher's confrontation of Thaos at Sun in Shadow that this took place after Thaos's "ascension" -- so the Engwithans didn't all die out at once. The most likely answer it seems to me is that the remaining Engwithans simply died out like any civilisation does.

The simplest and, in my view, most likely option based on the information that we have from the end of the game is that Based on the specific options the gods present for thwarting Woedica's plan, I think it'd be very unlikely that Eothas would side with Berath. Hylea (since Eothas is god of birth) or Galawain (since he's god of rebirth) seem his most likely choices, and Hylea especially. edit (again!): On reflection I can see why you might argue that Eothas would side with Berath. I don't interpret Eothas's concern for rebirth in that literal sense, though, since that's very much Berath's domain -- my understanding is he's god of rebirth in the sense of redemption, second chances, and so on, being "reborn" while you're still alive rather than the actual process of going through the cycle.

Think of it this way: rumours get around. You would have to have talked to him to start the quest, and people will presumably have their suspicions about the fact that a person just wondered into town, spoke to Harond and pried about his daughter, only for him to turn up dead a short while later. The reputation gain is immediate in-game but that's the same for any other quest. Also, you may already know this, but while you can't directly ruin him while he's still alive, you do have the option of ruining his entire house.

You can jump into the hole without divine help, yes, and there are no surprises as to what happens if you do. Bear in mind though that there are only 4 gods who offer you quests in Council of Stars, so most priests will be out of luck anyway (at least without foreknowledge of which gods are allied to which others there). Why there's no shrine to Eothas at Teir Evron is a good question. It's been asked a couple of times before on this forum and I don't think there's a definitive in-game answer. It's possible the altar was simply removed after the events of the Godhammer -- people know Woedica's still around, but Eothas not so much. Try speaking to the gods in any case and see how you like them. I think it'd be perfectly in character for a priest of Eothas to work for Hylea in particular, given her concerns and objectives. edit: This might also be right, I think I do remember seeing that too now. Would have to check again. edit 2: Nope, in fact Eothas's symbol isn't even there. Have a look: http://s27.postimg.org/564qroer5/teir_evron.png - only 10 symbols are present, from left to right Galawain, Abydon, Magran, Hylea, Woedica, Berath, Skaen, Rymrgand, Ondra, and Wael.

I've been updating quest pages with the journal entries following a standardised format, which I'll explain here in case anyone wants to help out. Here's an example of it in action: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/The_Hermit_of_Hadret_House -- you can copy the formatting from the source of the page. First off, you'll need to open up two files: the localisation file for the quest (which will, at least based on my GOG version, be somewhere under installpath/PillarsOfEternity_Data/data/localized/en/text/quests) and the quest file itself (installpath/PillarsOfEternity_Data/data/quests/). They'll open with any basic text editor like Notepad. Look at the localisation file and copy in the entries as follows. First row: the quest description (which will always be ID 10000). Next, the objectives (which have IDs running 1, 2, 3, etc.) in bold. I order these roughly according to their logical order in the game itself rather than by ID. Then, the descriptive entries under each objective in italics (IDs 100XX, where XX is the ID of the objective). Each objective will also have addendums, which have IDs running 20000, 20001, etc. To figure out which addendum fits to which objective you need to look at the quest file itself and search for <AddendumIDs> tags. The numbers listed in these tags will correspond to the last digits of the addendum IDs, so for example <int>1</int> means that addendum 20001 belongs to that particular objective. To figure out which objective that is, look at the <NodeID> tag above. <NodeID>1</NodeID> will correspond to objective 1. Enter the addendums in italics in the order they're listed in the quest file. Finally, add the end states from the localisation file, in normal text since they're written at the top in-game. These will have IDs running 30000, 30001, etc. For fail states I'll put a unicode cross ✗ in the "End" column, otherwise a checkmark ✓. These end states will be listed with short technical descriptions towards the top of the quest file, in the <EndStates> tag, and fail states will generally be marked explicitly as such. The <ExperienceType> and <ExperienceLevel> tags in the quest file will provide numbers for those fields on the infobox. I also wrote some short pages for Thaos, Iovara, and two things that get mentioned in the past life flashbacks which might be worth double-checking. I really think there ought to be a specific title for the Watcher in their past life to make these less confusing, but the game doesn't give one as far as I know! http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Thaos http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Iovara http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Creitum http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Inquisition

Maerwald's second incarnation was the biological son of the first so he didn't change races, I'm pretty sure he was human throughout. He just changed from Glanfathan to Aedyr.

This gets raised a lot, it's worth pointing out that Old Vailia (the player character option) and the Vailian Republics (where Pallegina is from) are very different things. They've been separated for centuries by the time the game starts. I agree with the general point though.

I'm surprised people think this, since Iovara is mentioned from relatively early on in the game -- from I think the second or third vision of Thaos, and then basically every time you see him after that. The whole storyline that comes out of the visions of Thaos revolves around the Watcher's betrayal of Iovara. There's definitely a buildup to her and I personally thought it was pretty satisfying to finally meet her in the present rather than as a memory. Maybe I'm in a minority, though.

The acts are phases of the main story line; they have well-defined transition points which are marked by a slide with a voiceover narration, like Stun says. The game does actually explicitly number the acts, though: if you look at your save games on the load menu it will say "Act 1", "Act 2" etc, and they're referenced in the game files. The transition points are: Act 1: Start of the game Act 2: First entry to Defiance Bay. They're not a good way of judging your progress though since they don't have equal lengths at all (Act 4 in particular is the final quest of the game and nothing else).

There's only one way to successfully complete the quest -- if you don't want to do it then you'll just have to leave the quest alone. Bear in mind that in the follow-up quest, Winds of Steel, you do get the opportunity to make the choice.

But it's not about whether you are aware of it or not. It's the realization that you will never get away from this existence that is the problem. In PoE's world everyone knows you reincarnate. Maybe it wouldn't be as horrible if you don't remember anything, but it would still be pointless because in that case all our personalities would fade and they would become irrelevant and so would the question of reincarnation. Even Buddhism and Hinduism don't have eternal reincarnation, because it would be so meaningless as to render life itself meaningless. In those religions the soul eventually becomes part of god and stops reincarnating e.i dies. It would also be a valid choice to kill yourself if you don't like your life now. All those miserable parents of hollowborn children? Kill yourself, maybe there are no hollowborn in the next life. That prostitute which you can pay to get the amulet from could just kill herself. Mearwald could kill himself rather than endure his madness. Aloth having an alcoholic father and seeing no way out - kill himself. Raedric killing his wife for being an Eothas worshiper - pointless. Suicide becomes a valid choice to any seemingly impassible problems rendering even death meaningless. Reincarnation doesn't last forever, though. Entropy wears away all souls eventually, and what you're saying is presumably exactly why Rymrgand followers look forward to that.

IIRC, the plan was already in motion at this point and the first Hollowborn appeared almost immediately after Waidwen's death, if not before the end of the Saint's War. There's a number of us who speculate that the Saint's War was caused because Eothas found out about Thaos' plans to restore Woedica in the first place. Whether or not he knew (or if he knew, cared) that he was a construct is irrelevant; if you consider that Woedica and Eothas have diametrically opposing portfolios and personalities the Saint's War suddenly makes a lot of sense. Why would the all-around nicest of the artificial Eoran pantheon suddenly act so wildly out of character and go berserk? Well, the prospect of the whole world being subjugated under the extreme Lawful Evil tyranny of Woedica might definitely explain it. Sure, it could've just been Waidwen's megalomania, but what are the odds Eothas just happened to appear next door to and intervened in the region housing the Engwithan soul-machines that would soon be siphoning souls away to empower Woedica? Even St. Waidwen's seemingly out-of-character actions, such as persecuting the other faiths, suddenly make sense... if one considers the secret Magran-Woedica alliance. I thought this was actually directly stated at some point, rather than just being speculation? I might have to go back and review the dialogue.