Tarlonniel

Yes, she'll join up later. If you go talk to the Vailians after the meeting at the palace, she'll be there.

Good question. I'm waiting until they fix the suppressed Iselmyr version to try it out and see.

Aloth's romance is much more low key than Sharkboy's. You have a possible flirt in the opening conversation and a kiss at +2 (or -2) disposition; after that it's slightly different dialogue on selection, a few banters and some lines on entering areas in the environment. Then a scene at endgame.

The banters where Matthew Mercer has a three-way conversation with himself are so amusing, they almost make me want to keep Iselmyr around. Almost.

Wanting to poison a would-be baby sacrificer? Given that my Watchers inevitably kill said baby sacrificer, that's not any kind of red flag in my book.

For those who like poking around in dialogue files, the stringtables with the text can be found in PillarsOfEternityII_Data\exported\localized\en\text\conversations\companions I'm browsing Aloth's relationship_player file for goodies.

It's not possible to do more than one romance at a time - as soon as you accept one person's advances, there's no option to accept anyone else's. Unless there's a bug I'm not aware of. And this is only until the modders figure out how to remove the checkromance flag

Aloth's dialogues at -1 and -2 approval aren't triggering properly, but only in games where he's suppressed Iselmyr. The dialogues initiate and then cut off abruptly after the first exchange with the Watcher. Another user on the forums tested this in their game and had the same problem; I also tried it again after the patch and the issue still exists.

Huh. So things will just go back to how they originally worked? But why, then, are the gods worried about the death of the world? Unless the original system was entirely manual and that knowledge was lost, but that would make no sense.

I just ran across the Nemnok quest more or less at random. What happens if you actually collect all the grimoires for him? Do you still get him as a pet afterwards?

I have max insight, so it's not that. I think the dialogue is just bugged. I wish I knew enough about game code to work out where the actual text for that exchange is in the files. Things were so simple back in the BG2 days...

So what I'm hearing is, once the factions lay down their "Join us" ultimatums at the palace, I can ignore the VTC, RDC and Huana, play along with the Principi until I get the ghost ship, then bail on them too and head for Ukaizo, all without losing a single companion. Excellent.

I tested the Aloth rivalmance in a couple of different saves and, for some reason, it only triggers in the one where I kept Iselmyr around; in the other games, his negative disposition conversations end quickly and abruptly. Not sure if that's intended or a bug.

That's amazing. I wonder if Tekehu also has a rivalmance...

But it does come up again, at least with Aloth. He makes little romance-related comments about places the party visits, the way he talks to the Watcher changes, there are banters with other party members about the relationship - all these things are meant to combat the tendency you mentioned. Plus there's the scene at endgame, of course.

Perhaps one triggers if you have a high relationship with her, the other a low relationship? Pallegina didn't even get an ending slide in the last game I finished. Bummer.

The flying purple spaghetti monster?

Those made me cringe too. Then there's his conversation with Tekehu about a practical joke which involved cruelty to some poor little fish. Eder thinks it's hilarious. Are fish not animals? What the heck, Eder? That is exactly what you can do with it.

I think I ran into the same bug on my first time through her quest. The second time, I paid much closer attention to what I said and checked my quest log after each conversation. If you push her toward the light, you get quest updates that state "I encouraged Xoti to seek the light of Gaun's lantern - of spring following a fall." and "I encouraged Xoti to seek the light of Gaun's lantern - of rebirth after death." If you push her towards darkness, the updates say "I encouraged Xoti to embrace the darkness of Gaun's sickle - of death before rebirth." and "I encouraged Xoti to embrace the darkness of Gaun's sickle - of the fall before spring."

I've been experimenting a bit, and it seems there are two conversations where you have to pick responses that push her toward the light (or darkness), and they help determine the outcome when you go to the pillar/animancers to drop off the souls. I remember the first choice was something like "We can still renew the lights of Hel". The second choice I don't remember, though I'm doing her quests again so I'll come across it soon-ish. And then, at the pillar, I assume your decision there - telling to either hold on or let go - adds to your previous choices and determines the outcome of that event. I haven't done the animancer path, but I assume it's the same thing.

He feels the same as in the first game to me too. Which is a shame, because I'm the one person who didn't like him then, and I don't like him now either

I love that Aedyre outfit. It's like something out of ancient Grome

For the most part, I think the narration is... okay. It does seem rather slow, though the only time it truly irritates me is during the conversations with the gods when, for some reason, it keeps adding "[God] said" after a god says something. I do wish there was an option to turn it off.

The command is AttributeScore Player_[PlayerName] might 20 Are you typing that in exactly? What are you inputting?

It's CleverDisposition or ShadyDisposition.