DozingDragon

You always fight the Guardian if you take the Independent/Anarchist route. So you can free the dragon and sail to Ukaizo without a faction and still fight the Guardian.

I would be very surprised to see Obsidian drop this IP entirely. Previously, a separate holding company held the rights to the Pillars IP, but that company was rolled back in to Obsidian before Microsoft completed its acquisition of Obsidian. Now that’s partly just due diligence on Microsoft’s part, but it is a decent reminder that the Pillars IP does have real value. Josh is still working on refining the Pillars tabletop system, even though Deadfire has reached the end of its support cycle. There are also rumors that one of Obsidian’s unannounced projects is going to be a Skyrim-like game, which could end up using the Pillars IP. One last thing: I recall Josh making some very vague allusions to making more games like Deadfire in the future during the Deadfire postmortem, but that he personally wants to take a break from making games like this for a while. So it might be a while before we see a third game, but that’s probably for the best.

There is also an exploit to work around this problem: use the Bounding Boots. Just position your character in a corner, and make sure they are completely undetected while in stealth. Then use the Leap ability of the Bounding Boots to move your character next to the chest and immediately pause the game after your character lands. Your character should still be undetected when they land, so you should be able to grab the items from an unlocked chest.

If you are referencing the scripted interaction after you land on Motare o Kozi, I remember a few ways you can get around fighting them. The warriors will leave you alone if you have a high reputation with the Huana, or you can get them to leave peacefully if you already did the quest for the chieftain on Ori o Koiki as Boeroer mentioned above. I also recall that having Tekehu in the group helps, but I am not certain about that.

I made a thread about this a while back. The update at that time was that the novella was "done," but I have not seen any updates since then. If you are inclined, you might want to try asking on Discord, as that's where the last updates came from.

According to the game’s data, Yseyr the Berathian is a paladin, so it certainly seems possible that there could be an order of Berathian paladins. If you want a chance at a detailed semiofficial answer, go ask Josh Sawyer on his Tumblr, as it is possible he will share something if something like this came up during his Pillars TTRPG testing games.

You may also encounter a book that references Zahua depending on your choices during The White March.

That sounds aggravating, but if you do want to keep trying to get the game working, then I think the situation is salvageable. The area you are referencing is one of a few areas in the game where some people tend to encounter very noticeable stutter. It also sounds like you may have interrupted the sequence for the quest (which is a sidequest) in that area by taking an openly hostile approach at one point, which may be preventing from using the more subtle approach of ringing the bell that you mention, but it could also be a legitimate bug. Either way, you should still be able to finish the quest by heading directly to where the quest target is hiding near the top of the fort. As far as your crashes go, have you tried setting the Deadfire.exe to run as an administrator? Changing that option helped me reduce crashes with Tyranny and Deadfire, whereas I never had to change that setting for PoE.

If I recall correctly, Woedica tells the player that the Engwithans coopted extant deities that were worshipped prior to the Engwithan apotheosis. I think Galawain also mentions this during the SSS dlc.

If you decide to try out Boeroer's advice, then you should also consider using Otto Starcat as your pet, as he adds an additional +1 Fire Power Level that stacks with the ones listed above.

I do not think Eothas’s plan was fruitless, as he intended to engineer an existential problem that the gods could not just paper over through their agents like the Leaden Key or the Hand Occult. So the nature of the gods will be revealed by the consequences of Eothas’s actions rather than a proclamation via Eothas. Eothas explained that he did not want to simply reveal the nature of the gods during the Saint’s War because he thought it would be too easy to socially engineer a coverup. And as seen in the Forgotten Sanctum, Eothas might have a point because the Hand Occult seems to have the ability to literally remove individuals from history. Plus, every major faction in the Deadfire learned of Eothas’s plan for the Wheel after the Watcher returned from Magran’s Teeth, so word will get out even if the effects are less pronounced at first. Not that I necessarily love this particular plot. I think it was an odd choice to spend an entire game setting up apocalyptic stakes rather than just diving straight into a worldwide hollowborn crisis. And yes, I think the slides could have been clearer, but the developers also added in extra voiced content to answer these questions.

There is an excellent animancy themed bow, the Essence Interrupter, available for sale early in the game that also deals the Shock damage type. If you decide to play a Cipher you should check it out.

Yes, megabosses are the closest thing to cheesy encounters in this game, and even then you can generally defeat the megabosses using a full party of ordinary builds.

In addition to the points above, resting in Konstanten’s room at the Wild Mare provides a large a bonus to spell reflection, which definitely comes in handy here.

Some of this is cleared up with Woedica’s book and the additions to the conversation with Eothas at Ukaizo. According to Woedica, the gods generally put on a big show of presenting differing viewpoints when they are in front of the Watcher, but in fact they are generally on the same page. Her goal is to convince the gods to rally behind her solution of once again directly intervening in the affairs of mortals, but that decision seems to be tabled for now. And the reason that decision seems to be tabled is probably also the reason why no one is freaking out about the Wheel being broken: according to Eothas, the effects of the breaking of the Wheel will not be that noticeable for a generation or so. Eothas has set in motion a massive crisis, but it will take some time before it becomes very obvious. One possible out for the writers in a potential sequel to escalate the conflict without jumping too far ahead in time would be to focus on all the side effects caused by all the souls trapped in the In-between, as that will likely cause massive blights and who knows what else.