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self-explanatory title. obviously skaen. but does any other deities end up showing to do that?

I’ve been working on a party build idea this last week and it’s turned into a fun challenge that I think the community might enjoy: Create a party of characters that each personify a different deity. Divine Avatars The gods of Eora are the personification of mortal ideals and experiences - Justice & Vengeance, Memory & Grief, etc. This concentration of personality and singular focus is the source of lots of drama and conflict, but it also serves as a mirror for mortals to see what it looks like if one part of who they are becomes too dominant. For some it’s a cautionary tale, but for others, it is the path they choose or the the path they’ve been placed on by their experiences. For us as character builders, what would it look like to create a character that is the personification of a god? To build a character that reflects the ideals, themes, and portfolio of a god, but also a story that explains how they have come to be this way. They may worship this god or not. The god may acknowledge them or not, but they are an embodiment of the archetype the god represents. Challenge Criteria Create a party of characters that each embody a different God of Eora. These characters must have: Consistent Choices - choose attributes, items, skills, and abilities that express the character and portfolio of the god and create a fun, successful, and compelling build. Most choices are in the spirit of the challenge, but don’t pick things that contradict the theme of the god, even if they are mechanically strong. E.g. a Rymergand build might really benefit from Magran’s Favor, but it would be a stretch to connect a fire focused item with his portfolio of cold and decay. Divine Power - Have at least 1 stat that is 18 before racial and background adjustments Divine Flaw - Have at least 1 stat that is 3 before racial and background adjustments Unique Traits - must be different class or class combination than other gods in your party, have different attributes, etc. E.g. Can’t create a party of gods who all have min RES and max PER Bi-Vocational Clergy - cannot be a single class priest. That’s no fun for this challenge. In a sense, SC priests are already themed in this way. (Optional) Enable some or all of Magran’s Fires for the corresponding god’s in your party An Example Single Character Build: The Effigy, Avatar of Skaen I'll post my first party build soon.

This only happened as of 5.0, as far as I can tell. This isn't much of a laptop, but I do get slowdown and audio distortion during dialogue -- Woedica's book, Eothas at Hasongo, the gods speaking to you at sea. It's odd because I don't have the same problems in-game, ie. the parts where I'd expect to see the most issues.

In some universes, such as call of cthulhu , berserk anime, demon souls , etc. demonic alien figures created the Universe. what if there was a plot twist in pillars that the deities were created by the engwithians to block these entities from influencing the universe ? i think it could be an interesting twist story-wise (but perhaps too dark for pillars of eternity) . it could also explain the existence of skaen, who could be a weaker form of these entities that did a pact with the gods to keep existing in the pantheon and acting as a diplomat between the gods and the entitites while the engwithians extingued most of the cult of the demonic cosmic entities.

I find Pallegina has turned from a rational compassionated character in poe1 into a fanatical, hypocritical nonsense in poe2. So I made a mod to change this. https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/253 From her history in poe1 I do understand that she does not like the gods or people who justify them, but her reactions towards Xoti are too extreme. For example, in the temple of Gaun, when Xoti prays to the statue. Just 3 sentences from Xoti and Pallegina has a relationship with her from 0 to -2. She can live with not being seen as a "woman" by her order, muster to travel with Durance (Mrs. Piety) and even thinks to break her oaf to the ducs to help the Deerwoodens, who love to burn something for their gods, but 3 sentences from Xoti make her so despicable? Also, some of the piety reactions are conceptually wrong. While in reality any statement about the working of god/gods or the afterlife (except for neglection) is piety, it does not go for poe. Those gods are real and some of Xoti's and Tekehu's statements are simply facts and not piety. An example is Xoti's soul shepherding. Without the mentioning of any gods Xoti still receives piety reactions from Pallegina for it. My mod decreases Pallegina's tension. Most piety/duty reactions will be toe to toe. Some of the other reactions are lowered or removed. This is a work in progress mod since the conversation files are numerous, big and sometimes random. If you find a reaction from Pallegina too strong or wrong, please post the exact sentence that triggered it.

Creation beyond our world, other dimensions, gods and their secrets, animancy insight and other metaphysical aspects of Deadfire would be a nice focus for a playthrough. What classes, backgrounds, races, skills and stats influence unique dialogue and book options to explore this part of the fiction?

Interested to see people's choices.

Seeing as the gods were a much bigger focus in this game than the last I want to know what people thought of them and how they were handled.

Something that I hope Deadfire will help settle (or at least provide enough clues to make sense of the backstory): Just how does Engwith's backstory flow? It occurred to me while compiling the story of the Endless Paths: https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Endless_Paths_of_Od_Nua All sources, including Cabiros and Od Nua, state that the fall of the keep occurred two thousand years before present day. Given the interactions with the spirits and the general reverence Od Nua's Children of the Wheel show, it's safe to assume that Thaos' grand social experiment was not in motion back then, there were no gods. In fact, the loyalist guard spirit mentions praying to whatever god will have you, instead of invoking one of the pantheon, such as Berath or Eothas. This, along with the absence of other religious facilities, would indicate that they are still in the pre-gods era. On a narrative level, this makes sense, as Od Nua's Paths show the steady grow of Engwithan animancy and explain where they got their start. The soul storage machine prototype on level 8, identical to the one in Heritage Hill, is an obvious tie. Nagging However, the point where gods are unleashed and Thaos starts his missionary work is where I kind of lose track of the timeline. For starters, Glanfathans are said to have occupied Eir Glanfath for some two thousand years. As we know, Eir Glanfath is the site of Sun in Shadow where the gods are made. Glanfathans' rabid defense of Engwithan facilities, especially the barring of foreigners from most of Eir is a clear ploy by Thaos to keep the kith away from Sun in Shadow and finding out the truth about the gods. Second, Lady Webb states that Leaden Key dates back more than two thousand years. Barring it being Thaos' book club, it would mean that the gods were created before Engwith achieved animantic mastery. Third, your party members and especially Kana mention that people have been believing in gods for thousands of years. While two is certainly thousands, it's a bit technical. Making Sense To make sense of the timeline and given the absolute reliability of Od Nua and the adra dragon's testimonies, pegging the fall of Nua's fortress at circa 800 AI, the gods' creation must have occurred after that date, as did the missionary effort. The apparent discrepancy in dating is the result of Thaos' deliberate interference, aiming at establishing his faith as older than it truly is. That said... In the setting, 800 AI corresponds to roughly 400 BCE (assuming PoE dates to roughly the 17th century), the height of classical Greece. It's a ****load of time, in other words, and enough for religion to gain traction and spread, we only need to look at Christianity and Islam for examples close to home. Especially when you have an immortal capable of devastating entire civilizations to keep his dirty secret intact. Questions Does anyone have any sources I can peruse to figure that out? Or perhaps the devs can weigh in on the subject? It's frustrating to not have enough data to go on (though I have a hunch it was a deliberate choice).

Hello. I beat the game once, and I'm wondering these things. Anyone can help with answers or theories? Thaos As I understand it, Thaos dies each life and is reborn with his memories intact; but does that mean he is always reborn in the same body? How does that work? In all visions of him, he looks the same. Also, there's an option when you kill him where you can let him keep his memories... Isn't that the same as having done nothing? Other than having stopped his plan, I mean. He's going to come back, isn't he? Eothas Did Eothas really want to stop the whole plan from the beginning? That's what I understand; but I didn't find much confirmation. Since the gods aren't really gods, could Eothas have died by something so mortal as a bomb? Wouldn't that only kill the vessel? Why isn't Eothas' symbol in the place where you talk to all the gods? Is that confirmation of his death? The gods I see Eora is somehow atheist and not atheist at the same time. xD I didn't see that coming! How could the Engwithans create gods? What are they made of? Souls? Do the gods' powers have reach over all the world? How did every civilization know about them? Does every civilization know about them or are they just known in the Dyrwood? I don't know if these questions aren't supposed to have an answer, or I just simply didn't get all the information (or didn't pay attention), so I ask for any explanation or theory anyone has. I haven't played the White March expansion, yet; so if there's any more information about this in there, just say so and don't spoil it, please.

Well, I know this is quite trivial and that I can easily test it, but perhaps I can get a quick answer here. So, during the Council of Stars quest you pray to the gods and you have to tell them the right words, or else they summon monsters to attack you. Either way your praying conversation continues and the quest progresses. My question is, does it benefit me to answer correctly or not? Do I get more xp perhaps? I'd like to kill more monsters instead, for xp, for loot, for fun... But I am not sure about the potential rewards xp-wise. What's the difference in those two approaches then, anyone knows?

As I understand: 1 - The gods were created by the engwithans. 2 - The engwithans were the previous settlers of Eir Glanfath, in the Eastern Reach. 3 - The Eastern Reach was discovered in 2602 by explorer of the Aedyr Empire, 223 years before the start of PoE 1. 4 - The engwithans lived in the Eastern Reach thousands of years ago, so their gods and cults were spread all over that continent. 5 - Readceras was an aedyran colony where Eothasian colonist settled in 2643. 6 - So, Eothas was (is) an aedyran god. So: 1 - Was (is) Eothas a god not created by the engwithans? 2 - If that's the case, who created it? 3 - Were the gods transcontinental although the Eastern Reach did not have knowledge of Aedyr Empire before 2602? 4 - Did the engwithans lived where the Aedyr Empire is located? 5 - If that's the case, how the two continents didn't have notice of each other? 6 - Were the aedyran gods of a different nature? My sources are a mix of in-game books, the journal of the Watcher and the wiki.

Since i finished the game today i wonder about one point in the conclusion and lore (major spoiler following): Well, maybe i'm just questioning the lore too much...

In BG the purpose of temples was to provide the player with a means to heal, resurrect and identify. This function seemed a little bit redundant to me, provided that there were easier ways to do this. Reload the game instead of resurrect a party member and rest instead of going to a temple to heal yourself. I was thinking on how to make this aspect of the game / world a little bit better and i came up with the following ideas. Let's make a religion system, which is not characterized by the act of *worship*, i.e. the undermining of your own self-respect in order to gain the favor of some "higher" force or entity. In this system priests represent domains more than they are agents of their gods. A little psychology could be used here. Say, for example, that a loved one of the pc is lost. Feeling unable to protect this person the pc (or a companion of the pc), would probably be subject to some nasty rage and guilt - pretty intense, destructive emotions. In this situation a priest (of a god whose domain is rage) could provide means for coping with these intense emotions. The priest could explain to the character that it is natural to feel this way and perhaps could provide him / her with means to get these feelings out of their system more easily. By helping to perform rituals, for example. In essence, what i'm proposing is a pantheon of gods, who represent different perspectives of the human nature. The priests could be avatars (some kind of primitive specialist psychologists) of the corresponding domains instead of agents of malevolent (or ignorant) higher forces. Or, perhaps both. So, only those could be priests who understand (or try to understand) the inner workings of the human nature, specializing to a corresponding domain. You see, the main difference between the usual approach and mine is the message. Usually, religion tells to people that they are subject to the whims of higher forces, but they can gain the favors of these forces by appropriate ways of worship. Either donating large amounts of coin to the temple or carrying out the will of the corresponding higher force does it. The message is that you are worthless therefore you better obey (or else). While my kind of religion (where actually man created the gods and not vice versa) helps people cope with an insanely cruel world around them. So, my kind of priests do not rob people of their self-value, of their illusion of control, but try to restore and protect it. I believe that a perfect mixture of these two approaches naturally yields some nasty power struggles, quest-hooks, and of course, they provide a degree of immersion into a fantasy world, where the feelings of the characters are (almost) real, and their beliefs are quite similar to the beliefs of the denizens of ancient primitive cultures. Where folks sacrificed cows to let the winter pass quickly, or to let the hunt be succesful, you know what i mean. So, i propose that when the party enters a temple and talks to a priest, then - in addition to the usual options of healing and resurrection - they would have the option to talk to the priest (who might join them later perhaps) about what they encountered on their journey and whatnot. The priest then could tell a tale with some moral content or lesson, perhaps could give them a quest or perform a ritual. This could easily lead to very comical or depressing situations. Opinions?

One Week Left for PayPal The Project Eternity PayPal donation period will be ending next week on Monday, December 3rd at 6:00PM PST. After December 3rd current backers can add shipping and handling costs at our backer fulfillment site (coming soon). At the backer site, you will be able to select your add-ons and fill out your shipping address, so make sure you keep an eye out for the email that explains how to use the backer site. As a reminder we will let you know when the emails go out in a future update. After next week we will be accepting slacker backer donations via PayPal for $29 for a Digital Download Copy of Project Eternity for Windows, Mac, or Linux. Get in now for a discount this week if you haven't already! The higher tier rewards and physical items offered on the Kickstarter will not be available past December 3rd, 6:00PM PST. Current Developments The Project Eternity team is tackling a number of different things in pre-production including story and world building, creating the look of the Aumaua and Orlans, character customization, combat, and fancy rendering R&D. Here are a few bits on current developments: The narrative team is creating the world almanac which contains all the information about the people and history of Project Eternity. Right now they are fleshing out the pantheon of gods. Do you have any crazy or wacky ideas for gods? Share your ideas in this forum thread! The artists and programmers have been working on character customization. The system allows for individual pieces of armor to show up on your characters such as boots, gloves, and chest armor. When you swap armor, the character's torso model and texture are also swapped out. There are thousands of different armor, weapon, head, and hair customization models for each race (male and female too!), and we need to make sure that the system can organize and manage all of these character assets. Lastly, the picture is from an early test environment area using temporary art assets. The red shapes represent collision geometry that will block pathfinding and line-of-sight. The light blue/greenish color represents the walkmesh geometry which determines where characters can walk. We use this area to test tech features that we are building. For example, we are using the cemetery in the lower left to test out complex party pathfinding. If you look carefully, you can see two test characters in the picture. Next week we will have an art focused update by Rob Nelser, the lead artist on Project Eternity. Time to get back to work on character customization! Adam out. Update by Adam Brennecke

What kind of gods would you like to see in Eternity? Do you want them to be like the Greek Gods? Where they're more like constant, unchanging forces that exist more as obstacles for the heroes or driving force behind conflicts rather than fully realized characters. For example, there are dozens of myths about Zeus's bastard children and Hera trying to kill them, but Zeus and Hera are essentially the same in all those stories. They never learn from their mistakes, they don't try to correct their flaws, they never really change. Or do you want them to be more nuanced and deep like the ones in a lot of modern day fantasies like Dungeons and Dragons? Where they're more aware of their own flaws, have some common sense, and are somewhat savvy about what they are. For example, like how Bhaal and Myrkul were aware of their own weaknesses and they knew about the loopholes in the divine rules so they try to game the system. Or do you want some other kind of gods?

Deithebile - The 'First Tree' with acquired sentience. The deity acquired sentience over millenia as fauna waxed and waned over the course of time and it is debated wether Deithebile has deity status - diety status has however been attributed to Deithebile as it has an immortality of sorts and has a great level of control over the habitat and inhabitants it its sphere of influence. Diethebile is a peculiar deity in a sense that it is bound by its gargantuan fixed physical self and has a purpose that is barely know. What is know is that the area surrounding the mighty tree is densely vegetated and contains the treetop citadel of Bile Crannog. This entire area is know as the realm of Deithebile. On occasion, Deithebile has communicated with certain druids and rangers - the first know occurence of this was during 'the awakening'; which is the first recorded instance of sentience. During this time Bile Crannog was founded, and the various principals on which the town still bases itself were established. Some scholars speculate that the young god required a symbiotic relationship with the sentient races in order to ensure its security as it is on one hand one of the most vulnerable of dieties as it can simply be razed to the ground but on the other hand can potentially be one of the most powerful in that it has an incredibile loyalty from the denizens of Bile Crannog due to actually providing for them a bountiful livelihood. Some of the more sceptical scholars believe that it is Diethebile's intention to gradually spread its presence over the entire known world; although most aren't concerned about this prospect as it will surely take many more mellenia until such an outcome could occur. Bile Crannog is a peculiar place where the doctrine is to 'live off & with the land'. People don't interfere with the vegetation; however with the intervention of Deithebile, the surrounding lands tend to 'accomodate' the increase diversity and size of the population of Bile Crannog by revealing new treetop and ground clearings to construct various buildings and by revealing new and larger pathways in the surrounding forests to accomodate increased logistics needs. Contrary to the usual trend of increased deforestation that follows in the path of a growing city, the forested lands tend to expand in size to support the increased needs of the town as in turn the influence of Deithebile slowly increases. The town consists only of those that live in tune with nature and also has a strong economy that exports the famed and scarce sap that comes from Deithebile - the sap is famed for it's healing properties which is a very rare commodity in the world and fetches astronomical prices. It is anticipated that Bile Crannog will eventually swell to this size of a city. One of the stranger customs of the land is to 'bury' the recently deceased of the city by dropping them into a mighty tree hollow that exists in Diethebile, it is veiwed that by doing this the spirit of the deceased has more likelyhood of making there way back to Diethebelle in the next life, some wonder as to what the real implications of this tradition might actually be. Please like this idea, it came to me and I think it could be really cool and a concept around this could be interesting in terms of potential future conflicts as well as just a really neat environment.

My mind got ticking after listening to the bit on the gods in update #5 Here's whats been established. -As far as life and death goes, its a sort of pseudo-reincarnation. "The people of the world accept the reality of what they have observed: that all mortal bodies contain perceptible energy bound to the individual, and that once they die, their energy will move forward in the eternal cycle that they are all a part of -- that as far as they know, they have always been a part of." -No mortal really understands souls, but there are many differing interpretations. "What is known is that sapient souls move through an endless cycle of waking life and purgatorial slumber among the gods. Often this slumber lasts for years of "real" time, but occasionally it is brief, with a soul immediately moving on to a new life." -There are many gods -The gods are real -The gods manipulate people for unknown ends -The gods hold a monopoly on knowlege of souls -The people do not entirely trust the gods because they seem to have some strange purpose for not wanting to reveal why things work the way they do. ------------------------------------------------------------------ ANYWAYS, I decided to make a page that esentailly produces fodder grown from whats been established. The story and its characters are still pretty early in development. Maybe something amazing will be produced here and be borrowed from. Lets try to create some intrigue for a good story. This page is solely intended to expound on the true nature of the gods. ----------------------------------------------------------------- MY Idea: The gods have staged a coup -The gods are all working together to keep humanity in the dark about the nature of souls. By doing this they can continue their master plan. -The gods started this system of reincarnation, it was not always that way. When people die, the gods snatch the soul before it can enter their realm, erase its memory and place it back in the world when it suits them. -Their intention is to anihilate humanity by shattering the souls that become fractured. At the same time, however, the gods need to fracture the souls that resist fracturing by getting mortals to submit and commit evil, hurtful acts that cause their souls or another's soul to fracture. -If a soul shatters, it loses the gift of free will, reducing its owner into a mindless puppet for the gods. -The gods are doing this out of the anger that they have towards their superior, creator god, who also created the mortals, because he gave the sapient mortals the gift of free will, somthing that only the gods have. -Lesser beings having the ability to choose freely, like the gods do, is somthing that the other gods despise because they feel that their own glory is somehow lessened because of it, they do not wish to have any aspect of themselvs shared with things that are inherrently lesser than they are. -The creator god gave the sapient mortals free will so that they would be able to love. (You cannot love without having the ability to not love) -This creator god wants nothing more than to save his beloved creations from the plans of the other gods, but the other gods joined forces, bound the creator god, and limited his ability to interact with the world by causing all of the mortals to forget the creator god. -Because he is bound and all have forgotten him, the creator god can only interact in the world by trying to communicate with those who are seeking a way to end the suffering caused by the gods, through love. -The other gods are pretty good at having such people killed by any means available. - the gods can be defeated if enough mortals unite the power within their souls and will the bindings on the creator god to be broken. -If he is free, the creator god can bind the other gods and restore the souls that have shattered, with the help of the mortals -This is only one possible storyline, others should probably be available for good measure, but this is totally a path I would like to have... Eh? I think that could be a pretty good overarching story... Or atleast one possible branch... perhaps the player could seek to overthrow the gods in other ways. Other paths having appeal by questioning whether or not the creator god can be trusted since all the other gods are kindof evil..... WHAT IDEAS DO YOU HAVE?

Ok, in many worlds, divine beings are classified very straight-forwardly as gods in a pantheon. They all recognize the existence of the other gods, and they are all very substantially similar. They all belong to the same kind of theological structure. My thinking on this is why not move away from that kind of model and into variations in deity shape, size, nature, and so on. So, let's just imagine One of Many as a god. One of Many is viable a divine concept, but is also moving away from too much focus on 1 person = 1 divine. Another possible model to consider in variation is the Trinity in Christian theology. The trinity is the notion of 3 divine persons in one deity. Unlike One of Many, it's often presented as something that really cannot be understood, and the nature is perplexing in certain ways where One of Many likely is not. Given that cultural clash is a theme(at least last I thought), how will religious clashing take place? Will there be monotheistic cultures running into polytheism and trying to deal with the objective nature of the other divines through self-deception? Will there be notions of spiritual and divine beings, the sort granting divine powers, that don't really HAVE the full power of godhood? So, could there be "spirits" that can be appealed to? Could there be divine beings that claim they are the substance of existence, they claim to be something so transcendent that it avoids the particular nature of a local deity? Can godless priests, like those who follow an ideal, like Fall From Grace in PS:T be acceptable or allowed? If so, would they be accepted, shunned, or what? What about the idea of unknown gods? They may simply hide, or maybe they belong to local groups that haven't entered the region yet, or maybe they just haven't entered the locality of the world yet. So, in Athens the shrine to the unknown god is pretty well known. Can this concept be applied to Project Eternity in some way shape or fashion? Should the idea of a solid pantheon, with unity and all the rest really be the agenda? It may be desirable to give a solid set of religious notions priests created by players have to accept for roleplay immersion, but perhaps not for the world.

Ok, so the recent kickstarter update mentioned that the designers are considering the religious make-up of the world. Well, I want theology. I think the Dragon Age universe did a pretty good job of having some theological framework within it. At least with making the chantry unique and distinct and somewhat fleshed out.(Though mostly as kind of a variant of Christianity) Planescape arguably is similar in being very theological. Well, I think theology makes some sense for religion. Maybe not EVERY religious notion having a clearly defined theology to it, but certainly that individuals are going to develop theologies, philosophical theologies, and so on for understanding the world, and that these can/do have some impact given that religions are true in this world. I think that priests and paladins and explicitly religious figures should actually express explicitly religious beliefs, and theological notions native to their religion, so that they seem like they are really people dedicated to this divinity. I think that a lot of effort should be on either matching the real world nature of religion in a highly devout society(which this would likely be given that gods exist) or if twisting it, that these twists make sense(gods being real and impacting the world in easily measurable ways makes a difference). This may require curtailing the # of religious groups somewhat. Also, when considering how to set up gods, I would like consideration for the following notions: mysticism, spiritualism, issues of divinity and tribal identity, syncretism, church politics, heresy, schisms, denominations, the relationship between individuals and the divine, theological disputes, etc. I mean, if gods are real, then theological disputes may very well be the same kind of thing as we have for political disputes. I'm sure these are all thought about already. However, I'm definitely pushing for depth. I mean, I think the game is better modelling itself after BG2, but I think that in this area, PS:Torment is the ideal role model. This may already be the understanding, but I really do want this as the push with religion.

I've been thinking about the kinds of creatures and monsters which might inhabit the world of Project Eternity while adhering to the themes and the nature of the world. Here's a few main "types" I've come up with: 1. Soul-Swapped These are wildlife or people that have accidentally been assigned or possessed by other souls. Perhaps a person's soul was accidentally transfered to an animal, and both the physical animal and soul within become changed and twisted over time. This should allow an interesting menagerie of were-creatures - some good, some aggressive, while still adhering to the "natural" order in which the world works. 2. Corrupted Creatures or people who have had malevolent souls forced into them by necromancy or dark magic. There will be distinctive physical manifestations in many instances which would create an interesting assortment of twisted monsters. Evil mages may use these possessed creatures for protection or weapons. 3. Disembodied Souls These disembodied souls fail to complete the great cycle or have lost the ability to atune to living creatures, and thus become trapped in the physical realm for eons. They become either extremely wise as they observe the passage of time over many cycles, or become bitter and weary, as they are never allowed to die and be reborn. They often grow jealous of mortal beings, and this twists them into malevolent spirits. They either possess the area they were forcefully disembodied, or may wander aimlessly. Sometimes, they construct false bodies for themselves as a substitute for a real body. They can "possess" and animate a wide range of inanimate objects or forms - sometimes cobbled together haphazardly, sometimes fashioned meticulously over eons. To get even closer to their ultimate desire of inhabiting a living body, they often possess the dead. In combat, they can sometimes leave their physical form and attempt to wrestle with the souls of party members. Those with lesser powers may incapacitate the party member temporarily as they struggle, or sometimes very powerful souls may possess the party member and turn them against their friends temporarily. Only magic is capable of harming or destroying these souls. 4. The Godforged and the Abandoned. These entities are the results of attempt at creation by the gods. They either were forged to coexist with their makers in the god realm, or are abandoned creations which were never "born" into the physical realm. They are forged using soul energy, but do not possess souls as those on the physical realm do. These entities often reflect the nature of the god they are created by, and may be beautiful majestic creations or vile, ugly monstrosities. Because of their godly nature, they are rarely seen in the physical realm, but there exist certain phenomena which can open rifts between the two realms... What do you guys think? Are these ideas still too "conventional fantasy"? I suppose I've simply "justified" some conventional ideas for creatures/monsters by linking them with the idea of souls. Should Obsidian go for something more unique? How do you justify fantastical creatures in a fairly low fantasy and realistic setting? What are some of your ideas? It's definitely fun making this stuff up!

So, Berath/Cirono have already been revealed as the twinned gods representing the cycle of life and death, and we also have Eothas and Magran. What other dieties would you like to see in PE? How about we make some up! I'll start: Rassah, Treasurer of Souls. He manages and documents all souls that enter and leave purgatory (time between lives). Considered a lesser god, it is he who files all of the paperwork in place of higher gods. When somebody has to pick up lunch for the Office of the Gods, it's usually Rassah. Funny or serious, what are your ideas?

So, well to begin with could we bring to mind the Souls update and how Sawyer mentioned that the gods are meddlesome and also are purposely obscuring the nature of souls/how they work. I have an idea for why this might be and thought I'd make a thread on here to see if anyone has any of their own ideas/theories/what have you. What occurred to me is I'm guessing the most obvious reasoning. The souls spend time among the gods in-between re-incarnations, so perhaps the souls are intertwined with the gods and not just leaves floating about the godly landscape? Are souls a source of power for the gods as well as the earthly races? Are gods equivalent to a huge accumulation of souls who somehow ended up conjoined? Were gods maybe at the beginning individual extremely powerful souls who stayed awake when entering the realm of the gods and use freshly arriving souls as some sort of sustenance or power increaser? Like a water skin being emptied then sent back to re-fill with a new lifes worth of experiences? If any of that is spot on, then it would make a lot of sense for the gods to be actively interested in preventing magicians or anyone else from learning how to ably manipulate souls for if they do they may end up being able to manipulate the gods themselves or through artificial means turn themselves into gods. Of course it could be anything but this is what came to my mind.

Hello everyone! I've been thinking about the religion and deities of PE a lot lately and I personally would love to see a much deeper interactions between gods and the PC. I'll never forget in BG 2 when your party goes to retrieve the stolen Dawn Ring and you are asked to swear an oath that you serve Talos. If you lie, Talos strikes you with a lightning bolt! That's what I'd like to see! Because other than that usually gods/deities are just a name or a "perk" you add to your character in character creation. After that they are barely mentioned at all. What I would love to see is a system that allows cleric/priest class to convert religiously neutral or opposing people into your faith. Do deeds and complete quests in the name of your deity. Destroy a whole town of unbelievers in your gods name! By doing so your deity would grow stronger and grant you greater powers, while opposing deities and churches would strive to stop you. By all means this kind of system could also be extended to non-religous classes as well. A fighter or a thief who serves a deity of their profession and excels in his/her job, could attract the attention of the deity or even his/her/its favour. And why not the ire of "opposing" deity? I'm not suggesting anything concerte yet, I'd just like to see what others think of the subject.