Deadfire and the darkside

[Vasvary5050]

Hi folks. Still got a way to go to complete my current playthrough but starting to think about my next (3rd) playthrough of Deadfire. I want to make it as different as I can to my first two playthroughs where other than ultimately supporting a different faction I've basically still been the "good guy" all the way through. I could do with some suggestions for a darkside playthrough. In particular:

a) Companions with a potential "dark side"- to be honest they all seem mostly on the side of "good". Serafen is a pirate but seems quite soft-hearted. Pallegina and Maia are both a bit blinkered when it comes to seeing the rights and wrongs of their factions but otherwise seem to be good aligned. Xoti can go down the path of the darkside if you encourage her to hold on to the souls in her lantern and is probably the companion with the darkest dark side that I've seen. Do any of the other companions have a dark side that can be encouraged? 

b) dark-side main character ideas: The obvious archetypes which occur to me with supporting classes and skills are the cannibal (barbarian corpse-eater), the compulsive liar and conman (beguiler and/or trickster focusing on bluffing for his support skill), the cruel violent fanatic (Bleak Walker Paladin), keeper of the god's secrets (priest of Woedica and member of the Leaden Key?, or maybe priest of Wael) and if it was an option, an agent of entropy and the end of all things (priest of Rymrgand)

By the way, how destructive can you be without completely breaking the entire game. Presumably there are somethings you can't do, like kill everyone in Port Maje island if you want to get your ship repaired and get off the island.

Darkside Vas

[thelee]

6 minutes ago, Vasvary5050 said:

a) Companions with a potential "dark side"- to be honest they all seem mostly on the side of "good". Serafen is a pirate but seems quite soft-hearted. Pallegina and Maia are both a bit blinkered when it comes to seeing the rights and wrongs of their factions but otherwise seem to be good aligned. Xoti can go down the path of the darkside if you encourage her to hold on to the souls in her lantern and is probably the companion with the darkest dark side that I've seen. Do any of the other companions have a dark side that can be encouraged? 

Vatnir is a sidekick so doesn't have a ton of reactivity, but I would put Vatnir as dark-side territory.

If you select the right reactivity/background, Aloth already has a bit of a darker streak, and you can reinforce this in the game.

After that it's kind of a stretch. I guess you could say Mirke is dark in that as a drunken sidekick, she'll go along with whatever genocidal plans you have in mind without complaining.

 

9 minutes ago, Vasvary5050 said:

The obvious archetypes which occur to me with supporting classes and skills are the cannibal (barbarian corpse-eater), the compulsive liar and conman (beguiler and/or trickster focusing on bluffing for his support skill), the cruel violent fanatic (Bleak Walker Paladin), keeper of the god's secrets (priest of Woedica and member of the Leaden Key?, or maybe priest of Wael) and if it was an option, an agent of entropy and the end of all things (priest of Rymrgand)

those all sound good flavor picks. i think assassin could also be worth considering. there's also an angle where you can take on the more sinister aspects of berath (offensive-oriented priest of berath) or nature (druid, pick up all the decay spells).

also for consideration are multiclasses with names that can lend themselves to a darker side, like zealot for woedica/berath (rogue + priest), or a bleak cannibalistic fanatic (bleak walker/corpse eater).

 

14 minutes ago, Vasvary5050 said:

By the way, how destructive can you be without completely breaking the entire game. Presumably there are somethings you can't do, like kill everyone in Port Maje island if you want to get your ship repaired and get off the island.

i would actually be surprised if you could actually lock yourself out of the game. josh sawyer pointedly tries to enable the "mass psychopath" style of play. i was on reddit where i saw an insightful comment that observed that all the factions have two possible leaders, and they are on different maps, so it's impossible for the player to ambush a faction without warning and leave it completely headless (and possibly break an end-game encounter). so the game is designed to be resilient against mass murder. i would actually be very curious to know what would happen if you tried to kill everyone in port maje (i know you can kill all the huana without any problem, don't ask me why i tried that; but i didn't try killing the vailians).

[Boeroer]

Possible "dark" classes without too much stretching (imo):

• Paladins
  • Bleak Walkers
  • Steel Garrote
  • Goldpact Knights
• Rangers
  • all 
• Fighters
  • all
• Druids
  • Ancient
  • Fury
  • Animist
  • Shifter
• Barbarians
  • all
• Monks
  • all but esp.
  • Shattered Pillar
  • Forbidden Fist
• Priests of
  • Skaen
  • Woedica
  • Rymrgand
  • Magran
  • Wael
• Wizards
  • all
• Rogues
  • all
• Ciphers
  • all
• Chanter
  • all

The only real dark companion for me is Xoti on the reaping path. Every other compaion or sidekick (with enough talks and banter to be sure) seems to have at least some good or benevolent streaks no matter what you do.   

I would have loved some cruel and deceptive, drake-worshipping Xaurip Companion.  

Edited September 13, 2022 by Boeroer

[Yougottawanna]

I personally find Maia to be pretty dark...

Spoiler

She admits to assassinating people, and she delivers orders for other assassinations - she does it on orders, but still

 

[masterty66]

I would add that dark/evil doesn't necessarily mean you have to be a jerk to your companions. You could treat your companions or your favored faction relatively well and treat everyone else like they're subhuman. That to me is more fun and perhaps realistic than just being a psychopath to everyone.

In that sense you could bring whoever along since your companions will probably be okay with you if you treat them ok.

 

 

[NotDumbEnough]

I don't think there's much of a dark side in PoE. The gods are fundamentally "hard-coded" to serve kith society even if they differ wildly in how they attempt to do so (with varying levels of competency), even Skaen and Woedica. They might be cold or occasionally petty, but none of them are fundamentally out to commit genocide, and it's probably more accurate to interpret their actions as misguided tough love rather than malice. You might argue that Rymrgand is trying to end the world, but on the other hand he does allow you to close the portal, and I suspect that the gods are set up in such a way to keep each other in check to prevent the others from running wild (i.e. Rymrgand's presence is likely necessary to counterbalance the other gods). All of this also extends to their followers. For Bleak Walkers in particular the game also states that their aggression is intended to help them eschew actual combat and bloodshed in favor of intimidation, even if it's not very nice.

There's also really no such thing as "dark" magic in the game. Magic is powered by soul energy (stored in grimoires for wizards, drawn from nature for druids, drawn from the caster for priests and paladins, drawn from the enemy for ciphers, and drawn from the ambient environment for chanters) which is really just fantasy electricity, with at most ethical concerns as to how you acquire the soul energy (i.e. is excavating adra pillars to power grimoires harmful).

The presence of a reincarnation process which everyone believes in (even Pallegina is anti-theistic, not atheistic) also means that pretty much everyone you meet has a pretty fatalistic outlook on life in general. As long as there isn't actual torture, slavery, suffering, sacrifices to Skaen or bugs that prevent the dead from moving on to the wheel, people generally have an "Oh no! Anyway..." reaction to death (see: the Vailian cook after you tell him the entire expedition died in Poko Kahara). Even the spirits themselves are generally pretty chill about being dead when you talk to them.

Generally I think the game touches on ethical issues (is it OK to excavate adra? Tolerate slavery? Sacrfice someone to Skaen?) but does not have anything you can broadly paint as "dark" on a large scale.

[Carys]

re: Port Majhe.

Yes, you can wipe everyone out and still get off the island.  Also, if do wipe the port out, there's no mention of it that I saw in Nekataka.  I did it once to see what would happen.

 

[Vasvary5050]

Wow, returned to more replies than I was expecting. Nice. Thanks everybody!

With regard to the main companions, I think Xoti's "dark reaper" pathway is the only real darkness I've seen from them. Yes, it turns out that Maia is an assassin on the side (shame she doesn't have a ranger-assassin class option), but hard to judge her for that considering how many "monsters" I've slain for their sweet sweet loot over the years even when playing an ostensibly good-aligned character. I wonder if it's possible to create a custom PoE 1 history that makes Aloth a bit darker? As an aside, I've only had him in the party for short stretches in Deadfire and haven't seen Iselmyr come out during any of that. Maybe next time around the wheel I'm have Aloth in my party as a regular. I've not really used the sidekicks much except Ydwin (the only companion/sidekick that makes a decent pure rogue or mindstalker). I will try Vatnir next time around the wheel though it's fairly late into the game that he is available.

With regard to class, I guess any class can be used for a "dark" main character. I like the Bleak Walker because it provides some actual pressure to follow the cruel and aggressive dialogue options (shame only Paladin has disposition-related links). I like the suggestion of a bleak cannibalistic fanatic (bleak walker/corpse eater).

Xaurip companions would be a lot of fun. It's a shame you can't have Xaurips (Deadfire's Kobolds?) and Lagufaeth companions (Mother Sharp Rock as companion please) or as a playable race, though I guess they would be fundamentally outcasts in civilised areas (though you do see the occasional wilder in Neketaka).

With regard to dark magic, I find animancy to be quite dark, or at least the unethical experiments that put people's souls into constructs. On that note, pity that the Devil of Caroc isn't available as a companion. Interesting that animancy is such a major part of the Pillars world and yet there isn't a character class option that really leans into animancy per se (e.g. some sort of construct controlling class).

TBH, I'm not really interested in playing a "genocidal" character. That sounds like hard work - especially on PoTD. More interested in just trying to follow a darker path, trying to skew the story in a darker direction, being cruel, aggressive and deceptive, rather than mass-murderous per se, ... but I would really like to see what happens if you do kill everyone on Port Maja island. Curious to see how you get off the island if there is no one left to help you repair your boat.

I've played PoE 1 through once but again I played the hero in that; was there more scope for "darkness" in that? From the histories you can select when you start Deadfire it looks like you could really "mess things up".

 

 

 

 

[dgray62]

I think that the clearest "evil" path in the POE1-2 games making the selfish/powerhungry/evil choices, and then devoting the souls to Woedica. For POE2, I really like the cruel/rational leaning Steel Garrote subclass, which makes sense if you chose to devote the souls to Woedica. Being "rational," you wouldn't kill everyone, but would rather seek to manipulate others and the unstable situation in Deadfire to maximize the interests of you, Woedica, and your favored faction. Personally, I think the Royal Deadfire Company is the best match for a character playing from this perspective.

On the other hand, you could play from a Skaenite kill the rich/powerful perspective, in which case I think your best off playing a pirate, but siding with the anti-slavery faction.

[Okkes]

Beguiler/Blood mage seems like a good choice for evil run.

[Vasvary5050]

@dgray62 Funnily enough, I had also given some thought to roleplaying a fanatical revolutionary with the aim of liberating the Roparu and destroying the slavers, nobility and corporations. Pretty much would put me at odds with all the major factions in Neketaka. It's a shame there isn't really a Roparu faction in Deadfire (feels like an omission); I guess the new-blood anti-slaver arm of the Principi is the closest thing.  

[dgray62]

It is, I think, considering that the Principi helps the Roparu in the Gullet. Probably the best approach her would be joining the Principi, siding with Aeldys, and helping the Roparu while undermining the Huana elite and other factions, and destroying the slavers. This of course isn't pure evil, but is more of a Robin Hood chaotic (good or neutral?) approach.