Questions I have after having finished the game

[Atnas]

I loved the game, I'll say that much. Really looking forward to the expansion, since I feel it may very well resolve some of the questions I have. Thought I'd post here to see if others have the same questions, or perhaps even answers!

 

 

1. Is it ever mentioned, or explained, why you survive the Biawac/the machine?

 

2. When you finally defeat Thaos and read his soul, you get a glimpse of him in front of a huge crowd of people, all whom are sacrificed to the machine. They seem willing- and Thaos seems determined. What event was this? I had hoped to gain more insight.

 

3.  If the Gods are not real, who are they? Ascendant of the ancients, or made up out of nothing? I realize there's probably no answer for this in the game, and it is what the expansion will deal with, but I still wonder.

 

4. Durance is a complex fella, and Magran aswell. What actually happened there, with the Godhammer and all? In my playthrough, I was convinced that Magran wanted to stop Eothas, and inspired her followers to produce the Godhammer, only to have them all killed off. Yet I've seen other suggest that this is not so, and that Magran never meant for Durance and his companions to go so far. The Elf woman who led the uprising alludes to this, since she questions Durance if he didn't fill in his own desires and deceptions when Magran was silent (before making the Godhammer).

 

4 B) Why is Durance the only survivor? How did he survive? It mentioned something about 'sinking into the earth, where a soul is safe', something like that. Was that a reference to the remains of Durance's soul, or of Eothas, possibly?

 

Which side has the truth of it there? Did Magran truly intend to blow Eothas up, and clean the trail after her? To me it seems like it, since it was dangerous knowledge.

 

5. Why did the Godhammer kill Eothas? I thought the Gods could only act through mortals by steering them, not actually posessing and taking over bodies. Shouldn't just the Saint have died, not the God himself?

 

6. For some reason, the Dryads refer to you as the "Ancient one". Why? Surely your soul isn't more ancient than any other? Or is the main character special for some reason, beyond being a watcher?

 

7. How/Why was the Watcher skills awakened? Was it the machine blast that did it?

 

 

Would love to have your thoughts and replies!

[Sonntam]

1. You have a strong soul, apparently??

 

Yeah, it was not elaborated on.

 

2. That was apparently when lots of Engwithans were sacrificed to power the gods and make them as they are now. As you can guess, Thaos contributed a lot to the extinction of the Engwithans as a race.

 

3. They are made out of energy their worshippers give them and through rituals as the one above. People sacrifice their lifes for the gods, gods become stronger. 

 

Gods are not ascendants of any race or any beings, they are just soul energy condensed into a form the Engwithans chose. After their initial formation they were able to keep going without any input except from worship from the kith. It seems to be enough to "feed" the gods.

 

4. There are several things that could have happened. 

 

My character convinced Durance, that Magran meant to stop Eothas, because Eothas plan was to make sure Woedica doesn't rise again. Eothas apparently got wind of what was happening with Dyrwood and Leaden Key. Magran seemed to be secretly allied with Woedica which is why she set out on killing Eothas. 

 

Godhammer was Magran's will, but she also didn't want the kith to remember how to kill a god. So everyone who worked on the bomb had to die. Except it didn't work out so well, because Durance left before Magran could ensure his death. And since Durance's link to the Shroud was severed in some way (the Godhammer explosion was rather destructive on all levels, it seems), Magran can't "see" him. So she doesn't even know Durance is alive.

 

It seems to be the most canon version of events, but it also may be that Durance and his allies were not meant to kill Eothas and Magran didn't approve. Otherwise same as before is true: Durance is severed from the Shroud, Magran can't see him, so that is why he is alive and the rest of the Godhammer builders are dead.

 

4b. Yes, no matter what happened, Magran was cleaning house. Durance left pretty early, without informing anyone, so that is how he escaped with his life. The fact that his godess can't track him down the usual, spiritual way also helped. 

 

5. Gods can do a lot of things. It's just that they have rules and usually follow them.

 

Posessing mortals is something that gods can do, it's just more unusual. For example Skaen is quite known for taking over the Effigy, a willing sacrifice who wants to destroy their masters. 

 

6. Your soul belonged to an Engwithan. That is pretty ancient, if you ask me.

 

7. Apparently, yes. You saw Thaos, this caused an Awakening, the Awakening also made your Watcher powers activate (which I suppose were part of you already, just never materialized before).

[quechn1tlan]

As other points were pretty much explained, my understanding of "1" was that a) You didn't survive biawac, you hid from it in the ruins, in other words, avoided it. 2) machine I'm not so sure about it, mayhaps it saw you as one of its operators. It didn't kill Thaos either. So this is my theory on what happened there.

[Guest]

1. is explained by the Dwarven animancer in Gilded Vale: Your soul was too strong for the biawac to take

2. I'll have to come back to this one

3. is explained by the Apostate right before your encounter with Thaos: they are Engwithan constructs.

4. The gods made an agreement not to get involved with humans. Eothas broke this rule (after Woedica bent it), but the other gods did not. Durance and his pals decided to take matters into their own hands and Magran was more or less constrained against stopping them. Apparently, she did however opt to spare Durance.

5. Because the "gods" aren't gods. I suspect that Eothas "took over" the saint the same way that Thaos could take over others.

6. Possibly not any more ancient than others, but remember that being Awakened is a fairly rare thing.

7. Yeah, kinda. It was the encounter with Thaos.

Edited April 4, 2015 by Achilles

[Primislas]

1. is explained by the Dwarven animancer in Gilded Vale: Your soul was too strong for the biawac to take

Can't be the real reason though. What about Calisca's and the trader's souls? Were they special too? So I'm inclined to go with "simply hid away in time" answer.

[Xylus]

I remember reading somewhere that "when you are awoken when you are just about to cross the shroud, you become a watcher". This might be how the Watcher survived