setting questions explained by devs?

[juanval]

Once the great Pillars of Eternity is finished, I, like most of you, have doubts about the game setting. It would be nice that someone of obsidian could give us a small synopsis of PoE related to the setting/plot, without spoileering future PoE games.

for instance:
-what happened to engwithians?
-what is the origin of Thaos? does he have good intentions?
-how woedica gives powers to Thaos?
-is Eothas died?
-what happened exactly in Caed Nua?

thanks in advance

Edited February 18, 2016 by juanval

[Eisenheinrich]

Only based on assumptions and hints throughout the game and dev's chat:

1. They went extinct when creating the gods

2. From his perspective, he does good things. But the most evil things in history were committed with good intentions. He also is an Engwhithian. Or at least, his soul is.

 

3. don't know

4. yes

5. basically, it's a lovecraftian tale. Earl of Yenwood builds castle on an ancient engwhithian site and digs too deep in it's mysteries. 

 

[boffmoffet]

I wanna try at interpreting lore! Speculation begin!

 

1. Most gave their souls to create the gods, those who did not became missionaries to spread the word or agents whose task it was to hide the creation of the gods. Strike deals with the glanfathan.

 

2. Agreed with Eisenheinrich. His motivations are not evil to him, but stealing the souls of unborn babies probably ends you up on a few naughty lists.

 

3. I believe Woedica uses her influence to to keep his soul intact. She keeps it either outside Berath's Wheel or fully intact and reincarnated if he does die.

 

4. All signs point to true death, but on this one even I am hesitant to speculate.

 

5. Caed Nua was giant and crazy because an ancient noble who lost his son at a young age went mad from the loss and began building the Endless Path to deal with it/ build a giant Adra body for his very dead son. Reminds me quite a bit of Sarah Winchester and the Winchester Mystery House.

[Luckmann]

[...]

 

4. yes

 

[...]

 

Lies! Liiieeeees!

 

 

Seriously, I will never forgive the near-zero reactivity of playing a Priest/ess of Eothas in PoE.

 

[FlintlockJazz]

Eothas is not dead, in fact he's feeling better.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBxMPqxJGqI

 

Edited February 18, 2016 by FlintlockJazz

[AndreaColombo]

Whoa, Luckmann is back! Howzit, boss?

[Luckmann]

Whoa, Luckmann is back! Howzit, boss?

 

Thought it was time to check out what all this "White March" hubb-bubb was about. Currently just waiting (and hoping) for an update to the IE Mod, because I stubbornly refuse to play without it.

[jsaving]

The devs seem to have made a conscious decision not to provide clear-cut answers to these and other questions.  To my way of thinking, #2 and #4 are the most interesting and most ambiguous of the lot.  On #2, I'd say Thaos probably has a lawful neutral to lawful evil alignment, doing what needs to be done to preserve 2000 year old customs and not caring much who gets harmed in so doing -- though he also doesn't actively go out of his way to hurt people simply because he can (as a thoroughly lawful evil person would). 

 

On #4, the game basically turns people's understanding on its head as you proceed through the game.  At the beginning, just about everyone agrees that Waidwen's lust for power overcame what might initially have been good intentions, which leaves room for those who trust Eothas' goodness to infer Waidwen must not really have been Eothas.  By the end, though, it's revealed that Waidwen tromped about the Dyrwood with an army not because he was evil but because a robust ground force was the only way to block Thaos from achieving his objectives, which has the ironic effect of undermining the nobody-that-evil-could-be-Eothas argument. and cementing in at least some of their minds that Eothas really is gone.

 

And yet -- it's worth pointing out that Eothas' main portfolio is renewal/rebirth and he is a thinly disguised analogue of the Forgotten Realms' Lathander, who has on more than one occasion been renewed after having apparently been destroyed.  The other deities believe Eothas will never return, but are they right?  Only time will tell.

Edited February 18, 2016 by jsaving

[Sceptenar]

What happened to the Engwithans isn't spelled out directly, but it is implied in the final exposition after you defeat Thaos that most of them sacrificed themselves to create the gods.

 

Thaos' origin is fairly clear, he was an Engwithan who received the charge of spreading their new religion and making sure the secret of their creation would never be discovered. If you believe Thaos' words then does have good intentions, he certainly believes that what he is doing is for the benefit of everyone.

 

How Woedica gives powers to Thaos isn't said directly. But what is said, by Lady Webb among others, is that Woedica "doesn't allow rules to stop her", she "cheats". Meaning that she is willing to directly interfere in mortal lives, something that the other gods have sworn not to do, instead acting through mortal agents.

 

Eothas is likely dead judging from the comments of others, he certainly stopped communicating with his followers. But that doesn't mean he can't come back necessarily, Abydon was killed at some point by another god and managed to return by creating a new body for himself. Warning, major White March part 2 spoilers:

As revealed in the White March Part 2, Abydon died when he stopped the small moon that Ondra had pulled down to (presumably) wipe away all the Engwithan ruins from crashing into the earth. He managed to shatter the moon with his hammer, but a big chunk still threatened the world so he took the hit himself and died. The colossal skeleton in the Abbey of the Fallen Moon is his dead body.

After dying he did manage to come back by creating a new body for himself in the White Forge, although he did lose some of his power by dying. He was originally the god of preservation, but he lost that aspect when he died.
It's certainly possible that Eothas can come back from death as well.

 

 

What happened in Caed Nua is that Od Nua built the dungeon beneath the stronghold, and went mad with grief after his son died so he decided to build a massive adra statue to him. Eventually Od Nua's followers turned on him and he froze himself in adra to prevent his body from being put on display. The adra dragon at the bottom turned up later, and has been feasting on soul energy from the adra statue for ages. The fortress on the surface, Caed Nua, has had a lot of problems because of the adra dragons influence.

[house2fly]

I thought that body preserved on level 14 was Od Nua's son? I'm sure it looked like a kid.

[Sceptenar]

I thought that body preserved on level 14 was Od Nua's son? I'm sure it looked like a kid.

 

In the conversation you have with Od Nua's spirit he makes it quite clear that it is him, and that he did it to himself deliberately to rob the rebels of their chance to put his body on display.

[Tigranes]

I'm pretty happy not knowing all the answers. It would cheapen the story as delivered within the game to have a 'what really happened' synopsis. Stories aren't about facts, they're about experiences and problems.

[anameforobsidian]

Once the great Pillars of Eternity is finished, I, like most of you, have doubts about the game setting. It would be nice that someone of obsidian could give us a small synopsis of PoE related to the setting/plot, without spoileering future PoE games.

 

for instance:

-what happened to engwithians?

-what is the origin of Thaos? does he have good intentions?

-how woedica gives powers to Thaos?

-is Eothas died?

-what happened exactly in Caed Nua?

 

thanks in advance

 

I'm going to echo some of the previous answers.

 

1.  A lot of them wiped themselves out.  Engwithan culture was probably destroyed for good when they rebelled and killed the king in Caed Nua.

 

2.  Thaos is an Engwithan who was the head prophet of the new religion.  His intentions are to create a sense of order in the universe and to hide secrets of souls.  His methods are very bad.

 

3.  It's partially Woedica but there are two other big options.  One is that Thaos has a heavy soul like yours.  The other is that Thaos knows Engwithan animancy.  It could be a combination of the three.

 

4.  Probably.  It's worth pointing out that the candles still haven't gone out in the church of Eothas.  But, as other posters have said, is death really a problem for a God of resurrection?  BTW it's worth pointing out that Eothas matches a lot of classical gods here: Baal was a god of farmers (not the sun though), who would die and be reborn.  Dionysis was a god of life who had several rebirths, etc.

 

5.  They describe what happened in Caed Nua almost exactly.  If you do Heritage Hill first, you can learn Engwithan and speak to the Fampyr in the endless paths.  A king of the Engwithans went crazy when his son died, and built a giant statue of his son made out of ardra.  His animancers killed thousands of people to put souls in the statue and kinda just did what they wanted to experiment.  Possibly using the big machines that caused the hollowborn.  They were also looking for his son's soul to grab from death and put back in his body.  The normal Engwithans were sick of being killed, so they broke into the castle, killed everyone, and magically sealed the place.  Presumably they gave up quite a few traditions and became the Glanfathans.

[house2fly]

I originally thought it stretched credulity that an entire race would sacrifice themselves to create the gods but Thaos's dialogue hints that when they discovered there were no gods they basically despaired.