On the Origin of Creatures by Means of Developer Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Mobs in the Struggle for cRPG

[Messier-31]

Howyadoin?

 

So creatures, right?

 

The image you can see below comes for the PoE wiki (http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Creature) and is up to date, which by the way is 2017-04-18 as of today (CEST).

 

 

Eoten and Imps

First of all I wanted to ask you, did anyone ever encountered an eoten or an imp? Eoten are generally two headed ogres, and imps are probably generic imps. I sure don't remember any of these two guys. Was there at least some of these two mentioned in a book or whatever? What is the source for this information?

 

"Eotens feature in the most grotesque of folk tales. Once merely the most aggressive and unstable of ogres, Eotens have since developed into massive monstrosities that are both larger and far less intelligent than their cousins. Eotens have two heads, one notable smaller than the other, and when the larger of these is incapacitated, the smaller retains just enough brute cunning to keep an Eoten fighting."

 

Naga

As we know the naga will be a part of the Deadfire creature table. Some think that they are a yuan-ti ripoff from Dungeons & Dragons, but this is actually the other way round. Some probably even remember nagas from the Warcraft franchise, they were kinda huge back in the day. I sure am very happy to see these snakefolk present!

 

Are there any other specific creatures you would like to see?

Because I am kinda sorry for them orcs and goblins (greenskin). Yes, I know they are overused material blah blah, but I think that the Eora setting would be much better if there was a race of some wilder creatures somewhere in between xaurips and ogres in the pool. Laguefath are fun, but I think PoE lacks a race of some brutish warrior race wreaking havoc in the country and in the minds of folk.

 

What do you think?

 

Here, have some sweet sailory music as a token of appreciation

 

Edited April 18, 2017 by Messier-31

[blotter]

When you get Nans to repair the Engwithan Scepter at the end of the Clandestine cargo quest, she mentions a fiend's blood reagent or something along those lines. I'm curious to see how demons and the like would work within the setting: would they be malevolent entities that encroach into Eora from the Beyond, or are they identified as demonic for other reasons, such as religious stigma?

 

Another thing I'm interested in is seeing more sentient spirits/vessels from Engwithan times (though not necessarily Engwithans themselves) that you can communicate or even negotiate with. It's not a distinct monster type, obviously, but I think there's still more room for interesting revelations concerning that period, especially if related from the perspectives of rivals or victims of Engwithan conquest.

 

Doppelganger-type wilders would be neat too, or perhaps a breed of spectre/shade that possesses others: the broader concept that interests me here is that of natural predators of kith that insinuate themselves into the heart of the civilized world out of necessity or convenience rather than languishing in forgotten dungeons or the wilderness waiting for random adventurers to stumble across them. I guess Fampyrs could fit the bill too (even if they mostly aren't used that way in Pillars 1), but I'd prefer something that's both fundamentally more distant from kith in terms of origin/nature and more adept at blending in among kith when it suits them.

Edited April 18, 2017 by blotter

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Where's those fish things from White March?

 

Well it's an ocean covered area so I'll go out on a limb and say we'll see all those sea creatures, tentacles creep me out so any chance to exterminate krakens, squidmen, or other mollusks is good in my book. So that's a wilder and a few beasts that we're getting.

 

For Primordials I'd like to see more varities of Delemgans and a seaweed lurker. Spirits I think more ghosts, varities of blights, and a sea banshee siren would be cool. Vessels I'd like to see more automations.

 

Oh, and a ghost kraken, fampyr dragon, army of squidmen, a giant primordial ooze or spore, and an ancient automation-lich thing as part of a mega dungeon for the expansion or dlc.

[Regggler]

I'm fanboyin' a fair amount for Polpovir. I'd like to see a naval horror scene pretty much like the one from Monsters of the Deadfire Archipelago:

 

" (...) a sailor on the deck of his ship at night, looking out across the black water, blood freezing as countless lights appear beneath the surface, rising toward him as the Polpovir swarm upward."

[Messier-31]

When you get Nans to repair the Engwithan Scepter at the end of the Clandestine cargo quest, she mentions a fiend's blood reagent or something along those lines. I'm curious to see how demons and the like would work within the setting: would they be malevolent entities that encroach into Eora from the Beyond, or are they identified as demonic for other reasons, such as religious stigma?

 

I was thinking the same thing recently. There are no fiend / demon / devil entities in the game world (for now). I wonder will the devs pick that up sooner or later. Eora is not Forgotten Realms, where you can easily open a portal to other planes of existence, but still this is an interesting issue.

 

For Primordials I'd like to see more varities of Delemgans

 

Same here. It's not a grand tale or anything, but one of my favourite moments in the Twin Elms was meeting Sîdha and Rîhenwn.

 

I'm fanboyin' a fair amount for Polpovir. I'd like to see a naval horror scene pretty much like the one from Monsters of the Deadfire Archipelago:

 

" (...) a sailor on the deck of his ship at night, looking out across the black water, blood freezing as countless lights appear beneath the surface, rising toward him as the Polpovir swarm upward."

 

I'm sure that there might be some of this you want IF we reach the $4.75 slacker backer stretchgoal (seamonsters and fishing).

[Regggler]

 

I'm fanboyin' a fair amount for Polpovir. I'd like to see a naval horror scene pretty much like the one from Monsters of the Deadfire Archipelago:

 

" (...) a sailor on the deck of his ship at night, looking out across the black water, blood freezing as countless lights appear beneath the surface, rising toward him as the Polpovir swarm upward."

 

I'm sure that there might be some of this you want IF we reach the $4.75 slacker backer stretchgoal (seamonsters and fishing).

 

 

I seem to recall them saying the stretch goal was for even moar sea monsters. C'mon, they can't make a game in a region that's renowned for its sea monsters without sea monsters... *fingers crossed*

Meeting that stretch goal would be ideal though, I agree.

[Messier-31]

Thing about the undead.

 

Pillars lore states clearly a scientific explenation for the undead. Basically it all started with Pandgram, the animancer who was experimenting with capturing souls and binding them to the dead corpses. And what is even more interesting, all these types of undead (fampyr, dargul, gul, revenant, skeleton) are just the next stages of body decomposition. Every next stage is delayed by feeding, so basically every undead you encounter once was at a higher stage of being undead. It actually is the same creature it once was before.

 

Fampyr (vampire vibes here) is the most recently undead, and the most consious. It's not your typical vampire though, as there is no fear of light and they clearly can't change into a bat or some other spooky misty object. Because he will eventually become a gul, or even a skeleton, this leaves us with a small undead pool of creatures in the setting. I would love to see more, like a lich or a zombie, but I think this is already somewhat covered by the abovementioned scientific explanation. There actually might be no room for more undead in Pillars.

[Regggler]

Good point about the undead! But since we've got both science and magic, I think we can have any number of undead classes - they just need to be created in slightly different fashion. The hierarchy "Fampyr to Skeleton" does not preclude parallel hierarchies in my opinion. Case in point: Concelhaut. He is an archetypical Lich.

 

Other possible variants:

- "I want my Mummy": Egyptian style preservation techniques might prevent the body's decay to a degree that the mummy does not hunger for the flesh of the living.

- "So what, it's a plant now?": D&D's Myconid Sovereigns  can animate a dead body using spores. For all purposes, the body becomes a zombie. Would fit well with Eora's Radiant Spores. Not really a vessel, though (no soul required).

 

I'm sure more are possible.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Thing about the undead.

 

Pillars lore states clearly a scientific explenation for the undead. Basically it all started with Pandgram, the animancer who was experimenting with capturing souls and binding them to the dead corpses. And what is even more interesting, all these types of undead (fampyr, dargul, gul, revenant, skeleton) are just the next stages of body decomposition. Every next stage is delayed by feeding, so basically every undead you encounter once was at a higher stage of being undead. It actually is the same creature it once was before.

 

Fampyr (vampire vibes here) is the most recently undead, and the most consious. It's not your typical vampire though, as there is no fear of light and they clearly can't change into a bat or some other spooky misty object. Because he will eventually become a gul, or even a skeleton, this leaves us with a small undead pool of creatures in the setting. I would love to see more, like a lich or a zombie, but I think this is already somewhat covered by the abovementioned scientific explanation. There actually might be no room for more undead in Pillars.

Well there's a certain Archmage who already fits that, but I agree about wanting more undead and the lore perhaps disqualifying that. I think they could do it with more animancy research, sort of like how those fampyrs in Caed Nua managed to stay Fampyrs despite being there for an extremely long time, seemingly without many kith to eat. Not sure where they'd go though, as far as humanoid undead go Pillars managed to hit most of them. I guess there's also spirits and non-kith undead(Fampyr Dragon plz) that they could do, ot things like wichts.

[Katarack21]

I'm fanboyin' a fair amount for Polpovir. I'd like to see a naval horror scene pretty much like the one from Monsters of the Deadfire Archipelago:

 

" (...) a sailor on the deck of his ship at night, looking out across the black water, blood freezing as countless lights appear beneath the surface, rising toward him as the Polpovir swarm upward."

YES

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

So it looks like Krakens are actually Primordials and not Beasts. Which leaves me confused on what Primordials are supposed to be, besides a dumping ground for creatures that don't fit other categories.

[Gfted1]

Wow, Ive never looked at the beastiary before, dragons are gonzo! Immunities to almost everything! Is the most reliable attack some kind of elemental attack then?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Wow, Ive never looked at the beastiary before, dragons are gonzo! Immunities to almost everything! Is the most reliable attack some kind of elemental attack then?

Basic attacks with petrification.

[smjjames]

On the Eotens, I believe there's at least one item named after them, 'belt of Eoten constitution' or strength or something like that. Never seen or heard of any references to imps, though they may be more purely mythological than any actual creature.

 

I suppose we'll definetly see 'normal' wildlife that matches the environment of the islands, the Eastern Reach is pretty much all forest with mixed grasslands, with the eastern edge being jungle.

 

Since these are islands, realistically, we'd have unique wildife for every single island, but given that the devs and art team definetly don't have millions of years of radiative evolution to work with (lol), the variation will probably be regional and it helps that we'd only ever see a small slice of the huge deadfire archipelago in one game, let alone a lifetime as someone said in another thread.

 

Anyhoo, yeah, I'd definetly see more sea based creatures.

 

I wonder if we'd see some island variant ogres? The archipelago is definetly big enough for them to have some safe enclaves, and the ogres certainly seem capable of building ships if they wished to.

[FlintlockJazz]

Yeah, a couple of my characters in my current playthrough are wearing those Eoten belts, give +3 constitution or something.  Seen a few references them a fair bit, not seen one though.  Imps not even heard of ingame. 

[Messier-31]

There were mentioning imps in a Fig poe2 update tho...

[smjjames]

There were mentioning imps in a Fig poe2 update tho...

 

Yeah, I saw it mentioned in at least one Fig update.

 

Maybe they only live in and near volcanoes, which would explain them not appearing in PoE1 (there is that hot spring and volcanic cave, but I guess that's not enough?), though Obsidian would have to retcon and somehow explain the fact that they aren't mentioned in PoE1 AFAIK.