A recap of...
Pillars Of Eternity
The player character is a foreigner who arrives in the Dyrwood. Their caravan is hit by a mysterious storm that kills everyone but them. Taking refuge in a cave, the player character witnesses some cultists perform a ritual on a machine that can strip souls from their bodies. Exposed to these energies, the player character becomes a Watcher, a person able to read souls. The player character also becomes Awakened, able to access memories of their past lives. This curses the Watcher with waking visions and an inability to sleep. In time, the Watcher will go insane from this, so they must track down the cultists and reverse the curse.
Dyrwood is cursed by the Hollowborn Plague: children are being born without souls, leaving them totally unresponsive, in a way similar to a permanent vegetative state. Many people blame animancers, the scientists who study and manipulate souls. Investigating the curse, the Watcher discovers that the Hollowborns' souls have in fact been stolen by a cult known as the Leaden Key, led by a priest named Thaos, and that Thaos is framing animancers for the Plague. This eventually leads to a riot in the capital city where animancers are lynched and their college is destroyed.
The Watcher and their companions pursue Thaos to the city of Twin Elms, where they learn the truth behind Thaos' actions. The gods of Eora are synthetic beings created by an ancient civilization known as the Engwithans. The Engwithans were master animancers, and through their science they discovered that the world of Eora had no real gods. This created an existential crisis for the Engwithans. The world of Eora was plagued by religious conflict, and the Engwithans had hoped to end these by discovering who were the true gods. Furthermore, most societies used gods to validate their moral systems, and the Engwithans feared that if others discovered that there were no real gods, this would cause amoral behavior to worsen. So the Engwithans decided to create some artificial gods by fusing their own souls into magical constructs. These constructs presented themselves to the mortals of Eora as the true gods of the Universe. The people of Eora were united in worship of a common pantheon, ending centuries of religious conflict and promoting the spread of civilization. Thaos is an Engwithan animancer who has survived the centuries by transferring his soul from one body to the next. His life mission is to ensure that nobody discovers the truth about the Engwithans' artificial gods, otherwise people might question their legitimacy. Part of this mission involves suppressing the science of animancy, because animancers might discover the truth through their science just as the Engwithans did. Thaos stole the souls of the Hollowborn to empower the goddess Woedica, who hates animancy and would see it destroyed.
Though the other gods have an interest in protecting their secret, they do not want Woedica to dominate them, and so they help the Watcher breach the defenses of Thaos' lair. The Watcher slays Thaos in his lair. The player must decide what to do with all the souls Thaos abducted: return them to their original bodies, let them reincarnate in new bodies, or feed them to Woedica. Other choices the player made throughout the game will affect the epilogue.
The story takes place in the world of Eora, in a region placed in the southern hemisphere called the Eastern Reach, an area roughly the size of Spain. The Eastern Reach contains several nations, including the Free Palatinate of Dyrwood, a former colony of the mighty Aedyr Empire that won its independence through a revolutionary war; the Vailian Republics, a confederation of sovereign city-states; and the Penitential Regency of Readceras, a quasi-theocratic state ruled by priests of the god Eothas.
Technologically and socially, most of the civilizations in Eora are in what roughly corresponds to the early stages of the early modern period. Firearms are a relatively new invention and are cumbersome to use; as a result, their use is not widespread. They have, however, proven quite effective against magic users.
A factor of great conflict all over Eora is the recent scientific discovery that souls are real and can be transferred, stored, or molded. Souls are the basis of magic, as accessing their power is what allows certain people to use it. Souls leave the body upon death, and go through a largely unknown process before reincarnating into a newborn body. Every soul does, however, have embedded memories from their previous lives, and through certain processes a person's soul can be "Awakened", meaning they gain awareness of these past lives. There are people in the world who have the supernatural ability to perceive people's souls, which allows them to access memories, among other things; these individuals are called "Watchers". Though the study of souls, called animancy, is a young field of science, the implications for society at large has been vast, led to rapid advances in technology, and caused several rifts and clashes in the different religious communities, which has marked the era as a time of great turmoil.
Dyrwood is cursed by the Hollowborn Plague: children are being born without souls, leaving them totally unresponsive, in a way similar to a permanent vegetative state. Many people blame animancers, the scientists who study and manipulate souls. Investigating the curse, the Watcher discovers that the Hollowborns' souls have in fact been stolen by a cult known as the Leaden Key, led by a priest named Thaos, and that Thaos is framing animancers for the Plague. This eventually leads to a riot in the capital city where animancers are lynched and their college is destroyed.
The Watcher and their companions pursue Thaos to the city of Twin Elms, where they learn the truth behind Thaos' actions. The gods of Eora are synthetic beings created by an ancient civilization known as the Engwithans. The Engwithans were master animancers, and through their science they discovered that the world of Eora had no real gods. This created an existential crisis for the Engwithans. The world of Eora was plagued by religious conflict, and the Engwithans had hoped to end these by discovering who were the true gods. Furthermore, most societies used gods to validate their moral systems, and the Engwithans feared that if others discovered that there were no real gods, this would cause amoral behavior to worsen. So the Engwithans decided to create some artificial gods by fusing their own souls into magical constructs. These constructs presented themselves to the mortals of Eora as the true gods of the Universe. The people of Eora were united in worship of a common pantheon, ending centuries of religious conflict and promoting the spread of civilization. Thaos is an Engwithan animancer who has survived the centuries by transferring his soul from one body to the next. His life mission is to ensure that nobody discovers the truth about the Engwithans' artificial gods, otherwise people might question their legitimacy. Part of this mission involves suppressing the science of animancy, because animancers might discover the truth through their science just as the Engwithans did. Thaos stole the souls of the Hollowborn to empower the goddess Woedica, who hates animancy and would see it destroyed.
Though the other gods have an interest in protecting their secret, they do not want Woedica to dominate them, and so they help the Watcher breach the defenses of Thaos' lair. The Watcher slays Thaos in his lair. The player must decide what to do with all the souls Thaos abducted: return them to their original bodies, let them reincarnate in new bodies, or feed them to Woedica. Other choices the player made throughout the game will affect the epilogue.
The story takes place in the world of Eora, in a region placed in the southern hemisphere called the Eastern Reach, an area roughly the size of Spain. The Eastern Reach contains several nations, including the Free Palatinate of Dyrwood, a former colony of the mighty Aedyr Empire that won its independence through a revolutionary war; the Vailian Republics, a confederation of sovereign city-states; and the Penitential Regency of Readceras, a quasi-theocratic state ruled by priests of the god Eothas.
Technologically and socially, most of the civilizations in Eora are in what roughly corresponds to the early stages of the early modern period. Firearms are a relatively new invention and are cumbersome to use; as a result, their use is not widespread. They have, however, proven quite effective against magic users.
A factor of great conflict all over Eora is the recent scientific discovery that souls are real and can be transferred, stored, or molded. Souls are the basis of magic, as accessing their power is what allows certain people to use it. Souls leave the body upon death, and go through a largely unknown process before reincarnating into a newborn body. Every soul does, however, have embedded memories from their previous lives, and through certain processes a person's soul can be "Awakened", meaning they gain awareness of these past lives. There are people in the world who have the supernatural ability to perceive people's souls, which allows them to access memories, among other things; these individuals are called "Watchers". Though the study of souls, called animancy, is a young field of science, the implications for society at large has been vast, led to rapid advances in technology, and caused several rifts and clashes in the different religious communities, which has marked the era as a time of great turmoil.
