A Look at Pillars of Eternity: Part 2

The adventures of Crariewan continues. After escaping from an ambush, a biawac and a secret ritual, Crariewan makes her way towards Gilded Vale. She is currently plagued by strange visions and images as she journeys towards the village.

Walking with her giant miniature space piglet, the path moves towards a small clearing in the forest.

Displayed above is a status effect, namely fatigue which has dire consequences in combat. So I will set up camp in the next screen shot.

See? In the initial release, I do not recall having these options appear whenever I set up camp which does provide some incentives for camping in the wild. While I am here I will point out a feature of Pillars I do not like, namely the limited number of camping gear. While it does prevent the exploits used in older CRPGs, it does limit the options available as the low number available discourages use of camping gear. It is not a game breaking issue but it is an annoyance whenever everyone in a party is severely injured and we are unable to rest since we already used up all the camping gear in a previous area.

And now the visions are leaking into Crariewan’s dreams. This cannot be good for her sanity.

Pictured here is the aftermath of a battle involving bandits who have kidnapped a chef for cooking lessons.

By rescuing the dwarf chef, Crariewan have earned some approval with the village he is affiliated with, namely Gilded Vale. Her current destination.

This here is Nonton, a hunter who claims to have lost his partner to a bear that lives across this river in a nearby cave. This calls for an investigation!

After Crariewan gets to Gilded Vale, of course. Now that she’s nearing Gilded Vale, her ordeals may be drawing to a close.

Or not. That tree was not in any brochure about Gilded Vale nor were the limp ornaments. 

From this person, Crariewan learns of Waidwen’s Legacy and the Hollowborn affliction. According to this person, Waidwen’s Legacy is the aforementioned affliction that has resulted in most new-born babies being born without a soul, leaving them as empty husks incapable of prolonged life. The Legacy is said to be the direct result of killing Waidwen, the supposed and self-proclaimed mortal avatar of Eothas (Crariewan’s patron god), who attempted to conquer the Dyrwood some time ago.

Here, Crariewan attempts to explain her situation. It ends with no one giving proper advice to her.

Three tolls of the bell. Lord Raedric, the lord of Gilded Vale and the person responsible for the tree’s ornaments, had another Hollowborn child in his family. I’m sure his family will be fine…

This person has a picture in his conversation window. I doubt he’ll be important…

Another person with a picture but this time, he’s in a pickle. Seems that the elf has angered the locals with some harsh insults and now they want him to pay with his life. I guess I’ll have Crariewan attempt to diffuse the situation.

Or not…

After being honest with the elf, he offers to join Crariewan. Since Aloth here is a wizard and I do need magic, I’ll have Crariewan give him a warm welcome.

Remember that chef Crariewan helped? He works in the Black Hound Inn and now Crariewan is receiving the rewards of helping him.

Now this conversation chain will lead to an interesting mechanic of the game that I do like.

From this screen, I can hire an adventurer to my party. Hiring said adventurer will open the character creator screen again, allowing me to make any person I want to make. Since Crariewan is low on money, I will not be showing that process today.

Here’s that chef right now and my reward is a new crafting recipe to cook up. Literally; it’s a recipe for pie.

Whenever the player clicks on certain containers in certain places, the mouse pointer will indicate that the player will be stealing these items from the owners. Taking these items will lead to a hostile reaction unless the player characters are in scouting mode. The menu above also indicates that the player will be stealing the goods.

Throughout the world, there are books that flesh out the world of Pillars of Eternity. Reading some of these books can shed some light on the lore and history of Eora.

This is another feature of Pillars I do not particularly like. As part of the Kickstarter rewards, Obsidian allows backers of a certain tier to insert NPCs based on themselves with stories made by said backers. While some are interesting to read, this all amounts to flavour text as none of these have any effect on any quests leading to me ignoring them entirely.

Here is the namesake of the inn, the eponymous Black Hound. Some history: The Black Hound is named after the cancelled Baldur's Gate 3: The Black Hound, which never came into fruition and would have been a separate story from the Bhaalspawn Trilogy. 

I want a new pet now so I will have Crariewan coax the hound into following her. 

Success! Crariewan now has a new pet with terrestrial origins.

Now this is a decent feature. Inns have different types of rooms that confer different benefits. While the player never gets to see the different rooms in-game, the benefits of these rooms can be useful during game-play as the buffed stats and skills can open up more options in the right situations.

Another odd dream. I guess the tree had an impact on Crariewan.

What in Eora is a Watcher? Crariewan has been called many things by angry villagers but Watcher is new.

Since I forgot to level up Aloth earlier, I will do so now. Since he is a wizard, I get to choose new spells for him as well.

Here’s a corpse with a soul attached. In-game, souls highlighted like in the screenshot can be interacted with, leading to revelations, insight, clues or solutions. 

Now for the conversation. Seems that this 'ornament' was an animancer. Animancers are researchers that research the mechanics and essence of the soul in Eora. Since souls are a proven fact in Eora, research into souls would definitely exist. Animancy however happens to be a controversial field of study and has faced heavy opposition as a result. This particular animancer however has insight on Crariewan’s condition.

Seems Crariewan is a Watcher. Due to a significant event, Crariewan’s past life had Awoken. An Awakening is a phenomena that occurs as a result of a past life of a person becoming aware and awakening in said person. The effects of this tend to be problematic. In this case, due to the profound effect of the event resulting in the Awakening of the past life, it has resulted in Crariewan obtaining the abilities of a Watcher. Watchers are able to perceive souls and affect them passively or actively, depending on the circumstances. [I am not entirely sure how to explain what a Watcher is, to be honest. This is what I could gather]

After finishing a conversation with Aloth, the other person with a display picture engaged Crariewan in conversation. During said conversation, Eder (the other person) mentions the existence of Old Maerwald, an old Watcher residing in a nearby fortress. He could have insight on Crariewan’s condition and offers to accompany Crariewan since he too wishes to call upon Maerwald’s services.

Since Crariewan is a priestess of Eothas, despite being a nihilistic atheist, I have an additional option in this conversation.

Looks like the offer to new settlers is off the table. No complaints from Crariewan though. She’d probably start a fight with the new neighbours after a week with her background in mind.

Remember Calisca? In a previous conversation with her, she mentioned her intent to find her sister in Gilded Vale to help her out with her problem. To honour the memory of a deceased companion, Crariewan seeks out Calisca’s sister, Aufra.

Crariewan becomes the bearer of bad news here for this encounter.

Callisca’s sister has another problem. She is pregnant and fears that the baby will be Hollowborn. Thus, Aufra seeks the aid of a wise-woman who lives on the nearby coast for any medicine or remedy to fix this. Since Crariewan is a priestess of Eothas (and as a favour to a deceased friend), Crariewan offers her aid in this matter.

With a new quest in mind and the beginning of a party, Crariewan begins her journey! …To investigate the bear cave in part 3.