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A list of the gods of the Eoran pantheon from Pillars of Eternity and Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire. For the main index, see here.

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Gods of the Eoran Pantheon

    The Eoran Pantheon 

The Eoran Pantheon

In General

The same eleven gods are worshipped all over Eora, sometimes under different names, but transcending national borders and crossing cultural lines.


  • Archetypal Character: The gods are representative of eleven ancient Engwithan ideals.
  • Cryptic Conversation: When they communicate with their followers at all, they tend to be infuriatingly vague, telling them what to do but not why or how. In the Watcher's case, they're a lot more direct, especially after you've seen them for what they really are.
  • Deity of Human Origin: For a given measure; none of them were ever kith to begin with, but all of them are artificial creations of the Engwithan people empowered by a powerful animantic ritual that sundered their creators for the souls to fuel the process. This secret drives the plot of the first game, as Thaos is serving Woedica as she can help him maintain The Masquerade.
  • Divine Conflict: The gods frequently bicker amongst themselves and have historically come to outright blows over their disagreements, sometimes to the point of creating temporarily alliances with each other (some unlikelier than others) to get an edge in whatever feud they are involved in. Such events usually trigger some large scale cataclysm or catastrophe.
  • Divine Parentage: The gods and their children. The godlike. The reason this is a closely guarded secret is because the godlike are effectively a repository of hidden power the gods can "call back" into themselves at a time of their choosing, reabsorbing their power.
  • From a Certain Point of View: An argument that they hit the Watcher with after the discovery of their origins; yes, they might be artificial gods constructed by the ancient kith of Engwith, but given that they are still immensely powerful beings that have Reality Warper abilities within their spheres of influence who trade in souls the way kith trade in coppers, it does make a certain degree of sense to worship them as though they weren't created by kith. An artificial god is still a god, after all, and the origins of their divinity is an academic question at best when they can destroy your soul with but a thought.
  • God Guise: This is why they have many names. The Engwithan Pantheon simply appropriated the names and positions of the deities cultures like the Huana already worshipped.
  • God in Human Form: Any god can have an avatar, a physical embodiment of itself, such as Waidwen, (who claimed to be) the avatar of Eothas.
  • God's Hands Are Tied: They have an agreement not to directly influence the mortal world with their powers since it would quickly be thrown into chaos, and thus are required to enforce their will through their followers and other mortal agents.
  • Gods Need Prayer Badly: Downplayed. The gods' powers don't immediately lose power if their followers start to doubt them or change their faith, but the souls of a given god's worshipers are earmarked for that god, and the god's powers are in some way dependent on the number of souls at their command, or rather the amount of soul energy they can bring to bear, as not all souls are equally potent.
  • I Have Many Names: As noted below, some of the gods have many names. In some cases, this is because they appropriated the names and positions of deities worshipped by other cultures.
  • Jerkass Gods: They consider the ideals they represent more important than individual human lives. A particularly noteworthy example comes in The White March Part II, when it turns out that Ondra destroyed the Engwithans by dropping what used to be Eora's smaller third moon on top of them, despite Abydon's attempts to stop her. He only managed to save the White Forge and got his avatar killed in the process. Subverted and then played straight when it's revealed that the Engwithans created them with this in mind, including sacrificing nearly every Engwithan man, woman, and child in an animantic ritual which used their souls to empower the gods they created..
  • Our Gods Are Different: A pantheon of gods with complex allegiances and feuds, each one representing a set of natural phenomena and ideals. They can grant their followers priestly powers and cause children of any race to be born as godlikes. They're also artificial, being massively powerful, self-aware magical constructs created by the Engwithians to give kith a solid answer to the questions of existence.
  • Physical God: At the height of their power they were able to walk on Eora in Nigh-Invulnerable bodies. They are no longer able to do this in the present day though they are still powerful.
  • Reality Warper: Despite being created by mankind, they have enough power to affect reality. There are multiple times where Hylea, for instance, watches you through the eyes of anything related to birds, whether that be Maia's companion Ishiza or even a wax stamp whose seal represents her eye (with said wax stamp actually winking at you when you notice).
  • These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: The gods, particularly Berath and Woedica, have a bit of an issue with kith "rising above their station", and have taken great pains to enforce a form of Medieval Stasis on them by restricting their understanding of things like technology and animancy to the point that it is effectively unknown; they dropped Eora's lost third moon onto Abydon because he tried to preserve the White Forge as a way to empower kith, and in Deadfire’s Forgotten Sanctum DLC you find a piece of technology that is completely foreign to the Watcher and their party but, to the player, perfectly resembles a printing press. And of course, there is the big secret that they all have pulled out all the stops to prevent from getting out; that they are artificial animantic constructs of the ancient Engwithans, and that there is no real higher power guiding the destinies of kith and Eora at large. Suffice to say, if any of the things that the pantheon know got out to their worshippers and the world at large, Eora would be thrown into utter chaos at best.
  • Touched by Vorlons: Gods are known to create "godlikes", a type of kith who are born with the attributes of a certain god. Depending on the type, they may be considered good luck or a blessing of the gods, or they may drive some parents to infanticide out of terror, while the gods themselves are strangely silent on the subject of the purpose of the godlike, or what causes them to appear. The godlike may be born to any couple, and while they do occasionally run in family lines, all godlike are sterile. The gods do, in fact, regard godlike as their children, but also as a potential source of power which they can draw upon in emergencies. Doing so kills the godlike in question as their souls are drawn back into the god who spawned them.
  • Uncertain Doom: No matter how the Watcher influences his decision making, Eothas still shatters the physical adra construct that powers the Wheel in Deadfire, ending Eora's cycle of reincarnation and robbing the gods of their ability to empower themselves with the souls of their dead worshippers. It is yet unknown how any of the gods are going to survive as they are slowly bled of their soul energy that the Wheel granted to them, though the ending where you manage to dissuade Eothas of the notion that kith are worth the effort to save has the gods explicitly die out along with the rest of the world, with Rymrgand getting the last laugh before he, too, perishes.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: All of them, sooner or later. As Iovara says in the first game, "Engwith built its gods from ideals — and an ideal on its own is a grotesque and vicious thing."

    Abydon 

Abydon

"All things can be reforged."

Abydon, the Golem, is the god of crafting and the forge, and the patron of the Knights of the Crucible.


  • And Man Grew Proud: Had a significant role in the downfall of ancient Engwith by virtue of being the only god to actively oppose their final destruction. The meteors that rained down on the Eastern Reach were meant to prevent anyone from rediscovering the Magitek that Abydon himself helped the ancient Engwithans build and invent — Abydon created giant animantic golems, the Eyeless, to help construct much of the ancient world. In fact, in The White March we learn that the Abydon's death was brought about when his earthly avatar took the bullet for the White Forge, his greatest gift to mortals, which the other gods considered to elevate mortals above their station.
  • The Blacksmith: Part of the reason he and Magran are seen as allies, as she helped to reforge him in his golem form. It's also why he's the patron god of the Crucible Knights, who were blacksmiths before the Dyrwood's revolution.
  • Brought Down to Normal: In a sense. It's generally acknowledged that he's not as forceful or independent in his current form as he was before his death. And how. He was so dedicated to his previous role that he manifested a colossal avatar on Eora to defend the White Forge, and it took being struck by fragments of the Eora's long-lost third moon to finally bring him down.
  • The Fettered: Interestingly, both before and after his death. Slightly more literal after his reinvention as the Golem, as he is said to largely act as a subordinate to the other gods, Magran in particular, since as the goddess of fire and creation she helped rebuild him. However, before his death, he was willing to fight the will of the rest of the gods combined to carry out his mandate of preserving knowledge, even if, as Ondra believed, he actually agreed with them about the necessity of what they were doing — he still couldn't bring himself to go along with it.
  • For Science!: As the god of industry. Even more so before his original death, when he was willing to stand against his fellow gods to protect all that he and the kith had built and learned. In The White March Part 2, Ondra acknowledges that he was also originally the god of preservation but when he was brought back to life, they left this part out owing to all the aforementioned problems it caused.
  • Golem: One of his divine epithets is the Golem. After being killed once in ancient legend, he rebuilt himself in this form, with the help of Magran. Fitting, as the god of craftsmen. While the Crucible Knights of Defiance Bay may have forgotten their debt to him and their heritage as smiths, they are nonetheless crafting mechanical forge knights, which has to be free publicity for the god of constructs on some level — they do still use his divine symbol as their seal. There's also his ancient, forgotten creations the Eyeless. See the spoiler character under the White March section on the NPCs page for further details.
  • Guide Dang It!: The Golden Ending for both Abydon and Stalwart is incredibly difficult to get, since the Eyeless take into account everything the Watcher has done and uses the player's actions to judge whether or not progress and forgetting your past are good ideas. If you can't convince the Eyeless to temper their memories to give Abydon more context for his sacrifice, then their return marks Abydon's renewed devotion to preservation and leads to conflict with Readceras and instability in the region for generations. If you destroy the Eyeless instead, Ondra will become convinced about the righteousness of her actions and use floods and earthquakes to ravage coastal towns and keep the gods' secrets buried.
  • Heel Realization: If you got the Golden Ending for Stalwart, Abydon's final appearance in Deadfire has him reflect on the many ways in which the gods have failed the kith by being just as flawed.
  • Physical God: Not now, but he took physical form on Eora once, and just like with Eothas it led to his death (and while Abydon did come back, he was diminished in more than just being a golem now). And while it was just implication and theory in Eothas' case until Deadfire came out, Abydon was revealed in ''The White March, Part II" to have intervened specifically to stop the kith-unfriendly plans of another god — all the other gods, in fact.
  • Shout-Out:
    • His name alludes to Abaddon, angel of death, though they don't seem to have much more in common than that.
    • His central myth combines something of the Greek smith god Hephaestus with his creation Talos, the giant bronze automaton who protected Crete until his death at the hands of the Argonauts.
  • Starcrossed Lovers: Before his death. With Ondra, oddly enough.
  • Soul Jar: He imbued each of the Eyeless, his army of construct helpers, with a piece of his soul. If the Eyeless are reunited with Abydon, they give him back his memories of how and why he died.
  • Taking the Bullet: The cause of his original death, when he went against the gods' plan to destroy Engwithan civilization by dropping a moon on it. Abydon managed to shatter a lot of it, sending the pieces into the ocean, but the biggest fragment remained on course, forcing Abydon to use his own body to shield them.
  • Ultimate Blacksmith: He's the god of crafting and the patron of the Knights of the Crucible, who were founded by the blacksmiths who supplied the Defiance with its weapons during the war to win their independence from Aedyr. He was able to create both the Eyeless, an army of constructs to act as his helpers, and a special hammer capable of shattering a moon.
  • Weird Beard: Has a metallic one, held together by rivets. It matches the beard he had before his original death, where he resembled the stereotypical Grandpa God figure, somewhere between Zeus and Hephaestus. If he's reforged by the Eyeless, he has his old beard again, albeit distorted by the metal plates still jutting from his flesh.

    Berath 

Berath

"There is life in death, and death in life."
Voiced by: Nancy Crane (The Pallid Knight)

Berath is the god of cycles, doors and death. They take many forms, but the most common are The Usher and the Pallid Knight.


  • Actually Pretty Funny: The Pallid Knight has trouble keeping a straight face at some of the Watcher's clever (and not-so-clever) remarks. She seems to appreciate audacity, just as long as it's not directed at her. Given that the Pallid Knight and the Usher are two sides of the same coin, perhaps this isn't surprising.
  • Ascended Extra: While Berath did have a role in the first game, the Pallid Knight persuades, cajoles, or coerces the Watcher into becoming the Herald of Berath in Deadfire.
  • Black Eyes of Evil: The Pallid Knight, while not necessarily evil, is dangerous, and capitalizes on this trope as part of her mystique and intimidation factor. When she's angry, her eyes darken into skeletal eye sockets, or Bottomless Pits into which the onlooker falls.
  • But Thou Must!: At the very beginning of II, the Pallid Knight offers you two choices: serve her as her Herald, or be reincarnated as a cat.
  • Cheshire Cat Grin: The Usher has a wrinkled pumpkin head and an unnaturally wide grin.
  • The Chessmaster: There's shades of this in Deadfire that she's more aware of Eothas' plans than she lets on. She specifically tasks the Warden with finding what Eothas is up to - not specifically to stop him. When the gods meet to discuss what to do, Berath always advocates waiting rather acting immediately. She's also strangely absent at the end, making no effort to stop him.
  • Cruelty Is the Only Option: During Berath's quest during the first game, you must kill or otherwise persuade High Ovate Erona to end her life. You aren't really given any explanation as to why this needs to happen, other than her having lived an unnaturally long time — but Berath seems to have no problem empowered undead servants to do their bidding when it suits them.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Not evil, but ruthlessly impartial. The Wheel must turn, after all.
  • Domain Holder: The Watcher begins the second game with their soul in the In-Between before being summoned into Berath's realm, being drawn back there (mentally, at least) several times over the course of the main plot. Berath's realm appears to the Watcher as a hazy darkness, which, at least to begin with, is made up of rooms and floating, impossible bridges which appear to be assembled from the rubble of Caed Nua.
  • Don't Fear the Reaper: Despite being a god of death, Berath is seen as a benign force, simply concerned with keeping the cycle of reincarnation going. The Usher embodies this trait, being a silent, but quite friendly-looking elderly dwarf.
  • Duality Motif: Is also the god of this. Which is generally accepted as explaining Berath's various contradictory or opposing manifestations — death takes many forms.
  • Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: The Pallid Knight appears this way, to inhuman levels.
  • Expressive Hair: The Pallid Knight's black hair hovers and drifts as if underwater.
  • God Is Good: Dark Is Not Evil. Berath turns out to be one of the most compassionate and reasonable of her squabbling kin, counseling patience as the Watcher gathers information on Eothas' actions, and eventually coming to accept that the breaking of her Wheel — which, she says, is as much kith's Wheel as hers — may truly be the best thing for all of Eora. If you convince Eothas to empower one of the other gods to become Top God to keep the rest in line, he will pick Berath for this reason.
  • I Have Many Names: The Many Faces of Berath have many names to match. Like all the gods, Berath is known by many different names across different cultures: The Twinned God. The Pallid Knight and the Usher, in Aedyr and her colonies. Cirono, god of portals, in Vailia and the Republics. Kohopa and Tangaloa, twin eels of life and death, are worshipped as Rikuhu by the Huana people of the Deadfire Archipelago. The Glanfathans know Berath as Bewnen i Ankew, and Ankew i Bewnen — Life in Death, and Death in Life.
  • Gender Bender: While the Usher is assumed to be male while appearing as a skeletal figure, one of the Usher's other appearances is of a venerable male dwarf and the Pallid Knight is female. Both are considered to be aspects of Berath.
  • God of the Dead: Berath is the god of cycles, doors, and life and death, and their priests teach rationality and respect for the dignity of death.
  • Little People Are Surreal: The Usher runs on this trope. The whole introduction sequence in the second game gives him a sort of Man from Another Place vibe.
  • Minor Major Character: In the first game, despite being the god of the cycle of reincarnation itself which is being perverted by the Hollowborn Crisis, Berath takes a relatively light hand in the proceeedings. In the second game, however, Berath takes a major role as the Watcher's patron, restoring them to life and setting them the task of unveiling Eothas' true motives. Yet when you finally reach Ukaizo, the Pallid Knight is nowhere to be seen, drawing back once again even as Eothas smashes the Great Wheel to pieces. Perhaps to Berath, even the Wheel itself must pass on and be replaced by something new.
  • Not So Stoic: The Pallid Knight is stoic, stern, and takes no bullshit. That said, a few of the clever responses get the barest hint of a smile out of her. Like exclaiming you've practically come to look forward to your meetings the second time she pulls you in for a chat between the gods.
  • An Offer You Can't Refuse: Deadfire begins with Berath, as the Pallid Knight, offering to restore your soul to your body if you agree to seek out the reborn Eothas and determine his purpose on Eora. If you disagree, she'll hand you over to the Usher, who sees to your immediate reincarnation... as a cat.
  • Old Retainer: The Usher looks and acts the part while in the same room as the Pallid Knight, but given that he and she are the same entity, this would seem to be some manner of affectation on their part.
  • Ouroboros: The Huana of the Deadfire Archipelago worship them as Rikuhu, the joint name of the twin eels Kohopa and Tangaloa — who devoured all of creation at the beginning of time, then turned on one another. All that exists is continuously passing through their bowels as they eternally devour themselves.
  • Psychopomp: The Pallid Knight meets travelers on roadsides, and if they fail the challenges she sets them, she kills them. The Usher pulls hideous pranks which result in many deaths, then ushers them on to the Beyond with a grin. Despite the apparent cruelty of these actions, Berath is seen as a fair, impartial god, performing a task which must be done.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: The Pallid Knight talks. Like. This. While communicating to her Herald from the Beyond via the black chime.
    The Pallid Knight: Show. Them. What. You. Are.
  • Revenge Before Reason: Even though she is one of the most level headed and reasonable gods, she won't let broken promises slide. If you obtained Berath's assistance in the first game but chose not to return all of the lost souls to the wheel, Berath will curse the Watcher, making all of their stats permanently 1 until they return 75 other souls to the wheel, meaning they have to personally finish off 75 enemies to regain their stats back. And she will do this to the Watcher even though she knows the fate of kith and the gods hang in the balance.
  • Skull for a Head: The Pallid Knight's unnatural paleness and slender neck give her something of this appearance. Earn her wrath and it briefly becomes more than mere resemblance, as her skull seems to press right through her nearly translucent skin and her eyes darken to black pits.
  • Stock Gods: God of death, doors, and cycles. Eora's Great Wheel of reincarnation is said to be hers. Interestingly, Berath shares the portfolio of death with both Rymrgand, god of cold, entropy, and endings, and Eothas, in the guise of Gaun, god of harvests and rebirth.
  • Top God: At the end of Deadfire you can convince Eothas to empower one of the gods so that they can keep the rest of the pantheon in check. Eothas picks Berath. Berath uses her new power to keep the other gods in line while ensuring that the world slowly but steadily progresses onwards.
  • Trickster God: The Usher and his lethal pranks.
  • 24-Hour Armor: The Pallid Knight wears a suit of night-black plate armor which looks slightly too large for her slender frame, though she has no trouble carrying its weight.
  • Violence is the Only Option: To gain Berath's favor in the first game, both High Ovate Erona and Archdruid Rehstin of the Ethik Nol must die. The quest cannot be completed any other way.
    • Erona can be persuaded to simply will her extremely long life to end if you can pass the attribute checks— even though she actually seems rather nice.
    • Rehstin practices ritual sacrifice, but on the other hand when we first meet him the game makes a point of showing that the man being killed is a willing volunteer. There's also no way of persuading Rehstin to go quietly. To finish the quest, you have to attack him in front of a crowd of his followers, and doing so will turn all but one NPC in Blood Sands hostile toward you for good.
  • The Voiceless: The Usher never says anything, only smiling cryptically in all of his appearances. It's not clear whether he can speak or not, which is probably the intended effect.

    Eothas 

Eothas

"You do not need to follow me, for their sake or your own. Something beautiful is coming, something that will save us all."
Voiced by: Taliesin Jaffe

Eothas is the god of light, renewal and redemption, often depicted as a young man in a silver crown holding a candle. Fifteen years ago, a farmer named Waidwen claimed to have been chosen as an avatar for Eothas; Waidwen is the eponymous Saint of the Saint's War, in which he rallied an army in Readceras and marched on the Dyrwood, where he was taken for a conqueror. Because Eothas has been silent ever since Waidwen died, most take it as a sign that Waidwen was in fact telling the truth about being the god, and that he died along with Waidwen.

Except, come the sequel set five years after the Hollowborn Crisis, he has come back to life, possessing the giant adra statue beneath Caed Nua. In the process he destroyed Caed Nua and nearly killed the Watcher, who now must follow him to learn what he has planned next.


  • All-Loving Hero: When Waidwen first came to prominence in Readceras, it was by feeding the starving poor, rousing them against the corrupt incumbent government. Edér quips that if anyone would forgive you for blowing him up, it'd be Eothas. And despite the damage he causes in Deadfire, he still does it all for the sake of mankind, which is more than most of the gods can say.
  • Anti-Villain: After possessing the Adra statue, he goes on a trek that causes untold destruction, stealing the souls of any kith he passes by, and just causing general chaos. However, his goals are sympathetic: specifically, to destroy the hold that the gods hold on mankind by destroying the Wheel, cutting off the supply of souls that power the gods. And even though his methods cause much destruction, he honestly believes that what he does is the path of least suffering for all, as he is trying to move fast enough that the other gods cannot mount a counterattack; and they have less concern for mortal lives than he does. Indeed, Woedica initially suggests trying to drop the moon on him. And beyond all that, he is still very benevolent in personality. When you first get the chance to speak to him, the narration notes that you feel an overwhelming sense of affection and sadness radiating from him, much more than you've ever felt from any other being. And finally, when it comes down to it he is still willing to listen to you and discuss options with you at the end of the game, and is willing to consider alternatives to his plan if you are convincing enough.
  • The Atoner: He's already contemplating how to atone for the destruction he's caused in Deadfire, but he still believes he must see his great work through to its end. In its way, everything he does is meant to atone for all the harm the gods have done to kith over the past two thousand years, as well as for his own inaction in the past, standing by and allowing it to happen for all that time.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: In the sequel he possesses the several-hundred-foot adra statue beneath Caed Nua.
  • Back from the Dead: Fitting enough for the god of renewal, he turns out to be capable of resurrecting himself. Said resurrection — and the circumstances surrounding it — are what kicks off Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire.
  • Beware the Honest Ones: The other gods conspired to blow him up for his determination to spread the truth the first time. They hit him with a volcano and launch tidal waves at him for it in the second game, and he shrugs them both off. All the gods are true to the ideals they represent in their various ways, but all the others represent abstract ideals above and beyond the life of any individual mortal. Only Eothas cherishes the lives of kith in and of themselves, which means he can't be relied upon to act in the mutual self-interest of the pantheon, which makes him all kinds of troublesome.
  • Big Bad: Despite all the other tropes listed, he's the de facto villain of Deadfire. In his resurrection, he destroys Caed Nua and eats most of the Watcher's soul, binding their fates together, and begins a march across the face of Eora, leaving a path of destruction which leads straight into the heart of the Deadfire Archipelago.
  • Break Them by Talking: Not "break", exactly. Eothas has a way of making everything he does sound entirely reasonable, and he has gentle, insistent arguments to counter all of your allies' objections during your major face-to-face confrontations with him, as well as most of your own. However, you can break him by talking. While it is impossible to prevent the destruction of the Wheel, you can make him so depressed that he accidentally infects Eora with something horrible that soon destroys all life.
  • Broken Masquerade: His ultimate goal in Deadfire, amongst other things.
  • Brought Down to Normal: As Waidwen, even he couldn't survive the Godhammer bomb... So for his next trick, he possessed a skyscraper-sized adra statue instead of a mortal body.
  • Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To Thaos. Instead of a once-mortal man trying to bring order and structure to a world which disgusts and disappoints him at every turn by empowering gods which he knows to be artificial, Eothas loves kith and believes absolutely in their potential, and is taking what he believes is the path of least resistance to free them from those same gods, including himself. Thaos was willing to go to any lengths, to commit atrocities in order to stave off hypothetical future harm; Eothas leaves a trail of destruction in his wake, but genuinely believes this is the least amount of damage possible. Given what his fellow gods are willing to throw at him to try and stop him, he might be right — if they don't have time to muster an offense, he can reach a place where they won't be willing to attack him for fear of collateral damage — not to mortals, who they have no problem sacrificing, but to the source of their power. They even have similar-sounding names.
  • Crystal Dragon Jesus: The most direct Christianity analog of the setting's gods, right down to his second (and third) coming. Especially the case with his Readceran followers, who resemble medieval crusaders in the first game (as the Iron Flail, the army which comes to the White March with plans of occupying Stalwart and the White Forge), and Christian revivalists in the second (as the Children of the Dawnstars, a missionary relief organization who, at least in the Deadfire, started out as refugees themselves). Also, similar to the biblical accounts on how Jesus did a Heroic Sacrifice for humanity knowing that he would be crucified, Deadfire reveals that Waidwen/Eothas knew that the Godhammer would kill him, but went through it to show kith that the gods are mortal.
  • Defector from Decadence: By choosing Waidwen as his avatar, he put himself directly in harm's way in an attempt to foil Woedica's plans, while the other gods chose not to intervene. His endgame in Deadfire is this as well, seeking to break the Wheel and end the cycle of reincarnation that gives the gods their power.
  • Despair Event Horizon: In Deadfire, all that Eothas does is driven by his absolute belief that kith are strong enough to make their own path. If The Watcher manages to convince him that they are not worth it, he despairs, and in so doing, passes this doubt into the very adra itself. This not only breaks the cycle, but prevents new life from arising from the soul energy still left in Eora, with the planet withering until nothing is left but a dead husk. Note that even in his darkest moment, this still isn't anything Eothas would have wanted — rather, it's the result of Rymrgand and you planting a seed of doubt when Eothas is at his most vulnerable, on the verge of committing the great harm that he believes kith will come together to undo. But if even the greatest of them doesn't believe that...
  • Dissonant Serenity: In Deadfire. For a giant green statue carving a path of destruction and death across Eora and battering apart Engwithan machinery with his fists, Eothas has a remarkably calm, soothing speaking voice. He never gets angry and seemingly bears no ill will to anyone, not the people whose souls he drains into the colossus, not even the people (and gods) who killed him.
  • Don't Fear the Reaper: Quite literally — as Gaun, god of harvests, Eothas appears as a wild-eyed man in a hooded robe wielding a scythe, and is the god of those who who accept their deaths. Despite his sinister appearance, however, he's still a god of kindness and forgiveness, even as Gaun. Death can grant a form of peace, after all, and there can be no new growth without the passing away of the old.
  • Explosive Overclocking: In The Very Definitely Final Dungeon of the second game in Ukaizo, to ensure that the Wheel is permanently destroyed, he draws as much power into his adra body and delivers a blow that shatters the statue's right arm.
  • God in Human Form: What Waidwen claimed to be, and what the Readcerans believed he was. As it turns out, they were right all along.
  • God Is Dead:
    • Or more accurately, this particular god is, physically, dead. Waidwen's, and by extension Eothas', death by the Godhammer is what ended the Saint's War. To say that the death of a god has shaken people is putting it lightly.
    • Subverted by the sequel. It is revealed that Eothas's godly essence survived being struck by the Godhammer. His return is what kicks off the plot. His second (and presumably permanent) death is what brings the game to a close.
  • Good Versus Good: In keeping with one of the major themes of Deadfire, Eothas genuinely seems to believe what he's doing is right. He makes a much better case for himself than Thaos.
  • Grim Reaper: As Gaun, god of harvests and death, he appears as a cloaked, hooded figure wielding a scythe.
  • Hero Antagonist: Light Is Good... isn't it? He kills an awful lot of people in the name of what he believes is right... Then again, so do you.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: As a god of forgiveness and rebirth, and a shepherd of those who truly accept their deaths, he's something of a god of this as well. It's all a question of whether the Saint's War and the death toll of the adra colossus' march were worth it.
  • I Have Many Names: The Shining God. The Child of Light. Gaun, god of harvests and death. Saint Waidwen, briefly — that's Divine King Waidwen if you're Readceran — and then, after Waidwen's destruction during the Saint's War, the Scattered God, or the Shattered God. After his return as the adra colossus, the rumor mill came up with any number of variations on the Titan, the Giant, the Big Blue Guy, the Green Menace, and so on.
  • Invincible Villain: While possessing the adra colossus, there is virtually nothing that can stop Eothas. Even the attempts of Ondra and Magran to destroy the titan do little more than slow him down. And if you even try to fight him, he simply absorbs your soul, and that is that. In the end, all you can do is convince him to change his mind or make him so doubtful that he accidentally kills the world. Eventually, one alternative option was added: in The Forgotten Sanctum, convince Wael to take back his body and stop Eothas. Wael's physical form is quite enough to take down Eothas, but not in time to save the Wheel.
  • The Juggernaut: After possessing the adra colossus under Caed Nua. He's crossing the face of Eora, stopping only to recharge by sucking souls from adra pillars, crushing cities and whipping up biawacs in his wake, and there's seemingly nothing god or kith can do to stop him. He shrugs off an erupting volcano and sky-high tidal waves without effort, and the impassable, neverending storms of Ondra's Mortar don't even slow him down.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: All over the place in Deadfire. Yes, he was Waidwen, and yes, he did lead the Readcerans into the Dyrwood to expose Woedica's shrine in Sun-in-Shadow and stop the Leaden Key plot before it began. There's also the matter of the giant statue of Od Nua's son Maros in the Endless Paths which Eothas hijacks at the start of the game.
  • Light Is Good: Waiden's head was notably bathed in light. Eothas's portfolio boils down to light, life, and forgiveness. On the other hand...
  • Light Is Not Good:
    • After the Saint's War, Dyrwoodans certainly hold this view of him. Though it's left rather ambiguous if Waidwen's invasion of Dyrwood was actually Eothas' will or not. Some lore (and Durance, begrudgingly) suggests that Eothas actually rebelled to stop Woedica's ploy directly.
    • His resurrection in Deadfire does leave a trail of dead, dying, and cursed. Then we discover his reasons, and it turns out this trope is extremely downplayed.
  • Meaningful/Punny Name: "Gaun," his aspect as a farmer and reaper, is also the name of a real-world farm supply company.
  • Messianic Archetype: Being the earthly embodiment of a god particularly known for his forgiveness who walked among the poor and fed the starving? Yeah, probably not a coincidence. In the ending of Deadfire, he may even sacrifice himself to save the souls of those still living in Eora.
  • Necessary Evil: All the deaths he causes are meant to stave off greater harm. Edér points out that this makes him sound like Thaos and Woedica. The other gods are willing to foment war, re-absorb the souls of every godlike in Eora, and cause natural disasters up to and including dropping another moon on the planet. Eothas might actually be right. And unlike Thaos, Eothas' plan did have a definite endpoint in mind when he started out.
  • No Place for Me There: For all the invulnerability of the adra colossus, even he doesn't expect to survive his "great work". Aside from the destruction of his avatar, he believes the penance for the deaths he caused along the way would be for his name and all his works to be forgotten by the generations that follow: "a penance, paid in full, noted by none." Edér argues about how unsatisfactory this is to everyone he's hurting now, but Eothas truly believes this will be for the benefit of the generations still to come.
  • Nigh-Invulnerable: Erupting volcanoes, mile-high tsunamis, nothing hurts Eothas' adra colossus body. Until he deliberately throws all his power into his final work at Ukaizo, knowing he will no longer need his body afterwards.
  • Patron Saint: Readceras worships Eothas on a state level — the Penitential Regency isn't standing in for just any heir to the throne, they're awaiting the Scattered God's return, so that he can resume Waidwen's reign as Divine King, which was... interrupted when the Dyrwood blew him up. Upon his return to the world, Eothas completely ignores them.
  • Physical God: After possessing Waidwen, which backfired on him. He tries on another, much larger body in the sequel.
  • Posthumous Character: During the first game. See the example under God Is Dead.
  • The Scapegoat: The Hollowborn Crisis is called Waidwen's Legacy, with some Dyrwoodans believing it's Eothas' revenge (or final justice, depending on who you ask) for the Dyrwood having killed a god. It's actually their "reward" for having killed Eothas, since the Hollowborn souls were earmarked for the Leaden Key's ritual to re-empower Woedica, with Eothas having been the only god who was trying to stop it before it began.
  • Smash Mook: For all its power and indestructibility, the adra colossus is too slow for anything but this.
  • Stock Gods: God of light and life, but also god of rebirth, and by extension, a god of harvest and death. Berath doesn't seem to object to this overlap, and indeed, Rymrgand seems practically gleeful knowing the destruction Eothas has reaped in his pursuit of new beginnings.
  • Stop Worshipping Me: His ultimate goal. He wants a more equal and honest partnership between kith and the gods because he thinks he and the rest of the pantheon failed the kith. He also believes that a suitable punishment for all the harm he has wrought while pursuing his goals will be to be forgotten by future generations of kith.
  • Sympathy for the Hero: A metaphorical gun to their head or not, Eothas still expresses admiration for the Watcher's dogged pursuit of him, observing it must take great courage and determination to keep up the hunt.
  • Talking the Monster to Death: In Deadfire. No Godhammer bombs this time. About the only hope you have of getting through to Eothas in the second game is by talking to him. Companion dialogue early in the game lampshades the idea that there might be nothing anyone can do to stop him. Come the end of the game, however, not every character is going to want to try, and true to every story told about him, he proves remarkably willing to stop and talk with the Watcher, to explain his reasons, and to mitigate the damage he does. In the endgame, even if he won't be talked out of destroying the Great Wheel, you can remind him of the souls which will be trapped in the In-Between — to which his response is to turn the great adra colossus into a Lotus-Eater Machine, drawing the souls of the dead inside it and giving it something Eora never had — an afterlife.
    • While it isn't possible to kill Eothas by talking, you can get him to accidentally commit total global genocide.
  • Thanatos Gambit: "Beast of Winter" reveals that he knew about the Godhammer, but marched to his death anyway because he wanted to show kith that the gods aren't invincible.
  • Token Good Teammate: As the god of light, renewal, and redemption, he is by far the most forgiving of the gods, if those seeking forgiveness are truly sincere. And he's the only god who tried to intervene directly when Woedica threatened to tip the balance. He is also the only selectable patron deity whose tenets celebrates priests acting honestly and benevolently (by choosing dialogue options marked with the Honest and Benevolent reputations). He is also the only god who truly cares about the kith themselves, unlike the other gods who care more about either specific ideals or just themselves. Though he is definitely a Destructive Savior, he does only what he thinks is strictly necessary to complete his plan to free Eora from the will of the gods, and considering who he's up against, drastic actions are probably necessary.
  • Totalitarian Utilitarian: He stomps his way to Berath's Wheel, sucking up as many souls as he can on the way there. Once he arrives, he may have doomed the planet to extinction "for the greater good".
  • Walking Spoiler: A walking green spoiler hundreds of feet high.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: In both earthly incarnations. As Waidwen, he started the same mission the Watcher eventually finished: to reveal the true nature of the gods, putting an end to the Leaden Key's plot and Woedica's machinations. After having possessed the statue of Maros Nua, his goal is to destroy the Wheel, freeing kith from the cycle of reincarnation, and removing the gods' source of power. Thousands of kith still died along the way in both cases, though the much bigger problem is that all complex life will die out in a few generations unless the Wheel is fixed or replaced.

    Galawain 

Galawain

"Survival begins with strength from within."
Voiced by: Unknown (I), Robert G Slade (II)

Galawain is the god of hunt and strength through struggle. The Changeling appears as a wild beast, or a fearsome hunter.


  • Admiring the Abomination: Beasts of all kind fall under his domain — the bigger, the better, as far as he's concerned. If you broke your pledge to him in the first game, in Deadfire he grants greater powers to the dragons you fight. He also asks that you not shut down the ancient Engwithan machines which are causing the flora and fauna of Sayuka to grow all out of normal proportion.
  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Or Authority Equals Asskicking — he has a fairly nuanced view of this. See The Chooser of the One, Genius Bruiser, Might Makes Right, and Soldier vs. Warrior.
  • Beard of Barbarism: At least when he's depicted in humanoid form.
  • Barbarian Hero: Closest thing the Engwithan pantheon has to one.
  • Blood Knight: There is nothing more thrilling to him than the thrill of pursuit, and the confrontation that follows.
  • The Chooser of the One: To earn his favor in the first game, you must force the issue between his two champions, leaving a clear victor between the two. Whichever "one" you choose, Galawain is pleased with your decision; in fact, he particularly approves if you murder both of them, provided you can justify it.
  • Crazy-Prepared: Part of being a master hunter is both being able to react in the moment as well as knowing your enemy and the terrain, and making use of all the resources available. Contrary to the temple's doctrine, all the souls of those who fight and die in the Crucible of Kazuwari are deliberate trapped on the island, funneled into its wildlife in an endless loop, never returning to the Great Wheel, so that were anything to ever happen to Ukaiz and the other gods, Galawain alone would have a means of sustaining himself.
  • Elemental Hair Colours: Galawain's kith form (an elf during his appearances in Deadfire) has a green beard and braided green hair.
  • Genius Bruiser:
    • He views the hunt for knowledge as just as worthy as a more conventional hunt. He simply demands that one put in the same effort. To him, victory is deserved regardless of whether it's achieved through raw strength, or through wits and cunning, as long as you invest yourself into the hunt and carve your own paths instead of passively waiting for opportunity to knock.
    • Incidentally, as a result of this he's not at all against the study of animancy and the possible threat of people realizing the gods are artificial.
  • Helping Would Be Killstealing: Joins Magran in supporting the right of kith to self-determination without godly interference, both in the original game and the second. He is one of the few gods to partially agree with Eothas, reasoning that the removal of the gods may be good for Kith development.
  • Hypocrite: Galawain is outraged if the player decides in Deadfire to shut down the machines filling the seas around Ondra's Mortar with monsters, even though said monsters are unnatural abominations who have done nothing to earn their power. The Watcher can actually point this out, but Galawain's response essentially boils down to arguing that the monsters are just too cool to kill, and then sending a kraken to murder the party.
  • I Have Many Names: The Changeling, and the Lord of the Hunt. The Seeker God. The Clever Hound. Father of Monsters. In the Deadfire, he's often conflated with Toamowhai, a tripartite deity known as the Faces of the Hunt.
  • It's the Journey That Counts: In Twin Elms, Galawain asks you to go to his temple and force a decision between his two would-be champions, reigning champ Sul and the upstart Oernos. Thing is? Sul is a stealthy but aging lioness and Oernos is a huge bear, and each of them is being backed by a segment of the Fangs, a whole faction of beastmasters. In the end, you can choose either of the two and Galawain will accept your reasoning— being very much a 'journey is its own reward' type of guy, and figuring that the winner is there because they deserve to be.
  • Manipulative Bastard: It's easy to forget, as he tends to present himself as a straightforward warrior and hunter, but Galawain has no qualms whatsoever with employing cunning and deceit — in any hunt, what matters is that you catch your prey and don't get caught yourself. The entire Crucible at Kazuwari is nothing but a glorified trap to hoard the souls of the losers to himself as well as the ambient soul energy of the living contestants. You can tell Galawain off, saying that all his talk of glory and honor and whatnot is just rhetoric to manipulate suckers into being his willing sacrifices. Of course, as The Social Darwinist that he is, he can use his Might Makes Right philosophy to justify the fate of his followers and his own continued supremacy in and of themselves.
  • Might Makes Right: The predator should rule the prey, but the predator also has to watch out that they don't become the prey in turn.
  • Moral Myopia: He backpedals on his philosophy of survival of the fittest very quickly when it looks like Woedica may become more powerful than him.
  • Mother of a Thousand Young: Gender-flipped. He's the Father of Monsters.
  • "Not So Different" Remark: If the Watcher calls him a bastard in Seeker, Slayer, Survivor, he will respond by pointing out that he and the rest of the pantheon were created in kith's image. Everything the Watcher hates about the gods? It's part of the nature of kith as well. If the gods are bastards, it is because kith are bastards.
  • Soldier vs. Warrior: The warrior to Magran's soldier — despite not being god of war himself, hunt and battle are all but one and the same for him. They have a shared belief in earning prowess and authority through struggle and conflict, and even both prize knowledge and ingenuity just as much as raw physical strength. They're commonly allies. Both even end up backing the same final choice (what to do with the recovered souls and what Eothas owes the world, respectively) in both games.
  • Villainous Breakdown: He freaks out big time if the Watcher destroys the means by which the Crucible collects souls for him.
    • Even if the Watcher restores the Crucible to normal, Galawain still unleashes his Porokoa to destroy the three Faces of the Hunt and reassert his authority.
  • Walking Armory: In his kith aspect, he wields a hatchet, along with a spear and hunting knife.
  • War God: Fits the conventional archetype more closely than Magran does, as he's primarily concerned with straight up battle through his domain over hunting.

    Hylea 

Hylea

"Live every note of life's song."
Voiced by: Mela Lee

Hylea is the goddess of birds, the sky, artistic pursuits, and motherhood.


  • And Your Reward Is Edible: If you made good on your pledge to her in the first game, in the second game, her reward to you is... a ring of birdseed. Three of them, in fact. They're actually extremely effective food items, but still.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Renege on your agreement with her to restore the lost souls of the Hollowborn children and Hylea will send flocks of angry birds to wreak her vengeance on the Dyrwood, descending en masse on those unfortunate enough to be out in the open and ripping them to shreds, wiping out whole villages in the process. Come Deadfire, she mainly gets back at you personally by having flocks of birds completely cover your ship in bird shit.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: Somehow, despite visiting her wrath of five years prior on the whole Dyrwood, in Deadfire her revenge on the Watcher is... having flocks of birds cover your whole ship in bird crap. Which you can then immediately remove, but is yours to keep as a custom hull and set of sails which are actually worse than the default items, reducing your ship's combat and travel speed. Apparently she just doesn't really have it in her to be all that villainous when the safety of children isn't at stake.
  • Calling the Old Man Out: She'll wait until you've finished your business with the goddess, but Pallegina will deliver an epic verbal takedown of the goddess in whose image she was formed, as Hylea's blessing has, among other things, alienated her from her biological family, causes her to be looked upon with suspicion wherever she goes, and prevents her from ever having children or a family of her own, something you'd think would be utterly against Hylea's portfolio.
  • Feather Motif: As one would expect, this shows up in her symbols and the Godlikes connected to her (such as Pallegina).
    • In Deadfire, If The Watcher peers at Maia's pet bird Ishiza's soul, they'll realize Hylea is currently in it, using Ishiza's eyes to study the Watcher.
  • I Have Many Names: The Sky-Mother, and Queen of Birds. The Huana also worship her as Amira.
  • Improbable Infant Survival: Of a sort: Hylea would have you restore the souls Thaos has stolen for Woedica to the Hollowborn, thus making them into whole, ordinary children. Averted (sort of) even if you don't take her up on her bargain or lie go back on your word— if you renege on your bargain, then the children don't die, but they're not really alive, either— but even if you do restore the Hollowborn's souls, many children were killed or abandoned by their parents who had lost all hope. And there's no such thing as resurrection magic in this setting. She makes up for this by having twins be very common in the years following the Hollowborn scourge, to the point that the year itself got named after her.
  • Magic Music: The patron goddess of chanters, whose chants are this.
  • The Matchmaker: As the goddess of motherhood, she gets very interested in the Watcher's "mating ritual" with Maia, offering relationship advice through Ishiza.
  • Mama Bear: The goddess of these, as well as childbirth and midwives.
  • My Beloved Smother: The nastier side of her benevolence was hinted at in the first game, but really comes to the fore in Deadfire. She seems to treat kith as if they were weak, helpless, stupid, and in need of her and the other gods' guiding hands whether they want help or not, especially after Eothas reveals his final plan. Galawain calls her out for this and even compares her to Woedica because of her contempt for kith's own agency and capabilities.
  • Poke the Poodle: In Pillars 2, her retribution against a Watcher who broke their vow to her is much more petty and harmless than the punishments of the other gods (for instance Berath, who is the one who gives you your quest, lowers all your stats to 1 until you personally kill 75 kith.) Hylea's punishment is to have a ton of birds shit on your ship. This does lower the stats of all the major components of your ship, but it is very easily rectified by simply changing out all the parts. Averted in the first game though as her retribution in the epilogue is just as horrible as the other gods.
  • To Win Without Fighting During the quest to gain her favor in Twin Elms, Hylea can be mollified whether you kill the dragon which has invaded her temple or leave it alone, as said dragon is both a creature of the air and an expectant mother.
  • Woman Scorned: Seriously, Beware the Nice Ones. Breaking your promise to return the Hollowborn souls to the children they were meant for results in her killing a lot of people in vengeance.

    Magran 

Magran

"Struggle is our fundamental nature."
Voiced by: Unknown (I), Laila Berzins (II)

Magran is the goddess of fire, trials, and war. She appears as a woman in dark yet flaming plate armor.


  • Action Girl: The pantheon's resident deity of war, she is this implicitly and has a fair number in her service.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Said word for word if the Watcher considers that Woedica deserves her victory if she's willing and able to seize it.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Generally seen as one of the few relatively good gods in the setting, embodying concepts of progress and self-improvement. However her involvement in the creation of the Godhammer and subsequent treatment of Durance and the Dozen shows she can be incredibly manipulative and ruthless when she wants to be; fully willing to kill a fellow god to maintain the status-quo and discard her own followers when they become inconvenient.
  • Blood Knight: Though one shouldn't go around causing fights or confrontations, her followers are encouraged to seek them out, as the struggle will make them stronger.
  • Chekhov's Volcano: Ashen Maw in Deadfire. Sure enough, she blows it up with you, Eothas, and all her Rathun followers inside in an attempt to destroy Eothas' construct body.
  • Fantastic Nuke: Her divine inspiration allowed twelve of her priests to build and empower the Godhammer bomb which killed Waidwen, halting the Readceran advance and bringing the Saint's War to an end.
  • Graceful Loser: Despite all of her other flaws, once her attempt to blow Eothas up again fails, she seems okay with Eothas destroying the Wheel even though it could mean the beginning of the end for the gods. She also is genuinely curious if kith can succeed at the task Eothas has given to them.
  • Hidden Depths: Despite her Blood Knight tendencies, she regrets using the Godhammer, and opposes the idea of simply attacking Eothas without knowing more of his plans in Deadfire. And despite her general lack of empathy for kith like most of the other gods, she freely admits that kith should never have trusted the gods for their well being.
  • Horned Humanoid: She appears to the Watcher as a fire godlike, three horns jutting like a crown from her head. She apparently gave Abydon the same sort of horns when she rebuilt him as the Golem.
  • Hot-Blooded: What with being on fire and all. While her outward personality is that of a stoic and ruthlessly logical tactician, she tends to act first and rationalize after the fact.
  • Hypocrite: In Deadfire, in your first meeting with her and other gods, she says that she was too hasty in directing her priests to create the Godhammer to destroy Eothas in the past, and argues for a measured, rational decision. Later, when Eothas appears at the pillar from which her godhood springs, she hastily causes the volcano it was in to erupt, killing off almost every member of a race of fire giants, her own devoted followers, while doing little to actually hamper Eothas. And then, afterwards, she argues in favor of leaving Eothas alone, saying she's curious to see whether or not kith will measure up to the challenge.
  • Jerkass Gods: While Magran is not as malevolent as Skaen or Woedica, she has a nasty habit of viewing her followers as expendable:
    • In the backstory of the first game, Magran helped her priesthood develop the Godhammer bomb to kill Eothas, only to then attempt to kill the twelve priests who worked on the Godhammer to cover up her involvement in killing another God. When one of the priests survived, Magran proceeded to completely ignore his existence, giving him a crisis of faith that can potentially drive him to suicide.
    • In the second game, Magran erupts the volcano at the Ashen Maw in a failed attempt to kill Eothas. This leads to the deaths of nearly the entirety of the Rathun race of giants, who fanatically worship Magran. Morgan isn't particularly concerned when the Watcher points out her lack of concern for the Rathun.
  • Kill It with Fire: She is the god of all flames, and adores fire-based weapons: bombs, firearms, anything enchanted with fire— including spells. Part of why she likes guns is that they let any ordinary peasant hurl fire around the battlefield the way mages have always done.
  • More Dakka:
    • As mentioned, she likes guns. Her cathedral at Ashfall is built on top of/into a massive munitions factory, and her priests' unique talent gives them an accuracy bonus with swords and arquebuses.
    • Her priesthood also developed the Godhammer bomb used to kill St. Waidwen. Then she killed all but one of the twelve priests involved, both to cover her involvement as well as to prevent such a weapon from being used again. Incidentally, the priest who was spared? Durance. And it wasn't for lack of trying, but because the bomb somehow damaged his living soul, rendering him invisible to the goddess whose attention he so desperately craves.
  • Never My Fault: She can rationalize any of her actions and never apologizes for anything. This includes her sneering pride in having fooled Durance for all those years, as well as her complete 180 on Eothas' actions after her plan to stop him (blowing up a volcano which wiped most of the surviving Rathun, some of her most devoted followers) failed.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Killing Waidwen using the Godhammer ultimately made Eothas into a far worse problem for the other gods in the long run, since it taught him exactly how far they were willing to go to stop him.
  • Not So Stoic: During Eothas' rampage across the Deadfire, she's terrified for her own existence when he shows up at her doorstep, stopping by the pillar of her divinity in Ashen Maw (the equivalent of Woedica's pillar in Sun-in-Shadow). Although why she thought a volcanic eruption that wouldn't damage her own adra pillar would harm a giant made of adra is anyone's guess, really.
  • Patron Saint: She's the patron goddess of Defiance Bay and the Dyrwood, where there are statues of her all across the country. Not too surprising, given that she gave them the Godhammer bomb which won them the Saint's War. The feeling is mutual — guns, fire, and rebellion, what's not to like? Of course, there's a certain significance to the Dyrwood having traded the last vestiges of their worship of a god of redemption and light for one of war and the purging flame.
  • Red Oni: Her outward personality is cold and stoic, but she's an impulsive hothead who's incapable of admitting she's wrong.
  • Social Darwinist: She believes that struggle serves to make the victors stronger and that if they can achieve their victory, they deserve it. The Watcher can throw this in her face when she asks for their help against Woedica.
  • Soldier vs. Warrior: She's the soldier. Galawain is the warrior. She's more concerned with winning the war than the battle. The Saint's War and her... drastic actions at Ashen Maw show why this isn't necessarily a mark in her favor.
  • A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: She "acted in haste" during the Saint's War. Magran acting in haste apparently means urging her followers to create and deploy a Fantastic Nuke on another god, then thinking better of it, killing said followers, and trying to backtrack. Much of Magran's behavior seems to fall along these lines — for all her appreciation of ingenuity and intelligence, what it amounts to is her being able to rationalize anything. There's a reason priests of Magran (in the first game) are rewarded for behaving Aggressively and Cleverly, but not Rationally.
  • War God: A relatively measured one, though, who also has aspects relating to creativity, art, creation, and transformation.
  • Wreathed in Flames: The guise she takes on to speak with the Watcher is a fire godlike.

    Ondra 

Ondra

"I sing of the ocean's sorrow so that I may forget my own."
Voiced by: Mela Lee

Ondra is the goddess of the oceans, the moon, forgetfulness, and loss.


  • And Man Grew Proud: In Part II of the The White March, it is revealed that Ondra commanded the Eyeless to keep the secret of the White Forge and Abydon's death by destroying anyone who knew about it. This resulted in the massacre of the dwarves in Durgan's Battery, and after you reopen the Forge to the villagers of Stalwart, indirectly leads to the Eyeless coming after the villagers, the invading Readcerans, then you, your party, and if you don't stop your visions from coming to pass, eventually everyone in the Dyrwood, possibly beyond. And because of the nature of their creation by another god, not even Ondra herself can call them off.
  • Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Feared as the goddess of the sea and a jealous protector of those things the gods wish forgotten, Ondra tends to involve herself in some of the gods' more sordid business, and stands behind many of their more ruthless choices — because she believes in doing so she's sparing others, kith included, from making the truly hard decisions.
  • The Chains of Commanding: Ondra genuinely does seem to care for all the people she hurts.
    Ondra: The great conundrum of a god is how close to become to your subjects. Too far and they lose hope. Too close and your own judgment fails.
  • Colony Drop: To protect the world from the secrets of the ancient Engwithans, Ondra used her powers to break apart Eora's long-lost third moon and bring it crashing down on the Eastern Reach... as well as Abydon, who was protecting all that they had built with the Engwithans at the time.
  • Did Not Think This Through: After she (indirectly) killed Abydon's body she was eager enough to take his army of children and use them for her own purposes, as a wetworks squad wiping out things she wanted forgotten. Unfortunately, she didn't consider that just because Abydon had forgotten them didn't mean she was their ultimate master, and her control of them might not be as ironclad as she'd like to think. She only realizes this after giving a command that could lead to them wiping out a significant chunk of modern civilization and then finding out she can't rescind that order.
  • Due to the Dead: She is both the goddess of forgetfulness and loss, as well as memory of the loss. She honored Abydon's memory by building the Abbey of the Fallen Moon around the remains of his gigantic corpse, to protect him in his eternal slumber.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Has many of the trappings of this, with her air of mystery and foreboding. One of her chosen manifestations is the Hair of Ondra, colossal watery tentacles occasionally seen at sea, and her servants include cultists driven mad by the gradual loss of their memories and sense of self, Sea Monsters such as the kraken(s), and the disfigured giants known as the Eyeless who turn out to be construction golems originally crafted by Abydon.
  • Giant Wall of Watery Doom: Her wrath can take this form. Her attempt at destroying Eothas' avatar in Deadfire takes the form of a tidal wave thousands of feet high.
  • Gravity Master: Her control of the waves is based on her love of the moon... Not unlike the Tidecasters from Tyranny, but on a much larger scale.
  • I Have Many Names: Ondra, Ngati, the Lady of Lament, the Salty Wench, the Lover of the Lost.
  • Making a Splash: As goddess of the sea, she granted the Huana the power of watershaping.
  • Mama Bear: While she doesn't lash out to the same degree as Hylea, she's quite protective of Tekehu, and many of the myths about her frame her as a motherly figure. A maternal figure of the unpleasable, possessive, Tough Love sort, of the sort with which Obsidian has some previous history. Notably, when the possibility of the remaining gods draining the souls of their godlike to empower themselves to stop Eothas, Ondra supports it — openly weeping when the Watcher calls her out on it, but still. She's not the kind of mother who can pretend she doesn't play favorites. She also gets very angry with the Watcher if they break Tekehu's heart.
    YOU HURT MY BOY.
  • Mercy Kill: She believes completely destroying the stolen Hollowborn souls to be an act of mercy.
  • The Mourning After: According to legend, Ondra is in love with the moon but is never able to reach it, contributing to her being the goddess of loss and mourning. In reality, The White March reveals she loves Abydon, who sacrificed himself to save kith civilization from her. He eventually rebuilt himself, but his memories were gone, and despite still having feelings for him, she doesn't approach him out of fear of what he'll do should those memories return. The fact that she built the Abbey of the Fallen Moon as a monument to protect his body speaks volumes.
  • Necessary Evil: She handles many of the nasty things the other gods won't touch. Her problem is that she tends not to look all that hard for alternate solutions.
  • Non-Human Head: Her avatar in the sequel has a body of a large woman with two pairs of breasts and the head of an anglerfish.
  • Opposites Attract: She was the lover of Abydon, who's the god of preservation, while she's the goddess of forgetfulness. The clashing of their domains ended in tragedy when Abydon tried to preserve the Engwithian's society archeological remains, which Ondra was designated to erase from the world.
  • Out of Focus: Other from having Defiance Bay's harbor district, Ondra's Gift, named after her, Ondra is one of the lesser-seen gods in the first game. Apart from the example mentioned under Token Good Teammate, her only other appearance is a minor sidequest involving her temple when you first arrive in Stalwart Village. This changes drastically in The White March Part 2, bordering on Ascended Extra, Early-Bird Cameo, and Chekhov's Gunman.
  • Sanity Slippage: Not Ondra herself, but it's revealed that this can and does happen among her followers: the monks of the Low Tide are those in her service who slowly go insane as their memories are gradually erased to protect the secrets of the Abbey of the Fallen Moon — just before being they're killed in a mass drowning. This is specifically done to ensure the memories can't be Awakened in later lives, and the monks all agreed to it when they were members of the High Tide, but that wasbefore they began to forget, with a major theme of The White March being whether or not we can truly call ourselves the same person without the memory of our pasts, and whether or not it's possible to truly move on if we don't remember our mistakes. Along with the similarity to Lovecraftian cultists, there's a stark metaphor for Alzheimer's and the way western society often treats its elders, hidden away and forgotten.
  • Shoot the Dog: As the goddess of forgetting, she is often called upon for this, beginning with the destruction of ancient Engwith — even if that meant killing her beloved Abydon, when he stood in her way. While the gods swore off direct interference in the affairs of kith after that point, Ondra nevertheless continues to act on her own judgment and handling the necessary evils from which the other gods shy away.
  • Starcrossed Lovers: She is said to be in love with the moon — the tides are the result of Ondra attempting to reach it. She's also the goddess of these. A sufficiently high-attribute Watcher in The White March can actually piece together the truth behind the legend: she used to have something going on with Abydon before he died (the first time). Abydon forgot about it as a result of dying, Ondra doesn't approach Abydon again because she fears doing so might cause Abydon's memories to come flooding back... including the part where Abydon's death was a result of him trying to protect Eora's civilizations from Ondra's (approved by other gods) plan to smash a small moon into the planet to wipe out every trace of the Engwithans — specifically the titular White March, the Eastern Reach where most of the game place, and the nearby Deadfire Archipelago.
  • These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: The goddess of this, ensuring that such things remain forgotten.
  • Token Good Teammate: Very relatively speaking. She allies with Skaen and Rymrgand to propose that the Watcher cast the souls taken by Woedica into entropy. But whereas the first two simply see it as the best way to spite Woedica and a mere hastening of the inevitable, respectively, Ondra regards oblivion as an act of kindness.
  • Walking Spoiler: She's charged with keeping many of the gods' secrets.
  • Weather Manipulation: The endless storms that cut off passage further east bear her name: Ondra's Mortar. A mortar, just as a reminder, is used for grinding things into powder. Though they aren't given the same amount of screentime as watershapers, the Huana's Storm Speakers presumably wield their powers in Ondra's name as well.

    Rymrgand 

Rymrgand

"All life ends in stillness."
Voiced by: Unknown (I), Angus Wright (II)

Rymrgand is the god of cold, death and entropy. He appears as The Beast of Winter.


  • Actually Pretty Funny: Has a very dark sense of humor. He has an even better poker face than the Pallid Knight, but it's there.
    • If you let Vesgel and the other pale elves pass through the Frost-Hewn Breach in Noonfrost in the first game, in Deadfire Rymrgand can mention that "every king needs his dancing bear", and while he's entirely willing to prove that being Berath's Herald won't stop him from disintegrating you, he's amused by the Watcher's Clever responses. Just as long as you don't push it.
      The Watcher: You yammer on like a doddering old man. Let me out of here.
      Rymrgand: I see now why Berath likes you.
    • In Beast of Winter, winning the final battle against his avatar causes him to burst out laughing. Sadly, this isn't voiced.
      Rymrgand: You do amuse, Watcher. The others are not wrong about that.
  • Animal Motifs: He takes the form of a woolly-coated aurochs, a real species of wild cattle which is extinct in our world, and the skull of the aurochs is known and feared throughout Eora as the symbol of Rymrgand. While he can appear as a four-legged animal, as in the Watcher's visions in the first game, the pale elf Harbingers of the Dead Floe see him as a huge, rotting minotaur.
  • Cessation of Existence: His followers hope for this, and this is the fate that Rymrgand, Skaen, and Ondra propose you grant to the souls which Thaos has trapped.
  • Cruel Mercy: Or Cruel to Be Kind, possibly. Hard to say if he's either, both, or neither, but his treatment of the pale elves, who have worshiped him for thousands of years, would seem like this if it isn't just simple indifference on his part. If you allowed them to enter Rymrgand's realm in the first game, in the second game he grants their wish, if only to be rid of the annoyance they cause him.
  • Cryptic Conversation: While the gods in general are fond of this, Rymrgand is still at it even after the Watcher knows their true nature. Along with Ondra, goddess of forgetfulness, and Skaen, god of treachery, he forms a trinity of Gods of Not Giving Straight Answers in Teir Evron, and his sidequest in Deadfire's base game is just one long tease for the Beast of Winter DLC. He's also the first to figure out what Eothas' end-goal is, and mockingly hints at it while not saying anything outright because he alone agrees with Eothas' plan, though for his own reasons. He excels at phrasing things in ways that are both simple and so ambiguous as to be without meaning. The last line of dialogue with him in BOW allows the Watcher to ask him a question, and while technically they might count as straight answers, you wouldn't understand them unless you'd already finished the game.
  • Curiosity Killed the Cast: To gain his favor in Twin Elms, you must not use the crystal he gives you to allow his pale elf followers in Noonfrost to pass on to the oblivion they desire. According to a Watcher the elves have consulted, their souls have been reborn whole for hundreds of years, which seems to fly in the face of Rymrgand's portfolio. Downplayed, in that it's not the Watcher and company whose lives are (potentially) threatened, but Rymrgand never provides the pale elves or you with any explanation for this, whether you succeed or fail the quest.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: In the first game, at least, he speaks in earnest of the beauty of snowstorms and chaos, in knowing that even when the soul is turned to dust, some spark of future potential remains. He's considerably more ominous and conventionally omnicidal during his appearances in Deadfire, however.
  • Deadpan Snarker: In situations where other gods (save Eothas) might lose their temper and yell at or curse the Watcher, Rymrgand usually snarks instead. It usually doubles as a warning that the player is getting out of the waters of Actually Pretty Funny and dangerously close to the Do Not Taunt Cthulhu line.
  • Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Downplayed. He has a better temper than most of his fellows, but his patience is finite.
    • If you are in Rymrgand's realm, and haven't previously done anything to earn his ire, he will shrug off most insults and challenges with the languid amusement that befits the patient god of slow death and entropy. But he has his limits, and he can and will annihilate the Watcher if they either push even his grim patience too far or tell him they welcome oblivion.
    • This line:
      The Watcher: Remind me who you are again? There are so many gods — it's hard to keep track.
      Rymrgand: [blasts the Watcher with cold, resulting in an in-game injury] You will remember me now.
  • Don't Fear the Reaper: Played with. Unlike Berath, who acts as a caretaker of souls to be returned to the cycle of reincarnation, with Rymrgand, a soul's only fate is to be eroded and ground down until it ceases to exist. However, some of his worshippers see this fate as an escape from the endless cycle of death and rebirth, into a better state of eternal peace, and as such seek it out. In the sequel, however, all the other gods are terrified of his mere presence, and he stands alone in pushing the Watcher to urge Eothas to speed the world to its ultimate end, ensuring that all life ends, not just the cycle of reincarnation. After all, he is the god of endings.
  • Domain Holder: In Rymrgand's realm, the White Void, where the souls of the dead are disintegrated — hunted down by blights, if need be. In the Watcher's mental construct, Rymrgand's realm appears to be an endless maze of bismuth crystals scattered across a multicolored void.
  • The Dreaded: In the second game, the other gods bolt at the first sign of his coming — Magran in a puff of steam, Hylea in a flurry of wings. Only the Pallid Knight is unmoved. They return almost as quickly, but as artificial gods, designed to be each other's equal in power, you'd wonder what they had to be afraid of.
  • Evil Is Deathly Cold: Though not truly evil, he is every bit as uncaring as the cold entropy he embodies.
  • Evil Sounds Deep: He has a deep, rumbling, grating voice.
  • Evil Versus Oblivion: Oblivion is actually held to be the lesser evil in Rymrgand's case, if only because Rymrgand is less active and content to wait, as opposed to, say, Skaen.
  • I Lied: In Beast of Winter. Once the Watcher deals with Neriscylas in the White Void, Rymrgand takes the opportunity to amend your deal: agree to serve him, now or in death, or he'll kill you where you stand. Or rather, his avatar, the Beast of Winter, will try, in the final battle of the DLC.
  • An Ice Person: As the god of cold, many of his priests are this. His temple in Twin Elms is Noonfrost, which is frozen over even in the middle of summer after his pale elf pilgrims open up the Frost-Hewn Breach.
  • In Mysterious Ways: Rymrgand seldom communicates with his worshippers although he does act as the spokesgod for himself, Skaen, and Ondra to you when you commune with the gods in Teir Evron.
  • Meaningful Name: Rymr-, rime being another word for frost, and -gand, as in Jormungandr, the Midgard Serpent, slumbering at the bottom of the sea until Ragnarok.
  • Mercy Kill: Tends to characterize the oblivion he offers as this, as souls continuously accrue new suffering with each life. Thanks to his willingness to hand out Non-Standard Game Over|s, the player is given little opportunity to refute him.
    Rymrgand: Life is suffering. Until it ends. That is the mercy I provide.
  • No-Sell: Invincibility is one of the perks of godhood. Since you're fighting the Beast of Winter in Rymrgand's own realm, when the battle is won, the Beast falls on one knee and doesn't actually die — and then in the following cutscene, instantly regenerates all its wounds. Luckily by this point the Watcher's audacity has won Rymrgand over — he bursts out in booming, echoing laughter, acknowledges the Watcher's skill, and sends you on your way.
  • Non-Standard Game Over: Hands them out like candy in Deadfire. Ask him to, take him up on his advice for Eothas, dare him to, ignore his warnings, or push your luck by antagonizing him and instant death and destruction of the soul is the inevitable result.
  • Not So Stoic: If you kill his avatar, the Beast of Winter, he actually laughs out loud.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: Looks forward to the end of all life on Eora, as it would subject every soul to his entropy. As such, Rymrgand is the only other god to support Eothas's plan to break the Wheel, since doing so would make this end of life come about much earlier. He also tries to get the Watcher to convince Eothas to outright destroy Eora. Part of his indifference and cold amusement seemingly comes down to having no horse in this particular race. Even if the world isn't destroyed this go-round, it inevitably will be, sooner or later. Entropy always wins, in the end.
  • Our Minotaurs Are Different: While he can be represented as a four-legged animal, as he appears to the Watcher in visions, while his avatar, the Beast of Winter, is a huge, woolly-coated, rotting undead minotaur, as are his massive Scourges, who wield his favored two-handed battleaxe and are tasked with patroling the White Void and smashing any concentrations of soul essence they find into dust. You face the Beast of Winter itself, more than twice the size of the already huge Scourges, as the final boss of the Beast of Winter DLC. Defeating it is one way to persuade Rymrgand to release you back into the living world.
  • Shout-Out: His name alludes to Jormungandr, World Serpent of Norse Mythology, waiting for the end of the world and the final battle between the gods.
  • The Stoic: Literally stone-faced when you meet him in his realm in "A Glimpse Beyond", with an impassive, indifferent demeanor in general.
  • Xanatos Gambit: The post-Ukaizo ending slides hint this may have been the case for the events of Beast of Winter, if you defeated his eponymous avatar.
    In besting the Beast of Winter, you earned the death god's mercy rather than his enmity. The deity remains characteristically unforthcoming about his decision, and you're left to wonder whether in doing battle with him in the White Void you somehow furthered his apocalyptic ambitions.
  • Time Abyss: Also a Badass Boast. Also a lie, since the Watcher knows full well that the gods have only been around for a few thousand years — a long time, but not eternity. Unless Rymrgand isn't telling us something.
    Rymrgand: Measured beside the eternity in which I persist, you exist in the space of a breath. But if you would like me to claim your soul sooner, you need only disappoint me.
  • Two Aliases, One Character: Deadfire drops numerous hints — and in Beast of Winter a character states the theory outright — that Eothas and Rymrgand are one and the same, or at least two aspects of the same god in much the same way as the Pallid Knight and the Usher. For that matter, both are also gods of death, as is Berath. This is never confirmed at any point, however, and if they are or were at some point the same being, they seem to be thoroughly disparate entities in the present.
  • Worthy Opponent: At the end of Beast of Winter, Rymrgand offer the Watcher a choice: die now, or give their soul to Rymrgand to fall into the White Void after their death. Or the Watcher can try to refuse Rymrgand, and while this is usually a very bad idea, Rymrgand will permit the Watcher to fight for their souls against his avatar, the Beast of Winter, congratulating them if they "defeat" him and permitting them to leave the White Void without a price.

    Skaen 

Skaen

"Tomorrow, my master chokes on his own whip."

Skaen is the god of silent hate, resentment and rebellion. He usually appears as a small, shackled, emaciated man, his skin covered in scars from lashes.


  • Arch-Enemy: Abydon is his. Skaen hates the passive surrender to authority that Abydon represents.
  • Being Tortured Makes You Evil: His followers aren't above this. The mortal Creitus was also subjected to this. See The Mole.
  • Blood Magic: Dark magic, blood in vast quantities. As in a whole swimming pool of the stuff.
  • Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Something of a tenet of his religion, as he is the god of servants rising up against their masters in secret. Even his own followers will be abandoned if they manage to get into a position of power.
  • Creepy Doll: His followers make this but with shards, flints, or other black stones for eyes.
  • Dark Is Evil: Darkness, blood, bondage, pain, hate... Rattles off a lot of the buzzwords.
  • The Dreaded: Seems keener for his followers to be this than himself, but more as an anonymous hidden force rather than as individuals, in keeping with the idea of appearing harmless and striking from the shadows.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: When Hylea suggests that the gods should welcome Eothas back amongst them, Skaen assumes that she's suggesting this as part of some set up to get Eothas to drop his guard so they can kill him permanently. He salutes Hylea's deviousness, to her discomfort.
  • Evil Old Folks: Appears as a mutilated and shackled old man. And, while it can be argued that his evil can be of the necessary type, he is still one of the darker and bloodier gods.
  • God of Evil: Blatant about it.
  • Human Sacrifice: His rites often involve this.
  • I Fight for the Strongest Side!: Inverted: As the god of rebellion, he always favors the underdog in any conflict. He will abandon followers who achieve their ambitions or otherwise grow too strong. This may also be the reason he works with Woedica, for now; she is the weakest of the gods after being cast down.
  • I Have Many Names: The Effigy. The Quiet Slave. The Queen's Slave. The Schemer.
  • Implacable Man: When Skaen manifests as an Effigy. After a cruel ritual which leaves the chosen worshiper unrecognizable, eyes gouged out, ears cut off, with no distinguishable symbols of gender, they are given "privileged blood". If accepted, which isn't certain, Skaen manifests in the Effigy and it becomes an unstoppable vessel of the god's power. Only after the targeted oppressors are slain will the Effigy fall dead.
  • Just Like Robin Hood: His cultists aspire to a very dark version of this, overthrowing tyrants in the most brutal way possible to protect the oppressed by making them an example to anyone who would try to take their place. The mortal man who inspired the myth of Skaen also distributed much of what he stole from the nobles he "advised" to the starving poor.
  • The Mole:
    • The god of these. Skaen first appears to be working with Rymrgand and Ondra against Woedica, but in the ending, he can reveal himself to actually be Woedica's Dragon. Of course, given his nature as the god of rebellion, one has to wonder what his stake in all this is, and what he gets out of working with her.
    • It's all a matter of perspective. According to The History of Eora, Volume X: The Man Who Would Be Skaen in the Restricted Section of the Halls Obscured, a man named Creitus (possibly the namesake of Iovara and the Watcher's home city of Creitum) was once a sort reverse-Evil Chancellor figure who used his gift for lies and manipulations against the Evil Empire of the Engwithans, and gave away his ill-gotten gains to the people, Just Like Robin Hood. When the Engwithans found him out, they tortured him to within an inch of his life and made him swear to use those same techniques on the Empire's behalf, against the people.
  • Monster Clown: Has elements of this, in that he is something of a court jester to the gods. During his appearances, he capers about, freely speaks his mind and provides running commentary on the other gods.
  • Mouth of Sauron: Speaks with the Watcher on Woedica's behalf.
  • Nightmare Face: Described as an old man with his nose and lips cut off, with jet black stones where his eyes should be.
  • Obviously Evil: Revels in it.
  • The Power of Hate: He is basically the god of this, teaching his followers to draw power from their hatred, and inspiring them to keep it close to them, seething in it until the time is right to strike.
  • Religion of Evil: Banned in certain nations because of it. His portfolio is defiance, secret hatred, covert plots, resentment, envy, and violent rebellion. In Dyrwood, his followers often double as torturers and executioners, and are tolerated as long as they do their jobs.
  • The Resenter: His dynamic with Woedica seems to be to both serve her and despise her in equal measure. He encourages his followers to foster this hatred, to let it consume them, the better to fuel their eventual vengeance as they finally overturn their betters.
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: As a god, he basically embodies this trope. His followers in Dyrford do not merely want justice against Lord Harond, they want him and his whole line to suffer. Specifically, they want his niecedaughter Aelys, whom Harond has impregnated to fulfill his requirement of an heir, and whom the Skaenites have brainwashed and corrupted with dark magic, to return home and murder her entire family, staining the whole lineage forever, permanently destroying a noble house and serving as a warning to others. Skaenite doctrine calls for this kind of bloody rebellion to go on in secret, to maximize terror and suffering.
  • Satanic Archetype: Not so much the look, but as a dark god and rebel set among the heavens, a tempter and betrayer par excellence? Very much so.
  • Soft-Spoken Sadist: Skaen rewards deception and cruelty, but actively punishes those who are too brash or aggressive in his service. As a result, his followers, and Skaen himself, tend to be this.
  • The Starscream: Is the god of them. Fittingly, he seems perpetually ready and willing to betray everyone he works with, and encourages you to do the same by taking Thaos's place and committing all the souls the Leaden Key have collected to re-empowering Woedica. May verge upon I Fight for the Strongest Side!. For Woedica, possibly. While some think he follows Woedica because she lost her seat of power and plots the downfall of the gods, some believe that Woedica stole the portfolio of revenge from him, and he is following her until he can take it back. He's definitely up to something — he offers the Watcher yet another deal in Deadfire.
  • Token Evil Teammate:
    • For the gods as a whole: the other gods have their dark sides, and Skaen is a champion for the oppressed and enslaved, but he cultivates his dark and fearful reputation, acting as sort of an in-universe Hate Sink for humanity's worst impulses.
    • As for his alliance with Rymrgand and Ondra at Teir Evron, Skaen is the only one who seems to genuinely relish the thought of destroying the souls Thaos has stolen. Ondra believes it will avoid further pain; Rymrgand is simply indifferent, and destroying souls is his job.
  • Your Terrorists Are Our Freedom Fighters: The vicious plots they hatch against those in power (even an Asshole Victim like Lord Haron) are basically terrorism, but from their point of view they're simply fighting oppression.

    Wael 

Wael

"What is an answer without a question?"
Voiced by: Unknown (I), Allegra Clark / Jonathan Smallwood (II)

Wael is the god of dreams, secrets and the unknown. Even Wael's form is unknowable. They might not even show up unless you complete a certain sidequest in a very specific way.


  • Ambiguous Gender: Where all the other gods has manifestations that allows mortal to have some idea about whether they are male or female (or both), it is completely impossible to tell with Wael.
  • And the Adventure Continues: Because It's the Journey That Counts, Wael often deliberately sabotages his followers in their quests for answers, stealing away their hoped-for enlightenment (and even what knowledge they'd already managed to happen upon) just as they're on the verge of some breakthrough. The whole point being, not the answers themselves, but the pursuit of them.
  • Armor-Piercing Question: "What is an answer without a question?" is either this or an Ice-Cream Koan, depending on how generous you're feeling toward Wael in the given moment.
  • Berserk Button: Probably comes with their domain, but Wael really, really hates breaches of secrecy. When the gods decides to confer directly with the Watcher in Deadfire, the normally mellow and playful Wael is downright incensed, shouting in outrage at the gods as they freely disclose some of their secrets directly to a mortal.
  • Beware the Silly Ones: Wael is wacky and friendly and tends to take a much more casual tone of voice than the other gods. However, just because the things that make Wael angry aren't as obvious as the other gods, doesn't make them any less dangerous when riled.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: This applies to every god, but Wael takes the cake. The other gods have basically understandable goals, just taken to extremes. Wael, though... in the endgame, they ask you to scatter the souls Woedica has stolen recently... explicitly because doing so would be pointless. In fact, they don't really care what you do with the souls at all, seeing as the prospect of him not knowing what the Watcher will do up until the last moment excites them.
    The Watcher: What do you want, Wael?
    Wael: Oh, so many things, Herald. Love. Happiness. An infinitely malleable and surprising cosmos in which nothing can be taken for granted as stable or reliable... The usual.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Wael is (likely) the first god who can speak to you if you complete a sidequest for the priestess of his temple. Doing so is the only way to unlock Wael's appearance in Sun-in-Shadow, as the second-to-last god to offer you yet another alternative for what to do with the souls the Leaden Key has amassed.
  • Cloud Cuckoolander: Does it on purpose, to be as cryptic and unpredictable as possible.
  • Combat Tentacles: Prefers eyeballs, but combine those with these and you'll start to understand why Eldritch Abomination is listed. It seems very likely that his followers in the Hand Occult are the ones who furnished the archmage Maura with the knowledge she needed to perfect her line of tentacle-based spells.
  • Consummate Liar: He encourages his priesthood to be Deceptive and Clever. They received bonuses for doing so in the first game, and were penalized if they acted too Rational or Honest. Benevolent, Cruel, Aggressive, or Stoic, none of those mattered. The point, as always, is to keep people guessing.
    Wael: Oh, hello. I didn't see you there.
  • Cryptic Conversation: You'll probably come out of most conversations with Wael knowing less than when you went in, and that's how they prefer it.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: You wouldn't think of Wael as much of a physical force, but give them back control of their body and they easily put a stop to Eothas' assault on the Great Wheel — though not in time to save it.
  • Dark Horse Victory: They/she/it(?) appears in the tail end of the journey in the first game, trying to convince the Watcher to forego any previous oaths made to the other gods and simply cast the souls to parts unknown.
  • A Day in the Limelight: The Forgotten Sanctum, which revolves around the discovery of Wael's misplaced titan form, which they were supposed to have destroyed, like the other gods, after Abydon's rebellion.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Enjoys cleverness but seems somewhat miffed in The Forgotten Sanctum when the Watcher is clever back, perhaps because Wael prefers to be the cleverest god in the room, or perhaps Wael simply doesn't enjoy the Watcher's choice of subject matter.
  • Eccentric Mentor: Although whether they want to teach their followers anything other than how to be eccentric is debatable. Doubles down on this with Trickster Mentor.
  • Eldritch Abomination: Many of the creatures in his service look this way, with a lot of Eyes Do Not Belong There, Faceless Eyes, and Eyeless Faces. In the second game, Wael herself appears to the Watcher as a kind of cloud or blob of mismatched eyes and a snaggletoothed Cheshire Cat Grin. This is also the sinister flipside of Wael's curiosity and love of secrets and forbidden knowledge for its own sake — when you can't trust your own mind, madness follows. Wael's original body, discarded millennia ago when the gods destroyed their bodies, was, or at least has since become, a giant fleshy mass of eyes and tentacles. The members of the Hand Occult who tend to Wael's body are completely bent to Wael's will and the Oracle of Wael that controls the body has the ability to manipulate the memories of those within.
  • Extra Eyes: Often appears as a cloud of hovering Faceless Eyes.
  • Eyeless Face: His typical avatar is a kith of any race with nothing but a blank space where their eyes should be.
  • Faceless Eye: Another common manifestation — whether shoals of fish with patterns like eyes or disembodied eyes randomly blinking into existence just to mess with people.
  • Failure Is the Only Option: Played With, gleefully. The only way to complete Wael's quests and win their favor is by deliberately failing a quest set by someone else. In the aforementioned sidequest, Wael tells you to bury the sacred text that their own high priestess asked you to recover from thieves — implying at the same time that Wael sent the thieves as well, for their own inexplicable reasons. To complete the quest, you must then go back to the temple and tell Wael's priestess that you buried Wael's sacred text in a field and you can't tell her where it is because Wael told you not to. This is because while Wael treasures knowledge, they value the seeking of said knowledge even more. If you have the Honest reputation, the priestess will actually believe you.
  • Guide Dang It!: Wael only appears if you take the scroll stolen from his priesthood and bury it in a field. There's no reward for doing this and the god's own high priestess won't believe you (unless you have Honest 2 or Lore 6 or higher), but it's by the god's own request making this something of an in-universe example as well. Doing this is the only way to have Wael appear to you in Sun In Shadow where he offers you one final choice of how to dispense with the Hollowborn souls stolen by the Leaden Key, namely scattering them to points unknown. This, similarly, appears to serve no purpose and carries no actual reward other than the experience of having done so.
  • I Have Many Names: The Eyeless Face. The Obscured. The Hundred Visions. The All-Seeing and Never-Seen God, or He Who Sees And Is Not Seen.
  • It Amused Me: Seemingly their reason for being, with a particular emphasis on doing the unexpected.
  • It's the Journey That Counts: Even if that journey doesn't have an end — even if Wael themself deliberately sabotages the journey just as it's about to end. Some questions aren't meant to have answers — it's the mystery that drives kith ever onward.
    Hiravias: As the Obscured teaches: when the answer is inscrutable, one must be content to ponder the question.
  • Jerkass Gods: A petty revenge, but possibly the one most likely to hit players where they live. If Wael's request to keep the scroll stolen from the the Hall of Revealed Mysteries hidden is disobeyed in the first game, Wael gets back at the Watcher when they meet again in Deadfire by making every scroll in their inventory disappear. Every last one. This happens after Hasongo, so depending on how long you hold off on doing the critical path...
  • Keeper of Forbidden Knowledge: Along with Woedica and Ondra, although it's safe to say neither of them enjoys their sacred duty as much as Wael. Remember the Hand Occult? You could be forgiven for going through the entire first game and never even hearing their name. They're the scriveners of Wael, charged with copying all the history and lore that comes their way... except what they're actually there to do, as much as anything, is to act as the gods' own private propaganda wing, because they can be relied upon to write down (or forget) anything Wael wants. In the second game, they're often mentioned in the same breath as the Leaden Key.
  • Me's a Crowd: Appears as a blurry cloud of shifting humanoid figures, taking on an ever-shifting array of different features, changing sex and species from moment to moment.
  • Memory Gambit: When the gods decided to destroy their bodies, Wael instead chose to seal their body beneath the Deadfire's Black Island and edited their own memory to make themself think that they destroyed their body as they promised. When Wael realizes what really happened, they're annoyed (but also amused) that they believed that there was knowledge so dangerous that not even the God of Forbidden Knowledge could be allowed to possess it.
  • Not-So-Harmless Villain: Did you know that the Hand Occult was on equal footing with the Leaden Key as far as keeping the gods' greatest secret was concerned? It puts the All-Seeing God in a slightly different light.
  • Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous: All the gods see gender representation as matter of style rather than anything important, but Wael in particular has no truck with the concept to begin with.
  • Ret-Gone: Wael has the ability to "archive" people, things, and even places, erasing all knowledge of the victim's existence. They can even conceal things from themselves, including an entire wing of the Hand Occult which has been working unsupervised for thousands of years — just above the Eldritch Abomination which Wael's corporeal avatar has become.
  • Shapeshifter Identity Crisis: Without the crisis. Whether it's voluntary or simply a part of Wael's incomprehensible nature is, of course, unknown.
  • Stealth Pun: They're a Seeing Eye god.
  • Trickster God: Was that unclear? Not only does he go out of his way to make mysteries harder for his followers to solve, he's also an advocate of doing irrational things just to see what will happen.
  • Trickster Mentor: Insofar as his tricks have any meaning at all. They do at least teach his followers how to spot and solve puzzles and riddles, and encourage them to learn all they can, and perhaps knowledge for its own sake is enough for Wael.
  • These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: Seen as a caretaker of dangerous information and secrets. However, Wael also believes those secrets should be released so that they can be found and hidden again.
  • Voice of the Legion: Goes hand in hand with Me's a Crowd.
  • Wacky Guy: of the Gods. Cheerful, playful, and somewhat reckless when it comes to anything other than the keeping of secrets which are their purview.

    Woedica 

Woedica

"When Woedica takes back her throne, all wrongs shall be righted."
Voiced by: Liza Ross

Woedica, the Queen That Was (... And Still Is, as her followers readily add), is the goddess of law, order, vengeance and rightful rule. She appears as a haggard old woman with a shattered crown.


  • All Crimes Are Equal: All people who wrong her in any way will be punished, no matter how small the slight.
  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Before the other gods rebelled against her and brought her back down to normal. It's implied she did not go quietly, and when she appears in visions at the very end of the game in Sun In Shadow, her godly image still bears noticeable scars.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: One possible ending has the Watcher empowering her with all the souls that Thaos had been hoarding for her. Though her exact status afterwards is unknown, the ending reveals the broken crown on her head has been restored, implying she's ready to rise again.
  • Best Served Cold: The queen of this. She's known for holding grudges for a very long time indeed. In particular, the other gods betrayed her when she was removed from her throne sometime in the last hundred years or so, and it's said that she's unlikely to let this slide.
  • Big Bad Duumvirate: Though like all the gods her influence is largely indirect, Thaos communes with and seemingly takes his orders from her. Given what we learn in the late game, their partnership may be more equal than that, insofar as Thaos's people are the ones who created all the gods in the first place, presumably including Woedica herself.
  • Brought Down to Normal: Was formerly the most powerful of the gods, but her tyrannical rule caused them to turn against her, severely curtailing her power, authority, and access to worshippers on Eora. Despite being quite unpopular in the Dyrwood (since they staged a rebellion to rid themselves of any kings or queens), she's still commonly worshipped as the embodiment of law and wise rulership elsewhere. They probably have a very different concept of what she's like than the pouting, shortsighted old crone of her the Watcher meets in Deadfire.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: The queen of this, too. Revenge Tropes in general, natch.
  • Evil Old Folks: She is usually depicted as a sneering old woman.
  • Foil: To Eothas. She's old, he's young, she's female, he's male. Both wear crowns. Their portfolios aren't diametrically opposed, but he's the god of forgiveness, while Woedica never forgives any slight. Both were opposed by their fellow gods, but while everyone united to topple Woedica, only Magran moved against Eothas, and even that was done in secret. Of course, while Woedica managed to survive everything the rest of the pantheon could do to her, Eothas died, and it was unclear for well over a decade whether or not he'd even return. Most of all, Eothas took the form of Waidwen and led the Readcerans' invasion of the Dyrwood specifically to intervene in Woedica's plot, via the Leaden Key, to absorb the Hollowborn souls and reclaim her throne as queen of the gods.
  • God Save Us from the Queen!: There's a reason the other gods dethroned her when she became too powerful before.
  • Hypocrite: Is called out multiple times for not actually caring about obeying the law herself as much as making sure everyone does as she tells them. Very much of the 'Do as I say, not as I do' school of leadership.
  • I Have Many Names: The Queen That Was (And Still Is). The Exiled Queen. The Burned Queen. The Oathbinder. The Strangler.
  • It's All About Me: As mentioned under Hypocrite, Woedica only cares about laws and oaths so long as they benefit her.
  • Karma Houdini: Despite causing Waidwen's Legacy, the Watcher has the option of giving her all the Hollowborn souls Thaos had been stealing to empower her with, effectively giving her everything she wanted.
  • Knight Templar: Notoriously harsh and autocratic in enforcing the laws which bind all kith, as well as the more esoteric laws applying to her fellow gods.
  • Loophole Abuse: The gods are forbidden from directly interfering with the kith. Nothing says they can't use a mortal agent, though. Enter Thaos.
  • Minor Major Character: Despite being the Greater-Scope Villain of the first game, Woedica only appears once at the very end and doesn't have any dialogue lines whatsoever, letting Skaen do all the talking for her.
  • The Man Behind the Man: In the first game, she's the one empowering Thaos.
  • No Kill like Overkill: Proposes dropping a moon (that is, another one), on the resurrected Eothas to stop him. She doesn't seem particularly deterred when Ondra rejects this plan on the grounds that it would wipe out nearly all life on Eora. Which Ondra would know — it's why she chose Eora's smaller moon the last time. See The White March for details.
  • Out of Focus: Despite being upgraded to a speaking role in Deadfire, she's much less important to the story as a whole — Berath, Magran, Ondra, and of course Eothas probably have the most direct bearing on the plot.
  • Perpetual Frowner: The only facial expressions she seems to be capable of are variations on pouting and scowling.
  • Powered by a Forsaken Child: If her game-spanning overarching plan is allowed to come to fruition in the first game. Thaos stole the souls of the Hollowborn to empower her so she could resume her place as Queen of the Gods.
  • Revenge: The goddess thereof. It's no secret she wants payback against the rest of the pantheon for overthrowing her, and they have every reason to worry if she gets her hands on all the Hollowborn souls.
  • Screw the Rules, I Make Them!:
    • Has a particularly nasty reputation for caring more about enforcing the law than obeying it herself.
    • Naturally also falls under Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers!, as one of the gods. Her long-term plan involves the Leaden Key, led by Thaos, siphoning souls from the Hollowborn children of the Dyrwood and using them to re-empower Woedica, allowing her to assume her old role as queen of the gods once again. This kind of imbalance between gods is notably exactly the kind of thing all the gods have come together in the past to stop.
  • Top God: She used to be this, but the other gods got fed up with her hypocrisy and abuse of her power and banded together against her, managing to successfully unseat her from this position and bringing her on even footing with the rest of them, hence the nicknames of "The Queen That Was" and "The Exiled Queen". In Deadfire, Eothas claims that she wasn't actually in charge to begin with, and all of the gods were made to be on equal footing upon their creation. Woedica claiming the position was really her just putting on airs based on the preexisting mythologies the gods had taken on as part of their creation, which explains how she was unseated so easily.
  • The Unsmile: True to her Perpetual Frowner status, seeing Woedica smiling is described as a rather unnerving experience to those who witness it, being "toothy and cruel".
  • The Voiceless: Never utters a word in the first game, although she presumably has spoken in the past to the other gods and her followers like Thaos. She gets chattier in Deadfire, though she's still among the most laconic of the gods.
  • We Can Rule Together: Extends this offer to you, the player character, after you kill Thaos. Or rather, her proxy Skaen makes the offer in a divine vision, while Woedica glowers at you in the background.

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