Avowed is set in the world of Eora from Obsidian Entertainment’s Pillars of Eternity games. Though the game is said to be mostly set in the frontier of the Living Lands to the far north, there are a few things established about the world of Eora in both Pillars of Eternity games that indicate what fans can expect in the new title.
There are huge dungeons in Pillars of Eternity called megadungeons that have great ties to the lore of the series and could exist even in the frontier setting of Avowed for important reasons in the backstory of the games.
The Engwithan civilization was a diverse and technologically advanced series of rival tyrants that existed in the distant past of the world of Avowed. The Engwithans made huge strides in architecture, animancy, and the study of adra, a mineral found to have soul-channeling properties.
They also left huge structures beneath the world of Eora that players could discover in the Living Lands. For example, the Endless Paths of Od Nua is a 15 story mega-dungeon in Dyrwood,the setting of the first Pillars of Eternity game. The structure was build by the mad Engwithan tyrant Od Nua, who invested greatly in the study of adra in an attempt to channel the soul of his dead son and house it in a giant adra statue which would eventually be taken over by the god Eothas in Pillars of Eternity: Deadfire.
The Endless Paths of Od Nua is unique among most RPG dungeon designs. Each floor gets progressively harder, incentivizing players to return to the dungeon throughout their adventures as they get more powerful. The Engwithans built a huge interconnected series of structures called adra pillars which span the underground of POE/Avowed‘s world Eora, making it very likely that players will find access to more Engwithan structures in Avowed. It is likely that the large stone statue seen in the trailer was build by Engwithans rather than colonists, and it’s possible that the ruins in the trailer are also Engwithan.
The Engwithan ruins have huge implications for the study of animancy in Avowed, as while the study of souls is still developing at the time of Pillars of Eternity, there is likely much lost knowledge to be found in the ruins of the lost civilization. The Engwithans were even able to sacrifice enough souls to their machines to create the gods of Eora from singular ideals, and that sort of power will likely attract a lot of attention from well-intentioned and malevolent forces alike.
It remains to be seen how well megadungeons translate from the isometric style of Pillars of Eternity to the first-person perspective of Avowed. It might be more likely, for example, that Avowed’s dungeons do not follow the simple descending floor-plan of The Endless Paths of Od Nua, but might be more more open-plan with greater opportunities to explore.
The existence of megadungeons in the Pillars of Eternity games makes them more likely to appear in Avowed by setting a design precedent for them. On top of that, there is precedent in the story for there to be sprawling Engwithan ruins beneath the Living Lands despite the new setting being so far from the warring nation states of the original Pillars of Eternity. If implemented, fans will be excited to see if the game’s megadungeons can take the traditional dungeon-diving experience to the next level of immersive exploration in Avowed.
Avowed is in development for PC and Xbox Series X.
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