Watcher. In a world where the passage of souls is as ordinary as a cipher’s charm and as powerful as gods, the rare gift or curse of the Watcher carries much weight. The truth of the corruption of the Wheel of souls may not reveal itself any other way.
(Picture is an in-game default avatar.)
Vailond was my first Pillars of Eternity Watcher: a Galawain devotee with a white wolf best friend and a powerful need to not be a Watcher anymore. I wrote novelizations of the two Pillars of Eternity CRPGs and then wrote an original arc with the familiar characters.
First, of course, came Lady Vail’s Pack:
Kana smiled over his eggs and toast. “Your Engwithan machine is at the top of a tower in a district called Heritage Hill. It has been blocked off for several weeks now, and the guards don’t seem to have the details of why. Regardless, no one has been seen getting in or coming out ever since the lockdown. If there are people there, they must be starving. And if there aren’t…well. Something walks there.”
Vailond looked at her toast.
She looked at Kana.
“When did you find all this out?” she said.
“Last night.”
“From who?”
“Oh, people here and there. The guards.”
“You just…went around talking to people?” said Vailond.
“Yes,” said Kana.
“And that works?” said Vailond.
“They don’t write songs about Dyrwoodan hospitality, but in my experience it merits at least a ditty.”
When Vailond got thrown into Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, she finds that her wolf Tyrhos won’t accept her fractured soul, and she has to set out on her own. But that’s after the intro:
Edér was the guide here. In the low light from the window slits his chain coif looked sinister compared to the knowledge of his golden hair. He had a better sense for things indoors than Vailond did. Even after all this time…Vailond had had half of Caed Nua’s keep rebuilt to make it harder to get lost. Sadly she couldn’t make all other castle owners fall in line. Here, she was lost, except that Edér signaled at the next door.
She signed for silence. The Grieving Mother nodded and waved. For a second something pressed on Vailond’s throat and she felt, with a stab of panic, that she couldn’t speak if she wanted to. Mother really could use some work on the consent front. Still, it did its job. The party was silent as she slowly edged around the corner. This doorway let out onto the throne room where Raedric the Death Guard, Lord of Gilded Vale, was supposed to keep court.
Vailond nodded at Tyrhos. He would follow her first crossbow shot with all his muscle and teeth. She touched her throat and felt Grieving Mother release the block on her voice.
She swung into the doorway, counting her opponents – eight in this broken court. “Second verse,” she yelled, and fired at Raedric.
“Same as the first,” she yelled, and reloaded, walking. Tyrhos streaked beside her to hurl himself at a skeleton holding a grimoire. The hunt was at its end, and there remained only the kill.
Finally, with matters settled, a new adra problem crops up rather literally in Vailond’s front yard. She has to manage the dead somehow.
“I don’t know which one of you shoved the adra in my front yard. Maybe you don’t want the others to know. Maybe that’s more interference than you were supposed to give. Well, look, I don’t know what you think I was going to do with it, but it’s out of your hands now. I hope you know that.
“It’s out of your hands.
“Which one of you wants to step forward and say you’re finished meddling with us? Magran? I’m about to test every soul in the In-Between. Abydon? Do you have any idea what we’re going to build with that adra? Rymrgand? You do not own the dead souls even if they do pile up.
“Anyone? Are you listening?”
Her friends’ breathing sounded in the stillness like a broadside of Deadfire cannons. There was no other sound.
“Eothas? Are you back in play yet? You can die to the Godhammer or die to the Wheel but I won’t believe you’re really gone until stupid things stop happening to me. Galawain? Let me take this hunt myself, and we will not cross trails. Woedica? If that pillar is yours I’ll gnaw it to the ground and spit it out in the cesspool. But, Skaen, if it’s yours I will make it a spot of law. Wael? Are you just throwing random things at me to see how react? Because I will make something of it. Ondra? Were you trying to get rid of me? Because I’m coming back to your place when all this is done. You always did right by me. I don’t forget that.
“Berath…fuck. I don’t know what to say. I feel like if you’ve started this, you’re not finished.”
In terms of romance, there is a canon-compliant Serafen romance and an Aloth slow burn. And a hopeless Edér crush, but what else is new?
All three novels are available on AO3:
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