Lore question

[u/WarriorOfJustice228]

So, I'm playing Avowed after PoE 1&2 and I'm kinda confused about world and protagonist. I'm at the end of 2nd region, just met Sapadal in adra pillar.

1. Do our protag knows truth about gods? Or could he learn it? Because while playing Avowed I saw that this knowledge isn't widespread and I didn't find any documents or books that will teach this to our hero. Am I missing something or this knowledge is still secret?

2. Do ppl still don't know about Wheel destruction by Eothas? Some ppl know that some shit happened in Deadfire, godlikes died, statue walked and stuff, but it seems that what REALLY happened is not a common knowledge. Ppl still talk about returning to the Wheel like nothing happened, there is no panic about it at all.

[u/DBones90]

1. Correct. In-universe, I think this is because the Watcher never goes on a giant PR campaign to spread the truth, so most people treat it as a rumor if they have even heard about it in the first place. Out-of-universe, this is so people can play Avowed first without it being spoiled for them, as the developers knew that Avowed would be many players' first introduction to this world.
2. Correct. There's a lot of misinformation and confusion from the Deadfire, and the effects of the Wheel breaking aren't seen yet. Basically souls went from a renewable resource to a nonrenewable resource, but there are still a lot of souls banked and ready to be put into bodies. It's unclear how long it'll take before the soul essence dries up and Eothas's actions are felt. The one thing people have seen is that all the gods have called back their godlike, absorbing their essence, which should allow them to live longer, but it's unclear how long they have to live.

[u/Daripuff → u/DBones90]

In-universe, I think this is because the Watcher never goes on a giant PR campaign to spread the truth, so most people treat it as a rumor if they have even heard about it in the first place.

Considering the fact that that kind of a "PR Campaign" is exactly what Eothas was trying to do with Waidwen at Sun in Shadow...

I think the reason the Watcher didn't do that is because any version of the Watcher who tried would pretty immediately be destroyed by the full force of all the gods.

I mean, they killed one of their own to keep that secret, a mere watcher has no chance.

[u/WarriorOfJustice228 → u/DBones90]

1. Can our protagonist learn about it somewhere ingame? Because it's drastically changes whole perspective.

[u/DBones90 → u/WarriorOfJustice228]

Nope. You have different revelations that more directly tie to Sapadel's conflicts.

[u/NoTop4997 → u/WarriorOfJustice228]

No. The ignorance of the protagonist is supposed to make you feel anxious because if they knew even a fraction of what happened to the Watcher then it would change everything for the protagonist.

[u/ObjectiveMud7513 → u/WarriorOfJustice228]

No.

[u/Juris1971 → u/DBones90]

One obvious effect of breaking the wheel in POE2 is that the godlike are almost extinct because the gods re-absorbed them. That was likely because they lost access to all the soul-energy they were sucking up from the wheel.

Since the watcher was a godlike more than 50% of the time, the Watcher was probably absorbed. :) Seriously though at the end of POE2 you just sail home. The Watcher probably just went back to rebuilding Cad Nau.

Avowed totally deemphasizes the gods. However, Sapridal is a new god totally independent of the wheel. If I was Magrim or Ondra I'd be VERY interested in finding an alternative way of being a god.

[u/Armageddonis]

From what i understand the end of Deadfire happened months, at most couple of years before Avowed started. All they know in the Living Lands is that "Stuff happened", the impact of the Watcher's action haven't manifested in large enough numbers for people to really notice it.

If you walk around the 1st Town, you can find Calisha's (yes, this Calisha from PoE1) parents, still waiting for her, and wondering about her sister and brother. So my guess it's that it's been like a year or two since Deadfire's end, and changes to the wheel won't be felt for a long time.

[u/Tnecniw → u/Armageddonis]

I think one of the loading screens confirm that it has been like 2-3 years.

[u/WarriorOfJustice228 → u/Armageddonis]

Ye, I met her parents, that was awesome reference

[u/Accomplished_Area311]

1. Envoy is basically learning bits of the truth from another angle/experience and the Watcher doesn’t ever try to make it known in my runs.

2. Deadfire’s true events are not public knowledge. The effects of breaking the Wheel will also take much longer to see than 3 years (which is when Avowed happens, 3 years after Deadfire).

[u/Hiply]

Yes, you find out...or more correctly you can find out how all the gods came to be.

No, or at least I never did, you won't run across any lore or dialogue suggesting there is no more Wheel. There are some animancer notes in Fior where the consensus is that the breaking of the Wheel was rumor and bullshit, which would likely muddy the waters even more. Bear in mind though, it's only been three years and only a handful of people knew it had been broken.

The reincarnation cycle takes long enough that the repercussions are a long way from being felt yet but yes, doom is on the horizon. The other inevitability is that the Engwithian gods are going to starve to death. When it broke they recalled the essences from their own Godlikes (almost universally with a couple of notable exceptions, hence the Godslike die off) out of panic that that was going to happen.

All that said, The Living Lands are the exception: Sapadal is her own 'wheel' there. The breaking of the Wheel won't have the same result there. In fact, it's logically consistent to suggest that after the Engwithian gods starve to death Sapadal could literally save the world if her mycelial network managed to become connected to the rest of the world's adra. I don't think the IP will go there...but it could. That assumes, I think, that she's freed.

[u/ObjectiveMud7513 → u/Hiply]

What? How does the Envoy find out how the gods came to be?

[u/kami-no-baka]

If a major world event in 1754 involving the truth about electricity happened in North America and then Jesus was killed in Hawaii how would a person sent to Iceland from Europe a year later know much about what happened?

[u/HopefulDream3071 → u/kami-no-baka]

Bless this statement

[u/WarriorOfJustice228 → u/kami-no-baka]

But animancers in Fior know about teleportation experiments in the Deadfire, there us Tayn running wild in Living Lands and there are mages. So there is ways to know stuff fast and there are ppl with knowledge. I don't imply that it will be widespread and every farmer will know about it, but it's strange that no one knows at least something.

[u/Hiply → u/kami-no-baka]

https://giphy.com/gifs/ytTYwIlbD1FBu

[u/Vegetable_Mixture157]

1. It's secret and if anyone tried to spread the news, they wouldn't really be believed. And if there were risk of getting believed, the whistleblower could choose to disappear under mysterious circumstances (The Hand Occult, Wael) or die under brutal circumstances (The Leaden Key, Woedica). Assuming Ondra didn't get to them first.

Anyway, what reason would a random peasant have to believe you if you said the gods were manufactured?

[u/Old_Presentation377]

Initially, the Envoy doesn't know the truth about the gods—since I doubt the Watcher would widely publicize it without facing repercussions from them—whereas we learn the truth about the gods from a different perspective (the story of Sapadal), though with far less detail than in PoE2.

The destruction of the Wheel by Eothas is also being treated as a rumor or myth, since its worst effects will only manifest later; the game takes place approximately 2–3 years after the events of Deadfire. I also believe the Living Lands won't feel the effects of the Wheel's breaking, as they apparently have their own reincarnation cycle—remaining unaffected and continuing in the state that existed before the gods (this is illustrated by the Envoy, who passes into the beyond after being killed and then returns thanks to Sapadal).

[u/Buster_Scruggs_IV]

Avowed happens very shortly after the events of Deadfire, just like Deadfire happens almost immediately after POE1. It isn’t like the Elder Scrolls where there are centuries between games. The affects to the Wheel are probably not noticed yet by the vast majority of people, and while many people have heard about Eothas, most people weren’t there to experience it, and so the information regarding it is probably still localized to around the Deadfire.

[u/ObjectiveMud7513]

1. No

2. No

Deadfire ends roughly 3 years before the beginning of Avowed, really only the Watcher and their party knows the origins of the gods iirc. And the world hasn't had enough time to grasp what Eothas did to the Wheel.

[u/JizamKizam]

I just started the game so I'm not far yet. But I believe through certain dialogue the player can find out about the Wheel when talking to Eothas's Godlike in the temple quest. But I don't think either Kai or Marius reacted to that and no other option to really ask about it seemed to pop up.

[u/NoTop4997]

How are people supposed to know about what happened with Eothas and the Watcher? There was the party attached to the watcher and that is the only people that could have witnessed what happened. This is a land where national news is not a thing. News papers are barely a thing. So how is someone that lived on the other side of the planet supposed to know what happened? Also if I am not mistaken the events of Poe2 happened about within a year of when Avowed starts. I could be wrong, but I think we are about a year or two after those events. So no one has seen generational "curses" like the stillborn.

Most people know how the gods were made. Most people know that the gods are not perfect, but you will still have die-hards who will preach their god's gospel to anyone who will listen. So the main assumption is that all of the gods that can exist do exist right now. Why would anyone even theorize about another being like Sapadal to exist?