Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Riddler]

Lathander even eventually became Amunator

Other way around. Amaunator was sun god before Lathander. Retcons in 4e made Lathander a reincarnation of Amaunator.

Was that really a retcon? I thought that always was implied in 3ed.

 

[Harry Easter]

While it could certainly be like that I don't find the underlying philosophy attractive at all. Why would you follow a nihilistic god centered around chaos? I prefer my interpretation and how some of his most devote followers missunderstood his message/programming/philosophy.

I suppose some people (in game) might find solace in the interpretation that nothing matters and everything is equally true depending on your point of view ( especially if you've done something bad or are unintelligent) but I find that a too simplistic concept if you are creating a god. Suppose we created a bunch of superintelligent AI's to guide us, would the people designing them imprint them with such simple (and to me meaningless) core principles?



Something else I have been thinking about is the extent to which the engwithians really could determine that there are no god's. The only thing they could really confirm reliably is that the god's the different cults followed didn't exist and care about their rituals/sacrifices. What god's/creators/powerful cosmic entities that don't give a shit about the tribes of Eora?

I think this opens an interesting window for cosmic horrors and such that the engwithians couldn't conceive or detect. Imagine the created god's dealing with cthulu, I find that concept more interesting than simply man created god's, especially since we know they are created.

One way this could be introduced in some future game is through the reincarnation of souls. Obviously there is some sort of closed system where souls are recycled. This reminds me of Bakkers Prince of nothing series and the goals of the consult. Perhaps Eora has been isolated and closed off from the rest of existence somehow.

Perhaps the actions of the characters and gods could breaks the reincarnation cycle (and eoras isolation) and open up Eora to the universe and all the entiries and horrors that dwell there.

Given the stakes in the first game I think this could be a way to shake things up a little and make the world more unknown and mysterious/dangerous. Knowing that the god's are creations of man loosens the possible tension somewhat, at least for me.

Games do not have to deal with this level of existence to be interesting of course and grounded stories are often the most fun to me but making the setting more unknowable and existentially dangerous seems like a good idea to me.

Again, most of his priests will certainly don't know this aspect of him, because you are right, most people will not find that attractive (especially in a world full of war and famine). But he would be a bad god of mysteries and hidden knowledge if everyone knew what he is all about (which isn't the case). I like your post though, good fodder for further discussions.

 

[Prime Junta]

Was that really a retcon? I thought that always was implied in 3ed.

Can't say for certain how it was handled in 3e (could've been the retcon happened already then) but in 2e at least this wasn't the case. The functions of the gods were fixed but there was ... rotation ... among the ones performing those functions. So when Amaunator died, Lathander took over.

 

[Rivmusique]

Was Thaos involved in the creation of the gods or did he come into the picture later? I forgot.

Spoiler

The vision you see after defeating Thaos, with the horde of somber people waiting to give their souls to the Machine. That is the creation of a god (almost certainly Woedica).

 

[Riddler]

Again, most of his priests will certainly don't know this aspect of him, because you are right, most people will not find that attractive (especially in a world full of war and famine). But he would be a bad god of mysteries and hidden knowledge if everyone knew what he is all about (which isn't the case). I like your post though, good fodder for further discussions.

I don't think that there is a contradiction there necessarily. You can be a god of mysteries without sowing chaos for chaos sake. You could simply sow chaos in order to guide your followers back to the 'right' path, which in this case could be the search for answers rather than the accumulation of information and 'facts'.
Also pardon me if I missunderstood you and please don't take my answer as a critique of the validity of your argument, I simply like discussion.


To further the thought of my previous post:

If the we don't want to change the setting (assuming what I said about other powerful entities isn't already planned) and we work with the thesis that the god's arent bound by their programming and that it mostly informed their agenda/personality there could still very well be other godlike entities.

Given that the known god's were created by the engwithians using animancy (am i remembering correctly?) The it could easily be reproduced either in the future or in the past. Since the world isn't discovered then there is nothing preventing other, unknown culture from having created their own pantheon's.

The same goes for cultures/races predating the engwithians. Let's say the current Kith races are the product of a progenitor race who either created their own god's or closed off Eora from the 'real' god's for some reason. That could be one option.

Another could be that there was a culture existing even further back (millions/billions of years) which has disappeared or was destroyed in a cataclysmic event like the one wiping out the dinosaurs. Let's say they created their own god's in a similar fashion and then we're destroyed. What would happen to their god's? Being left alone for possibly millions of years, evolving and leaving their original programming far behind them. What interest would they have in the affairs of primitive races? (Until those promitive races start mucking around with godcreation themselves in some specify way and disturb the pregenitor's gods)

A third option could be similar to the one above but that there are more worlds/planets than Eora. That raises the question how bound god's are to the world they were created on and how the souls recycling really work.



Where do new souls come from by the way? Souls can apparently power things so souls themselves are in some way comparable to energy. Are the new souls created or Do they come from somewhere? What takes to create a completly new soul and what are they really made of? Further along the same train of thought, what and where is Hel if souls are part-physical?

I hope some of these possibilities are explored a little bit if we are to continue with storylines directly involving the gods. Games about the bickering of man-created gods/machines do not seem very interesting and conflicts between Kith factions would more exciting in my mind if that are the types of stories obsidian wants to tell.

 

[Harry Easter]

I don't think that there is a contradiction there necessarily. You can be a god of mysteries without sowing chaos for chaos sake. You could simply sow chaos in order to guide your followers back to the 'right' path, which in this case could be the search for answers rather than the accumulation of information and 'facts'.

Good point and I think it is part of his job, but he is a dick. He confirms it when he

Spoiler

contacts us at the end of the game and suggests that we scatter the souls all over the world "just for fun". He really just loves to screw people around

.

Also pardon me if I missunderstood you and please don't take my answer as a critique of the validity of your argument, I simply like discussion.

Don't worry, I have fun. But I am not a native speaker, so it can be, that my writing is still a bit odd .

If the we don't want to change the setting (assuming what I said about other powerful entities isn't already planned) and we work with the thesis that the god's arent bound by their programming and that it mostly informed their agenda/personality there could still very well be other godlike entities.

Should pe possible, or at least there could be so called "Godkings" that are reborn all the time. And if I remember it correctly, clerical powers come from the strength of the users soul, so maybe a few strong souls turned into "gods" and reigned over their subjects? I mean the engwithian gods are created by thousand of souls, so why shouldn't it be possible to do this by shere willpower?

The same goes for cultures/races predating the engwithians. Let's say the current Kith races are the product of a progenitor race who either created their own god's or closed off Eora from the 'real' god's for some reason. That could be one option.

Could be, but would they be important for the story? More interesting would be how far the engwithians power reached. Did they conquer all of the known worlds?

But you gave me another idea: when the engwithan gods are that advance a few thousand years before, how much powerful could be a god created in the current times? The animancer learned a few tricks since the earlier days, so this idea could be kind of awesome and creepy.

Where do new souls come from by the way? Souls can apparently power things so souls themselves are in some way comparable to energy. Are the new souls created or Do they come from somewhere? What take to create a soul and what are they really made of? Further along the same train of thought, what and where is Hel if souls are part-physical?

I have the guidebook and if I remember it correctly, souls are created, when kith have sex. That's because two souls rub it each other and than "puff" another one is created (that's a bit easy, but I don't have the further parts in mind). And there is no hell, as far as I can see is. All souls wander around a bit and then return to the wheel and get reborn, until they are destroyed by entropy. So the afterlife of Eoras is quite bleak, if you expect a reward.

 

[Riddler]

I don't think that there is a contradiction there necessarily. You can be a god of mysteries without sowing chaos for chaos sake. You could simply sow chaos in order to guide your followers back to the 'right' path, which in this case could be the search for answers rather than the accumulation of information and 'facts'.

Good point and I think it is part of his job, but he is a dick. He confirms it when he

Spoiler

contacts us at the end of the game and suggests that we scatter the souls all over the world "just for fun". He really just loves to screw people around

.

Also pardon me if I missunderstood you and please don't take my answer as a critique of the validity of your argument, I simply like discussion.

Don't worry, I have fun. But I am not a native speaker, so it can be, that my writing is still a bit odd .

If the we don't want to change the setting (assuming what I said about other powerful entities isn't already planned) and we work with the thesis that the god's arent bound by their programming and that it mostly informed their agenda/personality there could still very well be other godlike entities.

Should pe possible, or at least there could be so called "Godkings" that are reborn all the time. And if I remember it correctly, clerical powers come from the strength of the users soul, so maybe a few strong souls turned into "gods" and reigned over their subjects? I mean the engwithian gods are created by thousand of souls, so why shouldn't it be possible to do this by shere willpower?

The same goes for cultures/races predating the engwithians. Let's say the current Kith races are the product of a progenitor race who either created their own god's or closed off Eora from the 'real' god's for some reason. That could be one option.

Could be, but would they be important for the story? More interesting would be how far the engwithians power reached. Did they conquer all of the known worlds?

But you gave me another idea: when the engwithan gods are that advance a few thousand years before, how much powerful could be a god created in the current times? The animancer learned a few tricks since the earlier days, so this idea could be kind of awesome and creepy.

Where do new souls come from by the way? Souls can apparently power things so souls themselves are in some way comparable to energy. Are the new souls created or Do they come from somewhere? What take to create a soul and what are they really made of? Further along the same train of thought, what and where is Hel if souls are part-physical?

I have the guidebook and if I remember it correctly, souls are created, when kith have sex. That's because two souls rub it each other and than "puff" another one is created (that's a bit easy, but I don't have the further parts in mind). And there is no hell, as far as I can see is. All souls wander around a bit and then return to the wheel and get reborn, until they are destroyed by entropy. So the afterlife of Eoras is quite bleak, if you expect a reward.

I'm not a native speaker either so my tone might not really represent what I'm trying to say...

Hel I referenced in the qoutes in the teaser images for PoE2 so I assumed it exists as a concept at least (probably not as a biblical hell though).


Does this mean you could farm souls by having people fuck? You could just get some slaves hooked up to some machines and get them going to create a god or empower it, no need to kill people? By the way, do animals have souls and if not what differentiates Kith from animals and magical beings such as dragons? Alsoe Who or what gave rise to the first souls in this scenario? Is there a creation myth?

Are god's powers dependant on the number of souls sacrifices then and is that power static?

Additionally I would like to learn more about how sentient and intelligent the gods really are. The purpose of the gods seems a bit limited if they are limited by their human creators intelligence and the number of souls sacrificed. I would find it more interesting if you just need a certain number of souls(or certian amount of "soul power" to get started and that the god's then evolve from there, leaving the human limitations behind while still informed by their starting conditions (personality imprint + souls sacrificed)

 

[Sannom]

Of course that's possible, but I always got the sense that the gods were deliberately manufactured to be as archetypal as possible (only Skaen sort of deviates from this, the others are pretty much what you would expect from a typical fantasy lineup) - and every divine pantheon needs a deity that seeks to subjugate the others.

Skaen seems to have been created because the Engwythans knew that someone abusing their power too much was a threat to the status quo and thus created a violent, unappealing god that only the truly desperate, inhumanely treated could invoke to discard the abuser.

Of course, that seems to have gone all out the window in the present time, what with a cult to Skaen sprouting up in the Dyrwood, responding to no particular crisis and led by an educated man the kind of whom you don't expect to see at the head of a cult dedicated to Skaen.

Reading this discussion it gave me an idea - what if the Engwithians simply could not foresee that their way of creating gods would result in so much chaos later down the line.

I'm pretty sure that the Engwythans put Woedica in charge of the pantheon to keep her portfolio of justice and laws in charge of everything and that they didn't expect the other gods to rebel against her. I'm pretty sure that the gods fit the "AI is a Scrapshoot" trope in that regard, with their programming chafing against the constraints put upon them by Woedica, constraints they decided to rebel against.

Something else I have been thinking about is the extent to which the engwithians really could determine that there are no god's. The only thing they could really confirm reliably is that the god's the different cults followed didn't exist and care about their rituals/sacrifices. What god's/creators/powerful cosmic entities that don't give a shit about the tribes of Eora?

In keeping with the "crisis of faith" theme of most of the game, I believe it is sort of fitting that the entire conflict is driven by the crisis of faith of an entire civilization.

 

[Riddler]

Something else I have been thinking about is the extent to which the engwithians really could determine that there are no god's. The only thing they could really confirm reliably is that the god's the different cults followed didn't exist and care about their rituals/sacrifices. What god's/creators/powerful cosmic entities that don't give a shit about the tribes of Eora?

In keeping with the "crisis of faith" theme of most of the game, I believe it is sort of fitting that the entire conflict is driven by the crisis of faith of an entire civilization.

So do i but do you think that they were correct in their conclusions leading to the crisis?

Beyond PoE1 what do you think fits the setting and would make it more interesting? Is the pantheon and the metaphysics fine as they are and future games should explore other aspects of the setting (perhaps more grounded) or could it use more development to create a feeling of a larger world and universe where we don't know how the fundamental parts work? I'm kinda bothered by the ending of PoE and feel like it undercut the potential complexity of the setting. Or I'm just an overthinking storyfag (not mutually exclusive I guess).

Was the nature of the gods explained at all? I don't rememeber. Is there a qualitative difference between a god and a powerful mage using animancy? Do they have some sort of role in the cycle of souls? Are they more intelligent than humans? Do we know anything more than that they are created and their portfolios?

 

[Sannom]

So do i but do you think that they were correct in their conclusions leading to the crisis?

How can we know? Maybe that in the Engwythan's belief system, there existed a way to reliably contact the Gods and when that way failed, they assumed that the Gods didn't exist, in which case they would be correct.

Was the nature of the gods explained at all? I don't rememeber. Is there a qualitative difference between a god and a powerful mage using animancy? Do they have some sort of role in the cycle of souls? Are they more intelligent than humans? Do we know anything more than that they are created and their portfolios?

It's implied that the Gods are AI powered by souls and inhabiting the Adra lines deep beneath the planet. Berath is said to manage the cycle of souls and the ending when you betray Hylea implies that he really does have power over it, as she makes a deal with him to trade adult lives for babies. The power of the Gods is also incontestable, especially in those endings when you betray their trust.

 

[Prime Junta]

It's implied that the Gods are AI powered by souls and inhabiting the Adra lines deep beneath the planet.

<citation needed>

I didn't see anything that specific about godtech. The only thing that was made clear is that the Engwithans used those massive machines to harvest souls from more-or-less-willing kith subjects and made the gods out of them. How exactly they made them, how much they shaped the gods, and how much free will or agency the gods have was, AFAIK, left entirely open.

I.e. I don't remember anything that suggests the gods are AI-like, restricted to following their programming (any more than people are restricted to following their programming anyway).

 

[Sannom]

I don't know else you can define the Gods as something other than particularly smart and powerful AIs. They remind me of Helios from Deus Ex and all those other science fiction stories in which very powerful AIs end up directing or managing the world.

 

[Prime Junta]

I don't know else you can define the Gods as something other than particularly smart and powerful AIs.

I imagined that they were made by merging, say, a million souls of people who believed in a certain way, creating a conscious entity with free will and agency, but a worldview which incorporated the beliefs and feelings of all those souls. A hivemind with a superego and lots of powers if you will, but not an AI or "programmed" entity.

 

[2house2fly]

Reading this discussion it gave me an idea - what if the Engwithians simply could not foresee that their way of creating gods would result in so much chaos later down the line. They were pretty sure that they are doing this for the benefit of a stable peaceful society at the time, but things started fucking up many hundreds of years later after their deaths. Was Thaos involved in the creation of the gods or did he come into the picture later? I forgot. Cause even an immortal soul-stealing mastermind can't know what's gonna happen in 200, 300 or 500 years. People often assume that the villain/antagonist always does the correct well thought out thing, but nobody said they can't make mistakes.

That's kind of an interesting question; Thaos seems to originally have been left behind as a missionary, to spread the word of the gods, but he describes committing all sorts of atrocities in the name of protecting the gods. The Engwithans probably thought the whole thing would be a lot simpler than it turned out to be.

Where do new souls come from by the way? Souls can apparently power things so souls themselves are in some way comparable to energy. Are the new souls created or Do they come from somewhere? What takes to create a completly new soul and what are they really made of? Further along the same train of thought, what and where is Hel if souls are part-physical?

Nothing in the game suggests that new souls are created, more that there's a fixed amount of "essence" that's endlessly recycled. Except that there's a tiny bit less of it each time, Rymrgand suggesting that it's subject to entropy, and souls get "lesser" as the population of the world grows because they're spread out among more people. This makes Rymrgand's suggestion that you destroy the souls fuelling Woedica the Evil Option, because you'd essentially be hastening the setting's inevitable apocalypse (or will bodies wean themselves off souls as the supply drops?)

Skaen seems to have been created because the Engwythans knew that someone abusing their power too much was a threat to the status quo and thus created a violent, unappealing god that only the truly desperate, inhumanely treated could invoke to discard the abuser.

IMO Skaen was also created to attract rebellious types and incite them to commit horrific acts, making rebellion and revolution look inherently repulsive from the outside.

I.e. I don't remember anything that suggests the gods are AI-like, restricted to following their programming (any more than people are restricted to following their programming anyway).

Personally I just like to think of them that way because it's cool.

 

[Suicidal]

I.e. I don't remember anything that suggests the gods are AI-like, restricted to following their programming (any more than people are restricted to following their programming anyway).

Personally I just like to think of them that way because it's cool.

Sadly I would have to replay through the entirety of PoE to find those specific parts but I distinctly remember that when reading some of the lore books about history or legends when some of the gods were conversing with mortals they definitely didn't sound like powerful omnipotent beings - some of the lines read exactly like how I would imagine a magical machine creature programmed with a certain personality and set of beliefs would talk.

You know that site where you can ask McDonalds various questions and they always find a way to reply by using the words "100% natural beef with a dash of salt and pepper" in some context when speaking about their cheeseburgers so it becomes apparent that you're talking to a pretty sophisticated automated answer generator. That's how reading those conversations felt to me.

 

[Rivmusique]

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Book

 

[Sannom]

IMO Skaen was also created to attract rebellious types and incite them to commit horrific acts, making rebellion and revolution look inherently repulsive from the outside.

I don't think that works, Skaen only provided his help to slaves and serfs, not revolutionaries. Some Dyrwoodians tried during the War of Defiance, but he never answered, and the patron gods of the revolution turned out to be Magran and Abydon, the former's portfolio being particularly in line with the ideas of revolution and change.

 

[Riddler]

Was the nature of the gods explained at all? I don't rememeber. Is there a qualitative difference between a god and a powerful mage using animancy? Do they have some sort of role in the cycle of souls? Are they more intelligent than humans? Do we know anything more than that they are created and their portfolios?

It's implied that the Gods are AI powered by souls and inhabiting the Adra lines deep beneath the planet. Berath is said to manage the cycle of souls and the ending when you betray Hylea implies that he really does have power over it, as she makes a deal with him to trade adult lives for babies. The power of the Gods is also incontestable, especially in those endings when you betray their trust.

Who managed the transition before Berath then and who or what set up that cycle?(having soul entropy suggest some sort of starting point or genesis) Souls and the cycle presumably existed before the god-creation since it's implied that the god's are created through the combination of thousands of souls?

This does not answer whether their power is qualitatively different from the Kith of Eora. Couldn't a powerful animancer or a mage do the same?

Considering their apparent control over souls what's to stop them from hijacking the cycle to feed themselves or create more gods? Inability or are they programmed not to? If puny mortals can create gods why wouldn't the gods themselves try or at least manipulate their followers to do so in order to create allies for their internal struggle?

Power is kind of meaningless without direction though. A natural disaster is powerful but holds no more purpose or meaning than a stationary rock. So have the gods shown any indication of superhuman intelligence?(meaning clearly superior to what any Kith could be). If not then they are either man made natural phenomena communicating like advanced chat-bots or simply superpowered mages either of which is less interesting than having some entities clearly superior the Kith (Kith having the ability to create more gods make the gods somewhat irrelevant if they don't grow on their own)

 

[2house2fly]

Who managed the transition before Berath then and who or what set up that cycle?(having soul entropy suggest some sort of starting point or genesis) Souls and the cycle presumably existed before the god-creation since it's implied that the god's are created through the combination of thousands of souls?

This does not answer whether their power is qualitatively different from the Kith of Eora. Couldn't a powerful animancer or a mage do the same?

Considering their apparent control over souls what's to stop them from hijacking the cycle to feed themselves or create more gods? Inability or are they programmed not to? If puny mortals can create gods why wouldn't the gods themselves try or at least manipulate their followers to do so in order to create allies for their internal struggle?

Power is kind of meaningless without direction though. A natural disaster is powerful but holds no more purpose or meaning than a stationary rock. So have the gods shown any indication of superhuman intelligence?(meaning clearly superior to what any Kith could be). If not then they are either man made natural phenomena communicating like advanced chat-bots or simply superpowered mages either of which is less interesting than having some entities clearly superior the Kith (Kith having the ability to create more gods make the gods somewhat irrelevant if they don't grow on their own)

-the cycle is natural in the setting, like gravity. The gods clearly have some influence over it but it would putter along just ifne without them.
-quite possibly
-getting kith to create more gods sounds like a huge hassle; it'd be tough to convince a civilisation's worth of people to sacrifice themselves.
-the gods haven't shown any signs of being super-intelligent, and I don't remember them ever even saying "a mere mortal would not understand"

 

[Riddler]

Perhaps I'm communicating poorly.. but I'm interested in the direction of the metaphysics of the setting rather than specific facts even if those are interesting as well. I find the idea of the only available gods being advanced automatons or equivalent to powerful mages/animancer uninteresting and unbelievable in the context of the setting and the Kith. Why would powerful mages and animancer obviously capable to similar feats as the gods believe the gods to be godlike? And why would anyone else when you have an abundance of these readily at hand... Manifesting powers through manipulattion of the own souls seems like a fundamental part of the universe and not something new. Also as I understand it physical manifestations of the gods have more or less only happened through Weidwen so why would anyone believe something to be a higher power when people around you manifest (to you observably similar) powers regularly? Why would anyone care?

How many souls were really required per god anyway? Thousands? Tens of thousands? How many engwithians could there really have been some 10000 years ago? (or whenever the gods were created). To me the required amount of souls does not seem to be the limiting factor for a religious cult, especially if it's lead by an existing god.

Related to that I don't remember if it was explained how the engwithians gained the Required knowledge to create the gods. How could they possibly be that advanced compared to the rest of the world?

 

[Prime Junta]

Related to that I don't remember if it was explained how the engwithians gained the Required knowledge to create the gods. How could they possibly be that advanced compared to the rest of the world?

They did allude to that. The Engwithans were significantly ahead in animancy, but behind in technologies like metallurgy or construction. Think Gauls, only the druids can actually do some scary shit with souls.

I don't see any major problems with that. There's nothing to suggest that animancy is inherently any harder than, say, metallurgy; a culture that for whatever reason took off in that direction could get pretty far with it even if it doesn't invent steel, gunpowder, or crop rotation.

 

[Polanski]

Related to that I don't remember if it was explained how the engwithians gained the Required knowledge to create the gods. How could they possibly be that advanced compared to the rest of the world?

They did allude to that. The Engwithans were significantly ahead in animancy, but behind in technologies like metallurgy or construction. Think Gauls, only the druids can actually do some scary shit with souls.

I don't see any major problems with that. There's nothing to suggest that animancy is inherently any harder than, say, metallurgy; a culture that for whatever reason took off in that direction could get pretty far with it even if it doesn't invent steel, gunpowder, or crop rotation.

This reminded me of beelining a religion in Fall from Heaven

 

[Projas]

Why would powerful mages and animancer obviously capable to similar feats as the gods believe the gods to be godlike

There's simply no one who's as advanced in animancy as the Engwithans were. No one is capable of the same feat the gods are.

And why would anyone else when you have an abundance of these readily at hand... Manifesting powers through manipulattion of the own souls seems like a fundamental part of the universe and not something new. Also as I understand it physical manifestations of the gods have more or less only happened through Weidwen so why would anyone believe something to be a higher power when people around you manifest (to you observably similar) powers regularly?

Probably because they can do things like crash a fucking moon into the planet.

 

[Jarpie]

I just got through second chapter and into Hearthsong...motherfucking tribals...I fucking hate that shit cliche.

 

[Riddler]

Why would powerful mages and animancer obviously capable to similar feats as the gods believe the gods to be godlike

There's simply no one who's as advanced in animancy as the Engwithans were. No one is capable of the same feat the gods are.

And why would anyone else when you have an abundance of these readily at hand... Manifesting powers through manipulattion of the own souls seems like a fundamental part of the universe and not something new. Also as I understand it physical manifestations of the gods have more or less only happened through Weidwen so why would anyone believe something to be a higher power when people around you manifest (to you observably similar) powers regularly?

Probably because they can do things like crash a fucking moon into the planet.

Well I didn't know that... Perhaps I should leave this discussion until I have played white march. But this raises the question of how you know that the "gods" did this, especially if you live on the other side of the world. My impression playing the game was that gods didn't interfere directly with human affairs which is why waidwen was such a big deal. I don't remember people referencing the different gods faithinspiring deeds but rather vague philosophical ideals which dont really offer anything new compared to what already existed, assuming that other cultures weren't in fact backward but simply behind on animancy. This line of thinking probably won't lead anywhere I guess, since the developers probably don't care.

One thing that does affect the present Gameworld and the future games is the strange absence of discussion of the nature of the gods in PoE. If I was confronted with the fact that all the gods I've ever known are created by people like myself then I would like know wtf they created, who cares about thanos and his question if people can handle the truth or not. What exactly is the truth? What did they do and what is the nature of the gods? Have you been speaking to automatons or are they sentient? etc. Thats what I'd like to know as an inhabitant of Eora. The motivations of some ancient culture really seems secondary to me, the gods are very real in the present and meddle with shit.