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FINALLY GOT MY REFERENCE SHEETS DONE
here's my Watchers, Axa and Vaargys
here's what they look like naked (for proper fur and scar placement purposes of course) and what they look like in-game (so you can see what i had to work with)
here's a couple of collages of older drawings of them
aaaaand here are my Envoys, Elna and Ardhal
and some screenshots of them from the game
oh no concelhottie's gonna blast me~ 🥵💘
was wondering which world or timeline or whatever either of my main two watchers shares with which of my main two envoys and i realized i think axa would probably ultimately want to kill sapadal. and vaargys would want to be their buddy film costar
just wanted to confess damn i love vaargys so much 🥺
awww thank you so much anon that's so sweet of you to say! here, have a him i drew just for you to express my gratitude ♡
vaargys loves ya too babey 💕👁💞
pillars of eternity ask, 13, 20, and 22 <3
13. how does your watcher relate to their culture?
answered!
20. what is your watcher's family life like?
Axa had an unusually small family compared to the rest of her community. this is largely due to her parents' own family situations growing up: her mother was born a slave in Readceras and escaped to Ixamitl totally alone as an adolescent, while her father was the son of a respected warrior in his remote village who had rejected his father's attempts at strongarming him into following in his footsteps by running away from home, traveling across the continent alone, and becoming a cartographer in a city built around a bustling lore college. unfortunately, their family only ever shrunk again after Axa's younger brother Tico was born. an Avian godlike, his birth rendered their mother infertile, putting a very abrupt end to her dream of having a large family with lots of children. she became bitter, and her demeanor drove her husband to working more and more, spending longer and longer amounts of time away from home. finally he promised to do one last big job and then he'd accept a job in the lore college his daughter would be starting at next year, allowing him to stay closer to home and family. instead, he vanished without a trace while out on that last job, leaving Axa's mother the sole caretaker and earner for their little household. an artisan by trade, Axa's mother had little choice but to resort to plucking her godlike son's feathers to use in her totems and amulets, making her stock stand out against her competitors' but sowing resentment in her children. Axa loves and misses her father, having been closer to him than to her mother, but she can't help but wonder if instead of meeting some terrible fate he just... got tired of it all and left them to start a new life. he'd done it before, after all. she loves her mother, but is infuriated by her quickness to judge and her flimsy excuses for her own bad behavior. she loves her little brother Tico (his full traditional Ixamitec name translates to Brave Little Bird Hops Out of His Cage) but wishes he'd stand up for himself more against their mother. Tico is a conscientious young man who insists on staying with their mother as he's the only family she has left and he feels she needs him. while she only visited her mother once between Pillars 1 and Deadfire, Axa loves to have Tico come and visit her every now and then– he adores his adopted niece Vela, and he was halfway through a trip back to Caed Nua from Dyrford with her when Eothas rose. as a mother herself, Axa is... not exactly neglectful toward Vela, but definitely not as engaged and present as she really ought to be. mostly it's due to her fear of fucking up as a parent the way her own parents did, but she also acknowledges that she leads a rather intense and violent life and she doesn't want Vela accidentally getting hurt. their relationship is pretty poor after she returns home from training in the Vailian Republics, gets a little better after a long visit from Uncle Birdy (Tico), then it really improves during Deadfire with Vela on board her ship. by the time Axa gives birth to Teo, she and Vela are very close. as a wife, Axa is fiercely loyal, intensely proud and supportive of her husband, and seldom goes where her Aloth cannot follow. (their Thing with Vatnir is enthusiastically agreed upon by all three parties)
Vaargys didn't have a family growing up. he barely even had a clan: his biological father was the clan's elderly priest who had sworn himself to celibacy so that he would remain pure from the seductive lies of Berath's Wheel by interacting with the cycle of life and death as little as possible, which included refusing to induce a soul's reincarnation by way of fathering any children that might receive that soul. Vaargys' biological mother was the priest's young acolyte, a woman barely out of girlhood who sought to become a priest so she could take the vow of celibacy too, to avoid her fate of having to become a clan mother someday as the thought of pregnancy and childbirth terrified and disgusted her. in the end, the old priest broke his vow and cruelly manipulated his acolyte into a single forbidden tryst with him. of course she got pregnant from it and died in childbirth, and as it was honestly pretty obvious what had happened, their child was forsaken by the whole clan as a portent of doom. Vaargys was a symbol of their priest's lack of discipline and true piety, proof that he was unfit to lead and that the clan was destined to perish. he was fed and clothed and educated like the other children, but he was not cherished as a child of the clan. he was not allowed to sing their epics nor to attend religious rituals and rites, no one shared anything with him unbidden and even when they had no choice but to include him they did so with reluctance and stinginess. it didn't take him long to put two and two together as a child when he realized that out of the entire clan, only he and the old priest had the exact same golden-yellow eyes, but he never saw the point in confronting the old man, and the old priest avoided his misbegotten son like a bad memory, having said maybe ten words to the boy before his eventual death in Vaargys' young adulthood. it's worth noting that his mother, who he'd never met, did appear to him in the first vision he ever had, urging him to seek the path of the Eyeless Face. he obeyed, because as he says, "one ought always take advice from one's mother's ghost, ja? that's just common sense." Vaargys took Vela under his benevolent wing partially out of an emotional camaraderie he felt with the poor orphaned babe, and as her papa he absolutely spoils her rotten, lavishing her with gifts and cooing lovingly at her in Ordhjóma (which he never actually taught her.) she's annoyed by his overly effusive affection sometimes, and she certainly knows how to use him to get what she wants, but overall Vela is a good-hearted child who doesn't abuse the considerable power she has over her adoptive father. usually.
22. what has your watcher been doing between poe1 and poe2?
answered!
16,18,22,23 for the Watcher asks! For both Axa abd Vaargys
16. how did your watcher react to the reveal that the gods were created by engwithans?
Axa is utterly outraged. somehow the idea that the gods were an inevitable, unavoidable fact of nature that kith just had to put up with was at least somewhat tolerable to her, especially after kith found out they can through great effort apparently turn the tables and kill these gods. but the fact that the gods are in fact ultimately nothing but a bunch of overly ambitious, paternalistic charlatans who conspired against the rest of the world in order to rule it together is absolutely, fundamentally unacceptable to her. the sheer humiliation and indignity at having been fooled and pushed around by a bunch of dead Engwithans along with all of kithkind for thousands of years is almost worse to Axa than all the misery and destruction the gods have wrought against mortals all this time.
Vaargys is overjoyed to have this secret truth of the universe revealed to him. a god is a god, no matter how it was created. and the gods aren't just a bunch of kith souls mushed together– they're not kith at all anymore. they've ascended into something new, something spectacular. they're pure ideologies made manifest, free of the prison of mortal flesh, the pinnacle of kith achievement. apotheosis is just a natural part of evolution, one step closer to a perfect state of existence. doesn't necessarily mean he likes most of the gods, nor does he really agree with any of their tenets save Wael, but he figures the gods' current state as separate entities is only temporary anyway. hey can he maybe get in on that
18. what does your watcher think about woedica trying to communicate with them during poe2?
Axa doesn't like or trust any of the gods, least of all Woedica, but all the same she can't help but argue with the old bitch. when it comes to Woedica, Axa's basically that self-righteous idiot you keep advising not to talk to the cops, but her dumb ass just keeps saying shit like "yeah but i don't have anything to hide!!!!! my heart and intentions are so pure and good!!!! my armor-piercing proclamations of benevolence are sure to cut a path of truth through her evil bullshit this time!! no i don't need an attorney!!!!" maybe someday she'll learn not to listen to bad faith actors, but until then i guess she just can't help but want to hear out even the worst of them.
Vaargys likes fucking with the Queen That Probably Never Actually Was and wasting her time as much as he can. as a Waelite, of course he does. unfortunately, she is a goddess so she kinda knows what he's up to and doesn't put up with it for long. oh well, not gonna ruin his day!
22. what has your watcher been doing between poe1 and poe2?
between Pillars 1 and Deadfire, Axa joined up with the Kind Wayfarers and threw herself into her new vocation, traveling to the Vailian Republics and training there for three years. this decision was not at all influenced by her many new and scary responsibilities at home (including the infant she kidnapped while struggling with her rapidly deteriorating mental stability), nor by her finding herself all alone again when all of her dearest friends (including the man she may have been falling in love with) suddenly left her. no, she joined the Wayfarers because she knew she had a lot of power and influence and she wanted to wield it responsibly, to use it to help people, keep them safe, and that's all. she was, due to her fantastic experiences and unique abilities, a very quick study and ended up passing her "final exam" with the Kind Wayfarers (guarding a convoy of asylum seekers through Dyrwood and into the Republics with a seasoned, jaded Bleak Walker as the only other guard) just three years after beginning training. then she returned home and spent most of her time patrolling her roads, even offering free room and board for travelers on the grounds of Caed Nua. this made her feel pretty bad when Eothas rose and killed all those people who wouldn't have been there otherwise if she hadn't offered them a place to stay for a while.
Vaargys did what he usually does when left to his own devices: he wandered wherever his soul lead him, abusing drugs and praying, offering what wisdom Wael saw fit to reveal to him as advice to the troubled. he came home to Caed Nua every now and again, never staying longer than two weeks at a time. he'd spend most of his time at home doting obnoxiously on his adopted orlan daughter, adding to his collection of trinkets and baubles, and opening and closing all the drawers and cabinets in the keep over and over again in an attempt to see That Which Should Not Be Seen. drove the Steward crazy. he also sojourned to Defiance Bay on occasion, and every time he did House Doemenel always seemed to be celebrate his presence, throwing a lot of money around on yet another lavish dinner party. (perhaps because every time Vaargys came to Defiance Bay, another enemy of House Doemenel suffered another mysterious burglary or a suspicious setback in their operations. or sometimes they just turned up dead.) he was so seldom at home that it became a sort of mini pilgrimage for priests of Wael passing through Dyrwood to visit Caed Nua, to see if Wael would grant them a glimpse of Their favored servant, the Seer Who Watches.
23. what does your watcher do after poe2?
answered!
10 and 13 for axa!! 😊
10. which god did your watcher make a deal with? did they keep their end of the bargain?
Axa made her deal with Berath. she kept her promise, not because she particularly liked Berath but because returning the souls to the Wheel to give them a chance to start life over properly seemed like the most natural course of action for her. really if anything she pledged herself to Berath because of what they wanted to do with the souls, not because Axa agreed with the tenets or philosophy of the god.
Vaargys promised Rymrgand the souls because by that time he was losing his mind and drifting into total despair. figured he'd let his worst enemy and antithesis of his entire spiritual philosophy win, because fuck it right? fuck everything. anyway he got his shit back together afterward and broke the promise he made to Rymrgand for Wael instead. (a personal visit from one's god tends to restore one's sanity and hope for the future, most of the time). and he never regretted it!
13. how does your watcher relate to their culture?
Axa is Ixamitec, and the thing about Ixamitec culture is that there isn't a lot of canon material to pull from when attempting to talk about it. so how she relates to her culture will kind of have to be based on shit i've more or less made up about her culture. (for instance, i made up that Ixamitec naming tradition for godlike children in my last post! making shit up is fun!) with that in mind, i think i can say that she rather enjoys her native culture and mostly adheres to even it as an expatriate in the Dyrwood. the Ixamitec seem to be overall an honest people who value their deep thinkers, and as Axa is a scholar and a proponent of (responsible) animancy, she very much agrees. she misses the cuisine from home, which tended to be more varied and flavorful (and usually lighter fare) than the typical heavy, greasy, bland Dyrwoodan meal. she cooks a lot more after after Pillars 1 than she did before it. Ixamitl also has different ideas about gender roles and modesty than the Dyrwood has, so she doesn't understand or agree with Dyrwoodan modesty standards and the insistence on segregating the sexes in the name of "decency." the Deadfire's more relaxed modesty standards chafe her a lot less, and her preference to lounge around the Luminous Bathhouse topless despite her multicultural crew has made her the subject of some scandalous gossip amongst some of her allies at the VTC.
Vaargys is from the White That Wends, and their nihilistic culture with its inextricable ties to Rymrgand is absolute anathema to him and his lifestyle. he really only relates to his own culture as a cautionary tale, an example of the exact opposite of what he should act like, feel, believe, do, say, and value. he fully believes that Wael literally reached out to him from the Beyond to save him from certain death at the hands of his own kin, so that his god might sow chaos amongst the stagnant Glamfellen masses through him. even the cuisine doesn't mean much to him; it's because of his clan shunning and neglecting him that he had to learn not to be picky if he wanted to survive and will now eat damn near anything. it's worth noting that he's a perpetual trinket hoarder and kleptomaniac, probably stemming from severe insecurity in his childhood and most of his adult life, but also clashing with many Glamfellen clans' traditional minimalism and disapproval of material clutter. also not only will he not sing any of his clan's epics, he outright refuses to sing at all. he remembers them all, though.
23 for Axa and Vaargys?
23. what does your watcher do after poe2?
Axa goes back to the Dyrwood with the intention to 1. marry Aloth, 2. somehow go about attempting to restore Caed Nua, and 3. also somehow gather and assist animancers in creating an alternative to the Wheel. because she is a fool who thinks she can just do things, of course. what she ends up doing when she finally gets back to the Dyrwood is 1. fighting against the invading force that took advantage of Caed Nua's destruction and Dyrwood's ongoing shortage of soldiers due to the Hollowborn Crisis to conquer basically the entire northern half of the country (a very good and interesting idea mentioned in Josh Sawyer's Pillars ttrpg), 2. marrying Aloth (and Vatnir joins them soon after to form a happy throuple) and 3. discovering a few months in that she's fucking pregnant with no idea who the father could possibly be (never slept with any male orlans) until she gives birth and it's a Dawn godlike and then she gets an idea who may be behind this. she names her baby in the traditional Ixamitec style for godlike children: namely, a phrase that pays tribute to the child's patron god while also expressing the parents' wishes as to what works on Eora the god might perform through their godlike child. her son's name means, "the Sun Sets on the Gods, Casting Long Shadows." everyone calls him Teo.
i don't think i ever thought about what Vaargys does! probably the same thing he does between Pillars 1 and Deadfire: wanders, waiting for miracles and revelations of Wael, doting on his daughter, offering (dubious) counsel to the lost and searching. maybe he eventually involves himself in the creation of a new Wheel somehow. i always felt that no matter what else happened, Vaargys was going to ascend in some way to some different plane of existence beyond ordinary kith. maybe Mushroom Llengrath has some ideas for him? maybe animancy does? maybe the gods? maybe something in the Living Lands...?
