The House of Wael

A short story set in Eora, the world of the Pillars of Eternity game. It's actually something of a follow-up to an-ingame quest, although it has nothing to do with the game's plot.

The story, towards the end, is an ok read, but it starts off very poorly. I believe the problem lies with the subject matter itself. Wael is a god of knowledge, but also of secrets, so mysteries and and unknowns and the confusion is all probably par for the course. Unfortunately, this creates a very befuddled protagonist (who knows even less than the reader) and a very odd (not in a good way) antagonist. While it clears up a bit towards the end, it's done in a way to purposely create more questions than it answers. Again, I suppose the author meant for it to be in keeping with the lore, but it does not help the reader appreciate the story. And you'd need a bit of background in the game to even “get” some things.

I also wanted to mention a contributing factor to the confusion - the reader is actually reading about people who are using the in-game quest item. This extra layer of complexity does not offer enough to be worth the complexity and context switching.

If it only that were the only problems, I'd have enjoyed it a bit more. But unfortunately, the author chose to intersperse the main story with “effect descriptions” and “item descriptions” - as if the reader is a gamer playing through a game. The end result feels like watching a movie scene, then switching over to a “behind the scenes” clip, before continuing the movie. It's very jarring, and feels like a cop-out of not having to make the protagonist “figure it out”.

And speaking of the protagonist... and jarring... that boy protagonist transitions very abruptly - from an awkward confused boy, to a comtemplative manipulative sort, to a suddenly dutiful and faithful priest (but still a boy). If the previous sentence doesn't really make sense, well yeah, that how I feel about the protagonist.

The nice bits about the short story is that the antagonist presents some interesting ideas about the nature of divinity (in the context of the game world). Too bad the antagonist wasn't really developed much.