So the world is called Eora and basic lore for pillars is like this, there was this ancient and legendary super-nation of precursors called
Engwithans, they were like Atlantis, super-advanced and world-spanning magitech society. All races were part of it but at that time there were still primitive tribal people living near them as well, ancestors of modern civilized nations. Long story short they stopped existing one day and it is a huge mystery why this happened exactly. Engwith nation left countless ruins throughout the world filled with ancient wonders and hidden truths.
What is known about them is that people of Engwith were masters of so-called
Animancy. A special field of arcane science revolving around tapping and using souls as an energy or power source as well as a catalyst for various other reactions and effects. Since in the world of pillars souls are tangible and can be detected and used, this science got huge in modern society. Unlike say Elders Scrolls which setting hardly goes beyond soul gems, in this world it is more grounded and pragmatic, basically whole modern world is focused and competing in this scientific pursuit discovering new ways to tap into this resource. Its like a space race, prestigious and potentially very beneficial economically if some breakthroughs in magitech are made (pillars2 hinted at network of instantaneous portals being possible in the future of animancy and its obvious to see the benefits of this to any nation). It gets wacky and dangerous fairly often though...like all necromancy is part of that science and recent "immortality" discovery was dumb and reckless. They figured a way to bind the soul of a mortal to their body so even when they die soul stays pinned to bones and so those who want to live forever keep on "living" after passing. Living as a flesh-eating parasite-vampire (Fampyr) that needs constant infusion of living flesh (not mere blood) still containing traces of soul essence of other living beings. Miss a few meals and you rot further into a zombie who forgets most of his mind with only traces of memory remaining, a bit more - into an animalistic ghoul who understands only hunger. The rot is irreversible so chances are, eventually hapless immortal will end up becoming a skeleton reduced to nothing else but mindless killing instinct. This means that in pillars lore all undead have souls (why instead of undead, the term 'vessel' is more commonly used to describe such creatures) and in case of skeletons even when they get destroyed, soul is still cursed to be bound to the remains or bone dust for eternity unable to reincarnate, the animancer artificial binding is that strong. There are many more retarded experiments like that but there is good too. Ultimately, it is a highly experimental opportunistic science that doesn't care much for morality of things or patience.
The game takes place in the
Dyrwood, small and relatively young colonial country. You are a settler from one of the major big countries that surround it. Dyrwood is pretty special, they proved to be a fiercely independent nation. They were an oversea colony territory of one of the biggest countries of the world - Aedyr Empire (think British Empire made from coalition of human and elf people), they fought in a huge independence war against Aedyr and earned their freedom. Though it was inevitable because sea is infested with horrible and powerful monsters so controlling and supplying oversea territory is very expensive. Born in the fires of war this proud new country called themselves Free Palatinate of Dyrwood while naming their new capital and a seaport-city as
Defiance Bay in memory of this victory. Most Dyrwoodans still dislike Aedyrans, or foreigners in general because of future wars.
There were several. To explain some context for it, in the world of pillars there are gods. Actual physical gods which seem to have some sort of policy of non-intervention with the world of mortals but otherwise are active (and they do have basic physical incarnations or heralds (some of them monstrous) that stir shit up in mortal realms. Gods represent very specific ideals and forces, not always good but defining a certain order of things. And order part works well, whole world is for once united at least in theology - all nations worship the same pantheon of divine beings. One of them gods was called
Eothas - a rather kind and nice entity that genuinely loved mortals like no other god, he is a god of compassion, forgiveness, redemption, life and light, the only one of them who is ultimately good. 15 or so years before the start of the game something extraordinary happened, event that no doubt rippled across the globe. There was this small country near Dyrwood called
Raedceras and as the tale goes, one day Eothas spoke to a simple farmer called
Waedwen and chose him as a vessel for his divine power. Just like that, non-interference be damned. Things escalated quickly from there, en-fleshed god mobilized Raedceras in a mad religious frenzy (what nation wouldn't be fluttered to be chosen by god?) and in no time declared war on Dyrwood.
This made no sense, it went against the very idea of Eothas, it broke the pact of gods, some even believed that this Waedwen guy was not an avatar at all but just a powerful sorcerer tricking everybody with his head made of light. And yet, he was unstoppable in his onslaught. Things got so bad that even the god of war, Magran got involved. When Dyrwood almost lost they finally rolled out their trump card. With the help of war goddess, as well as other expert parties, Dyrwood people build an unseen before weapon - the
Godhammer bomb. They lured Waidwen-Eothas into a trap and then detonated it. It exploded with a soul blast so powerful and concentrated that it burned the god straight out of him, perhaps from existence entirely. And that was it, the Dyrwood people killed a god. Or so they say. But Eothas actually went silent since then and not a single prayer was answered in all these years after the war and destruction of Saint Waedwen. The clergy of Eothas can no longer sense their god (unlike DnD in this setting Priests and all other people capable of superhuman and supernatural feats draw the magics from the power of their own soul, so Priests of Eothas never lost their abilities because no priest in pillars channels them from divine source). Needless to say, worship of Eothas is banned in Dyrwood since then. Raedceras became a weird theocracy and even though they lost, this whole God-chosen people situation likely went to their heads. Questions still linger, why Eothas enacted his will upon the world in such a manner, what reason this kind of god could have?
Seconds before detonation of the Godhammer:
Their independence preserved once more, it seemed like it would be the time to rebuild. But this was not the end of trouble for Dyrwood, you are a settler for one reason - Dyrwood needs people, badly. It's dying out. After the war, strange soul plague started to ravage the country, they named it
Waidwen's Legacy - many locals believe it is a petty curse of a mad and vengeful dead god, some think it is a divine punishment from higher powers for slaying the god of life and rebirth, some think it after-effects of the godhammer nuke, almost like a radiation if you think about it...but in the end it affects everyone and all in the country - children born there, are born stripped of souls. In this universe souls are not just a source of life but of spiritual might and mind itself, it allows you to think and create, to have that spark of creation in you. They also act as a power source so that is how some people learn to amplify themselves and do wizardy stuff even if they are monks or ciphers, most people have weak shattered and fragmented souls and are stuck forever being peasants unable to slay that dragon or become great warriors. Since souls also act as storage for memories and personalities even keeping them sometimes through reincarnation, without souls people are born to "live" like plants, motionless, dead-eyed and empty. These
Hollowborn things only have enough in them to breathe but nothing else. Animancers tried to "fix" it with another dumb idea by placing animal souls in them, can easily guess the results of that unhinged experiment.
I did say 'wars' so you should also know about
Glanfathans. You see them from the begging and they are a major local power, yet another belligerent kingdom. Glanfathans are tribal neighbors of Dyrwood, they are not complete savages and have advanced astrology and mathematics but overall they are primitive people that wear skins and live in huts. Mainly they live in a ruined regional capital of extinct Engwithans. They claim to know them from ancient times and say that they are bound by a covenant with them to protect their sites. Since all the good animancy tech is hidden in these ruins and people of Dyrwood love raiding them to sell the thingies to animancer-scientists, this leads to constant conflict. They had a ridiculous and bloody war with Dyrwood not long ago because some dyrwoodan farmer toppled an engwith era pillar to make space for his crop field (or perhaps it was an accident). Since all things engwith are sacred to the tribes and because of how many trespassers there were, things finally boiled over. In this war Glanfathans surprised Dyrwoodans with some of their specialist warriors who could form soul blades and cut souls of soldiers from their bodies or directly affect them with their minds, these are called Ciphers but tribals have their own weird name for them. They are basically psionics with powers over souls. Because of an overlap with what Watcher does, there is a confusion between Cyphers and Watchers but they are different things that dabble in the same. In any case, the war proved to be too costly for both sides, as Dyrwood for example started to burn whole forests down to gain tactical ground. War ended eventually, at this point Dyrwood and Glanfathans coexist relatively peacefully, cooperate and trade, after of course Dyrwood outlawed looting the ruins to please their neighbors. Still...this law is often ignored by adventurers and weakly enforced by the government, engwith tech and money are just too good to rot in the ruins. Some factions in tribal society long for another war because of that.
What else from the fundamental things. The name of the game - Pillars of Eternity and the desktop icon refers to
adra, strange crystal-like pillar formations that grow through the earth in clusters all over the world. The rock is a hollow shell that functions as a soul gem and a conduit, because this material is strangely reactive to souls, it can even house an active soul-mind as a talking statue if it is big and whole enough. they say these adra crystals grow right down to the core of the planet made of adra too and if the roots are cut, surface clusters die out, get dark and dull. Basically it exist to function as a death-life reincarnation machine. People die, get their sous sucked into adra and travel through it to the realm of the gods for their souls to break down and get mixed up with other soul-splinters to get sent back to be born into a new life.
So yes, that's how souls work in here. They get into a soul shredder after death. Rare few souls are too heavy to get splintered and return unaltered but it almost never happens. Souls and minds in this universe are one concept, and they act as hard drive disks for data, information is stored and recorded over and over on them, on top of previous data. They store the memories and personalities of people and when they splinter and mix with other splinters to reincarnate, some people literally seek their soul mates with the help of animancers, apparently actually sharing a soul from a previous life is pretty good for any sort of relationship because of that strong sense of affinity and unity it brings. Which leads to the main plot of the game, the
Awakened. People who get triggered by some sort of PTSD or another random memory from former incarnations and remember their past life from their soul memory bank. For example they got burned on the stake in past life and accidentally remember this agony in a new life by looking at the fire in a certain way one day. These past lives awaken in your mind and start taking turns of your body to live again. At first it's just weird flashbacks and visions but it inevitably leads to complete madness because this waking multiple personality syndrome is too much to handle for human psyche. This condition is permanent and there is no cure but it is fine for quite a while and awakened people get some special perks, namely they see and feel souls with naked eyes and develop other soul related senses, for this reason they are called
Watchers. People fear and mistrust them but since they are very rare and useful they are tolerated. To be clear, Ciphers are psionic mind readers that also get glimpses of soul memories (even as a residue on items) through different means.
And finally,
biawic is a soul sucking storm unleashed to harvest souls, some say by the gods but more likely by engwithan machines. Could probably tell about other gods too but I don't think it is that important at the start. There are also Godlike races, mortal people with weird looks that represent aspects of the gods in mortal flesh and carry some ounce of god power in them. Like when the souls go to their reincarnation machine, gods drop something extra into the mix from time to time resulting in Godlike children. They are all sterile. As for the gods, beyond Eothas the important one is
Woedica, the Queen-that-was and the Broken Crown, she was head of the pantheon long ago but got kicked down by other gods hard so that they all would be equal. And while she is the god of merciless justice, binding covenant of a promised word, law, order and memory, she throws these things away if it means restoring her crown. As game foreshadows from the very first screen:
