Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Update #14, $2,821,847 and Counting

With a jump of about $150,000 in funding since the last update for the Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire crowdfunding campaign, we head into the 14th installment for an introduction to the massive city of Neketaka, details on a new $3.25 million stretch goal that’ll bring us “sidekicks”, the revealing of a new Ultimate Digital Edition reward tier, and more. Neketaka even comes to us in video format:

And here’s a little something about the sidekicks we’ll potentially be partying with:

What’s a “sidekick,” exactly? Glad you asked! In Pillars II, a sidekick is a new character type that sits somewhere between a companion and a hired-adventurer in terms of depth of detail. Sidekicks give you more options as to who can join your party – though they don’t expand the current party cap of five. Currently, we have seven planned companions, and with this stretch goal, we will add four sidekicks for a total of eleven Obsidian created characters that can join your ranks!

Before joining your ranks, Sidekicks start out as unique NPCs integral to specific quests, complete with their own personalities and looks, and they may offer to join your party as a reward for completing their quest. Just like companions, these new characters have a custom portrait and voice sound-set. However, unlike companions, they do not have their own vision quest and will not participate in the relationship system outlined in our last stretch goal. We know you love more choice and flexibility when creating your parties, and Sidekicks are a way for us to give you that choice by providing a larger roster of characters to choose.

Wondering about who could be a Sidekick? Here are some ideas the team has put together – these are not final and will probably change during development.

Radora- Ocean Folk/Vailian human wizard. She has difficulty keeping a captain’s position for long. According to her, she’s at her best when she’s had a few to “take the edge off”, though she swears she never drinks at sea.

Bonteru- A mountain dwarf rogue obsessed with exploring the Deadfire and cataloguing its various poisonous plants and creatures. Bonteru has memorized the effects of hundreds of different poisons and is all too happy to describe them in detail to anyone who will listen.

Ydwin- A strange pale elf cipher from “a lot of different places”. Fascinated by animancy, Ydwin spends her free time examining fresh and not-so-fresh corpses. Though she has a charming and pleasant demeanor, new acquaintances are often shocked at her intimate familiarity with death and her dispassionate affect in the face of even the most grisly scenes.

Rekke- An odd-looking man that the Principi rescued from a floating piece of flotsam on the eastern edge of the Deadfire Archipelago. He doesn’t speak a word of any language that anyone can understand, but he’s cheery and willing to lend a hand to any company he finds himself in. He’s just happy to be alive(at least, that’s what everyone assumes). Storm Folk fighter.