When Covid-19 morphed into a full blown pandemic in 2020, artists were quick to work out their feelings through their work. Within its first year, we got home-recorded music about isolation, mask-filled street art, and even a Michael Bay-produced thriller. That output serves as a great time capsule into how people were dealing with its immediate side effects, largely focused on the struggle to find human connection amid social isolation. That only scratched the surface of the pandemic’s impact, though. To really grapple with its complexities, we’d all need time to see the scars it left over time and process them. That wouldn’t happen in a few months.
Now, five years later, we’ve finally gotten the kind of nuanced “pandemic art” that could only come with time – and it’s come in a surprising form. Avowed, the latest game from Obsidian, is a new fantasy RPG that’s all about Gods and political intrigue in the Pillars of Eternity universe. It’s a colorful and jaunty adventure that plays like a streamlined Elder Scrolls game. Peel back its layers of lore, though, and you’ll find a deep exploration of how crises are exploited and turned into political bargaining chips. It’s a story forged from Covid trauma, and one that has a lot to teach us about the way our real world responds to catastrophe.
This article contains story spoilers for Avowed.
A politicized pandemic
Avowed takes place in a region of Eora dubbed The Living Lands, which is in the midst of a deadly pandemic. Known as the Dreamscourge, the plague is essentially a zombie apocalypse. Those inflicted by the fungal infection slowly deteriorate until they transform into shambling Dreamthralls. It’s a deadly disease that threatens all of Eora, a fact that’s not lost on leaders from other regions. It’s of particular concern to the Aedyr Empire, who sends an envoy to the Living Lands to find the source of the disease and, hopefully, cure it.
That should be a simple mission. When the envoy sails in, the expectation is that they’ll be able to work with the locals who are eager to share information and get the problem solved. After all, everyone should be more than willing to come together and solve a problem that threatens the entire world. That’s not exactly how it all goes down.
As soon as the envoy begins talking to locals around the Dawnshore, the quaint port town where the adventure begins, it becomes clear that the Dreamscourge has sparked some much bigger problems. The locals don’t see the Aedyr Empire’s desire to fight it as a charitable act. Instead, they see it as a convenient excuse for an easy power grab while a region is at its most vulnerable.
Those fears are proven right when the Steel Garrote, led by the ruthless Inquisitor Lödwyn, marches into the region. A sort of stand-in for the Aedyr Empire’s far-right party, the extremist group morphs the narrative around the Dreamscourge to fit its own twisted political beliefs. It argues that the Living Lands has always been a lawless place filled with criminals; the plague isn’t a natural occurrence, but the logical conclusion of the region’s recklessness. With that twisted philosophy in mind, the Steel Garrote unleash a path of destruction that sees them destroying sacred ruins and torching entire cities. You quickly get the sense that Lödwyn’s goal isn’t to end the Dreamscourge, but to capitalize on its chaos.
It isn’t just outsiders who are holding back progress. Late in the story, the envoy travels to Solace Keep, an isolationist nation in the region that has kept itself safe from the plague. By that point in the journey, the envoy has found what they believe to be the source of the disease and needs help finding the path to The Garden, a hidden location in the world. That, once again, should be a cut and dry information exchange with locals who want to see the Dreamscourge put to bed. Instead, it’s at the center of heated political debate between Komendant Mihala and Councilor Kostya, two leaders with very different views on Solace Keep’s future. Kostya holds The Garden’s location ransom, only offering to give it up if the envoy helps him shake the city out of complacency by triggering a deadly disaster.
By the end, it feels like nobody in power really wants the Dreamscourge to end except the envoy; there’s too much to gain from its continued existence.
Considering that development on Avowed began in 2020, it’s no stretch to view its story as a loaded allegory for Covid-19. When the disease evolved into a pandemic, it should have sparked a moment of unity for a world that would all benefit from stopping its spread. Instead, it blew up a powder keg. In the United States, the pandemic became a political tool. Right wing leaders used it to further vilify China. Conspiracy theorists pushed anti-science agendas amid the hunt for a vaccine. Economic stimulus checks became political pageantry, morphing into a campaign tool. Even a swap in leadership didn’t help, as a still-raging disease was downplayed to create the illusion of a total victory that could boost approval ratings.
This is the reality that Avowed reflects through fantasy. The Dreamscourge may be a supernatural disease that intersects with Pillars of Eternity’s Gods, but its impact on Eora is familiar. It sets off a series of opportunistic power grabs; every good deed comes with an asterisk that threatens to transform the Living Lands. That in turn creates a total distrust in the institutions who have the resources to help. The Aedyr Empire can help, but at what cost? Is a pandemic that much worse than an authoritarian takeover? It’s a lose-lose scenario for the locals who are at the mercy of powerful people who refuse to simply do the right thing without expecting something in return.
That doesn’t just apply to Covid-19. Avowed teaches us how any crisis can be manipulated for political gain. It’s when democratic leaders refuse to codify abortion rights because the threat that it could become illegal makes for a good stump speech. It’s when a ceasefire in Gaza is held up to influence the outcome of a presidential election. It’s when the President blames a tragic plane crash on diversity after gutting the Federal Aviation Administration behind the scenes, all to the benefit of his billionaire crony. Those are the Dreamscourages that we face every day in our own Living Lands.
Avowed’s writing can be tough to parse at times, something that has come up in early criticism of the RPG. It’s deeply rooted in the Pillars of Eternity universe and that means that it’s easy for its real-world commentary to get lost in a soup of lore and Gods. If you want to get the most out of it, put terminology like Adra to the side and focus on the human conflict buried under all those mushrooms. There, you’ll find what might be Obsidian’s sharpest writing to date: a searing political drama that stresses the importance of community cooperation in times of turmoil. The Steel Garrote won’t save us, but we can still take care of each other in times of turmoil.
Avowed is available now on Xbox Series X/S and PC.
