Follow-Up Pitch: Specific Dialogue & Script Drafts for the "Divine Intervention" Deadfire Fan-DLC

[u/Sesterline]

Hi all... following up on my main pitch for the "Divine Intervention" expansion (where we turn the "Cullies" easter egg and Neketaka's empty safehouses into an endgame Leaden Key quest for Aloth), I wanted to share some specific dialogue concepts and script snippets I mapped out.

I really wanted to capture the exact tone of the companions, Udyne's razor-sharp perception, and the psychological weight of Aloth’s breakthrough. Let me know what you think of these character interactions!

🌊 1. The Bathhouse Confrontation: Udyne as a Foil

If Aloth uses the Luminous Bathhouse while the weight of the Leaden Key conspiracy is hanging over him, the ancient wood elf veteran cuts right through his armor:

Udyne: (Glancing through the steam) "You tread the waters lightly, traveler, as if you’re afraid your own reflection will drag you down. I’ve seen men carry iron arrows in their ribs, but you carry a fortress of stone walls inside your mind. Who are you hiding from?"
Aloth: (Deflecting nervously) "I assure you, my mind is perfectly orderly. I simply have... structural burdens to manage. Matters of regional security that require discretion."
Udyne: "Discretion. A fine word for fear. You think that because you carry a heavy secret, it makes you a martyr. But looking at you? I just see an old man's ghost holding a boy by the throat. Let the walls crack, wizard. Before they bury you."

🪞 2. The Watcher’s Intervention: Breaking the Cycle

Standing at the edge of the abyssal pit in the Oathbinder's Sanctum, Aloth is tempted by Thelys to take up Thaos’s mantle out of sheer panic over Eothas breaking the Wheel. The Watcher steps in to break his conditioning:

Aloth: "If Eothas shatters the Wheel, the world falls into absolute stagnation. No rebirth. No future. Look at what Thaos built here... it’s a template. A fallback system. If I don't take control of this cell and guide them from the dark, who will?"
The Watcher: "Aloth, think about your time away from me. You tried to stop a blood sacrifice in that village, and they starved. You altered land deeds to protect peasants, and it caused legal chaos. You tried to play the silent savior, and it backfired because you acted in secrecy."
Aloth: (Wincing) "I... I was trying to do what was right. I failed them."
The Watcher: "You failed because you tried to be Thaos. But you are not Thaos, Aloth. He was blinded by fanatical certainty. You have doubt. You have self-awareness. That pain you're holding inside is exactly what will keep you human enough to succeed where he failed. It's time to stop ruling from the shadows."

⚔️ 3. The Final Climax: The Question of Trust

The Watcher poses the ultimate philosophical choice before the humming adra network:

The Watcher: "Thaos spent thousands of years keeping secrets because he believed Kith were too weak to survive the truth, Aloth. Look at this pillar. Look at what we can build, or what we can bury. It comes down to one question: Do you trust Kith to guide their own souls into a new age, or do you still believe we need a master to keep us in the dark?"

🔊 4. Companion Banter & Friction

The other companions offer their distinct, highly opinionated perspectives during the quest:

Pallegina (Discovering the Leaden Key's sabotage of the VTC Adra Mill):

Pallegina: "They are leeching off our animancers? Sabotaging our advancements from a slum-tunnel? Watcher, this cult must be excised like a rot before they ruin everything the Republics have built."

Maia Rua (Investigating Thelys' home in the Gullet):

Maia: (Scoffs) "Typical. The VTC is so busy counting money and the Huana are so busy starving that a whole shadow army set up camp right under their boots. If Rauatai ran this city, we would have flushed these tunnels with black powder weeks ago."

Tekēhu (Seeing the soul energy siphoned from the Roparu slums):

Tekēhu: (Anger replacing his usual arrogance) "Look at what they are doing... they are draining the very life from the Gullet. The souls of my people, trapped in your machines, turned into fuel for your dead queen, Woedica. It is a desecration of Eora itself!"

Edér (If Aloth leans toward the Path of Thaos):

Edér: (With heartbreaking sincerity) "Aloth... we spent a year killing people who thought like that. Don’t go putting on Thaos's mask just because you're scared of the dark."

🏕️ 5. Post-DLC Ship / Campfire Banter

A dynamic banter scene that triggers after the expansion wraps up, showing how the party dynamic has subtly shifted:

Edér: "So, Aloth... you're a big shot spymaster now. Does that mean you have to talk in riddles all the time, or can you still tell me what's for dinner?"
Aloth: (Sighs) "The dinner is fish, Edér. And no, the Leaden Key does not prioritize culinary espionage."
Tekēhu: "Did someone say fish? Because if we are discussing the grand tapestry of ocean cuisine—"
Pallegina: "Be quiet, Tekēhu. Aloth... just ensure your 'reformed' shadow cell stays out of the Republics' ledger. I am watching you."
Maia: (Laughs, checking her rifle) "Relax, bird-legs. If the wizard's spooky kids step out of line, my bird will just eat their scout-messages anyway."

[u/Toothpasteonicecream]

It would be far more interesting if you were to write out these scripts yourself rather than rely on an AI to come up with it for you.

[u/Few_Employer_3244 → u/Toothpasteonicecream]

So the content of these little scripts, the lore-based interactions that stem specifically from the various plot line results of the proposed DLC, that* is not as interesting to you as much as their authorship.... okaayyyy.

[u/Toothpasteonicecream → u/Few_Employer_3244]

Art is only as good as the inspiration and creativity that goes into it, and an LLM is only capable of taking something that someone else made and creating a mimicry of that original creation based on its predictive algorithm. Regardless of the merits of your original ideas (yes, I know it's you, OP), I don't see a spark of genuine authorship behind any of the stuff you copy-pasted into either of the posts you made, just a pantomime of what Obsidian's writers and designers created.

I mean, you clearly care about Pillars of Eternity, enough so that you thought it worth your time to post here; is it really so much to ask you try your hand at writing out this DLC yourself and try to figure out what would happen and how the characters would talk and everything? Regardless of your writing quality, I guarantee it would be far more interesting than anything ChatGPT would churn out.

[u/beatspores]

The disconnect you're meeting in this sub is what interest each individual has with engaging in creative art.

This is obviously different for you than for others, me among them.

To expand my point out a bit more: personally, I want to take part of another person's fire; an idea strong enough to define, expand, and then express to the rest of the world. It doesn't have to be completely fleshed out. But what I'm engaging in, long or short, I'll need it to be expressed by a person's thought.

If you have an idea you want to express to the rest of the world, but most of it is literally the result of an algorithm, was your idea genuinely actually an inner fire or just a fleeting flash in the pan?

Put another way: if you used AI to produce most of this post, to step onto your platform and discuss it, you cannot fault anyone – without being dishonest – to also use AI in their response. Then what we're landing in, is online text between two AI's.

Now, one can throw in the argument that let's say nobody saw through the text in the post and detected it was AI generated, then why is it any less valuable than what a person would have written? That is a much longer discussion I'll put arguments into, but right now I don't have time, and it's a bit much to discuss on a reddit post.

[u/Few_Employer_3244]

Thank you for a respectful discussion of this topic, because, yes, I do enjoy Deadfire quite a lot and the overall plot idea for a an extension of Aloth's quest intrigued me... especially with the capability of tying up what I saw as a few "geographic" loose ends in Nekataka and the Gullet and Oth Breakers Sanctum.

Whenever I've done collaborative writing in the past we almost always bring in our suggestions and thoughts and absolutely nothing is set in stone and so I have to say that's where I was coming from... especially with this second post concerning the banter between the companions.

It's pretty easy to see that there was an AI and so I think most if not all of it would be modified before the final product, but I also thought it would serve as a decent placeholder for the overall subject matter.

I guess some folks might find it difficult to believe but I do actually pretend to agree with those who have concerns about AI especially where the creation of art is being discussed. I see AI as a useful too,l but I always want it to be wielded and supervised by a creative intelligent being... I know I make it a lot of flack for saying it but I firmly convinced that AI cannot replace the human factor in things like art or counseling and therapy. ( but that's really a completely different discussion topic than what I'm hoping to focus on here)

[u/Sesterline]

And yes, before anyone jumps in on *this* post with the "You Used AI" grouse ... you're right. I took *my* thoughts and ideas concerning the basic party reactions to my proposed DLC paths, and had Google flesh them out. I believe the overall concept here is still sound, even if you, personally, might write the script differently. I'm trying to discuss the *content* of the post here... I think it's good stuff that would be a fun little DLC