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Iovara, formally Iovara ix Ensios, was a female wood elf and founder of an atheist movement in the distant past in Pillars of Eternity. She appears in a vision when approaching the large adra column in the northeastern corner of Breith Eaman.

Background[ | ]

Items in italics are quoted directly from the game.

A column of adra rises above you, stoic and silent, its ridged layers a measuring stick for the passing of ages. It feels to you as a thick block of ice, and you perceive buried deep in its core a dim, flickering flame, all but extinguished, yet preserved against the ravages of the elements.

At your approach, the flame seems to steady and draw strength, and the layers separating it from you melt away, and you are bathed in its glow, a bright beacon in the gloom.

The glow seems to fade, as though you had adjusted to its intensity, and where it was, Iovara seeps into existence, an eidolic shade hovering above the moist prison floor.

Though ageless, she appears somehow different to you now - a slight stoop to her carriage, perhaps, or a trace of sunkenness in her eyes. There is a broad scar across her face, fibrous and wormy where flames once lapped, unhealed even in death.

Iovara grew up in Creitum during the height of the Engwithan civilization. Originally she became a missionary who followed the religion taught by the Engwithans, and the Watcher in a previous life was associated with her at Creitum during that time — though the precise form of this relationship is left to the player to decide.

After her realization that the Engwithans had invented the gods whose worship they preached - made possible by the lax security on part of the missionaries themselves, who discussed the secret they were entrusted with - she left the order of missionaries and established an independent following of her own, ending her relationship with the Watcher, who remained loyal to the Engwithan faith. Her charisma and persuasion attracted many followers and in time, she became a threat to Thaos' grand plan to stabilize the world. The Leaden Key's master sought to suppress Iovara and her followers by enacting a brutal Inquisition, burning and torturing those who would question the gods. In doing so, he only validated Iovara's teachings and drove kith to join her. She offered no easy answers to the kith, and no solace in a random, brutal world as the Wheel turned and ground souls into dust. Yet, despite the challenge, her following only grew, eventually threatening to defeat the Engwithans.

It was the Watcher's past soul that brought about Iovara's fall, luring her from the safety of Creitum into a trap set up by the Inquisition at Ossionus. Captured and brought before Thaos at the Court of the Penitents, in the heart of Engwithan civilization, she was put on trial and tortured endlessly. Despite suffering pain that would break an elf several times over, she continued to resist. Even as she lay on the wheel, burned and broken beyond help, she continued to resist Thaos, defying him and refusing to confess to any crimes or validate the "one true faith".

She was at last sentenced to eternal imprisonment in Breith Eaman, where her spirit remained until the Watcher found her in the final stages of their hunt for Thaos. She at last reveals the source of the discord in their soul, something that the Watcher's past life realized after torturing Iovara and seeing her broken. The truth about the gods broke the Watcher irreparably, leaving a wound in their soul that would not heal for centuries - not until Thaos was confronted and laid low.

Interactions[ | ]

Icon dialogue
This character is involved in quests.

Memories of the Ancients

Icon gears
This character has other interactions.

Quests[ | ]

  • Memories of the Ancients: Iovara is the source of the revelations in this quest and a mandatory stop on the way to turning Thaos into stelgaer kibble. The player can choose to let Iovara remain within Breith Eaman (her own choice) or can fragment her soul, giving her over to entropy. The player can also wipe her memory against her will and return her soul to the cycle.

Behind the scenes[ | ]

  • Valerie Arem voiced Iovara.[1]

Gallery[ | ]

References

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