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Raedric's Hold

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Raedric's Hold is an area in Pillars of Eternity. It consists out of one outdoor area and three indoor areas. There are different ways to get in the hold.

Background[ | ]

This old keep has been the seat of House Raedric since the colonization of the Dyrwood by Aedyr. Although antiquated by modern standards, it's nonetheless a powerful presence on the northern frontier, shielding Raedric VII from those who would do him harm.

Points of interest[ | ]

Exterior[ | ]

  • The exterior is roughly divided into two halves, the inner courtyard with battlements and the ground immediately outside the keep's walls. Cletlan and Nudwin guard the drawbridge leading into the keep (and have to be killed if you choose the violent route of confrontation).
  • Around the eastern side, however, lies a sewer grate leading into the dungeons. A character with 18 Might can bend the bars, or a prybar may be used without condition. After a character has bent the bars you can swim through the sewer to get to the dungeons interior. But the character with the lowest Athletics skill will get fatigue.
  • Another way into the keep leads over an old, scalable wall to the northwest. Characters with 6 or more Athletics can scale the wall unencumbered. Characters with less than 5 Athletics will receive a hit to their fatigue level. This route has you fighting guards versus the sewer route which features undead.

Keep[ | ]

  • The area can be entered from either ground level or the dungeons (depositing you in the kitchens, from where you can also access the upper level and the temple; useful for gaining intel before confronting Raedric). Entering from the front puts you in a rather poor position to reach Raedric and eliminate him. Straight ahead, to the northeast, is Raedric's throne room.
  • The ground level is centered around the great hall, entered via the main gates. To the northwest lie the chambers of the guard, the dining room, and the kitchens.
  • To the southeast lie the personal quarters of the thayn, with his study and bedroom (and the remains of the late Yngrid). The personal quarters can be accessed via the dungeon or by passing through the throne room.
  • Fighting Raedric is difficult. If you have problems killing him in the open, due to the way his entire coterie just piles on you, consider setting up in his bedroom, sending out one of your own folks with a bow, then force-attacking (A) one of his men to draw them to that room. You lose out on a bit of dialogue, but otherwise, bottlenecking the enemies in the doorway is a sure way to cheese the fight even on lower levels.

Sanctuary[ | ]

  • This is the area of the keep devoted to the worshippers of Berath, led by high priest Nedmar. If accessing the area from the dungeons or the kitchen, you can loot the nearby chests for a set of Berathian robes. By wearing them you can evade the patrols around the area by pretending to be a novice or using Resolve 12 / Intellect 12 / Intellect 13 to shoo them off (each excuse only works once). The southern exit from this room leads to the battlements.
  • Take the eastern one if you want to explore the temple. Make sure to avoid priests in white robes. Pass through the corridor to enter the temple area.
  • To the northeast lies the scriptorium. Loot it for a scrawled note pointing to a secret area in the chapel. The locked door in the room has a level 8 difficulty and can be opened to gain access to an exit straight into Lord Raedric's throne room.
  • Right next to the scriptorium entrance are the quarters of Nedmar, the head priest of the temple.
  • To the southwest lies the common room with a lockable cabinet. The lower room contains the dining room and an exit to the siege platform, the highest level of the keep.
  • To the southeast is the chapel. The adjoining staircase leads straight back to the dungeons and the tombs of the Raedric family.

Dungeon[ | ]

  • Accessed through the sewer with one fatigued character, this rather unhealthy area holds the keep's many secrets. Osrya, Raedric VII's latest animancer, labors here in infamy, with the corridors of the waterworks littered with revenants. Straight ahead lies the wastewater reservoir, with several revenants, skeletons and ghouls, forming a sort of junction to the rest of the area. The locked door to the side contains a House Doemenel book.
  • The hallway to the northeast is trapped (move in scouting mode) and leads to the family crypts, infested with even more undead. The right-hand room contains two lootable sarcophagi, both trapped. The door at the end is locked from the other side and leads to the Sanctuary floor.
  • The south-western section contains a storeroom for the outer watchtower that contains an exit to the lower ramparts (ill-advised if you want to maintain stealth) and quite a bit of oozes. The locked door and the corridor around leads to the keep's cells, containing the hapless Giacco.
  • From this area, you can access the kitchen storeroom and the kitchen itself inside the keep, to the northwest, and Osrya's lab to the northeast (filled with undead). Osrya herself is to the northeast.

Companion reactions[ | ]

Some companions have a special comment upon exploring the surrounding of the keep:

  • Aloth: "This is the home of the man responsible for those hanging corpses. You don't plan on knocking, do you?"
  • Sagani: "Those are some high walls... but they don't look secure from here."
  • Kana Rua: "An impressive keep! But I doubt we'll be welcome inside."
  • Durance: "The only one I'd watch here is you, Watcher... be on your guard."
  • Grieving Mother: "This place is soaked in blood of the spirits."
  • Edér: "Wouldn't mind having a word with our esteemed Lord while we're here. Got some suggestions for him."

Other companions may comment on the first successful attempt to infiltrate the priesthood in the sanctuary by means of a disguise:

  • Kana Rua: "Best have a second tale at the ready. They're a nervous bunch."
  • Aloth: "We were fortunate to get away with that once. I doubt we can count on such luck again."
  • Sagani: "That was too close. Best if we can avoid being seen altogether."
  • Grieving Mother: "Minds like theirs, full of fear and suspicion, are best avoided."

Characters[ | ]

Castle:

  • Cletlan and Nudwin: Gate guards at the entrance.
  • Nedmar: Priest of Berath in the upper temple.
  • Raedric VII Residing emperor of House Readric found at the throne room.

Sewers:

  • Osrya: Raedric's animancer who studies in the dungeons.
  • Giacco: One of Kolsc's men, imprisoned in the dungeons.

Related quests[ | ]

Side quests[ | ]

Enemies[ | ]

Loot[ | ]

Notable loot[ | ]

Containers[ | ]

Note: For a complete list of fixed and random loot found in Raedric's Hold, see here.

Raedric's Hold (Exterior)[ | ]

Bailey/courtyard:
Crate:
Barrel:
Western ramparts:
Weapon Rack:
Barrel (Hidden, Difficulty 4):
Crate:
Armor Rack:
Eastern ramparts:
Barrel:
Crate:
Crate:
Siege platform:
Barrel (south):
Crate:
Barrel (north):
Wooden Box (Hidden, Difficulty 3):

Raedric's Keep[ | ]

Kitchen:
Wooden Box:
Vase:
Barracks:
Drawer:
Crate:
Chest:
Study (central):
Weapon Rack:
Wooden Box:
Library:
Bookcase:
Bookcase:
Bookcase:
Drawer:
Study (southeast):
Table:
Wooden Box:
Chest (Locked, Difficulty 4):
Throne room:
Chest (Trapped, Difficulty 4 / Hidden, Difficulty 3):
Container (Hidden, Difficulty 4):

Raedric's Hold Sanctuary[ | ]

Southwestern room (accessed via outer bailey):
Chest (Locked, Difficulty 4):
Chest (Locked, Difficulty 4):
Northwestern rooms:
Chest:
Chest:
Armor Rack:
Weapon Rack:
Central rooms, west:
Closet (Locked, Difficulty 3):
Table:
Table:
Central rooms, east:
Table:
Bookcase:
Bookcase:
Drawer:
Skull:
Nedmar's study:
Bookcase:
Bookcase:
Chest:
Wooden Box:

Raedric's Hold Dungeons[ | ]

Northwestern corner:
Barrel:
Crate:
Chest (Locked, Difficulty 4):
Chest:
Torture chamber:
Table:
Crate:
Chest (Locked, Difficulty 4):
Osrya's room:
Shelf:
Table:
Chest:
Crypts:
Urn:
Sarcophagus (Trapped, Difficulty 4 / Hidden, Difficulty 3):
Sarcophagus (Trapped, Difficulty 4 / Hidden, Difficulty 3):
Table:
Southwestern half:
Wooden Box (Trapped, Difficulty 5 / Hidden, Difficulty 4):
Wooden Box:
Loose Brick (Hidden, Difficulty 5):
Sand:

Plants[ | ]

Behind the scenes[ | ]

  • Raedric's Hold was designed by Jorge Salgado and Olivia Veras, with art by Sean Dunny and April Giron. Dunny is credited for building all of the exterior location.
  • For the external level, artists talked about the idea of having a dead hollowborn baby floating in the moat, to connect to the story of Raedric VII's child and be representative of his madness, but the team decided that it was probably too gruesome, so the idea never actually made it into the game.[1]
  • The left side of the southwesternmost room in Raedric's Hold Sanctuary (that can only be accessed via the outer bailey) has a minor rendering error where the black foreground isn't extended far enough to obscure the floor layer, causing light to bleed through.
  • Each level of Raedric's Hold contains developer commentary by Jorge Salgado.

Developer commentary[ | ]

Developer commentary (exterior)

“

This is probably my favourite level design in the game. I had a blast blocking out the castle even to its minute details. Because who doesn't love a keep y'know, you gotta have a keep in an RPG, a cool keep. Bobby and I - Bobby's the lead area designer - thought so too. So we [?] wanted to have a keep, we wanted to have a really awesome keep, so we brainstormed some ideas about the design, about the things that we really wanted to see, and then I jumped into it with glee, you know, very happy to have a stab at it.

My goal was to have a multi-level structure that would let you pop in and out of its interior scenes, allowing you many pathways around your objectives, whether you wanted to go in sword in hand, or sneaking about. In fact we had to remove a few transitions here and there in order to not get people completely lost. Still though, it boasts four ways to get into the keep, and a three-storey high setup of the interior scenes that go with it.

Sean Dunny, a greater environment artist in the team, rendered the castle faithfully and beautifully. After my first design and gameplay pass Olivia Veras - one of our designers in the team - took over the area to give it a fine final pass and polish, including the writing, while I switched over to design Twin Elms, our second big city in the game.
”
~ Jorge Salgado, Designer (exterior)

Developer commentary (keep)

“
This is the main level of Raedric's Hold. This area also saw a couple of changes to transitions. We had one near the center of the scene, it was a staircase going up to one of the towers you can see in the exterior, which we removed for the sake of spatial orientation, mostly. This level of the keep is where the hardest fighting is meant to take place, if you decided to go in swinging swords first and asking questions later.
”
~ Jorge Salgado, Designer (keep)

Developer commentary (sanctuary)

“
The top level of the keep. It's meant to give you a side-way into Raedric if you help a discontempt priest who lives up here, and if you manage to sneak your way in while disguised as one of his order.
”
~ Jorge Salgado, Designer (sanctuary)

Developer commentary (dungeons)

“
Dungeons—more dungeons here. The keep had to have some dungeons, so it seemed like a fitting area to give you another side-way to reach Raedric. If you managed to help a proud animancer who feels wronged despite her accomplishments, and she's been basically cast down here to live among the filth, and if you manage to deal with her undead hordes on the way too, of course.
”
~ Jorge Salgado, Designer (dungeons)

Map[ | ]

References

  1. ↑ Obsidian [Obsidian] (September 6, 2024). "Road to Avowed w/ Environment Artist April Claudio", at 00:12:08 - Twitch.
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