From ogres and bandits to fish monsters and sentient mushrooms, the Living Lands sure has its share of perils. Unfortunately, you’ve been sent here on official empire business, so not only is there no backing out, but all the inhabitants of this lawless island hate you too. No one ever said being a god-touched being would be easy!
After sinking well over 40 hours in Avowed, there are a few things I’ve figured out that have made life in the Living Lands just that little bit more… viable. In fact, one of them rears its head right at the very start.
Background checks
Over recent years, we’ve seen a lot more RPGs return to a full skill check system in dialogue, often directly tying back to choices you made during character creation. Avowed is somewhat similar, having you pick from a number of backgrounds for your character that give you unique dialogue options. These backgrounds dictate your starting stats too, which also leads to additional options in conversation.
If you’re anything like me, you’ll sit here for way too long thinking about what background and attributes would be the most optimal. Well, don’t, it’s not as big of a deal as you might think.
Almost every choice in conversation will have at least one background or attribute option, and often a combination of a few. But unlike a game like Baldur’s Gate 3, these are mainly reserved for additional information and lore, rather than story-altering decisions. In other words, you’re never going long without utilising your character’s history, but it won’t lock you out of certain sections just because you don’t have enough Resolve or you’re a Court Augur instead of a Vanguard Scout. I chose the Arcane Scholar simply so I can be a snobby, stuck-up academic.
This carries over into gameplay where the backgrounds merely affect your starting attribute distribution. The Arcane Scholar begins with more points in Intellect, for example, while the War Hero has more Might. Even this doesn’t have any significant consequences as you can fully reset your attributes at any time. In fact, that’s what I did. My Arcane Scholar is now a greatsword-wielding barbarian, with more brawn than brain.
Steal everything
One of the most surprising things I learned was that the concept of theft doesn’t exist in the Living Lands. Maybe it is as lawless as everyone says it is? Coming off the back of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2’s full crime and punishment system, I was fully expecting to get a good telling off when I took a merchant’s stock from the shelves or wandered into a peasant’s home and stole the food off their plate. But nope, no one cares.
Anything’s fair game in the Living Lands, apparently, and it pays to embrace it. Take everything you can see. I strolled into a shop and took all the grenades left lying around the room; I stocked up on free food at the bar; and I took weapons from the garrison. Hey, I’m the envoy, it’s not an easy job!
Check merchants
While you can pick up a variety of items free of charge from merchants’ shops, you will have to pay for some. The grenades were free, but this cabbage certainly isn’t. Avowed has a surprisingly strict progression curve, with experience gains being on the slower side and each gear upgrade demanding ever-increasing stocks of materials. Grabbing and deconstructing every item you find certainly helps, but you’ll need the help of a merchant eventually.
Merchants sell everything from lockpicks and potions to the vital adra you’ll need to upgrade your gear to a higher tier. You’ll need all of these and more if you want to keep pace with the enemies as you explore new regions.
Find the totem fragments
One of the first things you should do once you’ve safely arrived in Dawnshore is scour the map in search of the Woedica god totem and its fragments. This broken relic can be restored with six pieces hidden across Dawnshore, and each one gives you a permanent passive buff that goes a long way in keeping you breathing. Plus, it’s also a great excuse to explore and see the sights.
Each following region also has its own god totem to repair, so you’ll be clued up on what to look out for next time.
Enchant weapons!
Although Avowed throws a lot of tooltips and explainers at you early on, from how to upgrade gear to how certain systems work, you’ll quickly discover that some actually confuse things more than they help. Enchanting weapons is one of the biggest victims. After the tooltip explained that I could change the enchantment of unique weapons but that it would be permanent, I thought “Nah, I don’t need to do that! I love my AoE frost axe.”
Hours went by until, out of curiosity, I checked out what enchantments I could put on it and was horrified that I could’ve made my life easier.
Enchantments effectively act like another form of upgrade of your tools of mass destruction, though there is a choice involved. Typically, unique weapons will have one enchantment that is a boosted version of its standard effect, and one that is slightly different. That’s where my frustration came in, as I could’ve made my frost axe more powerful with just one button press in a menu. Don’t make my mistake—check the enchanting table every time you get a new unique weapon!
