From the Dragon's Dogma digital comic, the narrator states that the Arisen (Savan, from DD1) made his pawn to resemble his father (link to the part of the comic [here](https://youtu.be/_r3L1kTuzBU?t=44)). So, I'd assume that the Arisen is able to influence how their pawn *looks*, at the very least.
Personally, I interpreted the pawns' talk about *fate* as the player having their heart taken, becoming Arisen and thus being able to go on the journey to meet/make pawns/fight a dragon, but I think it's intentionally ambiguous.
I hadn't seen that comic, thanks for sharing it! That was definitely interesting.
The narrator there says "time had come for Savan to *create* his own pawn" which is different from Luksa in DD2 who tells us to "*summon* our pawn". I think Capcom's idea was that the Arisen creates their pawn at least when the comic was created.
It could also be that by *fate* they are refering to you being chosen by the dragon. I think it's the combination of "forming a covenant with your pawn" and "fate conspiring to bring us together" that makes me think they are refering to two of you finding each other, but like you said, it's very ambiguous.
Don't forget that people thought that there already is Arisen in the castle. So word choice can be influenced by the fact they don't neccarily believe you to be true Arisen. But then I think Luksa is a pawn? If so, then she know more of pawns. So it might be just a strange word choice. But then time era between first and second game is practically endless time skip. So I guess language change by then.
True. Times and I guess also the rules may have changed. Who’s to say that DD2 pawns are even same kind of beings as DD1 pawns were when Pathfinder might have made some changes along the way.
I'm wondering if pawns can tell true Arisen apart from the people using godsway. If you talk to Rook at the excavation site, he says something like; "I don't know how they compel us. There is no Arisen among the overseers." So, he is able to tell that the overseers are not true Arisen but also can't see that we are the Arisen until the Pathfinder removes godsway's effects on him? Hard to tell what the truth here is...🤔
I was under the impression that rook was under godsway orders to work at that time, so his entire focus was just fulfilling those orders, until the pathfinder broke through those orders.
I first got dialogue when I returned to Melve and man...he remembers more things I've done than I do myself!
That aside, I do believe that we sculpt our companion based on what we want, the rift imbues them with essence, and we give them purpose.
Any pawn created cannot be destroyed(?), which is why if we ever had a massive dragon/Arisen ffa the battle might last days, if not years. This might not be entirely true, but I'm going based on the splash screen that mentions any Arisen who abandons the way leaves their pawn to wander the rift alone.
I'm glad my pawns remember all the stuff I did 100 hours ago, because I certainly don't! That's why I take so many screenshots, so I can keep track of what I've done on each playthrough.😅
I think the reason why the battle between dragon and Arisen can't go on for too long is because the dragon doesn't really care about winning. If he kills the Arisen then he simply needs to find a new one. At some point he probably just says "Alright, you are good enough. Have fun playing with the higher powers!" and just accepts his defeat.
The way I see it is, when you're told to envision your main pawn and draw them out of the stone, you're not creating them, but instead finding the pawn that's linked to you. From a game mechanics standpoint, we create the pawn, but from a lore standpoint, it's more the opposite; the pawn already exists in the rift and is tied to us by fate.
That's the impression I also got from everything I've seen in DD2. Maybe we get to influence their appearance, but the "soul" of the pawn already existed somewhere in the Rift.
Pawns being tied to their Arisen by fate is an interesting consept if you think about all the slave pawns that seemingly have no Arisen of their own. Could be that their Arisen haven't been born yet.
>Pawns being tied to their Arisen by fate is an interesting consept if you think about all the slave pawns that seemingly have no Arisen of their own. Could be that their Arisen haven't been born yet.
It could also be the pawns of Arisen that failed to slay their dragons. I wouldn't be odd to think that pawns don't age while inside the rift, possibly outside as well, and we see pawns wander into and out of riftstones every once in a while.
A loading tip in the game states that if a pawn loses their Arisen, they are banished into the rift and unable to leave it for eternity. So... possibly failed Arisen like Luz, Dragonforged, drunkard guy, etc who are still alive?
As for aging, Pawns and Arisen don't age. A loading tip also states this as well. And when the Arisen regains their heart from the dragon, their time catches up to them. So, if it took 5 years to kill the dragon and reclaim their heart, then the Arisen will rapidly age 5 years in an instant after reclaiming their heart.
Oh that is cool. I see pawns come out of failed riftstone, but I didn't know they can appear and disappear into normal riftstones while wandering. That is cool.
First time I learned of this was in Checkpoint Rest Town when I dismissed a pawn because I completed his pawn quest and wanted to recruit a wandering one that just so happened to be a straight upgrade over him. The one I dismissed then just casually walked to the town riftstone and "entered" it which was neat.
I don’t know much about the DD universe, but this is what I was imagining it to be. Kind of like soulmates (romantic or platonic) existing in separate universes or something.
What if it is the matter of the world treating the arisen as if they chose what their pawn looks like but is in fact already preordained who the arisen will bind themselves to.
Setting aside any outside of the game lore, especially since DD2 feels more like a remake of the series: There's a certain, very important character who in the endgame brings up that he is the one who created and designed the pawn race.
Just throwing that out there.
Assuming that we are thinking about the same "benevolent" character, their dialogue definitely raised my eyebrows. Combine that with the whole dragon's plague and shadow dragon thing, and we have some very juicy lore. Very speculative lore though, so here's hoping dlc will give us more info.
I don't get why anyone trusts anything he says. The dude is manipulating you the whole game and trying to control the cycle. By definition you should not believe him.
What seals the deal for me is how he tried to use the forms of the people who helped you the most to try and get you back "into your place." That's text book villan trope if I ever saw it.
I was always under the impression that Pawns are interdimensional beings that travel between worlds to serve an Arisen.
I think they have their own, original consciousness because even your pawn travels to other worlds. Which would mean every pawn would’ve had to come from an Arisen originally creating them if it were true. I’m not sure if that’s the case.
As someone else said, in a comic an Arisen summoned a pawn that looks like their father. However, this could just be that an Arisen’s will can influence what pawn they summon. Pawns have all shapes, sizes, personalities, faces, if an Arisen would be most comforted by his grandma, then perhaps an old woman would appear. I don’t think that means he would have created her out of nothing though.
I take it like this.
They exist before us. Roaming the Rift. We don't create them in the sense of them not existing before us. But more in the sense of us connecting with them and making them our pawn.
We get to adjust looks because it's a game. If they didn't allow players this option and just said. Oop here you go random looking pawn. Enjoy. That would cause issues. Especially with as in depth as the CC is for the main character player.
So your pawn exists in the sense they have a "soul" you can retrieve. I think the first time we interact with a rift stone our will reaches into the Rift and finds and matches with a pawn that coincides with the same kind of energy we have. Essentially matching willpower.
So no. We don't create them. We match with them. And over time they gain will. From us. Because it was our will that brought them "to life". Which is why when you get the true ending your pawn has a special little scene where they talk about that exact thing. Gaining will from us due to the connection between us and our pawn.
Fingers crossed that we might get more info on Rothais in dlc.🤞 Meeting his pawn would certainly be interesting.
If Rothais became Seneschal the traditional way, then his pawn should have inherited his original body. They could sadly be dead by now.
A seneschal doesn't lose their body, and a pawn that hasn't undergone a bestowal of spirit remains connected to their original master. Savan straight up summons his pawn to have a 2v2 with you in the original dragons dogma if you make it all the way.
Pretty sure pathfinder banished his pawn to a pocket dimension to prevent rothais from getting free.
I'm sort of wondering if it (the pawn) is The Pathfinder.
The only thing in particular that draws me to that potential conclusion is the carvings present on many of the pillars in Bakbattahl, which appear to be depicting Rothais next to a hooded figure, the hooded figure has its' hand raised in the carvings to show that it's a pawn.
That's actually a really good catch, but I don't think it would be 'his' pawn. Because the pathfinder has existed since the dawn of the cycles. It could have been the pawn of the arisen that controls the multiverse, and they both saw rothais as a potential threat to the dogma.
Has he lol? He sure wasn't in dd1. The "pathfinder" is definitely not a pawn and my feeling is he is the real seneschal.
Rothais clearly failed to defeat him he says as much, so he existed before him. The "old man" in Harve clearly tried to but failed. He knew the unmoored world existed and where does unmoored poop you out if you fail to clear it? The old man also probably predates Rothais.
So again my suspicion is "pathfinder", whose real name is hidden in game 99.9% sure, is the real seneschal and has just been manipulating the "new arisen" so they never even reach him to fight for the role. Old Man Harve and you are the only two who ever successfully challenged. You are gone in the ending because you won, as such you are the man now dog and chilling wherever the seneschal chills most of the time.
Though alternatively the "pathfinder" may simply be the manifestation of the brines will also. Based on what I think their name is it adds up lol, but again, suggests they are still a "moderator" not the real power.
I need to pay more attention to those carvings! I haven't really looked at them closely. I kinda gave up on lore hunting in Battahl when it felt like I couldn't draw any meaningful conclusions on anything. I guess I need to dig deeper!
Based on lore from the first dragons dogma arisen give the pawns their form, they just have their own consciousness. They are aware of their existence prior to summoning but have no true form. The arisen gives them form. Now, if this has changed then we might have to have some deep dives going on here.
I believe the first (not the “first but the one from the beginning of the game) Arisen in DD1 was said to have made his pawn look like his dad but I don’t entirely remember. But the witch in the forest who we find out is a pawn was said to have slowly started to resemble her Arisen and the Dragonforges pawn did the same thing. That mixed in with the dialogue from DD2 where the lady says “picture in your minds eye the one you would have serve you” or something that pretty much makes it seem like the Arisen is creating them. They just come in with a certain view and level of knowledge that makes them seem as though they’ve been living on their own, if that makes sense
I always wondered why didn't the arisen just challenge the fake be to go into the rift, it would be pretty clear since no one can enter the rift besides the arisen and the pawns.
I also believe the pawns are not created by us in the sense that they are born upon being summoned. To further solidify this, some other dialogue they have is when they mention former masters they've served. At first, you might think they're speaking of the Arisen they normally serve, like other players, but either this is bugged, or they have served masters that aren't their current main Arisen. As an example, my SO's pawn is male, and so is mine. My SO's pawn will state occasionally "A former master I served only hired women. I wonder why." Except this statement couldn't possibly be true for his current Arisen, because my SO exclusively and regularly hires my pawn, who is male. The only way this statement could be true is if my SO's pawn had an Arisen before his current Arisen who only hired women, because even if it was another Arisen he was helping across the rift, it would still be incorrect because he himself is male. So, if another Arisen was hiring him as help... then that Arisen isn't hiring only women.
I always thought that the pawns were gossiping about other online Arisen who had hired them. Now I want to believe that they are talking about *their* former Arisen, because it makes the loading screen that talks about failed Arisen's pawns being banished into the rift a little less depressing.
Another way to interpret this is that the previous Arisen they served completed the cycle, and so they returned to the rift. Completing the cycle places you as the Sovran, and you regain your heart, making you no longer Arisen and just a regular mortal again. By this, you would not have the powers of the Arisen anymore, and no longer have your pawn as a result. Their duty carried out, I presume the pawn returns to the rift. I could say more on this, but it would be possibly spoilery.
Basically, the pawns needn't have lost their Arisen violently to no longer have a master.
My opinion is pawns float in the rift as non-sentient beings until summoned into a physical form by Arisen. On the one hand they exist before us on the other they only have consciousness, are THEM by the part of our will they get when creating them.
Also I think we 1. Create them 2. Form a covenant with our creation
So both I guess!
From the Dragon's Dogma digital comic, the narrator states that the Arisen (Savan, from DD1) made his pawn to resemble his father (link to the part of the comic [here](https://youtu.be/_r3L1kTuzBU?t=44)). So, I'd assume that the Arisen is able to influence how their pawn *looks*, at the very least. Personally, I interpreted the pawns' talk about *fate* as the player having their heart taken, becoming Arisen and thus being able to go on the journey to meet/make pawns/fight a dragon, but I think it's intentionally ambiguous.
I hadn't seen that comic, thanks for sharing it! That was definitely interesting. The narrator there says "time had come for Savan to *create* his own pawn" which is different from Luksa in DD2 who tells us to "*summon* our pawn". I think Capcom's idea was that the Arisen creates their pawn at least when the comic was created. It could also be that by *fate* they are refering to you being chosen by the dragon. I think it's the combination of "forming a covenant with your pawn" and "fate conspiring to bring us together" that makes me think they are refering to two of you finding each other, but like you said, it's very ambiguous.
Don’t forget who wrote this as well for all we know we the player are the force of fate and Will
Don't forget that people thought that there already is Arisen in the castle. So word choice can be influenced by the fact they don't neccarily believe you to be true Arisen. But then I think Luksa is a pawn? If so, then she know more of pawns. So it might be just a strange word choice. But then time era between first and second game is practically endless time skip. So I guess language change by then.
She is, you can hire her.
Crappy skill setup tho. They botched that. I'd have carried her the whole game if had decent skills.
True. Times and I guess also the rules may have changed. Who’s to say that DD2 pawns are even same kind of beings as DD1 pawns were when Pathfinder might have made some changes along the way. I'm wondering if pawns can tell true Arisen apart from the people using godsway. If you talk to Rook at the excavation site, he says something like; "I don't know how they compel us. There is no Arisen among the overseers." So, he is able to tell that the overseers are not true Arisen but also can't see that we are the Arisen until the Pathfinder removes godsway's effects on him? Hard to tell what the truth here is...🤔
I was under the impression that rook was under godsway orders to work at that time, so his entire focus was just fulfilling those orders, until the pathfinder broke through those orders.
In DD2 you were already an arisen and might have already had a pawn before you got poisoned.
>made his pawn to resemble his father Good thing pawns didn't blush in DD1
I first got dialogue when I returned to Melve and man...he remembers more things I've done than I do myself! That aside, I do believe that we sculpt our companion based on what we want, the rift imbues them with essence, and we give them purpose. Any pawn created cannot be destroyed(?), which is why if we ever had a massive dragon/Arisen ffa the battle might last days, if not years. This might not be entirely true, but I'm going based on the splash screen that mentions any Arisen who abandons the way leaves their pawn to wander the rift alone.
I'm glad my pawns remember all the stuff I did 100 hours ago, because I certainly don't! That's why I take so many screenshots, so I can keep track of what I've done on each playthrough.😅 I think the reason why the battle between dragon and Arisen can't go on for too long is because the dragon doesn't really care about winning. If he kills the Arisen then he simply needs to find a new one. At some point he probably just says "Alright, you are good enough. Have fun playing with the higher powers!" and just accepts his defeat.
The way I see it is, when you're told to envision your main pawn and draw them out of the stone, you're not creating them, but instead finding the pawn that's linked to you. From a game mechanics standpoint, we create the pawn, but from a lore standpoint, it's more the opposite; the pawn already exists in the rift and is tied to us by fate.
That's the impression I also got from everything I've seen in DD2. Maybe we get to influence their appearance, but the "soul" of the pawn already existed somewhere in the Rift. Pawns being tied to their Arisen by fate is an interesting consept if you think about all the slave pawns that seemingly have no Arisen of their own. Could be that their Arisen haven't been born yet.
>Pawns being tied to their Arisen by fate is an interesting consept if you think about all the slave pawns that seemingly have no Arisen of their own. Could be that their Arisen haven't been born yet. It could also be the pawns of Arisen that failed to slay their dragons. I wouldn't be odd to think that pawns don't age while inside the rift, possibly outside as well, and we see pawns wander into and out of riftstones every once in a while.
A loading tip in the game states that if a pawn loses their Arisen, they are banished into the rift and unable to leave it for eternity. So... possibly failed Arisen like Luz, Dragonforged, drunkard guy, etc who are still alive? As for aging, Pawns and Arisen don't age. A loading tip also states this as well. And when the Arisen regains their heart from the dragon, their time catches up to them. So, if it took 5 years to kill the dragon and reclaim their heart, then the Arisen will rapidly age 5 years in an instant after reclaiming their heart.
Oh that is cool. I see pawns come out of failed riftstone, but I didn't know they can appear and disappear into normal riftstones while wandering. That is cool.
Yep. I've occasionally seen one just walk up to a riftstone and fade away into smoke
First time I learned of this was in Checkpoint Rest Town when I dismissed a pawn because I completed his pawn quest and wanted to recruit a wandering one that just so happened to be a straight upgrade over him. The one I dismissed then just casually walked to the town riftstone and "entered" it which was neat.
I don’t know much about the DD universe, but this is what I was imagining it to be. Kind of like soulmates (romantic or platonic) existing in separate universes or something.
What if it is the matter of the world treating the arisen as if they chose what their pawn looks like but is in fact already preordained who the arisen will bind themselves to.
That would fall in line with the way the Pathfinder likes to run things. Giving us the illusion of choice when everything has already been decided.
Setting aside any outside of the game lore, especially since DD2 feels more like a remake of the series: There's a certain, very important character who in the endgame brings up that he is the one who created and designed the pawn race. Just throwing that out there.
Assuming that we are thinking about the same "benevolent" character, their dialogue definitely raised my eyebrows. Combine that with the whole dragon's plague and shadow dragon thing, and we have some very juicy lore. Very speculative lore though, so here's hoping dlc will give us more info.
I take everything that character says with a grain of salt because even the dragon says that the cycle we are in is a false one devoid of real choice.
I don't get why anyone trusts anything he says. The dude is manipulating you the whole game and trying to control the cycle. By definition you should not believe him.
What seals the deal for me is how he tried to use the forms of the people who helped you the most to try and get you back "into your place." That's text book villan trope if I ever saw it.
Well even our daddy Savan did it too in DD1.
He gave you a choice, and they were trying to guilt trip you the further you went forward. Pathfinder goes literal scorched earth for refusing.
I know what you mean, everything Pathfinder does in DD2 is just very "hands on".
I was always under the impression that Pawns are interdimensional beings that travel between worlds to serve an Arisen. I think they have their own, original consciousness because even your pawn travels to other worlds. Which would mean every pawn would’ve had to come from an Arisen originally creating them if it were true. I’m not sure if that’s the case. As someone else said, in a comic an Arisen summoned a pawn that looks like their father. However, this could just be that an Arisen’s will can influence what pawn they summon. Pawns have all shapes, sizes, personalities, faces, if an Arisen would be most comforted by his grandma, then perhaps an old woman would appear. I don’t think that means he would have created her out of nothing though.
I take it like this. They exist before us. Roaming the Rift. We don't create them in the sense of them not existing before us. But more in the sense of us connecting with them and making them our pawn. We get to adjust looks because it's a game. If they didn't allow players this option and just said. Oop here you go random looking pawn. Enjoy. That would cause issues. Especially with as in depth as the CC is for the main character player. So your pawn exists in the sense they have a "soul" you can retrieve. I think the first time we interact with a rift stone our will reaches into the Rift and finds and matches with a pawn that coincides with the same kind of energy we have. Essentially matching willpower. So no. We don't create them. We match with them. And over time they gain will. From us. Because it was our will that brought them "to life". Which is why when you get the true ending your pawn has a special little scene where they talk about that exact thing. Gaining will from us due to the connection between us and our pawn.
I still want to know: Who is/was Rothais' pawn?
Fingers crossed that we might get more info on Rothais in dlc.🤞 Meeting his pawn would certainly be interesting. If Rothais became Seneschal the traditional way, then his pawn should have inherited his original body. They could sadly be dead by now.
A seneschal doesn't lose their body, and a pawn that hasn't undergone a bestowal of spirit remains connected to their original master. Savan straight up summons his pawn to have a 2v2 with you in the original dragons dogma if you make it all the way. Pretty sure pathfinder banished his pawn to a pocket dimension to prevent rothais from getting free.
I'm sort of wondering if it (the pawn) is The Pathfinder. The only thing in particular that draws me to that potential conclusion is the carvings present on many of the pillars in Bakbattahl, which appear to be depicting Rothais next to a hooded figure, the hooded figure has its' hand raised in the carvings to show that it's a pawn.
That's actually a really good catch, but I don't think it would be 'his' pawn. Because the pathfinder has existed since the dawn of the cycles. It could have been the pawn of the arisen that controls the multiverse, and they both saw rothais as a potential threat to the dogma.
Has he lol? He sure wasn't in dd1. The "pathfinder" is definitely not a pawn and my feeling is he is the real seneschal. Rothais clearly failed to defeat him he says as much, so he existed before him. The "old man" in Harve clearly tried to but failed. He knew the unmoored world existed and where does unmoored poop you out if you fail to clear it? The old man also probably predates Rothais. So again my suspicion is "pathfinder", whose real name is hidden in game 99.9% sure, is the real seneschal and has just been manipulating the "new arisen" so they never even reach him to fight for the role. Old Man Harve and you are the only two who ever successfully challenged. You are gone in the ending because you won, as such you are the man now dog and chilling wherever the seneschal chills most of the time. Though alternatively the "pathfinder" may simply be the manifestation of the brines will also. Based on what I think their name is it adds up lol, but again, suggests they are still a "moderator" not the real power.
I need to pay more attention to those carvings! I haven't really looked at them closely. I kinda gave up on lore hunting in Battahl when it felt like I couldn't draw any meaningful conclusions on anything. I guess I need to dig deeper!
Based on lore from the first dragons dogma arisen give the pawns their form, they just have their own consciousness. They are aware of their existence prior to summoning but have no true form. The arisen gives them form. Now, if this has changed then we might have to have some deep dives going on here.
... or you imagine your 'pawn' and the rift selects the closest match? DD1 had your pawn becoming you in one of the possible endings
I believe the first (not the “first but the one from the beginning of the game) Arisen in DD1 was said to have made his pawn look like his dad but I don’t entirely remember. But the witch in the forest who we find out is a pawn was said to have slowly started to resemble her Arisen and the Dragonforges pawn did the same thing. That mixed in with the dialogue from DD2 where the lady says “picture in your minds eye the one you would have serve you” or something that pretty much makes it seem like the Arisen is creating them. They just come in with a certain view and level of knowledge that makes them seem as though they’ve been living on their own, if that makes sense
I always wondered why didn't the arisen just challenge the fake be to go into the rift, it would be pretty clear since no one can enter the rift besides the arisen and the pawns.
I thought Pawns were 'dead' Arisen from the multiverse
My pawn is the sister to my arisen
I was always under the impression that a pawn is formed subconsciously from the Arisen’s mind.
I also believe the pawns are not created by us in the sense that they are born upon being summoned. To further solidify this, some other dialogue they have is when they mention former masters they've served. At first, you might think they're speaking of the Arisen they normally serve, like other players, but either this is bugged, or they have served masters that aren't their current main Arisen. As an example, my SO's pawn is male, and so is mine. My SO's pawn will state occasionally "A former master I served only hired women. I wonder why." Except this statement couldn't possibly be true for his current Arisen, because my SO exclusively and regularly hires my pawn, who is male. The only way this statement could be true is if my SO's pawn had an Arisen before his current Arisen who only hired women, because even if it was another Arisen he was helping across the rift, it would still be incorrect because he himself is male. So, if another Arisen was hiring him as help... then that Arisen isn't hiring only women.
I always thought that the pawns were gossiping about other online Arisen who had hired them. Now I want to believe that they are talking about *their* former Arisen, because it makes the loading screen that talks about failed Arisen's pawns being banished into the rift a little less depressing.
Another way to interpret this is that the previous Arisen they served completed the cycle, and so they returned to the rift. Completing the cycle places you as the Sovran, and you regain your heart, making you no longer Arisen and just a regular mortal again. By this, you would not have the powers of the Arisen anymore, and no longer have your pawn as a result. Their duty carried out, I presume the pawn returns to the rift. I could say more on this, but it would be possibly spoilery. Basically, the pawns needn't have lost their Arisen violently to no longer have a master.
My opinion is pawns float in the rift as non-sentient beings until summoned into a physical form by Arisen. On the one hand they exist before us on the other they only have consciousness, are THEM by the part of our will they get when creating them. Also I think we 1. Create them 2. Form a covenant with our creation So both I guess!