1. what is your watcher's class? how does it relate to their backstory?

variel is a kind wayfarer paladin. she joined the order after escaping servitude on her adopted "family's" merchant ships (there was a storm and a shipwreck and variel ended up being washed up ashore in the living lands). she was saved by a kind wayfarer paladin, kirsi, who became her mother figure. after variel recovered, she began her training to join the order. after completing her initiation, she spent the next years of her life fulfilling her kind wayfarer duties, guiding and protecting travellers from the dangers of the living lands.

answered in the last post :)

unfortunately a boring answer, but variel doesn't have a strong opinion of animancy one way or another. she sees its dangers (especially after seeing the abhorrent treatment of patients in brackenbury sanitarium), but doesn't discount its benefits and how it can help those in need.

likes: lighthearted, animal kindness, worldly, impassioned dislikes: animal cruelty, piety, racism

variel made a deal with hylea, seeing as returning the souls to the hollowborn was the most compassionate choice in her eyes. she kept her end of the bargain, and does not regret her decision

at the beginning of poe1, variel was a pretty devoted worshipper of ondra. it came from a desire to be seen and acknowledged by the goddess, for her to finally recognise her as her child and reward her for all these years of hardship. over the course of the game, variel grows more and more disillusioned with the gods, with the divine intervention she has been hoping for never coming. it reached a climax during the events of the white march, when variel saw all the atrocities committed in the ondran temple and ondra herself finally answered variel, only to tell her to sacrifice her life. by the time poe2 happens, variel has it out for the gods (only hylea is on thin ice) and will openly defy them. her personal grief towards ondra is only multiplied when she sees how the goddess clearly favours tekehu, and despite herself variel is resentful and jealous.

because of how she grew up and her godlike-ness, variel's culture is very eclectic and she never really fit in anywhere. though her mother was a pale elf, she never got the chance to meet her, so she has no ties to the glamfellen culture other than genetics. variel spent the first years of her life in an orphanage in aedyr, though she has not picked up on any aedyran culture. the biggest influences on her were the times she spent on vailian ships, being forced to go on all voyages by her adopted 'family' as a good luck charm; and her time in the living lands, in the paladin order of kind wayfarers.

variel is not exactly the type of person to theorise on things, but the more interactions with the gods she had, the more suspicious of them she became (especially after white march). iovarra's reveal was not much of a surprise to her, and it only fuelled the crisis of faith she was already going through.