The Guides ◆ Avowed ◆ Factions
Factions & Reputation
The Living Lands is a collision of competing powers. Understanding what each faction wants — and what your choices cost — is the difference between an intentional playthrough and a surprised one.
Guide verified for Avowed 1.3 · April 2026
How Reputation Works
Avowed does not have a morality meter. There is no "good points" or "evil points" counter. What it has is reputation with individual factions — and these are tracked separately. You can be deeply trusted by one group and actively despised by another in the same playthrough.
Reputation is earned and lost through quest decisions, dialogue choices, and how you handle the people you encounter. The effects are real: high reputation with a faction unlocks quest branches, vendor access, unique dialogue, and endings. Low reputation locks some of these out — and occasionally makes faction members hostile.
Reputation is not a zero-sum race between factions. In many situations you can satisfy two factions simultaneously by choosing your approach carefully. But some decisions are zero-sum — where one faction's gain is explicitly another's loss. Knowing which is which is the entire value of this guide.
Reputation Tiers
| Standing | What changes |
|---|---|
| Revered | Maximum trust. Unlocks the best quest outcomes, unique faction equipment, and the most favourable ending possibilities with this group. Faction members will go out of their way to help you. |
| Favoured | Strong standing. Most faction content is accessible. Vendor pricing improves. Several quest paths are available that are closed at lower tiers. |
| Neutral | The default starting point. Standard vendor access, standard NPC reactions. No doors closed yet, none opened. |
| Disfavoured | The faction has noticed your choices. Some NPCs are curt or hostile. Certain quest branches close. You can still recover from this tier. |
| Nemesis | The faction considers you an enemy. Faction members may become actively hostile. Quest branches associated with this faction are locked. Difficult to reverse. |
The Major Factions
The Aedyran Empire
Your employer. Colonial power of Eora's eastern continent.
You begin the game as an Aedyran envoy. The Empire sent you to the Living Lands to investigate the Dreamscourge — it threatens imperial interests and the stability of their colonial holdings. Aedyr is powerful, organized, and convinced of its own civilizing mission. Whether that mission is benevolent, exploitative, or somewhere in between is something you'll form your own view on as the game unfolds.
What they want from you: Contain the Dreamscourge, maintain order, and keep Aedyran interests intact. They'd prefer you do it without making enemies of every faction in the frontier — but results matter more than methods.
What raises reputation: Acting in Aedyr's institutional interests; protecting colonial settlements; respecting the chain of command when it appears.
What lowers reputation: Undermining colonial authority; siding explicitly with independence movements; actions that embarrass the imperial mission.
The Paradis
The independence faction. Settlers and natives who want the Living Lands free of imperial rule.
The Paradis are a coalition of settlers, indigenous Living Lands people, and idealists who believe the frontier should govern itself. They range from peaceful organizers to active resisters. The Dreamscourge complicates their cause — the plague threatens everyone regardless of politics, but the Paradis have their own theories about its origin, and those theories point in uncomfortable directions.
What they want from you: Recognition that the Living Lands belongs to its people, not Aedyr. Practical help with the Dreamscourge investigation; they have information the Empire doesn't.
What raises reputation: Respecting local autonomy; choosing outcomes that benefit frontier communities over imperial interests; sharing investigation findings with Paradis contacts.
What lowers reputation: Enforcing imperial authority at Paradis expense; siding with the Empire in contested jurisdictions; betraying Paradis contacts.
The Steel Garrote
Aedyran inquisitors. Zealots who consider Godlikes a divine threat — including you.
The Steel Garrote operates under Aedyran authority but with a mandate that extends beyond the Empire's official mission. They believe Godlikes — people touched by the gods, like your character — are inherently dangerous and should be controlled, contained, or eliminated. You are, by their definition, a problem. They're in the Living Lands for the same reason you are, and your goals overlap just enough to make the relationship complicated.
What they want: Control of Godlike activity in the Living Lands and advancement of their purification agenda. They'll use you against the Dreamscourge if it serves their ends.
What raises reputation: Taking actions that suppress Dreamscourge spread — even if Garrote methods are brutal; cooperating on specific containment objectives.
What lowers reputation: Any action that asserts Godlike autonomy or undermines their containment agenda; protecting other Godlikes from Garrote enforcement.
The People of the Living Lands
The indigenous communities, local settlements, and frontier survivors who call the Living Lands home.
Before the Empire arrived and before the Dreamscourge spread, the Living Lands had people. Multiple communities with their own histories, governance, and relationships with the land. The Dreamscourge has devastated some of these communities disproportionately. They are not organized as a single faction — they have competing interests and relationships with both Aedyr and the Paradis — but your reputation among them collectively shapes what the frontier looks like at the end of your journey.
What they want: Survival, recognition, and to not be treated as a resource or obstacle by the investigation. Several community leaders have crucial information about the Dreamscourge's origin that you won't get any other way.
What raises reputation: Treating local communities as stakeholders rather than sources of information; choosing quest outcomes that protect rather than sacrifice local populations.
Decision Guide — The Choices That Matter Most
Most moment-to-moment quest decisions have small, reversible reputation effects. These do not. Each of the following is a decision point where the consequences are significant and difficult to walk back.
| Decision Type | Factions Watching | The Core Tension |
|---|---|---|
| Jurisdictional conflicts When Aedyran authority and local/Paradis authority directly oppose each other |
Aedyr, Paradis | Choosing Aedyr gains imperial standing and closes Paradis quest lines. Choosing Paradis opens independence-aligned content but damages your relationship with Aedyran officials who appear later. |
| Steel Garrote encounters When Garrote agents are carrying out their agenda in your presence |
Steel Garrote, Living Lands peoples, occasionally Paradis | Cooperating advances Dreamscourge containment objectives but validates their ideology and harms Godlike communities. Opposing them creates an enemy with reach — but protects people the game gives you reasons to care about. |
| Dreamscourge containment methods Several quests offer both a brutal effective solution and a slower compassionate one |
All factions, weighted differently per method | Brutal methods often favour Aedyr and Garrote. Compassionate methods favour Paradis and local communities. Some methods are irreversible — do not choose a destructive containment approach expecting to undo it. |
| Information sharing When you learn something that a faction would want to know, and you choose whether to share it |
Varies per situation | Information is currency in the Living Lands. Sharing with one faction can benefit or endanger another. These decisions don't feel weighty in the moment but accumulate in faction reputation more than most players expect. |
| Late-game allegiance The final act presents an explicit choice about how the Living Lands is shaped going forward |
All major factions | This is the decision all your earlier reputation feeds into. Your relationship with each faction determines which endings are available. It is not a surprise vote — it's the conclusion of accumulated choices. Build toward it intentionally. |
Quick Reference — Faction Alignment by Playstyle
If you want to maximise standing with a specific faction on purpose, here's the orientation you need to bring into every major decision:
| Your Priority | Orientation to Favour | What to Watch For |
|---|---|---|
| Aedyr Loyalist | Imperial order; enforce authority; report accurately; protect colonial infrastructure | Dialogue options that invoke your role as an Aedyran envoy; decisions that reinforce institutional power |
| Paradis Sympathiser | Local autonomy; distrust of imperial motives; protect frontier communities from Aedyran overreach | Choices that bypass or undermine imperial authority in favour of frontier self-determination |
| Independent Actor | Neither Empire nor Paradis — Dreamscourge above politics; pragmatic solutions regardless of who benefits | Dialogue that rejects factional framing; decisions focused on immediate outcomes over long-term allegiances. Possible but requires careful navigation — fence-sitting eventually forces a hand in the final act. |
| Living Lands First | Consistently protect indigenous and local communities, especially in clashes with both imperial and Paradis interests | Side quests involving local communities; decisions about resource allocation; Dreamscourge containment methods |