Avowed lore recap: All races explained

Avowed is the latest fantasy project developed by Obsidian Entertainment for the Xbox Series X/S and PC. The title lets you build your playable character and design them down to the most minute detail. The game developers wanted the player base to have full authority over how they wished to look as they explored the Living Lands.

This article will cover every playable race you can select in Avowed before starting your journey.

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All playable races in Avowed

You don't have a lot of options when choosing the race of your envoy (Image via Xbox Game Studios)

There are only two playable races in Avowed: humans and elves. Each faction has unique characteristics. Your envoy is from the Aedyr Empire, the largest existing alliance between humans and elves after centuries of war. Your envoy is also a Godlike, beings blessed by the gods before they were born. However, your character has no clue which god blessed them at the start of this journey.

While other races like dwarves and orlans exist in the Pillars of Eternity universe, the developers limited your options to humans and elves. Each race has subraces, and they have unique abilities that other subraces don't have.

Obsidian Entertainment opted to limit the choices to elves and humans and for good reason. Narrowing the options for playable races allows the developers to focus on designing two detailed factions, and it made sense story-wise. Your envoy hails from the Aedyr Empire, which consisted of only humans and elves.

It is worth noting that there are no major differences between the two playable races in gameplay, apart from the slight height advantage a regular human has over an elf. Nevertheless, let’s examine the different playable races in the game.

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Humans

Widely known as Folk in this universe, the in-game humans are perfect representations of what we are today. While this race is much taller than the elves, the only downside is their extremely short lifespans. Players can choose from a wide variety of preset options featuring different facial features.

This game's robust character creator is detailed enough to perfectly capture a real person's likeness and inject them into the Living Lands.

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Elves

While the elves have a few subcategories, your envoy will be from the woodland realm by default, and you can’t change their origins or where they came from. The elves in this universe share characteristics from other famous depictions, such as being slightly shorter than a normal human, having pointy ears and noses, and having an insanely long life span.

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Other races in the Living Lands

Kai's race may not be an option in the character creation, which made this character easy to identify (Image via Xbox Game Studios)

While Obsidian Entertainment limited the playable races to only humans and elves, you will encounter other races during your journey. Kai is the first companion who will join your party, and he is an Aumaua, a race of humanoid and aquatic beings bearing fish-like characteristics and superior strength.

You will also meet Marius, a mountain dwarf under the ranger class. While there are possible gameplay reasons as to why the developers didn't include a dwarf option, considering this race is much shorter than an elf and ordinary human, this could have posed as a problem gameplay-wise. Yatzli will, a hearth orlan, will also join you in your journey. This race is much shorter than dwarves, and they can live for up to 50 to 80 years.

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Conclusion

As mentioned earlier, your envoy has been touched by the gods before their birth, and you can have their godlike features. While it remains unclear which god blessed your character, you have decent options.

It is worth mentioning that the gameplay does not change, regardless of which race you select. You only use a handful of unique dialogue phrases to identify your race whenever you are in the middle of a conversation with other NPCs.

Avowed is now available on Xbox Series X/S, Game Pass, and PC. For more related articles, check these out:

• Is Avowed coming to PlayStation?
• Avowed: Classes tier list
• All Unique Daggers in Avowed, and how to get them
• Avowed: How to reach the Hidden Waterfall Cave
• All Unique Great hammers in Avowed, and how to get them
• Avowed Escape Plan quest guide: All choices explained
• Avowed The Animancy Method: Pacifist vs Genocide route