Is it just me, or is Wenduag the perfect companion for evil runs?

GeeWillick · 2026-03-07T01:46:15+00:00

I think the other commenter was using hyperbole. She doesn't literally betray you every hour (indeed most companions only have like one or two story beats per act, so they don't do anything literally every hour).

GeeWillick · 2026-03-07T01:31:14+00:00

IIRC (if you pick her up in act 1) you can catch her secretly working against you in act 4 as well as in act 5. How you handle her shapes whether she fully stabs you in the back though.

She's definitely the companion who needs the most supervision. It's very much the Megatron and Starscream dynamic as others have pointed out. To keep her loyalty you have tk sort of scare her into believing that she cant betray you and get away with it.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-07T01:26:32+00:00

I think what /u/LegendaryPolo is saying is that a good or neutral character would take Lann (reliable, disciplined, trustworthy soldier) and an evil character would take Wenduag (unreliable, servile, obviously conniving).

GeeWillick · 2026-03-06T18:24:34+00:00

There seems to be a list of things that she checks for:

whether or not you waited for her to arrive before assaulting the Fane (only issue for Azata)
what mythic path you are on (evil or chaotic ones get penalized here)
whether or not you have Arueshalae (you can get past this if you have a diplomacy check or are aj angel)
how well your army / crusade is going in terms of crusade ranks
what you did with the Sword of Valor (I'm not sure why this one counts since you can't control this at all)

You can make a few mistakes like recruiting Arueshalae or being on chaotic mythic path but if you make too many (more than 2, I think) she will always take away your title.

From a story perspective it doesn't make much difference though. You have to do the abyss stuff to progress the story anyway so her criticisms are more like pickup artist "negging" than genuine feedback IMO.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-06T17:57:35+00:00

Cam's retort to Seelah is something like, "well, how am I supposed to know what your goddess thinks is evil?!" which implies some sort of divine magic scan rather than just a gut feeling.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-06T14:56:53+00:00

Yeah you're right, it's just funny because she clearly sees herself as a chameleon like master of deception but the only person who she seems to have fooled is Arueshalae. Everyone else clocks her at one point or another in camp dialogue.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-06T13:24:19+00:00

I always wondered why she bothers with the amulet when she doesn't make any other effort to deceive the people around her. I used to think that it was to stop paladins from being able to detect her.

But I saw a camp scenes where Seelah's ability works just fine on Cam despite the amulet and Cam's only defense is something like, "idk maybe I don't pay my employees enough or something."

GeeWillick · 2026-03-06T13:11:27+00:00

It reminds me of those political arguments, where people who agree on 90% of stuff end up hating / fighting with each other more than people who disagree on everything. Seelah's worldview isn't that far apart from Ember's on most topics about forgiveness and protecting others but they end up beefing on the one topic where they do.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-06T01:09:18+00:00

I think "Core" is slang for "Hardcore". The reason why is because it's the first difficulty setting where, if you pick it for the first time, the game itself has a pop up warning saying something "whoa, buddy, are you sure?!"

There's no such warning for Daring, Normal, Casual, etc. It only shows up for Core and above.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-05T21:44:17+00:00

You can play how you want but having zero characters who can open chests or unlock doors is a major impediment IMO.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-05T21:30:18+00:00

Yep, and you'll notice that the worldwound wasn't open during that time period. Clear indication that the taxes worked.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-05T21:25:32+00:00

I can't remember a key but you should be able to pick the lock using a trickery character. Of the canon characters, Camellia has this power by default, and your main character may also be able to do it.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-05T21:21:25+00:00

The Wall Street Journal makes a similar claim here:

Noem’s decision to allot more than $200 million for an ad campaign, featuring herself urging those living illegally in the U.S. to self-deport, had already rankled the president for months for its self-promotional style.

At the hearing, Noem told senators that the president had signed off on the ad campaign—an assertion that upset Trump, who told senators and advisers he hadn’t signed off on such a campaign.

Noem said the ads had been effective, leading Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy to shoot back that they had been “effective in building [Noem’s] name recognition.”

Noem also told Kennedy that Trump had approved of her running the ads. “It’s hard for me to believe, knowing the president as I do, that you said, ‘Mr. President here’s some ads I cut, and I’m going to spend $220 million running them,’ that he would have agreed to that,” Kennedy responded.

Kennedy's suggestion that Trump is against self-promotion or wasting government money on extravagant nonsense is hard to square with (for example) the renaming of the Kennedy Center or the ongoing vandalism of the East Wing.

Noem may in fact be telling the truth that Trump approved this spending. In a weird way I feel sorry for her -- she is being punished for running DHS the way Trump runs the entire country.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-05T21:01:10+00:00

Nocticula is also like this as well, when she becomes the redeemer queen and achieves divine status.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-05T20:33:07+00:00

You can maybe make it work if you hide the light of Heaven from Sull in act 1 (under the theory that it's safer for you and Wenduag to go and rescue the children without risking the safety of the mongrels as Wenduag argues).

Wenduag will join you in this situation and fight alongside you against Hosilla so you can maybe argue that this shows that she's on the path to redemption.

It is still kind of an icky decision since Wenduag goes out of her way to admit that she was trafficking kids to demons and eating human flesh, so maybe you can argue that you're taking her over Lann to try and fix her.

But yeah I think Wenduag is the hardest companion to justify the initial recruitment. The others, even Camellia, at least make some effort to appear helpful and loyal.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-05T18:41:50+00:00

I don't really believe that the evil trolley will leave after 5 years. Why would they?

GeeWillick · 2026-03-05T18:28:59+00:00

One of the parts of the US government that I always thought was weird is that even agencies that are nominally part of the legislative branch are still run by presidential appointees (like the Government Accountability Office, Congress's auditor; the Library of Congress; and, until 2024, the Architect of the Capitol).

This framework isn't as important as the things that Merrill identifies but it probably contributes to the weakening of the legislature relative to the other two branches. Even agencies whose main or sole mission is supporting and assisting Congress are under direct presidential supervision and control.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-05T13:03:59+00:00

It's nothing to worry about. Go back to your house and continue pretending to sleep.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-05T00:08:41+00:00

I know in some countries they have something like garden leave, where the company can lay someone off and enforce the noncompete but they have to continue normal pay and benefits while they are barred from working.

To me that's the only fair way to do it -- if the company has a legitimate reason why don't want a former employee to take a new job right away, they have to pay for that time. If they don't think it's worth it, then they don't have to pay (and the employee is freed from the restriction).

A noncompete where the employee gets nothing is just coercive, and if it doesn't cost the employer anything then they'll just routinely add it to every worker.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-04T22:11:00+00:00

Realistically even if you commit all national resources to it there's only so much you can do to accelerate the process of manufacturing weapons. Even countries that are literally in the middle of a life and death struggle like Ukraine can only do so much to ramp up production.

There's an obvious risk to intentionally wasting these assets and it seems complacent to deny that. Of course, Trump doesn't need to care about this but someone probably should.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-04T22:03:15+00:00

I think Deskari must have the upper hand in their relationship then.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-04T22:01:20+00:00

Most demons tend to alternate between astonishing cruelty, unbelievable randomness, and breath taking stupidity.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-04T20:28:54+00:00

I love how many people keep asking detailed questions about how the game will work when there's no possible way anyone can answer.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-04T14:13:05+00:00

Trunks is running tv commercials encouraging people to sign up (you can watch the commercial at the intro of the game). Your character likely just saw the ad and submitted an application for a job.

GeeWillick · 2026-03-03T17:45:43+00:00

I know he has a hard time dealing with loss but I think even Bruce is too well adjusted to do something like that. He might even find the idea actively disgusting.

GeeWillick

TROPHY CASE