Loaded with Eldritch Abomination enemies, tons of Body Horror, and more, Divinity: Original Sin II is far, far darker than its predecessor.
- Fort Joy is The Alcatraz with a dose of concentration camp thrown in for good measure. Prisoners are kept in a ghetto where the only punishable crime is attempted escape, until they are selected to be "cured" and are taken to the dungeons, after which no one ever sees them again.
- The "Cures" mentioned include having brain eating maggots devour so much of your mind you become a vegetable, having your source sucked out of you (leaving you an Empty Shell called a silent monk), or being tortured to death by Kniles the flenser. Once they’re finally, finally done with you, your corpse doesn’t even get the indignity of a mass grave as it’s unceremoniously fed to source hounds or put back together into a meat golem.
- Kniles the Flenser, the boss of the Fort Joy dungeons, deserves special mention for throwing any pretense of moral superiority on the part of the magisters out the window. He's a necrophile, a serial killer, a rapist, and an extremely enthusiastic torturer, to the point Sebille (Who likes to torture her targets before killing them) expresses disgust as just how far he takes it. When you enter his "playground," it's absolutely soaked in wet blood, on top of just as much dry blood. There’s so much blood that Ifan almost pukes from the smell. What the hell was he doing here?
- You later get a chance to visit his old childhood room. What is inside isn't as grisly as what you saw in the dungeon, but it makes it clear that Kniles was messed up even as a child.
- Perhaps the worst part about Kniles is his reasoning for being a necrophile; his mother bombarded him his entire childhood with messages that the only way to live a good life was through chastity and abstinence (a message he so took to heart he named his knives after these two virtues). Corpses aren’t people anymore in his mind, so they don’t count against his vows.
- And it turns out that his mom is a client for Andramahlik, the demon doctor.
- The Houndmaster of Fort Joy is heavily implied to be a cannibal and eats the same human meat he feeds his source hounds, considering he talks about your flesh the same way a butcher would talk about a prized cow.
- Shriekers. former sourcerers who have... something... done to them that causes their source to go out of control, and they become a sort of half voidwoken abomination capable of killing things just by looking at them. The worst part is that it's apparently still the same person, just so far corrupted as to be unrecognizable, and this corruption consumes their soul as well. The only way to kill one is to purge them of source, since they barely qualify as "Alive" anymore and thus the normal methods don't work.
- Silent Monks. They are the result of draining someone of source. The personality is trapped in there, aware it is fading, but unable to do anything or control its own actions other than the weakest movements or raspy cries for help. Eventually the personality vanishes entirely, and you encounter some in such lovely situations like one monk standing listlessly awaiting orders while maggots eats his eyes. No one told him to take them out, so he doesn't.
- While the Empty Shell Silent Monks are already terrifying in their implications, the weaponized monks are worse. A silent monk twisted through horrifically painful surgery and metal modifications into something vaguely dog shaped, its head replaced with a bear trap.
- Pet Pal is a source of some of the games funniest moments, but it also means you get to listen to the last words of creatures right before they succumb to the void and are reborn as voidwoken, or hearing the ominous mumblings from the voidwoken (and it gets worse if Fane is in your party). It’s never pretty.
- Braccus Rex is often times so evil it loops over into Crosses the Line Twice (such as turning someone into an ageless pig, and setting them on fire for good measure because fuck ‘em) but many many events and stories will remind you just how bad the reign of the Source King was for everyone not named “Braccus Rex”. How he looted and depopulated entire cities practically overnight to feed his never ending hunger. How he seemed to relish betraying those who had the audacity to think they had actually entered his good graces.
- The Voidwoken are basically The Corruption made sentient. They manifest as an endless horde of incredibly powerful, twisted Animalistic Abominations. They will never stop trying, and never seem to run out of reinforcements, and while normal people can kill them, they can't kill them fast enough. Their very presence corrupts the landscape, and turns animals and even people into more voidwoken. Eating fish from waters infested by Voidwoken causes nightmares and existential crises, or worse, and once they have polluted an area with their evil only a Godwoken, of which there are few left, can reverse it. They can even kill the gods.
- Ryker is likely the first "real" sourcerer you meet. While your companions are an unhinged Dysfunction Junction, Ryker shows why Sourcerers originally earned their reputation, through the stuff you stumble across in his mansion.
- In all honesty, the others aren't much better - Jahan, Saheila, and Almira are really the only ones who can train you with source in ways that aren't... completely horrible. And even then, Jahan outright obliterates demons in front of you and has you consume their souls, Saheila goes off the slippery slope in Arx, and Almira basically traps her targets in neverending lust to gradually devour life force. The only reason she's "good" is because she developed actual feelings of love this time.
- The dead have it arguably worse. In the Divinity universe, there's a confirmed afterlife. You simply become a ghost and – once you’re ready to leave the mortal world behind – you can pass on to the Hall of Echoes. There you will meet the gods and the other souls of the dead. Here’s the catch: the gods have only created the races to collect Source, so they can consume the dead for themselves afterwards. All the millions of dead who have entered the Hall of Echoes, all since the dawn of mankind? Their last moments were to find themselves stranded in an empty place wondering where everyone is. Then when they finally meet their god, that god simply devours their soul.
- Don't like that? You can always decide to Swear yourself to the God King and become immortal. Just as long as you don't mind being outright forced to answer to his will no matter what the cost. Oh and don't fail at whatever mission he sends you out on. Sure, there is a way out... but guess what - you'll just be devoured by the gods.
- A ghost you meet outside the Lone Wolves' camp offers his hand, and if you never let go, you get to experience his last moments in gristly detail - burning alive while refusing to scream. While living vicariously through ghosts is usually implied to be an unpleasant but ultimately harmless experience, if you muscle through the whole thing, your character actually catches fire. Talking to him again implies that it's just a taste of what his unlife on Rivellon is always like.
