Avowed lets you pretend your character’s not a stinky mushroom person, but that’s the coward’s choice

Avowed‘s character creator lets you lie to yourself. If you so choose, you can hide your protagonist’s chosen one magical mushroom man features, letting you embody that oh so rare fantasy of being a hot elf with weirdly dead eyes in a fantasy RPG, mushroom-free. This is no way to live, and I’m tired of pretending otherwise: You are fungus in Avowed, do not try to deny it.

The envoy in Avowed is a “godlike,” a race from Pillars of Eternity somewhat reminiscent of tieflings or genasi from Dungeons & Dragons. Claimed by one of Eora’s divine powers at birth, godlikes are marked with features associated with the god in question. In the case of our envoy’s mystery deity, it’s an assortment of fungal growths and woody accessories, Star Trek rubber forehead alien flair and Dryad chic, with a shocking assortment to choose from. Only, the character creator also lets you hide those features entirely, reducing the envoy to a regular-looking schmuck while everyone still reacts to them like they’re a freak of nature.

I get why Obsidian gave us the option: Can’t scare off the normies with too much fun and flavor, after all. There are gamers who rolled humans in Baldur’s Gate 3 or imperials in Skyrim who are likely crucial to Avowed’s long term financial success. Even still, I know there had to have been at least one steely-eyed maverick on that team who held firm on artistic integrity until a tide of marketing-friendly quibbles washed them away like so much flotsam.

But I stand with that anonymous hero, whoever they may be. I like it when a game has friction, some pushback, when it says “shape up, nerd!” and doesn’t let me indulge in every little whim consequence-free. Avowed’s vision is clearly that you are a mushroom person, you were marked by the shrooms to do great and terrible things. To deny this fungal mantle, hiding your shroomy accoutrements the way you might an uncommon-rarity helmet that clashes with your armor, is saying you’re afraid of a game being interesting and showing you something you haven’t seen before.

If Avowed had shipped with a full “sliders and all” character creator only to enforce mandatory mushroom paraphernalia, I think it would have made for one of the truly great bits in RPG history⁠—it’s still really funny even with the mushroom swag only “strongly encouraged.” In the face of capitalist homogenization insisting we have the option to undermine Avowed’s very heart and soul, it’s up to us to show some discipline and hold the line. Repeat after me this fungal roleplayer’s pledge:

A mushroom person I must be / For all and sundry my shrooms to see / Why would I want these shrooms to miss? / This game doesn’t really have anyone to kiss! / And so I’ll be a mushroom guy / Wearing my fungus till I might die.

With that, fellow shroomer, you’re ready to go and shroom it up in Avowed. And when you spy someone’s screenshot or stream of the game with a mushroom-free envoy, take heart: You’re better than they are. You’re just built different.