#still toying with if it's even possible for her to remove the phylactery

[kudzuoath]

Been rotating the Phylactery that Temperance absorbed -- became? in my brain. It really does make her something of the inverse of the Dark Urge and plays into the unrelenting/unreasonable paladin trope. As well as the RAW blurb about Scourge Aasimar.

If she were a player character the player would have to make saves to avoid attacking Mizora or Raphael on sight. And she would absolutely leave the party of an evil Tav/Durge. Probably via being killed by attacking said party.

I low key based the Phylactery and how it affects her off of Justice and Anders in Dragon Age 2. The souls don't have (heh) temperance. They Will Right Wrongs and Smite the Wicked. Oath of vengeance even says 'you have sacrificed even your own purity' so it's just. To me. A very neat exploration of a loss of agency and identity.

I also think the more the phylactery 'takes over' the more it takes of Temperance's actual self. She's but one soul against many. And while embracing the powers of the phylactery can grant incredible strength, the cost is her identity. She wont die -- she'll simply be one small voice amid hundreds. Her body becoming a guardian of faith rather than a person.

Something I think Temperance was more or less waiting for, pre-game. All the people in her life were dead, hated her, abandoned or betrayed her. Or in the lone case of Shepherd, would be endangered by her presence. What was left for her outside of vengeance? Once she found Eldrey and had her answers, and her justice... there would have been nothing left. And she knew that going in.