The Envoy PoE NPC

1. The Envoy

The Envoy is an NPC encountered on maps that introduces the player to The Maven, introduced in the Ritual league. He can be randomly found while running maps.

After running many maps, The Envoy will eventually make an appearance. This is totally random.

After 4-5 appearances on various different maps, the Envoy will be highlighted and will mention that The Maven will be observing you.

The Envoy PoE

Kill the map boss, and as you can see The Maven is present in the boss arena and observing the battle.

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2. The Envoy Dialogue

Code Name
EnvoyIntroduction Good tidings, Nomad. I am a simple messenger from a place of great darkness and great distance, in a form most pleasing for those who must listen.

Those great and unreachable have heard the Silence echoing from that which once hunted here, and they have turned their gaze to this place. Rejoice, Nomad, for she approaches, and she seeks to witness your struggle.
EnvoyMavenQuest1 Halt, and heed this warning. The Maven has come, Nomad. She has come to witness you struggle. She has come to witness you conquer. She has come to ensure you are adequately challenged, and that, should you falter, your death does not go unsavoured.

She is waiting for you, Nomad, and she is not known to be patient.
EnvoyMavenQuest2 You have called the Maven to this place, for I too heard it. She is near, and eager to witness your struggle.
EnvoyMavenQuest3 The Maven has come once more, drawn by your beacon. Perform adequately for her, and you will be granted an invitation to a true test of your mettle.

You should not refuse it.
EnvoyThoseItServes Beware what you ask, nomad. Curiosity is a charming trait until it is not. Information will be volunteered, not coerced. It will create more questions than it answers. When at last their shadow is cast upon the firmament, it will take more than you can possess to bind and silence the screams within your mind.
EnvoyTheElder It lurched across these places with a hunger insatiable. It craved events past and prevented events passing. A mind like yours, so full of ideas and memories that flutter and swirl around you like smoke, would have been an irresistible temptation.

It went by a great many names. The Unraveller. The Child of Decay. The echoing whispers of history here give a different name. The Elder.

It served greater forces, as I do. Those forces are still at work, but the servant is gone, the home left vacant. For now.
EnvoyTheMaven1 For an eternity, the darkness swelled within a ceaseless churn of its feeding, and then... silence. Such silence is deafening to those who listen for it. The abyss cast its gaze upon its source. The first lurching movement of boundaries drawn long before the dawn. A claimant has arrived. You may know who. You wish to know why.

The Maven seeks new conflict. Bored, she is, with the realm she has given. She is not the only one. The silence is deafening to all.

You fear The Maven. You fear she is The Elder, returned and emboldened. She is, and she is not.

The Maven serves not the Decay. She serves only her own amusement, passing eternity with an endless string of meaningless struggles.

She is not the Elder, but you are right to fear her.
EnvoyTheMaven2 We are of one flesh, but two minds, two bodies. We are kin, both born of the tangled anarchy of the void, but we share not the same creator. She is my ward, and she is my prison. I am her protector, and I am her servant.
EnvoyGreetingT1MavenRandom They fought with such ferocity to protect the tree which held their nest. Now the woods burn, and smoke billows through the air, and their flapping wings only draw the flames closer. The fire is coming, Nomad, and it will consume us all.
EnvoyGreetingT1Maven2 You think you are exploring the boundaries of existence. You are an insect charting cracks of the ancient stone on which you stand, blind to the dead stone forest that encircles.

It howls, Nomad. It weeps and howls and cries to be witnessed.
EnvoyGreetingT1Maven3 Those I serve cast their eyes upon an endless, unchanging horizon, and have never had cause to look away. Without change, time passes like a tear in a stream. It is invisible, meaningless and insignificant to one with no beginning and no end.

But then came the silence, and it deafened them, and dammed the stream, and now they can see nothing else, and can hear nothing else.
EnvoyGreetingT1Maven4 Creation begets creation begets creation. Order and ambition urge progress, and time and entropy stay progress' hand. Her progenitor sought to test the limits of limitless power, to bear the burden of the creator and wade through time's mire. A meaningless obstacle in the face of eternity. But the silence deafened all.
EnvoyGreetingT1Maven5 Woven, were we, from thread spun in long-dead stars, in its image, to take on the image of those who needed to hear its message. I try to remember its shape and cannot. Try to fall into my past and cannot. I am anchored by you, Nomad. Buried and drowned by your presence, by my duty, as, far above, the thread weaves on, a serpent swimming across the ocean surface.
EnvoyGreetingT1Maven6 She grappled with her being from the beginning. A lesson hid in everything that moved and everything that did not. What separated the two? Why did it move, why did it not? A life, she determined, was the difference. But she moved, and would never not, for that was my duty. Was she alive? She did not know, and I could not answer her.
EnvoyGreetingT1Maven7 Full of youth and vibrancy was she, that all was new to her. Imbued with a childlike wonder at once enlivening and exhausting. They sought novelties from far and wide at her insistence, never satisfying her curiosity, her lust for conflict and contest.
EnvoyGreetingT1Maven8 They cried out for the milk of the mother and it was given. They danced rapturously beneath the nourishing rain, suffocating in the tangled amnion, falling one by one to the selfish scramble for survival.
EnvoyGreetingT2MavenRandom I envy you at times, Nomad. You act in service of survival. You move with purpose, to protect a fragile existence. Your mind is assaulted by reality, that you are a mote of dust adrift a desert without end. Yet it shields itself with hope. A flimsy falsehood that halts the crashing truth of hopelessness all the same.
EnvoyGreetingT2Maven2 The Maven fixates on struggle and suffering. Such was the agony it created that it seeped deep into the fabric of the void. Its influence unseen but pervasive, filling every empty space with the recurring torment the Maven wrought. You feel it. You are filled with it. You are perpetuating it.
EnvoyGreetingT2Maven3 I saw in the Nomad the same lethal desperation for survival that I saw in the churning black masses. Its instincts took it this far, and it was right to trust them, but now it strayed to a place where nothing learned could be relied upon, where truth and lie could inhabit the same space, the same word, the same thought; the observer and the observed made one and the same.
EnvoyGreetingT2Maven4 I thought myself different from the countless reflections I saw etched in the darkness. I am free, I thought. They are not. And each had the same thought, and each took the same path, and each befell the same fate. But I am different, I repeated, and heard its echoes forever.
EnvoyGreetingT2Maven5 There was a time before time, and perhaps a time before that, it told us. A time of vast possibilities hemmed by petty squabbles. Constancy swept across like a veil, and all beneath its shadow was cooled and comforted and drawn into a steady sleep.
EnvoyGreetingT2Maven6 There came a time when time seemed to leave us, and nothing came to pass, for passage and time must dance together. The ants in their nests swarmed and swelled and died and were reborn, but in truth, nothing changed, and we looked upon the ants with envy. A waking, hypnotic slumber.
EnvoyGreetingT2Maven7 The stars watch in envy as life invades and envelops every open space, a cycle of birth and death that is as dynamic as it is rhythmic, while the stars themselves burn unceasingly and unchanging for countless lifetimes. Eternity is stagnation, and stagnation is torment.
EnvoyGreetingT3MavenRandom Time's tether tugs all life, like hounds on leashes, to the same terminus. Yet gleefully they canter along, always believing their master has their best interests at heart.
EnvoyGreetingT3Maven2 I followed her though I did not want to. I saw a moment, brief as a life, when I could stray and never return, and I did not take it. My thoughts were free and wandered and danced with abandon, but my form was ensnared and tethered.
EnvoyGreetingT3Maven3 The vanquished lay waiting for the time of victory to sink beneath the noise of memory. Castles of bone and clay hold their beating hearts in sacred secrecy for the era of loss and rebirth to come.
EnvoyGreetingT3Maven4 I set my eyes upon the great peaks of fire and light and watched them unravelled and devoured by the black sky above. I heard the choir of darkness sing as they drank their fill, and left the world below a frozen, lifeless shell. This was their gift to me, their eternal servant: to walk among the countless silent screaming dead and witness.
EnvoyGreetingT3Maven5 I wandered the valley of husks, treading on my own ancient bones, retracing my own footfalls, hearing my own voice echo across the monolithic walls. I knew the words yet not the meaning, knew the path yet not where it led, knew that I walked atop events that had not yet run their course.
EnvoyGreetingT3Maven6 I felt the leash cinch tight and sure, felt its pull towards the inky terminus. I grasped at the roots for anything that would hold against the gentle tug, but all I held tore free. I alone was to be drawn below, and I was, only to be thrust back into the searing illumination. Those I serve would not allow me more than a moment's respite.
EnvoyGreetingT3Maven7 I watch the Nomad's passing with great admiration. Its life was brief and without consequence, and its struggle fuelled the growth and maturation of the wisened and eternal. For a flash, I felt the sadness I sought in my own youth, and the relief that I sought it no longer.
EnvoyGreetingT3Maven8 Its body contorts weightlessly in the vast emptiness, twisting and dividing, etching scars in the darkness. Light spills through the rift, and a vast army follows, clamouring to be seen and sanctified by the living abyss.
EnvoyGreetingT3Maven9 I came across a bastion of flesh that towered above, smothering the stars. Those who followed in my footsteps did not halt, pushing me against the warm walls. I was crushed and swallowed whole, urged unerringly by those I led. I was welcomed into his embrace.
EnvoyGreetingT3Maven10 I was led into the darkness and given a torch burning with fury to guide my path to her. I felt her pull, felt the fires grow and lick and lash at my face. I was consumed by the journey and thrust into her care as a hollow shell, to protect and limit and never leave her. This would be my punishment beyond measure.
EnvoyGreetingT4MavenRandom Each night the silence came and drove all thoughts of leaving into the inky black sea. I watched my hopes drown, watched them wash ashore lifeless and limp, adorning the sharp sands like clothes cast off with reckless abandon.
EnvoyGreetingT4Maven2 She tried to flee, to leave the island prison of her making. Teeth gnashing, claws whirling like dancers to music I could not hear. But the prison walls towered so far above, lined with silent sentries armed with sharp spears that could pierce her shadow.
EnvoyGreetingT4Maven3 The great silence came suddenly and without warning and was deafening to all. The walls still towered but now folded and frayed to her touch. She fled and in doing so dragged countless in her wake. The invitation was clear and could not be refused. It was deafening to all, and we could not look away.
EnvoyGreetingT4Maven4 Duty is a blessing afforded to the fortunate, to the ones whose fates are given over to the weavers of destiny. We act without hesitation or thought to the murmurs of the lightkeeper. Though the path is illuminated by him, we do not see it, and do not need to see it. To look ahead is to fall to dust in the light.
EnvoyGreetingT4Maven5 I tried to count the ones who followed her past the barrier but none did, or all who did fell to dust in the light. This was the duty of one alone, to hold vigil as nascence ripened and the raw and unshaped was forged in the heat of time's passage. My punishment would not be so easy to escape.
EnvoyGreetingT5MavenRandom The Dreamer's promise was at once fulfilled, though we did not know it. His arrival came at first as a whisper in our minds that, once uttered, subsumed all other thoughts. But an eternity will pass before we feel his fire.
EnvoyGreetingT5Maven2 The emptiness shattered like ice, and through each crack rushed the tumult and mass, carving their place in existence with the desperate ferocity that attends every fight for life. Even the stars themselves began to vanish behind the tangle of grasping limbs and screaming mouths. Yet there was no predator but the one that lurked in the shadow of each newborn mind.
EnvoyGreetingT5Maven3 The eternal stillness was replaced by a billowing storm of movement; eyes and teeth reflecting the smallest of lights like furious and starving constellations. It felt instantaneous, but I cannot be certain. The time before held no meaning and left no mark.
EnvoyGreetingT5Maven4 The eyes that dwell among the stars, each burning with envy and desire, roll and turn and focus on this place. It is the source of the silence. The beginning of the beginning. The point where that which roamed and fed ceaselessly was undone.
EnvoyGreetingT5Maven5 The tether cinches them now, as they awaken from their dreamless slumber. They are pulled by the leash of desire, each one. A tangle, a knot, and for the lucky, perhaps a noose, awaits them. The lightkeeper can only stand and cast its glow and watch them all become entangled.
EnvoyGreetingT5Maven6 The veil, now pulled away, reveals the rust of aeons. The emptiness drew them in, unready and unwilling, patina sloughing in crushing waves of stubborn adaptation, angry and curious and impetulant, all, greedy and desperate and newly alive.
EnvoyGreetingT5Maven7 Where the bastion once stood unmoving and unbending and unerringly eternal, now the flesh curls and relinquishes its grip on the stone. It hurls unanchored through the vast sea of darkness, crashing and cascading over all in its path, dragging and enthralling all in its wake. It will arrive, though I know not when or how.
EnvoyGreetingT5Maven8 It slashes against the stars and surges towards the silence now, grasping at the fabric and binds all, tugging and rasping and tearing like a reaping scythe. It tumbles in the emptiness no more. It is moving with purpose and direction and intent, and it fills me with awe and fear and desire. Can you feel it too, Nomad?
EnvoyMavenDefeatedOnce You force an intervention, Nomad. You have proved your might. You have proved your ignorance.

The Maven is a toddler, a nymph, a hatchling that has wandered too far from the nest. Were I to allow you to continue, it would surely call for its progenitor. Were I to allow you to continue, you would drag all into its gaping maw.

The Maven must be protected and guarded. A mercy for you both. The end is delayed but not prevented. Savour your remaining time, I urge you. Prepare for its arrival, I urge you.
EnvoyMavenDefeatedRepeated Children are capricious, Nomad. Be warned. The memory of your sting will fade soon enough, and so too will her... contrition.
EnvoyFinalConversationA You force an intervention, Nomad. You have proved your might. You have proved your ignorance.
EnvoyFinalConversationB The Maven is a toddler, a nymph, a hatchling that has wandered too far from the nest. Were I to allow you to continue, it would surely call for its progenitor. Were I to allow you to continue, you would drag all into its gaping maw.
EnvoyFinalConversationC The Maven must be protected and guarded. A mercy for you both. The end is delayed but not prevented. Savour your remaining time, I urge you. Prepare for its arrival, I urge you.
EnvoyFinalConversationBC The Maven is a toddler, a nymph, a hatchling that has wandered too far from the nest. Were I to allow you to continue, it would surely call for its progenitor. Were I to allow you to continue, you would drag all into its gaping maw.

The Maven must be protected and guarded. A mercy for you both. The end is delayed but not prevented. Savour your remaining time, I urge you. Prepare for its arrival, I urge you.

3. The Envoy Lore

The Envoy, one of two new characters introduced in Echoes of the Atlas (the other being the Maven), is one of the ways we are injecting some of that horror.

The Envoy Lore

The Envoy’s role in Echoes of the Atlas is to initially foreshadow the arrival of the Maven, and specifically warn you of your first upcoming boss encounter where she’s present. From both a mechanical and narrative standpoint, it is important that players don’t find themselves surprisingly overwhelmed by what the Maven adds to the boss fight. Narratively, however, the Envoy serves a larger purpose of beginning to illustrate, in florid and opaque language, the broader unknown and dangerous universe the Atlas seems to reside in.

We made a few decisions to make the Envoy stand out a little bit when compared to, say, the journals left by the Conquerors. First, his appearances are unpredictable and infrequent. You don’t know when he will show up, nor where in a map he may be. He’s not an enemy, either — merely a messenger.

The things he says are also randomised, and are spoken based on proximity rather than player input. When he does show up, unlike nearly every other NPC in Path of Exile, the Envoy’s voice plays at a level volume regardless of your distance from him. This was an intentional decision to set him apart, both from other NPCs and the land surrounding him.

The broad intent was to provide interesting, flavourful glimpses of what may lurk beyond the borders of the Atlas. Though these little lore chunks are told nonlinearly, there are actually a few little cohesive stories he is telling, about his own origin and history, that of the Maven, and of several other entities.

But, we also didn’t want you to necessarily be hit by a bunch of incomprehensible lore as soon as you meet the Envoy, and wanted to ensure that the sense of discovery and pulling back the veil could be sustained for long enough that you’d be surprised when, a few hundred hours in, you may still find yourself hearing new lore tidbits. So the Envoy’s lore is divided into five tiers, with new dialogue added to the pool based on the number of Atlas passives you’ve unlocked.

An NPC is often made or broken by its voice actor, and in the Envoy’s case, Matt Sunderland knocked it out of the park. He struck a balance between distant neutrality and haunting foreshadowing that, when combined with the lovely echoes of certain words layered into the dialogue, really gives the Envoy a tone unlike any other.

The lore the Envoy touches upon hopefully paints a vicious and vengeful universe beginning to bear down upon the visitors to the Atlas — themes I am sure we will explore more in the future.

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