Witnesses/aggression?

[primuspaul]

What are the implications of attacking lone targets, like Driik adventurers or traders? Am I safe as long as I don't leave any witnesses/wipe out the entire group?

[LoLotov]

For the most part yes, you'll be fine. As long as a character isn't linked to a village and known to be your hire, there are no consequences. However, the spirits frown upon such behavior. Once you've killed enough innocents, you'll receive a message warning you of the sense of unease you experience. This sense of unease is a very real negative luck effect on your future endeavors, designed to karmically punish you for your murderous ways. Njerps don't count.

[PALU]

And I would assume bandits don't count as well.

[caius]

...However, the spirits frown upon such behavior. Once you've killed enough innocents, you'll receive a message warning you of the sense of unease you experience. This sense of unease is a very real negative luck effect on your future endeavors, designed to karmically punish you for your murderous ways. Njerps don't count.

Really? I have one character I've put ln the back burner who has systematically killed all NPCs in several owl villages and i never received an alert. Does anyone have the text of this warning?

[Puella14]

The warning is something like "the forest around you feels hostile". Maybe not exactly like that but it's one of the red quotes, that sometimes show up after you wake up. With my current character the spirits are on my side so I get the "you fell unity with the world" all the time. From my experience it makes quite a significant difference. My last character did a few stupid things and may upset the spirits  He met his end pretty soon after just everything went wrong all the time. With my current character, animals just jump into my traps (even without bait or a lot of planning) and fishing almost always pays off. Maybe it's just random luck this time but it sure has something to do with my karma, the difference is just so huge although both characters had pretty much the same stats.

[spamgoose]

There's a lot of information in all the different forums about the spirits and the effects, but as far as I know it's all speculation to one degree or another. It's one of the fun things about the game that I don't really know the game-effect of having the spirits happy or unhappy. For anyone who doesn't know, if you want to get the spirits mad in a hurry,

Spoiler: show

find a zoomed-in road tile in a village, and go to sleep on it.

[PALU]

Regarding the "hostile spirits":

Spoiler: show

Any road tile will do, unless there is some additional effect I'm unaware of in villages. I'm not sure you actually anger the spirits, though. My interpretation is rather that it's a place with unruly spirits causing a local effect, rather than a reputation loss one.