All the best boy hugs for Karlach

I pretty much consider you the expert in all things Gale so what is the current state of play with his romance route in terms of the bugs, scenes triggering? I really wanted to romance him as a 'what if' route but this stupid recent bug ruined my main first run where they were just friends with that damn stargazing bug we all keep getting where I had exceptional approval as non-romance and he said him and my Tav weren't close which really disappointed me as I consider their friendship just as important as any romance and that's been ruined for me now for my first run. Not to mention him telling Tav off for taking Raphael's offer before he had even offered. As it currently is, would you recommend holding off starting a Gale romance run for now and waiting for fixes or at the moment can decent progress be made? I really want to do it but I'm worried that nothing is going to trigger now. Thank you for your help either way! So disappointed all this messing around with him is causing issues in so many areas.

first of all i'm so sorry you had to wait so long, anon! i really hope you'll see this message. second, thank you for trusting me with this. it took a while to test because i had to nuke my old playthrough. it was so extremely bugged.

but to the good news.

i am happy to report that the gale romance is working again:

HOWEVER: i had to do jump through hoops to get it. i'm rn only using hirelings, in addition to (obvs) gale. i suspected the game is still having big problems with romance flags and it seems i was right. in my previous save i was close to several other companions like wyll, shadowheart, lae, halsin, etc., even though i didn't pursue them as alton. but they were still on high approval. it absolutely sucks that you have to completely avoid recruiting or talking to other companions to correctly trigger a romance scene at the moment.

the game is so extremely quick to assume that you are in a relationship after asking basic questions (halsin and karlach, for instance).

also sad to report that there's still no sign of the purple blanket that larian said was put into the game like, what? one patch and two hotfixes ago or something.

so all in all, i would say go for it if you can stomach playing with only hirelings alongside your chosen li. if you do want to take literally anyone else along and live for party dynamics then i would advise you to wait until larian gets a handle on things.

hey i just wanted to drop a note to say that i adore your art so much. your style is so round and cosy and your designs are so expressive, and your poses have such a wonderful “weight” to them if that makes sense? just really nicely grounded, not floaty, like i can almost feel the actual real weightiness to the droop of penny’s tentacles in karlach’s hands, or the force behind a very snuggly hug. that’s the best i can explain it lol but yeah it’s just really nice to look at!

also i love that you had your tav unabashedly become a mind flayer, which i don’t think nearly enough people commit to in the player base, and i love that shes still with karlach anyway, it’s so sweet and very refreshing. (oh and i LOVE that your durge is a kobold omg, that is just so delightful and honestly inspired and must have been such a fun playthrough)

anyway yeah i just really enjoy your art and your unique ideas in general and i wanted to thank you for sharing both!

SOBBING!!! this is such a wonderful sweet comment, thank you so much!! that sort of organic, weighty quality is something i really enjoy in art and that i have a lot of fun playing with myself, so i'm very glad to hear it's coming across well to you! especially since you're singling out poses where multiple characters are interacting- that's always something i've had difficulty with, so it's very nice to hear that :]

yesss, penny eventually becoming a mind flayer is something i was set on before i even knew for sure that it was an option- let it never be said that i'm not a sucker for people becoming monsters. and i agree, i would love to see more illithid!tav stuff around- there's so much neat area there to explore! i'm also allllways a sucker for "a kind/good-aligned character becomes a monster and must learn to deal with their monstrous urges/nature while trying to stay true to themself but still in a very real sense becoming someone/thing different". always

i really enjoy the fic "thy people shall be my people" by leomona on ao3 about this- it's post-canon, a mind flayer tav and astarion navigating the whole Seven Thousand Vampire Spawn In The Underdark situation. its from tavs perspective, and does the perspective of a mind flayer in a super interesting and fun way.

no shade to the people who love the emperor (i love it too! fantastic character makes me want to gnaw my arm off) but i do wish more people played around with illithid!tav outside of the context of emp/tav.. like idk i find the concept of a tav that freed orpheus and became an illithid to wield the netherstones really really interesting and graauaag!!h. i have plenty of thoughts on penny's story, her relationship with the emperor leading up to the climax of the story, and her post-ceremorphosis but writing is shrimply not my forte. we'll see if i end up doing more stuff with that

(& EHEHE i love oth. he's just a little guy they're just a little birthday boyyyy. i haven't finished his playthrough yet- still on the latter half of act 3 (and a little burnt out on act 3 rn since i just finished up pennybun's second playthrough. we'll finish oth at some point, though, i still have a final romance scene to get to with wyll.). i'm so glad for the fantastical multiverse mod making playing as a kobold possible- i'm a furry so any more options for animalistic-looking species is a win for me. and i love the idea of bhaal's chosen being a 3-foot tall lyre-playing lizard. they're also just very fun to watch in cutscenes and stuff when the cutscenes aren't breaking. also when they are breaking)

but yes thank you so much this message really made me smile :]

tav q's! 1, 3, 4, 5, and 14!

thank you for asking!! i'm gonna do this for nedwyss since she's the one i'm playing as rn

1. Tell us about your Tav! Name, class and subclass, race, pronouns. Do you have a headcanon for where they're from? Their family? Are they a Dark Urge? Or did you choose an Origin Character? Was it an easy decision?

nedwyss is a cleric of lathander, light domain. she's a seldarine drow and goes by she/her. she was raised in the underdark, as most drow, but later left to join the clergy. i think her family were the stereotypical drow™, praising cruelty, ambition and competition. nedwyss was decent at playing pretend for that role for a while, but eventually decided she couldn't go on, and that's why she became a cleric of the morninglord. she's not a dark urge because i wanted to save that storyline for someone who wasn't made with the goal of being a tentacle enjoyer. nothing wrong with enjoying some tentacles, but y'know.

3. Has your Character been using their illithid powers?

in lore/headcanon? yes, she starts using them because she believes it's a way to go good. the source of the powers may suck, but she has them regardless, might as well use them to protect innocents. but i haven't really been using them in-game, mostly bc i haven't unlocked any truly fun ones yet.

4. Do you remember in which order you recruited your companions? Which companion introduction would have felt the most familiar / like home to your Tav / Character?

i don't recall the exact order, but it was probably something like shadowheart, gale, astarion, lae'zel, wyll, karlach. wyll is probably the companion she feels is most like her, they share the kindness and the desire to protect innocents, but lae'zel (and perhaps later shadowheart) reminded her of her childhood, the cruel and unforgiving society she was raised in. so wyll was "home" in a way that home is where your heart is, but lae'zel was home in a way her literal home was like.

5. Do you remember the first humanoid enemy your Character killed? Was it the first person they've ever killed, in your opinion? Would they have been bothered by it?

the forgotten realms wiki says goblins are humanoid, so the first one she killed was the bunch that attacked the grove when you first visit it. i don't think it was her first kill, but she definitely doesn't have a high count of souls she took at that point. killing that particular bunch didn't really upset her -- they attacked first, after all -- but she was bothered by having to slaughter the goblin camp, including the children. in nedwyss' mind, there is a difference between defending innocents from an attacker and going into someone's territory and becoming the attacker herself. so for her, it was no different from what the goblins attacking the grove did, and she felt awful, no matter how illogical that was.

14. Do you have another NPC you loved from a faction not mentioned above? What about your Character?

i mean we both know the answer don't we. of course it's the emperor/guardian. brainrot maximized. he's so friend shaped. i loved him because on my first playthrough i was playing as a clone of my character from another game and made the guardian look like her LI from that game. brainrot carryover y'know. he is incredibly fun on his own too, but i think it's that blorbo familiarity that led to me loving the guardian (and afterwards the emperor) so much. as for nedwyss, she shares my adoration because she was literally tailor made for empy romance shenanigans because the first time she saw the guardian was just after clearing out the goblin camp, and as i said, having to do that really upset her. his presence was comforting, reassuring, he was protecting her from turning into a mind flayer and generally was a kind, supportive person, he was exactly what she needed in that moment of distress. so she had a silly little crush that is going to turn into a corruption arc <3 i haven't decided yet whether i'll make a happy ending (or something as close to it as possible, considering the fucked upness of it all) for these two, partially because i'm not sure if that's a pussy move, partially because i actually don't know what happens in the "control the netherbrain, become the absolute" ending. we'll see.

i am so hyperfixated on bg3 rn it's insane. but anyway i want to do so many playthroughs bc i want to play every origin character and also romance every character as dark urge (bc i love that scene in act 2 you get for resisting the urge and since i love every companion, i want to see that scene with all of them at least once) so i thought i'd share what playthroughs i want to do and who im gonna romance for that playthrough ! :))

Gale Origin - Romance Karlach (in progress)

Shadowheart Origin - Romance Lae'zel (in progress)

Wyll Origin - Romance Astarion (in progress)

Astarion Origin - Romance Wyll (in progress)

Karlach Origin - Romance Minthara (not started)

Lae'zel Origin - Romance Shadowheart (not started)

and then for dark urge, i want to romance every companion at least once, though for some characters i'll do it twice. like, shadowheart, astarion and lae'zel i will romance twice bc i want to do one good playthrough and one bad for each since they all have like two different paths you can take (like dark justiciar shadowheart/ turned away from shar shadowheart). i've only beaten the game once so far, and it was on my second playthrough. i played dark urge and romanced gale. it's funny bc i was in act 3 for my first save and was like "hey i might as well start dark urge since i've almost beat this regular playthrough" (i was romancing karlach btw,, i love her sm) but then i started my dark urge save and i though that dark urge was so much more fun that i completely forgot about my other save lol. now, when i make a custom character i only play as dark urge bc i just prefer it overall to the tav playthrough. so yeah it's pretty ambitious of me to plan all these different playthroughs when i've literally only beaten the game once lmao but im in act 3 for wyll origin, astarion origin and a dark urge playthrough where im romancing minthara (that one is on hold until her romance is fixed tho) and im in act 2 for another dark urge gale romance (i wasn't going to romance him again so soon but im literally obsessed lmao) and then im in act 1 for shadowheart origin, gale origin and dark urge but i haven't decided who to romance yet (im doing a no armor challenge run lol).

i would love to know if anyone else is planning on playing an origin character and who you're gonna romance ! :D