Personal headcanons for Gale's tower layout:

5F: An astronomical observatory with an orrery in it. The stardome is enchanted to reflect whatever sky and weather Gale wishes; if he wants to see the stars in Kythorn, that's what it shows him. If he wants rainy weather to read to, guess what. The stars reflect whatever position the orrery's been set to. There's a walkable ledge around the exterior of the roof for Tara's pigeon-hunting.

4F: A portal room, surrounded by three guest bedrooms and a bathroom. The bedrooms are themed: one smells like a sea breeze and faces the harbor, colored with sunset shades with gold accents, one smells like rose potpourri and fresh grass, mostly pastel purple with brass, one smells faintly spiced, deep maroon and bronze. Morena prefers the rose one. Each one comes equipped with a vanity that has three (magic) mirrors, a wardrobe that removes wrinkles and stains of anything hung in it and repairs minor stitches, a set of candles that never burn down their wicks, and curtains that, when drawn, enact a silent barrier around the room. The floors are polished hardwood with plush, patterned carpets. The bathroom is self-cleaning, has running water on command, whatever temp you want it, warms towels for you, and has a magic mirror (magic mirrors in my headcanon show hairstyles and things you WANT to try before you actually try them out).

3F: Gale's floor. His bedroom, a walk-in closet, a room for Tara, and a personal bathroom. Gale's bedroom has silence-spelled drapes, glowing crystal sconces he can dim with a wave, a desk, a large canopy bed (the one he summons during his last night in Act II), a small bookshelf for whatever he's currently reading that doubles as his nightstand, and a plush window seat. The walk-in closet is neatly sorted, with everything from travel robes to finery to wear to the annual Blackstaff Ball, and has the same enchantments in it as the guest room wardrobes, with the added effect of making anything put in it inexplicably smell like a library. His bathroom is just like the guest ones, but larger. The bathtub inside, when activated, always assumes he wants his bath piping hot and lavender-scented. Tara's room is smaller, but fully designed for her little cat body. Scratching posts, cat-sized perches and comfy cat towers, and a little bookcase and window seat of her own. She keeps her space VERY neat, in contrast to Gale's "organized chaos" sort of living.

2F: This is the floor we see in Gale's Act II illusion. The packed library, the messy desk, the private study, the balcony... He sorts his books by topic, then by date rather than author. Tara is appalled by it. The balcony has a minor enchantment to keep weather, pigeons, and seagulls off of it. Tara is upset at the lack of birds; it's SUCH a cozy napping spot, and you're going to take away her free breakfast, too? Gale's compromise was the 5th floor's walkable ledge, which is a prime pigeon-hunting perch.

1F: The entry floor. It's got a sitting room to entertain guests with, and a large, well-kitted kitchen. The dishwashing basin does the washing for Gale. On the wall in the sitting room, there are two notable paintings: one is of young, 10-year-old Gale in a cape, standing proudly with both his parents and holding his first-ever proper wizard staff. He's TRYING to have Tara on his shoulders, he insisted, but she's just too big, so he's wound up leaning forward where she awkwardly perches on his back. He has a snaggle tooth. The other painting is of a much older Gale, dressed finely and standing with his mother, smiling. It was made before he got the beard, so he looks a decent bit younger than he is. Tara is wrapped around Morena's shoulders like one of those feather boas, but she's headbutting Gale's shoulder affectionately.

B1: Gale's wine cellar and well-stocked pantry. He collects all kinds of wines from all over Faerûn, usually getting them from merchants that pass through Waterdeep, but he's not opposed to cracking open an expensive vintage with the right company. There's a locked cabinet labeled "in case of Elminster" that contains some cheeses and wine to offer the older wizard, that way Elminster doesn't raid Gale's pantry when he's not looking. If you don't feed Elminster, he WILL feed himself at your expense.

B2: Gale's spell workshop, scroll storage, alchemy lab, and vault. Gale's not especially well-versed in alchemy (I think Wyll's got dibs on that, personally), but he DOES mix himself up some Arcane Cultivation elixirs from time to time. And if a potion recipe intrigues him enough, he likes to have a place on hand to try things out. The vault is well-guarded with spells, but, sadly, pretty empty; it just has his savings there now, where once it held all sorts of enchanted items he'd picked up through his studies and younger adventuring days.

An additional note: Tara has perches all throughout the house, on every floor, basically anywhere Gale spends a lot of time doing things. The cushions that are hers are magically heated and smell like tea and mint.

A big fat Dekarios wedding. That’s what I want Larian.

did somebody say dadkarios

Running into an old friend

The Rolan comic is finally done! After people enjoying Rabid Tav finding Zevlor, I figured this Tav would also love Rolan a little too much... When Tav and co are committed to help, you're getting help!

Or how Lorroakan got his death warrant signed.

Learned a lot doing this comic, including that I am too slow and zoom in too much and holy shit not doing anything at this level of detail ever again lol

BG3 Companions Part 1!

Had fun playing around with giving everyone distinct heights/body types. I plan on drawing the rest of the recruitable companions (Halsin, Minthara, Jaheira and Minsc) and maybe even a few fan fave npcs, but was excited to post these guys first.

Gale's dry sarcasm absolutely kills me sometimes. It was nearly 2:00am and this caught me so off guard. I was howling.

I knew you could distract her with "lustful thoughts" of someone but my specific option was "distract her with your yearning for Gale" and it took me out. Then she called Gale pathetic and told me I could do better, which, rude.

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it will never not be funny to me how delighted gale is at the prospect of breaking into another wizard's tower and snooping around.

although i do also wish there'd been more to this than the small window into gale's past the protag gets when gale recounts a story from his first year as a blackstaff apprentice.

there should be so many things that hit too close to home for gale. not just the outward, with lenore's love for literature and poetry, the magic still scattered around, but also the vast sadness and loneliness clinging to this place. the loneliness that made lenore give bernard the ability to hug. all those things that he himself faced and speaks of briefly during the tiefling party, as well as the boat scene in act 3.

i'm happy we got at least something - and that it was a memory that made gale laugh - but there was potential here too, to speak of loss and grief and isolation.

i think the loss scene that was sadly cut in the full release version of the game - either as it is or slightly edited - could have worked very well here.

Happy, healed and healthy adventurers Gale and Astarion! I chose all the Astarion origin/ rogue dialogue specific options for this

This is Gale to me

I left the door open to the dark

I said come in, come in, whatever you are

[ everyone | mitski ]

Jumping off of my previous posts, it baffles me how people find Gale annoying because of “mansplaining”. Does he have an ego? Absolutely. Is he proud of how much he knows? Yes. But we can’t forget how because of Mystra he basically only sees his worth as tied to his power/knowledge. That’s why she took a shine to him, and that’s why she eventually let him go.

So when he meets you, when he basically word vomits in your direction, he does so to impress you, to show you that he’s a worthy companion on this journey, that he can pull his weight besides cooking. Having spent a year locked in his tower and probably never having seen combat in his life, he can’t, on paper, stand up against most other companions, especially not Shadowheart, Lae’zel, Karlach, and Wyll, who are all battle hardened.

Also, most of his greetings go along the lines of:

“How can I help?” (Neutral)

“I do enjoy our conversations, what do you need?” (High)

“Is something on your mind? You can always unburden yourself with me.” (Romanced Act 3).

To me this shows a man that’s as willing to listen as he is to talk, perhaps more so. He wants to help out. The only deviation I can think of is in Act 3 after the Outer Planes scene where he greets you with “Yes, my love?” but even then, that’s still an invitation to share what’s on your mind. He flaunts his knowledge, pats himself on the back, but at the end of the day he’s entirely willing to listen to someone do the same, to enter a debate, to learn new things. It just comes out weirdly in Act 1 but eventually tappers down in Act 2.

It’s easy to forget how lonely it must have been to spend a year by himself sequestered in his tower. Yes there’s Tara, who he loves very much, but there was no one else. Of course he’s excited to talk to someone, to show himself off. It’s not out of intended rudeness, it’s out of excitement following what was basically a self imposed imprisonment, and a need to prove his worth to you.

i am not drawing it atm but this has to be said

Bloodweave works excellently as a tangled au (shadowzel and wyllach too if you want but bloodweave is the most fitting)

Think about it:

Purple coded character that loves learning about the world is trapped in a tower due to an abusive older woman who is only interested in their power

The purple coded character meets the sarcastic yet charismatic criminal that initially is only using the purple coded character as a means to an end but ends up falling for them

They have multiple antics and they have a romantic moment IN A BOAT TOGETHER

Baldurs gate 3 spoilers about gale (and rolan kinda) under the cut

If you take gale and karlach with you to the counting house in the lower city, they have a conversation about how neither of them have ever had much money and I find that for gale, that provides some fascinating context for his life.

How much did his mother sacrifice to send him to university? Of course hes a mama's boy, getting him into magic college was probably her main priority for most of his childhood. How difficult was it for him to get learning materials? Gale loves libraries, which is a standard nerdy thing but as a kid whose family might not have been able to afford the books he needed to learn about magic? Libraries would have been his one connection to the world of magic. Every scrap of magical material would have been precious and hard won.

Mystras attention would probably have been absolutely life changing for him. If he doesn't have a fortune to fall back on, like lorroakan, having the attention of the literal embodiment of the weave is probably the only way he was ever going to get anywhere in his field. Speaking as someone who works in academia, it doesn't matter how smart you are if you can't get funding. Their relationship is already deeply one sided, but man if gale feels like his opportunities for success are because of her? Fuck.

We see a sort of similar (please for the love of God bear with me) situation with lorroakan and rolan. Rolans poor, reasonably talented, and loves magic more than almost anything besides his family. He was, up until the enslaving dame Aylin plan, willing to put up with lorroakans abuse and whims because he wanted to be a wizard so bad. Now gale has several in universe advantages compared with rolans situation, but it's clear that the Wizarding profession is not a profession you can easily get into if you don't have funds or a very rich patron.

Not really sure where I'm going with this. I saw a post about gale joking about how his tower was never cleaner than after he lost the orb and I just. For a kid who grew up in a low income situation, his tower is 100% a point of pride and something he identifies with very strongly. To have had to literally devour his tower to stay alive, to have had to literally destroy everything in the life he built for himself as a result of the orb. That must have been horrifying for him.

I wish Balders Gate 3 men had different body types. Specifically Gale and Astarion.

Gale should had a dad bod from studying all day and doing magic stuff.

Astarion has been feeding off rats and bugs for 200 years and you're telling me hes ripped af? Wouldnt Casador want to keep him weak and malnourished?

Wyll can keep his abs as he is THE BLADE OF FRONTIERS.

What, a handshake? Fuck you, just hug already!

- Me watching mota part nine waiting with bated breath for the bucks to hug