so my durge!v playthrough is going better than expected: we did kill the druids (i was very shocked when both wyll and karlach gave approval tbh) and i even managed to save dammon (i split the party: v and astarion killed kagha and karlach and wyll stood bodyguard lmao) which also surprised me! now this is technically metagaming since i dont think the group would have that much foresight lmao

today we go kill some goblins anyway because of afformentioned lack of foresight

What's Staeve's relationship with the other companions? Like Halsin, Wyll and Shadowheart? I adore your art and your Tav!

Okay so I was waiting to doodle something but huhhh the staeve x astarion brainrot keeps me from doodling him with the other companions much (HOWEVER I might later I love them all)

Halsin - comfort lover is how I'd put it? Halsin has his whole "I'm not going to keep you to myself" thing going on and Staeve fucks w that. It's like friends with benefits++. They both know what they have isn't on the same level as the Astarion bond but enjoy spending time together if he allows it + Staeve does appreciate the sort of stability and support Halsin can give as a friend (and a lover?)(Staeve has daddy issues). I definitely headcanon Staeve going to him in camp to ask for advice in how to deal with Astarion when he's being difficult to navigate

Wyll - Staeve would have been fascinated by Wyll at first. Initially he probed a lot and was very upfront teasing him because in his world there aren't a lot of righteous, kind people like Wyll. Staeve would have tried to bring out some hypothetical dark side only to be greeted with a dance (which he played along with as well). He did eventually reject Wyll's advances but secretly challenged himself to keep him as a friend. Might fail

Shadowheart - The sort of friends where he'd tease her because he thinks she secretly likes it (she maybe does?). He pressed the wrong buttons sometimes, but the fact that she reminds him of his estranged sister in some ways made him recoil and show a more understanding side. He can be caring if he stops being an idiot sometimes and she vibes w that (I say this because he's one Astarion Disapproves away from being most loved by Shadowheart lol)

Karlach - UNFORTUNATELY he's. Super awkward about Karlach. It went downhill fast after he (and I lol) realised that she doesn't really fuck with petty/sneaky shit, and though she doesn't show it, he doesn't really feel like he can push his luck with her. He's also probably just scared she'd beat him to a pulp. Didnt dare hug her just awkwardly patted her shoulder. That being said I do think he'd respect and admire her to an extent

Gale - Staeve finds Gale extremely amusing but is 100% playing him for magical perks and entertainment. He sorta maybe felt bad about it after Gale threw the buggy fit, so maaaaybe he'd keep him as one of those friends you keep around because they compliment the group, nothing too deeply personal.

Lae'zel - I honestly think they'd be good friends/allies but like an idiot I let her die in act 1 so I'm waiting for my rerun to see if I can tweak my canon

Also Staeve loves withers he sees him as the token grandpa. All of this subject to changes if my next run goes very differently (which it might because durge)

So, some more thoughts for the Orin gets Tadpoled AU, notably her relations with the other party.

General Headcanons - uses the fact she is a shapeshifter to hide she is a doppelgänger because Shadowheart pointed out the fact she looks just a tad bit suspicious, however when she is around the party she doesn't bother. She does use these abilities to get around pretty effectively (such as transforming into a Drow to get past the goblins and other good skips like that) and will transform to fit in(she changes into a tiefling around the tiefling, human around the druids, etc)

Violence is an answer however other people in the party teach her there are other ways.... and when people like Gale and Shadowheart begin to give her praise for being more crafty and cunning with her way of dealing with problems, well, why wouldn't she do what they like?

Whenever the urge pops pop she is very loud about it. "I SHALL TRIM THAT MEAT STUB FOR YOU" "WAIT STOP HER P L E A S E" and someone(notably Shadowheart) is able to stop her from doing something stupid. She gets better control and has to deal with the urge in general less than the Durge. (Astarion pouts whenever she is stopped)

She uses nicknames for everyone.

Lae'zel (Wondrous Blood-soaked Warrior) - Other than the fact Orin is pretty openly unhinged they get along pretty damn well. Lae'zel admires how good Orin is at killing, Orin admires how good Lae'zel is at killing. Plus Orin very much enjoys when Lae'zel gives her praise. When they get to the Creche though, Orin is not having a good time and begins to have some flashbacks to the temple of Bhaal especially during the trainee scene and may be pretty reactive which does cause some problems for the two of them, but after things are finished there Orin does her best to comfort Lae'zel for losing her anchor.

Shadowheart (Beloved Cleric) - Shadowheart and Orin are amnesia buddies. I also feel Orin freed Shadowheart from the nautiloid because the more allies the less lonely the better! Shadowheart isn't sure what to make of this gremlin who borders on almost murder, and ends up being Orin's voice of reason most of the time. Now this is just for me, but Shadowheart x Orin romance. Goth GFs who have family issues (that family just being a fucking cult) and need to find a place to belong and sense of being, so why not do that together? Plus we see Orin's hair, she does it herself probably, Shadowheart and Orin braid train.

Gale (Wizard) - Orin nearly cuts Gale's hand off and is barely stopped by Shadowheart, so it is uh, a bit of a rocky relationship at first. However Gale is willing to forgive and keep an eye on their new unhinged doppelgänger friend. I do think Gale wants to study Orin because how often are you traveling with such an adept shapeshifter? Orin of course adores the attention and answers any questions she can and they end up bonding over that. Orin has no problem parting with magical trinkets for the wizard and wishes to fight Mystra herself. Orin also finds herself very much enjoying his cooking considering she can't remember ever having suck well made food in her entire life.

Astarion (Bloodsucker) - Orin ends up doing good things to get approval from the two people she met and bonded with first, thus Astarion being a bitch about it gets him a look of distain from Orin. Besides, Orin being a rogue he is not needed in the party. However Orin has no qualms about his wish for blood and he is free to fill his thirst whenever he wishes.... Plus Astarion does enjoy the fucking wild things Orin tends to say.

Wyll (Fiery Blade) - You know Wyll is a bit freaked out at first with Orin for well, obvious reasons however when it is clear she is going to cause... notably less problems then one might expect, they end up getting along pretty well. Orin I think would enjoy his dramatics and listening to stories and begins to take cues from him when weaving her own tales. When he teaches her how to dance it is quite fun and she may get a bit too into it, however I can only see them being bros mostly because Orin is still yelling about draining people dry.

Karlach (Heated Axe that cuts enemies like butter) - I think these two loons get along so fucking well, Orin will use Karlach as a spring board once her engine is fixed to dive bomb enemies well Karlach will slaughter them from the front. When Orin hears of this 'Gortash' she makes note that they shall split him and wear his enthralls as a wondrous scarf, which Karlach is totally behind. Orin also keeps bringing Karlach hearts because "if the issue is someone took yours, surely it can be replaced. I will find as many hearts as needed to fix your problem" (Orin is not ready for the fact Karlach is dying because the two of them are besties)

@bhaalstemple I think you need this.

Not to be a hater on main again but Durgestarion is such a meh couple imo alsoooo I don’t think it would be good for those two to be together. Like at all. I know people say “oh it’s so sweet because they can heal together blah blah blah” like ?? I don’t really think they’d heal all that well together. Shadowheart or Karlach fit better for Durge imo (and I’m bias cause I love Shadowheart but I’m trying to actually be objective). Shart especially because I feel the writers went extra hard with the parallels there (memory loss, raised in a cult, parents can be killed/are dead, raised by an evil god, I could go on). I think Durgestarion is only super popular cause Astarion himself is the fandom favorite and also cause of the extra lines (which should exist for everyone else btw Larian is bad at writing fairly and it’s my biggest criticism).

I finally made a good Dark Urge run that I found narratively convincing instead of just sort of "meh". All my other good Durge attempts have just sort of been hodgepodges of whatever class or story choices I felt I hadn't yet seen in the game.

This time I went full Paladin with a backstory that's sort of Shadowheart/Karlach blend, ie, was raised in the Bhaalist cult and spent most of their life wishing they could get out of it, but being the Chosen meant she had pretty much no choice, no hope of getting out.

(Just a bit of rambling about a BG3 run I'm doing, writing about it mostly for my own sake.)

Also for flavor decided to name her Brienelle after Drizzt and Catti-brie's canonical daughter and decided my Durge convinced herself she actually "is" Drizzt's daughter. Is she actually? Absolutely not, the math does not line up. But it's a fairytale she told herself about how her "real" parents are heroes, that they're out there somewhere and miss her, that Bhaal isn't actually her father, that she was "Chosen" because she's a hero's daughter (much like Shadowheart was chosen for being Selunite). As a result, she aspired to heroism but frankly every pressure in her life, her entire upbringing, was channeled to her being the cult's Chosen so she eventually, reluctantly, fell in line. A bit like Astarion in this respect, Bhaal like Cazador was simply too powerful and too able to destroy her if she tried to escape, never mind being able to literally take her body over with the Urges. But now she's conveniently "lost".

I think what finally worked was having someone who wasn't just "good" but who was wholeheartedly dedicated to doing good after never having the chance before. So every rescued person, every kind word, every grateful companion and new friend is positive reinforcement that it is possible for her to lead the life she chooses, to be a hero. So Paladin fits that very well.

My one regret so far--as I try to balance RP with not just making the same choices in every playthrough-- is romancing Shadowheart at the party. Mostly I chose her because 2/3 of my favorite romances, Karlach and Gale, don't have anything that evening and so I've got multiple playthroughs with Astarion as the Act 1 romance before pivoting to friendship with him or romancing all the way through. Gale is the romance I keep defaulting to, I can't help it, I just love that nerd so much. So I really wanted to at least see Shadowheart's romance for once. (For the record, she was my least favorite character for a long time, I've only grudgingly started to warm to her.)

But then the day after they shared a glass of wine and slept together, Shadowheart started talking about her aspirations to be a Dark Justiciar and Brienelle's stomach just... dropped.

I don't know if I just hadn't exhausted the dialogue options for her yet or what but Brienelle... Brienelle is like the mirror opposite of Shadowheart. She was raised to be special in the Bhaalist cult and has been trying to escape it her whole life. Conversely, Shadowheart thinks she's just one of many Shar cultists and is fighting to be someone special within the cult.

Brienelle would have felt a certain kinship to Shadowheart over both of them having amnesia, but when Shadowheart began to speak so fondly of life in the cult of an evil deity, Brienelle just felt... pity. And sadness. She felt old. She could see Shadowheart working her way towards the realization that what she suffered in Shar's cult was abuse. She knows that someone, anyone outside it extending a hand to help could help pull Shadowheart free. But Shadowheart doesn't even want to be free yet.

So both in and out of game it feels like Brienelle just... regrets sleeping with Shadowheart. The intimacy was nice. And she cares for Shadowheart. But it feels like she doesn't have anyone she can lean on, no one she can be herself with or seek support from, because Shadowheart is so naive and yet had such a similar journey to her. Like she can't be open about her fight to escape Bhaal because Shadowheart just wouldn't understand, Shadowheart wanted the opposite.

Astarion doesn't appeal to Brienelle either. He's unabashedly evil and while she feels for what he went through and identifies with his suffering, she really just isn't in a place where she wants to be mocked as if being good and caring for others is somehow the weak option when it's actually the hardest but most rewarding thing she's ever been lucky enough to do. How can you have freedom, finally, and not want to be free to not have to be a monster anymore? She loves him but their morals are just too diametrically opposed for more than friendship.

Lae'zel obviously doesn't have good-aligned morals either and wouldn't begin to understand what Brienelle went through.

Wyll is the son of a Duke. He might perhaps understand the weight of privilege, but for him doing good was always an option. He's only just begun to see what evil can do. And if he ever hit her with a platitude about the importance of being a hero or how she should have just fought harder to escape Bhaal, she might actually give in to the Urge right there and stab him.

And Karlach and Gale were off the table because of their two different flavors of, "I might explode if you touch me."

Thing is, I think she might pivot to Gale over Karlach. It's repetitive for me, sure, but I think Karlach's tragedy is just too similar to her own and Karlach going through a similar hellish experience and then choosing death is just... too much. It's not something Brienelle is strong enough to bear once Karlach resolves to choose death.

Conversely, Gale is a mature adult. He has his own life. His morals are good, he always encourages heroism. And he wants to live. He can be talked pretty easily out of sacrificing himself at Mystra's command. He wants to come out on the other side of this. He resents being a god's Chosen, something Brienelle can sincerely relate to.

Their stories don't overlap much beyond that, but that's a good thing actually. They can just be two people, two heroes doing the right thing where they can and being their own people after having their younger years fucked over by being the Chosen of a god. And ultimately, that's what Brienelle wants. Not a life entirely without drama but a life where she can be her own person, with other adults, and pursue her own calling without being chained to the past.

FOR THE ASK:

A, B, V.

Thanks! I queue'd that one, so got jumpscared a bit by the ask xD

Ships that you currently like a lot

Currently, mostly Baldur's Gate, but I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of most origin/origin ships. I'm not opposed to most of them, I just don't find them that compelling. I am really enjoying Kelis (my Durge)/Astarion/Halsin and exploring the different aspects of their relationships together, as well as Joi (my friend's OC)/Raphael(/Haarlep). Idk, turns out OCs are just like... a lot of fun xD

A pairing you didn't initially consider, but someone changed your mind.

Hm, I would say, currently, probably Astarion/Shadowheart, haha. You know your culpability in that one. In general, I still don't see them being an ideal fit for each other, but in certain scenarios, yeah I can see it now.

Which character do you relate to most?

Hm.... that's a good question. I don't typically find myself relating to characters in the sense of "i am them; they are me" (which I'm a bit glad for, because in my experience it mostly leads to ignoring or smashing away the parts of the character that inevitably don't match up with you), but moreso in the sense of different aspects.

I relate to Shadowheart for her raised-in-a-cult background and her gremlin energy, I relate to Shen Yuan for being a hater first and foremost and his frustration about people grotesquely misunderstanding The Character, I relate to Halsin for being a complex and generally good-aligned person while still having values that might not align with traditional understandings of such.

So besides Tav pairings what BG3 pairings do you like?

SHADOWHEART AND LAE'ZEL give me that good enemies to lovers injected straight into my bloodstream!!!

Eh... yeah, moving on.

Wyll x Karlach - their story together is very sweet and I think they balance each other very well.

Karlach x Dammon - Likewise our resident blacksmith is down HARD for our golden retriever Barbarian and its very cute.

Gale x Shadowheart - give me bonding over religious trauma and them helping each other see how they aren't at fault for the awful things that their Goddesses did to them, they were both young and manipulated by a higher power, they didn't stand a chance on their own.

Gale x Wyll - I think their personalities just mesh well together, it's not as high on my list as Wyll x Karlach or Gale x Shadowheart or either of them with Tav/Durge but I think in a version of events were I let Wyll become Duke then it would be a fitting pairing.

Shadowheart x Halsin - she canonically lusts after him even if you romance her so I could see it being a brief fling but I think ultimately they wouldn't work out in the long term.

And that's most of them. I'm aware that Lae'Zel is like my second favourite character and yet I have ONE ship here for her but i feel she's got a great friendship with Gale and Karlach but her and Karlach are both too dominating personalities so I don't think they'd mesh well and with Gale, Wyll and Astarion she'd eat them alive.

I don't know enough about Minthara yet so I can't comment on her shippabiltiy.

*trips into your askbox and a bunch of tav questions fall out of my pockets* oh shit dude sorry-

For kyvir: 1 + 2 + 8 + 16 (but specifically besides the romance) + 17 + 36 + 53 + 66

(🧡 - @zoneofsmites)

(Tav asks!) Oh boy oh boy lots of questions, here we go!

1. Why did you pick the race you did for your Tav? Tiefling pretty. Tail, horns, claws, fun eyes. I am weak.

2. Why did you pick the class you did for your Tav? Well, initially I made him a paladin because I thought that was a fun dichotomy with Durge's whole deal. And it was! But as I played through the game and started getting a grasp on his character he just... felt more like a bard. I don't know how to describe it really, he just had bard energy to me much more than he had paladin energy. I originally made him a bard for my current run mostly to test it out, but it fits him so perfectly that this is just him now.

8. What deity, if any, does your character worship? Setting aside Bhaal, he kind of borderline worships Bane? Obviously he doesn't properly worship him, Bhaal would never tolerate his Chosen worshipping his rival like that, but there's definitely a great deal of respect there. I've mentioned this before, but this is very much what saved Gortash from a knife in the back as soon as Kyvir caught him snooping around: he had too much respect for Bane to kill the head of his temple out of hand without at least making an effort to find out what he wanted. (It also delights him to no end when Gortash mentions that Bane admires him, which is why Gortash says it.)

16. Which of the companions does your Tav trust most?  Besides the romance? Hm. I'd have to say Lae'zel. Partially because she doesn't tend to go in for lies and manipulation so Kyvir is confident that she won't try to trick him and if she did he'd catch her out on it immediately (boy's got a suspicious mind), but also because she will always go for what she thinks is the best course of action. If he goes too far he can trust her to put a stop to it without letting her affection for him get in the way, and he can also trust her not to decide he's gone too far based on silly moral grounds (like him being a little too brutal with an enemy) like a lot of the others would. I think there's a period (probably after he almost kills Astarion) where he trusts Lae'zel's judgement over his own.

17. Which of the companions does your Tav distrust most? Initially Wyll, later Jaheira. Kyvir struggles a lot with understanding genuinely good people, especially early on, so he spends most of the first act desperately trying to figure out what Wyll's angle is. And also Wyll's a monster hunter, and Kyvir may not know what he is but he knows "monster" would about cover it! By the time he remembers he's Bhaalspawn he trusts Wyll not to do anything dramatic without cause, but Jaheira outright says "I'd kill you if it weren't for the fact I don't think you've earned that mercy" and that... isn't as different from Bhaal as she would probably like to think. It's not that Kyvir isn't of the firm opinion that his friends should kill him if he goes too far, but hearing Jaheira say outright that she'll kill him if she decides he's gone too far but she won't do it now because he hasn't earned that mercy is... different. He likes and respects Jaheira, but he's never going to be able to forget that.

36. What is your Tav’s favorite type of environment? Like in a tavern, a library, out in the wilderness, underground, etc. Kyvir loves a good tavern. Or a good brothel, for that matter! As a bard those are basically his natural habitat, and as a Bhaalspawn they're both excellent hunting grounds. Aside from that he quite likes libraries; they tend to be quiet without being entirely empty, and while he likes to pretend that he's very cool he is in fact a huge nerd and would happily spend a whole day hanging out in a library. Maybe with Gale, they deserve a quiet, chill day to be nerds together.

53. Is your Tav easily tricked or deceived? Kyvir does the deceiving, he is not being deceived. He is very difficult to trick because tricking people is kind of his whole deal. It would just be embarrassing if he was easy to trick. The one exception is that he is quite susceptible to any manipulation that involves the manipulator convincing him they love him. Astarion's attempt doesn't work because Astarion's not a very good liar and he also starts on it too quickly for Kyvir to buy it, but there's a reason he falls hook line and sinker for the Emperor's proposition. (This also plays a part in why he was so unflinchingly loyal to Bhaal for so long, he is so desperate for love that the lies have to be pretty obvious for him to catch them.)

66. Does your Tav consider themselves a hero, villain, victim or something else? Oh, villain for sure. He's the monster hiding in the woods that parents warn their children about, Bhaal's perfect assassin, and for most of his life he was relatively at peace with that. It wasn't until he began working as a bard as well as an assassin and started working with Gortash (and also Bhaal resurrected and left him as a separate entity rather than taking back his divine essence then and there, yes I am adding that to Kyvir's backstory) that he started wondering if he really wanted to be the monster indefinitely, and even then he was still aware that he was the villain. It's honestly probably not until post-game when he's travelling with Astarion that he really starts to internalize that he was a victim too.