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brekkie-e · 7 months

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I need more people talking about how the ideal thematic party is Wyll, Karlach, and Astarion. All three bound in the shackles of servitude in some capacity, all three in some stage of being sold to hell.

Karlach and Astarion being two sides of the same coin. Years of servitude, physical and emotional torment, and rage under their belt. Nothing but the burning desire for revenge and the desperate ache to live flowing through their veins. They're both drunk on freedom and life. They get the other person, despite responding to their new found freedom in completely opposite ways. You can see it in their banter though. They get it. There is not a lot of judgement between them. If Karlach needs to laugh hysterically because she's here on the material plane, walking in the sun, and just can't believe it? Astarion can't even bring himself to judge.

But Wyll? Wyll is careening towards joining them in their suffering. He's got one foot in the door. He already knows a little of the pain that comes with being on the end of a leash, but he has only just begun to fully feel the consequences he is destined to face. The thing about Wyll though is he's desperate to save everyone but himself. He's quick to back Karlach and Astarion in their fights against their tormentors. But when it comes down to it he's fairly passive in his quest to free himself of Mizzora. Atleast in my experience, it fell to Tav to capitalize on oppurtunities to out think her. It fell to Tav to push him to TRY. That's not a critique on Wyll, but when you put that thematically next to Karlach and Astarion who are near feral in their desperation for freedom- it is really interesting. And it's easy to imagine the two of them becoming determined to ensure he doesn't fall victim to the same fates they did. He's trying to save them, while they're trying to save him.

Or, countering my own point, imagine how frustrating that would be for Karlach and Astarion. Knowing that this great guy, this larger than life hero who always has a silly pun and a dashing smile on hand- doesn’t seem to understand the gravity of his situation. He’s still smiling. He’s still soldiering on as though nothing is wrong. He’s not taking the initiative to escape it, and he’s not coming up with any possible solution. He’s content to keep spending his time helping people and putting them before his own needs. Now, Wyll isn’t necessarily as fine as he seems. He’s by no means ignorant of or unafraid of the fate that awaits him. But he puts on a good front, with that big old Charisma modifier of his. And I imagine that could easily drive Astarion and Karlach mad.

That’s without going in to the fact that Astarion has an infernal pact carved on his back, and will be sold to hell as well if he doesn’t find a solution. And he hits the ground running the moment he finds out. He is not about to let that happen, and goes to great lengths to find out how to fix the situation. So there is a contrast with Astarion and Wyll not only in their reaction to their own tormenter’s, but with their goal of evading hell.

Because of how each of these guys’ situation is so closely related to their own, I think many moments would arise of stepping on each other’s toes while processing their trauma. Karlach and Astarion know better than most what Wyll is going to go through if he doesn’t take this seriously, and he makes PUNS? If they could go back to the day before their lives changed forever, they would do everything possible to make sure it never happened. They didn’t get a warning. He has his written on paper. In glowing ink. There could be so many incredible arguments between these three because personality wise- more often than not it would be Karlach and Wyll agreeing. Which would make the moments Karlach ends up siding with Astarion because Wyll made light of something at the wrong time all the more poignant. Karlach and Astarion agreeing on something and being a united front trying to drag Wyll to action would be such a powerful scene.

It becomes even more fun when you consider their personalities. Wyll and Karlach being the indisputably kindest characters of the group, but being so narratively tied to the one who is morally bankrupt. When someone is altruistically good and helps people for no reason Astarion usually gets frustrated with the fact they don’t understand how cruel the world is. He doesn’t do that with Karlach. He can’t do that with Karlach. Because she’s him. She’s the part of him who rages and screams and let’s every swear word fly and embraces how much hurt she is carrying and how entirely unfair it is. He sees that in her and I think some part of him is validated by it. So when she is unbearably kind and refuses to believe that there’s no good left in the world, who is he to tell her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She has just as much baggage to back her up as he does. He just walks off and let’s her have it in most of the banter I’ve heard. The flip side, he validates her own need for vengeance and doesn’t let her feel like a bad person for enjoying taking her anger out. She deserves it after everything that’s been taken from her.

Wyll is a similar situation. He is a constant example of the goodness of humanity. A reminder that it is more important to remain true to oneself even at the expense of power or comfort. He stays true to himself, and is forced to abandon his home. He stays true to himself, and is forced to endure a form that is foreign to him. He stays true to himself, and forsakes the safety of the material plane. In the process, he sacrifices the powers of his pact. He willingly gives up the position of Grand Duke so that he can be the tool for good that he thinks the world needs. Of course, a million points can also be made about all that he’s willing to sacrifice if you go the route of maintaining his pact- but I’m working off of what I personally saw play out, which was destroy the pact but save the Grand Duke.

Wyll’s personality playing off Astarion’s selfishness is so interesting. The first things Astarion reaches for in every situation are power and comfort. Silk sheets, a good wine, unholy ascension- whatever the whim of the day is. Being forced into the company of someone who constantly reminds him there is a vastly different approach to life would both be frustrating and eye opening. Especially when that example is backed up by Karlach whom Astarion can’t help but respect and find oddly comforting. Vice versa, as Wyll is an example of selflessness to Astarion, he is an example of selfishness to Wyll. Where Wyll and Karlach drag Astarion kicking and screaming towards recovery, he might have his own soft moments of begging Wyll to put himself first. Just once. Being selfish about your needs does not make you a bad person. A dynamic made even better by Karlach being the background example that being unapologetic about your needs is okay. All of these little elements play off each other so well.

Now how do these guys come through for Karlach? Stability. Which is a word I NEVER thought to use in reference to Astarion before. But I’m serious. Day one of freedom for him? Where is his mind? Completely focused on how to make sure it lasts. How does he secure the situation. How does he make himself safe permanently? He is a self proclaimed ideas man, not much of a planner. And yet, he IS coming up with ideas. He is thinking ahead about the future, and planning to take every chance he can to secure his freedom. Karlach is living in the moment, taking each day as a blessing and not letting fears of the future hold her back. And she deserves that. But it’s good for her to have someone pulling her back to earth and reminding her to do more than live in the moment when it comes to the big things. I’m serious, if they all three put their heads together and worked as a team not only would they be able to accomplish anything- the found family potential is absolutely limitless.

So- long story short. I personally find them to be the most satisfying and interesting party dynamic you can play with. It’s rewarding on a lot of levels, and also has some of the best friendship dialogues in the game. Which I’ve noticed there just isn’t a lot of friend-centric commentary or scenes in the base game, but this party does seem to get more than other’s I’ve worked with. I think that’s a larger issue than just which party build you run with, but I do enjoy that you can get a satisfying found family feel with this crew. Of course, romancing them as eachother also works pretty well too- the dynamics are just as good for that. Personally, I enjoy romancing Astarion and then keeping Karlach and Wyll as besties, but there’s a lot of ways you can run with it.

#bg3 #baldur’s gate 3 #bg3 spoilers #bg3 meta #Wyll ravengard #bg3 wyll #astarion #astarion ancunin #karlach #karlach cliffgate #meta #long post #text post #brekkie thoughts

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feathered-serpents · 7 months

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Fuck it. Here’s some “Karlach gets her heart back and lives” headcanons!

Once the world is saved and everything, the first thing she does is travel. Yes to see everything but, more than that, to feel everything. Avernus always has the same air, you don’t know how heavy air is until you’ve spent a decade buried in the heat and smoke and bits of brimestone that floats around Avernus. Karlach wants to feel crisp winds off of mountains, sunny skies over beaches, and rain, gods, anywhere there’s rain.

She’s on that quest for a long time, years maybe, but eventually, it stops feeling like traveling and starts to feel more like wandering. Aimless wandering at that. Slowly, she starts to realize that yes, she got her own life back, but she has no idea what that life is.

The first thing she does when that feeling really starts to settle in is seek out Wyll. For a time she's his right hand. Helping him defend the innocent both in Faerun and in Avernus, something that she is great at. Everyone loves her. People love her. She's a hero, she makes people happy. But still...

It might take ten years, maybe longer, after she helped save the world that she finally admits... she's tired of fighting. That feels insane. It's all she's ever done! All she's ever been good at but, swinging a blade just doesn't feel like it did when she was young. She hates that. What does she do now?

And the person who comes to her rescue, one more time, is Dammon.

Not on purpose, in fact, he's only supposed to come and visit. But he notices her burning less bright (in a bad way) since he last saw her and asks what's going on. She finally tells him after a little bit of prodding. She wants to try a new life, a completely new life, but a life that still feels like her. What does that even mean when all she's known is... this?

Dammon tells her he's been looking to take on an apprentice.

It sounds insane at first but... as she starts to think about it, it could make sense. Her, a blacksmith! Not just that, but an infernal mechanic. After a bit of time under Dammon's wing combined with her personal experience and very high heat tolerance, she becomes the best infernal mechanic in Faerun (granted, there's two)

She sets up her own shop in Baldur's Gate. Wyll sends any runaways from any archdevil army he helps smuggle out of Avernus to her first. She helps make sure any infernal parts they may have are behaving as they should in the new atmosphere, and if they're one of the lucky few that don't have an engine to worry about, then she just offers them a roof to stay under during their first bout of freedom. It can mean so much, a safe roof to sleep under.

And now one more, romance-exclusive, very self-indulgent point

When Karlach sets up her shop and she and Tav have settled in Baldur's Gate, they always seem to have a few street kids in their house. Pick-pockets. Breadthieves. Kids like that. A lot of them are tieflings born to non-infernal parents, half-elves dumped to the streets before they could walk, or just unlucky, but Karlach and Tav give them somewhere to go. They'll be safe. They'll have something to eat, and somewhere to sleep. If they get bored, they help Karlach in her forge. Maybe some consider it "dangerous work" for kids but kids are smarter than people give them credit for. Something to do with their hands is good for them and keeps them out of trouble. And a few forge burns are nothing compared to how badly the world can hurt them

But they'll always be safe here, even if they don't stay, they can come back. The world might be beautiful, but you can suffer here just as badly as you can in Avernus. Karlach built the one place you won't. The one place you're safe. The sanctuary she wanted, and needed, she built it. She built it.

#bg3 #bg3 karlach #karlach #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate iii

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spacemonkeysalsa · 2 months

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BG4 brainstorm

I know they've already got a bunch of it written and outlined or whatever, but I can't turn my brain off, so I'm just going to talk exclusively about the way in which I'd like to see BG3 characters and events incorporated into BG4, if they are even going to do that-

First off there's-

The Stuff That Doesn't Need To Come Up In The Narrative Right Away But Let's Establish The Underlying Assumptions Shall We?:

The white dragon born dark urge managing to overcome Bhaal and defeat the elderbrain, in the end, but with a somewhat uneven series of good and bad choices at their back.

Minthara is probably dead, though I’d love it if she was still around and you absolutely can get away with that, narratively, thanks to the patches.

On the other side, Halsin, Dame Aylin and Isobel are probably alive.

Astarion and Gale are both alive and may or may not be the god/godlike versions of themselves.

Karlach and Wyll are alive and still in Avernus together (unless the DLC drops and we have Blade of Avernus/Fixing Karlach's engine adventures between the games) not explicitly as a couple though, I'd leave that ambiguous.

Lae’zel and Shadowheart are in love (this is both the most specific my post-headcanon gets, and entirely non-negotiable) but spend a lot of time apart because of respective responsibilities. Lae’zel can be a diplomat or a freedom fighter, but Shadowheart is a Selunite living with her parents on a farm and overcoming her fear of wolves by also raising some wolves alongside her adopted Githyanki son.

What Larian did with legacy characters from the earlier game was smart, in that they didn’t overuse them or reveal too many details about what they’d been doing in the interim, so like, we’ll keep it basic, leave a lot up to the imagination, but the writing around their appearances and roles in the story would match the above info.

Starting with origin characters, I think there’s potential to include familiar faces.

First Familiar Face - Githyanki egg all grown up. He shouldn’t be called Ptaris, because this is kind of assuming that the path where he ends up with that name doesn’t happen. For now, I’m just going to call him Egg, as I can sort of imagine Lae’zel using it as a slightly mocking but ultimately affectionate nickname, and miss “I picked my own name” maybe sort of leaving it up to him.

Egg - as I would write him, would have spent some time on the astral plane, like one of his moms and so his age is kind of a ??? because time is different there, and Egg would have also spent some time living with one of his moms on the farm. There’s sort of an obvious characterization available here. Where does he belong? Who are his people, really? You could write him confused and conflicted, or you could take the route I like and say that he was raised by the two most perfect people to help him understand that. He has his half-elf mother’s compounding knowledge of temperance between seemingly conflicted forces, and disparate elements, and his githyanki mother made sure he grew up confident and sure of himself and proud of his incredibly unique heritage. Also, these two states of mind aren’t totally mutually exclusive, cognitive dissonance is a major part of life, and an appropriate coming of age theme. I already love Egg. In keeping with the idea of temperance, I’d put him firmly in the true neutral category.

Second Familiar Face - Mol. Like. Just give me more Mol. What a great character, I’m so stoked imagining her grown up. I would write her as our team warlock, even if Raphael has been eaten by Mephistopheles. She can still do eldritch blast and the works ever since her pact with him. She’s pretty concerned that the implications of this are that Meph is her true fount now, and she wonders if he knows, or if there’s some small bit of his power he’s not aware is being lent out to her, and what he’ll do if he ever learns of her existence. She keeps these worries close to the chest though, instead projecting nonchalance that comes off as careless and callous during the earlier parts of the story, before she opens up. Probably neutral evil.

Third Familiar Face - Arabella. I’d make her so, so weird. Her magic is druidic, so she’s probably our druid, but you could easily get away with sorcerer or a secret third thing and I wouldn’t be mad. As a fully grown woman she speaks with the annoying esoteric air of a dryad and personifies inanimate objects, and is constantly carrying on conversations with animals when left to her own devices. She and Mol do not get along anymore, though they still care a lot about each other and there should be some cuteness about their history and childhood as buddies and little lost refugees together. Chaotic good.

I think you could get away with including all three in the main party, even early game, but I wouldn’t do more than that. New original characters are potentially more important and I would have the plot and the bones of the game be more closely tied to these totally new faces rather than relying on sequel energy. Even if all three games exist in the same universe and share themes, elements, and some characters, they don’t really feel like direct sequels and I think that’s a good thing. The only reason I think you can get away with using these three kids from the third game like this is because as adults, they’ll be completely different people, to the point that the story would have to reintroduce them anyway. The fact that they have any connections to the events of the past games doesn’t even really need to be explored beyond the kind of high-level backstory stuff that affected everyone in the world:

Arabella: “Remember when Baldur’s Gate almost got destroyed by an Elder Brain?”

Mol: “Yeah, that was wild.”

Egg: “No, I was there, but I hadn’t hatched yet.”

Mol: “HOW OLD ARE YOU?”

Egg: “Ugh, it’s complicated.”

I would probably continue with the often fun but at times vaguely serious “kill all the gods and masters” themes from previous games, and use this as a way to get everyone into hell for a portion of the game to go toe-to-toe with some archdevils, and also as an excuse to get Karlach and Wyll in the game (it's hard for me to get too much into this idea tbh, because I'm still hopeful that they'll be lvl13-20 dlc that involves Avernus, in which case, all of this is resolved and idk where to go from here with those two as I'm sure it would be affected a lot by how all that theoretical dlc content turns out, and I'm like so invested in going to Avernus with Wyll and Karlach).

And, Legacy character time!

Lae’zel I think could be our Jaheira analog, meaning she’s a previous origin character who I think could join the main team and be a party member for a chunk of the game without breaking anything. I would keep it until later though, but make it about as simple as recruiting Jaheira, in that it feels almost compulsory if you just follow a common path and progress the game.

Shadowheart would work nicely as our Minsc analog, in that she could be introduced as a very late game party character, essentially starting off as a lvl 12 cleric of light, as Selune intended, and I would make her recruitment more complicated and involve a side-quest. A rough idea for that side-quest would be trying to successfully get a message to Selunite allies, asking for aid. If you manage to meet the requirements and your messenger isn’t killed—and I think it would be fun if there was some randomness to it, like maybe a background constitution check that just mysteriously triggers when you cross into a certain area, and if it passes, it means your messenger (wherever they are) safely made it, and if it fails, they didn’t. So, I would let Shadowheart have a big damn hero moment and ride into a battle (on the back of one her wolves, why not) and join in the fight as an unexpected ally. From a play testing point of view, it would be especially fun to set up a certain fight so that waves of enemies arrive, and there’s a point where most people get overwhelmed and that’s when she shows up. But, for extra complication, if you don’t have Lae’zel or Egg with you at the time, she shows up for the one battle, saves your ass, then fights you if you’re responsible for either of their deaths, and if they are in your party, then you have to pass the roll, and play the whole thing for family drama.

Gale and Astarion, if you wanted to go with their bad endings, then Gale becoming and god and Astarion ascending would be the canon and there’s a lot to work with. Or, if you wanted to go with the good ending, then Gale is professor Dekarios and Astarion would either be an adventurer or leading the spawn in the Underdark. Professor Dekarios could easily just be a helpful mentor-type. His participation in shenanigans can be limited to a side quest or two, an Elminster/Volo like series of cameos etc. He’s a good adventurer when he has to be, but it’s not really where his heart is and we always knew that. He’s a wizard in his tower/in the classroom, but sure, he’ll lend a helping hand as he still remembers how valuable a service that can be. As a silly goose, I’m tempted to write a Volo/Elminster/Gale scene that involves all three of them very wine drunk and arguing about something absolutely no one else could hope to understand.

God Gale I can’t resist making him one of the baddies. It’s sad, but it feels appropriate. If he’s now the god of ambition then he failed to learn a pretty fundamental lesson during the course of BG3, and Tav/Durge who didn’t help him out with that failed and should feel bad. Offense absolutely intended. The logical conclusion is that Gale has become exactly the sort of god that once threatened and made his life miserable, especially since his antagonism towards Mystra with this ending seems to just be couched in pure unexamined hurt, and pettiness rather than a real understand that even as one of the “good gods” she wronged him, and she was wrong from the beginning and that there might just be something inherently bad about having and wielding this kind of power, at all.

He doesn’t get that, but it’s a bit due to wilful ignorance, I think, so I’d continue that and I wouldn’t make Gale knowingly the big bad. it just doesn't fit his character. You have a mortal avatar/chosen, some very ambitious enemy who Gale is helping, without a clear understanding of exactly what kind of schemes he’s backing. He’s too removed to really understand that he fucked up, and by the time he figures it out, it’s too late. Necessarily, his presence like this would be minimal, maybe we don’t even know for sure that he’s involved in any capacity until quite late, and even then, I’d make getting an actual appearance from the guy, pretty hard fought.

Astarion would be our other antagonist, and I think you can get away with going in any of the three different routes with him (Ascended, Spawn Adventurer, Spawn Dad) and make him an antagonist regardless. It would more be a matter of setting, do you want a quest in a big gothic castle or at a fancy party? A totally new location where he can turn up unexpectedly? The underdark? Setting might be the deciding factor, but his behavior and his role in the story could more or less follow the same pattern because the degrees of difference in his personality as ascendant/spawn are workable. That’s the thing about being a neutral evil aligned character—it’s maybe the broadest category as far as D&D character rep goes. He can get away with doing basically anything and still remain in that alignment because it takes an extreme act of unhinged evil to shift his alignment towards chaos, and anything good he does can still be dismissed as a cheap “pet the dog” moment by everyone who is unwilling to admit that he might have some capacity for redemption in him.

I would not make him a big bad antagonist though, because why would he ever bother, what’s actually in it for him? And I would want to create a route where he can join your side, but I wouldn’t have him join the camp/party in a permanent sense, at most you could do a Dame Aylin thing and keep him around and available for additional dialogue, a later quest or two.

In any case, even at his most antagonistic, Astarion isn’t truly ambitious. In BG3 he’ll ascend if he gets the chance, he'll try and run the city as long as the network is all in place already and it's not too much work, but he was never going to go out of his way to set all that up and he’ll settle. You could easily tie his story together with God Gale, if you wanted. “Ambition gets you stabbed to death by your spawn—of course none of this shit was my idea! I didn’t have a choice!” He was always quite good at delivering overdramatic ( but more often than people want to admit, totally valid) justifications for his behaviour, so I’d use that again, to utilize him to his maximum anti-hero/anti-villain potential.

He’d make a great red herring villain in the story, like let everything—including his old allies—think that he’s some mastermind (and let bg3 fans freak out a little that they've characterized him wrong), or that he’s more involved and more willing than he actually is. Then story beats slowly reveal that he’s a smaller level antagonist, pressed into the service of the bigger bad by circumstances/fear/whatever. It brings back bad memories. He’s pissed about it actually, doesn’t want to be doing any of this, has maybe been planning his own escape/betrayal for a while now. The player can ignore all that and just kill him here, or they can help him and see where things go if you give him a chance to ally with you against your common enemy. Fans can then continue their very stupid argument about whether he’s a hero or a villain, and we know that arguing is what truly makes them happy, so everyone wins.

A possible later quest could tie with Mol, if Astarion is the vampire ascendant, because in that scenario they are both in a weird ambiguous state where Mephistopheles is maybe their master or maybe not? D&D lore arguments continue?

Doing all of this would obviously be a lot, but I'd be thrilled if some version of any one of these ideas appeared in bg4. Assuming, I ever stop playing bg3 long enough to get trully invested in bg4 eventual existence.

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate 4 #bg4 #bg3 astarion #bg3 karlach #bg3 wyll #bg3 lae'zel #bg3 shadowheart #bg3 mol #bg3 arabella #githyanki egg #bg3 gale

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