BG3: To the end of Act 2!
Aug. 22nd, 2023 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrFinally found out the backstory the game assumes you know, which happened in a prequel roleplaying campaign: Shortly before the time the game is set, a city full of tieflings fell into Avernus, in the hells, and then everyone had to escape.
Still enjoying the game, but am finding myself increasingly annoyed by Good vs Evil often being so clear-cut, especially with institutions, species, and gods. I've been spoiled by Dragon Age and even other Dungeons and Dragons stuff like Dimension 20, which have a lot more moral ambiguity around most 'evil' and 'good' creatures.
That said, the story isn't over! And everything else about the game is done pretty well.
Masterpost
Content note: Brief mention of consent issues in Astarion's backstory. I don't go into it but the game has a lot of Big Stupid characters who feel kinda ableist and fat-phobic. Also some of the quests got very gory and creepy, which I personally was bothered by less than all the cultural christianity but YMMV.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I went back to finish an Act 1 quest and it was bugged, so I replayed a bunch of Act 2. From how things played out later I probably didn't actually need to do that, but never mind!
On the plus side, this game has some nice variations sometimes when you make different choices. I saw the "talk to the Githyanki with a dragon" scene like 10 times while I tried to figure out how to get it to play properly, and there was a bunch of variants depending on the characters in my party, the choices I made, and the results of various dice rolls.
Anyway, the upshot is that the head of this group of Githyanki is an ass and is up to something. Exploring further would involve going into the mountains, which I might do later, since right now the main plot is pointing elsewhere.
I am just cheating through EVERY battle now, I had to repeat so many, and knowing the game might break on a random bug makes me more inclined to want to just get to the end, in case I have replay parts again. It's still fun trying to figure out the most efficient way to kill things, and since I'm not looking up a guide I can still make Bad Choices and have bad associated dice rolls.
One upside of redoing the harper refuge section was I got another go at Perceiving the strange ox, and succeeded! I was able to read it's mind, and saw visions of piles of bloody corpses?? I had the option to kill it but said I wouldn't tell anyone it wasn't an ordinary ox. Just because it's seen some shit doesn't make it BAD. Neccesarily.
After rescuing Isobel AGAIN I joined some harpers in ambushing a deeply weird looking drow-spider centaur-y guy (apparently called a drider, which is very D&D), and stealing his shadow-curse dispelling lantern. Which turned out to work via a pixie trapped inside! I must admit I paused for a moment about freeing the pixie, but eventually did, and as thank you it gave us a curse dispelling blessing.
Halsin asked for help saving the sprit of these lands, which involved a bunch of little subquests, some of which were CREEPY AS HELL and one of which involved protecting him from a ridiculous number of waves of enemies. Hooray for cheats! The spirit took the form of a child corrupted by shadow, who felt he could never go back to what he was, and I really liked that there was the option to say that change is just part of growing up.
We also found a little tiefling girl who'd gotten separated from her parents and was protecting herself with powerful magic she'd picked up during the druid plot. There's the option to be all "I'll only help if you teach me how to do that" but I just told her Tav would find her parents and sent her to stay at the camp (she didn't trust the other tieflings, I think something shady went down when they were captured) And so the next time I went back she was there cheerfully chatting...to Withers, the walking corpse, who was patiently if cryptically replying to all her curious questions about how being a walking corpse works.
Somehow I had all the pieces to fix Karlach's heart, despite not having had them all last time. I had the choice to congratulate her or hug her so of course chose the hug :) She made a few vague remarks about "needing to find someone to kiss" now that she can, which I did not follow up on since Tav is taken, but I hope she finds someone! The bad news is if she stays on the surface much longer her heart will literally break :( Her response to this is to just live life to the fullest while she can.
Both Karlach and Shadowheart give approval every time Tav is kind to animals and children. (Wyll and Gale too, when they're present) Astarion and Lae'zel do Not.
Astarion made a pitch for us taking over the Absolute's cult as besties and using it to make the world a better place. When Tav said "I thought you hated me" Astarion prevaricated haha. His approval is neutral, so he's not un-friendly, but sometimes when I click on him to open a lock he snaps "don't touch me!" or "careful, I bite".
Something interesting with this game is that whoever you happen to be controlling when you click on an NPC to talk to them is the character who has the conversation. Not just in terms of skill checks, but how the NPC reacts, what specific dialogue options you get etc. It's always surreal when I end up playing as Astarion since he's so unlike Tav, but generally there's still something Tav would approve of as an option, and from a roleplaying perspective there's no reason other characters wouldn't be in charge of conversations from time to time. It's mostly annoying when the character I'm controlling has the wrong skills, like a lot of people I wish you could switch.
This explains why the player character isn't voiced, there's just too many options for who could be saying the line! Overall I like it, maybe once the novelty of being they/them-ed has worn off I'll play the whole game as one of the companions. If romance works the same way it could be a very fun way to act out NPC/NPC ships. I think I'd like to have seen a companions romance play out as the PC before romancing someone else as them, so... maybe romance Karlach with Shadowheart?
And after all that I have actually gotten to Moonrise towers! It is suitably creepy. The immortal guy in charge, General Thorm, is always smiling, even as he crushes someone to pulp with his fists, and despite the huge hole in his stomach. Almost everyone else in this game has a British Isles accent but he has an American accent, which is disconcerting.
I found the tieflings and some gnomes in the dungeons organising a breakout. I had trouble figuring out what exactly the gnomes were asking for with "something that breaks rocks" so looked up a few walkthroughs and ended up spoiling myself a little :( This one is moderately complete but still confusing and sometimes spoils me :/
But I did find out that the gnomes want a bludgeoning weapon! And also that the tiefling girl's parents corpses can be found in the creepy-ass Shar cult murder hospital /o\ When I told her they were dead she was very sad and I got points from Astarion and Lae'zel, haha.
I was going to try and describe the hospital but it's just...it's really creepy! I enjoyed playing it but would not enjoy describing it. Persuading a guy to volunteer to be stabbed to death with scalpels was the happy part. Especially since I did it with Astarion, who thought it was funny.
...oh god Moonrise towers is even CREEPIER. I found the dungeon by following blood stains in the throne room to a friendly torturer by a bed stained with blood. The willing recruits are a mix of cheerful about how great it will be to take over the world, and a bit worried about how many people get taken away and never come back. The door to see the Absolute is guarded by a woman who has no parasite, and Tav senses the deep disdain she has for True Souls beneath her veneer of respect. In the kitchens, a woman uses the gift she received from the Absolute to control dog-like gnolls she has turned into puppet-slaves, responding to their forced obedience with sugary praise. There is something that "sounds like meat" in the walls, but the door towards it is blocked by a thick strings of pink mucus.
This creepy woman assumed Astarion was Tav's vampire spawn slave and asked Tav to make him bite her, because she thought it would be hot. He appreciated Tav making it VERY CLEAR that Astarion gets to make his own decisions. In general he gives approval any time Tav is anti-slavery and in favour of personal agency. Also whenever Tav successfully lies, lol. Later he said he has had a lot of transactional sex he didn't have much choice about and didn't enjoy :(
Also Tav had to distract a True Soul who was reading their mind, and had the options to think about their deep love for Shadowheart and...Gale? Oops, musta picked the wrong dialogue option sometime. And I must have more successfully friendzoned Wyll and Karlach, since they like Tav just as much.
Nothing has actually happened with Shadowheart's romance since the party and a few cute dialogue options that showed up the next day, but one time when Tav died in battle Shadowheart screamed "No!".
And then I played a WHOLE BUNCH, nearly to the end of Act 2. What happened...
Withers was comforting the tiefling girl in his own very odd way, and said it is her fate to leave, and find her own path. He gave her a vision of her future which gave her hope.
We were sent to find Thorm's second in command, the necromancer Balthazar, who was dealing with an "artefact" in the Thorm mausoleum. It quickly became apparent that general Thorm had used the bones of his own ancestors as part of some creepy ritual, and also that the mausoleum was full of annoying puzzles, so I opened up a guide.
Before we could go in, we were stopped by a devil, who told Astarion he'd find out the meaning of the scars Astarion's former master carved into his back if we killed an enemy of his that was trapped inside the mausoleum. The guide said the fight was really hard, and Tav felt bad doing the devil's work, but then the enemy said he had to kill everyone who heard his song, including us, and had also been murdering all the Justiciars. So Tav took a shot at persuading him to kill his own minions first, which worked! And then managed to persuade the guy to kill HIMSELF, since as a devil he'd just pop back into existence in the hells, freed from the mausoleum. Problem sorted!
Beneath the mausoleum was a temple of Shar, a gauntlet where would-be Justiciars were tested. We also found Balthazar, who told us to find his relic for him. Passing the trials was a bit of a pain in the ass, but we did it. Throughout the temple were Shar texts talking about stuff like ignoring the temptation of love for the peace of the dark in Shar's womb. There was also talk of "the nightsinger", an artefact we got a quest to find back in Act 1.
Shadowheart made vague remarks about the test ending with a sacrifice, telling Tav it would likely be a monster. But when I played from her perspective, she knew the sacrifice would be a worshipper of Selune.
We entered the strange floating lifeless islands of Shar's domain, the Shadowfell, and were met by Balthazar, who had used our entry to sneak past Shar. In the centre of the Shadowfell was the Nightsinger: Selune's daughter Aylin, who had been trapped here by Balthazar for a century so that Thorm could feed off her immortality.
We killed Balthazar. Aylin told Shadowheart that Shar had lied to her, and that if she completed the ritual by killing Aylin her life as a Justiciar would be pointless sacrifice followed by abandonment.
Tav tried VERY HARD to persuade Shadowheart not to kill Aylin, but Shadowheart still picked up her weapon... and threw it over the edge, freeing Aylin. Aylin's imagery as she ascended was very angelic, with glowing white light, fluffy feathered white wings etc, which undermined the moment for me significantly. Aylin promised answers later then flew off to fight Thorm. Shar paralysed Shadowheart with pain and then abandoned her entirely. I think Shadowheart is now a cleric of Selune??
Poor Shadowheart was left feeling very messed up about all this, but Tav did their best to comfort her. Even Lae'zel expressed sympathy.
Back at camp, Gale made the unfortunate choice to spend his possible last night alive declaring his love for Tav, which did not go as well as he'd hoped. Sorry, Gale.
Lae'zel was so annoyed that we never followed up on the Githyanki sideplot that she was thinking of leaving, but Tav persuaded her to stay.
Since we fulfilled his request, the devil told Astarion the story behind his scars: Astarion's master used his soul as part of a bargain with a really powerful devil to become a Super Vampire, and needs to kill Astarion to complete the ritual. So now Astarion has a quest to go kill his old master in Baldur's Gate, which I am 100% up for!
We all went back to Moonrise Towers along with the Harpers to bring down General Thorm. To make the battle feel more epic I picked off most of the bad guys with cheats then let the ally NPCs kill some for a bit before finishing the fight.
General Thorm angrily accuses Aylin of "stealing" his daughter Isobel, I get the feeling this is all a sequel to some Baldur's Gate 2 plot. He attempted to use Tav's brainworm to control them, and when he saw Shadowheart's artefact protecting them went "Gasp! The PRISM". Before I could finish killing him he summoned a MASSIVE BUILDING HIGH TENTACLE from within the castle walls, and vanished.
Astarion was not happy about jumping into the meaty hole the tentacle left behind, but we did it anyway. After cutting through some gross membrane we ended up inside a mindflayer colony that had been hiding beneath Moonrise Towers. We found a room of mindflayer pods, half of them full of mindflayers and the other half of innocent people, and had the choice to kill them all or free them all. Hooray for cheats! After the battle the rescued tiefling leader said he'd been briefly seduced by the Absolute's lies when she sang into his brain, which is how everyone got captured. Tav said it wasn't his fault.
We also found Wyll's devil patron trapped in a pod, and realised SHE was the 'asset' she'd sent Wyll to free. After a moment of thought I decided to let her go. She said that in return she WILL free Wyll...in six months. But apparently if you kill her Wyll immediately turns to dust, so. Could be worse!
And then I got lost in the creepy meaty labyrinth for a while.
I eventually encountered a room full of skittering intellect devourers (walking brains) and their brain-wiped keeper.
And there, in a locked cage...BRAIN FRIEND!!!! :D :D
Us was DELIGHTED to see Tav, saying it had been rejected for being different, and it begged for help. And who am I to say no to a friend?
Tav managed to persuade the keeper that since Tav and Us both had "the wrong song" they should leave together, and now Tav can summon Us at will.
I am honestly feeling happier about this than persuading Shadowheart to leave the church of Shar?? Like that felt inevitable but this is such a happy surprise! Also I just really dislike when stories have Good Gods and Bad Gods. I prefer when all the gods are at least kinda morally ambiguous, and the issue is bad religious institutions. I liked Shadowheart's plot when it was about her escaping a shitty religion, but having her immediately switched to the Good god she'd been raised to see as an enemy without even making a choice about it feels gross.
I do like how we see some complexity, understandable motives, and even kindness amongst the bad guys, so whatever side we choose there'll be some pangs of "those are real people we're killing". But the evil side is still always overall so blatantly evil that aligning with them feels edgy grimdark instead of a reasonable choice, and means being complicit in stuff like slavery. And the good institutions are all too good. The druids vs teiflings thing was ok as I played it, but afaict it turns out the reason the bad druid leader was being so shitty was that she had joined the Evil Druids instead of just being an asshole. And the harpers seem to just be straightforwardly good.
It's all making me think sadly back to Dragon Age, with Qunari vs Mages vs Templars vs Elves vs Grey Wardens etc, who all see themselves as morally justified, are all sometimes at odds, and are all capable of horrors. The main bad guys tend be Pure Evil in a boring way, but the game just assumes you're opposed to that. I mean Bioware still has Corruption by Dark Forces and some of the choices you get are pretty obviously Good vs Bad, but there's also a lot of messy decisions between flawed people whose motives are a mix of good and bad. Bioware definitely leans a bit too far the other way sometimes, contriving situations with a message of Maybe This Genocide/Slavery is Good, Makes You Think. But "some people are just born evil and if we were in a position to kill them all that would be the moral choice" personally bothers me more, even if the option to kill all the devils never comes up.
And some religions being Fake and Bad while others are Real and Good...nng.
I don't know how much of this is the writers and how much the basic setting and restrictions from Wizards of the Coast. But it's definitely undermining my enjoyment! I wouldn't be surprised if the old Bioware Baldur's Gate have similar issues to this one, since they're also stuck the D&D's black and white moral dichotomy, and I was put off by the light side vs dark side setup in the Bioware Star Wars games. I mean a lot of people are obviously fine with the moral universe of all of these games. But personally it is not my bag.
Even asides from the worldbuilding, all the companions are a bit too straightforward for me. People have apparently compared Gale to Anders from Dragon Age 2 but blowing up an evil god because the good god you worship told you to is not remotely the same as blowing up the church of the god you believe in, not because it will change anything immediately in and of itself, but as a political protest against your oppression. I mean Bioware flinched back from seeing that as anything but evil in the next game, but Inquisition was their least morally interesting game.
EDIT: I happened across some people complaining about all the times Bioware screwed up the writing around the morally complex situations they set up and...fair. I guess Dragon Age attempts to be a story to my tastes with mixed success, while Baldur's Gate 3 is thus far a much more successful attempt at a type of story I find less inherently appealing.
I do think Baldur's Gate 3 has done some interesting things within it's very Christian moral landscape, where Good is generally obvious but difficult, and it's always tempting to do bad things or even align with the forces of evil to achieve larger good goals. And I do really like that "good" can sometimes be lesbians or gross mushroom people etc. But I was still hoping for something different. Oh well. Maybe things will improve for me in Act 3, idk. I have SOME hope for Gale's plot.
And at least I have brain friend.
After a bunch of wandering around I found the final battle ground and did the final battle of Act 2 and learned some major secrets! It was...ok.
Turns out the people running the cult of the Absolute are the Chosen of the three Evil Gods of Death, Tyranny, and Murder. They are using three Ancient Gems to control a giant crown on a Giant Mindflayer Brain, which had been lying dormant under the castle, and has been forced to become the Absolute. Balthazar did a bunch of experiments with brainworms until he could get them to work as mind control and not turn people into mindflayers.
I am at this point feeling very defensive on behalf of cthonic gods. And I can't believe there's a god of tyranny, wtf kind of religious worldbuilding is that? *sigh* But I do like that the villain is a weird ancient being with it's own different goals being controlled by pettily ambitious humans.
The voice of the Absolute calls out the instructions from it's captors interspersed with sorrow about The Grand Plan (to turn everyone into mindflayers) being undermined. I feel a little sorry for it. The "5 metre wide floating brain with a crown" look is kinda goofy.
General Thorm became the Chosen of the god of Death in return for bringing his dead daughter Isobel back to life. The other two Chosen are Karlach's old boss, Lord Gortash, and a Sexy Evil Lady with a name like...Ortil? We watched as they brainwormed Wyll's dad, ruler of Baldur's Gate, and then left, telling Thorm to get the prism from Tav.
Afaict the plan is to set Thorm and his army of Absolute followers up as the bad guy attacking Baldur's Gate, and then have Lord Gortash "save" Baldur's Gate with his army of robots and, idk, get put in charge by Wyll's dad or something.
Tav killed General Thorm, and then killed a giant evil skeleton sent by the god of Death as retribution. My mysterious dwarf lady friend showed up to say... something? It was nearly 1am so the details are fuzzy.
Afterwards was one of those "everyone takes a breath after the big battle" scenes, so I talked to a couple of people then went to bed. Withers said some interesting things about fate and maintaining balance, and said something ominous about there being a bunch of soulless vessels or something? I'm guessing this is related to the robots.
Isobel and Alyna had a very cute romantic reunion, since they'd both thought the other was dead. First onscreen NPC/NPC kiss of the game being two women was nice.
Oh god, Aylin was killed by EVERY would-be Justiciar, only to come back to life /o\ She's a little Weird as a result, or maybe she was always like that. There doesn't seem to be any homophobia in this setting, General Thorm dissaproved of Aylin because she's immortal.
I was worried Gale would be upset he didn't get brought along to possibly explode the Absolute, but he just plans on doing it later.
I got a little lost trying to find the road to Baldur's Gate and encountered an optional boss I'd missed, who I think I could have just befriended, oops. I did the battle without cheats just for some variety, and because at this point I'm feeling more confident of actually being able to finish the game without bugs.
And then I went into Act 3!
Still enjoying the game, but am finding myself increasingly annoyed by Good vs Evil often being so clear-cut, especially with institutions, species, and gods. I've been spoiled by Dragon Age and even other Dungeons and Dragons stuff like Dimension 20, which have a lot more moral ambiguity around most 'evil' and 'good' creatures.
That said, the story isn't over! And everything else about the game is done pretty well.
Masterpost
Content note: Brief mention of consent issues in Astarion's backstory. I don't go into it but the game has a lot of Big Stupid characters who feel kinda ableist and fat-phobic. Also some of the quests got very gory and creepy, which I personally was bothered by less than all the cultural christianity but YMMV.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I went back to finish an Act 1 quest and it was bugged, so I replayed a bunch of Act 2. From how things played out later I probably didn't actually need to do that, but never mind!
On the plus side, this game has some nice variations sometimes when you make different choices. I saw the "talk to the Githyanki with a dragon" scene like 10 times while I tried to figure out how to get it to play properly, and there was a bunch of variants depending on the characters in my party, the choices I made, and the results of various dice rolls.
Anyway, the upshot is that the head of this group of Githyanki is an ass and is up to something. Exploring further would involve going into the mountains, which I might do later, since right now the main plot is pointing elsewhere.
I am just cheating through EVERY battle now, I had to repeat so many, and knowing the game might break on a random bug makes me more inclined to want to just get to the end, in case I have replay parts again. It's still fun trying to figure out the most efficient way to kill things, and since I'm not looking up a guide I can still make Bad Choices and have bad associated dice rolls.
One upside of redoing the harper refuge section was I got another go at Perceiving the strange ox, and succeeded! I was able to read it's mind, and saw visions of piles of bloody corpses?? I had the option to kill it but said I wouldn't tell anyone it wasn't an ordinary ox. Just because it's seen some shit doesn't make it BAD. Neccesarily.
After rescuing Isobel AGAIN I joined some harpers in ambushing a deeply weird looking drow-spider centaur-y guy (apparently called a drider, which is very D&D), and stealing his shadow-curse dispelling lantern. Which turned out to work via a pixie trapped inside! I must admit I paused for a moment about freeing the pixie, but eventually did, and as thank you it gave us a curse dispelling blessing.
Halsin asked for help saving the sprit of these lands, which involved a bunch of little subquests, some of which were CREEPY AS HELL and one of which involved protecting him from a ridiculous number of waves of enemies. Hooray for cheats! The spirit took the form of a child corrupted by shadow, who felt he could never go back to what he was, and I really liked that there was the option to say that change is just part of growing up.
We also found a little tiefling girl who'd gotten separated from her parents and was protecting herself with powerful magic she'd picked up during the druid plot. There's the option to be all "I'll only help if you teach me how to do that" but I just told her Tav would find her parents and sent her to stay at the camp (she didn't trust the other tieflings, I think something shady went down when they were captured) And so the next time I went back she was there cheerfully chatting...to Withers, the walking corpse, who was patiently if cryptically replying to all her curious questions about how being a walking corpse works.
Somehow I had all the pieces to fix Karlach's heart, despite not having had them all last time. I had the choice to congratulate her or hug her so of course chose the hug :) She made a few vague remarks about "needing to find someone to kiss" now that she can, which I did not follow up on since Tav is taken, but I hope she finds someone! The bad news is if she stays on the surface much longer her heart will literally break :( Her response to this is to just live life to the fullest while she can.
Both Karlach and Shadowheart give approval every time Tav is kind to animals and children. (Wyll and Gale too, when they're present) Astarion and Lae'zel do Not.
Astarion made a pitch for us taking over the Absolute's cult as besties and using it to make the world a better place. When Tav said "I thought you hated me" Astarion prevaricated haha. His approval is neutral, so he's not un-friendly, but sometimes when I click on him to open a lock he snaps "don't touch me!" or "careful, I bite".
Something interesting with this game is that whoever you happen to be controlling when you click on an NPC to talk to them is the character who has the conversation. Not just in terms of skill checks, but how the NPC reacts, what specific dialogue options you get etc. It's always surreal when I end up playing as Astarion since he's so unlike Tav, but generally there's still something Tav would approve of as an option, and from a roleplaying perspective there's no reason other characters wouldn't be in charge of conversations from time to time. It's mostly annoying when the character I'm controlling has the wrong skills, like a lot of people I wish you could switch.
This explains why the player character isn't voiced, there's just too many options for who could be saying the line! Overall I like it, maybe once the novelty of being they/them-ed has worn off I'll play the whole game as one of the companions. If romance works the same way it could be a very fun way to act out NPC/NPC ships. I think I'd like to have seen a companions romance play out as the PC before romancing someone else as them, so... maybe romance Karlach with Shadowheart?
And after all that I have actually gotten to Moonrise towers! It is suitably creepy. The immortal guy in charge, General Thorm, is always smiling, even as he crushes someone to pulp with his fists, and despite the huge hole in his stomach. Almost everyone else in this game has a British Isles accent but he has an American accent, which is disconcerting.
I found the tieflings and some gnomes in the dungeons organising a breakout. I had trouble figuring out what exactly the gnomes were asking for with "something that breaks rocks" so looked up a few walkthroughs and ended up spoiling myself a little :( This one is moderately complete but still confusing and sometimes spoils me :/
But I did find out that the gnomes want a bludgeoning weapon! And also that the tiefling girl's parents corpses can be found in the creepy-ass Shar cult murder hospital /o\ When I told her they were dead she was very sad and I got points from Astarion and Lae'zel, haha.
I was going to try and describe the hospital but it's just...it's really creepy! I enjoyed playing it but would not enjoy describing it. Persuading a guy to volunteer to be stabbed to death with scalpels was the happy part. Especially since I did it with Astarion, who thought it was funny.
...oh god Moonrise towers is even CREEPIER. I found the dungeon by following blood stains in the throne room to a friendly torturer by a bed stained with blood. The willing recruits are a mix of cheerful about how great it will be to take over the world, and a bit worried about how many people get taken away and never come back. The door to see the Absolute is guarded by a woman who has no parasite, and Tav senses the deep disdain she has for True Souls beneath her veneer of respect. In the kitchens, a woman uses the gift she received from the Absolute to control dog-like gnolls she has turned into puppet-slaves, responding to their forced obedience with sugary praise. There is something that "sounds like meat" in the walls, but the door towards it is blocked by a thick strings of pink mucus.
This creepy woman assumed Astarion was Tav's vampire spawn slave and asked Tav to make him bite her, because she thought it would be hot. He appreciated Tav making it VERY CLEAR that Astarion gets to make his own decisions. In general he gives approval any time Tav is anti-slavery and in favour of personal agency. Also whenever Tav successfully lies, lol. Later he said he has had a lot of transactional sex he didn't have much choice about and didn't enjoy :(
Also Tav had to distract a True Soul who was reading their mind, and had the options to think about their deep love for Shadowheart and...Gale? Oops, musta picked the wrong dialogue option sometime. And I must have more successfully friendzoned Wyll and Karlach, since they like Tav just as much.
Nothing has actually happened with Shadowheart's romance since the party and a few cute dialogue options that showed up the next day, but one time when Tav died in battle Shadowheart screamed "No!".
And then I played a WHOLE BUNCH, nearly to the end of Act 2. What happened...
Withers was comforting the tiefling girl in his own very odd way, and said it is her fate to leave, and find her own path. He gave her a vision of her future which gave her hope.
We were sent to find Thorm's second in command, the necromancer Balthazar, who was dealing with an "artefact" in the Thorm mausoleum. It quickly became apparent that general Thorm had used the bones of his own ancestors as part of some creepy ritual, and also that the mausoleum was full of annoying puzzles, so I opened up a guide.
Before we could go in, we were stopped by a devil, who told Astarion he'd find out the meaning of the scars Astarion's former master carved into his back if we killed an enemy of his that was trapped inside the mausoleum. The guide said the fight was really hard, and Tav felt bad doing the devil's work, but then the enemy said he had to kill everyone who heard his song, including us, and had also been murdering all the Justiciars. So Tav took a shot at persuading him to kill his own minions first, which worked! And then managed to persuade the guy to kill HIMSELF, since as a devil he'd just pop back into existence in the hells, freed from the mausoleum. Problem sorted!
Beneath the mausoleum was a temple of Shar, a gauntlet where would-be Justiciars were tested. We also found Balthazar, who told us to find his relic for him. Passing the trials was a bit of a pain in the ass, but we did it. Throughout the temple were Shar texts talking about stuff like ignoring the temptation of love for the peace of the dark in Shar's womb. There was also talk of "the nightsinger", an artefact we got a quest to find back in Act 1.
Shadowheart made vague remarks about the test ending with a sacrifice, telling Tav it would likely be a monster. But when I played from her perspective, she knew the sacrifice would be a worshipper of Selune.
We entered the strange floating lifeless islands of Shar's domain, the Shadowfell, and were met by Balthazar, who had used our entry to sneak past Shar. In the centre of the Shadowfell was the Nightsinger: Selune's daughter Aylin, who had been trapped here by Balthazar for a century so that Thorm could feed off her immortality.
We killed Balthazar. Aylin told Shadowheart that Shar had lied to her, and that if she completed the ritual by killing Aylin her life as a Justiciar would be pointless sacrifice followed by abandonment.
Tav tried VERY HARD to persuade Shadowheart not to kill Aylin, but Shadowheart still picked up her weapon... and threw it over the edge, freeing Aylin. Aylin's imagery as she ascended was very angelic, with glowing white light, fluffy feathered white wings etc, which undermined the moment for me significantly. Aylin promised answers later then flew off to fight Thorm. Shar paralysed Shadowheart with pain and then abandoned her entirely. I think Shadowheart is now a cleric of Selune??
Poor Shadowheart was left feeling very messed up about all this, but Tav did their best to comfort her. Even Lae'zel expressed sympathy.
Back at camp, Gale made the unfortunate choice to spend his possible last night alive declaring his love for Tav, which did not go as well as he'd hoped. Sorry, Gale.
Lae'zel was so annoyed that we never followed up on the Githyanki sideplot that she was thinking of leaving, but Tav persuaded her to stay.
Since we fulfilled his request, the devil told Astarion the story behind his scars: Astarion's master used his soul as part of a bargain with a really powerful devil to become a Super Vampire, and needs to kill Astarion to complete the ritual. So now Astarion has a quest to go kill his old master in Baldur's Gate, which I am 100% up for!
We all went back to Moonrise Towers along with the Harpers to bring down General Thorm. To make the battle feel more epic I picked off most of the bad guys with cheats then let the ally NPCs kill some for a bit before finishing the fight.
General Thorm angrily accuses Aylin of "stealing" his daughter Isobel, I get the feeling this is all a sequel to some Baldur's Gate 2 plot. He attempted to use Tav's brainworm to control them, and when he saw Shadowheart's artefact protecting them went "Gasp! The PRISM". Before I could finish killing him he summoned a MASSIVE BUILDING HIGH TENTACLE from within the castle walls, and vanished.
Astarion was not happy about jumping into the meaty hole the tentacle left behind, but we did it anyway. After cutting through some gross membrane we ended up inside a mindflayer colony that had been hiding beneath Moonrise Towers. We found a room of mindflayer pods, half of them full of mindflayers and the other half of innocent people, and had the choice to kill them all or free them all. Hooray for cheats! After the battle the rescued tiefling leader said he'd been briefly seduced by the Absolute's lies when she sang into his brain, which is how everyone got captured. Tav said it wasn't his fault.
We also found Wyll's devil patron trapped in a pod, and realised SHE was the 'asset' she'd sent Wyll to free. After a moment of thought I decided to let her go. She said that in return she WILL free Wyll...in six months. But apparently if you kill her Wyll immediately turns to dust, so. Could be worse!
And then I got lost in the creepy meaty labyrinth for a while.
I eventually encountered a room full of skittering intellect devourers (walking brains) and their brain-wiped keeper.
And there, in a locked cage...BRAIN FRIEND!!!! :D :D
Us was DELIGHTED to see Tav, saying it had been rejected for being different, and it begged for help. And who am I to say no to a friend?
Tav managed to persuade the keeper that since Tav and Us both had "the wrong song" they should leave together, and now Tav can summon Us at will.
I am honestly feeling happier about this than persuading Shadowheart to leave the church of Shar?? Like that felt inevitable but this is such a happy surprise! Also I just really dislike when stories have Good Gods and Bad Gods. I prefer when all the gods are at least kinda morally ambiguous, and the issue is bad religious institutions. I liked Shadowheart's plot when it was about her escaping a shitty religion, but having her immediately switched to the Good god she'd been raised to see as an enemy without even making a choice about it feels gross.
I do like how we see some complexity, understandable motives, and even kindness amongst the bad guys, so whatever side we choose there'll be some pangs of "those are real people we're killing". But the evil side is still always overall so blatantly evil that aligning with them feels edgy grimdark instead of a reasonable choice, and means being complicit in stuff like slavery. And the good institutions are all too good. The druids vs teiflings thing was ok as I played it, but afaict it turns out the reason the bad druid leader was being so shitty was that she had joined the Evil Druids instead of just being an asshole. And the harpers seem to just be straightforwardly good.
It's all making me think sadly back to Dragon Age, with Qunari vs Mages vs Templars vs Elves vs Grey Wardens etc, who all see themselves as morally justified, are all sometimes at odds, and are all capable of horrors. The main bad guys tend be Pure Evil in a boring way, but the game just assumes you're opposed to that. I mean Bioware still has Corruption by Dark Forces and some of the choices you get are pretty obviously Good vs Bad, but there's also a lot of messy decisions between flawed people whose motives are a mix of good and bad. Bioware definitely leans a bit too far the other way sometimes, contriving situations with a message of Maybe This Genocide/Slavery is Good, Makes You Think. But "some people are just born evil and if we were in a position to kill them all that would be the moral choice" personally bothers me more, even if the option to kill all the devils never comes up.
And some religions being Fake and Bad while others are Real and Good...nng.
I don't know how much of this is the writers and how much the basic setting and restrictions from Wizards of the Coast. But it's definitely undermining my enjoyment! I wouldn't be surprised if the old Bioware Baldur's Gate have similar issues to this one, since they're also stuck the D&D's black and white moral dichotomy, and I was put off by the light side vs dark side setup in the Bioware Star Wars games. I mean a lot of people are obviously fine with the moral universe of all of these games. But personally it is not my bag.
Even asides from the worldbuilding, all the companions are a bit too straightforward for me. People have apparently compared Gale to Anders from Dragon Age 2 but blowing up an evil god because the good god you worship told you to is not remotely the same as blowing up the church of the god you believe in, not because it will change anything immediately in and of itself, but as a political protest against your oppression. I mean Bioware flinched back from seeing that as anything but evil in the next game, but Inquisition was their least morally interesting game.
EDIT: I happened across some people complaining about all the times Bioware screwed up the writing around the morally complex situations they set up and...fair. I guess Dragon Age attempts to be a story to my tastes with mixed success, while Baldur's Gate 3 is thus far a much more successful attempt at a type of story I find less inherently appealing.
I do think Baldur's Gate 3 has done some interesting things within it's very Christian moral landscape, where Good is generally obvious but difficult, and it's always tempting to do bad things or even align with the forces of evil to achieve larger good goals. And I do really like that "good" can sometimes be lesbians or gross mushroom people etc. But I was still hoping for something different. Oh well. Maybe things will improve for me in Act 3, idk. I have SOME hope for Gale's plot.
And at least I have brain friend.
After a bunch of wandering around I found the final battle ground and did the final battle of Act 2 and learned some major secrets! It was...ok.
Turns out the people running the cult of the Absolute are the Chosen of the three Evil Gods of Death, Tyranny, and Murder. They are using three Ancient Gems to control a giant crown on a Giant Mindflayer Brain, which had been lying dormant under the castle, and has been forced to become the Absolute. Balthazar did a bunch of experiments with brainworms until he could get them to work as mind control and not turn people into mindflayers.
I am at this point feeling very defensive on behalf of cthonic gods. And I can't believe there's a god of tyranny, wtf kind of religious worldbuilding is that? *sigh* But I do like that the villain is a weird ancient being with it's own different goals being controlled by pettily ambitious humans.
The voice of the Absolute calls out the instructions from it's captors interspersed with sorrow about The Grand Plan (to turn everyone into mindflayers) being undermined. I feel a little sorry for it. The "5 metre wide floating brain with a crown" look is kinda goofy.
General Thorm became the Chosen of the god of Death in return for bringing his dead daughter Isobel back to life. The other two Chosen are Karlach's old boss, Lord Gortash, and a Sexy Evil Lady with a name like...Ortil? We watched as they brainwormed Wyll's dad, ruler of Baldur's Gate, and then left, telling Thorm to get the prism from Tav.
Afaict the plan is to set Thorm and his army of Absolute followers up as the bad guy attacking Baldur's Gate, and then have Lord Gortash "save" Baldur's Gate with his army of robots and, idk, get put in charge by Wyll's dad or something.
Tav killed General Thorm, and then killed a giant evil skeleton sent by the god of Death as retribution. My mysterious dwarf lady friend showed up to say... something? It was nearly 1am so the details are fuzzy.
Afterwards was one of those "everyone takes a breath after the big battle" scenes, so I talked to a couple of people then went to bed. Withers said some interesting things about fate and maintaining balance, and said something ominous about there being a bunch of soulless vessels or something? I'm guessing this is related to the robots.
Isobel and Alyna had a very cute romantic reunion, since they'd both thought the other was dead. First onscreen NPC/NPC kiss of the game being two women was nice.
Oh god, Aylin was killed by EVERY would-be Justiciar, only to come back to life /o\ She's a little Weird as a result, or maybe she was always like that. There doesn't seem to be any homophobia in this setting, General Thorm dissaproved of Aylin because she's immortal.
I was worried Gale would be upset he didn't get brought along to possibly explode the Absolute, but he just plans on doing it later.
I got a little lost trying to find the road to Baldur's Gate and encountered an optional boss I'd missed, who I think I could have just befriended, oops. I did the battle without cheats just for some variety, and because at this point I'm feeling more confident of actually being able to finish the game without bugs.
And then I went into Act 3!
no subject
Date: 2023-08-22 04:20 pm (UTC)Us was DELIGHTED to see Tav, saying it had been rejected for being different, and it begged for help. And who am I to say no to a friend?
Tav managed to persuade the keeper that since Tav and Us both had "the wrong song" they should leave together, and now Tav can summon Us at will.
Aww! I feel kind of bad for...killing Us. ;c
And I can't believe there's a god of tyranny, wtf kind of religious worldbuilding is that?
I think the gods are actually real here, and also, there's a complicated way in which the portfolios are real (I keep reading about them taking those portfolios from each other). If there were a god of tyranny, I guess they can advocate for themselves with ridiculous powers! Though there's something I don't understand about how belief relates to power...and yeah, seriously, get a PR professional.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-24 05:36 am (UTC)GASP. HOW COULD YOU?!
(Yeah, fair)
Yeah I get the impression there's more complexity to the gods than I thought there was. I'm curious to see how it all plays out.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-24 06:29 am (UTC)(Also fyi if you pick that scene, there's a delightfully gross scene of the MC killing the brain with their bare hands!).
Oooh, I'm curious about the complexity of the gods! I'll wait for your next update. ;D