Baldur's Gate 3: Act 3: Part 3
Aug. 30th, 2023 05:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrIn which I ponder the relative narrative merits of bear sex and child murder.
Masterpost
CW: Mentions of abuse and child harm.
Shadowheart: I hope you don't have any regrets about last night. I don't <3
Tav: Nope. And when learning to swim it is important to have enough practice ;)
Shadowheart: I'm sure I'll be a very motivated student ;) Though I do have sand in my hair, I wonder what the others will think.
Tav: That we snuck out last night to make sandcastles.
Shadowheart: Then I hope we have many more opportunities to make... sandcastles :)
Aww.
And course there is a dialogue prompt from Gale, is he heartbroken or going to accuse me to consorting with devils again...
Neither! He just talked about the crown like we hadn't discussed it before and said we should go get it. Finally on the same page! Also he pointed out that Raphael could be lying about it being the Ancient Crown Of Lost Netheril, which is actually a good point.
I looked into how polyamory works in this game, since I kinda like the idea of my next character dating Astarion and Lae'zel, looks like the game hasn't been out long enough for anyone to have a solid grasp of how it works, but noone seems to have managed dating two companions at once long term, while quite a few companions (including Shadowheart) are fine with the PC having a fling with more minor characters like Halsin. Meanwhile Halsin is explicitly poly but wants to make sure any partner is ok with things.
I'm not sure Tav would actually want to be involved with Halsin (EDIT: lol), but knowing I wasn't going to end up with some uncomfortable jealousy scene afterwards, I went through some ambiguously flirty/friendly dialogue choices I'd avoided since now, and it was pretty cute. He's been friends with the nature spirit since he was a child 350 years ago, and likes whittling ducks. You can ask him why he's so beefy for an elf and he says he has no idea, it's possible he has some orc ancestry but also people get too hung up on preconceptions.
Jaheira and Halsin both make reference to events 100 years ago but didn't meet at the time. Looking it up, Jaheira and her husband (??) were in both earlier Baldur's Gate games. Apparently the protagonist of both games is a child of the evil god Baal! The plot as summarised on Wikipedia doesn't otherwise bear much resemblance to any history I've heard about in Baldur's Gate 3.
"Baldur's Gate includes around 25 player companions that can join with the PC. A number of the characters who appear include several who are canon to the official Forgotten Realms campaign setting, including Drizzt Do'Urden and Elminster." !! (Elminster is Gale's gandalfy friend with the porn library)
Ok back to the game!
Don't think I mentioned it, but: The reason Will made a contract to be a sorceror to his patron Mizora was that she'd set things up so that if he didn't a whole crowd of Baldur's Gate citizens would be killed. But the contract made it impossible for him to tell anyone, so his dad thought he'd just chosen to sell his soul to a devil for personal power, and rejected him. Wyll doesn't regret his decision, but does feel sad about how things turned out.
I decided to bring Wyll to Gortash's coronation, even though I don't trust Mizora's motives for saying I should, because his dad would be there as current leader of Baldur's Gate. And this turned out to be helpful because the MOMENT Karlach saw Gortash (who sold her to hell) she wanted to murder him then and there, and it took both Tav encouraging caution and Wyll saying "MY DAD IS RIGHT NEXT TO HIM AND WOULD DIE TOO" to calm her down.
The ceremony is not some violent soul sacrifice ritual, it's really just a coronation ceremony! The reason Gortash invited Tav is to gloat, and offer a deal: Kill Orin and take her stone, then join with Gortash to rule Baldur's Gate together as gods. He makes the point that (a) Orin is very dangerous and trying to kill Tav and (b) The Absolute/Elder Brain is starting to escape the control of the crown now that they are missing one of the control stones, and if that happens all of them will at best be turned into mindflayer slaves. He also claims someone in camp is secretly a shapeshifter, I'm guessing the plucky sad orphan, I have sometimes gotten the vibe she is trying a bit too hard to play Plucky Sad Orphan. Plus she has like...zero characterisation or plot relevance. My only doubt is that there were dialogue choices to tell her to leave.
Naturally, Tav tells Gortash to get lost. But Gortash just smiles and says he'll be waiting.
Wyll goes to talk to his mind-controlled dad, who is all "It's so good to see you son. Now we are both True Souls :)" which makes Wyll very sad :( Tav can sense the real man somewhere under the mindcontrol, yearning for freedom.
And then Mizora shows up to camp and explains her motives: Now that Wyll's dad has passed on power, he's a liability, and Gortash plans to kill him. She offers Wyll two choices: break his contract right now, or sell his soul to Mizora forever and save his dad.
My gut said that Tav would say Wyll should break the contract, because they have been raised to see devil's contracts as always doing more harm than good. I don't really see Tav as devoutly religious per se, but a lot of the druid specific dialogue goes hard on the natural order of things and opposing evil. And how many more people would Wyll end up killing on Mizora's behalf, especially once he dies and (I think?) becomes a devil himself.
The game appears to see this as the evil, selfish choice. Wyll approves but Shadowheart doesn't, and there's a bunch of choices to frame it as a chance to set Wyll up as the new ruler of Baldur's Gate. Which he would be middling at, I think, he's well meaning but not very political.
Oh well! Hopefully the consequences won't be horrifically dire.
Speaking of Shadowheart there is the CUTEST dialogue where she talks about how after all this is over she wants a house in the country full of animals and flowers and colour and Tav <3
Next up is BALDUR'S GATE at last! It's a big city, and I got so overwhelmed by the huge expanse of unexplored map full of quest markers that I stopped playing Tav to play a whole new character for a while (the creatively named Tavh). But I'll post about that later.
I decided to have another nap, and got to talking to Halsin and... Um. Look. I am enjoying the specific way Tav and Halsin bond about being druids who care about saving people and nature and tieflings, which I won't get with other characters. And he was very charming. And forthright about his feelings. And he encouraged Tav to talk to Shadowheart and she was all "Halsin is super hot, it would be wrong to stop you, just share the details later ;)"
...and I got so embarrassed I quit the game and only played Tavh for the rest of the day >.>
Speaking of which, in that playthrough I happened upon an early Act 1 dialogue where Shadowheart says the whole concept of a committed relationships is a waste of time and she only does no-strings sex. Aww.
Halsin implied that while it's Tav he's has strong feelings for, he would be happy enough about a threesome with Shadowheart if she was up for it, and she seems pretty into him, but idk. Maybe if Shadowheart and Halsin get to know each other well, he could be a frequent visitor to their little Nature House in the country.
I wonder what the relative lifespans are for half elves and tielfings vs elves. *checks* Aw, tieflings live a little longer than humans, while half-elves live to like 180, and elves to like 750. So yeah, Halsin and Shadowheart can keep each other company for a while after Tav dies of old age :(
While I'm here lets look up the other expected lifespans:
Dwarf: 350
Halfling: 200
Dragonborn: 80, mature quickly
Gnome: 300-500
Half-orc: Mature by 14 and die before 75 :(
Githyanki: 72‒120, but immortal on the Astral plane where they usually live.
Everyone except dragonborn and half-orcs mature at the same rate as humans, I guess to avoid awkward 50 year old baby situations.
I got up the nerve to play the Halsin sex scene and it was sweet and hot and very naturey. At one point the camera zooms in on a watching squirrel. When Halsin got overwhelmed partway through and turned into a bear I spent a moment deciding if Tav would be into it and eventually decided Tav would be but I am not, so had them say they were into the idea but for another night. And then Halsin gave them a blowjob, which I don't think I've ever seen in a video game before! It did make me wonder if bear!Halsin does the same but apparently not lol.
I know, I know, I fail as a monsterfucker, but bear!Halsin just looked so cuddly-animal-cute it hit my bestiality squick. The Emperor is more my type physical-monster-wise but too much of a moral monster for Tav.
The next morning neither Shadowheart nor Halsin had any special dialogue. I'm tempted to bring Halsin out into town with us for a while to see if he says anything but... two druids in one party... Then again, that's what cheats are for! And Shadowheart/Halsin/Karlach is a nice good natured group to wander the city with, even if poor Karlach might feel like a third (well, fourth) wheel.
Halsin had some dialogue about it later, he kept going on about how AMAZING it was, and my brain immediately went "Tav is well meaning but middling at sex, Halsin is just really biased" so I guess that's my headcanon now.
While trying to get Shadowheart and Haslin dialogue I decided to do a sidequest which doesn't involve any other companions (versus "Take Gale to a bookshop", "Help Astarion kill his old master" etc), looking at the Emperor's old digs.
They're a nice piece of environmental storytelling, the Emperor points out things like a painting of his old girlfriend and a gift from his mother, meanwhile says nothing about all the evidence of assassinating rivals, planning to take over the city, etc. It's a great portrait of a shady-ass business-man. Also there's increasing signs he did Something to his girlfriend to cause her to go into a long and painful mental decline D:
And then we wandered into a very large group of very angry githyanki who did not listen to Tav's attempts to explain the "your queen is evil" thing. And then further in there was Orin herself, who has kidnapped Lae'zel and says she'll kill her unless we kill Gortash. Ugh, and afaict whichever side we pick the other's minions will be constantly trying to kill us. I haven't finished exploring yet, that sounds annoying!
Also there's a newspaper editor planning on a big expose to get us arrested "tomorrow", does that mean I can't long rest too much? UGH.
So I guess I'll go back to a previous save and kill all the githyanki again later.
And in all that I only encountered ONE bit of Halsin dialogue, which I accidentally interrupted just as Halsin was asking Shadowheart about her swimming lessons. Oh well. He has a few one-on-one lines about how much he dislikes cities in general and this one in particular, sorry Halsin.
Exploring the city I came across the base of 'the Guild', the local equivalent of the Mafia, who are clearly deeply immoral but do at least seem to genuinely want to get the Absolute out of the city. Their leader seems to have some history with the Harper leader, Jaheira, she says they're "like sisters" but I kinda ship it. Apparently a new crime lord, the Stone Lord, has been taking over the Guild's territory and seems to be working with the Absolute.
Further wandering led me to the severed arm of the murdered clown, and a random attack by...fish men?? I didn't know they were even a thing in this game.
Also we bumped into an old friend of Karlach's who was endearingly happy to see her.
Friend: And who's this? Are you two together? ;)
Karlach: Ew. No. Just mates. Good mates! The best!
The way Karlach is written, maybe she isn't into Tav. Not every potential love interest needs to be into the PC in every playthrough. Though this being her way of covering for having a secret crush and being too monogamous to join the animal-lover polycule would be pretty cute too.
I wandered around some more and stumbled into an ambush by Absolutists. One of them struggled with the mindcontrol and then spoke with the voice of the Absolute itself, who said it wanted to ally with Tav against Gorlach and Orin to fulfil the Grand Design to turn everyone into mindflayers. Before Tav had a chance to say "No??" the brain of the Absolutist turned to liquid and she died D:
I have made a solid attempt to rescue every planned murder victim of Baal's cult, a bunch were already dead but I think I saved a few.
I decided I'd been stalling long enough and should just make a run for the ending, then play again once I know what I'm doing and am sure there's no more major bug fixes and updates coming for a while. Time to go through my open quests!
And so! I finally took Gale to the bookshop. He was very happy about it but nothing very interesting happened asides from encountering a wizard who wants to imprison Alylin again so he can become immortal. Tav said no! I did notice that Gale has a unique "turn self into magic bomb, killing self and everyone else nearby" ability D:
I then took Astarion to confront his old master and HOO BOY.
HOOOOO BOY
It is a CREEPY ASS VAMPIRE MANSION, it even has swarms of bats that just randomly fly around?? Naturally I got Astarion to steal anything valuable looking that wasn't nailed down, including a painting bigger than him which somehow flew off the wall into his pockets.
The servants are all very clearly mind controlled and horribly abused, softly muttering to themselves about how Everything Must Be Clean For Master. Downstairs we found the dreary dorms where Astarion and his fellow thralls were stored between jobs, and The Kennel where they were sent to be punished :( We killed the guy who punished him, which was satisfying, and stole the key to interrupt the ceremony.
EXCEPT FIRST, WE PASSED THROUGH THE DUNGEONS.
WHERE ASTARION'S MASTER CARAZON HAD BEEN STORING EVERY VICTIM ASTARION EVER BROUGHT HIM, AS MORE THRALLS FOR THE CEREMONY.
A sad beautiful boy Astarion seduced 130 years ago shouted about how Astarion had betrayed him. A sad little girl Astarion had stolen from her family said she wasn't sure if she missed her family, or if that was just her hunger for blood. Astarion said it was too late to free them, they would just cause more death, and the only way forward was to let him finish the ritual and take the power for himself. And he gained a trauma debuff.
When Carazon saw Astarion, he laughed, and said his useless son had returned, an incompetent boy finally finding his purpose, as an object to be used.
And then I killed him SUPER DUPER DEAD.
Except he wasn't actually dead. Astarion dragged him out of his coffin and laughed that HE had the power now.
Astarion: I never have to be afraid of you again! And once I do this ceremony, I never have to be afraid of ANYONE again!!
Carazon: Ha! As if I would let any of you steal my power! If you finish the ceremony, you will die along with all the others!
Astarion: Not if Tav helps me!
Tav: Uh. How about we don't.... kill all those people?
Astarion: I can't do this without you. Please :(
Tav: *rolls persuade*
Tav: *fails by like... 2*
Me: Ah, fuck.
And then there was an INTENSE scene. As I described it to a friend:
Astarion just WILDLY stabbed his master to death, then started ugly crying, then said (paraphrasing) FUCK ALL OF YOU I HOPE YOU DIE, broke the staff that would have freed the other vampire thralls, then stormed off covered in blood never to be seen again.
And then I saved the game (as "OOPS") and just...sat for a while.
Cam happened to wander into the kitchen to grab a snack just as the scene started and just stood there watching.
Cam: Is that one of the drow twins you can have a foursome with?
Me: It's Astarion. He was a companion /o\
Cam: Why is everyone topless and covered in blood?
Me: It was an evil vampire ritual. Astarion wanted to murder 7000 people to give himself ultimate power and my character said no.
Cam: Ohh. This is like when you made Merrill hate you by refusing to give her that artifact.
me: Except I don't think Astarion is going to come back for hatesex :(
cam: After THAT speech? No.
Me: And if I stick with this, I have to kill a bunch of vampire children :(
Cam: I bet your character has already killed heaps of children, what's a few more?
me: That's... ok, yes, a FEW but they felt REALLY BAD ABOUT IT
If I had massively failed the persuade check I would just accept it, but I came so close!
I am planning on replaying this section. I will probably dislike other things about the ending I get. This sort of game is much more interesting when I let my characters massively screw up sometimes, and it was a powerful scene which felt like a natural place for these two characters to end up.
But the children :(
And how will I open chests ;_;
UUURGH.
I THINK I GOTTA.
SORRY, CHILDREN.
But first, I will post this, to put off the inevitable for a little while longer.
EDIT: guess who flinched >.>
Masterpost
CW: Mentions of abuse and child harm.
Shadowheart: I hope you don't have any regrets about last night. I don't <3
Tav: Nope. And when learning to swim it is important to have enough practice ;)
Shadowheart: I'm sure I'll be a very motivated student ;) Though I do have sand in my hair, I wonder what the others will think.
Tav: That we snuck out last night to make sandcastles.
Shadowheart: Then I hope we have many more opportunities to make... sandcastles :)
Aww.
And course there is a dialogue prompt from Gale, is he heartbroken or going to accuse me to consorting with devils again...
Neither! He just talked about the crown like we hadn't discussed it before and said we should go get it. Finally on the same page! Also he pointed out that Raphael could be lying about it being the Ancient Crown Of Lost Netheril, which is actually a good point.
I looked into how polyamory works in this game, since I kinda like the idea of my next character dating Astarion and Lae'zel, looks like the game hasn't been out long enough for anyone to have a solid grasp of how it works, but noone seems to have managed dating two companions at once long term, while quite a few companions (including Shadowheart) are fine with the PC having a fling with more minor characters like Halsin. Meanwhile Halsin is explicitly poly but wants to make sure any partner is ok with things.
I'm not sure Tav would actually want to be involved with Halsin (EDIT: lol), but knowing I wasn't going to end up with some uncomfortable jealousy scene afterwards, I went through some ambiguously flirty/friendly dialogue choices I'd avoided since now, and it was pretty cute. He's been friends with the nature spirit since he was a child 350 years ago, and likes whittling ducks. You can ask him why he's so beefy for an elf and he says he has no idea, it's possible he has some orc ancestry but also people get too hung up on preconceptions.
Jaheira and Halsin both make reference to events 100 years ago but didn't meet at the time. Looking it up, Jaheira and her husband (??) were in both earlier Baldur's Gate games. Apparently the protagonist of both games is a child of the evil god Baal! The plot as summarised on Wikipedia doesn't otherwise bear much resemblance to any history I've heard about in Baldur's Gate 3.
"Baldur's Gate includes around 25 player companions that can join with the PC. A number of the characters who appear include several who are canon to the official Forgotten Realms campaign setting, including Drizzt Do'Urden and Elminster." !! (Elminster is Gale's gandalfy friend with the porn library)
Ok back to the game!
Don't think I mentioned it, but: The reason Will made a contract to be a sorceror to his patron Mizora was that she'd set things up so that if he didn't a whole crowd of Baldur's Gate citizens would be killed. But the contract made it impossible for him to tell anyone, so his dad thought he'd just chosen to sell his soul to a devil for personal power, and rejected him. Wyll doesn't regret his decision, but does feel sad about how things turned out.
I decided to bring Wyll to Gortash's coronation, even though I don't trust Mizora's motives for saying I should, because his dad would be there as current leader of Baldur's Gate. And this turned out to be helpful because the MOMENT Karlach saw Gortash (who sold her to hell) she wanted to murder him then and there, and it took both Tav encouraging caution and Wyll saying "MY DAD IS RIGHT NEXT TO HIM AND WOULD DIE TOO" to calm her down.
The ceremony is not some violent soul sacrifice ritual, it's really just a coronation ceremony! The reason Gortash invited Tav is to gloat, and offer a deal: Kill Orin and take her stone, then join with Gortash to rule Baldur's Gate together as gods. He makes the point that (a) Orin is very dangerous and trying to kill Tav and (b) The Absolute/Elder Brain is starting to escape the control of the crown now that they are missing one of the control stones, and if that happens all of them will at best be turned into mindflayer slaves. He also claims someone in camp is secretly a shapeshifter, I'm guessing the plucky sad orphan, I have sometimes gotten the vibe she is trying a bit too hard to play Plucky Sad Orphan. Plus she has like...zero characterisation or plot relevance. My only doubt is that there were dialogue choices to tell her to leave.
Naturally, Tav tells Gortash to get lost. But Gortash just smiles and says he'll be waiting.
Wyll goes to talk to his mind-controlled dad, who is all "It's so good to see you son. Now we are both True Souls :)" which makes Wyll very sad :( Tav can sense the real man somewhere under the mindcontrol, yearning for freedom.
And then Mizora shows up to camp and explains her motives: Now that Wyll's dad has passed on power, he's a liability, and Gortash plans to kill him. She offers Wyll two choices: break his contract right now, or sell his soul to Mizora forever and save his dad.
My gut said that Tav would say Wyll should break the contract, because they have been raised to see devil's contracts as always doing more harm than good. I don't really see Tav as devoutly religious per se, but a lot of the druid specific dialogue goes hard on the natural order of things and opposing evil. And how many more people would Wyll end up killing on Mizora's behalf, especially once he dies and (I think?) becomes a devil himself.
The game appears to see this as the evil, selfish choice. Wyll approves but Shadowheart doesn't, and there's a bunch of choices to frame it as a chance to set Wyll up as the new ruler of Baldur's Gate. Which he would be middling at, I think, he's well meaning but not very political.
Oh well! Hopefully the consequences won't be horrifically dire.
Speaking of Shadowheart there is the CUTEST dialogue where she talks about how after all this is over she wants a house in the country full of animals and flowers and colour and Tav <3
Next up is BALDUR'S GATE at last! It's a big city, and I got so overwhelmed by the huge expanse of unexplored map full of quest markers that I stopped playing Tav to play a whole new character for a while (the creatively named Tavh). But I'll post about that later.
I decided to have another nap, and got to talking to Halsin and... Um. Look. I am enjoying the specific way Tav and Halsin bond about being druids who care about saving people and nature and tieflings, which I won't get with other characters. And he was very charming. And forthright about his feelings. And he encouraged Tav to talk to Shadowheart and she was all "Halsin is super hot, it would be wrong to stop you, just share the details later ;)"
...and I got so embarrassed I quit the game and only played Tavh for the rest of the day >.>
Speaking of which, in that playthrough I happened upon an early Act 1 dialogue where Shadowheart says the whole concept of a committed relationships is a waste of time and she only does no-strings sex. Aww.
Halsin implied that while it's Tav he's has strong feelings for, he would be happy enough about a threesome with Shadowheart if she was up for it, and she seems pretty into him, but idk. Maybe if Shadowheart and Halsin get to know each other well, he could be a frequent visitor to their little Nature House in the country.
I wonder what the relative lifespans are for half elves and tielfings vs elves. *checks* Aw, tieflings live a little longer than humans, while half-elves live to like 180, and elves to like 750. So yeah, Halsin and Shadowheart can keep each other company for a while after Tav dies of old age :(
While I'm here lets look up the other expected lifespans:
Dwarf: 350
Halfling: 200
Dragonborn: 80, mature quickly
Gnome: 300-500
Half-orc: Mature by 14 and die before 75 :(
Githyanki: 72‒120, but immortal on the Astral plane where they usually live.
Everyone except dragonborn and half-orcs mature at the same rate as humans, I guess to avoid awkward 50 year old baby situations.
I got up the nerve to play the Halsin sex scene and it was sweet and hot and very naturey. At one point the camera zooms in on a watching squirrel. When Halsin got overwhelmed partway through and turned into a bear I spent a moment deciding if Tav would be into it and eventually decided Tav would be but I am not, so had them say they were into the idea but for another night. And then Halsin gave them a blowjob, which I don't think I've ever seen in a video game before! It did make me wonder if bear!Halsin does the same but apparently not lol.
I know, I know, I fail as a monsterfucker, but bear!Halsin just looked so cuddly-animal-cute it hit my bestiality squick. The Emperor is more my type physical-monster-wise but too much of a moral monster for Tav.
The next morning neither Shadowheart nor Halsin had any special dialogue. I'm tempted to bring Halsin out into town with us for a while to see if he says anything but... two druids in one party... Then again, that's what cheats are for! And Shadowheart/Halsin/Karlach is a nice good natured group to wander the city with, even if poor Karlach might feel like a third (well, fourth) wheel.
Halsin had some dialogue about it later, he kept going on about how AMAZING it was, and my brain immediately went "Tav is well meaning but middling at sex, Halsin is just really biased" so I guess that's my headcanon now.
While trying to get Shadowheart and Haslin dialogue I decided to do a sidequest which doesn't involve any other companions (versus "Take Gale to a bookshop", "Help Astarion kill his old master" etc), looking at the Emperor's old digs.
They're a nice piece of environmental storytelling, the Emperor points out things like a painting of his old girlfriend and a gift from his mother, meanwhile says nothing about all the evidence of assassinating rivals, planning to take over the city, etc. It's a great portrait of a shady-ass business-man. Also there's increasing signs he did Something to his girlfriend to cause her to go into a long and painful mental decline D:
And then we wandered into a very large group of very angry githyanki who did not listen to Tav's attempts to explain the "your queen is evil" thing. And then further in there was Orin herself, who has kidnapped Lae'zel and says she'll kill her unless we kill Gortash. Ugh, and afaict whichever side we pick the other's minions will be constantly trying to kill us. I haven't finished exploring yet, that sounds annoying!
Also there's a newspaper editor planning on a big expose to get us arrested "tomorrow", does that mean I can't long rest too much? UGH.
So I guess I'll go back to a previous save and kill all the githyanki again later.
And in all that I only encountered ONE bit of Halsin dialogue, which I accidentally interrupted just as Halsin was asking Shadowheart about her swimming lessons. Oh well. He has a few one-on-one lines about how much he dislikes cities in general and this one in particular, sorry Halsin.
Exploring the city I came across the base of 'the Guild', the local equivalent of the Mafia, who are clearly deeply immoral but do at least seem to genuinely want to get the Absolute out of the city. Their leader seems to have some history with the Harper leader, Jaheira, she says they're "like sisters" but I kinda ship it. Apparently a new crime lord, the Stone Lord, has been taking over the Guild's territory and seems to be working with the Absolute.
Further wandering led me to the severed arm of the murdered clown, and a random attack by...fish men?? I didn't know they were even a thing in this game.
Also we bumped into an old friend of Karlach's who was endearingly happy to see her.
Friend: And who's this? Are you two together? ;)
Karlach: Ew. No. Just mates. Good mates! The best!
The way Karlach is written, maybe she isn't into Tav. Not every potential love interest needs to be into the PC in every playthrough. Though this being her way of covering for having a secret crush and being too monogamous to join the animal-lover polycule would be pretty cute too.
I wandered around some more and stumbled into an ambush by Absolutists. One of them struggled with the mindcontrol and then spoke with the voice of the Absolute itself, who said it wanted to ally with Tav against Gorlach and Orin to fulfil the Grand Design to turn everyone into mindflayers. Before Tav had a chance to say "No??" the brain of the Absolutist turned to liquid and she died D:
I have made a solid attempt to rescue every planned murder victim of Baal's cult, a bunch were already dead but I think I saved a few.
I decided I'd been stalling long enough and should just make a run for the ending, then play again once I know what I'm doing and am sure there's no more major bug fixes and updates coming for a while. Time to go through my open quests!
And so! I finally took Gale to the bookshop. He was very happy about it but nothing very interesting happened asides from encountering a wizard who wants to imprison Alylin again so he can become immortal. Tav said no! I did notice that Gale has a unique "turn self into magic bomb, killing self and everyone else nearby" ability D:
I then took Astarion to confront his old master and HOO BOY.
HOOOOO BOY
It is a CREEPY ASS VAMPIRE MANSION, it even has swarms of bats that just randomly fly around?? Naturally I got Astarion to steal anything valuable looking that wasn't nailed down, including a painting bigger than him which somehow flew off the wall into his pockets.
The servants are all very clearly mind controlled and horribly abused, softly muttering to themselves about how Everything Must Be Clean For Master. Downstairs we found the dreary dorms where Astarion and his fellow thralls were stored between jobs, and The Kennel where they were sent to be punished :( We killed the guy who punished him, which was satisfying, and stole the key to interrupt the ceremony.
EXCEPT FIRST, WE PASSED THROUGH THE DUNGEONS.
WHERE ASTARION'S MASTER CARAZON HAD BEEN STORING EVERY VICTIM ASTARION EVER BROUGHT HIM, AS MORE THRALLS FOR THE CEREMONY.
A sad beautiful boy Astarion seduced 130 years ago shouted about how Astarion had betrayed him. A sad little girl Astarion had stolen from her family said she wasn't sure if she missed her family, or if that was just her hunger for blood. Astarion said it was too late to free them, they would just cause more death, and the only way forward was to let him finish the ritual and take the power for himself. And he gained a trauma debuff.
When Carazon saw Astarion, he laughed, and said his useless son had returned, an incompetent boy finally finding his purpose, as an object to be used.
And then I killed him SUPER DUPER DEAD.
Except he wasn't actually dead. Astarion dragged him out of his coffin and laughed that HE had the power now.
Astarion: I never have to be afraid of you again! And once I do this ceremony, I never have to be afraid of ANYONE again!!
Carazon: Ha! As if I would let any of you steal my power! If you finish the ceremony, you will die along with all the others!
Astarion: Not if Tav helps me!
Tav: Uh. How about we don't.... kill all those people?
Astarion: I can't do this without you. Please :(
Tav: *rolls persuade*
Tav: *fails by like... 2*
Me: Ah, fuck.
And then there was an INTENSE scene. As I described it to a friend:
Astarion just WILDLY stabbed his master to death, then started ugly crying, then said (paraphrasing) FUCK ALL OF YOU I HOPE YOU DIE, broke the staff that would have freed the other vampire thralls, then stormed off covered in blood never to be seen again.
And then I saved the game (as "OOPS") and just...sat for a while.
Cam happened to wander into the kitchen to grab a snack just as the scene started and just stood there watching.
Cam: Is that one of the drow twins you can have a foursome with?
Me: It's Astarion. He was a companion /o\
Cam: Why is everyone topless and covered in blood?
Me: It was an evil vampire ritual. Astarion wanted to murder 7000 people to give himself ultimate power and my character said no.
Cam: Ohh. This is like when you made Merrill hate you by refusing to give her that artifact.
me: Except I don't think Astarion is going to come back for hatesex :(
cam: After THAT speech? No.
Me: And if I stick with this, I have to kill a bunch of vampire children :(
Cam: I bet your character has already killed heaps of children, what's a few more?
me: That's... ok, yes, a FEW but they felt REALLY BAD ABOUT IT
If I had massively failed the persuade check I would just accept it, but I came so close!
I am planning on replaying this section. I will probably dislike other things about the ending I get. This sort of game is much more interesting when I let my characters massively screw up sometimes, and it was a powerful scene which felt like a natural place for these two characters to end up.
But the children :(
And how will I open chests ;_;
UUURGH.
I THINK I GOTTA.
SORRY, CHILDREN.
But first, I will post this, to put off the inevitable for a little while longer.
EDIT: guess who flinched >.>
no subject
Date: 2023-08-30 06:45 pm (UTC)How did you feel about it as a gaming experience?
the MOMENT Karlach saw Gortash (who sold her to hell) she wanted to murder him then and there, and it took both Tav encouraging caution and Wyll saying "MY DAD IS RIGHT NEXT TO HIM AND WOULD DIE TOO" to calm her down.
...I can tell that Karlach is my fave because I was like, "I see nothing wrong with this, Karlach should get everything she wants." (We can probably figure out how to save Wyll's dad, right?)
I wonder if Shadowheart disapproves of the thing with Wyll because she's not into being judgy about other people's choices.
no subject
Date: 2023-09-04 01:29 pm (UTC)I loved it! Really powerful emotionally, and it worked well with the game mechanics.
Don't worry, Karlach got to stab him a whole lot eventually :)
no subject
Date: 2023-09-04 03:22 pm (UTC)Though it would be nice, in general, if the game stopped tying it to killing kids xD; like, come on, that's just kind of lazy.
GOOD.
I missed out on the Karlach romance but that just mean that I must like and support all her vengeance.