my-bg3-sideblog

[my-bg3-sideblog]

imagine ur emotional support morally ambiguous misunderstood full of trauma touch starved yearning for love drenched in blood responsible for numerous atrocities comfort character in a cozy knitted sweater. do u feel better?

[my-bg3-sideblog]

i'm into Act 2 for the first time! i've gotten Karlach her second upgrade, which Cor had lots of feelings about. after the second upgrade, Karlach says "When I touched you, I felt like... a real person. My heart was racing, but I didn't hurt you. I don't have to be afraid of myself anymore." this hit Cor pretty hard, and made her feel more than a little jealous. overall though, Cor was happy for her friend and did end up hugging her, despite her difficulties with touch.

getting to the Last Light Inn, Cor is feeling more and more guilty with everyone she interacts with. Jaheira's calls her the last hope, everyone thinks she can be the one to save them, and Cor just does not think she deserves any of the praise or good regard she is getting. she wandered around promising everyone she could she'd find and return the people taken–Mol, Wulburn, everyone she can.

Cor is kind of expecting to die at Moonrise, she's having some strong suicidal ideation. she's decided that she will do as much good as she can to make up for what little she can of her indiscriminately bloody past, and kind of wants to go down ending the Absolute

on a similarly depressing note–i had my first real death of the campaign. Gale died when a shadow cursed shambling mound ate him, and everyone else but Astarion nearly followed suite. i was able to revivify him with Shadowheart, then take a short rest, but then we were back to it and ambushing Kar'niss. they also fought off Marcus's ambush in the morning, so that was a lot of fights in one day. Cor is driving the party hard to get to Moonrise, though i think she will slow down and be a little more liable to get distracted as they get closer–she thinks she deserves to die, but... deep down, she does not actually want to. (this is true, but also my excuse for getting side tracked by every little thing possible.)

i also decided to grow out Cor's hair! she just doesn't look the same with it long (well, shoulder length), but i think pre-nautiloid she did keep it long enough to do some pretty elaborate hair styles. they were an unnecessary indulgence, one she didn't often engage in, but honestly, Cor does like dressing up and looking cute. she wants the pretty dresses and elegant hair styles. Cor wants to have control over how she looks, to have basic bodily autonomy–something that was in very short supply in her Bhaalist days. related, there was definitely some sort of Moment between Cor and Gortash at a ball he dragged her to. i haven't quite figured out what their dynamic was, beyond intense, but i think... hm.

i think that Cor was miserably suicidal and enacting her father's plan so she could be done, and as free as she ever could be. she couldn't live with the guilt, but she couldn't die, so she learned to take what joy she could from her role and comforted herself with the idea that death is a gift she blesses all those she murders with. by the time she allies with Gortash, she's drunk entirely too much of the Bhaalist kool-aid and is doing her utmost to make herself believe it.

Gortash let her dare to dream that human connection was a possibility for her, that she didn't always have to obey her father and that life isn't entirely suffering and death–it took a hot second to get there, but honestly not that long because Cor is fundamentally desperate for connection, and Gortash was offering. she was aware he was manipulating her, and definitely prickly and contrary at every turn, but i think there was definitely some strong attachment on both sides by the time Orin stabbed her

[my-bg3-sideblog]

i do enjoy "living weapon" characters but specifically living weapons who did in fact do absolutely horrific things which at least a part of them enjoyed and thought was good and right at the time, and that no amount of not knowing any better or guilt they feel in hindsight will ever make up for. i love living weapons who are "irredeemable", and no it's not their fault that they were made that way or pointed in the directions they were by the hand that wielded them, and yes they are victims, but so were their victims. living weapons who some people will never be able to forgive, but who still wake up every day and try to do better than what's expected of them. a sword that uses its blade to cut wheat to make bread for the people who once lived in fear of its arc falling on their heads.

[my-bg3-sideblog]

i can't fail the "Repeat after me" check in that one scene with Gale 😭😭😭

Cor has aphasia. she is struggling so hard to repeat that sentence, but i can't roll anything below a 6, and it's a DC 5 :'C

okay, i finally failed it, and now Cor just feels bad. the canon scene is not meant to be applied to character with a speech disorder, i'm pretty sure. oh well. that's okay, i'm tweaking it in my head, and i love hurting Cor anyways

[my-bg3-sideblog]

i was finally able to continue playing tonight!

lots has happened since i last updated this blog. Cor found and ate the Noblestalk and remembered vivisecting a guy. she already knew she used to be a bad person, but this just made it real. she decided that she used to be awful, and maybe still is, but can try her best to atone for as she can in the time she had left–to be as good as a wretched thing like her can be. the companions asked if eating the noblestalk helped, but she just gave them a stony "No." and remained withdrawn for the rest of the evening. Cor also broke up with Lae'zel the same night (well. broke up implies dating and they just slept together once at the tiefling party. Lae'zel was still upset about it though)

Scratch has been very important to Cor–you can tell how she's doing by seeing how she interacts with him. immediately after Alfira, she avoided him. a day or two later, she decided to pet him in full view of everyone in the middle of camp, to practice fighting the Urge. it went... suprisingly well, actually. Cor finds the feeling of his fur to be very comforting, and while it doesn't particularly help with the Urge, it's still a nice feeling, to be able to pet a living animal and not bring it harm. for a while after, she'd pet Scratch every chance she got. now though, she's back to avoiding him. she feels incredibly guilty about who she once was, and doesn't think she deserves nice things: Lae'zel or Scratch. it's a good thing things with Wyll develop so slowly, or she'd end things with him as well

Cor and co. cleared out the underground fortress and found the forge, and then backtracked to the Myconid Village and the Arcane Tower. they also found the kuo toa. Cor was instinctively very judgy, told them Bhaal is the god of murder (and went in her head: "that name feels... too familiar. well! time to ignore some things!") then went "Cute. I will show you murder," when they threatened to sacrifice her. in game, she couldn't go immediately for Boooal, but he was her second target as soon as she got the chance, and she was the one to kill him. Cor also read the Ecstasy of Murder scroll and it invoked strong feelings she elected to ignore. denial as well as avoidance by exploration and adventuring are her current, incredibly healthy coping mechanisms. there is not nearly enough reactivity in this game to Durge, but even if there was Cor would be shrugging off her companions questions and telling them to just keep moving. i'm not sure how to justify all this backtracking after we found the easily accessible ladder to Moonrise in the fortress, but they're still on a deadline and she reminds them of that fact, rather than stopping to talk to them

[my-bg3-sideblog]

people are literally so boring a male character will kill 10000 people and steal candy from babies and theyll be like omg thats my king! but a female character is rude once and theyre like i hope she dies violently

[my-bg3-sideblog]

had an excellent moment where, after turning on the non-lethal attacks passive for the very first time for Cor, she went "Father are you watching?" and proceeded to specifically not kill a man

[my-bg3-sideblog]

jokes aside, i dont actually how many people realize JUST exactly how much information we hold in our minds at any given moment

"information" so often tends to be understood as discrete facts, able to be distilled into singular points that can be summarized and explained; historical events, biology trivia, word definitions, chess strategies, culinary recipes, all distinct describable things that we can hold in our minds and convey to other people

you know what else is information? how to respond to someone greeting you. whats socially appropriate. how you need to tailor your body language in social situations. what counts as personal space. how to recall something you discussed a few days ago, using your own sense mnemonics. when to code switch into a different language and how to do so. appropriate emotional displays, including pain, anger, surprise, sadness, affection. what volume you should speak at, based on context. how to touch another person, and in what situations its acceptable to do so. how to work through something confusing and how to think in such a way as to arrive at an answer. how to calm yourself down when experiencing frustration or duress.

next to nothing about living is innate or instictive. almost everything has to be learned in some capacity. when the narrator describes durge's mind as cold and empty, when she mentions how even thinking at all takes continuous effort to slog through the fog and abyss, when you think about potentially JUST how much durge lost to orin's knife and what was spared by bhaal's instincts, keep in mind just the sheer overwhelming volume of potentially losable information that can be carved out of a skull

[my-bg3-sideblog]

turns out that was not the entire gnoll fight! finished up the strong ones in front of the cave after fighting the fake paladins for Karlach... that was a struggle. but it was a success! unfortunately, Cor did not have a good in character reason to take the chest from those two, so i won't get it this run

Wyll has been turned into a devil, and Mizora has been added to Cor's Enemy list. Cor also met her butler! she spent 90% of that interaction going "what. the fuck?" and the other 10% wanting very badly to kill him. alas, there was no dialogue option for that, and she would have tried to threaten him for answers about her past first. well, maybe? (i did not actually end up taking any of the options where she asks about her past, other ones were better.) i think Cor is kind of afraid of learning who she once was. once she got back to her bedroll, she thought: "he... knew me? and... told me to kill. to give in to this... Urge. i... i must have been an awful person."

got the Alfira long rest... really, really do not want to go to bed and kill her :(

[my-bg3-sideblog]

ended up redoing the gnoll fight and it went pretty well! in the cutscene, i had the option to kill the hyena before the gnoll was born, but ended up just going with the "stifle your excitement" option because after Alfira this morning, Cor is definitely trying very hard to resist.

also met Karlach (my BELOVED), and recruited her. Cor likes Karlach's personality, her response to Cor telling her about the Urge, and Lae'zel approves of her, so Cor is a little in love now

got the Alfira long rest... really, really do not want to go to bed and kill her :(

[my-bg3-sideblog]

well... Cor feels very bad about killing Alfira. she said it wasn't her fault, and then stayed silent when Lae'zel blamed to tadpole bc there were no good dialogue options i wanted to take there. she's saying she did not want to kill Alfira to all her companions, and their reactions are making her feel even more guilty. Cor did appreciate Shadowheart telling her to tell her if she feels the urge to kill again, even if it was followed by "I'd hate to kill you."

Scratch also came to camp that same morning. i had Wyll cast Speak With Animals on himself the first time the party met Scratch, so i had Wyll greet him now as well. Cor definitely was not going to, after Alfira she is staying very far away from the vulnerable animal she might hurt. she also just barely refrained from hitting Withers after he refused to resurrect Alfira–she desperately wanted to kill him after that, but also vowed to resist the Urge, to make sure innocent deaths like Alfira don't happen again. while she does think it would be fine to kill Withers, that sort of violence is not in line with what she just promised

immediately after that, i got into a fight with the gnolls and it turned into friendly fire: the fight. i kept hitting everyone with first Wyll, then Cor, then Wyll again, so i just reloaded to start the fight over. i may or may not be bad at this game

got the Alfira long rest... really, really do not want to go to bed and kill her :(

[my-bg3-sideblog]

oh my god, the game glitched and i am standing over the body with blood on my hands while Wyll is just. casually drinking in the background

got the Alfira long rest... really, really do not want to go to bed and kill her :(

[my-bg3-sideblog]

got the Alfira long rest... really, really do not want to go to bed and kill her :(

[my-bg3-sideblog]

more progress has been made with Cor! i should've done Tav's run instead, i wasn't couldn't rly get into her headspace, but i've made a couple hours worth of progress so there's no going back!

Cor unlocked her wings for the first time in the crypt fighting the skeletons. when summoning them she tapped into primal within herself–not the Urge, but something deeper, and their weight on her back felt painful but right. she mourned their loss when they disappeared after battle, and had nothing to say to the companions' questions but a halting "I... do not know." after the battle, she was quickly distracted by Withers. she was neutral about him at first, though he was very odd (a walking, dessicated corpse? weird, but not incredibly interesting. where's the gore?). she specifically told him not to follow her or there'd be violence, and then he DID follow her and there was in fact, violence. unsuccessful of course, but she tried a lot of different attacks on him before giving up. she hit him one last time after the conversation was over

she and the party killed their way through the blighted village–she was very excited to be able to kill so many goblins. suprisingly, no one in the party actually died. (Party Limit Begone is a little broken. i may balance it with that one mod that give you 4 people only in combat). she also rescued Barcus Wroot–he seemed pretty helpless, so that means he is to be protected (plus it meant she could kill some more goblins)

i was very sad to get Wyll's line about the hopscotch instead of Cor's. "Was I sweet once?" would've fit her so well. oh well. i can always pretend it did

regarding her approval of the companions, Cor has positive approval of Lae'zel and Wyll, and positive-neutral of Shadowheart and Astarion. Gale has been moved into positive-neutral as well, after describing his condition to Cor in a way that reminds her of her own Urge

[my-bg3-sideblog]

progress is being made with Cor! made it through that Arabella conversation without killing her, but did accidentally kill a poor squirrel, as well as successfully broke into and looted the crypt! also Cor is the proud owner of a slightly fancier warhammer. (don't remember what it's called, but it's one of the uncommon ones and looks cooler than her default hammer)

Cor has ended up sorting everyone she meets into a few basic categories:

Enemies (aka, killable. her primary rivals are the mindflayers that did this (whatever this is) to her, but she's going to come to hate the Absolute soon, and will always take the chance to murder a goblin/knoll/anything that's going to hurt people)

Mine (allies, literally just the companions. Like Her. she's very internally protective of all of them–not necessarily possessive, but like. those are Her People to protect and avenge (for the tadpoles, initially half the reason why she swore her Oath of Vengeance). she's going to be in for a shock when she meets the other infected and they're part of the Absolute)

To Be Protected (she has sorted all children into this category, because in her limited experience, they apparently can not fight for themselves. those who can not fight should be protected, if they are not Enemies. it just feels... right, and she has nothing to rely on but her feelings (and the reverse of the Urge ones. i'm realizing spite is a motivator for her), and the approval of Hers. her role model atm is primarily Lae'zel but Wyll is rapidly coming to be important as well, and he was helping those kids when she first met him, which ended up making a massive impression on her)

Neutral. she must not kill them, but most of the time she doesn't particularly care about them (lie. she has more inherent compassion than she wants to admit. still probably less than average, but she's learning). this is the hardest category for her, in particular because, as Cor is coming to learn, Threat does not immediately mean Enemy, which is especially bad for the Urge.

at the moment i think she has medium/high approval of Lae'zel. Cor already liked Lae'zel, but now Lae'zel's advice re: the Urge was already what Cor had internally decided to do, and Cor most definitely appreciates another person agreeing with her. she trusts Lae'zel, and is glad she approves of bloody vengeance directed at the right people. Cor also likes Wyll, probably medium approval. she does not fully get him, but she likes his overall philosophy, plus has a bit of a crush after watching him skewer those goblins. Cor is running heavily on instinct, and he seems Good to her

she also has medium/neutral with Astarion, who does not like her back (-2 approval from him atm :'C ). she liked him a lot at his first introduction, but he's not being particularly interesting yet and was weird (read: tried to flirt with her) the other night. she was not into it.

she has neutral approval of Gale, up from -1 to like 10/15. she didn't like that he dismissed her concerns when she brought up the Urge, but he's still one of Hers. also she doesn't totally get the "absorbing magic items" thing, but she understands that it must happen for him. she wasn't really swayed in her opinion of him by the compliments in the conversation, she mostly just thought he was really, REALLY wrong about her, but now feels extra protective over him

she also has mixed feelings on Shadowheart, bc Shadowheart seems to have mixed feelings on her. i think it may have been a glitch? but she was kind of really rude at camp (on Neutral approval) and then i started a long rest and she was immediately moderately nice, and it confused Cor. she doesn't know how to feel about her yet. although, between Shadowheart's hand and Gale's orb, Cor is starting to think that a significant portion of people have some chronic, possibly magical injury. this is not helping her with her theories about the amnesia and massive headaches. also, funnily enough, Cor just keeps passing every passive history check she makes, so that is another red herring re: her backstory

[my-bg3-sideblog]

made a sideblog for all my bg3 live blogging!

currently have 2 runs: one Tav and one Durge

my Tav is 🎶✨~Octave the Bard!~✨🎶, tiefling! my very first bg3 character! they're a great bard, and constantly on the hunt for new material–aka, they're very nosy. they've just started romancing Wyll!

my resist Dark Urge is Cor, an Oath of Vengeance Paladin and fallen aasimar (credits to the Whispers of the Divine mod, it's amazing)–also a Wyll-mancer, because i just love the dynamic between resist Durge and Wyll too much

I love both my characters, and plan on writing more about them as i play more!