#bat plays bg3

[bhaalsdeepbat]

Some Ascended Astarion environmental interactions.

[nikomedes]

astarion saying “this is why your father doesn��t love you ❤️” whenever durge does something considerate/romantic. aaand send tweet

[strigital]

do you mind? i'm very busy imagining spawn Astarion with the ability to polymorph into a bat and his darling druid tav who wildshapes into a raven both swooping through the golden and purple evening sky, ebony feathers gleaming in the setting sun, red eyes reflecting the first evening's stars, two winged creatures in love doing saltos and dancing in the clouds, falling down wings tucked in only to unfurl them mere inches before hitting the surface of the sea, causing the water to splash with the gusts of air from their wings, only for those falling droplets to reflect the sunset perfectly and create a magnificent rainbow that bat!astarion and raven!tav fly over - a rainbow bridge into a new tomorrow, a future free of worries, full of love and new possibilities.

then the sun sets, the stars come out and you watch a raven and a bat flutter off into the horizon, cawing and squeeking with glee. you don't know that these animals are soulmates in disguise, but something about the way they dance and zigzag through the purple skies tells you: they're in love.

happy.

free.

[girlboypower]

jonathan sims 🤝 astarion ancunin

subsets of their fans wildly misunderstanding/misrepresenting asexuality to win internet points

[invinciblerodent]

and another very small, very minor entry on the list of Things I'm Getting Just a Tiny Little Bit Miffy About Seeing Repeated (Not Angry Just Ever So Slightly Annoyed)TM:

dnd elves do, in fact, mature at the same rate humans do. they're not "like children" or "not considered full adults" until they hit 100- not to anyone other than other, older elves.

like I get where the thought comes from, I fully understand it, I've read many of the source materials myself, I've read Mordenkainen's and see where the misunderstanding comes from, but... to a human, or a tiefling, or anyone else shorter-lived than an elf, a 50-, 60-, 90-year-old elf is just like a 50-, 60-, 90-year-old of their own race would be. they just look much younger than their age, and act in accordance with their personality, which is.... much less tied to someone's age than many may think. (I mean, have you never met a 50-year-old who seems just staggeringly immature? a 20-year-old who is wiser than their years would allow? have you never been to a retail establishment???????)

it's only the other elves who view a younger one as emotionally immature, and that's mainly because they have yet to bury their first generation of friends and loved ones: something a shorter-lived person only has to do once, while elves may very well go through several cycles of that in one lifetime. They have also not yet had their Drawing of the Veil, when they stop being able to access primal memories, memories of their soul's previous lives, but it's mainly the "all my once-powerful and vibrant friends are now frail and dying from old age, and yet here I remain, as young, strong, and beautiful as the day they met me, untouched by the inexorable crawl of time, what is mortality, what is death" thing.

if the people of Faerun in general thought of a 40-year-old elf as immature, as if they were a child, Astarion would have just patently not been an appointed civil administrator and judicial officer (which is what a magistrate is) 200 years ago. like he could have of course been lying when he said that that's what he was, but taking it as the once-truth, nobody would have let someone they see as a child fill such a position of responsibility. It was, however, a perfectly mundane thing for a learned adult man, such as he was, to do. (what he may or may not have done with the power he allegedly had, the kind of person he was, and whether letting him have power was the right move overall, is pretty much completely irrelevant at this juncture. corrupt officials exist regardless of age, just look at the judicial system of any country today.)

an older elf like Halsin, their maturity is not just on a different level, it's measured by a different metric than that of a shorter-lived character.

it's hard to accurately roleplay or grasp something like this with our human minds, none of us have ever spoken to a 300-year-old after all, but.... a 100-year-old elf is not a "young adult", unless you're an elf yourself. If you're a human, they're just... an adult.

[blackjackkent]

The refugees inside the estate, now the uncontested owners of the late Arfur Gregorio's property, are deeply relieved that he's gone.

"Thank the gods, I was sure we were about to be evicted." "I don't think the children could cope with being homeless again." "We're lucky there's still decent folk about."

Rakha has some doubts that she qualifies as "decent folk". The man - Ben - tries to thank her, but she just nods awkwardly and walks away, unsure how to answer.

The refugees don't stop her from taking a look around the house, so she takes her companions to investigate. Arfur mentioned he had some sort of valuable "components" somewhere in the place, which seems worth looking into since he's no longer in a position to use them.

Upstairs yields very little, except a few sets of fancier camp clothes and a journal of Arfur's, full of fourth-rate erotica which Wyll (apparently something of a connaisseur) thumbs through and declares "tripe".

Downstairs, though, is another story:

Arfur's basement, accessed via a hidden trapdoor in his workshop (where he apparently made toys), is intensely trapped. Rakha misses most of them on a cursory glance - but Minthara is much more quick-eyed.

The traps are not terribly hard to disarm but no one in the group is a real master at sleight of hand. So, consequently, this is not a smooth process and probably scares the shit out of the poor beleaguered refugees occupying the upper floor.

The fireworks after the explosion are a nice touch. XD

Eventually, though, they manage to disarm the majority of the threats and make it to the far side of the basement, where they find some very interesting dirt on the late toy merchant.

"Gifts for refugees only. Please distribute," reads a note on a desk next to a large - trapped, of course - chest nearby. It takes some doing, but Rakha manages to work the thing open revealing a stack of gold and a rough-scribbled note:

"Put 'it' in the teddy bears?" Rakha repeats allowed, her brows furrowing with confusion.

Wyll, though, looks suddenly very grim. "Felogyr's," he says, "is a fireworks shop. They mean blasting powder."

"In a toy donation," Rakha says, parsing through this. "For refugees."

Jaheira, behind her, makes a noise low in her throat not so different from the growl of the tiger she can become. Her expression has gone very hard all of a sudden. "For refugee children," she murmurs tightly. "I begin to think you were wiser than we knew, to kill him."

[nebulousfishgills]

I am aware that I'm sinning and that I'm gonna feel bad about it after, but fuck it

[detectiveneve]

Im here for gale LEAVE ME ALONE

[justabiteofspite]

Nothing big or significant happened to my Selunite Gith Tav Catha last night during my and @bhaalsdeepbat's playthrough at all, why do you ask?

[rackartyg]

gortash, speaking loud enough for it to echo in the chamber: we could rule faerûn as gods! as the absolute!

all the patriars of the city gathered to attend his coronation:

[bhaalsdeepbat]

I accidentally set them on their worst possible outcomes together.

Gale became the God who ignores the prayers of mortals so they can pull themselves up by their bootstraps with their own ambitions.

Astarion Ascended and found that every sacrifice he made to get there was worth it. No remorse. And certainly no joy.

And they chose a life of seclusion where they can spend eternity in each other's presence rather than experiencing life in its entirety. Two mortals who know the silence of the Gods passing that same silence forward once they achieve Godhood. It's a life marked by isolation and silence.

When they hear fraught prayers like those Astarion once echoed in the dark of his tomb, those prayers will be met with the same deafening silence. but they'll be together chasing ambition for eternity.

Thank you @justabiteofspite for the screenshots AND the fucking amazing game

[undead-potatoes]

So originally I was trying to romance Karlach on my first playthrough, but couldn't get her approval high enough before the tiefling party (I picked her up way too late rip). Which in hindsight suits me just fine, I think maybe Jay and Gale is a better romantic match anyways (and you all know how normal I've been about Gale so).

But now I'm thinking of doing a little UNO reverse card move. See I didn't have a set sexuality for Jay back then, but now I know he's firmly in camp gay dude, and I'm just imagining Karlach coming onto Jay and him having to turn her down in the most awkward little flip on the "straight best friend" trope.

Which is ALSO why Karlach going "eww no!!" when her friend asks if Karlach and Tav are together was so funny to me, just her going full "he's gay and that would be weird and I totally didn't find out when I had a little crush on him, just not embarrassed about it at all"

[tacticalgrandma]

You probably already talked about her but I can't find it, so can I ask if you have opinions/ideas around Orin? It's so rare to find other who like her!

I am always down to talk about Orin, thank you anon!!

Basically I think the durge storyline accidentally creates this theme of female abuse victims, but is too cowardly/too ttrpg-space misogynistic to actually handle it (see tag rant). Repeated cycles of abuse is an overall theme in BG3, but with all the Durge’s victims being women, and with Orin and Helena both being abused by Sarevok—there is this pattern that comes up. You can see this echoed with how Ketheric feels entitled to abusing Isobel as well.

There have been a lot of posts going around talking about how tragic Orin is in that Durge gets a chance at redemption because of her, but she never gets that same chance—that tragedy is definitely compelling. But I don’t know. I really like writing angry women. And Orin’s storyline shearing away from how gendered her victimization is, not giving her more than a breath of acknowledging her abuse, not letting you be angry on her behalf—that makes writing for her, to fill in those gaps and explore those parts of her character, really attractive to me.

Anyway. BG3 stuck some fridged ladies and crazy-incest-bitches in its story because those are high fantasy tropes and they didn’t want to actually address the sexism in them. I think with a female Durge especially, you can make a nice and angry revenge story for Orin from all that. I see some of that stuff in this fandom & it inspires me to make fanworks too. She's that sweet spot of compelling enough in source material for her to be interesting and defined, but with blank spaces in her story that are just dying for transformative fandom.

Also I’m a sucker for villains who are friends with each other, and none of my other most recent fandoms have given me a villain roster that I could really hc into that. Also she has done nothing wrong in her life, ever.

[invinciblerodent]

why have I not been using Hold Person more often??? we just bullied Sarevok to death in literally two turns!!!!!! I'm still buzzing that was so cool!!!!!!

WE'RE COMING, LAE'ZEL!!!!!!!

i mean first we're gonna take a lil nappy nap ofc, but THEN!!!

THEN WE'RE COMING, LAE'ZEL!!!!!!!

[blackjackkent]

Needless to say, Lae'zel immediately wants to talk once the group stumbles, covered in blood and shell-shocked, back out of the portal and into camp:

"Orpheus..." she whispers, her head slunk a little forward and her expression twisted with anxious thoughts. "Gith's only son. He lives... It is not the ghaik visitor that Vlaakith would destroy and Voss would set free. It is Orpheus. The Blood of the Mother, the Prince of the Comet."

She looks rattled and bewildered, and something in Rakha would like to offer her comfort, but she doesn't know how; she feels just as deeply shaken. The intense high of her initial consumption of the Astral Tadpole has started to bleed away, leaving behind exhaustion and deep uncertainty. She can feel the beast in her brain starting to wake up again, away from the Guardian's - the Emperor's - influence.

She wants desperately to sleep and yet she knows her dreams will bring no rest...

With gut-wrenching effort, she forces herself to focus on what Lae'zel is saying.

"The Blood of the Mother?" she echoes hoarsely. "Who is he, exactly?"

Lae'zel bares her teeth thoughtfully. "Listen close," she says after a moment's pause. "The Emperor spoke only in half-truths. For you to know the tale of Orpheus, you must know the tale of Gith, and of Vlaakith."

She turns, pacing a few restless steps back and forth in front of Rakha as she speaks. "Long ago, when we rose up against our ghaik slavers, Mother Gith made for the Hells to secure an alliance with the archdevil Tiamat. Tiamat gifted the githyanki our red dragons. Gith remained in the Hells, and Tiamat's envoy proclaimed Vlaakith our ruler. The first Vlaakith of many - it is Vlaakith One-Five-Seven whom my people now call queen."

Rakha listens impassively to this explanation - but attentively, as she always is to any new information which she can add to her fragmented and patchwork understanding of the world. Some of this is information she'd already gathered from the slates they've found that Lae'zel has translated for her, but some of it is new.

And more importantly, it's clear that the explanation is calming Lae'zel, who seems more settled as she focuses on these concrete facts of her people's history.

Keep silent.

"Our current Vlaakith has claimed undeath and reigned for a thousand years," she goes on. "But it was the first whom Orpheus tried to slay. Orpheus was - is - Gith's only son. He led his mother's own honor guard in a coup against Vlaakith One. It was kith'rak Voss himself who slayed the prince in vicious battle."

A pause. Doubt flickers through her eyes. "Or so the varshes teach us..."

She halts her pacing abruptly and turns again to face Rakha directly. Her eyes flare with agitation. "Yet the Prince of the Comet's been with *us*, subdued by that repugnant illithid. Should Orpheus go free, he would tear Vlaakith's empire to pieces and build new glory from the scraps!"

Rakha considers this, trying to parse the details, the implications. She has little interest in gith politics in and of themselves - she has plenty of her own problems - but despite the fractured nature of their relationship, Lae'zel is still important to her. When they first met, the young gith claimed intense devotion to Vlaakith, but her loyalty was betrayed, and Rakha has observed how this has shattered all of Lae'zel's certainties.

So what does it mean for her, to learn that the greatest enemy of her erstwhile goddess still lives?

"What happens now?" Rakha asks slowly after a short pause.

"We meet Voss in the city," Lae'zel says firmly. "And we obtain the key to freeing Orpheus from his prison. Every word Voss spoke, he spoke true. Orpheus is the living proof of the queen's lies, and the living weapon that conquered our ghaik slavers. One word from his lips and the people would doubt. Two words and they would rage. Three words, and they would bow to the True Heir. If the githyanki are to be free, the Prince of the Comet must lead the way."

Rakha has some doubts about this. First of all - she has seen the stubbornness with which githyanki can cling to their beliefs in the face of evidence. That Lae'zel has evidently found a new loyalty here does not mean her brethren will be similarly swayed.

But perhaps more importantly - the Emperor said that the Prince was the source of its protection that has brought Rakha some peace and prevented her from undergoing ceremorphosis. And it also said that Orpheus would see them, infected with tadpoles as they are, as nothing better than ghaik in their own right.

Freeing Orpheus, therefore, is impossible. It would kill them.

It would take away that peace.

If there is a way forward, for now at least, it is with the Emperor. This is practicality. Surely, this is practicality...

"The Emperor's Astral-Touched tadpole promises exceptional power," she points out with a noncommittal grunt.

Lae'zel flinches and her eyes flare again - this time with anger. "It also promises to break us beyond repair. This ossified parasite does not make us more, but less." Her lip curls as she, for the first time, acknowledges the change that has come over Rakha, the decision she made back in the Astral. "Do you not feel the cold where once there was heat? The void where your soul once resided?"

No. Rakha tries, but she cannot think of words that could explain the feeling that came with consuming the tadpole, that came from the Emperor's protection. She does not enjoy further connection with illithid influence - but she cannot articulate how it briefly soothed and quieted the terrible raging storm in her mind and connected her more purely with her body than she has ever felt before, at least in the time she can remember.

In the end she simply shrugs, half-closes her eyes, and opens her mind. Either Lae'zel will understand... or she won't.

[WISDOM] Connect with Lae'zel's mind. Let her feel the sense of power coursing through you.

(A/N: It is actually fully possible for Rakha to pass this check, but given that I suspect she and Lae'zel are probably going to clash with increasing frequency in Act 3, I think it's kind of more interesting if she fails.)

Lae'zel recoils and her face twists with disgust. "No. No!" she snarls, like a cat hissing with fear, backed up against a wall. "I will not become more ghaik than the damned parasite in my skull has already made me."

She takes a step back, then another - with visible effort, but implacably nevertheless. "You may have bowed to the Emperor for the sake of his power. I will not be so weak."

Her eyes are narrowed to slits... but even her fearsome determination cannot mask the pain and loss that flashes across her face in the moment before she turns away.

[twiddlestix]

God I love Lae'zel so much! Made a new playthrough just to romance her

SHE'S A REALLY GOOD CHARACTER AND I'M SO SAD THAT PEOPLE WILL JUST IGNORE HER BC SHES NOT SUPER DUPER NICE TO YOU ALL OF THE TIME! could not be me tho. when she is mean to me i giggle

like yeah there couldn't possibly be any narrative reasoning to explain why she's the way she is 🙄 she just mean i guess