#devnotes

[rpgchoices]

Astarion was 39 years old when he died and became a vampire

[iralaena]

Player: We are a team. We need each other.

Astarion: Exactly! I knew I could rely on you. Just like you can rely on me. (devnote: Do not rely on Astarion, dear player. He will eat you.)

(Larian, I love you, guys)

[galedekarios]

so recently i found out that if you steal from tara's nest or are mean to her, she'll blink away and fireball you.

what i didn't know yet was that you can tell gale all about it:

pleasant, ignoring tara's bad behaviour

[syn0vial]

speaking of astarion and the circus, i need everyone to know of this amazing revelation: the reason astarion disapproves so much when you volunteer him for dribble's show is bc he's genuinely kind of scared of the clown

[justanotherignot]

devnote: Horny.

[hellspawn-enjoyer]

I think about this devnote on Karlach and Astarion's romance religiously...

"If Astarion romances Karlach, it will be a little harsher, a little more jagged than other romances in their repartee and Karlach's decision to stay with him. They are very different, but Karlach will be drawn to his charisma and the deep heart beneath the wickedness. They have similar histories and a lot in common, but it won't be a sweet perfect love - it will be complicated."

Like damn, someone on the team looked at those two and the complexities of their relationship and got hit BAD. Same honestly.

It's a note that fuels my desire to yap about their relationship and something I keep in mind when thinking about their flaws as well as how well they complement each other. Both character-wise and story-wise.

[coreene]

Asking Astarion permission for Halsin

As far as I can tell from the flags, this option should appear regardless if it's spawn or ascended Astarion and it doesn't matter if it's before or after Cazador fight.

Player: You wouldn't believe the conversation I've just had with Halsin... Astarion: Ah, ha ha ha, I was wondering when you were going to ask me about this. Player: It's all right with you? You don't sound fazed... Astarion: The druid is unique. He has a lot of experience with this type of arrangement. Thus, I'm sure it would be quite a harmless affair.

This is the continuation of the above conversation. See how it ends with "jump to node 853". If I understand it correctly node 138 and the following dialogue happens when this conversation happens after Cazador fight.

Astarion: I guessed. The man can't stay quiet about 'enjoying the freedom of Nature's gifts'. I bet he'd outlaw clothing if he could. Player: I wouldn't even consider it if it bothered you. Astarion: I trust you to make choices that are not going to hurt what we have. 1. Player: I want to see what happens with him. Astarion: Honestly, so do I. What an adventure for you! 2. Player: I care for you a great deal. That's never changing. Astarion: After all this, I've realised it's all right if it does change. If anything changes. 3. Player: I don't know what lies ahead, but I trust you, too. Astarion: You're lucky I'm such an open-minded person.

This is the conversation I think majority of us has seen in the game. This conversation happens when you ask Astarion for permission before Cazador fight.

Astarion: I'm happy for you to have as much Halsin as you wish - but I do have one question. It's not because... you know... we haven't... in a while? 1. Player: Gods, I don't want you to think that for a moment. Astarion: I know I was being foolish. But thank you for saying it. 2. Player: I've admired Halsin for a while, that's all it is. Astarion: I'm fairly sure the only one in the camp who hasn't is Withers, but even with him one can never be certain. Even jerky was meat once. 3. Player: He propositioned me out of nowhere - I just want to see where it goes. Astarion: What hovel were you living in, that you didn't see this coming back in the grove? Honestly. But that's fine. devnote: affectionately 4. Player: What I have with you is wholly different and very special to me. Astarion: Aww. 5. Player: I don't want you to feel bad, but I have felt frustrated. Astarion: Oh. Well, you would. Wouldn't you? It makes sense.

This is the end note. As far as I can tell, all of the nodes above will come down to this, so this is what he'll always say when he gives his permission.

Astarion: Go right on with Halsin. Far be it from me to hold your hunger against you. devnote: genuine about it

Been meaning to post this for a while (like six months, oops). A conversation in discord came up, reminding me that I never did so, I finally got to post all of it.

[astralcities]

i should've staked him

[elgaladwen]

Oh my godddd me digging through BG3 devnotes is making me learn unwanted truths, like- Dammon secretly enjoyed his time in Avernus??? No I am sorry he is my sweet tortured blacksmith who has nightmares about it constantly, I refuse to believe otherwise!

(Ok, both could be true, like he did learn a lot, I know, and the tooltips on the Flawed Helldusk set did quote him as saying it was worth it. I suppose getting chased out of Elturel for your infernal heritage combined with the events of the game might make this plane not as wonderful feeling either!)

Relevant text from the screenshot:

Player: Sounds like you had an interesting time in the Hells.

Dammon: Some of us had it easier than others. The baker, the schoolmaster - when Elturel was swallowed up, they could do little but survive.

Dammon: As for me, I won't say I enjoyed my time there, but it was certainly… instructional.

Devnote text: He secretly did enjoy it but it would be very gauche to say so

[what-is-it-to-be-pk-esque]

Omg the love triangle/breakup dynamics in BG3 kill me

Astarion offering to have a sordid affair down the road if you romance Wyll is amazing - and you can agree to that lmaooo. Honestly his retorts and jokes about Wyll if you pick Astarion might be the funniest in the bunch, love that he calls you a scoundrel if you agree hahaha

Karlach's got some really kind and funny things to say about Astarion as long as you get his act 2 scene before you sleep with her (the throwing his pomade into the river comment, joking about sharpening stakes, saying he's not one whose heart you should play with, etc). If it's the other way around you def feel like a piece of shit for picking him and she is right to make you feel that way lol. Also let her be the one to end things, don't tell her you're ending things first unless you want to cry, holy shiiiiiit 😭😭😭 I swear she makes me wanna cry more than anyone else this whole game (such good acting!)

Shadowheart, she also has some really insightful things to say about Astarion if that's your love triangle, but I think you can't really do an act 2 scene with her until the end of Act 2 / early Act 3? So in early act 2 she only gets one breakup option instead of 2 like the others, which only happens from Shadowheart initiating the breakup after you get the other person's act 2 scene. Regardless she & Wyll seem to take a breakup best imo

Meanwhile from what I can tell Gale does not take it well if you pick someone else no matter which order you do the love triangle. He's either super hurt or pissed no matter what I did even though I didn't even kiss him in the weave in my game!! I had no way to tell him let’s just be friends before anything with Astarion happened, although to his credit he does have one or two okay responses of wanting you to be happy as long as you let him down gently in the convo before his act 2 scene. He's just clearly very hurt and down bad though, I felt awful the whole time lol, almost as bad as with Karlach

When I've tried to make the love triangle happen with Lae'zel, she was just ultra salty no matter what I did & Astarion only had like one non-generic line 🤷‍♀️ might also be bugged cause when I tried to pick her after getting his Act 2 scene she said nothing and all I could choose was leave/breakup. Felt like they didn't add as many options for her? You can tell it def affects her though cause even though she's pissed she says your "bruises will scar" :( so... still a bummer

Similarly for Wyll if you choose someone else over him, his comments are mostly generic about writing your story and honestly he’s pretty mature about it, but you don't even get to tell him you wanna date both, which is where they can say some pretty emotional/funny stuff, so again, doesn't seem like a lot of variations were put in for him

I find it interesting that you seem to only get the "you chose me instead of X?" dialogue with Astarion if you break it off with Shadowheart or Karlach, where you can tell him you're "dead serious" about the relationship. Unless I missed it, he didn't have anything to say when I talked to him after breaking up with Gale or Wyll or Lae'zel, which is when that dialogue pops up with the other two.

He seems to have the "i hear you have a new lover / what, why?" speech with everyone though. If you choose someone else over him before his act 2 scene he has the same various replies of "lucky you, you'll think of me / i'll think of everything we did / having you once was enough" etc, but if it's after his act 2 scene it's all "I didn't think / you were a mistake" :( and you'll feel terrible about yourself

ALSO while I'm talking about it, idk if this happened to anyone else, but the "I hear you have a new lover" speech was bugged for me for Gale/Wyll/Lae'zel, so he skipped saying the 1st shady unique line for them, BUT I could see it in the journal. Karlach's seemed to work fine though. Adding pics for reference minus Shadowheart

UPDATE ok it is a known bug and Shadowheart def has variations too, adding the youtube link for these. Also I had NO idea about the act 3 versions, omg these are SAVAGE towards Wyll and Gale ahhahaha

[lanaevyssmoved]

all of these are if gale is buffing his romantic partner

all of these are if gale is healing his romantic partner

[wild-magic-oops]

I love how telling Gale there's more to life than Mystra (a non-sorcerer options btw) gets you disapproval, but a sorcerer telling him there's more to magic than Mystra doesn't get any disapproval whatsoever

[steampoweredstrawberry]

I know Gale being a meat and potatoes kind of guy is canon, but I hate it, so it's going in the trash where it belongs.

Gale's Greek coded. At least 60% of his diet is tomato-based.

He's got a mean moussaka recipe that he's just itching to make for the party, but he insists it's much better with his homegrown aubergines/eggplants (trust him, you can taste the difference).

He lives for joking about how the two bushels of spinach he tossed into his pan are going to wilt into roughly a tablespoon of cooked spinach.

His kitchen would be full of all sorts of seasonal veg, on top of him trying to work out how to build a greenhouse in his tower so he could have a constant supply of his staple veg.

[blackjackkent]

Time for another of my favorite cutscenes in the game (for reasons that will be obvious to anyone who is a regular follower of this blog XD ).

I was about to open this with a comment about how I had to pause and reset the scene to go get Jaheira different camp clothes because I hate her default ones, but I actually made an important discovery today which is that I don't hate them, I just hate their default color, because they look a LOT better in Ocean dye. (So does everything, honestly. Ocean dye is the best vanilla dye in the game, change my mind.)

Anyway, Rakha has had a long day involving her first face-off (metaphorically speaking) with one of the several flavors of voice in her head, specifically the one she has grown deeply and unhealthily dependent on, so she's desperately in need of being tied up in the corner of camp as usual so she can go to sleep, and definitely NOT in the mood for the sound of raised voices splitting the evening air:

"Jaheira! Boo is trying his best to explain, but I still do not understand your anger!"

Minsc's voice carries like a booming drum across the campsite. Given his size, this is not exactly surprising. What's more surprising is Jaheira's voice, which cuts just as sharply despite her smaller frame. In fact, Minsc has a distinctly defensive posture, hunching backwards in the face of his friend's fury.

"Do not hide behind your hamster, ranger!" she barks. "You do not understand because you do not listen!"

Her expression is complex, and Rakha watches it with unabashed curiosity. She is used to Jaheira being a stoic figure, a beacon guide in the darkness - and in a way, this sharp-tongued disapproval is not out of the norm. What is different is the wild and frenzied grief that sits underneath it, fuel for the fire of the anger, not obvious to an unfamiliar onlooker but clear enough for Rakha to perceive by now.

"We were the first to discover the cult," Jaheira says sharply, pacing back and forth in front of Minsc, her fists clenching and unclenching. "And if you had only waited, we might have marshaled our numbers and--"

"Good does not wait for evil to button up its britches!" Minsc interrupts, straightening up indignantly. "When it offers buttocks for the smacking, Minsc and Boo greet cheek with hand!"

"Enough," Rakha cuts in irritably; the argument is already starting up a throbbing ache in her temple. "What's this about?"

"I would like to see if a lesson has been learned," Jaheira says curtly. The curtness, however, is belied by the intensity in her eyes as she searches Minsc's expression, trying to see if she is getting through to him.

"This mess falls on *our* heads, Minsc. The city under siege, its people poisoned by the cult - it all might have been avoided if you had just put your feelings aside and listened!"

Rakha tilts her head thoughtfully. She's well aware that there are layers and currents to this conversation that she is not privy to. Jaheira has known Minsc a long time, and has been willing to do anything to find him again. Whatever anger there is here, there is a depth that goes far far beneath it, one Rakha has no experience of.

In truth, she is fascinated by that depth, far more than she is interested in the petty squabble sitting on top of it. Minsc is like her, she has decided - unstable and violent, mad at the edges. And yet Jaheira made it clear, in the most dramatic fashion possible, that there is nothing she would not have done to rescue him.

It is hard for her to fathom herself being deserving of similar loyalty... and yet she trusts Jaheira's judgment far more than her own. She feels acutely aware of Wyll's presence directly beside her, his arm pressed against hers.

[INTIMIDATION] "Speaking of feelings," she says abruptly, "does Minsc know you were ready to kill the Emperor for him?"

(A/N: The game lists this as an intimidation check, although I'm not entirely sure which person it's meant to be intimidating. Regardless, in Rakha's case, that's definitely not how she's intending it (though she's pretty intimidating unintentionally at all times anyway); this is a legitimate question. She wants to hear about Jaheira's thought process and understand what she was thinking, to be willing to threaten the Emperor on Minsc's behalf. Unfortunately, Jaheira is Jaheira, and would sooner pull her own tongue out than articulate A Feeling in public.)

Jaheira flinches, her eyes flicking away. "My own foolishness does not absolve Minsc of his," she mutters.

There's a long silence, and then she draws a long, weary breath and lets out it out in a huff.

"You meant well, Minsc," she says, her voice so steady that it's obvious it is taking quite a lot of effort to keep it so. "But you exposed the city to harm. You helped the cult spread. And worse, perhaps, than any of this--"

Her voice cracks. Her fists clench at her sides and she squeezes her eyes shut and does not move a single muscle for a long moment. "You forced me to leave you behind," she says, and the weight of emotion behind the words is unmistakable.

Minsc's brow knits with intense concentration. He clearly wants to agree with Jaheira on principle, and yet--

"But... this is where Minsc falls short of the understanding, Jaheira," he says carefully. "What else is a berserker for, if not to charge into danger ahead of his Wychlaran?"

Rakha blinks. She doesn't recognize the word - but Jaheira evidently does, and just as evidently does not like it being applied to her.

"Wychlaran?!" she growls, exasperated. "Minsc, I am not your witch! You are not my bodyguard! This is not some high lodge of your homeland!"

"Boo agrees you are a queer kind of witch," Minsc says with a broad smile. "But this city is a queer place. And Minsc, you may have noticed, is sometimes strange himself." He shrugs, as if brushing the idea aside. "The titles matter not - only this. When Minsc does as Minsc does, and charges in to make a mess, Jaheira does as Jaheira does and finds a way to save us all anyway!"

Rakha has listened to this in silence, once again trying to parse the undercurrents - as well as the overt meaning, some of which is equally baffling. Wychlaran, it seems, is a term from Minsc's homeland, Rashemen, and - to judge by Jaheira's response - it correlates with the term "witch" that he used to describe past companions when pointing out the items in his base earlier. He has been a bodyguard to these Wychlaran in the past, and considers himself one to Jaheira as well, evidently regardless of Jaheira's opinion on the subject.

His final statement, though, strikes an answering chord in her.

When Minsc charges in to make a mess, Jaheira finds a way to save us all anyway.

How many times has Rakha charged unthinking into the front lines, trusting her companions to follow and make it work? How many times has Jaheira been among those companions, watching her tear forward, and cleaned up the mess without complaint?

"There's some logic there,"(*) she says in a low voice, unsure herself if she is joking or not.

"Is there?" Jaheira cries, throwing up her hands in defeat. "Wonderful. Another Minsc in the making."

"Hah! Not without a companion, I'm afraid!" Minsc says jovially. "Boo will ask some of his sewer-dwelling friends."

"I am your friend, ranger," Jaheira says wearily, trying desperately to draw Minsc back to the point. "I am not your witch. There will be no ointments or healing balms."

Minsc's head tips to the side, looking for all the world like Scratch when he does not understand why he is being scolded. "Not even for Boo?" he asks plaintively.

-----

(*) In-game line truncated to better match Rakha's speech patterns: "I suppose there is some twisted logic at play there."

[coreene]

If you fail to persuade the spawn that attacked at night

Leon: Stand with the runt of the kennel? The one who always whimpered while he got beat? Save us? That lickspittle only ever wanted to save himself - the rest of us be damned. You were always weak, brother. We don't follow weak. 

See this is the reason why I don't care for the other spawn. Fuck the 7k spawn and fuck these guys, too.

Yes I know Astarion is ready to sacrifice them, too but can you really blame him? This is obviously how they talked to him when he was controlled by Cazador. They saw him as weak and unimportant.

It is incredible Astarion actually can manage to say no to revenge on all of them and he can turn down the power from the ritual. It takes a lot of strength to do that.

[astralcities]

people are so fucking weird about astarion bg3 man. even his self-professed defenders are absolutely up the wall. he is not a real guy!!!! you guys are projecting story and character elements that are NOT there because you are infatuated with a woobified version of him!!! he is not a child and you're not meant to read him as one!!! he is both sexually traumatized AND sexual! inviting him to the brothel is not trampling on his consent--he wanted to try it & then didn't enjoy it!!! he can be both traumatized AND mean and shitty!!! his past does not "justify" him being a-okay with fantasy racism & mass murder!! on the last note, the pc isn't twisting him into anything evil, he just genuinely approves of those things! and most importantly it is not immoral to put that pixelated man in a dog collar!!!