#durge. obviously

[nazali]

NEW GUY ALERT

[antiqua-lugar]

aside from everything else about durgewyll I am loving how it highlights wyll and gortash as narrative foils. both their upbringings lead them to interact with demoniac entities, both can only become archdukes and join baldurian high society through uldred, both are swaying the dark urge from simply following bhaal (and arguably the dark urge sways them from simply pursuing an ideal and the dark urge can recognise both as their equal)

and by playing your card right in act 3 wyll just...gets everything gortash was trying to get? wyll really is a hero saving baldur's gate from the legion of the absolute. wyll influences gortash's favourite assassin into becoming someone they can defeat the netehrbrain together. they can even become archdukes together! ...or they can turn it down and then they can go to he hells to sneak around and have adventures (like gortash and durge used to) and save karlach's life (the same life that is at risk because gortash mindlessly threw it away).

like. it's a lot, wyll and durge can even murder raphael.

[cats-obsessions]

I’m a big fan of Durge having some more animalistic qualities, regardless of race, like fangs meant to tear or a real, inhuman growl. But ya know what? I’m also a big fan of this vicious Bhaalspawn being able to purr. Maybe not like a house cat. Maybe it’s a deep, rumbling sound that comes out with a contented sigh. Either way, it’s a shock to Durge when one day it happens for the first time, the Chosen of Bane’s fingers carding through their hair.

What could That Sound possibly be? It wasn’t a growl. But if it wasn’t a growl, what could it be? The Dark Urge is no house cat! But Gortash knows exactly what it was, and he makes it his life’s goal to make it happen more often. He’ll tease Durge at first, justify his efforts to himself by claiming to exemplify how he has subdued even the Bhaalspawn. In reality, it means Gortash spends copious amounts of time pampering and doting on Durge until it becomes too obvious he just thinks it’s cute, a proud smile and a bit of color coming to his plaid cheeks every time he succeeds.

[recents]

so we all know astarion was named after the minotaur of greek myth, who, despite widely known as the minotaur (“bull of minos”), was named astarion/asterion (“starry one”) by his mother at birth. asterion the minotaur was trapped in a labyrinth and cursed to devour virginal men and women thrown in there as sacrifices.

”The House of Asterion” is a 1947 short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges that retells the story of the minotaur from the minotaur’s point of view. it’s one of his best early short stories and it’s very short, only 3 pages long. you can read it here.

borges is in my top 3 favorite writers of all time, and “The House of Asterion” obviously deserves to be considered on its own merits, so i feel slightly irreverent connecting this text to a recent video game. but i reread this short story today and there was much to think about, there were many more seeds planted in my mind in terms of interpretations of the minotaur myth and how asterion the minotaur relates to the story of astarion the vampire. i think it will for you, too.

anyway. if you don’t click through and read it, please at least read how it ends, remembering, of course, that the speaker is asterion the minotaur:

:)

[elfcollector]

BALDUR’S GATE 3 (2023) — developed by larian studios.

[avernusreject]

Larian: Here are character feats which you can use to improve your combat experience

Me: ....

Larian: ...

Me: ....

Larian: .... or use them to start a band

Anyway... Astarion and the Tadpoles, performing at a pub near you

[wi1dshxpe]

gortash sets up a lending library at his estate after seeing durge’s in the bhaal temple. they both know they’re the only people who use them so it turns into a sort of game. durge loves music, so after enver’s last visit a book about viola has appeared in the temple library. enver fancy’s himself a jeweler so it’s only natural a scroll about gem welding would end up in his library. books relating to their schemes, hobbies, pasts, futures, inside jokes and aspirations get passed back in forth. the only extended pause is when a novel about star crossed lovers gets dropped in the bhaal library. it’s weeks before the favor is returned and enver receives a scroll about bhaalist marriage ceremonies. he doesn’t know whether to take it as an advance or a threat, so he accepts it as both.

[autuumnlocked]

Do you ever think that while Thorm finds Durge and Gortash's relationship fucked up and disgusting, he's also envious? What they have is certainly strange but so very strong. Even if they wouldn't call it love, it reminds him of what he had with Melodia; that unbreakable bond that drives one to go against the gods. To watch these two horrid beings experience something he once held so tight must be absolutely maddening.

[tikvin]

Those are quite messy, but the general ideas are there, I suppose. I was working on bhaalist version of Eshra and I need some second opinions, so which outfit you'd want to loot from her corpse if it was in game like?

[ex-textura]

Something about Gale replying to a Durge who says "I've killed so many people, you should just end me" with "That's capitulation, not a solution. We'll search for less drastic means." Gale, who is still considering using the orb to destroy the absolute, as demanded by Mystra. Gale who argues that he'd be dying for a good cause. Telling his Durge love that they can't give up and he'll help them find another way.

Two people trying to die for the greater good, and trying to stop each other from doing the same...

[dark-udge]

This is their dynamic in my head

[jayfitzmaurice]

Thirkuir’s Diary: 16th Entry

I'll always wonder about that man lost in the stone.

[lwiann]

My durgetash dynamic at this point is durge being unreasonably obsessed w gortash for reasons he doesnt know and he constantly thinks about sacrificing him on his fathers altar, then himself. It's not love, rather, he'd never admit its something he feels for anyone other than his father and slaughter. He is distracted. Everyone notices it. Sceleritas. Orin, especially.

Gortash, however, is very manipulative about their relationship. He still sleeps around with other noblemen and women if it helps his cause (clearly bored/unhappy/dissociative about it though) and treats the partnership with durge as someone who can witness his greatness when he rules the world. Yet, his growing obsession with Gortash (that gortash very much knows about) is, to say the least, interesting. He likes the leash he has on him.

Theyre also unbelievably possessive of each other,............. In their own ways

....

And yet!!! Gortash realizes that his observations, time spent staring at durge, analyzing him, sometimes feel too intense for his own liking. He catches up on himself. He knows what it is. He never admits it to himself. He knows their love would be nothing but doomed. And it is.

[liminalnucleus]

(Bonus: Dark Urge^)

[thats-a-lot-of-cortisol]

I've been chewing on what fears the bg3 characters would be because I do that with almost every piece of media I like now.

Gale is the Beholding (hubris, pursuit of knowledge above all else, his ex can literally see everything he does in/with the Weave). You could make an argument for Desolation b/c of the orb but I think that's secondary. Wyll is the Hunt imo, but the Desolation works for him too- I think his situation is similar to that Hunter we meet whose name I'm forgetting, whose inciting incident has to do with the Dark. I thought the same thing about Karlach but I think she's Desolation instead of Hunt, both aesthetically and because she was actively betrayed and is, you know, dying. Shadowheart is the Dark. Halsin could honestly be the Lonely: he's pretty isolated from the people around him emotionally. An island unto himself etc etc. Lae'zel is the End imo. You'd think she'd be Hunt but End fits into Vlaakith's whole deal (victim of the End, avatar of the Hunt?). Astarion could be either the Buried (since that covers abuse as well, he was literally kept underground/out of the sunlight, etc etc) or the Hunt. I'm a bit undecided there. I don't know enough about Minthara to make a call on her and I don't want to just say Web because of Lolth. Slaughter, maybe? Since that fear covers war. Jaheira and Minsc are Hunt too, I think (there's a lot of Hunt but that comes with the territory when you're adventuring).

Gortash is Web and you cannot convince me otherwise. I think Orin is Slaughter but, honestly, Durge seems more associated with the Extinction to me because of Bhaal's end goal. The Desolation and the Lonely tag-teamed Ketheric's ass but he's an avatar of the End. Dame Aylin is an avatar of the Hunt, victim of the Dark, and Isobel is an avatar of the End a la the main End avatar we see (Oliver? I really need to re-listen...)

There's obviously a lot of overlap and bleed because there always is. I've been wanting to make art based off of this but it's not happening anytime soon so I figured I'd shout about it into the void a bit lol

[wi1dshxpe]

it's funny because durge and gortash started at very similar places, wanting so badly to be "good kids" their entire childhoods. gortash to avoid further abuse at the hoh and durge because they were, excluding their one little huge thing where they had an uncontrollable bloodlust.

but then they also ended up at the same place but on opposite sides of the spectrum. druge is still trying(technically succeeding) to be a "good kid," just now for their insane dad instead of a conventional family. conversely gortash has thrown out any idea of "goodness,” he never wants to feel that way again and he doesn’t care if he makes others feel that way to avoid it. he’ll do whatever he wants to you and if you’re anything like him, powerful, resourceful, deserving, you’ll pull yourself up from your bootstraps like he did. it’s interesting to wonder the ways they might’ve clashed in their motivations