#evil estryd

[tuxedo-rabbit]

People are sleeping on Evil!Gale x Durge.

Talk about power couples.

Usurping the Gods who did wrong by you together? Delicious. I love it

[tuxedo-rabbit]

A quick little sketch of Estryd I did for fun

(she's a Durge, specifically this is from a playthrough I did where I headcanoned she had no amnesia)

[tuxedo-rabbit]

DU Questions (for the AU version please)

How does your Dark Urge feel about the city?

How does your Dark Urge feel about love?

How does your Dark Urge feel about what others think of them?

How good of a liar is your Dark Urge? How do they feel about lying?

How does your Dark Urge feel about the city?

Baldur’s Gate was home for Estryd. The Temple of Bhaal was the one safe haven she had, no matter how often she ran away they always welcomed her inevitable return. Her family, as dysfunctional as the are, were there. Estryd knew the ins and outs of Baldur’s Gate. She loved her city, even if she was known as a terror by the people living there.

That all changes when she discovers Orin tried to kill her, and now agents of Bhaal are attacking her on site. Estryd now associates Baldur’s Gate with betrayal and loss. She won’t be returning after the events of the game.

How does your Dark Urge feel about love?

Intense yearning mixed with shame. Estryd wants to be loved so much, and she feels love deeply, despite telling herself otherwise. But Bhaal has made it clear that love is not part of who she is supposed to be. She doesn’t want to be forced to kill people she loves so she tries to suppress those feelings. And she truly believes that no one can love her, monster that she is.

Gale gets a glimpse of the depth of her feelings during the Weave scene. It’s platonic at that moment, but she has this strong desire for friendship that overwhelms him. It’s his first glimpse of who she is under the Dark Urge mask. (and she is ridiculously sappy towards him once they are in a committed relationship)

How does your Dark Urge feel about what others think of them?

I think Estryd does a lot of lying to herself. She tells herself she doesn’t care, and in most cases this is true. Being a monster of the night for decades numbs you to people’s opinions. But when she starts to care about someone, she wants them to care for her just as much, and this leads to a lot of self-loathing because she feels she is someone incapable of love or being loved. So she tries to cover up her hurt by pretending not to care.

How good of a liar is your Dark Urge? How do they feel about lying?

Estryd is very good at lying (even mechanically she has a high charisma score and is good at deception)! She’s had to use lying as a survival skill for most of her life. She feels neutral about it. If lying helps turn things in her favor, she lies.

[tuxedo-rabbit]

Gale's romance scenes are so pretty

[tuxedo-rabbit]

I'm realizing that if Gale's romance still played out the way it did on release this version of Estryd may have romanced him.

The version where the Weave scene is his party scene, and the awkward comparing you to his cat scene happens later as an alternate way to initiate his romance.

I really loved the awkward flirting, there is an opportunity for some really good banter in that scene. It also works better for a slow burn romance, where maybe you didnt stay up with Gale at the party but he's now started to fall for you and is being awkward about it.

This playthrough is making me realize how much i liked the release day's companion pacing. I kinda wish they hadnt changed it :(

[tuxedo-rabbit]

I don't think Estryd ever thought of Orin as a sister. She didn't even feel that Orin counted as a true bhaalspawn, with Sarevok being her father and all.

Estryd treated Orin with a cold distance. Orin was the one who viewed them as sisters. Orin kept trying to do things to get Estryd to notice her and take her seriously, to respect her. But Estryd never did.

Until Orin murdered her.

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I added onto the astral tadpole's visual effects by giving Estryd graying hair & skin, and now she looks like she's on her way to becoming the bbeg of a D&D campaign.

[tuxedo-rabbit]

for amnesia estryd: 1) What circumstances led to your Dark Urge becoming their Class/Subclass?

for both: 13) How does your Dark Urge feel about killing?

#1 was answered here!

for both: 13) How does your Dark Urge feel about killing?

Amnesiac Estryd: She enjoys killing, she’s good at it, and she knows these are terrible thoughts to have. She feels extremely guilty about killing. After the game, she focuses as much time as she can on the less violent aspects of being a bard. Relishing in the facts that she has a vocation that brings joy and not just death.

AU Estryd: Killing is a part of her nature, it’s who she is, she must do it. Killing is a mercy, the world will end soon and those she kills won’t have to face the terror of what’s to come. Killing is a form of worship, it’s how she shows her devotion to her father and his cause. Killing is a burden, it does not matter if it is someone she loves or someone who she thinks should live, she will inevitably have to kill them.

After Bhaal disowns her, killing feels like nothing, and that terrifies her.

[tuxedo-rabbit]

For the Dark Urge ask game!

1, 12 and 20 for estryd with her memory intact(I want to know her story 👀)

Also 21 if you already have any songs for her

What circumstances led to your Dark Urge becoming their Class/Subclass?

Mechanically speaking, Estryd is a warlock/war domain cleric. Her magic comes from her father. When Estryd was a child, on the run after killing her foster parents, Bhaal spoke to her in dreams and offered her the power to protect herself in exchange for her having a place in the world. He did not explain who he was or that he was her real father. Estryd was about 12 at the time and just wanted to go back to having a real home. This dream visitor was the only person who had showed care toward her in a long time. She agreed and gained her powers. I’m mixing the lore here for how warlock and cleric powers work, but in the beginning it was less about devotion and more about making a deal. It wasn’t until later that she realized “having a place in the world” meant being the harbinger of the apocalypse, or that Bhaal didn’t need her consent to force her to live out her destiny.

The more cleric-y abilities happened after she gave up escaping and started devoting herself to her destiny and started taking part in temple duties regularly. She loses both warlock & cleric powers permanently at the start of Act 3 when Bhaal gets fed up with her rebellion.

How does your Dark Urge feel about being a bhaalspawn?

After many years thinking of it as a curse she could cure, Estryd is now at peace with being a bhaalspawn. It is part of her identity. At one point she has an argument with Gale about how she can no more stop being a bhaalspawn then he can stop being a human. She will always want to kill, it’s in her nature. When Bhaal rips everything of himself out of her it feels like she has a hole in her soul she can’t fill. She mourns the loss. But there’s a strange irony that her younger, hopeful self, the creature she struggled the most to kill, got what she wanted in the end.

Is your Dark Urge open about their Urge or do they try to hide it? Why?

Estryd is careful about who she tells and when she tells them. She has learned over the years that most people will not accept The Urge. In the past, people have either tried to kill her over it, or save her from it. Estryd doesn’t want to have to deal with either of those things if she can help it. She secretly, and successfully, hides Alfira’s body. It isn’t until act 2, when the Urge commands her to kill Isobel and her relationship with Gale blossoms, that she finally confides in her new friends. And only because it might get in the way of the party’s needs.

What are 2-3 songs that your Dark Urge would relate to?

Oh gosh, this is a mix of songs I think she’d relate to & songs that just make me think of her:

“I Can’t Decide” by Scissor Sisters (makes me think of Estryd’s relationship to both Orin and Gortash)

“Cutting Stone” by The Decemberists

“The Wanting Comes in Waves” by The Decemberists (makes me think of the dynamic between Estryd and Bhaal, it's always about bartering. Great Durge song in general tbh)

[tuxedo-rabbit]

Also.

Estryd is not happy with the results of what happened at the temple.

The Urge was a part of her. She was fine with it, it was part of her identity. It has now been forcibly cut out of her body.

Her father killed her, another powerful being resurrected her with unclear motives, and now there's a giant hole in her soul that isn't ever going to go away.

I mean, honestly, how would that work? To have everything of your father ripped out of you? It sounds horrific. To go through that kind of identity fracture.

She enjoyed killing before, Bhaal made it euphoric. Now it feels like nothing. But that doesn't change the fact that she still has to do it to survive.

Are there other joys that are missing? How long would it take to notice them? The Urge influenced how she thought about morality and the nature of Gods. When she thinks about those topics now, would her previous opinions make as much sense?

Who even is she without the Urge?

Everyone is acting like this is amazing news, but for Estryd, this is devastating.

[tuxedo-rabbit]

Oof.

Estryd's return to the temple of Bhaal was painful this time for different reasons.

Estryd's relationship with the temple and her father is a bit more complex in this playthrough. Though she did have a period where she actively resisted it all, she eventually fell in line.

She learned to accept the urge and try to work with it. The temple had, until recently, always been the only safe place she could return to when people learned her true nature and turned on her.

She hates her father but she loves her father. The urge comes from him, it's intrinsic to being the God of Murder. They are the only two beings who can really understand what that means and in Estryd's eyes, that gives them a closeness that she will never have with anyone else. And yet, Bhaal keeps her at a distance. She prays often, he rarely responds. Nothing she does is ever good enough. His control of her life is absolute.

Estryd's issue with the urge has never been about wanting it gone, it's been about wanting more control and independence in her own life. She is a-ok with being the bringer of end times. She has accepted that is what she must be. But until the time comes when she must enact Bhaal's plan, she wants to be allowed to choose not to kill people she doesn't particularly want to, whether that be for pragmatic reasons or because she cares for them personally.

That's it, that's all she's wanted.

When Estryd asked for this at the temple, Bhaal responded by killing her.

[tuxedo-rabbit]

I can't tell if its a glitch or if its because I didn't get the Slayer form this time, but Jaheira...never learned that I was a Bhaalspawn this time??

I never got the cutscene where she confronts durge about it, and I never got an option to tell her (though I did get the option to tell everyone else this time).

If that's a cutscene you only get in Slayer runs I feel really bad for the majority of redemption durges. Because I know most people don't kill Isobel.

It's a great scene that really sets the tone for the durge and Jaheira dynamic!

[tuxedo-rabbit]

Currently struggling because Estryd looks SO COOL in Ketheric's armor but Bhaal has nerfed her cleric/warlock skills and now she's no longer proficient in heavy armor.

None of the light armor has the right vibe 😭

[tuxedo-rabbit]

Just a couple more shots of Estryd's new look

[tuxedo-rabbit]

In the act 2 durge resist romance scene Gale responds to durge threatening to kill him like he's dealing with a feral cat.

Love that vibe.

And then after he's just like "well I can't hold you responsible if you attack me in your sleep again! Let's not talk about something that hasn't happened :)"

Absolutely unhinged response. The man is head over heels.

[tuxedo-rabbit]

Well. My evil run is turning out to be not so evil.

The issue is that even without amnesia, Estryd still desires to be free of Bhaal.

I imagine that she has had several periods of rebellion in her unnaturally long life, where she ran away from the temple and tried to resist Bhaal. They all ended pretty similarly; the Urge would win, she would murder someone (often someone she loved), and then the people around her would turn on her.

The only place that always welcomed Estrtd back was the temple.

Over the years, Estryd was worn down, and accepted Bhaal's destiny for her. She learned to revel in it even.

But now she's travelling with the tadfools. Who are all actively struggling with powerful or cosmic forces that want to control their lives. It's been uncomfortably familiar. It's made her bold.

I just did the Guantlet of Shar, fully intending to make Shadowheart a Dark Justiciar this time. But Shadowheart reminds Estryd so much of a younger version of herself. She's trying so hard to be faithful but is so obviously unsure. But Shadowheart still had a chance to get away, she wasn't bound to Shar by flesh and blood.

So Estryd persuaded Shadowheart not to kill the nightsong.

It makes sense for her story! But still! I've only made one outright evil decision so far.

This Estryd is a person who enjoys murder. She's not a good person. I'm so bad at doing evil runs I made an evil character who is doing the good path. What is this.