kimber-kraft

[lolliputian]

A very accurate portrayal of what happened at the Tiefling party in my druid playthrough:

Karlach: Let's make out. Mira: Okay! Every other Companion: Oh, we saw you with Karlach, but we want you instead. Mira: I already promised Karlach. :( I'm sorry. :( :( Companions: :| Halsin: *exists* Mira: :) Karlach: Oops, forgot I was on fire. Mira: :( Karlach: Let's bang after I cool down. Mira: :)

[lunawish]

the events (and order) of kira's "canon".

ACT 1 + PROLOGUE

frees us, does not mutilate it; frees shadowheart

recruits shadowheart first, then gale, astarion, and lae'zel

meets withers in the dank crypt

stops the aradin from punching zevlor; persuades rolan & siblings to stay

recruits wyll and offer to help him look into the "devil situation"

stops arka from killing sazza & helps free sazza; saves arabella

finds kagha's note in her chest when looking for some "valuables" to spirit away because they were broke and gonna go hungry

gets poisoned by nettie but doesn't kill her, offers to find halsin

learns how to play an instrument from alfira, saves mirkon from the harpies ; steals mattis' ring because it's amusing to her but is gentle with sylvie

on the way to the camp she rejects the tadpole, tells the siblings to spare the owlbears

ends up in the owlbear cave but managed to talk her way out

gets really lost whilst trying to find the goblin camp and ends up at the "sunlit wetlands"

helps ethel when she was confronted by mayrina's brothers

lets astarion kill gandrel because he deserves to feel safe

tells mayrina the truth, "kills" ethel, "revives" her husband

finds out about kagha's involvement with the shadow druids, proceeds to return to the grove for the confrontation (just to help buy the refugees more time)

at this point she begins to experience immense chest pains, unsure why. but they're bearable (think of it as a warning for her oath being on the border of being broken)

meets karlach, advocates hard on her behalf; kills the paladins of tyr

meets the dragonborn bard, quill and lets her stay only for her to wake up with blood all over her hands. cleans up the body because it was undignifying to be left that way, waits for the camp to wake up and confesses to all.

vows to never kill an innocent again : this is the moment when her oath breaks. it was the vow she made to herself that directly conflicted with bhaal's oath of conquest.

kills the gnolls, saving rugan and olly; follows them to waukeen's rest. but first, save florrick and the one man who really wants to find his dowry

finds scratch, lets him follow her scent

saves barcus, reads the necromancy of thay

goes into the goblin camp, works with the owlbear cub to earn him his freedom; bites off crusher's toe ... oops

kills priestess gut out of self defense, knocks out minthara (something felt familiar about her), kills dror ragzlin; frees halsin last.

at the party she hooks up with lae'zel (the only "romance" i'm gonna incorporate in this timeline since i don't wanna force relationships lmao)

makes their way to the mountain pass to find lae'zel's creche, stops lae'zel from going into the zai'thisk because it seems too experimental and if it fails, it means lae'zel dies so she insists on going in

takes the githyanki egg but DOES not give it to esther (they do murder esther later... as a treat)

does not kill her dream guardian, fights the entire creche, steals lathander's blood

they go back to find their way into the underdark because the mountain pass is no longer safe

helps the myconids, finds baelen. let's shadowheart eat the noblestalk, steals thulla's boots

convinces the spiders to betray the duergars, sides with elder brithvar against nere, save the gnomes

tried to steer shadowheart away from the grymforge but alas

gifts her the idol of shar and insert the kiss me like you hate me scene (ok sorry i gOTTA)

fights grym, agrees to help the monk in the sentient amulet

goes to the shadowcursed lands through the grymforge

ACT 2

sides with the jaheira, isobel, and the harpers & betrays marcus

helps barcus to find the ironhand gnomes & helps alfira to find the other tieflings

agrees to help astarion figure out the stories of his scars

confesses to isobel about her urges and has a breakdown over her undeserved kindness. isobel does not die.

convinces kar'niss to give them the moonlantern, frees dolly thrice

saves rolan before going into moonrise

convinces the three thorm siblings to die by their own hands (essentially)

goes to moonrise, kills the goblins with her own hands, frees minthara & the rest of the prisoners before returning to last light with them

plays the lute of art cullagh, helps halsin guard his portal

goes to play two rounds of hide n seek with oliver before "spoiling the fun", ultimately lets halsin convince oliver to join with thaniel for now

heads directly to the mausoleum aka the gauntlet of shar.

talks yurgir to death (basically), kills balthazar on site (before the shadowfell), lets shadowheart do the trials (even though she's getting the heebeejeebees here); shadowheart spares aylin

takes a rest here because they know better than to try and fight with barely enough energy. is given the task to kill her darling. (by default her fav person is shadowheart, platonic or romantic) does her best to resist and actually the 'shadowheart has faith in you' advantage let her say thank you

when confronted she starts crying and offers shadowheart a chance to off her

recruits jaheira, slaughter the first floor of moonrise, tries to offer ketheric mercy but instead he doesn't take it and myrkul emerges

after the battle, she tells minthara the throne suits her, tries to cheer up the kids with alfira, loots all the food in the kitchen, adoringly watches aylin and isobel reunite

lets aylin and isobel stay in camp, tells shadowheart her hair is the most beautiful thing she's seen the next day

when the emperor reveal happens, she's disgusted with the amount of deceit because she too, feels like a monster but she isn't hiding it like he is. however, she can't kill him so begrudgingly, she works with him

ACT 3

help the squatters , investigate the bombs in the toys, tells ferg drogher to fuck off, agree to help investigate the murders, agree to help find dribbles' body parts, and is visibly distraught by orin fucking with her head

was about to attack the steelwatchers by the cross point but her gnome terrorist pals came in with flashblinders ! so they snuck past

unravels that the murders were all a bhaalist plot, valeria gives her the pass

says no to raphael's deal but then promises to steal it from his house of hope (credit to jaheira for the idea!)

confronts the harpers in the safe house, advocates for geraldus

has a violent flashback the minute she senses gortash's presence. the bhaalspawn reveal happens here

attends his coronation, agrees to a temporary alliance with gortash because somewhere she feels a fondness towards him

lets wyll talk to ulder; they break florrick out of jail

tells wyll she thinks he should be free and no one deserves eternal damnation of their soul but its his choice (usually assumes wyll breaks his pact here)

convinces the elfsong tavern owner to let them stay there for free

finds dolor, and subsequently the tribunal; murders sarevok and frees valeria

orin kidnaps halsin, kira makes a beeline towards the temple (well, as much of a beeline as she could make given she has no idea where it is)

duels orin, wins by a bare margin against her slayer form. rejects bhaal. is literally exsanguinated, skewered, maimed, gored (point is, revivify wouldn't work in true dnd fashion). brought back to life by withers

is catatonic in bed for a few days (at this point i assume the other companions either take turns checking in on her or doing some of those quests lmao)

asks isobel and aylin if they could witness her take up a new oath with selune and this time for realsies. takes up the oath of vengeance.

[ any romance scenes will only happen after she takes up a new oath ]

( assuming at this point gale's done his sorceries sundries part of his quest and the audience with mystra )

makes a beeline towards the house of grief, does not betray shadowheart (obviously), lets shadowheart have her moment with nocturne. lets shadowheart make her own choice

finds cazador's mansion, brings astarion to confront him. talks astarion down from ascending

finds their way into the devil's fee, goes to the house of hope.

steals the hammer, saves hope, kills raphael

goes to the irone throne, saves omeluum, ulder, and the gondians

blows up gortash's foundry

has a heart wrenching confrontation with gortash and genuinely mourns him when he dies

finds ansur and has to kill an undead dragon. wyll becomes the blade of avernus

smashes the chains of orpheus free, (welcome to gany's self indulgent no one has to turn illithid ending), goes and fight the brain with their allies

commands the brain to destroy itself and all the tadpoles

cue epilogue !

[twooshort]

My disaster BG3 playthrough

Of all the small things, Mol ended my first playthrough. (spoilers kept after the break)

So I began play as Lae'zel, because I initially thought that would be the only way I'd have her in my party. Buuut, I also wanted to limit my choices a bit, so as to not be tempted by too likeable characters. I wasn't going to juggle a camp of 6+ people in my party when I had a clear goal in mind.

(I don't know why, but I guess I'm stupid.)

First off the bat, I "knew" that Shadowheart (bae) had to be in the party due to the artifact (not strictly true it seems), but what the hell, I can be her BFF despite her initial aversion to gith. I'm sure there's no massive gith/Shadowheart plot point later, right?

So the creche was... interesting. I tried playing the lojalist, but even the Guardian seemed to be on the up and up about Vlaakith, who could've guessed? Voss??

Also, I didn't need no stinking rogue, I knew the game was about to drown me in lockpicks and disarm kits, while I could get an astral skill bonus to dex skills on demand. My plan for Astarion was gonna be steak, except I sort of fumbled that biting scene and instead just told him to leave? No standing over his corpse in camp, but maybe he'd show up again later in Baldur's Gate itself. I'll never know.

As for the frontline, my team of Lae'zel, Shadowheart, Gale and Wyll needed no more muscle, so Karlach had to go. Wylls fancy new clothes were *not* worth it. I also triggered the burning inn without realising it was a timed event, so while I dealt with Zhentarim errands Wyll suddenly says that the inn must've burned down by now and his father with it?! My man, you got to tell me these things, I had an artistic slave to buy.

After some more misadventures, like defeating a golem without hammers and having most of the Grymforge denizens kill themselves, I made it to Last Light and who jumps to my rescue, but Mol?! I hadn't even met the little brat because I, um, didn't kill some harpies fast enough so the kid couldn't tell me a passphrase. I did rescue another kid though, mostly because I hate Kagha's face and didn't want to kill the tieflings, so maybe that was fine enough for Mol. (If only she wasn't playing a game with Raphael and if only I didn't say some things which sounded like encouragement.)

That did get me thinking though, like what if my actions had consequences for the story and maybe more characters would have more to say about some things?

And maybe I needed to play a little character so I could explore all those tight spaces. And maybe I was seeing a few too many gifs on tumblr about companions currently unavailable to me. So I opened the character creator to mull ut over, clicked random character a few times, and got a halfling ranger with The. Most. Kissable. Lips. Clearly the game has better plans for me. And this time I'm going to earn Mol's trust!

[sleepymarmot]

BG3 diary: Underdark, part 1 out of ?

I am finally level 5! Leveled up after the big fight with the duergar (had to look up how to spell it) and spent a lot of time later sorting everyone's abilities and hotbars.

I am so, so broke. I spend all of my gold on filling out Gale's spellbook. I have about a thousand gold's worth of spells queued up but I have no gold to pay for them.

Clearly I'm not attuned to this game's manner of environmental storytelling, because I spent the entire Arcane Tower mildly confused and thinking "Is this going somewhere?" From the quest giver's description, I assumed that the owner of the tower had locked herself in there, but the place seems to have been abandoned for years. I had to read the wiki page about Lenore to have the story pieced together for me. I didn't realize all of the lightning equipment I'd been picking up had been made by the same person! (I'm already trying to plan how much of it is going to be worn by my lightning mage when I play as her.)

There's a bit of companion reactivity to the environment, but it doesn't feel enough:

Lae'zel has two lines when you first meet Omeluum and can explain the githyanki disc for you, but she doesn't have any further reactions to you asking an illithid for help and even drinking his dangerous potion. Does she hate all mind flayers no matter what? Does she respect him for breaking free? Does she resent him for still being nostalgic of his people?

Gale had a couple of lines about wizard towers. It didn't seem to interest him that the wizard was a cleric of Mystra.

Shadowheart was inspired by me destroying the moonstone that powered the defenses of the Selunite outposts, but didn't have a single line about anything in it.

Speaking of Omeluum: to end the quest and open the trading option, you have to accept the ring that, he says, is hiding him from the mind flayer hive mind. Does that mean we're putting him in danger? I tried to refuse the ring, but the quest just remains unfinished in that case.

The journal was clearly not programmed to account for the order in which I was doing things. I went to the Underdark via the Zhentarim hideout, did a bunch of quests there, and only then circled back and discovered the Selunite outpost. I had Lae'zel super-jump onto the wall and discover the waypoint inside, then teleported the rest of the party in. In the middle of the outpost, under the big statue, was the orange-bordered book that suggested where to look for the Nightsong next. To my surprise, there were no cutscenes or journal updates in reaction to that. Then I walked up to the far wall of the outpost, and the journal updated to say that the trail to the Nightsong went cold (when in fact the opposite just happened...) I clicked on the ladder there, and it made me climb up to the Selunite puzzle in the goblin camp which I had completely forgotten about, then updated the journal to say I found the way to the Underdark. And I couldn't exit, because the devs didn't put a lever on the inner wall. So now I am stuck in that room and can only go back down or teleport somewhere.

After that, I realized that I'll have to backtrack to the surface to do several things I've missed... I didn't do the temple puzzle; I didn't do the spider tunnels and the spider matriarch fight, and it seems like I can't get up there from the Underdark; I didn't find the mechanic for Karlach in the grove and I've no idea if he is still in there or already left with the tieflings; I now have the sussur bark for the masterwork weapon, whatever that's supposed to be. Oh, and I'll have to go to the creche eventually, but I thought I'd finish the Underdark before that.