As much as I love playing embrace Dark Urge runs (discussion in therapy pending), there's something so narratively satisfying about how a Resist Durge playthrough can go once you get to the Bhaal Temple. Your character steps into the ring with Orin, it's intended to be a duel, but odds are you're getting eviscerated pretty quickly. You then switch to one of your other characters in your party and throw an attack, effectively breaking the duel and setting the whole temple upon you.
(Adding a cut because this ended up being longer than I thought)
But, I think it's a very satisfying way to play. Your party members have grown fond of your Durge, seeing them as a friend, a family member, even a lover. They've watched you and your pain over your Urge and what it makes you do or want to do. Maybe you've slipped up once or twice, but you've been trying so hard to be the hero they know you can be, that Faerûn needs. So, when it comes time to finally face your demons and you're getting so horribly hurt in the process, they can't help but rush to your defense. It'll put all of them in danger, but it doesn't matter because they want and need to help you, their ally and companion.
Bonus points if you select your character's romanced companion as the savior/duel interruptor to make it extra delicious. They've fallen in love with you, stayed with you when your Urge craved their blood the most, maybe by this point in the game you've helped put their demons down as well. They see you in pain, a final valiant effort to overcome your Urge against the power of Orin, a whole cult, a god of murder himself. They want to protect you, save you as you saved them.
I'm also fond of the extra beauty of Astarion being your Resist Durge romance since it puts the two of you in very similar situations. Fighting against the will of your masters, finally defeating your demons with your newfound companions' help and being offered the greatest power you could ever fathom... only to deny it, ignore power in favor of your party and your love.
This isn't even mentioning just how goddamn good the Withers resurrecting you cutscene is. This skeleton in your camp with unknown and unfathomable power (also apparently supposed to be Jergal himself if I've done my research properly?) is able to bring you back to life, free of your Urge. The line along the lines of "Bhaal could only destroy what of you that he knew, but because you've grown past your Urge and become your own person, he couldn't destroy that new growth" is just so weirdly powerful narratively. Tav may be a default character for you to create upon making a new save file, but Durge is the canon protagonist and I think that entire scene shows it the best. It's a beautiful secondary climax of the narrative (primary being battling the Netherbrain of course).
And, perhaps it's just an oversight on Larian's part or something that'd be a bit difficult to work into the cutscenes mechanically, but I think that it could only get more impactful if your companions could comfort each other during these moments. Everyone and their mother wishes you could hug Astarion after he kills Cazador, but also imagine your romanced companion cradling your body after Bhaal kills you. It seems just a little odd that they all (meaning your party) kinda just stand around staring at your corpse, especially with how close y'all have gotten.
Idk, I have a lot of thoughts about this section of the game in this particular type of playthrough and some of them are hard to articulate into words. It's just such a damn good narrative peak and can really make you feel things.
I've completed I think two resist Durge runs and just hit this point on my third and it really stuck out to me this time (then again my new antidepressants are kinda fucking with me so that might be playing a role). I left it as my last mission before dealing with the Netherbrain and I think it helped build the anticipation of that moment. Everyone else has been helped by you, and now it's your turn to come into your own. I really felt so connected to my character walking into the temple, feeling like everything has been building to this, that regardless of what happens our suffering will finally end. And you have your party there to help you in your time of greatest need as you've done for them.
There's a reason this game was Game of the Year, the narrative is just so powerful and the replay-ability is just insane. I've beaten this game ten times, heading for my eleventh and it truly just never gets old and never fails to make me feel so many things so strongly.
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could we possibly get a little angsty mermaid au action? missing that one! thank you for continuing to share your masterpieces with us!
I almost didn't recognise you, it's been so long.
Thena blinked, the only time needed for her friend to go from being a speck in the distance to right in front of her. She sighed, bubbles rising from her mouth. Sorry.
What's wrong? Makkari asked, despite her feelings about Thena spending more time on land than in the water, these days. She swam around her friend, resting on a sandbank like a beached whale. It must be bad for you to leave your precious human.
Thena snarled her lips, letting her fangs poke out. She turned over in the sand, her tail dusting it up around them. "Leave it alone."
Makkari swam around to her other side, though, real concern on her face now. Hey, it was a joke. Is there something I should know?
Thena's lip wobbled. If she were on land, her eyes would be pouring salt. They had done so a few times, like when she was sick, or when she watched a heartbreaking movie with Gil that felt very much like how they had come to fall in love.
But underwater, the vacuum of it swallowed her sorrows. Her gills expanded and contracted with her heavy heart. "We are quarrelling."
You and the land walker? Makkari tilted her head a few times, the gold charms she liked on the ends of her hair floating with the motion. What did he do?
Thena swiped at her eyes, another human habit she had picked up. She sighed again, adjusting herself on her sand bed. He didn't do anything. I...I learned something.
Makkari - against any mer's instincts and natural inclination - also settled herself on the sand. She rested her chin on her arms folded in front of her, the red sparkle of her scales reflecting on the beautiful tone of her skin. She raised her brows.
Thena smiled at her friend. There was nothing about the ocean she missed quite so much as Makkari. We were out walking in town. A woman approached Gil, and he knew who she was. They spoke for some time, and he introduced me. She seemed nice.
Makkari nodded along with her very factual recounting of the story. She was used to it with her, after all. She would ask her questions as they came.
I asked Gil who she was when we got back to the boat. Thena blinked, laying her head on the sand again like a pathetic guppy lost in a strange reef. She was his mate.
Makkari shot up again, her tail swishing and her hands poised as if she had the human man's throat there for the strangling. His what?!
Thena nodded, feeling the rush of foolishness and resentment and anger and envy all over again. Humans don't mate for life. Apparently, it is not uncommon for them to have numerous partners.
It wasn't that it was impossible for mers to have multiple mates. Sometimes things didn't work out, that wasn't so incomprehensible. But it wasn't something taken lightly, to become bound mates at all. Certainly it wasn't common to encounter someone's past mate and strike up pleasantries.
She nuzzled the sand, pressing her temple to it in a poor substitute for the soft but firm feeling of Gil's chest under her. He said it was a long time ago. That they had been young and parted amicably. That they were 'still friends'.
Makkari watched the way she punctuated his verbatim statement. She lifted her lips around her fangs. That sounds like a clown who wants more than one anemone.
She agreed. It was hard to communicate that to him, though, when all she had felt was rage. Anger with him for smiling at his past mate wit her right there, on his arm no less! How dare he greet this woman so normally as if they hadn't been entangled from the inside out?!
She knew it was normal for them. She knew Gil didn't mean to hurt her and she knew that she shouldn't have thrown herself right over the side of the boat to avoid him. But just the sight of him made her want to shatter coral right off his thick skull.
Humans actually had very thin skulls compared to theirs, Sersi said.
What else did he say?
Thena shook her head. The sun moved above them, or a cloud did, and she lost her comforting warm spot. She let herself drift off the sand and listlessly ride the currents around them.
Hey, Makkari nudged her arm as she began swimming next to her. I never thought I'd see the day you were limping around because of some bull.
Nor did she, in all honesty. But she had never felt quite like this, either. She let herself drift down and down until some shelves of coral made themselves known. Her tail flopped limply after her; the tail Gil said was so beautiful.
Makkari swam to face her again. Now I'm really worried.
"Sorry," Thena squeaked out. She couldn't help it. She wanted to be in a bed and to tug the covers up over her head. She wanted to run a hot bath and fold herself up in it, letting just her tail hang out in the open air.
Okay, Makkari also sighed, moving to lean against the edge of her coral refuge. I may not be the biggest admirer of your...human. But I know how much you care about him. Are you going to go back to him?
Of course--of course she would. She just came to get out her feelings. The question of going back or not was not even an option. But maybe that was part of the problem. Thena looked at her oldest and dearest friend in all the seas. Kari, I can't leave him. We're...
Makkari's eyes widened. Perhaps she'd had some inkling of things, but this was a damning admission nonetheless. She waved her fingers. You, and him, you're...you mated with him?!
Thena pursed her lips, tempted to roll over again as if she were in bed at home. "You don't have to make that face."
How is that...how? Makkari concluded, rather mildly all things considered.
How humans do it, Thena sufficed to say. She didn't have to go over the gruesome details.
To her credit, Makkari restrained herself from further reaction. She crossed her arms again. Do you feel different?
She did, but she also didn't. She had never taken a mate of her own kind, but she had never even desired to. With Gil...it had happened so naturally, come of natural events. Perhaps she had experienced new mate-hood, in which she had become so infatuated that she had nary desired to leave Gil's side.
But then she thought of the human woman again, of her hanging on Gil's arm, and kissing him and eating his food. And it made her stomach clench like when she had fallen ill with a human 'bug'.
Thena blinked as she felt the touch of a hand on her arm. Makkari gave her a sympathetic look. Mers were not the type to exchange physical gestures meaninglessly, and they in particular were not partial to it. But she smiled, "thanks."
Makkari patted her arm before fiddling with the gold on her fingers (also stolen little trinkets). Well, you'll go back, you said. When?
She was asking if Thena would stay in the water for some time. But she hadn't considered it. For all she had done to storm off and leave poor Gil all alone in the small motorboat, she hadn't considered staying past the height of the moon. For how miserable she was feeling, she still wanted to return to his arms to sleep.
How foolish mating with a partner made someone.
I don't know, Thena answered more properly. She at least lifted herself from the coral. I wanted time to think clearly.
Makkari shrugged. Bulls--what can be done about them?
Thena offered a somewhat sardonic but genuine smile. She was inclined to agree, but she still wished to return to her bull in question. I promise I will return soon, and in better spirits.
Makkari followed her as she began swimming upward again. As soon as she had tossed herself from the boat, she had swam straight down, desiring nothing more than getting Gil out of her sight. Does Ikaris know?
Thena rolled her eyes. No, and he never can. I had to worry about him drowning Gil before they had even met. This will not help.
Fine, but I can't say I'm completely against it, Makkari offered neither her complete support nor condemnation. But it was support either way, and Thena appreciated it.
Thena eyed the bait that was hanging in the water. They weren't deep enough for mers yet, but it was deep enough that most wouldn't be fishing with a regular manual rod in such an odd spot.
Makkari beat her to it, of course, swimming right up to it. There's something tied around it.
Thena floated next to it, undoing the strip of cloth tied around the line. The ink was already being eaten at by the salt, but the sloth was scrawled with a very sad SORRY on it in horrific lettering. "Oh, Gil."
Has he just been sitting here? Makkari asked, looking up at the bottom of the boat.
That was exactly what he had been doing. Because that was Gil; he wouldn't have gone home without her. Even if she had, she would have discovered he wasn't back and come to find him. So he had stayed put, cast the line with a message for her to come back to him, unable to come after her properly.
Okay, fine, he's not bad for a human, Makkari conceded with minimal eye rolling. She gave Thena's fin a friendly smack with her own on her way past. Come back another time you don't want to just cry about your boyfriend and his legs?
Thena waved to her friend's swiftly retreating image before Makkari truly put her power into her tail and shot off with blinding speed. She did owe her more visits, and it was nice to truly swim completely uninhibited for a time.
She poked her head up slowly, the water lapping around her. It was dusk, and soon would be completely dark. She rose until she could peek over the side of the boat.
Gil was tearing another strip of fabric off his emergency canvas, writing the word over and over and over to get the ink to penetrate the cloth properly.
Oh, her sweet, sweet human man. Thena sighed, once again feeling the air in her lungs, even with her gills in her neck. She brought her hands up to the boat's edge, "Gil?"
"Th-Thena!" he startled, but his head whipped up to her. He had been crying. "Angelfish!"
The boat tipped dangerously as he rushed over to her. As much as she could get them back home, she wasn't strong enough to tip over a boat by herself. "Gil!"
He stopped his rush to hug her, or lift her out of the water and back onboard with him. His shoulders sagged, "oh, sweetie, I'm so sorry. I should have explained more--a-about my ex. I didn't mean for you to find out that way."
She still didn't enjoy the concept of Gil and his ex-mate, doing mating things. But she pulled herself up and into the boat for herself, settling on the bench, still with her tail on. "I know you were put in a difficult position, Gil. I...I shouldn't have swam off."
He plunked himself back down to the other seat by the motor. "No, I don't blame you for being mad. I probably wouldn't want to find out about any ex of yours by running into him on a date."
Yes, exactly! She had her vindication, which did soothe the stubborn part of her. But she split her tail into legs again, leaning forward. "Gil."
He let her lift his chin, happy to accept her kiss. He slipped his fingers into her hair. "I'm sorry, Angelfish. I didn't want you to get hurt like that."
It had hurt, in an odd way. Humans had such interesting concepts of pain--so internal and self reflective. But Thena smiled, running her thumb over his cheek, "I know."
He accepted her acceptance. He wasn't forgiven, but he wasn't asking for that. He reached behind him, putting his jacket over her, "let's get home, okay?"
Thena nodded, pulling the jacket up and zipping it. It was cold in the air, even as the salt beaded off her skin. "I'm sorry, I don't know where the dress ended up."
"It's okay, Cuddlefish, we can get you another one," he smiled, eager to maintain their lifted spirits. He held his arm out, inviting her to sit next to him for the boat ride home.
She obliged him, settling herself in the crook of his arm. She pressed her temple to his chest, finally soothed after the sand failed where he was succeeding. "I want that seafood stew you make for dinner."
What he called 'Jjampong' was one of her favourites, not only for the seafood, but for the pleasant spiciness it possessed.
He kissed her hair, speeding ahead and back to their home, on the island, with Titania waiting for them at the dock. "Anything you want, Thena."
She wanted him to swear to be her one and only mate from now on. But dinner would suffice for now.
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