theannoyingurge

[theannoyingurge]

Headcanon that Gortash and Durge have achieved enough knowledge between them to get a minor degree in neuroscience - relevant to both the functioning of Steel Watchers (a feat of science as much as magic) and psionic shenanigans - mostly by doing horrible unethical shit involving knives in specific portions of the brain to see 'what this bit does.' Partially with psionics and divination magic.

Durge doesn't remember the whys and hows of where it's coming from but they do retain a fair bit of knowledge (for example, the medicine roll while examining the brain that is Us). I like to imagine a remorseful (or not quite fully evil) Durge remembering how they got that knowledge when they get to the heart of the Foundry and remember their contributions to the biology half of the cybermen evil cyborg engineering that I like to imagine they had.

[theannoyingurge]

In the contexts of Faerûnian religion, 'sin' is less a kind of fundamental state of shame you lapse into and more a kind of debt to be paid off where you repay the deity for whatever trespass against them.

Atonement can range from confession and penance and cleansing, to quests, to whatever the fresh hell is going on here:

'A paladin of Ilmater who rebuffs a frightened old man’s request for help might be tasked to take on the floggings of an entire prison full of murderers; a greedy priest of Chauntea who fills her belly while her constituents go hungry might be required to live on bread and water for a year, using her skill and spells to provide food for a village during that time. Heroes who commit horrible acts can be banished to one of the Nine Hells to be tortured by devils for a month, or imprisoned on the Plane of Shadow for a like amount of time, surrounded by half-real illusions of the victims of their acts.' - Champions of Valor

Ilmater's taking your vows very seriously! I wonder what the evil aligned ones do?

[theannoyingurge]

While I currently have no plans to incorporate this into mine's backstory, Durge would almost certainly end up being taken to the Shrine of Suffering to be given up as a ward of Ilmater (from there they would probably be taken to the nearest monastery to be raised with the hopes of them becoming a priest). And that would backfire so beautifully spectacularly and explain a lot.

Surround the Child of Murder with iconography of violence, blood, misery, wounds, torture implements and the violent graphic murders of the matryrs and saints. Surely the child's fascination with these images (as opposed to the normal childhood experience of crying and having nightmares) is a sign that they are being drawn towards Ilmater, and not something so much worse!

Give them a bare-faced view of all the world's suffering. Do you know how we solve this, little one? By dying for it.

Self-harm and suffering is good and noble and strengthens your connection with your god!

Your life being a nonstop trainwreck of suffering is normal and good, rest and happiness can wait for the afterlife, which is the true reward.

I know I would love to have a prepubescent baby godling who has already killed and maimed under the throes of the Urge hanging around the wounded and the dying. Picture going in for a plough injury and one of the traumatised waifs is Staring at the open wound in your leg in the creepiest fashion possible. Especially in the hospice care...

'Do not fear death, embrace it,' say the Ilmatari. 'Do not fear death, embrace it,' say the Bhaalists.

And then Durge's apparent enforcement of ascetism in contrast to the usual money-hoarding and hedonism...

[theannoyingurge]

Jergal’s pact You have made a bargain with Jergal, seneschal to the god of death. Although Myrkul, Cyric, and most recently Kelemvor ‘have all served as the god of death, each has honored these pacts. Prerequisites: Knowledge (history) 4 ranks, Great Fortitude. Benefit: You gain a +2 bonus on saves to resist gaining negative levels or to remove them. If the effect that bestowed a negative level allows a Fortitude save to remove it, you can choose to attempt it after only 1 hour. (You can also choose to wait the usual amount of time before attempting the save.) Normal: You make saving throws to remove negative levels 24 hours after gaining them. - Lost Empires of Faerûn

...OK, but what's the price? Goddamnit, grandpa, stop being so suspiciously mysterious all the time with your ulterior motives and your 1,000,000 step probably-evil plans. And what the hell is the bargain if even Cyric was respectfully keeping his nose out of it?

He would make an excelent warlock patron for an undead pact, though.

[theannoyingurge]

Seeing as Durge seems to have that issue of living in constant distress in a world full of living creatures on account of the whole 'the presence of living creatures instilled a deadly hunger [...] and an overpowering need to kill and destroy' thing because 'living thing[s] mar [the world]' (Or, as Durge puts it, even in Act 1: 'You also feel disgusted by how life, miserable as it is, insists on persisting in this most wretched world?') I've always felt that they get some sense of comfort out of being near the dead and undead. Not perfectly so, because there will still be mould and microbes and etc, but calmer than usual.

And then I started thinking about Jergal's mummified host and remembered that Jergal eminates an aura of inevitable universal death that sucks up the life energy around it (might be the fact that he's partially a portal to the Elemental Plane of Death, which does that) makes most living creatures enervated and creeped out. Durge, on the other hand, probably gets a sense of peace and quiet from it as it cancels out the 'noise' and now i like to imagine Vel sitting next to grandpa while he works when he needs a break. Which is quite sweet?

Still don't trust Jergal an inch, but it's kind of nice.

[theannoyingurge]

I am hit with a bolt of inspiration: Durge, battered, confused, bewildered and absolutely lost in every sense of the world stumbles into an old temple shortly after crash landing. The vestiges of their temple training in the back of their mind identifies it as Jergali and the divine essence within them recognises its original self and is soothed by the ambient life-sucking death energy that suffuses all Jergal's temples: it's peaceful here, they feel belonging here and, well, any port in a storm! Might as well try for divine aid/guidance.

And then Durge converts to Jergali: Their service in exchange for anchorage and relief.

Withers, who was supposed to be directing the party along anyway, takes them up on the offer and is even there for personal tutoring.

(The first place they stumble upon in their 'new life' as soon as they land is his temple, surely this is divine providence!)

...I think this is canon to me now.

The fact that I can't actually play them as a cleric of Jergal is now a fucking tragedy.

[theannoyingurge]

[Jergal's] priests are welcome in the temples of Kelemvor, Deneir and Myrkul. - Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide

Nice to remember those two are still friends...

Myrkul goes and cultivates a working relationship with Jergal and is besties with Bhaal, and then both of them send their joint pawn into his house to kill all his clergy and his Chosen. Oh, and Shar's Chosen might be involved too, so there's another old ally fucking him over. Can't fucking trust anyone in this pantheon.

[theannoyingurge]

Astarion has definitely been 'claimed' by Jergal. 'Life should be prolonged only when it serves the greater cause of the death of the world. Undeath is not an escape or a reward; it is simply a duty of a chosen few who serve the Lord of the End of Everything.' His tolerance is purely for Church-sanctioned undead. We can tell Jergal has decided Astarion is serving his designs because otherwise the vampire would be as dead-dead as he would be if we had Kelemvor in camp.

Astarion would be thrilled to know he is an agent of the (very slow) apocalypse without his consent, I'm sure.

[theannoyingurge]

The funny thing about the afterlife - for those who fall under jurisdiction of the Faerûnian pantheon - is that we know that gods can hide petitioners/the souls of the dead from the God of the Dead. Especially if Jergal is conveniently unable to find them.

So if he decides he wants to keep the party for [mysterious plan here] then the paperwork is going to go conveniently missing when Kelemvor (or any other god) asks for it. Just like all the reports that conveniently leave out the usage of undead. This is what happens when you take on the judge role and the crown but leave the original owner as seneschal with control and complete knowledge of his your divine domain as he runs his the city in your name.

[theannoyingurge]

The most blessed cats on Toril are calicos. Seemingly every god who likes housecats has claimed them as a sacred animal (Bar the odd preference for a gold taby or a grey or white cat. Only Xvim, Mask and Bane have claimed black cats, but that's ok, because I love them even if many worlds are full of heretics. And Sharess, who claims all cats)

[theannoyingurge]

Technically he's suppost to be wearing black/a portal the Negative Energy Plane in clothing form, but I do like this particular artists' impression of Jergal from Faiths and Pantheons:

Aww.

I don't think that's how you hold parchment while writing on it, but who am I to tell the 10,000 year old apocalypse god what to do?

[theannoyingurge]

Considering that, ultimately, Gortash had no reason to hide his faith (because the Gate and, to an extent, Toril is composed of idiots) I wonder if he kept it subtle enough around Karlach or if she was, on some level, trying not to see it because he was the best friend she'd ever had and she didn't want to see it because then she'd lose what seemed to be the best thing to happen to her since her parents died. We must take his words with a pinch of salt but Gortash does say she knew what he was, and their mutual acquaintance notes he got worse when she was gone, so he was already openly a bastard and everyone knew it.

Because she can employ so much willful blindness and 'I can fix them' mentality with Durge, the irony that this was a staple with Gortash too... And she does admit that Astarion being 'such a little freak' when he's being evil does something for her, even though she knows it shouldn't. I think you may need to start avoiding certain types of people, babes. Even if time in Avernus has maybe shot your tolerance for morally questionable company a little bit (Hi, Flo).

[theannoyingurge]

Durge, walking out of the prologue after being tortured for four months leaving them with what is probably vivisection scars, amnesia, blackouts, chronic pain, other TBI stuff, etc... and then voluntarily: getting bitten by a vampire; letting a goblin priestess burn their hand with a brand; being literally beaten within an inch of their life, possibly with an axe; and then getting their eye ripped out by a hag is sort of hilarious in a fucked up way. Oh right, and they might also be eating tadpoles. Then Act 2, licking corpses and giving their blood to mad scientist drow. Then they do that again in Act 3. And then they're either disparging their body as 'rotten' 'dirty' 'ruined' etc or, as with that dialogue with Lae'zel, they are just utterly cheerful and blasé about the state of their brain or other injuries.

'What's one more round of torture and maiming, am I right guys?'

Has the party talked about staging an intervention yet?

[theannoyingurge]

'Would people openly support a Banite? Yes!' Exhibit C:

'Anakul was something of an oddity: a professed devotee of evil who, though he wore the silver wrist-chains of Cyric, used as his personal symbol the black hand on red field of dead Bane. Even for Zazesspur in the years after the monarchy's overthrow, it might seem a little much to have a man who was openly nostalgic for Bane on the ruling council, but so obsessive was Anakul in his zeal for order and the rule of law that he was widely known as one of the most honest men in the city.' - War in Tethyr

Really, I'm blaming the average Baldurian more than the Chosen for anything that happens in Act 3 at this point.

[theannoyingurge]

How is a character who keeps chugging tadpoles alive in endings where they neither become Absolute or Illithid? You've had dozens of parasites chewing holes in your brain, trying to replace it, and now they're gone leaving just the holes and/or lesions from the bites. Did somebody cast heal on your brain on the way to the docks?

[theannoyingurge]

Gortash doesn't do nearly enough to psychologically destroy the party and our bonds, as Orin may say he will. OK, he outs Durge as a Bhaalspawn. Cool. Keep going.

(It would've been very interesting if he had interactions with the party (direct and indirect) that had the possibility of tanking their approval if handled wrong. In-dialogue approval requirements would've been nice, too. Also, give Orin some approval-basedmind games too).

[theannoyingurge]

Sometimes I wonder if Bhaal ever used a temporary period of the feral ending as a warning/punishment. It's one thing to know that can happen as a threat and it's far from an ineffective threat but, personally, getting a taste of that and knowing it's always on the table and if you really fuck up it's forever, would certainly ensure I strive, fanatically, never to disobey ever (and it will generate more fear/'stronger' worship/entertainment for Bhaal).

Do you want a gilded cage with a confined degree of bodily autonomy or do you want That? Gee...