Technical Notes:
BG: EE
SCS mod mostly installed inc the IWD spell bits
Insane Difficulty


Arwen’s Diary – DO NOT READ


Picture of me, think I look cute


Day 1 - Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped turned upside down.

Another day just like any other. Well, not quite true, Gorion says we have to leave Candlekeep! What the hell?! I was just getting the hang of this magic stuff, after sooooo long practicing: I can make magic armor, summon a shield and even make people blind. And now he wants us to leave?!

I hope he didn’t find out about what happened with the praying. You see, I had started praying, like, I thought it might help with the magic studies, only for some reason the prayer’s weren’t like, directed to anyone Gorion would have approved of (“Gorion approved list of gods and goddesses” heh). I didn’t think anything of it, but something answered, and before I knew it I could channel like a some holy power like right through me. It was incredible, as good as the magic. Wow, first the acrane, then the holy, and now we need to leave Candlekeep. I was all like better keep all this secret for now, Gorion doesn’t need to know.

So I did what he asked and went to buy some stuff for the journey. I didn’t really know what I would need but I’ve never been very strong, something to do with my mother Gorion said, so I just picked up a sling and some bullets, plus a little shield and a helmet so I don’t get knocked on the bonce. That still left a whole 82 gold pieces – Gorion has no understanding of the value of money, but what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him, so I just pocketed the gold. Nice.


check out my gear haul

Anyway, I was going to go see Gorion but I figured I had a few hours to kill before he would be out of the library so I thought I would take one last look around Candlekeep, and since I was leaving, maybe this was the perfect time to indulge in a bit of… not thievery, but just like, if they’re not watching it they’re practically begging me to put it in my pocket.

It was the usual rubbish in the keep grounds, Phylidia had lost a book, greeeaant, third one this week, but that was fine, since I’d seen her leave it in the stables earlier. Dreppin, the stablehand wanted me to fetch a potion to cure his cow – between me and you he doesn’t do a very good job since those cows are aaaalways sick, but what do I care, they’re just stupid cows and he offered me gold because he couldn’t be bothered to schlep his lazy ass across the keep. I got the potion, but not before Hull gave me a run around. I was actually starting to think that leaving this place is the best thing that has every happened to me ever. My prayers had been answered – figuratively, but also literally.

Or so I thought. Now this is where it gets weird: Hull told me to go get the potion for the stupid sick cow from his trunk in the barracks, but I was so busy thinking about leaving that I wandered into the building next to the barracks instead of the actual building. So as soon as I go in this asshole asks me if I’m “Gorion’s whelp.” Like wtf who talks to someone like that, so I told him to beat it, there's enough creeps around here as it is, and then he fucking attacked me! With a knife! Wow, I was not expecting that. I’ve never been more pleased that I spent hours trying to learn that shield spell. Or the blindness one. So I blinded him and then with a bit of divine pleading I managed to summon this fuck off massive club which I brained him with all while he was flailing around all blind like. Bits of motherfucker went everywhere. Eww. But on the other hand don’t fuck with Arwen. I’d never killed anyone before, and guess what, it turns out its easy. Hit ‘em ‘til their dead. Who’da thought it.


he is kill

Someone must have heard the noise of me wailing on his skull because once I went outside the monks were all asking what was going on. I though, better not say that I just smashed someone’s brains out with the blessing of some unknown goddess, so I told them that some horrid assassin had just attacked me and id almost died – the fake tears were a nice touch (I 100% was NOT crying for real). They were pretty freaked out and told me to “make hast to see Gorion.” Mf’er I’m going, u don’t have to tell me twice. But not before I deliver this stupid potion – I want my gold, assassins or not.

Fortunately while all this was going on the divine club had vanished, and it took the bits of brain that were wedged in it with it. Gross. Well, maybe what’s her name likes that sort of stuff, idk, I have a lot to learn.

So after I pretty much throw the dumb cow potion at Dreppin I go to see Gorion, because yeah, someone tried to kill me, like, me in particular, like an assassin or some shit. That is fuuuucked up.

And guess what, just as I saw Gorion coming out of the library, Imoen ambushed me. I thought she was another assassin hiding in the rose bushes for a second, but no, just my favorite sister (stepsister actually, idk, its weird, Gorion keeps dodging the question). Most of the people here as dull, boring assholes, who just looooove books, but Imoen always makes me laugh and she’s good to piss around with, but I didn’t want to worry her with what had happened earlier so I kind of brushed her off to go see Gorion. Sorta regret that considering what happened.


Candlekeep gardens. I like them they're pretty.

Gorion just repeated what I already knew, we had to go, and go now. He nodded when I told him about the assassin as if he wasn’t surprised at all. I didn’t know what to think. Except, looking up at Candlekeep from the gardens that I’d like to own a mega-castle like this one day, that would be sweet, don’t ever tell a girl that she got her priorities wrong: I’ll make sure to pray for a sick castle.

Yeah, so we left Candlkeep. I can’t remember the last time I actually went outside the walls – five years ago, ten? Freaky, but at this point I was still pretty worked up about that assassin, wondering if it was possible for things to be more fucked up that someone trying to kill you. Well, as it turns out yeah, it is possible.


Out of Candlekeep

So fucking get this right, its raining its dark, and freezing cold, I can hear wolves howling and goddess knows what else out there in this disgusting, and I mean disgusting horrid, dripping wet forest. Gorion keeps telling me to hurry up and I’m thinking that I would literally kill someone to be back in Candlekeep, like bash their brains in no problem if it meant I could be in a warm dry bed with no slimy leaves trying to make me slip over. Well, things were about to get a lot worse.

Ok, I’ll cut a long story short. We were ambushed by, like, thirty, maybe fifty goons, including this massive one in some badass armour. Of course he was considerably less badass when he cut Gorion in half. I don’t want to say I ran away like a little baby but truth is I ran away like a little baby, fled right into the forest, praying as hard as I could. I don’t know if it was the prayers or just my stupid shortass gnome legs pumping as fast as they could but they never caught up to me in the dark. I ran until I collapsed into a hollow and literally passed out from exhaustion. Smooth Arwen, super smooth.

Had the strangest dream too. She was there, the goddess: all dark hair and twisting shadows. She told me she had saved me, and that I owed her my life. She said that power was mine for the taking. That I would kill the ones who killed Gorion so easily, I just had to trust in her, and trust in myself. That was key, I had to put faith in my own abilities.

Day 2 – The morning after the night before.

Picking up where I left off. Well, a lot has happened since I last filled in this diary. The world outside Candlekeep is pretty messed up, someone ought to sort this place out.
I woke up soaking wet, terrible headache, felt like shit. Gorion was dead, I had no clue where I was. Literally stumbled in a random direction and what do you know, I was actually quite close to the Candlekeep road. And who should be bouncing (yep, bouncing) along it, heading east and right into me, Imoen, my sister. Well, I should take a moment to say something, she’s not actually my sister, since, like, I’m a gnome, and she’s like human, but Gorion was always saying we were sisters, so maybe half-sisters? Idk what he actually meant, I don’t look like a half gnome. Never really “got” it, but we are like sisters I guess, always doing stupid things together.


me and imoen on the road together

Anyway, she “heard” (read: was spying) that we were leaving and followed, then got lost in the forest before we were attacked. I told her about Gorion and we took a moment to console each other. Pretty fucked up to watch your father cut in half in front of you. But my goddesses dream was as sharp in my head as Gorion’s death was, and I knew that there was something here, he might be dead, but this was a beginning, not an ending: there was no way, like absolutely no way I was going to end up like that. He told me to go to the “friendly arm inn” so, with a pouch full of gold, and Imoen to keep me company we set off east. At least the sun was shining and my clothes were drying out. Anyways ( I say that a lot don’t I) I know one thing: what happened to Gorion is never, ever, going to happen to me. I don’t care what I have to do, but revenge, power, wealth, a big (really big) castle, everything that can be had from this world - I’m going to take it. But first I just need a decent bed.

First off, me and Imoen walked for a few hours towards the Inn Gorion mentioned (she was already starting to annoy me actually but I’ve put up with it for years, so I guess I should just suck it up right about now what with everything that has happened.) you would not believe how much walking the world outside candlekeep requires. Hoooly shit you just walk for hours and don’t see anything but trees trees and more trees.

Yeah, where was I so we had been walking for a few hours, kinda lunch time maybe and this couple of creeps like stops us in the road, asks us where we’re going, one of them like literally asks us if we will “go to nashkel” with them then offers me a “potion”. No idea where Nashkel is, or what it is, but like, it sounded like a lame pickup line so obviously I said no. But Imoen, she’s all “Wow, that sounds interesting, why are you going to Nashkel?” And the two wierdos spill a whole story about some iron plague, like a literal sickness that affects only iron (wtf) and so everyone’s weapons are falling apart which is apparently bad, so they said they would go to Nashkel to see what was going on (I figure they’re basically mercenaries or something). So at this point I elbow imoen (quite hard) and tell them we have other plans, I am NOT going with two randomers to some mine a billion leagues away to “investigate” some iron illness (at least not without a pile of gold up front). I got bigger problems, plus these two are tier-1A wierdos: dude tried to offer me a potion like ten seconds after he met me. I had these flashbacks of bashing in that assassin’s head with my holy mace but these two kinda looked dangerous, so I just dragged imoen away along the road.


yeah, no thanks.

So we hurried on, further east, towards the inn. Eight hours later, and I do mean eight hours, not some sort of exaggeration we meet another wierdo creep, but this time its some old man (nonce?). And just before he speaks I hear this voice in my head which tells me not to trust him. Nice to feel like you’re special, like you have someone looking out for you. But anyway, remembering what happened with the two creeps when Imoen started talking I told this old codger to piss off. You would not believe the hard time imoen gave me about that but im not about to ignore someone who let me summon a magic club and save my life; no way am I doing that. Imoen got over it.

It took another eight hours, and again I literally mean eight hours to get to the friendly arm inn from where we met the geriatric bellend. We’d been travelling all day and it was pretty dark by this point but we could see it, this massive fortress which was apparently an “inn.” Looked almost as big as Candlekeep and I was reminded that actually I would quite like a big castle of my own some day. I was also reminded that Gorion was dead somehweer in bits, which took a fair bit of the shine off our arrival. Imoen was dead tired as well, almost tripping over her feet, so the two of us stumbled over the drawbridge hoping for a bed. I still had Gorion’s gold pouch on me and I figured that the two of us could probably afford the most expensive room in the inn no problem. We deserved it after all the crap we’d been through.


at. fucking. last.

I was absorbed with these fantasies of luxurious soft beds and delicious food almost running up the stairs to the entrance. That was until this berk interrupted us on the way in. I was so looking forward to that feather bed that I told him, um “fuck off” I think was what I said. Well, instead of doing that (fucking off pronto) he attacked us, asshole, didn’t he know how fucking tired I was???

So it got worse, obviously. He was a mage, and a better one that I am. Luckily we’d had a quick rest on the way so I could cast a few spells but still, this was not good – the only thing that saved us is that I had learned from what had happened – attacked by an assassin, Gorion killed by a group of killers, waylayed by a series of nonces on the road, there is no way, and I mean no way I am walking into any potentially dangerous situation unprepared ever again. By that I mean I had cast my magic shield on myself in case things went south, so to speak.

But really, it was the blindness spell that saved the day yet again – as soon as he attacked my fingers crooked and he was rendered blind as a bat, must be painful for that to happen to a wizard. I forgot to mention that Imoen was asleep at this point, that bastard got off a spell before I could mess his stupid eyes up.


sleepy imoen

Anyway, have you ever seen a blind wizard? Pretty sad actually, he bumbled and stumbed around while I used my sling on him hoping that Imoen would wake up. He had some sort of mirror image spell, I haven’t learned that one yet, but it made hitting him super difficult, even with him being blind. I contemplated asking the goddess for a big club again but I didn’t want to get anywhere near this spellcaster, so instead I tried something new and asked her for a divine boon, something that would help me hit this dude with my sling, and waddya know, my prayer was answered – cool does not even begin to cover it. Imoen woke up too so she filled him with a few arrows and bammo, one dead wizard.

Only, when imoen was going through his pockets she found a literal bounty notice with my name on it! “Arwen, 200GP, dead only”, idk if I should be flattered or shit scared since like every asshole from here to Baldur’s Gate is going to be looking for some quick gold. Not cool!


im a wanted woman, this fucking sucks

We stepped over his corpse and entered the inn, hoping to blend in with the packed crowd and avoid any more assassins, nonces, creepers, armoured killers or general “bad dudes.”

The first thing, literally the first thing, that happened once we were in was this half-orc with a big sword told me to get him more ale. I wanted to scream, fortunately Imoen delt with this one (using her middle finger) and we moved further into the crowd.


FUCK. OFF.

I hired the innkeepers most expensive room and me and Imoen sank into blissful sleep. Whoever Gorion wanted us to meet here can wait until tomorrow.

I like this so far. Does the shield give spell failure to illusionist?

Props for the character name, I have imagined her with the right amount of fucks flying around xD
You put me in the shame for not finishing BG.

I didn't read as instructed, but it sure looks fun!



Candlekeep replay value SPOILERS:

Nice. I read the diary. Not sorry.

Oh my god YESSSSSSSSSSSSS.

I love this SO much! It's so cute, it's so funny, it's so much better than my stupid journal thing.

You're the coolest, alice. This is exactly what I always wanted.



But.

But but...

A gnome, alice?

A GNOME?

How could you betray our Anti-Gnome Club like this?

for a - 7 bonus to saves vs spells and vs wands; everyone has their price

Day 3 – Ring the changes

I woke up remembering another strange dream – this time my goddess showed me a dark crevice in a cluster of rocks outside the inn. I somehow knew there was something interesting there. She wanted me to have it.

Nice room. Really nice room, which is good, considering the cost. Me and Imoen decided to stay here for another day – that second assassin has some magic scrolls on him, spells I’ve never seen before so I wanted to spend some time trying to learn them. Which I did! Easy as apple pie. Now I can cast a magic missile and make flames shoot out of my hands, that’s so cool. Only problem being that I still can only cast two spells before I am completely exhausted and have to sleep and I don’t want to give up my bindness spell. Imoen says I need to "work on my stamina" and i said like, girl we walked a million miles to get here, how much stamina working do you want me to do. Then I ordering some room service.


More spells, more power to Arwen (me)

While I was learning the spells Imoen wandered off and It was only later that I found out that she had been stealing anything that wasn’t bolted down from the guests in the inn. Typical Imoen. She came back with some nice armour she had “found” in a chest. The other thing she found were a couple of rubes who wanted us to do things for them. Some old lady said she would pay anyone who could get rid of the spiders in her house, in Beregost (which is apparently south of here). I said eww, no way, aren’t there like people who’s job it is to do that? I do NOT like spiders. The other one was some rich idiot who somehow lost his belt when he met an ogre. I really really REALLY do not want to know how you lose you belt when you encounter an ogre. Nor do I want to meet an ogre tbh.

Anyway, me and Imoen decided to go for a walk outside the Inn grounds, to follow up on my dream. And what do you know, there was a magic ring tucked down between some boulders. This thing is the shit. I can literally feel it increasing my spellcasting power. I can cast a whole four, yeah four, spells now. Amazing. I stocked up on another blindness since that one rocks, and some magical armour, because I was hella jelly of imoen’s new leather armour and wanted some of my own. Yeah. No one is going to be a strong as me soon.


I have no idea how this ring got in here, but I know exactly how I got it out


It’s called evermemory apparently, this one’s a keeper

That afternoon we wandered round the north end of the Inn and you are never going to guess what. There were all these like, “hobgoblins,” I think I got that right because I’ve only ever seen them in books. They ATTACKED me and Imoen, fucking wow Is everyone outside of candlekeep an angry monster? But, with my magic armour, and my magic shield, and my actual shield and my divine club I am pretty much invincible so I smashed their brains in while imoen filled them full of arrows. Starting to think that yeah, its possible to be a badass in this world. We killed a whole five hobgoblins, then we lugged all the crap they had on them back to the inn to flog for cashmoney.

They had an engraved ring on them, which tbh wasn’t worth very much at all so in the end I gave it back to the peasant who claimed she’d lost it, thought it might get me a bit of goodwill with the local morons people.

The other big thing we did today was meet “Jaheira” and “Khalid”, who Gorion told me to find before he was, well before “that” happened. I immediately didn’t like them. For starters they didn’t seem very sad that Gorion was dead, for main course they had no idea who might have killed him, and for dessert they were going to Nashkel like those creepers on the road and said we could “tag along” Fuckers. Obviously I didn’t say that, I said “That’s very nice of you but I think me and my sister will find our own way in this world (of shit)” They didn’t hear that last bit.


nice try, but mines are only one step above sewers

Me and Imoen chatted with some others in the common room and the nearest town was apparently Beregost, maybe we can find some information there about whoever it is who is trying to kill me. I’m also sitting on a fat stack of gold so maybe I can put it to good use in my plans to become a bad bitch. Only joking I’m going to spend it on fancy rooms and nice food.

Day 4 – The adventuring life SUCKS BIG TIME Our miserable journey to Beregost

We camped on the road last night, and I took the time to learn a few more spells, one that could be used to scare people (cool, I’ll test it on imoen later) and one to help run away. Which, um, well, maaaaybe that will be useful.

Cut a long story short – we found that ogre the dude in the friendly arm inn mentioned – not exactly sure how since I swear we were trying to stick to the road but It started raining really heavily and Imoen thought she could see somewhere to shelter and well there was an ogre there. I did my usual thing and magically blinded it, but the damn thing just ran around like a headless and also eyeless chicken. Almost impossible to hit and I was worried that it was going to attract other monsters. Which It did, but we killed them too! And it had not one but two MAGIC belts. We hurried on to Beregost because I wanted to know what these things did. (i.e. we did not take them back to the rube who managed to lose them) And also because it was raining and I was soaking wet, AGAIN.




Arwen and Imoen, Ogre Slayers

It took hours to get to Beregost and by the time we got there I had my priorities straight. 1. Get these magic belts identified. 2. Rent the most expensive room in the most expensive inn. 3. Find out who killed Gorion and who put a bounty on my head 4. Get rich.


Beregost

We found the inn first, looked fancy, but this moron, and I mean complete S-tier moron comes up to me as soon as I get in the door and says he doesn’t “like my type” like what? Gnomes? Fucking ass. Though I guess I haven’t seen many other people like me at all since I left Candlekeep. Guess there just aren’t many gnomes around, but that’s no excuse for being rude. So anyways it was like the red mist descended, didn’t he know what I had been through recently?! Didn’t he know how tough my life is right now?! So I told him he was , rude, nasty, a piece of shit and a motherfucker, and that I would smash his brains in if he didn’t say sorry. And well he didn’t say sorry so I smashed his brains in: a girl’s got to have integrity. Imoen stabbed him a few times for good measure. Then we kicked his corpse. I warned him I was gonna do it so it’s not like it’s anyone’s fault but his, plus can you blame me, I’ve been having a super rough week. No one else seemed all that bothered, I guess they didn’t like him either and were just waiting for a strong-willed gnome to put him in his place (the ground).



No one, and I mean no one talks to me like that

Found a smith too who could identify my new belts, one of them was cursed, he said it would turn me into a man (bleugh, what WAS that guy doing with this ogre?!), the other though, damn this shit is fire. I’m not returning this, this one’s a keeper. The other thing we did was stock up on arrows since Imoen only brought like 10 from Candlekeep and she ran out before mentioning it. Sisters.


Fashionable AND powerful

What else, oh yeah, we bumped into pervy old firebeard, from candlekeep. He also did not seem very concerned that gorion was dead, but he did give me a nifty scroll case for me to store things safely away from the rain. Obviously Imoen nicked some stuff while I distracted him, Firebeards always got more gold than sense.

And that was that. I’m tired, time to hit the luxurious hay.

That's what postmodernist Arwen looks and swears now. You really know how to make it painful!

get yo money

BG1 and BG2 reminds me how I once ran dark monk and from weak scrub, he came out in bg2 as one punch man also there were so many cool mods.

Stabbing, stealing and good ol' corpse kicking. All you want from life.

Best parts:





My heart is a cold, blackened lump of charcoal, incapable of feeling love or warmth. But if it wasn't, I'd be feeling those things. Keep it up!

thanx!

Day 5 - In which Arwen and Imoen properly commence their quest to get rich as shit (and get revenge too)

OMFG some dude in the square was offering FIVE THOUSAND GOLD to kill someone. Who you ask? Who cares more like, its 5,000 gold, I’d kill anyone for that much cash. Well, not Imoen, but pretty much anyone else. You shoulda seen my eyes when he told me how much the bounty was. We. Are. Getting. That. Bounty.


Mo Money Less Problems

But I have a feeling that a bounty that big is going to need some serious firepower so me and Imoen are going to have to work really hard. So that’s why we took another job. Some stupid dwarf wants us to track down some stupid noble’s stupid son. Sign us up and off we go.


Dream duo + third wheel

Didn’t go according to plan obviously, the son was dead, and even worse, the caravan had already been looted. What a waste of time. Told the dwarf to beat it, don’t need another berk with a bounty on their head slowing us down. At least he paid us for the work, but it was back to Berghost to look for some decent paying work, or hopefully a few marks who want of to “retrieve” things they have lost. Heh, still loving this magic belt.


...

What had to be the worst part of the day was when we got back to beregost and some crazy woman waylayed us, wanting help against a killteam of red wizards like noooo thankyou I do not want to get involved which was all well and good in theory but what actually happened is she like manipulated them into thinking we were with her. B*tch! Fortunately, or unfortunately her magic backfired and the red wizard was teleported who knows where leaving us to deal with his apprentice. You guessed it, another blind (apprentice) wizard coming up. I was actually quite excited to see if this budget thayvian had some scrolls or cool magic items but guess what HE HAD NOTHING ON HIM. I was so angry that I told the crazy wildmage to piss off before I smashed her bonce in for what she’d manipulated us into doing – killing a red wizard, like even an apprentice, hoooly shit. Me and Imoen scarpered asap after that, thought we better lay low ‘til this blows over.


Today is officially ruined! Courtesy of some wildmage jerk.

We left Beregost to the south. I didn’t know what else to do, I didn’t want to get lost in the wilderness, or go back to the Friendly Arm Inn, so south seemed to be the only option. Wow I hate that wild mage that got us into this, did I mention that?!

We just walked south, and just our luck we run into some wierdass creatures who attacked us (Imoen said they’re called Ogrillons, gross). You can guess what we did (kill them). One of them had a letter addressed to someone in Beregost on them and I figured there might be payment for delivering it but I didn’t want to go back yet, until we were sure the red wizards weren’t going to come looking for us. We found the remains of the messenger shortly after, seems we had interrupted lunch.

The other thing that happened was some feds harassed us claiming we were bandits. I mean come ON there were two monsters literally EATING a messenger in the MIDDLE OF THE ROAD not 100m further north, these assholes should do their job and stop harassing us. That is NOT what I said, instead I put on my best gnomish charm and they naffed off to eat some doughnuts or something. Good riddance. Me and imoen had a bit of a laugh doing flaming fist impressions after then had gone.

It was getting late and the two of us decided to hang out in the wilderness overnight (ugh) and decide what to do in the morning.

So good. Highlights:

why are you that woman from Buffy the vampire slayer?

Finished an entire saga playthrough with a CN Human Fighter/Assassin like a month ago.
This game is timeless, is one of the few games which it always plays like the first time. There's a reason me and others here keep insisting that Larian should seek inspiration in these games.

Day 6 – Ring the changes part 2

I had another strange dream. This time she told me that the red wizards were looking north, towards the Friendly Arm Inn and that they had left Beregost. I woke up feeling relieved, but after a night out in the wilderness I was looking forward to a good bed tonight. Me and Imoen now had enough gold to rent the best room in Beregost for months – but tbh I’m starting to wonder if this won’t draw some attention to us. I’m trying to avoid being assassinated so me and imoen decides we would change inns, lay low.

Picked up a few things from the smithy today: some studded leather armor for Imoen, she was pretty hyped, and a better sling for me since It seems like I’m going to be doing a lot of slinging.

Next we delivered that letter from the half-eaten messenger and holy shit the woman was so pleased she gave us a magic ring of protection in payment. Being the magnanimous person that I am we agreed that Imoen should wear it. Obviously this was from the kindness and generosity of my heart and not because pragmatically as a gnome I’m already good at resisting magic and that sort of stuff. I don’t want my little sister dying on me after all. Only problem was, neither me nor Imoen actually knew what it did. We tried asking around but couldn’t find anyone in Beregost who could help us. Someone said we should visit the wizard in his tower west of the town.

We found the wizard tower no problem (its huge! I was filled with wizard tower envy) But we also found a load of dog things, gnolls hanging around outside the walls. They all had these enormous halberds which they were swinging around, and they barked at us, literally barked, like actual dogs. I could tell they wanted to eat us baaaadly. I used up every one of my spells while Imoen tried to hit them with arrows. I’ll tell you this, fighting three rabid dog-men at the Same time is no easy thing. And one of them was super strong, it had all scars round its muzzle and was bigger than the others. Good job I’m the best, and also that Imoen had stolen a magic wand from candlekeep before she left. To the victor the spoils as they say, and the big tough one ha a short sword which had “Perdue” engraved on it. It didn’t look magical at all so I figured we could try and find its owner for a reward rather than just flogging it with the other junk. Sometimes sentimentality makes people act all funny (and generous).


Battle beneath the walls


trophy pic!

The guy in town was right and the wizard in the tower could identify the ring. Nice. Plus this guy was absolutely loaded, magical stuff EVERYWHERE. I tried to contain my uncontainable greed and envy. He had spell scrolls for sale for spells I’d never even heard of, never dreamed of being possible. It was all super expensive so I just bought one that said it would allow me identify things. I was getting pretty fed up with paying huge amounts of gold to get people to tell me what things did. We also had a joke about him calling the ring “the ring of princes”, more like the ring of princesses imoen said as she put it on – the wizard didn’t find that very funny so we scarpered pronto ‘cos there was more money to be made.


dank wizard tower


dank ring

It was getting late by the time we got back to berghost so I figured we could track down this “perdue” if he was around then find a new inn. We asked around for ages until we ended up in a nasty place called the “Burning Wizard” – barkeep said that perdue often drinks next door at the red sheaf but since it was so late by this point me and Imoen decided to get a room here.

Day 7 – Inn Hopping

Terrible nights sleep – regretting 100% our choice to downgrade our lodgings. This place s u c k s and I am never coming back. Woke up early just to get out – think I might have fleas, my ankles are super itchy. But on the flipside no red wizards trying to track us down. Guess my strange and also powerful dream visitor is on the money. We left to go find Perdue and cash in his sword for big money.



worst. inn. ever.

So the Red Sheaf was a shitshow – there was another assassin waiting for us in there! Some dwarf with a massive axe. I tried to bribe him but he was too stupid to know a good deal. I hit him with my blindness spell and me and imoen tried to take him down, but we were making a terrible mess of the red sheaf, like absolute chaos – this guy would NOT go down, he seemed to have a pocket full of healing potions and was armoured like a tank, even blind. But kill him we did (obviously or I would not be writing this duh), and after apologising A LOT for the mess we checked the body to find that he had a bounty notice on him for me, but this time it was 350 gold – someone really wants me dead.


smashing up the red sheaf. 100% not our fault!


one bounty I am NOT interested in collecting.

The only good side was that perdue was in the inn (hehe) and he gave us a fat sack of gold for returning his absolutely non-magical short sword – what a rube. Anyway, me and imoen are not welcome in the Red Sheaf ever again apparently so we’ll have to find yet another place to sleep. So much for laying low.

There was still time in the day though, and I remembered a little asshole who only this morning I realised had stolen some gold from me at the burning wizard. He told us this sob story about how his magic boots had been stolen by hobgolbins. And well, magic boots are just too good to resist so me and Imoen headed into the wilderness just south of the town and sure enough a group of (now dead) hobgoblins and a pair of magic boots. Lifes good – think I’ll keep these for Imoen and maybe we go kill the thief later? not sure. I’m getting pretty good at killing things, its almost like me and Imoen have a talent for it or something – weird.

It was dark by the time we got back to beragost and, lacking anything better to do we decided to try inn number four – the jovial juggler. We were immediately accosted by some do gooder tryin to get us to kill some half-ogres. Like holy hells how many times do I have to say “ill think about it” before someone gets the message? And then another who had lost his cloak. Now a magic cloak, that sounds like it’s worth our while, but talosi, and cloakwood, that’s miles away. Something for later maybe. Time to sleep.


Inn numero 4

This thread is awesome.

Thanx!

Is it OK to read this now? I am very literal and follow instructions to the letter.

I see from the pictures that Arwen is partly a cleric, how does that affect her motivations and interactions?

Day 8 – “We need to be doing something!” - imoen

Ok, me an Imoen had a chat this morning as we had breakfast in the Jovial Juggler. It’s a week later and we are still no closer to working out why Gorion was killed, or why there are assassins after me, but I’m not stupid: I am the adopted gnome daughter of one of the most respected scholars on the sword coast, he never did tell me who my parents were. I think that must have something to do with it. Maybe I’m like gnome royalty or something?! The only positive in my life right now is that I am considerably richer than I have ever been and that Imoen is here with me.

We’ve been to every inn and drinking hole in this place and no one knows anything, all they ever do is talk about the “Iron Crisis.” So, we decided that there is nothing else to learn in Beregost and we should move on to the next place, try and see if we can dig up some more info. That would be Nashkel (ugh) where this iron crisis everyone is so worked up about is supposedly stemming from. I didn’t want to go but imoen convinced me that someone or other might be VERY happy if we could help out, and heroes tend to get, like, rewards, castles, that sort of thing. So after she made “that” face, which she always does when she wants something I relented, looked like we were going to Nashkel.


the long, boring, uncomfortable, tiring, dull, and also boring road south

We were attacked in the mountain pass between Beregost and Nashkel: hobgoblins again, the had set up an actual PEREMENANT camp in the pass and were ambushing anyone who went through – this place is going to the dogs (literally in the case of gnolls). It needs someone to sort it out for a hefty and considerable fee and/or monetary show of gratitude, ‘cos how am I going to get a castle with a wizard tower in it if I do everything for free? Those flaming fists we met earlier are proving themselves to be utterly wank at doing anything around here. Fortunately, my host of protective spells and the magic belt mean that arrows practically evaporate before they hit me – amazing really. Six dead hobgoblins, and not a wound on me. Is that normal?


Arwen, defier of arrows

We found a dead family, boo hoo I guess, but one of them had a cute engraved necklace which I thought really went with my eyes. Nothing magical, it just looks good (priorities right? I’m not cruel, its just like, they were already dead, what do you want me to do, burst into tears? I didn’t even know them...).

Anyway, we got a bit lost on the way south and ended up in the carnival on the outskirts of Nashkel, rather than the town itself. We decided that it was so dark that we should camp (I bought a tent before we left beregost so no more hiding under trees, yay) and wait for dawn to explore.

No, not in bg1 and 2


It's worth it, but its no BG2 imo


like, what if it was like clueless, but instead of being set in the valley, cher horowitz was like the daughter of the god of murder?


Yeah, the whole story is about becoming strong as fuck in a world of shit. Of all the things that "make" the BG story thats the one I think larian need to focus on, and I hope they do. If I make it on to BG2 I will install a whole host of great mods. SCS is the only one I roll with for BG1, mostly because I don't find the quest mods very compelling and there arn't a whole host of difficult tactical challenges


never heard of it sorry


100%


you will have to read to find that out, but, it does say do not read, so you are not allowed to read it

Day 9 – None of the fun of the fair

So this is what a carnival looks like. Not gonna lie it was pretty exciting, so much to see.. Imoen was pretty stoked too. I managed to reign in my slack-jawed look enough to do some buying and selling, I’d picked up a couple of spell scrolls which made me pretty sick to look at and I couldn’t wait to offload them. Necromancy I think, that is NOT my deal, oh no no. I do not like the idea one bit, who goes about playing with the dead? I kinda prefer making the corpses tbh, though now I have written that down it seems pretty odd. Anyway, no arcane necromancy for me, gnomes must be allergic or something.


Kinda how I expected it

There weren’t as many people at the carnival as I had thought there would be but people said that the mines had been “claiming lives” (euphemism). Must be a lot of dead if this is all that’s left. Things are more messed up here than I would have thought.

One weird thing that happened is we met some sort of carnival-mage who insisted on summoning an “exploding ogre” – unsurprisingly the ogre was pretty pissed off and attacked the mage, and us. Seemed like a rough way to go but I wasn’t about to get clobbered by some stupid ogre. We mest around the carnival for a couple of hours, it was nice to relax a bit.

I was pretty bored with the carnival by this point (there is only so much coconut throwing a girl can do) so the two of us walked the short way to Nashkel proper.

So we get towards Nashkel from the fair and I am FREAKING OUT. There’s this freaking red wizard just chilling on a bridge south of the village, looking all around like he’s looking for someone. I pulled Imoen backwards and we hid behind a shed or farm building thingy and he didn’t spot us. But this looked bee aye dee bad.


ffs

As we were walking very quickly away we bumped straight into some sort of village idiot talking to a mouse or something. The man seemed to have an intellect lower than a moron and when I told him I wasn’t going to go off on some “quest” to save some “witch” without payment he flipped out and attacked me with no warning! Is everyone outside of candlekeep a grade-A dunce and a psychopath?! Seriously, the guy only had 2 gold pieces on him as well. I told imoen that coming here was a shitty idea and guess who got proved right. And, that’s only the second time (the first was the red wizard looking for us). Because, well, I’ll get to it. I was just so pissed off about this cretin trying to attack me with his laughably oversized sword. MF-er didn’t even have a bounty notice, he was just a moron, wtf.


Leave. Us. Alone!

So I’m thinking that we will finally get to whatever sorry excuse for an inn this shitstain town has and some fat dude runs up to me calling me greywolf. I don’t know you, fuck off! Is what I actually said (whoops, cringe). Imoen has to literally restrain me. Damn I was pretty angry after the village idiot incident (I mean who kills a village idiot? I feel personally humiliated). Not my finest moment. But he did fuck off.

It was just endless, because then someone comes up asking me If will clear out the Nashkel mines. Like m8, a teenage girl and her younger sister and you think we look like we can clear out a freaking mine are you kidding me. Obviously we could, if we wanted to but we 100% do not look like a band of six manly mercenary types of whatever this myopic idiot mistook us for. I said “we’ll think about it” and pushed past him – I could see the tavern sign just ahead. Finally I was thinking.

So we go in a guess what, another damn assassin, this time some priestess. Me and Imoen noped out of there asap back into the village with her running after us waving a damn hammer around. We did the whole “save us” thing and some prat ran up and started trying to punch her, like with his HANDS, where the hell are the big men with swords when you need them?! I’d used up all my blindness spells (thanks earlier moron, geez) so Imoen burned through the whole of her magic missile wand putting this asshole in the ground. The punching kicking dude didn’t land a single hit. Pathetic (I told him this afterwards, he seemed pretty miffed).


bootleg Jackie chan moment

Anyway, I was more concerned with the bounty: she was trying to collect 680 gold pieces, wowzers. Someone is really really wanting me dead even more than before. Could my life get and worse??


yikeseroos

At least there was a bed waiting now. I need to calm down, this anger Is making me think funny. I prayed for respite, for clarity, for anything really.

This is endlessly entertaining. Good work!

The lines that amused me the most in the last few parts:

Kinda like my cat and dogs. Shall rename them to Imoen1, Imoen2 and Imoen3

I’m enjoying your playthrough, and I don’t ever enjoy anything as a rule.

Are you planning on recruiting any companions or are you going to stick with Arwen and Imoen alone? I dig the dynamic you gave them.

This makes me want to do another BG run. The last dozen times I’ve played I’ve stuck with my canonical Bhaalspawn each time (I’m a creature of habit):

Half-elf (1/4 Drow), Male, Berserker
BG1:
Imoen
Jaheira
Khalid
Minsc
Dynaheir

BG2:
Imoen / Yoshimo
Jaheir
Minsc
Custom Sorcerer
Keldorn / Sarevok

Seeing you play has made me want to switch it up. Try something new. Maybe a Halfling Thief?

Day 10 – and they call it a mine.

I dreamed of her again. It comforted me. She told me that I would be stronger, that she could grant me more power. When I woke up it was true, I could channel slightly more divine energy, not much but enough to be able to cast some sort of holy (or unholy?) curse. I can’t wait to try this out.

The cleric we killed the other day had a dopey looking helmet, it was kinda magical but it looked so uncool we sold it for a fat roll of coins, and that’s not all, Imoen had found this badass suit of armour earlier, before I got up. She didn’t tell me exactly where she had found it but I figured she’d “found it.” Enough said – neither of us could use it so we sold it for and even fatter stack than the helmet. We are so freaking rich, I was almost tempted to make the journey all the way back to High Hedge so we can splash out on spellscrolls – that’s how rich we are. I’m itching to try out some new magic.

So at this point I think we had seen all Nashkel had to offer so really the choices were to laze around in various inns using our new mountain of gold coins until we got old, assassinated or robbed, or to try and work out what happened to Gorion and get these assassins off my back. The first step, as Imoen rightly said (and I will admit I was pretty hasty i saying no way), is that we need an “in” with the people who know things and do things, powerful people basically, and that “in” is going to be this damn mine which every person and their fricking dog is yapping about. Fix the mine, become “heroes,” leverage that into power, prestige, even more wealth, and information. Damn I’m smart.

As we were heading south towards the mine we passed a Temple of Helm in Nashkel, huge thing, it made me feel uncomfortable to see it. I realised I was walking on the other side of the road to be as far away as possible, it didn’t affect Imoen in the same way.

Nothing is ever easy though. On the way to the mines, we were travelling through this canyon and yep, you guessed it: ambushed. A whole host of bandits and the like. Me and Imoen were about to runkill them when this half-orc showed up and started hacking apart the bandits. Seemed he held a grudge or something.


dont let us stop you

He wasn’t actually that good at fighting but he served as meat shield while me and Imoen did all the heavy lifting. Well, until he was stabbed through the gut by one of the bandits. Me and Imoen were the last ones standing. To the victor the spoils as they say, we looted the corpses like the pair of scavengersbasasses we are. Not one but two magic swords, a magic shield which I could use – this thing is the shit, and some expensive looking potions. Whatever grudge was going on here, me and Imoen have lucked out, not so lucky for the eight corpses though.


welp, eveyone dead

The mine looked just as shitty as I expected, peasants breaking rocks and humping dirt around. No thank you. But we were here do a job, and the mine overseer (asshole) told us we could have a one day to investigate – fine, I didn’t even want to spend a whole day here anyway.


gross mine with miners

The miners were all panicking about “little demons” great, that would be just what I needed. I was thinking that they were probably scared of bats of some crap. But enough I am not going to describe in long and tedious detail the long and tedious schlumping me and Im did through layer after layer of tunnels. I’m getting a headache just remembering it, so I’ll skip to the end: It became preeeeetty obvious the mine was filled with kobolds, like do these people not read a fricking book every once in a while? How did they not realise this, I mean the upper levels were filled with soldiers from Amn supposedly “protecting the mine.” I’m sensing a theme – first the Flaming Fists, then these soldiers from Amn – professionals? Professional losers more like.


We’re pretty good at killing kobolds it seems.

The mines connected to a series of deep caves, with even more kobolds, but after you’ve killed you 30th or indeed 300th kobold it all kinda blends into one. Finally, when I thought we could kill no more, We found an area where we could rest, catch our breath recover some spells. I was exhausted, and so was Imoen, these caves go on for ever.

Day 11 – Deep in the bowels of the earth

Woke up still in this forsaken mine, but we knew we must be near the lowest level 'cos there were literal lava rivers and shit, wtf.

Me and Im knew that this was it, we knew whatever was causing the iron crisis was here- i don't normally get like, sentimental, but we both kinda new this was a now or never moment - our whole plan hinged on this. And yeah, there was this room, with this priest of Cyric, and all these skeletons, and kobolds with flaming arrows, in this tight claustrophobic space, hardly any room to move. It was a miracle me and Imoen survived. We had a little bit of help from this elven “mage” called Xan, though he couldn’t actually cast any spells – not actually sure how he survived the battle. He was a prisoner of the cleric or something, some failed adventurer, just talking to him drained, like, the will to live.


Part 1 of the battle

The fight was dummy hard, I think me an Imoen drank all our healing potions, and this potion of speed which was a lifesaver – Imoen she moved so quick, we gots to get more of these. Absolutely savage – she hacked the priest up with her shortword.


aftermath, with picture of sad sack elf

Turns out that yep, just as expected, the cleric was poisoning the iron (duh), but what was more exciting, he had a whole chest full of spell scrolls and magic items: magic boots, magic rings, magic everything. And did I mention the spell scrolls?

He also had two letters detailing what was going on with the iron (I read them but they were pretty boring), and with him dead that should be enough to make us heroes or whatever. We left Xan in the mine, I didn’t want a spare wheel on the journey – this is me and Imoen all the way through to the end. He was literally so miserable, who has time for babysitting a depressed elf?


Lead 1: a contact in beregost called Tranzig


Lead 2: A plot involving some mercenary companies to disrupt other sources of iron into the region.

So we walked all the way out of the mine, up through the levels like a pair of chumps - magical teleportation when? There were an awful lot of kobold bodies to step over. i mean a lot. I remember thinking, did me and Imoen really kill all these? It seems perverse almost. Such slaughter. How are we so good at killing things?

Yah, so we reported our success, flashed the letters around Nashkel and the mayor was ecstatic. Like so pleased. These people really do love iron ore (sad really). He paid us 900 gold pieces for all our VERY HARD work, which objectively is a lot, but considering the epic amount of walking down mine shafts, not to mention the gratuitous amount of killing involved seemed pretty cheap. I felt genuinely angry. It’s hard to control sometimes, ever since I left candlekeep I’ve been struggling with it. But hey ho, I’m fucking rich now which makes anything good and everything better xd.

We retired to the inn to spend some of our new cash, and also to get clean, eww, I realised I absolutely stink, and so does imoen, too long in the grotty mine, not to mention all the dried blood in my clothes. Everyone in the tavern was really pleased to see us and imoen drank too much in the common room before we crashed out. Thank fuck for soft beds and clean sheets.

Day 12 – Plans


Heya, its me, Arwen

Time to sell sell sell, this stuff is like worth a mint – the sword from that half-ork is worth a whopping 450Gs, and, I literally just realised he was the same asshole who told me to bring him a drink in the friendly arm inn. haha jokes on you buddy ‘cos you’re dead and im selling your shit. Arwen 1, half-ork 0.

Total haul so far is over 8,000 Golds, so I guess I will have to open an account at the local bank or something, best not to think about the weight issue tbh.

Me and Imoen decided to have a day off today and work some stuff out, see where we are. Assess the situation using our combined big brains. Here’s what we know:

1. Some asshole murdered Gorion, they also wanted to kill me.
2. Some asshole has been putting increasingly large bounties on my head and the sword coast is filled with bounty hunters looking for me.
3. A man named Tazok, has been running a scheme to cripple iron ore trade across the sword coast. He is in cloakwood somewhere but a contact of his is in Beregost.
4. My dreams are filled with an unknown goddess who has granted me a modicum of divine favor. I have my suspicions about who she is (im not an idiot, in fact im actually a genius)
5. I have found myself very good at killing things, people, anything really. I often quite like it. Imoen is the same, but she tries to hide it from me.
6. I am now very rich and getting richer.
7. Some people think I am a hero, must be my cute smile.

The two of us decided to lay low for a while down south, Nashkel isn’t that interesting but like, this iron crisis scheme sounds pretty big and I quite like my head to remain on my shoulders: the mine was hard af to clear out ngl and I can’t imagine that whoever was running this scheme will be very happy that we pulled the plug. They are probably sending a whole host of highly trained and deadly assassin-mages after us right now as I write this.

We spent some time messing around in the town, everyone here likes us now, people keep trying to buy us drinks and asking if imoen will marry them or their “handsome son”, that sort of thing, I can see it makes her kinda awkward but she is getting used to it. On the other hand NO ONE is asking if I will marry them, not that I would or anything, I am now richer than like this whole town, but it would be nice if someone offered so I could turn them down. Anti-gnome prejudice is a big thing apparently.

The only other thing of note was there are some outstanding bounties with the locals. Ngl the thought of more killing was actually making me… well, it was exciting. Idk why, it just is. Anyway, I had a think about my to do list, gorion was always making lists so he didn’t forget to do things and I think he had the right idea.

♥Arwen’s To Do List♥

• Find out who killed gorion
• Kill them
• Get rich
• Get even richer
• Own a huge castle
• Become the most powerful wizard in the world
• Look after Imoen

Oh, and I learned some new spells, nasty ones: ones to make people fall asleep and do anything I tell them to. I like these spells A LOT. Anyway, time to sleep now, This has been a nice day off.

Thanks!

I am planning on doing it as a duo for BG1, If I get to BG2 I might pick up a companion for specific quests for role playing purposes e.g. maybe Nalia for Da'rnise keep, Valgar for Planar Sphere (this would also help slow down XP progression without having to mod XP rewards lower). So If I get to SoA that would mean rushing to Spellhold early to save her which I think would fit with the sisters-dynamic im going with. Might set the gold requirement for spellhold higher to justify getting a tad more XP before going since SCS underdark as a low level duo is pretty ouch. Think I might install a couple of Tactics elements too, just for kicks. plans plans plans

As a metanote on the above playthrough I forgot how difficult Mulahey can be with SCS-Insane at low level - I coulda used the wand of frost to ice him but I forgot to identify it, whoops. I was reading a walkthrough and laughing because It was like "6 person party grind ankhegs to lvl 5 then do Nashkel." obviously with no SCS installed.

Day 13 – Gnoll the Bounty HunterHunting Bounties.

Haha, how the tables turn, theres a bounty on me and im hunting bounties on other people. The irony is pretty… ironic. So we had heard that this artist with a bounty might be somewhere around the Nashkel mines. On the one hand, back to the mines, eww, but on the other hand that was only a four hour walk from Nashkel (I CANNOT believe I just said only a four hour walk, I HATE walking.)
Anyway, we found the artist, he was completely batty, carving some crap into a rock, but, and here’s the big but, he was using the two massive, huge, enormous, sparkly emeralds for the statues eyes. Hooooly shit.


my eyes were as green as well, emeralds

Imoen almost tripped over herself trying to get them before some other asshole showed up saying HE was here to claim the bounty – now back off butthead I said and well that didn’t go down well so we had to fight this dude with two swords. But guess what – I am now a baddass bitch and there was nothing this baby bountyhunter could do while blind. And just for good measure I followed up with one of my new divine gifts – a spell that could hold my enemies in place. This shit is hella OP, thanks mystery patron goddess, I owe ya. Look who’s the top bounty hunter on the sword coast now! Hells, at this point they should be hiring me to kill myself heh. As a bonus he had this super nice magic sword. Too big for imoen but it sure looked valuable.


Starter


Main


Desert

We were about to gut the sculptor too when he just upped and keeled over dead. I seriously cannot understand what the hell is going on with people, its like I’m surrounded by utter morons. At least I have two fatass emeralds in my pocket to make me feel better. I don’t think we will be returning these any time soon.

What else today, oh, nothing much, almost overwhelmed by gibberings at one point, traipsed around looking for this second bounty, no luck though. Oh yeah, the gnome. That was super weird. So we were up in the high mountains east of the mine, and we run into this gnome, now anyone up here is probably up to no good, but he talked about his dreams. He’d had dreams about me – dreams of blood and death, dreams in which either he died or I did. Obviously that spooked me a bit, but it was clear that he believe this 100% since when I said “like, maybe we shouldn’t be like hanging out together gnome-dude” he kinda flipped and tried to kill me. Nothing new there, but I felt kinda bad killing the only other gnome I’ve seen since leaving Candlekeep.


Don’t really know what to make of this encounter tbh,unsettling

Oh well, he had some cool gear – including this one scroll which claimed it would protect me from any, literally any magic. Fucked up if true, this one’s a keeper. But I can’t get how sincerely he described his dream, how clearly he believed that the future held nothing but blood.

In addition to all the funny lines, I really like how you're subtly building up the narrative about being Bhaalspawn. This is the best.

its funny that there are lots of hints all the way through the game but I haven't really paid attention to the plot and plot-hints for years so this is actually a good excuse for me to read every line and really enjoy the build up prior to the bhaalspawn reveal. The meta-story is really well done imo, even if I cringe at some of the individual bits of dialogue which can be so cheesy it hurts.

Yeah, the tone in Baldur's Gate is kinda all over the place. There's a lot of really silly shit, but also over-the-top dark stuff.

i love the easter egg of 3 (cant remember what race of creature) talking about getting paper pen and dice and playing dungeons n dragons

Day 14 – R&R (&K for killing)

I’d had enough of these stupid mountains, nothing to see up here, nothing to do, never did find that bounty, so we decided to call it quits and head back to Nashkel – thought we would check out the circus again since technically we’re both having some time off. More fool us.

Wandering into a tent that clearly said merchant and what happens, some idiot saying he’s going to kill some witch or whatever if I don’t do what he says. I told him he no one talks to me like that (I mean did me and Im not just singlehandedly solve the whole fricking iron crisis?! – bad bitch Arwen is here2stay), he kinda flipped out, people here are so mardy, he killed the witch and then we killed him. Another blind wizard hehe. They should call me Arwen the magehunter because im the best there is. With both of them dead we did the only sensible thing: filled our bags with their shit.


seriously?!

But now it was finally put some of our gold to good use. I bought a shield-amulet for Imoen. She’s been hella jelly when she sees me cast my shield spell so when I saw there was like an amulet that would let a noob (sorry Im) cast the spell I bought it then and there. The other one was super expensive but it would, no joke, allow me to cast this fuckoff massive mega-fireball. It has “shit-wrecker” written all over it. I’ll save it for the important fights but still, it is FUCKING AMAZING.

After an afternoon spent relaxing at the fair we made our way back into Nashkel proper for a good night sleep. I’ll admit I had got a bit lax and so I totally wasn’t expecting a damn assassin to be waiting outside the inn. Musta heard about the mine. Utter shitheel. We had to waste him (obviously) but he was better than all the others so far, like, super dangerous. I was worried about Imoen but she’s really managed to improve with that bow of hers. I got’s to get her a better one.

Ok ok, you’re wondering how I actually killed this assassin. He had all these spells I’d never seen before – one that deflected spells, one that turned his skin as tough as stone. Well. As soon as we saw that he could deflect spells me and Imoen just upped and ran, like cowards, that is until we were out of the town then I used my newly purchased amulet of mega-fireball-death to just blow this dude up. One hit kill. It was everything I hoped it would be and more – absolutely savage.


S A V A G E

He had a letter on him (fortunately not burned by the fireball), and, ok, so here we have it, it’s the same Tazok who was writing to the priest in the Nashkel mines. I’m starting to think that the mine sabotage, Gorion’s death and the bounty on my head are all connected. But get this, they describe me and Imoen as a “group of mercenaries” haha there’s only 2 of us with an average age of like eighteen, and I like this bit “very dangerous” haha, it makes me sound like a badass (imoen too, no shade).


the thot plickens

He was obviously a good assassin because he had these absolutely savage magic boots which should allow the wearer to dodge arrows super well – I gave them to Imoen since I’m worried that she will get hurt, plus I already have this great belt that kind of does the same. He also had a magic short sword which I gave to Imoen too.

I’ve saved the best ‘til last though since he had this scroll, which if I’m reading it right will allow me to summon a familiar, a dust mephit to be precise. Every wizard, and I mean EVERY wizard needs a familiar.


now at last I will be a REAL wizard

I can’t wait to try it out in the morning.

Arwen's getting pretty hardcore.

I played the bhaalspawns team (PC+Imoen + Sarevok in ToB) many times and I really enjoyed it. Happy gaming to you.
Just want to say that I used to be cautious about the xp level before triggering ch.4 because you can get at least two versions of Imoen. The 400K and the 1.2M iirc. Perhaps things have changed in the latest engine version of EE, more exactly post dragonspear release but I doubt it. BG2 and its related tooling are not installed on my computer at the moment. I can't tell you the details but, as an experienced and active player, you may know it by heart.
Such a difference means nothing in the mid/long term, especially in your setting. However, in the very short term, I think that playing with a too noticeable discrepancy between characters is less enjoyable (but perhaps it's just me).
On second thought, with two spellcasters, you probably planned to boost Imoen with a rich collection of scrolls, anyway.

Day 15 – This feels… familiar

Yay, the familiar is everything I ever wanted and more, its this little mephit that flaps around and does what I tell it to – its super cute. I’ve decided to call it Dante. Imoen thinks its ugly and creepy but what does she know. And it can cast some magic too, mephit magic, and its claws are actually quite sharp (Imoen was NOT happy, she hit Dante back and I had to stop an actual fight. Fortunately, Dante’s wounds closed super quick: he can regenerate)


familiar spirits

There wasn’t much else to do today – we messed around with Dante, testing him to see how strong he was, all sorts of wizard things. He has actually made me feel more healthy, like I can weather more injuries – that’s that magic of a mage-familiar bond.

We heard rumours of a Xvart village to the west that was giving Nashkel some trouble, as well as a fortress that was occupied by Gnolls, and needing something to do while we hid out from the assassins, me, Imoen and Dante are heading out west in search of even more magical items and gold.

Day ??? – The Temptation in the wilderness.

The past few days went in quite a blur, me and Im have been out in the wilderness, I didn’t really feel like updating my diary constantly 'cos like no table or desk right so I’m sat back in the jovial juggler in Beregost summing up the past two weeks-ish. Forgive me if my memory is not as good a it should be.

We went due west of Nashkel. First we hit up the Xvart village, I wasn’t actually looking for a fight, but they were, so we ended up fighting after all, including their pet bear. Everyone out here in the wilderness just wants to fight, or take you for a fool. There is hardly a friendly person between here and Beregost. We filled our packs with gear.


note: add bear pun later

Dante is proving to be very useful in running interference, hopping around, getting things to chase him so Imoen can get to work with her bow and I can let off some spells. He’s fragile but I can cast aid on him to increase his resilience and another divine piece of awesomeness which turns his skin as tough as bark - plus he regenerates so theres no need to babysit him. Hopefully I’ll be able to learn a spell to turn him invisible too – I like having my own little minion to order around: he does the scouting while me and imoen kick back and do some sunbathing (lie: it rains constantly, more likely we are just lazy and hiding under a tree while Dante gets wet)


a rare moment of sun

Bounty Hunter Redux

We finally found Oublek’s other bounty, the Nashkel captain who had gone berserk. He was asking us to lead him back to Nashkel so he could get some help or something. I was about ready to hit him with a divine hold spell but then I thought, holy crap Arwen we are literally miles and mile and MILES away from Nashkel, this dude looks like he weighs a mega-ton and we’d need the body to claim the bounty. Lets just walk back with him, then if it doesn’t work we can just kill him but this time right near Nashkel. Arwen you are a big brain genius.

So that is exactly what we did, and for practically nothing the dude in the temple paid us one THOUSAND gold pieces. Hoooooly crap my prayers are answered. Sometimes the big brain plays work out for the best. The only issue was that I felt physically sick trying to set foot in the temple of Helm, but I sent Imoen to do what I could not. No problemo.

Turns out the issue was that the captain had picked up a cursed sword which drives anyone who uses it into an insane killing rage. Now, I did tell that to the merchant in the shop so I don’t think I can be held responsible for whatever happens next.

Afterwards we headed back out west, there were still things to see, and we’d heard more rumours about that Gnoll fortress or stronghold on the coast. I was feeling the need to test my new power. It practically begged for an outlet.


butchery of gnolls

We killed gnolls, we killed flinds, we killed talosi, we killed ogres, we killed hobgoblins, we killed kobolds, we killed wolves and bears and dogs, we kill humans, we killed and killed and killed, painting the sword coast red with blood. Death walked in our shadow. We killed until I thought we could kill nothing more, and then we carried on killing. And truth be told I enjoyed it. It scares me, but I enjoy it.

The grave-robbers“Archaeological Dig”

It was late on I think the 18th day since Gorion was killed when we stumbled into an excavation out in the middle of nowhere. They looked at us suspiciously, two young women armed to the teeth, one with a mephit fluttering around her. But Imoen’s easy charm got someone who I will refer to as idiot #1 to hire us to protect them. Haha. It was obvious that they were grave-robbers, but that didn’t bother us one bit. The thought of treasure though, that had my eyes lit up. Obviously we don’t work for free on principle so Imoen wheedled 100Gs out of them before we even started – people are so gullible when you know how.


idiot #1

And that was before someone else (who I will now call idiot #2) approached us with the offer to take over this little excavation so that he could keep the treasure himself, he offered a hefty 900Gs. Of course that’s what we were already going to do, but I didn’t tell idiot numero 2 that. Too smart by half. Of course, we said yes. But what really got me was just how damn rude idiot #2 was. There is a serious lack of manners around here. I managed to contain the red mist for long enough to follow idiot #1 into the tomb.

Obviously, like it always happens in the books: breach an ancient tomb and the curse’ll getcha. All the diggers went stark mad when they opened the last seal, tried to wack me and Im with their shovels, obvs we wacked ‘em back. You ever seen a fireball go off in an enclosed space? Well, I hadn’t either – wow. Absolute disgusting mess of bbq’d diggers.




indoor fireball, yikes

We told idiot #1 that idiot #2 had tried to hire us to kill him. He was pretty thankful for the warning and ran away asap but I didn’t care since I was at that point hefting this clearly cursed and even more clearly valuable idol and waving it at Imoen who gave me a thumbs up.

Fucking nightmare does not even begin to cover the next part – some revenant shows up wanting the idol – I tell it to beat it, idiot #2 gets cursed same as the diggers and attacks, a host of talosi run up, the full worlds. Holy SHIT this revenant guy was tough. It was time to break out the nuclear option, I had this wand see, I’d been keeping it secret hence why I didn’t write it down in my diary obviously! Its this wand of frost, fires a beam of ice at anything, uber powerful – it still took NINE blasts with it, plus a fireball for good measure to kill this thing. Poor wand only has one charge left but at least me, Im and dante are still alive. Idiot #2 didn’t even have the 900Gs he promised us on him. Imoen got really mad about that, super pissy.




I HATE undead things. DISGUSTING.

That fight really took it out of us, so we camped for the night then continued west, looking for this stupid gnoll fortress – I was seriously wanting to turn round but we had actually reached the coast so it was just a matter of turning south, I reasoned. I’m going to take a break from writing to join Imoen in the common room now.

Fortune Teller, Lighthouse and Pirate Cave


mood

Right, I’ve left Imoen in the common room, everyone loves us here now (more on that later) and so they’re all buying her drinks but I needed some time out, clear my head. It has become increasingly obvious that there is something very wrong with me. As we traveled south along the coast we met a fortune teller near a lighthouse who offered to read my palm. What she saw was enough to make her attack us. I’m preeeeety sure fortune tellers are not in the business of attacking their clients. She was terrified. What the hell is going on. I hope that pursuing the source of the iron crisis might actually like, shed some light on all this. Starting to get really stressed out by the whole thing.


I don’t know what to make of this. It’s just like the Gnome before.


And just like with the gnome it ended in death.

Now, back when we were in Nashkel, we’d heard rumors of an ancient pirate cave where supposedly a whole lot of treasure was buried. While we were up on the cliffs we could see this cave which looked pretty promising, only problem was there were all these sirenes hanging around the beach, I remembered them from some of the books in candlekeep about monsters and the like and these ladies were not for messing with, no way, powerful enchantment magics, enrapture you just by thinking about it. So I was about to give up on the cave when Imoen suggested that she sneak in. We had some potions of invisibility from various places and what do you know, Imoen drank one and poof! As invisible as air. She snuck into the cave, which was filled with traps and guardians and looted the pirates treasure!!!


“why fight when you can steal?” - Imoen

Yeah that’s right it was the right place. She even grabbed this absolutely massive MASSIVE book, the thing ways almost as much as I do. Its so heavy she had to leave her armour behind in the cave! Plus a load of other things which I need to spend some time identifying but theres a lot of magical gear here, plus potions the whole lot. We’re even more richer! Fuck yeah. We ran right quick because the sirenes seemed to twig that there was someone slinking around.

So we went south even more, looking for the Gnoll stronghold and stopped to camp besides a river. I spent time identifying our loot: A wand that can paralyse, some absolutely deadly looking poisoning darts, a cloak that can turn you into a wolf and the book was a magical tome that could increase my constitution PERMANENTLY.


The sword coast is no joke, time to toughen up.

Yeah, that’s right. I’m as tough as bricks while still remaining sweet as sin. The only problem now is Imoen has no armor at all – lucky I’ve got that barkskin spell for if things go really wrong.

The Gibberling Hordes

But by far the strangest encounter out in the wilderness was a lone “adventurer,” of some sort. She told us she was out here hunting gibberlings and while she was "quite capable of dealing with them herself" I would be "better with more blades." I immediately sussed that something was up since a few moments after she said that a macro-horde of gibberlings crests the ridge. This was not casual gibberling hunting this was knee deep in gibberlings, perhaps even drowning in gibberlings.


the swarm approaches


forced to let off a fireball from my super-dooper amulet


hundreds of gibberlings caught in an ickly sticky web


final victory

Um, so, whoops but the “adventurer” was completely overwhelmed by the horde, they swarmed over her and tore her apart. Yeah, big whoops. We looked across the killing field and the piles of dead bodies, but neither me nor Im really had anything to say to each other, her eyes were practically glowing with enjoyment.

Gnoll Stronghold

By this point we’d been out for days – but at last we FINALLY found the Gnoll stronghold. By this point we’d done so much killing that Imoen had almost run out of arrows – we'd brought enough to kill an army, and that’s what we have done. Wow. And thats without forgetting that she had left he armor in the pirates cave. Kinda messed up and also sweet that she would risk injury just to bring back a 25lb book for me to read.

Obviously, because we are now basasses we do not walk for 44 fricking hours to get back to Nashkel to buy 12Gs worth of arrows and a new suit of armour for Imoen, lmao don’t be stupid (who am I talking to, like, the diary?). We conquer this whole stronghold with the tools we have!

The first thing that threw us off our game is that two ogres or whatever they were tried to charge us money to cross a bridge, like wtf, this place is so in the middle of nowhere you should be paying US as thank you for coming all the way out here, like seriously a toll in back-arse of beyond, are you fucking morons?! (They didn’t like that one bit so obviously it was a fight, on a bridge, just like in the books!)


Couple of morons who tried to stop us


and they paid a pretty high price for it imo

After bumping off the ogres we took it careful, and took it clever, clearing out the area around the fortress first. The fortress itself is huge, sitting on the coast, and round it were all these caves. I was looking for super-secret way into the foretress so we wouldn’t have to go in the main door but no luck, just tons and tons of xvarts. Aaaaaaand, another huge magic book, I had a good feeling about this one.


almost feel bad for them (I don’t)


Turns out you can blind a carrion crawler, despite their lack of eyes – woah

After clearing out the caves we holed wholedholed up in the most comfortable looking one overnight (it was not comfortable at all) and I used the time to identify this second mega-book we had found – it was similar to the last one but looked much more slick. Turns out it was a magical book that could raise my charisma. Yes! I always wanted to be more charismatic, sometimes it sucks to be a gnome (boo hoo) so I got to reading while Imoen scouted out the Gnoll fortress. It was interesting to read but I guess there is only so much a book can do since I am still nowhere near as pretty as Imoen, dumb book.


!!!

When she got back we had our plan of attack – sneak in the front door and kill all the gnolls… not much of a plan I know. With Imoen out of arrows it was going to be touch and go, but she had her shortsword and Dante had his claws so no problem I thought. I mean they’re just gnolls.


And yeah, they weren’t actually that impressive – divine gifts and all that saw us through, plus Dante.


Fighting on the bridge


Showdown with the Gnoll Chieftain


Our foe vanquished.

We took what we could and left the stupid fort, now filled with dead gnolls – no one had any good loot and overall me and Im decided it was a waste of time, except for the magic book in the cave. I’m a bit sour about the whole thing tbh. Going to leave off there and go see what Imoen is up to downstairs, I can hear all this shouting, sounds like a real party.

Day 30 – The dreams return

Out in the wilderness, on the 30th day since Gorion was killed, I had another dream. They had been few and far between since Imoen and I had gone west but this one was clear to me on waking. She said I was on the right path, and I was ready – baptised in the blood of the wilderness, it was time for me and Im to pick up the case again – Gorion’s killer was waiting for me. We were rich, we were strong, we had proved ourselves and our names were becoming known across the sword coast. Now, finally, we would be wrathful. I woke up and told Im that it was time. We walked the long journey back to Beregost with murder on our minds.

It didn’t help that on the way back we ran into these absolute ASSHOLES, In a world of shit I just can’t fucking stand rudeness, and these people were the WORST! I shit you not she called me a “Northern barbarian”. I mean COME ON do I look like a barbarian?!?!? I’m a fricking gnome in a wizard robe and if that wasn’t enough there’s a FUCKING FAMILIAR flapping around me. JFC are you fucking blind?! Phew, sorry, must remember to edit this later.


no one talks to me like that. NO ONE

I can’t think of anyone else I’ve met so far that deserved what she got as much as this basic MFer. And I guess the ultimate humiliation was getting paralysed by my divine gifts then being slashed to pieces by a familiar, while my sister fills the rest of your loser crew with arrows. Dante was pretty stoked about that one ngl.


How to keep your mephit familiar happy

Once we were near Beregost our first stop was High Hedge, the wizard tower – I was now a wealthy and powerful wizard but I needed spells. Lots more spells. I needed ALL the spells. I stocked up, and I could see Imoen looking pretty jelly like – she always liked magic but never wanted to sit down and apply herself – maybe she’ll pick it up at some point, magic owns.

In the end pretty much all utility spells: one to raise my charisma, one to raise my strength (fed up of struggling home with loot like a soggy noodle) Some illusion magic so I could do what that first assassin way back when could do – whats better than Arwen? Lots of Arwens! And a spell so I could make things invisible – what’s better than Dante? Invisible Dante! And that potion case I’d been eyeing up – wow its magic, all the potions put inside are effortlessly weightless, why the HELL did I not buy this earlier!

Then it was back into Beregost proper, it felt like an absolutely aaaaages since we were here. People look at us differently than before – they can see the value of our equipment and how dangerous we look. Two dangerous women and a little flapping familiar means don’t fuck with us. I could see people whispering when we walked past, people pointed us out in the square, I head mention of Nashkel.

There was one unfortunate thing, this man ran up to us in the square and pointed at a necklace I was wearing saying it belonged to his daughter who was missing. I had to think fast – yeah, the family ambushed by hobgoblins in the nashkel pass – so I pulled it off and told the tale of woe to the gathering crowd, how I had slain the hobgoblins but alas the family were already dead and I had taken the necklace to return it to its rightful owner. He was like, so grateful it was embarrassing. People actually, like literally, clapped and cheered. Of course I had to hand over the necklace, ouch, but Arwen’s quick thinking saves the day.

Second stop: sleeping, it was a long walk here. While we were deciding on a tavern/inn to patronage some little girl ambushed us to tell us that someone called Vai in the Jovial Juggler was looking for us. Child labour is apparently well established on the sword coast.

Sure, so whatever, we go to the Jovial Juggler. Turns out everyone in Beregost knows our names – Me and Imoen fricking solved the whole Iron crisis – apparently while we were out in the wilderness its been spreading like wildfire across the sword coast. We’re actual heroes. So much for fricking laying low until all this blows over! I’m starting to realise that being famous, rich and powerful is going to be tough, but that is a burden I am willing to bear, in exchange for being rich, famous and powerful. All the Inns now want a piece of us, “heroes” that we are, even the Red Sheaf was begging us to drink there, despite the mess we made last time – that’s what you get for being famous: forgiveness for broken bar furniture. But we stuck with the plan to go to the Juggler.

Then, I shit you not as we’re just trying to get to the damn jovial juggler, that ancient man we met on our flight to the Friendly Arm inn ambushes us straight after the little girl. He dropped a hint that he knew Gorion – but it was mixed in with a load of cryptic bullshit – out of my way old man I have sleeping to do.


You know nothing of my burdens, old man

So we went to crash in the Jovial Juggler, might as well kill two birds with one stone, and this Vai the girl told us about comes right up and asks for our help. Turns out she’s OFFICER Vai, yeah, a flaming flaming fist – the literal COPS are asking for my help. Do your fucking jobs jeeeez! Obviously I am a smart genius who knows how to handle this so instead of getting angry I bought her a box of doughnuts and laid it on so thick I cannot believe she didn’t realise. Imoen kept snorting into her mug of beer but Vai didn’t notice that either. This must be some sort of comedy of errors or whatever. “Milk ‘em” I could see imoen mouthing at me from behind Vai.


woop woop it’s the sound of the police

Anyway, she said beregost had been cut off from Balder’s Gate to the north by a plague of banditry that seemed to have come from nowhere, the Flaming Fists were overwhelmed so she was authorised to pay 50Gs for every bandit scalp she was brought. I did a MASSIVE double take there… did I, like, hear that right… Scalps? Like the skin and hair cut off the skull? FUCKING DISGUSTING. This woman was sick, but… she was also paying 50Gs per scalp. So… ok, let me think this through in writing, like idk, firstly: what is to stop someone just like scaping some randomers and claiming they are bandits? 50G is big money to most people. Secondly, are you fucking serious?!?! Like wow, rename them the Fucked-up Fists amirite. Imoen was miming being sick at this point. I just said yeah, sure, whatever, scalp some bandits, i hear you.


WTF, seriously?

So that’s my diary all caught up to date – I’m gonna resume daily updates now we are back to sleeping in inns and not in a horrible tent, and I have access to a writing desk again, thank fuck. Imoen FINALLY left the common room and is now passed out drunk haha. Time to sleep, it was a long journey here.

Meta-update: Did everything west of Nashkel pretty much, skipped some worthless fights though like the sirenes and I highly doubt I will return since it doesnt really fit the theme to go traipsing back-halfway across the world to fight something. Turns out that trying to play BG1 "realistically" with no early meta-game grinding, bearing in mind travel time, and trying to keep a realistic time scale (the day numbers from the diary are accurate) makes the whole thing RP-cool and also quite tricky; what with SCS-insane and duo-only. Running out of arrows is actually a big deal, rather than a quick fast travel to store then back to map, and I try and do as little resting as possible to keep the day number down. Really enjoying this run.

Day 31 – To Do: Look after Imoen

Its on my to do list (see day 12) to look after Imoen, and what better way to look after your little sister than to spend a small dragons hoard of gold on her? So that’s what I did, I spent all my gold on Imoen. That’s right, don’t let anyone say I don’t love my sister.

Paid a visit to the Beregost smithy, best smithy outside of Baldur’s Gate apparently (hopefully not just marketing) First things first: since she gave up her armour for me, the best, and I mean the best studded leather armour money can buy for Imoen – this shit looks fierce af. Imoen looks like a deadly assassin when shes wearing it, which is pretty apt since actually she is.


killer armor

Second I got her a new knife – this thing is LETHAL, generates super potent magic poison, just don’t cut yourself on it. Apparently both the armor and the dagger come from Amn, down south. If this is the sort of thing they have down there then me and Im have to visit on a shopping trip. At least once I rebuild our now sadly depleted cashmoney.


killer knife

Also, just to round it out a masterwork Shortbow for her – so she can fill things full of arrows even better. I didn’t get anything for me, apart from the extra spells – Imoen deserves it more.


killer look

So all kitted out and looking like a pair of deadly killers, we went to find this “contact,” Tranzig, see if he was still at Feldpost’s Inn – the letter implied that he was a long term plant so we were pretty hopeful, and rightly so. We staked out the inn, seeing Tranzig moving up and down to the common room and back – Imoen had a quick look at his room but it was magically trapped. This guy was a mage and not a two-bit hedge wizard but a powerful spell user. Our usual blind routine was not gonna work on this one, he’d just shrug it off – me and Im had to come up with a super secret magekiller strategy. And we did.


DO NOT SHARE super secret mage slayer strategy

Once I had proved that I could shoot so much fire from my fingertips that he had no chance to survive he spilled the whole op. Victory for Arwen!, unfortunately (for him) we couldn’t let him run back to his goony buddies and tell him that I had hot him to tell us everything so I finished the job – one barbequed mage.


Gross smell of burning mage not pictured

Of course, Imoen wasn’t like, just sitting by and watching, having been stealing this nifty and also cool magical cloak from someone in the inn. Need to spend some time working out what it is but it looks real stylish.

Tranzig had a letter from Tazok dated a week ago wondering why the cleric who was poisoning all the iron has not bean in touch and instructing him to go there to investigate. Seems like this wizard was not just an intermediary – didn’t feel bad at all about killing him, plus, you know it, magic wands, magic scrolls, all the good shit wizards have. Hell yeah!


these people sure do like to write things down for me to read later

We didn’t hang around Feldposts, what with the bbq’d mage in one of the suites, instead returning to the Juggler. It seems this Tazok is who we want. Larswood is closer according the the barkeeper so we’ll check there first.

Day 32- Bounty Hunter re-redux

Next stop bandit camp, wait, no, next stop was the 5000 GOLD BOUNTY. I NEEDED it. Someone had told us they had seen Basillus to the SW of Beregost, and he was a necromancer, YUCK, I hate them, the very idea of necromancers make my toes curl and my teeth ache.

Well, it took a while, and a lot of walking (I hate this just a teensy bit less than I hate necromancers - thats how much I hate them), but we found him exactly where our source said he would be, Imoen scouted out while invisible – she counted at least ten walking skeletons, a few DISGUSTING zombie thingies plus the GROSS priest playing with dead bodies. We came up with a super-secret necromancer killer strategy which was 100% not just a couple of fireballs from my amulet then lots and lots of magic missiles. Yeah, there was LOADS more to it than that, loads.


DISGUSTING.

We have to prep though, so we’re currently hiding out for a few hours while I prepared my spells (and scribble some rough notes on my diary, which is balanced on my knee.)

Day 33 – Arwen: Necromancer Slayer

Im had nabbed a fresh magic missile wand from that so-called wizard in Feldpost’s Inn so she could join in the fun. Did I just write fun? What I mean is join in with the noble art of both bounty hunting and necromancer destruction. Anyway, the fireballs wasted the skeletons and getting struck with 21 tiny magical bullets will kill most people, necromancer or not. One less disgusting person I have to deal with. We took his unholy symbol as proof of our epic deeds and now it was time to get P A I D – 5 grand for that, 100% fire.


100% fire

I had to get Imoen to carry the symbol – Cyric since you asked, I hate that guy and I don’t even know why, the symbol makes me super uncomfortable. She wasn’t that keen either so we double wrapped it in spare clothes and buried it in the bottom of her pack.


DO NOT SHARE super secret necromancer slayer strategy

We had to go to a temple of lathander to get our reward. My patron goddess has been quiet these past few days, but I could feel her seething as we got close. I had Imoen go in to collect the bounty alone, didn’t really fancy the killer headache that trying to enter would provoke. The reward was as promised, five thousand gold, only this time it doesn’t actually feel like that much – Imoens fancy new armour cost 10,000. I guess ive enter the big leagues with the fat wallets.


Imoen didn’t much like this place either but we gots to get paid

It’s a short entry today – killing that stupid necromancer really took it out of me. Not been feeling myself lately, and that doesn’t even include the fact that Gorion is still dead. Imoen’s feeling it too, feels like inevitability.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAX73U1W01o
Those were the words that led my daughter to insist I loaded BG onto her i-pad. And she finished it. Being a mom has Tannhauser Gate moments.

"I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser Gate." (ref. Bladerunner)

The pages of the Book of Time always forward turn, and those past can never be erased.

Day 34 – To hunt a bandit

We agreed that there was no use delaying it. We had to hunt down these so called bandits who were shutting down iron imports into the iron coast. I had to think it was an ok plan: restrict imports, taint the only internal source. Then, like, idk… what IS the end game here? And how does it link to me? Me and Im DESERVE answers for al lthe shit these fuckers have put us through. Perhaps this “Tazok” will have answers – perhaps he is the one I want. We're the assassins now. Lets see how they feel.

Our trip to Larswood was almost successful, but not quite, damn. u see we met some bandits alright – a whole crew of them, the leader at least was ok to talk, we fucked up though (not that I would ever admit that in public), dropped the name Tazok from Tranzig’s letter trying to “fit in” and well, you can guess the rest – whoops! Had to kill them all lol. Nothing a magical webpit and some divine holds can’t sort out though. I counted eight dead bodies. And now I betcha wondering if we did it and the answer is no fucking way, I an NOT scalping people – I’ve already like, broken a few nails, I don’t care how much gold they’re offering, its just unhygienic, and not really part of the whole “look” im going for here.


Me and Im handing out humiliation

So its back to square one, which is super annoying. Not to mention and I don’t want to labour it but we walked for fricking hours all around this wood to find these damn bandits and you know how much I hate walking – and camping in the wilderness, that old pile of shit again, at least I have a portable mini-desk so I can keep my journal up to date. When I finally catch up to who is to blame for this they are going to be in for a whole world of pain.

Day 35 – To hunt a bandit 2: return to the drawing board

Im sat writing this on the 37th day since the murder of my father, during a quick stop at the friendly arm inn before we head west into the apparently "endless and trackless" Claokwood (more woods, yay). I realised that If me and Im are going to infiltrate this bandit camp I probably shouldn’t have a diary on me which talks all about how I am going to kill them. Good thinking Arwen.

So after the micro-fiasco with the first group of bandits we encountered me and Im went north into the Peldvale, where the raids were apparently even worse. You know what else was even worst – the stupid Peldvale not just woos but low lying woods with lakes and bogs and I got wet feet and my boots were practically ruined. It was horrible.

That being said we did actually find some more bandits after only about two hours of trudging through damp, muddy forest. I thought this time I better let Imoen do the talking, doesn’t take a braid as big as mine to realise that everyone here laughs at gnomes. She had no problem sweet talking this group of bandits into thinking we were here for the banditry. Helps that she has that savage black armour which makes her look like a badass bandit.


more gnome h8ters

These morons took us straight back to the camp. I cannot quite believe it worked. Strangers show up and you just lead them back to your super secret camp, lmao. Plus, we struck gold: he introduced us to Tazok! The person mentioned in Tranzig’s letter. Tazok was deffo in charge round here. Only downside is he was this mean looking ogre, huge sword, brutal armour, more than twice as tall as I am, hell, almost twice as tall as Imoen is. I did NOT think this was the time to start slinging spells – that’s not how assassins operate, shoot ‘em in the back, not the front, obvs.


um, yep, just some bandit wannabes, here to join your bandit actualbes

We thought we better get the, like “lay of the land” or whatever Gorion used to say – reconnaissance, reconnoiter, that sort of shit. I’m not going to go into all this detail about the camp except it was huge, at least, like a hundred bandits, including these two groups who are apparently famous: the Blacktalons and the Chill, both really well equiped. The Chill were also literal hobgoblins, eww. In fact the whole stupid camp was eww, it was muddy and it stunk like actual shit, plus we’d overheard that Tazok had left and there was no idea when he would be back so we had to change our plan – Tazok had a big tent that was guarded day and night, 24/7 rotations. That’s where we needed me and Im spent some time listening like super secret spies, trying to gather info from the less disgusting bandits, but, like there weren’t many women in the camp, if you get my drift so we “retreated” to an unoccupied tent to wait for the cover of darkness.

Day 36 – Deadly Viper Assassination Squad

It was a couple of hours after midnight that we snuck into Tazok’s tent, we knew there would be guards, minions, whatever in here but there was no other option – behead the remaining bandit leadership while Tazok was away and maybe the Blacktalons and the Chill would just drift away, or even better: kill each other.

Long story short: there were a lot more goons in the tent than me and Im were expecting. But, I’m like super strong, and I still had my necklace of fireball-death. I let off three fireballs in quick succession while Imoen dodged out the way. The necklace crumbled to dust after the third – guess that was the end of that, hope I can find another somewhere because this thing has been a literal lifesaver.

The fireballs killed pretty much everyone, plus set fire to a bunch of shit (guess we better work on the "stealthy" part of "stealthy assassin") and the ones that it didn’t were webbed, blinded and shot to shit. Whole fight was over in just a couple of minutes, lucky us since we could hear the camp stirring outside, fireballs are kinda loud (no shit).


The most deadly assassin duo on the sword coast strikes again. authorities baffled.

We grabbed everything we could from the tent, scrolls, letters, anything that looked useful and/or an infodump. And, hiding in the back, behind the mega-throne was this prisoner dude who came out with some super sweet info, a name: the “iron throne.” Like, cool, thanks and also very useful, but you could have helped in the fight maybe idk, good luck getting out of there alive tho.


*humming* blame it on the zhents

No time to hang about – we popped a couple of invisibility potions I’d been saving for this sort of thing and ran as the camp descended into chaos behind us. Hope they wiped each other out.

Day 37 – Return to the Friendly Arm Inn

So that brings us up to date, day 37 since I left Candlekeep. 37 days that Gorion’s killer has been allowed to live, its getting embarrasing. The dreams come every night now – visions of cities in flames, armies obliterated, gods murdered. The power rushes into me, divine and arcane mixed together. I feel so much older, there’s nothing to do but push on. I want more: more influence, more fame, more adoration, more wealth, but above all I want more of this power. I feel like a shadow of what I could be.

Wizards study for decades to attain what I have in a few short weeks; the magic comes as easy as breathing. Rare are the individuals who are blessed with divine favour yet it rushes into me now, a torrent of divine power which I can tap at will. She is in my dreams too – eyes as dark as coal, I thought I knew who she was but now I am not so sure – everything is so unclear.

I can see imoen drinking with a group of adventurers on the other side of the inn, she likes that everyone knows who she is. She’s changed as much as I have, and still changing – harder, harsher. I always thought she was too soft, but its going, she’s killed as many as I have, maybe more. Have you ever seen your own sister laughing after burying a poisoned dagger in someone’s back? I have.


I always wanted to be one of the popular girls

I’ve had some time to look over the letters we took from Tazok’s tent, the first references the Iron Throne, just like the prisoner in Tazok’s tent said. Also me and Im, “a small band of mercenaries” haha. “You are to ensure that they don’t live to upset our operations” double haha we’ve fucked your “operations” right up, and we gonna keep doing it. That’s what you get for fucking with Arwen: your total and utter destruction. We need to know more about this Iron Throne organisation. Lots more. Then we’re going to destroy it, or take it over, whatever is more humiliating for them.


the Iron Throne, stupid name imo

The second references a base in Cloakwood where iron is being “stockpiled” and a “ultimatum” to be given. Suuuurely there most be more to this than extortion. Like, it’s a clever strategy: stockpile iron, destroy or take over all existing supplies, come to everyones rescue with an offer that’s “too good to refuse” – hey presto, everyone now has to do what you say, especially if the recent rumours I’ve heard are true and war is brewing with Amn. But, is that it? it doesn't explan why they wanted me and Gorion dead in the first place. They made the first move, I need to know why.


no they have not been killed (sorry not sorry), they just yesterday killed your doods in your stupid bandit camp

But more than this it references someone who PERSONALLY wants me dead: Sarevok. They are now number 1 on my shitlist. (Number 2 is Davaeorn who wrote these letters). Tomorrow we set out into Cloakwood in search of this secret base, if that isn’t successful we will have to try looking for the Iron Throne in Baldur’s Gate.

Day 38 – Cloakwood hunt

The Cloakwood is HUGE. Like, unfairly big. An endless, trackless sea of green. I had no idea how we were going to find a “secret base,” I mean its ment to be secret, that means difficult to find, obvs.

Eventually we ran into some druids arguing with some baldurian noble or something, I didn’t really pay attention. Both lots wanted us to help them (I.e. kill the other lot), but like, druids know shit about forests and noble know shit about, idk, wine? I already hated this forest so we sided with the druids which turned out to be the right decision since they told us how to find the Iron Throne base, in vague terms at least. Nice. All we have to do is go west then north (would it kill a druid to be a tiny tiny TINY bit more specific?!), but anyways, thank fuck for homicidal druids who can’t be bothered to do their own dirty work is all I can think.


druids always know shit about forests

The other big ‘ol stroke of luck is that we ran into a band of Talosi, one of whom had a special cloak which would supposedly protect the wearer from being magically revealed while hiding. Something nice to keep imoen dry in this stupid forest. We spoke to someone who had lost this cloak I think, aaaages ago. Who cares, its Imoen’s now.

Day 39 – Deeper into cloakwood

We followed the druid’s instructions, traveling west, for hours and hours (and hours). Right when I thought we couldn’t walk any more we find some randomer just stood in the middle of the forest, no gear, no weapons, no nothing. I shit you not he said his brother had gone off into the woods to fight spiders a week ago and he’s just hanging out, like hoping some fricking adventurers are like gonna come round and save his ass. Not my problem buddy. If Imoen had disappeared in the woods you could bet your ass I would be tracking her down, not begging for help like a chode. Get bent coward (and this is NOT because I don’t like spiders!)


wow. Just wow.

Anyway, there were clearly spiders about so we went north as quickly as possible, only we ran into a pack of (well like six) Ettercaps which are these absolutely vile disgusting half-spider half-monkey looking things. I swear to the fucking hells I almost puked just seeing them. We had to hit and run (whoda thought a half spider half monkey would be immune to webs?!), I would use divine power to command (literally COMMAND) them to fall over, then Imoen would fill their prone bodies full of arrows. Plus some traps, Im is good at setting these lethal traps now and because we are smart we had set them up as a contingency. I don’t want to write any more about the ettercaps, hope I never see anything as disgusting ever again. We’ve made it away from the spiderlands and are walking north, still following that druids (vague) instructions. Lets hope he was telling the truth, I mean I paid him (in dead bodies) and all.

Day 40 – Cloakwood hippiesdruids

We’re so deep in the cloakwood it feels like we’ll never leave! We found a whole nestcircle of Shadow Druids who are, I guess understandably, pissed off about the Iron Throne in their woods. Druids tend to get pissy about people cutting down trees apparently. Me and Im leveraged this into info, and also the privilege of not having to fight a whole druid circle. Smooth.

In order to gain their trust we helped out a little bit, though idk why they couldn’t have delt with this themselves (lazy?). Basically some of them were pissed off about some guy, doing some thing, in some cave, they were pretty vague tbh. Turns out this was our first encouter with an Iron Throne op in the cloakwood – some moron was trying to train baby wyverns. Yeah… I’ll let that sink in for a moment. End result, two dead baby wyverns and one dead smoothbrain.


Idk what to even say about this

The druids were all pretty friendly after this and they allowed us in their giant treehouse. Druids, smdh.


Walking, talking stereotypes

The boss druid (he had green hair) was pretty stoked that we were here to duo-handedly destroy the Iron Throne base (now that I write that it does seem a tad ambitious, my 20th bday is still weeks away which reminds me its imoens birthday soon I’ll have to think of a present). We have been granted passage through the druids territory, and a “guide” in the form of a super-angry druid named Faldorn. Bossdruid says that the quickest way to the Iron Thrones hideout from here is through wyvern territory so, like a guide is “highly recommended”. Suits me.


inside the super secret druid clubhouse

Faldorn is a fucking trip ngl – I’ll never understand druids, strange clothes, strange hair, strange everything. “tHeYrE dEfILiNg tHe WoOdlAnD wAaA” that’s my faldorn voice.


angry druid lady

But she down with a bit of iron throne destruction so welcome aboard I guess, and try not to piss imoen off, she’s as testy as I am – days in the woods will do that to people (except druids it seems, they FUCKING LOVE IT, total wierdos).

Day 41 – Fuck Wyverns, seriously

Thank fuck for Faldorn, that’s all I can say. That place was swarming with Wyverns, and not baby ones either – the big size ones were about too. NASTY. She led us through the valley, avoiding almost all the natyass things, they have a super poisonous sting which you can kinda guessfrom the huge stinger at the end of the tails. And they fly. There is lliterally NOTHING good abou them. Fortunately due to Faldorn we only had to fight a couple of baby ones. I think I’ll take the long way home after all this is done, no way I’m coming back here EVER AGAIN.


yeah, thanks but no thanks

Not much eles to say, apart from the whole thing was super tense and there was lots of hanging around while Faldorn made sure it was safe to carry on, and lots of walking quickly (whats worse than walking? Answer: walking quickly). She led us up and out of the valley, up towards its head where the Iron Throne have this so called base. We’re looking down on it now, finally – looks like a fortified mine entrance and processing thingy - wooden stockade, drawbridge that sort of thing. This is it. We’ll rest up and attack in the morning.

Day 42 – Critical Upsets: deadly viper assassination squad redux

Things have not gone to plan at all. It seems they knew we were coming. There were patrols out in the surrounding woods looking for us and we were ambushed; Faldorn was killed - so much for her druid senses. Can’t say I was that upset, she was hella annoying after all, and she did take an arrow meant for me, ho hum. Maybe if she is lucky her druid buddies will find her body and res her. If she’s lucky.


rip

By the time we got down to the mine the upper compound was evacuated, intead there was a deadtough mercenary company waiting for us. They'd been hired to specifically kill us - we're that scary it seems. Imoen scoped them out while invisible – two powerful mages (not, like, better than me, just more powerful - like older) and two equally powerful fighters, one who had these boots on that meant they moved around as fast as lightning. It was obvious we were not going to be able to take them toe to toe, not even close - and if there is one thing me and Im are NOT keen on its "fair fights" (they are for losers). One on one, perhaps but all together, no chance in hell.


Arwen hunters

I had a think about what we could do and realised I had a scroll of immense and I mean immense power in my scroll case. It was a spell of cloudkill, far beyond my abilities to learn (for now!) but I could still cast it from scroll. I’d been saving it for something like this. Generates a powerful cloud of poisonous gas, only problem is, people tend to run away when that happens. Well, we had a solution to that too. Imoen trapped the drawbridge and I hit ‘em before they saw us with a web, followed by the cloudkill scroll and another web for good measure. The webs trapped them inside the poison cloud until it could do its horrid work. That took care of the mages but the fighters were, incredibly, still alive once the cloud had dissipated – holy shit how tough were these guys? I miss my fireball-death necklace so much.


horrible way to go

So commence stage 2: the lesser of the two fighters was blinded and invisibly blackstabbed by Im – deader than dead. The greater of the two I lured into Imoen’s traps then took down with various spells – though, they’d drunk some sort of magical resistance potion - very annoying. And the reward – these amazing magical boots that mean I can run circles round anything – I pulled them on. There was no time to waste, we entered the mines.

Im stealthily scouted out the top layer of the mines – every guard she found received a knife in the back, clearing out the tunnels. There were lots of sadsack looking miners wearing slave collars. We didn’t have the time to talk to them, more important things. Except one, who pointed out that the whole mine complex was once the site of an underground river, now held back behind a great plug. With the right key the entire mine could be flooded. That would solve all our problems and 100% destroy this little Iron Throne op, fuck yes. Only problem is the key was apparently in the hands of the mine supervisor, you guessed it – Davaeorn. We pushed on deeper into the mine-complex, looking for him.

Again, things did NOT go as planned. The second level was a terrible nightmare, I'm shuddering just remembering it. Fighting guards in these dark confining tunnels. Ambushes, overwhelming numbers of guards, cramped quarters, low ceilings, a claustrophobic's vision of the hells. We were already low on resources when we set out, I shoulda stocked up before we came but I was just so ANGRY at these people. We ploughed into Cloakwood without really thinking of what it was we’d set ourselves up to accomplish. A near impossible task as it turned out.


just one of many near lethal fights

But we prevailed against superhuman odds, killing everything on the second floor, including a powerful mage surrounded by a coterie of killers. Could not have done it without these boots of speed and an exploding bottle of burning oil, a luckywell placed charm spell, and endless command spells (its fun being able to snap your fingers and make someone fall over). The battle was punishing – in the end there were at least sixteen dead, I didn’t count, such bloody slaughter. There was even a dwarf who we freed from prison in the hope he could help us. No such luck, the archers cut him down in an instant.

My spell book was near empty. My scroll case was filled with weak and worthless spells. Only a few potions left. This was a nightmare, I started to think that me and Im would die for real here. All this would be for nothing, no revenge, no life of wealth, luxury and adoration… but we were committed – there could be no retreat. This was our only chance. The only option remaining was to go straight for Davaeorn and the key and let the floodwaters kill everyone else. We were too burnt out to do anything else.


victory but at what cost

We’d found a slave in the prison cells who pleaded with us to release him, saying he could free the slaves with some well-placed bribes – 100Gs. I didn’t care, if some of the slaves got loose maybe that would take the pressure off us. I shoved the money in his hands, me and Im drank an invisibility potion each and we descended further into this hell.

Flooding this mine with no survivors

The third level was same as the first, except also filled with gross hobgoblins – we had our first stroke of luck though: no mages to nix out invisibility. We snuck through the whole level in silence finding the stairs down to what we were hoping was the final level and Davaeorn’s chambers.


sneaky sneaks

We snuck into Davaeorn’s chambers, I used my magic cloak to seducecharm his personal guard who revealed the means to open a hidden entrance. A few traps taken care of, a strength spell cast and then I stood forward to distract the mage. This is who we had come for. This was for all the SHIT me and Im have put up with these past few weeks Has anyone EVER had to put up with the degree of BULLSHIT me and Im have?!


this mage talks too much

While the mage spouted off his wanky speech, invisible Imoen, now wearing the magic boots dashed forward, past two gruesome looking suits of animated armour and drove her knife into the mage's back, killing him instantly – maybe anticlimactic, but definitely satisfying. The animated armour collapsed the moment the mages corpse hit the floor. A sublime moment xd. Take that Iron Throne MFers, HA, Arwen's coming for you ALL. We got to looting, the key to the river plug was on his corpse, plus spells, potions, correspondence, and his sick looking mage robes (yoink). The guards would still be looking for us on the upper levels so we had to move quick, but not before I killed his apprentice too (hiding in a side room like a loser coward) – he didn’t tell us anything I didn’t already know except that the Iron Throne HQ is in Baldur’s Gate. No one to tell tales, no one to warn the upper guards, no survivors to run back to the Iron Throne.


revenge is a dish best served via a poisoned dagger

We had to get out of there, lucky for us Davaeorn had his own private elevator which we could take back to the first level. Only thing is, he had this shrine down there. It drew me. A skull surrounded with a circle of bloody tears. Bhaal. God of Murder. Gorion told me something of the Godswar, ten years past. Apparently he was dead, God of Murder himself murdered, heh. Strange that the dead mage had a shrine to him. Strange that it drew me so.



We ascended out of the deep chambers and pulled the plug on the mine seal. And ran as fast as we could. It took minutes to flood the whole complex. Anyone who still remained was drowned – no one could survive that. Good.

I need to do some more research. We are on our way to Baldur’s Gate now, they have libraries there, and the Iron Throne itself – revenge calls, just as soon as we get out of this cursed wood. I never want to see another forest EVER again. If I cannot find what I need in Baldur's Gate, we will return to Candlekeep. There are things I need to investigate. Suspicions I will not voice until I know more.

meta_note: i'm on basement lvl 2 of durlags tower - ouch is all I can say.

Would you explain your party composition? Doesn't make much sense to me <- power player
2 Clerics, a Thief and a Druid?

im only playing with pc (cleric/illusionist) and imoen (pure thief). I picked up faldorn for rp purposes and yeslick to "tank" a couple of hits with that annoying Hareishan fight. I kept then dead in party to soak up some xp for a while, its not like there's a shortage with a 2 person party.

Did the whole of Durlags tower keeping SCS on insane with my little duo party (not gonna narrate it I don't think - too tedious) The only fight I skipped is the improved chess (since you can just potions of absorption + invisibility through it... I mean its seem like its almost intended to be stealthed). The Demon Knight was surprisingly easy - got it on the 2nd attempt. Had more trouble with the improved "Love", "Pride", "Avarice", and "Fear" battle on level 1 since they have some pretty strong regen (and I wasn't maxed out with XP at this point too I guess) In the end wand of monster summoning ogres proved to be MVPs. Did the cultist ambush fight too on return to Ulgoth's Beard but it was so unsatisfying: endless wands of fire scorcher-ray and running round them in circles to proc the invisible assassins - and the fighter-mages with wands of frost are just... well, here's the readme:


In the end after killing them I just reloaded from before the fight, not like I have a shortage of wands of fire but at xp cap its only really to say "did it." If I am going to attempt Aec'Letec i'll do it later.

lmao, job done

Day 47 – Good Bye Horrid Woods For Ever

It’s been a long journey back through the cloakwood, via the Friendly Arm Inn, to Baldur’s Gate (I understand the whole secret base thing but that mine was soooo far from anywhere, no consideration for gnome legs). Me and Imoen are holed up in the Elfsong Tavern in Eastern Baldur’s Gate, doing a lil bit of revenge planning and life goals re-orientating. We’re trying to keep a low profile – the Iron Throne is in town, but I’m thinking, they aren’t just going to up and attack us obvious like (I hope), that risks scuppering their plan. This place fits us perfectly, “insalubrious” I think describes it, or maybe “dodgy shithole.” But at least they have clean beds. The iron shortage is really affecting the mood here. Its bleak.


selfie

I’ve had time to look through the correspondence we snagged from the Cloakwood base. Each one is signed “Rieltar” including one showing he hired the mercs we encountered in the entrance to the Cloakwood mine. Congrats, you’re a brand new entry at number 1 on my shitlist, that bumps Sarevok down to number two. We’ve already scratched plan 1 (all out assault on the iron throne mansion) – reason: well the cloakwood mine almost killed us. Like literally we almost died. Its obvious these guys are dummy strong. We need to… bring our A-game. Planning, preparation, tools, weapons, money, allies. We need all this and more. Me and Im need to rival this entire operation in strength before the final decapitation. We have some time – we killed everyone in Cloakwood, except the slaves. Unfortunately they’ll bring the story with them, but hopefully with the city being sealed it’ll take time, which we seriously need. I think we can actually, not relax, but like, kinda relax for a bit. Recover. Recuperate. Re-something else.


that’s what we’re dealing with – they’ll know us if we snoop around, good job this city’s big enough to hide us despite my… appearance – again, being a gnome sucks!


this “sarevok” again

Getting into the city was “eventful.” One of the flaming fist's practically assaulted us on the way here, asking if we would investigate the “Seven Suns” compound. No thanks donut patrol, do your own work, I got priorities. And then, guess fucking what the old dude shows up, YET AGAIN. This time he was bit less cryptic though still too cryptic. Thanks bro for the mentions of me having “bad blood,” then proceeds to give me a lecture about “true nature” super nice of you, asshole. But seriously, if he isn’t just a creepy old man then its not like what he says doesn’t line up with what I also think. We’re gonna find a library or something while we’re here, or else I’ll have to go back to Candlekeep. I need to do my own research, not just get my info from some magical bellend all the time.

I met a cute gnome in the Elfsong tavern, and he 100% spoke my language (the language of money). Its good people round here don’t really know who I am yet, more opportunity for profit. He had a plan to steal something from the hall of wonders, in exchange for some “powerful” magic artifact. Yes please. Imoen is so good at stealing now you would not believe how she started out. Shes an S-tier thief and doesn’t she know it. We’ll get the telescope, it’s the thought of breaking in that did it for me, what other wonders might there be?

Managed to buy a new necklace of megadeath fireball apocalypse too. That’s right – I found another one – my greedy little gnome hands couldn’t get it over my head fast enough. Of course I can also CAST fireballs now, like from my head, wiggling my fingers, that sort thing so this one goes to Imoen. Yeah, 2x the awesomeness. No one expects the fireball throwing thief.

What else, oh yeah, Im super enjoying this new robe i took from Davaeorn – the thing is hyper-magical, adapted to fit me as soon as I put it on. Magical armour and a teensy bit or magical resistance woven into it. Plus I look bad ass x 1000 (probably all the red and black). Fortunately, the look can be toned down a bit so I don’t stand out toooo much. What’s the point in laying low if I look so damn fly. We’re going out this evening to do a bit of “nightlife” assessment, imoen’s words not mine! This is NOT a celebratory bar crawl and DEFINATLY NOT a celebratory burglary spree.


Update:
It’s super late now, we’ve just got in. While we were “out and about” (euphemism) Imoen was literally headhunted by the local thieves guild for some jobs. Now THAT’S an endorsement, way to go sis. They wanted to test her, give her a few little jobs to do, make sure she was theivesguild material (she is, but they wouldn’t just take my word for it, rude.) Cue petty tasks that were well below her (I sat them out, obvs). She said on one she managed to fool a sleeping mark by pretending to be a cat…. Yeah.

Big thing number one is that she has now proved herself and she’s been given an actual job (hard) from the duder in charge: ravenscar (cringe?). To steal some sort of wizard artifacts. YOU should have seen my eyes widen: WIZARD. ARTIFACTS. That is extremely my shit. Got to be done in the next ten days or they’ll be shipped out.

Big thing number two: We met a drunk in the thieves guild, I know right, but wait up he know a whole bunch about the Iron Throne – ex employee apparently. Confirmed that Rieltar is the guy we want – In charge of the whole thing, along with two others Brunos and Thaldorn – congrats, you two have just made the shitlist. And Sarevok is Rieltar’s son. I wonder how he’ll like it when I kill his father, the irony eh. But what was most interesting is he said the big bosses had a plan to “go to Candlekeep” in a couple of weeks. He didn’t know why or what for… but “something huge” was going to happen there. Gotta keep my ear to the ground.


give us the deets drunkard

We will have to think about how to steal this wizard’s artifacts – ten days should be plenty but I will have to prepare some assistance for Imoen – sneaking does not come easy to her. Its so late, I am absolutely smasheddog tired.

Day 49 – Shipping and Receiving.

We dossed around in Baldur’s gate for a couple of days, killed some necromancers (good), a basilisk (good) some people (good), stole some valuable stuff (yay), including a book to make me even more smarter, and another to make me more, um, “dexterous,” plus we did the museum score (easy), and the wizard job (dude tried to betray us but Im has made some friends in the guild who helped her out… with their knife) yadda yadda yadda, we did some killing and some stealing – I’m not gonna write it all down in my book, duh, what if like the flaming fists found this, they deffo wouldn’t be wanting to hire me then lmao. What else, oh yeah, since I am a rich bitch now I went to the most luxurious magical shop in the city and bought one of every spell I didn’t already know how to cast (I mean EVERY SINGLE one.) So I could get to memorising. The funny thing about my “powers” is that learning magic is near effortless for me, I just need to read a scroll once (destroying it in the process) and I know how to cat it from memory: that’s incredible, magic should NOT be this easy.


Soon, but not yet.

Anyway, me and Im were fucking around the city and scoping out the Iron Throne HQ (I just got these gloves which make me so strong I can crack rocks with my hands – BEYOND amazing) when we get wind of this mega-score: Durlag’s Tower, apparently packed with magical Items, treasure, all sorts of shit, just there for the taking. Only problem, this place has killed more people than anywhere else basically. ‘ol Dwarfy Durlag filled the whole thing full of deadly traps and even more deadly monsters. So, like, remembering last time in cloakwood we went more prepared than we have ever been. I got a pocket full of magic wands for any occasion. We set out at Dawn.

I’m leaving my diary here in a super-secure magical lockbox which we have hired. Imoen trapped it with some lethal mechanisms, naturally, and I cast some spells – basically DO NOT FUCK WITH OUR CHEST. back in a week or so.

Day 62 – Our Triumphant Return.

We casually stroll back into Baldur’s Gate after the hardest 13 days of our lives (most of which was walking to and from the stupid tower). Durlag’s Tower is breached, the treasure is filling my pockets. We are rich beyond our wildest dreams. Powerful too. Practically nothing can stand in our way now. Time to end this. Commence operation totally fuck up the Iron Throne. Terminally. I dreamed again – an ocean of blood spilled by my hand.


…

First stop – sorcerous sundries: give me as many wands of fire and wands of monster summoning as I can carry. Plus a stack of exploding “arrows of detonation for Im – we’re bringing the big guns now. Finally, we are ready to bring the pain.


shitwrecker 1 – codename Arwen


shitwrecker 2 – codename Imoen

We’re resting up and preparing – checking our magical potion supplies and any useful scrolls. Protections from magic: check; protection from undead: check. Protections from fire: check. A stack of scrolls of greater malison and chaos: check. Potions of magical blocking and shielding: check. Potions of fire breath: check. Potions of invisibility: check. Oils of speed: check. Wands of fire, lightning, heavens, paralysis and monster summoning: check check check check CHECK. We are prepped! Quick night sleep, we’ll raid them early.

Day 63 – Bring the Pain

Second stop: Iron Throne HQ. I was so excited, this is to be everything we had worked towards. We trick out way upstairs.


sneaky assault on the big boss house

And unleash fiery death upon the top floor. No survivors. My wrath is bottomless. There were dopplegangers here, the Iron Throne is impersonating people. I must not trust anyone. I must not believe anyone. The letters we found implicate Sarevok, and say that the Iron Throne is meeting in Candlekeep. We also found Thaldorn, one of the leaders of the Throne. He didn’t survive the encounter. We also found letters that showed Sarevok is manipulating his father – for what reason we do not know. He is lying, saying that it is confirmed we are Xhents, when he must know well that we are not – that was the forest bandit ploy.


Close encounters of the fiery kind

As far as I understand Sarevok seems to be making a play for leadership of the Iron throne, or perhaps more. I encountered him you know, in candlekeep later on,though he was disguised as as scholar in the keep. He wanted to give me a ring of some sort. I turned it down. With the number of dopplegangers I have encountered my paranoia is reaching astronomical levels. I only realised when I wassat in this cell that it was him. He's trying to play me, but my actions are my own, and soon he will be dead as well.


sarevok – playing his father. I was beginning to suspect there was politics playing a part within the Iron Throne. All the evidence pointed towards a return home, to candlekeep.

As we left the Iron Throne Headquarters a member of the Crimson Fists was there to see us to meeting with Duke Eltan himself (looks who’s rising high in the world!). I figured – who better to get on side than one of the Grand Dukes of Baldur’s Gate – He obviously recognised how great I am and since I was currently conducting a killing spress across his city, you know: “friends in high places” and all that. He knew quite a bit already but wen we explained that the Iron throne was behind the Iron crisis (subtle iron references) he had us teleported us straight to Candlekeep (gotta learn that spell), and avoiding an ogre-mage killteam which was waiting for us in the woods inside we went in (invisibility potions ftw). I wanted to go straight for the Iron Throne leadership, bloodlust almost unbearble but Imoen made me visit Gorion’s chambers first. All my theories are confirmed. I am the daughter of a god and a mortal gnome. A child of Bhaal, the lord of murder. I am not surprised, I am exceptionally good at killing as the swath imoen and I cut across the sword coast these past few weeks should show. But there is a lot to process here. A lot to… think about.




bad blood indeed. Or else very good blood

Relitar and the others who were with him died like all the rest – immolated and zapped to ash. The job is almost done, revenge is almost complete. Now I just had find Sarevok to see this through.


Vengence almost complete – only Sarevok remained

Unfortunately, me an Im were arrested by like the whole of the flaming fists after killing the leaders of the Iron Throne. Murderers apparently (haha, pretty special to be killed by the child of the GOD of Murder – what an honour.) This has all the hallmarks of Sarevok’s ploy to take over the Iron Throne himself, but for what purpous? I am confident that Duke Eltan will free us, else we will break out ourselves – the fools did not confiscate any of my equipment: do they not know I am a powerful mage?

Day 64 – Jailbreak Rock

In the end it was Tethoril who freed us. I apologise for calling him a creepy old man! Sarevok’s plan was to set us up as “Assassins of Amn,” Shadow Thieves perhaps – He’s trying to provoke a war between Baldur’s Gate and Amn. Not something I care all that much about – but it’s the principle of it. He killed Gorion and so I am going to ruin his plans, then kill him. Terminal revenge.
Oh, and Tethoril’s idea of freeing us was to put us into the Candlekeep Catacombs, the whole place was swarming with undead and Sarevoks doppleganger servants. Thanks buddy. Faces I knew – Gorion even, appeared before me and I was forced to cut them downblow them up. Durlag’s tale of the same haunts me: forced to kill those who wear your families face. I don’t want to think about it – but this is the FINAL straw. I feel humiliated, played, and above all: wrathful. I’m worried to let Imoen out of my sight in case when she comes back I don’t believe its her. Anyone could be a doppleganger… anyone.


He made me kill something that bore the face of own father.

We had to walk the journey back to Baldur’s gate, taking precious time: when we arrived, we found Sarevok’s plan in full swing, close to culmination – one of the Grand Dukes, Silvershield, had already been assassinate, Sarevok had come to the rescue with his stores of iron and was being invested as a Grand Duke tomorrow. This was it. Time to rest and prepare for the morning. If I survive tomorrow it will be because Sarevok is dead and my revenge is complete.

Day 65 – Fratricide

Our rest was fraught – hidden in the Elfsong. This was our final chance to prepare. I remember I felt excited – filled with giddy anticipation. Happy. Angry. Vengeful. Ecstatic. I slept fitfully, dreaming of blood. The dark figure is clearer now and I know that she is me – I am a cleric of myself, a priestess of Bhaal, the power is self-manifested, the more powerful I become in general, the more powerful my clerical abilities.

Turns out the flaming fist are hunting us, under the guise of their new “leader” Angelo, a lackey of Sarevok. No more skulking around – we went straight to the Flaming Fist headquarters to squash some gnats. Interestingly, we found Duke Eltan on the upper floor being poisoned by a doppleganger. I hate these things. Who can I trust? We saw Eltan to a supposedly friendly refuge where we got wind of two of Sarevok’s most trusted assassins, planning on assassinating the grand dukes later this evening. Sarevok was to be proclaimed Grand Duke. Plan was, kill the assassins, impersonate them, foil the assassination, kill Sarevok. We killed the assassins, though they were strong – almost a match of me and Imoen (Sarevok has a habbit of attracting powerful followers… I’m starting to see the appeal.) We took invitations to Sarevok’s investment from their corpses.

We were only just in time: half the nobles at the coronation had been replaced by dopplegangers which were there to kill the dukes. It was touch and go because of all the “friendlies,” I couldn’t exactly let off a string of fireballs in the ducal palace…, but we killed them anyway: I had a new wand “of the heavens” which blasted down a pillar of fire on a single individual: it proved its worth. That plus a few scrolls of chaos saw us through – nice spell that. We killed the dopplegangers, saving the dukes and saving the day etc etc, boosting my reputation sky high (lmao), but before we could kill him Sarevok was whisked away by some old man he knew. Magical scrying tracked him to the Thieves Guild, heading down into the Undercity. We pursued at full speed.


not if i kill u first MFer

Deep beneath the city, accessed via a tedious labyrinth (why?) is the undercity – the bones of Baldur’s Gate. Ruins and strange creatures which live in the dark. The only intact building was a great temple. A temple of Bhaal – my father, and Sarevok's too. It calls to me still, even as I write this on the surface drinking duke-tier wine. It felt like Sarevok and I were fated to meet, fated to collide, even if he had not murdered my father.


fate...?

before we got to the temple though, we encountered a band of assassins in the ruins, remarkably they were not there to kill me specifically, but sent by Iron Throne high management to kill Sarevok. They had chased him down here just ahead of us. Sarevok’s plans were NOT in line with the Iron Thrones trad MO. These idiots could have been useful cannon fodder if they had agreed to work with us, but instead they chose to attack. Fools. All dead by my hand. But I was worried: every fight made me less prepared for Sarevok.


i d i o t s

And then I slew my half-brother and his minions – it’s easy to write, but it was a titanic battle. We were more than prepared. Enough potions and scrolls to make us immune to magic. Enough potions of Invisibility that they could not see us. Enough wands of fire and detonating arrows that they were immolated like all the others. The first upset was that Sarevok had somehow bound his followers so that their life force was tied to his – he could not be harmed until they were all dead. No problem. The second was that this binding was done in such a way that when I killed them they rose again as undead – disgusting undead. Gross! (though kinda interesting to be fair, can’t believe I just wrote that). No matter, I had a couple of protection from undead scrolls too. They could do nothing against our conflagration. Sarevok died as his followers had.


he took gorion from me, so i take everything from him

Gorion was avenged. Feels good. But more than that – with Sarevok’s death I felt something. A tiny but perceptible surge – as if with his death I absorbed part of him. I have the resources now to investigate this properly – the prophecies of Alaundo MUST be studied. This is only the beginning: There is so much ground work to lay, and more than that, I must see if there are more children of Bhaal here.

Nine weeks to go from nothing to the hero of Baldur’s Gate. Beloved of all. Idiots. I will keep my heritage secret for now, best they not know who I really am. I can take a leaf out of my brother’s books here, in more ways than one. I have so much planning to do (also Imoen wants to go out partying and im gonna join her.)

♥Arwen’s Updated To Do List♥
Find out who killed gorion
Kill them
Get rich
Get even richer
Own a huge castle
Become the most powerful wizard in the world
Look after Imoen
Ascend to godhood

meta_notes:

I haven't played Sword Coast Strategems Insane Difficulty through BG1 for years - probably around the release of the EE, and haven't played a PC-Imoen duo ever so it felt like quite a fun thing to do (and it was.) Cloakwood mines were definitely one of the hardest parts because I was so (deliberately for RP) poorly prepared - once I had wands of fire and an amulet of missiles for Imoen + 1-2 sets of boots of speed the whole thing becomes a bit of a cake-walk - the PC character barely cast any spells in combat once I got to BG because the low cast time on wands of fire is just so OP. The only problem was not having a fighter to deal physical damage making quite a difference - but having two characters, rather than solo meant that one of them could kite enemies around while the other did damage with ranged - at low levels I also used the familiar a lot to deal damage to held/sleeping enemies and kite. Dust Mephit isn't pseudo-dragon level but its not useless. On later fights wands of monster summoning ogres can be very effective, though its a crapshoot as to what you actually get when you use it (hobgoblins no thanks).

I enjoyed the gnome cleric/illusionist, though obviously its up there in the most powegame-y combos due to the specialist mage extra spell slots meaning it gets more spellslots than any other class combo and the shorty saves with high con meaning it can tank spells unbelievably well even without magic resistance. Imoen was pretty weak as a pure thief (imo) - she only gets two two traps, which are useful, but her thac0 remains high enough that backstabbing can be a bit hit and miss - though great when it connects combined with a stack of invisibility potions and a pre-buff of strength. I put her skill points in open lock, set trap and detect illusion (for SCS BG2 really) - I'm planning on shadowkeeper fiddling with her as a thief dualed at level 11 to mage lvl 1 for the start of BG2 which I kind of think is fair considering I had taken her to lvl 10 in BG1 as a thief. I want the maxed Detect illusion (SCS crucial imo), set snare and open lock (find traps is not all that important imo since PC has the spell equivilent, a waste of thief points) and lvl 11 should be when she gets 3 poisoned traps which I am hoping will be fun plus an extra weapon pip for longsword (I like traps even without abusing them and her two traps per day in this run were a very useful bit of extra damage in a lot of places). Obviously with an oil of speed, potion of power, boots of speed, shortbow and a stack of arrows of detonation that's 3 fireballs per round and ridiculous move speed so its not like she can't be super op - and she can use necklace of missiles too.

As far as game time and leveling went durlag's tower took about 12 days of in game time but lots of that was travel to Ulgoth's Beard, then the tower then back to Baldur's Gate. I didn't rest all that much in the tower, but I did powerword:quickload a lot - there was so much that I have forgotten about the game, and about SCS which has also changed since the last time I played (I think). Durlag's allowed me to get up to level 7/7 on Arwen and level 10 with Imoen just by running through it - 4000XP greater dopplegangers and the like quickly add up the XP. Additionally, there is a very real change in power from Cloakwood to Baldur's gate because of the access to Sorcerous Sundries and the Potion Shop with a huge stack of gold, plus gauntlets of ogre strength with slings (PC only has 1 attack per round base but it does around 13 damage per hit) - the whole game shifts to blast mode at that point.

As far as the diary thing went, I tried to show Arwen growing up from valley girl moron to a more serious murderouspower-hungry neutral evil character who loves her sister. Mileage may vary, its very stupid.