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Well, according to Steam forums, the only thing that's important about her is ![[Linked Image from media.tenor.com]](https://media.tenor.com/mqokRt4-XlkAAAAC/supergirl-shes-gay.gif) I mean, they're not wrong...? That's basically all we know about her and Isobel. Unless I missed something we don't even find out how Isobel died in the first place (again, more cut/revised content. I distinctly remember that there was datamined stuff about Halsin and Isobel and the glaive 'Sorrow' -which used to deal psychic damage to the wielder- was somehow involved... mmmmh!)
- Firm believer in Mindflayer supremacy -
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
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Yes. We get it from two different sources - Viconia herself during a dialogue and from her diary. Shar had V. slaughter her old coven and move to Baldur's Gate to raise Shadowheart. So Viconia lost a prestigious position and was forced to become a mom.
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veteran
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veteran
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But I could be biased because I just love FR lore and thought the representation of Shar was picture perfect. I like Act II, I enjoyed all the Shar/Selune stuff (though I'm a Lathanderite myself). The problem is that I was expecting more dialogue with Shadowheart about it all, more philosophical discussion, more indications of her internal struggle between light and dark. Instead she was pretty much just "Rah rah Shar! Boo Moonwitch!" 100% of the time until a rather abrupt heel-face turn. Meanwhile we're running into all this evidence of Shar's evil and atrocities and my character is just sort of side-eyeing Shadowheart but saying nothing.  Agreed that more philosophical musings would be better 
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Jhe'stil Kith'rak
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Jhe'stil Kith'rak
Joined: Oct 2021
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Well, according to Steam forums, the only thing that's important about her is I mean, they're not wrong...? That's basically all we know about her and Isobel. Unless I missed something we don't even find out how Isobel died in the first place (again, more cut/revised content. I distinctly remember that there was datamined stuff about Halsin and Isobel and the glaive 'Sorrow' -which used to deal psychic damage to the wielder- was somehow involved... mmmmh!) Reeks of cut content. Outside of the Aylin Ex Machina bullshit, her only defining characteristic is that she’s gay. That’s it. Two character features.
Remember the human (This is a forum for a video game):
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jul 2009
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Well, according to Steam forums, the only thing that's important about her is I mean, they're not wrong...? That's basically all we know about her and Isobel. Unless I missed something we don't even find out how Isobel died in the first place (again, more cut/revised content. I distinctly remember that there was datamined stuff about Halsin and Isobel and the glaive 'Sorrow' -which used to deal psychic damage to the wielder- was somehow involved... mmmmh!) Reeks of cut content. Outside of the Aylin Ex Machina bullshit, her only defining characteristic is that she’s gay. That’s it. Two character features. Pretty much. The only reason why Isobel was not cut completely was probably to virtue signal. Apart from that she has no content.
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Jhe'stil Kith'rak
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Jhe'stil Kith'rak
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“The game needs a sapphic sequence. Isobel and Nightsong.”
“Shouldn’t we… I don’t know, develop those characters first? Introduce their motivations, their lives, their outlook on the world? Maybe mention each other before meeting?”
“No. Now make them kiss.”
Remember the human (This is a forum for a video game):
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Dec 2020
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I don't like using "virtue signal", I find it very seldom leads to a good discussion. And I'm not convinced that this was a "oh, let's make a gay couple" thing (could be wrong though)
I will say however, that they focused a 'bit' much on the 'Now we are going to have sexy sex, you know, because we're together, we're both female, you know, lesbians. Did we mention that we're having sex?' It was lacking in any sort of subtlety. That said, this is Larian, are we honestly expecting any sort of nuanced writing from them? I'm not. That's why I didn't mind it, it was on par with all the other silly writing Larian does.
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Jhe'stil Kith'rak
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Jhe'stil Kith'rak
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I don't like using "virtue signal", I find it very seldom leads to a good discussion. And I'm not convinced that this was a "oh, let's make a gay couple" thing (could be wrong though)
I will say however, that they focused a 'bit' much on the 'Now we are going to have sexy sex, you know, because we're together, we're both female, you know, lesbians. Did we mention that we're having sex?' It was lacking in any sort of subtlety. That said, this is Larian, are we honestly expecting any sort of nuanced writing from them? I'm not. That's why I didn't mind it, it was on par with all the other silly writing Larian does. I think what you’ve written is my main problem. I don’t have a problem with a lesbian relationship as the centrepiece of the final sequence in Act 2. I’m bothered at how poorly written it is and how it is representative of all the other problems with Larian’s writing.
In theory, Aylin and Isobel are two parts of the tripartite tragedy of the Thorm family. This tragedy is about a loving family whose daughter falls in love with a demigod and then experiences a premature (and annoyingly unknown) demise with her mother. The father, in his grief, seeks apparent vengeance for this death from one particular god, while Aylin… just watches I guess. Then he is defeated and seeks to return what he lost before he turned to the first god from a completely different god (what was the point of the first god again?) who offers his daughter back in exchange for his soul. At some point during this process he imprisons his daughter’s lover for immortality, when he apparently used to have a problem with immortality (or was that just a poorly conceived stand-in for the big bad dad not approving of his daughters relationship). Then when he finally gets his daughter back, she sees how every piece of him that he traded away has left her father a monstrous husk and flees. Finally, Aylin is set free and you end the tragedy once and for all.
In practice: Aylin refuses to let you talk Ketheric into redemption, when you can nearly do it several times, and he still carries the note from Isobel on his body. Then when you and Aylin kill Ketheric and reunite her with Isobel, ALL THEY TALK ABOUT IS HOW MUCH THEYRE GOING TO FUCK. THAT’S IT. IT IS SUCH AN AMATEUR SCRIPT WITH THE MOST ADOLESCENT TAKE ON EVERYTHING YOU, THE PLAYER, KNOW.
The basic ingredients of a compelling tragedy and romance are all there. It could have been brilliant. Instead, it is squandered by a script ripped straight from young adult fanfiction.
Last edited by Zerubbabel; 19/08/23 03:14 PM. Reason: Spoiler tags
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journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Jul 2023
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but again, being Bhaalspawn is way different from being the child of a God as Bhaal technically wasn't a 'god' at the time My understanding is that Bhaal foresaw his death would occur *during* the Time of Troubles and walked the realms beforehand. Otherwise, Charname would be like 10 years old in BG1. I think the children of different gods can certainly have different powers and such depending on the god, I just think it's weird lore wise to imply that the child of a god is an aasimar based on godly parentage alone.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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I spent a fair bit of act 2 trying to work out if he was angry his daughter had been converted to Selune or become a lesbian, and suspecting he did the no daughter of mine thing and kicked her and she died and he blamed himself leading to his betraying Shar, cursing the land and joining the absolute. But then at the end of act 2 she was just ALIVE with no warning or explanation. It was weird but cool and paid off the set up for Aylin while also giving her a happy ending when it looked they were going all tragedy and really, shes already been tortured for 100 years getting a happy ending is more a twist than just, more grimdark happening.
Isie is useful in the final battle, she has an AoE healing effect
Minthara is the best character and she NEEDS to be recruitable if you side with the grove! Also- I support the important thread in the suggestions: Let everyone in the Party Speak
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Well, according to Steam forums, the only thing that's important about her is I mean, they're not wrong...? That's basically all we know about her and Isobel. Unless I missed something we don't even find out how Isobel died in the first place (again, more cut/revised content. I distinctly remember that there was datamined stuff about Halsin and Isobel and the glaive 'Sorrow' -which used to deal psychic damage to the wielder- was somehow involved... mmmmh!) Someone just posted the evidence of this on the Something Awful forums. Halsin's diary indicates that he used a glaive to kill Isobel, and that this is why Ketheric went the way he did. Dramatic difference.
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Someone just posted the evidence of this on the Something Awful forums. Halsin's diary indicates that he used a glaive to kill Isobel, and that this is why Ketheric went the way he did. Dramatic difference. Yeah it was datamined years ago and I was actually REALLY looking forward seeing a darker side of Halsin :,( Doesn't necessarily mean he had to be secretly evil, just a tad more complex.
Last edited by Malrith; 20/08/23 04:48 AM.
- Firm believer in Mindflayer supremacy -
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Someone just posted the evidence of this on the Something Awful forums. Halsin's diary indicates that he used a glaive to kill Isobel, and that this is why Ketheric went the way he did. Dramatic difference. Yeah it was datamined years ago and I was actually REALLY looking forward seeing a darker side of Halsin :,( Doesn't necessarily mean he had to be secretly evil, just a tad more complex. Ae, if the evil characters can turn out to mostly all have hearts of gold and in one case, literally be secretly NG just in denial about it, then the good characters can have darkness they wrestle with and backstories
Minthara is the best character and she NEEDS to be recruitable if you side with the grove! Also- I support the important thread in the suggestions: Let everyone in the Party Speak
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Wow, this is one incredibly toxic, troll-filled thread.....with all the usual misogynist and homophobic BS I've come to expect from Edge-lords. Shouldn't all you low IQ incels be off playing Overwatch 2 or Diablo 4? Instead you're here trolling a game I suspect most of you never actually played. Pathetic.
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Oh, I see, you're going for the "I'm not homophobic but....." trope. Nice try, Homophobe, but I don't buy it. I suspect you're going entirely off what your fellow homophobes have written on 4Chan, rather than experiencing the whole story for yourself. Maybe stick to Call of Duty from now on, as I think that's more in your IQ range.
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I would assume she is a Deva: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/DevaBeing a Deva of Selune, I suspect Shar expected Ketheric to kill her, as a "loyal" Sharran. But instead he got Balthazar to Soul Chain her in order to grant him immortality. I suspect at this point he was already a chosen of Myrkhul, probably due to the death of his daughter (which is ironic given it was the death of his wife, a Selunite, that turned him to Shar in the first place). A lot of the information regarding all of this stuff can be found if you search moonrise towers thoroughly enough.
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many of the plots of this game are pointless. supposedly she is deadly but has immortal power, etc etc.
It seems that Lariana surpassed the premise of creating a next-generation RPG story and setting the boundaries of the narrative higher than it could.
In terms of story and character plots, this game hides under the power of CDPred or even Bioware Aww, how adorable, we've found a little Bioware simp. Have you actually played the game, or are you just here to attack Larian so you can look all "edgy and cool"?
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You know, I look at some of the posts in this thread and I'm like: did you guys even PLAY the game?!?! Were you even paying any ATTENTION?!?! It all seemed pretty obvious to me. Ketheric and his wife were Selunites, and were raising Isobel-their daughter-as a Selunite as well. When his wife died, Ketheric turned to Shar in despair (all of which you learn from last year's trailer).....and I suspect either he or another Sharran was involved in Isobel's death, due to her being a Selunite Cleric (remember that killing a Selunite is the final step in becoming a Dark Justiciar). her death certainly wasn't natural-even by Faerun standards-as she mentions to you how there was nothing but darkness upon her death, instead of her going to the Upper Planes upon her death. Ketheric resurrected Isobel after he turned to Myrkhul, and almost certainly after he'd Soul Chained Dame Aylin in return for immortality & invulnerability. I don't doubt that Shar had been wanting Aylin's death for 100 years, and Shadowheart was the first Sharran in all that time that was in the right place to actually do the deed.
No, none of it is connected to BG1 or BG2, which are entirely dedicated to the Bhaalspawn and their machinations, but the story is VERY Forgotten Realms and VERY D&D.
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You know, I look at some of the posts in this thread and I'm like: did you guys even PLAY the game?!?! Were you even paying any ATTENTION?!?! It all seemed pretty obvious to me. Ketheric and his wife were Selunites, and were raising Isobel-their daughter-as a Selunite as well. When his wife died, Ketheric turned to Shar in despair (all of which you learn from last year's trailer).....and I suspect either he or another Sharran was involved in Isobel's death, due to her being a Selunite Cleric (remember that killing a Selunite is the final step in becoming a Dark Justiciar). her death certainly wasn't natural-even by Faerun standards-as she mentions to you how there was nothing but darkness upon her death, instead of her going to the Upper Planes upon her death. Ketheric resurrected Isobel after he turned to Myrkhul, and almost certainly after he'd Soul Chained Dame Aylin in return for immortality & invulnerability. I don't doubt that Shar had been wanting Aylin's death for 100 years, and Shadowheart was the first Sharran in all that time that was in the right place to actually do the deed.
No, none of it is connected to BG1 or BG2, which are entirely dedicated to the Bhaalspawn and their machinations, but the story is VERY Forgotten Realms and VERY D&D. Not everyone saw last year's trailer and the ONLY way to get Kethric to tell that story in game is if you kill Isobel, unsure if you get it if you just fail to save her during the attack. So really a lot of players would never get to hear that story told by Kethric in game.
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enthusiast
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There are many books, laid out and easy to find around the tomb, not the dungeon under it, but the tomb, you pick up that tell the story, Ketheric is not the only way to hear it. As well as many other clues, you have to tell part of the story in a picture order puzzle to finish the art, that one is very hard to miss.
Last edited by Starshine; 20/08/23 07:27 AM.
Minthara is the best character and she NEEDS to be recruitable if you side with the grove! Also- I support the important thread in the suggestions: Let everyone in the Party Speak
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