Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Headcanons for resisting Dark Urge?

Hi folks! If you're playing as a resisting Dark Urge, or ever have, did you have a headcanon for why the Dark Urge might even want to resist, story-wise? It's not an intuitive choice from a roleplay perspective for a person with brutal, violent impulses to seek to walk in peace and do good instead. So, what's your Durge's story? Brainstorming a bit for myself as well.

I like to think about why characters like The Dark Urge fight (or embrace :D)... the urge. ^^
My first run with the Dark Urge was a Dragonblood Sourcrer. Due to his memory loss and without much influence from the environment he had obviously grown up in, he had dedicated himself to a new purpose. "My magic will serve that which is best in me, not that which is most base.” ~ Malcolm Hawke
It worked for me.
(Does it makes a very diffrence in BG3 playing a Dragonblood or Stormcaster?)

Since I've taken a break from BG3 for a while (and still haven't played any further in BG1) I'll probably start a new playthrough soon though.
Again with the Dark Urge, because I simply find its plotline more exciting than the one about Motherbrain. Can't we just call in Samus for that?

My new Dark Urge will be a Human again, this time a Oat of Vengence.

A good Dark Urge is basically what I was roleplaying for a long time in the game, which back then was based around tadpoles, but I got really lucky as Larian eventually introduced this similar premise as an actual Origin story, so I ended up extremely happy and really loving Dark Urge

The idea always was to roleplay a good innocent soul that got forcibly corrupted and turned into a monster after some horrific rituals and procedures inflicted upon them, who eventually slips away from the clutches of their tormentors to rediscover the essence of their true self while fighting against the dark corruption that looms deep within them.

In this case my Tiefling Huntress was an innocent aspiring Ranger that got kidnapped, ripped apart and mentally faded away to the very outskirts of her mind where she remained imprisoned to give way for the obedient monster known as Dark Urge to prowl Baldur's Gate and rack an insanely high kill count until the mental walls of her prison broke because of the mindflayers. Her true nature at that point starts to slowly resurface again, but the damage is too great. Whoever she was as Dark Urge is not who she is at heart, but the darkness within her remains and now she has to fight against it in order to rediscover her true self or forever lose herself.

And the way it all connects into the story and especially with major villains really made it easy for me to just fill up the blank pieces of the story and enjoy it thoroughly.

Which is why my characters are always pale with dark purple highlights, to represent the corruption which remains due to the horrible procedures that were inflicted;

Also at the time due to how the Dreamer was being set up, I always made the Dreamer an exact uncorrupted mirror image of my character, to sort of remind them of who they were and what they should be striving to be once again. An example with my Drow at the time (ignore the goofy eyes );

I enjoyed this idea a lot so I still use it to this day;

My durge character was a lawful good Oath of Devotion Paladin 6 / Storm Sorcery Sorcerer 6 multiclass. I stayed within lawful good and never broke my oath throughout the entire playthrough. Usually I don't select lawful good characters and much prefer chaotic good or neutral but here it made sense.

In my mind my character was a great warlord killing in the name of Bhaal before loosing her memory to the tadpole. Her martial skills come from here. While unconscious a powerful deity, perhaps Withers since it's proven he's actually , reached into her soul giving her a chance to redeem herself by fighting against The Dead Three and spoiling their planned invasion of the Sword Coast hence waking up as a Paladin. Sorcerer side comes from Bhaal.

The story plays out nicely and, as far as I'm concerned, the Dark Urge IS the canon story of Baldur's Gate 3.

Here's how I look at it.

Your primary goal at the start is to not lose yourself and turn into a squid. Can Nettie help you? Auntie Ethel? Volo? How about Priestess Gut? Okay... Halsin? All you get from Halsin Omeluum? Creche?

Along the way, allies are better than enemies to get to what YOU want. There's nothing to say you can't betray or murder them later when they are no longer useful. It's not like there aren't ample opportunities for bloodshed.

Eventually, as the narrator tells you, you become aware that you were under Bhaal's control. Now that you are free of that, why would you trade the Absolute controlling you for going back to Bhaal controlling you? He is a god
By rejecting Bhaal, you refuse to surrender to his control, even if
You can resist without being a white knight for everyone. Tieflings? Not my problem. Missing Duke? Look lady, you have a whole guard outfit to handle this, I have my own problems. No, I'm not going to find this lady's diary so you can torment her more... oh wait, that does sound like fun.

My Dark Urge resisted so he could be Ascended Astarion’s completely as power husbands. The ‘bride’ lore they put in the game made so much sense because they are devoted to each other ^^

My headcanon is my Durge was created by Bhaal in the image of my BG1/BG2 Bhaalspawn, who was chaotic good and almost always resisted her evil side with sheer willpower. So my Durge, as a sort of clone of her, has that sense of rebellious goodness that can come out once Bhaal's influence over her falters. (Unfortunately I don't think my Durge is nearly as awesome of a character as my Charname, but as Durge gets like a fraction of Charname's screentime and character development, that's understandable).

As Durge you were as much a slave before the tadpole as Astarion ( that is,why he connects that easy to a good, resisting Durge).
You are basically and live your whole life under the influence of your father. The tadpole gave you the opportunity to be your own self for the first time and in my case, that is an actual caring and kind person,who wants to help.
I even did go so far and made my new Durge a halfling bard - with the Durge background,she is basically Helia, the scratched halfling werewolf bard, since werewolfs in DnD are all about resisting or succumbing to their urges.
So yeah, for me it is about Durge finding out , who they are for maybe the first time in their life.

My Durge is a Seldarine drow monk and I headcanon that Eilistraee came to her in dreams while she was in the pod.