Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Forget Minthara, Abdirak is the real deal

I can't deny that the older material definitely does specifically call out her folio covering all forms of anguish and suffering, including the mental and psychological, and while the newer lore we have doesn't focus on that as much, it does still mention it. I do want to mention: "If they make a full recovery, did you even damage them particularly much?" No - that's the point though; damage and suffering are not the same thing. Any permanent damage you do is a form of suffering you cannot inflict again, and yes, a lasting maim may lead to continuing difficulties and anguish over life, but people have an alarming resilience to nomralising and adapting to such things, so they offer fairly poor diminishing returns. Better not to cause permanent damage, and so leave your supplicant able to experience afresh every type of torment you can inflict, again and again, over and over. the book in Abdirak's alcove, for example, talks about this in brief, and suggests switching what you're doing if your supplicant risks lasting damage in one area. Pulled out fingernails will grow back in a way that a maimed and crushed hand will not.

This difference in ideology, or the way we view things, however, is exactly the sort of thing that explains why there are different sects of worship within a deity's clergy - different enclaves that worship and practice differently, with different views on the overall ideology of worship for their deity. I believe that you're right, absolutely, in that many sects of her followers would worship and practice as you describe. I also believe that I'm right too, and that some sects would worship and practice more along the lines I envision. I think that the fact that the current lore talks about there being differences of practice between different sects supports this - not all sects draw their supplicants solely from the willing, especially in places where ensalvement is acceptable - but by extension, the fact that they say "not all" does necessarily mean that there are also sects that do. I feel that Abdirak's behaviour seems to fall more in line with the latter. Perhaps it's even possible that he sought out a different sect after deciding that the permanent damage and debilitation he was building up in his original one was an inefficient way to worship his mistress?

I don't know why I objected to masochists following Sharess before - I think I was thinking on the history she has with both Shar and Loviatar, and was presuming she'd avoid that staunchly these days as a result... but as someone who is quite familiar with D/s interplay in an intimate and sexual setting, and as a sub (apologies for overshare), I admit that it would be very remiss of me to suppose that such tastes in pleasure wouldn't be catered to by her. Of course they would...

The concept of followers of Loviatar specifically targeting followers of Sharess as sexual presators - and deliberately seeking to scar and traumatise, in a way that turns any association of the thing that was part of their worship and pleasure, into torment and trauma.. is an interesting - if terribly dark - concept that I could see being a thing. I don't imagine many games would have the maturity and desire to tackle it, but in a realms-lore discussion, yes, I'd absolutely imagine that to be something that might occur.

Yeah I can agree to most of that, especially the part about sects

Also I didn't entirely realise before that the new lore you were talking about were stuff from the game -- that obviously holds the trumph for the depiction of Loviatar in regards to itself (regardless of any other lore)

Yeah, if we don't count the lore books in BG3 itself, then the only other source of lore from 5e for Loviatar we have comes from her entry in SCAG:


I was mostly taking note of the liberal use of 'some', 'sometimes' and 'not all' and other such terms throughout it... I don't have copy of the in-game books that BG3 adds to this, but I suspect that this SCAG entry is where they drew most of their background information from, as it's the only current 5e description we have.

Sadly, my tastes are horribly vanilla so I'm perhaps not the best one to weigh in on this one but I could see a Sharessean sect devoted to /s

I always thought of the story of Sharess as the sort of from-the-darkness-to-the-light stories I tend to like and imagined that her church is dedicated to transforming things once controlled by Shar darkness and Loviatar's sadism into something life affirming and good. I do think a 'no evil' sect of Loviatar's church would be harder but the one step rule could be used to make a Lawful Neutral branch based on consent. And if there is one thing I've learned from speaking to the kink crowd is they love the word consent -- in a typical conversation it comes up perhaps 10, 15 times?

Edit: This 3.5 but I wonder if anyone who has read this can weigh in

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/maiden-of-pain_kameron-m-franklin/626515/#edition=4268172

It would be nice to see some positive portrayal of bdsm. All the characters who are into it seem to fall on the evil side of the alignment. I know people are leery about sex scenes in general, but if larian are going to insist on including them, it would help if they tied into character arcs. Like if shadowheart or astarion end up redeemed, you can roleplay to help them come to
terms with their past trauma. The sex feels less like a reward given to a player at the end of a companion quest or whatever (with an option to opt out, of course, for people who aren’t interested) and more like an actual intimate moment between characters.

Edit: Or at the very least a ‘good’ npc that practices healthy, loving bdsm. I have a hard time buying abdirak as anything other than evil (in a fun, charismatic way, sure) given that he hangs out in a goblin fort with slavers next to a man being tortured for information. And lae’zel treats sex as conquest/purely in pursuit of pleasure, which is fine, but there’s more to kinks than blatant hedonism.

To be clear:I would like Abdirak as a companion or camp Follower, but I don't need him to be romanceable. I think he would be great to portray a priest of a lesser known goddess. Or is Loviatar well known and I'm just ignorant.? Could be totally possible, since I'm not that invested in gods and the priest class in d&d.

Oh, Loviavar pain guy, they are discussing you again. Yes, it would be cool to have Abdirak as a follower in the camp

It's still Loviatar with a t in the middle.

How dare you?!
Such delightfull company for my evil sadistic mistress!

I'm not against any character to be romanceable and seeing how many people would like to see an Abdirak romance (there are some YouTube videos about that topic too), I bet he will be romanceable, should he become a companion. I'm just indifferent to it. I'm not sure, how a romance with a priest of Loviatar will look like though. After all, it's not really the bdsm as we know it (I think Niara mentioned, that this is more Sharess domain), it's more about the pain and less about the fun...

To each their own, I play zealots of any kind in most RPGs, from the classic Call of Cthulhu cultist to fanatic paladins. Astarion is growing on me the more I play but the cultist in me really leans towards Abdirak lol.



My thought exactly. It's either played for laughs or just to showcase how evil and twisted a character is. This character has the potential to be the exception.

Possibly.

That said, every time a memorable npc shows up, people are going to want them as a potential party member/follower. There's going to have to be some give and take in that regard.

To be honest, there are a lot of memorable npcs, that crossed our way in the game. Some of them I really would prefer to my actual companions, like Alfira, Halsin, Karlach, Kagha and, well, Abdirak.