Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Miscellaneous lore questions

Well, the explanations derived so far are rather poor, due to Larian's actions... Zariel simply wants revenge on the Hell Riders for abandoning her, the same goes for one of her champions, Karlach.

As with the return of Minsk, Volo etc. pp. there is again a strange chain of coincidental events as a reason. Coincidentally, both live after 100 years, coincidentally in the same environment, coincidentally completely unharmed, coincidentally barely aged. Too many coincidences at once. Let's see who else we meet "coincidentally".

Similar now with Karlach and Zevlor. Both are on Zariel's hit list, but coincidentally both are close by as an encounter for us. Coincidentally, Paladins are also ready to join Zariel, coincidentally near Karlach, which Zariel coincidentally knew about (but not Zevlor...) That's one honestly strikingly strange difference, namely why Zariel or her assigned Paladins didn't find any traces of Zevlor and the other Hell Riders like Tilses and Tiefling civilians, who inevitably leave traces in a larger group, but could easily track down a lone wolf like Karlach. Sure, you could now claim that the others are in the Druid Grove and no one knows it because it's hidden. But I'm pretty sure if Kagha had spotted the Paladins, and the Druids were supposed to, she would have asked the Paladins either for support to fight the Gobbos or after the search for Halsin or for safe escort for the Tieflings to get rid of them. In general, I can't imagine that the Druids have no idea who is currently living in the area - well, the main thing is that they kept meticulous records of the Sharites *cough*.

I am curious how Larian's final implementation will be and whether the inconsistencies I have noticed will be invalidated.

Or perhaps the fact that the opening sequence as it stands doesn’t really work for her as an origin character is one reason she wasn’t in the initial tranche worked on. (IIRC the first look we had at the game had Astarion as the controlled character and it did sound initially as though Larian wanted to add origin characters in the course of EA so that may have been a consideration.) It may be fun to speculate anyway, but it feels as though we don’t have nearly enough info - plusreason to believe the info we do have is provisional and probably out of date - to draw any conclusions.

Coincidentally you bump into a great deal of the cast of BG1 in BG2.

Why Alaundo? Why were you fixated on Bhaal? Why didn't you foresee Larian and warn us? Just kidding.

Do we have reason to believe Zevlor personally is on Zariel’s hit list? I missed that. I know she bears a grudge against the Hellriders in general for historic reasons, but just the fact Zevlor works for an organisation whose members some time ago did her wrong, and who resisted her during Elturel’s descent doesn’t seem to be at all comparable with the situation of Karlach who was sworn to her (however unwilling), unless there’s more to Zevlor’s story I realised? I’d also assumed that it was because of the bond between Zariel and Karlach created by her oath that Zariel could find her, and I wasn’t aware of anything similar with Zevlor.

I also wondered a while back if Karlach’s back story might have been something like that of an adventurer who’d competed the Descent to Avernus campaign. I’m feeling that’s less likely now, but there do seem to be at least some similarities given she was apparently sent by “politicians” in BG to Elturel.

More generally, yes there are coincidences but as long as they make for good stories I have a reasonably high - though not infinite - tolerance for that. (Given it took place many miles away from the previous game, BG2 definitely went further into coincidence territory with the companion guest appearances than I’d want to see in BG3 or any modern cRPG, though of course I forgive BG2 itself anything .)

Its possible ...
But personaly i tend to presume this was due to her class.

That Zariel, who I perceive as an absolute insane fanatic, takes revenge on the Hell Riders even after centuries I find much more credible and stochastically more probable than bringing back several people as companions (with the above described coincidence chain).

If one realizes how cruel and brutal she dealt with the former Hell Riders https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Hellriders:

"Finally captured, Zariel swore fealty to Asmodeus, and vengeance on those who'd fled her.[14] The rest in Avernus were ultimately entombed in the Crypt of the Hellriders, their souls bound by oath to Zariel and haunting the place forever after as ghosts."

Then I estimate her to be insane enough to also want to enslave her descendants as forced recruits. Or simply the complete eradication of the Hell Rider order again and again as soon as it reappears, as with Zevlor and Co.