Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Calling all Roleplayers!

I was thinking of giving her one or two levels in rogue and keep the trickery domain in one of my playthroughs. Astarion can be something else then, since he is the companion, who is the least tied to a certain class. I did give him monk levels in some playthroughs. Others make him a bard, but since bard is my favourite class: if I can't be one, no one can XD. BUt I guess, it would fit him too.

Here's another of my characters who I also mentioned in the short race appreciation thread: Sophy the halflng jack-of-all-trades.

I thought it would be fun challenge to try to get the achievement honestly, but it did take me a while to work out how to build the character in a way that made roleplay and game mechanic sense. I posted build info a while back in another thread.

On the roleplay side I ended up choosing to play her as a devotee of Oghma, with a fierce love of music, stories and nature, boundless curiosity and absolutely no staying power. She'd say "yes" to almost anything, talk to anyone, and constantly get sidetracked. Prior to getting kidnapped, she'd travelled the Sword Coast both seeking and sharing knowledge, and being more a fan of practical than book learning and sometimes venturing into dangerous situations to discover the history of an old ruin or investigate the culture of Gibberlings she had learned to defend herself.

I started her off as an Oath of the Ancients Paladin, and while getting tadpoled threw her off her stride to begin with, she soon recovered her abilities as a knowledge domain cleric, beast tamer/sanctified stalker ranger (she had a pet raven), bard and monk. I'll admit monk was a bit of a stretch (I imagined she'd learned a few moves from an old flame, whose form The Emperor plucked from her mind), but the other classes I felt reflected well the combination of skills she'd have used and developed in the background I'd concocted.

The other levels I tried to tie in to events along the way:
Level 6 - Great Old One warlock: Ever since being tadpoled, Sophy had started hearing odd whisperings in her mind and finding herself with new knowledge she couldn't explain the source of, and that only intensified after she'd inserted a second tadpole (just to see what would happen, of course).

Level 7 - Wizard: She struck up a close friendship with Gale, who taught her how he summoned the weave.

Level 8 - Fighter: Lae'zel and Sophy were very different people but shared a passionate attraction. It wasn't to last as Lae'zel soon became more serious than flibbertigibbet Sophy could cope with, but Sophy was left with some fighting moves Lae'zel had taught her as a memento of their relationship.

Level 9 - Druid: Sophy had always been a nature lover, but her experience healing Thaniel and growing friendship with Halsin gave her a deeper appreciation and connection to the land.

Level 10 - Rogue: Sophy picked up some useful skills running Shar's Gauntlet (I'm retconning in my head that I took the druid and rogue levels the other way around - I hit level 9 while in the Gauntlet of Shar and level 10 at Wyrm's Crossing, so it would have made more sense to take the rogue level while in the Gauntlet and the Druid after completely healing the shadow-cursed lands)

Level 11 - Wild Magic Sorceror: Even Sophy balked when The Emperor offered her an astral-touched tadpole, but despite trying to resist she found herself consuming it and in addition to strange new illithid powers she started to find new magic bursting out of her with peculiar effects she couldn't control.

Level 12 - Barbarian: Her transformation also increasingly affected her mood and mental balance, and in addition to the unpredictable effect on her magic she would also occasionally find herself flying into uncontrollable rages. And she started off such a cheerful, happy-go-lucky soul!




Oh, and I've moved this thread from "General" to "Story & Character Discussion". After moving it to “Build”. It feels sort of between categories, but hope it has a good home now.

Just one more:

Jhalvin Melarn is a character I played in EA but haven't done a full run with yet.

He is a Lolth-sworn beast master ranger (with pet spiders of course), and before being kidnapped he was a member of the Dread Fangs of Halisstra, an elite group of warriors who protect the priestesses of House Melarn in Menzoberranzan. (Unlike some forum members who have in-depth knowledge of the Forgotten Realms, my knowledge comes from a few computer games including the BG series and reading the odd novel and comic, so I find the Forgotten Realms wiki really useful in helping me develop characters with connection to the lore.)

Jhalvin was loyal to his house and Lolth in the recent civil war in Menzoberranzan, but is, to put it mildly, somewhat conflicted and has a deep yet unacknowledged hatred of Lolth, her priestesses, and probably women in general, bubbling just under the surface. There's also a messed up backstory with a lover he's never got over who was turned into a drider.

The part of his job that Jhalvin most relishes is hunting down and killing apostate priestesses, and he and a group of his fellows had been tasked by his matron mother to investigate a number of desertions and rumours of a new goddess called the Absolute who was stealing Lolth's faithful. They were following a lead that took them to the surface and were getting close when they found themselves ambushed and next thing he knew Jhalvin was having a mindflayer parasite inserted into his eye.

Liya Tana, wood half elf lore bard/feylock (chain)

She is a pen & paper character, I'm playing currently in a campaign. SHe was made in the Greyhawk setting and grew up in Saltmarsh. Her mother, a human, and her father, an elven ranger, hooked up for a short while, but didn't stay togetehr. They are still friends though. Liya moved with her mother in a bigger city, where her motehr married a noble. Liya lived with them until she was of age and studied at the bard college there. She still has contact with her real father too and is currently in Saltmarsh again (where our adventure takes place).
As a character, she knows etiquette, because she grew up in a noble household, but she prefers the honest wilderness out there with her father and his fellow rangers. I gave her some nature themed spells from the bard list, like Speak with Animals. She also is pretty sarcastic sometimes and for a bard more on the introvert side. She loves making music and she can be charming, she just doesn't always like it.

For BG I moved her to live and study in BG. She was taken by the Nautiloid one eveing after a successful musical perfomance at the birthday of Lady Jannath.

I use one of the ingame pics for the token in our ttrpg.



And you might wonder, why fyli, the advocat for small races, plays a half elf? We had so many small race characters in our group, that I decided to play a half elf for once. And against all odds, I really liked Liya (I have nothing against elves and half elves btw, I played them before, I just feel the need to advocate for teh small races in BG3, becaue ttrpgler know already, how awesome they are)

Here is my current Honour mode character: The Lolth Durge









It took me a full year, from 8/23 to 8/24, to complete my first playthrough. It was on Tactician, started 3+ months prior to the release of the Honour mode. Now, I'm playing again on the Honour mode, with the character shown here.

I intended to make this character a tall, big, magic-using version of Karlach. I initially planned to play as Karlach but gave up due to a bug that took 6+ months for me to see fixed.


PS - some details


My ultimate goal is simply this: experience every aspect of the game with the same character, and survive the entire game no matter what I do. I achieved my goal with my last Gnome Durge, though it was on Tactician, a bit unsatisfying. I reloaded probably twice: one was to alter the twisted fate of my favorite bard (I was appalled to see that fate unfolding before my eyes - had to rewrite it), the other was due to the boss-level duel being too easy (i was a bit scared, but it was over in 1 round, so had to reload from an earlier save to avoid going this easy route, such that I could enjoy a big fight).

On the survival side, my Gnome Durge only died 3 times: a) killed by Nettie's 2nd summon and then beaten to death by Nettie, 2) ambushed while scouting ahead of my party solo, put to sleep twice by the Underdark beholder, beaten to death by his Drow party, no chance to fight due to the sleep magic, 3) tired of disarming traps and decided to run over the final tripwire, got instantly killed - not just downed! All the three times, the rest of my party were intact and could bring me back. Which implies, my 3 companions (while my Durge was lying dead and cold in the Underdark) killed the Spectator and the Drow party in order to reach her.

More on the survival side: Except under unusual circumstances, in Act 1, I stopped using potions; in Act 2, I stopped using consumables - not just potions; in Act 3, I stopped leveling up. Eventually, in the final battles, I stopped healing as well, effectively making Shadowheart (level 11 Trickery Cleric) out of job - her level 1-6 spell slots were almost intact at the time all the final battles were over. In particular, this Gnome Durge party cleared the Upper City Sewer without anyone on my side taking a single hit. As a result, all 4 of my party members did not even lose their temporary hit points.

In the end, I finished the game at level 11 (not level 12).

I'm doing the essentially same type of playthrough, except on Honour mode this time, instead of Tactician last time. Gnome is technically great, but too short in many cutscenes. So, this time, must be big and tall. I'm now playing a Cleric of Lolth - quite unique in that only one race in this game can select Lolth as their deity - while primarily a Sorceress in combat.

Question for those who've played as Dark Urge: how much is the character's backstory pre-defined, and how much scope is there to define my own head-canon? The character I'm currently thinking of is a Lawful Evil sorcerer who considers himself superior to other people due to his sorcery and wealth; and was trying to buy or force his way into the Upper City (or any other part of high society). Perhaps being denied the access he thought he deserved awoke the Bhalliness. I'm not explicitly planning either an embrace or resist run, but a character who will use others to get what he wants, and otherwise I just want to see what happens in the durge plot.

So, since I've heard that there is more of a backstory to the durge character than Tav, is that story going to conflict with my idea and I should just start as a blank slate and see what the game tells me? Or can I still have my own backstory? TBH it'll probably be a while before I can play this one because I'm thinking of using the Clockwork Soul subclass, but the mod (strictly speaking one of the library mods it uses) is incompatible with patch 7.

Durge's memory is fuzzy, mostly wiped out. You could imagine a backstory from small slivers of memory (false or real) but it will change as you get to recall things.

I think this is ok. As Ido said, you have ties to both

Cool, thanks. I'm going to keep the backstory fairly vague, but I'd like a bit of context for why he's being evil this time. Even if the Bhall blood is basically enough reason anyway. And it's a slight modification to the LE Tav I was planning for a second game to contrast my previous CG Tav; before people here persuaded me that Durge isn't totally murderhobo and I should play it

If you don't have played Durge yet, I don't want to spoil too much, but it is save to say, that they are in a bit similar situation like Astarion after the tadpoling. So anything goes basically. And I like your reasoning for your 'durging' back then, it doesn't have to be mindless murderhoboing, though Bhaal is sadly as subtle as a baseball bat, doesn't mean, his followers and spawns have to be as the first two games showed us.

Meet my Half-elf drow bard ,Aelita Martia. She was a captive/slave of Minthara's house in Menzoberranzan. She had a natural talent for disguise and deception and was trained for infiltration, seduction and espionage missions by house Baenre. She was sent on the most perilous missions as she was quite expendable, being of mixed blood.

When Minthara and her escort of Drow did not return from Moonrise towers, she was one of a number of drow agents, who were sent out to various places on the surface of Faerun to find clues of what happened to the Lolth Paladin. Aelita was gated from Menzoberranzan to the surface around Waterdeep, and got captured by the minfdlayer ship while scouting near the city of Yartar.

When she gets to the goblin camp, she will mercilessly kill all the absolutists and their leaders, but wants to keep Minthara alive, to bring her back to Menzoberranzan for interrogation and proper judgement. However when Minthara escapes, Aelita has no option other than to keep on looking for her and get her back. After they manage to find her in Moonrise and get her to move to their camp, Aelita decides that it would be more useful to keep Minthara around to join the fight against the absolute. As her respect for the other party members grows throughout he adventures, and she gets more empathic with Minthara, the Drow indoctrination that shaped her has faded, and she abandons all thought of returning to the life of a thrall of Baenre, even considers options of revenge against the matriarchs, for which Minthara seems a perfect ally.

(The name is inspired by a 1924 Soviet SF movie, called Aelita, queen of Mars)

The b(-)(-)bies make me think of Lollita ...

She's so pretty. That's a very interesting and creative backstory (tying in a connection with Minthara, and her mixed blood heritage, brilliant)! And I love her name! Thank you for sharing

my current character is truesoul git
Gnome l6 dark urge good [sort of] Druid-lock [2]


about to save some fellow Gnomes in the forge

Hullo clouds! Hullo sky! Hullo trees! Hullo birds! This is Silfoth Tohmaz, Sword Dancer of Eilistraee (Ancients Paladin 5/Swords Bard 5/Light Cleric of Eilistraee 2) and they luv only bountiful nature. Astarion may think they're uterly wet, but they just completed Honour Mode

Let me add my strength to yores!



Fellow admirers of Geoffrey Willans' and Ronald Searle's Molesworth books will have spotted that this character is loosely based on schoolboy Basil Fotherington-Tomas, but in universe Silfoth was on their annual Run on the surface, spreading Eilistraee's song and light across the Sword Coast when they made the mistake of proselytising to a fellow drow who was actually a follower of the Absolute, who decided to return the favour and convert them instead.

Speaking of literature: I'm reading Tad Williams new Osten Ard Saga, THe last King of Osten Ard, and I love the world, he created. Seriously, if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. He has a version of fey that are somewhat more alien, the SIthi and the Norn.
In the new books tehre is a Sitha named Talahaya, who is pretty young for her folk. She is often travelling around as a messenger, so I thought, what, if she accidentally found a portal and was sucked through. Since she had royally bad luck, she was found by Gortash and shipped off to get tadpoled, since he is already planning his next conquest and Osten Ard sounds like a worthy one. He found out enough by being friendly (which he can be as we see in the gameand as Karlach mentions) and is determined to get all the secrets, once Talahaya comes back tadpoled, to give him the advantage he needs in that foreign land. Unlucky for him and lucky for her, she was on the Nautiloid, that crashed and freed herself.


Talahaya in the books as far as I can say (I'm still in the first book) is very curious and open minded. She alsoseems to be friendly. She is a bit particular about odors, so I bet, she will send all companions bathing in the river every evening and is not happy with the goblin camp.
Sithi are vegetarians in the books, so I guess, Gale will learn some new recepies.

She will not be happy with Gortash, once she makes it back to the city. She also starts to question ehr friends Jiriki and Aditu, who sometimes seem to be too trustful of humans (which is the reason, I think, that Gortash fits very well into her bakcstory, since there is a discussion among the Sithi, how much humans can be trusted and Talahaya is pretty young and might so far only encountered friends of Jiriki and Aditu, who are trustworthy).

Here is, what I think, she might look like: Sithi have golden skin and catlike eyes with golden or light brown shimmer. Their hair is white, but they do tend to dye it in bright colours, so she might get blue hair along the way. I think the druid armors look pretty much, like the Sithi clothing is described, so I gave her that for now. I used transmog to giver her armor and weapons an elven look. Most elfy elf mods are pretty overpowered, so I just took the looks.

Cool! I read the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy *way* back, but confess my memory of the details of the world have been lost to the mists of time. I'll have to take a look at the more recent books.

The other character concept I have based on other media is an in-world one: Nerys the cleric of Kelemvor who was a character in the Jim Zub Legends of Baldur's Gate comics, which starred a de-statued Minsc. I'm still not sure if or how much the events of those comics are canon within the BG3 world: when questioned Minsc mentions fighting off a succubus in Candlekeep and being dunked in the River Styx (which were events in that series) as things that*may* have happened, but I don't think anything is definitely confirmed. And I somehow missed in my latest run any info about how he came to be unpetrified: I'd picked up the impression that it didn't quite match the comics, but I note that in the bg3.wiki it does say Minsc was awakened by Delina the wild mage which was what happened in the first comic. I'm therefore still mulling over how much of the events in the comics to adopt as my Nerys's back story, but do want her to know Minsc and Boo. I'll also maybe have a play around with mods to try to get a better look for her once I've ticked off the last few achievements (the below was the best I managed with the vanilla character creator). For now, she's on the list of possible future runs that are bubbling away in the background that I'll potentially firm up and play one of these days (and yes, I do have at least a rough concept for every class and subclass, covering all races and subraces and they *might* be listed out on a spreadsheet because that's how sad I am ).

Queen: You should start with The Heart of what was lost, if you want to delve into the new books. It's a shorter novel and introduces some characters, that reappear and play bigger roles in the new series.

Nerys I use often as a name for my characters, but I was inspired by Kira Nerys from Deep Space Nine (best Star Trek show and I die on that hill )


ANd I remade my halfling werewolf bard in honour of Helia. I wanted to update to patch 7, but sadly the hair, I was using for her, didn't get updated (among other things) and I couldn't load the save.

But that is not too bad, since someone made a playable werewolf origin and now I can really make her a halfling werewolf bard. I refined her backstory a bit: She was bitten as a child by a werewolf attack, that killed her family. Some Gur were hunting the werewolves and they found Helia and decided to take her in and raise her to be good (the idea came from Gandrel and his children tbh and the recorded voicelines for Helia, which suggested ties to a Gur clan and Selune). She learned to control her transformations, but still wants to get rid of the curse. She tried magic, divine magic and even a hag, but luckily got out unharmed. The last try nearly got her into a pact with a devil, but she was clever enough to walk away. She is desperate, but not that desperate. She heard that a mage in a tower in Baldurs Gate could be able to help her, but this Lorroakan turned out to be a creep and a charlatan. He obviously had some power, since he used enchantments all over his shop, but when he heard, she was a werewolf, he tried to catch her for some experiments. He mumbled something about wanting to have those self healing abilities and strength. She used her most mean spirited Vicsious Mockery yet and run away. Pathetic as Lorroakan was, he still was a mage with some experience.
Helia was able to escape and decided to make some money playing in the taverns around, but then she watched some vampire spawns luring innocents away and tried to interfere. She managed to distract one spawn - a tiefling woman - and got the captive away. The woman didn't look like she wanted to do what she did, but she was also terryfied for some reason. Then someone else talked to her through the woman, probably the master vampire - he sounded like some very pedantic buerocrat and Helia decided, it was time to go. Not a moment to soon, since he ordered his spawn to attack her. She managed to get back to the main street, with the help of her werewolf powers and run into a Flaming Fist. The woman/vampire master were gone by then. She told the fist something about a robbery gone wrong and the guy seemed to be pretty friendly and helpful. But then she blacked out and woke up in a strange environment and some eldritch horror inserted something into her eye.
(Astarions quest is always a bit on the side and not really tied to anything else, so I decided to make Helia had a run in with one of Cazadors spawns and get a glimpse of what an asshole he is, so that she has a personal motivation to get rid of the pesky vampire, especially when he attacks her fellow Gur. Plus the whole vampire versus werewolf shenanigan)

This is Maire Ni Bhraonain. Human bard/Warlock. (If that name sounds familiar somehow, yes it's on purpose. )

I wanted to try a bard/warlock this time. The plan was to start with bard up to level 4 and then switch to warlock for the next 4 levels, to get the pact of the blade. So I arrived at lvl 5 to make the switch. At this point, we cleared the surface of act 1, except for the Githyanki patrol. But how should I rationalize the pact with a fiend in the middle of the adventure ? For this, I tweaked the lore of the necromancy of Thay tome. Even though it was read by Shadowheart, the grimoire's dark forces immersed the whole party. All resisted, but the bard, who had always been attracted to the occult, was vulnerable to the spirits... and also willing to gain power. And so it came to be that at that moment in time, she voluntarily embraced this strange spirit that would guide her. But for what price ? That remains to be seen.

so she has a string of power as her Precious?