#I have caught the BG3 bug BAD

[kavaleyre]

“After 200 years, you can forget how much color there is in the world.”

[tenander]

Doing the Which of your OCs... asks for my homemade blorbos. Part 1: Question 1 - 13. (If you want to know more about these guys, check out their tags on my blog!)

has the best hair? As a certified impossibly-pretty-hair-enjoyer, that's a difficult pick. I'm gonna say Corzian, whose hair is ridiculously long, wavy and looks perfect all times even though he spent his entire youth sick in bed and now adventures daily with little to no time spent on its care. Elven privilege.

uses/would use the most products? Definitely Crim, he enjoys the ritual of pampering his own body and will happily take an hour to indulgently and thoroughly apply oils and creams and powders.

frustrates you the most? Zaphir, hands down. He is emotionally stunted, in a permanent state of paranoia and old enough to be very stubborn about his beliefs, and I want his story to be about finding inner peace and comfort and genuine companionship... but his story is the story of BG3, which is not conductive to overcoming trust issues. Hhhhhhhh....

makes you smile the most? ALL MY BLORBOS MAKE ME SMILE A LOT But Solstice's overflowing love and kindness is kind of infectuous, and sometimes he is also just really really funny in the most wholesome ways.

is the happiest? I think that'd be Qursa, now that he's reunited with his brother. He is with his family and they're doing good for the galaxy, that's all he ever wanted.

is the saddest? *slaps Crim* this bad boy can fit so much grief in him. He lost everyone he ever loved, as well as himself, and has to worry about losing more every single day. (He'll get better eventually.) I also have a yet unnamed guy percolating in my skull-raisin who is hella unhappy.

is/would be the first to die in a Horror scenario? Yukiro. He's a good fighter and a good sneak, but he is also in bad health and is the kind of man who would tell his team to "Go, I'll hold them off".

has been with you the longest? Making OCs permeates my life, so it's a bit hard to tell sometimes, but I think if we assume AU versions of an OC to still be the same character, then the OC I have had the longest and who has gotten new thoughts added within this year is Meredith, my Saints Row Boss. OG Meredith is basically retired (in a satisfying way), but there is a New Saints Row version of him.

is your newest? Fully existing, that would be my SWTOR Inquisitor, Ru'lonn, who will drag the empire into a new age of alien power even if he has to do it at forcelightningpoint. Still in larval form is unnamed guy, who achieved immortality in the worst possible way.

has the best butt? According to reliable and professional sources, Zaphir. He has been a Monk all his life, he could probably kill a man with his buttcheeks.

is/would be the most likely to get caught committing a crime? Novel would a) absolutely commit a crime for the sake of his townspeople or his temple and b) be really bad at it and get himself caught immediately.

likes/would like animals the most? It's a toss-up between Novel, the Ranger who was saved as a baby by ravens and is never without his own bird friends and loves all of nature, and (surprise) Qursa, who discovered that he is an exceptional healer because he can feel the pain of other living beings by noticing and healing injured animals as a youngling, and who still deeply cares for them now (except certain bugs, bugs are freaky).

can/could cook the best? I have had to realise that nearly all of my OCs have cooking skills ranging from "eh" to "oh god please no". In the context of this unfortunate trend, only Yukiro stands out as someone who can make a decent meal from nearly any ingredient he has available at the time, and makes amazing inarizushi.

[macgyvertape]

BG3 Act 1 thoughts and liveblog part 1

With super long games like this (finished in about 110 hours) I like to take notes to 1) remind me of stuff I did at the beginning of the game and 2) to enjoy looking back on because I'm not doing another playthrough for a few years.

Going to suffer through the spider and half spider people since the mods don’t fully work yet and they disable achievements

Going for dark urge first playthough along the lines of Durge is guard dog to those they imprint on and I knew I was rolling a bard, so I watched clips of Felix RedvsBlue as a good starting point for my character roleplay. Starting character quote “At the end of the day, if I'm stronger than you and if I'm faster than you, then I can kill you! And that's better than anything money can buy”

Trying Not to be a “charismatic mercenary with gruff exterior and a heart of gold” 

I killed Commander Zhalk in the beginning area with viscous mockery. True bard experience

Passed the perception check of Astarion pulling a knife, some fun dialgoue options with him, and its a delight to hear his tone of voice really change

I can’t tell if Gale is just flirty/horny or really just dedicated to the facade of being surface deep and a braggart to mask his secrets. Seems both and though he seems full of himself I enjoy this kind of companion who lies about things

I think I like the inspiration mechanic, I got a point for killing the mindflayer “leaving it to burn”

I’m really having to force myself to be “that asshole” and ask people to pay me for helping them

Got another inspirational event for killing the cultists lol. The game gives me a lot of options to talk about my dark urge but I really want to play that close to the chest

I don’t really know about pre-rewrite version of Wyll but he really seems a good alignment nice dude, and unfortunately I want to be almost evil/neutral Dark Urge.

Had to reload to save Nadira, I’m struggling with interrupting actions outside of turn by turn combat

Rapheal sure makes an entrance, my character turned him down but didn’t attack since he seemed so powerful. Keep my options open but it seems like there are a lot of options there

Gale is fucking lucky I had a extra piece of enchanted gear so I didn’t lose my very nice sword. I also feel like I’m throwing away some approval points by my character questioning him but I’m trying to play someone who isn’t altruistic or too trusting.

Ok I failed several perception checks for a kid stealing my stuff then I caught the last one, but then the kid ran off and everyone in the hideout ran out. I’m not sure if anything was still stolen from me or if this is a a bug 

RIP Alfira, was not expecting that from the dark urge. I chose to confess to the others, if my character is murdering people in my sleep only fair to explain and not hide

My character told Karlach to tear the place apart as catharsis for being hunted, and it was fun to see that scripted sequence play out

Gale is telling me his unstable magic backstory, but he’s doing it at camp so there is no reaction for anyone else during the conversation despite him saying he wanted to tell everyone. (edit: Not sure if a bug considering he also referenced being mind whammied by the Almighty before that had occurred in the goblin camp). Also deeply ironic he talks about understanding if my character wants him to leave since he’s a literal timebomb, but this is happening a day after D!urge pc killed someone brutally

Also incredibly funny Lae’zel is now interested in my character, and will sleep with me considering her dialogue post D!urge murder

Wyll gets turned by his patron demon into a semi horned being, ok so I guess just seeing what he looks like shows the obvious decision you made with Karlach

Wtf is up with Wyll, that he’s so proud he made his pact when it was just made obvious he was sent on basically an assassination mission. All his talk of “saving innocents” wonder how many innocents he’s killed from bad intel

The trifling child gang hideout is very bugged

Perception check for the swamp reveal was really cool

I haven’t been taking many long rests so I just now got the Astarion vampire one. Fun to see all the options if you let him kill you, but I save scummed to let him really go for then stop for roleplaying purposes 

I actually realized I was right by the vampire hunter so I loaded a save where Astarion hadn’t revealed himself yet and fun how different it goes, he will kill the vampire hunter out of combat to keep his secret if you don’t intervene and that’s very fun. It also gets brought up when he tries to feed on you for the first time at camp, but I haven't found a dialogue option where you can say “weird coincidence the guy called you by the same name”

Got the scene at the goblin area where the party would get mind whammied if not for the mysterious artifact. I’m really trying to pick a moment when my character would go from “more people is better odds” to “ride or die for certain characters” and I think this is a good point along the line of “oh if these people aren’t with me then they’ll immediately be soldiers against me”

I really enjoy how Astarion treats you like a fool if you say he’ll be safe because you would protect him from Cazador, in the cliche all power player character here to fix the companion’s problems. I mean my character still said it of course because that was my favorite of the 3 options at that point. Interesting I only now can ask about what offer Raphael made, like that was hours and hours ago but guess it needed specific dialogue flags 

No other game has given me an S&M scene like this for a stat buff where its fun and horny. I love Gale’s “well whatever you’re into”. The first time I did the scene (pun intended) Astarion was standing a little too far away, so I only got Shadowhearts dialogue, but its much better with them talking back and forth

My character told Shadowheart she doesn't care that she worships Shar but more along the lines of not that she likes Shar its just she don’t really care about religion 

I am majorly arachnophobic so I just covered up the screen and freed the spiders so the goblins would kill them

My character asked the priestess to meet alone then assassinated her with Astarian cloaked to get an extra out of combat turn. I expect to do this setup a lot more

I found a Selunite outpost and went down there, then reloaded since that seems way too big an area to explore right now

Setting up Minthara to be doublecrossed was a great tactical way to clear out the goblin camp, especially since I’m out of short rests

Killed Dror Ragzlin with barrelmancy, aka stole a bunch of explosive barrels and put them around him and the crowd and then exploded them from the rafters above

Note to self in however many hours when I get to Baldur’s Gate, see how Ronan’s apprenticeship faired (I bet not well)

Astarion calling my character darling and saying he’s going to like me and it's clear I like him too, definitely feels like he’s rolling to seduce and being a bit manipulative so she will like him (tangent: Margaery Tyrell was one of my favorite GoT characters kinda similar vibes) 

My character was upfront about enjoying it but very funny to say that a less trusting person would be suspicious and have him vouch that the only thing on his mind was carnal lust. I tried the immediate agreement then reloaded and I love that his response feels very different like he’s succeeded in a seduction check. 

I made my dream visitor a hot masc teifling and there is big horny energy with his scenes

Got the “morally acceptable massacre” for defending the grove. I created some barricades out of crates, blew up the sappers with fire arrows and then the enemies were just trapped at the bottom as I killed them with archery. Took a few tries for barricade positioning but then was easy and none of the tieflings died

I’d like to think my D!urge character would love massacring the goblins, in the same way she enjoyed getting the Knoll leader to kill the others then kill themselves brutally. Sort of a “I just love killin’” character approach, but my D!urge character dislikes that the Dark Urge takes away her control. 

My character absorbed Minthara’s tadpole at the prompting, I figured my character would be all about gaining power she could control. Astarion certainly had a very camp approval option. 

I then used 4 Ithilid powers across Astarion, Gale, and myself really just to get rid of the menu icon being bright red and distracting

Oh wow I completely missed doing Kagha’s secrets until now, so I could tell Halsin but not much else happens 

Didn’t expect my character could talk Lae’zel into using the tadpole powers and make a good persuasion attempt with Kalrach, and then persuaded everyone else. Playing a charismatic character is fun, she is manipulative af

[riddlerosehearts]

i have been so busy and in such a weird mood the last couple weeks that i've barely made any bg3 progress, but i'm finally posting some more thoughts on my playthrough--mostly just consisting of me running around rivington/wyrm's crossing and doing a bunch of random sidequests!

oh man there is... so much to do and so much going on in rivington. the way most of these people are talking about the refugees is immediately making me sad and also making me want to fight them wtf

i kind of wanted to go to the circus ASAP, but i decided to explore other areas first and ended up learning about the ilmater priest's murder! i've only seen investigator valeria for about 5 seconds so far, but i love the entire concept of a little winged elephant thing being a detective and how that manages to just seem so normal in this world.

i also love commander lightfeather. talking to him with speak with animals activated is hilarious.

OMG I WAS INVESTIGATING THE CHURCH ROOF FOR THE MISSING LETTERS QUEST AND!! TARA!! i've heard that in a gale origin playthrough she comes along on the journey and i wish she would in a normal tav playthrough too, i've been dying to meet her omg. she's so cute.

i have astarion in my party and he disapproves of you telling gale to tell tara to stop eating the courier pigeons ajkfhjdfskgf 😭😭 and then gale goes "oh, right, uh... stop it." in the most half-hearted way possible lmaoooo

i've heard that there's supposed to be an option to ask gale about his last name right here because this is the first time you ever find out about it, and i've also heard that it's bugged. looks like it still is because i don't have it :( i've gotta remember to look up that dialogue later.

all right, i went ahead and checked out the circus, and this part of it is something i didn't really know about and is hilarious to me: i was spinning the wheel and passed a perception check to find out the djinni was cheating, so then he got mad and i had bard-specific options to distract him by either asking him about his adventures or letting out a huge fart LMAO. i chose the first option, won the jackpot, and uh. got send to a jungle full of dinosaurs?! i knew it was possible to get turned into a wheel of cheese by this guy, but i did not know about the dinosaurs.

i also knew about the custom statue thing and was initially so tempted to get one not of my tav, but of gale because i thought it would be funny. but i don't wanna spend 5,000 gold on that ASKFDJGFDHJ so maybe i'll go back and do it later.

i found the dryad that does the love test! that was something i wanted to see ever since i heard about it. i did not know what the answers would be ahead of time so i picked based on my own instinct aaaand i got a perfect score lol. the fact that "he thinks he, and the world, might be better off if he were dead" is the correct answer for gale's greatest flaw is sooooo.... gale why are you like this i'm going to cry :(

i reloaded a few times to see how he'd react to the other choices. his reaction to being told that he's happiest at dusk because the light favors his complexion is to go "hey, you're making me sound like some kind of preening peacock!! i am NOT that bad!!", and it's hilarious. also he gets really upset at being compared to a lemon meringue and i take personal offense to that. it's because lemon meringue is sweet, zesty, and delicious and so are you smh 🙄

if you get all the wrong answers gale says he's had a little stone caught in his boot for a while and that it makes a better traveling companion than you do ASFDKJGDHK, gale noooo i'm sorry 😭

i am not letting my tav sign any contracts with raphael, but i love him as a villain. there's just something about how theatrical he is and the quality of andrew wincott's voice acting that makes raphael so much fun to encounter. i find it interesting that lae'zel, now being loyal to orpheus, wants to take raphael's deal while gale, who's interested in the power of the crown, very emphatically insists that we do not take the deal.

...i ran into valeria again at sharess' caress and that made me realize i should probably go back and do more investigation into that murder, whoops. there's so much going on in act 3 that i'm a little unsure what order i should be doing things in in the first place, but oh well! i'm gonna check out some other things and then continue the investigation later.

[cannibalisticskittles]

wyll keeps being evasive about warlock/pact stuff and, in a party of people who keep lying about their clearly-tragic-or-shady-or-both backstories, i think that is the thing that would actually bug amity.

like.... astarion is a vampire, okay? she might not pick up on it the moment she meets him, but she knows. she sees him flashing his teeth every time he talks, she knows. but if doesn’t wanna bring it up on his own, that’s fine, she’ll leave it be until he brings it up, and if he never brings it up, that’s fine, too. he’s laughably bad at waving off why he knows that the boar she finds was killed by a vampire, but what’s she gonna do, press him on it and embarrass him? goodness, no. that would be rude.

and shadowheart is equally as bad at playing off her backstory/little quirks as natural, but she’s clearly also embarrassed to talk about it, so yeah, she’s lying that it was a trick of the light, and being real evasive, but people don’t always have good excuses when they’re caught off guard and embarrassed, it’s natural, amity ain’t gonna make it worse by pushing the subject, that is also rude.

but wyll acting like she doesn’t know what she’s talking about when it comes to pact-related things??? AMITY doesn’t know what a sending stone or a fiendish patron looks like??? ab. so. lute. ly. not. amity is the result of a pact so she romanticized the idea for years (bc, hey, her parents seemed pretty happy about it) and she might still romanticize em, by the time of bg3. she’s spent years studying and reading about various pacts, AND at this point, she’s potentially taken on a pact of her own, after weighing her options and prospective patrons very carefully, and at great length. amity knows pacts. he could’ve just said that he didn’t wanna talk about it, but no, now he’s calling her qualifications into question. and he doesn’t even have the decency to act like it’s a mortifying subject so that she can justify it!!! the audacity.