#MERRYN ALDWIR / verse / bg3.

[stormlit]

this is also why in a bg3/dnd au, she is a ranger rather than a rogue. it's never been about the more classic dnd rogue skills for her; her daggers are a means of survival, just as her bow is, she doesn't enjoy stealing, she's too clumsy to be the stealthiest person out there. specifically she's a horizon walker subclass, the class that uses portals and draws on the energy of other planes in attacks, who are used to stepping briefly through the planes to protect themselves. if i was fully going to stat her out, her spell list would be very much the ones that are like, extra oomph on a bow attack (ensnaring strike, hail of thorns, etc) or could be flavoured as coming from arlathan's magic.

merryn is not a mage...but i do think there is some latent magical attunement within her that gets amplified by the arlathan forest (which she travels extensively to create her maps), and particularly by the relics that they pick up there (which she, as a researcher and documenter, handles a lot). she can never cast spells, she doesn't necessary feel in touch with the fade, but there is still an element of using the veil in the veil ranger's abilities, still a touch of magic in there, not to mention the way she can use even a non-enchanted bow to create magical arrow/AOE effects.

in her mind, it all comes from the forest — quite the endorsement for a city elf who didn't grow up there — but that's not entirely true. it comes from merryn herself, too.