#bane lore

[crystal-overdrive]

After reading @y-rhywbeth2 post on Bane lore and chatting with @brave-little-avocado-toaster, I've been thinking about recruitment.

I hc that the Church of Bane has a Scientology-esque recruitment process where they invite people in for personality tests or therapy, and use that to learn their secrets, weaknesses and most importantly, fears.

By the time the postulant realises that that is what they are, they are in far too deep, both monetarily and personally, to turn back.

The fears the Church learns of are used in initiation rites (I will get those written eventually). They bring the postulants truest fear to life to to bring them to Bane in pure terror and submission.

This, of course, isn't their only tactic. Most valued are those who openly search for Bane and His tyranny, but it's a good one for growing rank and file membership.

[teamphobia]

Do you want to talk about Killer?

...She was a rescue.

I think I mentioned once I almost got myself killed retreiving Danger. When Danger was only a Spinarak, I found Killer. She was part of some illegal fighting ring, they'd push her to fight until she collapsed- and she had the scars to show.

We raided the place. Natina helped her heal, and I took care of them both.

When she was comfortable, she was silly and gentle. She guided Danger best she could, even if she was slower than she used to be. Killer was nothing but sweet. She just wanted to relax for the rest of her days.

I miss her. I've never heard Danger and Haley wail like the day we lost her.

[nyda-the-tav]

Arabella is a child who experienced extreme trauma and Durge was literally made weak minded by brain scramblies. It would make sense of Jergal's interest 👀 Interesting thought!

Apparently prior to the Sundering, when he was sort-of reborn, Xvim survived his father's take over by migrating portions of his vestige into 'several weak-minded mortals' taking up 'residence in their minds.' Banites insist this is all lies and that Bane utterly destroyed Xvim for insolence; now shut up.

There's also a chance that Bane has also placed portions of his essence in mortals 'as an insurance policy against his own future destruction (again),' and, of course, 'Jergal certainly has.'

Wonderful. I am once again side-eying whatever he did to Arabella and Durge.

[alpaca-clouds]

Trying to figure out Gortash's backstory

As I said before, I am right now very much inspired to write a redemption story for Gortash. Like post-canon, Gortash lives AU (because I still hate that he dies), and he actually gets a chance to redeem himself. Not only like: He turns good, but he actually does something good enough to be considered a redemption. And he does so without dying.

But... Yeah, that story is going to be from Gortash's POV, which means that I very much need to come up with some fillings for the big ass holes that the game leaves in terms of his backstory.

We don't know how old he is, but I would estimate him to be around his late 30s or early 40s. Which means we kinda have like 20 years to fill up.

While the entire timeline of Raphael "buying" him from his parents and him escaping the hell is very vague, he was probably somewhere between 18 and 20 when he got out of the hells. And the exact stuff what happened in between is vague. Even how he escaped the hells is not quite clear. I mean, was Helsink responsible for that? Or how did he get out?

And then he starts to do illegal weapons trading once he is back in Baldur's Gate. Which is fair. I am going to assume that he is actually going to throw some stuff in there that is of his own making, given that he clearly is a tinkerer.

Given Karlach is 30, I do not think he hired her before she was 15, so at max she has worked for him just a couple of years.

I mean, technically those details don't matter. What does matter however is: How does he become a Chosen of Bane, and how does he get into contact with the Dark Urge?

As quite a few people have pointed out: Technically the Dark Urge existing is very confusing given that they have been created by Bhaal and Bhaal was dead for about a hundred years until ten years ago. So unless Durge is ten years old, this does not fully make sense. Sure, technically speaking Durge could be immortal, I guess, but... Well.

See, the issue I see with Gortash is, that I just do not pick him as the religious type. I do not see him going to the Banite church and actually give enough fucks to make himself a name in the church and after some great show of faith getting the status of chosen. I mean, if you talk to him, he just... Ketheric is devoted to Myrkul, sure. And Orin was indoctrinated into the Bhaalist cult from her birth onward. But Gortash? He would follow nearly every god if that god gave him powers. At least that is my reading of him. Sure, the entire tyrant thing plays well with his pompous and kinda narcissistic personality (and I mean this in a neutral way - given how he grew up narcissism in a medical sense is to be expected), but... Like, had Oghma thrown him a boon, he would have served Oghma, right?

So, why is he a chosen?

Usually chosen are either one of two: Either, they are very dedicated to the god and have proofen themselves to them over and over again, or they have something (power, knowledge, influence) that the god is interested in. As I don't see Gortash falling underneath the first umbrella, the second one could be it. Was Bane interested in Gortash maybe, because Gortash had a lot of knowledge about the hells maybe? Was Bane originally interested in the crown or something else that Gortash knew about? That would be one possibility.

Though, there is another one. Because it just so happens that in the lore of Faerûn something happened just 8 years ago, that could have given him chosen status without him doing shit for it. Even though it would also mean, that him being a chosen is almost random. Because 8 years ago the second sundering happened. And during the second sundering for a variety of reasons the gods picked quite a lot of chosen. And yes, that included the Dead Three as well. And a lot of those chosen were in fact not people super dedicated to the gods or anything, but just people who generally aligned with the domain and alignment of the god in question. And I cannot help but wonder: Was Gortash just one of the chosen Bane got from that event?

It would work out fine. Because there is one thing that keeps bothering me: Sure, Gortash kept secrets from Karlach. But she still was his personal bodyguard. And she had no idea that he was aligned with Bane. Which makes me think that indeed he was not a Banite when he sold her off to Zariel.

And yeah, I cannot help myself. The timeline would work out rather well: Gortash becomes a chosen closely prior the events of the second sundering, but after he sold of Karlach. After a bit the Dark Urge (who somehow very much is an adult, because I guess he time travelled or something) finds him. The two hit it off (whether romantically or platonically) and come up with their grand evil scheme. At some point Ketheric joins.

Of course, there is one big hole in that explaination, though: Who are the other people working for Gortash while he just is a black market weapons trader? If he was a Banite it would be easily explainable (other Banites), but like this it leaves open the question: Who are they and what happened to them?

I don't know. I am rambling. But yeah. I like this asshole. And his story is fun to think about.

[banemaus]

happy late halloween … my zombie guy bane gets to come out… he died eight years ago at the hands of another and he’s transgender and he dug himself out of the dirt. is he anything to you

[thequeensjester]

It's obvious why Celeborn is now the fandom bogeyman but to say that his presence would diminish Galadriel's role as the protagonist in ROP is silly.

JD&P have structured the show to have a different protagonist each season (starting 4:28). They're doing this so that we can get a sense of how different factions operate and for each season to feel different. In s2, Sauron is the protagonist, effectively shifting away from Galadriel as the lead. Yet, in a reduced role, Galadriel still has a storyline. In s3, we can expect a new protagonist. With the focus on Numenor, I think it could be Miriel or Elendil. That doesn't mean that suddenly Sauron and Galadriel lose their places in the story.

You don't have to agree with the showrunners' decisions (I sure don't agree with all of them) but making up thin headcanons to dunk on a character that hasn't appeared on the show yet as of now, is not it.

[mengyan]

“I don’t want it to just be ‘me’ and ‘you’ anymore,” she mumbles, outstretching an unsteady hand. Shangguan Qian is so far away that she can’t even brush the edge of her clothes, let alone grasp her. “Can we… Can we be an ‘us’ again? Please?”

Yun Weishan watches Shangguan Qian carefully for her answer, sifting through the fog of the sea in her eyes. Wearing white and framed by the candlelight, she looks a little too unreal, like she doesn’t belong in the same plane as her at all.

Shangguan Qian exhales. She glances at her hand, keeping it hovering, trembling in mid-air.

“That’s not up to me, is it?” she returns. “What about you, Yun Weishan? Will you show me mercy, or will this all end the same way?”

破晓; daybreak

🌤️ of ten thousand journeys, the path home is the longest one to walk. 🌊 estimated 63k~70k (total) 🌤️ a post-canon fix-it— or, how shangguan qian and yun weishan change each other’s ending 🌊 starting october 25th, this fic will update every friday around 7 PM EST! 🌤️ with cover art and illustrations by the incomparable @notedchampagne <3

link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58230550

[crusaderguy]

Bone and the Redditor.

Arc Ham Aslume.

[psychomusic]

so. I've been reading some posts on the jedi order tag AND i won't talk about my opinion on "are jedi good or bad discourse" BUT i wanna point out some lore to everyone who's complaining about the jedi taking kids into their order: (in the EU) it wasn't always like this.

if you take swtor era (more than 3000 years before the prequels) there were many jedi who joined at an older age. like, for example there was a guy who broke his engagement to become one. most jedi remember their families because they were old enough when they decided to go.

THEN in darth bane's book trilogy (circa 1000 yesrs before the prequels) there is a passage where two sith lords are talking about taking bane, already an adult, to study at korriban. one doubted him because he was too old, ans the other told him he sounded like a jedi, and that ONE DAY jedi will have to accept only kids into their ranks if they really want to find "pure" people that can learn their lessons quicker.

one day!! so it wasn't always like that!! the ongoing wars with the sith, who corrupted and killed many of them, had pressured them into taking always younger people into their ranks.

also, consider a thing that this video explains super well: training to become a jedi is not like exercising, because there is a transformative lesson at the end of the training that changes everything. you can't just do as much as you can, but not finish.

the transformative lesson, as the video explains, is that through the force, everything is the same - from rocks and ships to life and death. at the end of the training you have to understand this fundamental truth.

yoda says "you have to unlearn what you have learned". during times where they were constantly killed off or corrupted by the dark side (and if you haven't learned this lesson you are more susceptible to this corrupting), younger people were taken in to actually finish their training (a training that was ultimately about being a good person AND that you could leave at any point if you weren't sold on that, too)

(remember that for the sith failure = death. like. that was the alternative for force sensitive kids. it's not like sith had any moral problem with taking kids away without consent. sith don't have moral problems: they believe that them being stronger in the force means they can do whatever they want as long as their strong enough to go and do it. there are MANY passages in many different star wars stories, even in different mediums, that say this out loud)

AND (this is more of a critical thought than just stating the lore) the fact that they started doing it out of necessity doesn't mean it's 100% good BUT you know. the whole set up of the prequels is that we're starting off the story in a period of crisis and decadence all around. most of the systems of the times were about to fall. OF COURSE they had problems. if they didn't, we wouldn't have the story to begin with.

that doesn't automatically mean jedi = bad and sith are better, tho. you wouldn't take the last, chaotic and decadent period to jugde something, would you? it's like deciding that the athenian democracy sucked because people at the times of Demosthenes failed at recognizing the new schemes in which the world was evolving into, and still believed that their city would be important as it had been in the previous century. They just didn't fucking expect the Macedons would conquer half the world known and more, and have the subsequent political power. Still, their experiences in the 5th century with democracy were very good, even better than ours on many fronts, if you contextualize a little. the jedi had flaws, and most importantly, they didn't fucking know the future and everything that ever happened, ever, so they made mistakes. that doesn't automatically make the system ill, or bad, or not-working. systems can have setbacks when the world changes. (just like athenian democracy had one when they lost the empire that was funding the democracy. they even had a tyranny for a while and then fixed the problems. that doesn't diminish retrospectively their democracy)

[whimsaro]

Current Zelda timeline pet theory: the Zelda games other than BotW/TotK take place long enough before them that Hyrule no longer existed as a country, and all the documentation concerning the usual Zelda artifacts (Master Sword, Triforce, etc) were rendered incomprehensible by linguistic drift. Then, after the (unknown to them) Second Founding of Hyrule by Rauru and Sonia, some poor archeologist translated "Blade of Evil's Bane" as "Sword that Seals the Darkness", thus depriving Zelda fans around the world of VAs saying that legendary title out loud.

[coreene]

Bane has a simple ethos: the strong have not just the right but the duty to rule over the weak. A tyrant who is able to seize power must do so, for not only does the tyrant benefit, but so do those under the tyrant's rule. When a ruler succumbs to decadence, corruption, or decrepitude, a stronger and more suitable ruler will rise.

Bane is vilified in many legends. Throughout history, those who favour him have committed dark deeds in his name, but most people don't worship Bane out of malice. Bane represents ambition and control, and those who have the former but lack the latter pray to him to give them strength. It is said that Bane favours those who exhibit drive and courage, and that he aids those who seek to become conquerors, carving kingdoms from the wilderness, and bringing order to the lawless.

At many times and in many places in Faerûn, the faithful of Bane have been seen as saviours for their efforts in slaughtering raiders, throwing down corrupt rulers, or saving armies on the brink of defeat. But in just as many other places, the worship of Bane has created or supported cruel dictatorships, aided mercantile monopolies, or brought about the practice of slavery where before it didn't exist. source: Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide pg. 26

This description of Bane really took me by surprise because it so similar to Gortash. And that the banites were seen as saviours before Gortash's little play and it makes me wonder how many of the others were also ruses? But also, Bane really is the only one of the dead three with a more logical look on being a god.

Also interesting to me is the fact that most people doesn't worship Bane out of malice. Maybe that's how Gortash started as well? And Gortash really is the type of person Bane would favour. Strong, ambitious and brave. The man's got balls. Big ones. Not everyone can just even decide they are going to rob the second most powerful devil in hells.

[crystal-overdrive]

Prayer to Bane

I hear you in the cries of the oppressed, In the screams of the fearful, In the stomping of your boot upon Toril. Dark Lord, We call to you who are already here. May we be aware of your presence. Awaken this in us who speak your name in reverence.

A cold fire, you sit my heart’s centre. A marching army, you tear through my soul. A searing claw, you rend through my life. A black hand, you force me to my knees. An obsidian stone, you are my anchor.

In destruction I am renewed, In oppression I am freed, In pain I gain clarity, All to serve him once more, A faithful slave under Bane’s Black Hand.

[teamphobia]

3. someone they miss hehehehe heavy topic

...

Killer. Danger's mother.

We all miss her.

[crystal-overdrive]

I was curious whether there was any symbolic importance to Banities covering their eyes in bg3 because all of the uniforms do it, but like y-rhywbeth2 says here, Bane wants open tyranny so it's an odd choice.

Hey! Love your lore posts! Was wondering if you knew whether there was any symbolism attached to Banites covering their eyes? Is it simply to shield their identities or is it something to do with the Church? (perhaps a "see no evil" 🙈 type deal?)

I've never seen anything about them covering their eyes in lore (which isn't the same as it not existing, but if it does I haven't seen it). If it's about their in-game design then it's just a stylistic thing, not a lore thing.

Religious garb for the Bhaalists has them hiding their faces behind veils, and the Myrkulites behind skull masks and layers of corpse ash taken from the crematoriums. Both in black robes with deep hoods to further obscure themselves. Banites tend to *show* their faces (ritual facial tattooing (I think Gortash actually has concept art with facial tattoos?), gemstones worn on the forehead to denote high rank, that kind of thing) the closest to obscuring any of their face that I remember is wearing hoods at the regular evil meetings, and the fact that, due to the military nature of Bane's Church, armour has been a big part of the uniforms so some might have masks/visors on their fancy black spiky helmets?

Out of ceremonial garb, they must wear something black (at least one article of clothing minimum) and if possible a sash-belt in red with the Black Fist on it. Also two holy symbols (one on the neck, tucked in out of sight if needs be, one in the heel of their boot). No eye covering there.

'See no evil' would be out of character for Bane. He wants open tyranny and very much wants you to look at that evil. Dressing to honour your faith in Bane but hiding your identity feels incorrect in a way I can't articulate at 1 in the morning. But like Gortash standing in public with the holy symbol practically wearing a sign that says 'I worship Bane': their faith is legal and they're not the most subtle in dress regardless, so protecting your identity is ehh.

I'd go for obscuring your face for intimidation as an explanation, personally.

[alpaca-clouds]

Something that confuses me about the storytelling in BG3

Honestly, the more I read up on the backstories and everything and on the lore of the Dead Three, the more confusing everything gets.

Because the Dead Three had no only all died in some way prior to the game, they also are technically half-bound to mortal bodies at the point the game takes place, even though they keep their divine powers. Because of the Second Sundering and stuff.

Technically the game actually acknolwedges this at the very beginning through a line when you find Jergal's book. Sure, technically it does not say who it was - but the book notices that there are three that only quite recently have come back to life.

Now, alright, technically the "recent" stuff is a bit more complicated.

Bhaal is the one of course that gives me (and everyone writing on Durge) the most headache. Bhaal was slain by Cyric in 1358 DR during the time of troubles. And sure, canon makes a big point out of the fact that he foresaw this outcome and because of that impregnated so many women hoping to be able to return through the Bhaalspawn he fathered. He then got revived in 1482, just two years before the Second Sundering, and ten years before the events of BG3.

And that makes Durge just very complicated. Because of course the game always speaks of Durge being created by Bhaal, with an implication that Durge might not have been born naturally but crafted by magic. But in that case he would have either needed to be born past 1482 (so be less than 10 years old) or pre-1358 (so be about 130 years old). And yeah, canon Durge is a Dragonborn, who despite their draconic heiritage actually do not live very long. Sure, Durge could be immortal, but... It is still all very confusing.

Then we have Bane. He also got killed during the times of troubles, also in the year of 1358 DR. However, him getting revived did not happen quite that late. He gut revived in 1372 so 120 years prior to the game. He then spent the years since gathering his power once more and reestablishing his old alliances.

Myrkul meanwhile is a bit more complicated. Because, yes, you guessed it, he got slain in 1358 as well, but he managed to get his grabby little fingers onto an artefact (ironically also a crown) through which he kinda continued to exist and was able to have some agency. Though ironically we do not fully know how he got restored from that state. (There is some speculation that in fact it was Ketheric who managed to restore him - maybe knowingly, maybe unknowingly.)

Hence, with Myrkul we do not even know when exactly he returned. He just... did.

Still, due to the Dark Urge being the figure they are... Bhaal's death and very late resurrection is the main thing that gives me a headache here. It does not really make sense.

If it was not with the fact that the text hammers on about them being created by Bhaal himself, it would be easy. You could just say that they are a second or third generation Bhaalspawn. There are more than enough of those around. But the game just keeps focusing on them being first generation in some regard.

Like, sure, if you personally played an elf-Durge or a drow-Durge, that is not that much of an issue. For the elven kin those 134 years are nothing. But again, canon Durge is a Dragonborn, who tend to have a lifespan of like 80 years. So, uhm... It is very, very confusing.

[circus-blades]

headcannon nationalities for your idv favs?

they're all brazilian