#bg3 beshaba

[vault-of-lore]

Baldur's Gate 3 Phrases

Religious Phrases

Watching gods. x

Bane

Black Hand be thanked. x

Bloody fool, may the Black Hand take you. x

By The Black Hand, I told you to leave that alone. x

Beshaba

Beshaba's black bones. x

Mystra

By Mystra's eyelids. x

Waukeen

Coinmaiden guard your coffers. x

The Coinmaiden watches you. x

Waukeen be with me. x

Phrases

By the Nine Hells. x

Damn thing's sealed tighter than a Duke's pursestrings. x

Little serpent, long shadow. x

My horns for a normal day. x

She toys with us like a tressym with a pigeon. x

[little-red-fool]

Doodles of Silvertongue when he was younger and worked as a manservant at Beshaba’s court.

[psalacanthea]

WiP Whenever

I think I'll be done with this chapter tomorrow, but I'm not sure! (work is crazy ;_;) From the Tav x Astarion Modern AU. Dealing with other people is mortifying. (don't go to dinner with carm he probably tries to get out of paying for his food after he's eaten it by complaining to the manager)

...

When Zyn stepped outside, the cleric had cornered a hapless passerby and was herding them towards the menacing collection box.  The woman was looking highly uncomfortable, backed into a corner by a 5’3”, balding half-elven man wielding a half-burned cigarette like a weapon. 

“You think you can just walk by like this?  You don’t think.  You don’t stop and think about what misfortune should befall you should you ignore Her.  You really feel that lucky that you can neglect her like this?  Huh?  Do you?”

Zyn tugged his hood a little further over his head.  Hells, this was so embarrassing to witness.  He didn’t even like asking people for help.  Couldn’t even imagine the fucking balls it took to accost people in the street like this.

“I asked if you feel lucky enough to neglect Her. You walked right by the collection box, my child.” The term of endearment sounded like an epithet.

“I– I didn’t think,” the woman said, sounding annoyed but fearful all at once.  “I don’t carry cash.  Okay?  When I have some cash…”

“Hey, come on.  Leftovers?  That’s insulting.”  Carm whipped a small black device out of his pocket, like a magician revealing a dove suffering from oxygen deprivation.  “Luckily for you, Lady Beshaba takes plastic and digital currency of all kinds in exchange for Her protection.  You just swipe that right here.  No problem!”

“Carm, come on,” Zyn groaned, mortally embarrassed as he yanked the edge of his hood down to meet his mask.

“Mind your fuckin’ business, kid!  You don’t mind him, ma’am, you don’t mind him.  Kid’s got no respect for the clergy.”  Carm beamed a craggy smile as the woman retrieved her wallet from her pocket.  “There you go!  You on the blockchain?  That magic internet wizard money?  I don’t know what it is, but I know we take that, too.”

Zyn wanted to die.

[crowsyart]

Entropy’s been mistaken for one of loviatar’s worshippers before(as he carries and uses one of their scourges)(unknowingly at first it was the only one he could afford/felt would work for his purposes) but he’s not particularly interested in pain for the sake of pleasure, while he does whip himself as a form of worship it’s more to remind himself of his own misfortune and place in life rather to enjoy and accept pain as a part of being alive

He will also pour alcohol over his wounds to cleanse them/as further worship to Beshaba

Hes kind of a pushover despite being so devout in his faith, assuming most people will come around eventually, as he figures misfortune is the strongest aspect of living life, and by worshipping it he can turn it into something for his own use. He assumes he can convince all others that this is the case, even if they worship other gods/goddesses

There’s your fun facts I mostly just wanted to draw him in the Loviatar armor

[feminurge]

in the bg3 plots where istar isn't the durge! i think i finally figured out istar's backstory. i have no idea if it could work but also canon is mine <3

istar as talos' experiment, an attempt at stealing some of mystra's realm after her death by helm's hand (attempt he made while introducing himself as malyk, god of wild magic). he basically created her with wild untamed magic, hoping that if his first option didn't work, at least he would have a wild pawn to play with. and it did work! only for bhaal to then claim her as one of his bhaalspawns, bc he had foreseen it and thought 'what best way to resurrect myself than with talos' toy'. its pretty much canon for talos to elevate powerful mortals to divinity anyway agshbsh. he didnt fully manage tho bc istar joined bhaal after the destruction of her forest.

talos has been trying to get her back ever since, thinking she might be his chance at overthrowing the death gods and well. destroying destruction. bc hes a lil bit full of hubris. he probably hopes she'll find a way to destroy mystra, once gale's role becomes clear.

her existence would be probably mentioned in some obscure books hidden by savras' priests. she'd be named 'the stormstar that the all-seeing cannot see'. because i do keep my the witcher hc that fate and foresight are based on magic (which. works with dnd considering savras was replaced by azuth), and istar existing beyond mystra's realm means that her fate will remain undecided. but no research became fruitful and no one really knows whats up with her.

the elves in eryri recognized her immediately because talos was one of the gods they would deeply hate and fear (with malborne being a mage whose magic mostly concerned wind and storms, yet acted for balance and creation, and who was aware of the divine struggles mystra was involved in). they venerated silvanus and thought of talos as the destroyer. it was foreseen that he would be the end of eryri, and malborne thought that by helping istar and showing her not to fear her magic, he would protect eryri. in reality, the forest fire was istar's fault, but it was only a result of her reacting to the mass murder of the tribe.

anyone could recognize that her magic isn't completely mystra's. there is a level of chaos that wouldn't exist within the weave. that is why mystra never looked at the sorceress and never wished to help her in any way, despite some of istar's prayers. she isn't necessarily more powerful, but she is more chaotic. her magic is harder to predict or counterspell, it also tends to be more destructive for. everything around her.

some mortals thought of istar, during dhufeainewedd's eclipse (a period where she hunted down and killed all who had a say in the destruction of her home, and what is considered as the first trial that allowed her to join the bhaalist cult), as an avatar of beshaba. they share the same wild white hair and the same misfortune. so they sometimes call her the maid of doom, which angers the goddess a great amount. but she can't really do anything because istar's fortune isn't for the gods to decide.

[vault-of-lore]

Cashguard Artillerist Theoda: Days like this almost make me miss the merchant train. // Stay. Awake. // Beshaba's black bones - a thief, an alarm, anything to pass the bloody time.

[little-red-fool]

I wanna learn about silver tongue I love abyss lore

Heehee I’ll gladly talk about Silvertongue and his backstory. I don’t know as much about Forgotten Realms lore as I would like to so correct me if anything seems inaccurate, also I haven’t fully fleshed out his lore yet but this might still be quite long because I like rambling lol so I’ll try to summarise it a little (also I might have changed some of the Dark Urge lore to fit his backstory too whoops).

*cracks knuckles* Ok so as a bit of an overview of his character, Silvertongue originally started off as a half-elf bard when I made him, he was also chaotic good but I was able to develop his character a lot more when I decided to ship him with Raphael and made him chaotic evil instead because I thought two evil bards would be really funny, which then led me into researching into Forgotten Realms lore; I found out that cambions can also be half demons in some versions of D&D so that’s why he’s like how he is now.

I’ll talk a bit about his backstory now that you have a brief summary of his character. Whilst Silvertongue’s a half-demon cambion, he’s still a half-elf in game so I decided to make his mother a high elf, although like other cambions she died during childbirth, and I like to think that the reason is because like some animals (such as spiders) he ate his way out of her womb rather than being delivered naturally. Although he was born in Blood Tor, he was very quickly transported to Toril where he grew up in an orphanage in human society (possibly in Baldur’s Gate but I haven’t decided), and for the most part his demonic heritage wasn’t prominent and he fit in well with the other children despite the odd outburst and rampage which were few and far between and wouldn’t last long—he was always drawn to music as a child which lead him to learning how to play violin and flute, and that started his career as a bard when he was a teenager. As he grew older though it became harder to hide his heritage and his urges grew stronger and more difficult to manage, he became more malicious and deceitful, as well as more sadistic, which then escalated and led to him attacking and killing a few people. After this happened he was hunted down like an animal when people discovered his heritage so he fled the city. It wasn’t long after this that his father—a demon—managed to track him down and bring him to the Abyss, saying that he would fit in better there and that his talents would be appreciated more.

This was when he came back to Blood Tor, where he spent his mid twenties to his late fifties. Whilst there he was a vassal to Beshaba and served as a manservant in the court, sometimes directly assisting Beshaba. When he was older he was drafted into the Blood War as a soldier and was trained to fight. He was originally sent on raids with other demons to the City of Strife to steal souls from the Wall of the Faithless, but later on he was sent into proper battles in Oinos, and much later he was stationed in Avernus up until recently. Whilst Silvertongue had a few mortal friends on Toril, he didn’t really have any in the Abyss due to the untrusting and malicious nature of most demons, however he was close with a couple of other cambions that also served under Beshaba at the same time as him. They were also drafted into the Blood War alongside Silvertongue, however one was killed during a baatezu attack in Bloor Tor, but he managed to save his other friend from an orthon attack, however this meant that he suffered many injuries and his clothes were tattered—he still wears the coat he wore from the orthon attack as he views it as a symbol of pride and a reminder that he saved his friend. Silvertongue is probably around 300 or so years old (give or take) so he served in the Blood War for over 250 years, and he was a decent soldier. He was often picked on due to his diminutive stature compared to the other demon soldiers, however what he lacked in strength and size he made up in agility and stealth. That isn’t to say he’s weak though he could still easily rip a human in half.

Now that I’ve given you most of his backstory I’ll talk about the events that took place recently to when BG3 starts. This part is also linked to the Dark Urge backstory, which I altered a bit for Silvertongue’s backstory. Although he was still fighting in Avernus, he started going on missions to Toril in order to disrupt devils from gaining souls from mortals, and for this he went to lots of different cities, one of these being Baldur’s Gate. This is when he ran into the cult of Bhaal, and long story short he ended up becoming involved—he didn’t worship Bhaal but he thought that having the Bhaalists on his side would be useful. Not too long after he met Gortash, and he found out about his affiliation with Bane, and learned about the Crown of Karsus and the Elderbrain, which is when Silvertongue forged the plan to use the Elderbrain and the ilithid tadpoles to turn the people into mindflayers as it would completely destroy the devils’ ability to recruit mortal souls as mindflayers were soulless. Him, Gortash and Ketheric carry out the plan etc etc and during these times Silvertongue keeps occasionally returning to Avernus to continue fighting in the Blood War.

This is right before the events of the game, as he was in Avernus when the nautiloid passed through it at the beginning, and due to being half-elf and therefore somewhat mortal he was swept up by the nautiloid and infected by a tadpole. Similar to some of the other companions—such as Wyll and Gale—Silvertongue’s stronger abilities and a lot of his power were sealed due to the tadpole’s influence, and he was trapped in his mortal aspect with very little magic. His current goal, like the other companions, is to get rid of the tadpole in order to regain his demonic aspect and his powers so he can continue to fight in the Blood War, although reluctantly—he recognises that it’s his duty and it gives him the opportunity to maim and kill others, but he’s still quite connected to his mortal lineage and he likes the thought of retiring, or at least living in Toril rather than continuing to fight in the Blood War.

Alright now on to him and Raphael (and a bit of Haarlep). Their first meeting was interesting, Silvertongue immediately clocked Raphael as a devil and tried to attack him, whilst in my interpretation of Raphael he’s never fought in the Blood War himself and has only witnessed it from afar so he can’t easily distinguish a demon when they’re not in an easily recognisable form, so he just thought Silvertongue was a bit jumpy and paranoid. I haven’t gotten Silvertongue past Act 1 yet, so whilst these events haven’t taken place yet I’m still going to refer to them in past tense for ease. Raphael manages to figure out that Silvertongue’s a half-demon at Last Light and that he was a soldier in the Blood War, which is what prompts him to get Silvertongue to kill Yurgir. In Act 3 I think Raphael’s contract would be slightly altered for Silvertongue, instead offering to remove his tadpole rather than giving him the Orphic Hammer. In exchange Raphael still receives the Crown of Karsus. Since Silvertongue has spent most of his life in the Abyss and hasn’t encountered any devils in a peaceful or conversational setting, he doesn’t really know how tricky they are and the weight of their contracts and how binding they are, so he signs Raphael’s contract; Raphael keeps his word and removes his tadpole. Unfortunately, with Silvertongue having grown attached to his companions and hating authority figures, he decides to break into Raphael’s home to nick the Orphic Hammer so he can free Orpheus, but he doesn’t take his contract as he just thinks it’s some old piece of paper, he doesn’t think that it actually holds any power over him or his soul. As you might know if you break into Raphael’s home without stealing your contract he, uh, incinerates you. My interpretation of this is that the player character then becomes one of his debtors trapped in his house, which is exactly what happens to Silvertongue. Fortunately his companions were able to escape with the hammer, however Helsik then closed the portal because let’s be real who wants a rampaging devil chasing after you into Toril, so essentially Silvertongue is stuck there as his soul is bound and his companions currently had no way of breaking him out.

Raphael doesn’t have as much power over Silvertongue as his other debtors due to his Abyssal heritage and not being fully mortal, so Silvertongue still has some freedom and is (mostly) sane (or as sane as he was before becoming a debtor), he’s mostly just bound to the house and unable to harm Raphael. Silvertongue is not happy about his situation and spends the first couple of weeks essentially throwing a huge tantrum and destroying half the furniture. He meets Haarlep during this time and since I headcanon Haarlep as being an enslaved tanar’ri (thanks to this post which completely hey this place isn’t too bad, it’s warm, I get a bed aechanged my outlook) they hit it off well pretty quickly, so they became quite close and shit-talked Raphael. It took a few weeks but Silvertongue realised that hey this place isn’t that bad, it’s warm, I get a bed and free food and I’m not constantly praying for my life and I don’t have to kill devils 24/7 for hundreds of years so he very quickly becomes a lot like a house cat, although he also realises that whilst he might be stuck with Raphael, Raphael is also stuck with him, which gives him the motivation to be an absolute prick but in a petty and mischievous way rather than an overly destructive and murderous way. Raphael absolutely hates this at first but over time they get more comfortable with each other and less antagonistic, which then evolves into a slight fondness (well more of a mild love-hate relationship), and I think that’s all up-to-date.

I’m so sorry that was so long ajdnshdndn but I really enjoyed infodumping about Silvertongue’s backstory, thank you so much for this ask!