#but i got really tired of him talking about mystra over and over

[primamchorus]

slowly realizing that my friends don't actually seem to know my type. 😮

one of my friends got into baldur's gate 3 with her gf, and when we were talking about it, she asks me, "who did you romance and why was it astarion?"

sat here like, "...? i didn't. even if i did romance someone, i don't really think anyone in the party's really my type."

[bitethedevil]

Living with The Devil You Know (Raphael x Tav): Chapter 2

Chapter: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen

Read this fic on AO3 (Link)

Fic Summary: Tav broke their agreement by handing the Crown of Karsus to Mystra instead of Raphael. Not only that, but she also robbed his house and killed his incubus. Raphael is patient and he is determined to get his revenge.

…Tav isn't too bothered. She will figure something out eventually. Until then she just has to find a way to live peacefully with a devil.

Chapter Summary: Tav tries to get in contact with her friends and bothers Raphael while he is working.

(AN: There's a bit more backstory to Tav in this one. She is shamelessly based on one of my own Tavs. There's no smut in this chapter but the next one will be a bit spicier, I promise.)

She was in front of a mirror in the boudoir, trying to untangle her unruly locks with the brush she found in the wardrobe. It had been made for finer hair than hers, which was evident with all the red hairs that now clung to the brush.

Gods, she looked tired, she thought to herself as she saw faint bags under her green eyes. It would without a doubt take her a while to get used to her new bedfellow. Her gaze went from her own eyes in the mirror, to the yellow eyes of Raphael’s warlock that were watching her every move in the reflection.

She got dressed and was herded into the larger dining area in the middle of the house by Cassius. It seemed that Raphael had already left the house.

A servant brought her breakfast shortly after she had sat down at the table. The tiefling warlock sat down beside her with his legs crossed and kept an eye on her.

Tav had ignored him to the best of her abilities while she had gotten out of bed and dressed. She had found his smile charming when they had met the day before, but after he had hit her over the head with a blunt object and brought her directly to his patron, the effect of that charm had somewhat faded. That ‘disarming’ smile was annoying and smug at its best with the way that it was plastered to his face. He watched her with almost unblinking eyes.

She studied his annoying presence while she was eating.

“My…someone takes their job a bit too seriously.”

Cassius ignored her and kept staring at her without saying a word.

“Come on. At least Korrilla talks to me. Are you afraid I’ll outwit you?” Tav said after a moment of quiet.

Cassius jumped straight into her trap and reacted to her provocation, just as she had hoped.

“My job right now is to watch you, not entertain you,” Cassius answered with a slight sneer on his face.

She stopped eating for a moment and smiled at him. It was that sneer on his face that suddenly made Tav recognize something.

She could not help the amused smile that formed on her face, as the realization hit her. The way Cassius’s nose wrinkled when he sneered…how could she have missed the resemblance?

“What?” Cassius asked with a frown.

The yellow eyes, the red skin, the dark hair, the air of self-importance: if you squinted a bit, Cassius looked exactly like a younger Raphael. They could almost have been related, but knowing Raphael, that was not the case. She remembered what Haarlep had said before they had killed him: Raphael only ever wants to sleep with himself.

It suddenly made all the sense in the world why Raphael would make a warlock pact with someone who knew next to nothing about using any kind of magic. Could it be that the devil was thinking with his cock because he missed Haarlep?

“What is it?” Cassius asked again as he studied her amused face.

“Oh…nothing really,” she answered and tried to wipe the smile from her face. “Cassius, was it?”

“Yes,” he answered.

“Right. Cassius, I’m curious,” she said. “How long have you been working for Raphael?”

He hesitated for a moment and crossed his arms. It seemed that he was considering whether he was allowed to tell her.

“About a month,” he answered.

“Only a month?” Tav said with feigned astonishment. “And Raphael already gives you such important tasks as kidnapping and watching me?”

“Yes, well,” Cassius said with a snooty expression. “What can I say? My patron has taken a liking to me.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Tav said, and kept eating.

She could get away with the half-baked plan she had in her mind. If he had only been a warlock for about a month, there was no chance that he could be particularly powerful or even able to fully control his new powers yet. Tav just had to be quick. If she could only divert his attention for a moment…

She looked behind Cassius and acted as if Raphael had come home.

“You’re back,” she said to the air behind him.

Cassius predictably looked over his shoulder. Tav was quick with casting her sleep spell. Cassius slumped forward and hit his head on the edge of the table before falling to the floor.

Tav winced sympathetically as she saw him hit the table-edge. That was going to bruise. Then she remembered how he had knocked her out the day before and shrugged.

She got to her feet and looked around for a piece of paper. It technically was not necessary for a sending spell to write it down, but she had to be precise in her wording and she only had 25 words to work with as her limit.

She found a piece of paper on a desk, and she frantically wrote down the message that she would send:

I’m safe. Raphael kidnapped me. Don’t listen to him. Stay away. It’s a trap. I’ll figure something out. I’m not in immediate danger.

Tav held it up and said it out loud. She used the spell to send it to Gale first. She sent the same message to Shadowheart as well, in the case Gale had already left for Waterdeep. As the sending spell was both a cleric and wizard spell, she would hopefully get a response from at least one of them.

She managed to burn the evidence before she heard Cassius starting to move again. She ran back to her seat at the table and sat down. She acted as if nothing had happened.

After a moment, Cassius sat up and looked at her with a groggy expression.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” she warned as he looked like he might alert Raphael.

“What did you do?” Cassius said and climbed back onto his chair to look her in the eyes. “Tell me!”

He was looking at her with a furious expression. His hair looked disheveled, his eyes intense under his furrowed brow, and a bruise was starting to form on his forehead.

He did not scare her in the least.

“You just took a little nap,” Tav answered and continued eating her food as if nothing had happened. “Don’t worry, no one has to know…”

“Raphael will throw you into a cell when he hears about this,” Cassius hissed. “Exactly where you belong.”

“Mm, maybe,” Tav answered calmly. “But a prisoner does as a prisoner does: they try to escape. What is more unforgivable is that the warlock he put in charge failed the very simple job that he was given. Raphael might like you, but do you really think that’s enough for him to forgive you for failing to counter a simple sleeping spell?”

Cassius looked pissed. His nostrils flared. His yellow eyes were burning with rage…until they narrowed in consideration. He knew that she was right: he would get punished for this little mishap.

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” Tav said and then pointed to the bruise on his forehead. “You should do something about that before he gets home.”

Cassius touched the spot she pointed at and winced in pain.

“If you pull another stunt like this, I won’t be as merciful,” Cassius warned.

“Of course,” Tav answered with a shrug and a smile.

She didn’t need to. She had already done all she had to do. For now, at least.

While Cassius tended to his bruise, she got word back from Shadowheart. She heard the message telepathically in Shadowheart’s voice:

‘Noted. I will tell the others. Be safe and be careful, Tav.’

Tav sighed quietly in relief. Her message had been heard and her friends would stay away.

Shortly after, she received Gale’s reply. It also manifested as Gale’s own voice in her head:

‘Thank the gods, you are alive! We were looking for you everywhere. I suspect that Raphael is angry that we gave the Crown to Mystra?’

She waited patiently for the rest of the reply she knew that would come. Gale was never great at keeping things brief. A few moments later she received another sending spell from Gale:

‘Please stay safe and if you need anything, just send me another message. Remember that sending between planes has a slightly imperfect success rate.’

It was so typical of Gale to find a way to teach her things even across planes…Still, it was comforting hearing his voice.

Tav felt a lot more relieved now that her friends had been warned. Now all she had to do was survive in the House of Hope long enough figure out how in the Hells she could escape on her own.

She spent most of the day with Cassius at her heels. He was driving her insane. Not only did he take his job of watching her way too seriously with the way he constantly stared her down, but he had also been pouting ever since she cast that sleep spell on him.

She decided to take a nap during the afternoon. When she woke up, she took a walk around the house. There was not much else to do under Cassius’s intense supervision.

She saw that Raphael had returned. She found him in the archive. He was working and surprisingly, he was in his human form. Cassius instinctively took a few steps back towards the exit when he noticed that Raphael was sitting there working at his desk.

Tav did not move. She had been promised ‘free roam of the house’, after all. If Raphael’s presence meant that she would be free of Cassius just for a moment, then that was a price she was willing to pay.

Raphael eyes went from the papers to Tav. He looked her up and down as if waiting for an explanation as to why she was bothering him. She smiled at him.

“Can I help you, dear?” Raphael asked with sarcastic politeness.

“I’m seeking refuge here from my persistent babysitter,” she said and gestured to Cassius who was now scowling at her. “I promise I won’t disturb your work. I’ll be quiet as a mouse.”

Raphael looked from her to Cassius, then nodded and waved the warlock away.

“Thank you,” Tav said and pointed to a chair. “May I?”

“Please,” Raphael said arranged some of the papers on his desk into a pile before looking at her.

Tav sat down on the chair on the other side of his desk. Instead of resuming his work, Raphael seemed to be studying her. She simply smiled at him, unaffected with his stare.

“It wasn’t my intention to interrupt whatever you were doing,” she said. “I just wanted some peace and quiet.”

“Yet you have interrupted me,” he said with a thin smile. “Has my archivist shown you my collection of books yet? Or have you perhaps already familiarized yourself with it when you broke into my home?”

“He has not,” she said and ignored his second comment.

“Hm,” Raphael hummed and got up from his chair. “I’ll show you if it can give you something better to do than to simply sit there and be a nuisance.”

She followed him as he told her the contents of the different sections of the bookcases that were lining the walls of the archive.

Tav had worked in a library before the whole tadpole-business so she could not help being impressed with his collection. Some of the titles she recognized were considered so rare that they were thought to be lost to time.

“Everything from here and down to there is either translated or written in the common tongue,” Raphael explained. “You are welcome to any of them as long as you are careful, but do not take them outside this room. And please do ask the archivist if you should use gloves for any book that you might borrow, as some of these tomes are from before your great-grandparents were even thought of.”

“Oh, in most cases gloves really should not be necessary,” Tav said. “Even if they are old.”

“Pardon?” Raphael said and looked at her as if to ask her how she dared question him.

“I will use gloves if that is what you want,” she said with a shrug. “I’m just saying that it might actually do more harm than good to do so.”

He kept looking at her, prompting her to explain further.

“Using gloves has been the standard procedure when handling old books, but it’s been proven to cause more damage, not less.”

She took a random book from one of the cases to illustrate her point as she kept explaining.

“See how the paper is brittle at the edges? When you are using gloves, you can’t properly feel the page which makes your fingers clumsier. The only real argument there is for using gloves is to not transfer oils from your hands. If your hands are clean and you don't flip the pages in the same spot where one usually would, it preserves the books much better than if one was to use gloves.”

Raphael’s eyes were slightly narrowed at her. He did not seem to like being told he was wrong about anything.

“And you believe that you, a simple Baldurian librarian, knows better than my archivist?” Raphael asked. Despite the hostility in his question, he did seem to be considering what she was saying.

It did not surprise her in the least that Raphael had been digging in her past and knew about her former occupation. She remembered that he had seemed to be digging in her companions’ pasts as well.

“I would bet my soul, if I still had ownership over it, that your archivist is specialized in preservation of artifacts and not books, yes. This is all a very new practice as well, so his education on the matter could be outdated.”

“Hm…Do discuss it with him tomorrow, if you are so certain that you are right,” he said and brushed the topic away.

He returned to his seat at his desk and watched her as she was still looking through his book collection.

“Speaking of your past,” Raphael said. “I have a question for you, if you would indulge me…”

“Yes?” she said with her back turned to him.

“I was able to gather very little information about you before our first meeting all that time ago. No relatives, no friends, no loved ones…Your life seemed so perfectly unremarkable. All I could gather from my sources were that you moved to Baldur’s Gate to become an apprentice wizard and then you became a librarian. Is that all there is to it?”

“Yes,” she accidentally answered just a little too fast. She swallowed hard and tried to cover it up with a snarky comment: “We can’t all be vampire spawn, tragic heroes, children of dukes or…devils with grand ambitions, can we?”

She turned to look at Raphael. He was smiling and he looked like a shark that had just smelled a drop of blood in the water.

“Indeed,” he said calmly. “Where did you grow up, Tav?”

“In a small and unremarkable village outside Baldur’s Gate,” she answered. “Why do you ask?”

“Simple curiosity, dear,” Raphael answered with a hand gesture.

“You know what they say...Curiosity killed the cat,” Tav said and sat down in front of him with a book.

She opened the book and began to read, in the hopes that Raphael would let it go.

“You will find this cat quite difficult to kill, little mouse,” Raphael said with a smirk. “But if I am making you uncomfortable with my questions about your past, let me ask you something else…”

He smoothly reached over and closed the book she was reading to pull her attention back to him.

“It did not surprise me given your status as a wizard that you decided to give the Crown to Mystra. What did surprise me was that you had every opportunity to not sign my deal or steal back your contract…Of course the latter would have not ended favorably for you, but you did not even put in the effort to try. Does your soul truly mean that little to you?”

“Firstly,” Tav said and held up a finger. “Quite prejudiced of you to think I worship Mystra, just because I’m a wizard. I did it for my friend, not for her. I fully intended to give you the Crown for the longest while, but my companions convinced me otherwise. Secondly, as you said, stealing the contract seemed like suicide.”

“Ahh,” Raphael mused with a dramatic expression. “So, it was your dear friends that convinced you to break our contract. You sacrificed your soul in exchange for curing your friend’s condition and so that they could all sleep easier knowing that the Crown went to the Heavens and not to the Hells. They found no issue in letting you forfeit your soul, in order to profit themselves, did they? How ungrateful of them…”

There was that performative and manipulative Raphael she knew. She knew what he was doing, and she was not going to take his bait. He would not get her to turn against her own friends.

“What were your plans for the Crown of Karsus?” she asked. “You’re going to kill me at some point anyway, so there should be no harm in telling me the truth now, right? Would it had stayed in the Hells?”

“The Crown? Yes…I am a devil of my word after all,” Raphael said dramatically with a smile. “Although it’s influence would not, no. I would have gone to conquered new realms once the Hells were under my control.”

“Well…” she sighed. “I think my soul is a rather cheap price to pay to avoid all of that then.”

“My dear, you are terribly naïve if you think that you have done anything more than delay the inevitable,” Raphael said. “The Crown will be mine eventually. It is simply a question of how much destruction it will cause in the Heavens and in your home realm before it will be…”

Sore loser, Tav thought and opened her book again to continue reading.

[tallymonster]

Memories of Us Chapter 7

Chapter list : [ 1 ][ 2 ][ 3 ][ 4 ][ 5 ][ 6 ]

Summary: Octavia has a lot of feelings, mentions of family obligations and stress.

As always I want to extend my love to my bestie and beta @micropoe10 💞 without her I wouldn't be posting anything.

Inspired by @cheesy-cryptid 's art 💖

Tags:

@justporo @satanicspinosaurus @sleepy-timaeus

@tragedybunny @davenswitcher @wayward-hel

Chapter 7 "these words are stones "

As Octavia and Gale cross the threshold of her house, she closes the door and leads him down to her couch. He splayed out with his arms hanging behind his head. Gale looks up at her, his face still covered in a faint flush. "I almost said something I shouldn't have to him, but I don't know why you don't want to tell him."

"It's complicated, Gale. Let's not talk about that now, okay? You need to rest." She sits down next to him and places a hand on his chest. "Lie down, I'll get you a blanket." She starts to stand when Gale holds her back, their hands still together. "I like you. You're the only person who knows what it's like…to grow up like we did."

His breathing starts to slow, sleep coming closer. "When you kissed me…Gods that must have been what it felt like to be one with Mystra…" he looks at her, a lump growing enormous in her throat.

"Gale..I..you're tired..you're not making sense. Let's talk about this in the morning?" His face falls a little and he kisses her hand, still in his. "You are incredibly beautiful. Thank you for taking care of me." He sighs and slowly falls asleep with his hand still holding hers.

She slowly pulls away and grabs him a blanket. After covering him up, she quietly takes off her shoes and exits to her back garden. Her dress drags on the floor so she picks up a bit and sits at the metal table she has outside.

The whole night crashes down on her. Everything is too much, between the crowd, having to push aside her anxiety to perform for work, being dolled up like someone else wants her to, Gale being Gale, and even Astarion. Why did she always feel so intimidated around him? Why can't she trust him like Gale says? She lowered her head onto the cold metal table and started to cry.

The tears spilled out like an overflowing teapot. All the stress she had felt these last two months finally explodes throughout her body. She's fully enveloped in the sense of self doubt, tears and sobs rolling out from deep within. Her breaths catch as she releases all of this negativity, when she hears the front gate creak. She wipes her face quickly trying to gather herself, the adrenaline overtakes the sadness she feels. Turning, she sees a familiar shadow come through the line of shrubbery.

Astarion is standing at the edge of her gate, he looked like a raccoon when it's caught rummaging through her garbage. "Are you fucking kidding me? Did you follow us back to my house like some creepy fucking stalker?!" Octavia speaks in a hushed, angry tone. She dashes over and pulls him towards the stone bench at the back of her yard.

"Explain. Now." She crosses her arms at the man sitting down in front of her, he clears his throat "I wanted to make sure you both got home safely. You two were acting unlike yourselves and.." he mutters under his breath, Octavia frowns "What was that? I'm a little hard of hearing at the moment."

Astarion furrows his brows and has a sideways frown, he crosses his arms and practically growls out "I was worried about you. Mostly you, but Gale too…he got really fucked up. More than I've ever seen. Made me ...concerned." his shoulders droop and he puckers his lips some. "Well, aren't you going to say something? Thank me? Anything?"

Octavia drops her arms putting them at her waist, "Thank you for what? Breaking into my garden? That was locked by the way. How did you even know to do that?" They stared at each other for a moment, but he was the one to crack first.

"You haven't earned the right to stare at me like that." He teased, as if trying to ease the tension a bit. She chuckles and rolls her eyes. "Seriously, what the hells are you doing here? Why did you come here? And don't do the thing you do where you're all charming and distracting and don't actually answer my questions." His smirk evolving into a playful grin "You think I'm charming?" She sits next to him, smacking his shoulder. "Answer me, or you sleep in my living room next to Gale."

Astarion looks at her confused, "In your living room? Gods, I didn't think you were that impatient." She stares at him, slightly annoyed, she scoffs "Nothing happened. Well, he told me he likes me…but I'm not really sure how to tell him I'm not…" she groans loudly and begins to tear up again.

Astarion notices and softens his voice "Octavia, what's wrong?" She faces him unable to stop the flow of her tears. "Little love, whatever could be the matter?" He reaches up and wipes her tears, resting his hand on her cheek. "I just don't want to let anyone down. I like Gale, I do…just not how he wants me to."

Astarion takes his handkerchief and hands it to Octavia. She wipes her nose and sniffles. "I'm so afraid of disappointing him, or you, or my family. They expect so much from me because of who we are…all the shit I went through because of who my godsdammed great great whatever grandmother was..it sucks. I just want to do things for me. For my enjoyment, not anyone else's. It feels like I'm nobody, just another person working in the background where I'm most comfortable."

They sit not speaking for what seems like forever, "You are Octavia. Eloquent, whip smart, hilarious, that's who you are to me. My favorite assistant. My left where Gale is my right. You two invigorate me. Without you tonight would never have happened. Even with all this other stuff." He moves his hand in circular motions in between the two of them, resting it on top of hers afterwards. "The only way you will disappoint me is if you do this to yourself. You're too damned good for that, dear."

She moves her hand a little, lacing her fingers into his. She hears his breath catch, as he tightens his grip a little. "You are wonderful." His voice sounds small and vulnerable, this is the most open she's ever seen him. Right now, even behind the glasses she can sense his gaze, now might be a good time to ask the question she never got the answer to back when they first met.

"You never told me why you always wear dark glasses indoors or at night. I mean I know you're an elf and can see in the dark, but isn't that a lot of work?" Astarion laughs, he rolls his lips in and bites one a bit. "Can't I just be a slave to fashion, love? Does everything need an explanation?"

"Fine. Have it your way." She untangles her hand from his. "You know, usually when people tell you some personal shit, it's nice to trust them a little to open up and not be such a rude…ugh nevermind I gotta go check on Gale." She gets up and turns to walk away, but he holds her wrist, tugging gently to stop her. "Hold on- I'm sorry…I just…it's hard for me to trust people. I don't generally share things with them no matter how friendly we are."

He glares up at her, from this angle she can see his eyes a little bit more. His lids were hooded, eyelashes a deep shade of gray, almost black. It didn't help that they were in the darkness of the night, or else she would be able to properly see. "Do you trust me?" Octavia looks down at him, she swears he has an almost pleading look to him, she swallows "Of course, Astarion. I trust you." He relaxes somewhat and speaks softly, "Do you think you can trust me a little further?"

The way he can soothe over whatever he did and make himself seem like the wronged party was impressive. Octavia just wanted to go lay down at this point, it was late and she was done with pretending to care. "Yes. I'll trust you as long as you don't do anything to show me that it was a mistake. Like follow me home."

She chuckles softly to tease him. She lets go of his hand "For now though, I'm going to bed. It's very late and I need to get into something warmer, I'm fucking freezing. Good night, Astarion, make sure you put the padlock back on the gate. I noticed it wasn't working all of a sudden." They laugh and she walks away from him. As she gets close to her door she looks behind her, darkness drapes around as he's vanished into the night. "Really hope I didn't just make a giant mistake."

[whomuses]

// ... okay so this got away from me a bit. Under the cut is 6k (!!!) of fic about how the egg laying goes lmao. It's not massively graphic but it does go into some details. Any lack of realism with real life pregnancy is because these are dragonborn eggs and I make the rules. ANYWAY yes. Uhhh enjoy?

“How are you feeling?” Gale’s voice was quiet; Caedes was visibly drooping, exhaustion clear. Gale reached out, gently stroking over his cheek, the rough and sometimes damaged scales there. The party had been good, really, up until Withers had started talking about them getting called on again – and then Caedes had been lost to the depths of a panic attack at the idea of being taken back into war. They had made some excuses and headed home; there was no doubt that being out, seeing their old friends, had been a balm for the dragonborn. He was still damaged – they all were, of course. Gale wasn’t immune to that. For a short while, though – he’d almost been like he’d been before. Smiling, laughing, talking – not sitting, staring into the distance. Not lost in nightmares or shaking or waking up screaming… his throat bobbed slightly. Other hand moved, resting gently on the immense curve of his heavy belly. There wasn’t long left – and then everything would be changing again…

“I’m tired.” Caedes said, with a rough laugh. The last panic attack had been bad; sneak off to the corner, talking him down, dragging him back to reality. “But… I’m glad we went.” he admitted. “Good. I’m glad we went, too.” Gale had taken a few gobletfuls of wine – which, obviously, the pregnant Caedes couldn’t do – but he was still thinking fairly clearly. “I have tomorrow off work.” the nice thing about weekends when you were a teacher. “And I know I have marking, and I need to do a lesson plan… but I don’t care.” he chuckled, drawing on Caedes’ hands towards the bed. Carefully, he helped remove the soft, thick clothes he was wearing.

Since they’d been living in the tower, he’d noticed just how much he liked soft fabrics. There was clearly a draw towards them; so there were blankets everywhere. Over the couches and chairs in the library and drawing rooms, the beds, most of his clothes – nice ones that Gale had bought now they didn’t need to worry about armour – were lined with soft fleece on the inside. It really wouldn’t be long now – he could see how overburdened the other was. It was clearly exhausting to him – the way he was struggling to stand for long periods of time, almost always with a hand scooped under it. To Gale, Caedes was incredibly beautiful – and this was exciting, even if it was utterly terrifying.

There was a low chuckle as he let Gale lead him to the bed, taking a moment to get his own clothes off; drawing them in after him, under the warm, soft blankets, and Caedes sighed. He nuzzled his face into the wizard’s neck, enjoying the feeling of hands on his scales, the rubbing on his stretched and tender sides… it didn’t take long for him to drop into sleep. Gale took a little longer. He could feel that ache in his chest. No longer the orb; Mystra had followed through on freeing him from that. It was a sensation he’d had more and more recently, especially when he thought too hard about the upcoming eggs. All of his energy was going into making sure that Caedes was okay.

It wasn’t like he didn’t wake from nightmares, too. He just had less of a tendency to scream. He would weather his, as he had through two years of isolation in this very tower. Half of him was considering moving out again; but it was his place… he didn’t want to let the time he’d spent trapped here be the thing that marked it forever. They were making new memories, better memories. For now, Caedes was sleeping; that was good. They’d have a day to recover, eat, maybe a little more work on the nursery… he’d been insisting that Gale was worrying too much. They’d have the time whilst the egg was nesting, and there was still a chance they wouldn’t hatch.

This night, however, Caedes managed to sleep through. Gale woke before him; breathing still soft and steady. He laid a kiss on his snout before getting up and heading into the kitchen to make them a nice breakfast. Both of them had put on a nice layer of softness, too; bodies healing and recovering from the hard time on the road. It was good to see the dragonborn more relaxed in his skin. When he came back in, holding the steaming tray, the other rolled over, stretching like a cat, ever so slight flicker over his features and tail curling – Gale sympathised, knowing that it must not be comfortable to be as heavily burdened as he was feeling.

“Looks like you got some good rest?” he said, gently, with a smile. “Makes a nice change.” Caedes replied, tone soft and sleepy, before he managed to slowly lever his body into a sitting position. Reaching out to accept the hot cup of tea from his partner, enjoying the warmth in his fingertips, Gale casually cast a mage hand to support the tray of food whilst he climbed back into bed. It was funny; he’d worried at first about things like scrambled eggs, thinking they might upset the other, considering the current cargo. No such need, though – in fact, the protein was good. Caedes would sometimes devour them raw, including the shell – even as Gale wrinkled his nose in concern and disgust – because their body was craving the extra calcium for the shells he was building.

It was nice, though; sitting in bed, eating a breakfast, snuggling up to each other. Caedes had always been tenderly affectionate; seeking out touches, burrowing his face against Gale’s neck. The need for softness and comfort had gone up tenfold since he’d become pregnant. Whilst it felt like every surface in the tower had gained a thick blanket, the bed was the worst of it – he kept dragging more and more in, making their sleeping space more like a… nest. Oh, that’s what their doula had meant by ‘nesting’, that finally made sense. Making no comment on the matter, though, Gale just enjoyed the closeness, letting the mage hand carry the plates back to the kitchen to be dealt with later. It would be good to just spend a day relaxing together; hopefully not seeing that distance in Caedes’ eyes which seemed to be oh so present every time he got home from work. For a while, they just enjoyed the closeness, cuddled up together until the body’s needs took over and Caedes extricated him. The constant needs of his bladder since the weight of the eggs had been pressing on it was a constant point of contention; sliding on his fleece-lined long shirt, the dragonborn padded away, and Gale got into his day’s clothes.

It was a pleasant day, and over too fast. They put a little more work into the nursery – or, rather, Gale worked on it whilst Caedes sat in the corner and supervised, too gravid to be much assistance. They were talking about colours; this was rapidly becoming the most homely room in the tower, even if it would be months yet until the egg might actually hatch. It seemed like Caedes was more tolerating, with a wry smile – not convinced that the nursery would ever be needed. But Gale was so excited; he’d been building up charms and protections to make sure that the baby wouldn’t accidentally, say, summon a fireball. Wild magic was very unpredictable in babies, and being the combination of a very powerful wizard and a natural sorcerer meant it was highly likely that they would have their own. Once or twice he found himself rambling, Caedes’ face distant, hand tight on the arm of the chair, claws leaving little furrows. A soft touch or a close murmur were usually enough to pull them out of these pensive moments, at least.

Dinner was a quiet but nice affair. The evening swept by; then night was falling, the dragonborn was clearly exhausted, starting to doze off in their chair, so Gale made the executive decision that, no matter how calm and pleasant, the day had to end. It was nice seeing Caedes drop off to sleep so quickly, snuggled up against him, hoping that the night would be another peaceful one – although two next to each other was such a rarity these days…

It was Gale who woke up with a gasp, this time, mind wrenched from a world where the orb was back in his chest, a knife in his hand, being forced to detonate it… the first pink lights of dawn were sneaking in through the window, and the dragonborn was still curled up tight to his side. Their eyes were tight, even asleep; grateful that he hadn’t disturbed them with his own broken sleep, Gale gently stroked a thumb over their cheek, resting a brief kiss on their snout. Still had a couple of hours before he was needed for work; he settled back into the bed, allowing himself to doze, aware of the dragonborn’s gentle breathing, even if their face was slightly scrunched up.

When he stirred, having to accept defeat, the other was still asleep. Disabling the clock next to the bed before it could get too loud, Gale slipped around the room, gathering up his various items, murmuring for a mage hand to assist with tapping together the pile of marking he’d done the night before, popping it into a case to make everything easier. Once he was dressed – in his ever so slightly singed robes, still good for this – he paused to give Caedes a kiss, noticing just how exhausted the other still seemed to be, sleepy eyes cracking open with a rumble. That was unusual – he usually was awake, or at least with it enough to wish Gale a good day. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay home today?” the wizard asked, gently, as he usually did. More and more so as they got closer to the day; he was worried. “I’ll be fine.” Caedes murmured back, dozily, as he usually did, “Go to work.” he kissed Gale back. “I have my sending stone.” he added; it was on a shelf next to the bed. Gale’s own was tucked inside his work robe, close to his chest where he would feel it.

“Okay, my love.” Gale kissed him one last time, “I’ll be back at my usual time. Get some rest; remember to eat,” he fussed. It wasn’t without reason, of course – Caedes was a nightmare for sitting staring into space. Tara did what she could, of course, but the Tressym had her own life to live – although Gale had noticed her hanging around the tower a lot more than she used to. For all her sighing and apparent dismissal of his partner, he had a feeling she liked Caedes well enough. After all, they talked to her with respect, as a person… with a last glance, he headed out of the tower and to the waypoint which would allow him to get closest to Blackstaff. That lingering sense of concern was hard to shake, but he was sure by now it was just normal for a soon to be father. They were seeing the doula tomorrow – the pregnancy had already gone on longer than expected, but everything was unprecedented here.

--

“And that is why wild magic can sometimes surge. But there are many things a wizard can do to try to limit this!” “Mr Dekarios?” the voice broke through his empassioned speech, where he had been writing up on the board with broad strokes – he could easily have done it with a mage hand, but this was something he had been so drawn into, Gale wanted to feel the chalk himself. As his digits stilled, he could hear it now – a faint scratching. With a sigh, he started to turn, recognising the voice. A glance revealed, though, that no eyes were on the board whatsoever; everybody was looking out of the window, staring. “Mr Dekarios?” the student repeated, nearest the window. “What is it, Jeffreys?” he asked, not rudely. It wasn’t unheard of for him to interrupt the lesson, but not usually with that wavering tone. “There’s a cat on the windowsill.” “What?” he repeated, baffled now, starting to take a step forward. They were three stories up – had someone summoned a poor familiar outside as a joke? As the windowframe moved out of his vision, a fluffy shape was indeed revealed, pawing at the glass – but one he recognised. “Tara?! Jeffreys, open the window -” he was already doing so, allowing the tressym to leap gracefully into the room, wings flaring before she landed on a desk.

“Mr Dekarios, thank goodness!” she was breathless, all wide eyes in a way he had never seen before, “You have no idea how many windows I’ve had to look into – you must get back home, at once!” “At on- Tara, what is going on?” he demanded, feeling her panic start to rub off on him. “Why?” he hadn’t felt the sending stone vibrate – was Caedes hurt? But she was shaking her head, now, turning away, even with how breathless she was. “At once!” she demanded, before taking off in a flurry of feathers, the children gasping at her rapid exit. Gale watched her go for a moment before pulling out the etched stone – nothing in it, no contact.

“Right. At once.” he whispered.

--

The sound of the front door swinging open with force echoed through the tower. Tara looked up from where she’d been gently licking the scaled head, her wing drifting back and forth to create a breeze. Leaping from the bed, she scampered to the entryway, where the frazzled looking wizard was depositing his case, rushing towards her. “Tara, what’s going on?” he demanded, at the same time as she exclaimed, “What took you so long?!” “I had to get cover for my class -” “Cover – you – oh, you are ridiculous,” she snapped, but turned away, leading the charge, “We’ll talk about this later -” he followed her, windswept and akimbo, into the bedroom. For a second, he paused, exhaling sharply.

The already crowded bed was a mess. Every blanket in the building must be heaped onto it; in the middle of it all was Caedes. Most of the dragonborn wasn’t visible – his head emerged at the top, burrowed into several pillows and, bafflingly, one of Gale’s shirt where his nose was buried. A hand emerged from the edge, clutching ahold of another piece of soft fabric. Curled in, eyes shut tight, faint whimpers escaping from his throat. Gale’s heart constricted at the sight, wasting no time in rushing to his side. “Caedes?” he whispered, gently. “I followed him in here when he saw fit to take my blanket out of my bed.” Tara said, softly, “But I couldn’t get any sense out of him.” “Hey, my love. Hey.” Gale reached out, gently resting a hand on the dragonborn’s cheek. To his shock, the scales were warm – more than warm. Hot. Caedes tended to run cool – part and parcel of being an ice breather – so it was alarming to feel them so inflamed. The eyes opened a crack, the red glazed and distracted.

“It’s okay. Hey. Look at me?” he scooped a hand underneath, and encouraged them to sit up a little; head lifting slowly, a whimper that turned into a low whine of discomfort. “It’s okay, I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” he whispered, “Caedes, you’re burning up…” it wasn’t surprising, the volume of fabric that was all over him. Gale allowed him to lay back again, tilted over a little more to reveal some of his chest, starting to pull away the covers. The whimpering was starting up again, Caedes curled up – whatever it was, they were clearly in pain. It was only as he removed more and more of the shell that Gale’s hands brushed against something wet. Alarm shot through him – tugging what he recognised as the sofa blanket off of Caedes’ legs, he could feel and see it now, the fabric damp with – something. The clothes Caedes was wearing, fleece-lined and pale – they were soaked too. For a second, he thought it was blood – but the tint was pink, not red. That was – strange. There was a soft pressure on the bed as Tara jumped up. “Mr Dekarios.” she said, voice quiet but serious. Then what he was looking at sunk in.

“Oh, by the gods.” he whispered, voice trembling. “You were meant to contact me, Caedes – how could this be happening so quickly? Oh, Gods. Okay. Okay.” he swallowed hard, moving back up to Caedes’ face, the dragonborn’s glazed eyes. “Sweetheart, I think you’re in labour.” he whispered, cupping his cheek again. No wonder he was in pain, but this seemed to have struck out of nowhere. “Why didn’t you contact me, Caedes? Not the time. Right.” he scooped a hand around Caedes’ face, laid a kiss on his overheated snout, “You need to come back to me.” the dissociation wasn’t uncommon, but now, of all times? “Come on. Come on, my love, come back to me…” he ran his nails over the edge of their jaw, eyes drawn, seeing just a little more wakefulness there. “Baby needs you to be with it, for this.” there was a faint shudder, a groan and a whimper, Caedes tensing against him for just a moment. When their eyes opened again, they were a little more awake.

“Gale?” he mumbled, sending a crashing wave of warm relief through his body. Thank the gods. “It hurts…” “I know, my love, I know.” Gale whispered, “We have to remember what the doula said, right? She – the doula.” he realised. “Tara, can you -” “Right away,” she replied, no hint of her usual stubborn personality as the tressym leapt away and rushed to collect the sending stone the doula had given them. With Caedes running overdue, they’d been given it to keep on hand; just in case this happened. “Deep breaths. Okay. I’m going to help take your clothes off.” Gale whispered, and Caedes nodded, allowing the other to peel them away. They were stuck to their body, damp, but with a little work he eased them off. Caedes was cooling a little, at least, although their breathing and heart were still feverishly working, scales hot. There was blood, he saw now; not a lot, but leaking from between the dragonborn’s legs. His heart raced, but Gale remembered that this was supposed to be normal.

“I don’t understand how it happened this fast.” he murmured. “You should have been feeling it long before active labour…” his analytical mind was happy to take over for a moment, because that meant his emotional brain, which was currently screaming in six layers of panic, got to take a backseat. Tara appeared, sending stone in her mouth, and Gale gratefully accepted it, mumbling his apprecation as he sent off the message letting her know that Caedes was in labour. She confirmed she’d be there soon, and he looked back at his partner, who was, for some damned reason, trying to pull a blanket over his chest. “Caedes.” he said, a little more hard. The other focused on him. “Okay, stay with me, love. Deep breaths, remember?” he wrapped one of his hands around the thick scaled ones, loosening them off of the fabric. “I’ve got you. You can do this.”

Dragonborns were, of course, different to humans or even elves or other such species. Although there were some similarities, most of what they knew had come from Caedes’ instinct and the doula’s knowledge, as well as some rather too lacking books. The wizard was trying desperately to remember anything he could… “Towels.” he muttered, firing off a mage hand, which returned a moment later with the towels he’d earmarked for the occasion. Of course, it was going to be too late for several of these blankets, but he carefully placed what he could under Caedes, whilst the other twitched, groaning deeply, clearly tensing again. “When did the pain start?” he asked, a little more firmly now.

“Party.” Caedes rasped, which took a few moments to sink into Gale’s brain before-- “What?” he demanded, “You – this – the party? Caedes!” “Didn’t realise what it was. Brain was… so messy.” he admitted, shakily. “Was getting worse yesterday but… I didn’t want to ruin the day.”

“You let me go to work when you were in labour?” Gale said, louder now, “By the Gods, Caedes, I thought you were past keeping stuff like this from me!” he sighed. “Not the time, okay, not the time, doesn’t matter now. You must stop keeping this all to yourself.” he wrapped an arm around the heavy head, placing a kiss on his snout. “Okay. Nice steady breaths.” he didn’t know how to tell how far along in this process Caedes was, remembering mostly about keeping him calm, helping as best he could… on a whim, he sent the mage hand to grab a couple of healing potions. He’d seen the other break bones with a grip – best to be prepared.

They pressed their head against Gale’s chest, whimpering just slightly, the noises softer than he’d expected. Of course, they wouldn’t be screaming and crying… not yet, at least. They might be due for some crying out later… once the eggs really got moving. He remembered being rather embarassingly white-faced when the doula had told him that the eggs would be born near the size of human infants. That was already a terribly difficult affair, and humans were rather squishy and pliable, really, compared to an egg. Caedes was big, and strong, and had been through so damn much, but this..?

“I’ve got you, my love, deep breaths, now, deep breaths,” he encouraged, “You’re going to do just fine, I know you are.” rubbing a hand over the back of his head, through the gaps at the base of his horns, trying to soothe him, Gale heard the bang on the door – a flick of his wrist and the mage hand let her in. A moment later she appeared – a golden dragonborn, eyes wise and bright, attitude always immensely calm and knowledgable. She had a longer name but had told them to call her Osu; and she had been as fascinated as they had, having never seen such a coupling produce young before, either. Unflappable, even with knowing who they were, she had been an excellent source of support for this. Right now, though, whilst she was still calm, her eyes narrowed.

“You should have called me sooner.” she said, with just a hint of scolding in her tone, as she took in the state of them. “He didn’t tell me he was in pain until it was too late.” Gale replied, dryly, and she just nodded, taking it in stride, now. “Alright, Caedes.” she had pulled out a shallow bowl, pouring a potion into it then dunking her hands, “I need to check you; try not to flinch.” her voice was soft, and Caedes nodded just slightly as she gently adjusted legs and tail, hands getting to work. “Oh, yes, we are quite far along, I think. You should have those out of you in the next hour, if you’re willing to put the effort in.” she nodded, drawing bloodied hands out and dunking them again, scales coming out shining.

“Here.” she opened her bag and handed Gale a small root; “Get them to chew it, nice and slow, don’t swallow it.” “What is it?” “Carrionweed.” he wasn’t surprised by the name; it looked like an entrail. “It’s a natural painkiller for us. Doesn’t blunt the mind or impact the labour.”

After a little coaxing, Caedes took the root and began to chew it, slowly. A moment later, he relaxed just a touch, eyes more awake than they had been for some time. Gale kissed the tip of his snout. “I know you’re suffering, lovely,” she said, “But you should try to get up. I know, I know, it’s tender,” she moved to his other side; with Gale’s help they lever the white dragonborn into a sitting position as he groaned in discomfort.

“Alright, there we go; a little walking around will help you wonders, I promise.” she told him, “And I think you want this over quick, now, don’t you?” she smiled, a hand on Caedes’ back as they helped him slowly, stiffly stand. One hand supported his belly, panting just slightly from the effort, shaking starting to pad across the room. Gale took one shoulder; Osu hovered at the other, just in case she was needed. They managed to do two loops before they groaned, visibly tensing and stilling. “There we go,” Osu murmured, “Deep breath, now just bear down a little -” “Ohhfuckitmoved,” Caedes gasped, leaning their shoulder harder against Gale. His heart had settled a little with the comforting presence of the doula, but now it spiked up again. Gods, it was real. It was all real. This was happening. Goodness, he felt faint; he wanted to sit down with a nice cup of tea.

“Plenty more to go.” the doula said, gently, patting Caedes’ shoulder. “You want to sit down again?” He nodded, breathless, and they led him back to the bed, where he sat down on the towels, leaning back against Gale’s chest as the wizard sat just slightly behind him. The time began to shift strangely. Caedes groaned.

The pain was more intense than anything he’d felt before – and he’d died, more than once. He’d been burnt, exploded, run through, yet this? The inexorability of it was almost overwhelming. Whole body felt like it was cramping, every inch of him focused on the fact he was about to have to force a very big egg through a very small hole. Even though they knew, realistically, that their body was made for this… it was still a very scary thought. Let alone with the strange, uncomfortable shifting feeling of the egg starting to slide down.

“I think maybe we shouldn’t have a baby,” he said, breathily, with a half smile, “This might be a bad idea.” Gale laughed, despite himself – Caedes could feel the vibrations against his back. “It’s a little too late for that!” there was a tone of panic in his voice, though, unable to help it, because by the Gods this was real this was happening and they were going to become parents only they might not because the eggs hadn’t even hatched yet or been laid yet and - “Gale.” Caedes said, his own voice shaky, “Still there?” “Right here. Not going anywhere.” Okay, couldn’t panic. Caedes was still very much in danger of his mind checking out, which would be the worst possible time for this to happen.

“I’m going to take a look, Caedes, okay?” Osu said, gently, and moved between his legs, letting out a low breath. “Is that good?” Gale asked, tone worried again. “They’re very much on the way.” the doula said, as a wave of pain crashed through Caedes. He threw his head back, feeling Gale shift to avoid getting hit by a horn, but that mattered little over the crunching pain and the overwhelming urge to - “That’s good, push, you can do it -” she said, and Caedes stopped fighting the need and let his body bear down, the pain hammering at the edges of his consciousness as they felt it shift down, down, and there was a positive noise from the golden dragonborn. “Well done! Not long, now.” he could feel it, so strangely, the way their body was… re-molding around the heft of the egg. For a few minutes, there was peace, except for the low throb and discomfort… before the next contraction started. A hand wrapped around Gale’s, clenching as he snarled softly, face wrinkling up, eyes shut as he pushed again.

The egg was definitely moving down, they could feel the stretching. Ow, ow, ow, the root they’d been chewing was doing nothing now, it seemed, clenched between their teeth. Gale shifted slightly behind them as this wave eased off, but they were coming more and more regularly now. “I want to move you a little,” Osu said, “We’re going to try kneeling, okay?” for some ridiculous reason, Caedes suddenly thought about the fact they were laying on their bed. Where they slept. With Gale. Ridiculous. Shoving it away, he allowed the doula and Gale to help him up and onto his knees over the thick, soft towels. They were already heavily stained, after all. “There we go.” The gravity was, admittedly, slightly better – it didn’t feel they were having to push quite so hard, one arm around Gale’s shoulders, helping him stay up. The other clutched the wizard’s free hand, turning to press his muzzle into their shoulder.

“You’re doing great, my love,” Gale whispered, “Good gods. You’re doing fantastic.” he let out a very high laugh, but Caedes ignored it, more focused on the next wave of pain, the tensing and clenching and pushing, hand gripping until the faint feeling and sound of cracks drifting through his brain started to register. Gale’s own face was pale, but he said nothing as the other fractured his bones – the healing potions were ready, after all. His eyes were fixed lower – at the first sight of the egg starting to properly crest. Way too big, oh no, how was Caedes going to ever – the pearly bottom had a hint of blue and pink, although it was smeared with blood – his head was starting to spin -

“You doing okay, dad?” Osu asked, with a glance. “Don’t you dare pass out!” Caedes barked out, realising what was happening. The whole time Gale had insisted that he was strong of constitution, that he would not pass out like so many did, at the sight, yet now his head was very much woozy. The pain in his hand and the growl yanked him a little more into reality, at the very least, swallowing hard. “I’m here, I’m here.” he insisted, very quietly, choosing to look at the dragonborn’s face instead of his nethers. “Not going anywhere, my love, not going anywhere.”

The contraction eased for just a breath; Caedes gasped in urgently, feeling himself shuddering. The pain was unbearable. He couldn’t do this, couldn’t do it, this was a mistake, he was going to die right here even as the pain was starting again and he clenched and pushed and snarled; no trace of a scream or a cry other than the panting and the curling of his jaw. “You’re doing fantastic, not long to go – this is the worst part,” Osu insisted, “Come on, now, one big push – I know you can do it -” his legs were trembling, but the effort was too much. The egg slid back just a hair, as he relaxed despite himself, letting out a shuddering sob. “You’re okay, Caedes. You’re okay, you’re okay. Nearly there, baby, nearly there.” Gale insisted, kissing the tip of his snout, bolstering the weight that was leaning more and more heavily against him.

He caught his breath just in time for the next clench. Gale pressed his face against the hot scales, Osu was murmuring encouragements. He’d fought down an elder brain, had cast the killing blow against monsters and creatures untold, he endured Volo taking an eye… they could do this. With a deep snarl, Caedes bore down, feeling the egg shift, and stretch, and ow, then there was a release, a rush, and the egg moved – properly – slipping from his body with a sense of immense relief, and a strange sense of loss as he slumped. Gale let out a shaky laugh, keeping him supported with one arm. “You did it.” he whispered, gently. Osu was moving the egg now; it was larger than he’d even realised, smeared with blood and shimmering gently in the light from the window. She carefully lifted it, handing it to them.

Gale couldn’t really believe it as their trembling arms took the egg – it was heavier than expected, surprisingly soft and leathery. They’d said it would harden over the next few hours, settle into it’s ‘proper’ shape… Caedes’ large hand supported the bottom, staring at it before - “Take it away.” he said, voice gruff. Gale looked up, alarmed; but the exhausted face was twisted not with rage, but with worry. Fear. That same fear they’d first talked about. “Please.” he added, softer. “I just – I can’t -”

“It’s okay.” Gale whispered. “It’s okay.” he nodded at Osu, summoning the mage hand that had flickered away earlier. It drew in the enchanted cradle, and she carefully laid the egg down into it, the magic kicking in and starting it’s soft warming.

“Mmf.” Caedes commented; his brief reprieve hadn’t lasted long. He glanced down; his over-burdened body had softened just a little, but whilst he knew that it would take some time to shrink down once the egg was out – that was definitely another cramp. A wave of terror rolled through him. “Oh, no. No, no. No, I can’t – I can’t do it again -” he gasped, but Osu, hands having been freshly dipped in potion, was looking up sympathetically. “Sorry, sweetness. But it should be easier now.” she said, gently. “I know you’re tired, I know. You can do it. You managed all the rest.” “What’s happening?” Gale asked, his head swimming. A million thoughts colliding, eyes fixed on the egg now resting. “Wait -” “Looks like we were right. You have another one.” “Two. Oh, we have two.” he said, “We have two?” he knew it had been said, a few times, as an explanation for how heavy Caedes was – even for a big dragonborn, they had been incredibly burdened.

“It’s a very rare occurance even in normal dragonborn pregnancies,” Osu said, as Caedes whimpered, his body clenching, already back into contractions. But she was right – it was easier, now. The egg shifting down through the pathway, moving as it followed the path of the other. “But you two are everything except normal. This one should be a little smaller, too.” blood was dripping from Caedes’ body, legs shaking badly – Gale started to ease him back, allowing Osu to adjust their legs, seeing as the white dragonborn wasn’t giving them much. Settling back, he groaned as he pushed, again.

It all hurt, but it was weirdly familiar now. Each clench of trembling and worn out muscles was hard, but now it was more from exhaustion than anything else. They could feel the shifting and the movement of the egg as it sunk into their tunnel. Osu coached them through each hard push, then, with a final heave and groan, the second one popped loose. It was indeed smaller, although not massively so. Osu wiped it clean as Caedes trembled; he made no move to take it, and Gale nodded gently, signifying her to rest it with the other, bundled in a blanket in the warming crib. Reaching down, he stroked over the exhausted face as they panted, struggling to catch air again.

“You did it. Caedes, you did it.” he whispered, with a shaky laugh. “We’re parents.” “Not quite yet,” the practical doula said, quietly, but she was smiling. Very gently, she tended to the injuries; cleaning up the near unresponsive Caedes, smearing some creams or other that Gale paid little attention to, before bundling them back up. “You’re going to need to take a week or two to recover. Walk around when you can but don’t overdo it.” she said, calmly, “Eat, sleep, make sure you’re drinking fluids, gnaw on bones to get your calcium back up. You did fantastic. I am on call if you need me at all.” she added, gently. “Any questions, anything – I can be here, as long as I’m not with another laying.” “Thank you so much.” Gale said, gently. “We do recommend keeping the eggs close, too. Give them a little time to harden before you sleep with them, but the parents’ body heat is always the best way to get a healthy hatchling.” she said, brows drawing in a little as she looked at Caedes; the way he’d told them to take the egg away… “Dragonborn eggs are sturdy; just don’t drop them or shake them and you should be fine. Keep them close where you can, okay?”

She paused, hesitated, as if considering saying something, then deciding against it. “You’re going to do just fine.” she said, eventually, before she left.

Tara leapt lightly onto the crib, sniffing the eggs then sitting down next to the larger one, purring just slightly.

“I was thinking.” Gale said, after a moment, drawing Caedes to his chest and kissing his forehead, seeing the slight glaze in their eyes. He stroked a hand along their cheek as they didn’t respond. “Mirabeli for the first one. It means wonderful.” he let out a slightly choked little laugh, sniffing slightly. “What about Miracle for the other one?” the dragonborn didn’t reply, eyes flickering, lost in the past as he trembled and their body settled into the emptiness. “Yeah. I like those.” he kissed the pale snout again, closing his own eyes and nuzzling in closer, into the messy nest of blankets. He would clear up the towels and the soaked bedding in a little bit. Eyes fixed on the two eggs in their crib, the tressym settled next to them, and trying not to let his heart constrict with fear. “Mirabeli and Miracle.”

[blackjackkent]

All right, I've given it a considerable amount of thought since I last opened the game and I think the time has come for Hector to do something Inadvisable.

We're going to go back and talk to the thing in the walls.

There are several reasons for this. The first is that Hector is a fundamentally curious boy at heart despite his current dearth of academic outlets, and when something piques his curiosity too much, he is liable to do things against his better judgment (previous examples include: letting Astarion drink his blood, going into the zaith'isk first, taking Omeluum's potion, and perhaps most dramatically, sticking his hand in the hole in the wall in the first place).

The second reason is that his conversation with Gale got him thinking about how much Gale is willing to sacrifice to bring this all to a close. Sure, it's partly because Gale is still hung up on Mystra's forgiveness - but it still takes bravery, tremendous bravery, and Hector wants to take inspiration from that and do what needs to be done.

The third and most significant reason is that falling into the oubliette freaked him the FUCK out. They were very up close and personal with some tendrils from that creature and it seems to him that the only thing worse than knowing that thing is there is knowing that it's there and not knowing anything else about it.

All of this leads to the conclusion that, despite the personal risk and fear, he needs to find out more about the thing before it does whatever the hell it is intending to do.

-----

Their camp nestled in a corner of Moonrise's basement is not particularly comfortable. It's freezing, for one thing, and there's a distinct smell of blood no matter how thoroughly they clean their weapons and armor.

Hector doesn't really mind the cold, though. After all, he has Karlach to snuggle up to, which means he might as well have a heated bedroll. And they're out of the way enough that they won't be bothered by the cultists and can spend some time discussing a plan.

The others...don't like the one he has in mind.

"You're fucking joking," Karlach says sharply.

"This is a decision wholly inadvisable and I'm afraid I cannot at all support it," Gale agrees.

Shadowheart just raises an eyebrow at him. "You really think you'll be able to find out something useful?"

"I don't know," Hector admits. "But I know that we need to try."

"You keep saying 'we'," Astarion says dryly. "Are we all communing with the meat sack together, hm?"

"I'll do it," Hector says; it takes an effort of will to keep his voice from trembling. "I just need you all to watch my back."

"Chk." Lae'zel rolls her eyes. "You have lost your senses and seek to drag all of us into the abyss."

Wyll laughs softly. "Please - we all know Hector better than that. But..." He trails off, rubs the back of his neck. "You're really not joking?"

"I'm not," Hector says firmly. "We need to know what that thing is, what it's capable of. I don't like it any more than you do. But I'm tired of being blind in this place - and I think all of you are too."

There's a silence while they all consider this, a few unhappy nods of agreement.

"Hec..." Karlach grabs his hand and squeezes it tightly. "When I said I was proud of how far you'd come and how brave you were getting, this wasn't what I meant."

He laughs hoarsely. "I'm not being brave. I'm terrified. But we need information. Whatever that takes."

She watches his eyes for a moment, then nods slowly. "All right. But if I see you gettin' sucked into any hive minds, I'm cracking you over the head and dragging you out of here."

He manages a slight grin. "I would expect no less."

[riddlerosehearts]

more thoughts on my baldur's gate 3 playthrough! still running around exploring this giant city and trying to make my way through act 3. in this post, i continue gale's companion quest.

all right, so i explored the city a bit more. found carm's garms and uhh, also found naaber. i'm dying at him trying to be a cleric, praying really really badly and when you ask what god he's praying to he goes "there's more than one?!" like HOW do you get to be a grown adult in this world and not know that skjdafg 😭

anyway, i exhausted all of his dialogue. thought it was kind of funny but was surprised at how bizarre and out of place he felt and especially by the fact that he talks kind of like spongebob. looked him up to see if there was anything more to his entire deal and found out that apparently he's a running gag from previous baldur's gate games! so that's neat, but i seem to have turned the poor guy into an oathbreaker paladin. oops!

also found the harper hideout, did the battle there and learned about minsc! i know he's from a previous game like jaheira is, and i also know he's recruitable later. not sure i'll end up using him any, especially since i already thought halsin and jaheira became recruitable a little too late, but maybe once i meet him i'll change my mind.

then i continued the murder investigation, and on my way to progress through the quest we got invited to gortash's coronation! made sure to bring karlach along with me for that and damn, she was immediately SO ready to kill him. he says a single sentence and she says she can taste his blood. and then she yells at him and stops just short of saying she's going to shove her boot up his ass LMAO. i also had wyll with me and there was a bit of extra dialogue about his father!

i'm actually a bit annoyed about how the whole deal with mizora plays out because like, there's this whole theme of the companions reclaiming their agency and i believe letting shadowheart make the choice to spare the nightsong on her own is actually the "correct" option over trying to persuade her. so... why do you have to choose whether wyll should break his pact or save his father? why can't you tell wyll to make the choice for himself? and tbh i also feel like there's basically zero chance that wyll as a character would ever not choose his father anyway, whereas with shadowheart there's this tension and ambiguity where right up until that moment you can't be sure what she'll do, so that's another flaw in how wyll is written imo. oh well.

walked into a church in the city and there is a statue of mystra here. elenion made small offerings to tyr and helm and a larger offering to selune, but for mystra? he kissed gale in front of her statue and then left <3

lakrissa and alfira are so cute 🥺 i found them on the roof of the tavern and alfira was looking out at the city and said she'd never get tired of this view, while lakrissa who was looking at alfira said "same here"... god i'm so weak for that sort of thing.

honestly i've wished alfira had been recruitable ever since i first encountered her in the game, and i guess if she was then we would lose this sweet wlw couple, which would also be a shame AKLJGHDF but idk i like her a lot and i think having her around and getting to know more about her would've been fun!! especially since i think it's a huge shame that there isn't a bard companion.

hey, i finally figured out where sorcerous sundries is! the lorroakan fight was a little annoying with all his myrmidons running around, but i did manage to cast tasha's hideous laughter on him for a few turns, which was hilarious. god i can't wait to get elenion up to level 11 so he can learn otto's irresistible dance.

the vault frustrated me in a way that i don't think it was supposed to, because wyll got downed from a trap without me realizing and i got kind of lost trying to get back to where he got downed at and then i forgot how to get back to the beginning of the vault so i could leave omg. i'm probably the only person in the world to have that kind of trouble with it. but oh well, we got gale his super dangerous-sounding book!!

and then i got to see the gorgeous boat scene that i've seen so many gifs of. and i love gale so much askdjghfdsgjhdf i'm 😭😭 first of all i will never understand how anyone could hate a man who says things like "with you, i forget my goddess" and "you put the stars to shame". that second quote especially is killing me because it feels so tailor-made for my tav! and then the fact that he is so surprised and relieved that they love him just the way he is!! aaaaaaaaaa i'm going to explode. hate when people say gale fumbled a goddess because she's the one who fumbled him!

going to end this post here, now that i've seen gale's talk with mystra, so i can take a look at my quest log and decide which of the 93475384 sidequests i've picked up should be handled next!

[mybg3notebook]

Lore: Well-known Characters in Faerûn

Here I'm going to explain some interesting characters worth knowing in detail that some groups in the fandom keep saying are Gale's true identity.

Disclaimer Game Version: All these analyses were written up to the game version v4.1.104.3536 (Early access). As long as new content is added, and as long as I have free time for that, I will try to keep updating this information. Written in June 2021.

Additional disclaimers about meta-knowledge and interpretations in this (post)while disclaimers about Context and the popularisation and misuses of professional words in "Context, persuasion, and manipulation".

Azuth

He is the Patron of Wizards, his personal preference is toward wizardry rather than sorcery, and his philosophy fits better with the studious life of a wizard than the more haphazard practices of a sorcerer. Wizards invoke Azuth when they scribe scrolls, inscribe magic circles, attempt to memorise spells, and even when they cast spells. Often this acknowledgement comes in the form of silently forming Azuth's holy symbol, pointing the index finger of the left hand to the sky.For many wizards, the gesture is so commonplace in their lives that it becomes an unconscious habit. Azuth is represented at such sites as a hooded and bearded figure with his left hand held high, finger pointed up. Sometimes he is represented by merely the hand. 

When he was a mortal, he was a wizard who showed prowess with spells and magical lore that attracted Mystryl’s attention, and after completing several quests to prove his worth, she named him Magister (old title in 1e and 2e, different to Chosen, related to a more bureaucratic role of Magic). With the new title, he taught magic to many people across Faerûn. 

Azuth came into conflict with a minor southern deity: Savras the All-Seeing. Both were powerful spellcasters and Mystryl favoured both. They began a battle that lasted several years, using agents, magic traps, and personal spell-battles. Azuth managed to defeat the young deity and imprison him. With this victory Azuth ascended to godhood, became Mystryl's lover, and pledged to serve her. 

During the Spellplague, Azuth fell to the Hells and Asmodeus consumed his divine spark to achieve godhood. It was thought that this had destroyed Azuth, but instead he ended up inhabiting Asmodeus' body together. Most of the time Asmodeus had control over the dormant Azuth. In 1486, Azuth managed to have a Cormyrian war wizard as a Chosen, and began to struggle with Asmodeus for dominion over their shared body. As a consequence, the hierarchy of the Nine Hells is jeopardized due to the unbalanced Asmodeus. After a while, The Chosen of Azuth sacrifices his life to be a vessel for the god and let him escape from the Hells. After the Second Sundering, Azuth returned to the faerunian pantheon.

Where is he in 1492?

Now, he has returned to the Faerunian pantheon, and considering Ao's ban, he can't be walking around Faerûn. 

Can Gale be Azuth? I certainly can't see it. Azuth has been trapped in the Hells for most of Gale's life, returning to the pantheon recently. And we can't forget Ao's ban of direct contact: no god can have direct contact with mortals anymore, with the strange exception of Mystra (see the post about "Mystra and her Chosen ones" for more details). Besides, if Gale were to be Azuth's avatar, we are usually talking about characters over lvl 40. 

The only link we can agree with Gale is that Azuth also has storm motif concepts in his design. Gale tends to explain with his pointing finger extended, but as it's said in the lore books, this is basically an unconscious common body language in most wizards. I cannot see any resemblance to make us infer “Gale is Azuth”. 

What we can see by reading Azuth's story is why the Hells are so convoluted at this point. The blood war is unbalanced, since powerful figures such as Asmodeus had been having weak periods of leadership due to the inner fight with Azuth in his own body. For this detail alone, it is so important to give context to BG3 I considered worthy to mention.

Sources: 3e : Magic of Faerûn 5e: Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, Novels: Fire in the Blood. The devil you Know

Myrkul

Myrkul had a cold, malignant intelligence, and spoke in a high whisper. He was always alert, never slept, and was never surprised. He was never known to lose his temper or be anything other than coldly amused when a mortal succeeded in avoiding his directives or chosen fates. His influence in Faerûn was imposed through fear, and he was a master of making mortals terrified of him through his words and deeds. He was the one deity that almost all human mortals could picture clearly. 

As a mortal, Myrkul's full name and title is said to have been Myrkul Bey al-Kursi. He was a powerful adventuring necromancer who travelled with Bane and Bhaal in order to acquire divinity for themselves. In -375 DR, they slayed one of the Seven Lost Gods, gaining a bit of divine power. Using it to go further, they embarked to Jergal's realm with the intention to slay him as well. 

However, Jergal—tired of his godhood—freely agreed to hand over his dominion of the underworld. As the three could not decide who among them would sit upon the throne of the dead, they left the decision to chance with a game. More details and stories of several deaths and coming backs can be briefly read in the wiki. It makes no sense to add them here since they provide nothing interesting related to Gale.

Most of Myrkul's “recent” story can be seen/read in the game Neverwinter Nights 2, the Mask of the Betrayer. The game explains how Myrkul created the Wall of the Faithless (non existent anymore in 5e and nobody knows how it was destroyed) where the souls of the faithless or those abandoned by their gods got stuck in eternal pain. The main goal of the Wall was to use all that energy to feed Myrkul. The main character of Neverwinter 2 can visit the agonising God in the Astral Plane and kill him or leave him in a slow death.

Myrkul, with Bane and Bhaal, tried to seize the Tablets of Fate from the overgod Ao and use them to rule over Faerûn and its gods. They failed and were slain during the Time of Troubles. Since then, a variety of contingency plans they had in place allowed them to be reborn afterwards.

A small group of followers across Faerûn kept Myrkul's worshipping alive despite the dire events of the Spellplague and the Second Sundering. In the 1400’s, he is considered to have returned with the three dead in a quasi-deity condition. 

While the Sundering forced the other gods to withdraw their direct influence from the mortal world, the Dead Three remained behind in mortal form as quasi-divine beings. While their power has diminished, they remain a formidable trio and play a malevolent role in influencing events on Faerûn.

Where is he in 1492?

He is clearly somewhere in Faerûn, with Bhaal and Bane most probably (we have strong leads to assume that the Absolute is them, getting as many worshippers as they can to recover their deity status, since now they are only quasi-deities)

Can Gale be Myrkul? I honestly can't see anything that we can use to link him to Myrkul without making it look like an absurdity. The easiest argument to revoke that nonsense is that Gale clearly is not a quasi-deity. 

A quasi-deity is immune to every attempt to tamper with their mind (which would nullify the tadpole effect, and would make Gale immune to any tadpole intrusion, which is not the case as we saw in the post of "The Tadpole"). A quasi-deity is also immune to sap its vitality, or to force it into a different form. It has a strong defence against magic and a limited defence against heat. Weapons not enchanted with magic of an epic scope could not hurt a quasi-deity without problems. These defences against magic, heat, and non-magical physical attacks grew stronger as a deity rose in rank. It is crystal clear that none of this applies to Gale, the squishy wizard of the group. 

This comparison is nonsense, especially if we think that some people supported it because “Gale's robes have clasps in the shape of triangles”, which was considered an incomplete symbol of Myrkul. So... I really won't waste time in this comparison. I just did it because I wanted to offer a summary to compare Myrkul (the three dead more precisely) with The Absolute. This idea is very strong when we think that in 5e DM book is explaining that a quasi-deity can recover their godhood condition if they amassed a sufficiently high number of followers (which is what The Absolute is doing). But this should be done in another post related to the Absolute. 

Source:  2e: Faith and pantheon, 5e: Descent to Avernus, Dungeon Master's guide

Karsus 

Karsus was born in Netheril in -696 DR. He was able to cast his first spell at the age of two, and by the age of twenty-two created his own floating city. He also founded a magic school encouraging radical thinking to keep pushing magical discoveries. A seer warned Karsus that soon Mystryl would face the greatest challenge of her divine life, so worried about the consequences of this, Karsus created his spell Karsus' Avatar with the objective to protect the Netheril civilization. This spell would steal the power of a deity and transfer it to him, giving him divine power to protect his people from Mystryl's challenge and destroy the magical aberrations that had been attacking Netheril (phaerimms) for years. He was very aware that the feat could cost him his life, but he accepted it as a worthy sacrifice to protect his people as well as remain in the History as an iconic figure.

In -339 DR, Karsus chose Mystryl, the goddess of magic, as his target, feeling that she was the most powerful deity and the most appropriate choice for his purposes. However, this was a mistake. The responsibilities of the deity of magic are to regulate the flow of magic to and from all beings, spells, and magic items in the world. Unable to fulfil Mystryl's function with the Weave, Karsus causes a surge of magic and violent fluctuations. 

In an attempt to save the Weave, Mystryl sacrificed herself to block Karsus's access to the Weave, causing all magic to cease for several minutes. The flying cities of Netheril (fuelled by magic) fell to the ground. The severing of the link also killed Karsus, who turned into stone and fell to the ground, seeing his entire civilisation being destroyed because of his actions. This is known as Karsus's Folly. 

The stone form of Karsus eventually landed in a part of the High Forest, now called the Dire Wood. Karsus was never accepted as a petitioner by any god, nor did he go to the Fugue Plane when he died. Instead, his soul was bound to the Material Plane. Those with experience in pact magic could call up his vestige, where he appeared as a giant blood-red boulder, like the one found in the High Forest where his petrified form landed. Blood burbles up from the top of the stone, trickling down the side facing the summoner, pooling at the base. Karsus granted the summoner a boost in magical ability, though he also imparted some of the arrogance he was renowned for. 

Where is he in 1492?

Even in death, Karsus' undying spirit persists in the chaotic magic of the Dire Wood. His essence is ensnared in a single point of time by the magic of the lich Wulgreth, and it manifests in three separate pieces. Each manifestation contains one portion of Karsus' tripartite spirit. It is believed that Karsus cannot depart from the Realms until his sundered spirit is reforged into one. 

Karsus' mortal body survives as a tall butte of red stone embedded in the ground and eroded by the elements. This manifestation radiates heavy magic (read the post about the "Orb" for more details)

Karsus' gigantic, ever bleeding heart beats within the butte itself. This manifestation is essentially powerless, but it cannot be destroyed. Karsus' heart continuously radiates an enchantment similar to the sadness effect produced by the 4th level wizard spell Emotion.

The final third piece is inside an animated golem created by Wulgreth. This manifestation bleeds an ever-flowing stream of blood like liquid which mingles with the Heartblood River, giving it its characteristic colour.

So, can Gale be Karsus? Hardly. Karsus' spirit is not even complete. One could ask if Gale is a part of Karsus? I don't see it either: each of these parts are stuck in the different stones across the Dire Wood, and since it was a lich who made the binding I see little reason to suspect how a piece of Karsus' spirit stuck in the middle of the continent reached a baby in Waterdeep. 

Sources: 2e: Magic of Faerun, Powers and Pantheons 3e: Lords of Darkness

Elminster 

Elminster was born in 212 DR, son of a prince of Athalantar. His parents were killed by mages and at the age of 12 he became a brigand and thief. With a friend thief, Elminster committed many acts of thievery together and lived life fully, creating the gang the Velvet Hands after a number of adventures. 

Elminster tried to desecrate a temple of Mystra as a gesture of vengeance for the goddess having not defended his parents when they were killed by mages. Mystra appeared before him, and despite Elminster's defiance, she offered him the power to take revenge for his dead parents. Elminster accepted, and Mystra turned him into a woman to see “the world with female eyes” and to strengthen his bond with magic before being a proper Chosen. This transformation also helped Elminster to pass unnoticed among his enemies. He spent a long time learning magic in this shape, taught by Mystra's avatar in disguise. When her disguise was uncovered, she and Elminster slept together and she offered him to become her Chosen. By that time, Elminster accepted any command from the Goddess, his defiance was completely gone. 

In 241DR he travelled to the city of Cormanthor and continued his magical studies.

Somewhere around the mid–7th century DR, Elminster entered a tomb and became trapped there in stasis for roughly a century. He emerged from the dusty tomb in 759 DR. By that time Magic was unreliable (Mystra was possessing Elué's body to conceive her daughters). The god Azuth told him that he couldn't rely on Mystra or magic for aid. Soon he had to learn how to survive without magic. He later underwent further magical training under the tutelage of a wicked sorceress who sought to tempt him away from Mystra's path. During a fake ritual for Bane, she revealed herself to be the goddess Mystra herself, once again testing him. 

In 767 DR, Elminster became a foster parent to three other of Mystra's Chosen: Laeral Silverhand, Storm Silverhand, and Dove Falconhand. 

In 851 DR, Elminster mentored the newly-appointed Chosen of Mystra, Sammaster, in how to use his new powers. 

During the Harpstar Wars in 1222 DR, Elminster defeated the Zulkir of Necromancy, Szass Tam, and earned himself (and the Harpers) the enmity of Thay. 

In 1358 DR, just before the Time of Troubles, Mystra gained some foreknowledge and backed up her power into Midnight, the human wizard, so it would not be lost. During this time, Elminster, like most wizards who received his power from Mystra/the Weave, was left powerless once more. 

In 1371 DR, the new Mystra stripped away many of Elminster's memories of her former incarnation's secrets. By the end of that year, he was called to Blackstaff Tower to discuss the phaerimm attack. The whole event ended up being related to a planificated attack from the Shadovars. Since shadovar were living shadow magic, and silver fire was raw magic, the collision between the two tore at the fabric of reality, creating a rift to the Nine Hells. Elminster realized that the only way to close the portal before legions of devils spilled forth into Toril was to close it from the other side. He did it, being trapped on the other side and at the expense of much of his magical strength. 

Once in Hell, he was abducted and enslaved by an outcast archdevil known as Nergal, who wished to discover the secret of Mystra's silver fire. Elminster was subject to brutal tortures, surviving only because of his exceptional endurance and ability to heal himself with silver fire. Mystra tried to save him herself, but ended up sending several Chosen ones instead. Only The Simbul was successful in his rescue.

In 1373 DR, Elminster discovered a daughter he had never known, conceived against his will with a dragon thanks to Mystra's intervention.

Following the death of Mystra in 1385 DR and the collapse of the Weave during the Spellplague, Elminster was stripped of many of his abilities as one of the Chosen, though he still aged as slowly as he had for the previous millennium and was still quite powerful magically. However, every use of his magic drove him insane. When this happened, only Storm was able to bring his mind back, giving off her own essence to soothe Elminster's mind. Despite these setbacks, Elminster and Storm continued with their campaign to save Faerûn, battling evil and fixing the Weave where they could.

In 1479 DR, Elminster sought to gain access to artifacts known to contain the spirits of the Nine—objects powerful enough to permanently restore the Simbul's sanity.

During one of his excursions for these artefacts, Elminster's body was destroyed by Manshoon, who had secretly been peeling away the Old Mage's contingency spells over several years. However, Manshoon departed before he realized that Elminster had survived his body's destruction in a near-undead state. With the agreement of Amarune and the aid of Storm, Elminster's essence was placed in Amarune's body with the aid of a spell the ex-Chosen had discovered in a cache once belonging to Azuth. Later, thanks to the sacrifice of the Simbul, he regained his former body again and ruined for good Manshoon's claim to the throne of Suzail.

In 1487 DR, Elminster (with the help of the Srinshee, Alustriel, and Laeral Silverhand) stopped Shar as well as Larloch from becoming the new deity of magic. He killed Telamont Tanthul and let Thultanthar fall upon Myth Drannor. Along the way, Mystra was completely restored. 

In 1491 DR, Elminster returned to the city of Waterdeep, aiding the newly appointed Open Lord of Waterdeep, Laeral Silverhand, to uncover the culprits behind a string of murders of Masked Lords. 

Sincerely, there is a lot of content left outside this summary because Elminster’s material is a lot. A LOT.

Where is he in 1492?

The last time we know about Elminster’s whereabouts is during the book Dead Masks, a year before BG3. He has been working in Mystra’s name in Waterdeep when Hidden Lords have been assassinated. It’s very hard to conceive Gale as Elminster in disguise. Elminster has a different personality and a very obvious pattern of speech, sounding more like a mixture of a scholar and a farmer, and using expressions like Nay, aye, and so on. Elminster being abandoned by Mystra is also a strange concept because if there is something very clear from all the material we can read about his adventures is that Mystra loves him with a particular and exceptional love. He was the only Chosen that, when he was being tortured in the Hells, she attempted to save him by herself, risking her life (obviously, then she changed her mind and sent several Chosen ones that died in the process). 

Also, if Gale were Elminster, he should sustain a spell of disguise constantly (many people know Elminster, an old man of white hair and beard), which is also very unlikely for a lvl1 wizard to do. 

Source: 3e: Elminster: The Making of a Mage. The Temptation of Elminster. Dead Masks

Sammaster

He was born in 800 DR, probably in Sembia, the Dalelands, or the North. At age of 17, fascinated by the theory of the Arts and how magic works, Sammaster became a follower of Mystra. He was a gaunt man of poor health, full of eccentricities: he never remained in one place for too long, he skipped his meals and sleep in favour of learning, and it's suspected to have fathered a countless number of children. 

Before being 40 y/o he acquired the skills of an archmage and he discovered, rediscovered, or improved numerous spells in the advanced theory of magic known as "metamagic". All this discovery of knowledge and magic (so favoured by Mystra as we can see in the post about "Mystra and her Chosen ones") granted him the attention of the Goddess, who appeared before him. 

At his 50 y/o Sammaster saw his most fervent dream appear before his very eyes. He was both awestruck and smitten with passion as he fell to his knees and wept upon Mystra’s feet. Raising him to meet her gaze, Mystra responded to his unspoken question and swept him into her embrace. They spent a tenday together, and at the end of that period, Mystra asked him if he thought he was worthy and strong enough to carry a part of her divine power within him. Despite not knowing what she meant, Sammaster accepted anyway, becoming the first Chosen after she conceived her seven daughters. Mystra explained that she had chosen him for his development in metamagic but also because she had foreseen the death of an already Chosen one (Syluné) whose place she wanted immediately filled with Sammaster.

Sammaster was ordered to be in contact with Elminster to learn more about his new condition of Chosen. Sammaster and Elminster developed a tense situation mostly because Sammaster's obsessive love for the Goddess deepened while Elminster kept reminding him that her only consort was Azuth.

Dejected for the truth that he would never have a personal long-lasting relationship with Mystra, Sammaster focused on understanding the powers of the Chosen and the mysteries of the Lady in himself and in Toril. However, a seed of resentment started to grow.

In 855 Sammaster found a Zhentarin slave caravan resting in a camp. In it, he found three large cage carts full of peasants taken from the farmlands in the surrounding area. Enraged, Sammaster attacked the Zhentarin using his spells and Silver Fire, but in the process he killed many innocents he wanted to save. His mind snapped that day. Despite trying to convince himself that the Zhentarins were to blame, this episode was—without any doubt—the seminal event that irrevocably turned Sammaster down the path to madness and, eventually, evil.

Years later he started to develop his interest in necromancy in an attempt to return those innocents he had killed, trying to find a way to revive the dead. During this time his interest was focused on the undead, and forged relationships with some liches. How did Mystra allow this? At that time, Mystra was a much more neutral deity. Her primary interest was the use and development of magic; she cared little about how it was used or by whom. As long as Sammaster continued to advance the theories of magic and push forward its frontiers for all mortals, Mystra turned a blind eye to his necromancy interests.

In 861 DR Sammaster met Alustriel, Chosen of Mystra, and fell in love with her. His unbalanced mind seemed to finally find some peace and stability, but his obsession —at first focused on Mystra—now turned upon Alustriel, wanting to master her, to make her entirely his, and to make her world revolve around him. Disturbed with Sammaster's necromancy research and his increasing need for control over her, Alustriel broke up with him.

Afterwards, while deepening in his experiments with necromancy, Sammaster befriended Algashon Nathaire, a priest of Bane who had formerly been a mage. In the unstable Sammaster, Algashon saw the chance to create a formidable tyrant. Bane must also have seen the chance to rob one of his most powerful enemy’s Chosen of his last vestiges of sanity and perhaps his powers or even his life. 

Presented as a friend, Algashon manipulated Sammaster into thinking that all his failures and problems were the fault of that uncaring goddess and her equally inconsiderate servants, her so-called "Chosen". Sammaster resisted this subtle indoctrination at first, only to be painfully reminded of the events at the slavers' camp (the Zhents' fault, of course), his uneasy relationship with Elminster, his failure to win the love of Mystra (Azuth's fault and Elminster's for pointing it out so hard-heartedly), and his failure to win Alustriel (her fault and that of her Goddess). As time went on, Sammaster argued against these superficial, easy excuses less and less, and Algashon's lies wove their way deeper into the unhappy and unstable mage's mind. The next step of Algashon was to steal the secrets of the power of the Chosen. To do that, he encouraged Sammaster to use his Chosen power at every opportunity.

Rather than risking their pawn's life (yet) by attempting to strip the silver fire from Sammaster outright, Bane and Algashon decided to try and arrange to steal another Chosen's silver fire: given her past with Sammaster, Algashon chose Alturiel. This way Sammster fought Alturiel, aiming silver fire against her. Losing the battle against a maniacal Sammaster, Alustriel called for help from Laeral Silverhand and Khelben Arunsun. The three of them won the combat against Sammaster.

Azuth presented himself on Mystra's behalf and removed Sammaster's Chosen condition. When the other Chosen left the place, Algashon helped Sammaster, affixing the immortality of the Chosen ones in his body despite having lost his powers. While he could be destroyed, Sammaster continued to remain ageless and to heal from wounds very quickly. However, as a side-effect of this spell, Sammaster lost his last vestige of sanity and morality that may have remained in his clouded mind. 

In 887 DR Sammaster retranslated old texts of a prophecy, highlighting the importance of undead dragons and creating soon afterward his own Cult. In his insanity, he kept doing more necromancy research focused on turning dragons into draconlich to follow this prophecy. His first success in turning a dragon (Shargrailar) into an undead made his cult famous. In this way, Sammaster earned a powerful weapon with which threatened many across Faerun and obtained an enormous amount of money. Even the rich nobles paid tribute when the Cult threatened to send Shargrailar to burn their farmlands and villages to ash. Sammaster did not think to oppress the peasants for their coppers, but the noble powerful ones.

In 960 DR, his cult finally adopted the name “Cult of the Dragon”, even though “Cult of the Dracolich” could be more appropriate, even though Shargrailar still looked like a normal dragon. By that time the cult increased too much for Sammaster and Algoshon to control, so Sammaster wrote all his wisdom in a book called Tome of the Dragon that would turn into the core of the cult, helping them to spread Sammaster's ideas beyond their limitations. 

The popularity of the cult was not missed by several groups. The Harpers tried to destroy it, but they failed. The Zhentarims are also against Sammaster's cult since their activities are limited with the constant threat of the Dragon Shargrailar. More groups were added to the cult's list of foes, but Sammaster ignored them or sent them a dragon to destroy them. Not merely mad now, Sammaster was becoming drunk with a level of power he had not felt since before he had been stripped of his powers as one of the Chosen. Algashor suggested that he keep a low profile in order to protect the cult, but his advice was ignored.

In 916 DR, The Harpers developed a plan to eliminate Sammaster and weaken the cult itself. The battle was brutal and Sammaster seemed to win by the end of it, commanding an army of undead and experimental creatures. Sammaster would have won had not Lathander sent a battle avatar, enraged by the undead abominations that Sammaster created. After an intense battle, Lathander incinerated Sammaster. However, Sammaster had planned ahead: he had sent his mind to a phylactery before being killed.

With the phylactery and a special book of the Tome of the Dragon, a loyal cultist called Zotulla had been ordered by Sammaster to create a new cell of the cult in the Northwest. However, Zotulla failed and died at the hands of an orc war party who discarded the phylactery and the book. Both items were lost for more than 300 years, until a shaman may have deciphered the instructions in the book and raised Sammaster as a lich.

In 1282 Sammaster rose as a lich and began to gather the remnants of his cult once more. Harpers and some countries began to plan to defend themselves from this danger again. In 1285 a group of adventuring paladins known as the Company of Twelve supported by the Harpers, attacked the lich and killed him at a great cost. However, neither the phylactery nor the book were found. The possibility for him to return is high. 

In 1373DR Sammaster completed the transformation of the Dracorage Mythal. This was a Mythal created by elves around -25.000DR which had a maddening effect on dragons, making them lose their minds for several tendays. This effect used to be linked to the appearance of the comet King-Killer Star in the sky. When Sammaster transformed this mythal by binding his phylactery to it, its maddening effect was no longer constrained by the appearance of the comet but linked instead to his own life force. Only Dracoliches remained unaffected by Sammaster’s endless, ever-intensifying Dracorage effect. This fact forced wyrms to join his Cult and accept to be transformed into dracoliches or suffer permanent madness. By manipulating this effect, Sammaster tried to retake control over his Cult. However, a group of adventurers destroyed the mythal—thus Sammaster’s phylactery—and put an end to this effect. 

Where is he in 1492?

So, is Gale Sammaster? Lore-wise, to destroy a lich for good you need to destroy their phylactery. This has been done in 1373DR, therefore, I hardly see any potential for Sammaster to raise again. And here is where any possible argument ends. 

What Sammaster's story shows us is that Mystra's sudden abandonment is not uncommon once she gave them their Chosen powers. In the report of the Harpers that narrate Sammaster's life in the book Cult of the dragon (2e), there are some comments pointing out how Mystra, despite noticing Sammaster's madness, allowed him to follow his dark path. One may speculate that maybe Mystra uses the obsession that she may cause in some of her Chosen ones, in order to make them eager to explore beyond their limits so she can acquire knowledge or control of new magic. 

Certainly, what Sammaster and Gale share in common is how they were favoured by Mystra, had a affair with her, and soon afterwards she stopped “whispering” in their ears. Their condition as Chosen had been kept intact, but their madness in one case, or their devotion in the other, made them go too far. Sammaster ended up being a toy of a priest of Bane, while Gale simply made the mistake of thinking himself capable of controlling an unknown magic to impress Mystra in order to have once more her attention on him. More than this is walking on the headcanon terrain since the game in EA can't provide more information. 

Source book: Cult of the dragon (2e), Dragons of Faerun (3.5e)

Conclusion

The truth is that Gale is Kirby. He doesn't only eat artefacts but also Faerûn iconic characters as well (joke done by a reddit user)

In my personal interpretation, I hardly see Gale as the incarnation of anyone. First, it would be very, very lazy writing. Characters such as Sammaster, Elminster, or Azuth tend to be NPCs. We found some of them in games such as previous Baldur’s Gate games or Neverwinter nights.

But the main and strongest argument against secretly being any of these characters is that he is an origin character. All companions are potential players in their origins. Anyone who played DOS2 AND played an origin character would understand this: there is no plot twist of that magnitude in their personal backstories that would erase completely the essence and the personality of the character. All that sensitive information is previously stated. 

All what we need to know about the origin char is basically said in the BG3 webpage. Those descriptions are the same ones found in the game, which changed after EA was released in Astarion’s and Gale’s case, showing—in my opinion—that Larian changed them a bit at the last stage of development. These descriptions spoil every secret that the characters have. This doesn’t mean their more complex background should not be part of a plot twist later in the game, but it would not have the impact of erasing completely the RPG characters you were playing for a while. 

Every companion has a secret spoiled in their descriptions: Astarion, his vampire condition; Shadowheart, her Shar faith and he mission; Wyll, Mizora; Lae’zel, the tadpole (not for the group, but for her people); Gale, the “orb”. All these secrets are informed beforehand to the player for them to pick an Origin if they want to play it and make it their own. As companions, we learn these secrets early (act 1). This happens in act 1 of DOS2 too.

A player choosing an origin has to be informed of the character’s secrets and motivations at the moment they pick it. Otherwise, it would ruin their RPG experience, making the player unaware of their own character’s true nature. This doesn’t mean that deepening their backgrounds would not make us discover information we don’t know. My point is, it won't remove the character’s persona turning him into a character very well known in lore. 

Gale, so far, seems to be a pretty fair standard wizard who had a young obsession over Mystra (quite common in terms of lore for those who stand before her), which brought him troubles and made him prone to mistakes (as, once more, we know it tends to happen in lore). The justification why he was Chosen is also clear from a lore point of view: we have a context post-Spellplague that made Gale's skills more than useful for Mystra. In my opinion, there is nothing else abysmally suspicious beyond these points, and if there are more secrets, it seems fair to think that not even Gale is aware of them. 

This post was written in June2021. → For more Gale: Analysis Series Index

[the-apocryphal-one]

Apo Plays BG3 EA Part Six: Companion Thoughts

So I guess I’m pretty much finished with EA, three playthroughs has been fun (especially Isaniel’s), but it’s gotten to the point where I’m getting tired of doing the same content over and over. Which means it’s time to stop either until full release or a major update.

I’m probably gonna procrastinate on a proper review like forever, but I did post my thoughts on the companions in a reddit thread and decided to just copy + paste them here.

(unmarked spoilers ahead)

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For Gale and Wyll, I don't think their motivations can easily be summed up in just one word. Like yes, there are selfish undertones to why they do what they do--but at the same time, there's layers. Wyll wants to be perceived as a hero, but he takes time to teach little kids to swordfight. He hates the goblins for what they've done (the war party that torched that town and stole his eye) and wants to protect people from them, but also wants vengeance. He's a mix of selfishness, appearance and genuine altruism, imo.

Likewise, Gale simps for Mystra, but will go for you, which isn't exactly faithful (I've heard--can't confirm--but I've heard that he'll try to persuade you to cheat on your LI with him, if you got the Weave scene but didn't pick him at the party, which is Not Cool). He regrets his past actions and wants to make sure no one else is hurt by them, so he's willing to go off and die alone. But he doesn't want to just lay down and give up, he wants to find a cure. So he'll consume magical artifact and not stand up for his principles when it matters the most (not turning on you if you attack the tieflings). I think he's a man who talks a lot about the value of life, protecting kids, helping others, and believes it, but is being held back by fear from committing.

Astarion is definitely the most relatable of the companions right now, imo, just because his reactions are exactly the kind of stuff you'd see from an abuse victim. Flinching away from genuine vulnerability (the shoulder pat), trying to mask his pain at what he went through (look at how often he talks about what Cazador did like it's a joke), and showing genuine terror at the thought of going back? All super humanizing and compelling. Then he turns around and laughs at people being hurt or hurting animals and it's awful, unjustified--but it makes sense because sadly, abuse victims can become cruel themselves as a way to cope. But then he goes and approves of helping Karlach, so maybe he's not beyond hope? You could take out the fantasy stuff and plop him in the real world and he would still fit, is what I'm saying.

Lae is full of herself, but the way the other gith treat her really gives me the impression she's a young teen trying too hard to impress the adults. Like with that context, the scenes where she talks about how she's definitely going to have a silver sword and ride a red dragon one day, or where she talks about proving her loyalty to Vlaakith, come off less as sure arrogance but more as a kid talking about what they want to be when they grow up. Which, along with her complete inexperience with the Material Plane, is kind of adorable. But I definitely think she's been indoctrinated by her culture to not question anything and just lay down her life for Vlaakith, which is not so adorable.

SH's super secrecy frustrates me as a player, but as a roleplayer it's great and fitting for her deity worship. I think there are a lot of hints lying around that she's not who she thinks she is, with the missing memories, magic stirring up around Selune, and her own (to her admitted surprise) compassion for the tieflings. I feel like I don't have as much to say about her as I do the others? Maybe because there's a lot missing from her past, but what is there is very consistent with her secretive personality.

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tl;dr the “evil” companions’ worldviews stem from past evils done to them--abuse, indoctrination, or cult brainwashing--and hopefully you can help them heal from that, thus bringing about a redemption arc; the “good” companions aren’t entirely altruistic, but struggle with human flaws that hinder their better natures; and all of the companions so far have been nuanced, consistent, and interesting.

EDIT: I should clarify Gale’s unfaithfulness isn’t because he’s with Mystra (he isn’t, and he even says he’s not sure how to feel about her), but because he still has some hang-ups from that relationship and thus can’t give full emotional fidelity right now.

EDIT #2: I should also clarify that I have no delusions that Astarion was a good person pre-turning. I would be more surprised if he was than if he wasn’t. I just think he may not have been as bad as he is now and that many of his beliefs have been predominately shaped by his experiences with Cazador.

[samsbastardzone]

Hey, you know that 35 d&d questions ask meme? I answered all of them.

This is a long ass post. Be warned. It took up seven and a half pages in google docs. Original post here.

1. A favorite character you have played.

Would have to be Zize Fortier, dragonborn gunslinger. Their tag on this blog is #zize and you can find their bio and info on my character page. Love that bastard!! He’s sweet and bratty and a total delight to play (we are such an OP party, y’all).

2. Your favorite character that someone else has played.

UM UM gonna talk about a few here. To be fair to people I play a *lot* of games with, I’m only gonna  talk about one PC per person.

- The bastard trio in my Wildemount game– @toomanyorphans ’s Nakoria, @overplannedbutunnamednpc ‘s Zier (also an NPC in the campaign Zize is in), and @glasyasbutch ‘s Nissy. They all really suck so bad but in SUCH funny ways. They’re varying degrees of self centered and awful, but we trust each other in this campaign, and those 3 players are SO funny in their RP.

- (RIP) Avri in my Wildemount game. They and Bly named each other,,,,  they were parent and child…… VERY sweet. huge goliath with tiny bird in backpack.

- @bekahdoesnershit ‘s Raini. Zize’s BFF, and her tag on that blog is rich. She’s SUCH a bitch but we love her.

- @bhissar ‘s Saela. She is a dream character for me to DM for– very little fleshed out backstory with room to explore, with still-concrete events in it. Consistent character choices and personality, to the point I can sometimes predict what she’ll do. Very cool aesthetically. And overall? EXTREMELY sweet. Baby, baby bird.

3. Your favorite side quest.

Either the one going on right now in amnesia, where we have to collect brain matter from big powerful elementals, or the stop we made at a family of vampires in Acarnya (the one I played Osfyr in).

4. Your current campaign.

There are five of those, with two on hold. 

-Wildemount, aka the Frozen Sick module from Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount (we’re almost done with that, my PC is Bly). 

-Amnesia campaign aka high level campaign: we woke up in hell with no memories! PC is Zize. 

-Hoard of the Dragon Queen module, near the beginning of that, PC is Pointy. 

-Horror campaign, only two sessions so far, but we’re trapped in an alternate dimension carrying out tasks for a creepy dude. PC is Vinny. 

-Kithan, where we’re high level monster hunting guild members searching  out ancient artifacts of the gods (campaign based on the Monster Hunter games), PC is Topaz.

-Silas, party is currently trying to help dragons free themselves and stop a… dude? No spoilers! I DM. On hold because I had too many campaigns going at once.

-Silas v2: extremely vaguely based on the plot of season one of the web series Carmilla. A tweaked version of the first arc the Silas party went through. On hold because it was played in person at school.

5. Favorite NPC.

I don’t really have any NPCs in my campaigns that I’m super attached to, except– Nikeo, a goliath rogue PC in Silas 1, had many adopted children. Three of them– kobolds– sometimes stand on each others’ shoulders, put on a long coat, and help out around their parent’s store. They’ve named themselves Koby.

As for favorite NPCs in campaigns I’ve played, I can think of… a lot. The first is Laurel, a blue dragonborn loner type who followed Osfyr and friends in Acarnya. They were kind of broody and dark, but they really drew me in. They were the first NPC we really talked to– they were sitting on top of the post office laughing at the mob scene of people protesting not getting their mail delivered.

I’d also pick Osfyr’s partners in that campaign– Yelkian, a backstory love interest I came up with, a flamboyant soft sorcerer. Jupiter, politician’s niece, who took pity on Osfyr’s attempts to seduce information out of her and let them succeed on both counts (seduction and information). Xerxes, extra AF rogue with a big loving family, who swept in after a fight on the back of an eagle-wildshaped Brysth (npc druid). 

There’s a blue dragon in the HOTDQ campaign that we don’t know much about. I really enjoyed the way @dungeonsanddraconicqueer played him. He’s just a dude! Lex’s warlock made a Deal with him to leave the town alone. We still don’t know the implications of that. It’s fine, guys.

And then, there’s Stewart the Skin Steward, a servant of False Mystra. Fun dude.  Very cavalier– nigh, enthusiastic!– about the fact that his entire city was made of skin. Something of a skin connoisseur, in fact!

6. Favorite death (monster, player character, NPC, etc).

Saela, hands down. She got breathed on by a dragon, yo. We then had to stop playing for 4-5 months because a player lost access to the Internet. I wrote a vision/speech from her warlock patron, the Raven Queen, the night she died, and basically didn’t touch it until I read it out in game. It involved a confession that the Queen was  tired of being a god, and showing Saela all the lives she’d touched. Then we used Matt Mercer’s rez rules for her. She came back– but it was her choice.

7. Your favorite downtime activity.

Fucking tinkering dude!!! I don’t get to do it enough as Zize and that is entirely my fault. @ morgan, eyes emoji

8. Your favorite fight/encounter.

I LOVE creepy shit. There was a train car with people dancing in it, and party members got enchanted to dance along and eat the food,  and the revelers were clearly in pain, and snuffing out a candle caused a reveler to disappear. Creepy shit!

In Kithan, we had to climb a staircase, and we timed it with produce flame which is a 10 minute duration cantrip, and we were climbing for 50 minutes. We started to see things in the edges of our vision. Then someone realized it was an illusion, and it all vanished. It freaked me out so bad.

In amnesia campaign, at level 19, we were traversing a cave, and our shadows started dripping the same black goop we were there to investigate. We killed one and it took down the max hp of the person whose shadow it was, and then they straight up didn’t have a shadow until they long rested. It really freaked us out, realizing the shadows were actually creatures, but they were like CR 1. Really effective use of a low level monster.

9. Your favorite thing about D&D.

The way it has something for everyone… the way it’s brought me so many friends… the way it’s inspired my OC creation like nothing else.

10. Your favorite enemy and the enemy you hate the most.

I’m not sure if this is asking about NPCs I’ve had as enemies, or any monster in D&D canon? The longest campaign I played in didn’t have long term enemies  per se. I’d say I was frustrated with the cultists that ambushed us last session in HOTDQ,  but I didn’t hate them! I just couldn’t seem to hit or dodge them. As for a favorite… probably False Mystra: the demon lord Orcus who’d taken over  the position, and therefore the duties, of Mystra, the god of arcane magic.  We killed it,  but then whoopso!! Our wizard lost her powers.

11. How often do you play and how often would you ideally like to play?

I play an ideal amount, honestly: four times a week, for about 2.5-3 hours a session. HOTDQ Tuesdays, Kithan and horror campaign switching off Wednesdays, Wildemount Thursdays cause we miss CR, Amnesia Sundays.

12. Your in game inside jokes/memes/catchphrases and where they came from.

Amnesia: Yocheved, the party barbarian/full time fish, has a secret third arm and/or a prosthetic ass. Cylthia, the druid, does arson (but actually). Relentless is a Crown paladin, so she puts her fingers in her ears when we do crime/lie. She also has a rod of lordly might that, immediately post amnesia, she made into a 32 foot climbing pole. Yocheved eats pounds and pounds of raw fish for every meal.

Wildemount: just the shenanigans and sabotaging each other that the Bastard Trio get into. Example: Nissy was tasked with buying Zier a cloak for cold weather and purposely got him an  ugly one. Zier then prestidigitated it to be a nicer color.

13. Introduce your current party.

Oh boy, I have 6 of those. Here goes. Keep in mind many of these characters are played and games are DMed by my friends who have OC blogs of their own: Raini and Ayen are bekahdoesnerdshit, Ezra, Nissy, and Roona are glasyasbutch, Horror DM, Lent, Eve, and Nakoria are toomanyorphans, Wildemount DM, Saela, Daecyne, and Cylthia are bhissar, HOTDQ DM is dungeonsanddraconicqueer, and Amnesia DM, Zier, Nyxi, and Sarril are overplannedbutunnamednpc. Not an OC blog, but Yocheved, Avri, Arbor, Thraf, Nikeo, and Whisper are mickgoesabsolutelyhamforbarbie.

Amnesia (Zize): Lent, tiefling paladin, former crownsguard who “fell” (became an oathbreaker), then un-fell when we lost our memories. Cylthia, tiefling/elf druid who can shift between tiefling and elf forms and loves setting things on fire. Yocheved, 14 foot tall nereid (fishfolk) barbarian with a dry sense of humor, is the party parent. And Raini, aasimar wizard, sass machine and Zize’s bff.

HOTDQ. My PC is Pointy. Ezra, quiet human paladin. Theata, moon elf rogue. Freya, sweet (human?) light cleric who sometimes misreads situations. Eve, 13 year old (!!) human warlock who kinda sucks, but like, she’s 13. Nyxi, motherly gnome bard who Is going to adopt Pointy. 

Wildemount (Bly): Alene, human barbarian. Quiet and with somewhat of a parent instinct. Some sort of Mysterious Backstory. Delta, aasimar rogue, similarly shady backstory? Unclear. Sticks with Alene. Nissy, drow rune knight, sucks. Zier, drow sorcerer, also sucks. Nakoria, dragonborn warlock, ALSO sucks. (Those three make up the Bastard Trio.) Avri (F for them), goliath bard and Avri’s guardian, died last session by falling on a floor full of knives. 

Horror campaign (Vinny): Roona, halfling bard, very impulsive, eats exclusively with her spoon that says ASS, and chills in Vinny’s fanny pack. Ayen, elven teenage warlock with a dark backstory. Sarril, Ayen’s not-dad, half elf beast barbarian who got it from his wife. Arbor, dryad  monk, who wears an all white plague doctor outfit at all times.

Silas v1 (DM), Original party before 1 left and 1 died: Hacka (RIP), human luchador-styled drunken monk. Nikeo (left), goliath rogue with so many adopted children. Inferno, fire genasi paladin/phoenix sorcerer with anger and impulse control issues. Saela, babiest aarakocra warlock of the Raven Queen. Hacka’s player now plays Voda, a stoic water genasi tempest cleric who cast Raise Dead successfully on Saela. Nikeo’s player now plays Whisper, a tabaxi astral soul monk.

Kithan (Topaz): Thraf, monsterborn (universe-compliant dragonborn) barbarian. Very social, very outgoing, very stupid, and very traumatized. Fucks majorly. Daecyne, sweet tiefling druid and Topaz’s good friend. Viosa, aasimar homebrew class I forget the name of, uses her small stature and allure to her advantage. Damur, half-orc eldritch knight, the party’s only braincell.

14. Introduce any other parties you have played in or DM-ed.

Acarnya. My PC was Osfyr. Soraphine, traumatized halfling bard. Azalea, human fighter. Durzuell, haughty high elf sorcerer. James, nerdy half elf wizard. Drago, erratic Russian dragonborn monk. Kairon, slightly edgy ranger/paladin (but we love him). 

Nordenheim. My PC was Cap. I will admit: we only played 2 or 3 sessions, so I don’t really remember  most of the other party members except Rory, a fire genasi ranger who almost burned to death.

Silas v2 (hopefully will continue; I DMed): Kysseris IV. Half-elf paladin, uptight. Tower 1-6, warforged wizard who crawled out of the desert and is looking for info on how he was made. Mae “Pock”, gnome rogue, very small and  sweet. Josh, human trickery cleric, kind of an asshole, but in a way that’s funny and hasn’t bled over into IRL annoying.

[school] West Marches campaign (Ner): by the nature of West Marches, there was never a consistent party, but a few stood out to me. Red Foot, a hyperactive kobold sorcerer who’s level 8 against all West Marches odds. Lyra, Great Old One warlock of Tzee’Mhor, an abomination goat that a party I was in accidentally created. Fildo Baggins, divination wizard who can only affect allies whose toenail clippings he has in his vial.

15. Do you have snacks during game times?

Hell yeah babey!!! I mostly play digitally, especially during COVID, and I need something to munch after DMing for a while. Shit’s exhausting.

16. Do you play online or in person? Which do you prefer?

Welp! Online mostly, since everyone I want to play with has the audacity to live far away, and now exclusively online because of COVID.

17. What are some house rules that your group has?

Our Amnesia party is so rich that we just don’t keep track of money. In Kithan, a lot of rules that make characters less powerful are just… abolished (like the bonus action spell rule). (The DM likes super OP characters so she can throw SUPER OP monsters at us.  My character has a necklace that gives 5 additional uses of channel divinity.)

18. Does your party keep any pets?

Nope. No opportunities for them. Zize’s party has a little water snake on the druid’s arm but I doubt that will last very long.

19. Do you or your party have any dice superstitions?

Absolutely. Cursed dice get j a i l.

20. How did you get into D&D? How long have you been playing?

Acarnya got me into d&d, it was my first campaign, and it was happening at the place I lived. I’ve been playing almost 2 years. (Critical Role inspired me to DM)

21. Have you ever regretted something your character has done?

Not sent a fucking letter to say goodbye to their boyfriend before the world-fate-deciding bullshit that was gonna happen and possibly destroy shit. It was fine in the end though!

22. What color was your first dragon?

Red. Man, that guy sucked, he almost killed Osfyr. We were investigating a monastery secretly run by dragons disguised as humans.

23. Do you use premade modules or original campaigns?

Original campaigns. I’ve never run a module before! I’m not opposed, but most of my campaigns came from ideas  that I had. I’ve never been short on ideas for a game.

24. How much planning/preparation do you do for a game?

As a player, I just open my character sheet and get out dice. As a DM, I try and think about what material I want to get through this session, and write some narration and/or stat things out if I feel like it.

For DMs

25. What have your players done that you never could have planned for?

A lot of times, Inferno has rushed into battle from what I’d built as a stealth mission, and gotten her ass and sometimes the party’s asses kicked. I should really have learned by now.

26. What was your favorite scene to write and show your characters?

Definitely Saela’s resurrection ritual and vision.

27. Do you allow homebrew content?

Yes! I’ll check it first,  but I’m all for expanding the boundaries. I homebrew items and monsters all the time, why shouldn’t my payers get to homebrew their shit?

28. How often do you use NPCs in a party?

Too often in my first arc. I had like 7 NPCs running around at all times (they were Carmilla characters). Super not recommended. I have 0 right now.

29. Do you prefer RP heavy sessions or combat sessions?

I’m still finding my groove with RP as a DM. I like encouraging my players to RP amongst themselves. I consider myself fairly good at combat on both sides of the equation, DM and player, so that’s always fun to me, especially when my players enjoy it too.

30. Are your players diplomatic or murder hobos?

I have one actively reforming murder hobo player, the rest are diplomatic. (The character, Inferno, is having a great growth arc. I’m super proud.)

For Players

31. What is your favorite class? Favorite race?

I fucking love genasi as a concept. Favorite class would have to be rogue or cleric, but gunslinger’s up there too.

32. What role do you like to play the most? (Tank/healer/etc?)

I  honestly don't have the patience to not play DPS. I love doing lots of damage. Healing is satisfying, support is satisfying, but there’s a reason I picked rogue twice and tempest cleric over other domains.

33. How do you write your backstory, or do you even write a backstory?

Sometimes the backstory is part of the character concept– especially for Pointy, because I had the name first, then went hmm why would she have this name. Almost always, though, more backstory gets written during the campaign when I have an idea. Sometimes a character will act in a way I don’t expect, and it’s fun thinking of a justification to fill backstory gaps.

34. Do you tend to pick weapons/spells for being useful or for flavor?

Mostly  usefulness honestly. I’ll make choices among several for flavor, but I’m a big proponent of using mechanics to build character. What I mean is, think about Magnus in TAZ Balance– his protection fighting style contributed a lot to the way Travis played him as a protective person. I love that shit.

35. How much roleplay do you like to do?

I like to do a lot, but unfortunately my  energy is pretty down lately so I haven’t been doing as much.

[bekahdoesnerdshit]

Playlist: Rainivere

Alternate Title: I Lost My Ability To “Feel” Twelve Levels Ago (No I Didn’t)

Are Things Still Burning by Em Harris

I can't imagine life on earth now. And I just want to know is my bedroom still there, is it still standing. Is the tree that I planted still there in the backyard. I want to know are things still burning, still burning.

This song isn’t so much about the lyrics as setting the general tone for the playlist. The dark indie sorta vibe, the heaviness, the rhythmic trombone and drum, the almost lazy way the singer drifts between notes, the slow start that ramps up into the rest of the song, it’s all good shit! Could I tell you what this song is actually about? No! But the vibes. The Vibes!! Pitch perfect for the start of Raini’s playlist.

A Little Wicked by Valerie Broussard

No one calls you honey, when you're sitting on a throne Beware the patient woman, 'cause this much I know No one calls you honey, when you're sitting on a throne

This is the “I’m a bastard! Did you forget?” song! It builds off the heaviness of the last song while adding a twist of “I act like hot shit because I am hot shit” that I just felt like really fucking nailed Raini’s general contempt for anyone who isn’t one of the like ten people she knows and tolerates. Also! It represents (especially hypothetical early level raini’s) drive to and unshakable belief that she would succeed at becoming powerful enough to become a god. No one calls you honey when you’re sitting on a throne, and no one says shit to you when that throne is in the upper planes, bitch! 

Deep Green by Marika Hackman

Just because I love your skin Doesn't mean I'll jump in The water's clean and warm and green I'm not allowed to swim I'm scared of getting in

First of all, again, vibes. Is Raini’s playlist 75% vibes? Maybe so. But they’re structural vibes so they have to stay or the whole playlist won’t be up to code, so. Once again, I couldn’t for the life of you tell me what this song is about. But I’m sorta starting to think that may be a problem between me and indie stuff instead of the songs in particular. I love again the laziness in the singer’s voice, as well as the eeriness of the backing vocals and the instruments, and like not to beat a dead horse about it but vibes!! Hello.

Come What May by The Last Bison

Come what may we will always be the same. You and I Shall remain in every way, so will I

You know the first of all at this point (it’s “vibes”) so let’s just skip to the second of all. Is it uhhh. Friendship time? In literally THE most haughty, roundabout way? Maybe so! “Hey I do have an aesthetic to maintain but. I do care about you. Technically.” Like the chorus is literally such an intense declaration of devotion, but it takes a hot minute to get to it and the second verse picks up immediately after it, moving the song quickly along. And I think between that and how intense the claim/music is, it’s the only possible way Raini could tell someone she’s in it for the long haul with them. You know who you are. Keep scrolling.

Don’t Fall in Love by Wake Child

Though I know I can't stay There's a price i may pay Baby don't fall in love while I'm away

Finally!! It’s a fucking BANGER in here boys!! And you know what it’s about. Sometimes you’re a hot and sexy and sexual pirate, and you travel a lot. Sometimes you’re a hot and sexy and sexual wizard/adventurer, and you travel a lot. Sometimes you and said pirate/wizard are dancing around each other in the longest, dumbest, horniest type of courtship imaginable, and sometimes you get deep enough into it where you’re like. Invested. In the other person. But you’re still not far enough into it where you can admit that you’re invested. So you. So you uh. So you? Silently pray that they don’t find somebody they like more than you in between your -admittedly more and more frequent- “accidental” run-ins? Because, boy, you’ll feel foolish if it turns out you’re the only one catching feelings. Best to just keep your mouth shut and hope for the best!

Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Lorde

We will find you Acting on your best behavior Turn your back on mother nature Everybody wants to rule the world

I would like to personally thank that one Legend of Korra amv that was super popular on tumblr like four years ago for putting this song on my radar. Thank you, Korra. As always: point one, vibes. Point two, VIBES for a character’s who ultimate goal at the beginning of her arc was to become powerful enough to become a god. Point three, VIBES again for a party of level 20 demigods who wield unimaginable power and can stand up to and defeat archdevils and fake gods and universe devouring planar systems and win. Listen to like the last minute of this song and tell me you can’t see a montage of the party shredding the not-mystra and the Abeast and the giant radiant eel and like, listen. It’s sexy. I’m not ashamed to admit it: this song Fucks.

I’m Tired, You’re Lonely by Liza Anne

And if I was a softer person I could give you the kindness you are deserving But I'm not And maybe that's just it

Raini doesn’t know how to process or express her emotions again we GET it do we really have to keep doubling down on this 😪 Obviously the answer is yes, we do. This is the “hey we just got back from hell without any memories, and I don’t know how to process the fact that this is obviously upsetting to the tiefling who flew halfway around the world overnight on little more than a vague sending, made out with me in our front hall, then painted our relationship as ‘glorified booty call’ but also seems to know everything about me” song. You know, that one song every playlist has. Because like! Obviously there was some tension and hurt between every party and their significant other when we came back sans memories, but I feel like there was still efforts made by both parties to reach for the other despite this sudden distance, you know? And Raini just, did not do that. And neither did Ecstasy really, and who can blame her? Morgan and I talked about it (I think ahah) and there was like a non-zero chance that they split up over this memory loss thing! They didn’t of course, but this song captures the mid-campaign tension of “...well, shit. I don’t know what our relationship actually is”.

Lover, Don’t Leave by Citizen Shade

I've said that love is just a word The idea seems absurd That one can give more than they take Away from me  Woah, and then came you

Okay YES technically this playlist only has two themes and it’s 1) “Raini is a badass level 20 wizard” and 2) “Raini has never processed an emotion in her life”. What do you want from me. Now I know we don’t say the L word on this blog (l*ve, obviously. Not Lesbians) BUT we have to make an exception for this song because a) it’s heartbreaking and b) I mean. Come on. Sometimes you go into your adult life convinced you’re more than enough for yourself and that you don’t need any kind of romantic attachment to slow you down, and then sometimes you meet someone who can not only keep up with you, but makes you maybe want to linger? And then, of course, you do your best to blow it and push them away because you’re you and that’s what you do. And you’re not great at apologizing and, well, we already talked about how close they maybe came to splitting up in game. There’s definitely a universe where that happened. 

Boy Who Has Everything by Annika Bennett

I just wish there was something he needs Some beautiful thing I could be To keep him from seeing the worst in me

Hey guys what if we took that “he” and maybe we... made it a “they”?? what might happen then.... Uh oh.......uh oh.....uh oh!!! Although the singer probably intended this song to be about a romantic relationship, in this playlist this song is about Raini looking at her party and going “.....well, fuck. Why am I here?” She’s an asshole! She’s not a pleasant person, and she knows it. And she’s looking at a group of people who really, really seem to have it together re: being a person. And aside from just the fact that they’re all, at the very least, personable, she knows that she owes them more than she knows how to put into words for what she did to them, without their permission. But it’s fine it’s cool she’s definitely just actually this much of an asshole 24/7 it’s not a defense mechanism or anything ahahahah :))

In the End by Marcus Warner

We’re DONE being emo it’s time to circle back to “Raini is a badass do NOT forget it”. This is our instrumental for this playlist! It starts out lowkey, and builds in power and confidence as it goes, and while the main melody never changes the addition of the timpani and the low brass REALLY brings another layer to the song that makes it driving and intense and I Love it. It’s pretty, yes, but there’s also an underlying power and focus that I feel like reflects Raini very very well. And! It’s an incredible song to picture her casting to! Raini standing, feet planted, arms outstretched, hair and robes whipping around her as she casts spell after spells at enemies that are just out of view, the camera starting low and slowly spinning around and coming up until it’s at eye level and she’s staring straight into it-- YES I’m still obsessed with the imagery of this campaign. Keep scrolling. Thank you for reading. I love you.