#doing a playthrough where i romance karlach rn

[ionomycin]

All the best boy hugs for Karlach

[galedekarios]

I pretty much consider you the expert in all things Gale so what is the current state of play with his romance route in terms of the bugs, scenes triggering? I really wanted to romance him as a 'what if' route but this stupid recent bug ruined my main first run where they were just friends with that damn stargazing bug we all keep getting where I had exceptional approval as non-romance and he said him and my Tav weren't close which really disappointed me as I consider their friendship just as important as any romance and that's been ruined for me now for my first run. Not to mention him telling Tav off for taking Raphael's offer before he had even offered. As it currently is, would you recommend holding off starting a Gale romance run for now and waiting for fixes or at the moment can decent progress be made? I really want to do it but I'm worried that nothing is going to trigger now. Thank you for your help either way! So disappointed all this messing around with him is causing issues in so many areas.

first of all i'm so sorry you had to wait so long, anon! i really hope you'll see this message. second, thank you for trusting me with this. it took a while to test because i had to nuke my old playthrough. it was so extremely bugged.

but to the good news.

i am happy to report that the gale romance is working again:

HOWEVER: i had to do jump through hoops to get it. i'm rn only using hirelings, in addition to (obvs) gale. i suspected the game is still having big problems with romance flags and it seems i was right. in my previous save i was close to several other companions like wyll, shadowheart, lae, halsin, etc., even though i didn't pursue them as alton. but they were still on high approval. it absolutely sucks that you have to completely avoid recruiting or talking to other companions to correctly trigger a romance scene at the moment.

the game is so extremely quick to assume that you are in a relationship after asking basic questions (halsin and karlach, for instance).

also sad to report that there's still no sign of the purple blanket that larian said was put into the game like, what? one patch and two hotfixes ago or something.

so all in all, i would say go for it if you can stomach playing with only hirelings alongside your chosen li. if you do want to take literally anyone else along and live for party dynamics then i would advise you to wait until larian gets a handle on things.

[irradiatedsnakes]

hey i just wanted to drop a note to say that i adore your art so much. your style is so round and cosy and your designs are so expressive, and your poses have such a wonderful “weight” to them if that makes sense? just really nicely grounded, not floaty, like i can almost feel the actual real weightiness to the droop of penny’s tentacles in karlach’s hands, or the force behind a very snuggly hug. that’s the best i can explain it lol but yeah it’s just really nice to look at!

also i love that you had your tav unabashedly become a mind flayer, which i don’t think nearly enough people commit to in the player base, and i love that shes still with karlach anyway, it’s so sweet and very refreshing. (oh and i LOVE that your durge is a kobold omg, that is just so delightful and honestly inspired and must have been such a fun playthrough)

anyway yeah i just really enjoy your art and your unique ideas in general and i wanted to thank you for sharing both!

SOBBING!!! this is such a wonderful sweet comment, thank you so much!! that sort of organic, weighty quality is something i really enjoy in art and that i have a lot of fun playing with myself, so i'm very glad to hear it's coming across well to you! especially since you're singling out poses where multiple characters are interacting- that's always something i've had difficulty with, so it's very nice to hear that :]

yesss, penny eventually becoming a mind flayer is something i was set on before i even knew for sure that it was an option- let it never be said that i'm not a sucker for people becoming monsters. and i agree, i would love to see more illithid!tav stuff around- there's so much neat area there to explore! i'm also allllways a sucker for "a kind/good-aligned character becomes a monster and must learn to deal with their monstrous urges/nature while trying to stay true to themself but still in a very real sense becoming someone/thing different". always

i really enjoy the fic "thy people shall be my people" by leomona on ao3 about this- it's post-canon, a mind flayer tav and astarion navigating the whole Seven Thousand Vampire Spawn In The Underdark situation. its from tavs perspective, and does the perspective of a mind flayer in a super interesting and fun way.

no shade to the people who love the emperor (i love it too! fantastic character makes me want to gnaw my arm off) but i do wish more people played around with illithid!tav outside of the context of emp/tav.. like idk i find the concept of a tav that freed orpheus and became an illithid to wield the netherstones really really interesting and graauaag!!h. i have plenty of thoughts on penny's story, her relationship with the emperor leading up to the climax of the story, and her post-ceremorphosis but writing is shrimply not my forte. we'll see if i end up doing more stuff with that

(& EHEHE i love oth. he's just a little guy they're just a little birthday boyyyy. i haven't finished his playthrough yet- still on the latter half of act 3 (and a little burnt out on act 3 rn since i just finished up pennybun's second playthrough. we'll finish oth at some point, though, i still have a final romance scene to get to with wyll.). i'm so glad for the fantastical multiverse mod making playing as a kobold possible- i'm a furry so any more options for animalistic-looking species is a win for me. and i love the idea of bhaal's chosen being a 3-foot tall lyre-playing lizard. they're also just very fun to watch in cutscenes and stuff when the cutscenes aren't breaking. also when they are breaking)

but yes thank you so much this message really made me smile :]

[catgirlsp0ck]

i am so hyperfixated on bg3 rn it's insane. but anyway i want to do so many playthroughs bc i want to play every origin character and also romance every character as dark urge (bc i love that scene in act 2 you get for resisting the urge and since i love every companion, i want to see that scene with all of them at least once) so i thought i'd share what playthroughs i want to do and who im gonna romance for that playthrough ! :))

Gale Origin - Romance Karlach (in progress)

Shadowheart Origin - Romance Lae'zel (in progress)

Wyll Origin - Romance Astarion (in progress)

Astarion Origin - Romance Wyll (in progress)

Karlach Origin - Romance Minthara (not started)

Lae'zel Origin - Romance Shadowheart (not started)

and then for dark urge, i want to romance every companion at least once, though for some characters i'll do it twice. like, shadowheart, astarion and lae'zel i will romance twice bc i want to do one good playthrough and one bad for each since they all have like two different paths you can take (like dark justiciar shadowheart/ turned away from shar shadowheart). i've only beaten the game once so far, and it was on my second playthrough. i played dark urge and romanced gale. it's funny bc i was in act 3 for my first save and was like "hey i might as well start dark urge since i've almost beat this regular playthrough" (i was romancing karlach btw,, i love her sm) but then i started my dark urge save and i though that dark urge was so much more fun that i completely forgot about my other save lol. now, when i make a custom character i only play as dark urge bc i just prefer it overall to the tav playthrough. so yeah it's pretty ambitious of me to plan all these different playthroughs when i've literally only beaten the game once lmao but im in act 3 for wyll origin, astarion origin and a dark urge playthrough where im romancing minthara (that one is on hold until her romance is fixed tho) and im in act 2 for another dark urge gale romance (i wasn't going to romance him again so soon but im literally obsessed lmao) and then im in act 1 for shadowheart origin, gale origin and dark urge but i haven't decided who to romance yet (im doing a no armor challenge run lol).

i would love to know if anyone else is planning on playing an origin character and who you're gonna romance ! :D

[gidianthe]

jaz - first ever tav & finished the game with her. my cinnamon apple. oath of ancients paladin married to shadowheart

nav - wild magic barbarian i made for a multiplayer game with gwen that we havent gone back to in like a month. whoops. she and laezel are girl yaoing it up in heaven

sav - assassin rogue/gloomstalker durge who murder kills so good like is so fucking good at it but also hates the perverted joy they get whenever they spill blood so theyre hanging onto that "resist the urge" journal entry with their fingernails. romancing shaddy

dawn - selunite cleric / oath of devotion paladin. romancing shadowheart obviously. literally just a good boy and faerun's most princely handsome butch and thats her entire job and shes doing it great. she's ken

taz - frenzy barbarian literally been running on adrenaline nonstop since the nautiloid crashed she's just smashing her way through everything including that gith pu-*the sniper*

genuinely cannot remember her name rn and bg3 keeps crashing when i try to launch it again - fighter dark urge. going to be evil-leaning but more in an uncaring self preserving practicality way of siding with the more powerful in any situation. enjoying the violence sure but its more abount keeping herself alive so that she can find out what happened to her and tear apart the person who fucked her over. hence her helping minthara. thats definitely the only reason

ash - bhaal's prettiest princess is having the worst fucking time of her life. tiefling druid of spores so she's getting bullied from both sides in act 1. everywhere she goes its like i can hear her just saying "this sucks i hate this". shes already so sick and tired of this adventure but the thing keeping her going is sneaking glances at karlach outta the corner of her eye every 5 seconds

don - this guy is a remake of a previous durge guy that i made bc the previous durge guy i suddenly realized looked far too much like the american biblical jesus christ from the bible and i had to get rid of him. he's gonna romance astarion bc ive heard so much about durge/astarion that i gotta. oh and an oathbreaker paladin

sora - dark urge monk. honestly half my reason for this is my friend mentioned a dragonborn monk tav he has and i in my head was like fuck now i wanna do one. ive been wanting to start a monk playthrough for a while now anyway and now i have her :l laezel gets to kiss a red dragon now <3

ta'lia - draconic sorcerer gith cause fucking of course you gotta do one. idk where im even going with her other than kissing laezel

jinx - ex-angsty bard/fighter multiclass. based off a dnd oc i had 3 years ago but specifically my post-scene-era version of jinx. prolly gonna romance karlach cause god knows she loves a tough woman

jace - i dont have much to say abt this guy. he's starting as a sorcerer but he's gonna be my attempt at a jack of all trades character. might make him romance gale just for the sorcerer wizard dynamic and also theyre both disaster human guys

[name unknown] - this little fucker is a rogue bhaalist military asset and a danger to public safety. gortash hsd deployed reaper drones equipped with missiles to take her out. this pink tiefling bard has zero regard for human life and in fact takes extremely unnecessary pleasure in gutting ripping tearing bloody murder. she's so fucking nasty and evil in a silly way

im gonna get a screenshot of all my tavs and durges in one post