#duke ulder

[shannaraisles]

Devil's Dance - for @euryalex

A commission fic for the lovely @euryalex, featuring her Tav, Tara Lunarsong, and Wyll Ravengard - thank you so much for commissioning me, lovely, you were a real pleasure to work with! The banner was created using one of @euryalex's own screenshots.

Devil's Dance

Aevan will be there.

Tara shook her head, chasing away the inevitable suggestion of long-held fear that came with that thought. Aevan Covaldi, her former master and still a high ranking noble of this city ... yes, he would be at the ball tonight, held to honour Enver Gortash’s ascension to the rank of Archduke of Baldur’s Gate. No matter what she had done, or what he thought of her now, he would try his hand to drag her back under his control. She could not suppress a shudder at the prospect of being once more entirely at his mercy. 

A flicker of motion in the reflection, dragging violet eyes from their contemplation of herself to the entrance of the companion who needed her to be on top of this tonight. Wyll looked almost as uncomfortable as she felt, hands twitching at the finery they had procured for the evening. They had been invited, they would play their part. After all, this was the life that awaited him when his own father eventually chose to step down. He would be the next Duke Ravengard of the Gate, as was his birthright. 

The reluctance on his face was covered in an instant as she turned to greet him, replaced with the warm smile that she had grown so accustomed to from him. No day was now complete without at least one of those smiles from Wyll, and he never seemed to tire of bestowing them upon her. This time, however, it was touched with something that drew more heat to her skin, promising a thrill they had flirted with just barely over the weeks they had been travelling together. 

“Tara, you look ...” He spread his hands, that smile deepening at his own loss for words. “Beautiful barely touches the radiance I see before me.”

She laughed, cheeks warming with almost shy delight at his appreciation. 

“It is a wonder what well made clothing can do for even the most dowdy person,” she agreed, a teasing tilt to her head as she took the hand he offered to her. 

“You jest, surely,” he said, holding her arm out so that he could drink in the magnificence of his companion clad in silk and velvet to match the jewel-dark tones of her hair and eyes. “It is not the dress that makes you shine, my lady.”

“And it is not your finery that draws my eyes, but the good heart and soul behind your every word and action,” was her tender response, fingers squeezing his for a brief moment before her smile faded. “Are you ready to do this?”

He held her gaze for an uncomfortable moment, stone eye and living both seeming to share the pain of his reluctant duty with her. 

“In truth, I do not believe I shall ever be ready to be a part of this vipers’ nest we call high society,” he confessed. “But it is my father’s wish - and our own design - that I attend this evening. I am grateful that you will be at my side.”

“You have no idea how much I echo that sentiment.”

“Then, my dearest lady, shall we enter the dragon’s lair together?” Wyll drew her hand to the crook of his arm, laying his palm with warm comfort over her fingers. “I will not leave your side, I swear it.”

Tara let her relief show in her own smile as she curled her hands to his elbow, the two of them stepping from the rooms they had been given to make their way down to the entry hall. The ball was already in full swing, the new Archduke presiding over the celebration of those who knew his purpose and those innocent of it. As his guests, and guests of Duke Ravengard, they should have been downstairs over an hour ago. They could not put it off any longer. 

The grands doors opened, their names announced to the gathering, and all eyes fell upon them. And what did those eyes see? A half-elven sorceress arrayed like a queen, on the arm of the Blade of Frontiers, the devil son of Duke Ravengard. Those same eyes lingered on the horns that curled from Wyll’s head, one the warning flicker of lightning at the fingertips of his companion when she noted too many recoiling in disgust and fear. It did not matter how much Duke Ulder may declare his faith in his son - the transformation visited upon him by Mizora would forever be the first impression he made upon those he met. The nobility could be ruthless if they spotted weakness; Tara curled her fingers tighter to Wyll’s sleeve. They could not show any weakness here. 

“Ah, my guests! At last you grace us with your presence!”

Gortash’s voice cut through the silence, and it seemed as though the room took a breath. 

“My lord.” Wyll bowed, though his hand did not leave Tara’s as she inclined her head to the devious man sat above them. “Our apologies for our tardiness.”

Gortash’s smile was painfully knowing, the tadpoles squirming in their heads as his regard focused on them. 

“No apology is needed, I assure you,” he declared. “Were my companion such a rare jewel, I too would delay sharing her with the world.”

Tara managed to turn her grimace at the implication into a dignified sneer of a smile, glad when Gortash seemed to dismiss them with a wave of his hand, extorting the musicians to play once more. Allowed to accept the newcomers in their midst by their newest leader, the nobles and their warriors and spies turned back to their own scheming and sniping ... all but one. 

She felt his gaze before she found him in the crowd, standing tall, displaying the scars she had left on him with an almost perverted pride. Wyll must have felt her stiffen at his side, drawing her just a little closer into the warmth of his presence, his free hand returning to rest with tenderness over her fingers at his elbow as Aevan Corvaldi moved to intercept them. The man’s eyes settled with snake-like certainty on Tara, and for just a moment, she was thrown back in time, gripped in the vice of memory so tightly she could barely breathe. She remembered the leash settled about her neck, metaphorical in nature but oh, so real for so many years. She remembered the rules, the punishments, the suppression of her very being, cold numbness spreading through her chest ... and felt Wyll’s hand squeeze her own, heard him clear his throat to address the source of her age-old terror with no fear at all. 

“I notice your eyes lingering where they should not,” the Blade of Frontiers said, his shoulders somehow broadening  as he drew himself up, prepared to step between them if necessary. “You are?”

“An old friend.” Aevan’s smile was still as charming as it had always been, even with the steel-sharp edge of fury lingering deep behind his eyes. “You are thriving, I see, Tamara.”

With the numbness of fear fading, Tara looked into those eyes and felt ... nothing. No anger, no disgust ... no fear. Her lips twitched, almost betraying the smile that wanted to show itself as she acknowledged that finally this man had no hold over her. There was the uncomfortable stirring of the tadpole in her mind, telling her that Aevan, too, had been implanted, yet she felt nothing but pity for his state. After all, if she and her party were to find success, he would at last be defeated in every way that mattered to him. He would have to acknowledge that he was just one among many, and as powerless as so many of the souls he had ground beneath his heel over time. 

“No thanks to you, Lord Corvaldi,” she said, her fingers answering Wyll’s squeeze as reassuringly as she could. 

“Oh, come now.” Her former monster laughed his amiable laugh, but the coldness behind his gaze could not be wholly denied. He wanted her even more, now that she had proven she had no need for him. “You and I were very good together. Perhaps we could be again, away from this demonic underling you have acquired in my absence.”

This time, it was Wyll who stiffened at her side, stinging from the implication, and she who calmed him before he could speak in answer, marvelling at her calmness in the face of such blatant attempts at manipulation.

“I think, Lord Corvaldi, you will find that I am better in your absence,” she informed him. “I have no need for underlings when I have companions who choose to stand by me. But, of course, you would not understand that. You have no use for true loyalty, something I am certain the Archduke would confirm. Enjoy your evening.”

She offered him her sweetest smile, turning away with her blood singing in her veins, drawing Wyll away from the darkness of her past and further into the throne that might contain his future. He stepped smoothly with her, but she could feel that he was steaming with anger at the unseemly encounter.

“Easy,” she murmured. “I have been around people like this enough to know that he cannot do anything to me. But he should not have said that about you.”

“He said nothing that others are not thinking,” Wyll sighed in return, lowering his head so only she could hear the regret in his speech. “For all my father’s posturing, they will only ever see me as the devil in their midst.”

“The Devil Duke of Baldur’s Gate does have a certain ring to it,” she mused, trying to lighten the moment for him as the soft cadence of music reached them through the crowd. “Dance with me, dear heart. Let’s show them you are so much more than they seem to think.”

This drew a faint chuckle from his lips, the sense of acceptance there even as he stepped back to bow to her. It was the minuet they had first danced together in camp so many weeks before, steps that came now as easily as breathing to them both. Fingers barely touching as they passed one another, eyes locked on one another even as the crowd dispersed around them, all eyes on the devil and his lady as they promenaded across the floor in perfect time, each one in sync with the other as easily as their heartbeats found a similar rhythm. 

And there, in the gentle swirl of motion and intimacy, was the intrusion of voices, as the tadpoles squirming in their minds gave them glimpses into the judgement of the people watching them. 

... fiendish power to hold over us ... is this beast to be our next duke ... must have sold her soul to him for this favour ... Lord Gortash’s hell hound ... 

Tara saw the words strike Wyll to the core, saw him falter in his steps. She abandoned the dance, stepping close, curling her hands to his cheeks, drawing him down. 

“No,” she whispered, violet eyes burning her fierce denial into his. “You are Wyll Ravengard, Blade of Frontiers, hero of the Sword Coast. You are a good man, no matter the appearance you wear. You do not belong in this nest of vipers.”

WIthout a second thought for how it might look, or who might be offended, she pulled him to her, lips seeking his to still the roiling recriminations in his mind and sweep his thoughts clean of the judgement of others. Her fingers poured deliberately over his jaw, to his neck, gripping the butter-soft velvet of his doublet between his shoulderblades, dragging herself closer, ever closer into his arms as he clung to her. His kiss was almost desperate, needing to believe her, needing to know he was not what all these strangers wanted to see him as. 

“Tara ...” Her name drawn from his lips in a fervent whisper as she gently parted her lips from his, sharing his breath with her as he shuddered in her grasp. “What am I doing here? I cannot be what he wishes of me.”

She smiled, brushing the tip of her nose to his, fully aware that his father, the source of all his insecurities and uncertainties, was watching their every move. Aware that he would know she was responsible for his son’s happiness, even if that happiness meant abandoning the duty the old man kept forcing upon him. 

“Then be what you wish to be,” she whispered back to him. “Stay with me. Let’s see what we can become together.”

She felt a second shudder tremble through him, taking with it the burden of not knowing if he could walk away from the life that had been proscribed for him since birth. Of course he could walk away; so long as she walked at his side, he could do anything. And here she was, promising she would walk that path with him. 

His lips parted, curving into broad grin as he pressed a swift kiss to her mouth, drawing his courage.

“Be ready, my dear one.”

Then he turned to the company, who stared at the two of them as though they had lost their minds, as though their little display of fierce devotion was the very height of offence. 

“My lords, my ladies, and company all,” he announced. “I thank you for your cold indifference and unfeeling judgement. Rest assured, there will be no Devil Duke of the Gate. I have no desire to be a part of this company of thieves and villains. Please, make merry while you can. Your time is growing short.”

With a flourishing bow, he wrapped his arm about Tara’s waist. She drew the symbol in the air, mouthed the words, and suddenly they stood at the doors through which they had entered, a blast of force from his hand blowing them open with a careless gesture. They turned back to the crowd for a last bow, each noting the fury on the face of the Archduke and the quiet pride in the respectful nod from Duke Ulder before dismissing them all as easily as they themselves had been dismissed. Gortash’s opinion meant nothing to them, but the Duke’s smile was all the approval Wyll needed. Tara’s smile was heartfelt as she nodded back to him, turning to her Blade once more. 

And, arm in arm, the Blade of Frontiers and the Lily of the Valley stepped out from beneath the expectations of others, into a world of their own making.

[shewolfofvilnius]

PSA: Know how Mizora sticks around your Act 3 camp and refuses to leave? Know how Mizora tries to get Wyll's dad blown to bits by spiders if you refuse Wyll's contract extension? Know how she's ruined Wyll's life for 7 years and been a pain for Karlach and for everyone else too?

Flesh to Stone. Sticks even through teleport, and if she fails all three CON saves, it is PERMANENT unless you use Basilisk Oil on her.

This way she can never hurt anyone else again (at least for a while) NOR can ruin the next few months for my fiancé Wyll and I.

Enjoy being a permanent fixture of the Elfsong Tavern, arsehole. Can't KILL her, but technically this doesn't qualify as harm. :)

(edit 2: Love that this is my most popular thing. Still works as of Hotfix 19. Please NEVER remove this Larian)

[a2zillustration]

THE AUDACITY.

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[blighted-elf]

Baldur's Gate 3 - Wyllvember Day 7 - Father

[fallen-goldfishcracker]

Still on my Ulder & Wyll bullshit but like

I keep thinking of Ulder Ravenguard, sending away his only son at seventeen, and years later hearing of a hero with a fine rapier and mismatched, kind eyes and manners from a storybook, and thinking, demanding surely not. that cannot be my son. my son is a devil's servant. it cannot be. i have no son.

and then after seven long years meeting Wyll again, at Wrym's Rock through a mindflayer's thrall, and feeling something like relief, not at seeing him but at this cold surety that this boy, this man, this hero of the frontiers could not be his son, because his son was not this tall and old and sure-footed, and did not have curling horns and a devil red eye, and the rumors must be wrong, and this Blade must be a stranger.

And then Wyll looks at him, with such kind eyes- his mother's eyes still, even devil-tainted- and calls him "father", and he knows, he knows, and his son is here, so much older and wearier and stronger, too, and he's a hero and a man and by gods he's a monster and by gods he's his son.

[ion-mailbox]

Day 3: First Dance.

I love wyll's romance, especially his dance, when I was a gnome. It's just peak. He's also peak bard romance material.

[amysgiantbees]

I LOVE Wyll and I understand why they did the rewrites I think he's a wonderful character and wouldn't trade him for his EA counterpart. However, since they chose to rewrite him the lack of material does a disservice to his character.

I love Gale and Astarion and would not change their stories for the world but they aren't really integral to the main plot. Wyll is though. Yet Astarion especially has SO much dialogue he comments on EVERYTHING and Wyll barely has anything to say even on the stuff that's important to him, like Gortash's coronation. It's called Baulder's Gate 3 yet the son of a BG duke has almost nothing to say. He's a monster hunter and we're fighting mind-flayers. There's rarely an instance where you couldn't come up with something for him to say.

It's just so heart braking that Theo, his voice actor, is so passionate about and loved doing his romance scenes so much but Wyll has the least amount of hours dedicated to it.

Scenes I would have liked:

Wyll talking to a child or an innocent post Karlach and he either gets hugged and gets to be surprised that people still see him as heroic. Or he's a bit too smug about it or guilty if he killed Karlach.

Wyll meeting up with a member of the flaming fist he used to know in Act 3- maybe they were trainees together when they were teens - and getting to talk about the old days like Karlach and her friend.

Wyll getting to be really surprised Florrick still wants his help in Moonrise after he's been transformed and she puts 2 and 2 together at his reaction and asks if this is why he left Balder's Gate and he tells her that his father asked him to leave. Florrick can agree or disagree depending on whether Wyll is on a good route and become a pseudo parental/familial figure.

The companions dialogue reaction to him braking his pact is fixed so everyone is more like how they react to Shadowheart killing her parents and aren't instead jumping down his throat like he's a power hungry maniac. It's clearly leftovers from EA Wyll when he was more power hungry but it throws his whole character off because clearly this version doesn't struggle with selflessness, he is nothing but! He needs to put himself first over his dad for once in his life. Like the only one I even kind of like is Halsin's dialogue about how a plant sometimes need to strangle a tree to find it's own light. I'm wondering if that isn't something to do with Halsin being expanded upon later in development so it was easier to match it to the new Wyll. Like Wyll damning himself for eternity is satisfying if he's been selfish, but at present it's just him risking himself again and not even for someone we know yet (or *spoilers* someone useful like all the dragon tip does is give us a bit more info about the Emperor and give Wyll some confidence(but that's less Ravenguard's fault and more the writers for not giving Wyll a proper Act 3 quest)).

I think it's VERY bold of Ravengaurd to say he WILL make it up to Wyll. Not that he'll try but that he knows he can make it up to him. Despite throwing out the sweetest teen on earth even though he was clearly trying to tell him something. Despite likely hearing about the Blade of Fronteir's exploits and never reaching out. Even after being rescued by him to just be still so full of bitterness. Despite all his failings as a father and always putting his reputation and Baulder's Gate above his son he really thinks it'll all be water under the bridge soon. So, I would like it if your TAV was able to challenge this assumption.

I would like it rewritten so Wyll actually has it out with his Dad instead of tadpoling him what has happened post rescue. Let them actually talk finally. Wyll lacks so much agency and could really use a dramatic moment like everyone else gets in Act 3 to shine.

I would love if your approval is high enough or you're romancing him for you to be able to see his walls come down once. I think it would be so powerful if after this whole journey he's been so composed and careful and then whatever happens with the contract in Act 3 he lets you see how he really feels for once. Like you still have your talk and he's all composed and tells you he just needs some time. However, later that night when you've gone for a long rest you catch him on the roof of the Elfsong or something. He could be crying, or praying to Tyr to save his father, or screaming, summoning dark tendrils of magic and yelling about how he resents his power.

Also Florrick should not show up if you break the contract unless the Duke is dead. It screws up Mizora's dialogue and brakes it a bit. Like if Florrick didn't show up till after you killed Orin that would probably work because if you kill Orin first you probably aren't going to kill Gortash or go down to the Iron Throne. Or at least give it a long rest or two before she shows up.

There's also just dialogue that does not fit that's leftovers from EA I believe. Like after braking the pact TAV being able to tell Wyll he shouldn't be a duke because he's too power hungry. Or even the companion dialogue where Wyll is a bit of a playboy and flirts with Lazel and then Shadowheart immediately afterwards - it totally goes against his hopeless romantic nature. Not that I want them to take even more content away from him though.

[robotbeetle]

Couldnt be bothered to take my drawing tablet out but i needed to scrawl my thoughts so have these rough sketches for an au where Wyll is an actual half-devil but Grand Duke Ravengard is still his father. I imagine the story behind that gets real messy and I’m so here for it.

At first it started off as a joke role-swap au where Wyll is the pact maker instead of the warlock but because Wyll isn’t Wyll without his good-nature, he’d be a chaotic good cambion who’d specifically pact with evil aligned characters to force them to do good as their patron. Then I stopped to think about the ramifications behind Wyll being a half-devil and realized how much that would solidify and expand his daddy issues. Also, Wyll with more devilish features would be hot.

[leighistired]

You know what would be crazy?

If when Wyll tells the player about how he met Mizora, we got to see it. The Wyll we see is the grown man in front of us but with two eyes and no horns. We don’t think anything of it, 16 is close enough to 23 that it doesn’t really make sense to change it that much, right?

But if you rescue Duke Ulder and choose to make him see Wyll’s memories, we saw it from his father’s perspective. This Wyll looks younger than 16, but it’s just how Ulder remembers him. Maybe the fight looks more graphic or Mizora looks more menacing, too.

Something, something, we are all still children in the eyes of our parents.

[bg3smash-or-pass]

[shewolfofvilnius]

If you talk to him at Gortash' coronation with Wyll - the tadpoled Ulder Ravengard is happier to see Wyll (x1000) than he is once WE FREE HIM from the absolute, and it honestly might be the saddest thing in the entire game.

Larian please let me smack Ulder Ravengard. Just once.

(screenshots of after from a youtube bc i haven't gotten there yet w my character)

[a2zillustration]

This is the coolest thing anyone's told us all week.

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[maegalkarven]

This thing with the suggestion of Ulder being just fine with Durge and Wyll dating still nags at me.

Like, they are the Bhaalspawn. For every Abdel Adrian there are ten Orins. They are by default bad news.

Jaheira was Abdel's close friend and companion and her reaction to finding Durge is a Bhaalspawn is to guard them with blades. THIS is the sane reaction.

I rather believe Ulder Ravengard is a sane person.

You can not convince me Ulder Ravengard, a man who worked alongside a good man and saw even the BEST of Bhaalspawns struggle with his parentage, saw Durge and Wyll together and was like "fine by me."

It's unclear if Abdel died fighting Viekang OR turned into Slayer.

The possibility is here, for they do not know the truth.

Look me in the eyes and tell me Ulder Ravengard, the man who knew Abdel better than many, did not lie in his bed with no sleep at vicinity wondering what was Abdel's end - his brother's blade or the blades of the very men he lead.

Tell me Ulder was not confronted by the fact what his FRIEND might have succumbed to his unholy nature at last.

On good days he strongly believed Abdel stayed true to himself. But on bad days? Doubts had to creep in.

And then his son comes back. As a devil. And introduces another bhaalspawn, someone who should not even exist, but somehow does.

And this Bhaalspawn is...was involved in the things currently destroying his beloved city.

And said Bhaalspawn killed innocent girl and tried to murder his son. They tried to murder his only son, someone Ulder thought of every day ever since fate strayed his hand and he had to exile Wyll for the wellbeing of the people.

A Bhaalspawn actively haunted by their father.

A Bhaalspawn who was working together with Enver fucking Gortash.

Does memory loss excuse anything? Does it change the horrors this spawn brought? I sure don't think so.

And I don't think anyone knows better what a tickling bomb Bhaalspawn is than someone who knew a Bhaalspawn closely. There is no "safe" Bhaalspawn.

And I believe Ulder would want his son to be safe and not dealing with a murderous amnesiac Wyll decided he is in love with.

[deer-with-a-stick]

Wait that's actually hilarious. Wyll's dad gets thrown into Hell briefly, put into a catatonic state by a demon lord, gets back miraculously, gets kidnapped, gets infected with a tadpole, forced to work for Gortash, and then finds out that his son became a devil as well as the fact that there's an elder brain with power verging on a god's trying to take over the world. Dude can't get a break.

[wyllpilled]

absolutely not okay with the description on duke ravengards longsword

[chronurgy]

Every so often I think about the ways I thought wyll's quest was going to go at the end of act 1/early act 2