#for a tav to have a dark urge as a companion

[kittlesandbugs]

BG3: Little Hero Characters: My Dark Urge, Nox & @sidestepping's bard TAV Hero (ty for letting me play around with her 😘) Warnings: None Word Count: 534 Summary: Just a little chat between Nox and Hero in the aftermath of a certain Bard's untimely demise...

She sits by the fire, face placid, dancing light turning pretty brown eyes amber. But there's a subtle tension in her spine, a pensive pout upturning the bow of her lips. Concern about you, you suspect. You walk up behind her, soft grass and troubled thoughts muffling the leather soles of your shoes to her sharp ears. 

"Are you afraid, little Hero?" 

She startles with a swear, more crass than the usual poetry and insults that fall from her well-tuned tongue. Your meaty hand steadies her shoulder before she can slide off the log. You hadn't intended to sneak so quietly, but you can't say her reaction doesn't give you some perverse bit of amusement. 

"Of what?" she bites back and bristles like a cornered kitten, not-so-subtlety inching away as you step over the log and settle down beside her. Even seated, you dwarf her petite form. 

"Me," you say simply. Your hands are empty, but you both know you'd need no weapon to end her fragile life. 

To her credit, she retreats no further. Her lips twist in a grimace, but the retort dies before it can leave her lips. She schools herself back into passivity, mostly. There's an agitated twitch in the tips of her pointed ears. 

"I don't have to play at night if you don't like it," she says, a placating simper in her tone and large hound brown eyes. 

You shake your head and chuckle, low and deep in your throat. You look down at your pale hands, long clean now of the tiefling bard's warm sweet lifeblood. "I don't think it was the lute that triggered it."

"Oh…" She seems surprised at that, and you feel her interest sharpen into a blade despite her dulcet gaze. You think she might feel safer now, the similarity to your victim's career no longer spelling her endangerment. "What did, then? Why did you kill Alfira?" 

In your lap, your hands flex as you try to think. But your memory between crawling into your bedroll the night before and waking soaked in a bloodbath is as blank as a fresh sheaf of parchment. You shake your head again, throbbing with a dull headache for the effort. "I honestly don't know. I wish I did."

"Does it trouble you? What you did?" 

"No," you sigh, forthright in your admission. You massage your aching temples, hoping for some relief from your near constant headache. "It troubles me that I don't know why I did it." It also troubles you have no memory to savor, but it's clear no one else feels the same joy you do about spilling blood. Some perversion of your torrid forgotten past, no doubt, and best kept to yourself. 

"Do you think it will happen again?" she asks, curious but cautious. Hopeful. You can feel her weighing if your risk is worth your protection. 

"I hope not. But I'm sure whoever is on watch will be watching me as well now." You huff an amused breath, almost certain few of them could even stop you if you wanted to do them harm. "I'd prefer there are no repeat occurrences myself."

Not any that you don't choose to commit, at least. 

[mittthrawnuruodo]

:: Ezolhrin | The Dark Urge ::

[shaykai]

Tossing around the idea of Good Timeline Vat’il having a panic attack after not murdering Isobel

[devils-bite]

this gives very much Gortash meeting Durge after their memory loss in Baldur’s Gate…

[hiighborg]

Made kissing discord emojis for my partner @smeriic :]

gonna make more tavs and all the companions when I get more time hopefully

[avelera]

I went back to my first truly harrowingly Evil Dark Urge playthrough to grab some screenshots and... got sucked back into playing lol. But the thing is, the most evilest ending has no epilogue and the "reject Bhaal at the last minute instead of at the temple" epilogue is ALSO fascinating and gut-wrenching and harrowing but what I really missed from both runs was getting to see the fruits of her egging everyone on to be their worst possible self, so...

I went back and decided to play it a little differently. I gave Aylin to Ketheric the first time (and then to Larroakan when we defeated him but she was seriously side-eying my evil Durge after, rightfully so, and Durge couldn't leave a powerful threat like that lying around obvs), which sadly loses you Shadowheart so this time I'm going with Dark Justiciar Shadowheart.

I was a little stumped on the RP for it at first, because Zenobia (my Dark Urge) was all about, "Jumping right back into the Dead Three plot from the moment she got even a smidge of memory back," which lent to her siding with Ketheric loyally and basically working with the bad guys at almost every opportunity (except for the very beginning where she was wrong-footed and out of her element so she built up allies by helping the tieflings while she got the lay of the land. She's a big believer in long-term pay off over short-term murderizing. Also, the sadistic pay-off for betrayal is so much greater than that of simply attacking right away.)

But then I decided... heck, let's groundhog day it. Let's go with the time loop or foreknowledge plot, everything I know, my Durge knows now.

Say she had a vision, or was reborn to this moment. She saw all the variations of what's to come. Saw what happens if she sides with her father. Sees what happens if she betrays him at the last moment to destroy the brain, which was a humiliation piled upon humiliation despite her long and faithful years of service.

And she is pissed.

It's starts when she gets chewed out for giving Isobel to Ketheric. She knows she's going to kill the priestess later but for now, this is a valuable tool in showing her trustworthiness to Ketheric, and Bhaal is mad at her?? Because she decided to delay her gratification in pursuit of the larger goal?? And then, then, Bhaal has the audacity to force her to try to kill her friend and former lover, Astarion, as punishment for using her intelligence to pursue the larger goal of the Dead Three plot with some level of cunning and forethought?

She was fucking outraged. Here she's been Bhaal's faithful child, chosen, general, and mortal mastermind for years and her father can't even trust her enough to allow her to exercise the bare minimum of strategy?

And from there, as I see it, Zenobia sees more and more instances of Bhaal just not fucking trusting her with carrying out this plot, which she knows in another lifetime she pulled of spectacularly, but which offered an empty, hollow victory of handing dancing puppets over to Bhaal, ruling in his name instead of her own.

And then, then while confronting Ketheric, Ketheric admits he always planned to betray his allies.

Oh she is seeing red now. Granted, all the Dead Three chosen were planning to betray each other, that's probably a given, except... Gortash wasn't. Gortash was faithful to the end if she was faithful to him. Minthara is faithful to the end. Her companions were.

So it's less that her new chance at life is making her "good" and more that it's showing her the valuable allies she tossed away, the more interesting world she could reside in, in favor of creating a world of mindless murder targets for her equally mindless, idiot father Bhaal. What an imbecile. What an insult that he doesn't give her the barest modicum of trust. What an insult that Ketheric bald-faced tells her that he would throw all of this aside for his own ends, because he's following his own idiot god.

Zenobia is seeing absolute red. Her plan still remains. She will help Gale ascend to godhood and leave the last of his soft-hearted scruples behind. She will help her former lover and friend, perhaps her first true friend, Astarion destroy his master and rise to become a powerful ally. She will deny her lover Minthara the easy win of a kingdom of thralls in favor of the more challenging but satisfying bloody return to the Underdark together. She will aid Shadowheart in becoming a Dark Justiciar. She will tear down each of Lae'zel's gods one by one, from helping to reveal Vlaakith's faithlessness to showing her even Orpheus can become what he despises most, a mindflayer. But now it is not to show them the supremacy of Bhaal but to show them they should cast down all gods. And this time, she will not hold herself separate, no, she will cast Bhaal from her life as well to pursue her own bloody ambitions in a world of true adversaries, not one populated by mindless thralls as he directed her but did not trust her to execute according to her own vision.

[anonymouscreampuff]

talk about a mood killer

[kaldurrr]

thank you @huyandere for taking my commission!

everyday i am making these two kiss in my head

[wyllzel]

5hrs into durge run... it's so funny haha it feels like bg3 fanfiction compared to the tav run??? like a bg3 "what do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash" au lol 💀

[shadow-ren]

So there are two specific BG3 characters of all my saves that I headcannon to interact in the whole story. They are both there in the story; while different versions can go depending on choices each take.

Evette and Estrella.

More details under cut because it is a lot of words and spoilers of the Dark Urge path, regular game spoilers and possible easter eggs(?).

Evette = Tav

Estrella = Dark Urge

In the game driven story, the reason why Tav does not appear is because the Dark Urge killed them before the game started if playing the Dark Urge origin and the reason why the Dark Urge does not appear(living) in the game if playing Tav is because they are killed by Orin, then displayed within the Bhaal Temple (you can find the corpse of an unnamed bhaalspawn and default dark urge origin).

In my headcanon version, you can play either or of them and gain the other as a companion and it is important that it is these two particularly. Estrella "meets" Evette during the raid of the adventurers that would originally kill Evette(Tav), but she is spared by Estrella(The Dark Urge). Estrella makes sure she is spared and keeps personal tabs on the girl.

During the whole time, the plot is going on and one thing leads to another, Estrella is betrayed by Orin like usual, but the truth of the matter- she planned that. Estrella played Orin's betrayal and truly, antagonized her blood kin to do it for a long time.

The elder brain and Estrella spoke to each other quite a bit, discussing matters and plans, but Estrella decided to gamble. Estrella made a bet with the elder brain that if somehow it fell apart, why not give another portion a chance? The brain gets to decided what it meant. That was all that was discussed - a very vague gamble.

We know what the brain ended up doing, a fall back plan when Estrella was out of the picture (that she planned mind you). Evette was Estrella's gamble. Why though? It was a random adventurer that Estrella came across by chance.... right?

Who knows. Either way, Estrella made a gamble about Evette, for Evette to go to the brain to unravel all her hard work. Why? Only Estrella really knows, but how can she when she wakes not knowing anything but her name?

And a strange obsession with watching this random adventurer she meets on this ship.

[tambutt]

WHEN DOES THIS GAME END????

[cultycatlady]

Answering this with Rova, my best boy. May answer in the future with other Tavs who knows

Astarion: easily. The way I have him built is as a ranged fighter. The moment Rova gets into melee with his truly ungodly amount of movement (base 9m+4.5m from unarmored defense+3m from mobile+3m from the momentum helmet for a total of 20.5m) Astarion is getting stunned so fast bro has no con save. From there just flurry of blows and more stunning strike, and if Astarion tries to run away he has Sentinel

Karlach: Imma go with probably not on this one. She's got so many hit points and he does Not. She's also got a pretty beefy con save so stunning probably isn't gonna work very well on her. If Rova can duck and stay out of prolonged melee (not a good place for him), he might survive, but I don't think he'd win

Lae'zel: maybe. He'd probably be able to make a good run of running in, throwing stunning strikes, then running away with mobile not provoking aoo. If he gets properly caught by her he's probably boned with that d8 hit die, but he does have some four elements stuff for that to maybe not happen.

Gale: absolutely. Gale only has a decent con save when it's concentration checks, he's getting stunned and punched to death so fast, if he's lucky he'll get a spell off before it happens. Even if he can teleport away, Rova can fly with monk bullshit to that won't work for very long. Maybe Gale can survive with greater invisibility and sniping Rova

Shadowheart: again probably pretty well. Her con isn't that great, she's getting stunned and punched. Most of her spells and stuff are either attack rolls against Rova's fairly high AC, or dex and wisdom saves that Rova is pretty good at.

Wyll: once again with the mid con saves. He's getting stunned and punched. Wyll is a ranged guy, and there is no way he is outrunning Rova for very long. And once again, teleporting probably won't work since Rova can fly

Fun Tav Ask!

Which companion(s) could your Tav take in a fight? Which companion(s) would totally kick your Tav’s butt?

[jeeaark]

How Tav recruits Dark Urge if he were in the game and was a companion character

✨Guess who finally completed their durge run? ✨ I had fun

Now I can properly answer this question! Playing with the idea of what if there was a very good reason why there was no opportunity to recruit The Dark Urge as a companion character (Dude would've sped off to do a solo run) and then have Greygold accidentally fix that problem.

Else Greygold recruiting The Dark Urge is nothing new. The real concern is trying to keep The Dark Urge in Greygold's party. For better and for worse.

[margonite-seer]

This might be one of the most heartbreaking Astarion moments in the entire game.

If you play Dark Urge, eventually, in late Act 3, Tav gets to try to get rid of the urges for good, or, embrace them further. There is a possible outcome where neither of these happen: instead, Tav becomes an outcast cursed to be a murder beast forever, never to be able to get rid of the hunger.

Non-Ascended Astarion's reaction to it is... well... My heart broke in a million pieces, let's say. Because of Neil's amazing acting, as usual, I felt like listening to the conversation is a must. That's why I had to attach the video, too.

But these specific small moments are breaking me more than others.

The subtle but visible drop of his shoulders. He feels so sad and defeated for Tav.

...And this line? Definitely the most tragically poetic/romantic I've ever heard him.

He is so sure he will never love again after Tav, let alone find someone like them.

This has all but confirmed my personal headcanon that unless something tragic happens, Tav and Astarion will stay together for hundreds of years. EDIT:

It's actually so much worse in the ending of the game...

I finished the game on this save path (I'll never consider it canon for my lovely boys and I deleted it after I finished recording all dialogue paths) and the Urges overwhelm Tav the minute the tadpole is gone, but only after Astarion runs to hide from the sun.

Tav has to either stab themselves to death immediately (right in front of other companions) to not become a mindless murderer. If they take merely a moment to plan their future, whatever it is, they get possessed by Bhaal right at the docks. Red glowy eyes, "Orin's" dagger spawning in their hand out of nowhere, all sanity and will gone. And them walking into the city with the dagger in hand is how the game ends.

Tav and Astarion never get their last day together. Astarion running away from the sun is the last time they see each other. No last goodbye, no last celebration, not even an hour of victory bliss and peace.

In the video above, Astarion sounds like he hopes to have at least a few months with Tav, maybe. At least a few days of enjoying the complete freedom together.

In the end, he never got any time with them.

[paarthursass]

Baldur's Gate 3 Companion!Tav Ask List

What if your Tav was a recruitable companion, instead of the main character? (contains major spoilers for the game, and for some dark urge runs as well)

General

Where can your Tav be recruited?  Are they first encountered on the Nautiloid, or in the Nautiloid crash region?  Or are they not recruitable until a later act?

Do the other companions have special comments or reactions upon recruiting your Tav?

Does your Tav have any comments or advice when you recruit other companions?

What sort of general actions raise or lower their approval?

Are there any instances where your Tav can permanently leave the party, depending on player character actions?

Do they have any secrets that can be revealed?  What are the prerequisites for this secret coming to light?

Do they have their own personal quest that spans the course of the game?  Can it take different branching paths depending on the choices the Player Character makes?

What do they say when the Player Character asks them to stay in camp?  How about when the Player Character asks them to come adventuring again?

Does your Tav have any escalating conflicts with one of the other companions, like Lae’zel and Shadowheart’s knife-fight?

Are there any unique NPCs associated with your Tav that can show up during the course of the game?

Are there any moments in the game that trigger unique dialogue for your character? (Like Gale’s anecdote about the barfight after you save the goblin prisoner) 

Story Specific

How does your Tav advise the player character when it comes to the Dream Visitor?

How do they advise the player character on Raphael?

How do they react to Astarion biting the Player Character?

How do they react to the Player Character letting Abdirak whip them?

How do they react to the Player Character taking their first tadpole power?

Will they stay with the Player Character regardless of siding with the goblins or the tieflings, or is it possible for them to leave the party permanently?

What can they be found doing at the tiefling/goblin party?

Do they have comments on who the Player Character chooses to spend the night with? 

Do they have unique dialogue if the Player Character lets them die when they steal the Blood of Lathander?

How do they react if the PC licks the dead spider in the Gauntlet of Shar?

What do they say if the PC tries to force them to go up on stage with Dribbles the Clown?

Is it possible for your Tav to be kidnapped and replaced by Orin?  How is Orin's deception revealed?  How do they react to the PC rescuing them in the Temple of Bhaal?

How do they react to the PC either allowing Astarion to ascend or convincing him to spare the 7000 spawn?

How does Tav react to the PC becoming a mind flayer?  Can they offer to become one themselves?  Does their reaction change if they’re romanced? 

How do they react when the Dark Urge first reveals their amnesia and murderous thoughts to them?

How do they react to the Dark Urge killing Alfira?

If romanced, how do they react to the Dark Urge trying to kill them in Act 2?

Romance

Is your Tav a romanceable character?  Are there any specific requirements to romancing them?

Does your Tav need to be flirted with to start the romance, or will they approach the PC themselves if approval is high enough?

Are they a polyamorous or a monogamous option?

Do they have a special romance scene at the tiefling/goblin party?

Does the romance have different branching paths, or just one route to take?

How do they react to the player character breaking up with them, or choosing another character over them?

What questions can Zethino ask the PC about Tav in the Love Test? 

If they’re poly, do they have a reaction to the PC engaging in a relationship with Halsin?

How do they react if the PC has sex with Mizora? The Emperor?  Haarlep?

Will they join in with the PC and the Drow Twins, or no?

What are Tav’s plans for the future?  Do they propose to the PC, or is marriage not something they’re interested in?

Free space! Share anything from your companion!Tav au!