#fuck you viconia

[blackjackkent]

Shadowheart leads them down from the House of Grief into the Sharran catacombs below.

Upstairs was warm, welcoming, as part of its facade as a place of healing and comfort. The cloister offers no such illusion. It is cold, the walls lined with shadows, the only light from flickering torches set every few feet.

(A/N: Fun fact - the scene is lit to appear as if light is coming from barred windows above the player, but I had a look around with freecam and there's nothing there, just solid wood. XD )

A few locked doors provide little resistance to the blade of Lae'zel's greatsword. Shadowheart explores the secured rooms with a strange combination of nostalgia and pain.

In one room, they find a vast array of disguises, clothing of a hundred different colors and styles.

Documents are strewn in a corner of this room, records of Sharran activities. Some of them speak of the mission Shadowheart herself was sent on - the quest for the artifact now in Rakha's pack, the githyanki power it holds, and its unexpected illithid occupant.

Rakha is far more interested, though, in another report she finds crumpled on a desk:

This is the first description she has seen of her activities as Gortash's ally from anyone other than Gortash himself. It sends a cold chill down her spine - but also rouses a flicker of curiosity.

"You know this place?" she asks Wyll. "The Devil's Fee?"

"I was a little young to be consorting with diabolists when I was still in the city," Wyll says dryly. "Perhaps Karlach would know?"

"Perhaps." Rakha squints at the piece of paper, then pockets it restlessly.

-----

The other room smells of blood.

Rakha looks at the broken, gore-streaked body on the table for several minutes, searching herself for any trace of the beast's eager hunger at the sight. But there's nothing, just a sort of weary familiarity with Shadowheart's words.

She too learned to kill people in a place very much like this. She remembers the noblestalk memory, Sceleritas passing her a scalpel, the blood pouring over her hands.

The Sharrans are not like the Bhaalists, not precisely. They are colder, more methodical, less gratuitously sadistic.

And yet their victims are just as dead, all the same.

-----

Finally, just before the final door, she finds a notebook labeled "The Unburdening."

She remembers, now, the strange mental prodding that went along with Viconia's questions, so subtle as to be beyond notice at the time. The Mother Superior was searching her thoughts, her memories, for anything Shar might desire.

Rakha takes a certain savage pleasure in this idea. She has very little memory to harvest; Viconia would have found nothing of use, surely.

She does wonder, though... had she gone through with it all, what this mirror might have chosen to take from her.

-----

"I remember this now," Shadowheart says bitterly as they descend the final steps towards the cloister's inner sanctum. "A whole stolen childhood spent in these halls. The Mother Superior must be close. Soon this will all be over."

Rakha does not answer, but thinks it will be no more over for Shadowheart than it is for herself. Viconia did not "map" Shadowheart - but the answer would no doubt be the same as the one Rakha found.

The scars will linger, though their cause is gone.

[trappedinafantasy37]

Just a quick reminder that Minthara is the only evil aligned companion who does not actively do anything evil and you never actually have to tell her not to do evil things. She only talks evil and suggests evil, but she never does anything evil herself. Now, I know this is gonna be earth shattering and ground breaking news for some people, especially those who've never recruited her, but she never tries to force you to do the evil things she suggests and you can choose not to do them. A lot of people like to act like she's holding a knife to your throat and demanding you be evil or else. But nah, she just calls you a pussy in the background and moves on. And not all of the things she suggests are necessarily evil either.

She explicitly takes orders from you and she will always do what you tell her to do, even the good things. She may bitch about doing good things, but she will still go along with it and give it her all (Hells, sometimes she'll even have fun!). She is willing to put her own desires and ambitions aside to serve a common goal. And there are some good things Minthara does approve of! She is also the only companion who will not abandon you over the choices you make and her hard line is you being an asshole and mistreating her. Minthara will literally follow you from the beginning to the end no matter what happens and no matter what choices you make because she made the oath that she would.

So, if you think she is "too evil" then you need to take a good hard look at yourself cause the only evil she is actively doing is the evil you command her to do. And you have no place to judge her for enjoying the evil when she is just following your orders.

[moghedien]

The way Viconia can’t even be cruel to her own kidnapped daughter because these two immediately started throwing tomatoes at her and calling her ugly and stinky 😭

Bonus:

[elfdyke]

shadowhearts reaction after you run out of questions to ask viconia.... falling to the floor

[tethys-the-aquatic-sea-godness]

Baldur's gate 3 was good and all, got 700+ hours on that game, but it does have flaws, which I would ignore, if the game hadn't seen fit to butcher the characterization of two of the best characters of the saga. Nothing of what they wrote for Sarevok or Viconia works, and I don't want anyone giving me the 'but their character arc is optionnal in the duology, it depends how you play', what they wrote doesn't fit their characterization at any point of their story arc.

It's like whoever wrote this was media illiterate, or hated the characters, or had no idea what the characters they wrote were supposed to be like. I don't understand why they did that, neither Sarevok nor Viconia needed to be added at any point in the story. I don't understand who they did it for, who they hoped to please. To people who have never played the saga, they don't mean anything, and could be replaced by any new characters, to a long-time player, they're ooc, and a serious blotch on an otherwise good game.

Not to mention that some lore elements you find in game could explain why the characters you meet aren't truly the people they appear to be (the mother superior's dress drescription implies brainwashing, meaning the drow wearing isn't who she thinks she is, and a piece of lore explains how someone finding and possibly reading a strange book will start calling themselves 'Sarevok', even though they have no connection to him). Like someone in the team knew they were doing trash and wanted to leave room for deniability.

[telekitnetic-art]

“Kill them with kindness” WRONG. I CAST DARKNESS (level 2) 🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑

[ranger-danger]

Mmk got to go to sleep before the dysphoria gets too bad 👋 have some random baldur’s gate from my camera roll

These are dumb I’m sorry for doing this

[forcedhesitation]

watching astarion's horde of undead summons follow us around is the funniest thing to me. just another day in baldur's gate, citizens, nothing to worry about here! carry on and don't mind the smell of rotting flesh!

[the-silly-urge]

did the house of grief with dark justiciar shadowheart (parenticide edition) and it fucking SUCKED 👍

LIKE IT WAS GOOD WRITING WISE I JUST. Wow it is gutting. Very good voice acting. I want to sit alone at the bottom of a pool for sixty-five years though.

(i accidentally really really rambled hard in the tags uhm. it is what it is)

[lav3nder-bees]

I think they should add an option to twist the knife a little bit when killing Viconia, I think that would be neat

[linka-from-captain-planet]

guess I beat Viconia's ass so hard, she started hallucinating :/

[stinkrascal]

ive said this already but shadowhearts personal questline literally changed me on a fundamental level you guys. ik this game only came out two or three months ago idk but ive never been so moved by a scene in a video game in my entire life. i was uglyyyyy crying during it like it was so beautiful and heartfelt and gut wretching, so bittersweet. it was such a painful and beautiful ending to such a well-thought out storyline and im just so grateful i got to experience it, bc truly... spectacular stuff. whoever wrote shadowheart im kissing you on the forehead

[africabytotodile]

rasaad was right

[ravnloft]

amma backstory reveal heehee

never knew her father. was abandoned by her mother at the earliest opportunity. taken in by a lolthite cult in the underdark and given the name theodosia. eventually sold to viconia devir along with a dozen or so other children.

viconia "raises" her and the others, trains them to be sneaky, ruthless, all the good traits you want in a killing machine. once of age, they are all "gifted" arcane tattoos that allow them to summon shadow blades and bolstering arcane prowess as well as giving viconia a direct scrying/message line to them wherever they are.

soon they are given their purpose: to be sent off to high elven cities as peace offerings. some are positioned as entertainers, some are advisors, others are arranged marriages. theodosia is given to a counsellor in myth drannor named bonnevance. initially, she is simply one of several mistresses, but after saving him from another assassin, bonnevance becomes quite taken with her and they start a genuine courtship.

within six months they are married. it's a huge scandal. people call her the grey lady behind her back. but, she is truly happy for the first time in her life. she loves her husband and is loved in return. she is eager to learn the art of politics and help negotiate peace between high elves and drow. also, bonnevance happens to have no shortage of enemies, and her favorite pastime is picking them off slowly one by one. he'll make a very fine archduke once they are all dead.

then one night viconia's whispers return:

kill him, she orders. plunge the city into chaos.

theodosia will do no such thing. she confesses her former allegiance to bonnevance, and instead of being horrified, he sees an opportunity: she turns her blades on viconia, he removes the last few folks standing in his way, and they spin the whole thing as their own heroic rescue of the city after a failed coup by lolthites.

so she goes. she digs up viconia's hidey hole, gathers her "family" for dinner, and poisons every cup. then she walks every hall and slashes every throat. she burns everything that will take to flame. with one vial, one knife, and no small amount of smokepowder, viconia's cruel machinations are no more!

she returns to bonnevance, triumphant, ecstatic, hopeful. they'll commission a statue first, she thinks; something big and ostentatious and covered in gold filigree. then a new grand portrait for the foyer. hm, will they keep that foyer? perhaps they'll move into a new palace. someplace high up in the hills, with a huge grand balcony to watch the sunrise every day.

instead, from the gate, she watches every counsellor of myth drannor leave her home. upright. walking. alive. un-poisoned. un-murdered. bonnevance is with them at the door. smiling. laughing.

what the fuck have you done? she says once they are gone.

i couldn't do it, he weeps. i couldn't kill them. they are my friends. i thought you would understand. there has to be another way.

and it is here that she learns the first real lesson of survival-- one surpassing anything she picked up on the street, anything the cruel priestesses beat into her, anything viconia lectured on. it's simple. instinctive, even.

i trusted you, she says.

viconia's cult is dead. many counsellors of myth drannor are dead. those remaining will have questions-- accusations. and theodosia will have blood on her hands. there is no lie bonnevance could weave to cover this one ugly truth.

i'm sorry, he tells her. you never should have.

it is not difficult to draw her blade and run it through his heart. he does not try to stop her. perhaps he understands what she knows now-- that they've orchestrated their own doom, sprung their own trap, and only one of them can make it out alive. there is nothing left for her to do except run, but she can't bring herself to let go of the knife in his chest. they fall to the floor, bloody, weeping, betrayed. she watches for what feels like eternity as his lovely sunlight eyes go dim.

i loved you, are the last words she says to him.

i love you still, are the last words he says to anyone.

she burns the manor down. she destroys the beautiful portrait of them in the foyer. she pawns her wedding jewels to the first knave who'll buy them.

she makes a good life thieving, for a while. she flees all across the sword coast, picks up odd jobs-- larceny, reconnaissance, security-- anything that will put gold in the bartender's pocket. she changes her name. amma theylin is nobody, comes from no house, has had no past, and if she's lucky, no future either.

it's almost a relief when a devir cavalier recognizes her and takes her back to the underdark. she's sent to prison in ched nasad-- a formidable structure of calcified webs suspended over what feels like leagues of nothingness. no escaping there, unless you'd prefer falling to your death to whatever execution was lined up for you.

amma hopes the end comes soon. in one final act of defiance, she convinces another prisoner to carve out viconia's mark, leaving her entire back a raw, skinned, open wound. the wardens stop trying to keep it clean after the fourth time she removes the dressings and tries to garrotte someone with it.

alas, those in power are always bound to fuck everything up for everybody else, and when the stonefire hit, anyone still capable of running was doing that.

amma made her way to the surface again. this time-- this time, she would be free, really, truly free. no spider's eyes in the dark, no whispers in her mind. no one to rely on but herself. she does not regret killing her beloved golden bonnevance. she regrets thinking that she wouldn't have to.

now, all she wants is to do is make enough gold that she can drink herself to death. unfortunately, even that eludes her.

[averagemrfox]

The series of events that is Shadowheart’s backstory if she turns away from Shar tho

Kidnapped at a young age by Viconia while doing her Selunite right of passage by order of Shar herself -> groomed and abused by Sharrans for the next 25-30 (assuming she was between 10-15 when kidnapped and is 40 now?) years -> even in the cloister they were never able to completely take away the parts of of her that were antithetical to Sharran beliefs -> sent on what seems like a suicide mission considering everyone she was sent with died to retrieve the Mysterious Artifact™️ -> Mysterious Artifact™️ turns out to be the one thing that can prevent people from going full mindflayer thrall -> basically the moment she’s away from other Sharrans she begins questioning everything she’s been taught and acting in ways that she was taught not to -> the Nightsong is the one thing keeping Ketheric immortal, and has to complete the trials to become a dark justiciar and… oops I’ve saved the daughter of Selûne

[deadmegumi]

IS THIS NEW.... SHE ATEEEEEE