#my oc: haven Grigore

[imscissorbladez]

@eff-plays wanted to see some Tavs, so Tavs they will have:

ROOK MAGUIRE

Race: Half wood elf, and spent half of the game half illithid too

Class: Bard

Romanced: Astarion

BFF: Shadowheart

Backstory: Local bard looking for greatness gets picked up by illithid on the way out of the pub. General inadequacy issues lead them to chow down on the forbidden gummy bears like there’s no tomorrow! Consequences occur.

One sentence description: Drunken menace to society and the best argument for why Larian should not add the artificer class (neither they nor their boyfriend should be allowed a gun.)

Best thing about them: went through the classically nonbinary experience of thinking they were having a totally normal time with their male friends and then getting propositioned by Gale, Halsin and The Emperor in such quick succession it gave me personal psychic damage.

HAVEN GRIGORE

Race: Human. Kind of.

Class: Wild Magic Sorcerer

Romanced: Hilariously I write fic for her romancing Astarion, which she is!! But she’s also accidentally romancing Lae’zel and there’s no way that will go wrong.

BFF: Lae’zel

Backstory: Outcast and local tavern cook harbouring multiple dark secrets accidentally gets into the middle of the weirdest lesbian sexual tension of all time, then starts manipulating the camp’s manipulator. The Church of Lathander is Not A Fan of her.

One sentence description: Another explosive has entered the camp, but Astarion CAN bite that one.

Best thing about them: I FINALLY FOUND A GLASSES MOD so they will soon look like. They actually should (way shorter hair, and glasses)

[imscissorbladez]

I could be writing either of my WIPs. Instead I’m making Haven look like a model:

And then did Rook and Ry’lyrr (can’t do Elys, they’re on a coop campaign) but I didn’t take as many screenshots of them for ref

[imscissorbladez]

This is just for me tbh, but musings of this evening: which of my Tavs, as companions, would leave if Player!Tav sided against the Grove:

Rook: Would not only leave you, they would initiate combat. Possible to get out of it! But they’re leaving regardless.

Ry’Lyrr: Would not leave. Would think poorly of your life choices, but would not leave.

Elys: Yes, the tiefling would immediately be leaving. Of course they bloody would! Those people didn’t deserve that!

Haven: Would not leave. :) Way too pragmatic for that. Approval in the depths, but they wouldn’t go anywhere.

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HAVEN IS FUCKING EVAN KELMP CODED.

I HAVE JUST REALISED WHICH COMPARTMENT OF MY BRAIN SHE CAME FROM AS I WROTE ONE TINY PIECE OF FIC OUTLINE.

NOW IT ALL MAKES SENSE.

[imscissorbladez]

Combining fandoms because I’m unwell about both, so which entity from The Magnus Archives would take an interest in each of my Tavs

Rook: The Tav who is realistically most like me, so absolutely The Eye or The Lonely. I think honestly based on the several blindingly stupid things Rook did (panicked and downed several forbidden gummy tadpoles because they felt powerless, turned half illithid because their friends literally Died and they didn’t have guidance, spent most of act two actively beefing with the shadow lands), it’s absolutely The Lonely. They’re observant and want to know things, absolutely, but this is based on Fear, and Rook is deeply afraid of being alone.

Haven: I’m cackling as I fully out Haven for being targeted by The Desolation. She is extremely Agnes Montague coded in ways that will… become clear but she is a complex and difficult human being who is painfully wildfire coded of course it’s The Desolation.

Ri’lyrr: The Slaughter. The Slaughter is straight up Bhaal and you can’t tell me otherwise tbh this one is self-explanatory.

Elys: The thing about Elys is they have one boundary and it’s being beholden to literally anyone. It’s not going to happen. So it has to be The Web, really, because considering a certain entire backstory is their parents have contracted the entire bloodline to Raphael for all enternity for wealth and power? Who else was it going to be.

I may do this for companions tbh.

[imscissorbladez]

General 1 and General 9 for both Rook and Haven? :)

1. 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?

Rook: They’re on the nautiloid, getting attacked by imps. You can throw them a sword to initiate the combat. When they get to the controls of the ship they absolutely ignore the mind flayer and encourage player!Tav to fight both the mindflayer and the cambion: it’s free real estate. Also I want more reasons to signpost the sword he has.

Haven: You can specifically only get Haven if you break her out of the Zhentarim hideout prison, where they have her in an extremely comfortable looking cell and she wants out, as quickly as is physically possible. She tells the player!Tav that she can pay them if they take her to Rivington. She is tadpoled.

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

Rook: Gale makes them super insecure, so they struggle to connect until their relationship develops, so it’s ongoing until Baldur’s Gate. If Rook eats a tadpole Gale is furious either way, and depending on the choices Gale makes with regards to the Crown of Karsus they are either the proudest friend alive and write him a cool song, or they literally yell at him and basically refuse to address him for the rest of the game.

Haven: It’s with Jaheira! Jaheira knew her parents. It’s a whole thing. If you enter the Last Light Inn with Haven you don’t have to have Marcus or Mol defend you, and it triggers special dialogue. Player!Tav keeps catching them whisper fighting at night as Haven’s personal storyline progresses, and eventually Jaheira tells Player!Tav that someone is waiting for Haven in the guild, which triggers the personal quest beginning.

[imscissorbladez]

Short Playlists for Tavs

I’m in the zone so for further context have some songs:

Rook

all fired up - interpol

the people person of this ragtag band. sees every social interaction as a game; how do i get what i want and we all still have fun. it works, mostly. and if not, they’re a bard with a sword and that’s a truly terrifying thing to see early game.

we appreciate power - grimes, HANA

this is essentially the mindset they were in as they started consuming parasites like it was their job. it’s fine! it’s not a problem! they’re just helping. and that’s how they became half illithid. it’s the tragic story of a half elf who knew they couldn’t help the way that they wanted to, and turned to power outside of their control because they do care, it’s just hard to see.

good grief - cleopatrick

is vaguely insecure as the bard! can’t do anything their companions can do, and it absolutely upsets them, yes, but when someone tries to talk down to them? all hell breaks loose. and this song is absolutely a tribute to that.

parasite eve - bring me the horizon

mainly because they’re a drum bard, and i love the idea of this being the song they play in the upper city with other bards just before the final battle. they know they’ve all done right and wrong, but there’s a time and place to unpack that. also the idea of them scaring the place with this song?? but rallying everyone? immaculate.

fun fact: headcanoning the fem and masc voice that joins in for chorus as shadowheart and gale, who were rook’s ride or dies.

Ry’lrr

black wave - k.flay

i just need you to know the lyrics ‘I swear to god you don’t wanna test me’ are said with an air of desperation that ry’lyrr embodies. she awakes knowing that she has the urge. she lives with it every day. it’s chaotic and painful and difficult to understand. and yet she prevails.

the moon will sing - the crane wives

i need you to consider for a moment what it’s like to have a dark urge tav who sees lae’zel as the sun. literally the only light she’s ever known. i am sobbing, crying, foaming at the mouth.

did you hear the rain - george ezra

this is deeply orin and ry’lrr coded in ways i cannot explain without an essay. sworn rivals, sisters who one of them doesn’t remember the other. the ry’lrr before dark urge was something else. orin lost her great rival and it’s actually very sad to me.

map of the problematique - muse

ry’lyrr cannot bear the idea of losing any of her companions. she knows that in another life, it would be none of them. now it’s all of them, and she goes to battle for them, not for the world, but for them.

honourable mention: obey by bring me the horizon and yungblud was so very orin and ry’lrr before…. everything happened.

Elys

get into it (yuh) - doja cat

let her have her moment. this is the noble that people knew in the upper city, betrothed, fucking around and finding out, seemingly untouchable. absolutely her opening song.

hurricane drunk - florence + the machine

where elys starts. traumatic breakup, has turned to self destruction. it helps that she’s a draconic lightning sorcerer realistically. so she went out! For weeks! …and was picked up by mindflayers.

money - lisa

i’m not going to lie, elys and astarion are besties for this reason: she spends the entire tadpole era dropping money wherever she can. morally grey and banked up. she’s a bad bitch. we allow it. her fellow tav hates it.

little girl gone - chinchilla

the emperor came to elys as essentially a full copy of their ex. and elys was struggling so was okay with it. but with a healthy love, she goes into battle now not trusting the emperor, a manipulator, and an actually terrifying sorcerer that her draconic ancestry would be proud of. she leaves him on the battlefield as he tries to fight her, which is the closure she’d never get otherwise. wyll is very proud and a little smug.

fun fact: the cave by mumford and sons is THE wyll/elys song

Haven

Haven requires essays so we unpack that later. There’s also a whole Spotify playlist so lmk if you want it.

[imscissorbladez]

Meet the Tavs!

Because this piccrew is god tier.

ROOK MAGUIRE

half wood elf. folk hero. bard. late twenties early thirties. they/them.

rook was living a completely normal life fucking around in taverns around baldur’s gate trying to make it big as a bard, when the nautiloid caught them. an asshole in the sense of ‘will be an asshole if someone is rude to them’ but largely has always tried to do the right thing. typical party was karlach, astarion, switching between gale and shadowheart. ended up besties with gale and shadowheart. some dialogue is really funny because as an enby tav it was like ‘shadowheart, plz, I beg, I’m trying not to deadname you but you have to tell me.’ panicked early game realising they couldn’t protect their party after a few deaths, started eating the forbidden gummi worms, was half-ilithid a lot of the game. ended the game in the underdark, because they kind of like the folk hero gig and their vampire man needs a daylight ring or a wish spell.

romanced: astarion, gale tried it but they honestly got a cute third act arc and in retrospect if rook wasn’t already a human capri-sun they could’ve been a thing.

would they have been lured to cazador: without a shadow of a doubt, yes they would.

RI’LRR THE BLOODY

seldarine drow. haunted one. rogue. mid-twenties. she/her. dark urge.

my original dark urge; she woke up with no memory and proceeded to be super weird, because nothing says ‘cohesive party’ like ‘is it normal to want to pluck out your eyeballs and eat them? gale? gale???’ throws every fight she gets into because she’s scared of going too far. typical party is lae’zel, karlach and shadowheart. this is the girlypop crew. ri’lyrr struggles to make friends but she saved shadowheart when lae’zel was yelling at her so the girl gang has her back at all times. does the right thing! just EXCEEDINGLY violent. resisting but im not sure if itll last and if it does it’ll be because she loves her squad so much.

romanced: lae’zel and they are the cutest couple on this earth. ri’lyrr has gone from ‘man who was absolutely too old for her and was definitely a poor choice’ to ‘githyanki warrior who will end lives for her and actually doesn’t like seeing her in pain.’ fun fact, this was meant to be a wyll run, but they just worked SO well. bae’zel and ri’lyrr are at this point essentially married.

would she have been lured to cazador: honestly at that point i think it would’ve been cazador’s problem.

HAVEN [REDACTED] GRIGORE

human. sage. wild magic sorcerer. mid-thirties. she/they.

my little brainrot blorbo: without saying her entire backstory she’s sheltered for a reason. they grew up in rivington raised by their grandmother, and have a connection to the monastery of lythander that may irreparably change the course of their life. switches parties depending on need. sends out scouts. my most technically competent tav. she just has a desperate need to be liked so she can stay alive long enough to get back to be rivington, so compulsively helps everyone she sees and then lies about why. also her dad is a pirate. this will become relevant but it’s more if I start using pirate imagery that’s why. the idea of haven in the pirate hat has sent me FERAL.

romanced: if you can call whatever toxic nonsense that they have with astarion right now romance, sure. i could ship them with lae’zel, wyll or astarion, which is the route the fic is going for. karlach is firmly besties, shadowheart just doesn’t like her much at all, gale and haven would be boring! there, i said it.

would she have been lured to cazador: not an ice cube’s chance in hell.

ELYS AKTA SMOKEHARBOUR.

mephistopheles tiefling. noble. draconic bloodline sorcerer. in human standards, late-thirties. all pronouns.

ELYS THE MENACE. has spent the entire time with a tadpole in her brain rizzing up the camp. an objectively ‘good but not nice’ character. was literally described in co-op as ‘oh I get it, she’s going to save every tiefling here she’s just an arsehole.’ Had a problem with Asmodean Tieflings (it was on sight) up until she met the kids at the Tiefling camp. is here for a good time not a long time. wants to get back to the upper city and be a big deal again, death is not something they were planning for. keeps her camp mates up gossiping about ‘why is wyll 10 times hotter as a literal devil’ or ‘i think gale ate my good heels, i will pay someone 50 gold to retrieve them.’ co-op, so plays with a halfling cleric peddling gummi worms that elys won’t touch but everyone else probably will. the rest of the team comp changes depending on vibes.

romanced: has managed to romance everyone to some degree except halsin and that’s because you can’t do that yet where i am. however: it’s 99% going to be wyll. he will make elys into a better person. elys will make him do shit for himself. they’re going to have like six kids and elys will complain the whole time, i’m so ready for it.

would she have been lured to cazador: she wouldn’t run in the same circles but potentially, yes. wouldve criticised astarion’s repair work and taken him in as a sugar baby. i’m not even joking.