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autistic-gale-dekarios · 2 months ago

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BG3 OC Lore: Hugo

Meet Hugo :) The first character I made in BG3 and still probably my fave. This post is all about him.

Basics

Full name: Hugo Lightquill (His chosen name -- he can't remember his birthname)

Race: High half-elf

Gender: M (trans) (he/him)

Birth date: 14 Flamerule 1451 DR (age ~41 during game events)

Class: Evocation Wizard

Background: Haunted One (Dark Urge)

Stats: 8 STR | 13 DEX | 15 CON | 17 INT | 12 WIS | 10 CHA

Moral alignment: CE (pre-game) / CN (early game) / NG (endgame)

Personality (MBTI, Enneagram): INFP, 6w5 ((self-insert spotted))

Neuro stuff: Autism, depression + anxiety, C-PTSD, dissociative amnesia

Sexuality: Gay

Romanced character: Gale (ship name: Weavequill)

Media

Tags: #oc: hugo (srs stuff); #hugo core (memes)

Pinterest board

Character playlist

Weavequill playlist

A full rundown of his story is under the cut (CW for brief self-harm mention; spoilers for Dark Urge & general BG3 storyline)

Pre-game

Early life

Hugo was the only child of two high half-elves living in the Upper City of Baldur’s Gate. His father was a sorcerer and his mother was an apothecarist. He took an interest in arcane magic as a child and was encouraged by his parents to pursue it. He had a fairly sheltered upbringing, largely homeschooled by his father and private tutors.

Hugo was born and raised female, but from a young age he felt different. He struggled with many aspects of his identity and sense of self. By his early teens, he was suffering not only crippling gender dysphoria, but also intrusive thoughts of violence that seemingly came from nowhere. The dysphoria and the Urges were equally distressing to Hugo, and slowly became intertwined, inseparable -- the desire to remake himself, and the desire to unmake others.

Deeply confused by and ashamed of these feelings, Hugo never confided in anyone, and grew increasingly withdrawn throughout his teen years. Hugo didn't understand where the Urge came from, but he knew he had to conceal it at any cost. What few friendships he’d made as a youngster disintegrated, and he avoided getting close to people in an effort to protect himself from the world, and the world from himself.

Hugo began writing as a coping mechanism. He would bring a notebook wherever he went, write down his most shameful thoughts and feelings and urges, and hide them away. He would draw, too -- producing increasingly grotesque illustrations that came so automatically, it often felt like his hands had a mind of their own -- and he would terrify himself with some of the things he created.

For a time, pen and paper were his lifeline. But despite his best efforts to vent in this way, the Urges eventually proved too much, and Hugo sought more material ways to satisfy them. He started by hurting himself, then moved onto small animals -- mice, birds, anything to quiet the screaming in his head. It was getting harder to control his behaviour, and Hugo noticed he'd started losing himself sometimes -- blacking out and then coming to minutes later with little to no memory of what just happened.

To the rest of the world, Hugo was growing into a promising young wizard -- a bit of a weird kid, perhaps, but undeniably talented. At 18, he applied to Blackstaff Academy but didn't make the cut (to the disappointment of his father). Instead, Hugo pursued an apprenticeship in the literature department of Sorcerous Sundries. He was getting by, just about, but he felt like he was constantly hanging by a thread, and the slightest push could tip him over into the dark.

Cult of Bhaal

The final push came when Hugo was walking home from work one night. Sceleritas Fel approached him on the street and promised him everything he wanted. Sceleritas somehow knew all of Hugo's secrets, and spoke of a "powerful god" who could offer him a new body and a new life. He promised acceptance and belonging -- a place where Hugo wouldn’t have to hide who he was. Afraid and desperate and with little fight left in him at this point, Hugo followed Sceleritas to the Temple of Bhaal, and never returned home.

Hugo had known very little of Bhaal and his followers before this point, but he was re-educated quickly. He was told of his birthright and his "purpose" as the one true Bhaalspawn. He agreed to become the new leader of Bhaal's cult. In return, Bhaal resculpted Hugo’s body into a male form, and offered him a new name, which was to be respected without question within the Temple. Hugo felt truly himself and truly seen for the first time in his life. He believed this was proof of Bhaal’s love for him, and felt indebted to him.

With his new corporeal form, a sense of purpose, and nothing of sufficient value to return to outside, Hugo remained in the Temple, where he was groomed into a Bhaalist poster child, a merciless killer. Violence was rewarded, everything else stamped out; his magical abilities honed to enact the Dread Lord's will. Even in the depths of depravity, he retained his habit of writing -- he became known for writing and drawing in blood, even using it as quill ink. Hugo spent the next two decades as Bhaal’s Temple leader and, eventually, Bhaal’s Chosen.

During game

When Orin infected Hugo with the tadpole, the damage to his brain made him regress to an earlier state of consciousness. He lost not only his memories and much of his powers, but also the ruthless aggression that he’d learned from Bhaal. When he woke up on the nautiloid, he was his fragile younger self again -- alone, afraid, and tormented by shame and self-loathing.

Hugo began Act 1 with no moral compass, and tended to act in self-preservation above anything else. Meeting Gale and bonding over magic with him helped Hugo relearn what it meant to be good and rediscover those principles within himself.

Gale was Hugo’s first love and his first healthy sexual relationship. They were both grounding forces for the other: Gale’s gentleness was a foil for Hugo’s violence, and Hugo’s caution a foil for Gale’s hubris. Despite them both being wizards, their first time was decidedly free of magical enhancements. Hugo just wanted to be close to Gale, to feel loved in the purest and simplest way. They didn’t just bring out the best in one another, they saved each other from their respective catastrophic acts of self-destruction. (I Can Fix Him, He Can Fix Me, Fixing Him Will Fix Me, Fixing Me Will Fix Him, etc.)

Throughout game events, Hugo suffered incessant nightmares, flashbacks and hallucinations of the horrors he'd inflicted in his past. These were especially distressing early on, when he had no context for them. While he did his best to control himself, the bloodthirsty side of him would sometimes emerge. (He’d always get a little crazed in the heat of battle, which Gale found disconcerting and also kinda hot.)

After the revelation about Hugo’s past involvements with Gortash and the Absolute, Gale distanced himself from Hugo for a while, and Hugo fell deep into depression, convinced he had blown his only chance at finding real love. However, the two became close again toward the end of Act 3, when Hugo convinced Gale not to pursue godhood and Gale realised how much they really needed each other to not lose touch with themselves.

Aside from Gale, Hugo got along well with the rest of the party. He became especially close friends with Shadowheart, bonding over their similar experiences of being groomed into a cult, losing their memories and having to relearn how to be good.

As Hugo regained his powers and his memories, he felt more and more able to resist his Urge. After defeating Orin, he rejected Bhaal and went on to destroy the Absolute, saving Baldur’s Gate from the evil he had once created. Only then did the weight of Hugo’s guilt finally begin to lift.

After their victory, Hugo persuaded Gale to leave the Crown of Karsus where it fell, and with it any prospect of ascension. Walking away from their respective pasts, Hugo and Gale decided that their ordinary, mortal love was more powerful and valuable than anything their former gods could offer. <3

Post-game

Shortly after game events, Hugo and Gale got engaged and went back to Waterdeep. In a long letter to his parents, Hugo apologised for leaving all those years ago, came clean about who he was, and invited them to his wedding. They both attended.

With the orb quelled, Gale returned to Blackstaff as a professor, with Hugo initially staying at home and helping Tara clean up Gale’s neglected tower. After a year in Waterdeep and with a shining commendation from Gale, Hugo secured a position on the Blackstaff faculty as a co-director of their magical archives, specialising in blood magic and evocation scrolls and tomes.

Hugo stayed friends with Shadowheart for many years, and she became like a surrogate sister to him. She came to visit him and Gale for dinner every so often, where they'd talk her ears off about their work while she fussed over Tara and only half-listened.

Hugo continued writing, and went on to publish a memoir and several text books on what he’d learnt from his dealings with Bhaal and the Absolute -- all of which took pride of place on Gale’s bookshelf.

Trivia

Hugo’s favourite colour is powder blue, his favourite season is spring, his favourite food is mushroom soup and his favourite animals are pigeons.

Hugo is a good cook and he and Gale regularly cook together.

Hugo is a nerd. He loves to learn and, once he comes out of his shell, he loves to talk about things he has learned (though he'll never compete with Gale's levels of infodumping).

Hugo has a soft spot for animals, perhaps partly out of remorse for hurting them in the past. Once he settled down with Gale he decided to stop eating animals, volunteered at a local stray shelter, and cooked vegetarian meals for Gale until he liked them too. He also conjured his first familiar -- a large black raven called Leopold.

Hugo is a very subby bottom and he has a praise kink

Characters that inspired Hugo include: me, Viktor Hargreeves (TUA), Frodo Baggins (LOTR), Donnie Darko, Father Paul (Midnight Mass), Will Byers (Stranger Things) and the Tin Man (The Wizard of Oz).

If you're still reading, thank you for being interested :') Feel free to send asks about Hugo (or any of my OCs!) because I will always welcome the opportunity to yap. I'll make similar posts for my other 3 tavs at some point soon.

#this post is mostly self-indulgent but #ok to reblog #oc: hugo #bg3 #character analysis #mine #long post

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