#theres a lot of dynamics here with orin and gortash too

[veilkeeper]

Orin: Allies? No no. We had a balance, the Chosen three, but it tumbled when you turned the Bone Lord to ash. Now Gortash tries to gouge me from the city.

Ketheric Thorm: For that, [Myrkul] asked that I serve as his Chosen, join Orin and Gortash to grow the cult of the Absolute, and then... take control of it.

An excerpt from "Elder Brain Domination", written by Ketheric Thorm: Clearly all three Netherstones must be controlled by a single leader - me, by preference - but not until after all stakeholders have made their essential contribution.

Lord Enver Gortash: So Ketheric was ready to betray our alliance, too?

to his credit, gortash really does seem like the only one who was genuinely trying to make the alliance work. perhaps they all knew eventually theyd have to stab each other in the back, what with their gods' longstanding beef with each other, but gortash seemed like the only one committed to making sure that happened well after they were secure in having won, if it happened at all.

ive gotta get into his office. maybe there's stuff in there that will tell me he was planning on betraying them asap but.... from what ive seen so far, it doesnt seem like it.

[xanfeursel]

heard you were bored so here are some questions :) (i realized halfway through that these are all durgetash because those little shits have taken over my mind) do you like leaning into the angst of durgetash or do you prefer the more lighthearted (aside from the atrocities) dynamic? if larian dropped a gortash romance, is there any icks that would absolutely ruin it for you?

or conversely, what would be the best thing they could add in a hypothetical gortash route?

what were your biggest inspirations for lophi and vyper? do you prefer one over the other or are they equal in your eyes?

(hopefully you won't have to answer these since you'll get out of work soon)

HELLO ANON. im sorry to tell you infact waited till i actually got home to answer these because i have!!! THOUGHTS and OPINIONS about the questions asked . thank you very much btw these are all really good questions ill have fun answering

FIRSTLY, it all depends on the kind of durge gortash is being paired w imo. with vyper i tend to lean more into These Two Are Fucking Insane while w/ lophi i lean more into the sort of melancholic 'angsty' side of durgetash that i think can be real yummy too. and it's all because of who vyper and lophi are as characters pre-tadpole, too. vyper liked being a loud insane freakus while lophi was a lot more reserved and kind of a miserable mess, and that informs their relationships w/ the characters around them. i think both are good and fun to explore and i definitely like exploring the more angsty side w vyper x gortash and vice versa w lophi x gortash, so. i guess both. really. LOL .

secondly, going to answer both of the gort romance related questions in one, but i think i'm probably in the unpopular opinion that gortash doesn't really neeeeeeeed a romance and i could go without it in game. i do think he deserves more content and screentime, but that's something i can say about orin also, and frankly a Lot of parts of act 3. me and act 3 have a toxic on/off again relationship. alright.

that being *said*, if i was mr larian and i was to implement a gortash romance, i'd have it be something exclusive to a durge/evil run. or at the very least, have it have consequences with your party (i.e karlach leaving or something. love gort but i do not think you should go off romancing him scott free).

i Do think having it be exclusive to a more evil-aligned run would help add more actual content to doing an evil run (and god knows we need some with how bg3 seems to like punishing people who just want to do the evil options They Gave You) and would make the most sense, but all in all i'd just hope it's handled better than the mizora sex scene cause god how that whole thing is handled still pisses me off. hopefully this all makes sense

tl;dr, its a fun idea but i can very easily go without it especially knowing how the game treated its one other antagonist romance option

now for the lophi and vyper question... i do obviously have my biases towards vyper /looks at my blog theme/, but i genuienlly cannot pick favourites with them besides that... i use them both to explore different aspects of the durge origin in different ways bc despite what some other people say i Do think you can be very flexible w durge as a concept despite the pre-established lore for them ^_^ and i think it's very fun to play around with.

as for specific inspirations, lophi takes a lot of insp from vintage pierrot art + has accidentally gotten a very 1920s makeup vibe in My Mind. i should also note her name comes from the scientific name for anglerfish, cuz thats what i had in mind when giving her those freaky sharp ass teeth i always draw her with

and while of course, both of my durges are trans, lophi specifically was birthed from my want to make a dark urge that leans in as heavily as she possibly could in the whole trans allegory thing. so theres that as well!

vyper's specific inspos are harder for me to pinpoint cause he's much more of a 'made up as i went' character than lophi, given he was my First dark urge and i didnt really fully know what i was going into all this yet while making him (and also i was maybe a little bit high while doing so...lol) THAT SAID THOUGH, i did initially make him with akira fudo from devilman in mind. he has the horn style he does because it reminded me of devilman ... although the akira insp is very lose and barely effects his character now.. ~_~ despite bg3 being my main fixation atm devilman is still a very very important piece of media to me so vyper being loosely akira-pilled is not too surprising if you know me well enough lololol