#withers is jergal

[wetsocksinbed]

Baldurs Gate 3 is so wild when you realise how vastly different the game is depending on if you choose Tav or Dark Urge

Dark Urge Playthrough: you’re the child of Bhaal, but unlike the Bhaalspawn, you are created solely by Bhaal himself. The first true child of Bhaal. The daughter of one of your father’s previous Bhaalspawn turns on you, attacks you and tries to kill you. In your dying state, she infects you with a parasite so that you’ll die an incredibly humiliating death, and become her slave.

By some miracle you end up on the same nautiloud ship as a Sharron Cleric who happens to to be carrying a gith artefact that contains Baldur himself. Baldur, who was made a mind flayer and is now calling himself the Emperor, realises there’s an incredibly powerful Bhaalspawn on the ship, and that he can use them to his advantage. The power you have will help him destroy Gortash. Of course he picks you, it makes so much sense.

On your way to Baldurs Gate you find out through an unsent letter that you used to be into Gortash. When you get to Baldurs Gate, the man you used to fuck turns out to be an absolute loser and with horror you realise he is still into you. It’s okay though, he’s very easy to kill.

You end up facing off against Orin, your niece, and kill her. Your father appears to you and offers you the chance to become his Slayer. On the high chance you turn him down, he murders you in front of your loved ones, and leaves you to rot.

Then Jergal, the actual Lord of the End of Everything, the original God of Death, who was the very being that turned you father into a God all that time ago, who’s been in your camp for weeks pretending to be this undead scribe called Withers, appears next to your corpse and brings you back to life, basically adopts you, states that he will protect you from Bhaal, and announces that as long as he lives, you will never die. You’re essentially immortal.

Tav Playthrough: you’re a random nobody that was unlucky enough to get kidnapped by Mind Flayers. The Emperor must pick one of the many idiots on the ship to be his pawn. He sees Tav and thinks “ugh, yeah this one will do”.

[calistozom]

When the heroes are not in the camp

[kirain]

My favourite bit of BG3 lore is that Withers is legitimately responsible for the Dead Three, but he's probably too embarrassed to tell you, so every time you ask him to elaborate he just gives you a very stern, "Noooo."

I also love that the reason he's responsible for their uprising is because he got bored. He literally got bored of his position as Lord of the Dead and wanted to retire, so when these three morally questionable humans came looking for godhood he was like, "Hmmm. Yes, okay. Here. Take my portfolios. Fight over them. I don't care. I quit."

So after bowling with skulls in a friendly competition to decide who would get what portfolio, they took up his powers and wreaked havoc on the world. Only at that moment did Jergal, AKA Withers, AKA our precious Bone Daddy think, "I'm just now, internally, asking myself, in quite a worried way, whether I might've made an error."

So he joins your merry band and watches your escapades, calmly twiddling his fingers while you clean up his mess. He's happy to lend his aid, even to the point that he'll bring Durge back to life if they reject Bhaal, even though he technically shouldn't. But he's Withers. The rules don't apply to him. If Ao doesn't like it, he can descend from the Heavens and say it to his rotting face.

And the reason he saves Durge isn't necessarily because he likes them or because he's a morally good entity (though one certainly could make that argument), but because he wants to add insult to injury. He steals Bhaal's child with a big smile on his face, dubs them his Chosen, and praises them for rejecting all the power they were promised. But of course, he still doesn't tell them who he is—or rather who he was.

Then, when all is said and done, he throws Tav and their companions a cute little party. No one knows it's probably half a thank you party and half a "Withers is bored again" party. And if anyone misbehaves, he'll get irritated and whisk them away. Because how dare they? He put a lot of work into that.

And at the end of it all, he walks up to a mural of the Dead Three and basically goes, "Lmao. Thou didst fuck around, and thou didst find out." Just savagely roasting them.

And then poof!

He waves them into non-existence.

[lanafofana]

*pre act 1, somewhere in the outerplanes or whatever* gods: what the hells are the dead 3 doing now?? what is that?? a netherbrain?? ugh right then, what are we gonna do about it shar: i have a plan SO EVIL AND PERFECT and a chosen locked and loaded she's already on her way to retrieve that stupid githyanki prince and then im going to fucking destroy that asshole ketheric

mystra: bitch please the only one around here with a shiny red fix it button is me. when i tell you my former chosen is obsessed with me. no way will he deny me, all i gotta do is ask and he'll detonate the problem in one go. ace in the hole.

Jergal [a big fan of the avengers]: i have a plan to bring together a group of of remarkable people to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together when we need them to, to fight the battles that we never could.

gods: ugh shut the hell up jergal this is basically your fault

Jergal: im stealing all your feral chosen and you can't stop me

silvanus: would you like a bear in this trying time?

[sugarforhoneybees]

without a doubt favourite part of bg3 is withers’ temple where every single book goes “you’re travelling with a vampire and a sharran and withers is jergal and also 50/50 you’re a bhaalspawn���

[superectojazzmage]

Typical day in Baldur's Gate 3 camps

Dark Urge: *jizzes in his pants at the thought of killing people and than breaks down cry-laughing while putting a gun in his mouth and yelling that he's really gonna do it this time*

Lae'Zel: Oh my Vlaakith, I NEED to fuck this guy.

Shadowheart: Typical. I don't know why I bother with you pitiful- HOLY SHIT THE DOG JUST DID A ROLL, SOMEONE GET ME THE CAMERA

Karlach: I burned it by touching it and than accidentally crushed it with my huge muscles, soldier. Sorry.

Gale: *choking to death on a magic pendant he tried to eat*

Wyll: Does anyone care about Gale dying?

Astarion: *painting his nails* No.

Halsin: I'LL SAVE YOU, GALE. *turns into a bear and runs away to kill goblin children*

Minsc: I'LL SAVE YOU, GALE. *throws Boo at Astarion's face*

Minthara: I'm hotter than all of you, have I mentioned that?

Emperor: You know who's REALLY hot? You if you become a mind flayer. Use the tadpole. Please. I'm begging you, just a little. Use the tadpole. Please, for the love of Ao, use it.

Withers: Doust any of thoust hath games on yon phones?

Jaheira:

[elderidgeart]

I think about him a lot

[miraculan-draws]

Jergal, the scribe of the dead, the archivist—this three fates motherfucker who refuses to elaborate on personal questions but waxes philosophical about your adventure, protects you, ensures your success, brings you back into the fray, puts you back on your feet, helps you mold yourself into whatever you want to be, this strange reverse-psychopomp—is the only god who did not reject Astarion.

Astarion, a finicky undead who went to law school once upon a time who is never seen at camp without a book in his hands. Astarion who passes more perception and insight checks than anyone else in my games. Astarion with his mediocre Charisma stat but higher than average Intelligence stat. Astarion who ONE HUNDRED PERCENT probably put together who Old Man Withers was but just shrugged like "I got other shit going on and I'm not about to kick a skeleton out of the closet."

I want Old Man Withers as Astarion's Grampa Figure. Astarion CALLING Withers an elvish equivalent of "Gramps". (U'osi/U'osu?? That's so cute wtf)

[taygra5shaon]

Hey my Durge Druid looks like your Durge, mine is Argenta the Zariel Tiefling Druid, but she’s female. Can I ask you to draw her please? She also has green eyes.

hey there @eugeniusthegreat 👏!

so, I would have preferred this ask as a commission, but when I saw the message, it gave me this idea. I made your character as a cameo, hope you like it.

This is what come from it ✨

I draw others Durges from artists i like❤️

(and original Durge)

@lucklessrat

@mlarty

@infernaldaydreams

@ejoym

@meanbossart

@kawareo

[dragonagitator]

stolen from the Baldur's Gate Weaveposting group on Facebook

[shewolfofvilnius]

you do an absolutely ridiculous amount of stuff in BG3

i mentioned this in a reddit reply to a post i made but the amount of stuff you deal with in BG3 as a player is enough for like twenty individual DND campaigns - and instead you have ALL OF THIS going on at the same time:

It's wild given the duration of time but that is such an active period of time in terms of what you're actually doing.

*Stop an elder brain infused and overpowered with Netherese magic

*Kill at least two of the Chosen of the Dead Three, one of whom has a boss form that is a transformed avatar of that god

*rescue Selune's daughter (or kill her)

*potentially overturn a century-old Sharran curse that killed thousands AND later confront Shar herself after (probably) killing the Mother Superior of the Sharran cell of Baldur's Gate (AND possibly setting up your companion to become her chosen)

*stop a centuries old vampire overlord from slaughtering thousands of spawn in order to become an Ascendant Vampire (and possibly help your companion become one)

*potentially kickstart a githyanki civil war that leads one of the two factions to possibly reunite with the githzerai, which is insane,

*potentially install a new Archmage of Baldur's Gate after probably killing the old one (alternately, helping the old one achieve immortality)

*and along the way you also spite Mystra a couple of times (and possibly set up a companion to become a rival god) which leads to Elminster (or at least a simulacrum of him) showing up in your path twice.

*You can possibly have to deal with the kua-toa imbuing a redcap with a tiny sliver of the power of a god (enough that if a Durge pledges to be BOOOAL's chosen, Bhaal gets legitimately pissed and you get a big hint as to Durge' identity WAY earlier).

*Silvanus clearly has a hand in the events of the grove, and seems to be eyeing Arabella as either a powerful follower or possibly a future chosen, and you're placed in the position of potentially helping her.

*A son of Mephistopheles actively tries to get you to deal with him so that he can seize total power over the universe.

*You have two different but intersecting plot chains at least tangentially involving Zariel (Wyll & Mizora, plus her top fighter/pet Karlach), while the main non-companion B-plot of the game (Elturian Refugees) is a direct epilogue to the Descent Into Avernus campaign.

*You find out what happened to both Balduran AND his legendary dragon Ansur and have to do something about it.

*Jergal just chills out in your camp making fun of your love life, and you just have to sort of put up with it.

*And related to above, along the way you probably meet the person who becomes your spouse/beloved, all but one of which tie into the above.

*And Minthara (the only one I hadn't mentioned yet) was at one time in her life a highly favored woman of her powerful house who was personally handpicked by two of the aforementioned Dead Three's chosen, and you can either slay her or recruit her.

*AND if you're Durge you also get the fun happy b-plot of your own showdown with not just your sister but your father, and either becoming Chosen of Bhaal or at minimum personally resurrected from the dead by Jergal if not made his Chosen (it's conflicting exactly what Redeem Durge' status is w Withers/Jergal exactly).

*and that's not even including rediscovering the ancient Sharran grymforge, the Shadow Druids' plot, the fate of the Harpers, the dude who wants to blow up refugee kids, the gondians, the ironhand gnomes' misadventures, Mol's whole deal, and like 30 other side plots.

That is a lot. No wonder we make it from level 1 to level 12 in just four months.

[theannoyingurge]

Thinking about Withers and how divine power operates in the Realms. Specifically, how the gods are influenced by mortal faith as much as they are fueled by it. This makes heresy actually quite dangerous, which I find hilarious.

Jergal "The Forgotten One" has done a great job disappearing from the public eye. He isn't really worshipped anymore, so conceivably should be immune to mortals meddling with his very being through lies and slander.

The tadpole party shakes things up a bit. Suddenly there's like 7 people (presumably the equivalent of his entire fan base) actively coming to him with requests for help and trusting that he'll be there. The original god of Death and the Dead, Murder, Tyranny, etc etc, is now camp grandma. He performs resurrections and reassures orphans that it's all part of god's plan! What a swell guy!

He's supposedly taken strides toward neutrality now that his special interest domain is ruled by Kelemvor, but I suspect that was more to appease his good-guy boss than the result of any real change of heart.

On the other hand, having Durge and Friends genuinely believing he's a good guy might actually result in a real change of heart. One he did not ask for or appreciate. Punishment for everything-bad-ever being his fault? Friends. Babysitting duty. The nickname "Bone Man".

TL;DR - Jergal and Durge are getting forcibly resocialized together.

[calistozom]

It's never too late for a gift!

BEHOLD! My first piece of art this year, and, of course, it’s Jergal’s animation again.

Santa Cla– I mean, Grandpa Elminster brought a long-waited chair for one tired grandpa.

I know that Withers is an undead god and all, but still. He has been standing in camp so long and no one even bothered to offer him a seat. How rude.

P.S. - 26 frames, even though it took a month to draw them and they do not differ that much from each other, - I still think I’ve done a pretty good job. *pat-pats myself* And with each new animation I finish, my power grows >:)

[dirgecomic]

Welcome to the Jergal - I always love this scene in BG3. The small bit of nature around the Jergal statue creates a sensation of ‘life’ while the rest of the room and temple give a vibe of absence, death and passing time. It gives balance and I think encourages your Tav to receive him in what ever manner they need.

He is the final scribe, the forgotten one, the lord of the end of everything. And in BG3 our patron of getting shit handled.

Our original death god, self demoted to observer because why? He just didn’t really care to anymore. He isn’t good, isn’t bad…not really.

Anyway. I thought yall would like to see some of the smaller panels coming up in the comic. I’m posting like crazy so sorry for inundating your feeds with Mars hyper fixation.

[iicaru2]

so you know how when redeemed durge rejects bhaal withers shows up and basically tells their dad to fuck off because thats his kid now. i have a lot of thoughts about the dark urge and all of them are emotionally devastating but anyway. do you guys think astarion saw that and felt some horrible kind of numb, resigned jealousy because years ago he desperately prayed to every one of the gods to free him from cazador and got no answer— then this bhaalspawn haunted by the narrative turns up and Fucking Jergal intervenes just to save their life and flips both ao and bhaal the bird at the same time. because ive been thinking about that ever since my durge run and i need to inflict that pain on everybody else now.

[thedarkjerg]

Family bonding time ❤