Baldur’s Gate Portraits

These are pretty cool, too.

Piddlin’ about town

So after the unfortunate incident concerning Keldorn’s wife, Balan advised the paladin to take a rest from adventuring for awhile.  While wandering about in the government square, Balan found a replacement in the person of Viconia, who was minutes away from being burned at the stake.  Balan tried to talk reason to the poor benighted folk who wanted barbequed drow, but the only thing they apparently would listen to was Balan’s FIST!  OF DEATH!  So, Viconia joined the team.

The Order of the Most Radiant Heart of Goodness, Light, and Happy Puppies gave Pshaw & Co. a commission to seek out a group of ex-paladins and secretly join their organization to figure out what they were up to.  Fallen Paladins, inc. was known to operate in the Bridge Disrict, so Balan led his team to that venue, where they had an encounter with DEATH!!
It seemed that a string of weird murders were being committed.  Balan talked with a beggar, who sold him a piece of elephant hide for 100 gold (Anomen: “Balan, there’s no such thing as elephants.”  Balan: “Are too!”  Anomen: “Are not–infinity!!”  Balan: “Grrrr”).  Balan then talked to a professional girl, who said she saw a hooded figure who smelled of some sort of berries on the night of the latest murder.  Balan went to a local merchant who sold the berries, and procured three items that smelled like the berries in question.  Balan then took the three or four steps back to the professional girl, who sniffed each item, and identified the oak bark as the correct smell, which pointed to the local tanner.  The Company made their way the three or four steps (seriously, the guards must have Intelligence Scores of, like, 2, to not figure all this out.  Oh, that’s right, they’re “busy”) to the tanner’s establishment, confronted the tanner, and chased him down to the basement, where they found the corpse of Norman Bates’ mother.  The tanner escaped, but the Company stole his secret message, which includes a riddle for discovering the name of the tanner’s boss (Balan: “Like I care.”)  They returned to the official in charge of the Bridge District and reported, then set about trying to find the location of Fallen Paladins, inc.

It turns out that they were right around the corner.  That’s right, Balan dragged everyone around every bit of each district, waiting for the fallen paladins to appear.  What he needed to do was step around the corner and watch the ex-paladins and a group of smugglers fight it out.  Which he did, eventually.  He watched the x-pallies curb-stomp the smugglers, except for one intrepid soul who managed somehow not only to survive, but to get the x-pallies to ignore her while she repeatedly stabbed them in the back.  While this was going on, Balan approached the captain of the x-pallies, but couldn’t get him to converse until the “fight” had finished, so he waited another quarter of an hour, said “screw this”, and zapped the smuggler in the head.  It was the only decent thing to do for all involved.  The captain of the x-pallies (who turned out to be only the lieutenant) asked the Company to get a special cup from the Order of the Most Radiant Heart of Goodness, Light, Happy Puppies and Rainbows, after which he would let Balan & Co. merge with Fallen Paladins, inc.  Back to the Order’s HQ, retrieve the cup, bring it back to FP, inc. only to be accused of lying by the captain (the real one), of all things.  So Balan & Co. did a little curb-stomping of their own, and headed back to the OoTMRHoGLHP&R to report.  A set of healing gloves was offered in payment, which Balan handed over to Minsc.

During the course of their adventures, Balan took time to stop by a jeweller’s and get Jaheira a present.

Jaheira: “How thoughtful! Thank you!”
Balan: “You’re welcome. I had him enscribe it: ‘2gether 4ever: Jaheira and Banal’ Wait, what the hey?”

Busy, Busy

So, Pshaw & Co. curb-stomped the beholder that the willfully blind people had been worshipping, using the rod of whatever.  Then they finished off the cult leaders and returned the rod to the “forgotten god” (Amuanator), which allowed the bitter clinger followers of Amaunator to finally get a little R&R.  Heading back to the surface, Team Balan were debriefed by the priests of Helm, then given another quest (to secure the services of some famous artist guy who only works with uranium, or some Forgotten Realms equivalent).  It’s still up in the air whether Balan will take the quest or not.  They also had to go to Anomen’s house to visit his father and enjoy a moment of silence in honor of his dead, cremated sister.  A discussion ensues on whether Anomen should avenge his sister’s death (as his father wishes) or allow the wheels of justice to grind out their exceedingly fine product.  Balan persuades Anomen to choose the latter course, which should improve Anomen’s disposition considerably.  Balan was continually embarrassed by Anomen’s saucy attitude when discussing anything with Keldorn, who is a respected member of the Order of the Most Radiant Heart, the organization which Anomen seeks to join.

Speaking of Keldorn, the paladin encourages a visit to his home, to see his wife and daughters.  Turns out that Mrs. Keldorn has turned to another man to deal with the loneliness of being married to a man who is married to his job.  Awkward!  Keldorn turns the wife and her lover over to the proper authorities.  The lady is in prison, the lover swings by his neck from the gallows.

Next, a boy approaches the Companions and requests assistance in a distant village, where people are mysteriously disappearing.  Balan considers turning the job down (he still wants desperately to rescue Imoen), but Minsc pretty much says he’ll leave the group if Balan doesn’t help the little boy out.

Balan visits the HQ of the paladins of the OotMRH to pick Keldorn back up (after his rather Lawful Stupid act of turning his wife in).  The paladins commission Team Balan to hunt down a rogue pack of ex-paladins and “take care of them”.  While Balan searches in the Bridge Area, he meets a detective who is trying to solve a series of murders.  Balan naturally agrees to help.  So, Pshaw & Co. has a full docket of cases to work on, which is annoying to Balan, who just wants to rescue his friend.

Jaheira is having weird dreams again, and Balan is very sympathetic, which seems to make her happy, or something.  He is confused about his feelings for this beautiful spitfire who was once the wife of one of his companions; one moment, she seems vulnerable and accessible, the next she is , well, a beautiful spitfire.  Women are just that hard to figure out, even when one is a brilliant and powerful wizard.

The Company heads to Umar Hills, to investigate the strange disappearances.  They learn there are several theories proposed to explain people disappearing: the most popular theory is that wolves are killing people, then carrying them off for some reason.  The next popular theory is that a group of ogres camping out just north of the village are the culprits.  The third theory is that a legendary witch has returned, and is performing her strange, evil magic once again.  Whatever the reason, Balan and his team are determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, so that they can get back to their main quest: rescue Imoen.

Destroying the Cult of the Unseeing Eye

Pshaw & Co. were meandering about in the Temple District when they were approached by a priest of Helm, who asked them to look into (and destroy, if possible) a new cult whose followers willfully blinded themselves.  Wealth and influence were promised to the Company should they succeed.  They were given the name of a paladin already working on the problem, and were told to meet him in the sewers.  Keldorn is the paladin’s name, and he joined readily enough.  The Company wandered the sewers awhile, fought a few battles, and discovered the entrance to the cult’s headquarters.  The receptionist said that no, they couldn’t enter unless they poked their own eyes out, and yes, the “god” that the cultists worshipped was an evil beholder.  Balan worked out a compromise, in which the Company would delve deeper into the sewers and retrieve a rod of some sort that the beholder needed to take over the world, and the Company in turn would get the privelege of poking around the cult’s worship center (they just installed a new coffee bar) with eyeballs intact.  I don’t think that Balan would join the cult, even if the requirement to become blind were waived;  I hear they sing 7-11 songs, and Balan prefers the old hymns.

So, Balan leads the Company through the locked door (the receptionist gave him the key), where they discovered another group.  These new guys were people who left the cult, and were trying to get the rod coveted by the beholder.  So the ex-cultists give the Company the exact same quest as the faithful cultists: retrieve the rod, which they claim to have figured out a way to use to kill the beholder:
Ex-cultist: “Pick up that rod, hide behind the boulders.  The beholder will come around the corner.  The minute its head comes into view, HIT IT WITH THE ROD!” 
Balan Pshaw: “My way isn’t very sportsmanlike.”

Balan heads further into the sewers, wisely avoiding the interesting-looking coffin that holds the body of a lich.  The Company reaches a broken bridge, and a mysterious riddler.  Anomen tries to answer the riddle, but gets it wrong, and nearly gets everyone killed in the process.  Balan takes over, and flawlessly answers the riddler’s riddles.  They pass over the magically repaired bridge, and Balan levels up.  This wizard now goes to eleven.

It’s been awhile

It’s been awhile since I wrote anything about Pshaw & Co.’s adventures, even though several weeks back the Company had completed at least two quests, one minor and one rather major.  They first took out an illusionist that had taken control of a circus, and was threatening people.  They met Aerie there, and allowed her to join their group for awhile.  Then they picked up Anomen and Nadia (and dropped Aerie) and went to defend Nadia’s home from a troll attack.  I don’t remember every little detail about it, since it was so long ago.  They did get the “Flail of Ages”, or whatever it’s called, from Nadia’s castle, and Balan sprang 5,000 gp for a license to practice magic in the city of Athlaka (or whatever it’s called).   The thieves’ guild approached Balan, offering to help him find Imoen for the low, low price of 20,000 gp.  Then the vampires’ guild countered with a 15,000 gp bid, so the thieves’ guild lowered their price, too.  Isn’t the free market a wondrous thing? 😉

I never finished Baldur’s Gate 2, because I got bogged down in the many, many quests in which your character can get involved.  I think this time, though, I’m going straight for the main quest: save Imoen.

Bustin’ out

There’s not much left to tell of Pshaw & Co.’s escape; they had a couple of more battles, used the keys that they had found to get past a series of traps and followed the sewer line to sweet, sweet freedom.  As soon as they clambered out of the hole in the street, Irenicus appeared, Imoen spazzed out and used her magic to attack him.  A group of wizards in grey robes then showed up and arrested Irenicus and Imoen for using magic without a license.

Balan: “Oh great.”
Jaheira: “What’s wrong?”
Balan: “The only person who stuck by me through the whole previous adventure, and now she’s gone.”
Jaheira: “Dude, you ditched me and Khalid *sniff* in a tent at the fair.”
Balan: “…Yeah…that’s right, I did.  <snicker> Which reminds me: Could you go over there and look at that thing over there for me?”
Jaheira: “Jerk.”
Minsc:  “What about me?  I was there to kill Sarevok with you!”
Balan: “Oh, right.  And kudos to you for that, too.”
Minsc: *beams*

In Irenicus’ evil lair

I put “Death!” in the title of the last post, but none of the characters actually died.  It turns out that Imoen can’t die in this part of the game, because Irenicus must get her captured by the Cowled Wizards to set up the plot.  Anyway, I used “Shadowkeeper”, but not to cheat or anything.  I just prefer this:

I think this was “Sharwyn” from one of the Neverwinter Nights mods

to this:

 The Company discovered a portal that led to an upper level, where they met a bounty hunter.  The bounty hunter gave them a heads up about what was in the next two rooms, so Balan let him join the party.  I can’t remember his name right now.  In the next room, the Company fought off a passel of them there mephits, who nearly wiped the party out.  It was a clost thing, but Minsc charged ahead and took out the spawn portals, while the other four handled the mephits.  It was in this room that they finally found Khalid–at least, what was left of him.  It looked like he had been tortured to death.  Jaheira took it really hard, and started snapping at everyone.  Then, Imoen spoke up and said that Khalid was already dead before his body was mutilated.  It seems Irenicus did evil things and forced Imoen to watch.  Poor kid.

Capture! And Death!

Our tale picks up in Baldur’s Gate, where Balan is taking a well-deserved rest at the Ducal Palace.  He finds that everyone seems to be acting strangely, though, as if they don’t really remember who he is, or that they expect that he doesn’t know who they are.

Balan: “Branwen! I haven’t seen you since, well, breakfast this morning. What’s up?”
Branwen: “I have been brought in to train you in the aspects of divine magic.”
Balan: “Huh? Are you feeling all right? Where’s Kaigan?”
Branwen: “I know not this Kaigan. Now, pay attention…”

Balan: “Are you really Branwen? Might you be…A DOPPLEGANGER!?!?!”
Branwen: “I have nothing to say to you.”
Balan: “Nope. You’re Branwen, all right.”

If they do an “Enhanced Edition” of Baldur’s Gate 2, perhaps they’ll allow the Bhaalspawn to hire on Branwen, Kaigan, and others that were in the first game.  In any case, “canon” is that Balan finished BG1 with Imoen, Jaheira, Khalid, Minsc, and Dynaheir in the party.  So we’ll go with that. Balan gets kidnapped (whether out of the Ducal Palace or while travelling; I can’t remember which) and taken to the dungeons of a mad scientist/wizard, who performs horrible experiments on him and Imoen.  There’s a little scene where Jon Irenicus (Balan’s captor) is informed by a golem that intruders have entered the base.  Jon leaves, and Imoen shows up and helps Balan escape.  Jaheira and Minsc are in cages nearby, and Balan finds the key to release Jaheira, but cannot get Minsc out.  Minsc gets mad, and uses his berzerker strength to tear apart the bars, then compliments Balan on his “trick” in getting Minsc mad enough to escape.  Minsc still carries Boo around (the miniature giant space hamster). The team gets some basic equipment (Balan no longer has his Wizard’s ring.  Boo!) and finds that the Golden Pantaloons were stored in the next room, as well.  They take off through the complex, fight some goblins then some duergers (evil dwarves, or something).  That’s as far as they’ve gotten, so far.

Final Thoughts (Cont.)

The previous post was sort of rambling, because I had but one hour of sleep when I wrote it (no, I hadn’t been playing Baldur’s Gate).

I spoke about Might and Magic 6 because it was released right around the time that Baldur’s Gate was, and I wanted to compare the playing experience of each game as I remember it from the time.  MM6’s rules made sense, the story was (for me) compelling, and the gameplay was fun.  BG had arcane rules, the game play (especially navigating the trap-filled mazes) was difficult at times, and I would become frustrated trying to figure out what to do next at times.  And yet…I’m pretty sure I remember that I preferred Baldur’s Gate to MM6.  Maybe it was the challenge; perhaps it was the “prestige” of finally playing using the D&D rules (of which I had no prioir experience).  I know that I preferred the isometric view to the first-person view of MM6.  The graphics, for the time, were superior in my mind.  The character portraits of BG were exponentially superior to MM6’s.

Maybe I’m only now comparing MM6 favorably to BG because I no longer can play the former game, and so cannot spot its flaws.

In any case, this time around I had more fun writing my little narrative than actually playing the game.  Part of the reason is that I’ve played it through several times (but only really completed it once before).  It also may be that I’m jaded over the fact that, despite the fact that it is “World of Warcraft on paper”, D&D 4e never got a computer game based on a close interpretation of its rules.   “Heroes of Neverwinter” on Facebook gets the closest (it is turn-based, at least), but even it falls far short with its reinterpretation of the rules.  I would have liked to have played a remake of Baldur’s Gate using the 4e rules; before 4e came out, I daydreamed of playing BG using 3rd edition rules.  But now we already have several really good games that use 3rd edition rules, and none using 4e.

I’ve already started BG2, and will begin the narration soon.  This is the game from which I get my handle:

Cavalier
This class represents the most common picture of the knight: the gentleman warrior who epitomizes honor, courage, and loyalty. He is specialized in battling ‘classical’ evil monsters such as demons and dragons.
Advantages:

• Bonus +3 to hit and +3 damage against all demonic and draconic creatures.
• May cast Remove Fear 1 time per day per level.
• Immune to fear and morale failure.
• Immune to poison.
• 20% resistance to fire.
• 20% resistance to acid.

Disadvantages:

• May not use missile weapons