The multiTAVerse and its love stories has grown so much since patch 8 that it deserves its own post now, so buckle up friends, story time!
I will successively post more detailed lore, VP and OSs but have a fresh (updated) overview about the ships for now (I linked the respective ship tag behind the ship names from my bluesky if you want to read more about them) 🤍 I worked a lot on #folktav ship lore through tavQOTDs on and VP sets/OSs in the last weeks/months. Also by preparing my very first zine contributions✨ | my memes and writing masterpost
Welcome to the multiTAVerse – Ship Edition✨
Tav (i) – The burdened druid – Tav of Reithwin
Human [They/Them]. Druid. Circle of the land.
Gale. Lost to godhood. #greenweave
[If not stated otherwise are VP taken by me!] Gale leaves Tav by the docks behind [on the right] by the incredible @swordsbardkat
Karlach. Saved in Avernus. #copperburns
Friends to Lovers to Spouses.
Happened somewhere between hell, the return to Reithwin town and fixed broken hearts.
Tav (ii) – Faithwarden – Tav Dekarios
Human [They/Them]. Druid. Circle of the land.
Gale. Married and insufferably happy in Waterdeep. Crown in the river. #natureweave
Tav and Gale at their wedding by the wonderful @skelvron-keiman
Karlach and Tav (ii) are besties, joined at the hip, completely platonic! She is alive and well in Avernus with Wyll and they eventually fixed her heart!
Tav (iii) – The Sunlit Paladin – Tav Dekarios
Human [They/Them]. Paladin. Oath of Devotion.
Gale. Adventuring across the realms as an obnoxiously blissful, married couple. Crown with Mystra. #devotionweave
Tav and Karlach had a very odd relationship, always dancing on the edges of romantic/sexual attraction and tension. They never really acted on it and believed to be ‘just friends’ until the end. Letting Karlach die like she had wished to was the paladin’s last act of love for her in this life. I like to call them #DevotionFireThatNeverWas
Tav (iv) – The star-crossed druid – tbd (currently in mid act 2)
Human [They/Them]. Druid. Circle of the stars.
Gale. He knows these hands, he knows this magic, brimming with life and so welcoming and generous that pulls him out of the portal he was stuck in. He knows these eyes, he knows these lips, he knows… Tav! And the world held its breath as it witnessed their reunion #ConstellationWeave
Karlach. Smitten by the druid with starlight in their eyes since the moment they met. But how does she know what the druid feels like in her arms before they could even touch one another? Why does she see Reithwin free of the curse bathed in sunlight, rain and snow and flowers in her dreams and Tav older and wiser in between it all? #ConstellationFire
Tav. Remembers. The pain, the love, the desperation. The joy. The endless heartbreak. And the journey ahead thrice, the decisions and the darkness of the curse four times now. If it is their fate to carry the load of four lives then they deserve to be selfish for once. Tav wants both, the soulmate who holds their happiness in his hands and the adored friend who will never be just a friend again, not when they remember a life in her arms! #FireConstellationWeave
aka how I became an “one character, many lives” kind of person 😌 Buckle up, kids, I have a story to tell! 💚
I will be combining the OC intro questionnaires with telling you the story of Tav and the multiTAVerse in this post and make it as quick as possible. I hope you’ll enjoy the read 🩷
Meet Tav, the druid with a paladin’s spirit and so much love and devotion in their heart that they bent time and space when they lost the love of their life to godhood for a chance to do things differently in another life, for a chance to have a human life together and desperate* enough to even try. 🌱 *unhinged
Tav was my very first BG3 character and was originally supposed to just be the “Me in the world of the BG3” character that I wanted to try out the game with and to romance the beautiful wizard with. Spoilers: Tav grew throughout the game as a character and became not only one fully realised character but four, thus the multiTAVerse
About their name– I was reading a lot of fanfictions before I played the game, mostly reader-inserts, and was already feeling familiar with the name and associated it with kissing Gale :D So I kept the name. I also like about it that it’s gender-neutral, fun and really fantasy-y feeling.
The dawn of the multiTAVerse
Life was good, life was kind for Tav on their journey. Well, not at all but Tav was madly in love with their wizard and euphoric about being loved in return by him. Together they dreamed about a future together in Waterdeep once this would be over. And then came the day they defeated the brain and everything changed.
Tav lost Gale to godhood that day. He turned away from Tav and the human life they had dreamed to share, choosing the crown’s promise of unlimited power and the endless possibilities of insatiable ambition on the day that was supposed to be their biggest victory and the first day of ‘until the end of our days' for the two of them. Poor Tav’s heart was shattered and mine was too.
I began the Fix-it Tav run the same night.
And ‘Tav’ became Tav (i) and ‘Fix-it Tav’ was called Tav (ii) because I am an academic and find it really funny to count/ organise even video game characters with Roman numerals 😌🤭
And somewhere along the way, one Paladin!Tav (Tav (iii)) later did I realise that I have created my very own nuanced multiverse for a character that has grown so incredibly much since the days they were a mere “self-insert”. And this is a beautiful feeling!
The MultiTAVerse
from left to right: Tav (i), Tav (ii) and Tav (iii)
Base stats
Name: Tav (i), (ii), (iii), (iv) if something applies for both Tav (i) and Tav (ii) am I putting it in green italic, regular green means just Tav (i)
Names/ Important titles post game: Tav of Reithwin, Tav Dekarios, Faithwarden
Pronouns: They/ Them
Class/Subclass: Druid Circle of the Land, Paladin Oath of Devotion, Druid Circle of the stars
Background: Folk Hero, Outlander
Alignment: Neutral/ Lawful/ Chaotic Good
Species: Human
Gender: Genderqueer (agender)
Sexuality: Pan (Demi); Poly (?) still figuring this one out for Tav (iv) with Gale and Karlach
Signature Colours/ Dyes: Sage Green, Green/ Gold, Pink and Leaf Green (Armour and camp clothes), Grumbar (Faerûn dyes mod) (Armour/ Equipment), Light Blue (Camp Clothes)
Favourite gear/ items: The Disintegrating Nightwalkers (Nere's boots), Hellrider's Pride (Zevlor's Gauntlets), Pale Oak (The Faithwarden staff), The Giant Slayer (sword looted from Ansur), Armour of Devotion, Grym Forge Medium Armour
The Tavs
Tav (ii) came from the part of Tav (i) that was unable to move on after they lost Gale to godhood on the day they defeated the brain. The part of Tav’s soul that loved him so much and was desperate enough to face the whole tedious journey again just for one chance to find Gale again, to love him again and to protect him from himself this time. For the chance to have a future with him this time.
Tav (iii) is the manifestation of the oath of devotion paladin that especially Tav (i) had always been in spirit. And armour. Tav (i) wore the armour of devotion during the last third of act 3, feeling immediately and confusingly connected to this armour. Tav (iii) was able to survive and carry the burdens that the druid [Tav (i)] couldn’t. Of course they couldn’t, a paladin’s burden and armour should have never been theirs to carry to begin with. The paladin lost a lot on their journey, like the druid [Tav (i)] had before them. But they didn’t lose Gale, not in this life. He chose Tav and a human life by their side free of the orb’s pain over the false promises of unlimited power and burning ambitions.
And waves of relief and joy, of love and devotion rippled through the cosmos – again. Just like Tav (ii)’s in another life had when Gale had decided to leave the crown in the river after the brain fell. Like Gale’s peace of mind, his love and all-consuming blindingly bright gratitude had when he had woken up to birdsong next to his love illuminated by gentle, hopeful morning light, both of them being alive and well and he without the ever lingering pain of the orb in his chest for the very first time since his folly.
Just like Tav (i)’s desperate, earth and sky- shattering scream of pain had nearly ripped the universe apart when Gale had turned away from them at the docks with indifferent eyes, with no warmth or a word of love left for them after they had defeated the Absolute together. Tav’s scream had been silent, only the stars had felt it breaking through them, tearing them apart.
The cosmos had watched and felt how Tav and Gale fell in love and be a little insane and unhinged about each other, thrice. How they had made this ridiculous journey towards danger and potential death over and over again. Driven by their devotion to each other and their shared desire to finally outrun the one life that haunts both of them in their dreams.
And the cosmos decided that if Tav and Gale would do it all a fourth time, and they would because this is what Tav and Gale do, would it get a piece of the cake. This time would it do more than just watching, would do more than having to suffer through the quakes of their love and grieves that ripple through time and space over and over again.
Tav (iv), a child of the cosmos, quite literally
So the cosmos wove starlight into Tav (iv)’s soul, when it made them and gave them more knowledge of their other lives than any of their predecessors ever had.
The heartbeat of the universe beats gently in Tav (iv)’s soul and guides their steps. Tho it also made them an outsider, the odd one amongst fellow humans. A fate they could carry, there was so much joy waiting for them after all. So much love! And so much uncertainties and danger. But this unhinged, a little hubristic druid is not as concerned as they should be. Surely nothing bad will happen as long as they have Gale around.
A wizard with burning eyes and a gentle smile, a blade singer because he had been loved so fiercely by the paladin of another life. Of course are swords singing to him in this one now when the hands that had wielded them had held him close, had danced over his whole body with adoring touches. Hands that had healed him. Had protected him relentlessly with blows of blades that were radiating holy light.
*And a beautiful barbarian who was anything but barbaric with her passion for life and an even bigger heart of gold, tho made from infernal metal. A gentle giant with golden eyes and a happy toothy grin that can turn so effortlessly into a dangerously burning smirk… More on that below under “relationships”
RELATIONSHIPS
OTP: Tav/Gale in case anyone missed that one ^^, *Tav [(iv)]/Karlach the most complicated case of ‘friends to lovers’ there ever was! It only needed three shared lives for them to act on their feelings, one of the lives included surviving Avernus together and eventually fixing Karlach’s heart, one time not being in Avernus together and the last time having Karlach die in her paladin’s arms (as far as possible until it got too hot and Karlach pushed Tav away as her last act of love for them) only to go nearly insane with desire and longing when they meet again in a next life but being unable to touch each other.
Acceptable ships as in ‘if things would have went differently, if there would have been no Gale or Karlach could Tav have potentially fallen in love with these people, too’: Halsin, Shadowheart, Lae’zel
Strengths: Patience, gentleness and sincere compassion. A welcoming, genuine smile and a way with words that makes it easy for people to trust their ideas, to believe them and to be persuaded by Tav.
A powerful moonbeam, the tendency to fry enemies with lightning/ divine smite and the (very annoying, according to Astarion) trait of seeing and believing the best in people.
Weaknesses: Tendency to loose themself in service of others, sneakiness and stealth (try to hide in a heavy armor), deception/ speaking their mind/ truth and finding themselves and their friends in many fights that could have been avoided if the paladin had been willing to lie. (They weren’t.) Being prone to hubris, believing so much in their abilities and powers that they believe that nothing can come close to hurting them or their friends.
Disadvantages: Stealth, Deception, Sleight of Hand
Fears: Not being good enough in everything they do, the oath breaker knight, loosing Gale [(again) to godhood], a rust spot on their armor, the shadow curse and everything it entailed, not being able to fix Karlach’s heart, loosing Astarion to the dark and his pain, insignificance, loneliness, being the reason that everything terrible is happening again (the shadow curse, the goblins raiding the streets, torturing people, everything in Baldur’s Gate, the chosen of the dead three and their cruelties etc) because of them, because of the selfishness of their soul to love Gale and Karlach again…
THIS OR THAT
Introvert/Ambivert/Extrovert
Organized when it comes to leading/ supporting people, keeping track of things / Disorganized when it comes to their stuff (camp chest, scrolls etc)
Close minded/Open minded
Calm on the outside and during a crisis also on the inside/Anxious/Restless on the inside (usually)
Disagreeable/In-Between/Agreeable maybe not so much in the beginning if your name is Astarion
Patient/In-Between/Impatient
Outspoken/In-Between Tav has the courage to speak up when it matters and the wisdom to stay quiet when it is necessary/Reserved
Leader/Follower/Flexible
Empathetic/In-Between/Apathetic
Optimist/Realist/Pessimist
Traditional/In-Between/Modern
Hard Working doesn’t consider themself to be, tho others would disagree /Lazy Tav is absolutely duty-bound and goes above and beyond to help people, thus ends up feeling like they are failing them or ‘lazy’ when they do focus on themself and their comfort and leisure occasionally
Thank you so much for reading and spending time with the Tavs!🩷 I hope you enjoyed your time!
If you are curious about reading more about Tav and Gale’s lives is here my tumblr masterpost 📝 with all of my writing linked. I am also very active on BG3/ #tavqotd blsky, where I am talking a lot about Tav and their lore.
