#gond

[ket-veglet-kozt]

Nem a legutolsó hibádért foglak otthagyni... hanem a száz előzőért, csak már nem bírom tovább..

[hellosziaa-depi]

Semmi gond nincs azokkal, akik nem szeretnek minket. A gond azokkal van, akik úgy csinálnak, mintha szeretnének. 🤕🤍

[phill-art]

Commissions open!

Here’s the character I did!

race: Earth Genasi

class: Cleric (Deity: Gond, Lord of All Smiths)

sex: Female

personality: Arrogant, competitive and stubborn. Doesn’t like to coddle anyone in her party. She believes in hard work always gets the job done. 

age (what they look like in human years): 28

height: 6’4”

weight/build: Lanky, but athletic. 

hair style/color: Molten gems in the style of a viking mohawk, with braids hanging on the sides. It would look similar to what molten glass looks like in the process of glassblowing. 

eye color: blue

skin color: Colorful polished agate. 

items/weapons: She’s pulling out a sword from a giant blue geode. It has a blue mineral blade and a bronze colored metal hilt and handle, with a blue gem on the pommel. 

Get as detailed as you can with the outfit/armor (and colors). 

clothing top: She’s wearing aztec influenced armor. The armor may look like the soft mineral bismuth, but it’s actually rugged steel, crafted to her personal tastes. 

clothing bottom: Continuation of the armor. 

footwear: Barefoot. 

[diemelusine]

A Gond woman (1928) by M. V. Dhurandhar.

[deathmchandsome]

And if only I could / I'd make a deal with Gond...

[levenderstorm]

Kurvára törésponton vagyok.

[alpaca-clouds]

Fixing Karlach's Companion Quest

Let me ramble a little bit, after this post venting about the 3rd Act and especially how underused Karlach is was shared quite a lot. Because believe me people, I have thoughts in regards to how one could do her companion quest.

As I said: Out of the origin companions Karlach by far has the most lackluster companion quest. In fact her companion quest has less content than the quests for Halsin and Jaheira. Because basically Karlach's companion quest has only those steps:

Find the "Paladins of Tyr" and defeat them

Go find Infernal Iron for Dammon in the grove.

Give another Infernal Iron to Dammon at the Last Light in.

Defeat Gortash (which you have to do either way, no matter whether Karlach is on your team).

Which is not a whole lot.

The only decision Karlach will have in her entire questline is always "Does she want to die or rather go back to Avernus with Wyll?" And both are most certainly bad endings for her. And while Baldur's Gate (the city) is filled with those Steel Watch soldiers, that have a working infernal engine, the player does not get a chance to somehow try and follow up on it.

So... Let me talk on how I would write her quest.

Act 1

For the most part I do think Act 1 for her is alright as it is. I would maybe bring in some more tension into the story of some folks from Avernus coming for her. That does not need to happen in Act 1, but it should be hinted at. Because when we meet her, we learn that she had been haunted for days by folks from Avernus, but then... we never see anything of that outside of the paladins and the stuff with Mizora and Wyll. And that is kinda a let down.

Just hint at some infernal creatures being seen or something. Make her a bit more anxious about it. Something like that.

Act 2

The big issue is that Karlach has basically no content at all in Act 2 right now. Like, at all. You meet Dammon early on, bring him an infernal iron that you probably already have on hand. If you romance her you can get the first sex scene with her afterwards. And yes, if you actually go around talking to all the NPCs you will find one, who has a message from Flo, a demon who was a kind of "friend" to Karlach in the hells. Which is where we get introduced to the thing that feels like it should go somewhere - but never goes: The soul coins. While we can already collect those in Act 1, this is where Karlach actually explains what the Soul Coins are. And it is pretty clear that this at some point was the set up for a corruption arc... Only that this arc never happens.

Something I would do to play from this is, that sometime during Act 2 you will encounter some devil (maybe they'll actually come to camp) that will actually challenge you on Karlach. And during the fight she would through some way or another actually use a coin (just make somehow sure she has one) and there are gonna be consequences from that.

You can talk to her about it, she probably would just act as if it was nothing. Something like that. Just build that one up.

Act 3

See, I kinda think I know why the soul coin thing goes nowhere. Because for the Soul Coins to be used you need to have Karlach on your team - and generally speaking the game does not force you to have certain characters on your team. Sure, for some events on the companion quests you get highly encouraged to take the companion in question along, but... You are not forced to do so. And for Karlach to get corrupted she would kinda need to use the Soul Coins - and implementing that would have been a bit harder? However, here is what I would do:

Once you get into the city, you will sooner or later find Dammon. Karlach will ask about him, you take her to meet him. He will tell you, that he has no idea how to fix the engine. But the player will get the ability to note that ineed the Steel Watch are running on Infernal Engines, and hence understanding them might help. Hence, this will actually also give you another reason to go to the Forge, which can then double as Karlach's "Dungeon". You will try to find some stuff here - and from there you could go different parts.

Either you really frame the entire Karlach conflict around the soul coins, or you frame it around her want for revenge. I think storywise the soul coins would work a lot better - however they would also need a lot more change in the game.

Because a Soul Coin plot would probably build around her using the Soul Coins again and again and through it losing control. Basically a addiction metaphor. And for that you would either need to talk her out of it or the engine could actually fail earlier than the finale. If you really want to be a bit evil... let her die earlier on. I mean, the game lets characters leave/die earlier, so it is fine to let that happen, right?

The revenge plot is easier to do. You go to the Forge, deal with the Gondians one way or another, you bring those plans to Dammon and he realizes he needs something (a MacGuffin, a specific bit of information, whatever) to actually fix the engine. And this is something that Gortash has.

I wrote about this before: I generally think that even in another origin playthrough or a Tav playthrough the game would be better if you could actually get Gortash to give up rather than fighting him. For one, the fight against Gortash is boring, but also it would improve the story a lot more to get to see both him and Orin with a bit more nuance.

In this case the story would go like that: You go to Gortash. Given this is past the Forge storyline there is a good chance you destroyed his Steel Watch. He is pissed. Well, works good, because so is Karlach. Of course he does not want to help you - and Karlach wants to kill him. Still, you need his help to save Karlach. So you need to convince the two of them in one way or another.

I think this is especially poiniant because one of Karlach's biggest wants is actually a regretful Gortash. And sure, she will not realistically get that anytime soon. But give it a chance?

Well, either would work: A story about the Soul Coins - or one about the entire revenge plot. In my fics I went with the second one, because only a few plot points needed to happen differently for that. But if you were to remake parts of the game, I think both would be nice solution. (For my alternate Gortash confrontation: Hurt Begets Hurt.)

[hariyali]

Traditional Indian kettles with handmade folk art