My Tav's ongoing journey towards inner peace in Baldur's Gate 3
Just felt like sharing the story I crafted through my gameplay experience of my first BG3 playthrough. Still not finished.
I started put as a pretty rough and tumble wildheart barbarian, acting like a typical barbarian would. I kept him pretty firmly on the good side if a little prone to violence. I get to the goblin camp and make Crusher kiss my feet. After that I meet Kirz and she's the cutest goblin so far. I make a mental note to not kill her when things inevitably go sideways.
Fast forward, I deal with the goblin leaders, but I want to save the owl bear cub too. We fight the rest of the goblins outside, but in my barbarian rage, Kirz ends up getting killed too (I was under the impression they all needed to die and not just be knocked out to free the cub). Narratives, my Tav feels guilt over killing Kirz because he couldn't control his blood lust, even if it's still kind of a good thing for the Grove and tieflings.
All the while, Tav is getting to know his companions and can't help but notice a common thread with their problems, that being stuck serving some higher/supernatural power and their emotions getting them into deeper trouble. My Tav has been a pretty carefree wanderer (I don't play him as being from Baldur's Gate since I never played 1 or 2) and hasn't had any close friends or family, but he feels pretty empathetic towards the rest of the party.
Skip ahead to the Grymforge and Tav finds the sentient amulet and meets the cursed monk. He resists the laughter and decides to help. Out of game, I had been considering changing to Monk and the sentient amulet seemed like a good excuse. I had also gotten the Kushigo armor so there was that. In game, what I imagine is, the cursed monk sensed my Tav's inner turmoil and offered to teach him to find inner calm and focus to use ki instead.
So, from then on, the cursed monk acted as a kind of spiritual guide/mentor to my former barbarian after I respecced to open hand monk. The cursed monk imparts lessons about balance and patience onto Tav and in turn Tav tries to impart this wisdom towards the companions, acting as a balancing force to their more self destructive tendencies. Tav has to warn Gale and Astarion against lust for power and meddling with forces they don't understand. He cautions Laezel and Shadowheart to not blindly follow dogma and authority figures. He also tries to make sure Wyll doesn't get a big ego. My Tav initially was attracted by Karlach but ended up with Shadowheart instead. He still harbors some feelings for Karlach and tries very hard to keep her alive.
The cursed monk is an effective teacher despite his affliction. Eventually they reach the Open Hand Temple and find out the monk's granddaughter is dead and can't take the curse. For all that the monk taught him, Tav agrees to take the curse instead. The focus and control Tav learned as a monk helps him to resist the laughter and the spirit in the amulet is freed.
I still have the last part of act 3 to complete, but looking back on my playthrough so far I thought this made an interesting personal story. My Tav is a tempering force within the group, and he'll try to steer Astarion away from ascension and teach the vampire that he doesn't need to keep seeking power to be free.
