#tav drawn

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[BALDURIAN] Introduce yourself -- you’re a Baldurian too.

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seconds before disaster

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you know better than to smile at me like that (x)

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I caught bg3 cartoon disease a few weeks ago and forgot to post these here. top is Fenway and @disreputabledog's goblin Urgi thinkin about robbing my boy Sarim. bottom is Sarim's dad, Areum, losing his patience with everything, feat his warlock patron, @kota-stoker's djinni Iram.

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☄️, ⚖️, 🍵 for tav?

[20 oc questions from here]

☄️ Does your OC believe in fate and destiny --

god, no. he thinks it's all bullshit. luck? maybe. if he got his fortune read, it would be purely for shits-and-giggles, and he would heckle the poor fortune-teller the whole time. "do you see handsome men in my bed, though? how many? at the same time?"

⚖️ What is the biggest crime your OC has committed? Are they a theif, a cheat, a liar? What is the smallest, most petty crime they’ve committed? Or do they not do crime at all?

in no particular order: panhandling, pick-pocketing, illegal consumption, petty and grand theft, shoplifting, larceny, forgery, fraud, robbery (armed or otherwise), false pretenses, tax evasion, incitement, stalking (as part of Guild work, not in a creepy personal way), invasion of privacy, blackmail, gambling, smuggling, manslaughter, probably treason just through some of those other things…?

🍵 Are there any rumours about your OC hanging around? Nasty ones or just good humoured?

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a character reference sheet for Tav, my chaotic neutral Baldur’s Gate 3 protag. I don’t even have a fancy first or last name for him... just the default “Tav” has felt fitting since I fell into the hellhole of Early Access. he’s a rogue with the thief subclass, but I usually choose magic initiate: druid as a feat so he can have a wee bit more magic and, most importantly, beast speech, so he can talk with Scratch the dog, and Nudge the owlbear cub (and get the hot goss from other critters). I also play Tav in an Eberron 5e campaign, in which his subclass is arcane trickster.

7/30/22 edit: I’ve given him the last name Fenway because just “Tav” was getting chaotic (which suits him but I like to be organized)

some #backstory under the cut!

(cw: domestic violence)

Tav was born and raised in Baldur’s Gate. he is his human mother Flissa’s second child, by a high elf man she either cannot or will not name. her human husband Garrick was not happy about this, but he wasn’t particularly happy when he thought the expected baby was his anyway, so this was never going to be a great family dynamic. Flissa and Garrick’s marriage has always been turbulent and mutually abusive. Tav’s older half-sister, Yora, is ten years his senior, and when she was fourteen, she left home without saying goodbye.

Garrick was a sailor, Flissa was a professional swindler. Tav had special roles in Flissa’s various street grifts, and thought of it as a game, until he was old enough to understand how destitute they actually were. he became good at pickpocketing on his own, which Flissa also took advantage of. it was very easy to pretend being a hungry little urchin, because he was. it was easy for them both to pretend they were battered, because they were. Tav’s parents were not responsible spenders; thank goodness he could go to public school for free when Flissa didn’t want to keep track of him on the street.

when Tav was twelve, there was a massive fire in the tenement building his family lived in, in Brampton of the Lower City. it happened in the middle of the night, when most were sleeping. the fire was mostly contained to the one building, but nonetheless devastating. Flissa got herself out quickly. Garrick was much slower to react to the rapidly escalating situation, and Tav was, well, a very frightened kid who was more or less abandoned. it’s hard for Tav to remember exactly, but the way he understands the course of that night is: he was navigating through smoke and flame down a corridor, when his step-father bowled him over to rush out. Tav was able to get onto his feet again, despite injuries and actively burning. he was resuming his own escape when Garrick got himself trapped under falling beams and debris. Garrick called out to him, but Tav kept running. the rest is a blur; he has vague memories of waking up in the Harborside Hospital, covered in burns, being treated by various healers, neighbors in the cots around him. an unusually charitable cleric at this hospital made it possible for Tav to leave without a hefty bill, healthy but for the scarring on his legs, which had taken the most burn damage. he was reunited with Flissa. Garrick never got out.

Tav’s relationship with Flissa was at its best after the fire, but still not good. the back and forth between “work with me today,” and “go to school or anywhere else, I don’t want to see you” was exhausting for him. he often argued to “work” with her or skipped school to do his own “work,” or else he wouldn’t see any coin or a sufficient meal that day. he started stashing his own money and thinking of taking a page from Yora’s book.

at sixteen, Tav did leave, after an emotional blowout and physical altercation with his mother. he unintentionally concussed Flissa, and while she sat dazed on the floor of their small apartment, he gathered his money, the money of hers that he could find, and simply walked out the door. Tav maintains that the short stint of homelessness that followed was entirely worth it. no more fists bearing down on him, no more yelling, independence. the same old pickpocketing, stealing, and conning (on different streets than his mother’s ‘stomping grounds’) helped him get by until a Guild member offered to recruit him for an up and coming kingpin.

at the start of Baldur’s Gate 3, Tav is 26 years old. he’s been a professional spy under the codename/psued “Locke” for several years now, working for an information broker who mostly deals with pettier nobles trying to bring down other petty nobles. it’s an easy job, people-watching and stealing information; he’s good at it, well paid for it. he doesn’t need to pick pockets or steal trinkets anymore, but old habits die hard, and he sees it almost as a fun little game to himself; he likes to see how much he can get away with before anybody suspects something. he boasts never having had guards or any Flaming Fist come after him, even without Guild protection. he has a small apartment on the third floor of a decent boarding house in the Seatower neighborhood of the Lower City, and that is where he was walking to when the mindflayers’ nautiloid swept over the city.

you can look at his generic tag here, or artwork of him here.

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when Tav found out Quincey couldn’t read, something possessed him to offer to teach him in the evenings at camp. Tav’s not accustomed to going out of his way to be nice or do good things for other people without incentive, but it’s not so bad. he starts looking forward to the routine.

Quincey (left) belongs to @lavalampelfchild, Tav (right) is mine. Scratch transcends ownership.

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here are four disgruntled and dysfunctional Fenways! (...or three, since Tav technically isn’t one.) I tried to color this but the textured lineart was throwing off my groove. rest assured Tav’s palette separates him from the other three as much as his [gestures at all of him]. Top: Garrick Fenway and his wife Flissa Bottom: Yora, their daughter; and Tav, ten years Yora’s junior and Flissa’s son by a high elf man not pictured.