There's Going To Be A One-day Delay On The Next Chapter Upload Because Of AO3's Maintenance Downtime

Wyll, painted using Procreate on the iPad 🎨

generally you shouldn't write run-on sentences because they get confusing and it doesn't give the reader a break. that doesn't apply to me though my run-on sentences are fun and understandable and they have a rhythm to it that makes you want to keep reading

putting bg3 point and click voicelines together to sound like a conversation has brought me great joy, so. here's gale, karlach, shadowheart, and astarion doing a terrible job of sneaking around

"It is worth trying to dissect how certain root causes and social dynamics lead some groups of people to become radicalised" and "We are not obligated to centre or coddle the feelings of extremists" are two statements that can and should co-exist, actually.

Slight delay on the next chapter, but should hopefully only be a one (maybe two) day delay like the last one, fingers crossed.

forcing every character into romance or found family ruins character discussion imo

This is what info dumping oc lore feels like

Have another one!

Apolocheese if this is a question you've already answered, but I was wondering, if Tumeric was a companion in bg3 rather than the player-character, what would her story be like throughout Act 1, 2 & 3? Her personal quests etc? Would it follow the same beats as Graveyards? And how could a Tav influence the outcome? I hope this question makes sense lol - and no pressure to answer!!

(P.s. adore your writing btw, and loving all the new characters popping up in Wings/Talons)

Oh, no bother at all - thank you so much, I very much appreciate the chance to ramble about my disaster girl - and what a long ramble it has become, I'm going to have to add a read more in there.

Turmeric's arc as a companion probably wouldn't really start until Act 2, I think. Before then, she might talk about Klear as the person who got her into being a bard if you had high approval and pushed her a little, but other than that she wouldn't be sharing anything. To compensate for the lack of information in that regard, she'd encourage whoever the player character was to talk about themselves instead (which would probably mean a multiple choice backstory for custom Tavs), which she would hope would also have the rather convenient side effect of getting them to trust her more, if it worked.

That aloof but friendly image would start to break a little in Act 2, especially if you brought her to areas like the House of Healing, or if she was there when you saw Isobel for the first time - giving you a chance to jump in and ask her if there's something wrong. You'd have a few chances at perception/insight and then persuasion checks depending on where you took her too. If you had high approval she might come to you herself in a long rest and tell you she's... familiar with the area, if she thinks sharing her knowledge of the place might help - but I think if you played it right, and missed/failed all of those checks and then played it right, it would be entirely possible to get through the whole game with her without ever learning a single thing about her past.

If you passed those checks, she'd admit her past as a nurse in the House of Healing to you, but she wouldn't go beyond that. Knowing about her past would change her comments around the Shadow-cursed Lands, though- she'd openly talk about what it used it be like there/people she used to know/parts of it she didn't know about/how things have changed.

The conclusion of her Act 2 arc would depend on whether you knew about her past/whether you brought her to final confrontation in Moonrise. If you knew about her past but didn't bring her, she'd just stay back at camp and talk to you about what happened later. If you didn't know and didn't bring her, she'd just turn up by herself anyway because the pressure of keeping it all to herself would drive her to confront Ketheric anyway.

Either way, if she's turned up by herself, or if you chose to bring her along, she'll get kidnapped by Ketheric when he takes Aylin as well (like in More Graves to Dig, but she wouldn't have the prism with her, so they'd just teleport straight there as he normally does with Aylin, no need to complicate things) and what happens in the confrontation in the mindflayer colony will depend on whether you know about her past.

If you know, it's up to you - you do all the talking, and if you manage to talk Ketheric into the pit she'll run away from him and rejoin the group, if you don't and you're just fighting Ketheric, she'll start the fight prone and on a fixed low initiative as Ketheric throws her to the ground and out of the way - he might attack her, but he'll only aim to knock her and not kill her- he still needs her for his little plan, after all.

If you don't know - she'll do the talking, manage to convince Ketheric into the pit, and then immediately let herself get killed by Myrkul.

Unlike the fic, you'd then get a chance from Withers after the fight to go into the fugue plane waiting room and talk to her, if you want to (you can just choose to leave her dead and not bother if you'd rather) - finally having a definite chance to learn about her past even if you failed all the checks before. You get a chance to convince her you want her alive even if she's a bit of a liar, easier depending on how high your approval is with her, and if you succeed she'd promise to tell you the rest of it, and then you get a dramatic cutscene of her coming back to life in your arms like a disney princess that people would use for romantic model swaps all the time.

If you fail to convince her, she'd stay dead, and you'd get a shot of her corpse in the cutscene when you left the shadow-cursed lands - grim if you didn't break the curse, a touch hopeful if you did- flowers blooming around her, new life, that sort of thing.

At the start of Act 3, if she was alive, she'd tell you about the rest of her history- like Exhuming the Past- though probably using the tadpole connection for some visuals so that her just talking wouldn't bore the player to death. You could really easily get her approval from Neutral 0 to Exceptional 100 right here just by accepting her and comforting her at regular intervals, which would help later- I think I'd put it just after killing either Orin or Gortash, whoever you went with first- when you'd get a cutscene with her where you could talk about your player characters plans for the future after you defeat the Absolute, and you'd get your chance to romance her here - yeah, you wouldn't even get a chance to start a romance with her until Act 3 (you could try to flirt before, but she'd laugh it of or deflect and it wouldn't really go anywhere). But, she's polyamorous - so you could romance someone in the meantime if they're chill with polyamory, which would merge very nicely with Halsin's romance if you're otherwise only dating him (undoubtedly leading to some of the horniest party banter you've ever heard between them).

OR, in a way round learning about her past at all - in a cheaty/meta-y/safeguard way - if she was already dead for whatever reason before you went to Moonrise and you only resurrected her with Withers after the fight with Myrkul was over, that part of the quest just wouldn't trigger and you could skip over it without her getting kidnapped, or learning about her past. This would effectively end the quest and skip the rest of her storyline as well (including the chance to romance her), as it would be too late for her to consider talking about her past now, so up until the epilogue all you would really know about her is she's just some bard from Baldur's Gate, which is kinda funny.

Hopefully this answered your question, and thank you again for asking! I hope you'll continue to enjoy my writing in future- knowing people like it makes me very happy, and really motivates me to write more! ^_^

people are so weird about lae’zel srsly. this woman is so Good i truly do not understand the majority of takes

like shadowheart mentions she’s half-elf once and lae’zel is like ok noted for the next time and doesnt get it wrong again

gale mentions how he’s impressed by her fighting and she immediately offers to teach him

she also answers any and all questions about the celestial realm and mindflayers that EVERYONE in the party asks her

she is the ONLY one with any experience and hands on knowledge about what the party is going thru but will still defer to the leader and help. for all she knows, they will literally be cured immediately if they find the creche but she still sticks around these fucking weirdoes because they ask her to

never speak bad about lae’zel in my presence EVER