Just When You Thought You Were Safe, Here I Come To Hit You With The Old One-two!

“source?” divine intuition, gut instinct, and cryptic symbolism from my dreams

I see a man (fictional), I am generally like "okay". I see the same man (fictional) being put in a situation, covered in dirt and blood, perhaps soaking wet, actively sobbing and shaking like a chihuahua, and I am saying "yay" and "yippee" and things of this nature

Baldurs gate isn’t a dnd game it’s a really really really hard dress up game

Character Designs For Wings Outstretched - Part 2

First one here!

This part is for Bingemir and Hush the Noise, who are introduced in chapter 3. Only one character left after them, and then you won't have any more names to remember, I promise!

Again, it's under a read more because oh my god I wrote a lot about these guys this time, and again, I'll be listing the names of mods used (available from the in-game mod manager unless stated otherwise) "like this" (and authors).

Now, just a little note about these two - it was supposed to come up in the chapter but the way things ended up being structured I couldn't find a place to fit it without it seeming weird and out-of-place, but anyway, the point is - they're both asexual, as a point of interest.

And their relationship is very much fully platonic. They could be considered as siblings, I suppose, because they grew up together, but they don't really think of each other as that, they wouldn't call each other siblings, they just think of each other as like very close friends. Like, the closest they could possibly have, especially considering Hush generally needs Bingemir to interpret for them when they want to speak to someone else. They have been with each other their whole lives (or thereabouts), and neither of them have any inclination to change that.

Bingemir -

He's using a half-elf head even though he's a human because all the human heads suck shit don't quite fit the image I had of him - which is he's a pasty pretty body with the most terrible boy band hair you could imagine - from "More Hair" (by eleanorros) (not insulting the mod, just making fun of Bingemir, he actually thinks he looks cool).

Bingemir's one of those people who permanently looks kind of exhausted, and I put a little more purple under his eyes to emphasise that. He's also been on the road with only one friend for company a long while, so he's got some nasty scars to show for it (his shirt's only off in the close-up to show how his tattoo is joined with his neck scar - some of those scars have been there longer than others, and that one's been there long enough for Hush the Noise to convince to make something pretty of it).

He wears red, he loves red - believe it or not, red's his favourite colour. I love his little outfit, I think it looks so good. It actually came about naturally over the course of the game for the gloomstalker character I used in my second run - so just using base game equipment and dyes - and I've been slavering for a chance to show it off since, and, happily enough, it fits him perfectly.

Well, mostly perfectly. The one difference between this and the original outfit was I swapped the Gloves of Archery (which looked even better, in my opinion) with some full gloves that fit his character more - because he considers himself a professional who likes to stay distant from the job and also because it's bloody cold out! It's cold out here! Put your mittens on!

I've also included a image of his shield on purpose to show how that fits the rest of his outfit as well, because of course it does. Image is important, Bingemir understands that well.

Hush the Noise - (They are nonbinary - specifically agender, they just don't feel like gender is a thing they experience, same as sexual attraction)

They're using the 'Devana' head from "HW_HeartsHeads" (by modiouser2079995), because, again, the base tiefling heads didn't seem to fit them all that well. It makes their horns look a little funky at the base, but that actually goes pretty well with their tattoos, so all's well.

They're a Mammon tiefling (in terms of story, unfortunately that's not an in-game option), which normally have bright yellow skin, but I found the options for that either looked like the least subtle thing in the world or pretty much like normal boring human skin.

So I went fuck it and leaned in to more of the human skin option, but I still wanted them to look slightly off and not completely regular human, so they're actually the 'vampire tone' to give them a bit of an unnatural undead tint, and I added a hint of yellow tint to their lips to bring that sort of colouration back in. Their hair is from (not available through the in-game mod manager, requires external modding) "more dreadlocs and curly hairstyles" (by Bububull), which I risked fiddling with external mods to use because I really wanted something that fit the more human side of their skin tone that wasn't exactly the same as Wyll's hair, so they've got this cute but practical style going on.

Their eyes are still properly Mammon yellow, though, which match quite nicely with the little beads they have, using the Beshaba dye from "FaerunColors" (by techroot) - and their boots use the Ao dye from that pack to make them nice and dark like the rest of their outfit - muted dark purple with the complementary yellow of their Mammon heritage, but they try to lean into the heritage of the tabaxi they were raised by - mostly by the two centipede tattoos on their face to honour that connection - the same purple as their scars like it comes from that same place, as deep as their blood.

One thing about them I did describe in the story but I couldn't find a way to replicate in game (and I didn't trust my editing skills to try to paint on) was that they paint some triangles on their horns to replicate tabaxi ears, which - along with their tail as an additional physical similarity - further emphasises how much closer they feel to the tabaxi they were raised by than Bingemir, who shows none of that connection at all.

Together I think they make a fun and coolly contrasting pair - they might not look closely allied at first glance, but that's because they're both quite happily settled and comfortable in their own style. They work to fill in each other strengths and weakness - Bingemir is a nice bright target with Burning Hands and a shield he can hold-out behind, and Hush the Noise can use that distraction to come from the shadows and go for the kill. Together, they're deadly - and that's the power of friendship :)

being self aware suuuucks like yeah this thought pattern/behavior is stupid and pointless and a symptom. i know this. [does it anyways

Being a writer is so weird. You just go "hey I'm gonna invent a guy to emotionally devastate you with, who's in?" and people from all over the world are like "fuck yeah I'm in"

another stroll (they met a cute cat this time)

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! ^_^

SWARMKEEPER RANGER!!

runs up to tumblr huffing for breath. i came as soon as i heard

BLADESINGING WIZARD? COLLEGE OF GLAMOUR BARD??

@fandang1 if you want more dragonborns, I also have this girl from my multiplayer run - her name is Coral and I love her.

I made Klearrhishkminal in the game for fun a while ago, so I thought I ought to share her so you could all see why Turmeric was (and still is) so enamored with her. I mean, look at her, she's gorgeous!

She's a pretty important character for someone who's literally been dead the whole time- or at least, I like to think so, I hope that impression comes across. She is the entire reason for Turmeric, well, being called Turmeric for starters.

As a reminder, she is bronze and definitely not brass - if you think you've ever seen me describe her (or Ansur!) as that because they're similar words and I forgot to check and got confused, no you didn't, that never happened. Because then Turmeric's whole character quirk of having a fondness for lightning spells because her last girlfriend had lightning breath wouldn't make sense and nobody would pick up on it! (I do hope some people have picked up on that, it's a subtle little thing, but it's there. (because we carry those we love with us, long after they're gone, after all))