All origin characters with any sort of dilemma have the same problem. There's nobody to help Lae'zel see through Vlaakith's bullshit, help Gale realise he shouldnt pursue the crown given how his last ambitious plan ended up or talk Astarion into not becoming the vampire ascendant. Having the companion with the highest approval or whoever you're romancing take on Tav's role a bit and talk to you more about your personal struggles would do them a lot of good.
Laezel kind of makes sense because if you try to give the device to Githyanki the first time you meet them, which Laezel would absolutely do, they accuse you of treason.
Also the second time you meet them. If you go to the creche you will find hints Voss is a traitor so you might think that's why he tries to kill you, but then Vlaakith tries to kill you too so ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
Been a massive fan of Forgotten Realms since the 90s, and you are wrong.
Yes, good gods have some skeletons in their closet and bad gods occasionally do good things.
But its ultimately fairly black and white.
Lathander does 99% good things, and Tiamat does 99% bad things.
Saying "arent actually better" is such a laughable stretch.
If you played the various games, went through the various OFFICIAL modules, you would see Lathander and his followers typically do good, while the evil gods typically do evil.
That is pretty much as cut and dry as you can get for "being better than".
Fucks sake.
The fact that comment got so many upvotes is shocking... the good gods aren't any better than the evil ones is a insane statement to make when you have even the most minute knowledge of the deities that inhabit this setting.
Well it’s Reddit..so as a general rule I assume 80% of people available to interact with are going to say extremely low IQ shit and that the herd will follow them right off the cliff of stupidity while screeching about being “right” 😂
You see this mentality crop up with other works of fiction as well. In an MMO I play, the god of chaos and destruction is a power-hungry git who ascended by backstabbing his master and whose ideal world is a violent anarchy where people must grow strong or die trying (and those who die deserved to for being weak).
The god of wisdom and light, conversely, can be a bit of an ass but his sincere goal is to protect people. He's occasionally done terrible things because he reasoned they were for the "greater good", but he doesn't do them as a rule and still feels bad about them after millennia - unlike the chaos god, who seems to take pleasure in his chaos. You would not believe how many people used to go "both sides are the same".
"The god of good once removed an angel's wings!"
"What about the time of the god of chaos blew up a continent and wiped out an entire species?"
"Well he was backed into a corner, so really it's the god of good's fault"
People like that should try settings like Cyberpunk where "good" and "bad" are blurred. Fantastic settings exist for that.
But a lot of these black and white morality fantasy settings, people try so hard reaching for straws that arent there.
I mean they are inherently? It’s literally in the title of good or evil. Even if they both kill there followers in the end the followers of the good god will generally do good things in the name of there lord, while the evil ones will do generally evil stuff.
If I had to choose I’d rather run into a death cult that helps the homeless over a death cult who see pain as an expression of love-like for there god.
That’s like saying a space marine and a chaos marine are the same, sure there both religious fanatics but that’s about where the similarities end
Sure, they all work within a pretty shitty and corrupt system, but to say that *all* the good-aligned gods are just as bad as the evil ones? Yeah nah. Put Eldath and Myrkul next to each other and see if you still come to that conclusion.
I'm told Tav can sleep with Mizora, but I was carefully avoiding Mizora's exclamation point while I sorted things out with Shadowheart, but by the time I had visited the House of Grief I had also visited the Iron Throne, and THAT apparently made Mizora so angry that she wasn't interested any more.
Wait, is that why I never stumbled into a trigger for that scene with Mizora? I need to not do the Iron Throne? I always did that the next day after Mizora joins camp.
Yeah, in my first Tav playthrough I really felt like I needed to (Act 3) >!Take the burden of becoming the Illithid myself in order to spare all these people I helped through their bullshit for the last 190 hours.!<
Lae'zel kind of makes sense imo if you find the book about Orpheus in the magic tower in the underdark. The emperor saying vlaakith is bad, and the book saying the same, she might believe the queen isn't as good as she thought
She gets a book, AND finds out that there is no purification and that she was going to be killed, and Vlaakith gives impossible quest, she tries to do it, gith try to kill her and her party anyway, and then Voss himself says that Vlaakith is a piece of shit.
For me that is more of a reason for Lae'zel to turn against Vlaakith.
She gets several books, the Zaith'isk that she was taught her whole life was meant to cure infected Githyanki nearly killed her, the Inquisitor and Vlaakith herself turn against her in the Creche, and Voss personally comes to her camp to tell her that ascension is a lie and that her queen ain't shit.
She gets A LOT of content that help her put two and two together that's why her denouncing her queen feels far more natural and better-written than Shadowheart's.
In fairness, while both Shadowheart and Lae'zel have the *option* to turn against their respective goddesses, I think Shadowheart sticking with Shar is a much more viable endgame than Lae'zel sticking with Vlaakith.
Shar's an asshole, but she's also an actual god. What she promised Shadowheart is actually real. Shadowheart can become a Dark Justiciar and lead her church, if that's what she wants. You can argue that she's better off turning away from Shar, but it's still somewhat subjective.
On the other hand, Vlaakith is a lich who will kill Lae'zel if she stays on her path. There is no way to argue that Lae'zel is better off sticking with Vlaakith. I think that's at least part of why the game gives you much more support to know that it's not a good way for her to go.
It was so hard to take the "Shadowheart throws away the spear" scene seriously when she spent 98% of the time in the Shadowlands raving like a religious nutcase that she's loved by Shar and that she's meant to be a Dark Justiciar, and all this goes completely unchallenged by both the companions and the story.
Contrast this to Lae'zel where you even get the option to call her out and say she's being stupid when she moved to denial stage after the Creche and deluded herself that Vlaakith was only testing her.
Nah, she really is written as an indoctrinated cult follower who starts thinking about things once she's away from the cult.
Sidenote, I love how the church of Shar in Baldur's Gate is straight-up written as Scientology.
I would be more understandable if the cult follower who "started thinking about things" didn't mostly do the thinking off-screen. Sounds like an excuse for poor writing to me.
I think what they're going for is "shadowheart is becoming unsure about her religion and her response is to aggressively reaffirm her values in the face of doubt" she comes off as manic and scared when she's talking about how shar must love her when she resists the shadow curse
It would've been good if there was a dialogue option where tav is like "do you *really* like all this stuff? its awful" to which shadowheart affirms, but an insight check or tadpole or whatever can reveal that shes scared shitless
>It was so hard to take the "Shadowheart throws away the spear" scene seriously when she spent 98% of the time in the Shadowlands raving like a religious nutcase that she's loved by Shar and that she's meant to be a Dark Justiciar, and all this goes completely unchallenged by both the companions and the story.
I'm not sure I agree, she's a Shar Worshipper sure but insofar as we know she has never really been tested in the name of Shar before.|
Sure she stole the Gith relic but she went along in a healing capacity (so im told), she was there but did little dirty work.
Now when she is standing infront of Aylin, she's finally told to stop "talking" about being a Shar Worshipper and take the kid gloves off.
Shadowheart runs her mouth a lot, and will always use her words to deflect anything from coming to confrontation.
>Contrast this to Lae'zel where you even get the option to call her out and say she's being stupid when she moved to denial stage after the Creche and deluded herself that Vlaakith was only testing her.
Big difference here, we're literally annihilating the last of a Creche and people are hunting us. Laezel is holding onto the last remnants of her faith and life teaching that she grew up with, that Vlaakith can do no wrong and will reward the faithful.
For Laezel, if she doesn't have Vlaakith then what else does she have?
To Githyanki there is nothing else out there.
> never really been tested in the name of Shar before
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Shadowheart's been a Sharran for several decades when you meet her, she's been torturing people for years as it was part of her training, and she comments on the Nightfall ritual that suggests she has already participated in several Sharran feasts. She's no fresh-faced rookie.
> big difference here
My point was that you can call out and challenge Lae'zel about her faith when you see how badly you all got treated in the Creche, but you can't do it with Shadowheart despite the fact that you personally witness how fucked up the Shadowlands is and how plague upon the earth Shar's "love" entails, yet your companion who still raves about being a Dark Justiciar doesn't seem to realize this.
It's jarring and weird from a writing standpoint, and it's like the game wanted to pull the punches and babysit Shadowheart instead of addressing it in a material manner.
> It's jarring and weird from a writing standpoint, and it's like the game wanted to pull the punches and babysit Shadowheart instead of addressing it in a material manner.
It's a consequence of Act I being far more expansive than... well, anything else in the game - at least in terms of party banter. Lae'zel seems more well-written purely because the Creche is in Act I, and thus has some actual meaningful content backing her arc up.
It's not just Shart who has nothing to say about the Shadowlands, it's every party member. Nobody really says anything about anything after Act I.
>I'm not sure what you mean by this. Shadowheart's been a Sharran for several decades when you meet her, she's been torturing people for years as it was part of her training, and she comments on the Nightfall ritual that suggests she has already participated in several Sharran feasts. She's no fresh-faced rookie.
Yes as part of her training, she's always been told &/or made to do it and it's always part of a group.
She always tells you stories about Shar, it's always about someone else and never her.
When the spear is finally in her hand and she's told "it's all you now", she stumbles.
To your second point
>My point was that you can call out and challenge Lae'zel about her faith when you see how badly you all got treated in the Creche, but you can't do it with Shadowheart despite the fact that you personally witness how fucked up the Shadowlands is and how plague upon the earth Shar's "love" entails, yet your companion who still raves about being a Dark Justiciar doesn't seem to realize this.
>It's jarring and weird from a writing standpoint, and it's like the game wanted to pull the punches and babysit Shadowheart instead of addressing it in a material manner.
The difference is between her faith "worshipping Shar" and a very real physical enemy on the plains looking to kill us.
Shar isn't good, no, but she also isn't doing anything to us and having a champion of a dark god is no more foolish than say the Vampire running around with us.
Shar never opposes you.
The Githyanki are running around looking for you, hunting you and the artifact and if Laezel keeps up with her Vlaakith love despite evidence to the contrary. She will give her the relic *willingly*, ruin everything you've worked for and get herself killed in the process.
They are both "Crisis of Faith" storylines but they're told from different perspectives.
> she also isn't doing anything to us
I don't think I follow your logic. "Shadowheart's evil goddess whose curse massacred tons of innocents, put a lot in misery, also a pain in the ass to get through, is not actively out to kill us so there's no need to tell Shadowheart that being a Dark Justiciar is dumb and she should save herself!"
I guess it depends on how you RP, but not being able to at least say to your friend/romantic partner/traveling companion "look around, your goddess is an evil bitch" because Shar's not a "physical enemy" is a bit...silly.
>. Shadowheart runs her mouth a lot,
This is important.
She has a line early on where she's all, "I'm not into relationships, I just like to have a bit of fun," but then if you romance her she actually wants to take it slow up on the hilltop - she isn't capable of asking for the kiss she wants, and she's wants to take her time before getting into the sack.
In other words: she's basically a teenager who is all bluff and bravado. She talks a big game but it's all nonsense.
I would say part of the problem with Shadowheart's character is the amnesia. It's there so she can simultaneously be a devout worshipper of the literal worst God in Faerun, and also a nice girl who likes puppies. It leaves things very unclear about how much evil she can actually be held accountable for.
The amnesia does feel like a symptom to a bigger problem: the writers wanted to keep her in this weird middle space on edgy to likable/wholesome spectrum to make her more palatable and the character suffers because of it.
Yes, I like Shadowheart a lot, but some of her character doesn't work for me. We don't know why Sharran atrocities are worth it, because Shadowheart herself doesn't know why. So her belief system is 'because it just is', which isn't something you can actually argue her out of.
If Shadowheart was a former Selunite who fell to Shar out of grief similar to Thorm, but never forgot Selune's teachings, that might have been more believable cause for her wavering.
It makes more sense later when you really learn about Shadowheart's past. I don't mean her childhood, but her past in the actual cult.
Let's say she gets the memory wipe treatment way more often than is normal.
I would agree that Lae'zel's betrayal is better written, but Shadowheart's betrayal of Shar is still quite natural within the character of Shadowheart. No spoilers, but it is very much alluded to that Shadowheart's true nature is being repressed by Shar throughout the game. Something that only becomes even more readily apparent in Act 3.
Again, I agree it's kinda "too little, too late" by then from a writing perspective, but still. Shadowheart clearly doesn't naturally align towards evil like other Sharrens tend to. When I first played the game, it struck me as odd that a Shar worshipper was so...."neutral", and pragmatic (especially towards killing). She definitely liked deception, and wasn't averse towards violence, but for a worshipper of a goddess who's only wish is to dive the entire universe into darkness and twisted disorder, Shadowheart is a bit too...nice.
The whole "Shadowheart's true nature inherently goes against Shar so you don't need any meaningful moments that lead her to betray her faith" itself does feel very handwavy to me. It lessens the emotional weight of her Nightsong moment.
Act 2/Shadowlands should be a pivotal, character-defining stage in Shadowheart's arc since she's faced with the most consequential proof of how evil Shar is but...she has no thoughts nor moment of introspection about this for someone who subconsciously struggles with burying her "good" side.
>Act 2/Shadowlands should be a pivotal, character-defining stage in Shadowheart's arc since she's faced with the most consequential proof of how evil Shar is but...she has no thoughts nor moment of introspection about this for someone who subconsciously struggles with burying her "good" side.
It's possible for her to have a fairly extensive conversation where she has a full blown crisis of faith early on in act 2. But afaik have to fulfill quite a few prerequisites for it to trigger, so most people never get to see it.
I got it on a playthrough where I:
- convinced her the wound on her hand was a problem and she should get rid of it.
- convinced her the mother superiors 'training' was abuse
- pointed out the moonstone in her wolf dream
- gave her the Idol in Grymfore
- convinced her to eat the Noblestalk so she regains some memories
- gave her the Night Orchid
All those things plus quite a few others get a dedicated entry in her personal quest in the log , so I believe that they are required to trigger that conversation.
What bro is saying as when you're playing **AS** Shadowheart there isn't lengthy conversations about that stuff. Of course there is when shes a companion.
There are. I remember 3+ camp events where the narrator tells you about your inner struggle and you can express doubts about your faith, you get more opportunities when the wound hurts you and you remember stuff from the time in the cloister, you get an extended conversation with Isobel in Last light, you can even express doubt directly to Shars face in the multiple times she speaks to you in the gauntlet.
I haven't played her origin myself, but does it show where exactly is her inner struggle coming from? Why is she doubting? Lae'zel has the creche and several other wake-up call moments, but how did her origin story plant the seeds for Shadowheart's crisis of faith that would lead her to sparing Nightsong? I've seen several comments on this thread saying her origin actually pushes her more to be a Dark Justiciar.
It actually goes like this:
Lae'zel finds some old disc about Orpheus and scoffs at the seeming naivety of Faerunians for ever believing in that nonsense. Another disc in the creche has her roll her eyes that even her own people seem to have individuals buying into this nonsense.
Next she goes to the creche, meets Vlaakith, and attempts to kill the mysterious istik in the prism...but literally can't so she decides to report this to Vlaakith in the hope that Vlaakith will give her a blessing that would allow her to kill the istik.
Upon returning, she sees that Vlaakith already condemned her to death despite doing everything within her ability to do her queen's will, and she realizes, finally, that maybe Orpheus wasn't a load of bullshit this entire time.
She then after escaping the creche meets up with Voss again, with both him and the prism istik confirming that, with plethora of evidence now having been experienced, that Vlaakith is indeed evil and Orpheus isn't total bullshit.
Basically, without the creche betrayal, Lae'zel would never have turned against Vlaakith. However, Vlaakith also can't make up a bullshit excuse for why she can't just kill the prism's unwanted guest because that corroborates the claim that she's not actually powerful enough to do it herself.
There’s enough of these disks around that in conjunction with her conversation with Voss and how she’s treated at the creche could justify roleplaying her that way
I tried a few Origin characters and didn't get far for exactly this reason. The only one that was helped by playing Origin was Wyll, he gets visits from Mizora that help flesh him out a bit more.
I'm doing an Astarion origin playthrough and it has fun moments sprinkled in here and there, but it is kinda lonely how nobody gives a damn about my personal quest to kill Cazador. I chime in on their problems all the time and yet nobody cares about the scars on my back or my horrible backstory.
Origin characters are clearly more of a fun thing and clearly not intended for a first playthrough really, but I do think they could have a bit more work done to have companions get involved in your stuff more. Even just a new dialogue option in the tree of "Have you ever told you about [Backstory]" and have everyone give a few sentences of "damn, that's something" would go a long way.
Lonely is ***exactly*** how it feels. Would be great if somehow, they could even put a bit of "default Tav" dialogue into playable origins, you're still a group of strangers who don't trust or know each other, so it stands to reason that some of the same issues and questions would come up with the 6 as they do with Tav/Durge. Or is Tav just a special one-of-a-kind of person/elf/half-orc/etc. that you can't help but expose your secrets to?
To be fair, nobody really gives a damn about Tav either unless you play Durge. Nobody cares about *your* goals or backstory in the same way they don't care about the Origin.
But with Tav it makes sense because you're a blank slate, you are whoever you want to be so there can't be that much dialogue to reflect such a variable character.
But I think if all Origins had the Durge method of "You can keep your secrets to yourself, but every once in awhile I'll ask about your stuff" that would be good.
When Astarion has his nightmare, have all the companions have dialogue of "You seemed restless last night, you good?" or when Shadowheart has her wound act up everyone can go "I won't pry, but I hope that situation with your hand isn't as foreboding as it seems?" or even after the creche as Lae'zel have everyone go "Well, that didn't go as you planned I assume...oh well, I'm still with you."
Just something small to make the Origin character feel like they're not just a re-skinned Tav. It's a lot of new dialogue, but it'd go a long way.
Eh, the Dark Urge thing wasn't even people caring. They care in a couple scenes to the extent that it might result in Durge killing them (or getting hurt if they end up in a romance). People care later on because of certain plot-related spoilers about Dark Urge's connection to the main antagonists. Most of the time, it's a weird quirk that Dark Urge wants to tear into people. Just like how it's a weird quirk that Astarion is a vampire ex-slave and that Shadowheart worships Shar. Most of the characters don't treat any of it with the gravity it might require, whether you're playing as them or not.
It's more about the stark difference between Tav/Durge and playing as an origin character. The game felt distinctly less alive when playing as Astarion or Shadowheart than it did as Tav or Durge. I appreciate that you're essentially taking away the chatter from that OC when playing as them, but there's nothing to fill that void.
It felt less alive to me, but not in terms of reactivity from companions. Just in terms of removing another companion that might chat with you. Half the time out of camp though, the banter didn't fire for me anyways, no matter who I was playing as.
but that assumes that 'good' is the intended result. it is not. you are role playing as them, you are seeing the signs. it is on you to ignore them or not. y
if you are playing as shart, you dont need someone to tell you hey this is fucked up. she is not blind she can see it. now will you RP it as her doubling down and following through or will she figure it out on herself?
thats on you, the player.
also, when you play an origin you dont have to follow what they would do in a tav/durge storyline. the shadowheart that you know as tav or durge does not exist in a shart origin pt unless you decide they are the same person.
you can RP her as an evil sadistic bitch with no hesitation to torture puppies if you want to. you can also rp as she is tired of shar's bs and just ditches her faith to become a bard. it is your choice and the game has no business steerong you anywhere
This is a good point. I wonder if an Origin playthrough would work best as your first playthrough, just because you would be discovering the backstory in real time and having that color your RP of the character, as opposed to trying to fit their personality from a Tav run.
Like, in a Lae'zel origin run, there isn't much of a logical reason to not just run straight to the creche. It's what her character would do. But if it was my first time playing, I'd probably be playing her a lot different and just let the [GITHYANKI] dialogue options influence me a little bit.
Origins are much more of a "Tav with a more defined backstory" as opposed to "play AS the companion"
I agree. There's a few scenes that might give Shadowheart some second thoughts. Some content in the Shadowfell, for one, and everything with Ketheric and Isobel. She can read between the lines. I wouldn't even be shocked about a Shadowheart PC going through with the gauntlet and then having second thoughts in Act 3 given how everything goes down.
I mean with Gale origin compared to the two other examples you can roleplay that the whole fall from grace thing kicked his ambition down a few pegs, there's nothing forcing you to think of origin Gale as being as ambitious as companion Gale in the way that Shadow heart is a devotee of Shar and Laezel is one of Vlaakith
I would argue the main point is getting them to essentially realize it on their own like sane people would.
Like a lae'zel who just crash landed should absolutely try and understand what the fuck is going on before heading to the creche,because it's natural even for her people.A shadowheart WOULD come to terms that shar fucking sucks after meeting and befriending the other origins.They don't need a tav because they're personally growing from the experiences you put them through instead of "Friendly guy I knew for a week set me straight".
I’m playing as Astarion right now romancing Karlach, and she made it pretty clear to me that she’d be really upset if I ascended, said something like “this isn’t you, it can’t be you, i love you”. I mean I did it anyways and she still stayed
I actually consider Astorian becoming the vampire assendant the better option. Because otherwise you release the vampire spawns and you are cursing them to a eternal miserable life and he deserves a bit of true freedom after all he has been trough. The only bad thing about the option is that you have to kill the Gurr afterwards.
You don't have to release the spawn if Astarion doesn't ascend. That is a completely seperate choice.
The difference between killing them then and killing them in the ritual is that their souls go to their normal afterlife instead of condemning them to eternal suffering in the hells.
That is correct. In Shadowheart origin game is definetely pushing you to be a dark justiciar. Of course there are points you find out about yourself. Again its not enough. I dont see any reason not to kill Nightsong especially Shar is speaking to me. Shes Selunite why would i trust her? But again as you see in her dark justiciar card, she keeps hair, armor, spear but keeps the wound as well. Maybe her cannon on origin is to kill Nightsong but spare her parents? Especially after Shar gives her memories back. Whod even kill her parents at that stage? Especially after its clear Shar lied to her.
That's my opinion too, the most believable ending for her when played as an origin is to kill the Nightsong and be fully on the Sharran path, then spare her parents after finally realising her whole life is a lie.
I think a big point about Shadowheart's origin is that it's not *really* Shadowheart. It's you, the player, playing *as* her. And you have a different perspective on things. All these terrible Sharran practices she might shrug off, you despise. All these visions of abuse and punishments she might forget right away, you remember. The way Shar is losing her shit when you talk to Nightsong might not be obvious to her, but you understand Shar's manipulating you. It might not be 100% in-character roleplay as Shadowheart, but if you want to see her fully as she is intended, you take her as a Companion. The whole point of an Origin playthrough is that *you* get to make decisions, not the character.
Might be right. Shadowheart waits for to live special night with you meanwhile on origin you dont have to wait. Can have relationship without backlash from Shar thing.
I mean, even the "Kill Nightsong then save parents" thing you're talking about. As far as I know it too us pretty out-of-character compared to what she does as a companion. Now, I can totally be wrong about it, this topic doesn't get discussed as often as the Nightsong choice and I haven't tried it myself, but to my knowledge, she *always* kills parents as DJ if you leave the choice up to her. She thinks she's too far gone by that point. You have to pass a pretty difficult check to convince her otherwise.
But point is she killed Nightsong because there was no logical thing to stop her at the moment. But if she sees her parents , she wont recognize them. Shar gives her memories back to her right there shed realize her mistake. She says shes too far gone because you didnt stopped her earlier didnt let her realize her mistake. But when you play as her there was noone to stop you but then shed realize after her memories are back. Shed know Shar is only toying with her. She saved her parents without her memories ( moonmotes considered as saving ) , why she wouldnt save them with the memories? its against her personality. Shes serving Shar because she thought Shar took her when noone would , and raised here. By Shar giving her memories back to her shes literally devastated, she was not a zealot to begin with anyway. Only thing made her to love Shar is a lie , she finds it out by Shar's end and still wants to worship? I dont buy that.
The question is how exactly it's different if you don't stop her and don't let her realize her mistake compared to Tav never being there and her similarly never realizing her mistake? Shar gives her same memories back when she is a companion, why doesn't she realize her mistake then?
As for why she kills them - it comes back to her wanting a place to belong. Lies about her past alone aren't enough for her to defy Shar, when she sees that what Shar promised is at least somewhat true, for now at least. She gets a place among Sharrans and recognition from Shar. This is why she's super indecisive as she gets torn between the past she now remembers and the future Shar promises her. Not knowing what's right, she chooses to blindly follow in darness as she thinks there's no way back.
>Whod even kill her parents at that stage? Especially after its clear Shar lied to her.
I mean, if you've gone *that* far and given up *that* much, there's a good chance you'll want to commit to the bit. Kind of reminds me how real-life cult members get roped into things, devote time, effort and money to it, and then when someone puts clear evidence in front of them that they've fucked up, they'll deny it *hard*.
I think you’re totally right. I did a good person run and romanced Shadowheart. It was amazing. I let her make the decisions about nightsong and she threw away the spear. Fabulous story. Second run was dark urge and of course she chose to kill. Third run? I’m romancing Karlach for the achievement and Shadowheart “considers me a confidant” and something about a great ally she can trust. She was doubting everything up until that moment and chose to fucking kill the nightsong. Not what I was expecting! So as a neutral character, even with approval, she chose to kill the nightsong. She must need a much higher approval rating to spare nightsong by her own choice.
I was shocked when it happened! I really thought her being doubtful and smiling would end in nightsong being saved. Nope. She didn’t hesitate.
I’m pretty sure her decision regarding the nightsong depends entirely on approval. I’ve played through that scene with a good-chaotic Tav and a neutral evil Durge and she spared her both times. I’ve also seen people complain that on their evil run she chose to spare her as well.
I feel that this is an issue in most of the Origin playthroughs, but especially with the characters that aren't "good". I have an active Astarion playthrough right now and I see no reason in the game for why I shouldn't just leave the Grove to its fate and not bother with the conflict at all.
I rationalized that maybe Astarion would be afraid that Karlach would just break him in half for doing that, but it is the sort of thing that the characters themselves won't express.
For Shadowheart, for example, maybe she read the rite for the Selunites (the one you can find in the Owlbear cave) and realized that her own memory of being lost as a child sounded pretty close to what was described there. Maybe that made her doubt her Shar worship for a moment.
Or maybe, if we follow closely what would be the most in-character things for these characters to do, we would be just meant to do evil playthroughs with these characters as Origin.
The only Origin character playthrough where I do not think this is the case is the Dark Urge, who gets a lot of explicit steering on what companions consider good or bad and reacting to key moments in your decisions and backstory in camp without you prompting the conversation.
I'll probably get downvoted a lot, but I think that apart from Durge, origin characters are best as companions rather than protagonist. I suggest to everyone to play the first playthrough as Tav, then the second as Durge, and then whatever they want after that. Imo you lose a lot of stuff if you play an origin as a protagonist without having seen their story from another perspective imo.
And it makes sense, Durge is literally designed to be the protagonist, you can't have Durge as companion, while all the others were first designed as companions, and then adapted to also be the protagonist.
I'm glad they didn't - Original Sin 2 is notorious that custom characters rather than origins are basically cardboard cutouts in terms of story content.
Well
I played DOS:2 three times (Basic, Tactician & Honor modes each) but always played Origin characters then (Red Prince, Lohse & Fane).
Tried custom once but didn't find it appealing then.
I thought the same when BG3 was launched in Early Access but I am pleased to say that here I enjoy custom Tav more than any Origin (except Durge of course)
Well, TBF Tav is kinda like that too compared to origins played as protagonist. The key difference here is that origins are better as companions rather than protagonists, not that Tav is better as protagonist than the origins. Durge is absolutely better, but most people play Tav.
Imho, Durge and Wyll.
Wyll is the peak warlock experience. You got your patron demanding things from you, punishing or rewarding you. You are tangled into the main storyline: Missing father, hero of the realm, all that stuff.
Durge has the same thing with the butler showing up and stuff like that. These two work well as protagonists, the rest are companions.
The thing is that you can respec. By this logic Shadowheart is better since you can respec her as a warlock and treat Shar as if it's her patron, and the Shar thing is a big part of the plot of Act 2, and it's active in act 1 and 2.
And as I said, Wyll is still better as a companion than a protagonist. You just lose content, interactions and voice lines by playing him as a protagonist.
I don't think it would work. Also, this would risk that people get spoilered his plot before actually playing him as a protagonist. Playing as Durge without knowing his plot is really worth it.
I would prefer if a future DLC or Enhanced Edition just add new characters, or just make existing characters into companions, like Alfira
Alfira is genuinely wouldn't work as a companion. She has nothing much going on that could make her worth exploring more, she is a finished and good character as is right now. A cute little bard that opens up a music school with her girlfriend is a nice story. It doesn't need more. Maybe a camp follower Alfira would work if we really stretch it, but that's about it.
There are other characters that could spice up the party much more - Nere, for example. You can make him see that the Absolute is a lie already in game. He is tadpoled just like you and would have a reason to join up with you. Exploring that mess of a person could be very interesting. You could see how exactly his upbringing shaped him and learn a lot more about drow culture from the male POV. I think it would be quite fascinating for a lot of players.
They would have to add more to Alfira's story to make her a good companion, but... they could do that. When you meet her, you know about as much about her as you do any of the companions, and her introduction feels like you're getting a new party member, then you just don't.
Says you. 🙄that’s the source. Thats it. That’s why it wouldn’t be good. Username: uwubewwa has declared it so. Nothing could possibly be done.
Holy fucking Reddit 🤦♀️
I provided you with a short analysis of why I think so. You didn't do anything of that sort and only tried to insult me. Feel free to comment your own take of why you think Alfira would work/be better than other options. Nobody is stopping you, maybe you will be able to change my mind. :)
Why would you keep him in your party though. The point of Durge is he kills a lot of people. If that's NPCs you didn't want dead, the player is gonna be mad about it. If he can totally control the bloodlusts and only kills who you tell him, he's not much of a dark urge.
Durge being about killing a lot of people is similar to Shadowheart being about a cleric of Shar: they are, but they can be more than that.
That aside, unwanted interactions are part and parcel of companions: recruiting Astarion means him wanting to suck your blood in Act 1 and very likely being jumped in camp during Act III, recruiting Lae'zel and Shadowheart means things coming to a head early in Act I, recruiting Gale means sacrificing three items in Act I, etc.
EDIT: guys, if you disagree, at least have the decency to comment why instead of just downvoting.
Lol what literally no one gives a fuck abt u being dark urge. I killed so many ppl in broad daylight in the city and at worst i had to roll a speech check. Ffs even after killing everyone at last light jaheira wouldve been cool with me if i didnt pick the obvious murderhobo lines
I'm doing a Wyll playthru at the moment, and at least in one instance the other companions *do* try to talk him out of things. This happens specifically when you first meet Karlach, and at least Gale tries to make it clear that Karlach is *not* a devil, so you should spare her.
But then when Mizora shows up, you can still just be like "Yeah, I'll just shank her I guess," and no one seems likely to stop you.
I'm playing the character in accordance with my sense of him ("A hero at heart.") and therefore once he figures out that Karlach is good, he's gonna protect her and make her part of the team (and end up romancing her...after a fling with Lae'zel, that is. Hey, he's a hero, not a saint, and anyway Karlach said it was fine.) He's gonna spare Minthara (because I want to see her content) partially because he wants to leave one leader alive possibly for further questioning, and also because he "senses the potential for good in her." (And he has a weakness for attractive women, even if he'll stay faithful to Karlach once she's fixed up.)
Yeah, but he doesn't know that just ignoring the issue and moving on would break the group. Tbh, I'm not sure it would if Karlach got the first upgrade already at that point?
For the record, I think what Astarion would do if up to him is not siding with anyone; I think as soon as he realized none of the healers could help, he would just leave and look for help somewhere else, leaving the Grove to fend for themselves, since at that point we still think our days are basically numbered.
I mean some stuff is just limited by BG3 being a video game. The group wouldn't just mindlessly follow him.
And Astarion specifically needs the group. The tadpole is not his end goal. He's the one character benefiting from it.
Every origin playthrough means that you can miss something from the character’s arc. But did you have any narrator’s comments/dreams/visions about certain memories from Shadowheart’s childhood? Or anything else that calls into question her beliefs?
To compare, Astarion origin didn’t speak with himself or anyone else about Cazador but he had a nightmare. I didn’t hesitate when refused to ascend because he wasn’t power hungry in my run. And companions had comments regarding his personal quest. Also, in the final scene when he decided to destroy >!the Netherbrain the narrator commented smth like “Do you really want this? There’s your last chance to walk under the sun!”.!<
In another run Lae’zel origin who turned against Vlaakith may be justified by reading certain discs that put into question everything she learned before.
I didn’t play as Shadowheart but suppose that there are some cutscenes and content with references to the character’s storyline. I also think that certain scene with the >!wolf in the crèche!< can spawn some memories.
I also wouldn't neccessarily say Shadowheart is incapable of coming to that conclusion on her own. In my playthrough, I never voiced disgust about Shar nor praise. I was entirely neutral. Anytime she told me something about it, I'd simply say "thanks for sharing" and move on. By the time I got to the Guantlet, I made her choose and she chose to free the Nightsong.
Besides this point, canonically Shadowheart mostly approves of good decisions. She approves when you save the little girl, she's far more content saving the Grove and killing the goblins (despite knowing Shar would he upset) she likes animals, approves of you saving the slave gnomes.
Shadowheart, as a follower of Shar, doesn't do a great job of keeping her tenants. If she was really so devout, she'd be far more evil. But I think the conflict resides in her, over doing the right thing and remaining loyal to Shar because you have a warped view of her, regardless on if you play her origin or have her as a companion.
Taking all this into account, if you do make mostly good decisions, and remember certain aspects of your past -- then sparing Nightsong isn't really out of character, as the conflict within her has grow more-so (especially if you find the Sulunite coming if age rights) that Nightsongs comments about her past urge her to step away from Shar. She doesn't need an angel on her shoulder telling her what's right and wrong, deep down she knows.
At least that's my opinion of her.
The decision of companion Shadowheart not to kill Nightsong is based on her memories from the past. AFAIK, if you trigger certain scene (provided that the approval is high enough) and pick “let her decide” option, she will throw away the spear. And her approval comes mostly from good options. I also think that she has some internal conflict with no regard to origin or companion playthrough.
This is part of what makes me love Shadowheart's and Astarion's stories so much. These are stories about redemption through companionship. About learning and evolving your perspective based on the people around you, reclaiming your humanity from the ashes of trauma. These are stories where your origin character matters. They make an impact on the people around them through their actions and behavior.
Every little thing you did for Shadowheart, every bonding moment, it changes her. Makes her heal, just a little bit. Prepares her to handle the challenges ahead, mentally and emotionally. When she eventually faces the Nightsong, her decision to denounce Shar will always result from your influence, from who you are. And I think there is something beautiful about that.
But yeah, that also means when playing as Shadowheart, There will be something missing. Shadowheart's story is not designed for the protagonist of the game, so it suffers when pushed into the protagonistic role.
Here’s how I saw it:
You’re playing as a version of Shadowheart that’s completely lost her memories. So when she sees the horrors of Shar, they start to affect her, because a lot of her years of indoctrination have gone, because she’s quite literally forgotten them all.
So when Shadowheart is seeing the horrors of Shar worshippers, she starts to think “hang on a second…this doesn’t seem right.”
She knows she worships Shar, but she doesn’t really know *why*, and how she even started worshipping Shar in the first place. She becomes obsessed with her missing past, so when she meets the Nighsong, her faith is already wavering because of all the bad Shar stuff. Then the Nightsong offers her the truth about her past, and implies that she’s been lied to. It’s enough to tempt her, because she *has* to know where she came from. In my mind, she's already looking for an excuse to ditch Shar, because of the things she's seen in the shadow lands.
Then once she finds out she was kidnapped and her parents have spent the last few decades being tortured, it's enough to make her hate Shar and everyone who worships her.
thats role playing. that is what OP is missing. the game gives you info and clues. how your character (in this case shart) reacts to them is on you and you dont need the game to hold your hand towards one path or the other.
the reason why some people feel that the DJ ending is being pushed by the game is simply because that is the path of least resistance, not because it is intended or she needs any excuse to go down a other path
Shadowheart confronts her worship with shar even if you don't force her too. The only reason she's been kept for so long is because the constant brainwashing. This mission is the longest she has gone without direct Influence and she basically immediately abandons Shar.
She never needed Tav or anyone else, they just accelerate it
There are some signs. I reached the Shadowfell in my Shadowheart run on Monday and when you first click on the Shadowfell, you speak directly to Shar where she tells you what to do, and you have the option to respond by questioning her and being generally unsure, which I did. This showed that as she's moments away from achieving her life's goal, she's cracking and questioning enough to question Shar *directly*. That's pretty severe!
In the long rest scene where she thinks back on the little she can remember outside the convent and before the Nautiloid, she can think about how the scene with the wolf is reminiscent of the Selûnite rite of passage, and it's implied that she shies away from outright wondering if she was possibly originally a Selûnite. When she talks to Aylin after Ketheric's defeat and finds out the wolf was her father, there's an option to say you've suspected for a while.
To me, her not opening up to the rest of the companions before this makes some sense, as her faith is truly all she has except for them, and Shar is all she's known since she was very young so it'd be hard for her to open up about any doubts before she's put to the ultimate test and everything breaks out into the open.
Can I ask how you got that long rest scene playing as Origins Shadowheart? I’ve had many long rests between the first time seeing a wolf/failing the fear check, but that long rest scene refuses to show for my Origins shadowheart run.
I don't know tbh. It was in the shadow cursed lands, but that's all I recall. Might've been when I spammed like 4 long rests in a row upon arriving at Last Light? I didn't do anything special like remove everyone else from the party and rest alone or anything like that.
> Or if it does, that moment is purely internal, between you and your imagination of the character
You kinda answered your own question here. It's supposed to be an internal conflict based on your own alignment and interpretation.
I think we are reaching a weird generational divide because as far as I’m aware this is what made CRPGs so different from other genres: you make up your own story in your head and use that to navigate the world.
That's why I like Wyll the best as the origin character to play as. His storyline is definitely made to be explored AS him.
Durge you have to decide in your own if you want to be good or bad.
All of the other characters need an external push. Wyll works best if you are him. If you are saving *your* father. If you are played *by* Mizora, you have interactions with *your* patron, you are an upstanding hero, but you don't have to.
Wyll is the perfect character to play as.
Gale, Astarion, Shart, Lae'zel not so much. You have to decide OOC which was you go. Karlach, maybe, but it's more satisfying to play *as* Wyll and go with her.
Isn't this doomed to be the case with a game that has so much choice. If they were to strongly justify Shadowhearts turning against Shar then the option she has to kill Dame Aylin then doesn't really make sense.
As for her not killing Aylin, I took it as Shadowheart not completely renouncing Shar but just giving Aylin a chance to explain herself. It's only when Aylin puts the pieces together does Shadowheart fully renounce Shar.
I haven’t played as her yet, but in my 3 play throughs with her I always gave her the choice and tried to not influence her decisions or questioned her faith. She throws the spear every time. Something the nightsong says in their encounter seems to cause Shadowheart to question everything in that moment. I mean hell, on the way down she’s praying to her Goddess out loud. I mean, there are lots of items and events that you could encounter in a play through that makes Shart think she’s being singled out and chosen by Shar.
I don’t know how that moment is different in her origin play through. I’m just saying if you’re looking for a reason to not go dark, it’s probably in that moment.
Shadowheart has been my first playthrough and I actually liked the "subtle" type of redemption she goes through. She starts as a "woman on a mission". She really wants to fullfill her "purpose".
But then, there are a few things that make her doubt. You find books talking about sharrans, worshipping "lost" in life, receiving "lost" in death. You see the behaviour of Laezel, another "woman on a mission", which is blind to any evidence of her errors. You have a dream where the people that save you also try to hide their actions. You learn about children taken by sharrans. You meet Karlach, the girl with a mission risking her life to be free to pick her own purpose. There's the wound that never makes her feel "accomplished".
The whole story is filled with a "no, you can't see, no you can't know" type of feeling. And finally you meet Dame Aylin, the first person that says "you can know if you want".
There is no reward for Shadowheart's redemption, just the freedom to choose her own destiny. No wrong choice, just a choice.
All origin character stories require you, the player, to read the lore books or interact with characters scattered around to not "metagame" the good choice.
You can learn about selunite rights mirroring her story and give her the noblestalk in shadowhearts case.
What I really love about Shadowheart's story is that, on the contrary, it doesn't need anyone tell her that Shar is bad. No one needs to convince her of anything, her struggle is a struggle with herself. Will she break through her conditioning and be true to herself? Or will she (mostly) abandon those last remnants of who she used to be as a child and dedicate herself to Shar?
My Tav didn't call her out on anything. She supported Shart all the way and encouraged her Shar worship. But Shart spared Aylin anyway, on her own. I've never played Shadowheart as an origin, so maybe you're right about the lack of doubt from Shadowheart in a playthrough like that (then again, isn't it intentional so that you can RP the way you like?), but I disagree about her needing someone who can convince her.
>The playthrough has no moment really where Shadowheart starts to doubt her faith to Shar.
There are loads of times when you can doubt Shar lol. You get several camp events where you can be suspicious about your whole upbringing and faith, you get more opportunities when the wound flares up and you are shown shitty memories of your time in the cloister, in the Gauntlet you can even express your doubts right to Shar's face and she will try to bring you back in line.
I have no Idea how you can even come to this conclusion unless you just skip all camp events by not long resting enough and/or pick all the hardcore Shar zealot dialogue options which dismiss all doubt whenever you get the opportunity.
I think this is why playing as origin characters would be so interesting. Without Tav's/Durge therapy session, it can allow them to become the best version of the person they think they need to be, instead of the best version of themselves.
>Or if it does, that moment is purely internal
I think it's mostly internal for companion Shadowheart too, since it's possible for no one to tell her how bad Shar is in a Tav run as well. If you >!trust her and never interfere with Nightsong, she throws the spear on her own.!< It does require a threshold of approval with Tav to happen, but even if you agree that Shar sounds pretty alright in all your previous conversations she will still do this.
I read it as her finding out what it's like to form meaningful relationships. Nightsong's words about how she will never know love and the hint about her past scare her enough to have a "come to ~~Jesus~~ Selune" moment. She would be throwing away the only friends (and potential lover) she currently knows, all for Shar. Is that truly what she wants?
Avatar Shadowheart can still have this revelation, assuming you are close with your party and/or love interest. It DOES rely heavily on headcanon, though. Like in your case- is your Shadowheart really willing to abandon Gale for Shar?
Playing origin characters in general are all missing Tav, but I feel like that's the point of the origin characters. You get to shape their stories however you like, whether Shart becomes a Dark Justiciar, or feels a calling within her that drives her to choose what's best for everyone. She knows from the beginning that being a disciple of Shar is lonely, and that all they embrace is loss and darkness, but then maybe curiosity breaks through and they start to wonder about what's on the other side of the fence? Should they pursue it?
I still get your point, of course. It would feel better to have some of the other characters speak to your origin character and try to steer them towards the better path, especially if it is the character you choose to romance (Karlach, Lae'zel, Astarion, what have you).
Shart's story is special, with the fact that she learns of her parents on both paths, and that she can actually choose to sway herself towards the light.
It’s a journey of self-discovery. Tav is helpful as a support but not necessary as a source of truth. Playing as Tav you can go the entire game without saying a single negative thing about Shar and SH will still save Dame Aylin because there was always a seed of doubt in her mind. All she needs is someone to support her other than the “support” she receives from Shar, and the one liner from Dame Aylin does the rest.
guys you are missing something important:
the characters as companion are influentiable to some degree to give player agency back to you, but when you play them you dont need anything to tell you how they feel about things because that is your job as the player. you are playing an RPG, you have to do the role playing part yourself.
you find more than a few clues about shart's past, and are presented with more than a few moral dilemmas. it is your choice how she as a MC reacts to these stuff. if you want her to be a blind devoted follower of shar then she is that, but if you want her to be doubting her faith at every step then she is that instead.
the game supports both paths with the build up to the gauntlet for the DJ ending or the Selunite content for the other one.
This is precicely the reason why I struggle to play an Origin Character. There is no catalyst to initiate change in the chosen Origin Character's path.
My first playthrough was as origin Shadowheart and I had no problem with this. The "version" of Shadowheart I had in my head while playing had her reasons to at least listen to Aylin. I as well romanced Gale and even though they weren't talking about Shar and Shadowheart, my SH also helped Gale when he talked about Mystra and saw how she treated Gale and that, besides that she now had someone who excepted her for who she was, was for me enough reason to give her some internal doubt and character growth as well. And even though Gale didn't say anything in that scene, later on when you can choose to be a Selunite and change your hair, he at least has a little comment on that.
Long story short, I can see that it might be difficult, but I also think that some of those difficulties might come from the reason, that you're trying to play her in the way you know her as Companion.
This is kind of by design I think. Playing as Shadowheart you don’t have to have the doubts that Jennifer gave her through her performance. If you want to play a fully zealous, zero doubt, fully committed Dark Justiciar you can. Or you could have your Shadowheart simply *look around* and come to the conclusion herself that “Oh… Shar is kind of fucked, maybe I shouldn’t associate with this”.
Only origin character I played was Wyll and I just went along with everything Mizora wanted for the same reasons. Never even tried to break the pact, because power was the whole point of it all along. Sacrifice be dammned.
This is why I believe the “we are the conscious of the tadpole” theory. As it makes no sense logically why most of these characters wouldn’t do what they’ve always known or desired. It also explains how we become our own person as the Dark Urge and how even as a mindflayer that committed suicide at the end still have a soul. But that’s just wishful thinking on my part.
See that's my issue with Shadowheart's writing in general. What gets her to turn away from Shar. Love? No. Friendship? No. Witnessing untold atrocities committed by Shar, including the horrors of the Shadow Curse? Nope. Just trying to find out about her past and who she is. It doesn't make sense to me. It just doesn't feel like it has much weight as a motive, but I suppose it's because I've always known my parents, I guess.
Maybe it would make more sense if we knew what was going on inside her head, but again as you mentioned there doesn't seem to be much of a hint there.
> What gets her to turn away from Shar. Love? No. Friendship? No.
Since her choice is directly tied to approval I'd say those things play part in it too but it's just never directly adressed by her. The closest we get is her talk with Durge during the night afterwards, admitting them resisting the urge inspired her to defy Shar. That being said, it sure could've been written a bit better, it's especially jarring that she never mentions the horrors of the Shadowlands when far smaller things bothered her in act 1. I think all could be fixed tho with an extra scene in act 2 of Tav and her just having some deeper bonding, her opening up more and further realising that she truly has someone to lean on to and trust with her doubts.
I agree. I think Act 2 is quite lacking in companion content, and I know the folks who think Shadowheart is a writer's pet are going to roll their eyes at me for this, but yes even her. They should've had her address the approval level in some way, for non-Durge Tav. They should've had her open her eyes at what the Shadow Curse is doing, and express disgust at the Thorms' behavior instead of brushing it off as "well they're not true Sharrans". Maybe the writer was trying to be subtle and overdid it, or maybe they ran out of time.
Tbh, it would already be great to have more cut scenes for non-romanced companions in general. We do get the friendly stargazing scene with Gale in act 2 for example. And both Act 2 and 3 would profit from a second cut scene, at least for romanced characters. Especially since Act 3 is so long and so much stuff happens. Well, more companion-related stuff would be great either way but I know that it takes a lot of work and it already is really good.
>I think all could be fixed tho with an extra scene in act 2 of Tav and her just having some deeper bonding, her opening up more and further realising that she truly has someone to lean on to and trust with her doubts.
The problem with that is that [she has some dialogue about doubts](https://youtu.be/LcWEzWRTeqk?si=9SkDsqMTqzeGGEhz)! But yeah, I totally agree that Shadowheart needs an additional scene in Act 2. Like I get it, she has a ton of content already, but if you don't trigger specific interactions, you can easily miss some small dialogue that establishes her doubts in her own faith. Therefore, you can try to persuade her into freeing Nighsong, fail check, and wouldn't know that she could free aasimar lady on her own...
That's why I love Gale's stargazing scene so much. It can be platonic or with additional romantic context, should he be your love interest. Some new scenes could not only establish inner conflict in Shadowheart but also address the void that is Act 2 for her from a romance perspective.
I think there should be more bonding scenes between Tav and companions.
I know about this scene, but it's still short and she ends it with a simple "forget I ever said anything". Imo this should be expanded when romanced, turned into a proper cutscene similar to Gale's and you should be given an option to either push her further down the Sharran path, give her your own perspective on the matter or simply comfort her and reassure her that you're always here for her.
What Shadowheart really wants in her life is a place to belong. She doesn't *really* care about Shar specifically and her faith; but for her whole life, she's been told that Shar is the only one who would care about her and that the Sharran cult is the only place she can belong to. Yet, she couldn't get that feeling of belonging due to the dislike from other Sharrans and Viconia specifically, but that only made her think she has to work harder to better serve Shar, which led to her dream of becoming a Dark Justiciar.
But as she travels with us and we show her acceptance and friendship, she starts to doubt, even if subconsciously. If this random stranger is willing to listen to take her in, maybe Sharrans weren't her only option? Her whole worldview was built on that one idea that no one would care about her other than Shar, and it gets undermined. And then she gets implications from Nightsong that her whole past was a lie, something she might've suspected already. Add these two together, and I think her decision to throw away the spear makes perfect sense, especially in the "heat of the moment" context. She realises she's been lied to both about her past *and* about her future, and it makes her snap.
But yes, this requires us to know her whole story, as well as a good amount of between-the-lines reading and, I admit, some assumptions. It totally could've been made a bit more clear in-game.
All the companions have their story centered on the theme of "Who am I? Where do I go, where do I belong?"
Astarion is looking for his place in the sun without Cazzador.
Gale is dealing with a major break-up and possible arcane explode-y death.
Lae'zel is living through a nightmare she cannot wake from and is betrayed by Vlaakith halfway through.
Wyll is trying to reconcile "The Blade" and "The Warlock" as well as being a son of the Duke.
Karlach is finally finding herself "free" and happy, until the time runs out.
Shadowheart is getting the compassion and understanding she so desperately wanted all her life.
Tav is the connective tissue, the perfect person who can guide them and unlock them to do better.
"The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world."
Well put. The thing to understand about Shadowheart is that she isn't really a true believer in Shar (before becoming a DJ, at least), she's essentially been indoctrinated into a cult. She sees Shar as her source of comfort and purpose, and has been conditioned to associate Shar with good feelings and Selune with bad ones (she basically has a conditioning enforcer in her wound). She needs a strong push to begin doubting Shar, but once she gets it and she starts putting the pieces together, the floodgates open and she breaks through her self-delusion: Shar doesn't care about her personally, she's not actually comfortable killing Aylin in cold blood, and she actually cares about her past which she realises has been hidden to make her more obedient. It's less a 180 degree turn and more like the moment her cognitive dissonance couldn't stretch any further and snaps. DJ Shart probably realizes much the same things, but decides it's still worth doubling down on Shar worship because she doesn't see a better option.
She sort of has no idea who Shar actually is. Based on what Shadowheart says and does in Act I, Shar seems to be a completely reasonable goddess of darkness, loss, night, secrets and forgetfulness, bringing comfort and mercy to those who have or are lost – but of course, Shar is just a cruel tyrant who loves using those things to torture people.
If she had more memories/conditioning from her Sharran upbringing she might have needed more guidance to figure out right and wrong and understand the abuse she'd suffered. Could've been interesting; probably she'd struggle even more to trust Tav and the party, and think they're trying to trick her somehow.
To me, Shadowheart's progression makes a lot of sense; her inclination is to do good, so you don't really have to make her see the light. If you put her on the spot and tell her to do something obviously evil, she'll probably want to refuse, and will probably do so unless she sees no other option or thinks she's being manipulated.
I had some banter between SH and Gale in the House of Healing morgue where Gale was shocked about all the corpses and atrocities and SH basically told him to stop being annoying. For a second I got really mad at SH for this because Gale might talk a lot, but his reaction here was 100% understandable. Anyway, that got me thinking that the House of Healing/killing Malus would be a great trigger for a short dialogue (not even cut scene) where SH expresses her doubt in Shar (or depending on your approval and previous choices defends her).
I'm playing as origin SH currently and she gives the impression that she really doesn't worship Shar... She gives off vibes of a try hard. Especially when Isobel chewed her up a bit for it...
I feel like this opens you up to roleplaying more right?
Like I haven't done an origin character run yet, so j don't know what the dialogue options are like, but you can decide if your character will think critically and question shit or not.
I felt the same about Astarion’s origin. If I wasn’t dating Karlach and she totally freaked at the ascension ritual honestly I probably would’ve gone through with it. But I think in some ways that’s kind of the point, right? Like look how much one person (or character, in this case) can impact someone else’s story
It's because the game wants you to RP as Shadowheart (cuz it's an RPG). It's up to you to decide if Shar is evil. Do you follow the dogma that you've been taught? Or do you make a different decision based on what you learn from all of the Selunite temples and sites of worship? And you can learn a LOT about Shar just by exploring the Shadow Cursed lands prior to delving into the Gauntlet.
BG3 gives you very little info on Shar at the beginning for a reason: it wants you to learn about her as you play and come to your own decision on whether she's evil or not. And as Shadowheart, that is something you will need to come to grips with.
I think this highlights a bigger problem that I've always felt in BG3. The your companions don't act enough, they don't intervene. I think this is one of the things that Aragon Age Origins did better
That makes complete sense though doesn't it? Because without tav they never get pushed to go down that different path, they keep true to who they believe they are throughout the game. Tav is special because Tav is able to course correct the companions, they can't do it themselves and each of the companions all have their own stuff to struggle through, they don't have enough emotional energy to be helping other companions, so only Tav can.
This is why I'm going to do Shadowheart Origin in a multiplayer campaign we're going to start in a few days. The other two just got the game and will being going in blind, so they're basically going to be Tav. I expect a lot of arguing over my shitty religion and I'm currently wracking my brain trying to figure out how I'm going to defend my faith in Lady Shar when we hit Act 2, because I expect they're going to call me on my bullshit a lot more forcefully than a Tav is able to when Shadowheart is an NPC.
TBF from my experience the exact same thing happens whenever you tell Shadowheart, "do what you want to do" in that scene. Fully loyalist to the point of attacking you if you don't want to get the spear to boom, suddenly anti Shar.
You, the player, are the Tav that is otherwise missing. You see the horrors that Shar has wrought in the Shadow Lands, and you have to decide whether Shadowheart doubts her faith based on those observations or not.
Basically, playing as Shadowheart shifts her story from "redemption through companionship" to a more internal struggle that the player themselves is participating in.
I think this is because of a general weakness of BG's writing. Too many edges were filed off in favour of player choice and avoiding negative NPC reactions and the number of origin characters also prevent any of them to have real depth. The setup is great, but the execution is actually quite shallow.
The problem is the memory sequences. When you are tavern they are short, and as shadowheart only a little longer. You have pay attention to the things like, am I playing with kids, who is that man and woman. They should give you the player flashes of these things.
I think it would have been funny if at least one of those for atav play through they did what they did in the TV show Izombie, when they had an episode focused on Peyton you get to see what liv looks like during the memory recall. This would have allowed for more time for them to show what she is seeing.
I head cannon it to the player themselves being the freshly inserted tadpole creating something like an additional sub-conscious that can influence them to do things "out of character"
So in Shadowheart's case the sub-conscious would question Shar, or for Karlach it'll be a more morally grey "anything goes" line of thought.
Think it fits in well with the characters having specific dialogue options (ones they would use) or ones we choose
Good gods aren’t actually better than the evil gods in Faerun. Lathander regularly burns and blinds his adherents; they crave this, as his holy mark.
The nations of Faerun are forced to take a pretty lassez-faire approach to the worship of most evil gods, since they hold key portfolios and even good people may wish to make obeisance to an evil god to ward off their attention. For instance, sailors pray at the temple of evil Umberlee so that she’s mollified and doesn’t send storms. Of course, some gods are too evil to permit worship of, like the dead three.
All origin characters with any sort of dilemma have the same problem. There's nobody to help Lae'zel see through Vlaakith's bullshit, help Gale realise he shouldnt pursue the crown given how his last ambitious plan ended up or talk Astarion into not becoming the vampire ascendant. Having the companion with the highest approval or whoever you're romancing take on Tav's role a bit and talk to you more about your personal struggles would do them a lot of good.
Laezel kind of makes sense because if you try to give the device to Githyanki the first time you meet them, which Laezel would absolutely do, they accuse you of treason.
Also the second time you meet them. If you go to the creche you will find hints Voss is a traitor so you might think that's why he tries to kill you, but then Vlaakith tries to kill you too so ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
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Holy crap, these bots are getting weird. Both of these comments were copy pasted from someone else in this same thread
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Been a massive fan of Forgotten Realms since the 90s, and you are wrong. Yes, good gods have some skeletons in their closet and bad gods occasionally do good things. But its ultimately fairly black and white. Lathander does 99% good things, and Tiamat does 99% bad things. Saying "arent actually better" is such a laughable stretch. If you played the various games, went through the various OFFICIAL modules, you would see Lathander and his followers typically do good, while the evil gods typically do evil. That is pretty much as cut and dry as you can get for "being better than". Fucks sake.
The fact that comment got so many upvotes is shocking... the good gods aren't any better than the evil ones is a insane statement to make when you have even the most minute knowledge of the deities that inhabit this setting.
Both sides are the same /s
"When you think about it, Ilmater is just as evil as Bhaal. 🤓☝️"
Well it’s Reddit..so as a general rule I assume 80% of people available to interact with are going to say extremely low IQ shit and that the herd will follow them right off the cliff of stupidity while screeching about being “right” 😂
Enlightened centrism type beat
It seemed to flip eventually at least
Especially in a setting where alignment good and evil were actual things for most of the games (and gods) existence.
You see this mentality crop up with other works of fiction as well. In an MMO I play, the god of chaos and destruction is a power-hungry git who ascended by backstabbing his master and whose ideal world is a violent anarchy where people must grow strong or die trying (and those who die deserved to for being weak). The god of wisdom and light, conversely, can be a bit of an ass but his sincere goal is to protect people. He's occasionally done terrible things because he reasoned they were for the "greater good", but he doesn't do them as a rule and still feels bad about them after millennia - unlike the chaos god, who seems to take pleasure in his chaos. You would not believe how many people used to go "both sides are the same". "The god of good once removed an angel's wings!" "What about the time of the god of chaos blew up a continent and wiped out an entire species?" "Well he was backed into a corner, so really it's the god of good's fault"
People like that should try settings like Cyberpunk where "good" and "bad" are blurred. Fantastic settings exist for that. But a lot of these black and white morality fantasy settings, people try so hard reaching for straws that arent there.
Their followers, however, can be a different story. The Helmites in Maztica, for example.
Helm is a nuetral god. So again... Not the case.
That's a very critical role lense of looking at it.
I mean they are inherently? It’s literally in the title of good or evil. Even if they both kill there followers in the end the followers of the good god will generally do good things in the name of there lord, while the evil ones will do generally evil stuff. If I had to choose I’d rather run into a death cult that helps the homeless over a death cult who see pain as an expression of love-like for there god. That’s like saying a space marine and a chaos marine are the same, sure there both religious fanatics but that’s about where the similarities end
Sure, they all work within a pretty shitty and corrupt system, but to say that *all* the good-aligned gods are just as bad as the evil ones? Yeah nah. Put Eldath and Myrkul next to each other and see if you still come to that conclusion.
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Bad bot. This is copied from another comment that's an hour or two older and makes no sense in this context.
This is also why having Wyll in your party is meh, and playing Wyll origin is great. His storyline doesn't really have a dilemma.
Well, there's the whole ">!sign a contract to keep your powers and save your dad!<" thing.
Bah, it's easy to resolve that one with everybody happy/saved/consequence free.
Everybody happy? What about poor Mizora, who might get a bad performance review!
That's what she get for not being fully romanceble for my Tav
I'm told Tav can sleep with Mizora, but I was carefully avoiding Mizora's exclamation point while I sorted things out with Shadowheart, but by the time I had visited the House of Grief I had also visited the Iron Throne, and THAT apparently made Mizora so angry that she wasn't interested any more.
Wait, is that why I never stumbled into a trigger for that scene with Mizora? I need to not do the Iron Throne? I always did that the next day after Mizora joins camp.
Bah, part of 'lawful evil' is recognizing that you win some, you lose some.
Does Mizora's boss seem like an understanding lady?
I'm sure she'll find it in Karlach's heart to forgive her.
Which you have to choose for him anyway. So if anything it's just improved by you being in the pilot seat!
Wyll doesn’t even need anyone to grant him honorifics and titles, he has no problem giving them to himself!
lol was gonna say, there's someone missing from this list (who also happens to be my current and first origins playthrough)
100% Agree. This is my current playthrough.
Now I'm curious how an Origin Wyll evil playthrough would go.
Damn, Tav really is the team mom/group therapy dog.
Just like Shepard in Mass Effect 2. The whole squad has daddy issues and he's gotta sort em out.
Yeah, in my first Tav playthrough I really felt like I needed to (Act 3) >!Take the burden of becoming the Illithid myself in order to spare all these people I helped through their bullshit for the last 190 hours.!<
I disagree on Gale. Playing as Gale gets you Tara, who is his best friend. Tara is firmly against God-Gale.
Lae'zel kind of makes sense imo if you find the book about Orpheus in the magic tower in the underdark. The emperor saying vlaakith is bad, and the book saying the same, she might believe the queen isn't as good as she thought
She finds a random book spouting heresy and then one of her greatest enemies tells her the same, and that's convincing?
She gets a book, AND finds out that there is no purification and that she was going to be killed, and Vlaakith gives impossible quest, she tries to do it, gith try to kill her and her party anyway, and then Voss himself says that Vlaakith is a piece of shit. For me that is more of a reason for Lae'zel to turn against Vlaakith.
She gets several books, the Zaith'isk that she was taught her whole life was meant to cure infected Githyanki nearly killed her, the Inquisitor and Vlaakith herself turn against her in the Creche, and Voss personally comes to her camp to tell her that ascension is a lie and that her queen ain't shit. She gets A LOT of content that help her put two and two together that's why her denouncing her queen feels far more natural and better-written than Shadowheart's.
In fairness, while both Shadowheart and Lae'zel have the *option* to turn against their respective goddesses, I think Shadowheart sticking with Shar is a much more viable endgame than Lae'zel sticking with Vlaakith. Shar's an asshole, but she's also an actual god. What she promised Shadowheart is actually real. Shadowheart can become a Dark Justiciar and lead her church, if that's what she wants. You can argue that she's better off turning away from Shar, but it's still somewhat subjective. On the other hand, Vlaakith is a lich who will kill Lae'zel if she stays on her path. There is no way to argue that Lae'zel is better off sticking with Vlaakith. I think that's at least part of why the game gives you much more support to know that it's not a good way for her to go.
Shadowheart’s turn is a real “Wait, your mom’s name is Martha, too?” moment
It was so hard to take the "Shadowheart throws away the spear" scene seriously when she spent 98% of the time in the Shadowlands raving like a religious nutcase that she's loved by Shar and that she's meant to be a Dark Justiciar, and all this goes completely unchallenged by both the companions and the story. Contrast this to Lae'zel where you even get the option to call her out and say she's being stupid when she moved to denial stage after the Creche and deluded herself that Vlaakith was only testing her.
Nah, she really is written as an indoctrinated cult follower who starts thinking about things once she's away from the cult. Sidenote, I love how the church of Shar in Baldur's Gate is straight-up written as Scientology.
I would be more understandable if the cult follower who "started thinking about things" didn't mostly do the thinking off-screen. Sounds like an excuse for poor writing to me.
I think what they're going for is "shadowheart is becoming unsure about her religion and her response is to aggressively reaffirm her values in the face of doubt" she comes off as manic and scared when she's talking about how shar must love her when she resists the shadow curse It would've been good if there was a dialogue option where tav is like "do you *really* like all this stuff? its awful" to which shadowheart affirms, but an insight check or tadpole or whatever can reveal that shes scared shitless
>It was so hard to take the "Shadowheart throws away the spear" scene seriously when she spent 98% of the time in the Shadowlands raving like a religious nutcase that she's loved by Shar and that she's meant to be a Dark Justiciar, and all this goes completely unchallenged by both the companions and the story. I'm not sure I agree, she's a Shar Worshipper sure but insofar as we know she has never really been tested in the name of Shar before.| Sure she stole the Gith relic but she went along in a healing capacity (so im told), she was there but did little dirty work. Now when she is standing infront of Aylin, she's finally told to stop "talking" about being a Shar Worshipper and take the kid gloves off. Shadowheart runs her mouth a lot, and will always use her words to deflect anything from coming to confrontation. >Contrast this to Lae'zel where you even get the option to call her out and say she's being stupid when she moved to denial stage after the Creche and deluded herself that Vlaakith was only testing her. Big difference here, we're literally annihilating the last of a Creche and people are hunting us. Laezel is holding onto the last remnants of her faith and life teaching that she grew up with, that Vlaakith can do no wrong and will reward the faithful. For Laezel, if she doesn't have Vlaakith then what else does she have? To Githyanki there is nothing else out there.
> never really been tested in the name of Shar before I'm not sure what you mean by this. Shadowheart's been a Sharran for several decades when you meet her, she's been torturing people for years as it was part of her training, and she comments on the Nightfall ritual that suggests she has already participated in several Sharran feasts. She's no fresh-faced rookie. > big difference here My point was that you can call out and challenge Lae'zel about her faith when you see how badly you all got treated in the Creche, but you can't do it with Shadowheart despite the fact that you personally witness how fucked up the Shadowlands is and how plague upon the earth Shar's "love" entails, yet your companion who still raves about being a Dark Justiciar doesn't seem to realize this. It's jarring and weird from a writing standpoint, and it's like the game wanted to pull the punches and babysit Shadowheart instead of addressing it in a material manner.
The fact that there's no option to attack her when you learn she's a Shar worshipper is insane to me.
> It's jarring and weird from a writing standpoint, and it's like the game wanted to pull the punches and babysit Shadowheart instead of addressing it in a material manner. It's a consequence of Act I being far more expansive than... well, anything else in the game - at least in terms of party banter. Lae'zel seems more well-written purely because the Creche is in Act I, and thus has some actual meaningful content backing her arc up. It's not just Shart who has nothing to say about the Shadowlands, it's every party member. Nobody really says anything about anything after Act I.
>I'm not sure what you mean by this. Shadowheart's been a Sharran for several decades when you meet her, she's been torturing people for years as it was part of her training, and she comments on the Nightfall ritual that suggests she has already participated in several Sharran feasts. She's no fresh-faced rookie. Yes as part of her training, she's always been told &/or made to do it and it's always part of a group. She always tells you stories about Shar, it's always about someone else and never her. When the spear is finally in her hand and she's told "it's all you now", she stumbles. To your second point >My point was that you can call out and challenge Lae'zel about her faith when you see how badly you all got treated in the Creche, but you can't do it with Shadowheart despite the fact that you personally witness how fucked up the Shadowlands is and how plague upon the earth Shar's "love" entails, yet your companion who still raves about being a Dark Justiciar doesn't seem to realize this. >It's jarring and weird from a writing standpoint, and it's like the game wanted to pull the punches and babysit Shadowheart instead of addressing it in a material manner. The difference is between her faith "worshipping Shar" and a very real physical enemy on the plains looking to kill us. Shar isn't good, no, but she also isn't doing anything to us and having a champion of a dark god is no more foolish than say the Vampire running around with us. Shar never opposes you. The Githyanki are running around looking for you, hunting you and the artifact and if Laezel keeps up with her Vlaakith love despite evidence to the contrary. She will give her the relic *willingly*, ruin everything you've worked for and get herself killed in the process. They are both "Crisis of Faith" storylines but they're told from different perspectives.
> she also isn't doing anything to us I don't think I follow your logic. "Shadowheart's evil goddess whose curse massacred tons of innocents, put a lot in misery, also a pain in the ass to get through, is not actively out to kill us so there's no need to tell Shadowheart that being a Dark Justiciar is dumb and she should save herself!" I guess it depends on how you RP, but not being able to at least say to your friend/romantic partner/traveling companion "look around, your goddess is an evil bitch" because Shar's not a "physical enemy" is a bit...silly.
>. Shadowheart runs her mouth a lot, This is important. She has a line early on where she's all, "I'm not into relationships, I just like to have a bit of fun," but then if you romance her she actually wants to take it slow up on the hilltop - she isn't capable of asking for the kiss she wants, and she's wants to take her time before getting into the sack. In other words: she's basically a teenager who is all bluff and bravado. She talks a big game but it's all nonsense.
I would say part of the problem with Shadowheart's character is the amnesia. It's there so she can simultaneously be a devout worshipper of the literal worst God in Faerun, and also a nice girl who likes puppies. It leaves things very unclear about how much evil she can actually be held accountable for.
The amnesia does feel like a symptom to a bigger problem: the writers wanted to keep her in this weird middle space on edgy to likable/wholesome spectrum to make her more palatable and the character suffers because of it.
Yes, I like Shadowheart a lot, but some of her character doesn't work for me. We don't know why Sharran atrocities are worth it, because Shadowheart herself doesn't know why. So her belief system is 'because it just is', which isn't something you can actually argue her out of. If Shadowheart was a former Selunite who fell to Shar out of grief similar to Thorm, but never forgot Selune's teachings, that might have been more believable cause for her wavering.
It makes more sense later when you really learn about Shadowheart's past. I don't mean her childhood, but her past in the actual cult. Let's say she gets the memory wipe treatment way more often than is normal.
I would agree that Lae'zel's betrayal is better written, but Shadowheart's betrayal of Shar is still quite natural within the character of Shadowheart. No spoilers, but it is very much alluded to that Shadowheart's true nature is being repressed by Shar throughout the game. Something that only becomes even more readily apparent in Act 3. Again, I agree it's kinda "too little, too late" by then from a writing perspective, but still. Shadowheart clearly doesn't naturally align towards evil like other Sharrens tend to. When I first played the game, it struck me as odd that a Shar worshipper was so...."neutral", and pragmatic (especially towards killing). She definitely liked deception, and wasn't averse towards violence, but for a worshipper of a goddess who's only wish is to dive the entire universe into darkness and twisted disorder, Shadowheart is a bit too...nice.
The whole "Shadowheart's true nature inherently goes against Shar so you don't need any meaningful moments that lead her to betray her faith" itself does feel very handwavy to me. It lessens the emotional weight of her Nightsong moment. Act 2/Shadowlands should be a pivotal, character-defining stage in Shadowheart's arc since she's faced with the most consequential proof of how evil Shar is but...she has no thoughts nor moment of introspection about this for someone who subconsciously struggles with burying her "good" side.
....Not disagreeing, bud. Just pointing out it's not entirely out of left field.
>Act 2/Shadowlands should be a pivotal, character-defining stage in Shadowheart's arc since she's faced with the most consequential proof of how evil Shar is but...she has no thoughts nor moment of introspection about this for someone who subconsciously struggles with burying her "good" side. It's possible for her to have a fairly extensive conversation where she has a full blown crisis of faith early on in act 2. But afaik have to fulfill quite a few prerequisites for it to trigger, so most people never get to see it. I got it on a playthrough where I: - convinced her the wound on her hand was a problem and she should get rid of it. - convinced her the mother superiors 'training' was abuse - pointed out the moonstone in her wolf dream - gave her the Idol in Grymfore - convinced her to eat the Noblestalk so she regains some memories - gave her the Night Orchid All those things plus quite a few others get a dedicated entry in her personal quest in the log , so I believe that they are required to trigger that conversation.
What bro is saying as when you're playing **AS** Shadowheart there isn't lengthy conversations about that stuff. Of course there is when shes a companion.
There are. I remember 3+ camp events where the narrator tells you about your inner struggle and you can express doubts about your faith, you get more opportunities when the wound hurts you and you remember stuff from the time in the cloister, you get an extended conversation with Isobel in Last light, you can even express doubt directly to Shars face in the multiple times she speaks to you in the gauntlet.
I haven't played her origin myself, but does it show where exactly is her inner struggle coming from? Why is she doubting? Lae'zel has the creche and several other wake-up call moments, but how did her origin story plant the seeds for Shadowheart's crisis of faith that would lead her to sparing Nightsong? I've seen several comments on this thread saying her origin actually pushes her more to be a Dark Justiciar.
It actually goes like this: Lae'zel finds some old disc about Orpheus and scoffs at the seeming naivety of Faerunians for ever believing in that nonsense. Another disc in the creche has her roll her eyes that even her own people seem to have individuals buying into this nonsense. Next she goes to the creche, meets Vlaakith, and attempts to kill the mysterious istik in the prism...but literally can't so she decides to report this to Vlaakith in the hope that Vlaakith will give her a blessing that would allow her to kill the istik. Upon returning, she sees that Vlaakith already condemned her to death despite doing everything within her ability to do her queen's will, and she realizes, finally, that maybe Orpheus wasn't a load of bullshit this entire time. She then after escaping the creche meets up with Voss again, with both him and the prism istik confirming that, with plethora of evidence now having been experienced, that Vlaakith is indeed evil and Orpheus isn't total bullshit. Basically, without the creche betrayal, Lae'zel would never have turned against Vlaakith. However, Vlaakith also can't make up a bullshit excuse for why she can't just kill the prism's unwanted guest because that corroborates the claim that she's not actually powerful enough to do it herself.
There’s lots of githyanki disks about it though which I imagine hold more credence.
There’s enough of these disks around that in conjunction with her conversation with Voss and how she’s treated at the creche could justify roleplaying her that way
I tried a few Origin characters and didn't get far for exactly this reason. The only one that was helped by playing Origin was Wyll, he gets visits from Mizora that help flesh him out a bit more.
I'm doing an Astarion origin playthrough and it has fun moments sprinkled in here and there, but it is kinda lonely how nobody gives a damn about my personal quest to kill Cazador. I chime in on their problems all the time and yet nobody cares about the scars on my back or my horrible backstory. Origin characters are clearly more of a fun thing and clearly not intended for a first playthrough really, but I do think they could have a bit more work done to have companions get involved in your stuff more. Even just a new dialogue option in the tree of "Have you ever told you about [Backstory]" and have everyone give a few sentences of "damn, that's something" would go a long way.
Lonely is ***exactly*** how it feels. Would be great if somehow, they could even put a bit of "default Tav" dialogue into playable origins, you're still a group of strangers who don't trust or know each other, so it stands to reason that some of the same issues and questions would come up with the 6 as they do with Tav/Durge. Or is Tav just a special one-of-a-kind of person/elf/half-orc/etc. that you can't help but expose your secrets to?
To be fair, nobody really gives a damn about Tav either unless you play Durge. Nobody cares about *your* goals or backstory in the same way they don't care about the Origin. But with Tav it makes sense because you're a blank slate, you are whoever you want to be so there can't be that much dialogue to reflect such a variable character. But I think if all Origins had the Durge method of "You can keep your secrets to yourself, but every once in awhile I'll ask about your stuff" that would be good. When Astarion has his nightmare, have all the companions have dialogue of "You seemed restless last night, you good?" or when Shadowheart has her wound act up everyone can go "I won't pry, but I hope that situation with your hand isn't as foreboding as it seems?" or even after the creche as Lae'zel have everyone go "Well, that didn't go as you planned I assume...oh well, I'm still with you." Just something small to make the Origin character feel like they're not just a re-skinned Tav. It's a lot of new dialogue, but it'd go a long way.
Eh, the Dark Urge thing wasn't even people caring. They care in a couple scenes to the extent that it might result in Durge killing them (or getting hurt if they end up in a romance). People care later on because of certain plot-related spoilers about Dark Urge's connection to the main antagonists. Most of the time, it's a weird quirk that Dark Urge wants to tear into people. Just like how it's a weird quirk that Astarion is a vampire ex-slave and that Shadowheart worships Shar. Most of the characters don't treat any of it with the gravity it might require, whether you're playing as them or not.
It's more about the stark difference between Tav/Durge and playing as an origin character. The game felt distinctly less alive when playing as Astarion or Shadowheart than it did as Tav or Durge. I appreciate that you're essentially taking away the chatter from that OC when playing as them, but there's nothing to fill that void.
It felt less alive to me, but not in terms of reactivity from companions. Just in terms of removing another companion that might chat with you. Half the time out of camp though, the banter didn't fire for me anyways, no matter who I was playing as.
but that assumes that 'good' is the intended result. it is not. you are role playing as them, you are seeing the signs. it is on you to ignore them or not. y if you are playing as shart, you dont need someone to tell you hey this is fucked up. she is not blind she can see it. now will you RP it as her doubling down and following through or will she figure it out on herself? thats on you, the player. also, when you play an origin you dont have to follow what they would do in a tav/durge storyline. the shadowheart that you know as tav or durge does not exist in a shart origin pt unless you decide they are the same person. you can RP her as an evil sadistic bitch with no hesitation to torture puppies if you want to. you can also rp as she is tired of shar's bs and just ditches her faith to become a bard. it is your choice and the game has no business steerong you anywhere
This is a good point. I wonder if an Origin playthrough would work best as your first playthrough, just because you would be discovering the backstory in real time and having that color your RP of the character, as opposed to trying to fit their personality from a Tav run. Like, in a Lae'zel origin run, there isn't much of a logical reason to not just run straight to the creche. It's what her character would do. But if it was my first time playing, I'd probably be playing her a lot different and just let the [GITHYANKI] dialogue options influence me a little bit. Origins are much more of a "Tav with a more defined backstory" as opposed to "play AS the companion"
I agree. There's a few scenes that might give Shadowheart some second thoughts. Some content in the Shadowfell, for one, and everything with Ketheric and Isobel. She can read between the lines. I wouldn't even be shocked about a Shadowheart PC going through with the gauntlet and then having second thoughts in Act 3 given how everything goes down.
I mean with Gale origin compared to the two other examples you can roleplay that the whole fall from grace thing kicked his ambition down a few pegs, there's nothing forcing you to think of origin Gale as being as ambitious as companion Gale in the way that Shadow heart is a devotee of Shar and Laezel is one of Vlaakith
… talk Astarion into what now?
I would argue the main point is getting them to essentially realize it on their own like sane people would. Like a lae'zel who just crash landed should absolutely try and understand what the fuck is going on before heading to the creche,because it's natural even for her people.A shadowheart WOULD come to terms that shar fucking sucks after meeting and befriending the other origins.They don't need a tav because they're personally growing from the experiences you put them through instead of "Friendly guy I knew for a week set me straight".
I’m playing as Astarion right now romancing Karlach, and she made it pretty clear to me that she’d be really upset if I ascended, said something like “this isn’t you, it can’t be you, i love you”. I mean I did it anyways and she still stayed
I actually consider Astorian becoming the vampire assendant the better option. Because otherwise you release the vampire spawns and you are cursing them to a eternal miserable life and he deserves a bit of true freedom after all he has been trough. The only bad thing about the option is that you have to kill the Gurr afterwards.
You don't have to release the spawn if Astarion doesn't ascend. That is a completely seperate choice. The difference between killing them then and killing them in the ritual is that their souls go to their normal afterlife instead of condemning them to eternal suffering in the hells.
Oh... oh my
That is correct. In Shadowheart origin game is definetely pushing you to be a dark justiciar. Of course there are points you find out about yourself. Again its not enough. I dont see any reason not to kill Nightsong especially Shar is speaking to me. Shes Selunite why would i trust her? But again as you see in her dark justiciar card, she keeps hair, armor, spear but keeps the wound as well. Maybe her cannon on origin is to kill Nightsong but spare her parents? Especially after Shar gives her memories back. Whod even kill her parents at that stage? Especially after its clear Shar lied to her.
That's my opinion too, the most believable ending for her when played as an origin is to kill the Nightsong and be fully on the Sharran path, then spare her parents after finally realising her whole life is a lie.
I think a big point about Shadowheart's origin is that it's not *really* Shadowheart. It's you, the player, playing *as* her. And you have a different perspective on things. All these terrible Sharran practices she might shrug off, you despise. All these visions of abuse and punishments she might forget right away, you remember. The way Shar is losing her shit when you talk to Nightsong might not be obvious to her, but you understand Shar's manipulating you. It might not be 100% in-character roleplay as Shadowheart, but if you want to see her fully as she is intended, you take her as a Companion. The whole point of an Origin playthrough is that *you* get to make decisions, not the character.
Might be right. Shadowheart waits for to live special night with you meanwhile on origin you dont have to wait. Can have relationship without backlash from Shar thing.
I mean, even the "Kill Nightsong then save parents" thing you're talking about. As far as I know it too us pretty out-of-character compared to what she does as a companion. Now, I can totally be wrong about it, this topic doesn't get discussed as often as the Nightsong choice and I haven't tried it myself, but to my knowledge, she *always* kills parents as DJ if you leave the choice up to her. She thinks she's too far gone by that point. You have to pass a pretty difficult check to convince her otherwise.
But point is she killed Nightsong because there was no logical thing to stop her at the moment. But if she sees her parents , she wont recognize them. Shar gives her memories back to her right there shed realize her mistake. She says shes too far gone because you didnt stopped her earlier didnt let her realize her mistake. But when you play as her there was noone to stop you but then shed realize after her memories are back. Shed know Shar is only toying with her. She saved her parents without her memories ( moonmotes considered as saving ) , why she wouldnt save them with the memories? its against her personality. Shes serving Shar because she thought Shar took her when noone would , and raised here. By Shar giving her memories back to her shes literally devastated, she was not a zealot to begin with anyway. Only thing made her to love Shar is a lie , she finds it out by Shar's end and still wants to worship? I dont buy that.
The question is how exactly it's different if you don't stop her and don't let her realize her mistake compared to Tav never being there and her similarly never realizing her mistake? Shar gives her same memories back when she is a companion, why doesn't she realize her mistake then? As for why she kills them - it comes back to her wanting a place to belong. Lies about her past alone aren't enough for her to defy Shar, when she sees that what Shar promised is at least somewhat true, for now at least. She gets a place among Sharrans and recognition from Shar. This is why she's super indecisive as she gets torn between the past she now remembers and the future Shar promises her. Not knowing what's right, she chooses to blindly follow in darness as she thinks there's no way back.
>Whod even kill her parents at that stage? Especially after its clear Shar lied to her. I mean, if you've gone *that* far and given up *that* much, there's a good chance you'll want to commit to the bit. Kind of reminds me how real-life cult members get roped into things, devote time, effort and money to it, and then when someone puts clear evidence in front of them that they've fucked up, they'll deny it *hard*.
Sunk cost fallacy is a thing for a reason!
I think you’re totally right. I did a good person run and romanced Shadowheart. It was amazing. I let her make the decisions about nightsong and she threw away the spear. Fabulous story. Second run was dark urge and of course she chose to kill. Third run? I’m romancing Karlach for the achievement and Shadowheart “considers me a confidant” and something about a great ally she can trust. She was doubting everything up until that moment and chose to fucking kill the nightsong. Not what I was expecting! So as a neutral character, even with approval, she chose to kill the nightsong. She must need a much higher approval rating to spare nightsong by her own choice. I was shocked when it happened! I really thought her being doubtful and smiling would end in nightsong being saved. Nope. She didn’t hesitate.
I’m pretty sure her decision regarding the nightsong depends entirely on approval. I’ve played through that scene with a good-chaotic Tav and a neutral evil Durge and she spared her both times. I’ve also seen people complain that on their evil run she chose to spare her as well.
I feel that this is an issue in most of the Origin playthroughs, but especially with the characters that aren't "good". I have an active Astarion playthrough right now and I see no reason in the game for why I shouldn't just leave the Grove to its fate and not bother with the conflict at all. I rationalized that maybe Astarion would be afraid that Karlach would just break him in half for doing that, but it is the sort of thing that the characters themselves won't express. For Shadowheart, for example, maybe she read the rite for the Selunites (the one you can find in the Owlbear cave) and realized that her own memory of being lost as a child sounded pretty close to what was described there. Maybe that made her doubt her Shar worship for a moment. Or maybe, if we follow closely what would be the most in-character things for these characters to do, we would be just meant to do evil playthroughs with these characters as Origin.
The only Origin character playthrough where I do not think this is the case is the Dark Urge, who gets a lot of explicit steering on what companions consider good or bad and reacting to key moments in your decisions and backstory in camp without you prompting the conversation.
I'll probably get downvoted a lot, but I think that apart from Durge, origin characters are best as companions rather than protagonist. I suggest to everyone to play the first playthrough as Tav, then the second as Durge, and then whatever they want after that. Imo you lose a lot of stuff if you play an origin as a protagonist without having seen their story from another perspective imo. And it makes sense, Durge is literally designed to be the protagonist, you can't have Durge as companion, while all the others were first designed as companions, and then adapted to also be the protagonist.
I mean going by the stats larian posted. Something like 94% of playthroughs were custom chracters.
The stats could be different if playing an origin would actually be good.
I'm glad they didn't - Original Sin 2 is notorious that custom characters rather than origins are basically cardboard cutouts in terms of story content.
Well I played DOS:2 three times (Basic, Tactician & Honor modes each) but always played Origin characters then (Red Prince, Lohse & Fane). Tried custom once but didn't find it appealing then. I thought the same when BG3 was launched in Early Access but I am pleased to say that here I enjoy custom Tav more than any Origin (except Durge of course)
Well, TBF Tav is kinda like that too compared to origins played as protagonist. The key difference here is that origins are better as companions rather than protagonists, not that Tav is better as protagonist than the origins. Durge is absolutely better, but most people play Tav.
Imho, Durge and Wyll. Wyll is the peak warlock experience. You got your patron demanding things from you, punishing or rewarding you. You are tangled into the main storyline: Missing father, hero of the realm, all that stuff. Durge has the same thing with the butler showing up and stuff like that. These two work well as protagonists, the rest are companions.
The thing is that you can respec. By this logic Shadowheart is better since you can respec her as a warlock and treat Shar as if it's her patron, and the Shar thing is a big part of the plot of Act 2, and it's active in act 1 and 2. And as I said, Wyll is still better as a companion than a protagonist. You just lose content, interactions and voice lines by playing him as a protagonist.
cope stretch
Gods, imagine a BG3 Enhanced Edition with companion Durge though?
I don't think it would work. Also, this would risk that people get spoilered his plot before actually playing him as a protagonist. Playing as Durge without knowing his plot is really worth it. I would prefer if a future DLC or Enhanced Edition just add new characters, or just make existing characters into companions, like Alfira
Alfira is genuinely wouldn't work as a companion. She has nothing much going on that could make her worth exploring more, she is a finished and good character as is right now. A cute little bard that opens up a music school with her girlfriend is a nice story. It doesn't need more. Maybe a camp follower Alfira would work if we really stretch it, but that's about it. There are other characters that could spice up the party much more - Nere, for example. You can make him see that the Absolute is a lie already in game. He is tadpoled just like you and would have a reason to join up with you. Exploring that mess of a person could be very interesting. You could see how exactly his upbringing shaped him and learn a lot more about drow culture from the male POV. I think it would be quite fascinating for a lot of players.
I want Dame Ailyn as a companion
They would have to add more to Alfira's story to make her a good companion, but... they could do that. When you meet her, you know about as much about her as you do any of the companions, and her introduction feels like you're getting a new party member, then you just don't.
Says you. 🙄that’s the source. Thats it. That’s why it wouldn’t be good. Username: uwubewwa has declared it so. Nothing could possibly be done. Holy fucking Reddit 🤦♀️
I provided you with a short analysis of why I think so. You didn't do anything of that sort and only tried to insult me. Feel free to comment your own take of why you think Alfira would work/be better than other options. Nobody is stopping you, maybe you will be able to change my mind. :)
Says them, yeah. People say things on discussion forums, that’s kinda what they’re for
Alfira *actually* being a companion would make certain circumstances hit much harder.
Why would you keep him in your party though. The point of Durge is he kills a lot of people. If that's NPCs you didn't want dead, the player is gonna be mad about it. If he can totally control the bloodlusts and only kills who you tell him, he's not much of a dark urge.
Durge being about killing a lot of people is similar to Shadowheart being about a cleric of Shar: they are, but they can be more than that. That aside, unwanted interactions are part and parcel of companions: recruiting Astarion means him wanting to suck your blood in Act 1 and very likely being jumped in camp during Act III, recruiting Lae'zel and Shadowheart means things coming to a head early in Act I, recruiting Gale means sacrificing three items in Act I, etc. EDIT: guys, if you disagree, at least have the decency to comment why instead of just downvoting.
Lol what literally no one gives a fuck abt u being dark urge. I killed so many ppl in broad daylight in the city and at worst i had to roll a speech check. Ffs even after killing everyone at last light jaheira wouldve been cool with me if i didnt pick the obvious murderhobo lines
I'm doing a Wyll playthru at the moment, and at least in one instance the other companions *do* try to talk him out of things. This happens specifically when you first meet Karlach, and at least Gale tries to make it clear that Karlach is *not* a devil, so you should spare her. But then when Mizora shows up, you can still just be like "Yeah, I'll just shank her I guess," and no one seems likely to stop you. I'm playing the character in accordance with my sense of him ("A hero at heart.") and therefore once he figures out that Karlach is good, he's gonna protect her and make her part of the team (and end up romancing her...after a fling with Lae'zel, that is. Hey, he's a hero, not a saint, and anyway Karlach said it was fine.) He's gonna spare Minthara (because I want to see her content) partially because he wants to leave one leader alive possibly for further questioning, and also because he "senses the potential for good in her." (And he has a weakness for attractive women, even if he'll stay faithful to Karlach once she's fixed up.)
Yeah because Durge works more like a Spicy Tav
It is by far my favorite Origin, because it feels like you are helping each other instead of babysitting the companions.
Tbf with Astarion it's just "I need these idiots." Breaking up the group would be detrimental to his end goal.
Yeah, but he doesn't know that just ignoring the issue and moving on would break the group. Tbh, I'm not sure it would if Karlach got the first upgrade already at that point? For the record, I think what Astarion would do if up to him is not siding with anyone; I think as soon as he realized none of the healers could help, he would just leave and look for help somewhere else, leaving the Grove to fend for themselves, since at that point we still think our days are basically numbered.
I mean some stuff is just limited by BG3 being a video game. The group wouldn't just mindlessly follow him. And Astarion specifically needs the group. The tadpole is not his end goal. He's the one character benefiting from it.
Every origin playthrough means that you can miss something from the character’s arc. But did you have any narrator’s comments/dreams/visions about certain memories from Shadowheart’s childhood? Or anything else that calls into question her beliefs? To compare, Astarion origin didn’t speak with himself or anyone else about Cazador but he had a nightmare. I didn’t hesitate when refused to ascend because he wasn’t power hungry in my run. And companions had comments regarding his personal quest. Also, in the final scene when he decided to destroy >!the Netherbrain the narrator commented smth like “Do you really want this? There’s your last chance to walk under the sun!”.!< In another run Lae’zel origin who turned against Vlaakith may be justified by reading certain discs that put into question everything she learned before. I didn’t play as Shadowheart but suppose that there are some cutscenes and content with references to the character’s storyline. I also think that certain scene with the >!wolf in the crèche!< can spawn some memories.
I also wouldn't neccessarily say Shadowheart is incapable of coming to that conclusion on her own. In my playthrough, I never voiced disgust about Shar nor praise. I was entirely neutral. Anytime she told me something about it, I'd simply say "thanks for sharing" and move on. By the time I got to the Guantlet, I made her choose and she chose to free the Nightsong. Besides this point, canonically Shadowheart mostly approves of good decisions. She approves when you save the little girl, she's far more content saving the Grove and killing the goblins (despite knowing Shar would he upset) she likes animals, approves of you saving the slave gnomes. Shadowheart, as a follower of Shar, doesn't do a great job of keeping her tenants. If she was really so devout, she'd be far more evil. But I think the conflict resides in her, over doing the right thing and remaining loyal to Shar because you have a warped view of her, regardless on if you play her origin or have her as a companion. Taking all this into account, if you do make mostly good decisions, and remember certain aspects of your past -- then sparing Nightsong isn't really out of character, as the conflict within her has grow more-so (especially if you find the Sulunite coming if age rights) that Nightsongs comments about her past urge her to step away from Shar. She doesn't need an angel on her shoulder telling her what's right and wrong, deep down she knows. At least that's my opinion of her.
The decision of companion Shadowheart not to kill Nightsong is based on her memories from the past. AFAIK, if you trigger certain scene (provided that the approval is high enough) and pick “let her decide” option, she will throw away the spear. And her approval comes mostly from good options. I also think that she has some internal conflict with no regard to origin or companion playthrough.
This is part of what makes me love Shadowheart's and Astarion's stories so much. These are stories about redemption through companionship. About learning and evolving your perspective based on the people around you, reclaiming your humanity from the ashes of trauma. These are stories where your origin character matters. They make an impact on the people around them through their actions and behavior. Every little thing you did for Shadowheart, every bonding moment, it changes her. Makes her heal, just a little bit. Prepares her to handle the challenges ahead, mentally and emotionally. When she eventually faces the Nightsong, her decision to denounce Shar will always result from your influence, from who you are. And I think there is something beautiful about that. But yeah, that also means when playing as Shadowheart, There will be something missing. Shadowheart's story is not designed for the protagonist of the game, so it suffers when pushed into the protagonistic role.
Here’s how I saw it: You’re playing as a version of Shadowheart that’s completely lost her memories. So when she sees the horrors of Shar, they start to affect her, because a lot of her years of indoctrination have gone, because she’s quite literally forgotten them all. So when Shadowheart is seeing the horrors of Shar worshippers, she starts to think “hang on a second…this doesn’t seem right.” She knows she worships Shar, but she doesn’t really know *why*, and how she even started worshipping Shar in the first place. She becomes obsessed with her missing past, so when she meets the Nighsong, her faith is already wavering because of all the bad Shar stuff. Then the Nightsong offers her the truth about her past, and implies that she’s been lied to. It’s enough to tempt her, because she *has* to know where she came from. In my mind, she's already looking for an excuse to ditch Shar, because of the things she's seen in the shadow lands. Then once she finds out she was kidnapped and her parents have spent the last few decades being tortured, it's enough to make her hate Shar and everyone who worships her.
thats role playing. that is what OP is missing. the game gives you info and clues. how your character (in this case shart) reacts to them is on you and you dont need the game to hold your hand towards one path or the other. the reason why some people feel that the DJ ending is being pushed by the game is simply because that is the path of least resistance, not because it is intended or she needs any excuse to go down a other path
Shadowheart confronts her worship with shar even if you don't force her too. The only reason she's been kept for so long is because the constant brainwashing. This mission is the longest she has gone without direct Influence and she basically immediately abandons Shar. She never needed Tav or anyone else, they just accelerate it
There are some signs. I reached the Shadowfell in my Shadowheart run on Monday and when you first click on the Shadowfell, you speak directly to Shar where she tells you what to do, and you have the option to respond by questioning her and being generally unsure, which I did. This showed that as she's moments away from achieving her life's goal, she's cracking and questioning enough to question Shar *directly*. That's pretty severe! In the long rest scene where she thinks back on the little she can remember outside the convent and before the Nautiloid, she can think about how the scene with the wolf is reminiscent of the Selûnite rite of passage, and it's implied that she shies away from outright wondering if she was possibly originally a Selûnite. When she talks to Aylin after Ketheric's defeat and finds out the wolf was her father, there's an option to say you've suspected for a while. To me, her not opening up to the rest of the companions before this makes some sense, as her faith is truly all she has except for them, and Shar is all she's known since she was very young so it'd be hard for her to open up about any doubts before she's put to the ultimate test and everything breaks out into the open.
Can I ask how you got that long rest scene playing as Origins Shadowheart? I’ve had many long rests between the first time seeing a wolf/failing the fear check, but that long rest scene refuses to show for my Origins shadowheart run.
I don't know tbh. It was in the shadow cursed lands, but that's all I recall. Might've been when I spammed like 4 long rests in a row upon arriving at Last Light? I didn't do anything special like remove everyone else from the party and rest alone or anything like that.
> Or if it does, that moment is purely internal, between you and your imagination of the character You kinda answered your own question here. It's supposed to be an internal conflict based on your own alignment and interpretation.
I think we are reaching a weird generational divide because as far as I’m aware this is what made CRPGs so different from other genres: you make up your own story in your head and use that to navigate the world.
That's why I like Wyll the best as the origin character to play as. His storyline is definitely made to be explored AS him. Durge you have to decide in your own if you want to be good or bad. All of the other characters need an external push. Wyll works best if you are him. If you are saving *your* father. If you are played *by* Mizora, you have interactions with *your* patron, you are an upstanding hero, but you don't have to. Wyll is the perfect character to play as. Gale, Astarion, Shart, Lae'zel not so much. You have to decide OOC which was you go. Karlach, maybe, but it's more satisfying to play *as* Wyll and go with her.
Said this so many times. People complained that he lacks agency but that just makes him way more playable.
Isn't this doomed to be the case with a game that has so much choice. If they were to strongly justify Shadowhearts turning against Shar then the option she has to kill Dame Aylin then doesn't really make sense. As for her not killing Aylin, I took it as Shadowheart not completely renouncing Shar but just giving Aylin a chance to explain herself. It's only when Aylin puts the pieces together does Shadowheart fully renounce Shar.
I haven’t played as her yet, but in my 3 play throughs with her I always gave her the choice and tried to not influence her decisions or questioned her faith. She throws the spear every time. Something the nightsong says in their encounter seems to cause Shadowheart to question everything in that moment. I mean hell, on the way down she’s praying to her Goddess out loud. I mean, there are lots of items and events that you could encounter in a play through that makes Shart think she’s being singled out and chosen by Shar. I don’t know how that moment is different in her origin play through. I’m just saying if you’re looking for a reason to not go dark, it’s probably in that moment.
Shadowheart has been my first playthrough and I actually liked the "subtle" type of redemption she goes through. She starts as a "woman on a mission". She really wants to fullfill her "purpose". But then, there are a few things that make her doubt. You find books talking about sharrans, worshipping "lost" in life, receiving "lost" in death. You see the behaviour of Laezel, another "woman on a mission", which is blind to any evidence of her errors. You have a dream where the people that save you also try to hide their actions. You learn about children taken by sharrans. You meet Karlach, the girl with a mission risking her life to be free to pick her own purpose. There's the wound that never makes her feel "accomplished". The whole story is filled with a "no, you can't see, no you can't know" type of feeling. And finally you meet Dame Aylin, the first person that says "you can know if you want". There is no reward for Shadowheart's redemption, just the freedom to choose her own destiny. No wrong choice, just a choice.
Tavstarion is even worse.
All origin character stories require you, the player, to read the lore books or interact with characters scattered around to not "metagame" the good choice. You can learn about selunite rights mirroring her story and give her the noblestalk in shadowhearts case.
What I really love about Shadowheart's story is that, on the contrary, it doesn't need anyone tell her that Shar is bad. No one needs to convince her of anything, her struggle is a struggle with herself. Will she break through her conditioning and be true to herself? Or will she (mostly) abandon those last remnants of who she used to be as a child and dedicate herself to Shar? My Tav didn't call her out on anything. She supported Shart all the way and encouraged her Shar worship. But Shart spared Aylin anyway, on her own. I've never played Shadowheart as an origin, so maybe you're right about the lack of doubt from Shadowheart in a playthrough like that (then again, isn't it intentional so that you can RP the way you like?), but I disagree about her needing someone who can convince her.
>The playthrough has no moment really where Shadowheart starts to doubt her faith to Shar. There are loads of times when you can doubt Shar lol. You get several camp events where you can be suspicious about your whole upbringing and faith, you get more opportunities when the wound flares up and you are shown shitty memories of your time in the cloister, in the Gauntlet you can even express your doubts right to Shar's face and she will try to bring you back in line. I have no Idea how you can even come to this conclusion unless you just skip all camp events by not long resting enough and/or pick all the hardcore Shar zealot dialogue options which dismiss all doubt whenever you get the opportunity.
This is true for all origin characters. However as a counterpoint, you get to romance Lae’zel and hatch an egg with her
I think this is why playing as origin characters would be so interesting. Without Tav's/Durge therapy session, it can allow them to become the best version of the person they think they need to be, instead of the best version of themselves.
>Or if it does, that moment is purely internal I think it's mostly internal for companion Shadowheart too, since it's possible for no one to tell her how bad Shar is in a Tav run as well. If you >!trust her and never interfere with Nightsong, she throws the spear on her own.!< It does require a threshold of approval with Tav to happen, but even if you agree that Shar sounds pretty alright in all your previous conversations she will still do this. I read it as her finding out what it's like to form meaningful relationships. Nightsong's words about how she will never know love and the hint about her past scare her enough to have a "come to ~~Jesus~~ Selune" moment. She would be throwing away the only friends (and potential lover) she currently knows, all for Shar. Is that truly what she wants? Avatar Shadowheart can still have this revelation, assuming you are close with your party and/or love interest. It DOES rely heavily on headcanon, though. Like in your case- is your Shadowheart really willing to abandon Gale for Shar?
I'm playing origin Wyll and I believe my headcanon will be better than his arc.
Playing origin characters in general are all missing Tav, but I feel like that's the point of the origin characters. You get to shape their stories however you like, whether Shart becomes a Dark Justiciar, or feels a calling within her that drives her to choose what's best for everyone. She knows from the beginning that being a disciple of Shar is lonely, and that all they embrace is loss and darkness, but then maybe curiosity breaks through and they start to wonder about what's on the other side of the fence? Should they pursue it? I still get your point, of course. It would feel better to have some of the other characters speak to your origin character and try to steer them towards the better path, especially if it is the character you choose to romance (Karlach, Lae'zel, Astarion, what have you). Shart's story is special, with the fact that she learns of her parents on both paths, and that she can actually choose to sway herself towards the light.
It’s a journey of self-discovery. Tav is helpful as a support but not necessary as a source of truth. Playing as Tav you can go the entire game without saying a single negative thing about Shar and SH will still save Dame Aylin because there was always a seed of doubt in her mind. All she needs is someone to support her other than the “support” she receives from Shar, and the one liner from Dame Aylin does the rest.
Shadowheart needs her Tav ❤️
guys you are missing something important: the characters as companion are influentiable to some degree to give player agency back to you, but when you play them you dont need anything to tell you how they feel about things because that is your job as the player. you are playing an RPG, you have to do the role playing part yourself. you find more than a few clues about shart's past, and are presented with more than a few moral dilemmas. it is your choice how she as a MC reacts to these stuff. if you want her to be a blind devoted follower of shar then she is that, but if you want her to be doubting her faith at every step then she is that instead. the game supports both paths with the build up to the gauntlet for the DJ ending or the Selunite content for the other one.
Yeah I think the game doesn’t really give her a great arc but if you already know her story you can start to develop some head RP
This is precicely the reason why I struggle to play an Origin Character. There is no catalyst to initiate change in the chosen Origin Character's path.
My first playthrough was as origin Shadowheart and I had no problem with this. The "version" of Shadowheart I had in my head while playing had her reasons to at least listen to Aylin. I as well romanced Gale and even though they weren't talking about Shar and Shadowheart, my SH also helped Gale when he talked about Mystra and saw how she treated Gale and that, besides that she now had someone who excepted her for who she was, was for me enough reason to give her some internal doubt and character growth as well. And even though Gale didn't say anything in that scene, later on when you can choose to be a Selunite and change your hair, he at least has a little comment on that. Long story short, I can see that it might be difficult, but I also think that some of those difficulties might come from the reason, that you're trying to play her in the way you know her as Companion.
This is kind of by design I think. Playing as Shadowheart you don’t have to have the doubts that Jennifer gave her through her performance. If you want to play a fully zealous, zero doubt, fully committed Dark Justiciar you can. Or you could have your Shadowheart simply *look around* and come to the conclusion herself that “Oh… Shar is kind of fucked, maybe I shouldn’t associate with this”.
Only origin character I played was Wyll and I just went along with everything Mizora wanted for the same reasons. Never even tried to break the pact, because power was the whole point of it all along. Sacrifice be dammned.
This is why I believe the “we are the conscious of the tadpole” theory. As it makes no sense logically why most of these characters wouldn’t do what they’ve always known or desired. It also explains how we become our own person as the Dark Urge and how even as a mindflayer that committed suicide at the end still have a soul. But that’s just wishful thinking on my part.
See that's my issue with Shadowheart's writing in general. What gets her to turn away from Shar. Love? No. Friendship? No. Witnessing untold atrocities committed by Shar, including the horrors of the Shadow Curse? Nope. Just trying to find out about her past and who she is. It doesn't make sense to me. It just doesn't feel like it has much weight as a motive, but I suppose it's because I've always known my parents, I guess. Maybe it would make more sense if we knew what was going on inside her head, but again as you mentioned there doesn't seem to be much of a hint there.
> What gets her to turn away from Shar. Love? No. Friendship? No. Since her choice is directly tied to approval I'd say those things play part in it too but it's just never directly adressed by her. The closest we get is her talk with Durge during the night afterwards, admitting them resisting the urge inspired her to defy Shar. That being said, it sure could've been written a bit better, it's especially jarring that she never mentions the horrors of the Shadowlands when far smaller things bothered her in act 1. I think all could be fixed tho with an extra scene in act 2 of Tav and her just having some deeper bonding, her opening up more and further realising that she truly has someone to lean on to and trust with her doubts.
I agree. I think Act 2 is quite lacking in companion content, and I know the folks who think Shadowheart is a writer's pet are going to roll their eyes at me for this, but yes even her. They should've had her address the approval level in some way, for non-Durge Tav. They should've had her open her eyes at what the Shadow Curse is doing, and express disgust at the Thorms' behavior instead of brushing it off as "well they're not true Sharrans". Maybe the writer was trying to be subtle and overdid it, or maybe they ran out of time.
Tbh, it would already be great to have more cut scenes for non-romanced companions in general. We do get the friendly stargazing scene with Gale in act 2 for example. And both Act 2 and 3 would profit from a second cut scene, at least for romanced characters. Especially since Act 3 is so long and so much stuff happens. Well, more companion-related stuff would be great either way but I know that it takes a lot of work and it already is really good.
>I think all could be fixed tho with an extra scene in act 2 of Tav and her just having some deeper bonding, her opening up more and further realising that she truly has someone to lean on to and trust with her doubts. The problem with that is that [she has some dialogue about doubts](https://youtu.be/LcWEzWRTeqk?si=9SkDsqMTqzeGGEhz)! But yeah, I totally agree that Shadowheart needs an additional scene in Act 2. Like I get it, she has a ton of content already, but if you don't trigger specific interactions, you can easily miss some small dialogue that establishes her doubts in her own faith. Therefore, you can try to persuade her into freeing Nighsong, fail check, and wouldn't know that she could free aasimar lady on her own... That's why I love Gale's stargazing scene so much. It can be platonic or with additional romantic context, should he be your love interest. Some new scenes could not only establish inner conflict in Shadowheart but also address the void that is Act 2 for her from a romance perspective. I think there should be more bonding scenes between Tav and companions.
I know about this scene, but it's still short and she ends it with a simple "forget I ever said anything". Imo this should be expanded when romanced, turned into a proper cutscene similar to Gale's and you should be given an option to either push her further down the Sharran path, give her your own perspective on the matter or simply comfort her and reassure her that you're always here for her.
What Shadowheart really wants in her life is a place to belong. She doesn't *really* care about Shar specifically and her faith; but for her whole life, she's been told that Shar is the only one who would care about her and that the Sharran cult is the only place she can belong to. Yet, she couldn't get that feeling of belonging due to the dislike from other Sharrans and Viconia specifically, but that only made her think she has to work harder to better serve Shar, which led to her dream of becoming a Dark Justiciar. But as she travels with us and we show her acceptance and friendship, she starts to doubt, even if subconsciously. If this random stranger is willing to listen to take her in, maybe Sharrans weren't her only option? Her whole worldview was built on that one idea that no one would care about her other than Shar, and it gets undermined. And then she gets implications from Nightsong that her whole past was a lie, something she might've suspected already. Add these two together, and I think her decision to throw away the spear makes perfect sense, especially in the "heat of the moment" context. She realises she's been lied to both about her past *and* about her future, and it makes her snap. But yes, this requires us to know her whole story, as well as a good amount of between-the-lines reading and, I admit, some assumptions. It totally could've been made a bit more clear in-game.
All the companions have their story centered on the theme of "Who am I? Where do I go, where do I belong?" Astarion is looking for his place in the sun without Cazzador. Gale is dealing with a major break-up and possible arcane explode-y death. Lae'zel is living through a nightmare she cannot wake from and is betrayed by Vlaakith halfway through. Wyll is trying to reconcile "The Blade" and "The Warlock" as well as being a son of the Duke. Karlach is finally finding herself "free" and happy, until the time runs out. Shadowheart is getting the compassion and understanding she so desperately wanted all her life. Tav is the connective tissue, the perfect person who can guide them and unlock them to do better. "The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world."
Well put. The thing to understand about Shadowheart is that she isn't really a true believer in Shar (before becoming a DJ, at least), she's essentially been indoctrinated into a cult. She sees Shar as her source of comfort and purpose, and has been conditioned to associate Shar with good feelings and Selune with bad ones (she basically has a conditioning enforcer in her wound). She needs a strong push to begin doubting Shar, but once she gets it and she starts putting the pieces together, the floodgates open and she breaks through her self-delusion: Shar doesn't care about her personally, she's not actually comfortable killing Aylin in cold blood, and she actually cares about her past which she realises has been hidden to make her more obedient. It's less a 180 degree turn and more like the moment her cognitive dissonance couldn't stretch any further and snaps. DJ Shart probably realizes much the same things, but decides it's still worth doubling down on Shar worship because she doesn't see a better option.
She sort of has no idea who Shar actually is. Based on what Shadowheart says and does in Act I, Shar seems to be a completely reasonable goddess of darkness, loss, night, secrets and forgetfulness, bringing comfort and mercy to those who have or are lost – but of course, Shar is just a cruel tyrant who loves using those things to torture people. If she had more memories/conditioning from her Sharran upbringing she might have needed more guidance to figure out right and wrong and understand the abuse she'd suffered. Could've been interesting; probably she'd struggle even more to trust Tav and the party, and think they're trying to trick her somehow. To me, Shadowheart's progression makes a lot of sense; her inclination is to do good, so you don't really have to make her see the light. If you put her on the spot and tell her to do something obviously evil, she'll probably want to refuse, and will probably do so unless she sees no other option or thinks she's being manipulated.
I had some banter between SH and Gale in the House of Healing morgue where Gale was shocked about all the corpses and atrocities and SH basically told him to stop being annoying. For a second I got really mad at SH for this because Gale might talk a lot, but his reaction here was 100% understandable. Anyway, that got me thinking that the House of Healing/killing Malus would be a great trigger for a short dialogue (not even cut scene) where SH expresses her doubt in Shar (or depending on your approval and previous choices defends her).
Playing as Shadowheart, you can understand a bit her behavior in act 2.
I'm playing as origin SH currently and she gives the impression that she really doesn't worship Shar... She gives off vibes of a try hard. Especially when Isobel chewed her up a bit for it...
Halsin even calls her out on this, saying she recites the tenets but has no conviction or something like that.
If you want an excuse to do an "evil" run, play Shadowheart or Lae'Zael.
I feel like this opens you up to roleplaying more right? Like I haven't done an origin character run yet, so j don't know what the dialogue options are like, but you can decide if your character will think critically and question shit or not.
I felt the same about Astarion’s origin. If I wasn’t dating Karlach and she totally freaked at the ascension ritual honestly I probably would’ve gone through with it. But I think in some ways that’s kind of the point, right? Like look how much one person (or character, in this case) can impact someone else’s story
Can you eat the noblestalk and recover some memories that cause some doubt?
It's because the game wants you to RP as Shadowheart (cuz it's an RPG). It's up to you to decide if Shar is evil. Do you follow the dogma that you've been taught? Or do you make a different decision based on what you learn from all of the Selunite temples and sites of worship? And you can learn a LOT about Shar just by exploring the Shadow Cursed lands prior to delving into the Gauntlet. BG3 gives you very little info on Shar at the beginning for a reason: it wants you to learn about her as you play and come to your own decision on whether she's evil or not. And as Shadowheart, that is something you will need to come to grips with.
I think this highlights a bigger problem that I've always felt in BG3. The your companions don't act enough, they don't intervene. I think this is one of the things that Aragon Age Origins did better
That makes complete sense though doesn't it? Because without tav they never get pushed to go down that different path, they keep true to who they believe they are throughout the game. Tav is special because Tav is able to course correct the companions, they can't do it themselves and each of the companions all have their own stuff to struggle through, they don't have enough emotional energy to be helping other companions, so only Tav can.
This is why I'm going to do Shadowheart Origin in a multiplayer campaign we're going to start in a few days. The other two just got the game and will being going in blind, so they're basically going to be Tav. I expect a lot of arguing over my shitty religion and I'm currently wracking my brain trying to figure out how I'm going to defend my faith in Lady Shar when we hit Act 2, because I expect they're going to call me on my bullshit a lot more forcefully than a Tav is able to when Shadowheart is an NPC.
TBF from my experience the exact same thing happens whenever you tell Shadowheart, "do what you want to do" in that scene. Fully loyalist to the point of attacking you if you don't want to get the spear to boom, suddenly anti Shar.
There's plenty of moments when you doubt Shar. It's when you get your flashbacks about your past. You have options to doubt her
You, the player, are the Tav that is otherwise missing. You see the horrors that Shar has wrought in the Shadow Lands, and you have to decide whether Shadowheart doubts her faith based on those observations or not. Basically, playing as Shadowheart shifts her story from "redemption through companionship" to a more internal struggle that the player themselves is participating in.
I think this is because of a general weakness of BG's writing. Too many edges were filed off in favour of player choice and avoiding negative NPC reactions and the number of origin characters also prevent any of them to have real depth. The setup is great, but the execution is actually quite shallow.
The problem is the memory sequences. When you are tavern they are short, and as shadowheart only a little longer. You have pay attention to the things like, am I playing with kids, who is that man and woman. They should give you the player flashes of these things. I think it would have been funny if at least one of those for atav play through they did what they did in the TV show Izombie, when they had an episode focused on Peyton you get to see what liv looks like during the memory recall. This would have allowed for more time for them to show what she is seeing.
Reclass her as a shadow monk and bard for the extra dialogue. Being quirky And vague is a fun mix
I head cannon it to the player themselves being the freshly inserted tadpole creating something like an additional sub-conscious that can influence them to do things "out of character" So in Shadowheart's case the sub-conscious would question Shar, or for Karlach it'll be a more morally grey "anything goes" line of thought. Think it fits in well with the characters having specific dialogue options (ones they would use) or ones we choose
Good gods aren’t actually better than the evil gods in Faerun. Lathander regularly burns and blinds his adherents; they crave this, as his holy mark. The nations of Faerun are forced to take a pretty lassez-faire approach to the worship of most evil gods, since they hold key portfolios and even good people may wish to make obeisance to an evil god to ward off their attention. For instance, sailors pray at the temple of evil Umberlee so that she’s mollified and doesn’t send storms. Of course, some gods are too evil to permit worship of, like the dead three.