DavesGaming

Isabelle is from Baldur’s Gate. She has dreamed of making her place in the world, to make it a better place. Safe for people to raise families, do honest work, and enjoy life in peace and happiness. So she entered the Temple of Torm and trained as a Paladin. She wishes to help, especially, those who can’t help themselves. 

She completed her training fairly easily and has served around the city, looking to stop evil in every guise. Well that’s the idea. So far she’s mostly helped guard businesses aligned with the church. A few bandit hunts but nothing big. The work is good, but far short of the epic good she dreamed of.  Isabelle visited a seer at the temple, who divined a calling, for her, at the town of Easthaven in Icewind Dale. Most people Isabelle knows don’t seem very interested in such a far away land, but this may be a great opportunity to do something good AND important? This works out well too as Isabelle has a small team she can put together for the journey.

Isabelle’s hesitant to admit where her team will come from though.  It starts with her little sister Kristeen.  Little sister’s heart, and drive to make Faerun a better place is as strong as Isabelle’s own.  But Kristeen is the little sister in more ways than one.  Isabelle is a heroically built 5’11” woman, beautiful and profoundly intimidating.  But Kristeen is 5’4”, slim and graceful.  She’s athletic and fit, strong for her size even, but will never shove her way through a crowd like her big sister can.  Kristeen is also stubborn, and when Isabelle suggested the Temple of Torm would jump at the chance to train her sister; well Kristeen just heard the word “sister” and said no thanks, she could find her own way…
So she did. Kristeen found a school to train her, in a way to emphasize speed and grace over power. And Isabelle saw all shades of red when she heard her sister had enrolled at “Miss Jezebel’s School for Adventurous Young Ladies”.  Kristeen proudly announced she was training as a “sword saint”. Isabelle knows that euphemism!  That’s a style popular in foreign lands for slaves, arena fighters.  It involves no armor so the fighters can show their skin, and bleed for an audience! 
Isabelle went straight to that school intending to shut them down with her own lesson in fighting styles.
But the training looked mostly legitimate. Kristeen went through her exercises, she was indeed learning to handle a sword well. Isabelle’s own training had spent time extolling wisdom, and observing a situation from all angles.  So she backed off, looked into the school a little. It was very small.  Three arms masters were named as offering warrior training.  The school also advertised training in magic and “scouting”.  No “magic training” seemed to be occurring, but admittedly that could involve a lot more indoor class and lab work.  And scouting, well Isabelle knows that euphemism too and tightened the ties on her coin purse.
Isabelle also met Kristeen’s friends at the school.

First there’s her little sister, Kristeen.  Always eager to help everyone (much like Isabelle!), but she has a knack for choosing the eccentric path.  She chose a “sword master” who trained her in a spectacular, athletic school of sword slinging that eschews armor and is all attack.  Oof.  Little sister will need some protection. But of course she’s eager to come along, even if her training is only just, barely complete.

Kristeen has a small group of friends who’ve trained at the same academy too. Starting with a pair of younger girls, Bridgette and Rebecca.  They are also from Baldur’s Gate.  They look like they are sisters, but claim not to be.  Both are average height, fit looking redheads. Isabelle met these two while they were doing their weapons training outside; they do seem young and giggly, lots of punching each other going on. Bridgette is a cleric while Rebecca is a mage…   they say.  Isabelle has known them all for several weeks now and has no doubt this academy has trained them well with weapons.  But Isabelle has not seen either cast a spell and they get a little dodgy when the issue is brought up. Along with the idea they’ve actually *finished* their training. They both do, legitimately have books appropriate to their fields of study. And they seem intent on bringing the books along. Which Isabelle finds somehow assuring and worrying at the same time.

Last is a half-elven girl named Allie.  She is a little older than the others, of course the elven part makes it hard to be sure, she could be a LOT older! She’s clearly “finished” with her training. Enough that she’s been helping with training, tutoring at the school for the couple weeks Isabelle has known her.  Allie is a capable archer, and a neophyte mage. She also claims to be a scout, in a way that only Isabelle could have possibly heard.

The team is ready. ish.  Young but eager. It concerns Isabelle a little being the most experienced.
The last major city on the way up north was Neverwinter.  It was there Isabelle met a man who offered his services as a guide.  His name is Astolphus and he’s a Ranger who grew up in Easthaven, their very destination in the Ten Towns of Icewind Dale.  Astolphus claims to have some fighting experience, and he clearly knows the area.  Isabelle thinks it would be good not to be the only one with a little experience on this crew, and Astolphus seems like he would be good company…

Things took a bad turn on the last night of the long trek, on the last leg to Easthaven the party was separated from their caravan at the last river crossing when a storm shut down the ferry for the night. That puts everyone in town separated from most of their supplies. But at least Isabelle still has the coin purse.

Isabelle is a LG Human Cavalier, 3^rd Level. Specialized in Long Sword and Mace
18/32 – 15 – 18 – 12 – 16 – 18

Kristeen wants, more than anything, to help people and make a difference in the world. She has always been much like her “oh so perfect” big sister in this regard.  And like her older sister she has always been athletic, quick and hardy. And she knows her sister has already forged a reputation, and would be happy to help her get training as a Paladin, a Ranger, even a cleric.
Kristeen spent months talking to warriors and training schools, looking for a path she could claim for her own. Something that would let her use her quickness and speed to advantage.  The small academy she found had a master who called herself a “Sword Saint”, who promised to teach her how to use speed and skill to make up for size and strength.

This has worked out well for Kristeen.  She took to the training well and feels like she has learned how to be effective.  Now she can stand tall next to Isabelle, even if that’s only about chin high. Her sister has heard of a gathering of heroes to the frozen north, looking to fight some mysterious trouble. Kristeen is eager to help, and be a help to her sister too.

Kristeen is a NG Human Kensai, 1^st level.  Specialized in Short Sword and Dual Wielding.
14 – 18 – 16 – 13 – 13 – 16

Bridgette has always been a devout person. She takes her faith seriously and desires to be a force for good in a dangerous world. And she comes from some money, enough to ensure she can get whatever training she wants. Her family was (somewhat) supportive when she told them she wanted to be an adventuring cleric. There was the whole lecture about how she could stay in a fortified temple and provide council and healing without venturing forth much. But her parents know she is too restless for that.

Her cousin Rebecca was a small problem however. Rebecca KNOWS she was made to be a wizard. But Rebecca’s family was less supportive of her vision. So the cousins, always as close as sisters, hatched a plan where Bridgette’s family would unknowingly pay tuition for both girls.  This meant finding an academy that cost about half as much as her parents were expecting. They did find a place, but they also learned the adage “you get what you pay for”. Their training was heavy on physical conditioning, self defense and weapons training. And light on cleric and mage training. Apparently the school’s masters were all actually warriors. The cleric and mage mentors were mostly apprentices themselves.  But they did provide some decent books…

Now Bridgette is pretty darn good with a Warhammer, and even a sling. But she’s clearly a little behind in her priestly function. This is at least a little frustrating.  When her friend Kristeen mentioned some exciting mission up north, Bridgette decided this was a good chance to break from their underachieving school.  And she’s pretty sure she’s almost got the hang of this cleric stuff anyway…

Bridgette is a NG Human Fighter, 1^st level (Dual to Cleric at 3^rd level). Warhammer and Sling Specialist.
15 – 16 – 15 – 12 – 18 – 17

Rebecca has always been close to her cousin Bridgette.  But she is sort of the wild one by comparison.  Where Bridgette is steady and wise, Rebecca is lively and funny. She’s always been smart, able to learn with nominal effort and has an affinity for Arcane sorts of magic. But her parents were NOT going to support her running off for a life of adventure.

And… she still can’t believe she talked her cousin into helping her find an appropriate school.  She owes her, BIG time! But that’s fine, they’ve always planned to work together, to adventure together. She’ll make it up to Bridgette.

But the school they found was a bit of a shock. She didn’t expect to be going on runs and doing push-ups in mage training. But okay, its for an adventuring life, some conditioning made sense. And she WAS getting some basic mage training too.  But it seemed a little weird when she was required to master the crossbow, she didn’t know many mages who did that?

Now Bridgette has decided they need to chase after their friend Kristeen for some big adventure up north. Sounds like fun. And her mage training IS coming along. Her friend Allie is one of the tutors, and she’s been nothing but encouraging. She feels like she’ll be able to cast that Magic Missile any day now…

Rebecca is a CG Human Fighter, 1^st Level (Dual to Mage at 3^rd level). Crossbow and Dagger specialist.
15 – 18 – 15 – 18 – 10 – 16

Allie grew up in Baldur’s Gate. But she was raised by her Mom alone. Most people don’t realize, she’s actually a half-elf. But her slightly pointed ears are the only tell. And Allie is such a well muscled and well proportioned young lady most people would guess she’s a lot more than half-human. She looks like the sturdy daughter of the sturdy maid and waitress who’s worked at several inns around town. And Allie doesn’t feel Elven, or Elfish?

But dad was a full elf, claimed to be a Prince, or a noble Warrior, or the King’s advisor; or something. He swore he would take them away to his home in the trees and Mom would never have to mop a floor or serve a drunk again.  Or so Allie has been told, dad disappeared before she was even born.

It was always just her and Mom. From a young age Allie showed she could supplement the family income with her charming smile and quick fingers. 

For many years Allie wasn’t even sure she believed the stories about Dad being an elf. But when a basic spell book was left behind at Mom’s inn one night Allie took to it pretty effortlessly.  Eventually she found a new way to supplement the family income. “Miss Jezebel’s School for Adventurous Young Ladies” opened near their home. And Allie found she could make some money tutoring the students on magic basics. Magic ABCs sort of stuff, she was certainly no master of anything. But it paid a little, and they taught her some actual fighting skills. She got quite good with a short bow. And one of the actual masters at the school was the first to convince her she HAD to be a half-elf. Apparently humans can’t often multi-task in the way she was with learning both fighting and magic. Allie decided to keep quiet about some of her other skills.

To her unending surprise, Allie has enjoyed life at the School. And she’s made friends. One of the girls she’s worked with and become friends with, Rebecca, drew her into plans for an adventure!  Allie was able to convince another student’s sister, Isabelle, that she could be useful on this trip. This could be a real chance to make something of herself, and get something for her Mom!  As long as it doesn’t kill her…   Isabelle seems to be the true leader of this expedition, she is clearly sure of what she’s doing!  Hopefully, she can stay useful, and the other girls don’t leave her along side the road somewhere.

Allie is a CG Half-Elven Fighter/Mage/Thief, 1^st level. A Short Bow and Quarter Staff specialist.
14 – 18 – 15 – 17 – 13 – 16

Astolphus is from Icewind Dale.  He actually grew up in Easthaven.  He’s had several mentors over the years, most recently Hrothgar who’s long been the sort of the unofficial guardian of the area.  For the last year Astolphus has been exploring more of the north, struck by a bit of wanderlust.  But while spending a night in Neverwinter he met a stunning beauty of a warrior woman named Isabelle, who claimed to have had a vision that Easthaven needed heroes.  Isabelle had a small team with her sister and friends.  Astolphus felt sure he’d enjoy this company!  So he offered his help and experience to go save his home.

Astolphus is a NG Human Ranger, 1^st level (but with 1500 experience). Battle Axe Specialist.
18/84 – 16 – 16 – 15 – 15 – 16

Astolphus is large and muscular.  He keeps his brown hair short. He thinks this makes him look more civilized.

*****

Apologies if this write-up was a little disjointed.  Its origins are older than the others. A couple years ago I started doing more detailed backgrounds for characters and teams, but at first this meant I was just writing on the “Biography” tab provided in the game itself.  So everything was just written for each character, maybe a little more for the team leader.  I quickly found a problem with this, the game will often write over those nice long biographies you write!  Replace them with the default (which is the default for Baldur’s Gate, even if you’re playing Icewind Dale.  Including Gorion and Candlekeep stuff!).  But you can preserve your original through the “export” command, basically this creates a save file for the character (including their biography).
Anyway, I recently discovered I still had a few of these older character saves in my Icewind Dale folder. So this is a reconstruction of sorts from a few of those character biographies, with some details tweaked for a new playthrough.

The idea behind “Miss Jezebel’s School for Adventurous Young Ladies” is that it’s a bit of a scam. Well, scam may be too harsh a word.  Let’s say they’re inflating what they can really offer.  The school has three masters (characters of high enough level to offer actual training), but they’re all warriors. One is actually a fighter/thief. 
There are no spell casting masters on staff.  They *have* however, hired a mage and a couple clerics to provide up to one hour of class a week when they have students for those curricula.  The clerics represent several of the most common faiths in Baldur’s Gate.  The school has also purchased some well regarded text books for learning magic. And they have a half dozen “tutors”, low level mages or clerics, who can provide study assistance when the instructor isn’t around. 
So, the school *can* train a young woman up to a 1^st level adventurer. (Yes, it’s a girl’s school. I have no idea if such a thing is cool in the Forgotten Realms, but I love how completely “out of date” it sounds to our modern ears). Although the course may move very slowly for a wanna be spellcaster. And of course, both of Isabelle’s spellcasters will actually start as warriors then dual into their spellcasting.  This will deliberately be a minor headache in getting the party started, but the presence of Allie, one of the actual tutors from the school, will simplify matters *a little*.
I’d also mention a role playing question. I don’t know, what Lathander’s doctrines, tenants or commandments might be for a thing like fibbing… or honoring your parents! Is Bridgette in some hot water for manipulating the situation with getting herself and Rebecca into school on the same dime? I imagine regardless, she was guilt ridden for a while. Maybe spent some time at the temple atoning, or doing penance, or whatever Lathanderites must do for such things. It all sort of makes me laugh, imagining this guilty girl who wants to do good and be the hero, yet at the very least has failed her own standards. I even have an idea of how it may play out…

This was my first attempt at using Image Creator from Microsoft Designer. That was fun! Thanks to user “Zeno_42” whom I’ve been interacting with at the Beamdog Forums for learning how this works.

I have done a new build for my Icewind Dale install.  I am keeping “The Rediscovery of Kuldahar”, I really like what this adds to the town that is really your base of operations for most of the game.  I’m adding several other Lava mods, little adventure mods, “Tale of Our Lady Dreamless”, “Terror of the Skineater”, “Night of the Blinking Dead” and “Snowytoes Hamlet”.  I am deleting “Below and Below Inn”.  At this point, I trust the production quality of Lava’s mods. And I like how colorful and fun they often are.  So I’m trying several out. Although I worry a little about how *much* I’m now adding to the game. That will be more experience and more items.  My guess is, I will remove one or more from future installs.
As before, I will continue to use Tweaks mod, mostly for ease of use things.  I also have the Voices mod.
Two other new things for me, yes this is getting to be a pretty heavily modded game! I’ve added “Deities of Faerun“, which basically adds cleric kits for every priesthood we should find in the Forgotten Realms. These are pretty heavily PnP influenced, they’re talking my language!
A follow up to that is “Kjeron’s Dual-into-Kits“. The title is pretty self explanatory, it let’s the play choose a kit for their second class when dualling. That’s a thing not normally allowed in 2E, but these cleric kits are more like all new sub-classes and are really meant to replace the generic cleric *entirely*.
On this next play through I plan on taking a fairly timid approach with this mod, it will only affect Bridgette who will dual into a Dawnbringer of Lathander. We’ll see how this goes!