DavesGaming

Jill, her new husband Christopher, and company have finally made it to BG2, Irenicus’ welcome center. The mediocre run continues. As I’ve noted before, these characters and this team are not *bad*. They are even “optimized” somewhat for their roles. But they started with below minimum points as the IE games go. Jill and Christopher each started with 70 total points. They are perhaps more normal, less extraordinary than most of the heroes we’ve all played .
This has primarily been a role playing challenge. Jill in particular has a simple understanding of the world around her. She’s not stupid, but some of Irenicus’ taunts about her cluelessness do strike close to home. She is clearly good-aligned, and big hearted; but her understanding of good and evil is mostly obvious and not nuanced.

Honestly, I’m finding this to be a refreshing sort of run. I’ll have more comments after about the team build.

*****

I woke up in a blur of pain, in a cage. The hooded man is sort of a jerk! He ran off on some other business and Imoen was right there to set Christopher and I free. We quickly found Jaheira and Minsc. It was good to have old friends right here, even if its sort of bad for them! But I’m happy to see them. Minsc informs us he saw Dynaheir murdered. My heart broke, so often I didn’t understand her, but she was a friend and will be missed. I’m worried for Khalid who is still missing.

Then we found Khalid. Jaheira’s husband had been all cut up. It was tragic and horrible. I feel Jaheira’s pain, she plays tough but that almost makes it worse.

We finally made it out of this scary place, right into a fight. We saw our enemy, he was fighting off thieves, and then wizards? He seems to upset everyone. He was arrested by the wizards, but they took Imoen too!
We’ve all lost so much. I need to cry! But I can stay strong for everyone, we have to figure out what is going on on what to do next. I think Christopher and Jaheira are sorting things out.

Then we stumble across a circus of all things! But something went wrong and a little boy is crying looking for his mom. Maybe we can make one thing right today? So we head into a cursed tent.

We got the mom back to her little boy. Aerie will stay with us. I like her! She’s really smart and a Wizard, we need one since Imoen was taken. I think finding my sister is my number one thing? Then stopping that crazy hooded man, Irenicus.

We stopped by an outfitter and sorted out what gear we had, sold a few things we’d swiped from our prison and bought some of what we needed. We also had the dagger that had killed our friend Skie, we found someone who would help us find out if we could get her out of the dagger (?). Really, I don’t get it, but Christopher thinks her soul is inside the dagger somehow. It feels like I’ve failed my dear friends these last few days. Maybe we can still make things right for Skie.

Soon, we met with a man who said he could help us get to Imoen. What a relief! Yoshimo said he was part of the local Thieves Guild. That makes me nervous. But I think the government here is pretty awful, I’ll work with thieves if I have to. And I’ll just live with the sick feeling that gives me.

We parted ways with Yoshimo, then met a woman looking for help fighting some monsters that took her family home. We agreed to help her, then realized what bad place we were in! They were running slave fights! Oh no they don’t, not while we’re here.

After this we got some much needed rest.

The next day we tried to move out and help Nalia, but we kept getting distracted and things kept coming up! We fought more slavers, and Jaheira had some business with the Harpers that turned bad. I think she’s now a bad guy to the Harpers. Because of me. Swell.
Oh and we had to make a trip into that dagger. Suddenly I feel a headache coming on. But we went into the dagger and apparently freed Skie’s soul.

But we finally made it Nalia’s “home”. Hah! Her family home is a castle, over-run with trolls.

We’re a good team now, I think. Christopher and I, Jaheira and Minsc all know each other well and fight pretty well together. Aerie and Nalia are both a big help too. Our equipment still isn’t as good as what we lost, but we can do some good now.

We cleared out the trolls pretty fast. We were too late for most of Nalia’s friends and family. One nasty old aunt and a couple soldiers survived. But I think Nalia has lost more than I have. Then she gave me her Castle! I can’t run a Castle! I don’t even know how to cook or do laundry. How can I run a Castle!

We started clean-up right away, and Nalia helped us with the staff that would really run the castle. And do the cooking and laundry. I was feeling much better.
Next day we ran off to a town called Trademeet. They were having problems with a bad group of Druids… and Genies! Awesome! The Genies are so big and blue, and they talk funny. We were able to make the Genies happy, and we had to kill some Druids. Jaheira explained they were a group that didn’t like people. Hey, even I had figured that out!
After, we were big heroes in Trademeet. Its nice to be liked somewhere.

After we went back to “our” Castle (!). Along the way a messenger caught up to us and said Skie was alive back in Baldur’s Gate! We did good by her! I really did cry this time. We had a big party. I worried this was rude for Jaheira and Minsc, with all they’d lost. But Jaheira said it was good to celebrate the wins, so that’s what we did.
It was mentioned our Army was really small right now. So many soldiers were killed by the trolls, and I guess there were now bandits picking on the people who lived nearby. So we decided to hire more troops. But most were really young. Yeah, yeah, I’m the old woman now. I’ll be 21 next month. No grey yet. We decided to leave Minsc to help train the soldiers.

Next we went back to Athkatla, there seemed to be a lot of work we could do there. And we needed to raise money to get to Imoen.

It was great to see her! Skie was an archer in the Flaming Fists, she fights a lot like me. So we rearranged the team a little. I’ll fight up front alongside Jaheira and Skie will take my spot.

*****

First off, apologies. I could not do GIFs on two of these videos. I generated all of them using the “Pro” setting on OpenArt/Seedance. This makes for smarter renders, and allows for fun things like angry Minsc *and* a Goblin running away. This and the hi-res output makes for huge files. Of course GIF is not an efficient format, so these got to be 150m files! The Minsc and Skie GIFs just were not stable here, so I posted them as videos. You’ll have to hit play. The Aerie GIF seems to work. Let me know if you have any problems, I may have to post it as a MP4 also.

This write-up has gotten a little wordier than my last one, writing as Jill is entertaining for me. I think she’s simple and funny. Which means I like “channeling” her. As before, any thoughts on what she should or should not be thinking or saying are welcome.

The team is not quite in final form yet. I hated parting with Minsc, but I usually do at this point. Skie is very redundant with Jill Apart from being a slightly *stronger* character, Skie doesn’t really add anything. But I think Jill would just *have to* spend some time with her at this point. Jill has the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength, and with a good dexterity and a shield she has a great armor class. She’s actually more tanky than you might expect. And shockingly capable on point.
My plan for now is to do several Lava mods involving new districts of the city, and Acifer’s Dark Tidings. This will all be with the current party build.
Then, I will switch Skie for Keldorn, and Jill will move back to the archer position (and give the Girdle to Jaheira). That then, should be the final form of the party.