Gabrella: Update 6

Published by

atcDave

November 19, 2025

We started our first mission for Scar.

*The Seven Suns Trading group was run by a friend of Scar, but they’d been behaving eratically recently.*

On investigation, it turned out the business had been over-run by dopplegangers. We had found Scar’s buddy as one of the few actual survivors. Dopplegangers are an insidious threat. They are not fearsome once exposed, but exposing them is the trick. This group was outed by hunger! Its a good clue when someone wants to eat you that something is out of sorts.

Scar was thankful, and next asked us to look into some disappearences in town.

“*Oh dear Gabby, you take us to the most delightful places!*“

Yeah, more fun in the sewers.

*An Ogre Mage and his noxious pet Carrion Crawlers had been harvesting people.*

After this Scar’s interest turned to the Iron Throne. He’d looked into the documents we gave him, and he agreed there was serious cause for concern. So we were directed to use our usual subtlety on investigation.

*I had to laugh when in the Iron Throne representative first approached Minsc to learn our business. I don’t think Boo could explain it fast enough to the big guy!*

We resolved to simply head up to the bosses’ office.

*Where we were met by an armed group that attacked us! So much for a little civil conversation.*

We did not find any helpful documentation, but questioning survivors pointed us back home, to Candlekeep.

*It was good seeing Hull and some of the other Watchers. I could tell, Bull was happy too!*

*Imoen got positively messy about seeing Winthrop. We enjoyed a night of hospitality at the Inn. And Imoen didn’t even have to wait tables.*

The next day we went into the library. We met the leaders of the Iron Throne and exchanged unpleasant words. That does *not* serve our purpose. We need to know what they are up to…

One of the monks told me to look to Gorion’s quarters, he had left something for me.

*I was not prepared for what Gorion had to say. It would seem I am a Bhaalspawn. Not the sort of heritage anyone would want to have.*

*Fortunately none of my friends were put off by this. Bull was right there.*

*Then out of the frying pan into the fire. The Iron Throne leaders *we’d just spoken with* had been found murdered. Guess who was the first suspect.*

I still have plenty of friends at Candlekeep. Tethtoril was a dear friend, and the head man of the Keep. He sent us to the catacombs for an escape. We did get away.

*But we found this was the source of Dopplegangers we’d encountered up stairs.*

*No one who had known the good man my father was would stand for this disgrace!*

We slew many of the beasts, and came clear of Candlekeep near the coast to the rear. Then it was back to the Friendly Arms Inn. We’ll need to consider our next move.

*****

Funny, this was not a huge length of game time. But this post kept getting longer with renders! Plenty of drama, and moments that seemed deserving of attention. Some of these are thematically very similar to things I’ve done before. The game hasn’t changed much.

2 responses to “Gabrella: Update 6”

Zeno

November 20, 2025

I’m having the same issue with a ballooning number of renders for a comparatively small amount of gametime for my upcoming episode. Sometimes it just works out that way. Its hard to cull down the highlights.

We’re doing a lot of crawling around in the Baldur’s Gate sewers lately as well. Seems to be where all the action is.

So what exactly did you do to get that transformation with a fixed background? I’ve been meaning to mess around with image layers and such to try to accomplish that, but hadn’t yet gotten around to it. And which AI video renderer did you use?

The consistency on Gabby’s armor here is really neat to see. I love it when you just hit on a description that *works* like that. As opposed to the ones where you feel like you’re constantly fighting the AI.

Now that I’m running around with Minsc again I’m rediscovering how hit-or-miss he can be to render. Sometimes he just falls out exactly like you want him, and sometimes the beards and dour expression just won’t go away.

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1. atcDave
  
  November 20, 2025
  
  The thing funny to me is I’ve run these same games so many times in the last couple years. Every time I think I’m about burned out I get all excited with ideas again. Go figure.
  
  That transformation was a ton of fun, it started with three DALLE-3 renders. I did Gorion and a doppleganger against white backgrounds, then I did an empty “wide dark marble corridor”.
  Then I jumped over to OpenArt and started a blend board. I used the empty hall as the back ground. Then took the Gorion image, removed the background, and sized to fit. Repeat for the doppleganger (sized slightly bigger to suggest movement towards). Then used them as start and end points in a Kling2.5 video render. I did spell it all out in text too (“man transforms into monster as he approaches viewer”). I’m not sure if the text was helpful or not?
  
  Yeah I sure agree on the armor. I remember you saying something about working with the AI’s own tendencies, which is exactly what the “gold embossed sunburst motif” has been. As you may recall, it was the AI’s tendency to embellish the armor with gold patterns that started this. Although I had previously discovered the magic words for the green plate armor, for some reason “enameled green plate armor” works better than changing the order even a little. Although I do still occasionally see normal metal plates with green fabric padding visible, but its less common now. And I won’t accept such unless its a low percentage render and I’m running low on patience!
  
  Minsc has been better for me since I’ve learned to *start* the description with the word “bald”. Ditto for Bull. Still not perfect, but I think a much better percentage. And Bull, likely because he has a beard, renders easier.
  
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