I Wanted To Play A Cleric Of Eilistraee, Because She Seems Kind Of Cool You Know. Shes The Daughter Of

I wanted to play a cleric of Eilistraee, because she seems kind of cool you know. Shes the daughter of Lolth (evil dark elf god), but she decided that you know maybe it would be better if the drow were chill actually, especially since she's still technically in the 'dark seldarine' pantheon rather than the normal seldarine. And only women are allowed to serve in her church, which could be a fun thing to work with you know.

But then you get stuff like this:

Which like, ok fine. They dance in the woods naked right. Power to them. BUT THEN IT KEEPS GOING.

Ok, so now its a bunch of women hunting monsters naked? Okayyy, so these women really like being naked while they do their religion. Cool, cool. Oh this section is about their wedding customs. I'm sure there won't be any weird stuff here....right?? (insert that anakin padme meme here). WRONG.

Like ???????

It even specifies that the priestesses (because again, no male clergy allowed) have to wear as little as possible for official ceremonies.

Sigh

I really do love Baldur's Gate 3, but I'm so mad its set in the Forgotten Realms. I do not want to be invested in FR lore god damn it. There are far too many weird sex things. Like, I'm all for weird sex things if done well, but then I look at the drow, and just hmmmm, so much of it is just women doing weird sex things.

I think Larian has in general played somewhat fast and loose with the cannon Forgotten Realms timeline. Because that would mean (if we assume he is 35 at the start of the game which seems a good middleground imo), he is 23 when Mystra returns, and its implied he was quite young when Mystra first took an interest in him (young enough that it was grooming). Given that he was extremely talented from a young age it seems unlikely she'd be as much a teacher at that age rather than muse.

wyll: this was a hospital? feels more like a prison. gale: a common enough interpretation. sickness has a nasty habit of making you feel trapped, if only within the confines of your body. gale: i once spent weeks convalescing in the hospice of st. laupsenn after a nasty bout of ruddy pox. for all their kindness, leaving that place behind felt like freedom to me. wyll: i've always relied on the kindness of the healers and menders of the coast. better a cleric's healing touch than a chirurgeon's scalpel.

i'm assuming this banter is supposed to trigger upon entering the house of healing, but it hasn't triggered for me. still very much interesting. not only does it offer another insight into gale's past before the events of the game, but also the hospice he found himself in for weeks is interesting itself as well:

"The Hospice of St. Laupsenn (N73) is a Sancturary of Ilmater in the North Ward of Waterdeep. In the City of Splendors, worship of The Triad has long been subsumed by the Halls of Justice, Waterdeep’s temple of Tyr. After the Time of Troubles during the early stages of the Spellplague, large swaths of the citizenry were afflicted with fiendish plagues. While most recovered with clerical attention, for some the effects of the disease continued to linger, resistant to the healing effects of magic. As few Waterdhavians would have anything to do with the fiend-afflicted sufferers, for fear of catching the plague anew, the llmatari decided to create a place for the lepers. The Order of the Golden Cup erected the Hospice of St Laupsenn, named for the priest who tended those similarly affected in the aftermath of the Weeping War, and have continued in quiet service to this day. The hospice is funded by private charitable contributions (many of which come from the personal holdings of the Lords) and tithes from the Halls of Justice and the Order itself." [source]

i was at first playing around with the idea of gale suffering from such a long illness because he might have been affected by the spellplague. then again, the spellplague usually affected magic users mentally rather than physically, so this might really just be the pox, common in big cities and beyond of course, probably during his childhood.

if larian had kept to the lore and the timeline, the effects of the spellplague should have been more central to gale's childhood and made it much more harrowing, especially since he is so intrinsically connected and linked to the weave itself.

A young Wizard’s best friend.

I really do love Baldur's Gate 3, but I'm so mad its set in the Forgotten Realms. I do not want to be invested in FR lore god damn it. There are far too many weird sex things. Like, I'm all for weird sex things if done well, but then I look at the drow, and just hmmmm, so much of it is just women doing weird sex things.

so. tara was supposed to be at camp at one point and have idle banter with gale:

i watched tim's interview a while ago, but i loved this part so much i had to share it:

question: "what do you want people to take away from gale?" tim: "there's a real joy about gale, and also longing, and sorrow, and hope, and there's so much. he yearns to go back to waterdeep. he yearns to be in his library with his tressym, and he wants all those things. he wants a simple existence at the end of the day. yes, he also kind of wants to be the greatest wizard of all time, but there's also those elements of homeliness, of just kind of wanting to be at ease and calm within your space in a world that's actually gone insane and crazy. so, actually, i think there's a bit of gale in everybody whether they want to admit it or not. it's that yearning for a better thing. he doesn't particularly want to fight, he doesn't particularly want to do this. he's thrust into it. this is just where we are. we have to do it. it has to be done. we have to do this.  but all he wants to do is, you know, have a sherry and read a book. lead a quiet life in waterdeep, probably eat some cheese, sit on the veranda."