Bc Ashtoret Whole Ass Became An Unholy Assassin Of Bhaal Canonically But Would FIGHT Any Tav Who Did Without That Persuasion Check - Tumblr Posts

4 & 11 from general, and 6 & 14 from story specific for ash & leon both? 👀👀

Once again, answers under the cut as this is going to get rather lengthy!

Leon

General 4)

Leon is very much a Good party member, so when you do things that help people, that will raise his approval levels. If you do so only after extorting them or outright refuse to help, he will disapprove. Leon also is not particularly fond of deception and double-dealing, and while he disapproves of making a contract with Raphael, he disapproves even more if you tell him that you had no intention of ever sticking by your word with that devil.

If you show mercy, even to those who arguably don't deserve it, he will approve. Act with cruelty and impunity, and he will disapprove. Try to coerce him into doing something and fail the check, he will disapprove a lot, especially if the decision he's protesting is morally ambiguous. (Or relating to the Astral Tadpole.)

General 11)

So! Fun fact, if you chat with the djinni at the Circus of the Last Days and wind up getting portaled to Chult, you get a special Act 3 backstory dump from Leon if you tell him that you think that's where you ended up. He expresses extreme gratitude that you survived your brief sojourn there. Up to that point, he would have obliquely mentioned that he tried setting out on his own before with an adventuring expedition that failed. Twice.

Here is where he would reveal that the expedition was to Chult during the time of the Death Curse. So to see that Tav/Durge went there and made it back in one piece is a great relief.

Story 6)

Leon, like Wyll, Karlach, and Halsin, is absolutely impossible to keep in the party if you decide to assault the Emerald Grove. He leaves the party the very second Tav/Durge starts making overtures towards Minthara that imply that they might be serious about assaulting the druids and tieflings sheltering there.

If he's present at that moment, he interrupts the conversation, he pleads with Tav/Durge not to turn their back on the refugees, then angrily asks if some Drow woman's approval is worth stabbing so many innocents in the back if you put your foot down. After that, to save face in front of Minthara, you'd have to openly tell him to get lost. And get lost, he does, and shows up as a hostile NPC when you assault the Grove. If he's not in the party, once you tadpole connect with him at camp, he jumps right to his sneering disapproval of you damning the innocents of the grove for no worthy reason and ditches the party.

If you ultimately decided to side with the Grove out of guilt or out of some 5D chess play to lure Minthara and a host of goblins out of the camp, you can get Leon back as a party member if he survives, but you'll also have to pass a pretty high DC Deception or Persuasion check to make it happen.

(DECEPTION) I was planning to betray Minthara from the very beginning. There was never a single moment where I considered handing over the Grove.

(PERSUASION) Do my motivations really matter? We saved the Grove, in the end, and we've decimated the goblins' forces. Next time, try not to jump to conclusions.

Fail, or choose another dialogue option, and he's done travelling with you. Succeed, and while he'll rejoin the party, his approval of Tav/Durge will be fucking tanked for the next long while.

Story 14)

Leon is one of the Companions that would offer to become a mind flayer in Tav/Durge's place, especially if you're going down the Free Orpheus route and Leon's 'fuck your family, they all suck' route. Orpheus must be free to lead his people, the world needs heroes like Tav/Durge to follow, all he has is his former Noble House, which depending on the player's actions to that point, might be nonexistent. He will make this sacrifice, and if anyone else will not do it, he will kill himself after the final battle.

If Tav/Durge goes through with becoming a mind flayer themselves, Leon wants to believe that they're still in there and is willing to extend every benefit of the doubt to them. If he is romanced, he is one of the few that will, without reservation, stay with you. And whether he's romanced or not, he will become a zealous advocate for making sure the true story is known, that a mind flayer saved Baldur's Gate. The world has had enough of its polite fictions.

Ashtoret

General 4)

Ashtoret, as a Folk Hero, would have a lot of the same approval/disapproval schemata that Wyll does. Do something to help out the small folk? Approval. Do something that actively screws the disadvantaged over? Disapproval.

They're also extremely fond of the stories of old, so if you manage to pull off some storybook feat of guile, they'll approve of that as well and possibly gain inspiration. (They are extremely approving if Tav/Durge sasses Vlaakith and talks shit about Mystra. Real plucky heroes say 'Fuck them gods!')

However. Ashtoret also approves if you take harsh but merciful actions like putting down the owlbear cub after its mother dies. And they have a dark side to them that approves of telling the Goblins to off themselves in Act 2. (Plus, while it will take a hellacious Persuasion check to convince them to remain in a party with any Tav/Durge who actively courts the Murder Tribunal and becomes an Unholy Assassin of Bhaal, they gain approval when you kill Valeria as the final test.)

General 11)

Putting down the owlbear cub might actually trigger a special anecdote with Ashtoret as they recount the first time they had to do something similar. Downing a wild boar and finding their piglets, they had to make the judgement call whether it was better to let the wee ones try to find their own way or simply... put an end to them to spare meaningless suffering and the risk of the boar population rebounding.

If you chose to let the cub live, they'll express concern and hope that the beast does manage to survive and the decision doesn't come back to bite you. Kill it, and they're glad that you saw what needed to be done and took action, even if it felt cruel to do so.

Story 6)

Ashtoret can be convinced to stay with a Tav/Durge who assaults the Grove with a Persuasion check that only appears after you soften them up with "The druids have this retribution coming for betraying their own tenets."

After that, they express concern about the Tieflings.

(PERSUASION, DC 16) "Do you really think they have any place outside the Grove? Tieflings aren't welcome anywhere after the Descent."

Ashtoret concedes that Tav/Durge has a point, but that's all the more reason why the party should try to help them.

(PERSUASION, DC 14) "Save them now, and they die starving on the road. Kill them now, and their suffering ends quickly."

After which point, Ashtoret stamps their feet while exclaiming, "Fuck... FUCK! All right. All right. Fine. I'm with you."

Now, you may notice that the DC for the second check was lower than the first. This plays into Ashtoret's mechanic, where the more you successfully Persuade them to do things that they're maybe not in support of at first, the lower the DC you need to convince them to help you becomes. They're a hero of conviction at the start, but you can slowly convince them to turn their back on their morals as the plot goes along. (Though this locks them into their darker route, where they become a hero in name only.)

Story 14)

Ashtoret would insist that there had to be some other way, some other method that didn't involve sacrificing anyone's soul or making a devil's deal. Do they trust The Emperor? Sure! Enough to hand him the Crown of Karsus, sight unseen? Hells no. They don't exactly trust Orpheus either, but they don't want any of their friends or potential partners to transform. Hells, they've spent this entire journey trying to avoid that fate!

Ashtoret absolutely will not volunteer to become a mind flayer, and if you try to chat with them when making the decision, they're going to ask if you intended to try to convince them to do it. (Which is hilariously ironic, given the events of their canon as a Tav.)

They're not fond of the decision if Tav/Durge becomes a mind flayer, but they also won't go offering swift death unless it's requested. If romanced, Ashtoret is clearly put off, but really wants to try to keep things going with Tav/Durge. Like Shadowheart, they will emphasize the need for secrecy and discretion, and are willing to offer their assistance in hunting for sustenance. They're more blatantly opposed at first, but if they don't warm to the idea, they at least are pragmatic about it.