Down, Down, Down By the River: Let's Play Baldur's Gate 3

[Timrod]

Summary

: Add one more to the pile.

: He’s not going to say it, so welcome back to Baldur’s Gate 3.

: The right side of the painting hallway leads to the creche part of the creche.

: The hatchery is filled with acid, and covered in traps designed to knock you into the acid.

: “Entirely to empty. I’d expect to see fifteen eggs, at the very least.”

: There are gas clouds in the acid pit that make anyone who steps into them take double physical damage - unless you’re a gith, in which case you instead take half damage.

: There are two kinds of traps here: repulsion mines (which we’ve seen before) and teleporters that will dump you in the cages underneath Astarion.

: The egg is in the acid, on top of a gas vent. You can’t see it, but there are teleport traps directly behind it and on that little island in front of it.

Varsh Ko’kuu: “You can tell Kith’rak Therezzyn that my position has not changed: the egg requires more time. Furthermore - oh.”

Varsh Ko’kuu: “I was not expecting an istik. What brings you to my hatchery?”

1. I wanted to see the hatchery. I didn’t expect it to look so empty.
2. You mistook me for someone. Who were you expecting?
3. I came here to steal an egg.
4. Leave.

: I swear there was a clip from Resident Evil 5 of Wesker going “IT IS IN YOUR BEST INTEREST TO GIVE ME THAT EGG” I was going to put here, but apparently that’s a splice.

: “You mistook me for someone. Who were you expecting?”

Varsh Ko’kuu: Someone with orders from our commander to destroy this egg. Almost all of the eggs in this clutch have hatched. We await only one more, which is.. taking its time. Most caretakers would not give the child its fair chance, but I shall. There could be greatness in that shell. Now leave.

: I start this fight with a minor tactical blunder. That gith we just talked to is immune to acid due to the boots he’s wearing.

: That’s fine though, because pushing is a bonus action. Karlach impales the nearby guard on her pike.

: Pollux and Astarion bring this guard down to 2 HP, which means he’s dead on his next turn. The acid does a minimum of 2 damage even if you save.

: The tactical blunder is that Ko’kuu runs right for the gas to buff himself. He still dies without putting up much of a fight.

: Astarion spots the traps and I jump Lae’zel over here. The egg is.. rather buggy. There’s a small scene at the end of the game if Lae’zel has the egg - except if you put the egg in storage at any point, it’s counted as “losing” it.

: The egg weighs 20 pounds, which is a pretty big chunk of carrying capacity even for Lae’zel. This is why I’m benching her as soon as we’re done here.

: Lae’zel has something to say about it, but I miss it because she wanders into the teleport traps. We’ll see what that is in a minute, after we do one other room that I did before coming here.

: The gith creche is laid out like a cross. The hatchery and the zaith’isk are on the left, and this room is in the middle.

: “K’chakhi! Why do you keep hesitating? My instructions were clear!”

: “Because - because they don’t make sense! Killing each other like this, it’s stupid! Orph-”

: “Silence! It seems your childish prattling is attracting an audience. You fight again. This time, daggers only. And to the death as instructed.”

: “Who wants to challenge this snivelling is’tark?”

1. Offer to fight the boy yourself.
2. Watch what happens.
3. Killing your own soldiers is an odd strategy for winning a war.
4. [PERSUASION] Leave the boy alone. You made your point.
5. Leave.

: “I’ll kill him.”

: “You? Tsk’va. My students do not waste their time fighting such weaklings. But as we seem so intent on doing things differently today, why not?”

: Could this guy be any more cartoonishly evil?

: He could have a monocle.

: “Take a dagger, stranger. This exercise requires nothing more than a blade, and a backbone.”

: “What are you waiting for? Begin!”

: “I - I refuse. There has to be a better way.”

: “G’lyck. Kill him, and put us all out of our misery.”

1. There’s no honor in killing a defenseless boy.
2. Seems a little murderous to me. I’ll pass.
3. The boy’s naivety is pathetic. Kill him.
4. [DEXTERITY] Make a non-fatal attack.

Narrator: You skillfully avoid hitting any major organs, but apparently it was enough. He’s out cold.

: That doesn’t look particularly non-lethal to me.

: He’ll be fine. It’s just a little dagger to the chest, driven in with enough force to penetrate metal armor.

: The kid has a potion on him that you can use to revive him, and he has different dialog depending on whether you’ve killed everyone or not.

: This is from a second recording where Pollux talked his way out.

: “That was amazing. I’ve never seen someone talk the ssa’varsh down from a rage like that. He’s always telling us how we have to be ruthless, that death is the only mercy we deliver.”

: “But you.. you showed compassion, and kindness. You’re just like - never mind.”

1. Next time I won’t be there to intervene. Tread carefully.
2. Compassion? Kindness? I did it for the gold. Now pay up.
3. [PERSUASION] Just like who? If there’s a like-minded soul here, I’d love to meet them.
4. [DETECT THOUGHTS] Seek the name the boy refuses to reveal.
5. Leave.

: “I speak of.. of Orpheus. The true prince.. He’s so strong, and - and wise. And he rides a comet. A comet!”

: “We’re forbidden to talk about him. They say Vlaakith knows if you even think his name. I found his book.. part of it, anyway. I read it all the time. He’s unbelievable.”

: At this point, you can persuade him to give you the book. Of course, there’s another way.

: Start out having Astarion backstab the armored gith. He’s the only real danger here.

: On balanced, he can “mentally instruct” one of the students, which doubles their damage and gives them nearly twice as much HP. On tactician, he does this to everyone in the room.

: Of course, he can’t do this when he’s dead.

: Once he’s gone, the students are a non-threat. At this point, you can loot the book off Varrl’s body.. or..

: “What have you done? You’re no better than the sa’varsh.”

: Just put an arrow in his skull. He’s worth 75 EXP. Are you really going to pass up 75 EXP?

[This stone disc has githyanki runes carved into it. Below them is a translation into the common tongue.]

The Prince of the Comet, Orpheus himself, led his Honor Guard into battle. Their red dragons bellowed with righteous anger, and the heavens erupted.

The glorious prince cried out to all who could hear him: ‘Praise be to my mother Gith, the Queen of the One Sky, sacrificed to the Hells by the renegade Vlaakith!’

But the True Heir, the Prince of the Comet, could not overcome Vlaakith’s knights and their ill-gotten wyrms. Mighty Voss, Jhe’stil Kith’rak, lit the astral sky aflame. When the ash had cleared, beloved Orpheus was gone.

: Let me explain what the lore problem is here. Vlaakith is actually Vlaakith the 157th, and has been dead for several centuries by this point. She is a lich.

: Gith died when Vlaakith I was still alive. This would make Voss several thousand years old. Gith do not live that long.

: Even if you assume he spent his entire life on the astral plane, it’s still a stretch.

: “An unhatched githyanki egg should be the burden of a varsh, not a warrior, whether ascended or otherwise.”

: “And yet - I’m drawn to the warmth of it. A child of Gith and a servant of Vlaakith grows within. Keep it close. Perhaps in our care, it might yet hatch. And don’t you dare pass it to that lunatic woman prowling the mountain pass.”

: I guess I’ll explain what happens if you do give it to Esther, since we’re not going to see it. She brings it back to the Society of Brilliance and they magically age the egg into an adult gith.

: The Society raises him as a hardcore Christian fundamentalist and he kills all of them for not being pure enough. You then kill him.

: “A hatchery with a single egg. How many does a clutch usually contain?”

: “K’liir’s clutch held three dozen eggs, more or less, though I’ve learned of creches that harbored a hundred.”

: I should mention that there is a non-violent solution to getting the egg, but it doesn’t really matter given that we’re about to make the entire creche hostile.

: This door on the right leads to the commander’s room. Going in here is supposed to be the point of no return, but since we’ve already killed all the gith outside, we’re safe.

Kith’rak Therezzyn: “Please, ch’r’ai, I can explain…”

: On a side note, I really hate how they abuse the apostrophe with the gith.

Kith’rak Therezzyn: “The latest batch of cultists knew nothing of the Astral Prism. They were just trying to find Moonrise. They all head there - my gish have drafted plans to assault the tower. They are ready to fight, ch’r’ai. We could sift the missing artefact from the tower’s ashes, if you would give us-”

Ch’r’ai W’wargaz: Quiet. Find the Astral Prism, Therezzyn - my patience falters."

: This guy is the inquisitor Lae’zel mentioned.

Kith’rak Therezzyn: “Yes, ch’r’ai. You heard him! GO.”

Ch’r’ai W’wargaz: “Do as she says. She remains your kith’rak. For now.”

: They have abused punctuation, and the only consequence can be death.

: I tried killing the gith that leave the room, but the game outright will not let you. It’ll start combat and then they immediately vanish.

: The logical thing to do would be to jump the commander, since she’s by far the biggest threat in the room.

: What you’ve forgotten is that this is fanfiction. The commander has infinite casts of Fear despite being a heavy armor fighter.

: Fear causes anyone it hits drop their weapons and run, rendering them useless.

: No, what we want to do is get behind the gith over here and stab her to death. There’s a small space behind her that the commander can’t see.

: This gives you a chance that the wolves don’t see you and go into investigation mode instead of going outright hostile.

: Even if you don’t get the free kills on the wolves, they’ll go down quickly.

: Keep the party spread out. This forces her to waste her turn teleporting and then casting Fear on one person.

: NOW we can jump the bitch. If you manage to break her concentration, she’ll waste another turn using Fear.

: We’ve almost solved this monastery’s frog problem.

: We get a sword that is identical to all the other gith greatswords, except this one gives +2 to initiative rolls.

Gith Barrier Disruptor: “Who would be.. oh. It is you. Make haste. We have business to discuss.”

: There are two ways to end our time in the gith creche, and one is much funnier than the other.

: Surely no one thought we discovered the laser cannon and weren’t going to use it.

: We’re going to ignore everyone in here for the time being, because we’re doing the funny ending first.

: If we ignore the gith and go to the left, there’s a hallway that has a couple of statues in it.

: The one on the left has a plaque reading “Lathander bids the setting sun a fond farewell”, and the one on the right reads “Lathander blesses the rising, bountiful sun.”

: That’s odd, isn’t it? They’re facing the sun, but the statues are facing north and south.

: Moving the statues to face east and west opens a hidden door. At this point, it’s time to evacuate anyone who isn’t Astarion.

: Unfortunately, the game won’t let us fast travel. Fast travel (and returning to camp) get locked as soon as you enter the commander’s room.

: To restore fast travel, you have to walk back past the commander’s office to the main part of the creche.

: Astarion goes and explores the area beyond the hidden door.

: Our goal is to find these big crystal chandeliers and destroy them. This lowers the force fields.

: In between each door is a laser cannon that attempts to push you off the nearby cliff. Astarion can disarm these easily, or just run behind them.

: The second room has a path leading behind it.

: And, of course, the final chandelier is hanging off the edge of the map. Once we destroy all three of these, we’re good to go.

: We found the treasure!

: It gives us VERY early access to a 6th-level spell and is one of the best weapons in the game.

: Hmm. There’s a space here for a crest. Didn’t we find one of those? …Damn, I think Pollux had it. Oh well.

Narrator: An ornate mace hovers before you, suspended in a shaft of brilliant light. A fist-sized piece of amber flecked with crimson is set in the handle, emitting a radiance all its own. This mace must be the legendary Blood of Lathander - the amber is said to contain the blood of the Morninglord himself.

1. Reach into the light and take the mace.
2. Leave the mace where it is.

Narrator: You recall all the measures meant to keep you from reaching this place. Taking this mace would surely lead to something quite disastrous.

: Oh, I’m taking this mace alright. I bet it’ll give me all kinds of power.

: Damn thing’s really stuck in there!

: Well, shit.

Narrator: Everything is in motion - all within these walls are doomed to destruction unless you act.

: At this point, we have four turns to do one of two things. We can either destroy the four glowing blue weak points, or we can run.

: Astarion starts inside a force field that he can’t leave without teleporting.

: The portal leads to the roof. From here, we want to head back to the room where we fought the gremishkas.

: Astarion can make it there in fewer than two full turns. We only need to make it to the hole - this is considered far enough away.

: Well, no one can say we didn’t give the gith a burial.

: As a bonus, Lae’zel gets pissed at us and we can kill her because I hadn’t touched the zaith’isk yet on this save.

: All of the party members have unique dialog if they die in the explosion, but Astarion’s is probably the best.

: Now let’s go back and grab that mace the “correct” way. We might as well do it before we fight the inquisitor.

: Pollux pulls it out effortlessly. After some inventory management, we’re going to do the final fight of Act 1.

: There is a whole series of cutscenes I’m going to outright skip because I hate them. They’ll go up in an optional update.

: The reason I hate them is that they railroad like crazy despite the fact that they’re totally optional scenes.

: The next fight is fanfiction if you do it on tactician, and so we need some fanfiction of our own. We’re going all out for this one.

: To that end, I respec Lyselle into her final form: a wizard. We only get one set of gear that makes Eldritch Blast good on non-warlocks, and it’s going to Pollux.

: As a wizard, Lyselle can learn spells from scrolls. I’ve been saving them for this exact purpose, and she spends several thousand gold on it.

: On balanced, the inquisitor is piss easy. On tactician, he has his character sheet thrown out and replaced with fanfiction.

: The first three times he has to make a save, he makes it unless he rolls a 1. He’s not going to roll a 1.

: Of course, what he’s not counting on is our ability to force him to make multiple saves in a row.

: We start by rearranging this guy’s organs, because he doesn’t have Fanfiction Parry.

: In theory, we could keep closing the door on him.. except that on tactician, he has infinite teleports and can cast spells through walls.

: His first turn will always be a teleport into Mindsteal Tempest, which he only has on tactician or higher. Mindsteal Tempest has an effectively infinite range and gives him a point of armor class for every person it hits.

: The only way to dispel it is by having each person affected by it damage him once.

: He wastes his first save against Lyselle’s tentacle field.

: This is where the ice mephits come in handy. They’re a 4th-level spell, and they have a breath attack that he can’t avoid.

: This has the side benefit of forcing him to make two extra saves, removing his fanfiction shield.

: Inevitably, he gets into melee range via teleport. Using a portent die and Pollux’s bard skill, we stop him hitting anyone.

: I’d say it sucks when we turn his fanfiction against him, but none of those abilities are fanfiction. They’re in the rulebook.

: From here, the ideal thing to do is have someone attempt to move out of his range. This removes his fanfiction parry, which requires him to have a reaction.

: With no shield and no parry, he’s on the ground in seconds.

: His buddies will try to stack on the tentacle field, and this lines them up for a lightning bolt followed by a fireball.

: On balanced, I can do this fight with no spells and take little to no damage.

: “Inquisitor W’wargaz was potent. We are impressed.”

: This is the cutscene I’m going to skip. Going into the room summons Vlaakith for a railroad segment where you can either do what she says or she kills you.

: I don’t know why it’s so heavily railroaded when this scene is completely optional. We could leave to Act 2 at this point. Nothing is stopping us.

: Hell, you can steal almost everything in the inquisitor’s room without him seeing you, so you’re not even missing out on loot.

: The side rooms have some items we don’t really care about. There is one, however..

: This necklace is perfect for Lyselle, and is the reason why I respecced her to wizard. I could have left her as a pure sorcerer, but I can always re-spec Gale into that.

: Speaking of which, it’s time to find out what Gale’s deal is.

: “Gale, m’boy. I’ve come to address a most pressing matter. I’ll speak as plainly as I can, forswearing the accustomed frills that decorate my speech. I’m here on behalf of Mystra. The message and charge I bring you are hers.”

1. You were sent here as an actual divine messenger?
2. What message and what charge would that be?
3. Speak fast, then, for none of this pertains to me.

: “You were sent here as an actual divine messenger?”

: “Mystra’s delicate feet are ill-suited for the hardships of the road.”

: “You know where you went wrong, Gale, and I trust you’ve told your fellow traveler here the nature of your ills.”

: “I can’t say that so far I’ve volunteered the entire truth.”

: “Do you mean to say that you never bothered to disclose how dangerous you are?”

: Dangerous to fanfiction writers and fujoshi the world over.

: “Not in so many words, no.”

: “Then you two have much to discuss after I’ll have taken my leave.”

: “In short, Gale - through his own doing - has become a living explosive that could wipe from this world this very gathering, and much more besides. For his folly, Mystra forsook him, but now she has decreed he is to be given a chance at redemption.”

: Wait, this guy was a tactical nuke the entire time? Why didn’t he say so? Let’s blow him the fuck up.

: You get a game over if you do.

: If Gale dies prior to this event, you get a quest to revive him. If it’s not done within a couple of long rests, you get a game over.

: His corpse also does damage to anything nearby, which you can abuse to kill Commander Zhalk on the nautiloid since moving things is a free action in combat.

: “Mystra would consider.. forgiveness?”

: “She would consider what she considers to be forgiveness. Mystra is aware of the misadventures that have befallen you both. She knows of your strife with the Absolute, that most insidious of evils.”

1. If the goddess herself is aware, I wouldn’t say no to some divine intervention.
2. It sounds like the most insidious of evils was Gale all along.
3. If even the gods know, why are we facing these threats alone?
4. You wouldn’t happen to know of a cure, would you? Some all-powerful, parasite-withering spell, perhaps?

: Pfft. He thinks the gods are going to lift a finger to do anything, assuming they’re not all dead. Which they probably are.

: They’re not all dead. I’ve beaten up a few.

: “You wouldn’t happen to know of a cure, would you? Some all-powerful, parasite-withering spell, perhaps?”

: “Alas. The creature that afflicts you, the ill-begotten magic that it weaves, is inextricably conjoined with both the greater purpose and the greater master that it serves.”

: “You must know that the Absolute is more dangerous than you can possibly conceive. It threatens all who live - even those who are undying. It threatens the gods, the Weave, the very fabric of the universe itself.”

: “That is why I have come here to charge you, Gale, with its destruction. It is Mystra’s belief that only you can.”

1. Gale alone? How so?
2. Mystra is mistaken. I will be the Absolute’s destroyer.
3. Hogwash. Idle beliefs and false hopes.

: “The orb.”

: “Precisely. That which renders him so dangerous is an orb of Netherese origin that is buried within his chest. And that, Gale, is how we arrive at the heart of my directive.”

: “Mystra has granted me the power to stop the clock, as it were, on the orb’s rush to overpower you. Instead, you will be able to unleash its lethal combustion at will.”

: Mystra’s giving him the power to blow up.. in AO3 slashfic popularity.

: “Interesting. This could be help or hindrance - we shall have to see.”

: “You must find the Heart of the Absolute, whatever that may be, and use yourself as the catalyst that will burn it from this world.”

1. That’s monstrous! You’re tasking him to kill himself!
2. Say what you will, but you can’t force Gale to go through with this.
3. We’ll be rid of both the Absolute and Gale in one fell swoop. Win-win.

: “That’s monstrous! You’re tasking him to kill himself!”

: “He is not. But it seems that Mystra is.”

: “It brings me no pleasure saying this, my friend, but such is Mystra’s will. Yours must be the sacrifice that will undo the Absolute. And for your sacrifice, you will be redeemed - such is Mystra’s promise.”

: Sure she will. If I ever get let into Yama, I give it around twenty seconds until they drop the whole “heaven without fighting” thing and start a competition to see who can kill me first.

: “With that, I’ve said my sorry piece, and need only bestow unto thee the charm I was bid.”

: “It is done. Both charge and charm have been committed into your care. To you, I commit into care Gale himself. I count on you to shepherd him well on this strangest of journeys.”

1. On my honor, it shall be done.
2. There’s still a long journey ahead. We’ll find another way.
3. I am not his keeper, and I do not accept your charge.

: “There’s still a long journey ahead. We’ll find another way. Probably involving the.. Shadowheart, what’s our explosive count at again?”

: Half a ton or so.

: Half a ton of explosives we’ve been hoarding.

: “Or some other fortune altogether.”

: “Like moons make swell and wane the nescient seas, so too the sky-strewn gods ordain the tidal fates of -”

: “Shadowheart, get the explosives.”

: But I was about to talk about how the will can overcome fate just like in my favorite shonen manga.

: Shadowheart, get the explosives and also cast silence.

: Next time, we start Act 2.