Final Monday Off
Aug. 11th, 2025 11:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crossover_chickAnd while I am sad to end my long weekend (as always), I can at least report that I had a pretty nice day, all things considered:
Tumblr: Decently productive day on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), I’m happy to report, with me accomplishing two key things:
A) First, before lunch, I went through my tracked tags and reblogged into my drafts:
I. Some very interesting Fallout 4 fanart by badlydrawnfallout (which was based off an idea by corvidcentral and was actually quite well drawn) of our favorite synth detective with identity issues, Nick Valentine...next to a ghoul version of the ORIGINAL Nick Valentine (I was like “oh now THAT is neat, imagine them teaming up to take out Eddie Winter” in the tags)
II. Some shockingly gorgeous Vampire: the Masquerade – Bloodlines fanart by asylumpixie of her Malkavian OC, dressed up in Elizabethian-style finery (complete with ruff) standing over LaCroix in a French soldier’s outfit from the era of Napoleon, pouring blood from a cup all over his front so it runs down and over his neck as he lays on a slab before her with a silver dagger in his chest (probably meant to be like the letter opener you stab him with), all in a frame with carvings of two people laboring and fighting above them and the phrase “Enoch also did not last forever” (the VIBES, the DETAIL – it was incredible and I had to save it for a future queue)
III. Some art from shenanigansz of their Smiler OC – one picture of him just eating a lollipop and sliding off his fancy fluffy coat to reveal his cool mismatched waistcoat (one side plain black with yellow detailing, the other side black-yellow-and-white-striped); the other the same picture except his face is suddenly a black glitched mess with a red/green eye peering at the viewer, plus a speed-paint of how they did the pictures (just very cool – I like this Smiler’s design, and the glitchy face was neat)
IV. Some Alice: Madness Returns fanart from rhythm10goku, featuring a little Alice looking back at her burning house in horror, tears running down her cheeks, as bits of fiery debris drift past her; an adult Alice in the Royal Suit dress glancing over at something to her right; and another little Alice looking anxious in a dark blue dress (I so wanted to hug the little Alices :( )
V. Some “Alice: Asylum” fanart (I’m putting that in quotations since the game never actually got greenlit, so we only have a story bible and concept art) from melankoliart, featuring the younger Alice with the chaos necklace standing among a bunch of super-colorful mushrooms – what set this one apart is that it’s a traditional watercolor piece, the pictures are photographs of the artist holding the piece of paper while out among some flowers (VERY pretty and well done – I’m not usually a fan of “Alice: Asylum” stuff but the art was so good and the mushrooms so colorful I had to add it to the drafts for later!)
VI. And a small Corpse Bride gifset from atimburtonfan featuring the two soldier skeletons, Wellington and Bonesaparte, mustering the skeleton troops for Emily’s wedding and pretending to take Victor on a boat ride (atimburtonfan asked what Wellington and Napoleon were doing there, and I was like “mustering the troops for Emily’s wedding of course” in the tags, before saying “don’t know why they included the characters except for the LOLs, but they were amusing” and talking about how, since the “Napoleon: is Bonesaparte, I like to call the Wellington guy “Wellindead” :P)
B) And second, after lunch, I spent a little bit of time editing the second “VITD in BG3 Not-Incorrect Quotes” collection! Writing up a rough draft of the “party in the Underdark” scene (though I had to change my original idea after looking at the “banter” pages for some of the characters on the BG3 Wiki and discovering that most of them don’t actually have many negative things to say about the Underdark – now the scene involves Wyll asking the VITD trio if the Underdark reminded them of home; Alice telling him “no, it’s too natural, actually reminds me more of Wonderland,” Victor pointing out that they also have a moon to light the sky in Duskwall, and Smiler adding that they sometimes even have multiple moons for reasons they’ve never figured out; and Wyll being a bit “…” while Gale commented “you probably should have investigated that more over eight centuries” XD) and adding a new idea for a future scene (Alice talking to Lae’zel after they meet some more githyanki and realizing “Oh, so you’re all like that” XD). Slowly but surely fleshing it out!
So yeah – I feel like I am pretty well set for any number of future queues now. Hooray! :D
Baldur’s Gate III: Well everyone – I am pleased to say that, after months of stressing out over how Patch 8 affected mods (especially the depreciated ImpUI, which I was using at the time), realizing that, oh hey, Smiler had the wrong base class in my initial run, and making tumblr polls about what I should do about it, and doing a lot of fairly meticulous planning about what I wanted out of a new run, I have Officially Started A New Game Of BG3! :D I mean, I’ve just barely started it – the roughly hour-and-forty-five minutes I played today was all about installing mods, watching the opening cutscenes, and getting through character creation – but I have started it nonetheless. Here’s how it all went:
A) After booting up the game, my first stop was the Options menu so I could make some tweaks to stuff – like turning off Karmic Dice (which does help you not have streaks of failure while rolling, but also gives that same benefit to your enemies, so – I’ll live with natural computer-generated chance); making the text in books and subtitles and such a little bigger (want to make sure they’re nice and easy to read); and turning off characters having visible genitals when they get naked (which I presume means their underwear just always stays on – I don’t object to them having genitals, I’m just not that interested in SEEING them. And frankly, I didn’t particularly want to put that much thought into what Smiler’s penis looks like. Felt – awkward). I also later returned to try and make sure that Smiler’s Reactions (stuff they can do in response to people getting too close in combat or attacking them) were set to “always ask me before you do it,” but I couldn’t find the option in there – turns out, after a little post-game research, that you set those in the “Spellbook” tab of your character’s “character sheet” and inventory screens. Which makes sense, as a lot of the Reactions you’d want the game to ask you about involve a character firing off a spell (potentially using up precious spell slots)! So yeah, just have to pop in there later and make sure any and all Reactions are set to “please ask first!”
B) After that, it was off to the Mod Manager to install all the mods that I’d previously chosen while browsing the Mods page on the official BG3 site – a lot of the more popular ones were right on the front page for me to pick up, and the others were easily found through a little searching. :) Though I did find myself lingering over two other mods I found on my journeys – one that gives Warlocks an extra spell slot (as they spend most of the game with a mere two – granted, that refresh every SHORT rest, instead of every LONG rest like most other spell slots, but still), and one that gives every class an extra feat at level 2 (to as closely replicate as possible a D&D house rule that all characters can start with a feat – you just aren’t allowed to choose one at level 1 in this game, even with mods). I didn’t install either at the time, but while I think I can work around Smiler having such a small number of Warlock spell slots (they are gonna be a Bardlock, after all, and thus pick up proper spell slots once they multiclass into Bard – plus their invocations and Pact Of The Tome will provide more spells), that “extra feat” one looks tempting, just to get that “Experimental Alchemy” feat I downloaded a little early...we’ll see how I feel the next time I play! I also took a moment to figure out if there was any way for me to move mods around in the in-game mod manager after checking my list and finding they’d been arranged in a rather bizarre order (for example, “Colorful Eldritch Blast” was at the top of the order, while “Unlock Level Curve” and its patch to help you level up faster was closer to the bottom, when I was sure it ought to be the other way around), but a little online research on my phone did not reveal any way to move them around, so – I guess it’ll be fine! I’m trusting you on this one, game!
C) And then, after that, it was time to start a new game, cover my eyes during the opening cutscene (which affords you not one, but TWO great views of a mindflayer tadpole forcing its way into someone’s eyesocket – no thank you), then do character creation! And while I had most of the options I wanted to pick locked down (for example, Smiler’s race, subrace, head shape, body type, class, and ability stats), there were a few things I ended up tweaking or pondering for longer than I anticipated:
I. Smiler in the game is a Half-High Elf, since Head #5 of that particular subrace of Half-Elves looked the most like the Sim I created of them in Sims 4, which means they got a free cantrip (cast using their Intelligence stat instead of Charisma stat, but their Int is still pretty high – 14 – so it’s not a big deal). I pondered a few different options for them for a while – “Dancing Lights” (to light an area for ten turns – thought it kinda fit thematically with the actual coaster having The Flasher), “Poison Spray” (to use noxious gas to poison enemies – while I’m having them focus on psychic damage, poison damage would also be in their wheelhouse), and “Minor Illusion” (to create an illusion that distracts people – thought it might be interesting) – but in the end, I went with the same thing I gave them last time: “Mind Sliver,” which stabs a person’s brain with psychic force and gives them -1D4 on saving throws for two turns. Like I said, I’m having Smiler focus on psychic damage, and it’s good for them to have another cantrip besides “Eldritch Blast” that causes damage! Just in case. :P
II. I ended up tweaking their makeup slightly, giving them slightly different eyeliner – I thought the #4 option looked better than the #1 option I’d originally noted down as my pick. *shrug* Nothing groundbreaking, but still.
III. I considered a couple of different fringe options for their hair, but ultimately went with the Precision Bolt hairstyle paired with the Layered Lob fringe again as the best match for Smiler’s Sims 4 hairstyle (granted, BG3 Smiler looks like they don’t own a comb, but… XD). As for color, I ended up going with the “Darkest Black Neutral” shade provided by one of my mods, and purple highlights at about “25 Intensity” to get the proper “bangs with purple tips” style. I think it looks good!
IV. Smiler’s choice of class wasn’t hard – Great Old One Warlock – and neither was their choice of spells – “Friends” and “Prismatic Eldritch Blast” for their cantrips (the latter so they can fire a yellow beam instead of the standard green one, to stay on-theme); “Tasha’s Hideous Laughter” and “Charm Person” for their Level 1 spells (to incapacitate people with laughter and charm them from attacking them). Though I was briefly tempted to use “Id Insinuation” from “Mystra’s Spells” instead, as that was another spell that I really wanted Smiler to have (fills a person’s mind with conflicting desires and incapacitates them – felt on-brand) – maybe that’ll be the next Warlock spell they learn on level-up!
V. And then we came to the matter of their Background. And I finally had to chose between “Entertainer” and “Guild Artisan.” And after so much indecision for over two months on which would be better and which fit Smiler more as a person...when it came right down to it, I wanted the skill proficiencies that “Guild Artisan” provided – Persuasion and Insight, both two key skills Smiler needed. And as they are supposed to be a traveling alchemist, “Guild Artisan” DOES fit them. I’m a little sad they’ll miss out on getting inspired by some of the stuff on the “Entertainer” list of inspiring moments, but hey – sometimes, you gotta go with what’s best for their build.
VI. As for their other skills, after getting their abilities set (Strength 10, Dexterity 10, Constitution 12, Intelligence 14, Wisdom 14, Charisma 16 – Smiler is very focused on using their smarts and their words over their body, as you can see), I decided to have them take proficiency in Arcana (knowing stuff about magic – important when you’re trying to capture it in a bottle) and Nature (for identifying plants and such – also important when you’re making potions and elixirs people are supposed to drink). I plan to pick up Performance once Smiler gets their Bard on (as you get a free skill proficiency upon multiclassing), and Medicine will be covered by that Alchemy feat I mentioned before.
VII. Oh, and after making Smiler, I of course had to make their “Dream Guardian” (aka the disguise a certain mind flayer uses to contact you in the first two acts) – I went with a golden-skinned tiefling with curly horns, glowing purple eyes, and purple tattoos that looked kind of like circuitry. Because it was fun and looked like something Smiler might dream up. :P
And that, apart from watching the rest of the intro cutscene and getting Smiler out of their pod and into the tutorial, was that! I left it with Smiler in the first room on the Nautiloid getting ready to investigate all the things and pick up all the loot – on Friday, we’ll pick this up again and see how far we can get on the horrible squid ship! In the meantime, I shall leave you with these images of BG3 Warlock Smiler:
Let me know what you think!
Workout: Hopped back on the bike again tonight, and started pedaling my way through “Oxventure D&D: Wyrdwood | Chapter 8: Friends & Falsehoods - Part 2 (Season Finale)!” Yup, after having had to delay it due to the Roger Williams Park visit last Thursday, I was finally able to see how the Oxventure gang ended their very first season of their new D&D series!
...judging by the first thirty-five minutes I watched today, they chose to end it with utter chaos. XD As you’ll remember, the last episode ended with our heroes – Happen, Lug, Willowfine, Cressida, and Morven – in the sacrificial chamber under the compound of The Hive, the cult they infiltrated to get an amulet for a strange being called The Poor Man, who promised to aid them if they did. They’d been tasked with cleaning up the bodies on the plinths there by one of the superior members of the cult, and had realized said bodies were the North Team they’d been trying so hard to find these past few episodes. Thus finding themselves in both a murder basement and a pickle (as Johnny put it), things roughly went like so –
A) Lug going “Get her?” to the others regarding the cult member supervising them – then, not waiting for a response, proceeding to get her, prompting an immediate roll for initiative. XD Lug appropriately went first and managed to grapple the woman and pull off her red hood –
And then used his bonus action to start trying to interrogate her, causing a confused Johnny to be like “I guess we’re not fighting?” XD An argument between Lug and the de-hooded woman thus broke out, and it quickly became apparent that Lug had jumped to a few conclusions regarding why they’d been tasked to clean out the sacrificial chamber – namely, he’d assumed that they would be the next ones to be sacrificed, but it appears that the number of plinths exactly matching how many was in their group was just a coincidence. Meaning that the reason he’d jumped this lady was just all a big misunderstanding. XD Oh dear – it may not be Egbert, but it’s still Mike behind the character, so… Happen proceeded to make things worse by revealing they knew the previous sacrifices as “North Team,” while Willowfine desperately tried to put the genie back in the bottle by going about her clean-up duties. With Cressida pointedly not helping her. XD
B) The gang getting out of the woman that the cult considered magic to be an abomination – which meant that she was pretty damn surprised when Happen pulled the amulet he’d stolen earlier out of his pocket and asked her what it was for. And even more surprised when he revealed he’d gotten it out of The Superior’s house, going “that should have been destroyed ages ago.” Everyone proceeded to mock her for being part of a hypocritical cult. XD Anyway, she didn’t know anything about the amulet (though Morven could sense through Detect Magic that it was old and VERY powerful), so Lug was like “okay, now you’re going to help us get out of here.” The woman was understandably reluctant to do this and started screaming instead –
Prompting Morven to use Gaseous Form to turn into a vapor, flow inside her mouth – and then turn back into a human, tele-fragging the woman’s head. Johnny was like “I HAVE to look this up before I set a dangerous precedent,” while the others protested that it was only the first season, it was a TIME for setting precedents. XD Johnny eventually allowed it after getting a promise from Andy that he wouldn’t start using it on the regular (Andy assuring them that it would be boring if Morven used that to win every encounter). Lug took advantage of the situation to steal her red hood and put it on, though as was noted, thanks to the spray of red mist everywhere, probably everyone’s hoods were red now. XD
C) The gang then getting into an argument about what they were going to do about the bodies (after telling Happen that no, the purpose of cleaning the sacrificial chamber is not to clean around the bodies XD), because Willowfine was insistent on bringing them back to Folkmoot so that word could be sent to their families. Morven suggested cutting them up into little pieces for easier transport; Willowfine was like “uh, couldn’t you just Reduce them?” prompting Happen to point out that the rest of the magic-hating cult probably wouldn’t like seeing them carrying around toy-sized bodies, and also that the people probably didn’t expect anyone to collect their corpses should the worst happen; Willowfine angrily going she’d want someone to get her corpse back to her home village if the worst happened to her –
And Morven deciding to end things by setting all the bodies on fire with a bunch of Sorcerous Bursts, reducing them to ashes that she then bundled into jars to be trucked back to Folkmoot later. Problem solved. XD
D) Another red-hooded cult member coming down right after this and asking what the hell was going on – Morven snarkily explained she’d set fire to the bodies to make them easier to clean up, going “It’s my first day!” when the red hood objected to such measures. XD That plus not recognizing Lug’s voice as “Agatha” when he tried to order the others out (he claimed he had a frog in his throat) made her suspicious, and she forcibly herded the group out of the chamber and up the stairs –
Where they were confronted by a giant ring of brown-hooded acolytes, all with sickles. Lug tried to get them to go away by exploiting his red-hood status, only for the actual red hood to belay his order (causing him to belay her belay – fortunately the back-and-forth didn’t go beyond that XD). After an unsuccessful attempt to try and trick the brown hoods into thinking the actual red hood was an imposter, Cressida opened up a gap for them by casting Fear in a cone directly in front of her – causing eight brown hoods to panic and run – and the group booked it back to the gate they’d originally come in, with Happen getting some middling help from his sprites (as he used the Cadence die for the Strength/Athletics check, but got one of “regular” results). The gang did successfully keep ahead of the cultists pursing them –
But the use of magic meant that Ellen and Luke had to open their envelopes! Cressida was thus touched briefly by some ancient intelligence and had a sigil burned into her palm, granting her Psychic damage resistance but making all the Wildfolk in the area permanently mistrustful of her (bonus: Johnny threw Ellen a sketch of the symbol, and it proved to be the same one on the amulet they grabbed), while Happen got a first-hand look at the whirling malestrom that was magic and took 15 points of Psychic damage, but gained a permanent extra Level 1 spell slot. And managed to dodge two sickles aimed at his head while dealing with the resultant headache. XD I do like these “mixed result” envelopes – makes it feel like magic is really screwing with everyone by being both mean and nice at the same time. :p
E) The gang successfully escaping the compound (with Morven using Magic Missile to bust open the lock and Lug hauling open the doors)...only to find that, while the brown hoods wouldn’t follow them out the gate, the white-hooded Superior would. On all fours, skittering around like some inhuman monster. Because, well, that’s what she was. Cue a PROPER combat round starting, with –
I. Willowfine opening strong by hitting the Superior with a spear of light for some decent damage, only to miss with her Sacred Flame
II. Morven attempting to shove some Dissonant Whispers into the Superior’s mind, even using metamagic to make it a Heightened spell and have Johnny make the roll to resist it at Disadvantage...only for Johnny to roll a pair of 17s. Andy was like “well, that fucks me over” and had Morven use her bonus action to mope about that not working XD
III. Happen, of course, shooting the Superior with arrows (getting a nat 20 on the first hit, praise Cadence) and getting his sprites to shove her over and away – he initially had them throw her up in the air and drop her for 6 points of fall damage, but then realized that “up” wasn’t a valid direction according to the ability as-written and told Johnny to add the 6 points back; Johnny said it was a shame that Happen’s new strategy of lifting enemies up and dropping them wasn’t going to be a thing, but said that he could probably still shove somebody off a cliff at some point :p
IV. Cressida attempting to Witchbolt the Superior, but unfortunately missing; fortunately, the Superior then proceeded to miss both her attacks on Cressida, claws swiping the air JUST in front of her
V. And, when I left it, Lug finding himself torn, because when his turn came around, Johnny informed Mike that the other cultists weren’t watching the fight – instead, they were dragging a big iron cage toward a makeshift sacrificial altar. Lug promptly activated his rage, complaining about how it was never a flower-picking cult, noooo – Johnny was like “this is folk horror, not Animal Crossing!” only for everyone else to be like, “no, we can totally buy the animals in Animal Crossing being in a sacrificial cult.” XD I stopped with Happen trying to assure Lug that not all of these strange orders did sacrifices...then realizing he couldn’t use his order as an example, because they totally did sacrifices. (Of themselves, apparently, but still. XD) Tomorrow, we see how this fight wraps up, and if the gang can stop the Superior in time to save whoever’s about to be sacrificed!
Writing: Got another page written on “The Van Dort Vacancy” tonight, featuring our merry gang of thieves having to deal with the Van Dort’s hull vault guardian, Slugs! So named because he’s permanently wielding a pair of slugger rifles. Kasimir was like “you really should have told us about him first” to Victor when he appeared. XD Victor explained that he was going to tell them about him right after they got past the mosaic tile traps, and that he’d been hoping they could sneak by his little closet. Alice was like “too late for that now” and confessed to shock that the Van Dorts had something in the hall literally designed to kill intruders – Kasimir clarified that the rifles it carried shot compressed air and were designed to just break bones, which I’m sure was cold comfort. Barnaby, operating under his usual logic, was like “Oh, I’ll just tell it to stand down, it won’t shoot me, I’m too rich” and went to do just that –
Only for Smiler to haul him back and say in essence “great idea, but maybe let the person whose family owns Slugs give that a try first?” Victor was initially extremely nervous, as he’d never given orders to Slugs before (AND he was creeped out by his new ability to sense the ghost inside...and feel that it was “flat” thanks to the mind control magic built into the hull), but Alice gave him a pep talk and some advice, and he did indeed step up and give Slugs the order to stand down and let them pass. And, happily, Slugs recognized him as who he said he was and obeyed, turning to go back to his little closet. Smiler cheerfully declared they’d known that would work, and Barnaby congratulated Victor on a pretty good job, saying they’d get him comfortable ordering around the help in no time. XD So yeah, that’s the penultimate trap disarmed – now they just have to find that second tripwire before braving the actual door into the vault room...
YouTube: Got to the YouTubes late today (who is surprised), but I still managed to sneak in one of the shorter videos by Proxy Gate Tactician – “Does Baldur's Gate Have Any Boring Places?” His most recent offering took us the viewers on a tour of the titular city in Baldur’s Gate III to see if there were any truly boring places (i.e., if you went there, you’d feel like you’d wasted your time) he could find. The answer?
Not really! Because Larian loves shoving interesting things into every location you might reasonably visit. Did you know that just under a third of basements in the city have something in them indicating they could be a murder basement? Or that a seemingly-empty beach across from one of the docks hides a treasure chest and a skeleton you can dig up? Or that the house of the Ambrusts only seems boring because you chose to kill the mind flayer that, had you let it live, would have eaten them and taken over their home? Pretty much everywhere you look, there is something to find, or at least something you could find on a future playthrough having made different choices. And having searched through the whole city, Proxy only found three places that might be considered boring, and one place he personally did consider boring:
I. Dammon’s basement, under his forge – the only basement without any murder or traps or hidden safes or anything like that to discover! But it does have some unlocked chests with some nice loot that Dammon does not even mind you straight-up taking, so it’s not that boring.
II. Old Jol’s house – a locked one-bedroom shack you can find in town belong to the absent NPC Old Jol. Probably the smallest house in the game, without much stuff inside...but there is a letter from Jol, warning that he doesn’t want any letters, herb sellers, potion peddlers, or ESPECIALLY Steel Watch coming by. Which prompts speculation into who Jol is and what his deal is, so it’s not that boring.
III. The city rooftops – which, like most rooftops, don’t really have much on them. Though you can find Tara up on one while investigating the missing letters from the post office, and she does sell magical items for fish, so – not that boring! And even if the rest aren’t that exciting, Proxy was willing to give them a pass because nobody expects the rooftops to be that interesting.
IV. And finally, Cazador’s secret non-murder basement, which is accessed via some VERY convoluted methods (including sneaking down a secret hatch and solving multiple pressure plate related puzzles)...all to access a chest that has some bog-standard loot and one book full of confessions about minor wrongdoings from one of the vampire lord’s victims. Given the rather poor reward for going through all the fuss to find it, Proxy was willing to label THIS place as boring. Or, at least, extremely annoying. XD
But yeah – so much to see and do in the city, and only one place that Proxy would label as “not worth your time.” Just more proof that, even in Act 3 (the act that the least number of players would see), Larian made sure to give their players an excellent experience! I look forward to eventually getting there and exploring all those murder basements myself. :P
Other: I was going to brave the heat today to see if I could get my desired frozen hot chocolate from Dunkin Donuts...but while I was working on making BG3 Smiler, Mom surprised me by bringing me a homemade one! Turns out she was making Dad a chocolate shake and figured she should make me something too. It was pretty much as chocolatey as the DD one (if a little less decadent thanks to a lack of whipped cream on top), and there was plenty to it, so I was quite satisfied. :) Just nice of her to do – I really appreciated it!
So yeah -- pretty solid Monday off, all things considered. *nods* But now I have to head to bed, as tomorrow is a work day -- and it'll be me alone at the front, as my coworker took this week off for her vacation. Hopefully there won't be TOO much to catch up on, but we shall see -- night all!
Tumblr: Decently productive day on Victor Luvs Alice (N Smiler), I’m happy to report, with me accomplishing two key things:
A) First, before lunch, I went through my tracked tags and reblogged into my drafts:
I. Some very interesting Fallout 4 fanart by badlydrawnfallout (which was based off an idea by corvidcentral and was actually quite well drawn) of our favorite synth detective with identity issues, Nick Valentine...next to a ghoul version of the ORIGINAL Nick Valentine (I was like “oh now THAT is neat, imagine them teaming up to take out Eddie Winter” in the tags)
II. Some shockingly gorgeous Vampire: the Masquerade – Bloodlines fanart by asylumpixie of her Malkavian OC, dressed up in Elizabethian-style finery (complete with ruff) standing over LaCroix in a French soldier’s outfit from the era of Napoleon, pouring blood from a cup all over his front so it runs down and over his neck as he lays on a slab before her with a silver dagger in his chest (probably meant to be like the letter opener you stab him with), all in a frame with carvings of two people laboring and fighting above them and the phrase “Enoch also did not last forever” (the VIBES, the DETAIL – it was incredible and I had to save it for a future queue)
III. Some art from shenanigansz of their Smiler OC – one picture of him just eating a lollipop and sliding off his fancy fluffy coat to reveal his cool mismatched waistcoat (one side plain black with yellow detailing, the other side black-yellow-and-white-striped); the other the same picture except his face is suddenly a black glitched mess with a red/green eye peering at the viewer, plus a speed-paint of how they did the pictures (just very cool – I like this Smiler’s design, and the glitchy face was neat)
IV. Some Alice: Madness Returns fanart from rhythm10goku, featuring a little Alice looking back at her burning house in horror, tears running down her cheeks, as bits of fiery debris drift past her; an adult Alice in the Royal Suit dress glancing over at something to her right; and another little Alice looking anxious in a dark blue dress (I so wanted to hug the little Alices :( )
V. Some “Alice: Asylum” fanart (I’m putting that in quotations since the game never actually got greenlit, so we only have a story bible and concept art) from melankoliart, featuring the younger Alice with the chaos necklace standing among a bunch of super-colorful mushrooms – what set this one apart is that it’s a traditional watercolor piece, the pictures are photographs of the artist holding the piece of paper while out among some flowers (VERY pretty and well done – I’m not usually a fan of “Alice: Asylum” stuff but the art was so good and the mushrooms so colorful I had to add it to the drafts for later!)
VI. And a small Corpse Bride gifset from atimburtonfan featuring the two soldier skeletons, Wellington and Bonesaparte, mustering the skeleton troops for Emily’s wedding and pretending to take Victor on a boat ride (atimburtonfan asked what Wellington and Napoleon were doing there, and I was like “mustering the troops for Emily’s wedding of course” in the tags, before saying “don’t know why they included the characters except for the LOLs, but they were amusing” and talking about how, since the “Napoleon: is Bonesaparte, I like to call the Wellington guy “Wellindead” :P)
B) And second, after lunch, I spent a little bit of time editing the second “VITD in BG3 Not-Incorrect Quotes” collection! Writing up a rough draft of the “party in the Underdark” scene (though I had to change my original idea after looking at the “banter” pages for some of the characters on the BG3 Wiki and discovering that most of them don’t actually have many negative things to say about the Underdark – now the scene involves Wyll asking the VITD trio if the Underdark reminded them of home; Alice telling him “no, it’s too natural, actually reminds me more of Wonderland,” Victor pointing out that they also have a moon to light the sky in Duskwall, and Smiler adding that they sometimes even have multiple moons for reasons they’ve never figured out; and Wyll being a bit “…” while Gale commented “you probably should have investigated that more over eight centuries” XD) and adding a new idea for a future scene (Alice talking to Lae’zel after they meet some more githyanki and realizing “Oh, so you’re all like that” XD). Slowly but surely fleshing it out!
So yeah – I feel like I am pretty well set for any number of future queues now. Hooray! :D
Baldur’s Gate III: Well everyone – I am pleased to say that, after months of stressing out over how Patch 8 affected mods (especially the depreciated ImpUI, which I was using at the time), realizing that, oh hey, Smiler had the wrong base class in my initial run, and making tumblr polls about what I should do about it, and doing a lot of fairly meticulous planning about what I wanted out of a new run, I have Officially Started A New Game Of BG3! :D I mean, I’ve just barely started it – the roughly hour-and-forty-five minutes I played today was all about installing mods, watching the opening cutscenes, and getting through character creation – but I have started it nonetheless. Here’s how it all went:
A) After booting up the game, my first stop was the Options menu so I could make some tweaks to stuff – like turning off Karmic Dice (which does help you not have streaks of failure while rolling, but also gives that same benefit to your enemies, so – I’ll live with natural computer-generated chance); making the text in books and subtitles and such a little bigger (want to make sure they’re nice and easy to read); and turning off characters having visible genitals when they get naked (which I presume means their underwear just always stays on – I don’t object to them having genitals, I’m just not that interested in SEEING them. And frankly, I didn’t particularly want to put that much thought into what Smiler’s penis looks like. Felt – awkward). I also later returned to try and make sure that Smiler’s Reactions (stuff they can do in response to people getting too close in combat or attacking them) were set to “always ask me before you do it,” but I couldn’t find the option in there – turns out, after a little post-game research, that you set those in the “Spellbook” tab of your character’s “character sheet” and inventory screens. Which makes sense, as a lot of the Reactions you’d want the game to ask you about involve a character firing off a spell (potentially using up precious spell slots)! So yeah, just have to pop in there later and make sure any and all Reactions are set to “please ask first!”
B) After that, it was off to the Mod Manager to install all the mods that I’d previously chosen while browsing the Mods page on the official BG3 site – a lot of the more popular ones were right on the front page for me to pick up, and the others were easily found through a little searching. :) Though I did find myself lingering over two other mods I found on my journeys – one that gives Warlocks an extra spell slot (as they spend most of the game with a mere two – granted, that refresh every SHORT rest, instead of every LONG rest like most other spell slots, but still), and one that gives every class an extra feat at level 2 (to as closely replicate as possible a D&D house rule that all characters can start with a feat – you just aren’t allowed to choose one at level 1 in this game, even with mods). I didn’t install either at the time, but while I think I can work around Smiler having such a small number of Warlock spell slots (they are gonna be a Bardlock, after all, and thus pick up proper spell slots once they multiclass into Bard – plus their invocations and Pact Of The Tome will provide more spells), that “extra feat” one looks tempting, just to get that “Experimental Alchemy” feat I downloaded a little early...we’ll see how I feel the next time I play! I also took a moment to figure out if there was any way for me to move mods around in the in-game mod manager after checking my list and finding they’d been arranged in a rather bizarre order (for example, “Colorful Eldritch Blast” was at the top of the order, while “Unlock Level Curve” and its patch to help you level up faster was closer to the bottom, when I was sure it ought to be the other way around), but a little online research on my phone did not reveal any way to move them around, so – I guess it’ll be fine! I’m trusting you on this one, game!
C) And then, after that, it was time to start a new game, cover my eyes during the opening cutscene (which affords you not one, but TWO great views of a mindflayer tadpole forcing its way into someone’s eyesocket – no thank you), then do character creation! And while I had most of the options I wanted to pick locked down (for example, Smiler’s race, subrace, head shape, body type, class, and ability stats), there were a few things I ended up tweaking or pondering for longer than I anticipated:
I. Smiler in the game is a Half-High Elf, since Head #5 of that particular subrace of Half-Elves looked the most like the Sim I created of them in Sims 4, which means they got a free cantrip (cast using their Intelligence stat instead of Charisma stat, but their Int is still pretty high – 14 – so it’s not a big deal). I pondered a few different options for them for a while – “Dancing Lights” (to light an area for ten turns – thought it kinda fit thematically with the actual coaster having The Flasher), “Poison Spray” (to use noxious gas to poison enemies – while I’m having them focus on psychic damage, poison damage would also be in their wheelhouse), and “Minor Illusion” (to create an illusion that distracts people – thought it might be interesting) – but in the end, I went with the same thing I gave them last time: “Mind Sliver,” which stabs a person’s brain with psychic force and gives them -1D4 on saving throws for two turns. Like I said, I’m having Smiler focus on psychic damage, and it’s good for them to have another cantrip besides “Eldritch Blast” that causes damage! Just in case. :P
II. I ended up tweaking their makeup slightly, giving them slightly different eyeliner – I thought the #4 option looked better than the #1 option I’d originally noted down as my pick. *shrug* Nothing groundbreaking, but still.
III. I considered a couple of different fringe options for their hair, but ultimately went with the Precision Bolt hairstyle paired with the Layered Lob fringe again as the best match for Smiler’s Sims 4 hairstyle (granted, BG3 Smiler looks like they don’t own a comb, but… XD). As for color, I ended up going with the “Darkest Black Neutral” shade provided by one of my mods, and purple highlights at about “25 Intensity” to get the proper “bangs with purple tips” style. I think it looks good!
IV. Smiler’s choice of class wasn’t hard – Great Old One Warlock – and neither was their choice of spells – “Friends” and “Prismatic Eldritch Blast” for their cantrips (the latter so they can fire a yellow beam instead of the standard green one, to stay on-theme); “Tasha’s Hideous Laughter” and “Charm Person” for their Level 1 spells (to incapacitate people with laughter and charm them from attacking them). Though I was briefly tempted to use “Id Insinuation” from “Mystra’s Spells” instead, as that was another spell that I really wanted Smiler to have (fills a person’s mind with conflicting desires and incapacitates them – felt on-brand) – maybe that’ll be the next Warlock spell they learn on level-up!
V. And then we came to the matter of their Background. And I finally had to chose between “Entertainer” and “Guild Artisan.” And after so much indecision for over two months on which would be better and which fit Smiler more as a person...when it came right down to it, I wanted the skill proficiencies that “Guild Artisan” provided – Persuasion and Insight, both two key skills Smiler needed. And as they are supposed to be a traveling alchemist, “Guild Artisan” DOES fit them. I’m a little sad they’ll miss out on getting inspired by some of the stuff on the “Entertainer” list of inspiring moments, but hey – sometimes, you gotta go with what’s best for their build.
VI. As for their other skills, after getting their abilities set (Strength 10, Dexterity 10, Constitution 12, Intelligence 14, Wisdom 14, Charisma 16 – Smiler is very focused on using their smarts and their words over their body, as you can see), I decided to have them take proficiency in Arcana (knowing stuff about magic – important when you’re trying to capture it in a bottle) and Nature (for identifying plants and such – also important when you’re making potions and elixirs people are supposed to drink). I plan to pick up Performance once Smiler gets their Bard on (as you get a free skill proficiency upon multiclassing), and Medicine will be covered by that Alchemy feat I mentioned before.
VII. Oh, and after making Smiler, I of course had to make their “Dream Guardian” (aka the disguise a certain mind flayer uses to contact you in the first two acts) – I went with a golden-skinned tiefling with curly horns, glowing purple eyes, and purple tattoos that looked kind of like circuitry. Because it was fun and looked like something Smiler might dream up. :P
And that, apart from watching the rest of the intro cutscene and getting Smiler out of their pod and into the tutorial, was that! I left it with Smiler in the first room on the Nautiloid getting ready to investigate all the things and pick up all the loot – on Friday, we’ll pick this up again and see how far we can get on the horrible squid ship! In the meantime, I shall leave you with these images of BG3 Warlock Smiler:
Let me know what you think!
Workout: Hopped back on the bike again tonight, and started pedaling my way through “Oxventure D&D: Wyrdwood | Chapter 8: Friends & Falsehoods - Part 2 (Season Finale)!” Yup, after having had to delay it due to the Roger Williams Park visit last Thursday, I was finally able to see how the Oxventure gang ended their very first season of their new D&D series!
...judging by the first thirty-five minutes I watched today, they chose to end it with utter chaos. XD As you’ll remember, the last episode ended with our heroes – Happen, Lug, Willowfine, Cressida, and Morven – in the sacrificial chamber under the compound of The Hive, the cult they infiltrated to get an amulet for a strange being called The Poor Man, who promised to aid them if they did. They’d been tasked with cleaning up the bodies on the plinths there by one of the superior members of the cult, and had realized said bodies were the North Team they’d been trying so hard to find these past few episodes. Thus finding themselves in both a murder basement and a pickle (as Johnny put it), things roughly went like so –
A) Lug going “Get her?” to the others regarding the cult member supervising them – then, not waiting for a response, proceeding to get her, prompting an immediate roll for initiative. XD Lug appropriately went first and managed to grapple the woman and pull off her red hood –
And then used his bonus action to start trying to interrogate her, causing a confused Johnny to be like “I guess we’re not fighting?” XD An argument between Lug and the de-hooded woman thus broke out, and it quickly became apparent that Lug had jumped to a few conclusions regarding why they’d been tasked to clean out the sacrificial chamber – namely, he’d assumed that they would be the next ones to be sacrificed, but it appears that the number of plinths exactly matching how many was in their group was just a coincidence. Meaning that the reason he’d jumped this lady was just all a big misunderstanding. XD Oh dear – it may not be Egbert, but it’s still Mike behind the character, so… Happen proceeded to make things worse by revealing they knew the previous sacrifices as “North Team,” while Willowfine desperately tried to put the genie back in the bottle by going about her clean-up duties. With Cressida pointedly not helping her. XD
B) The gang getting out of the woman that the cult considered magic to be an abomination – which meant that she was pretty damn surprised when Happen pulled the amulet he’d stolen earlier out of his pocket and asked her what it was for. And even more surprised when he revealed he’d gotten it out of The Superior’s house, going “that should have been destroyed ages ago.” Everyone proceeded to mock her for being part of a hypocritical cult. XD Anyway, she didn’t know anything about the amulet (though Morven could sense through Detect Magic that it was old and VERY powerful), so Lug was like “okay, now you’re going to help us get out of here.” The woman was understandably reluctant to do this and started screaming instead –
Prompting Morven to use Gaseous Form to turn into a vapor, flow inside her mouth – and then turn back into a human, tele-fragging the woman’s head. Johnny was like “I HAVE to look this up before I set a dangerous precedent,” while the others protested that it was only the first season, it was a TIME for setting precedents. XD Johnny eventually allowed it after getting a promise from Andy that he wouldn’t start using it on the regular (Andy assuring them that it would be boring if Morven used that to win every encounter). Lug took advantage of the situation to steal her red hood and put it on, though as was noted, thanks to the spray of red mist everywhere, probably everyone’s hoods were red now. XD
C) The gang then getting into an argument about what they were going to do about the bodies (after telling Happen that no, the purpose of cleaning the sacrificial chamber is not to clean around the bodies XD), because Willowfine was insistent on bringing them back to Folkmoot so that word could be sent to their families. Morven suggested cutting them up into little pieces for easier transport; Willowfine was like “uh, couldn’t you just Reduce them?” prompting Happen to point out that the rest of the magic-hating cult probably wouldn’t like seeing them carrying around toy-sized bodies, and also that the people probably didn’t expect anyone to collect their corpses should the worst happen; Willowfine angrily going she’d want someone to get her corpse back to her home village if the worst happened to her –
And Morven deciding to end things by setting all the bodies on fire with a bunch of Sorcerous Bursts, reducing them to ashes that she then bundled into jars to be trucked back to Folkmoot later. Problem solved. XD
D) Another red-hooded cult member coming down right after this and asking what the hell was going on – Morven snarkily explained she’d set fire to the bodies to make them easier to clean up, going “It’s my first day!” when the red hood objected to such measures. XD That plus not recognizing Lug’s voice as “Agatha” when he tried to order the others out (he claimed he had a frog in his throat) made her suspicious, and she forcibly herded the group out of the chamber and up the stairs –
Where they were confronted by a giant ring of brown-hooded acolytes, all with sickles. Lug tried to get them to go away by exploiting his red-hood status, only for the actual red hood to belay his order (causing him to belay her belay – fortunately the back-and-forth didn’t go beyond that XD). After an unsuccessful attempt to try and trick the brown hoods into thinking the actual red hood was an imposter, Cressida opened up a gap for them by casting Fear in a cone directly in front of her – causing eight brown hoods to panic and run – and the group booked it back to the gate they’d originally come in, with Happen getting some middling help from his sprites (as he used the Cadence die for the Strength/Athletics check, but got one of “regular” results). The gang did successfully keep ahead of the cultists pursing them –
But the use of magic meant that Ellen and Luke had to open their envelopes! Cressida was thus touched briefly by some ancient intelligence and had a sigil burned into her palm, granting her Psychic damage resistance but making all the Wildfolk in the area permanently mistrustful of her (bonus: Johnny threw Ellen a sketch of the symbol, and it proved to be the same one on the amulet they grabbed), while Happen got a first-hand look at the whirling malestrom that was magic and took 15 points of Psychic damage, but gained a permanent extra Level 1 spell slot. And managed to dodge two sickles aimed at his head while dealing with the resultant headache. XD I do like these “mixed result” envelopes – makes it feel like magic is really screwing with everyone by being both mean and nice at the same time. :p
E) The gang successfully escaping the compound (with Morven using Magic Missile to bust open the lock and Lug hauling open the doors)...only to find that, while the brown hoods wouldn’t follow them out the gate, the white-hooded Superior would. On all fours, skittering around like some inhuman monster. Because, well, that’s what she was. Cue a PROPER combat round starting, with –
I. Willowfine opening strong by hitting the Superior with a spear of light for some decent damage, only to miss with her Sacred Flame
II. Morven attempting to shove some Dissonant Whispers into the Superior’s mind, even using metamagic to make it a Heightened spell and have Johnny make the roll to resist it at Disadvantage...only for Johnny to roll a pair of 17s. Andy was like “well, that fucks me over” and had Morven use her bonus action to mope about that not working XD
III. Happen, of course, shooting the Superior with arrows (getting a nat 20 on the first hit, praise Cadence) and getting his sprites to shove her over and away – he initially had them throw her up in the air and drop her for 6 points of fall damage, but then realized that “up” wasn’t a valid direction according to the ability as-written and told Johnny to add the 6 points back; Johnny said it was a shame that Happen’s new strategy of lifting enemies up and dropping them wasn’t going to be a thing, but said that he could probably still shove somebody off a cliff at some point :p
IV. Cressida attempting to Witchbolt the Superior, but unfortunately missing; fortunately, the Superior then proceeded to miss both her attacks on Cressida, claws swiping the air JUST in front of her
V. And, when I left it, Lug finding himself torn, because when his turn came around, Johnny informed Mike that the other cultists weren’t watching the fight – instead, they were dragging a big iron cage toward a makeshift sacrificial altar. Lug promptly activated his rage, complaining about how it was never a flower-picking cult, noooo – Johnny was like “this is folk horror, not Animal Crossing!” only for everyone else to be like, “no, we can totally buy the animals in Animal Crossing being in a sacrificial cult.” XD I stopped with Happen trying to assure Lug that not all of these strange orders did sacrifices...then realizing he couldn’t use his order as an example, because they totally did sacrifices. (Of themselves, apparently, but still. XD) Tomorrow, we see how this fight wraps up, and if the gang can stop the Superior in time to save whoever’s about to be sacrificed!
Writing: Got another page written on “The Van Dort Vacancy” tonight, featuring our merry gang of thieves having to deal with the Van Dort’s hull vault guardian, Slugs! So named because he’s permanently wielding a pair of slugger rifles. Kasimir was like “you really should have told us about him first” to Victor when he appeared. XD Victor explained that he was going to tell them about him right after they got past the mosaic tile traps, and that he’d been hoping they could sneak by his little closet. Alice was like “too late for that now” and confessed to shock that the Van Dorts had something in the hall literally designed to kill intruders – Kasimir clarified that the rifles it carried shot compressed air and were designed to just break bones, which I’m sure was cold comfort. Barnaby, operating under his usual logic, was like “Oh, I’ll just tell it to stand down, it won’t shoot me, I’m too rich” and went to do just that –
Only for Smiler to haul him back and say in essence “great idea, but maybe let the person whose family owns Slugs give that a try first?” Victor was initially extremely nervous, as he’d never given orders to Slugs before (AND he was creeped out by his new ability to sense the ghost inside...and feel that it was “flat” thanks to the mind control magic built into the hull), but Alice gave him a pep talk and some advice, and he did indeed step up and give Slugs the order to stand down and let them pass. And, happily, Slugs recognized him as who he said he was and obeyed, turning to go back to his little closet. Smiler cheerfully declared they’d known that would work, and Barnaby congratulated Victor on a pretty good job, saying they’d get him comfortable ordering around the help in no time. XD So yeah, that’s the penultimate trap disarmed – now they just have to find that second tripwire before braving the actual door into the vault room...
YouTube: Got to the YouTubes late today (who is surprised), but I still managed to sneak in one of the shorter videos by Proxy Gate Tactician – “Does Baldur's Gate Have Any Boring Places?” His most recent offering took us the viewers on a tour of the titular city in Baldur’s Gate III to see if there were any truly boring places (i.e., if you went there, you’d feel like you’d wasted your time) he could find. The answer?
Not really! Because Larian loves shoving interesting things into every location you might reasonably visit. Did you know that just under a third of basements in the city have something in them indicating they could be a murder basement? Or that a seemingly-empty beach across from one of the docks hides a treasure chest and a skeleton you can dig up? Or that the house of the Ambrusts only seems boring because you chose to kill the mind flayer that, had you let it live, would have eaten them and taken over their home? Pretty much everywhere you look, there is something to find, or at least something you could find on a future playthrough having made different choices. And having searched through the whole city, Proxy only found three places that might be considered boring, and one place he personally did consider boring:
I. Dammon’s basement, under his forge – the only basement without any murder or traps or hidden safes or anything like that to discover! But it does have some unlocked chests with some nice loot that Dammon does not even mind you straight-up taking, so it’s not that boring.
II. Old Jol’s house – a locked one-bedroom shack you can find in town belong to the absent NPC Old Jol. Probably the smallest house in the game, without much stuff inside...but there is a letter from Jol, warning that he doesn’t want any letters, herb sellers, potion peddlers, or ESPECIALLY Steel Watch coming by. Which prompts speculation into who Jol is and what his deal is, so it’s not that boring.
III. The city rooftops – which, like most rooftops, don’t really have much on them. Though you can find Tara up on one while investigating the missing letters from the post office, and she does sell magical items for fish, so – not that boring! And even if the rest aren’t that exciting, Proxy was willing to give them a pass because nobody expects the rooftops to be that interesting.
IV. And finally, Cazador’s secret non-murder basement, which is accessed via some VERY convoluted methods (including sneaking down a secret hatch and solving multiple pressure plate related puzzles)...all to access a chest that has some bog-standard loot and one book full of confessions about minor wrongdoings from one of the vampire lord’s victims. Given the rather poor reward for going through all the fuss to find it, Proxy was willing to label THIS place as boring. Or, at least, extremely annoying. XD
But yeah – so much to see and do in the city, and only one place that Proxy would label as “not worth your time.” Just more proof that, even in Act 3 (the act that the least number of players would see), Larian made sure to give their players an excellent experience! I look forward to eventually getting there and exploring all those murder basements myself. :P
Other: I was going to brave the heat today to see if I could get my desired frozen hot chocolate from Dunkin Donuts...but while I was working on making BG3 Smiler, Mom surprised me by bringing me a homemade one! Turns out she was making Dad a chocolate shake and figured she should make me something too. It was pretty much as chocolatey as the DD one (if a little less decadent thanks to a lack of whipped cream on top), and there was plenty to it, so I was quite satisfied. :) Just nice of her to do – I really appreciated it!
So yeah -- pretty solid Monday off, all things considered. *nods* But now I have to head to bed, as tomorrow is a work day -- and it'll be me alone at the front, as my coworker took this week off for her vacation. Hopefully there won't be TOO much to catch up on, but we shall see -- night all!
