Dark Urge OCs

[inryu13]

I decided to play on normal difficulty but with Dark Urge on this first playthrough. I just recently got through my first hurdle as Dark Urge - killing Alfira after being tantalized about having her join my party ( and needless to say, I'm just traumatized now

I might switch it up and restart Dark Urge on a next playthrough instead xD. On that note, how do you guys think you'd want Dark Urge to be built as?? As in for whatever reasoning, be it RP or min-max, I didn't really give it much thought when I made this first character, just kinda went with what I felt like during character creation.

So I'm curious how people would go about it, like even for what Race to go with, I know people min-max as early as that. Just looking at a quick overview like this https://baldursgate3.wiki.fextralife.com/Races I know people can fine-tune for their character. For people who are far ahead in the game and know more, maybe you'd pick a race/class based on an Ability score that can resist the urges it the most? Though, I'm unaware if rolls will be important for that later on in the game. Enlighten us!

 

[Antimatter]

Yeah, when @alice_ashpool posted their screenshot in the Tav thread, I wondered, a cloak, in Act 1? Then I checked online, and apparently, it was a reward for the Dark Urge quest about Alfira. Even the thought about actually doing what is required towards that tiefling, whom I consider to be one of the brightest points of Act 1 (I SOOOOOO wanted her to be one of the possible companions in Early Access), makes me doubt I'd do a Dark Urge playthrough, even with all the RPing possible.

 

[Cahir]

I definitely do plan to play the Dark Urge Oathbreaker paladin run for my second playthrough, but I think I'm gonna try to play as the one who's trying to resist the urge, fighting with it, but eventually succumb to it. I don't want to revel in carnage, by killing everyone with bloody ways, as I think the struggle part is what makes this origin interesting. And I do plan to utilize tadpoles in this run (which I'm avoiding to do in current playthrough).

 

[inryu13]

Yeah, when @alice_ashpool posted their screenshot in the Tav thread, I wondered, a cloak, in Act 1? Then I checked online, and apparently, it was a reward for the Dark Urge quest about Alfira. Even the thought about actually doing what is required towards that tiefling, whom I consider to be one of the brightest points of Act 1 (I SOOOOOO wanted her to be one of the possible companions in Early Access), makes me doubt I'd do a Dark Urge playthrough, even with all the RPing possible.

EXACTLY alksjdalksjda. I'd have hoped that it would be possible to resist doing that to her, (and the squirrel for that matter T^T) like at least a roll or something but no ( so now I'm just worried about anything else that happens with Dark Urge

 

[inryu13]

I definitely do plan to play the Dark Urge Oathbreaker paladin run for my second playthrough, but I think I'm gonna try to play as the one who's trying to resist the urge, fighting with it, but eventually succumb to it. I don't want to revel in carnage, by killing everyone with bloody ways, as I think the struggle part is what makes this origin interesting. And I do plan to utilize tadpoles in this run (which I'm avoiding to do in current playthrough).

What race do you think you'd go for for that? . And would that race be for optimization reasons or rp reasons? hehe

Do the tadpoles make you... kinda evil in the playthrough??

 

[Cahir]

What race do you think you'd go for for that? . And would that race be for optimization reasons or rp reasons? hehe

Do the tadpoles make you... kinda evil in the playthrough??

I'm still undecided who I plan to romance for my Dark Urge run, Minthara or Lae'zel. I I'll go for Minthara, I was thinking a drow or half drow, if I'll advance on Lae'zel, I'll roll a githyanki.

The thing is, Minthara is (at least in current build) a buggy mess and there is significantly less content for her available than for other companions. From what I read on reddit this is more because of bugs rather than content cut for design reason. That's why I'll wait for my second playthrough until Larian will patch the game up. In fact, I'm waiting to pick up the current run (I just finished act 2) until patch 1 is live.

As for the tadpoles, as far as I understood the initial plan of Larian was to make using tadpoles more of a significant choice, but for some reason there is a lot of cut content in that regard. Now, if this content was cut because it was buggy and Larian lacked the time to fix it before release, or because of design reasons, is unknown. But AFAIK currently you can safely use tadpoles to a certain point of a plot. After that, there is a game event that will allow you to boost your powers even more, but at the great cost. This is what I accidentally learned online, but don't know much more beyond that.

 

[Cahir]

Since I'm currently replaying BG3 with the Dark Urge, I figured I'll repost from "Which games you are currently playing?" thread. I'll continue to share my Durge experience here.

So, here's the plan I had for this run. I wanted to try the Dark Urge this time, but my plan for this character was that he starts as a noble paladin (a seldarine drow), who will struggle with his dark urges and fight them passionately, until he can't anymore and turn into an oathbreaker paladin). The main problem that laid down before me was that I knew I would have a lot of trouble of forcing myself to act violently or even in a brutal way. But choosing all the good-aligned options would contradict the idea of playing Dark Urge. While I struggled to find a good way of roleplaying Durge without forcing myself to do horrible things, one small event made me realised Larian designers are geniuses and gave me the exact idea how I'll do it. (Very minor spoiler ahead) While I was exploring Druid's Grove I stumbled upon a familiar squirrel with whom I remember was talking in my first run. While I tried to talk with it, the dark urge activated and my Durge kicked the poor thing to death. And then an epiphany came. That's it! I can use those urges as a turning points, a some sort of milestones to gradually plunge into a dark side.

I stopped playing and gave this notion a more time to process. Normally, I would not be happy that a game forces some unwanted behaviour that I cannot control in any way, but to my utmost surprise, this is the perfect way to roleplay the Dark Urge. Most people are (fortunately) goodhearted, so it's not uncommon they will have a lot of trouble acting violently towards innocent characters, so Larian designers needed to find a way to give the player a nudge to act accordingly to their origin. I think this is the perfect way, especially that it's as shocking to the character as it is to a player. My character literally roleplayed the emotion with me. This really was a surreal experience to me, we were one at this moment, we were both shocked and terrified what we have done. This is why I consider this second run already more exciting than the first one, not because I can play evil and "evil is sexy", but because I can relieve some unwanted emotions with my character. Not only me, but also companions were shocked about the event. Even Astarion was uneasy, seeing what happened, and he saw a lot of nasty things in his undead life.

During one of his interviews, Swen Vincke said something, that I thought was surprising at that time. He recommended to not play as the Durge First in your first playthrough, because it tastes better when you already know the story and can compare the outcomes. And you know what? He was 100% spot on, it does taste better. It's like totally new experience.

Now, here's a very important disclaimer. Please don't treat this post as my attempt to convince you to play as an evil character, let alone the Dark Urge who revels in violence and bloodshed. This is rather an attempt to appreciate fantastic work of Larian designers. If you ever wanted to try roleplaying an evil character, but the games you played did not offer a satisfactory experience, whether because the options didn't feel evil enough or the rewards were inferior to those you got from choosing a good route, BG3 is probably as close to perfect dark side experience as you can possibly get right now. And I really just scratched the surface, and didn't ever start using tadpoles.

 

[Cahir]

Yesterday I have reached my first milestone in the Dark Urge origin path, the point where many players say "thank you, but thank you" and drop their Dark Urge runs.

(spoilers ahead! - don't read if you don't want to spoil yourself a part of the Dark Urge origin plot)

So, during Druid's Grove exploration you meet a lovely tiefling bard, Amira, whom you can help writing a song in a memory of her late teacher. Later on, during a long rest, Alfira shows up in your camp, asking to join your party. Then, during the night's sleep, nasty things happens. You wake up, covered in blood, the massacred body of Alrira laying before you. You can recall what happened this night and recollection is terrified, you have butchered Alfira, mutilating her body even after death. You have no idea how this happened and why have you done such thing. You just feel a bloodthirsty urge to kill and kill in a spectacularly brutal manner. You can just wash your bloodied hands and go to sleep, hide Alfira's body, so your companions don't learn what happened or you can wait they'll wake up and be completely open with what you did. I chose to hide Alfira's body and stay secretive. Furthermore, during the next long rest a mysterious figure, named Sceleritas Fel, who gives you a powerful cloak (The Deathstalker Mantle).

This scene is shocking, violent and disturbing. It's designed that way, to show this origin story is no joke and that Larian treated their player base seriously. They promised a truly evil route and they gave a truly evil game. It's not for the people who cannot stomach doing evil thing in computers games, because this deed is innately evil, like using a truly horrific innate ability in BG2. The scene also works unbelievably well in the context I wrote in my previous post, to be an "incentive" to not stray from this path. Even playing an evil character consciously, most players wouldn't decide to do this willingly (e.g. by choosing a specific dialogue options) and Larian knew that. That's why this is a forced encounter, you cannot avoid (technically can, by knocking Alfira out before long rest, but there will be a random NPC in her stead, so the killing is done either way).

I don't deny I wasn't disturbed seeing this, because I was. But so was Grimdark, my character! He was shocked, terrified, he doesn't know what the hell is happening to him. He wants to help people, and kill them violently at the same time. He struggles to live up by his paladin code, but his thoughts come to bloody carnage. And then there's this creepy messenger, giving him a cloak with almost religious care. And should he tell his teammates what is going on with him, or should he keep hiding this disgusting truth from them. Do they understand? Will they help to get to the bottom of this? Time will tell and I'll share the rest of the story with you.

 

[Cahir]

So, the time had come for Grimdark to make a crucial decision, save tieflings and druids from the Absolute menace, or slaughter them all for the drow lady. The ever more evil heart of our Seldarine drow chose carnage. Carnage that resulted in loosing his faithful companions, Karlach and Wyll, carnage that ended up with the death of poor druid Halsin.

But there is something good that came out of it, the alliance with powerful drow paladin, Minthara. There seems to be more of her than meets the eye, a softer side. And it seems that Larian forgot to tone down their sex scene

 

[Cahir]

ACT 1 spoilers incoming

So, Grimdark's party managed to get through act 1, killing all druids and tieflings and aligning with a paladin of Lolth, by the name of Minthara. After slaughtering Emerald Grove's inhabitants, the drow lady left to the Moonrise Towers, together with her merry band of greenskins.
Grimdark and his companions then explored the Mountain Pass, finding a hidden monastery, devoted to Lathander, god of Light and Dawn, in the process. Our dear Lae'zel claimed, that githyanki crèche, we were looking for, has to be hidden somewhere nearby. And she might be right, the place reeked with "frogs". Turned out, Morninglord's priests weren't so thick, as we expected, and managed to hide the entrance to the hidden part of the temple behind some elaborate puzzles. Fortunately, Gale's wondrous mind allowed us to figure out the solution. Wonderboy cracked it again!
In the end, Lae'zel was right, there was a githyanki compound, hidden underneath Lathander's monastery. Their leader wanted us to give up the Astral Prism, so their lich queen, Vlaakith, could happily rule supreme ever after. Grimdark didn't like that notion, showing her a middle finger. Lae'zel needed a little proof to understand that her beloved lich queen is in fact the bitch queen (the real bitch, not to be mistaken with Umberlee). Vlaakith didn't like how the team treated her, guess she was not used to hear "no" as an answer. The team's secret guardian deposed her as a traitor of her people, which almost devastated Lae'zel. Plus, they learned that githyanki wondrous device, zaith'isk, was in fact a fraud. It never meant to cure anyone of the tadpole.

Grimdark wanted to go straight to the Moonrise Towers, but Gale pestered him to explore this hidden temple they found in the back of the goblin's camp, so the team headed down there, to see what's up with that place. Turned out it was an old Selunite post, that led them straight to... the Underdark. The band's resident Waterdeep mage was thrilled. While wandering (extremely causiously) through the depths of the Underdark, eliminating its nasty inhabitants along the way, they stumbled upon a... village full of fungi-people... myconids, as Gale kindly explained. They... could talk... well, through their minds. And they were friendly and wanted Grimdark's help to kill some pesky duergars. Grimdark hated duergars, they were no better than his Lolth-worshipping kin. The team ambushed the group of deep dwarves and rip them to shreds, without mercy. Fungi-people were happy... and asked the party to kill a certain drow, a follower of the Absolute, who was residing in an old Sharran fortress, called the Grymforge. The Grimdark's band took a boat and sailed through the underground river towards the fortress. The place was full of duergars, too many to risk an open assault. Grimdark ordered the team to play nice, until they find a right time to attack. Diligent exploration of this vast area led them to the discovery of an ancient adamantine forge. Gale couldn't resist and made an attempt to uncover its secrets, which led to... waking up its massive golem guardian. The Grym, as it was apparently called, was a tough opponent, but Lae'zel's stunningly fast fists were able to crack a hole in its tough armour. The beast fell, leaving the treasures behind. Grimdark used two pieces of mithril ore he found nearby to craft a powerful amour and shield, both a true piece of beautiful dwarven design.

The time has come to deal with the annoying drow, Nere, who somehow managed to get trapped behind the rubble, in a pocket filled with poisonous gas. Grimdark felt he should live the idiot to die there, but myconids wanted the guy's head, in a literal sense. Plus, he made slaves from a bunch of poor deep gnomes. Grimdark always felt a sympathy to sfirfneblin, as they were sometimes called, as they were always oppressed by his evil kin. Astarion use his charm to strike a deal with a bunch of rebellious duergars, who wanted to overthrow Nere and his minions. Gale used the runic powder, that he was earlier by a deep gnome who was hiding somewhere in the depths of the Grymforge, to blow up the rubble that was blocking the way to the trapped drow. As suspected, Nere was just a megalomaniac idiot, who deserved to be put down like a rapid dog. The team agreed, and his head soon swung by Grimdark's belt. Deep gnomes were not exactly the kindest lot I've seen, they decided to give up his captured companion, Wulbren, and went straight to Baldur's Gate to deal their own business. One of them, though, didn't ant to give up on his friend and agreed to stick with us, hoping to save him. After wrapping things up in the Forge, the team went back to Mountain Pass, heading toward the Shadowcursed Lands.