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Your 'Head-Canon' Charname?

BlackravenBlackraven Member Posts: 3,486
in General Discussion (Spoiler Warning!)
In @jackjack's thread about Fighter/Mages, I read that that class seems to be the canonical charname in the views of many players. (Not without reason: great class, and unique in that there are no NPCs of the same class.)

This made me wonder do you fellow players have an archetypical Charname (in terms of race, class, alignment)? A character that in your view, maybe through certain gaming experiences or a personal interpretation of the storyline, has come to personify charname for you?

In my head-canon Charname is (or rather: has become) a CG Elven Mage/Swashbuckler. I've played with three such characters, two male and one female, and I consider this class my favorite, which has of course influenced my perception of Charname. Illegal class I know, but I'm aware that many people use editors to customize their Charnames, so I would be interested in kitted multiclasses or dualclasses or otherwise edited characters as well.

Explanation:
- CG because it's easy for me to imagine charname tending toward Good thanks to his/her upbringing by good-aligned people in Candlekeep, and Chaotic because of charname's heritage affecting his ideas and behavior, and also because I like to imagine Gorion as a bit absent-minded and not very strict in teaching charname discipline.
- In principle, my canonical charname's race could have been (and often is) a different one than Elf, such as Half-Elf, Gnome or Halfling. However Gnomes can only be Illusionists and Halflings can't even be mages at all, and I have generally respected race restrictions regarding classes.
- The Mage/Swashbuckler class would be the result of sword training with the Candlekeep guards, arcane education by Gorion, and (innocent) mischief and thievery with Imoen.

I must admit that some Clerical schooling would have made perfect sense to me as well, or the desire to become a Bard what with all the literature and lore in the library. Classes like Barbarian, Kensai, Beastmaster or Druid are a bit of a stretch for me, though I would play them. Their backstories just require a bit more fantasy for me than my Mage/Swashbuckler. I'm very curious to know your canonical charnames.
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Comments

  • ThrasymachusThrasymachus Member Posts: 915
    Mage (exact school doesn't matter). Either human or half-elf. Alignment CG or CN.

    I've played and enjoyed other kinds of characters (blades, avengers, etc.). But the mage is the 'canonical PC' in my mind's eye.

    This is because:
    (1) it's my favourite class, and
    (2) it makes the most RP sense (IMO), given that the PC starts in Candlekeep with Gorion as his stepfather.
  • mumumomomumumomo Member Posts: 635

    My preference goes to the sorcerer :
    - goes progressively from rather weak to godlike (i like the sense of progression and it is necessary to any good story)
    - fits nicely the bhaalspawn concept (divine blood gives you magic raw power)
    - arcane magic is great but a 20-21 years old godlike mage does not make a lot of sense to me since that should require years of training and learning.

    Alignement is either neutral or chaotic good (i have issues trying to play evil. And i feel the game feels more written with a good aligned CHARNAME in mind).
    Stats should be godly (85+) to reflect divine essence

  • BalladBallad Member Posts: 205
    edited May 2014
    I'm not sure if this is head canon or just personal preference, but my Charname is always a melee class of sorts, whether it be a warrior, rogue or dual/multi fighter/something hybrid. I simply can't get comfortable with the idea of playing a pure class mage, druid or a priest who stands on the sidelines, keeping his feet dry by never engaging in close combat with enemies. In my view, all Bhaalspawns are subconsciously attracted to the idea of plunging a blade into someone's innards, no matter the alignment.

    Right now, I'm playing through the saga with a Neutral Good Half-Elven Blade Charname and it makes perfect sense from a canonical point of view. As I see it, Charname and Imoen both picked up Gorion's arcane teachings and developed a roguish twist as a reaction to living among all those uptight monks and their pedantic creed. Charname, in particular, was never too good with following the rules; in combat training, he would pay lip service to the measured instruction of the Keep's watchers and develop his own flashy, acrobatic fighting style, one arguably more geared towards showing off his athletic prowess to the keep's young maidens than being particularly effective in combat. In his spare time, Charname would sometimes pick up the lute and entertain Winthrop's guests, only to relieve them of the weight of their pockets once sufficiently distracted and deep in their cups. At the core of his heart, however, Charname remained just as innocent and easy-going as his purported half-sister, until that one fateful evening when Gorion asked him to pack his bags and get ready to hit the road...
  • dementeddemented Member Posts: 388
    I don't have a particular charname which I consider canon and I prefer it that way. I worry sometimes that if BG 3 came out, they might give a canon class, race and sex to charname. I was disgusted when Bioware did that with the KOTOR series. Revan will always be female and evil to me.

    I do play mages more than any other class. But this is something that applies to most RPGs and not just Baldur's Gate. I enjoy the versatility and deeper gameplay which magic users offer.
  • abacusabacus Member Posts: 1,307
    Generally speaking in any RPG I'd consider the following principles:

    - Thief, Fighter, Cleric, Sorcerer, Bard:
    To me, these classes can come from any background and make sense in most narratives, as they can be largely self-taught or based on intrinsic gifts/inclination. (Even for Clerics... IRL, the history of the Catholic Church is filled with devout but unlearned individuals who supposedly go on to perform miracles.)

    - Ranger, Druid, Barbarian:
    These seem to require a more rural and/or itinerant background (as in NWN2).

    - Paladin, Monk, Mage:
    These require systematic training and therefore need Charname to be exposed to a specific influence/ mentor.

    Looking at Candlekeep specifically, it's a cloistered environment which probably rules out the 2nd group (although there's always a way for the committed role player).
    From the 3rd group, I would say Mage is the most logical of the "taught" classes, with all the magical resources and the presence of a few powerful magic users.

    That said, I do *really* like the idea of using Irenicus' experiments as justification for dual-classing.

    Just my two penn'orth to tip into the debate. :)
  • AristilliusAristillius Member Posts: 873
    Elven fighter/mage (Lawful good) or human ranger, Neutral Good is my headcanon.
    This is based solely on what I like - I dont base it on the few details we have of charname's upbringing, the background story is wide enough to allow for any class in my opinion.

    Anyway, I can explain the ranger a bit more. Outside Candlekeep there is a huge forest, and there is generally lots of wilderness. I imagine charname's fascination of nature could easily be enhanced by the surroundings - even if he lived a cloistered life I can imagine he would be very interested in exploring the wilderness. Reading about it in Candlekeep would only enhance this.

    Oh, and charname is male in my headcanon, probably because I am male myself and always see some aspect of myself in my charnames - also one of the reasons why I choose good alignment.
  • FinaLfrontFinaLfront Member Posts: 260
    I can totally see Gorion raising Charname as a Monk, given that he knows of your true heritage.

    My view on some of the classes and kits that are hard to explain, are there for multi-player purposes. Someone plays the ward, the rest of the group is free game
  • CrevsDaakCrevsDaak Member Posts: 7,155
    bengoshi said:


    The first three answers here are obvious except that a true Head-Canon Charname for Crevs is a Chaos Lord with 20/20/20/19/18/21.

    Haha, actually it is 23/24/23/25/24/17 ;)
    CrevsDaak said:

    My guess would be Laena, the Priestess of Lathander->Mage, even if my favorite character is different, I think that it's much more accurate for a real story to make sense.
    This character is NG, and started with 15/12/15/18/17/14 as a Priestess of Lathander, then, at level 11, I dual-classed her to Mage. BG2:EE is boring since I don't have any mods installed, so I am going to take her through (my modded install of) BG2 as a Morninglady of Lathander->Mage, with SCS and other mods to make the game a challenge and not a joke, I haven't even started to re-create her CHR, so I guess that it's going to take some more time :P

    Weird that no one realized that the link is actually a youtube video, which I posted by accident ;P
    Here is the real link.
  • LemernisLemernis Member, Moderator Posts: 4,318
    The first PC I completed the game with was named Lemernis, a CG half-elf Fighter/Mage. I think I'll always tend to associate the main from that first completion of the game as a kind of definitive protagonist.
  • BlackravenBlackraven Member Posts: 3,486
    @MacHurto, that's a take on Charname I hadn't heard before, but your explanation makes it very plausible. Shame it's not possible to play such a Charname as you rightly point out.
    @bengoshi, Assassin? Fantastic class, but I'm curious: how is it that you've come to associate that class with Charname?
    @Ballad, lovely description, personalitywise your canonical Bhaalspawn is similar to my Swashmage multis.

    No Clerics yet, I would have expected a few of those...
  • ApocryphaApocrypha Member Posts: 105
    edited August 2016
    Reya, NG Human Blade

    NG; Goodness because Gorion and the atmosphere at Candlekeep genuinely seems to be the kind of place that would encourage goodness; Neutrality to the law because I think Gorion would push CHARNAME as far away from Bhaal (Lawful Evil) as possible without being completely flippant to authority (which would be Chaotic Good).

    Blade: Bards make a lot of sense to me, picking up a bit of everything at Candlekeep and having the charming, snarky personality present in a lot of the dialogue choices. Blade because I like Blades XD

    And Human because Humans make the most sense.
    Post edited by Apocrypha on
  • winterswinters Member Posts: 252
    Headcanon character? The main character from current run, his/her traits put each and every adventure into a new context, that's what makes this game so awesome. I usually come up with at least several short stories/pieces of art for every charname who manages to keep my attention for long enough. Funny thing, my personal tendencies when it comes to characters I create in roleplays, both crpgs and p&p suit BGT perfectly, I think.
    This character is both anti-Sarevok and some kind of Imoen-complimentary person. The first one is a CE Fighter with enough talent to become either a Mage or a Thief; the second is a NG (but I tend to perceive her as CG) Thief brilliant enough to explore arcane magic at some point, she might lack when it comes to physical strength but honestly, she's not a bad fighter either. My charname is usually some kind of middle ground between those two, Mage/Fighter variant, dual- or multiclass, depending on race, but sometimes simply a Mage with Battle Mage theme, strongly preferring Ranged weapons.
    Sadly, the game doesn't allow to keep a party of npcs who aren't alignment-compatible for long enough and that's exactly what I'd do, not just because of their practical use. So, what I usually do instead is to create a TN charname who gathers a band of exclusively Evil aligned characters, both to contain them and to use their abilities to neutralize their usual influence.
    Ohwell, I suppose I just play some variant of more down-to-Earth Harper. Both Khelben and Gorion would be proud. Possibly. Probably.
  • NonnahswriterNonnahswriter Member Posts: 2,520
    edited May 2014
    My head-canon shall always be a male Fighter/Mage elf. Mostly because it was the first character I'd ever made. Plus, I didn't want to pick between swordsmanship and spell-slinging. I wanted both, darnit! All of the best heroes are some kind of magic-knight!! And I didn't understand how the dual-classing system worked back then, so I stayed the flip away from it and settled with a non-human Charname.

    What's that, you say? Your Charname is supposed to be twenty years old, so making him/her an elf wouldn't make any sense for the canon storyline?

    La-la-la can't hear youuuuu!
  • CatoblepasCatoblepas Member Posts: 96
    Well, according to 'Race of the Wild' Elves reach physical maturity around 25. So not really much of a stretch at all, really.

    I usually play an elf myself in BG as well. Lawful Evil Wizard/Thief. Lawful seems like an appropriate alignment to me considering the PC was raised surrounded by monks and scholars and such, and Wizard seems like a natural choice considering the PC was raised by Gorion, a powerful wizard. Evil I choose because it makes sense considering your ancestry...As for thief, well Imoen must have been a bad influence! And one can't deny our natural talent when we stole the very cloak off the back of the blackstaff at such a young age!
  • GallowglassGallowglass Member Posts: 3,356
    Well, my personal preferences for a protagonist and my idea of what's canonical are not the same.

    With the canon party, i.e. Jaheira and Khalid, Minsc and Dynaheir, and Imoen (dualled to Mage after 7 levels of Thief), the talent most glaringly missing is that you've got no Cleric - yes, you've got some divine casting from Jaheira as a half-Druid, but that's running rather light on divine casting power (and Druids miss some key divine spells), so (IMO) more divine casting is the additional skill which the canon party most needs. Therefore I reckon the canonical protagonist must be some sort of Cleric (or a multi-class including Cleric, or a dual-class into Cleric).
  • abacusabacus Member Posts: 1,307
    edited May 2014
    Gallowglass said:

    Well, my personal preferences for a protagonist and my idea of what's canonical are not the same.

    With the canon party, i.e. Jaheira and Khalid, Minsc and Dynaheir, and Imoen (dualled to Mage after 7 levels of Thief), the talent most glaringly missing is that you've got no Cleric - yes, you've got some divine casting from Jaheira as a half-Druid, but that's running rather light on divine casting power (and Druids miss some key divine spells), so (IMO) more divine casting is the additional skill which the canon party most needs. Therefore I reckon the canonical protagonist must be some sort of Cleric (or a multi-class including Cleric, or a dual-class into Cleric).

    I agree to an extent but then you hit SoA and there's Aerie & Anomen available right out of the gate.

    Edit: Not being combative btw, just playing devil's advocate! ;)
    Post edited by abacus on
  • MacHurtoMacHurto Member Posts: 731
    edited May 2014
    @Elrandir‌

    I agree. If I had to choose a legal combination it would be a bard or a vanilla sorcerer. Not sure about the singing part, but a jack of all trades is very likely as you explain. I would favour the Jester in that sense (as more than a song, they are just witty comments)

    On an unrelated matter, it is fun to think the God of Death was, in his mortal years, a Jester. It has a nice ring to it.
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