Knowing Bodhi is a Vampire

Thesblah

Isn't it obvious to CHARNAME that Bodhi and her crew are vampires? The first task that you perform for her has you recover a crate full of wooden stakes and holy water. Yet, the description reads in a way that implies that CHARNAME is clueless that the Shadow Thieves are arming themselves against vampires.

semiticgoddess

I never thought about it. I just saw a blue woman in a bodice and did what she said. At some point I must have realized she was a vampire, but she's my quest giver, so whatever.

Bodhi's a vampire? Oh, okay. So what's our next task?

Kill Aran Linvail? Okey-dokey, artichokee!

Thesblah

semiticgod said:

I never thought about it. I just saw a blue woman in a bodice and did what she said. At some point I must have realized she was a vampire, but she's my quest giver, so whatever.

Bodhi's a vampire? Oh, okay. So what's our next task?

Kill Aran Linvail? Okey-dokey, artichokee!

The pool of blood, wooden stakes, only coming out at night, coffins, tombs, blood around her mouth, and giant spike room used to wring blood out of victims into a giant drain didn't tip you off?

I can understand if CHARNAME is a 6 intelligence/6 wisdom half-orc... But come on.

Heindrich

@semiticgod is a powergamer, he'd work for Demogorgon if he offered a better reward. :P

Anyway you don't need to accept your journal on a literal level. The game was designed to be fool-proof and provide a clear path of progression for everyone, even impatient teenagers or younger children. In BG1 it also got rather ridiculous that people kept asking for "moar proof!" when you already have tonnes of it from the Nashkel Mines, Bandit Camp and Cloakwood Mines.

In short when I make sense of things roleplay wise, I just use game mechanics as a guideline, rather than the literal truth.

CaptRory

@Heindrich If we're talking along those lines, if it helps imagine if a Chronicler is telling this story to someone a few hundred years after the events and is working off of memoirs of people who were there, other historians, etc.

"Man, was stupid or something?"
"No, no, this is second and third hand information pieced together. We can say it should have been obvious that Bodhi was a vampire but all we know is that she had destroy weapons and an old shipping manifest saying the Shadow Thieves ordered Holy Water and Stakes. We don't know those were the shipments that destroyed or that if they were he even opened them and just didn't set them on fire."

Grum

"Vampires? But I never saw them drink any blood. I thought they were mages. I mean, they turned into smoke and flew away!"

"Mages? Then why were they hiding in the graveyard, and only coming out at night?"

"Because...because they were hiding from the cowled wizards? I met a liche once who ended up becoming undead because he hid for so long from the cowled wizards."

"Ok. Leaving aside your idiocy-"

"Hey!"

"-you did meet another wizard who became UNDEAD because he was hiding. And you were in a place that was full of spikes, pools of blood, hypnotised people..."

"Yeah? You ever meet an evil wizard? I have! They are pretty crazy. And besides. I grew up in candlekeep. Some of the tomes on necromancy? You really shouldn't read those on a full stomach. The stuff that some wizards do is gross."

"So when did you find out that they were vampires?"

"...uhm..."

"Yes?"

"Boo told me..."



----

As for BG1 and proof:


In the Nashkel mines you find letters linking Mulhay to the bandits.

In the bandit camp you find letters linking the bandits to the iron mine.

In the iron mine, you find the previous owner of the mine (from a clan which, by the sword spiderbane's description, had dealings with the Dukes), who could testify as to the iron throne's involvement. If memory serves, I don't think that the letters you find in the iron mine conclusively say "iron throne" anywhere. But yeah, it is pretty simple from that point on for anyone to put 2+2 together.

I just assume that nobody overtly acted because Sarevok already had so much of the nobility replaced with dopplegangers. Make a move against him, and you risk not only alienating the only trading group that is actively bringing in iron (which you mind need if Amn invades), but you also are facing an outcry from the (replaced) nobility, and from a scared public. So in my headcanon, the rulers of Baldur's Gate are just holding back until they can show something so foolproof that they won't face any kind of backlash...and to do so after they buy enough iron to properly arm the Flaming Fist.