Did you know some of us would get a switch put to us for the use of certain words in times past? How times have changed. Wait a minute, now that it reminds of those earlier days I can even recall the ol soap in the mouth treatment once, nasty stuff that soap can be.
@Zaghoul: Never had to deal with that as a punishment, but I did get hideously sick one night when I drank a whole big gulpful of liquid soap because I thought it was Gatorade.
Because my family literally filled a Gatorade bottle with bright blue soap, thinking nothing could go wrong.
@semiticgod That would probably do it. Mine once thought it would be fun to use the usual Kool Aid container (empty at the time) to mix up that ol Peter's Special indoor plant food in (bluish), and leave it sitting out on a hot summer day.
Family huh, if ya can't beat em...(wait a minute, I covered that all ready), well, you can join em any way.
I used to do that all the time... Buy jumbo packages of something then use smaller empty bottles of something else for practical purposes. Now that I have kids of my own this practice is over. It's already a risk one of the kids will drink something because it's colorful. If it's in a juice bottle it's an intoxication begging to happen...
@mlnevese Been there, and done that, as it was NOT a nice revelation to see the boy drinking air freshner refill in small spray bottles. Talk about something that will wake ya up in the mornin, that'll get ya hoppin, whew. That DEFINITELY needs to be in ya book about not going insane with kids.
When you return to Spellhold after the dungeon, Saemon Havarian tells you not to go up against Irenicus without aid and suggests that you should enlist the asylum inmates. He is right ... unless you cast Protection from Evil and Death Ward on all party members. You can then safely assault Irenicus without help.
Likewise, you can smuggle the Rift Device out of the sewers using the Non-Detection spell.
If you have Minsc in your party you don't even need the non-detection spell. He is an expert at smuggling objects past security checkpoints, though it's probably best not to ask too many questions. Leaving the Underdark with a full set of Drow Plate Mail, in particular, boggles the mind.
If you click on Boo with the Rift device selected Boo will disappear from Minsc's inventory. Instead he will return to his native plane with the device.
If you cast any arcane spells in Gullykin or the Firewine Bridge you run the risk of seeing those spells have a wild surge. This is because centuries before two mages fought eachother in a magic duel. Fearing defeat one of them decided to bypass the weave and to instead cast with raw magic. The resulting explosion killed both mages, scattered their most powerful possessions across the area, and levelled a nearby elven trading town. Ultimately, this made reliable access to the weave difficult in the area.
Another fun fact is that it is rumoured that many of the mage's possessions were gathered up by a nearby dragon (whose skeleton can be seen in Durlags Tower).
If you bring Vascona +2 into BG2, you can combine it with the sword of flames for a +7 Longsword that deals 20 additional frost and fire damage. This weapon is just as lethal as the godbow.
Sarevok was originally a female, but accidently strapped on the belt of opposite gender and became a male.
Speaking of, if you used the "drop your entire inventory before the screen turns from black" exploit to bring the girdle of opposite gender into BG2 and you give it to Edwin before he reads the Nether Scroll, the scroll will actually turn him back into a man.
This causes all sorts of crazy bugs. Edwin retains his male voice set but his female dialogue options, which results in a lot of lines that were originally supposed to be voiced suddenly not being voiced, (because obviously they never recorded them in the male voice set).
The first encounter with Degarden becomes pretty funny, because despite Edwin literally just standing there, completely normal, Degarden never notices him. But the bugged gender screwed up a trigger in the script, so you never got the second Degarden encounter.
The real benefit of this bug, though, is when Edwin transforms he drops all of his gear on the ground... including his amulet. If he picks it back up himself, it gets locked into an inventory spot and can't ever be moved again, (much like a Familiar, but without the option to let it out again).
If you have someone *ELSE* pick up his amulet, though, it never locks. And since developers never anticipated him unequipping it, they didn't bother flagging it as unusable by anyone else. So you can feel free to give it to any arcane caster for the +2 spells per level. Sweet!
By now, pretty much everyone knows that Terminsel is an anagram for Elminster. What you might not know is how many other NPC names are actually anagrams, too.
I'm sure you figured out pretty early that Gorion is obviously an anagram of "Go Iron", a hint towards your first steps and your last steps in BG1. And by the time BG2 came out it probably clicked pretty quickly that "Khalid and Jahiera" was really an anagram for "Jihad Ilk Ran Ahead", a warning about the Galverey encounter.
If you were like me, you probably died a lot near the lighthouse after assuming that Edwin Odessieron was supposed to be "Denied Siren Woos", but in reality his last name was just misspelled. It was supposed to be "Edwin Odesieron" with one s, which obviously anagrams to "denied iron woes", another hint about the beginning and end of the game. I'm sure the developers were embarrassed when they realized such a blatant typo wound up going to print in the final version of the game.
There was one huge one that I missed at first, though. When people discovered Dynaheir's charm dialogues, their mind was probably blown with the massive spoiler was she hiding, but little did they know that was just the tip of the iceberg. I'm sure by now the penny has dropped and you've realized "Minsc and Dynaheir" unscrambles to
"Charades Dim Ninny", a massive spoiler to his role as the secret final boss of ToB if you beat the game while he's wearing the Big Metal Unit. He reveals himself as the puppet-master behind both Irenicus and Melissan, using both to distract the Bhaalspawn and allow him to reassemble the ancient pantaloons in secret. That twist took me by surprise, but it's my own fault for never bringing Dynaheir with me in BG1; if I had, I would have seen it coming a mile away.
Edit to add spoiler tag. Sorry if I ruined that one for anyone who hasn't beaten the game yet!
By now, pretty much everyone knows that Terminsel is an anagram for Elminster.
While its true that Terminsel is an anagram for Elminster, its also true that the character you are actually running into in Shadows of Amn is Minstrel - a body double of the real Elminster.
When not doing his important work in pretending to be a thousand + year old mage, he does a side singing job at a local tavern (which unfortunately is where he got his name).
You can actually get this tavern for a stronghold, if your main character is called "Rick Blaine" and you romance Jaheira. At some point during Shadows of Amn after the ... ah ... consummation of the romance, Jaheira will just up and vanish, leaving you a rather cryptic note.
Later, in Saradush, you can buy a local tavern. Jaheira will show up one night along with Khalid who, it turns out, wasn't dead at all! You get the extra quest of helping them escape the besieged city.
Speaking of anagrams, you forgot "Tox n' Razor man". But it's so obvious, it's easy to miss.
Now my favourite anagram is "Shank and Carbos". With some thinking you can easily dechiper it as: Bards hocks Anna
The bards are the Harpers of course. This tells the story of your mother Alianna and her great sacrafice. She was a Harper too, her role was to became a Bhaal priest and get a child from Bhaal. It was all planned. Even the part where Gorion kills her, and rescue charname. Really a sad story
Comments
How times have changed.
Because my family literally filled a Gatorade bottle with bright blue soap, thinking nothing could go wrong.
Family huh, if ya can't beat em...(wait a minute, I covered that all ready), well, you can join em any way.
Another fun fact is that it is rumoured that many of the mage's possessions were gathered up by a nearby dragon (whose skeleton can be seen in Durlags Tower).
Then again Degula's Tear sounds like legit Dark Sun lore, so...
This causes all sorts of crazy bugs. Edwin retains his male voice set but his female dialogue options, which results in a lot of lines that were originally supposed to be voiced suddenly not being voiced, (because obviously they never recorded them in the male voice set).
The first encounter with Degarden becomes pretty funny, because despite Edwin literally just standing there, completely normal, Degarden never notices him. But the bugged gender screwed up a trigger in the script, so you never got the second Degarden encounter.
The real benefit of this bug, though, is when Edwin transforms he drops all of his gear on the ground... including his amulet. If he picks it back up himself, it gets locked into an inventory spot and can't ever be moved again, (much like a Familiar, but without the option to let it out again).
If you have someone *ELSE* pick up his amulet, though, it never locks. And since developers never anticipated him unequipping it, they didn't bother flagging it as unusable by anyone else. So you can feel free to give it to any arcane caster for the +2 spells per level. Sweet!
I'm sure you figured out pretty early that Gorion is obviously an anagram of "Go Iron", a hint towards your first steps and your last steps in BG1. And by the time BG2 came out it probably clicked pretty quickly that "Khalid and Jahiera" was really an anagram for "Jihad Ilk Ran Ahead", a warning about the Galverey encounter.
If you were like me, you probably died a lot near the lighthouse after assuming that Edwin Odessieron was supposed to be "Denied Siren Woos", but in reality his last name was just misspelled. It was supposed to be "Edwin Odesieron" with one s, which obviously anagrams to "denied iron woes", another hint about the beginning and end of the game. I'm sure the developers were embarrassed when they realized such a blatant typo wound up going to print in the final version of the game.
There was one huge one that I missed at first, though. When people discovered Dynaheir's charm dialogues, their mind was probably blown with the massive spoiler was she hiding, but little did they know that was just the tip of the iceberg. I'm sure by now the penny has dropped and you've realized "Minsc and Dynaheir" unscrambles to
Edit to add spoiler tag. Sorry if I ruined that one for anyone who hasn't beaten the game yet!
When not doing his important work in pretending to be a thousand + year old mage, he does a side singing job at a local tavern (which unfortunately is where he got his name).
Later, in Saradush, you can buy a local tavern. Jaheira will show up one night along with Khalid who, it turns out, wasn't dead at all! You get the extra quest of helping them escape the besieged city.
Now my favourite anagram is "Shank and Carbos". With some thinking you can easily dechiper it as:
Bards hocks Anna
You people have WAY too much time on your hands.