What ever happened to Balduran?

RedGuard

I'm not really up on D&D or the Forgotten Realms outside of the Baldur's Gate games, so I don't really know much about this. I'm just wondering what ever happened to Balduran? The game (at least the expansion) seems to hint heavily at one point something about his whereabouts or at least when he went missing, but never really provided anything conclusive. That always made me wonder.

On another note is Balduran particularly noteworthy outside of the games?

sandmanCCL

It's a point I don't think has ever been fully fleshed out in FR Settings novels. It's an intentional mystery left in there as a potential plot point for a DM to design an adventure around, as are many situations in the Forgotten Realms.

RedGuard

Thanks @sandmanCCL

That makes sense, I guess. Hopefully someone will pick it up someday and do something with it.

Also, does Balduran have significant appearances in the FR settings or is it more just passing references?

Shin

As far as I can tell the fate of Balduran is all but spelled out in the part of TotSC where you go to the island.

LordsDarkKnight185

RedGuard said:

Thanks @sandmanCCL

That makes sense, I guess. Hopefully someone will pick it up someday and do something with it.

Also, does Balduran have significant appearances in the FR settings or is it more just passing references?

"The city is named for the legendary sea-faring explorer Balduran, who long ago sailed past Evermeet in search of the rich, fabled isles of Anchorome (pronounced Ang-kor-OH-may”). Balduran returned with tales of strange, vast lands across the seas. He also brought back much wealth, and scattered it about his sparsely-settled home harbor, commanding that some of it be spent on a wall to protect the harbor rom orc and barbarian raids (still an an-nual problem in the area, in those, long-ago days). Then he set sail again for the wondrous lands he had found. Balduran never returned. Some say he sails still, finding new lands in the endless reaches of the far sea, or even that he sailed off the world and fares now among the stars! Others whisper that he met with misfortune and perished in the deeps, while still others believe he lived to a ripe old age in his new-found home. Whatever Balduran’s true fate, his money was spent on a splendid city wall. Within its protection, building went on at a great pace, soon growing out past the wall. The wall was built by several farmers, who put it around their own holdings, excluding the actual harbor from its protection. This allowed them to tax all carts coming up from the docks to the protection of the walled city. The colleagues of Balduran, sea-captains to whom the harbor was home (an ideal place for beaching and repairing ships, without local fees or crowding), angrily insisted that the gate by which southern trade and the harbor traffic entered the city was “Baldur’s Gate,” and refused to pay for entering by it. The strife ended in the overthrow of the enriched farmers and the seizure of the city (which came to be called Baldur’s Gate) by the sea-captains. The four oldest captains, their days at sea drawing to a close, turned over their ships to younger sailors, who in turn supported their installation as rulers of the fledgling city. The four called themselves Dukes as a joke, but the titles proved useful when dealing with other rulers, and were later glorified by the apellation “grand.” Retired grand dukes live in honor, supported by the city and welcome at all feasts and temple functions (unless dismissed in disgrace and banished).
(TSR 2106 Forgotten Realms Adventures 1990)

RedGuard

@LordsDarkKnight185 Thanks

Shin said:

As far as I can tell the fate of Balduran is all but spelled out in the part of TotSC where you go to the island.

I'm not so sure. I played through BG1 a couple of weeks back and I don't recall it saying much more than his whereabouts after the shipwreck being unknown. Not even the wizard from the ship wreck seemed to know if I remember correctly.

Anduin

It is obvious that he was hung drawn and quatered for some crime and his body parts sent out all over Faerun as a warning... Why I was in Amn recently and found his helmet!

Moomintroll

was the codpiece on it?

RedGuard

lol @Anduin

Took me a second to work than one out.

The_New_Romance

@Anduin

I would love to see the mystery explored a little deeper, though. I think if the game even has his name in it (or at least that of the city named after him), it should give us a little more. No full unveiling of his whereabouts, but perhaps a DLC quest searching for other stuff he might have left on Faerun (there's got to be a dining fork in addition to his butterknife somewhere!).

RedGuard

Speaking of Balduran's equipment. It would be funny if someone could mod a Noober-like character to follow you around and every couple of seconds say "that belongs in a museum" with an Indiana Jones voice sample.

Anduin

I would like to find Baldurans underpants! The item description could go like this...

Baldurans Boxers

These underpants have seen some action in the last, oh so many years, since Baldurans disappearance. They are quite clearly stained in history. Balduran's odur cling to the garment with super hero manly potency. How his pants have come into your possesion is clearly to down to luck, however you are unsure if you should wash them, or keep them as found. The latter would be preferable if you wish some of Baldurans mystique to rub off on you...

You can brandish Baldurans Boxers at enemies...

Equip item to quick slot: Casts Horror as spell / unlimited uses each day

Moomintroll

Lol, that was awesome. Reminded me of Baldrick's trousers. "all the evils of the world, are kept therein."

Shin

RedGuard said:

@LordsDarkKnight185 Thanks

Shin said:

As far as I can tell the fate of Balduran is all but spelled out in the part of TotSC where you go to the island.

I'm not so sure. I played through BG1 a couple of weeks back and I don't recall it saying much more than his whereabouts after the shipwreck being unknown. Not even the wizard from the ship wreck seemed to know if I remember correctly.

Well, Dradeel had mostly been locked up inside his cabin, and though he doesn't know of the exact fate of Balduran he remembers most members of the expedition turning when the lycanthropy curse kicked in and attacking the others. As far as the werewolves know Balduran never wanted to "belong" with them, so likely he allied with the wolfweres or got killed somewhere in the fighting. Either way, it all points to him never leaving that island and not making any significant further changes to its hierarchy while alive.

RedGuard

@Shin I can't say I agree with you. It still looks pretty vague to me. I personally was under the impression that he possibly left altogether (not that I know how).

@Anduin "stained in history" lol, nice turn of phrase.

Debaser

In Tales of The Sword Coast they basically explain that he died on the Werewolf island defending his crew from those who were turned...there's a ton of back-story on that place when you go there to my memory, and his sword is on the island. But in BG2 there's another sword he once owned and his armor, etc. So possibly for whatever reason, Balduran continued to elude death and to travel anonymously by the skin of his teeth?

Miloch

Balduran was kidnapped off the island in BG1 later named after him (aka werewolf island) by kuo-toa and taken prisoner to the Elemental Plane of Water where, due to the slower flow of time and/or magic items, he is still alive, although probably quite mad by now.

Your quest, should you decide to accept it, is to rescue him, or at least find out what became of him...

More ideas along those lines here.

Shin

@RedGuard I can't recall any detail that suggested he got off that island. No one else seemed to until generations later. And given that Dradeel was still locked up and hadn't been able to retrieve his spellbook (which was practically on his doorstep), conditions had probably remained extremely hostile for all those years.

Miloch

@Debaser @Shin @RedGuard

There is no record whatsoever that Balduran ever died on the island. In fact, toward the end of his log book, it suggests he left his crew on the island and went off on his own... to where, we know not.

...set aground to forage. It is a small isle, but will yield what we need. Perhaps I shall...on my own while the crew...time on land will do them goode...

Moomintroll

Yet some men say in many parts of Faerun that Balduran is not dead, but had by the will of our Lady Blibdoolpoolp into another place... many men say that there is written upon his tomb this verse: Hic jacet Balduran, Rex quondam, Rexque futurus.

Debaser

@Miloch maybe something or someone took off the island and his crew was left there...or maybe he went to Amn first and that's why items of his are there...though the items in Amn are far more powerful.

RedGuard

@Shin I think it's the lack of evidence that we're both going on in regards to our own conclusions. I just read into him not wanting to "belong" as wanting to move on. There's not much that says either way what happened to him, I just prefer the possibility that he left rather than being killed.

Personally if he had died I would have expected to find something that points towards his death like a letter, if not his actual body. Him dying and it being left a mystery seems fairly redundant. No real clues to his fate and the last information on him referring to him not wanting to be with the group suggests to me that he chose to move on.

Debaser

@Shin, well him wanting to leave the group would make sense if he gave them time alone on shore and went exploring, then came back to them almost all being turned into werewolves and had to fight his way off the island!!!! =P (I like thinking of it in those terms if he escaped, it's more dramatic to think about him setting sail on a raft with no gear to take his chances.)

Shin

@Miloch If he got away before the curse set in, which according to Dradeel was right after landfall, maybe. Still, sounds a bit conspiracy-theoretic to me. What would he have done, taken off in a rowboat across the ocean with barely any supplies?

Tanthalas

Shin said:

Miloch If he got away before the curse set in, which according to Dradeel was right after landfall, maybe. Still, sounds a bit conspiracy-theoretic to me. What would he have done, taken off in a rowboat across the ocean with barely any supplies?

Isn't that what all badass heroes do?

Shin

@RedGuard I suppose. After several hundred years though, not finding a great deal of hard evidence of his death seems reasonable. If he did leave under ordered circumstances, you'd think he'd take his sword and precious butterknife with him. Obviously there's a chance that he got away, but yeah.. you never see Irenicus actually splash into the fires of the nine hells and burn to death either, so there's the off chance that he managed to teleport away to safety - but it doesn't seem very likely.

Shin

@Debaser Well, I'll agree it's possible. 8)

Debaser

@Shin he could have lost his sword in the fight....escaped...hidden away while making a raft. And then lost his volleyball Wilson while sailing back to the main land. =P

Anduin

Look... we need to find his underpants...

RedGuard

@Shin It's a good argument, but I don't feel that stories like this generally go by those sort of rules. Leaving it open like that seems more significant than it should be if that's the case.

I don't know how he got off the island (and I've no real idea about how either), but I personally believe that he's meant to be alive after that point and may have left the island. As for losing his weapons and such, I don't think it's too hard to think of a few possibilities without it seeming implausible (well in context of the story setting lol).

Also, I don't feel Irenicus' fate is a valid comparison. In one it's a fairly obvious conclusion because we see it for the most part firsthand, while in the other we never see the character or events relayed through logbooks and such. It's largely secondhand information and what is told is quite vague, especially about his fate. Calling it unlikely on the face of what little there is on the subject just seem premature.

Miloch

Shin said:

If he got away before the curse set in, which according to Dradeel was right after landfall, maybe. Still, sounds a bit conspiracy-theoretic to me. What would he have done, taken off in a rowboat across the ocean with barely any supplies?

Yes @Shin - that's *exactly* what he'd've done. (Well, almost... he'd probably been smart enough to bring supplies.) The fact that it's conspiracy-theoretic is just part of what makes it epic . As I commented on the other thread linked above:

I find it interesting that FR history and the game designers left his final whereabouts a mystery. Almost seems as if they had some sort of "unfinished business" intended for the man or his remains. Heroes usually don't just disappear without a trace in fiction, and Faerun is no exception. Balduran was an accomplished sailor, sea captain and pirate according to various sources. He wouldn't've let even a small craft in the ocean founder, and if he did, he'd find a way to survive until he got to land again. And even if he didn't survive, a guy like him would come back as a sea zombie at the very least. This is the guy who founded Baldur's Gate (or named it at least)!

It seems likely Balduran started to learn the truth about his infected crew, took a lifeboat and got out while the getting was still good. The islanders mention he wasn't among their ancestors. So the "abduction" scenario seems pretty likely to me actually. Who knows what resources an advances civilization from under the sea might have at their disposal?

So yeah, that's my conspiracy theory/mod :P.

Re: his gear, it's likely his rowboat was wrecked somewhere and he needed to swim, so he ditched it (possibly on a far smaller island than Balduran's). Some treasure hunters found it and sold it on the open market, so wherever it is now isn't necessarily where it was originally... it's just where the market has taken his goods (to Athkatla would be no surprise at all therefore).

If he (or his body) is still out there somewhere, his underpants may be the one item he retained. Maybe that'll be your reward for finding him .