Gibberlings

Meekrat

I always thought they were tiny purple men with dreadlocks, according to the game sprites, and then I was researching Gibberlings for a video project and found this:
Gibberling

I was quite surprised.

Shin

Yeah, I thought about that as well. They're sort of comical in the game, but really seem to be quite nightmarish creatures.

salieri

I always admired the fact that for BG1, they seem to have made a very conscious effort to avoid using the same old typical orcs and goblins. Many games would have just had millions of goblins in place of all the Gibberlings, Xvarts, Kobolds and Tasloi, and it was nice to have an introduction to so many different D&D creatures.

Edit: Awesome website btw. The gnome illustrations are amazing!!! Why would anyone play any other race? http://www.dotd.com/mm/MM00135.htm#db1ce895

Permidion_Stark

salieri said:

I always admired the fact that for BG1, they seem to have made a very conscious effort to avoid using the same old typical orcs and goblins. Many games would have just had millions of goblins in place of all the Gibberlings, Xvarts, Kobolds and Tasloi, and it was nice to have an introduction to so many different D&D creatures.

Funnily enough that's one of the few things I didn't like about BG1. I hate Xvarts and Tasloi and would have much preferred to face orcs and goblins.

scriver

Those things are not my gibberlings! They aren't even blue.

While I find Xvarts funny as in comical and Tasloi make decent enough goblin-stand-ins, Gibberlings are actually the only one of them I really like. Can't say why, exactly. They just hit a string in me. They're just interesting somehow.

@salieri -
If I remember correctly, it wasn't a design choice as much as it was contractual issues. But yeah, seeing the same old races gets tired, especially for Always Chaotic Evil mook races, wo I guess that turned out for the better in the end.

salieri

Contractual as in the rights owners saying they had to mix up the races a bit to push the D&D brand? The thought did cross my mind, hence the unbound anaphorous 'they'. Someone must have decided it...

HaHaCharade

At first I thought it was weird that there were no orcs encountered in Baldur's Gate. But if you look at the FR source material, there really *aren't* orcs that far south... so it makes sense. Still, I remember playing BG for the first time and thinking the countryside would be crawling with them. Then again, all our AD&D games were set further north in cities like Daggerford and Waterdeep, so for that area it made more sense. Icewind Dale had plenty of them. As for Gibberlings, I didn't even know what they were till I played the game lol... but they are in the books of course.

DJKajuru

Perhaps you should change their animation to that of a werewolf!

I've always considered Gibberlings to be threatening because you usually meet them in the beginning (you, Imoen and perhaps montaron against 15 gibberlings is a deadly task!), they made us learn how to fight against a group of mindless enemies.