Of course, one thing stands out to any BG fanatic: the Lord of Murder returned. I guess the mortal progeny he spawned before the ToT served him well, after all.
Yeah, that's covered in one of the first 5e boxed adventures, "Murder in Baldur's Gate." Essentially, Abdel Adrian (seriously, fuck that guy) and the teleporting thief from SoA and ToB are the only two living Bhaalspawn, and this idiots kill each other, finally completing Alaundo's prophesy.
A good reason to keep Imoen alive in your playthrough, eh?
In the end it won't matter, Viekang will come after her too if she survives ToB.
True, but based on her ToB ending, he'll need to get through an entire thieves guild, capable of challenging the Shadow Thieves, to do it.
Unfortunately (even to my disappointment), Imoen would need to canonically get killed off somehow during ToB because her ending in the game is strictly non-canon, because it contradicts the storyline of two novels that are set a couple years after SoA and ToB. Imoen's ToB ending states that before she started her own thief guild in Neverwinter, she traveled with Elminster and Khelben Blackstaff for years, and stole his staff, which shouldn't be able to canonically happen no matter how hard you try to argue the case because Khelben died in 1374 DR, and Elminster got himself trapped in the Nine Hells in 1372 DR trying to close a portal to the Nine Hells. Even if it were possible to say if it is canon, where was she when Elminster got trapped in the Nine Hells, and how come she wasn't able to help Elminster close the portal to the Nine Hells unintentionally created by the Shadovar from the city Thultanthar, and prevent Khelben Blackstaff Arunsun's death? Also, no sourcebooks hint that there is a secret guild in Neverwinter, or for that matter, that the Shadow Thieves operate in in Neverwinter.
(quote spoilered for sake of space) All true, and as Abdel is the cannon Bhaalspawn (really, f*** that guy) any CHARNAME would by definition be non-cannon, or personal canon/an alternate history at best. Since we're already engaging in this sort of thing, why can't Imoen have survived and been in some way unable to prevent these events? That said, I admit that this is all EXTREMELY non-official, fan-fic like speculation on my part.
Sorry for the derailment all.
This is my personal canon:
Charname IS canon, but because of the events in Siege of Dragonspear (which I won't spoil), his/her reputation as the hero of Baldur's Gate became tarnished, forcing him/her to flee to Amn to find out why he/she had been framed. Then a few months later, the Council of Four desperately needing to find someone to replace charname as the hero of Baldur's Gate (because the iron crisis event will eventually be recorded in the history of the Forgotten Realms, and they need a hero to be recorded in it) randomly appoint mercenary Abdel Adrian as the hero of Baldur's Gate, claiming that he stopped the iron crisis and killed Sarevok, replacing charname since his/her heritage as a Bhaalspawn got revealed, but not knowing that Abdel is a Bhaalspawn too.
Not all heroes are remembered or recorded. Sometimes the true heroes are ignored or forgotten for the wrong reasons.
Charname IS canon, but because of the events in Siege of Dragonspear (which I won't spoil), his/her reputation as the hero of Baldur's Gate became tarnished, forcing him/her to flee to Amn to find out why he/she had been framed. Then a few months later, the Council of Four desperately needing to find someone to replace charname as the hero of Baldur's Gate (because the iron crisis event will eventually be recorded in the history of the Forgotten Realms, and they need a hero to be recorded in it) randomly appoint mercenary Abdel Adrian as the hero of Baldur's Gate, claiming that he stopped the iron crisis and killed Sarevok, replacing charname since his/her heritage as a Bhaalspawn got revealed, but not knowing that Abdel is a Bhaalspawn too.
Not all heroes are remembered or recorded. Sometimes the true heroes are ignored or forgotten for the wrong reasons.
I like that head canon. As ToB does not seem to mind that you save Viekang in Saradush, it makes sense nobody goes after Abdel. They are both pretty weak bhaalspawn, after all, with very little essence. The 5+charname+everyone else is enough for Godhood
After Charname gives up the essence (only possibility for canon) Bhaal comes back from the two Bhaalspawn left (that everyone had ignored) and likely recovers all the lost essence because of the Sundering, etc. It is a sad canon, as all Charname does is for naught, but still better than Abdel being Charname
And even if Charname does ascend into godhood, I like to believe that they get stripped of their power again relatively soon after or get killed by Cyric directly, depending on Charname's intentions.
Bare in mind, it's possible that CHARNAME and company could have survived (I gave this some thought after I realized the Spellplague hit about 20 years after ToB):
Abdel (seriously, f*** that guy) and Viekang prove that even a human Bhaalspawn seems to have something close to a half-elf's life expectancy, so it's unlikely that CHARNAME, Imoen, Sarevok, or Balthazar (for Assencion players) would die of old age
Throughout SoA and ToB we see Spelljammers, the Planer Sphere, the Sigil Acting Troup, and the Torment item vender: CHARNAME et all are clearly aware of planer travel, and could have been off-world at the time of the Spellplague. This would further explain why they've been MIA in terms of major events; they weren't on Fearun.
Of the few spellcasters to survive the Spellplague, most of them were weaker than most characters at the end of ToB; even if they were around for the catastrophe, they may have only been weakened, not killed/driven insane.
I know it's weak, but this is (roughly) how I've kept my CHARNAME and party alive in my head canon, and for me at least, it holds up.
But if charname ascends, they should appear somewhere in the canon as a God and they don't.
Regarding Charname surviving, sure they can. However, given that lv25-30 characters should appear in canon, I think it is more likely that the solar lies to you (for the greater good) and your party dies as the Throne of Bhaal collapses. Again, better that Abdel being Charname, I'd say.
Of course, the ending did poorly with (beta) test audiences, so they modified it to a happy ending in the game :-)
The fact that the Feywild is in the 5e handbook and is canon makes me infinitely happy. I adore that place n_n
I just want a 5e Feywild sourcebook to see its current inhabitants and to see if Gnomes are still considered Fey or at least descended from the Feywild.
@MacHurto I don't know if you noticed, but Charname and Abdel's backstories are vastly different, so there is no way they can be the same character no matter how hard the people who claim the official BG novels are canon try to argue it. In that trash of an official BG novel, Abdel didn't remain in Candlekeep all his life unlike Charname, he left as soon as he was old enough. And Gorion didn't rescue Abdel when he was young, a paladin of the Hands of the Loyal Fury named Sir Desric who was a friend of Gorion rescued Abdel from deathstalkers, defied his superiors who knew of his heritage and brought Abdel to Gorion, and Gorion never personally knew Abdel's mother, and had no romantic relationship whatsoever with her either unlike Charname's mother, and in ToB, it was never revealed that Abdel and Sarevok crossed paths during their childhood, which probably means they never did.
Charname remaining mortal is the only canon end, the way I see it. Abdel did not ascend, and neither should Charname. Besides, Charname made it clear a few times in the games that he/she intends on building his/her own future on his/her own merit rather than being influenced by Gorion's morals and the calls of his/her Bhaalspawn essence. That can be interpreted as ascending as a goodly god/goddess, but I doubt that's the case. It may also mean that the chances of Charname being evil aligned canonically are slim to none.
The fact that the Feywild is in the 5e handbook and is canon makes me infinitely happy. I adore that place n_n
I just want a 5e Feywild sourcebook to see its current inhabitants and to see if Gnomes are still considered Fey or at least descended from the Feywild.
I like it too, and I'm happy to see that they kept it, instead of saying ''and it was destroyed with the Sundering''. However, the current cosmology is a slightly alterated version of the Great Wheel, which also includes the Feywild and the Elemental Chaos from 4e (it has become the place that connects the planes of the various elements).
@BladeDancer havent read the novel. I just heard it is very bad and to me a lv5 charname doesnt make sense :-) That's why the whole "Abdel is somebody's cousin and an impostor while also a minor Bhaalspawn without knowing it" appeals to me in order to maintain 5e cannon. The novel is clearly something they commisioned to Garrick in order to cover Charname's tracks
@BladeDancer havent read the novel. I just heard it is very bad and to me a lv5 charname doesnt make sense :-) That's why the whole "Abdel is somebody's cousin and an impostor while also a minor Bhaalspawn without knowing it" appeals to me in order to maintain 5e cannon. The novel is clearly something they commisioned to Garrick in order to cover Charname's tracks
I had a feeling you haven't. I've read it online, and everything you heard about it is true. I'm going to go over the list of what the novel did wrong and the errors it has that should discredit it from being considered canon.
1. Abdel is a very dull character, the game's story that the novel should be based on is botched badly, even the people he travels with from the game like Khalid and Jaheira are a travesty to read about.
2. In the BG games, Khalid is from Calimshan, Jaheira is from Tethyr (the land where ToB takes place), but in the books, Khalid and Jaheira were both born and raised in Amn.
3. In the book, Khalid is not the stuttering, timid warrior he is from the games, he is a womanizing a**hole who beats up Jaheira if she displeases him in any way, and Jaheira is not the strong, confident and domineering druid/Fighter, she is the typical "damsel in distress" kind of woman who screams loudly when facing a giant spider rather than facing it head on with Abdel, or worse, starts tearing off her tunic in panic when a small spider crawls down her cleavage. Yeah. Don't ask.
4. It is unclear that the mercenaries who killed Gorion while fighting Abdel worked for Sarevok or not.
5. Sarevok spends most of his time in the bedroom with Tamoko and communicating to his minions through a magical mirror, and he killed Tranzig and Tazok for no apparent reason other than to replace them for doppelgangers to take their place for no apparent reason.
6. In Chapter 3, Abdel finds a note in dead Gorion's robes that says "During the days of the Avatars, the Black Lord will spawn a score of mortal progeny. These offspring will be aligned good and evil, but chaos will flow through them all. When the Murderer's bastard children come of age, they will bring havoc to the lands of the Sword Coast. One of these children must rise above the rest and claim their father's legacy. This inheritor will shape the history of the Sword Coast for centuries to come." The Black Lord is Bane's title, not Bhaal's! And the note does not say that Bhaal foresaw his death before the Avatar Crisis and spawned his children before that time, it says that Bhaal spawned his mortal progeny during the Time of Troubles, which is inconsistent with the lore, which means Abdel and every other child of Bhaal would be 10 years old by 1368 DR, and Abdel is clearly not 10 years old.
7. Montaron and Xzar are in the book, and so far their personalities remain unchanged, but the way the author describes Xzar and his mannerisms are... odd. They don't last long, they get killed off by Sarevok even though Montaron's dialogue with Sarevok in his last moments hint that he and Xzar worked for him even though they are Zhentarim agents, which makes no sense at all if you know that in the game, mercenaries captured by the Flaming Fist claim the Zhentarim are behind the iron crisis, which means the Iron Throne and Zhentarim have no alliance. Even more confusing, in one part of the book, Jaheira claims that the Iron Throne is a splinter group of the Zhentarim, and that is not true in either the game or sourcebooks mentioning the Iron Throne.
8. Though the book claims that even though Abdel seriously lusts for Jaheira, he would never get between a married couple, but his actions speak louder than words, "accidentally" stabbing Khalid in the Nashkel mines and saying Abdel is frustrated that Khalid didn't die because he stabs to kill, not wound. Yeah right. When Khalid is finally killed off by a gray ooze (I think it was one of those gelatin things, the book wasn't accurate in its description), the romance between Abdel and Jaheira is so immature, it will make you laugh.
9. Mulahey is in the book, but he is a cowardly half-orc who pees in his pants as soon as he confronts Abdel. Xan is in the book too, but he is not the depressed, sullen elf that he is in the games, and he gets killed off, decapitated by a giant spider in the Cloakwood Forest.
10. There are no mages in this novel. There is Xan, but he is depicted as a swordsman whose expertise impresses Abdel, but he has no spellcasting abilities, unlike the game.
11. Abdel and co. team up with Korax, the zombie you find in the game in the part of the wilderness where the basilisks are located. I see nothing wrong with that, but his name is spelled "Korak" instead of "Korax", and when he was alive, he was Abdel's friend who used to live in Candlekeep with him. Yeah. And there is no mention of Imoen in the book too. It's pretty clear the author had no intention of adding Imoen in the novel until the novelization of SoA because of how important she has become to the story.
12. Centeol is in the novel, even Yeslick is in the book too, in the Cloakwood Mines part, but after that, he is gone. Not dead, he just does not travel with Abdel and Jaheira. And he claims that even though Rieltar is in charge of the iron crisis, he has never set foot in Baldur's Gate before or presently. Again, the author is trying to make creative changes with the game's story and failing badly.
13. Davaeorn, the man in charge of the Iron Throne operations at the Cloakwood mines is not in the novel, even though he should have been. It seems the novel tries very hard not to put Abdel in combat against mages.
14. In the novel, Baldur's Gate has a Grand Duke named Angelo, and he is a half-elf. Can you believe it? This contradicts the sourcebooks entirely! Outside the BG book, there is no record of Baldur's Gate having a half-elven Grand Duke, let alone a Grand Duke named Angelo. The author should have stuck with him being a turncoat Flaming Fist captain, and a human.
15. And unlike the games, Sarevok has had complete control of the Baldur's Gate branch of the Iron Throne ever since the beginning of the novel, while Rieltar controls the Sembia branch, which is a very unwise decision for Rieltar to make, because it is clear in both the game and novel that Sarevok is no businessman, the Baldur's Gate branch of the Iron Throne would have collapsed long before Abdel's interference.
16. When Abdel and Jaheira return to Candlekeep to spy on a meeting between important Iron Throne members (whose names are never identified since Rieltar is not in the Sword Coast, and Brunos and Thaldorn are absent in the novel), they gain entry with the help of a book of Bhaal's unholy rites that Xan stole when he snuck into the bandit camp several chapters ago, and later Abdel and Jaheira are arrested for possessing that book, not because they were accused of murdering the important members of the Iron Throne who were undergoing an important meeting that would ruin Sarevok's personal plans.
Comments
Charname IS canon, but because of the events in Siege of Dragonspear (which I won't spoil), his/her reputation as the hero of Baldur's Gate became tarnished, forcing him/her to flee to Amn to find out why he/she had been framed. Then a few months later, the Council of Four desperately needing to find someone to replace charname as the hero of Baldur's Gate (because the iron crisis event will eventually be recorded in the history of the Forgotten Realms, and they need a hero to be recorded in it) randomly appoint mercenary Abdel Adrian as the hero of Baldur's Gate, claiming that he stopped the iron crisis and killed Sarevok, replacing charname since his/her heritage as a Bhaalspawn got revealed, but not knowing that Abdel is a Bhaalspawn too.
Not all heroes are remembered or recorded. Sometimes the true heroes are ignored or forgotten for the wrong reasons.
After Charname gives up the essence (only possibility for canon) Bhaal comes back from the two Bhaalspawn left (that everyone had ignored) and likely recovers all the lost essence because of the Sundering, etc. It is a sad canon, as all Charname does is for naught, but still better than Abdel being Charname
Either way, I doubt they'll ever get old ...
- Abdel (seriously, f*** that guy) and Viekang prove that even a human Bhaalspawn seems to have something close to a half-elf's life expectancy, so it's unlikely that CHARNAME, Imoen, Sarevok, or Balthazar (for Assencion players) would die of old age
- Throughout SoA and ToB we see Spelljammers, the Planer Sphere, the Sigil Acting Troup, and the Torment item vender: CHARNAME et all are clearly aware of planer travel, and could have been off-world at the time of the Spellplague. This would further explain why they've been MIA in terms of major events; they weren't on Fearun.
- Of the few spellcasters to survive the Spellplague, most of them were weaker than most characters at the end of ToB; even if they were around for the catastrophe, they may have only been weakened, not killed/driven insane.
I know it's weak, but this is (roughly) how I've kept my CHARNAME and party alive in my head canon, and for me at least, it holds up.Regarding Charname surviving, sure they can. However, given that lv25-30 characters should appear in canon, I think it is more likely that the solar lies to you (for the greater good) and your party dies as the Throne of Bhaal collapses. Again, better that Abdel being Charname, I'd say.
Of course, the ending did poorly with (beta) test audiences, so they modified it to a happy ending in the game :-)
PS: There is a DA:I joke in there somewhere.
I just want a 5e Feywild sourcebook to see its current inhabitants and to see if Gnomes are still considered Fey or at least descended from the Feywild.
@MacHurto I don't know if you noticed, but Charname and Abdel's backstories are vastly different, so there is no way they can be the same character no matter how hard the people who claim the official BG novels are canon try to argue it. In that trash of an official BG novel, Abdel didn't remain in Candlekeep all his life unlike Charname, he left as soon as he was old enough. And Gorion didn't rescue Abdel when he was young, a paladin of the Hands of the Loyal Fury named Sir Desric who was a friend of Gorion rescued Abdel from deathstalkers, defied his superiors who knew of his heritage and brought Abdel to Gorion, and Gorion never personally knew Abdel's mother, and had no romantic relationship whatsoever with her either unlike Charname's mother, and in ToB, it was never revealed that Abdel and Sarevok crossed paths during their childhood, which probably means they never did.
Charname remaining mortal is the only canon end, the way I see it. Abdel did not ascend, and neither should Charname. Besides, Charname made it clear a few times in the games that he/she intends on building his/her own future on his/her own merit rather than being influenced by Gorion's morals and the calls of his/her Bhaalspawn essence. That can be interpreted as ascending as a goodly god/goddess, but I doubt that's the case. It may also mean that the chances of Charname being evil aligned canonically are slim to none.
1. Abdel is a very dull character, the game's story that the novel should be based on is botched badly, even the people he travels with from the game like Khalid and Jaheira are a travesty to read about.
2. In the BG games, Khalid is from Calimshan, Jaheira is from Tethyr (the land where ToB takes place), but in the books, Khalid and Jaheira were both born and raised in Amn.
3. In the book, Khalid is not the stuttering, timid warrior he is from the games, he is a womanizing a**hole who beats up Jaheira if she displeases him in any way, and Jaheira is not the strong, confident and domineering druid/Fighter, she is the typical "damsel in distress" kind of woman who screams loudly when facing a giant spider rather than facing it head on with Abdel, or worse, starts tearing off her tunic in panic when a small spider crawls down her cleavage. Yeah. Don't ask.
4. It is unclear that the mercenaries who killed Gorion while fighting Abdel worked for Sarevok or not.
5. Sarevok spends most of his time in the bedroom with Tamoko and communicating to his minions through a magical mirror, and he killed Tranzig and Tazok for no apparent reason other than to replace them for doppelgangers to take their place for no apparent reason.
6. In Chapter 3, Abdel finds a note in dead Gorion's robes that says "During the days of the Avatars, the Black Lord will spawn a score of mortal progeny. These offspring will be aligned good and evil, but chaos will flow through them all. When the Murderer's bastard children come of age, they will bring havoc to the lands of the Sword Coast. One of these children must rise above the rest and claim their father's legacy. This inheritor will shape the history of the Sword Coast for centuries to come." The Black Lord is Bane's title, not Bhaal's! And the note does not say that Bhaal foresaw his death before the Avatar Crisis and spawned his children before that time, it says that Bhaal spawned his mortal progeny during the Time of Troubles, which is inconsistent with the lore, which means Abdel and every other child of Bhaal would be 10 years old by 1368 DR, and Abdel is clearly not 10 years old.
7. Montaron and Xzar are in the book, and so far their personalities remain unchanged, but the way the author describes Xzar and his mannerisms are... odd. They don't last long, they get killed off by Sarevok even though Montaron's dialogue with Sarevok in his last moments hint that he and Xzar worked for him even though they are Zhentarim agents, which makes no sense at all if you know that in the game, mercenaries captured by the Flaming Fist claim the Zhentarim are behind the iron crisis, which means the Iron Throne and Zhentarim have no alliance. Even more confusing, in one part of the book, Jaheira claims that the Iron Throne is a splinter group of the Zhentarim, and that is not true in either the game or sourcebooks mentioning the Iron Throne.
8. Though the book claims that even though Abdel seriously lusts for Jaheira, he would never get between a married couple, but his actions speak louder than words, "accidentally" stabbing Khalid in the Nashkel mines and saying Abdel is frustrated that Khalid didn't die because he stabs to kill, not wound. Yeah right. When Khalid is finally killed off by a gray ooze (I think it was one of those gelatin things, the book wasn't accurate in its description), the romance between Abdel and Jaheira is so immature, it will make you laugh.
9. Mulahey is in the book, but he is a cowardly half-orc who pees in his pants as soon as he confronts Abdel. Xan is in the book too, but he is not the depressed, sullen elf that he is in the games, and he gets killed off, decapitated by a giant spider in the Cloakwood Forest.
10. There are no mages in this novel. There is Xan, but he is depicted as a swordsman whose expertise impresses Abdel, but he has no spellcasting abilities, unlike the game.
11. Abdel and co. team up with Korax, the zombie you find in the game in the part of the wilderness where the basilisks are located. I see nothing wrong with that, but his name is spelled "Korak" instead of "Korax", and when he was alive, he was Abdel's friend who used to live in Candlekeep with him. Yeah. And there is no mention of Imoen in the book too. It's pretty clear the author had no intention of adding Imoen in the novel until the novelization of SoA because of how important she has become to the story.
12. Centeol is in the novel, even Yeslick is in the book too, in the Cloakwood Mines part, but after that, he is gone. Not dead, he just does not travel with Abdel and Jaheira. And he claims that even though Rieltar is in charge of the iron crisis, he has never set foot in Baldur's Gate before or presently. Again, the author is trying to make creative changes with the game's story and failing badly.
13. Davaeorn, the man in charge of the Iron Throne operations at the Cloakwood mines is not in the novel, even though he should have been. It seems the novel tries very hard not to put Abdel in combat against mages.
14. In the novel, Baldur's Gate has a Grand Duke named Angelo, and he is a half-elf. Can you believe it? This contradicts the sourcebooks entirely! Outside the BG book, there is no record of Baldur's Gate having a half-elven Grand Duke, let alone a Grand Duke named Angelo. The author should have stuck with him being a turncoat Flaming Fist captain, and a human.
15. And unlike the games, Sarevok has had complete control of the Baldur's Gate branch of the Iron Throne ever since the beginning of the novel, while Rieltar controls the Sembia branch, which is a very unwise decision for Rieltar to make, because it is clear in both the game and novel that Sarevok is no businessman, the Baldur's Gate branch of the Iron Throne would have collapsed long before Abdel's interference.
16. When Abdel and Jaheira return to Candlekeep to spy on a meeting between important Iron Throne members (whose names are never identified since Rieltar is not in the Sword Coast, and Brunos and Thaldorn are absent in the novel), they gain entry with the help of a book of Bhaal's unholy rites that Xan stole when he snuck into the bandit camp several chapters ago, and later Abdel and Jaheira are arrested for possessing that book, not because they were accused of murdering the important members of the Iron Throne who were undergoing an important meeting that would ruin Sarevok's personal plans.