Your favourite book
filcat88
Member Posts: 115
I think that one thing (among many others) which makes this game great is the huge present of books in the game. They are not necessary to finish the game, but provide nice moment to know about history and stuff on the Forgotten Realms.
Which one is your favourite and why?
Which one is your favourite and why?
9
Comments
Enjoy. Oh yes, enjoy.
Book found in Durlag's Tower. Short, but poignant. Really sad. Especially when combined with the ones on his children.
"Oh Kiel, Clan-prince of this dark tower; You made your death your finest hour" - a true dwarven warrior!
Sadness...and of course Durlag himself:
"Taste my fear. Know my madness. Face my demons. Know my loss."
"Seek no heirs. Seek no exit. Find no refuge. Feel no warmth."
As someone who gets annoyed by people interrupting him in the library, I can relate to this passage:
"The monk Gorion troubles me. He seems to have taken an interest in my readings. I must be careful to be more clandestine in my research. I wish I could simply kill him, but I doubt I could safely murder him within this damnable library."
My diary might look similar, lol.
Maybe use different stuff for stew if boar not available. Flesh of genies from tomb would work well. Could use wolf men in west dungeon. Hmmm. If only I could avoid air monster in the well, then the well treasure would be MINE! Then could buy any stuff for stew I wanted!
Also this one, though neither a book nor from Baldur's Gate, but from Icewind Dale II, is made of awesome (warning: quite long):
This notched stone was once set into the pommel of the ancient blade Cera Sumat, a Holy Avenger wielded by old Duke Kholsa Ehld as he walked upon the path of the Lost Followers, challenging them to answer for their crimes in the Barbed Kingdom. Inscribed upon the stone is the chronicle of his search for the six Lost Followers, and the circumstances surrounding their deaths. The medallion tells of the six:
Ehld met Inhein-Who-Was-Taken as she slept beneath the earth on the Battle of Bones and asked her to follow him to the Barbed Kingdom to be judged. Her laughter was a storm of bladed whispers, and she cursed the old man, hurling spells of death and flame upon him... she surrounded herself with mighty magics and swirling blades, daring the old man to come close, but he simply bowed his head and took shelter within the spiritual shield of his holy blade. In fury, she risked much and began to raise the dead from the Battle of Bones to destroy the Duke, but the shield around him prevented them from getting close. The undead, furious at their summoner for putting them to an impossible task, turned upon their mistress and tore her apart. Ehld took what was left in a small metal cask and took it to the highest hill at daybreak, and let the sun shine down upon Inhein's remains until they were dust.
Broken Khree, one of the only monks to fight the Black Raven in combat and survive with only his legs shattered and his jaw splintered, was the next of the six, and he was not hard to find. He had gathered together a band of slaves captured from a number of small farming hamlets and had them build a temple in Bane's name. Khree was a master of unarmed combat, with eyes and reflexes so quick that he could dodge most missiles and spells before they stood a chance of touching him - and he had sent many archers and mages to their graves. In hand to hand combat, he was a terror, for his bones and body were one with the elements, ignoring fire, cold, lightning, and weather's other displeasures, and while his skin could be stabbed or cut, his bones had the strength of the earth about them, preventing them from being broken or crushed by all but the most powerful of attacks. Ehld knew this, and when he found the bloody monk, the two traded no words, but attacked each other immediately. It was all Ehld could do to dodge Khree's attacks, but in a dangerous stratagem, Ehld tricked Khree into collapsing the newly-erected temple of Bane around them, causing Khree's arms to become pinned by the falling masonry. The monk died as the falling crossbeams of the temple pierced his chest, and in the last minute of his life, he spat his defiance against Ehld and told him he would fight his way back from death to destroy him.
Kaervas Death's Head was the lord of an empire deep within the earth, and he sat upon his lava-red throne of rock and lava, his skin so thick with calluses and black enchantments that no mortal weapon could pierce or cut it. Ehld traveled many leagues beneath the surface of Faerun and demanded an audience with the black rock king. Kaervas, amused by the old human's challenge, agreed to fight him, but found Ehld's strength and holy avenger an equal match for his strength and skill. Finding it almost impossible to strike a mortal blow against Kaervas with even his holy avenger, Ehld parried one of Kaervas' strikes and turned the momentum of Kaervas' own axe back on its owner, causing the blunt end of his mighty axe to sink into the dwarf's skull, splintering the bone beneath the skin into fragments. The Duergar allowed the human who had slain their king to leave unmolested, and they sealed Kaervas' body in the throne room where he died.
Atalaclys the Lost traveled upon the great sands of Anarouch, hoping to unearth some of the ancient magics buried within the desert to stave off the rotting disease which had claimed him. Ehld tracked him down through the shifting desert, meeting him in the sandy square of a dead town. With no living creature as their witness, the two of them fought for days, spell against blade for days, until at the height of the fourth day, Atalaclys's rotting throat cracked in the desert heat. Unable to utter a spell to carry him away, Ehld left him in the desert, where his corpse lay, fed upon the flies and beetles of Anarouch.
Jaiger of the Fanged Season had once been one of four Uthgart brothers whose father had blessed each of them with a binding of the elements. Jaiger had been bound to the Elemental Plane of Air, and such was his power that he could harness the wind to pull his bowstring - and cause the missiles and spells of his enemies to go astray. Jaiger was serving as a mercenary in one of the many southern kingdoms, his bow firing out a stream of arrows so fast and sure that he was said to bring a Rain of Death wherever he traveled. Ehld found the toothless barbarian within the brothels of a southern port, half-drunk and belligerent. When confronted, Jaiger was too deep in his cups to realize who Ehld was, and once it suddenly sunk in the old man had come to capture him, Jaiger tried to fight back with his bow - only to find it much more difficult to fire with his opponent standing almost on top of him than it was when the opponent was a horizon's distance away. Although Jaiger sunk many arrows into his opponent, Ehld was able to best him with a whirling strike that severed Jaiger's bow... and the barbarian's throat.
Veddion Kairne, the Hunched Lord, was the last and most difficult of Ehld's challenges. Kairne was said to be the spawn of a storm giant and a demon, combining the great strength of his father with the cunning and bloodthirstiness of his mother. No fork of lightning could touch him, no fire could burn him, and it was said that he bathed in acid and frost as if it were water. The two bloods coursing through him had given him a tremendous resistance to magic, but it prevented him from using magic himself, forcing him to walk the face of Faerun whenever he wished to travel the land. Instead of awaiting his death, however, he sought out Ehld as he was traveling upon the Spine of the World Mountains and tasked the old paladin with proving him guilty of the slaughter in the Barbed Kingdom. The two of them dueled with words for many hours atop the Spine of the World Mountains until Ehld finally tricked Kairne into admitting his guilt... and the Hunched Lord laughed and their battle begin. Hurling jagged boulders at the elderly warrior, Kairne buried Ehld under an ever-growing mountain of rubble, then lifted up his hammer to drive the tombstone into the makeshift cairn around the old warrior... only to have the cairn collapse beneath him, causing an avalanche and crushing him beneath its great weight. Ehld, who had been crouching within the cairn and using his sword as a brace against the precarious balance of rocks, had slipped free and let weight and gravity take their course. With Kairne, the last of the six had been silenced, and Ehld returned home to his Queen.
When he arrived in the court of the Barbed Kingdom, Ehld detached the medallion from the pommel of his Holy Avenger and gave it to his Queen to wear as a reminder of the many evils of the world... but if one's heart is true and one's path is righteous, one may triumph against any number of evils.
If this medallion could somehow be brought to the resting place of Ehld's Holy Avenger, the blade will rise from the ground, ready to be taken up against the forces of evil once again.
1. Inhein-Who-Was-Taken is one of the coolest names I've ever seen. It's so unique.
2. Broken Khree has an awesome introduction...
"one of the only monks to fight the Black Raven in combat and survive with only his legs shattered and his jaw splintered"
...that solidifies just how badass he is, and how badass the Black Raven is, in a single clause.
3. Kaervas Death's Head--"his skin so thick with calluses and black enchantments that no mortal weapon could pierce or cut it."
You can really see him in your mind's eye, this ancient dwarf with skin like rough black rock.
4. Atalaclys the Lost easily has the most epic death:
"With no living creature as their witness, the two of them fought for days, spell against blade for days, until at the height of the fourth day, Atalaclys's rotting throat cracked in the desert heat. Unable to utter a spell to carry him away, Ehld left him in the desert, where his corpse lay, fed upon the flies and beetles of Anarouch."
You can practically feel Atalaclys's pain in that line.
5. Jaiger of the Fanged Season
"Ehld found the toothless barbarian within the brothels of a southern port, half-drunk and belligerent."
Jaiger's appearance and personality laid bare in a single sentence.
"Jaiger had been bound to the Elemental Plane of Air, and such was his power that he could harness the wind to pull his bowstring... Jaiger tried to fight back with his bow - only to find it much more difficult to fire with his opponent standing almost on top of him than it was when the opponent was a horizon's distance away. Although Jaiger sunk many arrows into his opponent, Ehld was able to best him with a whirling strike that severed Jaiger's bow... and the barbarian's throat."
You can imagine it all happening in seconds. Ehld pounces, but Jaiger is so incredibly fast that he can fire dozens of arrows at Ehld in this crowded brothel while still half-drunk, before Ehld slays him with his first and only strike.
6. Veddion Kairne, the Hunched Lord
"Instead of awaiting his death, however, he sought out Ehld as he was traveling upon the Spine of the World Mountains and tasked the old paladin with proving him guilty of the slaughter in the Barbed Kingdom. The two of them dueled with words for many hours atop the Spine of the World Mountains until Ehld finally tricked Kairne into admitting his guilt... and the Hunched Lord laughed and their battle begin."
There's something really special about an old paladin who trudges around slaying the deadliest villains in the world, and then sits down to have a debate with the last of them. A scholar and a hero.
And this is just one example. IWD2 is filled with stuff like this.
You help me remember the real reason I love these games.
Thank you for being here, @Grum. You make this forum a better place. Please, never leave.
*trollface*
*runs away*
History of the Sisters of Light and Darkness:
This was the birth of the world and the heavens. After Lord Ao created Realmspace, there was a period of timeless nothingness, a misty realm of shadows before light and dark were separate entities. Within this dim chaos stalked 13 lords of shadow, the Shadevari—whether they came from elsewhere or are children of the shadow itself, none can say.
Eventually this primordial essence coalesced into twin beautiful goddesses who were yin and yang to each other; they were so close they thought of themselves as one being. The Two-Faced Goddess created the heavenly bodies of the crystal sphere and together infused them with life to form the Earthmother, Chauntea. (Although Chauntea has since contracted her essence to encompass only Abeir-Toril, in the beginning she embodied all matter in Realmspace.) This new universe was lit by the face of the silver-haired goddess, who called herself Selûne, and darkened by the welcoming tresses of the raven-haired goddess, Shar, but no heat or fire existed within it.
Chauntea begged for warmth so that she could nurture life and living creatures upon the planets that were her body and limbs, and the two sisters-Who-Were-One become divided, as for the first time they were of two minds. Silvery Selûne contested with her dark sister over whether or not to bring further life to the worlds. During this great conflagration, the gods of war, disease, murder, and death, among others, were created from residues of the deific battle. At one point during the battle, Selûne seized the advantage and reached across time and space to a land of eternal fire. Fighting the pain of the blaze, which burned her sorely, she broke off a fragment of that ever-living flame and ignited one of the heavenly bodies so that it burned in the sky and warmed Chauntea.
Incensed, Shar redoubled her attack on her injured twin and began to snuff out all light and heat throughout the crystal sphere. Again Selûne gave of herself and tore the divine essence of magic from her body, flinging it desperately at her sister in defense of life in the sphere. This essence entered Shar, ripped an equal portion of energy from her, and reformed behind her as the goddess of magic, known now as Mystra, but then as Mystryl. Though Mystryl was composed of both light and dark magic, she favored her first mother Selûne initially, allowing the silver goddess to win an uneasy truce with her more powerful, dark twin. Consumed by bitterness at her defeat, Shar vowed eternal revenge.
The twin goddesses contested for eons as life struggled into existence on Toril and the other planets under Chauntea's watchful gaze. Shar remained powerful, but bitterly alone, while Selûne waxed and waned in power, often drawing strength from her allied Daughters and sons and like-minded immigrant deities. Over time, Shar grew strong again, aided by the shadevari who preferred night to blinding light and who stalked the realms seeking to meld light and dark into shadowy chaos once again. Shar's plot to reform the world after her own desires was undone when Azuth, the High One, formerly the greatest of all mortal spellcasters and now consort to Mystra (incarnate successor to Mystryl), found a way to imprison the shadevari in a pocket-sized crystal sphere located beyond the edges of the world by creating the illusion of a realm of shadows. The Lords of Shadow were drawn to investigate, and before they discovered the trick, Azuth imprisoned the shadevari with the Shadowstar, a key of shadows forged by Gond. The High Lord then hurled the key into the endless reaches of the cosmos allowing life to flourish on in Chauntea's loving hands.