About Edwin Odesseiron

johntyl

What is Edwin Odesseiron's true mission for venturing into the Sword Coast? Has anyone tried charming him to find out his true motive?
(For eg, Dynaheir's specific motivation for coming to the Sword Coast can only be found out by casting a charm spell on her while she is not in the party; she will then reveal that she's looking for the spawn of Bhaal that are foretold in Alaundo's prophecy.)

Is his vendetta against Dynaheir only due to the fact that she is a Witch of Rashemen or is it because of a previous encounter between the 2 of them which left Edwin mortified and hence thirsty for revenge? It must be something really significant for Edwin to go all the way to the Sword Coast just to hunt Dynaheir.

Any thoughts?:)

PaulaMigrate

There is not much revealed about Edwin's true intent and mission (if he has one at all) in the vanilla game. There is Dynaheir for unknown reason, another red wizard he hunts in SoD, and his scroll quest in BG2.

Edwin has logically become the target for a number of mods. The best explanation I found as a result of (several) mods working together on the subject is, that Edwin was sent to the Sword Coast by his family on a fake mission to get him out of Thay for his own safety. The Odesseiron family (led by his uncle Homen, a high ranked warmage, who failed to conquer Rashemen in a large attack) was at odds with Szass Tam. Edwin as a possible heir was sent abroad, just in case...
Several mods add episodes where he is pursued or quarrelling with other red wizards.

The Sandrah RtF sequel in EET gives Edwin a large plot role in the Thayan missions, where Edwin returns home and plays a role in the rebellion against Szass Tam. This includes a shift in his personality as well, while it's ledt open if his previous behaviour was a clever disguise or not. Or maybe his love for his drow companion did the change.

johntyl

@PaulaMigrate hmmm.. very interesting. Does the mod/s explain his obsession to hunt down Dynaheir though?

PaulaMigrate

johntyl said:

@PaulaMigrate hmmm.. very interesting. Does the mod/s explain his obsession to hunt down Dynaheir though?

There is some more story (I can't say which mod adds it) that tells about Dynaheir's involvement to demask a conspiracy that included Thay and Sarevok's mage Winski. As a result, Winski was exiled from Rashemen and became Sarevok's teacher. His (failed) plan was to use the power of the bhaalspawn against his former country and the witches. Just that Sarevok was outgrowing his teacher pretty fast.
I can't remember if it was said that Edwin's task was directly related to it. Maybe he tasked himself to do it, thinking that if he killed that Rashemi witch it would give him some extra points with the guys back in Thay? He was there on the Sword Coast, he heard about Minsc and Dynaheir. It was logical for him to kill that witch. Did he really need a direct order to do it?

ThacoBell

While I don't really know the details for BG1 (pretty sure there are none) BG2 implies that he is hiding from other Red Wizards.

UnderstandMouseMagic

In BG it's explained that he was part of a group of RW that were operating in the area and he was sent on his own to kill Dynaheir.
It's not really a vendetta at all, it's just a job, Rashemen/Thay constantly seem to be at war. It makes sense that Thay wouldn't want an enemy agent dealing with or having influence over a potentionally powerful force. I would assume Thay knew about Dynaheir's mission but that wasn't necessarily passed on to the operatives. But then there's that odd offer of Edwin's services to the Bhaalspawn for a year if you do kill her.

It doesn't really get complicated until BG2 when Edwin is at odds with the RW. BG2 ignores that you might have killed Dynaheir in BG as you sided with Edwin, so then it has to follow that Edwin failed the mission so has gone "rogue". Which is backed up by the derisory way Degarden describes Edwin.

However, he is the best character in game.
So there are plenty of mods/fanfics that develop the story.

Redrake

UnderstandMouseMagic said:

In BG it's explained that he was part of a group of RW that were operating in the area and he was sent on his own to kill Dynaheir.
It's not really a vendetta at all, it's just a job, Rashemen/Thay constantly seem to be at war. It makes sense that Thay wouldn't want an enemy agent dealing with or having influence over a potentionally powerful force. I would assume Thay knew about Dynaheir's mission but that wasn't necessarily passed on to the operatives. But then there's that odd offer of Edwin's services to the Bhaalspawn for a year if you do kill her.

I always thought that the group of Thayians Edwin is with is expecting him to the deed of killing Dynaheir as sort of an initiation quest. He is after all a low level mage, so having him given the task of killing another low level Rashmen witch makes sense.

Although, the encounter is bugged in BG1, as even though you can kill Dyna, when you meet the Thayians they still act like Edwin has yet to do the deed.

As for falling foul with them in BG2, I do believe that this is kind of explained in his Edwina quest and his epilogue. Inner fighting between Thayians is common and he returns to rule Thay for a while having reach the apex of his power while traveling with the Bhaalspawn.

johntyl

UnderstandMouseMagic said:

But then there's that odd offer of Edwin's services to the Bhaalspawn for a year if you do kill her.

I see that as Edwin seeking a group outside of his Thayian company to grow his own powers (he knows he's a low-level mage so he stands a better chance being a group which he can 'manipulate').

And following his epilogue, it seems that his ultimate ambition was to become an epic mage so that he can go back to Thay and rule over the country.

Redrake

johntyl said:

And following his epilogue, it seems that his ultimate ambition was to become an epic mage so that he can go back to Thay and rule over the country.

Also, according to the epilogue he only managed to do that for one day.

Which probably means he became Zulkir of Conjuration while Nevron was away (Nevron is actually mentioned in BG1 by the other Thayians) and attempted to overthrow the other Zulkirs. His rule lasted one day, which might mean he only managed to temporarily replace the other Zulkirs, including Nevron.