Your Favorite Charname
ZaramMaldovar
Member Posts: 2,309
Post your Favorite Charnames here
Edit: Specifically charnames that YOU will play
My Favorite Charname:
Zaram Maldovar
CN Human Dragon Disciple
Str: 10
Dex: 15
Con: 16
Int: 17
Wis: 7
Char: 15
While his heart is (usually) in the right place, Zaram is a pyromaniac sorcerer of questionable sanity and typically chooses his traveling companions for personal reasons instead of being based on any logic. This results in Zaram traveling with normally incompatible alignments and enjoying every minute of it. Zaram is brash and arrogant and often gets into trouble due to his lack of common sense or planning skills and normally using his sharp tongue or overwhelming power to get himself out of situations likely caused by the same factors.
Zaram develops an attachment to any traveling companions he may have and will bring down all of his wrath on anyone who may seek to harm them, having a particular bond with Imoen, Neera, Minsc and (although likely not reciprocated) Dorn. Due to his relationship with Neera he grows to hate the Red Wizards of Thay, ultimately leading to several fateful confrontations with them in the years after the Baldur's Gate Saga the last of which resulted in him being trapped in his own staff the whereabouts of which are unknown.
Edit: Specifically charnames that YOU will play
My Favorite Charname:
Zaram Maldovar
CN Human Dragon Disciple
Str: 10
Dex: 15
Con: 16
Int: 17
Wis: 7
Char: 15
While his heart is (usually) in the right place, Zaram is a pyromaniac sorcerer of questionable sanity and typically chooses his traveling companions for personal reasons instead of being based on any logic. This results in Zaram traveling with normally incompatible alignments and enjoying every minute of it. Zaram is brash and arrogant and often gets into trouble due to his lack of common sense or planning skills and normally using his sharp tongue or overwhelming power to get himself out of situations likely caused by the same factors.
Zaram develops an attachment to any traveling companions he may have and will bring down all of his wrath on anyone who may seek to harm them, having a particular bond with Imoen, Neera, Minsc and (although likely not reciprocated) Dorn. Due to his relationship with Neera he grows to hate the Red Wizards of Thay, ultimately leading to several fateful confrontations with them in the years after the Baldur's Gate Saga the last of which resulted in him being trapped in his own staff the whereabouts of which are unknown.
Post edited by ZaramMaldovar on
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Comments
There is a charname appreciation thread in the Fan Creations section for people to share their favorite/sigature charname. You may want to post in there, you may get some fanart.
I appreciate it, though I already have @DJKajuru for that.
And do I really pop up everywhere? I mean I do post a lot, but I wasn't aware that other people took interest in posting about me?
Can you give me an example, I'm curious.
I know more about your CHARNAME that I know about my owns.
Edit: Just to clarify: You have the right to talk about your character as much as you want, I was just answering your questions.
Aw thanks, it's an honor.
Edit: I had no idea that I was famous simply from posting a lot myself. This is an interesting but not unwelcome development, I am simply a man who likes Baldur's Gate.
Now how about some stories from the rest of you on your characters? I would love to hear them.
I guess Beamdog got it right, too, with Neera's personality.
Or a cleric who revels into chaos. The chaotic aspect would be a religious and philosophical choice about their lifestyle, a way of living. A cleric who embraces the impermanence of everything. High wisdom and chaotic neutral behavior.
I, and do correct me if I am wrong, guesstimate that your assumption of CN behaviour stems from a belief that a from the purpose of accruing X, where X is your hearts desire (be it money, women or happyness) a rational approach is optimal.
However, a high wisdom allows you to analyze not just the optimal path to accruing X, but it allows you to analyze EVERYTHING! And one of these things is the folly of, well, "life, universe and all things". To put this realization into more layman terms; "the richest man in the graveyard is equally dead to the poorest, and to everyone else in between".
And that is the bitter truth about life; we have - if we are lucky - 80 years on this mudball, and in the end, nothing really matters anyway. Life is a series of moments, and every moment should be savored as well as can be. Now note that what sets high wisdom CN characters apart from sociopaths is that A) we do not necissarily have a desiree to cause harm for shits and jiggles, B ) we do have a conscience and will avoid the lashbacks of negative emotions that people with conscience gets from cruel acts, if possible (although, do note that since we do not take, well, anything, quite as seriously as do others - indeed, we make a point of trying to dispell others stern outlook on life - we may yet appear cruel or insensitive, as our consciousnesses are perhaps more flexible than is the norm) and C) we are often extrovert because we want shallow attention from the masses and love and admiration from the inner circles - but this attention, love and admiration is the end goal, as opposed to sociopaths who also seeks to use such soft power for sinister ulterior motives (though, a CN individual could certainly use soft power on a whim to aquire a desire that arose on a whim - but this desire was likely never an ulterior motive, and only rarely would we risk losing the soft power for the desire - again, as opposed to a sociopath, for which the soft power is useless if it cannot help with the desire and therefore thinks nothing of risking the soft power.)
Thus, our chaotic nature stems from a series of contradictions; we are ambitious, but lazy, we are friendly, but ultimately bored by the petty concerns that non CN individuals believe are oh-so-important, we are curious, imaginative and inventive, but quickly lose interest, we can emerge ourselves deep into projects and work insane hours to realize it, only to later shelf the project on a whim, we want to be popular and wanted at the same time we want our privacy and solitude. In short, the most core belief of a high wisdom CN individual is that nothing is as important as others would believe, and nothing is as unimportant as others would believe. Our strength is flexibility, stoicism, passion and resilience to negative emotions. Our weaknesses are lack of commitment, addiction to pleasure or pleasant things, insensitivity to others emotions and failure to respond to obligations in a timely and appropriate manner.
Finally, do note that since we are ruled more by whim than we are doctrine, we are neutral in the sense that we would not go out of our way to do good (or evil), but as creatures receptive to (and having a) conscience, we will often be more receptive to do good than to do evil - especially since we are more receptive to spiritual bounties than earthly bounties. However, our understanding of morality is likely not aligned with the general consensus, and we are inclined to perform - at times shocking - shenanigans, however evil they might be, if it amuse us. We also respond poorly to intimidation, annoyances, rivalry, injustices (even if not targeting us) and cruel deeds (even if not targeting us) and our retaliation might be unbalanced. We also love a good challenge, and can and will stick our nose where it is unwelcome, without any concerns of whoms toes we might be stepping on - this is not to say we are irrational however, and would not on purpose initiate a struggle where we are clearly out of our league.
This is opposed to true neutral characters, who would do evil for (ironically) the greater good and lawful neutral characters, for whom an evil deed which is necessary by doctrine is indifferent from a good deed necessary by doctrine.
Hope that helps!
Neat.
However I must point out that this thread has now gotten absurdly off topic.
Can we please start talking about our actual characters again? I know I'm not the only one who built a well thought-out charname.
Ryan Oates loved horses and worked in the stables as part of his chores. (And yes, the name is one of my usual bad puns.) He earned quite a reputation for being able to calm the most agitated of horses. Tall and big, even when young, he worked hard, long hours, enjoying the physical nature of whatever work he had. Though a diligent, keen student, Ryan showed neither the talent nor the inclination to be a mage like his foster father. A touch on the clumsy side — for some reason not able to hit the broad side of the library from ten feet — he nevertheless showed great aptitide for hand to hand combat in spite of his poor footwork. In particular he liked the lessons in battle axe that Reevor gave him, often accompanied by tales of a lone dwarf hero facing a band of goblins or orcs with bravery and grim humor.
The tales and histories of orders of knights also appealed to him and he enjoyed reading them after he finished lessons. And tutoring Imoen, whose only interest in mathematics seemed to involve taking away. His only friend was Imoen — no other children were in Candlekeep — and Ryanalways looked on her as the sister or cousin who could make him laugh and not take himself so seriously. It made puberty even more uncomfortable, but discipline and extra manual labor to work off energy helped. Or so he told himself.
With his hurried flight from Candlekeep, he has fallen in with a group of likeable oddballs. His bad puns and warped sense of humor don’t always help, but even Dynaheir and Kivan have smiled, once or twice. Hopefully not out of politeness.
@tbone1
I named my first pony "Titus Oates", we are all guilty of bad puns at some point, don't feel bad.
(Titus Oates (15 September 1649 – 12/13 July 1705), also called Titus the Liar, was an English perjurer who fabricated the "Popish Plot", a supposed Catholic conspiracy to kill King Charles II.)
It suited him down to the ground as it turned out, absolute b'stard of an animal.
https://www.fanfiction.net/u/4735868/
I actually have his passage through SoA somewhere on one of my computers, his greatest accomplishment was probably sneaking into the plane of Celestia, rewriting the book of judgement, and leaving, all without a single person seeing him.
They are still short tempered amoral jackasses who go along with whatever they want to do for fun, profit, or because that uppity paladin was rude to them.
He is "achillean" type of character - he has enormous ego and arrogance, often bragging how he is the best warrior in the Realms, and the most skilled fighter since Fflar ("but I think I could take him"). Prone both to anger and laughter, can provoke a brawl on a whim just to shower a beggar with gold moments later. He considers himself to be above any agreement or deal and will break them if he feels like it, but doesn't wish to inflict harm to others and has strict policy of not getting involve in any group with "grand cause" and long-term plans, caring and being loyal only to his close comrades. At the same time, he can and will meddle in any matter that stirs his interest, but will leave it as soon as something more interesting comes up.
He has conflitcing needs: deep wish for solitude (he often complains how he wish he could just buy some mansion and spend rest of his live spending fortune he amassed) and egotic urge to be in spotlight.
Slaine can be charming, if he wants to - and usually he does, because he is hopelessy amorous and casually hits on every woman he considers pretty, regardless if they are single or not. As you can imagine, non of those romances really work, because his only true love is himself.
I've got one guy like him, too. CN Barbarian. Overbearing, brutish, in love with himself, demands respect, very thin-skinned, possesses conflicting Olympic God and saviour complexes. Surrounds himself with cronies who'll ultimately cave to his demands. I named him Dronald Drumpf.
(Algorithm - bad drumming by a former vice president)
Ok, back on topic then:
My shadowmaster Fling!
Chaotic neutral female halfelf halforc
Str 14
Dex 15
Con 17
Int 16
Wis 19
Cha 18
(What!!? I have rolled 98 on more than one occasion (takes around twenty to forty minutes of rolling to get a roll of 94 or higher, so it can be done rather easily) which means I am forever more allowed to EEkeeper all my chars so that they have 98 in total roll!)
As a child, Fling discovered she had a natural talent for sneaking, and relished in listening in on strangers private conversations, or pretend-fire her pretend-crossbow in the back of unsuspecting guards - then she closes her eyes, and watch the guardsman fall dead to the ground in her imagination. Fling has a flexible view on ownership and is of curious nature, helping herself to secrets and things others intend on hiding from the publics eye. With her halfelven halforcish ability to see in the dark, and a dislike of the warmth and strong light of the sun, she came to sleep during the day and nosey about during the nights. With time, it appeared the shadows started to love her back as she loved them, misty formless creatures that would follow her, and help obscur her from view. Eventually, at was as if the shadows spoke to her, in a whispering voice that sounded like the whistling of the winds, but using familiar words. How and when, she cannot remember, but she entered a pact with the shadows, who promised her power beyond mortal means, eventually augmenting her already formidable magical training, recieved from her foster father Gorion. Gorion is proud of her immense academic provess, reading books and mastering spells well beyound her young years. Of her preference of the night, he is well aware and somewhat concerned, but on the subject that the shadows speak back to her, he knows nothing, because as much as Fling enjoys discovering secrets, she is reluctant to share any of her own. Somehow, she knows she is special, chosen perhaps, and a step above the masses.
Her other interest is swordplay, preferring a scimitar for its convienent length - not to short, not to long - perfect for her daring and opportunistic wild swings allowed by her reflexes and perfect for not getting stuck in a crevice while climbing or crawling to hard to reach places. Strapped to her back, she carries a round shield, to avoid scraping her back when she force herself through narrow passages. The shield, which is easily unsheathed, also compensates for the longer swords used by her more acomplished sparring partners. Fling hits hard while at the same time she can take a beating - the occasional sparring match she has won has been through endurance rather than skill. It also helps, of course, that pain sends her to a violent rage, further increasing the speed and force of her attacks, and she is not afraid to utilize her shield as a blunt weapon, if an opportunity arises. Sometimes, she scares herself, as she is occasionally overcome with violent urges - especially during her rages - telling her to maul, even kill, her sparring partners, but so far she has always resisted these uncomfortable impulses. These urges feel familiar yet foreign at the same time, and she wonders if they are a side effect of her pact, although the shadows denies it.
Despite being self-confident and ambitious, eager to set out in the world, Fling lacks any long term goals, any motivation to do anything with her life, but continue to live out her days, under the care of her foster father. A rebel without a cause, or a priveleged child of sorts, unaware and unexposed to the harshness of the reality outside of the safe haven that is Candlekeep. Of the fact that all that is about to forever change, that her world will shatter, she has no idea, as she recieves word that Gorion wishes to speak with her on an urgent matter...
Corny backstory:
Other than my two first characters that I love for nostalgic reasons because the game was still new to me (a F/M/T and a sorcerer), my current char... which is - I think - the final form of many iterations of keepering about and testing out stuff. I have beaten the game with legal chars so many times, I have stopped caring, which is why this char is supercheated - without going overboard so that there is no challenge. With this build, I tried to implement as many aspects of myself that I could - of course, portraying myself in the most flattering way possible and also I cant really cast magic IRL - while at the same time trying to keep in with the backstory of the game. For instance, I have IRL never murdered someone for dissing me, but my in game avatar is does, because, you know, I am a Bhaalspawn. Of course, this char is a female, and I am not, because a majority... if not all... of my previous chars have been male. But ironically, I regret that choice now because I learned to like Neera and want to try her romance, so for BGII I will turn the char into a male, RP in a wild magic effect gone REALLY wrong. Mb I will genderbend her back in ToB.
Anyway, she is a halfelf (I consider myself elvenish, I am a refined gentleman) halforc (I really enjoy using the halforc mage model - it is in there, but I cant seem to recall any halforc mage in the game, so this model must have some interesting backstory), with my RL stats (other than charisma, which I put to 18 just because, and str and dex which I increased +1, because she is elven and orcish, after all);
So, my supercheated class is some kind of Shadowmaster, a mullticlass shadowdancer and warlock, making a pact with some shadowdemon or whatever, I am sure such a creature exists somewhere in the realmz. This is because I am really good at sneaking IRL and also I am a biochemist but if magic was real, I would have studied that instead, especially if my foster father was a mage intent on teaching me magic. Now, if some demon had offered me magical powers to help advance my studies, well I would of had taken that offer.
Now, I made a cleric / thief (kitted to shadowdancer) instead of a mage/thief, because I used to do kung fu, and now I do longswords, so I made myself a cleric for the higher THACO and HP. Could I not have made a F/M/T instead? No... because while I studied kung fu and study longswords, I was / am never / not very good at it. I am above average in martial arts, and that's it. The extra THACO and APR:s would not feel right.
On top of that, I added some berserker abilities, because I get hulk mad when I get mad (which is how I occasionally win at sparring, despite in general not being very good at it - changing from technical to berserker mode midfight often confuse and therefore stress your opponent so that he / she makes mistakes. Well that, and my ninja reflexes, of course
And finally, I added wild magic effect to my spells, because, well,.. uh... it's a shadow weave thing, ok?
How to EEkeeper this build:
Make a cleric / thief. Change kit to shadowdancer. Also, remember, in BG2, halforcs get almost no romance options, so you may want to change your race to human, elf or halfelf.
Innate abilities (remember to increase max spells per level in EEkeeper settingsand add non-kit abilities first (when you add via kit, max spells per level is ignored) and to remove all kit abilities you do not use as there is a 12 abilities limit on innate abilities (innate abilities that are accessed through the spell button do not count toward this limit... at least I think so...)
7x absorb health (blackguard lvl1)
This is fairly shadowy warlocky, no?
5x boiling rain storm (monster ability, prob some jelly)
Crowd control spell, deals 2D6 poison damage and stuns for one round. Also shadowy warlocky, methinks.
3x dispel magic (Inquisitor)
Superstrong dispel instacasted. I dunno some kind of shadow skill? What, gimme a break.
2x finger of death (beholder ability)
Instacast. Warlocky.
2x improved invis (prob some scripted event stuff)
Shadowy. Never used in combat, other than for escaping. Used to steal stuff and vanish, so the city guards cant catch you. Because you initially need those thief points for finding traps, and a shadowmaster who can't actually hide feels stupid.
12x lay on hands (cavalier lvl 1)
What? Cleric!
3x mirror image (dark moon monk, lvl... 11?)
Gorions influence
4x offensive spin (blade, lvl1 and every 5 lvl)
Ok, ignore the refined deadly dance description, this is actually berserking. The 1 extra APR suits me better that the barbarian rage.
12x salt crystal (imp... I think... ability)
The innate ability that best emulates a shield bash, which I totally would do if I lived in the realms. I have viking ancestry, after all. It is ranged, but I only use it in melee, for immersion reasons.
2x shadow step (shadowdancer, every 5 lvl)
Shadowy. Yes yes, I got the ability 5 levels to early, so what? Shadowstep is just so much fun to use, that I just cannot wait!
1x shapeshift werewolf (shapechanger lvl1 and every other lvl)
Berserking + child of Bhaal effect thingy.
3x wild mage zone (prob some scripted event stuff)
Ok, so this is a really fun ability. You cast it on a mage and (if the ability does not glitch, which does happen) the next spell that mage cast will be wild surged. What? I told you already, it is a shadow weave thingy. Gimme a rest!
Bonus known cleric spells (remember, the shadow master is not really a cleric, but a warlock, so more arcanish than divine. Also, I love the druidic spell list.)
Lvl1: chromatic orb & entangle
Lvl2: charm person or mammal & web
Lvl3: call lightning, haste, minor spell deflection & summon insects
Lvl4: call woodland being & fireshield
Lvl5: insect plaque, iron skins & pixie dust
Lvl6: chain lightning & fireseeds
Lvl7: Nature's beauty
Effects: (Needless to say, all effects need to have duration permanent, or they will not function)
Item: can use any item
Dont wanna be cleric weapon restricted. I never use any armor, other than those allowed by mages (the handful of special bard chains are fine), because I am a warlock, and it feels wrong to use platemail.
Spell effect: wild magic [280] type 2
All spells ever cast by you will become wild surged. A bit annoying, I know, but it was the only way I could use hide in plain sight and wild magic simultanously - which I really really wanted!
Stat: wild magic [281] parameter 42
Adds 42 to your wild surge rolls. Also, many effects lets you cast your spells normally, so only around half of your spells will fizzle. Note that abilities are not spells.
Swashbucker extra to hit & dmg and AC; +2 to everything
Movement modifier: 2
Archer missile to hit and dmg: +2 to everything
Yeah, ok so I made myself a little stronger. So what, my str and dex is low anyways.
Inventory:
With EEkeeper, equips a small shield and heavy crossbow. This can ONLY be done with EEkeeper and the animation when you fire a bolt is kind of funny with a floating shield, and every time I find a better small shield or crossbow, I have to use EEkeeper again to equip it, but this is still so much less annoying than having to manage inventory every time I want to fire a bolt!
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/67329/the-charname-appreciation-thread
I also notice the conspicuous absence of Minsc in that party that includes Dynaheir. Did you use a mod, or is there a story behind that?
@DrakeICN , Yours is interesting, too. You guys are starting to get me in the mood to start another BG run. So many fun games, so little time. I think we're living in another golden age of rpg gaming.