The Great FR Headcanon Campaign

Isewein

I was reading an old thread on Gorion's backstory the other day, and thought to myself again what an interesting character he is, and what a shame it is that we get to see so little of him. So I thought of imagining a little more fleshed-out backstory for him before my next BGT playthrough, but couldn't come up with anything inspiring - until it struck me that he would make for the perfect hero of Icewind Dale! So this game officially became a Baldur's Gate prequel to me now, and now that I had an established headcanon for Gorion, I thought that Jaheira and Khalid needed one as well. Following that train of thought I came up with some interesting possible connections linking the various FR games to each other, and to several older fanmade modules for NWN I played years ago as well. Having spent the better part of an afternoon on this, I thought I might as well share it, just in case someone else is crazy enough to map out their character stories meticulously for years in advance...

I - Icewind Dale: Gorion's grand adventure; naturally with this young Gorion portrait by the talented Artastrophe. At his side could be Winthrop the Rogue and Drogan the Dwarven Wizard. Bonus: Gorion meets Xan's cousin - small world! Finally explains how Gorion could ever reach the level of power to survive a confrontation with Firkraag.

Makes things more personal for Charname with a certain villain in SoD, too.

II - Icewind Dale II: a seasoned adventuress from Luskan called Esmerelle, who has taken a ship to Icewind Dale after her old group of travelling companions fell apart; if played with the IWD2 NPC Project there are ample opportunities for her to

end up pregnant,

and good reasons for her to bring that child to her old friend Daeghun Farlong in nearby West Harbour later on - a child who years later is to become the Knight Captain of NWN2.

III - Siege of Shadowdale (NWN Module): Jaheira joins the Harpers; set roughly a decade before BG1, this fun adventure suits the bits and pieces we know of Jaheira's backstory rather well. As a recent Harper recruit, she makes the acquaintance of Elminster and foils Zhentish intrigues in the Dalelands. Could well be rounded off with the intriguing city adventure Cormyrean Nights,

which explicitly assumes a Harper PC,

as long as you are willing to suspend disbelief in terms of level range consistency (to be fair, Jaheira and Khalid being Level 1 in BG1 never made much sense in the first place).

IV - Baldur's Gate, the good old bean itself.

V - Crimson Tides of Tethyr (NWN Module): set in the immediate aftermath of the Bhaalspawn Crisis and deals with the ongoing Sythilisian invasion referenced by town criers and rumours in BG2; works well for any former companion of Charname's who might feel somewhat obliged to remain in Tethyr after having contributed to the Kingdom's fall by obliterating its army during the Oasis battle in ToB... Mazzy, maybe, LG Anomen, or Isra.

VI - Island Adventures (NWN Module): placeholder; I haven't played this one yet, but it is set during the Bhaalspawn Crisis as well and refers to the events in Tethyr.

VII - NWN SoU/HotU: Drogan Droganson is an old Harper companion of Gorion's, Khalid's and Jaheira's; the PC sent to train with him in the Silver Marches could be any number of gifted children encountered by them during their travels on the Sword Coast. How about Coran's child with the sorceress in Baldur's Gate? Or Corwin's daughter?

VIII - NWN2 OC/MotB: make race of protagonist dependent on that of their mother Esmerelle, the heroine in IWDII (and possibly on that of her paramour)


Feel free to leave your comments or any other ideas for tie-ins - maybe it will inspire someone's future headcanon.

tokarev748

My post-EE head canon:

The IWD1 team and Black Pits team are same group.
They were ambushed by somebody,imprisoned into a time frozen crystal thing and sold to Baeloth,then laid aside for many decades.
When released for ring battles,they level up very fast as recovery to former powers.
Captured by Baeloth again at the End of BP2,the teleportaion was somewhat disrupted,the team scattered to random locations in Faerun.(NWN modules)