I hope there will be no references at all to Abdel Adrian
_Connacht_
Member Posts: 169
For those who do not know, in 1999 Philip Athans wrote a novel based on the Baldur's Gate story, and CHARNAME is named Abdel Adrian: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Abdel_Adrian
This novelization was poorly received because:
1) rather dull and uninspiring main character;
2) completely ignoring many established facts within the videogames (i.e. Adrian is not a naive young dweller of Candlekeep who flees and discover the rest of the world for the first time, he's an already seasoned warrior who became a mercenary as a teenager) and altering the personality of characters or even their appearance (i.e. Minsc is not our beloved huge crazy bald ranger, he has long red hair, he's no longer a warrior and he's smaller than Adrian);
3) introducing fixed unpopular canonical events, ignoring the free choices from the videogames (i.e. Adrian is a chaotic neutral fighter, what side he tooks in Athkatla, what choice he makes at the end of ToB etc.);
4) many of these choices are really bad and poorly written (i.e. what happens to Imoen and Jaheira and what they do);
5) randomly killing popular characters and throwing them away as they didn't matter.
Unfortunately, since Wizard of the Coast requires standard canons for its settings, these novels are regarded as canon in the Forgotten Realms lore and official campaigns set after 1369DR will necessarily take them into account. Thus Murder in Baldur's Gate is based upon the ultimate fate of Adrian, for example.
However, the videogames of Baldur's Gate tell our personal stories of CHARNAME, not Adrian's tales.
I hope that Baldur's Gate III won't reference at all Abdel Adrian, but rather mantain obscure and unknown the fate of Charname.
What kind of Bhaalspawn was he? Some say he or she was a powerhungry brawler, other a wise diviner, other a force of balance in nature, or rather an opportunist rogue. Some say he or she was a human, an half-elf or an half-orc. Some bards sing that he or she rescued a keep in Amn and protected its mage princess from a douchebag pretender, but some bartenders say that he or she instead usurped that keep and ruled with cruelty.
Nobody knows. All we know he's called the Stig.
What did he ultimately do? Some people say he rejected his divine power and spent the rest of his years alone in Candlekeep, other people say that instead she went abroad travelling to the most distant corners of Faerun, some bards sing that he took a fake identity and became one of the dukes of Baldur's Gate before being murdered, other ones tell that she ascended to divinity as a mysterious goddess and then vanished, and so on... nobody really knows.
Only players might know.
I would be rather disappointed to know that everything I did in Baldur's Gate is erased because of a quite bad novel written after the original game was created.
This novelization was poorly received because:
1) rather dull and uninspiring main character;
2) completely ignoring many established facts within the videogames (i.e. Adrian is not a naive young dweller of Candlekeep who flees and discover the rest of the world for the first time, he's an already seasoned warrior who became a mercenary as a teenager) and altering the personality of characters or even their appearance (i.e. Minsc is not our beloved huge crazy bald ranger, he has long red hair, he's no longer a warrior and he's smaller than Adrian);
3) introducing fixed unpopular canonical events, ignoring the free choices from the videogames (i.e. Adrian is a chaotic neutral fighter, what side he tooks in Athkatla, what choice he makes at the end of ToB etc.);
4) many of these choices are really bad and poorly written (i.e. what happens to Imoen and Jaheira and what they do);
5) randomly killing popular characters and throwing them away as they didn't matter.
Unfortunately, since Wizard of the Coast requires standard canons for its settings, these novels are regarded as canon in the Forgotten Realms lore and official campaigns set after 1369DR will necessarily take them into account. Thus Murder in Baldur's Gate is based upon the ultimate fate of Adrian, for example.
However, the videogames of Baldur's Gate tell our personal stories of CHARNAME, not Adrian's tales.
I hope that Baldur's Gate III won't reference at all Abdel Adrian, but rather mantain obscure and unknown the fate of Charname.
What kind of Bhaalspawn was he? Some say he or she was a powerhungry brawler, other a wise diviner, other a force of balance in nature, or rather an opportunist rogue. Some say he or she was a human, an half-elf or an half-orc. Some bards sing that he or she rescued a keep in Amn and protected its mage princess from a douchebag pretender, but some bartenders say that he or she instead usurped that keep and ruled with cruelty.
Nobody knows. All we know he's called the Stig.
What did he ultimately do? Some people say he rejected his divine power and spent the rest of his years alone in Candlekeep, other people say that instead she went abroad travelling to the most distant corners of Faerun, some bards sing that he took a fake identity and became one of the dukes of Baldur's Gate before being murdered, other ones tell that she ascended to divinity as a mysterious goddess and then vanished, and so on... nobody really knows.
Only players might know.
I would be rather disappointed to know that everything I did in Baldur's Gate is erased because of a quite bad novel written after the original game was created.
Post edited by _Connacht_ on
10
Comments
To me, the game should have recognition value for veterans of the old game but work perfectly fine on its own.
Read that novels too, hate`em. When Imoen and Melissan started a romance my eyes rolled so much to the back of my head that I have to stop reading...
WUT o.O
Even more glad I never touched the books, my desire for more BG back in the day could have easily made me get hardcovers or something.
I do not hate you enough for that...
I had them on paper. I doubt a 1999 book is still on retail but I suppose you can find them in amazon, or you can try draw a pentagram, sacrifice a virgin and say Abdel Adrian three times in front of a mirror. I am sure will appear a demonic living nightmare of the lower and darkest pits of the abyss, the first of the books or something equally frightening.
I can´t believe that thing became canon.
It's also worth remembering that "canon" is (according to the The Grand History of the Realms) that the entire Baldur's Gate 1-2 saga took place in 1368 DR. So I think its safe to say that there is a lot here that is not set in stone.
Trust me, you don't want to read them.
Do we know that for a fact? I seem to remember him having no hair at all, so who knows what color it would be if he actually grew it out...
and as far as imoen "romance" goes, i believe she was "having one" with phaere not melissan, but its been almost 20 years since i read the ToB novel, and in fact speaking about ToB, out of the 3, i think the ToB novel was the best one
first one way okay, has some moments, it was kind of neat how korax joined the team for a while
second one just had ass written all over it, although yoshimo lasted longer in that novel than the game, so that was kind of nice
and the third one, i will give it some cred, it was alright, how sarevok finally peaced out i thought was kind of cool, the battle with balthazar was very interesting, so not complete vomit inducing
but even with that said, the novels over all were meh
but especially the 2nd one, man did that one piss me off ( i read these books in a goofy order where i read ToB first, bg1 second, bg2 last ) so i was so excited to hear how bg2 went and it was just not stop raining diarrhea nose deep, and here i was outside with no umbrella, quite disappointed
Considering he had flowing red hair in the novels. I'm going to go with yea we know it for a fact.
Also while its possible to have eyebrows that are a different colour than your hair, odds are based on his eyebrows that his hair (were it to exist) would be brown.
While I would enjoy seeing "Abdel" go through that, established canon would have him 1) at least 7ft, 2) grey-haired and 3) dead.
Maybe he was resurrected, used a wish spell to get younger and then was infected by an accelerated mind flyer? There is always hope...
Lol. That would be in line with the books, as in, laughable bad writing.
WOTC doesn't deserve the DnD license. I can't recall a good thing they've done with it in the last decade, besides arguably NWN2.
before you say " what about gold box.?" before my time and has not aged welll imo.
I kinda liked "Temple of Elemental Evil" too, but it was very short.
In a tabletop PnP game it's up to the DM who this character will be, if that information matters to the game or to a character, etc. Ed Greenwood has said it's up to each individual to customize the Realms in their own unique way, and to be creative with it. The setting is the gamer's (via CRPG)/gamers' (with a tabletop game) sandbox.
But anyway, I agree with OP and hope Larian/WotC leave any reference to the the hero of the Bhaalspawn saga vague.
Actually, one really cool feature of BG III would... if there is any reference to Gorion's Ward... be to allow the player to customize it! I.e., if the player wishes to create the build and name the character. Not that this character would necessarily appear as a NPC... although, actually, come to think of it, it might be cool if the that player designed character does make a minor cameo as a NPC...
Just running with this idea, if there was a mechanism to import a PC from BG, SoA, or ToB and translate him or her into the BG III engine's version, with some customization options for appearance, I know I would dig that.
I think we were talking about the same elsewhere, and like I said there are games that did it, not only importing games (which would be awesome). In the DaO and PoE franchise they gave you tools to create your own backstory that you can import when you start the game; in KOTOR2 you set the sex and decisions of Revan in KOTOR via dialog in the prologue.
In DAI you can even modify the hair and head of Hawke, the MC of the previous game, to suit your own.
Sooo, It can be done.
Yeah, just plug in variables such as name, alignment, gender, race, class, etc., to the story of BG III. That's certainly easy enough.
I think there should be some customization options for what choices the character makes after defeating Mellisan, like the epilogue to ToB. Like at the end you have the option to choose for CHARNAME to become a demigod or remain mortal, etc. Provided that that doesn't affect the main BG III storyline.