A nameless evil escapes from Candlekeep - Solo C/T playthrough

Permidion_Stark

I have been trying for some time to complete a solo, no-reloads run but keep dying in the attempt. I am starting a new game with a cleric/thief - a class I have never tried before - so I thought I would keep a journal of her story.

How Nameless got her name
Reevor, Fuller and Hull were gathered at the bar of the Candlekeep Inn, drinking deep and making lewd suggestions about the parentage of the child that Gorion had brought home that day.

"So what's the name of the little bastard anyway?" asked Reevor.

Phlydia, seated by the fire, looked up from her book: "As far as I am aware the child is nameless."

"Nameless?" said Winthrop, winking at the others. "Who saddled the poor little bugger getting with a name like that?"

Phlydia attempted to correct them but the drinkers were having none of it. The child was Nameless so that's what she would be called.

In truth, Gorion had named the girl after her mother but he had reasons for wanting to keep her lineage secret and so he allowed the name to stand.

Her name, or lack of it, remained a constant reminder to the child that she was an outsider in Candlekeep and she felt like an interloper in her own home. She grew up resentful of those around her and dreamed of the day she could escape. She found the sermonising of the monks and the priests tiresome. Their constant preaching against evil made evil itself seem attractive. And in the library, she discovered on the dusty shelves, forbidden texts that enabled her to teach herself clerical spells and tap into a power that she felt writhing inside her.

The Rules of the Run
This is a solo run on core difficulty setting. I won't be using any potions except antidotes and Mirrored Eyes and no scrolls except Protection from Petrification. I'm also planning to avoid using any items with charges (such as the Greenstone Amulet or the Sandthief's Ring). It is a no reloads run with the exception that I will keep reloading until Thalantyr successfully restores Melicamp because I find it too frustrating getting no XP for the quest if it fails.

Nameless's Stats
I wanted Nameless to be an intelligent, powerful character with low charisma so I used the minimum stats cheat from the Tweaks Anthology from the Gibberlings3 site to roll a 97 point character: https://www.gibberlings3.net/mods/tweaks/tweaks/

She has put 57 points in opening locks - which coincidentally is the exact number she needs to get hold of the Star Sapphire from Thurston and Lovey's room - and has put the rest in picking pockets in the hope that she can get a hold of Fuller's +1 dagger. (In RP terms I figure that she has spent her childhood teaching herself to pick locks and so has got just good enough to open any lock within the walls of Candlekeep. She knows about Fuller's dagger and has been planning to steal it for some time)

She has got proficiency in quarterstaves and daggers (so she can use throwing daggers). Initially, I was planning for her to use a katana, just because I liked the idea of her stealing the most expensive item that Winthrop stocked, but there are much better magical quarterstaves than katanas in BG1 so I decided that would be a bit pointless.

A NAMELESS EVIL ESCAPES FROM CANDLEKEEP

Nameless learns that she is to leave Candlekeep

She decides to go on a thieving spree

Christian from Waterdeep sees her stealing from his room and calls the guards. Nameless casts Sanctuary on herself and strolls past.

Nameless has always hated the Watchers so she goes to the barracks to steal from the foot lockers. There's nothing much in them but that's not why she is doing it. She's doing it to show them she can.

She stands there laughing when they all come running and then stand around looking useless.

Everyone in Candlekeep uses Nameless for running their errands and she pretends to do it willingly in order to hide her true nature. Firebead casts Protection From Evil on her . ..

Little realising that the only thing he can be protecting her from is herself.

Nameless returns the favour by casting Protection from Evil on Firebead. It must have come as a shock to the old fool when he realised she could do that.

Nameless attempts to steal Fuller's dagger but is frustrated to find she doesn't have sufficient skill.

Nameless casts Sanctuary on herself so she doesn't have to talk to that annoying little idiot Imoen (I love Imoen but Nameless is much less keen so this was role playing at its finest!)

Nameless sheds not one tear for the death of Gorion. She ignores his advice about going to the Friendly Arm Inn and instead goes south, passing through High Hedge on the way to Beregost. She exalts in her new found freedom:

She starts her new life with exactly 458 XP and 1129 GP

To be continued . . .

jmerry

There's a dedicated subforum for journals like these: Challenges and Playthroughs [Edit note: This thread has been moved to that subforum.]

Note that both being able to use daggers and being able to be a human for this multiclass are Tweaks components. The unmodded cleric/thief can only be a gnome or half-orc, and has only staves and clubs as backstab-capable weapons.

Permidion_Stark

jmerry wrote: »

Note that both being able to use daggers and being able to be a human for this multiclass are Tweaks components. The unmodded cleric/thief can only be a gnome or half-orc, and has only staves and clubs as backstab-capable weapons.

Yes, I figured the proscription on using edged weapons didn't make much sense for a character like Nameless. I'm not sure which deity she worships but I am pretty sure it isn't one who is chary about spilling blood.

ilduderino

What can change the nature of a (wo)man?

Permidion_Stark

Beregost is the last place that Nameless expects to bump into Firebead and she wonders how he got there ahead of her since she left Candlekeep before he did and she came straight here. Who knew old fool could move so fast? She agrees to get a book for him but only so she can rob his house while he is busy reading it.

Nameless then proceeds to break into every house in Beregost and steal everything that she can get her hands on. This, and the experience she has gained from killing hobgoblins and gibberlings on the road, enables her to level up as a thief.

However, she gets careless and allows herself to be seen on a couple of occasions, leading to the Flaming Fist getting called by irate householders. This sends her already lousy reputation plummeting and when she goes to Thunderhammer's Smithy to buy herself a magical quarterstaff she finds that Taerom is asking outrageous prices:

Nameless realises that she is not going to be able to steal enough to buy all the things she wants (she's got her eye on Shadow Armour and a Dagger of Venom) so she is going to have to start pretending to be nice so that Taerom will lower his prices.

lolien

Cleric/Thief is potent class, you should have every chance to go through the saga with it. Also i like the rp elements, keep it up coming!

Permidion_Stark

lolien wrote: »

Cleric/Thief is potent class, you should have every chance to go through the saga with it. Also i like the rp elements, keep it up coming!

Thanks @lolien. I'm really enjoying playing as a cleric/thief. Of all the classes I have tried this one seems to have the greatest potential for creating a character who is self-sufficient (one who relies principally on their own abilities rather than their equipment). However, I have run into a problem with the run: I've discovered I really don't enjoy being evil!

I thought it would be fun being bad but most of the time I feel like I'm acting like a dick. This was particularly true when Nameless ran into Zhurlong and he picked her pocket:

I figured she wouldn't take kindly to that so she returned his boots to him and while he was pulling them on she did this:

I figure it was in character for Nameless to act this way but I still feel bad about it.

And then I got into musing philosophically about the very nature of Nameless. She has got 18 Wisdom but she is evil. Is that even possible? Obviously you can be intelligent and evil but can you really be wise and still be evil?

Permidion_Stark

Nameless has now reached level three as a cleric and level four as a thief:

The last time she leveled up as thief I put 25 points in Detect Illusion because I like the idea of being able to take down Magic Users' mirror images before a fight starts. The plan was for her to cast Sanctuary and then approach the enemy magic user with detect mode activated before commencing battle. It was a skill that would have been handy in the next fight - if I had actually remembered to use it.

NAMELESS DISCOVERS THERE IS A PRICE ON HER HEAD
Nameless continues her journeys but guilt over the murder of Zhurlong is eating away at her. Maybe it is because she is, quite literally, wearing dead man's shoes but she finds her footsteps leading her on a path she had not intended to take. She ends up at the Friendly Arm Inn, the place where Gorion had told her she would find a welcome. She does. But it is not the welcome she was hoping for:

She has lived around mages all her life and knows to fear what they can do. She casts sanctuary on herself and hurries into the inn, hoping that her attacker will think better of trying to kill her in such a public space.

Nameless desperately tries to come up with a plan to defeat Tarnesh, she casts Aid and Remove Fear on herself before going back outside.

At first the battle goes in her favour as Tarnesh falls to her command again and again.

But Nameless has forgotten to use her skill in detecting illusions to take down Tarnesh's mirror images and so most of her daggers are missing the real target. Then she runs out of command spells and her attempt to cast hold person ends in failure.

At this point things could have turned very nasty for Nameless but fortunately a lucky dagger throw found its mark before he could get a spell off. (Nameless had also forgotten that she had gained Larloch's Minor Drain as a Bhaalspawn power and she could have used that to disrupt Tarnesh's casting):

So Nameless survives her first fight with a mage and learns that somebody wants her dead. She has always felt that the world was against her and now she finds out it is true. She feels there is no one she can turn to and no one she can trust so she hurries away from the Friendly Arm Inn without bothering to look for the friends that Gorion said would be waiting there for her.

Permidion_Stark

Nameless finds herself being drawn to the spot where Gorion died trying to protect her. It is two weeks since he was killed and she is surprised to find that his body has not been eaten by the wolves she has seen roaming the area. Why, she wonders, did they leave him alone?

Troubled, afraid and racked with guilt, Nameless heads back to Beregost.