[SPOILERS] A Few Questions About The Story Of Dulag's Tower
Noloir
Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 380
In the 4th Dungeon basement the Doppelganger Statue speaks of "the tentacles" inciting them the raid the tower. Are theses "tentacles" the Illithid? Was this the original story from before the enhanced editions? Was The Demon Knight working with the Illithid (in BG2 Demon Knights are suspiciously introduced after the Illithid portion of the saga.)? Did the Illithid plan to use the tower as a base to attack Baldur's Gate, as we see in the upcoming game?
1
Comments
It's amazing how much attention to detail Wizards of the Coast have to pick up from this concept 2 decades later and apply it to their 3rd entry into the series.
However, Durlag's tower has a problem. How did all those other folks get through the seals if your party had to break them? The seals don't seem to be self-resealing, so... I mean, I get that there needed to be some challenges along the way, but for two specific individuals to be at the lowest level, the door from the first sub-basement should have already been open and the warders defeated. Beyond that, traps are strongly hinted at through littered corpses. Whose corpses are they, and how did they get down there?
That said, Durlag's Tower was probably the single best part of ToSC, and really BG1 in general.
In the end, alone and victorious, he was powerless to stop the fleeing illithids. Fearful they'd return, Durlag hired the finest craftfolk he could find and began to rebuild his tower and the tor beneath as an elaborate succession of traps, magical wards, secret passages, sliding prison chambers, and triggered weapons.
Durlag's Tower
Fenrus Boulon has told us that Durlag's Tower was built by a famous dwarven hero name Durlag Trollkiller. The wealth that he amassed was coveted by a group of mindflayers, who used doppelgangers to kill and replace Durlag's family. The hero killed the beasts but was driven mad in the process. He entrapped the Tower and disappeared within its depths.
Instead, doppelgangers, organized and aided by foul mind flayers, slew and impersonated Durlag's companions. After the shocked dwarf discovered the first impersonation, he was attacked by all the others and spent a terror-filled tenday frantically fighting through his own fortress, chased by monsters who wore familiar forms but sought his death.
Easily my favorite. Completed a no reload soloed with a half-elf F/M/T on insane mode and it was a blast! The amazing aspect about the tower is that it can be used to defeat itself on every level. It's brilliantly designed.
Not that hard to believe. On the 4th floor towards the throne room there's a trap where the walls close unexpectedly and can potentially crush the unsuspecting. Maybe the set off a trap of this nature but instead of re-opening as it does for <charname>, for gameplay reasons, it remained shut.