Imoen, Sarevok and CHARNAME (SPOILER WARNING)
SionIV
Member Posts: 2,689
We know that Sarevok and CHARNAME were from the same temple of Bhaal, but do we know where Imoen came from? Or even what part of Faerun she is from?
3
Comments
Luke Kristjanson, a writer for Bioware, in the interview here: http://www.ign.com/articles/2008/12/23/baldurs-gate-memories?page=2 says:
"Imoen's popularity was a surprise, mostly because she didn't exist. What's that mean? Her character was a late addition to fill a non-psychotic-thief gap in the early levels. We had no recording budget left, so I assembled her lines by editing voice-over left from a scrapped demo. The original character was a guard named Pique. That's why she has no standalone confrontations / interactions with other party members, which makes her relationship to the player seem closer, and led to making her a half-sister in BG II."
So, unfortunately, we will never know where Imoen, from the in-game perspective, came from.
Anyway, I think my conclusion was that the children weren't just sacrificed one after the other as they came, but rather herded together in preparation for one big event. Not surprising, considering that many of Bhaal's children were apparently born while he was still alive - hence the age differences between them (Sarevok a long-trained Deathbringer, Sendai a grown drow, Yaga-Shura and Gromnir seem older etc. etc.). I believe that if you follow the chronology and the supposed age of CHARNAME, he/she was also born before Bhaal's Death, which happened 10 years before the beginning of BG1.
My guess is that Bhaal's priesthood simply went around collecting children of their god so they could be sure that if the time came, they would die - but only then. Wouldn't want them to die before Bhaal, right?
That could also explain what happened at the Temple with Gorion and the Harpers - assuming that the events took place in or around the Time of Troubles, there would be a certain urgency to the whole operation. Bhaal was dead, and the children would soon be killed - how soon, Gorion probably did not know (might have taken more time to gather all of the children), but safe > sorry when it comes to crazed Bhaalites and child sacrifice. That one's a bit flexible though; it's possible that all this happened before the ToT and Gorion didn't really know at the time what was going on. Could be he just got a tip about a Temple of Bhaal with lots of children that really shouldn't be there, and acted on that. He may have learned the truth of Alaundo's Prophecies only later, and pieced it all together then; in fact, that may even be why he came to Candlekeep in the first place and ended up staying there, to study the Prophecies in more detail.
So we don't know anything at all about Imoen?
Regarding Imoen, as @bengoshi said she was a last-minute addition to the game in the first place and thus her backstory (particularly in BG1) is very vague at best, and her status as a child of Bhaal was only added in BG2 in the first place. We have nothing concrete, only speculation and conjecture.
If demons get killed on Toril they are banished from it for 100 years. Maybe if Gods get killed, with plans for sacrificial resurrection, it takes a number of years to take start taking effect (10 perhaps?).
The general sort of timeline is as follows:
1348 - Birth of CHARNAME
Somewhere between 1349 and 1352 - Harper Attack on Temple (Charname mentions nothing about the attack so he/she can't have been very old or he/she would have remembered something, considering it would be quite a traumatic event)
1358 - Time of Troubles (Bhaal's death)
1368 - Start of game (Charname is 20)