Congrats to Aasim, Grond0 and Gate70.
Grond0 good luck with Dylan the third.
Butch Baylen, 8th BG1 update
From the Friendly Arm Inn we journeyed to Baldur’s Gate, where we would thank the Gods upon finding the city gates opened for once. En route we met a squire Cavalier by the name of Ajantis who wanted to join us to “fight evil”. Such noble aspirations weren’t necessarily mine, but given the protracted recovery of friends like Kagain, Shar-Teel, Kivan, and battlemage Xan, I knew our party needed another sword-arm to stand by Yeslick in the frontline.
At the city gates the Flaming Fist commander Harold Loggerson, or ‘Scar’ as he called himself, offered us 2,000 Guilders to gather some information for him. We were to investigate a trading company named the Seven Suns, in the city’s South-West quadrant. The Seven Suns was reported to have made a series of unsound business decisions, which had raised suspicions of possible criminal activity (extortion, blackmailing). But since a couple of questionable transactions were as such insufficient cause to warrant official Flaming Fist investigations, Scar had decided to look for outside help. Ever since I left Candlekeep, intelligence and counterintelligence had become a requisite for me to stay ahead of my enemies as well as my chosen vocation. We accepted Scar’s proposal.
I liked the walled city a lot. We entered it through the East Gate, one of only two overland entrance points (the other being the Black Dragon Gate on the northern edge of the city). Within Baldur’s Gate another wall separated the swankier northern and western quarters from the more low-key southern and eastern quadrants. But even the latter parts had good security, several stores offering all manner of useful goods, and many interesting business opportunities for me and my company.
When we had just entered the city a man called Magnad accosted us. He told us about a place called Fealn Datoon or the Fields of the Dead, the same land north of Baldur’s Gate where Yness’s husband from Ulgoth’s Beard had been captured by Orcs. It turned out that this Magnad’s children were held there too. Yeslick gave the man our word that we would try to help.
There would be little or no payment, meaning there was also little or no interest on my part in going to those troubled lands. But as I wanted to keep Ajantis on board for the time being, I went along with Yeslick’s promise. At any rate we decided to rest and resupply first, and we also had Scar’s job to perform, Aldeth Sashenstar to visit, and the Iron Throne waiting for us.
Before we knew it we spent two days running lucrative errands and doing quests all over the city, without even having asked for them. One such errand, to which Ajantis surprisingly did not object, was to retrieve a corpse from the sewers for a wizard named Arkion. What Arkion didn’t tell us, was that there was an Ogre Mage down there co-existing with two Phase Spiders and a ton of Carrion Crawlers.
We went back up, but were followed by the two Spiders, some of the Carrion Crawlers, and the Ogre Mage. The latter was the biggest threat, and had me fear for a moment for our party’s reputation when it Confused Ajantis.Fortunately Keiria’s magical Harp of Descant dispelled the enchantment, while one of my bolts of dispelling exposed our foe to the party’s lethal force.
At the Seven Suns trading coster a visiting merchant warned us that merchants he had known for years had started to behave very strangely:
The only creatures we knew capable of such behavior were Doppelgangers. (We had run into a few of those near Durlag’s Tower.) After we pressed some of the “merchants” for information about the recent goings-on at the coster, they shifted into their natural Doppelganger forms and attacked. We slew the creatures with ease and liberated a man named Jhasso, a friend of Scar’s and the owner of the Seven Suns. We then reported back to Scar and received not only the agreed payment for investigating and clearing the Seven Suns, but also a hefty reward for slaying the Ogre Mage we had met in the sewers. Easy money, though the business at the Seven Suns left us wondering what had made the Doppelgangers infiltrate the Seven Suns.
The plot thickened when we visited our friend Aldeth Sashenstar at the Manycoins Merchants’ League estate. The picture was familiar: concerned merchants commenting how two of Aldeth’s partners and a number of subordinates had been behaving unlike their usual selves. I discreetly entered an office and found some anonymous letters to one Shalak that indicated that Aldeth’s partners had been killed and replaced by Doppelgangers, and that Aldeth would be next. I decided to confront and expose one of Aldeth’s faux companions. It shifted right in front of me, and soon many other Doppelgangers on the building’s different floors revealed their true nature. We slaughtered every single one of them. Aldeth felt deeply indebted and gave us a bastard sword enchanted for the specific purpose of slaying shapeshifting creatures.
After the incident, Keiria cynically remarked that it was a funny twist of fate that Doppelgangers should infiltrate and debilitate the city’s two principal trading houses just after the arrival of a new consortium, the Iron Throne. It had us all thinking. I must say I had come to like Keiria’s style. She wasn’t much of a talker, saving her voice for her battlesong, but she was always on point whenever she had something to say.
As referenced above Butch and company did several smaller jobs. It would go too far to go into the details of all of them but the most prominent ones shall be mentioned here.
First of all Butch did a couple of commissions on his own. In addition to some freelance work this mostly involved harmless larceny with/for the Thieves Guild, earning himself a solid position and some influential friends at the guild, such as Narlen Darkwalk, who stood up for him against Alatos the guildmaster, and Black Lily, a fence. Butch confided his exploits to Quayle but kept them secret from some of his more morally principled companions.
The party slew two rivaling wizards to release a Nymph that had been held captive by one of them. There was an awkward moment when one of the mages, Ramazith, lay dead but everyone except Quayle and Butch were confused by a Chaos spell. Thankfully Quayle prevented the others from killing each other with two Invisibility 10’ Radius spells.
From a wizard at the Low Lantern inn - whom they ended up killing as well as two aggressive females that dropped a Tome of Understanding -
they retrieved a book of curses that would enable a mother to save her cursed daughter’s life. Another wizard that did not live to regret his mistake of attacking the companions was a fellow named Sunin (whose home contained a chest with a Honorary Ring of Sune that Quayle eagerly put on his finger to cast more divine spells).
The party secured the corpse of a priest of Tymora’s son from the Temple of Umberlee where the child had been caught by one of the priestesses, allowing the father to resurrect the son. The companions saved themselves from death by poisoning at the hands of two Iron Throne employees. One of them they had to kill for the antidote, the other they let off after it became clear he had been placed under a geas to perform tasks for the Throne.
General Jeydan of the Flaming Fist asked the party to help him against a new bandit organization, the Grey Clan. The companions’ contribution was limited though [because of a minor bug that ended the Grey Clan mod quest: an injured soldier not recognizing that battle had come to a conclusion prevented the quest from progressing]. One of their jobs for Jeydan and the Fist, finding a bandit hideout in the South-West quadrant, brought the companions into contact with a particularly unpleasant wizard, Degrodel. His home was inhabited by six monstrous guards for them to slay: two Invisible Stalkers, two Helmed Horrors, and two Doom Guards. Degrodel congratulated the crew on beating his guards, and then offered them a deal. They would be paid 5,000 Guilders if they were to obtain the Helm of Balduran from a petrified Elf, Vail, at a nearby manor house. Butch turned Vail to flesh and obtained the Helm of Balduran as well as the Cloak of Balduran via a courtesan that had been Vail’s lover. When the band returned to Degrodel with the helmet, the wizard paid them the reward he’d promised them but he also set more of his guards on the party. The company attacked the wicked man, but he simply vanished, taking the helmet with him. In hindsight Butch reckoned they should have kept the helmet because according to Keiria it bore powerful enchantments.
One of the Dukes of Baldur’s Gate, Eltan, offered us 2,000 Guilders to do something we had already planned to do anyway: investigate the Iron Throne headquarters for proof of criminal conduct. Well in all honesty our intention was of course not merely to investigate but rather to retaliate. Either way we readily agreed. Eltan had a second job for us as well, namely to look into a number of disappearances that a Flaming Fist citadel on the north border had witnessed.
When a merchant at the Iron Throne told us that the board of directors was away on business in Candlekeep,we decided to look into matters at the Northern Citadel and in the Fields of the Dead first. After all, we didn’t have any tomes of great value to get us into Candlekeep.
At the Northern Citadel, we had to question all the (uncooperative) soldiers and monks to find out who had disappeared and who or what could have been the cause of those disappearances. Initially I got the impression that the cause was an internal one, power-hungry people killing each other to obtain the positions they desired. But we discovered that the opposite was true when we entered a nearby mausoleum using a key we had found on the abbot who was slain during our absence. A mighty Ogre warrior aided by a small band of Zombies and Skeletons turned out to be responsible for the abductions and killings. Some of the Flaming Fist warriors were already battling them; we joined the fray. The Ogre was a real juggernaut and nearly killed Ajantis. But to his credit our new companion never despaired. He had Yeslick take the vanguard for a few moments while I laid on hands and he healed himself with potions, and then he returned in time to deal the monster the killing blow.
The other creatures weren’t much of a hassle, but there were powerful traps that I failed to detect let alone disarm (even after swigging a potion of perception). They nearly wiped out the entire company.Our campaign against the Orcs of the Fields of the Dead was no less violent. I reconnoitered the area alone, hidden in shadows. There were about twenty Orcs and Orogs, including a few priests and mages. They held their captives in a corral, like cattle. I wasn’t sure to what purpose, but I feared the worst when I observed three men speared on poles.When I returned to my comrades, a single Orc Priest caught sight of me, but we dispatched it without ado. The other Orcs and Orogs we tried to engage a few at a time, taking advantage of our superior speed. Yeslick enraged various times and did most of the melee work, assisted by Ajantis (protected by a potion of magic shielding until the potion’s effect wore off and he was brought under the effect of Hold Person and Rigid Thinking spells, at which point Keiria cast Invisibility on him). I contributed with my traps and my crossbow, Faldorn was useful with Insect Plagues and Chromatic Orbs, and Quayle with the occasional Blindness.Amongst the prisoners we found and released were Yness’s husband and Magnad’s children. In a cave guarded by an Ogre Mage and more Orcs and Orogs we would set free another prisoner, Reedrig, after we lured the guards outside and slew them.I felt oddly satisfied about our virtuous deeds. It was a different kind of fulfillment from that which I was used to (which used to involve material gain).
With the business up north behind us we returned to Baldur’s Gate to see if the Iron Throne management had returned from their stay at Candlekeep.
The party learned that the Iron Throne leaders were still at Candlekeep, but they decided to investigate the Throne headquarters anyway when one of the merchants told them about a strange group of acolytes with a secret agenda, assembled on the fifth floor.
Butch led his companions to the fourth floor, but went up to the fifth on his own. Hidden in shadows he appraised the acolytes, battle-ready as if they had been waiting for him, and snuck past them. In one of the backrooms he saw the corpse of a woman, Emissary Tar from Sembia, whom he had met downstairs. An identical-looking woman was standing among the acolytes. Butch understood that the acolytes had replaced Emissary Tar with a Doppelganger. He snuck downstairs, and instructed Quayle to cast Invisibility 10' Radius on the party. The six then went back upstairs and snuck silently past the acolytes to one of the backrooms. The narrow doorway would give the party the opportunity to bottleneck the acolytes, and thus a way to be in control of the battle that would inevitably follow. Butch set four traps behind the acolytes, proactively poisoned an Iron Throne battlemage with a bolt of biting, and then hastily retreated (thanks to an oil of speed) as the acolytes came after him.
Invisible Ajantis and Yeslick had quaffed strength and magic protection potions and applied oils of speed. The two warriors kept the doorway blocked, attacking the first acolytes to arrive while Butch finished of the battlemage he had previously attacked from the shadows.
The other companions remained invisible. Butch got Enfeebled by one of the wizards, an effect he countered by swigging a potion of strength. It allowed him to reposition himself and murder a second caster acolyte.
Ajantis took several hits and had to continuously heal himself with potions. When he looked to be going down, Quayle intervened with a successful Hold Person that froze three of the acolytes in place.
The Gnome’s move provoked Faldorn into revealing herself as well; she cast an Insect Plague to scare and disrupt the enemy.
Overwhelmed, the few acolytes that were still in control of themselves fell one after the other; the Held ones followed after them.
Finally the party questioned a rogue named Thaldorn for information (learning nothing they hadn’t known already), and then liquidated him.
They found two letters that confirmed the Throne leaders’ sojourn at Candlekeep. One of the letters was written by Sarevok and addressed to Rieltar. Apparently Sarevok was Rieltar’s son. In the letter Sarevok stated that the mercenaries led by Butch would no longer trouble the Iron Throne because he had dealt with them personally. This piece of information puzzled Butch. Why would the son misinform the father? Keiria and Quayle, the shrewdest of his companions, had no explanation for this either.
The party reported their findings (except the contents of Sarevok’s letter) to Duke Eltan. The Duke gave them their reward and a valuable historical tome that would grant them access to Candlekeep. Butch’s journey was about to come full circle.
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... I'm always impressed by your multiplayer noreload playthroughs. I've played BG multiplayer (BG2+ToB with iirc impr. Abazigal, Demogorgon, Balthazar) only once, it took us ~ half a year, we had started with 6 players and ended with only 3, and while it was a lot of fun and definitely a challenge, it was very far away from being a noreload challenge 
