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lettersfrombel26 Tarsakh 1492 DR
Near Rosymorn Monastery
Dear River,
I am worried about how Lae’zel is going to take this, because, gods, she is so young and so trusting in her people, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. I don’t remember if I was ever that naive. Certainly not after my younger brother died; before then I might have believed that following the rules would keep me... not safe. But safer. But I never trusted that things would work out if I just did what I was told.
We made it back to the surface, and encountered a githyanki patrol. The leader was someone important. Kin’rath Voss, I think he said his name was. (The first bit is a githyanki title.) He definitely had a giant fucking dragon with him, and if Lae’zel hadn’t run ahead, I would have suggested we avoid that. Certainly the group of Flaming Fist mercenaries didn’t fare well, even before the dragon showed up. The githyanki are looking for both the mind flayer ship and the artifact Shadowheart stole from them. Given that’s the only thing keeping us all out of the Absolute’s clutches, I’m not inclined to give it to them as long as we still have parasites in our heads. Thankfully, Lae’zel is so focused on her own task that she didn’t think to mention it.
Unfortunately, she is also shit at lying, especially to an authority figure of her own people. I signaled she should just accept the orders given her, then ignore them and we continue looking for the creche ourselves, but Voss saw right through her and she told him about the parasites. And he pretty much said she was a dead woman walking, and commanded his forces to kill her, and us while he went off to report to their queen. (Or so he said; he was lying about that and I don’t know enough to know why. I assume there’s politics, but above Lae’zel’s pay grade. Do the githyanki even get paid, or is this a room, board, and glory sort of affair?) Despite this, Lae’zel seems to believe that Voss was some kind of aberration for trying to kill an infected member of his people rather than bringing her to the place where the githyanki raise their children where this curative artifact is. I know what she was taught to do, but he didn’t even pretend that it was simply a matter of convenience for him to kill her rather than give her some actual directions, let alone an escort.
Hence, I am worried. I find seeing other people’s faith in something so painful, because I suspect it must end in grief. (I worry about Shadowheart as well. I don’t know why this never comes up with Nurgle; perhaps because he already passed through the disillusionment and has come to some very strange equilibrium with Talona. Honestly, I was more concerned about his faith in me than his god.)
In reminders of Faerun natives also being horrible, we caught a human spying on the githyanki. Apparently she wanted one of their eggs for the Society of Brilliance. Naturally, the githyanki told her to fuck off and she was lucky she wasn’t killed. (No, they probably did not tell her to literally fuck off, but I assume they threatened her and I wonder what she was expecting to happen?) Frankly, the way she spoke about their eggs made it clear she didn’t see them as really people, and I can’t imagine a child raised in that environment would turn out well. While I haven’t been impressed by the githyanki for ‘societies that are good places to grow up’ — and as someone raised in such a society, I can spot some of the tells — I’m pretty sure that raising a child as the only githyanki they know, being told their people are evil and that they might be intrinsically evil as well unless they prove otherwise is a terrible way to grow up. Also, it seemed to escape her the humans raise plenty of violent and murderous human children without needing some kind of racial propensity to evil, or a murderous culture or whatever her theory is.
I tried to pass an unhatched owlbear egg we found off as a githyanki egg, but she didn’t appreciate my suggestion that the Society wouldn’t know the difference. Fair, they probably would, and assume she was the one who was scamming them. I don’t know what a githyanki egg even looks like, but ‘roe’ implies they are more fishlike than a hard-shelled egg. (I am not stealing an egg for her. I won’t even tell you it’s because Lae’zel will kill me if the creche workers didn’t beat her to it, I wouldn’t do that to a child of any species. Even if I found an egg, I’d rather raise the child myself, and I wouldn’t trust me raising drow children, let alone a species I didn’t know existed last month.)
Continuing his march towards doom,
Your friend,
River
From the Player:
Near Rosymorn Monastery
Dear River,
I am worried about how Lae’zel is going to take this, because, gods, she is so young and so trusting in her people, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. I don’t remember if I was ever that naive. Certainly not after my younger brother died; before then I might have believed that following the rules would keep me... not safe. But safer. But I never trusted that things would work out if I just did what I was told.
We made it back to the surface, and encountered a githyanki patrol. The leader was someone important. Kin’rath Voss, I think he said his name was. (The first bit is a githyanki title.) He definitely had a giant fucking dragon with him, and if Lae’zel hadn’t run ahead, I would have suggested we avoid that. Certainly the group of Flaming Fist mercenaries didn’t fare well, even before the dragon showed up. The githyanki are looking for both the mind flayer ship and the artifact Shadowheart stole from them. Given that’s the only thing keeping us all out of the Absolute’s clutches, I’m not inclined to give it to them as long as we still have parasites in our heads. Thankfully, Lae’zel is so focused on her own task that she didn’t think to mention it.
Unfortunately, she is also shit at lying, especially to an authority figure of her own people. I signaled she should just accept the orders given her, then ignore them and we continue looking for the creche ourselves, but Voss saw right through her and she told him about the parasites. And he pretty much said she was a dead woman walking, and commanded his forces to kill her, and us while he went off to report to their queen. (Or so he said; he was lying about that and I don’t know enough to know why. I assume there’s politics, but above Lae’zel’s pay grade. Do the githyanki even get paid, or is this a room, board, and glory sort of affair?) Despite this, Lae’zel seems to believe that Voss was some kind of aberration for trying to kill an infected member of his people rather than bringing her to the place where the githyanki raise their children where this curative artifact is. I know what she was taught to do, but he didn’t even pretend that it was simply a matter of convenience for him to kill her rather than give her some actual directions, let alone an escort.
Hence, I am worried. I find seeing other people’s faith in something so painful, because I suspect it must end in grief. (I worry about Shadowheart as well. I don’t know why this never comes up with Nurgle; perhaps because he already passed through the disillusionment and has come to some very strange equilibrium with Talona. Honestly, I was more concerned about his faith in me than his god.)
In reminders of Faerun natives also being horrible, we caught a human spying on the githyanki. Apparently she wanted one of their eggs for the Society of Brilliance. Naturally, the githyanki told her to fuck off and she was lucky she wasn’t killed. (No, they probably did not tell her to literally fuck off, but I assume they threatened her and I wonder what she was expecting to happen?) Frankly, the way she spoke about their eggs made it clear she didn’t see them as really people, and I can’t imagine a child raised in that environment would turn out well. While I haven’t been impressed by the githyanki for ‘societies that are good places to grow up’ — and as someone raised in such a society, I can spot some of the tells — I’m pretty sure that raising a child as the only githyanki they know, being told their people are evil and that they might be intrinsically evil as well unless they prove otherwise is a terrible way to grow up. Also, it seemed to escape her the humans raise plenty of violent and murderous human children without needing some kind of racial propensity to evil, or a murderous culture or whatever her theory is.
I tried to pass an unhatched owlbear egg we found off as a githyanki egg, but she didn’t appreciate my suggestion that the Society wouldn’t know the difference. Fair, they probably would, and assume she was the one who was scamming them. I don’t know what a githyanki egg even looks like, but ‘roe’ implies they are more fishlike than a hard-shelled egg. (I am not stealing an egg for her. I won’t even tell you it’s because Lae’zel will kill me if the creche workers didn’t beat her to it, I wouldn’t do that to a child of any species. Even if I found an egg, I’d rather raise the child myself, and I wouldn’t trust me raising drow children, let alone a species I didn’t know existed last month.)
Continuing his march towards doom,
Your friend,
River
From the Player:
Work has slowed my ability to play Baldur's Gate 3, so more of a delay between posts. Which means I need to write my commentary with these letters (which I usually do as I play), rather than when I post.
Bel did take the dialog option of reminding Lady Esther that 'hey, people used to think drow were intrinsically evil and treacherous, rather than the product of an culture created by Lolth', and she was all 'yeah, so why not help me prove it by giving me the egg'. Sadly, no option for 'I don't trust you to know what good parenting looks like'.
I think in the original D&D game I played him in, Bel was True Neutral, but BG3 has him considering the merits of Chaotic Neutral, because authority figures keep trying to screw people he likes over. Like, he likes Halsin even if he thinks Halsin maybe shouldn't have been in charge of things, and he's neutral on Wyll's dad until he gets more information about exactly what happened between him and Wyll, and Zevlor seems fine, but other than that, authority figures are awful.
(Wyll's dad falls in the 'I hope your motivation was being caught between love for your son and loyalty to the people under your command/in your city, and you knew either choice would break your heart'. It's the different between 'I'm pissed off at you, but I acknowledge that it was a matter of neither choice being good, I just would have made the other choice' and 'what were you thinking!?'. Because Bel totally believes that if Wyll had stayed in Baldur's Gate, Mizora would have used the pact to manipulate the duke, and by extension, Baldur's Gate's military and law enforcement, and since Wyll can't talk about the pact, he can't talk about what the limits are.)
