#There is no escape from awkward family reunions Durge: I WILL introduce you to your nieces nephews and cousins

[y-rhywbeth2]

While I get why they didn't include it (because 4e fucked with the tieflings and now we have archdevil tieflings and the og hereditary tieflings in the same space, and the former are hogging the limelight) I think it would've been interesting to have Bhaal tieflings as a subrace option. They wouldn't look as flashy as the others - no horns, no technicolour skin or tail, for example (unless their mortal parent was a tiefling who looked like that, I guess) - but they would be highly inclined towards violence and murder. Deity descended planetouched are known for having birthmarks in the shape of their ancestor's holy sumbol, so maybe they'd have the Circle of Tears, or a bone dagger marked somewhere on their skin.

I mean, Durge's origin pretty much covers everything they'd bring to the table, so it's obsolete, but the thought stays in my head:

The first generation Bhaalspawn did reproduce: Abazigal had at least one son; Yaga-Shura was attempting to create half-giant progeny; most of the romance epilogues feature children (this was intentional, the original BG3 was supposed to have Charname's child as the protagonist, apparently). There were hundreds of Bhaalspawn who reached adulthood; many of them would've had the opportunity to marry or have children, knowingly or accidentally.

I've said this before, but again, the offspring of a quasi-deity and a mortal is a tiefling, genasi or aasimar and the divine blood may go dormant and activate generations down the line too. It's also not unknown for the planetouched to become pawns in their ancestor's games, and entire lineages (not simply the first half-outsider child alone) may be created intentionally.

Notably, Abazigal's son Draconis - a grandchild of Bhaal, and not a demigod - was not part of the giant prophecy his father, aunts and uncles were drowning the world in blood over (except as a pawn of his own half-mortal father, anyway). These planetouched mortal children would've been passed over unharmed and unnoticed (too unimportant on the divine stage). I wonder how many of Bhaal's grandchildren and great-grandchildren are running around? How many cousins might Orin have? How many nieces and nephews might have Bhaal's strings tied around them? Is resist Durge going to leave behind their sister/niece drama only to run into another one in the future?

(I am aware that it appears BG3 has ignored/handwaved away the existence/possibility of these guys: I don't care. BG2 left these plot threads and I will be taking then and running off with it.)

#There is no escape from awkward family reunions Durge: I WILL introduce you to your nieces nephews and cousins #Probably while you're killing each other #I'm just saying Larian; you missed out on a much bigger potential drama with dozens of 2nd and 3rd generation bhaalspawn #...also I'm going to be honest 2nd/3rd gen Bhaalspawn would've created less plot holing than Durge as a 1st gen #I love them as they are but it would've been less of a grenade to the face of the pre-established lore #...why do I always misspell Abazigal's name? #Is this babbling or lore stuff? #babbling #/durge #/orin #Tangent: life would be easier if the planetouched had been a template or something not a race #Instead of splitting it into tiefling/fey'ri/tanarruk/etc/etc - which are all basically the same