#aw gale <3

[blackjackkent]

For only the second time that I can recall in the game, we now get a cutscene entirely without Hector's presence or input - this time of Gale's conversation with Mystra. We have no control over this; presumably we would if we were playing as Origin Gale, but otherwise we just get to watch.

And here she is, in the godly flesh:

"Gale of Waterdeep. You look well."

"As do you. But I assume we're not here solely to exchange compliments. So why *am* I here?"

"You discovered what lies at the Heart of the Absolute - the Crown of Karsus - and you disobeyed my instruction. Why?"

"Because you had no right to ask that of me. You cast me out, remember?"

Atta boy, Gale.

"You were my lover, my Chosen. Yet still you know so little of me. The past cannot be undone with self-pity, nor can a future be forged. Only with the truth will you see the way ahead. The fragment of magic you tried to return to me was not of my creation. It was the Karsite Weave. It is a corrupted, half-born magic wrought in the brief moment Karsus ascended to godhood. It hungers for power just as he did, and it can *never* be sated. You unleashed something that would consume all magic in existence, and yet you thought only of preserving yourself."

Aha. Interesting. So Gale's mistake went beyond simple hubris of trying to reach Mystra's level; the orb straight up wasn't what he thought it was at all, and it's massively dangerous. Not really surprising, I guess.

(On a more prosaic note, I am not really a fan of Mystra's design here at all. The goddess of all magic feels like she should be something far more elaborate, but she just kind of looks like a barbie doll in a Lisa Frank light show. I think they could have done something more interesting with this. Honestly would have rather just had her be a voice thundering from nowhere.)

"So that's what you're scared of. With the Crown of Karsus reforged, I could take control of the Karsite Weave."

"You can no more control the Karsite Weave than a weather vane could control a storm. That it entered your body and consumed no more than your powers was a miracle. But we will not be granted another. The only reason the 'orb' sleeps is because I have allowed it to feed on the true Weave - a temporary measure, but one that will not be enough to save us. With each day that passes, the elder brain threatens to become a new kind of god, its worshippers a scourge of soulless illithids. If you will not use the orb to end this abomination, then you must find a way to separate Crown and host. When you've done this, you must surrender the Crown of Karsus to me."

"A great ask indeed. You've given me much to think on - as you always did."

(I suspect this line would probably be different if Hector hadn't advised him to keep his cards close to the chest.)

"So be it. Follow the needle of your own wisdom. We shall see how truly it leads you."

------

Gale flashes back into being in the middle of the Tabernacle next to Hector after what seems only a few seconds of absence. But it's obvious that something has happened, as Hector can tell from the way his eyes are wide, from the rapidity of his breathing.

"Back on mortal soil once more," he gasps out. A strained smile is pulling at his lips. "I can't believe I saw her, after all this time..."

Hector reaches out a hand to his friend's shoulder, steadying him. "How do you feel now you've done it?" he asks gently.

"Relieved. Drained. Proud of myself, for summoning the courage to go to her in the first place. And, if I'm being totally honest - a bit lightheaded." His smile fades. "As if it wasn't enough to have seen her again, she didn't exactly summon me there for small talk. The Karsite Weave, within me this whole time... I knew the orb was no ordinary ball of magic, but for it to be Karsus's malignant creation-- gods!" He slams his fist into his opposite palm in irritation. "How did I not see that?"

"It's all too easy to miss things when we're blinded by desire," Hector says, as delicately as possible.

"True enough. There's a reason such unwitting heroes have been the backbone of lyric and legend for as long as both have existed," Gale says ruefully. "Even so - I was hardly some naive apprentice at the time. I considered myself an archmage, and yet was fool enough to b mistaken for a common conjurer."

He lets out a heavy, bitter sigh, then straightens with an air of new determination. "At least now I'm armed with the truth, and Mystra's expectations. It sounds like the door to redemption is open at last. All I have to do is walk through it, carrying the Crown of Karsus."

Hector shifts uneasily. Are those the only two options, then? For Gale to take the Crown's power for himself or run back to chasing after Mystra's good opinion? Surely there is some middle ground... "Is that what you want?" he asks slowly.

"Perhaps," Gale says, not quite meeting his eyes. "I see few other options open to me, if I ever want to reclaim those parts of myself the orb snatched away. If I ever want to be *me* again..."

A sudden wave of compassion for him goes through Hector. Poor blighter, he thinks sadly. The actions of Gale's younger self were foolish, to be sure, and they have caused great potential harm. But Gale has lived with that knowledge for years now; he's been punished greatly for it. And going back to Mystra, however unhealthy that relationship was, means that at least he would be free of that punishment again.

"You're a great man, Gale," he says quietly - and he means it. "With or without the orb."

"I'll have to disagree with you there," Gale says, shaking his head. "Having not one but two parasitic entities within your body does very little for one's faith in one's personality." A pause. Then his expression softens and he smiles a little. "Still. I should take the compliment with the same generosity it was given. So - thank you."

He turns to face Hector squarely, with the air of a man taking a sacred oath. "If i can promise you one thing in return for your faith in me, it's this - I will use everything in my power to ensure we defeat this evil. I will not let you down."

#bjk plays baldur's gate 3 #hector carlisle #aw gale <3

[my-maehem]

I’m so sorry

Now there’s a shop lol:

Because some people asked on Twitter, I made this into a shirt as well as prints and stickers. (The shirt was most popular so I’ll just leave that here)

Also available as a print on here!

#Karlach really topped it off with the ‘aw was that Gale’s granddad?’ #bg3 #bg3 shitpost #baldur’s gate 3 #bg3 memes #gale bg3 #gale dekarios #bg3 wyll #bg3 karlach #bg3 elminster #my art

[catsharky]

Well this took ages. I wanted to get one more page done for this but the next page has uh... 14 characters across the panels and I'm going to be away for 4 days. So a smaller update, but the next one shouldn't take almost 2 months.

Part 1 • Previous Part

Full page format under the cut as always:

#There are two me's inside me #One is screaming that doing tones was an awful idea because they take forever #The other is going “yea but..... it looks cool so...” #Unfortunately the second me is right so here we are #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 comic #rolan x tav #tav x rolan #rolan x ember #bg3 astarion #bg3 gale #bg3 wyll #rolan #bg3 rolan #bg3 cal #bg3 lia #my tav #sharky's tav #tav: ember #oc: ember #sharky art

[mirrorhouse]

This is a rather high-risk romance we've embarked upon, isn't it? Brings new meaning to the term 'strange bedfellows'.

#baldur's gate #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #the dark urge #gale x durge #durge x gale #bg3edit #gamingedit #* #vex #he doesn't exactly say it out loud because he's not 100% sure what's going on but raahghh the 'i know this isn't really you' #type of thing..... 'something in you tried to kill me last night and thats awful but it wasnt You and i love You.' yknow.... it's so :') #they all do that with durge in their own unique ways #gale's way is making little jokes while trying to be as calm and open minded about whats happening to this person he cares so much for #also. 'let's not throw the murderous baby out with the bathwater' is such a funny line to me

[lunian]

Gale, before Astarion's Ascension:

Gale, 5 mins later:

#bg3 spoilers #bloodweave #he didnt even really care we killed Gur people like others did asdfsafdsdf #aw man #baldur's gate #baldur's gate 3 #astarion origin #bg3 gale #bg3 astarion #even if they are just friends IN THIS PLAYTHROUGH WHAT THE HELL IS THIS GALE YOUR BISEXUAL ASS IS SHOWING #actually gale is so caring about astarion sometimes from this pov im like shocked tbh

[palecryptid]

wyll wants to talk 💜✨

(commission for @bladeofavernus)

#bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #wyll ravengard #my first posted piece of bg3 aw shucks #also first time posting art directly onto my sideblog? so lets see how this goes #icon commission for the bestie!! wyll’s a close second fav right behind gale :’3 theyre my special boys #most underrated character.. wyll nation rise up…. 🙌

[thefabelmans2022]

i am always thinking about the katniss and haymitch parallels like.......they both grew up in the seam. they were both reaped at 16, and by then both had no father, a single mother, and a younger sibling. it's not a stretch to imagine that haymitch felt the same responsibility to take care of his family that katniss did. he must've taken tesserae at least once. maybe he even picked up his knife skills from hunting or butchering animals to feed his family, just like she did. he tells katniss there used to be more whippings in district 12 - and that the person caring for the wounded was her mother - maybe he was breaking the rules just as frequently as she was. they were both rebels from the beginning. he survived his games by using the capitol's forcefield to rob them of a true final confrontation, she used the nightlock to rob them of a victor. they were both 16 years old.

#traumatized teenage girls and their awful traumatized surrogate dads <3 #thg #this didn't quite fit the post but i always thought snow learned a lesson with haymitch #he killed haymitch's family and girlfriend (his past and future in a metaphorical way) within the span of two weeks #but then finnick says he killed 1 family member for each act of dissent - never kill the family in one go or you never have leverage again. #haymitch was never a threat to the capital again (not for a few decades anyway) but he wasn't an asset to them either #basically i think he's what katniss would be if peeta hadn't survived and snow actually killed her family and gale

[kelandrin]

Tav Question

How does your Tav sleep? Are they light sleepers? Do they dream or have nightmares often? Do they get to sleep easily or are restless? Do they sleep well with others? Move around a lot?

#based on me having an awful nights sleep lol #astarion #wyll #durge #gale #karlach #shadowheart #lae'zel #halsin #tav #bg3 oc #bg3 tav #dark urge #dark urge tav #the dark urge #balur's gate 3 #baldur’s gate 3 #baldur's gate oc #baldur's gate #baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate #baldur's gate 3

[proffbon]

Find yourself someone who will look at you the same way the boys look at Gale.

#was just going through the dialogue as usual and noticed how in awe of this man they were #baldur's gate 3 #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #wyll ravengard #astarion #astarion ancunin #bg3 tav #proffbon oc lilac

[juusbox]

a brief moment of downtime

#meet mi'lee #she's the opposite of jun but just as awful an influence #faces are overrated #bg3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 fanart #bg3 tav #bg3 gale #bg3 wyll #bg3 astarion #bg3 lae'zel #artists on tumblr #illustration #woven melody

[sanguine-sunlight]

Losing my mind that you can tell Gale "It was fine."

IT WAS FINE.

Then you can call him a virgin? And tell him he's prettier when he's quiet?

Uh oh I'm having feelings about this. Out of all the Bloodweave content I've seen, I haven't seen much or any with Ascended!Astarion. Give it to me. I want to see him be mean to the sad wizard.

Give me Astarion successfully manipulating Gale until he's in love with him and then Astarion just absolutely abusing the power he has over Gale.

#listen I haven't really shipped bloodweave until now #but now I kinda wanna see them be awful together #I know its awful but I am compelled #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #astarion #gale dekarios #bloodweave

[nabexis]

Doing the Essential Expression Meme again to really get Gale's Face down. I think I'm doing pretty well now.

I felt that the game didn't utilize "Heightened emotions make the orb unstable" enough so I took some liberties with his expressions here to explore that. I know it happens early enough in the game where [spoilers] it can get stabilized to not do that, but I still felt it was an interesting missed opportunity that I wanted to explore. Especially when things like Nettie threatening you with poison can happen early enough it would be relevant. All images described in alt text.

Details below the cut.

Also for Hollow/Blank I wanted to draw Gale with shorter hair because I headcanon that his hair was 1 year's worth of growth shorter when he absorbed the orb, but I REALLY liked drawing him with long hair (and he's more recognizeable like that) but here's him with shorter hair next to longer hair.

Now with Speedpaint (where you can see I redid the first two expressions because I learned how to draw Gale better on the way)

#Gale Dekarios #Gale of Waterdeep #BG3 #Baldur's Gate 3 #25 essential expressions #art meme #Youtube #my art #nabexis art #alt text has descriptions #speedpaint #Aw shit wait I said 10 STR when he actually only has 8 STR. whoops lol #Well I gave him pecs and I tend to give all the 8 str characters 10 so that they can FUCKING JUMP AFTER ME AND NOT GET STUCK #So he has 10 str to me. But that's it.

[kelemvorr]

my gal(e) pal

#im so sorry for the awful pun #gale dekarios #bg3 #bg3 gale #bg3 screenshots #bg3 screencaps #baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldur’s gate 3 #my edits #bg3edit

[revoleotion]

The duality of being a gale fan

(I would fist fight any gale haters behind sorcerer's sundries at 3am)

(I would also fist fight gale himself behind sorcerer's sundries at 3am any time he mentions that fucking crown)

#milena can confirm #a lot of late act 2 and act 3 is just me yelling at him #act 1: aw i'm so sorry this happened to you. can i offer you a magic ring in these trying times? #act 2: babygirl stop trying to kill urself you're so sexy haha #act 3: SHUT UP ABOUT THAT FUCKING CROWN BEFORE I SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS #bg3 #bg3 gale

[lunian]

friend: aw cmon let's start evil path in BG3, didnt you say you wanna romance Minthara?

me: if you are ready to kill tieflings and hear we whining from it then sure

friend: I will even make a Dark Urge!! haha it will be cool—

my friend, 10 hrs later, after all horrors we have done:

me, somehow calm, watching my Tav having crazy sexy times with Minthara after slaughtering innocents, druids and Wyll:

#im not sure why i actually didnt get that sad as i expected #i guess all lust from spider mommy to my Tav made me forget about it for a bit #mystuff #and now i have to catch up on her in act 2??? AW CMON #....also her durge killed Gale and thats when i whined #i didnt want to see him sad and horribly feeling about all things going on #i already felt bad about Shadowheart #bg3 spoilers #baldur's gate #baldur's gate 3

[behaemoth]

Do not have any idea where my sister went wrong with gale in her game but SPOILERS at the end when she told him to leave the crown in the river he went off on her & yelled about how he was going to go take it for himself & rolled up on the reunion party like dr manhattan spray painted silver this man is a certified f r e a k

#baldurs gate 3 #bg3 #spoilers #patch 5 spoilers #epilogue spoilers #gale of waterdeep #gale dekarios #when I call him a freak I’m saying it with awe and not hate btw #they crafted such a well made freak and stuffed him so full of hubris it’s a wonder he can get anything done #it’s also funny bc in mine he was so nice and happy lol #and in our other friends he was happily married to them #while she was also a mindflayer #which still does nothing to lift the freak allegations