#suffice it to say the rest of the party is chaotic aligned

[thunderboltfire]

I lazily colored Iwona’s age chart/looks progression cheatsheet I sketched during lectures. I intended it to be in (almost) flats, but it turned out differently XD

Additional description of her design and character development under the cut! :)

Iwona is a character I’ve had for a LONG time, and she went through several overhauls and minor redesigns. I wanted her to have some FR lore-friendly half-elven characteristics, but I didn’t want her looks to get too outlandish, like, e.g. Jaheira’s portrait from BG2. In the end, Iwona got angled almond-shaped and very much unnaturally blue eyes and diamond-shaped face as her clearly elven trait, while everything else I tried to place in-between a human and an elf. 

Canon height:165cm

Class: Warrior/mage

Strong statistics: Strenght, Dexterity, Intelligence (insanely strong for her bodytype - this is a trait I attribute to her half-divine lineage, her Dex and Int are both quite decent but there are characters who are well above her in these stats)

Weak statistics: Constitution (she has to be packed in a tin can or she’s down in seconds - dual classing with 12 con leaves her with very low HP)

Positive and negative character traits:

Inquisitive / troublemaker,

easily attached, easily involved / difficulty to say when to withhold from action

helpful, polite / difficulty declining an ask for help,

dedicated / headstrong

high self-esteem / easily offended

talented / difficulty learning things that require hard work and she isn’t good at understanding them

Headcannoned age during start of BG1 events: 19 years old (honestly, canon age of Your character seems to be quite unclear - on one hand a lot of people calls them ‘child’ on the other hand, they’re considered valid age for an adventuring team leader, and, in the second game which takes place not-so-much later, Charname possibly acts as a temporary caretaker of the D’Arnise keep, as Nalia is deemed too young. That leaves a lot of room for interpretation. I imagine Iwona to be around 19 yo then - a little old to be called ‘child’ maybe, but considering that she spent her whole life behind closed walls of Candlekeep, she may be quite naive despite her age, which again isn’t very young for medieval standards).

I haven’t found anything about the maturing rate of the FR half-elves, but as Iwona is actually a bhaalspawn, her growth rate could be altered anyway so I just assumed that she grew as fast as a human would.

BG1:

Generally, she started the first game on a low note. Iwona was very attached to Gorion and his sudden death (especially that our charname being an apprentice mage knew just how powerful he was in comparison to her) was a shock. She arrived to Helping Hand Inn with Imoen, distrustful of anyone else she met on the way, and very promptly earned a nasty dagger wound to the face. As it couldn’t be immediately fully healed in magical way, it was stitched and part of the healing process happened naturally, leaving a very prominent scar across her face.

As time went on and Iwona got accustomed to her new way of living and became less centered on her own survival and more daring, her natural curiosity led her and her party towards all sorts of dungeons and secluded locations. Growing in levels, Iwona grew in confidence and armor class - until 3rd chapter she changed the splint mail (ughhh I have no idea how it should look like so I just gave her lamellar armor XD) to plate armor and mostly acted as a supporting archer, walking identification station and spare swordswoman of a party. Somwhere between 4th and 5th chapter she got a Full Plate which became her armor of choice until the end of the 1st game. This, before the return to Candlekeep is also where I place whole plot of Tales of the Northern Storm Coast DLC and Durlag’s Tower.

The last chapters were just awful to her - she took the truth of her lineage in stride because she didn’t have much time to ponder on it - hounded, wanted and crawling through city sewers, it suffice to say she wasn’t very happy when she finally faced Sarevok. 

SoD

On the contrast SoD began with Iwona probably in the best social position she ever had - rather popular, well-rested and rich, of course something must’ve happened to spoil it or it wouldn’t be her life XD.

While she head out against Caelar’s crusade quite eagerly, she quickly lost her heart to the fight - decaying morale and the amount of effort she had to put in the campaign that had less and less meaning to her personally caused exhaustion that was only worsened by her recurring nightmares. The topic of her terrible pedigree comes back, much to Iwona’s discomfort and slowly becomes an axis around which revolves the entire DLC - riuned temple of thr god of murder, then Boareskyr bridge, then the generals scolding her and asking the impossible - if the entire camp wasn’t hearing the sound of her gritting teeth, it was only because she was out in the wild, running errands and clearing the way for the army. The fact that the lords were so quick to consider selling her to Caelar was something that tipped the scales on her alignment moving from Lawful-Aligned Neutral Good towards Chaotic Good. Around mid-game she changes her armor to newly found elven chainmail, as she relies on her magic more and more, shifting in role to supporting spellcaster.

The ending of SoD was literally a punch in the gut. Whole 11th chapter could and should be criticised as it was a plothole-riddled sieve, but the ending was very inspiring moment of character development. In the epilogue Iwona confirms everything she learned throughout chapter 10 - that it’s not enough to fight and bleed if the stakes are rigged against you. She could win a thousand battles for Baldur’s Gate - all it takes is one dubious situation she’ll be decided guilty. If you being a monster is a well known fact, being a monster on a side of good may not be enough. It doesn’t shake her world so hard that it would make her abandon the path of good, but she decides that for the ones like her, institutions of organised justice, duties and honors won’t work like they’re supposed to - so she’d rather stick to her own moral code and avoid great expectations and titles in the future. About the murder case - what terrified her the most was that she genuinely didn’t remember what happened. She clinged to the thought that she isn’t an evil person - that she knows she wouldn’t do something like that - and ultimately that was her line of defense. In the end this turned out to be true, but she still had no hard evidence to support it. She went back to the small group of faithful friends that believed in her innocence - and she intended to stay there, out of the spotlight.

I’ll probably make a second edition with BG2 and ToB once I establish a canon playthrough of both of them in EE.

#something more about Iwona! #Baldur's Gate #Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear #long post #Iwona the Gorion's Ward #I am very convinced that teenage half-elves can have acne XD #player character #character development #baldur's gate spoilers #siege of dragonspear #siege of dragonspear spoilers #Thunderboltfire's art #it always seems to me that I ramble too much about my characters #and then it turns out I don't actually write almost anything about them #charname #bhaalspawn

[nicstriumph]

22.05.2017 - Mind Melt

So I find myself so full of thoughts at the moment... they’re flying around my mind at speeds I can’t keep up with or make any sense of and I’m just in desperate need of offloading them. The only problem is, I can’t seem to find the words to articulate my minds processes. So this won’t be the prettiest blog, nor my finest use of words but I guess I need them out my head, off my chest, and cleared from my heart. I guess we’ll just systematically work through the things in my mind: - Disney. Oh boy is he screaming in my head right now. How I had hoped the peacefulness of our parting would remain but even as I wrote the words back in Feb/March time I knew it would not ever be the case. You don’t share 6 years with a person and it not leave pretty hefty scars. I guess, as I am doing with all spheres of my life at the moment, I’m letting things evolve as they will with Disney. He extended an olive branch a few weeks back and I figured I would reach out and see where it went. Despite my head and my heart both being very wary of this. And exactly as I knew would happen; I’m overthinking, I’m rethinking, I’m not thinking. And I guess he is too. It’s too soon to expect a friendship to flourish on such foundations as ours. It’s such a tough situation as who he is when he is not with me is exactly who I want and who he becomes when he is with me is exactly who I don’t need. I guess I have to hold on tight to the thought that he needs to find himself fully again, and needs to explore the world for a person who could quite possibly be a better fit (though I doubt he’ll ever find someone who will know as I know him... somethings only happen once in a lifetime.) And should the road lead back to us, be it as it will. And I need to do the exact same. So I guess I will let things continue as they are, let him control the friendship he wanted to form and just try to hold onto myself whilst the emotional shitstorm wages war in my head. - Grey. I have no words for how I feel about all she has put onto me. But I am so disappointed in her. She has taken apart of my history and made it her own. It was MY HISTORY. And she handled the situation appallingly through her own inability to deal with her guilt. I just cannot be party to a person who does not align with my moral compass. She does not. I am done feeling like I have to reach for a friendship that does not serve me well. - My Dad. Had his operation and hopefully it was successful. He left out a few scary bits like him going into respiratory arrest. Sigh. And having to spend 24 hours in ICU. That I can make my peace with as he is fine now. But failing to mention the grade of his tumour as being stage 3... well it’s a bit more worrying than it being localised to one area (stage 2) which is how he sold it to me. So I guess we wait and see what the results come back with but the doctor has already told us that it doesn’t respond to chemo and radiation has a variable success rate. Bloody hell. Cannot even comprehend the negative result right now. - Work. I am just not happy with the perpetual chaos I am living in right now. I just don’t want it. So, despite only working there for 3 months I have decided to hand in my notice. I think if life wasn’t quite so chaotic and if it wasn’t quite so important I make a break from Disneyland (he is EVERYWHERE in this little part of London) I might persevere but for now I think locuming and possibly having a little travel around the country might work well to take the pressure off. Hopefully. - Finances. I hate money. It scares me and is all far too adult a responsibility for me. I have not much else to say on this matter but boy would I love to be out of the finance drama for a bit. - The Future. What the bleeping hell do I do next? Do I go? Do I stay? Do I change careers? Do I stick with what I know? Do I diversify within the field? Do I simply meander along the locus path? Do I work and travel? So suffice it to say I have a lot going on in that ticker of mine. Unfortunately Disney is taking up a huge chunk of my mind with Grey’s disappointment a very close second. And I just want to blast it all away. Let me please just have a rest from the past for a little bit. Just for a little bit. But here in lies the tip of the iceberg... at least I shaved off the top of the thought spaghetti. As it all amasses once more there very well may be more of these mind melts all over the page.

#mymusings #whatamess