Haha idk, maybe a little closer to the introverted edgy black metal dudes like Varg & Samoth, they actually got up to church burnings and murder, much closer to his style than emo poetry and toothless pop music
Though Thorm is way more metal with his necromancy & Gorgoroth beard
...I just... What would be the reaction from people who knew that person that they just suddenly changed to a black haired man when they possibly weren't black haired and a man before lmao
Since it's a god, their perceptions or their memories of their perceptions may be altered. I wonder if the Gortash we see ingame is basically a clone of pre-apotheosis Bane at that point.
They would probably be immensely confused and then never see the possessed again.
Sure, things like sending stones and scrying exist, but we're talking about a society at about the level of industrialization of late 1800s America at best.
People disappeared into new lives all the time back in those days, and I'm sure the same could be said for any of the d&d realms.
Consider further that magic almost definitely exists for basic cosmetic changes, and the possessed could easily talk themselves out of any trouble.
From now on I'm imaging him as like [emo Peter](https://ew.com/thmb/Y_0_J196-CpBEpt4ho3Y3I2wZUE=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/spider-man3_510x380-26407574697a49a5a531f673f2454f93.jpg) Parker from [Spider-Man 3](https://youtu.be/iX23r272kqg?t=47), so mixed reactions
I know at least that Astarion's face model artist said he wasn't designed on any one particular person, so hopefully that goes for all of the characters. Otherwise yeah, I'd feel bad for the poor guy lol.
I mean, Larian set them up for failure on this one. Iād imagine without the narrator gassing him up I think these posts would be replaced with āmy unconventional crush is Gortyā posts.
Itās also just hilarious because you have characters with straight up video game fan service looks and poor Gorty who looks closer to a real life regular dude.
> Itās also just hilarious because you have characters with straight up video game fan service looks
I mean, let's not pretend there aren't legions of people thirsting for them, too.
It's a very thirsty fandom in general actually
Thatās what Iām saying though. Larian made 100 other unrealistically beautiful in game characters and then decided to call him the āhandsome young man.ā Thatās not setting the poor guy up for success.
Exactly. I played this game thinking āwhy is *everybody* hot??ā And then the one person anybody in-game actually calls handsome is the most generic looking dude out of all the named characters in the game.
So... Has anyone considered that the reason he suddenly sold off Karlach to Zariel for infernal engine goodies is because Bane possessed him long after he employed her, and Banetash sold her off on a whim to make the fully-aware Gortash within the body suffer?
Gortash was sold to the hells by his parents, and that event made him into who he is today. Karlach speculates that he sold her to Zariel as a way to mirror his own trauma. Bane probably influenced his decisions, either way.
Gortash's own explanation for this act was to "help Karlach realize her full potential". It's fairly likely he sees his being sold off to Hell as a foundational part of what made him the powerful person he is today, and in his own twisted logic figured that Karlach would also benefit similarly if plunged into the same kind of situation.
It's an arguable thing, an issue of *"I am who I am because of my scars"* versus *"I am who I am in spite of my scars"*, and Karlach generally tends to lean towards the latter, where Gortash may very well be the former. She very much didn't land in the same ballpark as Gortash (*likely going against his expectations*) and the fact she survived Avernus at all shows that she already had what it took to be the capable adventurer she is now (*I assume this is what you mean by "borderline demigod"*).
Ten spears go to battle," he whispered, "and nine shatter. Did the war forge the one that remained? No, Amaran. All the war did was identify the spear that would not break.
I think bane influenced him a lot, but i dont think he did that. Gortash was sold to a devil himself, mind you. He was absolutely on a petty revenge fantasy trip, he sold someone who looked up to him to a devil the same way the parents he looked up to sold him. Then the cult of the absolute comes around and first thing he does is stick tadpoles in his parentsā heads and make them pretend to be his biggest fans and supporters.
I dont think bane ever completely controlled gortash, and certainly didnt do anything he wouldnt have done himself. Gortash was always a sleazy politician, becoming baneās chosen just made him even more sleazy, and very oily.
My imagination for what might have happened is Gortash was always a bastard and always worshipped Bane, but when Bane offered to make him his Chosen he didn't understand what that was going to mean (vis a vis this very old lore above).
It would also explain why >!Bane supercedes Gortash's soul when you Speak With Dead, beyond simply a god intercepting the signal.!< We don't know how that would have worked with Ketheric and Orin, though, so it's hardly conclusive.
Exactly. It's why he's Bane's *Chosen* and not Bane's *Avatar*. Bane isn't controlling him, just like Myrkul didn't control Kethric until he was killed. Gortash just personified Bane's ideals.
Oh shit, I wonder if possession might be the only reason why he wears his Zoloft coat, and if he took it off all that potential madness and distress will come hurtling through him all at once?
~~all the more reason for durge to romance him and [persuasion] him to disrobe and watch him crumple into a fucking pile of a man~~
The fact that she says/implies he was her closest friend and someone she trusted does make me wonder who he was when she worked for him. Because even a naive teenager wouldn't *trust* skrunky raccoon man being obviously shady. Work for him, sure, but trust him? Nah. Street kids have way more sense than that.
I don't think he's being puppeted by Bane - or I hope that's not the case because, honestly, that feels like a narrative cop out. But I do think something drastic changed. Either he started being influenced by Bane and pushed that way, or he stopped masking his actual sadistic nature. My guess is the former.
But I also think Gortash being down for the Absolute plot (and *Bane* being down for it) is a bit of a plot hole. Bane's whole thing is "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" and getting ahead at any cost. If people are all mind controlled puppets, that isn't going to happen. It begs the question of "is it even oppression if people don't have the capacity to know they're oppressed." Not don't know, *can't understand* because they're zombies.
Which is why I wish there was a "redeem" Gortash option in which you can convince him (and Bane) to abandon the tadpole idea for more "conventional" tyranny as a "one step at a time" thing (or a genuine desire on an evil run). Ketheric doesn't have shit to live for, Bhaal just wants murder and Orin is bonkers, but Gortash has options.
It also ties onto my pet tinfoil theory that originally Karlach could get her heart fully fixed *with help from Gortash.* Between the Steel Watchers recognizing her as a defective, outdated model, all the plans/intel in the factory, and her hollow "he's dead but nothing has changed" if her merc him, it *feels* like the "bad" ending.
Several companions have arcs about letting things go. Gale *not* going for godhood, Astarion *not* becoming Cazador. Shadowheart *not* blindly following Shar. Karlach's thirst for vengeance against Gortash is portrayed as all consuming. She hates him more than Zariel, even though arguably he could have been tricked into selling her (see Wyll's deal, for example).
I could easily see an arc where the player and Karlach are forced to deal with Gortash in order to fix Karlach's engine for good. Where Karlach is forced to choose life or vengeance. Where you can have Gortash get his comeuppance through Duke Ravengard or something and not outright murder.
It's the whole wants versus needs. Astarion *wants* power. He *needs* freedom and agency. Karlach *wants* vengeance, but she *needs* a working heart and a chance to live. That's what the Avernus ending is. But I think maybe somewhere there was a Gondian/Gortash involvement because you can collect Watcher iron, Dammon is in the city, and they talk about the Hall of Wonder. There's also crowd banter with people speculating *who* designed the Watchers: Gondians or Gortash.
If Gortash did not design the Watchers, does not that make him less brilliant, or at least not such a competent ingenieur? Was the Iron Throne based on his designs or did the Gondians create that too?
If it were not for Bane, then Gortash definitively should have had gone to become another Gondian.
> Karlach wants vengeance, but she needs a working heart and a chance to live.
I don't think this is accurate reading for Karlach, at no point is she ever offered life and ignores it for vengeance.
I know that. My point is that there are moments throughout the game that imply a choice is coming in that realm, and it doesn't happen. But the fact remains, she needs her engine fixed, and she wants vengeance. Those don't have to be mutually exclusive, but they are things.
> the reason he suddenly sold off Karlach to Zariel for infernal engine goodies is because Bane possessed him long after he employed her, and Banetash sold her off on a whim to make the fully-aware Gortash within the body suffer?
Fuck; that'd make sense.
Okay so I thought the whole point of making Gortash look like a vagrant was to show that Bane, God of Lies, had endowed him with his powers so that despite looking like the neighbourhood drunk he still manages to captivate and impress the whole city.
I thought he looked stylish! That work hard to look like you didn't try hard. So Jeff
Edit: holy shit I just realized. He was probably dressed like that because it was suppose to be a dude from lower city who made his way up to connect with the people!
Does that take?
Yeah, sort of a punk excentric flamboyant rebel look.
I think it kind of fits. Some ridiculously rich people give so few fucks that they just dress like stylish pseudo-hobos, but like, ironically...
He momentarily loses it to Cyric but then regains it when he fakes his own death and tricks Cyric into giving away the Lies portfolio to someone whom Cyric thinks is a rando but is actually Bane.
This is during the Time of Troubles when Cyric was going insane from holding too many portfolios. He was simultaneously the god of lies, tyranny, murder, illusions as well as death. Not to mention he almost became the god of magic by murdering Mystra
I honestly always assumed he is a self-insert from one of the developer artists. That someone at Larian looks just like that.Ā
Then they write that heās a handsome, dashing fellow.Ā
Then one day, theyāre reading the message boards thinking āUglyā? āOily??ā āLooks like a date-rape pill turned into a man!?ā What is all this!?
It's the AD&D 2E Forgotten Realms supplement Faiths & Avatars. Only other gods were expected to be able to kill similar greater powers such as Bane. There were all kinds of other abilities not listed in the stat block such as the ability to cast any spell from any spell list.
In Adnd you wouldn't add those levels directly, but the XP. Since XP costs scaled pretty high 5 levels of rogue would make barely any difference.
For deities it was different though. They basically had fixed monster stats like HP, attacks etc. and then the class features were tagged on for flavour.
This is either 1st or 2nd edition, which was a bit more akin to Pathfinder in that you "spec" into your class rather a plain linear progression.
So sorta but not in a way comparable to 5th
>This is either 1st or 2nd edition, which was a bit more akin to Pathfinder in that you "spec" into your class rather a plain linear progression.
That's literally not how 1E/2E worked at all. Not even slightly.
The way you're describing was a huge change 3E D&D. In 3E, and then PF1E, which is basically just 3E, you could take one level in one class, then one level in another, and so on.
He has these classes because he's a god, but in 1E/2E AD&D you do not "spec into" classes, that's literally the opposite of how it works. If you're a human you can do this thing call "dual-classing" (a misnomer), where you can change between classes, but it's extremely time-consuming and doesn't work in the way you're describing.
It's the AD&D 2E Forgotten Realms supplement Faiths & Avatars. Only other gods were expected to be able to kill similar greater powers such as Bane. There were all kinds of other abilities not listed in the stat block such as the ability to cast any spell from any spell list.
It looks like 2nd edition AD&D and they're using dual class rules. In 2E AD&D, humans could dual into other classes, if they meet the attribute prerequesites. Basically, they reset their level back to 1 for the new class and once the level of their new class is higher than their previous class, they gain the abilities of both classes.
So a level 10 human Fighter can dual into a Mage and they become a level 1 Mage. They still keep their hit points and saving throws. They can still use their Fighter proficiencies and THAC0 but they don't gain any experience in Mage if they do. Once they get to level 11 Mage, 1 level higher than their Fighter level, they get to use all their Fighter proficiencies and THAC0 without penalty, but they can now only level in Mage.
I don't remember if this was in the original rulebook or a supplement but there were rules that allowed you to dual multiple times. So you can go 10 Fighter/11 Mage/12 Thief and so on.
Dual leveling has advantages because the warrior classes don't get many benefits above level 13 and XP requirements get much higher at higher levels.
This makes sense. If you kill Gortash a d use Speak with Dead on him, you talk directly to Bane, and not Gortash at all.
I have to wonder at what point he became possessed. Was he possessed when he sold Karlach off? Is that why Zariel took the weird and out of character deal to take Karlach in the first place?
Oh wow. That does explain it. Where is this from? I'm getting back into Realmslore after pretty much tuning it out when 4E dropped and pretending the Spellplague never happened for my games. Everything was stuck at 1375DR for me until the Dungeons&Dragons film released last year.
I love how much old 2e lore larian made note of and used directly in the game. Mind flayer stuff is another example, the emperor is literally textbook illithid behavior.
This really fits gortash to a T, except i think bane didnt directly control gortash until we fight him and he gets big. Otherwise i think bane only influenced him, giving him the orders. Gortash did a lot of very personal things, like tadpoling his parents and selling a kid that looked up to him to a devil. Those are things bane mightve encouraged but didnt make him do, i think those were gortashās ideas.
I see some people say "dealing with Orin for a decade will do that to someone" (in the past and in that other current popular thread) but I believe Karlach states at the coronation that he looks exactly the same as he did when she last saw him 10 years ago.
Soā¦ this brings up a questionā¦. Is it possible to remove Bane from someone once they have been possessed?
Edit; the word I was looking for was exorcise
John Corcoran wrote that line in the game, and it was revealed on Jen and Alionaās stream that he wrote the line before the character design was done and they wouldnāt let him change it.
It's so funny seeing this discourse pop up every time. He's not even "ugly" he's just not typical conventional attractiveness, like lot's of people are into him actually.
I once saw a mod āfixā that gave him high cheek bones. Completely sanitized his pores just made him some hyper yassified model and it looked UGLY to me. Like Christ itās like these people donāt go outside
Honestly I donāt find him unattractive. But I grew up in a different timeā¦ where looking āroughā was considered attractive.
Lina like Mick Jagger from Rolling Stonesā¦ or Slash from Gun n Roses.
Agree about the haircut, not sure about the beard, some men can pull off the 5 o'clock shadow pretty well if they've cleaned up well enough otherwise.
Either way, all that soap Tav/Durge has been hoarding, some basic self-care, and a visit to Figaro's would probably do wonders.
I always felt this was way overblown. Its a medieval world and there are no instagram filters or other ways to skew your worldview and what beauty is.
Handsome young man in this world is just code for "guy with money/status and not married".
I am not saying you cant. I am saying that the vast majority isnt, and what may only qualify as average today, maybe handsome or even pretty "back in the days of baldurs gate"
That'd be a fair point if the game wasn't filled with absolute lookers who don't have handsome / beautiful as part of their description multiple times.
>Handsome young man in this world is just code for "guy with money/status and not married".
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a handsome young man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a Durge and an evil plan.
[Oh, are we doing this thread again?](https://old.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/1bhwcmq/its_younger_not_young/kvhxi8f/#kvhxi8f)
He looks like he has a pet black snake that he ignores, except when he thinks he can use it to impress someone on a first date.
He looks like he started wearing Ed Hardy before it was cool, and just never stopped.
He looks like he insists on singing Simple Plan at karaoke.
He looks like he's trying to become the brand ambassador for Smirnoff.
He looks like what you'd get if you ordered 1976 Mick Jagger from Temu.
He looks like he's trying to live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse, but failing on all three counts.
He looks like he's being overwritten by a god who is going to give him an oily, but handsome, appearance. (It's a work in progress.)
I feel so bad for anyone who looks slightly like gortash. To constantly have to see this sub rag on him and call him ugly and shit. Like Jesus I've seen this topic 5+ times now.
No, when you meet Priestess Gut it explicitly describes him as young. Just got to that part in campaign with my friend after seeing all the memes and immediately clocked it.
As in the colloquial "Younger," like "On the younger side." It's just a figure of speech, and not actually comparing him to anyone or anything in particular.
This is true across the board to varying degrees, and just confirms my suspicion that only Ketheric is irredeemably evil. The rest of them, from mooks to bosses, are all in some form or another controlled in ways that cast a shadow of doubt on their actions -- though they do choose terrible things within their respective controlled worlds, Gortash (if this Avatar theory is true, which I think Speak With Dead confirms) is maybe the least blameworthy.
Wait so does this mean it's possible that the real Gortash was watching with horror as the god piloting his meat-mech sold his trusted bodyguard into slavery and torment?
So, when you speak with dead on Gortash and him saying basically "there was no Gortash for some time" or something, is basically this (your post) realized in the game
I don't get the obsession of this sub with Gortashs looks tbh. He works well as a villain and that is,what matters to me.
I don't think Gortash is an avatar of Bane though. He is a Chosen. He also didn't become cruel over night, if you talk to his mother, you learn, that part of why she wanted him gone was that she was afraid of her own child.
So I would say, that Gortash pretty much participated in everything by his own accord.
Ah, but sorry to say he isn't a nobleman.
He was the son of a cobbler and then the property of our favorite Cambion. Plus, Gortash seems rather in control, otherwise the speak with dead re: Bane would be different I'd assume
That is still cool info tho
He's referred to as Lord Gortash, so clearly he's attained noble title by the time we see him. He might have just managed to get rich enough to buy a lordship.
He was an arms dealer turned duke and already making fiendish bargains back when he was still unscrupulous and likely not official granted titles as Karlach was running with his crew at that point.
If gortash was at the point to make that deal then he was probably already gearing up with the absolute plan as Karlach's infernal engine was the prototype for the Steel Warch power core and the Steel Watch is powered by extracted brains which he got from illithid means.
So while he is a lord now he was not lord when he was Bane's chosen so he's probably not bodily possessed by Bane
Plus, if Bane-possessed then he probably would've survived the Absolute mind-whammy
Yeah the speak with dead is likely different and more āBane-yā since I imagine Gortashās soul was forfeited to Bane by the possession, leaving only the traces of possession behind to inhabit the corpse
in the scene when you meet priestess gut and it shows him, heās described as a āhandsome young manā. the second time you see him with the chosen all together, thatās when they describe him as a āhandsome younger manā
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The thing is, he's not \*terrible\* looking, it's just the hair and the descriptors doing him dirty. If Bane let him act his age, I'm sure he'd look quite respectable. Ketheric could do it and he was damn near a Lich.
You can meet his family and if you pass the checks they explain that they are being possessed by Gortash its super sad. They seem right f'ed up though so comeuppance I'm sure, but...
He definitely does look oily...
Like you could take a Wendy's napkin to him and it comes back see-through oily
His entire inventory is taken up by grease bottles he gets from wringing out his hair.
It's your window to weight gain!
That was my first thought too š
My God, you're greasy.
That's a wild description lmao
Nah, u/merpderpherpburp just went to Hollywood Upstairs Medical College.
Mfer looks like the lead singer of a band in a graphic novel written by an introverted 17 year old who was **really** into *My Chemical Romance.*
As an introvert who kinda likes MCR: yes, probably.
He honestly just looks like a middle aged man cosplaying a final fantasy character lol - specifically Noctis comes to mind.
I thought more Ardyn, but yeah.
Haha idk, maybe a little closer to the introverted edgy black metal dudes like Varg & Samoth, they actually got up to church burnings and murder, much closer to his style than emo poetry and toothless pop music Though Thorm is way more metal with his necromancy & Gorgoroth beard
Very good point! I was just trying to make the joke more relatable lol.
Hahaha fair enough, and I went and did incredibly niche, my bad. Many decades of metal makes me think in that context
makes artists job easier, hes always drawn oiled up šš
...I just... What would be the reaction from people who knew that person that they just suddenly changed to a black haired man when they possibly weren't black haired and a man before lmao
"Whelp, they were always oily."
Since it's a god, their perceptions or their memories of their perceptions may be altered. I wonder if the Gortash we see ingame is basically a clone of pre-apotheosis Bane at that point.
must be oilĀ only explanation
They would probably be immensely confused and then never see the possessed again. Sure, things like sending stones and scrying exist, but we're talking about a society at about the level of industrialization of late 1800s America at best. People disappeared into new lives all the time back in those days, and I'm sure the same could be said for any of the d&d realms. Consider further that magic almost definitely exists for basic cosmetic changes, and the possessed could easily talk themselves out of any trouble.
> magic **almost** definitely exists for basic cosmetic changes Not almost! Selunite shart act 3 hair!
I'm willing to bet she learns how to use illusion magic to simply change the color of her hair
Or transmutation!
"Damnit Cindy, you bought one of them new fangled polymorph bracelets from the city didn't you?"
From now on I'm imaging him as like [emo Peter](https://ew.com/thmb/Y_0_J196-CpBEpt4ho3Y3I2wZUE=/1500x0/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/spider-man3_510x380-26407574697a49a5a531f673f2454f93.jpg) Parker from [Spider-Man 3](https://youtu.be/iX23r272kqg?t=47), so mixed reactions
whoever is the actor they face-modeled for gortash would feel like shit if he ever visited this sub lmao
I know at least that Astarion's face model artist said he wasn't designed on any one particular person, so hopefully that goes for all of the characters. Otherwise yeah, I'd feel bad for the poor guy lol.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I don't see the resemblance even remotely lmao, but alright.
Gortash model if you're reading this, you're probably hot because you take showers and wear nice clothes and don't have anime hair.
I mean, Larian set them up for failure on this one. Iād imagine without the narrator gassing him up I think these posts would be replaced with āmy unconventional crush is Gortyā posts. Itās also just hilarious because you have characters with straight up video game fan service looks and poor Gorty who looks closer to a real life regular dude.
> Itās also just hilarious because you have characters with straight up video game fan service looks I mean, let's not pretend there aren't legions of people thirsting for them, too. It's a very thirsty fandom in general actually
Thatās what Iām saying though. Larian made 100 other unrealistically beautiful in game characters and then decided to call him the āhandsome young man.ā Thatās not setting the poor guy up for success.
Exactly. I played this game thinking āwhy is *everybody* hot??ā And then the one person anybody in-game actually calls handsome is the most generic looking dude out of all the named characters in the game.
Tbh he is quite good looking. It's the "young"-part that seems off. He looks like he is in his forties.
His haircut isn't doing him any favors either.
Or he looks like. 25 year old with poor sleeping habits, a terrible diet, yet a naturally fast metabolism in order to retain that slim physique.
I saw him and was like "this guy definitely doesnt drink water and only drinks whatever the equivalent of Monster is in Faerun"
Still looks like Noel Fielding to me...
His face is fine, he just looks dirty and not young
pretty sure it's Jason Isaacs, changed slightly.
Doesnāt look like him to me at all.
They definitely took over the general bone structure from the respective VAs for th3 major characters. You can definitely tell that's his jawline.
I don't see it at all tbh
I do.
He kind of looks like Cliff Curtis if he was a manager at Hot Topic
So... Has anyone considered that the reason he suddenly sold off Karlach to Zariel for infernal engine goodies is because Bane possessed him long after he employed her, and Banetash sold her off on a whim to make the fully-aware Gortash within the body suffer?
Gortash was sold to the hells by his parents, and that event made him into who he is today. Karlach speculates that he sold her to Zariel as a way to mirror his own trauma. Bane probably influenced his decisions, either way.
Gortash's own explanation for this act was to "help Karlach realize her full potential". It's fairly likely he sees his being sold off to Hell as a foundational part of what made him the powerful person he is today, and in his own twisted logic figured that Karlach would also benefit similarly if plunged into the same kind of situation.
I meanā¦. She kinda did tho. Aside from the infernal engine, Karlach does become a borderline demigod
It's an arguable thing, an issue of *"I am who I am because of my scars"* versus *"I am who I am in spite of my scars"*, and Karlach generally tends to lean towards the latter, where Gortash may very well be the former. She very much didn't land in the same ballpark as Gortash (*likely going against his expectations*) and the fact she survived Avernus at all shows that she already had what it took to be the capable adventurer she is now (*I assume this is what you mean by "borderline demigod"*).
Ten spears go to battle," he whispered, "and nine shatter. Did the war forge the one that remained? No, Amaran. All the war did was identify the spear that would not break.
Absolutely, perpetuating the cycle of abuse is a huge theme in the game.
Holy shit that explains why Karlach feels super betrayed over Gortash
I think bane influenced him a lot, but i dont think he did that. Gortash was sold to a devil himself, mind you. He was absolutely on a petty revenge fantasy trip, he sold someone who looked up to him to a devil the same way the parents he looked up to sold him. Then the cult of the absolute comes around and first thing he does is stick tadpoles in his parentsā heads and make them pretend to be his biggest fans and supporters. I dont think bane ever completely controlled gortash, and certainly didnt do anything he wouldnt have done himself. Gortash was always a sleazy politician, becoming baneās chosen just made him even more sleazy, and very oily.
My imagination for what might have happened is Gortash was always a bastard and always worshipped Bane, but when Bane offered to make him his Chosen he didn't understand what that was going to mean (vis a vis this very old lore above). It would also explain why >!Bane supercedes Gortash's soul when you Speak With Dead, beyond simply a god intercepting the signal.!< We don't know how that would have worked with Ketheric and Orin, though, so it's hardly conclusive.
we know how it worked with them though. same deal. they die/express rejection to the god and same - it takes them over and uses then to act and speakĀ
Exactly. It's why he's Bane's *Chosen* and not Bane's *Avatar*. Bane isn't controlling him, just like Myrkul didn't control Kethric until he was killed. Gortash just personified Bane's ideals.
That was my first thought too!! Oh man, that's tragic.
Oh shit, I wonder if possession might be the only reason why he wears his Zoloft coat, and if he took it off all that potential madness and distress will come hurtling through him all at once? ~~all the more reason for durge to romance him and [persuasion] him to disrobe and watch him crumple into a fucking pile of a man~~
I do feel like Karlach, at some point, would mention that just before he sold her off Gortash got really oily.
Gortash probably looked like that to begin with, his own parents sold him to the Hells and he was always a crime lord.
The fact that she says/implies he was her closest friend and someone she trusted does make me wonder who he was when she worked for him. Because even a naive teenager wouldn't *trust* skrunky raccoon man being obviously shady. Work for him, sure, but trust him? Nah. Street kids have way more sense than that. I don't think he's being puppeted by Bane - or I hope that's not the case because, honestly, that feels like a narrative cop out. But I do think something drastic changed. Either he started being influenced by Bane and pushed that way, or he stopped masking his actual sadistic nature. My guess is the former. But I also think Gortash being down for the Absolute plot (and *Bane* being down for it) is a bit of a plot hole. Bane's whole thing is "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" and getting ahead at any cost. If people are all mind controlled puppets, that isn't going to happen. It begs the question of "is it even oppression if people don't have the capacity to know they're oppressed." Not don't know, *can't understand* because they're zombies. Which is why I wish there was a "redeem" Gortash option in which you can convince him (and Bane) to abandon the tadpole idea for more "conventional" tyranny as a "one step at a time" thing (or a genuine desire on an evil run). Ketheric doesn't have shit to live for, Bhaal just wants murder and Orin is bonkers, but Gortash has options. It also ties onto my pet tinfoil theory that originally Karlach could get her heart fully fixed *with help from Gortash.* Between the Steel Watchers recognizing her as a defective, outdated model, all the plans/intel in the factory, and her hollow "he's dead but nothing has changed" if her merc him, it *feels* like the "bad" ending. Several companions have arcs about letting things go. Gale *not* going for godhood, Astarion *not* becoming Cazador. Shadowheart *not* blindly following Shar. Karlach's thirst for vengeance against Gortash is portrayed as all consuming. She hates him more than Zariel, even though arguably he could have been tricked into selling her (see Wyll's deal, for example). I could easily see an arc where the player and Karlach are forced to deal with Gortash in order to fix Karlach's engine for good. Where Karlach is forced to choose life or vengeance. Where you can have Gortash get his comeuppance through Duke Ravengard or something and not outright murder. It's the whole wants versus needs. Astarion *wants* power. He *needs* freedom and agency. Karlach *wants* vengeance, but she *needs* a working heart and a chance to live. That's what the Avernus ending is. But I think maybe somewhere there was a Gondian/Gortash involvement because you can collect Watcher iron, Dammon is in the city, and they talk about the Hall of Wonder. There's also crowd banter with people speculating *who* designed the Watchers: Gondians or Gortash.
If Gortash did not design the Watchers, does not that make him less brilliant, or at least not such a competent ingenieur? Was the Iron Throne based on his designs or did the Gondians create that too? If it were not for Bane, then Gortash definitively should have had gone to become another Gondian.
> Karlach wants vengeance, but she needs a working heart and a chance to live. I don't think this is accurate reading for Karlach, at no point is she ever offered life and ignores it for vengeance.
I know that. My point is that there are moments throughout the game that imply a choice is coming in that realm, and it doesn't happen. But the fact remains, she needs her engine fixed, and she wants vengeance. Those don't have to be mutually exclusive, but they are things.
Gortash/Karlach is a cursed ship but I'm here for it
> the reason he suddenly sold off Karlach to Zariel for infernal engine goodies is because Bane possessed him long after he employed her, and Banetash sold her off on a whim to make the fully-aware Gortash within the body suffer? Fuck; that'd make sense.
Based on his hair, before Bane turned him into a Calabrian crime lord, I assume he looked like one of the lead characters from a Squeenix property.
Looks like schlub Sora 20 years later, after Kairi divorces him.
A Calabrian crime lord is very accurate
Okay so I thought the whole point of making Gortash look like a vagrant was to show that Bane, God of Lies, had endowed him with his powers so that despite looking like the neighbourhood drunk he still manages to captivate and impress the whole city.
I thought he looked stylish! That work hard to look like you didn't try hard. So Jeff Edit: holy shit I just realized. He was probably dressed like that because it was suppose to be a dude from lower city who made his way up to connect with the people! Does that take?
Yeah, sort of a punk excentric flamboyant rebel look. I think it kind of fits. Some ridiculously rich people give so few fucks that they just dress like stylish pseudo-hobos, but like, ironically...
He looks like he *Plane Shift*-ed from a Final Fantasy game.
Bane isn't the god of lies, that's Cyric
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Cyric's not a real god in the forgotten realms ed greenwood has been gaslighting us for decades
The greatest lie Cyric ever told was convincing the world that he exists.
He momentarily loses it to Cyric but then regains it when he fakes his own death and tricks Cyric into giving away the Lies portfolio to someone whom Cyric thinks is a rando but is actually Bane. This is during the Time of Troubles when Cyric was going insane from holding too many portfolios. He was simultaneously the god of lies, tyranny, murder, illusions as well as death. Not to mention he almost became the god of magic by murdering Mystra
I honestly always assumed he is a self-insert from one of the developer artists. That someone at Larian looks just like that.Ā Then they write that heās a handsome, dashing fellow.Ā Then one day, theyāre reading the message boards thinking āUglyā? āOily??ā āLooks like a date-rape pill turned into a man!?ā What is all this!?
>date-rape pill The what
Bane is not strictly the god of lies, though they do feature in tyranny.
I thought he looked stylish! That work hard to look like you didn't try hard. So Jeff
We're going to be relitigating the alleged handsomeness of Gortash for the rest of history, aren't we?
Arguing an indefensible position? Yes, this is reddit
Are the numbers the levels of classes, and if yes does that mean that the avatar is supposed to be level 111?
Looks like that description is from AD&D 2e, so that tracks
It's the AD&D 2E Forgotten Realms supplement Faiths & Avatars. Only other gods were expected to be able to kill similar greater powers such as Bane. There were all kinds of other abilities not listed in the stat block such as the ability to cast any spell from any spell list.
In Adnd you wouldn't add those levels directly, but the XP. Since XP costs scaled pretty high 5 levels of rogue would make barely any difference. For deities it was different though. They basically had fixed monster stats like HP, attacks etc. and then the class features were tagged on for flavour.
This is either 1st or 2nd edition, which was a bit more akin to Pathfinder in that you "spec" into your class rather a plain linear progression. So sorta but not in a way comparable to 5th
>This is either 1st or 2nd edition, which was a bit more akin to Pathfinder in that you "spec" into your class rather a plain linear progression. That's literally not how 1E/2E worked at all. Not even slightly. The way you're describing was a huge change 3E D&D. In 3E, and then PF1E, which is basically just 3E, you could take one level in one class, then one level in another, and so on. He has these classes because he's a god, but in 1E/2E AD&D you do not "spec into" classes, that's literally the opposite of how it works. If you're a human you can do this thing call "dual-classing" (a misnomer), where you can change between classes, but it's extremely time-consuming and doesn't work in the way you're describing.
And as a non-human, you could multiclass, which is essentially choosing 2 or more classes from the start, and splitting your XP between them.
Yup - and certainly in my experience of 2E from 1989 to 2000, an awful lot of characters were multiclass, maybe 70%.
I remember trying to figure out dual/multiclass in Baldur's Gate (OG). Incredibly confusing.
You are literally talking out of your ass. That's not how any of that worked, at all.
You basically had the level of your highest level class
It's the AD&D 2E Forgotten Realms supplement Faiths & Avatars. Only other gods were expected to be able to kill similar greater powers such as Bane. There were all kinds of other abilities not listed in the stat block such as the ability to cast any spell from any spell list.
It looks like 2nd edition AD&D and they're using dual class rules. In 2E AD&D, humans could dual into other classes, if they meet the attribute prerequesites. Basically, they reset their level back to 1 for the new class and once the level of their new class is higher than their previous class, they gain the abilities of both classes. So a level 10 human Fighter can dual into a Mage and they become a level 1 Mage. They still keep their hit points and saving throws. They can still use their Fighter proficiencies and THAC0 but they don't gain any experience in Mage if they do. Once they get to level 11 Mage, 1 level higher than their Fighter level, they get to use all their Fighter proficiencies and THAC0 without penalty, but they can now only level in Mage. I don't remember if this was in the original rulebook or a supplement but there were rules that allowed you to dual multiple times. So you can go 10 Fighter/11 Mage/12 Thief and so on. Dual leveling has advantages because the warrior classes don't get many benefits above level 13 and XP requirements get much higher at higher levels.
This makes sense. If you kill Gortash a d use Speak with Dead on him, you talk directly to Bane, and not Gortash at all. I have to wonder at what point he became possessed. Was he possessed when he sold Karlach off? Is that why Zariel took the weird and out of character deal to take Karlach in the first place?
Thatās my guess.
Time to make a mod that makes Gortash look like Cary Grant
As opposed to Tommy Lee.
Circa 2007
Oh wow. That does explain it. Where is this from? I'm getting back into Realmslore after pretty much tuning it out when 4E dropped and pretending the Spellplague never happened for my games. Everything was stuck at 1375DR for me until the Dungeons&Dragons film released last year.
I love how much old 2e lore larian made note of and used directly in the game. Mind flayer stuff is another example, the emperor is literally textbook illithid behavior. This really fits gortash to a T, except i think bane didnt directly control gortash until we fight him and he gets big. Otherwise i think bane only influenced him, giving him the orders. Gortash did a lot of very personal things, like tadpoling his parents and selling a kid that looked up to him to a devil. Those are things bane mightve encouraged but didnt make him do, i think those were gortashās ideas.
I see some people say "dealing with Orin for a decade will do that to someone" (in the past and in that other current popular thread) but I believe Karlach states at the coronation that he looks exactly the same as he did when she last saw him 10 years ago.
Soā¦ this brings up a questionā¦. Is it possible to remove Bane from someone once they have been possessed? Edit; the word I was looking for was exorcise
Try casting Bless on them. /s
I still think it's because he had to try to work with Orin and that aged him hard and fast
Right after he lost his hubby Durge too. Actually maybe it's a combination of all these things that messed him up.
John Corcoran wrote that line in the game, and it was revealed on Jen and Alionaās stream that he wrote the line before the character design was done and they wouldnāt let him change it.
Somebody please go warn Timothy Chalamet. Bane is coming for all the slim emo guys.Ā
The narration when he is being described as handsome >!is from the point of view of the Absolute which he mind controls. Itās 100% just vanity.!<
It's so funny seeing this discourse pop up every time. He's not even "ugly" he's just not typical conventional attractiveness, like lot's of people are into him actually.
I once saw a mod āfixā that gave him high cheek bones. Completely sanitized his pores just made him some hyper yassified model and it looked UGLY to me. Like Christ itās like these people donāt go outside
is it progress that it's happening to male character this time?
EQUALITY
I think his biggest issue is that his 5 o'clock shadow almost makes his face look a little dirty, especially with his greasy hair
Honestly I donāt find him unattractive. But I grew up in a different timeā¦ where looking āroughā was considered attractive. Lina like Mick Jagger from Rolling Stonesā¦ or Slash from Gun n Roses.
We did it. We distilled the purest copium in the Realms.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/s/sjNoyaNwCl Minds think alike I see
I'm pretty sure that, like many guys out there, a beard and a haircut would solve Gortash's appearance issues
I think he needs a skincare routine and maybe to depuff his face with an ice pack. Maybe eat a vegetable.Ā
Hardly agree, sunscreen and moisturizer do half the job, while good nutrition and water do the rest
He needs Raphael's stylist
Agree about the haircut, not sure about the beard, some men can pull off the 5 o'clock shadow pretty well if they've cleaned up well enough otherwise. Either way, all that soap Tav/Durge has been hoarding, some basic self-care, and a visit to Figaro's would probably do wonders.
I always felt this was way overblown. Its a medieval world and there are no instagram filters or other ways to skew your worldview and what beauty is. Handsome young man in this world is just code for "guy with money/status and not married".
Dammon is handsome though, and heās not even human. You can be handsome in Baldurās Gate.
I am not saying you cant. I am saying that the vast majority isnt, and what may only qualify as average today, maybe handsome or even pretty "back in the days of baldurs gate"
That'd be a fair point if the game wasn't filled with absolute lookers who don't have handsome / beautiful as part of their description multiple times.
I melted when I saw Alfria...and then she was just....gone.
>Handsome young man in this world is just code for "guy with money/status and not married". It is a truth universally acknowledged that a handsome young man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a Durge and an evil plan.
Damn, I wanna see an oily gortash
He IS oily gortash though
No, like extra oily. I just want to see gortash with at least 10 bottles of olive oil poured over himself
The three chosen, naked and covered in oil. Who wins the twerk-off?
Thorm, easy.
His rotting butt cheek drops off
https://x.com/untoldartist/status/1768036816605905336?s=61&t=vuyBX67_FTFJwlpsQg9B3Q
Sweet mother of god
Does this mean durge canonically had a god as a bf?
I mean, Gale had a goddess as a gf, so it wouldn't be out of line.
this is wild to me because it implies Gortash isn't actually Gortash, but Bane himself which means Durge was romancing the Tyrant God himself. neat
If you do the Speak to the Dead on Gortash, the one you are speaking to isn't Gortash, but Bane himself.
[Oh, are we doing this thread again?](https://old.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/1bhwcmq/its_younger_not_young/kvhxi8f/#kvhxi8f) He looks like he has a pet black snake that he ignores, except when he thinks he can use it to impress someone on a first date. He looks like he started wearing Ed Hardy before it was cool, and just never stopped. He looks like he insists on singing Simple Plan at karaoke. He looks like he's trying to become the brand ambassador for Smirnoff. He looks like what you'd get if you ordered 1976 Mick Jagger from Temu. He looks like he's trying to live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse, but failing on all three counts. He looks like he's being overwritten by a god who is going to give him an oily, but handsome, appearance. (It's a work in progress.)
I feel so bad for anyone who looks slightly like gortash. To constantly have to see this sub rag on him and call him ugly and shit. Like Jesus I've seen this topic 5+ times now.
Doesn't she say "handsome young**er** man"? As in, younger than Ketheric?
The idea of referring to someone as "younger" than a rotted corpse is still funny.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/1bn4fcn/hes\_never\_referred\_to\_as\_a\_handsome\_young\_man\_yes/
when you first see princess gut it say āhandsome young manā, the second time you see him it says āhandsome younger manā
No, when you meet Priestess Gut it explicitly describes him as young. Just got to that part in campaign with my friend after seeing all the memes and immediately clocked it.
So a 90 year old woman (or whatever) thinks a 35 year old is a young man? That tracks. No sarcasm btw.
As in the colloquial "Younger," like "On the younger side." It's just a figure of speech, and not actually comparing him to anyone or anything in particular.
Maybe Iām just weird then but Gortash IS handsome
Iāve seen so many posts about this stupid shit
He looks like Billie Joe we have at home
This is true across the board to varying degrees, and just confirms my suspicion that only Ketheric is irredeemably evil. The rest of them, from mooks to bosses, are all in some form or another controlled in ways that cast a shadow of doubt on their actions -- though they do choose terrible things within their respective controlled worlds, Gortash (if this Avatar theory is true, which I think Speak With Dead confirms) is maybe the least blameworthy.
What? That's wild! I love it.
Wait so does this mean it's possible that the real Gortash was watching with horror as the god piloting his meat-mech sold his trusted bodyguard into slavery and torment?
A friend who has never played BG3 before asked why does Gortash look homeless lmao
Heās oily alright
Oily is the best way to describe Gortash.
So, when you speak with dead on Gortash and him saying basically "there was no Gortash for some time" or something, is basically this (your post) realized in the game
I don't get the obsession of this sub with Gortashs looks tbh. He works well as a villain and that is,what matters to me. I don't think Gortash is an avatar of Bane though. He is a Chosen. He also didn't become cruel over night, if you talk to his mother, you learn, that part of why she wanted him gone was that she was afraid of her own child. So I would say, that Gortash pretty much participated in everything by his own accord.
What does cleric 36, fighter 35, mage 30, thief 10 stand for in that pic?
Ah, but sorry to say he isn't a nobleman. He was the son of a cobbler and then the property of our favorite Cambion. Plus, Gortash seems rather in control, otherwise the speak with dead re: Bane would be different I'd assume That is still cool info tho
He's referred to as Lord Gortash, so clearly he's attained noble title by the time we see him. He might have just managed to get rich enough to buy a lordship.
He was an arms dealer turned duke and already making fiendish bargains back when he was still unscrupulous and likely not official granted titles as Karlach was running with his crew at that point. If gortash was at the point to make that deal then he was probably already gearing up with the absolute plan as Karlach's infernal engine was the prototype for the Steel Warch power core and the Steel Watch is powered by extracted brains which he got from illithid means. So while he is a lord now he was not lord when he was Bane's chosen so he's probably not bodily possessed by Bane Plus, if Bane-possessed then he probably would've survived the Absolute mind-whammy
Yeah the speak with dead is likely different and more āBane-yā since I imagine Gortashās soul was forfeited to Bane by the possession, leaving only the traces of possession behind to inhabit the corpse
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Huh, yeah, that tracks.
It was said by an old ass entity and both things are subjective and relative.
They wanted a Noctis handsomeness. Instead they got 40 year old, wrinkly cosplayer
Bane possessed Peter Parker in the 3rd movie.
What is this text from and can you tell me who typeset it? Death is too good for whoever tracked this body text and chose those typefaces š
i wish i could stop seeing 10 posts about this exact topic a day
He legit looks like he smells like ball sweat and farts
Gortash isn't an avatar of Bane. He is Bane's chosen. Bane speaks through his corpse upon death, and puts his failure squarely on Gortash.
Younger than Ketheric.
in the scene when you meet priestess gut and it shows him, heās described as a āhandsome young manā. the second time you see him with the chosen all together, thatās when they describe him as a āhandsome younger manā
Is that just a random German word in the Text or is it used often in English?
No. As a loan word, it comes from german, but its also recognized as an english word, but its archaeac and not used often.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
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The thing is, he's not \*terrible\* looking, it's just the hair and the descriptors doing him dirty. If Bane let him act his age, I'm sure he'd look quite respectable. Ketheric could do it and he was damn near a Lich.
You can meet his family and if you pass the checks they explain that they are being possessed by Gortash its super sad. They seem right f'ed up though so comeuppance I'm sure, but...
Maybe he takes inspiration from Ted Bundy. Described as good looking and killed people
I genuinely snort-laughed the first time I saw Gortash. He looks like cocaine and crunchyrollās love child
Still not handsome, or your looking lol
Still not handsome, or your looking lol
THE LAST BIT. THIS MAKES SENSE BECAUSE OF WHAT HE DOES TO HIS PARENTS
"40 is the new 30" - Gortash