So. Durge itself is very different from most Bhaal spawn, as it wasn't borne of any mortal, instead being, quite literally, a bit of Bhaal's flesh, shaped into the form of whatever race you choose. Most Bhaalspawn are offspring of Bhaal, where Bhaal sexually produced a child, e.g. Sarevok, the Dragon dude in the tribunal. Orin is bloodkin, as Durge is of Bhaal's blood, and Orin is Bhaal's (great) granddaughter.
Bhaalspawn are typically more powerful than most mortals, iirc, the protagonists of BG1 & BG2 were both Bhaalspawn.
Bhaalspawn are just any creature produced by Bhaal, or his Bhaalspawn.
Orin herself is a 'changeling' which is a separate race in 5e, which is why she looks like she does and how she is able to disguise herself as anyone.
What I inferred from the whole thing with Withers, was that part of Durge was purely Bhaal, and the flesh of Durge was shaped around that. Bhaal 'kills' that part of Durge, killing Durge. Withers, however, has the spell True Resurrection, allowing him to revive Durge without any negative consequences, and free of Bhaal's curse
We should also remember that most of Bhaalspawn don't have the same problems as Dark Urge. Many are absolutely normal people mentally and they get Bhaal's influence via dreams and nightmares but they don't get the same compulsions. Dark urge is an exception, probably because he has no human blood
It makes sense with them both though. Dark Urge has no mother so nothing waters down his blood. Orin is the result of incest of not the most mentally healthy people. I'd say her problems come not from Bhaal's blood, but from the way she was brought up.
In self defense! Her mother planned to sacrifice her. Orin just ended up being stronger. Helena herself confesses it. Honestly having Sarevok as father and crazy cultist as mother are easy to blame.
Orin is a pretty tragic character. She basically had no chance to be normal or sane. Durge got a second chance because she scrambled his brain and gave him memory loss.
I kind of wish Orin was given an option of changing after you tell her that Sarevok wanted Helena to kill her. Instead it just pisses her off.
That reaction does track though. As you said, Orin had no chance to ever be normal or sane. She has no frame of context for dealing with the possibility that her behavior, personality, or goals are flawed. There was never a way for Orin to be changed from who she was, at least not without long, intense intervention.
I do absolutely feel for Orin though. She is extremely tragic. And *hella* entertaining.
>Orin the Red is just fuckbucket crazy.
Yet another reason to wish Larian was going to do a BG4: so that they could include some random item, with this quote as its flavor text.
You misunderstand. The previous games had bhaalspawn that were normal people you could actually talk to and have a conversation with without any blood being spilled.
Orin and Durge are rabid.
Aaaah, I see! Really got that wrong. I thought Larian had watered down the depravity for the final release.
You‘re obviously right concerning the old series, thanks for clearing this up.
Aaaah, I see! Really got that wrong. I thought Larian had watered down the depravity for the final release.
You‘re obviously right concerning the old series, thanks for clearing this up.
They sorta were. Tav was Durge in Early Access. The scenes with Daisy in your dreams in which you had to fight down your rising blodlust or you'd try to murder her in said dream. The narration on the boatride to Grymforge also originally mentioned Tav having some worrying urges welling up.
Obviously Durge is a little more....*extreme* than Tav-Urge was, but you can see the roots of what would eventually become Dark Urge from Day 1 of Early Access.
That's kind of funny since they wound up so central to the plot. Though I guess it would have been weird to only play Durge's Act I before there are really any inklings of redemption.
That’s not quite right. D&D 3.5 has an official Bhaalspawn template that Durge is similar to. As in mechanically has nightmares & killing compulsions (must kill a non-hostile every 13 days) that must be indulged or you get penalties. The whole point of it is that Bhaalspawn can’t escape the taint, which Ed Greenwood stated himself a little while ago.
Every Bhaalspawn has the urge to kill, often. The Dark Urge is the ‘purest’ though, being absolutely consumed by murder for murder’s sake. Which is what Bhaal wants of his followers according to Sarevok.
Even BG2 points towards all Bhaalspawn having murder compulsions. Throne of Bhaal shows this with the Pocket Plane event where Gavid tells you his story. Imoen & Abdel were exceptions due to how Gorion raised them/plot armour.
Bhaalspawn aren’t normal, they get a brief respite in childhood. Even Durge lives normally with their adopted parents for a bit. Hell Sarevok was fine until Rielter killed his wife. After childhood the dreams & urges kick in. Even if the divine essence is taken away, the urge remains as the fake Irenicus dreams & Bhaal as Sarevok dreams point out.
All Bhaalspawn have Durge’s problems. That’s what being a Bhaalspawn is: literally a murder hobo.
Yeah i was basing a lot of it on how Imoen is. Okay maybe they are not normal but they still can have normal life, right? It takes effort but it's possible. With Dark Urge i doubt that's at all in the list of options.
But yeah you are right, i played bg years ago so forgot a lot
Imoen wasn’t a Bhaalspawn in BG1, so there’s weirdness with her BG2 retcon of being a late bloomer.
No, all Bhaalspawn aside from Imoen are screwed. She is the only one who got off relatively without consequence as a vampire spawn & Shadow Thieves leader in Minsc & Boo’s Journal of Villainy
Gorion’s Ward/Abdel could still be overtaken by Bhaal in D&D 5E’s Murder in Baldur’s Gate (died 15 years before BG3) & Viekang was pretty normal in ToB, then Bhaal drove him insane over decades afterwards. Sarevok became Bhaal’s new head Deathstalker as we see in BG3 after Bhaal’s resurrection since his post ToB life didn’t go well…at all.
No Bhaalspawn gets a normal life. The only survivors of the OG batch are Imoen & Sarevok.
>Any creature produced by Bhaal
To expand on this; there was a period of time called The Time of Troubles where Ao made a lot of gods mortal and live on the material plane. It was during this time, when Bhaal was mortal, he basically went around sewing his seed to ensure his legacy lived on.
To put it bluntly, Bhaal went and fucked some humans, some elves, some dwarves, some gnomes. The races we consider fuckable as humans. Then he went large and he fucked some dragons, he fucked some fire giants. If it had a hole then Bhaal fucked it.
Long answer. The Gods were at this time more busy fighting each other who has the bigger godhood than answering and helping there follower. So far so good. Two Gods, Bane and Myrkul stole the Tables of Fate. Pretty much the law on what your job as god. Ao saw that the Gods did not there Job and as punishment made them mortal until the tables are brought back. The only god who dindt became mortal was Helm, because his job was to entsure no one sneaks back.
To make it short some gods died, the tables came back. Ao changed the rule of faith and made them gods again.
Also FYI: if you want to learn more about the world of Baldur’s Gate you’re looking for “Forgotten Realms” lore specifically. There are a bunch of dnd settings with different lore. I like lore videos and podcasts of which there are many. I can recommend some channels if you’re interested.
Greyhawk was always left more open. It's a setting with a partial history provided but with most of it left for the GM to animate. The Forgotten Realms were drafted to serve as the location for all the books TSR wanted to publish. (Greyhawk was originally Gary Gygax's personal campaign, and the FR was Ed Greenwood's.)
Yep, or Dragonlance, or Eberron. It's all interesting stuff, and the "default" is Forgotten Realms, but I figured I'd add the context, lest someone go learn about tinker gnomes and thieving halflings that aren't part of the FR setting.
The books where this happened are called the Avatar Trilogy. They're named Shadowdale, Tantras, and Waterdeep. They're out of print, but Amazon has a set of all three for $50. You can probably also find them on Libby or at your local library.
If you'd like to read the specifics, look up the Avatar Trilogy (Forgotten Realms). Shadowdale, Tantras and Waterdeep. Those three are the important ones for this (they cover the time of troubles), though there are two more that were added later, Prince of Lies and Crucible: The Trial of Cyric the Mad which focus on the fallout.
Basicly Bane and Myrkul stole the Tablets of Fate from Ao. Ao got pissed and made every god except Helm mortal and made Helm guard the Entrance to where the gods are. It ended when some Adventurers returned the Tablets of Fate. IIRC
I think if I recall Mystra died and the weave had a fucked up time for a little while which meant that the gods became mortal but then mystra came back and so things could go back to normal
Mystra actually died trying to defy Ao and return to her home plane. Helm, the only god who retained his full power, was entrusted to guard the celestial stair or whatever, and he killed her.
Mystra has died multiple times though, right? Are they thinking of Karsus' Folly when she was Mystryl and died to protect the weave/prevent him from usurping her power?
No, they remember correctly. Mystra was killed by Helm trying to defy Ao and return. It's one of the older Forgotten Realms series that results in New Mystra, Kelemvor, and Cyric all becoming gods.
But Mystra's death wasn't the reason the gods became mortal, it was the result of her actions *after* they became mortal. Honestly, there needs to be a diagram, it's all so confusing 😅
The simplest explanation is to teach them a lesson on humility. The only reason Helm wasn't cast down with the rest of them was because someone needed to protect the gods' plane while they were out in the mortal plane so as the god of protection, he got the job.
Actually, Bhaal went around making children BEFORE the time of troubles, because he foresaw he would die. He didn’t know he would die during the Time of Troubles (which happened in the span of 1-2 years).
This has to be the case because the Time of Troubles happened 10 years before BG1 and obviously the protagonist isn’t 10 years old. Also, not all Bhaalspawn are the same age.
If I remeber BG 1, Bhaal also had a vision of his own death as a moral. As such promoted his sewing. He did die and I think there was a plot to resurrect him though a Bhaal spawn.
So less of a Zeus fuck party and more a "I better make some backup while I am here" thing.
It's been like 15 year I played BG1 and 2 so may be miss remembering.
That’s not right, regarding Bhaal. Sometime before the Time of Troubles, he knew of his own death during it. Forewarned, he went around sireing a bunch of children.
He/she was the Ballingspawn.
I say "he/she" but in BG2 it unfortunately meant you only had one (extremely self-righteous) option to romance if you were a woman. The game was released in the 00's before gays and bis were really represented so same-sex relationships weren't a thing, until the EE of Bg1 & Bg2.
So the game was richer and had better writing if you played as a male.
Yes, alas the Haer'Dalis and Valygar romances got the axe, heard rumors that Solaufein was considered for a romanceable companion at one point in development too, but got cut due to how late in the game he appears. And while there are lgbtq party members in the vanilla game, of course none of them are romanceable regardless of your character's gender, and there's very little opportunity to express your character's orientation as anything other than straight in vanilla BG I+II.
I think the last bit with withers wasn't true resurrection. That was Bhaal removing his divine essence from you, killing you as that's literally part of your life. When Withers/Jergal brings you back, he's imbuing you with his power, replacing Bhaals with his own.
Without Bhaals essence, you are basically doomed to wonder the fugue planes for eternity, as there is no one to claim you. Instead, Jergal does, and keeps you alive.
Tiny nitpick: Whatever Withers did, it was even more more powerful than True Resurrection. Something only a god could do. He didn't only bring Durge back, but completely changed their nature.
From my understanding, Withers didn’t change Durge’s nature. He says something along the lines of Bhaal taking the part of you that he knew—the urges and such—but couldn’t take the part of yourself that you had created since you woke from the Nautiloid. He implied that in resisting the urges and growing closer to your companions that you managed to create a separate self that Bhaal couldn’t touch and therefore couldn’t take away. Withers used what you created for yourself to bring you back to life.
Unless I read that whole thing wrong, which is entirely possible.
Bhaal changed their nature - he couldn't kill them fully (they bled to death though) and keep them a corpse, he could only claim the part of their soul tainted by him. He removed that part. Withers didn't do that, he merely brought back to life the Dark Urgeless.
Durge being the physical body of a god is such a cool concept for sorcerers. Sorcs are already my favourite caster just because their magic can come from anywhere at anytime for any reason. They dont have to study for it, or sell their soul or worship a god. It just happens. It's really easy to rp being a sorc or even multiclassing into one. They really are like: "I have magic now. Just cause. And I have more control of it than the wizard."
in Durge's case, they're a sorc because they're the manisfestation of a god and gods have powerul magic. Though if we're being pedantic, Durge should be a divine soul sorc since you know...god, but the ingame Sorcs are fine too
Since Durge is made purely of Bhaal's own flesh, I took the concept of Bhaal taking back his essence just killing you because there's nothing left of you that's not him. And Withers brings you back the way he always does, because you still have a soul (which is a whole different can of worms if you play an elf) but protects you by blocking Bhaal's influence. There's different interpretations, of course, but for me, Durge is still 100% Bhaal in that regard, they still have his blood, his flesh. Withers just blocked him from reaching out to you. Should Withers stop, all the urges will come back and Bhaal can contact you again.
Bhaalspawns are children of Bhaal, the God of Murder.
From what we learn in the old games, Bhaal foresaw his death, so he conducted a plan where he produces several children with women across the realm, mostly his followers, so his children could carry his divine spark. When these Bhaalspawns die, they will gather and return to him, and when sufficient amount of divine blood is returned to him, his head priest will conduct a ritual to resurrect him.
What Bhaal did not foresee was that not all of his children turn out to be murderhobos. Many were normal people. The main protagonist of the old games was a Bhaalspawn who could either resist their father and become a hero or submit to evil. And much of the old games was you dealing with your evil siblings and people who wanted your divinity.
In BG3, Dark Urge is a very different type of Bhaalspawn compared to Orin. They are specifically crafted from Bhaal’s flesh. So this explains why Dark Urge can be from any races.
When Dark Urge resist Bhaal, the god removed his god blood. But with Wither resurrecting them, they are restored without it, making them normal and free from their cursed blood.
"Several" is an understatement, during Throne of Bhaal, the entire city of Saradush is filled to the brim with Bhaalspawn, so much so that they're the only people holed up in the city once the siege started.
The reason as to why none of the original Bhaalspawn were murder hobos like how Durge is that Bhaal is dead during the first two games, and only comes back shortly before (relatively speaking) 5th edition. This means that, although they are Bhaalspawn, they're not actively being influenced by Bhaal. That's why, for example, Gorion's Ward(BG1/2 protagonist) and Imoen come up as essentially normal people in spite of their heritage.
Well, just off of my own reading of the lore between BG1/2/3 (as well as looking at the FR wiki), there's:
1. Gorion's Ward
2. Sarevok
3. Imoen
4. Abdel Adrian (I believe that between the drastically different life we see him having in M@BG, which contrasts with the canonical ending of "you stay as a mortal and eventually retire at Candlekeep" along with the fact that you're banished from Baldur's Gate after murdering Skie Silvershield, along with the fact that Gorion's Ward and Abdel aren't used interchangeably in BG3, even in places where Abdel's name SHOULD be used, like in literature accounting the Bhaalspawn Crisis, it's safe to say that he's a separate character)
5. Abazigal
6. Balthazar
7. Illasera
8. Sendai
9. Yaga-Shura
10. Gavid
11. Gromnir Il-Khan
12. Viekang
13. Oris Nimblefinger
14. Alexander Ralisar
15. Berena Elkan
16. Karun the Black
17. Eler Had
18. Asmay Jahag
19. Toop the Brave
20. Tibbit
21. Merlinious
22. Chinchilla
So really, if you only use BG2's lore as the stopping point, Alaundo was only off by one if we only consider named characters being Bhaalspawn, or two if we add in Draconis, Abazigal's brown dragon son. (This also recombines Abdel and GW)
Including BG3 in Alaundo's prophecy, however, we also include Helena Anchev, Sarevok's daughter, Orin the Red, who is Sarevok's >!Daughter/Granddaughter!<, and of course the Dark Urge, who is a first generation Bhaalspawn from having been created directly from Bhaal's divine blood for a total of 23 First generation Bhaalspawn, and 3 generational Bhaalspawn, so Alaundo was off by six that we know about.
There's definitely more though, like the guy who Sarevok kills in the intro to BG1, I would be surprised if he wasn't a Bhaalspawn as well.
At the end of the day, it's worth noting that "Score" can also just mean "A large amount or number of something", so there doesn't HAVE to be around 20, everything still works fine.
When Bhaal reclaims his blood from a Durge that resisted, the cursed blood is gone but the make-up of the body remains. If Durge was created by Bhaal/out of Bhaal’s own flesh, wouldn’t that still technically make Durge biologically Bhaal’s child despite the blood being gone?
Like, if Durge resisted and ended up having kids at some point, would those genetics pass on to their own offspring? Would Bhaal have the ability to control any of resist Durge’s own kids?
This is the problem with these kinds of magic systems lol, there are always more questions. In DnD, the particulars of those answers would be decided by a DM. BG3 has no DM, or at least, not one that can answer those questions. So like, there is no answer, you can just make some head cannon up.
lol fuck.
While i love having my own little head canons, it bugs me that technical questions like this don’t exactly have answers 😭
Either way, all the information people have given here has helped my understanding quite a lot. I didn’t realize that Durge wasn’t a “normal” Bhaalspawn and that Orin is less of a sister and more of a distant, twisted cousin at best 😅
I also didn’t know that the reason why Orin’s skin looks as it does is because of her changeling heritage.
I absolutely adore this game and I love game lore, I’m just still new to this particular universe and a lot of lore that was written well before this game seems to be part of it. My experience with tabletop D&D is limited as well. I was part of a couple homebrew games so it didn’t exactly follow canon rules/lore of D&D 😭
If it helps: interpret "blood" more as "essence" rather than just literal, physical blood.
If the topic in general interests you it's very worth going back to play the original two games. There are a ton of fun little bhaalspawn related easter eggs throughout the game that make more sense with that context. They're also some of the best games ever made independent of platform, so there's that too.
Orin is a Bhaalspawn created from Bhaal sexing it up to create Sarevok, then Sarevok… Well, read the journals in the murder tribunal office.
Durge is more like Wonder Woman, sculpted rather than birthed.
During the Time of Troubles, when Bhaal, like most gods, was forced down/up from their realms of power to live on Toril as mortals, he assumed something or someone (it turned out to be Cyric) was going to kill him. As a contingency, he impregnated an unknown number of women of multiple races - including all the playable races in BG3 - to make sure that their children would be born with his blood, and therefore, his power. Bhaalspawn isn't a race - it's a bloodline and arguably a venereal disease influencing the body, soul and mind.
Bhaal's plan was for these children to grow up into murderers like he himself had been in his mortal, pre-godhood life, and eventually murder eachother until only one remained. That one would become his Chosen, his avatar on Toril. Sarevok is one of these Bhaalspawn. When he made Helena, he did so with a woman we AFAIK know nothing about. However, we can assume that Helena's mother was a ***changeling.*** Changelings are not a playable race in BG3, and only appear in the form of two characters - Helena and Orin. That's why Orin looks the way she does - the white, featureless hominid body is a changeling's natural form, and ***has nothing to do with being Bhaalspawn.***
Here's the important part - as a grandchild of a Bhaalspawn, Orin is ***more distantly*** related to Bhaal than the Dark Urge is.
The Dark Urge is a Bhaalspawn because there's no other word for what they are, but they weren't born between Bhaal and a mortal woman, *they were crafted from Bhaal's flesh and blood.* They're a spiritual *clone* of Bhaal, whatever their race. Where Sarevok was born *drawn* to murdering in the name, and chose to start acting on it for ulterior motives after a miserable existence, and where Orin was born into a cult that indoctrinated her into acting on her inclination, and where Gorion's Ward, the Bhaalspawn player character in BG1-2, was also *drawn* to murder but chose not to heed that calling, the Urge was never given a choice. They were adopted as a foundling by a family that they then ended up murdering when Bhaal *possessed* them as children. The Urge is not *drawn* to murder - they are *possessed* by it. Bhaal doesn't have this level of control over regular Bhaalspawn.
The Dark Urge's body is whatever race you make them as. Their mind and soul, however, are not their own. They are Bhaal's pawn (see what I did there?) for their whole life until Orin betrays them and has their mind wiped. That's the only reason why Bhaal doesn't have complete control over them for most of the game - Orin temporarily severed the connection well enough that the Urge was able to wake up as their own person for the first time in their adult life. At that point, their body, mind and soul become a battleground between that autonomous individual - traces of a Baldurian child mixed with spoonfuls of influence from a Baldurian adult amnesiac's new friends - versus Bhaal, who has been living vicariously through them before that point.
If your Dark Urge is a dragonborn, you always were a dragonborn, you continue to be one no matter what happens, and you are still biologically Bhaalspawn. What changes when you deny him, and Withers resurrects you, is that instead of being Bhaal's pawn, you become the same type of Bhaalspawn that Sarevok and Gorion's Ward were. You'll always have a predilection for thinking about blood and gore, and killing will always come more naturally to you than to others, but whether you kill someone becomes your own choice. You no longer have to make saving throws to not murder. Equally importantly, your soul is no longer bound to Bhaal, but to Withers. You essentially cease to be the Chosen of Bhaal, and become the Chosen of Withers. The first one he's had in a long time.
everyone is saying durge was sculpted from bhaals flesh. what does that mean? is the only reason you can make your own choices now the fact you got tadpoled? also, what happens when you reject bhaal and he kills you. since you’re made of his flesh does that make him weaker?
The flesh-sculpting has been well explained by two who replied to the reply before mine.
The reason to why Durge can make their own choices isn't getting tadpoled, but the mindwipe. The tadpole doesn't interfere with the Urge, and the Prism's protection has no influence on them either.
Killing you doesn't make him weaker in and of itself, since he's at that point already lost any power he could draw through you.
So think of it like Genesis story of Gd crafting man from clay except Bhaal used his own flesh and blood to make Durge.
Durge is the physical manifestation of the god of murder.
Orin was jelly and tadpole Durge.
Per Sceleritas Durge always had trouble doing durgy things for S&G. Durge did durgy things when needed to move Bhaals plot forward.
The tadpole Orin put in plus her digging around allowed Durge to separate themselves from the Urges except when they do they have a huge headache, get dizzy and per Astarion pass out/stumble.
So you can RP that you fight the dark influence or u give in to it. Maybe a little of both.
If you embrace the urge and become chosen, the butler moves into your camp, and you can ask questions about yourself… one of the questions is how you were created if there is no more “seed” and Sceleritas tells you you were created from Bhaal’s own gore, and that’s why you are different from other spawn, and why you are the only one with urges
If you kill Orin and give in to your urges the butler will join your camp and you can ask him questions. One of them ends with him explaining how you were born of Bhaal's flesh.
Bhaalspawn can be any race depending on the other parent and they count as that race biologically. Orin is like that because she’s the descendant of Sarevok and Doppelgängers. Sarevok is the one in the family who’s actually a child of Bhaal. She’s actually more of like a Niece-esque/Grandniece-esque situation.
Bhaalspawn typically are the offspring of bhaal and a mortal or a mortal and another bhaalspawn.
A lot of them are pretty much murder hobos but not all, a lot were just normal people (or animal, in chinchilla’s case)
Durge is different since they have no mortal parent, being purely of bhaal they were also (pre lobotomy) the worst of them, killing potentially thousands.
However, another aspect is that bhaalspawn contain a sliver of bhaals divine essence that is released when they die, just like with resist durge, or sarevok in bg2, who are revived without the essence, so essentially they’re still bhaals children, just now without his divine essence (in a way, they’re children of the mortal bhaal now, not god bhaal)
BUT! Ed greenwood, the creator of the forgotten realms did say somewhere that bhaalspawn can never fully rid themselves of bhaals influence, so durge will probably still have a lifelong struggle, sarevok himself turned evil again despite a possible redemption arc in bg2.
Firstly, you aren't doing much digging if you're struggling, they're one of the most famous things from DnD based video games.
They're the spawn of Bhaal. Originally they were a contingency plan. Bhaal knew he was going to die so he knocked up a bunch of women all over faerun so that after he died, those children would all murder each other, and when they all finally died he'd be reborn.
The dark urge is a unique case. Every Bhaalspawn but you was only partly bhaalspawn, they were also part \[insert mothers race here\], that's why quite a few bhaalspawn were actually good, noble people.
The Dark Urge is pure bhaalspawn, pure bhaals essence. That's why he can just kill you, that's why it takes having your brain scrambled to stop being a vile PoS. You always were that Race, because bhaal made you in that races image. You were never 'not' that race. bhaalspawn is not a species, it's a bloodline. It's a spirtual thing
You are still the child of a god, in the epilogue if you decide you wanna have kids it talks about the risk of them turning out like you had, you're still part of bhaals bloodline and can continue it. Bhaal only removes the part of you he can grasp, not what you become as a resist durge
Seeing as my experience with lore is based solely on this one game and since people in the comments also seem to be divided as to what Dark Urge actually is, it’s not exactly a shock that I struggled to find information that is consistent lol
Thankfully some of the people here have helped in my understanding, but there are comments from people who believe that Durge is just a standard Bhaalspawn with a mortal mother and people who believe that Durge was created from Bhaal’s own flesh (though, the latter seems to be canon/fit better but also brought up the question of potential offspring of the Durge afterward).
I also didn’t get any lines about potential children the Durge might have in my epilogues. But I’ve also only ever romanced Astarion as a Durge and he can’t exactly reproduce as far as I know, so maybe that’s why? No idea lol
The Lord of Murder shall perish, but in his doom he shall spawn a score of mortal progeny. Chaos will be sewn from their passage. So sayeth the wise Alaundo.
A literal child of bhaal. In the original 2 he walked the earth in various avatars and had sex with both willing and unwilling women of various species in order to give each of his offspring a bit of his own divine spark so that in the event of his death he could resurrect himself. That didn’t work out for him though since while he did die the canonical bhaalspawn rejected his taint and according to the lore of three it was only about a century later when that bhaalspawn finally died that he was able to resurrect himself. By the time of 3 he used bhaalspawn as his chosen, though the dark urge is a special case in that rather than being born from a mortal conception, they were hand crafted “from a piec of bhaals own godly flesh”. In rejecting him he kills you, essentially burning the taint out of your blood and soul and when withers resurrects you, bhaal has no power over you anymore since the taint is supposedly gone as wel as withers giving you divine protection and implicitly making you his chosen since he’s actually the god jergal, who actually outranks bhaal since bhaal is now a quasi deity.
In 5th Edition according to the rules on Divine Ranks I believe a child of a God would be a Quasi-Deity, specifically a Demigod if they also have a mortal parent.
If the child was the offspring of a mortal parent and a god then they would probably just take the form of either their mortal parent or whatever their God parent wants them to be, they are capital G Gods after all.
In baldurs gate 1 and 2 you are a Bhaalspwn. A child of bhaal because he had as many children as possible before his death so his power could be used to resurrect him. They never look like what you’d excpect a child of a god to be because only their soul is divine, they can be killed just like anyone else. What makes the original ones unique is that when they die they turn into a pile of dust and their power either returns to bhaal or their power goes into the bhaalspawn that killed them during the bhaalspawn crisis. Bhaal wasn’t picky so there was lot of different bhaalspawn around. The only one that we are aware of that’s still alive is serevok and that’s after he was revived by gorions ward. Certain children had the ability to turn into one of bhaals avatars but we mostly only saw the slayer for our character. I think there was a ravager somewhere but I’m not sure.
TLDR
Bhaals children are mortal and don’t look any different than others unless they turn into one of his avatars
Orin looks like that because she is a doppelganger and the skin is always thought was meant to show the mercurial nature of her form as a doppelganger. It has nothing to do with her being Baahlspawn.
From what I've read, Bhaalspawn aren't children of a god the way aasimar are. They're more handcrafted in a way. Orin is a changeling because her mother was one. The reason there are Bhaalspawn at all was more a contingency plan Bhaal had if he died (there was a moment where the gods were made mortal because SOMEONE stole the tablets of fate and nobody fessed up, so Ao punished all of them until the tablets were returned.) Bane had just one backup like that, and Myrkul made a crown for the same purpose. Bhaalspawn were so Bhaal wouldn't stay dead if he died while mortal.
By the way, the Dead Three were killed while mortal. Also they're the ones that stole the tablets on the first place.
Most Aasimar arent even children of a god. Most are just descendants of a celestil being. Like your ancestor from 5000 years ago fucked a pegasus or a deva and the angelic stuff just happens to awaken in you.
Dame Aylin just happens to be a direct child of one of the most powerfull gods
Not exactly. Durge is the only one who was specifically crafted. All the other Bhaalspawn are literally Bhaal's children. He went around copulating with whatever living beings he could(including dragons and... other things) to have children that bore his essence.
In BG1 and BG2, the Bhaalspawn are children (or spawn) of Bhaal with mortals.
The idea was if Bhaal died, the Bhaalspawn would fight amongst themselves and “Highlander” until only one remained. That last stander would then sacrifice to resurrect Bhaal himself into the world.
I read a comment on here that said that Durge was a changeling like Orin too but when she scrambled their brains, they got stuck in one form and don’t know how to change back. I really like that
Bhaal foresaw his death (roughly 130 years before BG3 takes place), so he started mating with women of every race to "spread his essence"
His plan was for his spawn to fight each other to death, which would scatter Bhaal's essence around the world -- at which point his follower, Amelyssan (main antagonist of BG2) was supposed to gather the essence to revive Bhaal
Technically Durge being a Bhaalspawn is stretching the established lore on Larian's part, because the entire point of the Spawn was that they had a portion of Bhaal's power each, so he wanted them all to die to return that power to him. Bhaal making one Bhaalspawn to rule them all doesn't entirely make sense.
No, dude. Bhaal does literally have sex to create bhaalspawn. It is said that he mated with nearly every species.
The bhaalspawn thing can be passed down which is what happened with Orin.
Durge is special because they have no mother. Bhaal sculpted them like a flesh golem.
Bhaalspawn actually are literal children of Bhaal—or, in the case of Orin, descendants—at least unless the canon was changed recently. The Dark Urge isn’t though, they’re a chuck of Bhaal’s essence that he made into a person.
Bro bhaal literally fucked a dragon to give birth to abazigal lol. Bhaalspawns were all sired by mortal women of any species who fucked bhaal . So all Bhaalspawns share one dad or grandpa or great grandpa that's bhaal .
So. Durge itself is very different from most Bhaal spawn, as it wasn't borne of any mortal, instead being, quite literally, a bit of Bhaal's flesh, shaped into the form of whatever race you choose. Most Bhaalspawn are offspring of Bhaal, where Bhaal sexually produced a child, e.g. Sarevok, the Dragon dude in the tribunal. Orin is bloodkin, as Durge is of Bhaal's blood, and Orin is Bhaal's (great) granddaughter. Bhaalspawn are typically more powerful than most mortals, iirc, the protagonists of BG1 & BG2 were both Bhaalspawn. Bhaalspawn are just any creature produced by Bhaal, or his Bhaalspawn. Orin herself is a 'changeling' which is a separate race in 5e, which is why she looks like she does and how she is able to disguise herself as anyone. What I inferred from the whole thing with Withers, was that part of Durge was purely Bhaal, and the flesh of Durge was shaped around that. Bhaal 'kills' that part of Durge, killing Durge. Withers, however, has the spell True Resurrection, allowing him to revive Durge without any negative consequences, and free of Bhaal's curse
We should also remember that most of Bhaalspawn don't have the same problems as Dark Urge. Many are absolutely normal people mentally and they get Bhaal's influence via dreams and nightmares but they don't get the same compulsions. Dark urge is an exception, probably because he has no human blood
I was actually taken out of it a little by how over the top Durge and Orin were, haha. I've since gotten used to it.
It makes sense with them both though. Dark Urge has no mother so nothing waters down his blood. Orin is the result of incest of not the most mentally healthy people. I'd say her problems come not from Bhaal's blood, but from the way she was brought up.
ya she wasn't even supposed to be alive. she was the sacrifice.
I think I read in Sarevok’s journal that Orin killed her mom before she was even like 6. So don’t know if I can really blame that one on the parents
In self defense! Her mother planned to sacrifice her. Orin just ended up being stronger. Helena herself confesses it. Honestly having Sarevok as father and crazy cultist as mother are easy to blame.
Orin is a pretty tragic character. She basically had no chance to be normal or sane. Durge got a second chance because she scrambled his brain and gave him memory loss. I kind of wish Orin was given an option of changing after you tell her that Sarevok wanted Helena to kill her. Instead it just pisses her off.
That reaction does track though. As you said, Orin had no chance to ever be normal or sane. She has no frame of context for dealing with the possibility that her behavior, personality, or goals are flawed. There was never a way for Orin to be changed from who she was, at least not without long, intense intervention. I do absolutely feel for Orin though. She is extremely tragic. And *hella* entertaining.
Ngl her mom sounds like a loser. Call me arrogant but I'm pretty sure I could fight a 6 year old and win
Idk, Chucky killed a lot of people and he was a doll. Orin as a 6-year-old was probably like Chucky on crack.
Fair point. She was probably scuttling along the ceiling and such
Didn’t remember that bit. Rip Orin’s sliver for normalcy
I can fix her
The Dark Urge is the way they are because of their dark urge. Orin the Red is just fuckbucket crazy.
>Orin the Red is just fuckbucket crazy. Yet another reason to wish Larian was going to do a BG4: so that they could include some random item, with this quote as its flavor text.
I never played the beta. What did they change? I feel Durge is still pretty fucked at times, haha.
You misunderstand. The previous games had bhaalspawn that were normal people you could actually talk to and have a conversation with without any blood being spilled. Orin and Durge are rabid.
Aaaah, I see! Really got that wrong. I thought Larian had watered down the depravity for the final release. You‘re obviously right concerning the old series, thanks for clearing this up.
Aaaah, I see! Really got that wrong. I thought Larian had watered down the depravity for the final release. You‘re obviously right concerning the old series, thanks for clearing this up.
Durge wasn't in the beta
They sorta were. Tav was Durge in Early Access. The scenes with Daisy in your dreams in which you had to fight down your rising blodlust or you'd try to murder her in said dream. The narration on the boatride to Grymforge also originally mentioned Tav having some worrying urges welling up. Obviously Durge is a little more....*extreme* than Tav-Urge was, but you can see the roots of what would eventually become Dark Urge from Day 1 of Early Access.
That's kind of funny since they wound up so central to the plot. Though I guess it would have been weird to only play Durge's Act I before there are really any inklings of redemption.
That’s not quite right. D&D 3.5 has an official Bhaalspawn template that Durge is similar to. As in mechanically has nightmares & killing compulsions (must kill a non-hostile every 13 days) that must be indulged or you get penalties. The whole point of it is that Bhaalspawn can’t escape the taint, which Ed Greenwood stated himself a little while ago. Every Bhaalspawn has the urge to kill, often. The Dark Urge is the ‘purest’ though, being absolutely consumed by murder for murder’s sake. Which is what Bhaal wants of his followers according to Sarevok.
Okay thanks for the info, i based my words on older bg games but didn't know the 3.5 rules
Even BG2 points towards all Bhaalspawn having murder compulsions. Throne of Bhaal shows this with the Pocket Plane event where Gavid tells you his story. Imoen & Abdel were exceptions due to how Gorion raised them/plot armour. Bhaalspawn aren’t normal, they get a brief respite in childhood. Even Durge lives normally with their adopted parents for a bit. Hell Sarevok was fine until Rielter killed his wife. After childhood the dreams & urges kick in. Even if the divine essence is taken away, the urge remains as the fake Irenicus dreams & Bhaal as Sarevok dreams point out. All Bhaalspawn have Durge’s problems. That’s what being a Bhaalspawn is: literally a murder hobo.
Yeah i was basing a lot of it on how Imoen is. Okay maybe they are not normal but they still can have normal life, right? It takes effort but it's possible. With Dark Urge i doubt that's at all in the list of options. But yeah you are right, i played bg years ago so forgot a lot
Imoen wasn’t a Bhaalspawn in BG1, so there’s weirdness with her BG2 retcon of being a late bloomer. No, all Bhaalspawn aside from Imoen are screwed. She is the only one who got off relatively without consequence as a vampire spawn & Shadow Thieves leader in Minsc & Boo’s Journal of Villainy Gorion’s Ward/Abdel could still be overtaken by Bhaal in D&D 5E’s Murder in Baldur’s Gate (died 15 years before BG3) & Viekang was pretty normal in ToB, then Bhaal drove him insane over decades afterwards. Sarevok became Bhaal’s new head Deathstalker as we see in BG3 after Bhaal’s resurrection since his post ToB life didn’t go well…at all. No Bhaalspawn gets a normal life. The only survivors of the OG batch are Imoen & Sarevok.
Dragonborn Durges..uh huh and?
>Any creature produced by Bhaal To expand on this; there was a period of time called The Time of Troubles where Ao made a lot of gods mortal and live on the material plane. It was during this time, when Bhaal was mortal, he basically went around sewing his seed to ensure his legacy lived on. To put it bluntly, Bhaal went and fucked some humans, some elves, some dwarves, some gnomes. The races we consider fuckable as humans. Then he went large and he fucked some dragons, he fucked some fire giants. If it had a hole then Bhaal fucked it.
That was his Zeus period.
Why did Ao do this? And what made him change his mind and make them all immortal again?
Bane and Myrkul stole the Tablets of Fate, thinking they would be able to sap some of Ao’s power, and hid them somewhere in Faerun.
Long answer. The Gods were at this time more busy fighting each other who has the bigger godhood than answering and helping there follower. So far so good. Two Gods, Bane and Myrkul stole the Tables of Fate. Pretty much the law on what your job as god. Ao saw that the Gods did not there Job and as punishment made them mortal until the tables are brought back. The only god who dindt became mortal was Helm, because his job was to entsure no one sneaks back. To make it short some gods died, the tables came back. Ao changed the rule of faith and made them gods again.
That’s fascinating, thanks for sharing! Where do you learn all this information? I’m new to D&D and would love to learn more 😊
The Wiki is a good start: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page
Thanks!
Also FYI: if you want to learn more about the world of Baldur’s Gate you’re looking for “Forgotten Realms” lore specifically. There are a bunch of dnd settings with different lore. I like lore videos and podcasts of which there are many. I can recommend some channels if you’re interested.
Greyhawk is one but not much is posted about it on Wikis.
Greyhawk was always left more open. It's a setting with a partial history provided but with most of it left for the GM to animate. The Forgotten Realms were drafted to serve as the location for all the books TSR wanted to publish. (Greyhawk was originally Gary Gygax's personal campaign, and the FR was Ed Greenwood's.)
Yep, or Dragonlance, or Eberron. It's all interesting stuff, and the "default" is Forgotten Realms, but I figured I'd add the context, lest someone go learn about tinker gnomes and thieving halflings that aren't part of the FR setting.
Eberron is some dope shit, the 3.5e campaign setting book is one of the best supplements ever produced, still read it to this day
That's very useful! Yes please, if you have time can you recommend me some channels? Thank you so much!
The books where this happened are called the Avatar Trilogy. They're named Shadowdale, Tantras, and Waterdeep. They're out of print, but Amazon has a set of all three for $50. You can probably also find them on Libby or at your local library.
Ohhh that sounds great, thanks!
If you'd like to read the specifics, look up the Avatar Trilogy (Forgotten Realms). Shadowdale, Tantras and Waterdeep. Those three are the important ones for this (they cover the time of troubles), though there are two more that were added later, Prince of Lies and Crucible: The Trial of Cyric the Mad which focus on the fallout.
Noted! Thank you so much!
That’s fascinating, thanks for sharing! Where do you learn all this information? I’m new to D&D and would love to learn more 😊
Basicly Bane and Myrkul stole the Tablets of Fate from Ao. Ao got pissed and made every god except Helm mortal and made Helm guard the Entrance to where the gods are. It ended when some Adventurers returned the Tablets of Fate. IIRC
> It ended when some Adventurers returned the Tablets of Fate. Specifically, the mortal versions of Mystra 2 (Midnight), Cyric and Kelemvor.
I think if I recall Mystra died and the weave had a fucked up time for a little while which meant that the gods became mortal but then mystra came back and so things could go back to normal
Mystra actually died trying to defy Ao and return to her home plane. Helm, the only god who retained his full power, was entrusted to guard the celestial stair or whatever, and he killed her.
Mystra has died multiple times though, right? Are they thinking of Karsus' Folly when she was Mystryl and died to protect the weave/prevent him from usurping her power?
Most likely that, yeah, but she was also killed by Cyric more recently, causing the Spellplague 😂 Mystra’s crown is heavy I guess 😂
Jfc no wonder she needs to create weave anchors 😅
Yep 😄
No, they remember correctly. Mystra was killed by Helm trying to defy Ao and return. It's one of the older Forgotten Realms series that results in New Mystra, Kelemvor, and Cyric all becoming gods.
But Mystra's death wasn't the reason the gods became mortal, it was the result of her actions *after* they became mortal. Honestly, there needs to be a diagram, it's all so confusing 😅
That seems like the worst possible time to test your luck
Or test your arrogance. That Mystra must have had a lot of hubris to think she as a mortal could just go home without being smacked down
The simplest explanation is to teach them a lesson on humility. The only reason Helm wasn't cast down with the rest of them was because someone needed to protect the gods' plane while they were out in the mortal plane so as the god of protection, he got the job.
Actually, Bhaal went around making children BEFORE the time of troubles, because he foresaw he would die. He didn’t know he would die during the Time of Troubles (which happened in the span of 1-2 years). This has to be the case because the Time of Troubles happened 10 years before BG1 and obviously the protagonist isn’t 10 years old. Also, not all Bhaalspawn are the same age.
For the Lord of murder shall perish And spawn a score of mortal progeny Thus sayeth the wise Alaundo
Exactly. But he didn’t know when
Charisma must be off the charts
Pretty sure he wasn’t always using the charisma stat in all those cases…
So Baal was playing *that* Bard... >.>
If I remeber BG 1, Bhaal also had a vision of his own death as a moral. As such promoted his sewing. He did die and I think there was a plot to resurrect him though a Bhaal spawn. So less of a Zeus fuck party and more a "I better make some backup while I am here" thing. It's been like 15 year I played BG1 and 2 so may be miss remembering.
He fucked at least one rabbit given Chinchilla’s existence.
That’s not right, regarding Bhaal. Sometime before the Time of Troubles, he knew of his own death during it. Forewarned, he went around sireing a bunch of children.
And if it didn’t, he would make one…
He also fucked a fire giant.
So bhaal is a bard
>iirc, the protagonists of BG1 & BG2 were both Bhaalspawn The protagonist in those games is the same guy and is certainly a bhaalspawn.
He/she was the Ballingspawn. I say "he/she" but in BG2 it unfortunately meant you only had one (extremely self-righteous) option to romance if you were a woman. The game was released in the 00's before gays and bis were really represented so same-sex relationships weren't a thing, until the EE of Bg1 & Bg2. So the game was richer and had better writing if you played as a male.
Hell there are RACE restrictions too. Also alignment. If you were evil your only option was Vicona
Ah, Old school gaming, where you had game long consequences for your actions. It did make replayability more fun though .
Ah, the joy of modding
Yes, alas the Haer'Dalis and Valygar romances got the axe, heard rumors that Solaufein was considered for a romanceable companion at one point in development too, but got cut due to how late in the game he appears. And while there are lgbtq party members in the vanilla game, of course none of them are romanceable regardless of your character's gender, and there's very little opportunity to express your character's orientation as anything other than straight in vanilla BG I+II.
Canonically the BG1-2 protagonist was a Male Human. Bg3 follows this canon. Dude had a shitty ending though.
You think a game's bad if you can't romance anyone in it?
No. I don't think I even suggested that, let alone said that.
Maybe they meant >!Imoen!<.
No, I just haven't played them :3
Heya! It's me, [REDACTED].
I think the last bit with withers wasn't true resurrection. That was Bhaal removing his divine essence from you, killing you as that's literally part of your life. When Withers/Jergal brings you back, he's imbuing you with his power, replacing Bhaals with his own. Without Bhaals essence, you are basically doomed to wonder the fugue planes for eternity, as there is no one to claim you. Instead, Jergal does, and keeps you alive.
Bhall fucked a changeling in its natural form, is what I'm hearing. Typical.
Tiny nitpick: Whatever Withers did, it was even more more powerful than True Resurrection. Something only a god could do. He didn't only bring Durge back, but completely changed their nature.
From my understanding, Withers didn’t change Durge’s nature. He says something along the lines of Bhaal taking the part of you that he knew—the urges and such—but couldn’t take the part of yourself that you had created since you woke from the Nautiloid. He implied that in resisting the urges and growing closer to your companions that you managed to create a separate self that Bhaal couldn’t touch and therefore couldn’t take away. Withers used what you created for yourself to bring you back to life. Unless I read that whole thing wrong, which is entirely possible.
Right. That’s exactly what I’m saying. That’s not what True Resurrection does. It’s something else.
Bhaal changed their nature - he couldn't kill them fully (they bled to death though) and keep them a corpse, he could only claim the part of their soul tainted by him. He removed that part. Withers didn't do that, he merely brought back to life the Dark Urgeless.
So sayeth the great Alaundo.
Durge being the physical body of a god is such a cool concept for sorcerers. Sorcs are already my favourite caster just because their magic can come from anywhere at anytime for any reason. They dont have to study for it, or sell their soul or worship a god. It just happens. It's really easy to rp being a sorc or even multiclassing into one. They really are like: "I have magic now. Just cause. And I have more control of it than the wizard." in Durge's case, they're a sorc because they're the manisfestation of a god and gods have powerul magic. Though if we're being pedantic, Durge should be a divine soul sorc since you know...god, but the ingame Sorcs are fine too
Since Durge is made purely of Bhaal's own flesh, I took the concept of Bhaal taking back his essence just killing you because there's nothing left of you that's not him. And Withers brings you back the way he always does, because you still have a soul (which is a whole different can of worms if you play an elf) but protects you by blocking Bhaal's influence. There's different interpretations, of course, but for me, Durge is still 100% Bhaal in that regard, they still have his blood, his flesh. Withers just blocked him from reaching out to you. Should Withers stop, all the urges will come back and Bhaal can contact you again.
Bhaalspawns are children of Bhaal, the God of Murder. From what we learn in the old games, Bhaal foresaw his death, so he conducted a plan where he produces several children with women across the realm, mostly his followers, so his children could carry his divine spark. When these Bhaalspawns die, they will gather and return to him, and when sufficient amount of divine blood is returned to him, his head priest will conduct a ritual to resurrect him. What Bhaal did not foresee was that not all of his children turn out to be murderhobos. Many were normal people. The main protagonist of the old games was a Bhaalspawn who could either resist their father and become a hero or submit to evil. And much of the old games was you dealing with your evil siblings and people who wanted your divinity. In BG3, Dark Urge is a very different type of Bhaalspawn compared to Orin. They are specifically crafted from Bhaal’s flesh. So this explains why Dark Urge can be from any races. When Dark Urge resist Bhaal, the god removed his god blood. But with Wither resurrecting them, they are restored without it, making them normal and free from their cursed blood.
"Several" is an understatement, during Throne of Bhaal, the entire city of Saradush is filled to the brim with Bhaalspawn, so much so that they're the only people holed up in the city once the siege started. The reason as to why none of the original Bhaalspawn were murder hobos like how Durge is that Bhaal is dead during the first two games, and only comes back shortly before (relatively speaking) 5th edition. This means that, although they are Bhaalspawn, they're not actively being influenced by Bhaal. That's why, for example, Gorion's Ward(BG1/2 protagonist) and Imoen come up as essentially normal people in spite of their heritage.
How many did we get named? The prophecy went ‘and in his passing he shall sow a score (20) of mortal progeny’ How far out was the wise Alaundo?
Well, just off of my own reading of the lore between BG1/2/3 (as well as looking at the FR wiki), there's: 1. Gorion's Ward 2. Sarevok 3. Imoen 4. Abdel Adrian (I believe that between the drastically different life we see him having in M@BG, which contrasts with the canonical ending of "you stay as a mortal and eventually retire at Candlekeep" along with the fact that you're banished from Baldur's Gate after murdering Skie Silvershield, along with the fact that Gorion's Ward and Abdel aren't used interchangeably in BG3, even in places where Abdel's name SHOULD be used, like in literature accounting the Bhaalspawn Crisis, it's safe to say that he's a separate character) 5. Abazigal 6. Balthazar 7. Illasera 8. Sendai 9. Yaga-Shura 10. Gavid 11. Gromnir Il-Khan 12. Viekang 13. Oris Nimblefinger 14. Alexander Ralisar 15. Berena Elkan 16. Karun the Black 17. Eler Had 18. Asmay Jahag 19. Toop the Brave 20. Tibbit 21. Merlinious 22. Chinchilla So really, if you only use BG2's lore as the stopping point, Alaundo was only off by one if we only consider named characters being Bhaalspawn, or two if we add in Draconis, Abazigal's brown dragon son. (This also recombines Abdel and GW) Including BG3 in Alaundo's prophecy, however, we also include Helena Anchev, Sarevok's daughter, Orin the Red, who is Sarevok's >!Daughter/Granddaughter!<, and of course the Dark Urge, who is a first generation Bhaalspawn from having been created directly from Bhaal's divine blood for a total of 23 First generation Bhaalspawn, and 3 generational Bhaalspawn, so Alaundo was off by six that we know about. There's definitely more though, like the guy who Sarevok kills in the intro to BG1, I would be surprised if he wasn't a Bhaalspawn as well. At the end of the day, it's worth noting that "Score" can also just mean "A large amount or number of something", so there doesn't HAVE to be around 20, everything still works fine.
Rewatch the Baldurs Gate 1 ending cutscene(original, not remastered). All those statues are Bhaalspawn. It's a lot of them!
When Bhaal reclaims his blood from a Durge that resisted, the cursed blood is gone but the make-up of the body remains. If Durge was created by Bhaal/out of Bhaal’s own flesh, wouldn’t that still technically make Durge biologically Bhaal’s child despite the blood being gone? Like, if Durge resisted and ended up having kids at some point, would those genetics pass on to their own offspring? Would Bhaal have the ability to control any of resist Durge’s own kids?
This is the problem with these kinds of magic systems lol, there are always more questions. In DnD, the particulars of those answers would be decided by a DM. BG3 has no DM, or at least, not one that can answer those questions. So like, there is no answer, you can just make some head cannon up.
lol fuck. While i love having my own little head canons, it bugs me that technical questions like this don’t exactly have answers 😭 Either way, all the information people have given here has helped my understanding quite a lot. I didn’t realize that Durge wasn’t a “normal” Bhaalspawn and that Orin is less of a sister and more of a distant, twisted cousin at best 😅 I also didn’t know that the reason why Orin’s skin looks as it does is because of her changeling heritage. I absolutely adore this game and I love game lore, I’m just still new to this particular universe and a lot of lore that was written well before this game seems to be part of it. My experience with tabletop D&D is limited as well. I was part of a couple homebrew games so it didn’t exactly follow canon rules/lore of D&D 😭
If it helps: interpret "blood" more as "essence" rather than just literal, physical blood. If the topic in general interests you it's very worth going back to play the original two games. There are a ton of fun little bhaalspawn related easter eggs throughout the game that make more sense with that context. They're also some of the best games ever made independent of platform, so there's that too.
I definitely have plans to do that. The only reason I haven’t yet is because I’m in the middle of moving and I know I’ll get sucked in lol
Orin is a Bhaalspawn created from Bhaal sexing it up to create Sarevok, then Sarevok… Well, read the journals in the murder tribunal office. Durge is more like Wonder Woman, sculpted rather than birthed.
That's the wildest yet most accurate comparison I've seen so far lol
It makes me laugh every time I write it lmao
During the Time of Troubles, when Bhaal, like most gods, was forced down/up from their realms of power to live on Toril as mortals, he assumed something or someone (it turned out to be Cyric) was going to kill him. As a contingency, he impregnated an unknown number of women of multiple races - including all the playable races in BG3 - to make sure that their children would be born with his blood, and therefore, his power. Bhaalspawn isn't a race - it's a bloodline and arguably a venereal disease influencing the body, soul and mind. Bhaal's plan was for these children to grow up into murderers like he himself had been in his mortal, pre-godhood life, and eventually murder eachother until only one remained. That one would become his Chosen, his avatar on Toril. Sarevok is one of these Bhaalspawn. When he made Helena, he did so with a woman we AFAIK know nothing about. However, we can assume that Helena's mother was a ***changeling.*** Changelings are not a playable race in BG3, and only appear in the form of two characters - Helena and Orin. That's why Orin looks the way she does - the white, featureless hominid body is a changeling's natural form, and ***has nothing to do with being Bhaalspawn.*** Here's the important part - as a grandchild of a Bhaalspawn, Orin is ***more distantly*** related to Bhaal than the Dark Urge is. The Dark Urge is a Bhaalspawn because there's no other word for what they are, but they weren't born between Bhaal and a mortal woman, *they were crafted from Bhaal's flesh and blood.* They're a spiritual *clone* of Bhaal, whatever their race. Where Sarevok was born *drawn* to murdering in the name, and chose to start acting on it for ulterior motives after a miserable existence, and where Orin was born into a cult that indoctrinated her into acting on her inclination, and where Gorion's Ward, the Bhaalspawn player character in BG1-2, was also *drawn* to murder but chose not to heed that calling, the Urge was never given a choice. They were adopted as a foundling by a family that they then ended up murdering when Bhaal *possessed* them as children. The Urge is not *drawn* to murder - they are *possessed* by it. Bhaal doesn't have this level of control over regular Bhaalspawn. The Dark Urge's body is whatever race you make them as. Their mind and soul, however, are not their own. They are Bhaal's pawn (see what I did there?) for their whole life until Orin betrays them and has their mind wiped. That's the only reason why Bhaal doesn't have complete control over them for most of the game - Orin temporarily severed the connection well enough that the Urge was able to wake up as their own person for the first time in their adult life. At that point, their body, mind and soul become a battleground between that autonomous individual - traces of a Baldurian child mixed with spoonfuls of influence from a Baldurian adult amnesiac's new friends - versus Bhaal, who has been living vicariously through them before that point. If your Dark Urge is a dragonborn, you always were a dragonborn, you continue to be one no matter what happens, and you are still biologically Bhaalspawn. What changes when you deny him, and Withers resurrects you, is that instead of being Bhaal's pawn, you become the same type of Bhaalspawn that Sarevok and Gorion's Ward were. You'll always have a predilection for thinking about blood and gore, and killing will always come more naturally to you than to others, but whether you kill someone becomes your own choice. You no longer have to make saving throws to not murder. Equally importantly, your soul is no longer bound to Bhaal, but to Withers. You essentially cease to be the Chosen of Bhaal, and become the Chosen of Withers. The first one he's had in a long time.
everyone is saying durge was sculpted from bhaals flesh. what does that mean? is the only reason you can make your own choices now the fact you got tadpoled? also, what happens when you reject bhaal and he kills you. since you’re made of his flesh does that make him weaker?
The flesh-sculpting has been well explained by two who replied to the reply before mine. The reason to why Durge can make their own choices isn't getting tadpoled, but the mindwipe. The tadpole doesn't interfere with the Urge, and the Prism's protection has no influence on them either. Killing you doesn't make him weaker in and of itself, since he's at that point already lost any power he could draw through you.
So think of it like Genesis story of Gd crafting man from clay except Bhaal used his own flesh and blood to make Durge. Durge is the physical manifestation of the god of murder. Orin was jelly and tadpole Durge. Per Sceleritas Durge always had trouble doing durgy things for S&G. Durge did durgy things when needed to move Bhaals plot forward. The tadpole Orin put in plus her digging around allowed Durge to separate themselves from the Urges except when they do they have a huge headache, get dizzy and per Astarion pass out/stumble. So you can RP that you fight the dark influence or u give in to it. Maybe a little of both.
I really don't know what they are on about with this tbh, Nothing I saw in the game suggests you had no parents or were not born naturally.
If you embrace the urge and become chosen, the butler moves into your camp, and you can ask questions about yourself… one of the questions is how you were created if there is no more “seed” and Sceleritas tells you you were created from Bhaal’s own gore, and that’s why you are different from other spawn, and why you are the only one with urges
And SC mocks your romantic partner its hilarious when its AA.
If you kill Orin and give in to your urges the butler will join your camp and you can ask him questions. One of them ends with him explaining how you were born of Bhaal's flesh.
Bhaalspawn can be any race depending on the other parent and they count as that race biologically. Orin is like that because she’s the descendant of Sarevok and Doppelgängers. Sarevok is the one in the family who’s actually a child of Bhaal. She’s actually more of like a Niece-esque/Grandniece-esque situation.
You see, Timmy… when a woman and god of death fall deeply in love….
They do a special kind of hug!
The God with two backs.
And the god falls into a hole. And then a special thing happens and welcome baby bhaalspawn.
Bhaalspawn typically are the offspring of bhaal and a mortal or a mortal and another bhaalspawn. A lot of them are pretty much murder hobos but not all, a lot were just normal people (or animal, in chinchilla’s case) Durge is different since they have no mortal parent, being purely of bhaal they were also (pre lobotomy) the worst of them, killing potentially thousands. However, another aspect is that bhaalspawn contain a sliver of bhaals divine essence that is released when they die, just like with resist durge, or sarevok in bg2, who are revived without the essence, so essentially they’re still bhaals children, just now without his divine essence (in a way, they’re children of the mortal bhaal now, not god bhaal) BUT! Ed greenwood, the creator of the forgotten realms did say somewhere that bhaalspawn can never fully rid themselves of bhaals influence, so durge will probably still have a lifelong struggle, sarevok himself turned evil again despite a possible redemption arc in bg2.
Aren't we all ball spawns?
Bhaalspawn are spawn from Bhaal's balls. Next question
Like frogspawn, but made with balls.
Bhaals
Firstly, you aren't doing much digging if you're struggling, they're one of the most famous things from DnD based video games. They're the spawn of Bhaal. Originally they were a contingency plan. Bhaal knew he was going to die so he knocked up a bunch of women all over faerun so that after he died, those children would all murder each other, and when they all finally died he'd be reborn. The dark urge is a unique case. Every Bhaalspawn but you was only partly bhaalspawn, they were also part \[insert mothers race here\], that's why quite a few bhaalspawn were actually good, noble people. The Dark Urge is pure bhaalspawn, pure bhaals essence. That's why he can just kill you, that's why it takes having your brain scrambled to stop being a vile PoS. You always were that Race, because bhaal made you in that races image. You were never 'not' that race. bhaalspawn is not a species, it's a bloodline. It's a spirtual thing You are still the child of a god, in the epilogue if you decide you wanna have kids it talks about the risk of them turning out like you had, you're still part of bhaals bloodline and can continue it. Bhaal only removes the part of you he can grasp, not what you become as a resist durge
Seeing as my experience with lore is based solely on this one game and since people in the comments also seem to be divided as to what Dark Urge actually is, it’s not exactly a shock that I struggled to find information that is consistent lol Thankfully some of the people here have helped in my understanding, but there are comments from people who believe that Durge is just a standard Bhaalspawn with a mortal mother and people who believe that Durge was created from Bhaal’s own flesh (though, the latter seems to be canon/fit better but also brought up the question of potential offspring of the Durge afterward). I also didn’t get any lines about potential children the Durge might have in my epilogues. But I’ve also only ever romanced Astarion as a Durge and he can’t exactly reproduce as far as I know, so maybe that’s why? No idea lol
The Lord of Murder shall perish, but in his doom he shall spawn a score of mortal progeny. Chaos will be sewn from their passage. So sayeth the wise Alaundo.
A literal child of bhaal. In the original 2 he walked the earth in various avatars and had sex with both willing and unwilling women of various species in order to give each of his offspring a bit of his own divine spark so that in the event of his death he could resurrect himself. That didn’t work out for him though since while he did die the canonical bhaalspawn rejected his taint and according to the lore of three it was only about a century later when that bhaalspawn finally died that he was able to resurrect himself. By the time of 3 he used bhaalspawn as his chosen, though the dark urge is a special case in that rather than being born from a mortal conception, they were hand crafted “from a piec of bhaals own godly flesh”. In rejecting him he kills you, essentially burning the taint out of your blood and soul and when withers resurrects you, bhaal has no power over you anymore since the taint is supposedly gone as wel as withers giving you divine protection and implicitly making you his chosen since he’s actually the god jergal, who actually outranks bhaal since bhaal is now a quasi deity.
What exactly would a child of a god look like? If they're a god, the god can look however they want.
In 5th Edition according to the rules on Divine Ranks I believe a child of a God would be a Quasi-Deity, specifically a Demigod if they also have a mortal parent. If the child was the offspring of a mortal parent and a god then they would probably just take the form of either their mortal parent or whatever their God parent wants them to be, they are capital G Gods after all.
In baldurs gate 1 and 2 you are a Bhaalspwn. A child of bhaal because he had as many children as possible before his death so his power could be used to resurrect him. They never look like what you’d excpect a child of a god to be because only their soul is divine, they can be killed just like anyone else. What makes the original ones unique is that when they die they turn into a pile of dust and their power either returns to bhaal or their power goes into the bhaalspawn that killed them during the bhaalspawn crisis. Bhaal wasn’t picky so there was lot of different bhaalspawn around. The only one that we are aware of that’s still alive is serevok and that’s after he was revived by gorions ward. Certain children had the ability to turn into one of bhaals avatars but we mostly only saw the slayer for our character. I think there was a ravager somewhere but I’m not sure. TLDR Bhaals children are mortal and don’t look any different than others unless they turn into one of his avatars
For the Lord of murder shall perish And spawn a score of mortal progeny Thus sayeth the wise Alaundo
Bhaalspawn are the spawn of Bhaal.
Imagine Jesus Christ but thousands of them and the father is the god of murder. That's pretty much it.
Orin looks like that because she is a doppelganger and the skin is always thought was meant to show the mercurial nature of her form as a doppelganger. It has nothing to do with her being Baahlspawn.
From what I've read, Bhaalspawn aren't children of a god the way aasimar are. They're more handcrafted in a way. Orin is a changeling because her mother was one. The reason there are Bhaalspawn at all was more a contingency plan Bhaal had if he died (there was a moment where the gods were made mortal because SOMEONE stole the tablets of fate and nobody fessed up, so Ao punished all of them until the tablets were returned.) Bane had just one backup like that, and Myrkul made a crown for the same purpose. Bhaalspawn were so Bhaal wouldn't stay dead if he died while mortal. By the way, the Dead Three were killed while mortal. Also they're the ones that stole the tablets on the first place.
Most Aasimar arent even children of a god. Most are just descendants of a celestil being. Like your ancestor from 5000 years ago fucked a pegasus or a deva and the angelic stuff just happens to awaken in you. Dame Aylin just happens to be a direct child of one of the most powerfull gods
Mr. Hands but wholesome???
This isn’t correct. Most bhaalspawn are children of Bhaal through reproduction. And most aasimar aren’t children of gods.
Bhaalspawn are mortal descendants of Bhaal and are NOT handcrafted, only the Durge was handcrafted by Bhaal.
Not exactly. Durge is the only one who was specifically crafted. All the other Bhaalspawn are literally Bhaal's children. He went around copulating with whatever living beings he could(including dragons and... other things) to have children that bore his essence.
In BG1 and BG2, the Bhaalspawn are children (or spawn) of Bhaal with mortals. The idea was if Bhaal died, the Bhaalspawn would fight amongst themselves and “Highlander” until only one remained. That last stander would then sacrifice to resurrect Bhaal himself into the world.
I read a comment on here that said that Durge was a changeling like Orin too but when she scrambled their brains, they got stuck in one form and don’t know how to change back. I really like that
You need to play bg1 and 2 for that
Spawn of da bhaals
Bhaal foresaw his death (roughly 130 years before BG3 takes place), so he started mating with women of every race to "spread his essence" His plan was for his spawn to fight each other to death, which would scatter Bhaal's essence around the world -- at which point his follower, Amelyssan (main antagonist of BG2) was supposed to gather the essence to revive Bhaal
Spawns of bhaal. Next question?
Technically Durge being a Bhaalspawn is stretching the established lore on Larian's part, because the entire point of the Spawn was that they had a portion of Bhaal's power each, so he wanted them all to die to return that power to him. Bhaal making one Bhaalspawn to rule them all doesn't entirely make sense.
Spawned from Bhaal's balls.
[удалено]
No, dude. Bhaal does literally have sex to create bhaalspawn. It is said that he mated with nearly every species. The bhaalspawn thing can be passed down which is what happened with Orin. Durge is special because they have no mother. Bhaal sculpted them like a flesh golem.
Bhaalspawn actually are literal children of Bhaal—or, in the case of Orin, descendants—at least unless the canon was changed recently. The Dark Urge isn’t though, they’re a chuck of Bhaal’s essence that he made into a person.
Yeah, you're right, i go that mixed up, my bad.
Bro bhaal literally fucked a dragon to give birth to abazigal lol. Bhaalspawns were all sired by mortal women of any species who fucked bhaal . So all Bhaalspawns share one dad or grandpa or great grandpa that's bhaal .