Journal

We picked up in Grymforge, with a vague idea of what we needed to do. We knew wanted to destroy the eye, as Brithvar had asked us to do so. We also knew we needed to find some smokepowder to blow up the wall. So that’s where our quest began.

We did a bit more exploring in Gyrmforge to see if we could find the smoke powder. Deb discovered a door, which lead to a passage with the powder. We picked up the powder and proceeded to the area with all the magma, to blow up the wall. When we blew up the rubble the first time, we immediately ended up in a conflict. I think it was because there was fire on the floor from the powder. The second time we used water to put it out, and all was good. We had to choose to align with Nere and the cultists or the mutineers. We chose the mutineers and fought and killed Nere.

This will be a bit of a light entry, because I’m writing it more than 2 weeks after we played. This is more for continuity.

We left the myconid area, in search of a gnome. I forget their name. We walked down to the beach and met some slighltly unfriendly Duergar. We convinced them to tell us where the rest of the Duergar are and they allowed us to use their boat for passage across the lake. We made it o Grymforge, in search of the gnomes that were taken as slaves.

Today’s session was a fun one. We started out going back to Emerald Grove, to sell some wares, but then dove into Karlach’s quest for infernal iron. It took us back to the Blighted Village, to an area we had been before. We got the infernal iron and went back to Emerald Grove, so she could get fixed up. After that, we thought we might go towards the Mountain Pass, but the Gith on the bridge did not look like an encounter we wanted to entertain.

We resumed play in the toll house, and talked to the people there. It became clear that they were on a quest to kill the she devil. Before even meeting her, we told them we would not be killing her and killed them instead. Briefly after, we met Karlach. She told us snout her infernal engine and that she needed to get it “tuned up”. We had her run off to camp and wait for us. We wandered a bit west to Waukeen’s Rest. I went up to see what was happening, and one of the members of the Flaming Fist immediately was suspicious of me, as I am a drow. I critically failed a check and they were immediately ready to fight. We immediately started to flee. We traveled back to Waukeen’s Rest, and tried to explore the burning structure, while avoiding the sight of the Flaming Fist members. It was mostly unsuccessful. We reloaded one or twice, then called it.

Another pretty short session. We’re officially kleptos now. We did some inventory management and played around with dyes. When we set off, we went inside the Toll House and talked to the folks in there. We were offered a great sword for killing a she devil. That sounded like a cool thing, so we accepted the task. We found a basement hatch and went down there. It was secured by a wooden door. I happened to have some explosive powder in my bag, so I used this to blow open the door. Once inside, there was plenty to help ourselves to. Unfortunately one of the toxin traps got set off, so we had to work a bit faster. We went back upstairs with our newfound riches, and I (Tom) went to sell some of them. (It seems a bit ironic to be stealing their things only to sell them back to them, all well!). I clicked the wrong dialog option, and they were now going to fight us. So… instead of just killing them all, we had to reload the save. We repeated the kleptomania that we had previously performed then left and saved.

Not a long session, but we did make some story progress. We met Raphael, who offered to remove the parasite. We declined, but he will be back. We took on some hyenas, who were ravaged by some kind of hyena beast. We killed them, then met some travelers in a cave. We walked further down the cave, and I noticed that we could exit and there was a boulder trap. Deb disarmed the first one, but evidently there was a second one. I got stuck on a ladder and couldn’t get down. Luckily saving the game somehow got me off the ladder. We went back to camp and ended our session.

Quick session today. Started off figuring out inventory management. We went to Emerald Grove to sell some things. Conversed with the druids there to get some more direction to push to find the druid leader Haslam. We set off into the Blighted Village and I found what seemed to be a pharmacy or apothecary. In the building, there was a cellar. We explored it, stumbled upon some undead. fought them, then found the owners laboratory. They were studying necromancy. We found a book of necromancy, which seemed important. I (ashamedly) looked up the quest element on BG3Wiki, to see what it was. With a little guidance. we had Shadowheart read the book, and now she’s learned some crazy necromancy spells. We went back to camp and finished the session.

Played a short session today. We resumed in the Whispering Depths and engaged the (what we thought was the last) phase spider. It turned out that there was a Phase Spider Matriarch there. We worked through the fight strategically and triumphed in the end. We went back up to the Blighted Village and explored a bit more. We got Chunk’s horn of calling. We’ll have to see what that does, it supposedly will summon them to come kill things. We then found a shed with some creatures having “a good time”. Our interruption spurred a fight, which we weren’t originally intending to pick. We ended there for today.

We picked up where we left off. We found Emerald Grove; it’s a pretty packed place for exploring. I accidentally looted a body I shouldn’t have, and started a fight. We save scummed that oopsie.

I got some thing stolen by the tiefling children and Deb turned into a cat to get into their hideout. We found an owl bear cave outside and Deb talked to it, to convince it not to eat us. We did a bit of additional exploring and found Scratch the dog. He’s now part of our camp. Super fun. We reached the Blighted Village and I promptly went down the well. There are phase spiders down there! Ick! We returned to camp after fighting the first group.

First foray into BG3, in earnest at least. Once we got characters created, we set off. Deb and I both are learning the game at the same time, so we’re moving pretty slow. That’s okay though, I’m really enjoying taking my time. We’re playing on explorer difficulty, which is great. The last thing I want if Deb to get frustrated at the difficulty. Hopefully it stays just a little challenging, but far away from frustrating.