General Lore Questions

[Jivebot]

Most of what I know about Faerun comes from the Baldurs Gate/Icewind Dale/Planescape games and I haven't played most of them in over a decade.

1) Ilmater priests apparently can't hurt anyone judging from what I read in the Open Hand temple(which I assumed would be a temple for the Open Hand-fighting style Monks, lol). So does that mean if I roll an Ilmater Cleric i'm basically gonna be dishonoring my god with every fight I get into? Are there dialogues to acknowledge or address that?

2) I guess this one is partially a Mechanics question too but since they divorced the gods from their Domains, which of the available gods are actually appropriate to the Storm/Tempest Domain? The only ones that looked obvious were kinda evil.

3) Why do Bhaalspawn seem so weak compared to other Half-Gods like that Selune lady? She never ages, is nearly-unkillable unless you use the Spear of Shar on her, and has Wings. Then you have Bhaalspawn who mostly can't do anything outside their class/race abilities except for the rare few who unlock the Slayer form.

4) Is it explained why Isobel could hold Shar's curse back when other Clerics couldn't? I appreciate that Selune's blessings are probably very well suited to opposing Shar, but you'd think other Selune clerics would have come and tried to cleanse the region in the century since the curse fell. And you'd think that dead Lathander cleric would have been able to do it too. A Sun Cleric should be even better at holding back darkness than a Moon cleric. Or is this just one of those "because the plot says so" things?

5) This one may be a bit weird, and I think and doesn't even fully apply to this game but I'm gonna ask anyway. Waaaaaay back when I was young and didn't really understand that not all DND books were set in the same universe I bought a book that was purely dedicated to Half-Dragons as a playable race. All about their culture, their relationship to Dragons, the politics amongst dragons, etc, etc. Was that set in Faerun? The Dragonborn don't seem to resemble the Half-Dragons as i remember them from that book at all. BUT the Dragon bloodline Sorcerers resemble them very much once they start unlocking the various Stat boosts, immunities, breath weapons, and other traits they seem to get in every DnD game except this one. Speaking of which...why don't they get any of that in this game?

That's it for now but i'll probably have more eventually. lol

[JennyTheGhoul]

As to #4, I think because Selune and Shar are enemies they went with that. She can only hold back the curse in that small area, though, with the moonshield and she pretty much has to keep it going all the time.

[sevensided]

Originally posted by Jivebot:

Most of what I know about Faerun comes from the Baldurs Gate/Icewind Dale/Planescape games and I haven't played most of them in over a decade.

1) It depends. Some portions of Ilmater's followers are pacifists, some act like the red cross, and some are normal knights, paladins, etc. The followers of the major gods are not monolithic and uniform in their modus operandi.

2)If I remember the list properly, with no regards to alignment-
Bahamut, Tempus, Mystra, Moradin, Gruumsh, Tiamat, Talos would be easily reasonable dieties to use the Tempest subclass for. You could make edge case arguments for others.

3) The Nightsong is experienced, iirc. Baahlspawn that have been around the block are more powerful than those who have not. Being a demi god isn't a guarantee of power. Its a headstart to power.

4) Not sure, need to dig into it more.


5) That Half Dragon supplement from an earlier DnD version you found is likely extremely separate from this version/edition/setting of DnD

[Angry Trash]

For 1# : Priests of Ilmater actually do fight, quite a bit. They are compelled to resist all forms of oppression and tyranny with WHATEVER means they need to do so. Imposing your will on others is a major issue with them, to the point of them not trying to stop zealous fighters from seeking death in battle but healing them up and then letting them do what they will.

3 : They're not actually half gods - they're less than a quarter usually (and they are supposedly stronger the more pure they are and the more they commit to the Urge). Originally there were thousands of them, and it was prophesied when all would die one would inherit the full divinity and walk again as Bhaal. You can play as a Bhaalspawn and former leader of his church in this game, and it's explained that he was actually just pretty frivolous and dismissive even to his most devoted.

4 : Because she was more than just a priestess of Selune, she was the wife of a Daeva - an immortal fragment of Selune's divinity, she was favored by Selune utterly. But she was raised from the dead, and was dying again unless you free her lover who essentially helps sustain her.

5 : Half-Dragons are actually exactly that. They have direct dragon lineage. Dragonborns do not, it's explained in their creation page when you're making one that they do not have any actual draconic lineage. They came from people transformed into a dragon-like race by Bahamut (made in the image of Dragons, but not related to them).

[Morgian]

1) Ilmater is the god of suffering and self-sacrifice. His symbol is an open hand, hence the name. In other editions, unarmed combat is his holy weapon type.
2) Talos, Auril, Umberlee, Aerdie, and Silvanus come to mind as having a connection with storms.
3) The bhaal spawn and other halfbreeds are far away from being gods, half or not. They merely carry Bhaal's spirit, not his powers. Dame Aylin is a deva and no god either. Or the bar for being a deity is really low.
4) This is plot armor. When you look at the game as a whole and how prevalent Shar ruins are, one cannot wonder if they had not planned something about that goddess as the main plot at some point. In the novels and the game books Shar used to be a side figure, her only importance being her dark weave. Later she became a main antagonist, although she lost all main conflicts, and in the end the dark weave, too. From there comes the idea that Selune is best suited to counter Shar, although some deities would have something to say about that (e.g. Mystra).
5) In 5E everything from former editions got nerfed or removed to make it more appealing to a broader spectrum of people, typically in the name of balance, whatever that means. It worked fine for decades before that, after all. That is certainly the reason why dragonborn have no dramatic powers anymore. There were several books in various editions about dragonborn, ever since the draconians appeared in Dragonlance, so it is hard to say which one you bought.

[M'igo Kazan]

Alas, lore has no affect on game mechanics in BG3, everyone is equal and natively good-natured even when it makes absolutely zero sense, like demonspawn and the shadow races.. it's honestly quite immersion-breaking

Also, the complex and politically-involved half-dragons you remember might be from the Krynn setting, not Forgotten Realms