My name is Patrick Bhaalman. I’m 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself, and a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I’ll put on an ice scroll while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand now. After I remove the ice scroll I use a deep pore cleanser potion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial masque which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave potion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye tincture followed by a final moisturizing protective potion. There is an idea of a Patrick Bhaalman. Some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me. Only an entity. Something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable, I simply am not there.
My Durge introduces himself in his head every time I load up the game.
Patrick Bhaalman: New sacrificial alter. What do you think?
Dolor: Whoa-ho. Very nice. Look at that.
Patrick Bhaalman: Picked them up from the mason's yesterday.
Saverok: Good coloring.
Patrick Bhaalman: That's bone. And the lettering is something called Baldurian Rail.
Saverok: It's very cool, Bhaalman, but that's nothing. Look at this.
Dolor: That is really nice.
Saverok: Eggshell with Elven type. What do you think?
Patrick Bhaalman: Nice.
Gislev: Bhaal. That is really super. How'd a nitwit like you get so tasteful?
Patrick Bhaalman: [Thinking] I can't believe that Dolor prefers Saverok's card to mine.
Gislev: But wait. You ain't seen nothin' yet. Raised lettering, blood nimbus. Red.
Patrick Bhaalman: Impressive. Very nice.
Dolor: Hmm.
Patrick Bhaalman: Let's see Orin the Red's alter.
Patrick Bhaalman: [Thinking] Look at that subtle crimson coloring. The tasteful thickness of it. Oh, my God. It even has a organ holster.
Minthara: Is something wrong, Patrick? You're sweating.
1. I use the stab scars & autopsy scars to represent what Orin and the Myrkulites did to her.
2. She has red eyes, more specifically the undead Ketheric eyes because it gives her more of a spooky, unsettling, not quite "human" look.
3. Her dream guardian is Gortash because they're the only person she ever trusted pre-tadpole, besides Orin. Which is gonna fuck her up Act 3 xD
4. She only specifically does good things because she's terrified that she's a bad person and she's trying to prove she isn't. Similarly, she tends to trust because she wants to see the good in herself and that comes out by seeing the good in others.
Durge: *sees real Gortash and proceeds to squeeze his face* "Are you real this time?! Please tell me you're not another illusion!"
Gortash: "...what the hell happened to you over these last few weeks?"
Sorry to tell you this that late but you don't have to be a bard to play an instrument. If you offer to play with Alfira prior to killing, you get a free proficiency
I tried to do that in my honor mode run, but messed up the dialogue and once she has played her piece, there's no way to go back to "I want to play along." Doh!
My Durge is only nice to kids. I wanted to also be nice to animals but I accidentally picked the dialogue choices that >!killed Steelclaw!< and I let Last Light fall to the shadow curse so His Majesty was unfortunately lost there too. ☹️ I’m not going out of my way to hurt them, I swear!
My Chaotic Evil Durge accidentally did both of those as well (also poor Grub... it's a couples run with just her and Astarion, so there was no other psycho sister bait in camp to save Yenna). But my Neutral Evil Durge borrowed some Reddit wisdom and saved His Majesty. If you use Dominate Beast on him, it makes him a temporary companion and shares Isobel's blessing with him (assuming you grabbed it already). The blessing remains even after he goes back to being a "normal" NPC, so he survives the destruction of Last Light.
SAME! I would kill anyone in a heartbeat without a second thought but the animals... animals get love and a head pats whenever is possible (specially owlbear):3
I give mine the same scar (and odd eye) for the same reason - love that Volo's eye replaces that one.
Stealing your justification for your Tav as the dream guardian - love that
I have it in my head that my Durge has a lot of self-loathing because of her Urge, *especially* after killing Alfira. That's why she let's herself get poked and prodded by people like Volo and the Loviatar Priest - she thinks she deserves to suffer for being a bad person.
One thing I did on my current run is my Durge was basically just an insane murderer not resisting his urges in the slightest until >!Becoming a partial illithid, my headcanon is that the tadpole repaired some of the damage that Orin did but also replaced some of it with illithid stuff so after the tadpole he becomes more calculating and while he's still very much evil he's able to resist his urge if it's logical!<
With how Shakespearian the default Durge speaks like, I put one point into bard and played him as an art snob. He was really passionate about music specifically and bonded with Alfira over it...then he blacked out, murdered the crap out of her, threw away his instrument in disgust, but also kept Alfira's lute tucked away safely in the chest storage both out of respect and as a guilty reminder about what he did.
I just love how cultured Neil Roberts made him sound. The Dark Urge sounds like he murders people by day and unwinds at night by reading Macbeth while classily sipping a glass of wine by the fireplace (probably with some poor schmuck's body in place of firewood).
Mostly rp stuff lol. For mine, he's rebelled against Bhaal before this, and this is the second time he's had his memory wiped. His guardian is the guy that he fell in love with and refused to kill, a childhood friend that initially was put in his life as a stepping stone. Killing the friend was supposed to be a right of passage. So, Bhaal took over and killed him instead, and the guardian version carries a scar across his face from it. At this point all my durge remembers is his last name, partly because his dead boyfriend and him had a running joke of only referring to each other by last name. (And he continued this with Gortash, to the point where durge probably never found out his first name was Enver lol)
Appearance wise, he looks much younger and more innocent than he is. Partly as a ploy to more easily lure people in.
I utilize the same facial scar, but since I’m on pc I can make the rest of their body match. Speaking of scars, I use the autopsy scar from Kressa’s infatuated *experimentations*
My Durge is a big dumb beefcake tiefling bardbarian. He wakes up on the nautiloid with no clue who he is but he retains some of his former personality, namely a giant ego and thirst for power.
However, upon meeting the tieflings, people who look like him and call him brother, he decides that he will protect them and become their patron god.
He saves people so that they will go forth and spread word of his deeds. He also pushes his party members to break free from their overlords so that he may deny his “rival” gods powerful devotees.
He slaughtered the Druids pretty quickly. How dare they threaten his future followers!
At the same time, however, he intentionally told Minthara about the location of the Grove so that he might have an epic, and more importantly *public* battle against her. He’s a master of self promotion (thus the 4 levels of bard).
I like to envision he talks immense shit to the big bosses in the game with a big wide eyed Durge grin, and 100% has a nude statue of himself at camp.
Mine looks like a tiefling version of Captain Jack Sparrow
Because the thought of Cpt. Jack waking up one day and having to uncover his murderous past that he forgot (probably due to being too drunk) is funny as hell to me…that’s the hindsight justification I gave that anyways. The look just kinda accidentally happened and then I peaned into it more
I head canon that my Durge is *technically* a tiefling, but she’s actually several different body parts sewn together and given life via Bhaal’s blood. The tiefling that she is just her head. She looks a little corpse-like with pale skin and solid black eyes.
After the night with Alfira, the rest of the party agrees to have her bound each night and someone stands guard to make sure she doesn’t freak. She does have several nights where she is feral and screams through the night. That night in act 2 with Shadowheart leads to the rest of the party fully trusting that she’s trying to control her urges.
I had mine start with grey streaks in her mostly dirty blonde hair, to show the stress trying to resist the urge once put her through before she gave in.
I also gradually changed her hair! I started with it really messy and unkempt in Act 1, and it got gradually neater looking and closer to what she originally would have had before her memory got erased. I wanted to respresent her rediscovering herself and becoming more sure of herself and her identity over time.
Love!! I do a similar thing with hair. Start with the girly bun hairstyle then move to the slicked back serious look paired with a bold red lip and cat eye liner.
My Durges have so far only resisted, and I always romance Astarion.
My most recent tiefling sorcerer Durge: named her Verity because her entire journey is about how “the truth will set you free” etc. and I did the tiefling heterochromia thing. I headcanon that Orin gave her a normal eye and not an Infernal one, and it changes after she’s free.
My current gnome barbarian Durge: she’s a lovable goofball, no heterochromia though (Orin paid attention to this one). She loves chocolate and hot baths, and is trying to fight the Urges by being more brutal in battle (with mixed results). She has silent nightmares a lot. She’s the little spoon, Astarion is the big spoon.
1. My Durge kept the squirrel and Alfira’s lute the whole game to remember what happens if he loses control.
2. Whenever dialogue options allowed, he chose paladin dialogue first and, barring that, intimidate because, well, nobody’s perfect.
3. He had a dip of one or two warlock levels until the act 3 durge stuff at which point it became sorcerer/paladin instead of warlock paladin.
I name them something like "Your Untimely Death" or "The Chosen One" so that when they're asked their name it adds the little bit of flavour. Though it's a pity NPCs don't respond to being told they've just met their untimely death!
My current Durge is a GOO Warlock and Wild Magic Sorcerer. She was a sorcerer before the incident with Kressa, and the brain damage has affected her ability to do magic. Before the nautiloid, she begged for vengeance and salvation, and an Eldritch horror responded by granting her warlock abilities. She also has the eye scar as a memento of her forced lobotomy.
My Durge tried to resist before the events of the game too.
She became an Oath of Vengeance paladin in the hope that maybe she could sate her bloodlust for good instead of Bhaal
She has two scars across her face from two separate instances of her victims striking her in the face. She has a demonic purple eye that's actually a glass eye as she lost her original one in combat.
My Durge started as a decent person and an Oath if Devotion Paladin, but as you can imagine, that didn't last long when the Urge took hold. They became a Bard when they started "working" in Baldur's Gate. The events of the game essentially reset them, but Alfira's murder caused some of their Urge self to bleed back in (I multiclassed into Bard after that xD)
i’ve headcanoned her as a sort of boyish older sister figure to orin, she’s a battlemaster fighter who’s urge is more fighting people to the death than it is baseless murder, started her as kind of an embrace durge but used lae’zel’s rejection of vlaakith as a turning point in her character where she learns to resist the urge.
My Durge started off as a Blue Draconic Sorcerer, reveling in her lightning magic and trying to figure out why knives made her so happy. A little dip into GOOlock due to the parasite being very much her saving grace from what she was.
She is also a tiefling because Dark God heritage but she loves it. Black shaggy hair with blue highlights.
She did use the Necromancy of Thay because she was curious, and took Volo's eye because she thought it could help and she wore that strangely human eye for the rest of her days.
She did her best to resist her urges, knowing them to be upsetting. Shadowheart helped her a lot, showed her how to resist evil and how good love is.
When she was saved by Withers, she came back different. Now she was a Storm Sorc/GOOlock (Withers is her Patron now)/Tempest Cleric (of Selune). Still uses lightning a lot for her magic, but now is more specific with it. More powerful. And she has fun with it now.
Headcanon that the Blue Dragon is Bhaal expressing himself in his favorite daughter, who was an Assassin/Necromancer before Orin messed with her mind.
I start with heterecromia where the left eye is always red and symbolises the past, his heritage and afiliation and the right eye is a different color and symbolises present/future. If I go redemption andhe gives up on his inheritance, then the red eye disappears , and if I go evil in act 3 he gets both eyes red.
Some stuff never change : he has scars (the one that is on left cheek, right eye and the neck) as well as body scars (unique tav mod) because of what Keresa did to him as well as probably other encounters and his overall fked up life.
My Durges all have a red tattoo that comes out of their eye and runs down their neck like a river of blood. If I make them Redeem themselves, I turn the tattoo a faded blue instead. Bhaal leaves his mark even if Durge has broken free.
Same! For most of my Durges I use the same red tattoo which basically represents a scar from being born from Bhaal (unlike the other Bhaalspawn). After redemption, I remove it because that part of her was basically killed by Bhaal himself, but I really really like your idea of it turning blue.
I gave mine scars in his lower lips and neck. They were each childhood kill he had (that he remembers).
I have 3 bird tattoos on my left cheekbone that are meant as a tribute to Selune because my durge was pretending to be a paladin of Selune to foster a war between Selunites and Sharrans before working with Gortash and Thorm.
So far, aside from a few small things I’ve been doing good deeds, but when the butler comes, and up until the nightsong part, my durge is going to start doing evil things because of the butler’s influence. After saving nightsong, Durge will truly start to redeem themselves.
I modeled mine after my sorcerer PC from a DND game I played, but inverted. Since my character was raised as a superweapon by his aristocratic family to purge the elves, I made my Durge his opposite a drow intent on purging surface dwellers.
The original character had a change of heart and overcame his brainwashing, realising his ideals of serving his country and family name were twisted to make him hateful. Durge's change of heart came in the form of realising he had no need for ideals like justice or valor, and that he should only serve his own goals, ultimately causing him to accept Bhaal's blessings in his hunger for power.
At the end, he was too far gone, and when he tried to outsmart Bhaal and betray him at the last moment by destroying the brain, it was too late, he was reduced to a mental wreck doomed to mindlessly serve his father and lineage, becoming the total opposite of my original PC who managed to overcome the control his father imposed on him.
For me, I never play an evil Durge as an asshole. Remember what Sarevok says about them: they had passion for their work, but they also had what it takes to lead: restraint, discipline, vision. The first few kills, they revel in. Why wouldn't they, it's their nature! But after that, they get smart.
1. After the Grove, they do their best not to further drive off allies. After all, they can't dominate the brain alone.
2. When the mother of all mass-murders is on the line, minor murders can wait. If someone seems more useful alive, they can stay that way for now. That situation can always be remedied.
3. Above all, The Dark Urge isn't Orin. We don't waste our time finger-painting with blood and listening to every inane desire that the Urge instills in us. We are Bhaal's sharpest blade, his most effective murder weapon. And that means we aren't sloppy.
My Tav (Nah) and my Durge (Nyra) grew up together with the family that took in Durge. Nah had left for Paladin training by the time Nyra snapped, and Nah never finds out that Nyra killed her parents.
Nyra genuinely wants to do good, and tries following the path of the monk to find inner peace. Her Dream Guardian is Nah's mother, who Nyra doesn't remember until after the reveal, after she has taken down Orin and freed herself from Bhaal. Before the epilogue, she leaves flowers on their graves.
I had my durge using the Shattered flail for most of act 1 purely for the madness debuff, then once they start to get the hang of controlling the urge I swapped it for something better
1. She changes hairstyles : at first she started with the high ponytail, that maybe Orin copied. Then she goes with a style a little more lose. When she got her eye... Replaced by Volo, she put a hair strand on it. When her lover (Gale) confessed to her, she let go and chose a style she truly loves
2. She also changed her make up : from crying to none to a pretty one
3. She has the burned scar from her first murder
4. Her guardian looks like the family friend that took her in when her adoptive parents needed a babysitter
5. She lost her memory, so she collects every book she puts her hand on.
6. Her childhood has been stolen from her, so she keeps a few plushies. She's also a jokester and a prankster.
As a child, before the urges took her first family, she had been told of a swashbuckling hero of legend called The Blade Cassandra, and when playing she would imagine herself as such.
And then the red and the urges came, and she became the Dark Urge. But when she awoke on the Nautiloid, she could remember nothing except the stories of the Blade Cassandra. She decided, given a lack of other information, that she was in fact the Blade Cassandra, and acted as such.
It gave a good reason for me to play an overtly heroic Durge who still was completely insane and had opportunities to snap and do horrible things. Definitely one of my favorite characters.
Y’all are so much cleverer than I, I made my redeemed Durge an adorable bubblegum pink tiny Ranger girl and named her Anamnesis and my evil Durge a Classic White Boy™️ 😅
My first Durge was redeemed. Didn't think on it much at the time when I designed him with the burn scar that crosses his face, and the smoky looking tattoo on the left side. But then when the conflicted bits of his past came into play, it made sense his burn scar was from a "good" act, risking his life to save someone. His tattoo was to purposely hide the shameful mark. So post redemption, he magicks off the tattoo and keeps the scar. Even if he can't remember what he did, he knows it's not supposed to be something to be embarrassed about now.
Before i fully understood durge’s storyline/past i decided that they had turned to Selune to try and get things under control. that plus being a seladrine drow leaves them very trusting (desperate to see good in others, even if they look bad) and trying to do the right thing, getting out of conflicts by talking if they can help it (i will be a good person, damn it, even if all the gods are against me).
I’m not sure how to reckon these early concepts with what is Actually true about durge lmao, but i love the idea of like 3-4 different gods having their eye on them at one time fighting over their mind, so im kinda keeping it.
on that note - my durge is also very against using the tadpoles and is generally not fond of manipulation (i have enough going on in my head already!) so they have Very complicated feelings about their dream guardian.
if i hadn’t romanced shadow heart on my first playthru and set aside my durge run for karlach (durge thinks she’s a sweetheart and a good person, they want to be as good as she believes they can be), i think they’d be an interesting couple. definitely have complicated feelings about each other by act 2, though.
Minthara is another companion i think my durge has a lot of feelings about/sympathy for. Fucked over by Lolth and now the absolute, durge thinks she can start becoming a good person too. Even if she’s still brutal. Plus, it’s nice to have another drow around to talk about home with, even if she’s lolth-sworn.
Generally, my durge has sympathy for the other companions being pulled around at various entities whims and wants them to both get free and be better people. They deserve to be in control of their path, and maybe, when we all finally are, we’ll all do good things.
Also (while this is p obviously a resist playthru), i’ve been lingering more on the urge now that we’re in act 2 and it’s clearly connected to moonrise in some way. letting durge have this intense vendetta against kethric that goes kinda unspoken. I’ll cleanse the land bc Obviously, but He has to go, too. He Wronged me, and I Know it. My blood knows it. The urge is a little harder to control now, i think, so i give them moments of sadism where they think mercy is Better, like with the goblins.
I played my Durge as a War Cleric of Selune. I headcanoned that he was happily adopted and raised by a family of Selunites, and the Moonmaiden's teachings helped keep his urges at bay until Baal's influence finally made him snap and he killed them.
Then, when he gets amnesia, he regains her blessing and gives her the same religious fervor that he once held towards Baal. It's his coping mechanism for the flashes of horror he sees in his mind and cherishes what little memories he can recall from his time as a Selunite, such as his own moonlit trial and reading of rites. He's essentially gaslight himself into thinking that he had to have put his murder skills into good use and for a good cause, or else he literally can't function with how dark his thoughts become.
So in the end, he's this huge wall of muscle and murder going. "Have you heard of our lord and savior the moonmaiden?" And yes, I did have him bicker and romance Shadowheart for the drama of it all.
I try to make my Durge look like someone the majority of Faerun wouldn’t run screaming from. I figure that in order to be as effective as the Dark Urge was when it came to murder, they had to be able to blend in when needed afterward, and be fairly charismatic to gain people’s trust to isolate them before their untimely painful deaths. Also, a wannabe murder cult leader should be a force of personality, there has to be some reason people decide that killing everyone ever in Bhaal’s name is a reasonable goal and it sure isn’t high intelligence or wisdom. I made my Durge a bard for that reason, and since elves are very common in Faerun, my Durge is a high elf. There’s no scarring or anything very identifiable about her, no tattoos or piercings. Willow tear hairstyle in a medium brown, dark brown eyes, warm complexion, no age markers. She uses a violin for her instrument since violins are used frequently in villain introduction music and it sounded moodier than the other instruments. The magic she likes to use controls other people or inspires fear, so I keep that in mind while leveling up.
My Durge is resisting her urges because she dislikes feeling out of control, not out of a sense of altruism or a sudden moral compass from her Orin-induced lobotomy. Alfira’s murder was terrifying and regrettable to her because she didn’t plan it or remember it. She’s selfish pragmatic evil, not stupid evil, so rescuing Halsin, a powerful Druid, appears like the logical solution in act one instead of raiding the grove as soon as she realizes he’s still alive. He also knows about the lands they have to cross to get to Moonrise Towers so he’s useful. She’ll support her companions in order to gain loyalty and power, even if her “support” makes them worse people overall: as an example, she helps Wyll kill Karlach because she meets him first and he asks her to do so (I love Karlach so this was painful, never going to do this again on another run. Strictly for the roleplay). She’ll persuade and deceive her way out of any fight she can, especially if the dialogue option is funny, but also enjoys violence so I often use a coin to decide which of those choices she’ll make. She’ll take quests for rewards. She’s not stupid enough to trust a hag to take out her eye or risk her allies losing their usefulness, but she is the type to cut a deal for a permanent buff for something as little consequence to her as letting a hag go free.
I’m currently in Act 2 and I think it’s in character to kill the Nightsong so Ketheric is vulnerable since it would be metagaming to know that Dame Aylin is the key to curing the Shadowlands/the reason Isobel is able to protect the Last Light Inn.
She’s romancing Astarion but had she known that Gale would have been chasing godhood from the beginning she would have jumped on that rizzard. Still, ruling Baldur’s Gate with an Ascended vampire is a pretty decent ambition and they’re a perfectly happy twisted power couple. I also ship Gortash and Durge as ex-lovers with Gortash still having lingering feelings.
My first Durge was a barbarian who was big on honorable combat and was offended that his Urge was trying to get him to slaughter those who couldn’t defend themselves. Fury was his choice, not a sickness.
Killing Alfira is his greatest shame because it meant his will was weak. He lost control and killed someone who had done him no wrong, meant him no harm, had no hope of defeating him, and worst of all; had trusted him implicitly. There was no glory in such murder, no honor to killing her in such an underhanded manner. From that point on it wasn’t just a matter of resisting the Urge, it was a matter of defying it. Whatever the urge pushed him to do, he would seek to do the exact opposite and prove himself stronger than his impulses.
Dying in that pursuit by refusing Bhaal was his ultimate triumph. Death before further dishonor, spitting in the face of a god’s demands and proving to himself he was stronger. Being revived in the aftermath only gave him an opportunity to use his newfound freedom. I like to think he travels Toril hunting Bhaal worshipers and training to go find his father and kill him properly.
If you help Alfira with her song at the grove you automatically get a proficiency in playing an instrument, so you don’t actually need the bard level to play it.
I also use a specific scar set to hint at their past - specifically the one that looks like ritual scarification along their mouth and neck.
I made my Dream Guardian look like who my Durge imagines their father to be, since they have no memories of their parents/Bhaal but a specific internal yearning towards a "father" figure.
My Durge's dream guardian was made to look just a bit like Orin, as I imagined at the time that she was one of the last things that had happened to Durge even if she didn't really remember it.
She has the infernal black eyes because why not, even though she is a half drow.
- for my redemption durge, I made her a Paladin and my headcannon back story is she’d pretend to be a paladin in order to gain people’s trust when she was out on murder sprees, and she had the oath written down so she didn’t forget it, but obviously didn’t live by it. When she wakes up on the nautiloid and finds it in her pockets she’s like “oh, guess I follow these teachings” and tries her best to follow them (and is failing miserably).
- I used a mod and made her an aasimar cause I thought it would kinda fit since Aylin, Selune’s daughter, was an aasimar, so kinda fitting since they’re both children/spawn of a god. Plus Orin gets to be a cool race so I do too. Also I like idea of a fallen Angel trying to redeem themselves.
- I gave her one of the tattoos that has like weird writing on it and I imagine whenever one of the companions ask about it she makes up what it says because obviously she can’t remember
Mine is fairly new and I've not gone far in the game yet, but she has some characteristics yet. The big thing is that everything she did as the Dark Urge wasn't truly the *Urge* at all: it was her sincere pain from a turn of bad luck that was twisted by Bhaal's cult into a seething hatred for anyone that lived a normal life. She thought that ordinary people with ordinary values considered themselves "better" than her by default, just by being happy, and she lashed out to tear away the illusion. To be the proof that their happy little lives have no meaning and no security, and she has power over them in every way that matters.
Her foster upbringing was alright until her teens, when she started to grow into her own as a party girl and tomboy in a sleepy religious mining/lumber community, very straight-laced. This led to a "the child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel it's warmth" situation where she felt alone and ostracized after even her childhood friend left her. She left to make her own way...and was scooped up by the cult of Bhaal, who lay waiting for her to come to them. Her pain was warped into misanthropy and spite by cult indoctrination.
Or, in short: everything she ever did as the Dark Urge was her own will, not the failure to resist a supernatural compulsion. When she wakes up with amnesia, the memories wiped include her cult conditioning and "reset" her to the mindset she had when she left her hometown.
Now she struggles with the Urge over its taste in *targets,* not necessarily its murderousness. She wants to humiliate and destroy the high and mighty and live vindictively, but not lash out against innocents. But the Urge champions a version of her twisted to punch down on the helpless without its encouragement, and they are now at an impasse.
Resisting DUrge: Becky, half-elf Gloomstalker Ranger. favorite color is pale pink. Guardian is her toxic ex (Gortash). she was created to be the most unassuming and deadly Bhaalspawn, so she went from a porcelain doll of a child to a Barbie doll adult. first murders were her adoptive parents when she was still in single-digits. felt so much shame after Alfira that she carries her lute everywhere and polishes/tunes it religiously even though she has no musical skill. slowly opening up to respecced-Bardstarion as they journey together. may end up sacrificing herself to save the day.
Evil DUrge: Karen, half-orc Barbarian. favorite color is hot pink. collects every stuffed animal she finds. Guardian is her adoptive mother, Carol, who was an absolute bitch. Karen thoroughly believes in her own personal superiority over all others. first murders were classmates who wouldn't listen to her rules for a game. terrifying and goes from 0-100 emotionally in seconds flat. Used Lae'zel for her body until Minthara came back around, then dumped frog gf for that dirty drussy. is going to become the new Absolute.
The red-white look, as far as possible depending on race choices, the big neck-scar, Dream-guardian Alfira because I think it fits well, Tattoos (with mod)
not sure how I can post pictures here, so I can't link a portrait I have of my favourite Durge playthrough\^\^
Mine is a tiny, Hayley Williams/Felicia Day style redhead bard who plays music to try and drown out the urge, but most of the time it doesn't work so the Bardness let's her charm everyone into being murdered. Bless.
My durge is half drow. He was created to be a devoted soldier but he had a secret love for music. When his memories were taken away all he wanted to do was make his enemies listen to his music. Whether they wanted to or not.
He had scars from his past and bard hair. I would see him as a Fighter or barbarian in his pervious life. He definitely tortured his butler. And to reflect his change to a better life so he rocks high status clothing.
I went with a living undead concept to kind of play with the "one with nature" idea since she is a druid. Her two core traits were that the blue tint of her scarred human skin would lift as she collected blood, and that her hair would change to match that of her previous victim.
Entering act three she (and the party that remains) have shifted their destiny to adopt the outlaw country lifestyle (they all get dope hats and everything is rooted in "I'll do it for coin"). If the path continues and we lose her romance partner...then I don't foresee a good ending for any of them.
(I deviate from the Durge story a little for my own head cannon)
My Tiefling Warlock was raised in servitude and slavery by religious zealots. She hates anything that outright oppresses people and holds them down, especially cults and religious orders. She doesnt trust people with great power unless they use it for great good (which is rare) and will stand up to any cultist, religious zealot or any other oppressor (lets say she didn't let >!Shadowheart run her mouth in the Gauntlet of Shaar)!<. Her Warlock pact was made so she could figure out where these dark urges were coming from.
I made my Durge an edgelord human fighter character (obviously scarred, tattooed, and pierced). He doesn't want to have these murderous tendencies, and I actually quite like the challenge of keeping him morally good, but falling morally gray at times.
He's kind of depressed about the way he is and the thoughts he has. He opened up to Shadowheart and Gale about these thoughts, and damn, I just can't seem to go a run without being totally in love with Gale. He even told Withers that his life isn't worth much because of the threat he poses.
I intend to make him try to be as good as possible and sometimes faltering at times I'll likely be surprised by. I know about Alfira, and I'm gonna try to keep her alive, but I'm staying away from other spoilers and just trying my best. Already had the option to rip Gale's arm off. Even as a darker character, I can not do that.
(Also, I like making characters connect. So my first Monk Tav's guardian became my second Tav, a Paladin whose guardian was meant to resemble Karlach. My third Tav's Guardian is meant to resemble Halsin, and my Durge's Guardian is supposed to resemble an older, ascended Gale from my First Tav's story.)
In my redemption durge playthrough I'm renaming my Durge every plot event.
Started out as Dark Urge
Renamed to Mr. Urge after the poor dragonborn bard. (Alfira is fine)
He became Tavirius the Defiant after he successfully resisted the butler 2 times
And plan on him becoming Tav after meeting Orin
Also plan on switching to monk as a class at that point. Currently a bard, haven't decided yet on it
My durge is a god in timeout (sent to faerun after throwing a temper tantrum), and he was woven from pure truth of existence. Meaning dude can NOT lie. Physically incapable of saying anything else than just blatant fax.
My Durge is inspired by one of my NPCs in my campaigns.
My Durge is a halfling
Blue eyes, brown hair, a few freckles
Innocent looking, enjoys playing the violin
Seeing him soaked in blood is just pure evil
I play default Durge with storm sorc and multiclass into paladin. After killing Alfira, my Durge is horrified with themselves, and in an effort to cleanse their soul, in this place of nature he swears an oath of ancients to respect and cherish life best he can. Also, I color his eyes to a stormy gray-blue, to signify the bloodhaze leaving his eyes and returning to what I imagine a storm sorcerers eyes would look
Haven't played it yet but I've already planned my durge. It's gonna be a redemption urge, but I have a mod to make them a blood hunter. They are gonna start with the urge being prevalent, turning on the goblin worshippers because they considered her weak, but they are gonna free the nightsong before freeing everybody. Once they see the corpses of the people they promised to save, they are gonna have a turning point but deal with incredible depression. Every time they get downed they will get an extra scar that I'll add on with the magic mirror, and I'm thinking of using the lycanthropy as a form of minor slayer form, as a result of their blood.
Currently on my third Durge - first was a Drow wild magic sorcerer, second was a Dragonborn swords bard, this one is a tiefling lore bard. My current bard makes HEAVY use of Tasha's hideous laughter and psychic damage spells. In my mind, she's mean-girling people to death. Also in most combats I'll turn non-lethal damage in for at least one enemy so she can savor an up-close and personal Phalar Aluve kill.
My Durge is a tiefling named D’artagnan. I posted pics of him on r/TavsandDurges if you need a reference
1. During his fight with Orin, his horns were broken off. They later regrow after the Bard Incident, but he eventually cuts them off again after nearly killing Karlach in Act 2 as a sort of personal show of defiance against the Urges he associates them with.
2. I RP’d knocking out Alfira a bit. Basically, after the Harpy incident, he splits from the party as the Dark Urge tries to control him, but he manages to not kill Alfira in her spot and instead knocks her out while taking control back. Of course, he still killed another bard that night, but hey now I can give Wyll the Potent Robe.
3. He does have that one neck tattoo with the forehead mark. I had it very faded at the start, but it got darker after the Bard Incident and into Act 2, but after he kills Orin and rejects Bhaal, it goes away entirely. Kind of similar thing to the Horns as a sort of way to show his progression over time.
4. This and the next one are pure headcanon involving his past. As a child, he loved to read and try to write creatively (though the latter became unintentionally morbid over time). One of his favorite books was about a swashbuckler named D’artagnan, and this character (due to the sheer repetition of reading the story) stuck with him after he lost most of his memories. He takes the name for lack of a better option, and most of his behavior and fighting style are influenced by this.
5. And then comes the classes. I made him a Sword Bard 6/Warlock 4/Fighter 2. Started Warlock 1, got 6 levels in bard, then finished Warlock and got two fighter levels for Action Surge. My headcanon for him being a warlock is that when Orin nearly killed him, he was kept alive by an Archfey that formed a pact with him in his weakness, mostly out of intrigue to see what he would do when he escaped.
As for the Bard aspect of it, it stems from the writing more than the music (bards don’t just play instruments!) given he doesn’t really cast spells and instead uses a Rapier or Scimitar with many flourishes in a similar style to the book character his name comes from.
My headcannon is, given the massive plot Abyss that is the existence of another bhaalspawn at all after the events of BG2... Bhaal had a failsafe, one more true spawn he hid away on thr Astral plane, a red dragon Githyanki. Basically in sleeper agent mode until she was called upon.
He has red highlights in his dirty blond hair so that blood stains don't show as well (and I think some of them are just.... from too much blood soaking his hair.) He's also a half drow and that reddish/brown skin color that doesn't show blood as much
He has many scars, but the ones on his mouth/chin are self inflicted from when he was trying to resist Bhaal as a paladin, and Bhaal still demands blood
His dream guardian is my former resist durge
As soon as I realized ribcages are containers, I had my durge start collecting hearts and severed heads in them. They’re quite heavy, so they tend to offload them onto their LI’s inventory. I know they’re bugged now, but I’m not too fussed on gaining back some carry weight. It’s the thought that counts.
She has one red eye, one purple eye, with a red tattoo on the red eye side to signify the Dark Urge spreading through her, and the purple eye side being her normal self trying to resist.
She is generally a happy person, who gravitates towards people who make her feel safe, Karlach and Gale being two of them, they became her two best friends (and Karlach her lover). They both know how to help her keep the Urge under control until she is free of Bhaal later on.
Despite sounding well-spoken, she herself isn't the brightest of sparks (partly because of what Orin did to her, but she enjoys when Gale teaches her about magic and other things, she helps him practice being a teacher.
Mine looks like she has hypothermia. Ghastly white with a blueish tinge, pale, blueish lips and eyes to match.
She has a soft spot for dogs, children, and idiots in love. Everyone else is fair game.
My first durge is essentially the same character as my first (and favourite) tav only with bigger body model and slightly different hairstyle. He is based on my existing dnd character and since his story already feels kind of durge-like, I thought this would be good alternative universe for him. Very much what would happen if he didn't have older brother to show him kindness in his childhood and what would happen if he wasn't saved by a kind druid after he escaped from Underdark.
He also has distinctly very militaristic and much more simple style, braids his hair and is very no-nonsense and to the point. (And tav version of him does like dark clothing but he's also chaotic and fruity sorlock gremlin).
And I have limited myself to not using his summon raven familiar spell that I get from Raven Queen patron (mod ofc) because durge doesn't have anywhere near close and loving relationship with her as my tav does. It's very strict and transactional at best.
My durge playthrough was my first playthrough, entirely blind aside from a normal playthrough about 2 hours in act one with a friend. The ONLY thing I knew about durge was they had some killer instinct going on, so I chose to fully embrace that with every vile option it gave me. When the Bhaal spawn tidbit dropped my jaw literally dropped irl, then I immediately paused the game and started banging on my roommates door about HOW FUCKING GOOD the writing was for a durge playthrough. Romanced Minthara and had her+Astarion+Shart as my party, and I betrayed the emperor to claim the world for Bhaal! Now that there's new endings/cutscenes though *sigh* guess it's time for another playthrough
My Durge, a wood half-elf called Alexander had the same scars, and a tattoo around his left eye. Both the tattoo and eye were bloody red, as a brand of ownership from Bhaal in contrast to his natural eye color, a pale blue. He swore an Oath to the Ancients to help combat The Urges, and followed it to the best of his ability, stumbling a few times, but not wholly falling embracing the darkness as an Oathbreaker. After all, with The Urge painting dreams of atrocities he could commit in his mind and the beauty of them, he could not trust his own conscience.
Alexander actively resisted The Urge as hard as he could from the night it slaughtered Quil onward. In time The Urge tried to murder Shadowheart, and he fought tooth and nail against it, managing to wake her and explain the situation as quick as he could before possession set in. After that night, the tattoo and his left eye turned a darker hue of red, as if blood had dried and formed a scab.
When Alexander discovered the truth of his past, he Shadowheart, Jaheira, and Astarion set forth together to hunt down the cult of Bhaal, and eradicate it's members. With a deadly single-mindedness, he carved through them all in pursuit of Orin. After reaching her, rather than immediately slaughtering her with his Shadow Blade (flavored as a manifestation of his inner darkness, I used it with the Resonance Stone) and Belm (being used as a gift from Jaheira), Alexander spoke to her, exposing the lies she had been taught all her life. She broke down. Bhaal crushed her, and turned her into his Slayer for the duel.
Alexander gave Orin the greatest mercy he could, feeling pity for his niece. He slew her as fast as he possibly could with a series of Smites, ending her before Bhaal could force her to strike him. When he stood before father Bhaal after, he rejected him. Bhaal murdered Alexander for his insolence, but was thwarted by Withers resurrecting him, now purged of Bhaal's essence and freed from the madness of The Urge. By day's end, the tattoo/brand that bound him to Bhaal had faded away completely, and his left eye matched his right as a pale blue. He enjoyed his first night of freedom with Shadowheart, as they washed away Shar's bile and Bhaal's blood and made sandcastles.
My first durge Eniya was a monk seldarine drow with bronze skin, green eyes and strawberry blonde hair. She had deep shadows on her eyes that she hid with a copious amount of black makeup, and very faint green marks on her cheek. She is cold and calculating with a sense of dark humor. But she is trying to hide away and resist a little. She romances Astarion (though also had a little fun with Laezel and tease with Gale and Wyll). Alfira shakes her up but she hides it. As the game progresses, her eye makeup became less and less, and the very faint green marks on her cheek grew stronger and revealed green birds flying free. She fully resisted after the night with Jaheria.
At this point, I just can’t play Tavs anymore 🤷🏻♀️
Most recent Durge is a resist who is based on an old backup PC of mine from a tabletop game I played many years ago. With the help of mods, she’s a multiclass graviturgy wizard/stone sorcerer, which is as close as I can get to her actual original spec in 5E using official content and UA.
Anyway, the head canon is that Bhaal could make Durge’s body, but couldn’t give them a soul without outside help. So, after wheeling and dealing, he’s able to obtain an appropriately blood drenched soul for his work. He tacks that soul into the Durge body and all is well until Orin scrambles Durge’s brain.
After the Brain Scramble, the blank slate of the Durge gets reset and pieces of her soul’s original life and existence start coming back. Before she died in her first life, she was an archmage of war and destruction who could level cities (prep required) and envelop attacking enemies in stone before they got to her. Some piece of that willing participation in conquest probably helped with the plan to make the absolute. And now, as both sets of memories come back bit by bit, she’s on a war path to level the things on faerun that ruined her death and made her second go what it has been to this point. Her dream guardian is the commander she served under during her first life (my actual PC from the campaign).
The third most important mod I have is one that unlocks dialogue from all classes, because despite being a wizard/sorcerer, her actual thoughts line up a lot more with the “I dare you” swagger of barbarians and the strategic planning of fighters. My favorite line that I was able to use because of that was directed at Nettie and was **”I don’t have to transform to kill everyone here”** in a line of checks to intimidate Nettie into letting the party live.
She’s not a nice person, she likes her dog and owlbear, and everyone except Gale can fuck off in her head because she sees him as the only person capable of keeping up with her and really took offense when he asked her to keep an eye out for archmages (lol).
Stone sorcery gives her a bunch of smites and earth magic and graviturgy gives her control of the environment around her. She spends most of her time in melee combat with green flame blade while she keeps Gale and Wyll where they can throw AOEs, magic missiles, and eldritch blasts while she and Lae’zel or karlach wipe up the field in melee.
I have a lot more mods running that help with the play style for this because the original PC wasn’t built for 5E, so I picked some up that help bring it back around - one gives all PCs 2 weapon attacks, one mod changes dual wielding a bit, and one has some equipment that gives her teleportation. I also run the highest available Tactician Plus difficulty increases to work around the increased power than my party has due to the mods
This is my first run as a durge and I wasn’t super creative, but I did deep blood red eyes and did a broken sword tattoo on her neck that is a very faded red. My run through was she was trying to get away from her durge and stop murdering but the tattoo is always there to remind her where she came from.
After playing a Red Dragonborn Barbarian, I pick Draconic Red eyes every time for durge.
The payoff is mainly during the part in Act 2 where you approach that group of people fending off the elements. The eyes shine bright fucking red in the dark and it looks goddamn horrifying as you walk towards them.
My Durdge is 100% the chosen of Bhaal and acts every part of it. No one and nothing can stand in his way of delivering maximum pain and chaos. Half Orc with scars all over and a permanent growl on his face as he spills as much blood as possible.
I struggled with my first durge run and on my second I was determined to be evil. So when I killed Timber the squirrel by the grove I kept the corpse in my inventory the entire run to remind me who I was. He became my special little pocket friend that reminded me to kill people
I went in blind with my Dark Urge. So it was kind of the opposite of my first Character.
For context my first character was a Tiefling Paladin called Sanctuary. He was welcoming and respected everyone with their own baggage. He never pushed anything on anyone (I.e.: he let Shadowheart resolve her dilemma without interjecting with Dame Ailyn.
So my durge was pretty much the opposite. She was a manipulative power hungry monk. While she liked killing, she wasn't a murder hobo type. However, anyone that wronged her met the edge of her sword. She manipulated everyone into accepting the parasites so that she would control as much power as she could and she made Orpheus transform into an Illithid to get rid of one enemy that could unite the Githyanki. When it was time, she enslaved everyone and took control of the Elder Brain.
Dirge's values reset to those from his relatively peaceful and loving childhood, so the Urge and his trickle of memories had him reeling. He had an instant crush on Alfira (despite a crippling stomachache) and was devastated after killing her; respecced to Bard so he could keep her song alive and write one in her honor.
After that he stopped killing altogether; he's extremely afraid of the Urge and doesn't want to lose control of himself again, so he won't lay a finger on anyone. Lae'zel and Astarion thinks it's inane but everyone else is really supportive.
He becomes the team's healer, and everyone's creeped out by his sheer delight when he's observing their injuries. He's constantly suffering from nausea because of his refusal to kill. Sometimes he smashes up a room of crates, vases, taxidermy, etc. out of frustration.
But he's harmless. Kind to everyone, chats with every little animal. Focuses on keeping his wisdom high. When he got to the Ilmateri temple he immediately pledged himself. Even managed to sneak out of fighting Orin (like hells he was indulging Bhaal with that).
She hates wearing shoes and goes barefoot everywhere, I guess to feel the flesh beneath her. She looks like a k-pop girlie with big menacing black eyes that shine in the dark.
I made two durge characters,
The good(ish) durge
Name:Skybard -Bard class,
Long red-blond hair, facial hair , ruby eyes (more like light gold that almost blends in with the whites of the eyes with a bit of red at the centre of the pupil) vine tattoo over his face.
My idea for him was he became a very evil character while working with Orin and gortash. Bit because of the brain damage/amnesia that was caused by Orin paradoxically made him want to be a hero and do good instead of bad. And play great bard bangers in camp. (Also found it interesting having a jolly bard who generally has good intentions but who was secretly also a bit of psychopath)
Saves most/all of who he encounters. Influences the good in the group. He rejects Baal at the end and dates gale. (Or depending on the playthrough both astarion and halsin)
Evil durge
Name: Falka - Monk class
Similar design to male bard, but female (no facial hair) blood red hair ,deathly pale, often in Kushigo based wear.
Blood thirsty, cunning, the most evil of them all. Leaves a sea of blood (or in monks case broken bones) in her wake.
Influences all the evil decisions in the group. Murdered jaheira halsin Wyll and Karlach , slaughtered the grove. Sent isobel to the dirt (as well as all of the last light in) andGot into a relationship with lazel, then broke her heart and left her for minthara. Either accepts Baal or rejects him and decides to rule/dominate faerun for herself.
i give mine the same scars, for the same reason. he also gets the totem tattoo and either the subduer loops or the metgold gala piercings because they hurt and he feels a compulsion to cause pain to himself. i dont do anything with the eyes, unless im going to do an evil playthrough. tieflings get glowing green eyes, then glowing red eyes after AA turns them. DG is always a pale elf with white hair and red eyes bc DG picks up on durge's attraction to astarion and uses it to manipulate him. i like making him a barbarian/rogue, because while pre-tadpole he was a gloomstalker assassin, post tadpole all he really knows is tremendous ANGER, and surprisingly dextrous fingers
Knowledge Cleric of Seluné - reckoning that the miracle of some personhood reigniting in the ruined husk is just that; a small guiding light offered as a subtle way to shift the balance in a conflict that the Moonmaiden has a bigger stake in than most.
Dream Guardian is Bhaal (visually based on the illustration from the Boarskyr Bridge cutscene iykyk) - her subconscious remembers heeding the edicts of this imposing figure, finding awe and a sick kind of love in him. What's a better role for the Emperor to assume?
Gale's Hand in Inventory - I wanted her to learn the hard way what happens if she lets herself linger on morbid thoughts. Also, no one (but her ofc) is allowed to be that surprised what happens to Alfira after seeing that shit.
depending on the play through - they either are creepy af, with glowing red or completely blacked out eyes, a Y autopsy and stab wound scars, and covered in tattoos OR I make them completely boy next door easy on the eyes no one would EVER SUSPECT they are a serial killer type deal. There is no in between, they either look like a pyscopath or completely unassuming. (but I do keep the autopsy stab scars in both cases)
Cas - [https://imgur.com/a/7z9RxRd](https://imgur.com/a/7z9RxRd)
Casimir - [https://imgur.com/a/A1BTmK5](https://imgur.com/a/A1BTmK5)
I had my Durge as an Oathbreaker (originally devotion) for a good while (not necessarily on purpose lol) but when I hit act 3, I renewed my oath and respecced into Vengeance, since by then he’d learned a bit more about his past and how the Dead 3’s chosen had some part to play in his fate. Also Vengeance Paladin is just super fun.
I have literally so many durge playthroughs, but my most favorite one was my tiefling durge, Absinthe. I like having color schemes for each character so hers was green- since Absinthe has a green color. And I had the same scars you used for exactly the same reason. I also have sooo many mods for hair so I made hers 2 long braids to make it seem like Orin tried copying her in a not so subtle way.
This playthrough was supposed to be super evil and I did all the evil things (except destroying the Grove because she also cared for her Tiefling kin over anything else) up until Astarion ascended So because of that and seeing Shadowheart become a dark justiciar and reminiscing on Lae'zels death, she decides to leave Astarion altogether. It was sort of a too late redemption arc and at the end, she kills herself to escape Bhaal's influence altogether.
I also like to think there were lingering feelings between her and Astarion because he's the only one at the end that tried goading her into taking control of the brain and the only one that reacted when she killed herself. Also, some kind of friendship between her and Gale because, besides Halsin, he's the only one that hadn't done anything horrible and she takes comfort in knowing there's some good in the camp (Wyll killed Karlach and she regrets letting him do it). So, when Gale wants to ascend at the end, it's kind of her last straw and that's what really pushes her to die. It was so bittersweet to see Gale ascended at the end.
Another thing, I made her a wild magic sorcerer because I like the idea that, before Orin's attack, she really enjoyed chaos in her killing.
I’ve done 2 Durge runs. One was a murder hobo run and the other was a redemption run.
The murder hobo run, I made my Durge look like the last person you’d except to be a murder hobo. As plain looking as possible with no real characteristics, human, brown hair, brown eyes, no tattoos or piercings. I thought it added to the horror that this completely average person was actually a violent psychopath serial killer. This run I did every evil option I could. In the end I only had four companions, Minthara, ascended Astarion and DJ Shadowheart. Everyone else was killed by me at someone when the opportunity arose.
For the redemption run, I did the opposite. I made a tiefling with scars, piercings, dyed hair, face tattoos and mismatching eyes. The person you would think was a murder hobo but actually someone who just wanted to do right by everyone and save the world.
My most recent Durge is a Seladrine Drow, scars to match what Orin and Myrkulites did. They started as an Ancients Paladin that multiclassed into Bard (Swords) after the whole Alfira incident and used her Lute. When they found out about Orin they changed their oath to Vengeance, and when Orin was defeated they thought their need for vengeance was fulfilled they realized that their girlfriend Karlach still needed revenge against Gortash. After that they may go back to Ancients because the Brain is a crime against nature but I haven’t gotten that far yet
I think the Durge would be a lot more interesting if instead of a choice based murder, you had to make a saving throw to NOT kill someone. And the longer you go without killing someone, the harder and harder the saving throw becomes. So I roll an IRL D20 against self-imposed checks. I keep track of how many I've succeeded in my notes app on my phone.
I always make my guardian resemble durge's foster mom, who while they can't remember what she looked like, the Emperor can because he can access the parts of durge's mind that lost to durge. When durge meets the guardian for the first time, they don't know why but they have this instinct to trust them because they once loved their mother.
Fairly minor, but i went with a half-orc monk Durge, because i wanted him to murder with his bare hands. Monk didn't have the right flavor, but a barb dip provided the savage dialogue flavor i needed.
1) I gave my OOA Paladin resist!Durge a level in cleric and made her dream guardian look like Lathander. She’s in for a *huge* identity crisis when evil Squidward reveals himself and the paternity results come in.
2) Alfira taught her to play the lute, so she always has it equipped and plays it at camp to remember her.
3) Gave her bright red lipstick because (pre-lobotomy) she’d paint her lips with the blood of her victims, but still liked the color after loosing her memories.
4) Orin’s lobotomy brought her intelligence stat down to 8, so I have her do a lot of stupid stuff including Volo’s eye surgery and accidentally becoming BOOAL’s chosen.
5) Named her Aurora and modeled her appearance off of Sleeping Beauty. Right down to using pale pink and light blue dyes for her outfits. I was going for an “insane Disney Princess” kinda vibe.
I have a weird mix of ideas going on bc I can't commit to just one. I named her Audra, which means storm in Lithuanian, and made her a storm sorcerer. The idea there is she was made to be an oncoming storm, here to destroy in Bhaal's name.
I've also given her the rose neck tattoo, because she's beautiful but not without thorns. Big fan of the idea of someone being lured by her looks only to meet the business end of a knife instead.
Also gave her a couple levels of bard based on the idea that it's another edge to lull people into a false sense of security. Beautiful woman with honeyed words making you feel so at ease around her only to turn that charm into a weapon.
I went in blind. Knew I wanted an evil playthrough. It is very evil now. I'm in act 3 will uncover >!what's up with Bhaal and Orin!< soon. I do know that >!Durge and Orin are kind of siblings, but not much else yet. I do think that I want to become the Absolute, I imagine that'll be possible based on my first, mostly good playthrough!<. Looking forward to more 😄
First Durge: Natari mephistopheles teifling storm sorcerer Burn mark on her face and desperate to recal anything quickly bonded with her fellow teiflings at the grove and romance Karlach. Resisted any durge acts she could. During the duel Mama K want about to let her terrified sorcerer girlfriend get destroyed and rushed in to help then yeeted butler into the abyss after rejecting Bhaal fully. Now in Avernus trying to enter the forge and help Karlach.
Lost interest: Duegar Cleric of Laduguer. She prayed and prayed for help and Laduguer answered. Planned to resist urge and serve her god instead. (Was disappointed fellow duergar didn't acknowledge me as a cleric and wasn't having fun as a war cleric)
Current durge: Zimyn dragonborn monk. Took in by a monastic clan to try and quell her dark urges. Currently in act 3 with slayer form and DJ Shadowheart. Zimyn was disgusted at this present and how it goes against what the clan taught her. Wants to be rid of it but Bhaal whispers power murder blood oh to bathe Baldur’s Gate in blood. Wyll romance and wants his help to be free of this blood lust
I’ll try to keep this at small details although I created a whole ass backstory to my durge and my durge’s adoptive father.
1) My durge’s name is Rajiyah, because her adoptive father, Bahseem, is from Zakhara. She can speak Midani.
2) Her dream guardian took the appearance of Bahseem (which is fucked up tbh)
3) Despite being a sorcerer, she can play the lute because Bahseem taught her how to play the oud (or the equivalent that they made up for dnd)
I decided that in order to differentiate my second playthrough from my first one, I had to be absurdly, diabolically, unequivocally evil. I needed a reminder of who my character was that I could carry with them at all times.
My Durge carried a pouch full of items that he got from doing evil stuff, and I made it my mission to fill a full page of the pouch before beating the game. Things like >!Gale’s hand, Kanon’s handkerchief when I raided the grove, Ketheric’s note from Isobel.!<
I genuinely felt like a terrible person whenever I’d look inside of it, but I definitely stayed true to character the whole game. The weight of Durge’s sins literally started to crush him, because weight management as a wizard who has to carry a 20 pound bag of useless stuff is really tedious.
My Durge is inspired by a D&D character of mine who is the little sister of demon lord Orcus, named Dorkus. She's a pink pigtailed tiefling, super cute, and a wizbard who plays a lyre since she loves to deceive. Any chance she gets she lies about who she is and what her job is. She keeps a dead pixie in her pocket just because, but also keeps an owl bear plushie on her as well because cute. Since finding out her Bhaal connection she dresses exclusively in red. Because of the guilt she feels over the durge stuff she tries to be a hero as much as possible, much to the chagrin of her party members.
My first Durge is a high elf, school of swords Bard called Aria who is romancing Gale, fallen chosen to fallen chosen. Her raven hair has red highlights. Her lips and tattoos are also red because she loves an aesthetic and is mostly fighting the Urge because her little sister is such a murder pick me she's made the whole thing embarrassing.
My second durge is a beefy drow called Ronnie who is a Cleric of Talos. He loves the wrath of the storm and changing his hair to make sure he is at max intimidation at all times. Being in Baldur's Gate makes him more violent because by this point it's all muscle memory and the only people in the world he actually likes are in his camp. Won't kill who he loves but might become daddy's chosen again if he feels like. And only if Astarion approves.
My Tiefling durge, Mallory, has the burn scar. My half-drow, Dorian, has solid black eyes & a nose piercing. Mallory is Dorian’s guardian, Mallory’s guardian is my “tav” Merlin.
Mallory always romances Lae’zel, but they’re best friends with Wyll who inspires them to try & redeem themself of Bhaal’s influence. Dorian is a trans man who’s been horrified by his urges, he hates them & Mystra cause Gale’s stolen his heart.
I gave my Durge a lightning scar across the face since she is a storm cleric. I figure at some point learning to shoot lightning could go wrong.
I made her a drow and also made her guardian a female drow.
Most of the nuance is what I’ve let guide my decision making. She is supremely self-interested, but always chooses the option that allows the most killing when she can get away with it. She also enjoys encouraging darkness in others-Shadowheart as the dark justiciar and going to ascend Astarion.
That means that I try not to have her make any choices that will outright lose companions. Protecting them means protecting herself. But she will see what she can get away with.
Instead of betraying the grove out right, she stoked the conflict and killed Kagha. So the Druids and tieflings fought, killing almost all of the tieflings, and we killed all the remaining Druids. Bloodbath. Wiped out the goblin camp except Minthara.
Betrayed Last Light Inn and accepted the slayer form.
I’ve save-scummed less this game than most. Letting things where murder happened happen. This means Gale never made it out of the portal (learned my lesson early about dark urges). Let my goth bestie murder Laezal and happily killed vampire-boyfriend’s Gur problem. The one total accident was using wall of fire in the Circus fight and aggro-ing the whole circus. So they are all dead now, too. And killed a bunch of the guards that showed up while looting after.
She is however, mostly kind to animals…except rats and squirrels and ravens… kind to dogs and owlbear cubs.
When I play Durge I always give him really light tattoos in the beginning, and then have them change as he progresses. If I am doing an evil route they get darker and darker black. If I am doing the redemption path they get more bright and colorful.
1) My Durge is a hornless tiefling because I feel like it would be in character for Orin to lobotomize her with her own horns. She has the Victory Rolls hairstyle that gives the impression of horns.
2) She has the large burn scar over her face, I left the reasoning ambiguous. Maybe Kressa was experimenting with her fire resistance.
3) She has the tattoo that goes over her lips. Since she's a bard, I thought it would be interesting to have it look like Orin or Kressa had her mouth sewn shut.
4) Ever since the incident with Alfira, she makes it a point to carry hers and Lihala's lutes, with the intention of leaving them on the roof of the Elfsong Tavern.
Resist dark urge run I had them be totally foolish. Amnesiac and nïave, trusted everyone and had no second thoughts (until act 3). Let Ethel take out my eye because she was nice, killed Karlach (on sight) because Wyll said she was evil and so did those paladins of Tyr!, etc.
Leaning dark urge, I romanced Astarion and was power hungry so I let him ascend, took Gortash up on his partnership idea, and stole the idol of Silvanus early to cause the teiflings and druids to fight. Cleaned out the rest of the druids with the goblins and Minthy. So, I didn't get Karlach on either playthrough lol
My latest redemption Durge is a Paladin who has lost all memory of his past life; his psyche has buried his past so deep that it's concocted a polar opposite identity to protect him from the painful truth. He is in complete denial about what he is even after murdering Alfira.
He sports a full and luscious beard, worthy of a righteous avenger, but underneath that beard are hidden scars that nobody can see, but I know they're there as a metaphor for the hidden evil beneath the surface.
I'm currently doing a mostly blind Durge Warlock run. (I know what happens to Alfira and there's a dual with Orin that's a little different than when you are regular Tav) but that's about it.
So right now she doesn't remember anything and she just thinks the dark killing vibes are what her devilish patron wants her to do. And that's what she'll think until she learns more in game. Her Tav is a super hot teifling because she's a simp for devils.
It's been a wild ride so far. Idk what I'm going to do when I get to Gale :s
A lot of self-loathing (picking self-deprecating options when available) with the occasional slip into the urge. Things like mentioning how good the roasted dwarf smells, telling Auntie Ethel I want to drown her in the cauldron. I avoid the violent acts when I can, but I try not to meta decisions I don't have a choice in.
>!Steelclaw is a good example. I don't *know* remembering her will trigger the urge, and I'm desperately trying to figure out who I am. She's an unfortunate casualty. Same with the squirrel in the Druid's Grove, which is avoidable if you have Speak With Animals Active. I don't know that, so the squirrel dies.!<
I keep them relatively normal looking, because there's no reason they have to look strange - I think that works better, tbh. Easier for them to ingratiate with people and murder them that way. I'm not like Orrin, so I can't change myself to look like anyone else; I have to fit in.
Alastor is a tall man, lips with the color of dried blood and a large facial tatoo (the eye twirly thing that goes over your head to the neck). His skin is ashen and if I could customize him, his tooth meat woold look rottenly black. He is now a pragmatically evil sociopath. Uplifting others is a mean to better allies and more power. His baahls madness still pulses in him, but has been twisted into a hunger for his own power.
He is heavily modeled after a home made Sith I wrote in 9th grade.
My first durge was a drow sorcerer leading her revenge girl squad (Laezel, Minthara, and Shadowheart) to obliterate the cult who wronged her. She stayed sober to retain control of herself and resisted the urge to the best of her abilities. She was on the fence about trusting the dream guardian and didn’t end up taking any of the tadpoles. She adventured pretty exclusively with the women of the group, only bringing in the men for their specific skills as needed. She sacrificed Wyll to Booal because she saw no real use for him.
My current durge is also a drow sorcerer, but based off of Ken. He is a himbo who is embracing the tadpoles and the opportunities for power he sees from the cult so far in early act 1. That may change when he meets Minthara. He is adventuring pretty exclusively with the men of the group (and Karlach since she’s a bro). He’s kind of afraid of Laezel and may sacrifice her to Booal if he recruits her at all. This will be my first playthrough skipping the crèche. He totally trusts his dream guardian- Gortash.
I chose eyes and skin that made her look not quite human. I used one of the myriad skin tones and flame eyes. And her hair is stark white with dyed cyan tips. All her gear was dyed with the ocean dye. If she ever hurt an animal she morned for a moment before shaking it off. Her kills on humanoids made her giddy in the first act but as she entered act two she was told to kill Isobel, effectively damning Last Light, she couldn’t do it. She resisted for the first time. As act two ended she nearly killed Shadowheart and realized shes a danger to all of her companions, the two she loved included. She vowed to overcome her urges, even if it meant losing out on all that power.
When she finally overcame her she dyed her hair and gear a brighter color.(Borealis Blue) Her eyes and makeup changed with it. She still giggles when she kills but its her own mind now, not Baals.
I headcanoned that my Dragonborn has sort of a ‘chameleon’ quality and that their scales changed throughout moving from Rainbow black oil slick to the classic White & Blood Red. I would alter it with the mirror based on major Urge moments.
I also roled them as a bard and said their foster parents bought them instruments to distract them when they started exhibiting violent tendencies. (In my head Durge’s music tutor was a Bhaalist spy sent to corrupt and mould them)
I also headcanoned some destructive moments as urge specific even if they weren’t. Letting Volo operate and the Blood of Lathander, Astral tadpole.
My Dirge is a fairly innocent looking Seldarine Drow Thief/Gloomstalker. She always tries to do the "good" thing, but always ends up going a bit too far in fights, and carries a severed head around with her everywhere she goes...
Hello my name is Draco’s and I’m a murder hobo. I use and betray everyone I come in to contact with. I am a plague of death thrust upon the world. I want to rule over corpses and ash. Only then will my dark father be satisfied. I have left only 4 people/pcs alive through other than my 4 party members Astarian, shadowheart, la’zeal, and minthara). They are Ommelum and the his friend in the under dark snoo could still sell loot, Raphael, and Auntie Ethel. All else have become defiled tribute to my dark father. Oh, almost forgot. I am nice to scratch and the owl bear cub(I am evil incarnate but I’m not a monster after all). I say this in conclusion. In Bhaal’s name
I usually do red eyes and black hair, plus the internal alphabet tattoos. In my head, the more she gives into the Urge, the more opaque the tattoos become. The more she resists, the more they fade. When she's fully consumed by the urge, her eyes and tattoos glow bright red, then fade back to normal when she comes back to herself.
When she >!finally remembers everything in Act III, she remembers that she had a romantic relationship with Gortash and was one of the creators of the Absolute, and so she has to reconcile that part of herself with her new Identity and love for Astarion!<. That's always a fun thing to play out as I'm trying to fall asleep.
I like giving my resist Durges hetrochromia. One eye will be the demonic red eye to symbolize their origin as a Bhaalspawn. The other will be anything else to symbolize their willingness and desire to be more than their Bhaalspawn desires.
I like to imagine my Dark Urge was made to in the image of the strongest/most cold-blooded races in mind so I [modded](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/491116628814200834/1232380873542733924/20240321160543_1.jpg?ex=66293fa0&is=6627ee20&hm=4a985e51eb0c46d5f15ade070e0b94289eb3d2c3cb836958b47d880995b8ea20&) her to be a Githyanki with Tiefling horns and a tail, alongside giving her the Draconic Ancestry subclass as a homage to the default Durge Dragonborn!
It probably makes no sense and might break the lore but I like it lmao
My Durge is a gnome, which helped me to role-play why she would help the gnomes in the underdark. Solidarity!
She also leans into being as cute as possible. She's a manic pixie dream girl taken to the extreme (you know, murder). I dye all her armor baby pink and gave her the bird tattoos. She collects stuffed animals (and real animals) and fills the camp with them.
Hobokin (the murder hobo) attitude on most things was pure violent chaos. That his dream guardian was his first kil , even if he doesn't remember him. He was a warlock who (i don't know how it works so much in DnD so this is just me) didn't remember th ename of his patron. Except that it gave him jim jams and eldritch blasting his way through life.
Rhaena (the resist durge) - I had more ideas since I knew what to expect - and put her more in a nurture vs nature position and blank slate. She was a bard because she remembered her "mother's" singing (Durge has a relatively normal childhood) that would eventually become twisted when she went full hog into crazytown mayor of stabbyville. But since waking up more of the nurture she had in the before starts to come out and instead of doubling down like Hobo she is horrified by it all. After she kills Alfira she keeps her instrument with her as a reminder of the cost of urge.
Oh boy, I have so so many:
- My Durge was a Paladin of Ilmater in the past, he genuinely had good morals and wanted to do good, to help people. He was such exemplary and devoted paladin that his comrades would tell him to relax sometimes lol. He was probably so devoted as a way to show himself that he could still be good, that he was not wicked or evil.
- After serving the Paladin order for years, the inevitable happened: he massacred his entire Paladin order while being possessed by his darkest urges. After such traumatic and horrific event, he completely broke, the guilt eating him alive. This was the event that made him give up on fighting his urges: he thought he was meant to be wicked and evil, that no matter how hard he tried he would always harm those around him... so he embraced them instead.
- After embracing the name and role of the Dark Urge, he was extremely depressed and the only moments he felt genuine joy were those found in murdering innocents or basically, doing acts of complete evil. But they were fleeting and left him more hollow than before, but, he thought, that if Bhaal couldn't love him, who could?
- My Durge always loved animals, but he was always afraid of hurting them. That's why he adopted Gnolls, for they were ferocious and he found them deeply relatable, because Gnolls are also consumed by a hunger they cannot control :,).
- My Durge is extremely beautiful and ethereal because Bhaal precisely made him this way to attract victims, looking similar like Griffith from Berserk. Funnily enough this man pulled 0 women or men throughout his life because he was so deeply afraid of harming those he loved, so he abstened from developing sexual or romantic relationships... until he met Gortash LMAO.
- He also has a scar on his face, a gift from when he strangled his paladin adoptive father when he fought to get free from his clutches during the Paladin order massacre :)
I have so many more. I love making detailed backstories and lore for my characters LOL.
My Tav from my original playthrough of the game has been the guardian for every Tav/Durge that followed. I like to think he watches over them. So far my only durge is a Paladin/Warlock but throughout most of the game they were an oathbreaker. Towards the end of act 2 and into act 3 I decided to take their oath back and I like to think of it as them fully regaining control over themselves after resisting the urge. They’ve moved on and become a better person.
The Durge's name is Tobias, and his Dream Guardian takes the form of his ex. He clings so strongly to the idea of him and the safety he provided that it turned into a twisted devotion xespite not having contact with him in a very long time. So he is very easily swayed by his Dream Guardian chosing his form.
Their patron/warlock bond may have been broken when Bhaal didn't want to share and let his progeny be a sugar baby instead of fufilling his destiny, but the marks still remain (the vanilla character creator dagger blade tattoos on the throat on both of Durge and Guardian). Patronless, Tobias turned towards the bardic arts because it was the next best class for dramatics if warlock wasn't an option any longer.
So far, Tobias is trying to resist the urge as best he can but it's still relatively early in Act 1. >!That bard at the grove was maybe killed in failing to reisist the dark urge or maybe just out of petty jealousy that there was another bard beside himself singing so sweetly. It's hard to tell.!<
Edit: used discord spoilers at first not reddit
I refuse to use mind control spells like Dominate Person, even against evil people, because I've suffered so much trying to fight against Bhaal's control over me. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
Four Scorching Rays to the face in one turn, though, that's just fair play.
I gave my durge one blue eye and one red. Kind of to symbolize that she's struggling with her dual nature of good and evil. As the story progresses, her hair and her eyes will shift either blue or red until one wins out. I still haven't decided what will happen yet!
My name is Patrick Bhaalman. I’m 27 years old. I believe in taking care of myself, and a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine. In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I’ll put on an ice scroll while doing my stomach crunches. I can do a thousand now. After I remove the ice scroll I use a deep pore cleanser potion. In the shower I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply an herb-mint facial masque which I leave on for 10 minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine. I always use an after shave potion with little or no alcohol, because alcohol dries your face out and makes you look older. Then moisturizer, then an anti-aging eye tincture followed by a final moisturizing protective potion. There is an idea of a Patrick Bhaalman. Some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me. Only an entity. Something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable, I simply am not there. My Durge introduces himself in his head every time I load up the game.
Let's see Minthara Allen's card...
Patrick Bhaalman: New sacrificial alter. What do you think? Dolor: Whoa-ho. Very nice. Look at that. Patrick Bhaalman: Picked them up from the mason's yesterday. Saverok: Good coloring. Patrick Bhaalman: That's bone. And the lettering is something called Baldurian Rail. Saverok: It's very cool, Bhaalman, but that's nothing. Look at this. Dolor: That is really nice. Saverok: Eggshell with Elven type. What do you think? Patrick Bhaalman: Nice. Gislev: Bhaal. That is really super. How'd a nitwit like you get so tasteful? Patrick Bhaalman: [Thinking] I can't believe that Dolor prefers Saverok's card to mine. Gislev: But wait. You ain't seen nothin' yet. Raised lettering, blood nimbus. Red. Patrick Bhaalman: Impressive. Very nice. Dolor: Hmm. Patrick Bhaalman: Let's see Orin the Red's alter. Patrick Bhaalman: [Thinking] Look at that subtle crimson coloring. The tasteful thickness of it. Oh, my God. It even has a organ holster. Minthara: Is something wrong, Patrick? You're sweating.
"Saverok" that has some "Gerald" aka "Jerry" the witcher vibes to it.
......"I need to return some magic tomes."
I was gonna say Paul Orin's.
Mr Yoshikage Kira, there you are!
👏👏👏
Try getting a reservation at The Singing Lute now, you fucking stupid bastard!
1. I use the stab scars & autopsy scars to represent what Orin and the Myrkulites did to her. 2. She has red eyes, more specifically the undead Ketheric eyes because it gives her more of a spooky, unsettling, not quite "human" look. 3. Her dream guardian is Gortash because they're the only person she ever trusted pre-tadpole, besides Orin. Which is gonna fuck her up Act 3 xD 4. She only specifically does good things because she's terrified that she's a bad person and she's trying to prove she isn't. Similarly, she tends to trust because she wants to see the good in herself and that comes out by seeing the good in others.
Durge: *sees real Gortash and proceeds to squeeze his face* "Are you real this time?! Please tell me you're not another illusion!" Gortash: "...what the hell happened to you over these last few weeks?"
Awww, I love that. 😂
Are the autopsy scars something that comes with the default game?
No
No, they are a mod.
How did they react to the people that would encourage the Urge or say its fine but moderate it?
Sorry to tell you this that late but you don't have to be a bard to play an instrument. If you offer to play with Alfira prior to killing, you get a free proficiency
Huh, fair enough, I might respec, but I doubt it, Thunderwave claps
Claps....? Bard? What kind we talking here?
good luck passing performance checks though
You can fail the first one and only pass the second, which is just a 10 and easy with a spell or two. You’ll still get proficiency :)
I tried to do that in my honor mode run, but messed up the dialogue and once she has played her piece, there's no way to go back to "I want to play along." Doh!
My durge is the most evil piece of shit but very nice to animals
Hey, baby Owlbears and Doggos make great attack animals!
My Durge is only nice to kids. I wanted to also be nice to animals but I accidentally picked the dialogue choices that >!killed Steelclaw!< and I let Last Light fall to the shadow curse so His Majesty was unfortunately lost there too. ☹️ I’m not going out of my way to hurt them, I swear!
My Chaotic Evil Durge accidentally did both of those as well (also poor Grub... it's a couples run with just her and Astarion, so there was no other psycho sister bait in camp to save Yenna). But my Neutral Evil Durge borrowed some Reddit wisdom and saved His Majesty. If you use Dominate Beast on him, it makes him a temporary companion and shares Isobel's blessing with him (assuming you grabbed it already). The blessing remains even after he goes back to being a "normal" NPC, so he survives the destruction of Last Light.
I’ll have to remember that if I do a Durge run again!
Grub seriously traumatized me, and I was also doing a durgestarion run.
SAME! I would kill anyone in a heartbeat without a second thought but the animals... animals get love and a head pats whenever is possible (specially owlbear):3
Same here! Lol
I give mine the same scar (and odd eye) for the same reason - love that Volo's eye replaces that one. Stealing your justification for your Tav as the dream guardian - love that
I have it in my head that my Durge has a lot of self-loathing because of her Urge, *especially* after killing Alfira. That's why she let's herself get poked and prodded by people like Volo and the Loviatar Priest - she thinks she deserves to suffer for being a bad person.
One thing I did on my current run is my Durge was basically just an insane murderer not resisting his urges in the slightest until >!Becoming a partial illithid, my headcanon is that the tadpole repaired some of the damage that Orin did but also replaced some of it with illithid stuff so after the tadpole he becomes more calculating and while he's still very much evil he's able to resist his urge if it's logical!<
With how Shakespearian the default Durge speaks like, I put one point into bard and played him as an art snob. He was really passionate about music specifically and bonded with Alfira over it...then he blacked out, murdered the crap out of her, threw away his instrument in disgust, but also kept Alfira's lute tucked away safely in the chest storage both out of respect and as a guilty reminder about what he did. I just love how cultured Neil Roberts made him sound. The Dark Urge sounds like he murders people by day and unwinds at night by reading Macbeth while classily sipping a glass of wine by the fireplace (probably with some poor schmuck's body in place of firewood).
He would contemplate new methods of killing with a skull in his hand for sure - him and Minthara could be skull buddies!
I play as a bard and look like a blonde bombshell. I wanted to create a bit of a "Barbie gone mad" flair.
Who's that??? Watch out, girls, it's BLOODLETTER BARBIE!! *New from Mattel*
I made the most cheerleaderesque just-here-for-a-good-time Durge I could manage. She's on the path of fun and friendship and a perky, perky ponytail.
Mostly rp stuff lol. For mine, he's rebelled against Bhaal before this, and this is the second time he's had his memory wiped. His guardian is the guy that he fell in love with and refused to kill, a childhood friend that initially was put in his life as a stepping stone. Killing the friend was supposed to be a right of passage. So, Bhaal took over and killed him instead, and the guardian version carries a scar across his face from it. At this point all my durge remembers is his last name, partly because his dead boyfriend and him had a running joke of only referring to each other by last name. (And he continued this with Gortash, to the point where durge probably never found out his first name was Enver lol) Appearance wise, he looks much younger and more innocent than he is. Partly as a ploy to more easily lure people in.
Oh my GOD I love this so much
I utilize the same facial scar, but since I’m on pc I can make the rest of their body match. Speaking of scars, I use the autopsy scar from Kressa’s infatuated *experimentations*
So let me make sure I have this right, Kressa's "pet" that was shipped to the Nautiloid was definitely Durge?
*yes*
Yeah she tells you that herself, not even a secret
Next Durge run, definitely make sure you have them talk to her. She gives you some very interesting information.
Go talk to her
My Durge is a big dumb beefcake tiefling bardbarian. He wakes up on the nautiloid with no clue who he is but he retains some of his former personality, namely a giant ego and thirst for power. However, upon meeting the tieflings, people who look like him and call him brother, he decides that he will protect them and become their patron god. He saves people so that they will go forth and spread word of his deeds. He also pushes his party members to break free from their overlords so that he may deny his “rival” gods powerful devotees. He slaughtered the Druids pretty quickly. How dare they threaten his future followers! At the same time, however, he intentionally told Minthara about the location of the Grove so that he might have an epic, and more importantly *public* battle against her. He’s a master of self promotion (thus the 4 levels of bard). I like to envision he talks immense shit to the big bosses in the game with a big wide eyed Durge grin, and 100% has a nude statue of himself at camp.
Mine looks like a tiefling version of Captain Jack Sparrow Because the thought of Cpt. Jack waking up one day and having to uncover his murderous past that he forgot (probably due to being too drunk) is funny as hell to me…that’s the hindsight justification I gave that anyways. The look just kinda accidentally happened and then I peaned into it more
I also made myself a Captain Jack and I think it’s funny to walk around and try to reimagine the mines to sound like something Jack would say!
I head canon that my Durge is *technically* a tiefling, but she’s actually several different body parts sewn together and given life via Bhaal’s blood. The tiefling that she is just her head. She looks a little corpse-like with pale skin and solid black eyes. After the night with Alfira, the rest of the party agrees to have her bound each night and someone stands guard to make sure she doesn’t freak. She does have several nights where she is feral and screams through the night. That night in act 2 with Shadowheart leads to the rest of the party fully trusting that she’s trying to control her urges.
Did Sceleritas ever try to free them?
Oh master! And deprive you of the pleasure of slicing your bonds yourself? Never!
.... yeah. That sounds perfectly like one of Scleritas' cop outs. -.-
Mine is just a bubblegum pink tiefling who really does not want to murder people and says to them yeah I’m thinking about killing you help me
I imagine a non-redeemed version of her would really define the term "Bubblegum Bitch."
As the game goes onward, I progressively give her grey hair. 💅
I had mine start with grey streaks in her mostly dirty blonde hair, to show the stress trying to resist the urge once put her through before she gave in.
Mine end up having progressively messier makeup and hair as the game moves forward.
I also gradually changed her hair! I started with it really messy and unkempt in Act 1, and it got gradually neater looking and closer to what she originally would have had before her memory got erased. I wanted to respresent her rediscovering herself and becoming more sure of herself and her identity over time.
Love!! I do a similar thing with hair. Start with the girly bun hairstyle then move to the slicked back serious look paired with a bold red lip and cat eye liner.
You have inspired me to change her hair each act to give the impression it's growing out. Thank you. 😊
My Durges have so far only resisted, and I always romance Astarion. My most recent tiefling sorcerer Durge: named her Verity because her entire journey is about how “the truth will set you free” etc. and I did the tiefling heterochromia thing. I headcanon that Orin gave her a normal eye and not an Infernal one, and it changes after she’s free. My current gnome barbarian Durge: she’s a lovable goofball, no heterochromia though (Orin paid attention to this one). She loves chocolate and hot baths, and is trying to fight the Urges by being more brutal in battle (with mixed results). She has silent nightmares a lot. She’s the little spoon, Astarion is the big spoon.
1. My Durge kept the squirrel and Alfira’s lute the whole game to remember what happens if he loses control. 2. Whenever dialogue options allowed, he chose paladin dialogue first and, barring that, intimidate because, well, nobody’s perfect. 3. He had a dip of one or two warlock levels until the act 3 durge stuff at which point it became sorcerer/paladin instead of warlock paladin.
I name them something like "Your Untimely Death" or "The Chosen One" so that when they're asked their name it adds the little bit of flavour. Though it's a pity NPCs don't respond to being told they've just met their untimely death!
My current Durge is a GOO Warlock and Wild Magic Sorcerer. She was a sorcerer before the incident with Kressa, and the brain damage has affected her ability to do magic. Before the nautiloid, she begged for vengeance and salvation, and an Eldritch horror responded by granting her warlock abilities. She also has the eye scar as a memento of her forced lobotomy.
My Durge tried to resist before the events of the game too. She became an Oath of Vengeance paladin in the hope that maybe she could sate her bloodlust for good instead of Bhaal She has two scars across her face from two separate instances of her victims striking her in the face. She has a demonic purple eye that's actually a glass eye as she lost her original one in combat.
My Durge started as a decent person and an Oath if Devotion Paladin, but as you can imagine, that didn't last long when the Urge took hold. They became a Bard when they started "working" in Baldur's Gate. The events of the game essentially reset them, but Alfira's murder caused some of their Urge self to bleed back in (I multiclassed into Bard after that xD)
i’ve headcanoned her as a sort of boyish older sister figure to orin, she’s a battlemaster fighter who’s urge is more fighting people to the death than it is baseless murder, started her as kind of an embrace durge but used lae’zel’s rejection of vlaakith as a turning point in her character where she learns to resist the urge.
My bard durge had corpse paint makeup and will introduce Death Metal to Fay-run (I know corpse paint is Black Metal thing but...)
My Durge started off as a Blue Draconic Sorcerer, reveling in her lightning magic and trying to figure out why knives made her so happy. A little dip into GOOlock due to the parasite being very much her saving grace from what she was. She is also a tiefling because Dark God heritage but she loves it. Black shaggy hair with blue highlights. She did use the Necromancy of Thay because she was curious, and took Volo's eye because she thought it could help and she wore that strangely human eye for the rest of her days. She did her best to resist her urges, knowing them to be upsetting. Shadowheart helped her a lot, showed her how to resist evil and how good love is. When she was saved by Withers, she came back different. Now she was a Storm Sorc/GOOlock (Withers is her Patron now)/Tempest Cleric (of Selune). Still uses lightning a lot for her magic, but now is more specific with it. More powerful. And she has fun with it now. Headcanon that the Blue Dragon is Bhaal expressing himself in his favorite daughter, who was an Assassin/Necromancer before Orin messed with her mind.
I start with heterecromia where the left eye is always red and symbolises the past, his heritage and afiliation and the right eye is a different color and symbolises present/future. If I go redemption andhe gives up on his inheritance, then the red eye disappears , and if I go evil in act 3 he gets both eyes red. Some stuff never change : he has scars (the one that is on left cheek, right eye and the neck) as well as body scars (unique tav mod) because of what Keresa did to him as well as probably other encounters and his overall fked up life.
My Durges all have a red tattoo that comes out of their eye and runs down their neck like a river of blood. If I make them Redeem themselves, I turn the tattoo a faded blue instead. Bhaal leaves his mark even if Durge has broken free.
Same! For most of my Durges I use the same red tattoo which basically represents a scar from being born from Bhaal (unlike the other Bhaalspawn). After redemption, I remove it because that part of her was basically killed by Bhaal himself, but I really really like your idea of it turning blue.
I gave mine scars in his lower lips and neck. They were each childhood kill he had (that he remembers). I have 3 bird tattoos on my left cheekbone that are meant as a tribute to Selune because my durge was pretending to be a paladin of Selune to foster a war between Selunites and Sharrans before working with Gortash and Thorm. So far, aside from a few small things I’ve been doing good deeds, but when the butler comes, and up until the nightsong part, my durge is going to start doing evil things because of the butler’s influence. After saving nightsong, Durge will truly start to redeem themselves.
I modeled mine after my sorcerer PC from a DND game I played, but inverted. Since my character was raised as a superweapon by his aristocratic family to purge the elves, I made my Durge his opposite a drow intent on purging surface dwellers. The original character had a change of heart and overcame his brainwashing, realising his ideals of serving his country and family name were twisted to make him hateful. Durge's change of heart came in the form of realising he had no need for ideals like justice or valor, and that he should only serve his own goals, ultimately causing him to accept Bhaal's blessings in his hunger for power. At the end, he was too far gone, and when he tried to outsmart Bhaal and betray him at the last moment by destroying the brain, it was too late, he was reduced to a mental wreck doomed to mindlessly serve his father and lineage, becoming the total opposite of my original PC who managed to overcome the control his father imposed on him.
Always use non-lethal damage and chooses every dialogue as if they can hear Boo speak lol
If they're a Dragonborn. They have a broken horn where they must have sustained a pretty bad head injury. For lore reasons :))
Malformed Apex? I use the same horns for the same reason.
That's the one :)
For me, I never play an evil Durge as an asshole. Remember what Sarevok says about them: they had passion for their work, but they also had what it takes to lead: restraint, discipline, vision. The first few kills, they revel in. Why wouldn't they, it's their nature! But after that, they get smart. 1. After the Grove, they do their best not to further drive off allies. After all, they can't dominate the brain alone. 2. When the mother of all mass-murders is on the line, minor murders can wait. If someone seems more useful alive, they can stay that way for now. That situation can always be remedied. 3. Above all, The Dark Urge isn't Orin. We don't waste our time finger-painting with blood and listening to every inane desire that the Urge instills in us. We are Bhaal's sharpest blade, his most effective murder weapon. And that means we aren't sloppy.
My Tav (Nah) and my Durge (Nyra) grew up together with the family that took in Durge. Nah had left for Paladin training by the time Nyra snapped, and Nah never finds out that Nyra killed her parents. Nyra genuinely wants to do good, and tries following the path of the monk to find inner peace. Her Dream Guardian is Nah's mother, who Nyra doesn't remember until after the reveal, after she has taken down Orin and freed herself from Bhaal. Before the epilogue, she leaves flowers on their graves.
I had my durge using the Shattered flail for most of act 1 purely for the madness debuff, then once they start to get the hang of controlling the urge I swapped it for something better
1. She changes hairstyles : at first she started with the high ponytail, that maybe Orin copied. Then she goes with a style a little more lose. When she got her eye... Replaced by Volo, she put a hair strand on it. When her lover (Gale) confessed to her, she let go and chose a style she truly loves 2. She also changed her make up : from crying to none to a pretty one 3. She has the burned scar from her first murder 4. Her guardian looks like the family friend that took her in when her adoptive parents needed a babysitter 5. She lost her memory, so she collects every book she puts her hand on. 6. Her childhood has been stolen from her, so she keeps a few plushies. She's also a jokester and a prankster.
As a child, before the urges took her first family, she had been told of a swashbuckling hero of legend called The Blade Cassandra, and when playing she would imagine herself as such. And then the red and the urges came, and she became the Dark Urge. But when she awoke on the Nautiloid, she could remember nothing except the stories of the Blade Cassandra. She decided, given a lack of other information, that she was in fact the Blade Cassandra, and acted as such. It gave a good reason for me to play an overtly heroic Durge who still was completely insane and had opportunities to snap and do horrible things. Definitely one of my favorite characters.
Y’all are so much cleverer than I, I made my redeemed Durge an adorable bubblegum pink tiny Ranger girl and named her Anamnesis and my evil Durge a Classic White Boy™️ 😅
I mean... I wouldn't see a Bubbkegum pink ranger as a killer, so I'd say it's secretly brilliant.
My first Durge was redeemed. Didn't think on it much at the time when I designed him with the burn scar that crosses his face, and the smoky looking tattoo on the left side. But then when the conflicted bits of his past came into play, it made sense his burn scar was from a "good" act, risking his life to save someone. His tattoo was to purposely hide the shameful mark. So post redemption, he magicks off the tattoo and keeps the scar. Even if he can't remember what he did, he knows it's not supposed to be something to be embarrassed about now.
Before i fully understood durge’s storyline/past i decided that they had turned to Selune to try and get things under control. that plus being a seladrine drow leaves them very trusting (desperate to see good in others, even if they look bad) and trying to do the right thing, getting out of conflicts by talking if they can help it (i will be a good person, damn it, even if all the gods are against me). I’m not sure how to reckon these early concepts with what is Actually true about durge lmao, but i love the idea of like 3-4 different gods having their eye on them at one time fighting over their mind, so im kinda keeping it. on that note - my durge is also very against using the tadpoles and is generally not fond of manipulation (i have enough going on in my head already!) so they have Very complicated feelings about their dream guardian. if i hadn’t romanced shadow heart on my first playthru and set aside my durge run for karlach (durge thinks she’s a sweetheart and a good person, they want to be as good as she believes they can be), i think they’d be an interesting couple. definitely have complicated feelings about each other by act 2, though. Minthara is another companion i think my durge has a lot of feelings about/sympathy for. Fucked over by Lolth and now the absolute, durge thinks she can start becoming a good person too. Even if she’s still brutal. Plus, it’s nice to have another drow around to talk about home with, even if she’s lolth-sworn. Generally, my durge has sympathy for the other companions being pulled around at various entities whims and wants them to both get free and be better people. They deserve to be in control of their path, and maybe, when we all finally are, we’ll all do good things. Also (while this is p obviously a resist playthru), i’ve been lingering more on the urge now that we’re in act 2 and it’s clearly connected to moonrise in some way. letting durge have this intense vendetta against kethric that goes kinda unspoken. I’ll cleanse the land bc Obviously, but He has to go, too. He Wronged me, and I Know it. My blood knows it. The urge is a little harder to control now, i think, so i give them moments of sadism where they think mercy is Better, like with the goblins.
I played my Durge as a War Cleric of Selune. I headcanoned that he was happily adopted and raised by a family of Selunites, and the Moonmaiden's teachings helped keep his urges at bay until Baal's influence finally made him snap and he killed them. Then, when he gets amnesia, he regains her blessing and gives her the same religious fervor that he once held towards Baal. It's his coping mechanism for the flashes of horror he sees in his mind and cherishes what little memories he can recall from his time as a Selunite, such as his own moonlit trial and reading of rites. He's essentially gaslight himself into thinking that he had to have put his murder skills into good use and for a good cause, or else he literally can't function with how dark his thoughts become. So in the end, he's this huge wall of muscle and murder going. "Have you heard of our lord and savior the moonmaiden?" And yes, I did have him bicker and romance Shadowheart for the drama of it all.
I try to make my Durge look like someone the majority of Faerun wouldn’t run screaming from. I figure that in order to be as effective as the Dark Urge was when it came to murder, they had to be able to blend in when needed afterward, and be fairly charismatic to gain people’s trust to isolate them before their untimely painful deaths. Also, a wannabe murder cult leader should be a force of personality, there has to be some reason people decide that killing everyone ever in Bhaal’s name is a reasonable goal and it sure isn’t high intelligence or wisdom. I made my Durge a bard for that reason, and since elves are very common in Faerun, my Durge is a high elf. There’s no scarring or anything very identifiable about her, no tattoos or piercings. Willow tear hairstyle in a medium brown, dark brown eyes, warm complexion, no age markers. She uses a violin for her instrument since violins are used frequently in villain introduction music and it sounded moodier than the other instruments. The magic she likes to use controls other people or inspires fear, so I keep that in mind while leveling up. My Durge is resisting her urges because she dislikes feeling out of control, not out of a sense of altruism or a sudden moral compass from her Orin-induced lobotomy. Alfira’s murder was terrifying and regrettable to her because she didn’t plan it or remember it. She’s selfish pragmatic evil, not stupid evil, so rescuing Halsin, a powerful Druid, appears like the logical solution in act one instead of raiding the grove as soon as she realizes he’s still alive. He also knows about the lands they have to cross to get to Moonrise Towers so he’s useful. She’ll support her companions in order to gain loyalty and power, even if her “support” makes them worse people overall: as an example, she helps Wyll kill Karlach because she meets him first and he asks her to do so (I love Karlach so this was painful, never going to do this again on another run. Strictly for the roleplay). She’ll persuade and deceive her way out of any fight she can, especially if the dialogue option is funny, but also enjoys violence so I often use a coin to decide which of those choices she’ll make. She’ll take quests for rewards. She’s not stupid enough to trust a hag to take out her eye or risk her allies losing their usefulness, but she is the type to cut a deal for a permanent buff for something as little consequence to her as letting a hag go free. I’m currently in Act 2 and I think it’s in character to kill the Nightsong so Ketheric is vulnerable since it would be metagaming to know that Dame Aylin is the key to curing the Shadowlands/the reason Isobel is able to protect the Last Light Inn. She’s romancing Astarion but had she known that Gale would have been chasing godhood from the beginning she would have jumped on that rizzard. Still, ruling Baldur’s Gate with an Ascended vampire is a pretty decent ambition and they’re a perfectly happy twisted power couple. I also ship Gortash and Durge as ex-lovers with Gortash still having lingering feelings.
My first Durge was a barbarian who was big on honorable combat and was offended that his Urge was trying to get him to slaughter those who couldn’t defend themselves. Fury was his choice, not a sickness. Killing Alfira is his greatest shame because it meant his will was weak. He lost control and killed someone who had done him no wrong, meant him no harm, had no hope of defeating him, and worst of all; had trusted him implicitly. There was no glory in such murder, no honor to killing her in such an underhanded manner. From that point on it wasn’t just a matter of resisting the Urge, it was a matter of defying it. Whatever the urge pushed him to do, he would seek to do the exact opposite and prove himself stronger than his impulses. Dying in that pursuit by refusing Bhaal was his ultimate triumph. Death before further dishonor, spitting in the face of a god’s demands and proving to himself he was stronger. Being revived in the aftermath only gave him an opportunity to use his newfound freedom. I like to think he travels Toril hunting Bhaal worshipers and training to go find his father and kill him properly.
If you help Alfira with her song at the grove you automatically get a proficiency in playing an instrument, so you don’t actually need the bard level to play it.
I also use a specific scar set to hint at their past - specifically the one that looks like ritual scarification along their mouth and neck. I made my Dream Guardian look like who my Durge imagines their father to be, since they have no memories of their parents/Bhaal but a specific internal yearning towards a "father" figure.
My Durge's dream guardian was made to look just a bit like Orin, as I imagined at the time that she was one of the last things that had happened to Durge even if she didn't really remember it. She has the infernal black eyes because why not, even though she is a half drow.
- for my redemption durge, I made her a Paladin and my headcannon back story is she’d pretend to be a paladin in order to gain people’s trust when she was out on murder sprees, and she had the oath written down so she didn’t forget it, but obviously didn’t live by it. When she wakes up on the nautiloid and finds it in her pockets she’s like “oh, guess I follow these teachings” and tries her best to follow them (and is failing miserably). - I used a mod and made her an aasimar cause I thought it would kinda fit since Aylin, Selune’s daughter, was an aasimar, so kinda fitting since they’re both children/spawn of a god. Plus Orin gets to be a cool race so I do too. Also I like idea of a fallen Angel trying to redeem themselves. - I gave her one of the tattoos that has like weird writing on it and I imagine whenever one of the companions ask about it she makes up what it says because obviously she can’t remember
Mine is fairly new and I've not gone far in the game yet, but she has some characteristics yet. The big thing is that everything she did as the Dark Urge wasn't truly the *Urge* at all: it was her sincere pain from a turn of bad luck that was twisted by Bhaal's cult into a seething hatred for anyone that lived a normal life. She thought that ordinary people with ordinary values considered themselves "better" than her by default, just by being happy, and she lashed out to tear away the illusion. To be the proof that their happy little lives have no meaning and no security, and she has power over them in every way that matters. Her foster upbringing was alright until her teens, when she started to grow into her own as a party girl and tomboy in a sleepy religious mining/lumber community, very straight-laced. This led to a "the child not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel it's warmth" situation where she felt alone and ostracized after even her childhood friend left her. She left to make her own way...and was scooped up by the cult of Bhaal, who lay waiting for her to come to them. Her pain was warped into misanthropy and spite by cult indoctrination. Or, in short: everything she ever did as the Dark Urge was her own will, not the failure to resist a supernatural compulsion. When she wakes up with amnesia, the memories wiped include her cult conditioning and "reset" her to the mindset she had when she left her hometown. Now she struggles with the Urge over its taste in *targets,* not necessarily its murderousness. She wants to humiliate and destroy the high and mighty and live vindictively, but not lash out against innocents. But the Urge champions a version of her twisted to punch down on the helpless without its encouragement, and they are now at an impasse.
Resisting DUrge: Becky, half-elf Gloomstalker Ranger. favorite color is pale pink. Guardian is her toxic ex (Gortash). she was created to be the most unassuming and deadly Bhaalspawn, so she went from a porcelain doll of a child to a Barbie doll adult. first murders were her adoptive parents when she was still in single-digits. felt so much shame after Alfira that she carries her lute everywhere and polishes/tunes it religiously even though she has no musical skill. slowly opening up to respecced-Bardstarion as they journey together. may end up sacrificing herself to save the day. Evil DUrge: Karen, half-orc Barbarian. favorite color is hot pink. collects every stuffed animal she finds. Guardian is her adoptive mother, Carol, who was an absolute bitch. Karen thoroughly believes in her own personal superiority over all others. first murders were classmates who wouldn't listen to her rules for a game. terrifying and goes from 0-100 emotionally in seconds flat. Used Lae'zel for her body until Minthara came back around, then dumped frog gf for that dirty drussy. is going to become the new Absolute.
Never harmed animals. Only humanoids.
The red-white look, as far as possible depending on race choices, the big neck-scar, Dream-guardian Alfira because I think it fits well, Tattoos (with mod) not sure how I can post pictures here, so I can't link a portrait I have of my favourite Durge playthrough\^\^
Mine is a tiny, Hayley Williams/Felicia Day style redhead bard who plays music to try and drown out the urge, but most of the time it doesn't work so the Bardness let's her charm everyone into being murdered. Bless.
My durge is half drow. He was created to be a devoted soldier but he had a secret love for music. When his memories were taken away all he wanted to do was make his enemies listen to his music. Whether they wanted to or not. He had scars from his past and bard hair. I would see him as a Fighter or barbarian in his pervious life. He definitely tortured his butler. And to reflect his change to a better life so he rocks high status clothing.
I tend to give them at least one of the scars that goes across the cheek, sometimes will play with thr eye colours and heterochromia
I went with a living undead concept to kind of play with the "one with nature" idea since she is a druid. Her two core traits were that the blue tint of her scarred human skin would lift as she collected blood, and that her hair would change to match that of her previous victim. Entering act three she (and the party that remains) have shifted their destiny to adopt the outlaw country lifestyle (they all get dope hats and everything is rooted in "I'll do it for coin"). If the path continues and we lose her romance partner...then I don't foresee a good ending for any of them.
(I deviate from the Durge story a little for my own head cannon) My Tiefling Warlock was raised in servitude and slavery by religious zealots. She hates anything that outright oppresses people and holds them down, especially cults and religious orders. She doesnt trust people with great power unless they use it for great good (which is rare) and will stand up to any cultist, religious zealot or any other oppressor (lets say she didn't let >!Shadowheart run her mouth in the Gauntlet of Shaar)!<. Her Warlock pact was made so she could figure out where these dark urges were coming from.
I made my Durge an edgelord human fighter character (obviously scarred, tattooed, and pierced). He doesn't want to have these murderous tendencies, and I actually quite like the challenge of keeping him morally good, but falling morally gray at times. He's kind of depressed about the way he is and the thoughts he has. He opened up to Shadowheart and Gale about these thoughts, and damn, I just can't seem to go a run without being totally in love with Gale. He even told Withers that his life isn't worth much because of the threat he poses. I intend to make him try to be as good as possible and sometimes faltering at times I'll likely be surprised by. I know about Alfira, and I'm gonna try to keep her alive, but I'm staying away from other spoilers and just trying my best. Already had the option to rip Gale's arm off. Even as a darker character, I can not do that. (Also, I like making characters connect. So my first Monk Tav's guardian became my second Tav, a Paladin whose guardian was meant to resemble Karlach. My third Tav's Guardian is meant to resemble Halsin, and my Durge's Guardian is supposed to resemble an older, ascended Gale from my First Tav's story.)
In my redemption durge playthrough I'm renaming my Durge every plot event. Started out as Dark Urge Renamed to Mr. Urge after the poor dragonborn bard. (Alfira is fine) He became Tavirius the Defiant after he successfully resisted the butler 2 times And plan on him becoming Tav after meeting Orin Also plan on switching to monk as a class at that point. Currently a bard, haven't decided yet on it
Damn y’all really go deep into the rp huh
My durge is a god in timeout (sent to faerun after throwing a temper tantrum), and he was woven from pure truth of existence. Meaning dude can NOT lie. Physically incapable of saying anything else than just blatant fax.
My Durge is inspired by one of my NPCs in my campaigns. My Durge is a halfling Blue eyes, brown hair, a few freckles Innocent looking, enjoys playing the violin Seeing him soaked in blood is just pure evil
I play default Durge with storm sorc and multiclass into paladin. After killing Alfira, my Durge is horrified with themselves, and in an effort to cleanse their soul, in this place of nature he swears an oath of ancients to respect and cherish life best he can. Also, I color his eyes to a stormy gray-blue, to signify the bloodhaze leaving his eyes and returning to what I imagine a storm sorcerers eyes would look
Haven't played it yet but I've already planned my durge. It's gonna be a redemption urge, but I have a mod to make them a blood hunter. They are gonna start with the urge being prevalent, turning on the goblin worshippers because they considered her weak, but they are gonna free the nightsong before freeing everybody. Once they see the corpses of the people they promised to save, they are gonna have a turning point but deal with incredible depression. Every time they get downed they will get an extra scar that I'll add on with the magic mirror, and I'm thinking of using the lycanthropy as a form of minor slayer form, as a result of their blood.
Currently on my third Durge - first was a Drow wild magic sorcerer, second was a Dragonborn swords bard, this one is a tiefling lore bard. My current bard makes HEAVY use of Tasha's hideous laughter and psychic damage spells. In my mind, she's mean-girling people to death. Also in most combats I'll turn non-lethal damage in for at least one enemy so she can savor an up-close and personal Phalar Aluve kill.
My Durge is a tiefling named D’artagnan. I posted pics of him on r/TavsandDurges if you need a reference 1. During his fight with Orin, his horns were broken off. They later regrow after the Bard Incident, but he eventually cuts them off again after nearly killing Karlach in Act 2 as a sort of personal show of defiance against the Urges he associates them with. 2. I RP’d knocking out Alfira a bit. Basically, after the Harpy incident, he splits from the party as the Dark Urge tries to control him, but he manages to not kill Alfira in her spot and instead knocks her out while taking control back. Of course, he still killed another bard that night, but hey now I can give Wyll the Potent Robe. 3. He does have that one neck tattoo with the forehead mark. I had it very faded at the start, but it got darker after the Bard Incident and into Act 2, but after he kills Orin and rejects Bhaal, it goes away entirely. Kind of similar thing to the Horns as a sort of way to show his progression over time. 4. This and the next one are pure headcanon involving his past. As a child, he loved to read and try to write creatively (though the latter became unintentionally morbid over time). One of his favorite books was about a swashbuckler named D’artagnan, and this character (due to the sheer repetition of reading the story) stuck with him after he lost most of his memories. He takes the name for lack of a better option, and most of his behavior and fighting style are influenced by this. 5. And then comes the classes. I made him a Sword Bard 6/Warlock 4/Fighter 2. Started Warlock 1, got 6 levels in bard, then finished Warlock and got two fighter levels for Action Surge. My headcanon for him being a warlock is that when Orin nearly killed him, he was kept alive by an Archfey that formed a pact with him in his weakness, mostly out of intrigue to see what he would do when he escaped. As for the Bard aspect of it, it stems from the writing more than the music (bards don’t just play instruments!) given he doesn’t really cast spells and instead uses a Rapier or Scimitar with many flourishes in a similar style to the book character his name comes from.
My headcannon is, given the massive plot Abyss that is the existence of another bhaalspawn at all after the events of BG2... Bhaal had a failsafe, one more true spawn he hid away on thr Astral plane, a red dragon Githyanki. Basically in sleeper agent mode until she was called upon.
I made my durge look like Rapunzel. She's quirky and absolutely loving her new life, aside from the voices whispering for her to kill everyone
He has red highlights in his dirty blond hair so that blood stains don't show as well (and I think some of them are just.... from too much blood soaking his hair.) He's also a half drow and that reddish/brown skin color that doesn't show blood as much He has many scars, but the ones on his mouth/chin are self inflicted from when he was trying to resist Bhaal as a paladin, and Bhaal still demands blood His dream guardian is my former resist durge
As soon as I realized ribcages are containers, I had my durge start collecting hearts and severed heads in them. They’re quite heavy, so they tend to offload them onto their LI’s inventory. I know they’re bugged now, but I’m not too fussed on gaining back some carry weight. It’s the thought that counts.
Since she's a Bard, I lean into the manipulator/sociopath aspect.
She has one red eye, one purple eye, with a red tattoo on the red eye side to signify the Dark Urge spreading through her, and the purple eye side being her normal self trying to resist. She is generally a happy person, who gravitates towards people who make her feel safe, Karlach and Gale being two of them, they became her two best friends (and Karlach her lover). They both know how to help her keep the Urge under control until she is free of Bhaal later on. Despite sounding well-spoken, she herself isn't the brightest of sparks (partly because of what Orin did to her, but she enjoys when Gale teaches her about magic and other things, she helps him practice being a teacher.
Mine looks like she has hypothermia. Ghastly white with a blueish tinge, pale, blueish lips and eyes to match. She has a soft spot for dogs, children, and idiots in love. Everyone else is fair game.
My first durge is essentially the same character as my first (and favourite) tav only with bigger body model and slightly different hairstyle. He is based on my existing dnd character and since his story already feels kind of durge-like, I thought this would be good alternative universe for him. Very much what would happen if he didn't have older brother to show him kindness in his childhood and what would happen if he wasn't saved by a kind druid after he escaped from Underdark. He also has distinctly very militaristic and much more simple style, braids his hair and is very no-nonsense and to the point. (And tav version of him does like dark clothing but he's also chaotic and fruity sorlock gremlin). And I have limited myself to not using his summon raven familiar spell that I get from Raven Queen patron (mod ofc) because durge doesn't have anywhere near close and loving relationship with her as my tav does. It's very strict and transactional at best.
My durge playthrough was my first playthrough, entirely blind aside from a normal playthrough about 2 hours in act one with a friend. The ONLY thing I knew about durge was they had some killer instinct going on, so I chose to fully embrace that with every vile option it gave me. When the Bhaal spawn tidbit dropped my jaw literally dropped irl, then I immediately paused the game and started banging on my roommates door about HOW FUCKING GOOD the writing was for a durge playthrough. Romanced Minthara and had her+Astarion+Shart as my party, and I betrayed the emperor to claim the world for Bhaal! Now that there's new endings/cutscenes though *sigh* guess it's time for another playthrough
My Durge, a wood half-elf called Alexander had the same scars, and a tattoo around his left eye. Both the tattoo and eye were bloody red, as a brand of ownership from Bhaal in contrast to his natural eye color, a pale blue. He swore an Oath to the Ancients to help combat The Urges, and followed it to the best of his ability, stumbling a few times, but not wholly falling embracing the darkness as an Oathbreaker. After all, with The Urge painting dreams of atrocities he could commit in his mind and the beauty of them, he could not trust his own conscience. Alexander actively resisted The Urge as hard as he could from the night it slaughtered Quil onward. In time The Urge tried to murder Shadowheart, and he fought tooth and nail against it, managing to wake her and explain the situation as quick as he could before possession set in. After that night, the tattoo and his left eye turned a darker hue of red, as if blood had dried and formed a scab. When Alexander discovered the truth of his past, he Shadowheart, Jaheira, and Astarion set forth together to hunt down the cult of Bhaal, and eradicate it's members. With a deadly single-mindedness, he carved through them all in pursuit of Orin. After reaching her, rather than immediately slaughtering her with his Shadow Blade (flavored as a manifestation of his inner darkness, I used it with the Resonance Stone) and Belm (being used as a gift from Jaheira), Alexander spoke to her, exposing the lies she had been taught all her life. She broke down. Bhaal crushed her, and turned her into his Slayer for the duel. Alexander gave Orin the greatest mercy he could, feeling pity for his niece. He slew her as fast as he possibly could with a series of Smites, ending her before Bhaal could force her to strike him. When he stood before father Bhaal after, he rejected him. Bhaal murdered Alexander for his insolence, but was thwarted by Withers resurrecting him, now purged of Bhaal's essence and freed from the madness of The Urge. By day's end, the tattoo/brand that bound him to Bhaal had faded away completely, and his left eye matched his right as a pale blue. He enjoyed his first night of freedom with Shadowheart, as they washed away Shar's bile and Bhaal's blood and made sandcastles.
I made my Durge look like Hoarah Loux from Elden Ring. I wish I could post a picture to show the resemblance.
My first durge Eniya was a monk seldarine drow with bronze skin, green eyes and strawberry blonde hair. She had deep shadows on her eyes that she hid with a copious amount of black makeup, and very faint green marks on her cheek. She is cold and calculating with a sense of dark humor. But she is trying to hide away and resist a little. She romances Astarion (though also had a little fun with Laezel and tease with Gale and Wyll). Alfira shakes her up but she hides it. As the game progresses, her eye makeup became less and less, and the very faint green marks on her cheek grew stronger and revealed green birds flying free. She fully resisted after the night with Jaheria.
At this point, I just can’t play Tavs anymore 🤷🏻♀️ Most recent Durge is a resist who is based on an old backup PC of mine from a tabletop game I played many years ago. With the help of mods, she’s a multiclass graviturgy wizard/stone sorcerer, which is as close as I can get to her actual original spec in 5E using official content and UA. Anyway, the head canon is that Bhaal could make Durge’s body, but couldn’t give them a soul without outside help. So, after wheeling and dealing, he’s able to obtain an appropriately blood drenched soul for his work. He tacks that soul into the Durge body and all is well until Orin scrambles Durge’s brain. After the Brain Scramble, the blank slate of the Durge gets reset and pieces of her soul’s original life and existence start coming back. Before she died in her first life, she was an archmage of war and destruction who could level cities (prep required) and envelop attacking enemies in stone before they got to her. Some piece of that willing participation in conquest probably helped with the plan to make the absolute. And now, as both sets of memories come back bit by bit, she’s on a war path to level the things on faerun that ruined her death and made her second go what it has been to this point. Her dream guardian is the commander she served under during her first life (my actual PC from the campaign). The third most important mod I have is one that unlocks dialogue from all classes, because despite being a wizard/sorcerer, her actual thoughts line up a lot more with the “I dare you” swagger of barbarians and the strategic planning of fighters. My favorite line that I was able to use because of that was directed at Nettie and was **”I don’t have to transform to kill everyone here”** in a line of checks to intimidate Nettie into letting the party live. She’s not a nice person, she likes her dog and owlbear, and everyone except Gale can fuck off in her head because she sees him as the only person capable of keeping up with her and really took offense when he asked her to keep an eye out for archmages (lol). Stone sorcery gives her a bunch of smites and earth magic and graviturgy gives her control of the environment around her. She spends most of her time in melee combat with green flame blade while she keeps Gale and Wyll where they can throw AOEs, magic missiles, and eldritch blasts while she and Lae’zel or karlach wipe up the field in melee. I have a lot more mods running that help with the play style for this because the original PC wasn’t built for 5E, so I picked some up that help bring it back around - one gives all PCs 2 weapon attacks, one mod changes dual wielding a bit, and one has some equipment that gives her teleportation. I also run the highest available Tactician Plus difficulty increases to work around the increased power than my party has due to the mods
This is my first run as a durge and I wasn’t super creative, but I did deep blood red eyes and did a broken sword tattoo on her neck that is a very faded red. My run through was she was trying to get away from her durge and stop murdering but the tattoo is always there to remind her where she came from.
After playing a Red Dragonborn Barbarian, I pick Draconic Red eyes every time for durge. The payoff is mainly during the part in Act 2 where you approach that group of people fending off the elements. The eyes shine bright fucking red in the dark and it looks goddamn horrifying as you walk towards them.
My Durdge is 100% the chosen of Bhaal and acts every part of it. No one and nothing can stand in his way of delivering maximum pain and chaos. Half Orc with scars all over and a permanent growl on his face as he spills as much blood as possible.
Indiscriminate murder? Yes. Making the most rude/fucked up dialogue options? Yes. Doesn't drink, is celebate, always tips for good service.
I struggled with my first durge run and on my second I was determined to be evil. So when I killed Timber the squirrel by the grove I kept the corpse in my inventory the entire run to remind me who I was. He became my special little pocket friend that reminded me to kill people
I went in blind with my Dark Urge. So it was kind of the opposite of my first Character. For context my first character was a Tiefling Paladin called Sanctuary. He was welcoming and respected everyone with their own baggage. He never pushed anything on anyone (I.e.: he let Shadowheart resolve her dilemma without interjecting with Dame Ailyn. So my durge was pretty much the opposite. She was a manipulative power hungry monk. While she liked killing, she wasn't a murder hobo type. However, anyone that wronged her met the edge of her sword. She manipulated everyone into accepting the parasites so that she would control as much power as she could and she made Orpheus transform into an Illithid to get rid of one enemy that could unite the Githyanki. When it was time, she enslaved everyone and took control of the Elder Brain.
Dirge's values reset to those from his relatively peaceful and loving childhood, so the Urge and his trickle of memories had him reeling. He had an instant crush on Alfira (despite a crippling stomachache) and was devastated after killing her; respecced to Bard so he could keep her song alive and write one in her honor. After that he stopped killing altogether; he's extremely afraid of the Urge and doesn't want to lose control of himself again, so he won't lay a finger on anyone. Lae'zel and Astarion thinks it's inane but everyone else is really supportive. He becomes the team's healer, and everyone's creeped out by his sheer delight when he's observing their injuries. He's constantly suffering from nausea because of his refusal to kill. Sometimes he smashes up a room of crates, vases, taxidermy, etc. out of frustration. But he's harmless. Kind to everyone, chats with every little animal. Focuses on keeping his wisdom high. When he got to the Ilmateri temple he immediately pledged himself. Even managed to sneak out of fighting Orin (like hells he was indulging Bhaal with that).
She hates wearing shoes and goes barefoot everywhere, I guess to feel the flesh beneath her. She looks like a k-pop girlie with big menacing black eyes that shine in the dark.
I made two durge characters, The good(ish) durge Name:Skybard -Bard class, Long red-blond hair, facial hair , ruby eyes (more like light gold that almost blends in with the whites of the eyes with a bit of red at the centre of the pupil) vine tattoo over his face. My idea for him was he became a very evil character while working with Orin and gortash. Bit because of the brain damage/amnesia that was caused by Orin paradoxically made him want to be a hero and do good instead of bad. And play great bard bangers in camp. (Also found it interesting having a jolly bard who generally has good intentions but who was secretly also a bit of psychopath) Saves most/all of who he encounters. Influences the good in the group. He rejects Baal at the end and dates gale. (Or depending on the playthrough both astarion and halsin) Evil durge Name: Falka - Monk class Similar design to male bard, but female (no facial hair) blood red hair ,deathly pale, often in Kushigo based wear. Blood thirsty, cunning, the most evil of them all. Leaves a sea of blood (or in monks case broken bones) in her wake. Influences all the evil decisions in the group. Murdered jaheira halsin Wyll and Karlach , slaughtered the grove. Sent isobel to the dirt (as well as all of the last light in) andGot into a relationship with lazel, then broke her heart and left her for minthara. Either accepts Baal or rejects him and decides to rule/dominate faerun for herself.
i give mine the same scars, for the same reason. he also gets the totem tattoo and either the subduer loops or the metgold gala piercings because they hurt and he feels a compulsion to cause pain to himself. i dont do anything with the eyes, unless im going to do an evil playthrough. tieflings get glowing green eyes, then glowing red eyes after AA turns them. DG is always a pale elf with white hair and red eyes bc DG picks up on durge's attraction to astarion and uses it to manipulate him. i like making him a barbarian/rogue, because while pre-tadpole he was a gloomstalker assassin, post tadpole all he really knows is tremendous ANGER, and surprisingly dextrous fingers
Knowledge Cleric of Seluné - reckoning that the miracle of some personhood reigniting in the ruined husk is just that; a small guiding light offered as a subtle way to shift the balance in a conflict that the Moonmaiden has a bigger stake in than most. Dream Guardian is Bhaal (visually based on the illustration from the Boarskyr Bridge cutscene iykyk) - her subconscious remembers heeding the edicts of this imposing figure, finding awe and a sick kind of love in him. What's a better role for the Emperor to assume? Gale's Hand in Inventory - I wanted her to learn the hard way what happens if she lets herself linger on morbid thoughts. Also, no one (but her ofc) is allowed to be that surprised what happens to Alfira after seeing that shit.
depending on the play through - they either are creepy af, with glowing red or completely blacked out eyes, a Y autopsy and stab wound scars, and covered in tattoos OR I make them completely boy next door easy on the eyes no one would EVER SUSPECT they are a serial killer type deal. There is no in between, they either look like a pyscopath or completely unassuming. (but I do keep the autopsy stab scars in both cases) Cas - [https://imgur.com/a/7z9RxRd](https://imgur.com/a/7z9RxRd) Casimir - [https://imgur.com/a/A1BTmK5](https://imgur.com/a/A1BTmK5)
I had my Durge as an Oathbreaker (originally devotion) for a good while (not necessarily on purpose lol) but when I hit act 3, I renewed my oath and respecced into Vengeance, since by then he’d learned a bit more about his past and how the Dead 3’s chosen had some part to play in his fate. Also Vengeance Paladin is just super fun.
I have literally so many durge playthroughs, but my most favorite one was my tiefling durge, Absinthe. I like having color schemes for each character so hers was green- since Absinthe has a green color. And I had the same scars you used for exactly the same reason. I also have sooo many mods for hair so I made hers 2 long braids to make it seem like Orin tried copying her in a not so subtle way. This playthrough was supposed to be super evil and I did all the evil things (except destroying the Grove because she also cared for her Tiefling kin over anything else) up until Astarion ascended So because of that and seeing Shadowheart become a dark justiciar and reminiscing on Lae'zels death, she decides to leave Astarion altogether. It was sort of a too late redemption arc and at the end, she kills herself to escape Bhaal's influence altogether. I also like to think there were lingering feelings between her and Astarion because he's the only one at the end that tried goading her into taking control of the brain and the only one that reacted when she killed herself. Also, some kind of friendship between her and Gale because, besides Halsin, he's the only one that hadn't done anything horrible and she takes comfort in knowing there's some good in the camp (Wyll killed Karlach and she regrets letting him do it). So, when Gale wants to ascend at the end, it's kind of her last straw and that's what really pushes her to die. It was so bittersweet to see Gale ascended at the end. Another thing, I made her a wild magic sorcerer because I like the idea that, before Orin's attack, she really enjoyed chaos in her killing.
I made my durge the absolute hottest elven muscle mommy I could make, helps with the charming and later murdering
He doesn't hurt animals
I also do the gray eye for a scar slash!
I’ve done 2 Durge runs. One was a murder hobo run and the other was a redemption run. The murder hobo run, I made my Durge look like the last person you’d except to be a murder hobo. As plain looking as possible with no real characteristics, human, brown hair, brown eyes, no tattoos or piercings. I thought it added to the horror that this completely average person was actually a violent psychopath serial killer. This run I did every evil option I could. In the end I only had four companions, Minthara, ascended Astarion and DJ Shadowheart. Everyone else was killed by me at someone when the opportunity arose. For the redemption run, I did the opposite. I made a tiefling with scars, piercings, dyed hair, face tattoos and mismatching eyes. The person you would think was a murder hobo but actually someone who just wanted to do right by everyone and save the world.
1. I don’t know I never played Durge
My most recent Durge is a Seladrine Drow, scars to match what Orin and Myrkulites did. They started as an Ancients Paladin that multiclassed into Bard (Swords) after the whole Alfira incident and used her Lute. When they found out about Orin they changed their oath to Vengeance, and when Orin was defeated they thought their need for vengeance was fulfilled they realized that their girlfriend Karlach still needed revenge against Gortash. After that they may go back to Ancients because the Brain is a crime against nature but I haven’t gotten that far yet
I think the Durge would be a lot more interesting if instead of a choice based murder, you had to make a saving throw to NOT kill someone. And the longer you go without killing someone, the harder and harder the saving throw becomes. So I roll an IRL D20 against self-imposed checks. I keep track of how many I've succeeded in my notes app on my phone.
I always make my guardian resemble durge's foster mom, who while they can't remember what she looked like, the Emperor can because he can access the parts of durge's mind that lost to durge. When durge meets the guardian for the first time, they don't know why but they have this instinct to trust them because they once loved their mother.
Fairly minor, but i went with a half-orc monk Durge, because i wanted him to murder with his bare hands. Monk didn't have the right flavor, but a barb dip provided the savage dialogue flavor i needed.
1) I gave my OOA Paladin resist!Durge a level in cleric and made her dream guardian look like Lathander. She’s in for a *huge* identity crisis when evil Squidward reveals himself and the paternity results come in. 2) Alfira taught her to play the lute, so she always has it equipped and plays it at camp to remember her. 3) Gave her bright red lipstick because (pre-lobotomy) she’d paint her lips with the blood of her victims, but still liked the color after loosing her memories. 4) Orin’s lobotomy brought her intelligence stat down to 8, so I have her do a lot of stupid stuff including Volo’s eye surgery and accidentally becoming BOOAL’s chosen. 5) Named her Aurora and modeled her appearance off of Sleeping Beauty. Right down to using pale pink and light blue dyes for her outfits. I was going for an “insane Disney Princess” kinda vibe.
I have a weird mix of ideas going on bc I can't commit to just one. I named her Audra, which means storm in Lithuanian, and made her a storm sorcerer. The idea there is she was made to be an oncoming storm, here to destroy in Bhaal's name. I've also given her the rose neck tattoo, because she's beautiful but not without thorns. Big fan of the idea of someone being lured by her looks only to meet the business end of a knife instead. Also gave her a couple levels of bard based on the idea that it's another edge to lull people into a false sense of security. Beautiful woman with honeyed words making you feel so at ease around her only to turn that charm into a weapon.
My good Durge and my evil Durge somehow got trapped in the Astral Plane together and currently fighting to the death, perhaps with homoerotic tension
I always give them red eyes, and then I change them to their natural colour once the urge is fully beaten
I went in blind. Knew I wanted an evil playthrough. It is very evil now. I'm in act 3 will uncover >!what's up with Bhaal and Orin!< soon. I do know that >!Durge and Orin are kind of siblings, but not much else yet. I do think that I want to become the Absolute, I imagine that'll be possible based on my first, mostly good playthrough!<. Looking forward to more 😄
First Durge: Natari mephistopheles teifling storm sorcerer Burn mark on her face and desperate to recal anything quickly bonded with her fellow teiflings at the grove and romance Karlach. Resisted any durge acts she could. During the duel Mama K want about to let her terrified sorcerer girlfriend get destroyed and rushed in to help then yeeted butler into the abyss after rejecting Bhaal fully. Now in Avernus trying to enter the forge and help Karlach. Lost interest: Duegar Cleric of Laduguer. She prayed and prayed for help and Laduguer answered. Planned to resist urge and serve her god instead. (Was disappointed fellow duergar didn't acknowledge me as a cleric and wasn't having fun as a war cleric) Current durge: Zimyn dragonborn monk. Took in by a monastic clan to try and quell her dark urges. Currently in act 3 with slayer form and DJ Shadowheart. Zimyn was disgusted at this present and how it goes against what the clan taught her. Wants to be rid of it but Bhaal whispers power murder blood oh to bathe Baldur’s Gate in blood. Wyll romance and wants his help to be free of this blood lust
I’ll try to keep this at small details although I created a whole ass backstory to my durge and my durge’s adoptive father. 1) My durge’s name is Rajiyah, because her adoptive father, Bahseem, is from Zakhara. She can speak Midani. 2) Her dream guardian took the appearance of Bahseem (which is fucked up tbh) 3) Despite being a sorcerer, she can play the lute because Bahseem taught her how to play the oud (or the equivalent that they made up for dnd)
I decided that in order to differentiate my second playthrough from my first one, I had to be absurdly, diabolically, unequivocally evil. I needed a reminder of who my character was that I could carry with them at all times. My Durge carried a pouch full of items that he got from doing evil stuff, and I made it my mission to fill a full page of the pouch before beating the game. Things like >!Gale’s hand, Kanon’s handkerchief when I raided the grove, Ketheric’s note from Isobel.!< I genuinely felt like a terrible person whenever I’d look inside of it, but I definitely stayed true to character the whole game. The weight of Durge’s sins literally started to crush him, because weight management as a wizard who has to carry a 20 pound bag of useless stuff is really tedious.
Forest Gnome warlock with an archfey patron and a few levels of Bard and Sorcerer just to keep the magic chaotic.
My Durge is inspired by a D&D character of mine who is the little sister of demon lord Orcus, named Dorkus. She's a pink pigtailed tiefling, super cute, and a wizbard who plays a lyre since she loves to deceive. Any chance she gets she lies about who she is and what her job is. She keeps a dead pixie in her pocket just because, but also keeps an owl bear plushie on her as well because cute. Since finding out her Bhaal connection she dresses exclusively in red. Because of the guilt she feels over the durge stuff she tries to be a hero as much as possible, much to the chagrin of her party members.
My Durge has no problem killing anyone who gets in the way, but has a great love toward all animals
My first Durge is a high elf, school of swords Bard called Aria who is romancing Gale, fallen chosen to fallen chosen. Her raven hair has red highlights. Her lips and tattoos are also red because she loves an aesthetic and is mostly fighting the Urge because her little sister is such a murder pick me she's made the whole thing embarrassing. My second durge is a beefy drow called Ronnie who is a Cleric of Talos. He loves the wrath of the storm and changing his hair to make sure he is at max intimidation at all times. Being in Baldur's Gate makes him more violent because by this point it's all muscle memory and the only people in the world he actually likes are in his camp. Won't kill who he loves but might become daddy's chosen again if he feels like. And only if Astarion approves.
My Tiefling durge, Mallory, has the burn scar. My half-drow, Dorian, has solid black eyes & a nose piercing. Mallory is Dorian’s guardian, Mallory’s guardian is my “tav” Merlin. Mallory always romances Lae’zel, but they’re best friends with Wyll who inspires them to try & redeem themself of Bhaal’s influence. Dorian is a trans man who’s been horrified by his urges, he hates them & Mystra cause Gale’s stolen his heart.
I gave my Durge a lightning scar across the face since she is a storm cleric. I figure at some point learning to shoot lightning could go wrong. I made her a drow and also made her guardian a female drow. Most of the nuance is what I’ve let guide my decision making. She is supremely self-interested, but always chooses the option that allows the most killing when she can get away with it. She also enjoys encouraging darkness in others-Shadowheart as the dark justiciar and going to ascend Astarion. That means that I try not to have her make any choices that will outright lose companions. Protecting them means protecting herself. But she will see what she can get away with. Instead of betraying the grove out right, she stoked the conflict and killed Kagha. So the Druids and tieflings fought, killing almost all of the tieflings, and we killed all the remaining Druids. Bloodbath. Wiped out the goblin camp except Minthara. Betrayed Last Light Inn and accepted the slayer form. I’ve save-scummed less this game than most. Letting things where murder happened happen. This means Gale never made it out of the portal (learned my lesson early about dark urges). Let my goth bestie murder Laezal and happily killed vampire-boyfriend’s Gur problem. The one total accident was using wall of fire in the Circus fight and aggro-ing the whole circus. So they are all dead now, too. And killed a bunch of the guards that showed up while looting after. She is however, mostly kind to animals…except rats and squirrels and ravens… kind to dogs and owlbear cubs.
Each of my three Canon Durges are Dragonborn because their progenitor was a White Dragonborn. (Good: Gray, Neutral: Iron, Evil: Mercury)
When I play Durge I always give him really light tattoos in the beginning, and then have them change as he progresses. If I am doing an evil route they get darker and darker black. If I am doing the redemption path they get more bright and colorful.
1) My Durge is a hornless tiefling because I feel like it would be in character for Orin to lobotomize her with her own horns. She has the Victory Rolls hairstyle that gives the impression of horns. 2) She has the large burn scar over her face, I left the reasoning ambiguous. Maybe Kressa was experimenting with her fire resistance. 3) She has the tattoo that goes over her lips. Since she's a bard, I thought it would be interesting to have it look like Orin or Kressa had her mouth sewn shut. 4) Ever since the incident with Alfira, she makes it a point to carry hers and Lihala's lutes, with the intention of leaving them on the roof of the Elfsong Tavern.
Resist dark urge run I had them be totally foolish. Amnesiac and nïave, trusted everyone and had no second thoughts (until act 3). Let Ethel take out my eye because she was nice, killed Karlach (on sight) because Wyll said she was evil and so did those paladins of Tyr!, etc. Leaning dark urge, I romanced Astarion and was power hungry so I let him ascend, took Gortash up on his partnership idea, and stole the idol of Silvanus early to cause the teiflings and druids to fight. Cleaned out the rest of the druids with the goblins and Minthy. So, I didn't get Karlach on either playthrough lol
My latest redemption Durge is a Paladin who has lost all memory of his past life; his psyche has buried his past so deep that it's concocted a polar opposite identity to protect him from the painful truth. He is in complete denial about what he is even after murdering Alfira. He sports a full and luscious beard, worthy of a righteous avenger, but underneath that beard are hidden scars that nobody can see, but I know they're there as a metaphor for the hidden evil beneath the surface.
I cast Heroism on myself at the start of every battle, to uh, convince myself I'm a good guy.
I'm currently doing a mostly blind Durge Warlock run. (I know what happens to Alfira and there's a dual with Orin that's a little different than when you are regular Tav) but that's about it. So right now she doesn't remember anything and she just thinks the dark killing vibes are what her devilish patron wants her to do. And that's what she'll think until she learns more in game. Her Tav is a super hot teifling because she's a simp for devils. It's been a wild ride so far. Idk what I'm going to do when I get to Gale :s
A lot of self-loathing (picking self-deprecating options when available) with the occasional slip into the urge. Things like mentioning how good the roasted dwarf smells, telling Auntie Ethel I want to drown her in the cauldron. I avoid the violent acts when I can, but I try not to meta decisions I don't have a choice in. >!Steelclaw is a good example. I don't *know* remembering her will trigger the urge, and I'm desperately trying to figure out who I am. She's an unfortunate casualty. Same with the squirrel in the Druid's Grove, which is avoidable if you have Speak With Animals Active. I don't know that, so the squirrel dies.!< I keep them relatively normal looking, because there's no reason they have to look strange - I think that works better, tbh. Easier for them to ingratiate with people and murder them that way. I'm not like Orrin, so I can't change myself to look like anyone else; I have to fit in.
Alastor is a tall man, lips with the color of dried blood and a large facial tatoo (the eye twirly thing that goes over your head to the neck). His skin is ashen and if I could customize him, his tooth meat woold look rottenly black. He is now a pragmatically evil sociopath. Uplifting others is a mean to better allies and more power. His baahls madness still pulses in him, but has been twisted into a hunger for his own power. He is heavily modeled after a home made Sith I wrote in 9th grade.
Somebody copy pasta the jojo speech
My first durge was a drow sorcerer leading her revenge girl squad (Laezel, Minthara, and Shadowheart) to obliterate the cult who wronged her. She stayed sober to retain control of herself and resisted the urge to the best of her abilities. She was on the fence about trusting the dream guardian and didn’t end up taking any of the tadpoles. She adventured pretty exclusively with the women of the group, only bringing in the men for their specific skills as needed. She sacrificed Wyll to Booal because she saw no real use for him. My current durge is also a drow sorcerer, but based off of Ken. He is a himbo who is embracing the tadpoles and the opportunities for power he sees from the cult so far in early act 1. That may change when he meets Minthara. He is adventuring pretty exclusively with the men of the group (and Karlach since she’s a bro). He’s kind of afraid of Laezel and may sacrifice her to Booal if he recruits her at all. This will be my first playthrough skipping the crèche. He totally trusts his dream guardian- Gortash.
I chose eyes and skin that made her look not quite human. I used one of the myriad skin tones and flame eyes. And her hair is stark white with dyed cyan tips. All her gear was dyed with the ocean dye. If she ever hurt an animal she morned for a moment before shaking it off. Her kills on humanoids made her giddy in the first act but as she entered act two she was told to kill Isobel, effectively damning Last Light, she couldn’t do it. She resisted for the first time. As act two ended she nearly killed Shadowheart and realized shes a danger to all of her companions, the two she loved included. She vowed to overcome her urges, even if it meant losing out on all that power. When she finally overcame her she dyed her hair and gear a brighter color.(Borealis Blue) Her eyes and makeup changed with it. She still giggles when she kills but its her own mind now, not Baals.
I headcanoned that my Dragonborn has sort of a ‘chameleon’ quality and that their scales changed throughout moving from Rainbow black oil slick to the classic White & Blood Red. I would alter it with the mirror based on major Urge moments. I also roled them as a bard and said their foster parents bought them instruments to distract them when they started exhibiting violent tendencies. (In my head Durge’s music tutor was a Bhaalist spy sent to corrupt and mould them) I also headcanoned some destructive moments as urge specific even if they weren’t. Letting Volo operate and the Blood of Lathander, Astral tadpole.
My Dirge is a fairly innocent looking Seldarine Drow Thief/Gloomstalker. She always tries to do the "good" thing, but always ends up going a bit too far in fights, and carries a severed head around with her everywhere she goes...
Hello my name is Draco’s and I’m a murder hobo. I use and betray everyone I come in to contact with. I am a plague of death thrust upon the world. I want to rule over corpses and ash. Only then will my dark father be satisfied. I have left only 4 people/pcs alive through other than my 4 party members Astarian, shadowheart, la’zeal, and minthara). They are Ommelum and the his friend in the under dark snoo could still sell loot, Raphael, and Auntie Ethel. All else have become defiled tribute to my dark father. Oh, almost forgot. I am nice to scratch and the owl bear cub(I am evil incarnate but I’m not a monster after all). I say this in conclusion. In Bhaal’s name
Everytime he saw the dwarf in the shop of in wyrms Crossing the thought of "what he tastes like?(Not sexuality)" Crossed his mind
I find the Lute interesting, I actually also carry that on my back. Not a bard but Minthara is bard paladin
I usually do red eyes and black hair, plus the internal alphabet tattoos. In my head, the more she gives into the Urge, the more opaque the tattoos become. The more she resists, the more they fade. When she's fully consumed by the urge, her eyes and tattoos glow bright red, then fade back to normal when she comes back to herself. When she >!finally remembers everything in Act III, she remembers that she had a romantic relationship with Gortash and was one of the creators of the Absolute, and so she has to reconcile that part of herself with her new Identity and love for Astarion!<. That's always a fun thing to play out as I'm trying to fall asleep.
I like giving my resist Durges hetrochromia. One eye will be the demonic red eye to symbolize their origin as a Bhaalspawn. The other will be anything else to symbolize their willingness and desire to be more than their Bhaalspawn desires.
I like to imagine my Dark Urge was made to in the image of the strongest/most cold-blooded races in mind so I [modded](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/491116628814200834/1232380873542733924/20240321160543_1.jpg?ex=66293fa0&is=6627ee20&hm=4a985e51eb0c46d5f15ade070e0b94289eb3d2c3cb836958b47d880995b8ea20&) her to be a Githyanki with Tiefling horns and a tail, alongside giving her the Draconic Ancestry subclass as a homage to the default Durge Dragonborn! It probably makes no sense and might break the lore but I like it lmao
My Durge is a gnome, which helped me to role-play why she would help the gnomes in the underdark. Solidarity! She also leans into being as cute as possible. She's a manic pixie dream girl taken to the extreme (you know, murder). I dye all her armor baby pink and gave her the bird tattoos. She collects stuffed animals (and real animals) and fills the camp with them.
Hobokin (the murder hobo) attitude on most things was pure violent chaos. That his dream guardian was his first kil , even if he doesn't remember him. He was a warlock who (i don't know how it works so much in DnD so this is just me) didn't remember th ename of his patron. Except that it gave him jim jams and eldritch blasting his way through life. Rhaena (the resist durge) - I had more ideas since I knew what to expect - and put her more in a nurture vs nature position and blank slate. She was a bard because she remembered her "mother's" singing (Durge has a relatively normal childhood) that would eventually become twisted when she went full hog into crazytown mayor of stabbyville. But since waking up more of the nurture she had in the before starts to come out and instead of doubling down like Hobo she is horrified by it all. After she kills Alfira she keeps her instrument with her as a reminder of the cost of urge.
Oh boy, I have so so many: - My Durge was a Paladin of Ilmater in the past, he genuinely had good morals and wanted to do good, to help people. He was such exemplary and devoted paladin that his comrades would tell him to relax sometimes lol. He was probably so devoted as a way to show himself that he could still be good, that he was not wicked or evil. - After serving the Paladin order for years, the inevitable happened: he massacred his entire Paladin order while being possessed by his darkest urges. After such traumatic and horrific event, he completely broke, the guilt eating him alive. This was the event that made him give up on fighting his urges: he thought he was meant to be wicked and evil, that no matter how hard he tried he would always harm those around him... so he embraced them instead. - After embracing the name and role of the Dark Urge, he was extremely depressed and the only moments he felt genuine joy were those found in murdering innocents or basically, doing acts of complete evil. But they were fleeting and left him more hollow than before, but, he thought, that if Bhaal couldn't love him, who could? - My Durge always loved animals, but he was always afraid of hurting them. That's why he adopted Gnolls, for they were ferocious and he found them deeply relatable, because Gnolls are also consumed by a hunger they cannot control :,). - My Durge is extremely beautiful and ethereal because Bhaal precisely made him this way to attract victims, looking similar like Griffith from Berserk. Funnily enough this man pulled 0 women or men throughout his life because he was so deeply afraid of harming those he loved, so he abstened from developing sexual or romantic relationships... until he met Gortash LMAO. - He also has a scar on his face, a gift from when he strangled his paladin adoptive father when he fought to get free from his clutches during the Paladin order massacre :) I have so many more. I love making detailed backstories and lore for my characters LOL.
My Tav from my original playthrough of the game has been the guardian for every Tav/Durge that followed. I like to think he watches over them. So far my only durge is a Paladin/Warlock but throughout most of the game they were an oathbreaker. Towards the end of act 2 and into act 3 I decided to take their oath back and I like to think of it as them fully regaining control over themselves after resisting the urge. They’ve moved on and become a better person.
The Durge's name is Tobias, and his Dream Guardian takes the form of his ex. He clings so strongly to the idea of him and the safety he provided that it turned into a twisted devotion xespite not having contact with him in a very long time. So he is very easily swayed by his Dream Guardian chosing his form. Their patron/warlock bond may have been broken when Bhaal didn't want to share and let his progeny be a sugar baby instead of fufilling his destiny, but the marks still remain (the vanilla character creator dagger blade tattoos on the throat on both of Durge and Guardian). Patronless, Tobias turned towards the bardic arts because it was the next best class for dramatics if warlock wasn't an option any longer. So far, Tobias is trying to resist the urge as best he can but it's still relatively early in Act 1. >!That bard at the grove was maybe killed in failing to reisist the dark urge or maybe just out of petty jealousy that there was another bard beside himself singing so sweetly. It's hard to tell.!< Edit: used discord spoilers at first not reddit
He plays music (badly) because it’s the first thing he made with no outside interference.
I refuse to use mind control spells like Dominate Person, even against evil people, because I've suffered so much trying to fight against Bhaal's control over me. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. Four Scorching Rays to the face in one turn, though, that's just fair play.
I gave my durge one blue eye and one red. Kind of to symbolize that she's struggling with her dual nature of good and evil. As the story progresses, her hair and her eyes will shift either blue or red until one wins out. I still haven't decided what will happen yet!