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[karsiteweave]

User Name/Nick: Jack
User DW: N/A
E-mail/Plurk/Discord/PM to a character journal/alternate method of contact: PM to this journal, schematise on discord, or schematise if necessary.
Other Characters Currently In-Game: N/A

Character Name: Gale Dekarios
Series: Baldur's Gate 3
Age: 35
From When?: Act 3, during the Orin confrontation. Gale was kidnapped by Orin. When Orin threatens to kill him, the Dark Urge tells her to just do it and stop playing with her food. So she did!

Inmate Justification:

Gale has helped murder a lot of innocent people through his time as a companion of the Dark Urge. Was he upset about it? Yes, but he still did it -- and he didn't protest until after he'd taken part the first time. It's notable that other companions will instantly leave the second you engage in killing at the Emerald Grove, but Gale does not. He's a muddle of burning ambition and victim complexities, because Gale believes he has no worth without magic. If that is true, then to him more power will increase his own worth. If that is true, then he is useless alone without his true power -- which he doesn't have while the karsite weave is in his chest draining him.

His low self worth makes him easy to manipulate. He does not leave the party immediately, even though he hates what he believes he is becoming, what he has done. He tells you he thinks he should, but it's easy to tell him that he took part. That he would surely die if he left. So he passively complains of the party's actions, yet stays put and assists. Becomes a bystander to the Dark Urge's path of death and destruction. He struggles with the belief he can actually change things simply via his own will, instead of taking ultimate power and performing some grand act.

It's a choice he's making, not to stay the party's hand, but to preserve his own life.

Equally, Gale has selective arrogance when it comes to magic. He constantly experiments with dangerous magic, even when he knows he should not if he can his first thought is -- why not? Any power is useful, if used correctly, and he believes he himself would of course always use it correctly. He can be drawn into chasing the power to become a god, even knowing the last person who pursued such power ended in ruin. Surely it would be different, for him? Although the goddess of magic herself denied him further power, his chasing a way to 'prove he was worth it' to her essentially turned him into a magical bomb -- which embedded the Karsite Weave in his chest to begin with. The start of his slow spiral downward.

He often gets carried away, assuming he can control a situation and not considering the consequences. Yes, he's made mistakes before, but this time--

At times, he even enjoys the danger. The power.

Gale Dekarios is the source of many of his own problems, and on some level he knows that, but he's not learning quite the right lessons from it all.

Hopefully, a warden can help him realise he can be useful without magic, that perhaps if he had spoken up he could have done something, that he's capable of personal strength.

Arrival: By force.

Abilities/Powers:

Gale is a wizard, the book nerd magic users of Dungeons and Dragons lore. He can learn spells via studying them in detail, and copying them into his spell book. He is, specifically, an evocation wizard. This means his special ability is that he is able to shape his spells, sculpt pockets of safety into them for himself and his companions. He can rain down fire around himself and his friends, but allow himself and his friends to remain untouched by it!

As a wizard, Gale's power already does self-moderate even at full strength. He can only cast so many spells a day before he begins to complain he needs sleep. He carries no ability to heal or raise the dead, all his spells are either offensive spells or utility based ( the ability to shock with lightning, to protect briefly with Mage Armour, to perform a short distance teleport, etc). Wizards can counter other spells, but only within the limits of their own power. Many spells have the ability to fail, and their magic can be stopped entirely by silence.

He's level 9, so does have some high-power offensive spells like Cloud Kill, but under limitations, he will be reduced to only very minor utility spells. Magehand and perhaps his very short distance teleports. No offensive spells will work! The worst he might do is magically unlock a door. I will presume he teleportation spells cannot take him places he isn't meant to go. He can cast invisibility, but happy to have that taken away to stop him being a nuisance with it. Equally, he can use Detect Thoughts. Happy to have Wardens be automatically immune to it or something.

He does have the Karsite Orb in his chest, but I will presume that is still pacified and that even if he randomly wanted to detonate it he cannot -- but he wouldn't want to anyway, it takes out himself and everyone around him!

His Illithid powers are minimal, he didn't take any additional ones, and it is mostly irrelevant here. I am presuming his transformation is in stasis despite the artefact not being with him. He could force his will on Absolute Cultists, but there are none here! Mostly he can use a minor connection to Astarion and the Barge's current Dark Urge, who also have Illithid Tadpoles.

Should he ever have caps removed, I will presume the barge stops him doing anything game-breaking like mass-destruction by fire. I don't think he'd be interested in that anyway!

Inmate Information:

CRIMES:
Gale Dekarios is not a dyed-in-the-wool villain. He could easily be the hero of a tale, if a troubled one. He is a weak-willed, dramatic man who regularly takes the easy way out. He would love to rescue every child and animal, to be a big hero, to fall in love and marry and spend time at home reading books with a partner.

That was not the path he went down, this time. The grove massacre begins, and Wyll immediately leaves -- but Gale doesn't. He remains in your party, participates, then when you speak to him later expresses horror at himself. The people they killed were refugees, were children, were tieflings fleeing a war and desperate to find safety. Were druids protecting their home. The blood on his hands horrifies him, yet he did help kill them when the Dark Urge chose to work with Minthara. If you tell him Gale would never survive alone, Gale agrees. He doesn't leave. He hates it, yet he remains.

Thus Gale becomes a bystander to terrible decisions, an active participant in atrocities that he hates but has convinced himself he is powerless to stop. He continues to engage in murder whenever the Dark Urge whimsically decides to solve a problem that way. He continues to choose not to prevent these things happening, because he believes he needs the Dark Urge to survive.

Even before that, Gale was already endangering people simply with his presence. He well knew the orb was unstable, that its blast would level a city should it go off, yet initially he doesn't tell you. He decides that he can control things himself, can manage it, so he refuses to explain. He asks for help, but doesn't tell anyone what he's doing -- despite the fact that a lethal blow is very possible and would also cause the orb to detonate eventually. His mix of arrogance and desperation can cause him to be very self-involved, to only care about his own feelings and what he wants to do over other people. If he wants something, he deserves it. If he believes he is the best for something, and you do not allow him to take charge, he will become increasingly rude and sarcastic.

Gale is also obsessed with power. He equates his own worth with his magical ability, and believes he can solve all problems with more magic. Any dark magic that is available, he wants to try it even when he knows Mystra will disapprove. Why waste it, when he could use it? Equally, the crown of Karsus is something he desires even despite being fully aware of the story of Karsus and how that all ended.

Gale Dekarios is a hot mess.

EVENTS:

Gale's display of skill at a young age led him to be tutored by the goddess of magic herself, Mystra. He attends Blackstaff Academy, becoming a self-aggrandising show-off who practises his autograph in detention, and eventually becomes Mystra's lover. However, like many child prodigies before him Gale rises too quickly. He eventually hits a limit to his own growth, a point where Mystra is unwilling to teach him more. Boundaries to his mortal power. Thinking he just needs to prove to her that he doesn't need boundaries, he seeks out what he believes is a portion of her magic she might want returned to her and instead finds a piece of Karsite Weave. He ends up a walking magical bomb, is cast aside by Mystra, and essentially abruptly falls from grace. He self-isolates with his tressym, and tries to solve it all alone, and utterly fails -- until the illithid invasion ends up providing him with new potential allies.

He exists for some time feeding the magical bomb in his chest with magic items, allowing it to feed on that magic to keep it pacified. Gale considers himself something of a villain in this tale, a person who doomed himself by not accepting what he had, and seems as if he had begun to accept his end was potentially coming -- even if he worked to evade that.

Being told by Elminster that Mystra that there's a way out, a way to gain 'forgiveness' then, is something of an abrupt awakening. He's relieved, at first, at having been told what to do. An easy solution. No more worrying, if he just does as he's told -- blows himself up -- everything will be over. It's only when he's pushed to question if this is really the only way that some bitterness and frustration begins to take hold. He wants to die, yes, to not having to worry about any of this anymore.

Yet he also wants to live. It's a directionless desperation for some other option that only takes shape into something new when he sees the crown of Karsus. Something that could have the power to solve his problem, and maybe other problems, if he could just grasp it.

Unfortunately, he has to wade through quite a bit of blood to get to it -- and he never makes it.

TRAITS:
Gale is an arrogant man when at his strength. He'll be stubborn when he believes he knows best, rude and dismissive of people he believes less educated than himself. He'll also keep secrets when he believes it for some greater good, sometimes that greater good being his own health. He has strong opinions, but when they are not a topic he feels at a strength with he will often easily be persuaded to ignore a decision he doesn't like or change his mind. He's desperate for approval, and sometimes that approval is gained by not engaging in conflict even when some part of him knows what is happening is wrong.

He's also an adrenaline junkie. Gale finds danger exciting, arousing even. This makes it easy for him to get carried away, caught up in a moment and only able to reflect later.

He's quick to make sweeping judgements, to criticise others even on topics where he's no better himself. This applies even to his companions too, where he often acts above them and makes decidedly catty comments.

This all aside, Gale is capable of heroism. He feels very deeply, empathises even with his enemies and regrets his snap judgements when he sees that he's wrong. He's a flawed man, but at his heart he'd rather be at home reading a book with his tressym. He may believe he's being twisted by the darkness in the dark urge, but he is far from beyond saving.


Path to Redemption:

Gale needs to somehow come to believe he is worthwhile even without his magic, that all his showmanship and extravagance are not necessary. That he doesn't need to impress people, doesn't need to be 'Gale of Waterdeep the chosen of Mystra'. That Gale, himself, just a man has value. That not all problems need to be solved with magic, just because he believes they can be. A lot of his bad behaviour is tied up in self-esteem issues and a sort of learned helplessness because of that. To Gale himself he is a victim, someone incapable of doing anything else but following your lead. If you tell Gale he is useless, he backs down and agrees with you. He's a people pleaser, desperate to be of value. The only time he feels at a strength is when the topic is magic. Magic is what he is good at, and because of that he wants to apply magic to everything. As an escalation, the gods are unfair, so Gale believes that he should become a god so he can fix things. The idea that he might be able to help or address things another way doesn't seem to occur to him, power is the only option. More power, being stronger, more respect, and so on.

He needs to accept he had a hand in his own fate, first, rather than just being a victim. He has already accepted he was somewhat of the villain in his own tale, when it came to his first mistake with Mystra, but he hasn't fully processed it that thought all the way to its consequences. He still believes the gods are cruel, and cycles between wanting Mystra's approval and being angry about her actions. Once he owns all of his own actions he can come to terms with the fact that perhaps he could have changed things, and perhaps work up to the idea that he could have value beyond his abilities as a wizard. That becoming a god wouldn't have solved all his problems instantly, and he would have just become isolated and arrogant -- perhaps no better than the gods he was so angry at.

Gale will find the barge disquieting, because it doesn't quite fit with everything he knows about the gods and the afterlife. He will likely resent being wardened, because life has been 'unfair' to him and being there alongside people like Gortash will hurt. He sees himself as a victim, and clearly victims shouldn't need to repent. A warden too aggressive will likely have Gale shrink away and agree with whatever he needs to agree with to de-escalate, but he will need someone who can be a friend but also be firm with him rather than indulge him too much. Gale's worst traits only grow when unchallenged. Keeping his powers contained will likely help, as if people can be his friend even without his most 'interesting/useful' aspects that will help him come to realise maybe magic isn't everything.

History:
Baldur's Gate 3 Wiki link skips to the history section of Gale's page!

For playthrough purposes, I am assuming a Dark Urge player character who made largely dark choices: killed Karlach for Wyll, partnered with Minthara, took Minthara to the grove and killed everyone there (thus losing Wyll and Halsin as companions), made a deal with the Hag, defied Vlaakith, killed Isobel in Last Light, allowed Shadowheart to kill the Nightsong, Infiltrated Moonrise and rescued Minthara, then went onwards to Baldur's Gate to investigate the Dead Three. This is where Gale was kidnapped and eventually killed, he doesn't get far enough to negotiate with Mystra a second time. By and large, these choices mostly colour his mental state.

Sample Network Entry:

[ Gale's frown is briefly in view, before he realises everything is working and it transforms into a smile. ]

Hello, Gale of Waterdeep here. Do excuse me if I'm doing this wrong, I'm told it functions as a sort of wide range message spell. I'll admit, I didn't expect to find myself traversing the Astral Sea again quite so soon -- or in quite this manner! The vessel itself is quite the unusual structure, as well, which brings me neatly to the point of my inquiry: the library contains plenty of interesting literature, but my interest lies in our current accommodation and its captain. Might someone recommend something illuminating on those two topics? On what one might expect from this little voyage through the stars, as unwilling a group of travellers as we may be? Ah, I don't know how many of us there are here exactly, but I'd also be quite curious to know of everyone else's circumstances.

[ Is he the only one from Faerûn, for example? Inquiring minds do want to know! ]

Sample RP:

Link to TDM!


Special Notes:

An "embrace the Urge" Dark Urge run doesn't, ultimately, change any of Gale's main motivation or trajectory. It just impacts his mental state, although... the game doesn't program in any permanent reaction changes so I'm mostly taking cues from the written reactions he does have.

Equally, I will ask the current in-game Dark Urge if they would prefer Gale's version to look/be at all like him or to just be different -- either works for me, I have no strong preference!