#honour mode

Morgana Evelyn suggests Tav should be Dark Urge, and I was going by the book because I'm trying to learn and understand these character builds, so Tav is a durge--wood half-elf because they have the highest movement speed and the stealth archer needs to move around a lot.

Here's where I got overconfident. Morgana Evelyn has beat Honour Mode *SOLO* over 100 times, so I was like, I trust you, New Friend; I'm going to make this an honour mode run.

Let's! Fucking! Gooooooo!

So the game glitch-crashed after 2.5 hours of character creation and one hour of actual play time, which got me off the ship, teamed up with Shady, and on my way to grab Astarion. Apparently this is a known HM crash that cannot be remedied, so that run died in childbirth (the playthrough is so broken I can't even delete the campaign). I rebuilt the same durge Tav and started a new run, with the fairly important caveat that I'm playing "light urge"--fighting against all the murderous instincts of the Dark Urge origin. Trying to be good.

Now, I have done one other HM run, and it went pretty OK, even with my typically "what does this do? sounds cool, let's do it" method of character creation. I made it all the way to the Ketheric fight playing as a Tiefling Bard, but the game glitched (black screen with audio and HUD but. . .if you can't see, you can't see); it's a pretty common problem and without thinking, I employed the usual cure for that glitch, which is to save the game. In the middle of the Ketheric fight, with half my party downed, in honour mode! I keep going back to that fight to see if I can somehow save it but so far no joy).

On my current run, Shady and I were wiped by the first set of braincats, right there at the crash site. So that was that, and now I'm playing custom--just wanted to keep going with Tav and the party to see how the mechanics of these builds play out. If only I hadn't had a Game Over at that 15-minutes-in mark, I'd actually have been fine; these builds work as promised and with some careful choices about grabbing XP, I leveled up the party to 7 by the time I entered the shadow-cursed lands. Halsin chilling at camp; since my honour run is dead I'm using No Party Limits and Polyamory Fix guilt-free, so me and mine are really in a groove. I'm romancing Gale (kind of by accident; he always gets me) and Karlach (my first time! Even got to kiss her when Dammon fixed her at Last Light! Damn, she's a ray of sunshine). But not Astarion! I refused to even talk to him at the Tiefling party so he didn't charm Tav's panties off again.

First thing that goes wrong is that stupididiot Isabel used her first turn to run outside my Globe of Invulnerability (following the builds, no one in my party can cast Sanctuary) and even though Tav had already killed Marcus in one turn, the cambions immediately flew off with that little moonwitch. So now durge Tav can't murder her as directed by the demon butler, later on. OK, well. We'll deal with that when we come to it, because now there's a big fight at Last Light. . .annnnnnd Jaheira's dead. So now I'm really bummed, and I can kind of see the writing on the wall, but I carry on. Me and all my baes grab more XP in the shadow battlefields, and I do a little Reddit-perusal to make sure I won't be asked to murder Karlach or Gale. Using Ployamory Fixes, I set "Durge's Favorite" to Wyll because he's, you know, fine, but I don't really need a Throwzerker in this run, or at least, I need the other guys more than I need him.

Both Gale and Karlach tell Tav they're ready to take the next step in their relationships, him because he's got a danger kink and we just fought some scary monsters, her because her Hells-given heart has been cooled down enough to touch Tav without burning her like so much overdone toast. Great, OK, cool, so I know next time we camp, I'm going to get one or both of those sexytime cutscenes. But also, don't forget Isabel's dead, and Wyll is durge's favourite.

OR SO I FUCKING THOUGHT.

Neither sexytime cutscene comes up next time we camp. Instead, that beak-nosed bastard in a Voodoo hat shows up and tells me I have to murder Gale! For reasons! Tav woke him up but failed every skill check, and next thing I know, it's dawn, and the whole party has turned on me. They do not believe Tav when she says it wasn't her fault. She can't run away from the fight. (I replayed this fight four times, with deep Reddit research in between; I feel pretty secure in saying there's no way to avoid or cheese it.)

So I have no choice but to kill my whole party (and Halsin! and then Volo poked my eye out and ran away!). When I tell you, I have rarely felt more sad from experiencing a piece of media. I went to sleep last night thinking about whether it is even worth continuing the run, just so sad about having killed all the companions (except Wyll--I think he chose to run away rather than attack me). There's a not insignificant time-sink, but all my pals are dead. I had only knocked out Karlach but during my next long rest, she must have run away instead of coming to and maybe talking it out. I will probably not be able to recruit Minsc without Jaheira, so it's just me and three hirelings (can't use No Party Limit with hirelings, either).

Hirelings are made to my specs but they don't have banter, I can't interact with them at camp, and I can't romance them. They are literal automatons and they SUCK. Tav is carrying them like a millstone because she needs the firepower, but she resents them; three personality-free reminders of her dead friends.

In a way, it's like the perfect Durge Run outcome; the entry in the journal for that night even says, "You killed your dearest friend and your party turned on you. No one will ever love you again, so you may as well embrace your true nature." (slightly paraphrased, except that part in the middle, which could not be more true. It's the game telling the player that there is no more romance, and no more friends even willing to tolerate you just to get what they want. Not even Astarion, who two nights earlier told Tav we had a lot in common and wouldn't it be cool to take over the cult and have all that power for ourselves?.

I piled my buddies' bodies in a corner of camp (in their underwear because I had to loot them for their gear) where I don't have to look at them every night while I eat 5 baguette, or 3 rotten carrots, and 75 wine because now I'm so miserable I just want Tav to drink herself to death. She looks at those hirelings and just hates herself.

Not even halfway through the run and I realise many, many BG3 players start games only to abandon them. . .whenever. . .and start new ones, but I'm not that way. I have played I think 8 times, T to B. I finish what I start. But there's so much more game left, and while Durge Tav the Stealth Archer at Level 8 is really fun to play (she gets 9 actions per turn, always goes first, and does minimum 30 damage per hit, hitting over 80% of the time), this has gone from a fun, 7-guy party full of friends teasing each other about smexing Tav, to a lonely slog in the shadow-cursed lands where there isn't even any light. . .and never will be, because with Halsin dead, Tav also can't save Thaniel and defeat the curse. That Moonrise lobby fight is going to be mis.er.a.ble.

Huge disaster. I've told myself in the past I want to do a Dark, Darker, Darkest Durge run someday, but this was supposed to be a different RP. I want Tav to overcome her dark urge, but what's the point, if she's just going to end up alone?