A potential mod idea?

[Nilfalasiel]

The extent to which BG is biased towards a human (male) protagonist has always bothered me. I guess that, considering how long ago it came out, it's only to be expected, but the problem is, I *never* play human protagonists when I have a choice.

 

Now, the gender bias has long since been solved by mods, but not so the race bias, and that's the one that really bugs me. I mean, over half of the available races are significantly longer-lived than a human would be, and yet, the story only makes sense with a human. Or a halfling. Or a half-orc. For any other race, there are several big issues:

 

- Charname can't have spent all their life with Gorion or been rescued by him as a baby.

- People in Candlekeep can't possibly remember them as a baby.

- Imoen's comments about their ages, growing up together and considering them as a sibling doesn't work.

- Sarevok's grudge against Charname and Gorion doesn't work.

 

With that in mind, I wanted to test the waters by asking the opinion of more tech-savvy people. How feasible would a mod that addressed these difficulties be? I'm willing to undertake the writing part (i.e. hunting down the problematic areas and repurposing them), but I know nothing about coding, so I may be getting ahead of myself.

 

Necessary changes, off the top of my head:

- Substantive revisions to the Candlekeep NPCs' dialogue.

- Revisions to both Imoen's and Sarevok's dialogue. Here, I was wondering whether it's possible that the baby Sarevok remembers could actually have been Imoen? That would work. And the Solar's comment about role reversal would still be relevant, because Charname would still have been raised in favourable circumstances.

- Revisions to the ToB part about Charname's mother.

 

The biggest problems I foresee are coming up with a believable story for where Charname was prior to meeting Gorion and accounting for existing mods. I know that several take race into account and do actually touch upon the PC's race and how it works with the story of Bhaal's shenanigans (e.g. Xan). And I know that NPCs like Minsc or the BG1 NPC romances can comment about memories of the PC as a baby. So that would have to be taken into account.

 

Tl; dr, any thoughts? Opinions? Does this sound at all feasible?

[lynx]

Sure, it's "just" a text update.

[Jarno Mikkola]

- Charname can't have spent all their life with Gorion or been rescued by him as a baby.

- People in Candlekeep can't possibly remember them as a baby.

- Imoen's comments about their ages, growing up together and considering them as a sibling doesn't work.

- Sarevok's grudge against Charname and Gorion doesn't work.

I guess you failed to understand that the Charname's race doesn't really effect them before the age of twenty(which is when the game starts). The lore is that the elves age at about the same phase as the humans up until that point, after which the elves just live longer cause they are (elves, aka )magically longer lived, or they sacrifice babies to demons... just like Elminster, who is a human, who lives for at least 1000 years. Well unless the elf loose their soul, and then the body just rots away in a few years. Which is why Irenicus actually stole charnames soul in Spellhold, and Imoens for his sister, but Bodhi already had her solution to the problem(being a vampire)...

[Nilfalasiel]

Hmm, ok. I guess I may have misunderstood, but I remember reading that elves weren't considered adults until they were 100-something.

 

And this doesn't cover gnomes or dwarves. What about them? Do they also follow the same aging 'rules'?

[Jarno Mikkola]

I remember reading that elves weren't considered adults until they were 100-something.

Well, yeah, that's the thing, their body ages similar as humans up to that point, but if you consider it, can you truly be yourself at the age of 30 if you live for a thousand or two -years. The answer of course should be; No.

The elves also probably have to consider themselves as constant, so it's likely that they don't just pick up character trades as humans do, or try to go out of their way to accomplish a short term benefit. Unlike the "humans", with their wars etc.

The gnomes ans dwarfs is a good question, that I don't really know the answer to. But then I haven't known(as in read about, or seen a movies about) any female dwarfs either. Example: Try and look for one in the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings -movies...

[ericp07]

In the case of elves, they're physically mature by 20, but considered capable to strike out on their own for their "adult" lives (mentally/psychologically mature?), at somewhere over 100 years old.

[Thimblerig]

From the Forgotten Realms wiki:

 

High elves [eladrin], like elves [wild elves], grow at a decelerating rate throughout their lives. Very young high elves mature at a rate comparable with humans but during adolescence slow to a near stop until about 110 years of age, at which point high elves are considered mature...

 

Elves mature at roughly the same rate as humans,[3] though they are not usually considered past adolescence until they reach 110 years of age.

 

Though it's a bit up in the air where in their adolescence they significantly slow in aging. Imagine your voice cracking for thirty years... Ouch. In any case, a 20-year-old elven Charname should come across to people who know elves as painfully young, if you keep standard aging and birthdate.

 

In contrast, according to the wiki, gnomes are considered mature at 40, dwarves at 50, halflings in their early 20s, and half-orcs at around 16.

 

So yes, there's a lot of room for the mod idea you had in mind. I've seen different mods cope with it different ways - either Charname can mention being older and remembering the Time of Troubles, or somebody comments on Charname's peculiar aging.

 

Mostly, I think you're going to find it very fiddly covering all the possibilities in all the dialogues, and then checking your crossmod. But don't let 'fiddly' stop you, if you want to do it - 'fiddly' things can be very rewarding, sometimes.

[ericp07]

It's also an opportunity to put Jaheira in her place for her "motherly" ways

[Nilfalasiel]

It's also an opportunity to put Jaheira in her place for her "motherly" ways

Heh. Well, it's still entirely possible that Jaheira is older than the PC. According to the Wiki, half-elves can live for over 180 years.

 

And even if she's not, she's probably more experienced than they are.

 

Anyway, I'll look into what can be done. I guess Charname could still have been taken in by Harpers, just not Gorion, and then passed into his care once their initial caretaker died. Heck, they could even have lived in Candlekeep all that time (just that the human NPCs we meet in game wouldn't have known them as a baby), although 50-100 years in that hole would've driven me bonkers.

[ericp07]

 

It's also an opportunity to put Jaheira in her place for her "motherly" ways

Heh. Well, it's still entirely possible that Jaheira is older than the PC. According to the Wiki, half-elves can live for over 180 years.

 

And even if she's not, she's probably more experienced than they are.

 

Anyway, I'll look into what can be done. I guess Charname could still have been taken in by Harpers, just not Gorion, and then passed into his care once their initial caretaker died. Heck, they could even have lived in Candlekeep all that time (just that the human NPCs we meet in game wouldn't have known them as a baby), although 50-100 years in that hole would've driven me bonkers.

 

Sure, but Jaheira is only about a decade older than the PC at the start of SoA, if memory serves.