Characters / Baldur's Gate II: Other Party Members

Baldur's Gate | Main Character Index
CHARNAME & Party members of both games
Party members: Baldur's Gate | Baldur's Gate II | Enhanced Editions | Siege of Dragonspear
NPCs: Friends and allies | Main villains | Other villains
Dark Alliance

Party members that can be recruited in Baldur's Gate II. Warning: Here there be spoilers!

Yoshimo

Yoshimo

"Be doubly careful! I'm sure all manner of stupid mousetraps await our toes in the dark."

Voiced by: Maurice LaMarche

Race: Human
Class: Thief (Bounty Hunter)
Alignment: True Neutral
Place of origin: Kara-Tur

Yoshimo is an adventurer and swashbuckler from Kara-Tur, who joins your party in the first dungeon in the second game after having escaped a fate as experimental subject by whoever runs the place. Being the pre-Extended Edition game's only single-class thief, and a generally easygoing character on top of it, Yoshimo fits into pretty much every party.

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• Alas, Poor Villain: He stopped wanting you hurt (or maybe he never did) after becoming Fire-Forged Friends with the party, had no choice but to go through with his betrayal after he had second thoughts and in the end commits Suicide by Cop rather than continue to serve a monster.
• Anti-Villain: Type IV. The worst thing he does most of the time is steal gold if you prompt him to, and The Reveal that he's Trapped in Villainy gives him a Freudian Excuse for his moment of betrayal.
• Back Stab: Like any self-respecting D&D thief.
• Becoming the Mask: Despite the fact that he's secretly working for Irenicus, he does come to care for the rest of the party and hate himself for betraying them. He's magically compelled to do so anyway, however.
• Booby Trap: As a bounty hunter, he specializes in setting them — in fact, that's a compelling reason to take him along, because traps are very powerful.
• Bounty Hunter: It's his class kit, but he isn't really one, but more like something of a freelance mercenary.
• The Charmer: In a game full of people as varied as Baldur's Gate, the only person Yoshimo doesn't get along with is Haer'Dalis. Which is because Haer'Dalis is onto him.
• Corporate Samurai: Although he'd prefer to work on different levels of agreement with Irenicus.
• Crutch Character: The only single-class thief in the vanilla game (Hexxat from the Enhanced edition is one as well), has no personality or alignment conflicts with anyone, and comes with very good trap disarming abilities and bounty hunter traps. The game practically pushes for you to keep him. Eventually he leaves you at Spellhold no matter what you do and conveniently frees up a slot for Imoen to join. On the flip side: While he's immensely useful at the beginning of the game, with single-classed thieves being the weakest characters in AD&D, anyone else is probably better than him anyway.
• Cuteness Proximity: Toward Mazzy:
  Yoshimo: I cannot help it! You are like a miniature prophet of doom.
  Mazzy: Oh, shut up! I won't seem so cute if I break your legs.
• Deadpan Snarker: Downplayed—he's usually more inclined to get along with everybody—but it's there nonetheless. Certain party members seem to bring it out of him.
  Yoshimo: [to Korgan] They could write a book about you. 'Irritable Dwarven Responses', they'd call it. It would be a best-seller amongst the smelly-old-drunk market.
  Yoshimo: [to Keldorn] A question to you, Keldorn: Do good knights ever find cause to sing bawdy songs and tell ribald tales around a campfire, or is dourness an inarguable tenet of the Order?
• Despair Event Horizon: After he leaves the party in Spellhold, you confront him again, and by then, it's clear he's crossed it. He is compelled to obey his Geas and try to kill you, but he knows you're too powerful for him to defeat. The best he can hope for is a quick death and possibly finding mercy with Ilmater.
  Yoshimo: No redemptions or second chances, let us get this over with! I stride into the hell that Irenicus promised! Ilmater take my heart, I have no choice!
• Devil in Plain Sight: A reluctant if not tragic case, however.
  Yoshimo: [entering stealth] All the world is blind to my passing...
• Empathic Weapon: He comes with a katana that only he can use, as it's bonded to him, though it's not very powerful.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Having him directly betray you at Spellhold will cause your party members to have interesting, unique responses, often to the tune of Was It All a Lie? and with strong overtones of We Used to Be Friends.
• Foreshadowing: Shortly after meeting him, the player encounters a shadow thief hunting for Irenicus. You can claim to be an enemy of the mage too and offer to join forces, but the thief will write you off as Irenicus's servant, attack you, and point out that he would be foolish to trust a new ally in the heart of the beast.
  • Despite his association with the Shadow Thieves, he encourages you to side with Bodhi over them. His plot to put you in Irenicus's power goes more smoothly if the Big Bad's sister prevails in her guild war.
  • If you choose to seek admission to Spellhold through the cowled wizard at the docks, it'll turn out that he's been Dominated by Irenicus and impressed with a geas to fight you. Yoshimo intervenes, believing that his presence in the group will be enough to stay Irenicus' wrath, but the mage simply says that the thief's life is an acceptable sacrifice of no consequence, which unnerves Yoshi for reasons soon to become apparent.
• Gratuitous Japanese: Almost all his dialogue is in (perfect) English, but he does speak a few phrases of Gratuitous Japanese. They actually make sense in context, though they don't suit his rather carefree and informal personality. Which makes sense, in a way, given his cheerful persona is partly an act to disguise his true intentions.
• Humans Are White: There are plenty of black people in Amn, but he's from Kara-Tur, the Forgotten Realms' setting-within-a-setting Asia analogue, and given his name, fondness for katanas and Japanese, one of its Japan-alogues. Along with his sister Tamoko, he's one of only two Kara-Turans in the games.
• Involuntary Suicide Mechanism: He has a Geas installed by Irenicus that stops his heart if he betrays Irenicus' confidence. In-game the only way it will kick in is if you don't take him to Spellhold, in which case Irenicus will use it to kill him off-screen (or gameplay-wise the next time you enter the map he's on.
• Kiai: He shouts this upon a successful Critical Hit. Also part of his Gratuitous Japanese — aside from the quote at the top of his section, there's also "Very well! *sigh* Hiiiii yah."
• Killed Off for Real: There are mods to work around this, however. And even without them, using only original game mechanics, although it could seem somewhat tricky: you can leave him before entering Spellhold itself in local house or tavern just near the entrance point; after the passing of the Spellhold return to this tavern and immediately speak to him - pausing the game can be helpful at this point, he rejoins the party and dies instantly.(But it isn't a big problem now, right?)
• Long Game: He doesn't let you in on it until halfway through the game, though. Which is when he betrays you to Irenicus. Not that he wants to, by that point, but irenicus has him under a geas which compels him to obey, and you're forced to kill him at Spellhold.
• Lovable Rogue: His class is a rogue kit, and his banter with other party members is generally good-humored. Statistically Speaking, he has the Charisma to pull it off, too. It's unclear how much of the "lovable" bit is an act.
• The Mole: Planted by Irenicus to ensure you could not fight him when you came to Spellhold.
• Morton's Fork: But Thou Must! kill him if you take him to Spellhold. If you don't, he will be killed anyway by his geas.
• Mr. Exposition: He has a lot of knowledge about Athkathla and the surrounding area which he will happily share with you. It's part of why people will recommend you take him along on your first playthrough. He essentially serves the role of Imoen while she is not available.
• Noodle Incident: Two cases. Firstly, Yoshimo is in some manner of trouble with Athkatla's local Thieves' Guild and you have to bail him out: The exact nature of this trouble is never revealed (but is implied to be something along the lines of 'thieving without guild permission'). Secondly, Yoshimo can pull a favour to get you into Spellhold due to an unexplained and, in his own words, rather embarrassing event concerning the pirate king of the local island. The latter is heavily implied to be Irenicus giving the pirate king orders to let Yoshimo into Spellhold.
• Phenotype Stereotype: Plays up the Japanese/Kara-Turan stereotype "for the tourists." And for you, since his whole job is to earn enough of Charname's trust that you'll keep him around.
  Yoshimo: Hiiiiii yah! Heh, the tourists love that stuff.
• Plotline Death: Whether you bring him to Spellhold or not; if you do, you have to kill him, if you don't, he fails to obey his Geas and dies as a consequence.
• Punch-Clock Villain: He most likely wouldn't have even met you if Irenicus hadn't hired him. All he wants, in fact, is to regain his freedom.
• Sacrificial Lion: He is killed off partly to show how powerful Irenicus is.
• Sixth Ranger Traitor: Of those who escape Irenicus's dungeon, he is the last to join, and he is also a mole planted by Irenicus.
• Stepford Smiler: Haer'Dalis and Edwin both suspect he can't possibly be as cheerily optimistic as he acts. Haer'Dalis can see through a poor actor, and as for Edwin, well, it takes one to know one and even a broken clock is right twice a day. You're right to be suspicious of the oddly cheerful man you find in the middle of an underground dungeon full of goblins, golems, vampires, and besieging thieves. Who knew? He knows Haer'Dalis is onto him, as well, and cranks it up way too much to compensate.
• Tranquil Fury: His battle quotes are directed towards dramatic understatement, not Chewing the Scenery.
  Yoshimo: Pay attention... you will get no second chance!
  Yoshimo: Fear is for those of no confidence!
• True Neutral: In-Universe. Of the self-interested but not evil, live-and-let-live variety.
• Walking Spoiler: There's a pretty big reveal about him that takes place at Spellhold, which is the cause of all the spoiler tags.
• What a Senseless Waste of Human Life: You can try to appeal to him, but you won't be able to get through. In the end he'll throw his life away after crossing the Despair Event Horizon, his only respite being if you take his heart to a priest of Ilmater to have the Geas removed.
• Word of God: Although thought by some to be Fanon, David Gaider has confirmed that Yoshimo is Tamoko's younger brother and came west looking for her and ended up with the geas as a result of his search for revenge. A mod makes his motivations much more explicit by having him leave behind a journal.

Aerie

Aerie

"My wings have been clipped... oh, I wish you could understand how it feels to be bound to the ground, chained and weighted like a miserable prisoner of earth..."

Voiced by: Kath Soucie

Race: Elf (Avariel)
Class: Cleric/Mage
Alignment: Lawful Good
Place of origin: Faenya-Dail, an avariel colony high in the mountains

Aerie is another romanceable character; a potentially powerful cleric/mage with a sweet demeanour but a very traumatic past. She's an Avariel, a winged elf, captured by slavers and had her wings clipped off to preserve her life, until the Gnome Illusionist Quayle rescued her and adopted her as his niece. She joins the player character's party when they are investigating her circus which was under the illusion of another gnome named Kalah. She struggles with life on the ground, but manages to move on eventually, much more easily if she gets romanced by a nice male player character; otherwise she has to go through disillusionment and frustration first. She doesn't get along with Korgan, and may also develop a romance with Haer'Dalis. If romanced with a male player character, she gives him his first son and has one of the happiest endings amongst the entire roster.

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• Aborted Arc: There was supposed to be a quest that will turn her into a bird, enabling her to fly again, but instead she decides to face her troubles on the ground and takes a level in badass. Time constraints aborted it, but the change can be seen in her lines in ToB.
• Absurdly Youthful Mother: If romanced in ToB she gives birth while still being more or less a child by elven standards. After this was raised to Ed Greenwood by a Baldur's Gate fan the setting creator stated that elves mature physically at the same rate as humans but tend to remain childish for a lot longer due to culturally being considered so and as an elf raised by non-elves Aerie would see ages more in human terms. Likely did get her and the PC some funny looks in Suldanessellar mind you.
• Action Mom: During ToB she can bear a male Charname's child and carry him into battle on her back.
• All-Loving Hero: Although she eventually grows out of it. She will still encourage you towards moral behavior, but is less pacifistic about it.
• Altar the Speed: If Charname is romancing her, she'll eventually ask for a simple exchange of vows instead of having a big wedding, mostly because they're still in the middle of fighting the Five and it's the custom of her people anyway.
• Apologetic Attacker: At first. She later becomes much less apologetic about it, however.
• Babies Ever After: In addition to giving birth to a male Charname's first son, she also gave birth to his daughter in the epilogue.
• Badass Adorable: She becomes one by Throne of Bhaal. She's still generally sweet, but she's much more willing to fight evil in order to help others.
  Aerie: There's going to come a time, according to the prophecy, where the Sword Coast is going to run with blood... and I intend to do everything I can to prevent that.
• Battle Couple: If she is romanced by a male PC or Haer'Dalis, she becomes part of one.
• Betty and Veronica: For a male human or half-elf PC, she's the sweet, innocent Betty to Viconia's more overtly sultry Veronica.
• Break the Cutie: Her backstory. Being enslaved and handicapped. She goes through a really hard one in Throne of Bhaal if you're romanced. A shade will bluff her into thinking that her mother has been killed while searching for her, and she is the one to blame. It's a big, fat lie (the romance epilogue confirms this) but she really breaks.
• Broken Bird: It's clear from her many romance dialogues in Shadows of Amn that she has emotional issues coming out of the wazoo. Considering she's been enslaved, sold to a circus, mistreated horribly and lost her wings, however, she can hardly be blamed. Not that other characters (or players) won't get tired of her moments of weepiness, mind you.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Pretty much requests you help everyone you come across. Acting like this was also what got her imprisoned in the first place.
• Coming of Age Story: Her character arc is basically this — she either loses her innocence through her romance with Charname or by resolving to fight in the face of evil.
• Claustrophobia: Being underground makes her extremely uncomfortable, for understandable reasons.
  Aerie: Oh, we have such stories among my people... being underground is just not for the avariel...
• Cowardly Lion: Her pre-Took a Level in Badass persona. She's very timid but still a competent Cleric/Mage determined to fight injustice.
• Cute, but Cacophonic: She's cute, but infamously whiny.
• The Cutie: When not crying over the loss of her wings, she's often sweet, cheerful and eager to help others.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After all she's been through, her Romance Ending is definitely one of the happiest.
• Facial Markings: She has some kind of tattoo on her forehead that's never explained.
• Freakiness Shame: She has self-image problems because she doesn't have wings anymore.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Despite being portrayed as very naive in the ways of the world, Aerie has already attained a high character level when you meet her. Her high Wisdom score is not necessarily an example: it can be explained as possessing a high level of enlightenment end over against common sense. The fact she worships both a gnomish god and an elven god could be part of that.
  • Her claims that her wings are can't be regained by magic is inconsistent with the way magic healing works in D&D- there are, in fact, multiple healing spells that should be able to regenerate her wings regardless of how long it's been. Also, as a wizard, there are multiple spells that would allow her to change shape into a winged form.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She's the blonde among the romanceable female characters. She's also the sweet, feminine, innocent one.
• Happily Married: The end of her romance arc with a male Charname has her demanding marriage from him. You can accept the offer or not but it won't matter since you'll be married in the epilogue anyway.
• Healer Signs On Early: You'll already have Jaheira, but Aerie, a cleric, is available as soon as you complete the nearby circus mini-dungeon, just a few feet away from where you surface from Irenicus' lab.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Her epilogue if she's not romanced, as she goes on a vengeance spree against Sword Coast slaver rings. She eventually manages to calm down and returns to her home after springing some fellow Avariel from slavery.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: Surprisingly big ones, too, as if the artist were trying to really draw attention to them.
• The Ingenue: At first, as she doesn't have very much experience with the outside world beyond her circus home, has never had sex before and is often upset at the prospect of battle. She gets better in Throne of Bhaal.
• Insatiable Newlyweds: If you decline her initial offer to bed you (which will result in her ending the relationship), going by her increasingly coquettish dialogue she and Charname are implied to have this in spades when they do consummate their relationship. This leads to her becoming pregnant.
• Last Girl Wins: If you choose her over Jaheira and Viconia and, in the Enhanced Edition, Neera, as she's the last romanceable female a male Charname can meet.
• Lawful Good: In-universe. She prefers to do good within the law, but it's not as big of a deal for her as it is for Anomen or Keldorn.
• Lets Wait Awhile: Jumping into bed with Aerie as soon as she offers will ruin the romance, as she was fairly obviously not emotionally ready. Gently turning her down until she is ready is the way forward.
• Love Triangle: If a male PC romances her with Haer'Dalis in the party, this will result. Also if a male PC romances her at the same time as Jaheira or Viconia.
• Magikarp Power: Starts out with a dreadful HP total and only reaches the higher-level spells (6+) by the endgame. By Throne of Bhaal Aerie is the most flexible spellcaster in the game bar none and can wield the Amulet of Power and Robe of Vecna for instant-speed healing as well as offensive mage spells; she still can't sling highest-level spells as often as Edwin or Nalia or Viconia can but she can pick and mix between both their abilities.
  • The best part is actually the fact that she will gain additional spells per day at a quadratic pace in comparison to the other mages. By the end of the game she will have almost 100 spells to cast per day, which is significantly more than even Edwin has.
• Master of All: By the end of the game she will attain the mage level 20 and have 25 levels as a cleric, which is enough that all of her spells have maximal effect and to give her her Holy symbol. She can also, unlike the other divine spellcasters, put her Cleric spells into spell triggers and sequencers. Suffice to say, at this point in the game, there is not a single non-Druid spell in the game that she couldn't cast with maximal prejudice.
• Meaningful Name: An aerie is defined as a large nest of a bird of prey, especially an eagle, typically built high in a tree or on a cliff. The avariel are described as sharing many of the same characteristics as birds, such as hollow bones to aid flight.
• Mood-Swinger: If you pursue a romance, she becomes prone to outbursts as old traumas start coming to the surface. Though she starts to pull herself together eventually.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: The Cleric/Mage multiclass in 2E (and Baldur's Gate) can't be selected by elves. In-story it is justified by her mentor being a gnome cleric/mage.
• Naïve Newcomer: When you first meet her, she hasn't seen much of the world outside of Quayle's circus.
• Never Speak Ill of the Dead: In romantic conflict with Jaheira, Aerie belittles the deceased Khalid straight to her face. It rubbed many fans the wrong way.
• Out-of-Character Moment: If you have her and Jaheira in the same group, she will insult Khalid during the romance triangle. It's totally out of character from the otherwise goody two-shoes Aerie.
  • Though not completely unexpected. She was already showing signs of being a Stepford Smiler long before the meltdown.
• Pregnant Badass: Some time after Saradush, if romanced she eventually reveals to Charname that she is pregnant. She carries the child to term even while traversing dungeons and fighting dragons, and eventually gives birth on the eve of battle with the Final Boss. She names the baby boy Quayle.
  • It gets better. There's a good chance that she'll go into labor in the middle of a dungeon. After delivering the child, she takes a few moments to patch herself up with a few healing spells, then jumps right back to fighting/traveling alongside you with baby in tow.
  • Becomes a Discussed Trope as well. Initially, you can suggest she leave to keep the baby safe while you deal with the issues affecting the wider world; she points out to you that the baby has Bhaalspawn blood like you and will be hunted just as you are, so safety isn't a possibility. As far as she's concerned, her best chance to keep the baby safe is to stick with you so you can defend it together. Similarly, she asks you not to tell the others because she's finally earning their respect after years of being seen as a Tagalong Kid; she doesn't want them to revert to form by making a fuss over her condition or worrying about "poor pregnant Aerie". Sadly for her, the group is not fooled; the other members of the party quickly notice the physical side-effects of her pregnancy but choose to keep quiet.
• Quit Your Whining: Is sometimes on the receiving end of this from other characters, who would much rather she get on with it instead of constantly coming out in tears. At one point Charname is given the option to call her a "weepy, sentimental mess".
• Red Mage: She is a Cleric/Mage capable with both healing, protective and offensive spellcasting.
• Sex as Rite-of-Passage: A gender inversion. At the end of her initial romance arc, she will ask the PC to spend the night with her so that she can "become a woman". (It's not the reason, since she's an utter romantic, but it certainly comes up.) Needless to say, this is the wrong move, because she will decide in the morning that she's not ready for such a close relationship yet and puts it on hold. Telling her that there is more than that to love and that she should wait until she's more certain of her feelings is the right move. In the expansion pack, she and a male PC apparently get intimate quite a bit, as Jan will observe. She also becomes pregnant with the PC's child.
• Shrinking Violet: At first, she's shy and timid, which multiple party members comment upon. This side of her personality is especially evident in her battle quotes.
  Aerie: I... I don't like the looks of this!
• Squishy Wizard: Ties for second-lowest constitution in the game (9) and is a multi-class on top of it.
  • She also starts out with only 27 hit points at level 6, meaning that even at the end of the game, she won't have gotten much more health.
• Stepford Smiler: Very depressed deep down, but she tries to keep a positive outlook in spite of it.
• Technical Pacifist: At first doesn't really like the concept of fighting. (Battle cry: "I... I won't let my friends be hurt!") Until she changes her mind.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The Girly Girl to Jaheira's Tomboy.
• Took a Level in Badass: She starts spouting out 'I'll kick your ass' style voices in ToB. As she grows more confident, she gets in some quite good lines, including the following, to Irenicus: I came to Hell to help my friend! Who helps you, Irenicus? Demons? You're going to die alone in Hell and you know it! She also gets more confrontational with Evil!Charname, stating she's not going stand for seeing them treat other people horribly. If you take her and Haer'Dalis along to Spellhold, and their relationship has progressed to love, she states that seeing the horrors there directly caused this. In fact, she will break up with Haer'Dalis over it, as they fundamentally disagree on how to deal with evil. Worth noting: the global counter that tracks this event is tagged "AerieHardened."
• True Companions: If Minsc takes her as his witch, she eventually develops this dynamic with him, and comes to really care for the big lug.
• Underrated and Overleveled: Of all the companions, Aerie has the least experience with the world, having either been passed around as a slave or sheltered. This does not stop her from being the same level as CHARNAME when she joins, which can be anywhere from level 7 (already too high level for her backstory) to level 15.
• White Magician Girl: Technically, she's the Red Mage. However, she's more feminine and sweet than other female party members, and she's definitely better suited for firing off spells and slingshot bullets from the back.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: At first. For instance, Yoshimo's betrayal catches her completely off-guard and greatly upsets her.
• Winged Humanoid: Or former Winged Humanoid, in this case.

Anomen

(Sir) Anomen Delryn

"A dank pool of base corruption if ever there was one. Why, if not for the Order, the gods would surely smite man for such sins."

Voiced by: Rob Paulsen

Race: Human
Class: Dual-class Fighter/Cleric
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Place of origin: Athkatla

Ah, Anomen. Squire of The Order of the Radiant Heart. Jerkass extraordinaire. Pompous, arrogant, insufferable and vain. He's on a quest to become a full knight. He's the only option for a female Bhaalspawn romance. Hurrah. Still a decent character gameplay-wise, though. And don't worry, there's his personal quest that if you do it right, he'll be A LOT more tolerable.

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• Abusive Parents: He has a drunkard father that abuses the hell out of him—though only verbally, now that he's extremely fit and strong.
• And the Adventure Continues: His ending, if Charname romanced him.
  Anomen: There is an evil in my heart, I have always known this and I spoke of it to you. Hate and anger, twisted and black... and I... I cannot control it.
• Big Ego, Hidden Depths: His sidequest reveals that the resident Jerkass with a Small Name, Big Ego is also a caring brother who's had to put up with a lot from his father. It also plays directly into the way his Character Development turns out later.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Anomen's family is a noble one quite possibly of this type, based on the things his father says.
• Birds of a Feather: The uncontrollable rage and hate which boil up in him, which he himself will eventually compare to Bhaal's taint with a romanced Charname.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Has a bad case of this and a nasty temper, to boot. Part of his Character Development is learning to look at the world with greater nuance.
  Anomen: Well met! Speak, then! Is your heart filled with courage or be it steeped in cowardice?
• Black-and-Gray Morality: His personality conflict with Dorn. Morally he's in the right, since Dorn is a self-confessed evil bastard with a long list of crimes, but Anomen undercuts his case by bringing Dorn's race into it instead of just calling him out as a blackguard, in doing so lending further credence to Dorn's claims of Half-Breed Discrimination.
• Calling the Old Man Out: He does so practically every time he talks to his father.
• Carry a Big Stick: He starts out with points in Maces, and the Mace of Disruption complements his skill set nicely. However, training him to use Crom Faeyr and the Flail of Ages is also common.
• Character Alignment: Anomen starts out as Lawful Neutral. Succeed the test and he becomes Lawful Good. Fail the test, and he becomes Chaotic Neutral. He can end the game with any one of these alignments. However, if you don't take him along to the fight with Irenicus at the end of the main game, his alignment will be reset to LN.
• Character Development: Even his detractors tend to acknowledge that his various subplots give him a lot of depth.
• Church Militant: He's a warrior-priest of Helm, god of watchfulness and a patron of paladins.
• Combat Medic: Another potential role in the party. His stats and fighter levels make him a good bit sturdier than the average cleric, and if he takes some levels and passes his Test, he gets much better at the "Medic" half.
• The Comically Serious: Jan, Imoen, Korgan and Haer'Dalis love to mess with him. Of course, this doesn't stop a funny moment when he taunts Edwin(a) about the Gender Bender by asking to champion "her".
• Cycle of Revenge: The conflict between Saerk and Anomen's father Cor, which (maybe) resulted in the death of Anomen's sister Moira and can easily lead to Anomen killing Saerk himself, failing his knight test, and descending into the same downward spiral of resentment and debauchery as his father.
• Dogged Nice Guy: In the Enhanced Edition he is this to Neera (if neither is romanced by the player). Neera initially brushes it off before becoming annoyed enough to start messing with him.
• Driven to Suicide: In the Chaotic Neutral romance path, if he's allowed to kill Saerk and his father, it's strongly implied that he takes his own life after leaving your party. If you let him leave and you don't stop him within a few days, a neighbor confirms it.
• Fake Brit: In-universe, actually. Anomen adopted the accent because he thinks it's more knightly; his father has no such accent, which should tip you off. You can call him on it if you want, but all it'll do is annoy him.
• Fantastic Racism: Particularly aggravating when directed at Mazzy, who is far nearer to the Paladin ideal than he could ever be, race restrictions or not.
• The Fettered: Though less so if he fails his test.
• Feuding Families: His family has an ongoing feud with another noble family in Amn, which leads to his character-specific sidequest.
• Freudian Excuse: Much of his jerkassery is suggested to be a result of his family background. His father was a real piece of work.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: In the lawful option to his personal quest, his Character Development is symbolised by a boost to his Wisdom score, an alignment change, a decent chunk of XP and a noticeable difference in his formerly insufferable personality.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Several instances:
  • Anomen is deeply concerned with honor and the law, and wants to be a noble paladin. But because his alignment starts out as a variation of Neutral, the game engine will make him start complaining if you do too many good deeds.
  • Calls himself a paladin but ultimately, for alignment-related reasons, he can't actually be one and therefore has the class combination that comes closest mechanically (a dual classed fighter/cleric).
  • There's also the fact that he's a Fighter/Cleric dual-classed character with a WIS score of 12. It suits his character, but under the rules of the game it shouldn't be allowed, though the Wisdom boost from passing his test mitigates that.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: His abusive childhood left him with this. Even as he strives to leave his father's drunken rages behind him, a seed of that same bitterness has taken root in him. His knight side-quest involves him constantly blowing up at Charname and ending the conversation, only to then apologize for his outburst. Getting the Lawful Good outcome for him involves a lot of patience on your part.
• Hero with an F in Good: The reason he's Lawful Neutral rather than Lawful Good — he's far more concerned with acting the part of the hero, as opposed to genuinely caring for those he acts to save. If he fails his knight test, he stops trying and becomes wholly self-concerned — yet less uptight. If he succeeds, he becomes the noble knight he always aspired to be. One way or another, he's more tolerable.
• Holier Than Thou: Big time. He is friendly (enough) with Keldorn because he's a champion of Torm, one of Helm's allies, and Aerie because both of her gods are Good-aligned, but his harumphing at Mazzy for trying to be a halfling paladin is very much misplaced — Arvoreen is not so different from Helm and Torm — and him lambasting Cernd for being a druid comes across as mean-spirited and ignorant, especially when Cernd just takes the insults, tries to calmly explain why they don't apply and finally, when those attempts fail, tells him to think whatever he likes.
• Holy Hand Grenade. What he's best at. He has many Anti-Undead spells such as Holy Smite and Sunray at his disposal and can wield the Mace of Disruption. He is also the only NPC who can use Turn Undead to effectively kill a lot of undead enemies (Keldorn as an Inquisitor can't, Aerie's level progression is too slow, and Viconia, being evil, achieves a wholly different effect by turning them).
• Hunk: A very straight example. 18/53 Strength? Check. Aspiring towards becoming a Knight in Shining Armor? Check. Potential Love Interest for the heroine? Also check.
• Hypocrite: In a sense. In his blind passion for his own knighthood ideal he completely fails to realize that others such as Mazzy or even Minsc come much closer to the actual image of a paladin. His religious zeal also causes him to berate Cernd for using the word "duty" in his presence, claiming that druids wouldn't know anything about duty. He is also unwilling to accept criticism from people like Keldorn who try to rerail him onto the right path. Finally, during the romance, he will call out a good-aligned Charname for not sufficiently fighting against evil and/or chaos (keeping in mind that, at this point, he isn't Good himself).
• If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Exacting his revenge on his sister's (alleged) killer will result in him Jumping Off the Slippery Slope, failing his knight test, shifting his alignment to Chaotic Neutral, and becoming even more of a belligerent Jerkass than he already was. Of course, maybe that's what Charname was looking for all along.
• Impoverished Patrician: Not quite, as his family still has a rather posh estate in Athkatla, but his father is in financial trouble and they seem to be on their way to this.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Pre-Character Development, he's got a bad case of this. This is in fact one of the first things Charname picks up about him via his biography.
• Innocent Bigot: His mindset towards women includes being very skeptical of their abilities (shown in grandiose fashion when his first romance talk with a female Charname involves him doubting the stories of her deeds because of her gender) and trying to "protect" them (as with his banter with Neera). In the first example at least, Charname can call him out on this. Unlike the rest of his Jerkass behavior, though, he doesn't seem to intend to be malicious, shown by his confusion as to know why they find this grating—he's just going off what he's seen of most female noblewomen. Still didn't save him from a great many of the female gamers' ire.
  • If you continue his romance through Throne of Bhaal, he explains that he was taught to follow the forms and conventions of Courtly Love, and his relationship with Charname showed him how seriously at odds with reality that mindset was.
• I Want to Be a Real Man: At first, he's always trying to act and/or talk himself up as exactly the kind of person who should be a knight, though his personal bio notes that he seems to be trying to convince himself more than anyone else.
• Jerkass: Alas, Anomen is infamous for the poor first impression he makes when you meet him. He's proud, egotistical, vain, and quite loud in his expression of those traits, just for starters, but all of that could be easily forgiven compared to some of the worse things he comes out with — immature disrespect towards Keldorn, highly misplaced Pretender Diss towards Cernd and Mazzy and laughing at a reformed Sarevok's attempts to strive for redemption, among others.
• Jerkass Has a Point: He gets a few of these moments as well, especially in one specific lovetalk with a paladin Charname. A good example is if he's around when you talk to Meronia in the Harper Hold. When she talks about how Harpers are supposed to keep both evil and good in check and uphold the balance, he'll express disbelief that they'll all use their considerable power out of pure altruism. Normally, in this setting, the Harpers act as the Hero Secret Service and are on the side of the angels. Galvarey and Dermin are decidedly not, as Jaheira and Charname soon find out.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite being an ass, he's also a basically good-hearted, idealistic guy with the best of intentions (though not effective at carrying those intentions out). He becomes less of a jerk if he's knighted, and/or being romanced by a female Charname. Notably, he will apologise to Keldorn for his behaviour if he gets his knighthood, and several other banters and interjections he has are also affected by his alignment change.
• Knight in Shining Armor: He likes to present himself as such; if you guide him in the right way through his personal crises he can actually become one for real.
• Knight Templar: At first, it's what he thinks the ideal knight should be. He only actually becomes a knight if you convince him otherwise.
• Lame Comeback: When Jan starts making fun of him for failing his knighthood test.
  Anomen: I have failed at nothing! I was chosen to squire for my courage and nobility.
  Jan: Of course you didn't 'fail'! They have to tell the failures something to keep up blind obedience, that is to say, morale.
  Anomen: Just leave me be you icky little man!
  Jan: 'Icky"?? (ha ha) Did you think of that on your own? (ha ha ha ha)
• Lawful Stupid: At first. The quest involving his family forces him to consider the limitations of inflexible moral codes. What he decides to about it plays a major role in his Character Development.
• Lord Error-Prone: At first. He either grows out of it or abandons it, depending on the player's actions.
• Miles Gloriosus: Anomen tends to brag about awesome, near-impossible battles he saw action in, though it's very debatable that he ever participated. There's a good chance he's rather intimidated by Charname's resume and is just trying to measure up. If he's being romanced he even admits at one point that he hasn't been on many campaigns,and that the things a female Charname's accomplished on her adventures are much more impressive than anything he's done. Subverted in that he can prove to be a capable and useful party member anyway.
• Missing Mom: His has been dead for some time. By all accounts, he had at least a decent relationship with her, and she helped give him the chance to squire against his father's wishes.
• Morality Chain: If you declare yourself evil when first talking to him but agree to repent and walk the path of righteousness he offers to become this for you, reasoning that you'll need help being good after a lifetime of being evil. Ironically, you can become this for him instead if you guide him down the right path during his personal sidequest.
• My God, What Have I Done?: If you have him along when you kill the knights in the Windspear Hills, he will naturally be quite upset, and insist that you avenge them. Notably, if you skip out on rescuing Garren's child afterwards, he will fail his Test.
• Not Quite the Right Thing: Encouraging him to pursue Saerk. It earns him his father's affection and gratitude, Saerk acts just as petty, spiteful and assholish as his father describes him, he mean-spiritedly insults Anomen's dead sister (who he is accused of killing) and in general it feels exactly like the ideal solution, especially since you can pass Saerk's estate over to his father to help him recover his financial losses. Unfortunately... to begin with, Anomen kills Saerk's completely innocent daughter in retaliation for her father's cruel jibe, Saerk wasn't actually guilty of the murder he was accused of, and taking this path gets Anomen kicked out of the Order, ruining his dreams of knighthood and turning him into a resenter for Keldorn and Aerie. Anomen himself even mentions this trope almost word-for-word.
• The Order: The Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart, a knightly order of paladins with their headquarters in a massive fortress in Athkatla.
• Order vs. Chaos: In order to pass his Test of knighthood, he has to let the murderer of his sister go — or at least, the man he thinks is her murderer, essentially choosing the rule of law over Family Honor. Part of his Test is also learning to control his look-before-you-leap tendencies and rage. It's telling that if he fails the Test, he's more honest about his darker side, but gives freer reign to his worst impulses.
• The Paladin: He would like to be. Whether he becomes one for real or not is up to you. Gameplay-wise he will never be one in terms of class, although players don't mind this because a full-fledged priest with some dual-class fighter levels still makes him very useful — allowing him to complement Keldorn or a player paladin rather than compete with them.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: If he decides to kill Saerk himself, he'll make him suffer the same way his family did...by killing Saerk's innocent daughter. This is the first clue that vengeance was not the good decision.
• The Resenter: Toward his drunken brute of a father, and, if he fails his test, toward Keldorn as well, eventually lashing out at him. Even before that, he reacts to Keldorn and Mazzy's attempts to help steer him closer to his goal by snapping at them. In Mazzy's case he has nothing but contempt for such lowly folk as a halfling.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: He wants to go on one after his sister gets murdered and the evidence points at his father's business rival Saerk. You can convince him not to, however, as there's not enough evidence to determine whether Saerk really killed Anomen's sister or not. If Anomen murders Saerk, later it turns out that Saerk isn't guilty. But if Anomen doesn't go after Saerk... guess what, it turns out Saerk did hire the men who killed her, and if you're romancing him you have to stop him a second time from attempting this.
• Small Name, Big Ego: He boasts incessantly about both his status as a member of the Order of the Radiant Heart and the many battles in which he's fought, but he's still a squire and hasn't even been knighted at the time he's encountered.
• Take That, Scrappy!: If he remains Lawful and Charname summons him with the Fate Spirit in Throne of Bhaal, potential dialogue choices seem to assume that they did not part on good terms.
  Anomen: I do not claim to know where your destiny lies, Bhaalspawn...take me or leave me here.
  Charname: [possible answer] Damn straight. Now get in line and don't bother me.
• Tame His Anger: He has deep-seated rage issues which he actually knows are unbecoming of a paladin, but which he's unable to control. Calling the Old Man Out and becoming a member of the Order allows him to let go of all the anger he's carrying around. Oddly enough, becoming a drunken degenerate lout seems to settle him down as well, at least when Keldorn or any other reminder of his old life isn't directly in front of him.
• Tautological Templar: His reasoning for why he is supposed to be morally superior to the world around him is basically "Because I'm a Paladin!" Apparently, he didn't get the message that Paladins have to at least somewhat live up to their reputation.
• To Be Lawful or Good: Very much on the Lawful Stupid end of the spectrum at first, hence his alignment actually being Lawful Neutral in spite of his protestations of paladin-hood.
• Tragic Dream: His wish to become a Paladin comes very close to this. Basically, his quest for knighthood is a desperate attempt at trying to escape a vicious cycle within a rotten environment that threatens to completely consume him if he doesn't succeed, and it is a testament to his sheer determination that he came even as far as he did (for comparison, look at how far Nalia came with her idealistic dream), especially considering that he is not only not very bright, but also step by step violently opposed by the environment he is trying to leave behind. Essentially, he has already sacrificed almost all of his previous existence for his goal, and he is impatiently waiting for the reward for all his trouble. Rendering all of his effort for naught (which you can do) understandably upsets him.
• Training the Peaceful Villagers: His non-romanced ending. After the events of the game, he suffers a Crisis of Faith and aimlessly wanders for a few years until he ends up in Maztica. There, he starts training soldiers to defend themselves against a demonic army, and ends up founding a new order of Helmite knights.
• Understanding Boyfriend: Despite his other issues, if you continue his romance through Throne of Bhaal, he becomes this. He does get a bit jittery about what Charname's fulfilling her destiny might mean for their future, but otherwise supports her choices.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: A complicated case. Anomen did try to break away from his father's influence — Lord Cor Delryn being an abusive alcoholic who drove Anomen's mother into an early grave and refused to sponsor his son's bid to join the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart. The rage and resentment this fostered in Anomen has remained with him, however, and hasn't been helped at all by being forced to work his way up through the priesthood of Helm, while most others of noble birth (like Keldorn) would be considered simply based on their own family's recommendation.
• White Sheep: Anomen becomes this if he refuses to take the law into his own hands and avenge his sister's death based on his father's claims that his old nemesis Saerk Farrahd killed her. Lord Cor disowns Anomen for it — but it means that Anomen achieves his lifelong dream of becoming a knight of the Order, as well as breaking away from his father's clutches once and for all.

Korgan

Korgan Bloodaxe

"Those grog-blossomed prickmedainties 'ave crossed me one time too many! We've some walking undead to dispatch, now, and then some live dead to find and bury!"

Voiced by: Bill Martin

Race: Dwarf
Class: Fighter (Berserker)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Place of origin: Unknown

A bloodthirsty dwarven berserker, essentially the evil Foil to Minsc, and first recruited as a mercenary in the Copper Coronet. He is generally considered a pain to deal with by other teammates, particularly the women. Ironically, he is sexually interested in Mazzy, the closest thing there is to a halfling paladin. Bizarrely, of every character in BG2, Korgan is the only one who has no special ability or unique item, being only a dwarven berserker.

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• Aerith and Bob: Interestingly, he's the Bob amongst his old adventuring team, since Korgan at least sounds like a given name while all of them have or at least assumed names like Shagbag, Scrooloose and Crazyface.
• Affably Evil: Korgan is boisterous and genial when you meet him, and befriends more characters than most of the other Evil party members. Having said that, he's also a bloodthirsty maniac who kills for coin and also because he gets bored sometimes, who probably killed a bunch of his old adventuring party members in their sleep.
• Antiquated Linguistics: Par for the course in this game, but in Korgan's case, borders on Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness and Flowery Elizabethan English at times. Also makes him Sophisticated as Hell. Makes sense, given that his Intelligence is unexpectedly high and that he writes poetry.
• Ax-Crazy: Violent and bloodthirsty in the extreme, though not to the extent of being Dumb Muscle.
• Barbaric Battleaxe: Unsurprisingly for one who is a dwarf and a Berserker, battleaxes are his primary weapon. In fact, he starts with Grand Mastery (five proficiency points) in Axes, which grants him a +3 to hit, +5 to damage, an extra attack per round and a reduction of three to speed factor (making him more likely to attack first each round) when using any axe weapon, including a set of throwing axes he keeps for backup.
• The Berserker: It's his character class. His Berserk ability gives him +2 to damage, armour class and Thac0, grants 15 bonus hit points and makes him immune to a host of negative status effects, at the cost of potentially falling unconscious once its effects end and being winded for five rounds afterwards. The only trade-off for this is that he can't specialise in crossbows, bows or slings.
• Blood Knight: Unapologetic about it, and while he comes from a particularly warlike clan, he makes no pretense of being this way because of cultural differences; he acknowledges that it's a wasteful, stupid way to run civilization as a whole, but the reason he's like this personally is basically because he just really enjoys it.
• Boisterous Bruiser: BioWare loves this character type, but Korgan is so good at it in-universe that it's seemingly very easy for the other party members to overlook his Blood Knight tendencies, including paladin Keldorn, paladin-in-all-but-name Mazzy (though definitely not at first), and the game's iconic (and heroic) Boisterous Bruiser Minsc. Korgan's utter shamelessness about killing and looting come along with an infectious sense of fun that's hard to resist.
• The Brute: He fulfils this role in your party, especially if most of your group are Evil-aligned. He's brutal, bloodthirsty, and almost as strong as he is tough, but only has average mental stats and no real skill as a leader. He also doesn't have much of a long-term plan or specific goals to carry out, only requiring Charname to help him with a specific goal upon joining the party and thereafter simply going along with whatever you want to do. In fact, he's quite happy to encourage Charname to become a powerful god and indulge in the associated priviledges as long as they remember the good turns he did for them on the way there.
• Cain and Abel: With his brothers, though in this instance they were all Cains.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He's completely blasé about his brutish world-view, and (outside a few banters with Mazzy, whom he is actively wooing) completely unapologetic about it too.
• Casanova Wannabe: Mazzy's not the only woman Korgan hits on, though hers is pretty much the typical reaction he gets.
• Chaotic Evil: In-Universe. Korgan is a brutal Psycho for Hire and loves nothing more than bringing the axe down on command. However, he also doesn't care much for moving past that, simply going through the world at his own brutal pace.
• Chaotic Stupid: The other party members imply that he could become a respected person in society if he just learned to control himself a little. It would also definitely earn him more Love points with Mazzy.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Played for Laughs. His former adventuring band drop the first hints of it when they accuse him of killing members of their group in their sleep (his altogether unconvincing glossing over of this doesn't help), and later cemented when he'll promise to kill you if you ever become an invalid, assuming you'd do the same to him. He seems to think it's just a Mercy Kill thing.
• Close-Range Combatant: His Berserker class only allows him to reach grand mastery with any melee weapon and master any combat style, but only achieve basic proficiency with any ranged weapon (darts, long/shortbows, crossbows or slings). This isn't as crippling as it would be for any other game, though; thanks to the widespread availability of throwing weapons, he can easily use those as his ranged weapon on the rare occasions he finds something he can't smash to pieces up close.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Was born via Traumatic C-Section as his mother died, witnessed his father's death/had to build his funeral pyre alone and to his disgust, both happened for incredibly stupid reasons.
• Deadpan Snarker: And completely unsubtle about it.
• Do Not Go Gentle: The one moment of mutual understanding between him and Mazzy is when he explains why he's the way he is. He does have a hell of a Freudian Excuse, as it turns out.
  Korgan: Ye must roar into the blackness, wage war with fear, and battle pain. 'Tis the only way when carnage be yer crown of thorns.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Korgan shares his surname with real-life Viking king Eric Bloodaxe, a man known for his cruelty who killed his brothers so he could rule their kingdom alone. Huh.
• Double Entendre: He drops a few of them, particularly if Mazzy's around.
  Korgan: Be aware, Mazzy, I've something long, hard, and low to the ground yer free to touch and fondle. Child, no need to glare! 'Twas me axe I was referring to... it's a joke!
• Elves vs. Dwarves: With all of them, including half-elven Jaheira, but especially with Aerie. Also with Irenicus, by necessity.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • One of the very few decent things you ever hear him say only occurs if you pursue Jan Jansen's personal quest to help his friend's child. When it comes to light that the little girl's catatonia stems from being physically abused by her father, Korgan — who we must remind you is an Ax-Crazy murdering bastard — condemns the actions leading to her condition:
  Korgan: Ehhh, there be many things I would do gladly. Harming children be not one of them. Her man be a cur and not worthy of the spittle on me boot.
  • He's also against slavery. When you enter the Slaver Boat from the sewers, you're noticed (and attacked) by the captain and his crew, but before it starts, Korgan has time to make a statement on the situation:
  Korgan: Bah! Even I would nay trade children an' women as if they were cattle! Let us plant an axe firmly in their skulls, Charname!
• Evil Counterpart: To Minsc. Both are reckless Boisterous Bruisers who are not quite on even terms with reality, but while Minsc is a good-hearted soul who dotes on his Boo, Korgan seems to care little for anyone besides himself (and possibly Mazzy).
• Fantastic Race Weapon Affinity: Being a dwarf, he uses a hammer as his secondary weapon. Notably, he's the only recruitable dwarf in the game and therefore the only one who can wield the Dwarven Thrower, an infinite use throwing hammer, without Charname being a dwarf or a thief having the Use Any Item ability.\* Fantastic Racism: Hates us Longlimbs, especially drow. But then, everyone hates the drow, and with good reason, so he has an excuse for that one. This naturally leads to racially-charged scuffles with Viconia in banter, since she hates him right back for being a dwarf.
• Foil: To Kagain from the first game. While Kagain is calm, lawful and on the defence front, Korgan is a loud, chaotic damage dealer. Their affability also vary. Korgan is classically Affably Evil, being jolly and friendly despite being a blood thirsty maniac. Kagain downplays the trope by not being actively evil, is mostly grumpy but can be friendly at times when he feels like it.
• Fountain of Expies: Korgan inspired a lot of Affably Evil Blood Knight Boisterous Bruiser mercenaries who join the player's party as fighter-types and are fond of telling stories of their past exploits. Canderous Ordo in Knights of the Old Republic, Black Whirlwind in Jade Empire, Urdnot Wrex and Zaeed Massani in the Mass Effect series and especially Oghren from Dragon Age: Origins, among others, all share their DNA with Korgan.
• Freudian Excuse: Lost both his parents to inter-clan warfare and claims to have been negatively influenced by spending too much time amongst humans. Mazzy is less than convinced about the latter part, but expresses sympathy for the loss of his parents.
• Genius Bruiser: His bloodlust makes it easy to forget that Korgan is a pretty smart guy, when he's not fulfilling dwarven stereotypes or threatening someone. Both Edwin and Rasaad comment on him being an intelligent man.
• Girls with Moustaches: Like other dwarves, Korgan appreciates a woman with a fine beard. Jan exploits this to keep him interested in one of his stories.
• Gonk: Look at the size of his nose!
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Charname can easily provoke Korgan into fighting them by insulting or disagreeing with him.
• The Hedonist: A very mixed example. It is made clear that Korgan's hedonism (and, especially, his bloodlust) is actually his nastier side since it can occasionally turn him into The Unfettered. But it is also made clear that it is a substantial part of his personality and that without it, he would be far from the same person he is now, and both he and the other party members doubt that he can so easily get rid of it.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: His brutishness and sociopath personality is mostly Played for Laughs, barring a few banters with Mazzy.
• Hidden Depths: Surprisingly adept at poetry, and capable of ingratiating himself to the most unlikely people given enough time.
• Inheritance Murder: Murdered all his brothers over their inheritance. To be fair, they were trying to murder him as well.
• Jerkass: He may mellow out more if he gets to know you better, but his first reaction to anyone is to insult him/her. Also, it takes at the very least some deliberate effort on your part to reach a Charisma score of 7.
  • Charisma is the leadership stat, not the social skills stat. Hardly anyone wants to follow a bloodthirsty, Ax-Crazy leader into battle, because chances are good nobody will survive, including the adventuring party. Just take a look at his epilogue in ToB — he leads a doomed crusade against the drow. And even if you do survive, his Chronic Backstabbing Disorder might do you in instead. Altogether, he isn't trustworthy as a leader.
• Large Ham: Of the Ax-Crazy sort.
  Korgan: [on a Critical Hit] A SKULLBREAKER!
• Lightning Bruiser: As a raw fighter, he will eventually get up to 3 attacks per round with any weapon he has Grandmastery proficiency with, and he will hit hard with it, what with his Strength. In addition to this, he is also the party member with the most hit points in the second game. That said, he won't move faster than any of your other units.
• Luke Nounverber: Korgan Bloodaxe.
• Magically Inept Fighter: Apart from Yoshimo, he is the only party member in the second game completely incapable of casting some sort of spell. He makes up for this with extremely high physical stats, an axe, a good niche weapon selection and a single special ability (granted by his class) which makes him completely immune to the vast majority of Status Effects.
• Meaningful Name: Korgan shares his surname with an old Viking king, who got it because he liked to kill people a lot too. And, like Korgan, that included his own brothers.
• Mighty Glacier: While Korgan is without a doubt the most powerful party member in close combat, his fighting style is admittedly limited to "walk up to the target and hit it 'till it dies." This is not particularly problematic with most enemies, but it can be a bit of a problem when confronted with a Stoneskin or Protection from Magical Weapons spell.
• Mutually Exclusive Party Members: With Aerie, in SoA's base game. He comes down hard on her, constantly mocking and needling her about how "weak" she is. Eventually this comes to a head and Aerie demands you choose — either send Korgan away, or she'll leave. After 24 hours, she makes good on her word. Interestingly, this is one of the few cases of this trope where the two party members don't necessarily come to blows. In a show of Developer's Foresight, if they make it to ToB without forcing a split, Aerie will stand up for herself, earning Korgan's respect.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: In one banter with Mazzy he sneers at his own race's inter-clan warfare, considering it to cause widespread suffering and death with minimal gains and to happen for stupid reasons.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Bloodaxe is definitely not the sort of surname you take unless you want people to be afraid of you, although there's no indication that it isn't his given surname, which raises questions about his ancestors' taste in names.
• Nominal Hero: He may help you fight your monstrous Always Chaotic Evil enemies and Irenicus, but he's about as far away from being a hero as Minsc is from composing poetry.
• The Napoleon: He's shorter, crazier and more violent than several other party members who are twice as tall as he is.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Korgan observes that he and Edwin aren't that different in a banter.
• Odd Friendship: Enough of these to practically count as a special ability in its own right — he makes a very poor first impression, fitting for his alignment and dismal Charisma score, but he grows on you. Unlike the other evil NPCs, Korgan has relatively few party conflicts, and only one which is irreconcilable, with Aerie. See also Mutually Exclusive Party Members and Token Evil Teammate. A few of the more notable cases:
  • With Jan. They only have two dialogues, but both times Jan spins yarns that end with Korgan's definite approval.
  • Also with Keldorn, of all people, as a fellow career soldier and warrior. It's almost enough to qualify as Ho Yay.
  • Despite his repeated and extremely crude come-ons to Mazzy, she tolerates him surprisingly well. Korgan will end up sharing some of his poetry with her and even go a bit into his Freudian Excuse and outlook on life if she's in the party, and claiming at one point he'll earnestly try to moderate his behaviour around her.
  • With Edwin, or at least as close as someone like Edwin is capable of getting to actually having a friend, in that Korgan is A) evil, B) moderately intelligent, and C) can actually stand to be around Edwin, which presumably doesn't happen very often. The two of them try to pair up to demand a greater share of the party treasure in Throne of Bhaal, though ultimately Edwin's arrogance causes Korgan to break up the deal.
  • With Imoen. They share a sense of humor, and start Volleying Insults within moments of meeting each other. She gets him.
  • With Charname, if you so choose. Even if you're not evil, He's good company if you're up for the occasional bar brawl, and he can rein in his worse impulses if you're willing to go along with his revenge against Shagbag and the rest.
• Only in It for the Money:
  Korgan: Aye! Great! Blasted bloody wonderful! Aye, let's go take on bloody trolls to get this man's gong back... and for NO REWARD, mind ye! I've a mind to go back to yon tavern and kick his BLOODY ARSE!
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When the player first transforms into the slayer, if Korgan is chosen for the dialogue reaction, he will become dead serious and warns the player not to give in to this new-found power.
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Korgan goes pretty deep into the dwarven stereotypes by being a scottish dwarven fighter with a Luke Nounverber name, who likes alcohol, money, horned helmets and specializes in wielding an axe and a shield. Personality-wise his general mental instability and bloodlust (and his very dark sense of humour) at least distinguishes him slightly.
• Parental Abandonment: In his dialogues with Mazzy, he confides that he witnessed the murder of both his parents.
• Pet the Dog: Does, believe it or not, genuinely feel something for Mazzy, in his own screwed-up way.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: As the quote above illustrates, he's quite boorish to women.
• Psycho for Hire: He makes his living this way before you encounter him and seems to thrive on a ruthless reputation. If you kick him out of the party after completing his personal quest, you have to pay him off to convince him to rejoin.
• Psycho Supporter: He hints he would become this to you if you chose to become a god — just so long as you remembered your buddy Korgan, of course.
• Secret Test of Character: If he's in the same party as Aerie, he will relentlessly insult and belittle her. In the original release of BG2, this would cause her to leave the party after awhile, but if the expansion is installed, she will eventually snap and insult him right back. At this point, he announces that his abuse was a Secret Test Of Character and now that she's proven she will stick up for herself, he's got no problem with her.
  • Usually insults characters after meeting them, and befriends those that insult him right back. Including Imoen.
• Sibling Murder: Killed his brothers, or at least was the last one standing after the (literal) battle over their inheritance.
• The Social Darwinist: He despises "weak" people like Aerie and Nalia. Nalia can take his insults. Aerie can't.
• Sophisticated as Hell: An unusual case in that the angrier he gets, the more eloquent he becomes. As noted under Hidden Depths he's got a surprisingly poetic ear: his speech is full of internal rhymes and witticisms, and while flowery archaic language is hardly unusual for the series, Korgan drops fairly obscure vulgar slang terms every other sentence. For reference, the quote at the top of this section is akin to a Cluster F-Bomb for him, and to voice actor Bill Martin's credit, his reading of Korgan's lines in the same vein comes off as admirably spontaneous.
• The Starscream: One of his in-game lines is a threat to disembowel you. In his epilogue he pulls off a Starscream gambit for real.
• Succession Crisis: Korgan and his brothers fought and killed each other over their family's inheritance. Based on Korgan's current circumstances, this didn't leave a lot that was worth going back to.
• Token Evil Teammate: Seemingly tailor-made for this role, with the fewest intra-party conflicts (only with Aerie) and a relatively high tolerance for heroism, just as long as you don't go full-bore Lawful Good and hit Reputation 20. Comes in handy for the few pieces of equipment that are alignment-restricted to evil, as well as a sub-in warrior for those sidequests where you might not want to have Keldorn or Minsc on hand.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: He has a few throwing axes in his inventory when you meet him.
• Troll: He insults Aerie. He makes crude come-ons to Mazzy. He tries to bond with Valygar over both having had to kill their own families. He sprouts ethnic slurs at Viconia. And, if Anomen fails his knighthood test, Korgan will cheerfully remind him of it. His 'favourite' party members are Imoen and Jan, who are able to give as well as they get.
  • This can backfire on him in Throne of Bhaal. He'll halt the group to verbosely profess his attraction to a female Charname, but if you take it a step further and state that now that's in the open, your love can bloom, he'll get cold feet and back off. But only because of Bhaal's taint, you understand...
• Villainous Friendship: If your PC is evil and takes Korgan's suggestions to heart, then the relationship between the two of you becomes this. Korgan also gets along famously with Dorn, Sarevok and Edwin.
  Korgan: Ha! Any fool who'd dare think of me and Charname as a target, rich or nae, is a fool begging to have his innards brought out to meet the sun, and that be the truth.
• Villain with Good Publicity: After the events of the game, Korgan goes down in history for leading a doomed crusade against the drow. This wasn't because he disliked the drow, he just wanted to kill as many sentient beings as possible. Oh, and was it mentioned that he got a hold of the forces he used to support his bloodlust by killing their leader and sticking the blame to "a target of his choosing"? Rare that someone so nuts can get such a wonderful reputation, and the game lampshades this:
  Narrator: [during the epilogue] History, it seems, finds more heroes than madmen.
• Violent Glaswegian: Since Our Dwarves Are All the Same, Korgan has an accent somewhere between Scottish and Welsh. Oddly, he is voiced by Bill Martin, who used to be a producer for The Monkees.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Edwin, who recognizes the dwarf's intelligence right away, and oddly enough Korgan seems to be one of the few people who Edwin actually likes with no ulterior motive or grudging mistrust. If you keep them both around until Throne of Bhaal they'll form a 'pact' of sorts and try to take over the band to get a bigger share of the loot. It lasts only until you ask them how they plan on distributing their joint share.
• Volleying Insults: With everyone, but Imoen has him pegged.
• Vulgar Humor: About 60% of his dialogue consists of this.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: As you may have noticed by now crimes against children are one of the things even he won't tolerate.

Jan

Jan Jansen

"It's not every day that a gnome finds himself fighting in the Abyss and talking to a solar. I haven't done that for at least a year, now."

Voiced by: Jack Roth

Race: Gnome
Class: Illusionist/Thief
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Place of origin: Athkatla

Jan Jansen is a gnomish peddler of turnips and illegal weaponry (but he's really more interested in the turnips). Much beloved by the fandom for his many quotes as well as his interactions with the other fan favorite character, Minsc, Jan is one of Baldur's Gate II's most recognizable characters.

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• Abnormal Ammo: His Flasher Launcher shoots toy skulls ("Please! Flasher Master Bruiser Mates. They have a name.") packed with explosive powder. Or normal crossbow bolts, depending on which you have equipped. How it's capable of firing both equally well is not explained.
  • And with a certain mod installed, he eventually gains the ability to fire bolts loaded with insect swarms.
  • Given how ridiculously overengineered that thing's portrait appears, it's not hard to imagine it might have multiple barrels. For that matter, it probably has a hat shop, lemming farm, and kitchen sink.
• Aerith and Bob: Almost everyone else in this world has a fantastic name (or two): both of his are fairly common real world names.
• Armor and Magic Don't Mix: His character-locked Jansen AdventureWear is a specially-crafted suit of leather armor which ignores this restriction. Unfortunately its ability to reduce incoming damage by a percentage tends not to synergize as well with a ranged thief/wizard as the freely available combination of bracers and robes, while the armor can't be used by, say, a more melee-oriented thief.
• Automatic Crossbows: His favored weapons. When encountered, he comes with his personal one (which looks actually more like a mechanical Railgun) dubbed the "Flasher Launcher" which can shoot above-mentioned Abnormal Ammo.
• Battle Cry:
  Jan: Beware! Your knees are MINE!
• Blatant Lies: Jan's not above lying to you at first if it'll get you to listen to rest of his story.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Vies with Minsc for nuttiest member of the party, though it's uncertain just how much is actual lunacy and how much is an act. They have a lot of banter, including Jan's bizarre attempts at stealing Boo.
• Bullying a Dragon: He has absolutely no qualms about taunting your evil party members. In fact, they're probably the targets he likes best. Especially Sarevok.
• Chaotic Neutral: in-universe The stories he tells indicate a personality bordering on Chaotic Stupid, though he doesn't act that way when in the party.
• Deadpan Snarker: Towards Edwin.
  Jan: Truth be told, I feel a bit sorry for you. It must be frustrating to see your entire life's goals amount to absolutely nothing.
  Edwin: What do you know of my goals, gnome?
  Jan: By the gods, Edwin, you talk about them often enough. Oh! Looks like I've hit a vein. Sorry about that.
  Edwin: One day you will bow before me, gnome. That shall be a time of reckoning.
  Jan: If you say so. Let me know when it's time to bow. I might not notice it.
• Evil Laugh: Punctuates one of his battle cries with what can only be described as a cackle.
  Jan: PREPARE TO MEET YOUR DOOM! [cackles]
• Expansion Pack Past: Most of it probably made up.
• Fountain of Expies: Well, Grobnar and Varric are definitely partially modeled after him.
• Gadgeteer Genius: He's managed to invent a high tech explosive crossbow, vision-enhancing goggles, and an energy absorbent suit. Not bad for a pseudo-Renaissance setting.
  • With the Banter pack mod installed, Jan will invent a number of other things, like a monstrously overengineered crossbow for Valygar which he dubs 'the permanent solution to his wizard problem'. Valygar asks if this will be one of those weapons that shoots the bolt around the world and hits the firer in the back. Jan replies that it's 100% guaranteed. Try to use it in-game and you'll find this is entirely accurate.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: They increase his ability to find and disarm traps by 25%, and his Detect Illusion skill by 20%.
• Hurricane of Puns: He unleashes them upon occasion.
• Inherently Funny Words: "Biffle Chump".
• It Runs in the Family: The rest of the Jansen clan is practically as weird as he is.
• I've Never Seen Anything Like This Before: Only once: when Jan and the party literally go to Hell.
  Jan: Whoa! This place looks just like... it reminds me of... this is just like that time I... hmm. I don't think anything like this has ever happened to me before.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Jan's personal quest will eventually end like this if you get the best result: The love of his life, Lissa, gets back together with her evil, wife-beating husband Vaelag who promises he'll change. Jan doesn't believe Vaelag for a second, but knows Lissa loves him.
  • Subverted in his Throne of Bhaal ending: It's heavily implied that he trained a horde of monkeys to attack Vaelag's estate. In the end, he ends up with his lover.
• Lethal Joke Character: At first, Jan comes across as a fairly useless character included primarily for amusement value (with even the Official Perfect Guide having him as the lowest rated character, claiming there's nothing good to say about him), but used correctly he's actually quite capable of holding his own against other, more obviously powerful characters.
  • He also gets quite lethal in Throne of Bhaal since he's the only one of two NPCs who can get thief High-Level Abilities, and has illusionist magic and mage HLAs on top of it.
  • Jan may admittedly be the least powerful party member when it comes to combat, but he has quite an arsenal of special abilities if you know how to use him right. His Illusionist spells come in very handy, and he can make excellent use of the otherwise often-forgotten secondary thief skills such as Pickpocket (saves you tons of money if used right), Detect Illusion, a very useful combat skill because of how many mages love invisibility spells, Set Traps, a fantastic preparatory skill for big battles, and he can also Backstab for massive damage. Beyond that, one fact makes him almost necessary for any party, unless Charname is a thief. Why? Because Imoen and Nalia, the only other thieves who are permanent members of the party, are dual-classed. This means that their thief levels are set, so they can't ever improve their thieving abilities. The multi-classed Jan is the only thief follower in an unmodded game who is capable of advancing his thief skills, allowing him to keep up with the increasingly high demands for detect/remove traps and open locks.
    • With a score of 80 you can disarm almost any trap in the game and open almost every chest and door (and then, if that doesn't work, you can always use bashing). Also, as of the Enhanced Edition, Imoen comes with 100 Open Locks and 95 Find Traps. And this is not even mentioning the Rings which improve these skills which you can find.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: He's generally incapable of taking things seriously, but in the sidequest during which his former love and her child are endangered he credibly threatens to open up a can of whoopass on his antagonist.
• Major Injury Underreaction: When near death:
  Jan: [weakly] Don't mean to alarm you, but all this blood spurting about is [gasping] actually mine.
• Meaningful Name: Shares the name of a Playground Song that plays out the same way as 'The Song That Never Ends' — that is to say, it never does. Neither, of course, does his rambling.
• Motor Mouth: Talks more than just about any other character, usually just to tell another pointless story involving turnips. Luckily, most of them are pretty amusing.
• The Münchausen: He has a story for everything and will yak away without a care if you don't head him off quickly (and sometimes even if you do).
• The Nicknamer: Saddles pretty much everyone with a cutesy Affectionate Nickname ending with -y: Minscy, Keldy, Haerry, and so on. And telling him not to just encourages him. The capper by far is his nickname for the mighty Sarevok:
  Sarevok: Binky?! You had best not be addressing ME, gnome!
• Non-Action Guy: He is the party member least suited for combat in the second game. He only get's a single attack per round with his crossbows, his wizard level progression is slower than that of anybody short of Aerie, as an Illusionist kit he misses out on the game's two best damage spells, Skull Trap and Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting (as well as a couple of other very useful spells such as Animate Dead or Death Spell), and he also doesn't sport the hit points to survive long enough in the thick of combat. He makes up for it with his sheer utility and versatility, as he can use almost every item in game (and, with Use Any Item, he can use every item).
• Noodle Incident: Quite a few of the crazier events he makes reference to in his stories go unexplained. Of course, it's likely that he just made them up on the spot.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Don't take Jan's turnip fixation, bizarre inventions and tendency to tell random stories for idiocy. During his somewhat more lucid moments, mostly during Jan's sidequest with his old girlfriend, Jan puts the (hilarious) storytelling aside and reveals that he is actually very, very much aware of what is happening around, knows how to fix it, and is totally pissed that Vaelag is trying to interfere with his girl, even if she isn't really his girl anymore. Furthermore, we all know that Jan would have been perfectly capable of turning Vaelag and his goons in to charred, bite-sized Chunks'O'Gnome, and that the only thing that stopped him was the lady's protest. Jan Jansen knows where you live.
• Odd Friendship: With Korgan. Most characters find his stories to be annoying, but Jan cleverly spins yarns that appeal directly to Korgan's interests, allowing him to please his audience.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Jan's quest gets started when one of his cousins finds him to deliver a message. The conversation is at first fairly lighthearted and silly... until he hears that his former love and her child are holed up at his house.
  Jan: Did he hurt her?
  • Jan refusing to slip back into his regular persona during the quest underlines just how serious things are (you know, just in case the dying child and the domestic abuse didn't do that already).
  • The Enhanced Edition has another one: after you recruit Hexxat, Jan launches into a story about a lovely young girl named Yanna Jonannsen who ventured into the Tomb of Dragomir and was taken as one of Hexxat's victims. Her mother, who was Jan's sister, died of grief soon afterwards. And now the very same monster that lived in that tomb is right here in front of you. No punchline.
• Or Are You Just Happy to See Me?: This exchange:
  Minsc: You! The tiny, tricky gnome! Minsc knows it was you who stole Boo! You cannot fool Minsc! What is that bulge moving about within your trousers?
  Jan: This bulge here? Why that's (ha-ha) that's nothing. I'm just happy to see you, Minscy. (giggle)
• Our Gnomes Are Weirder: True to form, Jan is the comic relief character, a clever inventor and frequently regarded with confusion by others.
• Our Gryphons Are Different: Has an exaggerated fear of griffins, which to hear him tell it are gnomes' natural enemies. Not that that would be an unreasonable thing for a gnome to be afraid of, but you never see a single griffin in-game, and like most other things it's pretty clear he's mostly joking.
• Out-of-Character Moment: Jan's entire sidequest is one.
• Painting the Medium: Jan is a gnome. Gnomes get infravision at night and underground, which highlights creatures with a red glow. He mentions this in one of his more meaningful tales.
  Jan: [after sunset] I've had this little problem ever since I was a wee gnome. When it gets dark, everybody glows red. Frightens a child something fierce...
• Pay Evil unto Evil: No one is particularly upset after he gets Vaelag killed.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Along with Minsc, he's the primary source of it in BG2.
• Sad Clown: Jan may crack more jokes than anybody else in the party short of maybe Imoen, but he's actually not a very happy person.
• Spoof Aesop: Occasionally he suggests one at the end of his long-winded stories.
  • This is subverted in one of his banters with Mazzy, which starts out on the subject of potatoes and ends on a note of how Mazzy reminds him of a halfling potato farmer living near his family's homestead who had been captured, enslaved and abused by orcs at a young age before escaping, whose work ethic, optimism and appreciation of good honest toil had always inspired him, and how he sees an attitude similar to her own in Mazzy. She admits it was a good story in the end, though ponders why he felt the need to talk and talk for 20 minutes in-game before he got to the point.
• Straight Man and Wise Guy: He's the wise guy. His stories have a way of making everyone else into the straight man. The few occasions when someone shuts him down involve the other party member out straight-manning his wise guy:
  Jan: A-ha! I made that last one up just to test you, Mazzy! There is no such story.
  Mazzy: You mean to say you have been telling us falsehoods this whole time, Jan? I am so very, very Disappointed in You. Since you admit to your dishonesty, I can no longer in good conscience listen to your stories ever again.
  Jan: Huh... That really didn't go the way I expected.
• Trademark Favorite Food: As noted in the description above, Jan is quite obsessed with turnips, though it's clear he doesn't really crave them as food. He does like turnip beer however, which has wondrous medicinal properties in addition to its fine taste.
  • Note that he claims it has medicinal properties; the context in which he mentions it implies it's overindulgence in turnip beer that may be at least heavily responsible for why he is such a Cloudcuckoolander. Turnips are also an obsession of all gnomes in the game.
• Troll: Jan enjoys getting a rise out of other members of the party, with only Korgan coming to appreciate it. Even Sarevok is not safe from Jan's trolling.
• Unfazed Everyman: You won't find too many people (or gnomes even) quite as eccentric as Jan, but even he's quite mundane in comparison to the adventures you take him on to.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: As his personal quest reveals, he was one to Lissa. Jan at one point says he would have given her the world if he could, but she ended up marrying a richer gnome called Vaelag after he wooed her away. Vaelag later turned out to be a psychopath who beat her and their daughter. Subverted if you bring him with you through Throne of Bhaal, as Jan trains a pack of knife-wielding monkeys to kill Vaelag and gets together with Lissa in the end.
• Younger Than They Look: Between his voice actor and his portrait, it's easy to forget that Jan is probably not very much older than Charname and Imoen.

Haer'Dalis

Haer'Dalis

"My dear raven, valiant as always. You are poetry, you are song!"

Voiced by: Michael Bell

Race: Tiefling
Class: Bard (Blade)
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Place of origin: Sigil, the City of Doors

Haer'Dalis is a Doomguard: essentially he knows the universe is going to end no matter what he does, so he's just enjoying himself until that happens. He's a bard in a traveling actor's troupe who joins you after you rescue him, perhaps sensing there are tales to be had following in your footsteps.

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• Aborted Arc: Haer'Dalis was going to be one of the romance options for female characters, but like Valygar was cut due to time constraints. The romance's absence is noticeable, too — when picking up Haer'Dalis he'll seem very interested in a female PC, which will suddenly stop in later dialogs. That initial friendliness was supposed to have been a segue into a romance. There is now a fan mod that adds a Haer'Dalis romance, but it also blocks the Haer'Dalis/Aerie romance from starting, rather than adding the planned romance conflicts.
• The Anti-Nihilist: Up to a point. He believes in striving for love and happiness and filling the world with art, even as he believes those things will come to naught and is fascinated by destruction, death, and entropy. Somewhat indifferent to the pain and suffering of strangers, he is nonetheless loyal and considerate to those he calls friends... even as he openly acknowledges that lovers drift apart and friends become enemies with the vagaries of time. But the time you have together is worth it, even it ends.
• Battle Couple: Can woo an unromanced Aerie, potentially, even getting into a Love Triangle with her and a male Charname.
• Blade Spam: How his Offensive Spin ability works, boosting his attack speed and attacks per round to insane levels.
• Brutal Honesty: He doesn't hesitate to speak his true feelings about the destruction of Saradush, even though it leads to his break-up with Aeire. His romance mod expands on this, with him always striving to be honest with Charname.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Haer'Dalis speaks halfway in riddles and strange metaphors and has a mind fixated almost entirely on entropy and theater, which causes many NPCs to think him an oddball. He's also the only party member to see through Yoshimo, and displays a surprising amount of insight on multiple occasions.
• Chaotic Neutral: in-universe Puts the "Chaotic" into this alignment. He isn't actively malevolent, but Saradush's destruction will remind you that he is still a Nietzsche Wannabe who is fascinated with violence, decay, and other expressions of chaos and entropy.
• The Charmer: He's such a smooth flirter that Imoen swoons, even though she saw the pick-up lines coming. However, Haer'Dalis is also respectful of women's feelings, as he wishes Aerie nothing but good things should they break up or he lose the Love Triangle.
• Chekhov's Skill: Although one that only comes up if he's nearby when Charname first turns into the Slayer. Unlike the other NPCs, who react with a mix of shock and disbelief, he's the only one who seems to fully understand what just happened. Makes sense, given what he is.
  Haer'Dalis: Well... That reminds me of home... The bad parts.
• Disproportionate Retribution: His troupe performed a play that satirized Duke Rowan Darkwood, Factol of the Fated. Darkwood sicced a demonic bounty hunting crew on them. For those in the know of the Planescape setting, this is perfectly in-character for the glory hound Duke.
• Dual Wielding: He's trained for it and has two special starting weapons to make it happen.
• Facial Markings: Sports stripes of what is either some impressive ink, some kind of scarification, or his natural tiefling skin markings.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: Bards were basically this in 2nd edition.
• Fragile Speedster: His Offensive Spin gives him the ability to deal a ton of damage extremely quickly (especially by Bard standards) and to move at twice his normal speed, but the fact remains that his health is very, very bad.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Haer'Dalis is a Blade, a specific type of Bard that specializes in theatrical, balletic fighting. By profession he's an actor who apparently specializes in action-oriented leading man roles.
• Gentleman Snarker: Being a bard, he naturally possesses a clever wit and silver tongue. A lot of his snarkier comments are wrapped up in flowery or overly polite language, but make no mistake, Haer'Dalis is snarky. Even Jaheira, herself a queen of snark, admires his wit.
• Gentleman Thief: He presents himself as such when first encountered. He becomes available after being rescued from a powerful wizard, who had caught Haer'Dalis in the act of burglarizing his home to steal a gem, and magically enslaved him. When you free him from this condition, Haer'Dalis admits that he'd come to acquire the gem but takes offense if you call him a thief.
• Glass Cannon: Strength? 17 (on a scale of 2-19). Dexterity? 17. Constitution? ...9.
• Inconsistent Spelling: Within the game, across various banters, his name is variously given as Haer'Dalis, Haer Dalis', HaerDalis', Haer-Dalis'...
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: If Aerie has confirmed her relationship with you already, he won't protest or try to break the two of you up; he will instead wish Aerie well and even offer to play music at her wedding.
• In Love with Your Carnage:
  • After Saradush is ignominously destroyed, many characters will react with sadness, especially Aerie. Not Haer'Dalis. He loved it, due to being part of the Doomguard (see Nietzsche Wannabe below). In fact, if his relationship with Aerie has progressed to love, Saradush will become a point of divergence between them and Aerie will break off the relationship. Same thing if they are both at Spellhold.
  • He's also one of a small handful of people with nice words for Dorn, and is fascinated by Charname's destiny and tendency to leave a lot of bodies behind them.
• Large Ham: Though, that's no real surprise; he is a stage actor.
• Love Triangle: With the PC and Aerie, possibly.
• Magic Knight: The Blade kit essentially boils down to this. Although he still has some roguish features.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: If both you and Haer'Dalis love Aerie and she hasn't yet pledged her love to you, Haer'Dalis will challenge you to a duel for her love. The duel won't actually happen, however. Before things can come to blows, Aerie will break up with either you (if you jump at the chance to duel) or Haer'Dalis (if you instead try to talk things out).
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: He has two-star weapon specialization in short swords, which bards normally aren't allowed to have. There's also his resistances to certain types of damage, courtesy of his semi-planar heritage.
• The Nicknamer: Haer'Dalis will call most people by their real names. Often, though, he'll create a nickname for them too: Charname is "Raven", Aerie is "Dove", Sarevok is "Hawk", and Haer'dalis himself is "Sparrow". Breaking the bird themed names, Minsc and Boo are "hound and hamster".
  • He does, in fact, have nicknames for all the main party members (modders carried on this trait too). Spellhold Studios has a complete list.
• Nietzsche Wannabe: Haer'Dalis is a member of the Doomguard, a faction in the Planescape setting that revels in the idea of entropy — not necessarily indiscriminately causing it themselves (although there are certainly members who do just that) but rather accepting its inevitability and embracing the changes it brings. Entropy may eventually bring the whole multiverse to a stop, but in the meantime death means a glorious tapestry against which life may struggle. Haer'Dalis likes his tragedies.
• Nonhuman Humanoid Hybrid: Haer'Dalis' race is stated as 'tiefling' (a human with demonic ancestry); according to himself his father was an elf and his mother "no human". Possibly some type of cambion (half-demon), or another tiefling like himself. Tieflings can manifest a wide variety of demonic traits; in Haer'Dalis's case, he's got blue-gray hair and Word of God says he's got a naturally forked tongue.
• Odd Friendship: He gets along surprisingly well with Keldorn. Being a native Athkatlan, Keldorn's a fan of theatre and music, and he and Haer'Dalis seem to trade barbs for fun rather than for insults.
• Perky Goth: Rare male example. He believes in the power and inevitability of entropy, but this doesn't stop him from taking joy in exciting or theatrical moments in the game. Charname can in fact mention that there's something about his fascination with destruction they find off-putting.
• The Philosopher: He's a Doomguard, someone who believes that decay is the natural state of the universe and should be embraced, that meaning can be found in the finite as much if not more than the eternal — especially since, as Bhaal himself proved, even gods may die. He often discusses this philosophy with the other party members. Most of them are less than appreciative.
• Seen It All: He's had an extremely colorful life up to this point: he's starred in many productions, served in the retinue of a Baalor, and traveled the planes, possibly even crossing the Lady of Pain. If he's in the party when you descend to hell, a circumstance that leaves even Jan speechless, he will be completely unfazed.
  Haer'Dalis: Ahhh, back in the planes, I see. And the hard way, too, it seems. Adventuring with you does seem to have its odd turns, my raven.
• Ship Tease: He shows no small amount of interest in a female PC, remnants from his cut romance. A fanmod expands on this into an actual romance.
• Shipper on Deck: Added by the Banter Pack, Haer'Dalis ships Jaheira and Edwin into a Belligerent Sexual Tension relationship... Though it might have been just for the sake of screwing with them. Naturally, neither of them are amused.
• Show Within a Show: Or "Show Within A Video Game." He was set to play the lead in Raelis Shai's play, before his abduction.
• Spoony Bard: He is a Blade, which gives him some special abilities, but is often considered to downplay the main aspects that make a bard worthwhile, such as high lore and pickpocketing.
  • It does, however, allow the use of the ring of free action bug, which regardless of the fact that he is a numerically poor character makes him very powerful in defensive stance.
• Stone Wall: As weak as he normally is, his "Defensive Stance" ability can turn him into this. They made it so you couldn't move while in that stance for a reason.
• Uneven Hybrid: As the child of an elf and a part-fiend of some flavour.
• Warrior Poet: All bards are to some extent, but Haer'Dalis all the more so, quoting poetry and waxing lyrical even in the middle of a fray. This is thanks to his Blade kit, which makes him more fit for combat than a standard bard would be.
• What Could Have Been: He was originally intended to be a romance option for female PCs, but it was cut due to time constraints. A game mod adding a fan-made romance has since been created.

Valygar

Valygar Corthala

"My family was cursed during its existence. If I am the last of the Corthalas, it will be a well and good thing."

Voiced by: Jeff Osterhage

Race: Human
Class: Ranger (Stalker)
Alignment: Neutral Good
Place of origin: Athkatla

Valygar is from a long line of mages, started by his insane evil dimension-traveling necromancer ancestor Lavok. Magic destroyed every single member of his family except himself, and as a result he became a ranger to put an end to his immortal evil ancestor.

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• Aborted Arc: Another romance option for female PCs that was cut short. You can even see some of the leftover romance dialogues in the game file. Like Haer'Dalis, there's now a mod to add it back.
• Backstab: It's a Stalker kit class feature.
• Bad Liar: Edwin accuses him of having some magic training despite his vocal hostility towards it, and his altogether unconvincing attempts to shrug off the accusation don't sway the Red Wizard.
  Valygar: I am no mage! You... you are mistaken in your observations.
  Edwin: Yes. Yes, of course I am.
• Black Magic: Valygar believes the Corthala's legacy of dark magic stains his soul, but it really doesn't. He also tends to assume all magic is like this, even fearing that magic is going to corrupt Aerie, of all people. It's a consequence of being raised in Amn as much as anything.
• Byronic Hero: As close as you can get in this game, anyway. Valygar has a better idea than most of the other good-aligned characters what it means to be a hero and what it can demand of you and your environment to do the right thing.
• Came Back Wrong: His father, when his mother tried to revive him... before deciding to join him in undeath instead, so that Valygar had to kill them both.
• Captain Ersatz: Let's see... black, taciturn, uses a katana, killed his mother, sworn to hunt down others who share his lineage/curse... Hmmm...
• Celebrity Is Overrated:
  Valygar: There's never any surprises with these people. 'Oh, it's CHARNAME come back to town... maybe s/he can solve *all* of my problems!' I would go insane.
• The Comically Serious: Especially against Jan, Imoen, and Haer'Dalis. He has an exceptionally dry wit, and hardy ever laughs.
• Cool Sword: His starting weapon, his family blade, is quite a good weapon, especially against spellcasters, because of the Bleeding effect it causes. Spellcasters hit by it essentially have their concentration broken for two rounds, and because it isn't a poison effect, it works against liches as well.
• Da Chief: In his epilogue he is persuaded to become chief of police, a position he accepts reluctantly at first but eventually grows into.
• Dark and Troubled Past: His mother shared the family obsession with necromancy, and was far more interested in raising the dead than in raising her son. It only got worse when Valygar's father died, and she turned all her attention toward raising him, lavishing affection on his living corpse, before finally becoming one of the undead herself, so that Valygar had to kill them both.
• Deadpan Snarker: With emphasis on the 'deadpan'. So deadpan, in fact, that the others are often taken by surprise when by his occasional jabs, and sufficiently snarky that Imoen and Haer'Dalis are impressed by his wit.
• Does Not Like Magic: And then some, which may be a bit hypocritical given that he can use that same magic he complains about so much.
• Dual Wielding: Katanas, no less.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: Valygar comes from a long line of mages and had training as a child even before he became a ranger. His class, Stalker, gains some mage spells in addition to the druid spells all other ranger kits get.
• Happily Married: In his epilogue he ends up getting married after all. He even has a son. A son who becomes a mage and joins the Cowled Wizards, becoming a prominent agent of reform within its ranks. Oh, the irony.
• Heartbroken Badass: In Unfinished Business, after Irenicus kills his lover.
• He Who Fights Monsters: After Irenicus killed his lover, Valygar swears revenge and becomes vengeful and angry. Cernd picks up on this and advises him not to let it consume him.
• Hereditary Curse: The Corthalas have a long history of necromancy which killed off most of the line. Valygar's mother was from the side branch which eventually inherited their estate in Athkatla, where her newfound obsession with the dark arts eventually consumed her before Valygar killed her himself. With the end result that Valygar Does Not Like Magic, and doesn't want kids, either.
• Hidden Depths: Surprisingly adept at punning.
• Hunter of Monsters: Due to his background, he's dedicated his life to hunting down and destroying practioners of evil magic. As a class, he's a Ranger, the Stalker kit he uses lending itself to tracking and scouting in particular.
• Hypocrite: Despite his constant growling about the evils of magic, he's had magical training, with his Stalker kit adding a few arcane spells to his divine spellbook. Edwin picks up on this and calls him out on it, which Valygar abjectly denies.
• It's Personal: After his lover's death in Unfinished Business, he becomes one of the many people who want Irenicus' head.
• Katanas Are Just Better: He starts with one, an ancestral weapon of his family.
• Lamarck Was Right: Valygar believes his family is cursed to become mages: after Lavok became a necromancer, his entire family line was made up of wizards until he decided to become a ranger. For him this trope still holds true, but in a different way, as his father was apparently a ranger as well.
  • Magical talent/power does seem to run in bloodlines to a degree in the Forgotten Realms, along with various other Dungeons & Dragons settings.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Well, descendant actually, but this is how Valygar introduces himself to Lavok.
• Mage Killer: Although he's not as devoted to it as the wizard slayer fighter or inquisitor paladins like Keldorn, Valygar is presented in-story in as having experience in mage-hunting and gameplay-wise his combination of stealth ability, backstab and his powerful katana (which causes targets to bleed, ruining their ability to concentrate on spells) makes him very adept at it.
• Mistaken for Gay: Bizarrely, it happens to him a few times — possibly an effect of being an Byronic Hero.
• Nay-Theist: He lives in a world where the gods are an inarguable fact of life—heck, he's travelling around with the child of a dead god! But he also notes that many gods are psychotic Jerkasses, so he needs a better reason than their existence to worship them. Which is a pretty gutsy stance, considering the atheist afterlife in the Realms is to be shoved into a teeming wall of slowly-decaying souls for all eternity.
  • That said he's capable of casting divine spells which means, by the rules of the setting, that he has chosen a patron deity to some extent at least.
• Neutral Good: in-universe Valygar is a type 1, mostly wanting to move through the game's story at a regular, even pace but happy to pitch in and do the right thing when possible; he doesn't feel strongly about the rule of law or the defiance of it either.
• Not So Similar: He has a moment of it with Korgan in the second game, when Korgan tries to bond over both having had to unwillingly kill close family. Then it turns out that, instead of giving a Mercy Kill to a zombified father and putting down a delusional, necromancy-addicted mother who was a danger to herself and others like Valygar had to, Korgan killed three of his brothers over their fathers' inheritance being too small to share between them (and it is quite possible none of them were trying to kill him in return). Valygar immediately sours on the comparison.
• Odd Friendship:
  • Valygar will, against his will, become Mazzy Fentan's squire, though he doesn't really resist and comes to enjoy it.
  • Even odder? He's the only good-aligned character who regards Sarevok with respect. When Sarevok asks why he hasn't jumped on the bandwagon, Valygar outlines his reasons: Sarevok is a damn good fighter, his cruel and violent streaks aren't that unusual (especially if Dorn or Korgan are around), he doesn't use magic (which Valygar distrusts and fears) and whatever he did before, he's working for the good guys now. Sarevok is utterly stunned by, but appreciative of, the trust and respect invested in him.
• Parental Neglect: Neglected almost from the day he was born by his mother.
• Pungeon Master: Drops a few choice tree puns on Haer'Dalis. The bard eventually begs for mercy.
  Valygar: Cease your barking, bard, and leave me alone.
• The Quiet One: He'll talk, but usually only when other characters talk to him first.
• Screw You, Elves!: Valygar is less than thrilled with the way the elves handled Irenicus, and will very pointedly say as much.
• Self-Made Orphan: Not that his mother gave him much of a choice.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Occasionally the Manly Man to another guy's Sensitive Guy, like Rasaad and Cernd.
• Ship Tease: His romance with Charname was cut when the developers ran out of time, but there are still hints of tension in his dialogue. His being Mazzy's squire also has traces of this, and a cut banter will have him explicitly explain the situation to Mazzy, who wishes you both well.
• Stealth Expert: Any party using him is likely to employ him as this. He can also Backstab. The in-game explanation is that a) his father was a ranger like him and taught him about tracking and survival in the wild, b) he used to serve as part of a scouting unit in the army, so c) these two life/career choices meshed together nicely.
• The Stoic: Valygar would prefer to be this, though he won't shy away from calling out evil where he sees it.
  Valygar: I have little to say to anyone, usually. And that is by my design.
• The Straight Man: Jan does this with everyone, but Valygar seems especially unwilling. He can actually shut him up by telling him his own story about his family.

Mazzy

Mazzy Fentan

"Adventure and virtue mesh well, I think."

Voiced by: Jennifer Hale

Race: Halfling
Class: Fighter
Alignment: Lawful Good
Place of origin: Trademeet

Mazzy is a halfling fighter and Truesword of Arvoreen, the halfing god of defense — she would be a paladin if AD&D rules had allowed or it. As it is, she's the closest thing to a halfling paladin possible. She's beyond good, among the most goodhearted and forthright of your companions. She traveled with a previous adventuring party until their defeat at the hands of the Shade Lord. She follows you mostly because you saved her life.

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• Action Girl: She's a full-plate wearing, sword-and-shield wielding fighter by class who aspires to be a paladin. It comes with the territory.
• Berserk Button: Downplayed with her size: Mazzy is implied to have had a long history of people not taking her seriously as a halfling warrior, and tends to respond to anyone dismissing her by pointing out her size or calling her "cute" by immediately getting suspicious at best and outright getting hostile at worst. A short quest you can gain by taking her to the Slums involves Mazzy challenging Gorf the Squisher to a Duel to the Death over what starts over an insult over her size, though Mazzy only challenges him to an actual fight after he crosses a line by beating a passer-by unconscious just to prove a point on how much bigger he is.
• Big Eater: Implies it herself, even if it is a halfing stereotype.
  Mazzy: Call me a halfling if you must, but I find myself incredibly hungry at the moment.
• Bow and Sword in Accord: Her default proficiencies are in the short bow and the short sword, and she starts out with a unique example of the latter only she can use.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Both during the game, and in her character epilogue. Fortunately, it doesn't cause any problems for the player, though she encourages you towards altruistic behavior.
• The Comically Serious: She's not amused by Korgan's crude come-ons.
• Cute Bruiser: She is called one in-game, repeatedly. Since it usually involves being dismissed, it's a quick way to earn her disapproval, if not ire.
• David Versus Goliath: A very minor quest has her solo an ogre, but given how powerful she is and how quickly the fight is likely to end, this could count as a subversion.
• Deadpan Snarker: A downplayed example, but she gets her moments, especially when Korgan or Edwin hits on her.
  Mazzy: [to Edwin]: When science finally locates the center of the planes, I'm sure you'll be taken aback to find that you're not it.
  Mazzy: [to Korgan]: What's in your wineskin, bellybuilder? A potion of delusion is my guess.
• Expecting Someone Taller: NPCs are constantly commenting that they didn't expect such a renowned hero to turn out to be a halfling, which gets on her nerves.
• Fake Brit: A rather posh one at that. As noted below, she's voiced by Canadian actress Jennifer Hale.
• Glacier Waif: Usually the toughest members of a party don't tend to be Halflings, but Mazzy's 16 constitution and fighter hit dice means she can take a punch and keep going. She is also the character capable of achieving the best armor class in the game without using magic (as she can wear full plate and a shield and has a natural 18 Dexterity).
• For Great Justice: Though she tends to be a bit more subtle about it than Minsc or Keldorn, she'll offer congratulatory remarks if your Reputation climbs.
• Good Is Not Soft: Probably the outstanding example, even among your good party members. She's kind, altruistic, and perfectly capable of kicking ass, as Gorf the Squisher found out the hard way.
• Healing Hands: One of her paladin-like powers.
• Hero-Worshipper: Of Keldorn, who she idolized while growing up.
• Hobbits: And a nice variation from the typical goodhearted-but-mischievous-rogue type.
• Hope Bringer: One of her unique special powers is the ability to inspire courage in allies.
• Hour of Power: Mazzy has several unique self-buffs that mimic certain cleric spells, granted to her by Avoreen. Amongst others, she can increase her strength to a very good 18/75 for a minute several times a day.
• Ideal Hero: Contrasting the other shorty fighter, Korgan. Not to mention a certain other paladin wannabe... For that matter, even Keldorn has problems at home. Mazzy, meanwhile, is never anything but noble and true.
  Mazzy: Our virtue will guide the way. We shall not falter.
• I'll Kill You!: In her personal quest she challenges Gorf the Squisher to a duel after he harms an innocent in her presence. Though she won't fight anyone in the party to the death in the base game, she's not above threatening evil party members (and Charname if their Reputation dips too low). She will come to blows with Hexxat in the Enhanced Edition, however.
• Knight in Shining Armor: More so than any other character in the series, with the possible exception of Keldorn, who was one of her childhood heroes.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": When Keldorn compliments her in Throne of Bhaal, she's delighted, mentioning that she's idolized him since she was a girl.
• Lady of War: She's got the personality and the asskicking ability in spades, but because of her stature other characters don't seem to take her so seriously.
• Lawful Good: in-universe The most honorable and morally upright kind imaginable, without being Lawful Stupid.
• Long-Range Fighter: The only warrior NPC in the second game who clearly favors her bow over her sword, having maxed out short bow proficiency by default if her level allows it. Doesn't mean she's a slouch when forced into melee combat though. Quite the opposite, in fact.
• The Lost Lenore: Patrick is this to her. In a conversation with Valygar, she implies that she may never really get over him.
• Love Potion: Her main sidequest involves saving her sister from a dodgy love potion. It turns out to have been a specially created poison by a priest of Talona.
• The Napoleon: Downplayed. She doesn't like it when people picks on her due to her size, but she doesn't overcompensate for it. When Minsc compliments her on being so powerful in spite of being so short, she accepts it as a compliment after realizing that Minsc is too earnest to use Double Speak to insult people.
  Mazzy: Through acts of kindness and by living the example, I see no reason I should be denied this. Do you think me not fit because of my parentage?
• No Fourth Wall: At one point, Aerie asks why Mazzy isn't officially a Paladin, to which Mazzy will reply that halflings can't become Paladins. Aerie comments that, not long ago, all halflings seemed to be thieves (like in first edition D&D) and that another paradigm shift might come along, and Mazzy's response is that the gods aren't just going to come out and make a 'third edition' of the world.
• Odd Friendship:
  • She will, completely of her own accord, appoint Valygar as her squire. While he protests at first, he'll eventually just roll with it, and is later genuinely grateful to her for the honor.
  • She also gets along very well with Minsc, despite about the only thing the two have in common being a dedication to goodness. Should Mazzy fall in battle, Minsc has a chance to go berserk in order to avenge her.
  • While Mazzy is openly hostile to several of the evil party members (though she will not fight any of them), she is surprisingly tolerant of Korgan despite him being the one who goes most out of the way to annoy her.
• The Paladin: What she aspires to be, and she certainly acts the part, but only humans could gain the powers of a paladin at the time, though she does gain a few unique powers which the average fighter doesn't have. If only she'd been born one edition later, she'd have gotten her chance. 3rd Edition was actually released during the game's development, which is she alludes to, and scoffs at, in a banter with Aerie.
• Pintsized Powerhouse: One of the best fighters in the game, despite being the size of an eight-year-old girl.
• The Pollyanna: Even after suffering the loss of her entire party and her lover, she picks herself up, exacts righteous justice on the abominations that killed her friends, and keeps adventuring with a new set of (ideally) noble companions.
• Rain of Arrows: Almost inevitably, Mazzy will end up the party member with the highest amount of Attacks per round when she is using a Shortbow (no less than 4 by Level 13, when most of your other party members are stuck with ca. 2.5). Give her the Tuigan bow and she will have 5.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Her relationship with the now-deceased Patrick was built on this. She rejects Korgan so strongly in part because he's a bad man.
• Tragic Monster: What becomes of her former companions — they are transformed into shadows, ethereal undead beings of living darkness. Especially tragic is Patrick, the love of her life.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Will give you a speech to this effect if you don't behave uprightly.

Keldorn

Lord Keldorn Firecam

"Do not take honor in fighting with my presence. Take honor in that you fight for good, for that is my source of strength."

Voiced by: Roger L. Jackson

Race: Human
Class: Paladin (Inquisitor)
Alignment: Lawful Good
Place of origin: Athkatla

Keldorn Firecam is the paladin of the Baldur's Gate series. The classical Knight in Shining Armor, Keldorn strives to do good and remain honourable in all his dealings, but when the law directly affects him and his family things become more complicated.

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• Apologetic Attacker: If you have him along and your Reputation dips into outright Evil territory, he will leave the party and become this.
  Keldorn: Forgive me, but if there be godly blood in you, then I must spill it. It is my destiny and always was.
• Ascended Extra: Sort of. He's the only non-playable character from BG who becomes playable in BG2; He doesn't actually appear in the first game but he's mentioned in Ajantis' background.
• Badass Boast: If you have him along when you challenge Firkraag, he offers one of these, with a healthy dose of Bring It:
  Keldorn: Come, then, dragon! With my last breath, if need be, I shall defy you!!
• Battle Cry:
  Keldorn: Good is on our side this day!
• BFS: His personal one, the Hallowed Redeemer, is a greatsword that counterattacks anyone who strikes him in melee with a blast of magical energy. He's also the only recruitable NPC capable of wielding Carsomyr.
• But Now I Must Go: In the good ending to his personal quest, he leaves the party in order to stay with and reconcile with his formerly estranged family. That said, you have the option of subverting this by returning to his mansion the next day. He and his family will happily tell you that their problems are now cleared up, leaving him free to join your party again.
• The Comically Serious: Occasionally, at least compared to Jan, Imoen, Yoshimo, and the like. He's not Valygar, though — he knows when to be serious, how to lighten up, and when feigning seriousness is going to be funny in its own right. Not for nothing is he listed as having Charisma 18.
  • His humor is a lot more subtle and less frequent than the others, but most definitely still there. Heck, at one point Yoshimo starts singing a rather ribald verse he claims to have found scribbled in the margins of a holy text, then halfway through stops and apologizes to Keldorn for his language. Keldorn promptly finishes the verse, much to Yoshimo's astonishment, going so far as to imply he was the one who scribbled it in the book while an initiate several decades earlier.
• Continuity Nod: If he's there when you wind up killing Ajantis, Keldorn recognises him and is, naturally, upset.
• Cool Old Guy: Just radiates warmth and dependability. Look at that portrait.
  • For a veteran paladin, he's also surprisingly fine with having a twenty-one-year-old order him around. This is especially the case if Charname is a paladin of the Order themselves, as Keldorn technically outranks them.
• Dump Stat: Dexterity. It's just high enough to avoid penalties to his Armour Class.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: His One-Man Army ending earns him a place at the right hand of the freaking god of honour. His patron diety personally claimed him upon his death. That can't happen too often.
• Fantastic Racism: The one chink in his otherwise impeccable morality: he is utterly unable to abide the Drow Viconia and will actually try to kill her if you keep them together in the party for too long. Granted, she is evil, but it's not like she does anything particularly death-worthy in front of him unless you tell her to.
  • Even so, the way he fanboys over Drizzt Do'Urden suggests he might have eventually been able to look past her race if it weren't for her attitude and choice of deity. Similar to Rasaad, there are hints that Keldorn's lingering doubts are multiplied by her worship of dark goddess Shar. In his eyes, she's merely traded one evil for another.
  • He has a similarly dim view of Sahuagin, suggesting that you simply kill them rather than take a side in their civil war. Given that some of them are actually pretty reasonable and decent individuals, this one is much harder to justify.
• The Fettered: He is a paladin after all. Bringing him along sometimes railroads you onto the good way to resolve a situation (other times you don't have to take it, but he won't stick around if you don't).
• Foreshadowing: In a one-on-one conversation with the player, he reveals he was in contact with his order and asked them to research prophecies about the Bhaalspawn. He mentions the strong likelihood that their parentage might damn them to the Abyss no matter how good they were in life. Unfortunately, this turns out to be the truth.
• For Great Justice: Does a paladin need any other motivation?
• Gameplay and Story Integration: None of Keldorn's physical stats are maxed out. In Dungeons and Dragons, characters start suffering penalties to physical stats once they're past middle age (50 for humans), so Keldorn having lost a point of strength, dexterity and constitution with age makes perfect sense for an Old Soldier.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: He's literally and figuratively scarred from a lifetime of battling evil.
• Humble Hero: In Throne of Bhaal, if he hears a rumor that they're putting a statue of him in Athkatla, he seems to genuinely disbelieve that he deserves such an honor.
• Infinity +1 Sword: He's the only recruitable character capable of wielding the Carsomyr, the Holy Avenger.
• Justice Will Prevail: It's the ideal to which he's devoted his life, but he seems unsure of it at times.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Somehow even more than Mazzy.
• Knight in Sour Armor: He's more world-weary than outright cynical, but it's close.
• Knight Templar: Subverted: his class (Inquisitor) lends itself to this image, his abilities are all anti-magic and he lives in a heavily anti-magical city, and he follows extremely strict rules he doesn't hesitate to enforce, but he's no Knight Templar. Unless Viconia is around. Keldorn will probably come to blows with her due to her being both a drow and a worshipper of Shar.
  Keldorn: Where men gather, a bustle of chaos ensues. I would save them all, if I could.
• Lawful Good: in-universe Obviously. And a spectacular example of a paladin who isn't Lawful Stupid. Most of the time anyway.
• Lawful Stupid: He subverts the trope awesomely, managing to be righteous in almost every sense of the word. But even he has his flaws; just ask Viconia.
  • In fact, his conversations with Anomen seem like a direct Take That! to the Lawful Stupid trend.
  • There are some smacks of this, though, in his interactions with Cernd. He fails to understand how Cernd can be a good person without being Lawful Good, and when Cernd makes an argument that good and evil, law and chaos are shifting tides best balanced out, Keldorn refuses to accept that any path except Lawful Goodinvoked is an acceptable one, which annoys Cernd.
• Loved I Not Honor More: Even though he's married with two daughters, his duties to the Order come first. This trope was the basis for his marriage, but it is nevertheless deconstructed in his personal quest. How brutal that ends up being for Keldorn and his family is down to player choice.
• Mage Killer: His class kit, the Inquisitor, specializes in putting the squish in Squishy Wizard. They trade the majority of the classical Paladin features for a small number of incredibly powerful Anti-Magic abilities, which provide an easy shortcut for dispelling their protections. Since many players struggle with the many Mage fights in the second game, Keldorn tends to end up Top tier on many NPC ranking lists. More experienced players generally know ways to defeat spellcasters without his help.
• Married to the Job: Quite reluctantly so, as his main sidequest makes clear.
• Mutually Exclusive Party Members: Being an incorruptible agent of Good, Keldorn will (ultimately) refuse to spend his time in a party that includes any of the following: Viconia DeVir, Dorn Il-Khan, Edwin Odesseiron or Hexxat. If Anomen fails his knighthood test, he'll become incompatible with Keldorn too.
• Nice Guy: He's never anything but polite and courteous so long as you aren't an evil-aligned teammate.
• Odd Friendship: Only really odd because he's a paladin — but then again, Keldorn is not the usual humorless, bucketheaded, Lawful Stupid paladin, like, say, poor Ajantis.
  • Keldorn and Minsc. Despite being opposed on the Law/Chaos scale, Keldorn can respect anyone who pursues justice.
  • An even odder one with Haer'Dalis. They trade barbs, but with apparent genuine humor and warmth. Keldorn, a native Athkatlan, is also a fan of theatre and music.
  • And even odder yet with Korgan, who is Chaotic Evil. Good thing Keldorn can't cast priest spells, like, say, Detect Alignment. They bond over their shared experience as soldiers — and, as Yoshimo can also attest, they know the same bawdy songs. Keldorn also expresses admiration for Korgan's fighting skills more than once.
• Old Soldier: As a gray-haired fiftysomething he's also one of the highest-ranking paladins in Amn, swings a mean greatsword, smites evil left and right with extreme prejudice. In his character epilogue, dies heroically after single-handedly fighting off an army of giants.
• One Last Job: A heroic example, if you take him along after he reconciles with his wife. He promises Maria that he will resign from the Order and stay home for good once he's finished helping you.
• One-Man Army: In his ending, Keldorn faces down a horde of giants by himself, albeit being fatally injured and dying in the end. Even the gods are impressed by that one. Heck, after he dies the hand of the god of Justice personally reaches down and carries him to the afterlife.
• The Order: A ranking senior paladin of the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart, which has its headquarters in Athkatla. His division of the Order bestows membership on paladins who not only have served well but have also made it to the age of forty, as battling evil tends to be hazardous to one's health. Ajantis from the first game and Anomen from the second are both junior members of the same order.
• Overrated and Underleveled: He is some 30-40 years older than most of the other cast members (and it is clearly stated that he was very active the whole time), but he doesn't have much more XP points than your other party members and is the same level as you, a 21-year old adventurer who has travelled for only one year. Ironically, the much younger Anomen has actually more XP points than him, being a Dual-Class character.
  • Most of his stats are excellent — he has 17 Strength, 17 Constitution, 18 Charisma, all important for a Paladin — but his Dexterity is 9. This means that unless he gets The Brawling Hands, an item that maxes out Dexterity, none of his ranged attacks will actually land, and he'll get hit a lot. Mind you, the difference between a 9 dexterity and an 18 is only +2 to hit with ranged weapons, so as a full warrior class he'll still hold his own with a crossbow at the higher levels.
• Retirony: A downplayed example in his character epilogue. When he dies after defeating a horde of giants, he was already retired for five years, but was press-ganged into fighting anyway due to the urgent need for skilled fighters.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: And still fighting hard anyway. Years of combat have taken its toll, however — in Throne of Bhaal, he tells Anomen about how a lost battle and the subsequent Cold-Blooded Torture killed off most of his unit.
• Silver Fox: Imoen distracts him from one of her pickpocketing operations by hitting on him, and his flustered reaction implies that it's not uncommon.
• Team Dad: He acts this way toward Anomen, Mazzy, Charname and several other characters.
• To Be Lawful or Good: In his sidequest, his less-than-ideal domestic situation forces him to choose between Lawful — designated as the bad choice — and Good — designated as the good one.
• Token Good Teammate: Evil-aligned players sometimes try to keep him around for his anti-mage tanking capabilities and his ability to wield the game's Infinity +1 Sword, but it's hard to pull off since he is liable to protest when the protagonist does something wrong and doesn't like Viconia; it's especially difficult given that he will refuse to work with many of the more useful Evil characters such as Dorn.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: In the subplot with his wife, who has taken a lover because she's lonely, it's possible for the PC to get his wife put in jail and her lover executed, causing Keldorn's children to hate him forever.
• What the Hell, Hero?: As is suitable for a Paladin, he will complain vociferously and/or leave the party forever if you don't behave uprightly.
  • A good example is that should Charname take up Bodhi's offer as opposed to the Shadow Thieves Keldorn will leave the party promptly and will not be recruitable again.

Cernd

Cernd

"A bird in hand gathers no moss... or... some such."

Voiced by: Jason Marsden

Race: Human
Class: Druid (Shifter)
Alignment: True Neutral
Place of origin: Athkatla

Cernd is a druid who intentionally inflicted himself with lycanthropy for... some reason. Despite being an okay guy, his lack of personality quirks and defining traits beyond lots of nature similes makes him quite... hmm... wait, whom were we talking about again?

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• Awesome, but Impractical: Many players have noted that his werewolf form, while cool, doesn't suit his stats at all — or line up with his personality. A small but popular game mod exists that turns him into a Totemic Druid (who summons animals instead of shapeshifting) instead.
  • The thing with the mod, though, is that it increases his stats by fourteen points as well. Depending on the player, this can either be seen as an improvement or as cheating. Every character in the game has their strengths and weaknesses, and figuring those out can be part of the fun. The Shapeshifter Rebalancing part of the BG2 Tweaks mod pack can be installed that makes his shapeshifting more powerful without changing his stats.
• Bad Powers, Good People: His chaotic, vicious werewolf side has no effect on Cernd's mature and easygoing demeanour.
• Benevolent Boss: Towards a druid Charname and Jaheira. Technically, Cernd is the most senior druid in the party since he's served nature longer than either, but says to Jaheira he considers her an equal in the group and asks that she reserve any boss-employee mannerisms for official druid functions. He also picks up on the fact that Charname is a Bhaalspawn but chooses not to hold it against him/her, reasoning that being a Bhaalspawn doesn't get in the way of being a good person.
• Beware the Nice Ones: As friendly as he is, screwing around with nature makes him mad, and he happens to be very hammy when battle comes along.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: How some of the other party members seem to see him, which is not helped by his many Koans. He's used to it.
  • Notably, Keldorn is unable to figure him out, noting that he doesn't seem like a bad person but doesn't subscribe to a strong moral code, which is something of a paradox for someone who's The Paladin.
• Braids, Beads and Buckskins: Though Cernd's race is not clear, he does dress like a Magical Native American, at least in his character portrait.
• Category Traitor: His attitude towards the Shadow Druids; Faldorn's recklessly destructive use of her talents gives an idea why.
• Commonality Connection: On how he fights for nature as Minsc does, just not as directly:
  Cernd: The great oak might crush a building when it falls, but the sapling that seeps its roots through the foundation will stop the building in the first, lest the cellars leak and fungoids take the builders.
  Minsc: Confused looks from all sides, but Minsc understands!
• Cryptic Conversation: Constantly speaks in very indirect metaphors and similes, which tends to frustrate your other companions. And Charname, too, quite possibly.
  Cernd: The great wind that shakes the tree causes many that dwell there to fear for their safety and curse the bluster. The same wind will cause many a nut to fall, and in this the forest is renewed, providing even more space for those that fear.^note All that just to describe Minsc.
• Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Or at least thinks he did. Nobody else thinks so. Not even his son, who takes his constant ignoring him so bitterly he becomes an evil wizard pretty much for the sake of wiping out druids.
• Disappeared Dad: Not something you traditionally associate with druids, but that is in fact his subplot.
• Druid: His class, of course, though he fits the trope better than Jaheira does.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Several party members diss him just for being a druid.
  Dorn: Perhaps the phrase "druid fool" is redundant.
• Extreme Doormat: While trying to track down his wife and son he gets some serious abuse from the people he talks to, including an invocation of That Man Is Dead from his old neighbour Igarol. Cernd puts up with it, however, admitting their contempt and venom towards him is well-earned.
• Facial Markings: Presumably they are an aspect of his druidism, though there exact meaning is never explored.
• Foil: To both Jaheira and Faldorn, the two druids recruitable in the first game. Jaheira is a brash, snarky warrior-priest, whilst Faldorn is a savage, borderline psychotic anti-civilization fanatic. In contrast, Cernd is gentle and easy-going. Jaheira, ironically, is probably closer to civilization, since she even is able to wear metallic armor. Faldorn, as a Shadow Druid, is an ultra-primitive, being unable to even use metallic weapons. Cernd sits somewhere in the middle, being equally adept using his human brain to master druidic magic and embracing the savagery of nature to tear his foes apart with his bare hands and teeth as a werewolf.
• Foreshadowing: While talking with Charname about their Bhaalspawn heritage he says, in metaphor, that parents have to accept that they can't control how their children end up. This has all kinds of overtones for his relationship with his son.
• Gaia's Vengeance: In theory he could draw upon some seriously destructive abilities, such as storms, earthquakes and wildfires. Dorn asks why he will not make use of these destructive powers to wipe out civilization in nature's defense. Cernd reasons that "the Mother" (namely, his patron deity Chauntea the Earthmother) loves all life, not just wildlife, and that killing sapient creatures without real cause would be immoral.
  Dorn: You are weak.
  Cernd: Perhaps, but I am no murderer.
• The Generic Guy: Probably the least memorable playable character of what was by-and-large a very memorable cast. Especially when you consider that almost everything he can do, Jaheira can do better. That said, he's not necessarily bad, just... a bit bland.
• Glorified Sperm Donor: How his former wife and son end up feeling about him.
• Green Thumb: Part of being a druid.
• Hero Worship: Jaheira fawns over him since he's a higher-ranking druid; he asks her to cut back on it.
• In Harmony with Nature: Standard operating procedure for a druid. He actually has a unique cloak made of leaves that exists because, after walking outside in a storm with no protection, Nature essentially told him he didn't need to be in that much harmony.
• Koan: Cernd makes frequent use of these in conversation, some of which are meaningful, some of which are meaningful but pointlessly elaborate, and some of which are just plain gibberish.
  • Sometimes he is called out on it...
  Cernd: As the trees are buffeted and snapped in the face of the gale, I shall be as the bamboo and flex.
  Charname: Oh shut up.
  • And sometimes he abruptly snaps out of them for emphasis.
  Cernd: As the simple wasp must coerce the flower to release its nectar, so will I rip your throat from its moorings and drain your lifeblood if I do not see Deril and my child! UNDERSTAND?!
  Charname: Odd time to grow a spine, Cernd.
• Loophole Abuse: Likely thanks to his high wisdom score, Cernd can suggest to the Spectator Beholder how he could be a Literal Genie, without the player needing one.
• Magical Native American: His portrait combined with this class seem to be going for this. His in-game personality and backstory don't make much of it, however, and he was born and brought up as a farmer in Amn before becoming a druid.
• Malaproper: Cernd's most notable characteristic is his bad habit of mixing and matching sayings.
• Married to the Job: Despite having a top-notch Wisdom score, Cernd continually makes the wrong choice when it comes to choosing between his duty to nature and his family. This comes back to bite him in the ass in his epilogue: his son becomes an evil wizard, assembles a huge army and goes on a rampage, forcing an ashamed Cernd to abandon his position as High Druid and confront him. It ends in a Mutual Kill.
• Mood Whiplash: Given his nigh-eternal calm and peace-on-earth attitude, it's a bit of a shock when he turns out to be just as hammy as the rest when it comes to combat shouts.
  Cernd: THE SILENCE OF NATURE WILL CLAIM YOU!
  Cernd: Nature strikes!
  Cernd: For the greater balance!
• Nature Hero: Just like Jaheira. Cernd's recruitment quest shows he believes in protecting nature, but also ensuring it maintains a healthy relationship with civilisation.
• New-Age Retro Hippie: The Dungeons & Dragons equivalent. He still kills people when necessary.
• Nice Guy: Even if you don't always understand what he's saying, Cernd is usually unfailingly polite and inoffensive. The few times when he isn't, he has a good reason for it, like when Viconia mocks his druidism.
• Offing the Offspring: Cernd is ultimately forced to do this to his son, Ahsdale, who is attempting to engage in an epically indiscriminately destructive form of Calling the Old Man Out. Doesn't stop him committing Patricide on Cernd after being struck down.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: Despite the fact that werewolves are canonically Always Chaotic Evil in this setting, Cernd's a pretty peaceable guy.
• Parental Abandonment: Cernd was the one doing the abandoning, though he didn't know it at the time.
• Promotion to Parent: Cernd initially takes responsibility for his son after his ex-wife is murdered, but then quickly abandons him at the Druid Grove to go adventuring again. In the epilogue he does return to his son, but tends to put his duty to nature first, which the poor kid doesn't appreciate in the slightest.
• Protagonist Without a Past: Very little of one, anyway. It's implied he was some kind of farm-worker by his old neighbour and he did have a wife before he became a druid, but Cernd himself doesn't divulge any information about himself to Charname unless the situation forces him to.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Cernd hints that he got sent on a long mission away from his old grove in Cormyr because the Great Druid there wasn't very fond of him.
• Rousseau Was Right: Cernd doesn't hold Charname's heritage against them because he believes they are their own person and Bhaal has no control over their actions or the person they are; his taint grants them powers, and he cultivates an instinct to kill their siblings, but neither affect who Charname is as a person.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: In banter, he's usually the Sensitive Guy to the other guy's Manly Man, especially Valygar.
• The Smart Guy: Statistically speaking, being a character unsuited for close-quarters combat but exceptionally wise and cunning.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Implied as part of his druid spiel. Played for Laughs in a conversation with Haer'Dalis, where Cernd cheerfully tells the bard that a rather animated squirrel gesturing at them is actually hurling a Cluster F-Bomb at Haer'Dalis for stepping on his nuts.
• Stealth Insult: He gets an epic-level one against Edwin.
  Edwina: Why do you stare so, Cernd? No doubt you are to laugh at my predicament, so get it over with!
  Cernd: Why does the King protest? His forests are pilfered, leaving just hills and scrub, but what loss is it? How can it be of value when it was never put to use?
  Edwina: (There is an insult in there somewhere, I am certain. Would that I could stop time and kill them ALL first.)
• True Neutral: in-universe He's the balance-serving, compromising kind. Cernd is concerned about striking a balance between law and chaos, and is not as altruistic as Good-aligned companions but isn't a bad person either.
• Verbal Tic: For some people, he spends a little too much time talking about "balance" for his own good.
• Voluntary Shape Shifting: Due to his choice in class kit, apart from his ability to transform into a werewolf he has no unique abilities.
• You Can't Go Home Again: He misses his old druid grove, but can't/won't go back. He compares it to an unusual rash he had once — fascinating and insightful, but he's glad to be rid of it.

Nalia

Lady Nalia De'Arnise

"I'm going to be someone that gives to the poor and takes from the rich, I am. We've got lots to spare... and it's fun, too."

Voiced by: Grey Delisle

Race: Human
Class: Dual-class Thief/Mage
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Place of origin: De'Arnise Hold

A runaway noblewoman who hates her arranged marriage and wants to support the peasantry, she nevertheless tends to unintentionally think of herself as above them. She joins the party after they destroy the trolls and Yuan-ti that invade her keep

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• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: She's introduced in the Copper Coronet, openly pleading for aid to break the siege of her ancestral keep, which has been taken over by a pack of trolls. It's later intimated that this was the doing of her odious fiance Isaea.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Nalia herself is a fully conscious aversion. Her betrothed/Arch-Enemy Isaea Roenall plays the trope entirely straight.
• Arranged Marriage: Part of what she's rebelling against. Of course, given the kind of person her betrothed is, her reluctance is perfectly justified.
• Black Magician Girl: Gameplay and Story Segregation if you don't use her as a primarily offensive caster, but her dialogue tends to lean toward talk of hurling fireballs, and later, disintegrate spells. A fairly mild example, more of a Soapbox Sadie than a Genki Girl. Graduates to Lady of Black Magic in Throne of Bhaal.
• Blue Blood: Despite her altruistic ideals and genuine desire to help the commonfolk, she's rather naive and still lapses into some aristocratic attitudes at times.
• Break the Cutie: In ToB, she realizes that rushing into the world to perform random acts of generic goodness won't accomplish the sweeping change that she wants, and while she remains a good person, she gets more vindictive and sarcastic. She also mentions that the world's harshness and cynicism is causing her to question her ideals constantly.
• Chaotic Good: In-universe. A classic case, at least at first, due to her stated desire to be the Forgotten Realms equivalent of Robin Hood, a poster boy for this alignment.
• Character Development: In ToB, she goes from Chaotic Good to Neutral Good, spends less time harping on about helping the less fortunate without a plan and more time working within the system. She explains that she now believes going around doing good on the fly accomplishes nothing, or at least very little, and that she must make use of her status and fortune to effect real change — since, as a landowning aristocrat, she is in fact a member of the government, whether she likes it or not. And in her epilogue, she succeeds. To some extent this is what everyone has been telling her all along, but some of the other NPCs think she might have learnt her lessons a little too well.
• Daddy's Girl: She greatly admires her father, and barely even mentions her mother.
• Damsel in Distress: Her subplot ends up with the PC having to rescue her after she's abducted by her fiance Isaea.
• Deadpan Snarker: She has her moments in Shadows of Amn, but it gets more pronounced in Throne — she can be downright biting, thanks to her increased frustration at the state of the world. Being more earnest to begin with and more acerbic later on are some of the key things that gradually set her apart from Imoen.
• Divergent Character Evolution:
  • Originally intended as a Suspiciously Similar Substitute for Imoen, both being good-aligned young mages with thief levels. Then, when the devs decided to spare Breakout Character Imoen from her originally planned Plotline Death, Nalia was changed in a number of significant ways. By ToB, the two are very little alike.
  • Even in SoA, Nalia is a much more passionate, directed sort of good than Imoen — but also naive and self-serious in all the ways Imoen is not. Nalia had a sheltered upbringing in De'Arnise Keep, while Imoen hung out in the tavern with Winthrop, rubbing shoulders with the caravan mercenaries and travelers.
  • By ToB, Nalia has grown up considerably, becoming more closed-off and even more serious, having owned up to her responsibilities and accepted her role as a noblewoman and archmage. Imoen, meanwhile, is still Imoen, through all her troubles. Which is not to say they don't both have a good grasp of who they truly are by the end of the series, in their own ways.
  • Less significantly: Imoen gains her signature pink hair in BG2, while Nalia was given a somewhat more realistic shade of red.
• Exhausted Eye Bags: She's quite bedraggled in her portrait. After having fled the invasion of her home by trolls, umber hulks, and yuan-ti, it makes a certain amount of sense — and when she completes her cynicism upgrade by the time of the expansion, it makes a whole other kind of sense.
• Fiery Redhead: Fairly reserved, although she's genuinely passionate about helping those in need.
• Former Teen Rebel: What she moulds into after Character Development, choosing to work within the systems she decries and use her family's position of power and influence to achieve reforms on behalf of the common people rather than simply running away from home and giving coins to beggars.
• Good Is Not Nice: After taking a level in cynicism, she's more concerned with doing good on a societal level than with being nice to the little people along the way. She even goes so far as to swat down Aerie's well-meant concern over the sharp change in her demeanor. Jaheira, however, approves, much to Nalia's surprise:
  Jaheira: Determined to do good works no matter what the world thinks, is that the gist of it? [...] Then I agree the lecture would be unnecessary. I need say nothing.
• The Good King: She mentions that her father was a benevolent landlord. In her epilogue, she begins striving to become a female version.
• Internal Reformist: What she intends to become in Amn following her Character Development. She makes the point that she's easily the equal of most of the Cowled Wizards, and nobility to boot.
• It's All My Fault: Conversations with Mazzy have the halfling remark that Nalia blames herself for her father's death, and becomes more careful with her magic as a result.
• Insult Friendly Fire: Her reference to Isaea as being a bastard, below. It's not actually commented on in game, but the player character is a bastard.
• Insult to Rocks: In reference to Isaea:
  Nalia: He is a complete and total bastard, and calling him that insults bastards everywhere!
• Just Like Robin Hood: Lampshaded by her quote above, not that we actually see her do much stealing (although she is a thief/mage dual-class).
• Knight in Sour Armor: By ToB she's fully armored up. Those dark circles around her eyes in her portrait take on a whole other meaning — some long nights sitting up fighting the good fight, from the look of it. Jaheira approves, and Nalia, to her surprise, realizes she doesn't mind, despite having once resented this same attitude in Jaheira.
• Lady of Black Magic: A rare case of a character transitioning into this from Black Magician Girl. Just as growing up for Nalia means accepting the birthright she once rebelled against, it also means embracing her power as a mage. It's worth considering what that means in a nation that fears and regulates magic the way Amn does.
• Like Father, Like Son: Nalia got her 'good' noble attitude from her parents, her mother was stated to mingle with the poor against the tastes of her siblings (or in-laws, we're not sure from which family Nalia's aunt is from), and her father gave no crap about status or birthright when it comes to a man's value, he treated everyone based on their merits while still being a good guy.
• Neutral Good: In-universe. In ToB, she trades in the chaotic part of her alignment and becomes Neutral Good, mellowing out in some ways, but becoming more rigidly determined in others. She loses a little fire but gains a lot of steel.
• Not Now, Kiddo: On the receiving end of a lot of this from older, less patient party members such as Jaheira and Korgan... At first.
• Plucky Girl: Not as much as Imoen, but she has a quiet determination that makes her keep moving forward even after losing her beloved father and possibly her ancestral home and birthright to her horrible betrothed's family. If you bring her along with you to the end of Throne of Bhaal, she even gains the confidence she needs to take back what belongs to her and achieve great things using her position.
• Politically-Active Princess: Almost inevitably, given that the noble houses of Athakatla seem to be in a latent state of Cold War.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Drops one on Hexxat in response to her calling Nalia's ideals childish.
  Nalia: You're an evil woman. You know, you talk as though the world has done you some great wrong, and the women you killed somehow deserved what they got. Do you know what I think? I think you're lying to yourself. Because it's easier than facing up to the truth of your own existence. I think you're pathetic. And this conversation is over.
• Rebellious Princess: A noblewoman rather than a princess, but given her antipathy to the hierarchical social order of Amnish society and tendency to sneak off and engage in un-ladylike pursuits such as petty thievery, she starts off as a take on this trope. She later decides to work within the system to achieve her goals rather than defy it.
• Rich Kid Turned Social Activist: Nalia is a wealthy noble daughter wishing to crusade for the poor and downtrodden peasantry, but she's very bad at it on account of having no idea what the lives of the less fortunate actually are like. She grows out of it by the expansion pack.
• Rightly Self-Righteous: Post-Character Development, when she has more than just good intentions, but the arguments to back them up and the plans to carry them out — and a somewhat antagonistic attitude based on the assumption that she can't rely on anyone to help her.
• Ring of Power: Her family's signet ring grants her a +2 bonus to all saving throws, +2 armor class bonus, and 50% resistance to fire. It can't be unequipped, but it's doubtful you would want to.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: As a would-be Robin Hood archetype. She later comes around to the idea that the rules can be used to benefit her cause, but she's still not interested in good publicity or keeping up appearances.
• Sheltered Aristocrat: Her upbringing. She's a bit naive about and obliviously condescending towards the common people at times, but she is nevertheless a genuinely good person and does care about them. Many of her relatives and family acquaintances are straight-up examples of Rich Bitch, which Nalia tries — and, every now and then, fails — to avoid.
• Ship Sinking: You can offer to marry her to keep the De'Arnise estate out of Roenall's hands, but she turns you down. This hasn't prevented her from getting her own fanmade romance mod.
• Silk Hiding Steel: She was never the naive little princess others made her out to be, and always had more backbone than most people gave her credit for, but in ToB, that edge is a lot closer to the surface.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: She gets hit with a lot when she first joins the party... which is then reversed when she takes that criticism very much to heart. When Aerie notes in ToB that Nalia used to be considerably friendlier, Nalia snaps back, with more than a little jaded condescension of her own:
  Nalia: When you have the power to disintegrate someone with little thought, it means you have to be more careful, Aerie. You should know this just as well as I.
  Aerie: There's no need to talk down to me like that. I know what you mean... You just used to care more.
  Nalia: I do care. Whining about how things should be better will not improve things. Attaining the power to make real change might, however. But enough. We've things to do.
• Soapbox Sadie: And she has the misfortune of living in a pseudo-medieval setting.
• Strawman Political: Her initial characterization can be interpreted as a fantasy counterpart to your typical "limousine liberal", ineffectual good intentions and all.
• Stuck Items: The De'Arnise signet ring, naturally.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Is this to Imoen as a dual-classed thief/mage, down to the stats (their most important stats - INT, DEX and CON are identical, Nalia merely trades Imoen's exceptional yet not very useful CHA for an above-average STR, which makes Nalia capable of carrying certain equipment like elven chain that makes Imoen struggle with encumbrance). Class-wise, Imoen dual-classed from thief at level 6 and is a 7th level mage while Nalia did so at level 4 and joins as an 8th level mage, but at the end of the game Imoen ends up a bit more powerful due to those extra thief levels ^note the XP cap in Shadows of Amn is 2.95 million, and mages reach level 17 at 2.65 million, making the 15,000 XP difference between a 4th and 6th level thief immaterial. Neither have 100 in Open Locks and Find Traps and need special equipment to reach the final level. Originally, Nalia was intentionally created as such since the developers planned to kill off Imoen in BG2; and Nalia can still function as a stand-in for Imoen during the part of the game that the latter is unavailable.
• Tagalong Kid: Chafes under this treatment, and seems to bond with Aerie under what she assumes is a shared desire to be taken seriously. Aerie is more reluctant, however.
• Took a Level in Badass: In ToB, she fully embraces her status as one of the most powerful mages in all the Realms. Her personality becomes considerably harsher and more assertive as well, a sign of her increasing maturity and/or cynicism.
• Took A Level In Cynicism:
  • Very much the disappointed idealist. Having found that her impassioned pleas to people's better nature fell on deaf ears in SoA, Nalia takes quite a few levels of cynicism between the the end of Amn and the expansion. With her new, more global way of seeing things, she's the only high-level archmage who really acts her level.
  • She's also not necessarily any less good a person for the change. In fact, her own basic argument seems to be that for all that focusing on changing the system and the greater good makes her a better person, even if it means she can't race to the rescue of the little people the way she used to — she's got responsibilities now. A bit of becoming your parents, perhaps.
• We Help the Helpless: Because this is her attitude, she'll draw some flak from more cynical characters. While she can arguably do more by acting from the top down, there's something to be said for those in need directly.
• We Used to Be Friends: A mild example: in the base game, Nalia seems to go out of her way to try and befriend and look after Aerie. In Throne of Bhaal, on the other hand, she seems to have little patience for her, dismissing her as naive. They don't become enemies, but it seemingly shows that not all of Nalia's Character Development is for the better, and, for that matter, that she might have a ways yet to go.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: In SoA, but by ToB, she's very much grown out of it.

Lilarcor

Lilarcor

"I dunno what you were expecting, but as a sword I'm pretty one-dimensional in what I want!"

Voiced by: Jason Marsden

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A sword imbued with the soul of a dimwitted warrior named Lawrence "Larry" Lilarcor. His favorite hobbies are killing things, mouthing off to his owner, killing things, complaining about not killing things, and, oh yeah, killing things.

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• Ambiguous Situation: The spirit of "Larry" Lilarcor, imprisoned in the sword for all time? Or just an obnoxious enchanted weapon named in honor of an equally dumb man? The in-game description states outright that no one really knows.
• And This Is for...:
  Lilarcor: ...My grandma, who said I'd never amount to anything more than a butter knife!
• Blood Knight: He loves it when you fight and kill things.
• Can't Catch Up: Lilarcor was a handy +3 weapon when first acquired... early in BG2. The problem is he's stuck there, with no opportunity to upgrade him. Once you get even better swords (which are aplenty), you might want to sacrifice his humorous banter for better combat prowess.
• Catchphrase:
  Lilarcor: So, are we gonna kill something now?
• Comic Relief: Stepping in for pop culture reference machines like Xzar from the first game.
• The Ditz: To the degree that his backstory reveals what he was best known for as a human was as an idiot.
• Grail in the Garbage: Rather literally. Lilarcor is found by finding a set of four magical components to undo a spell that keeps him concealed in the sewers underneath Athkatla's slums. Talking to Quallo reveals, somewhat cryptically, that Lilarcor's last owner got so sick of him that he threw him down there and magically bound him to the place; so long has passed since that happened that Lilarcor was able to provide hints as to how to undo the ritual through a combination of bad riddles and the cryptic clues of the mind-addled Quallo.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Lilarcor literally thinks only about killing, with one of its most common "banter" dialogues being to plead for the player to pick a fight. His raging murder-lust is played completely for laughs.
  Nalia: Mr. Lilarcor, have you always been a sword? Have you ever wanted to be anywhere else, like with family or loved ones?
  Lilarcor: Nah, I like it in here 'cause the killin' is easy!
  Nalia: What I mean is, do you remember being a person? Do you remember a time when you were not only made to kill things?
  Lilarcor: Kill one man and you're a murderer, kill a million and you're a god! A sword god! Muahahah!
• Lampshade Hanging: If the player character talks to him, he will point out how odd it is that someone would actually initiate a conversation with a freaking weapon. Granted he's a Talking Weapon, but still...
• Large Ham: So much that you'll have no chance of ignoring his presence, no matter how hard you try.
• No Indoor Voice: What? Talk like a normal person? Never!
• Shout-Out: Makes a lot of real-world pop culture references.
  • I'm the best there is at what I do, and what I do ain't pretty.
  • "My brother's a +12 Hackmaster!"
• Talking Weapon: His flavor text notes that he has passed from adventurer to adventurer, because his comments tended to wear on their nerves.
• Was Once a Man: It's unclear whether it's the actual spirit of Lilarcor that lives on inside the weapon or if it's just a constructed personality modelled after the human. Or whether or not that would make any difference in the slightest; even the weapon description admits that no one knows for sure.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Really, he's a sentient sword. It's only natural that his answer to every problem is "stab it until it dies."
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He really doesn't like forges.
  Lilarcor: FORGE?! Did someone say forge?! Get it away from me, man! It BUUUUURRRRRRRNNNNSSSS!!
• Word of Dante: With Minsc's tendency to go berserk with two handed swords and Lilarcor's cool abilities it's become standard procedure to let Minsc wield Lilarcor. Of course, there are mods which allow Minsc and Lilarcor to banter with other party members.
  Minsc: I have asked Larry many times why he is my sword. I say, "Larry, why are you Minsc's sword?" and he says —
  Lilarcor: Because you got the grip and I got the rip! Yeeaaaaaaahhhh!

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