Imoen as God of Murder Musings

[ckoe]

Some more musings :-)

Jarno Mikkola made an important point. Basically a NG Imoen should always kill an evil PC and an evil PC almost ever could kill Imoen (if she is taken along). How to handle that ? And why should the PC take Imoen along in the first place in BG2 ? Also, a good aligned PC (or NPC for the matter) might be tempted to become the God of Murder for a good and noble cause (i.e. "stupid good" instead of "stupid evil" play style), for example to prevent a greater evil.

Based on the random thoughts above some additional remarks. Probably someone will have to correct  wrong assumptions I make and my limited knowledge, though.

1. As far as I know (and I hope I got that right) original idea was to have Imoen killed by Irenicus in Spellhold. This is in some sense very smart. The PC could still learn that Imoen was a bhaalspawn but there would be never a situation which would force Imoen or the PC to act against each other. The PC would never have to look behind their back. All conflicts one could come up with are resolved (by a murder on top). First she is not there (abducted) and then she is dead. A good aligned PC would of course in any case try to rescue her, and maybe actually succeed with that based on whatever factors ? The writers did not explore this further.

2. Ascension actually gives Imoen bhaalspawn powers and one could consider it canonical. One could conclude from this that David Gaider was very aware of what situation the plot decision of Imoen surviving Spellhold created. But he chose a basically "good" solution to resolve it, no sinister conflict as one could have constructed the story of either the main game, ToB or the Ascension mod.

3. The Imoen Romance mod in its limited way gives also reasons why the PC should keep Imoen (alive). In some sense it is an alternative approach compared to Ascension to resolve conflict. However, as I wrote, it is limited to be foremost a "romance" mod centered on the PC and in some sense superficial in my opinion: It is not about the deeper question how the full recognition of Imoen as a bhaalspawn and candidate to become the new Goddess of Murder could logically influence and change the story, especially if Imoen is in the party the whole time. No romance option is compulsory for finding answers to the question: "would and/or could Imoen become the new Goddess of Murder and how does she relate to the PC on that level" which I find far more interesting.

4. There is a Imoen Friendship mod, but I never looked into it.  I should.

5. No one wrote  an elaborate additional NPC quest to further characterize and develop Imoen yet. With Imoen the PC and the main quest are the NPC specific quest. So what remains is a large pink plot hole in my opinion,  compared to which the Soultaker SoD plot hole is tiny.

[Jarno Mikkola]

1... In the base game, the business of Imoen and Charname souls is that of Bodhi and Irenicus. When you kill Bodhi, Imoens soul is restored. 

Now, if Imoen soul is not strong enough/close enough/old enough to gain Bhallspawn powers at the stage where she looses her soul, which can be considered to be the start of the Spellhold, the power is gone and she is just a muggle afterwards... while the charname's powers have already came to existence in BG1, and while the transition of soul drains the manifested powers away, it just bring forth a greater power, from being closer to death ... that's what happened in Spellhold and afterwards.

... and when you kill Irenicus, he draws you to hell with his death... and you face him again, before regainin your soul, which should restore your original Bhallspawn powers... but you don't get them cause in-game-mechanics-cause the game engine*, that a mod does restore them.

That leaves a lot to roam around. None of the other mod included stuff needs to be anywhere near here.

Quote

2. Ascension actually gives Imoen bhaalspawn powers and one could consider it canonical.

Yeah, or not. See there's that option too. That eviscerates most of this.

*and by this, I mean that in the original engine, the game fails sometimes to manifest innate spells powers if you have too many. And the Bhallspawn powers are innate spell powers. See then link already ... let's hope you so.

Now, let's take a step to where, if Imoen would gain a few powers, she could enfriend the PC and join the adventure, all their friends would be the same, and who do you suppose they would follow ? The player character who is with them the whole time and asks them to join in adventure to rescue a friend... or the friend of a friend that just turns against that friend. Yes, there are Chaotic characters that could do that... but they are not also Good. Well, Tiax ... alright you got one, that's not in BG2, that's crazy enough to pull this stuff. And he is evil.

5.. that's cause it's kinda hard to write on a character that's gone half the time.

Edited November 4, 2019 by Jarno Mikkola