The second villain of our tale. A child prodigy, one of such talents that eventually he gained the attention of the Lady of Mysteries herself. Mystra, goddess of magic. She named him Chosen. As he grew, she become more and more to him. A teacher, a mentor, a muse. Eventually, a lover. Perhaps what a god feels is love is not quite the way a mortal experiences it. But he was, after all, a very young man and it certainly felt like love to him.
Mystra keeps us in check. There are boundaries she doesn't let us cross. No matter how powerful a wizard we mortals can become, we never scratch more than the surface of the Weave - dipping a spoon into the ocean. She cannot risk it being shattered again, after she spent so much time picking pieces of it from the ash of Netheril and restoring it to order. Yet every time he was with her, he stood on the precipice, gazing into the wonders that lay beyond. He tried to convince her. He pouted, he pleaded, he swore his ambition was only to serve her better. He knew Chosen of old received gifts, access to what lay beyond the veil, trust. But she only smiled and told him to be contented.
Eventually, she tired of him. What was he, after all, but a mortal plaything in sacred hands? And one that could never be content with what he had, would never stop pushing at her boundaries, like Karsus before him.
He learned that in all of her work of restoring the Weave, she had missed a piece. And of an ancient Netherese tome that contained a tiny fraction of her Weave, locked away and sealed beyond her reach. So he came up with a plan. The only way to earn her favor again would be to prove he was worthy. What if, after all this time, he could return this lost piece of the goddess to herself?
He was mistaken.
It was primordial, ancient, all-consuming. A Netherese blight. Something that should never have been made. When he opened that tome, he should have died. Been unmade in that exact instant. But instead it balled up in his chest - an orb, if you will - and it consumed first his magic, and then his vital self. Its hunger grows. And if it cannot be sated, if it begins to consume itself, then it will erupt. Gale's Folly.
[ in tears making you type all this out. you're valid, gale. this is actually all very interesting. thank god again for masks since most of any response is going on there. it's too bad gale cannot perceive.
[ you could tell me facial expressions if you unmask? (its tuesday week fucking zero) unmask tonite queen???
its really fine not to break kayfabe but it was mostly just transcribing how he explains it in game and ive got a dialogue parser. the power within me. the canon yapper is real. he loves to drop this dialogue in the middle of like invading a goblin camp and youre like. bless your heart gale, sweetie, this can wait until camp. you dont have to stand in front of 14 goblin corpses and explain this RIGHT now. so thats the vibes right now.
he isn’t actually very good at interpreting silence and has little to no idea what war is thinking. its making him! anxious!!! ]
I had a goddess and yet still wanted more. If that isn’t the hallmark of a fool, I shudder to think what is. She … cut me off with good reason.
Whatever this thing is within me will - with or without my intervention - eventually destabilize and try as I might to aim it where intended or to walk it to the furthest, most remote corner of the Underdark, it will at the very least harm the Weave itself. It will likely hurt people besides. My ambition has brought nothing but ruin and pain to myself and others.
that's fine. be anxious. gale should be anxious standing before war. ]
Sometimes, bothersome little ants crawling into your house will somehow make you reconsider everything you've worked your entire life to understand and obtain, and then they would have the nerve to tell you that's a feature, not a flaw. There isn't anything wrong with wanting to understand the fabric of the universe and doing what it takes to hold its answers in your hand.
[ okay well he will listen to that whole little speech, understand it is pretty concerning, but also like. he doesn’t hate hearing someone else maybe believes this instead of just having his knuckled swat again. ]
Ants? Gracious, they must be bothersome indeed.
[ dont say gracious like an 80 year old grandma
anyway, sure. he doesn’t exactly hide the mark, its pretty high up THANKFULLY so he’ll just undo the top fastening of his overclothes and gently tug it to one side so they can see the whole mark. im at the office i cant google gale dekarios tit pictures but its basically a circle on his cheat with tendrils that branch off either side. some follow the veins up his neck, across his cheek and to his eye. theres some deep bruising-color in the circle, but its pretty unassuming apart from that, at least at the moment. ]
For now it is stablized. My mentor was granted permission to bestow some blessing of her devising upon it. Temporarily.
[ hmmm. uses imagination to see gale's bomb (literal) titties. they have on a mask, but raise a gloved hand rest on their chin thoughtfully. ]
Very interesting. [ they could sound less enthused. ] Let's hope your orb of former desire does not cause problems for us. [ lol ] You said it feeds on magic before itself, correct?
As sad of a story as you wrought earlier, I half expected you to say your mother had been consumed by it in front of you.
[ oh, do try. ]
If I find any, I will consider it.
[ their hand goes back into the robe, and when it moves out of the way, there is a word left behind in swimming ink on the front of their chest. TRAITOR. ]
[ the joke surprises him enough he bark-laughs. okay rude!!!!!! but also very funny. ]
Oh, please, if anything could choke the all-consuming maw of the Netherese Orb out of sheer willpower, it would be the indomitable Morena Dekarios.
[ well, he's fuckin nosy, so he's absolutely reading that. yikes! a lot of our npcs have a certain "anything for knowledge" flair that is most definitely a little stinky!!!!!!! ]
Perhaps you should be called Gale of Morena instead. It's difficult to tell whether you are fond of her, or you dislike her, overbearing as she sounds.
[ oh no. a mama's boy. well, he misses the shade of that first part entirely and assumes it is asking for an explanation, so: ]
Ah, yes, as for naming conventions, it is in fact the custom in my home to often take the family name of one's parents. Morena is her given name, and thus would not be the one passed down. So it would be Gale Dekarios. When a wizard reaches appropriate levels of recognition and accomplishment - published spellcraft, guest lecturing, renowned feats of magic and so on - it is quite customary to switch to a moniker to distinguish one's self from a practitioner still in their apprenticeship years. Tara is the one who remains a bit of a stickler for using my birth name.
I hardly mean offense, but I don't know if you live in a cave or not. Nor would it be a problem? Halaster lives in the Undermountain and keeps up with his correspondence and is a perfectly talented archmage. Apart from the insanity.
And your home could be wildly different from my own. I don't know anything about you, which is a problem that could be remedied ... ?
[ hmmmm. they tip their head in the way of looking gale over in appraisal, and the way the robe shifts, they have folded their arms behind their back. ]
I do not exactly see a whole lot of point in forming comradery with others. It becomes messy and, often, dangerous.
[ mirroring the posture, also folding his hands behind his back, though more like straightening up when you can tell you are being Appraised. ]
Then don't consider it camaraderie as much as professional exchange. I've spent rather a good deal of time assailing you of the details of my - what was? Ah, malformation. Which I believe you found rather interesting.
I've seen you perform some spellwork - minor, mostly, but perhaps as you mentioned your power is limited here. Causing your familiar to be held in space. Slowing - or perhaps weighing - the arc of a sword swing to render it ineffectual. You could consider telling me about it.
Or we could waste time discussing the charming interior decoration of your cave, I'm sure.
My abilities here are fine. I do not have a familiar, and I have never had the inclination of summoning one either. The crows are nuisances only, and I could pop each one of them like a grape if I chose.
I do not live in a cave, but I do live where there is no sun except for the times when it is ritualistically acceptable.
To each their own, I suppose. Summoning a familiar is rather a shortcut anyway.
[ OKAY SHADY!!!
anyway gale looks more than a little disappointed that he has been dodged on talking about magic in favor of the cave discussion but i suppose to be fair to ESSEK here he's GOT to stop yapping to these white boys or it'll get embarrassing for him
he hmmmmms. because he thinks he was right on the drow allegations it WAS a reaction. i know what you are. ]
[ it will and i've immortalized my guess in a comment now so it will be even extra embarrassing but listen ive a history of being confidently wrong and im not going to break my streak
he raises an eyebrow. ]
As I said, I was an archmage so in theory anything that falls within the domain of casting for mortals. [ shut up gale. but. he makes a face. ] The Orb absorbed a great deal, and what was left was taken by the illithid tadpole.
[ oh yeah he hasnt explained that yet. oh well leaves it to karlach and astarion ]
As I mentioned, I had to begin my spellbook again and ah ... start over, so to speak. But I am rapidly recovering, you'll find! I suppose I would consider my spellcasting at this point in time to be that of an advanced apprentice with a much larger pool of theoretical knowledge.
[ in dnd terms: he was an archmage, so at least level 18, but after being Orbed and Tadpoled, he got his ass smacked down back to 1st level and has been working his way back up. Functionally he's level 10 right now. ]
Then, if you can convince me over the course of you being here that you are unwilling to accept your demise, I will extend to you one spell from my own repertoire. Not a casual one all wizards must learn, but one from the area in which I study.
You won't be able to practice, or use it here, but you will have its knowledge for the restart of your spellbook.
[ the yapper. well, he hears that and is having a lot of conflicting feelings because of the push-pull of the two wizard emotions (`i should die` and `i shall amass enough knowledge to become a walking god`) are coming to head to head in direct opposition. dreadfully pointed instructions here. ]
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I can understand. [ ??? ] Go on.
[ the snorb. ]
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The second villain of our tale. A child prodigy, one of such talents that eventually he gained the attention of the Lady of Mysteries herself. Mystra, goddess of magic. She named him Chosen. As he grew, she become more and more to him. A teacher, a mentor, a muse. Eventually, a lover. Perhaps what a god feels is love is not quite the way a mortal experiences it. But he was, after all, a very young man and it certainly felt like love to him.
Mystra keeps us in check. There are boundaries she doesn't let us cross. No matter how powerful a wizard we mortals can become, we never scratch more than the surface of the Weave - dipping a spoon into the ocean. She cannot risk it being shattered again, after she spent so much time picking pieces of it from the ash of Netheril and restoring it to order. Yet every time he was with her, he stood on the precipice, gazing into the wonders that lay beyond. He tried to convince her. He pouted, he pleaded, he swore his ambition was only to serve her better. He knew Chosen of old received gifts, access to what lay beyond the veil, trust. But she only smiled and told him to be contented.
Eventually, she tired of him. What was he, after all, but a mortal plaything in sacred hands? And one that could never be content with what he had, would never stop pushing at her boundaries, like Karsus before him.
He learned that in all of her work of restoring the Weave, she had missed a piece. And of an ancient Netherese tome that contained a tiny fraction of her Weave, locked away and sealed beyond her reach. So he came up with a plan. The only way to earn her favor again would be to prove he was worthy. What if, after all this time, he could return this lost piece of the goddess to herself?
He was mistaken.
It was primordial, ancient, all-consuming. A Netherese blight. Something that should never have been made. When he opened that tome, he should have died. Been unmade in that exact instant. But instead it balled up in his chest - an orb, if you will - and it consumed first his magic, and then his vital self. Its hunger grows. And if it cannot be sated, if it begins to consume itself, then it will erupt. Gale's Folly.
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maybe their stillness is sign enough?
but hold on, they have to back-track: ]
You think of yourself as a villain?
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its really fine not to break kayfabe but it was mostly just transcribing how he explains it in game and ive got a dialogue parser. the power within me. the canon yapper is real. he loves to drop this dialogue in the middle of like invading a goblin camp and youre like. bless your heart gale, sweetie, this can wait until camp. you dont have to stand in front of 14 goblin corpses and explain this RIGHT now. so thats the vibes right now.
he isn’t actually very good at interpreting silence and has little to no idea what war is thinking. its making him! anxious!!! ]
I had a goddess and yet still wanted more. If that isn’t the hallmark of a fool, I shudder to think what is. She … cut me off with good reason.
Whatever this thing is within me will - with or without my intervention - eventually destabilize and try as I might to aim it where intended or to walk it to the furthest, most remote corner of the Underdark, it will at the very least harm the Weave itself. It will likely hurt people besides. My ambition has brought nothing but ruin and pain to myself and others.
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that's fine. be anxious. gale should be anxious standing before war. ]
Sometimes, bothersome little ants crawling into your house will somehow make you reconsider everything you've worked your entire life to understand and obtain, and then they would have the nerve to tell you that's a feature, not a flaw. There isn't anything wrong with wanting to understand the fabric of the universe and doing what it takes to hold its answers in your hand.
Show me. Your destructive little orb.
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Ants? Gracious, they must be bothersome indeed.
[ dont say gracious like an 80 year old grandma
anyway, sure. he doesn’t exactly hide the mark, its pretty high up THANKFULLY so he’ll just undo the top fastening of his overclothes and gently tug it to one side so they can see the whole mark. im at the office i cant google gale dekarios tit pictures but its basically a circle on his cheat with tendrils that branch off either side. some follow the veins up his neck, across his cheek and to his eye. theres some deep bruising-color in the circle, but its pretty unassuming apart from that, at least at the moment. ]
For now it is stablized. My mentor was granted permission to bestow some blessing of her devising upon it. Temporarily.
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[ hmmm. uses imagination to see gale's bomb (literal) titties. they have on a mask, but raise a gloved hand rest on their chin thoughtfully. ]
Very interesting. [ they could sound less enthused. ] Let's hope your orb of former desire does not cause problems for us. [ lol ] You said it feeds on magic before itself, correct?
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[ be less into it ]
Correct. For a time, I had to, ah. Feed it. Items of sufficient magical energy. On the upside, my tower was quite tidy after a few short months.
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[ gale ]
Towers should always be tidy.
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[ smiling!!!!!!!!!!!!! but full arthur fist meme. if only he had shocking grasp right now. ]
Well, if you are tidying up and run across a spare set of enchanted boots or magical ring, I would be happy to take it off of your hands.
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[ oh, do try. ]
If I find any, I will consider it.
[ their hand goes back into the robe, and when it moves out of the way, there is a word left behind in swimming ink on the front of their chest. TRAITOR. ]
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Oh, please, if anything could choke the all-consuming maw of the Netherese Orb out of sheer willpower, it would be the indomitable Morena Dekarios.
[ well, he's fuckin nosy, so he's absolutely reading that. yikes! a lot of our npcs have a certain "anything for knowledge" flair that is most definitely a little stinky!!!!!!! ]
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Perhaps you should be called Gale of Morena instead. It's difficult to tell whether you are fond of her, or you dislike her, overbearing as she sounds.
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[ oh no. a mama's boy. well, he misses the shade of that first part entirely and assumes it is asking for an explanation, so: ]
Ah, yes, as for naming conventions, it is in fact the custom in my home to often take the family name of one's parents. Morena is her given name, and thus would not be the one passed down. So it would be Gale Dekarios. When a wizard reaches appropriate levels of recognition and accomplishment - published spellcraft, guest lecturing, renowned feats of magic and so on - it is quite customary to switch to a moniker to distinguish one's self from a practitioner still in their apprenticeship years. Tara is the one who remains a bit of a stickler for using my birth name.
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I am aware of normal naming conventions, Gale of Waterdeep. It's as if you think I live in a cave of some kind.
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And your home could be wildly different from my own. I don't know anything about you, which is a problem that could be remedied ... ?
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I do not exactly see a whole lot of point in forming comradery with others. It becomes messy and, often, dangerous.
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Then don't consider it camaraderie as much as professional exchange. I've spent rather a good deal of time assailing you of the details of my - what was? Ah, malformation. Which I believe you found rather interesting.
I've seen you perform some spellwork - minor, mostly, but perhaps as you mentioned your power is limited here. Causing your familiar to be held in space. Slowing - or perhaps weighing - the arc of a sword swing to render it ineffectual. You could consider telling me about it.
Or we could waste time discussing the charming interior decoration of your cave, I'm sure.
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My abilities here are fine. I do not have a familiar, and I have never had the inclination of summoning one either. The crows are nuisances only, and I could pop each one of them like a grape if I chose.
I do not live in a cave, but I do live where there is no sun except for the times when it is ritualistically acceptable.
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[ OKAY SHADY!!!
anyway gale looks more than a little disappointed that he has been dodged on talking about magic in favor of the cave discussion but i suppose to be fair to ESSEK here he's GOT to stop yapping to these white boys or it'll get embarrassing for him
he hmmmmms. because he thinks he was right on the drow allegations it WAS a reaction. i know what you are. ]
Ah, interesting.
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they scrutinize him thoughtfully again. ]
At what level do you know spells for casting?
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he raises an eyebrow. ]
As I said, I was an archmage so in theory anything that falls within the domain of casting for mortals. [ shut up gale. but. he makes a face. ] The Orb absorbed a great deal, and what was left was taken by the illithid tadpole.
[ oh yeah he hasnt explained that yet. oh well leaves it to karlach and astarion ]
As I mentioned, I had to begin my spellbook again and ah ... start over, so to speak. But I am rapidly recovering, you'll find! I suppose I would consider my spellcasting at this point in time to be that of an advanced apprentice with a much larger pool of theoretical knowledge.
[ in dnd terms: he was an archmage, so at least level 18, but after being Orbed and Tadpoled, he got his ass smacked down back to 1st level and has been working his way back up. Functionally he's level 10 right now. ]
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[ this is a baby. ]
Then, if you can convince me over the course of you being here that you are unwilling to accept your demise, I will extend to you one spell from my own repertoire. Not a casual one all wizards must learn, but one from the area in which I study.
You won't be able to practice, or use it here, but you will have its knowledge for the restart of your spellbook.
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[ the yapper. well, he hears that and is having a lot of conflicting feelings because of the push-pull of the two wizard emotions (`i should die` and `i shall amass enough knowledge to become a walking god`) are coming to head to head in direct opposition. dreadfully pointed instructions here. ]
... Very well. I will consider the offer.
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I'll be waiting.
[ maybe gale will give up on power and knowledge. ]
Returning to your earlier statements. You have another story to tell me.
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