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I have been playing the world’s greatest computer game, Baldur’s Gate, on my new computer. I had actually gotten about 1/3 of the way through it, and then began to find myself running into a few glitches. So I went online yesterday (now that I am back online. Did I mention that I am back online now?) and downloaded a patch for my game. Unfortunately, it was the WRONG patch, and it made my game completely freeze up on me and have to be completely re-installed. Sigh...it is a good thing I love Baldur’s Gate so much!

Anyways, I re-installed Baldur’s Gate on my new computer (did I mention that I have a new computer?), and started playing all over again from the beginning.

My main character is named Penelope Farhaven. Penelope is a half-elven Ranger of Chaotic Good alignment. Penelope is a red-headed gal, and I downloaded her picture from the good folks at Ironworks for use in this game. http://www.tgeweb.com/ironworks/baldursgate1/portraits_08.shtml



Here are her starting stats:

Strength = 18 , Dexterity = 18 , Constitution = 18, Intelligence = 12, Wisdom = 14, and Charisma = 10.

You would think that either intelligence or wisdom would be important attributes for a Ranger, but apparently they are not, lol.

Currently, I have gone through the “pre” section of the game, which takes place in the ‘town’ of Candlekeep, where two separate assassins (as opposed to siamese-twins assassins - wouldn't it suck if you wanted to be a dentist, and your siamese twin wanted to be an assassin?) try to kill Penelope. From there, Penelope’s foster-father Gorion took her out into the wilderness, where he was attacked and killed defending her from armed assassins. Penelope was then officially on the run, joined by her childhood friend Imoen (Hey-a!” and “Whattaya want?” are some of her sayings). Imoen is a female human, and a thief. . Imoen and Penelope soon joined up with the evilly-inclined companions Montaron and Xzar . These two are evil members of the Zentarim, sent out to investigate the iron-shortage going on in this area. They do not like each other much. Montaron is a male gnome, a fighter and a thief. Xzar is a male human wizard, and is quite insane. While Montaron is vengeful and hateful and mutters under his breath about killing others while they sleep (“sleep lightly, taskmaster” and “go suck your blade” are two of his favourite things to say), Xzar has several different personalities residing in his head and will blurt out odd things in a loud voice as he argues with himself – really quite an unstable sort! He says things like "Your voice is ambrosia" and "Stop touching me!" The two are heading south to the town of Nashkel to investigate the iron mines there, and grudgingly agree to let Penelope and Imoen go with them.

The four arrive at the crossroads without too many encounters with wild animals, monsters, and bandits. The evil twosome glare when Penelope turns north towards the Friendly Arm Inn, but she goes towards it because Gorion told her that she could find two friends of his there that were trustworthy.

The Friendly Arm Inn is a former fortress, now operated as a safe haven by a band of gnomes. Included there are a store, an inn, a bar, some homes, and a cleric’s temple for healing. It is here that an even more powerful, magic-wielding assassin tries to take the life of Penelope, but is killed by the group. Shortly afterwards, the foursome meet up with Gorion’s friends, named Jaheira and Khalid. Khalid is a human male, a nervous and stuttering warrior-type , who says things like “Y-y-you have need of me?”. Jaheira is his lover, a take-charge, brash and loud type, a female half-elf who was raised by druids and thus is a druid herself ; she says many boring things like “For the group” and "Better leadership would help``. The two are members of the Harpers, a mysterious organization whose members work behind the scenes to order events for the greater good of all. The duo are sorry to hear of the loss of Gorion, and mention that he had often told them to look after Penelope if anything happened to him; Khalid and Jaheira also happen to be leaving to go south to investigate the Nashkel Mines, and they join the group (bringing the group up to its maximum of 6 people).

Penelope meets up with a lady complaining that her husband’s ring was stolen by a group of Hobgoblin bandits to the north of the Friendly Arm Inn. Penelope agrees to look into this for her. She also meets a lady whose house in Beregost is infested with spiders and wishes the spiders killed and some of her things returned to her. Ever the humanitarian, Penelope agrees to look into the matter. In the upstairs of the inn, the party meets a rude rich man from the great city of Waterdeep who is crying out that he needs his pants pressed at once! Penelope grabs the pants away from him, promising to get them pressed for him at once; but when the party leaves the inn, she goes by his room and throws the wrinkled golden pantaloons back into his flustered and shocked face! Also upstairs, there is a Halfling with a tale of an Ogre to the south who took a magical belt from him in exchange for his life.

The group heads north and confronts several groups of Hobgoblin bandits, then return the ring to the grateful woman. They then head to the crossroads area and investigate the nearby woods, where they discover several burnt and looted wagon caravans – evidence of bandits at work in the area, and well-organized ones. They also stumble across an ogre with an attitude, and after taking him down they relieve him of his magic belt, which Penelope claims as her own (it protects the wearer against arrows).

Penelope’s current group of six has now headed south, past the crossroads, and has arrived in the bustling little city (or larger town, I guess) of Beregost. Farmers on the outskirts complain that their farmhands have run off in the night, and that their cattle are missing or dead.




So, that is where I am currently at in my game. Usually when I adventure in Baldur’s Gate, I end up with the same trusted people in my group at some point, the old safe standbys. My main character, plus Imoen, Branwen the cleric (who says, “Our actions are not those of warrior born!”), Jaheira the druid, Kivan the Ranger (who says very little, but when he does is very polite), and Xan the depressed elven wizard (who sprouts encouraging things like “I don’t even know why we bother...” and ``We`re all doomed...``).

But this time through the game, I am going to try something a little different. I have played this game numerous times, but I have never been able to hang onto Minsc as a character, mainly because he always insists on raiding the Gnoll Fortress and rescuing the witch Dynaheir. And I never have been able to rescue Dynaheir, so then Minsc gets mad and attacks my other party members and we have to kill him.

But this time, this time, I am going to try again, and if I succeed then I will take Minsc and Dynaheir with me on my adventures (replacing the regulars Jaheira and Xan), which will be something new. Stay tuned for more, as we see if I can finally accomplish this or not. I am not sure what Dynaheir is actually like, as I have only seen her as a corpse before, but Minsc is an insane warrior who carries around a rat that he insists is “Boo the giant miniature space hamster” and carries on actual conversations with him.

There are seriously a ton of characters in Baldur’s Gate that you can add to your party. As many times as I have played the game, there are still many characters that I have never adventured with for any length of time. Sigh...so much to choose from, so little time in the day!