Baldur's Gate (series)

The Baldur's Gate series brought technical advancements over role-playing video games of the past. BioWare's Infinity Engine offers a pre-rendered isometric worldview, with sprite-based characters. Baldur's Gate was the third computer game to make use of the Lua scripting language. The engine was used for Planescape: Torment and the Icewind Dale series.

The games are based on a real-time modification of the second edition AD&D (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons) ruleset. The player's party can have up to six members, either created by the player according to the AD&D rules or non-player characters (NPCs) recruited by the protagonist from the game world. Numerous side quests and plot twists are associated with particular NPCs and can be activated if they are found in the player's party. Through extensive, context-dependent dialogue, many characters inside and outside the player's party are fleshed out and given an added level of complexity.

The Baldur's Gate series features a wide array of characters which the player character could interact with. Some characters could be recruited as party members and accompany the player character in their adventures. Other major characters influence the plot of the game but are not playable characters, serving as either antagonists or supporting characters.

PC Gamer's Paul Dean noted that the series "has always been as much about who these characters were as what they could do". He considered Baldur’s Gate's characters as the cornerstone of the series, and that some of them were the best RPG companions ever written.[28]

• Aerie is an avariel, an elven subspecies that possess wings, but she lost hers as a child when she was imprisoned in a circus by slavers.[29] She was eventually rescued and restored to health by Quayle, a gnome and potential companion in Baldur's Gate. Aerie is relatively young and inexperienced during the events of Baldur's Gate II, and embodies the damsel in distress archetype.[30] She is a recruitable companion, and potential love interest for a male player character in Shadows of Amn; if the romance continues into the Throne of Bhaal, she will eventually bear the player character's child.[31]
• Allessia Faithhammer is one of the protagonists of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II. She is a Cleric of Helm, the god of guardians, protection and protectors. She travels to Baldur's Gate during the events of Dark Alliance II after hearing of the troubles in the city. PC Gamer likened her to a medieval version of RoboCop, a "do-gooder bound to protect the innocent and serving the public", and who "has a neat range of magical attacks at her disposal".[32]
• Anomen Delryn is a warrior priest of Helm, and an acolyte of the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart. Deeply insecure due to his father's treatment of him, Anomen presents himself as a vain and arrogant character, frequently bragging about battles he most likely never fought. He is a potential companion, as well as love interest in Shadows Of Amn if the player character is female. David Gaider noted that Anomen's romance subplot was his very first attempt as a writer employed by Bioware.[30] Depending on the player's actions, he may succeed or fail at his knighthood quest to ascend as a full member of his Order, the outcome of which changes his personality and in-game alignment.[31]
• Edwin Odesseiron is a haughty member of the Red Wizards of Thay who seeks the player character's cooperation to kill a potential companion, the witch Dynaheir, and will join the party if the player character agrees to help him. He may also be recruited in Shadows of Amn, where he may be encountered as an agent employed by the Shadow Thieves of Amn. Progressing Edwin's personal side quest to pursue the Nether Scrolls will result in him changing sex after he attempts to invoke the scroll's power; while the episode itself may have been treated as purely comic relief with no connection whatsoever to a real-world issue, it nevertheless represents an early example of a LGBT narrative being included in a Bioware-made RPG.[33]
• Imoen is the player character's childhood friend and fellow ward of their foster father Gorion, living in Candlekeep where they were raised.[34] She is a loyal companion throughout the original Baldur's Gate series, and her skills as an expert thief may be put to use throughout the Baldur’s Gate series.[32] Childlike and naive by nature, she is forced to endure a series of traumatic experiences during Shadows Of Amn; she is tortured along with the rest of her companions, and is later arrested and incarcerated by an organisation of magic-users known as the Cowled Wizards for unlicensed magic use.[35] Imoen's popularity with the Baldur Gate series fandom was not anticipated by Bioware; the original purpose of her inclusion in Baldur's Gate was to "fill a non-psychotic-thief gap in the early levels" late in the development cycle.[36]
• Jaheira is a half-elf warrior druid and member of the Harpers, a semi-secret organization dedicated to promoting good and maintaining a balance between civilization and nature. Gorion leaves instructions for the player character to meet her and her husband Khalid after he is killed, although it is optional to recruit the couple into the party. Jaheira is available as a companion in the beginning of Shadows Of Amn, and is revealed to be widowed soon afterwards. She is a potential love interest for a male player character if certain conditions are met; Gaider noted the romantic subplot itself was lengthy in terms of content, but riddled with bugs.[30] Jaheira is one of the most popular and well-regarded characters in the Baldur's Gate series.[29][37]
• Jan Jansen is an eccentric gnome who is an inventor of multiple gadgets which only he knows how to use, and tends to ramble on with lengthy stories that never get to the point.[30] He is a recruitable companion in Shadows of Amn; he is encountered peddling his wares in the city of Amn, which in actuality are dangerous weapons in their own right. Scott Baird of TheGamer.com notes that Jan's inventions could easily fit into the world of Baldur's Gate III, which takes place a century after the original games, especially as gnomes can easily live for over 350 years.[29]
• Jon Irenicus is the chief antagonist of Shadows Of Amn. He is a cold and calculating mage who was first encountered torturing the player character with powerful magic, as part of his experiments in order to divulge the mysteries of their divine ancestry. Originally an elf known as "Joneleth", he was exiled from his home city of Suldanessellar by its ruler Queen Ellesime as a result of his hubris to attain godhood.
• Khalid is an effette half-elf fighter, member of the Harpers and husband of Jaheira. He is a nervous, peace-loving warrior with a pronounced stutter.[32] Khalid, like certain other companions, comes with Jaheira as an inseparable pair; if one leaves or is removed the party, the other will follow suit.[38] Khalid is murdered by Irenicus in Shadows Of Amn, widowing Jaheira and leaving her with survivor's guilt.[31]
• Korgan Bloodaxe is an evil-aligned dwarven berserker, who could be found at the Copper Coronet Inn. He is highly rated as a worthy companion, not only for his combat skills which would prove invaluable for an evil-aligned party, but also for the quality of the banter between him and any good-aligned characters in the party.[32][29]
• Minsc is a berserker ranger from the human nation of Rashemen, with a strong though somewhat unhinged desire to uphold good and be heroic. His animal companion is a hamster named Boo, who he believes is a "miniature giant space hamster" and consults for advice.[37] Minsc is originally tasked with serving as a bodyguard to the Rashemi witch Dynaheir as part of his rite of passage, and is inseparable from her once she is rescued. He is a potentially recruitable companion throughout the original Baldur's Gate series, outliving Dynaheir who is murdered by Irenicus prior to the events of Shadows of Amn.
• Sarevok Anchev is the chief antagonist of Baldur’s Gate, and as a mortal spawn of the dead God of Murder Bhaal, the half-brother of the player character. As a child he was the would-be victim of a sacrificial ritual which was stopped by Gorion and the Harpers, and was later adopted by a member of a mercantile organization known as the Iron Throne, Rieltar Anchev. Sarevok's foster father is a central figure in fomenting the iron crisis in Baldur's Gate to gain power for the Iron Throne, as well as the doppelganger infiltration of merchant rivals. His goal is to take advantage of the ensuring chaos orchestrated by the Iron Throne to kill his fellow Bhaalspawn and ascend into divinity himself.[32] Sarevok reappears in Throne of Bhaal where the player character may restore him to life and recruit him as a party member.[39]
• Vahn is one of the protagonists of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. He is an Arcane Archer, known for their ability to shoot arrows with unerring accuracy, often with additional magical effects. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Vahn quickly finds himself mired in the political and social upheaval of the city of Baldur's Gate, and up against the Dark Alliance led by Eldrith the Betrayer, the main antagonist of Dark Alliance.[32]
• Viconia DeVir is a drow outcast and Cleric of Shar, the goddess of darkness, night, and loss. She is a recruitable companion throughout the original Baldur's Gate series, and a potential love interest for a male player character in Shadows Of Amn, embodying the femme fatale archetype;[30] if her relationship with the player chaaracter continues into Throne of Bhaal, a possible ending in the game's epilogue would reveal that Viconia is murdered by agents of the drow goddess Lolth.[29]
• Yoshimo is a bounty hunter rogue from Kara-Tur who is encountered in Irenicus' complex early in Shadows of Amn, and offers to join the party in order to increase their odds of escape and survival. If taken to Spellhold, where Irenicus and Imoen are incarcerated by the Cowled Wizards, Yoshimo reveals the terrible secret he had been hiding: he was under the thrall of Irenicus all along, and his purpose is to betray the player character as part of the mage's contingency plan.[28] He dies in battle with the party regardless of the player character's choices.[38] Yoshimo is the only Shadows of Amn companion who is not available for the player character to recruit in Throne of Bhaal.

In addition, a number of major Forgotten Realms characters make guest or cameo appearances throughout the Baldur's Gate series. They include Drizzt Do'Urden, Elminster, Jarlaxle, Volothamp Geddarm and Wulfgar.

In 1999, Baldur's Gate won the Origins Award for Best Role Playing Game Computer Game of 1998, and in 2000, Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast won Best Role Game Playing Game Computer Game of 1999. The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences would award Baldur's Gate the AIAS award for PC Role Playing Game of the Year. Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance too would later win AIAS awards for Role Playing Game of the Year, taking the award for both its PC and Console categories in the year 2001.[69] Dark Alliance II would later be awarded the 2004 RPG of the Year Award by the surviving GameFan website, later being inducted into the GameFan Hall of Fame.[70] By June 2001, the series sold more than 3.5 million units worldwide.[71]

Philip Athans, editor of the Forgotten Realms novel line, wrote the first two novels in the Baldur's Gate trilogy of novels: Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, both based on the storylines of the video game series. The novels follow the bare basics of the original stories, but eschew several of the games' numerous subplots and include only a few of the NPCs. The Bhaalspawn main character is named Abdel Adrian in the novels. The third novel - Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal - was authored by Drew Karpyshyn.

• Athans, Philip (June 1999). Baldur's Gate: A Novelization. Wizards of the Coast. ISBN 978-0-7869-1525-5.
• Athans, Philip (September 2000). Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. Wizards of the Coast. ISBN 978-0-7869-1569-9.
• Karpyshyn, Drew (September 2001). Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal. Wizards of the Coast. ISBN 978-0-7869-1985-7.

In July 2014, a comic titled Dungeons & Dragons: Legends of Baldur's Gate was announced to be released in October 2014. It is set generations after Throne of Bhaal, and features Minsc as the main character. It is written by Jim Zub and pencilled by Max Dunbar. It is part of the Dungeons & Dragons 40th anniversary celebrations.[72]

• List of Dungeons & Dragons video games

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