Imoen's arrest is lawful because the organization in charge of the laws says it's lawful. That doesn't make it *right* or *just* or fair or good. It simply makes it within the law.

Not yet. The Cowled Wizard path is in production, in a mod called The Third Way and perhaps another mod working independently, but I don't think either of those involve the Lawful Neutral / Neutral Evil split within the CW's ranks. The Harper, Zhentarim, and Wizard Slayer paths are just stuff that I made up.

[ADD:]Imoen also fires a Magic Missile at Irenicus when the Cowled Wizards are attacking him too. So the fact that they arrest her makes it even more of a "Do as we say, not as we do" affair.

[ 12-05-2004, 04:45 PM: Message edited by: SixOfSpades ]

If Amnish law includes the principle that "ignorance of the law is no excuse," as in US law, then Immy's arrest is perfectly lawful. Which has always led me to think that a truly lawful character would have a difficult time justifying going up against the CW to free her in the first place. Of course, since there's no game if you don't, the question is moot, but this is another case in which the plot and the alignment rules conflict.

It appears from the back-and-forth surrounding the Planar Sphere that the CW are, in fact, split into factions. Since the CW acquiesce in a mage PC taking over the Sphere despite his killing of Tolgerias and flunky, with only a few grumbles, it would seem that the CW are prepared to disavow Tolgerias's actions. Exploiting this possible split for a "third way" is a good idea, but it doesn't really satisfy the wish for a "good" alternative.

The corruption of the CW is not a factor in the "good" organizations deciding whether or not to help the PC. Nor, if Immy's arrest were illegal, would that be a factor. Pourquoi? Because the corruption has been going on a long, long time and the RH and good religions haven't done doo-dad about it. Do you really think the PC is the first guy to go to the church of Lathandar and whine "my friend was taken by the Cowled Wizards, O woe is I, please help?" Why would they act any differently THIS time? D'you think you're special?

The Harpers are also, clearly, split, and might present the only way to provide a reasonably "good" alternative to the others. As discussed above, it would require separating the Spellhold plot thread from the get-the-PC thread. I really can't think of a persuasive way to do this, off the top of my head, without seriously altering the latter plot line, though.

-- Mal

What is the "get the PC" thread anyway?

Hell, you could just say that the Harpers would be interested in eradicating Jonny anyway, because he's meddling in the affairs of an evil evil dead god. The Harpers would help you so you would be able to help them kill Jonny, and thus make the world a better place to live.

Riftmaker, I think that "get the PC" means the Jahiera's "rogue Harper" subplot.

That is why we don't tie it to Jaheira's plot!!! How many times do I have to keep saying that?

It's a whole different kettle of worms tied to the guy that gets poisoned on the side of the road with those thugs. You take him back, do the little harper quest, and after that you are offered an oppurtunity to work with them (or for them) and they will provide you passage to Spellhold in the form of Saemon Haevarian.

That has to be the 3rd time I've said that.

<span style="color: lightblue">Riftmaker's summary is quite good except for one bit of misinformation: Harpers aren't good. Note that they promote balance - paraphrasing a harper in the Galvarey estate . They are conservatives in that they believe the extremes of good and evil to be bad in general. This makes them neutral, and probably true neutral (although possibly lawful neutral: as I've said before, "Lawful" is "folowing a strict doctrine", not necesarily "following the laws of the land"). But here would be their ticket in: Jon is a powerful evil. Once they are convinced of that, they can also be convinced that this means he has to be destroyed.

Six, Third Way won't be dealing with the cowled wizards, as such. G3's Perils of Wisdom does, however.
The main reason both are idle at the moment is a lack of ideas, although this thread is giving me some. One post in particular I found quite interesting... which means, essentially, that Third Way will be restarted in January, as soon as the Limbo site is open.

They promote balance between law and chaos, nature and civilization, and while some members might be neutral, the organization as a whole leans towards good.
To borrow from the Harper Code: "[Harpers] work against villainy and wickedness, keep folk free of fear and tyranny, support law and order to gain peace wherever laws are just and fairly enforced, and to prevent extremes of power and influence and imbalances of wealth and opportunity."
That's not just nonevil, that's good.

But, if say, a truely powerful and immensly strong being of virtue and good was to rise up. A force that had enough power to make all evil fear it, would the Harpers work with it, or work against it as it threatened the balance?

I was under the impression that Harpers, would choose to work AGAINST such a force of good as it threatens the balance between good and evil. Now even though they fight against the good, doesnt mean they are evil, it means they are evening out the scales. So, ergo, the same would apply when they fight against evil would it not? They are not trying to be good, they are trying to keep the balance? But, as is usually the case, evil is always present, and almost always outways the good in the world, which is why the Harpers are usually seen fighting against it.

--Kestrel--

Pray tell, who was this noble soul you got the idea from?

Hm... You raise an interesting point. I don't know if the Harpers would work against it directly. This is a gross imbalance of power, in their eyes, and nothing can truly be immensely powerful and truly good, short of a god. They might refuse to work with it, or perhaps undermine it... But work against it? How could they work against it without doing evil?

However, that is not the debate at hand. The debate at hand is about creating a GOOD aligned alternative to the Shadow Thieves.

Would be a good topic for a seperate thread though.

Hmmm, well. Here are my thoughts on how to make a 'GOOD' aligned alternative. You may not like them, and I won’t be offended, so please be brutal by all means:

After finding and delivering Renfeld to Rylock at the harpers hold, Rylock thanks you for returning him.
After going into the hold, Xzar approaches you, and asks you to go and find Montaron.
Now, rather than sneaking into the Harpers Hold and the harpers using you to kill Xzar without you knowing, they tell you their plan on how to dispose of the Zhent necromancer straight after Xzar approaches you. Rylock tells you that you could aid the harpers rid Athkatla of Xzar or side with Xzar and the harpers become hostile towards you (which would mean Jaheira leaves the party).
Rylock explains that there would be no reward for siding with the harpers, but it is the right thing to do. Siding with Xzar however would be profitable and you would have chance to get Montaron back, be paid and have both Monty and Xzar as NPCs.
If you go through the good path and help the harpers, at the end, Rylock explains that this was all a test to see where your loyalties lie.
He then goes on to explain that their is a reward for helping the harpers after all; passage to Spellhold, for a mere 10,000gp and a few tasks completing (maybe involving more Zhent). There would then follow a number of tasks you need to carry out until you are allowed to travel to Spellhold.

Saemon would still be the guide to Spellhold (seeing as noone else would dare the voyage, and especially at such a low price) and everything would continue on from there as it usually does with the Shadow Thieves or Bodhi.

These are just rough ideas obviously. You guys will probably have better ones to add.

Tell me what you think

--Kestrel--

Up it to 15000 gp, and it sounds good to me.

Hmm, yeah, that seems kind of good, but the harpers need a grand master. Somthing like, Aran Linvail for the Shadow theives, and Bhodi for the vampires. Who is the grand master of the harpers?

What is Elminster's role in the Harpers? After all, he is the one giving Jaheira the Harper pin.

Elm = most powerful mage in the Forgotten Realms. He also seems to be immortal.

I'm not sure if the harpers have a "grand master", but it'd be a good idea to put them in there.

Hmmm, if any of you have played Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance I & II for the consoles then you will remember a character in that who was a harper, by the name of Jherek, who used to give you tasks, helped you fight and whatnot. Maybe he could be the man giving the orders out? I doubt he is the 'grand-master' but he still had some power in the other games, and in his description it said that he was held in high regard throughout the officials of the sword coast, especially in (suprise suprise)Baldur's Gate.

Also some of the tasks could include a quest that involves something with Gorion, an old adversary, or a duty he was meant to perform before he was killed possibly, or something that leads to you learning more about your past? What ever you guys think...

--Kestrel--

Elminster is one of the highest-ranking Harpers... A "leader" of sorts. After the game takes place, the Harpers split into three factions, and he heads one of them.

I'd agree with that. I mean, the impression I get is that the Shadow Thieves lower their price in order to try and match Bodhi's price and convince you to side with them instead. If a third group existed that offered an even lower price, surely Bodhi and the Shadow Thieves would scramble to try and win you over. Of course, the Shadow Thieves are direct rivals of Bodhi's new guild, so I guess they wouldn't care much about the Harpers. But they do use you to get rid of Bodhi, and vice versa, so I'd say both the Vampires and Shadow Thieves would make moves to convince you over to their side.

Aye, I just said 10,000 because you had already helped them out with Xzar, and that the harpers only need the money to pay the expences for the trip there, whereas Bodhi and the Shadow Thieves also need to money to pay for expences of war between each other (or atleast thats the impression I got). But, you are right of course, 15,000 is more logical.

--Kestrel--

Elm is really funny. If you read any of the FR books...there's one where he's really eccentric. Heck, he's eccentric all the time.

I'd love to see him waste Jonny....that'd be amusing.

As I thought. That's why I asked as well. It's not impossible to think that it's actually all coming down to Elminster. He is a powerful Harper, understandably able to deal out orders to (his) Harpers. On top of that, he was involved in your previous adventures in Baldur's Gate 1 (because he was a friend of Gorion's). Not to mention Gorion himself was a Harper as well. There should at least be some affinity between the Protagonist and the Harpers.

And I'm not a total idiot, I know my share of Forgotten Realms lore so you won't have to bother telling me that 'Elminster is a very powerful mage'. ;)

So, what is to be done with this idea for a module? We seem to be sidetracking again so I thought I would get us back on track.


--Kestrel--

I thought we were still right on track. We had determined the Harpers were a good alternative after all and that Elminster was a highly ranking Harper. Now there's some good possibilities in there ;)

I would realy like to see the harpers and the radiant heart join in, and i also think the cowled wizards are an option. They need someone to take down Irenicus, the pc wants to go there anyway, and in the meantime they are getting money to take you there, they can only see pluses for themselves in that deal.

TGTF, we've been over this. The Order wouldn't help the PC go after the CWs.

Sorry, i got bored and couldn't be bothered to read it all. Pardon my lazyness.

I see the Harpers as a mix of Good and Neutral motives. To explain, let me compare them to the Shadow Thief and Vampire guilds.

Bodhi and her Vampires represent a powerful extreme of Evil that is capable of taking over the entire city. The Harpers would naturally fight to utterly annihilate such a guild, as even a single Vampire could quickly vampirize dozens of other people to repopulate the guild all over again.

The Shadow Thieves are another strongly Evil force (walk into any Guildhall and Detect Evil to see for yourself) that has essentially already taken over the city in that they operate almost without interference from the guards--and it's rumored that the Shadowmaster sits on the Council of Six. Now, while the Harpers in the Galvarey Estate say that they would like to see the Shadow Thieves weakened, they would not want to see them destroyed.

I believe that the Harpers' opinion of the Cowled Wizards would be the same as their view of the Shadow Thieves, and so yes, they would sponsor the PC's trip to Spellhold. Whether the player wants to look on this as a 'Good' path or a 'Neutral' path is up to the individual (perhaps the Harper quests could include branching tasks: You can choose to do the Good or the Neutral alternative).

So just out of curiosity, is someone going to make this mod, if so i shall put my cleric/mage game on hold.

Well, if my ideas for the quest is approved then I can write out the dialog. Im no good at the scripting but I can conjure up the convos.


--Kestrel--

I think we would have to assemble a modding team. That means someone who could write scripts. I don't think we can consider putting a team together until we have a scripter.

OK, so the basic outline of the plot (as I see it) is as follows.

~ ~ ~

Gaelan Bayle sets you up with the Shadow Thieves, but you can choose an alternative. A vampire named Valen approaches you and tells you there's she can help you get to Spellhold as well.

While Gaelan Bayle has directed you to the Docks district, Valen points you to the Graveyard district. So the path splits up:

1)Enter Docks District
<font color=red>NOTE</font>The incident with Renfeld should of course change for the following to happen. What I suggest is not a timer, but more like a cutscene when the player is going to travel to the Docks and hasn't been to the Graveyard District before. On the way to the Docks the player will come across Renfeld and his attackers.

~

As you enter the Docks district, you are hailed by a woman (any given name, but let's call her Asheera). She tells you about Xzar, a known Zhentarim and necromancer. Now of course Asheera knows this information, and so do her friends, but the law prohibits them from killing him on the streets. So she wants you to play the game along [what follows is the Quest for Montaron's body]. As we all know, Galvarey and his follower aren't true Harpers so that's why Asheera tells you not to mention her name or that you've talked to her.
If you finish the quest in a good way for the Harpers, you've proven your interests to them (on both sides, Galvarey AND Asheera), but they still remain rather vague about it all. Asheera will only tell you "They are watching you with interest and caution alike, my masters. You will probably hear from us, but know this, <CHARNAME>. Those who have contacted you before are not to be trusted." Galvarey will go on with the usual Harper business that is own to the original Shadows of Amn.

~

The second time you meet Asheera is when you've mentioned her name to Galvarey (if Jaheira is in the party she will advise <CHARNAME> to go speak to Galvarey} or when you've tried to side with the Shadow Thieves or Bodhi. In case of the first, Galvarey will not know who Asheera is and warn the player about her. "She is not a true Harper, that is one thing which is obvious." Asheera will then once again contact the party, telling them they were careless by mentioning her name, to which the player obviously responds "You proposed a deal, and we wanted to contact you again. How else could we have done that?" This insightfulness impresses Asheera so she proposes a task [insert new quest here]. If the player accomplishes this task, they will meet Asheera in [insert building here].
Successfully accomplishing the task means and answering some of Asheera's questions means you've sided with the Harpers. Come to the building otherwise, and Asheera will leave never to return again. This leaves only Bodhi and the SThieves open.

~ ~ ~
2)Enter Graveyard District
Upon entering the Graveyard district you immediately meet Bodhi. Bodhi tells you the usual and says you should travel down the crypts to meet her. When she disappears, and you travel further across the Graveyard you walk into a fight between a vampire and three Shadow Thieves. Whatever the outcome, one of them will survive, but will be killed by a man named Akur. He will be hesitant to drop his guard towards the player "for only vile creatures dwell the Graveyard at night. Even these dispicable thieves." When the player asks him about this, he gives him the same treatment as Asheera does ("They are watching you with interest and caution alike, my masters. You will probably hear from us, but know this, <CHARNAME>. Those who have contacted you before are not to be trusted." He then gives the party a cryptic note, somewhat like a riddle. "Solve it, he says, and you will find your answers." Then he disappears. Of course the answer to the riddle is relatively simple, and you end up in the same house Asheera directed you to. From here the path goes the same as mentioned above.

~ ~ ~ ~

The whole Harper ideology behind the matter is Irenicus and his thirst for power. They know his background, through Elminster of course, and they fear what might happen. So they want the player to stop him, and getting to Imoen means getting to Irenicus. At the same time they're anxious about <CHARNAME> as well. Gorion was a Harper too, so they know a great deal about you as well. They fear you may become to powerful at one point, so they wish to monitor you from close distance [maybe a new Jaheira sidequest here?].
Gaining your trust, and their trust is the main thing that the player has to do in his dealings with the Harper. Of course, this involves quest, but <CHARNAME> will learn more and more about both Irenicus, Imoen and his role. Not too much, because the Harpers still have their own plan.
The Harpers will let you travel to Brynnlaw by boat as well (Saemon again) and from there on the same thing happens.

~ ~ ~

In regards to the relationship with the Shadow Thieves and Bodhi, only Bodhi will actually be an enemy to you. The Shadow Thieves are only interested in Bodhi and her little guild, and only when <CHARNAME> staps in and mingles with their business will they become enemies. Other than that they will remain neutral, to an expense of course. If you don't watch your back, you could have two of Athkatla's largest groups on your hide.

1) Would the Cowled wizrds needed your help, they are meant to be one of the most powerful gropus of wizards on the sword coast?
2) If they really were that desperate, would they wait for you to assemble cash to get a boat? Surely they would teleport you immediately, thus limiting quests e.t.c.

Spoilers...

But in Jaheira's plot you end up killing every harpers in the harper hold when they try to kill/capture you. This mean if you don't want to tie up both storyline you can't use any of those harpers.

Actually, you dont kill the three people who are in there when you do the Xzar quest. They are gone, must be out on a day trip or something, and it is Galvarey and his cadre of harpers that confront you. So, after all that is done with, logically the others should come back no?

--Kestrel--

Maybe, but then you couldn't go to spellhold until after you did the Jaheira storyline, if you even do it.

Why not just introduce a new group. A completely new faction? There are other groups or even individuals that could help. Maybe a cabal of chaotic good mages that want to overthrow the Cowled Wizards? They could have you help their cause a while before they send you on your way.

And why should they come to you? Why not look for them?

I hated that the thieves approached you right at the beginning. Here you are, in a unknown country, your friend just got kidnaped, and the solution just appear like that by itself.

We should have had to ask around for help, be on our own for a while...

[ 12-16-2004, 02:49 PM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

Yeah, the wizards could be resisiting the oppression of magic users in Amn, could have some sub-quests linked to persecution of magic users, with violent/bribe/diplomatic solutions.

As for a name:
Wizards 4 Justice, they could stand on the government building in superman outfits (Joke re: UK organization, if you think im cracking up )

[ 12-16-2004, 03:39 PM: Message edited by: Aragorn1 ]

Not a bad idea. I think that the reason that people think in terms of using existing groups is that it's easier to look at their justifications for helping you and how it fits into their pre-existing mandate. Creating a new group requires creating a justification for their very existance, as well as a justification for why they are helping you.

And that the existing groups have existing headquarters in the city, whereas adding a new faction would seem to require finding a place to put them.

I suppose that there may be some groups in the region that exist in D&D and FR, but were not included in BG2. But since I am not a D&D expert, only a D&D CRPG player, I know nothing of these possible groups.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if a justification could be created for the Lathanerites or Helmites or the Order of the Radiant Heart (ORJ) to help you. Yes, no doubt that there are reasons, some already mentioned, for these groups *not* helping. But I think that it's entirely possible that a justification could be created for them to help out, in spite of their normal mandate. Sometimes, groups will do the unexpected. Oh, not some much so that it's completely nukes their alignment.

But I think that I could see where the ORH's leadership might be chafing at the arrogance of the Cowled Wizards and are looking for a reason to look into their abuses. They might believe that they couldn't do this themselves, but would see the PC as an opportunity. And in return, they would help the PC get to Spellhold. What kinds of tasks you might be required to do for the ORH? Oh, the easy requirement might be to simply do the Windspear Hills area and/or kill Firkraag. A new requirement would require some creative thinking.

OTOH, perhaps the Lathanderites might be willing to help out, but in return you might need to figure out the reason for all of the vampires that are prowling the streets of Athkatla at night. This could end up being similar to the path you take when you work with the Shadow Thieves, i.e. go to graveyard, break into Bohdi's lair, and kick some vampire butts. (Except that you'd need someone other than the Shadow Thief's wizard and the golem to open the "big blue door" to break into Bohdi's lair.)

All in all, I think that all roads would probably lead to getting the boat ride with Saemon Havarian.

Paladins and the Order are paragon of virtues, they wouldn't do that.

I also see no reason why a Priest of the Morninglord, god of Spring, Dawn and birth would help you fight an order of mage. Especially when there is an invasion of undead in the city...

The only character already in the game that might help is Elminster, I guess.

[ 12-16-2004, 10:22 PM: Message edited by: Luvian ]