< Baldur's Gate < Characters

Baldur's Gate/Characters/Main Party Members


The Player Character and recruitable party members that appear in both Baldur's Gate games, as well as their associated tropes.

Warning: Here there be spoilers!

From a Five-Man Band perspective, considering who his canonical party members from Baldur's Gate I are, CHARNAME is The Hero, Jaheira is The Lancer (though it's clearer in Baldur's Gate II), Minsc is The Big Guy, Dynaheir is The Smart Guy and Imoen is The Chick. Khalid is just kind of there.

CHARNAME/The Bhaalspawn

Is it true dragon meat tastes like chicken? Never mind, I'll find out for myself.

The player character is known throughout the game as "The Bhaalspawn" and "Gorion's Ward", and among the fans as CHARNAME due to the name variable in the game's files. In Baldur's Gate I, you spend the majority of the game thinking you're merely the adopted child of Gorion, which while true, doesn't mean you can't also be the son/daughter of the ironically-dead god of murder. Which, y'know, you are. You stop Sarevok (your brother) from igniting a war to feed off the death and become the new god of murder, and everyone lives happily ever after.

Until you're kidnapped by Jon Irenicus, off screen, and forced into the events of Baldur's Gate II. Then, after you handle him, it's time for ''Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal'', where you fight the high Priestess of Bhaal. THEN it's happily ever after. Maybe.

Associated Tropes:

  • Abusive Parents: Your biological father conceived you specifically so you could later be killed for his benefit, and your biological mother was the one holding the knife when it was time to do this. Doesn't get much more abusive than that.
  • But Now I Must Go: If you accept godhood and are good, most of your party will wish you luck where they cannot follow. Minsc is especially distraught that his best friend in ass-kicking will be gone.
  • Cain and Abel: You and Sarevok. And almost every other Bhaalspawn except Imoen.
  • The Call Knows Where You Live
  • Canon Name: Abdel Adrian.
  • The Casanova: Potentially. A mod called Romantic Encounters allows the Player Character, female or male, to have flirtations/flings with dozens of different characters in Baldur's Gate II, including a giant red dragon, a guy called Renal Bloodscalp, and the god of lies of and insanity.
  • Character Alignment: You can choose from the whole spectrum for CHARNAME, from Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil.
  • Chick Magnet: If male, and human, elf, or half-elf. In Baldur's Gate II, three of six joinable female characters will automatically start to fall for him, and a number of female NPCs will also proposition him over the course of the game. Averted if the Player Character is female: the only man who will show interest is Anomen.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Moreso in Baldur's Gate I than Baldur's Gate II, but some of your dialogue options are this.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: CHARNAME has acquired the ability to kick the ass of the baddest beings on Faerun, from Demogorgon to Amelissan. By Throne of Bhaal, even Elminster doesn't want to fight you. Yeah, you're that Badass.
  • Doom Magnet: Justified by the prophecy. "Chaos will be sown in [the Bhaalspawns'] passage." Plus, y'know, you're the son/daughter of MURDER.
  • Forced To Take Levels In Badass: In the start of the Baldur's Gate Saga, you're just a level one newbie; however, your continued survival against Everything Trying to Kill You eventually transforms you to a Badass of (literally) god-like proportions.
  • Genre Savvy: See the quote from the info page?
    • Amusingly, CHARNAME seems to get less genre savvy as you proceed in the story.
  • A God Am I: You can choose to be this if you want in Throne of Bhaal.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: But because Bhaal was a god, you're still entirely human (or elven, or dwarven or whatever). A straighter example can occur by choosing to be a half-elf or half-orc.
  • Happily Adopted: Until your foster father gets gibbed by your evil older half brother.
  • Heads-Tails-Edge: Fortune tellers and hermits tell CHARNAME that he's a coin which landed on edge; incidentally making him Immune to Fate.
  • Hello, Insert Name Here
  • The Hero
  • Jerkass: In the novels. Or it might just be bad writing.
  • Karma Meter: Via reputation.
  • Luke, I Am Your Father: The fact that you're a child of Bhaal is revealed to you in a letter (from your foster father, go figure) and is intended to be a shocking reveal.
  • Multiple Endings:
    • A God Am I: As noted above. You can be either a good or evil God, depending on your reputation, though most every Good-aligned character will try to sway you away from this path regardless.
    • Bittersweet Ending: If you manage to romance Viconia in the ending of Throne of Bhaal has you become a politician with her as a consort. You become happy for a while, even have a child, but Viconia gets killed by vengeful drow. You and your kid vow vengeance and hunt the drow for the rest of your lives.
    • Happily Ever After: A romance with Aerie, Jaheira, Neera, Hexxat (arguably) or Anomen. There are also game mods that give Viconia's romance a happy ending.
    • It Got Worse: For Faerun, if you ascend as an evil mortal.
    • Walk the Earth: If you decide to retain your mortality instead of becoming a god.
  • Never Got to Say Goodbye: Fortunately, there is absolutely no angsting about this, though Gorion's death still pops up in nightmares.
  • Odd Friendship: Several dialogue options have CHARNAME have friendly interaction with a Spectator Beholder, a Crazy Awesome recurring monster that appears in Baldur's Gate II and Throne of Bhaal.
  • Prophetic Dreams
  • The Reveal
  • Separated at Birth: From Sarevok.
    • And it extends this by having a What If moment as one of the trials in Throne Of Bhaal by showing what would have happened if Sarevok had been saved by Gorion and CHARNAME was put into Sarevok's shoes. Character Alignment being what it is, of course, the answer could very well be "you would have ended up just as evil as you are anyway."
  • Super-Powered Evil Side: The Slayer is meant to be this. How useful it actually is... varies, depending on what class CHARNAME is and whether you have mods to improve it installed.
  • Taught By Experience: Obviously, given that it's an RPG, but CHARNAME deserves special note. At no point in your life have you received formal training in a combat-capable profession prior to being dumped on your ass in the wilderness, left to fend for yourself in world where seemingly 80% of the people you encounter want to kill you and another 15% only want you alive so that they can corrupt you or manipulate you for their own purposes. Surviving in this environment for two and a half games slowly sees you rise from a callow youth to one of the most powerful mortals in the world, and possibly a god thereafter.
Imoen

Just like old times. Well, except for the torture and all.
Voiced by: Melissa Disney

Imoen is the only Bhaalspawn who can join your party (Sarevok doesn't count, because by the time you get him he makes it clear he has no more of Bhaal's essence). Imoen is a perpetual child in Baldur's Gate I, and in Baldur's Gate II, she still acts more childish than anyone else (to be fair, she is among the youngest of playable characters at only 20 years old).

In Baldur's Gate I, Imoen is simply a sidekick who's known you for your whole life but has no effect on the plot; in Baldur's Gate II, she becomes much more important as the first half of the game is about saving her and the second half involves saving her soul. She was in CHARNAME's canonical party in Baldur's Gate I.

Associated Tropes:

  • Ascended Extra: Originally, she wasn't part of the plot at all, and her voiceover lines were recorded for a female extra. She was only added when playtesters complained that the early chapters of the game were too difficult to complete if the Player Character didn't recruit unstable nutjob Montaron into the party (this is the reason she never interacts with other NPCs, incidentally: there was no time to record additional dialog). She became one of the most popular characters in the game and in the sequel was made a central part of the plot, in addition to being retconned as a Child of Bhaal and the Player Character's half-sister.
    • Imoen is technically this in the sequel as well, as she was originally supposed to die in Spellhold. The developers changed their minds upon seeing fan poll results, leading to the aforementioned Retcon.
  • Being Tortured Makes You Evil: She never actually turns EVIL but being abducted and tortured by Irenicus does contribute greatly to her Taking A Level In Badass.
  • Black Magician Girl: It didn't take long for many Baldur's Gate I players to notice her absurdly high Intelligence score, and it became a common strategy to dual-class her as a Mage after a few levels. Baldur's Gate II canonized this by starting her off as one.
  • Break the Cutie: Irenicus did this on purpose in his attempts to feel emotion again. It's the primary impetus for Imoen's Character Development, in addition to serving as a Player Punch and initial Kick the Dog moment for Big Bad Irenicus at the beginning of the second game.
  • Can't Catch Up: In Baldur's Gate II, she'll fall way behind other characters in experience if you don't set out to rescue her right away.
  • The Chick: A Nice Girl and The Heart, and less of a seasoned warrior than most of your other companions. Her role is basically to provide Charname, otherwise something of a blank slate, with something like a family. She's the second game's resident damsel, much of your time in Amn is spent trying to rescue her.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: More like Crouching Genki Girl Hidden Badass, but the principle holds.
  • Damsel in Distress: Spends most of Shadows of Amn in Irenicus's clutches, and the bulk of the first few chapters centers on finding a means to catch up with them.
  • Empty Shell: She's like this initially when you rescue her from Spellhold. Being tortured by Irenicus and having her soul ripped out will do that to a girl.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation:
    • The games go to great lengths to make it clear that Bhaalspawn can't be resurrected: if you die, the game ends, and by the time Sarevok joins your party, he's no longer a Bhaalspawn and can be resurrected. But Imoen despite (retroactively) being a Bhaalspawn since Baldur's Gate I can be raised with no penalty whatsoever. If she used part of her soul to resurrect Sarevok, there's even an exchange they have where she notes that she has "died" in the way that many Dungeons & Dragons characters do--a quick trip to the priest getting her back on her feet--even if she hasn't.
    • There's also the fact that she will cast the spell that gets her arrested when the party exits Irenicus' dungeon, even if she's magically incapacitated or has no spells left memorized when you leave the dungeon... or, taking it further, if you're playing the mega-mod Baldur's Gate Trilogy, which merges both games into one, and you never dual-classed her to mage at all.
    • One of her battle cries is "My blade will cut you down to size!", which becomes amusing if you equip her with a staff or bow. She has proficiences in short sword (Baldur's Gate I) or daggers (Baldur's Gate II), but she can't hold her own in a melee fight, so it's almost guaranteed that she'll be in the back shooting arrows or slinging darts.
  • Genki Girl: As Valygar states: "A chipmunk with a sugar high and a death wish."
  • Go Mad from the Revelation: Originally, it was planned that she'd exit the story after this happened. Even in the revised version, she comes close.
  • Incorruptible Pure Pureness: According to Irenicus, she held the taint of Bhaal inside her at bay for her entire life, wholly by virtue of being innocent, sweet and loving.
    • It is however pretty clearly implied that she's not incorruptible, just less corruptible. Though still good, she becomes less nice as the series rolls on, and in Throne of Bhaal in particular can even be a bit of a Badass at times.
    • Also note that, with the Ascension mod to fix some banter placement, she starts to develop powers like the main character does in the first game as her taint grows and she also experiences nightmares similar to the main character.
  • Kid Appeal Character: She's the single character most like your stereotypical "less mature" RPG protagonist: young, idealistic, child-like and generically heroic.
  • Like Brother and Sister: More than just "like"...
  • Lovable Rogue: And she knows it.
  • Mind Rape: Part of what Irenicus does to her.
  • Neutral Good: More clearly so in the first game than the second.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: Perhaps more like "Obfuscating Innocence". By the game's statistical measure, she's actually a genius, and it turns out she's got quite a vicious streak as her dialog in Baldur's Gate II reveals, but neither is readily apparent when you first meet her (or indeed for most of the game).
  • The Pollyanna: Her natural personality is this. She gets kicked around more than just about any other character in the series, and a large part of her Character Development is driven by her struggle to hold on to her natural innocence in light of the things she learns about herself.
  • The Quiet One: She's the only NPC that doesn't interact at all with other characters in Baldur's Gate I, though this was due to her late addition rather than a choice on the part of the writers. She's not all that talkative in the sequel either, however.
    • Partially unintentional: a spelling error in her codings prevented around 15 of her dialogues from functioning properly. Seriously, Bioware, did you hate her that much? Fortunately, there are mods which fix the coding.
  • Retcon: And a rather messy one at that (see Fridge Logic page).
  • The Reveal
  • Rose-Haired Girl: Inexplicably picks up a new pink 'do in Baldur's Gate II.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: If she comes close to dying in the first dungeon of Baldur's Gate II, she will run off and escape on her own. This is necessary as she needs to be alive in order to be abducted by Irenicus when the party gets out.
  • Ship Sinking: Of all the characters introduced during the first game, she's the one with the closest relationship to the Player Character, so when it became known that romance subplots would be included in the sequel many fans were surprised and disappointed that she wasn't one of the options. The writers had other ideas, but there are still people who would have preferred her as a love interest. Cue the fix fics and fan mods
  • Soul Fragment: She can part with a portion of her soul at one point in order to resurrect Sarevok. He still has mostly his own personality, but it does give him and Imoen a strange bond.
  • The Soulless: For awhile.
  • Stuck Items: Her belt in Baldur's Gate II.
  • Suddenly Sexuality: In the terrible novels, Imoen turns into a lesbian for no reason at all. In the game itself, her sexuality is never brought up at all.
  • Took a Level in Badass: After she finds out what she is, she toughens up immensely.
  • Wide-Eyed Idealist: At first, a bit.
  • Woman Child: So much so that Jaheira even refers to her as "Child".
  • You Can't Thwart Stage One: No matter what you do, Irenicus will succeed in whisking Imoen away to Spellhold.
Minsc

Stand back... FOR JUSTICE!
Voiced by: Jim Cummings

A berserker from Rasheman, Minsc is easily the most popular character in the series despite having very little effect on the plot. He's a ranger who was hit on the head in a sneak attack and later sold a "miniature giant space hamster" Boo, who gives him advice as he travels. In Baldur's Gate I, Minsc's goal is to protect Dynaheir; in Baldur's Gate II, it's to avenge her, and in ''Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal'', he mostly hangs out because he likes you. Although it rarely comes up, Minsc is the most loyal of your sidekicks after Imoen. Minsc was in CHARNAME's canonical party in Baldur's Gate I.

Associated Tropes:

  • Aborted Arc: Originally, Minsc was going to have a unique quest in Baldur's Gate II like nearly every other character, but because it involved Boo being stolen it would necessitate all of his dialogue, battle quotes, and portrait to be redone, and time constraints forced him to have no unique quest.
    • A mod called "Unfinished Business" brings this quest to fruition. It also shows the effects of exactly what happens when Minsc is separated from his Boo. It also has MANY moments of absolute hilarity.
  • Adventure Duo: With Dynaheir in Baldur's Gate I; potentially with Aerie or Nalia in Baldur's Gate II.
  • And the Adventure Continues...: His ending. He's later revealed to have traveled through time to show up in the comics.
  • Ass Shove: "Boo is small and evasive, and there is ever so much of Minsc to search..."
  • Barbarian Hero: Not in technical gameplay terms, but he fits the archetype.
  • Berserk Button: Well, he is a Berserker.
    • Minsc literally goes berserk if somebody hurts his witch.
    • Doing anything to Boo is a bad idea.
    • He also has a literal Berserk Button. It's on his Special Abilities tab, and you can click it to activate his Berserk ability.
    • In the second game, he'll also go berserk if Keldorn or Mazzy die while in the party at the same time as he is.
    • If forced to spend too much time with an evil party member (like Edwin), there's a chance Minsc will randomly go berserk and kill them.
  • The Berserker: Though he embraces rather than broods over it, since in his homeland, it's the most honorable profession available to men.
  • BFS: Minsc's weapon of choice, to a point where you wonder why he's a ranger instead of a fighter. The answer, of course, being that Fighters don't get animal companions, and what is Minsc without his Boo?
  • The Big Guy: Heavily muscled and none-too-bright, but loyal to a fault with a heart as big as all outdoors.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: One of the game's biggest hams and most enthusiastic warriors.
  • Breaking the Bonds: Whereas Jaheira needs a key to free her from her cage, Minsc will simply fly into a berserker rage and smash his cage open.
  • Chaotic Good: In Baldur's Gate I, Minsc is listed as Neutral Good, but he acts chaotic good. In Baldur's Gate II, this is corrected.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: One of the best examples in all of fiction. Minsc relies heavily on Boo, his miniature giant space hamster for advice. Boo's advice is actually very good, if you bother to listen.
  • The Comically Serious: When it comes to certain subjects, in particular Boo or protecting his witch.
  • Consulting Mister Puppet: As mentioned above, he often takes advice from his hamster.
  • Dented Iron: His personality is the result of a few too many blows to the head.
  • Dumb Muscle: He's literally the strongest party member in Baldur's Gate II except for Sarevok and maybe CHARNAME. He's also, by far, the one with the least intelligence points.
  • Eye Scream: "Go for the EYES, Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!"
  • Facial Markings: They're standard for warriors from his culture, though Viconia thinks they're the work of finger-painting children.
  • Failure Knight: In Baldur's Gate II. He can redeem himself by adopting another witch (either Nalia or Aerie).
  • Flanderization: A mild case, but it's there: his habit of talking to Boo became a larger and larger part of his characterization as the series went on.
  • For Great Justice: In Baldur's Gate II, less so but still present in Baldur's Gate I.
  • Friend to All Living Things: Well, all animals, at least. Minsc has no qualms about butt-kicking (as long as it's for goodness). That said, Minsc loves animals. He's a ranger. One banter between him and Jaheira has Minsc trying to look after some squirrels, explaining that if he does not help protect their acorns then who will? Jaheira realizes that it's alright that Minsc is a few sandwiches short of a picnic, since his heart is definitely in the right place.
  • Gentle Giant: With animals, children and the like. Not so much with evildoers.
  • Go for the Eye: He tells Boo to do this as one of his attacking lines.
  • Gonna Need More Trope: "No effect?!? I need bigger sword..."
  • Husky Russkie: Or at least the Fantasy Counterpart Culture version thereof.
  • Incoming Ham: He starts off pretty much every conversation this way, even the mundane ones.
  • I Want to Be a Real Man: The whole reason why he's on the journey.
  • Justice Will Prevail: And in his ending, he forms a group of warriors named The Justice Fist. But first:
    • "Butt kicking for goodness!"
    • "Jump on my sword while you can, evil. I won't be as gentle!"
    • "Feel the backhand of JUSTICE!"
    • "Aaah, we're all heroes... you and Boo and I... HAMSTERS AND RANGERS EVERYWHERE! REJOICE!!!"
  • Large Ham: Top tier. Constantly enthusiastically overacting, and voiced by a man who (barring Grey DeLisle) has done more voice jobs than most of the rest of the cast combined.
  • Leeroy Jenkins: "Minsc shall inspire you by CHARGING BLINDLY ON!"
  • Lzherusskie: A native of the Forgotten Realms Fantasy Counterpart Culture to Dark Ages Russia and/or Ukraine. His name also sounds the same as the name of the capital of Belarus (Minsk). Considering the racial background of BioWare's founders, this is most likely intentional.
  • Mistaken for Racist: By Mazzy, the halfling warrior. Minsc is genuinely impressed that someone of Mazzy's size could be such a dedicated "buttkicker for goodness". It takes a while for her to realise he's not making veiled jokes about her height.
  • No Indoor Voice: It's hard to say whether he's louder while shouting at enemies or afterwards while extolling the goodness of smiting evil. Mostly, he's just loud.
  • Odd Friendship: Minsc and Keldorn. Despite being opposed on the Law/Chaos scale, Minsc will gladly fight beside anyone who buttkicks for goodness!
  • Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner: Every character delivers them from time to time, but Minsc moreso than most.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "EVIL, meet my sword! Sword, MEET EEEEEEVIIIIL!"
  • Stuck Items: One of Minsc's few drawbacks as a frontline warrior is that one of his quick item slots is permanently occupied by Boo.
  • Talking Animal: If you take Minsc's word for it, this is what Boo is.
  • Team Pet: Boo.
  • Third Person Person: Quite a bit.

"Minsc will lead with blade and boot! Boo will take care of the details."

  • Took A Level In Hamminess: Voicing between the first and second game. While the original was fairly hammy in its own right, the one in the second game took it to new heights.
  • Unstoppable Rage: If Minsc gets angry, WATCH OUT!
  • Video Game Caring Potential: He's one of the game's most endearing characters, and many players found his epilogue quite touching.
  • We Help the Helpless: "As heroes we must befriend the friendless. We must help the helpless. We must deaccuse the accused."
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Minsc will only abandon you if you attack Valygar, a Neutral Good ranger who's being hunted for his blood, or Drizzt, a Chaotic Good ranger famous for his exploits.
  • When All You Have Is A Big Freakin' Sword: Minsc prefers to respond to complex dilemmas with simple solutions. To wit:
    • "This is silly! Buttons are not how one escapes dungeons! I would smash the button and rain beatings liberally down on the wizard for playing such a trick!" (in response to a genie who poses a Prisoner's Dilemma type question to the Player Character involving pressing a button)
    • "You point, I punch!" (when selected)
    • "Magic is nice, but now MINSC is in charge! SWORDS FOR EVERYONE!" (when promoted to party leader)
  • With Catlike Tread: Granted, everyone has an "entering stealth mode" quote, but Minsc's deserves a special mention. "[stage whisper] None shall see me! [regular voice] Though, my battle cry may give me away."
Boo

Squeak!

Minsc's miniature giant space hamster, bought from a completely trustworthy merchant after he'd taken a blow to the head. Boo forms the brains of the Minsc-Boo duo, directing Minsc's wrath... or so Minsc says. While it's technically possible that Minsc is correct about Boo being from space, all evidence points to Boo being a normal, if brave, hamster.

Associated Tropes:

  • The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: You can spawn any NPC with a cheat... and Boo, who's normally an inventory item and not an NPC. He's not very good in a fight though.
  • Loyal Animal Companion: Oddly despite being the least ranger-y of all ranger NPCs (Minsc wears heavy armor, uses a two-handed sword, and never seems to use stealth), Minsc is the only one with an animal companion.
  • Shout-Out: The Spelljammer setting actually does have giant space hamsters (space gnomes use them to power their starships), so a miniature giant space hamster making its way to Faerun is, while extremely unlikely, technically possible.
  • Talking Animal: If you take Minsc's word for it.
  • Team Pet: Tends to become this in good parties, though not everyone is quite as enthusiastic.
  • True Neutral: As a natural, ordinary (apparently) animal in Dungeons & Dragons, he's True Neutral in the sense that he has no other alignment.
Jaheira

You are amusing, in a "what the hell is wrong with you" kind of way.
Voiced by: Heidi Shannon

Jaheira is a half-elven druid of Silvanus (Forgotten Realms' main nature god). In Baldur's Gate I, she's a friend of your late adoptive father who joins you along with her husband, Khalid. In Baldur's Gate II, she at first joins to track down Khalid, but when she finds he's dead, she joins for the dual purpose of revenge and helping you. Jaheira was in CHARNAME's canonical party in Baldur's Gate I.

Associated Tropes:

  • Action Girl: Much less reluctantly than most of the other female characters.
  • Adventure Duo: In Baldur's Gate I, with Khalid, and if the player character is male, potentially with him in Baldur's Gate II.
  • Anger Born of Worry: She reacts this way after the Player Character takes an arrow for her when she's taken hostage by bandits.
  • Battle Couple: As above. As the only potential female love interest who's also a front-line fighter, this applies much moreso to her than to Aerie or Viconia.
  • Bodyguard Crush: She fell in love with Khalid while helping him escape from Shadow Thief assassination attempts, and potentially CHARNAME while traveling with him out of a promise made to Gorion.
  • Broken Bird: In Baldur's Gate II, but not in Baldur's Gate I.
  • Broken Pedestal: With her mentor in her personal quest.
  • But for Me It Was Tuesday: Her reaction to a slaver she helped put away. Subverted because she knew exactly who he was but wanted everybody around him to find out who he was.
  • Cannot Spit It Out: Her romance probably features more unfinished sentences that trail off with ellipses than any of the others.
  • Character Development: She gets more of it than perhaps any other character.
  • Chickification: In the novels. Largely averted in the games, however.
  • Deadpan Snarker: More so in Baldur's Gate II than Baldur's Gate I.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: She's never as cold or as haughty as Viconia, but she does warm up considerably over the course of the series.
  • Distress Ball: If you're in a romance with her, she picks it up on a few occasions, such as when she's surprised and taken by the throat by a group of bandits, and when she's abducted by Bodhi.
  • Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Her reaction to the attempts of the other characters to console her after she finds Khalid's corpse.
  • First Girl Wins: If you romance her; it's a bit of a subversion, however, in that she was Happily Married and not available when the protagonist first met her.
  • Green Thumb: Since she's spent much of her life adventuring it's a bit of an Informed Ability, however.
    • Wouldn't all Druids have green thumbs? Er, except Faldorn in Baldur's Gate II.
  • Guide Dang It: YMMV, but some find her romance a bit difficult the first time, due to the precise actions required to progress and finish it. For example, did anyone realize that you have to buy the engraved locket from the Docks merchant despite the fact Jahiera clearly states its not necessary, without a guide?
  • Half-Human Hybrid: She's a half-elf.
  • Happily Married: To Khalid in Baldur's Gate I. And to the Player Character in her epilogue, if her romance is completed.
  • Heroic BSOD: She does not take Khalid's death well. Galvarey and Dermin's treachery even more so.
  • Hostage Situation: Happens to her a few times; see Distress Ball above.
  • Hot Amazon: Though she's not too high-maintenance about it.
  • How Dare You Die on Me!: She has this reaction if Khalid's close to death dies in the first game. She responds somewhat differently when he's Killed Off for Real.
  • In Harmony with Nature: Like most druids, one supposes. She does talk about "balance" a lot more than any of the others you meet, however.
  • Insignia Rip Off Ritual: If your actions meet her moral standards, she will eventually resign from the Harpers in disgust because of their persecution of the protagonist.
  • Knight in Sour Armor: She starts out pretty cynical, and only grows more so over the course of the saga, but she still believes in fighting for justice and balance.
  • Lady of War: The most clear-cut example in the series, from her appearance to her personality to her choice of weaponry. Since she's a Fighter/Druid, she gets a bigger range of weapons and armor to wear than if she were just a Druid.
  • The Lancer: In Baldur's Gate II; in Baldur's Gate I, she's more of an Obi Wan.
  • Large Ham: Not as large as some of the others, but she still uncorks some choice lines.
  • Level Up At Intimacy 5: Completing her romance sidequest successfully nets her a very nifty item, as well as buckets of XP for both her and the Player Character.
  • Lzherusskie: Despite the fact that she and Minsc are from different countries in the game world.
  • Nature Hero: Not a fantasy-world Granola Girl like your stereotypical female druid, however.
  • No Guy Wants an Amazon: Subverted, possibly more than once depending on the Player Character's actions. Jaheira has a very strong personality, but is nevertheless Happily Married to Khalid in Baldur's Gate I, and is one of the female romance options for the Player Character in Baldur's Gate II.
  • Red Herring Mole: You can accuse her of being a spy sent to watch the protagonist for the Harpers, but she's not.
  • Romancing the Widow: If you choose her, this is what her romance subplot boils down to.
  • Secret Test of Character: Elminster shows up at the end of her main subplot to subject her to one.
  • She Is Not My Girlfriend: If she's being romanced, she'll react this way when a merchant in the Docks District offers to sell the Player Character a lovers' locket inscribed to the two of them; it's fairly apparent however that he's on to something.
  • Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Don't listen to the Fan Dumb; Jaheira and Khalid's marriage reeks of this, not that us sane folk are complaining.
  • Sugar and Ice Personality: A classic example.
  • Team Mom: To almost everyone.
  • The Three Faces of Eve: She's the mother of the three, next to Aerie's maiden and Viconia's temptress.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Tomboy to Aerie's girly girl.
  • True Neutral: She's officially True Neutral of the balance variety, being a druid.
  • Turn in Your Badge: The Harpers may threaten to expel her from the organization in the second game for refusing to follow orders, depending on the player's actions.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: With Aerie.
  • Women Are Wiser: She thinks so, at least.
Edwin Odesseiron

(Sigh. It's aggravation like this that will eventually cause me to fireball the entire party as they sleep. Yes indeed, everyone peaceful and quiet and then FOOM!)
Voiced by: Jim Meskimen

Edwin is of no consequence plot-wise, but he's one of the more popular characters, for being a delightful combination of Psycho for Hire, Deadpan Snarker, Smug Snake and Butt Monkey. He belongs to the Red Wizards. In Baldur's Gate I, he's out simply to kill Dynaheir (the witch Minsc must protect) for unknown reasons, so having Minsc, Edwin and Dynaheir in a group causes problems. Canonically he fails to kill her, but in Baldur's Gate II, if you have both Minsc and Edwin in a group, he'll taunt Minsc about her death until Minsc finally tries to kill him.

Associated Tropes:

  • Aerith and Bob: Edwin is a not-exactly-rare English name. And the name of a character in How to Succeed In Evil.
  • Always a Bigger Fish: One of Edwin's idle chatter comments is how he's stronger than Elminster... who, for the uninitiated, is basically the most powerful wizard in all of the Forgotten Realms. If he survives until the end of Throne of Bhaal, it's revealed he was actually stupid enough to try and live up to this boast. Elminster transformed Edwin back into "Edwina", and is implied to strip him of his magical powers for good measure. Edwin spends the rest of his life as a "bitter, lonely" woman working in a tavern somewhere.
  • Arch Enemy: To Minsc. In Baldur's Gate I, it's nearly impossible to recruit them into the same party without them coming to blows, but in Baldur's Gate II, they don't do much more than snipe at each other, though a fight still CAN break out.
    • To recruit both in Baldur's Gate I, you have to complete Minsc's quest WITHOUT talking to Edwin until you recruit Dynaheir into the party. Then talk to Edwin, and he'll offer to join your party "to keep an eye on the witch." The method itself is pretty simple: it's just hard to figure out without reading a walkthrough.
      • However, even if you do succeed in getting them both in your party in Baldur's Gate, a fight which kills one of them (probably Edwin) will break out; in Baldur's Gate II, this is less likely, though as noted above still possible.
  • Beard of Evil: Of the diabolic goatee variety.
  • Bunny Ears Lawyer: Edwin isn't quite as severe a nutcase as Minsc, and is both capable of functioning like a normal person and a skilled mage on top of it, but he constantly talks to himself loudly (about, say, a plot to fireball the entire party in their sleep later) and is completely taken by surprise when people can overhear him.
  • Clasp Your Hands If You Deceive: His character portraits.
  • First Law of Gender Bending: His transformation by Elminster must really have been permanent, as by the time he leaves Waterdeep to make a cameo in Dragon Age, he still hasn't returned to normal.
  • Gag Boobs: Edwina has an enormous rack.
  • Gender Bender: Edwin has a sidequest about this, and his ultimate ending is this.
  • Large Ham: However different Edwin and Minsc may be, they have... certain similarities...
  • Lawful Evil: Apart from his desire to be a traditional Evil Overlord, you'll notice that all his attempts to get into your party involve making a deal of some kind. The first involves him paying you money to help him kill Dynaheir, the second him trading a McGuffin for a place in your party.
  • Lzherusskie: Another way he and Minsc are Not So Different.
  • Manipulative Bastard: He tries to be, though he's not particularly good at it.
  • Man, I Feel Like a Woman: He can't help but check himself out when he's turned into a woman.
  • Retcon: Sort of. In Baldur's Gate I, Edwin has a villainous goatee, which was fine, but in the time between Baldur's Gate I and the sequel, Red Wizards were declared by canon outside of the Baldur's Gate series to consider facial hair barbaric, making Edwin a bizarre and unique case of Retcon, Characterization Marches On (but for his country, not for him) and Did Not Do the Research because Bioware could easily have just removed the goatee for the sequel. Then again, there are hints that he's an exile.
  • Sarcastic Devotee: He might snark at you and talk about fireballing his allies, but he's one of, if not the most, loyal NPCs you can get.
  • Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: He likes using $10 words as a way to show that he's smarter than everyone else.
  • Shout-Out: Gets one in Dragon Age, in the form of the serving wench in the Gnawed Noble tavern in Denerim.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Edwin likes to brag about being a powerful and well-connected Red Wizard who's traveling the Sword Coast for his own reasons, but when you actually encounter other members of his organization, it becomes clear that he's a low-ranking wizard of little importance, and the reason he was entrusted with killing Dynaheir was because it's a mission of equally little importance. In the sequel, he's no less proud of his affiliation, even though it's intimated that he's been exiled.
  • Smug Snake: Dear God, yes. He takes great pride in being a treacherous genius. He's not nearly as clever as he thinks he is though.
  • Squishy Wizard: He's the game's best pure offensive magic-user. He's also by far its most fragile character. Furthermore, unlike most of the other magic-oriented characters (Imoen, Aerie, Nalia, Dynaheir, etc), he doesn't have a high DEX or the ability to equip a shield to make up for his squishiness.
  • The Starscream: Edwin makes absolutely no attempt to hide the fact he plans to kill everyone in the group, especially Minsc and yourself, but he never actually tries it.
    • To be more specific, for all his talk of performing treasonous behavior, Edwin is one of the most loyal NPCs you can recruit. You can basically be a paladin type character who does tons of good things, have a largely good aligned party, with a high reputation, and the most Edwin will do is make some snide remarks. Just don't get that reputation point to 19 or 20, because he'll REALLY leave.
    • Aside from his failure to turn against you, he has a more successful go at this during the Mae'var's Guildhall questline, in which he uses information incriminating Mae'var to bribe his way into the party, correctly deducing that you came for such information.
  • Token Evil Teammate: Since he's the only pure mage in the game in Baldur's Gate II, he often ends up being this in good-aligned parties.
Viconia DeVir

'Tree hugger, I have a question for you. If a tree falls in a forest, does anyone care?
Voiced by: Grey Delisle

Viconia is one of the romanceable characters who can join you. A drow (dark elf) who fled to the surface not to do good and so on but because she hated the ridiculously evil life of her kin. A case of "evil, but not quite THAT evil."

Associated Tropes:

  • All Girls Want Bad Boys: In order to successfully romance Viconia, you must not appear to be weak or submissive to her during the early stages of the romance. Unless you choose options that make you seem self-confident and somewhat cocky, she'll quickly lose interest in you.
  • Betty and Veronica: She's the Veronica.
  • Birth-Death Juxtaposition: Her ending.
  • Bittersweet Ending: If the protagonist falls in love with her, this is her ending. Yeah, your epic level Bhaalspawn can't bring her back from the dead... Why? Hell, even if a god like Lolth was involved, it's not like they're inviolate in the FR setting.... What's really egregious is that Viconia's non-romantic ending is happier than her romantic one: she fights alongside Drizzt Do'Urden and becomes a hero. There's a mod to fix this of course. Strangely, It's in Edwin's mod. The writer just liked Viconia and threw in a happy romantic ending for her.
  • Blessed with Suck: She has natural magic resistance, which comes in handy... except when she's critically injured in the middle of a battle and a healing spell fails on her.
  • Broken Bird: Viconia has had a lot of nasty stuff happen to her, and it's left serious scars on her.
  • Burn the Witch: Unless you save her... TWICE.
  • Cannot Spit It Out: Viconia has no problem sleeping with the protagonist if you romance her, but admitting that she loves him proves to be very difficult for her.
  • Character Development: She undergoes quite a bit, particularly if the Player Character romances her.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Averted. If CHARNAME is romancing Vicona and has sex with the prostitute in Throne of Bhaal, Viconia will be more amused than anything else; believing that there's no way such a "low woman" could possibly pleasure CHARNAME as well as her, and it will only make the player appreciate her more.
  • Dark Action Girl: A heroic example.
  • Deadpan Snarker: And how.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: At times. She tends to freeze back up again however (see Tsundere below).
  • Deliver Us From Evil: Regardless of whether her alignment change is triggered, her romance ending shows that having CHARNAME's child makes her nicer.
  • Diabolus Ex Machina: What happens to her in her ending if she's the main character's love interest.
  • Distress Ball: In both games, she manages to independently get herself captured by xenophobic fanatics, requiring you to save her from being burned at the stake. Or, if you prefer, you can just leave her... though the fanatics claim to want to kill her because she's evil (technically true), she hasn't actually committed any crimes. Unless you count the serial murders she committed in her backstory.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: The entire reason she's on the surface stems from her inability to kill a baby.
  • Fantastic Racism: Both ways, actually. She is treated pretty badly by other party members, sometimes just for being a drow. That said, she clearly despises regular elves (Aerie is the target of relentless, unprovoked mockery from her, and she won't romance full elves), calls Jaheira a "half-breed mongrel" (although that was probably just to screw with her) and has no nice words for Korgan or Jan, calling them both slaves due to dwarves and gnomes being slaves to the drow. It doesn't get much better after that either. Pretty much every race other than Drow is a target of her dislike.
  • Femme Fatale: Sorta, though you don't have to go along with her machinations if you don't want to.
  • Fish Out of Water: Though she's said to have been on the surface for many years, Viconia still has trouble adjusting to the ways of its people.
  • Heel Face Turn: If the protagonist romances her, he can turn her from Neutral Evil to True Neutral.
  • In Love with Your Carnage: The other three potential love interests are disturbed by the Player Character's sinister heritage and ability to wreak destruction, but Viconia is quite attracted to it.
  • Jerkass: Viconia will insult other party members for no apparent reason beyond spite, mocking, for example, Jaheira for being half-elven, Valygar for being dirty, Minsc for being as thick as a brick sandwich, and Aerie for her religion.
    • Averted in the first game. She will actually compliment Jaheira or Dynaheir if one or both are in your group. No, really.

Viconia: "You are one of those among us whom I can respect."

Viconia: Bastard! Stubborn bastard! Why must I trust you?! WHY?! I will not be dominated! Stay away!
Viconia: You are not so terrible CHARNAME... for a male.

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