BG3: Brooms, Buckets, Bombs and Loose Ends

Time for my cheerfully angsty post BG3 endgame headcanon. Why can’t I just let a happy ending lie? Cause I’m a miserable bastard, that’s why!

There’s always been an obscure bit of Bg3 lore that lingered with me. According to the in-game book Broom and Bucket, as well as a sanitation notice in the city, (https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Municipal_Sanitation_Notice) Baldur’s Gate had a tribe of sewer kobolds hired to manage sanitation and clean the gutters. And then they vanished. Authorities suspected they were wiped out or driven off but did nothing about it.

The game never reveals the fate of the sewer kobolds, but given all the Bhall cultists down there, we can draw some dark conclusions. What if this came back to haunt the city? They let a whole group of people get wiped out and did nothing about it, and now they must live with the consequences.

…

Half Kobold herself (a result of a diabolical, arcane gnome alchemy known as MODS) Tav was mortified when she reached Baldur’s Gate and discovered the fate of the kobolds. But with the end of the world looming, she was a tad preoccupied to do anything about it. Unknown to her, Wrick Wrack, her crazy niece (Picture an older Louis Belcher born in the body of a mini dragon) was down there when the Bhalists struck. Orin butchered kobolds in droves. Some escaped; others, like Wrick, got trapped. Eventually, she got out, but the ordeal left Wrick traumatised ever so slightly bonkers, and she wouldn’t forgive the city in a hurry.

Returning from Avernus with Karlach, Tav found to her horror she’d been declared an honorary Flaming Fist in her absence. It didn’t help when Fist Commander Liara Portyr,* conspiring with the empire of Amn, evoked Tav’s honorary status to rally her Fists when expelling the escaped sewer kobolds from Thorm’s now abandoned Sharran temple, killing dozens.** Shaken and guilt-ridden at being co-opted by a force that butchered her people, Tav suffered a full-on breakdown. She pushed her traveling companions away and fled. Eventually she found Wrick, who helped pull her out of her funk.

Alienated from Baldur’s Gate, and with Amn using debts Gortash incurred building the Steel Watch and arming the cult of the Absolute to coerce the city, Tav and Wrick had had enough. The pair threw in with an often morally dubious resistance group and went on the run from both Baldur’s Gate and Amn. Tav strives to hold on to her moral compass while reining in Wrick’s appetite for mayhem, smoke powder and bunnies.

Ever the grouchy introvert, Tav never liked the fame and attention she got from the Absolute Crisis. She’s happy not deal with the songs and fawning, but pines for her old Tadpole pals, especially Shadowheart and Karlach. With the rebellion on the rise, she just hopes they won’t end up on different sides.

* Seriously, according to the module according to the DND Module Tomb of Annihilation she’s canonically lawful evil, secretly organizes pirate attack son the natives of Chult (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Liara_Portyr) and if Wyll becomes Archduke she gets promoted to Grand Duke herself. I think we might have made another Gortahsh.

** Duke Ravenguard was pissed at the Fists conduct but could do little. Baldur’s Gate was stretched thin with repairs and Amn, after a bout of political turmoil,  conveniently remembered Gortahs's debts so they could flex on Baldur's Gate.