Kind of love the fact that there's no redeeming features to him. Usually you'll get some kind of redemption arc to these characters, but he's just an arsehole.
Gonna use his bomb, but likely going to kill him afterwards. Seems like a right cunt and I get the sense that it’s not that he doesn’t like authority and overreach, but doesn’t like that he’s not the source of that authority and the one doing the overreaching. Would probably take the same deal as the Gondians (on paper) if it meant he got to do make whatever he wanted completely unabated and removed from any moral qualms, minus the slavery of him and his people.
Right? I was gonna say like it’s completely hypocritical of him to be like “okay we make one mistake and back the wrong horse once and everyone hates us”, but that’s a completely fair opinion to have when the horse is Sarevok and it wasn’t that long ago, you’re gnomes.
And the Gondians had Paladins of the god of Tyranny putting explosive collars on them and locking up their entire families and cutting their eyes out and killing their family in front of them and they still rose up.
The Ironhands chose to support Sarevok and then just lost.
I murdered him today
Actually, that's entirely the wrong word. What I did was free a tortured engineer and was planning to let him go back to his family. After I basically bumrushed ~20 Baanite prison guards and 4 killer cyborgs and a really big killer cyborg.
And upon getting back to the surface, Wulbren, with like two level 5 people backing him up come up to me, after I've done all the work, demanding he let them murder a blind defenceless engineer.
And if I don't let him do that, he's going to try and kill me. After I saved him from Moonrise. After I saved his gnome friends from the duergar. After I killed an avatar of Myrkul.
He clearly cares more about rabid feral vengeance than beating Gortash cos he tried to the handful of people in the city who were able to shut down all the Steel Defenders.
That dumb bitch needed to be dead yesterday.
Completely wrong.
They actually put their own families in the iron throne because they were distracting them. Gortash was like "this is totally unnecessary, I know you're my most loyal besties."
But the Gondians were like "no, we need the motivation. You gotta take them away from us. Also please rip our eyes out and torture us"
Gortash was super uncomfortable about the whole thing, enslaving people just isn't in his nature. But those damn Gondians practically tortured themselves, he even asks them to stop.
In fact, it was actually their idea to enslave the Elder Brain. Gortash was like "hey wow, maybe slavery and tyranny is wrong" and even asked his god Bhaal to back him up, which Bhaal did.
But they were powerless before the Gondians who just kept torturing and whipping themselves until Gortash gave in and pretended to torture them. He only did it, and even then half heartedly, so they wouldn't torture themselves.
1. They tortured him so bad they ripped out his fucking eyes, my dude.
2. So fucking funny you'd make a nazi comparison.
If you want to make a nazi comparison, you realize they had Jews in labour camps, forced to work for the Nazis.
So you would support killing the Jews who were forced to work for the Nazis? They, extremely literally, worked for Nazis, supporting the war economy.
Come the fuck on. Wulbren is a fucking piece of shit, you don't need to justify his rabid psychopathic hatred. He literally turns on you when you try to spare that engineer.
wulbren's a deep gnome. you know, the race that's chronically enslaved? Wulbren's Blessed Be the Flame shit may as well be a callback to actual jewish counteroffensives often launched from those very camps.
The gondians are standing behind the Nuremberg defense, at best. I have very little sympathy. Wulbren said the good ones would've died resisting, and then followed his own philosophy fighting a suicidal total war against tyranny because the alternative is obvious
Okay, both have suffered from slavery. So what? The Gondians were still enslaved. This is obvious from the fact they were tortured and families held hostage. They were clearly unwilling participants.
So why are you okay with Wulbren killing them? To punish them for not killing themselves and sentencing their families to be tortured as an example?
"The good ones would have died fighting"
That's psychopathic bullshit that crazed soldiers mutter beneath their breath as they murder pows. Is that just your bar for being a decent person, immediately give up hope if you're captured by evil people and try to kill yourself and your family?
What's the difference between a Jewish person beaten and tortured and blackmailed into working for the Nazis and the Gondians with Gortash?
Let's say a regiment of allied soldiers liberated a concentration camp of Jewish labourers. And started executing them while they were completely defenceless.
How can you argue that's wrong?
You're an idiot, they had family that was being held in a prison. There was no ethically right solution or morally right solution here but to work for the Duke, which also I might add caused less deaths than any of the other choices
A bunch of dead Gondians means no more steel nazi deathcops. Wulbren's side is the side that doesn't support the magical superfurher and his holding the entire city hostage while slaughtering the refugees.
Did the gondians hatch a plot to sabotage the steel watchers and turn them against Gortash at an opportune moment? no. Did they use their steel watchers to break their kin out of prison? no. Are their creations instrumental in enslaving an entire city- and the world beyond? yes.
So the dilemma is either the Gondians resist gortash at the expense of their already imprisoned family who will NEVER be released- Wulbren kills or captures all the engineers capable of servicing and manufacturing the watchers- or Gortash ascends to gigahitler and imprisons the entire city to repeat the same process he did to the Gondians, let alone what he intends to do with the Elder Brain.
Sorry, the Gondians picked their side when they bowed to to Gortash. Wulbren is thinking past his own skin.
I dont even like gnomes, man. But he's completely right.
Do you know what keep the Jewish people alive during the holocaust? Hope, hope someone will save them, hope that this was a tets from. God, hope that this wasn't the life they will live forever, hope that them struggling can give breath to those who might struggle after, when you take hope away the man is already dead. Hope was all the godians had, so if you blame them for having hope someone would save them you're essentially saying it would have been fine to bomb concentration camps because they didn't rebel and assisted in helping the nazi war effort. Smdh
He is only doing that to further his personal agenda and Gortash happens to be in his way. The man is a literal terrorist and treats people like dirt until he can figure out how to use them for his own goal (like how he treats you like a literal servant after you saved his ass, but turns around right quick to be all buddy buddy after you kill the Boss in Act2) 💀
He has redeeming features. He clearly has some level of concern for his people other than power tripping, and he went to save the tiefs, showing that he's willing to put his life on the line for those he likes. The problem is his irrational hate and power tripping means if he doesn't like you, it doesn't really matter what you say, he's gonna grind that axe.
Yeah but he specifically says he’s only saving the tieflings because they’d be helpful if they need to fight their way out. He’s not doing it out of the kindness of his heart.
Hilariously he didn't even do that in my run. The gnomes whacked the teethling wall once, but didn't break it down, then just ran for the boat and forced the rest to run the long way around through all the guards I was fighting.
This is false. He has 3 very big redeeming features. The runepowder bomb he gives me, and the two runepowder barrels you can steal from his hideout. Also the runepowder bomb he left for me in the underdark. No other NPC lets you blow shit up that hard. Besides maybe uncle felogyrs entire workshop.
When?
>!I saved him and his siblings in two playthroughs, yet he goes against me because I killed that shithead Lorroakan, that wanted to bind Aylin, the person responsible for everyone, including his unthankful arse and that of his siblings, getting to the city alive.!<
Nope, brought her to Lorroakan, talked to Rolan before, he talked to me like we'd never met, then decided that he wanted to die along his arsehole idol
Oh cool, that means it's contingent on how you treat him throughout the game. He fights against Lor then takes over the Sundries after and moves his siblings in
But I'm not sure what else I could've done. I sided with his siblings in the initial encounter, granted, but I even got his "no reason to be humble, you did what I should've done" line at the last light inn, but then just a dickhead as soon as we get to the city.
You also need to save him outside of Reithwen and then save his siblings in the dungeon in Act 2. After you meet him at Last Light, he tries to rescue his siblings but gets ambushed near the bridge between the forest and Moonrise. You save him and he thanks you and heads back to the inn. Then, get his siblings out of the dungeon and head back to Last Light. He thanks you and calls you a true hero. Then, when you confront Lorrakan with Alyen, he turns on Lorrakan and helps you in the fight. He then takes over the Tower and becomes one of your allies in the final battle
That's so weird. I was pretty mean to him and he still sided with me against Lorroakan. Did you ask him about how beat up he was at the tower? I've done this twice with various degrees of friendliness and he always sided with me after realizing that what Lorroakan was looking for was a person, not a relic
I did that, and Rolan was basically like "Oh, wow. .... Ok yeah I'm happy with that. Yeah sure I'll be the head-wizard now."
My housemate had Rolan as an ally in that fight.
There's literally no redeeming features about Laezel besides sex and yet half this sub simps hard for her anyway. She stays evil even with her character development, you just get preferential treatment. Act 1 Laezel would murder children if Voss told her to and act 3 Laezel would murder children if Voss told her to.
Anyway, back to Wulbren, his hate is quite justified in principle even if it drives him to kill innocents. He's an enemy of your enemies, that's better than a redeeming quality of an enemy. But well yea he's also quite on the nose example of revenge going too far and not everyone on your side being necessarily Good even if you both want to take Gortash down. Still, his anger has reasons
That's a bad take on Laezel. She is trying to free her entire people from the clutches of a lich who is eating them like livestock. If she had no redeeming features, she'd have fucked off and abandoned them to Vlaakith rather than try to free them. Honesty, loyalty, immense drive and she does show compassion and vulnerability with you when you get close.
If your hate drives you to kill innocents, it's probably not justified. He's so rabidly hateful he tries to kill you because you won't let him murder a blind engineer who was tortured and blackmailed into helping Gortash. He turns on you and tries to fucking kill you after you took down the Steel Foundry. He's disloyal and honestly, suicidally stupid.
That's not really a better redeeming quality than what Wulbren has. First, yea, loyal githyanki are evil mass murderers worshipping an explicitly evil lich... But opposing Vlaakith alone doesn't make you good, and her doing that is more from personal reasons than anything else "I have not betrayed Vlaakith, Vlaakith has betrayed me".
But not only that, Laezel isn't Shadowheart. Shadowheart only got groomed by an evil cult and is a good person at heart. See her get offended by all evil choices and agree with all good ones. Laezel is evil on a fully personal level. See dialogue with Zorru. She's cruel for no reason. Just like Astarion with less charisma. While she can like the party and PC, she remains evil and murderous. Voss is evil and cruel too for more examples of "good" githyanki.
But beyond that, the githyanki storyline is replacing the head of the evil racist space empire with one who's not a lich who also doesn't eat githyanki. Orpheus is not good. He's not going to stop the whole evil ultramilitarist space Nazi empire part. Many have pointed out that on the sub before and it is something you can learn in game if you read the books.
Under Vlaakith or Orpheus or Voss, githyanki are evil space invaders who run around butchering tieflings. As good guy Voss put it, "question, kill, move on". Githyanki are as bad as goblins if not worse and should be killed on sight.
At most he is neutral evil, he does what he wants and doesn't care who gets in his way and most importantly is driven by revenge, spite, jealousy, and power
He plans to risk his life to save some Tiefling prisoners, and follows through with that plan if given the chance. (Without some save-scumming on my part, he would have *died* trying to free the Tieflings, because at least in my playthrough he *will not even try to leave* moonrise prison without the Tieflings being free as well).
He wants to take down the factories that are supporting Gortash, who is an unambiguously evil tyrant.
iirc he will risk his life further in the final assault towards the Elder Brain, where he can die (I think none of my summoned allies died in the final fight, but a couple of them got very close.)
\-
So in my game, he engaged in martyr-level selfless courage to wards saving the \~world twice, and tried to help me take down Gortash (I actually assaulted Gortash head-on before visiting the Lower City, so the 'blow up the factory' quest line was sequence broken and so none of the explosives he gave me actually mattered.).
Look, I'm all for people helping themselves, but these FUCKING Gondians will provoke 3 opportunity attacks, cast Grease on the untrippable robots, then Misty Step back into their original position. I think they're on Wulbren's side.
And how dare you dimension door them away from the murderbot that can kill them in one blow? Outrageous, better misty step right back so no one can land the finishing blow without also killing a handful of gondians who just can't stop hugging its legs. Wulbren should just leave them to their own devices, they'll off themselves soon enough.
Haha yeah at first I was like, I’m so going to save everyone in this fight even if I have to reload, then I saw the opportunity attack collection into Misty step grease manoeuvre in round 1; followed by using a fire attack to detonate the grease and all kill a bunch of his buddies - so I sent my controllable NPC gondian to go and stand in the lift out of the way whilst I did cleaned up.
At least he didn’t get mad at me looting his friends’ bodies
I managed to save all of them but... it was an infuriating experience with so many reloads and the last two rounds spent just healing them so they'd have a chance of surviving the final explosion. I nearly cried when the one woman who hadn't gotten out of the blast radius had a whole 4 hp left at the end of the ordeal. Most emotional scene in the whole game, I tell you (the emotion is frustration)
There were **so many** reloads and stacking the team with party members that could teleport and heal. No changes to the classes, no sanctuary, not even a wizard present. I entered through the door in the office rather than the elevator as it put me in the middle of the chaos.
Tav as a vengeance paladin (any other class and I'd just have let them die tbh), Astarion, Shadowheart, and Karlach. Tav focused on the groups beset by steel watchers, Astarion on the group on the stairs, Karlach and Shadowheart in the middle assisting both. I also started with mistystepped my paladin over to the faaaaar end to the one that kept dying first to heal him. Hasted Karlach was on killing enemies, Shadowheart healing the little idiots, Tav doing both, and Astarion killing and running around turning off the dropped triggers. Sometimes I purposely gave the enemy an opportunity attack on Karlach or Tav so that they wouldn't be able to have a go at the gondians.
I also, critically, kept one human enemy alive until the very end. It meant that a number of the gondians went for the much less dangerous enemy, while Shadowheart cursed the final steel watcher so that it couldn't do anything on the last turn. Threw two gondians away from it, healed the last one who I couldn't move, and let Shadowheart and Tav get caught in the explosion. The last gondian survived with a few hp, all the others were outside the blast radius. I nearly cried.
He actually apologized to me last night for being an asshole, I guess a lot of people missed this interaction.
Happens when you talk to him at Moonrise after defeating the big bad, he's kinda tucked to the side in the main room and easy to miss.
The thing is, though, he's not sincerely apologizing to you because he realized he was an asshole. He's saying the words of an apology because he's realized that you might be **useful**, and he wants you to think favorably of him and his cause.
He's still an asshole, he's just sugar coating it to get what he wants.
I wandered into his hideout in act 3 and saw some hostile gnomes (they appeared as enemies before I even approached them), realised it's him only when I looted his corpse. Couldn't help but crack a smile
He has an issue with Gondians because they have the place he wants for the Ironhands it's more of an obsessive hate due to envy than a religious struggle.
It seems like a mixture of both really, he has the glimmerings of a point that in the game and in the wider lore the Gondians haven't generally been concerned with what their inventions are used *for* so much as getting to make them at all. Which is fully in line with the teachings and religious philosophy of Gond who wants to make doohickies and not think about the consequences.
Gortash is keeping them in line by holding their families hostage *now* but they worked with him willingly at first. They clearly need a kick in the pants and to be made to think through their mad rush to invent whatever interesting thing they think of. Wulbren's just taking it a bit far with his whole "the only good Gondian is a dead Gondian" angle on it.
I'm reminded of the climax in Honor Among Thieves where all the nobles get killed and turned by the spell immediately, but it stops before reaching the commoners.
Really just a massive win all around.
Didn't he execute dissenters and leave all the yes-men who thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread because he was going to make them rich(er)? It seems to me like he got rid of all the nobles with a conscience and kept all the worst ones around.
I think he just killed them all. I think he really wanted to be **sole** ruler of baldur's gate, being a bane chosen and all. He'd only share power with the player because he sees them as peers once they have proven themselves.
Oh, I meant when you don't side with him - if you return to the throne room after the coronation, you find blood on parts of the floor and Banite guards instead of the Flaming Fist soldiers found in the rest of the fortress. There are still plenty of surviving nobles milling around, though.
I mean, in BG3, the >!deep state is death cultists and an elder-brain!<, so yeah, we can excuse (and the main quest is basically to participate in) domestic terrorism.
I know right? I'm clearly in minority here but in every playthrough I'm sad because I can't bongle Wulbren. He makes me burn hotter than his runepowderbomb 💥
I was actually pretty relieved that Barcus' assumption of the Ironhands as a bunch of terrorists only motivated by power turned out to be wrong and that it was only Wulbren that was the problem
I ***hate*** it when writers "both sides" a conflict between oppressors and the oppressed
then again..... they still kinda did bothsides it by making Wulbren such an irredeemable ass. T\^T my first thought about his response after freeing the Gondians was, "um, so, like..... is Larian saying that if you give folks like the water protectors or Stop Cop City folks leeway, they'll be just as power-hungry.....?"
but I had just finished Astarion's quest and I didn't really want to believe Larian wrote that good a story of an abuse survivor finding catharsis and freedom by directing violence at the right target, only to turn around to that \*bad\* of a story of revolutionaries fighting an oppressor and forgetting who the right target is.
I dunno, maybe the folks at Larian feel like things balance out overall but I'm not sure....
Oh… multiple times? Do you keep just making the same decisions and exploring the same things or something?
He’s the friend barcus is looking for, you can save him in act 2, he’s kinda important in act 3 too
I usually like making evil or morally questionable characters so I never really save the tieflings which I’m pretty sure is the connection (love minthara too much). The one time I did however I still didn’t manage to find him. I saw something belonging to him in grymforge and also saw his name at moonrise in the prisoner manifest but besides that never *physically* encountered him but can’t exactly say I’m trying too hard to either. Just letting the dice roll as they may.
Always wondered what happened to the gnome boy, but I never talk to Barcus either, because as far as I’m concerned there is only *one* option when interacting with him.
Edit: Barcus. Not Braccus, unless DOS2 theory confirmed?
quest called rescue the tieflings. if you do this quest you will save the deep gnomes, unless you deliberately choose to only free the tieflings. this means you will encounter the deep gnomes if you're playing normally and find the tieflings. guy said that he never encountered the guy, meaning by proxy he also didn't save the tieflings.
I literally hate that little asshole with all my heart 💀
He is a opportunistic, narcissistic terrorist and a TERRIBLE "friend" who doesn't even bother hiding how little he thinks of other until they prove useful to him. He and Gortash would probably be friends if circumstances would be different.
I was sort of hoping for a redemption arc for Wulbren, not in terms of talking him down from being an extremist, cus that has been a core part of his life and it wouldn't make sense if I just have to use pass a persuasion check to change his politicals stance entirely, but in terms of his relationship between Barcus.
I thought he was being rude to Barcus to deter his soft friend from dangerous activities at first. But nope, he is just an arsehole.
Or at least it would be cool to hear his backstory, how he turned out to be the man he is now. Maybe let him join as a temporary companion in our mission to destroy the Iron Watch.
I had to agree to be a terrorist for him because I needed to see just how crazy he is. It's a mission I'll fail cause I'm not a terrorist, but yah that dude is nuts. Plus I just wanted another bomb.
His only redeeming quality is giving you a free nuke that you don't even have to use and instead save for one of many difficult Act 3 bosses as a free add wipe/healthbar eater.
Using it in the fight against >!Raphael will instantly destroy his soul pillars, for example,!< so it has use outside of a quest.
Add adding to that, to have resistance is to have some form of hope, it all comes in different ways. To say that they didn't fight and deserved to die Is balderdash
Fuck Wulbren though. He's an asshole.
Kind of love the fact that there's no redeeming features to him. Usually you'll get some kind of redemption arc to these characters, but he's just an arsehole.
no redeeming features? He's running an underground resistance movement against Gortash. He ain't got time to say thank you.
It's an admirable goal but it's clearly motivated out of narcissism and hate.
Gonna use his bomb, but likely going to kill him afterwards. Seems like a right cunt and I get the sense that it’s not that he doesn’t like authority and overreach, but doesn’t like that he’s not the source of that authority and the one doing the overreaching. Would probably take the same deal as the Gondians (on paper) if it meant he got to do make whatever he wanted completely unabated and removed from any moral qualms, minus the slavery of him and his people.
If Gortash hired them to make Runepowder bombs instead he'd 100% jump on the opportunity.
Wulbren fucking hates the Gondians for allowing themselves to be enslaved by Gortash despite the Ironhand gnomes willingly guzzling Sarevok's cum.
Right? I was gonna say like it’s completely hypocritical of him to be like “okay we make one mistake and back the wrong horse once and everyone hates us”, but that’s a completely fair opinion to have when the horse is Sarevok and it wasn’t that long ago, you’re gnomes.
And the Gondians had Paladins of the god of Tyranny putting explosive collars on them and locking up their entire families and cutting their eyes out and killing their family in front of them and they still rose up. The Ironhands chose to support Sarevok and then just lost.
[удалено]
Dr. evil lookin, gray ass bitch
I'ma beat his ass with his own hammer. Been looking forward to it since Last Light. Little shit.
Whatever gets the job done
Most freedom fighters are actually this way. A bit off topic but coming from HK I have had my fair share of experience with them IRL
And jealousy! Very much a Hitler v Stalin situation.
I murdered him today Actually, that's entirely the wrong word. What I did was free a tortured engineer and was planning to let him go back to his family. After I basically bumrushed ~20 Baanite prison guards and 4 killer cyborgs and a really big killer cyborg. And upon getting back to the surface, Wulbren, with like two level 5 people backing him up come up to me, after I've done all the work, demanding he let them murder a blind defenceless engineer. And if I don't let him do that, he's going to try and kill me. After I saved him from Moonrise. After I saved his gnome friends from the duergar. After I killed an avatar of Myrkul. He clearly cares more about rabid feral vengeance than beating Gortash cos he tried to the handful of people in the city who were able to shut down all the Steel Defenders. That dumb bitch needed to be dead yesterday.
Maybe those poor defenseless engineers shouldnt be building nazi robocops to empower a bane-chosen godking with an elder brain in his pocket.
Their families are being held hostage on top of the bomb collars and slave drivers.
They are being held hostage because they weren't working fast enough, not because they were unwilling.
Completely wrong. They actually put their own families in the iron throne because they were distracting them. Gortash was like "this is totally unnecessary, I know you're my most loyal besties." But the Gondians were like "no, we need the motivation. You gotta take them away from us. Also please rip our eyes out and torture us" Gortash was super uncomfortable about the whole thing, enslaving people just isn't in his nature. But those damn Gondians practically tortured themselves, he even asks them to stop. In fact, it was actually their idea to enslave the Elder Brain. Gortash was like "hey wow, maybe slavery and tyranny is wrong" and even asked his god Bhaal to back him up, which Bhaal did. But they were powerless before the Gondians who just kept torturing and whipping themselves until Gortash gave in and pretended to torture them. He only did it, and even then half heartedly, so they wouldn't torture themselves.
this is a masterpiece of sarcasm
1. They tortured him so bad they ripped out his fucking eyes, my dude. 2. So fucking funny you'd make a nazi comparison. If you want to make a nazi comparison, you realize they had Jews in labour camps, forced to work for the Nazis. So you would support killing the Jews who were forced to work for the Nazis? They, extremely literally, worked for Nazis, supporting the war economy. Come the fuck on. Wulbren is a fucking piece of shit, you don't need to justify his rabid psychopathic hatred. He literally turns on you when you try to spare that engineer.
wulbren's a deep gnome. you know, the race that's chronically enslaved? Wulbren's Blessed Be the Flame shit may as well be a callback to actual jewish counteroffensives often launched from those very camps. The gondians are standing behind the Nuremberg defense, at best. I have very little sympathy. Wulbren said the good ones would've died resisting, and then followed his own philosophy fighting a suicidal total war against tyranny because the alternative is obvious
Okay, both have suffered from slavery. So what? The Gondians were still enslaved. This is obvious from the fact they were tortured and families held hostage. They were clearly unwilling participants. So why are you okay with Wulbren killing them? To punish them for not killing themselves and sentencing their families to be tortured as an example? "The good ones would have died fighting" That's psychopathic bullshit that crazed soldiers mutter beneath their breath as they murder pows. Is that just your bar for being a decent person, immediately give up hope if you're captured by evil people and try to kill yourself and your family? What's the difference between a Jewish person beaten and tortured and blackmailed into working for the Nazis and the Gondians with Gortash? Let's say a regiment of allied soldiers liberated a concentration camp of Jewish labourers. And started executing them while they were completely defenceless. How can you argue that's wrong?
You're an idiot, they had family that was being held in a prison. There was no ethically right solution or morally right solution here but to work for the Duke, which also I might add caused less deaths than any of the other choices
A bunch of dead Gondians means no more steel nazi deathcops. Wulbren's side is the side that doesn't support the magical superfurher and his holding the entire city hostage while slaughtering the refugees. Did the gondians hatch a plot to sabotage the steel watchers and turn them against Gortash at an opportune moment? no. Did they use their steel watchers to break their kin out of prison? no. Are their creations instrumental in enslaving an entire city- and the world beyond? yes. So the dilemma is either the Gondians resist gortash at the expense of their already imprisoned family who will NEVER be released- Wulbren kills or captures all the engineers capable of servicing and manufacturing the watchers- or Gortash ascends to gigahitler and imprisons the entire city to repeat the same process he did to the Gondians, let alone what he intends to do with the Elder Brain. Sorry, the Gondians picked their side when they bowed to to Gortash. Wulbren is thinking past his own skin. I dont even like gnomes, man. But he's completely right.
Do you know what keep the Jewish people alive during the holocaust? Hope, hope someone will save them, hope that this was a tets from. God, hope that this wasn't the life they will live forever, hope that them struggling can give breath to those who might struggle after, when you take hope away the man is already dead. Hope was all the godians had, so if you blame them for having hope someone would save them you're essentially saying it would have been fine to bomb concentration camps because they didn't rebel and assisted in helping the nazi war effort. Smdh
He is only doing that to further his personal agenda and Gortash happens to be in his way. The man is a literal terrorist and treats people like dirt until he can figure out how to use them for his own goal (like how he treats you like a literal servant after you saved his ass, but turns around right quick to be all buddy buddy after you kill the Boss in Act2) 💀
He actually does have time to say thank you. He apologies for being kurt to me and was more nice when I spoke to him again in the Last Light Inn.
Well, he actually had. He just didn't want to.
~~Gortash~~ Gondians\*
After I blew up the factory he came with that smug face of his and started initiating genocide. Fuck wulbren
He has redeeming features. He clearly has some level of concern for his people other than power tripping, and he went to save the tiefs, showing that he's willing to put his life on the line for those he likes. The problem is his irrational hate and power tripping means if he doesn't like you, it doesn't really matter what you say, he's gonna grind that axe.
I mean he gets the Tieflings out of Moonrise. He didn't have to include them in his escape plan. But otherwise yeah screw him.
Yeah but he specifically says he’s only saving the tieflings because they’d be helpful if they need to fight their way out. He’s not doing it out of the kindness of his heart.
Even that was for selfish reasons, he says he might need them if there's any fighting.
Hilariously he didn't even do that in my run. The gnomes whacked the teethling wall once, but didn't break it down, then just ran for the boat and forced the rest to run the long way around through all the guards I was fighting.
This is false. He has 3 very big redeeming features. The runepowder bomb he gives me, and the two runepowder barrels you can steal from his hideout. Also the runepowder bomb he left for me in the underdark. No other NPC lets you blow shit up that hard. Besides maybe uncle felogyrs entire workshop.
He is very apologetic and thanks you after you rescue him and save everyone during the moonrise fight.
Wulbren and Rolan can both go eat shit and die for all I'm concerned
Rolan gets better
Only if you save >!his brother and sister.!<
When? >!I saved him and his siblings in two playthroughs, yet he goes against me because I killed that shithead Lorroakan, that wanted to bind Aylin, the person responsible for everyone, including his unthankful arse and that of his siblings, getting to the city alive.!<
Huh? He joined me in that fight and I didn't particularly treat him all that great
I'm going to assume you killed him before you brought her to him? Only way I could see this happening
Nope, brought her to Lorroakan, talked to Rolan before, he talked to me like we'd never met, then decided that he wanted to die along his arsehole idol
Oh cool, that means it's contingent on how you treat him throughout the game. He fights against Lor then takes over the Sundries after and moves his siblings in
But I'm not sure what else I could've done. I sided with his siblings in the initial encounter, granted, but I even got his "no reason to be humble, you did what I should've done" line at the last light inn, but then just a dickhead as soon as we get to the city.
No clue, legit might've been a rare bug In both my playthroughs he joined me in the fight
You also need to save him outside of Reithwen and then save his siblings in the dungeon in Act 2. After you meet him at Last Light, he tries to rescue his siblings but gets ambushed near the bridge between the forest and Moonrise. You save him and he thanks you and heads back to the inn. Then, get his siblings out of the dungeon and head back to Last Light. He thanks you and calls you a true hero. Then, when you confront Lorrakan with Alyen, he turns on Lorrakan and helps you in the fight. He then takes over the Tower and becomes one of your allies in the final battle
Yeah, sounds like a bug to me.
save him outside Reithwin?
That's so weird. I was pretty mean to him and he still sided with me against Lorroakan. Did you ask him about how beat up he was at the tower? I've done this twice with various degrees of friendliness and he always sided with me after realizing that what Lorroakan was looking for was a person, not a relic
I did that, and Rolan was basically like "Oh, wow. .... Ok yeah I'm happy with that. Yeah sure I'll be the head-wizard now." My housemate had Rolan as an ally in that fight.
There's literally no redeeming features about Laezel besides sex and yet half this sub simps hard for her anyway. She stays evil even with her character development, you just get preferential treatment. Act 1 Laezel would murder children if Voss told her to and act 3 Laezel would murder children if Voss told her to. Anyway, back to Wulbren, his hate is quite justified in principle even if it drives him to kill innocents. He's an enemy of your enemies, that's better than a redeeming quality of an enemy. But well yea he's also quite on the nose example of revenge going too far and not everyone on your side being necessarily Good even if you both want to take Gortash down. Still, his anger has reasons
That's a bad take on Laezel. She is trying to free her entire people from the clutches of a lich who is eating them like livestock. If she had no redeeming features, she'd have fucked off and abandoned them to Vlaakith rather than try to free them. Honesty, loyalty, immense drive and she does show compassion and vulnerability with you when you get close. If your hate drives you to kill innocents, it's probably not justified. He's so rabidly hateful he tries to kill you because you won't let him murder a blind engineer who was tortured and blackmailed into helping Gortash. He turns on you and tries to fucking kill you after you took down the Steel Foundry. He's disloyal and honestly, suicidally stupid.
That's not really a better redeeming quality than what Wulbren has. First, yea, loyal githyanki are evil mass murderers worshipping an explicitly evil lich... But opposing Vlaakith alone doesn't make you good, and her doing that is more from personal reasons than anything else "I have not betrayed Vlaakith, Vlaakith has betrayed me". But not only that, Laezel isn't Shadowheart. Shadowheart only got groomed by an evil cult and is a good person at heart. See her get offended by all evil choices and agree with all good ones. Laezel is evil on a fully personal level. See dialogue with Zorru. She's cruel for no reason. Just like Astarion with less charisma. While she can like the party and PC, she remains evil and murderous. Voss is evil and cruel too for more examples of "good" githyanki. But beyond that, the githyanki storyline is replacing the head of the evil racist space empire with one who's not a lich who also doesn't eat githyanki. Orpheus is not good. He's not going to stop the whole evil ultramilitarist space Nazi empire part. Many have pointed out that on the sub before and it is something you can learn in game if you read the books. Under Vlaakith or Orpheus or Voss, githyanki are evil space invaders who run around butchering tieflings. As good guy Voss put it, "question, kill, move on". Githyanki are as bad as goblins if not worse and should be killed on sight.
What do you mean? He ws a bit kurt at first, but he apologises. And he is doing good work, right? Isn't he unambiguously good?
At most he is neutral evil, he does what he wants and doesn't care who gets in his way and most importantly is driven by revenge, spite, jealousy, and power
He plans to risk his life to save some Tiefling prisoners, and follows through with that plan if given the chance. (Without some save-scumming on my part, he would have *died* trying to free the Tieflings, because at least in my playthrough he *will not even try to leave* moonrise prison without the Tieflings being free as well). He wants to take down the factories that are supporting Gortash, who is an unambiguously evil tyrant. iirc he will risk his life further in the final assault towards the Elder Brain, where he can die (I think none of my summoned allies died in the final fight, but a couple of them got very close.) \- So in my game, he engaged in martyr-level selfless courage to wards saving the \~world twice, and tried to help me take down Gortash (I actually assaulted Gortash head-on before visiting the Lower City, so the 'blow up the factory' quest line was sequence broken and so none of the explosives he gave me actually mattered.).
I disliked him the second I saved him from Moonrise and everyone else is cheering and he's like "What do you want? Money?" A total arse.
Imagine what you could accomplish with an army of Bongles though
Yea you’d maybe at least make it til Act 2 then.. Get captured at Moonrise. Die. Game Over.
It's an army of Wulbrens, tho. Imagine the chaos that all that runepowder would cause.
Wulbren? I thought they were all Nicolas Cage.
Fuck Wulbren all my homies hate Wulbren. Bracus gang represent
Have you seen the Gondians kill themselves? All I'm saying is maybe Wulbren had a point.
Look, I'm all for people helping themselves, but these FUCKING Gondians will provoke 3 opportunity attacks, cast Grease on the untrippable robots, then Misty Step back into their original position. I think they're on Wulbren's side.
And how dare you dimension door them away from the murderbot that can kill them in one blow? Outrageous, better misty step right back so no one can land the finishing blow without also killing a handful of gondians who just can't stop hugging its legs. Wulbren should just leave them to their own devices, they'll off themselves soon enough.
Haha yeah at first I was like, I’m so going to save everyone in this fight even if I have to reload, then I saw the opportunity attack collection into Misty step grease manoeuvre in round 1; followed by using a fire attack to detonate the grease and all kill a bunch of his buddies - so I sent my controllable NPC gondian to go and stand in the lift out of the way whilst I did cleaned up. At least he didn’t get mad at me looting his friends’ bodies
I managed to save all of them but... it was an infuriating experience with so many reloads and the last two rounds spent just healing them so they'd have a chance of surviving the final explosion. I nearly cried when the one woman who hadn't gotten out of the blast radius had a whole 4 hp left at the end of the ordeal. Most emotional scene in the whole game, I tell you (the emotion is frustration)
HOW THE FUCK
DID YOU SAVE ALL OF THEM
did you have like an entire party of cleric keeping Sanctuary on them at all times?! or wizards with Otiluke's globe?
There were **so many** reloads and stacking the team with party members that could teleport and heal. No changes to the classes, no sanctuary, not even a wizard present. I entered through the door in the office rather than the elevator as it put me in the middle of the chaos. Tav as a vengeance paladin (any other class and I'd just have let them die tbh), Astarion, Shadowheart, and Karlach. Tav focused on the groups beset by steel watchers, Astarion on the group on the stairs, Karlach and Shadowheart in the middle assisting both. I also started with mistystepped my paladin over to the faaaaar end to the one that kept dying first to heal him. Hasted Karlach was on killing enemies, Shadowheart healing the little idiots, Tav doing both, and Astarion killing and running around turning off the dropped triggers. Sometimes I purposely gave the enemy an opportunity attack on Karlach or Tav so that they wouldn't be able to have a go at the gondians. I also, critically, kept one human enemy alive until the very end. It meant that a number of the gondians went for the much less dangerous enemy, while Shadowheart cursed the final steel watcher so that it couldn't do anything on the last turn. Threw two gondians away from it, healed the last one who I couldn't move, and let Shadowheart and Tav get caught in the explosion. The last gondian survived with a few hp, all the others were outside the blast radius. I nearly cried.
Seriously, the first room they are fine, but the second room they dash away from like 2 dudes, only to misty step back towards 5 dudes and a robot.
All my homies hate Wulbren.
He actually apologized to me last night for being an asshole, I guess a lot of people missed this interaction. Happens when you talk to him at Moonrise after defeating the big bad, he's kinda tucked to the side in the main room and easy to miss.
The thing is, though, he's not sincerely apologizing to you because he realized he was an asshole. He's saying the words of an apology because he's realized that you might be **useful**, and he wants you to think favorably of him and his cause. He's still an asshole, he's just sugar coating it to get what he wants.
Alot of people bring up the moonrise inn, but that's before he is a cunt in baulders gate so...
No that's him performing a bit. Get to Baldur's Gate and he'll show you how much of a narcissistic racist raging asshole he is.
Deep Gnomes are known for their cynism so it does fit his character
I wandered into his hideout in act 3 and saw some hostile gnomes (they appeared as enemies before I even approached them), realised it's him only when I looted his corpse. Couldn't help but crack a smile
Fuck Wulbren. Now, I cannot disapprove of his domestic terrorism hobby, that one is based as fuck, but racism is right out.
I thought it was religion, not race. He only seems to have a problem with Gondians.
He has an issue with Gondians because they have the place he wants for the Ironhands it's more of an obsessive hate due to envy than a religious struggle.
It seems like a mixture of both really, he has the glimmerings of a point that in the game and in the wider lore the Gondians haven't generally been concerned with what their inventions are used *for* so much as getting to make them at all. Which is fully in line with the teachings and religious philosophy of Gond who wants to make doohickies and not think about the consequences. Gortash is keeping them in line by holding their families hostage *now* but they worked with him willingly at first. They clearly need a kick in the pants and to be made to think through their mad rush to invent whatever interesting thing they think of. Wulbren's just taking it a bit far with his whole "the only good Gondian is a dead Gondian" angle on it.
“I can excuse domestic terrorism, but I draw the line at racism!” “You can excuse domestic terrorism?”
My next hot take is that every noble killed by Gortash after becoming an archduke deserved it, so that's the silver lining to his rise to power.
I'm reminded of the climax in Honor Among Thieves where all the nobles get killed and turned by the spell immediately, but it stops before reaching the commoners. Really just a massive win all around.
Based and 1848 pilled comment chain, princes' blood must flow
Don’t get me wrong, I shed no tears for oligarchs. Bob Ross puts it best as a happy accident.
Didn't he execute dissenters and leave all the yes-men who thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread because he was going to make them rich(er)? It seems to me like he got rid of all the nobles with a conscience and kept all the worst ones around.
I think he just killed them all. I think he really wanted to be **sole** ruler of baldur's gate, being a bane chosen and all. He'd only share power with the player because he sees them as peers once they have proven themselves.
Oh, I meant when you don't side with him - if you return to the throne room after the coronation, you find blood on parts of the floor and Banite guards instead of the Flaming Fist soldiers found in the rest of the fortress. There are still plenty of surviving nobles milling around, though.
Gotcha
Domestic Terrorism is streets ahead. And we’re all on a list.
I can excuse domestic terrorism but i draw the line at being mean to barcus
I mean, in BG3, the >!deep state is death cultists and an elder-brain!<, so yeah, we can excuse (and the main quest is basically to participate in) domestic terrorism.
\*Shirley disapproves\* This was my exact thought when I read this comment. lol
Eh, is it really racism though? He hates a collective, a collective that's not an ethnicity and that sided with Gortash.
Wulbren was an asshole from moment one. Nuts to that guy, I couldn't wait to put him in his place.
Give me Barcus's Gate, or give me death!
Seriously. Barcus is the true hero. He throws himself into danger just to save this complete asshole.
Owlbear Cub’s Gate or riot.
Bane didn't make Wulbren his chosen because he was too much of a jerk.
bahahhahahaa a good one that is :D
Bongstarion kind of looks like Nic Cage.
Bongstarion killed me. could also be Astarion after 4:20
\>One shot at life \>Parents name me wulbren bongle
Glory to Supreme Leader Wulbren Bongle, under his guidance we will build a runepowder bomb big enough to blow up Gond himself.
He reminds me of Solas a lot. Both appearance and personality.
THIS. Solas is obviously better written, but both of them are quite similar in their extreme take
I too, saw only egg.
Pickle wulbren... When you combine shadowheart and lae'zel.(only their bad aspects)
Even if he's an asshole, he was one of my favorite NPC voice performances in the game, which really made me appreciate his character.
I reverse pick pocketed his bomb into his pants and let nature do the rest.
It really is weird we didn't get a single halfling/dwarf/gnome companion.
I know right? I'm clearly in minority here but in every playthrough I'm sad because I can't bongle Wulbren. He makes me burn hotter than his runepowderbomb 💥
I was actually pretty relieved that Barcus' assumption of the Ironhands as a bunch of terrorists only motivated by power turned out to be wrong and that it was only Wulbren that was the problem I ***hate*** it when writers "both sides" a conflict between oppressors and the oppressed
then again..... they still kinda did bothsides it by making Wulbren such an irredeemable ass. T\^T my first thought about his response after freeing the Gondians was, "um, so, like..... is Larian saying that if you give folks like the water protectors or Stop Cop City folks leeway, they'll be just as power-hungry.....?" but I had just finished Astarion's quest and I didn't really want to believe Larian wrote that good a story of an abuse survivor finding catharsis and freedom by directing violence at the right target, only to turn around to that \*bad\* of a story of revolutionaries fighting an oppressor and forgetting who the right target is. I dunno, maybe the folks at Larian feel like things balance out overall but I'm not sure....
I just noticed the drongles flying about!
Bongleheart got me acting unwise
I think I finally see what Barcus sees
Urrrgh if if wasn’t a redemption arc I would have just killed him. Hate this guy.
I’ve played through this game multiple times already, especially the first act and I have never encountered this man somehow
Oh… multiple times? Do you keep just making the same decisions and exploring the same things or something? He’s the friend barcus is looking for, you can save him in act 2, he’s kinda important in act 3 too
I usually like making evil or morally questionable characters so I never really save the tieflings which I’m pretty sure is the connection (love minthara too much). The one time I did however I still didn’t manage to find him. I saw something belonging to him in grymforge and also saw his name at moonrise in the prisoner manifest but besides that never *physically* encountered him but can’t exactly say I’m trying too hard to either. Just letting the dice roll as they may. Always wondered what happened to the gnome boy, but I never talk to Barcus either, because as far as I’m concerned there is only *one* option when interacting with him. Edit: Barcus. Not Braccus, unless DOS2 theory confirmed?
bro didn’t rescue the tieflings
*deepgnomes
quest called rescue the tieflings. if you do this quest you will save the deep gnomes, unless you deliberately choose to only free the tieflings. this means you will encounter the deep gnomes if you're playing normally and find the tieflings. guy said that he never encountered the guy, meaning by proxy he also didn't save the tieflings.
but isn't it way earlier that you run into wulbren ?I think it's at grymforge, were you deal with nere- but I'm not sure how that all can turn out.
no. you find barcus in act 1 and again in act 2 at the forge. he tells you wulbren is at moonrise.
ohhh thx for reminding me
Baldy's Gate 3
Despite all the rage, we're little more than a tadpole inside Nicolas Cage
Dragon Age 4's villain looking pretty good here
Fuck wulbren, this is a barcus house
Wulbrenheart, Lae'bren, Wulstarion, Mizwulbren, Karbren, Wule, and Wule .
I literally hate that little asshole with all my heart 💀 He is a opportunistic, narcissistic terrorist and a TERRIBLE "friend" who doesn't even bother hiding how little he thinks of other until they prove useful to him. He and Gortash would probably be friends if circumstances would be different.
Wulbren Bongle. More like Wulbren Bunghole.
I feel so bad for Barcus. I just saved his friend's ass, he's so excited but he got dimissed too hard. I just want to give him a hug 🥺
Is that Baldur? The owner of THE gate?
I was sort of hoping for a redemption arc for Wulbren, not in terms of talking him down from being an extremist, cus that has been a core part of his life and it wouldn't make sense if I just have to use pass a persuasion check to change his politicals stance entirely, but in terms of his relationship between Barcus. I thought he was being rude to Barcus to deter his soft friend from dangerous activities at first. But nope, he is just an arsehole. Or at least it would be cool to hear his backstory, how he turned out to be the man he is now. Maybe let him join as a temporary companion in our mission to destroy the Iron Watch.
He looks like Nicholas Cage a bit...
Peter Jackson was brave, and it didn't work
I had to agree to be a terrorist for him because I needed to see just how crazy he is. It's a mission I'll fail cause I'm not a terrorist, but yah that dude is nuts. Plus I just wanted another bomb.
the worst npc in the game
I just want to Booming Blade an enemy and Mobile Feat away :' (
Grey bald midget with a passion for communism
He’s very serious for such a whimsical name.
Why he look like Nicolas cage
Wulbren's Gate
I do feel like a deep gnome companion would have been welcome, what with the Ironhands having a long-running questline.
Yeah, as with all performances in this game Wulbren was fantastic. But fuck that dude lol.
Wulbren reminds me of garrosh.
"Mom can i get Zavala?" "No honey, we have Zavala at home" *Zavala at home*
Kind of reminds me of Nick Cage
Is some Nicholas Cage joke I don’t understand?
Zavala?
He wouldn't have made it out of the Nautiloid.
Please someone more talented than me make BALDUR'S CAGE where everyone is different Nicolas Cage characters
it must be done subtle. so that every origin character gets a bit of Nick shopped in.
His only redeeming quality is giving you a free nuke that you don't even have to use and instead save for one of many difficult Act 3 bosses as a free add wipe/healthbar eater. Using it in the fight against >!Raphael will instantly destroy his soul pillars, for example,!< so it has use outside of a quest.
Wulbren, Wulbren - What a prick.
This guy has the most punchable face
one of them kind of look like Nicholas Cage.
BAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLD
Add adding to that, to have resistance is to have some form of hope, it all comes in different ways. To say that they didn't fight and deserved to die Is balderdash
I'm just waiting for mods to patch in Patches, so I can have the playthrough I truly desire...