Where to hide the heart? (Baldur's Gate 2 spoilers)

[Braininthejar2]

My Baldur's Gate 2 saga continues.

The player is about to meet Nyalee, and I wanted to shift things around a bit.

Original game version: Nyalee was Yaga Shura's foster mother - she taught him a spell that now makes him immortal, putting his heart out of his chest and setting it on magical fire that keeps revitalising him. He stole her own heart, to nerf her powers and prevent her from undoing the ritual. She sends the party to recover both hearts, giving her back her power, and rendering Yaga Shura mortal, then predictably turns on them when recovering her heart makes her emotionally unstable.

My version: the mechanism of Yaga Shura's immortality is a bit different - he has a power to feed on fire as his bhaalspawn ability, and the spell displaces his heart into a nearby volcano, making him an absurdly advanced version of trouserfang dwarf. Nyalee knows exactly where it is - in return for her heart she'll share her knowledge of how to disrupt the ritual. When the party assaults the volcanic temple, Yaga Shura will be informed - he'll telepot with his retinue, facing the party in a climactic battle over a lake of lava.

What my plan needs is some place to put Nyalee's heart in - it can't be on Yaga Shura's person, because then he'd know right away it was gone. And it shouldn't be in the same temple as his heart, because it wouldn't be interesting to raid the same place twice.

Do you have any interesting ideas?

[Braininthejar2]

Rather than a full extra dungeon, I'm thinking of some kind of a monster lair high in the mountains - preferrably not a dragon (there will be too many of those later) - what could guard the heart better than Yaga Shura's fire giants do, AND be an interesting encounter?

Guess it's time to read through the MMs again...

[Braininthejar2]

Okay, I have the general idea.

Rather than leave Nyalee's heart with his minions, Yaga Shura hid it in a cave in the Marching Mountains. The cave used to be a shrine of a very obscure cult, and only opens under very specific conditions - but a high level party won't have a problem breaking in - provided they know exactly where it is.

Nyalee's own divinations have managed to tell her that much - there is an elemental weird in the vincinity that could give them the party the exact location - if they do a small favor for her.

So the new question is, what would an elemental oracle need that she can't get with her own power?

[Extra Anchovies]

How about a jar of dirt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9xobAxHg0w)?

But then, given your username, you might need to take the brain out first...

[Braininthejar2]

So long a wait for anyone to contribute, and what I get is a joke?

This was a serious question. An elemental weird is very powerful, and being an elemental, has no biological needs. The amount of things she might want is very limited.


(In other news, I finally figured out how to write up Yaga Shura. Since he was said in the game to eat the hearts of his enemies, and his immortality trick is heart-themed too, I decided that his signature Bhaalspawn power would be to absorb the powers of the victims he eats, much like a greater doppleganger. This way I'm spared the problem of how to fit decent casting on a guy with 15 racial HD)

[Gensuru]

Well, in order to explain why nobody else has tried this before, why not something connected to the Bhaalspawn taint?


Even a miniscule fraction of Bhaalspawn taint was enough to allow Sarevok to reconstitute himself. If the amount of things an elemental could want is so small, a spark of divinity might just do, right? Depending on how you want to handle it, even a temporary (and unpleasant for the protagonist) touch might be enough to enhance her divinations to a greater level so she can finally see or detect something she herself was interested in but could not find.


Other than that, the destruction or capture of a rival might do. It would certainly be more in line with the combative quests of the game and one of the few things a powerful elemental might need is assistance with eliminating a rival of equal power.


I'm afraid i'm unfamiliar with your saga so the particulars of your setting and your protagonist are unknown to me. Still, I hope this is of some small use to you.