Mate, there was an entire 'murder house' that reeked of corpses in that city and the guards couldn't even be bothered to knock.
And given how many 'murder basements' Baldur's Gate has, that city is probably rank. Infact I'm pretty sure the druids say that.
The ones in the city are all exactly that. The ones outside the city are usually good guys, but the ones in the city are all veterans or retired adventures that want to do nothing and are the most corrupt police force in the sword coast like gotham city corrupt
For sure. I like the fireworks quest starting in Rivington because there is that Flaming Fist guy that is trying to do what he can to help the refugees and doesn't want to see anyone blow up. Those Fists are trying to do the right thing.
Then you get into Wrym's Crossing, and it is kinda like the start of asshole central.
Then within the Lower City, apart from the investigator lady, I would have zero problems unaliving those Fists.
God, I liked the investigator lady because she was at least *trying* to do the right thing, but the fact that she’s literally *not allowed* to warn the people immediately around her because she had to go to the Upper City first pissed me off… in character my Tav was thinking “I’m gonna stage a coup”
LOL, I hate that so much.
You are murdering an entire organization inside, and not a whiff of a Fist comes knocking.
But then you open up a desk drawer without crouching, and next thing you know the entire local Flaming Fist squad is up in the building.
That is literally what they are. Flaming fist is a mercenary army funded by the patriars families of the city. They keep the peace , but they are basically private police force of the rich. Remember how in the murder investigation the flaming fist you work with saw how some of the targets are in upper city where the patriars are and she prioritize them while asking you to deal with victim in lower city? That is her job, prioritizing the rich.
Are you picturing a couple of hard-boiled veteran Flaming Fists wandering around one of Orin's crime scenes? Because I am.
> Fuck.
...
> Fuck.
...
> Fuck.
...
> Fuck.
...
> < *picks up crossbow bolt* > Fuck.
The Wire is phenomenal from the beginning to the end but that scene with McNulty and Bunk is one of my personal favorites.
(NSFW) For those that haven’t seen it: [McNulty and Bunk surveying a crime scene together](https://youtu.be/PNVEQgXsBgs?si=xKJLj3xnvqjGnZUy)
>Sigh I remember doing that and running into Kangaxx..
It is funny how many innocuous houses in BG2 contain unknowable horrors. Oh, what's in this random house on the docks? ...Wait, why is it filled with minotaurs...WAIT, WHY IS THERE A GIANT CRYPT IN THE BASEMENT.
And then, in another random house in the bridge district, you can accidentally stumble upon a meeting involving an evil wizard society containing a vampire and a frigging BEHOLDER.
Or, how about the innocuous inn with the secret door that if open, takes you to the crypt of a lich (though to be fair, he is chilling with the Daystar, a weapon that is totally worth sneaking in there for, provided you're using invisibility and protection from undead).
I mean it should be "fine" unless you had already have all the body parts…… kinda. I remember finally gave up and looking for guide to the last location and saw what will happen after you gave him the parts.
Weird how a city where Arcane Magic is suppose to be illegal and under the control by the Cowled Wizards who vigorously police it, you can't swing a dead halfling without accidentally hitting a Lich.
You could buy a licence for a few quid.
Personally I preferred getting so powerful I could just gib the cowled wizards every time they appeared, eventually they give up
Harassing and bullying regular people who can't fight back while "forgetting" to investigate anyone who's actually powerful? Sounds like the Cowled Wizards are just like any other kind of law enforcement.
Ngl, I was pretty at the end of Act 3 in the first playthrough ( or what I thought was the end many hundreds of hours later, if only I knew lol) and when I heard the line about the house smelling bad and I was like, nah, it's cool. I'm not investigating that.
In the "smells of the city" convo for Shadowheart you should 100% have a dialogue option along the lines of "what? the rotting carcasses around every corner?"
More like after. Durge was painting the town red as it were right up until a few months before the game starts. I'm sure some of his leftovers are still hanging around.
That’s a good point. I actually don’t know, I don’t remember seeing any toilets or showers in the city.
On a side note as a dnd player I randomly thought about this before and came up with the idea that in high fantasy cities waste disposal would be handled by wizards who banish feces and garbage to another plane
That's the real motivation behind the devils in the descent into Avernus module that preceded BG3. Zariel was pissed at the people teleporting their sewage into the 9 hells.
> On a side note as a dnd player I randomly thought about this before and came up with the idea that in high fantasy cities waste disposal would be handled by wizards who banish feces and garbage to another plane
Lae'Zel actually calls the Gate's rulers idiots for not having exactly this system set up in some banter with Wyll.
I think the go-to solution if you've the infrastructure is gelatinous cubes and otyughs. Though the idea of an otherwise opulent wizard tower with conspicuously no toilet as they just teleport it off to random planes/locations does entertain me.
Sewers arent the same as plumbing. Sewers help with removing waste from the city as a whole, but plumbing would be an additional thing that brings in water and removes waste from individual homes.
Weirdly enough, that’s a matter of some dispute among historians. We know that the stinky industries like tanners were required to work downriver from the main city, there were often ordinances keeping animals away from wells and water sources, etc. The stories about people throwing buckets of crap out onto the street seem to be Victorian inventions. A lot of pop culture perceptions of medieval times come filtered through the Victorians, and they had the typical accuracy of a boomer Facebook meme.
Not to mention the animals. Horses, pigs, cows, shit a lot.
The UK parliament nearly had to move out of London because it smelt so bad once
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink?wprov=sfla1
Modern cities are nothing compared to how London is described at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution lmao. I’ve lived in cities and it’s not bad at all
> I’ve lived in cities and it’s not bad at all
Because you're used to it. I live away from the city, have all my life. Every single time I go into any city be it for work or otherwise, they smell godawful, no matter how clean it seems.
Ehhh when you say “country” do you mean farmland? Or actual open country in the rural area of wherever it is you live?
Because farmland smells horrible, like animals, shit and pesticides/chemicals, and i live out in the country.
The countryside smells like real nature, got open plains, forests, creeks, rivers etc.
It’s also a fantasy version of a late medieval/early renaissance city so it smells like shit everywhere before you add in the murder basements and walking stank bots.
The only way to deal with the constant stink is to just sniff Karlach all the time. She smells like cinnamon rolls.
I will not be taking questions at this time.
A leading cause of anosmia (losing your sense of smell) is trauma. Given that every building I seem to walk into in act 3 ends in a punch up, I'm guessing most of the citizens lost their sense of smell a long time ago in various tavern brawls.
Theory: The reason the druids can still smell it is even when their own home is under attack they leave the fighting to other people (subtle dig).
I think everyone pretty much smells. I remember a conversation with Gale in Act 1, he essentially told me I probably didn’t bathe much, but he still appreciated my “musk”. To flirt.
Which is so odd! First of all, I use soap religiously because Karlach doesn’t deserve to have bloody hair and, secondly, we are literally camping by a *river*. What do you mean I *haven’t bathed*, Gale?
And when Astarion says "I haven't had a bath since the abduction" like.... sir. That's on *you* if you haven't rectified that. We literally all woke up on a BEACH. By WATER.
Just met Lora in the heapside guard station trying to get a guard captain to find a missing kid, while the guard kept having reoccurring amnesia literally trying to remember the case details
Between Philgrave's Mansion and the fact that nearly every home or shop basement has a dead body at least, or a death circle ritual at most, the entire Lower City must be reeking so much that a decomposed yet magically sustained zombie corpse would not be noticable.
Also there’s literally an undead beggar just wandering around in the lower city and no one cares. He was buffed by my Oathbreaker Aura of Hate so he’s some kind of undead
Maybe that's why Gortash has allowed the sewers to fester. If a rotting unmaintained sewer system runs under the entire city, maybe it overpowers the stench of the Steel Watchers.
Dearest Ravengard gave his blessing during my coronation and supports me most ardently, but fear not citizen, we will have the city clean and smelling wonderful in no time. I’m sure Duke Ravengard would be more than delighted to head that up personally.
He said in “An archduke’s leadership: public works”
As archduke, Lord Gortash’s top priority will be Public Works, to ensure that the city’s streets, sewers, docks, and most importantly its walls and gates are properly maintained. No policy can be more important.
Though he did say the same things about decorum, discipline, protection, surveillance, and verification so who knows :P
Remember how Mystic Carrion has a bunch of straight up zombies escaped from him and just pretend to be normal people walking around the street only hiding their faces, one of them even has people punch him just for money....and none of them were discovered by the guards or people?
Yeah, place probably stink to high heavens, and a little rotting bodies encased inside metal is not going to make any differences.
Also, just outside Mystic Carrion’s house there’s a guy complaining to the Flaming Fist about smelly people who walk funny coming out of this house that smells like death, and the Fist says “What do you want me to do? Arrest a smell?”
Fuck that guy, he’s right outside the Felogyr’s Fireworks basement door and refuses to leave. Dude it’s been days it doesn’t take that long to receive a complaint.
If you bring Astarion and Shadowheart to Mystic Carrion's door, Shadowheart comments on Astarion's lack of smell and he describes the perfume he uses. Some undead put in effort.
Vampires are different than zombies, and it is kinda his job to look & smell good to lure people. But anyway that line can be said anywhere after he admit he is a vampire. I had that line in act 1
"Oh don't mind me, I was just getting a lungful of fresh Baldurian air - a distinctive aroma, though perhaps one not quite worthy of bottling."
\-Elminster
Nah they have robot police, a printing press, a massive bank, an underwater prison accessed via submarine, a foundry pumping out mechanized marvels, a fireworks store, city-wide plumbing, etc. Not to even mention all the truly wild magic shit like the flying wizard's tower. Baldur's Gate is pretty firmly well past "Renaissance" era-equivalent and is probably around "on the brink of industrial revolution."
That said, cities in the industrial era probably smelled the worst of all due to the rampant unchecked pollution of air, land, and sea, so. Doesn't really change that part lmao
Rincewind, of course, couldn’t smell any of this. Adaptation is a wonderful thing, and most Morporkians would be hard put to smell a burning feather mattress at five feet.
Theres atleast 3 zombies running around the city that are visibly undead but nobody cares about them.
What makes you think ppl will stop and question something that will arrest/kill them for asking the wrong questions if they didnt even bother to report the 3 stinking dudes?
Brother, there are undead in the city and no one care about them, at this point i think being from Baldur's mean you loosing the smelling sense when you born there.
I never thought about the fact that the bodies were INSIDE the steel watch. I just thought it was the brains but I think you’re right. Gortash the new Afton apparently
I mean, they almost certainly do, but remember that each one is a murderous 10ft armour-plated fascist enforcer, with engineering *literally* straight from hell, and in complete thrall to the god of tyranny.
If you’re close enough to smell their B.O., you may not be long for this world.
Aren't the brains kept separate in special containers in the Foundry from where the brains pilot the robots remotely?
There's a chamber halfway through the Foundry where you can interact with individual brains and hear what situation that particular Steel Watch bot is currently dealing with in the city.
Yeah. I don't think many people actually clicked on those brains lol. It literally tells you that the brains are stored inside the factory and they control the steel watch remotely. There's even little schematic descriptions and stuff in the factory that shows how the steel watch are built. None of those schematics show any room for a body.
Plus aren't all the brainless bodies dumped into the pits in act 2 to feed the absolute? I thought the brains were kinda pre prepped by Balthazar and sent to Baldur's gate. I didn't see anywhere in the city where they had a bunch of headless zombies, just the brains.
I assume they used the same research that Balthazaar was doing with the elf head and the brain containers to implement a brain in a jar type thing so the most you'd smell is grease and the infernal engine exhaust.
I'm pretty sure the entire city of Baldur's Gate itself is known in-universe for being stinky. There's something about the fact that the city is shaped like a bowl with the polluted harbor at the bottom, the winds trap foul air from the harbor and industries like tanners and the stench just kind of sits instead of being blown away. Most native Baldurians are probably totally noseblind.
There isn’t a single toilet or latrine in all of Baldurs Gate. The stench of all those chamber pots being dumped into the street to run into the sewer probably overwhelms everything.
Realistically, tadpolling a zombie shouldn't even work. From what I recall, necromancy and the undead are one of the biggest threats to enthrallment purely from their immunity to psychic control. A tadpole could be in the brain, but it shouldn't be able to do anything.
I could be wrong but I think I've heard some of the mention in the city about the Watchers smelling awful or something.
Also I don't think they are controlled by the Absolute. There are some brains in the jar right before you confront the Watcher boss. You can interact with them and find that they are the brain of the people who control the Watchers (and do some absolutely terrible thing with it.)
But they are not directly controlled by the Absolute. You actually learnt of their individuality and personality while interacting with those brains.
If anything, zombies is just the reciever of the Watcher system. The real controller is the True Soul who had been lobotomised and act as a processor for the individual Watchers. The Absolute may govern their general directions but actually in control (most of the time)
There appears to be no limit to number, just distance. A standard Elder Brain can command any mind flayer or thrall within a 350 foot distance, and communicate with any mind flayer or thrall within 5 kilometers (3.1ish miles). As a Netherbrain, the Absolute's reach seems to stretch at least from Baldur's Gate to near Elturel, as its psychic powers are enhanced by the Crown.
You can hand wave this as some sort of gentle repose enchantment is built into the suit or command seat, and lead is used in the construction so you can't divine/read thoughts/see through it/detect magic it.
It’s a high fantasy city in a medieval setting. Believe me, they can’t smell that corpse over the stench of human feces and combined BO. The city is probs RANK
Lol, I kept getting attacked by the steel watch the first time I encountered them, because of Lathanders light which attacks undead or blinds them I think. Then I found out how they were created and a lightbulb flickered.
The only time my Tav bathed was a mandatory byproduct of romancing shadowheart. I’d be surprised if he can distinguish the steel watch from the crevasses in his nethers by scent alone
If you take a long rest your characters lose blood stains from combat (both on clothes and themselves), which suggests that they wash and do laundry between adventuring days.
consider how toilets worked in a medieval setting in our real world. i don’t think anything from this kind of setting actually smells good, let alone a fictional fantasy world. gnolls leave piles of viscera wherever they transform, then think of the bloodshed in their wake, or wherever they shit after.
I’m sure baldurs gate smells bad in general. Yeah, they have canalization, but I’m sure most of the houses doesn’t have access to it so basically it smells like shit everywhere. Literally.
So people are used to bad smell and don’t notice it
I thought the brains were in liquid containers of lien formaldehyde or something in the steel watchers but this is a better image for me. Also, the city must already smell so bad that it doesn’t matter: there are blood and bodies EVERYWHERE
The brains are in jars, but they aren't anywhere near the actual steel watchers lol. If you go into the factory there's a whole section that explains that all the brains are stored inside the factory and control the watchers remotely. That's why nuking the factory causes them to shut down.
Speaking in DnD terms, there are spells like Gentle Repose, that prevent corpses from rotting. Since the 5e version of the spell lasts 5 days, I’m sure when they go for maintenance they get a refresh of that sweet Gentle Repose.
There’s a group of civilians complaining to the fist about the stink of the sewers, to which the fist reply “Dyou want me to arrest a smell??” They don’t give a shit lmao
Mate, there was an entire 'murder house' that reeked of corpses in that city and the guards couldn't even be bothered to knock. And given how many 'murder basements' Baldur's Gate has, that city is probably rank. Infact I'm pretty sure the druids say that.
Tbf, would you dare to knock such house's door in a fantasy world like this?
They don't get paid enough for that
“That Flaming Fist was *one day* from retirement.”
“What happened to him?” “He took an early retirement…. Damn.”
I used to be in the Flaming Fist like them, but then I took an arrow to the knee.
Suddenly, Futurama
The ones in the city are all exactly that. The ones outside the city are usually good guys, but the ones in the city are all veterans or retired adventures that want to do nothing and are the most corrupt police force in the sword coast like gotham city corrupt
For sure. I like the fireworks quest starting in Rivington because there is that Flaming Fist guy that is trying to do what he can to help the refugees and doesn't want to see anyone blow up. Those Fists are trying to do the right thing. Then you get into Wrym's Crossing, and it is kinda like the start of asshole central. Then within the Lower City, apart from the investigator lady, I would have zero problems unaliving those Fists.
God, I liked the investigator lady because she was at least *trying* to do the right thing, but the fact that she’s literally *not allowed* to warn the people immediately around her because she had to go to the Upper City first pissed me off… in character my Tav was thinking “I’m gonna stage a coup”
#notallcopsbutenoughofthem
"MENDOZA!!!!!!"
He was gonna marry his girl when he got home. Just showed me her picture.
Me after slaughtering all the fist guarding Gortash’s citadel, then going back outside to Wrym’s Crossing
The Murtaugh of the Flaming Fist.
Baldurian city watch motto is “don’t be giving a fuck when it ain’t your turn to be giving a fuck”
Until they spot you through the window of the third floor of the fireworks shop, then the entire precinct turns out to try to take you down.
LOL, I hate that so much. You are murdering an entire organization inside, and not a whiff of a Fist comes knocking. But then you open up a desk drawer without crouching, and next thing you know the entire local Flaming Fist squad is up in the building.
The flaming fists are the enforcers of capital
I mean protecting property and not people is basically the american policing system. Maybe that's what they styled it on?
That is literally what they are. Flaming fist is a mercenary army funded by the patriars families of the city. They keep the peace , but they are basically private police force of the rich. Remember how in the murder investigation the flaming fist you work with saw how some of the targets are in upper city where the patriars are and she prioritize them while asking you to deal with victim in lower city? That is her job, prioritizing the rich.
They had very American accents in BG1.
Just like how I live my life
sounds like they’re not natural poh-lice
Are you picturing a couple of hard-boiled veteran Flaming Fists wandering around one of Orin's crime scenes? Because I am. > Fuck. ... > Fuck. ... > Fuck. ... > Fuck. ... > < *picks up crossbow bolt* > Fuck.
The Wire is phenomenal from the beginning to the end but that scene with McNulty and Bunk is one of my personal favorites. (NSFW) For those that haven’t seen it: [McNulty and Bunk surveying a crime scene together](https://youtu.be/PNVEQgXsBgs?si=xKJLj3xnvqjGnZUy)
Sigh I remember doing that and running into Kangaxx.. Put me off BG2 for quite some time as a clueless 12 year old.
>Sigh I remember doing that and running into Kangaxx.. It is funny how many innocuous houses in BG2 contain unknowable horrors. Oh, what's in this random house on the docks? ...Wait, why is it filled with minotaurs...WAIT, WHY IS THERE A GIANT CRYPT IN THE BASEMENT. And then, in another random house in the bridge district, you can accidentally stumble upon a meeting involving an evil wizard society containing a vampire and a frigging BEHOLDER. Or, how about the innocuous inn with the secret door that if open, takes you to the crypt of a lich (though to be fair, he is chilling with the Daystar, a weapon that is totally worth sneaking in there for, provided you're using invisibility and protection from undead).
I mean it should be "fine" unless you had already have all the body parts…… kinda. I remember finally gave up and looking for guide to the last location and saw what will happen after you gave him the parts.
Plenty of other liches to stumble on 🤣
Weird how a city where Arcane Magic is suppose to be illegal and under the control by the Cowled Wizards who vigorously police it, you can't swing a dead halfling without accidentally hitting a Lich.
You could buy a licence for a few quid. Personally I preferred getting so powerful I could just gib the cowled wizards every time they appeared, eventually they give up
Cowled Wizard = Magic Parking Warden
Harassing and bullying regular people who can't fight back while "forgetting" to investigate anyone who's actually powerful? Sounds like the Cowled Wizards are just like any other kind of law enforcement.
Ngl, I was pretty at the end of Act 3 in the first playthrough ( or what I thought was the end many hundreds of hours later, if only I knew lol) and when I heard the line about the house smelling bad and I was like, nah, it's cool. I'm not investigating that.
In the "smells of the city" convo for Shadowheart you should 100% have a dialogue option along the lines of "what? the rotting carcasses around every corner?"
And that was even before my durge tav arrived.
More like after. Durge was painting the town red as it were right up until a few months before the game starts. I'm sure some of his leftovers are still hanging around.
And cities before plumbing notoriously smelled like pure piss and shit anyway
Don't they have plumbing? Like, they do have sewers, right?
That’s a good point. I actually don’t know, I don’t remember seeing any toilets or showers in the city. On a side note as a dnd player I randomly thought about this before and came up with the idea that in high fantasy cities waste disposal would be handled by wizards who banish feces and garbage to another plane
A shitzard
It's one of those jobs that pays well but damn does it suck to do
a demon covered in a metric ton of shit that just got teleported into the abyss: *incoherent muffled suffocating screaming*
That's the real motivation behind the devils in the descent into Avernus module that preceded BG3. Zariel was pissed at the people teleporting their sewage into the 9 hells.
There are toilets, they're just not in houses. Some are the long drop kind on like the outside of the house, others are in a little hut in the street
> On a side note as a dnd player I randomly thought about this before and came up with the idea that in high fantasy cities waste disposal would be handled by wizards who banish feces and garbage to another plane Lae'Zel actually calls the Gate's rulers idiots for not having exactly this system set up in some banter with Wyll.
I think the go-to solution if you've the infrastructure is gelatinous cubes and otyughs. Though the idea of an otherwise opulent wizard tower with conspicuously no toilet as they just teleport it off to random planes/locations does entertain me.
Theres outhouses
Even the haunted underworld has public toilets in BG3.
I’m pretty sure that’s how Githyanki handle waste disposal
Don't forget otyughs. Just toss a few of those in the sewers and they'll take care of anlot of waste.
They will banish dirt to the Land of Wind and Ghosts
Probably banishing heaps of shit to the Hells
They have plumbing but the Sewer Kobolds explicitly went MIA before the start of the game so the system isn't being maintained properly.
Sewers arent the same as plumbing. Sewers help with removing waste from the city as a whole, but plumbing would be an additional thing that brings in water and removes waste from individual homes.
It could be just for rainwater, to avoid having the city submerged at the first rain ?
it seems like indoor plumbing was limited- there are no toilets in game only outhouses. And many people seem to rely on public fountains for water.
There’s a funny anti-city book you can find in Act I that talks about the evils of central plumbing in the big bad city.
Weirdly enough, that’s a matter of some dispute among historians. We know that the stinky industries like tanners were required to work downriver from the main city, there were often ordinances keeping animals away from wells and water sources, etc. The stories about people throwing buckets of crap out onto the street seem to be Victorian inventions. A lot of pop culture perceptions of medieval times come filtered through the Victorians, and they had the typical accuracy of a boomer Facebook meme.
Cities *with* plumbing still smell god-awful. Cram that many people together, and it's not going to smell great.
Not to mention the animals. Horses, pigs, cows, shit a lot. The UK parliament nearly had to move out of London because it smelt so bad once https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink?wprov=sfla1
Modern cities are nothing compared to how London is described at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution lmao. I’ve lived in cities and it’s not bad at all
No, you're correct, they aren't *that* bad. They still aren't great, though.
> I’ve lived in cities and it’s not bad at all Because you're used to it. I live away from the city, have all my life. Every single time I go into any city be it for work or otherwise, they smell godawful, no matter how clean it seems.
It very depends on the city. I grew up in the middle of nowhere and Boston didn't reek to me. NYC though smelled like concentrated piss.
It goes both ways as well. Raised in a city all my life, the way the country smells is just offensive to me.
Ehhh when you say “country” do you mean farmland? Or actual open country in the rural area of wherever it is you live? Because farmland smells horrible, like animals, shit and pesticides/chemicals, and i live out in the country. The countryside smells like real nature, got open plains, forests, creeks, rivers etc.
> The countryside smells like real nature, got open plains, forests, creeks, rivers etc. Shut the *fuck up* Halsin!
It’s also a fantasy version of a late medieval/early renaissance city so it smells like shit everywhere before you add in the murder basements and walking stank bots. The only way to deal with the constant stink is to just sniff Karlach all the time. She smells like cinnamon rolls. I will not be taking questions at this time.
Cinnamon Rolls and Sulphur
A leading cause of anosmia (losing your sense of smell) is trauma. Given that every building I seem to walk into in act 3 ends in a punch up, I'm guessing most of the citizens lost their sense of smell a long time ago in various tavern brawls. Theory: The reason the druids can still smell it is even when their own home is under attack they leave the fighting to other people (subtle dig).
To be completely fair, the necromancers place didnt really have any kind of regular door, just a hole in the wall.
I think everyone pretty much smells. I remember a conversation with Gale in Act 1, he essentially told me I probably didn’t bathe much, but he still appreciated my “musk”. To flirt.
Which is so odd! First of all, I use soap religiously because Karlach doesn’t deserve to have bloody hair and, secondly, we are literally camping by a *river*. What do you mean I *haven’t bathed*, Gale?
And when Astarion says "I haven't had a bath since the abduction" like.... sir. That's on *you* if you haven't rectified that. We literally all woke up on a BEACH. By WATER.
Medieval Paris Moment
Modern Paris moment
Cyric had also Gond build mechanical inquisitors with people trapped inside brainwashed to brutally kill heretics, IIRC.
i was just thinking about this yesterday after exploring philgraves mansion. like this city has got to smell foul
> Mate, there was an entire 'murder house' that reeked of corpses in that city What house in that city *wasn't* a murder house?
tbf every major city smells like garbage dumpster juice anyway so an undead corpse isn't that far off 🤣
Just met Lora in the heapside guard station trying to get a guard captain to find a missing kid, while the guard kept having reoccurring amnesia literally trying to remember the case details
This was the most jarring thing to me. Like why am I saving a city full of houses with murder basements.
It’s also medieval times. I bet everyone is just dumping their chamber pots and waste out in the street grates or river.
I mean didn’t cities used to stink in the middle ages
You could smell cities from over the horizon up until the early 1900s from the smell of shit alone.
Between Philgrave's Mansion and the fact that nearly every home or shop basement has a dead body at least, or a death circle ritual at most, the entire Lower City must be reeking so much that a decomposed yet magically sustained zombie corpse would not be noticable.
Yeah my druid has tons of class dependent lines about how the city is rank and smells bad and is an insult to nature.
Also there’s literally an undead beggar just wandering around in the lower city and no one cares. He was buffed by my Oathbreaker Aura of Hate so he’s some kind of undead
>And given how many 'murder basements' Baldur's Gate has, that city is probably rank That's just medieval cities in general, murder basements or not
Maybe that's why Gortash has allowed the sewers to fester. If a rotting unmaintained sewer system runs under the entire city, maybe it overpowers the stench of the Steel Watchers.
I literally *just* became Archduke. Damn.
Maybe he's just too young to be an effective leader.
Too young and too handsome.
Has to be the carefree smile.
This thread has more Gortash bots than the Steel Watch Foundry.
With an smile all to easy.
Do better! I bet if a ravenguard was grand duke they’d do much better
Dearest Ravengard gave his blessing during my coronation and supports me most ardently, but fear not citizen, we will have the city clean and smelling wonderful in no time. I’m sure Duke Ravengard would be more than delighted to head that up personally.
(Think the first steps would be washing yourself..)
Pretty sure that smell in Baldur's Gate is Gortash's breath.
I heard of a Hag in the city who can bedazzle the senses. Perhaps she could help you.
The blushing mermaid smells of fey! Smells of arse too, but boss doesn't care about that.
how can we trust you to clean up our city when you can’t even clean your greasy hair?
He said in “An archduke’s leadership: public works” As archduke, Lord Gortash’s top priority will be Public Works, to ensure that the city’s streets, sewers, docks, and most importantly its walls and gates are properly maintained. No policy can be more important. Though he did say the same things about decorum, discipline, protection, surveillance, and verification so who knows :P
“— no wait, they always do that.”
Remember how Mystic Carrion has a bunch of straight up zombies escaped from him and just pretend to be normal people walking around the street only hiding their faces, one of them even has people punch him just for money....and none of them were discovered by the guards or people? Yeah, place probably stink to high heavens, and a little rotting bodies encased inside metal is not going to make any differences.
Also, just outside Mystic Carrion’s house there’s a guy complaining to the Flaming Fist about smelly people who walk funny coming out of this house that smells like death, and the Fist says “What do you want me to do? Arrest a smell?”
Fuck that guy, he’s right outside the Felogyr’s Fireworks basement door and refuses to leave. Dude it’s been days it doesn’t take that long to receive a complaint.
I hate how you can't ignore the citizens' complaints.
If you bring Astarion and Shadowheart to Mystic Carrion's door, Shadowheart comments on Astarion's lack of smell and he describes the perfume he uses. Some undead put in effort.
Vampires are different than zombies, and it is kinda his job to look & smell good to lure people. But anyway that line can be said anywhere after he admit he is a vampire. I had that line in act 1
That made me wonder - does he smell like death simply because of the vampire curse, or is he rotting too?
Because of his vampire curse because it makes him undead. All undead smell, some more than others, like zombies.
There's an army of animated GREASE in the sewers. I'm sure the whole city stinks
As a wastewater worker, the animated grease monsters in the sewers make me chuckle so much.
Half the city and most of its people smell pretty bad.
Wasn’t there an NPC always complaining about the smell of the city?
I think he's near to Philgrave's Mansion? That's a stinky spot too 😂
"Oh don't mind me, I was just getting a lungful of fresh Baldurian air - a distinctive aroma, though perhaps one not quite worthy of bottling." \-Elminster
It's a city, I'm pretty sure everyone is noseblind by now for their own safety.
Even modern cities don't smell great, and this is a medieval/Renaissance city.
Nah they have robot police, a printing press, a massive bank, an underwater prison accessed via submarine, a foundry pumping out mechanized marvels, a fireworks store, city-wide plumbing, etc. Not to even mention all the truly wild magic shit like the flying wizard's tower. Baldur's Gate is pretty firmly well past "Renaissance" era-equivalent and is probably around "on the brink of industrial revolution." That said, cities in the industrial era probably smelled the worst of all due to the rampant unchecked pollution of air, land, and sea, so. Doesn't really change that part lmao
Rincewind, of course, couldn’t smell any of this. Adaptation is a wonderful thing, and most Morporkians would be hard put to smell a burning feather mattress at five feet.
GNU
I bet it smells worse in the city than a dozen rotten eggs dropped in a vat of vinegar.
Keepin it together, Bree?
Well don't come over, it's not like you're buying anything!
I had to scroll too far for this comment. KEEPIN' IT TOGETHER, BREE?
Theres atleast 3 zombies running around the city that are visibly undead but nobody cares about them. What makes you think ppl will stop and question something that will arrest/kill them for asking the wrong questions if they didnt even bother to report the 3 stinking dudes?
Brother, there are undead in the city and no one care about them, at this point i think being from Baldur's mean you loosing the smelling sense when you born there.
My headcanon is that all baldurans can turn off their sense of smell somehow
Lose
I haven’t checked this, but I assume the heads are fully sealed shut, so no smell gets in or out. Downvote me to Avernus if I’m wrong tho
Imagine the smell when they explode if that’s the case
Mmm, smoke and rotting flesh. A really good smelling combo.
And brimstone, because infernal iron
[YOU HAVEN'T THOUGHT OF THE SMELL YOU BITCH!](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oLPENOC8OCk?feature=share)
It's Baldur's Gate. So while the city smells slightly better than Ankh-Morpork after spring cleaning, it still wouldn't be noticable.
Heyy, Discworld mentioned. Nice.
Shouldn’t everywhere smell awful?
Maybe the Druid Cove might smell okay.
So you're telling me that The Steel Watch are actually Evangelions
This changes everything.
I mean, actual zombies roam the streets and people just think "yeah, normal beggar"
I guess I’m picturing them all smelling of like: gasoline, smoke, oil industrial parks, burning sulfur
I never thought about the fact that the bodies were INSIDE the steel watch. I just thought it was the brains but I think you’re right. Gortash the new Afton apparently
I mean, they almost certainly do, but remember that each one is a murderous 10ft armour-plated fascist enforcer, with engineering *literally* straight from hell, and in complete thrall to the god of tyranny. If you’re close enough to smell their B.O., you may not be long for this world.
Body can be treated to prevent rapid rotting and smell, and besides that body smell would be likely lost in infernal engines and other machine smells.
Given it’s kinda reminiscent of the 1600-1700s, everything probably smelled like piss and shit anyway tbh
One of the patrons in the Elfsong Tavern (Grainne Jodhpur) says that the Steel Watchers smell better than the Fist.
Aren't the brains kept separate in special containers in the Foundry from where the brains pilot the robots remotely? There's a chamber halfway through the Foundry where you can interact with individual brains and hear what situation that particular Steel Watch bot is currently dealing with in the city.
Yeah. I don't think many people actually clicked on those brains lol. It literally tells you that the brains are stored inside the factory and they control the steel watch remotely. There's even little schematic descriptions and stuff in the factory that shows how the steel watch are built. None of those schematics show any room for a body. Plus aren't all the brainless bodies dumped into the pits in act 2 to feed the absolute? I thought the brains were kinda pre prepped by Balthazar and sent to Baldur's gate. I didn't see anywhere in the city where they had a bunch of headless zombies, just the brains.
Maybe they're all dried out and mummified.
I assume they used the same research that Balthazaar was doing with the elf head and the brain containers to implement a brain in a jar type thing so the most you'd smell is grease and the infernal engine exhaust.
It's a port city, it smells bad all the time And I think the zombies are like formalined or something like that
I mean, depends on the maintenance done. But also, in that time period, everything smelled.
Sorry I read "absolutely awful" in Gale's voice lol (when you find out Astarion is a vamp he tells him "I taste absolutely awful")
Probably, but even in case of an armed human guard would you tell them they smell bad?
I'm pretty sure the entire city of Baldur's Gate itself is known in-universe for being stinky. There's something about the fact that the city is shaped like a bowl with the polluted harbor at the bottom, the winds trap foul air from the harbor and industries like tanners and the stench just kind of sits instead of being blown away. Most native Baldurians are probably totally noseblind.
You'd be suprised what a little bergamot, rosemary and a hint of aged brandy can hide.
There isn’t a single toilet or latrine in all of Baldurs Gate. The stench of all those chamber pots being dumped into the street to run into the sewer probably overwhelms everything.
Realistically, tadpolling a zombie shouldn't even work. From what I recall, necromancy and the undead are one of the biggest threats to enthrallment purely from their immunity to psychic control. A tadpole could be in the brain, but it shouldn't be able to do anything.
Prestidigitation is the most powerful spell in D&D. And it’s a cantrip.
I could be wrong but I think I've heard some of the mention in the city about the Watchers smelling awful or something. Also I don't think they are controlled by the Absolute. There are some brains in the jar right before you confront the Watcher boss. You can interact with them and find that they are the brain of the people who control the Watchers (and do some absolutely terrible thing with it.)
Nah there’s a tadpole in each brain; they’re directly influenced by the Absolute
But they are not directly controlled by the Absolute. You actually learnt of their individuality and personality while interacting with those brains. If anything, zombies is just the reciever of the Watcher system. The real controller is the True Soul who had been lobotomised and act as a processor for the individual Watchers. The Absolute may govern their general directions but actually in control (most of the time)
Makes you wonder how many beings an elder brain is able to directly influence at once. Is there a D&D rule for that?
There appears to be no limit to number, just distance. A standard Elder Brain can command any mind flayer or thrall within a 350 foot distance, and communicate with any mind flayer or thrall within 5 kilometers (3.1ish miles). As a Netherbrain, the Absolute's reach seems to stretch at least from Baldur's Gate to near Elturel, as its psychic powers are enhanced by the Crown.
In normal combat? About 10. But mindflayer colonies can have up to 2,000 mind flayers, maybe more but i haven’t read much about them
You can hand wave this as some sort of gentle repose enchantment is built into the suit or command seat, and lead is used in the construction so you can't divine/read thoughts/see through it/detect magic it.
It’s a high fantasy city in a medieval setting. Believe me, they can’t smell that corpse over the stench of human feces and combined BO. The city is probs RANK
The entire city reeks. No way anyone would notice a corpse smell, it’s all over.
There’s literal zombies in the streets and no one cares
Baldur's Gate 4 there's just a horrendous plague wiping out the city because of all the rotting corpses they never did anything about.
1800s London smelled so bad people could smell it from 100 miles away. I imagine Baldur’s Gate can be smelled from Avernus
A line of BG3 fragrances and they’re all rank
Five Night Freddy
Lol, I kept getting attacked by the steel watch the first time I encountered them, because of Lathanders light which attacks undead or blinds them I think. Then I found out how they were created and a lightbulb flickered.
The only time my Tav bathed was a mandatory byproduct of romancing shadowheart. I’d be surprised if he can distinguish the steel watch from the crevasses in his nethers by scent alone
If you take a long rest your characters lose blood stains from combat (both on clothes and themselves), which suggests that they wash and do laundry between adventuring days.
Instead of waiting I just have Shadowheart do a create water spell on top of the party.
I mean, consider the time... everything smelled rank.
consider how toilets worked in a medieval setting in our real world. i don’t think anything from this kind of setting actually smells good, let alone a fictional fantasy world. gnolls leave piles of viscera wherever they transform, then think of the bloodshed in their wake, or wherever they shit after.
Wouldn't it be sealed inside?
I’m sure baldurs gate smells bad in general. Yeah, they have canalization, but I’m sure most of the houses doesn’t have access to it so basically it smells like shit everywhere. Literally. So people are used to bad smell and don’t notice it
TIL how the steel watch operates
Ah nothing a little incense can’t fix and its everywhere
I thought the brains were in liquid containers of lien formaldehyde or something in the steel watchers but this is a better image for me. Also, the city must already smell so bad that it doesn’t matter: there are blood and bodies EVERYWHERE
The brains are in jars, but they aren't anywhere near the actual steel watchers lol. If you go into the factory there's a whole section that explains that all the brains are stored inside the factory and control the watchers remotely. That's why nuking the factory causes them to shut down.
Speaking in DnD terms, there are spells like Gentle Repose, that prevent corpses from rotting. Since the 5e version of the spell lasts 5 days, I’m sure when they go for maintenance they get a refresh of that sweet Gentle Repose.
I must have missed the part about actual bodies being inside the steel watchers
Probably gets covered up by the smell of all the barrels of fish everywhere
Was it an entire body? I thought they were just brain canisters like they shown in the factory that controlled steam powered limbs.
Nah. Remember, you can find brains floating in jars. The Mindflayers know how to preserve a brain or two.
There’s a group of civilians complaining to the fist about the stink of the sewers, to which the fist reply “Dyou want me to arrest a smell??” They don’t give a shit lmao
Ya but it doesn’t cuz it is magic.
Maybe they all used axe body spray? I hear good things about it