Author Topic: Xan re Mae'Var  (Read 3613 times)

Offline Martha

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Xan re Mae'Var
« on: October 23, 2010, 04:39:10 AM »
I do love this mod, but I don't really get Xan at times.  I just did the Mae'Var tasks and Xan informed me that he wouldn't say no to killing Mae'Var as a next task. We then got to meeting Renal about it and he said that Renal should find someone else. Is this Xan changing his mind quite quickly or is he talking about taking down the whole guild, not just Mae'Var?

Offline Kulyok

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Re: Xan re Mae'Var
« Reply #1 on: October 23, 2010, 04:50:12 AM »
In both cases, as befits his character, he was willing to follow Charname's lead and follow his(her) orders. Naturally, in both cases he was also reluctant to work for thieves and to assassinate at will. So, he was only half-serious when he talked of Edwin's assignment and wished Edwin would ask them to kill Mae'var; in both cases he would've been happy to just walk away from it all. And, of course, taking down the whole guild seemed as madness to him, thus Renal's words "There's no need to panic".

Offline Martha

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Re: Xan re Mae'Var
« Reply #2 on: October 23, 2010, 06:45:30 AM »
Yes, it is odd that he seems more faithful now that I play a half-elven male than he seemed towards either of my beautiful elven maidens. :P He's only talked about leaving twice so far. Although hm, I'm not sure if he really did talk about leaving Sandy, come to think of it. The woes of not having taken screenshots of every single talk that time round.  :-\ And I agree with the half in jest, I thought that might be it.

In case it's not yet obvious, I really enjoy playing this mod and am mostly looking for reasons to talk about it... it's so sad to see how many people enjoyed talking about it a couple or so of years back and now this place feels so empty.

Btw. do you know if I could contact Domi (it's the author of the Coran mod, isn't it? I almost died laughing at the way Xan and Coran squabbled over Anya) in private? His (her?) work really is lovely even if poor Xan doesn't seem to be quite as successful as he would be if left to my characters  but the formatting somehow got out of hand which makes it harder to read. Yet I'd hate to bring that up in a review of the stories as I'm sure it's the page, not his own formatting. It looks like coded apostrophes and quotation marks.

Offline Kulyok

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Re: Xan re Mae'Var
« Reply #3 on: October 23, 2010, 11:54:54 AM »
Domi is(she is a she) available on forums.gibberlings3.net, where she has a profile. I think you can contact her at Kivan subforum(or her other forums, depending on which mods you enjoyed) - she visits them once in a while. Can't advise you about private conversations, though, but there's a private message option, too, naturally.

The talk about leaving should and will arise again in friendship path in ToB, as it should - with Bhaalspawn ravaging the land, elves of Evereska are rather concerned, as is Tethyrian army. Charname is a being of great chaos and change, after all, despite his or her intentions. So, yes, Xan will question himself again, though there's little doubt as to which path he'll take in the end. :)

Xan should be "on the edge" in non-bonded romance path, too, because he is falling in love with Charname *knowing* that she is a Bhaalspawn, so when she turns into the Slayer, the shock overwhelms his newborn feelings. In bonded path, this hopefully shouldn't(and probably doesn't) happen - it's "till death do us part" all the way in BG2.

Offline Martha

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Re: Xan re Mae'Var
« Reply #4 on: October 23, 2010, 06:55:09 PM »
Ah then I'll have to look into registering an account there at some point when I'm less lazy. I managed to create one at ff.net and then started reading Domi's stories only to find, oh woe, that I would not be able to comment on them in the way I'd imagined. So far it's the Coran mod I enjoyed. I love Kivan but I faithfully take along Khalid, Jaheira and Imoen - and Xan being as sweet as he is I have little room for new npcs. Thus I try for a new npc again every time I play again and with Sandy it was Yeslick's turn, while with Anya I took Coran around to try the mod. De-light-ful. Of course he's even more of a bastard than Xan because Xan doesn't want to hurt you (he just does) while Coran doesn't seem to care as long as he gets his flirts. -Which of course he didn't because I'd planned on having Anya be Xan's.)

Oh I'm sure it will. Xan loves and loathes my characters in equal amounts (as I'm sure you know) - he'll probably dump my poor half-elf somewhere along the way.  ;D But Marek will live because they're obviously not in a relationship anyway, given that Xan is not that way inclined.

Yes, Xan was most dreadful towards Anya (non-bonded romance path) half of the time. I was quite shocked because after playing the bonded path I was quite used to him being sweet if very, very doomed. Anya was especially unfortunate as she had been his bonded mate after BG1 and I refused to tell Xan so I could try non-bonded. She probably jumped up and down yelling "hey, bonded mate here, why the heck do you treat me like that?!"

Did I mention that I blame you that my Lathander Cleric is filled with self-doubt and suicidal thoughts half of the time? (Sandy being a priestress of Lathander and Xan's bonded mate in my game for seeing that path.) Even if part of that is due to survivor's guilt (starting with Gorion) and getting worse after she learns that she's tainted... she mentions Xan far less than I thought she would. I think it's the diary thing, I just don't think she has the time to constantly sit around and muse about her lover. But it's sad because that way the Xan lovers will go "ah well it's adventuring, huh?" and the non-Xan lovers will go "ick it's Xan-romance". Woeeeee. What else would one expect from anything Xan-related anyway?  :)

Did I mention the amazingness of your mod? The only real downside is that it makes it impossible for me to leave Xan behind and I already have trouble with party-creation and who to take and who to leave behind.

Offline Kulyok

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Re: Xan re Mae'Var
« Reply #5 on: October 24, 2010, 12:46:58 AM »
Thank you. :) I have the same problem about party formation - in BG1, it's almost impossible for me to take someone else except Imoen, Khalid, Jaheira, Kivan and Xan. Sometimes I replace Imoen with Coran, but it doesn't feel quite the same.

With bonded Xan in ToB, I think there's room for forgetting Xan, and it's very much in human(or elven!) character - the more it hurts, the more you want to forget. But should Charname want a reminder, there are dreams, and Valygar's chain of banters, and other companions, including Sarevok, talking to her about him. And the epilogue, naturally.

With non-bonded Xan, yes, I'm aware he is terrible to PC in SoA. Actually, I was half going to leave him like that, but SisterVigilante(an excellent writer and Xan's voice - and also the author of Angelo BG2 NPC mod at Gibberlings3.net - I coded it) asked to add a "good" ending, so then he wrote a few banters and I wrote some player-initiated stuff, so in ToB Xan and PC go through anger, guilt and - hopefully - forgiveness all over again.

Offline Martha

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Re: Xan re Mae'Var
« Reply #6 on: October 24, 2010, 09:45:24 AM »
I think the oddness of it all is that Xan is that lovely because it's so painful. It's like Khalid and Jaheira were a couple I've always loved but never as much as when they murdered my poor Khalid. (Given that Jaheira prays that Silvanus take him I guess ishe intents to meet him again. Silvanus doesn't exactly strike me as a fighter-God.) I never thought I was lucky that I "only" have four given members. It must be even worse if you want to take five.  ;D It's odd. My very first play-through was actually the one that seems to be assumed in BG2 - with Khalid, Jaheira, Imoen, Minsc and Dynaheir. And while I love Minsc a lot I can actually do without him, whereas the time where I had missed out on meeting Khalid and Jaheira straight away and they'd left I actually had to restart my game.

My character didn't have the slightest intention of forgetting Xan and basically yelled at Valygar when he was being sweet and tender. The only person she did talk to once or twice was Jaheira because I thought it'd be likely for her to want to talk to someone who had experienced a quite comparable loss not so long ago. (It is scary how many npcs have lost a parent, sibling or lover in this game, isn't it?) She also yelled at Imoen and the others didn't even try to talk to her. Not sure who they were, actually. Most likely Nalia and perhaps Mazzy. This run I have Edwina along. It kills me how evil everyone is towards 'her'. I think it won't be long till she and Xan kill each other, they keep making comments that sound as if they'll start hitting each other sometime soon. Can't wait. Will defend Xan if it happens. But you have to admit that Edwin has some of the funniest comments possible.

Yes he is. It's just not nice at all and I'm sooo thankful to Sister Vigilante for suggesting to provide a good ending. I do admit that the bonded ending is quite romantic (and good, in a way) - I mean, they do basically get to be together forever even if it kills them first. :) But I'd have felt awful for my non-bonded pc if she'd ended up alone. Even if half of the time I told her to dump him - but you know how ..people.. tend to listen to relationship advice.

 

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