Baldur's Gate 3: Kelemvor, Lord Of The Dead

kelumfor is the most recent god in history to bear the title lord of the dead succeeding three prior gods with the portfolio cyric merkel and jurgel and remains the sitting god of the dead as of baldur's gate 3. the tradition of god of the dead in faerun is one in which mortals often ascend to the office merkel cyrik and kelemvor were all once mortals merkel aspired to godhood and was rewarded with the title and cyric was rather haphazardly due to a number of curious events assigned the title but kelumvor is a still more interesting story so let us embark upon his journey unlike more ancient gods we have a good record of the mortal life of kelemvor lionsbane who was one of several siblings born sometime before the time of troubles his mother died in childbirth and his father kendra lionsbane would never forgive him for this his father was a trained warrior and military veteran who had seen countless campaigns and he fully expected that his son kelembor would follow in his footsteps thus kelmvor grew up with the twin burden of guilt for his mother's death and the disappointed frown of his father who was an unforgiving man his brothers also made him seem small as they were highly successful in their own right and is better earned the favor of their father contrary to his father's wishes kelemvor had strong artistically needs and sought to pursue the arts but his father would not have it and he took control of kelemvor's life fully at the age of 10. in particular his father blamed a teacher whom whom kelemvor had developed a crush on taneth who was summarily dismissed and beaten to death by those in the employ of kelimbor's father something that enkindled the great hatred in kelumbor for his father that would bear consequences later in his life the anger and frustration he felt towards his father was redirected to his martial training and kelemvor became a skilled warrior and his father seemed pleased for a time however some time later kelmvore met a girl somewhat older than he was and they fell in love but upon his father discovering this fair he once again thought of a meaningless distraction from his duties and thus had her beaten despite kelemvor's act of protest and even his attempt to protect her as kellnvor was simply shoved aside filled with rage kelmvor transformed into a large panther as a hidden family curse took hold of him and he tore his father to bits as well as the men at his side his lover though frightened realized it was kelmvor within and helped him escape into the surrounding woodlands where he remained for a time attempting to come to terms with his new condition although initially he seemed to have some control over the transformations the beast within affected him in his human form too stoking his anger and leaving him in a bestial state fortunately for kelimbor his uncle burn lion spain had been searching for him and unlike his father his uncle held a very different attitude towards kelmvor being more understanding towards his nephew's sensitive side having pitied him under his father's tutelage more importantly his uncle knew the source of the curse that afflicted kelmvor this curse went back to a member of the lion's mane family who was a mercenary possessed of unrivaled greed and who abandoned a wounded sorcerer's companion leaving her to die in the field for the sake of pursuing treasure with her dying breath the sorceress cursed his ancestor with an unusual variety of lycanthropy forcing him and his descendants to transform into a type of wear panther whenever they acted purely for the sake of profit five generations later the curse had mutated such that it only affected some members of the lions bane family and in fact had turned into the reverse of the original forcing the person to first ask for a reward before doing anything lest the beast overcome them he further lent those afflicted to a man had been forced to take up the mercenary profession as a way of avoiding the manifestation of the curse he grudgingly joined his uncle's band of mercenaries and he did his best to make peace with the life that had been forced upon him although this arrangement too came crashing down when kelemvor's eldest brother with a retinue of men ambushed and slaughtered the entire mercenary company in an act of vengeance whereupon kelemvor once again transformed to the beast and tore his brother and his company to pieces horrified he fled the scene only to resign himself to the life of a mercenary yet again dreaming of a better life without the curse it was around this time that kelmvor met a mage called midnight and a cleric of soon called the dawn and the three became friends and embroiled in the events that would come to be known as the time of troubles and it was during this period that midnight and kelmvir also fell in love with each other the mansurik was part of this group too but later turned turncoat and betrayed his former friends as the time of troubles drew to a close when locked in mortal combat with kelmvore cyrix slew him using the enchanted blade god's bane and it seemed as if it was to be the end of kelmvor's story after this midnight became the new mystra goddess of magic and cyric took on the portfolio of the dead gods bane merkel and baal at least for a time however rather than dying kelvor's spirit was instead siphoned into the sword god's bane itself which as it turned out had been the god of thieves in disguise masked all along and mask had created a virtually undetectable pocket plane where kellenford's spirit resided for a decade while cyric vindictively sought after the soul from his bone castle in hades ultimately mask had sought to usurp some of siri's power and kelimvar had been a useful tool towards this end as mr had also wanted to find his soul and mass desired her cooperation for 10 years kelumvor's spirit resided within the pocket plane that mask had created for it until a pivotal moment when a series of complex events led to a depletion of cyric's power base of faith zurich began losing his mind as well in that moment cyric crushed the sword god's bane and kelvor's spirit was released into the city of the dead the seat of cyric's power the two were once again locked into combat as if reenacting the past but severely weakened from a massive loss of his faithful and suffering from loss of sanity cyric effectively defeated himself with doubt and fear and was banished from the city of the dead and in a never-before-recorded event by democratic will of the denizens of the city kelemvor was elected the new lord of the dead initially kelvor's approach to being god of the dead was the complete opposite of that of his predecessors jurgen merkel and cyric were all very evil and cruel gods and thus the city of the dead was filled with cruel and evil punishments the castle of the lord of the dead was formerly known as the bone castle but this was reshaped into the crystal spire meant to be a symbol of the transparency the faroonian afterlife is such that souls of those faithful to other gods would go to their respective deities but those without any faith the faithless and those whose faith was incorrect the false were to be judged by the god of the dead and kelemvor's predecessors would neglect them or torture them for all of eternity and generally would do with them what they wish to based on win however despite his noble intentions and the desire to rule over the dead with transparency and justice kelmvor's initial policy ultimately led to unforeseen problems through his leniency and well-intentioned changes the faithless and the false who had lived virtuous and honorable lives were rewarded positively whereas those who were malicious and cowardly were punished severely noble and generous souls were sent to the more pleasant parts of the city of the dead whilst the wicked and the craven were sent to the worst parts of the city this led to a change in behavior of mortals as well as they caught wind of the new policies of the lord of the dead mortals who were unsure of the gods but nonetheless brave and honorable no longer feared death and gladly threw their lives away in acts of recklessness trusting the benevolence of kelemvor rather than putting their faith in the gods and those who were cowardly and cunning without faith were too terrified to act this along with certain actions taken by the new misreferred time that favored granting magic to those who were good created a cosmic imbalance and resulted in robbing other deities of potential worshippers cyric who had regained some semblance of his sanity then brought charges to the circle of greater deities that mystery and kelemvor were guilty of cosmic crimes by reason of humanity allowing the remnants of their human nature to guide their actions as deities after much deliberation and reflection kelemvor realized that he had failed in his duties as god of the dead to be a god is to abandon all that is human the memories and the dreams of the past and all the trappings of what once was internalizing this he enacted massive changes throughout the city of the dead and altered his policies governing the afterlife the city of the dead was transformed into a realm of endless grey neither light nor dark neither good nor evil held sway in the city and it became a realm of apathy and silence the clarity of the crystal spire was replaced by that of an opaque topaz and kelvor who formerly bore a likeness to his mortal self took on a new form bearing dark robes with his countenance taking on a pallid tone aging rapidly all souls were subject to a massive reevaluation there would be no torture but neither would there be joy all souls would exist in accordance with those who were ethically similar to themselves and would have to work to forge an afterlife based on the principles they have held during their lives whether good or bad and as a final nail in the coffin mistra came to kelemvor looking for the soul of her patriarchal priest as well as friend and life adan who had died one of the faithless due to cyric's malicious influence and in keeping with his new principles of impartiality he refused her request to relinquish his soul which destroyed what little had remained of their love and relationship and thus the current god of the dead was born given kelvor's history and demeanor his relationships with other gods might be predictable jurgal serves kelumvor a scribe of the dead as he had done for cyric and merkel prior to him but kellumville and jurgen generally have a good relationship with similar attitudes towards death and work well together his relationship with mystra is strained due to the events described prior and he has a good working relationship with the god of don lathander in that they both oppose the undead and he will work with any deity that opposes undeath as discussed earlier kelemvor's governance of the dead is vastly different from all of his predecessors whilst no longer as benevolent as he first began he nonetheless strives for fairness and impartiality in his judgments the doctrine of callumvore can be summarized as follows death is but a part of life fear it not evade it not and view it not as evil to fear death delivers you into the hands of those who can bring death down upon you die with dignity neither raging nor seeking to embrace on death do honor to the dead for their strivings in life brought faerun to where it is now and to forget them is to forget also where we are now and why in addition to new policies regarding the afterlife one major departure from previous gods who held the title is kelemvor's overt hostility towards the undead undead are ruthlessly sought out and destroyed to the point that the church has a branch of priests called necrobanes who are dedicated undead hunters equipped with powerful divine gifts from kelemvor to root undead out and destroy them wherever they may roam otherwise kelvor's priests serve as guides to the living throughout both good and bad times and when mortals final hour comes they see to the last rites of the dying now kelvor is a selectable deity in bothers gate 3 for clerics and likely paladins as well and they definitely have specific dialogue unique to them how much of a role the god will play beyond this is not known but i do have a sneaking suspicion that given merkel's role as one of the dead three and some interesting video game history regarding the two there might in fact be some interactions between clerics of kelemvor and the followers of merkel in that context beyond this the possibility that jurgel is in fact withers implies that there might be some special interactions going forward between these characters but as of this date this is of course all speculative i hope you enjoyed the video and as always thanks for tuning in please leave a like comment share and subscribe as it really helps out the channel and i'll check you out next time take care

Channel: Spell&Shield

Views: 7,122

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Id: 6H8LmkzNj9s

Length: 12min 5sec (725 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 08 2022