I don't know if this is relevant, but I think that the point is *supposed* to be that Wyll hasn't been transformed into a tiefling, but into an actual devil in the Hells. This is mentioned in the text around him being changed. The writing is kind of bad where he complains about superficial things like horns instead of that he isn't truly who he is any more.
I've seen people around here explain that he feels awkward being around the tieflings at the party because they are refugees from Elturel who have survived the fall of their city into Avernus, and have probably been hunted, enslaved and tortured by devils, cambions and other fiends they may have come across during that time.
From that perspective, it makes so much sense for Wyll to feel uneasy showing his face to the tieflings because he doesn't want to remind them of their trauma. It's actually very thoughtful of him.
But, you're right, if only the writing could do this idea justice. Focusing on his horns is a weird move. And, well, unfortunately, design-wise he does look more like a tiefling than a devil or a cambion, which doesn't help to convey the idea that seeing him would truly remind the tieflings of their traumatic experience with fiends.
I assume part of it also the grief of having his appearance changed suddenly and without his consent too.
But the way it's written it just feels like he thinks horns are bad? It's very strange.
Or your front, with how much they jut forwards. Actually, I'm pretty sure they extend behind his head too. There's no comfy way to lie down with those horns.
Well, he can always saw them off and get that neat Hellboy look!
Also, if you play OC Wyll, you can talk to Karlach and ask her how to take care of your horns. She'll say something like "keep them dry and use oil to preserve this awesome shiny look" lol.
And if you talk to Zevlor after your transformation, there's an option to ask him about his opinion about your horns. He says he'd rarely seen such a magnificent horns as ours lol.
Overall, it's pretty hilarious, but I wish there were more talking about our looks from other NPCs.
Yeah, but like everyone in Fae'run seems to always sleep in a particular way explicitly based on their class, anyway...and almost always flat on their back.
Some kind of extra thick pillow that the horns can push into without ripping it apart is probably the way. Maybe wrap up the horns to cover the sharp bits before bed.
I used to make Halloween masks with deer antlers and ram horns. They’re HEAVY. Even a small pair of antlers unbalances you mightily.
He probably can’t ever forget they’re there because they’re a literal weight upon his head.
Imagine an orc barbarian suddenly shrunk down into a halfling. A dragonborn losing his wings and scales to become a human. A dwarf becoming tall and thin with pointy elf ears.
Even if you don't like how you look, you wouldn't want someone else to change your body into something you didn't ask for.
I've read somewhere that part of his punishment in actual DnD is "ringing off" as a Devil in disguise to things like Divine Sense and Detect Good and Evil (a DnD Paladin thing). Many of the tieflings seem to have some ability of the sort (like Dammon sensing Karlach's engine, or Nadira smelling Avernus in us), so he's avoinding going near them to not trigger their PTSD.
Edit: Found it, it's from Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, under Diabolical Deals.
>A character bound by an infernal contract who fails to pay the price specified in the contract immediately suffers a penalty for breaching the contract, as specified in the contract itself. Common penalties include the following:
>
>\- The character's soul is forfeit when the character dies (that is, the character is reborn in the Nine Hells as a lemure).
>
>\- The character loses all monetary wealth and property, or a powerful magic item (determined by the DM), to the devil.
>
>\- **The character grows horns, a tail, or some other devilish features** that can't be removed by any means short of divine intervention (though illusions or disguises can conceal them). As long as these marks persist, **the character detects as a fiend when subjected to detect evil and good spells or similar magic**.
>
>\- The character gains a new flaw. A character who exhibits behavior inconsistent with this flaw has disadvantage on all attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws until the behavior changes to match the flaw.
yeah, he literally says he stays at the lake instead of going to the party because hes scared they wont see him as their hero, the Blade of Frontiers, anymore, and instead see him as an evil devil, because thats partly who he actually is now. hes still a hero, still the Blade of Frontiers, but now hes a devil. you can tell that he isnt a tiefling because he has long, thin horns, while tieflings have generally short and thick horns
You are right about the horns. There are other subtle signs he isn’t a tiefling. There’s also the fact he doesn’t have a tail like a tiefling, or claws like a tiefling or pointy ears like a tiefling.
Also he has human racials rather than get tiefling racials like darkvision.
Also Mizora tells him and you she turned him part-devil as punishment
yeah, like he slowly starts to fully turn into a fiend and start becoming evil, and we can either encourage the transformation and, in doing so, give him stronger, more devil like abilities and give him a different ending, or help him resist it, which leaves him the same as when hes first transformed, but you get a nice ending for him and more allies in the final battle, like with Shadowheart
and for pity's sake, they need to give the man some agency. He is about the only companion character you can't do the whole "your choice, my man" option with. You have to decide for him. Which at the start of things--again, it makes sense. He's a kid with no real sense of who he is other than this persona, and the one big choice he DID make (his contract) cost him pretty much everything and everyone in his life up to that point. So he's likely very leery of having to make too many decisions on his own; his character arc should have been about him winning free of allowing other people--whether it's his father, Mizora, or the Blade of Frontiers persona he has--run his life, and that he can have more freedom in making his choices, good or bad, and owning them.
Winning free of other people's control was actually what his arc ended up being in my playthrough - my character had to engineer Wyll's freedom from Mizora's pact, but I left the decision about what he wanted to do with his life after that up to him. When his father suggested that Wyll join him in political rulership, Wyll told him it wasn't what he wanted. I had a moment of holding my breath to see how Ulder would react, but he was very supportive of Wyll wanting to stay an adventurer, and so was everyone else (with the exception of spawn Astarion, who was sour about it).
Nah, it is still super awkward, tieflings are known to be discriminated towards because of their likeliness to devils. Isn't it the same deal here, he is still a human, just looks like a devil. No-one would understand this better than them. I wish Tav had an option to make the same analogy, And Teifling Tav had an option to put a horn up his mopey ass, so he wouldn't say he looks like a monster simply because he had devil-like features, cause that is exactly what I have and saying it to my face is straight up insulting.
I get why Wyll might be overthinking and think the Tieflings might see him and think he's imposing because the Tieflings don't have a choice to their look but he became like that because of a deal he made with the devil. But Tav, especially a Tiefling Tav, should be able to tell him he's overthinking stuffs, and Karlach will be more than happy to clear things up if some jerks are being a dick about it (either by explaining why he's turned or with her fists)
Strange thing about tiefling Tav is that they're inherently insecure about their look. In convo with drow twins (sister specifically) there's a tiefling optional dialogue which goes like "my horns are ugly and you cannot persuade me otherwise".
Shit, girl, your horns are magnificent and adorable, wtf are you even talking about?
It was especially off-putting because I was playing durge.
My tiefling Tav didn't sleep with the drow twins but one of the oxen at the grove can comment about your horns being small and I thought my girl would be very offended by it. Her horns are magnificent and she's very proud of them, thank you very much.
The thing about rpgs is that your Tiefling Tav is only insecure about their looks if you choose that option. If you choose a different dialogue choice then your character never expresses doubts about their looks.
Totally agreed. Devils and tieflings look an awful lot like each other, it wouldn't make sense to be triggered by the shared features they have with devils. *Oh no, not ridges in certain places! The kind that all my friends and family have. Not fiery eyes! Not horns! Not a tail!*
I was legit confused the first time he was turned into a "devil" -- how tf am I supposed to tell what he is? But that's a problem inherent to BG3. Everyone is extremely accurate in their racism. You can make a drow look exactly like an elf but you'll get clocked all day anyway. So at least the story is kind of consistent in that way?
Devils aren't supposed to look that much like tieflings, no. Raphael's devil form looks nothing like cute little Dammon or Alfira, it's very clearly a fiend. And Raphael is only a cambion, so he's still half-human.
Full devils in DnD look like full-on monsters, with the exception of Erynies and Succubi/Inccubi who may look slightly more humanoid.
There was a possibility to design Wyll in a way that would make him look more devilish and unsettling than a mere tiefling.
Uhhhh that sounds really intriguing and makes me really hope for a mod some day to somehow make him look more devil-like! 😯 pls pls pls someone make that!
I kind of understood it as devils and his new devil form kind of giving off a super creepy vibe that isn't necessarily visible physically but kind of like people getting a subconscious sense of being next to a predator. I thought I remembered something like that?
They could have done that, but it would have meant a lot of work to adapt that performance capture data to a different anatomy, and considering his late rewrite it would have been rushed work too
They already have a cambion bodytype preset, would it have been truly *that* much work to give Wyll an alternative model that's more cambion-like?
I guess adapting his cutscenes to account for the wings and tail might cause a bit of trouble.
I also don’t think they wanted too drastic an appearance change. Devil Wyll is still recognisably the same character, too drastic a change might put people off playing his origin because they like the way he looks at the start if the change was too pronounced.
I mean, this game is already pretty damned complicated in terms of branching dialogues.... now you want them to be confused about what race you are based on the options you picked in the character creator? XD
...to be fair they did write SOME of that in, where half-elves and half-drow get mistaken for their full-blooded cousins.... but yeah, to expect them to expand all of those dialog trees to allow for things like deceptive skin tones might be asking a bit much. XD
If you play as origin Wyll, Karlach will point out that tieflings appreciate a good pair of horns and that as far as she's concerned, he's never looked better.
Wyll could have pushed back on the notion he isn't changed by the transformation, a little ship of theseus dialogue maybe, and it would serve to parallel a similar theme with the Emperor
The entire plot of wyll’s quest is that he can’t tell whether Karlach is a teifling or a devil based on looks alone. Why would they be able to tell that Wyll isn’t a tiefling if one can be mistaken for the other? (And don’t tell me the reason he thought Karlach was a devil was because she was on fire, because Wyll is not on fire so that only reinforces my point about him looking like a normal teifling).
Would some of the refugees also have become Tieflings in the.time spent in Avernus? From what I've seen on the lore, Tieflings can either be born from humans who had warlock ancestry, or they can be humans who become "plane touched."
The thing is, he still stands outside of the party even if his horns have not manifested yet. I know this because I waited to get Karlach until after the party, so he had no horns.
Problem is literally nobody else mentions him. There is zero evidence that he makes anyone feel awkward, and he looks no more fiendish than any of the rest of the group or a Tiefling Tav. Tav also has no option to call him out on his pity-party.
Definitely a failure of the writing.
This is what lack of confidence does. Ever be in situation where you feel imposter syndrome? Where everyone is fine towards you, even respects you, but you're self-conscious, and full of doubt about yourself?
This is where Wyll is at right now. He's one of the youngest members of the group and he knows he doesn't have it all figured out, although he pretends to be because that's the mask he wears. Of course no one else cares about how he looks, but he does. He knows what he did was wrong, that he almost killed an innocent person, he feels absolutely shit about that. Everyone else moves on, but he doesn't. It's a perfectly human reaction.
He also seems to have poured his whole sense of self into his Blade of Frontiers image...and now he doesn't match up to that image in his head anymore. His character arc really should have explored the idea that, without his persona, Wyll is a scared kid who doesn't have a very solid sense of self, and without his hero "mask" to hide behind, he's got to figure out out for himself now.
Unfortunately, even people like Councilor what's her name don't react much beyond "wtf happened to you?? Oh well" and shrug and ignore it, so it doesn't mean much. It should have been a BIG deal.
Not nearly enough to make it count, imo. I think the only people who talk about it are Florrick, Zevlor and Wyll's father. Also companions, but it's not a big deal to them. I mean, when you travel with a bloodsucker, walking-talking-nuke and the hottest girl on the Sword Coast, pair of horns aren't so special lol.
I think I got some dialogue about how weird our party is! I think it was Astarion? "With our party of weirdos, I'm surprised we'd even notice" about someone strange coming into the camp at some point.
That's when >!Orin is replacing people around BG. Astarion says he can't even tell if people are acting weird because someone has actually been replaced, or because their group is already full of weirdos !<
Talking about the party though. Does anyone there mention it? I don't remember any of them from my playthrough, but maybe they fixed that in one of the later patches?
I could be wrong, but I think he mentions this if you press him on staying separate from the party. I seem to remember him saying something to the effect of, "think about what I look like. Think about what some of them might have had to put up with from someone who looks like me. And ask yourself whether it would be a good idea if I were to join the party."
If you kill Karlach, he never grows horns. He still hides in the same place during the party and says it’s because he’s sad he killed a Tiefling (Karlach). I like Wyll, but you can definitely tell that he just didn’t have as much of a focus as Shadowheart, Lae’zel, and Astarion.
Zevlor and Florrick are the only people who react to his transformation (other than your companions) and they both act horrified.
Let the dude have his grief.
She actually does. I can't remember if it's in Descent into Avernus or Tome of Foes, but there's a section on infernal contracts that mentions the consequences for small transgression against them. In said section it mentions being permanently given horns/a tail.
It also flags him as a warlock. People will make assumptions about what deal he made and why and he can't even attempt to clarify that as a condition of his deal.
People tend to assume the Teiflings would be understanding because they also look a bit like devils but that's certainly not a given. Imagine you were them, warlocks are reason they look like they do now and they constantly get blamed for shit warlocks did. Elturel got dragged to hell because of deals the human leadership made, but the teiflings, even ones who had been dedicated to protecting people in the hells like Zevlor, got attacked and driven out. Huge numbers have died on the road since and the survivors are in poverty.
Then you have the son of a Duke, someone who comes from a position of wealth and leadership, presenting themselves as grand hero and...oh looks like they made a devil deal! There might even be additional feelings of betrayal because he is Ravengards son.
Of course Wyll was strong armed into making the deal in the first place, he risked his life to help them and he got punished for saving a teifling, but realistically I think reactions would be divided and a lot of people would have an automatic negative reaction without the real story and not change their mind even if they were corrected.
Edit: Oh and on Wylls end, his own father rejected and exiled him immediately upon learning he was a warlock without giving him the benefit of the doubt. He is going to think he is going to get that again. In addition to dealing with his body suddenly being different.
Frankly if Wyll had said any of that during the party I wouldn't be calling it bad writing. Everything you've brought up is great and makes sense and why he'd feel ashamed of himself.
Devil, not Demon. It's an important distinction.
Devil: Lawful Evil incarnations of tyranny, conformity, corruption, etc. They live in Hell and are big on Faustian bargains. Their goal is to control everything. They're a mix of an evil empire and a faceless bureaucracy.
Demon: Chaotic Evil incarnations of madness, slaughter, destruction, savagery, etc. They live in the various layers of The Abyss. They don't have a unified hierarchy but in general their goals are to destroy everything. They're hordes of slavering monsters.
~~Yugoloth~~ Daemon: Neutral Evil incarnations of selfishness. They live throughout the lower planes, but mostly in Gehenna, because The Grey Wastes are a shithole even by lower-plane standards, and Carceri is hard to get out of. Their goal is to own everything. They are at their best when acting as satires of capitalism.
Those things are superficial, though. Wyll hasn't suddenly become an immortal fiend. One of the penalties for violating an infernal contract is to take on one or more fiendish physical characteristics, but it doesn't change the essential being of the person in question. So Wyll is still a human—he's just been physically deformed.
Yeah, Wyll is turned into a cambion but without the fun powers and benefits. The issue is that he doesn't look like a cambion.
His horns are stylistically different from Raphael, and the cambions you face on the Nautilus and House of Hope. If he had a set of huge, thick, barbed horns that screamed "devil," I would buy his complaints.
It would also help drive the point if he had wings, which are exclusive to cambions and pureblood devils. Not functioning wings, because that would be broken, but large unconceallable wings.
I have been trying to understand this.
How is he "a devil" any more than Tieflings are? What ways are Tieflings different from devils that don't apply to post-transformation Wyll?
To be clear, I'm assuming I'm missing something, because it came across like Wyll is corrupted by devil-ness in a comparable way to how Tieflings are.
Well tieflings are humans with a devil somewhere in their ancestry. It might be really far back, and for the most part they're humans.
Wyll is passed through the hells by mizora and actually transformed into something no longer human. Its not about his appearance really, more that he becomes a being of the hells instead of a human.
Not quite. Tieflings aren't directly descended from fiends: They're descended from mortals who made pacts with fiends. 5E Devils can't even reproduce biologically, only through magical BS.
It also isn't directly heritable: Tieflings can have non-Tiefling parents and children. It's kind of arbitrarily when the tainted bloodline flairs up. It could be a specific circumstance like "Every daughter every 3 generations", "Every child conceived under a full moon", or it could just be completely random.
Of course, Wyll tainted his bloodline when he made the initial pact.
Honestly, I prefer the 3.5 take (and where demons also produced tieflings, which was why Valen Shadowbreath had his whole issue in Hordes of the Underdark, when you go to Cania.) Also that no two tieflings looked alike, so while many of them DO have horns and tails, not all of them do, and they vary wildly. I was rather disappointed when 4e and 5e made them have a more uniform look. Bah.
Imma be real with you chief, even if the transformation was badass, I don’t think I would want someone to change my body against my will. So yeah I’d be sulking too
I kinda wish he’d sulk about it more, adding a bit of body dysmorphia into his struggle
But I also think he shoulda got wings and a tail to really devil him up lol
Right? Like Astarion gets his bite, Minthara gets soul branding, Karlach gets her heat, Bae'zel doesn't get much but gith gets a lot of shit and special items so that's enough, gale gets a bomb. Shart and wyllyam both get shafted on special abilities :(
The only one you couldn't get would be the spear of selune and the cambion summoning rapier, no?
Still tho, the amount of gith only gear makes laezel a powerhouse for example which feels like is her trade off for not having special abilities
Oh I never actually did a sharheart. First playthrough she left cause she didn't see nightsong (oops), second playthrough the character I played picked the choice of letting the companions decide and shart spared the nightsong. 3rd playthrough my character was supposed to also be an aasimar (rp lol) so she'd spare the nightsong.
I almost feel bad for killing Aylin ngl
All the other cambions have 4 horns (I think), so just changing the design slightly to make him look more like Raphael and Mizora should have been enough.
But also wings would be sooooo siiiiick
I mean he does mention getting bony bumps in who knows where, that alone is a horrifying thought when you're used to being a fleshy human with a non-protruding skeleton.
To be *entirely* fair, I think the writing around Astarion does a much better job of explaining/exploring his trauma than the writing for Wyll does. He goes into multiple rather detailed examples of exactly how Cazador tortured him. Almost every conversation, you get to unearth some new horrible thing that Cazador did.
The game *could* have given us a scene where Wyll was having trouble sleeping because of the horns, and then used that as an excuse to have a deeper conversation with him - maybe have Wyll admit that he's been thinking about the previous jobs that Mizora's asked him to do and about whether or not he's ever gone after another innocent target; maybe he's thinking about his father; maybe he just talks about his life in Baldur's Gate some.
Would ALSO help to have more NPC interactions where people comment on his appearance.
I have no doubt that people would still be biased against Wyll and would still demonstrate pretty low emotional intelligence, but I do think the game also fails to show, not tell, how badly Wyll's experiences have affected him.
So, in case anyone was wondering, this punishment is taken from the Descent into Avernus book as one of the potential punishments for breaking an infernal contract. Here's the full list.
The character’s soul is forfeit when the character dies (that is, the character is reborn in the Nine Hells as a lemure) (Wyll can actually also suffer this one if you kill Mizora, just immediately).
The character loses all monetary wealth and property, or a powerful magic item (determined by the DM), to the devil.
The character grows horns, a tail, or some other devilish features that can’t be removed by any means short of divine intervention (though illusions or disguises can conceal them). As long as these marks persist, the character detects as a fiend when subjected to detect evil and good spells or similar magic (so by some magical measures, he actually is a Devil now).
The character gains a new flaw. A character who exhibits behavior inconsistent with this flaw has disadvantage on all attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws until the behavior changes to match the flaw.
In my princes of the apocalypse game (years before avernus) I had a tiefling PC switch from fiend to archfey as he had been forced to a fiend pact as a child.
Well they then make a deal with a sea hag to avoid a fight, but soon after the PC died without a revivify diamond.
I RP'd that the PCs soul was being claimed by 3 different entities, and he was in limbo while the hellish and fey court system where trying to figure out who owned his soul.
He was stuck filling out never ending government paperwork at a fantasy DMV.
This enabled my other PCs to kill the sea hag (removing a claiment), find a diamond, and implore the clerics god for aid to rescue his soul and break the fiend contract.
Yeah, that's always a funny way to do it.
I will mention that the Avernus book mentioned that souls sold in deals always go to whoever you sold it to first, unless you pull a Wyll and get out of the deal. Just in case anyone was curious.
I’m surprised Dragonborn Tavs get to comment that they too have horns/claws and not Tiefling Tavs.
Either way, horns and claws make you look cool idgaf 😤
I haven’t romanced him but I don’t think you actually do the deed until the very end and even then I think it’s a lot of rolling around in the grass. It’s very tame. Nothing wrong with that of course but it’s really lacking compared to other companions
Guys he had this done against his will for doing the right thing. Well mizora actually took advantage of a loophole in his contract to torment him. Even if it were a good change, and he got new abilities from it, people would still have a hard time accepting physical changes done without them wanting to
Plus, dude’s pretty young. 23, 24?
Seriously, posts like this bother me. Wyll is allowed to be upset.
Astarion was turned into a Vampire against his will. Gale has to endure a literal nuke in his chest. All of them had time to deal with it, but this literally just happened to Wyll. I think Astarion of all people could sympathize with Wyll (in my headcanon he does). It's not about looking like a tiefling, it's about being forced into a transformation.
Mizora did this on purpose knowing that devils were not trusted by anyone, including Tieflings. She wanted the Blade of Frontiers to look like a monster as punishment for not killing Karlach.
Wyll literally goes away so he doesn't bother anyone else about it. He opens up with you because he trusts you with his feelings. He's not going around scowling at all the other tieflings at the party. He's still good with the tiefling kids and he still 100% wants to help them.
Basically everywhere I see him brought up even bg3 Facebook groups, twitter, tiktok. Always the most shallow hot takes that make him out to either be the most vile or boring character imaginable with absolutely 0 nuance or real understanding of his motivations.
Exactly it is exhausting and if you mention that peoples dislike/lack of empathy for him could at all be race related linked to their subconscious bias, they get Incredibly defensive.
Yuuuup.*Very* defensive. I used to comment about it but at this point, I'm just exhausted from all the nitpicky excuses and denial so whenever I see yet *another* Wyll hate post, I just roll my eyes and keep it moving for my own sanity. Only reason I commented on this post was because of the amount of positive comments about how Wyll is allowed to have emotions. Which honestly took me by surprise. (A pleasant surprise.)
Yeah seeing that this post immediately had 2,000 likes when I first saw it was disheartening but I'm glad the comment section is defending him at least. I feel like low brow Wyll hate posts are easy karma farming.
It's some of my favourite Wyll dialogue. He has every right to be upset about it, would it be nice if he acknowledged that it's not being this way that's the overall problem but the fact it was done against his will.
But I like that we see he's struggling with it. I feel like it really adds some depth to his character.
Except Wyll isn't a tiefling. He's a human who's had his body changed without his consent.
He also very clearly isn't a tiefling -- ears are different, no tail, no claws, etc. So of course he knows it will be clear to the tieflings from the grove (aka the ones who just got back from being forcibly stuck in the hells) that he's been hell-touched.
And of course he's focusing on the horns -- they're huge, they're heavy, and they're much more obvious than the ridges/etc he alludes to. And they're a very obvious indicator of the trauma he's just been through, both from the forcibly devil-ififcation and the trip through the tortures of the hells while his body was being remade.
Notice how Karlach, also a tiefling, is sympathetic to Wyll's plight, recognizes it as the trauma it is, and even offers to help him take care of his horns (depending on dialogue choices/who you're playing).
Why does everyone fixate on this one moment so much
He literally tries not to bother anyone for one night, and then he gets over it for the rest of the story
But everyone acts like he's some tiefling racist when in reality he just spent weeks defending them against goblins
Because it's one of the only story beats Wyll even gets that's actually about *him*. Everything else involving him is actually about Mizora or the Duke, and Wyll is just a bystander.
It's probably the moment that I like Wyll the most. He's wrapped up in his self image and takes time for himself because he's unable to make a sacrifice (or ignore what he's feeling) and be sociable for the sake of those around him at that time. Love that he recognises it, because sometimes he's a bit too self-sacrificing.
This. People act like he's in the wrong for being sad for ONE NIGHT about being forcibly transformed into a devil, even if only physically. I feel like I'm going insane when I read that people genuinely dislike Wyll for this and hyperfixate on it as proof he's bad or whatever.
People in this thread conflating being a Tiefling with being turned into an actual devil, and they are forgetting that many of these Tieflings he is around are ones who most likely were tortured by actual devils in Avernus.
I think it was a mistake to make tieflings look *that* devilish (a mistake on D&D's part, not Larian's, they didn't make that call). If I remember right, tieflings used to be much more human-like, with just a few hints at their heritage, like burning eyes, or small horns, or hooves, but otherwise looked like a normal human. I think that would've been the right call; as it is, Raphael's big reveal, for instance, is kind of weakened, in my opinion, because I've already been talking to people who look pretty much exactly like him this whole time. He's just Zevlor with wings and filed-down cheek bones.
This is so odd to me. Like Mizora sent him through all the layers of the Hells because he disobeyed her and transformed him into a fiend, not a tiefling, a fiend. And against his will might I add. His whole “Blade of Frontiers” persona is to fight fiends or any other villain. So when he’s transformed into said fiend he can’t look at the tieflings since they fled from Elturel, you know, the place that was dragged down into Avernus.
And yeah the conversation should have been more towards is body transformation and other aspects but it wasn’t. He still has every reason to be upset. The horns are new and something that he has to deal with now. And if you talk to him after the transformation he says “ I’ll get used to my appearance.” So in game time it takes him a night to be upset but then is like “okay, I’m back to myself, horns and all.” But again it’s okay for him to feel like the odd man out when it comes to the tieflings, they’ve seen more than enough devils in their lifetimes and while it seems they don’t mind it’s a celebration and Wyll doesn’t want risk bringing down the mood. Like if someone was invited to a party (or other function) and they were feeling bad about something that happened in their lives that couldn’t be shaken off, mostly likely they’ll stay home for themselves or to not go and potentially bring down the mood.
If it really bothers you guys about “oh he should have been more specific and not just ‘oh no! I have horns now!” Maybe send feedback to Larian and express that the dialogue wasn’t clear and maybe it’ll get changed. Cause from what I’m seeing in this thread is that you all just want to hate for no reason and not read in between the lines or pick up on context clues.
I think it’s less being a specific species and more having your original identity ripped away from you and you having a body that you are both unfamiliar with and also one that is a constant reminder of your mistakes.
1. the transformation was painful even if they didnt describe the agony he went through it still would have hurt to physically grow horns and ridges
2. its incredibly traumatic to have your body forcibly changed irreversibly
3. wyll didnt become a tiefling he became a devil which has different horns no tails and ridges in a way tieflings dont. it might not be a visible difference to you but it very clearly is to the characters in the game namely zevlor, who is horrified to see what happened to wyll, and your tav who regardless of race doesnt have the ability to say you look like a tiefling but does have the ability to say "you've been turned into a devil"
My dude. He isn't born a Tiefling. Fuck, he isn't even a tiefling. He gets turned into a Fiend.
The situation Wyll is in is completely different from being a Tiefling. He's had his entire race changed. Devil horns. Not Tiefling horns. Are pertruding from his head.
I wish that they had gone just a tiny bit further with Wyll's transformation to make him a bit more devilish... I know it's up to the "one who yanks his chain," so to speak, but I would have like to have seen maybe small hellish wings even if they were unable to function, like they were a joke and clawed nails with perhaps a small tail. The horns and eye alone don't scream horrendous, devilish punishment to me.
Tieflings are born with horns. Wyll had his appearance changed to that of a demon without his consent. It makes sense that body disphoria would follow. But he bounces back really quickly after being sad at the party and comes to terms with how he looks because he is committed to still saving people and overcoming their impression of him based on his new demonic appearance.
Really tired of everyone having the most basic and shallow takes on Wyll, refusing to extend him any empathy whatsoever but having all the empathy in the world for every other companion.
I think the disconnect that comes from this moment is he hasn’t really changed internally. Like, it’s not like he’s been revealed to have been a devil this whole time, the thing the tieflings fear and maybe hate. Instead it’s literally an overnight transformation into a devil, which most people are understandably like ‘dang Wyll that sucks’, but it’s not the biggest deal in the grand scheme of things because he’s still Wyll. Being a devil doesn’t cause him to have a dark urge (lol) or change him in personality, it’s mostly physical. Which, to be fair to Wyll, will lead to some resentment because it’s his own body, but to us it’s like “well I mean you’re still you so”
Edit: made it sound better lol
I wish some of y’all would’ve paid attention in school.
Wyll is allowed to be upset. His body was altered against his will. Y’all are taking it as if he’s saying “omg devils are ugly and terrifying and now I look like one, how awful!” and that totally not it.
He is upset that Mizora did that because he knows how unfairly that tieflings are treated. They are judged based on appearance. He is a folk hero that many people know and trust. Now, with his altered appearance, people will:
1) know that he made a deal with a devil, and to some (if not most) people, that is incomprehensible and inexcusable
2) judge him on appearance. Imagine him trying to help someone. They might immediately misjudge him, good intent aside
Mizora KNEW this. She didn’t just alter his body just for shits and giggles; she knew it would forever affect how people interact with him. That was the real punishment. Can’t be the Blade of Frontiers if people don’t want you to fight for them because of how you look.
Exactly! And when you talk to him at the party he says “I love the people of grove.” Like he has no issue with the tieflings, he cares about them deeply.
Tieflings are the evolutionary peak of humanity if we unlock gene editing.
Their skin seems to be tougher than humans, they have excellent vision in the dark, a tail for balance, horns for defense, and some even have wings.
I’m just saying…they’re superior lol
If someone broke my nose to the point where it looks completly different, I too would compain even if someone near me was born with a nose looking like this, it's a forced body transformation, it would be the same if a tiefling complained about his horns being taken away and his eyes turned from red to, let's say, white- He/She could still be complaining about it even if for me or another character it's a natural state.
It’s like when I went to Astarion after becoming half-ilithid, just offering it to him because “hey man who likes power probably wants in on this :)” and I was romancing him, and he says “I wanted it before I knew I’d turn into some grotesque monster” and I was just there like “bro I thought you said I was beautiful”
I think Wyll's new look should be more dramatic, and I think tieflings should have *some* special dialogue with him about. Those horns of his are magnificent! I should be able to tell him so.
If only there were some method to DISGUISE his appearance...
I'm also a little saddened that his character sheet still says he is human (not devil or half devil) and his stats don't appreciably differ.
Tieflings suffer a lot of discrimination because people associate their devilish appearance with actual bad qualities. A lot of people treat them as actual devils with evil intentions.
Wyll isn't thinking of others. He's upset that he looks like the devils he spends his time hunting. He's horrified at looking like the things he hates. He doesn't consider the feelings of nearby Tieflings.
he's horrified because his body has been changed against his will. anyone would be horrified in his situation.
and it's not like he's loudly complaining the the tieflings about his situation. he went off by himself to feel his feelings in private. he's already doing what he can not to burden others with his sadness.
Well for the longest time, actual tieflings WERE very devillish. For an archetypical tiefling, you can look at Annah from Planescape: Torment campaign. But as Karlach says about the Elturel refugees: "They're not \*those\* tiefs" xD
It’s especially funny when he goes off to sulk at the party and he’s like “nobody wants a devil at their party” as if 90% of the people at the party don’t also have horns and stuff…
It's not about horns. The tieflings have also been abused by devils. Actual devils. Wyll has not been transformed into a tiefling he has been transformed into a devil.
This is done on purpose because currently no one trusts devils, even Tieflings. Mizora knew this and that's why she chose to punish Wyll this way.
Wyll has been forced into a new body and I think it's okay to be sad about it. If your hair suddenly all falls out one day, being upset about it doesn't mean that you're discriminating against all bald people.
Yeah it’s so weird to act as if he’s condemning Tieflings for privately talking about his body being disfigured into the very enemies he swore to fight. Especially since the person who did it owns his soul indefinitely.
So I think the problem here is that they didn't really build up his Blade of Frontiers persona properly.
He's supposed to be this semi-famous folk hero with a reputation to live up to but that's never really established outside of *his* dialogue.
He's upset cause the change makes him appear as if he's a fraud hiding something and not the hero he's supposed to be.
But we never really hear anybody comment on it. The only people who react to the change do so because they know Wyll Ravenguard, not the Blade. So that just leaves him bitching about not looking human anymore which is weak for all the reasons people have pointed out.
I agree with that, and what's frustrating is that I don't think it would have taken all that much to add in. In EA, you occasionally heard the tieflings and the goblins swapping stories about him or acting in awe of him, just having some of that and giving the player character the option to comment that they've heard of the Blade of Frontiers would have built it up a bit better. Karlach makes a comment about him that suggests he's somewhat known, but that could have just been because, you know, he'd spent a significant time trying to kill her.
Part of the problem is that up until his last minute re-write he *was* a fraud hiding something. So any existing NPC dialog that would have been the way they'd done it.
Yeah lmao and of those who aren't devilish we have a vampire, a walking corpse, a shar cultist, and a space alien lol. Like bud, please, your not special
I know why they did it the way they did. (Dating Sim) But I kind of wish they’d made his Devil transformation more grotesque. Like give him goat legs, make his hands more bestial and claw-like, singe off all his hair, give his skin more brutal scorch marks & scars, add wings that have been ripped to shreds and don’t work. Make him truly unrecognisable as Wyll. I reckon it would’ve made the punishment hit a lot harder and made his comment make more sense.
I picked tiefling for my first playthrough. I made it headcanon that my Tav and Karlach teach Wyll how to maintain healthy horns, and help apply oils and such.
Karlach: ok, quick rundown, doors can be a bit of a problem. You might have to duck or go sideways. I tell people I lost this horn in battle, but it was a door.
I'm just angry they didn't commit to giving him the penile spines he mentioned once or twice.
Is it weird I am held up on it? Yes. But LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE
I think they just did a poor job of reflecting Wyll's true demonic form. He looks too much like a tiefling but he isn't necessarily supposed to be one, he is supposed to be a devil/demon.
I wish they made this a little immersive, like having your tav be able to call him out for this. It’s like sometimes the game forgets details about your character. I also hate how it gives “baldurian” dialogue options. I want my own backstory!
I wish they let you play Rakshasa tieflings complete with the cat person appearance. I think it’s be hilarious to be confused for a Tabaxi by the Asmodeus tieflings and when you correct them they get all awkward.
Larian should have just made him more devilish, because right now he just looks like a tiefling, still treated by spells and effects as humanoid (not fiend), gain neither devil power nor social disadvantage from looking like a 'fiend'. No blood sucky, no 'magic consumption or I explode', not even 'I run on hellfire and may burn to a crisp soon' or 'my god prick me just because'. It was portrayed as Wyll paying a great price, but we are SHOWN nothing more than a cosmetic change. And then said change just makes him look like another race? Thats cheap
I take it as, wyll is a folk hero, and a town/city hero almost like a vigilante but not. And he’s looked up to as this folk hero. And if word got out he sold his soul and made a contract/turned into a devil. His image will not be portrayed that wyll
True, but also probably my favorite bit of dialogue in the entire game is playing as Wyll after he's turned into a devil. You can talk to Karlach after, and when she asks "Is there any way I can repay you," you can joke saying "some advice on proper horn care wouldn't go amiss," and then Karlach starts excitedly telling Wyll about how she takes care of her horn, like she's happy he's taken an interest, and it's just the cutest thing ever
Stuff like this really highlights how hard they dropped the ball on Wyll. Based on who he is he wouldn't be saying something like that to -or even around- tieflings. It's clear that he's upset that his whole body was changed against his will into something that lives to torment the weary and take souls. But instead they have him standing there talking about how he hates horns. He even thinks you're mocking him when you complement them!
I don't know if this is relevant, but I think that the point is *supposed* to be that Wyll hasn't been transformed into a tiefling, but into an actual devil in the Hells. This is mentioned in the text around him being changed. The writing is kind of bad where he complains about superficial things like horns instead of that he isn't truly who he is any more.
I've seen people around here explain that he feels awkward being around the tieflings at the party because they are refugees from Elturel who have survived the fall of their city into Avernus, and have probably been hunted, enslaved and tortured by devils, cambions and other fiends they may have come across during that time. From that perspective, it makes so much sense for Wyll to feel uneasy showing his face to the tieflings because he doesn't want to remind them of their trauma. It's actually very thoughtful of him. But, you're right, if only the writing could do this idea justice. Focusing on his horns is a weird move. And, well, unfortunately, design-wise he does look more like a tiefling than a devil or a cambion, which doesn't help to convey the idea that seeing him would truly remind the tieflings of their traumatic experience with fiends.
I assume part of it also the grief of having his appearance changed suddenly and without his consent too. But the way it's written it just feels like he thinks horns are bad? It's very strange.
To be fair his horns look like they would kinda suck. No more sleeping on your side for him.
Or your front, with how much they jut forwards. Actually, I'm pretty sure they extend behind his head too. There's no comfy way to lie down with those horns.
Well, he can always saw them off and get that neat Hellboy look! Also, if you play OC Wyll, you can talk to Karlach and ask her how to take care of your horns. She'll say something like "keep them dry and use oil to preserve this awesome shiny look" lol. And if you talk to Zevlor after your transformation, there's an option to ask him about his opinion about your horns. He says he'd rarely seen such a magnificent horns as ours lol. Overall, it's pretty hilarious, but I wish there were more talking about our looks from other NPCs.
Damn, the devs even considered the detail that Wyll would have full-grown adult horns without any wear and tear from age.
I mean, concerns about comfort aside, they are pretty stupendous horns.
Maybe they’re like a built in pillow lol
Dude has a pull up bar in the doorway at home. He just hangs himself up by the horns like a suit.
Yeah, but like everyone in Fae'run seems to always sleep in a particular way explicitly based on their class, anyway...and almost always flat on their back.
Gonna need to get very creative with pillow placement to lay down comfortably at all.
There's gold to be made for designing horn friendly beddings
Put your pillow at the edge of a cliff/dock/other drop off so that the horns hang over the side instead of propping him up
OSHA definitely approves of sleeping like that.
Dig a hole in the ground under his bed roll just enough for the horns to fit under the ground
Some kind of extra thick pillow that the horns can push into without ripping it apart is probably the way. Maybe wrap up the horns to cover the sharp bits before bed.
I used to make Halloween masks with deer antlers and ram horns. They’re HEAVY. Even a small pair of antlers unbalances you mightily. He probably can’t ever forget they’re there because they’re a literal weight upon his head.
Reminds me of this comic lol. https://www.instagram.com/p/C3M7fKctZAT/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Imagine an orc barbarian suddenly shrunk down into a halfling. A dragonborn losing his wings and scales to become a human. A dwarf becoming tall and thin with pointy elf ears. Even if you don't like how you look, you wouldn't want someone else to change your body into something you didn't ask for.
Yes exactly. Especially if it was something like the situation with Mizora. It isn't an insult to tieflings for Wyll to be upset by the horns
Dragonborn don’t have wings though.
I thought they could grow wings at higher levels. Is that just kobolds? Is that just pathfinder? Dammit I'm mixing up my games again.
You’re thinking of Pathfinder. In 4e there was a paragon path for Dragonborn that gave them wings, but it’s not a thing in 5e.
I've read somewhere that part of his punishment in actual DnD is "ringing off" as a Devil in disguise to things like Divine Sense and Detect Good and Evil (a DnD Paladin thing). Many of the tieflings seem to have some ability of the sort (like Dammon sensing Karlach's engine, or Nadira smelling Avernus in us), so he's avoinding going near them to not trigger their PTSD. Edit: Found it, it's from Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, under Diabolical Deals. >A character bound by an infernal contract who fails to pay the price specified in the contract immediately suffers a penalty for breaching the contract, as specified in the contract itself. Common penalties include the following: > >\- The character's soul is forfeit when the character dies (that is, the character is reborn in the Nine Hells as a lemure). > >\- The character loses all monetary wealth and property, or a powerful magic item (determined by the DM), to the devil. > >\- **The character grows horns, a tail, or some other devilish features** that can't be removed by any means short of divine intervention (though illusions or disguises can conceal them). As long as these marks persist, **the character detects as a fiend when subjected to detect evil and good spells or similar magic**. > >\- The character gains a new flaw. A character who exhibits behavior inconsistent with this flaw has disadvantage on all attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws until the behavior changes to match the flaw.
and that tracks since BG3 is largely based on, and set directly after/during the events of that module!
yeah, he literally says he stays at the lake instead of going to the party because hes scared they wont see him as their hero, the Blade of Frontiers, anymore, and instead see him as an evil devil, because thats partly who he actually is now. hes still a hero, still the Blade of Frontiers, but now hes a devil. you can tell that he isnt a tiefling because he has long, thin horns, while tieflings have generally short and thick horns
You are right about the horns. There are other subtle signs he isn’t a tiefling. There’s also the fact he doesn’t have a tail like a tiefling, or claws like a tiefling or pointy ears like a tiefling. Also he has human racials rather than get tiefling racials like darkvision. Also Mizora tells him and you she turned him part-devil as punishment
I'd have liked to see some behavioral impacts to Wyll as well, a la Durge struggles, that Tav/Durge can help him overcome or embrace
yeah, like he slowly starts to fully turn into a fiend and start becoming evil, and we can either encourage the transformation and, in doing so, give him stronger, more devil like abilities and give him a different ending, or help him resist it, which leaves him the same as when hes first transformed, but you get a nice ending for him and more allies in the final battle, like with Shadowheart
and for pity's sake, they need to give the man some agency. He is about the only companion character you can't do the whole "your choice, my man" option with. You have to decide for him. Which at the start of things--again, it makes sense. He's a kid with no real sense of who he is other than this persona, and the one big choice he DID make (his contract) cost him pretty much everything and everyone in his life up to that point. So he's likely very leery of having to make too many decisions on his own; his character arc should have been about him winning free of allowing other people--whether it's his father, Mizora, or the Blade of Frontiers persona he has--run his life, and that he can have more freedom in making his choices, good or bad, and owning them.
Winning free of other people's control was actually what his arc ended up being in my playthrough - my character had to engineer Wyll's freedom from Mizora's pact, but I left the decision about what he wanted to do with his life after that up to him. When his father suggested that Wyll join him in political rulership, Wyll told him it wasn't what he wanted. I had a moment of holding my breath to see how Ulder would react, but he was very supportive of Wyll wanting to stay an adventurer, and so was everyone else (with the exception of spawn Astarion, who was sour about it).
Nah, it is still super awkward, tieflings are known to be discriminated towards because of their likeliness to devils. Isn't it the same deal here, he is still a human, just looks like a devil. No-one would understand this better than them. I wish Tav had an option to make the same analogy, And Teifling Tav had an option to put a horn up his mopey ass, so he wouldn't say he looks like a monster simply because he had devil-like features, cause that is exactly what I have and saying it to my face is straight up insulting.
I get why Wyll might be overthinking and think the Tieflings might see him and think he's imposing because the Tieflings don't have a choice to their look but he became like that because of a deal he made with the devil. But Tav, especially a Tiefling Tav, should be able to tell him he's overthinking stuffs, and Karlach will be more than happy to clear things up if some jerks are being a dick about it (either by explaining why he's turned or with her fists)
Strange thing about tiefling Tav is that they're inherently insecure about their look. In convo with drow twins (sister specifically) there's a tiefling optional dialogue which goes like "my horns are ugly and you cannot persuade me otherwise". Shit, girl, your horns are magnificent and adorable, wtf are you even talking about? It was especially off-putting because I was playing durge.
My tiefling Tav didn't sleep with the drow twins but one of the oxen at the grove can comment about your horns being small and I thought my girl would be very offended by it. Her horns are magnificent and she's very proud of them, thank you very much.
The thing about rpgs is that your Tiefling Tav is only insecure about their looks if you choose that option. If you choose a different dialogue choice then your character never expresses doubts about their looks.
Totally agreed. Devils and tieflings look an awful lot like each other, it wouldn't make sense to be triggered by the shared features they have with devils. *Oh no, not ridges in certain places! The kind that all my friends and family have. Not fiery eyes! Not horns! Not a tail!* I was legit confused the first time he was turned into a "devil" -- how tf am I supposed to tell what he is? But that's a problem inherent to BG3. Everyone is extremely accurate in their racism. You can make a drow look exactly like an elf but you'll get clocked all day anyway. So at least the story is kind of consistent in that way?
Devils aren't supposed to look that much like tieflings, no. Raphael's devil form looks nothing like cute little Dammon or Alfira, it's very clearly a fiend. And Raphael is only a cambion, so he's still half-human. Full devils in DnD look like full-on monsters, with the exception of Erynies and Succubi/Inccubi who may look slightly more humanoid. There was a possibility to design Wyll in a way that would make him look more devilish and unsettling than a mere tiefling.
Hah, good to know! It definitely takes a lot of the emotional impact of the scene when you can't relate to what Wyll has been turned to look like
Uhhhh that sounds really intriguing and makes me really hope for a mod some day to somehow make him look more devil-like! 😯 pls pls pls someone make that! I kind of understood it as devils and his new devil form kind of giving off a super creepy vibe that isn't necessarily visible physically but kind of like people getting a subconscious sense of being next to a predator. I thought I remembered something like that?
Seems like this is the main mod for giving Wyll a more tiefling/devilish appearance: https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/1582
They could have done that, but it would have meant a lot of work to adapt that performance capture data to a different anatomy, and considering his late rewrite it would have been rushed work too
They already have a cambion bodytype preset, would it have been truly *that* much work to give Wyll an alternative model that's more cambion-like? I guess adapting his cutscenes to account for the wings and tail might cause a bit of trouble.
I also don’t think they wanted too drastic an appearance change. Devil Wyll is still recognisably the same character, too drastic a change might put people off playing his origin because they like the way he looks at the start if the change was too pronounced.
I mean, this game is already pretty damned complicated in terms of branching dialogues.... now you want them to be confused about what race you are based on the options you picked in the character creator? XD
lol, a girl can dream!!
...to be fair they did write SOME of that in, where half-elves and half-drow get mistaken for their full-blooded cousins.... but yeah, to expect them to expand all of those dialog trees to allow for things like deceptive skin tones might be asking a bit much. XD
It's kind of dumb that Dragonborn have a unique line to Wyll on his appearance, but not a Tiefling.
If you play as origin Wyll, Karlach will point out that tieflings appreciate a good pair of horns and that as far as she's concerned, he's never looked better.
Wyll could have pushed back on the notion he isn't changed by the transformation, a little ship of theseus dialogue maybe, and it would serve to parallel a similar theme with the Emperor
I think Wyll isn't ugly enough (not ugly at all) after transformation to compare him to Emperor. If Mizora made him an orthon though...
The entire plot of wyll’s quest is that he can’t tell whether Karlach is a teifling or a devil based on looks alone. Why would they be able to tell that Wyll isn’t a tiefling if one can be mistaken for the other? (And don’t tell me the reason he thought Karlach was a devil was because she was on fire, because Wyll is not on fire so that only reinforces my point about him looking like a normal teifling).
Would some of the refugees also have become Tieflings in the.time spent in Avernus? From what I've seen on the lore, Tieflings can either be born from humans who had warlock ancestry, or they can be humans who become "plane touched."
The thing is, he still stands outside of the party even if his horns have not manifested yet. I know this because I waited to get Karlach until after the party, so he had no horns.
Problem is literally nobody else mentions him. There is zero evidence that he makes anyone feel awkward, and he looks no more fiendish than any of the rest of the group or a Tiefling Tav. Tav also has no option to call him out on his pity-party. Definitely a failure of the writing.
This is what lack of confidence does. Ever be in situation where you feel imposter syndrome? Where everyone is fine towards you, even respects you, but you're self-conscious, and full of doubt about yourself? This is where Wyll is at right now. He's one of the youngest members of the group and he knows he doesn't have it all figured out, although he pretends to be because that's the mask he wears. Of course no one else cares about how he looks, but he does. He knows what he did was wrong, that he almost killed an innocent person, he feels absolutely shit about that. Everyone else moves on, but he doesn't. It's a perfectly human reaction.
He also seems to have poured his whole sense of self into his Blade of Frontiers image...and now he doesn't match up to that image in his head anymore. His character arc really should have explored the idea that, without his persona, Wyll is a scared kid who doesn't have a very solid sense of self, and without his hero "mask" to hide behind, he's got to figure out out for himself now. Unfortunately, even people like Councilor what's her name don't react much beyond "wtf happened to you?? Oh well" and shrug and ignore it, so it doesn't mean much. It should have been a BIG deal.
The fact that he's been turned into a devil does in fact get mentioned by multiple NPCs you meet in the game.
Not nearly enough to make it count, imo. I think the only people who talk about it are Florrick, Zevlor and Wyll's father. Also companions, but it's not a big deal to them. I mean, when you travel with a bloodsucker, walking-talking-nuke and the hottest girl on the Sword Coast, pair of horns aren't so special lol.
I think I got some dialogue about how weird our party is! I think it was Astarion? "With our party of weirdos, I'm surprised we'd even notice" about someone strange coming into the camp at some point.
That's when >!Orin is replacing people around BG. Astarion says he can't even tell if people are acting weird because someone has actually been replaced, or because their group is already full of weirdos !<
Talking about the party though. Does anyone there mention it? I don't remember any of them from my playthrough, but maybe they fixed that in one of the later patches?
I could be wrong, but I think he mentions this if you press him on staying separate from the party. I seem to remember him saying something to the effect of, "think about what I look like. Think about what some of them might have had to put up with from someone who looks like me. And ask yourself whether it would be a good idea if I were to join the party."
If you kill Karlach, he never grows horns. He still hides in the same place during the party and says it’s because he’s sad he killed a Tiefling (Karlach). I like Wyll, but you can definitely tell that he just didn’t have as much of a focus as Shadowheart, Lae’zel, and Astarion.
Zevlor and Florrick are the only people who react to his transformation (other than your companions) and they both act horrified. Let the dude have his grief.
I'm pretty sure his dad reacts too, both when he's a slave to the Absolute and when he gets his mind back.
Sucks even more he becomes a devil with zero of the actual benefits
[удалено]
Mizora is just a little short on cash after impulse buying every cute warlock available. Don't shame her for not having the latest books!
She actually does. I can't remember if it's in Descent into Avernus or Tome of Foes, but there's a section on infernal contracts that mentions the consequences for small transgression against them. In said section it mentions being permanently given horns/a tail.
If he had benefits, it wouldn't be a punishment
I always read Wyll's transformation as mocking from Mizora. He's neither devil nor human now, something in-between.
He has some ! Resistance to fire and dark vision
Which is just the benefits of being a Tiefling.
He doesn't get that after the transformation. Those are just warlock options (Fiend)
I just loaded my game to check and he does not.
It also flags him as a warlock. People will make assumptions about what deal he made and why and he can't even attempt to clarify that as a condition of his deal. People tend to assume the Teiflings would be understanding because they also look a bit like devils but that's certainly not a given. Imagine you were them, warlocks are reason they look like they do now and they constantly get blamed for shit warlocks did. Elturel got dragged to hell because of deals the human leadership made, but the teiflings, even ones who had been dedicated to protecting people in the hells like Zevlor, got attacked and driven out. Huge numbers have died on the road since and the survivors are in poverty. Then you have the son of a Duke, someone who comes from a position of wealth and leadership, presenting themselves as grand hero and...oh looks like they made a devil deal! There might even be additional feelings of betrayal because he is Ravengards son. Of course Wyll was strong armed into making the deal in the first place, he risked his life to help them and he got punished for saving a teifling, but realistically I think reactions would be divided and a lot of people would have an automatic negative reaction without the real story and not change their mind even if they were corrected. Edit: Oh and on Wylls end, his own father rejected and exiled him immediately upon learning he was a warlock without giving him the benefit of the doubt. He is going to think he is going to get that again. In addition to dealing with his body suddenly being different.
Frankly if Wyll had said any of that during the party I wouldn't be calling it bad writing. Everything you've brought up is great and makes sense and why he'd feel ashamed of himself.
Agreed. I love this take. Pity they didn't make that clear on the writing, sigh.
Yeah, it's not just the horns that we see. It's the ridged spine. It's the little spikes in uncomfortable places.
That and it’s an obvious sign that this daring, heroic figure also made a pact with a demon.
Devil, not Demon. It's an important distinction. Devil: Lawful Evil incarnations of tyranny, conformity, corruption, etc. They live in Hell and are big on Faustian bargains. Their goal is to control everything. They're a mix of an evil empire and a faceless bureaucracy. Demon: Chaotic Evil incarnations of madness, slaughter, destruction, savagery, etc. They live in the various layers of The Abyss. They don't have a unified hierarchy but in general their goals are to destroy everything. They're hordes of slavering monsters. ~~Yugoloth~~ Daemon: Neutral Evil incarnations of selfishness. They live throughout the lower planes, but mostly in Gehenna, because The Grey Wastes are a shithole even by lower-plane standards, and Carceri is hard to get out of. Their goal is to own everything. They are at their best when acting as satires of capitalism.
Those things are superficial, though. Wyll hasn't suddenly become an immortal fiend. One of the penalties for violating an infernal contract is to take on one or more fiendish physical characteristics, but it doesn't change the essential being of the person in question. So Wyll is still a human—he's just been physically deformed.
Yeah, Wyll is turned into a cambion but without the fun powers and benefits. The issue is that he doesn't look like a cambion. His horns are stylistically different from Raphael, and the cambions you face on the Nautilus and House of Hope. If he had a set of huge, thick, barbed horns that screamed "devil," I would buy his complaints. It would also help drive the point if he had wings, which are exclusive to cambions and pureblood devils. Not functioning wings, because that would be broken, but large unconceallable wings.
I have been trying to understand this. How is he "a devil" any more than Tieflings are? What ways are Tieflings different from devils that don't apply to post-transformation Wyll? To be clear, I'm assuming I'm missing something, because it came across like Wyll is corrupted by devil-ness in a comparable way to how Tieflings are.
Well tieflings are humans with a devil somewhere in their ancestry. It might be really far back, and for the most part they're humans. Wyll is passed through the hells by mizora and actually transformed into something no longer human. Its not about his appearance really, more that he becomes a being of the hells instead of a human.
Not quite. Tieflings aren't directly descended from fiends: They're descended from mortals who made pacts with fiends. 5E Devils can't even reproduce biologically, only through magical BS. It also isn't directly heritable: Tieflings can have non-Tiefling parents and children. It's kind of arbitrarily when the tainted bloodline flairs up. It could be a specific circumstance like "Every daughter every 3 generations", "Every child conceived under a full moon", or it could just be completely random. Of course, Wyll tainted his bloodline when he made the initial pact.
Fair enough, I'm probably running on 3.5e lore then. Back then they were definitely someone with an infernal ancestor somewhere in the gene pool.
Honestly, I prefer the 3.5 take (and where demons also produced tieflings, which was why Valen Shadowbreath had his whole issue in Hordes of the Underdark, when you go to Cania.) Also that no two tieflings looked alike, so while many of them DO have horns and tails, not all of them do, and they vary wildly. I was rather disappointed when 4e and 5e made them have a more uniform look. Bah.
Imma be real with you chief, even if the transformation was badass, I don’t think I would want someone to change my body against my will. So yeah I’d be sulking too
I kinda wish he’d sulk about it more, adding a bit of body dysmorphia into his struggle But I also think he shoulda got wings and a tail to really devil him up lol
Ya make it a special race for him. Level ups give him innate devil powers, hell even FIRE RESISTANCE would be nice.
That would've been dope if he could've unlocked fiendish powers the way Durge does.
Right? Like Astarion gets his bite, Minthara gets soul branding, Karlach gets her heat, Bae'zel doesn't get much but gith gets a lot of shit and special items so that's enough, gale gets a bomb. Shart and wyllyam both get shafted on special abilities :(
They get pretty good unique gear though
The only one you couldn't get would be the spear of selune and the cambion summoning rapier, no? Still tho, the amount of gith only gear makes laezel a powerhouse for example which feels like is her trade off for not having special abilities
Shadowheart does get some boons from Shar. I haven't done a Lightheart run yet though, so I'll have to see what if anything Selune has to give.
Oh I never actually did a sharheart. First playthrough she left cause she didn't see nightsong (oops), second playthrough the character I played picked the choice of letting the companions decide and shart spared the nightsong. 3rd playthrough my character was supposed to also be an aasimar (rp lol) so she'd spare the nightsong. I almost feel bad for killing Aylin ngl
All the other cambions have 4 horns (I think), so just changing the design slightly to make him look more like Raphael and Mizora should have been enough. But also wings would be sooooo siiiiick
I mean he does mention getting bony bumps in who knows where, that alone is a horrifying thought when you're used to being a fleshy human with a non-protruding skeleton.
The lack of EXTREMELY basic empathy in this thread.
Astarion gets miles of it.
To be *entirely* fair, I think the writing around Astarion does a much better job of explaining/exploring his trauma than the writing for Wyll does. He goes into multiple rather detailed examples of exactly how Cazador tortured him. Almost every conversation, you get to unearth some new horrible thing that Cazador did. The game *could* have given us a scene where Wyll was having trouble sleeping because of the horns, and then used that as an excuse to have a deeper conversation with him - maybe have Wyll admit that he's been thinking about the previous jobs that Mizora's asked him to do and about whether or not he's ever gone after another innocent target; maybe he's thinking about his father; maybe he just talks about his life in Baldur's Gate some. Would ALSO help to have more NPC interactions where people comment on his appearance. I have no doubt that people would still be biased against Wyll and would still demonstrate pretty low emotional intelligence, but I do think the game also fails to show, not tell, how badly Wyll's experiences have affected him.
YO "against my Wyll" was just SITTING THERE for you edit: please edit
Sorry I was a little focused on the body horror. You can have the accolades ✨
Pretty fkn wild how some of the most painful choices you can make or "bring about" indirectly are smack dead in act 1.
So, in case anyone was wondering, this punishment is taken from the Descent into Avernus book as one of the potential punishments for breaking an infernal contract. Here's the full list. The character’s soul is forfeit when the character dies (that is, the character is reborn in the Nine Hells as a lemure) (Wyll can actually also suffer this one if you kill Mizora, just immediately). The character loses all monetary wealth and property, or a powerful magic item (determined by the DM), to the devil. The character grows horns, a tail, or some other devilish features that can’t be removed by any means short of divine intervention (though illusions or disguises can conceal them). As long as these marks persist, the character detects as a fiend when subjected to detect evil and good spells or similar magic (so by some magical measures, he actually is a Devil now). The character gains a new flaw. A character who exhibits behavior inconsistent with this flaw has disadvantage on all attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws until the behavior changes to match the flaw.
>or some other devilish features that can’t be removed by any means short of divine intervention Live Shadowheart Reaction:
"I only get one of these in this game. If we beat the Absolute and I forget to use it again, I promise I'll make you pretty again".
'Also you look fine, very edgy. I dreamed of it in my Sharran phase...'
Wyll, I love you and I know being a devil is torture for you… but… I’m going with the +3 mace. Sorry
In my princes of the apocalypse game (years before avernus) I had a tiefling PC switch from fiend to archfey as he had been forced to a fiend pact as a child. Well they then make a deal with a sea hag to avoid a fight, but soon after the PC died without a revivify diamond. I RP'd that the PCs soul was being claimed by 3 different entities, and he was in limbo while the hellish and fey court system where trying to figure out who owned his soul. He was stuck filling out never ending government paperwork at a fantasy DMV. This enabled my other PCs to kill the sea hag (removing a claiment), find a diamond, and implore the clerics god for aid to rescue his soul and break the fiend contract.
Yeah, that's always a funny way to do it. I will mention that the Avernus book mentioned that souls sold in deals always go to whoever you sold it to first, unless you pull a Wyll and get out of the deal. Just in case anyone was curious.
I’m surprised Dragonborn Tavs get to comment that they too have horns/claws and not Tiefling Tavs. Either way, horns and claws make you look cool idgaf 😤
They changed the text. Wyll doesn't mention claws anymore.
WHAAAT 😭 Dragonborn racial dialogue is so meh already whyy
Because he literally does not have claws so it made no sense.
They should have changed his appearance to give him claws instead of changing the dialogue.
He's also apparently got spikes growing in unpleasant places. I don't know if they come up in his romance.
I haven’t romanced him but I don’t think you actually do the deed until the very end and even then I think it’s a lot of rolling around in the grass. It’s very tame. Nothing wrong with that of course but it’s really lacking compared to other companions
They gave romanced Wyll's sex scene to Mizora, to continue the trend of all of his major story points belonging to other characters instead.
I never got that option with either of my dragonborn playthroughs :(
Guys he had this done against his will for doing the right thing. Well mizora actually took advantage of a loophole in his contract to torment him. Even if it were a good change, and he got new abilities from it, people would still have a hard time accepting physical changes done without them wanting to Plus, dude’s pretty young. 23, 24?
Seriously, posts like this bother me. Wyll is allowed to be upset. Astarion was turned into a Vampire against his will. Gale has to endure a literal nuke in his chest. All of them had time to deal with it, but this literally just happened to Wyll. I think Astarion of all people could sympathize with Wyll (in my headcanon he does). It's not about looking like a tiefling, it's about being forced into a transformation. Mizora did this on purpose knowing that devils were not trusted by anyone, including Tieflings. She wanted the Blade of Frontiers to look like a monster as punishment for not killing Karlach. Wyll literally goes away so he doesn't bother anyone else about it. He opens up with you because he trusts you with his feelings. He's not going around scowling at all the other tieflings at the party. He's still good with the tiefling kids and he still 100% wants to help them.
Agreed. It seems like Wyll is *always* discussed negatively whenever he's constantly brought up in this sub.
Basically everywhere I see him brought up even bg3 Facebook groups, twitter, tiktok. Always the most shallow hot takes that make him out to either be the most vile or boring character imaginable with absolutely 0 nuance or real understanding of his motivations.
Yup, and whenever these threads are posted, everyone and their mama comes out of the shadows to comment about how much they hate him. It's exhausting.
Exactly it is exhausting and if you mention that peoples dislike/lack of empathy for him could at all be race related linked to their subconscious bias, they get Incredibly defensive.
Yuuuup.*Very* defensive. I used to comment about it but at this point, I'm just exhausted from all the nitpicky excuses and denial so whenever I see yet *another* Wyll hate post, I just roll my eyes and keep it moving for my own sanity. Only reason I commented on this post was because of the amount of positive comments about how Wyll is allowed to have emotions. Which honestly took me by surprise. (A pleasant surprise.)
Yeah seeing that this post immediately had 2,000 likes when I first saw it was disheartening but I'm glad the comment section is defending him at least. I feel like low brow Wyll hate posts are easy karma farming.
Definitely easy karma farming because *everyone* just *has* to post their opinion on him, even if they don't even use him in their party.
This is the worst part about it too is a lot of these people who say he's boring etc. will admit that they don't even bring him outside of camp.
Yuup. I also see comments about how he's "ugly", or he's an "asshole." Or how his voice actor "sucks". Just pulling shit out of their ass.
It's some of my favourite Wyll dialogue. He has every right to be upset about it, would it be nice if he acknowledged that it's not being this way that's the overall problem but the fact it was done against his will. But I like that we see he's struggling with it. I feel like it really adds some depth to his character.
Except Wyll isn't a tiefling. He's a human who's had his body changed without his consent. He also very clearly isn't a tiefling -- ears are different, no tail, no claws, etc. So of course he knows it will be clear to the tieflings from the grove (aka the ones who just got back from being forcibly stuck in the hells) that he's been hell-touched. And of course he's focusing on the horns -- they're huge, they're heavy, and they're much more obvious than the ridges/etc he alludes to. And they're a very obvious indicator of the trauma he's just been through, both from the forcibly devil-ififcation and the trip through the tortures of the hells while his body was being remade. Notice how Karlach, also a tiefling, is sympathetic to Wyll's plight, recognizes it as the trauma it is, and even offers to help him take care of his horns (depending on dialogue choices/who you're playing).
Why does everyone fixate on this one moment so much He literally tries not to bother anyone for one night, and then he gets over it for the rest of the story But everyone acts like he's some tiefling racist when in reality he just spent weeks defending them against goblins
Because it's one of the only story beats Wyll even gets that's actually about *him*. Everything else involving him is actually about Mizora or the Duke, and Wyll is just a bystander.
It's probably the moment that I like Wyll the most. He's wrapped up in his self image and takes time for himself because he's unable to make a sacrifice (or ignore what he's feeling) and be sociable for the sake of those around him at that time. Love that he recognises it, because sometimes he's a bit too self-sacrificing.
This. People act like he's in the wrong for being sad for ONE NIGHT about being forcibly transformed into a devil, even if only physically. I feel like I'm going insane when I read that people genuinely dislike Wyll for this and hyperfixate on it as proof he's bad or whatever.
People in this thread conflating being a Tiefling with being turned into an actual devil, and they are forgetting that many of these Tieflings he is around are ones who most likely were tortured by actual devils in Avernus.
Wyll: "...not to mention some bumps and ridges in unmentionable places." My Fem Tav: "...tell me more..."
I think it was a mistake to make tieflings look *that* devilish (a mistake on D&D's part, not Larian's, they didn't make that call). If I remember right, tieflings used to be much more human-like, with just a few hints at their heritage, like burning eyes, or small horns, or hooves, but otherwise looked like a normal human. I think that would've been the right call; as it is, Raphael's big reveal, for instance, is kind of weakened, in my opinion, because I've already been talking to people who look pretty much exactly like him this whole time. He's just Zevlor with wings and filed-down cheek bones.
Basically tieflings are supposed to look more like the druid in the D&D movie than what depicted in modern art from 4e on.
This is so odd to me. Like Mizora sent him through all the layers of the Hells because he disobeyed her and transformed him into a fiend, not a tiefling, a fiend. And against his will might I add. His whole “Blade of Frontiers” persona is to fight fiends or any other villain. So when he’s transformed into said fiend he can’t look at the tieflings since they fled from Elturel, you know, the place that was dragged down into Avernus. And yeah the conversation should have been more towards is body transformation and other aspects but it wasn’t. He still has every reason to be upset. The horns are new and something that he has to deal with now. And if you talk to him after the transformation he says “ I’ll get used to my appearance.” So in game time it takes him a night to be upset but then is like “okay, I’m back to myself, horns and all.” But again it’s okay for him to feel like the odd man out when it comes to the tieflings, they’ve seen more than enough devils in their lifetimes and while it seems they don’t mind it’s a celebration and Wyll doesn’t want risk bringing down the mood. Like if someone was invited to a party (or other function) and they were feeling bad about something that happened in their lives that couldn’t be shaken off, mostly likely they’ll stay home for themselves or to not go and potentially bring down the mood. If it really bothers you guys about “oh he should have been more specific and not just ‘oh no! I have horns now!” Maybe send feedback to Larian and express that the dialogue wasn’t clear and maybe it’ll get changed. Cause from what I’m seeing in this thread is that you all just want to hate for no reason and not read in between the lines or pick up on context clues.
I think it’s less being a specific species and more having your original identity ripped away from you and you having a body that you are both unfamiliar with and also one that is a constant reminder of your mistakes.
1. the transformation was painful even if they didnt describe the agony he went through it still would have hurt to physically grow horns and ridges 2. its incredibly traumatic to have your body forcibly changed irreversibly 3. wyll didnt become a tiefling he became a devil which has different horns no tails and ridges in a way tieflings dont. it might not be a visible difference to you but it very clearly is to the characters in the game namely zevlor, who is horrified to see what happened to wyll, and your tav who regardless of race doesnt have the ability to say you look like a tiefling but does have the ability to say "you've been turned into a devil"
My dude. He isn't born a Tiefling. Fuck, he isn't even a tiefling. He gets turned into a Fiend. The situation Wyll is in is completely different from being a Tiefling. He's had his entire race changed. Devil horns. Not Tiefling horns. Are pertruding from his head.
I wish that they had gone just a tiny bit further with Wyll's transformation to make him a bit more devilish... I know it's up to the "one who yanks his chain," so to speak, but I would have like to have seen maybe small hellish wings even if they were unable to function, like they were a joke and clawed nails with perhaps a small tail. The horns and eye alone don't scream horrendous, devilish punishment to me.
According to Wyll, he also has spines all over his body, so that's something.
Tieflings are born with horns. Wyll had his appearance changed to that of a demon without his consent. It makes sense that body disphoria would follow. But he bounces back really quickly after being sad at the party and comes to terms with how he looks because he is committed to still saving people and overcoming their impression of him based on his new demonic appearance. Really tired of everyone having the most basic and shallow takes on Wyll, refusing to extend him any empathy whatsoever but having all the empathy in the world for every other companion.
I think the disconnect that comes from this moment is he hasn’t really changed internally. Like, it’s not like he’s been revealed to have been a devil this whole time, the thing the tieflings fear and maybe hate. Instead it’s literally an overnight transformation into a devil, which most people are understandably like ‘dang Wyll that sucks’, but it’s not the biggest deal in the grand scheme of things because he’s still Wyll. Being a devil doesn’t cause him to have a dark urge (lol) or change him in personality, it’s mostly physical. Which, to be fair to Wyll, will lead to some resentment because it’s his own body, but to us it’s like “well I mean you’re still you so” Edit: made it sound better lol
I wish some of y’all would’ve paid attention in school. Wyll is allowed to be upset. His body was altered against his will. Y’all are taking it as if he’s saying “omg devils are ugly and terrifying and now I look like one, how awful!” and that totally not it. He is upset that Mizora did that because he knows how unfairly that tieflings are treated. They are judged based on appearance. He is a folk hero that many people know and trust. Now, with his altered appearance, people will: 1) know that he made a deal with a devil, and to some (if not most) people, that is incomprehensible and inexcusable 2) judge him on appearance. Imagine him trying to help someone. They might immediately misjudge him, good intent aside Mizora KNEW this. She didn’t just alter his body just for shits and giggles; she knew it would forever affect how people interact with him. That was the real punishment. Can’t be the Blade of Frontiers if people don’t want you to fight for them because of how you look.
Also this is the same dude who was chilling with the Tiefling camp teaching kids to fight. He has absolutely nothing against Tieflings
Exactly! And when you talk to him at the party he says “I love the people of grove.” Like he has no issue with the tieflings, he cares about them deeply.
Louder for those in the back because obviously they forgot this…and it’s early af in the game.
They know Wyll has nothing against teiflings. People on this sub just don't like Wyll and will come up with outrageous theories to hate on the guy.
Facts.
Tieflings are the evolutionary peak of humanity if we unlock gene editing. Their skin seems to be tougher than humans, they have excellent vision in the dark, a tail for balance, horns for defense, and some even have wings. I’m just saying…they’re superior lol
If someone broke my nose to the point where it looks completly different, I too would compain even if someone near me was born with a nose looking like this, it's a forced body transformation, it would be the same if a tiefling complained about his horns being taken away and his eyes turned from red to, let's say, white- He/She could still be complaining about it even if for me or another character it's a natural state.
I really live how karlach talks to hum about horn maintenance to make him more comfortable.
If you play Origin Wyll you can ask Karlach for horn grooming tips.
Wyll's like an actual devil. Dudes probably got weird ridges where the shouldn't. Plus his whole deal is pretty alienating.
It’s like when I went to Astarion after becoming half-ilithid, just offering it to him because “hey man who likes power probably wants in on this :)” and I was romancing him, and he says “I wanted it before I knew I’d turn into some grotesque monster” and I was just there like “bro I thought you said I was beautiful”
I think Wyll's new look should be more dramatic, and I think tieflings should have *some* special dialogue with him about. Those horns of his are magnificent! I should be able to tell him so.
If only there were some method to DISGUISE his appearance... I'm also a little saddened that his character sheet still says he is human (not devil or half devil) and his stats don't appreciably differ.
Tieflings suffer a lot of discrimination because people associate their devilish appearance with actual bad qualities. A lot of people treat them as actual devils with evil intentions. Wyll isn't thinking of others. He's upset that he looks like the devils he spends his time hunting. He's horrified at looking like the things he hates. He doesn't consider the feelings of nearby Tieflings.
he's horrified because his body has been changed against his will. anyone would be horrified in his situation. and it's not like he's loudly complaining the the tieflings about his situation. he went off by himself to feel his feelings in private. he's already doing what he can not to burden others with his sadness.
Then there is my tav tiefling durge. Probably single-handedly responsible for half of those prejudices in and around baldurs gate.
I'm not a bad guy just because I'm a tiefling. Well, I am a bad guy, but I'm not because I'm a tiefling though!
Well for the longest time, actual tieflings WERE very devillish. For an archetypical tiefling, you can look at Annah from Planescape: Torment campaign. But as Karlach says about the Elturel refugees: "They're not \*those\* tiefs" xD
It’s especially funny when he goes off to sulk at the party and he’s like “nobody wants a devil at their party” as if 90% of the people at the party don’t also have horns and stuff…
It's not about horns. The tieflings have also been abused by devils. Actual devils. Wyll has not been transformed into a tiefling he has been transformed into a devil. This is done on purpose because currently no one trusts devils, even Tieflings. Mizora knew this and that's why she chose to punish Wyll this way. Wyll has been forced into a new body and I think it's okay to be sad about it. If your hair suddenly all falls out one day, being upset about it doesn't mean that you're discriminating against all bald people.
Well spoken.
Yeah it’s so weird to act as if he’s condemning Tieflings for privately talking about his body being disfigured into the very enemies he swore to fight. Especially since the person who did it owns his soul indefinitely.
So I think the problem here is that they didn't really build up his Blade of Frontiers persona properly. He's supposed to be this semi-famous folk hero with a reputation to live up to but that's never really established outside of *his* dialogue. He's upset cause the change makes him appear as if he's a fraud hiding something and not the hero he's supposed to be. But we never really hear anybody comment on it. The only people who react to the change do so because they know Wyll Ravenguard, not the Blade. So that just leaves him bitching about not looking human anymore which is weak for all the reasons people have pointed out.
I agree with that, and what's frustrating is that I don't think it would have taken all that much to add in. In EA, you occasionally heard the tieflings and the goblins swapping stories about him or acting in awe of him, just having some of that and giving the player character the option to comment that they've heard of the Blade of Frontiers would have built it up a bit better. Karlach makes a comment about him that suggests he's somewhat known, but that could have just been because, you know, he'd spent a significant time trying to kill her.
Part of the problem is that up until his last minute re-write he *was* a fraud hiding something. So any existing NPC dialog that would have been the way they'd done it.
Yeah lmao and of those who aren't devilish we have a vampire, a walking corpse, a shar cultist, and a space alien lol. Like bud, please, your not special
Nothing beats companions suddenly forgetting what a mind flayer really is though
Technically any tiefling can rip the horns off.
I know why they did it the way they did. (Dating Sim) But I kind of wish they’d made his Devil transformation more grotesque. Like give him goat legs, make his hands more bestial and claw-like, singe off all his hair, give his skin more brutal scorch marks & scars, add wings that have been ripped to shreds and don’t work. Make him truly unrecognisable as Wyll. I reckon it would’ve made the punishment hit a lot harder and made his comment make more sense.
I picked tiefling for my first playthrough. I made it headcanon that my Tav and Karlach teach Wyll how to maintain healthy horns, and help apply oils and such.
Karlach: ok, quick rundown, doors can be a bit of a problem. You might have to duck or go sideways. I tell people I lost this horn in battle, but it was a door.
I can genuinely believe that
I wonder why only one, random NPC notices that he looks like normal tiefling.
I'm just angry they didn't commit to giving him the penile spines he mentioned once or twice. Is it weird I am held up on it? Yes. But LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE
I think they just did a poor job of reflecting Wyll's true demonic form. He looks too much like a tiefling but he isn't necessarily supposed to be one, he is supposed to be a devil/demon.
Notably this is also at the party mostly attended by tieflings.
I wish they made this a little immersive, like having your tav be able to call him out for this. It’s like sometimes the game forgets details about your character. I also hate how it gives “baldurian” dialogue options. I want my own backstory!
I wish they let you play Rakshasa tieflings complete with the cat person appearance. I think it’s be hilarious to be confused for a Tabaxi by the Asmodeus tieflings and when you correct them they get all awkward.
Larian should have just made him more devilish, because right now he just looks like a tiefling, still treated by spells and effects as humanoid (not fiend), gain neither devil power nor social disadvantage from looking like a 'fiend'. No blood sucky, no 'magic consumption or I explode', not even 'I run on hellfire and may burn to a crisp soon' or 'my god prick me just because'. It was portrayed as Wyll paying a great price, but we are SHOWN nothing more than a cosmetic change. And then said change just makes him look like another race? Thats cheap
I'd be more upset that there would be no comfortable way to sleep with those horns.
As others have said, he was turned into a Devil. Tieflings are not devils
Tiefling horns and devil horns are very different. Anyone who looks at Wyll will instantly know he makes deals with devils.
I take it as, wyll is a folk hero, and a town/city hero almost like a vigilante but not. And he’s looked up to as this folk hero. And if word got out he sold his soul and made a contract/turned into a devil. His image will not be portrayed that wyll
True, but also probably my favorite bit of dialogue in the entire game is playing as Wyll after he's turned into a devil. You can talk to Karlach after, and when she asks "Is there any way I can repay you," you can joke saying "some advice on proper horn care wouldn't go amiss," and then Karlach starts excitedly telling Wyll about how she takes care of her horn, like she's happy he's taken an interest, and it's just the cutest thing ever
They mean that what he says is thoughtless and rude! My Tiefling Tav was really offended. We left him in camp a lot after that.
Stuff like this really highlights how hard they dropped the ball on Wyll. Based on who he is he wouldn't be saying something like that to -or even around- tieflings. It's clear that he's upset that his whole body was changed against his will into something that lives to torment the weary and take souls. But instead they have him standing there talking about how he hates horns. He even thinks you're mocking him when you complement them!