Angelo NPC for Baldur's Gate II

A Gibberlings Three Mod
Author: Sister Vigilante, coded by Kulyok
On the web: Home page and discussion forum

Version 8
Languages: English
Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
GitHub: Gibberlings3/Angelo

‘Where's my old gang done gone?'
I heard a sad man say,
I whispered in that sad man's ear,
‘Your gang's done gone away.'

—Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle

“The past is the present, isn't it? It's the future too.”

Eugene O'Neil, Long Day's Journey Into Night

Angelo Dosan is the fighter-turned-mage who served as your brother's henchman in Baldur's Gate. You may remember that he sentenced you to death and fought against you in the Undercity, and if you were lucky enough to mine the content, you may remember that he is Shar-Teel's father. Most likely he didn't survive your game, but people in this world seem to have a knack for not staying dead.

In the Angelo NPC Mod, Angelo tracks you down in the Graveyard District to make you an offer you can't refuse (though perhaps you will). He comes equipped with the following:

• Between two and five banters with every Bioware NPC, except for Cernd (none) and Mazzy (one)
• Extensive player-initiated conversation trees
• A full array of interjections
• Voicing
• Custom equipment
• A new merchant
• For those curious about the past, the player can ask Angelo to unfold the story of Sarevok as he saw it. Of course, should Sarevok himself ever join the party, the plot may thicken.
• Angelo has two major quests—both in SoA, one of which can carry into ToB.
• If you are female, are of any race and have at least twelve charisma, you can attempt to romance Angelo. It's a rocky road, but may reward players looking for something different.

If you should encounter any bugs, please report them to the authors at the Angelo forum. In addition, Angelo is available on GitHub, so fixes and changes can be submitted by the community.

Enhanced Editions Note
The Enhanced Editions are actively supported games. Please note that every patch update will wipe your current mod setup! If in the middle of a modded game you might want to delay the patch update (if possible) as even after reinstalling the mods, you might not be able to continue with your old savegames. Alternatively, copy the whole game's folder into a new one that can be modded and will stay untouched by game patches. For BG:EE it is important that you install the mod to the language version you are playing the game in. Otherwise, the dialogues of the mod will not show but give error messages.

Windows
Angelo for Windows is distributed as a self-extracting archive and includes a WeiDU installer. To install, simply double-click the archive and follow the instructions on screen.

Alternatively, the files can be extracted into your game directory using 7zip or WinRAR. When properly extracted, your game directory will contain setup-angelo.exe and the folder angelo. To install, double-click setup-angelo.exe and follow the instructions on screen.

You can run setup-angelo.exe in your game folder to reinstall, uninstall or otherwise change components.

Mac OS X
The Angelo for Mac OS X is distributed as a compressed tarball and includes a WeiDU installer.

First, extract the files from the tarball into your game directory. When properly extracted, your game directory will contain setup-angelo, setup-angelo.command, and the folder angelo. To install, double-click setup-angelo.command and follow the instructions on screen.

You can run setup-angelo.command in your game folder to reinstall, uninstall or otherwise change components.

Linux
The Angelo for Linux is distributed as a compressed tarball and does not include a WeiDU installer.

Extract the contents of the mod to the folder of the game you wish to modify.

Download the latest version of WeiDU for Linux from WeiDU.org and copy WeiDU and WeInstall to /usr/bin. Following that, open a terminal, cd to your game installation directory, run tolower and answer Y to both queries. You can avoid running the second option (linux.ini) if you've already ran it once in the same directory. To save time, the archive is already tolowered, so there's no need to run the first option (lowercasing file names) either if you've extracted only this mod since the last time you lowercased file names. If you're unsure, running tolower and choosing both options is the safe bet.

To install, run WeInstall angelo in your game folder. Then run wine BGMain.exe and start playing.

Note for Complete Uninstallation
In addition to the methods above for removing individual components, you can completely uninstall the mod using setup-angelo --uninstall at the command line to remove all components without wading through prompts. .

Angelo is a risky PG-13 or a tame R, extremely high in suggestion but low in graphica. Your play experience may vary. Angelo isn't very respectful of women, and under certain circumstances he tells several “disguised” racist jokes that may offend some. There are passing homosexual themes. There is also a scene of potential hard drug use, if the player allows him/herself to get peer-pressured…

“I give you my word. You can always trust a rogue's word; it's all he has. I didn't betray your brother, even once I realized he was the craziest bastard I had ever met and would most likely kill me one day. Why? I was afraid of him. And you, from the looks of it, are a harder fellow than he was.”

"Gods, man. Dragons? Joust away. Mad ghosts? I'm right behind you. Bureaucracy? We can find you another childhood pal.”

Q: Is Angelo WeiDU?
A: Yes.

Q: Is the mod compatible?
A: Yes.

Q: Angelo's name or soundest is messed up!
A: Select Angelo in the game and press “K.” This should fix the problem.

Q: I'm having trouble installing Angelo on my Mac. I try using the install command but I just get an error message.
A: I, the author, am a Mac user, and I had this problem myself. I'm told you can either use “StuffIt” to expand the archive, or this process (suggested by a player of Kulyok's Xan NPC) worked for me:

1. Open the Terminal, type ‘chmod +x' followed by a space, drag Setup-Angelo.command into the window, press enter.
2. Type ‘chmod 755' followed by a space, drag Setup-Angelo into the window, press enter.
3. Double-click Setup-Angelo.command, the installation process should now proceed.

Q: Angelo isn't just going to betray me, is he? I don't think I could handle that again.
A: Of course I can't say absolutely, but rest assured, if you want him he's in for the long haul.

Q: Why can't I take off Angelo's clothes?
A: For a number of reasons, both balance-related and aesthetic, this seemed to me the best solution.

Q: What good is Angelo combat-wise?
A: I always thought fighter-mages were under-utilized in BG—Haer'Dalis is one of the few. For example, a lot of neat defensive spells are caster-only, and some of the later spells (like energy drain) are touch range...but basically, Angelo is a competent fighter and a competent mage, he can use katanas, and he should fall somewhere between Valygar and Haer'Dalis in style. He has seven levels in fighter and advances as mage.

Q: Angelo has no dual-wielding dots! Why?
A: It just isn't his style; he only had seven levels of fighter to learn to use one weapon effectively, and he isn't the strongest or most dexterous guy. If you really want, you can start putting dots there.

Q: Is there anyone I should take in my party to get the most of the content?
A: Angelo has a bond with characters from the previous game. I would STRONGLY recommend taking Imoen. Jaheira, Keldorn, Minsc, Edwin and Valygar are also good picks, and Haer'Dalis contributes to the romance (this takes some time to pay off, but I would argue that it is worth it). There is a romance conflict with Anomen, though not an epic one. Taking on Sarevok is recommended in ToB.

Q: My favorite character doesn't get picked on, does he/she?
A: Angelo has his own likes and dislikes (which he will be quite vocal about), but honestly, I don't have a strong personal bias against anyone. I think I tried to keep things balanced (except for Cernd).*

Q: I can understand taking him along, but why on earth would my PC, poor [CHARNAME], want to romance him?
A: This is an excellent question that Angelo himself will raise. There is someone for everyone, though, and Angelo may be just what a certain PC is looking for.

Q: Any tips on playing the romance?
A: Angelo may seem slow to come around. You are given plenty of opportunities to break off the romance but it can potentially last until the epilogue. When the gift horse comes knocking, don't look it in the mouth.

Aside from a charisma of 12+, there are no restrictions on the romance, alignment or racial. However the PC's responses tend to be articulate, so it might not make sense to do it with your INT 6 half-orc. Likewise, it might not make sense for a very evil character, unless you plan to cruelly string him along with lies (which is quite possible). The responses offered should cover a nice spectrum from lawful good to neutral or lawful evil.

IMPORTANT: If Anomen comes asking you about the romance, be honest with him! You will be held to what you say.

Q: Will I miss out on anything if I don't play the romance (or vice-versa)?
A: Yes, the romancing player will find out things about Angelo they wouldn't otherwise. There is no separate “friendship” track—the romance has most of the “base” content and more. He still has plenty to say to the male or uninterested female PC, though, and there is a small amount of male-specific content.

Q: Can I romance Angelo as a male?
A: You can attempt to—let's just say Angelo has been around the block. When it comes to that, though, he may provide certain romantic assets for the heterosexual male PC.

Q: If I don't romance Angelo, will he romance another NPC?
A: He'll certainly try his damnedest. The answer is no, though.

Q: What language is Angelo speaking when he attacks?
A: Japanese. I hope it doesn't break the mood, but I consider it a translation of his Kara-Turan language, just as most of the English is presumably a translation—and Yoshimo does it, too.

Q: Why is he half Kara-Turan, for that matter?

Q: I don't really know about the names in Forgotten Realms, but Dosan sounded Kara-Turan to me (in real life it's the name of a Tae Kwon Do form, which would make it Korean). I can only say that it seemed right—and is the substance of a lot of jokes.

Q: Why does Angelo say ‘holla?' Isn't that, like, West Coast?
A: Hamlet, act 1 scene 1.

Q: Come to think of it, isn't there a lot of Shakespeare in here?
A: Everyone has to steal from somewhere; I figured it might as well be Shakespeare. It was either that or Evanescence lyrics.

I find it highly probably that Angelo was originally named after a character from Shakespeare's Measure For Measure , an unjust magistrate who sentences a man to death for impregnating his girlfriend.

Q: Hey, aren't you that guy...?
A: I wrote a long piece of fanfiction (“Fury”) in which Angelo was a major character. You can find it on ff.net and on the Attic (somewhere) if the mod piques your interest. If you happen to have read it, Angelo here is a bit different (since the story doesn't exactly follow the game); but he has more in common with that Angelo than with the one-dimensional minor villain from the game.

I also voiced Xan SoA/ToB and co-wrote Xan ToB with the amazing Kulyok (yes, I'm the guy with that annoying, fake British accent). I voice Angelo too. There might be a law against voicing your own mod, but don't tell anyone.

Bounty Hunters

You don't track them down, they track you down. Now Angelo knows how the level 4 PC felt back in Baldur's Gate.

When The Last Sword is Sheathed

Angelo's past is catching up with him in more ways than one. Triggers in the government district after the previous quest is finished. If any of you my fellow Japanophiles ever wanted your very own yakuza/chanbara/onmyou-do interlude in BG, you need wait no longer. This quest can continue into ToB depending on the choices you make.

The Ballad of Accounting

Angelo, Imoen, Sarevok and the PC will have quite a bit to say to each other. Not a quest per se, but it may prove interesting.

The Tactician

Angelo is, among other things, a former soldier. A few chats with him in ToB may yield experience.

• Angelo is in the Graveyard District near the northern exit. He will salute you, but you have to go up and talk to him.
• You can now find a Kara-Turan cleric of sorts in the Temple District. He sells priestly items, including a few unique ones.
• Good katana are hard to come by in the game (especially if, like me, you refuse to use the Celestial Fury on principle). Angelo has one proficiency dot in a number of other weapons, so if you want to go with one of those to bump up to “specialized,” think carefully—you only get about one dot to spend in all of SoA.
• Angelo's “talk style” is a bit different from other NPCs—he isn't used to chatting with his employers, so you're most likely to get him talking by talking to him. Later on, when he knows you better, he may open up of his own accord.
• In the committed stage of the romance, if you get bored waiting for his next talk, you can access player-initiated talks from the dialogue option “my love, there's something I'd like to talk to you about…” There are a limited number of these, so use sparingly.
• The quests both trigger automatically. If at a certain point you're wondering what to do next, and you haven't been to the Windspear Hills yet, you might want to pay a visit.
• You can't make any “fatal” mistakes in his quests, although you can do plenty of things that are fatal to the player.
• The second quest involves a tough fight. If you do it in chapter 2 or 3, be prepared.
• There will be conflicts between Angelo and other characters, but nothing that has to result in anyone dying or getting kicked out.
• If you go the romance route and also lead on Anomen, at a certain point Anomen will confront you. It is important you tell him how you really feel, as this talk results in either one or the other romance being broken.
• Angelo will be kidnapped by Bodhi if you romance him. It may not go quite as you expect.
• Angelo has a player-initiated comment on every other NPC. These will have changed by ToB, so you can get some new ones.

Quests

These should be more or less sequential to keep from spoiling you more than you want to be spoiled.

Q: I'm stalled in the Bounty Hunter quest. Where is the next guy?
A: The second party of bounty hunters should ambush you in the Windspear Hills.

Q: And the next guy?
A: The final encounter takes place in the Docks.

Q: Merzer keeps kicking my ass!
A: Merzer has high AC and the fight takes place on the streets of Athkatla, making magic problematic. If you've bought your magic license, though, it should be considerably easier.

Q: What exactly can I do with the lotus aside from delivering it?
A: Inspector Brega and Renal Bloodscalp will both be interested. Both options won't appear yet, though, if you're talking to either of them for the first time. Try talking to them again. Doing this may have…consequences, however.

Q: I convinced Pierre to change his ways and he gave me the money. What am I supposed to do with this bag of lotus now?
A: Sawara only cares about the money. You can now turn the lotus in to Brega, or sell it Renal, with impunity (in fact although it's never stated, I imagine Sawara will admire you for doing this).

Q: Sawara keeps kicking my ass! Is this fight supposed to be impossible?
A: Sawara didn't get where he is by being a sissy: you're basically fighting the Kara-Turan Aran Linvail. You can beat him, but it's not superfluous there is a nonviolent solution. If it's really too difficult, try coming back in a later chapter.

Also, it really helps if you “tip the odds” as Angelo suggests. You've probably figured this out, but if not, a simple conversation could be all it takes.

Q: I don't know what you're talking about, I thought he was a cakewalk.
A: See, this guy knows how to do it ^_^

Q: How do I get the second quest to continue into ToB?
A: Part of it will have a continuation if you don't return the sword to Ginpachi. Another thread will continue if you bribed or charmed Suu.

Q: Am I supposed to do anything with this piece of Sawara's finger?
A: Not immediately, hang onto it. If you bribed or charmed Suu, it comes into play in ToB.

Q: I took Sarevok into my party and got a journal entry about his conflict with Angelo. Is this a quest? Can I resolve it somehow?
A: Yes. If you get Sarevok to change his alignment, there will be a last conversation and the “quest” will end.

Q: Ginpachi keeps kicking my ass! (hey, you never know)
A: This fight can be tough since you walk into it without the chance to buff up—and since you hit it before Amkethran, where you can buy items that protect you from backstab. With the right equipment, though, it shouldn't be too bad. If you go the romance route, you may have gotten an item that will prove useful here.

Romance

Q: So, seriously, how do I start the romance?
A: Angelo won't come looking for it. Flirt, then wait. It might be a while at first.

Q: There aren't any nasty surprises, are there?
A: Surprises, perhaps; nasty, hopefully not ^_^

Q: What should I do to keep from breaking the romance?
A: Humor him. He'll have a lot of questions, but in most cases there is no “wrong answer” except not answering. Also at one point, he will make a request of you that you can't turn down (without losing him).

Q: What point? Spoil me.
A: When he asks you to marry him. There's no way to put it off.

Q: How do I bring Angelo back to life!
A: Can you think of anyone who has a connection both to Angelo and to the undead?

Q: No, seriously, who do I talk to?
A: Oyaji in the Temple District.

Q: Why aren't there more flirts!?
A: Honestly, I'm not a big fan of descriptive text (as opposed to dialogue), but in the name of tradition there are some flirts. If you have an idea for one (either just an idea or in your own words) I would be happy to consider it, just post it on the forum at G3.

Sister Vigilante and Kulyok created this mod. You can find out more about the Angelo NPC mod by visiting the forum or the project page. Visit the Gibberlings Three Forums for information on this and any other Gibberlings Three mods on which we may be working.

Concept and Writing
Sister Vigilante

Coding
Kulyok

Playtesting
Sister Vigilante, Kulyok, berelinde, Ajnos, Amaurea, commeungarcon, deathbird83, Eepacse, ElaineMC, eSgr, Icendoan, Jelcat, Kitana, Kitanna, magrat, Neysa, Noctalys, RavenBlack, rianess, sisterpatrick, wayfareangel

Portrait by
wonnimchunha

Alternate portrait #1 by
Amaurea

Alternate portrait #2 from
http://cassinus.free.fr/

Sawara and Suu's portraits by
Amaurea

Item icons by
vilkacis

Information about Kara-Tur:
Wikipedia

Tools Used in Creation

• Audacity
• IESDP maintained by igi and lynx
• Infinity Explorer by Dmitry Jemerov
• Near Infinity by Jon Olav Hauglid, FredSRichardson, and argent77
• Ogg Vorbis
• WeiDU by Wes Weimer, the bigg, and Wisp
• winLAME

Music
Romance theme: Nujabes, Mystline
"The Last Rose of Summer," The Delgados, after traditional
"Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)," Bertolt Brecht

Voicing
Voice of Angelo: Sister Vigilante
Voice of Sawara: Sister Vigilante
Voice of Oyaji: Sister Vigilante

Readme by
Sister Vigilante, who has discovered he loves writing readmes; drop him a line and he will write you a readme; he will write you a readme for your mod you haven't even made yet, no kidding

with apologies to Shakespeare, Ernest Hemingway, St. Augustine, Charles Bukowski, Quentin Tarantino, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Michael Jackson, Pete Doherty, Jimmy Buffet, the nation of Japan (as always) and the Blackwater corporation.

All of the “chants” in the mod are Buddhist chants in Mandarin Chinese. I spent a month at a Buddhist temple in Taiwan, and this may be all I got out of it, really.

This mod is not developed, supported, or endorsed by BioWare, Black Isle Studios, Interplay Entertainment Corp., or the Wizards of the Coast.

Copyright 2007 to present, Sister Vigilante.

REDISTRIBUTION NOTE: Angelo NPC was created to be freely enjoyed by all Baldur's Gate II players. However, Angelo NPC may not be sold, published, compiled or redistributed in any form without the consent of its author.

Listed in order of increasing silliness and triviality.

Have you tried:

• In the romance, resting in the inn in Amkethran?
• As a male, cozying up to Suu in ToB?
• Giving the “Soul of the Deep” to Yoshimo? (he is, after all, Kara-Turan)
• Talking to all those guys in the Government Building who hardly have a part in any quest, ever?
• Playing through a certain event in the ToB romance with Haer'Dalis in your party?
• With Anomen?
• Resting at the Seven Veils with Angelo in your party?
• Talking to a priest of Ilmater?
• Talking to the female swindler in the temple district?
• Standing around in a field for twenty minutes to get Angelo's “bored” line?
• Right-clicking on Sakaki a bunch of times?

I hope you play and thoroughly enjoy this mod. If you care to stick around a moment, though, and hear an amateur modder's thoughts:

An idea I had in mind when writing Angelo NPC was the difference between banal and radical evil. According to Hannah Arendt, a great deal of human wickedness—she had in mind the Nazis—is essentially banal in nature. There is surely a lot of truth in this. But if all evil is banal, then where do we get the idea of radical evil from—and why is it so pervasive and alluring in our stories?

It's something to think about, I think,

Love & Peace,
Sister Vigilante, AKA Incanto

Version 8 - June 28, 2019

• Added check for !Dead("ADSawara") to ar1000.baf timer and cutscene start: party should not be teleported to Sawara if she is already dead.

Version 7 - May 08, 2019

• Added missing DV and dialogue to adshar.cre.
• Removed unused adsuu25.cre.

Version 6 - January 10, 2019

• Now works natively on EET
• Fixed bug where sounds and music did not work on case-sensitive operating systems (e.g. most Linux distros)
• Some additional modernization and optimization
• Fixed numerous minor bugs with items; e.g. many of the items that provided immunities did not block all effects, weapon speed factors were incorrect, etc.
• On EE games, items will now match the EE descriptions in style and form. Also corrected some minor errors in the item descriptions for both original and EE games

Version 5 - November 15, 2013

• Full BG2:EE compatibility
• Deleted a 2mb sox file that somehow made it into v4 for Windows
• Angelo's experience adjusts to PC's level only after he joins the party
• Solaufein jealousy interjection happens only in romance
• Corrected Angelo's morale break and morale recovery
• Included Big World Fixpack fixes
• Minor corrections

Version 4 - May 01, 2010, by berelinde

• Restored OSX audio installation scripts that never made it into v3
• Named bounty hunters
• Restricted the Greater Pearl Sutra necklace to clerics and cleric multi-classes, and it now grants immunity from the "level drain" icon being displayed
• Angelo no longer has the psychic ability to predict Imoen's kinship with the protagonist
• The protagonist will no longer deliver Angelo's line at the Tree of Life
• Oyaji now sells 20 single raise dead scrolls rather than one stack of 20 raise dead scrolls
• Minor corrections

Version 3 - May 2008

• The game no longer stops and stutters during lovetalk 7 for monk protagonists
• It is now possible to sell the lotus to Renal after acquiring the thief stronghold
• Yoshimo can wield the Soul of the Deep, even if dual-classed to fighter (Warning: should another mod change Angelo's or Yoshimo's character class, they will not be able to wield the katana)
• Minor corrections

Version 2 - March 11, 2008

• Fixed a number of typos
• Fixed Watcher's Keep interjection for SoA
• Fixed Angelo's leaving dialogue: he now leaves correctly for the Gates District
• Only female protagonists with CHA>11 can summon Angelo as their lover in ToB
• Updated to WeiDU 204
• Minor corrections

Version 1 - January 15, 2008

• Initial release