Contents
Game universe & area
The Baldur’s Gate game takes place in Forgotten Realms universe (often called just Realms), created by Ed Greenwood. It was later brought to Dungeons & Dragons as campaign settings. Besides video games, also many books and desk games are licensed under Forgotten Realms universe, alltogether they create the overall image of them. There is an Earth-like planet Abeir-Toril with several continents. So far the most used one of them for games and stories is the Faerûn, and the Baldur’s Gate is focused on the west-midland part of Faerûn, the Sword Coast.
The area of the game lays roughly between the town of Nashkel, which is just about the most northern territory of the Amn nation, and Baldur’s Gate, an independent city-state. Originaly there was about 41 locations plus the city of Baldur’s Gate with nine locations. This itself has which is already quite an impressive number but the Tales of the Sword Coast expansion added four more locations: the Durlag’s Tower, the Ulgoth’s Beard, the Lycanthrope Island and the Ice Island. Of course you do not need to visit all of them, but it helps you getting experience both for your characters and yourself. Also you can get some gold and items there. The Baldur’s Gate Enhanced Edition finally added two new locations with side quests with new party members.
History & books
One of the special things I like about this game is how much work the developers put into such small details as the history. There are several tens of books in the game. Those are actually only a short texts, not real books, but those can still tell you some interesting things about the history of the Sword Coast and other places. Though absolutely not necessary for the game story, it is really interesting part you may spend some extra time with.
Similar thing goes for most enchanted weapons or other items which are often unique and have their own history. Some of them are sad, some of them are funny, some can even teach you a lesson. You can also learn some history information from priests and other non-playable characters (NPCs) or from side quests. One such character is the famous wizard Elminster, one of the most powerful and oldest living persons.
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