Arelius is an avid gamer. Being put on the CRPG path many years ago, his first experience with the genre was Battletech: The Crescent Hawks Inception, followed quickly with Wasteland, and a plethora of others. Wasteland remains a favorite and a standard by which all games have been compared too due to the wide variety of game play offered by it. To think, it only required two floppies, yet provided a month or so of excellent, story driven, gamming, and still did things today's 'advanced', multi-CD, CRPG's can only dream of. Recently, though, Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, has finally succeeded in replacing that old standard with it's exceptional in-party character development, something which seems so obvious, but has been missing from CRPG's to date. He also thoroughly enjoys the tactical side of gaming, preferring turn-based strategy. I think that comes from a strong desire to pause the game when spouse or child demand attention, or else.
In more normal pursuits, he has a day job as a lead systems engineer for a major military force, and an occasional night job as a keyboardist for a classic rock/blues band in the local music scene. He leads a software development team that rivals our own party formations at times, and sometimes, keeping them together and focused proves a tougher challenge than ours could ever provide. He has many years of experience in programming and systems design in the field of military simulations. In the future, he hopes to save the world through properly coded and documented objects. Either that, or just pick up a few extra bucks to support his gaming habit.
Yoshimo - Traitor or Tortured Soul?
Yoshimo is a character that most would characterize as a tragic villain. He was arguably the best thief in the game, and his betrayal was a major shock to me the first time I played it through, as I do not even remember the conversation he had with the mage when we took his stone. It is widely known his actions were a result of the spell cast on him by Irenicus, and his farewell speeches to us indicated a lack of choice. What is the history behind that spell? What took place that caused him be in the position he was when it was cast? Was he just looking for a quick score and got caught? Did he have aspirations for greatness that he thought he could find by hitching his wagon to the two antagonists?
Explore this subject and pose possible histories and scenarios that may have put him in this position. Feel free to explore what happened after his betrayal was known, as well. The whole area is open.
Arelius
