My first playthrough, I didn't understand that you could recruit everybody. I thought, since my party is full that's all I get. I never met Karl, never invited Wyll to camp, never rescued Lazy. So it was just Shart, Astarion, and Creepy Wizard for the first two acts.

Everybody ran out of stuff to talk about in act 2, which really made the tone even gloomier... until the creep started talking about his suicide mission. Not only did he skeeve me the whole time, he was now an active threat.

I abandoned him at camp the instant I could grab Papa Halsin and never looked back. So of course he was abducted and murdered by Orin. Lol. Sucks to suck, Gale.

Now, it is my stupid goal to do an honor mode playthrough with Gale as my origin character, so he and Astarion can both be the worst versions of themselves and ruin the world..... but he's such a butthole and I keep dying. Oh well.