GamesRPGBaldur’s Gate 3Meet Howard, the most extraordinarily ordinary hero Baldur’s Gate 3 fans didn’t know they neededWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesRPGBaldur’s Gate 3Meet Howard, the most extraordinarily ordinary hero Baldur’s Gate 3 fans didn’t know they neededWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Larian Studios)
It’s not every day you come across a game likeBaldur’s Gate 3, and it’s even rarer to find a guy like Howard. The most remarkable thing about him? He’s actually totally normal. You might find his face model on a few random NPCs, but you’d never peg them for the heroes. Howard is a short and stocky gold dwarf bard, still sporting an eyebrow piercing despite looking well into his 50s, and BG3 fans on Facebook are eating him up.
A star is born
(Image credit: Larian Studios)
Big bard energy(Image credit: Larian Studios)Emulating Howard’s bardic talents, we triedcreating a musical out of BG3.
Big bard energy
(Image credit: Larian Studios)Emulating Howard’s bardic talents, we triedcreating a musical out of BG3.
(Image credit: Larian Studios)
Emulating Howard’s bardic talents, we triedcreating a musical out of BG3.
“My usual go-to is that I want to go into a fantasy world and I want to look nothing like myself. I want to look like what Ifeelis the ideal standard of beauty in this realm, but I had just done that in my first playthrough and I wanted to do something different,” D’Ambrosio says of Howard’s origins. She, too, was one of the many beautiful tiefling Tavs with a penchant for sassy blonde vampire men.
Having spent ages making her main character, D’Ambrosio says she quickly lost inspiration when the time came to create her Guardian. “I knew how the game would play out, and that it doesn’t really matter, story-wise, what the Guardian looks like. And then I saw the random generator button and decided to see what happens.” After a few clicks, lo and behold: the first iteration of Howard appeared before her. “I called my husband down. I was like, ‘Alright, you gotta come see this guy.'”
(Image credit: Larian Studios)
After taking multiple screenshots of her protagonist’s first interactions with Howard, D’Ambrosio was feeling contemplative. “I was like, ‘You know, the [Facebook] community would probably really like to see Howard. He’s really, really cool. So I thought ‘Sure, let’s just make someone’s day a little better, hopefully.’ But I never expected the fandom to just latch on.”
D’Ambrosio’s first post introducing Howard reads like a Craigslist dating ad. “I just posted some pictures of him and asked who my boy Howard should romance, along with highlights of him. So many people commented, and I got a range of replies from ‘Oh, romance Wyll, he’s so pure and would treat Howard right,’ to ‘Date Minthara, you can fix her.’ But a lot of them said Karlach because she is the tall queen and he is the short king, and they just wanted to see Karlach pick Howard up.”
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An unexpected journey
(Image credit: Larian Studios)
In order to date any of the companions, though, D’Ambrosio would have to recreate Howard from scratch as a main character. So began the chronicles of Howard, starting with how some nice bloke from down the pub came to find himself infected with brain worms.
“The community, as a collaborative thing, came up with his backstory,” she says when I ask her who Howard was before the events of the game. “From just the bits and pieces that I’ve strung together into his narrative, he’s just your average guy. He might have a wife and kids but you know, he might have separated from them, or maybe never had kids. But the important part is that he is just a guy, and all he wants to do is go have a pint with his mates at the pub. And he just happens to be British, because everyone was using British terminology.”
His astonishingly familiar face does scream pub-going London geezer with two ex-wives and a slight gambling problem, but there’s a kindness to his eyes that has me convinced he’s one of the good guys. The best guy in town, in fact.
(Image credit: Larian Studios)
The Howard community hasn’t just been instrumental in coming up with a backstory for the big guy, but they’ve influenced how D’Ambrosio roleplays. “I usually go with the evil kind of options [in RPGS],” she says, having chosen aBG3 Dark Urgecharacter for her very first playthrough. “But with Howard, I have to pause a lot and think, ‘Okay, what would Howard do?'”
WWHD?
(Image credit: Larian Studios)
He’s just a bunch of pixels in a video game, but I hope that he can give people the inspiration or peace of mind they need.Lisa D’Ambrosio
He’s just a bunch of pixels in a video game, but I hope that he can give people the inspiration or peace of mind they need.
From the sounds of it, Howard’s credo is to be a decent fellow and keep the peace. “I usually pick the options where I get people to talk more, and I try to avoid combat as much as I can, unless Howard would think ‘no, this has got to stop’, or if we’re at a dead end. I also pick the options that I feel inspire people, where Howard’s like ‘You’re doing great, good job’ or, ‘Hey, I think you should follow your dreams - but don’t follow that dream, that one’s not great.'”
D’Ambrosio walked me through his rationale. “Howard wouldn’t want to drag so many people into this mess. He also thinks that Shar’s a bad influence, that Shadowheart can do better, and he really thought that she’d thank him afterwards. She did not appreciate it.”
(Image credit: Larian Studios)
The loss of Shadowheart aside, it seems Howard is doing perfectly fine, thank you very much. I know this because D’Ambrosio keeps Howard’s biggest fans updated on his outings, posting regular written updates, bardic inspirational quotes, and a few memes here and there to spread his encouraging message far and wide. It’s definitely one of the most wholesome Baldur’s Gate 3 fan groups I’ve ever been a part of, and it’s a pleasure that his creator has seen fit to share Howard’s journey with us.
Howard’s not the only one who lost a friend –I never found Lae’zel in BG3 and it turned me into a bad guy.
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1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”
1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”
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2Arcs review: “A whole lot of game in a small package”
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5Marvel Rivals review: “So preoccupied with trying to be like Overwatch that it forgets to play to its own strengths”
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Marvel Rivals review: “So preoccupied with trying to be like Overwatch that it forgets to play to its own strengths”
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1Sonic the Hedgehog 3 review: “Keanu Reeves as Shadow is wasted whilst Jim Carrey steals the show”
1
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 review: “Keanu Reeves as Shadow is wasted whilst Jim Carrey steals the show”
2Mufasa: The Lion King review – “It’s no Hakuna Matata but this Disney origin story is a class above the 2019 movie”
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3Kraven the Hunter review: “The insistence on an R-rating helps save this, with a decent helping of bloodthirsty action”
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4The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim review – “An uninspired expansion of the most iconic screen take on Tolkien”
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2Secret Level review: “An uneven experience with serious highlights that ultimately make up for the misses”
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5
Cobra Kai season 6, part 2 review: “Returns to the sort of hard-hitting form that made it such a fan favorite in the first place”