WARNING - CONTAINS SPOILERS!

One thing occurred to me during me last play through of ToB. Prior to your encounter with Gromnir in his keep, there is cut scene which shows an arguement between Gromnir and Mellisan.

Among many things said, two quotes stand out in my mind:

"Mellisan lies.... Mellisan deceives."

and

"Mesllisan wants to turn Bhaalspawn against Bhaalspawn until all are dead."

Now, here's the question. How much does Gromnir actually know? After you kill him, Mellisan portrays Gromnir as delusional. However, as the game progresses, we find out that a lot of what he said was true.

Now, was Gromnir so paranoid and delusional that he would accuse everyone of being against him, and thus, just happened to get lucky in accusing Mellisan of plotting the ruin of the Children? Or could it be possible the Gromnir was more intelligent that we initially gave him credit for, and figured out (at least in part) Mellisan's plan?

Regardless, I think that Gromnir at least knew something more than the PC did at the time of the encounter. Things that would be made clear to the PC later, after the truth behind Mellisan comes out.

One more question - wasn't Mellisan the absolutely worst "hidden" villian in RPG's ever? I don't think she fooled anyone. I was onto her from the start...

He definitely knows something more than the PC does. Whether he knows her overall plan or not is unforseeable, but he is less 'in the dark' than CHARNAME at this point.

I hate to say this...but she fooled me for quite a while... :o

Guess I was too caught up in the slaughter. :evil:

It was very late in the game when I looked back at my journal and put a few thoughts together and I realised: Hey! This lady's on to something!

Yeah. Gotta agree with you there. Was especially distracted by the massacre at Sendai's stronghold.
:o :o

Mellisan would've been more convincing if she'd had a cameo in SoA. Since that wasn't possible, the next-best option was to take a minor character from SoA and make him/her the uber-villain. Maybe, say, a leading paladin from the Order of the Radiant Heart? Now THAT would've been creepy!

But the voiceacting, the voiceacting! I, have, never, ever, EVER heard voiceacting of the same level as Melissan's was! I don't care if she was supposed to sound like a mental case from the beginning, she's so bad even the bad guy in Mortal Combat 2 (worst 'voice'acting I'd seen before this one) was highly talented compared to her.

As for Gromnir, I figured it was obvious he knew from the second time I played the game. I don't think he knew about Mellisan's ultimate plans, but obviously he knew it was she who put Gromnir and other bhaalspawn in the city into the situation they were in, and on purpose.

This begs another question. If in fact Gromnir knew, then it stands to reason that Mellisan knew that he knew. Why then, would Mellisan put you up to confronting him, knowing full well that the truth behind her scheme could be revealed? Granted, she could have predicted that the encounter would result in Gromnir's death, but the possibility always existed that Gromnir would tell you what he knew about Mellisan before the fight started...

Gromnir may have suspected a little bit, but he would not have just tried to take her prisoner if he had known her whole plan -- he would have tried to kill her ASAP. I also have to say that I don't mind her voice acting -- I've heard lots worse!

@Aldeth
She most probably predicted that she had won you over. Since you went for Gromnir, she must presume that her facade as 'Evil Gromnir' must have worked on you. Therefore she would already have considered him dead, and that you would ignore the 'babbling of an evil, mad, half-orc'.

See? ;)

My thoughts are that maybe Melissan had reasoned from following the PC's exploits and adventures as well as Gromnir's mental state that he would simply attack without saying anything about anything and that either way the PC would slaughter him quite quickly. Therefore preventing any revelations and early confrontations

Gromnir *did* attack you first. In fact, he attacked quickly enough to deny you any questions or grant too much information either. As far as Mellisan is concerned, I'm sure it wasn't too hard for her to see the situation before it happened. What with Gromnir's mental state and all. Bolstering you to attack Gromnir would serve her better than allowing you time to figure out things for yourself, or allowing time for Gromnir to do something unexpected. She couldn't reveal her own power afterall.

Besides, in the end things did go precisely the way Mellisan wanted them to, all the way up until the last confrontation. Never underestimate the power of Saving and Loading.

Which begs another question: Is Gromnir truly insane? He may have simply been attempting to stop Melissan from carrying out her plan by trying to keep Yaga-Shura out of Saradush.

@Rastor

Excellent point. Perhaps he's not. The only person that claims he was insane is Melissan herself. Anything that she says (in hindsight, not the first time around) must be viewed with a heavy dose of skepticism. All things considered, how would a character as powerful as Gromnir become the lord over an entire area if he was crazy or stupid? Sure, it's possible, but it is more likely to say that he got where he is because he is neither crazy nor stupid rather than claim he got to where he is in spite of him being crazy and stupid.

As everyone else has stated Gromnir probably knew more than Melissan would have you believe and was probably sane throughout the whold deal. Which brings me to my next point

How bout someone making a mod that allows Gromnir to have a conversation before attacking and depending on your Charisma/Wisdom you can convince him to join you in taking down Mellisan and her evil plot at being the nexdt Lady of Murder. He could be a joinable NPC a half-orc beserker(awesome single classed tanks) or a barbarian and you could change his armour to a heavily enchanted chain. The whole story line gets changed as you realise what Melissan is planning from the start.

the problem with gronmir is that he uses some unremovebal invisible items.

though this could be avoided by making a second copy of gronmir (as tactics did with ilyich).

So if there are any mod makers out there with no projects on the go maybe you should have a try at it??

Sorry to raise an old thread but I thought I'd add a quote from my year 13 classics studies teacher "Just because you're paranoid it doesn't mean everyone isn't out to get you".

Second time around I realised that yes, Gromnir was onto Mellisan's scheme however he didn't know what her goal was but he certainly knew her method.