Ayla's story: What's in a name and other background bits

After choosing your race and your class, and spending (if you're me) at minimum an hour customizing your character's look, you have to choose a name. Naming is sacred, you see. It is also, I think, intensely personal. And contrary to labels, which are imposed on us and usually in less than kind ways, when we get to choose, naming is something we do for ourselves–it says something about how we want the world to see us.

There’s this scene in the tv show Outlander, when Jamie and Claire have just gotten married and he toasts her, calling her Claire Fraser for the first time. It was such an intimate moment and you could feel the shift such a naming brought to their relationship.[1] I recognized in that scene all the giddy and warm I felt when M called me Mrs. M the first time--like I belonged, finally, right where I was, because it was something that I chose.

So, yeah, I take naming my characters kind of seriously. M laughs when he watches me spend 30 minutes on a game’s naming screen, gazing at the character I’ve created and the name lists I’m consulting. I mean, this is the dude who names his characters M, so... But seriously! Both the meaning and the feel have to fit. It’s a gut thing. The vibes, even. You get what I’m saying, right?

When I initially came across it, I found that Ayla, pronounced EYE-la, is Hebrew in origin and means “oak tree.” It was everything I wanted her to be and what I wanted her to embody, a druid with her green skin and green hair. It made sense and had good mouth feel (hey, hey now, that matters, too!). I later learned that Ayla has another meaning (from a different naming tradition), but that is for...later. Given how her story unfolded, of all the surprises that came out of my gameplay, that “unfolding” was the most unexpected. And the most emotional. Damn it.

(I'll get to it. Promise! I swear I'm not trying to string you along. You just need all the background bits!)[2]

I chose to make a tiefling instead of a dragonborn for my first “real” game because I think I just really like horns and tails. My World of Warcraft character, the “me” M initially met, was a Draenei paladin, after all. And I played a Twi'lek in an old Star Wars mmorpg back in the day. I guess the horns and tails thing stuck.

I didn’t think much, initially, about Ayla’s background because I was just going to play a video game. Of course I wanted to enjoy the story (and the sexy time!), but it was just a video game, right? Even my experience with Zhi didn't influence that initial approach. I chose Outlander again, thinking that it probably made sense, since she’s a druid. She’s also Baldurian by game design, which means I probably need to do more mental gymnastics to make it make sense. Her background seemed to unfold as her story did, as she wandered around with a crazy band of misfits she felt compelled to shepherd through that dangerous world.

Ayla was the weirdo in her family, her first circle. That tracks, by the way. She grew up a tiefling, not realizing how distrusted tieflings are in Faerûn because she had a (dysfunctional) family who loved her and allowed her to become who she would, no matter that she became in ways that made no sense to them. They let her grow into herself without ridicule (though not without heckling...it's why she has such a good sense of humor). She had gotten herself into trouble in the Cloakwood, just north of Baldur's Gate (as she was wont to do...too curious for her own good) and was lying unconscious after a fall when the nautiloid swept her up. Her memories must have been lost somewhere between the fall and the tadpole. She told as much to Sovereign Glut when he asked about her home. All that remained when she thought of home was a fuzzy nostalgia and a soft certainty that no matter how hard things might become, if you trust your heart and your circle, things will always right themselves in the end.

Kind of like The Heart of Life by John Mayer. It's Ayla's theme song, after all.[3] It's where she always ends up, where balance always leads.

So, yeah, I went into the game completely blind, like the curmudgeon I am. I wanted to let instinct guide me. I chose dialogue responses based on my gut and moral compass (thanks, Karlach!). M laughed at the way I agonized over many of the choices, but honestly, muddling about in the middle of everything felt like a secret little gift the game gives those willing to muddle. (Or maybe it was the perimenopause-induced anxiety and I'm romanticizing?) Either way there were so many little delights that my wandering and stumbling uncovered–things M didn't see in any of his three completed play-throughs, so yeah!

I did my best to avoid spoilers, despite M’s excited, cryptic comments, which actually just made me more anxious than anything else. It’s alright, though. He likes the subtitles that litter my face. Those comments and the accidental, vague spoilers from random YouTube Shorts made me all angsty because I learned some bits of somethings completely out of context and spent the rest of the game wondering if I was going to mess something up.

Seriously, in how many different contexts can this game use the concept of ascending?!

When Ayla's story was complete, I realized that I had actually learned (and confirmed) so much about myself as I led that party of misfits around, offering them advice and consolation and support. It's fairly standard these days to hear folks talk about anything mediated through a screen as inauthentic or dangerous or standing in the way of true experience and emotion, which, we are led to believe, can only be had out in the physical world. But I would beg to differ. That reflection and those (very) real emotions were such a fascinating little side effect of this game. (Or perhaps they were a feature and not a side effect? I have too many curiosities already to go wandering off into game story development! Not that this has ever stopped me before...sigh.)

But! Enough wandering! On to where we're going! Let me tell you how my indignation playing Zhi led Ayla to a tryst in the woods with a certain prickly pale elf (eh? spoilers for those of you who know, right?) and how, come dawn, that indignation turned into something…different. 

Something…unexpected… 

(Much to my continuing consternation and aggravation—I generally tend toward less exalted altars.) Sigh...

[1] Outlander, (2014) Season 1, Episode 7, “The Wedding”. (NOTE: spoilers in the link) I’ve tried three times to get into this show. It seems like something I would like and Tim Downie is in seasons 4 and 5! I just can’t for some reason. I think it's because it's a little too realistic and dark and honestly, as a friend so aptly put it, I've got realistic and dark fatigue already what with the "real" world's current timeline...

[2] Several years ago, I worked with this attorney about 30 years older than me, who eventually became a good friend. One day, as I stood by his desk after asking a question, he started telling me about "bulls-eye'ers" and "outer ringers." Bulls-eye'ers always go directly for an answer, seeking the shortest route and not bothering themselves with any side paths. Outer ringers, in contrast, have to map the forest first and then once they find the answer, they know exactly how it connects to the things around it. I am an outer ringer, which is why I'm dragging you around the whole forest. Incidentally, so is my attorney friend, clearly. Probably one of the reasons we get along so well--each of us encouraging the other on the regular to make short stories long.

[3] I have a whole playlist for each of my characters in BG3 and it started with Ayla. I’ll link to each song as it enters the story.