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Version used for review: 1.2.

“When asked about her past, Schael Corwin reluctantly admits she ran wild as a child on the streets of Baldur’s Gate. Her rebelliousness soon got her into trouble with the Flaming Fist.
Left alone in a cell with nothing but her thoughts for company, she began to reflect on the decisions she’d made in the past and see where they would inevitably take her. When she was eventually freed, she decided to change the direction of her life. She enlisted in the Flaming Fist and rose quickly through the ranks.”

This mod adds Captain Schael Corwin from Siege of Dragonspear into the first game as a joinable companion once you reach the city of Baldur’s Gate — however, despite offering only a BG1 segment and edits to SoD, this mod is EET-only.

I was personally very excited to try out this mod. Corwin is my favourite companion that Beamdog has created, and it only makes sense to have her included before the events of the Crusade. In theory, having a captain of the Flaming Fist join you in your adventures is certainly a cool idea, and would it would help to flesh out the—let’s be honest — rushed ending of Baldur’s Gate 1. It also makes sense to flesh out the relationship between Corwin and the player character that would lead to a possible relationship in Siege of Dragonspear.

Unfortunately, I was sorely disappointed by this mod. It turned out to be a poorly written, clunky mess that makes confusing character decisions for Corwin, and the vanilla content that the mod interacts with is littered with a sizeable amount of grammatical and spelling errors.

There are some positives, however. If you can get past the fact that Corwin is basically a different character, her interactions with the vanilla content involving the Flaming Fist all make sense, at the very least. She comments on situations that are appropriate to comment on, like when you’re imprisoned by Angelo, when speaking to Duke Eltan, and when you find out about Scar’s death.

The mod also repurposes the scene from SoD in which you can have a drink with Corwin, and it features a voiced line here or there, but ultimately all it does is take good content away and replace it with less than mediocre writing. For a woman whose character focuses a lot on family, she doesn’t speak of her father or daughter much, even once she considers you a friend.

Furthermore, the mod goes on to change most of the dialogue with Corwin in Siege of Dragonspear in order to more accurately reflect your relationship. All I could take away from this, though, is that the original banter had been stomped on by poor writing and a lack of editing.

This mod doesn’t grant Corwin any quests, though the potential is there. The author could have done something with her family—have her father approach the group and tell Corwin that Rohma, her daughter, is missing. Anything at all would have gone a long way here, especially in terms of bringing Corwin up to the standards of the other EE additions, which is what I would have hoped for a SoD companion brought to the first game.

Corwin, of course, is a lawful good archer. By the time you get her, you’ll have run into both Kivan and Coran, the latter of which is the best archer in the vanilla game, but Corwin outshines him in terms of pure archery.

Corwin has a Dexterity of 15, which while abysmal for an archer, is not such an issue. Her unique bow boosts that up to 16 and if you give her the Brawling Hands then she’ll have a Dex score that almost rivals Coran’s. She’ll be able to get 5 pips into longbows too, so she’ll definitely end up being your best archer. Not to say you can’t take both. Archers are probably the most powerful class in the first game, so if you’re just looking for a mechanical difference in your game, then… well, use EEKeeper to make Corwin exportable then use her as a custom character until Siege. Or download this mod. The choice is yours.

Of course, there are Corwin’s personal items. Her bow is great, and due to an archer’s high APR, she’ll be entangling enemies pretty often. Corwin’s personal armour gives her +1 to movement speed and 10% magic resistance, and is considered a +2 suit of chainmail, so she’ll be better protected than any other custom archer.

I have almost no positive feelings about this mod, and I would enjoy seeing this concept done right by another modder. Hell, since I like Corwin so much, I may attempt it myself one day. Have you ever seen someone attempt something so poorly that it just makes you want to take their place to prevent them from screwing up even more? That’s how I feel about the writing here.

If you’re wondering why this is an EET mod since it has content exclusively for the first game and SoD, the author has said that there was no other way to give Corwin the continuity that was required of the mod, but… that just isn’t true. Pretty much every companion returning from the first game into SoD gives you the opportunity to define your relationship with them within the first dialogue or so. I can’t imagine it would have been that hard to replicate this.

Overall, the final product here contains a lot of content that makes sense, but the execution of said content leaves a lot to be desired. I can’t recommend this mod to anyone, least of all fans of the character who wanted to see more content.

Thanks for reading.