Minsc

"Where goes the stench of evil, so goes the cleansing wind of Minsc and Boo."

- Minsc pondering evil

Minsc was a kind-hearted&mdash;but rather addled&mdash;warrior known for his habit of talking to a hamster. He believed that the animal, called Boo, was a miniature giant space hamster, but no-one else ever saw any evidence of this.

Description
Minsc was a large, bald human. His face was partially covered in a purple tattoo.

Personality
Minsc was very capable physically but mentally much more limited. Besides talking to the hamster Boo, whom he believed to be a miniature giant space hamster, he had a very simplistic view of the world and was often quick to decide that someone was evil and should be attacked. Fortunately, he was also kind by nature and was determined to be a hero. He was somewhat unstable and prone to flying into a rage, as if his witch were being threatened.

He espoused a neutral good or chaotic good outlook on life.

As a ranger, his favored enemies were first gnolls and later vampires. By the 1480s DR, he stated his favored enemy as simply "evil".

14 century
It was believed that that Minsc had suffered significant head trauma sometime in his past; it was not known what his mental capacities were before that, but he mentioned that it had happened around the time he befriended Boo.

Minsc was present in Nashkel in 1368 DR and played a role during the Bhaalspawn crisis. He was originally looking for heroes to help him save his charge Dynaheir, who had been captured by gnolls. The pair of them had both left their homeland of Rashemen to perform their respective rites of passage, he acting as her bodyguard and she as his "witch". Minsc and Dynaheir later formed an adventuring party along with Imoen, Jaheira, and Khalid.

At some point, Minsc was imprisoned in a dungeon, after a failure that resulted in the death of Dynaheir. He was distraught over the loss of his witch, who had been murdered in front of his eyes. This also meant that he had failed in his dajemma (a ritual journey to manhood). There were also reports of him escaping Irenicus's dungeon along with Abdel Adrian.

15 century
Around 1409 DR, the merchant Orburt Lewel ordered the construction of a nine-foot (2.7-meter) tall statue in the Wide in honor of Minsc, who had saved Lewel's life. The statue, known as the Beloved Ranger, depicted Minsc cupping Boo in his hands. It was a popular landmark and meeting point in the busy commercial district.

In 1479 DR, a group of teenagers vandalized the Beloved Ranger statue, breaking off its hands and Boo. The vandals were later apprehended and the statue was fixed.

Sometime in the 1480s DR, Minsc mysteriously returned. The Beloved Ranger was accidentally struck by a wild magic surge caused by the wild mage Delina, as a result of an attempt to cast a spell at an attacking gargoyle. The surge breathed life into the statue and caused it to transform into Minsc and Boo. The pair joined up with the thieves Krydle and Shandie to battle the Cult of the Dragon. Coran, now a member of the Parliament of Peers, was the only person who recognized Minsc as anyone but someone who was dressed like the statue.

Minsc and Boo have also assisted the Emerald Enclave in their battle against the four elemental cults.

Some time later, Minsc and his companions, while working as sellswords in the Lower City district of Baldur's Gate, helped defend a temple of Kelemvor against an attack of werewolves who had broken in. The werewolves fled after stealing the temple relics in search of a magic amulet and kidnapping Nerys, a cleric of Kelemvor. Upon chasing them back to their lair with the help of Boo, Minsc and his companions were swept up by mists and transported into the land of Barovia.

While in Barovia, Minsc had his fortune partially read by Madam Eva, but stormed out of her tent after she predicted that he would fail in destroying the evil that permeated those lands. The companions also briefly interacted with the wereraven Davian Martikov after saving his son Adrian from an attack of ghouls and spent the night at the Wizard of Wines winery.

The following day, the companions proceeded to Vallaki, which was holding the Parade of Purple decreed by the burgomaster Vargas Vallakovich. During the parade, they were attacked by Strahd. After narrowly surviving a confrontation with Strahd and his vampire and werewolf minions, the badly wounded companions managed to escape Barovia through the activation of the amulet by Delina and were transported back to Faerûn somewhere in the Spine of the World, about half a day's travel away from Fireshear.

In the mountains, the weary group was ambushed by ogres, but was helped by Saarvin, a dragonborn of gold dragon ancestry. Despite their victory against the ogres, Minsc, demoralized by the defeat and narrow escape from the clutches of Strahd, felt unworthy and a shadow of his former self, despite receiving encouragement from Nerys and Boo. By his figure, the group would need to defeat five times as much evil in order to regain their status as heroes of good.

Soon after the group's recovery in Fireshear, the city was attacked by a group of frost giants led by Lord Gryttmort. The giants were holding the white dragon Nylanthe captive. The adventurers, helped by a detachment of griffon riders trained and commanded by Dasharra Keldabar, defended the city from the attack, while Krydle set Nylanthe loose to attack her former captors and force them to break off the attack.

Interrogating Fjroul, a captured frost giant, Shandie learned that Gryttmort planned to overthrow Storvald and become a jarl in order to ascend in the broken Ordning, by stealing an orb of dragonkind from Nylanthe's lair. In possession of the orb, Gryttmort would muster an army of giants and dragons and conquer the North. Upon reaching Nylanthe's lair to warn her of the impending threat, the dragon revealed that Gryttmort was holding her eggs hostage in exchange for her cooperation and agreed to help the group if they retrieve her eggs. However, the giants attacked and used the orb to command Nylanthe to collapse the cave on Minsc's group.

After escaping, the group then flew to Svardborg to reclaim the orb on Dasharra's griffons, whith whom Minsc got along especially well. However, upon attempting to recover Nylanthe's eggs, the group was ambushed by the giants. In the fight, Krydle successfully stole the eggs, while Shandie separated the orb of dragonkind from Gryttmort, releasing his hold on the white dragons. At the same time, Boo accidentally drunk a potion of growth and temporarily became a giant-sized miniature giant space hamster. Victorious, the group returned to Fireshear to celebrate.

Behind the scenes

 * Minsc was the roleplaying character of Cameron Tofer years before being part of the Baldur's gate story. In fact, many of the characters from the Baldur's Gate video game featured in a real pen-and-paper campaign run by James Ohlen.
 * Minsc appears in all the games in the Baldur's Gate series and is voiced by Jim Cummings.

Appearances

 * Video games
 * Baldur's Gate
 * Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear
 * Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
 * Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal
 * Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer (mention only)
 * Neverwinter
 * Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms 
 * Novels
 * Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn novelization
 * Comics
 * Legends of Baldur's Gate
 * Shadows of the Vampire
 * Frost Giant's Fury
 * Evil at Baldur's Gate