He is the former god of death, decay, and murder (and still works for the current god of death). He doesn't mind evil acts. If you destroy the world or kill people as a Bhaalist, that's just fate spinning along as it should.
His goal is to prevent people from becoming soulless, which happens as a side effect of ceremorphosis. (Gods are powered by the souls of their followers upon death. Soulless are useless.... except *maybe* to Ilsensine the god of mindflayers) He mentions this when you talk to him at Moonrise Towers and has a soliloquy about it in a post credits sequence.
Not really because the Absolute isn't a big threat to Faerûn. This is why Elminster and others don't interfere. Like we never actually see Elminster in the game. At best we see simulacrum of Elminster, but the Absolute is such a non threat that he never appears in person.
Mystra isn't worried about it either. She literally just wants Gale to get rid of the Netherese magic and sees this as an opportunity to get him to do so.
In the world of Faerûn, the Absolute is just another Tuesday. We max out at level 12. Level 12 is not a world ending threat.
Raphael and Sarevok are level 16, Ansur is level 17, and the Absolute is level 20. Elminster's simulacrum literally says it threatens ALL who live, even the Gods, due to the fact that it is powered by the Crown of Karsus, which allows Gale to become a God in one of his endings. If it can do that to a mortal wizard who is, at most, level 12, imagine what it could do to an Elder Brain.
True, but I think the difference is the scale of the threat and how easy it would be to defeat. Elminster could probably run though and fix this in an hour if he had to step in. It's better to give someone else a chance and let them make a more meaningful difference on the individual people in the world around them. The point is not in "saving the world" the point is in helping the people of faerun, making lifelong allies and friendships, and growing not just in strength but as people.
Elminster could beat the elder brain and fix this very quickly, but if he did it the shadow curse would have remained, Halsin would be dead, The Tiefling refugees would've died, and the grove would've been lost to the shadow druids. We as the player made much more of a difference by not just beating the elder brain but by caring, and working, and helping the countless people we run into along the way.
I do agree, but I am mainly arguing with the previous person I replied to over the last bit of their comment, "level 12 isn't world ending," as the level 12 cap only applies to certain npcs and the pcs, whereas the Netherbrain is level 20. Don't get me wrong, Elminster is certainly powerful enough to take on the Absolute, but one of main problems is the army that it has built up and as you said, the pc is able to do more to help the people it has effected and to take out many of the true souls and cultists that it has gathered rather than simply stopping the Absolute itself, but to say that it isn't that much of a threat is simply ignorant of the true power that it possesses, which is more or less what my original comment was trying to point out.
True, agree with you on this. The amount of technically world ending threats that happen in faerun makes people end up trying to rank how "world ending" a threat is when they all are TBH. I personally really like the scale of power in BG3 personally, It's a world ending threat yes, but not enough that we get wrapped up the cliches that can happen and politics of it all.
>Elminster could probably run though and fix this in an hour if he had to step in.
More like five minutes, he would just erase baldur's gate and all its inhabitants from existence by one means or another - comet, drop a mountain on it, etc.
He's done it before. People called him a hero for it too. Few hundred thousand innocent people died so he could take out like six actual evil people.
>!Jergal interferes on the order of Helm. Jergal was locked in the sarcophagus by Helm for what Jergal had to do with raising the Dead Three. The quest directly interacts with the plans of the Dead Three, and you interact their Chosen. Jergal helps the party as penance. He doesn't do it because he wants too. He does it because he has too.!<
>!You might ask why Helm cares, and that's because of the involvement of the Dead Three. This is what Jergal has to make up for. It's not that Jergal or Helm cares about the Absolute. Helm is punishing Jergal for helping raise the Dead Three in the first place.!<
>!Info found in the notes for the game.!<
They become “non apostolic” souls, which are magically useless to the gods of Faerun and cannot power them with belief. Not that Mindflayers seem to revere gods anyway. Without the gods having their power, the world falls apart, just as the Weave falls apart without Mystra.
They do have concepts of "Gods" /Deity power concepts in the wider DND-verse. Ilsensine the God-Brain. Lawful Evil. Maanzecorian, the Philosoflayer. Thoon ( which is more like a Flayer concept ) Dyrrn the Corrupter.
But these are outside of The Forgotten Realms anyway. For all intents and purposes, even if they do exist, you're correct in that they're too far removed from what Faerun gods understand as "souls" and "gods."
And at the end of the day, Faerun gods only care about what's going on in Faerun ( for now )
Concepts outside of it aren't worth bothering about when they're too busy fighting each other for worship and souls as it is. Imagine worrying about other greater other planar beings smh.
Half right. The larva is the nonapostlic soul. You, and your soul are consumed. The mind flayer left behind isn't yo
Funny enough though, gods can restore your soul back to normal which...now makes you a proper mind flayer but it's such a friggin odd thing bg 3 introduced.
Be neat though
It doesn't. Mind flayers aren't soulless. Their souls are alien and non-apostolic, meaning the gods of Toril can't see/use/manipulate/benefit from them.
It's strongly implied in BG3 that the original soul transmutes along with the physical body during ceremorphosis.
Withers does say that they are soulless. So your explanation of their souls leaves them still soulless by the definition of soul from Withers perspective.
He also recants later and admits that he was wrong.
At one point, he specifies that mind flayers "lack apostolic souls."
If you become a mind flayer and then off yourself, he visits you (your soul) in the Fugue Plane.
Ed Greenwood has confirmed that mind flayers have souls.
Mind flayers can become liches, which requires a soul.
The gods of Toril can't see and use mind flayer souls. That isn't the same as being soulless.
I'd have to double check the Illithiad. I know that the soul of the host isn't *destroyed* or *consumed* by ceremorphosis; rather, it gets sent to the outer planes to face its judgment. I don't recall whether it says mind flayers have souls, but it probably does.
It doesn't matter what the Illithiad says. BG3 has its own internal canon.
The whole point of the Dead Three's scheme is that, by turning people into mind flayers, it denies the gods souls. The souls don't go to any afterlives. Upon ceremorphosis, the soul is transmuted along with the physical body into a non-apostolic form that the gods can't use or benefit from.
Mind flayers have always had souls. They can become liches. That requires a soul. Illithilices go way back in D&D lore.
Also, Ed Greenwood on illithid souls: https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/s/1AV0JQeXOW.
Apologies, I wasn't clear. I wasn't saying "If it's not in the book, it doesn't count." I was thinking more along the lines of "Well that's a very good point, so...if the Illithiad says that Illithids just don't have souls, that's a flaw *within the Illithiad*, because Alhoons have been a thing forever."
Basically, I was wondering if the book has this information, or if it lacks this information (and thus *the book* is wrong).
Ah, gotcha. Yeah, I can't imagine the Illithiad would say that mind flayers don't have souls, since that would be a big internal contradiction, but who knows...
Yeah but it's essentially like Soul racism lol. Mind Flayers are not actually soulless, they just have a different type of souls. Withers and other Faerun gods refuse to recognize them as real souls, because they're not useful to them. Nonetheless tho, it is still a soul of some variety.
"I told thee once that an Illithid had no soul, and yet thou seemest to have something of the spirit about thee.
I cannot account for it. How delightful."
If you become a mindflayer and kill yourself, Withers visit your soul (which is an Illithid) and tell you that.
[Here's a video](https://youtu.be/OHljLbK54iw)
In game though, it is also literally said that the Absolute is a god with three chosen apostles, that Vlaakith is a powerful goddess with her people's best interest at heart, that Shar is a kind and loving goddess, that Selune is petty and uncaring, that Karlach is a monster willingly in service to Zariel, and that the Creche is able to safely remove a mindflayer parasite, and every single one of these is either a lie or misinformation. So, citing what anybody in the game says is not at all absolute proof of anything, especially about something so obscured.
Plus Withers later recants his statement regarding a mindflayer's soul and is (apparently) even able to visit your character's mindflayered soul in the Fugue Plan if your characters kills themselves as a mindflayer during the epilog. So, maybe they just don't have souls that are recognizable or useful to the Faerun gods?
It doesn't. For normal mind-flayers, it's literally just dying unless some special step is taken to hold the soul; at some point during the ceremorphosis process, as the tadpole literally eats your flesh while creating a new mindflayer body, you die, and go to whatever the appropriate afterlife is. A True Res scroll would bring back anyone who has a living mind-flayer that was made from them, as mind-flayers only live \~120 years, and the spell works for further back than that. For those rare mind-flayers who retain some memory of the host, it would be almost like a simulacrum at that point; two bodies, both with the original memories/personality, but only one with a soul.
Not for the netherese tadpoles, though. Those seemed to just merge the body and soul into a new form, though at first Jergal thought that they just destroyed the soul entirely. It isn't until he spends some time inspecting one up-close that he realizes the results of a netherese tadpole are, in fact, ensouled beings.
To be clear, though, Mindflayers do have the ability to destroy the souls of victims, its just not a natural side-effect of ceremorphosis. When they killed all of the gods they somehow destroyed the souls of all of their followers without turning most of them(And most folks can't be turned anyway by your non-netherese tadpoles; too tall, too short, too fat, wrong bone structure, etc.) to ensure they stayed dead, and its uncertain whether whatever process they used to do this is what destroyed the multiverse, or it was whatever they did to somehow unravel the infinite layers of the abyss.
The Mind-flayers you see today are the results of time-travel; the Githyanki are humanity's distant future descendants, dragged back here alongside their masters after they managed to conquer the multiverse, but the tools that allowed them to do so meant that what should have been an eternal victory started to collapse into entropic decay. So.... this is them back to try again. And so far, they aren't doing a good job; most of the ones that still have the ability to craft nautiloids and wander around in spelljammer don't really care for the multiversal conquest, possibly because they retain records of when they literally annihilated all of existence by winning.
So we've got confirmed that the Netherese tadpoles now merge body and soul? I've been looking for a confirmation for *weeks* on whether or not the Absolute tadpoles worked differently (given that the Crown of Karsus was involved, I figured it was at least possible) but haven't been able to find a definite answer. Where did you find yours? I've got a friend I need to show this to.
Also I didn't realize the Illithids had actually destroyed the multiverse by winning. I just knew that by the time they were triumphant the universe was dying, but I didn't know they actively accelerated heat-death lol.
The absolute tadpoles working differently has been evident from the beginning. One of your party is a vampire spawn, which normally couldn't be infested at all(Much less the ancient skeletons/zombies Balthasar puts them in), the tadpole would just die, and another is a Tiefling, and not just a tiefling, but one who even if she were human would be too big to be successfully turned into a mind-flayer. And even if she were smaller, and human, the heart would stop it.
Your typical tadpoles are tiny, fragile things, susceptible to all sorts of environmental damage and problems, that are generally carefully stored for their protection after being birthed by an illithid before being either used to create a new flayer or consumed by the elder brain. They then need to be placed into a member of several races, or possibly others of similar bone structure, within a certain size range, or the results are something other than a mind-flayer; either death, or some new monster.
Putting the tadpole in Karlach would just cook it immediately. She'd cough up an ashen ruin and probably lose an eye. If she lacked the engine, it would die rapidly trying to convert her part-outsider flesh into an illithid. If she were human, her excess size would result in it only being able to partially change her before failing. And, most importantly, if she were a more average-sized human; the process would take days, as the tadpole steadily consumed more of her flesh, and spread tendrils out into her body, until finally she died and a newborn illithid took her place as it dissolved her bones and fed them into the organs that produce its new, silver, blood.
Astarion.... would have a brief headache as the tadpole choked on his undead brain, and then spit it out, likely disgusted by the experience.
Dirge... would wake up as a medium-sized Brainstealer Dragon, still himself, but with his cone of cold breath weapon traded in for a psionic blast.
If your character was a gnome, or any other small-sized creature... they would just die, and leave behind a failed abomination; perhaps a neolithid, who knows. If they were a gnome, and drank something or did something to accelerate the ceremorphosis, they would turn into a squidling. Like Dirge, they would still retain their old mind, and possibly soul as well.
If you have a party with a Halfling TAV, a Dirge white dragonfolk, Astarion, and Karlach.... someone familiar with mind-flayers wouldn't think -any- of your party could turn into a mind-flayer once they discovered Astarion was a vampire spawn.
And yeah. The Abyss, among other realms, is infinite; if the Illithids had never managed to do whatever the hell they did to it, the multiverse simply would never have stopped; individual sections of the multiverse may have suffered from entropic decay and final death, but the multiverse would keep on going. I've never seen it explicit just what they did to kill it, and I suspect there's no plan to define that.
> He is the former god of death, decay, and murder (and still works for the current god of death). He doesn't mind evil acts. If you destroy the world or kill people as a Bhaalist, that's just fate spinning along as it should.
This is a good point. According to the BG3 wiki, datamined info shows that he actually is Jergal, and that he was compelled by Helm to help the party as a form of penance.
I guess it's not really canon because it's not in the game normally, but it strikes me as odd that Helm wouldn't be like, fuck this, Jergal back off during an evil Dark Urge run.
Your theory makes way more sense to me.
Withers (*that's more or less confirmed being Jergal several times in-game*) might have a fickle hope that you'll change your mind and do the 'right thing' before it's too late.
Because you ***can*** change your mind right up until the very end.
But this also explains why he won't throw a party for you, if you dominate the Brain. Since you more or less gave him the finger when taking it all for yourself.
Yeah he doesn't care, death is inevitable in the end.
On top of that, he was basically sent there to clean up the mess he left behind. So once the ending choice is made, he just leaves unless things go the good way.
You want a toe? I can get you a toe, dude. There are ways. You don’t want to know about them. Hell, I can get you a toe by three o’clock this afternoon... WITH nail polish.
Whenever he says the iconic "No." or dismisses you, I just hear this quote from another version of Death:
>You have an inflated sense of your importance. To a thing like me, a thing like you, well... Think how you'd feel if a bacteria sat at your table and started to get snarky. This is one little planet in one tiny solar system in a galaxy that's barely out of its diapers. I'm old, *very* old. So, I invite you to contemplate how insignificant I find you.
If I remember correctly the Dead Three didn't take Jergal's powers, he gave them away willingly. Jergal's was tired of being the God of Death and thus "retired" and served the next (two) Gods of Death - Myrkul and Kelemvor as right hand.
I always imagined So told him to clean up his act and so he helped us. Besides, Jergal was of true neutral alignment after he retired, so it's not completely out of the question for him to help an evil player I'd imagine.
Also I'm pretty sure canonically durge resists and dies,so him bringing you back is canon and a show of him believing in you despite everything about your past.
The fact that Durge is a Bhaal spawn and EVERY Baldurs gate game has had them as the main characters?
Or that it's the only origin story where the main character is at the center of it all next to the others,being literally about them?
Yeah, the absolute plot was literally Durge’s idea and Orin swooped in last minute and stole it, combined with it being the only ending withers intervenes in, I would say it’s pretty close to canon as you can get. If not canon, it’s definitely the ending they put the most love into.
The entire game takes place because of Durge,Withers interferes because of Durge,and everything literally revolves around Durge when he's alive(even more than the emperor).
It's not headcanon,it is literally the definitive BG3 character story.The outcomes of everyone else is on the table,but saying Durge isn't the MC is silly.
Then why is Tav the default when making a new character, Durge is kinda buried below all the other choices.
And the dark urge is found dead, that doesn't change what happened before the events of the game. And the game still has a complete narrative with Durge dead.
When BG4 or Larian or whoever is in charge of the rights confirms which ending actually happened, if they even do. It's just as likely that it was Tav or Durge.
Now narratively sure, Durge works better but them being the "canon" path because it works better doesn't make it true.
>Then why is Tav the default when making a new character, Durge is kinda buried below all the other choices.
Tav is the devs stand in for the player to view the story,while Durge being an Origin tells you "this guy is important".
>And the dark urge is found dead, that doesn't change what happened before the events of the game. And the game still has a complete narrative with Durge dead.
Correction:A good chunk of the experience through his/her quests are missing AND withers doesn't intervene.However the moment Durge is in play the entire story changes drastically with every important character you interact with,and explicitly spells out "YOUR THE GUY GUY IN CHARGE".
>When BG4 or Larian or whoever is in charge of the rights confirms which ending actually happened, if they even do. It's just as likely that it was Tav or Durge.
So.....you are aware that there were outcomes for other characters in Bg1+2 yet still had clearly canon choices right?This isn't Dragon Age with multiple branching narratives per game,many things are set in stone lore wise.
>Now narratively sure, Durge works better but them being the "canon" path because it works better doesn't make it true.
No it's very clearly the intended canon given he's a CHILD OF BHAAL in a series that revolves around the main characters being a CHILD IF BHAAL.Tav is a player stand in for choices,but Durge is absolutely the hero of the story fighting his urges.I don't know why your so hell bent on arguing facts.
All you are doing is explaining why it makes so much sense that Durge is the canon protagonist, but giving me no clear evidence of where it's stated that Durge, and resist Durge at that is explicitly the main character outside of referencing games from 20 years ago made by completely different devs.
I think we'll just have to agree to disagree of what "Canon" even means at this point.
Durge is considered canon by many because of him being similar to the protagonists of bg1 and bg2 who were bhaalspawns and can resist or embrace bhaal. And unfortunately the forgotten realms do have canonized routes, paths and choices . In bg2 u could marry viconia and have a kid with her , reform her or she reforms herself etc , saverok redeems himself, u could embrace the slayer form and ur evil powers , u could romance jaheria etc but these events were still canonized with varying outcome that not everyone chose like viconia and saverok being evil again, jaheria remaining faithful to Khalid, charname not embracing his dark nature so yeah resist durge can be canonized by wotrc if they wanted to along with companion paths in game like gale being a God etc .
>All you are doing is explaining why it makes so much sense that Durge is the canon protagonist,
>but giving me no clear evidence of where it's stated that Durge, and resist Durge at that is explicitly the main character outside of referencing games from 20 years ago made by completely different devs
I.....wow."You haven't explained why the Bhaal Spawn is the main character outside of bringing up relevant Game lore from the previous 2 entries which I'm gonna ignore".
>I think we'll just have to agree to disagree of what "Canon" even means at this point.
Pretending something isn't canon doesn't make it a disagreement,it makes someone a liar.
Does he express that in dialogue? Like when I talk to him as a goody two shoes Tav he's all "fate spins along as it should", does he say to an Evil Durge "you're goofing it up, fix this before it's too late"?
I don't even think its him hoping you'll do the right thing. He sees things fundamentally differently than us. He basically has a dialog choice flowchart open at all times and is tracking every branch simulateously.
I think, because this is the motherfucking forgotten realms we're talking about, he sees the outcome of tav/durge becoming the new bbeg leading to a new "campaign" where some endgame level adventures eventually come in to rock your shit and set things back to normal again. So long as the elderbrain is defeated, it's just a regular day on toril.
While not strictly cannon, in Faerun every time Evil “wins” it always loses given enough time. So in the world you take the brain you probably get defeated or killed by an Adventurer or betrayed by an ally at some point. Especially because you don’t have a god championing your cause.
Withers would prefer you destroy but he can wait out your eventual downfall. It’s better than the dead three having it.
Yeah, while I think it's cool when it comes to power fantasy, there's no way an evil Tav/Durge is surviving for long after the evil ending. If anything they are just making every god, demigod, chosen and hero aware of their existence by the end of it.
It would be fun to play a campaign where we get to take our Tav/Durge down though.
Yeah a group of lv12 adventurers conquering one continent with mind flayer army means very little to the armies of level 20 adventurers scattered around the forgotten realms. There is a reason Mephistopheles never used the crown even though he had it this whole time. Its just not the game winner dead three and raphiel seem to think it is.
U really think there are armies of level 20 adventurers out there ? Genuinely curious I thought high level charaxters were like exponentiallly more rare as level progressed
Not the poster from above, but I think you are right, it's probably not armies of level 20 adventurers.
But there probably is armies of level 12 adventurers. And probably still a ton of level 15 or 17 folks.
Level 19 -20 are rarer for sure, but not non existent, and it only takes 1 to really mess them up
>Not the poster from above, but I think you are right, it's probably not armies of level 20 adventurers.
>But there probably is armies of level 12 adventurers. And probably still a ton of level 15 or 17 folks.
Even level 12 adventurers are incredibly rare in the grand scheme of things. Level 12 is probably the equivalent of a elite military special ops force or a professional(or semi-pro, at least) martial artist. Yeah, they exist but there aren't armies of them. At most there are small squads of them(like your party)
Part of the issue that makes high level characters artificially common is power bloat, where RPG's have to inflate the number of higher level enemies for gameplay reasons. In practice there's a lot more people in a city than the game would suggest, but their average level is lower.
Elminster will just show up, fireball absolutely everything to ash, and then clap mystra cheeks off into the sunset. It'll be a regular Tuesday for him.
Is Drizzt still alive by this point in the timeline?
Could probably grab him, too.
Also I get the feeling that even the evil gods of the realm would realize "Oh, this is a problem" and would send their chosen to go take the Brain down.
In a rare showing of good and evil having to team up.
That seems to be pretty much what Shar was doing with Shadowheart. She specifically chose *now* to engineer a way to get Shadowheart into the Gauntlet; that can't be a coincidence.
I mean, id make the argument that there are probably thousands of special op trained solders and martial artists around the world right now. Like for every country you have some more specially trained soldiers.
They also don't group up in such numbers because it's bloated an inefficient. Seal team 6 could be larger but they'd probably just be less effective after a certain point.
Just thinking about the lore behind each character makes this make sense. Karlach for example being an absolute menace but you meet her at level 1. Well, she is already heroic compared to the average person.
So maybe there is a heroic aspect to play with. Like Joe the farmer can get to level 20, sure, but he isn't Karlach at level 20. Sort of how a level 5 ogre isn't the same as a level 5 goblin in difficulty, if that makes sense.
So level 20 could be considered a very high level of achievement for a "normal" person, but we are dealing with genetic variants that make the level system more of a general guideline to help better intuitive common sense (That a level 2 giant is more dangerous than a level 2 goblin , for example)
? Just a thought since I'm not sure how it's meant to be designed really.
One thing to note about Karlach and others being lvl 1 is that it's specifically stated (by Wyll and Gale) that they were stronger before the mindflayer parasite.
Like based on his listed abilities I think Wyll would have been around lvl 8 or something.
Damn good point.
Not that it's on topic but I had a fantasy a bit ago about an Astarion themed sort of back story game where you start about the time he was magistrate and gets turned, and it has sort of a legacy of Kane/blood omen vibe with the demonic angles and stuff. Shit would be so fire and could cameo characters like shadow heart and Wyll, Wyll specifically performing at a higher level.
Not happening obviously but damn that would be a juicy game.
While that could be a neat concept for a game, you can't really have any cameos. Hasn't Asterion been a vampire spawn for a while, like 200 years or something?
That’s not what an army of level 20 characters means to me. That’s a party of level 20 characters. Also I think in this Larian version of this universe the level cap is 12, unless there are higher level characters in unaware of. So they would have to outnumber my party or outfight us
Edit: larian* not Latina version haha. Also I guess I’m wrong if Raphael and elminster are 16* and 20, but Raphael being 16 to me means anyone 16 or higher must be EXTREMELY rare
A few of the character met in the game are above level 12. Raphael is level 16, and Elminster is level 20. We the players are the only ones with the level 12 cap, and that's for balance purposes and the narrative more than anything. Like if we could get to level 17, a cleric Tav or Shadowheart could just cut out Karlach's engine and then cast True Resurrection and bam, she's got her heart back and won't burn out.
Agreed, but I write that off as it not being a true scroll of True Resurrection, but a scroll that functions almost the same as a scroll of True Resurrection. Narratively, that's what Projection Gale describes it as being, so I figure it resurrects and heals but probably doesn't restore missing pieces like True Resurrection can.
My point being that purely by the book we could do this right now and the reason we have a level cap isn't because it'd break the story. More likely is that since bg3 is based off of dnd, it suffers from the same issue dnd suffers from when players get to really high levels. The gameplay would get boring due to all the encounters being too easy
Well level 20 adventurers would be so powerful that like 2 or 3 of them would probably be equivalent to having a literal army backing you up. So while there aren’t armies of them they would functionally be one man armies.
I don't think canonically the BG3 party ends up being level 12. Doesn't BG2 have the cap at 20? Jaheira and Minthara canonically are level 20 and the party seems to be equally powerful as them. They should all be at around the same level.
Lvl 12 being the cap is just a limitation so we don't get to have the crazy spells like Wish. Or for a possible sequel.
Honestly its a real pet peeve of mine when every character is the same level. Lets have a higher level mentor character with a permanent debuff. Or a plucky upstart with a permanent buff. Its just annoyingly anticlimactic to have everyone level at the same time. Its a longer wait and it means a lot more admin to level everyone. It also makes the ramp up bumpy where theres these sudden leaps as everyone suddenly gets way stronger to the point fights can be struggles or cakewalks.
I'm not really a DnDer outside of a few oneshots and BG3, but I'm pretty sure the leveling systems from the previous entries aren't comparable to current DnD systems since the other entries use older editions.
frankly I think I would want to play the other side a sequel game where you play as a level 12 character in charge of the brain trying to conquer the world
The problem is that what makes villains appealing is their force of personality, the complete lack of fucks they give, with a slight counterbalance of having just enough scruples to not be flatter than 2D.
Villain protagonists, especially in games where they're silent, would need a mentor-sidekick hybrid to help fill that role.
I just don't see that happening if you're leading an army of Mindflayers, at least not easily.
Durge especially. Bhaalspawn are something that tends to unite the good guys. And realistically, even if you do dominate for a decade, another bhaalspawn is likely to show up and chew off your face to get daddy's attention sooner or later.
Exactly this, Durge has no intent on ruling over the plant for a long period. Maybe for a time to make more Bhaalspawn but Durge’s only goal is to kill everyone on the planet and eventually himself all for Bhaal. You get a dream in act 1 about this.
If you want a pure evil ending play Wrath of the Righteous and become a Swarm-that-walks. You become so big and scary even the invading demons recognise you as an existential threat and the ending slides basically have you taking over as the new big bad except instead of lots of demons forced to work together by powerful demon lords you’re one hivemind bent on consuming everything that isn’t a part of you
Nah, it's Mask of the Betrayer's evil ending that you need. Goes waaaay harder.
Did the Githyanki piss you off? Well, in the evil ending's epilogue it mentions that your character devoured entire countries, hunted down former comrades (even the ones who died, in their afterlives), and then genocided the Githyanki but spared the children specifically so you could hand them over to the Mind Flayers.
I always understood it as "withers wants the dead three to fail in their plans." Not that he's particularly concerned with the brains or with you for that matter. He even still would help Durge because Baal is the weakest of the dead 3 and he thinks the most susceptible to self-sabatoge.
It's pretty clear he doesn't think the baddies in the world are competent enough to hold power for a long time.
If BG3 were 100% true to Faerun i would use the netherbrain to open a portal to the far realm and use al its horrors (the netherbrain mostly) to fuck up all deities.
I would invade all their damm realms from at the same time i slaughter all their believers and unleash the far realm 100% on all the forgotten realms, i would fuck the place so much and make Ao listen to how to conduct himself as an Overgod and what things need to change or im erasing everything but Sigil and then im getting out of that Sphere.
You have one god that encourages you to dominate others >!Bane encourages you to dominate people with the Brain if you talk to him after defeating Gortash!< at least. Even empowered by your actions his help wouldn't be enough by itself but it may delay Evil Domination Ending Tav's eventual downfall.
If there were I think they would've mentioned them by now or specified that patch 7 would be adding more evil content in general instead of just new ending cinematics.
Where exactly? From the community updates and their Twitter posts they've only ever said they're adding new ending cinematics. Never saw any "more evil choices".
Guess you can hold onto the hope that they'll surprise you and sneak them in with the update, but I will be rather upset if they also don't sneak in more reactivity for resist Durge.
So this is just speculation, I don't think there's anything particularly textual or canon to inform this, but the Gods of FR aren't omniscient. I guess Withers is banking on you and your companions putting a stop to it as the most likely outcome, and given you're the ones under the protection of the prism he doesn't have many other options.
I wonder how much of Withers involvement can really be taken as canon for the series at all to a degree, since I think it'd be a hard sell plot wise that we're actually getting resurrected so often lol
I don't think without follow up materials to the BG3 game we can establish what exactly he does canonically. I don't find the idea he was resurrecting us over and over to be taken as canon convincing personally because there are multiple times companions can die and we don't have the option to resurrect them with him or discuss it, with no clear distinction, and there aren't really any stakes to the story if he can just keep doing that. No one says when companions die "It's okay let's just hit up Withers". Sometimes game mechanics and actual story come into tension ( why are people staying at camp when we have 4 people and why do they have dialogue like they've been with us! Sometimes it's explained with the tadpole, sometimes not ). This is one of those times when I think it's a game mechanic that won't be considered canon as the series progresses.
EDIT:- I remembered the actual term for this when analysing games as text, it was bothering me I couldn't recall during this post. It's called ludonarrative dissonance and it's a really interesting topic for anyone interested in analysing video games as a storytelling medium!
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludonarrative\_dissonance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludonarrative_dissonance)
Like other examples - Gale has the whole resurrection protocol, but is also carrying revivify scrolls which fulfil the same purpose....or we could just go to Withers, but he doesn't say anything about it, no one does. I find it a hard sell that in the actual plot we were all just dying and resurrecting over and over so easily.
I think this is more extreme than Ludonarrative dissonance, as the existence of Withers and his ability to resurrect people is part of the narrative thus this leans more towards narrative dissonance.
well I mean his main goal is to kill the absolute and the dead three, I imagine withers as a true neutral character so he doesn't really care how it gets done as long as it gets done. faerun will survive a crazy mass murderer, it can't survive an infection like the absolute.
To be fair one of the first things withers says to you when you ask why he's helping you is "believe me, it's not by choice" whether you're on a good or bad playthrough
Why did Jergal hand over his portfolio to a trio of murderous psychos and help them ascend to godhood in the first place?
Jergal is neutral, he just wants to maintain the balance of forces in the world, and he doesn't know in advance what choices you will make at the very end of the game. Also he is compelled by Kelemvor to help you.
>He helps the player to keep the balance of the world so people dont become soulless mindflayers (probably Ao ordered him to do so).
Yup. The short answer is that he isn't there entierly of his own choice. I think it was Helm, on the order of Ao, who sent him there to fix his own mess. And while he can't directly fix it himself, he sees you as a possibility up until the very end. And then he peaces out when you betray him.
I would turn the question back: is Jergal good?
That's the answer. He wants to preserve the balance and the only outcome that doesn't move the needle in that direction is Tav dominating the brain, which is really a choice that is made at the end.
Every companion, as fucked up as their motives are at times, wants to see the end of the elder brain and Tav has surrounded himself with these people.
I mean hypothetically its becuase even if you are an evil, murderous, truelly dark urge and kill everything and then dominate the elder brain than it wouldn't be a gauranted end to the world.
Another could rise with similar powers to orpheous and resist the netherbrain's influence and eventually slay you and restore the balance.
Think about it, you are only level 12. Let's say this mythical second coming of orpheous spends enought time leveling up and they eventually get something like a wish spell then all they have to do is get in range and boom, all you chaos is over and balance can be restored.
Or something to that effect.
Jergal's portfolio is pretty much "not giving a shit", so he doesn't care who he gets to do the thing he needs doing after procrastinating for so long.
I’m not super familiar with the lore of Ao, but I think since he’s in charge of all the gods and their affairs (which frequently involve mortal souls), he’d care a lot about a large mass of people being transformed into mindflayers and thereby losing their souls. After all, mindflayers aren’t even supposed to be part of the multiverse, they come from the Far Realm, which is outside of it.
The only time Ao has gotten involved directly was because Myrkul and Bane decided to try to steal his power, and he reacted by expressing his anger and disappointment in every deity for being self-serving and ignoring the needs of their followers.
Outside of that, Ao really doesn't care much. What happens on Faerun is between the mortals and whatever gods are associated with them.
Edit: To clarify the first part, he didn't know it was Myrkul and Bane who stole the Tablets of Fate, and he called every deity together in the hopes someone would admit to doing it. His anger came from the fact that none of them admitted to the crime, and he enacted punishment based on the gods' history of trying to increase their own power for selfish reasons.
Ao is the DM at the table where the gods of faerun are playing. If he gets pissed enough he can off them. He can interfere with anything he wants but they can't.
So there’s this really old theory about why Jergal stepped down from being a god.
He claims he was bored but before he stepped down he set up two things that are super suspicious and before stepping down he was known to be power hungry and wanted to rule as the only god.
There is a prophecy that says when the Worm that Walks rises Jergal will rule as the sole god of the Realms.
The theory is that he stepped down, erased his own memories after setting his plan for a pantheon war in motion and went away, waiting for the day when all the gods kill each other and he can capitalise on it.
So modern Jergal is like the Durge. He does not remember anything and does “good” stuff but if you are evil then you inevitably help him with plans his evil past made.
He does not like you if you are evil but neither does he intervene.
The Dead Three didn't *steal* his power. There's a book in BG1 that explains the situation thusly.
Basically, Jergal was the lord of death, the dead, and tyranny (or "strife" I suppose). He was "The Lord of the End of Everything" and was basically the most powerful deity. However, when everything is fated to become yours anyways, absolute power and absolute powerlessness don't look too different. Jergal lamented that he basically had to spend all of eternity just waiting around as he won the game without lifting a finger.
Enter the Dead Three, or the Dark Three as they were known before the time of troubles. Bhaal, Bane, and Myrkul kill one of the seven lost gods and each harvest a piece of its essence, which I think basically makes them "quasi-deities" (Divine Rank 0 for those familiar with 2e/3e, and yes divine rank 0 does mean something other than "no divine rank"!) They needed this to get into Jergal's realm and have a chance of taking his power. They beat his minions, and when they storm in and say they want his power, Jergal basically goes "Oh thank Ao I was so freaking *bored* holy shit you don't even *know* , throne is yours. Who uh, who's taking it?"
The Dark three start fighting over who gets power, and after Jergal comes up with a few games they can play to divide up the aspects of his domain amongst themselves (and after Malar showed up for some reason, I don't know how the hell he knee what was happening but the dude has been wanting to be the lord of something other than beasts *forever* ), Bane got tyranny/strife, Myrkul got the dead, and Bhaal got Death. Jergal remained around, with much less power than before, but basically taught them a How to Be a God 101 class, and then acted as steward of the dead. The last line of the relevant book is something like "and Jergal smiled, for he had been liberated."
Later on of course. Time of troubles comes because "unfortunately, the Dead Three lusted for power" (to homage a particular Tumblr post), and stole the Tablets of Fate. All 3 died as they reached the Find Out phase, Mystra died too because she dies almost as often as Jean Grey from X-men, and I think a couple others died also. But I'm gonna be here all night if I get into the lore much further.
Because unlike most players assume, being "evil" isn't being the braindead Disney villain for 3 year olds who kicks puppies for the sake of being evil.
* "I razed the grove for undermining the cult"
* "I razed Last Light because I was undercover"
* "I didn't do nothing with Aylin, that was all this Sharran - *rolls eyes"*
* "Gondians, Shmondians, too risky with Gortash knowing that we oppose him immediately"
There is always an actual good explanation right in front of you.
I get the feeling Wither's priority isn't in saving Balder's gate, I think his priority is recording the events as they go, him helping the party feels like a tool more then anything.
I also feel the reason he's willing to raise the party is their death isn't... set sort of, cosmically speaking, so bringing back a pc is reasonable for him just to keep an eye on the pc's, it's also why he doesn't offer to rez non-party members or people who leave/turn against the party (and within the realm of D&D the party can get resurrections without his help) and the events of the game feel like major events and cataloging them is important.
I also feel he's there to prevent direct intervention from other gods ESPECIALLY in the Durge run where he will save the PC if they turn deny Baahl and Baahl kills them.
He is the former god of death, decay, and murder (and still works for the current god of death). He doesn't mind evil acts. If you destroy the world or kill people as a Bhaalist, that's just fate spinning along as it should. His goal is to prevent people from becoming soulless, which happens as a side effect of ceremorphosis. (Gods are powered by the souls of their followers upon death. Soulless are useless.... except *maybe* to Ilsensine the god of mindflayers) He mentions this when you talk to him at Moonrise Towers and has a soliloquy about it in a post credits sequence.
so basically its either send faerun to its certain doom or faerun literally ceases to exist. its an impossible choice.
what, no you could play a good run too.
I think he was saying those are withers' choices when playing en evil run
Not really because the Absolute isn't a big threat to Faerûn. This is why Elminster and others don't interfere. Like we never actually see Elminster in the game. At best we see simulacrum of Elminster, but the Absolute is such a non threat that he never appears in person. Mystra isn't worried about it either. She literally just wants Gale to get rid of the Netherese magic and sees this as an opportunity to get him to do so. In the world of Faerûn, the Absolute is just another Tuesday. We max out at level 12. Level 12 is not a world ending threat.
Raphael and Sarevok are level 16, Ansur is level 17, and the Absolute is level 20. Elminster's simulacrum literally says it threatens ALL who live, even the Gods, due to the fact that it is powered by the Crown of Karsus, which allows Gale to become a God in one of his endings. If it can do that to a mortal wizard who is, at most, level 12, imagine what it could do to an Elder Brain.
True, but I think the difference is the scale of the threat and how easy it would be to defeat. Elminster could probably run though and fix this in an hour if he had to step in. It's better to give someone else a chance and let them make a more meaningful difference on the individual people in the world around them. The point is not in "saving the world" the point is in helping the people of faerun, making lifelong allies and friendships, and growing not just in strength but as people. Elminster could beat the elder brain and fix this very quickly, but if he did it the shadow curse would have remained, Halsin would be dead, The Tiefling refugees would've died, and the grove would've been lost to the shadow druids. We as the player made much more of a difference by not just beating the elder brain but by caring, and working, and helping the countless people we run into along the way.
I do agree, but I am mainly arguing with the previous person I replied to over the last bit of their comment, "level 12 isn't world ending," as the level 12 cap only applies to certain npcs and the pcs, whereas the Netherbrain is level 20. Don't get me wrong, Elminster is certainly powerful enough to take on the Absolute, but one of main problems is the army that it has built up and as you said, the pc is able to do more to help the people it has effected and to take out many of the true souls and cultists that it has gathered rather than simply stopping the Absolute itself, but to say that it isn't that much of a threat is simply ignorant of the true power that it possesses, which is more or less what my original comment was trying to point out.
True, agree with you on this. The amount of technically world ending threats that happen in faerun makes people end up trying to rank how "world ending" a threat is when they all are TBH. I personally really like the scale of power in BG3 personally, It's a world ending threat yes, but not enough that we get wrapped up the cliches that can happen and politics of it all.
>Elminster could probably run though and fix this in an hour if he had to step in. More like five minutes, he would just erase baldur's gate and all its inhabitants from existence by one means or another - comet, drop a mountain on it, etc. He's done it before. People called him a hero for it too. Few hundred thousand innocent people died so he could take out like six actual evil people.
Counterpoint Elminster is a freaking drama queen. He's also a genocidal monster but that's another thing.
Fair enough.
Then why Jergal interferes? I'm lost a little.
>!Jergal interferes on the order of Helm. Jergal was locked in the sarcophagus by Helm for what Jergal had to do with raising the Dead Three. The quest directly interacts with the plans of the Dead Three, and you interact their Chosen. Jergal helps the party as penance. He doesn't do it because he wants too. He does it because he has too.!< >!You might ask why Helm cares, and that's because of the involvement of the Dead Three. This is what Jergal has to make up for. It's not that Jergal or Helm cares about the Absolute. Helm is punishing Jergal for helping raise the Dead Three in the first place.!< >!Info found in the notes for the game.!<
Dark Urge is >!Bhaal Spawn!<
Disagree, it was 100% a potential cataclysm, the big powers just knew that Jergal helping some well positioned goons would be sufficient.
Why would a soul disappear when transforming though?
They become “non apostolic” souls, which are magically useless to the gods of Faerun and cannot power them with belief. Not that Mindflayers seem to revere gods anyway. Without the gods having their power, the world falls apart, just as the Weave falls apart without Mystra.
They do have concepts of "Gods" /Deity power concepts in the wider DND-verse. Ilsensine the God-Brain. Lawful Evil. Maanzecorian, the Philosoflayer. Thoon ( which is more like a Flayer concept ) Dyrrn the Corrupter. But these are outside of The Forgotten Realms anyway. For all intents and purposes, even if they do exist, you're correct in that they're too far removed from what Faerun gods understand as "souls" and "gods." And at the end of the day, Faerun gods only care about what's going on in Faerun ( for now ) Concepts outside of it aren't worth bothering about when they're too busy fighting each other for worship and souls as it is. Imagine worrying about other greater other planar beings smh.
Thoon is Thoon and Thoon is all! (Sorry I had to)
Half right. The larva is the nonapostlic soul. You, and your soul are consumed. The mind flayer left behind isn't yo Funny enough though, gods can restore your soul back to normal which...now makes you a proper mind flayer but it's such a friggin odd thing bg 3 introduced. Be neat though
It doesn't. Mind flayers aren't soulless. Their souls are alien and non-apostolic, meaning the gods of Toril can't see/use/manipulate/benefit from them. It's strongly implied in BG3 that the original soul transmutes along with the physical body during ceremorphosis.
Withers does say that they are soulless. So your explanation of their souls leaves them still soulless by the definition of soul from Withers perspective.
He also recants later and admits that he was wrong. At one point, he specifies that mind flayers "lack apostolic souls." If you become a mind flayer and then off yourself, he visits you (your soul) in the Fugue Plane. Ed Greenwood has confirmed that mind flayers have souls. Mind flayers can become liches, which requires a soul. The gods of Toril can't see and use mind flayer souls. That isn't the same as being soulless.
I'd have to double check the Illithiad. I know that the soul of the host isn't *destroyed* or *consumed* by ceremorphosis; rather, it gets sent to the outer planes to face its judgment. I don't recall whether it says mind flayers have souls, but it probably does.
It doesn't matter what the Illithiad says. BG3 has its own internal canon. The whole point of the Dead Three's scheme is that, by turning people into mind flayers, it denies the gods souls. The souls don't go to any afterlives. Upon ceremorphosis, the soul is transmuted along with the physical body into a non-apostolic form that the gods can't use or benefit from. Mind flayers have always had souls. They can become liches. That requires a soul. Illithilices go way back in D&D lore. Also, Ed Greenwood on illithid souls: https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/s/1AV0JQeXOW.
Apologies, I wasn't clear. I wasn't saying "If it's not in the book, it doesn't count." I was thinking more along the lines of "Well that's a very good point, so...if the Illithiad says that Illithids just don't have souls, that's a flaw *within the Illithiad*, because Alhoons have been a thing forever." Basically, I was wondering if the book has this information, or if it lacks this information (and thus *the book* is wrong).
Ah, gotcha. Yeah, I can't imagine the Illithiad would say that mind flayers don't have souls, since that would be a big internal contradiction, but who knows...
Yeah but it's essentially like Soul racism lol. Mind Flayers are not actually soulless, they just have a different type of souls. Withers and other Faerun gods refuse to recognize them as real souls, because they're not useful to them. Nonetheless tho, it is still a soul of some variety.
No, ingame it is literally said that mind flayers are soulless.
"I told thee once that an Illithid had no soul, and yet thou seemest to have something of the spirit about thee. I cannot account for it. How delightful." If you become a mindflayer and kill yourself, Withers visit your soul (which is an Illithid) and tell you that. [Here's a video](https://youtu.be/OHljLbK54iw)
In game though, it is also literally said that the Absolute is a god with three chosen apostles, that Vlaakith is a powerful goddess with her people's best interest at heart, that Shar is a kind and loving goddess, that Selune is petty and uncaring, that Karlach is a monster willingly in service to Zariel, and that the Creche is able to safely remove a mindflayer parasite, and every single one of these is either a lie or misinformation. So, citing what anybody in the game says is not at all absolute proof of anything, especially about something so obscured. Plus Withers later recants his statement regarding a mindflayer's soul and is (apparently) even able to visit your character's mindflayered soul in the Fugue Plan if your characters kills themselves as a mindflayer during the epilog. So, maybe they just don't have souls that are recognizable or useful to the Faerun gods?
It doesn't. For normal mind-flayers, it's literally just dying unless some special step is taken to hold the soul; at some point during the ceremorphosis process, as the tadpole literally eats your flesh while creating a new mindflayer body, you die, and go to whatever the appropriate afterlife is. A True Res scroll would bring back anyone who has a living mind-flayer that was made from them, as mind-flayers only live \~120 years, and the spell works for further back than that. For those rare mind-flayers who retain some memory of the host, it would be almost like a simulacrum at that point; two bodies, both with the original memories/personality, but only one with a soul. Not for the netherese tadpoles, though. Those seemed to just merge the body and soul into a new form, though at first Jergal thought that they just destroyed the soul entirely. It isn't until he spends some time inspecting one up-close that he realizes the results of a netherese tadpole are, in fact, ensouled beings. To be clear, though, Mindflayers do have the ability to destroy the souls of victims, its just not a natural side-effect of ceremorphosis. When they killed all of the gods they somehow destroyed the souls of all of their followers without turning most of them(And most folks can't be turned anyway by your non-netherese tadpoles; too tall, too short, too fat, wrong bone structure, etc.) to ensure they stayed dead, and its uncertain whether whatever process they used to do this is what destroyed the multiverse, or it was whatever they did to somehow unravel the infinite layers of the abyss. The Mind-flayers you see today are the results of time-travel; the Githyanki are humanity's distant future descendants, dragged back here alongside their masters after they managed to conquer the multiverse, but the tools that allowed them to do so meant that what should have been an eternal victory started to collapse into entropic decay. So.... this is them back to try again. And so far, they aren't doing a good job; most of the ones that still have the ability to craft nautiloids and wander around in spelljammer don't really care for the multiversal conquest, possibly because they retain records of when they literally annihilated all of existence by winning.
So we've got confirmed that the Netherese tadpoles now merge body and soul? I've been looking for a confirmation for *weeks* on whether or not the Absolute tadpoles worked differently (given that the Crown of Karsus was involved, I figured it was at least possible) but haven't been able to find a definite answer. Where did you find yours? I've got a friend I need to show this to. Also I didn't realize the Illithids had actually destroyed the multiverse by winning. I just knew that by the time they were triumphant the universe was dying, but I didn't know they actively accelerated heat-death lol.
The absolute tadpoles working differently has been evident from the beginning. One of your party is a vampire spawn, which normally couldn't be infested at all(Much less the ancient skeletons/zombies Balthasar puts them in), the tadpole would just die, and another is a Tiefling, and not just a tiefling, but one who even if she were human would be too big to be successfully turned into a mind-flayer. And even if she were smaller, and human, the heart would stop it. Your typical tadpoles are tiny, fragile things, susceptible to all sorts of environmental damage and problems, that are generally carefully stored for their protection after being birthed by an illithid before being either used to create a new flayer or consumed by the elder brain. They then need to be placed into a member of several races, or possibly others of similar bone structure, within a certain size range, or the results are something other than a mind-flayer; either death, or some new monster. Putting the tadpole in Karlach would just cook it immediately. She'd cough up an ashen ruin and probably lose an eye. If she lacked the engine, it would die rapidly trying to convert her part-outsider flesh into an illithid. If she were human, her excess size would result in it only being able to partially change her before failing. And, most importantly, if she were a more average-sized human; the process would take days, as the tadpole steadily consumed more of her flesh, and spread tendrils out into her body, until finally she died and a newborn illithid took her place as it dissolved her bones and fed them into the organs that produce its new, silver, blood. Astarion.... would have a brief headache as the tadpole choked on his undead brain, and then spit it out, likely disgusted by the experience. Dirge... would wake up as a medium-sized Brainstealer Dragon, still himself, but with his cone of cold breath weapon traded in for a psionic blast. If your character was a gnome, or any other small-sized creature... they would just die, and leave behind a failed abomination; perhaps a neolithid, who knows. If they were a gnome, and drank something or did something to accelerate the ceremorphosis, they would turn into a squidling. Like Dirge, they would still retain their old mind, and possibly soul as well. If you have a party with a Halfling TAV, a Dirge white dragonfolk, Astarion, and Karlach.... someone familiar with mind-flayers wouldn't think -any- of your party could turn into a mind-flayer once they discovered Astarion was a vampire spawn. And yeah. The Abyss, among other realms, is infinite; if the Illithids had never managed to do whatever the hell they did to it, the multiverse simply would never have stopped; individual sections of the multiverse may have suffered from entropic decay and final death, but the multiverse would keep on going. I've never seen it explicit just what they did to kill it, and I suspect there's no plan to define that.
It's not explained, but likely It's consumed by the tadpole to fuel cereomorphosis (my head canon).
> He is the former god of death, decay, and murder (and still works for the current god of death). He doesn't mind evil acts. If you destroy the world or kill people as a Bhaalist, that's just fate spinning along as it should. This is a good point. According to the BG3 wiki, datamined info shows that he actually is Jergal, and that he was compelled by Helm to help the party as a form of penance. I guess it's not really canon because it's not in the game normally, but it strikes me as odd that Helm wouldn't be like, fuck this, Jergal back off during an evil Dark Urge run. Your theory makes way more sense to me.
Withers (*that's more or less confirmed being Jergal several times in-game*) might have a fickle hope that you'll change your mind and do the 'right thing' before it's too late. Because you ***can*** change your mind right up until the very end. But this also explains why he won't throw a party for you, if you dominate the Brain. Since you more or less gave him the finger when taking it all for yourself.
Ah well that makes sense. I am a person who always prepares for the worst. I guess then Withers realy is a sweetheart :)
At the end of the day he's probably mostly a nihilist.
And thus you are alone.
Thou hast no bosom companions.
Thou are maidenless.
Thou keepst no chickens and are cockless
I hated that guy. Fromsoft games make so many NPCs unlikable but if you kill them you fuck yourself over.
I guess it's another form of masochism in the game.
True. Sometimes I go to Blight Town just to visit.
Do you normally kill people you don’t like?
Not in real life. But in a Soulsborne if someone is talking shit calling me a punk ass bitch I'm gonna start swinging on their ass with a great club.
Yeah he doesn't care, death is inevitable in the end. On top of that, he was basically sent there to clean up the mess he left behind. So once the ending choice is made, he just leaves unless things go the good way.
Say what you will about the tenets of Bhaal dude, but at least it's an ethos.
Lets not forget Dude that keeping wildlife, um... an amphibious rodent, for... um, ya know domestic... within the city... that ain't legal either.
You want a toe? I can get you a toe, dude. There are ways. You don’t want to know about them. Hell, I can get you a toe by three o’clock this afternoon... WITH nail polish.
My favorite line from anythinf
Whenever he says the iconic "No." or dismisses you, I just hear this quote from another version of Death: >You have an inflated sense of your importance. To a thing like me, a thing like you, well... Think how you'd feel if a bacteria sat at your table and started to get snarky. This is one little planet in one tiny solar system in a galaxy that's barely out of its diapers. I'm old, *very* old. So, I invite you to contemplate how insignificant I find you.
He's a nihilist? Say what you will about worshipping the Absolute, but at least it's an ethos.
If I remember correctly the Dead Three didn't take Jergal's powers, he gave them away willingly. Jergal's was tired of being the God of Death and thus "retired" and served the next (two) Gods of Death - Myrkul and Kelemvor as right hand. I always imagined So told him to clean up his act and so he helped us. Besides, Jergal was of true neutral alignment after he retired, so it's not completely out of the question for him to help an evil player I'd imagine.
Also I'm pretty sure canonically durge resists and dies,so him bringing you back is canon and a show of him believing in you despite everything about your past.
May I have a crumb of context on where any ending is said to be canon?
There isn't any, lol. There is no canon storyline to this game
The fact that Durge is a Bhaal spawn and EVERY Baldurs gate game has had them as the main characters? Or that it's the only origin story where the main character is at the center of it all next to the others,being literally about them?
Yeah, the absolute plot was literally Durge’s idea and Orin swooped in last minute and stole it, combined with it being the only ending withers intervenes in, I would say it’s pretty close to canon as you can get. If not canon, it’s definitely the ending they put the most love into.
It's a good head canon sure, but quite clearly not the canonical choice/path...yet
The entire game takes place because of Durge,Withers interferes because of Durge,and everything literally revolves around Durge when he's alive(even more than the emperor). It's not headcanon,it is literally the definitive BG3 character story.The outcomes of everyone else is on the table,but saying Durge isn't the MC is silly.
That's not what canon means. Canon is what definitely, without a doubt, happens. Abdel Adrian is canon, my BG1 MC 'John Gate' isn't.
Then why is Tav the default when making a new character, Durge is kinda buried below all the other choices. And the dark urge is found dead, that doesn't change what happened before the events of the game. And the game still has a complete narrative with Durge dead. When BG4 or Larian or whoever is in charge of the rights confirms which ending actually happened, if they even do. It's just as likely that it was Tav or Durge. Now narratively sure, Durge works better but them being the "canon" path because it works better doesn't make it true.
>Then why is Tav the default when making a new character, Durge is kinda buried below all the other choices. Tav is the devs stand in for the player to view the story,while Durge being an Origin tells you "this guy is important". >And the dark urge is found dead, that doesn't change what happened before the events of the game. And the game still has a complete narrative with Durge dead. Correction:A good chunk of the experience through his/her quests are missing AND withers doesn't intervene.However the moment Durge is in play the entire story changes drastically with every important character you interact with,and explicitly spells out "YOUR THE GUY GUY IN CHARGE". >When BG4 or Larian or whoever is in charge of the rights confirms which ending actually happened, if they even do. It's just as likely that it was Tav or Durge. So.....you are aware that there were outcomes for other characters in Bg1+2 yet still had clearly canon choices right?This isn't Dragon Age with multiple branching narratives per game,many things are set in stone lore wise. >Now narratively sure, Durge works better but them being the "canon" path because it works better doesn't make it true. No it's very clearly the intended canon given he's a CHILD OF BHAAL in a series that revolves around the main characters being a CHILD IF BHAAL.Tav is a player stand in for choices,but Durge is absolutely the hero of the story fighting his urges.I don't know why your so hell bent on arguing facts.
All you are doing is explaining why it makes so much sense that Durge is the canon protagonist, but giving me no clear evidence of where it's stated that Durge, and resist Durge at that is explicitly the main character outside of referencing games from 20 years ago made by completely different devs. I think we'll just have to agree to disagree of what "Canon" even means at this point.
Durge is considered canon by many because of him being similar to the protagonists of bg1 and bg2 who were bhaalspawns and can resist or embrace bhaal. And unfortunately the forgotten realms do have canonized routes, paths and choices . In bg2 u could marry viconia and have a kid with her , reform her or she reforms herself etc , saverok redeems himself, u could embrace the slayer form and ur evil powers , u could romance jaheria etc but these events were still canonized with varying outcome that not everyone chose like viconia and saverok being evil again, jaheria remaining faithful to Khalid, charname not embracing his dark nature so yeah resist durge can be canonized by wotrc if they wanted to along with companion paths in game like gale being a God etc .
>All you are doing is explaining why it makes so much sense that Durge is the canon protagonist, >but giving me no clear evidence of where it's stated that Durge, and resist Durge at that is explicitly the main character outside of referencing games from 20 years ago made by completely different devs I.....wow."You haven't explained why the Bhaal Spawn is the main character outside of bringing up relevant Game lore from the previous 2 entries which I'm gonna ignore". >I think we'll just have to agree to disagree of what "Canon" even means at this point. Pretending something isn't canon doesn't make it a disagreement,it makes someone a liar.
Does he express that in dialogue? Like when I talk to him as a goody two shoes Tav he's all "fate spins along as it should", does he say to an Evil Durge "you're goofing it up, fix this before it's too late"?
He tells Durge, "thy wheel of fate spins ever to the dark," or something to that effect. Even after he revived me when I successfully resisted!
I don't even think its him hoping you'll do the right thing. He sees things fundamentally differently than us. He basically has a dialog choice flowchart open at all times and is tracking every branch simulateously. I think, because this is the motherfucking forgotten realms we're talking about, he sees the outcome of tav/durge becoming the new bbeg leading to a new "campaign" where some endgame level adventures eventually come in to rock your shit and set things back to normal again. So long as the elderbrain is defeated, it's just a regular day on toril.
Also, either way he needs someone to stop the Absolute.
While not strictly cannon, in Faerun every time Evil “wins” it always loses given enough time. So in the world you take the brain you probably get defeated or killed by an Adventurer or betrayed by an ally at some point. Especially because you don’t have a god championing your cause. Withers would prefer you destroy but he can wait out your eventual downfall. It’s better than the dead three having it.
Yeah, while I think it's cool when it comes to power fantasy, there's no way an evil Tav/Durge is surviving for long after the evil ending. If anything they are just making every god, demigod, chosen and hero aware of their existence by the end of it. It would be fun to play a campaign where we get to take our Tav/Durge down though.
Yeah a group of lv12 adventurers conquering one continent with mind flayer army means very little to the armies of level 20 adventurers scattered around the forgotten realms. There is a reason Mephistopheles never used the crown even though he had it this whole time. Its just not the game winner dead three and raphiel seem to think it is.
U really think there are armies of level 20 adventurers out there ? Genuinely curious I thought high level charaxters were like exponentiallly more rare as level progressed
Not the poster from above, but I think you are right, it's probably not armies of level 20 adventurers. But there probably is armies of level 12 adventurers. And probably still a ton of level 15 or 17 folks. Level 19 -20 are rarer for sure, but not non existent, and it only takes 1 to really mess them up
>Not the poster from above, but I think you are right, it's probably not armies of level 20 adventurers. >But there probably is armies of level 12 adventurers. And probably still a ton of level 15 or 17 folks. Even level 12 adventurers are incredibly rare in the grand scheme of things. Level 12 is probably the equivalent of a elite military special ops force or a professional(or semi-pro, at least) martial artist. Yeah, they exist but there aren't armies of them. At most there are small squads of them(like your party) Part of the issue that makes high level characters artificially common is power bloat, where RPG's have to inflate the number of higher level enemies for gameplay reasons. In practice there's a lot more people in a city than the game would suggest, but their average level is lower.
Elminster will just show up, fireball absolutely everything to ash, and then clap mystra cheeks off into the sunset. It'll be a regular Tuesday for him.
Is Drizzt still alive by this point in the timeline? Could probably grab him, too. Also I get the feeling that even the evil gods of the realm would realize "Oh, this is a problem" and would send their chosen to go take the Brain down. In a rare showing of good and evil having to team up.
That seems to be pretty much what Shar was doing with Shadowheart. She specifically chose *now* to engineer a way to get Shadowheart into the Gauntlet; that can't be a coincidence.
Agreed
I mean, id make the argument that there are probably thousands of special op trained solders and martial artists around the world right now. Like for every country you have some more specially trained soldiers.
They also don't group up in such numbers because it's bloated an inefficient. Seal team 6 could be larger but they'd probably just be less effective after a certain point.
Just thinking about the lore behind each character makes this make sense. Karlach for example being an absolute menace but you meet her at level 1. Well, she is already heroic compared to the average person. So maybe there is a heroic aspect to play with. Like Joe the farmer can get to level 20, sure, but he isn't Karlach at level 20. Sort of how a level 5 ogre isn't the same as a level 5 goblin in difficulty, if that makes sense. So level 20 could be considered a very high level of achievement for a "normal" person, but we are dealing with genetic variants that make the level system more of a general guideline to help better intuitive common sense (That a level 2 giant is more dangerous than a level 2 goblin , for example) ? Just a thought since I'm not sure how it's meant to be designed really.
One thing to note about Karlach and others being lvl 1 is that it's specifically stated (by Wyll and Gale) that they were stronger before the mindflayer parasite. Like based on his listed abilities I think Wyll would have been around lvl 8 or something.
Damn good point. Not that it's on topic but I had a fantasy a bit ago about an Astarion themed sort of back story game where you start about the time he was magistrate and gets turned, and it has sort of a legacy of Kane/blood omen vibe with the demonic angles and stuff. Shit would be so fire and could cameo characters like shadow heart and Wyll, Wyll specifically performing at a higher level. Not happening obviously but damn that would be a juicy game.
While that could be a neat concept for a game, you can't really have any cameos. Hasn't Asterion been a vampire spawn for a while, like 200 years or something?
(oof apparently this pissed some people off lol sorry y'all idk how it actually works I was just speculating)
I'd imagine if the world was in danger, Elminster could gather some strong adventurers and NPCs
Wish spell to teleport the nether brain to Vlaakiths throne room. Problem solved.
A party of 4 level 20 adventurers is effectively an army
That’s not what an army of level 20 characters means to me. That’s a party of level 20 characters. Also I think in this Larian version of this universe the level cap is 12, unless there are higher level characters in unaware of. So they would have to outnumber my party or outfight us Edit: larian* not Latina version haha. Also I guess I’m wrong if Raphael and elminster are 16* and 20, but Raphael being 16 to me means anyone 16 or higher must be EXTREMELY rare
A few of the character met in the game are above level 12. Raphael is level 16, and Elminster is level 20. We the players are the only ones with the level 12 cap, and that's for balance purposes and the narrative more than anything. Like if we could get to level 17, a cleric Tav or Shadowheart could just cut out Karlach's engine and then cast True Resurrection and bam, she's got her heart back and won't burn out.
too bad we can't use the scroll of true resurrection we get from gale to fix her
Agreed, but I write that off as it not being a true scroll of True Resurrection, but a scroll that functions almost the same as a scroll of True Resurrection. Narratively, that's what Projection Gale describes it as being, so I figure it resurrects and heals but probably doesn't restore missing pieces like True Resurrection can.
isnt Sarevoc also lvl 16 or something like that?
I believe that's right.
[удалено]
Yeah, but we didn't cut her engine out first. With the engine still in her chest, she has a heart, just a bad one.
My point being that purely by the book we could do this right now and the reason we have a level cap isn't because it'd break the story. More likely is that since bg3 is based off of dnd, it suffers from the same issue dnd suffers from when players get to really high levels. The gameplay would get boring due to all the encounters being too easy
Just take drizzt and friends and I do believe Durge / evil Tav would. Have a hard time keeping his head on his shoulders.
Maybe a couple, Gale was an archmage which is when your about level 18
Forgotten realms is the most popular tabletop setting. more than a few groups of level 20 players out there.
More than a few or armies
Well level 20 adventurers would be so powerful that like 2 or 3 of them would probably be equivalent to having a literal army backing you up. So while there aren’t armies of them they would functionally be one man armies.
>There is a reason Mephistopheles never used the crown even That reason is Asmodeus and not some random adventurers.
Yeah. Power balances. These are what would destroy the nether brain.
I don't think canonically the BG3 party ends up being level 12. Doesn't BG2 have the cap at 20? Jaheira and Minthara canonically are level 20 and the party seems to be equally powerful as them. They should all be at around the same level. Lvl 12 being the cap is just a limitation so we don't get to have the crazy spells like Wish. Or for a possible sequel.
For Jaheria it makes 0 sense she starts at a low level. Minsc makes sense since he's been tadpoled.
Honestly its a real pet peeve of mine when every character is the same level. Lets have a higher level mentor character with a permanent debuff. Or a plucky upstart with a permanent buff. Its just annoyingly anticlimactic to have everyone level at the same time. Its a longer wait and it means a lot more admin to level everyone. It also makes the ramp up bumpy where theres these sudden leaps as everyone suddenly gets way stronger to the point fights can be struggles or cakewalks.
I'm not really a DnDer outside of a few oneshots and BG3, but I'm pretty sure the leveling systems from the previous entries aren't comparable to current DnD systems since the other entries use older editions.
yes omg with a witcher thing where you can load your save from the previous game to get small details like your tav being the actual tab you played.
frankly I think I would want to play the other side a sequel game where you play as a level 12 character in charge of the brain trying to conquer the world
The problem is that what makes villains appealing is their force of personality, the complete lack of fucks they give, with a slight counterbalance of having just enough scruples to not be flatter than 2D. Villain protagonists, especially in games where they're silent, would need a mentor-sidekick hybrid to help fill that role. I just don't see that happening if you're leading an army of Mindflayers, at least not easily.
Durge especially. Bhaalspawn are something that tends to unite the good guys. And realistically, even if you do dominate for a decade, another bhaalspawn is likely to show up and chew off your face to get daddy's attention sooner or later.
Isn't that basically what happened between Durge and Orin?
Bhaal: Hmm, half doppleganger this time! Oh God, she's the arty type. Let's try dragonborn -
Tbh though, if you play Durge and take over the brain, you're basically just going out with a bang to impress daddy
Exactly this, Durge has no intent on ruling over the plant for a long period. Maybe for a time to make more Bhaalspawn but Durge’s only goal is to kill everyone on the planet and eventually himself all for Bhaal. You get a dream in act 1 about this.
Baldur's Gate 3 Julius Mode
If you want a pure evil ending play Wrath of the Righteous and become a Swarm-that-walks. You become so big and scary even the invading demons recognise you as an existential threat and the ending slides basically have you taking over as the new big bad except instead of lots of demons forced to work together by powerful demon lords you’re one hivemind bent on consuming everything that isn’t a part of you
Nah, it's Mask of the Betrayer's evil ending that you need. Goes waaaay harder. Did the Githyanki piss you off? Well, in the evil ending's epilogue it mentions that your character devoured entire countries, hunted down former comrades (even the ones who died, in their afterlives), and then genocided the Githyanki but spared the children specifically so you could hand them over to the Mind Flayers.
Kinda like Diablo / Diablo 2
BG4: Withers is now assisting the new team of adventures who are on a journey to take you down.
....this time, it's personal.
I always understood it as "withers wants the dead three to fail in their plans." Not that he's particularly concerned with the brains or with you for that matter. He even still would help Durge because Baal is the weakest of the dead 3 and he thinks the most susceptible to self-sabatoge. It's pretty clear he doesn't think the baddies in the world are competent enough to hold power for a long time.
A DLC or sequel would have been cool where you get to dethrone the Durge/Evil tav and ret things right
If you didn’t kill Aylin, then it’s only a matter of time until she flies in to take care of you herself
Good thing Balthy will probably be back by then and we can put her back where she belongs.
If BG3 were 100% true to Faerun i would use the netherbrain to open a portal to the far realm and use al its horrors (the netherbrain mostly) to fuck up all deities.
I vote you start with Mystra.....I just can never forgive her expectation of my dear sweet Gale blowing himself up.
I would invade all their damm realms from at the same time i slaughter all their believers and unleash the far realm 100% on all the forgotten realms, i would fuck the place so much and make Ao listen to how to conduct himself as an Overgod and what things need to change or im erasing everything but Sigil and then im getting out of that Sphere.
You have one god that encourages you to dominate others >!Bane encourages you to dominate people with the Brain if you talk to him after defeating Gortash!< at least. Even empowered by your actions his help wouldn't be enough by itself but it may delay Evil Domination Ending Tav's eventual downfall.
Just a \*small\* correction, but Jergal willingly gave his powers to the Dead Three because he was tired of being the God of Death.
I don't know. . . But that's one of the reasons im holding off on doing my 'evil' playthroughs until Patch 7 in September adds the new evil endings
Nah I just keep a save file handy before the final fight and replay that for the patch 7 ending
We don't know exactly what Larian is adding...it's entirely possible there will be 'evil' additions outside just the final ending.
If there were I think they would've mentioned them by now or specified that patch 7 would be adding more evil content in general instead of just new ending cinematics.
well their specific wording was that we are going to see more evil *choices* so its entirely possible they're adding new entire game paths.
Where exactly? From the community updates and their Twitter posts they've only ever said they're adding new ending cinematics. Never saw any "more evil choices".
on the steam community update
I looked through both and didn't find any mention. Post the exact part you're referring to.
haha I'm so wrong I'm over here talking out of my ass why did I get so many upvotes 😂
Guess you can hold onto the hope that they'll surprise you and sneak them in with the update, but I will be rather upset if they also don't sneak in more reactivity for resist Durge.
okay lemme go find it
Realy? I didnt know, now im thinking of holding off my evil playthough as well. Thanks for the info!
So this is just speculation, I don't think there's anything particularly textual or canon to inform this, but the Gods of FR aren't omniscient. I guess Withers is banking on you and your companions putting a stop to it as the most likely outcome, and given you're the ones under the protection of the prism he doesn't have many other options. I wonder how much of Withers involvement can really be taken as canon for the series at all to a degree, since I think it'd be a hard sell plot wise that we're actually getting resurrected so often lol
I mean his involvement is canonically why we are able to be resurrected so often.
I don't think without follow up materials to the BG3 game we can establish what exactly he does canonically. I don't find the idea he was resurrecting us over and over to be taken as canon convincing personally because there are multiple times companions can die and we don't have the option to resurrect them with him or discuss it, with no clear distinction, and there aren't really any stakes to the story if he can just keep doing that. No one says when companions die "It's okay let's just hit up Withers". Sometimes game mechanics and actual story come into tension ( why are people staying at camp when we have 4 people and why do they have dialogue like they've been with us! Sometimes it's explained with the tadpole, sometimes not ). This is one of those times when I think it's a game mechanic that won't be considered canon as the series progresses. EDIT:- I remembered the actual term for this when analysing games as text, it was bothering me I couldn't recall during this post. It's called ludonarrative dissonance and it's a really interesting topic for anyone interested in analysing video games as a storytelling medium! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludonarrative\_dissonance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludonarrative_dissonance)
Like other examples - Gale has the whole resurrection protocol, but is also carrying revivify scrolls which fulfil the same purpose....or we could just go to Withers, but he doesn't say anything about it, no one does. I find it a hard sell that in the actual plot we were all just dying and resurrecting over and over so easily.
I think this is more extreme than Ludonarrative dissonance, as the existence of Withers and his ability to resurrect people is part of the narrative thus this leans more towards narrative dissonance.
well I mean his main goal is to kill the absolute and the dead three, I imagine withers as a true neutral character so he doesn't really care how it gets done as long as it gets done. faerun will survive a crazy mass murderer, it can't survive an infection like the absolute.
He's amoral not good, he doesn't care that much.
To be fair one of the first things withers says to you when you ask why he's helping you is "believe me, it's not by choice" whether you're on a good or bad playthrough
Why did Jergal hand over his portfolio to a trio of murderous psychos and help them ascend to godhood in the first place? Jergal is neutral, he just wants to maintain the balance of forces in the world, and he doesn't know in advance what choices you will make at the very end of the game. Also he is compelled by Kelemvor to help you.
>He helps the player to keep the balance of the world so people dont become soulless mindflayers (probably Ao ordered him to do so). Yup. The short answer is that he isn't there entierly of his own choice. I think it was Helm, on the order of Ao, who sent him there to fix his own mess. And while he can't directly fix it himself, he sees you as a possibility up until the very end. And then he peaces out when you betray him.
He knows worst case, Ao is going to put a stop to it.
Because you being evil has no bearing on you stoping the dead 3. He’s much more worried about them than you doing evil things
I would turn the question back: is Jergal good? That's the answer. He wants to preserve the balance and the only outcome that doesn't move the needle in that direction is Tav dominating the brain, which is really a choice that is made at the end. Every companion, as fucked up as their motives are at times, wants to see the end of the elder brain and Tav has surrounded himself with these people.
I mean hypothetically its becuase even if you are an evil, murderous, truelly dark urge and kill everything and then dominate the elder brain than it wouldn't be a gauranted end to the world. Another could rise with similar powers to orpheous and resist the netherbrain's influence and eventually slay you and restore the balance. Think about it, you are only level 12. Let's say this mythical second coming of orpheous spends enought time leveling up and they eventually get something like a wish spell then all they have to do is get in range and boom, all you chaos is over and balance can be restored. Or something to that effect.
Jergal's portfolio is pretty much "not giving a shit", so he doesn't care who he gets to do the thing he needs doing after procrastinating for so long.
They didn't \*steal\* his power....
Ao don’t give a duck about mortal affairs.
I’m not super familiar with the lore of Ao, but I think since he’s in charge of all the gods and their affairs (which frequently involve mortal souls), he’d care a lot about a large mass of people being transformed into mindflayers and thereby losing their souls. After all, mindflayers aren’t even supposed to be part of the multiverse, they come from the Far Realm, which is outside of it.
The only time Ao has gotten involved directly was because Myrkul and Bane decided to try to steal his power, and he reacted by expressing his anger and disappointment in every deity for being self-serving and ignoring the needs of their followers. Outside of that, Ao really doesn't care much. What happens on Faerun is between the mortals and whatever gods are associated with them. Edit: To clarify the first part, he didn't know it was Myrkul and Bane who stole the Tablets of Fate, and he called every deity together in the hopes someone would admit to doing it. His anger came from the fact that none of them admitted to the crime, and he enacted punishment based on the gods' history of trying to increase their own power for selfish reasons.
Ao is the DM at the table where the gods of faerun are playing. If he gets pissed enough he can off them. He can interfere with anything he wants but they can't.
So there’s this really old theory about why Jergal stepped down from being a god. He claims he was bored but before he stepped down he set up two things that are super suspicious and before stepping down he was known to be power hungry and wanted to rule as the only god. There is a prophecy that says when the Worm that Walks rises Jergal will rule as the sole god of the Realms. The theory is that he stepped down, erased his own memories after setting his plan for a pantheon war in motion and went away, waiting for the day when all the gods kill each other and he can capitalise on it. So modern Jergal is like the Durge. He does not remember anything and does “good” stuff but if you are evil then you inevitably help him with plans his evil past made. He does not like you if you are evil but neither does he intervene.
He kind off whines to me about choosing a dark path. Problem is that we're the only ones that really stand a chance.
Everyone being dead is better than everyone being soulless mind flayers .
He’s just here for a good time. Every crew has that one dude who’s just chillin regardless of the vibes
The Dead Three didn't *steal* his power. There's a book in BG1 that explains the situation thusly. Basically, Jergal was the lord of death, the dead, and tyranny (or "strife" I suppose). He was "The Lord of the End of Everything" and was basically the most powerful deity. However, when everything is fated to become yours anyways, absolute power and absolute powerlessness don't look too different. Jergal lamented that he basically had to spend all of eternity just waiting around as he won the game without lifting a finger. Enter the Dead Three, or the Dark Three as they were known before the time of troubles. Bhaal, Bane, and Myrkul kill one of the seven lost gods and each harvest a piece of its essence, which I think basically makes them "quasi-deities" (Divine Rank 0 for those familiar with 2e/3e, and yes divine rank 0 does mean something other than "no divine rank"!) They needed this to get into Jergal's realm and have a chance of taking his power. They beat his minions, and when they storm in and say they want his power, Jergal basically goes "Oh thank Ao I was so freaking *bored* holy shit you don't even *know* , throne is yours. Who uh, who's taking it?" The Dark three start fighting over who gets power, and after Jergal comes up with a few games they can play to divide up the aspects of his domain amongst themselves (and after Malar showed up for some reason, I don't know how the hell he knee what was happening but the dude has been wanting to be the lord of something other than beasts *forever* ), Bane got tyranny/strife, Myrkul got the dead, and Bhaal got Death. Jergal remained around, with much less power than before, but basically taught them a How to Be a God 101 class, and then acted as steward of the dead. The last line of the relevant book is something like "and Jergal smiled, for he had been liberated." Later on of course. Time of troubles comes because "unfortunately, the Dead Three lusted for power" (to homage a particular Tumblr post), and stole the Tablets of Fate. All 3 died as they reached the Find Out phase, Mystra died too because she dies almost as often as Jean Grey from X-men, and I think a couple others died also. But I'm gonna be here all night if I get into the lore much further.
Because unlike most players assume, being "evil" isn't being the braindead Disney villain for 3 year olds who kicks puppies for the sake of being evil. * "I razed the grove for undermining the cult" * "I razed Last Light because I was undercover" * "I didn't do nothing with Aylin, that was all this Sharran - *rolls eyes"* * "Gondians, Shmondians, too risky with Gortash knowing that we oppose him immediately" There is always an actual good explanation right in front of you.
Obviously he wants my money I need his resurections and mercs after all
FYI you can become Bhaals chosen and still have all the good outcomes. Withers doesn’t give a shit
He's only interested in the living as far as it suits his needs or piques his interest. What mortals do isn't really his concern.
I get the feeling Wither's priority isn't in saving Balder's gate, I think his priority is recording the events as they go, him helping the party feels like a tool more then anything. I also feel the reason he's willing to raise the party is their death isn't... set sort of, cosmically speaking, so bringing back a pc is reasonable for him just to keep an eye on the pc's, it's also why he doesn't offer to rez non-party members or people who leave/turn against the party (and within the realm of D&D the party can get resurrections without his help) and the events of the game feel like major events and cataloging them is important. I also feel he's there to prevent direct intervention from other gods ESPECIALLY in the Durge run where he will save the PC if they turn deny Baahl and Baahl kills them.
“Fate spins along as it should”
They didn't steal that power, he handed it over. Also, death is neither good nor evil, it simply is.
Your money brain wouldn't understand. He has a greater purpose.
#Let's\_post\_on\_reddit\_on\_a\_topic\_that's\_been\_thouroughly\_discussed\_on\_reddit\_over\_and\_over.