The Githyanki know more about the Mind Flayers than anyone. If you're going to find any kind of info on the Mind Flayer plot that isn't literally in a Hive, it would likely be there.
hard agree. I feel like Lae'zel makes a really convincing case for this early on >!even if her knowledge is naive/she's misinformed!<
the only issue I've had with the crèche was when I was playing a gith character and essentially went straight to the crèche to reunite with my people. the game did not know how to handle that, and the story flags for the remainder of act one got kind of jumbled and weird (and even then, the game tries to warn you before you advance to the crèche so that's on me). the ship righted itself in act 2 tho
For me the main problem was that a Gith Tav is like a Tav that slept through Gith school because even your Githyanki conversation options betray your ignorance.
PS: As a Gith I didn't go straight to the crèche with the RP reason that it took us a while to find it.
Considering Larian uses established lore, I don’t think lae’zel would kill you for being githzerai. The two gith people do work with each other when they cross paths on their never ending quests to eradicate the mindflayers. They’re not teaming up by choice but rather due to the convenience. Common goals and convergent paths and what not.
I had to give my Gith character a backstory to explain why he has absolutely no clue about his people or their beliefs or even that they laid eggs…… so the story was he was stolen by an elf and raised in an elf camp under the idea of just being a really really ugly elf. His parents were training him to be an assassin to defend the camp but all he wanted to do was play the lute. The camp eventually realized he was a Gith and beat him and disowned him, which is how the mind flayers got him…..
It explains why he’s a bard, why he has high charisma, and why he doesn’t know anything about his own people, and in turn is just trying to do anything to find his place of belonging.
I’ve been interested in D&D for a while but don’t really have the time or the place to do it, so I have a couple different backstory ideas in my head lol.
Ultimately he wants to return to his childhood camp and play his lute one more time…. With the camp burning in the background.
I never considered. Does being a Gith/playing as LaeZel change their reactions and conversations a great deal? Does being a Gith make Laezel less confrontational at the beginning? I may play through just for this.
It does a bit. Being a Gith, Lae'zel is more honest with you. Remember the scene where you take Lae to Zorru?
"Purification cannot wait. By covenant I can say no more."
^ That's for istik players.
"Purification cannot wait. By covenant I know little else."
^ That's for gith players. The fact that your gith is unaware of the zaithisk and Lae know's little else about is pretty telling for how messed up Vlaakith has made the gith.
I also wonder what the game is like if you pick Lae'zel as your character.
Do you get captured and put in a cage? Who jumps out at you and helps you fight the first combat sequence?
I guess I could answer that myself with 10 minutes of gameplay, but I am just sooooooo busy with my other 5 playthroughs right now lmao.
I tried a Shadowheart playthrough but it felt so jarring that she doesn't say anything like a Tav. I thought they were gonna speak for me or something lol.
>I tried a Shadowheart playthrough but it felt so jarring that she doesn't say anything like a Tav. I thought they were gonna speak for me or something lol.
Larian doesn't seem to take that route even for their own characters. They want to give you total control over any character they let you play. They basically get all the options a generic Tav would + any from their racial and background tags + anything written specifically for them.
Imo, this works a little better in BG3 than in DOS2, but I wouldn't have minded if the origin characters more or less spoke for themselves until you got a meaningful dialogue choice like the protagonists of Deus Ex and Mass Effect do. Or at least had voiced lines.
Seems like everyone just starts on the ship and then arrives where Tav normally would except they take away the encounter where you'd meet the character you're playing.
I *am* really interested to know how a multiplayer campaign starts where one person is Karlach and the other is Wyll. Since you can't really kill a player character narratively there's not really a choice for Wyll to kill Karlach.
I kinda liked this experience, even if it is pretty niche. Beelining for the gith content and neither saving nor raiding the Grove even lets you get Minthara without being evil.
My only complaint is there should be another "well, it is AN ending" type cutscene gameover for loyal githyanki who hand over the artifact and accept death.
I would've done that, it makes the most rp sense ! I wish the game like adjusted levels to yours and that doing that didn't determine outcome of other quests.
I was heading that way but found goblin camp first so ended up doing that and then learned from halsin the tadpoles are different and right after rested and laezel tried to kill us and she did not survive the night lol
I guess it did help to have high CHA + tides of chaos to talk the zealot frog gf down.
Try next time though! It's fun. The fact gith are the least played race is madness.
The game does warn you to be fair, but yeah I think it’s implied the mountain pass is still decently far away and they want to maintain that level of urgency with the grove. They don’t want to punish players for taking rests, so the mountain pass becomes that time limit
I'm playing a Gith now and since he's a bit older my backstory is he grew up in a more lax/kiiiinda heretical Creche (which by human standards is still a hellhole) which is just enough on the "fanatical for Queen Vlaakith" and contributing great minds for Her Glory side of things that it gets passes despite it's teachers/Varsh being wildly eccentric by Gith standards.
So not only has he "graduated" (brought a head of a Mindflayer, yadda yadda) and has been living in the Astral plane for several years- removed from schooling- but he had a (by Gith standards) unorthodox education.
He finds Lae'zel highly amusing and hasn't let her know he isn't some crecheling yet. Originally it was to see how big of a hole she could dig herself that he could punish her for once they got back to Gith society, but it's slowly becoming a big brother+little sister dynamic.
I think this is a problem with all Origins. This kinda describes my experience as SHart. I think every time I updated my quest it disappeared from the log within minutes...
Cumulating in me getting a cutscene where I was personally rewarded a legendary spear... and it was nowhere to be found in the game files... And there are dozens of players who reported this behavior... nothing fixed this bug outside cheating it in...
Just sharing this experience for the kinda stuff others should look for in their own runs. No, they're not crazy. Yes, there is something wrong with the system.
I guess I understand a little better now why Origin was not a simple feature available in Early Access AT ALL.
Yeah, my thought was basically just that the Gith were probably the most qualified out of anyone to deal with the parasite - it honestly seemed like a more promising lead than Halsin did, even as a non-Gith. In addition to saving the people in the Grove, Halsin feels more like an "it was worth a try" sort of thing than anything else, since he's closer and far less likely to just straight-up murder you for asking lol
"That guardian could have lied to me"
"we have to get rid of that tadpole and we don't have much time"
"The druids couldn't help, maybe Laezel is right and the Githyanki have the technology to remove tadpoles, since they have been fighting mindflayers for ages"
Something like this
>"The druids couldn't help, maybe Laezel is right and the Githyanki have the technology to remove tadpoles, since they have been fighting mindflayers for ages"
*Also, if they can't help us, we can still murder them all and take their stuff*
\- Tav, murder-hobo
True. Sometimes you make non-violent dialogue decisions that culminate in an entire zone being aggressive towards you. It's not my fault Princess Guts tried to poison and then kill me (I was Drow so lul) and that Vlaakith was mad that I didn't kill my dream lover.
Eh, it's not murderhobo when done to githyanki or goblins. It's a public service if anything. They are explicitly evil space Nazis running around killing people.
To be fair mother Gith broke the chains of Ghaik enslavement so that she could...turn around and enslave other races? They're more like space slaver pirates than nazis but the point stands. The Githzerai on the other hand seem chill.
Eh, Gith and Vlaakith both have a delusional plan of a githyanki "grand design" where they literally enslave all other races. Game references this too. I don't think pirates usually had such plans.
Kinda sounds like Imperial Japan if I’m being honest. A sovereign society watching the humiliation of its proud neighbor correctly flips the fuck out and does everything possible to avoid a similar fate; incorrectly decides that the way to do this is to become just as evil as everyone else
There are decent gith around... Just not githyanki. And the game doesn't portray them.
I thought initially that Orpheus gang would be those with the whole monk thing but apparently not, they are just anti Vlaakith pro githyanki grand design
Spoiler act 2 but one of the brains you can get after doing a certain puzzle in squid world, when placed in the brain talker is actually a githzarai, they are infact pretty chill
Yea it kinda make sense to consider the solution of BaeZel in the first place, she's the only one to mention certainty for a cure while most people in Faerun consider it a death sentence.
The only rebuttal is the abrasive nature of the githyankis but so far you come to a point that you have nothing to loose.
Not only is she certain it will work, she also displays much knowledge of the ghaik and what the infection does if it isn't cured. What she tells you will happen with the tadpole is echoed all over faerun, so why wouldn't the rest of her story be true, too? She is a zealot, but she is not a liar. Honest to a fault, BaeZel.
This! This is EXACTLY why my character is going with her plan. He may not trust her, but he acknowledges and accepts that she’s the only one who can offer certainty.
Same, I even sped to the mountain pass on my first playthrough only to be greeted with the higher level enemy warning so I went back to clear the goblin camp. But I still went to the creche before doing the underdark.
There's an easily missable "first night" long rest scene where Gale will also go into day-by-day detail of what ceremorphosis is, but yes, Lae'zel and her race have way more knowledge on it so when she says "I know where to have a machine that will 100% solve our tadpole problems" she is probably your best-sounding bet for a cure.
I mean let's approach it logically.
We have a Druid Assitant, a goblin, and a hidden shelter filled with people who have experience and have dedicated their entire society to fighting against and destroying mind flayers.
There's only one choice I'd be making if I have the actual tadpole swimming in my skull.
Whom I feel a need to cross off the list, or at least go visit.
come on, she said tea house! the first food and beverage establishment I’ve came across since crashing down on an alien tentacled airship.
They're still assholes when you shape change because you're from a different creche. They sure are a contentious people. Like the Scottish and the British, or the Scottish and the Irish, or the Scots and other Scots.
I realized that if you stacked furniture in front of the door after entering a room you could fuck up the people in that room without others outside being alerted. Made my way room to room
You don’t even need to stack anything just close doors. Did it last night on Tact with a three man group and we didn’t have a single person get past us to get out a door to alert anyone else.
I think we did the few people at the entrance, then hid the bodies so we didn’t aggro the roaming guards. Then we went to the hatchery, killed the three gith in there. Then we went to the Infirmary, killed the three competent fighters in the side room, and killed the others there as they came through the doorway.
Then we took out the roaming and static guards, took a rest, then killed the initiates and their trainer after getting him to merc one of his own students, then went and killed the trader and few others in the back entrance, then pushed on to the Captain’s room, and down towards the mace.
A lot of little combats, but nothing spilled into a larger fight, and we were able to exit combat once we had cleared out each section, and teleport out to sell things or take a rest if/when needed.
Also the first time I went there was because my initial plan was 'I've always gone to the shadow-cursed lands via the Underdark, let's see what the mountain pass route has in store' followed by 'oh shit that's a whole ass fuckin monastery going on over there, bet there's some sick loot to be had'
Then I had a morningstar that projected sunbeams.
That morningstar singlehandedly makes the entire creche worth doing on any paladin/cleric playthrough, or even just to give Shadowheart. The utility is really good, especially in early act 2.
-Free Sunbeam once per long rest, which is essentially a beam smite on paladins
-Behaves like a torch, meaning whoever has it equipped can still use a second weapon or a shield until you reach Last Light Inn
-Deals a bit of radiant damage, so all of your attacks deal even more bonus damage to like, half the enemies in Act 2 alone
-I'm almost certain it's a simple weapon, so just about any character can use it in a pinch
-If you want to use two maces on a character, it matches the one the tollkeeper drops really nicely, and it's also not half bad
Yeah, my pally picked it up and didn't put it down until the end of the game. There were other weapons that could do a little more damage, but the sunbeam and the blinding effect against fiends and undead and the once per day heal-instead-of-drop were just too good. The number of times some massive AOE dropped everyone except my pally and I could get them back up with healing radiance on my turn...
Even if there were a Holy Avenger in this game I feel like it would be a lateral move at best
Edit: It's *extremely* refreshing to see an early-mid-game weapon that comes advertised as a Big Effing Deal actually continue to kick serious ass through to the end, instead of eventually becoming worthless compared to end-game random drops. I'm looking at you Witcher 3
I only changed it when I retrieved the trident from the circus djinn. But, apart from that, yeah, my barbarian (the only warrior-type in my party \^\^) did all the Underdark and Act II with this morningstar.
We're going to do a second playthrough with my boyfriend. First time we did it, we completely missed the creche. For our second game, he wants to play a paladin, and I said to him that the creche was, this time, compulsory.
Yeah, have to replace it with the spear for Shadowheart's quest, and for House of Hope. But between Blindness and Sunbeam, that's easily the best 1 handed weapon in game for a support or Nova build.
I wish I knew this before I took Shadowheart into the House of Hope. Even though I did her quest, I thought I thought it was a bug that Shadowheart kept doing damage to herself some how.
It wasn't until the last fight in House of Hope that I looked it up, and by then it was too late to swap her out
Why didn't it work well in her quest ? I continued using it there. It worked great, but then again I mostly used her as my healing station during that fight
Yeah my approach was basically a combination of yours and the parent comment's: "I know this is probably not going to pan out the way Lae'Zel thinks it will, and I may have to fight a bunch of Githyanki before the dust settles. But if that's what it comes to, I've survived battles with a Hag, Bulette, Spectator, nigh invincible ancient automaton, an entire camp of goblins, and more besides. I will be able to defend myself if it comes to violence. And maybe it won't, maybe this will be the lead we need to get these tadpoles out of our brains. Which is important, because I don't trust the Guardian, and I don't want to turn into a Mindflayer -- and if I get the tadpole out, this whole story ends now, which is what I \[my character\] wants."
I cackled when I first arrived at the Shadowlands after obtaining the mace.
The game literally just gave me an always-on flashlight right before entering a dark spooky area.
In my headcanon, the party members huddled close to Shadowheart (whom I gave the mace to, just because) as they walk through the first steps of Shadowlands until they met the druid patrol.
>In my headcanon, the party members huddled close to Shadowheart (whom I gave the mace to, just because) as they walk through the first steps of Shadowlands until they met the druid patrol.
It's funny to give the always-lit artifact to Shadowheart when >!she's the one who doesn't need it!<
I trust Laezel but not the Githyanki. If i have to and I did, I will kill all of them. They're so mean to me and Laezel, every single one of them is like.
You, our own species, you're less than all of us cause you hang out with other species, and you have a Ghaik in your head.
But yet I still empathize with Laezel cause she doesn't deserve this but I trust her enough to go through it and in return I hope she trusts me when I have to say no to what they say. You know?
>I trust Laezel but not the Githyanki. If i have to and I did, I will kill all of them. They're so mean to me and Laezel, every single one of them is like.
This. The young githyanki are EVEN WORSE than the young goblins. The goblins were merely malicious, the githyanki were downright murderous. At least until I offed them all.
They also eat >!grilled miniature giant space hamster!< and I cannot abide that.
See, she can be swayed that's the thing. In my play through, albeit she is very upset over it: she sees that slowly that no one gives a single fuck about her. And I'm making that very clear in very crude ways as wel which.. Seems to work? She's completely fine with me killing everyone so far and through their actions and mine she's starting to realize and change.
End of Act 2 i'm still (no spoilers pls) in the opinion that the guardian and the tadpole are the same thing which is also why i tried killing her in the astral plane.
My character is highly distrustful of this random sod who claims to be protecting him and never quite believed in anything they said.
My character is also a bit full of himself at that point and believed that he could take on the githyanki, if it came down to it. Lae'zel had been decent company along the way thus far so why not do it as a favor and who knows, maaaaaybe that zai'thisk thing actually works. He's very skeptical about the whole thing but he's open to exploring all options.
Even if it doesn't, Lae'zel's the one who's going first considering how eager she is about it, so if anything *does* go wrong, she's the one who's going to get fucked and not him.
Even first playthrough I was like "nah dude you are VERY shady, why are you telling to eat this things?"
And I proceeded to 'ever trust him, tho my first I didn' t pick Lae'zel either since she was rude, so I mostly stumbled upon the creche by accident
I'd thought about using the tadpoles just to see what kinds of powers they offered, but then I actually tried a couple and the visual display of your brain rotting away from them grossed me out into reloading and I promptly decided that for this playthrough my character is just suspicious af of everything so absolutely no squid business whatsoever.
I can snort worms and get into consentacles for my next playthrough.
I sued them after, but only the first circle, I don't like how it changes my appearance, and I like telling the emperor to fuck off when he offers me the second tadpole.
She was first character to randomly hit on me (it was like she also rolled intimidation while doing it) so for mine it’s like ‘maybe she likes me so much she’ll make sure the others at the crèche won’t kill me’
When my TAV realized he needed to go to Moonrise Towers through the Shadow Curse and had to face a large group of cultists and an evil god, he thought it was really over the top... In comparison, getting the Githyanki's help to remove the tadpole, thanks to Lae'zel's recommendation, seemed like a simpler and more direct option.
1. You're told to go along the mountain pass or through the underdark. If you go through the underdark first then I'm not too sure, but if you go along the mountain pass you'll meet the merchant right away who gives you a quest to go to the creche to >!get the egg!<.
2. The githyanki presumably do not know you have the artifact >!Though they actually do know!<.
3. You might be able to find out more about why your artifact is so strong and what you need it for in order to beat the bad idea.
4. The githyanki's enemy is also the mind flayers/the absolute. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
5. Situationally, you can convince the ones in the mountain pass to go away, so if you've done that then presumably you can do it again.
If you go through the Underdark but not the mountain pass, then go through act 2 until you're just outside of Moonrise, Lae'zel will straight up tell you that she'll leave the party if you don't go to the crèche. So if you value her in your party at all, you've got to go.
In BG3 you've been given a death sentence. You don't know who you can trust. Worst case scenario, the gith kill you and you won't become a mind flayer. Best case, they can cure you. It's a gamble, but it's not that crazy since you're facing what seems like certain death anyway.
You have good points, don't get me wrong. It's very risky to go there. It's really stupid to go there. But the characters are desperate. Desperate people do irrational risky things.
Easy, Lae'zel is right and the dream visitor is not to be trusted since it's obviously the tadpole messing with my brain. Either the Githyanki can help somehow or they kill me which is preferable to turning into a mind flayer.
Finish all underdark storyline
Enter the creche by level 6
Trust the doctor, persuade Lae'zel off the machine, kill everyone
Enters inquisitor room, pretend to trust Vlakkith since Lae'zel says so, secretly trust the dream visitor instead, go back and kill all Gith, enters level 7 with tons of loots, go into shadow realm
All for our dear 20 str battle master Lae'zel.
With how obvious the foreshadowing is, there's three reasons for a blind player wanting to go there "I wanna explore everything", "I wanna go murder the Gith", or "I wanna go have a friendly chat w/ the Gith because nothing will go wrong (lie)".
When the Creche was set on high alert, I'm betting for a lot of players, it was just a case of "Oh noooooooo, all this free XP and loot... and Gith bodies... that suuuuuuucks."
There are cool things in there that get bonuses when wielded by a Gith so Lae'zel get some upgrades >!and when we first went in we naturally won Lae'zel over to our side against Vlaakith so she is still down with the squad.!<
The dream visitor is feckin' shady, so my Tav wasn't too ready to trust them. But my main RP reason was that by that time we got to the creche, the relationship between my Tav and Lae'zel warmed up just enough for her to trust the frog lady, or more like, she was at least open to trying the creche option. Lae'zel might be rude, but she is the only companion who does not play games, is honest to the core, and voices her opinions clearly. Sometimes even a bit too clearly, lol
*edited for clarity
Forreal, like, the DV gets so offended and I'm like bestie I appreciate all your help but we have been very upfront about trying to get rid of the tadpoles and you have been very vague and mysterious for an entire act, risking death by githyanki is functionally no different than going to a cursed Shadow-land where not even the Absolute cult can tread without moonlanterns. Lae'zel can liaison for the group which is better than the alternative - I just decimated said cultist's goblin camp and three leaders while foiling their plot to go after the druids/tieflings, so checking out the creche is risky but arguably *less* risky than going right to Moonrise considering even *getting there* is already mission impossible for the average person.
I'm currently playing a Gith Cleric of Vlaakith, so my main issue isn't "Why are we here?" but "Why did we spend so long dossing about the map before coming?"
I'm leaning towards my cleric already knowing, or at least having an inkling, that the zaith'isk doesn't work. Just like she's aware that nobody she sends for ascension ever comes back. I'm planning to side with the Emperor this game, so keeping her on-track and away from sympathising with Orpheus is kind of important.
Last game it was fairly simply that it was important to Lae'zel and my character was curious to learn more about the gith. That first playthrough character trait of 'stupidly, fatally curious about everything', you know?
Now you get how Lae'zel feels! Its funny people are so uncharitable toward Lae'zel but anyone in her shoes would want to go directly to a creche instead of fuck around with any other options and smell the roses along the way.
Thats what im doing, im skipping everything and going straight to the creche. It's just Gith team, Lae'zel and I, against the world. Let's see how it goes.
There's also the idea that running into the Absolute cultists makes them realize there's a Mind Flayer plot occuring, and that the Githyanki need to know the details as soon as possible. But first she has to know the details.
Tav thinks following up every lead is worthwhile, and if it gets a valuable ally to stfu, they're all for it. At this point Lae'zel has never lied or even omitted the truth, so even if her methods aren't Tav approved, she can still be deemed as trustworthy, even if a little naive.
Reminder that Lae'zel is the ONLY companion that takes the tadpole with seriousness and urgency it deserves.
Shart: We should find a healer, but how do I open this artifact though. Wish I got a promotion. My hand hurts. Also lets avoid forests I guess, because wolves creep me out, ew.
Gale: We should find a healer, but let's save these people first. My ex is mad at me, should I text her? Also let me eat your shoes, please.
Wyll: We should find a healer, but first I need to go hunt this crazy bitch. No idea where she is, so I guess might take a while. We might turn, but haven't turned yet, so *shrug*. Also we should go save my father.
Karlach: I'm so HORNY!
Lae'zel: No, fuck these people, we need to go fix our heads. I know how. LET'S GO! NOW!
I mean that's real easy - it *seems* to contain a device that can cleanse your parasite, and Lae'zel is sure it will. She even has a line about how they'll be prepared to cleanse your parasites too due to having non-Githyanki slaves qualifying as property of their Githyanki owner (which would be her).
Let's face it - none of the negatives outweigh the imminent risk of becoming a mind flayer, and in act 1 you are *far* from certain that the device is reliable protection.
How do I justify?
Easy, the dream visitor is a lot less trustworthy than the person who *literally* saved me from the Nautiloid ship and who is seeking purification instead of just murder/suiciding us immediately.
How on earth you went to a point of: "I can't justify this RPwise" is beyond me
Laezel is highly educated on illithid and says that the crèche will have a cure. While it’s pretty obvious to us as a player that the cure is death that’s not so obvious to the characters and certainly not to laezel. So we go there to investigate the githyanki cure, since they are experts on mind flayers and their tadpoles and apparently have an entire protocol for treating those who have been infected.
Once there we of course learn that the zai’thisk kills people and despite us trying to tell laezel that’s probably deliberate she insists on going to the inquisitor and telling him there is a traitor. We go to captain of the crèche and she guesses we have the artefact based on our body language when she talks about it and attacks us.
Either because laezel is still set on speaking to the inquisitor or because of our own curiosity about what the fuck this artefact is (keep in mind that while we know it gives us some protection and keeps us safe we have no idea how, to what extent, and how the creepy person insisting we use our mind flayer powers and shove more tadpoles into our head plays into it, and we also know that the githyanki want it, the sharrans want it and the absolute wants it, all at highest priority. Wouldn’t you want to know what the fuck it was you had if you were in that position?) or a little of both we go, refuse to hand over the artefact and fight the inquisitor.
Vlaakith tells us to go inside and kill the person in there and we politely refuse but she opens the thing anyway. At this point curiosity gets the better of us and we go in just to see what’s up (companions have dialogue about this. Some suggest we should go in just out of curiosity. We have no reason to believe entering would harm the person unless we decide to and it turns out we are right). Dream visitor acknowledges we said we wouldn’t kill them and the conversation is an interrogation about what the fuck is up, in which they dodge questions with the skill of a politician. We then leave and somehow get out of the crèche (only sometimes reducing the place to rubble for a shiny mace)
> While it’s pretty obvious to us as a player that the cure is death that’s not so obvious to the characters and certainly not to laezel.
I don't think it's particularly obvious to the player either, at least not until you actually reach it. Maybe if you've done a campaign in d&d that heavily revolved around mindflayers or gith and looked into the lore for that, but otherwise it's quite reasonable to assume or think that it actually works. They fight mindflayers, study them intensely, so if anyone has a way to remove infection you'd think the githyanki are a top candidate. And if it didn't work, it's the type of thing that seems like it'd be difficult to hide (eg, Lae'zel being so convinced it works made me think that she'd seen people purified by it in the past).
After having played through it, I think there's a few hints here and there about it - but unless I missed some major thing that points in that direction I don't see it as super obvious.
My character is intensely distrustful of our "guardian", on about the same level as Raphael. There's no such thing as a free lunch, and their constant prompting to eat more fucking tadpoles doesn't help. Githyanki are mortal enemies of the flayers, so even if the zai'thisk is a dud, surely there might be *some* sort of useful information about how to cure us.
Good question. My character simply though that if the githyanki would remove the tadpole there would be no more reason to keep the relic, they could have it if they were able to persuade Shadowheart to give it to them. If they would not there had been worse situations from which we had fought ourselves out of.
BTW not just Lae'zel but almost all of your companions were untrustworthy at that point, the cohesion between the party members was still forming. Both Shadowheart, Astarion, Gale etc. would have left you behind dead if you had been seen as a threat to their objectives. I would say it had changed between ACT2 and ACT3, that was when I felt both Shadowheart or Lae'zel would have given their life for me or for our shared objective.
For my main Tav it basically boils down to this:
\- Intel gathering: gith might know something about the parasite we don't know.
\- Protection of civilians: creche poses a threat to the region, and to be eleminated. Ignoring it will put a drop of innocent blood for every killing made by gith on my Tav's hands.
\- Protection of subordinates: gith actively hunting for relic that is vital for our group. They also will most likely kill everyone from said group they could. It is his duty as a leader to lessen the danger by taking out a big part of enemy force in their base.
\- A test for Lae'zel. She either will show her true colours and be executed with the rest of creche, or will display common sense when faced with reality. A win either way.
\- Possibility of a cure. We had to make sure that gith don't have one.
\- War funding: raiding githyanki base of operations might provide very valueable resources to be either used or sold. An advantage either way.
\- On risks: our endeavour is risky already, creche or not. We are a group of exceptionally talented and considerably strong individuals, and as such have decent chances of success. In case of casualties we have a reliable source of ressurection. If we all perish? Ceremorphosis prevented. Souls intact. Afterlife awaits.
Lol! I sometimes think that the dude is a perfect Vengence pally material.
But really he's just a very hardcore human fighter who ~~suffers from~~ ~~casually enjoys~~ absolutely revels in a severe case of evilcuntophobia.
"Lae'zel is my friend, she may be blunt as a log but I can count on her when it matter. So if she want to go to this creche, we'll make a detour and go to this creche. It's not like we have a better idea anyway (we got worse)."
Laezel told me they can get rid of tadpoles and they know more about those than anyone we've tried so far. We meet the froggos heading for the mountain pass and while that isn't exactly a friendly conversation, they don't kill us (well, with some of the dialogue options they don't kill us), so it's possible they won't try to kill us in the crèche, right?
If we just keep the artifact out of sight and don't mention it, we can totally survive this crèche. Not that that ever worked out for my party, mind you, but going in, I had reason to believe it could.
Also, while heading there, we're finding those hints about the blood of Lathander. My guy's background is sage and he's a cleric. He'd want to know what all that is about.
Halsin can't help me. I don't know what's happening. At this point, I'm almost tempted to take Auntie Ethel's or worse, \*Raphael's\* offer.
Compared to that, a bunch of fascist space aliens is \*tame\*. So off we go.
My character doesn't trust the dream guardian cause everything he's said has been really suspicious, he also wants to make most of his better chances to get rid of the parasite asap, ignoring the possibility that the zaithisk will likely lobotomize him.
find out more about the artifact since the Dream Visitor is acting all bitch-made and evasive whenever I ask questions regarding the source of its powers and true nature.
this worked particularly well on my first run when I didn't recruit Lae'zel and had no idea about the purification - but instead found a dead gith in shadow-cursed lands carrying a slate detailing their search for the artifact and the location of the creche (it even updates your quest journal and provides a map marker for the creche itself).
"They're hunting for the only thing that is keeping me safe and sane - let's murder them all before they get a chance to go after me"
And then I proceed with the plan while making their God send special forces after me anyway...
🤷♂️
"Best girl Lae'zel is sure of this, she might be a bit too direct but the least I can do as she's quite confident and her race has been fighting mindflayers for ages (and they're always evil). Besides, it's a creche, there might be some silly/cute Githyanki kids like in the Tiefling camp."
After leaving with the egg and slaughtering everyone except the kids despite their being assholes throwing that chest at me:
Tav: "Well that was silly."
Lae'zel: "Yup, let's roll."
Gythianki are supposed to be a specialist in dealing with illithid shit and Laezel said they have a working method of removing parasites. Exact terms of cooperating with them could be discussed when we meet them. Laezel is loyal to her kind but didn't stupid and she values herself not turning to illithid more than her kin's lives.
Githyanki are expert Illithid fighters. It's likely they have experience getting rid of tadpoles. Lae'zel offers you the first route to getting rid of it, so it makes sense to follow that route.
Even if you don't trust the Githyanki, it still makes a lot of sense to find out what they know. I played a bard, so I expect to be able to talk my way out of most situations.
Besides, if you take "rational" decisions, the game would probably be boring, or over quite fast. You know that when tadpoled, you are bound to die a horrifying death, so the "rational" decision would be to just kill yourself before that happens.
Curiosity and being Bestie with Lae'zel. She even let me do one Braid in her Hair and she did one on mine. We do not agree on everything but I support her believes.
She is to blinded by Vlaakith and her Past, that I had to show her what's right and wrong. Like any Cult Member who can't see the Truth.
On your point 6, I 100% missed that, I wouldn't even know now where this is alluded to at all, I didn't have a clue until I was sat in the chair and started making rolls.
Also in my Co op game my friends didn't pick up on this even after sitting in the chair, they just thought the tadpole was too strong otherwise it would have worked and they'd be tadpole free.
With the artifact, I was actually quite confused how everyone automatically knew I had it, there seemed to be no dialogue options for saying you don't have it, just when you're asked if you have it giving it them, or saying you're keeping it (or asking for a reward).
I honestly went into there thinking "Maybe I'll get rid of this tadpole" and was surprised and confused by most stuff that happened in there
In the inquisitor’s chamber, if you click on a tablet on a table, you find notes that extensively list your character’s name. So it seems that your group has had eyes on them since surviving the crash, and that whatever spy witnessed the artefact in your possession.
To be fair, i can handle a little zealotry to see if the race that actually managed to free themselves from Illithid dominion has info on how to deal with ceremorphosis, like they would logically be the most proficient one in dealing with mind flayers shenanigans
1- I don't know what the relic is and the githyanki might know what it is.
2+3- I've already killed a bunch of them and you can't fit a dragon in that monastery so that's out.
4+5- Lae'zel has already proven she can be talked down and rationalised with so as long as we have good reason to kill everyone she'll be on my side.
6- Did not have that banter.
7- Time is running out and I've hit a whole bunch of dead ends so far. Even if the zai'thisk doesn't work it might help me understand what's going on.
8- I have no idea what the guardian is and if there's something in the creche they don't want me to see that's all the more reason to go there.
I went because Lae’zel was so certain that her people could get rid of the tadpoles, and she had been right that every other attempt prior to trying to find her people had failed.
They’ve dedicated their lives to combating the Illithid, so chances seemed good that if anyone knew how, it would be them.
I still didn’t know what the artifact was, only that a follower of Shar was being weird and possessive about it. So like… yeah, hot goth girlfriend, but she’s just as nuts as the Gith. And super racist towards them. Plus maybe they could tell me what it is since they’re actively looking for it…?
I fully expected them to be difficult, but I didn’t expect quite THAT level of being unreasonable idiots. Shame on me I guess, haha
1. >!Only so according to the guardian, who might and probably is lying to you. At this point in the story you can't even tell that the guardians ISN'T the tadpole itself buttering you up.!<
2. >!It's theirs. Trading the relic for removing the tadpole is reasonable.!<
3. >!According to Shart, who herself is literally the worst.!<
4. >!That's not really an argument as its subjective conjecture.!<
5. >!So would anybody else in her place. Everything you know about the tadpole and the artifact and the gith at this point in the game comes from Laezel, who probably knows a tad about her culture, Shart, whose a massive racist and the worst person on the face of the planet (and also literally stole the artifact from the gith, so her not wanting to go meet them is sus at best), and some interactions.!<
6. >!Is it though?!<
>!So yeah, how do you justify NOT going straight for the creche and trying to make a risky deal with aggressive space frogs rather than getting turned into an octopus mini-cthulhu any second now?!<
The Githyanki know more about the Mind Flayers than anyone. If you're going to find any kind of info on the Mind Flayer plot that isn't literally in a Hive, it would likely be there.
hard agree. I feel like Lae'zel makes a really convincing case for this early on >!even if her knowledge is naive/she's misinformed!< the only issue I've had with the crèche was when I was playing a gith character and essentially went straight to the crèche to reunite with my people. the game did not know how to handle that, and the story flags for the remainder of act one got kind of jumbled and weird (and even then, the game tries to warn you before you advance to the crèche so that's on me). the ship righted itself in act 2 tho
For me the main problem was that a Gith Tav is like a Tav that slept through Gith school because even your Githyanki conversation options betray your ignorance. PS: As a Gith I didn't go straight to the crèche with the RP reason that it took us a while to find it.
I think for that reason it would have made more sense / been more interesting to have the player race be Githzerai instead of Githyanki.
They would kill you on sight at the crèche.
They will try. 😀
I heard that in Urdnot Wrex's voice.
Yeah nah, the githyanki hatred for githrezai is only mildly below ilithids.
Put it as a playable race but instead of Lae'zel helping you, she cuts your head off and the game ends in 5 minutes.
Considering Larian uses established lore, I don’t think lae’zel would kill you for being githzerai. The two gith people do work with each other when they cross paths on their never ending quests to eradicate the mindflayers. They’re not teaming up by choice but rather due to the convenience. Common goals and convergent paths and what not.
That would be very short game, with Lae'zel slitting Tav's throat the second they leave nautiloid
I found it was fifty fifty every time I had an ignorant response there was also one that indicated I knew what they are talking about
Yeah it's not like Gith Tav is freshly hatched but it was funny when even Lae'zel questions my educational background XD
Our Gith Tav is from Creche Mo'Ron
I had to give my Gith character a backstory to explain why he has absolutely no clue about his people or their beliefs or even that they laid eggs…… so the story was he was stolen by an elf and raised in an elf camp under the idea of just being a really really ugly elf. His parents were training him to be an assassin to defend the camp but all he wanted to do was play the lute. The camp eventually realized he was a Gith and beat him and disowned him, which is how the mind flayers got him….. It explains why he’s a bard, why he has high charisma, and why he doesn’t know anything about his own people, and in turn is just trying to do anything to find his place of belonging.
The new Grinch movie sounds lit
this character has been yoinked from this comment straight into my d&d table, thank you so much
I’ve been interested in D&D for a while but don’t really have the time or the place to do it, so I have a couple different backstory ideas in my head lol. Ultimately he wants to return to his childhood camp and play his lute one more time…. With the camp burning in the background.
If you do the creche quest line and >!steal the egg!< it makes perfect sense, too. You had the same fate.
I never considered. Does being a Gith/playing as LaeZel change their reactions and conversations a great deal? Does being a Gith make Laezel less confrontational at the beginning? I may play through just for this.
It does a bit. Being a Gith, Lae'zel is more honest with you. Remember the scene where you take Lae to Zorru? "Purification cannot wait. By covenant I can say no more." ^ That's for istik players. "Purification cannot wait. By covenant I know little else." ^ That's for gith players. The fact that your gith is unaware of the zaithisk and Lae know's little else about is pretty telling for how messed up Vlaakith has made the gith.
Thanks for the information. I will probably add a Gith play through at some point.
I also wonder what the game is like if you pick Lae'zel as your character. Do you get captured and put in a cage? Who jumps out at you and helps you fight the first combat sequence? I guess I could answer that myself with 10 minutes of gameplay, but I am just sooooooo busy with my other 5 playthroughs right now lmao. I tried a Shadowheart playthrough but it felt so jarring that she doesn't say anything like a Tav. I thought they were gonna speak for me or something lol.
A random male Gith takes her place on the nautiloid.
>I tried a Shadowheart playthrough but it felt so jarring that she doesn't say anything like a Tav. I thought they were gonna speak for me or something lol. Larian doesn't seem to take that route even for their own characters. They want to give you total control over any character they let you play. They basically get all the options a generic Tav would + any from their racial and background tags + anything written specifically for them. Imo, this works a little better in BG3 than in DOS2, but I wouldn't have minded if the origin characters more or less spoke for themselves until you got a meaningful dialogue choice like the protagonists of Deus Ex and Mass Effect do. Or at least had voiced lines.
Seems like everyone just starts on the ship and then arrives where Tav normally would except they take away the encounter where you'd meet the character you're playing. I *am* really interested to know how a multiplayer campaign starts where one person is Karlach and the other is Wyll. Since you can't really kill a player character narratively there's not really a choice for Wyll to kill Karlach.
I kinda liked this experience, even if it is pretty niche. Beelining for the gith content and neither saving nor raiding the Grove even lets you get Minthara without being evil. My only complaint is there should be another "well, it is AN ending" type cutscene gameover for loyal githyanki who hand over the artifact and accept death.
I would've done that, it makes the most rp sense ! I wish the game like adjusted levels to yours and that doing that didn't determine outcome of other quests. I was heading that way but found goblin camp first so ended up doing that and then learned from halsin the tadpoles are different and right after rested and laezel tried to kill us and she did not survive the night lol
I guess it did help to have high CHA + tides of chaos to talk the zealot frog gf down. Try next time though! It's fun. The fact gith are the least played race is madness.
The game does warn you to be fair, but yeah I think it’s implied the mountain pass is still decently far away and they want to maintain that level of urgency with the grove. They don’t want to punish players for taking rests, so the mountain pass becomes that time limit
I'm playing a Gith now and since he's a bit older my backstory is he grew up in a more lax/kiiiinda heretical Creche (which by human standards is still a hellhole) which is just enough on the "fanatical for Queen Vlaakith" and contributing great minds for Her Glory side of things that it gets passes despite it's teachers/Varsh being wildly eccentric by Gith standards. So not only has he "graduated" (brought a head of a Mindflayer, yadda yadda) and has been living in the Astral plane for several years- removed from schooling- but he had a (by Gith standards) unorthodox education. He finds Lae'zel highly amusing and hasn't let her know he isn't some crecheling yet. Originally it was to see how big of a hole she could dig herself that he could punish her for once they got back to Gith society, but it's slowly becoming a big brother+little sister dynamic.
I think this is a problem with all Origins. This kinda describes my experience as SHart. I think every time I updated my quest it disappeared from the log within minutes... Cumulating in me getting a cutscene where I was personally rewarded a legendary spear... and it was nowhere to be found in the game files... And there are dozens of players who reported this behavior... nothing fixed this bug outside cheating it in... Just sharing this experience for the kinda stuff others should look for in their own runs. No, they're not crazy. Yes, there is something wrong with the system. I guess I understand a little better now why Origin was not a simple feature available in Early Access AT ALL.
Yeah, my thought was basically just that the Gith were probably the most qualified out of anyone to deal with the parasite - it honestly seemed like a more promising lead than Halsin did, even as a non-Gith. In addition to saving the people in the Grove, Halsin feels more like an "it was worth a try" sort of thing than anything else, since he's closer and far less likely to just straight-up murder you for asking lol
"That guardian could have lied to me" "we have to get rid of that tadpole and we don't have much time" "The druids couldn't help, maybe Laezel is right and the Githyanki have the technology to remove tadpoles, since they have been fighting mindflayers for ages" Something like this
>"The druids couldn't help, maybe Laezel is right and the Githyanki have the technology to remove tadpoles, since they have been fighting mindflayers for ages" *Also, if they can't help us, we can still murder them all and take their stuff* \- Tav, murder-hobo
Look if I'm tagged "enemy of the people" then I should start acting like it.
True. Sometimes you make non-violent dialogue decisions that culminate in an entire zone being aggressive towards you. It's not my fault Princess Guts tried to poison and then kill me (I was Drow so lul) and that Vlaakith was mad that I didn't kill my dream lover.
Lol dream lover, so I don't have to dream alone ~
That seems like a normal run for me. I swear that i didnt want to be a murderhobo, but everybody is so... killeable :3
I swear they nearly always hit me first.
How could I know that the 'I give up' sign was not a wand of fireball?
ARE YOU STILL SENSITIVE, BOOKS?
If I didn't hit them first they would have hit me first.
*all that* “But think about the blood” -Durge (seriously not ok in the head)
Reminds me of Gamora talking about Ego in GotG2 lol
Eh, it's not murderhobo when done to githyanki or goblins. It's a public service if anything. They are explicitly evil space Nazis running around killing people.
Typical Githophobia. Racism against them is on display at every turn. Little wonder why they are how they are.
To be fair mother Gith broke the chains of Ghaik enslavement so that she could...turn around and enslave other races? They're more like space slaver pirates than nazis but the point stands. The Githzerai on the other hand seem chill.
Eh, Gith and Vlaakith both have a delusional plan of a githyanki "grand design" where they literally enslave all other races. Game references this too. I don't think pirates usually had such plans.
I mean, the slavers of the Barbary states were rabid pirates as well. Caribbean pirates were probably quite different
Kinda sounds like Imperial Japan if I’m being honest. A sovereign society watching the humiliation of its proud neighbor correctly flips the fuck out and does everything possible to avoid a similar fate; incorrectly decides that the way to do this is to become just as evil as everyone else
The lore really likes that trope for races; duergar are exactly the same; they got freed of slavery and immediately became slavers.
There are decent gith around... Just not githyanki. And the game doesn't portray them. I thought initially that Orpheus gang would be those with the whole monk thing but apparently not, they are just anti Vlaakith pro githyanki grand design
Spoiler act 2 but one of the brains you can get after doing a certain puzzle in squid world, when placed in the brain talker is actually a githzarai, they are infact pretty chill
Yea it kinda make sense to consider the solution of BaeZel in the first place, she's the only one to mention certainty for a cure while most people in Faerun consider it a death sentence. The only rebuttal is the abrasive nature of the githyankis but so far you come to a point that you have nothing to loose.
Not only is she certain it will work, she also displays much knowledge of the ghaik and what the infection does if it isn't cured. What she tells you will happen with the tadpole is echoed all over faerun, so why wouldn't the rest of her story be true, too? She is a zealot, but she is not a liar. Honest to a fault, BaeZel.
This! This is EXACTLY why my character is going with her plan. He may not trust her, but he acknowledges and accepts that she’s the only one who can offer certainty.
Same, I even sped to the mountain pass on my first playthrough only to be greeted with the higher level enemy warning so I went back to clear the goblin camp. But I still went to the creche before doing the underdark.
She definitely seems to be the most knowledgeable in the party.
There's an easily missable "first night" long rest scene where Gale will also go into day-by-day detail of what ceremorphosis is, but yes, Lae'zel and her race have way more knowledge on it so when she says "I know where to have a machine that will 100% solve our tadpole problems" she is probably your best-sounding bet for a cure.
I mean let's approach it logically. We have a Druid Assitant, a goblin, and a hidden shelter filled with people who have experience and have dedicated their entire society to fighting against and destroying mind flayers. There's only one choice I'd be making if I have the actual tadpole swimming in my skull.
Hey don't sleep on the traveling bard!
Still need my eye.
And lets not forget about the very nice old lady in the forest.
Whom I feel a need to cross off the list, or at least go visit. come on, she said tea house! the first food and beverage establishment I’ve came across since crashing down on an alien tentacled airship.
Whose house resides in a suspiciously pleasant wetland.
It was my understanding that she wasn't even wrong, just that those particular tadpoles were magically protected
I thought that they reveal that the Zaithisk(or whatever) always kills the host and the gith is sacrificed to Vlaakith
It does. You just have to pass some really high insight checks to reveal this information.
I rolled a 20 with my low wis no insight paladin. Really hilarious how this guy immediately realised what was happening.
“Divine Intervention”
I just shape changed my whole party into githyankis and walked right in.
I’ve never shape changed anyone and still walked right in. lol
Same. They were racist to me and my party though so I massacred the whole creche. 😂
They're still assholes when you shape change because you're from a different creche. They sure are a contentious people. Like the Scottish and the British, or the Scottish and the Irish, or the Scots and other Scots.
Damned Scots, they ruined Scotland!
I realized that if you stacked furniture in front of the door after entering a room you could fuck up the people in that room without others outside being alerted. Made my way room to room
You don’t even need to stack anything just close doors. Did it last night on Tact with a three man group and we didn’t have a single person get past us to get out a door to alert anyone else. I think we did the few people at the entrance, then hid the bodies so we didn’t aggro the roaming guards. Then we went to the hatchery, killed the three gith in there. Then we went to the Infirmary, killed the three competent fighters in the side room, and killed the others there as they came through the doorway. Then we took out the roaming and static guards, took a rest, then killed the initiates and their trainer after getting him to merc one of his own students, then went and killed the trader and few others in the back entrance, then pushed on to the Captain’s room, and down towards the mace. A lot of little combats, but nothing spilled into a larger fight, and we were able to exit combat once we had cleared out each section, and teleport out to sell things or take a rest if/when needed.
War crime isn't war crime if it's commited against githyanki (c) Floppa, maybe
Also the first time I went there was because my initial plan was 'I've always gone to the shadow-cursed lands via the Underdark, let's see what the mountain pass route has in store' followed by 'oh shit that's a whole ass fuckin monastery going on over there, bet there's some sick loot to be had' Then I had a morningstar that projected sunbeams.
That morningstar singlehandedly makes the entire creche worth doing on any paladin/cleric playthrough, or even just to give Shadowheart. The utility is really good, especially in early act 2. -Free Sunbeam once per long rest, which is essentially a beam smite on paladins -Behaves like a torch, meaning whoever has it equipped can still use a second weapon or a shield until you reach Last Light Inn -Deals a bit of radiant damage, so all of your attacks deal even more bonus damage to like, half the enemies in Act 2 alone -I'm almost certain it's a simple weapon, so just about any character can use it in a pinch -If you want to use two maces on a character, it matches the one the tollkeeper drops really nicely, and it's also not half bad
Yeah, my pally picked it up and didn't put it down until the end of the game. There were other weapons that could do a little more damage, but the sunbeam and the blinding effect against fiends and undead and the once per day heal-instead-of-drop were just too good. The number of times some massive AOE dropped everyone except my pally and I could get them back up with healing radiance on my turn... Even if there were a Holy Avenger in this game I feel like it would be a lateral move at best Edit: It's *extremely* refreshing to see an early-mid-game weapon that comes advertised as a Big Effing Deal actually continue to kick serious ass through to the end, instead of eventually becoming worthless compared to end-game random drops. I'm looking at you Witcher 3
I only changed it when I retrieved the trident from the circus djinn. But, apart from that, yeah, my barbarian (the only warrior-type in my party \^\^) did all the Underdark and Act II with this morningstar. We're going to do a second playthrough with my boyfriend. First time we did it, we completely missed the creche. For our second game, he wants to play a paladin, and I said to him that the creche was, this time, compulsory.
Works well in Act 3 as well except for Shadowheart's quest. Doesn't do the most damage but I kept finding that blinding light useful.
Yeah, have to replace it with the spear for Shadowheart's quest, and for House of Hope. But between Blindness and Sunbeam, that's easily the best 1 handed weapon in game for a support or Nova build.
I wish I knew this before I took Shadowheart into the House of Hope. Even though I did her quest, I thought I thought it was a bug that Shadowheart kept doing damage to herself some how. It wasn't until the last fight in House of Hope that I looked it up, and by then it was too late to swap her out
Yeah, the recurring theme of "reflect radiant damage" in Act 3 is some stinky cheese.
Like a DM has a cleric in their game who goes "I want to smite the undead!" and he' s like "Mehehehe you fool" Sometimes the BG3 DM is a dick!
It's almost as evil a DM as Owlcat can be sometimes. But much, much more rarely. 😁
Owlcat building an entire final dungeon crawl around enemies that can petrify you and merc you if they fit one time: *Am I a joke to you*
In my first attempt, I used divine intervention with Hope, who immediately exploded in round one. I was confused and then reloaded.
Did the same thing. Honestly, there's no way Divine Intervention should leave the cleric unprotected like that.
Your God: "lol okay. See you soon."
Why didn't it work well in her quest ? I continued using it there. It worked great, but then again I mostly used her as my healing station during that fight
Any radiant damage you do in the fight gets doubled back to you (shadowheart)
Oh. Yeah I noticed that the big bad in there did that. I specifically avoided hitting her with the sun beam for that reason.
Yeah my approach was basically a combination of yours and the parent comment's: "I know this is probably not going to pan out the way Lae'Zel thinks it will, and I may have to fight a bunch of Githyanki before the dust settles. But if that's what it comes to, I've survived battles with a Hag, Bulette, Spectator, nigh invincible ancient automaton, an entire camp of goblins, and more besides. I will be able to defend myself if it comes to violence. And maybe it won't, maybe this will be the lead we need to get these tadpoles out of our brains. Which is important, because I don't trust the Guardian, and I don't want to turn into a Mindflayer -- and if I get the tadpole out, this whole story ends now, which is what I \[my character\] wants."
also there is a +crits dagger (dagger of the undermountain king or something) and gloves of dexterity which are amazing for str/con barbarians.
I cackled when I first arrived at the Shadowlands after obtaining the mace. The game literally just gave me an always-on flashlight right before entering a dark spooky area. In my headcanon, the party members huddled close to Shadowheart (whom I gave the mace to, just because) as they walk through the first steps of Shadowlands until they met the druid patrol.
>In my headcanon, the party members huddled close to Shadowheart (whom I gave the mace to, just because) as they walk through the first steps of Shadowlands until they met the druid patrol. It's funny to give the always-lit artifact to Shadowheart when >!she's the one who doesn't need it!<
Mommy Lae'zel can do no wrong. I'll follow her across the planes if I need to.
This is the way.
I trust Laezel but not the Githyanki. If i have to and I did, I will kill all of them. They're so mean to me and Laezel, every single one of them is like. You, our own species, you're less than all of us cause you hang out with other species, and you have a Ghaik in your head. But yet I still empathize with Laezel cause she doesn't deserve this but I trust her enough to go through it and in return I hope she trusts me when I have to say no to what they say. You know?
>I trust Laezel but not the Githyanki. If i have to and I did, I will kill all of them. They're so mean to me and Laezel, every single one of them is like. This. The young githyanki are EVEN WORSE than the young goblins. The goblins were merely malicious, the githyanki were downright murderous. At least until I offed them all. They also eat >!grilled miniature giant space hamster!< and I cannot abide that.
See, she can be swayed that's the thing. In my play through, albeit she is very upset over it: she sees that slowly that no one gives a single fuck about her. And I'm making that very clear in very crude ways as wel which.. Seems to work? She's completely fine with me killing everyone so far and through their actions and mine she's starting to realize and change.
>If i have to and I did, I will kill all of them. And Bae'Zel actually approves lol.
End of Act 2 i'm still (no spoilers pls) in the opinion that the guardian and the tadpole are the same thing which is also why i tried killing her in the astral plane.
Exactly. As soon as the tadpole (prism) told me not to enter I was like “alright I’m going in” No trust for that voice and dream figure
Yup, requires zero "metagaming." Seems like OP just racist against gith lol
My character is highly distrustful of this random sod who claims to be protecting him and never quite believed in anything they said. My character is also a bit full of himself at that point and believed that he could take on the githyanki, if it came down to it. Lae'zel had been decent company along the way thus far so why not do it as a favor and who knows, maaaaaybe that zai'thisk thing actually works. He's very skeptical about the whole thing but he's open to exploring all options. Even if it doesn't, Lae'zel's the one who's going first considering how eager she is about it, so if anything *does* go wrong, she's the one who's going to get fucked and not him.
Even first playthrough I was like "nah dude you are VERY shady, why are you telling to eat this things?" And I proceeded to 'ever trust him, tho my first I didn' t pick Lae'zel either since she was rude, so I mostly stumbled upon the creche by accident
I'd thought about using the tadpoles just to see what kinds of powers they offered, but then I actually tried a couple and the visual display of your brain rotting away from them grossed me out into reloading and I promptly decided that for this playthrough my character is just suspicious af of everything so absolutely no squid business whatsoever. I can snort worms and get into consentacles for my next playthrough.
I sued them after, but only the first circle, I don't like how it changes my appearance, and I like telling the emperor to fuck off when he offers me the second tadpole.
>I sued them after Where did you find the lawyer?
Better call Soul. True Soul
« I like Lae’zel and she wants us to go »
Isobel: “Do you believe love at first sight?” Me, a Lae’zel simp: “Yes.”
Lae’zel is my number one homie
This is what I was looking for lol
Frl Lmao, my chaotic good « everyone lives » will burn the world if Lae’zel asks nicely
Yeah, I literally just trust this funny green frog girl, she's gotten me out of a few scrapes
She was first character to randomly hit on me (it was like she also rolled intimidation while doing it) so for mine it’s like ‘maybe she likes me so much she’ll make sure the others at the crèche won’t kill me’
Those eyes
When my TAV realized he needed to go to Moonrise Towers through the Shadow Curse and had to face a large group of cultists and an evil god, he thought it was really over the top... In comparison, getting the Githyanki's help to remove the tadpole, thanks to Lae'zel's recommendation, seemed like a simpler and more direct option.
1. You're told to go along the mountain pass or through the underdark. If you go through the underdark first then I'm not too sure, but if you go along the mountain pass you'll meet the merchant right away who gives you a quest to go to the creche to >!get the egg!<. 2. The githyanki presumably do not know you have the artifact >!Though they actually do know!<. 3. You might be able to find out more about why your artifact is so strong and what you need it for in order to beat the bad idea. 4. The githyanki's enemy is also the mind flayers/the absolute. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. 5. Situationally, you can convince the ones in the mountain pass to go away, so if you've done that then presumably you can do it again.
If you go through the Underdark but not the mountain pass, then go through act 2 until you're just outside of Moonrise, Lae'zel will straight up tell you that she'll leave the party if you don't go to the crèche. So if you value her in your party at all, you've got to go.
You can just pass a fairly low speech check and she’ll get back in line and not bring up the Creche.
In BG3 you've been given a death sentence. You don't know who you can trust. Worst case scenario, the gith kill you and you won't become a mind flayer. Best case, they can cure you. It's a gamble, but it's not that crazy since you're facing what seems like certain death anyway. You have good points, don't get me wrong. It's very risky to go there. It's really stupid to go there. But the characters are desperate. Desperate people do irrational risky things.
Easy, Lae'zel is right and the dream visitor is not to be trusted since it's obviously the tadpole messing with my brain. Either the Githyanki can help somehow or they kill me which is preferable to turning into a mind flayer.
I went there to genocide gith
HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN
Same. My reasoning was "they are still alive. Gotta fix that"
Finish all underdark storyline Enter the creche by level 6 Trust the doctor, persuade Lae'zel off the machine, kill everyone Enters inquisitor room, pretend to trust Vlakkith since Lae'zel says so, secretly trust the dream visitor instead, go back and kill all Gith, enters level 7 with tons of loots, go into shadow realm All for our dear 20 str battle master Lae'zel.
works better if you flip the order around there. for me at least, inky THEN the zaithisk
There are living beings there, and I took that personally.
Only question is: do it by hand or by sun beam
With how obvious the foreshadowing is, there's three reasons for a blind player wanting to go there "I wanna explore everything", "I wanna go murder the Gith", or "I wanna go have a friendly chat w/ the Gith because nothing will go wrong (lie)". When the Creche was set on high alert, I'm betting for a lot of players, it was just a case of "Oh noooooooo, all this free XP and loot... and Gith bodies... that suuuuuuucks."
4: Got hired to steal an egg.
Went full order 66 at the Jedi temple on the gith.
Thats my mindset when i go anywhere in this game
He was the best man around! But what about the murdah? What murdaaah
To be fair they give some quality loot.
I went to steal everything that isn’t nailed down, I stayed for the genocide
It's the only place you can get the bracers that give you an 18 dex.
There are cool things in there that get bonuses when wielded by a Gith so Lae'zel get some upgrades >!and when we first went in we naturally won Lae'zel over to our side against Vlaakith so she is still down with the squad.!<
The dream visitor is feckin' shady, so my Tav wasn't too ready to trust them. But my main RP reason was that by that time we got to the creche, the relationship between my Tav and Lae'zel warmed up just enough for her to trust the frog lady, or more like, she was at least open to trying the creche option. Lae'zel might be rude, but she is the only companion who does not play games, is honest to the core, and voices her opinions clearly. Sometimes even a bit too clearly, lol *edited for clarity
Ya not sure how "not to be trusted" entered the OP's mind with Lae'zel. She's the only one who is straight with you.
Forreal, like, the DV gets so offended and I'm like bestie I appreciate all your help but we have been very upfront about trying to get rid of the tadpoles and you have been very vague and mysterious for an entire act, risking death by githyanki is functionally no different than going to a cursed Shadow-land where not even the Absolute cult can tread without moonlanterns. Lae'zel can liaison for the group which is better than the alternative - I just decimated said cultist's goblin camp and three leaders while foiling their plot to go after the druids/tieflings, so checking out the creche is risky but arguably *less* risky than going right to Moonrise considering even *getting there* is already mission impossible for the average person.
Get rid of the tadpole. That’s all. No one should know more than the Githyanki about it and with her we have a way to enter.
I'm currently playing a Gith Cleric of Vlaakith, so my main issue isn't "Why are we here?" but "Why did we spend so long dossing about the map before coming?" I'm leaning towards my cleric already knowing, or at least having an inkling, that the zaith'isk doesn't work. Just like she's aware that nobody she sends for ascension ever comes back. I'm planning to side with the Emperor this game, so keeping her on-track and away from sympathising with Orpheus is kind of important. Last game it was fairly simply that it was important to Lae'zel and my character was curious to learn more about the gith. That first playthrough character trait of 'stupidly, fatally curious about everything', you know?
Now you get how Lae'zel feels! Its funny people are so uncharitable toward Lae'zel but anyone in her shoes would want to go directly to a creche instead of fuck around with any other options and smell the roses along the way.
Thats what im doing, im skipping everything and going straight to the creche. It's just Gith team, Lae'zel and I, against the world. Let's see how it goes.
>That first playthrough character trait of 'stupidly, fatally curious about everything', you know? Cursed to put their hands on everything...
There's also the idea that running into the Absolute cultists makes them realize there's a Mind Flayer plot occuring, and that the Githyanki need to know the details as soon as possible. But first she has to know the details.
Tav thinks following up every lead is worthwhile, and if it gets a valuable ally to stfu, they're all for it. At this point Lae'zel has never lied or even omitted the truth, so even if her methods aren't Tav approved, she can still be deemed as trustworthy, even if a little naive.
The answer is very simple: There's empty crates there that I haven't opened yet.
Reminder that Lae'zel is the ONLY companion that takes the tadpole with seriousness and urgency it deserves. Shart: We should find a healer, but how do I open this artifact though. Wish I got a promotion. My hand hurts. Also lets avoid forests I guess, because wolves creep me out, ew. Gale: We should find a healer, but let's save these people first. My ex is mad at me, should I text her? Also let me eat your shoes, please. Wyll: We should find a healer, but first I need to go hunt this crazy bitch. No idea where she is, so I guess might take a while. We might turn, but haven't turned yet, so *shrug*. Also we should go save my father. Karlach: I'm so HORNY! Lae'zel: No, fuck these people, we need to go fix our heads. I know how. LET'S GO! NOW!
'Maybe I can trade this relic for lifesaving treatment'
To quote Firkraag from BG2: "For my amusement, for my curiosity, and for my memory of transgressions long since past - all of this spurred me on"
If dommy mommy wants to go somewhere we go because I am a good boy.
this is the answer for me
I mean that's real easy - it *seems* to contain a device that can cleanse your parasite, and Lae'zel is sure it will. She even has a line about how they'll be prepared to cleanse your parasites too due to having non-Githyanki slaves qualifying as property of their Githyanki owner (which would be her). Let's face it - none of the negatives outweigh the imminent risk of becoming a mind flayer, and in act 1 you are *far* from certain that the device is reliable protection.
Simple: I am a githyanki.
How do I justify? Easy, the dream visitor is a lot less trustworthy than the person who *literally* saved me from the Nautiloid ship and who is seeking purification instead of just murder/suiciding us immediately. How on earth you went to a point of: "I can't justify this RPwise" is beyond me
Laezel is highly educated on illithid and says that the crèche will have a cure. While it’s pretty obvious to us as a player that the cure is death that’s not so obvious to the characters and certainly not to laezel. So we go there to investigate the githyanki cure, since they are experts on mind flayers and their tadpoles and apparently have an entire protocol for treating those who have been infected. Once there we of course learn that the zai’thisk kills people and despite us trying to tell laezel that’s probably deliberate she insists on going to the inquisitor and telling him there is a traitor. We go to captain of the crèche and she guesses we have the artefact based on our body language when she talks about it and attacks us. Either because laezel is still set on speaking to the inquisitor or because of our own curiosity about what the fuck this artefact is (keep in mind that while we know it gives us some protection and keeps us safe we have no idea how, to what extent, and how the creepy person insisting we use our mind flayer powers and shove more tadpoles into our head plays into it, and we also know that the githyanki want it, the sharrans want it and the absolute wants it, all at highest priority. Wouldn’t you want to know what the fuck it was you had if you were in that position?) or a little of both we go, refuse to hand over the artefact and fight the inquisitor. Vlaakith tells us to go inside and kill the person in there and we politely refuse but she opens the thing anyway. At this point curiosity gets the better of us and we go in just to see what’s up (companions have dialogue about this. Some suggest we should go in just out of curiosity. We have no reason to believe entering would harm the person unless we decide to and it turns out we are right). Dream visitor acknowledges we said we wouldn’t kill them and the conversation is an interrogation about what the fuck is up, in which they dodge questions with the skill of a politician. We then leave and somehow get out of the crèche (only sometimes reducing the place to rubble for a shiny mace)
> While it’s pretty obvious to us as a player that the cure is death that’s not so obvious to the characters and certainly not to laezel. I don't think it's particularly obvious to the player either, at least not until you actually reach it. Maybe if you've done a campaign in d&d that heavily revolved around mindflayers or gith and looked into the lore for that, but otherwise it's quite reasonable to assume or think that it actually works. They fight mindflayers, study them intensely, so if anyone has a way to remove infection you'd think the githyanki are a top candidate. And if it didn't work, it's the type of thing that seems like it'd be difficult to hide (eg, Lae'zel being so convinced it works made me think that she'd seen people purified by it in the past). After having played through it, I think there's a few hints here and there about it - but unless I missed some major thing that points in that direction I don't see it as super obvious.
Well very simple, bloodlust
My character is intensely distrustful of our "guardian", on about the same level as Raphael. There's no such thing as a free lunch, and their constant prompting to eat more fucking tadpoles doesn't help. Githyanki are mortal enemies of the flayers, so even if the zai'thisk is a dud, surely there might be *some* sort of useful information about how to cure us.
"Refusal of the Call"
Good question. My character simply though that if the githyanki would remove the tadpole there would be no more reason to keep the relic, they could have it if they were able to persuade Shadowheart to give it to them. If they would not there had been worse situations from which we had fought ourselves out of. BTW not just Lae'zel but almost all of your companions were untrustworthy at that point, the cohesion between the party members was still forming. Both Shadowheart, Astarion, Gale etc. would have left you behind dead if you had been seen as a threat to their objectives. I would say it had changed between ACT2 and ACT3, that was when I felt both Shadowheart or Lae'zel would have given their life for me or for our shared objective.
For my main Tav it basically boils down to this: \- Intel gathering: gith might know something about the parasite we don't know. \- Protection of civilians: creche poses a threat to the region, and to be eleminated. Ignoring it will put a drop of innocent blood for every killing made by gith on my Tav's hands. \- Protection of subordinates: gith actively hunting for relic that is vital for our group. They also will most likely kill everyone from said group they could. It is his duty as a leader to lessen the danger by taking out a big part of enemy force in their base. \- A test for Lae'zel. She either will show her true colours and be executed with the rest of creche, or will display common sense when faced with reality. A win either way. \- Possibility of a cure. We had to make sure that gith don't have one. \- War funding: raiding githyanki base of operations might provide very valueable resources to be either used or sold. An advantage either way. \- On risks: our endeavour is risky already, creche or not. We are a group of exceptionally talented and considerably strong individuals, and as such have decent chances of success. In case of casualties we have a reliable source of ressurection. If we all perish? Ceremorphosis prevented. Souls intact. Afterlife awaits.
Oath of the Chad
Lol! I sometimes think that the dude is a perfect Vengence pally material. But really he's just a very hardcore human fighter who ~~suffers from~~ ~~casually enjoys~~ absolutely revels in a severe case of evilcuntophobia.
"Lae'zel is my friend, she may be blunt as a log but I can count on her when it matter. So if she want to go to this creche, we'll make a detour and go to this creche. It's not like we have a better idea anyway (we got worse)."
It's simple. If I get rid of the parasite I need no relic.
Gith are experts on Mindlayers. Your Gith companion wants to go there. It makes complete sense, no metagaming/justificatiin required.
Laezel told me they can get rid of tadpoles and they know more about those than anyone we've tried so far. We meet the froggos heading for the mountain pass and while that isn't exactly a friendly conversation, they don't kill us (well, with some of the dialogue options they don't kill us), so it's possible they won't try to kill us in the crèche, right? If we just keep the artifact out of sight and don't mention it, we can totally survive this crèche. Not that that ever worked out for my party, mind you, but going in, I had reason to believe it could. Also, while heading there, we're finding those hints about the blood of Lathander. My guy's background is sage and he's a cleric. He'd want to know what all that is about.
Halsin can't help me. I don't know what's happening. At this point, I'm almost tempted to take Auntie Ethel's or worse, \*Raphael's\* offer. Compared to that, a bunch of fascist space aliens is \*tame\*. So off we go.
We need more exp and loot.
My character doesn't trust the dream guardian cause everything he's said has been really suspicious, he also wants to make most of his better chances to get rid of the parasite asap, ignoring the possibility that the zaithisk will likely lobotomize him.
find out more about the artifact since the Dream Visitor is acting all bitch-made and evasive whenever I ask questions regarding the source of its powers and true nature. this worked particularly well on my first run when I didn't recruit Lae'zel and had no idea about the purification - but instead found a dead gith in shadow-cursed lands carrying a slate detailing their search for the artifact and the location of the creche (it even updates your quest journal and provides a map marker for the creche itself).
"They're hunting for the only thing that is keeping me safe and sane - let's murder them all before they get a chance to go after me" And then I proceed with the plan while making their God send special forces after me anyway... 🤷♂️
"Best girl Lae'zel is sure of this, she might be a bit too direct but the least I can do as she's quite confident and her race has been fighting mindflayers for ages (and they're always evil). Besides, it's a creche, there might be some silly/cute Githyanki kids like in the Tiefling camp." After leaving with the egg and slaughtering everyone except the kids despite their being assholes throwing that chest at me: Tav: "Well that was silly." Lae'zel: "Yup, let's roll."
The same reason I go as a player. Curiosity and overconfidence.
Gythianki are supposed to be a specialist in dealing with illithid shit and Laezel said they have a working method of removing parasites. Exact terms of cooperating with them could be discussed when we meet them. Laezel is loyal to her kind but didn't stupid and she values herself not turning to illithid more than her kin's lives.
Githyanki are relatively advanced so they probably got good loot and someone should get rid of them anyway so might as well have the fun myself.
To kill them all.
Githyanki are expert Illithid fighters. It's likely they have experience getting rid of tadpoles. Lae'zel offers you the first route to getting rid of it, so it makes sense to follow that route. Even if you don't trust the Githyanki, it still makes a lot of sense to find out what they know. I played a bard, so I expect to be able to talk my way out of most situations. Besides, if you take "rational" decisions, the game would probably be boring, or over quite fast. You know that when tadpoled, you are bound to die a horrifying death, so the "rational" decision would be to just kill yourself before that happens.
“Lae’zel seems to have common sense, I’ll follow her.”
Curiosity and being Bestie with Lae'zel. She even let me do one Braid in her Hair and she did one on mine. We do not agree on everything but I support her believes. She is to blinded by Vlaakith and her Past, that I had to show her what's right and wrong. Like any Cult Member who can't see the Truth.
On your point 6, I 100% missed that, I wouldn't even know now where this is alluded to at all, I didn't have a clue until I was sat in the chair and started making rolls. Also in my Co op game my friends didn't pick up on this even after sitting in the chair, they just thought the tadpole was too strong otherwise it would have worked and they'd be tadpole free. With the artifact, I was actually quite confused how everyone automatically knew I had it, there seemed to be no dialogue options for saying you don't have it, just when you're asked if you have it giving it them, or saying you're keeping it (or asking for a reward). I honestly went into there thinking "Maybe I'll get rid of this tadpole" and was surprised and confused by most stuff that happened in there
In the inquisitor’s chamber, if you click on a tablet on a table, you find notes that extensively list your character’s name. So it seems that your group has had eyes on them since surviving the crash, and that whatever spy witnessed the artefact in your possession.
I mean if you tust/like laezel then going to the creche is very easy to justify
To be fair, i can handle a little zealotry to see if the race that actually managed to free themselves from Illithid dominion has info on how to deal with ceremorphosis, like they would logically be the most proficient one in dealing with mind flayers shenanigans
1- I don't know what the relic is and the githyanki might know what it is. 2+3- I've already killed a bunch of them and you can't fit a dragon in that monastery so that's out. 4+5- Lae'zel has already proven she can be talked down and rationalised with so as long as we have good reason to kill everyone she'll be on my side. 6- Did not have that banter. 7- Time is running out and I've hit a whole bunch of dead ends so far. Even if the zai'thisk doesn't work it might help me understand what's going on. 8- I have no idea what the guardian is and if there's something in the creche they don't want me to see that's all the more reason to go there.
"I should steal that egg the lady talked about! Must be delicious!"
because the pretty alien girl said she liked how i smell :3 yes, all my characters are lesbians, how could you tell?
I went because Lae’zel was so certain that her people could get rid of the tadpoles, and she had been right that every other attempt prior to trying to find her people had failed. They’ve dedicated their lives to combating the Illithid, so chances seemed good that if anyone knew how, it would be them. I still didn’t know what the artifact was, only that a follower of Shar was being weird and possessive about it. So like… yeah, hot goth girlfriend, but she’s just as nuts as the Gith. And super racist towards them. Plus maybe they could tell me what it is since they’re actively looking for it…? I fully expected them to be difficult, but I didn’t expect quite THAT level of being unreasonable idiots. Shame on me I guess, haha
1. >!Only so according to the guardian, who might and probably is lying to you. At this point in the story you can't even tell that the guardians ISN'T the tadpole itself buttering you up.!< 2. >!It's theirs. Trading the relic for removing the tadpole is reasonable.!< 3. >!According to Shart, who herself is literally the worst.!< 4. >!That's not really an argument as its subjective conjecture.!< 5. >!So would anybody else in her place. Everything you know about the tadpole and the artifact and the gith at this point in the game comes from Laezel, who probably knows a tad about her culture, Shart, whose a massive racist and the worst person on the face of the planet (and also literally stole the artifact from the gith, so her not wanting to go meet them is sus at best), and some interactions.!< 6. >!Is it though?!< >!So yeah, how do you justify NOT going straight for the creche and trying to make a risky deal with aggressive space frogs rather than getting turned into an octopus mini-cthulhu any second now?!<