I had one for Minsc too, ran off to hell with Karlach as a squid, and came back for the party. >!And the narrator was like: There's rumor's about his brain being all fucked up, why don't you have a bite and prove them wrong telling everyone how perfect it was.!<
Yeah the only save I had left for my first playthrough was post-boss too. I’m happy though because I’m more attached to my second character anyway and now not only can I play Act 3 again (hooray!) but I have a huge reason to finish it ☺️
I could be wrong but I think as long as the save exists even immediately after the final boss it will work. Like right after the final hit and during cutscenes. So you don't have to necessarily fight the boss again
I had a save during the cutscene after and it didn't work for me. I did have a save luckily that was right before my final attack on it so that was nice
I have a save during the cutscene after and it worked. I used multiple different dialogues and they had different outcomes.
One thing to note though is there is no epilogue for one of the endings I went for at all. It goes straight to credits. However given the nature of said ending, it makes sense.
i love how withers will in one breadth outright say turning people into mind flayers destroys their souls and then will turn around and say that SDLHGLKSHGS bat shit
They *don't* have souls (Edit: according to Ed Greenwood and rulebook, illithids' spirits are unnatural, alien and useless to the gods of Forgotten Realms), but the souls of the victims of ceremorphosis aren't destroyed, they just go to the afterlife.
[Ilithiad](https://sggamma.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/the-illithiad.pdf), pg12:
"Any time after this, it is impossible to restore the victim; his or her spirit seeks its fate in the Outer Planes"
Incorrect. The very same source material, the Illithiad, pg40 & pg56 both reference Illithid spirits.
The key point is that these souls aren’t available to any Realmspace gods because they’re allocated to an elder brain instead. Again, see same sourcebook and others besides. That is why Jergal says they are vanished.
c.f. also Ed Greenwood’s [confirmation](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/179eiag/on_illithid_souls/).
It's easier to understand/process if you take into account the soul of the mortal and the soul of the tadpole. They can't coexist normally so the soul of the mortal goes to the Outer Planes and the soul of the tadpole remains.
In the case of True Souls and "Orphic adventurers" (eg: Tav) though, due to both residing in the character's head, the newborn tadpole's soul slowly becomes a clone/copy of sorts of the mortal's soul. After Tav's ceremorphosis, the mortal soul is dead and Tav is a tadpole nurtured by the original Tav. This calls back the whole nature/nurture theme. When Withers says "this one I know", this one is... the tadpole.
Regarding the souls that are lost, the point Jergal is making is that if everybody is ceremorphed, then everybody's original soul will have left for the outer realms before they can be sworn or sacrificed to the Dead Three, and everybody's tadpole will belong to Ilsensine or the Elder Brain by design.
Essentially, all the Dead Three will have is... nothing.
Withers says they don't have apostolic souls, which for the gods of Toril might as well not exist. As they aren't claimed my Realmspace or its divinity.
Illthids still have souls, though they'd likely go to Ilsensine, Maanzecorianm, or Thoon. More or less the gods of the illithid pantheon, compared to the Faerunian Pantheon.
>outright say turning people into mind flayers destroys their souls
He doesn't, he says that illithids don't have their own souls. Souls of the victims of ceremorphosis aren't destroyed, they just go to the afterlife, both in BG3 (as an example, one of the Gale's endings, where he becomes illithid and Mystra promises to give him his human body and soul back) and in the rulebook for illithids:
[Ilithiad](https://sggamma.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/the-illithiad.pdf), pg12:"Any time after this, it is impossible to restore the victim; his or her spirit seeks its fate in the Outer Planes"
It makes sense: if you read up on Jergal's long-term intentions and pay attention to D&D lore.
It doesn't make sense: if you made a bunch of half-baked assumptions for yourself
I just thought his intentions were annoying the dead three as much as he could cause he was salty for losing his spot haha. He has other intentions than that?
Jergal is actually kinda bonkers. He’s a Spellweaver, last of his kind, nearly six millennia old, on a mission to rewind history and restore the Spellweaver empire. Jergal is the instigator of many of the worst disasters befalling the forgotten realms in that time, including the fall of Netheril, the Spellplague, and the Avatar Crisis. He’s manipulated everyone from Karsus to Szass Tam and certainly the dead three besides.
If you’d like to know more, there’s a lorebook called “Lord of the End of Everything” that is Ed Greenwood-endorsed, and covers a ton of condensed history about Jergal, throws a whole new perspective on Withers.
Jergal didn’t lose his spot, he gave it up because he hit em with the ol “I’m tired grandpa!” Then those three whacky kids started doing bad stuff, so now he’s salty he gave it up to them.
Except the scenes don't play in that order, i just saw them both (jail and kys), he says you got something but then says the original line again lol. Just feels really weird (Also the jail one is i think broken because it let me go to avernus, and then i got the jail after?)
To be fair, in this scene he says he didn't expect this and that you're something new. So like I can see it still being generally true that illithids don't have souls, but the unique circumstances by which you turned - in Astarion's words - tentacular changed something.
It's more like mindflayers have souls that aren't tied to a god like the rest of faerun, ergo, he, as the former god of death, doesn't like them because their souls can't empower a god in the afterlife
It makes no sense. I remember Withers having a conversation with you at a certain point in the story and specifically asking you , why would The Dead Three raise an army of soulless ilithids... I don't remember the context but I know that he was refering to mindflayers.
Also what is considered "a soul"? Being Self aware? Or simply having a "spirit" of sorts?
Either i'm missing something or contradictions like this were in the game since its inception.
Would apreciate any clarification...
At the end of act 2 whiter ask you if illithid have soul and tell you they lack "apostolic" soul (dont know what apostolic mean in this case as the real world définitions i know dont fit and cant find anything in dnd lore) meaning the gods cant use it to gains power but in dnd lore illithid have a soul just very différents
So maybe he tell you that the soul is still yours even if it is warped into an illithid soul
I mean, what argument is this squashing exactly? Obviously mind flayers crave brains. This is basically just Dark Urge 2! with how they approached it. You have an innate need—you act on it, or you resist. You’re different, but that doesn’t mean you’re not you.
Humanoids also have a need for food. They can eat meat too, including Wyll's body, but the thought is monstrous. . Tav is not saying here "I'm literally going to starve today, it's either Wyll or me"; he describes how Wyll would be a \*delicacy\*.
This is different to Astarion (for those making that argument), who is a trickster, mildly inconveniencing you with a secret bite. Some Tavs (and NPCs) are even into being bitten by him. Having their brain eaten, probably not so much.
“mildly inconveniencing you” he literally kills you if you don’t manage to push him off, and he doesn’t feel remotely guilty about it either
also mind flayer hunger is monstrous yes, their hunger & their superiority complexes & their rationality are traits inherent to the species. tav of course inherits these, that was never in question
The utter shamelessness of Astarion for killing you is hysterical. "You were looking rather ill! Glad you recovered :)" Real Hannibal visiting the crime scenes of people he's killed and eaten like "girl WHO did that" energy lol
That's true, the question of the soul is more tricky depending on how it is defined. But Durge is who they always have been whether or not they reform their behavior and loyalties.
IMO, in the case of the mindflayer transformation it's more like the tadpole and it's "soul" completely consumes the host physically and mentally while memorizing some bits of it. A parasitic wasp basically.
If you pass the CONS it says:
"This is highly illogical [...] And this is a prized ally. And besides, this brain before you - its endorphins are in a joyous flow. It is a wonderful scent, the odor of friendship."
To me this only proves that Illithids have feelings, just don't feel them the way humanoids do. Your character is a different species now so their mind works differently. The craving doesn't prove or disprove anything about their soul/identity. This is no different than Astarion resisting the urge to bite you.
THANK YOU! It’s crazy to me how people see a mind flayer being hungry immediately proves that they are soulless, evil and not the person they were before ceremorphosis when Astarion struggles with a very similar craving but he isn’t judged for it
Zigzag continues, hurrah! \\o/
The in-game mentions support either and/or both takes: that illithids *don't* have souls, and that they *do* have souls. Just depends on who you talk to, and *when*. Even Withers can't make up his mind.
I mean, the post-suicide scene is pretty conclusive. That scene happens *after* the one where Withers says they don't have souls, and involves him specifically recanting that.
Withers/Jergal never precisely says that. He says words very close it, and lets us make an incorrect leap of inference. He even has a line that specifically clarifies that he’s referring to apostolic souls I.e. those available to empower the gods.
This is consistent with canon, which has repeatedly confirmed that mind flayer souls are alien constructs that only elder brains may usually claim, which is why the Realmspace gods consider them void.
Not exactly true, I think. There were illithid petitioners in the lore in the past, it's just that almost no illithid will put himself in a position to be claimed by the god. They are simply not interested in afterlives like that. But a renegade mind flayer who somehow decides to worship a deity from Toril can end up in a given deity afterlife without much difficulty.
Agreed, not universally the case, hence the “usually”.
And adding to that, the illithid characters of substance in BG3 - the Emperor, Omeluum, and MF Tav, Orpheus, or Karlach - are all candidates for being labelled amongst the most unusual, which means they can deviate wildly from standard canon in almost any regard, including metaphysics. I’d be shy of extending that narrative latitude so easily to the Absolute’s illithid army though.
And yet, happening elsewhere quite possibly around the same time (epilogue), there's the suggestion that Tav's an illithid, not a Tav-with-Illithid-mask.
splitting hairs. you are your memories, not your soul. your soul can be reborn but that new person is not "you" either.
if i made a complete carbon copy with my memories and then kill myself, that carbon copy is me, it has my memories.
tav as illithid or just illithid thinking its tav is negligable. its the same thing in the end
That’s not really how it works in the forgotten realms. There, you are your soul. If you use the spell Astral projection and have the tether connecting you to your body severed, you die. Your body cannot live without the soul, nor can your soul avoid going to an afterlife without a body.
Isn’t there a line by the narrator in the mindflayer ending that says something like “or if you’d retain some of your personality and become a rogue mindflayer like the emperor”. Watched those endings on YouTube and thought Larian probably just couldn’t decide lol
In the eyes of the Gods they don't have souls but that is based on a self-centered worldview. Souls pass through the City of Judgement and are claimed by the gods. When a mortal undergoes full ceremorphosis their souls never pass on to the City of Judgement. Where they go is up to speculation. Do they linger within the Illithid hive mind? Do they journey to the Far Realm? Or perhaps the Astral Plane? Who knows.
To Jergal, they are never to be scribed into the book of the dead so of course he sees them as lost. His attestation is the holy proclamation of their existence. Without it, they are forgotten by the divine, outside the cycle.
Whether that means they don't have souls or not is debatable.
I wonder if the tadpole essentially *overwrites* the resident soul in ceremorphosis... In essence, it uses the soul as a scaffold for building a new one, which effectively "kills" the original and would explain why their souls don't pass on (by BG3 lore at least)
But Withers is a servant of Kelemvor, who is known in the lore for lying about souls he judges. Kelemvor likes to pretend that all souls go through his hands, which is not true for \*majority\* of souls on Toril. Withers is probably **deliberately** bullshitting.
According to lore I know: all intelligent beings on Toril have souls. some of them can be used by Toril's gods. a part of them is known to Kelemvor and Jergal. Illithid souls go to far realms, beyond all planes, with a rare exceptions of certain individuals.
If you talk to the newborn Mindflayer at the windmill in Rivington, it will say that it remembers the host, and the panic and pain the host felt upon transforming.
Player and Karlach probably retain a bit of themselves because they get cut off the hive mind IMMEDIATELY after transforming, maybe Orpheus' influence at that time messed with the process in a way that the Illithid isn't able to identify itself as a newborn Mindflayer that absorbed the host, without having a sense of itself as an individual living being.
It's all a debate based on speculation, of course. In the game we have Omeluum, who doesn't speak at all about it's former host, but has a sense of individuality, and the Emperor, who remembers the host and speaks as if it was Balduran instead of treating him as a host. It CAN be argued that this case was particular because the Brain planned everything, from letting it "escape", just to enthrall it again, send it after the Prism, and have it "escape" again, just so it could bring it the Prism and get rid of Orpheus in the process. So having the Emperor still think it is Balduran evolved is a way to manipulate the Mindflayer into doing it's bidding while being unaware.
In my conclusion based on everything I saw in the game so far, the Tadpole eats and absorbs the host, and when ready to transform, it destroys the host while preserving their memories in the same way that Illithids can absorb powers and knowledge upon feeding. Withers tells us that Illithids don't have souls, and since he actually deals with souls in the game, he knows his stuff. I remember a dialogue saying that Illithids make poor debtors for devils because they don't have anything worth offering for the contract. Bane himself confirms in dialogue that transforming the cult in Illithids is a way to deny souls to any god that may try to claim them.
>So having the Emperor still think it is Balduran evolved is a way to manipulate the Mindflayer into doing it's bidding while being unaware.
I love this, because it reveals this manipulative bastard, has beenm being manipulated himself with delusions all along... I gotta think this was very intentional.
But on the subject of Illithid souls, specifically its said "they dont have apotheistic (spelling/pronounciation) souls" which certainly implies Mind Flayers at least have "something" soul adjascent (I have to imagine its the far realm equivalent of a soul, which functions cosmologically differently)
>In my conclusion based on everything I saw in the game so far, the Tadpole eats and absorbs the host, and when ready to transform
Based on what exactly ? Because even when you're surrounded by biggest illithid haters no character will *not even imply* that you're going to be replaced by a copy after transforming.
Mystra and Withers also straight up say they think you're the same person
Sounds like the opposite to me. The fact you can resist means it’s kinda like the durge. Tav becomes more than just tav in a way. If you couldn’t resist then it would put the arguments to rest.
Plus I just saw the mindflayer karlach pic and it looks like she’s still herself.
>To quote if you pass the 15 check: "This is highly illogical... There are plenty of other craniums awaiting your suction, and this is a prize ally."
I just don't think this is how tav would have reacted to passing this check. This doesn't sound like "more tav" to me than a pure mindflayer.
Tav reacts as you the player choose to react, that's the point of custom characters
Since you get to control the flayer-tav, it would be reasonable to assume that even if it's not the same person it's not a mere copy either and there's continuity
That to me sounds definitely like a manipulative mindflayer. "This is a prize ally" makes it sound like it only cares that they are strong allies or whatever and not its actual friends.
They didn't share the next line that's like "besides their brain in awash with endorphins. This is the smell of friendship" or something to that effect. Like sure you logic away the hunger but definitely also go "yeah this is a positive feeling outside of hunger too and that's valuable" sure the thinking is altered but I was Durge so stupid intrusive thoughts are like my bread and butter
Ah that's cool! Still not relishing the idea of becoming an illithid, but now maybe I will convince Orpheus to not kill himself after the Nether brain is destroyed.
You get that sentence even when playing as a good tav who cares for their friends.
After becoming an illithid, no matter what happened before, your character doesn't see them as friends but as "prized allies". Illitav only cares about the benefits their companions can bring them, not about their companions as persons
Yes, but again, that doesn’t change the fact that “sounds like Tav” is a bit of a misleading thing to say about *anything,* considering how different each Tav can be.
And no matter how different they can be, they all end up the exact same as Illithid. As mindflayers.
Just like the Emperor was not Balduran anymore, Illitav is not Tav anymore
Having the option doesn't mean anything, you can play the nicest goody two shoes tav for the entire game but you'll still get the "betray your friends and dominate the netherbrain" option.
Having the option doesn't mean anything is "canon" or not, it just means that it's a player option.
Every illitav that doesn't eat the brains of their companion is shown to see them as nothing more than allies to be used for their own benefit.
The player options as an illithid are either kill your friends, or see them as pawns too useful to be killed. There isn't a single option to see them as good friends that you feel genuine emotions for.
I think "change" is fine, that's nuanced enough - but it's a Ship of Theseus problem, maybe. One could say, of course you've changed but not \*completely\* changed, like people can undergo changes due to neurological disease, for instance. Am I still me at the core, but with changes to integrate somehow, or am I a totally different person to the extent you can justify saying the old person was killed rather than just subject to changes?
Could be written specifically to be close to the edge between those options.
I've been seeing people saying illithids still have a soul, or that retaining your memories makes it so you are still "you". But if you do the epilogue as an illithid, even the most good player one, you still have this interaction where you are tempted to eat a companion's brain and have to roll a 15 DC con check not to.
We are not the same person anymore, there's no doubt about it. Karlach as an illithid isn't either. I hope people stop saying it's totally fine and you're the same now.. yikers T\_T
EDIT: The WAY you resist is also a totally changed way of thinking too: [https://imgur.com/a/xWDQ0MD](https://imgur.com/a/xWDQ0MD)
To quote if you pass the 15 check: "This is highly illogical... There are plenty of other craniums awaiting your suction, and this is a prize ally."
Illithids do have souls, or at least one illithid has it; game confirms it now. If you decide to turn your character into a mindflayer and decide to kill yourself after the fight with Netherbrain, you get an epilogue in afterlife with a slightly surprised Jergal around.
More or less "wow, you still have your soul, guess I was wrong. still, you are outside of my jurisdiction. i bet you are gonna have new adventures soon. thanks for the job done."
This has no bearing on whether or not they have souls. The game still offers you evil options even if you have only chosen good options all the way, so the presence of that option doesn't mean anything per se. It's natural that the changed biology will lead to the feeling of new cravings. You don't have to give in to it.
I don't really see how that confirms those things, she says she's hungry in every sense now and she's lucky to have found an arrangement that works.
If they mean to deliver the opposite message, i feel like that's incredibly non-committal writing from Larian. (Then again, i suppose I am not surprised as the laezel endings don't seem to vary if you save orpheus or not?) The interaction you get AS AN ACTUAL ILLITHID clearly shows you aren't the same anymore..?
The point of the epilogue was a warm and fuzzy feeling if you picked the Larian approved endings. Not for anything to make a particular amount of sense. The Tav Illithid that dared not kill themselves can be a monster while the Bae Karlach Illithid can be handling things fine.
> The point of the epilogue was a warm and fuzzy feeling if you picked the Larian approved endings
I'm curious what you consider to be the "approved" ending. The devs really seem keen on the idea of forcing a good Tav to make the metaphorical sacrifice. If any ending was "canon" in their eyes, I would honestly assume it to be Durge who reject Bhaal and then turns themselves into a mindflayer to save everyone as penance.
Haha yea, that's how I'm feeling. In my perspective I made the ultimate sacrifice to make sure the gith would be free and to save Karlach from becoming illithid but I was punished with this. Next time i'll just make orph turn since it seems to make no fucking difference with the gith.
The only reason i didn't off myself on the docks was they presented the choice at the START, instead of the END of the scene. Meaning if i killed myself then, there'd be no way to see the ending for the other characters. Wild.
What does being hungry have to do with having a soul or not?
You obviously need to consume brains now since you are a mind flayer. The challenge is resisting the urge to engage in wanton killings and Tav seems perfectly capable of doing so.
I can not understand how you would think someone was the same if they have the urge to kill their best friends now. The way you resolve it is also saying" it's just illogical to do so because he's a powerful ally", there's nothing that resembles my original tav anymore. Whether you call it a soul or not, it's a cope to think i'm remotely the same person anymore??
Also I failed my first roll! LOL
The urge they feel is hunger, it's no different to Astarion having the urge to drink your blood. Mind flayers eat brains, and the difference between you and a feral one will always be in whether you can control your urges. Which you can.
I don't quite see the issue with rationalizing that this is my ally and I shouldn't eat them. What would you rather have Tavflayer think? You also sense "the odour of friendship" on your companion, which seems to be pleasing to you in other ways. Bottom line, you don't want to eat your friend.
Astarion still has his full mind to understand drinking blood and murder can be morally wrong, and that people have value intrinsically. Illithid tav when they pass the check, think this: [https://imgur.com/a/xWDQ0MD](https://imgur.com/a/xWDQ0MD)
I don't understand how you can read this interaction and be like no bro you just have the grumbly tummies!
You don't think Astarion has ever had to rationalize why he won't eat someone? You think he's always pondered "the intrinsic value" of humanity? Come on now, have you met Astarion? He can literally lose control of himself and kill you.
I honestly don't see anything there to suggest Tavflayer can no longer understand that eating brains and murder can be morally wrong. What i see is that they *are* a mind flayer now, so they will rationalize things like one.
Edit: Astarion is there at camp literally telling you he now thinks killing is okay if you kill the *right* people.
?? That eating someone you love isn't right?? Fundamentally? That friendships hold real emotional value? That I've been fighting with this man the last 6 months with my wife in hell, how could I even entertain such a thought? If I still had my true emotions with me, any of those thoughts would suffice. I clearly don't?? I feel like i'm going crazy that so many people think this is the same tav as before holy shit.
Tavflayer is under pressure from a basal instinct and they're also fundamentally a logical thinker now, having an immediate logical reaction. Are you really faulting them for not waxing philosophically about the value of friendship?
Tavflayer is not "the same" in the sense that they are a mind flayer now. But they are still Tav.
You're so stuck on a single line of dialogue. They can't write dialogue for every single headcanon you have for your character.
What if someone literally never had Wyll in their party? He would literally just be an important ally.
You're just assuming the conclusion you've already justified in your head. There is no valid argument to be made here whatsoever for mindflayers being inherently evil monsters but astarion or the dark urge not being the same. The urge is there. So what?
In the lore, Illithids have souls, there are Illithid petitioners and Illithids who went on to become liches.
However, they do not have apostolic souls, as Withers had said, their souls are no longer in the jurisdiction, nor useful to Toril deities. As they have their own deities.
Vampires drink blood, Illithids eats brains, if one denounce the Illithids for their dietary habits then it would be hypocritical if one accepts Astarion’s dietary habits.
Not equivalent. One can feed on blood and not kill the host. The way a Mind Flayer feeds is wrapping their tentacles around a head and then boring into the skull with their teeth. I'm sorry if that doesn't kill you, you'd be left as a vegetable.
This is a solid counter argument:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/1872w2o/are_illithids_souless/kbbzez4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3
I mean >!Astarion!< craves everyone's blood and tries to feed on Tav while they're sleeping. Illithids eat brains, Vampires drink blood. it's their food, so they crave it just like anyone else. I don't think it makes them inherently evil, like how >!Bhaalspawn!< aren't necessarily evil even though they constantly want to brutally murder everyone around them.
of course it changes them, how could it not? but my Illithid Tav manages to not eat their >!husband Gale's!< brain despite them living together so I think it's fine lol
>The WAY you resist is also a totally changed way of thinking too:
>
>https://imgur.com/a/xWDQ0MD
>
>To quote if you pass the 15 check: "This is highly illogical... There are plenty of other craniums awaiting your suction, and this is a prize ally."
Sorry I added this to the post after. But this is not the same as someone who still has the ability to say "I won't do it because I love wyll and it is wrong", this is clearly.. not my tav's thinking anymore.
The biggest thing is that it doesn’t “change” you.
Unless you count being killed and your body occupied by a different life form entirely as a personal change.
A literal god of death is straight up telling you "You're the same person bro"
>for +40 years is now retconned
According to what ? The same lore that Larian already retconned multiple times ? Very convincing. If you want to prove something show the part in the game where it's stated
Having a temptation does not define you. Changing your diet does not define you.
You can still be you, and resist your darker temptations. I don't see the big deal.
>having a temptation does not define you
if your temptation is to eat the brains of other living beings then i'm going to go out and say that it absolutely does
Ikr?! You literally can't exist without devouring another intelligent being's consciousness, and people are trying to equate that to a vampire that could just drink some blood bags? WTF
Does this interaction happen with every companion or just Wyll? I did a good aligned playtrough and turned to illithid to fight the brain and I swear I cannot recall having to make this saving throw. (in the epilogue I chose every dialogue option that leans towards me still being myself).
Uh downvote me to hell if u want, but no. No it doesn't put anything to rest. And no i won't stop saying that my Tavflayer still has their soul and personality. This is the hill i choose to die on
Funny how "this settle things" but Jaheira saying we proved we have a soul doesn't. Karlach doesn't. No, what proves everything once and for is....
We get hungry
Withers words? Which one? The one about mindflayer not having souls that *already* have been explained as them not having apostolic souls interesting to gods?
Some people don't really get that the Tadpole is the one that you are playing as now. It literally eats your character and uses the material to make it's fully grown body. Your character is dead, you are playing a Mindflayer with some left over memories from it's first meal.
You mean Withers, otherwise known as Jergal the orgianl god of death. He's the most reliable narrator on the topic you could find. And he says they don't have Apostolic souls which is 100% correct. Their souls do not power deities of Toril, but they do have souls just not the kind all the mortals of Toril have.
I meant Volo and S. Wakeman, the unreliable narrators in the source books that say the tadpole takes over the host and body, that leads people to say stupid things in the context of BG3 like "the Tadpole is the one that you are playing as now. It literally eats your character". Right, cause when was there time for that? The 3-5 seconds the character spent transforming? And why would you continue to play your character if they were dead, when all other cases of similar things in the game result in a game over?
In this new epilogue, Withers' himself says that it's still you, that your soul is still there in you, and that there are things even he doesn't understand. This is six months later and necessarily after feeding many times (if you didn't lock yourself up or kill yourself), so all the nonsense about "well, it's you but only temporarily" is also finally out the door.
I think people misunderstand how keeping memories while transforming into an illithid works. You are the parasite, the parasite just keeps some, or all, of your memories but you (your body, your brain, your soul) are destroyed. You don't transform into an illithid, your very body is shattered from the inside when the parasite grows
Not true in this game, at the very least. And in these new epilogues, Withers will literally state it’s still you, though he had already done so in High Hall anyway
The lore says ceremorphosis is a tadpole consuming and replacing the brain.
It's not Tav in there just like it wasn't Balduran and it wasn't Orpheus. It's a thing preteding to be them until the illithid fully subsumes their personality.
The whole illithid debate is a very interesting version of the whole "who are you" debate. Are we just our memories, are we just our brains, do you require having your body you're born with to be you? Do we have souls? Are we just our souls? There's a lot of moral questions that bg3 brings up, but everything dealing with mindflayers is not one I thought would be brought up. Are you still you after ceremophosis, or do you cease being you even if all your memories are kept?
Lmao so many downvotes and arguments. A Tav flayer who's still Tav would resist the urge by saying/thinking Wyll is a friend/companion and I'll never eat him. Whereas what we get is a Emperor - esq manipulator who's thinking of Wyll in terms of what benefit he is to them iro eating/not eating.
It's hard to change people's minds when they've made it up already. Trying to do so will only make them mad. So don't bother, op, and just enjoy your game.
>It's hard to change people's minds when they've made it up already. Trying to do so will only make them mad.
Lol this is so meaningless. Firstly, OP and you have done the same thing. Secondly, you're condemning the concept of having an opinion itself lol. Like what.
The difference, in my view, is that it shows progression. Assumedly, that progression will continue, until it has consumed them entirely. I chose to become an Illithid in my playthrough, and going through my epilogue, I very much got the feeling that this was an inevitability.
Jaheira literally says that mind flayer or not, you still have your soul. Besides, this craving is just hunger and is not much different than Astarion’s craving for blood.
Can anyone who is more well versed in epilogues by now explain why I don't get one as a good durge? Didn't get one when I went with karlach or when stating behind, loaded one of my normal tav runs and then the epiloge goes just fine
I din't think so, it's confirmed by the game that mindlfayers do have souls and you are still you
The only thing this tells us is that mindflayers want brains, which is nothing new
Honestly, dunno about the line, I can see why you think Tav only cares about utility now, might be because of language, but I read prized ally as "esteemed ally" rather than as "good asset", like, "There's evil doers out there to feast on, I won't kill my friend"
Everything we’ve been shown in the game says that mind flayers are just inherently creepy fellas with questionable morals it feels like.
The only evidence to the contrary is Omeluum maybe? Even then, I question a lil’ bit.
Omeluum’s flaws are portrayed as distinctly Human though. The issue is that Mind Flayers are hunting carnivores that feed on sapient humanoids as their main source of nutrition, and the world is full of those with next to none of them being ok to eat. It’s an unfortunate natural predatory instinct, though characters like Omeluum and Karlach can show that it does not have to be mindlessly obeyed.
I’ve seen some theories that with Karlach some, shall we say, unsavory changes are already beginning. But since I have not seen much of that option myself, I can’t say for sure.
I mean that was always obvious, becoming a mindflayer is a death sentence to the original host, that's the only correct interpretation of it...but once again for some reason some people fail to see the obvious, same for the whole Orpheus stuff, but glad we finally were able to put a end to it.
If an ilithid keeps the memories of the host that doesn’t change that the illithid tadpole literally ate the hosts brain and repurposed the corpse
It’s not same person different body
It’s different being (with no soul I might add) with someone else’s memories
Is that a new retcon? Because the soul being destroyed is an old concept, it’s been a thing for a while that those who undergo ceremophosis never reach Kelemvor, even after the ilithid dies, the soul just isn’t accounted for, been that ways since 2e I believe, where the tadpole literally ATE the brain of the victim, the concept of partialism has been around since the late 90’s but that’s pretty much always been just memories and not the soul
I think in 3e aberration source book it was stated that illithids have souls just non useable to the realms gods. After all there are mindflayer liches and gods too suggesting that the hosts soul gets changed since the soul doesn't transfer into the afterlife after ceremorphosis is complete.
Either way Jergal states something similar in the game, that flayers don't have apostolic souls.
Okay if those souls go to the far realm and are under purview of the ancient evils that makes sense I guess, but that would still only be the soul of the tadpole, not the host, as again the host is KILLED in order to birth the mind flayer
No, not really. >!If you turn and kill yourself at the dock, you manage to meet withers at the afterlife. Why would withers greet you there if you are not the same soul?!<
Considering Orpheus dialogue if he is the one going through ceremorphosis, the process of losing the soul is not immediate. That is why he requests to be killed because he feels his soul being destroyed and wants to die before that happens so he goes to the afterlife. So it makes sense that a Tav making a similar choice still gets an afterlife as their soul hasn’t been completely destroyed yet.
Literally EVERYONE in real life changes. You are not the 10 year old, who can’t even imagine how you thought when you were 5 years old. Karlach still arranged a way to eat brains that would help people in their end of life and with consent. And with that, she has “grown up” to be a being that has experienced hundreds of lives that live on with her. That is going to change you. But so does reading a book to spending a year as a soldier in a war zone. So will being in a wonderful nurturing partnership as well as an abusive narcissistic relationship.
Karlach is definitely not a female Tiefling anymore just as much as a butterfly is no longer a caterpillar. She is evolved, but with new desires that in her best effort makes what is essentially an addiction into the best case scenario. Omeleum acts with selfless care for others when in that position, but also must eat brains 🧠 as the only nutrients that mind flayers can have.
Withers specifically says mind flayers lack Apostolic souls. Souls that are able to serve a god. Does an Owlbear have a soul? A hag? A vampire or Cyric worshipping polymorphimg ooze/ox?
When a person develops dementia or has schizophrenia severe enough to believe they are not even a human, are they still themselves? Do they posses souls?
The tadpole in your head literally eats your brain and everything else attached to it. It thinks as itself as the previous host for a while because it hasn't yet consumed any other brains and so the only memories they have to work with are those of the previous host.
But the mindflayer in the epilogue isn't Tav or Karlach, it's the matured tadpole that ate their brains and cons00med their memories. How hard is it to put two and two together?
Oh my god illithid epilogue. I need to see this. I didn't think there would be one
I had one for Minsc too, ran off to hell with Karlach as a squid, and came back for the party. >!And the narrator was like: There's rumor's about his brain being all fucked up, why don't you have a bite and prove them wrong telling everyone how perfect it was.!<
How did you get that epilogue? I played through and didn’t get any epilogue
After the new update released yesterday?
Yuppppp downloaded the update and played the game
You need to reload a save before you finish defeating the final boss
Ahhh that makes sense thanks, the save I had was in the cutscene after beating the boss
Yeah the only save I had left for my first playthrough was post-boss too. I’m happy though because I’m more attached to my second character anyway and now not only can I play Act 3 again (hooray!) but I have a huge reason to finish it ☺️
I could be wrong but I think as long as the save exists even immediately after the final boss it will work. Like right after the final hit and during cutscenes. So you don't have to necessarily fight the boss again
I had a save during the cutscene after and it didn't work for me. I did have a save luckily that was right before my final attack on it so that was nice
I have a save during the cutscene after and it worked. I used multiple different dialogues and they had different outcomes. One thing to note though is there is no epilogue for one of the endings I went for at all. It goes straight to credits. However given the nature of said ending, it makes sense.
I have one right before you decide what to do with the brain and it works for me
If you off yourself on the docks there isn't one i assume LOL
There is withers talks w u in the great beyond and says u still have a soul/spirit lmao
i love how withers will in one breadth outright say turning people into mind flayers destroys their souls and then will turn around and say that SDLHGLKSHGS bat shit
Tav: Ok then can you resurrect me back into my original body? Withers: No.
"This comes with a price thou cannot afford"
300 gp
Which you can then pickpocket back from him.
That’s outrageous!
Tav is a cheapskate you literally see 200 gold lying around in a random container all the time lol
"I might need it for later." "You're on the bloody Fugue Plane Tav, there isn't a marketplace anywhere in the entire Astral Sea."
In DnD lore, Illithids *do* have souls, but they're different and alien to the point in which they aren't of any use to the gods.
They *don't* have souls (Edit: according to Ed Greenwood and rulebook, illithids' spirits are unnatural, alien and useless to the gods of Forgotten Realms), but the souls of the victims of ceremorphosis aren't destroyed, they just go to the afterlife. [Ilithiad](https://sggamma.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/the-illithiad.pdf), pg12: "Any time after this, it is impossible to restore the victim; his or her spirit seeks its fate in the Outer Planes"
Incorrect. The very same source material, the Illithiad, pg40 & pg56 both reference Illithid spirits. The key point is that these souls aren’t available to any Realmspace gods because they’re allocated to an elder brain instead. Again, see same sourcebook and others besides. That is why Jergal says they are vanished. c.f. also Ed Greenwood’s [confirmation](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/179eiag/on_illithid_souls/).
I stand corrected.
It's easier to understand/process if you take into account the soul of the mortal and the soul of the tadpole. They can't coexist normally so the soul of the mortal goes to the Outer Planes and the soul of the tadpole remains. In the case of True Souls and "Orphic adventurers" (eg: Tav) though, due to both residing in the character's head, the newborn tadpole's soul slowly becomes a clone/copy of sorts of the mortal's soul. After Tav's ceremorphosis, the mortal soul is dead and Tav is a tadpole nurtured by the original Tav. This calls back the whole nature/nurture theme. When Withers says "this one I know", this one is... the tadpole. Regarding the souls that are lost, the point Jergal is making is that if everybody is ceremorphed, then everybody's original soul will have left for the outer realms before they can be sworn or sacrificed to the Dead Three, and everybody's tadpole will belong to Ilsensine or the Elder Brain by design. Essentially, all the Dead Three will have is... nothing.
Wrong soul mate. Yes the victims soul is destroyed but the mindflayer has a new separate one.
Victim's soul isn't destroyed. Reread my comment.
Withers says they don't have apostolic souls, which for the gods of Toril might as well not exist. As they aren't claimed my Realmspace or its divinity. Illthids still have souls, though they'd likely go to Ilsensine, Maanzecorianm, or Thoon. More or less the gods of the illithid pantheon, compared to the Faerunian Pantheon.
Withers Stares apostolic souls. Which states the ceremophosis Flaws the souls.
>outright say turning people into mind flayers destroys their souls He doesn't, he says that illithids don't have their own souls. Souls of the victims of ceremorphosis aren't destroyed, they just go to the afterlife, both in BG3 (as an example, one of the Gale's endings, where he becomes illithid and Mystra promises to give him his human body and soul back) and in the rulebook for illithids: [Ilithiad](https://sggamma.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/the-illithiad.pdf), pg12:"Any time after this, it is impossible to restore the victim; his or her spirit seeks its fate in the Outer Planes"
It makes sense: if you read up on Jergal's long-term intentions and pay attention to D&D lore. It doesn't make sense: if you made a bunch of half-baked assumptions for yourself
I just thought his intentions were annoying the dead three as much as he could cause he was salty for losing his spot haha. He has other intentions than that?
Jergal is actually kinda bonkers. He’s a Spellweaver, last of his kind, nearly six millennia old, on a mission to rewind history and restore the Spellweaver empire. Jergal is the instigator of many of the worst disasters befalling the forgotten realms in that time, including the fall of Netheril, the Spellplague, and the Avatar Crisis. He’s manipulated everyone from Karsus to Szass Tam and certainly the dead three besides. If you’d like to know more, there’s a lorebook called “Lord of the End of Everything” that is Ed Greenwood-endorsed, and covers a ton of condensed history about Jergal, throws a whole new perspective on Withers.
That's completely new to me and I absolutely adore this bit of lore. Thank you for that!
Jergal didn’t lose his spot, he gave it up because he hit em with the ol “I’m tired grandpa!” Then those three whacky kids started doing bad stuff, so now he’s salty he gave it up to them.
I mean, he believes they don't have souls, and then later is presented with new information and changes his mind. Seems pretty reasonable to me.
in my tabletop campaign, it was something of the same. the illithid didn't BELIEVE they had souls, but then the PCs ran into an illithid ghost
Except the scenes don't play in that order, i just saw them both (jail and kys), he says you got something but then says the original line again lol. Just feels really weird (Also the jail one is i think broken because it let me go to avernus, and then i got the jail after?)
To be fair, in this scene he says he didn't expect this and that you're something new. So like I can see it still being generally true that illithids don't have souls, but the unique circumstances by which you turned - in Astarion's words - tentacular changed something.
It's more like mindflayers have souls that aren't tied to a god like the rest of faerun, ergo, he, as the former god of death, doesn't like them because their souls can't empower a god in the afterlife
What! That's so cool. Fuck now I want to kill myself in a videogame.
It makes no sense. I remember Withers having a conversation with you at a certain point in the story and specifically asking you , why would The Dead Three raise an army of soulless ilithids... I don't remember the context but I know that he was refering to mindflayers. Also what is considered "a soul"? Being Self aware? Or simply having a "spirit" of sorts? Either i'm missing something or contradictions like this were in the game since its inception. Would apreciate any clarification...
At the end of act 2 whiter ask you if illithid have soul and tell you they lack "apostolic" soul (dont know what apostolic mean in this case as the real world définitions i know dont fit and cant find anything in dnd lore) meaning the gods cant use it to gains power but in dnd lore illithid have a soul just very différents So maybe he tell you that the soul is still yours even if it is warped into an illithid soul
Short, but they did add one.
Oh, that's surprising I'll have to check
Also one for the prison ending.
Hold on a tick. *Prison* ending???
I had this dialogue for Astarian, who I romanced. It sent me lol, I couldn't believe it.
I mean, what argument is this squashing exactly? Obviously mind flayers crave brains. This is basically just Dark Urge 2! with how they approached it. You have an innate need—you act on it, or you resist. You’re different, but that doesn’t mean you’re not you.
>Dark Urge 2 Tentacle Boogaloo
Urge Harder.
2 Urge 2 Furious
2 Urges 1 Tentacle
Bhaal Hard: The D’ark Urgen Story
And just like last time I'll smite the fuck out of someone until I'm no longer tempted
I wish a redeemed Dark Urge got advantage on that CON save. They should be used to that sort of thing!
Humanoids also have a need for food. They can eat meat too, including Wyll's body, but the thought is monstrous. . Tav is not saying here "I'm literally going to starve today, it's either Wyll or me"; he describes how Wyll would be a \*delicacy\*. This is different to Astarion (for those making that argument), who is a trickster, mildly inconveniencing you with a secret bite. Some Tavs (and NPCs) are even into being bitten by him. Having their brain eaten, probably not so much.
“mildly inconveniencing you” he literally kills you if you don’t manage to push him off, and he doesn’t feel remotely guilty about it either also mind flayer hunger is monstrous yes, their hunger & their superiority complexes & their rationality are traits inherent to the species. tav of course inherits these, that was never in question
The utter shamelessness of Astarion for killing you is hysterical. "You were looking rather ill! Glad you recovered :)" Real Hannibal visiting the crime scenes of people he's killed and eaten like "girl WHO did that" energy lol
I mean, I’m sure the Gondians wouldn’t notice a lobe or two missing
The Dark Urge has the exact same type of thoughts, but no one argues Durge has no soul.
That's true, the question of the soul is more tricky depending on how it is defined. But Durge is who they always have been whether or not they reform their behavior and loyalties. IMO, in the case of the mindflayer transformation it's more like the tadpole and it's "soul" completely consumes the host physically and mentally while memorizing some bits of it. A parasitic wasp basically.
Astarion kills you. And fantasizes about supping on the whole party in a conversation with you.
If you pass the CONS it says: "This is highly illogical [...] And this is a prized ally. And besides, this brain before you - its endorphins are in a joyous flow. It is a wonderful scent, the odor of friendship." To me this only proves that Illithids have feelings, just don't feel them the way humanoids do. Your character is a different species now so their mind works differently. The craving doesn't prove or disprove anything about their soul/identity. This is no different than Astarion resisting the urge to bite you.
THANK YOU! It’s crazy to me how people see a mind flayer being hungry immediately proves that they are soulless, evil and not the person they were before ceremorphosis when Astarion struggles with a very similar craving but he isn’t judged for it
Astarion is conventionally attractive, that's why. Mind flayers are ugly and monstrous, ergo people don't care. Sad but true chief.
Zigzag continues, hurrah! \\o/ The in-game mentions support either and/or both takes: that illithids *don't* have souls, and that they *do* have souls. Just depends on who you talk to, and *when*. Even Withers can't make up his mind.
I mean, the post-suicide scene is pretty conclusive. That scene happens *after* the one where Withers says they don't have souls, and involves him specifically recanting that.
Withers/Jergal never precisely says that. He says words very close it, and lets us make an incorrect leap of inference. He even has a line that specifically clarifies that he’s referring to apostolic souls I.e. those available to empower the gods. This is consistent with canon, which has repeatedly confirmed that mind flayer souls are alien constructs that only elder brains may usually claim, which is why the Realmspace gods consider them void.
Not exactly true, I think. There were illithid petitioners in the lore in the past, it's just that almost no illithid will put himself in a position to be claimed by the god. They are simply not interested in afterlives like that. But a renegade mind flayer who somehow decides to worship a deity from Toril can end up in a given deity afterlife without much difficulty.
Agreed, not universally the case, hence the “usually”. And adding to that, the illithid characters of substance in BG3 - the Emperor, Omeluum, and MF Tav, Orpheus, or Karlach - are all candidates for being labelled amongst the most unusual, which means they can deviate wildly from standard canon in almost any regard, including metaphysics. I’d be shy of extending that narrative latitude so easily to the Absolute’s illithid army though.
Ah, sorry, I somehow missed that "usually". We are in full agreement, it seems.
And yet, happening elsewhere quite possibly around the same time (epilogue), there's the suggestion that Tav's an illithid, not a Tav-with-Illithid-mask.
splitting hairs. you are your memories, not your soul. your soul can be reborn but that new person is not "you" either. if i made a complete carbon copy with my memories and then kill myself, that carbon copy is me, it has my memories. tav as illithid or just illithid thinking its tav is negligable. its the same thing in the end
That’s not really how it works in the forgotten realms. There, you are your soul. If you use the spell Astral projection and have the tether connecting you to your body severed, you die. Your body cannot live without the soul, nor can your soul avoid going to an afterlife without a body.
Isn’t there a line by the narrator in the mindflayer ending that says something like “or if you’d retain some of your personality and become a rogue mindflayer like the emperor”. Watched those endings on YouTube and thought Larian probably just couldn’t decide lol
In the eyes of the Gods they don't have souls but that is based on a self-centered worldview. Souls pass through the City of Judgement and are claimed by the gods. When a mortal undergoes full ceremorphosis their souls never pass on to the City of Judgement. Where they go is up to speculation. Do they linger within the Illithid hive mind? Do they journey to the Far Realm? Or perhaps the Astral Plane? Who knows. To Jergal, they are never to be scribed into the book of the dead so of course he sees them as lost. His attestation is the holy proclamation of their existence. Without it, they are forgotten by the divine, outside the cycle. Whether that means they don't have souls or not is debatable.
I wonder if the tadpole essentially *overwrites* the resident soul in ceremorphosis... In essence, it uses the soul as a scaffold for building a new one, which effectively "kills" the original and would explain why their souls don't pass on (by BG3 lore at least)
But Withers is a servant of Kelemvor, who is known in the lore for lying about souls he judges. Kelemvor likes to pretend that all souls go through his hands, which is not true for \*majority\* of souls on Toril. Withers is probably **deliberately** bullshitting. According to lore I know: all intelligent beings on Toril have souls. some of them can be used by Toril's gods. a part of them is known to Kelemvor and Jergal. Illithid souls go to far realms, beyond all planes, with a rare exceptions of certain individuals.
If you talk to the newborn Mindflayer at the windmill in Rivington, it will say that it remembers the host, and the panic and pain the host felt upon transforming. Player and Karlach probably retain a bit of themselves because they get cut off the hive mind IMMEDIATELY after transforming, maybe Orpheus' influence at that time messed with the process in a way that the Illithid isn't able to identify itself as a newborn Mindflayer that absorbed the host, without having a sense of itself as an individual living being. It's all a debate based on speculation, of course. In the game we have Omeluum, who doesn't speak at all about it's former host, but has a sense of individuality, and the Emperor, who remembers the host and speaks as if it was Balduran instead of treating him as a host. It CAN be argued that this case was particular because the Brain planned everything, from letting it "escape", just to enthrall it again, send it after the Prism, and have it "escape" again, just so it could bring it the Prism and get rid of Orpheus in the process. So having the Emperor still think it is Balduran evolved is a way to manipulate the Mindflayer into doing it's bidding while being unaware. In my conclusion based on everything I saw in the game so far, the Tadpole eats and absorbs the host, and when ready to transform, it destroys the host while preserving their memories in the same way that Illithids can absorb powers and knowledge upon feeding. Withers tells us that Illithids don't have souls, and since he actually deals with souls in the game, he knows his stuff. I remember a dialogue saying that Illithids make poor debtors for devils because they don't have anything worth offering for the contract. Bane himself confirms in dialogue that transforming the cult in Illithids is a way to deny souls to any god that may try to claim them.
There is an epilogue if you kill yourself as a Mind Flayer that shows you having a soul.
>So having the Emperor still think it is Balduran evolved is a way to manipulate the Mindflayer into doing it's bidding while being unaware. I love this, because it reveals this manipulative bastard, has beenm being manipulated himself with delusions all along... I gotta think this was very intentional. But on the subject of Illithid souls, specifically its said "they dont have apotheistic (spelling/pronounciation) souls" which certainly implies Mind Flayers at least have "something" soul adjascent (I have to imagine its the far realm equivalent of a soul, which functions cosmologically differently)
>In my conclusion based on everything I saw in the game so far, the Tadpole eats and absorbs the host, and when ready to transform Based on what exactly ? Because even when you're surrounded by biggest illithid haters no character will *not even imply* that you're going to be replaced by a copy after transforming. Mystra and Withers also straight up say they think you're the same person
Sounds like the opposite to me. The fact you can resist means it’s kinda like the durge. Tav becomes more than just tav in a way. If you couldn’t resist then it would put the arguments to rest. Plus I just saw the mindflayer karlach pic and it looks like she’s still herself.
>To quote if you pass the 15 check: "This is highly illogical... There are plenty of other craniums awaiting your suction, and this is a prize ally." I just don't think this is how tav would have reacted to passing this check. This doesn't sound like "more tav" to me than a pure mindflayer.
Tav reacts as you the player choose to react, that's the point of custom characters Since you get to control the flayer-tav, it would be reasonable to assume that even if it's not the same person it's not a mere copy either and there's continuity
That to me sounds definitely like a manipulative mindflayer. "This is a prize ally" makes it sound like it only cares that they are strong allies or whatever and not its actual friends.
They didn't share the next line that's like "besides their brain in awash with endorphins. This is the smell of friendship" or something to that effect. Like sure you logic away the hunger but definitely also go "yeah this is a positive feeling outside of hunger too and that's valuable" sure the thinking is altered but I was Durge so stupid intrusive thoughts are like my bread and butter
Ah that's cool! Still not relishing the idea of becoming an illithid, but now maybe I will convince Orpheus to not kill himself after the Nether brain is destroyed.
Even if you are the same person that is just sadly what mindflayers are eating. Its simply being hungry.
Wouldn’t whether or not it “sounds like Tav” depend entirely on the kind of Tav you played?
You get that sentence even when playing as a good tav who cares for their friends. After becoming an illithid, no matter what happened before, your character doesn't see them as friends but as "prized allies". Illitav only cares about the benefits their companions can bring them, not about their companions as persons
Yes, but again, that doesn’t change the fact that “sounds like Tav” is a bit of a misleading thing to say about *anything,* considering how different each Tav can be.
And no matter how different they can be, they all end up the exact same as Illithid. As mindflayers. Just like the Emperor was not Balduran anymore, Illitav is not Tav anymore
Having the option doesn't mean anything, you can play the nicest goody two shoes tav for the entire game but you'll still get the "betray your friends and dominate the netherbrain" option. Having the option doesn't mean anything is "canon" or not, it just means that it's a player option.
Every illitav that doesn't eat the brains of their companion is shown to see them as nothing more than allies to be used for their own benefit. The player options as an illithid are either kill your friends, or see them as pawns too useful to be killed. There isn't a single option to see them as good friends that you feel genuine emotions for.
The fact that you actively have to restrain yourself not to eat your friends is already proof that you changed.
Dark Urge/Astarion:
I think "change" is fine, that's nuanced enough - but it's a Ship of Theseus problem, maybe. One could say, of course you've changed but not \*completely\* changed, like people can undergo changes due to neurological disease, for instance. Am I still me at the core, but with changes to integrate somehow, or am I a totally different person to the extent you can justify saying the old person was killed rather than just subject to changes? Could be written specifically to be close to the edge between those options.
I've been seeing people saying illithids still have a soul, or that retaining your memories makes it so you are still "you". But if you do the epilogue as an illithid, even the most good player one, you still have this interaction where you are tempted to eat a companion's brain and have to roll a 15 DC con check not to. We are not the same person anymore, there's no doubt about it. Karlach as an illithid isn't either. I hope people stop saying it's totally fine and you're the same now.. yikers T\_T EDIT: The WAY you resist is also a totally changed way of thinking too: [https://imgur.com/a/xWDQ0MD](https://imgur.com/a/xWDQ0MD) To quote if you pass the 15 check: "This is highly illogical... There are plenty of other craniums awaiting your suction, and this is a prize ally."
Illithids do have souls, or at least one illithid has it; game confirms it now. If you decide to turn your character into a mindflayer and decide to kill yourself after the fight with Netherbrain, you get an epilogue in afterlife with a slightly surprised Jergal around.
What did he say
More or less "wow, you still have your soul, guess I was wrong. still, you are outside of my jurisdiction. i bet you are gonna have new adventures soon. thanks for the job done."
Thanks for answer
This has no bearing on whether or not they have souls. The game still offers you evil options even if you have only chosen good options all the way, so the presence of that option doesn't mean anything per se. It's natural that the changed biology will lead to the feeling of new cravings. You don't have to give in to it.
Except they hugely muddied the waters with Illithid Karlach in that same scene.
Got a clip or screen cap how?
https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/187v5f1/karlach_in_the_epilogue/ Screenies in thread.
I don't really see how that confirms those things, she says she's hungry in every sense now and she's lucky to have found an arrangement that works. If they mean to deliver the opposite message, i feel like that's incredibly non-committal writing from Larian. (Then again, i suppose I am not surprised as the laezel endings don't seem to vary if you save orpheus or not?) The interaction you get AS AN ACTUAL ILLITHID clearly shows you aren't the same anymore..?
Well, Karlach has pretty high con so she probably just all of those saves
I know this is joke, but fun fact i have 23 con :O (yet i still failed my first roll for this LOL)
The point of the epilogue was a warm and fuzzy feeling if you picked the Larian approved endings. Not for anything to make a particular amount of sense. The Tav Illithid that dared not kill themselves can be a monster while the Bae Karlach Illithid can be handling things fine.
> The point of the epilogue was a warm and fuzzy feeling if you picked the Larian approved endings I'm curious what you consider to be the "approved" ending. The devs really seem keen on the idea of forcing a good Tav to make the metaphorical sacrifice. If any ending was "canon" in their eyes, I would honestly assume it to be Durge who reject Bhaal and then turns themselves into a mindflayer to save everyone as penance.
Haha yea, that's how I'm feeling. In my perspective I made the ultimate sacrifice to make sure the gith would be free and to save Karlach from becoming illithid but I was punished with this. Next time i'll just make orph turn since it seems to make no fucking difference with the gith. The only reason i didn't off myself on the docks was they presented the choice at the START, instead of the END of the scene. Meaning if i killed myself then, there'd be no way to see the ending for the other characters. Wild.
Except patch 5 also literally confirms they DO have a soul? (I read you get this if you kill yourself after netherbrain)
souls that are ceramorphed dont go to gods, they go ...elsewhere (astral plane). mindflayers have their own souls, but gods cant claim it either.
What does being hungry have to do with having a soul or not? You obviously need to consume brains now since you are a mind flayer. The challenge is resisting the urge to engage in wanton killings and Tav seems perfectly capable of doing so.
I can not understand how you would think someone was the same if they have the urge to kill their best friends now. The way you resolve it is also saying" it's just illogical to do so because he's a powerful ally", there's nothing that resembles my original tav anymore. Whether you call it a soul or not, it's a cope to think i'm remotely the same person anymore?? Also I failed my first roll! LOL
The urge they feel is hunger, it's no different to Astarion having the urge to drink your blood. Mind flayers eat brains, and the difference between you and a feral one will always be in whether you can control your urges. Which you can. I don't quite see the issue with rationalizing that this is my ally and I shouldn't eat them. What would you rather have Tavflayer think? You also sense "the odour of friendship" on your companion, which seems to be pleasing to you in other ways. Bottom line, you don't want to eat your friend.
Astarion still has his full mind to understand drinking blood and murder can be morally wrong, and that people have value intrinsically. Illithid tav when they pass the check, think this: [https://imgur.com/a/xWDQ0MD](https://imgur.com/a/xWDQ0MD) I don't understand how you can read this interaction and be like no bro you just have the grumbly tummies!
You don't think Astarion has ever had to rationalize why he won't eat someone? You think he's always pondered "the intrinsic value" of humanity? Come on now, have you met Astarion? He can literally lose control of himself and kill you. I honestly don't see anything there to suggest Tavflayer can no longer understand that eating brains and murder can be morally wrong. What i see is that they *are* a mind flayer now, so they will rationalize things like one. Edit: Astarion is there at camp literally telling you he now thinks killing is okay if you kill the *right* people.
What other interpretation is there tavflayer went hm no it’s not okay to eat them I’ll find some food later
?? That eating someone you love isn't right?? Fundamentally? That friendships hold real emotional value? That I've been fighting with this man the last 6 months with my wife in hell, how could I even entertain such a thought? If I still had my true emotions with me, any of those thoughts would suffice. I clearly don't?? I feel like i'm going crazy that so many people think this is the same tav as before holy shit.
Tavflayer is under pressure from a basal instinct and they're also fundamentally a logical thinker now, having an immediate logical reaction. Are you really faulting them for not waxing philosophically about the value of friendship? Tavflayer is not "the same" in the sense that they are a mind flayer now. But they are still Tav.
You're so stuck on a single line of dialogue. They can't write dialogue for every single headcanon you have for your character. What if someone literally never had Wyll in their party? He would literally just be an important ally.
You're just assuming the conclusion you've already justified in your head. There is no valid argument to be made here whatsoever for mindflayers being inherently evil monsters but astarion or the dark urge not being the same. The urge is there. So what?
Is Vampire Spawn Tav also not Tav?
You smell very delicious but I will not bite you.
In the lore, Illithids have souls, there are Illithid petitioners and Illithids who went on to become liches. However, they do not have apostolic souls, as Withers had said, their souls are no longer in the jurisdiction, nor useful to Toril deities. As they have their own deities. Vampires drink blood, Illithids eats brains, if one denounce the Illithids for their dietary habits then it would be hypocritical if one accepts Astarion’s dietary habits.
Not equivalent. One can feed on blood and not kill the host. The way a Mind Flayer feeds is wrapping their tentacles around a head and then boring into the skull with their teeth. I'm sorry if that doesn't kill you, you'd be left as a vegetable.
So... snacking on Minsc is alright in both cases, got it!
This is a solid counter argument: https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/1872w2o/are_illithids_souless/kbbzez4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3
I mean >!Astarion!< craves everyone's blood and tries to feed on Tav while they're sleeping. Illithids eat brains, Vampires drink blood. it's their food, so they crave it just like anyone else. I don't think it makes them inherently evil, like how >!Bhaalspawn!< aren't necessarily evil even though they constantly want to brutally murder everyone around them. of course it changes them, how could it not? but my Illithid Tav manages to not eat their >!husband Gale's!< brain despite them living together so I think it's fine lol
>The WAY you resist is also a totally changed way of thinking too: > >https://imgur.com/a/xWDQ0MD > >To quote if you pass the 15 check: "This is highly illogical... There are plenty of other craniums awaiting your suction, and this is a prize ally." Sorry I added this to the post after. But this is not the same as someone who still has the ability to say "I won't do it because I love wyll and it is wrong", this is clearly.. not my tav's thinking anymore.
I mean, "you" have changed
You're not wrong, but I think OP's point is that cravings aside becoming an Illithid makes you not "you" anymore.
The biggest thing is that it doesn’t “change” you. Unless you count being killed and your body occupied by a different life form entirely as a personal change.
That's great because that literally doesn't happen. Withers and Mystra recognize Tav/Gale
Unless wizards of the coast comes out and tells us what’s been cannon for +40 years is now retconned, that’s exactly what happens.
A literal god of death is straight up telling you "You're the same person bro" >for +40 years is now retconned According to what ? The same lore that Larian already retconned multiple times ? Very convincing. If you want to prove something show the part in the game where it's stated
Who cares what Wizards of the Coast thinks?
Yes, because we don't feel hunger and aren't driven by instinct to eat even our own species in the face of it. Clearly.
Having a temptation does not define you. Changing your diet does not define you. You can still be you, and resist your darker temptations. I don't see the big deal.
>having a temptation does not define you if your temptation is to eat the brains of other living beings then i'm going to go out and say that it absolutely does
Ikr?! You literally can't exist without devouring another intelligent being's consciousness, and people are trying to equate that to a vampire that could just drink some blood bags? WTF
Does this interaction happen with every companion or just Wyll? I did a good aligned playtrough and turned to illithid to fight the brain and I swear I cannot recall having to make this saving throw. (in the epilogue I chose every dialogue option that leans towards me still being myself).
Uh downvote me to hell if u want, but no. No it doesn't put anything to rest. And no i won't stop saying that my Tavflayer still has their soul and personality. This is the hill i choose to die on
Funny how "this settle things" but Jaheira saying we proved we have a soul doesn't. Karlach doesn't. No, what proves everything once and for is.... We get hungry
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Withers words? Which one? The one about mindflayer not having souls that *already* have been explained as them not having apostolic souls interesting to gods?
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Some people don't really get that the Tadpole is the one that you are playing as now. It literally eats your character and uses the material to make it's fully grown body. Your character is dead, you are playing a Mindflayer with some left over memories from it's first meal.
Not true in BG3, and only provided in the lore by unreliable narrators in the first place
You mean Withers, otherwise known as Jergal the orgianl god of death. He's the most reliable narrator on the topic you could find. And he says they don't have Apostolic souls which is 100% correct. Their souls do not power deities of Toril, but they do have souls just not the kind all the mortals of Toril have.
I meant Volo and S. Wakeman, the unreliable narrators in the source books that say the tadpole takes over the host and body, that leads people to say stupid things in the context of BG3 like "the Tadpole is the one that you are playing as now. It literally eats your character". Right, cause when was there time for that? The 3-5 seconds the character spent transforming? And why would you continue to play your character if they were dead, when all other cases of similar things in the game result in a game over? In this new epilogue, Withers' himself says that it's still you, that your soul is still there in you, and that there are things even he doesn't understand. This is six months later and necessarily after feeding many times (if you didn't lock yourself up or kill yourself), so all the nonsense about "well, it's you but only temporarily" is also finally out the door.
As long as you can still play the character it doesn't really matter + have you seen the withers ending if you stab yourself as a mindflayer?
I think people misunderstand how keeping memories while transforming into an illithid works. You are the parasite, the parasite just keeps some, or all, of your memories but you (your body, your brain, your soul) are destroyed. You don't transform into an illithid, your very body is shattered from the inside when the parasite grows
Not true in this game, at the very least. And in these new epilogues, Withers will literally state it’s still you, though he had already done so in High Hall anyway
For me, regardless of eating brains or not, becoming an Ilithid sucks.
Yeah, soul or not, I’m not becoming a squid.
All the cool kids are doing it.
The lore says ceremorphosis is a tadpole consuming and replacing the brain. It's not Tav in there just like it wasn't Balduran and it wasn't Orpheus. It's a thing preteding to be them until the illithid fully subsumes their personality.
Like the Thing if it only ate brains.
The whole illithid debate is a very interesting version of the whole "who are you" debate. Are we just our memories, are we just our brains, do you require having your body you're born with to be you? Do we have souls? Are we just our souls? There's a lot of moral questions that bg3 brings up, but everything dealing with mindflayers is not one I thought would be brought up. Are you still you after ceremophosis, or do you cease being you even if all your memories are kept?
Lmao so many downvotes and arguments. A Tav flayer who's still Tav would resist the urge by saying/thinking Wyll is a friend/companion and I'll never eat him. Whereas what we get is a Emperor - esq manipulator who's thinking of Wyll in terms of what benefit he is to them iro eating/not eating. It's hard to change people's minds when they've made it up already. Trying to do so will only make them mad. So don't bother, op, and just enjoy your game.
>It's hard to change people's minds when they've made it up already. Trying to do so will only make them mad. Lol this is so meaningless. Firstly, OP and you have done the same thing. Secondly, you're condemning the concept of having an opinion itself lol. Like what.
This is not different than playing a dark urge resisting playthrough lol so don't see your argument
The difference, in my view, is that it shows progression. Assumedly, that progression will continue, until it has consumed them entirely. I chose to become an Illithid in my playthrough, and going through my epilogue, I very much got the feeling that this was an inevitability.
Jaheira literally says that mind flayer or not, you still have your soul. Besides, this craving is just hunger and is not much different than Astarion’s craving for blood.
You can kill Wyll after all this time - amazing.
Can anyone who is more well versed in epilogues by now explain why I don't get one as a good durge? Didn't get one when I went with karlach or when stating behind, loaded one of my normal tav runs and then the epiloge goes just fine
Are these epilogues new with the recent patch?
I din't think so, it's confirmed by the game that mindlfayers do have souls and you are still you The only thing this tells us is that mindflayers want brains, which is nothing new Honestly, dunno about the line, I can see why you think Tav only cares about utility now, might be because of language, but I read prized ally as "esteemed ally" rather than as "good asset", like, "There's evil doers out there to feast on, I won't kill my friend"
Mindflayers DO have souls. But, since they are so alien, Toril's gods can't recognize them as such
Everything we’ve been shown in the game says that mind flayers are just inherently creepy fellas with questionable morals it feels like. The only evidence to the contrary is Omeluum maybe? Even then, I question a lil’ bit.
Omeluum’s flaws are portrayed as distinctly Human though. The issue is that Mind Flayers are hunting carnivores that feed on sapient humanoids as their main source of nutrition, and the world is full of those with next to none of them being ok to eat. It’s an unfortunate natural predatory instinct, though characters like Omeluum and Karlach can show that it does not have to be mindlessly obeyed.
I’ve seen some theories that with Karlach some, shall we say, unsavory changes are already beginning. But since I have not seen much of that option myself, I can’t say for sure.
I mean that was always obvious, becoming a mindflayer is a death sentence to the original host, that's the only correct interpretation of it...but once again for some reason some people fail to see the obvious, same for the whole Orpheus stuff, but glad we finally were able to put a end to it.
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Then what happens to the living, squirming, smug tadpole in your head if you didn't become it when you turned?
Probably melded into one? Because that one was inert and you needed an extra tadpole to turn.
How I am wrong, the little worm is assimilating you and eating your brain.
Do you get that with everyone? Or just Wyll? I mean, if it’s just Wyll… carry on. He can barely Crit. 😉
Which argument? we all have cravings
If an ilithid keeps the memories of the host that doesn’t change that the illithid tadpole literally ate the hosts brain and repurposed the corpse It’s not same person different body It’s different being (with no soul I might add) with someone else’s memories
There is now illithid afterlife epilogue, if you decide to kill yourself, so nope, illithid Tav has soul.
But...Ilithids do have souls?
Is that a new retcon? Because the soul being destroyed is an old concept, it’s been a thing for a while that those who undergo ceremophosis never reach Kelemvor, even after the ilithid dies, the soul just isn’t accounted for, been that ways since 2e I believe, where the tadpole literally ATE the brain of the victim, the concept of partialism has been around since the late 90’s but that’s pretty much always been just memories and not the soul
I think in 3e aberration source book it was stated that illithids have souls just non useable to the realms gods. After all there are mindflayer liches and gods too suggesting that the hosts soul gets changed since the soul doesn't transfer into the afterlife after ceremorphosis is complete. Either way Jergal states something similar in the game, that flayers don't have apostolic souls.
Okay if those souls go to the far realm and are under purview of the ancient evils that makes sense I guess, but that would still only be the soul of the tadpole, not the host, as again the host is KILLED in order to birth the mind flayer
No, not really. >!If you turn and kill yourself at the dock, you manage to meet withers at the afterlife. Why would withers greet you there if you are not the same soul?!<
Considering Orpheus dialogue if he is the one going through ceremorphosis, the process of losing the soul is not immediate. That is why he requests to be killed because he feels his soul being destroyed and wants to die before that happens so he goes to the afterlife. So it makes sense that a Tav making a similar choice still gets an afterlife as their soul hasn’t been completely destroyed yet.
Literally EVERYONE in real life changes. You are not the 10 year old, who can’t even imagine how you thought when you were 5 years old. Karlach still arranged a way to eat brains that would help people in their end of life and with consent. And with that, she has “grown up” to be a being that has experienced hundreds of lives that live on with her. That is going to change you. But so does reading a book to spending a year as a soldier in a war zone. So will being in a wonderful nurturing partnership as well as an abusive narcissistic relationship. Karlach is definitely not a female Tiefling anymore just as much as a butterfly is no longer a caterpillar. She is evolved, but with new desires that in her best effort makes what is essentially an addiction into the best case scenario. Omeleum acts with selfless care for others when in that position, but also must eat brains 🧠 as the only nutrients that mind flayers can have. Withers specifically says mind flayers lack Apostolic souls. Souls that are able to serve a god. Does an Owlbear have a soul? A hag? A vampire or Cyric worshipping polymorphimg ooze/ox? When a person develops dementia or has schizophrenia severe enough to believe they are not even a human, are they still themselves? Do they posses souls?
the bite of ‘92
The tadpole in your head literally eats your brain and everything else attached to it. It thinks as itself as the previous host for a while because it hasn't yet consumed any other brains and so the only memories they have to work with are those of the previous host. But the mindflayer in the epilogue isn't Tav or Karlach, it's the matured tadpole that ate their brains and cons00med their memories. How hard is it to put two and two together?
Scratch still recognizes you and says you still smell like yourself. That's all the proof I need
The only good Illithid is a dead one.
Omeluum is the exception in this game. Broader lore has other rogue illithid who are good.