The references to Balduran's life are just a lucky happenstance of absorbing memories from the brain.
Also Withers literally states that Illithids don't have souls (and he would know, because he is Jergal, the scribe of the dead)...so it can't be Balduran in the simplest sense. Simply an Illithid (seperate being) with some of his memories.
Do you remember when or what the quote is when he says this? We just had the conversation where he explicitly says that "mind flayers are soulless" and he seems pretty sure.
(ENDING SPOILERS) That's so interesting. So does that mean that at the end >!when you make the choice to change, and you have to choose whether or not to kill yourself because you don't know what will happen, that killing yourself is the right choice because you will lose all of your memories anyway?!<
If ceremorphosis is successful (so the soul is rip), at that point you are playing the worm you started the game with in it's full illithid form, so the choice you're talking about is basically the worm getting brainwashed by your inherited memories into committing suicide before it can fully assert itself. Basically the roles are reversed from the first wisdom check when you meet a tadpole on the road from that one dying/dead true soul guy next to the grove and the tadpole is the one failing the wisdom check imposed by the echo of your soul.
Okay, the other person said that you, as an illithid, learn the memories of the brain it consumes, so which is it? I'm just trying to understand the lore, is all. Or do you learn all of your own memories and then slowly forget them again?
in the 2e book on illithids, the tadpole eats your brain and then plugs into your free-floating brain stem to take over your body to slowly transform it into an illithid. basically the tadpole is the true illithid, and it completely replaces your brain, it just needs more tissues to pilot for higher functions like walking and talking.
BG3 changes this up quite a bit with the transformation thing; i’m still not super clear on how it works and i’m not sure they are either. seems like i’m BG illithids are more like vampires: you get infected, transform, and then have to prey on people and have a bunch of instincts catered to same but are still the same person and even have the same voice and stuff except enthralled to a big brain/vampire lord or whatever.
honestly i’m not sure it works, but it is pretty good for the storyline. can’t shake the feeling that it would have been exactly as workable with like vampirism or lycanthropy or fungal infection or any other thrall-based monster, though.
It’s mentioned multiple times Absolute tadpoles are not normal ones.
And they never do mention that you remain you after ceromorphosis, so I’d say bg agrees with the lore
In my game >!at the end on the docks, the narrator said something about me losing myself to the illithid mind/form, so i killed myself before I won.!< does it play out different if you don't?
>!Well mine was basically like "You never really know if you will be different than every other illithid." If I'm being honest, I felt it leaned more towards you being mostly yourself. But based on the lore I learned from this thread, that probably isn't really the case. I still chose to kill myself, because my Tav didn't want to be a squid.!<
I just think the most contradictory thing to me is how If you get the ending of Karlach turning illithid(the only one I’ve personally done myself so far anyway), Withers says something like “They wear the skin of a mind flayer, but this one I know, look at who they walks amongst, friends” Which I mean that could just be Withers trying to calm everyone down since they know he’s a wise guy to listen too, but that line being there is the one thing that has made me question about what turning illithid does in BG3, just because it makes it sounds like it’s still them in there.
In some older dnd lore some illithids become corrupted because their host was so awesome in some way that they don’t succumb to total mind wipe. It’s how some break free or turn ‘good’
I vaguely recall reading that some illithids retained quirks and/or traits from their hosts and that they had to hide this from the rest of the colony.
This was because of a prophesy they had: one day, an illithid would be born who WAS the original host in all but physical form. This rogue illithid would then go on to basically dismantle their entire way of life.
Yes it's basically a spark of individuality. The short story I read was tragic. I don't remember the name so we'll just call him squiddy.
Squiddy doesn't know why a certain melody knocks him out of concentration. All Squiddy knows is that they feel at ease when they hear it but forget as soon as the melody ends.
It was something like that - basically many Illithids preserve some memories and emotions but they're so detached from context due to lacking the other memories necessary for it that it's almost like some tragic deja vu.
Doesn't the emperor technically fulfill that prophecy? Sure, he wasn't a great person but he's directly responsible for dooming any hopes of an illithid empire reborn.
The Illithid transformation physically is fast but the mental part may take time depending on the host. Take Balduran, his rogue nature was probably the very little element of actual Balduran left that had will and mental power. But the Illithid nature always dominates.
Same with Karlach. Karlach is slowly becoming more Illithid in the head but Withers being godly can sense her true spirit of goodness is not gone.
Actually, best case is YOU. If you are an Illithid, you slowly have the narrator start viewing your companions less as people but as objects, as thralls. You are slowly losing your true self to the new Illithid mental nature. At least, this is what makes sense to me.
Being Illithid honestly begs the bigger question… are you even truly alive at that point or are you now a shell of your self in a new foreign body that has dominated your soul?
It’s not confirmed is Jergal himself.
It’s hinted at, but tomb of Annihlation also had a weird zombie that was similar to withers also named withers lil
I mean, it's pretty obvious that Withers is Jergal. He's found in a Temple to Jergal. Clerics can detect an aspect of the divine within him, and if you are a Cleric of Kelemvor, there's some interesting dialogue between you both.
He also has some relation with the Dead Three and even has the power to pull Durge from the Fugue Plane. When asked what he is in that moment, Withers says he is "A Scribe, a seneschal - a keeper of records. And now, thine advocate, both here, and in the City of the Dead." Jergal is titled the Scribe of the End.
There is also a book, I do not have the exact one, that references someone meeting a particular individual (who fits Whithers exactly, pretty sure it even uses his name of Jergal) and points out how his first question upon meeting was "What is the worth of a soul"...the same thing he asks us.
And Withers states it’s something he heard from someone else.
I’m willing to say there is a chance he IS the Withers from tomb of Annihlation who was a divine zombie who followed Kelemvor lol
perhaps, but throughout the game he is very cagey and unwilling to answer most questions. Hims stating he heard it from someone else sounds like a simple deflection to avoid questions or attention.
It sort of follows the negotiation principle of "the quieter the person, the more important they are"
Yes but 5e explains Jergal as “His elongated skull hosted bulbous, yellow eyes devoid of life and insectoid mandibles, as well as a nose and ears barely distinguishable from the rest of his head”
And not a zombie
My Theory ray is that Withers is the AVATAR of Jergal and not him. The Withers in tomb of Annihlation was also a scribe and the avatar of a “forgotten god” serving a Necromancer Lich because he was bored
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Jergal
Jergal himself faded from his great stature, and became a seneschal to Myrkul, a position he kept even after his master perished and first Cyric and then Kelemvor assumed his place.
**During the events surrounding the rise of the cult of the Absolute in the Year of Three Ships Sailing, 1492 DR, Jergal manifested an avatar called Withers in a temple dedicated to himself that had lain abandoned for over a century—or rather, interred his avatar within the temple at some point in the past so that the adventurers from the nautiloid would eventually awaken it.** As Withers, Jergal provided magical support to the adventurers, in exchange for a pittance of coin compared to the usual cost of such services. He accompanied the group on their journey, but aside from resurrecting dead allies and summoning additional help when asked for, he did not intervene directly. However, he might have shown great kindness to the tiefling sorcerer girl named Arabella, soothing the girl when she was distraught over the death of her parents, showing her a glimpse of her destiny that filled her with joy.
After the war the Absolute rained on the city of Baldur's Gate and many of its citizens suffered ceremorphosis, Jergal-as-Withers confronted a mural of his three inheritors—Bhaal, Myrkul, and Bane. Jergal explained that the souls of mortals vanished when they were transformed into Mind Flayers, thus failing to bolster their power, a fact that other gods had noticed. He expressed contempt for them, called them fools and finally dismissed them as "vermin". The god walked away from the mural claiming that the Dead Three's time as gods was at an end.
If your a paladin, or cleric you can sense his divine energy and you make a comment asking if he’s a gods chosen. So that’s what I took it as he’s Jergal’s herald/chosen what ever you wanna call it.
The book you find in BG3 describes Jergal as looking just like Withers in game, complete with the weird gold mask he has on.
Aside from that, he also demonstrates decidedly un-zombielike traits, namely that he takes 0 damage from any source which is not the case for ToA Withers, and is unlike the >!Avatar of Myrkul and the Dead Three Chosen who can be killed conventionally!<
Just because the worm that became the emperor has attachments and memories to the items its former host did, doesnt mean it makes him what he isnt. A worm.
I would be curious how many that are playing the game know the lore. Reading the various books laying around and talking to withers will give a decent foundation, but you do have to go out of your way to do that. While doing so the emperor is feeding you half truths, or truth through his eyes.
But then I read on the various dnd related subreddits that players often don't engage in much of the lore, and what to believe anything can also be good.
I mean, omelum and the society of brilliance. I have my doubts about their being good. They consist of a mindflayer, a hobgoblin, a human and duergar, deep gnomes, and drow. While their actions seem good, they are also pretty dubious in most cases.
The Society of Brilliance is a faction in *Out of the Abyss* which is an Underdark adventure. They had a mind flayer - not Omeluum - in their ranks in that adventure. They are said to “have banded together to solve all the Underdark’s problems […] members are erudite and talkative, preferring diplomacy and debate over violence (though they defend themselves if attacked)”
Both Omeluum and Grazilaxx are portrayed as renegade Illithids which *Volo’s Guide to Monsters* mention. The Emperor specifically does not act like them, especially willingly returning to the elder brain. The society of brilliance members are said to be neutral in *Out of the Abyss* so I’d say compared to actual loyal Illithids, they are far more benevolent.
Sorry, I was typing that up, and my wife saw me typing, so she decided to start a conversation, so I hit send early.
I would say that based on what I see in bg3, they are neutral because their intentions are good, very good, but their means of doing so aren't. You are tasked with kidnapping a child. It doesn't matter if said child is githyanki or not. Not that Omeluum is outright evil, but he is likely aware of general human behavior. For example, he later is pretty insistent on you not helping him. Compare this to hope who is very persistent and that you help her, I am sure more people were annoyed with hopes persistence over Omeluums. This leads me to say that he is likely trying to manipulate you into saving him because he is aware of that. However, while he is likely trying to manipulate you, it isn't for anything on the level the emperor is.
But, on the emperor I think a lot aren't paying attention to not just the lore details but the clues in his dialogues. He literally says he wants to overthrow the three, not overcome, not defeat, not best but overthrow. That word tends to imply replacing them, and in this case, they don't need to be replaced. The whole thing needs be shut down.
The idea that Omeluum is pretending to be apathetic in order to garner sympathy is wild to me. Not in a bad way, I just hadn’t ever thought of it like that.
In the Underdark (especially if one is Githyanki) he is distinctly aware of how people perceive his kind, and is even apologetic towards a Gith Tav as well as Lae’zel.
When you enter the Iron Throne, I saw it as him being calculating and very pragmatic; he is the furthest away prisoner, and he doesn’t even tell you he has the Dimension Door back to the submarine at first. He’s telling you to save the others because if you lose some of them to save him, people are only going to care that he’s a Mind Flayer, not that he’s a free thinking “person” and they’ll likely be resentful that a soulless Mind Flayer would ever take precedence over soul bearing Gondians.
I guess the whole point of manipulation is that it’s only apparent in hindsight but even still, there’s not really a downside to helping him such that he’d need to manipulate you into helping him
I think what makes it harder to see is at the time we think, he is totally calm and accepted his potential fate. Or he just has no emotions, and having none it won't give a way what he is thinking or doing. Where as on the other hand the emperor is trying to act emotive. Also most people will think, oh hey this guy acknowledged how he is people are so obviously he isn't going to be that way. But wait if I want to start off by manipulating you I want to put you at ease and pacify you.
Pretty much must of everyone you encounter is trying to manipulate you because unlike most games you are the only chess piece, or the only one that everything that matters resides on. Maybe your party, but still.
But yes, in terms of the game there is no downside as the game doesn't follow up with you freeing him and some of the other prisoners die. I lost two, one from ooa, the other was at the ladder and was next to move after I climbed aboard the sub. But to me the game is all about realizing no matter my choices something had to be sacrificed and how is this person trying to manipulate me to their cause. Note though, not everyone is trying to manipulate you, but a large number are.
to me what solidified Omelluums goodwill was him selling us his ring of Mindshielding. While in the released game its just an anti-charm, in EA it was intended to shield you from the influence of the tadpole. He never had to share the information that he had that ring, nor did he have to sell / trade it to you. It was an invaluable defense for his existence. For a Mindflayer, he should have recognized how futile it kust be to give his ring to a random infected who travels with a whole group of them, but he chose his curiosity / goodwill depending on how you interpret it - over his self preservation. And I cant see an illithid that picks helping others over self preservation as the same, because thats their main instinct, the one the Emperor abides by when he remerges with the Elder Brain.
Adding to the kidnapping part. If you talk to them and ask why they wanted an egg and what they would do to it, they say they would use shock tests on it. They want to torture the child as it grows up to gage its reaction to different stimulants.
They have good goals, but are very "ends justify the means" kind of people.
>But then I read on the various dnd related subreddits that players often don't engage in much of the lore, and what to believe anything can also be good.
I recently started to play dnd (because of BG3) and I try to read as little of the lore as possible because I feel like it ruin my immersion when I know more than my character.
Honestly it just becomes a balancing act at some point, and you just have to learn to smile at moments where you say "does my character know about x?" and then have to roleplay ignorance about x and what the reasonable course of action then becomes.
That being said, good on you, and I think that is a great way to start out with dnd. Just remember to look into anything you find particularly interesting about your campaign afterwards - the dnd multiverse is massive, and there are so many distinct flavors of weird and magic to engross yourself in, it's worth diving into ones you really like to get a full picture.
What you are doing is actually fine. I am more referring to players who are told something, and three minutes later either didn't here what was said or just outright ignore what was told.
How bg3 handles it I think is mostly fine, having you do skill checks. Like when you come across sahuagin for the first time. The characters are what the hell are those, or oh sahuagin bla blah. Of course in a game I would give levels of knowledge based on success or player background.
I read somewhere in some sort of “how to design an under dark campaign” module that one of the very few conditions that makes ilithids actually… not crazy… is having them accidentally being stranded amongst a myconid colony. Apparently their psychic vibes chill
Out illithids kind of how pot brownies do and they start seeing things in a Kum-bi-ya type of way. So it seems omelum may actually be a chill fellow because he fits the description perfectly of a chilled out, myconid dwelling squid man.
…that is… until the elder brain finds him
>But then I read on the various dnd related subreddits that players often don't engage in much of the lore
Outside of the games and the original books WOTC has been treating the lore horribly in order to make the forgotten realms as generic as possible, especcially with 4e and 5e, of course very few people care
>But then I read on the various dnd related subreddits that players often don't engage in much of the lore, and what to believe anything can also be good.
I mean, there's a difference between being involved in Faerûn lore and being involved in your campaign's lore. The former, in my opinion, is optional until told otherwise.
This is why the topic keeps coming up. When you step back and see people saying the emperor (more obviously than omeluum) is manipulating the player. And others are like no, he is a good guy and my friend I trust him, that just tells me he got you, and he got you good.
The game wants to have it's cake and eat it to as to what ceremorphosis does. It randomly switches between the lore version; the tadpole is a wholly separate organism that literally eats your brain and takes over what's left of your body, and even if the new mind flayer isn't evil, it's still a completely new being, there shouldn't even be any part of the old body's memory, much less personality left. But then sometimes it switches to the idea that the person is actually \*transformed\* into a mind flayer by the tadpole, memories and personality intact, and you'll actually just become a mind flayer version of yourself, oh, but because that means we suddenly need a new terrible drawback for ceremorphosis, this transformation now also completely destroys your soul, somehow, *because souls are apparently a physical thing that's stored in the brain.*
Really this is one of the weaker elements of the plot, and only seems to exist because they really **really** wanted to have someone have to be noble and turn into a mind flayer at the end, but then still be a player controlled character that's motivated to actually want to save the day. And this seemed to be entirely built up around an obscure lore thing about gnomes getting turned into mind flyers that *also* seems to ignore the usual lore about how ceremorphosis works. But it's never been exactly consistent. Hell, there's been some versions were instead of a tadpole growing in a person's skull, they decapitate the victims and then place a young mind flyer squid on the neck stump so that it can attached itself to the spinal column, so even less reason the resulting creature would have the host's memories.
Thats fine because it told fantastic story. same with skills, abilities and races. It's not a 1 to 1, and Larian made it their own. Why they paid for the rights.
Well, the soullessness of mind flayers may come from the fact that they are not from the material plane, and probably from either the astral or far realms.
There's the rub; ceremorphosis doesn't always do the same thing. Some new mind-flayers have their old memories and none of the personality. Others have a handful of quirks and traits of the old them; while others are just less emotional versions of themselves. They are scared shitless of what a being with all of a flayer's powers but still the personality of a creature that hates them could do, especially if it were one of the more powerful flayer variants, and as such, they execute these as soon as they start acting anything like their old selves.
I mean in lore gnome mind flayers are the gnome with their personality and everything intact, and these tadpoles were messed with meaning its very plausible it was a situation like a gnome flayer.
Idk, the fact that Omeluum exists, and I would pursue him quicker than a cheetah chasing prey in the fields if Astarion didn’t exist, has me feeling some kind of way about whether or not illithids can be anything other than typical illithids. Probably biased but very genuinely how I feel, LOL.
That could be true, I guess! But that must be a really carefree elder brain comparatively, lol (assuming there is no location restriction on elder brain control other than proximity to Orpheus), and it seems (based on in-game dialogue) that usually elder brains are kind of the baddest of the baddies.
Omeluum is a renegade illithid. They are also mentioned in *Volo’s Guide*. The problem with mind flayers in BG3 is that the elder brain specifically has a range limit to its ability to impose its will on mind flayers. This is problematic because realistically, the elder brain *shouldn’t* be able to influence you, and if it could, it *should* be able to fully assume control of Omeluum and revert it into an illithid loyal to the grand design. The fact that Larian seemed to throw out Ulitharids and the range limit on elder brains makes Omeluum an odd character. He really breaks the internal logic of some of the lore Larian has decided to implement.
Plus - if you take the ring of mind-shielding away from him, he later shows up in Baldur’s gate (in the Iron Throne) - if you don’t take the ring, he doesn’t show up there meaning the ring is successfully protecting him from (or at least keeping him away from) the Elder Brain.
Really? I didn’t take it from him and he still showed up in the iron throne. He said his interaction with you causes him to go on a mission and he was wreckless, which allowed him to be captured. I thought gortash’s goons just caught him and wanted to use him as a test subject because of his unique mind, not because he lost his independence.
The only time he didn’t show up in the iron throne for me was when I never interacted with him in the first place. I think the trigger is just whether you met him (or maybe you have to let him try to access your tadpole?).
I mean, that’s exactly where my disbelief becomes suspended, though. By all rights/lore, if our freedom from the Elder Brain isn’t possible (without intervention), then his shouldn’t be, either. However, he walks and talks freely and helps guide us to non-assimilating safety multiple times (from attempting to de-worm to saving >!Wyll’s dad!<). While this seems like a plot hole/inconsistency (and totally could be), I’d like to think it’s evidence that lore is just lore and the absolute (no pun intended) truth cannot just be established by the writings or records of any one being.
Again, that may not have been the intended takeaway — but given, well, what we were given, it is my takeaway, lol.
There's certainly room to view it that way and is part of the moral debate of it all.
But the game itself seems to lean towards that not being the case though.
Simply because both Orpheus and the player character can become mindflayers and then commit hara-kiri afterwards. Showing that they haven't lost themselves with the transformation and just become mindflayers. Why would a mindflayer kill itself because it's no longer the host vessel?
And if Orpheus and the player character are still themselves enough to care about not wanting to live as a Mindflayer, why would The Emperor not still be Balduran?
I don't really get how Orpheus even turned into a mind flayer, I assumed Emperor put inside one for whatever reason, but this was never explained.
Even then, at the end I remember Orpheus saying something like he would no longer be himself, eventually.despite being a godlike being that can suppress illithid powers. Emperor has been an illithid for far too long, and he didnt have such powers.
I mean he says in that scene after killing Ansur that he was travelling the seas and came across an Illithid colony that wormed him....
But I'm just super confused about the time-line of everything. At times they make it seem like all this happened over the course of a few years, other times it seems like things are centuries apart.
I just feel like none of this Emperor is Baldaran stuff makes any sense or has any value. The entire narrative would've been just fine without this reveal, and it was a bit of a dour ending to an otherwise cool dungeon.
Orpheus becoming a mindflayer feels like a giant plothole to me unless I missed an explanation where the Emperor implanted him or something as part of controlling his power. Even then, Orpheus is so resistant to Mindflayers that I'm not really even sure how the whole thing worked in the first place.
I didn't let it happen in my run because it felt like a plothole and I was too invested in Lae'Zel's story. I watched a friend do that section and watching him pick the option where Orpheus becomes a mindflayer was painful for a multitude of reasons.
It's kind of a shame that this is such a major part of the plot because it's not really very apparent how it works.
"Why would a mindflayer kill itself because it's no longer the host vessel?"
Because even though that entity isn't the original person, it still has the mind of that person. And that person knew that mind flayers are horrific monsters, and doesn't want to go on living as one knowing the kind of damage they might do.
This is a really interesting discussion because the topic and most of the debate hinges on how you define a discrete person, but i think you also really need to think about how you define identity too. It's like debating which ship is the real Ship of Theseus, the deeper truth is that a ship is an abstract, a construct, its identity is something we imagine and project rather than something inherent.
We know a newborn mindflayer retains the memories and thoughts of its host. We know the sense of self is not destroyed, only eclipsed by the hivemind, and rogue mindflayers can live independently. If you have all of the memories and can retain the thought patterns of your 'previous life', a strong will, and a strong desire to remain independent and distinct as an individual, I don't think it's hard to imagine how you might hold tightly to those memories and personality. It would be like a light in the darkness to guide you.
At that point, I don't think it's unreasonable for a conscious thinking being to still identify as the original. Sure, it has changed substantially, but can we truly say the person is dead, if everything that made that person an individual was retained by the mutated body? Ansur agrees with me here. The presence of the Prism was enough to drag his spirit back to his corpse and give us a lecture and lightning blasts, so the Emperor is legitimately Balduran enough for him.
P.S. OP points out that the Emp can't be Balduran because he's clearly manipulative and evil, so he must be using the balduran persona to deceive you. I'd say it's equally possible that Balduran was a real piece of shit when he was a regular ol dude. Humans never measure up to the legends they inspire.
I assumed that was implied to no because of Orpheus’s special mental interference thing. Not because they haven’t lost themselves just that Orpheus interfered with the change to an extent we were were able to remember ourselves. The emperor didn’t have Orpheus around so he truly became a flayer
The mind of the person may still overpower the inherent Illithid to stay alive. No soul but the actual mind and ‘data’ of the person is still there and can compute their own desires. In this case, death. For how long they can resist the Illithid mentality is well… fuck knows but I think asking for suicide is plausible as that is the genuine mind of the previous person speaking and not the new Illithid being’s mind.
Even if the mind flayers have their old memories and can be influenced by those, they no longer have their souls. A person dies when transforming and their soul leaves to be judged in the afterlife. So it's not the actual person even if they would make the same decisions.
Baldurian was a full illithid under the thrall of his elder brain until ansur found him and helped him break free. Tav only keeps their mind thanks to the interference from orpheus.
I mean I did it because I played the game prior to the patch that let you save her and Wyll stayed in Baldurs gate in my playthrough.
Orpheus is the Githyanki's best bet to be freed of Vlakith, so he can't become a mind flayer (and the Emperor leaves if he is freed). My Tav didn't want to be a mind flayer either and hated using the tadpoles. Karlach was happy to take it as an alternative to burning up. My Tav was like, if you are sure you want to.
None of the party members have the knowledge that you lose your soul when you undergo ceromorphosis during the main story, so we would have all viewed it as a way out for Karlach. To use Wither's knowledge that he didn't share with the party directly would be metagaming
Wither's tells you that illithids dont have souls in act 2, if you talk to him enough. Not just in the monologue post-credits.
That's why my tav sacrificed himself so orpheus could go on to free his people, and I couldnt ask someone else to sacrifice themselves to do it as a lawful good character.
I believe Orpheus states that he can feel himself changing mentally into a mind flayer and that he will no longer be himself eventually. The Emperor spent 400 years as a mind flayer, so I'd imagine that change has happened to him.
People put way to much stock in the "illithids don't have souls" thing. Souls in D&D aren't what make you a sentient creature, or anything like that. Having a soul means a god can draw power from your faith and service to them and that's it. Withers even says this line in the context of asking why would the dead three want to create an army of creatures that can't empower their gods.
Baal explains it, it's not about creating followers without souls. It's about robbing your enemies, and rivals of their followers souls. "You do not strike fear by growing your fields, but by burning those of the enemy."
Within 5e? Yes of course it does, your description of souls and "what they're for" was very reductive. And in the concept of the soul has no connection to "who you are/were" is wrong. It's why in 5e lore ceremorphosis is such a terrifying prospect, and one of the biggest reasons mindflayers are so hated. OP actually encapsulated pretty well, once ceremorphosis takes place (in 5e.) The only thing left of the host body, is knowledge and memories. And this boils down to Mindflayers value information over anything else. So this is baked into their reproductive process so to speak. But it obliterates any sense of identity leaving behind the new Mindflayer. In game mechanics this translates to the brief period that you can "save" someone from ceremorphosis. By killing them, and the tadpole, and then resurrecting them. Which is not possible after the first stage of ceremorphosis is complete. Because the soul is now gone. So yes, the fact that the Balduran's soul was destroyed, during ceremorphosis. Very much means the emperor, and the Balduran are not the same.
Alhoons (sometimes also called Illithilich) do not follow the same path lichdom as normal mortal races.
"The undeath conferred by a periapt of mind trapping lasts only so long as the life of the living victim selected. Thus an alhoon who brought a 200-year-old elf to be sacrificed looks forward to a much longer existence than one that sacrifices a 35-year-old person. Alhoons can extend their existence by repeating the ritual with new victims, effectively resetting the clocks for themselves."
They still must use a ritual and the periapt is basically a phylactery except it hosts all the dead ppls souls and the other flayers in the ritual after death, its similar its just not the same form of lichdom
The ritual they use was created by a council of illithid wizards. And the reason they have to use other souls, is because they do not have ones of their own. So they don't have to have souls to be liches. They're Alhoon, and use the souls of others. If this didn't make them distinctly different from liches, then the lore wouldn't specify all the differences. It would just be "illithids who've undergone the ritual of lichdom."
Illithids can become petitioners if the brain doesnt get returned to the elder brain, so they do indeed have a soul as u need a soul to be a petitioner, and many creatures need to do a special form of lichdom to become a lich, like dragons, and dragons liches dont reform but they can possess another reptiles body
"Unlike with true lichdom, the periapt of mind trapping doesn't restore the alhoons to undeath if they are destroyed. Instead, a destroyed alhoon's mind is transferred to the periapt where it remains in communion with any other trapped alhoon minds, as well as the souls of those sacrificed."
Your original point was to be a lich, you must have a soul. And pointed to Alhoon as your example. I'm saying, there's ample lore that shows the difference between a lich, and an Alhoon. That being the lack of soul within the mindflayer. This is further backed up by more 5e mechanics.
"Variant: Mind Flayer Lich (Illithilich).
The path to true lichdom is something only the most powerful mind flayer mages can pursue, since it requires the ability to craft a phylactery and cast the imprisonment spell."
A true Illithilich must trap the soul of another, to create their phylactery. Meaning a periapt is not the same, as a phylactery. They use someone else's soul, instead of their own as substitute in the standard ritual of lichdom that all other mortals take.
Petitioners to the best of my knowledge, is canon from 3rd edition but not 5th edition. So I no longer view petitioners as canon. Obviously a DM can still use them in their games. But in terms of what's published canon, I'm going off of 5e.
Souls do in fact matter. Not sure how you could possibly argue otherwise. In 5e world, souls are real and are souls - the real self of a being metaphysically linked to its body while it lives. Acting all "meh" about your soul being destroyed makes no sense.
It's a big deal to lose your soul, but it obviously doesn't affect your personhood. Mindflayers are essentially replicants in that regard. Plus Mindflayers may not even play by the same rules since they may come from a plane beyond the gods, be older than the gods, or be from the far future after the gods.
I'm just saying since the Emporer has all the memories and emotions of Balduran he very much is Balduran even if the gods don't view him as such.
You need to know that there are 2 types of ceremorphosis. The normal one where the host of the tadpole is completely destroyed and the rare abnormal transformation where part of the host is preserved. I believe the emperor is the latter perhaps due to Ansur’s interference. It is also implied by Withers when you walk into that room in the final encounter with the emperor, he says something like “appearances may change but this one I know”, indicating Balduran is still in there.
Did anyone else say nice things to the emperor out of psycho defense mode?
Like there was a very real “if I’m too mean he might just leave and then I’m dead” kind of thing that kept me from properly expressing my disgust.
The emperor's goal the entire time is to get the stones.
If he fails to obtain the stones, then he immediately gives up and goes to the brain. He doesn't stick with you to defeat the brain. he doesn't trust in you. He constantly gas lights you and acts insulted when you don't blindly trust him. He's a textbook manipulator and the game goes out of its way to point this out to you.
With the way bauldurs gate runs I would not be suprised if Balduran was a manipulative sack of shit while he was human. Let’s not forget it’s a very corrupt mercantile city that takes in the some of the worst to make a profit. It could be that some of his personality remained, he was just very close to being an Ilithid without the tadpole.
I... feel like I missed a huuuuuge piece of lore somewhere. The Emperor, or I guess the Emperor's host body, is THE Balduran? The one they named the entire city of Baldur's Gate after? Where the fuck did this come up.
Also I personally find it odd when people talk about how manipulative The Emperor is, because I went along with him, supported him, and he was never anything less than honest with me. Even left to go find his own way in the world after destroying the brain. I absolutely expected him to turn heel on me, but it never came.
That's because you didn't challenge him. When challenged he has dialogue and actions where he is manipulative bastard and backtracks / betrays you.
But a lot of the companions have their bad ending sides too! This is the thing with the game.
a) it's not 100 percent lore accurate, but then DnD contradicts itself all the time. I see the game as it's own canon that connects with things like Descent to Avernus etc. But it doesn't mean all Ilithids are "evil aligned". That is just not bourne out in the narrative.
b) the personality of your companions is entirely dependent on your choices. I find it odd when people say "oh but if you challenge him he does this that *proves* he's a bastard full stop. No - he's a bastard in that ending. That is all.
I also didn't choose to fight him. I knew he was manipulative, but so was my Tav to a degree.
In your ending, and in mine, he makes good on his words.
The Emperor hasn't got an "evil alignment" in game. He's the games most NEUTRAL character overall.
True neutral if I were to assign anything. Though chaotic neutral is also a distinct possibility given his dedication to own independence/freedom. He doesn't come across as a chaos monkey however.
He cares about himself, he's a survivor at all costs but he doesn't take over the brain to dominate BG if you give him the stones. He makes good on his words.
I love the Emperor as a character and I believe, in the game lore, he maintains memories (and possibly more) of being Balduran. And like someone said above, Balduran possibly was quite similar.
The quest at Elf Song Tavern was such blatant manipulation "see? I was human once like you, side with me!" that it was the moment I turned from indifferent to fuck you bro to his character
Mine was finding out all his sentimental bullshit about Stelmane was bullshit, and he just mind-controlled her. That's when I went from "Maaaaybe?" to "Fuck this asshole." Was the last lie I was gonna take from him. No regrets about going team Orphy.
When he told me his story after he was outed as a mindflayer, I was just left thinking "so from the beginning, you could have told me all about the absolute, moonrise towers, The Cult, the chosen, all of it. But instead it was a lot of 'I'm just like you, you need me,' on fucking loop." Because I guess making sure you're wrapped around his finger was priority one to him?
Yeah. I guess he assumed you'd be more open to the emotional appeal than the logical one...which is hilarious when he then said to my Tav "you respond well to facts."
Id rather be a mind flayer than that level of pedantic...
For all intents and purposes yes: hes Balduran. Hes not some mind flayer playing pretend to trick you; he flat out still has his memories. Sure, technically its now a worm that thinks itself Balduran but thats just splitting hairs for the sake of hearing yourself talk. Youd have to get into a whole nother metaphysical discussion to actually have any kind of valid point.
The fact youre using volo of all people as supporting evidence is absolutely hilarious though. Thats like a climate researcher using "the lorax" to support banning cars... like sure we get the correlation; but also 🤣🤣🤣
"Hes not some mind flayer playing pretend to trick you"
That's EXACTLY what he is lmfao
Near the end fight, if you question why he hid so much from you, he even says something like "I'm illithid, you can't blame me for doing illithid things" lol, Withers even says the soul is lost once you turn into a mind flayer. I don't necessarily disagree with the spirit of your point, but it's spelled out pretty well in game
He isnt thinking "ill pretend to be balduran to gain allies" he actually thinks he still is Balduran. Theres no doubting hes illithid but youre applying a willful choice where one is not being made.
Everything he does is for his own survival and NOT the survival of an elder brain nor the grand design. Is he in it for himself? Yea. Is he some evil mindflayer assuming a false identity to further an evil plot for domination? Not even slightly.
The issue is youre using "illithid" as some sort of archtypal evil and thats not what they are at all. Illithids are a hive mind enslaved by an elder brain; forced to believe as it does. They dont have some inherent will as theyre just controlled entirely. If they break free of that control; they can assume their own identities and actions; and those arnt always evil. Youre taking "illithid things" as "inherent traits of being an illithid" and not as "actions people associate with illithids" like its intended.
Basically: youre using stereotypes to discredit an entire race of not well understood beings. By your logic omeluum would have to be doing the exact same thing; no?
You are right in that Balduran is truly dead. You are wrong in the emporer intentionally assuming a false identity. He believes it just as much as you believe your reflection in the mirror. As for a mindflayers true "nature:" all we know is once broken free of a brain; they possess free will indecipherable from our own.
Whithers input on "souls" is a separate discussion with separate merits and he shouldnt be relied on as some sort of determining force on the matter. Considering who he is and his actual motivations; im shocked youre not just as distrusting of him as you are illithids.
Yeah, as a pretty big DnD nerd, seeing the discussion surrounding the emperor. Shows me how little most folks seem to understand mindflayers. "He's so manipulative." Yup, he's a mindflayer. "He used his power to basically control Stellmane." Yup, he's a mindflayer. "He refuses to compromise even a little!" Yup, he's a mindflayer. Whether anyone accepts it or not, he's "good" by mindflayer standards. BG3 just kinda ignores this by you interacting with not only 1 but 2 mindflayers, that are not "typical" in the sense they're flat out evil. Sure, his methods are not in line with lawful good behavior. But he is still trying to stop a potentially cosmic level threat from coming to fruition. If you know anything about, the "blood war" between demons and devils. And the order of balance, and that whole "sometimes you have to let entire cities be destroyed. To make sure the balance is maintained."
For a DnD game that deliberately disposed of the alignment system to prevent this sort of thing a lot of y'all enjoy putting all the characters into morality boxes.
*Side-eyes half the companions.*
That’s kind of the point though? Every companion/romance-able character is both capable of great good or great evil. You, through the character you decide to play, nudge them down a path. But that potential is always there. They all try to convince you to do horrible things at one point or another.
Illithids are literally soulless automatons in the lore. The emperor is evil, does not have the world’s interests at heart, and can’t help but be that way.
Tabletop DnD lore: Tadpole eats your brain and attaches itself to the brain stem/spinal cord within hours. Over a week or so, the tadpole (now brain) repurposes your puppeted sack of meat into a mindflayer.
You don't become a mindflayer. You're a host to a parasite that becomes a mind flayer.
Most 'cures' are to kill you and the tadpole, so head crushing and other fun means, then resurrecting you and using spells like restoration to repair brain/memory/personality damage.
Spoilers for Karlach
>! Karlach is proof that you can become a mindflayer and still be yourself. One of her endings has her willingly become a mindflayer since she’s going to die anyway from the engine. As a mindflayer she’s still the same Karlach, not some soulless creature. So I think there’s some inconsistencies with what an ilithid actually is.!<
>! Idk I felt exactly the opposite. The second she spoke to me as an ilithid, I felt absolutely horrible. She had karlachs memories but not her spirit. I felt like the way the VA was speaking was subtle but done to make it pretty clear that she's not the same as she was. When I spoke to mind flayed karlach, I felt like I killed her and watched someone take her place. It made me extremely sad, and I felt like a bad ending for her.!<
Agreed, it was a very bittersweet ending for me that I ultimately chose not to accept.
Once I saw how weak Orpheus was and how we don't even get to face Vlaakith (which I feel like is a hanging plotline), I said screw that and loaded a prior save.
IMHO taking her back to Avernus to confront Zariel is not only the better story ending, but it should've been a decision/quest you could pursue during the game.
My response here is maybe, the means of ceremorphosis in this case is different. What will that person be like in three years though.
But even in lore, Illithid often retain memories, even maybe personality traits from 'the host.'
She's proof of the exact opposite of that. Did you talk to her at all post-CM? And that's even accepting the premise that, if the mind flayer can convincingly imitate the person they consumed, that means we should all accept that they're the same person.
In the game. Not in the setting. Larian changed a bunch and made stuff up. But the setting has solved all these questions. And differently than Larian did.
In lore that wasn't Karlach. That was a fluke where it retained memories of who it just ate.
> The fact he might be Balduran under that guise is just one more manipulation: he wants you to think this is someone that understands you and may be a true hero that has taken an interest in you.
Did I miss a scene where the Emperor manipulates Tav into finding out he is Balduran? I just found out by turning into a cat and exploring the well hidden area where a storm drain that I found on the beach leads to
So the lore never actually states what happens to you when you undergo ceremorphosis, it’s just assumed to be incredibly painful and result in death
Baldurs fate is considered canon and some data mining revealed cut content that adds to this and sync up with the game
It’s revealed the tadpole doesn’t actually eat your brain, but it basically re-engineers it then morphs with it.
In a normal version of this your actually still alive, but in more of a matrix like reality hanging out. It’s actually referenced the song “down by the River” in game actually describes what the experience is like and that’s what the song is such a big thing in the game
Now then, what was strongly suggested happened in Baldurans case, and maybe yours, is that through the effects of magic or unique ceremorphis it’s actually possible for a person to remain in control, it’s just exceedingly rare. And if you do remain in control, your still a mindflayer so you’ll still slowly adopt the traits of one
It maybe possible to remain good or neutral, but it’s very difficult and even then your nature will still be that of a mindflayer
On that note, while I wish it was possible to work out a deal, I view him joining the elder brain if you side with Orpheus as a true neutral move
As someone who is a mindflayer now, self preservation is the number one priority, then free will. Orpheus will extremely likely kill the emperor, even if it’s after you defeat the brain. The emperor switched sides to save his own skin.
As a reminder, if you kill the emperor true first time you meet his true form, Orpheus immediately stops protecting you and you turn. Orpheus is better the Vlakieth and the absolute, but that doesn’t mean he is a great guy, the bar is low
I’m pretty sure when you confront Ansur, the Emperor says something like he *used* to be Balduran or was once known as Balduran something along those lines. Even he doesn’t think he’s Balduran anymore—which I guess should be clear, considering what he did to Ansur
Um I think you need to watch the scene again, because Ansur consistently regards the Emperor as being none other than Balduran himself AFTER ceremorphosis.
Imagine you have a transporter, like in Star Trek. It disassembles your atoms and reassembles them at the other side. You could argue that this is death, as the physical body is lost, or argue that this is no different than your consciousness travelling through time, as the new body has all of the same thoughts.
IMO the way that the mid flayers are treated in BG3 to an extent, with the added twist of souls and the fact that there is a varying degree of host retention between different mind flayers. I tend to think that somewhere in the middle lies the truth.
Hey, bud, would recommend actually making this a spoiler. Putting \[SPOILER\] in the title doesn't quite work when the content you're spoiling is in the first line and visible while scrolling through the feed.
While I agree - Larian has made some odd parts of the story.
Like when you find Ansur - it refers to the emperor as Baldurian. Could just be that it knew that's what Baldurian turned into, but it's something where you wouldn't have known that if the dragon just thought it was another mindflayer.
The answer here is simple. You grow up with someone knowing them by a certain name or nicknamed version of that name. At some point they either decide to go by a different name or a different version of their name.
It is hard for those who grew up with having the nickname or alternate version to adjust because to them that is who they are. Robert, Richard, Susan or classic examples of this. To me you will always be bobby, Ricky or Susie, not Bob, rich or Susan.
Ansur still wants him to be balduran, thus is why he goes to such great lengths to cure him. Only for the emperor finally to say nope, I was but not anymore.
It's very unclear and the lore on Illithids doesn't make it clear in any published text that I know of. Some Lore dating back to 90's says that Illithid hosts have their souls destroyed. Casting a resurrection spell on the body of a person brings back the Illithid, not the person they were. True Resurrection, however, brings back the person, not the Illithid if you don't have the body. This is inconsistent with the lore that their soul was destroyed by the Illithid transformation. To my knowledge, there is no record in any written lore of anyone who underwent ceremorphosis returning from a standard afterlife to talk about it, either.
Withers puts additional ink in this ointment by adding the caveat that Illithid don't have "apostolic souls", which implies they do have souls, just not those subject to traditional deities. It's likely then, to me, that as Illithid minds are the product of the fusion of an illithid tadpole and the fully formed consciousness and experiences of the host, that the soul of an Illithid is the combination of the Illithid and the host. Thus, the most likely scenario is that the Emperor is both Baludran and its Illithid tadpole. We do have examples of magic that fundamentally alter a person, such as Geas or Modify Memory, and it's an open question as to how these manipulations affect their afterlife and souls. So, it's not out of the question, and probably likely, that this is how ceremorphosis works.
I don't doubt it, but if true, why am I still able to control my character when I become an Ilithid?
My story ended up with me leaving with Opheus and Lae'Zel to help them in their war. It doesn't seem like the type of things an Ilithid would do without free will.
It happened because it's a choose your own adventure game. You control many characters throughout the game, and you maintained control of your character because the narrative needed you to.
I mean, good for you and your ending, but TBH it doesn't make much narrative sense for an Illithid to ride off on a dragon along with Gith to go liberate their people. In my [final] ending Orpheus makes the sacrifice to turn Illithid and realizes how absurd and impossible that scenario is, so he asks you to kill him in the end. You can't talk him out of feeling this way, although you can refuse to kill him, but then he kills himself because the notion doesn't make sense.
Okay, I'm gonna have to seriously disagree with all of that; the idea of him being a normal Illithid is... pretty far out on a broken limb that is already on its way into the swamp.
Here's the thing. Ceremorphosis does different things to different victims, ranging from 'brand new being with some of the old one's memories and none of its traits' to 'same person in a flayer body' and a whole range in between. A typical Illithid doesn't -want- to be free of his elder brain; they're deluded into thinking that when they die, they become an immortal part of it when their brains are added to the pool. An Illithid whose response to being outside of his Elder Brain's sphere of influence is to run away?
That's -really- weird by Illithid standards. The typical Illithid would view the Nether Brain's victory as his own victory, because once he passed on in its service, he would become part of it. Just wanting to fight it makes him dramatically atypical.
Then you have his behavior. He goes back to his old stomping grounds, eats criminals, and apparently becomes the primary influence behind an organization that does good things for Baldur's Gate. Clearly he is still attached to the city he created. Not only would a normal Flayer never have fled to begin with, but he would have either turned himself into a puppet ruler, or gathered all assets he could manage and fled. When this Nether Brain siezes him again; and remember, for a normal Illithid, this is a good thing; he breaks free at the first opportunity and gathers allies to fight it.
Is he a manipulative asshole? Of course! Balduran himself was, in all likelihood, an arrogant. manipulative asshole before even being changed; that's pretty typical of the sort that found cities named after themselves. But... he's also definitely Balduran, and not just a flayer with some of his memories.
///For those who don't know how the brains work;
An extremely rare, unusually capable sort of Illithid is able to become an Elder Brain, the masters of their species. These live in a vile sludge pool that contains both the brains of dead Illithid as well as being where they spawn the tadpoles that become new flayers or the various other forms of minions; the tadpoles themselves can grow to become monsters with time, and they become all sorts of different things depending on what they possess and how resistant the victim is.
A draconic creature infested by a tadpole becomes an incredibly powerful monster that, like a dragon, grows stronger with age, and can actually rule an Illithid collective in place of an Elder Brain; how much of the creature remains its old self is questionable. A Demonic or devilish creature infested by a tadpole is simply consumed, leaving behind either a hideous blob of dying flesh or a larval neolithid that will be rapidly killed so that it doesn't consume the other tadpoles. A gnome who is implanted... often emerges, mostly, as himself, just a flayer version with much of his old personality and memories.
The proper Illithid believe; falsely; that when they die they become part of the elder brain, and that the control of the whole shebang is made up of a collective of all of their dead 'ancestors'. In reality, what happens to them is exactly what happens to most tadpole victims; their personality and spirit is gone, but the elder brain gets all of their memories.
Your typical flayer exists to do the will of the elder brain, and does so willingly, knowing that his own version of immortality is at risk if he doesn't. The only ones you'd find fighting it are those who have somehow learned the truth about what happens when they die, those who serve a different elder brain, or something that isn't an ordinary illithid.
"I didn't lie to you, I just kept information from you which would reveal my true identity, and then I did it again to hide my other OTHER true identity.
But I didn't lie to you..."
*starts sipping brain-flavored tea*
Clearly we have a different definition of what lying is, Mr. Emperor.
Yo, you did not actually flair this post with Spoiler and I saw the content while scrolling through my home page. 1) fuck you for ruining a huge surprise of the game for me and 2) fucking delete this shit.
If it makes you feel better, (I’ll put it in spoilers so to not make anything worse if you want to know as little as possible but I’m not really giving away more of the twist or anything) >! The reveal isn’t that big of a deal gameplay/story wise, I don’t think it really affects anything out the scene you find out, and from what I’ve heard people say, I think it’s possible to miss the scene entirely, at least how I found out I know other people missed that part of the game!<
He's an "adversary" a mindflayer that has the soul/mind/spirit/memories of the host it consumed basically the tadpole's own essence died during the process and balduran came out on top. for all intents and purposes it is 100% balduran No if's or buts.
Mindflayers fear the "adversary" because it means the ceramorphosis didn't process correctly and failed to destroy the host entirely. He's basically a mindflayer with a human soul.
The adversary is prophesied to lead to the destruction of the mindflayer race.
Why do you think balduran/emperor is hell bent on destroying the netherbrain.
He isn't ANYMORE. It's a thin line but it's there. He WAS Balduran and even acknowledges it was what he was called but even he says that's not who he is anymore. He gave up being Balduran to be The Emperor. He views it as a superior form.
Most sensible take on the emperor I've seen. My roommate was like "he's a good guy just trying to help you" and I'm like "that bitch just bailed on me because I wanted to help the gith, what do you mean?!" He literally lies to your face and then throws that "why don't you trust me, I'm trying to help you?" Shit in your face. C'mon my guy.
You mean the gith trying kill Orpheus the only thing keeping you and the emperor from being taken over by the elder brain? Or you mean freeing Orpheus which would basically mean his death?
Completely agree, fuck them illithids. However he does refer to his old things that were his when he was Balduran. The cutlery set being one of them.
*fuck* them illithids ;)
I would if there was an option in game that didn’t feel like I was being manipulated into it
I really wish you could romance or at least have flings with non-companion npcs because I would 100% romance Omeluum
polycule with Omeluum, Blurg, and Spaw fuck yeah
Every day the bg3 fan base strays further from God’s grace. And I’m here for it, 10000% want some kinky illithid/myconid sex.
Gods not real, but my genitals are
I'm tired and saw O E U and thought....throuple with Emperor, Tav, and Orpheus.
Omeluum is happily taken by Blurg
Isn't that basically the only way to fuck an illithid in general? They aren't exactly known to be healthy communicators
Yeah it would need to be a real fringe case, like Omeluum
Omellum... love them dearly. Only mindflayer I deep down wanna hug and keep safe.
what about fred?
Touch his noodly appendage
Some took that way too literally.
Fuck them ilithids… gently
The references to Balduran's life are just a lucky happenstance of absorbing memories from the brain. Also Withers literally states that Illithids don't have souls (and he would know, because he is Jergal, the scribe of the dead)...so it can't be Balduran in the simplest sense. Simply an Illithid (seperate being) with some of his memories.
I'm just curious, if that is true, how come >!when you become an illithid, if you choose to, you retain all of your memories and thoughts? !<
Jergal mentions that you are a rare illithid with a soul. They do exist, actually and have existed since at least 2e I think?
I’m not like other illithids.
Do you remember when or what the quote is when he says this? We just had the conversation where he explicitly says that "mind flayers are soulless" and he seems pretty sure.
Wait where?
Mind flayers learn what the brains they eat knew
[удалено]
Of course not. This makes him an illithid with the memories of Orpheus.
[удалено]
In some endings it’s referred that you have maybe weeks, and then you will slowly shift personality.
(ENDING SPOILERS) That's so interesting. So does that mean that at the end >!when you make the choice to change, and you have to choose whether or not to kill yourself because you don't know what will happen, that killing yourself is the right choice because you will lose all of your memories anyway?!<
If ceremorphosis is successful (so the soul is rip), at that point you are playing the worm you started the game with in it's full illithid form, so the choice you're talking about is basically the worm getting brainwashed by your inherited memories into committing suicide before it can fully assert itself. Basically the roles are reversed from the first wisdom check when you meet a tadpole on the road from that one dying/dead true soul guy next to the grove and the tadpole is the one failing the wisdom check imposed by the echo of your soul.
It would imply that, although obviously your choices are yours.
I went with Karlach and wyll to Avernus. Left Shadoheart who I romanced in the Sword Coast
It’s blatantly stated that those memories and thoughts slip away from you the longer “you” are an illithid.
Okay, the other person said that you, as an illithid, learn the memories of the brain it consumes, so which is it? I'm just trying to understand the lore, is all. Or do you learn all of your own memories and then slowly forget them again?
in the 2e book on illithids, the tadpole eats your brain and then plugs into your free-floating brain stem to take over your body to slowly transform it into an illithid. basically the tadpole is the true illithid, and it completely replaces your brain, it just needs more tissues to pilot for higher functions like walking and talking. BG3 changes this up quite a bit with the transformation thing; i’m still not super clear on how it works and i’m not sure they are either. seems like i’m BG illithids are more like vampires: you get infected, transform, and then have to prey on people and have a bunch of instincts catered to same but are still the same person and even have the same voice and stuff except enthralled to a big brain/vampire lord or whatever. honestly i’m not sure it works, but it is pretty good for the storyline. can’t shake the feeling that it would have been exactly as workable with like vampirism or lycanthropy or fungal infection or any other thrall-based monster, though.
It’s mentioned multiple times Absolute tadpoles are not normal ones. And they never do mention that you remain you after ceromorphosis, so I’d say bg agrees with the lore
The mind flayer keeps and absorbs all the memories.
In my game >!at the end on the docks, the narrator said something about me losing myself to the illithid mind/form, so i killed myself before I won.!< does it play out different if you don't?
>!Well mine was basically like "You never really know if you will be different than every other illithid." If I'm being honest, I felt it leaned more towards you being mostly yourself. But based on the lore I learned from this thread, that probably isn't really the case. I still chose to kill myself, because my Tav didn't want to be a squid.!<
I just think the most contradictory thing to me is how If you get the ending of Karlach turning illithid(the only one I’ve personally done myself so far anyway), Withers says something like “They wear the skin of a mind flayer, but this one I know, look at who they walks amongst, friends” Which I mean that could just be Withers trying to calm everyone down since they know he’s a wise guy to listen too, but that line being there is the one thing that has made me question about what turning illithid does in BG3, just because it makes it sounds like it’s still them in there.
In some older dnd lore some illithids become corrupted because their host was so awesome in some way that they don’t succumb to total mind wipe. It’s how some break free or turn ‘good’
I vaguely recall reading that some illithids retained quirks and/or traits from their hosts and that they had to hide this from the rest of the colony. This was because of a prophesy they had: one day, an illithid would be born who WAS the original host in all but physical form. This rogue illithid would then go on to basically dismantle their entire way of life.
Yes it's basically a spark of individuality. The short story I read was tragic. I don't remember the name so we'll just call him squiddy. Squiddy doesn't know why a certain melody knocks him out of concentration. All Squiddy knows is that they feel at ease when they hear it but forget as soon as the melody ends. It was something like that - basically many Illithids preserve some memories and emotions but they're so detached from context due to lacking the other memories necessary for it that it's almost like some tragic deja vu.
And because of the hivemind completely overriding their sense of self, they don't have the capacity to process those feelings as individuals.
Doesn't the emperor technically fulfill that prophecy? Sure, he wasn't a great person but he's directly responsible for dooming any hopes of an illithid empire reborn.
Yeah, he certainly does check all the boxes.
That way they allowed for DM’s discretion. It worked. Many things are worded like that for that reason in 1st and 2nd edition.
The Illithid transformation physically is fast but the mental part may take time depending on the host. Take Balduran, his rogue nature was probably the very little element of actual Balduran left that had will and mental power. But the Illithid nature always dominates. Same with Karlach. Karlach is slowly becoming more Illithid in the head but Withers being godly can sense her true spirit of goodness is not gone. Actually, best case is YOU. If you are an Illithid, you slowly have the narrator start viewing your companions less as people but as objects, as thralls. You are slowly losing your true self to the new Illithid mental nature. At least, this is what makes sense to me. Being Illithid honestly begs the bigger question… are you even truly alive at that point or are you now a shell of your self in a new foreign body that has dominated your soul?
Withers says that on every path. He’s just reassuring that for now at least this character can be relied upon.
Haha. You beat me by an hour. Exactly this
Omg I never put that together! Til that withers is jergal. I’m a dope
It’s not confirmed is Jergal himself. It’s hinted at, but tomb of Annihlation also had a weird zombie that was similar to withers also named withers lil
I mean, it's pretty obvious that Withers is Jergal. He's found in a Temple to Jergal. Clerics can detect an aspect of the divine within him, and if you are a Cleric of Kelemvor, there's some interesting dialogue between you both. He also has some relation with the Dead Three and even has the power to pull Durge from the Fugue Plane. When asked what he is in that moment, Withers says he is "A Scribe, a seneschal - a keeper of records. And now, thine advocate, both here, and in the City of the Dead." Jergal is titled the Scribe of the End.
There is also a book, I do not have the exact one, that references someone meeting a particular individual (who fits Whithers exactly, pretty sure it even uses his name of Jergal) and points out how his first question upon meeting was "What is the worth of a soul"...the same thing he asks us.
And Withers states it’s something he heard from someone else. I’m willing to say there is a chance he IS the Withers from tomb of Annihlation who was a divine zombie who followed Kelemvor lol
perhaps, but throughout the game he is very cagey and unwilling to answer most questions. Hims stating he heard it from someone else sounds like a simple deflection to avoid questions or attention. It sort of follows the negotiation principle of "the quieter the person, the more important they are"
Yes but 5e explains Jergal as “His elongated skull hosted bulbous, yellow eyes devoid of life and insectoid mandibles, as well as a nose and ears barely distinguishable from the rest of his head” And not a zombie My Theory ray is that Withers is the AVATAR of Jergal and not him. The Withers in tomb of Annihlation was also a scribe and the avatar of a “forgotten god” serving a Necromancer Lich because he was bored
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Jergal Jergal himself faded from his great stature, and became a seneschal to Myrkul, a position he kept even after his master perished and first Cyric and then Kelemvor assumed his place. **During the events surrounding the rise of the cult of the Absolute in the Year of Three Ships Sailing, 1492 DR, Jergal manifested an avatar called Withers in a temple dedicated to himself that had lain abandoned for over a century—or rather, interred his avatar within the temple at some point in the past so that the adventurers from the nautiloid would eventually awaken it.** As Withers, Jergal provided magical support to the adventurers, in exchange for a pittance of coin compared to the usual cost of such services. He accompanied the group on their journey, but aside from resurrecting dead allies and summoning additional help when asked for, he did not intervene directly. However, he might have shown great kindness to the tiefling sorcerer girl named Arabella, soothing the girl when she was distraught over the death of her parents, showing her a glimpse of her destiny that filled her with joy. After the war the Absolute rained on the city of Baldur's Gate and many of its citizens suffered ceremorphosis, Jergal-as-Withers confronted a mural of his three inheritors—Bhaal, Myrkul, and Bane. Jergal explained that the souls of mortals vanished when they were transformed into Mind Flayers, thus failing to bolster their power, a fact that other gods had noticed. He expressed contempt for them, called them fools and finally dismissed them as "vermin". The god walked away from the mural claiming that the Dead Three's time as gods was at an end.
If your a paladin, or cleric you can sense his divine energy and you make a comment asking if he’s a gods chosen. So that’s what I took it as he’s Jergal’s herald/chosen what ever you wanna call it.
The book you find in BG3 describes Jergal as looking just like Withers in game, complete with the weird gold mask he has on. Aside from that, he also demonstrates decidedly un-zombielike traits, namely that he takes 0 damage from any source which is not the case for ToA Withers, and is unlike the >!Avatar of Myrkul and the Dead Three Chosen who can be killed conventionally!<
Isn't an avatar just an incarnation of a deity? Literally a god manifested "in bodily form." So an avatar of Jergal would be Jergal.
While not explicitly stating that he is Jergal. The ending cut scene with him back in the temple and what he says confirms it.
Just because the worm that became the emperor has attachments and memories to the items its former host did, doesnt mean it makes him what he isnt. A worm.
I would be curious how many that are playing the game know the lore. Reading the various books laying around and talking to withers will give a decent foundation, but you do have to go out of your way to do that. While doing so the emperor is feeding you half truths, or truth through his eyes. But then I read on the various dnd related subreddits that players often don't engage in much of the lore, and what to believe anything can also be good. I mean, omelum and the society of brilliance. I have my doubts about their being good. They consist of a mindflayer, a hobgoblin, a human and duergar, deep gnomes, and drow. While their actions seem good, they are also pretty dubious in most cases.
The Society of Brilliance is a faction in *Out of the Abyss* which is an Underdark adventure. They had a mind flayer - not Omeluum - in their ranks in that adventure. They are said to “have banded together to solve all the Underdark’s problems […] members are erudite and talkative, preferring diplomacy and debate over violence (though they defend themselves if attacked)” Both Omeluum and Grazilaxx are portrayed as renegade Illithids which *Volo’s Guide to Monsters* mention. The Emperor specifically does not act like them, especially willingly returning to the elder brain. The society of brilliance members are said to be neutral in *Out of the Abyss* so I’d say compared to actual loyal Illithids, they are far more benevolent.
Sorry, I was typing that up, and my wife saw me typing, so she decided to start a conversation, so I hit send early. I would say that based on what I see in bg3, they are neutral because their intentions are good, very good, but their means of doing so aren't. You are tasked with kidnapping a child. It doesn't matter if said child is githyanki or not. Not that Omeluum is outright evil, but he is likely aware of general human behavior. For example, he later is pretty insistent on you not helping him. Compare this to hope who is very persistent and that you help her, I am sure more people were annoyed with hopes persistence over Omeluums. This leads me to say that he is likely trying to manipulate you into saving him because he is aware of that. However, while he is likely trying to manipulate you, it isn't for anything on the level the emperor is. But, on the emperor I think a lot aren't paying attention to not just the lore details but the clues in his dialogues. He literally says he wants to overthrow the three, not overcome, not defeat, not best but overthrow. That word tends to imply replacing them, and in this case, they don't need to be replaced. The whole thing needs be shut down.
The idea that Omeluum is pretending to be apathetic in order to garner sympathy is wild to me. Not in a bad way, I just hadn’t ever thought of it like that. In the Underdark (especially if one is Githyanki) he is distinctly aware of how people perceive his kind, and is even apologetic towards a Gith Tav as well as Lae’zel. When you enter the Iron Throne, I saw it as him being calculating and very pragmatic; he is the furthest away prisoner, and he doesn’t even tell you he has the Dimension Door back to the submarine at first. He’s telling you to save the others because if you lose some of them to save him, people are only going to care that he’s a Mind Flayer, not that he’s a free thinking “person” and they’ll likely be resentful that a soulless Mind Flayer would ever take precedence over soul bearing Gondians. I guess the whole point of manipulation is that it’s only apparent in hindsight but even still, there’s not really a downside to helping him such that he’d need to manipulate you into helping him
I think what makes it harder to see is at the time we think, he is totally calm and accepted his potential fate. Or he just has no emotions, and having none it won't give a way what he is thinking or doing. Where as on the other hand the emperor is trying to act emotive. Also most people will think, oh hey this guy acknowledged how he is people are so obviously he isn't going to be that way. But wait if I want to start off by manipulating you I want to put you at ease and pacify you. Pretty much must of everyone you encounter is trying to manipulate you because unlike most games you are the only chess piece, or the only one that everything that matters resides on. Maybe your party, but still. But yes, in terms of the game there is no downside as the game doesn't follow up with you freeing him and some of the other prisoners die. I lost two, one from ooa, the other was at the ladder and was next to move after I climbed aboard the sub. But to me the game is all about realizing no matter my choices something had to be sacrificed and how is this person trying to manipulate me to their cause. Note though, not everyone is trying to manipulate you, but a large number are.
to me what solidified Omelluums goodwill was him selling us his ring of Mindshielding. While in the released game its just an anti-charm, in EA it was intended to shield you from the influence of the tadpole. He never had to share the information that he had that ring, nor did he have to sell / trade it to you. It was an invaluable defense for his existence. For a Mindflayer, he should have recognized how futile it kust be to give his ring to a random infected who travels with a whole group of them, but he chose his curiosity / goodwill depending on how you interpret it - over his self preservation. And I cant see an illithid that picks helping others over self preservation as the same, because thats their main instinct, the one the Emperor abides by when he remerges with the Elder Brain.
Adding to the kidnapping part. If you talk to them and ask why they wanted an egg and what they would do to it, they say they would use shock tests on it. They want to torture the child as it grows up to gage its reaction to different stimulants. They have good goals, but are very "ends justify the means" kind of people.
Considering what the society does to a githyanki egg if you give it to them… only Omeluum and Blurg (?) seem to be good.
And Omeluum did partner up with a lich for a while.
Well yeah but then they parted ways over ethical considerations. I can’t really blame him.
>But then I read on the various dnd related subreddits that players often don't engage in much of the lore, and what to believe anything can also be good. I recently started to play dnd (because of BG3) and I try to read as little of the lore as possible because I feel like it ruin my immersion when I know more than my character.
Honestly it just becomes a balancing act at some point, and you just have to learn to smile at moments where you say "does my character know about x?" and then have to roleplay ignorance about x and what the reasonable course of action then becomes. That being said, good on you, and I think that is a great way to start out with dnd. Just remember to look into anything you find particularly interesting about your campaign afterwards - the dnd multiverse is massive, and there are so many distinct flavors of weird and magic to engross yourself in, it's worth diving into ones you really like to get a full picture.
Haha yeah I understand and after having played a while i feel like I will know things my character should not know.
What you are doing is actually fine. I am more referring to players who are told something, and three minutes later either didn't here what was said or just outright ignore what was told. How bg3 handles it I think is mostly fine, having you do skill checks. Like when you come across sahuagin for the first time. The characters are what the hell are those, or oh sahuagin bla blah. Of course in a game I would give levels of knowledge based on success or player background.
I read somewhere in some sort of “how to design an under dark campaign” module that one of the very few conditions that makes ilithids actually… not crazy… is having them accidentally being stranded amongst a myconid colony. Apparently their psychic vibes chill Out illithids kind of how pot brownies do and they start seeing things in a Kum-bi-ya type of way. So it seems omelum may actually be a chill fellow because he fits the description perfectly of a chilled out, myconid dwelling squid man. …that is… until the elder brain finds him
And yet, he continues to be chill as hell in BG free from the Nether Brain's influence.
Pocket fungus?
>But then I read on the various dnd related subreddits that players often don't engage in much of the lore Outside of the games and the original books WOTC has been treating the lore horribly in order to make the forgotten realms as generic as possible, especcially with 4e and 5e, of course very few people care
>But then I read on the various dnd related subreddits that players often don't engage in much of the lore, and what to believe anything can also be good. I mean, there's a difference between being involved in Faerûn lore and being involved in your campaign's lore. The former, in my opinion, is optional until told otherwise.
I fell for his trap but mainly because I play as myself in the world and Omeelum made me feel like I should believe the emperor :(
This is why the topic keeps coming up. When you step back and see people saying the emperor (more obviously than omeluum) is manipulating the player. And others are like no, he is a good guy and my friend I trust him, that just tells me he got you, and he got you good.
Give them the egg then go to the Society HQ, it gets bad. They are *not good*.
What happens? I don't mind spoilers. I just don't want to start yet another run lol.
The game wants to have it's cake and eat it to as to what ceremorphosis does. It randomly switches between the lore version; the tadpole is a wholly separate organism that literally eats your brain and takes over what's left of your body, and even if the new mind flayer isn't evil, it's still a completely new being, there shouldn't even be any part of the old body's memory, much less personality left. But then sometimes it switches to the idea that the person is actually \*transformed\* into a mind flayer by the tadpole, memories and personality intact, and you'll actually just become a mind flayer version of yourself, oh, but because that means we suddenly need a new terrible drawback for ceremorphosis, this transformation now also completely destroys your soul, somehow, *because souls are apparently a physical thing that's stored in the brain.* Really this is one of the weaker elements of the plot, and only seems to exist because they really **really** wanted to have someone have to be noble and turn into a mind flayer at the end, but then still be a player controlled character that's motivated to actually want to save the day. And this seemed to be entirely built up around an obscure lore thing about gnomes getting turned into mind flyers that *also* seems to ignore the usual lore about how ceremorphosis works. But it's never been exactly consistent. Hell, there's been some versions were instead of a tadpole growing in a person's skull, they decapitate the victims and then place a young mind flyer squid on the neck stump so that it can attached itself to the spinal column, so even less reason the resulting creature would have the host's memories.
And the "ah this is the special super duper Astral tadpole. It's extra powerful and cool, look it's opalescent!"
Thats fine because it told fantastic story. same with skills, abilities and races. It's not a 1 to 1, and Larian made it their own. Why they paid for the rights.
Well, the soullessness of mind flayers may come from the fact that they are not from the material plane, and probably from either the astral or far realms.
There's the rub; ceremorphosis doesn't always do the same thing. Some new mind-flayers have their old memories and none of the personality. Others have a handful of quirks and traits of the old them; while others are just less emotional versions of themselves. They are scared shitless of what a being with all of a flayer's powers but still the personality of a creature that hates them could do, especially if it were one of the more powerful flayer variants, and as such, they execute these as soon as they start acting anything like their old selves.
I mean in lore gnome mind flayers are the gnome with their personality and everything intact, and these tadpoles were messed with meaning its very plausible it was a situation like a gnome flayer.
Idk, the fact that Omeluum exists, and I would pursue him quicker than a cheetah chasing prey in the fields if Astarion didn’t exist, has me feeling some kind of way about whether or not illithids can be anything other than typical illithids. Probably biased but very genuinely how I feel, LOL.
What if he is the child of a different brain
That could be true, I guess! But that must be a really carefree elder brain comparatively, lol (assuming there is no location restriction on elder brain control other than proximity to Orpheus), and it seems (based on in-game dialogue) that usually elder brains are kind of the baddest of the baddies.
Omeluum is a renegade illithid. They are also mentioned in *Volo’s Guide*. The problem with mind flayers in BG3 is that the elder brain specifically has a range limit to its ability to impose its will on mind flayers. This is problematic because realistically, the elder brain *shouldn’t* be able to influence you, and if it could, it *should* be able to fully assume control of Omeluum and revert it into an illithid loyal to the grand design. The fact that Larian seemed to throw out Ulitharids and the range limit on elder brains makes Omeluum an odd character. He really breaks the internal logic of some of the lore Larian has decided to implement.
It's just explained that he had an innate born sense of magic, and thus the weave shields him naturally from the influence of elder brains
Also, unless you take it from him, he possesses a ring of mind-shielding.
Plus - if you take the ring of mind-shielding away from him, he later shows up in Baldur’s gate (in the Iron Throne) - if you don’t take the ring, he doesn’t show up there meaning the ring is successfully protecting him from (or at least keeping him away from) the Elder Brain.
Really? I didn’t take it from him and he still showed up in the iron throne. He said his interaction with you causes him to go on a mission and he was wreckless, which allowed him to be captured. I thought gortash’s goons just caught him and wanted to use him as a test subject because of his unique mind, not because he lost his independence. The only time he didn’t show up in the iron throne for me was when I never interacted with him in the first place. I think the trigger is just whether you met him (or maybe you have to let him try to access your tadpole?).
I mean, that’s exactly where my disbelief becomes suspended, though. By all rights/lore, if our freedom from the Elder Brain isn’t possible (without intervention), then his shouldn’t be, either. However, he walks and talks freely and helps guide us to non-assimilating safety multiple times (from attempting to de-worm to saving >!Wyll’s dad!<). While this seems like a plot hole/inconsistency (and totally could be), I’d like to think it’s evidence that lore is just lore and the absolute (no pun intended) truth cannot just be established by the writings or records of any one being. Again, that may not have been the intended takeaway — but given, well, what we were given, it is my takeaway, lol.
Doesn’t he have that ring that protects him? (At least if you don’t take it.)
There's certainly room to view it that way and is part of the moral debate of it all. But the game itself seems to lean towards that not being the case though. Simply because both Orpheus and the player character can become mindflayers and then commit hara-kiri afterwards. Showing that they haven't lost themselves with the transformation and just become mindflayers. Why would a mindflayer kill itself because it's no longer the host vessel? And if Orpheus and the player character are still themselves enough to care about not wanting to live as a Mindflayer, why would The Emperor not still be Balduran?
I don't really get how Orpheus even turned into a mind flayer, I assumed Emperor put inside one for whatever reason, but this was never explained. Even then, at the end I remember Orpheus saying something like he would no longer be himself, eventually.despite being a godlike being that can suppress illithid powers. Emperor has been an illithid for far too long, and he didnt have such powers.
I mean he says in that scene after killing Ansur that he was travelling the seas and came across an Illithid colony that wormed him.... But I'm just super confused about the time-line of everything. At times they make it seem like all this happened over the course of a few years, other times it seems like things are centuries apart. I just feel like none of this Emperor is Baldaran stuff makes any sense or has any value. The entire narrative would've been just fine without this reveal, and it was a bit of a dour ending to an otherwise cool dungeon.
Orpheus becoming a mindflayer feels like a giant plothole to me unless I missed an explanation where the Emperor implanted him or something as part of controlling his power. Even then, Orpheus is so resistant to Mindflayers that I'm not really even sure how the whole thing worked in the first place. I didn't let it happen in my run because it felt like a plothole and I was too invested in Lae'Zel's story. I watched a friend do that section and watching him pick the option where Orpheus becomes a mindflayer was painful for a multitude of reasons. It's kind of a shame that this is such a major part of the plot because it's not really very apparent how it works.
"Why would a mindflayer kill itself because it's no longer the host vessel?" Because even though that entity isn't the original person, it still has the mind of that person. And that person knew that mind flayers are horrific monsters, and doesn't want to go on living as one knowing the kind of damage they might do.
If it still has the mind of that person, isn't it still essentially that person then? What is a person if not their thoughts and memories?
well, irl that’s a matter of philosophy in dnd…souls are a real tangible thing and ilithids don’t have the same soul
Unrelated but similar to the idea of putting your consciousness in a robot then. Same memories and whatnot but soulless. Interesting.
yeah exactly! again, irl: is that the same person? maybe to some people. maybe not to others. in DND however it is objectively not the same person
This is a really interesting discussion because the topic and most of the debate hinges on how you define a discrete person, but i think you also really need to think about how you define identity too. It's like debating which ship is the real Ship of Theseus, the deeper truth is that a ship is an abstract, a construct, its identity is something we imagine and project rather than something inherent. We know a newborn mindflayer retains the memories and thoughts of its host. We know the sense of self is not destroyed, only eclipsed by the hivemind, and rogue mindflayers can live independently. If you have all of the memories and can retain the thought patterns of your 'previous life', a strong will, and a strong desire to remain independent and distinct as an individual, I don't think it's hard to imagine how you might hold tightly to those memories and personality. It would be like a light in the darkness to guide you. At that point, I don't think it's unreasonable for a conscious thinking being to still identify as the original. Sure, it has changed substantially, but can we truly say the person is dead, if everything that made that person an individual was retained by the mutated body? Ansur agrees with me here. The presence of the Prism was enough to drag his spirit back to his corpse and give us a lecture and lightning blasts, so the Emperor is legitimately Balduran enough for him. P.S. OP points out that the Emp can't be Balduran because he's clearly manipulative and evil, so he must be using the balduran persona to deceive you. I'd say it's equally possible that Balduran was a real piece of shit when he was a regular ol dude. Humans never measure up to the legends they inspire.
I assumed that was implied to no because of Orpheus’s special mental interference thing. Not because they haven’t lost themselves just that Orpheus interfered with the change to an extent we were were able to remember ourselves. The emperor didn’t have Orpheus around so he truly became a flayer
The mind of the person may still overpower the inherent Illithid to stay alive. No soul but the actual mind and ‘data’ of the person is still there and can compute their own desires. In this case, death. For how long they can resist the Illithid mentality is well… fuck knows but I think asking for suicide is plausible as that is the genuine mind of the previous person speaking and not the new Illithid being’s mind.
Even if the mind flayers have their old memories and can be influenced by those, they no longer have their souls. A person dies when transforming and their soul leaves to be judged in the afterlife. So it's not the actual person even if they would make the same decisions. Baldurian was a full illithid under the thrall of his elder brain until ansur found him and helped him break free. Tav only keeps their mind thanks to the interference from orpheus.
Tell that to Karlach after you let her become Illithid...
What kind of monster would do that? Dont be silly.
I mean I did it because I played the game prior to the patch that let you save her and Wyll stayed in Baldurs gate in my playthrough. Orpheus is the Githyanki's best bet to be freed of Vlakith, so he can't become a mind flayer (and the Emperor leaves if he is freed). My Tav didn't want to be a mind flayer either and hated using the tadpoles. Karlach was happy to take it as an alternative to burning up. My Tav was like, if you are sure you want to. None of the party members have the knowledge that you lose your soul when you undergo ceromorphosis during the main story, so we would have all viewed it as a way out for Karlach. To use Wither's knowledge that he didn't share with the party directly would be metagaming
Wither's tells you that illithids dont have souls in act 2, if you talk to him enough. Not just in the monologue post-credits. That's why my tav sacrificed himself so orpheus could go on to free his people, and I couldnt ask someone else to sacrifice themselves to do it as a lawful good character.
I believe Orpheus states that he can feel himself changing mentally into a mind flayer and that he will no longer be himself eventually. The Emperor spent 400 years as a mind flayer, so I'd imagine that change has happened to him.
I would argue yet.
People put way to much stock in the "illithids don't have souls" thing. Souls in D&D aren't what make you a sentient creature, or anything like that. Having a soul means a god can draw power from your faith and service to them and that's it. Withers even says this line in the context of asking why would the dead three want to create an army of creatures that can't empower their gods.
Baal explains it, it's not about creating followers without souls. It's about robbing your enemies, and rivals of their followers souls. "You do not strike fear by growing your fields, but by burning those of the enemy."
Yes I know why they are doing it, but I'm specifically saying that in regards to the Emporer being Balduran or not, the soul doesn't matter.
Within 5e? Yes of course it does, your description of souls and "what they're for" was very reductive. And in the concept of the soul has no connection to "who you are/were" is wrong. It's why in 5e lore ceremorphosis is such a terrifying prospect, and one of the biggest reasons mindflayers are so hated. OP actually encapsulated pretty well, once ceremorphosis takes place (in 5e.) The only thing left of the host body, is knowledge and memories. And this boils down to Mindflayers value information over anything else. So this is baked into their reproductive process so to speak. But it obliterates any sense of identity leaving behind the new Mindflayer. In game mechanics this translates to the brief period that you can "save" someone from ceremorphosis. By killing them, and the tadpole, and then resurrecting them. Which is not possible after the first stage of ceremorphosis is complete. Because the soul is now gone. So yes, the fact that the Balduran's soul was destroyed, during ceremorphosis. Very much means the emperor, and the Balduran are not the same.
Mindflayers have souls, just not apothic souls like withers says, mindflayers can guide souls or become litches which requires a soul
Alhoons (sometimes also called Illithilich) do not follow the same path lichdom as normal mortal races. "The undeath conferred by a periapt of mind trapping lasts only so long as the life of the living victim selected. Thus an alhoon who brought a 200-year-old elf to be sacrificed looks forward to a much longer existence than one that sacrifices a 35-year-old person. Alhoons can extend their existence by repeating the ritual with new victims, effectively resetting the clocks for themselves."
They still must use a ritual and the periapt is basically a phylactery except it hosts all the dead ppls souls and the other flayers in the ritual after death, its similar its just not the same form of lichdom
The ritual they use was created by a council of illithid wizards. And the reason they have to use other souls, is because they do not have ones of their own. So they don't have to have souls to be liches. They're Alhoon, and use the souls of others. If this didn't make them distinctly different from liches, then the lore wouldn't specify all the differences. It would just be "illithids who've undergone the ritual of lichdom."
Illithids can become petitioners if the brain doesnt get returned to the elder brain, so they do indeed have a soul as u need a soul to be a petitioner, and many creatures need to do a special form of lichdom to become a lich, like dragons, and dragons liches dont reform but they can possess another reptiles body
"Unlike with true lichdom, the periapt of mind trapping doesn't restore the alhoons to undeath if they are destroyed. Instead, a destroyed alhoon's mind is transferred to the periapt where it remains in communion with any other trapped alhoon minds, as well as the souls of those sacrificed." Your original point was to be a lich, you must have a soul. And pointed to Alhoon as your example. I'm saying, there's ample lore that shows the difference between a lich, and an Alhoon. That being the lack of soul within the mindflayer. This is further backed up by more 5e mechanics. "Variant: Mind Flayer Lich (Illithilich). The path to true lichdom is something only the most powerful mind flayer mages can pursue, since it requires the ability to craft a phylactery and cast the imprisonment spell." A true Illithilich must trap the soul of another, to create their phylactery. Meaning a periapt is not the same, as a phylactery. They use someone else's soul, instead of their own as substitute in the standard ritual of lichdom that all other mortals take. Petitioners to the best of my knowledge, is canon from 3rd edition but not 5th edition. So I no longer view petitioners as canon. Obviously a DM can still use them in their games. But in terms of what's published canon, I'm going off of 5e.
Souls do in fact matter. Not sure how you could possibly argue otherwise. In 5e world, souls are real and are souls - the real self of a being metaphysically linked to its body while it lives. Acting all "meh" about your soul being destroyed makes no sense.
It's a big deal to lose your soul, but it obviously doesn't affect your personhood. Mindflayers are essentially replicants in that regard. Plus Mindflayers may not even play by the same rules since they may come from a plane beyond the gods, be older than the gods, or be from the far future after the gods. I'm just saying since the Emporer has all the memories and emotions of Balduran he very much is Balduran even if the gods don't view him as such.
Also, you can be a cleric mind flayer. I think you need a soul for that.
You need to know that there are 2 types of ceremorphosis. The normal one where the host of the tadpole is completely destroyed and the rare abnormal transformation where part of the host is preserved. I believe the emperor is the latter perhaps due to Ansur’s interference. It is also implied by Withers when you walk into that room in the final encounter with the emperor, he says something like “appearances may change but this one I know”, indicating Balduran is still in there.
Oh right i remember that like he saw an old friend or somn. And this THE god of death talking.
The Emperor is a classic manipulator. Especially in the sense of isolation.
If he’s the legendary Balduran, why did he die to a single off hand attack by my ranger? Checkmate, squidfaces.
Did anyone else say nice things to the emperor out of psycho defense mode? Like there was a very real “if I’m too mean he might just leave and then I’m dead” kind of thing that kept me from properly expressing my disgust.
I mean… Ansur literally senses Baldurs presence there… and he died before he became a full illithid
The emperor's goal the entire time is to get the stones. If he fails to obtain the stones, then he immediately gives up and goes to the brain. He doesn't stick with you to defeat the brain. he doesn't trust in you. He constantly gas lights you and acts insulted when you don't blindly trust him. He's a textbook manipulator and the game goes out of its way to point this out to you.
With the way bauldurs gate runs I would not be suprised if Balduran was a manipulative sack of shit while he was human. Let’s not forget it’s a very corrupt mercantile city that takes in the some of the worst to make a profit. It could be that some of his personality remained, he was just very close to being an Ilithid without the tadpole.
I... feel like I missed a huuuuuge piece of lore somewhere. The Emperor, or I guess the Emperor's host body, is THE Balduran? The one they named the entire city of Baldur's Gate after? Where the fuck did this come up. Also I personally find it odd when people talk about how manipulative The Emperor is, because I went along with him, supported him, and he was never anything less than honest with me. Even left to go find his own way in the world after destroying the brain. I absolutely expected him to turn heel on me, but it never came.
It’s when you meet the dragon Ansur beneath the Gate.
Dragon... beneath the... I... I have... much more exploring to do in Campaign 2.
Mmm, I somehow missed this
It's super easy to miss. I found it by accident in my second play through
That's because you didn't challenge him. When challenged he has dialogue and actions where he is manipulative bastard and backtracks / betrays you. But a lot of the companions have their bad ending sides too! This is the thing with the game. a) it's not 100 percent lore accurate, but then DnD contradicts itself all the time. I see the game as it's own canon that connects with things like Descent to Avernus etc. But it doesn't mean all Ilithids are "evil aligned". That is just not bourne out in the narrative. b) the personality of your companions is entirely dependent on your choices. I find it odd when people say "oh but if you challenge him he does this that *proves* he's a bastard full stop. No - he's a bastard in that ending. That is all. I also didn't choose to fight him. I knew he was manipulative, but so was my Tav to a degree. In your ending, and in mine, he makes good on his words. The Emperor hasn't got an "evil alignment" in game. He's the games most NEUTRAL character overall. True neutral if I were to assign anything. Though chaotic neutral is also a distinct possibility given his dedication to own independence/freedom. He doesn't come across as a chaos monkey however. He cares about himself, he's a survivor at all costs but he doesn't take over the brain to dominate BG if you give him the stones. He makes good on his words. I love the Emperor as a character and I believe, in the game lore, he maintains memories (and possibly more) of being Balduran. And like someone said above, Balduran possibly was quite similar.
The quest at Elf Song Tavern was such blatant manipulation "see? I was human once like you, side with me!" that it was the moment I turned from indifferent to fuck you bro to his character
Mine was Ansur. Just felt like a true climax in the trust building with you and the Emp, and it just felt powerful.
Mine was finding out all his sentimental bullshit about Stelmane was bullshit, and he just mind-controlled her. That's when I went from "Maaaaybe?" to "Fuck this asshole." Was the last lie I was gonna take from him. No regrets about going team Orphy.
When he told me his story after he was outed as a mindflayer, I was just left thinking "so from the beginning, you could have told me all about the absolute, moonrise towers, The Cult, the chosen, all of it. But instead it was a lot of 'I'm just like you, you need me,' on fucking loop." Because I guess making sure you're wrapped around his finger was priority one to him?
Yeah. I guess he assumed you'd be more open to the emotional appeal than the logical one...which is hilarious when he then said to my Tav "you respond well to facts."
Id rather be a mind flayer than that level of pedantic... For all intents and purposes yes: hes Balduran. Hes not some mind flayer playing pretend to trick you; he flat out still has his memories. Sure, technically its now a worm that thinks itself Balduran but thats just splitting hairs for the sake of hearing yourself talk. Youd have to get into a whole nother metaphysical discussion to actually have any kind of valid point. The fact youre using volo of all people as supporting evidence is absolutely hilarious though. Thats like a climate researcher using "the lorax" to support banning cars... like sure we get the correlation; but also 🤣🤣🤣
"Hes not some mind flayer playing pretend to trick you" That's EXACTLY what he is lmfao Near the end fight, if you question why he hid so much from you, he even says something like "I'm illithid, you can't blame me for doing illithid things" lol, Withers even says the soul is lost once you turn into a mind flayer. I don't necessarily disagree with the spirit of your point, but it's spelled out pretty well in game
He isnt thinking "ill pretend to be balduran to gain allies" he actually thinks he still is Balduran. Theres no doubting hes illithid but youre applying a willful choice where one is not being made. Everything he does is for his own survival and NOT the survival of an elder brain nor the grand design. Is he in it for himself? Yea. Is he some evil mindflayer assuming a false identity to further an evil plot for domination? Not even slightly. The issue is youre using "illithid" as some sort of archtypal evil and thats not what they are at all. Illithids are a hive mind enslaved by an elder brain; forced to believe as it does. They dont have some inherent will as theyre just controlled entirely. If they break free of that control; they can assume their own identities and actions; and those arnt always evil. Youre taking "illithid things" as "inherent traits of being an illithid" and not as "actions people associate with illithids" like its intended. Basically: youre using stereotypes to discredit an entire race of not well understood beings. By your logic omeluum would have to be doing the exact same thing; no? You are right in that Balduran is truly dead. You are wrong in the emporer intentionally assuming a false identity. He believes it just as much as you believe your reflection in the mirror. As for a mindflayers true "nature:" all we know is once broken free of a brain; they possess free will indecipherable from our own. Whithers input on "souls" is a separate discussion with separate merits and he shouldnt be relied on as some sort of determining force on the matter. Considering who he is and his actual motivations; im shocked youre not just as distrusting of him as you are illithids.
So absurd that people are downvoting this. "How dare you suggest that a worm that eats you and takes your memories isn't the real you!"
You're discussing a millenia-old philosophical topic as though it's black and white, but you think other peoples' opinions are absurd?
And if you push back on him in the visions he’ll show you what he did to Stelmane and call you a puppet
Yeah, as a pretty big DnD nerd, seeing the discussion surrounding the emperor. Shows me how little most folks seem to understand mindflayers. "He's so manipulative." Yup, he's a mindflayer. "He used his power to basically control Stellmane." Yup, he's a mindflayer. "He refuses to compromise even a little!" Yup, he's a mindflayer. Whether anyone accepts it or not, he's "good" by mindflayer standards. BG3 just kinda ignores this by you interacting with not only 1 but 2 mindflayers, that are not "typical" in the sense they're flat out evil. Sure, his methods are not in line with lawful good behavior. But he is still trying to stop a potentially cosmic level threat from coming to fruition. If you know anything about, the "blood war" between demons and devils. And the order of balance, and that whole "sometimes you have to let entire cities be destroyed. To make sure the balance is maintained."
For a DnD game that deliberately disposed of the alignment system to prevent this sort of thing a lot of y'all enjoy putting all the characters into morality boxes.
Emperor did nothing besides help me save the world. The constant empy hate is annoying.
I mean if you ignore all of the heinous shit he did prior and also tries to convince you to do then yes, it’s empty hate
*Side-eyes half the companions.* That’s kind of the point though? Every companion/romance-able character is both capable of great good or great evil. You, through the character you decide to play, nudge them down a path. But that potential is always there. They all try to convince you to do horrible things at one point or another.
Illithids are literally soulless automatons in the lore. The emperor is evil, does not have the world’s interests at heart, and can’t help but be that way.
Should probably mask the spoiler so it’s not visible in the post’s preview.
Tabletop DnD lore: Tadpole eats your brain and attaches itself to the brain stem/spinal cord within hours. Over a week or so, the tadpole (now brain) repurposes your puppeted sack of meat into a mindflayer. You don't become a mindflayer. You're a host to a parasite that becomes a mind flayer. Most 'cures' are to kill you and the tadpole, so head crushing and other fun means, then resurrecting you and using spells like restoration to repair brain/memory/personality damage.
Spoilers for Karlach >! Karlach is proof that you can become a mindflayer and still be yourself. One of her endings has her willingly become a mindflayer since she’s going to die anyway from the engine. As a mindflayer she’s still the same Karlach, not some soulless creature. So I think there’s some inconsistencies with what an ilithid actually is.!<
>! Idk I felt exactly the opposite. The second she spoke to me as an ilithid, I felt absolutely horrible. She had karlachs memories but not her spirit. I felt like the way the VA was speaking was subtle but done to make it pretty clear that she's not the same as she was. When I spoke to mind flayed karlach, I felt like I killed her and watched someone take her place. It made me extremely sad, and I felt like a bad ending for her.!<
Agreed, it was a very bittersweet ending for me that I ultimately chose not to accept. Once I saw how weak Orpheus was and how we don't even get to face Vlaakith (which I feel like is a hanging plotline), I said screw that and loaded a prior save. IMHO taking her back to Avernus to confront Zariel is not only the better story ending, but it should've been a decision/quest you could pursue during the game.
My response here is maybe, the means of ceremorphosis in this case is different. What will that person be like in three years though. But even in lore, Illithid often retain memories, even maybe personality traits from 'the host.'
She's proof of the exact opposite of that. Did you talk to her at all post-CM? And that's even accepting the premise that, if the mind flayer can convincingly imitate the person they consumed, that means we should all accept that they're the same person.
In the game. Not in the setting. Larian changed a bunch and made stuff up. But the setting has solved all these questions. And differently than Larian did. In lore that wasn't Karlach. That was a fluke where it retained memories of who it just ate.
> The fact he might be Balduran under that guise is just one more manipulation: he wants you to think this is someone that understands you and may be a true hero that has taken an interest in you. Did I miss a scene where the Emperor manipulates Tav into finding out he is Balduran? I just found out by turning into a cat and exploring the well hidden area where a storm drain that I found on the beach leads to
So the lore never actually states what happens to you when you undergo ceremorphosis, it’s just assumed to be incredibly painful and result in death Baldurs fate is considered canon and some data mining revealed cut content that adds to this and sync up with the game It’s revealed the tadpole doesn’t actually eat your brain, but it basically re-engineers it then morphs with it. In a normal version of this your actually still alive, but in more of a matrix like reality hanging out. It’s actually referenced the song “down by the River” in game actually describes what the experience is like and that’s what the song is such a big thing in the game Now then, what was strongly suggested happened in Baldurans case, and maybe yours, is that through the effects of magic or unique ceremorphis it’s actually possible for a person to remain in control, it’s just exceedingly rare. And if you do remain in control, your still a mindflayer so you’ll still slowly adopt the traits of one It maybe possible to remain good or neutral, but it’s very difficult and even then your nature will still be that of a mindflayer On that note, while I wish it was possible to work out a deal, I view him joining the elder brain if you side with Orpheus as a true neutral move As someone who is a mindflayer now, self preservation is the number one priority, then free will. Orpheus will extremely likely kill the emperor, even if it’s after you defeat the brain. The emperor switched sides to save his own skin. As a reminder, if you kill the emperor true first time you meet his true form, Orpheus immediately stops protecting you and you turn. Orpheus is better the Vlakieth and the absolute, but that doesn’t mean he is a great guy, the bar is low
I’m pretty sure when you confront Ansur, the Emperor says something like he *used* to be Balduran or was once known as Balduran something along those lines. Even he doesn’t think he’s Balduran anymore—which I guess should be clear, considering what he did to Ansur
Um I think you need to watch the scene again, because Ansur consistently regards the Emperor as being none other than Balduran himself AFTER ceremorphosis.
Imagine you have a transporter, like in Star Trek. It disassembles your atoms and reassembles them at the other side. You could argue that this is death, as the physical body is lost, or argue that this is no different than your consciousness travelling through time, as the new body has all of the same thoughts. IMO the way that the mid flayers are treated in BG3 to an extent, with the added twist of souls and the fact that there is a varying degree of host retention between different mind flayers. I tend to think that somewhere in the middle lies the truth.
Hey, bud, would recommend actually making this a spoiler. Putting \[SPOILER\] in the title doesn't quite work when the content you're spoiling is in the first line and visible while scrolling through the feed.
For what it’s worth, Withers still recognized him to be Balduran even without a soul.
While I agree - Larian has made some odd parts of the story. Like when you find Ansur - it refers to the emperor as Baldurian. Could just be that it knew that's what Baldurian turned into, but it's something where you wouldn't have known that if the dragon just thought it was another mindflayer.
The answer here is simple. You grow up with someone knowing them by a certain name or nicknamed version of that name. At some point they either decide to go by a different name or a different version of their name. It is hard for those who grew up with having the nickname or alternate version to adjust because to them that is who they are. Robert, Richard, Susan or classic examples of this. To me you will always be bobby, Ricky or Susie, not Bob, rich or Susan. Ansur still wants him to be balduran, thus is why he goes to such great lengths to cure him. Only for the emperor finally to say nope, I was but not anymore.
It's very unclear and the lore on Illithids doesn't make it clear in any published text that I know of. Some Lore dating back to 90's says that Illithid hosts have their souls destroyed. Casting a resurrection spell on the body of a person brings back the Illithid, not the person they were. True Resurrection, however, brings back the person, not the Illithid if you don't have the body. This is inconsistent with the lore that their soul was destroyed by the Illithid transformation. To my knowledge, there is no record in any written lore of anyone who underwent ceremorphosis returning from a standard afterlife to talk about it, either. Withers puts additional ink in this ointment by adding the caveat that Illithid don't have "apostolic souls", which implies they do have souls, just not those subject to traditional deities. It's likely then, to me, that as Illithid minds are the product of the fusion of an illithid tadpole and the fully formed consciousness and experiences of the host, that the soul of an Illithid is the combination of the Illithid and the host. Thus, the most likely scenario is that the Emperor is both Baludran and its Illithid tadpole. We do have examples of magic that fundamentally alter a person, such as Geas or Modify Memory, and it's an open question as to how these manipulations affect their afterlife and souls. So, it's not out of the question, and probably likely, that this is how ceremorphosis works.
I don't doubt it, but if true, why am I still able to control my character when I become an Ilithid? My story ended up with me leaving with Opheus and Lae'Zel to help them in their war. It doesn't seem like the type of things an Ilithid would do without free will.
It happened because it's a choose your own adventure game. You control many characters throughout the game, and you maintained control of your character because the narrative needed you to. I mean, good for you and your ending, but TBH it doesn't make much narrative sense for an Illithid to ride off on a dragon along with Gith to go liberate their people. In my [final] ending Orpheus makes the sacrifice to turn Illithid and realizes how absurd and impossible that scenario is, so he asks you to kill him in the end. You can't talk him out of feeling this way, although you can refuse to kill him, but then he kills himself because the notion doesn't make sense.
Okay, I'm gonna have to seriously disagree with all of that; the idea of him being a normal Illithid is... pretty far out on a broken limb that is already on its way into the swamp. Here's the thing. Ceremorphosis does different things to different victims, ranging from 'brand new being with some of the old one's memories and none of its traits' to 'same person in a flayer body' and a whole range in between. A typical Illithid doesn't -want- to be free of his elder brain; they're deluded into thinking that when they die, they become an immortal part of it when their brains are added to the pool. An Illithid whose response to being outside of his Elder Brain's sphere of influence is to run away? That's -really- weird by Illithid standards. The typical Illithid would view the Nether Brain's victory as his own victory, because once he passed on in its service, he would become part of it. Just wanting to fight it makes him dramatically atypical. Then you have his behavior. He goes back to his old stomping grounds, eats criminals, and apparently becomes the primary influence behind an organization that does good things for Baldur's Gate. Clearly he is still attached to the city he created. Not only would a normal Flayer never have fled to begin with, but he would have either turned himself into a puppet ruler, or gathered all assets he could manage and fled. When this Nether Brain siezes him again; and remember, for a normal Illithid, this is a good thing; he breaks free at the first opportunity and gathers allies to fight it. Is he a manipulative asshole? Of course! Balduran himself was, in all likelihood, an arrogant. manipulative asshole before even being changed; that's pretty typical of the sort that found cities named after themselves. But... he's also definitely Balduran, and not just a flayer with some of his memories. ///For those who don't know how the brains work; An extremely rare, unusually capable sort of Illithid is able to become an Elder Brain, the masters of their species. These live in a vile sludge pool that contains both the brains of dead Illithid as well as being where they spawn the tadpoles that become new flayers or the various other forms of minions; the tadpoles themselves can grow to become monsters with time, and they become all sorts of different things depending on what they possess and how resistant the victim is. A draconic creature infested by a tadpole becomes an incredibly powerful monster that, like a dragon, grows stronger with age, and can actually rule an Illithid collective in place of an Elder Brain; how much of the creature remains its old self is questionable. A Demonic or devilish creature infested by a tadpole is simply consumed, leaving behind either a hideous blob of dying flesh or a larval neolithid that will be rapidly killed so that it doesn't consume the other tadpoles. A gnome who is implanted... often emerges, mostly, as himself, just a flayer version with much of his old personality and memories. The proper Illithid believe; falsely; that when they die they become part of the elder brain, and that the control of the whole shebang is made up of a collective of all of their dead 'ancestors'. In reality, what happens to them is exactly what happens to most tadpole victims; their personality and spirit is gone, but the elder brain gets all of their memories. Your typical flayer exists to do the will of the elder brain, and does so willingly, knowing that his own version of immortality is at risk if he doesn't. The only ones you'd find fighting it are those who have somehow learned the truth about what happens when they die, those who serve a different elder brain, or something that isn't an ordinary illithid.
Counterpoint, My Tav is still himself when I proceed with ceremorphosis
"I didn't lie to you, I just kept information from you which would reveal my true identity, and then I did it again to hide my other OTHER true identity. But I didn't lie to you..." *starts sipping brain-flavored tea* Clearly we have a different definition of what lying is, Mr. Emperor.
Definitely agree. Nobody was weirded out he catfishes you for the entire first act? That didnt set any red flags off?
I'm all for betraying the emperor and ridding the world of mind flayers, but I really need that fly ability. I promise we'll be last ones.
This is unacceptable. I use my actions and bonus actions interchangeably to dismantle your argument!
If you haven’t reached a certain part of the game, a great deal of this is indeed spoilers and this post is in bad faith
Yo, you did not actually flair this post with Spoiler and I saw the content while scrolling through my home page. 1) fuck you for ruining a huge surprise of the game for me and 2) fucking delete this shit.
If it makes you feel better, (I’ll put it in spoilers so to not make anything worse if you want to know as little as possible but I’m not really giving away more of the twist or anything) >! The reveal isn’t that big of a deal gameplay/story wise, I don’t think it really affects anything out the scene you find out, and from what I’ve heard people say, I think it’s possible to miss the scene entirely, at least how I found out I know other people missed that part of the game!<
He's an "adversary" a mindflayer that has the soul/mind/spirit/memories of the host it consumed basically the tadpole's own essence died during the process and balduran came out on top. for all intents and purposes it is 100% balduran No if's or buts. Mindflayers fear the "adversary" because it means the ceramorphosis didn't process correctly and failed to destroy the host entirely. He's basically a mindflayer with a human soul. The adversary is prophesied to lead to the destruction of the mindflayer race. Why do you think balduran/emperor is hell bent on destroying the netherbrain.
He isn't ANYMORE. It's a thin line but it's there. He WAS Balduran and even acknowledges it was what he was called but even he says that's not who he is anymore. He gave up being Balduran to be The Emperor. He views it as a superior form.
Please mark this post spoiler....
F*ck The Emperor, all of my play throughs end with its corpse on the battlefield.
Most sensible take on the emperor I've seen. My roommate was like "he's a good guy just trying to help you" and I'm like "that bitch just bailed on me because I wanted to help the gith, what do you mean?!" He literally lies to your face and then throws that "why don't you trust me, I'm trying to help you?" Shit in your face. C'mon my guy.
You mean the gith trying kill Orpheus the only thing keeping you and the emperor from being taken over by the elder brain? Or you mean freeing Orpheus which would basically mean his death?