Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion [SPOILERS] An Attempt at Constructive Feedback for Act 2's Main Plot

There are a number of factors in the Ketheric plot that I would like clarified in a future Definitive Edition. I believe clarifying these factors will make for a better narrative because I find the apparent plot holes and lack of buildup unsatisfying. This is my understanding of the timeline and my complaints:

1. At the start, Ketheric, Melodia, and Isobel are a happy, Selune-worshipping family. Aylin comes along (did I miss why a demigod was visiting them? It's not as irritating as other plot points but it would be nice to know why a demigod is visiting a backwater town.) and she and Isobel fall in love.

So far, so good. I'm a bit lost as to why Aylin visited the town, but it's no big deal.

2. Ketheric does not approve of Isobel's relationship with Aylin because Aylin is immortal.

I do not understand this plot point. It comes out of nowhere and it is not explained. Ketheric is a devout Selunite whose daughter is in a relationship with the literal child of his goddess, and he's upset? Ketheric apparently had Moonrise towers built as a monument to Selune herself! Why would he be upset that his daughter is in a union with the child of said goddess? The only way I can make sense of it is that he is worried that Aylin doesn't really love Isobel, or would abandon Isobel as she aged, given Aylin would stay the same age, but Isobel would become an elderly woman, so Ketheric might think that Aylin would abandon Isobel when she needed her most. If that's the case or not, it needs to be made clear.

3. Melodia dies. Ketheric does not turn to Shar.

The game's imagery treats Melodia's death as a breaking point for Ketheric, but he still does not turn to Shar. What happened between Melodia's death and Isobel's death?

4. Isobel dies. Unknown cause. Ketheric almost immediately turns to Shar and imprisons Aylin in the Shadowfell. He then wages war on the Sword Coast

What did Ketheric get for turning to Shar? His gripe with Selune was that his family was not protected in spite of the sheer level of devotion they gave to her. Clearly, Ketheric wanted something from Shar. He takes the love of his daughter's life to Shar's domain! Yet he does not get his family back. He does not "forget" his family either or experience further loss or forgetfulness. So why did he send Aylin there? Why did he go from normal Selunite to a general on the warpath? Certainly giving the daughter of Selune to Shar would be enough to get something from the goddess. The way I am headcanoning this follows: Isobel died a violent death by some nearby group of people or polity, and Ketheric somehow blamed Aylin for it, perhaps by not protecting her as he wished she would. He trades Aylin to Shar in exchange for a relief from his grief and the power to take bloody vengeance on those responsible for his loss. The bloody vengeance is so great it provokes the intervention of druids and Harpers.

5. Ketheric is defeated. Refusing to accept his loss and disappointed in the weakness of the powers given to him by Shar, he asks Balthazar to help him strike a deal with Myrkul. In retaliation, Shar sends the shadow-curse upon the land. In exchange for Ketheric's soul and will, Myrkul resurrects Isobel. She is horrified by what her father has become and runs. However, every note one finds shows that somewhere deep inside the "undead" Ketheric is the man he once was.

Why didn't Ketheric go to Myrkul first? Is he stupid? What was the point of his deal with Shar if he could resurrect his daughter and earn her favor by uniting her with Aylin, rather than sending Aylin to the Shadowfell? If he didn't get Aylin to the Shadowfell in a deal with Shar, why is Aylin in the Shadowfell at all, given it is Shar's home? Also why is Aylin said to have undergone a hundred years of torture through the Soul Cage when Ketheric was vulnerable when Jaheira and the Harpers first fought him 100 years ago? Clearly the Soul Cage, Balthazar's involvement, and Ketheric and Isobel's resurrection had to have occurred AFTER the deal with Myrkul. Also, Aylin is clearly very powerful. How did Ketheric subdue her in the first place? Also, if Ketheric only turned to Shar 100 years ago, per the archaeological excavation of the Grymforge, the Ancient Sharran Temple is wayyyyyy more than 100 years old. Why is Ketheric, a Selunite, apparently unaware of an Ancient Sharran Temple connected to his ancestral Mausoleum? Again, is he stupid? Did I miss some important note or dialogue?

6. Aylin refuses to allow Ketheric to submit, presumably out of a (justified) rage at her torture. She reunites with Isobel (who NEVER mentioned Aylin or the Nightsong btw) and they embrace. Every dialogue until Act 3 with either of them is about how much they are going to fuck.

Why? Why would you write that as a rational response to the entire timeline of events above? Certainly that dialogue would be better placed in Act 3 as some camp banter, as opposed to the immediate response to Isobel's father being warped into the Avatar of Myrkul, Aylin recovering from a century(?) of torture, and both of them experiencing exceptionally severe trauma. Those lines brush off the entire tragedy as something that can be fucked away (literally!). It takes the entire weight of the storyline away.

7. Aylin is known as the Nightsong, despite being a child of Selune.

Why? And why does everyone but Isobel know about her by this name? Why is she referred to as a relic or a weapon when being the daughter of a goddess is already a big deal. How do people know about her by this name other than Ketheric?

I think that's all. Please, someone fill me in if I missed a plot point somewhere. I think the game would be best served by answering any number of the above questions. While unlikely, it would be nice if we could somehow gain access to Ketheric's memories, or turn in some of the information we find to Isobel BEFORE finding Nightsong.

I'm also uncertain of the circumstances of Isobel's death, but I'm not sure how important that is, she joined up with Aylin, and was probably killed during their adventures, another reason to resent Selune. His worship of Shar isn't transactional, it's just the effect of the losing both is wife and daughter.

We don't know for how long Moonhaven was a secret Sharran settlement, long enough for Thorm to build the new Grymforge on the ruins of the old Grymforge, and maybe rennovate the old temple and his ancestral mausoleum. Maybe Moonrise Towers was built over the ruins to safeguard them from being reoccupied by Sharrans again.


I think the Myrkul angle doesn't come in until recently, the Ketheric relationship with Myrkul is transactional, the price of getting Thorm in on their plot is the resurrection of his daughter. You can't expect to get anything from the gods without leverage, and the Dead Three's convoluted Mind-Flayer plot gave Thorm leverage to get his daughter back...at least that's what I'm going with.

Also it should be noted that Ketheric defeated the druids and the Harpers, right?, but was done in by his chief architect who made a deal with Raphael.

I'll be honest it's hard for me to believe that the story we were getting in the EA didn't drastically change once or twice to now.

Okay, so the night association helps me piece together why the Moonrise Towers situation and the Nightsong situation (Even though Shar is called the Nightsinger, so a Nightsong would make more sense as a spawn of Shar).

Ketheric turns to the god anathema to everything his late wife and daughter stood for. I don’t like it, but I can see how it might happen. But for him to turn, give the Nightsong to the Shadowfell, and receive nothing in return?

I thought Ketheric defeated them on the battlefield but ultimately lost the war, but you sound correct.

I still don’t understand the rest of the timeline, or the characters responses to events.

Honestly the turn to Myrkul is more of an ask to me.

Okay, so the Soul Cage was constructed early then. Which means Balthazar’s involvement also has to be early. So Ketheric is invulnerable day one (despite Jaheira saying Ketheric RETURNED immortal, where once he wasn’t).

Do people just go insane when they turn from Selune to Shar? Like insane overnight? Because the timeline is then that he becomes the chief devotee of Shar, imprisons Aylin in the Shadowfell, uses her to become immortal, and wages war on the sword coast almost immediately after Isobel’s death.

If Balthazar was involved early, why his meddling with the dead and Myrkul? He’d be devoted to Shar too, no? That’s like a fallen Catholic seeking out a Satan worshipper who is secretly a worshipper of Osiris

Whether the Thorms were always a Sharran family, hiding amongst the Selunites and undermining them from within. That does seem like something the Sharrans would do. My tentative theory is that Ketheric was brought up a Sharran, but Melodia was a genuine Selunite and Ketheric really loved her, and Isobel followed in her mother's footsteps. I'm not sure whether on this theory Ketheric was always secretly Sharran, or whether he might have wavered and therefore potentially Shar had something to do with Melodia and/or Isobel's death as a punishment for him. I am hoping we'll get a bit more info about Isobel's death, given even she says at the moment (ie start of act 3 for me) it just suddenly went black and she doesn't know how she died.

I'm not sure how, even if that is true, it helps with anything else. It might explain why Ketheric didn't turn to Myrkul straight away, given he hadn't actually turned to Shar after Melodia and Isobel's death if he'd always been a Sharran but now no longer felt as much reason to hide it. Aylin's presence was what kept him alive, but I'm not sure what for. And I'll admit it does seem somewhat unlikely he'd bring Isobel up a Selunite - which she says he did - if he weren't one himself. It could be in honour of Melodia, but I think I'm probably grasping at straws!

I also was a bit puzzled about what the Shadow Curse was for. Was it a curse on Ketheric, in which case what for exactly, given his betrayal for Myrkul presumably came much later? Or was her curse because of the defeat of Ketheric, but in that case why did it seem that Ketheric's family and possibly he himself were cursed as well as everyone else?

In short, I agree this could all do with a bit more clarification, if anyone is really meant to understand it in a single playthrough!

I got to YouTube but didn’t find any compelling answers in the alternative routes. If I were to make one proposal that solves the problem of the sparse content AND the plot holes in Act 2, it would be to make the Shadowfell like the Underdark of Act 2: a whole other map, multiple ways to enter (Halsin’s portal, Thaniel or Oliver’s Help, or the Temple of Shar), another settlement, and a bunch of Isobel, Ketheric, Balthazar, and Aylin centric quests to unravel the mysteries of Ketheric’s demise.

I think it would be interesting if Ketheric traded Aylin to Shar in exchange for relieving his pain, which you could find in the Shadowfell in the form of relinquished memories. I’d also have Aylin as a temporary follower like Glut who you don’t know is the Nightsong until a reveal, making Shart’s decision more contextually grounded. Instead of being stuck in place, Balthazar could simply have Aylin imprisoned in the Shadowfell, cursed to bear Ketheric’s wounds.

I also wish they followed up on the “redeem Ketheruc” plot, like if you passed all the persuasion checks (as I did) you could get him to free Aylin in a bid to kill himself and have an “I will not die a monster” moment before Myrkul turns him into an abomination.

There are quality elements to the Act 2 plot that could be sooooo much better if given more screen time, context, and choice reactivity.