Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Dream visitors

Initially, Balduran admits he created an illusion for us (for each infected companion in fact) that would be acceptable and not considered as a threat.
But then, in the final battle, he actually summons several dream visitors to fight against as. And they are not illusions, even if mind-controlled by him.

So, what are they??

The Emperor took the place of a character referred to as "Daisy" in Early Access. Daisy was very likely to have been The Absolute and, seemingly, Orpheus in a sort of 'devil and angel on your shoulder' situation. Daisy came to each origin character as their own unique person (Vlaakith, Cazador, Mystra, etc.) and tempted them to take the tadpole powers. Therefore, it's likely that siding against the Absolute and facing your nightmares/beloved atop the Elder Brain was likely a big part of the climax from early in the development process. When Daisy was scrapped very late in development, and the Emperor put in their place with a drastically different motivation and storyline, Larian was still too married to the concept of a dream visitor and an epic confrontation with them.

But this is ridiculous. I know, magic and other shenanigans, but still this world has some rules. And these rules doesn't allow illithids, even as powerful as Emperor, to create living creatures with full gear out of thin air. Especially when he admitted at least twice they were just an illusion. And no explanation, no nothing, only one of the companions comments something like "oh, so they are not an illusion??" and that's it.

There's no use in finding logical or lore-friendly explanations. For all we know, this whole fight with 'Daisy' could’ve originally taken place in the Astral plane and was repurposed for the final battle.
If you side with the Emperor, there are 4 random human/illithid hybrids on th4 battlefield instead of the 4 dream visitors. And there's no explanation for them either besides "this fight was designed to include 4 more units"

What makes you think Daisy was scrapped very late in development? They could have rewritten all that years ago and just never removed her from the early access build so the Guardian would be something new for people who played EA. They may have never fully developed Daisy's role at all, she might just have been a placeholder for a rough idea they had. We just don't know when they decided on the Guardian/Emperor story, but I'd guess they didn't cobble together all the dialogues, plot points and cut scenes together at the last minute.

Everyone still has dream visits from the Guardian who probably appears to them differently, even if they were no longer Vlaakith, Mystra, etc.

The visitor for the companions is still the idealized "Daisy" version, like the golden paladin for Karlach.

The first point is that only Daisy appears, and is described, in the artbook. No Guardian, no Emperor.

The second is that the Guardian is basically incoherent and acts more as a plot device than character.

The third is that they composed music that only really functions with Daisy ("Down by the River") and has zero relevance to the Guardian/Emperor.

The fourth is that there's virtually no reactivity to the Guardian or the Emperor and what is there isn't well integrated (such as deciding to kill them for... Vlaakith...?)

The fifth is that the Guardian inherits a lot of baggage from the Daisy concept ("dream waifu") despite that baggage actively working against the new concept and role.

The sixth is that the Guardian does not appear differently. You can see this in the final battle where four identical Guardians appear and your companions will remark along the lines of "There! The person from my dreams."

The seventh is that there was extensive content datamined throughout EA that indicated a vastly different role for the dream visitor, none of which corresponds to the Guardian. This was being added, I believe, twelve months out from release.

The eighth is that the Emperor's actual role as Gortash's prime henchman and even the one who seemingly tadpoled the player is basically both convoluted and unimportant to the plot.

I suspect the change was made about twelve months out (or less!) and the Emperor was hastily shoved into the role occupied by Daisy.

I assumed that the golden paladin was just the guardian, since their armor looked golden to me. Also Daisy wasn't always idealised. She came to astarion as Cazador, which doesn't match the seductive angle so we'll. It's somethingthat makes me suspect they did not in fact have a firm grasp of Daisy to begin with. The rumor that we were supposed to eventually get a choice to stay with our daisy comes off as weird when you consider that Astarion's appeared as his abuser and ours appeared as the shaddiest of seducers.

But doesn't the Emperor still appear to the characters as idealised figures? The Guardian is a dream visitor version of the Emperor before you go inside the Astral Prism and see what he really is, isn't it? What am I missing about this?

If the guardian is still just an idealized illusion, why are dragonborn not possible?

I didn't notice they weren't. I don't know, but apart from that you still create your ideal Guardian exactly the same way you created your ideal Daisy. I made my latest one look just like my previous Tav to make it weirder for myself.

Except they do. There are 4 different guardians during the final battle, none of them was mine though.

The art book and datamined content certainly sound reasonable points, if they were actually adding more to the character. Some of the other ones a bit more debatable, but I’m not going to nitpick. Starting on the change about a year ago doesn’t sound unrealistic either.