Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General How to turn a Emperor, the Mind Flayer back into a human? (spoiler)

This is a super interesting question.
During ceremophosis, the host's body is completely destroyed, and in theory it can be returned using the spells True Resurrection (which can create a new body), Miracle, or the Wish spell, possibly Divine Intervention.

Technically, the humanoid body is completely destroyed, and the Ilythid body is a completely different person.

Does the caster need to destroy this illithid before casting True Resurrection, or is this not necessary?

Here's the most interesting thing, with the Emperor's case.

resurrection spells require the soul to be willing to return, so a big question is whether the emperor identifies as Balduran because it has Balduran's soul or not. If it has the soul and the soul has come to enjoy the perks of being a mind flayer than it may be unwilling to return to a human body.

Does this mean that True Resurrection can only resurrect the Emperor as the Mind Flayer if he is killed, but not Balduran?

And the only way is to convince the Emperor, kill him, and resurrect him as a human

It's a pity that you can't talk to Jergal about this. Although he asks the question "Do mind flayers have souls?"

This means that the spells Wish and Miracle remain, which will not require the consent of the soul

If Balduran was to be ressurrected, it would be as a separate entity from the mind flayer. Withers explains that Mind Flayers don't have souls and that the soul vanishes when a host is transformed. It is uncertain if this means destroyed or moved on to the afterlife. If the latter, a sufficiently powerful Cleric might've been able to ressurect pre-transformation Balduran, but Mind Flayer Balduran can't be cured that way because it has no soul.

You could probably use Wish to make it so that Balduran never became a Mindflayer, you'll have to roll high enough so that you don't break reality with something like that, it'll also depends on how recent Balduran was turned so you don't deal with unnecessary butterfly effects like ending up in a reality where someone else like Selmane was turned in his place,

If the Emperor has no soul, then it is possible that Balduran and the Emperor can exist at the same time in different bodies - paradox

In the ending where Gale is the Mind Flayer, there is an option to ask Mystra to take Gale's soul to Elysium.
At the same time, it is clearly visible that the soul flies out of the Mind Flayer, but at the same time he remains alive.

The soul is self-awareness as a person? Soulless illithids obey the Elder Brain, and have no individuality. Individuality is the soul?

Could the Emperor be the exception, preserving Balduran's soul? He is an independent individual, has Balduran's personality, his memories, and identifies himself as Balduran, could this be the same person whose soul for some reason was not destroyed in the process of cerebromorphosis

He has literally all the qualities of a person with a soul, even sentimentality and moral principles (basement in the tavern, the letter that falls from Ansur’s body, the desire for emotional intimacy, and the fact that he does not betray the main character if you give him the stones at the end)

I haven't seen that ending, but it would suggest the soul is not in fact destroyed, merely separated from the mind flayer. Which means that The Emperor and Balduran could exist at the same time if resurrected. Though Balduran's soul is probably more or less unretrievable by now, since it has been centuries.

Illithids free of a collective seem to retain personalities, even the one they had before the change to an extent, but Withers says they're soulless. And seeing as Withers is heavily implied to be Jergal, the god of the dead who granted Bhaal, Myrkul and Bane their divinity, I'm going to take his word for it. After all, he doesn't say it to the player, but to the Dead Three themselves.

Being Soulless is just something Mindflayers have in common with Warlocks, I mean Warlocks wouldn't have gotten their powers if they kept their souls, a Warlock Mindflayer would be twice as Soulless.

The entire Emperor story is nonsense when you think about it. I have no idea why Larian decided to implement it that way.

No matter how many memories are retained, its not the original being that is transformed, but the tadpole that grows into a mind flayer xenomorph style.
This is a well known fact (among people that know about mind flayer), so that someone like Ansur would try to heal the Emperor when there is nothing to heal is completely stupid. (As is that the Emperor could kill him. Mind Flayer are not that powerful). There is nothing to heal, only to true ressurect.

If mind flayers have souls or not doesn't matter in the end (and why wouldn't they? This entire thing of them having no souls is nonsense Larian invented which hopefully never makes it into canon). If they have a soul it would be the soul of the (former) tadpole and completely unrelated to the soul of the former host.

Which makes the whole ending choice even more stupid. How can you be sure that the mind flayer create by you, your companions or Orpheus (ignoring the nonsense of Orpheus creating a mind flayer without even being infected. By this point Larian didn't even try to have a coherent story) is on board with your plan of stopping the brain instead of being a mind flayer supremacist? Or that it would be capable in fighting the brain?

Still think Wish would be the most likely, I found a really simple way to fix him,

1. use Wish to time travel back to a least a month before Balduran's transformation.
2. use disguise self so he doesn't recognize you.
3. get Balduran's hair or DNA.
4. cast clone without anyone knowing, in a location you know will still survive all these years.
5. let everything else play out like it should.
6. use Wish again and travel back to present day.
7. act surprised when you find the clone.

I mean it wouldn't change anything, besides the fact that there's now a clone body of Balduran hiding around somewhere, could be the plot of a potential DLC.

The emperor is not Baldurian. Full stop.

You guys would be doing this without his consent, yes? Because he prefers what he is now and didn't even want to change back for his best friend/lover.

Whose consent? In the game we are talking to Mindflayer with memories of the Baldurian. Of course he has no investment in getting Baldurian resurrected. It doesn't mean that Baldurian himself wouldn't be happy to be brought back to life.

Yeah I think this is what Ansur was not understanding. Balduran was gone/dead - the Mindflayer was a new life with Balduran's memories.

Does anything prevent the Emperor from continuing to exist if you brought back Balduran with a wish/true res spell? I mena, you could resurrect Balduran (his body is consumed) and they could both exist provided no one tried to go after the other one.

If Balduran was completely gone, how did Ansur recognise him in the Prism?

In D&D no.
In whatever Larian fabricated, no idea. There is no internal logic to what Larian does.

The only thing that might prevent a true ressurection is the 200 year time limit. The entire timeline about the emperor is messed up, so no idea when Balduran died.

Balduran turned into a mind flayer before he killed Ansur. We see it in the flashback that the transformation had already happened. So Ansur, being the spirit of a powerful bronze dragon, could easily be able to recognize the mental presence of the Emperor, even if he isn't familiar with mind flayers not having souls the way mortals do.


As far as I can tell, Baldur's Gate was recognized as a city by around 450 DR, while BG3 takes place around 1500 DR. When Balduran was turned or how long he lived is hard to say, but even if he lived 500 years as a human before he was turned, that'd still be 500 years ago. So if there is a 200 year limit, Balduran can't be resurrected.

I made a mistake reading the wiki entry.
Balduran didn't vanish in the mid-1000 but in the mid -1000, more than 2000 years ago.
So definately outside if true ressurection range.
Which makes the Emperor "being" Balduran completely laughable as a mind flayer would be dead by old age ten times over. So Larian just decided mind flayers are immortal.

Edit: Apparently the founding date of baldurs gate was retconned to some point in the 1000s.
In the previous games BG was 300 years old and they played in the 1300s

And apparently Larian retconned Balduran into an elf so that they can make their shitty "plot twist"?

So depending on when Balduran turned true ressurecting him might be possible.

Is there any indication when Ansur was last seen? I can't believe that no one would notice the death of Ansur for centuries or that he would soend centuries to find a cure for Balduran.
But this is Larian we are talking about and they do not care for consistency.