Combining response to @ArmouredHedgehog and @Clavis
If it wasn't started in the underdark, it was most likely propagated through it. These towers of darkness, madness, and general spookiness we are heading to overland - and also through the underdark - seem to the hub. What can turn the land so foul and twisted and has mind control? You are looking more at beholders for that. Ever paranoid, they can haunt and corrupt their lairs. However, while there are Xanathars out there, most are kind of nuts. This seems more intelligent. I can't think of something smart that does this and has parasites unless they brainbugged a beholder. Would explain the spectator at least. Things that actually corrupt the land are rare and deal with the abyss, creatures that have made it their lair, and spellplague rifts - which did surround Elturel and is why the Companion came into being 50 years ago; it was to destroy the undead and aberrations coming out. But an actual central, inhabited, hub of corrupt religion that can morph the landscape? Thats weird. Illithid make hives and will feed elder brains and stuff and hang out in the underdark, but they don't really corrupt anything. That combined with True Souls turns this into a really weird scenario.
With Minthara, she is the *perfect* vehicle to get some seeds of her own planted in YOU. Why wait until the towers? Im going there no matter what. It is odd though, that she said go overland instead of through the underdark. Anyway, as a plot vehicle shes got it all and if she wasnt bae you wouldn't care. After she tries to kill you, whatever "hook" she had into you left and you're like "yeah whatever, ill see you if I see you, I guess". If you succeed your mind probe after banging her, you see that shes been running scared, killing family, friends, and lovers and looking for rocks to hold onto. Coupled with her religious fervor as it provides a sanctuary she seems to be desperately clinging to, I dont know if shes as motivated by the Absolute as she is by what the Absolute provides for her wounded psyche.
She has you by the b*lls, literally, at one point and Dave Chapelle kind of nailed it. Monica Lewinsky made a young person's mistake. An older woman would have been like "you should lower taxes" while they were having fun. After the size of the decision you make and then going through that with her, you need to slip in a deeper hook prior to her cutting the more superficial ties to you and leaving. You need a dogmatic hook that makes you be like "I still want to be part of this" even if she isn't part of it anymore. Of course, make her part of it because shes awesome. But they pique your curiosity more than they get a good sell on you to inform your decision making on the way there as well as what youll do when you get there. Youre still walking in blind and might side with the first person who actually make an interesting point says.
Last edited by Orbax; 16/10/20 10:50 PM.
