Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General So... what is Sven's big upcoming surprise ?

"So, what do you think it is ?"


The surprise is about timetravel and being able to "revisit" certain major events in Faeruns history, this might lead to canon changes in the present dnd world.

Boo will be a playable origin character.

Let's face it... Mystra is kinda cringe. She has no personality at all and she sucks at being the goddess of magic (died 3-4 times already?).
Now Lolth would be a much better fit for a lot of reasons. She has ambition, she has talent, she obviously knows how to stand on her own two feet, and has a talent for intrigue and subtlety, she has a certain mystique, not to mention the fact that magic works through the Weave and Lolth is a spider. What do spiders do best? They weave. It's thematically fitting.
Also, Lolth would still be forced to provide magic for everyone equally, the same way Mystra was forced to do so because Ao made her do it, so this wouldn't ruin magic for anyone (except for, ironically, elves, who hate Lolth enough to give up on magic lmao), but it would make the setting a lot more fun and unsettling and I can just totally see Lolth instantenously starting to plot against Ao, but unlike the Dead Three, she would actually be smart about it.

Nah. The much better surprise would be that Ao finally got tired of Lolth's b.s. and chopped off her stupid head.

Be a contrarian if you want but the truth is that Lolth is one of those few deities who actually spices up this setting. Yeah she is vile and totally capricious, but she at least raises the stakes.

It must be possible to limit possibilities by following this clue: " From the very first day, from the very first day, I see people discussing something, and every time I say: “God. How I want to tell them … "

First question: What does he mean with 'the very first day'? I assume it is the day when BG3 was announced to the general public. So on that day people started writing about what they would like to see. We know it was written, because Sven says he sees people discussing. So ... is anyone willing to find out at which day BG3 was first announced and on which discussion platforms the announcement was discussed? Then it is only a matter of looking at what was written on that day. This is likely to at least limit the options.

I’m pretty sure he is not being that literal.

I think this is a big surprise for old time BG/BG2 fans.

What's the biggest thing about BG? Bhaalspawn. We know Bhaal resurrected. Maybe Tav is Charname's descendant?

Maybe something about Irenicus, or Bodhi?

Maybe we can revisit watcher's keep, or Demogorgon is returning (enough time has passed?)

Maybe Viconia? She's still alive.

Anyway it will be connect to previous games' plot or characters.

I don’t think any of those are it, but if it is something people have speculated about it probably has some connection to the earlier games.

I think a connection to the first games is the only kind of 'reveal' that would warrant the kind of day one discussion Swen is talking about. Whatever it might be.
Maybe the artifact is a prison that the last bit of Bhaal essence our Bhaalspawn hid away, and "who do you dream of" is a pocket plane-esque specter of the Bhaalspawn.

Or it could be something something the Absolute is what! something. Ho hum

The Bhaalspawn is more about violence and murder rather than seduction, so I’m pretty sure the Dream-person isn’t related. Also, I’m pretty sure that canonically the last bits of Bhaal essence were sent back to the source when Abdel and Viekang took each other out in the Murder in Baldur’s Gate campaign. At least that is my understanding. Never actually played it.

You might not remember what the seduction is about, the dreamer wants us to burn the world.

I know that, but I don’t think it’s a very Bhaal / Bhaalspawn thing to be seducing in the first place. Doesn’t feel on brand.

My intuition says he is being that literal. As for finding the mythical “first day conversation”, I’m sorry to say it’s really not that narrow.

You can check through the early posts in the Feedback section of the forum. Reading through posts dated oct 6 and oct 7 (early access started on october 6th 2020) you’ll find that every point brought up during early access was made in the first 24 hours. It’s uncanny. We may have fleshed out the arguments, but it was all there from the start: Party movement, camera controls, resting system, reaction system, wizards learning Bless, etc…

In the end, the day 1 timeframe unfortunately tells us little to nothing. But since the game in this thread is wild speculation…

Baldur’s Gate 3 will have a day/night cycle, confirmed a thousand percent. You will all see my genius when I’m right. (If I’m not, then … uh … this is secretly a sock puppet account owned by RagnarokCzD)

So destroying entire cities and torturing and murdering millions is "spicing things up" for you?

Thank you for following up on the suggestion! But, but, but, maybe the mythical first day is not 2020-10-06, but 2019-06-06, the date BGIII was first announced (source: wikipedia). The first message in this thread says "... a certain secret that he kept from the very announcement of the role-playing game". So that would be 2019-06-06, right? Hopefully this does limit options for speculation. However, I have no idea where the announcement might have been discussed at that time, in writing.

My money is on Drizzt's inclusion as the big reveal.

Yes.

Eh, Lolth might have been hot doo-doo back in 2nd or 3rd but 5th edition has seen her shrink rather...aggressively in stature as a deity. The retcons where the Udadrow/Aevendrow/Lorendrow stuff was introduced basically retroactively erased most of their presence in the underdark of Toril as a whole. A cult that Lolth hoodwinked into isolating themselves in a singular city in the underdark while drow with better sense (which is and apparently always was a majority) avoided. Meanwhile Lolth's motivations-,multiversal conquest, revenge against the Seldarine, shaping the drow through the brutal crucible of drow religion and society to be a reflection of herself, ambitions of drowing surface elves and humans into worship of herself....has eroded via the books into from what I can gather could best be described as 'lol, chaos' and ennui.

Plus y'know. aforementioned singular city where her worship is centered is
As happy as I am to see she has something of a role in BG III (at least when you play a 'Lolthsworn' drow/cleric of Lolth), I am doubtful of 5e's version of Lolth to hold down the position of overarching villainess of the setting in her current state unless things drastically change.

Maybe, but I don’t think that is the sort of thing that Swen would be just dying to reveal.