Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion So who exactly is Dame Aylin? (probably spoilers)

Why did you need to turn to Myrkul and become an evil tyrant, if you can just buy a scroll of resurrection from a merchant

Sometimes the dramatic thing feels right. Also probably no, otherwise you get into why do any of the battles matter won't the bad guys friends just a scroll. If he, the commander of both Selune and later Shars forces couldn't find a cleric to raise then her presumably the body or soul were damaged in a way, the window was missed between death and body being discovered or etc to make resurrection impossible.
It takes less time to think up a solution than to think up how it's a problem

I wish you would address the actual complaints in my post instead of personal attacks. This is the norm for the forum: you address people’s specific points instead of accusing them of being trolls who haven’t played the game. But if you are more interested in lashing out at the phantasms of your own mind, I see no reason to stop you.

https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=883587#Post883587

Except if you actually read the material, Ketheric only turns to Myrkul AFTER he is sealed. Which means long after turning Aylin to the Shadowfell. Which earns after the soul chain.

And Aylin is called an Aasimar, not a Deva.

I think this game lacks the opportunity for a lesbian threesome with Dame Aylin, Isabelle, and the main character

Back n the day, Aasimar were opposites to Tiefling, but lore of the latter has expanded to be pact passed down generations, leaving the former as quasi-planar beings.

That, is where Kethrick's concern for his daughter lay. Fairly justified if you ask me. It's not a mere union between ethnicities, there's a huge age and ego difference.

Put bluntly, Dame Aylin comes across heavily as a machoman. I dare say if she was introduced as male, some of her post victory behaviour would be judged harshly. But Isobel is a grown woman so whatever.

In the game,

I have not finished Act 3, so I am open to the idea that her character may undergo further development that contextualises prior moments better.

I am still unsatisfied with the lack of narrative buildup to her and Isobel in Act 2.

Act 2 is all original lore that Larian wrote for what happened between Bg2/Bg3 for the area!

As for Aylin herself -

While Aylin describes herself as an aasimar, she's a very specific type of aasimar, which is confusing if you only know of aasimars as the celestial equivalent of tieflings. By her own description, she would be a deva: she's an immortal, angelic soul that is able to be "reborn" again and again after she dies. There is several different types of aasimar/devas and it gets complicated since there is several different varieties, but the names are often used interchangeably.

There are:
mortal aasimar (planetouched origins, the equivalent of tieflings, usually of human ancestry)
Aasimari Devas (immortal angelic souls in a mortal humanoid form)
and "angelic devas" - celestial angels and servants of the Gods, usually separated into three different orders.

I am not sure if current lore really differentiates Aasimari devas and angelic devas anymore, though - the difference between them is... somewhat minimal and it gets confusing when they have virtually identical names.

If you ask Aylin if she is literally the daughter of a god, she says that she was "ripped from Selune's celestial womb" - quoted roughly from memory - and considering devas can be the servants of Gods, it makes sense that the Gods may create devas themselves. Usually aasimari devas are suppose to lose their memories when they reincarnate and they don't always have the same appearance, but Aylin might be a special case as narratively it wouldn't work quite as well if she didn't even remember who she was, or if Isobel hadn't recognized her. Fun fact: Aylin is a Turkish girl's name, and it means "of the moon."

For Act 2, a lot of Ketheric's background is buried in journals and letters:


Act 2 is primarily content for Shadowheart, honestly, but the rest of her storyline plays out in Act 3. Honestly I suspected that but that wasn't how it ended up playing out.

I thought the reunion between Aylin and Isobel was cute.

As for the resurrection itself:

Thank you, this clarifies my confusion over the aasimar thing. It makes more sense for Aylin to be a kind of celestial "daughter"/servant of Selune rather than a part-mortal like a Bhaalspawn, IMO.

This post resolved about half of my concerns. Thank you.

Interesting - seems the division between Devas is a 4e thing that I didn't know about, thanks!

With true resurrection the soul has to be willing to return and the return not opposed by the god who claimed the soul. (Auntie Ethel's threat to kill you and raise you and kill you again is an empty one - you can't be forced to return to life)

One of the reasons Isobel has had her memories erased might be that she refused to return when either Selune or Shar called her back to life. Why hould she return to a father that rejected her lover? Or because she returned like Buffy the Vampire Slayer did - back to life but not happy about it because she was evicted from paradise.

And, what I think is most likely: Isobel is not actually alive. The darkness she refers to in her diary might mean that she's undead. Which would make sense since it was Myrkul that brought her back and Balthazar was involved in some way.

OKAY SO NEW INFORMATION:

There's probably a way to get a straight answer here on a lot of the information. Apparently you can cast speak with dead on the corpses of the major bosses. Can someone cast "Speak with Dead" on Ketheric and see if the plot holes regarding Isobel, Aylin, Ketheric, and Balthazar are filled in? Specifically regarding Isobel (and maybe Aylin's) selective memory, and the timeline of the Soul Cage?

I'll try asking Balthazar's corpse if he's willing to talk.

But I do know if you let Balthazar know you read his diary he says he designed the soul cage and it represents the pinacle of his powers. One of Kethric's notes says that Balthazar has said Myrkul has can bring back Isobel.

But I am hoping the spell works - I wanted more of J.K. Simmons' voice.

(although devs - as much as I like this voice actor he looks nothing like an elf. In fact, if you wanted an example of "not at all like an elf" you would choose Simmons. You should have made Kethric a human)

It still doesn't make sense if the Soul Cage post-dates Ketheric's turn to Shar. That presupposes that Aylin spent 100 years twiddling her thumbs in the Shadowfell, not being tortured by being Ketheric's source of immortality (and thus the point of redirect for his wounds), and that Shar was cool with her apparent ex-Selunite puppet leaving her for Myrkul and sending his chief architect (and Myrkulite) to the Shadowfell, her domain, to Soul Cage Aylin while still leaving the most vulnerable part of his plan within the realm of the very god he abandoned.

I've decided there is one way the plot works perfectly. If you accept that stupidity is a congenital trait in the Thorm family, it explains:
-The Sharran Temple under a Selunite Village
-The mini-bosses in the town being dumb
-Ketheric's behavior and decision-making
-Isobel's selective memory and decision-making

Or maybe the Shadow-Curse also causes brain damage regardless of whether or not you are immune.

I'm more interested in where Ketheric's dog went.

I don't remember Ketheric or Balthazaar's corpses having anything to say. I haven't tried Isobel or Aylin's corpses though. There's also a book in the Grymforge that says Ketheric was telling his followers he was as important as Shar in there church, it's possible he had already abandonded her prior to his defeat. Balthazaar could be a follower of Myrkul who worked for a Sharran. I'm tempted to dig up my old saves from the Grymforge and chapter two just to get to the bottom of this.

Has anyone who took the Absolute path found anything that might shed light on the situation? I'm pretty sure there's a route where Isobel is captured by Ketheric, that seems like it would have some good insights.

The cows in Grymforger have some good goss about Ketheric's army of shar conquering the world and then stopping for some reason, but now there's rumours he's back

I still think the game would be better served in a future Definitive Edition by giving Isobel more dialogue/quests to flesh out the events regarding herself, Balthazar, Ketheric, Aylin, and the Shadowfell. At this stage that would be my only ask.

I've had something on my brain since finding Nightsong in the Sharran temple -- what's up with Aradin and Halsin? Like, what's Aradin doing sniffing around the old temple in the goblin camp? Doesn't he know he's way off-course? I believe datamining suggested Nightsong was to be below that temple at some point, but who knows. As it is, had Aradin even gotten past that puzzle it would've been a complete dead end. But why does Halsin even go with Aradin? Why would he abandon his grove to wander into the goblin nest?

Well, it takes on an interesting wrinkle if we assume the 'Halsin killed Isobel' plot point was true. A brash bunch of adventurers come in, talking about how they're going to find the Nightsong. Halsin goes, oh, the Nightsong? Yeah, I know where there's an old temple, let's try looking there. Except Halsin would know, presumably, that they're way off-course and should be looking somewhere closer to Moonrise. Did he hope that Aradin and co. wouldn't make it back, and so preserve the fact he was instrumental in kicking off the shadow curse?

No idea, but fun to ponder.

I have been thinking the same thing, except if they are from tabletop content. I played BG1&2, and those characters aren’t from the originals (aside ).

I suspect it is just poor storytelling, though. I wrapped up act2 yesterday, and frankly, I found it mostly disposable. I could see it greatly recut to act as finale to act1, and it would be better for it.