Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Why don't illithids have souls?

As the title says, why don't illithids have souls?

Isn't there an illithid god named Ilsensine? I mean, I don't wanna get lost in lore, just curious.

Also, if illithids don't have souls... and that's why the other gods and Jergal are concerned... why are the dead three getting rid of souls? How does that help the dead three who, at least I would imagine, rely on souls themselves for their own power?

I feel like there's an aspect of the illithids not having souls that I'm missing.

I could spend two days typing a response. And might just do so at some time but I recently did a deep dive on Illithid lore to try and find out the answer to this question.

The briefest possible answer is that they do have souls but souls that can only

1. Join with an elder brain
2. Join with one of the Illithid gods
3. Join with one of the powers of the far realms

Your soul cannot be claimed the deity you worshiped before transform unless wish, miracle, divine intervention etc. So "soulless" works as a shorthand for cannot be claimed by Faerun's gods / can only be claimed by an evil entity.

This is the source that deals with it best:

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/The_Illithiad

Have you ever asked Gortash's corpse this question?

I remember the Illithiad from when I was younger. It was one of my favorite source books. I might try to get another copy of it sometime so I can check it out again. It's been so many years since I've read it.

I guess the whole soul thing feels weird to me.

Gods in the setting get their power from the souls of their worshippers. Does the power just come from the living souls? Do those souls provide no more power after they die?

If the god loses all their living followers and thus becomes deprived of power... and potentially dies... what happens to all the previous followers who died and went to the god's domain area in the after life? Do they cease to exist with their god or go somewhere else?

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The thing that confuses me about the scorched earth thing is that I figured the dead three were getting their power from their followers also. Which I thought meant they would go down with the other gods.

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Maybe I'm overthinking the setting. I'm not sure how robust it's supposed to be under any kind of magnifying glass.

I do think this plan is weird and poorly thought out from the writers' perspective. The question you're asking is a good one. As far as the impact of the plan on the dead three, I think there's a somewhat reasonable explanation for that at least. Firstly, they can probably spare their worshippers. Secondly, the dead three are no longer full gods at this point, so maybe the idea is that they're less reliant on souls? I could see a scenario where their plan works and brings all the gods to their level, and the dead three end up with the advantage because they're more used to this level of power and can get the drop on their rivals. That would make sense to me.

But this plan with that goal seems weird and illogical to me for other reasons. Chiefly this; I'm not familiar with the setting, but there are more places than just the sword coast, yes? I presume that the world is a WORLD, with multiple countries and continents. So I feel like even getting rid of the souls in this one admittedly densely populated area wouldn't be that damaging if you're working on a global scale. This plan would require them spreading across the world to work, I feel like. And that seems kind of absurd based ono what we see. This issue feeds into another problem I have with the plot of this game; the scale of its consequences are all over the place. It can't seem to decide if it's about the fate of multiple planes, or just this one important city. I don't buy that just ruling this one city is going to have multi-planar consequences. Especially since I don't feel the game does a good job of explaining why the city is so special and important. I get that it's a major trade hub, that's good enough. I buy it's a major power in the region but the game doesn't really sell that. Mainly because it feels so isolated. I never feel like the city influences the wider world because it doesn't really feel like there's a wider world to influence.

It's a very good question. The whole Dead Three involvement with the Brain feels like an afterthrough to me (explains why none of them are developed as deeply as some things in act I, for example).
Perhaps initially story dealt with illithid invasion, without any of the Bhaal and Bane and Myrkul involvement, but then they decided to put them there, to tie the story with the bg1-2?

I think perhaps it was a mistake, as fun as their aesthetic is, Dead Three dilute the illithid mood of the plot, and since the only illithid you deal with is Emperor (weird and kind of dull guy who doesn't represent their race well), it feels like illithids take a major backseat.
It's just odd because illithids are meant to be those hyper-intelligent species, that nonetheless have a culture of their own - an evil culture, but culture. They have cities, they have art of some sort, they engage in commerce. Here, illithids are as good as zombies, and they are denied the opportunity to show themselves in their proper glory - it's only hinted at, but never shown.

But then again, I suppose a story with just illithids would be off-putting to people who craved the god-blood epic of yore, i dunno.

I agree with mayxd that it seems like a mistake to combine the Dead Three with the Illithids. Probably born out of a desire to link the original games with a new twist. Instead comes off more like combining beef stew with chocolate pudding