Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion The romance with Astarion pulls you over to the "dark side".

Yes, that's right, the other gods won't get new souls! According to D&D canon, gods in principle cannot get an illithid soul, but not because they don't have a soul, but because illithids came to our world from a distant plane called the Far Realm. There are other beings from there as well, usually quite creepy and evil. The souls of these creatures seek to return back to the Far Realm after they die, but that plane is quite far away. But the gods can't do anything about the souls of these creatures, the gods have no power over them. And I understood that Withers says that illithids have no souls, since he himself is a servant of the deity, a scribe of Jergal, these souls are useless for the gods, you can say that for the gods these souls as if do not exist. And yes, for the gods this “grand design” is very dangerous. Myrkul, though, is immortal as it is, he can't be destroyed completely, though his domain is small now, and he doesn't have many followers. Bhaal longs for the end of all things. About Bane, it's a question of what he himself was thinking, because he won't get new souls that way too.

But it's in D&D canon, Larian could of course omit it, though that would be highly illogical. But there are no refutations of D&D canon on this in the game either. Withers' words are words, and he, as a servant of a god, may think so. That souls that don't belong to the gods are all but nonexistent. Besides, there is then a strong plot contradiction - why does Tav, by becoming an illithid, lose no soul and only change in appearance? And why do illithids have their own characters, their own minds and thoughts, how can they even function without having a soul? According to the rules of D&D, it's impossible. On the other hand, Withers likes to express himself in cryptic, aphoristic phrases rather than explaining in meticulous detail what's what, where from, and how. To show the threat to both the world and the gods, in general, his line is enough. Specifically the aspect of how the soul and animus works is not covered in the game at all, there is not a single book on the subject. But going by the D&D rules on the subject, it all comes together perfectly, without any contradictions.


The “naked on my lap” line seems more like some sort of romantic flirtation to me, rather than any specific “plan of action”. Well, Astarion makes jokes all the time, so I'd take it that way somehow, just as a romantic flirtation on his part. It's possible to sit around dressed up. With body 3 it would sound funny at all ("Poor Astarion, let's not, let's do it the other way around! It's going to be hard on you....").

I'm just getting started with DU right now, thanks to the great new kissing mod (Yay!), I still have a ways to go before I get to that point, maybe someone else in the thread can find that scene and check the impact of text choice, that would be interesting.