Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Dame Aylin isn't what she nor the game itself claims she is

Kicking it off with a pretty bold premise in the title, right? Nevertheless, the reality of the situation should prove irrefutable, at least from a canonical DND 5E and FR setting perspective, which Larian might be directly contravening, although that wouldn't make much sense based on their own vision or how the rest of the game presents itself. A lot of vague statements in this intro, so let's jump right in to the nitty-gritty of it:

Dame Aylin can't be an Aasimar.

That is how several characters in the game, Tav included, and Aylin's own stat block describe her, but the terminology is completely off. As in, blatantly, plot-breakingly inconsistent. First of all, Aasimar do not possess the power of *permanent* flight, nor an inherent array of paladin-esque abilities that Aylin appears to be endowed with. Much more importantly, Aasimar are not immortal. Far from it, actually - they typically live up to 160 years, even less than your average Dwarf and Elf. In DND, Aasimar are basically just the Upper Plane ( "Good Gods" ) equivalent of Tieflings - Mortals with extremely diluted Celestial ancestry, likely dozens of generations removed, on more or less equal footings with a bunch of other mortal races on Faerun.

Paradoxically, at the same time, Aylin presents herself as 'THE daughter of Selune' to account for her abilities, which, unless we are completely butchering the original DND definitions, would by default mean that she is very much not an 'Aasimar'. Either way though, that only serves to bring us into the next point..

Dame Aylin is very unlikely to be the literal Daughter of Selune

This is something which, although many player seem to miss it, the game itself does seem to be hinting at - You have the option of asking Aylin whether she's really "The Daughter of Selune" or not, and her reply is basically "Hmm, am I not glowing and awesome and stuff? So I must be from her Celestial womb!", as if she doesn't know herself. Like, did you grow up at The Gates of the Moon with Selune as your mom or not? Literally every actual Divine Descendant in DND has a pretty straightforward answer to that question. Aylin on the other hand appears to be speaking whimsically and metaphorically.

The real sticking point though, regardless of Aylin's dialogue, is the power level. Aylin's might is laughably lower than that of any direct, first-generation divine offspring in DND. This much would be more intuitively evident to veteran 5E dungeon masters, but just to make a point of comparison:

Tieflings only have a tinge of Infernal/Abyssal blood in them.
Raphael is a Cambion, although granted a pretty powerful one, which is a half-Devil born directly to a Devil of the Hells and a mortal.
Yurgir, an Orthon, is a CR12 pure Devil
There are several types of Devils going all the way up to CR20 ( I.E Pit Fiends ) who dwarf Raphael in power.
Above them, we have Archdevils, Zariel being one of the lesser among them.
Above all of them we have the recently promoted Greater God, Asmodeus.

Selune is one of the Greater Gods, a Creator Goddess at that. THE daughter of Selune would be able to wipe out every single enemy in the game at once with her pinky toe. Trust me, Aylin ain't it. Even as far as any other deity is concerned, she's not an Empyrean ( CR 23 ) nor a Demigod, which is what actual direct divine children usually are in their least powerful manifestations.

So what exactly is Dame Aylin then?

Easy, she's a Deva. You know, the same type you can summon with Planar Ally as a Cleric. She perfectly fits every single facet, both mechanical and fluff-wise, of a Deva. Perma-wings, perma-flight, perma-halo? Check. Immortality? Check. Metaphorically a 'Daughter of Selune', as in created by Selune to serve her cause, check. Old-timey righteous speech? Check. Paladin smites and similar innate abilities? Exactly the same, check. Power level? Check.

It's actually pretty baffling why the game refers to her as virtually anything but the creature type she actually is. I can't count the number of times I've heard DND newbies who just finished the game repeat the line that 'She's an Aasimar which is essentially a DND Angel', when in fact Devas are supposed to be the 'DND Angels', simply because Larian decided to use the wrong moniker and confused a whole generation of players.

Again, all nerding out aside, Remember that even if we handwave everything else, Aylin is clearly not an Aasimar on the most fundamental, explain-like-im-five level imaginable - Aasimar are absolutely not immortal, that destroys her entire lore. And we can't say 'Well in Larian's version they are', because Larian said they strive for accurate 5E terminology, especially on something as significant as this. So I don't know what to tell you, I have no idea why they keep calling her one, and being the actual daughter of Selune doesn't really match up with any DND precedents either.

If you ask her whether she is the literal daughter of Selune, she says Selune is her birth mother. I didn't get the impression she was unsure. However, Larian has many inconsistencies, to the point it's difficult to tell whether something is mistake, oversight, or a hint. Re: Astarion's tombstone. How old was he when he was turned? He may not look like a teenager frozen in time, but that's apparently what he is.

Interesting, I only recall her going off about how she surely must have come from her celestial womb because she shines like the moon and so on and so forth, which is amusing either way because Devas ( not to mention Planetars and Solars even moreso ) would be endowed with similar, and greater, dazzling visages and abilities. So if she says that, either Aylin has gone insane after her century of torment/always been insane, which we do get some indication of in her interactions, and actually believes she's some 'special' daughter of a Greater Deity, or she's speaking metaphorically about being created by Selune. After all a Deity doesn't actually have to physically 'give birth' neither to their celestial servants nor to direct descendants imbued with their essence from a divine/mortal union, but it is pretty clear that Alyin doesn't come close to resembling a product of the latter. Even her personality and vocabulary just scream 'Deva', a perfect servant.

While she did strike me as profoundly unhinged (hell, anyone would be after a century in solitary confinement), I'm not convinced this isn't once again Larian being unsure about what is Deva, and what is Aasimar. It doesn't help that celestial and devil genetics aren't exactly completely straightforward in all cases, nor without exceptions. We don't even know if the de facto 100 year prison sentence didn't weaken her considerably. This is the same game where 3 mortals somehow enslave a netherbrain. Additionally, because of gameplay limitations, dozens of characters are "leveled down". Her in game strength cannot be expected to reflect her strength in lore. Larian wrote themselves into a corner here. Make her reasonably strong, and she one turns the boss solo. Can't do that.

https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Demigod_(5e_Race)

Strictly speaking, the demigod race would be the best match for a real "daughter of Selune". They also do not age, provided they are supported by their parent. However, they're very clearly described as greatly varied, and aren't even necessarily that OP.

Well, at least in the case of the Chosen, they rely on what would arguably be one of the most powerful magical artifacts in all of existence in the form of the Netherstones and a good helping of Divine favor from their patron deities. However, putting Aylin's mechanical statistics aside, even the fact she could so easily be captured already invalidates her identity, since once again, we're not discussing some minor fluctuation, so even a stronger Aylin wouldn't be enough, since a true daughter of Selune would be like 100 times more powerful than anything encountered in the game.

Keep in mind that the article you linked is a homebrew race, which is noted at the bottom of the page too. It's a non-official fanfic uploaded by a user, there are like 1,000 homebrewed races uploaded on dandwiki. 'Demigod' is absolutely not a 'common' player character race in DND 5E, not even a creature type. There are, however, Demigods in the Forgotten Realms campaigns and lore - all of them are much more akin to minor Gods in terms of both their power and nature, far above anything Aylin exhibits.

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

There is likewise a creature type in DND 5E in the Monster Manual describing direct offspring of deities from the Upper Planes who don't quite rise to the ranking of Demigod, which are the Empyreans - CR 23 enormous Titans whose mere presence affects the emotions of everyone standing around them and reality itself. For comparison, an Elder Brain, which the game calls 'one of the cruelest and most powerful creatures in the universe' even without the crown, is only CR 14.

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

Meanwhile Aylin is literally just a deva, as I said before, she doesn't resemble even the weakest conceivable direct offspring of a Greater Deity.

The dialogue referring to it, is there more?

She may believe something false or lie but the examination tooltip should say the truth, it's annoying…

Empyreans supposedly have two deities for parents, though, or so some people say, despite being used as a default template of sorts. They're also a good example of high CR -- relatively bad in combat.

There have been demigods and similar reportedly powerful creatures with CR as low as 12-14. They're extremely inconsistent in lore, to the point of wizards of the coast accepting Aylin referring to herself as such. The reason given for those low CR is that they appear in campaigns that don't end in as high a level -- just like Bg3. While there are people with a very strong opinion on what the "right" CR should be, it's not established enough to be immune to handwaving. Additionally, again, Empyrean are actually pretty weak. Their best feature is the 22 AC. They're about on par in game with the Avatar of Myrkul.

Balthazar is not an impressive figure. He should be incapable of most of the feats he has accomplished, to the point that even the capacity to capture something as a lowly deva seems personally unlikely. Again, handwaving. Several characters are not the level they appear as in game. If plot armour is needed, they receive plot armour. If plot *weakness* is demanded, they're about to roll a long string of 1s. You can about bet someone in the development process wanted a "daughter of Selune", realised: "oh shit, that's way too powerful" and out came Aylin, who's just a... something.

Once you start applying deeper logic to the enemies and creatures in Act 2, about the entire plot becomes nonsensical. Even Ketheric is just a one-smite pony. Aylin may or may not be an Aasimar who is singularly blessed by Selune, as the "Child of the Moonmaiden" passive suggests. She could be a direct child of Selune, somehow, or a proxy child, or one of several weird options. She could even be a derranged Deva, or something completely new and singular. Her power level in game could be accurate or extremely downscaled for the campaign. It's Larian being Larian, as usual.

Demigods are the weakest form of quasi-deities:

Source: https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Divine_rank

So if Aylin is a demigod she would be weaker than a Titan and there is nothing to support that her status as an offspring of a deity would make her 100 times more powerful than anything else encountered in the game.

The correct answer to which portal allows you to see Lorroakan is also "The Nightsong is the immortal child of a divine being" further reinforcing that she is a child of Selune.

When Devas die they vanish from the material plane and it takes several years for their soul to return. This is not consistent wih Aylin at all.

Characters like Minthara and Halsin are also not at all consistent with their background in terms of power level either. Minthara is a 250 year old matron of Lolth, and simply a 6th level paladain and Halsin, a 350 year old archdruid who is "one of the greatest healers in Faerûn" is a 7th level druid who can't even cast Greater Restoration.

Larian’s approach to this sort of thing is summed up at the Grove

“Kannon, no!”

Great post OP, but I don’t expect Larian put that much thought into it. To me they seem to be doing whatever feels “cool” at the moment.

Yeah that's what I remember, it's like she's trying to convince herself more than me by stressing how much she embodies Selune, which again, would be equally true for any regular Selunite Deva. Like, girl... did Selune actually raise you as her one and only daughter or not?



I suppose it also depends on which divine rank we're talking about, considering Selune is one of the Greater Gods. A CR 12 direct child of the Greater Gods is certainly not something I personally remember from any 5E campaign, so that should prove an interesting topic. You also raise a salient point regarding Balthazar - How in God's name ( pun intended ) does some schmuck necromancer from the Sword Coast capture THE one true daughter of the Greater Goddess Selune in the first place and then drag her back to the Shadowfell for the next 100 years, exactly? That's like one degree of separation below Karsus' Folly itself, way more cosmically impactful than simply capturing an elder brain. Sorry, I don't buy - as you say, even his ability to constrain a deva is in question, so I'm going with the 'Aylin is a deranged deva' theory.

We're also still left to contend with the fact that Aylin *looks* precisely like a Deva, including the in-game model of a Deva, and has almost the exact same abilities of a Deva, including the Devas summoned by Planar Ally in-game. This begs a philosophical question: Even if she was, somehow, the one and true only first-generation child of the Greater Goddess Selune, and given that she does not seem to possess any power greater than that of an average Seluinte deva, let alone Planteras and Solars, nor any indication of a stronger relationship/communication channel with Selune ( Who left her to rot in the Shadowfell too btw, RIP ) than any of the former, then what difference does it even make to dissuade us from calling a spade a spade?

Deities aren't corporeal beings, which means that both divine offspring and divine servants are manifested into being. If Aylin is a CR12 child of Selune that has all the powers and appearance of a Deva without any additional observable perks, then for all intents and purposes she is a Deva.

P.S - You're right that Empyreans are pretty weak against medium-levelled parties, but they do have much higher HP than Aylin, much higher ability scores and legendary actions, so ehhh. Kind of a fuck-up from WOTC as well right there, they're supposed to be super-powerful when DM's consult CR to design encounters, even more powerful than a Solar, but are functionally not. CR 30 Tarrasques also auto-lose against anything that can fly, run, and employ ranged attacks.

It's funny because the 5E interpretation of DR says this, but it's seemingly impossible to find any actual named Demigod who is somehow weaker than an Empyrean or a Kraken. On the contrary, most of them have worshipers, the ability to grant spell, personal domains on the planes, and a meandering list of control of aspects of reality itself, like small-time Gods. If you can think of the Demigod whose powers are less grand than that of an Empyrean, let me know.

Now when it comes to Aylin's respawn, I've heard that argument before. There's a pretty major problem with it - Even Divine Avatars themselves, the incarnations of a God on the Prime Material, a world-ending event, require a decent period of time to recuperate their strength before they can manifest again if someone manages to slay them on the Prime. The same holds true for almost any immortal creature we know of, and this is done on purpose to avoid annoying combat encounters on tabletop where you just need to fight all over again for not knowing in advance that a certain creature can "insta-respawn" - This is true of Devils, of Liches, of Master Vampires, of Celestials, and even Gods. They all need some days, hours at minimum to reform.

That leaves us with three options:

A. Dame Aylin for some reason has an infinitely better respawn rate than Divine Avatars themselves or any other being of comparable power in DND.
B. It isn't Dame Aylin's innate creature type which makes her 'insta-respawn', and also prevents her from returning to the Upper Planes upon her demise, it's rather an element of Balthazar's necromantic ritual and Shar's unknown role in her bondage. I don't believe there's evidence of Aylin *instantly* respawning once freed from her ritual circle in the Shadowfell.
C. Once again, likely owing to the necromantic magic at play, Aylin *feels* like she dies and others might think they killed her, but they don't actually kill her. Much like a Troll which gets taken down without finishing it off with fire or acid, she just goes to 0HP with extreme suffering but the ritual props her back up. That's also pretty much the only common type of 'insta-respawn' in DND, the one where you failed to actually kill the creature.

I have another iterpretation of Balthazar. In my mind, after Isobel dies, Ketheric turns to Shar. He then builds that entire gaunltet of Shar to "raise" dark justiciars. Obviously, thjis is a super human endeavour. So, Shar herself must be involved. This is also the time that I think Aylin was captured (she was already in Eithrym before Isobel died) and imprisoned in Shar's abode in Shadowfell. It was Shar who directly or indirectly imprisoned her rival's offspring for eternal torment. (Why did Selune not interfere ? Selune doesn't seem to interfere with anything actually, e.g. Shadowheart's family, het temple falling apart etc...)

After the justiciars are defeated by the Harpers, Balthazar comes on the scene. To me, he is a Myrkul devout. He manages to revive Isobel and turn Ketheric from Shar to Myrkul. But this leaves Ketheric with a problem. If he wants to keep Aylin he needs to get her out of Shadowfell and in his domain. That is now Balthazar's primary mission, but he cannot possibly do this as he will never be able to pass the 3 trials. When the party arrives that's the reason why he accepts our help. Well, that's how the story goes in my mind at least.

The Nightsong is

That's pretty well thought-out, but we still run into the power-level plothole. Aylin's mechanical statistics and combat abilities are, relatively speaking, so puny that it wouldn't even behoof Shar to personally abduct her, a conjecture which is solely necessary under the pretense that Aylin is legitimately 'special' in some way. Tav can kill or capture Aylin, Lorroakan can do it, Balthazar and his undead minions could easily do it. Subduing some 80HP Deva with Smite wouldn't even require Shar batting her eyelashes, an act of bullying so unfair one might expect the Good-aligned Gods to be completely outraged by such blatant interventionism against an inferior creature ( Which is why even evil deities typically refrain from just terminating mortals nilly-willy ). If anything, she could just send Viconia and a couple of Sharrans to do it.

The reason you don't hear about direct divine children being snatched up by any aspiring arcanist on the Prime that often is because they're much, much stronger than Aylin. To play Devil's Devocate though, I can see a possibility where Selune deliberately nerfed Aylin's divine essence ( as a direct offspring of a Greater God ) to make her more humble or some such and then booted her to the Prime Material to preach the Selunite faith under the guise of a second-rate Celestial.

That is, if the game didn't repeatedly refer to her as 'Aasimar', which tells me that the whole 'Daughter of Selune' bit was probably just as hastily applied without much introspection for cool factor.

Aylin's power level ( I.E, only slighter higher than a Deva summoned by Planar Ally ) does fit her lore specifically at least, to be fair.

* Gets captured by some smarmy mortal arcanist
* Simple set of Deva wings, armor and shining sword, nothing to really write home about
* Has the potential of once again getting defeated by another smarmy mortal arcanist ( Lorroakan )

She's not even as strong as Zariel ( A Solar turned Archdevil ) lore-wise, either pre or post betrayal.

Where things get complicated is that Aylin was originally the culminating test for Shar's justiciars. She lost that function when Ketheric was defeated and turned to Myrkul and the gauntlet abandoned . After that her only function left was keeping Ketheric immortal, but for that she had to be removed from Shar's domain. So what I mean to say is, that when she was captured iand imprisoned in Shadowfell it was not simply as Ketheric prisoner but (more importantly?) as part of a Sharran ritual. Also, as I mentioned , just constructing that gauntlet below the mausoleum in less than a century time would not have been possible without some kind of divine intervention, I think.

Except she wasn't. Shadowfell is Shar's domain (Shadowheart mentions this if you spare Aylin - That Shar is upset and you all need to GTFO before she intervenes. It's also where Shar takes Shadowheart from and tortures her before letting her leave)

Aylin was providing Ketheric with his immortality from within Shadowfell, when we find her it's inside Shadowfell.

The only complicated thing is how someone managed to get into Shadowfell and bind Aylin to Ketheric in the first place, as such a person would need to not only pass the trials, but also escape from Shadowfell after betraying Shar.

Which is weird because we see that it's not necessary for Aylin to be inside Shadowfell to be bound, as she's bound again near Ketheric during his fight at the end of the Mindflayer Colony. (Which also suggests that it's Ketheric himself that bound her). I suppose Ketheric simply decided that keeping her inside Shadowfell would make her less likely to be freed from his binding, given that someone would have to pass the trials to do so.

It's just another needlessly complicated villain master plan for the sake of setting up plot twists. The game writing does a lot of that.

My chronology as best I can reconstruct it :

Ketheric, Melodia and Isobel are devout Selune worshippers as is the whole area of Eithrim. Ketheric is the leader of this area ( baron whatever)
Melodia dies. Ketheric is heartbroken.
Aylin comes to this Selunite area, probably sent with a purpose to this Selunite lkand. Love fires up between her and Isobel. Ketheric doesn't like it.
Isobel dies. Ketheric breaks down.
Ketheric turns to the Lady of Loss to attempt to live with his pain. He forcibly converts everyone to Shar, constructs Moonrise towers and the Gauntlet to build a Dark justiciar army and export his Shar-tiranny to the surronunding lands . As part of the Gauntlet construction, he has Aylin imprisoned in the Shadowfell as final act for the DJ ritual.
As a boon for his efforts for Shar, Ketheric gains immortality from Aylin's situation.
Harpers and Druids mobilize against the Sharran threat.
Raphaël has the gauntlet destroyed.
The DJ army is too weak now to resist the Harpers and Ketheric is defeated.
Ketheric lays the shadowcurse on his land, using Sharran magic.

Up to that point Ketheric remains a fanatic Shar follower.


Speculation : Plan to create the absolute is set in motion by the dead 3 after these events.

While the chosen of Bhaal and Bane get their hands on the nethercrown, Myrkul sees an opportunity to use Ketheric's weakness and has one of his devout, Balthazar, revive Isobel. The absolute needs Ketheric because they know of the mindflayer colony below Moonrise towers and have chosen this place to get the elder brain.

Ketheric turns his devotion to Myrkul, as the dead God had anticipated. To make him part of the absolute plan he becomes Chosen of Myrkul. Why does Shar not act immediately to punish this, or at least withdraw his immortality ? Big question.

Isobel "does not recognise her father anymore" and manages to get away to last light inn.
As a Shar apostate, Ketheric knows he must get Aylin out of the shadowfell if he wants to keep her under control. Balthasar is sent away to bring her to Moonrise.

Now all chronology is breaking down rapidly, because in a short time, hundreds of "true souls" are abducted, the astral prism is stolen by Shadowheart and entered into by the Emperor. Jaheira and a brigade of Harpers and Fists find refuge in Last Light inn , in order to find out the means that absolutists use to survive the shadow curse. All this time, Shar does nothing to stop the absolute or punish Ketheric. Whereas poor Shadow is constantyl tormented by Shar.

Maybe it was all a test, a trial for Shadow, concocted between Selune and Shar. Typical God-cruelty using mortals as playthings.