Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Story changes we have already witnessed

Hey everyone,

I have recently rewatched the PAX east live stream reveal of BG3 from 2020, because I wanted to see for myself how far the game has come (I highly recommend it btw; I appreciate the game even more now and how the community feedback has clearly influenced it).

I noticed something interesting when Swen was playing through the chapel in the beginning of the game: back then it was clearly a temple dedicated to Selune. There are banners with her symbol everywhere, and at the end where there is now a statue of Jergal, there was a Selune statue before.
I am wondering how the story must have changed during development, for this change to be made.

We already know through datamining that


so clearly there must have been major changes made. Possibly the goblin camp, which is now an old Selune temple, was something else too back then? I'd love to hear some theories on this.

Aside from this, has anyone noticed other things that have clearly changed story-wise? I am really curious.

The biggest one that stands out to me is a change from either Patch 7 or 8 - the Thralls on the Nautiloid now wear the cult and symbols of the Absolute.

Before this, the way I read the situation was that the Mindflayers on the ship and the Cult are not of the same faction. This is reinforced when you run into True Soul Edowin and his "siblings" - if you inform them that you came from the ship, they will automatically attack you. I had always assumed they were on opposite sides. Hence why Minthara seemed happy to see the Nautiloid crashing.

Now, with the thralls on the ship wear the uniform of the cult, the reason behind them attacking you after finding out you're from the ship (they still do AFAIK), changes significantly. Are they just assuming everyone who survived the crash is an escaped captive? Does this mean there are internal conflicts within the cult?

that's interesting, I never looked so closely at what they are wearing.

I always interpreted the fact that you are attacked by the 'siblings' when you tell them you came from the ship, that they dont actually realize that the cult has anything to do with mindflayers. Priestess Gut doesn't either, and neither do Ragzlin and Minthara.

That's a great point and something I've forgotten about (i.e. the active members of the cult believe they're following a legit god). That makes more sense to me.

So even if the cult on shore belong to the Mindflayers on the Nautiloid, the cultist won't necessarily know its Mindflayers they're dealing with. It explains why Larian put that scene with the trapped Mindflayer at the crash - I'm blow him up, but it's clearly made out that the Mindflayer can warp what you're seeing in your head, so even if they work with the cults at any capacity they never have to reveal themselves.

This kind of explains for me why we end up where we end up when we activate the transponder - the Cult at the Selune temple is probably a "saved location" since it is one of the cults the mindflayers are building up.

Im quite sure they were wearing it a lot longer ... colors changed tho, so now are those neckages more visible.

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Not sure if you count it as "story change" but Shadowheart underwent a major character lifting aswell.

This is halfway between story and mechanics, but PCs can now face consequences for misbehaviour that aren't combat with every NPC in the area. Bribes or a persuasion check lets the story progress seamlessly and going to jail can lead to interesting opportunities.

In the previous versions the grove was full of book drafts about Halsin's business with Ketheric Thorm and there was a lot of detail of what happened back in the days with Harpers and dark justiciars. And now there is little to no written evidence and Halsin is being all mysterious about it.

The petrified drow changed a lot since the beginning. IIRC their leader was originally a woman and they weren't looking for Grymforge.

Not sure if this counts as a "story change", but I'm sure this will shake up the belief that BG3 is set in the year 1492 DR.

Lore researchers base their belief that the year the game is currently set in is the Year of Three Ships Sailing, also known as 1492 DaleReckoning because of the Tollhouse Ledger found on the decomposing corpse of a human found in the locked cellar in the Tollhouse where the people hunting for Karlach are claiming so, but after reading deeply into the tollhouse ledger, I've discovered that the game's assumed timeline isn't possible at all, considering it is obviously not Winter.

The guy who wrote it, who is apparently dead and had been stinking up the tollhouse cellar for many months wrote his last entry on the ledger in Uktar of 1492. For those of you who don't know about the Forgotten Realms' calendar known as the "Calendar of Harptos", "Uktar" is the November of the Forgotten Realms, meaning the guy who wrote the tollhouse ledger has been dead since November of 1492 DR, the game is actually set in the Spring or Summer of 1493 DR.