Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General What is the Absolute SPOILERS

No it doesnt, obviously. It starts with you and Gorion trying to escape Candlekeep because one Bhaalspawn thought he can get Bhaal juice and become cool. Failed miserably. Bhall profited from all of it - which was his plan all along.
We never played the Dead three rise to power - which, btw, only happened because Jergal decided to go along with it - for his own reasons.
The story of Irenicus was not a direct continuation of Bhaalspawn saga, but it did provide another consequence of it and if anything its a continuation of Sarevok story.
There is no "initiative starts with mortals" - at all in original games. You are hallucinating and denying reality. Mortals are only reacting and scrambling to Gods games, while inevitably playing right into them one way or another.

One of the ways mortals react to such powers becoming available is to say "F you Gods ill take all of it muahahaha!"

Buts thats a consequence.

And you are unable to hold a civil conversation.

@Vhaldez

Thanks! I had never heard of THOON before. Makes me

(datamining)

As always, when one looses his argument because he argues from completely nonsensical and blatantly unreal ludicrous angle, the only thing left are accusations of incivility and other ad hominems.
Which goes along with egoism really well, which is why you live in hallucinations of personal empowerment and fantasies of "initiative by mortals"... and why you take dismemberment of your ludicrous arguments as something personal. Buddy, i was super mild with you there.

Quite the accumulation of adjectives. Let's not derail the thread by personal conflicts.

I initially assumed the box to be a device primarily connected to Shadowhearts origins story. Seeing the Shar Temple in the Underdark and all the possible connections makes me call that into question. It seems quite obvious now that the whole Shar/Githyanki plot is connected with the Absolute arc. Is the gith patrol looking for the artifact in service of Vlaakith or are they a rouge group allied with the

Do we have a clear link between the arcs yet or just a collection of hints revolving around shadow magic?
I guess the dead three are looking for a no limits approach to godhood, Shar could not provide that. Maybe both are toying with involving some far realm entity in the affairs of Faerun?
An ulikely option:

What the Armoured Hedgehog said.

Play nice.

There is no definite link between the arcs. Just hints and bits and pieces.

One small but interesting one i encountered in the new game. When you find a diary in the Blighted village and read it, it triggers the first of Shadowheart strange "magical" reactions, with her hands shaking and glowing.
You also find a skeleton with ancient Shar helmet right there. And in the few written pieces of info the hiding Thay wizard kept you find that a group of "dark knights" visited and even attacked the village. Which very well could be dark justicars which... went into the Underdark, and so on. Then there are the paintings in the Grove of Druids and Selune fighting the dark - Shar forces.
Then the desecrated Selune temple.
And on and on.

I dont think we would get so much pointers toward Shar if she wasnt involved. And if she is, she is running things. She is a major primordial diety, not just another god and has used the dead three for her own ends before to kill Mystra no less and cause a whole sundering of the Universe. And she represented herself as another god, which i already said. The Ilsensine god of the mindflayers is said to just appeared out of nowhere at one time, after a duergar uprising that nearly destroyed them completely. What a coincidence.

The land used to be under Shar's control centuries ago before the Druids/Selûnites showed up. The Druids defeated them. Then Halsin did something stupid which caused the Dark Justiciars to attack again. The Druids + Harper helpers "defeated" them again but not before the leader cursed the area around the Moonrise Towers. That was about a century ago. That's less or more the story on the Grove murals and a few books/notes found in the Grove.

That's just background information about the region and it gives insight in the motivation of certain NPCs like Halsin. It all pre-date the Absolute by like 100+ years.

Sure, there is a history of Shar involvement in the area. That doesnt contradict my suspicions at all. Infact it strengthens them because Shar would obviously have a very good reason for vengeance on that whole area and the Grove and the Druids.

The Blighted village destruction is more recent, (i think) and i wouldnt be surprised if Shadowheart was one of the children that started missing from the village - also a bit of info found in one of the written documents you find there. I think its the diary that gets Shadowheart strange shaking.

The main issue with having Bhaal or Shar, or Vlaakith, act as an ally of the absolute, is that you can play a cleric of one. So here you are, a powerful evil deity running an elaborate scheme to gain more power, while one of you lowly level one acolytes is doing their best to ruin it? Which the player character can do, even unknowingly.

At the beginning of BG1 one if the big hints is a book about the dead three your character is given. So now I've been looking at the books in BG3 and there are some interesting tomes, e.g. The unclaimed, about a forgotten cleric of Shar. The book ends with the following lesson ”That not of forgetting, but being forgotten." I wonder whether it's therefore not something long forgotten making a comeback here, which only the truly old ones like Shar would remember. Don't githyanki build their cities on dead gods (my gith wizard claimed sth like that in dialogue)?

How exactly and why Shar couldnt "provide approach" to godhood?

Limited or unlimited.... whatever that means. What does that sentence even mean, at all? Its proclaimed as if its a fact of some kind, so surely its something thats absolutely established? But in what sense, really? What does it mean?

The dead three lost their godhood because they trespassed the boundaries of what Ao deems acceptable behaviour. Their godhood was limited because it was subject to an overgod ending it. An unlimited godhood would be one that could not be limited by any other entity. Shar is a member of the Faerunian pantheon and could therefore not grant powers to others which she does not possess herself.
If the dead three want "absolute" power with unlimited meddling in the affairs of Faerun they would be forced to pursue a novel path to becoming a new kind of Deity.
I hope that explains what I meant

Its really difficult to say what the dead three may want as the ultimate goal - and although some kind of unlimited godhood may be a distant goal there are necessary steps toward it. We can only guess based on their previous behavior. Shar has an even bigger grudge to hold and she would also very probably prefer to evade being under the control of Ao. Although she is by all accounts also on the side of destroying the whole Toril/Faerun and everything else. One other way to evade being under Ao control is to somehow destroy him. But those are some really high end goals. Wild Speculations at best.

If we look at the current situation, Shar has been greatly weakened as were the Dead three so their first immediate concern in getting their previous powers back.

"The Dead Three, greatly reduced in power, decided to remain on Toril, living as quasi-divine mortals, to spread the word of their return, gather more worshipers, and influence events in their favor. Bane led the trio in these efforts." Shar rebuild her power and dominion in the Astral plane. She had already previously impersonated other gods, killed other gods, used Bane and Cyric to kill Mystra, caused the spell plague and so on.

It seems more or less obvious that she and the dead three are involved in the cult of the Absolute. The only question remains whether there is any other additional deity or two in the game, or if the Ilsensine is just another of Shar impersonations created to gain influence over Illithids and their special capabilities such as tadpoles present.

The book of the dead gods mentions that severaly names on the last page have been stricken, the last three completely. I assume that the last three are the dead three.
As their names are not in alphabetical order the book uses a different system of grouping. Can we assume that all of the gods on that page were connected?
That would indicate that some of the others are part of the complot.
I guess pretty much every god floating in the astral plane could be brought back somehow.
What is in it for the illithids is one of the big questions. If they had indeed lost the nautiloid designs and someone helped them to build new ones that would be
worth a great deal for them. No nautiloids, no astral empire. The gith must be very alarmed by the prospect. There really should be a dialogue option to tell the
Gith with the dragon about the mindflayer vision of a nautiloid invasion. A few dozen red dragons would certainly help to keep the illithids at bay.

Not sure if he would trust us, tadpoled nonames (at least in the Gith's eyes). He could just simply assume we are ghaik's tools.

Hmm... put a bhallspawn in an illusion of where they can murder? Such things have been done in games before after all. But man, would you have sex with a mindflay- actually, that's a good point. That's not how they reproduce. Which means a mindflayer can't be. Not unless... Do you think Bhall might have done things other then sleep with people to spread his children around? There's a thought... If everyone is so focused on the children yet see a mindflayer that reproduces through tadpoles and turning other races into mindflayers...

Doubt it's the route they'll go with. But it has gotten me thinking. What better way to keep a Bhallspawn of pure anger trapped then to have it in an illusion where they keep fighting?

We also see a clone of Icaris's... complicated love interest? In BG2. This could be implying something. Though what exactly I'm not sure. He was after all obsessed with the power of bhaal.

Me too. There is hardly anything to go on regarding the but even barring that, there is also this to consider;

Would the Gith trust us? Probably not. But we should have the option to tell him. The situation is dangerous and they cannot afford to completely ignore clues, even if they are suspicious of the person they got them from.
As the

is in the game files there will be an appearance. Bhaal is still around and involved with the tadpoles. What if the tadpoled absolute followers turn into illithid slayers under total mind control by the absolute.

Has it been mentioned yet that The Absolute is the woman who has been narrating our actions throughout the game? It'd be silly, but very meta if she turned out to be a DM. x)

Icewind Dale already did this.