Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General I figured it out, Gow this game connects to the originals... Well Fan Theory (Spoilers)

Okay, major spoilers here... maybe, This is just a dumb fan theory I have come up with, brace yourself.

There has been a question of how this game connects to the previous games, since Mind Flayers are heavily involved in this game and so are the Gith... dealing with more planescape and spelljammer sort of cosmology.

So I am going to lay out what I thikn the connection is!

Bhaal was a big deal in the original Baldur's Gate games, Bhaal is dead.

When gods die in D&D, their bodies float in the Astral Plane forever.

Gith live in the Astral Plane, Mind Flayers sometimes go there (the gith can patrol the whole thing... or... ill get back to this)

Mind Flayers eat brains, Mind Flayers are ruled by giant brain.

Dead Gods are giant.

Put giant brain in Dead gods body, make new god!

----

My theory is that The Absolute was created when the Mind Flayers put an Elder Brain into the cranial cavity of Bhaal, and while I havent been able to confirm this part... I think its also possible that the Gith have been forced out of the Astral Plane.

So there is the connection to the old Baldur's Gate games, the origin of the absolute, and a dumb plot twist idea.

Im sure im not the first person to come up with this idea, im sure its just a silly theory that wont happen, BUT I HAD FUN

I kind of like it, because it sounds a lot like the Norse creation myth, where three brothers -- one of them Odin -- killed the giant Ymir, and from Ymir's body the world was born.

Ymir was connected to the ultra violent god Cronos (from Greek mythology) who in turn has a lot of elements in common with Bhaal, like consuming his descendants and other great parenting activities.

Here's Neil Gaiman's retelling: https://theoldshelter.com/thursday-quotables-norse-mythology/


And here's a shorter vresion:

"The world was created from the remains of the giant Ymir in Norse mythology.

The three brothers dragged Ymir’s lifeless body towards the center of Ginnungagap, this is the place where they created the world from the remains of Ymir.

The blood became the oceans, rivers, and lakes.
The flesh became the land.
The bones became the mountains.
The teeth were made into rocks.
The hair became the grass and trees.
The eyelashes became Midgard.

They threw the brain up in the air and it became the clouds, and the skull became the sky, Ymir’s skull would be the lid that covered the new world. The brothers grabbed some of the sparks shooting out from Muspelheim, the land of fire.

They threw the sparks up toward the inside of the skull, these sparks gleamed at night and this is what we call the stars. On the plains of Idavoll, they built Asgard, which would be the home of the Gods. Very far away from Asgard, in a place called Jotunheim was the giants allowed to live."

I wrote Gow instead of How.

Also rad comparison Beebee

It would be a great theory except for the small matter of the fact that Bhaal isn't dead.

With all of his children dead, all of Bhaal's essence was freed, allowing for his resurrection. Bhaal was revived, and reclaimed the murder domain from Cyric. However, the Lord of Murder was no longer a true deity, and was instead a being of quasi-divine status. As with Bane and Myrkul, he was effectively a mortal.

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Bhaal#Reemergence

This could take place before that, or it could even be that his now-mortal form is distinct from his divine form (as in the case of true ressurection creating a new body), it might even be why his godly corpse lacks a brain?

Meeting the mortal form of Bhaal could also be a way of helpng the story along.

IDK, its not as big of a problem as you are presenting it.

It would be mythical as f*ck --- the more I think about it, the more I like it. At any rate, if Larian didn't go that way, it would be a fantastic premise for a sci-fi / fantasy novel.

The reference he is making is from the campaign module Murder in Baldur's Gate. It happens a few years after the events of the BG2. BG3 takes place 100+ years after the events of BG2 so Bhaal is alive currently in game. There could be an event maybe in the end of BG3 or in a doc expansion where we fight the dead three.

That leaves us with "his god-body is still in the Astral Plane"

Which can still work in my humble opinion, especially since... if that is how it works, then it is definitly a body with no mind, thus allowing an Elder Brain to take it over.

It would be great if they were like "I need my body back, I would rather be a dead god floating in a void, than a mortal"

Abdel Adrian (the cannon protagonist of BG series, I am aware everyone who played the previous games hates his guts) died in 1482 DR during a confrontation with Viekang (that bhaalspawn who could teleport at will). Both of them died and that resulted in Bhaal being resurrected. So no, he didn't get resurrected a few years after the events of the original games, but about 100 years later. Abdel led such a lengthy life BECAUSE he didn't give up the essence to the solar, so for a human, his lifespan was inhumanly long.

BG3 takes place 10 years after the resurrection of Bhaal, 1492 DR.

OP, 'tis a nice theory, but highly implausible. I think it's most likely Abdel had an illegitimate child with a fraction of Bhaal's essence that we might meet further down the road. After all, the slayer renders have been datamined, so maybe that child of his has the ability to transform into the slayer. It could be that the story at some point might revolve around that child.

Also, it's much more likely that Bhaal and the Dead Three are behind the Absolute. Not an elder brain being placed in his body, that's quite absurd. They - Bhaal, Bane and Myrkul aren't as powerful as they once were, so it's very likely the Absolute was created as a means to an end for them. The question is why would they work with the mind flayers? Wouldn't they clash with Illsensine, the god of mind flayers? Unless of course the mind flayers working with the Dead Three are a splinter cell of sorts that doesn't adhere to Illsensine and chose to put the grand design into their own clawed hands and temporarily work with the Dead Three to gain enough power to launch a full scale invasion. Who knows at this point.

I see a lot of "canon says no" answers, and yes, maybe, but since when are we gonna let canon get in the way of a better story (that's a vague paraphrasing of George Lucas).


But let's say that the Dead Three are behind the Absolute, and that the mind flayers that we see in the cinematic ARE a splinter cell giving the middle finger to Ilsensine for invasion reasons -- if I was a normie Ilseninian who got even a WHIFFF of that TREASONOUS PLOT I would really, really enjoy getting my clawed psionic arms into the powerful body of the dead god that was trying to screw me over.

At worst, they only get a massive decrepit hunk of divine flesh that they can use to disgust the Dead Three with, to taunt them, for instancee.

At best, that body would still retain some interesting properties that could be repurposed for doing whatever Ilsenine does -- scuba dive like Ctulhu? Send menacing e-mails to Vla'akith? I don't know. And, of course, to show up Bhaal.

If you look at the themes present in the EA, that of "reanimating the dead" (first dungeon), "speaking with the dead" and "controlling decrepit bodies" (Mayrina's quest) is a mechanically-backed story gag. Maybe one of the side-effects of managing to read the Necromancy of Thay, for instance, is not the 4 inspiration points --- but that that "speak with the dead" spell will let you communicate with the dead bodies of gods.

After all, it doesn't seem like D&D gods are exactly the same in every single one of their incarnations. Current!Bhaal could be reborn and working with the Absolute, but that does't mean that Past!GiantCorpse!Bhaal would be happy about it.

Damn he was old. Wouldn't that mean he was alive during the events of Decent into Avernus?

Yeah, but he was busy grand duking in Baldur's Gate so..