Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Minthara too manic & nature of evil [Spoilers]

A graphical representation of my relationship with her:
Many Faces

From beginning to end its just a constant "ite...guess this is happening now" feeling.

- You, a complete stranger with a weird group, get to just go torture her prisoner or point to her map or lead the war party for the absolute with pretty much no rolling. For what ended up being a really long battle in the grove and a pretty climactic ending to the "choose a path" portion of this, it would be nice to see you having to do tasks for her that were evil. I went from fairly evil, but pragmatic and helping the druids to drilling her on a satanic altar covered in blood and avoiding her slitting my throat in what, narratively, was a day and the drilling to throat slitting was a few hours. After which, I passed a dice roll, so it went from snarling "die scum!" to "ok, I can help you, I have a special thing to protect those I care about and you can have it. I cant wait to see you again". Now, if she was absolutely NUTS, and thats how she always acted, I would love to have a dont stick ...in crazy affair with her that wasn't a romance but more of a Geralt continued fling and try to not get killed kind of thing. As a story element though, no consistency.

- I think the side quests to unlock her final attack would be great because its you choosing evil repeatedly. The druids sucked, but its kind of like a bandaid. Once you were in it, that is your world now. Having to go kill a farmer and his family because they have 2 more sacks of potatoes she wants, waylaying a paladin on his way to the druid grove and killing him and burning his holy book in the name of the absolute...get stuff where...no man...youre committing to be this evil. It would also make sense to generally pick off, spy on, steal, etc...classic "bad" choices from people in the grove to weaken them. Poison animals, just make you constantly want to turn back and say no, this is too evil / messed up. She makes you pick a townsperson to sacrifice to the Absolute before you consummate the pact.

- The payoff for going down that evil road should be better than having crazymonster taking you to crazytown. EA cuts when it gets interesting but a further relationship that has continuous benefits of multiple types and threads into BG and beyond as the Absolute seems like a recurring theme. A personal item from her would be nice. Also, she scrys on you through it and youll just sometimes roll a wisdom save and you wont know why during story parts and thats her scrying and shell know what you fail on.

- The path to hell be paved with good intentions. You can try to say youre doing deep undercover, playing the long con, etc...but you end up having touched so many lives through what you did, you see farms burned, refugees getting rejected at the gates from roving bands of goblins making it not safe. You talk to someone who is at the front gate asking about the person you sacrificed. Make these little nods through the game that you did something and it hurt people.

- This also means you need an alignment system that is a bit stronger than rep as you wont be known to people but someone should slip a note in your evil little pocket in the streets trying to recruit you into something. They can feel it radiating. You are barred from certain temples as the priests and priestesses ward you bacl

- EA? That all cant come to fruition, obviously, but I think a lot more foundation can be laid and seeds planted for you to say "I cant wait to see what becomes of that decision later..."

Yeah the evil path has a decent amount of isses. I'll just copy from my other post.

I'm gonna start off by saying right off the bat, when you go back to the tieflings and go "im joining the goblins", all my companions disapproved except Astarion, and I mention this because they said we will be getting evil/neutral companions for EA and from the start of being evil the player is punished. If these so called Evil companions disagree with me, then there is a few major issues with the evil storyline, which is what I want to talk about.

Now, from the the player is abducted and had a tadpole inserted into their eye and the companions they meet are adamant about having this removed, and that's fine. But the narrative doesn't really PUSH you towards being evil and neither do these companions. Now the biggest lead you have for this is Halsin, and i would consider him to be on the "good" side, where I should side with the grove to get his help. What incentive is there for me to help the goblins? The game doesn't really do anything to push their agenda and make you want to do. A smart evil character would still help Grove and get Halsins help because they want to figure out what's going on, what the option we have now is stupid evil instead. We are never enticed with anything to go join the Absolute. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to get out of helping the goblins and Minthara kill everyone. There isn't an enticing promise of answers or rewards for going down that path vs. just helping the refugees and finding Halsin to heal you from the tadpole. Right now the only reason you would help is because "fuck all these refugees and druids". Again, stupid evil IMO.

Everything up to that point in the game (being kidnapped by Illithids, all your companions explaining what the tadpoles do, and being concerned with getting healed) reinforces that we should want nothing to do with the Absolute because they violated us and will rid us of our free will if we don't get rid of the parasite. No type of evil character would want to help the goblins because we get nothing. Hell I lost Wyll after that, which is cool, and a good consequence, but that's it. I gained nothing from this it seems like. Now, I will say I'm interested in the story still. I wanna know what happens if I follow this trail, will i see Minthara again, will she be a companion or a returning side character? There is potential but just to see what could happen, but there are no rewards. You don't get any extra powers from it, nothing about healers (the priestess Gut wants to kill me bc I took the "Drow" option with sleep potion and then she goes "oh this will hurt"). I guess it was cool I had sex with her? But I mean at that night 3 of my companions were ready to sleep with me, and I lost 1 companion and gained...nothing.

Now I think the best way to fix it would be to have Minthara or someone else meet you REALLY early on and tell you, maybe entice you about the powers you can get. Have her tell you about the true souls, she shows you the power you can get if you use the tadpole, but right now there isn't anything like it. No character storywise would want to help goblins, even an evil one (smart evil one). It's kind of funny when the tiefling "Zevlor" asked me why I was doing this and i was like "uhhh....Bc Larian told me to? Whoops!" In the end, the Evil storyline for Grove vs Goblin needs more rewards and enticing. Why should my character risk dealing with them instead of looking for a healer, especially Halsin who is the best lead. Should I be doing it bc I got to bang the drow lol?

You don't even get to keep your Goblin "allies", they all turn hostile afterwards. The whole Evil thing with Goblin vs Grove is incomplete.

I think thats the ying to my yang. I was approaching it from the execution side. If you are going to be evil - earn it. Steep yourself in your choices and they are made. Play the game again if you dont want your game to be lived out relatively evil. But none of the accidental, "hey I didnt think it would go this far" kind of movie evil where you suddenly try to back out. Conscious choices.

What you bring up is the motivation to do so in the first place other than a person sitting at their computer, brushing off the Salsa Verde Tostitos Rounds crumbs from their Mass Effect N7 hoodie (this got oddly specific) and saying "Guess Ill go evil this time". its going to be hard to narratively make the case for evil. Evil almost always has a built in blind side, a singular focus, an obeisance to something else. Its hard to have a full-witted character just be like "Yeah, but did you see those tiaras everyone gets?". The only thing that is even remotely interesting about it is Minthara, and my first playthrough she was caught up in the slaughter with my no questions asked, no answers given scorch the earth policy towards the goblins. Diamonds in the rough, glimmers of possibility...just doesnt work.

Matt Colville said it in one of his "running the game" videos (hes a video game designer, writer for Wotc & Critical role, wrote his own D&D book, and hosts his own liveplay D&D) that as a DM one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to make this amazing world, all these super cool NPCs, theres all this lore, the people have stories and quests and ahhh! its so cool! And then what happens? Game night comes. They get beer in the tavern and head out in the morning for the woods. You get mad at them for not taking an interest in your world.

So what happened? The world isn't alive for them the way it is for you. They get pictures, flashes, vignettes. If you describe three average looking people and an odd little man with a stick - dont be surprised if they dont latch onto that. It sounds like just that - a funny old man with a stick, why would they talk to him?

To make these worlds work you have to have the NPCs go to them. I implemented this system awhile ago and my god the difference in how much fun both me and the players have. There are tons of organic ways to start a conversation with a group that looks like you do. Right now the areas are the areas, there are roads connecting them, and there are people you can talk to or not and then some forced mainline stuff you dont have a choice with. Thats it. Players aren't given the right of refusal, theyre being required to dredge up people to talk to and piece together reasons they might care. Hand choices to them on a platter - a la the devil - and they can refuse. Yeah, find stuff on your own, but the really interesting stuff - that comes to you and has some good reasons why its interesting.

If siding with the absolute is intended to be a viable gameplay option then these things need more work. Lots of good points here.

Not about companions and them being evil/neutral/evengood

Much like if you run through the evil threads. Yes I'm posting in another one. lol Orbax beware!! Is that each one is a certain kind of evil, not just main brand run of the mill goblin evil.

They are thinking creatures each with their own brand of evil. They each get their jollies off on certain things, Asterion enjoys straight up evil, and hates when you do something stupid for the larger part. Lae'zel enjoys it when you submit people, and hates it when your soft. Gale is all about himself and knowledge at any cost, Shadowheart is self centered you want help you pay me, and also about avoiding fights. Wyll I've not much read on him really I don't play with him very often, so I can't make an informed decision.

I kinda want a picture of Orbax in their N7 hoodie, and dressed up as Darth Maul, while wiping Salsa Verde Tostitos Rounds off the hoodie. Need something to scare the kids on halloween.

Anyway back to the topic at hand. The no rolling etc. This has to do with fact they can feel the absolutes presence in you, they think you are one of them, (incidentally this needs some fleshing out in some ways. but not main focus for me) this changes to me far to rapidly. They go from your one of us, to I'm going to kill you. (Yes I can see Drow and Goblins doing this, it's their nature. okay you served you purpose your no longer useful or your now a threat because I seen how powerful you are.) I like the idea of side quests, for each of them, yet by that standard is time. The posts about lack of urgency (because uggg, don't get me started) why your going to kill a spider, etc are many. (seriously people interact with others, pay attention Larian didn't break you you should be able to afford to at least pay half attention) So if you implement side quests there is going to be more people jumping on the this doesn't make sense you gotta run to save yourself.

Evil overall (a partially informed decision so I'll stick with what I know) Evil by nature of being evil, is in a state of flux. Your allies are also your enemies, they get stronger then you they become more of a threat. So by nature it's not very rewarding in terms of gold, items gifted etc. Good by nature is helpful, people want you to get stronger, so you can help them more. That makes more often then not playing Evil harder, it's not the sugar coated, everythings handed to you path. It's the take what you want, do what you want, harder path. It takes commitment, and can be self rewarding. It's why I can see what happens making sense, they think your a pisson, and then realize your not. So you go from a tool to be used, to a threat. One of those threats is the tadpole in your head. Mind Flayers are powerful creatures not to be trifled with idly. So if you know about the tadpole and what it can do, I see it being a cause to exterminate you.

Yet on the other hand if they don't know for certain what it can do. For instance Nettie trying to kill you, how did she learn of it, through Halsin? How does a goblin learn of what is going to happen to you? Drow I can see more often they are more familair with Illithid then not, yet still beggars the question. (Answers may be further in the story, I'm unsure) I've always looked at the interacting I do with the npc's as a way to gain intel. No I don't talk to everyone, just those that seem important. Traders, Leaders, Healers, Scouts, these people may have information that I need. Be it about current affairs, the area, pretty much the who, what, where, why of it all. I seem to be alone in this. I also pick up things I shouldn't, sneak/peek at note laying on table, journals, etc. Why because it gives me more intel. I talk to my companions to prod them for information, and figure out there secrets, what makes them tick. This way I (and my character) can figure out if they really want these people around, and how best to manipulate them.

I'm evil it's what I do by learning about the area I can make informed decisions about who to join up with. Goblins and their leaders seem to be the more solid force in the area, druids seem to be desperate. I talk to gather information there are several in the druids grove that want Halsin back, and disagree with Kagha. So maybe I should side with Kagha, or the Goblins. One can give me maybe access to the grove, I have several possible ins with her. Rat out those that don't like her in charge, help her by getting rid of the refugees, and possibly others. Help the goblins who have superior numbers, and supposedly people like me. (already posted more about this in other threads so will stop here)

Yet all this doesn't really matter they are just side quests, that you learn about, as you discover none of these people can help you A. rid yourself of the worm. B. show you how to use it more effectively. C. gain greater power for yourself. You discover that on your own, by doing, and as an Evil character you shouldn't be relying upon others, it forms a crutch, one that can be used against you, by either good, or evil people. It seems though many want that crutch, they want things showered upon them, without learning about it on their own. I personally would have fun with you all, I'd give you little gifts to keep you following me. I'd toy with you, make you do what I want because you want those rewards. I'd dangle the chance to be rid of the tadpole in front of your faces, so you go put your lives on the line for me, over and over again. I'd give you information (more then likely false), I'd give you gifts (more then likely a trap) and when I'm done with you, I'd lock you up to let others Play with you, or if you found a way to become a threat I'd kill you by using one of those traps I had in place, and your wearing.

In summary. I like side quests from a side quest they are fun. Yet I think you all are to relaint on crutches, that you aren't seeing how at times boring, dull, yet ingenious at other times the evil campaign can be.

Astarion: Approves

(still reading)

@clavis

Thoughts:

- To each their own - Agreed everyone's going have their flavor of evil. Matt Colville has a great example of neutral evil Count Rugen from Princess Bride - he just kind of exists to enjoy inflicting pain. Joker is the Chaotic Evil "im a dog chasing cars, I wouldnt know what to do with one if i caught it!". But youll generally find an entropic tendency in evil for minor characters. People like Palpatine are great big bads. The reason they lost the battle of yavin was because when the emperor died, his battle meditation where he was controlling thousands of people at once dissipated and the rebels could come in. Minor plot characters have a lot less permanence in their plans. They are just living their lives enjoying themselves - usually in the form of something someone else definitely doesnt.

- The magnetism of the Absolute - Lets say there is a feeling of shared connection. You meet people who were on the ship too who do not trust you - your entire party, for instance. Yet you walk into a goblin fortress as a tiefling and a drow warlord is like "yo, I feel connected. Go slaughter a village for me then we are gonna sacrifice them onto the altar of the absolute and we'll have sex on their blood". Bruh, I just got out of hell like 3 days ago and accidentally found this place. You're not moving in yet, we arent even dating, why is this going so fast?! The majority of time the brain slug has only garnered distrust from others because they know what it is and that everyone who has one is a risk. Its only the people without them who are gettingg mind controlled who think its pretty great. I just dont see it as a believable wand-wave for things going that well. Its why I mentioned the quests. "fine, I sense you might be useful. Now prove it."

- Nettled by Nettie - I think they did a great job on her. They found a drow and didnt think of any way to cure it. Halsin probably said he had no idea how to do it and it was good he was dead or hed be a mind flayer. In HIS head he was probably thinking of people to ask so this never happened again. Shes alone, ring has been taken over by Kagha and shes like "screw it, Halsin said it couldnt be done and if they done die they become mind flayers. Sorry bruh!". Yes, she misread the situation Halsin was depictin, but thats what you get when you go to an amaeteur for help. Reference VOLOs fix haha.

- Aggregate side quests - I do the same thing good or evil - take all quests up to a decision point I know will rollover into ending others. Once I know everything possible, I pick who to betray. Its just good sense. If youre in a rush - the healers make the most sense even if youre the most vile of monsters. I wouldnt be like "Im evil and I hate these pathetic druids and their powerful, high odds of success, healing. Lets go to the goblins who sleep in their own excrement, they should have the kind of sophisticated magical prowess something like this would take!". If you do all the quests, there is no question. The win goes to the healers. Evil or good theyre smart. There is nothing offered up in the absolutes path except what appears to be your tadpole engorging and the promise of future power and most likely further mutations and becoming an abomination. If im gonna be evil I want it to be on my terms, not the insanity inflicted by a brain parasite and some weird entities influence. Its not evil if it isnt YOU doing it. I want to earn my title of Gloriously Debauched, not have someone hand it to me as a prize while I drool in a haze as the illithid portion of my brain does things. On the aggregate do you have a balanced choice if you have 100% of the information about both sides? No. I would like evil to be just as tempting, given the amount of roaming capability you have.

Both of you made good points. I think that two distinct evil paths are needed. One following the absolute for its promise of power and one that does not involve giving the parasite more power.
As for the latter option the Goblins are the wrong allies. For that to work the player would need to discover at least a hint at their capability to halt the transformation.
Blindly trusting conflicting visions does not seem to be a path that selfish evil characters would follow. I assume that the player character does not wish to tear apart the love of his dreams so the dialog option indicates the tadpole wishing to fight its abuser (the absolute).
As it stands now the choice to side with the goblins looks insane. Give the player a reason to assume that the absolute will not let him/her turn into a mindflayer.
Did the other true souls get 'their' tadpoles by being abducted or did they bargain and volunteer?

The introduction of the Absolute is bizarre. The openin montage implicates days, not months or years. Yet the Absolute is an established religion with armies, leaders, religious ceremonies. Its a thing. The True Souls, even if "new", wouldn't be as new as you to be in the positions they are. Even festering in secrecy in the wilds, it just doesn't seem like it could have grown this quickly. So, odd that its been under the radar this hard. Lets just go off the assumption that, regardless of time, its somehow well established and True Souls are party of their DNA. That has to mean that an illithid hub exists somewhere (moontowers?) that is controlling things to this extend and providing slugs. The dude you meet in the underdark "left" and is hanging out in an area that uses mind control techniques beyond those that are psionic driven.

If this ultimately leads to a mind flayer colony and an elder brain or something, theres a lot more things they could offer that would tempt someone into their reaches than the hokey religion of some garbage eating goblin brands. Its a cult, it has a leader, wheres the recruitment process? I wont drink a drop of the kool-aid until I have my black nikes damnit. I want to be convinced.

It probably started in the underdark and the goblins only recently abandoned their god for the absolute. Goblins aren't the smartest so they could have been convinced by a few nice presents (which they obviously got)
Let us return the thread a bit closer to where it started: Minthara
She would be the ideal character to explain some of these things. Unless true-souls automatically know everything about the absolute and there is no need for them to be introduced to anything. Which would indicate that you were not supposed to become one of them

Or each of the other True Souls have their own agendas as is the case in most evil cults. Which is why their temples are fewer then those of Good dieties, and why their leaders are so touchy, paranoid, etc. Who knows when an underling will stab you in the back, take your place, etc.

Minthara since she's the focus for the op. is a drow who enjoys toying with people while fulfilling their base needs, and desire. The sleeping with you is fulfilling her lust, and toying perhaps with your emotions, making you think she trusts you, loves you. Giving a gift continues along that line, with her playing with you, and testing your reaction. That way you'll be all the more shocked that she betrayed you and is willing to sacrifice you, which is all the more sweet in her eyes. All typical drow relationships, which is why there is no real trust in drow society. In fact it's mentioned in several books that their is no word for trust, or friends in the drow vocabulary.

Yes she would be unless the Goddess wants her wishes kept a secret, wants you to prove to Absolute that you are worthy or not. Pitting you against the others for her sport, amusement, etc much like Lloth does, as do other evil gods. So Minthara may not know as much as Guts, or may know as much but know different things. So both think you are not spose to become one of them, while the Absolute is testing all of you. Making you prove your worthy.

Now perhaps she did have feelings for your character, yet to show her devotion to her goddess (usually Lloth) the Absolute, and gain even more favor which means more power for her, maybe becoming a high priestess instead of a despicable goblin, she is more then willing to do so. After all she is drow, they've been doing it for who knows how long for Lloth, it is no different when Lloth is replaced by the Absolute.

How/why/when/what Absolute religion. As stated by SH a new god would have an uphill battle. A god who may have been a demigod as of yet unknown, or one that lost all their followers, or is from the pantheon [spoiler] the book found in the first ruins of Jergal [spoiler] a god especially an evil one would at first only grow slowly. Goblins being one of the easiest since they are dumb, voilent, and tend to be avoided by others unless being hunted or subjegated. Plus they are swift breeders, and alot of the time out of everyones way. So goblins give you secrecy, alot of followers, and followers who are easily swayed. From there it could of spread to through manipulation, coercion to other monster tribes. Until the Absolute felt it was time to show her/his hand in a remote part of the world.

Lets assume that siding with the absolute is a viable path and minthara becomes a companion
what about the other companions?
Lae'zel would rather jump into a blade than become allied with the Gaikh. I see no direct replacement
Shadowheart deeply regrets the events at the druid grove. She may contemplate leaving. She is selfish but does not revel in violence the way astarion or minthara do.
Wyll leaves
Gale might be convinced to stay by the promise to solve his problem (Having access to planeshifting the Mindflayers could bring him to the astral plane and solve his explosive isssue)
Astarion would like to stay free from his master and roam the world at night and day. The absolute seems to be a good deal for him

I don't remember the book from the ruins. Did it include likely options for the identity of the new god?

Combining response to @ArmouredHedgehog and @Clavis

If it wasn't started in the underdark, it was most likely propagated through it. These towers of darkness, madness, and general spookiness we are heading to overland - and also through the underdark - seem to the hub. What can turn the land so foul and twisted and has mind control? You are looking more at beholders for that. Ever paranoid, they can haunt and corrupt their lairs. However, while there are Xanathars out there, most are kind of nuts. This seems more intelligent. I can't think of something smart that does this and has parasites unless they brainbugged a beholder. Would explain the spectator at least. Things that actually corrupt the land are rare and deal with the abyss, creatures that have made it their lair, and spellplague rifts - which did surround Elturel and is why the Companion came into being 50 years ago; it was to destroy the undead and aberrations coming out. But an actual central, inhabited, hub of corrupt religion that can morph the landscape? Thats weird. Illithid make hives and will feed elder brains and stuff and hang out in the underdark, but they don't really corrupt anything. That combined with True Souls turns this into a really weird scenario.

With Minthara, she is the *perfect* vehicle to get some seeds of her own planted in YOU. Why wait until the towers? Im going there no matter what. It is odd though, that she said go overland instead of through the underdark. Anyway, as a plot vehicle shes got it all and if she wasnt bae you wouldn't care. After she tries to kill you, whatever "hook" she had into you left and you're like "yeah whatever, ill see you if I see you, I guess". If you succeed your mind probe after banging her, you see that shes been running scared, killing family, friends, and lovers and looking for rocks to hold onto. Coupled with her religious fervor as it provides a sanctuary she seems to be desperately clinging to, I dont know if shes as motivated by the Absolute as she is by what the Absolute provides for her wounded psyche.

She has you by the b*lls, literally, at one point and Dave Chapelle kind of nailed it. Monica Lewinsky made a young person's mistake. An older woman would have been like "you should lower taxes" while they were having fun. After the size of the decision you make and then going through that with her, you need to slip in a deeper hook prior to her cutting the more superficial ties to you and leaving. You need a dogmatic hook that makes you be like "I still want to be part of this" even if she isn't part of it anymore. Of course, make her part of it because shes awesome. But they pique your curiosity more than they get a good sell on you to inform your decision making on the way there as well as what youll do when you get there. Youre still walking in blind and might side with the first person who actually make an interesting point says.

I don't think it has something do with Beholders. You can assemble a spear called "Vision of the Absolute"
Absolute Night. Chance to blind target. Deals an additional 2d6 Piercing to certain creatures that sport multiple sets of eyes
This appears to be intended to fight beholders.

I think your analysis of Mintharas psyche is reasonable. The absolute ties in nicely with the drive for power in drow society while protecting its followers from the typical backstabbing.

The people at Larian want to keep the nature of the absolute a secret until act 2. You have to go in blind. That makes the whole recruitment a bit difficult. "Join us and butcher everyone else because reasons" "Reasons?" "Sorry, secret"

Huh, I dont know if I saw that spear, I need to dig around a bit more!

MRW blood death cult gives me that reasoning

Oh, so i just did speak with dead on the mindflayer in the goblin fort and asked it who the absolute was

You see goblins and their blades, killing, gnolls with teeth dripping blood. You see other mind flayers arranged in a serene circle. Absolute unity. Absolute power.

I think in the end for me, it's more about like...why would a character be evil though? Like i don't mean evil in other situations, just in the overall arch of the Absolute. Like as far as you know, your character is being hunted. When you tell the 2 brother and sister that you're the "survivors" of the ship or w/e, they want to kill you. You attend the Mindflayer ceremony at Goblin Camp and they want to attack if you can't persuade that you're a true soul, bc you killed the mindflayer. Right now the character has zero motivation to be joining the absolute or do anything. Again, it's Smart Evil vs Stupid Evil for this specific scenario. Losing all the "headcanon" stuff that oh this could happen and i can play both sides, etc etc. It...doesn't happen.

Hell I had no idea youcould even side with Minthara until I read about it, so even as a player it's not an option you learn about its just....it can happen. But half the time people might have already failed checks, failed sneaks, etc to get to Minthara and already started butchering half the Goblin Camp. Game Design wise it's weak to make you side with Minthara and the Goblins, and storywise it's just as weaker because your character isn't promised anything, again ignoring any headcanon stuff people might have like oh this can happen and etc etc.. You talk to Minthara and she's like "oh a true soul, lets go butcher a few druids and refugees"...and it's just like...okay? Cool I guess.

Lol yeah, I had to find her because I read about her too. There was no cookie crumb trail that lead to her at all, other than Wyll - who has a good chance of dying and you never getting him.

I have an Evil character I play in D&D and it was a rather convoluted story of getting trapped in a glacier and Auril grabbing him and taking him to her fort in Pandemonium, encasing him in ice, and moulding the howling winds of the plane to speak to him for a hundred years that gave him the promise of what he sought for his people. Hes charming, funny, a great cleric, he just kills people and ritually sacrifices them to her all the time and doesn't care who it is. Hes on a quest. She gave him what he needed to move forward with it and has gotten a bit lost on the way.

I say that because it highlights one of the cardinal rules i have in the world: Most people are nice, want to help you, and do good things. They have barriers in their lives that prevent them from being able to do so sometimes and you sometimes run into the sick bastard who just wants to watch the world burn. Without any goal other than get this thing out of my head so i never have to see my party members again, you dont have any motivation for ANYTHING and you default to the "catch more flies with honey" approach. The Absolute might very well be able to help you get your slug out, but they made it pretty clear the intention is to make it part of you and very strong. So you now are like...i dont know, do I want that? Who the hell am I. Where is this? Why are there vines grabbing at my legs? WHAT IS MY LIFE NOW AHHHHH

Just not seeing it.

It could be that they did not have enough time to include all the content for the absolute side. Some things are broken.
The absolute wants the crash survivors dead. The player was not supposed to be a true soul.

The mindflayer revealed:
"curved drow blades, crude goblin torches, gnoll teeth dripping blood
You see other mindflayers arranged in a seren circle. Absolute unity. Absolute power"
I am not sure whether or not the vision for the githyanki chase was a memory of the distant past or something that could happen. The Gith once fought the mindflayers and they had lots of nautiloids back then. But if the Gith hunted the nautiloid because they know that something like it is about to happen again then the mindflayers posess a fleet of ships once more.

Completely agree with you there.

I mean I could be evil but I won't do evil just for the sake of it.

"Betray the Druids and kill them!" Ok but why though? You guys want to kill me if my cover is blown.
"Here is a cure to your problem and riches! Now kill the druids for us! And as a bonus since you are with us now we don't need to kill you. Sorry for the misunderstanding!" Now I am more tempted.

The whole point of good and evil is would your morals hold despite the easier and wealthier path? Or do you go down the more difficult and honorable path?

Betraying people just for the fun of it or for equal reward is just being a psycho. Appeal to my greed! My selfishness and hell maybe lust too if Minthara is up for a bang and wants to tag along.
I don't mind going evil if it meant money, servants, slaves and a mini goblin army I can call for a cost.

Now that would be more interesting.
Not whatever this is now.