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Originally Posted by dza101
Originally Posted by ArmouredHedgehog
When asked about the absolute he revealed a vision of curved drow blades, gnolls, goblins with torches and mindflayers standing in a circle. Absolute unity, Absolute power.
He also showed a vision of darkness spreading in what was likely the underdark and a fleet of nautiloids darkening the sky


3, There are "absolute" items that will only work if you have been branded with the mark of the absolute. what's the relationship between this and the tadpole?


I know that there are "Absolute only" weapons. One of them is an "Uncommon" weapon that I gave to Shadowheart. Everytime she used it, she got "Bane" inflicted on her. I can't use it, because I'm a wizard. I do know that weapon will also cause fear on hit, but not sure what the chance is, or what the saving throw is.

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Originally Posted by azarhal
So I had a save right before talking to Priestess Gut and I did it with Gale.

Korrilla Heartflame works
for Raphael,
she straight up told me when I asked.

She is also not an elf, she's a dwarf going by that body type. Some other interesting thing about that path

- Priestess Gut says the Absolute wants to know about the tadpole. Does it means even the Mindflayers do not know their tadpoles are tempered with?
- Korrilla mention that Raphael is interested in our skins, strange choice of word in context


Oh very interesting. She wouldn't answer that question from my Gale because I hadn't met Raphael yet. Just said someone was looking out for our skins. I thought she looked more like a halfling, but could definitely be wrong.

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Originally Posted by Spideyknight

Oh very interesting. She wouldn't answer that question from my Gale because I hadn't met Raphael yet. Just said someone was looking out for our skins. I thought she looked more like a halfling, but could definitely be wrong.


She said that to me as well, but I had encountered Raphael in camp.

She looked like a drawf or halfling to me as well, A bit on the short and curvy side, which tends to be the way drawven and halfling women are drawn.

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Originally Posted by Osiris0716
Originally Posted by dza101
Originally Posted by ArmouredHedgehog
When asked about the absolute he revealed a vision of curved drow blades, gnolls, goblins with torches and mindflayers standing in a circle. Absolute unity, Absolute power.
He also showed a vision of darkness spreading in what was likely the underdark and a fleet of nautiloids darkening the sky


3, There are "absolute" items that will only work if you have been branded with the mark of the absolute. what's the relationship between this and the tadpole?


I know that there are "Absolute only" weapons. One of them is an "Uncommon" weapon that I gave to Shadowheart. Everytime she used it, she got "Bane" inflicted on her. I can't use it, because I'm a wizard. I do know that weapon will also cause fear on hit, but not sure what the chance is, or what the saving throw is.


you need to get branded by priestess gut for those items to work properly

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Originally Posted by ArmouredHedgehog
I guess that there are some plot holes.
You are right, it is strange. The goblins know that they are allied with mindflayers and want to kill anyone who attacks a mindflayer. They don't know that they have tadpoles. Gut talks about shadows. She knows that there is something in her head but she does not realize what it is. I guess some kind of spell or suggestion prevents them from understanding that they have parasites. I think that the cras stopped the mindflayers and they could not finish the process. So the people on the ship were likely supposed to become true souls but the process was interrupted. Anonther possibility would be some kind of mindflayer civil war. The one side creating true-souls and the other one creating tadpoles that can initiate immediate conversion into mindflayers.

2: They must be or the True-Souls would transform into mindflayers. The process should be complete after a week and with all the long rests the game takes longer yet none of them transform.

3: It would appear that there is no relationship. These items only work on those branded, I think there is no indication that the tadpole mediates their power. We will see once we get a non-tadpole companion.


I don't think they know they are allied to the mindflayers exactly. The Absolute asked them to find what happened to the ship, the survivors and the weapon. Asking the "owners" of the ship would help with that.

2. There are answers in the Underdark about the lack of transformation
from a Mindflayer. The tadpole is in statis via magic, the Netherese shadow magic. It's also different from normal tadpoles beyond that as the mindflayer wonder if his species is evolving in banter with another NPC.


3. There are non-tadpoled goblins who can use the weapon, you just need a brand which act as some magical key to use them properly.

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If they don't know that they are allied with the mindflayers why would they attack you once the mindflayer reveals that you are its killer

Last edited by ArmouredHedgehog; 20/10/20 03:09 AM.

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Not sure if anyone mentioned, but the scrying eye around the goblin camp is from some drow in moonrise towers, and the dead drow in the druid grove recieved their tadpole at an 'initiation' in moonrise....

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Hah, I guessed it. An initiation ceremony, probably including amnesia about the tadpole.
Where did you get these bits of information? Talk with the drow in the grove?

Last edited by ArmouredHedgehog; 20/10/20 03:54 AM.

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Originally Posted by ArmouredHedgehog
Hah, I guessed it. An initiation ceremony, probably including amnesia about the tadpole.
Where did you get these bits of information? Talk with the drow in the grove?


Yep, a very specific line of questioning using speak with dead:

'Where did you get your Tadpole? will unlock it.

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An interesting quest from act 2 of the game

Spoiler, this is not part of EA

In the duergar camp a few survivors are trapped with a drow true soul called nere behind rubble.
Nere is leading some duergar
Once the rubble has been removed nere tries to convince or force
the player character to kill the gnomes. If the player did not side with the druids/tieflings against the goblins the player seems to have the option to voluntarily kill the gnome survivors including the one from act 1.
He will then order the players to find a path through the underdark toward moonrise towers.
This could also be the end of act 1 instead of the beginning of act 2 in the final game.


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Originally Posted by blazerules
It has to be some sort of god.

Why? There are Clerics of the Absolute. You literally can't be a Cleric unless you well... follow a real god. Unless this has been changed somehow for BG3 specifically.

Perhaps Shar? I believe this goddess pretended to be someone else. There are other signs pointing to Shar as well.




In this talk with one of the writers at WOTC last year, he talks about how Bhaal, Myrkhul, and Bane are now mortal beings who are killable because they refused to stop meddling in Faerun --- (@ 20 min in) https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/dratalk_arnieniekamp

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Originally Posted by ArmouredHedgehog
If they don't know that they are allied with the mindflayers why would they attack you once the mindflayer reveals that you are its killer


Because the Absolute wants the killers dead. Ragzin clearly doesn't see the mindflayer as an ally, he calls it a bunch of names like squiddie.

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So I've been thinking about this.

I think the Netherese Shadow Magic and the tadpole being in stasis are unrelated.

1. The stasis is built-in because the Mindflayers don't want people to start to turn right away, they want them to turn on command (we can see that on the ship) once they start their invasion (basically the announcement cinematic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcP0WdH7rTs). They created the cult to have humanoids pawns, but it might not have been their ideas (see next point).

2. The Netherese magic is someone manipulating the Mindflayers behind the scene. This someone is why the PC is aware of the tadpole. This someone is influencing the Cult of the Absolute but not necessarily entirely in control of it. It's quite telling that the cult wants to kill the Druids because they worship Silvanus, but have no issues with a Loviatar Priest and Bane followers around camp.

3. For the mindflayer invasion to work, the Githyanki have to be depowered. How? By stealing an important weapon from them of course! Now this is where it gets weird. We know the thief
Shadowheart
, but the thief doesn't seems to know what they stole exactly. The thief isn't associated with the Cult of the Absolute either. That leaves us with more speculations:
- the people who gave the thief the mission are tadpoled or didn't get the request from whom they claim
Shar
(i.e. usurped identity)
- the mission is exactly as it was which raise more questions about #2 "someone"

4. Nobody seems to know what the thief looks like,
despite the thief being caught and put in a special warded pod in the Mindflayer ship. You think the Mindflayer would have communicated her look to the Absolute. You think the Mindflayers would have taken the mysterious artifact from her too. They did neither.

Also, memory suppressed...or were they altered...and an unknown power acting up when near sites of past Selûne/Shar conflicts.

You know what the glows remind me off? NWN2 PC, who had a shard of the Silver Sword of Gith inside of them. Sword used to defeat the King of Shadows coming to visit from the shadow plane (Shar's original domain). Sword that was originally lost in the Hells and was in possession of Myrkul for a while too.

Maybe the mysterious artifact is just something Shadowheart took while trying to get something else from the Githyanki. It could explain why she is trying to open it instead of just waiting to bring it back to the coven in Baldur's Gate. Or she is terrible at following orders


5. We can see the goal of the Mindflayers, we don't know the goal(s) of the puppetmaster(s) in the EA. We also know some demons are very interested in something, but maybe they just want to swoop in and screw everyone else over at the right time.

6. The Nightsong...Am I the only person confused that it's considered a Selûnite artifact when Shar is the Nightsinger? ...and the trails seems to follow the Absolute.

Last edited by azarhal; 20/10/20 03:04 PM.
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Did anyone else read the book in the Tiefling hideout and think something of it?

It speaks about two sisters, one, a cleric, who wanted to control the powers of an elder brain. According to the book the Elder Brain killed both, but it got me thinking all the same.


I don't think it's there just for shits n giggles, if it is an actual reference/clue to something that did happen. The mural at the grove also set me thinking (given, I'm not the most versed in lore so it might be some other thing that happened and I have no idea about).




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Originally Posted by Ulla G
I don't think it's there just for shits n giggles, if it is an actual reference/clue to something that did happen. The mural at the grove also set me thinking (given, I'm not the most versed in lore so it might be some other thing that happened and I have no idea about).


The murals tells the story of how the Grove was created by fighting of the monsters in the region and eventually how they fought the Dark Justicars who came over to attack the Selûnites at the temple and Blighted village.

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Originally Posted by azarhal

6. The Nightsong...Am I the only person confused that it's considered a Selûnite artifact when Shar is the Nightsinger? ...and the trails seems to follow the Absolute.


I think the nightsong is a person.

It is strange that the Mindflayers made a specially shielded container for shadowheart but do not seem to search for her. Maybe they don't know what is in the box and placed a shield around it for safety reasons
If they do know what is inside they had no chance to communicate information about shadowheart. That or they are not in alliance with the absolute.

Last edited by ArmouredHedgehog; 20/10/20 06:35 PM.

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Did anyone else see the record about goblins on the illithid ship? Seems like the mind flayers studied goblin culture to understand how to manipulate them.

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There's something in the EA that's very easy to miss - I'm not sure what exactly triggers it, but it happened for me when I was playing as a solo character after the 3rd dream. At some point when you go to rest Shadowheart will appear at your camp saying that she's hearing voices that are telling her to find you, and if you pass a wisdom check using the tadpole you can read her thoughts and you can tell that the voices are not coming from her tadpole. At that point you can either agree to let her stay, or if you don't then she'll attack you.

Obviously this event can't happen if Shadowheart is already in your party, but I'm not sure whether it's related to being a solo playthrough or just not having Shadowheart in particular or not. I think it's probably related to the dreams but I'm not 100% sure.

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Originally Posted by asdf11784
There's something in the EA that's very easy to miss - I'm not sure what exactly triggers it, but it happened for me when I was playing as a solo character after the 3rd dream. At some point when you go to rest Shadowheart will appear at your camp saying that she's hearing voices that are telling her to find you, and if you pass a wisdom check using the tadpole you can read her thoughts and you can tell that the voices are not coming from her tadpole. At that point you can either agree to let her stay, or if you don't then she'll attack you.

Obviously this event can't happen if Shadowheart is already in your party, but I'm not sure whether it's related to being a solo playthrough or just not having Shadowheart in particular or not. I think it's probably related to the dreams but I'm not 100% sure.


That's her 3rd and final "recruit me" scene. She's the only character with one. But some of the other characters will show up at camp after a certain point in the story anyway (and act as if they were always around, it's weird).

As for where the voices are coming from, we can speculate:
- they could be coming from her goddess.
- she could just be crazy.
- it could be the Raphael (he does take the time to save your ass a few times).

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Supposedly there is a Dark Justiciar helm in the blighted village on a skeleton that also makes Shadowheart react. I haven't been able to find it, but I have seen a few mention it. This is not the scene behind the windmill. It's another one.

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