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

Absolute is I think. He will have a way of coming back to realms, if you wreck enough havoc with your choices maybe?
A lot of encounters that are dribbled in EA seem to be odd; because the people are shadow people that don't completely remember their memories and their time is warped,


The big villain is the voice in your head, whoever that is.

I don't think that the Absolute is a combination of the Dead Three, Ilsensine, and Shar. I can't see what Ilsensine and Shar would have to gain from working with three now-lowly deities.

Makes sense, I agree. An evil goddess protecting the character from another evil entity. Overused concept, but why not.

I hope at some point though, through Gale for instance, Mystra will have a role to play to help Good leaning characters in this fight. Selune too.

Why would Cyric be represented by the symbols of the Dead Three and be referred to as both male and female?

I personally do not support this theory.
But it can be justified.
That is, the Cyric is a mad deity, and his domain is deception. It is possible that he tricked the goblins, drow and other followers into posing as both a woman and a man.
The use of the symbols of the Dead Three can be justified by the fact that initially Cyric usurped their orbs when he killed Leira and making himself the God of Deception, Murder, Strife, the Dead.
By the way, it seems strange to me that Cyric is not on the list of deities. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the game is in EA, but it's still weird.

Going by the description of what is in Gale's chest,

Saying that, before the end of Act 1, you can probably piss off Shar

Yes, this where I started; but I am also now under impression that I understand what Larian and WotC wanna do... and how it's going to meld into current 5e handbooks.

We know that the Dead Three are generally behind the crisis going on in the Western Heartlands.
From the press kit: "we find ourselves on the center stage of a complot hatched by none other than the Dead Three: the gods of Murder, Tyranny, and Death."
I don't see how both the Dead Three and Cyric could fit in with this. Perhaps one or the other, but not both parties.

In addition, the divine hooded skeleton in the camp is very likely to be Jergal, due to the several dialogue options explored. Considering Jergal allowed Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul to assume his power, it is possible he has been brought back to atone for his crime. Perhaps Ao, or lawful deity by the command of Ao, say Helm, is responsible for this, and has set the hooded skeleton on his divine mission. This would also explain why Jergal is hanging around the camp assisting the PCs.

Jergal was never gone, he's been working for Myrkul, then Cyric and now for Kelemvor as scribe of the dead recording everything that dies since he passed most of his power to the Three. I'm not sure why he would be punished now for it either, considering how long ago that happened.

Also, he's pretty busy recording things, so I doubt the skeleton is him. The skeleton could be working for Jergal thought.

Well, yes, for approximately this reason I reject the theory that Cyric is the Absolute.
So far, it seems to me that the Absolute is a consortium of the Dead Three, like Angharradh mentioned earlier.

Yes, I also think that the hooded skeleton is Jergal, or his avatar, or something related to it. There are too many hints of this in the game. Only I don’t think that he is involved in this Ao. So, as Overgod, he is, essentially, the God of Gods, the aloof and indifferent ruler over all deities who occasionally bestirs himself to smack them all upside the head when they do something he finds unforgivably stupid. Perhaps he will intervene in the course of the plot, but this seems doubtful to me.

It's a theory. If you think they will just place a main villain in front of you and it will be straight-forwards you haven't been listening to the NPCs around you much.
Maybe the Dead Three are falling to Shadowfell and Cyric will take over or is already taking over, maybe there will be other resolution, but I am convinced that he already has something to do with it.
Tbh I am not convinced that the talking skeleton is God, I think he might be a powerful lich such as https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Larloch could turn out to be quite a problem for your party. Of course that's more of a going more by lore on wiki...


I am well aware, the time in Act 1 is not what it seems like

The Drow Halsin killed before he met us had q tadpole in stasis too, qll the true souls tadpoles are in stasis, its why they arnt mindflayers

I didn't mean that he was fully "gone" and then "brought back" to "life". I just meant that he had been brought to Faerun to assist the party against the Dead Three.
We don't know what has happened to Jergal as of the last couple of years. Perhaps he had been imprisoned some time after the Second Sundering (by another deity that recently "returned", Helm, perhaps).

I still believe that the skeleton is Jergal, or at least some sort of avatar, as BuckettMonkey said, there are many hints in the dialogue we have seen thus far.

Just speculation on my behalf, it is possible the skeletal being from the crypt is something else!

I don't remember Halsin's note mention shadow magic. We know about it because of the hag and the Mindflayer in the Underdark can sense the magic too but doesn't know what it is. That Mindflayer also suggest the tadpole were evolved to stay in stasis (as a species). So the stasis and shadow magic might be unrelated.

Also, there were other survivors in the ship with tadpoles (not companions), they were brought away by a female Elf controlling them (you have to talk to the dead fishermen to find that out). Even in the ship, Us and the Mindflayer at the helm think you are connected to the network, like everyone else on the ship, but you aren't and both will attack you if they realize that. Just like the Absolute members will attack you if they learn you are a survivor from the ship regardless if you used the tadpole or not.

There is something different between the PC/Origin's tadpoles and the ones everyone else is using and the only special thing we know about our tadpole is that there is shadow magic involved.

The synopsis for that dialog says that it's about mindflayer illusion

We''ll I'm not fully committed to the theory but here's a defense anyway Shar has a long history of using low level evil deities for her own purposes. (indeed all these gods are her creation) Most recently she helped Cyric murder Mystra and did so at a time that Cyric was barely able to hold onto his portfolio.

Ilsensine has wanted to destroy and replace the Ohgma and the other gods of knowledge so "replacement" plot is right up his alley.

Again, not betting the farm on it but it seems plausible.

That's my guess as well. The dialogue mentions the power of a chosen which would fit. As would an old avatar. If it were Jergal himself he would be disguising his form and faking his time in the tomb (Jergal looks like a praying mantis.)

again datamined scene synopsis

That contradict ~30 years of Forgotten Realms lore. I would be rather surprised that WoTC would just allow the devs to change that. Even more curious, the place where we find him was a Selûne's chapel just a few months ago (in demonstration) and everything related to that is still in the game files.