Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Tavs Background theory

So despite what background you choose Tav one day decided "Man I wish my life was a bit more interesting" then boom next thing they know they're aboard the Nautiloid....careful what you wish for.

Its better then the Doppelganger theory, imo....but for context if i remember correctly walk around Tav says "i did wish my for life to be more interesting" or something along them line correct me if im wrong if i misquoted tho....but yeah thats it.

UNTIL NEXT TIME!

He's the Forrest Gump of The Forgotten Realms

in a way its true. Who knows how or what Tav did that caused us to be kidnapped by the mindflayers. I assume it was of considerable threat to them or to mephalis [raphael]. In the realm of magic and magical creatures, tav could have spat on the ground and angered some identity somewhere, that then engineered these events.

Tav, to a genie: I just wish someone other than the law would want me

One year later: FIND THE TRUE SOUL! IF YOU'VE SEEN THIS PERSON, REPORT IMMEDIATELY!! DO NOT ENGAGE! DO NOT ENGAGE!!!

Some questions should never be answered ...

Plot twist , we are actually the guy that tortured Astarion 🤭, Swan Vicke told me.

Tav has to be “special” in some way, I think. I mean, he/she has one of the “special” tadpoles, no? However, it may be up to the player to decide what that means because Tav is a custom rather than an origin character.

The game seems fairly straightforward on the “special” thing. In fact…it seems to beat us about the head with it. We were chosen for tadpole insertion for our extraordinary abilities or connections to people in power (Gale chosen of Mystra, Asterion vampire spawn of a powerful vamp —- and itching for freedom, Wyll for connection to Mizora, etc). Lazeal…I have this sneaking suspicion that she was her queen’s lover (her fanatical devotion is a bit…much). And Shadowheart is a big mystery to me, but obviously has some hidden powers.

I assume we were all handpicked to lead the armies of the Absolute. However, we got half baked in our pods because of the Gith attack. So now we are reduced in terms of our abilities. Our tadpole is attempting to do in our dreams what it would have been doing to us in the pod had the attack not happened. It would have been convincing us to embrace these new powers as a gift to be grateful for. A trusted lieutenant cannot be a mindless thrall, after all.

But maybe Tav is indeed just a random person who got the power-tadpole. It would destroy my theory tho! Lol

Tav and all origins have “special” tadpoles.

I am still’t convinced if our tadpoles are any different than those of other True Souls. They don’t seem to be aware of the insertion, but reasons for it might be unrelated to the tadpoles themselves. It could be influence of the weapon, or that we never reached Moonlight tower, like presumably other prisoners.

The cutscenes shown the ship capturing randoms, so I assume we and origins weren’t targeted specifically. We also get magically saved from dying when the ship crashes, so it is not impossible that there is a 3rd party at play protecting us specifically for their own purposes.

I agree with this. Even Withers made some cryptic statements that he is only helping us because a so-called "arbiter" insists.

Ahhh. All good points!

Also…love “still’t” 😝

Don't have any place to post, so I'm posting it here because it's the most related topic.
Not saying everything has to follow "The Hero's Journey," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey , but has anyone noticed that because of the way the game starts, we completely miss out on a "Call to Adventure," which seems present in many other RPGs? Tav is sort of just put on the "rails of adventure."

So was Bilbo, when Gandalf wrote that rune on his doors ...

lol

My Tav, having the Folk Hero background, used to be a vigilante fighting The Guild (the thief guild in Baldur's Gate) who are taking advantage of the people that live outside the walls of Baldur's Gate because the Flaming Fist don't consider people in the Outer City true citizens of Baldur's Gate. As a vigilante my Tav was called "The Hawk of Baldur's Gate" because he always wore a hawk mask to hide his identity and usually attacked criminals from rooftops with his shortbow (My Tav is a male human fighter).

I have two theories. First, Tav was on his way to the toilet in the backyard when the ship flew by, second, they looked for a wise and mighty person to abduct but got Tav, the neighbor. Sounds like coincidence.

Personal opinion. I think that Tav is a descendant of Charname from BG1-2. Of course that is pretty low hanging fruit, so I am probably wrong.

As far as it goes, I suspect that the artifact that Shadowhart has contains a bit of Bhaalspawn essence, and that is what is being collected. This works even if Tav isn't part of the lineage. That would be one way to tie things in with the original game, and would go a long way towards explaining why the group is being pursued/tested.

Anyway, speculation on no information.

VERY low hanging fruit, to the ground. Charname canonically gave up his/her Bhaalspawn essence to be mortal at the end of Throne of Bhaal. Even if Charname kept his/her portion of the essence like Abdel did, he/she would be targeted by Viekang too. Oh, and Bhaal is back from the dead. He's been back for a few years now, though nobody knows (except Wizards of the Coast and Larian Studios) what he has been up to since his return. And Shadowheart's artifact has Githyanki connections.

I think it should totally be possible to roleplay Tav as a descendant of Gorion’s Ward, and this sounds to me like a fun option for Larian to chuck in a small number of dialogue options to support for those players who’d like to to go that route, to make it feel a bit more real in the game.

I’d very much hope that Larian don’t actually force any particular heritage on our custom Tavs, though. Personally I’d want as much freedom as possible to determine their age (eg some of my BG3 character concepts would be older than Charname) and race relative to any particular BG1/2 world (eg to play a half-Orc Tav when I’m assuming Gorion’s Ward was an elf). Quite apart from wanting to be able to determine their personal history for myself.

agreed I'm fine with it being one of the opttions but not everyone dwarf, elf or human is the son of Gorions ward

this is on my personal top 5 list now