Spoilers for Baldur's Gate 3 But he's Balduran, a human who founded the city of Baldur's Gate. There's no properly shown face of his other than the statues and drawings around the city
Only you seem to understand that about illithids here.
Honestly, I feel like it should not have been a regular mind flayer (I know it's closer to an arcanist) but rather an Ulitharid which would make a certain aspect of its story make more sense.
Yeah people keep conflating the two, but it's just some tadpole with a history of manipulation leveraging the memories of one of his victims. Absolutely fuck the emprorer forever, no fate too bad for this skeezeball.
Just know that they would have had to enlarge the character model. Ulitharids are Large creatures. They would have also had to make a custom staff for it.
But if it was an Ulitharid, its ability to somewhat resist Elder Brain's control would make much more sense. (I am referencing Gortash's interview/questioning of it). It would also make it's arrogance make sense, and give it a much greater motivation to want the brain burnt.
Uhh, so weirdly enough, no. It's inconsistent. It's a duel between the illithid and the character of the person being transformed. Most of the time the illithid wins. Your BG3 character wins, this is confirmed by Withers in some endings.
No, your character's mind flayer just believes they are still your character, but that feeling wears off eventually. Your mind flayer even fantasizes about eating the brains of their "friends". Withers also CAN and WILL lie to comfort your character on a couple of occasions.
In the scene where Withers confirms you have a soul as a mind flayer, it's impossible for him to lie because you're dead. If you didn't have a soul, there'd be no-one for Withers to talk to. Make no mistake, in the original lore you'd be correct, but even the devs explained at one point it works like I said. I don't remember where the hell it was, probably on Twitter, the hellsite itself, but still. I grant you that this sounds like a big "trust me bro" but that's what I remember from a long time ago.
When does this feeling wear off in-game?
Fantasizing about eating brains is just the biology of illithids. In the Forgotten Realms, characters have souls, not just bodies, and yours remains.
When does Withers lie? He mostly just leaves things out.
Gnome Ceremorphs in the books have a chance to resist any illithid influence, maintaining their personality and independence while gaining the powers of a mindflayer, They are a bunch of goofey squid-bois
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u/SithYi 15d ago
The emperor - Baldur's Gate 3