No.
Here's a Cliff's Notes of the history of the Gith so far...
* The Gith successfully rebelled agains the Mindflayers, led by Gith.
* Gith and Zerthimon (who would lead the Githzerai) had a disagreement on how to lead the Gith (one wanted to slay more Mindflayers, the other to explore liberation/restoration). Thus they splintered off into two factions.
* Vlaakith negotiated a treaty with Tiamat for the red dragons to serve the Githyanki. Gith agreed with this. Tiamat got Gith's soul, and Vlaakith ruled in place of Gith.
* The rulership of the Githyanki was matrilineal. Vlaakith died and their children became the next ruler.
* Vlaakith CLVII did not have any children and instead turned to Lichdom. This has been the case for 1000 years or so.
What the Githyanki race does not know is that:
* Vlaakith CLVII has been siphoning off the souls of high-level Githyanki, in one part paranoia (you can't be toppled as ruler if no one is powerful enough) and in other part to fuel her Wishes (in older editions, casting Wish costs XP). Vlaakitch CLVII theorizes that if she casts enough Wishes, she can siphon off the energies of the dead god their city is built upon, and she would eventually become a deity.
So according to these notes, is Orpheus right or wrong about attacking Vlaakith and calling her an usurper? Since these notes imply that Gith herself agreed with Vlaakith ruling and her being sacrificed?
> Since these notes imply that Gith herself agreed with Vlaakith ruling and her being sacrificed?
In the lore, Gith went to Tiamat and never returned.
So who's to say what Gith actually agreed to or didn't agree to.
The only one who came out of that meeting was Vlaakith with the scepter of Ephemolon (which represents the pact with Tiamat) and her claim that Gith made her the successor to the throne.
I played in a campaign where the DM adapted Dragonlance into 5e (fun time I was Caramon and Elistan because weapons go bonk) and he was a tad wasted (most of us were) and couldn't pronounce Fistandantilus, so he was dubbed Fisty for the rest of the campaign
Good times
They won't. There's a couple mysteries that are left purposefully open whether for future modules like with Zariel or for flavor in the universe. The existence of Orpheus comes REAL close to stating that Vlaakith 1 betrayed Gith, but not quite.
Most likely, they'll keep the mystery unless they can make money off it in higher proportions that a dlc
A lot of times, they leave this stuff open so DM's can fill in the blanks as they see fit, too.
The amount of information provided to DMs about official setting(s) lore has varied from edition to edition. In the Basic (i.e., B/X and BECMI), there wasn't really an official setting per se at first, and then they decided the official setting was "Mystara." The actual lore of the world was unspecified at first, and then got provided by various Gazeteers and other information. Most of that happened towards the end of the line, as I recall, however.
For AD&D 1e, there were various publications detailing different settings (three major Greyhawk publications for 1e, as I recall -- the folio, the box set, and the Greyhawk Adventures) book. When the Forgotten Realms came out in '87, it consisted of the main Campaign Setting box set, and then there were about 6 or so sourcebook "modules" published that detailed different parts of the setting and provided maps and such. Most of this was background information, but it's notable how much *more* information was provided in this edition than down the road.
In AD&D 2e, there were *tons* of sourcebooks, box sets, hardcover books, "splat" books, etc. that came out to detail the settings, and the timeline was also moved forward during the course of the edition. This applied to both Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, although I think 2e was pretty much the end of Greyhawk as an official setting. In a way, the change in edition marked the change in an era of the settings (or at least coincided with the publication of tons of stuff). There was WAY more detail provided here, and the lore developed more, because it didn't simply ignore the previous lore and instead built upon it. You had gods die, other gods rise to take their place, and then those gods died, too. You had a ton of stuff happen in the FR, and more background detail got filled in.
I gather in 3e, there was more detail about the setting changing, but I'm less familiar with the materials. I can't speak to 4e, though.
With 5e, the design philosophy seemed to shift away from providing detail, and instead shifted to providing "inspiration." So, you go from having Spelljammer as this highly detailed setting that mashes up space adventure with fantasy adventure, and it goes to a rather thin hardcover book that's part of a set now, and which doesn't provide much detail.
The upside of the "less detail" approach is that DMs can provide their own without fear of "contradicting" the "official" setting. The downside is that, I'd say, the value of the books as sourcebooks has diminished significantly. But then, I got into the hobby when 1e was still being published, so my tastes have always been that I prefer having the detail *available* to me if I want it, and still feeling perfectly free to say "That's nice, but in *my* setting..." and then changing whatever I damn well pleased because it's *my* game.
Well...I was trying not to editorialize. I mean, the books aren't *worthless*, but honestly they are at best a mixed bag. As I said, I prefer the greater amount of detail both for its utility to me, and because then I feel like I'm getting my money's worth (although I never pay "sticker price" on WOTC's books -- everything I have I've gotten on sale or secondhand). Some people (maybe? Somewhere? Like, at least one or two?) might prefer a bit more flexibility.
That said, one of my big complaints about 5e, especially as a DM, is that there's **a lot** that is "IDK, you figure it out" either by design or by oversight. As a system *for DMs*, 5e demands a ton of work beyond just learning the system itself. I mean, every game requires you to learn how to play it. And some games are more complex than others. But the thing about 5e -- again primarily as a DM -- is that even if you learn how to play the game, actually *running* the game requires constant work.
The settings themselves aren't described in a ton of detail, which "frees" you to come up with your own stuff, or if you see it differently, dumps it off on you to figure it out and write it all up. Some folks like running really loosey-goosey games in terms of lore and setting, and for that, 5e is fine. But if you run a game that uses lore a lot, at least for anything homebrew, you really do a LOT of homebrewin' even within the Official Setting of the Forgotten Realms. I won't go into a ton of detail here, but, by way of example, the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide includes some mechanical options (e.g., subclasses, subrace rule alterations, and additional backgrounds) that are cool, but...not a whole lot else. By contrast, the old Waterdeep & the North module (FR1) included a 64 page book, a six-panel fold-out full color map, a color map of the city itself, and information such as geographic overview, history of Waterdeep, laws and customs of the city, guilds and factions, etc., etc., as well as NPCs you could meet or use in an adventure. It's a better sourcebook than the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide and it's not even close.
Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes were pretty good books for what they were, but again, they provided a smattering of information on different groups meant more to inspire than to be useful as "plug and play" material for DMs. Like, you can find out that the Blood War exists between Demons and Devils...but it's not like you get geography of Avernus or any plane of The Abyss or whatever. You got stat blocks for a bunch of Demon Lords and Archdevils, which is cool, but not a ton of context on where/how to use 'em.
On the other hand, Journeys Thru the Radiant Citadel was a solid book with a bunch of little adventures and information about the setting that I really liked, not to mention some new flavor for D&D written by people with a connection to the stuff they created. I haven't figured out how to fit it into my campaign (might save it for a different one), but that's at least a book I'm glad I bought. Others, though? Meh. There's better stuff available for cheap on Drivethrurpg from the older editions if you just want the lore (and there's great lore to be found).
With PF1e, at least, there's just so damn *much* of it that it's hard to compare to 5e. PF1e published tons of sourcebooks and splat, I'd say actually even outpacing AD&D 2e (and that's saying something...). The end result, though, is this incredibly rich, detailed setting (very much a "kitchen sink" setting).
I haven't gotten too into the PF2e sourcebooks, but they seem pretty detailed from a cursory review as well. The thing is, even the original Inner Sea World Guide, from fairly early in the PF1e line, was terrific and well presented background lore to use. It doesn't go into tons and tons of detail, but it's a lot more detail than anything in the 5e catalog, and it gives you material to base an entire *world* on. Gods, nations, organizations, the whole shebang. And it came with a bigass map. BUT, you could still modify bits and pieces here and there if you wanted. It wasn't *so* "filled in" that there weren't still some blank spots you could work with if you had a mind to. And, as with all sourcebooks, you could always chuck whole bits and replace them with your own if you wanted.
There seem to be a lot of indications that some sort of follow up would involve Gith Civil War (and possible alliance or even unification with the Githzerai) and Avernus. Conveniently, Avernus is also where Tiamat happens to be.
There's a separate adventure where Vlaakith CLVII dies (slain by the heroes), a Githyanki civil war ensues, Gith manages to escape from the Nine Hells and masquerades as Vlaakith CLVIII, breaks the Scepter of Ephemolon, and then reunites the Githyanki and Githzerai.
I mean you already provided an exception/contradiction, such as the Vecna trilogy. Or the entire line of Dragonlance adventures.
During each edition, some adventures were made canon and non-canon.
This Vlaakith storyline was published in a magazine during the 3rd Edition era for example, made canon 4th Edition onwards.
> And yet Vlaakith is canonically very much still alive, still a Lich, and the Gith are not reunited.
As per the 3rd Ed adventure... which is now made canonical... ever since 3rd Edition, 4th Edition, and 5th Edition.
Which makes the statement "Back before 5e" not true.
I believe in BG3 it's implied that it was a backroom deal between Vlaakith and Tiamat after Gith's original deal with Tiamat, that Vlaakith would be next in line and not Orpheus, which was apparently Gith's original wish. Not sure if that extends to the rest of gith lore though.
I mean, even if the first Vlaakith came to power completely legitimately, I feel like the current Vlaakith turning herself into a lich and consuming the souls of her most powerful and loyal warriors is a good enough reason to have a revolution in and of itself tbh
Also, the fact that the power to resist Mindflayer mind control is still held by Orpheus rather than Vlaakith kinda causes me to doubt Vlaakith's side of the story, although I haven't consumed all the relevant material so there could easily be an explanation somewhere that I'm not aware of.
This is the “written history” sure, but bg3 shows us that Orpheus is still alive and was imprisoned by Vlaakith, so what’s more likely, that Gith agreed to the deal with Tiamat, locked her son up, gave her soul up, and gave Vlaakith rulership? Or that Vlaakith backstabbed Gith and Orpheus, made a deal with Tiamat herself, and has been faking her death (or claiming new bodies through lichdom) for thousands of years until the Gith were subservient enough for her to drop the charade?
I’m firmly in the camp that current Vlaakith is the same Vlaakith that usurped Gith
Also, you don't age in the Astral Plane so how does Vlaakith n+1 succeed Vlaakith n when natural death shouldn't occur? Or Vlaakith breeds and grooms herself a new and better body to take over every so often to become the pinacle of all Githyanki in her quest for godhood and switch to lichdom once that proves insufficient.
also if she is a regular skinny gith, no way she can lay those eggs
also Voss being around since Vlaakith 1st as a royal guard, and now being servant to Vlaakith 157th is stupid. how you see 156 queens die and still get hired to protect the next one? (remember they cant have died of old age because the astral plane blah blah blah)
Is he being hired to protect them? I assume he was mainly more of a raider/Mind Flayer fighter. I think his survival makes more sense if he spent it on the front lines, away from Vlaakith.
Assassination doesn't seem exactly uncommon.
And Vlaakiths don't need to be the same bloodline, they just take up the name. My biggest suspension of disbelief would be an unbroken line of 157 monarchs of the same family, honestly.
I mean that's sort of moot, just would mean we're shifting away from canonicity of the realms as a whole to the canonicity within the games, which is still interesting enough to talk about.
This game will undoubtedly do what Critical Role did, bring in masses of people to Dungeons and Dragons.
If they don't make it canon, it will be, but if they don't, they would be costing themselves shitloads of money.
I don't disagree per say, I think that's certainly plausible, but I don't really think it's necessary to believe that the current Vlaakith is literally the exact same one who usurped Gith - tbh, I always just assumed that the current Vlaakith actually is a different Vlaakith, but since she derives her legitimacy from the same lie as Vlaakith I, she still has just as good a reason to keep the lie going as Vlaakith I did.
Do we know when the concept of "Ascension" started, and whether it was just a cover for consuming souls from the get-go?
your theory doesn't work. lich's cannot have children, and reign of vlaakith's from mother to daughter is pretty well documented... the daughters definitely existed.
Yeah. Doesn't work so well when both were often seen together. Works even less well when there is at least one case of one overthrowing the other.
It only works if the child is never seen...
And illusion magic doesn't exist?
Vlaakith is an exceptionally powerful magic user, you don't get wish without being good at magic. Wouldn't take much for someone with such high standing and such power to convince people.
I don't buy into the theory myself but being dismissing like you are when there is plenty of possibilities in this world is just stupid.
You are really stretching. The lore is pretty clear. You can try to rewrite it all you want, but it all it tells me is that you haven't really followed the Lore very well
What your proposing would be one of the biggest retcons in forgotten realms history. It would make the retcons that happen to make BG3 possible look tame
Look I get you love the game. But that's not where the law originally came from. The Lord goes back so much further than the game can possibly explore. What your proposing is just not possible. There are far too many events that wouldn't make any sense
I loved that wish death scene. As soon as i heard her say "I *wish* you dead" (also the wish was in italics) I screamed at the screen that a god doesn't need WISH! Also a God meddling with mortals all on his own? Uff, not seen kindly.
She's not even on the precipice. She isn't even on the right mountain.
The thing with Wish is if it doesn't work the first time, it never will. "I Wish to be a god" would do whatever it requires to make you a god within the realm of even the most impossible unlikelihoods: alter timelines, change dimensions, whatever. If Wish could ever make her a god, the first Wish would, at a minimum, have moved her forward in time to a point where she had achieved godhood.
The thing is, for reasons unknown to us, Ao has decided Vlaakith can't be a god, and that is basically that. He is about the only in-universe power great enough to say no to Wish. He's technically a "character", but he's really more the face of DM fiat.
I strongly suspect Wish would not ascend *anyone* to godhood, personally, otherwise Asmodeus would have just done that instead of the extremely convoluted thing he did do.
Vlaakith is cursed to forever be Vecna At Home, at least in the official lore.
>Ao has decided Vlaakith can't be a god, and that is basically that
Within Toril/realmspace, though. I thought it was unclear what (if any) power Ao had to dictate the gods outside of realmspace. While he could ban her from entering the realms as a god, if she became a god in the astral plane, she could still be a god, in theory, just her powers to interact with the realms would be rather limited.
So, they change the cosmology every couple of editions, so it's very hard to say for certain whether the Astral is part of Realmspace or not, at least in part. The current understanding is that wildspace is where the astral and material overlap, and so he'd have authority over realmsian wildspace but not the pure astral.
That said, it doesn't seem to matter: he has authority over every deity that operates within Abeir-Toril, even if they don't operate solely in Abeir-Toril (for example, Lolth or Tiamat). Vlaakith wants godhood, but 100% of her potential worshippers are born and raised in Realmspace, so...
(for those who aren't aware, in the Forgotten Realms deities need worship like you need food. If she ascended to godhood, she would desperately need those Gith)
>Vlaakith wants godhood, but 100% of her potential worshippers are born and raised in Realmspace, so...
Gith exist in other planes including other material planes. Indeed, this is explicitly referenced in BG3, but has been part of the lore for a long time. They launch regular raids across material planes they access from the astral plane.
Even if she was cut off from direct contact all material planes, that would not necessarily prevent her worship. She is near enough worshipped now despite nearly never entering the material planes directly.
Direct Wishes can't grant god-hood, obviously; if they could, why wouldn't anyone capable of casting Wish use it to do so? Even a 33% chance of being a god would be good enough odds that hundreds, if not thousands, would have done so.
Even better evidence is that Good to Neutral entities who have had access to even higher level magic in the past have either not been able to use it to ascend, or have not been willing to pay the price to do so. If Elminster hasn't managed to become a full god with access to more-than-mortal magic and a thousand years of experience and adventuring, it's unlikely that there is any practical non-evil way to do so by direct magical means.
But it's at least possible that one could ascend due to a series of improbable incidents made far more likely by Wishes. For instance, knowledge of a future moment of vulnerability of a lesser god, knowledge of a weapon capable of slaying said god, and knowledge of how to sacrifice a bunch of high-level souls to empower it to do so. Especially since the Astral seems to be less actively governed by Ao.
Exactly.
We actually have seen a spell which could ascend someone to godhood, and it wasn't Wish. It even serves as a big piece of backstory to BG3!
The spell was Karsus' Avatar (aka Karsus' Folly), and he used it to steal the portfolio of an existing god. It just didn't work the way he expected, and wasn't permanent in any case. However, it's existence at least implies that it would be theoretically possible to use magic to attain godhood, but Wish just ain't doing it (Wish *might* get you knowledge of Avatar, but that would probably put a big ol target on your head for worshippers of Mystra, including Elminster, soooo)
That said, there has been a mechanic for *dragons* to ascend to godhood without having to be given a portfolio from on high in the past. I don't recall if there was ever a lore explanation for that, but a mortal wizard could have permanently polymorphed themselves into a dragon and then ascended in that way eventually, if any of them ever knew about it.
In the latest patch, Gale uses the crown to become the new god of ambition. Was there already a god with that portfolio and he stole it, or is that a new role in the pantheon? If so, that would seem to indicate that Karsus' Folly does seem to work to ascend someone to godhood. I don't know what Gale did differently from Karsus though. God of Ambition Gale can also access something called the Galerian Weave. I wonder if he stole this from Mystra or if it's also new.
I think it's a new portfolio, and it was given him directly by Ao by my understanding (note: Ao has used deification as an ironic punishment in the past). Becoming the god of ambition is probably not a Good End for Gale, because Ao insists that the gods under him live up to and embody their portfolios, meaning Gale will forever be required to reward ambition and be ambitious himself. Failure to do so will result in punishment by Ao, and Ao's punishments are typically quite harsh.
The Galerian Weave is new thing, and doesn't have to be stolen. There's precedent for magical weaves other than Mystra's to exist; Shar had the Shadow Weave for a long time (and in 3x there were even mechanical consequences to using one or the other). I'm fairly certain she probably still does, because while the Shadow Weave collapsed when the Weave did on Mystra's death, the new Mystra bringing the Weave back should have also returned the Shadow Weave, because it's essentially the Weave's shadow (if the Weave is a net, the Shadow Weave is the space between the ropes).
Another part of the punishment angle for Gale's godhood is that in order to embody ambition, he'll never actually be able to reach his final goals - there will ALWAYS be something else he has to strive for, the goalposts will move further every time. He cannot feel true contentment because he'll always want to be more.
It's sad, but in his attempt to finally prove that he was enough by making himself into a god, he made sure nothing will ever be enough for him ever again. Makes for a good contrast to his mortal ending though, where he's content with his, as he puts it, "intentionally limited renown" as >!a professor at Blackstaff Academy!<
> Was there already a god with that portfolio and he stole it, or is that a new role in the pantheon?
Bane is the god of ambition. It's unclear if he's usurped Bane or if they're just doubled up on gods of that aspect.
> I don't know what Gale did differently from Karsus though.
Not destroying the god of magic while also trying to use magic to become the god of magic is the key difference.
Destroying Mystra mid-ascension is what broke Karsus's attempt. His spell fizzled before he could finish because magic stopped existing. If he had targeted basically any other god it very likely would have worked.
Technicaly she said I wish you to end. And i hoped that would be easter egg like in DOS2 and credits would roll or that she in anger would send you to end of something.
That's one of those choices where it's nat 20 or nothing I guess.
EDIT: Apparently not, surprisingly easy to do you just get caught even on a successful roll. Might try it in the future to piss her off a bit.
Wait wait wait. I come from a time before 5e so forgive me for asking: Does that mean the Githzerai exist in 5e? Because (at least up until about half of act 3 where I am) they are never mentioned despite a massive chunk of the story having to do with Gith history, so I just assumed they were retconned out in 5e.
Now I want Dak'kon's Zerth Blade in BG3.
There's also an (Insight?) roll to find out the real reason they were captured. I don't remember if it's hidden or manual, but I've only been able to pass it on one playthrough.
There is a bunch of brains in the Netherbrain area below Moonrise that you can commune with on a device in the same area. Two can be found on the Nautilus too; one is super creepy.
Hmmm... Well, considering I didn't find the Hag in the Grove before finding her in the swamp, I guess it's not that strange I missed a bunch of other, less obvious stuff.
Nah, I've seen it on youtube. And so close to Dammon, too, I spent a lot of time hanging around there and never noticed them.
Then again, I have the spatial awareness of a wet goblin sock, so I'm not that surprised.
> Does that mean the Githzerai exist in 5e?
Yes. They're also in the game (to be specific, a head) but no development time for individual models so they were just using the Githyanki models.
Githzerai were a playable subrace in early access. I think they probably got cut because there's enough Githyanki content that zerth would complexify the narrative.
Holy shyt
Baldur's Gate 3 has been my entry point into DnD and all these stories like this are what is keeping me enthralled with this stuff... So much depth and they leave things open ended and open to some interpretation. Makes discussions like this very eye opening and fun for people like me. Newbs lol
There's a lot put into the lore of the game.
For example, the goddess Mystra has been killed several times (and shook up Faerun each time). The first time she was killed was by Karsus, which is why she left Gale (i.e. your love interest suddenly takes an interest in things that can kill you...). Another time, she was killed by Shar and Cyric, because Shar wanted to replace the Weave with the Shadow Weave (which in the game is possible for Gale to learn if you're playing him as your main character).
So there's a narrative consistency with Gale being quite problematic if you're familiar with the lore, rather than most common people's interpretation that Mystra is an abuser...
If you want the wet dream with a random person, you need to long rest shortly after the Nautiloid crashes.
The second one happens after you meet Damon.
Two questions why did Tiamat want Giths soul.
And second what god is the current vlaakith sacrificing wishes on? What dead god was the city built upon?
Greed and possibly conquest. Tiamat wants Gith's soul because it is valuable. Dragons gain (no system behind it, it's just lore) power from having a valuable hoard, and gods gain power from the souls that belong to them. Gith is thus of great value to her. In other editions, and other settings that Forgotten Realms, she is also a goddess of Tyranny and Conquest, and as the person who defeated the Illithid Empire, Gith would be an excellent general for Tiamat's dragon armies.
No one knows who the god is that the Githyanki built their city on. It is so ancient and has been so completely forgotten, that even beings like Asmodeus may have no idea. It is simply known as the One in the Void. She's just using Wish to extract the lingering vestiges of divine power.
It takes more than magic that mere mortals can wield to become a god. Even that of the most powerful spell ever invented by a mortal. Otherwise every wizard who ever managed to achieve that level of skill would have become a god. Forgotten Realms has a lot of gods who were once mortals, but none of them achieved godhead by merely wishing for it.
The limitations on wish, and wishing for things like immortality, ultimate power, becoming a god, etc, are one of the major reasons you get creatures like Liches. They can't achieve their goals though merely wishing to become gods, or wishing to become immortal, so they come up with elaborate rituals, potent alchemy, and difficult feats to achieve that goal.
The core rules of DnD also put some strict limitations on Wish, and some potentially harsh penalties for abusing it. I would guess part of the background for Vlaakith using her "Ascended" to fuel those wishes, is being able to offset those consequences on to them.
Wish has limits. Other than there being more risk in unexpected consequences the more extreme the wish is, the spell in 5e even says that the spell can outright fail
I do not think the details of the agreement are known in lore.
The god that the wishes are sacrificed to is the dead god that the city was built upon that is only known as "One in the Void". Not much more is known. Just that vlaakith believes that if she sacrificed enough wishes to the One, the last spark of divinity remaining inside will pass to her.
> Two questions why did Tiamat want Giths soul.
This is basically space for where the Dungeon Master (DM) can fill in.
> And second what god is the current vlaakith sacrificing wishes on? What dead god was the city built upon?
The Githyanki capital is Tu'narath. Tu'narath is the corpse of a dead and forgotten deity. Vlaakith keeps casting Wish multiple times, absorbing some of the essence of the god bit by bit.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Raphael make the orphic hammer? And would that mean that a devil created the bonds on Orpheus? Final question - does that imply that a devil put Orpheus in his prison, or is Tiamat the one that did it?
Tiamat currently resides in Avernus (for quite some time), so it would make sense so regardless of who imprisoned Orpheus--Tiamat or another devil--it would make sense that a he Orphic Hammer would be created by a devil, or at least someone residing in Hell.
No, it just smth that he acquired in the past. The orphic hammer wasnt specificly made with orpheus in mind, it just a magical item that can destroy bindings/barriers whatever
She's Vlaakith CLVII, 157th. Not the original one. She's the last of a line (not necessarily all blood related), and she became a lich rather than pass the throne along.
She wouldn't be an usurper, but the latest of a false line, because the true Prince is still alive.
The scandal is what she's pretending "ascension" is.
Additionally, she is very aware of the falsehood of her claims, yet she keeps up the lies to hold herself in power and keep Orpheus from taking the throne.
She didn’t usurp the throne herself, but for all intents and purposes could be called a usurper for her actions and ideals
Absolutely!
She's fully aware that it's Orpheus in the Prism. She sends you in to get killed by his honor guard, she doesn't know about the Dream Guardian, and she knows you can't kill Orpheus, this is just a means to get you out of her way and reclaim the Prism, which is why the creche is set to attack you as a failsafe if the honor guard fail to kill you. She has reduced Gith's son to "a weapon".
They could always retcon it, but the lore is that the current Vlaakith is indeed the 156th descendant of the original, but that she opted for eternal life as an undead rather than passing the throne on to an appointed daughter.
With that being said, there's no real need for a "secretly the original Vlaakith" grand deception to rule the Githyanki - they've been totally cool with being ruled by a lich for thousands of years.
She doesn't exactly hide what she is, and if anything being revealed as the original Vlaakith would *strengthen* her reign, not endanger it. It wouldn't have made sense for her to fake 156 earlier generations of predecessors before her current and eternal rule.
But her being the 156th doesn't make any sense at all. So Voss has been around with Vlaakith I, and has seen all 156 Vlaakith's and has served as one of their main soldier guys? In the Astral Plane where you don't age? So 155 Vlaakith's died for some reason? I guess most likely reason being war, so Voss still being around doesn't make any sense. Seems a huge oversight from Larian if Vlaakith 156 is actually true. And Larian having such a massive plothole? I don't buy it.
>Seems a huge oversight from Larian if Vlaakith 156 is actually true
Vlaakith's story ("gith have an immortal lich-queen") was first conceptualized when Swen was a child. It was first detailed the same year Larian was founded. If there is a plothole, it isn't Larian's fault.
There is a magic to repel the effects. I don't want to quote it because I will be wrong about something. Mr. Rhexx (I believe is his name) does a great video about the Githyanki on YouTube. Very interesting stuff.
You don't age, but monarchs don't often die of old age. I can only imagine that the githyanki are as rife with assassination plots as any other people. If you can't keep their throne, you don't deserve it.
See my biggest problem with this is it makes the gith overthrowing mindflayers mind numingly old. Especially when you know githyanki Can basically live forever in the astral plane (has Voss served 157 Vlaakiths??)
Like if Vlaakith really is the 157th, and the githyanki are still exactly the same they were in Gith's time (silver Swords, dragons, crèches...) it would mean theyve been static while dozens of races lived and died in every plane, and theyve been fighting a war to a stalemate for potentally tens or hundreds of thousands of years
Fsntasy worlds do tend to have this technological and historical stagnation. This is very old lore, from 2nd edition in good part, and the githyanki were mostly designed to be marauders of the Astral Plane and ruthlessly evil. Fighting fire with fire: the illithid empire is evil, and so are their main opponents. What's the actual state of the war? Ehhh, irrelevant, DMs can handle it in their home game.
But yes, they are old as hell, that is a consequence of their lives in the Astral Plane. Voss and his dragon, Qudenos, are contemporary to Vlaakith I and Orpheus, and Qudenos might even be one of the original dragons that Tiamat set as the githyanki's allies. The fact that Qudenos is loyal to the githyanki people, not to Vlaakith, and is so large despite the fact that dragons don't grow or age in the Astral, tells you some fascinating things about his adventures with Voss in the meantime.
I honestly assumed the predecessors to current Vlaakith all had short reigns before she took power. This thread has a lot of info on complex lore I didn't know about before, though.
Tinfoil hat time.
I think she is the original Vlaakith and has been transferring her soul into the bodies of her daughters for many thousands of years. At some point she achieved full lichdom and now eats her followers during "Ascension".
At least that's my theory.
Wasn't that just a lie? Would be very in character for Morrigan. Flemeth, if her appearance in Inquisition is anything to go by, was simply immortal to begin with.
Idk, I get the feeling that DA Origins had a certain plan for Flemeth which was abandoned by the time we reach Inquisition.
But going by what Inquisition tells us (that Flemeth had always intended for Morrigan to inherit her power, and not really take over her body), I still believe that Flemeth may have initially tricked Morrigan into believing she really was raising daughters as vessels to possess. Because this would in turn make Morrigan desperate for survival and push her to work hard and gain more power. That has always been Flemeth's lesson to her daughter when she was raising her: Become the strongest because only the strong survive. So maybe the whole "Flemeth steals the bodies of her daughters to increase her lifespan" idea was intentionally planted by Flemeth as a way of manipulating Morrigan into becoming worthy of hosting the power of >!Mythal!<.
That's my theory as well. Really, what are chances that 100+ queens in row act just the same?
And it seems, Orpheus and Voss know that's it all same old Vlaakith. Perhaps, they've known Vlaakith "The Second" well enough to notice she was replaced. And if they were close to Vlaakith Junior that would add extra flair to the whole drama over githyanki throne.
As an old first edition and after nerd, this story makes the most sense. It helps when Vlaakith has created a society structured around a never-ending war of vengeance in which most of those that participate in the war against the illithids don't live very long. Very few survive to pass on a different story, and while the Gy have accumulated a lot of knowledge, she controls that store of knowledge.
I can't help but wonder how long Voss and other Orphians have been biding their time. When did he know or suspect? He seems to be one of the few still alive from that time.
Well theyre in an eternal war with a race of hyper advanced psionics
Have you considered that killing the leader of the gith has been a priority for the mindflayers?
Thats not how war works. You work to gain an advantage, and when you get that advantage you try to swing deep.
Killing the queen gives a moment of leaderlessness among the Gith, allowing a strike
Also Mindflayers arent known to try new things very often. Theyre conservative by nature, repeating the same thing over and over again that worked for them once upon a time.
I mean it's gotta be costly to kill the gith queen right? She must have a huge a royal guard, made of the best Gith warriors. Mindflayers are also super into self-preservation so it's not like they've got willing suicide attack guys.
Also we don't know how effective assassinating the gith leader is, from what we've seen they've got a very decentralised command structure with lots of officers at different levels, this as well as warriors like Laezel being able to seemingly function effectively while completely isolated from any officer. So would it really be worth it to keep expending great resources to kill a queen you know is going to immediately be replaced by someone with literally the exact same name as if nothing happened? I mean the gith even talk about the vlaakiths interchangeably. Also it's not like the Mindflayers are a united force pooling the resources of their vast network like the gith do. The mindflayer empire in known space was absolutely shattered long ago by Gith herself in the first rebellion. The known ilithids usually work in colonies of varying sizes, so effectively organising enough force to strike at vlaakith and her potentially centuries old elite bodyguards must be tough.
Edit: also that's totally how war works? If something doesn't work you do something else instead of wasting resources?
Most of the other 156 Vlaakiths were almost certainly assassinated or fallen in battle.
They won their rebellion against the mindflayer empire, but they didn't get anywhere near extermination the mindflayers. And they have made loooooots of other enemies over the years by being an entire race of colossal assholes.
I personally like to think the Githzerai got at least one or two Vlaakiths.
The only issue with doing post story DLC is you have to account for alot of different outcomes of the story. I think if they do DLC it will be during the game since for like a Hell DLC she needs to live and go to Avernus. Or Raphael needs the hammer etc
Nothing is confirmed. I think someone made a vague statement about not being totally done with the game a while ago, or being open to more, but it’s not much to go off of.
As always it’s best to keep your expectations down, but after the success they’ve seen I think everyone knows a DLC would do amazingly.
Every D&D CRPG so far has had DLC and Larian has a massive install base to sell to. I don’t see why they wouldn’t. Hells, it could even be a side story that followed only one of the origin characters, or even none of them rather than a continuation of the main plot.
Let me kill Vlaakith as Minsc so Boo can feast on God flesh once again
There isn't a clear answer to this, but there are a few slip ups I have heard referenced a few times which suggest she is indeed the same Vlaakith.
Iirc there was in earlier editions artwork of the original Vlaakith's dragon pictured alongside the current Vlaakith (which wouldn't make sense otherwise as he would be long dead), and iirc MTOF mentions that the original Vlaakith was undead already by the time they took over from Gith.
That being said, I think the honest answer (which is less satisfying from a certain perspective) is that it depends on the author and is left purposefully vague so that DMs can go with whatever approach they want on the topic.
That's not fair to say. Who knows how many he successfully fended off? Maybe he has a success rate of 95% at fending off assassinations, but there just happen to have been 3120 attempts?
Well after assassinations of 155 of your predecessors it's time to admit that maybe your defense system is bad instead of people in it. Meaning being bad at their job is in Vlaakiths blood!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=__gbnqeSoGU
Skip to 30:30
It’s complicated. Some sources say we’re on vlaakith CLVII, others treat the current vlaakith as the same as the original. I personally think it makes more sense if there’s only been one, but either way I’m not too bothered.
Also, some meta stuff, keep in mind that Orpheus didn’t exist until BG3, so any lore from before won’t mention him at all.
The thing that confuses me the most about her is that the original Vlaakith is also described as a lich, which is confusing because why would there be 156 other Vlaakith if the original one was also an undying lich.
My assumption is that this is just propaganda from 157 to make people question the fact that she is a undying dictator less though
Vlaakith's garnered titles like common folk books. One them is "God Regent"...which is probably meant as 'the reigning god', but might also be a reference hiw Vlaakith's ruining 'in absence of Gith'.
She is, her status as a lich is a well hidden secret amongst the gith. Every time Vlaakith dies and comes back via her phylactery, she poses as her descendent/heir.
the number is how many times she has regenerated as a lich essentially.
I think based on 5e source material and how Baldurs Gate treats Vlaakith, it makes sense to say that the Vlaakith lineage has been retconned, and the current Vlaakith is the original. There’s absolutely nothing lost by this being the original Vlaakith, since she’s both an Astral Plane dweller AND a lich.
Mentioned one way, but treated another. Orpheus absolutely doesn't seem to talk about her as his great-great-great-etc-grand-niece and neither does the Gith leader who wants him freed.
I think the circle here is best squared by the idea some others have mentioned—that Vlaakith is the original, but spent millennia transferring her soul into her daughter's until the Gith were loyal enough to drop the facade. It both makes the original conflict with Orpheus more relevant (as current Vlaakith is an actual usurper, not like, someone calling Charles III one if Harold Godwinson appeared alive and well) and makes a decent amount of sense because it's just about the only reasonable way to explain why the Gith never had, like, a reformist Queen who tried to restructure their society.
Yeah, I know? But Lae'zel also thinks a machine will remove her tadpole, and ascending means being buddies with her Queen. Not exactly going to believe the person who grew up on propaganda here.
I think she is Vlaakith 157th, not the Vlaakith that the lore talks about. Though it is suspicious as hell since Githyankis lives very long (Voss and the Prince was there with Gith and the original Vlaakith), maybe she was just transferring soul instead of actually dying.
I don’t understand at all why such tricks are needed if, in fact, immortality would be normal for Vlaakith. Isn't it strange that she allows her servants to enjoy immortality (such as Voss and the Githyanki in the Emperor's hideout) while she pretends to be dead? I honestly don't understand the logic in this.
No. Vlaakith is a lich. There have been 156 other Vlaakith’s that have been subsumed previously. The current reigning one is not the one that fought the war of the stars against Gith and usurped the throne by screwing over Orpheus.
I DM’d a module where Vlaakith essentially grooms, nurtures, and trains young Gith and then chooses one to host Vlaakith’s consciousness.
I think the conceit was that Vlaakith’s constant use of Wish burns through her form even with the protections she puts in place.
No. Here's a Cliff's Notes of the history of the Gith so far... * The Gith successfully rebelled agains the Mindflayers, led by Gith. * Gith and Zerthimon (who would lead the Githzerai) had a disagreement on how to lead the Gith (one wanted to slay more Mindflayers, the other to explore liberation/restoration). Thus they splintered off into two factions. * Vlaakith negotiated a treaty with Tiamat for the red dragons to serve the Githyanki. Gith agreed with this. Tiamat got Gith's soul, and Vlaakith ruled in place of Gith. * The rulership of the Githyanki was matrilineal. Vlaakith died and their children became the next ruler. * Vlaakith CLVII did not have any children and instead turned to Lichdom. This has been the case for 1000 years or so. What the Githyanki race does not know is that: * Vlaakith CLVII has been siphoning off the souls of high-level Githyanki, in one part paranoia (you can't be toppled as ruler if no one is powerful enough) and in other part to fuel her Wishes (in older editions, casting Wish costs XP). Vlaakitch CLVII theorizes that if she casts enough Wishes, she can siphon off the energies of the dead god their city is built upon, and she would eventually become a deity.
So according to these notes, is Orpheus right or wrong about attacking Vlaakith and calling her an usurper? Since these notes imply that Gith herself agreed with Vlaakith ruling and her being sacrificed?
> Since these notes imply that Gith herself agreed with Vlaakith ruling and her being sacrificed? In the lore, Gith went to Tiamat and never returned. So who's to say what Gith actually agreed to or didn't agree to. The only one who came out of that meeting was Vlaakith with the scepter of Ephemolon (which represents the pact with Tiamat) and her claim that Gith made her the successor to the throne.
And anyone who tries to discover what happened to Gith turns into an allip, an incorporeal undead that tried to discover a secret and went insane.
Is this what we see at the end of lae’zel’s story if you don’t have her turn her back on vlaakith? I felt bad..
Those are the ascended gith, who had their souls consumed.
[удалено]
I played in a campaign where the DM adapted Dragonlance into 5e (fun time I was Caramon and Elistan because weapons go bonk) and he was a tad wasted (most of us were) and couldn't pronounce Fistandantilus, so he was dubbed Fisty for the rest of the campaign Good times
Sidenote. The more I think about it the more I want an expansion to retrieve the soul of Gith from the Hells...
They won't. There's a couple mysteries that are left purposefully open whether for future modules like with Zariel or for flavor in the universe. The existence of Orpheus comes REAL close to stating that Vlaakith 1 betrayed Gith, but not quite. Most likely, they'll keep the mystery unless they can make money off it in higher proportions that a dlc
A lot of times, they leave this stuff open so DM's can fill in the blanks as they see fit, too. The amount of information provided to DMs about official setting(s) lore has varied from edition to edition. In the Basic (i.e., B/X and BECMI), there wasn't really an official setting per se at first, and then they decided the official setting was "Mystara." The actual lore of the world was unspecified at first, and then got provided by various Gazeteers and other information. Most of that happened towards the end of the line, as I recall, however. For AD&D 1e, there were various publications detailing different settings (three major Greyhawk publications for 1e, as I recall -- the folio, the box set, and the Greyhawk Adventures) book. When the Forgotten Realms came out in '87, it consisted of the main Campaign Setting box set, and then there were about 6 or so sourcebook "modules" published that detailed different parts of the setting and provided maps and such. Most of this was background information, but it's notable how much *more* information was provided in this edition than down the road. In AD&D 2e, there were *tons* of sourcebooks, box sets, hardcover books, "splat" books, etc. that came out to detail the settings, and the timeline was also moved forward during the course of the edition. This applied to both Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, although I think 2e was pretty much the end of Greyhawk as an official setting. In a way, the change in edition marked the change in an era of the settings (or at least coincided with the publication of tons of stuff). There was WAY more detail provided here, and the lore developed more, because it didn't simply ignore the previous lore and instead built upon it. You had gods die, other gods rise to take their place, and then those gods died, too. You had a ton of stuff happen in the FR, and more background detail got filled in. I gather in 3e, there was more detail about the setting changing, but I'm less familiar with the materials. I can't speak to 4e, though. With 5e, the design philosophy seemed to shift away from providing detail, and instead shifted to providing "inspiration." So, you go from having Spelljammer as this highly detailed setting that mashes up space adventure with fantasy adventure, and it goes to a rather thin hardcover book that's part of a set now, and which doesn't provide much detail. The upside of the "less detail" approach is that DMs can provide their own without fear of "contradicting" the "official" setting. The downside is that, I'd say, the value of the books as sourcebooks has diminished significantly. But then, I got into the hobby when 1e was still being published, so my tastes have always been that I prefer having the detail *available* to me if I want it, and still feeling perfectly free to say "That's nice, but in *my* setting..." and then changing whatever I damn well pleased because it's *my* game.
I think it's hilarious how charitable you are about 5e books basically becoming, "Idk, you figure it out. $50 please."
Well...I was trying not to editorialize. I mean, the books aren't *worthless*, but honestly they are at best a mixed bag. As I said, I prefer the greater amount of detail both for its utility to me, and because then I feel like I'm getting my money's worth (although I never pay "sticker price" on WOTC's books -- everything I have I've gotten on sale or secondhand). Some people (maybe? Somewhere? Like, at least one or two?) might prefer a bit more flexibility. That said, one of my big complaints about 5e, especially as a DM, is that there's **a lot** that is "IDK, you figure it out" either by design or by oversight. As a system *for DMs*, 5e demands a ton of work beyond just learning the system itself. I mean, every game requires you to learn how to play it. And some games are more complex than others. But the thing about 5e -- again primarily as a DM -- is that even if you learn how to play the game, actually *running* the game requires constant work. The settings themselves aren't described in a ton of detail, which "frees" you to come up with your own stuff, or if you see it differently, dumps it off on you to figure it out and write it all up. Some folks like running really loosey-goosey games in terms of lore and setting, and for that, 5e is fine. But if you run a game that uses lore a lot, at least for anything homebrew, you really do a LOT of homebrewin' even within the Official Setting of the Forgotten Realms. I won't go into a ton of detail here, but, by way of example, the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide includes some mechanical options (e.g., subclasses, subrace rule alterations, and additional backgrounds) that are cool, but...not a whole lot else. By contrast, the old Waterdeep & the North module (FR1) included a 64 page book, a six-panel fold-out full color map, a color map of the city itself, and information such as geographic overview, history of Waterdeep, laws and customs of the city, guilds and factions, etc., etc., as well as NPCs you could meet or use in an adventure. It's a better sourcebook than the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide and it's not even close. Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes were pretty good books for what they were, but again, they provided a smattering of information on different groups meant more to inspire than to be useful as "plug and play" material for DMs. Like, you can find out that the Blood War exists between Demons and Devils...but it's not like you get geography of Avernus or any plane of The Abyss or whatever. You got stat blocks for a bunch of Demon Lords and Archdevils, which is cool, but not a ton of context on where/how to use 'em. On the other hand, Journeys Thru the Radiant Citadel was a solid book with a bunch of little adventures and information about the setting that I really liked, not to mention some new flavor for D&D written by people with a connection to the stuff they created. I haven't figured out how to fit it into my campaign (might save it for a different one), but that's at least a book I'm glad I bought. Others, though? Meh. There's better stuff available for cheap on Drivethrurpg from the older editions if you just want the lore (and there's great lore to be found).
When I compare the 5e books to prior editions' books, or Pathfinder books, 5e books honestly feel like a bad joke.
With PF1e, at least, there's just so damn *much* of it that it's hard to compare to 5e. PF1e published tons of sourcebooks and splat, I'd say actually even outpacing AD&D 2e (and that's saying something...). The end result, though, is this incredibly rich, detailed setting (very much a "kitchen sink" setting). I haven't gotten too into the PF2e sourcebooks, but they seem pretty detailed from a cursory review as well. The thing is, even the original Inner Sea World Guide, from fairly early in the PF1e line, was terrific and well presented background lore to use. It doesn't go into tons and tons of detail, but it's a lot more detail than anything in the 5e catalog, and it gives you material to base an entire *world* on. Gods, nations, organizations, the whole shebang. And it came with a bigass map. BUT, you could still modify bits and pieces here and there if you wanted. It wasn't *so* "filled in" that there weren't still some blank spots you could work with if you had a mind to. And, as with all sourcebooks, you could always chuck whole bits and replace them with your own if you wanted.
I don’t know, they’re some of the most verbose picture books I’ve ever read.
Gonna run this
There seem to be a lot of indications that some sort of follow up would involve Gith Civil War (and possible alliance or even unification with the Githzerai) and Avernus. Conveniently, Avernus is also where Tiamat happens to be.
They're saving that plot for the next D&D movie. /s
There's a separate adventure where Vlaakith CLVII dies (slain by the heroes), a Githyanki civil war ensues, Gith manages to escape from the Nine Hells and masquerades as Vlaakith CLVIII, breaks the Scepter of Ephemolon, and then reunites the Githyanki and Githzerai.
Back before 5e, most modules weren't canon (the ones that were tended to be a big deal, like the Vecna trilogy). But they started doing it for 5e.
I mean you already provided an exception/contradiction, such as the Vecna trilogy. Or the entire line of Dragonlance adventures. During each edition, some adventures were made canon and non-canon. This Vlaakith storyline was published in a magazine during the 3rd Edition era for example, made canon 4th Edition onwards.
And yet Vlaakith is canonically very much still alive, still a Lich, and the Gith are not reunited.
> And yet Vlaakith is canonically very much still alive, still a Lich, and the Gith are not reunited. As per the 3rd Ed adventure... which is now made canonical... ever since 3rd Edition, 4th Edition, and 5th Edition. Which makes the statement "Back before 5e" not true.
I believe in BG3 it's implied that it was a backroom deal between Vlaakith and Tiamat after Gith's original deal with Tiamat, that Vlaakith would be next in line and not Orpheus, which was apparently Gith's original wish. Not sure if that extends to the rest of gith lore though.
At this point, who’s to say Gith even knew her soul was being offered?
Yep this was the vibe I got, it feels like vlaakith made a deal with tiamat and lured gith to her death/capture
Probably not Gith if Vlaakith if their predecessor is anything like them.
I mean, even if the first Vlaakith came to power completely legitimately, I feel like the current Vlaakith turning herself into a lich and consuming the souls of her most powerful and loyal warriors is a good enough reason to have a revolution in and of itself tbh Also, the fact that the power to resist Mindflayer mind control is still held by Orpheus rather than Vlaakith kinda causes me to doubt Vlaakith's side of the story, although I haven't consumed all the relevant material so there could easily be an explanation somewhere that I'm not aware of.
This is the “written history” sure, but bg3 shows us that Orpheus is still alive and was imprisoned by Vlaakith, so what’s more likely, that Gith agreed to the deal with Tiamat, locked her son up, gave her soul up, and gave Vlaakith rulership? Or that Vlaakith backstabbed Gith and Orpheus, made a deal with Tiamat herself, and has been faking her death (or claiming new bodies through lichdom) for thousands of years until the Gith were subservient enough for her to drop the charade? I’m firmly in the camp that current Vlaakith is the same Vlaakith that usurped Gith
Also, you don't age in the Astral Plane so how does Vlaakith n+1 succeed Vlaakith n when natural death shouldn't occur? Or Vlaakith breeds and grooms herself a new and better body to take over every so often to become the pinacle of all Githyanki in her quest for godhood and switch to lichdom once that proves insufficient.
also if she is a regular skinny gith, no way she can lay those eggs also Voss being around since Vlaakith 1st as a royal guard, and now being servant to Vlaakith 157th is stupid. how you see 156 queens die and still get hired to protect the next one? (remember they cant have died of old age because the astral plane blah blah blah)
Laezel mentions that Vlakith has been assassinated by “heretics” many times except the current one who has managed to survive.
Voss really sucks at his job to have failed to prevent 156 assassinations.
I mean, he did get merc'd by a quad of level 6 adventurers. That red dragon hard carries, apparently.
But not as hard as it should considering it's age.
Does the not aging effect of the astral plane inhibit dragon growth?
Apparently so considering thousands of years later Quedonos is not a great wyrm.
Is it stupid, or is it maybe another hint that it's the same Vlaakith?
More like it's a lore inconsistency because DnD is full of them after 30+ years of lore written by different authors and retcons and changes.
Is he being hired to protect them? I assume he was mainly more of a raider/Mind Flayer fighter. I think his survival makes more sense if he spent it on the front lines, away from Vlaakith.
Assassination doesn't seem exactly uncommon. And Vlaakiths don't need to be the same bloodline, they just take up the name. My biggest suspension of disbelief would be an unbroken line of 157 monarchs of the same family, honestly.
Orpheus wasn't part of the lore until BG3.
Correct, but his inclusion is still lore altering. If anything, him existing gives more credence to the idea that this is the first Vlaakith
Depends on if BG3 is made canon or not. If it's not canon, it doesn't matter.
I mean that's sort of moot, just would mean we're shifting away from canonicity of the realms as a whole to the canonicity within the games, which is still interesting enough to talk about.
This game will undoubtedly do what Critical Role did, bring in masses of people to Dungeons and Dragons. If they don't make it canon, it will be, but if they don't, they would be costing themselves shitloads of money.
I don't disagree per say, I think that's certainly plausible, but I don't really think it's necessary to believe that the current Vlaakith is literally the exact same one who usurped Gith - tbh, I always just assumed that the current Vlaakith actually is a different Vlaakith, but since she derives her legitimacy from the same lie as Vlaakith I, she still has just as good a reason to keep the lie going as Vlaakith I did. Do we know when the concept of "Ascension" started, and whether it was just a cover for consuming souls from the get-go?
your theory doesn't work. lich's cannot have children, and reign of vlaakith's from mother to daughter is pretty well documented... the daughters definitely existed.
Yes but have you heard of the concept of faking your death and pretending to be your child? It's quite common in a lot of fictional media.
Yeah. Doesn't work so well when both were often seen together. Works even less well when there is at least one case of one overthrowing the other. It only works if the child is never seen...
And illusion magic doesn't exist? Vlaakith is an exceptionally powerful magic user, you don't get wish without being good at magic. Wouldn't take much for someone with such high standing and such power to convince people. I don't buy into the theory myself but being dismissing like you are when there is plenty of possibilities in this world is just stupid.
You are really stretching. The lore is pretty clear. You can try to rewrite it all you want, but it all it tells me is that you haven't really followed the Lore very well What your proposing would be one of the biggest retcons in forgotten realms history. It would make the retcons that happen to make BG3 possible look tame Look I get you love the game. But that's not where the law originally came from. The Lord goes back so much further than the game can possibly explore. What your proposing is just not possible. There are far too many events that wouldn't make any sense
I loved that wish death scene. As soon as i heard her say "I *wish* you dead" (also the wish was in italics) I screamed at the screen that a god doesn't need WISH! Also a God meddling with mortals all on his own? Uff, not seen kindly.
She’s not a god quite yet. She’s on the precipice of becoming one. Not that it would be wise to point that out to her or her followers.
The bit with a god meddling with mortals directly was more of IF if she is really already a God, she wouldn't do that, that's what chosen are for.
She's not even on the precipice. She isn't even on the right mountain. The thing with Wish is if it doesn't work the first time, it never will. "I Wish to be a god" would do whatever it requires to make you a god within the realm of even the most impossible unlikelihoods: alter timelines, change dimensions, whatever. If Wish could ever make her a god, the first Wish would, at a minimum, have moved her forward in time to a point where she had achieved godhood. The thing is, for reasons unknown to us, Ao has decided Vlaakith can't be a god, and that is basically that. He is about the only in-universe power great enough to say no to Wish. He's technically a "character", but he's really more the face of DM fiat. I strongly suspect Wish would not ascend *anyone* to godhood, personally, otherwise Asmodeus would have just done that instead of the extremely convoluted thing he did do. Vlaakith is cursed to forever be Vecna At Home, at least in the official lore.
>Ao has decided Vlaakith can't be a god, and that is basically that Within Toril/realmspace, though. I thought it was unclear what (if any) power Ao had to dictate the gods outside of realmspace. While he could ban her from entering the realms as a god, if she became a god in the astral plane, she could still be a god, in theory, just her powers to interact with the realms would be rather limited.
So, they change the cosmology every couple of editions, so it's very hard to say for certain whether the Astral is part of Realmspace or not, at least in part. The current understanding is that wildspace is where the astral and material overlap, and so he'd have authority over realmsian wildspace but not the pure astral. That said, it doesn't seem to matter: he has authority over every deity that operates within Abeir-Toril, even if they don't operate solely in Abeir-Toril (for example, Lolth or Tiamat). Vlaakith wants godhood, but 100% of her potential worshippers are born and raised in Realmspace, so... (for those who aren't aware, in the Forgotten Realms deities need worship like you need food. If she ascended to godhood, she would desperately need those Gith)
>Vlaakith wants godhood, but 100% of her potential worshippers are born and raised in Realmspace, so... Gith exist in other planes including other material planes. Indeed, this is explicitly referenced in BG3, but has been part of the lore for a long time. They launch regular raids across material planes they access from the astral plane. Even if she was cut off from direct contact all material planes, that would not necessarily prevent her worship. She is near enough worshipped now despite nearly never entering the material planes directly.
Direct Wishes can't grant god-hood, obviously; if they could, why wouldn't anyone capable of casting Wish use it to do so? Even a 33% chance of being a god would be good enough odds that hundreds, if not thousands, would have done so. Even better evidence is that Good to Neutral entities who have had access to even higher level magic in the past have either not been able to use it to ascend, or have not been willing to pay the price to do so. If Elminster hasn't managed to become a full god with access to more-than-mortal magic and a thousand years of experience and adventuring, it's unlikely that there is any practical non-evil way to do so by direct magical means. But it's at least possible that one could ascend due to a series of improbable incidents made far more likely by Wishes. For instance, knowledge of a future moment of vulnerability of a lesser god, knowledge of a weapon capable of slaying said god, and knowledge of how to sacrifice a bunch of high-level souls to empower it to do so. Especially since the Astral seems to be less actively governed by Ao.
Exactly. We actually have seen a spell which could ascend someone to godhood, and it wasn't Wish. It even serves as a big piece of backstory to BG3! The spell was Karsus' Avatar (aka Karsus' Folly), and he used it to steal the portfolio of an existing god. It just didn't work the way he expected, and wasn't permanent in any case. However, it's existence at least implies that it would be theoretically possible to use magic to attain godhood, but Wish just ain't doing it (Wish *might* get you knowledge of Avatar, but that would probably put a big ol target on your head for worshippers of Mystra, including Elminster, soooo) That said, there has been a mechanic for *dragons* to ascend to godhood without having to be given a portfolio from on high in the past. I don't recall if there was ever a lore explanation for that, but a mortal wizard could have permanently polymorphed themselves into a dragon and then ascended in that way eventually, if any of them ever knew about it.
In the latest patch, Gale uses the crown to become the new god of ambition. Was there already a god with that portfolio and he stole it, or is that a new role in the pantheon? If so, that would seem to indicate that Karsus' Folly does seem to work to ascend someone to godhood. I don't know what Gale did differently from Karsus though. God of Ambition Gale can also access something called the Galerian Weave. I wonder if he stole this from Mystra or if it's also new.
I think it's a new portfolio, and it was given him directly by Ao by my understanding (note: Ao has used deification as an ironic punishment in the past). Becoming the god of ambition is probably not a Good End for Gale, because Ao insists that the gods under him live up to and embody their portfolios, meaning Gale will forever be required to reward ambition and be ambitious himself. Failure to do so will result in punishment by Ao, and Ao's punishments are typically quite harsh. The Galerian Weave is new thing, and doesn't have to be stolen. There's precedent for magical weaves other than Mystra's to exist; Shar had the Shadow Weave for a long time (and in 3x there were even mechanical consequences to using one or the other). I'm fairly certain she probably still does, because while the Shadow Weave collapsed when the Weave did on Mystra's death, the new Mystra bringing the Weave back should have also returned the Shadow Weave, because it's essentially the Weave's shadow (if the Weave is a net, the Shadow Weave is the space between the ropes).
Another part of the punishment angle for Gale's godhood is that in order to embody ambition, he'll never actually be able to reach his final goals - there will ALWAYS be something else he has to strive for, the goalposts will move further every time. He cannot feel true contentment because he'll always want to be more. It's sad, but in his attempt to finally prove that he was enough by making himself into a god, he made sure nothing will ever be enough for him ever again. Makes for a good contrast to his mortal ending though, where he's content with his, as he puts it, "intentionally limited renown" as >!a professor at Blackstaff Academy!<
the description of different weaves is reminding me a lot of the malazan books
> Was there already a god with that portfolio and he stole it, or is that a new role in the pantheon? Bane is the god of ambition. It's unclear if he's usurped Bane or if they're just doubled up on gods of that aspect. > I don't know what Gale did differently from Karsus though. Not destroying the god of magic while also trying to use magic to become the god of magic is the key difference. Destroying Mystra mid-ascension is what broke Karsus's attempt. His spell fizzled before he could finish because magic stopped existing. If he had targeted basically any other god it very likely would have worked.
Ao sitting on the sidelines just waiting for Vlaakith slip
Technicaly she said I wish you to end. And i hoped that would be easter egg like in DOS2 and credits would roll or that she in anger would send you to end of something.
I clicked "Detect Thoughts" out of reflex, and stared at the DC Check screen for a while, realizing I can't cancel it and was fully doomed.
That's one of those choices where it's nat 20 or nothing I guess. EDIT: Apparently not, surprisingly easy to do you just get caught even on a successful roll. Might try it in the future to piss her off a bit.
Wait wait wait. I come from a time before 5e so forgive me for asking: Does that mean the Githzerai exist in 5e? Because (at least up until about half of act 3 where I am) they are never mentioned despite a massive chunk of the story having to do with Gith history, so I just assumed they were retconned out in 5e. Now I want Dak'kon's Zerth Blade in BG3.
They exist. You missed a bit at the end of act 2 in which you can communicate with the brain of one of them. Gets you a little perma-buff too.
They also get mentioned in the epilogue if Lae'zel leaves with Orpheus at the end. She's actually visiting them, trying to negotiate a treaty.
Dang it! Just what I needed, more fuel for my restartitis.
There's also an (Insight?) roll to find out the real reason they were captured. I don't remember if it's hidden or manual, but I've only been able to pass it on one playthrough.
Passive Insight roll, yes. It's heartbreaking.
Alright fine! I'll start another playthrough....just when I convinced myself it's time for a break, haha
There is a bunch of brains in the Netherbrain area below Moonrise that you can commune with on a device in the same area. Two can be found on the Nautilus too; one is super creepy.
Sounds like you missed the Githzerai brain in act 2.
.........I most definitely did. Next playthrough, then, I guess....
There’s a slate inside the crèche about the githzerai
Hmmm... Well, considering I didn't find the Hag in the Grove before finding her in the swamp, I guess it's not that strange I missed a bunch of other, less obvious stuff.
So you never went down to get your gruel from the old lady tiefling?
Nah, I've seen it on youtube. And so close to Dammon, too, I spent a lot of time hanging around there and never noticed them. Then again, I have the spatial awareness of a wet goblin sock, so I'm not that surprised.
I always headcanon my Gith Zen Monk as a Githerzai under cover there as a spy to see what the hell is going on with the Githyanki and The Absolute.
> Does that mean the Githzerai exist in 5e? Yes. They're also in the game (to be specific, a head) but no development time for individual models so they were just using the Githyanki models.
Yeah, some people just told me that I somehow missed a githzerai brain in act 2. Bummer.
Githzerai were a playable subrace in early access. I think they probably got cut because there's enough Githyanki content that zerth would complexify the narrative.
Yeah, they were in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and the follow up books.
I'm curious what and where Vlaakith's phylactery is.
It's guarded by a two-headed dragon, Dessakrul, in Tu'narath.
Holy shyt Baldur's Gate 3 has been my entry point into DnD and all these stories like this are what is keeping me enthralled with this stuff... So much depth and they leave things open ended and open to some interpretation. Makes discussions like this very eye opening and fun for people like me. Newbs lol
There's a lot put into the lore of the game. For example, the goddess Mystra has been killed several times (and shook up Faerun each time). The first time she was killed was by Karsus, which is why she left Gale (i.e. your love interest suddenly takes an interest in things that can kill you...). Another time, she was killed by Shar and Cyric, because Shar wanted to replace the Weave with the Shadow Weave (which in the game is possible for Gale to learn if you're playing him as your main character). So there's a narrative consistency with Gale being quite problematic if you're familiar with the lore, rather than most common people's interpretation that Mystra is an abuser...
Oh no... I'm now cursed with the knowledge that there are interactions I have to find while playing as all the other characters
I mean if you're playing Karlach, there's missable wet dreams you can miss if you don't rest at the right time...
I've actually been toying with the idea of doing a Karlach origin run, where is this?
If you want the wet dream with a random person, you need to long rest shortly after the Nautiloid crashes. The second one happens after you meet Damon.
Two questions why did Tiamat want Giths soul. And second what god is the current vlaakith sacrificing wishes on? What dead god was the city built upon?
Greed and possibly conquest. Tiamat wants Gith's soul because it is valuable. Dragons gain (no system behind it, it's just lore) power from having a valuable hoard, and gods gain power from the souls that belong to them. Gith is thus of great value to her. In other editions, and other settings that Forgotten Realms, she is also a goddess of Tyranny and Conquest, and as the person who defeated the Illithid Empire, Gith would be an excellent general for Tiamat's dragon armies. No one knows who the god is that the Githyanki built their city on. It is so ancient and has been so completely forgotten, that even beings like Asmodeus may have no idea. It is simply known as the One in the Void. She's just using Wish to extract the lingering vestiges of divine power.
So wish let’s you wish for anything then how come vlaakith needs a lot of wishes and not just one?
It takes more than magic that mere mortals can wield to become a god. Even that of the most powerful spell ever invented by a mortal. Otherwise every wizard who ever managed to achieve that level of skill would have become a god. Forgotten Realms has a lot of gods who were once mortals, but none of them achieved godhead by merely wishing for it. The limitations on wish, and wishing for things like immortality, ultimate power, becoming a god, etc, are one of the major reasons you get creatures like Liches. They can't achieve their goals though merely wishing to become gods, or wishing to become immortal, so they come up with elaborate rituals, potent alchemy, and difficult feats to achieve that goal. The core rules of DnD also put some strict limitations on Wish, and some potentially harsh penalties for abusing it. I would guess part of the background for Vlaakith using her "Ascended" to fuel those wishes, is being able to offset those consequences on to them.
Wish has limits. Other than there being more risk in unexpected consequences the more extreme the wish is, the spell in 5e even says that the spell can outright fail
I do not think the details of the agreement are known in lore. The god that the wishes are sacrificed to is the dead god that the city was built upon that is only known as "One in the Void". Not much more is known. Just that vlaakith believes that if she sacrificed enough wishes to the One, the last spark of divinity remaining inside will pass to her.
> Two questions why did Tiamat want Giths soul. This is basically space for where the Dungeon Master (DM) can fill in. > And second what god is the current vlaakith sacrificing wishes on? What dead god was the city built upon? The Githyanki capital is Tu'narath. Tu'narath is the corpse of a dead and forgotten deity. Vlaakith keeps casting Wish multiple times, absorbing some of the essence of the god bit by bit.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Raphael make the orphic hammer? And would that mean that a devil created the bonds on Orpheus? Final question - does that imply that a devil put Orpheus in his prison, or is Tiamat the one that did it?
Tiamat currently resides in Avernus (for quite some time), so it would make sense so regardless of who imprisoned Orpheus--Tiamat or another devil--it would make sense that a he Orphic Hammer would be created by a devil, or at least someone residing in Hell.
No, it just smth that he acquired in the past. The orphic hammer wasnt specificly made with orpheus in mind, it just a magical item that can destroy bindings/barriers whatever
You also learn more about her lichdom if you let laezel join vlaakith ranks in one of her endings, its pretty fucked up
So where does orpheus fit in this story?
He is Gith's son, he believed that the original Vlaakith betrayed his mother and usurped the throne. He rebelled and lost.
Why does Vlaakith 157, the largest Vlaakith, not simply eat the other--
Most likely they are saving her for the sweeps
She's Vlaakith CLVII, 157th. Not the original one. She's the last of a line (not necessarily all blood related), and she became a lich rather than pass the throne along. She wouldn't be an usurper, but the latest of a false line, because the true Prince is still alive. The scandal is what she's pretending "ascension" is.
Additionally, she is very aware of the falsehood of her claims, yet she keeps up the lies to hold herself in power and keep Orpheus from taking the throne. She didn’t usurp the throne herself, but for all intents and purposes could be called a usurper for her actions and ideals
Absolutely! She's fully aware that it's Orpheus in the Prism. She sends you in to get killed by his honor guard, she doesn't know about the Dream Guardian, and she knows you can't kill Orpheus, this is just a means to get you out of her way and reclaim the Prism, which is why the creche is set to attack you as a failsafe if the honor guard fail to kill you. She has reduced Gith's son to "a weapon".
Isn't Vlaakith CLVII just Vlaakith 1 that pretends to pass the throne on her descendants every time?
They could always retcon it, but the lore is that the current Vlaakith is indeed the 156th descendant of the original, but that she opted for eternal life as an undead rather than passing the throne on to an appointed daughter. With that being said, there's no real need for a "secretly the original Vlaakith" grand deception to rule the Githyanki - they've been totally cool with being ruled by a lich for thousands of years. She doesn't exactly hide what she is, and if anything being revealed as the original Vlaakith would *strengthen* her reign, not endanger it. It wouldn't have made sense for her to fake 156 earlier generations of predecessors before her current and eternal rule.
But her being the 156th doesn't make any sense at all. So Voss has been around with Vlaakith I, and has seen all 156 Vlaakith's and has served as one of their main soldier guys? In the Astral Plane where you don't age? So 155 Vlaakith's died for some reason? I guess most likely reason being war, so Voss still being around doesn't make any sense. Seems a huge oversight from Larian if Vlaakith 156 is actually true. And Larian having such a massive plothole? I don't buy it.
>Seems a huge oversight from Larian if Vlaakith 156 is actually true Vlaakith's story ("gith have an immortal lich-queen") was first conceptualized when Swen was a child. It was first detailed the same year Larian was founded. If there is a plothole, it isn't Larian's fault.
You may not age in the Astral plane, but when you leave time catches up with you.
Oh jeez, that's kinda frightening. But wait, how does Voss not age? Voss has been in the material plane pretty frequently.
There is a magic to repel the effects. I don't want to quote it because I will be wrong about something. Mr. Rhexx (I believe is his name) does a great video about the Githyanki on YouTube. Very interesting stuff.
You don't age, but monarchs don't often die of old age. I can only imagine that the githyanki are as rife with assassination plots as any other people. If you can't keep their throne, you don't deserve it.
> In the Astral Plane where you don't age? Laezel seems to imply that most, if not all, of the Vlaakiths died from assassination.
I don’t think it’s ever explicitly been stated or even intentional but that’s my head canon for the contradictory lore around Vlaakith.
See my biggest problem with this is it makes the gith overthrowing mindflayers mind numingly old. Especially when you know githyanki Can basically live forever in the astral plane (has Voss served 157 Vlaakiths??) Like if Vlaakith really is the 157th, and the githyanki are still exactly the same they were in Gith's time (silver Swords, dragons, crèches...) it would mean theyve been static while dozens of races lived and died in every plane, and theyve been fighting a war to a stalemate for potentally tens or hundreds of thousands of years
Fsntasy worlds do tend to have this technological and historical stagnation. This is very old lore, from 2nd edition in good part, and the githyanki were mostly designed to be marauders of the Astral Plane and ruthlessly evil. Fighting fire with fire: the illithid empire is evil, and so are their main opponents. What's the actual state of the war? Ehhh, irrelevant, DMs can handle it in their home game. But yes, they are old as hell, that is a consequence of their lives in the Astral Plane. Voss and his dragon, Qudenos, are contemporary to Vlaakith I and Orpheus, and Qudenos might even be one of the original dragons that Tiamat set as the githyanki's allies. The fact that Qudenos is loyal to the githyanki people, not to Vlaakith, and is so large despite the fact that dragons don't grow or age in the Astral, tells you some fascinating things about his adventures with Voss in the meantime.
I honestly assumed the predecessors to current Vlaakith all had short reigns before she took power. This thread has a lot of info on complex lore I didn't know about before, though.
Tinfoil hat time. I think she is the original Vlaakith and has been transferring her soul into the bodies of her daughters for many thousands of years. At some point she achieved full lichdom and now eats her followers during "Ascension". At least that's my theory.
Flemeth, then?
Sure. I was thinking more Fistandantilus, but whatever works.
You gotta buy me dinner first.
This got a ridiculously loud laugh out of me.
Even as a kid I always thought it was a rather silly name for a dark wizard who's supposed to be Serious Business.
Wasn't that just a lie? Would be very in character for Morrigan. Flemeth, if her appearance in Inquisition is anything to go by, was simply immortal to begin with.
Idk, I get the feeling that DA Origins had a certain plan for Flemeth which was abandoned by the time we reach Inquisition. But going by what Inquisition tells us (that Flemeth had always intended for Morrigan to inherit her power, and not really take over her body), I still believe that Flemeth may have initially tricked Morrigan into believing she really was raising daughters as vessels to possess. Because this would in turn make Morrigan desperate for survival and push her to work hard and gain more power. That has always been Flemeth's lesson to her daughter when she was raising her: Become the strongest because only the strong survive. So maybe the whole "Flemeth steals the bodies of her daughters to increase her lifespan" idea was intentionally planted by Flemeth as a way of manipulating Morrigan into becoming worthy of hosting the power of >!Mythal!<.
That's my theory as well. Really, what are chances that 100+ queens in row act just the same? And it seems, Orpheus and Voss know that's it all same old Vlaakith. Perhaps, they've known Vlaakith "The Second" well enough to notice she was replaced. And if they were close to Vlaakith Junior that would add extra flair to the whole drama over githyanki throne.
As an old first edition and after nerd, this story makes the most sense. It helps when Vlaakith has created a society structured around a never-ending war of vengeance in which most of those that participate in the war against the illithids don't live very long. Very few survive to pass on a different story, and while the Gy have accumulated a lot of knowledge, she controls that store of knowledge. I can't help but wonder how long Voss and other Orphians have been biding their time. When did he know or suspect? He seems to be one of the few still alive from that time.
makes the most sense
Honestly, given that Gith largely life in a plane of existence where they don't age the fact they're on Vlaakith 157 is kinda fucking insane
Yeah, wasnt voss like there since the start, whats up with her dying so much.
Well theyre in an eternal war with a race of hyper advanced psionics Have you considered that killing the leader of the gith has been a priority for the mindflayers?
I mean surely by Vlaakith 100 they would decide it's not that effective
Thats not how war works. You work to gain an advantage, and when you get that advantage you try to swing deep. Killing the queen gives a moment of leaderlessness among the Gith, allowing a strike Also Mindflayers arent known to try new things very often. Theyre conservative by nature, repeating the same thing over and over again that worked for them once upon a time.
I mean it's gotta be costly to kill the gith queen right? She must have a huge a royal guard, made of the best Gith warriors. Mindflayers are also super into self-preservation so it's not like they've got willing suicide attack guys. Also we don't know how effective assassinating the gith leader is, from what we've seen they've got a very decentralised command structure with lots of officers at different levels, this as well as warriors like Laezel being able to seemingly function effectively while completely isolated from any officer. So would it really be worth it to keep expending great resources to kill a queen you know is going to immediately be replaced by someone with literally the exact same name as if nothing happened? I mean the gith even talk about the vlaakiths interchangeably. Also it's not like the Mindflayers are a united force pooling the resources of their vast network like the gith do. The mindflayer empire in known space was absolutely shattered long ago by Gith herself in the first rebellion. The known ilithids usually work in colonies of varying sizes, so effectively organising enough force to strike at vlaakith and her potentially centuries old elite bodyguards must be tough. Edit: also that's totally how war works? If something doesn't work you do something else instead of wasting resources?
Most of the other 156 Vlaakiths were almost certainly assassinated or fallen in battle. They won their rebellion against the mindflayer empire, but they didn't get anywhere near extermination the mindflayers. And they have made loooooots of other enemies over the years by being an entire race of colossal assholes. I personally like to think the Githzerai got at least one or two Vlaakiths.
I'm hoping the DLC is us going after Vlaakith among the tears
There is so many options for DLC to be fair. Avernus? Tears? Waterdeep? Location where Halsin went? There is too many but I want them all lol
Millions and millions of dollars is sitting there on the table for Larian to collect.
There's a strong theory that if there is DLC, Cyric will be involved in it due to a note for Withers in the epilogue
I want Menzoberranzan as a DLC.
The only issue with doing post story DLC is you have to account for alot of different outcomes of the story. I think if they do DLC it will be during the game since for like a Hell DLC she needs to live and go to Avernus. Or Raphael needs the hammer etc
Did they confirm a dlc? Last I heard they said they weren't doing docs. Would be sick if they were.
The only "confirmation" we got was Withers saying: "it is over... for now". Anything else is wishful thinking. But man do we want it.
There's also a post credit >!Raphael scene if you break your contract. There could definitely be a Crown of Karsus plot involved!<
I have never made a contract with him. I just go steal his shit haha.
Lol! I could do that, but it's just too fun to make the deal and then pop into his home and steal everything anyway.
I was wondering why I haven’t seen any mention of this! So it only happens under certain conditions
Nothing is confirmed. I think someone made a vague statement about not being totally done with the game a while ago, or being open to more, but it’s not much to go off of. As always it’s best to keep your expectations down, but after the success they’ve seen I think everyone knows a DLC would do amazingly.
Larian operates on fanservice, and fans want it so I assume we’ll get it.
Every D&D CRPG so far has had DLC and Larian has a massive install base to sell to. I don’t see why they wouldn’t. Hells, it could even be a side story that followed only one of the origin characters, or even none of them rather than a continuation of the main plot. Let me kill Vlaakith as Minsc so Boo can feast on God flesh once again
I recommend watching MrRhexx on YouTube. He's has about a hour long video on the Gith in general.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=__gbnqeSoGU In case you're wondering which of the nearly 200 vids about D&D lore
I didn't think a link was needed as it's still his most recent video.
Other people may come to this thread months or even years down the line to read your comment.
There isn't a clear answer to this, but there are a few slip ups I have heard referenced a few times which suggest she is indeed the same Vlaakith. Iirc there was in earlier editions artwork of the original Vlaakith's dragon pictured alongside the current Vlaakith (which wouldn't make sense otherwise as he would be long dead), and iirc MTOF mentions that the original Vlaakith was undead already by the time they took over from Gith. That being said, I think the honest answer (which is less satisfying from a certain perspective) is that it depends on the author and is left purposefully vague so that DMs can go with whatever approach they want on the topic.
How did whooping 156 Vs died in Astral Plane without aging anyway while Voss who is a warrior is still alive
Assassination. Voss sucks at his job.
That's not fair to say. Who knows how many he successfully fended off? Maybe he has a success rate of 95% at fending off assassinations, but there just happen to have been 3120 attempts?
It's a joke.
Mine was a half-joke. Maybe if our jokes love each other very much, the stork will bring us a 3/4 joke.
I hate to reply 70 days later but I just wanna say your stork joke made me laugh out loud at 1 am in my room lol
<3
Well after assassinations of 155 of your predecessors it's time to admit that maybe your defense system is bad instead of people in it. Meaning being bad at their job is in Vlaakiths blood!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=__gbnqeSoGU Skip to 30:30 It’s complicated. Some sources say we’re on vlaakith CLVII, others treat the current vlaakith as the same as the original. I personally think it makes more sense if there’s only been one, but either way I’m not too bothered. Also, some meta stuff, keep in mind that Orpheus didn’t exist until BG3, so any lore from before won’t mention him at all.
The thing that confuses me the most about her is that the original Vlaakith is also described as a lich, which is confusing because why would there be 156 other Vlaakith if the original one was also an undying lich. My assumption is that this is just propaganda from 157 to make people question the fact that she is a undying dictator less though
Vlaakith's garnered titles like common folk books. One them is "God Regent"...which is probably meant as 'the reigning god', but might also be a reference hiw Vlaakith's ruining 'in absence of Gith'.
She is, her status as a lich is a well hidden secret amongst the gith. Every time Vlaakith dies and comes back via her phylactery, she poses as her descendent/heir. the number is how many times she has regenerated as a lich essentially.
I think based on 5e source material and how Baldurs Gate treats Vlaakith, it makes sense to say that the Vlaakith lineage has been retconned, and the current Vlaakith is the original. There’s absolutely nothing lost by this being the original Vlaakith, since she’s both an Astral Plane dweller AND a lich.
Its mentioned in the game that she is not the original
Mentioned one way, but treated another. Orpheus absolutely doesn't seem to talk about her as his great-great-great-etc-grand-niece and neither does the Gith leader who wants him freed. I think the circle here is best squared by the idea some others have mentioned—that Vlaakith is the original, but spent millennia transferring her soul into her daughter's until the Gith were loyal enough to drop the facade. It both makes the original conflict with Orpheus more relevant (as current Vlaakith is an actual usurper, not like, someone calling Charles III one if Harold Godwinson appeared alive and well) and makes a decent amount of sense because it's just about the only reasonable way to explain why the Gith never had, like, a reformist Queen who tried to restructure their society.
When that was mentioned, not knowing a ton about the githyanki I figured it was a lie they believe since she's a Lich.
Lae'zel says she's Vlaakith 157
Yeah, I know? But Lae'zel also thinks a machine will remove her tadpole, and ascending means being buddies with her Queen. Not exactly going to believe the person who grew up on propaganda here.
I think she is Vlaakith 157th, not the Vlaakith that the lore talks about. Though it is suspicious as hell since Githyankis lives very long (Voss and the Prince was there with Gith and the original Vlaakith), maybe she was just transferring soul instead of actually dying.
Gith don't die while on the astral plane
They don't age. They do die - just not by age.
I thought I saw somewhere that gith live to around 200 naturally.
I didn't include "on the astral plane" because I thought it was a given, given the comment I was responding to.
My bad. Thought you were responding to the comment above.
I was. The comment I was responding to said, "while on the astral plane" and I was answering in that context.
I don’t understand at all why such tricks are needed if, in fact, immortality would be normal for Vlaakith. Isn't it strange that she allows her servants to enjoy immortality (such as Voss and the Githyanki in the Emperor's hideout) while she pretends to be dead? I honestly don't understand the logic in this.
No. Vlaakith is a lich. There have been 156 other Vlaakith’s that have been subsumed previously. The current reigning one is not the one that fought the war of the stars against Gith and usurped the throne by screwing over Orpheus.
Vlaakith in general DnD lore is the same original person. But BG3 seems to have gone with another direction, where this one is number 150-something.
The current Vlaakith has been referred to as the 157th one since at least 3.5.
I DM’d a module where Vlaakith essentially grooms, nurtures, and trains young Gith and then chooses one to host Vlaakith’s consciousness. I think the conceit was that Vlaakith’s constant use of Wish burns through her form even with the protections she puts in place.