u/Costa_Canela

This post is made in a light-hearted tone. However, it is also accurate.

I'm talking about becoming a mind flayer. Infamously, someone needs to become a mind flayer at the end of the game unless you side with the Emperor. It can be Orpheus, the player character, or, if present, Karlach. It's honestly already weird how it is in game, because in most dialogue options she won't actually offer to do it, she'll just be an option by speaking to Orpheus as her. Whatever. Do I think Karlach would do it, considering she's facing certain death regardless? Yes! But she wouldn't be the only one. I'm gonna list the companions, and the likelihood of them offering to become Illithid to save Orpheus and you:

1. Wyll: this man has absolutely no sense of self-preservation. He is literally destined to become a mind flayer at the beginning of the game and he's just chilling with some tieflings (unbothered king tho ngl). He also will gladly give up his soul to eternal damnation for a man who doesn't love him. He's generally speaking extremely heroic and honestly, he'd offer before Karlach. Also, if he did turn, that should break his pact immediately due to him not having a soul anymore. So it could be a win-win, sort of.

2. Karlach: she is the only one who will actually do it in the game, and there's a reason for that. She has like two hours left to live anyways. She's super heroic. Let's move on.

3. Lae'zel: obviously, there is no fate she would hate more. Similarly to Orpheus, she would need to be convinced not to kill herself after killing the Netherbrain. However, I do think a Lae'zel who dedicated herself to the cause of freeing Prince Orpheus and liberating the Githyanki would be willing to commit the ultimate sacrifice for her cause. This might be an option only after a persuasion check though. But I think she would do it, considering her preferred option is for you to do it. Love her or hate her, Lae'zel cannot be called a hypocrite.

These are the three companions who I think could be convinced to become Illithid to save Orpheus. But I will quickly list the others, in no particular order, and give each a quote to what they would roughly say if asked.

Shadowheart: "Nah, I'd rather the Gith do it tbh. Who is he again?"

Astarion: "Lol no, darling."

Gale: "I would rather explode if that's alright with you! 😁"

Minthara: "Illithids might have a strange beauty to them, and the extra power is tempting, but this man is literally offering. Who is he again?"

Minsc: "Boo thinks it's not a very good idea. As for me, I'm still not sure why we're a fighting a giant brain. Or how it became giant in the first place."

Jaheira and Halsin: "🤨. Are you running a fever? How would I even...? Um, no, pup/my love/my friend."

So, I am about to finish the game for the quadrillionth time, and I figured, I'm not entirely too sure how many long rests there are after the point of no return? Or exactly what those long rests do. What I mean by that is mostly related to how they affect items and abilities that you can use "use per long rest".

So, if memory serves, you get a long rest when you get to the Astral Prism. Which is to say, the little fight with the intellect devourers in the way to visit the brain gets its own long rest (assuming you're long resting before the point of no return, which you obviously are).

Then, you arrive at the Astral Prism having long rested and with your summons unsummoned. Does this refresh EVERY SINGLE "once per long rest" ability/item? Or should you, say, save your Markoheshkir arcane battery for later?

Anyways, you long rest right before that visit to the Emperor and Orpheus. Then, after that, you get the long rest with the pod right next to the brain stem, but not in tactician/honor mode. So on those difficulties, the Astral Prism entrance is your last actual long rest. After that you can consume potions of angelic reprieve to achieve the same effect. I ask again, do those restore EVERYTHING? Or are there some items/whatever that do not get restored? And more importantly for the purpose of the final fight: do those potions restore your ability to summon the allies you've made in the game??? I would assume not, but I don't know, which is why I ask.

Then there's the cleric divine intervention. I always save it for the final fight (I find it the hardest in the game personally). Does that allow you to summon those allies again? Or does it only affect your actual characters? Thank you in advance to anyone who knows!! I know these many long rests are probably not strictly necessary, but I am very curious about the actual logistics of them, and about the best time to summon all those allies we've been making

Her looks are nothing special, she was just a carbon copy of the default Durge but as a girl. Anyways, obviously the Embrace Durge run is... a little unsavory, to put it lightly lol. To quote Shadowheart, "Why must the Dead Three be so obvious and ugly with their decor? Blood and bones. Bones and blood. Pointy nonsense." And I couldn't agree more! That's why I think there is an ideal way to play as the Embrace Durge so that you don't feel terrible about all the awful shit you're constantly doing (obviously this is all my opinion and if you prefer to do things differently, feel free to ignore me!)

So, how to actually have fun while doing the literal most perverted, horrifying acts ever put on a non-horror game? You don't take it seriously, of course! As written and presented, the violence is so extreme and ridiculous that when I played it I quickly reached a point where i basically thought of it as bordering on parody. Eventually, the whole Chosen of Bhaal lifestyle gets to a point where it's actually high camp 💅.

This 100% softens the emotional damage of having to do so many monstrous things. I gave my Durge a very good sense of humor! I also had this headcanon that her view of the other Bhaalists was that of the famous Kim Kardashian quote "Get your fucking ass up and work. It seems like nobody wants to work these days". She, for instance, would have favored an alliance with Shar if Dad had been okay with it. She wants the same thing as Dad anyways (killing everyone, snuffing all light and life; potatoe, potato). Esentially, she was just very frustrated by all the wasted time eating babies and doing necrophilia and such, when they should be busy killing. EVERYONE. EVERYWHERE. Every hour spent doing unholy rituals or desecrating corpses was an hour lost killing people!!!

She was also a Daddy's girl, duh. I mean, that's just common sense when playing Embrace Durge. She really did love Him! And she wanted to do right by Him, to fulfill His mission. She was effective and competent in her pursuit! She was also DEEPLY against the whole Sarevok idea of "let's all kill each other in glorious mortal combat". Like, do you want everyone everywhere to die???? Or do you just like killing? Like please people, put in the work! Maybe focus your time on killing innocents??? You do realize that if Bhaalists keep killing each other, no one is gonna be left to complete Dad's sacred mission, right??? First we work together, and when we're the only ones left, we can start killing each other!! So impatient!

So, yeah. Just take it all as a joke and embrace how over the top the whole thing is. It really can be fun! Reject gravitas, embrace absurdity. Otherwise the whole thing is fucking miserable lollll

So, yeah. What I said hahaha. If there's a way to access it i've never noticed

SPOILER FOR EVERYTHING

I have played over 1200 hours of this game over many playthroughs (I'm not sure how many, I've lost count). But there are a number of choices I've never made. I've just never been able to justify them so far. I'm sure the same is true for you! I'm gonna share mine and then you can respond with some of yours!

For the most part these are not popular choices by any means so I doubt I'm alone in this. So, I personally have never:

EDIT: THIS IS NOT A COMPREHENSIVE LIST. There are some things not listed here that I also haven't done. I just didn't remember them when I wrote it!

-Played an origin companion playthrough

-Ripped off Gale's hand

-Staked Astarion

-Kept hornless Wyll (if he killed Karlach, I'm raiding the Grove)

-Sided with Kagha/Shadow druids against the tieflings

-Not fought Ethel in act 1

-Not fixed Karlach's engine while keeping her recruited

-Sided with Nere

-Done the quest to side with Yurgir and killing the rats/dark justiciar

-Let Balthazar take the Nightsong

-Not recruited Jaheira and Misnc

-Given the Nightsong over to Lorroakan

-Let Viconia take Selunite Shadowheart (wild that this is even an option lol)

-Let Sharran Shadowheart turn away from Shar when it's revealed she's supposed to kill her parents

-Fought Gortash with his Steel Watchers still active

-Sided with the Ironhand Gnomes/Wulbren

-Become a mindflayer

-Become Bhaal's Chosen and not taken over the Absolute

-Probably other things tbh I just can't remember.

So, do you guys think any of these choices are worth doing? The reason why I've never generally done them is because they're all evil but also not the main evil ones??? Like, if i'm being evil why would I not let Shadowheart kill the Nightsong only to then betray her? Or, even worse, let Balthazar take her. So many of them are just dumb. I do want to have evil Shadowheart turn away from Shar at the last minute though. It's just that I've never played a character who would actually do that, so far.

Make sure to share things you've never done in this game!!! There are so many possibilities it's actually crazy