Baldur's Gate 3 Lore: Mindflayers & The Gith

[Music] foreign what's going on everybody mortum here this time bringing you a lore video on mind players and the gith and how they relate to Baldur's Gate 3 though right here at the beginning I do need to inform you that this video is sponsored by larion Studios which I accept it because they specifically asked me to talk about a lore subject which is the kind of thing that this channel itself actually got started on really with divinity original sin 2. that said Baldur's Gate 3 itself launched on August 3rd on PC via steam is coming to PS5 on September 6th just the day after this video and while there is no date for it yet the Xbox version is coming and being actively worked on if you want more information than that there will be a link below where you can learn more about it and while larion Studios is known for their other games like divinity original sin 2. Baldur's Gate 3 is set in the Dungeons and Dragons Universe of which the Mind flares are particularly interesting so let's actually dive into where the Mind flares come from what their goals were and what ultimately led to the downfall of their empire at the hands of a race known as the gift but let's start with a little bit about mind flayers themselves as a race they are extremely old they predate recorded history in terms of Dungeons and Dragons and in fact they are so old that even the Mind flayers themselves don't appear to have much knowledge of their exact Origins anymore so while reports can vary about where they came from there are a few different theories but to start mind players or illithids as they are also known are considered aberrations an aberration is a creature type that essentially means that it is unnatural it has no place in the natural order of the world or even in most planes of existence so in short they don't exactly seem to belong here which can make them seem especially bizarre to the other inhabitants of the world but when talking about the origins of the Mind flares that's an important thing to keep in mind because there are two theories generally about where they can came from one Theory posits that they are simply aliens from an unimaginably distant future that was basically the end of time and in order to prevent their own Extinction from this they used a powerful spell to send themselves back in time seemingly just appearing to the known world before subsequently taking over another theory still is that mind players are actually the cursed mutant offspring of a race of humans from Another Universe this might stem from the fact that mind flares are roughly comparable to thin humans in terms of their General Anatomy with the notable exceptions being the tentacles on their face as part of their somewhat octopus-like head reminiscent of course of the Cthulhu Mythos regardless of how mind players appeared however they started making use of their very strong psionic abilities to dominate other races forming a vast Empire because while these creatures are not particularly physically imposing they possess a great intellect and psionic ability that allow allows them to turn other sentient creatures into thralls and effectively slaves which they then go on to use them for labor of course but also food because mind flayers use other creatures brains as sustenance things like the mind and intellect in general are at the core of the illicit race and at the height of their power they used all of these abilities to dominate basically everyone else their empire was vast and spanned the astral and ethereal planes and at one point was even so large it threatened to disrupt the Outer Planes where things like celestials devils and demons live and with this vast Empire came a lot of other things such as technology that is now mostly lost we see this in things like the nautiloid the flying ship that we can see at the beginning of Baldur's Gate 3 to name a specific example however while mind players are possessed of incredible intellect the ability to dominate others via their psionic abilities they have a few weaknesses that I would say ultimately led to their their downfall for starters they rely on other races for basically everything despite thinking themselves Superior the obvious things being a source of food and labor but also reproduction because mind flayers reproduce through a method called ceramorphosis in which suitable candidates let's say are infected with illithid tadpoles before being turned into an illithib themselves which kills the host and effectively spawns a brand new mind flayer however even this has some caveats exactly what is made from a particular host can vary for instance if they want to make specifically a mind player they need a roughly humanoid race like a human or an elf or one of the gith though in the event of a tadpole being inserted in something like a Beholder or a dragon you can get other more I would say interesting variants of what a mind flare might be such as a mind witness or a brain stealer Dragon at the height of their empire however mind flayers primarily enslaved a race known as the gift or at least would become known as the gith following their Uprising managing to break free of the psionic control employed by the mind flayers the gith went on to uproot their entire Empire in the astral plain in roughly less than a year most of this was facilitated by a gith woman known as gith gith was literally her name which then went on to serve as the name for the rest of the race however after the illithid empire in the astral plain was destroyed and mind flayers were forced On The Run where many of them sought the relative seclusion of places like the underdark because as a race they also prefer Dark Places as the sun is unpleasant to them the gith then found themselves at a bit of a Crossroads between two of their leaders gith and one of her generals known as xerthamon gith wanted to continue tracking down and hunting to Extinction the rest of the Mind players whereas her counterpart xerthamon thought they should begin the process of mending their broken civilization from this incredibly traumatic experience ultimately this led to a civil war within the gift which led to the factions of the gith Yankee and gith zarai which are essentially at this point sub-races of the gith that represent different ideologies the githyanki are present in Baldur's Gate 3 where you get a very good look at their society they are a militant race of Astral plain dwellers whose main goal is the destruction of mind flayers at the cost of basically everything else so much so that their leader gith formed a pact with the queen of evil dragons known as Tiamat while the specifics of this deal are intentionally shrouded in mystery that a game like Baldur's Gate 3 might just explore a little bit of It ultimately gave the gith Yankee a pact of sorts with Red Dragons so this is why githyanki and red dragons are often seen together despite both of them being a racist that are not known for getting along with others while the Geth Yankee themselves are militaristic and hostile if anything the gifts awry would be easy to perhaps consider the more agreeable of the two factions they are still incredibly distrustful of Outsiders and they also hate mind flares with a passion beyond that the gifts Sarai are more monastic and we don't really see them in Baldur's Gate 3 but it's worth knowing a little bit about them and their ways following the collapse of their empire however the Mind flayers had merely retreated and were not completely routed while they are absolutely a shadow of the power of their former Empire they still have a few things worth mentioning about their society and their goals today simply put most of them are in hiding however they are not in possession of enough numbers or military might so to speak to really conquer much of anything at the very least not directly however against the backdrop of the fall of their empire they also made some fundamental mental changes to their society as a whole the thing about mind flayers is that they tend to serve something called an elder brain an elder brain is a Giant floating brain typically with some tentacles of some kind around it and it is in a Way the final stage of a mind flayer life cycle that is to say an elder brain is an accumulation of combined mind flayer intellect most mind flares have a sort of Briny pool of cerebral fluid where they grow their tadpoles and it's where they put the brains of the Fallen illithid when they reach the end of their life and while the exact nature of it is kept a little bit vague by Design through this process an elder brain can't eventually form where it becomes the center of an illicit Colony these days or Society in general really and commands everyone else it is theorized that at one point mind flares had a little bit more of autonomy but in the wake of their fallen Empire they basically decide guided to all obey an elder brain without question to enact what they call The Grand Design which is the collective goal of the Mind players to return to their once vast Empire and dominate everything known and while an elder brain is exceedingly rare after the downfall of their society it is still a mind flayer's goal to grow one of these essentially where it can help them dominate the planes again however this is done through their incredibly powerful psionic ability any Elder brain at all poses a significant threat to anything in its vicinity as it is in possession of an impossibly large amount of knowledge which only grows with every subsequent brain that it feeds on on average this influence is so great that they can sense any brain within roughly five miles as well as influence it in an attempt to dominate them however Elder brains also served as a library of knowledge so to speak for the rest of the Mind flares in their control as an elder brain represented the accumulated knowledge of everything they had learned so in the fall of their empire when vast swaths of their knowledge was lost this caused mind players to become weaker in more than just numbers alone as it cost them access to many of the things they knew how to do previously such as maintaining their nautiloids or their giant tentacle ships this makes the previous great works of their society a scarce resource these days which is why nautiloids are often now very rarely used where they were once quite common not the least of which because a giant ship capable of flying over cities and abducting citizens into their care to be tadpoled makes for a prime target for hunting parties of the gith who still very much so actively seek the destruction of more and more mind flares though as a point of curiosity it's probably worth mentioning that the Mind flares did not actually invent the nautiloids either they were create aided through trade with the Arcane which is a race of space-faring merchants so to speak often associated with creating spell jamming vessels or flying ships to put it simply but in any event in the current timeline mind flayers have lost the knowledge and secrets that are required to construct more of them which makes them incredibly careful with the ones they do have so seeing one crash at the beginning of Baldur's Gate 3 would be a major event for the illithids who owned it especially one with a transponder that allows it to travel the planes and not just through regular space such as we see in the game when we travel through avernus the first layer of Hell these days mind flayers are hunted and reviled pretty much everywhere they go and while they use the intellect they have to try to pull the strings behind the scenes to set up nefarious plots to take over and enact their grand design they are nonetheless a shadow of their 4 former power hunted to near extinction by races like the gith that hate them with everything they have which forces them into the secretive places of environments like the underdark though in order to wrap this video up I want to leave you guys with a last little bit of knowledge about mind flares in particular which is the concept of Rogue mind flares and the adversary as I mentioned a little bit earlier these days mind players are essentially themselves thralls to an elder brain and while most seem to be fine with this Arrangement many of them especially ones that come into contact with magic are not you see mind flayers possess a great intellect which might lead you to naturally wonder why they do not pursue magic this is because it's largely seen as taboo of sorts within their society as many of them are rather encouraged to purely develop their psionic abilities despite having a very natural aptitude for magic through their intellect this is because magic uses the weave which is not something that can be absorbed by an elder brain after the fact and if there is any being that understands knowledge is power it is an elder brain which means that mind flares that don't conform to the needs of the colony are often killed outright which can lead to some of them trying to escape because mind flayers that find themselves outside of the range of an elder brain can over time regain their independence and freedom of thought another interesting thing is the prophecy of sorts within mind flayer Society known as the adversary the process of transforming others into mind flayers typically destroys everything that the person who became the Mind flayer was but this isn't always the case sometimes this process leads to things being carried forward like subtle ticks personality traits that the person who became the Mind flayer used to have this is very much so frowned upon by mind players anytime this is discovered to have happened that mind flayer will often be killed build this is because mind flayers are terrified of what happens if someone undergoes the transformation process but retains their identity and who they were this is known as the adversary and mind players believe it will lead them to complete Extinction and for all those reasons and more mind players remain at the heart of some of people's favorite d d content as the creatures themselves tend to make the perfect sort of Evil Genius behind the scenes pulling the string for a variety of encounters and campaigns some of which you can experience for yourself in Baldur's Gate 3 in addition to creating a character that is unique to you which in combination with the choices you make will determine how the world reacts to you an adventure consisting of loot's battle romance across the Forgotten Realms and the plains Beyond and you don't have to do this alone you can take some friends along for the ride via the online multiplayer and for those concerned about jumping into to the third game don't worry you don't need to have played the first two in order to enjoy Baldur's game 3 though there are iconic characters locations Etc from those previous games in here as well and if you'd like some more information I myself have made videos detailing the stories of those first couple of games and what you might like to know in any event though don't forget the link down below if you would like to learn more but that's pretty much gonna do it for this video so I certainly hope you enjoyed it I hope you learned more about the interesting lore behind both mind players and the gith as well but regardless of any of that truly just thank you so much for watching I really do appreciate it may you wander in wisdom and have an amazing day [Music] thank you

Channel: Mortismal Gaming

Views: 44,380

Keywords: Mortym, Mortismal Gaming, Baldurs Gate, BG3, BG2, BG1, Baldur's Gate, baldur's gate 3 story, baldurs gate 3, bg3 story, baldurs gate 1 & 2 before 3, bg3 gameplay, baldurs gate 3 release showcase, bg3 multiclassing, baldurs gate 3 multiclassing, bg3 classes, bg3 review, baldurs gate 3 review, baldur's gate 3 review, baldurs gate 3 launch review, baldur's gate 3 new reviews, bg3 lore, bg3 mindflayers, bg3 githyanki, bg3 gith, bg3 elder brain

Id: Fv528vY7UZI

Length: 15min 59sec (959 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 06 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/pipboy_warrior]

I usually enjoy Mortismal's videos, and thought this was a good one. Also congrats to him since this was requested and sponsored by Larian!