owlbear egg

[richardbook]

the owlbear egg keeps disappearing from my inventory before i can pass it off as a gith egg

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by seeker1:

Spoilers again.

I have always and only given Esther the owlbear egg. I kinda find child stealing and experimentation, even if Esther rationalizes it as just egg stealing, bothersome. Other than that also trying to steal the egg will upset its guardians in the Creche. I had heard about the Ptaris outcome with Lae'zel but until just now didn't know exactly what triggered it.

Ah, OK. So that happens if you DON'T give the Gith egg to Esther but instead have Lae'Zel keep it. Obviously, a different outcome, as if it hatches under her care, she isn't subjecting it to magical accelerants or running experiments on it.

I have heard that a romanced Lae'Zel can discuss with Tav about raising Ptaris together if it happens that he hatches under her care. Anyway, none of this is on the BG3 Wiki, but I know I've seen it on here.

(Reminds me of BG2 where Aerie can give birth to CHARNAME's baby, and your child literally becomes an inventory item she starts carrying around.)

You have it mixed up, which is not too surprising it you have never given the gith egg to Esther or taken it but kept it.

Spoilers, obviously.

If you give the gith egg to Esther, then when you arrive in the lower city you find everyone in the Society of Brilliance is dead. You can find a gith-type portal that leads to some docks somewhere, and a young gith man is there. His name is Ptaris. Turns out he slaughtered them all. He was raised to have a very, very strict code of morality, and the members of the society did not live up to their own moral code.

If you let Lae'zel keep the gith egg, and she survives, and she turns away from Vlaa'kith, and the egg is in her inventory, then she can end up raising the child herself. But now his name is Xan. This is revealed by Lae'zel at your reunion party.

The Wiki says that if you leave the gith egg in your chest at camp, it hatches in the Elfsong tavern. This is revealed by newspaper articles found at your reunion party. (I report this outcome as "the Wiki says" because, unlike the other two, I have never done this myself.)

There is also, if you have kept the gith egg, an option to sell it to the Society when you find them in Baldur's Gate. I have never done this. Lae'zel will warn you against even thinking about it if she hears you discussing it. The wiki says you get 1000 gp if you do it.

[Raz]

Originally posted by Isengrym:

I'm kind of glad I did that stupidity on my first run, as I'm not sure I could bring myself to do it on purpose, but I'm glad I got to see that content once and meet Ptaris. I didn't get anything about Lae'zel adopting him, was that added in a patch, or does it depend on which ending she gets?

Depends on her ending. If she is rebelling against Vlaakith, then she raises the egg and becomes quite proud of her adoptive son. A dotting mother, really.

Originally posted by seeker1:

Spoilers again.

I have always and only given Esther the owlbear egg. I kinda find child stealing and experimentation, even if Esther rationalizes it as just egg stealing, bothersome. Other than that also trying to steal the egg will upset its guardians in the Creche. I had heard about the Ptaris outcome with Lae'zel but until just now didn't know exactly what triggered it.

You don't need to steal the egg from the Creche. You can pass a Charisma Check of 15 and the dude lets you walk out with the egg because he would rather have an Istik raise the Gith than allow his Kithrak crush it. The reason he gives for this is that he was a late birth, and was given the chance to hatch, therefore he wanted to do the same for this child.

[seeker1]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

If you let Lae'zel keep the gith egg, and she survives, and she turns away from Vlaa'kith, and the egg is in her inventory, then she can end up raising the child herself. But now his name is Xan. This is revealed by Lae'zel at your reunion party.

The Wiki says that if you leave the gith egg in your chest at camp, it hatches in the Elfsong tavern. This is revealed by newspaper articles found at your reunion party. (I report this outcome as "the Wiki says" because, unlike the other two, I have never done this myself.)

There is also, if you have kept the gith egg, an option to sell it to the Society when you find them in Baldur's Gate. I have never done this. Lae'zel will warn you against even thinking about it if she hears you discussing it. The wiki says you get 1000 gp if you do it.

It's a typical Wiki thing, then, as the article on "Ptaris" doesn't mention any of this, but probably because the egg-child gets named "Xan" instead if Lae'Zel keeps it. There is no article on "Xan".

Everything you said is here:
https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Steal_a_Githyanki_Egg

Also what was said about persuading the overseer to just let you take it. (I've never attempted doing it because I figured it would lead to aggro, and also felt morally reprehensible.)

And all the possible outcomes.

BTW it only hatches in the camp chest if your chest is in the Elfsong Tavern; that would seem to indicate if you never rent a room in the Elfsong, it never happens.

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by seeker1:

Also what was said about persuading the overseer to just let you take it. (I've never attempted doing it because I figured it would lead to aggro, and also felt morally reprehensible.)

Asking and failing the roll does not lead to aggro.

On the other hand, if you say that the reason you want the egg is "to make the best omelette you've ever tasted", then that *does* lead to aggro, for obvious reasons.

I usually have a gith character (Lae'zel, if I'm not playing one as Tav) ask for the egg. If he gives it to me, great. If he doesn't, I usually start a fight over it.

[richardbook]

7 playthroughs so far 1 time I sold it 3 times I ate it on auto select , one time I gave it to esther as an gith egg and twice it just disappeared from my inventory , maybe if you trigger something in the the moonrise area , the option gets removed

[Piperbird]

This happened to me, too, even though I was very careful when choosing camp supplies to never eat it. It turns out you give it to the owlbear in the cut scene when you feed it. The game doesn't give you the option to choose what to give him. Now I place the egg on the ground before long rests until after that cut scene. The egg never disappeared again.

[siics]

Originally posted by Piperbird:

It turns out you give it to the owlbear in the cut scene when you feed it. The game doesn't give you the option to choose what to give him. Now I place the egg on the ground before long rests until after that cut scene. The egg never disappeared again.

In that cut scene you have two options: feed the hungry owbear or heal it's wounds. If you choose to feed him the egg will be consumed. So I always heal him (with low dice check). I have no clue why the game always uses the egg, but I remember in a later cut scene the owlbear cub mentions his brother got eaten by their mother. Maybe cannibalism is not so uncommon among owlbears?

[seeker1]

Well, as we've been discussing in this thread, there's no reason NOT to eat the owlbear egg,

(spoilers again)

UNLESS you intend to substitute it for the Gith egg with Lady Esther. but again, that's something you might not even realize you COULD do on a first playthrough unless you saw it in the wiki or a guide or something, or this is your 2nd+ playthrough.

My point being, many players may well eat the owlbear egg, or let the cub feed on it, without even thinking that's of any significance. (That said, there's dialogue mentioning it could be valuable if sold instead.)

As it turns out, you can sell it to any merchant, they will offer 750 gp for it (quite a bit more than your usual camp supplies), and there's no negative consequences if sold to merchants other than the Society of Brilliance. (I just saw that as I was reading the Wiki.) So also, many folks might just sell it, without realizing there could be a reason to use it later.

Again, what I find peculiar is not just that Lady Esther is so easy to deceive, but that she's also so amenable to being told to deceive her employers. Persuading her the owlbear egg is really a Gith egg works because she probably has never seen a Gith egg before then. That she can easily be convinced to deceive her employers makes her, I guess, somewhat ethically questionable, but again, I guess people willing to pay for child theft and experimentation don't tend to have a lot of ethics.

Neither you nor her know at the time convincing her not to take a real Gith egg to them will actually save quite a few lives, although maybe it teaches any surviving members of the Society (there may have been some not at the Lodge when the slaughter happens), that those kinds of experiments are not a good idea.

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by siics:

Originally posted by Piperbird:

It turns out you give it to the owlbear in the cut scene when you feed it. The game doesn't give you the option to choose what to give him. Now I place the egg on the ground before long rests until after that cut scene. The egg never disappeared again.

In that cut scene you have two options: feed the hungry owbear or heal it's wounds. If you choose to feed him the egg will be consumed. So I always heal him (with low dice check). I have no clue why the game always uses the egg, but I remember in a later cut scene the owlbear cub mentions his brother got eaten by their mother. Maybe cannibalism is not so uncommon among owlbears?

Feeding the owlbear is the first owlbear interruption. Healing the wound is the second owlbear interruption.

[richardbook]

ahh thank you I almost always feed the owlbear , so that what happens to the egg

[siics]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

Feeding the owlbear is the first owlbear interruption. Healing the wound is the second owlbear interruption.

I remember having to load an earlier save game before the cut scene, because the egg was missing when I met Esther.

[Isengrym]

I don't think I ever picked up the owlbear egg on my first playthrough; I talked down the mama owlbear and never returned to the cave afterward. I have the egg currently in my second run; I wouldn't have guessed the owlbear cub would automatically eat it. Good to know I need to watch out for that.

Re: giving the gith egg to Esther: it's definitely morally dubious. On my first playthrough, I refused when she asked, but didn't kill her like Lae'zel wanted. We just walked away. When we got to the creche, I gave in to Lae'zel's impatience and went straight for the zaith'isk and followed her quest from there, which led to the whole creche turning hostile before I had explored it (I missed out on a good merchant, apparently). Being a nosy gamer, I still wanted to look around, so I went into the room with the egg, and its caregivers immediately attacked. I killed them, and then there was a gith egg with no one to take care of it. At that point, I did feel bad about it but decided not to reload. Lae'zel didn't speak up and our group of adventurers didn't strike me as well equipped to raise the kid, so I gritted my teeth and gave the egg to Esther, hoping things would work out. I would have refused payment for it if that had been an option, but she gave me the money automatically.

Still, as big a mistake as that was, I'm kind of glad I got to meet Ptaris once. I find his story affecting. I talked him down from attacking the party, after which, if you click on him, he reflects, "Perhaps it is easier to be good when you are alone." He has a point there.

Edit: The owlbear cub just showed up in my camp for the first time on my second playthrough. I offered it food, and the owlbear egg was still around afterward (in my camp supply pack in my character's inventory).

[richardbook]

second time it shows up hurt , if you feed it , it eats the egg , other option is to heal it

[Isengrym]

Originally posted by richardbook:

second time it shows up hurt , if you feed it , it eats the egg , other option is to heal it

Ah, good to know. I'd probably heal it anyway, as long as I'm playing a character who has that ability.

[Raz]

Originally posted by Isengrym:

Originally posted by richardbook:

second time it shows up hurt , if you feed it , it eats the egg , other option is to heal it

Ah, good to know. I'd probably heal it anyway, as long as I'm playing a character who has that ability.

Pretty sure every class can heal it. If none have access to a healing spell they use a healing potion.