Do Illithid have souls? (major spoilers)

[Unacceptable Condition]

I am sure this has been discussed on this forum before, but having just completed my second run through the game I am curious as to what is D&D lore accurate, and is it the same for BG3. Jergal in BG3 is quite insistent on the point that illithid do not have souls, and if anyone knows anything about souls in the world of D&D, it's him.

When I googled the question I got mixed answers, with some pointing out that illithid have become liches in the past, which requires a soul. Gnomes who turn illithid will often retain their entire personality and memories (I assume Omeluum was a gnome, given their name) because of their innate ties to magic (incidentally I am a little disappointed that gnomes in BG3 did not become D&D gnome mindflayers as they are little miniature mindflayers.) Do these mini mindflayers retain their souls, too?

What about the player character or Karlach? Do they cease to exist if they become illithid, as mindflayers that just have their memories, or are they still in there somewhere? Anyone have thoughts or definitive answers?

[anachoret]

All we know is it is a topic much debated by top seers and sages.

[seeker1]

Illithids have "alien" souls that are not judged by Kelemvor and don't go to Faerun's Outer Planes; instead, they go to the Far Realms, to be with Ilsensense (sp?) and the Great Old Ones, basically to a different plane of existence.

[TaKo]

Originally posted by Unacceptable Condition:

What about the player character or Karlach? Do they cease to exist if they become illithid, as mindflayers that just have their memories

realistically, yes, they die as the flayer is born with their memories(which is very rare to retain any memories at all let alone all of it like we do) assuming that the netherise magic mumbo jumbo didnt cause our tadpoles and our brain to experience some kind of merge resulting in a different form of ceremorphosis where we transform into a flayer rather than being consumed by one

but what is a person if not their memories? karlach does change after turning but she still retains what made her, her, tho again, she changes a lot from that point onwards, potentially same for a player character

as for an example of a "cure" for a realized ceremorphosis is to retain some body part from the original body and getting someone that can cast (true)resurrection assuming the time limit for those spells hasnt elapsed, letting you revive that person from said body part(size isnt specified so could be just a finger)

tho im not sure if you even need to kill the flayer itself?

[GriffinPilgrim]

Illithids have...something, some spiritual essence, but it's very different from the souls possessed by creatures native to the Prime Material. So it's not unreasonable to say they don't have souls. Certainly whatever they have doesn't follow the same rules as humanoid souls.
As to gnomes normally, yes, they become Gnome Ceremorphs rather than illithids if infected (if it works at all) but the tadpoles in BG3 have been altered by Netherese magic to work differently. Normally dwarf, halfling, dragonborn and tiefling PCs wouldn't be appropriate hosts at all. That would also cover Karlach of course and while elves are valid targets all forms of undead are not so Astarion would be off the menu too.
As to the PC, Karlach or Orpheus becoming a Mind Flayer that might (stress: might ) be a special case, due to the strange circumstances of that transformation. Notably Withers still refers to them as the same person and, as you noted, he would know. Also they are physically quite different (shorter height, smaller tentacles, different shaped head).

Originally posted by TaKo:

tho im not sure if you even need to kill the flayer itself?

Under normal circumstances, yes, to get back someone whose body was hijacked to make a Mind Flayer you must kill the Mind Flayer first. But, as noted above, possibly a special case here.

[Orion Invictus]

No.

[eRe4s3r]

Turning into a mindflayer consumes the divine soul of that entity and turns it into an alien soul outside of the pantheon. This has some consequences, notable mindflayers can't be clerics nor use divine powers nor can they be revived or resurrected

Guardian and transformed PC/NPC for ending are imo lore/canon breaks.

[Tresh]

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

No.

Are you going to explain any further?

[Unacceptable Condition]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Even though the lore is fictional, I enjoy seeing what people come up with. I had no idea that so many D&D races were poor candidates for mindflayers. I wish this were a point that was brought up in BG3 proper, but given the amount of content and conversations about illithids already, adding conversations about why some races make suitable illithids now might be excessive

[yaerav]

I think Illithid do have souls, but that Jergal has good reason to be of the opinion that they do not. because originating from the Far Realm, a realm of insanity where no known god has power, they are so alien that in no way could their spiritual convictions provide gods anything.

To step outside BG3 and into a bit of broader Forgotten Realms lore:

Illithid can become undead, there do exist illithid liches (alhoon) and vampiric illithid- and to become undead of such power, one would, it is assumed, need something like a soul. Also, there actually do exist Illithid gods: Ilsensine ("The God-Brain") supposedly created the mindflayers, and Maanzecorian, the god of forbidden knowledge, is also said to be revered by Illithid.

Although I do not think that there are any clerics among illithid, and I would not be entirely surprised if the relationship between these gods and their illithid worshippers is very, very different than the one between regular gods and regular believers.

[GriffinPilgrim]

Originally posted by yaerav:

I think Illithid do have souls, but that Jergal has good reason to be of the opinion that they do not. because originating from the Far Realm, a realm of insanity where no known god has power, they are so alien that in no way could their spiritual convictions provide gods anything.

To step outside BG3 and into a bit of broader Forgotten Realms lore:

Illithid can become undead, there do exist illithid liches (alhoon) and vampiric illithid- and to become undead of such power, one would, it is assumed, need something like a soul. Also, there actually do exist Illithid gods: Ilsensine ("The God-Brain") supposedly created the mindflayers, and Maanzecorian, the god of forbidden knowledge, is also said to be revered by Illithid.

Although I do not think that there are any clerics among illithid, and I would not be entirely surprised if the relationship between these gods and their illithid worshippers is very, very different than the one between regular gods and regular believers.

There are some illithid clerics but they're rare off the ground (or under the ground). The Mind Flayers usually view Ilsensine as more of a partner then something to worship.
The only place they do tend to get religious is the city of Oryndoll because that city was almost collapsed by the revolt of the duergar and was saved by the manifestation of an avatar of Ilsensine. Naturally this caused the local illithids to put a lot more stock in him. So if one encounters an illithid cleric the smart bet says it's from Oryndoll.

[vamirez]

Ofc they do - they have deities, and just like any other being in Faerun their "souls" travel to the Fugue Plain, and then to the realm of their deity when they die.

What complicates this is the "transformation" thing. Because the transformed person clearly is of a different "soul" and religion, no? Initially, back in the day, mind flayers didn't turn other people into mind flayers. The tadpoles swam in the mother brain's pool and were tended to by mind-controlled slaves, and some tadpoles would grow into full flayers. The transformation thing came up with the "Monstrous Arcana" book iirc...

[GriffinPilgrim]

Originally posted by vamirez:

Ofc they do - they have deities, and just like any other being in Faerun their "souls" travel to the Fugue Plain, and then to the realm of their deity when they die.

What complicates this is the "transformation" thing. Because the transformed person clearly is of a different "soul" and religion, no? Initially, back in the day, mind flayers didn't turn other people into mind flayers. The tadpoles swam in the mother brain's pool and were tended to by mind-controlled slaves, and some tadpoles would grow into full flayers. The transformation thing came up with the "Monstrous Arcana" book iirc...

Going back a long way there. Ceremorphsis was a thing since before the first BG game so not really relevant.
And we're not really sure if mind flayers actually do experience the same afterlife. Both of their canon origins in different editions (the future and the Far Plane) would suggest complications with that.

[vamirez]

Originally posted by GriffinPilgrim:

Originally posted by vamirez:

Ofc they do - they have deities, and just like any other being in Faerun their "souls" travel to the Fugue Plain, and then to the realm of their deity when they die.

What complicates this is the "transformation" thing. Because the transformed person clearly is of a different "soul" and religion, no? Initially, back in the day, mind flayers didn't turn other people into mind flayers. The tadpoles swam in the mother brain's pool and were tended to by mind-controlled slaves, and some tadpoles would grow into full flayers. The transformation thing came up with the "Monstrous Arcana" book iirc...

Going back a long way there. Ceremorphsis was a thing since before the first BG game so not really relevant.
And we're not really sure if mind flayers actually do experience the same afterlife. Both of their canon origins in different editions (the future and the Far Plane) would suggest complications with that.

The "Illithiad" and BG 1 both came out in 1998.

The "future origin" does not interfere as they traveled back into the past. Mind Flayers do have deities, and they do have realms in the Outer Planes. The "Far Realm" came later.

I don't mind really if in this game, Jergal of all people states that for whatever reasons flayers have no souls... why even bother? I'm just giving my view as someone who comes from how the setting used to be.

[GriffinPilgrim]

Originally posted by vamirez:

Originally posted by GriffinPilgrim:

Going back a long way there. Ceremorphsis was a thing since before the first BG game so not really relevant.
And we're not really sure if mind flayers actually do experience the same afterlife. Both of their canon origins in different editions (the future and the Far Plane) would suggest complications with that.

The "Illithiad" and BG 1 both came out in 1998.

The "future origin" does not interfere as they traveled back into the past. Mind Flayers do have deities, and they do have realms in the Outer Planes. The "Far Realm" came later.

I don't mind really if in this game, Jergal of all people states that for whatever reasons flayers have no souls... why even bother? I'm just giving my view as someone who comes from how the setting used to be.

Well, I mean if we're gonna cling to the earliest version then elves and dwarves should be treated as classes.

[vamirez]

Originally posted by GriffinPilgrim:

Originally posted by vamirez:

The "Illithiad" and BG 1 both came out in 1998.

The "future origin" does not interfere as they traveled back into the past. Mind Flayers do have deities, and they do have realms in the Outer Planes. The "Far Realm" came later.

I don't mind really if in this game, Jergal of all people states that for whatever reasons flayers have no souls... why even bother? I'm just giving my view as someone who comes from how the setting used to be.

Well, I mean if we're gonna cling to the earliest version then elves and dwarves should be treated as classes.

Not a good argument to make. It has nothing to do with lore. And it comes from D&D which was not a precursor to AD&D, but a parallel development.

Anyway, why argue about this? I just offered my view on the topic.