Raising/Ressurecting Bhaalspawn

TethorilofLathander

***BG1 AND THRONE OF BHAAL SPOILER BELOW***



Is this possible to do? Within game it seems possible (for Imoen, Sarevok only has a slight bit of essence later in the saga), but is it actually possible?

With most deaths of characters (i.e. Jaheira etc) you can just take them to a temple and have them resurrected, but it seems with Bhaalspawn that couldn't be the case. As we see if a main character dies, as well as Sarevok's death in the first game, the Bhaalspawn essence disintegrates and they're gone.

So, with that being said, is it possible to restore a Bhaalspawn to life? Is the crumbling essence of a Bhaalspawn just artistic license?

Yannir

The mortal half(fe. Sendai's drow-half) should be resurrectable, although without the divine essence. So it really doesnt make sense that you can resurrect Imoen with her powers intact in ToB.

As for Sarevok, he's no longer a Bhaalspawn even after you give him your essence for resurrection. It's more of a spell component instead of you directly giving it to him.

So it's more art than anything else.

kcwise

Given the trouble Sarevok had to go through to come back, it seems unlikely a Bhaalspawn could be brought back to life with conventional magics. The entire body seems to dissolve if the cut scenes can be believed. Perhaps a Wish spell or the intervention of a god might bring the mortal form back to life, but it seems unlikely they'd retain their Bhaalspawn essence. Of course, they could then borrow a page from Irenicus and steal some essence, I suppose.

Then again, if it's all about the Bhaal essence then why is the player still not resurrectable after Irenicus steals their soul? Imoen, of course, has no trouble being brought back regardless of her soul status.

Perhaps, given Imoen's ability to be resurrected, it depends on the relative power of the Bhaalspawn in question. If you're brimming with Bhaal's mighty blood you can't hold yourself together after death, but if you just have a drop or two of the divine you retain more of your mortal nature, and thus can be brought back.

More than likely Imoen's unique nature is more a matter of the game designers feeling it wasn't worth the effort to create a dissolving Imoen death sequence, or that it would be too annoying to have only one NPC who couldn't be brought back.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

lunar

I think Bhaal essence is fused within the spirit of a Bhaalspawn. When a spawn dies, the essence returns to feed the Throne, to be amassed for the resurrection of the god. The remaining spirit is now missing a vital part, and thus unable to return to life with a raise dead spell. I also believe there is no afterlife for such missing spirits, either. They just dissappear into nothingness. A grim fate, indeed.

Sarevok is a special case, his spirit, now missing the Bhaal essence that made it whole, clinged to some sort of undead status, a shade you encounter in the Pocket Plane at the start of ToB. By sheer force of will or hatred, or determination, your call. Your pc 'patches' the unwhole spirit's missing part with a tiny bit of of his own essence, which makes the spirit qualify somewhat as a 'normal' spirit from now on, able to be raised from dead and killed again, but no longer a true child of bhaal. The spark, the real essence has long joined Bhaal.

Irenicus's ritual rips the souls of pc and Imoen apart, taking the essence for himself and Bodhi to 'patch up' their own missing spirits, who were made unwhole by elven community as a punishment. As a result, Imoen gets weaker and is presumed to die soon, and pc has the same fate too, however pc is special and being used to living with the essence for too long, he has developed a special 'instinct', a portion of his own spirit has been affected/changed by the essence and the ritual was never able to touch it:the slayer.

Imoen is a special case as well, one may argue it's her special ability that she can be brought back from death, that her essence is somewhat small but, with her love for life, eternal child psyche and cheerful attitude, it is adhered to her extremely vibrant spirit far stronger, and will not let go until she is truly, permanently and irrevorcbly destroyed. (Chunky death, disintegration, etc) Mere death allows her spirit to hold on to her little, miniscule Bhaal essence long enough for her to be raised.

Anyway that's my take on the subject, it is fun to speculate and think about.

molloy

The thing is, i guess, while it may be possible to resurrect Bhaalspawn, it's just that the rest of the team decides better not to, because with the evil-god-heritage and all it's probably for the best this way.

semiticgoddess

I figure there's just a time delay before the Bhaal essence returns to Bhaal's corpse. If Imoen dies in BG1, you resurrect her a few days later and Irenicus can still steal her soul later in BG2, maybe because Imoen wasn't dead long enough for Bhaal's essence to be drained away. Sarevok, however, lost all of his essence because he was dead for weeks or months.

As for why we get a game over if Charname dies... we could just explain that as a gameplay mechanic.

lunar

semiticgod said:

I figure there's just a time delay before the Bhaal essence returns to Bhaal's corpse. If Imoen dies in BG1, you resurrect her a few days later and Irenicus can still steal her soul later in BG2, maybe because Imoen wasn't dead long enough for Bhaal's essence to be drained away. Sarevok, however, lost all of his essence because he was dead for weeks or months.

As for why we get a game over if Charname dies... we could just explain that as a gameplay mechanic.

But when a bhaalspawn dies, his body disintegrates into ash and dust, as evidenced by game over screens in bg1-2 and bg1's final movie where Sarevok does it. Maybe the ones that carry the strongest taint, the biggest part of the essence, do that, they are the strongest Bhaalspawn afterall, pc and Sarevok. Immy is just a cheerful little brat (and we love her for that!) with a tiny bit of Bhaal essence embedded in her sugar pink soul.

semiticgoddess

Not all the Bhaalspawn disintegrate into dust. None of the Five do. I don't think Viekang does either.

lunar

semiticgod said:

Not all the Bhaalspawn disintegrate into dust. None of the Five do. I don't think Viekang does either.

I think they are supposed to, but it may just be an oversight in the game design.

elminster

or maybe they just wanted sarevoks death and your death to look cool

Also I don't think the chinchilla disintegrates either

Yannir

semiticgod said:

Not all the Bhaalspawn disintegrate into dust. None of the Five do. I don't think Viekang does either.

I don't think Viekang ever dies in the game. It's even mentioned in game guides, walkthroughs and lore that PC, Imoen and Viekang are the only Bhaalspawn left alive after the Crisis. According to lore, 30 years later, Viekang actually kills Abdel Adrian.

wubble

Yannir said:

semiticgod said:

Not all the Bhaalspawn disintegrate into dust. None of the Five do. I don't think Viekang does either.

I don't think Viekang ever dies in the game. It's even mentioned in game guides, walkthroughs and lore that PC, Imoen and Viekang are the only Bhaalspawn left alive after the Crisis. According to lore, 30 years later, Viekang actually kills Abdel Adrian.

Let's not mention the source of that lore...

semiticgoddess

I think the canonical ending is still undecided. No canon lore yet on how the Bhaalspawn Crisis ended.

Yannir

Oh yes, sorry, it IS unconfirmed lore, it isn't canon. But since there are no other notable sources, Im gonna go with that.. Although it's an extremely boring conclusion.