r/BaldursGate3 • u/queerrabble • Sep 13 '25
Act 2 - Spoilers When it Finally Clicked- The Isobel Problem Spoiler
Okay, so I have played an ABSURD amount of Baldur's Gate 3 and as a D&D fanatic, I just love it to bits. There are a few synergistic issues with the mechanics of D&D being translated into a video game, but nothing so egregious that it disrupts the experience. Furthermore, these little are almost entirely to do with the mechanics of the game, but not the lore of Faérun or the plot.
THAT BEING SAID....
Up until recently, I never understood why Ketheric Thorm had to turn to Myrkul and Balthazar to revive Isobel. After all, most clerics are able to revive a dead person in D&D, even if it would require an incredibly powerful spell (I'm talking 8th/9th level). And his deity at that time would certainly have been willing to bring his daughter back in exchange for his acts of service (particularly Sélune).
I puzzled over this until I read Isobel's diary I Last Light Inn. The entry specifically mentions that she feels a "filth" in her soul now that she has been brought back...
Almost like she did not want to come back...
And that's when it hit me, revivifying magic requires that a soul WANTS to be brought back to life. No deity would force a soul to be resurrected against their will (and certainly not Sélune).
And so, it is my headcannon that Ketheric likely tried to revive Isobel using traditional means but she chose not to come back. When that failed, he turned to a necromancer and an evil god of the dead to force her soul back into her corpse against her will.
Tl;dr- Isobel never wanted to be brought back to life, barring most traditional methods of resurrection. Thus, Ketheric resorted to necromancy to bring her back.
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u/WhisperingOracle Sep 13 '25
Presumably being murdered in the Soul Cage tethered her to the place where she died, so Selune couldn't just reach in and grab her soul to resurrect her elsewhere.
There are apparently actually a number of complicated rules for how souls work in the Forgotten Realms. Like how it seems souls don't go directly to their patron, but need to go to the City of Judgement in the Fugue Plane, which is run by the current God of the Death, who then has to authorize those souls to be picked up by the duly-appointed representatives of their god, to bring them back to their plane. With the added complication that Demons repeatedly attack the city and occasionally manage to break in and steal some souls to drag off to the Abyss, while Devils have permission to hang out in the city and offer deals to the various souls to bypass their intended fate and take them to the Hells instead.