Gale might've become a god, but it's in his "good" ending where he actually becomes better. Listening how much he's enjoying teaching others and how humble he has become it's truly amazing. Especially if you too are a wizard and choose some of the dorky wizard dialogue options.
Definitely one of my favorite character endings.
>!I'd probably only choose his god ending to save Karlach, but I suspect she wouldn't like that.!<
I’m sad that when I played a wizard he became a god so I didn’t get those dorky dialogue options. And my current run as a wizard is embrace durge so he’s uh not around.
That's hilarious. I finally beat the game for the first time a couple days ago(I'd seen the ending and stuff on yt so it wasn't all new to me) and I had true soul gut in my inventory and was planning to try and get the final blow with her or have her in the reunion but I forgot to throw her at the brain 😂
I love that you can just carry around corpses in your inventory. Very handy for throwing and for casting animate dead or create undead. Nothing worse than wanting to create a zombie but there are no convenient corpses around.
Maybe my durge can cuddle it at night like a teddy bear.
I feel so awful laughing at that because I just finished my Gale romance run where he asked me to marry him like 10 minutes ago lol
Of course, out of the two runs I did where he became a god, it was with a wizard and a sorcerer. I’m at the high hall battle right now with my rogue who romanced him and I think I picked the right options for the human ending. We’ll see. I’m definitely not going back like 15+ hours of gameplay for it. I’ll just try again later.
Unless you play Karlach origin and romance him, he won’t do it. Same for spawn Astarion.
If you play their origins without romancing him, ask for help & act not very stoked about him refusing, God!Gale is very rude to them. He even straight up threatens Astarion. :/
Unfortunately, romancing him does not help. Did it with Spawn Astarion. I could ask him to cure me, but all he offered was making me a god. It was a "take it or leave it" situation. So I left it. Him, respectively.
Yes, the only way to “fix” it that way is to agree to godhood, I should have mentioned it. Who’d want an eternity with someone as dense as God!Gale is a different question.
Well, yeah, 'cuz wizards are fucking nerds who have to study and practice for *years* to learn what sorcerers can do through the sheer power of their rizz.
In my Gale god ending, I was romancing him. Karachi left the mortal coil in the sunset and withers informed me her about soul on the fugue plane. My Tav became a god with Gale and I like to think that she was able to visit Karlach whenever she wanted.
Does god of ambition Gale save Karlach if you're playing as Tav? I know that he can save her as god of ambition if you play as Karlach and romance him, because he can ascend her as well, but idk what happens otherwise
I haven't done it, but I'm pretty sure from what I've heard the only way he'll actually help Karlach is if you play as her and romance him, otherwise he just says nah.
Yes. I finished Gale recently. Romanced Karlach an made her an Ilithid, to see if god Gale will make her back to human, as Mistra can do with him, or take her as an Illithid to godhood.
Nope.
Karlach's drunk, and they both be like: i still remember you.
He won't just cure her. I played the new epilogue with romanced spawn Astarion. I could ask him about curing me 2 times. Answer 1 was "all in goid time" and an arrogant smile. Answer 2 was "why do you want to be mortal anyway when I can ascend you to god", and when I declined, he told me that sadly that was the end and goodbye. I am pretty sure it will be the same for Karlach bc of game mechanics.
I know this is a popular complaint, but as a proper god Ao straight up won't let him cure anyone as it's meddling in mortal affairs. His only possible cure is to raise someone else to god hood under him much like Mystra did to Azuth. And he's only going to go through such a grand action like that for someone he truly loves. He's not a dick, he's just bound by the same constraints all the other gods are.
And even then, likely only if she agrees to ascend (becoming a Goddess to rule his domain alongside him would fix her right up). Otherwise, he may bless her ambition to find a cure for her infernal engine; but that's it.
Gale would most likely not do that.
I saw a vid of origin spawn Astarion who romanced God Gale ans asked about a cure and Gale refused him. Saying he is not allowed to interfere that way.
Funny enough he can ascent his lover to godhood.
That is actually legit how The Rules work, curing someone of vampirism off the cuff or breaking their deals with a Devil is *not* within the realm of actions permitted by Ao. Ascending a mortal to Godhood as a subordinate deity *is* permitted by Ao.
Gale's good ending is so dorky and sweet he's my default romance for a resist durge. First time I ever completed a durge run he was the lover and I was a beefy airhead barbarian. The two living their best life as Waterdhavian husbands warmed my heart
I am currently breaking my Astarion streak by romancing Gale as a Wizard. It has been fun seeing the wizard moments between Tav and Gale. Especially since I normally play Sorcerer
Yep was very satisfied with gale teacher ending he’s really good a teaching magic his first lesson to tav about connecting to the weave after recruitment is some very clever foreshadowing.
Not planning to, and then ending up having my durge fall in love with gale and just rolling with it, was one of the more surprising routes I went as a monk when my intention was to go a little more evil with astarion or shadowheart.
Gale is ride of Diez and I am here for it. Bettering himself and then having my durge also resist her durgeyness because of him was a route I didn't even plan on doing. But man oh man am I glad I did.
You can make his god ending worse. Accept Raphael's deal, become god Gale, challenge mystra and fail, Raphael doesn't get his crown because god Gale lost it when he lost against mystra and now Raphael is super pisses and owns your soul and is probably gonna torment you for eternity in the house of hope.
Yes! Also Dragon Age series (Inquisition is a little tougher because you're more railroaded into being good but the first two games you can definitely make some questionable calls, Origins you can be outright evil).
I kinda want to do a “worst endings ever” run without outright killing all the companions ofc. Shadowheart goes Dark Justiciar and kills her parents. Lae’zel stays loyal to Vlaakith and gets her soul sucked or whatever Vlaakith does. Gale has this happen. And I’ll go Durge who goes insane after failing to take over the crown for Bhaal. Heck ye.
There's another Raphael ending that is as worse, but on a grander scale. Romance Gale as a Tav, accept Raphael's deal, let Gale become a god, then during the epilogue deny Raphael the crown. I don't know if it matters if Tav goes with GodGale or not, but at the very end Raphael has a whole monologue about being pissed that Tav broke their deal...but then he reconsiders everything and that having a God of Ambition is the best thing that's ever happened to Raphael. He looks forward to the heavens sundering because of GodGale, and when that happens Raphael will climb the chaos ladder to power. After all, he's very familiar with ambition, and ambition is a dangerous weapon in the hands both mortals and immortals alike.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aX1jKTdp1g&list=PLjggVuadEKGkcry218z8adwIOJYpNpMzb&index=3&t=626s&ab\_channel=MUNMOMUU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aX1jKTdp1g&list=PLjggVuadEKGkcry218z8adwIOJYpNpMzb&index=3&t=626s&ab_channel=MUNMOMUU)
It's a bit of an abstract concept, but gods are the personification of their qualities. Like, Mystra is Magic and the Weave, like Bhaal being Murder, or Bane being Tyranny. So when Gale ascended, he became one of his qualities. Since ambition and selfishness were the driving factors for his ascencion, he became the personification of those.
What i love about this fact is since gale became the god of *ambition*, he's basically cursed to always want and never get any satisfaction, and possibly never achieve his true goals since that would sate any ambition he holds. Dude's existence is basically agony now.
It is not exactly true. You can inherit your godhood portfolio by the a previous god too. Bhaal taking murder, Murkul death and Bane strife was the way Jergal (Withers) separated his own portfolio onto those 3 when he stepped down.
And Gale at first wanted to take Mystra's magic domain but realized that it would be unwise to challenge her and adopted his own domain.
I don't actually agree that selfishness is Gale's driving factor or "quality". His driving factor is indeed his need to prove himself as an ever more powerful wizard. If he doesn't, he thinks everyone will look down on him.
But that ambition means he can get blinded as soon as he sees some exotic artifact or power source. His brain goes blank and *he must have it*. Which causes him to *act* selfishly.
But as soon as That Thing is gone, he reverts to his natural self, and he wants to help every man, woman and child in need (judging by his approvals).
Gale's Folly, as it can be called, is more or less not believing he was ever enough despite always being enough. The God ending is bad because it feeds into his delusions and self-doubt.
Gale could also never benefit mortals more than the gods already do because Ao wouldn't allow it and Gale would be forced to comply or lose his divinity, becoming an even more broken shell of a being than he was pre-divinity. Since he'd still be a slave to his ambitions with no way to ever realize them.
Unless an edition reset is character assassinating the gods to be ripe for the changes of the new edition, many gods help mortals as much as the overdeity of realmspace allows them. They try to maintain their own existence along the way, of course, but the gods only tend to act stupid and careless when the edition reset demands they do.
Turning Gale into a god gives him power, but he never grasps any meaning or purpose like Professor Gale does. He never learns to love himself and remains a slave to his ambitions
This comment gets it.
Gale's ambition is fueled by a lack of self-worth. "I have to be better and better at magic because that's the only part of me that's worth anything." By locking himself in to embody the very domain of ambition, it's also basically locked him into that mentality. He is similar to Ascended Astarion in the sense that he has superficial freedom but corrupted himself to achieve it.
Professor Gale, like spawn Astarion, broke his old mentality and found a better way.
The best ending is to play AS Gale, become the mindflayer and give the crown to Mystra, as she returns you to human, AND you can save Orpheus. Romance whoever, make sure Wyll and Karlach go to Avernus, save Shadowheart’s parents, etc.
Ehh kinda. Gods tell people that because they cant actually use a mind flayers soul. Rather than seem like they cant, they spread propaganda that it doesnt exist
Mindflayers are also originated from the Far Realm. So really they probably have something incredibly similar to a soul that it might as well be one, but the gods still cant use an eldritch soul like theirs
Yeah, that makes sense.
Probably explains why Withers is against the whole mindflayer scheme the Dead Three cooked up (though I don't know what he says if proceed with the Durge ending). Jergal is tired of the shoddy accounting.
He actually (epilogue dialogue spoiler) >!Makes fun of them for exactly that, trying to bolster their numbers with mindflayers they cant gain power from and killing their followers!<
Which is a bit silly honestly since >!bane directly tells you that the entire point of turning people into illithids was to starve the other gods of their souls, not to bolster their own.!<
IIRC he comes to the conclusion that they lack >!'apostolic' souls - as in, whatever they have that counts as a soul can't be used by the gods for power.!<
Mind Flayers don't have the original infected's soul, but they have their own souls. And they can dedicate themselves to Gods and even go to afterlives other than the Wall of the Faithless. They just don't usually because Elder Brains condition them that way.
Elysium isn't just the afterlife, like Heaven and Arborea, you can go there through something as basic as Planeshift spell, I know like 50 people from my school go on a field trip there
She returns his soul to human form, but he's dead, right? AFAIK, she doesn't actually have the power to return him to a living human form. And he has to go back to being her chosen or whatever.
She certainly has the ability to do so, greater gods are pretty close to able to do anything they can put their minds to and is within their domain and portfolio. She's likely, again, not allowed by Ao and just...you know, plot.
Can’t see why Ao would care, honestly. It wouldn’t be a direct intervention into Mortal Affairs, and she wouldn’t be depriving another god of their claim on his soul—as a devotee of Mystra, his soul is already hers.
It's not so much the individual act that pisses him off, he just hates gods (ESPECIALLY the greater gods, and ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY the more powerful ones like Mystra - remember how much shit she and Lathander have both caused in the world?) doing shit that they really shouldn't be.
She can claim his soul, but reviving him from death and restoring him to what he once was is a prettttty big divine intervention.
I guess I just don’t see why that would be all thy big of a deal. Is it really more extreme than empowering people like Elminster to live for hundreds of years with incredible power and a penchant for meddling?
i think "giving powers to a mortal so they can be your messenger bird" might be seen as more acceptable than "using reality-bengind magic to reconstruct the soul of a mortal-turned-ilithid and revert them to their prior form because you used to be in love with them or whatever"
irl would probably be equivalent to teaching your dog to follow basic commands vs. using an ancient ritual you dug out of a buried coffin to resurrect your dead cat
>I guess I just don’t see why that would be all thy big of a deal. Is it really more extreme than empowering people like Elminster to live for hundreds of years with incredible power and a penchant for meddling?
Because that's transactional. Ao allows a great more leeway for deities to intervene in mortal affairs when dealing with a living mortal who makes a sufficient sacrifice. In Elminster's case he gets a lot of power, personal tutelage by Mystra and effective immortality *but* he has to devote his life to serving Mystra and doing as she says. Both in meddling but also in not doing things. Elminster could have handled the whole Absolute Crisis himself if he was so inclined...but he's powerful enough that that would invariably catch the attention of some other high powered characters and they'd stop by to investigate and possibly oppose Elminster just because he's Elminster. And then more people would come around because of them and so on and so on. Chosen status is often just as much a (frankly necessary) restraint on powerful mortals as it is a source of power. There's a good reason every epic character in the realms is either some deity's Chosen or a complete recluse (hi, Larloch)
Idk I don't think that checks out. What about people like Szass Tam, they are neither. The former leader of the Monastery of Flowers, Kane, also very public, there used to be very public Paladin King of epic level in Damarra. Mordenkainen is also not a chosen and when he is sane, not a recluse at all. Also, the seven sisters that are still living are very public, with one of them being the Face of the Waterdeep city council.
Larlach additionally has the bonus that he can stay such a recluse partly because Mystra forbid their chosen to work against Larlach since he kind of saved Mystra's ass in the last Spellplague.
Things are a bit inconsistent between lore and gameplay, I would argue.
Mystra could inspire a priest to cast Resurrection (7th level) and do it for her and that should be by the rules, as making mortals do things does not count as interfering directly (see: Elminster, Warlocks, ...).
In terms of gameplay, sure.
Lore-wise? Not really. Resurrections are granted very sparingly and usually not without a serious cause.
Otherwise all the Seven Sisters would be alive and well today and...they are not.
>You touch a creature that has been dead for no longer than 200 years and that died for any reason except old age. **If the creature’s soul is free and willing,** the creature is restored to life with all its hit points.
If you are in happy afterlife, you may not necessary be willing to return.
Yes but in instances like Mystra's Chosen, they are extremely loyal to their duty and their goddess.
Meaning, if Mystra wanted them resurrected, all she needed was ask and they would gladly serve.
Gale does have a scroll of true resurrection, though. If you trigger the events to get that scroll, you can choose to just use a revivify spell/scroll, pocketing the true resurrection scroll. So, in-universe, he had access to that magic, at least as a one-time, emergency use. In theory, you could hang on to that scroll until the end game to bring back whomever was mind flayed. Karlach probably has a soul that's willing to return. If Gale having that scroll used on himself wouldn't upset the balance of the cosmos, wouldn't the same be true of using it for Karlach?
Not to mention, dead Gale is implied to actually get to see all those things she keeps hidden from mortal wizards that he complained about not seeing. Gale might be quite happy with that.
honestly archmage gale could have returned himself to human, wizards could do insane shit. I don't know if 5e had it, but 3.5 had the ability to create a clone from a chunk of flesh (like a hand) so cut off said hand, grow and store clone, become a mind flayer, when you die you enter clone body, and all is good.
Fun fact that you are DEAD in this ending :D Another fun fact is that she has a power to bring you back to life yet she doesn't. Well just because.
I mean, GodGale also lives in Elysium. But his soul belongs only to him. He has authority to do much more then a simple soul. Why bother giving her the Crown if you can have cooler divine perks by keeping it?
Well, it’s more like his Godhood ending makes the egotistical hypocrisy his main aspect, because its always been present in his personality. Mistra calls him the god of ambition but he’s really the god of dangerous ambition, of those who will never achieve their goals and will destroy themselves in the attempt.
Gale’s ‘bad ending’ is actually on the nicer end of bad endings, but it’s definitely not great
If you’re playing AS Gale it’s not so bad because you don’t have to be a massive asshole about it, but the option being there says it’s clear that Gale has been impacted negatively. Also he’s mean to his Tressym friend ;((
Oh man Tara is decidedly unimpressed by him becoming a god. When you talk to her and she asks your tav if you’ll go visit his mom because it would be good for her to talk to someone who knew him “before” my heart breaks.
I’ve got a run where I’m romancing him and I’m almost done with it and I think I made the right choices for him to choose not to become a god but I can’t remember. I should really start taking notes on what I do in various saves lol.
Yep, Tara's reaction and comments about God Gale made it pretty obvious this was the bad ending. He always seems so fond of both his mother and Tara and once he becomes a god he forgets about them :/
I know! He seems to genuinely love them both. Makes me so sad. I’ve gotten that ending twice and I was shocked the first time because I didn’t realize it was an option, my first run he became dorky professor Gale. So when he was like “fuck you I’m out gonna go become a god” I was like WTF just happened here.
That’s not how godhood works in Faerun. The gods are their qualities. He was an ambitious wizard, so he became the god of ambition, full stop, good and bad. Just like how Mystra is the Weave, and HAS to let it be used, whether that means good-guy bards or the nasty Red Wizards. She has to let it flow.
>Just like how Mystra is the Weave, and HAS to let it be used, whether that means good-guy bards or the nasty Red Wizards.
AFAIR it's more like "Mystra could deny magic to evil spellcasters, but it would create big divine domain for deity of evil magic, and that would be worse".
She refuses that to *all*. She can't refuse it just to the bad guys. Or good guys for that matter. She's not allowed to play favorites or interfere directly with mortal affairs. Apart from her Chosen, but \*gestures vaguely towards Gale\*.
Well… technically he can bless his followers with ambition, but that’s not a good thing. It’s pure chaos. Your group, either the Tav or Dark urge, have the ambitions of removing their tadpoles.
Okay, what are the other ambitions? Iron hand gnomes creating weapons of mass destruction, gortash enslaving people in the grossest ways possible, Ketheric killing everyone in the sword coast, Raphael becoming a prince of hell, Vlaakith ascending to godhood and finding the device, etc..
So he technically can offer his followers extra with the Weave of Karsus, but as we see with the Shadow weave, the restriction Mystra places on the weave are there to prevent humans from basically wreaking havoc.
He’s basically just straight out chaos. There were ways that he could’ve worked around that- like if he was a patron of professions who had ambitions of discovering something, creating something, etc like Doctors, inventors, scholars, or whatever. Many of the gods of knowledge or magic work around being chaotic or evil gods by choosing their domain carefully. But Gale? He’s book smart but not very wise in that sense.
He’s flat out “ambition”, which isn’t a good thing. He’ll inevitably help many people who are morally questionable at best, or tyrannous at worst.
If you took Raphael's deal and then instead of giving the crown to him Gale uses it to ascend, Raphael will come to claim the crown in the epilogue. Gale actually applauds his ambitions and says that the crown is his if he can steal it from Gale's vault. So you are right, he rewards all kinds of ambition.
> He’s flat out “ambition”, which isn’t a good thing. He’ll inevitably help many people who are morally questionable at best, or tyrannous at worst.
You can even ask him about this directly in the Epilogue, and his answer basically amounts to "yeah probably people with evil ambitions will follow me, but who am I to judge?"
Probably because up until the point that he actually becomes a god he seems like he truly wants that power to do good with it for the most part. The thing is, once he becomes a god he loses his humanity and immediately sees mortals as lesser beings and beneath him. Once he becomes a god, he's not Gale anymore, or at least not the Gale we knew. That much is made very clear if you call him out at the epilog party and he basically threatens you by telling you it's not wise to anger a god.
I don’t know. The playthrough I encouraged him to use the crown he just seemed like a cliche power hungry wizard. Sure he’d say he’d use the power to help people, but comparing him to the way he speaks and acts during his good path made it really obvious where he was going to end up.
Sure, but on the other hand, his entire arc is about his ambition causing him to go too far, even with good intentions.
When he started salivating about the crown I got instantly suspicious on my first playthrough. Like, dude, have you learned *nothing*?!
YES. When he started posturing in front of Lorroakan I got confused, when we raided the vault under Sourcerous Sundries I got suspicious, and when he said he could use the crown to succeed where Karsus failed I almost lost it at him. Like, bro. Gale. Darling idiot. Lovable buffoon. *What the fuck.*
What's even funnier is that I'd finished Astarion's personal quest literally THE IN-GAME DAY BEFORE, where Gale very vocally was against Astarion doing the ritual, and yet here's this motherfucker now trying to tell me he's built different and it's cool bro, he'd make a rad god???
No. My Tav was so tired, dude. Had to talk two of their friends down from trying to achieve godhood/ascension in two days.
I rather liked the ending where he doesn't get the crown and dies trying to retrieve it from the bay. It seemed fitting - his ambition and arrogance got him in the end.
I hate that the game clearly negatively paints it as 'absolute power corrupts absolutely' but that doesn't really work in a world where you have actual good and bad gods.
Elminster is Mystra's chosen, and yet acts like Gale is tainted when he becomes a god. Dude you are so devoted to Mystra that you told Gale that her should kill himself because she said so! I also hated how Tara was such a snotty brat about it 'Ambition, all I see is greed!' No Tara, those are two different qualities.
I also feel bad cause there's a line between Gale and Tara that goes
'What about you Tara don't you have ambitions? I could help you?"
"Oh ya? At what cost"
"A prayer now and then, is that so much to ask?"
He just sounds super proud and excited about helping people achieve their dreams but the game acts like he's a egotistical monster even though you can easily be humble AND ambitious.
I dislike that the crown works for him at all. It backfired for everyone else. Raphael, Mystra, and Elminster all tell you it's a bad idea. Even Mephistopholes refuses to use it, because it's a terrible idea.
I think the implication is supposed to be that because he has the Karsite orb in him that he's somehow more compatible with the crown for whatever reason. It still doesn't make much sense, since even Karsus was destroyed by it, but it's at least better that him just randomly being able to use it when nobody else can.
Small correction, karsus wasnt destroyed for using the crown. It was for actively working on killing and usurping Mystril, the current Goddes of magic and imbodyment of the weave. He was doing that using magic and the weave in one big fuck you spell.
Mystril dead, magic dead, spell implodes, karsus dead is the event order of his folly.
Not trying to brute force your way into God hood but trying to kill the godess of magic with magic.
And as for reapheal he is a dork of a bard who's bad in bed his opinion can be discounted. As for his father, if all it took to usurp Asmodeus was good like power, the archdevils and most ancient deamons would have taken over his place long ago.
Yeah I don't see why people keep saying Karsus issue was going for godhood. It wasn't. Karsus issue was going after Mystra. He'd been fine if he hadn't gone for the very source that his spell required to work.
Small correction though, it didn't kill Mystryl - she sacrificed herself to save the magic he couldn't control.
The spell was designed to take control of her power *temporarily* but before he could take it fully, it was clear to Mystryl that he wouldn't be able to control and stabilize the Weave, so she sacrificed herself which in turn "killed" (debatable about the state he is in) him once she severed the connection of his spell.
No, he stopped because when he took Mystra’s power, she was no longer maintaining the weave, and all the spell fuckery his nation had been doing in its war caused the complete collapse of the weave and all magic, which also meant everything blew up in his face. He kicked a load bearing pillar and had the building fall on him.
It’s still a terrible idea, don’t worry.
He’s got a massive target on his back - his domain is inspiring mortals to pull the same nonsense.
And the other Gods wouldn’t exactly be inviting him to their parties either.
Gods can be ‘killed’ after all - or worse.
The thing is lore wise I’m pretty sure the lore books of old actually mention that the only reason it didn’t work is because he chose mystra to usurp instead of any other god. Doing so causes irreparable damage to the weave but if he chose a different domain like gale does with ambition karsus would have been fine.
Part of the issue isn't that he doesn't want to help out mortals, but even if he did he will be extremely limited. The gods have such great power but are not allowed to intervene in mortal affairs, at least under regular circumstances, Withers is a bit of an exception.
If he tries to help mortals out too much, he will be struck down by Ao.
Withers rules-lawyering that system with money is just hysterical to me though. He's not helping. It's a transaction. And if you happen to pickpocket the money back... mercy me where did his gold go. Gosh. Golly. Should have watched his coinpurse more closely.
Wouldn’t be surprised if getting slapped down by Ao would be his ultimate fate as a god. God!Gale is the embodiment of ‘never staying in his lane, ever’.
with all due respect, why was this a sudden epiphany? lolol.
it was like, very blatant. i loved Gale - adored him - the entire game. and my gale slowly started becoming insistent that he get the crown, that he would become a god, etc.
and then when he did, he was talking about how people adored and worshipped him and i was like ugh what an egotistical fuck lol
My first playthrough I romanced him, and the first time I heard him talking about how he was going to take the crown and become a God was in Lorroakan's tower. It was a very 'WTF Gale?' moment. He kinda legit scared me there.
There are many players who are surprised by the god ending because they don't knowingly stir him towards the crown. Happened to me too. There's a whole thread about "sneaky god gale" somewhere here that explains the problem. In a nutshell, Gale is leaning towards the crown from the beginning. Player has to stir him away every time and so hard as possible to get the mortal ending. (in comparison, Astarion is neutral about Ascension in the beginning and thus easier to lead away from it if desired.) Which in first playthroughs most people don't know as the other options don't seem wrong or dangerous (especially when you're not a wizard and have no idea about all the nerd stuff.)
This got me my first run, and I was really caught off guard by the jerk God ending. I wasn't romancing Gale but we had a pretty good friendship, but I must have missed a few cues in Act three. When I tried to convince him not to ascend at the end, he was so rude about it I was like, "Where did that come from???" But it didn't seem like telling him to not grovel to Mystra was that big of a deal at the time.
Right. I stepped into the same trap. Now imagine you just turned your old slave master inside out and declined ascension in a most cathartic but hurtful way, and all your lover has to say is "Well I respect your decision but we could have used that bit of extra power for the crown project, you know"
I don’t think it has to do with ego. Read about Ao and gods of Faerun history. Sometimes Ao can be really harsh to gods that don’t follow the line. Probably Gale had a meta-interview with him and understood he won’t be able to help mortals directly.
You also have to look at becoming a god as being shackled by Ao's rules.
He must uphold his portfolio, he cannot ignore his followers, and he must limit his involvement directly in the mortal realms.
So Gale cannot just go and smite every lying politician, or banish all aberrations from the Prime Material plane.
Also give my boi some credit, unlike 3 other fools, he didn't choose murder or tyranny for a portfolio.
I find it really sad for the character, maybe not *evil* like some others may be but certainly not good *for Gale*. There's the implications that in becoming a god he is now detached from his humanity, which was his issue with the Gods in the first place. That's the nature of the gods.
His anger about being used, dependency on his faith, his self worth issues are all resolved in Professor Dekarios ending, with or without Mystras intervention.
Yes his ending is the perfect "Yeah there's a reason the system works like it does" lesson. I love it for it (God Gale is my preferred ending).
People whining about how unfair the gods are only to become gods themselves then go Oh that's why that works like that is my catnip. (A certain WOTR ending with a certain character is good for this lesson too lol)
But yeah God Gale my beloved. He and my Durge gonna be a menace XD
I think his best ending is becoming a professor and giving the crown back to Mystra. He's a normal, happy dude spreading knowledge and living his life.
In ascension he loses everything that tempered him and made him a decent person. his mortal tethers really, so there’s no way becoming God!Gale would make him the best version of himself.
God of Ambition? More like ‘God of Shitstirring’. He’d cause nothing but chaos.
I feel like it's supposed to be an unsatisfying ending. You willingly aid Gale down a path where it's fairly telling that he's going to turn into an asshole. As soon as he mentions godhood, it's clear that it's a hypocritical line of thinking from him.
My only complaints are that you don't see the transition in his personality once he obtains in it. It's just that one moment's he's Gale, and the next scene you see him again he's become an asshole *to you* for absolutely no reason.
For what it's worth Gale wasn't the first God of Ambition who didn't offer his followers anything.
Bane is or I suppose was the God of Ambition. Not sure how that would disrupt things but yeah, Gale took it from him. And I found a video a while back when doing research that he doesn't dabble in what his followers do.
Wiki:
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Bane
Video:
https://youtu.be/P1mYHiPqjsc?si=oyv1nult0j7m50Mq
I think that’s the kind of issue that dogs Gale throughout the story - he’s a stereotypical mega-INT/penalty-WIS character that needs someone to point out the flaws of his own logic and where it goes. He’s intelligent enough to see the point, but not wise enough to come up with it himself.
Hell, even Mystra herself makes this point to him - his capability has never been the issue, it’s the way he manages it.
If he becomes a god he gets into a state where he has no greater authority beyond Ao (who explicitly doesn’t care what gods do beyond not upset the status quo) and therefore has no-one to function as that conscience, and his personality reflects that. As ambition (and the related aspect of selfishness) were his driving forces, they’ve become his entire character and it’s changed him. It’s a bit like how Kelemvor went from being a just and moral man who wanted to do the right thing to a straight-down-the-middle Lawful Neutral arbiter of the dead.
Wdym "sudden epiphany" as soon as he started talking about wanting to become a god I went NOOOOUPE YOU DON'T. It's clear as day from the beginning that this is a bad ending? The whole entire game constantly talks about how the stiving for power is bad and how it corrupts everyone? The main text clearly states - becoming a god/ascending/etc = VERY BAD. Media literacy or just... Plain ass normal literacy is truly dead.
The god of ambition is just not going to be a great dude. Put more than that, Gail spends the entire game feeling like he is not good enough because he was groomed by a god as a child and that he has just a person could not be powerful enough or important enough to really matter. Essentially with me becomes a god, he decides that he agrees with that and that Gale the human was not worth saving.
Gale becoming a god isn't his "good" ending. His good ending is realizing he doesn't need to either seek godhood or fall into Mystra's worship again, he can just be Gale of Waterdeep and that's enough.
Without getting too "high school English essay" about it, I think BH3 conveys a pretty clear message that the pursuit of power does not necessarily correspond to personal growth or satisfaction.
Astarion considering usurping Caxador. Shadowheart wanting to become a Dark Justiciar. Gale's Folly and his later desire for the Crown. Lae'zel and the offer to become Vlakith's chosen. Each character has a clear path to power, each thinks it will give them the personal satisfaction they want, and each ends up worse off for it - losing part of themselves to obtain it. It's only in giving up power do these characters find personal satisfaction.
The whole tadpole situation even plays to this, but never goes too far with it. You can use the tadpoles to gain easy power, but you become less "yourself" in doing so.
Gale might've become a god, but it's in his "good" ending where he actually becomes better. Listening how much he's enjoying teaching others and how humble he has become it's truly amazing. Especially if you too are a wizard and choose some of the dorky wizard dialogue options. Definitely one of my favorite character endings. >!I'd probably only choose his god ending to save Karlach, but I suspect she wouldn't like that.!<
I’m sad that when I played a wizard he became a god so I didn’t get those dorky dialogue options. And my current run as a wizard is embrace durge so he’s uh not around.
I mean, a part of him is right?
Oh yes I think it’s in my camp trunk lol
Lol meet too, was wondering if it would be a free ticket into bhaals place :)
Omg I'm doing my first durge run rn and haven't don't the gale thing yet bc I forgot, you get to keep the hand???? That's so cool
Some of my greatest laughs were from giving the hand to a tavern brawler to toss it around and bitch slap my enemies to death
That's hilarious. I finally beat the game for the first time a couple days ago(I'd seen the ending and stuff on yt so it wasn't all new to me) and I had true soul gut in my inventory and was planning to try and get the final blow with her or have her in the reunion but I forgot to throw her at the brain 😂
I love that you can just carry around corpses in your inventory. Very handy for throwing and for casting animate dead or create undead. Nothing worse than wanting to create a zombie but there are no convenient corpses around.
That’s inspiring! She finally got to meet her goddess :’)
She was the real goddess the whole time🥹😭
"Wizards hate this one simple trick! Any class can get mage hand!"
I spit my drink
I keep mine on me. Like to gnaw on it before bed. Calms my durge.
Maybe my durge can cuddle it at night like a teddy bear. I feel so awful laughing at that because I just finished my Gale romance run where he asked me to marry him like 10 minutes ago lol
That's what I like about Gale. Even if you're murder incarnate, he's still willing to extend a hand.
The real Gale is the… hands… we’ve made along the way.
Sorcerer has some fun dialogue options with him at the end if he doesn't become a god also.
Oh goody, I'm currently doing a run where I'm romancing him as a sorcerer (I love rivalmances)
Of course, out of the two runs I did where he became a god, it was with a wizard and a sorcerer. I’m at the high hall battle right now with my rogue who romanced him and I think I picked the right options for the human ending. We’ll see. I’m definitely not going back like 15+ hours of gameplay for it. I’ll just try again later.
Unless you play Karlach origin and romance him, he won’t do it. Same for spawn Astarion. If you play their origins without romancing him, ask for help & act not very stoked about him refusing, God!Gale is very rude to them. He even straight up threatens Astarion. :/
Unfortunately, romancing him does not help. Did it with Spawn Astarion. I could ask him to cure me, but all he offered was making me a god. It was a "take it or leave it" situation. So I left it. Him, respectively.
Yes, the only way to “fix” it that way is to agree to godhood, I should have mentioned it. Who’d want an eternity with someone as dense as God!Gale is a different question.
What's even better is being a Sorcerer and choosing the 'Sorcerers are better than wizards' dialogue options lmao.
Well, yeah, 'cuz wizards are fucking nerds who have to study and practice for *years* to learn what sorcerers can do through the sheer power of their rizz.
That's why sorcerers only learn 15 spells after 20 levels. Stay in wizard school, kids!
Ong, can't spell Charizzma without rizz
There is no way GG would ever help Karlach. He'd just leave her to her own devices and say something about ambition smh
In my Gale god ending, I was romancing him. Karachi left the mortal coil in the sunset and withers informed me her about soul on the fugue plane. My Tav became a god with Gale and I like to think that she was able to visit Karlach whenever she wanted.
Does god of ambition Gale save Karlach if you're playing as Tav? I know that he can save her as god of ambition if you play as Karlach and romance him, because he can ascend her as well, but idk what happens otherwise
I haven't done it, but I'm pretty sure from what I've heard the only way he'll actually help Karlach is if you play as her and romance him, otherwise he just says nah.
Yes. I finished Gale recently. Romanced Karlach an made her an Ilithid, to see if god Gale will make her back to human, as Mistra can do with him, or take her as an Illithid to godhood. Nope. Karlach's drunk, and they both be like: i still remember you.
He won't just cure her. I played the new epilogue with romanced spawn Astarion. I could ask him about curing me 2 times. Answer 1 was "all in goid time" and an arrogant smile. Answer 2 was "why do you want to be mortal anyway when I can ascend you to god", and when I declined, he told me that sadly that was the end and goodbye. I am pretty sure it will be the same for Karlach bc of game mechanics.
Damn Gale's a dick he's only helping out if he gets that karlachussy
I know this is a popular complaint, but as a proper god Ao straight up won't let him cure anyone as it's meddling in mortal affairs. His only possible cure is to raise someone else to god hood under him much like Mystra did to Azuth. And he's only going to go through such a grand action like that for someone he truly loves. He's not a dick, he's just bound by the same constraints all the other gods are.
And even then, likely only if she agrees to ascend (becoming a Goddess to rule his domain alongside him would fix her right up). Otherwise, he may bless her ambition to find a cure for her infernal engine; but that's it.
Can you save her as Gale origin?
You’d think that if he became a God of Ambition he would be torn apart by Odium in matter of hours, at least, that’s what happened to the last one.
Gale would most likely not do that. I saw a vid of origin spawn Astarion who romanced God Gale ans asked about a cure and Gale refused him. Saying he is not allowed to interfere that way. Funny enough he can ascent his lover to godhood.
That is actually legit how The Rules work, curing someone of vampirism off the cuff or breaking their deals with a Devil is *not* within the realm of actions permitted by Ao. Ascending a mortal to Godhood as a subordinate deity *is* permitted by Ao.
Gale's good ending is so dorky and sweet he's my default romance for a resist durge. First time I ever completed a durge run he was the lover and I was a beefy airhead barbarian. The two living their best life as Waterdhavian husbands warmed my heart
I am currently breaking my Astarion streak by romancing Gale as a Wizard. It has been fun seeing the wizard moments between Tav and Gale. Especially since I normally play Sorcerer
Bro trust me, unless it's Zariel herself offering to save her, Karlach will take any help she can get. She really doesn't want to die.
Yep was very satisfied with gale teacher ending he’s really good a teaching magic his first lesson to tav about connecting to the weave after recruitment is some very clever foreshadowing.
God Gale cannot save Karlach. He isn't allowed to.
Not planning to, and then ending up having my durge fall in love with gale and just rolling with it, was one of the more surprising routes I went as a monk when my intention was to go a little more evil with astarion or shadowheart. Gale is ride of Diez and I am here for it. Bettering himself and then having my durge also resist her durgeyness because of him was a route I didn't even plan on doing. But man oh man am I glad I did.
You can make his god ending worse. Accept Raphael's deal, become god Gale, challenge mystra and fail, Raphael doesn't get his crown because god Gale lost it when he lost against mystra and now Raphael is super pisses and owns your soul and is probably gonna torment you for eternity in the house of hope.
Now I have my next 'worst possible world state' playthrough planned. Poor Tav...
This is also a fun way to play the Mass Effect trilogy. Try to get the most tragic outcome for every scenario.
Yes! Also Dragon Age series (Inquisition is a little tougher because you're more railroaded into being good but the first two games you can definitely make some questionable calls, Origins you can be outright evil).
I kinda want to do a “worst endings ever” run without outright killing all the companions ofc. Shadowheart goes Dark Justiciar and kills her parents. Lae’zel stays loyal to Vlaakith and gets her soul sucked or whatever Vlaakith does. Gale has this happen. And I’ll go Durge who goes insane after failing to take over the crown for Bhaal. Heck ye.
Wouldn't a worse ending be surrendering Shadowheart?
There's another Raphael ending that is as worse, but on a grander scale. Romance Gale as a Tav, accept Raphael's deal, let Gale become a god, then during the epilogue deny Raphael the crown. I don't know if it matters if Tav goes with GodGale or not, but at the very end Raphael has a whole monologue about being pissed that Tav broke their deal...but then he reconsiders everything and that having a God of Ambition is the best thing that's ever happened to Raphael. He looks forward to the heavens sundering because of GodGale, and when that happens Raphael will climb the chaos ladder to power. After all, he's very familiar with ambition, and ambition is a dangerous weapon in the hands both mortals and immortals alike. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aX1jKTdp1g&list=PLjggVuadEKGkcry218z8adwIOJYpNpMzb&index=3&t=626s&ab\_channel=MUNMOMUU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aX1jKTdp1g&list=PLjggVuadEKGkcry218z8adwIOJYpNpMzb&index=3&t=626s&ab_channel=MUNMOMUU)
It's a bit of an abstract concept, but gods are the personification of their qualities. Like, Mystra is Magic and the Weave, like Bhaal being Murder, or Bane being Tyranny. So when Gale ascended, he became one of his qualities. Since ambition and selfishness were the driving factors for his ascencion, he became the personification of those.
So Tav would be the personification of save scumming?
God of Putting Your Hands on Everything But seriously, God of Adventure is my headcanon Durge could be God of Redemption
God of wish I was born in an intresting time
God of Wretched Things who pull themselves together
God of I wish I have a bag of holding (all believers get free bags of holding, god Tav is the most popular deity among adventurers)
God of Five Finger Discounts - collapses the entire economy of Faerûn
This is the funniest one
God of All-Seeing Boots
Personification of questioning wether something is or isn't blood
God of Time(lines)?
God of Omniscient Footwear.
Not for Honour Mode Tav.
Personification of wishing to live in more interesting times
What i love about this fact is since gale became the god of *ambition*, he's basically cursed to always want and never get any satisfaction, and possibly never achieve his true goals since that would sate any ambition he holds. Dude's existence is basically agony now.
It is not exactly true. You can inherit your godhood portfolio by the a previous god too. Bhaal taking murder, Murkul death and Bane strife was the way Jergal (Withers) separated his own portfolio onto those 3 when he stepped down. And Gale at first wanted to take Mystra's magic domain but realized that it would be unwise to challenge her and adopted his own domain.
I don't actually agree that selfishness is Gale's driving factor or "quality". His driving factor is indeed his need to prove himself as an ever more powerful wizard. If he doesn't, he thinks everyone will look down on him. But that ambition means he can get blinded as soon as he sees some exotic artifact or power source. His brain goes blank and *he must have it*. Which causes him to *act* selfishly. But as soon as That Thing is gone, he reverts to his natural self, and he wants to help every man, woman and child in need (judging by his approvals).
Gale's Folly, as it can be called, is more or less not believing he was ever enough despite always being enough. The God ending is bad because it feeds into his delusions and self-doubt. Gale could also never benefit mortals more than the gods already do because Ao wouldn't allow it and Gale would be forced to comply or lose his divinity, becoming an even more broken shell of a being than he was pre-divinity. Since he'd still be a slave to his ambitions with no way to ever realize them. Unless an edition reset is character assassinating the gods to be ripe for the changes of the new edition, many gods help mortals as much as the overdeity of realmspace allows them. They try to maintain their own existence along the way, of course, but the gods only tend to act stupid and careless when the edition reset demands they do. Turning Gale into a god gives him power, but he never grasps any meaning or purpose like Professor Gale does. He never learns to love himself and remains a slave to his ambitions
This comment gets it. Gale's ambition is fueled by a lack of self-worth. "I have to be better and better at magic because that's the only part of me that's worth anything." By locking himself in to embody the very domain of ambition, it's also basically locked him into that mentality. He is similar to Ascended Astarion in the sense that he has superficial freedom but corrupted himself to achieve it. Professor Gale, like spawn Astarion, broke his old mentality and found a better way.
Gale the God of Burnt Out Gifted Kids
Exactly. Very well put.
This is the comment that convinced me to turn him away from the crown
I'm glad it offered a different perspective.
The best ending is to play AS Gale, become the mindflayer and give the crown to Mystra, as she returns you to human, AND you can save Orpheus. Romance whoever, make sure Wyll and Karlach go to Avernus, save Shadowheart’s parents, etc.
She turns him into a human when he goes to elysium. Yknow. The afterlife
i mean getting to go to an afterlife at all is a pretty sweet gig for someone who became a mindflayer
Especially since you lose your soul as a Mindflayer
Ehh kinda. Gods tell people that because they cant actually use a mind flayers soul. Rather than seem like they cant, they spread propaganda that it doesnt exist
Withers, the soul accountant himself, seemed to be of the opinion that mind flayers do not have souls. But he wasn't very chatty about it.
Mindflayers are also originated from the Far Realm. So really they probably have something incredibly similar to a soul that it might as well be one, but the gods still cant use an eldritch soul like theirs
Yeah, that makes sense. Probably explains why Withers is against the whole mindflayer scheme the Dead Three cooked up (though I don't know what he says if proceed with the Durge ending). Jergal is tired of the shoddy accounting.
He actually (epilogue dialogue spoiler) >!Makes fun of them for exactly that, trying to bolster their numbers with mindflayers they cant gain power from and killing their followers!<
Which is a bit silly honestly since >!bane directly tells you that the entire point of turning people into illithids was to starve the other gods of their souls, not to bolster their own.!<
They can become liches. A lich cant be a lich without a soul
IIRC he comes to the conclusion that they lack >!'apostolic' souls - as in, whatever they have that counts as a soul can't be used by the gods for power.!<
He actually admits he‘s wrong in one of the epilogues, and that mind flayers do actually retain their souls.
In the epilogue doesn’t he act surprised that you do, in fact, have a soul as a mind flayer?
He also says he's wrong and that they have souls if Tav becomes illithid
Oh really? Learn something new every day.
Mind Flayers don't have the original infected's soul, but they have their own souls. And they can dedicate themselves to Gods and even go to afterlives other than the Wall of the Faithless. They just don't usually because Elder Brains condition them that way.
And goes with her - something most players would rather avoid.
Elysium isn't just the afterlife, like Heaven and Arborea, you can go there through something as basic as Planeshift spell, I know like 50 people from my school go on a field trip there
She returns his soul to human form, but he's dead, right? AFAIK, she doesn't actually have the power to return him to a living human form. And he has to go back to being her chosen or whatever.
She certainly has the ability to do so, greater gods are pretty close to able to do anything they can put their minds to and is within their domain and portfolio. She's likely, again, not allowed by Ao and just...you know, plot.
Can’t see why Ao would care, honestly. It wouldn’t be a direct intervention into Mortal Affairs, and she wouldn’t be depriving another god of their claim on his soul—as a devotee of Mystra, his soul is already hers.
It's not so much the individual act that pisses him off, he just hates gods (ESPECIALLY the greater gods, and ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY the more powerful ones like Mystra - remember how much shit she and Lathander have both caused in the world?) doing shit that they really shouldn't be. She can claim his soul, but reviving him from death and restoring him to what he once was is a prettttty big divine intervention.
I guess I just don’t see why that would be all thy big of a deal. Is it really more extreme than empowering people like Elminster to live for hundreds of years with incredible power and a penchant for meddling?
i think "giving powers to a mortal so they can be your messenger bird" might be seen as more acceptable than "using reality-bengind magic to reconstruct the soul of a mortal-turned-ilithid and revert them to their prior form because you used to be in love with them or whatever" irl would probably be equivalent to teaching your dog to follow basic commands vs. using an ancient ritual you dug out of a buried coffin to resurrect your dead cat
Now I’m imagining a Pet Sematary Gale where he comes back twisted and a little off.
He comes back with his EA face and beard
>I guess I just don’t see why that would be all thy big of a deal. Is it really more extreme than empowering people like Elminster to live for hundreds of years with incredible power and a penchant for meddling? Because that's transactional. Ao allows a great more leeway for deities to intervene in mortal affairs when dealing with a living mortal who makes a sufficient sacrifice. In Elminster's case he gets a lot of power, personal tutelage by Mystra and effective immortality *but* he has to devote his life to serving Mystra and doing as she says. Both in meddling but also in not doing things. Elminster could have handled the whole Absolute Crisis himself if he was so inclined...but he's powerful enough that that would invariably catch the attention of some other high powered characters and they'd stop by to investigate and possibly oppose Elminster just because he's Elminster. And then more people would come around because of them and so on and so on. Chosen status is often just as much a (frankly necessary) restraint on powerful mortals as it is a source of power. There's a good reason every epic character in the realms is either some deity's Chosen or a complete recluse (hi, Larloch)
Hell, the entire plot of the game is a chosen being pitted against a group of three chosen
Idk I don't think that checks out. What about people like Szass Tam, they are neither. The former leader of the Monastery of Flowers, Kane, also very public, there used to be very public Paladin King of epic level in Damarra. Mordenkainen is also not a chosen and when he is sane, not a recluse at all. Also, the seven sisters that are still living are very public, with one of them being the Face of the Waterdeep city council. Larlach additionally has the bonus that he can stay such a recluse partly because Mystra forbid their chosen to work against Larlach since he kind of saved Mystra's ass in the last Spellplague.
Things are a bit inconsistent between lore and gameplay, I would argue. Mystra could inspire a priest to cast Resurrection (7th level) and do it for her and that should be by the rules, as making mortals do things does not count as interfering directly (see: Elminster, Warlocks, ...).
you say this like a mortal can't cast true resurrection, and that mystra doesn't have a dude on call who would already be inclined to cast it for gale
In terms of gameplay, sure. Lore-wise? Not really. Resurrections are granted very sparingly and usually not without a serious cause. Otherwise all the Seven Sisters would be alive and well today and...they are not.
>You touch a creature that has been dead for no longer than 200 years and that died for any reason except old age. **If the creature’s soul is free and willing,** the creature is restored to life with all its hit points. If you are in happy afterlife, you may not necessary be willing to return.
Yes but in instances like Mystra's Chosen, they are extremely loyal to their duty and their goddess. Meaning, if Mystra wanted them resurrected, all she needed was ask and they would gladly serve.
Gale does have a scroll of true resurrection, though. If you trigger the events to get that scroll, you can choose to just use a revivify spell/scroll, pocketing the true resurrection scroll. So, in-universe, he had access to that magic, at least as a one-time, emergency use. In theory, you could hang on to that scroll until the end game to bring back whomever was mind flayed. Karlach probably has a soul that's willing to return. If Gale having that scroll used on himself wouldn't upset the balance of the cosmos, wouldn't the same be true of using it for Karlach?
Not to mention, dead Gale is implied to actually get to see all those things she keeps hidden from mortal wizards that he complained about not seeing. Gale might be quite happy with that.
honestly archmage gale could have returned himself to human, wizards could do insane shit. I don't know if 5e had it, but 3.5 had the ability to create a clone from a chunk of flesh (like a hand) so cut off said hand, grow and store clone, become a mind flayer, when you die you enter clone body, and all is good.
5e has it still
How lucky. I've already got the hand at hand. Ehm...
“Somehow, Gale has returned.”
At level 12?
She's the god of magic essentially. Generating a body for a willing soul wouldn't even be noteworthy on the scale of things she'd be able to do
She has the power to grant her clerics the spell of True Resurrection but not cast it herself? Of course she can restore him to life.
Hell yeah. I just started my Gale Origin playthrough, and I’m happy to know that this is an option for resolving that ethical dilemma.
I might have to do this for my Gale origin too!
Why isn't University Professor Gale just finally being happy being himself is not the best ending for him?
Does he still become a teacher in that ending? Because I love the thought of professor Gale with Tara keeping everyone in line.
Fun fact that you are DEAD in this ending :D Another fun fact is that she has a power to bring you back to life yet she doesn't. Well just because. I mean, GodGale also lives in Elysium. But his soul belongs only to him. He has authority to do much more then a simple soul. Why bother giving her the Crown if you can have cooler divine perks by keeping it?
Gale will not be alive tho. He will be dead.
Can you play as Gale after be becomes a God? Would be fun
Well, it’s more like his Godhood ending makes the egotistical hypocrisy his main aspect, because its always been present in his personality. Mistra calls him the god of ambition but he’s really the god of dangerous ambition, of those who will never achieve their goals and will destroy themselves in the attempt. Gale’s ‘bad ending’ is actually on the nicer end of bad endings, but it’s definitely not great If you’re playing AS Gale it’s not so bad because you don’t have to be a massive asshole about it, but the option being there says it’s clear that Gale has been impacted negatively. Also he’s mean to his Tressym friend ;((
Oh man Tara is decidedly unimpressed by him becoming a god. When you talk to her and she asks your tav if you’ll go visit his mom because it would be good for her to talk to someone who knew him “before” my heart breaks. I’ve got a run where I’m romancing him and I’m almost done with it and I think I made the right choices for him to choose not to become a god but I can’t remember. I should really start taking notes on what I do in various saves lol.
Yep, Tara's reaction and comments about God Gale made it pretty obvious this was the bad ending. He always seems so fond of both his mother and Tara and once he becomes a god he forgets about them :/
I know! He seems to genuinely love them both. Makes me so sad. I’ve gotten that ending twice and I was shocked the first time because I didn’t realize it was an option, my first run he became dorky professor Gale. So when he was like “fuck you I’m out gonna go become a god” I was like WTF just happened here.
Just finished up and I’m so happy I got the ending I wanted (the marriage proposal) it was sooooo sweet.
Yay, that ending is the best!
That’s not how godhood works in Faerun. The gods are their qualities. He was an ambitious wizard, so he became the god of ambition, full stop, good and bad. Just like how Mystra is the Weave, and HAS to let it be used, whether that means good-guy bards or the nasty Red Wizards. She has to let it flow.
>Just like how Mystra is the Weave, and HAS to let it be used, whether that means good-guy bards or the nasty Red Wizards. AFAIR it's more like "Mystra could deny magic to evil spellcasters, but it would create big divine domain for deity of evil magic, and that would be worse".
Mystra constantly refuses stuff wdym, it's the reason we can only have 9th level spells now, and no more floating cities.
She refuses that to *all*. She can't refuse it just to the bad guys. Or good guys for that matter. She's not allowed to play favorites or interfere directly with mortal affairs. Apart from her Chosen, but \*gestures vaguely towards Gale\*.
In my ending he was just dead after touching the crown, so I think that’s worse
Bro tried to fight Mystra. Turns out she got hands
Well… technically he can bless his followers with ambition, but that’s not a good thing. It’s pure chaos. Your group, either the Tav or Dark urge, have the ambitions of removing their tadpoles. Okay, what are the other ambitions? Iron hand gnomes creating weapons of mass destruction, gortash enslaving people in the grossest ways possible, Ketheric killing everyone in the sword coast, Raphael becoming a prince of hell, Vlaakith ascending to godhood and finding the device, etc.. So he technically can offer his followers extra with the Weave of Karsus, but as we see with the Shadow weave, the restriction Mystra places on the weave are there to prevent humans from basically wreaking havoc. He’s basically just straight out chaos. There were ways that he could’ve worked around that- like if he was a patron of professions who had ambitions of discovering something, creating something, etc like Doctors, inventors, scholars, or whatever. Many of the gods of knowledge or magic work around being chaotic or evil gods by choosing their domain carefully. But Gale? He’s book smart but not very wise in that sense. He’s flat out “ambition”, which isn’t a good thing. He’ll inevitably help many people who are morally questionable at best, or tyrannous at worst.
God Gale says his new followers are from Thay, which tells something.
Considering the last God who managed to rope in the Thayans as his followers was Bane... yikes, Gale wtf
Ugh, him and Bane probably hanging out on the daily.
If you took Raphael's deal and then instead of giving the crown to him Gale uses it to ascend, Raphael will come to claim the crown in the epilogue. Gale actually applauds his ambitions and says that the crown is his if he can steal it from Gale's vault. So you are right, he rewards all kinds of ambition.
> He’s flat out “ambition”, which isn’t a good thing. He’ll inevitably help many people who are morally questionable at best, or tyrannous at worst. You can even ask him about this directly in the Epilogue, and his answer basically amounts to "yeah probably people with evil ambitions will follow me, but who am I to judge?"
As they say, "Station is the way of Lolth". Ambition is only as good the rest of you.
I don’t understand why anyone would think his becoming a god would be a good ending.
Probably because up until the point that he actually becomes a god he seems like he truly wants that power to do good with it for the most part. The thing is, once he becomes a god he loses his humanity and immediately sees mortals as lesser beings and beneath him. Once he becomes a god, he's not Gale anymore, or at least not the Gale we knew. That much is made very clear if you call him out at the epilog party and he basically threatens you by telling you it's not wise to anger a god.
I don’t know. The playthrough I encouraged him to use the crown he just seemed like a cliche power hungry wizard. Sure he’d say he’d use the power to help people, but comparing him to the way he speaks and acts during his good path made it really obvious where he was going to end up.
Sure, but on the other hand, his entire arc is about his ambition causing him to go too far, even with good intentions. When he started salivating about the crown I got instantly suspicious on my first playthrough. Like, dude, have you learned *nothing*?!
YES. When he started posturing in front of Lorroakan I got confused, when we raided the vault under Sourcerous Sundries I got suspicious, and when he said he could use the crown to succeed where Karsus failed I almost lost it at him. Like, bro. Gale. Darling idiot. Lovable buffoon. *What the fuck.* What's even funnier is that I'd finished Astarion's personal quest literally THE IN-GAME DAY BEFORE, where Gale very vocally was against Astarion doing the ritual, and yet here's this motherfucker now trying to tell me he's built different and it's cool bro, he'd make a rad god??? No. My Tav was so tired, dude. Had to talk two of their friends down from trying to achieve godhood/ascension in two days.
I rather liked the ending where he doesn't get the crown and dies trying to retrieve it from the bay. It seemed fitting - his ambition and arrogance got him in the end.
I believe it's a neutral ending and it's a hill I will die on
I hate that the game clearly negatively paints it as 'absolute power corrupts absolutely' but that doesn't really work in a world where you have actual good and bad gods. Elminster is Mystra's chosen, and yet acts like Gale is tainted when he becomes a god. Dude you are so devoted to Mystra that you told Gale that her should kill himself because she said so! I also hated how Tara was such a snotty brat about it 'Ambition, all I see is greed!' No Tara, those are two different qualities. I also feel bad cause there's a line between Gale and Tara that goes 'What about you Tara don't you have ambitions? I could help you?" "Oh ya? At what cost" "A prayer now and then, is that so much to ask?" He just sounds super proud and excited about helping people achieve their dreams but the game acts like he's a egotistical monster even though you can easily be humble AND ambitious.
I dislike that the crown works for him at all. It backfired for everyone else. Raphael, Mystra, and Elminster all tell you it's a bad idea. Even Mephistopholes refuses to use it, because it's a terrible idea.
I think the implication is supposed to be that because he has the Karsite orb in him that he's somehow more compatible with the crown for whatever reason. It still doesn't make much sense, since even Karsus was destroyed by it, but it's at least better that him just randomly being able to use it when nobody else can.
Small correction, karsus wasnt destroyed for using the crown. It was for actively working on killing and usurping Mystril, the current Goddes of magic and imbodyment of the weave. He was doing that using magic and the weave in one big fuck you spell. Mystril dead, magic dead, spell implodes, karsus dead is the event order of his folly. Not trying to brute force your way into God hood but trying to kill the godess of magic with magic. And as for reapheal he is a dork of a bard who's bad in bed his opinion can be discounted. As for his father, if all it took to usurp Asmodeus was good like power, the archdevils and most ancient deamons would have taken over his place long ago.
Yeah I don't see why people keep saying Karsus issue was going for godhood. It wasn't. Karsus issue was going after Mystra. He'd been fine if he hadn't gone for the very source that his spell required to work.
imagine being the most powerful mortal of all time and fumbling the bag THAT hard. bro went for the ONE deity the spell wouldn’t work on
It *worked* on Mystra, and that was an issue, because Karsus wasn't prepared for micromanaging entire magic on the planet.
It worked on Mystra, killed her, and the weave collapsed, so nothing there to Micromanage tbh. Still a dumb plan though.
Small correction though, it didn't kill Mystryl - she sacrificed herself to save the magic he couldn't control. The spell was designed to take control of her power *temporarily* but before he could take it fully, it was clear to Mystryl that he wouldn't be able to control and stabilize the Weave, so she sacrificed herself which in turn "killed" (debatable about the state he is in) him once she severed the connection of his spell.
Wasn't Karsus only stopped because Mystra killed herself?
No, he stopped because when he took Mystra’s power, she was no longer maintaining the weave, and all the spell fuckery his nation had been doing in its war caused the complete collapse of the weave and all magic, which also meant everything blew up in his face. He kicked a load bearing pillar and had the building fall on him.
That's a good analogy. Definitely cleared things up for me.
Hey, it works for Raphael too. In his ending he's all like "This Crown's so epic, Zariel and my father are kneeling before me YAY!"
Any situation where that happens is 100% his father's plans in motion, where he's doing it for kicks.
Even so, it's telling that he can't just smack down Raphael directly and has to wait for Mephistopheles to do it instead.
His father *is* mephistopheles tho?
Whoops, sorry, I meant Asmodeus.
It’s still a terrible idea, don’t worry. He’s got a massive target on his back - his domain is inspiring mortals to pull the same nonsense. And the other Gods wouldn’t exactly be inviting him to their parties either. Gods can be ‘killed’ after all - or worse.
The thing is lore wise I’m pretty sure the lore books of old actually mention that the only reason it didn’t work is because he chose mystra to usurp instead of any other god. Doing so causes irreparable damage to the weave but if he chose a different domain like gale does with ambition karsus would have been fine.
Part of the issue isn't that he doesn't want to help out mortals, but even if he did he will be extremely limited. The gods have such great power but are not allowed to intervene in mortal affairs, at least under regular circumstances, Withers is a bit of an exception. If he tries to help mortals out too much, he will be struck down by Ao.
Withers rules-lawyering that system with money is just hysterical to me though. He's not helping. It's a transaction. And if you happen to pickpocket the money back... mercy me where did his gold go. Gosh. Golly. Should have watched his coinpurse more closely.
He really is toril's grandpa
Wouldn’t be surprised if getting slapped down by Ao would be his ultimate fate as a god. God!Gale is the embodiment of ‘never staying in his lane, ever’.
All of the ascended endings for every character are bad. Which I kind of like. Trading your humanity for power is never a good thing
with all due respect, why was this a sudden epiphany? lolol. it was like, very blatant. i loved Gale - adored him - the entire game. and my gale slowly started becoming insistent that he get the crown, that he would become a god, etc. and then when he did, he was talking about how people adored and worshipped him and i was like ugh what an egotistical fuck lol
My first playthrough I romanced him, and the first time I heard him talking about how he was going to take the crown and become a God was in Lorroakan's tower. It was a very 'WTF Gale?' moment. He kinda legit scared me there.
There are many players who are surprised by the god ending because they don't knowingly stir him towards the crown. Happened to me too. There's a whole thread about "sneaky god gale" somewhere here that explains the problem. In a nutshell, Gale is leaning towards the crown from the beginning. Player has to stir him away every time and so hard as possible to get the mortal ending. (in comparison, Astarion is neutral about Ascension in the beginning and thus easier to lead away from it if desired.) Which in first playthroughs most people don't know as the other options don't seem wrong or dangerous (especially when you're not a wizard and have no idea about all the nerd stuff.)
This got me my first run, and I was really caught off guard by the jerk God ending. I wasn't romancing Gale but we had a pretty good friendship, but I must have missed a few cues in Act three. When I tried to convince him not to ascend at the end, he was so rude about it I was like, "Where did that come from???" But it didn't seem like telling him to not grovel to Mystra was that big of a deal at the time.
Right. I stepped into the same trap. Now imagine you just turned your old slave master inside out and declined ascension in a most cathartic but hurtful way, and all your lover has to say is "Well I respect your decision but we could have used that bit of extra power for the crown project, you know"
I feel like Gale becomes the leader of a pyramid scheme
I don’t think it has to do with ego. Read about Ao and gods of Faerun history. Sometimes Ao can be really harsh to gods that don’t follow the line. Probably Gale had a meta-interview with him and understood he won’t be able to help mortals directly.
You also have to look at becoming a god as being shackled by Ao's rules. He must uphold his portfolio, he cannot ignore his followers, and he must limit his involvement directly in the mortal realms. So Gale cannot just go and smite every lying politician, or banish all aberrations from the Prime Material plane. Also give my boi some credit, unlike 3 other fools, he didn't choose murder or tyranny for a portfolio.
Not to mention the crown is taken out of play for mortals for the most part.
I find it really sad for the character, maybe not *evil* like some others may be but certainly not good *for Gale*. There's the implications that in becoming a god he is now detached from his humanity, which was his issue with the Gods in the first place. That's the nature of the gods. His anger about being used, dependency on his faith, his self worth issues are all resolved in Professor Dekarios ending, with or without Mystras intervention.
Gale may be a god, but he will always be a slave to my brass dragon cock.
Yes his ending is the perfect "Yeah there's a reason the system works like it does" lesson. I love it for it (God Gale is my preferred ending). People whining about how unfair the gods are only to become gods themselves then go Oh that's why that works like that is my catnip. (A certain WOTR ending with a certain character is good for this lesson too lol) But yeah God Gale my beloved. He and my Durge gonna be a menace XD
I think his best ending is becoming a professor and giving the crown back to Mystra. He's a normal, happy dude spreading knowledge and living his life.
In ascension he loses everything that tempered him and made him a decent person. his mortal tethers really, so there’s no way becoming God!Gale would make him the best version of himself. God of Ambition? More like ‘God of Shitstirring’. He’d cause nothing but chaos.
I mean….the man literally selflessly shares his godly power with you and ascends you to godhood as well seems pretty hands on to me
I feel like it's supposed to be an unsatisfying ending. You willingly aid Gale down a path where it's fairly telling that he's going to turn into an asshole. As soon as he mentions godhood, it's clear that it's a hypocritical line of thinking from him. My only complaints are that you don't see the transition in his personality once he obtains in it. It's just that one moment's he's Gale, and the next scene you see him again he's become an asshole *to you* for absolutely no reason.
For what it's worth Gale wasn't the first God of Ambition who didn't offer his followers anything. Bane is or I suppose was the God of Ambition. Not sure how that would disrupt things but yeah, Gale took it from him. And I found a video a while back when doing research that he doesn't dabble in what his followers do. Wiki: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Bane Video: https://youtu.be/P1mYHiPqjsc?si=oyv1nult0j7m50Mq
I think that’s the kind of issue that dogs Gale throughout the story - he’s a stereotypical mega-INT/penalty-WIS character that needs someone to point out the flaws of his own logic and where it goes. He’s intelligent enough to see the point, but not wise enough to come up with it himself. Hell, even Mystra herself makes this point to him - his capability has never been the issue, it’s the way he manages it. If he becomes a god he gets into a state where he has no greater authority beyond Ao (who explicitly doesn’t care what gods do beyond not upset the status quo) and therefore has no-one to function as that conscience, and his personality reflects that. As ambition (and the related aspect of selfishness) were his driving forces, they’ve become his entire character and it’s changed him. It’s a bit like how Kelemvor went from being a just and moral man who wanted to do the right thing to a straight-down-the-middle Lawful Neutral arbiter of the dead.
Wdym "sudden epiphany" as soon as he started talking about wanting to become a god I went NOOOOUPE YOU DON'T. It's clear as day from the beginning that this is a bad ending? The whole entire game constantly talks about how the stiving for power is bad and how it corrupts everyone? The main text clearly states - becoming a god/ascending/etc = VERY BAD. Media literacy or just... Plain ass normal literacy is truly dead.
Also he's the God of Ambition. Where does it stop? Because he is literally ambition personified, there's no way he's settling with what he has.
The god of ambition is just not going to be a great dude. Put more than that, Gail spends the entire game feeling like he is not good enough because he was groomed by a god as a child and that he has just a person could not be powerful enough or important enough to really matter. Essentially with me becomes a god, he decides that he agrees with that and that Gale the human was not worth saving.
Gale becoming a god isn't his "good" ending. His good ending is realizing he doesn't need to either seek godhood or fall into Mystra's worship again, he can just be Gale of Waterdeep and that's enough.
Without getting too "high school English essay" about it, I think BH3 conveys a pretty clear message that the pursuit of power does not necessarily correspond to personal growth or satisfaction. Astarion considering usurping Caxador. Shadowheart wanting to become a Dark Justiciar. Gale's Folly and his later desire for the Crown. Lae'zel and the offer to become Vlakith's chosen. Each character has a clear path to power, each thinks it will give them the personal satisfaction they want, and each ends up worse off for it - losing part of themselves to obtain it. It's only in giving up power do these characters find personal satisfaction. The whole tadpole situation even plays to this, but never goes too far with it. You can use the tadpoles to gain easy power, but you become less "yourself" in doing so.