Mephistopheles is the Big Bad of BG3
This is it. My tinfoil ramblings about how Mephistopheles was actually the mastermind behind most (if not all) of the events of BG3, and how Mephistopheles was the true Big Bad that we may have learned more about in the cancelled expansion. Please keep in mind, this is half tongue-in-cheek, I know that a lot of these connections are flimsy at best, but I'm having fun with it and I'd love for you to have fun with me. I haven't even proof read it for grammar or spelling, I wrote half of it in an unhinged blur of frantic giggles, and I'm posting it because @zeowynda told me to and she's basically my sister-in-law at this point. My sister wife. My spouse in another house. Everyone blame her.
So. Without further ado, let's begin.
Who is Mephistopheles?
For those of you without a strong background in Forgotten Realms lore, Mephistopheles is the second most powerful archdevil in existence, after Asmodeus. He is the ruler of the eighth layer of hell, Cania, which is an icy hellscape, and protector of the gate to Asmodeus' domain. He is the original creator of hellfire, a great patron of wizards, a scientist, and possibly the most insanely jealous creature in all of creation. He hoards everything— power, magical items, scientific discoveries, people — and is so jealous and twisted by his avarice that he has a secondary persona that sometimes takes over called Baron Molikroth that is a personification of his ravening greed and hostility. I'm not a fan of the Baron Molikroth persona in canon as it's incredibly fatphobic but it's important to mention that this is the extent to which Mephistopheles is not chill with sharing his toys.
It's also important to note that he has spent almost his entire existence trying to a) overthrow Asmodeus and become the Lord of Hell and b) become a god in his own right. Both of these facts are important for understanding his motivations throughout.
He is also, of course, the father of Raphael to an unknown mother, presumably a human woman given that Raphael is a cambion and not a full-blooded devil.
It starts with a crown...
Mephistopheles is known to desperately hoard magical items and scientific discoveries, even within the confines of his own kingdom. There are rumours of fantastic libraries and laboratories buried in the ice of the glaciers of Cania, which brave adventurers regularly risk their lives trying to uncover, and which Mephistopheles regularly tries to rebury. Unfortunately for him, the discovery of hellfire and the founding of the College of Hellfire have contributed to extreme global warming (planar warming?) in Cania and the temperatures around his capital of Mephistar are said to have risen so sharply that most of his ice devils, the gelugons, find it unbearable to serve in the palace.
For an unknown period of time, Mephistopheles was the owner of the Crown of Karsus, the artefact by which the Dead Three Chosen elevate the Netherbrain and try to enact their Absolute scheme. Despite his infatuation with godhood and power, there is no clear indication that he ever attempted to use the crown himself, and was simply interested in hoarding it. The private vaults of Mephistopheles are repeatedly noted in canon to be impenetrable, and extensively researching for my own Durgetash canon led me to believe this to be true. The vaults are impenetrable. Mephistopheles is too paranoid and too powerful. His gelugon warriors can see not just invisibility, but also possess ultravision — which allows them to see radiation signatures — and blindvision, which allows creatures to 'perceive their surroundings as if they were sighted, using other sense'. There is no hiding from them. They can see you no matter how you approach them.
It runs in the family
Yet despite showing no apparent public use of the Crown, Mephistopheles presumably bragged about his ownership of it — enough so that his son, Raphael, knew of it and coveted it, and appears to have previously made attempts to steal it or beg for it. It's all he wants — to take the Crown, and become a new god and the Lord of Hell.
And Raphael presumably whined and moaned about the unfairness of it all so extensively that the existence of the Crown came to the attention of his tortured young ward, one Enver Flymm, later to become Enver Gortash, who would go on to steal the Crown with the assistance of The Dark Urge.
But how could they steal something that is presumably in an impenetrable vault? Guarded by creatures that can see you no matter how well you hide, what spells you use to mask yourself, in the palace of the most jealous, insanely paranoid demi-god power in all the realms?
Simple — it was a setup. Mephistopheles wanted them to take it. As to whether Gortash and/or The Dark Urge realised they were being setup is up for debate — in my canon, Gortash has come to an arrangement with Mephistopheles (for reasons which I will expand upon further in the tinfoil hat section). He couldn't be seen to be giving away an item of such magnitude, particularly not as the Second Sundering was really kicking off; Ao and to some extent Mystra would have come down on him like a ton of bricks. But he can't help it if it gets stolen, right?
Adding fuel to the fire, the fact that the Illithid Master Plans were ever so conveniently placed right next to the Crown, almost by accident, whoops! Mephistopheles forgot he left it out, how clumsy. The inspiration for the entirety of the Absolute Scheme came from that piece of parchment, stolen alongside the Crown, which means that the theft of the Crown was more impulsive than anything else — Gortash and Durge did not have any plans for what to do with the Crown, other than present it to their masters as a trophy.
And despite being canonically the most jealous, paranoid creature in existence, so much so that he canonically has a second persona (Baron Molikroth, remember him?) that is a personification of his obsessive paranoid greed, Mephistopheles never pursued Gortash and Durge. He never tried to get the Crown back, or punish them, or hunt them. They humiliated him by stealing his most prized possession, and he did nothing. Why?
Because the Absolute Scheme was Mephistopheles' plan, not Durgetash's plan. And he set it in motion decades ago, possibly even centuries ago, starting with Raphael.
Now we enter tinfoil hat territory
"But wait a minute Defira," you say, "wasn't Mephistopheles the one helping Cazador? Why is he doing that if he's also running the Absolute Scheme in the background? And WHY is he running the Absolute Scheme? That won't help the Blood War at ALL."
Remember how I said earlier that Mephistopheles' long con is that he wants to a) overthrow Asmodeus and become the Lord of Hell and b) become a god in his own right? It's important to remember that, and to know that neither of those options is more important than the other. He is DESPERATE to embarrass Asmodeus and overthrow him in the most humiliating way possible, but he is also desperate to become a god. He has attempted both multiple times, and some of you will be familiar with him due to his attempt in Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark, where he attempted to invade Toril through a portal in Waterdeep in 1372DR and was thwarted by the player character.
Mephistopheles made an attempt at godhood during the Second Sundering — the gods imbued a portion of their divinity in their Chosen during the roughly 8 year period of the Sundering, so that in the event they were murdered by a rival, a sliver of them would survive and grow to live again. A lot of people decided this made Chosen a really really good target to farm divinity, and try to obtain the powers of the gods by harvesting and otherwise consuming these slivers of power.
A lot of Chosen didn't get a say in this. A lot of people didn't even know they were Chosen until it was too late.
Mephistopheles had previously used (and abused) another halfbreed son of his, a man by the name of Magadon, in an attempt to steal the divinity of the god Mask, the son of Shar. While he had obtained a portion of this divine spark during the years of the Spellplague, he had been unable to capture it fully due to the careful schemes of Magadon and his allies, and so he imprisoned Erevis Cale — the current Chosen of Mask — by entombing him in ice for the better part of a century.
During the Second Sundering, with the chance to fully gain Mask's divinity for good and finally ascend to godhood, Mephistopheles made another attempt at draining Cale of the divine spark in 1484DR, and promptly fucked it up and retreated to Cania to lick his wounds. This resulted in the rebirth of Mask, which in turn thwarted some of Shar's plans to perpetuate the Cycle of Night across multiple planes.
But once again, this was an example of Mephistopheles hoarding an item of godhood and divinity rather than immediately utilising it. Like the Crown, Mephistopheles preferred to keep Cale as a trophy rather than make an attempt at godhood. Was it because his paranoia was too great, and he feared fucking it up (historically, a likely outcome)? And, importantly, it was less than 2 years after Gortash and Durge had taken the Crown.
So perhaps he had ANOTHER plan running in the background. One that involved planting the seeds for the Absolute Scheme and waiting for it to come to fruition.
Why Cazador?
Cazador has made a deal with Mephistopheles for an ancient ritual that allows him to become an Ascended vampiric lord. In exchange for this, Cazador was going to sacrifice seven thousand souls to Mephistopheles. A not insignificant number of people, yes, but also, so specific. Why seven thousand? And especially when the Absolute Scheme is happening right in the same city, limiting the number of potential victims available to Cazador.
But... we'll come back to that! Because first we have to learn about-
The Orphic Hammer
*Philomeena Cunk voice* The Orphic Hammer. What is it? We just don't know. Scientists think it may have been for sexual, ritualistic purposes, possibly by kinky priests while grooving to Pump Up The Jam, by renowned Belgium techno funk pioneers Technotronic, featuring Felly, during their perverted sexual escapades in honour of a nameless god.
No, really. There is a limited information as to what the Orphic Hammer is. We know that it is made of infernal iron, and that it was forged SOMEWHERE in the Nine Hells, as it was forged specifically with hellfire. We do not know who forged it, and we do not know what the giant red crystal forming the head is. All we know is that Raphael is the current owner, but he does not appear to be the creator.
This is where a lot of my flimsiest conjecture starts to comes in, so please take all of this with a grain of salt the size of Mount Talath, the mountain in Toril that houses the High Temple of Mystra.
I believe that the hammer was made by Tiamat, likely with the assistance of Mephistopheles, and that it may have been an early attempt at crafting a Ruby Rod of Asmodeus. Why do I believe this, and what is a Ruby Rod and why is it relevant to Asmodeus?
A Ruby Rod of Asmodeus, and more specifically THE Ruby Rod of Asmodeus, is a symbol of his divine right to rule the Nine Hells. It is a symbol of his office, and there are both superior and inferior versions of the rod, carried by all of his avatars and aspects. Some information about the ruby rods for your interest:
These 4 feet (1.2 meters) rods had an opaline tip looking like a clawed fist clutching a skull and a jagged bottom that looked like the rod was actually part of something bigger and snapped off from that bigger something. They were covered with good deities' and celestials' names, all spelled in reverse and sullied with black blood
Now, we don't have the exact measurement of the Orphic Hammer, but we know it has a range of 1.5m when used in melee combat, so similar size! We also know that the head of the hammer is a large jagged crystalline object that looks like it's been snapped off of a larger piece
One of the easiest ways to use a Ruby Rod of Asmodeus in combat was to use it as a bludgeon. Used like that, a Ruby Rod worked like a +6 unholy greatclub, or +1 morningstar in the lesser versions of the rod
The Orphic Hammer is a +3 warhammer, rather than a greatclub, but it does deal bludgeoning damage.
Whatever the strength of the Ruby Rod when used as a bludgeon, they did not damage the victim in physical ways but also in magical ways, as though afflicting the body with an inflict critical wounds spell, or inflict light wounds in the lesser versions of the rod
Unfortunately not a feature of the Orphic Hammer, but still worth mentioning to point out the differences in spell capacity between the two. Which leads me to...
The Ruby Rod had three protective abilities. One forced people to bow down before the wielder, thereby making it impossible for them to attack the wielder. The second one was about creating a wall of force around the wielder as well as a 50-foot (15-meter) radius antimagic field that magically repaired the wielder, first by making away with detrimental enchantment effects, then with mundane detriments like lost body parts that grow back, diseases, and poison-induced effects, and at last with a full recovery of the wielder's physical health and magical energy. The last ability could be activated intentionally but did so automatically whenever the wielder fell victim to an enchantment effect. The abilities could be used as often as he wanted by Asmodeus, but only once per day by other people
Now, mechanically, the Larian devs have talked about wanting to implement Dispel Magic in game, but eventually coming to the conclusion that it would create too complex a system and push development out indefinitely. However, the icon for the Unshackling Strike is reminiscent of the Dispel Magic icons in Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, and it is in fact labelled Spell_Abjuration_DispelMagic within the game files.
On a related note, I also believe that the shackles holding Orpheus were crafted by Tiamat at the same time, in the same process that crafted the Hammer, because the descriptions for protecting and sustaining the wielder sound similar to the properties of the force cage that kept Orpheus alive for an unknown period of time in stasis without food, water, or other sustenance
Third, it could protect the wielder from spells by absorbing them into the rod. However, this use of the rod was not unlimited.
The Orphic Hammer has the ability Spell Resistance, allowing the user advantage on saving throws against hostile spells
Now. A little more history that explains why I think that Mephistopheles and Tiamat worked together to craft the Hammer:
The original Ruby Rod of Asmodeus was created by Asmodeus from a sliver of the shard of evil – said to be the artifact of unfathomable evil which created the Abyss — which he used to kill He Who Was, his superior at the time. This was during the Dawn War.
He Who Was, not the character from BG3 but an ancient god of primordial times, was a being of immense power, the leader of His pantheon. We know very little about him that isn't contradictory. What we do know is that, in a typical mimicry of the Fall of Lucifer in modern Christian mythology, Asmodeus was His most powerful archangel and general, fighting on the front lines of the Blood War, before he was corrupted over time and developed sin. After being cast out of heaven, he crafted the very first Ruby Rod and used it to kill this god. The Ruby Rod is intended first and foremost to be a god-killing weapon, which would certainly be of interest to someone like Mephistopheles.
The crafting of the rod required a piece of the shard of evil and a huge ruby to be soaked in the blood of a thousand sacrificed mortals, quenched in Tiamat's acidic saliva, and polished with 777 angel tears.
AND HERE WE HAVE SOME FACTS! Actual chemical and physical requirements for the smith! The original rod required the shard of evil that Mephistopheles stole from the Abyss, a huge ruby (the easiest obtainable item, lets be real), the death of a thousand mortals, Tiamat's drool, and angel tears.
What did Mephistopheles make a deal with Cazador for earlier in our essay? That's right, seven thousand mortal sacrifices. Maybe, for example, if you needed to make a lot of something, or a stronger version of something, or wanted to play it safe and have a few backups in case you fuck up the first few rounds.
The Hammer itself was canonically forged in hellfire, which was of course, as we established earlier, created by Mephistopheles himself, even if use of it spread throughout the other layers of Hell over the centuries. But chances are, if you want to make an artefact of such power and significance, you go to the expert for it. And let's not forget the flavour text for the Orphic Hammer itself in game:
Every contract a devil makes has some form of insurance - this one is cast in infernal iron and was forged in deep, ruinous hellfire.
So now it's time to talk about Tiamat.
The Chromatic Dragon... Goddess?
Tiamat. Former ruler of Avernus. Chromatic dragon goddess, Bahamut's mirror. Canonically an ally to Gith, the Mother and Saviour of the gith peoples, she may have uplifted Gith in some manner and awarded the gith people a special relationship with her red dragons, but the manner in which that arrangement was brokered was never transparent. After all, Gith was never seen again after that meeting, and Vlaakith I claimed to have been anointed as Queen by her without any witnesses to naysay her.
So why would Tiamat make an alliance with Gith, only to betray her, and then agree to betray her son, only to then make an item that could free him from the very binds she built for him?
Well, as the quote above says — every contract a devil makes has some form of insurance. And more than that, as per Asmodeus' origin story in his battle against He Who Was, the Modron god Primus, the ultimate creature of logic and impartiality, judged that all devils must be contained by logic and law in their acquisition of mortal souls. While Tiamat's exact position in fiendish hierarchy is uncertain, she does appear to be bound by this same compulsion.
Additionally, if her hand was swayed by Mephistopheles, she may have crafted the Hammer out of less altruistic means.
Tiamat's shadow hangs long over our game setting as well. Wyll, particularly, has had a rather nasty encounter with her at the age of 17 in approximately 1485DR, when he and he alone miraculously managed to fend off several of Tiamat's heads as she attempted to break through to the mortal plane, with the aid of only a single cambion. Additionally, she has been and may be again the current ruler of Avernus, depending on both the timeline and your take on current events. Some canon seems to imply that Zariel has been deposed by Asmodeus after her failures with Elturel and Tiamat has been reinstated. Some canon seems to imply this happened prior to the events of Elturel, and that she turned down the opportunity. The events of Tyranny of Dragons seem to most likely line up with Wyll's timeline of 1485DR.
Note the timing of the thwarted invasion with Wyll — around the same time that Mephistopheles was also dealing with his own frustrated attempt at securing godhood once more. It's also important to note that, despite being occasionally promoted by Asmodeus (before being demoted again), Tiamat's primary goal remains that she wants to leave the Hells, as per Ed Greenwood on the Candlekeep Forums as recently as 2023.
Now, if Tiamat and Mephistopheles made the Orphic Hammer together, they would have needed a reason to do so, or at least, Mephistopheles would have needed a fairly compelling argument to have her agree — and as of the late 14th century, he had one:
Bane. God of Tyranny.
Tiamat's status as a goddess has always been murky in the technical side of the lore, as the pantheon she had once served on had been dissolved many millennia ago. Both within canon and outside of canon, it's been a topic of debates, and while she is considered a deity for the sake of gameplay, in world Tiamat has been desperate not just to escape the hells, but to be uplifted specifically to the Faerunian pantheon.
Unfortunately for her, there were two figures who consistently voiced their opposition to her being added to the pantheon: Iyachtu Xvim, the demonic son of Bane and lesser deity of fear, hatred and tyranny, and Bane himself. Tiamat's rivalry with Bane seems to span centuries, and in 1371DR, she tried to take possession of the divine spark of a minor draconic deity by the name of Azharul, stealing his divine realm and setting up a back door to Avernus while puppeting his remains — after all, she couldn't have Ao punishing her so soon after the Time of Troubles just after he'd enforced new rules on the gods.
Bane was reborn from Xvim's flesh in 1372DR, and it only took him a few years to sniff out her deception and take Azharul's corpse captive, forcing Tiamat into subservience. In retaliation, she passed on Bane's secrets to Asmodeus, while Asmodeus continued to dangle hints at promotion that he had no intention of giving to her. At some point prior to the events of Baldur's Gate 3, she managed to wrench both the corpse of Azharul and a portion of Bane's divine power out of Banehold, using Bane's power to heal Azharul's battered body and reinforce her own divinity. It was at this point, an unknown date, that Asmodeus is alleged to have offered her rulership of Avernus once more, but for reasons of her own she declined, and instead offered to be his Champion.
Asmodeus rewarded her instead by placing her under compulsion to serve Bel, her rival and another dethroned ruler of Avernus. The moment of compulsion came with her obvious resistance, and she had a moment of insight into Bel's thoughts to know Asmodeus had given him rights to imprison her in her divine realm to prevent her from becoming ambitious. It was from here that Tiamat would begin to covertly support Zariel, in order to undermine Bel, and made her attempt on the mortal realm with the Tyranny of Dragons plot which occurred in 1485DR.
In Tiamat, Mephistopheles found his greatest ally. Both desperate for godhood in their own right, both recently foiled in the last century. Both obsessively driven to overthrow and humiliate Asmodeus for their own pride. Both of them famed hoarders of treasures and powers.
Mephistopheles had the secrets of the illithids. Tiamat had an alliance with the gith. Whether he planned it in exact detail from the very start or simply took advantage of each opportunity as it arose, the pieces were beginning to fall into place for his complicated game of 12D lance-board.
The Canian Plant
It's very obvious canon that Haarlep is a plant by Mephistopheles, sent to keep an eye on his errant whelp and his obsession with the Crown of Karsus. Haarlep admits as much in game, so it's hardly a secret. But I think it's possible that there was a second plant, and that is Mizora.
Why Mizora?
Now I cannot stress enough, this is all my own conjecture. I do not think this was even REMOTELY intended by Larian as canon, this is just interesting coloured strings I've connected together.
Mizora is a cambion, which as per current in-universe terminology means the offspring of a human/mortal female and a male devil, as opposed to the previous in-universe terminology prior to the Spellplague that specified that the father was a demon-lord. You could argue that this makes her quite a young cambion, born post Spellplague, but it's also just as likely she just went by a different classification prior to the Spellplague. To make things more confusing, out-of-universe the most current classification for a cambion (as per 5E 2024) is the offspring of any variety or rank of fiend (demons and devils and more) with any variety of humanoid.
Moving on to more important details — Larian specifically has no idea what it wants to do with cambions in generally. Between Mizora and Raphael, they're simultaneously weak as shit and considered the lowest tier in the political hierarchy of titled lords of hell (higher than the grunt ranks like the lemures, but far, far below things like Pit Fiends), but at the same time capable of phenomenal feats of magic and power, posing a catastrophic threat to the hierarchy of the Hells. Raphael wants to become Lord of the Hells and a god in his own right with the aid of the Crown, despite the fact that gaining access to the Crown is not a guarantee of a) wielding it correctly or b) overpowering a more powerful deity (as per Karsus failing to overpower Mystryl), and some epilogue endings in the game suggest that he is successful, despite being the fiendish equivalent of living in a filthy bachelor pad in his aunt's pool-house.
And Mizora? She's so weak and helpless that she was easily overpowered by the Absolute forces, held prisoner by the Netherbrain and Ketheric Thorm, and-
Or was she?
Because Mizora is also powerful enough that she was able to offer a seventeen year old boy a contract that empowered him so much that he defeated Tiamat. Alone. With only Mizora for support.
So is she a weak and helpless half-devil, easily overpowered by mortal minions, or is she strong enough to stand toe-to-toe with a draconic goddess and former ruler of Avernus? The Doylist answer is obviously that Larian didn't think things through well enough, and particularly with any details to do with Wyll's content, but the Watsonian answer could be that Mizora has been working for Mephistopheles this entire time, and it was in Mephistopheles' best interest to cause a scandal around the newest member of the Council of Four by involving his son in devilry, and therefore destabilising Baldur's Gate politically and enabling Gortash's rise to power.
"But Defira," you say, "why would Mephistopheles undermine Tiamat's bid for freedom and power if he's working with her" because he's a two faced bitch and literal personification of jealousy, he's not going to let her go free unless it's on his terms, he needs her for his bid for power and he's just generally a huge bitch. Raphael got that from his Daddy.
Further on to Mizora's bizarre powers and allegiances, her obsession with having Karlach killed while claiming to be one of Zariel's most loyal followers is such a sticking point. Why would she risk Zariel's wrath by destroying her favourite toy, unless she actually isn't beholden to Zariel at all.
But why would killing Karlach be a priority for Mephistopheles, then? It's all about the insane covetous jealousy, once more. As you'll recall from earlier, Mephistopheles is the original creator of Hellfire, and founded the College of Hellfire to lure wizards to Cania, working to explore the limits of this new form of magic, to the extent that Cania appears to be experiencing some degree of climate change and planar warming thanks to the increased heat caused by the Hellfire.
There is absolutely no way that Mephistopheles wouldn't have been aware of the Hellfire engine experiments. My personal headcanon is that they were very likely prototypes FROM the College of Hellfire. Seeing Zariel get a working model up and running would have driven him quite literally insane with rage and jealousy, to the point where it's quite reasonable to believe he would go out of his way to destroy Karlach and the engine.
Additionally, and this draws upon some scrapped content from the War College plotline which was going to be Wyll's Act 2/Act 3 plot before his writer got sick and they threw out a good two thirds of his content thanks to shitty racist EA feedback. This is entirely conjecture!!! None of this is confirmed or canon!!! But it's very probable that the intent of the War College was to involve or invoke the blessing of The Red Knight, the Faerunian Lady of Strategy, given the nature of the challenges in the Wyrmway which were repurposed from the initial script for the War College. Who is The Red Knight, you ask? She is a soldier, a strategist, and a divine ally to the martial good gods of the pantheon. Rumoured lover of Torm, the only god who ever managed to kill Bane.
She had a special dislike for Bane, and for Cyric, the god who stole the portfolios of Bane and Bhaal and Myrkul before their resurrections and his eternal imprisonment.
Why was Mizora so happy to swan about in Baldur's Gate in her humansona, when less than a month ago she was imprisoned by the Absolute and potentially by Gortash? For hasty plot reasons, obviously, but I think her humansona was originally going to be a part of the War College plotline, either acting as the Mistress of the college, or going all out and pretending to be a Chosen or Avatar of The Red Knight. Because of course The Red Knight would take an interest in what the fuck is going on in Baldur's Gate! Of course she'd be fucking invested in knowing that that shithead Bane is up to no good again!
And Mephistopheles continues to stir the pot and muddy the waters, simultaneously destabilising Baldur's Gate's political scene to enable Gortash's rise and the increase in Bane's power, while also already laying the groundwork to take him out at the knees when he was ready.
Also? Mizora is blue. Purple-blue. All the other cambions are red. Why blue if not Cania? Check-mate Larian.
The Prodigal Son
Where was I? What was I doing? Where am I? Oh right, we're talking Cambions. We talked about my unhinged theories about Mizora, now it's time to talk about Raphael in more detail, because Mizora isn't the only one punching above her weight by an exponential amount.
As the confirmed child of an Archdevil and partial deity, Raphael is of course likely to be stronger than your average devil, and he definitely ranks highest amongst his fellow cambions. But he is still only a half-devil, and his powers are limited in that regard.
So how did he manage to get into a fight with Shar, Goddess of Darkness, ancient power from the beginning of time, worshipped by the ancient Netherese empire before the Crown was even a twinkle in Karsus' eye... and come out the victor? Why did Shar not simply swat him into goo the instant he started biting at her ankles?
One could make the argument that she was rather distracted by the involvement of the Justice League the Harpers and their allies, including Khelben Arunsun, a Chosen of Mystra and the founder of Blackstaff Academy in Waterdeep. Having both the implicit threat of Selûne and Mystra teaming up against her would be a significant distraction, so much so that she had to just grit her teeth and ignore the yapping cambion sending imps into her holy temple of the Gauntlet, eating her fighters in the Underdark, desecrating her holy spaces.
And to send an entire devil army into the Material Plane is no small feat, either. Not to mention, for Raphael to accrue such loyalties in the first place is incredibly impressive — and all this because he wanted the single soul of an architect, who begged for a deal because he was afraid of Ketheric's new loyalty to Shar?
It smells, frankly. It smells as bad as the chamberpot in the hallway of the House of Hope, because apparently Raphael isn't house trained and shits in the hallway.
Raphael has no reason to risk himself going up against a power as vast as Shar — but Mephistopheles does.
Shar, Goddess of Darkness
That reason was Erevis Cale. Chosen of Mask, son of Shar. Buried in the ice of Cania for a century while Mephistopheles siphoned off his sliver of divinity and made himself a demi-god with it, until it was stolen back in the 1480s. We talked about him earlier, remember? It's all coming back to you now?
Shar had previously absorbed most of Mask's powers, except for that which had gone to his Five Chosen. Shar really really wanted the rest of it, because of the risk he posed to her own endless schemes and cons, which frankly rival Mephistopheles in both breadth and absurd evilness. And as per the events of the novel "The Godborn" from 2014 which stated that "this was proven to be true when the Shadowlord's plans to thwart the Cycle of Night perpetuated by Shar on countless worlds resulted in Mask's divinity (both the Shar-consumed and Kesson Rel portions) being gathered back into a single being—Drasek Riven, Mask's former Second of Five—resulting in the aforementioned cycle being thwarted, along with the stripping of divinities from both Mephistopheles and Rivalen Tanthul".
Shar wanted that shard of her son back, to empower herself. Mephistopheles really didn't want to do that, because he was busy making himself a god with it. What better way to try and distract her* than by having your useless spawn throw a tantrum in her direction and foil one of her long schemes?
*Now, this is where it gets dicey, because Larian fucked up the timeline immensely on when exactly the Harper Alliance went to war with Ketheric. There are several dates mentioned in game, all contradicting each other, and the strongest candidate appears to be 1391DR, which is canonically impossible, as Khelben Arunsun had been dead for almost twenty years at that point, and could not have been involved in the war let alone led it. We know that Mephistopheles gained control of Erevis in 1374DR, which ironically is also the year that Khelben died, so I'm more in favour of dates that place the war around this sort of timeframe.
But another fascinating little tidbit about Shar, which most definitely explains how the Sharrans and Shadowheart came to be involved in the plot in the first place, is that Shar has a very particular skill that could threaten the secrecy of the Absolute plot. Namely, as per the Faiths and Pantheons guide from 2002, she possesses the ability to create any magical item that concealed or obscured what was true, or that conjured magical darkness. Gee, that sure sounds to me like Shar became aware of the Astral Prism fairly immediately after its' creation and began to covet it!
... which brings us all the way back around to Tiamat, who was likely the creator of the Prism, and in all likelihood kept the Prism in her hoard as part of her agreement with Vlaakith I. Because why else would the nautiloid have jumped to Avernus at such a critical moment in the game's opening, unless it was retreading the path it took mere hours ago, just frantically reversing through paths that were still active in the biomechanical memory of the ship?
Because according to canon, the Netherbrain informed the Chosen Three about the existence of the Prism, and they in turn sent enslaved illithids out to hunt for it. They never had it from the beginning, they never had it at any point in the narrative. How would an elder brain of any age know about the existence of Prince Orpheus? Arguably, it could be because it's a phenomenally ancient elder brain, and was alive during the time of the fall of the illithid empire and the rise of Gith and Vlaakith. But how would it then know about the imprisonment of Orpheus, when Vlaakith I went to such great lengths to erase all evidence of his survival?
A Mastermind Survives To Scheme Another Day...
Because Mephistopheles planned this. He planned all of this, shaking hands with allies while readying a dagger in the other to betray them. He planned the Absolute plot by planting the master plans with the Crown, allowing Gortash to steal them all while knowing there was an elder brain miles beneath Moonrise Towers, because of the war his son waged against Shar in the depths beneath Moonrise as a distraction so he could siphon divinity from Shar's son. He worked with Tiamat to undermine Asmodeus, and the two of them at some point forged the Orphic Hammer, likely in an attempt to craft a Ruby Rod, but also because Tiamat's bargain with Vlaakith required an insurance policy. He bargained with Cazador to make sure he had a steady supply of sacrifices in the thousands for his experiments with the Ruby Rod, undermining the stability of Baldur's Gate. His minion, Mizora, also worked to undermine the stability of Baldur's Gate, allowing Gortash's rise to power to run smoothly. He tried to have Karlach killed out of jealousy. He preyed on Tiamat's hatred for Bane, and manipulated the Dead Three and their Chosen, all while working towards his own bid for divinity once more.
... did any of it work? Did any of it empower him, or cause enough chaos to unsettle Asmodeus? Did the threat of losing tens of thousands of souls to illithid ceremorphosis, never to be prey to the devils again, upend the social contract between the heavens and the hells, invalidating the Pact Primeval?
Why didn't he just fucking use the Crown himself to kill Asmodeus if he had it for centuries before then?
Was it just for fun? Did I have fun writing this? Does any of it matter? Is any of it real?
All of these answers and more can be found at my patreon at no I'm joking I don't have a patreon AND I DON'T HAVE THE ANSWERS! Join me next time for more unhinged headcanons and unsupported meta of dubious quality. If you've read this far, thank you