Baldur’s Gate 3: Should You Attack or Absorb the Newborn Mind Flayer’s Powers in BG3?

The sunny landscapes of Baldur’s Gate are a welcome sight after all that darkness in Act 2. Exploring the area will result in some random encounters, even with newborn Mind Flayers.

By walking into the Abandoned Windmill northeast of Rivington’s entrance, a wooden hatch leading to an underground area will pop up. Though some opulent chests would have been welcomed, it turns out a sleepy, newborn Mind Flayer is here. The Emperor seizes the moment and prompts you to consume the Mind Flayer to harness its power, but is this poor thing deserving of death?

BG3: Absorb the Sleeping Newborn Mind Flayer’s Powers in the Abandoned Windmill

Attacking the newborn Mind Flayer will wake him up, but there will be no initial confrontation. Instead, the newborn Mind Flayer will ask to have a word before going up in a fistfight. If you’re not up to a chat, attack him again to engage in a fight.

After beating the newborn Mind Flayer, the Mind Flayer brain is added to the inventory, which you can consume to, presumably, level up your Mind Flayer skill tree powers. I say presumably because though I killed the thing, I didn’t dare ingest its brain. Though I’m sure, this would be a fun choice for those who have unlocked the Illithid Power skill tree.

But the newborn Mind Flayer does also have a cool ring in his pocket. The Ring of Truthfulness gives you advantage on Insight checks, which are always helpful.

Baldur’s Gate 3: Attack the Sleeping Newborn Mind Flayer in the Abandoned Windmill

If you choose to wake the newborn Mind Flayer up instead of stabbing him in his sleep, there will be a space for conversation. He’ll explain what his transformation was like and let you know that, like most newborn babies, he is hungry. Players can then choose to tell the Mind Flayer to look for his own meal or embark on a quest to fetch him some meat.

Related: Baldur’s Gate 3: Should You Let Yenna Stay At The Camp in BG3?

Being a Mind Flayer and all, I thought he could do his own dirty work and get his own prey. If you let the Abandoned Windmill’s newborn Mind Flayer live, he will attack a couple having a picnic nearby, killing the woman before floating off to find some more human food, probably.

Finding a Brain for the Newborn Mind Flayer

If you agree to be helpful and get a nice juicy brain for the newborn Mind Flayer in BG3, you can find a meal for him pretty much anywhere. All you need to do is kill anyone and stuff them in your pocket. Keep in mind, your kill has to be fresh, so if you just so happen to be carrying around a random corpse when you encounter the newborn, the old byproduct of your weird antics won’t suffice.

Of course, the closest person for fresh meat selection is going to be the nearby picnicking lady that the Mind Flayer chooses himself to attack if you force him to find his own meal. But whoever you choose, kill them swiftly without any Rivington guards seeing, then select their corpse to pick it up and put it in your inventory. Bring the corpse back to the newborn Mind Flayer, and he’ll give you the Ring of Truthfulness in exchange.

Presumably, the newborn Mind Flayer will then go off to (probably) kill more people. So it may be better to just kill the newborn then and there for better rewards and, arguably, the moral highroad.