Summary
Baldur’s Gate 3is a fantasy-adventure role-playing game, but it’s not a game for kids or the faint of heart. Some of these quests are dark, and this isn’t just about the main storyline, with squid creatures and body horror,or even the companion questsabout vampires, evil curses, and stolen memories.
The side quests ofBaldur’s Gate 3can also be very dark, if not at least tinged with some kind of visceral horror. The following side quests are violent, bloody, and shocking, and feature characters that are either bad people themselves or covering for someone even worse.
Many of the following quests have yet to be discovered by some and can alter the course of the game. Spoiler warning for those players who insist on venturing forth.
5Save The Refugees - Investigate Kagha
Motives Even Blacker Than Her Heart
Even the mild-mannered Rath refers to Kagha as a snake, and he’s not wrong, but her bad attitude comes from more than just an abrasive personality and anti-Tieflng bigotry. Read her mind, and discover that she’s secretly happy that she might be able to take over the Grove in Halsin’s absence.
Such visceral hatred for everyone’s favorite bear comes not only from Kagha’s ambition but her alliancewith a coven of Shadow Druidswho have their eye on the Grove. The only way to discover this side quest is by reading a letter locked in a chest in Kagha’s quarters, which leads to a location in the Sunlit Wetlands to a letter that proves her guilt.
The rats skittering around Kagha’s feet are Shadow Druids in disguise, which players can discover through the letter and the spellSpeak with Animals. They can leave it up to Halsin to deal with Kagha after he’s been rescued, but there’s also an option for Tav to dispense their own brand of justice.
4Search the Cellar: Unlock the Ancient Tome
There are a few interesting side quests in the Blighted Village, but this is one of the darkest. It’s also one longest quests in the game, requiring players to carry a mysterious book with them for all three acts.
It all starts with a book called The Necromancy of Thay that can be found in a secret cellar guarded by a magic mirror underneath the home of a mysterious alchemist. There’s an option to destroy the book, but then the quest is over. It’s recommended that a character with a high Wisdom scoreor one with the Sage backgroundbe the one to read it.
There’s a piece ofAmethystin Whispering Depths that allows the player to read some of the book, which gives the player the power of Speak With the Dead. Only by finding another book called the Thacerite Codex is the rest readable, and this rare tome is locked up in the Sorcerer’s Sundries vault. Finish the quest and learn a spell thatsummons a group of demonic fiendsinto battle.
3Find Arabella’s Parents
Well, They Aren’t Going Anywhere
Despite Tav’s best efforts, the fate of the Teiflings hasn’t improved since Act 1. A chance meeting with Arabella at the gates of the Rivington Graveyard starts this quest to find her parents, who were separated from her when they were attacked in the Underdark.
Anyone who told Arabella’s parents they wished to meet them again under better circumstances is going to be more than disappointed. Arabella’s parents are in the nearby House of Healing as Sister Lidwin’s “patients” but they’re long dead by the time the protagonist finds them.
2Dribbles The Clown
Not Only Dark But Also Disgusting And Messy
Certain companions are keen to see the big top as if it’s a break from dangerous adventuring, but the Circus of Last Days is just as perilous as anything in the Underdark or the sewers. With Orin’s doppelgangers and Bhaal cultists sneaking about, anyone could be dangerous.
This adventure starts when Tav uncovers that Dribbles the Clown is actually a shapeshifter, and that the real entertainer has been killed. Not just killed, but meticulously dismembered, and his body parts are hidden in various places throughout Baldur’s Gate.
It’s up to the protagonist to collect these various bits and return them to Lucretius.The Necromancer running the showthen intends to resurrect her top-billed star, the rotten cherry on top of this viscera cake.
1Find Mystic Carrion’s Servant
Starts Normal, Ends Up Going To Hell
Releasing Oskar the kidnapped artistfrom the Zhentarim hideoutseems like a heroic act, but it leads down a much darker path. When the player finds Oskar again in the home of his fiance, Lady Janneth, her mansion is filled with angry ghosts.
The flying crockery and screaming paintings are bad enough, but Janneth then recommends investigating the home of Mystic Carrion to find a way of exorcising the poltergeist. It’s revealed that Mystic Carrion is a Mummy Lord, and if that wasn’t dark enough, he’s been kidnapping and killing random fishermen and dock workers and making them into undead slaves.
This gets darker and more disgusting. The only way to make Mystic Carrion vulnerable to damage, should the player decide to kill him, is to destroy the canopic jars holding his preserved organs. Two of them can be found in his former tomb in the sewers, but the third and most important is hidden within the unfortunate Thrumbo, an undead minion the player has been tasked with returning to its master. Not to worry, as he throws it up, so no evisceration is required.
