Down, Down, Down By the River: Let's Play Baldur's Gate 3

[Timrod]

Summary

: I want to open by saying that I delayed this update a bit because..

: Mara now has a show-accurate ref sheet done by patdash on Discord. Ball’s in your court, Vivienne.

: It’s even slightly bigger than the radio asshole’s, which is one of two things I have that are bigger than his.

: It’s time for another cutscene dump. I’m just going to paraphrase this one.

: Gortash is having his portrait painted, and a weird fucked-up looking elf lady comes in and tells him there’s earthquakes going on.

: Surprise, she’s actually Orin in disguise and does her usual “KILL BLOOD MAIM” bullshit for a couple of seconds then fucks off.

: This whole thing is to introduce a quest line we won’t even see. Part of the evil route is siding with either Gortash or Orin and killing the other.

: “Astarion, what are you doing?”

: “Looking at the ground wistfully for the camera.”

: “Nothing makes sense anymore.”

Narrator: Beyond the campsite, the city waits in uneasy silence - one sleep away.

: “Lyselle, why are you wearing Minthara’s outfit?”

: “My only outfit was that stupid monk robe, so I stole them off Minthara when we killed her.”

: This campsite has a bunch of booze in it, which we’re going to want to grab because from what I remember, this is the only time we use this camp.

: Gale wants to talk to us before we go to sleep, and this is actually kind of important if you haven’t played the game before.

: “I was supposed to sacrifice myself to stop the Absolute - yet I don’t think I could have gone through with it, in truth. And I’m glad I didn’t, given what has come to light.”

: If Gale blows himself up, it’s a non-standard game over. He kills all three of the Fanfiction Brothers in one go and takes out the brain, but then everyone immediately transforms into mind flayers.

: “I’m um.. glad you didn’t blow yourself up? Or sorry that happened. Or whatever. There’s a reason you’re permabenched.”

: “We need to learn more about what we saw - especially that crown sitting on top of the elder brain. I believe it may be a powerful netherese artifact.”

: “As luck would have it, we’ll soon find ourselves near one of the finest book collections this side of Candlekeep - Sorcerous Sundries. I need to go there, and learn all I can.”

: Sorcerous Sundries is the location of the best staff in the game. It’s going to be one of the first places we’ll go in the city.

: The city has a couple of sidequests we want to do first. One of them leads you to the character Frank in Shadow Hearts 3 was based on.

: What we’re probably going to do is do Shadowheart’s character quest first, because that’s going to require me to respec the entire party.

: We can also talk to Halsin. Let’s do that.

1. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re quite large for an elf.
2. How did you come to be a druid?
3. Do you have people out there somewhere? Family? Friends? A lover, perhaps?
4. Tell me something about yourself that I wouldn’t even think to ask.
5. That’s enough for now.

: “How did you come to be a druid?”

: “You’re not a doppelganger, are you? Trying to study me, learn all my secrets so you can take my place?”

: “I had a friend when I was young, long ago. He played with me in the forests where I grew up… but eventually, I realized no one else had heard of him.”

: “It was Thaniel, of course. Nature was my very first friend. I get older, but he hasn’t changed a day. I knew then that I had to be more than a companion to him. I had to be a protector.”

: Hold on. Back up. What was that part about the doppelganger?

: It was just a joke. I could hardly believe it when that demon told me about Minthara.

: No, I think you’ve got it. Think about it. The fake Minthara. If she wanted to get to me, what would she do?

: She’d replace.. me.

: I think you should come with me tomorrow. We’re going to lay a trap for the shapeshifter.

: Almost all of these questions we can ask Halsin are either foreshadowing or references to something. For instance, Question 4.

: “Tell me something about yourself that I wouldn’t think to ask.”

: “Hmm, I suppose you wouldn’t be shocked to learn that I love animals and nature? I know, I know; well-trodden territory. Well, let’s see.. I whittle in my spare time, and I’ve something of a sweet tooth - though everyone’s very amused when I say I like honey.”

1. Whittling? What do you make?
2. So you turn into a bear and you like honey? A little on the nose.
3. You’re fortunate to know what you like. I wouldn’t pay any attention to what others think.
4. Thank you for sharing.

: “Whittling? What do you make?”

: “Ornaments, utensils - and ducks. I like ducks.”

: Reminds me of a certain pathetic theater kid I know.

: “Thank me by returning the favor, why don’t you? Come on - I’m sure you’ve got something better than carving wooden ducks.”

: “I live in mortal fear of krakens, though I’ve never actually seen one.”

: This is a reference to Divinity: Original Sin 2, which starts with your character on a boat being attacked by a kraken.

: You later fight the kraken as a boss and that was the point where I dropped the game. Anyway, before you move on - make sure your party is in order.

: Pollux tries to sleep, and then the brain starts commanding him to march on the city.

: The prism then flies away for some reason, and opens a portal that starts shitting out gith.

: These gith are all monks and hit extremely hard. We have three turns to get to the portal or it’s a game over.

: It’s entirely possible to set up explosives on the stairs if you know this is coming, but the portal will continually shit out gith until the timer expires.

: You also have a debuff that slowly fucks you over by reducing saves and doing damage per turn. The good news is that we can solve this in one turn.

: We only need one person to make it to the portal to progress, and everyone has at least one method of teleportation. I have Pollux use Dimension Door and warp right to the portal.

: Get settled in, because we have a solid 15 minutes of cutscene as the writers try to patch up the plot holes.

: “That orb’s going to blow, and soon.”

: We get another few seconds of a bunch of gith monks tumbling around. Monks are annoyances, and that’s about all they are.

: I know it’s part of the plot, but it seemed kind of dumb that the gith didn’t do this way earlier.

: Up ahead are two monks and an army of intellect devourers.

: Have I mentioned monks can straight up use Fireball in 5E? This was WoTC’s attempt to fix them as a class. They removed this in 2024 5E.

: Anyway, the reason they’re annoying is because they have Evasion, which halves spell damage and nullifies it completely on a save.

: They’re also immune to difficult terrain and can no-sell a single ranged attack per round because monks are designed to fuck casters over.

: This wouldn’t be as big of a problem if we had more mind-affecting spells (things like Magic Jar) where you can target the monk’s will save and force them to kill themselves.

: We then jump down and the game forgets to bring the party with Pollux before immediately launching into another cutscene.

: A mind flayer shows up and throws a rock at a monk, who promptly smashes it. Why the mind flayer would do this instead of mind controlling them is a mystery.

: Takes too long. By the time you figure out the most amusing way for them to kill themselves, they break out.

: “Before you do anything - I am your ally. We are in DANGER.”

: The mind flayer has a male voiceactor now, and this happens regardless of which gender you make your dream guardian.

: “The githyanki is the source of our protection against the Absolute. I MUST subdue him or everything we’ve worked towards is lost.”

: “Don’t let my form deceive you. I am the one that’s been protecting you. I am the one that came to you in your dreams. Help me.”

1. What do you need me to do?
2. Leave the githyanki alone!
3. Prove to me that you are who you say.
4. This is the battle you were fighting?
5. I don’t believe you. You’re a mind flayer.
6. Die, monster!

: I wish we could kill him.

: You can kill him, but it’s an automatic game over, which is dumb. This character was a lot better in the beta, by which I mean their writing was more atrocious.

: In the beta, the mind flayer tries to catfish you into letting the brain destroy the city. If you say yes, there was a scene where you sit by a river and watch the city burn. That’s where the title theme came from.

: “This is the battle you were fighting?”

: “The honor guard. Eliminate them. My forces are weakened by their assault. But with your help, we can turn this around. Destroy the guard. I will subdue their master.”

: “Nah, fuck you.”

: “Do NOT be driven by fear! Trust me now and I promise you will have all the answers you seek.”

: The fight starts with four gith versus the party and the mind flayer. Everyone but Pollux is about a mile back.

: I fucked up casting Hunger of Hadar on this take, I meant to cast it right in the middle. Not that it matters, since this entire zone has no gravity and monks can jump nearly the entire length of the skull in one action.

: I also have Lyselle cast Black Tentacles, which does nothing because monks are immune to it. Ideally, you should probably ditch any casters who aren’t Eldritch Blast spammers.

: The good news is that Karlach can one turn kill most of them because they have no real defense against weapon damage.

: In 2024 5E, they kinda do because Deflect Arrows got upgraded to Deflect Everything Including Magic, but that only protects against one attack.

: This gith is the leader, and is equally vulnerable to being stabbed.

: They should put some armor on. Why do you think I wear this thing around?

: They.. can’t. Monks lose all their abilities if they wear armor.

: Eventually, the mind flayer ends it by casting Chain Lightning. I’m not sure why this hits for full damage.

: “Thank you. That was too close. Don’t look at me like that. I am a mind flayer, yes. Without me you would be a slave to the Absolute.”

: “A mind flayer? How is this possible? Gods, we’ve been so… blind.”

1. Thank you for saving me.
2. I always suspected you were a mind flayer.
3. You were in the Prism all along? Why did you deceive me?
4. I prefer the other version of you.
5. Tell me everything.

: “You were in the prism all along? Why did you deceive me?”

: “It was necessary. Rare are those that would openly consider a partnership with a mind flayer. Even those who are on the path of becoming one.”

: “I was someone once. An adventurer. I came from Baldur’s Gate, though I was never one to be constrained by circumstance. I longed for more.”

: “That longing brought me to Moonrise Towers on a search for treasure. To a colony of mind flayers who caught me, changed me into what I am now.”

: This part of the plot makes no fucking sense. Remember, Ketheric launched his war against the druids over a century ago.

: The game implies that the mind flayer colony was something built after the Fanfiction Brothers came up with the “take over the brain” plot, but it was apparently there the entire time and Ketheric didn’t use it because ???.

: You’ve already seen from the Pathfinder Scenario LP that RPG writing usually sucks, and this is no exception.

: “For years I served the elder brain - the one you know as the Absolute. I was a thrall like any other. But I was fortunate. I broke free, and started a new life in my old city.”

: “I sustained myself on criminals. Unglamourous, but there were plenty of them, rarely missed, and they fulfilled me while I did my work.”

: He really likes to hear himself talk, doesn’t he?

: “I had the good fortune to meet Duke Stelmane. We formed a partnership, and through her I became the governing force behind the Knights of the Shield, the largest mercantile operation in Baldur’s Gate.”

: What does any of this have to do with anything?

: You mean you don’t want to hear about how Gortash threw me back to the brain and then I never explain how I got into the prism?

: No. Kindly fuck off.

: Anyway, that’s Orpheus and you just killed his honor guard. He’s bound here by demon chains because Vlaakith made a deal with some asshole who sounds like he has a radio shoved up his ass.

: I’m blowing him up as soon as I get the chance.

: Orpheus has the same power as his mom which lets him disrupt psychic communication and Vlaakith locked him away in case she needed to usurp the power for herself.

: Then wait, why didn’t she just kill him and take his power in the first place?

: Shut up.

: Make me.

: Anyway, you should TRUST ME and eat this super mind flayer larva that is made of pure fanfiction and turns you into a HALF-MIND FLAYER.

: No.

: One of the stupid side plots in Act 3 is that you can turn your character fully into a mind flayer. Pollux will not be doing this, as the only thing he’s looking to suck on is Halsin.

: You can also turn Karlach into a mind flayer. We will not be doing that either.

: One of the gith has a pair of boots that complete the “Kushigo” set. We don’t really care. There are a few corpses with potions on them as well.

: We then get a free long rest, and we can go into Act 3 for real.

: And by Act 3, I mean the suburbs. Rivington is where a very, very important hidden quest comes into play.

: See this little girl? This is where the hidden quest starts. It won’t actually progress until we reach the second major hub of Act 3.

: Act 3 has three hubs: Rivington, the Lower City, and Wyrm’s Crossing. The Upper City was originally planned but cut before release.

: “Erm. 'Scuse me. I can’t find my mum.”

1. Where did you last see her?
2. What’s your name?
3. That’s your problem, kid. Get lost.

: “What’s your name?”

: “Yenna! And my cat is Grub. He’s shy. I’m not.”

: She’s got three more kids behind you trying to steal your wallet.

: I like how they took the “just make a small adult” approach instead of trying to model a kid.

: “My mum is called Emery. She went to go get some herbs - for her spots. She was sick. And she was supposed to come back the same day. That was last tenday though.”

: “I could take you to a guard. I’m sure the Flaming Fist could help you.”

: “I’m a lovable street urchin in her early 30s. Guards don’t help people like us.”

: “Okay, uh.. do you want some food? Astarion seems to approve of me giving you stuff.”

: “Wow, thanks!”

: Our first stop in Rivington is right in front of the party. This house has a sidequest in it, and we want to do it because it’s the easiest way to unlock the next area.

Ben Golewitz: The place was empty! Keep those thugs away from my family.

: This guy sounds like Steve from Dagger of Amon Ra - they put an effect on to make his voice deeper, but it’s not as extreme as the one in Dagger.

: I accidentally nudged my controller, but this guy’s name is Arfur and he immediately calls for his mercenary.

Zenovia Dawg: “Arfur, sweetheart - you paid me and my boys to be caravan guards, not cattle wranglers. If you want us to get our hands dirty, it’d be our pleasure - but that’ll be extra.”

1. Calm down and tell me what’s going on.
2. You certainly know how to make people feel welcome.
3. Does no one we meet ever get along?
4. The army of the Absolute is mere days away and you’re bickering over property ownership?

: “Oh, you hired the local mafia. Cute. Stand down immediately or I kill you all.”

Arfur Gregorio: “I just want to remove these unlawful interlopers from my property!”

1. This is a pretty big house - are you sure you don’t have a single spare room?
2. It’s always heartening to see a true philanthropist out in the wild.
3. Squatters, is it? Maybe I’d be willing to lend a helping hand.
4. [DETECT THOUGHTS] Delve into this frustrated man’s mind.
5. Leave.

: I really like how Pollux looks in this pose.

Arfur Gregorio: “Pft, they’re like kobolds - you let one in and soon the place will be crawling with them! I’m a very magnanimous individual, but this is my home. Either they live, or I’ll make them.”

: Pollux fails an insight check here, but we’ll see what this guy’s hiding soon enough. There’s also a really funny alternate way to do this - I’ll show it off right after.

: “You can let them stay, or I can kill you and your dumbfuck mercenary buddies.”

: At this point, the mercs from the local Crime Guild decide to attack and we kill them all. Let me show you the funny way to do this.

: Step one is to get Astarion invisible and have him pickpocket Arfur of all his money. You could also steal the pass Arfur has to get into the next area.. except you can only steal one thing before invisibility breaks because 5E is dumb.

: Next, we use the Detect Thoughts option, which tells us that Arfur has something in his basement.

: “I hear these sorts of houses always have basements. What do you use yours for?”

Arfur Gregorio: “My basement? Oh, nothing interesting! Just materials - I’m a craftsman, you see. Look, I have some very valuable components in there. I need to get that lot out before they damage something.”

: “Mind if I have a look at all those explosives in your basement that you’ve been thinking about?”

Arfur Gregorio: “Who do you think you are? Zenovia, people are lining up to break into my property - do something about it!”

: There’s just one problem - Arfur hasn’t paid her.

: Arfur then spends several seconds frustratedly searching for his money and not finding it.

: The mercs fuck off without a fight, and we get the full experience as if we fought them. You can also intimidate the mercs down, but this is funnier.

: Normally I’d insist on killing them all, but that is kinda funny.

: I also thought about kidnapping him, but the problem is that this part of Act 3 has no warp points that aren’t within sight of a hundred people.

: If you go upstairs in Arfur’s house, you can lockpick his bedroom which gives you some minor treasure and his erotic fanfiction.

: It’s always about the breasts.

: This is the point in the game where it starts hurling cosmetics at you, which is really weird. I guess it’s there if you want to roleplay not wearing armor in public.

: The bedroom has a key to this hatch.

: The basement is full of traps and occasionally breaks pathfinding - I had Astarion get frozen and had to reload the game.

: The traps can be disarmed to get fireworks, which act like one-use fireballs that do less than a third of what Mara was doing in Pathfinder at 5th level.

: We can also find some explosive barrels.

: These are super oil barrels, and it’s a pity there’s so few of them. They do 8d6 fire compared to an oil barrel’s 6d6, but more importantly don’t allow a save to reduce damage.

: How has Arfur not blown himself up?

: One reload later, and we find this chest with a note in it. The chest is locked and trapped.

Arfur, package still waiting for you at Felogyr’s. You’d better not be late again or we’ll start to wonder if you’re really as committed as you claim to be. Pick it up, put it in the teddy bears, make the donation. It couldn’t be simpler, really. If it’s still here this time tomorrow, we’ll stuff you with it. As you well know, we’ve plenty to spare.

: For finding this, we get 3.25 owlbears of experience. I think you get more if you didn’t steal Arfur’s pass to the next area, but I did that on this run by clicking really fast.

: Next door is a smithy I’m mostly going to ignore. The “smith” is actually Orin in disguise. The only reason I’m mentioning this is because there is a Dis-Honor Mode level bug you can do here.

: For this bug to work, you need people in two locations at once. You can use the smith, but there’s a much easier location.

: This barn is part of the quest from Arfur’s house. It’s located down the path from the blacksmith, and has this guard in front of it.

: Leave Karlach here, and ideally Shadowheart as well.

: Make sure Shadowheart has the Contagion spell ready.

: Down near the gate to the next area is a reporter. Both the reporter and that guard are Orin. Now we just need to create a minor time paradox.

: Talk to the reporter and tell her you have no comment and aren’t interested.

: Turn on non-lethal attacks and try to knock the guard out in one hit. This bug is finicky and we’re using the guard first. If it doesn’t work, try it on the reporter.

: Half the time, the guard will turn back into Orin. The other half, she gets her shit knocked out. This is when we cast Contagion, which persists all the way to her boss fight.

: Feel free to steal her armor too.

: I thought that was her skin when I played it. It shouldn’t be able to hold together like that.

: If you interact with the smith, Orin fucks off and the actual smith comes out accusing you of attacking him. You can persuade him away or kill him. Either way, it’s 10 owlbears of EXP.

: The place I actually wanted to head is right here, to this temple next to the blacksmith. Remember the talking amulet we found in that lava pit in Act 1? This is where we resolve that quest.

Novice Bramble: “The Crying One weeps today. Our Father Lorgan is dead. Murdered!”

: There’s a second quest here to investigate the murder. We’ll do this because it takes us to a place we already need to go.

: Oh! That’s a hollyphant! They’re angel elephants who love hugs. They can grow into mammoths and shoot rays of light from their trunks.

: Sounds like something those morons would enjoy. Just like the herd of pangolins they filled my club with because they thought it was a cat cafe.

: That’s so cute though!

: Sure. “Cute”. Look up how their anatomy works sometime.

: In Descent to Avernus, Zariel has a pet hollyphant who gets driven insane when she falls. There is an entire plotline where you can redeem Zariel by finding her pet and showing it to her.

Sister Yannis: “Look, investigator. Brilgor might have been a criminal, but he was no murderer. You’re missing something, you have to be -”

: “Enough, Yannis! Listen to yourself. You are defending a man who ritually slaughtered your high priest. The evidence speaks for itself. Brilgor killed Father Lorgan, then be it out of shame or profane duty offed himself with the same blade. Case closed, Sister Yannis.”

: We’re exterminating this thing before the angels get any ideas.

Sister Yannis: “Shitty little elephant. Oh, um. I apologize, stranger. Language like that hardly befits a rector of Ilmater.”

: “No, you’re right. That elephant sucks and I hate it.”

Sister Yannis: “I suppose you’re right. The Crying One has much more on his plate than curse words, given what just happened here.”

: “Ah, yes. Father Lorgan’s passing. My condolences.”

Sister Yannis: “It wasn’t just Father Lorgan. Two people just died on temple grounds. Our high priest, Father Lorgan, and one of the new refugees, Brilgor. Investigator Valeria thinks it a murder, and is content to blame Brilgor. The politically convenient target.”

: “No murder story I’ve ever read has ended simply - I bet there’s more afoot here.”

: We can also ask her about the amulet monk’s daughter, only to learn she died last year. That’s gonna complicate things.

: You can talk to people for hints, or just find the kitchen and see the blood-covered hatch like everyone does.

: All you have to do is follow the blood trail to the room full of dead bodies.

: Reminds me of home, only with fewer bodies.

: The three people in here are doppelgangers, which..

: Are evil. Pure evil.

: One of them has a key that we need to finish the murder quest. The other has a letter hinting at a special dagger being around here somewhere.

: We can also find a camp full of dead tieflings with some food in it.

: The dagger we’re looking for is right here. You can do a DC 5 perception check to notice it, but you can also just click it if you know where it is (or hold down the “show all hotspots” button).

: This dagger is trash. If you can use this, you can use one of the two shortswords Astarion is lugging around.

: On the way back, we can stop and find Lorgan’s body in the infirmary. He tells us a dwarf killed him.

: Heh. Killed by a dwarf. The indignity of it all.

: While we’re here, we might as well stop and return the amulet. Valeria left while we were killing the doppelgangers, and finishing the quest requires using that key we found.

: I’m going to skip a lot of this, because almost no one (unless maybe your main character is a monk) is going to do this quest.

: We get two options: either take the monk’s curse for him, or fight him.

: If you take the curse, you need to make two DC 15 wisdom checks. One of them can be absorbed by the parasite, so really you only need to make one.

: If you fail, you permanently lose one point of wisdom. This is why no one would ever do this quest on honor mode. Sure, you can boost saves, but you can’t guarantee a winning roll.

: The reward for taking the curse is trash - you get the ability to cast Hideous Laughter once per long rest. At 10th level, this is beyond pointless. Hideous Laughter was a bad spell in 3.5E and is even worse in 5E.

: The monk died on the way back to his home planet.

: He was a space alien?

: He might as well be.

: To continue the murder quest, we need to go into the next area. I’ll show off the cutscene that happens when you do this, but there’s a much easier way.

: “Halt! By orders of Lord Gortash, refugees are no longer allowed in the city. Turn around.”

: There’s a bunch of dialog options, but they all lead to the same place.

: “Give me 200 gold.”

: “Fine, here’s 200 gold.”

: “Right. Article 30.1.15 of the Council’s Decree on Extraordinary Wartime Measures. I am confiscating that. The city thanks you for your contribution. Your name?”

1. Why do you need my name?
2. My name is Pollux.
3. I’m called Daisy Dewdrop Fluffington.
4. Never mind. I’ll be on my way.
5. You are scamming me. Give me my money back.

: “My name is Pollux.”

: “Well met, Citizen Pollux. Please submit to a scan.”

: What genre are we even in?

Narrator: Behind the Watcher’s gaze, a presence awakens. You are seen, you are known. Your party’s prior transgressions are reflected in its stare, as witnessed by the cult’s ever-alert scrying eyes."

: What the fuck?! How did they even know… all the eyes died before they could see anything!

: I thought it was because they figured out that none of those cultists ever came back.

Narrator: It has heard the howls of slaughtered goblins. It has seen the deep shadows of Grymforge, and the stone floors left bloodied. It knows the cold walls of Moonrise Towers, and the cultists who fell there. The Watcher speaks directly into your mind with a voice like poisoned honey.

: “You are marked for special treatment. Not simply an enemy of the people, but an enemy of the Absolute. Come quietly, or die.”

: Fighting any of these robots is bullshit. They resist all physical damage, are vulnerable only to lightning, and have advantage on all saves against magic.

: You might as why I have Lae’zel, Gale, and Halsin in the party and that’s because this is from an earlier recording where I resolved the fake Minthara quest early.

: Now, we could pay the 200 gold.. or we could simply bypass the checkpoint altogether.

: If you look at it from a distance, you can see there’s scaffolding on the side of the checkpoint.

: This short gap (which even Lyselle can jump unassisted) is how we bypass everything.

: After a short climb, we come up the other side and the guards will never notice us again.

: We can then head back down this way (past the disguised Orin) to get to the place the gnomes would’ve led us had they saved us from the robot.

: Oh, it’s that gnome we saved in the underdark. And is that.. two runepowder barrels? Astarion, get on it.

: These are very annoying to steal because there are so many eyes on them, and if anyone sees them move they’ll immediately grab them.

: This is one of those things where I just think it’s bad game design.

: Let’s set some boxes down at the entrance. This will fuck up the pathfinding, which is necessary for what we’re about to do.

: Once your boxes are down, spawn a mage hand and go into turn-based mode.

: Stacking the barrels like this lets you move them as a single item. From there, you just need to get them past the barricade.

: We have everything we really need from here, but there is something else I need to show quick.

: This guy here is a trader, and he sells an item that is very useful against a boss later in Act 3 - the same one that made me drop the game.

: Specifically, these grenades. These stun Steel Watchers (the robot we ran into) and are needed when we fight one as a boss.

: Past the checkpoint, we can find Sharess’s Caress - the brothel that Voss told us to meet him in. Let’s finish the murder quest first.

: The flophouse is across the street.

: There’s not much interesting in it, so we head to the third floor using this ladder.

: This wardrobe is fake and opens using the key we took off the doppelganger under the temple.

: We can pull out a body and talk to it using Speak with Dead. Pollux really got a lot of mileage out of that amulet we pulled out of Withers’s coffin at the start of the game.

Ffion Goldgrind: “Murdered.. by my own son…”

: She confirms that the killer is a dwarf in red.

: What we need is the dwarf’s hit list, which is right here.

: This gets us nearly 25 owlbears of experience and another way into the final area of Act 3.

: We now have what we need to go into the brothel.

: “NEVER.”

: If you talk to the madam, you can find out that her “Stern Librarian” has gone missing. The librarian is the dwarf we just found dead. We’ll skip this.

: The reason is that the reward is bisexual incest sex with a pair of drow twins and Pollux wants no part of that.

: I don’t think the writers understood how much that whole concept grosses people out.

: Valeria is upstairs, and we have all the evidence we need, so let’s finish this quest.

: “Another case closed, another bottle open! Huzzah to Valeri-AH!”

: “Hang on a tick, I recognize that face. You were talking to Yannis after I left the temple. I’ll bet she’s put you up to something.”

1. I’m just here to drink.
2. Afraid so - I’ve found new evidence, Investigator.
3. She asked me to find Lorgan’s real killer, seeing as you can’t be bothered.
4. Leave.

: “Afraid so - I’ve found new evidence, Investigator.”

: “Why must you busybodies insist on interrupting a perfectly good night of.. ugh. I know that look. You remind me of Devella. Fine - if you doubt my conclusions, out with it. What have you found?”

: “I found the murder weapon you missed in a tunnel under the temple.”

: “That’s quite the discovery. Doesn’t tell me everything, though. Why was Lorgan killed?”

: “What is this, Dagger of Amon Ra? There were a bunch of shapeshifters hiding under the temple in a tunnel full of dead bodies, and I found a hit list from a murder cult they belonged to.”

: “Really? You as well? Devella’s been harping on about Bhaal for months. Fancies herself something of an expert. I assumed it was just a bunch of conspiracy codswollop and fearmongering, but she’s been unusually insistent about this one, even for her.”

: “Ugh, fine. I’ll bite. What’s your theory?”

: “It’s not a theory. I have proof. This document contains information connecting the murders to the Bhaalist resurgence.”

: “No need to wave documents at me. I’m already drowning in paperwork as it is. Constable Devella is going to be a real pain in the trunk about this.”

: “Since you seem to be on an obnoxiously similar wavelength, why don’t you seek her out? She’ll be at the Elfsong Tavern. Show her the list, and I’ll stay and inform the Fist here.”

: “Oh, and you’ll need this pass - it’ll give you access to the Lower City.”

: This is another way we can get the pass into the next area.

: To find Voss, we need to go into the brothel rooms at the top and find this particular room.

: “You must hear me, devil. I will do whatever it takes - give you anything you ask.”

: “There is only one thing in this world that I desire. You do not have it, and you never will.”

: “You must help me, Raphael. For the sake of my people.”

: “Hush now, Voss. These guests may not know it yet, but they want the same thing that you do. And unlike you, they have something of value to offer in return.”’

: “Whatever you discuss with this devil, I must hear of it. Find me below in the taproom once you’re loosed from his claws.”

: “I’m glad you came. Not to my door, not yet, but to the final reckoning. One more thing before we begin, though.”

Narrator: “For the first time since the nautiloid, your mind is clear. It’s.. unsettling.”

: “Did you just cure me of the tadpole? With a click of your fingers?”

: “Wouldn’t that be exquisite? But no. I’m afraid the tadpole is still there. But I did shut out your other visitor for a while, so we can enjoy some privacy. The illithid can’t hear us.”

: “Huh. What’s the catch?”

: “Then speak freely. Tell me why you brought me here.”

: “I brought you here because I’m true to my word, and I can make all of this tadpole business go away. Which means you and your lovely friends can remain blessedly free of tentacles.”

: “Let us speak plain. I’ll admit - you’ve impressed me. I wasn’t sure you’d make it this far. But no matter how far you come, you’re still on the road to ruin - a road that leads directly to a confrontation with the elder brain.”

: “At best, it will kill you and everyone else in this city. At worst, it will assimilate you, and you won’t have enough free will left to even wish you were dead. You have the key to destroying it in the palm of your hand, though.”

1. The Astral Prism?
2. The Emperor?
3. Orpheus?

: “Orpheus.”

: “Very perceptive. Yes. I can give you the means to break him free. The Orphic Hammer. An artefact capable of shattering the chains that hold Prince Orpheus is held securely in my Hazbin Hotel House of Hope even now.”

: “How very convenient that you have exactly what I need.”

: “Isn’t it just? And it’s even more convenient that you can give me exactly what I want in return.”

: “There it is. Of course.”

: “I want the Crown that dominates the elder brain.”

: “And I want to invade your shitty hotel and exterminate you.”

: “Then you will die, along with every other soul in this city.”

: If you take Raphael’s deal, he demands your party’s souls as collateral. However.. let’s fast forward a bit and go to camp.

: “Yurgir? What are you doing here?”

: “Nice place you have here, little rabbit. Could use a few more trophies, perhaps. I’ll keep this short, or my absence will be noted. You need the Orphic Hammer, and I know where you need to look.”

: “There’s a diabolist - name’s Helsik - in the Lower City. She can get you into the Hazbin Hotel House of Hope - our mutual friend Raphael’s abode.”

: “You really should just join our party.”

: “Oh, I will. Get there, and you’ll see. Forget I was ever here - but remember what I said.”

: There is another way to find this information if you do Jaheira’s quest, and you can of course just walk into Helsik’s shop unprompted.

: On the way out, we run into Korrilla, who is Alastor Raphael’s assistant. She appears in a couple of places earlier in the game, but teleports away if you notice her.

: The places she appears are next to Wyll at the tiefling party and hidden in a corner of the mason’s guild in Act 2.

: Most notably though… do you remember back in Act 1 when we dealt with Gut? How she tried to give Pollux a sleeping potion? If your character isn’t an elf and you take the potion, Gut throws you in prison.

: If that happens, Korrilla shows up and kills Gut and the ogre as a failsafe.

: Arfur is here watching a stripper, and if we hadn’t stolen the pass off him we’d need to talk to him to advance the quest from his basement.

: We’ll need to advance it manually instead. Doing so isn’t hard. We know that Arfur had a bunch of explosives and was donating teddy bears to the refugees.

: There is a refugee encampment right behind his house. You can see it from his front door.

: We need to talk to the dwarf standing behind the table.

: In the back of the warehouse is a crate with bears in it. Getting close to it lets you find that it’s trapped.

: Disarming it gets you three very unique items. These teddy bears can be thrown to do 6d6 fire damage, which makes them pretty good as grenades go.

: This is as far as we can progress the quest - to go any further, we need to reach the Lower City. We could get there right now, but I want to do the first part of Jaheira’s quest first, which is on this side of Act 3.

: Danthelon’s Dancing Axe is next door to the flophouse.

: We’ll bring Jaheira for this even though the game has a pathfinding issue during the one spot where she’d make a difference. She’s otherwise kind of an extraneous character.

: In this game, she’s just a second druid that isn’t as good as Halsin, which is weird because in BG1 and BG2 she was a Druid/Fighter multiclass.

: She does come with a scimitar that would be better on just about anyone else. If I was developing this game, I would have had her use 2E mechanics just because. If you’re going to fanfiction the enemies, give me access to Elf as a class in 5E.

: Elf and Dwarf were classes in AD&D and it made no sense - you could be an elf or dwarf without having levels in Elf or Dwarf and the whole thing was a clusterfuck.

: For reference, Elf was essentially “I want to be Legolas” class that became Ranger and Dwarf was a Fighter offshoot.

: This guy looks VERY close to Dipshit McOracle. If you don’t have Jaheira, you have to convince him to let you into the back.

: This part is really glitchy because there’s a cutscene trigger at the bottom of the ladder but the party tends to get stuck on the ladder.

: “You.. are not Jaheira. I… I was hoping to greet the High Harper beneath Selune’s Tears.”

Harper Chelvin: “You have the lad a little nervous - you’re the one that toppled Ketheric out in the shadowlands, no?”

1. [DETECT THOUGHTS] You’re a little lost. Probate Geraldus’s thoughts.
2. Ketheric was only the beginning. You have information on the other Chosen?
3. And you are…?

: If Jaheira is in conversation range (below the halfway point of the ladder), she’ll immediately recognize the code phrase he’s using.

: The detect thoughts option is funnier, though.

: “Strike, strike, strike - before the doppelgangers do!”

: The third option gives us a surprise round.

: With his robe and three rays worth of Eldritch Blast, Pollux has some of the highest ranged DPS we can muster without using spell slots.

: The doppelgangers really aren’t a threat due to their AI.

: Even though they only have ranged weapons, they won’t use them - they’ll waste their turn dashing to use a bonus action that gives defensive penalties to the party, even if the party was already hit with it (they don’t stack).

: “Did I - did I get it right?”

: “Selune’s Tears. It is said no false face can stand beneath their light. An old code, Harper - but yes, you got it right. Now I need your report.”

: “We had eyes on suspected cultists in the city, like you asked. We thought we were tracking them, but…”

: “They were tracking you instead, evidently. Doppelgangers.”

: “And they’re not just working with the cult, High Harper - they’re part of it. Bhaalists, I think.”

: “Sworn to Orin the Red, yes. We’ve.. already had the pleasure. Go on.”

: I played a doppelganger in 3E once. They’re canonically that one race of neutral aliens from Futurama.

: “Everything seemed fine, until.. your latest orders. Until we started to search for the Rashemaar. They struck the same night. I woke to one of them strangling Chelvin, while smiling at me out of her face.”

: The “Rashemaar” is BG3’s Frank. If you know anything about BG2, you probably know who I’m talking about.

: “She said - it said - that I’d report back to you as normal. Lure you here, and.. I had no choice.”

: “I’m sure it felt that way, Geraldus. The others were likely dragged back to Orin. Tortured. Sacrificed. I do not expect you to die for me. But to risk Entharl? And any citizen who might have wandered in?”

: “There is always a choice - and a Harper must be able to make the hard ones. Perhaps this isn’t the life for you after all, Geraldus.”

: “No. Jaheira - High Harper - please. I’m still a Harper. I want to help.”

: “You’ve scarcely signed up, boy, and there is a war coming. Why die a Harper, when you could still live as anything else?”

1. No one can make that choice for him. Not even you, High Harper.
2. She’s right, Geraldus. You did your part. Go live your life.
3. Wait, Jaheira. You’re acting like this is his fault - it’s yours.
4. Enough of the Harper dramatics. What do we do now?

: “As I recall, a certain Harper failed to notice that dumbass with the wings who would have killed Isobel had it not been for me tactically filling her room with garbage.”

: “Why did you do that, anyway?”

: “It just works.”

: “I want to fight.. for Chelvin. For all of them. So it means something.”

: “Death is death. To look for meaning in it is foolishness, boy. Childish, storybook nonsense. Exactly the kind a Harper would spout, I suppose. Fine. I have no right to make the choice for you. Not when this mess is of my making.”

: “I sent the Harpers hunting after the cult without thinking what it would mean to be hunted in turn. Now they are compromised, and if not for you, I wouldn’t even know it. I"m sorry, Geraldus. Harper.”

: Not much to do now except go into the Lower City. We’ll do that next update.