What you actually want to prevent in Baldur’s Gate 3 is the best ending for a popular companion

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In Baldur’s Gate 3 you spend the entire game trying to prevent “zeromorphosis”, i.e. becoming a mind flayer. Only one character really wants this because it means their freedom: Karlach. A few lines of text that hardly anyone will ever see show this.

Spoiler warning: This is about a possible ending to Baldur’s Gate 3 as well as the story of Karlach.

Who is the companion?

  • Karlach is one of the ten companions from Baldur’s Gate 3. You find her quite early, in Act 1, where you can recruit (or kill) her.
  • The barbarian is one of the most popular companions due to her cheerful nature and is the top romance for many players. Here we explain how Karlach becomes your girlfriend.
  • However, Karlach has a problem: instead of a heart, she has installed a devilish machine that threatens to explode. The condition condemns them to death – with a few exceptions.

    • This is her “best” ending: At the beginning of the game you are given a larva that gives you strange powers, but also turns you into a mind flayer. So you die and a new brain eater is born. Actually, because the process is stopped by a secret visitor.

    In Act 3 you finally have the opportunity to actively decide to become a mind flayer. You then lose your character and class, learn new skills and truly become someone else.

    This is an unpopular outcome for most, but someone has to accept this fate: either yourself, the NPC Orpheus, or someone in your group. And this is where Karlach comes into play.

    Because of her condition, Karlach is not only predestined for this end, it even makes her happy, as a player on Reddit has now found out. If you play as Karlach and transform, she has an inner monologue:

    I’m still the same, right? I’m still me…? Yes and no. But somehow I think that was intentional. Maybe not the tentacles, but… something else. And my machine. She…is…silent. Still there, but no longer in danger of exploding. No pain. No gears. A peace I haven’t felt in a decade – or ever.

    That means I will live.

    I will live.

    I will …

    I can stay alive. I can stay.

    Fuck yes.

    Stories like these are one of the reasons why Baldur’s Gate 3 is so well received:

    Middle finger to the AAA industry: Baldur’s Gate 3 was no coincidence

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    “As soon as she becomes a mind flayer, the lights go out.”

    However, user giga-plum explains on Reddit that mind flayers retain their host’s memories after transformation. But the person she once was still died.

    From the outside it makes no difference, but it means: the soul is gone and that is important in Faerûn, where souls and gods are real. Karlach is then gone; in her place there is a mind flayer who thinks he is Karlach.

    This leads to a sprawling discussion about souls and the afterlife. However, there are still a few details that suggest an actually “good” ending for Karlach.

    Lazarus, or Withers, says that he can still sense traces of the old Karlach in the mind flayer. More specifically, he says mind flayers don’t actually have souls. This special creature, the Karlach Schinder, does.

    Other users object that mind flayers certainly have souls, but they come from a different plane of existence. That is why the God of Death could not recognize their souls as such. The fact that Lazarus still feels something here makes Karlach something special.

    Later patches added new endings for Karlach, but until then this was the only “good” ending for the barbarian. And according to some players, it’s still the best ending, even with the souls discussion.

    mmod-game