Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Gortash Smooches in Patch 9, Pretty Please?

I might as well shoot my shot, even though my chances of success are slim to none. Also, this is meant to be very lighthearted and respectful.

Please let us romance Gortash, even if it’s only temporary.

For context, I play as an evil Durge, both embracing and rejecting Bhaal.

Clearly the Gortash x DU subtext is there, even if you choose to interpret their interactions as entirely platonic. The Prayer for Forgiveness, the way Gortash reacts when he finds out DU is alive, the way it feels like he’s trying to seduce them. Come on, those cheeky patch 6 insight check lines? The two are the closest thing the other has had to a lover friend.

There are other “evil” characters that can be romanced or have a one time scene with (AA, DJ SH, Minthara, Lae’zel, Mizora, Harleep, the Emperor). But in my opinion, Gortash makes the most sense for an evil DU from a story/rp perspective.

I’m not asking for an entire story change to accommodate an additional romance—that’s highly unrealistic and unreasonable to ask at this stage. Besides, I personally think . But I’d love to have some extra dialogue lines exclusive to DU that can confirm a relationship and the option to kiss Gortash.

Some of you may ask, “but why?” Listen, I’m a simple gal. Gort is hot and I love villains. And it’s not just me: look how many fans there are for nearly every Final Fantasy villain, Dracula, Wesker, Ganondorf… I could go on and on. I think Gort is a fantastically written villain and seriously, Jason Isaacs did such a stellar job voicing him.

I think it can be done in a way that doesn’t force the choice on other Durge players as evidenced by the patch 6 lines. That way, only folks who want to HC Durgetash can play it out without imposing it upon others. That seems like a pretty fair compromise to me.

Listen, we Durgetash fans know that even some of your staff ships it. So please, let it sail.

*Sorry for typos/grammar. On mobile.

+ 1

Yes, I completely agree with you! The difference between how he reacts to Tav versus Durge was so fun my first playthrough. I would love an exclusive Durge option where you can agree to an alliance with Gortash, and take over the BG with him. And of course smooch a little.

gortash inspired in me very similar feelings to loghain in DAO (although i imagine less ppl will agree with me about loghain lmao) - if i could romance them, i would've dropped any and all companions in a heartbeat for it.

i agree that i'd love some option to define durge's past relationship to gortash more, *even if* nothing changes in the present--but if visiting gortash alone and as durge gave you the option for a little kiss, then who am i to refuse.....

WOw. Even Larian staff ships it and still Larian pays so little attention to Durge in every patch?! They could have fixed Durge reactivity in their most important scene, but they didn't and now they announced they are walking away from the game.
Wild.
You know, in case Larian still find resources and time to fix the most important Durge's climax scene and Kressa's scene reactions' first, then I'll support your request. Durge gets very little love. That Alfira addition was completely unnecessary, IMO, they could have worked on Durge's scenes instead. Maybe it's too much to ask, but Durge has been ignored for far too long.

Smooch a little a lot. I want to pepper that man in smooches. Babygurl gonna make time, bwahahaha!



Now you’re making me want to replay Origins! I agree with you that a lot of folks don’t like him, but I think he was such an excellently written character. But I’m so with you. If there was an option to romance Gortash, I’d drop everyone else.


Yeah, I’m almost positive Beau Welch was like “omg, sorry guys, if I had seen this coming, I would have 100% written it in” and that they are very much a Durgetash enjoyer. Also saw a picture on X of one of the Larian employees just casually viewing some smutty Durgetash fan art. Teases.

I agree with you though, I’d love a little more polish on Durge’s story. It feels like Durge should have been the canon MC and I don’t think I could ever go back to playing Tav.

I'm not a fan of DU, but I would play one for Gortash. He is the character I would have liked to romance.

I support it, because it fits logically into the story for DU. Clearly quite a few players wanted romance with Gortash, and forum threads dedicated to Gortash were created repeatedly. If I understand correctly, after patch 6 kisses were changed for all companions, accordingly, Larian has unused ready-made kiss animations of patch 5, why not give a kiss to Gortash? It doesn't seem like such a difficult task, especially if it's not a full-blown romance, but at least a kiss. To be honest, while I myself don't use any additional romantic content (scenes with anyone but LI) at all, but just evaluating these features from the outside, it seems strange to me that you can do this with an incubus, an illithid, a bear, but for a normal man like Enver Gortash who has his own fanbase, they never added anything. Larian, in my opinion, made too strong a bias towards “exotica” in their additional romantic interactions, and to balance this content by adding something more classic and literary like a romance with an intellectual strong male character (now it's unlikely they'll make a full-fledged romance by now, so at least a kiss) would be very good.

For my game, I'd like to be able to keep Gortash alive and make an alliance with him. The possibility of an alliance with him for me pretty much devalues the fact that you know he's doomed anyway, yes it's a metagame, but I'd really like the choice of an ally to be able to influence the story, and not just for the “interest” and roleplay. Besides, I sympathize with this character, Gortash is an intelligent, ambitious character with a strong character and a heavy backstory, who achieved everything exclusively by himself, without any help, and even, rather, in spite of the world around him. And he has to die. No options. I would like the player to have the opportunity to somehow influence his fate.

Add while we're smooching Gortrash we stick a dagger in him.

Yes, he is all that and so cuddly, maybe something else will come.

Very well said. I agree. I am surprised because enough people asked for it, prompting Larian to specifically comment on it. But at that point, why not? Especially if it was something just like a kiss animation and a few extra lines of dialogue without changing the entire story. To me it would feel more meaningful than the one off sex scenes with the Emperor and Harleep. Even Mizora for me personally just felt so random and shallow, as much as I adore her character design and VA.

I would have loved to have fully made an alliance with Gortash as well. I know that he’s immoral but he’s very excellently written character and a great example of someone who’s the product of their environment. Easily one of my favorite villains in the game, although I did enjoy Orin and Ketheric too. But neither of them make sense the way Gortash does with the context that’s available in game.


This totally reminds me of Benny and the Black Widow Perk from Fallout New Vegas and I’m not opposed to it in the least.



That chest is just so good for snuggling. I know we got Halsin, but I’m all for more fuzzy dudes.

Yeah, the request has existed for a very long time, I thought the romance with Gortash would have been added sooner or later, considering Larian paid so much attention to the possibility of all sorts of disposable love affairs, and this wouldn't have been a disposable affair, but a much more fulfilling and interesting story. I mean, it's really interesting how Enver's character would have been revealed in the romance, how he would have behaved with the DU, and it should have had an impact on him. Even without much of an impact, just an extra scene to color the story of the game. It's hard to say now how much Larian will further improve the game and when they decide to release patch 9, but it seems to me that periodically reminding them about Gortash should be done anyway, after all, your suggestion is clearly not one of those that are difficult to implement or require any great expense or overcoming special technical difficulties.

It's hard to say who would have remained “moral” in Gortash's place. His parents sold him into slavery to Raphael, in the House of Hope we can learn how he was treated there, yet he himself managed to escape from there and rose from the bottom to become the Duke of Baldur. Only because of intelligence and that very “immorality”. Had he been moral, there would not have been this story, if you remove Gortash from The Dead Three's plan, there would be nothing. He was the main driver of this story. I liked Orin and Ketheric as well, I especially sympathized with Ketheric. He wasn't a “villain” in the trite black and white sense of the word, he was someone who had everything taken away from him. The love and meaning of his life. And he tried to get it back by all means, but you could see how much it devastated him, he spread his arms and fell into the abyss almost with relief. By the way, Larian had plans for Ketheric, he could have been as an extra companion in the camp if the hero would have managed to convince him, but that too unfortunately didn't come to fruition. But the only connection DU has is with Gortash, and that context really deserved more realization in the game.

You would think! I keep hoping that modders will tackle it, but it seems like a missed opportunity for Larian. There was so much potential context wise with the interactions that currently exist between DU and Gortash as well as through the lore we find in letters and books. Even without being a full fleshed romance like those with our companions, it would have felt significantly more meaningful than the one night stands because there was that history there. I think there could have been some really interesting parallels tied in from the time the Dead Three were adventuring together as mortals— had Orin not interfered, would Gortash and Durge have been successful or would they have succumb to the same follies as their predecessors? I can definitely see the two having spent many evenings together debating philosophy, indulging decadently while hatching their diabolical schemes.

I only said patch 9 because they said no smooching in patch 8 either. So this wheel will keep squeaking (politely), haha.

Oh and absolutely. Given Gortash’s upbringing, I think is both sad and understandable that he ended up the way he did. Of course not all victims of trauma will end up being bad or evil, and a few rare folks may be able to turn their traumas into something good. But I do like that Larian included such sympathetic villains because I think in order to prevent people from becoming monsters, we need to be aware of and eradicate the circumstances that cause it. For Gortash, nothing good was going to come out of being raised by Raphael— devils are always the embodiment of evil and if they’re not, they’re no longer devils. There was no “good” in The House of Hope for Gortash to emulate or aspire to. That and being , Gortash truly only knew cruelty and likely wanted to protect himself from ever submitting to that again. I think I brought up in a discussion elsewhere that considering Gortash’s upbringing, he likely had no friends as a child or anyone who truly loved him, which is just sad to think about. This is why I think a romance with the DU could be so powerful— it would have been the first time in his entire life that someone actually cared about him as a human being.


I really do think Larian did a great job with the Chosen— it just feels like they didn’t get enough screen time considering how integral they are to the plot. I didn’t think about that with Ketheric right away, but you’re so right— reminds me a lot of Dracula from Castlevania. Getting Ketheric as a companion and offering him redemption would have been such a powerful story telling tool, like how we can offer Loghain a chance of redemption in DAO.

I still sincerely hope Larian will consider adding Gortash as a LI for the DU. Contextually, it just makes so much sense and would be an opportunity to expand upon both the DU’s background as well as one of the game’s primary antagonists. It would be great for the DU to get more recognition from the other Chosen, but the connection between Gortash and the DU was clearly the deepest.

Oh, so much information about our Gortash. Let's hope Larian implements something.

I'm always for some extra Gortash content, because it's criminal how short and unsatisfying his presence in the game is. Romantic and/or platonic additions, we need more! I was so sad to see the game unceremoniously discard him like that when confronting the brain together.

His romance could have been something amazing:




Agreed! Another character that needed more content. Shame, Larian clearly preferred to focus on the heroic characters rather than fleshing out their villains and properly letting us team up.

Yes! It would be a great addition to DU's story - if there were some flashback lines in the dialog with Gortash where he could mention those times, and also DU could pass a test of, say, wisdom to try to remember something from their shared past.


What could a hero do, if they were in the past, to prevent the troubles to come? Save and adopt little Enver Gortash. Sympathetic villains Larian in BG3 succeeded perfectly, and personally they touch my soul much more than “good” characters. A hero who survived in a cruel world and can “walk on ashes” often turns out to be smarter, stronger, and brighter, and is more appealing than a superficial and silly “moralist” who probably wouldn't have survived such trials. Gortash's character is, of course, the product of a violent environment, an abusive childhood, and a subsequent spin in Baldur's criminal circles. He ended badly, come to think of it, because of one misstep:


Devils in BG3 (as well as in the world of Faerûn in general) do not look like some mystical embodiment of evil, they are rather a very tough aggressive society (with magic, of course, and with the peculiarities that this magic imposes). Gortash's parents are of the human race, but that doesn't make them any better than the devils. The story of parents selling their child to someone for service, where the child would be virtually enslaved and tortured on a regular basis - in the not so distant past of mankind, such stories were not uncommon at all. Except that the word “trauma” in the modern sense of the word did not exist then. Gortash's story in many ways resembles the story of a man “from the bottom” who managed to rise and penetrate into the noble society, where he successfully outplayed everyone and became dominant, because the people around him, who grew up in hothouse conditions, unprepared for such competition, were not able to notice his plans, let alone oppose him in any way. It is indicative that Gortash did not just become a gang leader or an arms dealer (it was just a step for him), but devoted a lot of effort to self-education (no one taught him anything, all his knowledge seems to have been acquired one way or another on his own), which allowed him to eventually become what he became.


Swen Vincke said that Ketheric Thorm was his favorite cut companion: «Baldur's Gate 3 Director Reveals One Surprising Villain That Used to Be Playable».

Please! I wish! I doubt they’ll do anything elaborate at this stage, but this is what it should have been originally or with patch 7 and the evil endings. His arc ended up being very anticlimactic as one of the game’s main antagonists, which is disappointing given that he has so much potential. While Ketheric and Orin had their roles, Gortash was the mastermind of the plot along with DU. I don’t think the other two would have initiated such a grand, diabolical scheme.


Very beautiful character analysis! I agree. In order to escape the horrors Gortash was subjected to, a “hero” likely would have had to take actions contrary to their alignment to survive. The “turn the other cheek” types would up dead or worse, given that their captors do not hold themselves to the same moral code. Additionally, a character with a weaker constitution than Gortash may have wallowed in their own despair or resigned themselves to their fate.

I was really only viewing devils based on the phrasing used on page 122 of the 5e manual in order to illustrate just how unlikely it would have been for Gortash to come out of The House of Hope possessing a good alignment. But you brought up another really excellent point— devils are constantly scheming and plotting to advance themselves further at the expense of others as they live in a caste system. Raphael demonstrates this core behavior through his own machinations to . I wish I could say this in a way that wasn’t so cliche, but the apple doesn’t really fall far from the tree. Gortash was already described as brilliant at a young age. His hatefulness came from none other than his own parents— the corpses of the Flymms do not hide the fact that they have always despised him, thinking of him as wicked, troublesome, and a burden. I suspect they largely blamed him for their marital problems and probably blamed him for their financial woes as well. They really were rotten people— as you said, no better than devils— and even if the player kills them, they seem to feel no remorse or take any responsibility for their actions. So this hatefulness was already planted within him before he was sold off into slavery and his main childhood role model is a being whose race follows a meritocratic structure. As an aside, I wish we would have gotten more dialogue referencing Gortash’s relationship with Raphael.

Considering the medieval fantasy setting, you’re right that trauma would be defined differently than it would in a modern sense. I just personally head canon him as having this slight vulnerability— that he never wants to find himself at the bottom of someone’s boot ever again.

But realistically, I think describing Gortash as a success story of someone who literally clawed their way to the top is more true to his character and properly showcases qualities that are commonly perceived as attractive: intelligence, ambition, determination, and resilience. Definitely one of the reasons why people, myself included, admire his character and would like to see him as a LI. He isn’t a boring, one-dimensional, mustache twirling villain— there was a lot of thought and effort put into his creation.

His very connection with the DU is central to the plot and their relationship dynamic would make a compelling romance. “Baby gurl” isn’t too busy for smooches. I get what they meant that he’s too focused on his own ambitions for a serious relationship, but I could make a counter argument using one of my favorite game romances of all time: Solas from DAI. If an actual god was able to be distracted temporarily from his goals through a dalliance with the Inquisitor, I don’t see why something similar couldn’t be written into Gortash’s story. I thought I recall reading somewhere that Solas wasn’t even originally written as a LI but was added later. I might also be imagining things.

Sorry for the overly verbose response! I just love Gortash and I enjoy discussing the complexities of his character!

Indeed, Gortash was the mastermind behind the plot, along with the DU! Ketheric didn't care about power per se, didn't even care about the outcome of the whole plan. He was paying his debt to Myrkul, the only god who heard him and brought his daughter back to life (even though the daughter had disowned her father). He was a willing instrument of Myrkul, and participated in the plan as one of the three chosen, but none of this was necessary for himself. Orin is too chaotic, she loves to play, and sees killing as an art form, but she would lack the restraint and logic to create such a massive and elaborate plan. In my opinion, Orin is more of a tactician, but not a strategist (she thinks through one-off clever moves, but doesn't calculate too far ahead). Gortash - just a great strategist. He had thought out all the details of the overall plan, but he and Orin had different end goals. Ketheric was a kind of “neutral side” between the two, and once Ketheric was gone, and his stone could change the balance of power, there was a rift between Gortash and Orin. I think there would have been a conflict between Gortash and Orin even in the event of their overall victory, if one imagines how the story would have played out without the presence of our little company in it.


Yes, alignment is not a constant for humans, alignment varies with life experience. Ketheric used to have a neutral-good alignment. A good character quickly loses his naivety and idealism and hardens when faced with serious disasters. But in Gortash's shoes there is no possibility of even starting life with any naive idealism, his hatred, as you well said, came from his own parents. There was not an ounce of goodness in his life from the beginning, or what people usually call happiness. And as you wrote in a previous post, an romance with DU would have been the first time in his entire life that someone would have cared about him as a human being, and the first time he could have felt something other than the cold satisfaction of fulfilling an ambition, something warm and real. Happiness.

Yes, you're right about the DnD rules, devils are lawful-evil. And Gortash has lawful-evil alignment, too. And the logical choice for him was Bane, the lawful-evil god of tyranny. Enver is a genius who developed and molded exclusively in a meritocratic structure. The criminal structures of Baldur - where his youth was spent and where he began his rise - also have their castes and their rules. They are more flexible and chaotic than the devil's rules, but in any case, these circles are clearly not the kind of society where one can see the “good” and find a single reason to do it.

Yes, the Flymms just continue to hate their son even more, and see death more as a release from suffering because of the punishment he inflicted on them. And are angry at you for leaving things the way they are.


Yes, anyone who has ever been at the bottom of someone's boot will never believe in the illusion of a “safe world”. You need guarantees, you need power, you need protection. And the more power, the more control, the fewer those who can pose a threat. The vulnerability here lies in not knowing when one can stop, when enough is enough. Becoming Duke of Baldur, one would think, would be enough. And I wonder if Gortash's beloved could have helped him find that balance, and realize when enough power is enough? Would the DU have been able to get him to agree to destroy the Brain, convince the townspeople that he was the savior of the city and they would have stayed to rule together, become married, etc.? But that's just musings on the subject, since the novel wasn't revealed in the game, how he would have felt about the DU and their words in this case is unclear, and it's hard to make any logical assumptions about it.


Intelligence, ambition, determination and resilience are certainly attractive qualities. These are the qualities of a person who creates and/or destroys, makes history, changes the world around him. How he changes the world, in which direction, depends on many other factors. Gortash is certainly a beautifully written character who is very important in the story.


In one of the vaults in Baldur's bank, you can find the diary of a noble lady who was in a relationship with young Enver and gave him the family ring. Yes, sure, it was seduction for his own purposes, but it at least proves that Gortash is not the kind of man who is completely uninterested in women. And the main thing is that he and DU had a common past, a common goal in the past. I think that for a man like Gortash, the intelligence of the beloved, her ability to understand him, his thinking and his goals would be very important. The beloved should be a business partner as well, complementing him. In the case of that lady, it is unlikely that they had a connection on an intellectual level, but in the case of DU, it could have been just like that. Solas is a very good example. It's hard for me to think of anyone else similar from games, but the images of kings and emperors from history come to mind - few of them were good people in the modern sense of the word (back then, the understanding of morality was very different from today), but many of them had lovers, favorites, wives they loved, and it didn't interfere with their ambitions. Napoleon Bonaparte had enormous ambition and intelligence and determination, sleeping five hours a day to get more done. But this did not prevent him from loving Josephine, if you read their love correspondence, you can't help but be amazed at how reverently and tenderly this couple treated each other. If this was the case in reality, why shouldn't the game reflect it?

I would rather see resources wasted to fix Minthara instead of creating new bugs by fleshing out Gortash, if the world was perfect it could have been interesting to see them both fixed and fleshed out but its reaching that point that I find it senseless to add new changes at this point in time.

If Larian would make Gortash actually scary when he brings the full power of tyranny down on you I would be all for it.

But its obvious that Larian does not want to spend that much effort and imo they are also not able to write something like this.

I think they should look into hireing the ones who made that youtube video. Really good work and storytelling.

But honestly I don't see anything happening no matter how much interest it is in this romance. No harm in dreaming though.