Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Arka's Story Makes Choices Feel Meaningless

2 years later and I just came up on her body myself while playing Baldur's gate 3.... I was confused as well and agree with the OP.


I had no clue. I did notice if I save Sazza that she rats out where the grove is and the grove gets attacked so now reading your post I am 100% I would never suggest that anyone even go in that area that Sazza is in .. unless invisible and looting the barrels which only have crap or nothing in them anyway.


I saved the grove and still found her dead. That was even MORE disappointing

Playing as a horrid Durge I tried to reanimate Arka so she could help me take the fight to the Absolute. In Act II it's usually Zeph getting that distinction, but maybe Memnos too if we can upcast for the triple threat Zombie summoning. I have not yet attempted to drag her from the hilltop to that spot on the way to Moonrise, just to get the band back together. Maybe next run.

The single most disappointing thing for me about the Wither's Hirelings is that they locked the voicesets to a specific visualization by fantasy race. So I can make Sina'zith into Sarth Baretha, or Maddala Deadeye into Brynna, but there just no good Tief option at the ready there, (and this is already me bending over backwards to try and meet the game where it's at.) Like I'd rather have a goodly option that sorta works for a Tav too, or which could accommodate most of the rest of Pantheon of FR. All those deities who would probably frown on the zombie antics. For my part though, it's the stuff in Act II that sorta sealed the deal for me on a turn around, so I can still get down. I just love everything about that part of the game, the sweep, the art direction.

Like Myrkul went GOAT there for my BG sensibility. Probably Sister Lidwin wins the bit player BAFTA for me, just cause the movement direction on those animation looks like Zombie Ballet or something. Like whoever is responsible for that performance totally danced with the dead hehe.

I could imagine a zombie Arka doing something similar, and then like maybe when she uses her ranged attack she barks "Here it comes!" or she gets exploded just says "Noooooooo!" for the outro one liner.

Least it would be something. Probably the paladins would balk, but I could go for an encore on some of these characters, even in zombie form, as like halfway to what I wanted. Some scheme to recruit the rando NPCs and expand the party comp options with familiar faces. But yeah Arka, she was a standout, hella Baldur's Gate! I don't use speak with the dead on her, because I don't want to shatter my delusions that there must have been a showdown between Arka and the maurauding Gith lead by Baretha. Like super bad timing, maybe she got off a bolt or two, but just never had a chance ya know lol

Yeah, unfortunately despite the community feedback her story never got any further attention from Larian during Early Access nor post-release, so she's just left with this disappointingly broken outcome no matter what. A shame because I really like her character...

Had Larian cared about putting in the absolute minimum effort to address this; a proper and very simple conclusion to her story would've been to have her body show up alongside her brother's in ACT II.

As a good Dark Urge, I did the archivement that no story-relevant Tiefling is allowed to die, and Arka also has to survive for it. After the scene with Sazza and after she and Memnos leave the prison and stand near Auntie Ethel, you can speak to Arka once, if you speak to her a second time, she will become melancholy and leave the grove and then she is guaranteed to die. Don't talk twice to her, she wants to be alone with her pain.

How dare you say scratch and the owlbear cub are more minor characters than her! She is as much of a background character as guex or mattis or mirkon, scratch and the cub are major characters!

A lot of the Tieflings (at least the adults) suffer tragic endings. Even if you go out of your way to save Rolan repeatedly he can still easily die in the end in the heat of battle.

I chose the Kanon wouldn't want that response and didn't found her dead near the goblin camp. I think her survival depends on what you say to her during that prison scene.

Unfortunately calming Arka down by mentioning Kanon has no effect on her outcome post-party.

As has been pointed out in this post two years ago; even when Arka is completely calmed down by mentioning Kanon through the most peaceful dialogue options, she will still end up dead at the gobo camp after the tiefling party, despite peacefully coming to terms with what happened to Kanon.

The only thing her dialogue affects is whether;

• She storms out of the Grove immediately out of frustration to die
• Or comes to terms with what happened and gets ready to leave together with the tieflings, but the game once again still kills her as if she went to seek revenge

Arka's arc is a story between destructive revenge and inner-peace, but unfortunately her inner-peace outcome has been broken ever since the Early Access days so it keeps spawning her corpse at the gobo camp no matter what, instead of spawning it next to Memnos in ACT II.