Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General who do you think the new origin character will be?

"Filmed in front of a live audience at Sint-Pietersabdij in Belgium, tune in July 7th at 8am PDT / 5pm CET for an in-depth preview of all that awaits you in the Forgotten Realms this Summer - featuring your first look at dragonborn, half-orcs and monks in action, a preview of your potential at Level 12, the reveal of the final Origin character, a playthrough in split-screen co-op multiplayer, and much more."

Im wondering if it will be the bard that sings on the hill near the squirrels
or
anyone any other guesses for in 4 days?

Already a thread:
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=853556#Post853556

ah didnt see

"life audience" Are they bringing press over?

Maybe they got Donnie Yen to be their stage monk.

I confess, this made me chuckle.

I hope it's this character...I want an ally worth having.

Mystery NPC

it's not her. she's just an important NPC in later act1.

We still don't have a dwarf/halfling/gnome companion. Larian's HR needs to organise some diversity seminars. Larian made fun of players making human and elf tavs, and themselves made 3 humans, three elves and two halfeves.

Larian actually made fun of players making a "generic" Tav, perhaps this is their way to push you to make a small race Tav...

Shame.

At least there is Minsk and Jaheira.

Of the rest, I find Wyll and Gale to be pleasant company, and of the two, Wyll doesn't explode or eat magical items like a crack addict.

I actually think he will make a great Warlock / Sorcerer multi-class to rival Gale's magic anyway.

If only 1 more companion it means we will not get more then 1 race, half orc, dragon born, halfling, dwarf, gnome


Gale shld be a gnome

Make wyll a dragon born sinces its a similar story as red prince

I find it weird we probably wont get an npc of every class and race

Considering the focus on making every single companions "attractive" romance options, I rate the chance of a small race companion very low. Halsin easily could have been an old halfling but Larian and its audience are more interested in buff and young half elves.

Well, I hope it's not true that the writers are compromising the companion selection for the sake of romanceability. Which would be, in my view, both creatively disappointing and almost certainly futile, as if characters are well written and engaging then players will want to romance them regardless. I say again ... Garrus.

But, even if that is happening, I don't know why shorter races shouldn't be considered attractive romance options by more than enough players. And while of course love should not be limited by size, my gnome, halfling and dwarf PCs in particular tend not to be naturally drawn to all these galumphing giants and would be more tempted by potential love interests of a proper size.

I am in no way implying that small persons can't be attractive, just that it is far removed from the trend that BG3 seem to follow. They made a fearsome tiefling warrior with a pretty young woman face on an athletic body, a 200y/o vampire as a romanticizing young half elf, a very experienced wizard as your quite good looking human from our society standard and so on... The only companion that I would consider not conventionally attractive is Laezel because her race is very foreign even for DnD standards, but even that is debatable.

I would love if astarion was more old lich like in appearance instead of typical teen vampire
Some guy wanting to find a way to not die, buf i suppose the point in a spawn is to attract victims, I suppose with that point id have preferred a full vampire over a spawn

Helia seems most likely to me because she was datamined.

I would love to have a female elf sorcerer origin to play as!

A monk would also be great! Love the animations they have shown so far!

I don't get why astarion would be considered attractive, when exatly did the powdered wig look come into fashion again, and how did i miss it?

It didn't come into fashion again, it is rather a stack of cliché. The young, suave and charming renaissance era aristocrat coupled with the supernatural dangerous beauty of the vampire.

I will repeat the same thing I said in different topic.

Did you all forget that in the almost three-year-old trailer for BG3, these two mysterious characters were also introduced together with other origin characters?
It may only be new companions, but all the other characters in the trailer that had this shot from the back where they were pulling out the weapon were the origin character.
I don't believe in coincidences (It is quite possible that three years ago they were planning two more origin characters, but they reduced it to one.)

I plan on inventing a time machine, then travelling back to 1973 to steal Anne Rice's typewriter.

As always, it's so interesting to read different folks' takes. I must admit Astarion doesn't look particularly young to me. And this is despite the fact that as I advance in years myself everyone under the age of 30 increasingly looks like a child . Not that he looks particularly middle aged or old either, just appropriately well preserved for an elf who has been stuck as a vampire spawn for a couple of centuries. Though don't tell him I said so. He'd be appalled

And I do agree that none of the origins yet diverge hugely from what a fair swathe of Earth humans could be anticipated to find conventionally attractive. Other than, as was said, Lae'zel but of course she has her winning personality to make up for it

But personally it doesn't strike me as though their appearances are so unlikely - it's not Hollywood level, for instance - though I'm glad that Gale and Wyll were aged up and made a bit more battered in later patches. And while I am sure it's correct that at least part of the thinking behind the companion design is so that they might work as romance interests for a broad enough constituency , there are other reasons for not making them too out-there. I'm not saying that I'd never use a old lich-like vampire in my party, but it feels much more niche than the Astarion we have, who so far can work in any moderately tolerant party, even though he might sulk amusingly in a too goody-goody group. Plus we already get complaints that companions are too weird and wonderful. I find it hard to advocate for the lowest common denominator, but I do accept that game designers can't completely ignore how useful the bulk of gamers are going to find a companion as both a party member and potential love interest (though I definitely don't think that every companion should be designed primarily or even mainly as the latter).

Anyway, apologies all as that's taking us off topic. Bringing it back, I don't think that even if value as a potential romance is a consideration for Larian, that's a reason not to hope for a shorter race companion. In fact, I'd hope it would be more of a reason, given that our shorter-race Tavs currently don't have any potential love interests their own size, if that's what they prefer. I'd be perfectly okay with a conventionally attractive gnome, halfling or dwarf companion .

Provided the beard was sufficiently luxurious.

Funny you mentioned that.
I don't think there has ever been a female dwarf, halfling or gnome with a romance anywhere in the history of all RPG games.
All romances options are always humans, elves, and half-elves.

That might have something to do with the fact they always are either sidelined to the point of having no character or simply put there for the comedy of having a short person around (which, by the way, stopped being funny before I was born, and that was quite some time ago).

My dislike for the smaller races stems from the fact I didn't see a single compelling character that was either a dwarf, gnome or halfling in any RPG. And after 30 years of consuming media where they all are a monotonous sea of jolly drunks or, worse, comic reliefs, I just can't see them any differently.

And jRPGs where they are those sweet, annoying childlike companions. Ew.

So yeah, it would take a lot for me to see past that in a video game setting. The character would have to be mind blowing to break those years of neglect.

WotR has some nice dwarf and gnome companions. They are here no because they needed a comic relief or for some cliché, but as real characters with interesting motivations.

Because humans are never comic relief?

Minsc
Edwin
Khalid
Garrick

Not to mention Edgin!

Oh, need to give it a solid go then. I did two attempts, but never got that far. Maybe that's my journey to discovering insteresting smaller races representation!

Never said they are not, but there are enough actually meaningful and deep characters that are human (or half-elf, elf etc.) that a silly one here and there makes no harm to the general opinion.

Also never seen Khalid as a comic relief character. I mean, he was a kick-ass warrior with his kick-ass warrior-druid wife, all he did was stutter

Speaking of BG characters - there was Mazzy! Says a lot that I didn't even remember her

Firstly, Edgin is also the lead of the movie. Second and more importantly, humans have been played for comic relief before but the problem is Vitani has only seen small folk them in comic relief roles as opposed to humans who he's seen in many others.

But yes, both Pathfinder games have really good short folk characters.

I think a kick-ass warrior who was actually kinda nervy and panicked and ran away when things got too tough was definitely meant to be funny. That said, I think pretty much all the BG1 companions were played for laughs at least to some extent. Perhaps Kivan and Viconia are exceptions? Oh, and maybe Faldorn and Yeslick? I tend to forget details unless I've had them in my party very recently.



Sounds to me as though there's a real opportunity for Larian here . I hope they'll take it, especially as I think they already have some great shorter race characters in the game already, with Barcus being perhaps my favourite NPC so far. So wanted him to be a companion .

Though, while I'd admit that shorter races have not been done great service in the past, I do think there are some good examples. Varric in DA2/DA:I is friendly and humorous but I'd not call him comic relief. And Regill in WotR is deadly serious (admittedly almost amusingly so). Not that I personally have any objection to comic relief characters anyway. Tiax rules all!!!

Scout Harding in DA:Inquisition. [And no, I haven't. I don't do romances and the 5 or 6 years of totally debauched Skyrim were definitely not romantic.]

You could flirt with her just like you could with absolutely everyone regardless of the romance.
And her "romance" was a total of about 10 sentences of text.
You can hardly call it a full-fledged romance.

Also Pillars of Eternity.

And Dragon Age 2.

Also Frodo Baggins. Some of his mates might be funny but Frodo wouldn't know a joke if you slapped him in the face with a wet fish.

And Gollum. Seen his video game? That's definitely not funny.

I don't think that game studios have the balls to introduce a shorter race with romance in this woke age.
I bet there would definitely be some idiots who would try to accuse them of pedophilia or something stupid like that.
A hairy male dwarf with a long beard might get pass, but shortstack woman certainly not.

May I remind you that you can make a custom character and that explicit scenes involving it are already in the game?

Erm, I think that suggesting romances with adult but short women was somehow equivalent to paedophilia would be the very opposite of woke!

Though I also think that the word "woke" now carries so much political baggage and different meanings to different people that it's become unusable in sensible online debate and is best avoided in any place, like here, where political discussion that's not directly related to the game is discouraged.

Personally, I'd never even considered that folk might object to romances with gnomes, halflings and dwarves on the grounds that they are "childlike", and that's not how I see those races at all. I'd hope that any studio would have some evidence of such attitudes, and that they were both widespread and worthy of being taken into account, before second guessing public opinion in such a way. But perhaps such evidence exists? I'll admit it's not a discussion I recall seeing elsewhere.

Honey, there are woke extremists who complain that Avatar is a racist movie because the main cast of the movie are blue people in places that should have been black people
Woke extremists really are THAT stupid. And it is not an isolated case, there's loads of stuff like that going on.

If there is something that someone might feel even a little bit offended by, you can be sure that they will make it known loudly.
And companies are so scared of the cancel culture that they prefer to bend their backs, cancel everything, fire rational thinking people and write public apologies for them.

We live in sad times indeed...
But I'm really getting off topic a little bit.

Getting off topic a lot, especially when I said "woke" was a term that had too much political baggage and these forums discouraged political discussion not directly related to the game. That was NOT okay.

And I'll admit, calling me "honey" like that is going to put my back up in a big way, so that is probably best avoided too .

No more anti-woke polemic please.

Not a romance but I remember Dragon Age 2 having a dwarf (male) prostitute?

I dimly remember the first DA2 trailer even ending with said dwarf posing on a bed and the sentence "No one can resist the dwarf"

Because it makes you too happy or too mad ?

Sorry, English is not my native language and in my country it is normal to address some women as "honey".
There is nothing sexist about it, I call my mother and aunt that way too.
It's a playful and friendly way of addressing woman.

I do appreciate that differences in language and culture can cause misunderstandings. But to me it comes across as patronising in the extreme to call a woman "honey" and then "explain" a bunch of stuff to her that you should be able to guess from the context she doesn't want to hear and probably is going to disagree with strongly. But not then be able to reply to say why because that would be more political talk that we should not be engaging in in this forum. As she's just said. So, err ... yes, because it makes me mad. *Breathes deeply*.

I'll chalk this one up to linguistic & cultural differences, but now you know! I like to think that I'm generally fairly easy-going and relaxed, so congratulations on finding one of the few things that can really set me off .

I sincerely hope that the last companion is a full on surprise. A character we haven't met yet. One of the things that disappointed me aboutlearning Halsin and Minthara are going to be companions is the fact that there aren't going to be any surprises. Everyone we're meeting we've met pretty much since day one of EA, save for Jaheira and Minsc, two returning characters. I'd like the opportunity to really get to know a new companion or two. Beyond that, I think a monk character would be great to have. Alternatively I do think that a good-aligned paladin could still fit into the game. Minthara is likely to be exclusive to the Absolute path, or at least exclusive to destroying the grove, which a lot of players aren't going to want to do. So I think given that, doubling up would be forgivable. A dwarven paladin or monk would be my ideal in that case.

You’re a class act, Red Queen.

I really hope that any remaining characters are from both races and classes that are not represented in the game yet.

Even though it’s not ideal stat-wise, I’ve always loved the idea of dwarven monks. I think a Dragonborn sorcerer also makes sense.

Mostly sure it is the guy that killed the other guy in the community event. Or something like that...!
Not "playing" this event so I don't have all details but I guess it is somewhat related.

Minthara is paladin class (however shocking it is).
I doubt we'll get a second paladin.

But I agree there should be some way to spare her if we decide to wipe out the goblins.
This one companion immediately deprives us of two others, and it is not even possible to immediately accept her into the party.
In addition, we will lose a bunch of characters (and probably quests and items) that we would otherwise have met in Bladur's Gate.
As pleasant as sex with drow women is, she seriously asks a little too much in return. It's not a good deal, it is not convenient for us.

It's actually ironic because the bad guys should get a better deal, but remorse.

You you misunderstand me. I fully don't expect her requirements to change from EA and I don't want them to. They've already said in Panel from Hell 9 that at least Jaheira (probably Minsc as well, it wasn't quite clear) can be an enemy if you go evil, which makes perfect sense. As it stands now it really doesn't make sense for her to join you if you're not all in on the Absolute, or at least appearing to be. I approve of the bad guy route costing a lot honestly. I think frankly think it's too common for evil to be presented as just better and easier. I support subcerting that and having the evil path be painful and punishing while the rewards of being good are actually greater.

Also I really think Minthara should actually be a paladin of conquest. That oath suits her and the absolute so perfectly it's almost sad that she's not one.

When i make a full custom group I like making my Orc a Cleric, however I kinda dont want a second cleric since we have shadowheart (although I would prefer multiples of all the classes like bg1/bg2)


Barbarian - X Karlach
Bard - Cleric - X Shadowheart
Paladin - X Minthara
Ranger - X Minsc
Rogue - X Astarion
Sorcerer - ?
Warlock - X Wyll
Wizard - X Gale
Druid - X Jaheira
Monk - ?
FIghter - X Laezel

I would like a Shorty monk or Sorc, but I think A Dragonborn later in Baldur's gate city would make a great Sorcerer
Bard spoiler question Orc Monk could be a little weird? I dunno cant imagine a Strength based monk
Orc Sorcerer could be cool.
Dragonborn monk could be alright
Dont really imagine Dwarfs as monks or Sorcerers
Gnome Sorcerer or monk would be fine
Halfling Monk Or Sorc could be ok

With Sorc being fairly Similar to wizard I guess its the least likely to be the new class
Bard is Most likely due to "spoilers"
Monk Would be what id be happiest about because it be a nice surprise to see something new in a race we are not expecting

Dragonborn monk could be most interesting for me, but id be happy with Gnome monk too

I sincerely doubt the remaining character is anyone other than . I'd be very surprised if a datamined character with recorded voice lines were scrapped.

A bard werewolf is just such a weird choice to me. We already have two other shapechangers because there are two druids, and werewolf doesn’t synergize at all with bard spell casting and inspiration- the main function of a bard on the battlefield. It just seems like such a poorly thought out idea for a character.

Now halfling monk werepanda? I’m down.

It's not THAT shocking thought...

To be fair, it wouldn't be the first time Larian crippled a companion for no reason. Looking at you Astarion and your default armor.

that EA default armor will be gone in the full game

What if the new origin character is Us?

How cool would that be?

What if the new origin character is Myrnath, the guy who is a host to US? How cool would that be? Are you ready for a aberration-piloted Elf carcass as a companion?

It would fit in with Larian's penchant for the gimmicky and their schoolboy humour but no, just no.



But will all the borked ability stats?

Well we are supposed yo be getting "good" characters at the end, but I lost all faith with Karlack.

She is supposed to be a paladin, yet not an ounce of piety in her.

She spits F-bombs and bravado like an over-inflated gas bag.

Nothing interesting here, "You survived the Blood War, then good luck to you then".


My one hope is that they don't screw up Minsk and Jaheira.

That's why it would have been nice to have just one character like this one.

She would have been pretty much a standard addition in previous games.


Self correction: Karlack is a Barbarian, but that doesn't change the unbalanced characterization.

The Frog!!!

The frog has a tadpole! in its head. The frog has a mind flayer tadpole in its head, and we get to play the frog as an origin character.

Boom. I called it first.

No, you are just outright wrong. It is an interesting speculation, but every respectable fan knows that the actual new companion is the ogre/bugbear couple from the barn. Everyone who asked for the party of five should be happy, because Larian heard us and introduced a one two in one companion for us.

Now I just got an image of the Troll sex scene from the film Border.

The things you can't un-see.

no, everyone is wrong. It's obviously going to be the sarcastic one with a haunted past.

Even without the datamined information, bard is a pretty good guess.
Although no one ever wants to play as a bard, everyone wants to have one in their party.
The support they provide can be damn helpful.

It's Abdirak.
He is the secret origin companion.
I know this with complete certainty.

The serial killer? 😜

Hi folks, after complaints a few previous off-topic posts with no connection to the game have been removed from this thread. If you want any more details about this, feel free to PM me.

I agree. There is no reason, shorter races can't be attractive. While I like Halsin, I don't really plan on romancing him, but If Nattie would be our druid companion, I would totally romance her.

I really still hope for Helia.

Those claws could be helpful on the right hand (as long as he dousent cut them - hopefully Fearun has something stronger than gut), but he needs to trim them on the left.

Hey, I love playing bards, I still want Helia as a companion, because you can't have too many bards 😁

Isn't AI fun?


More on topic, it would certainly fit Larians love for the exotic.
On the other hand, its also possible that Larian waited with the announcement for so long because the last origin is from the races just announced. Not everything datamined will end up in the game and most of them will contain unused scraps from abandoned ideas in the code.
But on the other hand, it might also just be concidence as we are in the last stretch before release where marketing increases its effort to keep the hype high.

Does he have 6 fingers on his left hand?

With AI one has to be glad that he doesn't have 4 arms (yes, thats also a result I got)

Imagine the chords and riffs he could pull of.

I bet he can make a growling performance.

Shortstack duergar woman?
I'll admit it's a VERY tempting thought.

Is this a warcraft pic? I don't remember the name but the dark dwarves that came out a few expansions ago had hair like that.

Yes.
It is probably someone that turns into a werewolf at night and can't control it !
Not sure it make sense though as I haven't follow Blood in BG.

In the PFH announcement picture the dead guy no longer has legs. Definitely something a werewolf coulf have done.

Kobald bard.

"Deekin sing the Doom song now?"

This seems like a very plausible theory. I've only read a little of BiBG but when I have time I will check it out with this theory in mind. I can say that it is set a few years before BG3 starts. It may well be someone with a completely uncontrolled lycanthropy curse, who suddenly is able to control it thanks to the tadpole.

Edit: I've tried to pick up BiBG, and the evidence seems to point to an evil (male human?) sorcerer, not a random werewolf. It is perhaps the third villain, not the seventh origin.

That would mean we get a night cycle or just a random interaction when resting, gonna feel kind of lack luster if its just a campfire side bit

If any of you can make out any meaningful detail from this, let us know:

https://preview.redd.it/vzkcee15uaa...c2711104a6c64b46bebebb760e5dc62ec2cee8b2

P.S. I tried to make the image embedded but the tag doesn't seem to work for whatever reason.

Reddit images aren't actually jpeg, they are webp so they can't be embedded easily.

The name looks like three short words. Something along the lines of "The First Mage". The image looks like a black scroll, or someone twirling a double-bladed scythe. Doesn't look like Halia the halfling werewolf anyway.

The only thing I can tell for sure is that it doesn't look even remotely as "Helia the Halfling werewolf".

EDIT- Anticipated.

A thought just occurred to me; maybe the last companion will be from the Underdark? There's a good amount of underdark involved so far, and they've gone as far as giving us not only two flavours of drow as a unique race, but also deep gnomes and duergar. At least drow seem to be fairly involved with the cult. Duergar involvement is only passing at best, and deep gnomes seem to have their own whole thing going on. I feel like Larian wouldn't have given us all those options if we weren't going get a companion from one of those races. At least, the odds are greater than 0.

Didn't wok, but never mind.

I've reached my limit...
But it seems like the first word is 100% 'The' because 'e' and 'h' match with Gale's and Shadowheart's pixels.
That most likely results into the first letter of the second word being capital 'T' as well, while the last letter is very similar pixel-wise to 'd' in Shadowheart.

Pretty sure there is a g in the last word.
Sage? Mage?

The image could be a black skinned tiefling?

Ignoring your second T, maybe "The Red Mage". Elminster???.
Or maybe Edwin.
But probably not.

In any casy I hope it is not 'The Turd Mage'

Eh, it could be a lot of things. A hat, a helm, a dragonborn in a weird angle.
I have no clue. Too blurry.

"The" seems odd, given the way the conversations work. "Hello, I'm The Third Doggy, how are you today?" But it looks like that to me too. The second word might begin with a "D" (caps), looks to end with a "d" or "h" and has 5-6 letters. The third word looks like 4-5 letters and has a hanging curl (g,j,y) second-to-last.

Oooh, juicy. Doesn't look much like a face, maybe burned in that fire enveloping it... a fire genasi? Mephit? No idea.

Or Larian is trolling us and this is just some placeholder

The form reminds me of a myconid honestly, but I doubt they'll do something like it.

"The Lord of the Rings"?

The voice acting would be cheep!

Apart from the mysterious character, I can clearly see a githyanki with a single digit number in Strength. Rolled stats, I guess.

Clearly The Architect from Dragon Age Origins, or a mind flayer. I hope for a dragonborn!

A pity though. A werewolf as counter to the vampire would have been thematic. Maybe a bit too much on the nose, but we are talking about Larian. That is their style.
And the tadpole allowing a werewolf to control its transformation would also fit neatly with the other powers it has.

Maybe they slipped in Githzeri? Wouldn't take much work mechanically. But it certainly could indicate a rolled stats option.

It might still be a werewolf, just not one called Helia. "The Black Doggy"?

It could just be a placeholder like 'The last comp' or something.