Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Is He Who Was a follower of the Raven Queen?

So there is this strange character called He Who Was, an elf followed by a white raven and he asks for your help in summoning the soul of a woman named Madeline for betraying her friends...but he's not being entirely honest. The woman was deceived by a dark justiciar, she did not know her friends were going to be killed, and after the fact if you ask him if he did if for a sick sense of pleasure he replies "maybe, but we both got what we wanted". THIS is exactly the kind of service the Raven Queen asks of her followers...to go out into the world and experience strong emotions...whether positive or negative it does not matter...great suffering, great joy, it's all the same to her. The fact he is an elf also makes me think he might be a Shadar-Kai...the most loyal servants of the Raven Queen who also incidentally happen to have gray skin and white hair and He Who Was does have white hair. They look a lot worse for wear in the Shadowfell, which is normally their home and where the Raven Queen resides, but outside of the Shadowfell they do look young an relatively normal which would explain why his skin does not appear gray but still pale. Everything about this character screams Raven Queen but I'm not sure if she's ever even mentioned by name anywhere in the game. Did Larian do this on purpose or was this just coincidence? Some of the online articles talking about him seem label He Who Was as evil, but if he is a follower of the Raven Queen or a Shadar-Kai that would make him true neutral. Neutral characters can perform or enable acts of good or evil but they are not...a follower of the raven queen is just as likely to try to enable an act of great joy as one of great suffering...it just depends on the opportunities they encounter.

EDIT! Holy crap, it's true! He REALLY IS a Shadar-Kai! I was right! I knew I wasn't insane, but I found confirmation. I was digging around trying to find more information and I ran across this video...if you enter combat the game will show his class under his health bar and it reads "Shadar-Kai Gloom Weaver"...this is almost as good as confirming the Raven Queen.

Whatever you do, DO NOT kill him! Just help him out because he is a holy messenger of the Raven Queen and we NEED more Raven Queen content whether in BG3 or in Larian's next game. Not asking for a massive story expansion here but maybe they can at least patch in the Raven Queen Warlock subclass and Raven Queen as a deity that Clerics can follow. Larian, if you are reading this, PLEASE!

You do find he is a Shadar-Kai by killing him, and a rogue one at that. On his corpse is a letter from another Shadar-Kai scolding him for going AWOL despite the commands from the queen to return.

It turns out not even the Shadar-Kai are safe from Shar's shadow curse. It corrupted one of their agents into strangling their raven familiar, and the shadow queen killed that agent as an example and called all Shadar-Kai to leave the Shadow Lands and return to Shadowfell.

I didn't read the letter because I didn't fight or kill him. But if he is a traitor to the Raven Queen...then the only possibility for saving his soul is to kill him. Usually Shadar-Kai are immortal...if they are killed the Raven Queen resurrects them in the Shadowfell. But the soul of a traitor? To betray one's own god leads to one of the worst fates imaginable for the soul. Either way his only chance at salvation is for us to kill him ASAP and hope that the Raven Queen shows mercy and reclaims him before he does anything more to anger her.

This makes it far more important for Larian to allow the player characters to be followers of the Raven Queen...whether by being warlocks or clerics or even Paladins if that is what Larian fancy though I wouldn't really expect to see any Raven Queen paladins as paladins aren't really her jam in the existing dnd lore as far as I am aware.

Actually, by inspecting him you can find out he's Shadar-Kai. No need to take his life. Coulda just asked him ;-)

Edit: spelling mistake

Must have progressed through initial conversation options too fast...I didn't really start thinking he might be related to the raven queen until the very end when I realized he wasn't after justice...that's when I was like "wait a minute if he's after the strong emotions of others..." and that's when I started connecting all the dots...elf, white hair, raven, etc. A massive shock for sure...and apparently he might be a traitor to the raven queen if Zenith above is correct...though I don't think it's possible to figure that out without killing him. I don't know how the Raven Queen would look upon player characters who help this guy in good faith out of devotion to her...would she understand that we made an honest mistake? Would she care? Impossible to know...her will is unknowable.

A personal thing that had me and my friend really excited when we met him is that he looks almost identical to my friends elf necromancer in solasta.
The same hair-style and color, similar face painting and even the race & subclass.

WotC attempt to pull Grey Hawk and Forgotten realms together is... graceless, at very least. It hardly makes any sense tbh.

Also, important notice, Shadowfell is NOT the same as entire Shadow Plane. Shadowfell is barely a tiniest part of Shadowfell that Shar set as her personal domain. In comparison, it's about the same as Githyanki's city Tu'narath. It resides in Astral Plane. But it's practically a "drop in the sea", compared to "infinite" Astral Plane itself.
So, in Grey Hawk there will be no Shadowfell, in Eberron there will be no Shadowfell, in Dragon Lance there will be no Shadowfell. There will be just a regular Shadow Plane. And no one, besides most knowledgeable planewalkers would even know about Shar. For vast majority name would be completely unknown.

Yeah, I killed that guy he was evil in his intent to punish that woman. Not that I could decide. He just attacked, when I wouldn't punish her.
The funny thing was that I didn't find him at first. A friend pointed me to him, because he know that I 'm a DnD player and he wanted to know, what this was about, since he didn't know what the Raven Queen and Shadar-Kai are, so I explained it to him, after I found the encounter.

Yes please. I have been waiting for the Raven Queen of old. I appreciate 5e but they only show but a glimpse of her beauty and only a sliver of her power. Please let the Shade be a race or Shadar-Kai. I thought I was alone, it is great to see others that remember her cunning. How Lolth fell and how and other beings were bested. How their jealousy burned for nought. Long live the ruler of Shadowfell, long live the Queen.