It'll be great if there is an alternative way of getting her pursuers off her back, as otherwise, she'd never join my camp on my good-aligned characters.

I don't find the reason for killing Anders and his team compelling, ethically speaking. We learn from the dead man that they formed a pact with Zariel. But if we were to kill anyone who has formed pacts with beings from the Hells, then we should strike Wyll dead too. You might say that Wyll is trying to do good with his powers. But so are Anders and his team. They were killing gnolls while in pursuit of Karlach.

They deceived the player character that they were paladins, but Anders seemed to genuinely believe that Karlach was dangerous, as even after confessing the truth of their pact with Zariel to you and you told them you would not help them kill Karlach, Anders accepted your decision and asked you to be careful with Karlach nonetheless.

I don't like how her situation hinges on her being too injured to move when she has only lost 4 HP and so many healing spells and potions exist. That is partly a meta issue but surely any kind of healing should work.

I would question how a level three could be such a great demon slayer that she became Zariel’s pet dog, rather than just another faceless arrow cushion in the blood war, but we already have wyl and Gale in our camp...

I also wonder how, in the chaos that was the nautiloid’s entrance into hell, she was both able to sneak on board and get an infant frog jabbed into her eye. One would think the mind flayers both lacked the time and had better things to do. Like trying really hard not to get killed.

Yeah, I'd rather that I healed her up and then she settled her own problem before I decide if I want her in my camp.

There's also the issue of her being an origin character, so this story has to make sense from her perspective as well. Do you have to kill the cultists if you are Karlach, or can you just run away?

Yeah, her story and her timeline just don't match up. She saw the Nautilus in Avernus being attacked by demons, and then somehow managed to get aboard and then get put in one of the chambers to get tadpoled, all while the mindflayers, as you say, are fighting for their lives.

She mentions having had much greater power in the hells than what she still has.

Well, let me rectify that a bit. She saw the nautiloid being attacked by devils, her allies in Avernus before she fled, and managed to get aboard thanks to the situation. And according to what happens on the main deck, mindflayers are in a very bad position to win the fight anyway. So she has plenty of opportunities to hide inside the ship before it teleports away.

So, wyll and gale’s situation. Must have missed that dialogue.



I am aware of that. My question is how she did that and get tadpoled. The mindflayers were, after all, in a bad position.

Maybe she's not. I don't think Larian stated all the companions would have a tadpole in their head. Maybe there are two types of companions in this regard. Because it seems we will meet some after act 1.

My guess would be that if you choose to play as Karlach you're given the opportunity to spare them, but the game and her story will heavily lean towards making you kill them.
Essentially giving you the choice but still heavily suggesting that your choice isn't 'intended' or canon.

She does have a tadpole. You have the obligatory exchange of memory and you are able to question why she seems so unconcerned about it.

Do recall Larian toying with the idea of having some non-tadpoled companions though...

We see a glimpse of her memory. There is no exchange the other way around, which happens with all the other companions who can read our own mind. To me, it doesn't count much as an indicator she has a tadpole. Because if she has had one, we could have used it to check if she was lying or not about the zariel followers story.

Conversely I'm fairly sure they said the opposite - that there'd be companions who weren't tadpoled.

Forgive me, I was a bit unclear in my last post. You are able to question why she is unconcerned about the tadpole. Not the memory exchange, specifically the tadpole.

Are you sure it's not about the tadpole we have in our own head? Cause she feels our intrusion into her mind.


Did you happen to take a screenshot by any chance?

Neither have a screenshot on me nor the ability to take one in the near future. But I recall this being a dialogue option after you redecorate the interior of the cabin with the interiors of the fallen paladin. The tiefling sits in ea limbo after that, forever ready to accept a quest turn in, but you are not able to progress dualogue to the point where she joins your party, or make for baldurs gate to go attack, in her words, “politicians.”






Wait? They confirmed he is in?





If it eases your guilt, even if these cultists may be friendly to you, sympathetic motives or no, they are trying to damn someone to hell. servitude and torture until one’s soul mercifully burns away like a candle.

Also, in wyl’s defense, he has come to regret his pact and is seeking a way out. And, as far as we know, his pact has not led to the damning of third parties.

For me, it's very unlikely she has a tadpole. The only way I would see it possible is if she was completely lying on how she got back to the forgotten realms with us.

He's in the files as a placeholder character and there are a number of voice lines that refer to a certain hamster by name. It seems he will be selectable from the start, which begs the question as to how the story plays out as him when you are not tadpoled and none of the Absolute cutscenes trigger for you.

Yeah, my real question is, are there not two types of companions: the ones you can play as origin and the ones you can't?

Huh, In this closed circle of deep seated trauma that is the companions, he is going to stand out like a sore thumb. But, between the former chosen of mystra, the sociopath vampire, and Zariel’s mutt, might be a nice icebreaker for him to run into camp and shout

Hope he is not tadpoled.

We have no idea what Helia's backstory is yet and recent discoveries have so maybe she will be a cheerful and positive companion.

Yup. Same problem. In fact, I've stopped doing her side quest on my playthroughs, except to toss a healing spell her way. Gale doesn't get the yummy, shiny sword, but I'm not going to kill folks simply for being evil (maybe) and worshiping an evil being, or I'd have to take out most of my own party.

I'd like to have as little raidroading as possible, so giving me the option of running away, or making a bargain with them would be better. Still killing in self-defence (when playing as Karlach) is more justifiable than the current player character killing 4 strangers to save one stranger, all of whom have equally murky backgrounds.

Well, there are youtube videos. Here's one. https://youtu.be/3xLuh9mYyWo?t=1333

The player didn't select the question to ask her if she was worried about what the parasite was doing to her, but you can see that the question is there.

Ok thanks. So it makes her story pretty fake then. Cause I don't see how she got the tadpole in her head if she was just passing by. She's either lying or we have some very bad writing here.

You can ask Anders, "You're damning another soul to hell to save your own?" And he answers that her soul is already damned, and that he just needs to send her back to hell. So he isn't damning a new soul to hell, merely returning one to where it belongs.

Believe me, I have tried to find ways to give myself a reason to get that Sword of Justice, but I haven't found any that is strong enough for me to kill either side.

1) You don't have to kill her or them
2) She is not joining you until you get to Baldur's Gate.
3) My Cleric of Tyr had zero issues dispatching the false paladins

He could be lying here, as he did before. Has anyone tried detect thoughts here? (The one spell I keep forgetting about, lol.)

Agreed with OP. I'm hoping I can just heal Karlach and find her in Baldur's gate. This isn't an encounter I enjoyed and I hope killing the warlocks is not required to recruit one of the few good aligned NPCs.

She gave me an impression of her fakiness, too many holes in her story. Not a very good person - judging so far.

I would say origin characters will have tadpoles in their heads, while non-origin companions will not.

I have to agree that Anders actually seems to be a pretty nice guy, and if Karlach stays in her (in my view) ugly design, that holy Paladin of Tyr will always can count me in for some tiefling slaying.

They mislead the player about their identity, and then sent to kill that tiefling without any proof: it's his word vs. her word, and after this is started, we can get proof that he is lying, while she still can be innocent (or not, that will be revealed by the story past early access). They are
They have no honor. No matter the reasons. They aren't doing good, killing the gnolls is just self-defense. They obviously following the orders of someone who can't be called good at all, and they have no excuses considering their past.
We can know more about her

I have no doubts at all: will just treat them as bandits, they are even more dangerous than that, and kill them every time. It's full black, not even gray, despite their excuses.
Not sure about her yet, but so far she seems nice. Kind of a Gale person, just she reveals some of her secrets before joining us, unlike the wizard.

Edit: Wyl told me nothing so far about him (and I finished whole early access and cleared 100%), but he isn't in the party, never was, and that could be the reason. He doesn't talk much in the camp and I don't ask much. He is weird and I trust Shadowheart more than Wyl (not that I can really trust Shadowheart). My party is Lae, Gale, Shadowheart. Wyl and a few others are camp residents. Astarion was killed when he was crying on the road "help, I need help" (a nice sneaky backstab did it, oh well, he asked for help, and this comes from a 100% good character, as that Mandalorian character would say: "I have spoken")

lol, "holy Paladin", that is no more, maybe high CHA needed to make it explain,

She doesnt even have her model yet, everything about her is unfinishied. So I woulent worry

If knock out actually had a purpose this would be a case where you could do it. As it is the quest either wont progress until you kill them or knocking them out will brick the quest. I haven't tried knocking them out so I'm unsure which would occur. I know of only two cases where it results in no known issue and that's the Githyanki Patrol and Halsin (if you wipe out the grove).

@Lonesky

I agree with everything you've said before the edit and yeah, choosing Karlach is the good thing to do. But, at the end of the day, I walk away from that encounter not feeling good about it. Where I really liked putting the boot to the hag, I just didn't like killing

I wasted half my life looking for a one horned Tiefling hoping that Anders and Karlach had their signals crossed and that everything could be cleaned up between them amiably. There are any number of ways to satisfy this quest reasonably and these writers chose the absolute least convincing manner of resolving it

You could heal Karlach, bring her to Anders and force them to admit neither really wants to kill the other.

You could give Anders the Soul Coin and help him satisfy his debt to who-ever-the-fuck he made his deal with,

You could lie without evidence (hard deception)

You could lie with evidence (head off any female teifling and soft deception)

You could talk him out of it (hard persuasion)

Paladin specific Come to Jesus speech (soft persuasion)



Any of those would be more satisfying than the quests as is

This tadpole is really bloody convenient. Immediately we know that it is the affable band of refugees who need to die rather than the red skinned orphan factory.

I suppose some part of the tiefling’s story might be suspect. How she got the tadpole for one. We also do not know how she came under Zariel’s boot other than her blaming “politicians.” It is entirely possible she went to the fiend willingly, only to get cold feet when she realized that, for all the infernal powers she may gain, she would never amount to more than a body for the meatgrinder.