Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Quest Request: Hunt the Devil (Spoilers)

Hello! I'm on my second playthrough, and having some issues with the quest Hunt the Devil. In this quest, you encounter Karlach, a devil whose soul was forcibly sworn to Zariel who escaped from Avernus by riding the nautiloid. At some point, before the crash, she was infected. To make things worse, Zariel has set a band of cultists on her trail, and she's hurt and unable to move (a bit like Pandirna). She asks you to help her get rid of her hunters, and promises a future alliance in Baldur's Gate if you agree; it's hinted that she might be a future companion and that she didn't sell her own soul, but was rather sent to Hell by some Baldur's Gate politicians (maybe a tie-in with Astarion's past and infernal scars? who knows. Anywho, she definitely deserves to be helped.)

When you meet the group hunting Karlach, they too have an awful story and a very good reaso behind their mission; they are not, as Karlach suggested, a rabid bunch dead-set on getting her head for "reasons" but a lawful good group of ex-Tyr paladins who lost everything in Elturel, and who agreed to make a pact with Zariel to help the helpless; the only thing that she wants is one soul, either Karlach's or theirs. I did some digging, and Zariel is a complex character herself with a lot of redeeming qualities.

As the quest stands right now, in EA, the only way to complete it and get the checkmark is to either kill the Knights of Zariel OR kill Karlach. In my first playthrough, before deciding to kill the Knights of Zariel (because they had had agency in their pact, while Karlach didn't) I tried everything to find a third way: I tried healing Karlach, giving Soul Coins to Anders so that they could repay Zariel without killing Karlach, used every companion to talk to them, trying to unlock dialogue options to avoid slaughtering them, etc. The think is that IF you kill them, they won't be able to protect that bit of the road later on either, and they are doing a much better work than the noobs of the Flaming Fist, so it seems very counter-productive and chaotic stoopid to have to kill them.

I'd love it if there was a third way to fix the situation, one that didn't involve the slaughter of two factions that are very sympathetic -- much more than the Druids, for instance, where the third pacifist option is very apparent, and even with Mayrina and the Hag. Besides, there's an ongoing theme of distrusting authority figures in Baldur's Gate 3 -- and it's part of Shar's creed to topple these -- so it would make sense if the players who wanted to follow that path could untangle both parties from their ties to Zariel. It just seems as if leaving as many people alive as possible in Act 1 would keep more storylines open in Act 2.

So, what do you think? Should we be able to keep both Karlach and the Andersons of Zariel alive?

As far as I got that quest they not defending the road, from what I understand they were the ones to create the block and started ambushing trespassers. They also killed the tollhouse stationary members.

Actually, that's what I suspected in my first playthrough, but if you interrogate the bodies of the tollhouse members they say that it was goblins and gnolls, not the Knights of Tyr; this is backed up by the journal entries in the tollhouse worker, which you find in the basement; both were preparing to abandon their post as the road's conditions and threats had become impossible. The Knights arrived later, after the nautiloid crashed, and it is true that they were defending travellers while they hunted for Karlach.

A third option would be nice.

Just some comments from what the OP wrote:

I don’t think you can be forced to sell your soul to a fiend. It’s a conscious choice. That means Karlach may just be having “buyers remorse” which doesn’t make her all that much better than the fake followers of Tyr.

I agree the group didn’t kill the people living there. The former paladin even says they aren’t murderers. I think they just want to escape Zariel by bringing Karlach. Selfish but I didn’t see them as serial killers.

IMO they all suck.

Well, yes -- everyone in the game is an unreliable narrator. That said, who isn't? I'm sure that my custom MC, who I created, has some deep dark secrets of her own. Still, as it feels like they made those deals out of desperation, and I'm a sucker for convincing delivery, and the voice actors of Anders and Karlach did a wonderful job... I just want to help them squiggle out of their contract. There' should always be a loophole, even if it adds +5 hours of sewer quests. IMO, Karlach and Anders should unionize against Zariel, not try to kill each other.

That is the general rule, but one has to make room for narrative exceptions. People being sacrificed, parents offering up their firstborn (or entire lineage), people getting tricked or blackmailed, and so on.

Moreover, when you expose them as servants of Zariel, the halfling woman tells their comrades to bar the doors (with the intention of killing you), and Anders stops her saying: "No, we're not murderers". I couldn't bring myself to fulfill Karlach's request after that, so I just healed her (she stands on her feet again) and left.

Whoot? Have I missed something here?
Or brought the wrong compagnions and couldn't figure that out?

To me it looked like she is just broke out of Avernus Jail - the Mindflayers could not get their hands on her since she just hid on the Nautiloid and she is not a Devil either, but a Tiefling.

Devils, especially more highranking one's with Human seize and shape, they all phased back to the Hells when we made the jump.
Proof that their "devil heritage" is so high and dense, they cannot reach the Material realm -> without a proper dark summoning ritual of sorts.
Karlach could, which could serve as proof that she is a Tiefling and not a "real Devil".

Her pursuers just call her a Devil to lure US the players into aiding them.
And all those superstitious fools in the world of Fae'run call Tieflings Devil cause they just dont know any better.


Zariel that dumb "biatchu" is just mad one of her Slaves could run off. ... is as I understood it.

Yes, and I rather like your soul coin solution. I only found two so far; did you find four (enough for all tollhouse residents)?

But let me redirect:

The only people who cannot lie to you are the dead. You may also get correct information out of successful Perception and Investigation rolls and the actual game evidence.

Known from the dead:
---Both tollhouse personnel were killed by gnolls.
---The dead cultist inside the tollhouse was pacted with Zariel and killed by gnolls.
---The dead cultist on the bridge with the gnolls will not speak to you. (I haven't tried the gnolls; something to try.)

Investigation roll:
---When talking to Anders, you get an Investigation roll when he describes Karlach's crimes. The roll tells you his description doesn't match known behavior for devils.

Actual evidence:
---The dead gnolls and cultist on the bridge.
---The dead gnolls outside the tollhouse. Same.
---The dead cultist in the tollhouse.
---The hacked-up bodies behind the tollhouse.
---Anders has the sword of Tyr. Note that apparently anyone can use it - even characters without proficiency can wield it long enough to activate its power. So can the vampire spawn, the clearly Lawful Evil githyanki, the cleric of Shar, the pact-sworn Wyll, etc. There are no apparent race, alignment, class, or deific restrictions on use.

I don't really expect people at Larian to set up a CSI crime scene for us to solve, but they have to have some basic understanding of the ideas and have a backstory to follow, so assume this is a crime scene, all narrators, except as noted, are unreliable, and go with the evidence.

The things that stand out to me are the body parts behind the tollhouse - they are 'hidden' (deliberately out of the way) and dismembered. There are four other gnoll attack scenes and, in two of them, the gnolls win. In those, the bodies are eviscerated and eaten, not dismembered. So gnolls didn't do it. Karlach is showing a crossbow, but she may have a bladed weapon, so she is a possibility, but there is no evidence she made it as far as the tollhouse. The tollhouse personnel have no reason to do it and there's no evidence they did. Anders has both means and opportunity; he is the only likely candidate. In this world, you destroy a body to keep Speak with Dead from working. Otherwise, he could have dropped the body near the gnolls and everyone would have believed they were killed in the fight. So it looks like Anders killed (possibly) and dismembered (likely) at least one other person. That is not the work of a paladin or a person who is trying to do good despite his pact (contrast Wyll).

Karlach's story basically holds up, although there may be elements that are lies.

Anders and company's stories do not hold up, except for the fact that they did fight the gnolls and the clear enmity with Karlach.

So my best guess is: Ander's group did fight the gnolls, but only because they were attacked. There was one remaining tollhouse employee who would have been a witness to pact power uses, so Anders took that person out back and killed and dismembered them. Even if he was a paladin, he isn't acting like one, so I am guessing the whole 'paladins of Tyr' story is based on the fact that they have the sword - perfect evidence until you realize that anyone can use it. And only a trusted servant of Zarial would be given the sword in the first place, so Anders isn't a reluctant servant.

Now that I have gone out on a limb, does anyone want to chop it off? (With evidence and logic, please.)

Oooooh, RBarbare --- I love your train of thought! The part about dismembered limbs is fascinating, but that could have been the handiwork of gnolls too; we see dismembered cadavers anywhere they hit. Anders & the Zariellites could be keeping the bits and limbs out in the open to attract more gnolls to kill, pass the time, etc.

I don't think that Anders is a reluctant servant of Zariel -- au contraire, I think that after the fall of Elturel and what he and his companions went through he would serve her even if she didn't have a hold on his soul, but that's not how archdevils work. He might just have a bit more wiggle room to focus on gnoll-fighting and innocent-protecting instead of hunting one runaway tiefling.

There's also a meta argument for keeping both factions alive; they seem perfect candidates to become part of your party. The Zarielites have the same composition as the Origin companions: fighter, rogue, healer and mage, which suggests that they might become a mercenary group for solo players at some point. Their structure mirrors the "adventurer / grave robber" group that you encounter at the very beginning, in the overgrown ruins, and even Aradin's band back at the Druid Grove. Plus there's the whole "don't kill the merchants please" capitalistic reason to keep Cyrell alive.

I am under the impression the paladins summoned the gnolls considering the book I found on the balcony desk in the leader's room detailing how to create them...

Glolls do not cut up bodies. They tear at and eat them, because of the insatiable hunger they are infected with.

Anders' cultists did not create the gnolls. But the gnolls are more organized than ever before because they are following a leader who is infected with a tadpole. Neither Anders or any of his group have tadpoles. The book on the history of gnolls was in the tollhouse, along with a lot of other books, and not among Anders's possessions.

Anders and his people present themselves as paladins/followers of Tyr. Not as cultists of Zariel. It is his dead compatriots who admit they turned from Tyr and sold their souls to Zariel. And the dead cannot lie. Anders certainly acts as if he regrets certain things, and tries to insist they are not killers. But he is a proven liar. He may have regrets over his decisions that brought him to this point, but he is still a servant of Zariel. It's true that his group cleared the gnolls at the tollhouse, but that is not why they were there. They are just using the tollhouse as a base for the search for the wounded Karlach.

Karlach on the other hand says she was a prisoner of Zariel. I don't believe she mentions selling her soul. Anyway, she is a Tiefling, not a devil. And she has a tadpole. She tells you that Anders and his cultists were sent by Zariel to retrieve her. When the tadpoles cause your minds to link - both before and after you kill Anders - the things you see support her story. They do not prove that *everything* she told you was true, but they do support much of what she said.

So you have Anders' followers of Tyr, who you know are liars that are working for Zariel, and no longer in the service of Tyr. And you have Karlach, who's story is at least partly confirmed through the tadpole, and who you have no evidence is lying.

But that doesn't mean I'm telling you that you should make one decision over the other. Maybe you're playing a character who's not able to determine who is lying. There's also the issue of your character's moral compass. Are they good or evil? Or just in it for themselves? That will impact which decision you make.

Also, if you are interested in spoilers for post-EA content:

A little bit of column A and a little bit of column B -- tend to play a "keeping as many people alive as possible, regardless of their alignment" to keep as many storylines open as possible in the future.

She doesn’t but with deductive reasoning, you can make the assertion she either sold her soul or was in fact someone who worshipped devils and died. That would take your soul to Avernus in the afterlife. Her being a prisoner can be considered embellishment on her part.

Either scenario doesn’t make her innocent.

Also I never got the implication that she has a tadpole. Your character can make mind links and other mental abilities with non-hosts, such as using the power to bypass certain dialogue with the goblins. The game never explicitly says she’s infected.

The connection is much more intense, like the one you have when you meet your companions and people like Priestess Gut, True Soul Edowyin and Minthara for the first time -- visions of their past, feelings, images that defined them -- She confirms that she took a free ride on the nautiloid when she saw it pop into Avernus, she might have gotten infected there, if she bumped her head when it crashed near the tadpole tank. It's unclear whether Karlach conscious that she's infected, but if she's a possible companion it makes sense that she has a wriggler behind her eye.

Very possible. Or Zarlach is special as she suggests to the player. The fact that Zariel is willing to go out of her way to hunt her down suggests she’s valuable. She may have gifts we don’t know about or she’s valuable now since she has a tadpole. But nothing has been explicitly revealed.

The easiest and most obvious plot device would be a tadpole but I’m hoping otherwise. It’s getting pretty silly that all the companions are infected.

This is turning into another bhaalspawn story. I’m just waiting for each infected person having to kill the others or be healed to declare there can only be one tadpole...

Either that or tadpoles are Hell's bitcoins. I mean, let's look at the mechanics of these tadpoles: they are able to connect between them, the actions and thoughts of the infected PC can manipulate other tadpoled creatures (suggesting that they have the potential to become an elder brain) and they are incredibly resistant / protected by Netherese magic. If I was a soul-hoarding devil I would do anything to get my hands on an infected host, as with "the proper guidance" any one of them could mind-control a lot of other people into selling their souls to me. It's a get rich quick scheme.

The citizens of Elturel swore a sort of oath-of-alleigence that required them to defend the city. This oath was corrupted so that the citizens had unknowingly sworn themselves into Zariels service.

So it seems that it is possible for Karlach or Anders to have been bound to Zariel without their consent.

Wyll's questline indicates that devils (or at least half-devils -- cambions) can be infected with the changed tadpoles. Which creates opportunity for all kinds of infernal shittery. Fiendish mindflayers is just the beginning.

Interesting idea.

Anders I am sure sold his soul outright. He even says so when he’s caught in his lie.

It’s possible Karlach was caught up in the oath but her story suggests she was fighting the blood war for quite some time. And it doesn’t explain why the other tiefling refugees aren’t targeted personally by Zariel.