Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
- #1. Double Pets & Playing Ball
- #2. The Sickle of BOOOAL
- #3. The Top Floor of the Arcane Tower
- #4. Sazza Will Never Escape
- #5. Summoning Shovel (Or Fork)
- #6. There’s A Reason That Ogre Is So Smart
- #7. Plenty of Permanent Upgrades
- #8. The Dark Urge & The Cult of Bhaal
- #9. Break The Pact
- #10. Defeat The Absolute In Act 2
- #11. Multiple Romances At Once
- #12. Romance Gone Too Far
There’s no end to the secrets in Baldur’s Gate 3. With thousands of possible ending combinations, infinite party customization, spells for talking to animals, talking to the dead, or even reading people’s minds, there is so much hidden content to discover. There are secret buttons (and traps) you can find with high Perception rolls.
There are weird and wacky characters to discover and quests to unlock and complete in myriad different ways. To talk about everything hidden in Baldur’s Gate 3 may prove impossible — but we’re going to share 12 extremely weird little secrets and Easter eggs that made the possibilities in this game feel endless.
And there’s so many to discover. After a single playthrough, these are the weird secrets we found — and we’ll be digging up even more in the future. Let us know the weirdest secrets we missed that are worth sharing with the world.
More Baldur’s Gate 3 guides:
Beginner Guide | All Origin Companions | Should You Use Tadpoles? | Recruit Minthara | Recruit Halsin | Recruit Jaheira | Recruit Minsc | Romance Karlach | Infernal Iron Locations | Best Magic Items In Act 1 | Owlbear Companion | Craft Healing Potions | Perfect Pickpocket Guide | Oathbreaker Paladin Subclass | How To Cure Gale | How To Rescue Halsin | Kill The Goblin Camp Leaders | Assassin & Gloomstalker Tips | Defiled Temple Puzzle | Auntie Ethel Guide | Underdark Entrances | Easy Gold Trick
#1. Double Pets & Playing Ball
Everyone already knows about the Owlbear Cub and Scratch — pets that can join your camp in Act 1. Near the Blighted Village you’ll be able to recruit Scratch, a playful dog, to join your camp. The Owlbear is more complicated — learn more about the Owlbear here — but this cuddly creature can also join your camp. We all know these cute critters, but have you tried petting them both at the same time? It’s possible! Petting them both will unlock the ‘You Have Two Hands For A Reason‘ achievement. In the era of Can You Pet The Dog? you have to bring something special to the table.
After petting two animals at once, why not play with them? You can play fetch with Scratch. After a few nights pass with Long Rest, Scratch will bring you something. Take the ball away from him. Using the Throw command, you can toss the ball and Scratch will chase. Do it to unlock the ‘Fetch Quest‘ achievement.
#2. The Sickle of BOOOAL
In the Underdark, there’s an incredibly easy-to-miss area called the Festering Cove. Down the hill from the Selunite Outpost and up the hill from the Underdark Beach, there’s a field of glowing red explosive mushrooms. In the field, there’s a hidden unmarked entrance to a cove — look for a hole in the corner with a climbable rock face.
Down below, you’ll find a colony of fish worshipping BOOOAL — no, not Bhaal, this is BOOOAL. Talk to the evil deity, who is just a gnome that really likes murder, and he’ll give you his trusty weapon. The Sickle of BOOAL and everything in this area is a joke. As far as pure Easter eggs go, this is probably the biggest one we’ve found so far.
#3. The Top Floor of the Arcane Tower
Also, in the Underdark, you’ll find a much less secretive location — the Arcane Tower. This massive multi-floor magical structure is offline when you first arrive. You’ll need to drop down to the lowest floor and place a glowing blue anti-magic bulb in the generator to reactivate the lift. There’s a lot to discover here, but there’s one secret most everyone probably missed.
At the top floor, you’ll encounter a group of Automatons — by talking (or fighting) these bots, you can acquire a special ring that can generate light. Somewhat useful, but not immediately useful, right? Well, if you equip that ring immediately, a new feature will unlock on the elevator. There’s yet another floor in the Arcane Tower. Riding up to the very top, you’ll find an incredibly useful Quarterstaff. Just enjoy the pleasures of finding a very well-hidden room.
#4. Sazza Will Never Escape
Early in the game, you’ll encounter an annoying goblin named Sazza in the Tiefling Refugee Camp. She’s trapped by the Tieflings and held prisoner in a cage. Whether you’re evil or good, you can release Sazza — and she will prompty get into more trouble. Every time you encounter the goblin Sazza, she will be imprisoned and threatened with death. She starts in the Emerald Grove. If you free her, she’ll be captured in the Goblin Camp. After that, she’ll be captured one last time in Moonrise Towers. By saving her all three times, you’ll earn the ‘She Cannot Be Caged!‘ achievement. Maybe saving her isn’t worth the effort. If you don’t release her immediately (and carefully) in each encounter, she can easily turn on you, or die one of several ways.
#5. Summoning Shovel (Or Fork)
Here’s a weird one. In the Blighted Village, we’ve all found the secret lab under the apothecary’s house. In the cellar, there’s a hidden switch that leads to a magic mirror. Curious players will always discover this quest, but there’s an additional weird secret to find in the coffins. Before reaching the lab, there are several coffins — and if you check them all, you’ll find a Scroll of Summoning Quasit.
Give the scroll to your favorite magic-user (Gale, Wyll) and summon the quasit. The creature is like a weird devilish imp, and instead of immediately serving you, it wants a conversation. The creature named Shovel (that you can change to Fork) is ill-tempered and simply accepts its new master. After a short conversation with this very easy-to-miss creature, you’ll earn the ‘Rude, Crude and Full of Attitude‘ achievement.
#6. There’s A Reason That Ogre Is So Smart
Also in the Blighted Village, if you peacefully convince the goblins to let you pass, you can find a trio of hungry ogres. One of the ogres is extremely refined and intelligent — an impossible sight in the rest of the Sword Coast. This lummox can be convinced to fight for you in exchange for food, but he won’t explain why he’s so smart.
To figure out the reason, you’ll need to loot his body. The ogre is actually carrying a magic item. Kill Lump the Enlightened and you’ll find the Warped Headband of Intelligence which grants the wearer a 17 Intelligence score. You can turn even your dumbest party members into a genius with this simple piece of loot.
#7. Plenty of Permanent Upgrades
By talking to specific characters and completing optional challenges, you can earn permanent upgrades for your characters. There are lots of these, so let’s go over just a handful from Act 1 and Act 2. These upgrades don’t go away after a Long Rest and they’re often rewarded for doing things you absolutely wouldn’t want to do.
- Rescue Volo from the Goblin Camp and he’ll be invited to your camp. Here, he’ll offer to find a solution to your parasite problem. After the second long rest, he’ll appear and offer to drill the tadpole out. Go along with this. He’ll eventually knock your eye out. Don’t worry, Volo will give you a replacement eye that can see invisible enemies. Permanently!
- Allow Auntie Ethel the Hag to escape and she will give you a permanent stat upgrade consumable of your choice.
- In the Goblin Camp, you can find a Torturer that is also a Pain Cultist named Abdirak. If you pass his dialogue checks when torturing you, you’ll earn Loviatar’s Blessing. When below 30% HP you’ll gain +2 attack rolls and saving throws. You’ll have to please Loviatar, so make sure to scream!
- Much later in Act 2, reach the Moonrise Towers. Talk to the drow Araj Oblodra — trade her your blood and convince Astarion to bite her and she’ll give you a potion that permanently increases your strength by +1.
#8. The Dark Urge & The Cult of Bhaal
The Dark Urge is one of your origins when creating a custom character and may be one of the most involved — when you choose to play a Dark Urge character, being good is basically impossible. You get your own unique quest to follow, and get unique opportunities to kill everything around you. Even if you’re fighting the Absolute, you do perform some seriously heinous acts. You can choose to kill Isobel in Last Light Inn, ending the Shadow Curse protection and killing every NPC in the area. You can side with Minthara, the Drow Leader in the Goblin Camp, sleep with her, and then immediately murder her. Your character will automatically murder small animals or visitors to your camp will wind up dead mysteriously. Your character will black out, and can release their murderous urge at random, attacking everything even when you don’t want to.
And this all culminates in Act 3. You don’t just join the Cult of Bhaal, you can also become its acolyte, performing serial killings in the streets of Baldur’s Gate. You’ll even earn an achievement, ‘Murder in Baldur’s Gate‘ for becoming an Unholy Assassin for the God of Murder. Your Slayer Form can even murder your own companions! This is an insane playthrough, and one that changes everything much more than you might expect.
#9. Break The Pact
Meeting with Wyll in the Emerald Grove, you’ll quickly learn he’s made a pact with a devil. After a few rests, he’ll explain his problems — and after even more rests, his devil handler Mizora will even transform him into a devil, giving him horns. This is punishment for not killing Karlach, something the good-aligned Wyll will absolutely not want to do once he learns more about his target.
This is all extremely aggravating, but it is possible to break the pact without violence. In Act 2, you’ll find Mizora in the Mind Flayer Colony. Talking to her, you can (relatively easily) convince her to free Wyll after this last job of rescuing Mizora. She will agree and leave, but Wyll will be trapped in the contract for another 6 months. We need to do more.
Progress to Baldur’s Gate (Act 3) and go to Enver Gortash’s castle. Talk to Mizora here, then Gortash, then Mizora again. If you choose the right words, Wyll and Mizora will have one more confrontation at your camp after a long rest. From here, your Persuasion skill will come in handy. Choose to break the pact and Wyll can finally be free — you just need to find a loophole in the contract.
#10. Defeat The Absolute In Act 2
If you’re not using Gale in your party due to his extremely annoying Act 1 affliction, you can easily miss out on an alternate ending that appears in Act 2. Soon after meeting Gale, he’ll reveal he needs to siphon power from Magic Items to stay alive. Do this three times and he’ll eventually give up — and then gain a new mission. Reaching the Shadow-Cursed Lands a messenger will arrive with orders for Gale. He must destroy the Absolute, and gains a power to self-destruct at will. This power can be used at any given moment of the game, but it will kill Gale and your entire party instantly. I don’t recommend using it.
Until the end of Act 2. At the bottom of the Mind Flayer Colony, you’ll find all three Chosen of the Absolute and the Elder Brain that’s the source of their power. You can wipe out all the big bad guys of Baldur’s Gate 3 instantly. If Gale is in your party and has this power, he’ll offer to use it. Let him and watch the fireworks unfold. There’s a full ending and credits, making this an official conclusion to Baldur’s Gate 3.
#11. Multiple Romances At Once
Here’s a fun detail it took us dozens of hours to realize. You can run multiple romances at the same time. Normally when romancing, you can only pursue one partner at a time — you can switch partners mid-way through romance in the early stages, but you’ll permanently lose them when you switch paramours. But, you can choose different characters. If you’ve made a custom character, you can use them to romance Gale, then switch control to Astarion and romance Karlach. Nightsong and Lae’zel can pick different partners too. By switching characters, you can play matchmaker with your party members. If you want to see and experience more romance storylines in a single playthrough, that’s how it works.
#12. Romance Gone Too Far
But there’s one romance option we can’t recommend. This is a HUGE SPOILER so turn away now unless you’ve reached the end of the game. Even then, we won’t go into extreme details.
Naturally, you’ll encounter the High Illithid that abducted you at the start of the game. This impressively adorned Mind Flayer is at the heart of the story, and you can choose to fight alongside him or fight against him. At the very end of the story, you can even choose to become an Illithid. But the real weirdness happens in dialogue. The developers have said you can have sex with a bear. But did you know you can have sex with an Illithid? This is not what I expected. Just watch the scene below if you dare.