New adventures lurk around every corner in Baldur's Gate 3. After uncovering the secrets of the chapel that I mentioned in my last post I explored more of the surrounding area. It didn't take long for the next adventure to reveal itself. A pack of goblins was attacking a group of people close to what looked like village gates and my party got caught up in it all. Not necessarily by choice but we ended up there all the same.
The battle at the gates
The battle was a cakewalk. With my party and the groves defenders combined we were outnumbering them nine to four. This is pretty huge in Dungeons & Dragons as it means the action economy is heavily in our favor. We also totally smashed them on the initiative roll which meant that six of us got to make their move before one of the goblins did. In that time we managed to take out two of them leaving them only five left. It was nothing less than a massacre.
After the fight we learned that the local goblins has been growing in numbers recently and this pack has followed a group of locals back to town. This has caused a bit of distress in the Emerald Grove seeing as it's currently being used as a refuge for a group of Tieflings that are slowly making their way to Baldur's Gate. For those not well versed in the universe og Dungeons & Dragons I can say that Tieflings are a race of demonized humans and Baldur's Gate is one of the biggest cities on the Sword Coast, the name of this region of Faerun. Faerun is the continent. It's pretty cool playing a game like this and knowing so much about the lore already. It makes it so much more immersive for me.
The source of distress comes from the fact that most of these Tieflings are civilian refugees. The druids that call the Emerald Grove their home wants to seal it from the outside world to protect it from the goblins. They also want the Tieflings to leave. Of course, me and my party find ourselves in the middle of this quarrel between the Tieflings and the druids and both sides turn to us for a solution. The Tieflings want us to stop the druids from completing the sealing ritual while the druids wants us to escort the Tieflings away and towards Baldur's Gate.
Seeing as I'm doing some heavy Githyanki roleplaying for this playthrough I mostly decide that this quarrel is beneath me. I hear them out but I mostly choose to ignore both sides. They can figure it out for themselves instead of bothering me about it.
I do pick up a few interesting quests in town though. I take on a contract paying 5000 gold to find a long lost artifact. Getting rich does interest me quite a bit. I also pick up a few leads as to where I can deal with the tadpole stuck in my head. There seems to be quite a few paths to go down to get this done but I choose to follow Lae'zel, the fellow Githyanki of my party, to get this done. Together we bully a Tiefling who has sighted even more Githyanki to point us in the direction of them.
There's also some lesser quests that I choose to ignore. Some guy has lost his precious locket and blames a Tiefling child. The druids also want my help to find their leader who seems to have been captured by goblins. All food for a future playthrough.
I can see myself playing this game several times over to see how things turn out when you make different choices. What happens if I completely ignore the conflict in the grove. What happens if I side with the Tieflings? What happens if I side with the druids? All quests and locations have choices like this that shapes the future of my adventure.
I'm playing alongside two friends and we're constantly talking about the things that happens in our playthroughs while keeping it as spoiler free as possible. We've all played for around the same amount of hours but all of our adventures have been completely different. This game really is something special and I can't wait to uncover more of its secrets.
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.