Baldur's Gate 3: Who Is Karlach And What Is The Blood War?

karlak the tiefling warrior you meet in Early Access is going to be companion in Baldur's Gate 3. and almost certainly an immersion character as well which of course raises the question as how accurate our initial meeting with her is given that we meet her later than all the other companions thus far available as well as the fact that she turns down your offer to join the party this all seems like it will be very different come full release but more to the point Carlock tells you that she was conscripted into the blood War and fought for zariel the Lord of avernus acquiring a reputation of Distinction in the devilish ranks and even the moniker Demon's Bane and I want to talk more about karlak but I also want to talk a bit about the significance of the blood War in the context of the d d universe as given the size of full release Baldur's Gate 3 there might be some touch points in the game later on Independent of Carly but relating to the blood War put very simply the blood War is a war fought between what might possibly be the most level races in the Multiverse the devils and the demons as both devils and demons are evil this war is fought solely along the lines of the axes of Law and Chaos as the devils are the embodiment of lawful evil and the demons are the embodiment of chaotic evil and their approaches to evil are like night and day the devil plans his evil it is methodical calculating and even reliable in a sense its word actually binds it to action and contracts ensure that it will follow through on that word but this is not a blind adherence to the law rather it is a never-ending game of twisting its spirit and changing its letter to suit the devil's needs this dedication to law is equally well evidenced in the rank and file soldiers of the nine Hells everyone and everything is rigidly organized and regimented and must conform to the hierarchy that dominates the nine Hills devils are either promoted or demoted by dint of their performance within the infernal hierarchy with a great deal of cheating without getting caught and corruption in between foes and servants are to be crushed under the iron heel of the law with neither quarter nor Mercy given as Mercy is not even a word in the Lexicon of the Devils of the nine Hells as the personification of organized evil the blood Wars largely directed by a council of pitfins which are the most powerful form of conventional devil called the dark eight who sit and plan together in a fortress on the deepest and last layer of the nine Hells called nessus these powerful pit fiends plan and strategize and direct the thrusts of the blood War commanding the Devils beneath them and designing blood War policy they decide how it should be fought and where it should be fought however the most powerful Devils namely the Lords of the nine those arched Devils who rule whole layers pay little heed to the blood War typically seen as wasteful and pointless given their own interests the sole exception to this is the lord of the first who is currently zaryel and coincidentally the former Mistress of karlak who the lord of the first or the Lord of avernus has always had a greater role in Prosecuting the blood War than other arched Devils for the very simple reason that avernus is the first layer of the hells and thus the first point of entry into the plane when an invasion takes place then it begins on the plane of avernus and indeed to the extent that the blood War has been waged in the nine Hells such battles are invariably fought on the first layer and thus a very large part of the governance of the first layer of the hells entails planning and preparing for the blood War which explains why zaryel has such a profound interest in the blood War and its execution as well as karlak's involvement as a conscript demons are not the opposite of devils as they are still evil but they are on the other side of the Continuum in how they express their evil a demon is a creature of pure chaos and Malice unpredictable and cruel it respects neither rules nor hierarchies it is just as likely to kill you on the spot as it is to torture for you or leave you alone or do none of the above as all its behaviors born of Caprice and wind demons do not make or Forge contracts or deals because such deals would hold no meaning for them and even if they were to do so they would never keep their word the only thing that demons respect if one were to call it respect is strength and power but this so-called respect is predicated purely on fear Only the strongest most powerful demons rise to the top and they plummet to the bottom and are destroyed at the slightest hint of weakness as leadership in the abyss is defined purely by savagery and strength with a good dose of cunning and subterfuge as well Mortals will often delude themselves into thinking they have a chance with Devils because of how litigious and lawful they are but no one can ever predict the behavior of a demon since it only obeys its own whims and desires a scholar of demon kind once described them as follows purveyors of ill intent and creatures of utter cruelty it's likely that demons are the most mean-spirited and thoroughly evil monsters in existence they view Life as a nuisance they see the living as toys to be savagely abused and then discarded they care for nothing but themselves and they don't even care about themselves all that much demons are destructive Petty and hateful proud to exemplify all the worst that can come from chaos demons as the embodiment of chaos and evil waged the blood War in an entirely different manner to that of the Devils they are neither organized nor regimented nor do they engage in careful planning they simply rely on sheer numbers although the nine Hells are vast and the number of Devil's lesion the abyss is at least theoretically infinite and thus there is a theoretical infinite number of demons who can participate in the blood War whereas devil armies are originally ordered and defined by actual military ranks with titles truly meaning something demon generals are just the strongest most powerful demons who've managed to bully those demons weaker than they into submission the result of this are armies that have no discipline very little Direction and can fracture at a moment's notice for example when the leading demon is slain or attacked by others looking to take its place what demons lack in discipline an organization though they make up for in sheer numbers demon armies are composed of vastly larger numbers than devil armies and ultimately the difference in approach in numbers has led the two sides to a kind of cosmic permanent standstill the Devils do not have the numbers to Prevail and the demons have neither the discipline nor the organization to Prevail the beginnings of the blood War are shrouded in mystery but one thing we do know is that it is ancient Beyond ancient however there does not appear to be any one clear origin story all can agree upon some claim it is a remnant of a truly primordial conflict between the forces of Law and Chaos fought eons before either Devils or demons existed While others claim that the blood War resulted from the splitting of Pure Evil into two imperfect forms of lawful evil and chaotic evil and experiment conducted by yet another group of lower planar fiends called the eugoloths who are neutral evil whatever the ultimate origin of the blood War many lower fiends take it seriously but as mentioned prior neither archdevils nor Abyssal lures take much notice of it seen as futile and outside of their interest there is one aspect however of the blood War but those who are wise take heat of and this is the ultimate Stakes of the blood War for Untold Millennia the devils and demons have fought each other with neither side ever gaining the upper hand despite victories and losses on both sides and yet worthless to ever change the entirety of the Multiverse would be in grave danger as the blood War serves to distract what are possibly the most evil beings in the Multiverse from focusing all too much on other parts of existence they do this sometimes regardless and the Damage they cause from this is devastating so one can only imagine just how infinitely worse things would become were the blood War ever to be won definitively by either side as should either the Devils or demons ever win they would turn their attention holy to the rest of the Multiverse to the celestials to the Mortal Plains and would attempt to subdue all of creation and bring it under their heel which is why no one's sane hopes for a Victor in this eternal and senseless conflict and it is even said that the powers of good support the war to Stave off the potential of something far worse but where does Carlock fit into all of this the information we receive from Carlock herself upon meeting her near the Toll House in Early Access is that she was conscripted by zariel herself to fight in the blood War and that zariel herself had endowed her with special powers to be able to handle the conflict and even win she says she had served with distinction which makes sense when it comes to the lawful evil Devils as service within the hierarchy is how one rises from the ranks but karlak is a tiefling and no devil one seemingly simple question to pose is what class karlak is and although we technically do not know karlak has a magic A Gathering card that states that she's a barbarian this might not be definitive proof but it is certainly suggestive although from a traditional standpoint lawful barbarians aren't really a thing and it would be very odd for a barbarian to be fighting in the ranks of the Devils it is still possible given how lacks alignment rules are in 5th edition and according to older data mind files it appears that she is in his modius T flame but that seems odd and would be less than optimal given her apparent class as Barbarian nor is fitting as a zaryal tea flame as it would make for an excellent double whammy since zaryl tieflines get a plus one bonus of strength and it might also partly explain zario's interest in karlak I'm hoping this is the case and apparently she was so skilled at dispatching demons that she earned the title Demon's Bane a title given to her for just how good she was at her job zariel sought to make her her property at least in some sense but was ultimately unsuccessful as karlik managed not only to flee the nine Hells but Escape to the point where she was able to board the nautiloid Zario appears to have a very personal interest in karlak Beyond any normal interest in a soldier which might allude to the possibility of some secret she might be hiding my logic is this soldiers whether good or bad or even excellent are a dime a dozen in the Eternal conflict of the blood War and thus for karlak to earn such a personal attachment from an archdevil the nature of which we do not know tells us that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to their relationship the fact that zaryel personally endowed her with power attests to this if she had been a mere Grunt and conscript no such power would have been wasted on her another question that begs and answers how Carlock ended up in the nine Hells in the first place Carlock is ultimately probably linked to the city of El Torell a city that has had its own history with avernus and there are files which have been data mined featuring carlak singing the song of el Tyrell which is featured in the 5th edition d d module descent into avernus the city of El Torell itself had been pulled into the nine Hells after a priest of torm decades prior had made a deal with Zario and used a powerful artifact to defeat the horde of vampires at the time but the contract also stipulated such that the city of El Tyrell would belong to zaral 50 years later and thus it was dried into a furnace by means of the same artifact used to defeat the vampires 50 years prior it is possible that karlak was in El Tyrell at the time when the city was being dried into the nine hells and that she was conscripted to fight in the larger blood War as a result eventually the city of elterville was returned to faerun under mysterious circumstances but by then karlak had clearly been in the nine Hells for a substantial amount of time and had not returned to faerun with the city given that she had hitched a ride out of avernus on the nataloid ship in addition to all of this carlax seems to speak fluent infernal the language of the nine hells and even seems inclined to use it when probing her mind might that not be an indication of a still longer sojourn avernus then meets the eye now I am reasonably sure that these things will be revealed in time as we actually will either play karlak or have her as a companion but I for one am probably looking forward to her as a companion more than any of the others in part because so much is unknown I don't know how she's going to act whereas I know full well how Lazelle or Shadow heart will I also think that her origin story might be a particular interest as well given that it could involve such a powerful being as the archdevils Ariel and I strongly suspect that their relationship is far more complex than karlak is letting on what about you are you looking forward to playing karlak as An Origin character or having her in your party and what kind of interactions do you think she will have with the other companions her General familiarity with the nine Hells and her Services Arielle will certainly make for an interesting addition and add some spice that would otherwise not be there as always thank you for tuning in please leave a like comment share and subscribe as it really helps out the channel and I'll check you out next time take care

Channel: Spell&Shield

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Length: 13min 7sec (787 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 27 2022