The Most Interesting NPC in Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access

welcome back in today's video i'm going to talk about perhaps the most interesting npc that you likely came across in baldur's gate 3's early access this character is shrouded in a bit of mystery and it seems likely that he will play a very important role in the plot of baldur's gate three first part of this video i'll go over your encounters that you may have with him and some of the variations and then we'll dive right into speculation if you guys end up enjoying this video please subscribe to be much more balder's gate 3 content on the way links to my twitter and my discord server will be below let's get right into it [Music] as many of you may have guessed i'll be talking about none other than the beloved hooded skeleton most players will come across this npc fairly early on in early access this mysterious character can be found within the dank crypt which is underneath the chapel close to the starting area when you find your way into the shrine room with the large statue of jurgle the scribe of the dead we'll come back to that as long as you explore the room well and one of your party members is able to pass a passive perception check a secret button will appear if you press the button the skeleton scattered in the crypt will animate and a secret door will open revealing a small room containing just one sarcophagus this tells us that the secret room must be of some importance for a lot of effort was put into hiding and protecting just one particular coffin after you kill the skeletons and go back to the secret room if you take a look at the plaque in front of the single coffin it reads as here lies the guardian of tombs through knowledge comes atonement jurgle the god whose statue is in the shrine room has been referred to as the guardian of tombs before however guardian of tombs could be used to describe many others as well once you push open the sarcophagus a mysterious hooded skeleton will arise now i have a question for thee what is the worth of a single mortals life this philosophical skeleton wants to know what you think the worth is of a single mortal life this entire scene and area seems to be focused on death life fate and balance you can even find an amulet in the same room that gives you the speak with dead spell regardless of your answers to his questions it will eventually lead him to saying that he's satisfied that he knows your face and that we will see each other again at the proper time and place it's at this point that you can kind of assume that this meeting is not just a coincidence and according to the hooded skeleton we will see him again if you're one of those risky players and you choose to attack the hooded skeleton he may say well struck followed by thy accuracy would be lauded had it a purpose so at this point we found a protected secret room hiding a talking skeleton who likes to talk about fate who also cannot be killed by anyone in the party you can use turn undead though for a quick laugh well struck after your fight at the gates to the druids grove the hooded skeleton will now appear at your camp and can be used to rez dead party members for the price of some gold maintaining the balance of all things is very important to the skeleton and giving him gold serves as the price of balance for his resurrections it doesn't seem as if the gold itself is of importance to him but more so that something is given up for the souls being brought back to their bodies this creature is able to cleave soul to body once more this is a very powerful ability to say the least if you further press the hooded skeleton on the matter he will tell you that it is his calling that there is little else to explain you can ask him other questions such as who are you to which he will respond there are many answers to that question none are important if you ask him why he is helping he says be assured it is not by choice and we'll talk about that point later in the video so there's got to be something bigger going on here something perhaps divine the hooded skeleton says that he doesn't want to be here but he knows that it's very important that he is to make this even more interesting if you talk to him as a cleric such as shadow heart it is confirmed that there is in fact something divine for you get the option to focus on the divine energy you feel from his presence choosing this option will have you do a fairly difficult wisdom check and if you fail you get this outcome there is great divine energy indeed but the source is unclear if you succeed you get this he has a divine aspect yes a reflection of death itself eternal and inescapable so now we know that there actually is something divine about this creature and that this divine aspect is a reflection of death itself now this doesn't necessarily mean that it's evil though for death is inescapable and in dnd it can actually be a beautiful thing it maintains balance and souls move on to other places all right now let's talk about what more we can get out of the hooded skeleton and then we'll get into some speculation as to who he actually is and what he might be doing if you play as a cleric with the chosen deities of kelemvor or merkel you can dig even deeper into dialogue the game's description of kelemvor is fair but distant kelemvor guides the dead to their appropriate plane in the afterlife his clergy provides last rites across faerun but also destroy undead that have escaped kelemvor's judgment so kelemvor is the lord of the dead and judge of the damned he is the master of the crystal spire within the city of the dead which resides in the fugue plane the fugue plane is a neutral plane of existence where souls of mortals are drawn when they die faithful souls are claimed by their respective deities while faithless souls and those with a false faith would be judged before the god of death kelemvor unlike some of the previous gods of death such as jurgle merkel and cyric was more lenient on those that might be faithless but have shown that their lives still align with some of the gods he may allow some of these souls to be claimed by a god rather than being kept in the wall of the faithless in the gray and mostly empty fugue plane so plain as a cleric of kelemvor named tav of course when you first meet the hooded skeleton you get the new dialogue option to say you feel familiar do i know you to which the skeleton replies yes but i imagine it is not the way they believe thou walk with death child of kelembor that is enough for an understanding between us so could this skeleton actually be kelemvor or an avatar of kelumvor likely not for when you talk to the hooded skeleton at your camp as a cleric of kelemvor you can ask him if he is a chosen of kelemvor to which he replies no although kelemvor chose well to bless one such as yourself whoever this is they seem to be putting a lot of faith into us in our party although this doesn't 100 mean that it can't still be some form of kelemvor himself we have to keep in mind that kelemvor also seeks to destroy all undead and the hooded skeleton kind of has the undead look going for himself alright now let's talk about merkel merkel is described in the game as a member of the dead three with ball and bane merkel is a cruel necromancer turned god inspiring the fear of death and mortals he often clashes with kelumvor the even-handed judge of fallen souls so merkel actually used to hold kelumvor's position as judge of the damned but now he basically reanimates the dead to serve him and his evil desires you can see why kelemvor does not approve of this for the undead escape his very judgment the first time i saw the hooded skeleton just based on appearance alone i actually thought of merkel for one of his known avatars is that of a skeleton shrouded in black robes however if you play a cleric of merkel as your character the hooded skeleton will reveal to you that merkel and himself walk very different paths so merkel is kind of out of the question if we trust the skeleton's words and that brings us back to jurgle the one whose statue is in the room could this hooded skeleton be jurgle himself or an avatar of jurgle well jurgle was the first god of death he is an ancient deity currently though he is the scribe of the dead which is basically the record keeper for kelemvor in one of the side rooms in the dank crypt you can find a book of dead gods if you successfully open it you find an obliterated scrawl that contains a list of the names of gods once lost but now restored after the second sundering this seems to be some sort of record keeping which of course aligns with jurgle jurgel was also known to be more inhumane than his master kelemvor and he even sanctions the use and creation of undead from his followers this would make sense as to why the room is filled with undead and the hooded skeleton is a hooded skeleton also remember the plaque in front of the sarcophagus says here lies the guardian of tombs which jurgle has been referred to as so jurgle or an avatar of jurgle seems to be the most likely possibility for who this hooded skeleton might be but why would jurgel confront us in this form and even help us by rezzing party members and this is where it's important to remember that the hooded skeleton revealed to us that he does not want to be here this indicates that he is likely following orders which brings us to a larger plot if this is not some secretive scheme of jurgel himself who could be ordering jurgel to help us and why could it be merkel well jurgle actually did become essential to merkel after giving up his throne we should keep this in mind but the earlier reveal where the hooded skeleton or jurgel as we are assuming he is said that merkel and himself walk very different paths this kind of rules merkel out for this as well could it be kelemvor this is definitely a more likely possibility cause kelemvor is in fact jurgel's master jurgel is a record keeper for kelemvor but why would kelemvor send jurgle to help us it is possible that kellumbor is trying to stop whatever the dead three have planned larian studios did reveal to us that we find ourselves on the center stage of a complaint hatched by none other than the dead three so if the dead three are working together and have something world changing planned other gods are sure to be involved kelemvor is not friends with the dead three especially merkel who raises the dead and also previously held his position if merkel were to obtain too much power kelemvor's very duties as judge of the damned would be severely threatened more so than it already is so kelovor could have sent jurgel to help us players stop the dead 3's plot and this could tie into the mind flayers as well from sure kelemvor is not really a fan of them either but this still doesn't explain why kelemvor has faith in us as the players though especially since we have a tadpole in our brain there's also the possibility that the overlord god of toril ao could be the one ordering jurgle and is currently punishing him after all jurgel let the dead 3 assume his throne when he was the god of death and the dead 3 went on to anger many of the gods especially ao bane and merkel actually stole the tablets of fate from ao these tablets maintain the balance between the forces of law and chaos and also acted as the barrier between the worlds of abeer and toril stealing them created all sorts of problems and a lot of chaos ensued i won't get into all of that in this video just know that this was a very very serious thing it's also important to note that kelemvor actually helped return the tablets to ao so jurgel is the one who gave the dead 3 much of their divinity so i'd say it's possible that ao is punishing him by making him now help stop them so up to this point we can guess that the hooded skeleton is jurgle and jurgel is being ordered by kelemvor or maybe ao himself either way there's a lot of divine power involved with this and speaking of divine power in the beginning of the game when you're knocked off the nautiloid ship some mysterious power prevents you from smashing into the ground this could be and is probably divine power a god wanting to keep you alive for some reason that we don't really know and it starts to get really mysterious and confusing when you consider that you yourself could take the more evil route in the game and if this is the case why would one god continue to put faith in you if ao or kelimvor is behind this they probably wouldn't want to send jurgle to help you if you yourself are going to help the dead 3. there's definitely a lot to think about here and larian studios is developing quite the story make sure to let me know your guys theories below in the comments i know that i myself and i'm sure many others would love to read them as part of what this channel is here for we didn't even get into a lot of the stuff that we could have such as the mind flares the tadpole in our brain the absolute the goblins man there's just so much going on this plot is absolutely crazy but i think a lot of people are thinking that this hooded skeleton is actually jurgel himself it makes sense but then again you start thinking about your character if you don't align with what jurgel wants why does he support us even if we make evil i don't know guys this is such an interesting story i can't wait for the full game to come out if you guys ended up enjoying this video please like comment and subscribe i really appreciate it it's a huge help to my videos i do all sorts of content on this channel ranging from live streams to game reviews to comedy videos to lore videos to class guides and much more i'd love to have some of you guys back for a future video until next time you

Channel: WolfheartFPS

Views: 24,272

Rating: 4.9098458 out of 5

Keywords: Baldur's Gate 3, Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access, baldurs, gate, baldur's gate 3 npc, npc, characters, story, plot, theories, bg3, bg3 ea, classes, patch, news, hooded skeleton, gods, lore

Id: vtJe0vmHKFM

Length: 15min 1sec (901 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 02 2021