Baldur's Gate 3 is a fantasy-adventure role-playing game, but it's not a game for kids or the faint of heart. Some of these quests are dark, and this isn't just about the main storyline, with squid creatures and body horror, or even the companion quests about vampires, evil curses, and stolen memories.

Related

Baldur's Gate 3: 10 Characters That Should Have Lived

Baldur's Gate 3 allows players to change the course of the story for most characters but, unfortunately, some are just destined to die.

The side quests of Baldur's Gate 3 can also be very dark, if not at least tinged with some kind of visceral horror. The following side quests are violent, bloody, and shocking, and feature characters that are either bad people themselves or covering for someone even worse.

Many of the following quests have yet to be discovered by some and can alter the course of the game. Spoiler warning for those players who insist on venturing forth.

5 Save The Refugees - Investigate Kagha

Motives Even Blacker Than Her Heart

• Starting Point: The Druid Grove, Kagha's inner sanctum
• Important NPCs: Kagha, Arabella, Nettie, Rath
• Dark Aspects: Kagha is secretly in league with the Shadow Druids.

Even the mild-mannered Rath refers to Kagha as a snake, and he's not wrong, but her bad attitude comes from more than just an abrasive personality and anti-Tieflng bigotry. Read her mind, and discover that she's secretly happy that she might be able to take over the Grove in Halsin's absence.

Such visceral hatred for everyone's favorite bear comes not only from Kagha's ambition but her alliance with a coven of Shadow Druids who have their eye on the Grove. The only way to discover this side quest is by reading a letter locked in a chest in Kagha's quarters, which leads to a location in the Sunlit Wetlands to a letter that proves her guilt.

The rats skittering around Kagha's feet are Shadow Druids in disguise, which players can discover through the letter and the spell Speak With Animals. They can leave it up to Halsin to deal with Kagha after he's been rescued, but there's also an option for Tav to dispense their own brand of justice.

4 Search the Cellar: Unlock the Ancient Tome

Raising The Dead Is For Amateurs

• Starting Point: The Blighted Village
• Important NPCs: Tolna Tome-Monger in Sorcerer's Sundries
• Dark Aspects: This is a quest about learning the secrets held within a book of Necromancy.

There are a few interesting side quests in the Blighted Village, but this is one of the darkest. It's also one longest quests in the game, requiring players to carry a mysterious book with them for all three acts.

Related

Baldur’s Gate 3: 10 Characters That Should’ve Been Romanceable (But Aren't)

These characters should've been romanceable in Baldur's Gate 3.

It all starts with a book called The Necromancy of Thay that can be found in a secret cellar guarded by a magic mirror underneath the home of a mysterious alchemist. There's an option to destroy the book, but then the quest is over. It's recommended that a character with a high Wisdom score or one with the Sage background be the one to read it.

There's a piece of amethyst in Whispering Depths that allows the player to read some of the book, which gives the player the power of Speak With the Dead. Only by finding another book called the Thacerite Codex is the rest readable, and this rare tome is locked up in the Sorcerer's Sundries vault. Finish the quest and learn a spell that summons a group of demonic fiends into battle.

3 Find Arabella's Parents

Well, They Aren't Going Anywhere

• Starting Point: Rivington, near the House of Healing
• Important NPCs: Arabella, Sister Lidwin
• Dark Aspects: Many of those who left the Druid Grove in Act 1 fared even worse in the Underdark.

Despite Tav's best efforts, the fate of the Teiflings hasn't improved since Act 1. A chance meeting with Arabella at the gates of the Rivington Graveyard starts this quest to find her parents, who were separated from her when they were attacked in the Underdark.

Anyone who told Arabella's parents they wished to meet them again under better circumstances is going to be more than disappointed. Arabella's parents are in the nearby House of Healing as Sister Lidwin's "patients" but they're long dead by the time the protagonist finds them.

2 Dribbles The Clown

Not Only Dark But Also Disgusting And Messy

• Starting Point: The Circus of Last Days, Rivington
• Important NPCs: Dribbles the Clown, Lucretius
• Dark Aspects: Collect the various body parts of the murdered Dribbles.

Certain companions are keen to see the big top as if it's a break from dangerous adventuring, but the Circus of Last Days is just as perilous as anything in the Underdark or the sewers. With Orin's doppelgangers and Bhaal cultists sneaking about, anyone could be dangerous.

Related

Baldur's Gate 3: 9 Characters That Should Have Died

Baldur's Gate 3 allows players to confront and kill most characters in the game should they choose, but some may have benefited from a specific fate.

This adventure starts when Tav uncovers that Dribbles the Clown is actually a shapeshifter, and that the real entertainer has been killed. Not just killed, but meticulously dismembered, and his body parts are hidden in various places throughout Baldur's Gate.

It's up to the protagonist to collect these various bits and return them to Lucretius. The Necromancer running the show then intends to resurrect her top-billed star, the rotten cherry on top of this viscera cake.

1 Find Mystic Carrion's Servant

Starts Normal, Ends Up Going To Hell

• Starting Point: The Zhentarim Hideout
• Important NPCs: Brem, Oskar, Lady Janneth, Mystic Carrion
• Dark Aspects: A poltergeist, a mummy lord, and a room filled with screaming paintings.

Releasing Oskar the kidnapped artist from the Zhentarim hideout seems like a heroic act, but it leads down a much darker path. When the player finds Oskar again in the home of his fiance, Lady Janneth, her mansion is filled with angry ghosts.

The flying crockery and screaming paintings are bad enough, but Janneth then recommends investigating the home of Mystic Carrion to find a way of exorcising the poltergeist. It's revealed that Mystic Carrion is a Mummy Lord, and if that wasn't dark enough, he's been kidnapping and killing random fishermen and dock workers and making them into undead slaves.

This gets darker and more disgusting. The only way to make Mystic Carrion vulnerable to damage, should the player decide to kill him, is to destroy the canopic jars holding his preserved organs. Two of them can be found in his former tomb in the sewers, but the third and most important is hidden within the unfortunate Thrumbo, an undead minion the player has been tasked with returning to its master. Not to worry, as he throws it up, so no evisceration is required.

MORE: Baldur's Gate 3: Every Returning Character Explained