Key Takeaways

• Baldur’s Gate 3 has multiple character endings based on player choices, some happy, bittersweet, or bizarre.
• Astarion seeks player help in confronting his vampiric overlord, Shadowheart lives as a homesteader, and Lae’zel raises a githyanki egg.
• Unique endings involve Karlach becoming immortal, Shadowheart renovating a cottage, and Gale ascending to a god or mind flayer.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is an epic adventure with an incredible climax. The Epilogue, added in Patch 5, gives the player closure regarding the characters that have fought at their side for hundreds of hours of gameplay.

Each character has a range of different endings that depend on the choices made by the player. Some characters have happy endings and live out the best version of their lives, while others feel bittersweet or just sad. A few of these endings are bizarre and/or require a very specific set of choices throughout the game or are unavailable based on which Origin character the player has chosen for a campaign.

Warning! Spoilers Ahead

1 Astarion, In Hiding From Cazador

He Hopes The Player Will Finally Help End His Master’s Life

• Requirements: Astarion and Cazador are still alive at the end of the game
• Steps: Keep Astarion in the party, but do not finish his quest

Astarion has spent two hundred years as a slave to his vampiric overlord, Cazador Szarr. When he was infected by the mind flayer tadpole, he became shielded from the sun and gained the free will to disobey his master. This typically leads to Cazador’s defeat at the hands of the player, at which point they can choose to free Cazador’s slaves or have Astarion become the Vampire Ascendant.

However, players can complete the game without ever confronting Cazador, meaning that he is still alive six months later when the Epilogue takes place. Astarion reveals that he has been in hiding, terrified of being found by his master. He asks the player to come back to Baldur’s Gate with him so they can face Cazador together and finally end his reign of terror.

2 Shadowheart, The Homesteader

She Lives With Her Parents And Makes Hard Cider

• Requirements: Shadowheart rejects Shar and survives
• Steps: Shadowheart has to reject Shar in Act 2 and then choose to save her parents from the House of Grief

Shadowheart starts the game as a loyal follower of Shar, the Lady of Loss, who has a rivalry with the moon goddess Selûne. At the end of Act 2, she must choose between staying with Shar or turning to the light. If she betrays Shar, there is another confrontation waiting for her in Baldur’s Gate. After this, players need to defeat the Sharrans under the House of Grief so that Shadowheart will learn that her parents are alive.

Having been imprisoned and tortured for decades, they ask Shadowheart to let them die. If they are freed instead, Shadowheart will get to live with them after the adventure is done. In the Epilogue, she reveals that she found an abandoned cottage that the three of them have been renovating. She has adopted many pets, including some wolf cubs, which shows that she is no longer haunted by her phobia of wolves. She also says that she has been brewing hard apple cider from the fruit she grows with her parents, and the player can suggest she open a brewery to have more visitors.

3 Lae’zel, The Mother

She Raises The Githyanki Egg

• Requirements: Steal the githyanki egg and keep it
• Steps: End the game with Lae’zel alive and with the egg in her inventory

If the player meets Lady Esther on the way to the githyanki creche in the ruins of Rosymorn Monastery, they may have agreed to steal the lone egg waiting to hatch. While they can follow through with this and give the egg to the Society of Brilliance, it ends up being bad for everyone.

They can simply leave the egg alone and hope that there are githyanki still around to raise it when it hatches, or they can steal it and keep it for themselves. If they do, Lae’zel ends up raising the githyanki child that hatches from the egg. She names him Xan, which means “freedom” in her language. She tells the player that she will allow the child to choose his path as he grows up, which is more freedom than she was allowed.

4 Karlach, The Immortal

• Requirements: Karlach As the Main Player Character
• Steps: Karlach romances Gale, who becomes a god in the end

Karlach spends the entire campaign doomed because of the infernal engine placed in her chest, despite Dammon’s efforts to fix it. For most players, Karlach’s story ends in one of three ways — she dies, she turns into a mind flayer, or she returns to Avernus.

However, if Karlach is the player character, there actually is a strange way to save her, in a sense. The player has to have Karlach romance Gale, and then push Gale to take the Crown of Karsus for himself to become a god. Then, Gale will use his divinity to save his beloved Karlach by having her live in Elysium with him forever. While this does not let the tiefling stay on Faerûn, it is a better fate than traversing the Hells to avoid death.

5 Gale, The Former Mind Flayer

He Lives With Mystra Forever

• Requirements: Gale As the Main Player Character
• Steps: Gale Becomes illithid and takes the crown to Mystra

If Gale is the player’s main character, he can sacrifice his soul to become an illithid during the game’s climax. However, this does not have to be a permanent change for the illustrious wizard.

If he presents Mystra with the Crown of Karsus and asks for her forgiveness, she can bring him up to Elysium to live with her rather than forcing him to live as a mind flayer in Faerûn. If he accepts, the goddess of magic reverts Gale back to his human body. Depending on the player’s opinion of the relationship between the two, this could be considered a happy ending or just the lesser evil compared to life as a mind flayer.

6 Gale, The Mind Flayer & God

The God of Ambition Is Also Illithid

• Requirements: Gale As the Main Player Character
• Gale Becomes Illithid And Ascends To Godhood

Gale’s story can end in wildly different ways, ranging from essentially becoming a college professor to ascending to godhood. This ending is an odd twist on his ascension as the god of ambition and is only possible for players who chose to be Gale as their Origin Character at the start of the game.

Origin Gale can become a mind flayer during the climax of the game when the party learns that either the player character, Karlach, or Orpheus needs to go through ceremorphosis. Then, when Gale chooses to become a god, he remains forever in his mind flayer form but with glowing eyes. While there is no direct acknowledgment of the bizarre nature of the Faerûn’s newest god, it is easy to imagine that converting his first priests will be a difficult task for Gale.

7 Lae’zel, Dead By Her Own Hand

Lae’zel Is Refused By Vlaakith

• Requirements: Lae’zel As the Main Player Character
• Steps: Lae’zel follows Vlaakith, who refuses to ascend her to the Astral Plane. Lae’zel kills herself rather than continue to serve

This is likely the rarest ending for any companion, as only 34 players (at the time Larian released statistics) had seen this particular ending for Lae’zel. They must choose to play as Lae’zel for the campaign, and then side with Vlaakith instead of Orpheus.

After this, the player has to fail the githyanki lich queen by either refusing to kill Orpheus or turning Lae’zel into a mind flayer before the final battle. Then, despite turning her back on Vlaakith, Lae’zel must request to be ascended to the Astral Plane. She will be refused, at which point she stabs herself with a sword and dies.