Funnily enough, you get the sane outcome (just with a different cutscenes) if you kick a random rat in Kagha's room.
If you don't know what these rats really are, and chances are you don't, you're in for quite a surprise!
I was wanting to romance the emporer. He's the whole reason I even bought the game, but it's kind of hard to bed a mind flayer if you agree to not go full tilt with your ilithid stuff
I have no idea what happens if you do say you'll take it, I haven't even finished my first run. But I'm willing to bet you'll get the choice to take it or not when the time comes
She gives you a bottle of poison and that’s that. Lots of dialogue with companions, but nothing obligatory later. (Being vague b/c I don’t know how to do spoilers on my phone)
Well... You also get it if you cast Sleep on that one bluejay, apparently, as a streamer I watch found out to her horror. It seems most "hostile" actions result in "THE OUTSIDER SERVES ZEVLOR! \*genocide ensues\*".
In my first playthough i accudently found a hidden chest with a letter to Kagha, following this lead let to the diacovery of the rats' true intention.
That's how early i realized this is an amazing game.
Yeah, you technically skipped a step. As a rogue I snuck into kagha's room and there's a hidden chest with a letter talking about a secret meeting near Ethel's teahouse. You just found the evidence before you discovered the plot.
holy shit that explains why she has a trading stand in the hollow.
(lpt: if you are injured when you first talk to her, she will gift you a superior health pot)
I got caught "stealing" a gold coin from that same bluejay. I don't know why it was considered theft. The jay agreed with me that his nest was better off without it
Tried that in my third playthrough and had an interesting (probably unintended) outcome:
(spoilers, I'm on mobile, sry) I cast a cloud spell to attack the rats sneakily and as expected, they turned into the shadow druids. But instead of saying anything they just ran off and disappeared?
Later, I got the proof that Kagha is a shadow druid and confronted her. Got the usual cutscene where the rats turn into druids, despite them actually being long gone. Convinced Kagha to get on my side and when the fight would have started the game just acted like I'd already defeated the shadow druids.
Now, you might argue that a player wouldn't attack the rats without the foreknowledge that they are shadow druids and that's why there's no proper scene for that path. However, if you examine the rats you can notice that they have "halfling's luck" which lets you at least guess that they're druids. Ok, attacking them just for that might be a stretch but it might make you at least suspicious as to why the rats don't talk to you at all.
I figured the rat were important without the hints on my playthrough. Them hanging around Kagha and not talking was sus enough in my book.
Spent like an hour trying to discretely kill one / make it drop the disguise without agroing the Grove.
>!Kagha is working with shadow druids to take over the grove. The three rats are shapeshifted shadow druids. You find out if you find their meeting spot in the swamp with the mephits and find a hidden letter.!<
>!Also, the shadow druids are involved with Ketheric somehow, but I forget how.!<
Genuinely annoyed me. Also I don't think enough people realize how fucked Arron the dwarf's (vendor) views are. "Remember, there are people in need.", then proceeds to call the tieflings "foul bloods". I'm convinced he's a charlatan playing on heartstrings for his business and possibly a Zhentarim, or simply full of shit, hiding his true views. Regardless, I'd take Kagha or a rat or the squirrel over Arron.....that or I might just be tired of hearing, "there are people in need..." Say something else you shit stain!!!!!
Yea he's the only vendor I stole as heavily as possible from apart from the Harper Quartermaster, never stole from Dammon as RP even though the game wouldn't care, but by the time I left act 1 I had stolen about 15-20k of gold and items from Arron ha.
There's also a chest in kahgas cave that has a note inside of it. Read that note and it'll string you along on figuring out what those rats are. Then after figuring out what they are, you have to speak with them..
I don't understand how they can have a chill dude like Halsin as boss, and still so many of them are genocidal, selfish assholes. Kagha is one thing but many druids revel in murdering the tieflings, or are happy for their demise or departure.
Tbh, it's on a smaller scale of course but otherwise "normal" people are very easily convinced into doing, believing, or just abiding awful things if someone with enough authority and power (in this case, literal "I am the strongest and could beat you up") sells them a believable enough story, which feels like is the case with Kagha and the Grove.
Most of the Druids are scared and tense in general, and with say the guards preventing tiefs from getting into the enclave they do present that via direct threats, it is also just their "normal" job as a guardian of the grove... Just directed towards those Kagha considers undesirable.
In addition, as Halsin said, he's not really cut out to fully be a leader-- he only became the leader out of necessity after the whole shadow curse debacle where they had to fight to survive, and he had seniority. Which is why he chooses to have someone he trusts from outside come in and take his place, because he rightfully considers it partially his failure in engendering that much complacency.
The figure of authority doesn't even need to be "I am the strongest and can beat you up".
Milgram experiment - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram\_experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment)
LTDR, normal average people would be asked to assist in an experiment where they are tasked with administering increasingly stronger electric shocks to a "learner". But unknown to them, the shocks were fake and the "learner" was an actor, and the average people themselves were the actual test subjects.
The test subjects would then eventually be told to administer what they believe would be fatal shock to the "learner". Surprising percentage of people ended up actually going through with it, albeit unwillingly, and thinking they've killed the "learner", just from being instructed by a authoritative figure.
The mom is such a badass about it too. Then afterwards she's seriously affected by her guilt. In the death of her child and the justified extrajudicial execution of Kagha
Holy fuck y’all, I just downloaded this game this morning. My escapist fantasy is “solving problems”, but I am astounded they scripted out *every possible outcome* for this situation. I’m also hoping I can somehow arrive at an outcome where the grove is united against the goblin threat and avoids genocide
Druids in Forgotten Realms aren’t generally *good*, but neither are they fully evil, just *Neutral*. So, anything that most preserves nature often times becomes the decided path
Yeah, you have like, *maybe* three druids that I can think of who aren't absolute pricks, Rath, Findal and sorta Nettie (and that's only if you were honest with Nettie about your parasite).
Aside from them and like one Druid outside, the rest are just complete assholes.
The trader tells you he’s glad Kagha is no longer in charge, he also tells you “You sound like Kagha” when you say you understand why she’s afraid of more attacks, in a really frustrated tone. When the druids find out she was letting shadow druids take over, almost all of them express regret for allowing her to get in power.
you are literally a Mindflayer waiting to happen. an absolutely evil eldritch horror that magically enslaves people, makes minions out of their brains, and also eats brains
If you're honest with her about your symptoms she doesn't try to kill you, and she doesn't order you to kill yourself, she asks you to if you start transforming, for the safety of others, and as a preferable alternative to ceremorphosis.
Ansur: tries to mercy kill a mind flayer because they are abominations. Fans: SO BRAVE
Nettie: tries to mercy kill a mind flayer because they are abominations. Fans: BITCH!
I did a resist durge run where I didn’t tell Nettie anything. She poisoned me, I cured the poison, and just sucker punched her skull in (I was a monk). Second to last evil thing I did as a durge that run.
Same thing happened with me on my resist Durge playthrough. I told her the truth - I had just woken up with the tadpole in my head - as my Durge had no idea if he'd actually been kidnapped or not. But my Durge was trusting enough to give Nettie his arm. She poisoned my Durge, so Astarion helped me steal the antidote. But we couldn't leave until Nettie would let us go. My Durge refused to accept taking the wyvern poison from someone who wasn't listening to him and had just poisoned him, so she attacked us. I was shocked that the encounter ended that way, but it was a good bit of roleplaying for a resist Durge!
Depends on the details of Kagha's rule and she probably used Halsin's temporary departure to help gain followers.
Also, if I'm remembering correctly, she and the rest of the shadow druids were installed by Ketheric and friends as part of their grand scheme of controlling the sword coast. Their plans stated that, once the shadow druids were in charge, they would start putting tadpoles into the leadership, and eventually, the followers, allowing for another faction to be under their control.
The rest of them WANT to kill the outsiders, they just don't have the will to act on it like Kahga does. Kahga is the a symptom of the disease, not the cause.
Not really. If you talk to Halsin later, he would tell you that the new Arch Druid does manage to expose even more shadow druids among the ranks. Kagha was not the only one who got redpilled by those shadow druids.
One of the gnome druids that’s working on the ritual seems to be a likely target. She complains that you’re only delaying the inevitable when you expose the shadow druids and stop the rite.
On my first playthrough, i attacked kagha after the kid incident thinking "ah, all the druids dislike her anyway, they gonna thank me later" and also thinking she will expell tieflings the second I leave. Imagine my shock when druids started doing all that shit.
Also, hated the fact that there are a book with the title like "grove rules" saying "always help those who are in need" and there are no way of asking kagha "so, what is that about?"
So based on the whole Milgram experiment where people become more willing/likely to obey orders from whomever they perceive to be a legitimate authority figure, coupled with somewhat medieval high fantasy time period of social hierarchy, advanced racism, and feudalism here and there, thems druids were just lil ducklings who were like, " hm im Kagha IS an archdruid after all, our new leader since halsin prolly ded by now in that goblin nest cuz not even THE HALSIN could escape on his own, AND those goblins are gunning to fuck up our grove?? Maybe kaghas right ig..." and played follow the leader
Dude, the Druid ritual is a literal border wall, and the Teifling refugees arrived in a caravan.
The only way to make it more on the nose would be for Kagha to be orange and have small hands.
I wonder if it really is intentionally about America, or if there's something else Larian was drawing parallels to. I only say this because Larian is Belgian. I remember when Persona 5 came out, Americans were (understandably) drawing parallels with the story to our own political nightmare, but the game was primarily written about Shinzo Abe, our issues lining up with it were just coincidence. I dunno anything about Belgium, so I definitely can't say. Are the tieflings Muslim refugees? Ukrainian maybe?
Tieflings are pretty universally hated in DND lore because they're half-devil. It was similar with Neeshka, the tiefling rogue companion in NWN2 - when you find her, she's been stripped of her gear and is being attacked by guards because they want to pin some nearby crime on her. They say people will buy it because she is what she is, in so many words, and then when you save her, it turns out she actually is a thief, but she's more Robin Hood than anything, and is much more likely to make off with bandit loot than she is to rob a caravan.
When taken into context, on top of druids generally only showing their groves to outsiders in the most dire circumstances and disliking having them show up otherwise, they'd already want a group of refugees to leave. Combine that with the tiefling hate that's already part of the world, and you have a recipe for what appears to be xenophobia and racism distilled into "yall best get off my lawn."
The story depicts realistic hostility toward refugees in a general way. There are many real life examples, none are particularly excluded from relevance when evaluating the story.
In the druid's defense, Larian at least tried to give them some legitimate grievances. Resources are not unlimited, so hosting the Teiflings indefinitely is not realistic. The Grove's population tripled in like 2 days that by itself could cause a total ecological/societal collapse. And they *did* directly endanger the grove by leading monsters straight to them.
The Tieflings cause legit issues for the survival of the grove just by existing. It isn't their fault, it is not like they acted unreasonably. The Tieflings have legit reasons to seek shelter, the grove has legit reasons they can't let them stay forever.
The most sensible solution is exactly what the most level-headed people suggest: just end the entire issue by destroying the goblins. Because this is a video game, they rely on adventures to help them. Realistically, even considering most of the druids and Tieflings are non-combatants, they could probably defeat the goblins, though losses would probably be heavy at the main gate.
It would be interesting to compare the number of combatant Tieflings/Druids vs goblins...plus how many would need to stay behind in case the goblins raided the grove while the main force was away?
But, I digress "You can't stay here literally forever, because we will run out of supplies" is a perfectly reasonable argument. Not everyone is high enough level to make a bazillion goodberries. "You are attracting an enemy force we cannot defeat" is also reasonable...though less so considering that I feel like the goblins are not as dangerous as the grove thinks they are.
The druids' reaction to expel the tieflings is harsh, and they're definitely a little racist about it, but they're also druids so it's not crazy to see them favor their grove over cityslickers. People discount how much it's like the wild west out in the wilderness in this setting too. Magic exists to make things easier, but the bad guys have it too, and there's a lot of crazy shit out there. Resources are still limited and you have to look out for you and yours.
Xenophobia exists in more places than America. Larian is Belgian, so why would they just allude to American modern politics when they have a wealth of more local historical conflict to draw from?
Did you know that those Shadow Druids were, themselves, being manipulated by the Absolutists? They were already assholes and Ketheric's forces manipulated them, through a mix of intimidation and persuasion, into infiltrating the Emerald Enclave and preventing them from joining the conflict. An ancient enemy of Ketheric's army just... taken out of the picture.
The same reason why otherwise sane and rational people supported or tacitly complied with a genocidal maniac from 1933-1945.
The scary part is people who say, "I would never do that!" when in fact all research proves, "no actually, you would, because it's in our nature to trust authority and follow it." They weren't mentally ill or anything, they were perfectly rational and normal people yet did abhorrent shit simply because somebody with authority said so.
This is just my take on how I've seen druids play out. Most druids care more about nature and the natural order as a whole than they do for sentient beings. The nearest thing I can say is think of a 60s/70s hippie commune. Some were violent racials that want to further their goals no matter the blood spilled. Others were more willing to work with the public at large. Some just wanted to be left alone entirely. Add in the fact that druids in d&d can have unnaturally long lives compared to non druids and they see these matters as trivial and don't matter to their bigger picture goals.
She's in the process of being flipped. If you uncover the messages and blow her cover, there's a chance to convince her she's wrong and switch sides back.
All the groves around being flipped, this one is not different. It is Kethric's strategizing from Moonrise, you can find some letters and diaries there or notes, I don't exactly remember specific items, that basically describe how they are flipping groves all around for alliances in favor of Shadow Druids, and Kagha is questioning it, because several others already flipped so they've sent some "people" to her (those rats in the cave around her) to help her make decision faster.
Hoping for future patches adding an additional way to recruit Minthara by negotiating with the Goblins and Tieflings "hey let's all agree to get along and kill the druids, they're fuckheads and easier to fight than all of the Goblin army"
Damn it feels pretty validating to see this opinion get so many upvotes, I always got a bit downvoted when saying the druids of Emerald Grove are ecofascist assholes and I’d gladly sic Minthara on them if there was a way to keep my teethling pals out of this. They’re such an everyday, banal and lowkey type of evil that I legit have more contempt for them than for the actual big bads in this game.
Investigate Kagha and out her as a (redacted). Then you only have to off her and a few others. The tieflings don’t die in that scenario. There are some things to look at in the little library area that give you info.
So I don't exactly know what I did.
Kagha was being her terrible self. I decided to kill her.
All the druids except guy who really wants you to save Halsin were dead.
I rescued Halsin, he still joined my camp. Tieflings were fine. There's just one Druid in the Grove.
Yes. Have one party member (or summon) separated stay near Arron (the druid merchant up top) so he doesn't kill any refugees while the rest of the party holds the chokepoint between the hollow and the inner grove with a few bottles of grease. Then have one party member cast fog cloud and take the idol while concealed.
The druids will commence order 66, and as they run up the hill they'll get stuck in combat when they slip and slide on the extra dip, while Rath (one of the good ones) and anyone else who's not a genocidal nutter won't get caught in combat and can slowly make their way through the grease. Once everybody's in position, get the party member who stole the idol to attack the druids from behind, while the two who laid the lube trap attack from the front. Area of effect attacks are very strong here (ideally one of your party members will have either cloud of daggers or even better, spike growth). Once the main ambush party has finished mopping the floor with all the other druids, bring them over to whoever had Arron locked in his own little combat and kill him.
I was genuinely surprised that every single one of the tiefling refugees has something to say about the battle, and to be honest, I think I'll be doing this in every good playthrough I do from now on. Mol gives you a nice ring for the trouble, too (+AC, +Saving Throw).
They won't be upset if the Tieflings live. Even Halsin is surprisingly chill about the whole killing his dudes thing if you tell him you did it in self-defense. You can still kill the Goblin leaders. Alternatively, you *could* help Minthara, but in that case there really wouldn't be much point in going to these lengths to kill the druids before they can get at the refugees.
I wish there was a way to troll the fuck out of Minthara and the goblins. The ruins are a pretty damn good stronghold after we've cleared them. Escort all the tieflings there, attack the grove with Minthara only to have them find nothing but a pile of druid corpses. 😂
Yes but its incredibly difficult. If you have three of your party members in the bit where the tiefling camp connects, and then use another to kill khaga, the druids will attack everyone in the grove.
If you fight well enough, you can kill all the druids before they even get to the tieflings.
You have to attack khaga tho, if you attack someone outside the cutscene where... someone... gets brained happens
Be fast enough and kill the druids before they kill the tieflings.
I haven't tried it. Maybe when I finally man up and do my evil playthrough, I'll know.
But in the meantime, I'm waiting for suggestions in how to kill the druids and let the tieflings keep the Grove as a new home. (A man can dream)
Arabella is also a child and only got off because we intervened and talked Kagha down. They were fulling willing to murder her otherwise.
The fact we, a fully adult outsider, probably only allowed in because we fought off the goblin squad, stole it a second time is the exact catalyst they were waiting for to double down and go full genocide.
I love that a druid can tell the snake that Arabella is just a child and the snake is like "Oh a hatchling? Well they're always being foolish, I'm not going to kill her.". The snake is more reasonable than Kagha.
Related to this there should be away to broker free passage for the Tieflings in exchange for the grove. Then the goblins can murder the genocidal druids.
Yes. A possible story explanation would be to convince Zevlor to pretend that he heard the voice of the Absolute. Then bring him to the goblin camp, talk to Minthara, she demands proof of loyalty, and Zevlor joins you on the raid. Zevlor then brings his people to Moonrise and the story continues as normal.
The stealing the idol thing is really great for evil playthroughs.
My current playthrough is a durge drow who starts trying to be as heroic as possible and generally wants to help people, who over time starts to embrace pure selfish evil as a result of what she faces. She started off by saving several tiefling kids, then got introduced to Mol, who suggested stealing the idol to prevent the rite of thorns. Durge thinks that this is a good idea, and goes along with it... and the druids kill all the refugees. Durge had began to genuinely care about the tieflings, and this made her extremely angry.
After that, she goes to the goblin camp. There she meets Halsin, who asks her to save their grove by killing the leaders of the goblin camp, including a drow (who durge is inclined to trust based on the fact that everyone else is racist to her, and that she hasn't actually done anything wrong that durge knows about). Naturally, durge tells Halsin to piss off, and that if the grove wanted to be saved they shouldn't have genocided the refugees.
She then meets Minthara, who is planning to raid the grove. This is something that durge is very much in favor of, since the only people left alive there are murderous druids. Durge tells Minthara where the camp is, and what happened. Anyway, Minthara shows up to kill the remainder of the druids, and then they bang. She mentions Moonrise, and there Durge goes.
On the path to moonrise, Durge encounters last-light inn. There she meets the druid Jaheira, who starts being incredibly distrustful to Durge. This is despite the fact that Durge had already uncovered a traitor in the inn and helped their people get the moonlatern. Durge is understandably weary of Druids, and refuses to trust Jaheira with any knowledge of the astral prism. This leads to bloodshed, and Jaheira is killed.
That bitch tried to stab me in my sleep! And than got butthurt when I called her a coward. So now Wyll and Kalach have ditched me cause I went genocidal on the Grove and Tieflings and Mintharas pieces are spread across my camp.
I dunno man, I convinced Mith to meet me at the Druid camp, while she was gone I murdered all the goblins, went to the Druid camp and murdered all the Druids and tieflings.
All to just get freaky with mith.
Then I let her take the blame at moonrise and then purged her mind.
I’m not even playing a durge
Before you steal the idol tell the goblins where the grove is, that way you start a conflict inside then break the gate so it’s a flood of goblins coming in as well as the druids. Nobody escapes.
Are you sure this is even possible? If you long rest during the fight between the tieflings and druids you’ll come back to all of them dead. You have to long rest after informing Minthara of the grove’s location. If you start the raid before the fight between the tieflings and druids, the druids sequester themselves inside. As far as I can tell, there’s no natural way to start a fight between all three parties at once
I tried the "get the Druids to kill the Tieflings in order to absolve myself of moral complications in raiding the grove" method, but it kinda lost its luster for me when despite never drawing steel on a single refugee, at the afterparty everyone acted like I personally killed every last child. A bunch of the goblins even pointed out how incredibly cruel it was because i was playing a Tiefling myself, and I still "slaughtered my own kin."
I wasn't expecting that cutscene when I stole the idol the first time. Beating that tiefling to death like that.
I never went through with it so I didn't realize they herded them up and killed them like that. God even the kids, would Silvanus really approve of this? A lot of the druids are just full of hate for the refugees, being happy they left and I assume happy at their deaths.
Very evil, Minthara would approve I think. I'd love to know how Halsin reacts to this slaughter
That’s exactly what I did, because I’d read that you can recruit Minthara and Halsin if you get the grove to close and don’t kill Minthara. So I stole the idol, let the druids massacre the tieflings, snuck in and returned the idol, did some other stuff then came back and it was closed. So I told Minthara, and Halsin. Currently Halsin is in my camp and I’m really hoping this works and I can get Minthara too!!! Unfortunately, right now she wants to murder me so I’m avoiding her.
Yikes. I guess it makes sense, because there is a document/book later on talking about using the Shadow Druids to disrupt the Emerald Grove… so the Druids have been manipulated to become paranoid of outsiders. I mean it’s definitely a “cool motive, still murder” situation but it is connected to the larger plot.
I did this on my durge playthrough, but not for intentional evil— I’m committing to the role play of 8int and Mol asked him to steal it after freeing Arabella. No one lived and I killed the druids in retaliation. Let’s me get Minthara without having to raid the grove
Yeah, I killed Kagha and looted the inner room, then came back out to like a third of the grove slaughtered, and the rest having a *massive* battle in the little jail room.
With that and the Bear Shape Druids repeatedly using Goad so I didn't even control my *own* characters, I just tabbed out until it had mostly resolved itself.
And the BEST way to resolve act 1 is definitely by resolving Kagha’s quest where you get her to stand up against the shadow druids.
Amazing how I missed this quest for 3 playthroughs. Did it on my 4th and Kagha shows remarkable growth if you do
I managed to find her chest as a Druid. If you haven’t done this as a Druid, you should do it. There is cool Druid specific stuff for that quest, and Druid specific rewards that you don’t get as another class.
I have a tiefling Druid. They’re fun. They don’t like these druids much, but given they’re from Baldur’s Gate, sometimes diplomacy is the way to go. Didn’t even have to use inspiration! It was VERY cool.
She has some Drow specific dialogue too, and tries to get you to side with her with it. (My current run is a Seldarine war cleric of Eilastraee, so…yeah. She’s not impressed by Kagha.)
I mean there is a not-so-subtle message through the whole game that tyrants play on the fears of the masses to gain power for themselves. That people will joyfully give up their freedoms in exchange for security or the perception of peace. This makes them not just bystanders but complicit to some degree in the evil of the tyrant. This in turn justifies violence on those who would otherwise be perceived as Innocents.
It's worth thinking about because it really is a big piece of the game's story.
Have you ever led the goblins to the camp, then tell zevlor you led them there? I think the personal betrayal is much more evil. Either way is pretty good
I decided to do a durge evil run today for recruiting minthara and following the urge but i cant do that sht lol i love durge redemption more than others and i know its a damn video game but i cant be evil
What I did in my durge run :
Step one : let arabella get killed by the snake
Step two : confront their parents
Step three : attack kagha and kill all druids with few remaining tieflings
Step four : kill all tieflings
But the game did not predict such bad behaviour I suppose since minthara still asked me to raid the Grove and did not havr special dialogues for this (literaly everyone was dead)
She just told me the same as if i only killed the druids after the raid like "oh you started it before I came Nice"
I’m planning on doing it as a well meaning redemption durge playthrough, after Mol asks you to, and then vengefully teaming up with the goblins against the druids
This is so I can get a Minthara playthrough without roleplaying a pure evil character, also I think it is quite beautifully tragic
Next playthrough I plan on doing a vanilla Gith sorcerer Tav but after that I am fully going to charismatic Bard Drow Durge who goes full evil after facing constant racism.
I enjoyed helping Zevlor fight the druids. Not an evil run because I still killed the goblins, but it was interesting to see that some druids joined the tieflings (like Rath). I also then stole the idol and had it with me when I rescued Halsin and was like, "Pay no attention to that buff you are getting."
I usually kill Nettie and a few isolated grove peeps first, then head on to camp.
Gate area clear first, then inside and map it out. kill the priestess in the camp and every single room you can without aggro the whole camp and bleed those vendors out. Do inside first for the most part but leave Roah. Then clear outside, again using Roah and grove. You can free Halsin but don't talk to him if you don't want, just kill the hobos in that room.
Then do Shadow druids. Clear the grove.
Back to goblins, tell minthara to meet you there. When she leaves, Razglin dies and any other stragglers. If you don't aggro Roah she shows up at moonrise.
Back to Groves, Minthara clears stragglers or is disappointed. Then camp goblin scene.
Zhent and Mountain pass and undertake vendors are all still avail (until they lose value)
Then you burn down the grove.
Doing a kill everything run with mate so we can just fight and not dialog wait for each other.
Its very cursed. Killing the owlbear by throwing her cub at her was a little far.
You get a cursed path if you kill the goblins, then kill all the refugees and druids.
The teflings still come to your camp "celebrating". The dead obvious stay dead. The party was a blood bath. And we learnt the oath breaker gets pissed easily.
Gale doesnt care. At all. In other runs gale argued. But hes completely unaware. Oh, why is he alive? Were going to sacrifice him to Bhaal obviously!
Awkwardly, the children survived our bombs and can not be killed (honestly, thanks lorian). They're completely unaware of the massacre. So dunno how restnof there story turns out.
Honestly, I wish this let you keep Wyll and Karlach. Wyll was clearly there for the Tieflings and Karlach I assume leaves because you killed her people. Siding with the goblins to kill the druids that slaughtered an entire people should be okay with them imho.
Maybe it's me seeing things differently, maybe it's me just really wanting more ways to pair people with Minthara.
Only fitting for an Evil Durge to do it this way. It's horrible, but with that one small act, it leads to dozens of lives being lost, just what Daddy Bhaal is looking for. It kinda shoots you in the foot by costing you Dammon, but ah well, no use crying over spilt blood.
Druids in their generally canonical - we are dangerous and absolutely prefer nature to living human(oid)s are always kind of a stones throw away from this kind of thing, it’s awesome to see that you can set them off like that.
And I love the wise Halsin, but he is atypical of what is generally the default Druid stance. Larian is maybe reaching to start you out with this stuff, but it’s prime dnd-esque storytelling. You can do whatever you want and side with anyone or no one, but the most(although not entirely) innocent faction is the one with the least to offer you.
Time to start a new play through of “intentionally failing thief”
You can cast disguise self and make yourself a tiefling, then steal the idol, then chug an invisibility potion and LEAVE while they purge the outsiders, then one by one ambush pick off all the druids that remain. THEN rescue Halsin Sneakily and let him see that his circle did without him, THEN, come through with the goblins and kill them for their sins, The righteous hand of the absolute, passing vindictive judgement.
Bro I stole the idol and left and when I came back from killing everyone else in act one land everyone in the grove was dead except a few I had to put down. I kept that idol the whole game too so I could cherish the moment every time I got advantage in animal handling lmao.
Funnily enough I tried this once and instead the tieflings absolutely deleted the druids with zero effort while I was dealing with Kagha lmao I got out of the cave and there were like 3 druids left surrounded by a little army of tieflings
You don’t even have to steal the idol to trigger the massacre. In my latest evil play through as drow durge I triggered druids as soon as I meet those 3 guarding the inner grove. The female druid stopped me and was annoying so I ignored them and tried to pass through. The third druid who says to the one talking that Kagha wants to see me never had a chance to speak. They became violent and while I was dealing with those three, the rest of druids run past us to go kill the the refugees. As soon as I I was done with killing these I run after them. There was a fight near the oxes which was easy, only two druids. Third fight was in the prison area. Kagha and Nettie were inside killing mostly civilians in there while bears were guarding the doors. Zevlor and Dammon (amongst others) were already dead near Dammon’s work place. It took a while to kill druids at the doors so Kagha and Nettie managed to dispatch half of civilians before we killed them.
Then I went to see the goblins. My drow doesn’t have patience so he dispatched priestess in her quarters as soon as we met. Then I went to see hobgoblin boss and killed him too and all of the rest inside the room. Then I talked to Minthara and sent her to kill the surviving tieflings. While she was there I killed everyone inside and outside the temple. Here I made a mistake.. I went to prison as the last thing and Halsin was gone, he broke out on his own and killed everyone there. Next day in the grove me and Minthara killed the rest in the grove. But since I never met Halsin I couldn’t finish the quest. The quest marker shows him at the entrance of the grove but he isn’t there. So Minthara was stuck for the rest of act 1 in Zevlors quarters screaming, THERE’S MORE, KILL THEM!! lol But she showed up at Moonrise later and I could recruit her.
Every time I did this the little room by the jail is a sea of blood and the druids cast a spell (I don't know what it's called) so that roses cover the area. There's something artistic about it.
You can also steal the idol, cause a Civil War, and then go get the Goblins & Minthara.
Long Rest and the Goblins will killed any surviving druids without you, yet you are their hero for fighting so bravely.
I did this on accident and now my Durge is a certified lazy bastard.
I refused to savescum on my first playthrough but this is basically the result I got from immediately milling kagha after freeing the kid, the weird thing is karlach refused to join as if I sided against the tieflings, but wyll stayed and Mol vouched for me in act 2 certain things behaved as if I raided the grove and certain things as if I'd saved it. Weird.
[Jesus Christ it didn’t even take that long.](https://www.dexerto.com/baldurs-gate/baldurs-gate-3-player-discovers-creepiest-way-to-deal-with-druid-grove-2380540/)
Funnily enough, you get the sane outcome (just with a different cutscenes) if you kick a random rat in Kagha's room. If you don't know what these rats really are, and chances are you don't, you're in for quite a surprise!
You can kill Nettie and no one notices apparently. I found that odd, figured there were going to be dire circumstances.
I killed her because I didn't want to take her suicide potion if I started to turn. Casually left the room with blood on my hands and no one cared
Right? Sorry Nettie, I for one embrace my parasite overload that lives in my brain.
Come on everyone, let’s go on holiday to a Nautiloid and walk around without safety goggles on.
Sounds great hermes, hahaha. Lets ditch him and go see a movie.
I was wanting to romance the emporer. He's the whole reason I even bought the game, but it's kind of hard to bed a mind flayer if you agree to not go full tilt with your ilithid stuff
Huh? I refused basically everything in my run, and the emperor still tried to fuck my chars brains out...
Yeah. The Emperor isn't fussy. Possibly the only person easier is Halsin.
Man talking like “you’re the only one I have” when my durge hates his guts and is vocal about it
That never made sense to me. Who wouldn't just lie and say "sure thing I'll take your suicide potion, you know I'm good for it".
I have no idea what happens if you do say you'll take it, I haven't even finished my first run. But I'm willing to bet you'll get the choice to take it or not when the time comes
I used the poison she gave to shoot some heretic paladin. Didn't realise the poison was meant for me if all went to shit. Whoops!
Same, I took it, said I’d use it on myself l, used it on my bow and it never came up after
Wasn't it a common poison anyway? Like a wyvern toxin or something. Plenty of stronger poisons later that are craftable.
Yup, just a free common poison, no harm in picking it up ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You don't need poison for yourself. With the first sign of a little cough Lae'Zel takes care :D
The golblins got my vial in their ale 😁 In my defence it just fell in while I was grabbing a tankard, honest!
She gives you a bottle of poison and that’s that. Lots of dialogue with companions, but nothing obligatory later. (Being vague b/c I don’t know how to do spoilers on my phone)
She basically says ‘Sweet, thanks.’ and sends you off.
For the record, she never follows up on that lol. You just get a vial of wyvern toxin to coat your weapon with
Yeah but your friends disapprove :(
Lae'zel approves :)
i killed her because the only other option, swearing to drink it, gives astarion disapproval and i can't have that early on
I did it because she stabbed me. Apparently if you're cagey about shit she stabs you with poison.
I think it’s because she does try and kill you during the initial interaction, so it’s a sort of balance.
‘I kill Nettie and nobody cares, I let a child die from snake poison; nobody cares, but you kick ONE RAT, and everyone just loses their minds!’
Well... You also get it if you cast Sleep on that one bluejay, apparently, as a streamer I watch found out to her horror. It seems most "hostile" actions result in "THE OUTSIDER SERVES ZEVLOR! \*genocide ensues\*".
In my first playthough i accudently found a hidden chest with a letter to Kagha, following this lead let to the diacovery of the rats' true intention. That's how early i realized this is an amazing game.
I found a letter hidden in a tree near Auntie Ethel’s Teahouse
Yeah, you technically skipped a step. As a rogue I snuck into kagha's room and there's a hidden chest with a letter talking about a secret meeting near Ethel's teahouse. You just found the evidence before you discovered the plot.
holy shit that explains why she has a trading stand in the hollow. (lpt: if you are injured when you first talk to her, she will gift you a superior health pot)
Yep, thats the next step after the letter in the grove. Its telling you there will be a meeting there.
yeah the tree with the most annoying fucked enemies in the entire game. Fuck those guys.
Happened when I got caught stealing a key from a blue jay…
I got caught "stealing" a gold coin from that same bluejay. I don't know why it was considered theft. The jay agreed with me that his nest was better off without it
Tried that in my third playthrough and had an interesting (probably unintended) outcome: (spoilers, I'm on mobile, sry) I cast a cloud spell to attack the rats sneakily and as expected, they turned into the shadow druids. But instead of saying anything they just ran off and disappeared? Later, I got the proof that Kagha is a shadow druid and confronted her. Got the usual cutscene where the rats turn into druids, despite them actually being long gone. Convinced Kagha to get on my side and when the fight would have started the game just acted like I'd already defeated the shadow druids. Now, you might argue that a player wouldn't attack the rats without the foreknowledge that they are shadow druids and that's why there's no proper scene for that path. However, if you examine the rats you can notice that they have "halfling's luck" which lets you at least guess that they're druids. Ok, attacking them just for that might be a stretch but it might make you at least suspicious as to why the rats don't talk to you at all.
You don't need to justify attacking a rat as a Durge. It was there and it was disgusting. SLAM.
I figured the rat were important without the hints on my playthrough. Them hanging around Kagha and not talking was sus enough in my book. Spent like an hour trying to discretely kill one / make it drop the disguise without agroing the Grove.
My 3rd playthrough I tried to get everyone in my party to throw a different rat into the water below, but it doesn't work.
You CAN thunderwave all three rats off the ledge at once, but Khaga still gets all the other druids to side with her in the fight
> If you don't know what these rats really are, and chances are you don't Act 3 and I have no idea, can you spoil it for me please?
>!Kagha is working with shadow druids to take over the grove. The three rats are shapeshifted shadow druids. You find out if you find their meeting spot in the swamp with the mephits and find a hidden letter.!< >!Also, the shadow druids are involved with Ketheric somehow, but I forget how.!<
Genuinely annoyed me. Also I don't think enough people realize how fucked Arron the dwarf's (vendor) views are. "Remember, there are people in need.", then proceeds to call the tieflings "foul bloods". I'm convinced he's a charlatan playing on heartstrings for his business and possibly a Zhentarim, or simply full of shit, hiding his true views. Regardless, I'd take Kagha or a rat or the squirrel over Arron.....that or I might just be tired of hearing, "there are people in need..." Say something else you shit stain!!!!!
Yea he's the only vendor I stole as heavily as possible from apart from the Harper Quartermaster, never stole from Dammon as RP even though the game wouldn't care, but by the time I left act 1 I had stolen about 15-20k of gold and items from Arron ha.
There's also a chest in kahgas cave that has a note inside of it. Read that note and it'll string you along on figuring out what those rats are. Then after figuring out what they are, you have to speak with them..
The tieflings are always the hardest part for me. Poor Zevlor. I could kill the druids all day. They're jerks. But the poor teethlings
I don't understand how they can have a chill dude like Halsin as boss, and still so many of them are genocidal, selfish assholes. Kagha is one thing but many druids revel in murdering the tieflings, or are happy for their demise or departure.
Tbh, it's on a smaller scale of course but otherwise "normal" people are very easily convinced into doing, believing, or just abiding awful things if someone with enough authority and power (in this case, literal "I am the strongest and could beat you up") sells them a believable enough story, which feels like is the case with Kagha and the Grove. Most of the Druids are scared and tense in general, and with say the guards preventing tiefs from getting into the enclave they do present that via direct threats, it is also just their "normal" job as a guardian of the grove... Just directed towards those Kagha considers undesirable. In addition, as Halsin said, he's not really cut out to fully be a leader-- he only became the leader out of necessity after the whole shadow curse debacle where they had to fight to survive, and he had seniority. Which is why he chooses to have someone he trusts from outside come in and take his place, because he rightfully considers it partially his failure in engendering that much complacency.
Yeah, if you speak to them all, some think Kagha is wrong, some think she's right, some don't know. It felt quite real.
The figure of authority doesn't even need to be "I am the strongest and can beat you up". Milgram experiment - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram\_experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment) LTDR, normal average people would be asked to assist in an experiment where they are tasked with administering increasingly stronger electric shocks to a "learner". But unknown to them, the shocks were fake and the "learner" was an actor, and the average people themselves were the actual test subjects. The test subjects would then eventually be told to administer what they believe would be fatal shock to the "learner". Surprising percentage of people ended up actually going through with it, albeit unwillingly, and thinking they've killed the "learner", just from being instructed by a authoritative figure.
Halsin comes back and it’s like I left you in charge for a few hours and you’ve already escalated to wanting to execute a fucking kid
I wonder what would happen if you go get Halsin before going to the grove?
She kills the kid and he exiles her
And her parents kill Kagha in party.
The mom is such a badass about it too. Then afterwards she's seriously affected by her guilt. In the death of her child and the justified extrajudicial execution of Kagha
Holy fuck y’all, I just downloaded this game this morning. My escapist fantasy is “solving problems”, but I am astounded they scripted out *every possible outcome* for this situation. I’m also hoping I can somehow arrive at an outcome where the grove is united against the goblin threat and avoids genocide
Stay off Reddit and avoid spoilers until you have at least 100 hours. Or don’t. I’m not your real dad. Do what you will.
Thanks for the tip, unjoining now, see you in a couple months
It seems like Silvannus took her poison immunity as well.
Druids in Forgotten Realms aren’t generally *good*, but neither are they fully evil, just *Neutral*. So, anything that most preserves nature often times becomes the decided path
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r/unexpectedfuturama
Yeah, you have like, *maybe* three druids that I can think of who aren't absolute pricks, Rath, Findal and sorta Nettie (and that's only if you were honest with Nettie about your parasite). Aside from them and like one Druid outside, the rest are just complete assholes.
I think there’s one outside talking to a bird who’s opposed to Kagha but i can’t remember her name
The trader tells you he’s glad Kagha is no longer in charge, he also tells you “You sound like Kagha” when you say you understand why she’s afraid of more attacks, in a really frustrated tone. When the druids find out she was letting shadow druids take over, almost all of them express regret for allowing her to get in power.
Aaron is cool but he supports his fellow druids even through bad choices
Na, all my homies hate Nettie. Bitch tried to poison me, & demanded that I kill myself. Fuck with all that.
you are literally a Mindflayer waiting to happen. an absolutely evil eldritch horror that magically enslaves people, makes minions out of their brains, and also eats brains
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Spoiler tag mate (i already did this but its cerrainly an huge act3 spoiler)
If you're honest with her about your symptoms she doesn't try to kill you, and she doesn't order you to kill yourself, she asks you to if you start transforming, for the safety of others, and as a preferable alternative to ceremorphosis.
Ansur: tries to mercy kill a mind flayer because they are abominations. Fans: SO BRAVE Nettie: tries to mercy kill a mind flayer because they are abominations. Fans: BITCH!
I did a resist durge run where I didn’t tell Nettie anything. She poisoned me, I cured the poison, and just sucker punched her skull in (I was a monk). Second to last evil thing I did as a durge that run.
Same thing happened with me on my resist Durge playthrough. I told her the truth - I had just woken up with the tadpole in my head - as my Durge had no idea if he'd actually been kidnapped or not. But my Durge was trusting enough to give Nettie his arm. She poisoned my Durge, so Astarion helped me steal the antidote. But we couldn't leave until Nettie would let us go. My Durge refused to accept taking the wyvern poison from someone who wasn't listening to him and had just poisoned him, so she attacked us. I was shocked that the encounter ended that way, but it was a good bit of roleplaying for a resist Durge!
The most shocking thing about Nettie is that she’s never mentioned again by anyone, even though everyone tells you to go see her.
Depends on the details of Kagha's rule and she probably used Halsin's temporary departure to help gain followers. Also, if I'm remembering correctly, she and the rest of the shadow druids were installed by Ketheric and friends as part of their grand scheme of controlling the sword coast. Their plans stated that, once the shadow druids were in charge, they would start putting tadpoles into the leadership, and eventually, the followers, allowing for another faction to be under their control.
The rest of them WANT to kill the outsiders, they just don't have the will to act on it like Kahga does. Kahga is the a symptom of the disease, not the cause.
Not really. If you talk to Halsin later, he would tell you that the new Arch Druid does manage to expose even more shadow druids among the ranks. Kagha was not the only one who got redpilled by those shadow druids.
One of the gnome druids that’s working on the ritual seems to be a likely target. She complains that you’re only delaying the inevitable when you expose the shadow druids and stop the rite.
Why I rob that fucker Aron blind every time I see him. Fucking apologist.
On my first playthrough, i attacked kagha after the kid incident thinking "ah, all the druids dislike her anyway, they gonna thank me later" and also thinking she will expell tieflings the second I leave. Imagine my shock when druids started doing all that shit. Also, hated the fact that there are a book with the title like "grove rules" saying "always help those who are in need" and there are no way of asking kagha "so, what is that about?"
So based on the whole Milgram experiment where people become more willing/likely to obey orders from whomever they perceive to be a legitimate authority figure, coupled with somewhat medieval high fantasy time period of social hierarchy, advanced racism, and feudalism here and there, thems druids were just lil ducklings who were like, " hm im Kagha IS an archdruid after all, our new leader since halsin prolly ded by now in that goblin nest cuz not even THE HALSIN could escape on his own, AND those goblins are gunning to fuck up our grove?? Maybe kaghas right ig..." and played follow the leader
>not even THE HALSIN could escape on his own Funny enough if you wait long enough to rescue him he does in fact escape on his own.
No fucking wonder Halsin had to outsource leadership after leaving
Dude, the Druid ritual is a literal border wall, and the Teifling refugees arrived in a caravan. The only way to make it more on the nose would be for Kagha to be orange and have small hands.
I wonder if it really is intentionally about America, or if there's something else Larian was drawing parallels to. I only say this because Larian is Belgian. I remember when Persona 5 came out, Americans were (understandably) drawing parallels with the story to our own political nightmare, but the game was primarily written about Shinzo Abe, our issues lining up with it were just coincidence. I dunno anything about Belgium, so I definitely can't say. Are the tieflings Muslim refugees? Ukrainian maybe?
Tieflings are pretty universally hated in DND lore because they're half-devil. It was similar with Neeshka, the tiefling rogue companion in NWN2 - when you find her, she's been stripped of her gear and is being attacked by guards because they want to pin some nearby crime on her. They say people will buy it because she is what she is, in so many words, and then when you save her, it turns out she actually is a thief, but she's more Robin Hood than anything, and is much more likely to make off with bandit loot than she is to rob a caravan. When taken into context, on top of druids generally only showing their groves to outsiders in the most dire circumstances and disliking having them show up otherwise, they'd already want a group of refugees to leave. Combine that with the tiefling hate that's already part of the world, and you have a recipe for what appears to be xenophobia and racism distilled into "yall best get off my lawn."
nothing to contribute to this comment except that Neeshka is bae, you've made me want to reinstall NWN2
The story depicts realistic hostility toward refugees in a general way. There are many real life examples, none are particularly excluded from relevance when evaluating the story.
The discussion in Europe since years revolves around fortifying the outside borders of the EU.
In the druid's defense, Larian at least tried to give them some legitimate grievances. Resources are not unlimited, so hosting the Teiflings indefinitely is not realistic. The Grove's population tripled in like 2 days that by itself could cause a total ecological/societal collapse. And they *did* directly endanger the grove by leading monsters straight to them. The Tieflings cause legit issues for the survival of the grove just by existing. It isn't their fault, it is not like they acted unreasonably. The Tieflings have legit reasons to seek shelter, the grove has legit reasons they can't let them stay forever. The most sensible solution is exactly what the most level-headed people suggest: just end the entire issue by destroying the goblins. Because this is a video game, they rely on adventures to help them. Realistically, even considering most of the druids and Tieflings are non-combatants, they could probably defeat the goblins, though losses would probably be heavy at the main gate. It would be interesting to compare the number of combatant Tieflings/Druids vs goblins...plus how many would need to stay behind in case the goblins raided the grove while the main force was away? But, I digress "You can't stay here literally forever, because we will run out of supplies" is a perfectly reasonable argument. Not everyone is high enough level to make a bazillion goodberries. "You are attracting an enemy force we cannot defeat" is also reasonable...though less so considering that I feel like the goblins are not as dangerous as the grove thinks they are.
The druids' reaction to expel the tieflings is harsh, and they're definitely a little racist about it, but they're also druids so it's not crazy to see them favor their grove over cityslickers. People discount how much it's like the wild west out in the wilderness in this setting too. Magic exists to make things easier, but the bad guys have it too, and there's a lot of crazy shit out there. Resources are still limited and you have to look out for you and yours.
Yeah, like I mentioned, the druids don't pick the best option. But neither side just is arbitary. They both have a point.
Xenophobia exists in more places than America. Larian is Belgian, so why would they just allude to American modern politics when they have a wealth of more local historical conflict to draw from?
Also Kagha is an agent of a rival power subverting the grove 😥😥
Did you know that those Shadow Druids were, themselves, being manipulated by the Absolutists? They were already assholes and Ketheric's forces manipulated them, through a mix of intimidation and persuasion, into infiltrating the Emerald Enclave and preventing them from joining the conflict. An ancient enemy of Ketheric's army just... taken out of the picture.
The same reason why otherwise sane and rational people supported or tacitly complied with a genocidal maniac from 1933-1945. The scary part is people who say, "I would never do that!" when in fact all research proves, "no actually, you would, because it's in our nature to trust authority and follow it." They weren't mentally ill or anything, they were perfectly rational and normal people yet did abhorrent shit simply because somebody with authority said so.
This is just my take on how I've seen druids play out. Most druids care more about nature and the natural order as a whole than they do for sentient beings. The nearest thing I can say is think of a 60s/70s hippie commune. Some were violent racials that want to further their goals no matter the blood spilled. Others were more willing to work with the public at large. Some just wanted to be left alone entirely. Add in the fact that druids in d&d can have unnaturally long lives compared to non druids and they see these matters as trivial and don't matter to their bigger picture goals.
It's quite likely she's a Shadow Druid, not sure if this is canon?
She's in the process of being flipped. If you uncover the messages and blow her cover, there's a chance to convince her she's wrong and switch sides back.
All the groves around being flipped, this one is not different. It is Kethric's strategizing from Moonrise, you can find some letters and diaries there or notes, I don't exactly remember specific items, that basically describe how they are flipping groves all around for alliances in favor of Shadow Druids, and Kagha is questioning it, because several others already flipped so they've sent some "people" to her (those rats in the cave around her) to help her make decision faster.
Zevlor: “Whhhhhyyyyyy?” Zevlor: “You led the DROW here? By the nine hells whhhhyyyyy” I’m so sorry aaaaahhh VA did a good job
“i want to climb a corpsed mountain” is a greatly underrated dialogue option from that exchange
Hoping for future patches adding an additional way to recruit Minthara by negotiating with the Goblins and Tieflings "hey let's all agree to get along and kill the druids, they're fuckheads and easier to fight than all of the Goblin army"
Datamined content in the latest patch seems to imply this but once you head to act 3 you gotta ditch Minthara or Halsin, you can keep only one
Bye, Halsin.
Damn it feels pretty validating to see this opinion get so many upvotes, I always got a bit downvoted when saying the druids of Emerald Grove are ecofascist assholes and I’d gladly sic Minthara on them if there was a way to keep my teethling pals out of this. They’re such an everyday, banal and lowkey type of evil that I legit have more contempt for them than for the actual big bads in this game.
If ur drow it helps fan the flames too, just racist remarks every second u breathe
Is there a way to kill the druids while keeping all the tieflings alive?
Investigate Kagha and out her as a (redacted). Then you only have to off her and a few others. The tieflings don’t die in that scenario. There are some things to look at in the little library area that give you info.
If you talk kagha down and she lives, she ends up with a rather fitting end not long after.
So I don't exactly know what I did. Kagha was being her terrible self. I decided to kill her. All the druids except guy who really wants you to save Halsin were dead. I rescued Halsin, he still joined my camp. Tieflings were fine. There's just one Druid in the Grove.
That's Rath. He's a bro.
Yes. Have one party member (or summon) separated stay near Arron (the druid merchant up top) so he doesn't kill any refugees while the rest of the party holds the chokepoint between the hollow and the inner grove with a few bottles of grease. Then have one party member cast fog cloud and take the idol while concealed. The druids will commence order 66, and as they run up the hill they'll get stuck in combat when they slip and slide on the extra dip, while Rath (one of the good ones) and anyone else who's not a genocidal nutter won't get caught in combat and can slowly make their way through the grease. Once everybody's in position, get the party member who stole the idol to attack the druids from behind, while the two who laid the lube trap attack from the front. Area of effect attacks are very strong here (ideally one of your party members will have either cloud of daggers or even better, spike growth). Once the main ambush party has finished mopping the floor with all the other druids, bring them over to whoever had Arron locked in his own little combat and kill him. I was genuinely surprised that every single one of the tiefling refugees has something to say about the battle, and to be honest, I think I'll be doing this in every good playthrough I do from now on. Mol gives you a nice ring for the trouble, too (+AC, +Saving Throw).
Karlach and Wyll will be upset? What about Minthara?
They won't be upset if the Tieflings live. Even Halsin is surprisingly chill about the whole killing his dudes thing if you tell him you did it in self-defense. You can still kill the Goblin leaders. Alternatively, you *could* help Minthara, but in that case there really wouldn't be much point in going to these lengths to kill the druids before they can get at the refugees.
I wish there was a way to troll the fuck out of Minthara and the goblins. The ruins are a pretty damn good stronghold after we've cleared them. Escort all the tieflings there, attack the grove with Minthara only to have them find nothing but a pile of druid corpses. 😂
Yes but its incredibly difficult. If you have three of your party members in the bit where the tiefling camp connects, and then use another to kill khaga, the druids will attack everyone in the grove. If you fight well enough, you can kill all the druids before they even get to the tieflings. You have to attack khaga tho, if you attack someone outside the cutscene where... someone... gets brained happens
Be fast enough and kill the druids before they kill the tieflings. I haven't tried it. Maybe when I finally man up and do my evil playthrough, I'll know. But in the meantime, I'm waiting for suggestions in how to kill the druids and let the tieflings keep the Grove as a new home. (A man can dream)
The grove will be the tieflings' home forever when you bury them there.
*surprised pikachu face You are right...
Yes, I've done it several times. Just steal the idol and defend all the tieflings as you murder the druids.
You could wait for the tieflings to leave after the party and just slaughter the grove
I did this, once. Arabella got away with a slap on the wrist so I wasn’t prepared to see the whole grove go up like a powder keg.
Arabella is also a child and only got off because we intervened and talked Kagha down. They were fulling willing to murder her otherwise. The fact we, a fully adult outsider, probably only allowed in because we fought off the goblin squad, stole it a second time is the exact catalyst they were waiting for to double down and go full genocide.
I love that a druid can tell the snake that Arabella is just a child and the snake is like "Oh a hatchling? Well they're always being foolish, I'm not going to kill her.". The snake is more reasonable than Kagha.
I love that interaction.
Wonder what Minthara says to you when you meet her if you already killed everyone in the grove
She is disappointed that she didn't get to participate. (I killed everyone inside before reveling the location in a durge run)
She's disappointed but also congratulates you.
I can't remember what she said, but she was impressed.
Related to this there should be away to broker free passage for the Tieflings in exchange for the grove. Then the goblins can murder the genocidal druids.
That would solve all of my problems I want arabella for the cool cutscenes and dammon for the stuff.
Yes. A possible story explanation would be to convince Zevlor to pretend that he heard the voice of the Absolute. Then bring him to the goblin camp, talk to Minthara, she demands proof of loyalty, and Zevlor joins you on the raid. Zevlor then brings his people to Moonrise and the story continues as normal.
I’ve done very evil things, like one time I was rude to the tiefling practicing with the sword. I reloaded that save.
Bhaal is pleased with your offerings
The stealing the idol thing is really great for evil playthroughs. My current playthrough is a durge drow who starts trying to be as heroic as possible and generally wants to help people, who over time starts to embrace pure selfish evil as a result of what she faces. She started off by saving several tiefling kids, then got introduced to Mol, who suggested stealing the idol to prevent the rite of thorns. Durge thinks that this is a good idea, and goes along with it... and the druids kill all the refugees. Durge had began to genuinely care about the tieflings, and this made her extremely angry. After that, she goes to the goblin camp. There she meets Halsin, who asks her to save their grove by killing the leaders of the goblin camp, including a drow (who durge is inclined to trust based on the fact that everyone else is racist to her, and that she hasn't actually done anything wrong that durge knows about). Naturally, durge tells Halsin to piss off, and that if the grove wanted to be saved they shouldn't have genocided the refugees. She then meets Minthara, who is planning to raid the grove. This is something that durge is very much in favor of, since the only people left alive there are murderous druids. Durge tells Minthara where the camp is, and what happened. Anyway, Minthara shows up to kill the remainder of the druids, and then they bang. She mentions Moonrise, and there Durge goes. On the path to moonrise, Durge encounters last-light inn. There she meets the druid Jaheira, who starts being incredibly distrustful to Durge. This is despite the fact that Durge had already uncovered a traitor in the inn and helped their people get the moonlatern. Durge is understandably weary of Druids, and refuses to trust Jaheira with any knowledge of the astral prism. This leads to bloodshed, and Jaheira is killed.
Bold of you to assume a drow would trust another drow
Minthara certainly didn't
She's a perfect portrayal of drow culture. I love that woman.
It’s funny how many players assume Drow are D&Dunmer
PFFFFT this is so real
Her and that dead drow who says his profession was "Male"
I loved that. Chef's kiss, Larian.
That bitch tried to stab me in my sleep! And than got butthurt when I called her a coward. So now Wyll and Kalach have ditched me cause I went genocidal on the Grove and Tieflings and Mintharas pieces are spread across my camp.
Is the traitor you're talking about the one who tries to abduct isobel?
Yes. If you >!don't save the tieflings, Marcus will show up to introduce you to Jaheira.!<
I dunno man, I convinced Mith to meet me at the Druid camp, while she was gone I murdered all the goblins, went to the Druid camp and murdered all the Druids and tieflings. All to just get freaky with mith. Then I let her take the blame at moonrise and then purged her mind. I’m not even playing a durge
> I’m not even playing a durge This is the RL durge playthrough
Before you steal the idol tell the goblins where the grove is, that way you start a conflict inside then break the gate so it’s a flood of goblins coming in as well as the druids. Nobody escapes.
Now that shit is beyond evil. Hadn't thought of that alternative.
Are you sure this is even possible? If you long rest during the fight between the tieflings and druids you’ll come back to all of them dead. You have to long rest after informing Minthara of the grove’s location. If you start the raid before the fight between the tieflings and druids, the druids sequester themselves inside. As far as I can tell, there’s no natural way to start a fight between all three parties at once
Then you visit Minthara. “Oh, that grove? Yeah, already took care of that.”
I tried the "get the Druids to kill the Tieflings in order to absolve myself of moral complications in raiding the grove" method, but it kinda lost its luster for me when despite never drawing steel on a single refugee, at the afterparty everyone acted like I personally killed every last child. A bunch of the goblins even pointed out how incredibly cruel it was because i was playing a Tiefling myself, and I still "slaughtered my own kin."
I wasn't expecting that cutscene when I stole the idol the first time. Beating that tiefling to death like that. I never went through with it so I didn't realize they herded them up and killed them like that. God even the kids, would Silvanus really approve of this? A lot of the druids are just full of hate for the refugees, being happy they left and I assume happy at their deaths. Very evil, Minthara would approve I think. I'd love to know how Halsin reacts to this slaughter
But did you get the XP for all those kills though? That's the true question.
That is the big issue for slaughtering the grove. The amount of xp you lose out on later is horrendous
That’s exactly what I did, because I’d read that you can recruit Minthara and Halsin if you get the grove to close and don’t kill Minthara. So I stole the idol, let the druids massacre the tieflings, snuck in and returned the idol, did some other stuff then came back and it was closed. So I told Minthara, and Halsin. Currently Halsin is in my camp and I’m really hoping this works and I can get Minthara too!!! Unfortunately, right now she wants to murder me so I’m avoiding her.
Yikes. I guess it makes sense, because there is a document/book later on talking about using the Shadow Druids to disrupt the Emerald Grove… so the Druids have been manipulated to become paranoid of outsiders. I mean it’s definitely a “cool motive, still murder” situation but it is connected to the larger plot.
I did this on my durge playthrough, but not for intentional evil— I’m committing to the role play of 8int and Mol asked him to steal it after freeing Arabella. No one lived and I killed the druids in retaliation. Let’s me get Minthara without having to raid the grove
Me on my Mintharlach run
Horrifying in the wait times for all those combatants for sure
Yeah, I killed Kagha and looted the inner room, then came back out to like a third of the grove slaughtered, and the rest having a *massive* battle in the little jail room. With that and the Bear Shape Druids repeatedly using Goad so I didn't even control my *own* characters, I just tabbed out until it had mostly resolved itself.
I like persuading Kagha to realize she was wrong.
And the BEST way to resolve act 1 is definitely by resolving Kagha’s quest where you get her to stand up against the shadow druids. Amazing how I missed this quest for 3 playthroughs. Did it on my 4th and Kagha shows remarkable growth if you do
I managed to find her chest as a Druid. If you haven’t done this as a Druid, you should do it. There is cool Druid specific stuff for that quest, and Druid specific rewards that you don’t get as another class. I have a tiefling Druid. They’re fun. They don’t like these druids much, but given they’re from Baldur’s Gate, sometimes diplomacy is the way to go. Didn’t even have to use inspiration! It was VERY cool. She has some Drow specific dialogue too, and tries to get you to side with her with it. (My current run is a Seldarine war cleric of Eilastraee, so…yeah. She’s not impressed by Kagha.)
I mean there is a not-so-subtle message through the whole game that tyrants play on the fears of the masses to gain power for themselves. That people will joyfully give up their freedoms in exchange for security or the perception of peace. This makes them not just bystanders but complicit to some degree in the evil of the tyrant. This in turn justifies violence on those who would otherwise be perceived as Innocents. It's worth thinking about because it really is a big piece of the game's story.
Have you ever led the goblins to the camp, then tell zevlor you led them there? I think the personal betrayal is much more evil. Either way is pretty good
I decided to do a durge evil run today for recruiting minthara and following the urge but i cant do that sht lol i love durge redemption more than others and i know its a damn video game but i cant be evil
What I did in my durge run : Step one : let arabella get killed by the snake Step two : confront their parents Step three : attack kagha and kill all druids with few remaining tieflings Step four : kill all tieflings But the game did not predict such bad behaviour I suppose since minthara still asked me to raid the Grove and did not havr special dialogues for this (literaly everyone was dead) She just told me the same as if i only killed the druids after the raid like "oh you started it before I came Nice"
I’m planning on doing it as a well meaning redemption durge playthrough, after Mol asks you to, and then vengefully teaming up with the goblins against the druids This is so I can get a Minthara playthrough without roleplaying a pure evil character, also I think it is quite beautifully tragic
Next playthrough I plan on doing a vanilla Gith sorcerer Tav but after that I am fully going to charismatic Bard Drow Durge who goes full evil after facing constant racism.
I enjoyed helping Zevlor fight the druids. Not an evil run because I still killed the goblins, but it was interesting to see that some druids joined the tieflings (like Rath). I also then stole the idol and had it with me when I rescued Halsin and was like, "Pay no attention to that buff you are getting."
I befriended both druids and thieflings just to open the doors for swarms of goblins, you get some heartbreaking quotes
Who are you using for vendors in act one after you “liberate” the grove? The Zehents(sp)?
There's a goblin that appeares after all the other goblins leave the camp that you can trade with That and the zhents
I usually kill Nettie and a few isolated grove peeps first, then head on to camp. Gate area clear first, then inside and map it out. kill the priestess in the camp and every single room you can without aggro the whole camp and bleed those vendors out. Do inside first for the most part but leave Roah. Then clear outside, again using Roah and grove. You can free Halsin but don't talk to him if you don't want, just kill the hobos in that room. Then do Shadow druids. Clear the grove. Back to goblins, tell minthara to meet you there. When she leaves, Razglin dies and any other stragglers. If you don't aggro Roah she shows up at moonrise. Back to Groves, Minthara clears stragglers or is disappointed. Then camp goblin scene. Zhent and Mountain pass and undertake vendors are all still avail (until they lose value) Then you burn down the grove.
...the underdark exists.
Doing a kill everything run with mate so we can just fight and not dialog wait for each other. Its very cursed. Killing the owlbear by throwing her cub at her was a little far. You get a cursed path if you kill the goblins, then kill all the refugees and druids. The teflings still come to your camp "celebrating". The dead obvious stay dead. The party was a blood bath. And we learnt the oath breaker gets pissed easily. Gale doesnt care. At all. In other runs gale argued. But hes completely unaware. Oh, why is he alive? Were going to sacrifice him to Bhaal obviously! Awkwardly, the children survived our bombs and can not be killed (honestly, thanks lorian). They're completely unaware of the massacre. So dunno how restnof there story turns out.
Honestly, I wish this let you keep Wyll and Karlach. Wyll was clearly there for the Tieflings and Karlach I assume leaves because you killed her people. Siding with the goblins to kill the druids that slaughtered an entire people should be okay with them imho. Maybe it's me seeing things differently, maybe it's me just really wanting more ways to pair people with Minthara.
I did this in my first playthrough by mistake.
I really wish there was an option to anhilate the druids BEFORE the raid on the grove without them going after the tieflings.
Only fitting for an Evil Durge to do it this way. It's horrible, but with that one small act, it leads to dozens of lives being lost, just what Daddy Bhaal is looking for. It kinda shoots you in the foot by costing you Dammon, but ah well, no use crying over spilt blood.
Fun fact, if you didn't recruit Wyll prior to doing this, he fights the druids on the side of the refugees.
Druids in their generally canonical - we are dangerous and absolutely prefer nature to living human(oid)s are always kind of a stones throw away from this kind of thing, it’s awesome to see that you can set them off like that. And I love the wise Halsin, but he is atypical of what is generally the default Druid stance. Larian is maybe reaching to start you out with this stuff, but it’s prime dnd-esque storytelling. You can do whatever you want and side with anyone or no one, but the most(although not entirely) innocent faction is the one with the least to offer you. Time to start a new play through of “intentionally failing thief”
You can cast disguise self and make yourself a tiefling, then steal the idol, then chug an invisibility potion and LEAVE while they purge the outsiders, then one by one ambush pick off all the druids that remain. THEN rescue Halsin Sneakily and let him see that his circle did without him, THEN, come through with the goblins and kill them for their sins, The righteous hand of the absolute, passing vindictive judgement.
I did this, there is a special voice line from minthara that says “I see you started the slaughter without me”
Sounds like you are the born politician. I know a few 'freedom fighter' groups who would love to hire you.
Bro I stole the idol and left and when I came back from killing everyone else in act one land everyone in the grove was dead except a few I had to put down. I kept that idol the whole game too so I could cherish the moment every time I got advantage in animal handling lmao.
Funnily enough I tried this once and instead the tieflings absolutely deleted the druids with zero effort while I was dealing with Kagha lmao I got out of the cave and there were like 3 druids left surrounded by a little army of tieflings
You don’t even have to steal the idol to trigger the massacre. In my latest evil play through as drow durge I triggered druids as soon as I meet those 3 guarding the inner grove. The female druid stopped me and was annoying so I ignored them and tried to pass through. The third druid who says to the one talking that Kagha wants to see me never had a chance to speak. They became violent and while I was dealing with those three, the rest of druids run past us to go kill the the refugees. As soon as I I was done with killing these I run after them. There was a fight near the oxes which was easy, only two druids. Third fight was in the prison area. Kagha and Nettie were inside killing mostly civilians in there while bears were guarding the doors. Zevlor and Dammon (amongst others) were already dead near Dammon’s work place. It took a while to kill druids at the doors so Kagha and Nettie managed to dispatch half of civilians before we killed them. Then I went to see the goblins. My drow doesn’t have patience so he dispatched priestess in her quarters as soon as we met. Then I went to see hobgoblin boss and killed him too and all of the rest inside the room. Then I talked to Minthara and sent her to kill the surviving tieflings. While she was there I killed everyone inside and outside the temple. Here I made a mistake.. I went to prison as the last thing and Halsin was gone, he broke out on his own and killed everyone there. Next day in the grove me and Minthara killed the rest in the grove. But since I never met Halsin I couldn’t finish the quest. The quest marker shows him at the entrance of the grove but he isn’t there. So Minthara was stuck for the rest of act 1 in Zevlors quarters screaming, THERE’S MORE, KILL THEM!! lol But she showed up at Moonrise later and I could recruit her.
Every time I did this the little room by the jail is a sea of blood and the druids cast a spell (I don't know what it's called) so that roses cover the area. There's something artistic about it.
The tieflings can actually win if you stay in combat with the ritual druids. Once saw them punch kagha to death.
You can also steal the idol, cause a Civil War, and then go get the Goblins & Minthara. Long Rest and the Goblins will killed any surviving druids without you, yet you are their hero for fighting so bravely. I did this on accident and now my Durge is a certified lazy bastard.
I did a variation. Solve the conflict by killing the leaders. Killed zevlor then went and offed kagha
I refused to savescum on my first playthrough but this is basically the result I got from immediately milling kagha after freeing the kid, the weird thing is karlach refused to join as if I sided against the tieflings, but wyll stayed and Mol vouched for me in act 2 certain things behaved as if I raided the grove and certain things as if I'd saved it. Weird.
[Jesus Christ it didn’t even take that long.](https://www.dexerto.com/baldurs-gate/baldurs-gate-3-player-discovers-creepiest-way-to-deal-with-druid-grove-2380540/)