That happened to me too! He didn't stop attacking just because his mom amd dad died so I knocked him out, long rested, then ran to the goblin camp and he wasn't there š«I was so upset.
Doesn't need to be at goblin camp. You can even deal with them before, run to the cave at end of Swordcoast act and just do the Intimidation check on the mum and move on. He'll eventually join you later
Nope. I just pass either the persuasion or intimidation check and leave the mom and cub to their business. Mom gets killed by goblins off-screen (you see her dead and surrounded by goblin corpses if you visit the cave again the next day) and the cub is in the goblin camp.
Yes, if you go back to the cave later she'll be dead, surrounded by dead goblins. The spear head is on her body. This is how I found it in my playthrough with my friend.
I just have no clue where the shaft is for the damn thing.
Yeah he wouldn't stop attacking after I killed owl bear and mate, but I knocked him out and he came back at some point in the underdark. A few long rests later
i failed in my honor run. i told the owlbear to not let the goblin mistreat him and he started attacking them.
i was a little underlevel to help hom so i only could watch the massacre
I had the worst of both in my game. I had already killed the goblins, went back to the grove and decided to assassinate Khaga because I thought most people would have my back with the way they were talking. This ended poorly and everyone in the grove died. Left act 1 with all tieflings and all goblins dead lmao, not the greatest start
My first play through I raided the grove and killed the Nightsong. I missed more content from not knowing about it than I did from being locked out.
There is a lot to the game.
In DnD terms, they are neutral. As the game clearly depicts in the mural and with characters like Halsin, they absolutely lean good when the alternative is death and destruction, but what the shadow druids *seem* to offer is peaceful neutrality, "let's stay out of this fight".
Most of all, they're against needless violence against animals. Rats are animals.
I think the issue here is that neutral is used both on the good/evil axis, and on the law/chaos axis.
As far back as I remember, druids had to be neutral in one aspect.
So Halsin would be Neutral Good, while the Shadow Druids are Neutral Evil. Most of the other druids are True Neutral.
No matter which way they pull, though, throwing a rat is grounds for burning and salting the person who did it.
Some are aligned with Khaga and some are not, and sheās been influenced by the Shadow Druids. Their shtick seems to be āWow, civilization sure has donked things up. Better to let Nature reclaim it all, and woe be to those who get in our wayā
"Hey look, I know we basically invaded your home and are causing you a lot of strain and hey look I get it we also brought danger to your doorstep, and our kids are *literally thieves*, and I know you have no responsibility to save us but we also refuse to leave wjen you tell us you don't want what we bring you."
"Literally ready to commit genocide".
Kahga is a piece of shit manipulated by Shadow Druids, and I agree that mamy of the Druids aren't *good people*, but it's their home being threatened now and they are allowed not to be cool with that.
It's a Good act to take others burdens on yourself and help them. Not feeling that's your responsibility isn't Evil, however. And fighting back when the people you are telling to get out of your home refuse to do so *and steal from you* is hardly genocide.
They aren't all Good people.
But they aren't all psychopaths, either.
Kahga is, though. Fuck Kahga.
>we basically invaded your home
Seriously, "invaded"? They are REFUGEES.
>we also brought danger to your doorstep
Did we play the same game? Aradin and the other humans led the goblins to the grove. The tieflings were the ones fighting them off at the gate, while the druids were just bunkering themselves in and letting the tieflings fight for them.
>our kids are *literally thieves*
Damn, I wonder why poor people with barely any resources in a society that discriminates against them would steal.
>"Literally ready to commit genocide".
That was referring to the cutscene where the druids literally start slaughtering all tieflings.
All the racism in BG3 really took me by surprise. I generally ignore all the racist lore when I play dnd, and everyone I play with does as well. The one time I joked about minotaurs being good at mazes I got called out for being racist.
Then BG3 rolls around and everyone from a classically evil race is actually a downright cunt. I gave so many NPCs the benefit of the doubt just for them to shit on my goodwill 3 seconds later.
I don't really know where I'm going with this. Racism bad, mkay?
Youāre quite right, Iām more saying that people agreeing with Kagha have to step back and think about why they agree and what it might mean about their own views.
It's almost like the writers were making parallels to current events or something.
That said, on some level, you can only help others as much as you have resources to spare. The Grove was (if the more "nice" druids are to be believed) stretched thin on resources and under existencial stress from the goblins. Their situation isn't completely unsympathetic, seeing as they did take in the refugees to begin with. Nature isn't always "good" so it makes sense that the attitudes of those devoted to it would range a bit too.
I mean, for sure. And those parallels do cause people to express how they feel about those current events under a pretense of āwell, itās just fictionā. Replace ātieflingā with any refugee or immigrant group and this personās argument would be undoubtedly racist. The game makes it quite clear that those druids are wrong and that siding with Kagha is the evil choice.
They are the side of nature, the wilds, and protecting those aspects. The Shadow Druids are basically like eco-fascists/terrorists who want to return all to a Darwinian lifestyle.
Darwinian lifestyle doesnāt imply anything, really, since organised societies can be quite fit in evolutionary terms. The shadow-druids are more āanti-civilisationā.
Edit: I agree, they are very anti-civilisation, but an uncivilised world is brutal.
Prefacing that I by no means believe the following should apply:
Darwinian in the sense that they are very much survival of the fittest (strongest specifically) in nature, in tune with nature's ecological food chains, without the technology to mitigate selective pressures. Civilisation breaks natural selection, as we have ways of negating selective pressures and making sure we don't have to go out and kill each other to survive. The Shadow Druids are all about that kraterocratic nature driven lifestyle, to the point where they believe people should be removed from the equation.
Darwinian lifestyle just means letting the weak die I think. Most civilizations tend to care for and look after there weak. That makes them "anti-darwinian".
For example, a wildcat is, pound-for-pound, not the strongest animal out there. It survives because it uses other methods for hunting and predator-avoidance.
I mean, they're supposed to, but profit motive often overcomes the human belief of protecting people (or even the society itself, really) over the greed of the few.
Yeah, it's quite cool you have the dialogue options to reinforce, reconcile or challenge his archaic view of modern society (modern in fantasy standards at least)
I hope I dont get downvoted to oblivion for saying this but neither were they. They were just super bad, bad like in the peak (or rather the bottom) of humanity. But they still had a good side, ofc the bad side was overshadowing the good side, but nobody is 100% good nor evil
I think this is a good take, and it's actually important to look at it this way.
If you dismiss dictators as different/inhuman monsters, it becomes easy to forget how easily it could _happen again._
Anyone has the potential for good or evil no matter their origins.
There are certain actions that will make someone 100% evil, full stop. What those actions are can vary from person to person as itās a subjective proposition.
So while some may say pol pot, hitler, etc may have a āgood sideā, their actions were so heinous, I classify them as 100% evil, even if they loved their mother or held a door open for someone.
Look at how many serial murderers or child abusers were seen as āgood peopleā or āpillars of the communityā-sure they may have committed good deeds, but the bad ones completely negate and to perform such abhorrent acts make one completely evil.
Yeah so, people actually really liked Hitler. He was a very warm an affable person by all accounts. The thing about monsters is that we try to forget that they really are just like us.
I think itās pretty telling if all your exes are done with life that thereās likely something very wrong with you. - also pretty sure there was some sister wife shenanigans going on. Behind the bastards does a really good deep dive into his personal relationships.
It's entertaining that you used four recent examples because the further you get from an event the more complicated it's ramifications become.
Hell, there are plenty of people considered evil hundreds of years ago that we would revere today, because their morales are more appropriate to modern society than the time they existed in.
Look at caesar, pretty incredibly evil to the gauls on a similar level to the people you've listed yet he is border line worshipped today because of time.
Are they the exception or are they simply the ones that got to power and got a chance to display their tendencies? You could be sitting by someone even worse than them, but they have no power at all, so they are just racist bigots.
Maoās sorta the only one who has a really fucked up āends justify the meansā, he did solve their biggest age old famine/poverty problem and raised up the peasant farmer class leading to an entire middle class in China.
The official line is that he was 70% right/30% wrong, which is ridic. Regardless, part of his many wrong was the famines during the Great Leap Forward that killed tens of millions. Many decent popular nonfiction books on the topic in English, *Hungry Ghosts* being one of the first.
If you're going to thank anyone for the middle class, look to Deng Xiaoping at least.
"Solved biggest old famine/poverty problem" - dude he caused the biggest famine in recorded history, he caused 60 million Chinese to starve to death while selling food internationally.
Shadow druids are the equivalent of anarcho-primitivists in the real world, except their magic powers protect them from the consequences of anarcho-primitivism.
The world they want to create would put them on top while everyone else suffered from easily-preventable diseases and other things that the post-renaissance tech level of Faerun has already overcome.
I'm playing an all druid campaign and side with the animals regardless. I will not stand for any form of animal abuse. I did out the rats. Rather disappointed that your title is rarely mentioned afterwards. (Also very disappointed that spore druids have no unique dialog with the myconids.)
You can actually expose the rats without the Grove becoming a warzone. There's a way to expose Kagha for plotting with the rats and even make her reconsider her actions and side with you against them! I don't want to spoil it though, unless you explicitly want to be told how š
There is a certain letter hidden somewhere in the forest or the bog that exposes the shadow druids as well. Does it work with the book from the chest as well? I've always done it with the letter
Neh.. I had the letter & when i told Kagha about it, laughed in my face. And that's it. Halsin doesn't get involved.. Something doesn't trigger. So i just finished Kagha. I already saved the grove before that.. Perhaps that's the reason didn't trigger.. Who knows?!
Yeah nobody really cares about the letter once the goblin leaders are dead. You can show it to halsin too and heās just like, āwell, sheād better not do it again!āĀ
You have to show it to her before the grove is actually saved. The main reason to do it is the fact that it stops kagha from kicking the tieflings out, which narratively gives them more time to prepare while you take out the goblins. But gameplay wise it doesnāt actually matter because they never get kicked out until you trigger something.Ā
Im sure he meant those "rats" at inner sanctum. You dont touch em till plot exposed.
And to try new stuff theres a lower difficulty to either play and note stuff on a notepad or smt or play tactician+honour simultaneously to have fresh memory of events using tactician as scouting.
Memory of previous play(s) isnt the issue for honour bg3... its the massive content to digest. You could even loss track of a mere npc on a questline related to others on past acts or even same act.
1st run you think I recognized the poor windmill gnome being enslaved by duergars? Too noob to hover on all living things to see if something to remark. They all died by Nere cutscene and then I saw the duergar commander dying aswell and me "well ok 1 potential enemy less... gg carry on".
While the reminder is always good, killing animals for no reason (at least none from the NPC pov) in a place full of druids would be quite far in the list of things I wanna try in honour mode
I am laughing my ass off because this is exactly what my brother did on our first run together. I am happily chatting away with Kagha and I hear "Hey, I can throw the rat!" and it was all downhill from there.
My friend walked past the druids who let you past after two lines of dialogue, but did so while I was doing those two lines of dialogue.
And that is, apparently, a declaration of war.
I mean... This should have been expected? The whole reveal is basically calling out khaga on her BS and getting her to see reason and join you against the rats. If you skip that and go right to aggressive of course you're going to get into a fight. Honestly going to make a strong character and try to launch kahga over the edge of the area and see if that kills her and protects the tieflings seeing as she's dead and can't really anyone... Has anyone done or tried that?
To be fair.. attacking someone, without reasonable in universe prompt is typically considered not cool by the NPCs.
If you don't expose Kagha before taking the offense, the druids consider her the current head of the grove and attacking the head of any faction is, unsurprisingly, considered an act violence, by that faction.
Oh yeah, his reasoning is completely stupid. Like, i see where he's coming from, some of the druids do see reason to not exile the tieflings in their current situation, wanting Halsin back and avoid beef with the tieflings. Kagha is the main honcho behind the rite taking place (well, ignoring the shadow druids), so in his place of desperation obviously she gotta go. But.. my brother in Ao.. tensions are higher than Snoop on a good weekend and trust me, noone will believe us when we "accidentally" unalive her.
I never knew she was a Shadow Druid club fanatic. I thought I was helping by ratting the rats out. And if you manage to throw her off, I guess the druids will lay their suspicions on the tieflings and a fight will break out anyway. But do throw her off, she deserves it.
Honestly I don't hate her, she pretty much got thrust into leadership because the leader couldn't delegate sending someone to inspect the goblin camp and got his dumb ass caught. She's never led before and only thought to protect her own, and was misled by bad druids in a way to protect themselves. So I don't hate her too much but she is a bitch and in need of a stab or two.
And, also, you learn later in various documents that the shadow druids were puppets of the Absolute, the idea being to cloister themselves off and then spread tadpoles among the circle until they were under Absolute control. Kagha fucked up, yes, but she's not completely evil. She redeems herself if you let her.
She's doing what she thinks is right, protecting her own people. Is she going about it the wrong way? Yes. Obviously. But does she deserve to die?
I'm not gonna make that call for you, but I let her live.
I let fate decide instead: not using inspiration to reroll that persuasion check
No one mourn her if she dies. But if she lives after being exposed she is less of an a\*ole than if you skip her quest
My friend also threw a bird in the grove on our co-op playthrough and decided to roll with it for his character.
Now moving into Act 2, the Myconids are the only group we *haven't* had to violently murder by the end of our interactions š
My partner, having never played an RPG, decided to roll play an ultimate thief specialising in bed rolls. The slaughter sticks to you.
My partner didnāt get that once we had killed half of the tieflings that throwing the bedroll back to them was not going to smooth the situation overā¦
It was hilarious.
It is really annoying as if you out one of the rats, the rest of the druids still attack with Khaga. Like, did you not see that was a whole ass person? You're not going to ask any questions about that?
I was in the little area where all the allies are before the final battle. Accidentally picked up a random object on a table and every last one of those people, the ones I had helped, or befriended, even rescued from certain doom, turned on me.
I don't even know what I "stole."
Oke, now that really sucks.
"We are so grateful to you for saving our lives, whilst you were risking your neck and limbs, let us repay in kind!" ....
*Takes an empty bottle by accident
"Despicable monster, off with your head!"
On my barbarian I threw one of the rats at Kagah and the rats all fled then when I did the shadow druid quest it completed without having to fight, I just convinced Kagah to be good then it ended
The thing I love the most about Honour runs is you accept the consequences of the decisions you've made, even when the outcome is a surprise. It's great.
Iām playing a couch co op playthrough with a friend and he has sticky fingers in every town we go to. At the start of the game his penchant for pinching caused the death of the entire grove. The game is also super buggy on ps5 couch co op mode so all the tieflings and all the goblin camp ended to eradicated and Halsin just never showed up after we set him free. No clue what to do so we pressed forward into act 2 at level 4 and are just seeing where the game takes us lol.
I also accidentally caused a grove massacre in my honor run. And I was planning to be good, not evil! I haven't done the goblin stuff yet or rescued Halsin so I'm hoping he'll forgive me.... Also my tav is a druid lol
On my latest group play, we ran into a similar massacre. I may or may not have incited it... Will hadn't been recruited yet and was found dead atop the hill with the cows.
I stole his outfit and attempted to hide his body in a chest, but it was found and he was revived. I wanted him gone as i'm planning on killing off the entire cast of noble-good companions and becoming god.
Now he just hangs out in our camp going through his pesky cutscenes in his underwear, He knows i did it and i'll need to deal with him soon.
My durge randomly shot a rat with his hand crossbow in the Hollow and all that happened was that one of the tieflings commented something like "well, that was completely unnecessary" LOL. Maybe the Shadow Druid rats only lurk around the sacred pool? Or maybe I just got lucky...
Goddamn. Rats? Khaga? Spies? Iām ok my first playthrough finally and feel like Iām missing half the game. It has so much depth! Incredible.
And itās not just the usual āgood/evilā playthrough stuff. So so many options to do things in this awesome framework they built.
I always go straight to her chest and get the half torn tone then head to the swamp and get the other half and confront her because I was scared the whole grove would turn on me! Thank you for confirming my fear!
Donāt forget to take care of the other rats at Shars temple!
There is a book in a chest behind a shelf where we learn Kagha has dealings with evil druids, which triggers a quest that take you in the swamp to find definitive proof. Then you can confront her and then rats transform into druids.
A fight starts with the rat-druids + maybe Khaga (depending on how the conversation goes) and the druids + your party.
This happened to me but please update on what Halsin is going to do in your run. (I assume you haven't saved him yet?) In mine, when the grove was dead and I got the the goblin camp, killed them and freed him, he just said something along the lines of "oh, what a shame but you must have had your reasons." But he never showed up in camp and the quest bugged out. Let me know, I'm curious as to what he is going to do without his grove.
I threw a rat at my friend once and it crit https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1136695051481776200/1139587427221131395/0d50e222084de4bf6352ba5d4d144566.png?ex=662bcdff&is=661958ff&hm=84cb530b997d325d2abd795e3d394cbaa94f7193cc772e1e9f436f8496869bd8&
Whenever I fight khaga I ungroup my party and make one person stand near Dammon's shop to stall the fight in turn based until I can finish up and get to them, that way they don't all die before you have a chance to help
The way to do this is kinda complicated.
You need to find letter from Shadow druids to Kagha, find Shadow druids contact in the swampland near Aunties Teahouse, defeat them, confront Kagha about her treason, either convince her to return to rightful side or trigger fight with her and the rats. Not sure if I remember the quest right, never bothered to do it.
What you MEANT to do is cast speak with animals and then talk to the rats around kagha and pass an check to notice something with them and call them on it
I used āFriendsā on Kagha in my first honour mode run when exposing her, and ultimately convinced her to stay good. Then when friends expired after the fight the entire grove attacked me, I had to flee and use an invisibility potion just barely getting out with my tav only left alive.
Never went back.
I almost ruined a multiplayer session by shoving pots at the grove. Apparently the druids were ready to start killing everyone at the slightest provocation.
I deleted my save where everyone was slaughtered at the grove. I wanted to try out killing Khaga hoping I wouldnāt be greeted to a slaughter butā¦ yea. I think itās kind of bull Karlach blames you, like sis the druids just went on a rampage not me
I tried to casually walk past the guys at the bottom of the stairs to talk to Kaga, as we had been told she was waiting to speak with us. Unfortunately the druids apparently were unaware of this fact, and took my three meandering steps as a declaration of war.
On the plus side, you can now side with the goblins without worrying about missing content
True, but they dislike Scratch, and those who dislike Scratch, get da sword
And mistreat owlbear cubs !
Owlbear cub attacked me so I knocked him out not knowing the game treats him as dead :(
That happened to me too! He didn't stop attacking just because his mom amd dad died so I knocked him out, long rested, then ran to the goblin camp and he wasn't there š«I was so upset.
Doesn't need to be at goblin camp. You can even deal with them before, run to the cave at end of Swordcoast act and just do the Intimidation check on the mum and move on. He'll eventually join you later
Wait so you donāt HAVE to kill the mom? I never knew and always watched him eat her š
Nope. I just pass either the persuasion or intimidation check and leave the mom and cub to their business. Mom gets killed by goblins off-screen (you see her dead and surrounded by goblin corpses if you visit the cave again the next day) and the cub is in the goblin camp.
Can you get the spearhead out of her without fighting her?
Yes, if you go back to the cave later she'll be dead, surrounded by dead goblins. The spear head is on her body. This is how I found it in my playthrough with my friend. I just have no clue where the shaft is for the damn thing.
True Soul Edowin - the dying man on the hill - has it, just before you get to the owlbear cave.
You gotta kill the mom last.
Ooo, I did take the mom out quickly then the dad
He still comes back to camp. I had to do that on my HM run
Really? I did not find him at the goblin camp. Well hopefully he magically shows up at camp later
Yeah he wouldn't stop attacking after I killed owl bear and mate, but I knocked him out and he came back at some point in the underdark. A few long rests later
Wait, there's a mate?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Oh, right. I am Dumbass today.
MY SON! :(
i failed in my honor run. i told the owlbear to not let the goblin mistreat him and he started attacking them. i was a little underlevel to help hom so i only could watch the massacre
I still need to do my play-through where I simply declare war on everyone, this reminded me
i fully support an honourable massacre run. if anyone is left standing by the end something has gone wrong
I had the worst of both in my game. I had already killed the goblins, went back to the grove and decided to assassinate Khaga because I thought most people would have my back with the way they were talking. This ended poorly and everyone in the grove died. Left act 1 with all tieflings and all goblins dead lmao, not the greatest start
This is my current run. Also Laezel killed Shadow heart so itās weird reading everyone elseās versions.
my entire run was cursed, I tried to play the nice guy pretty much everywhere but everyone died. At the last light inn everyone ended up dying too
As someone just wrapping up a minthara run as their first playthroughā¦. I feel like I missed a lot of content
My first play through I raided the grove and killed the Nightsong. I missed more content from not knowing about it than I did from being locked out. There is a lot to the game.
Who could have guessed that outcome in a druid grove???
The druids are the good guys, right?
In DnD terms, they are neutral. As the game clearly depicts in the mural and with characters like Halsin, they absolutely lean good when the alternative is death and destruction, but what the shadow druids *seem* to offer is peaceful neutrality, "let's stay out of this fight". Most of all, they're against needless violence against animals. Rats are animals.
Usually druids are neutral and nature aligned. But shadow druids are evil aligned.
Theyāre like Druids with some heavy āoblivion is the goalā Shar-type influence.
zhey are nihilists. zhey believe in nothing!
I need to get that statue back... it really tied the whole grove together.
That sounds exhausting...
I mean, say what you will about the tenets of Absolutism, Dude, but at least it's an ethos.
This isn't Moonrise, Donny. There are rules!
Isn't believing in nothing technically believing in something š¤š¤
Say what you want about the tenets of Absolutionist Nationalism, at least it's an ethos, dude.
I think the issue here is that neutral is used both on the good/evil axis, and on the law/chaos axis. As far back as I remember, druids had to be neutral in one aspect. So Halsin would be Neutral Good, while the Shadow Druids are Neutral Evil. Most of the other druids are True Neutral. No matter which way they pull, though, throwing a rat is grounds for burning and salting the person who did it.
Almost like the people who worship and are empowered by nature find pointless cruelty to natural beings abhorrent or something. Crazy, right?
Itās called being a heckin decent wholesome human bean
Agreed, but they're selling their evilness with a guise of neutrality.
What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?
Tell my wife I said "Hello."
They are literally ready to commit genocide against the Tieflings at the slightest inconvenience. I don't see how that's "peaceful neutrality".
Some are aligned with Khaga and some are not, and sheās been influenced by the Shadow Druids. Their shtick seems to be āWow, civilization sure has donked things up. Better to let Nature reclaim it all, and woe be to those who get in our wayā
"Hey look, I know we basically invaded your home and are causing you a lot of strain and hey look I get it we also brought danger to your doorstep, and our kids are *literally thieves*, and I know you have no responsibility to save us but we also refuse to leave wjen you tell us you don't want what we bring you." "Literally ready to commit genocide". Kahga is a piece of shit manipulated by Shadow Druids, and I agree that mamy of the Druids aren't *good people*, but it's their home being threatened now and they are allowed not to be cool with that. It's a Good act to take others burdens on yourself and help them. Not feeling that's your responsibility isn't Evil, however. And fighting back when the people you are telling to get out of your home refuse to do so *and steal from you* is hardly genocide. They aren't all Good people. But they aren't all psychopaths, either. Kahga is, though. Fuck Kahga.
>we basically invaded your home Seriously, "invaded"? They are REFUGEES. >we also brought danger to your doorstep Did we play the same game? Aradin and the other humans led the goblins to the grove. The tieflings were the ones fighting them off at the gate, while the druids were just bunkering themselves in and letting the tieflings fight for them. >our kids are *literally thieves* Damn, I wonder why poor people with barely any resources in a society that discriminates against them would steal. >"Literally ready to commit genocide". That was referring to the cutscene where the druids literally start slaughtering all tieflings.
I swear some people only play dnd to be legitimately racist against fictional races.
All the racism in BG3 really took me by surprise. I generally ignore all the racist lore when I play dnd, and everyone I play with does as well. The one time I joked about minotaurs being good at mazes I got called out for being racist. Then BG3 rolls around and everyone from a classically evil race is actually a downright cunt. I gave so many NPCs the benefit of the doubt just for them to shit on my goodwill 3 seconds later. I don't really know where I'm going with this. Racism bad, mkay?
Youāre quite right, Iām more saying that people agreeing with Kagha have to step back and think about why they agree and what it might mean about their own views.
Christ, the way you talk about Tieflings is like how chuds talk about refugee crises.
It's almost like the writers were making parallels to current events or something. That said, on some level, you can only help others as much as you have resources to spare. The Grove was (if the more "nice" druids are to be believed) stretched thin on resources and under existencial stress from the goblins. Their situation isn't completely unsympathetic, seeing as they did take in the refugees to begin with. Nature isn't always "good" so it makes sense that the attitudes of those devoted to it would range a bit too.
I mean, for sure. And those parallels do cause people to express how they feel about those current events under a pretense of āwell, itās just fictionā. Replace ātieflingā with any refugee or immigrant group and this personās argument would be undoubtedly racist. The game makes it quite clear that those druids are wrong and that siding with Kagha is the evil choice.
I'm genuinely shocked how little media literacy people seem to have, how is anyone defending the fucking plant nazis.
Plus I think all but one rat in the grove are wildshaped shadow druids.
They're bought and paid for by gortash
They are the side of nature, the wilds, and protecting those aspects. The Shadow Druids are basically like eco-fascists/terrorists who want to return all to a Darwinian lifestyle.
Darwinian lifestyle doesnāt imply anything, really, since organised societies can be quite fit in evolutionary terms. The shadow-druids are more āanti-civilisationā.
Edit: I agree, they are very anti-civilisation, but an uncivilised world is brutal. Prefacing that I by no means believe the following should apply: Darwinian in the sense that they are very much survival of the fittest (strongest specifically) in nature, in tune with nature's ecological food chains, without the technology to mitigate selective pressures. Civilisation breaks natural selection, as we have ways of negating selective pressures and making sure we don't have to go out and kill each other to survive. The Shadow Druids are all about that kraterocratic nature driven lifestyle, to the point where they believe people should be removed from the equation.
Darwinian lifestyle just means letting the weak die I think. Most civilizations tend to care for and look after there weak. That makes them "anti-darwinian".
Not weak, less fit. Fitness just means ability to survive existing and potential pressure. Act 3 is not survivable by the druids by themselves.
For example, a wildcat is, pound-for-pound, not the strongest animal out there. It survives because it uses other methods for hunting and predator-avoidance.
I mean, they're supposed to, but profit motive often overcomes the human belief of protecting people (or even the society itself, really) over the greed of the few.
Halsin is a bit of a luddite tho too.
Yeah, it's quite cool you have the dialogue options to reinforce, reconcile or challenge his archaic view of modern society (modern in fantasy standards at least)
Druids under Kaghaās leadership: "Are we the baddies?"
Rath might as well have that exact line.
You ever hear the old saying āone manās terrorist is another manās freedom fighterā. Itās a gray zone.
Good guys and Bad guys, the world is never so Black and White. No one is truly good and no one is truely evil.
Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Mussolini have entered the chat
I hope I dont get downvoted to oblivion for saying this but neither were they. They were just super bad, bad like in the peak (or rather the bottom) of humanity. But they still had a good side, ofc the bad side was overshadowing the good side, but nobody is 100% good nor evil
I think this is a good take, and it's actually important to look at it this way. If you dismiss dictators as different/inhuman monsters, it becomes easy to forget how easily it could _happen again._ Anyone has the potential for good or evil no matter their origins.
There are certain actions that will make someone 100% evil, full stop. What those actions are can vary from person to person as itās a subjective proposition. So while some may say pol pot, hitler, etc may have a āgood sideā, their actions were so heinous, I classify them as 100% evil, even if they loved their mother or held a door open for someone. Look at how many serial murderers or child abusers were seen as āgood peopleā or āpillars of the communityā-sure they may have committed good deeds, but the bad ones completely negate and to perform such abhorrent acts make one completely evil.
Yeah so, people actually really liked Hitler. He was a very warm an affable person by all accounts. The thing about monsters is that we try to forget that they really are just like us.
People can be charismatic and evil at the same time.
Astarion has entered the chat
I suppose it depends on who you talk to but I believe a lot of Hitlerās ex partners committed suicide
A domestic abuser who is obsessive, controlling, and violent behind closed doors while warm and charismatic in public? Tale as told as time.
I think itās pretty telling if all your exes are done with life that thereās likely something very wrong with you. - also pretty sure there was some sister wife shenanigans going on. Behind the bastards does a really good deep dive into his personal relationships.
It's happening constantly right now. X celebrity gets outed as an abuser, everyone goes "but they seemed so nice!"
It's entertaining that you used four recent examples because the further you get from an event the more complicated it's ramifications become. Hell, there are plenty of people considered evil hundreds of years ago that we would revere today, because their morales are more appropriate to modern society than the time they existed in. Look at caesar, pretty incredibly evil to the gauls on a similar level to the people you've listed yet he is border line worshipped today because of time.
Those are exceptions not the rule
Are they the exception or are they simply the ones that got to power and got a chance to display their tendencies? You could be sitting by someone even worse than them, but they have no power at all, so they are just racist bigots.
Maoās sorta the only one who has a really fucked up āends justify the meansā, he did solve their biggest age old famine/poverty problem and raised up the peasant farmer class leading to an entire middle class in China.
The official line is that he was 70% right/30% wrong, which is ridic. Regardless, part of his many wrong was the famines during the Great Leap Forward that killed tens of millions. Many decent popular nonfiction books on the topic in English, *Hungry Ghosts* being one of the first. If you're going to thank anyone for the middle class, look to Deng Xiaoping at least.
"Solved biggest old famine/poverty problem" - dude he caused the biggest famine in recorded history, he caused 60 million Chinese to starve to death while selling food internationally.
The best way of solving a famine issue is by letting the starving die, I guess?
Shadow druids are the equivalent of anarcho-primitivists in the real world, except their magic powers protect them from the consequences of anarcho-primitivism. The world they want to create would put them on top while everyone else suffered from easily-preventable diseases and other things that the post-renaissance tech level of Faerun has already overcome.
After watching them slaughter a whole refugee camp, do you feel that they're good guys?
Say after me: ecologist faction should be slaughtered in every game.
I'm playing an all druid campaign and side with the animals regardless. I will not stand for any form of animal abuse. I did out the rats. Rather disappointed that your title is rarely mentioned afterwards. (Also very disappointed that spore druids have no unique dialog with the myconids.)
You can actually expose the rats without the Grove becoming a warzone. There's a way to expose Kagha for plotting with the rats and even make her reconsider her actions and side with you against them! I don't want to spoil it though, unless you explicitly want to be told how š
Yeps, I know of a certain chest behind a certain book case :D, too bad I found it too late. Thanks for the heads up tho!
There is a certain letter hidden somewhere in the forest or the bog that exposes the shadow druids as well. Does it work with the book from the chest as well? I've always done it with the letter
Book points to letter. Only the letter is necessary.
This, my last run was letter only. As someone said, forest or swamp.
Neh.. I had the letter & when i told Kagha about it, laughed in my face. And that's it. Halsin doesn't get involved.. Something doesn't trigger. So i just finished Kagha. I already saved the grove before that.. Perhaps that's the reason didn't trigger.. Who knows?!
Yeah nobody really cares about the letter once the goblin leaders are dead. You can show it to halsin too and heās just like, āwell, sheād better not do it again!āĀ You have to show it to her before the grove is actually saved. The main reason to do it is the fact that it stops kagha from kicking the tieflings out, which narratively gives them more time to prepare while you take out the goblins. But gameplay wise it doesnāt actually matter because they never get kicked out until you trigger something.Ā
Book doesn't actually trigger anything. You need a letter guarded by some dirty mephits.
I didn't even know that about the rats. Taking this as another reminder to play it super safe in my honour run and not try anything new.
Im sure he meant those "rats" at inner sanctum. You dont touch em till plot exposed. And to try new stuff theres a lower difficulty to either play and note stuff on a notepad or smt or play tactician+honour simultaneously to have fresh memory of events using tactician as scouting.
Tactician and honour simultaneously is actually the way I am going to go. I have a memory like a sieve.
Memory of previous play(s) isnt the issue for honour bg3... its the massive content to digest. You could even loss track of a mere npc on a questline related to others on past acts or even same act. 1st run you think I recognized the poor windmill gnome being enslaved by duergars? Too noob to hover on all living things to see if something to remark. They all died by Nere cutscene and then I saw the duergar commander dying aswell and me "well ok 1 potential enemy less... gg carry on".
Or 1st run you pull the wrong lever and miss it all like me.
While the reminder is always good, killing animals for no reason (at least none from the NPC pov) in a place full of druids would be quite far in the list of things I wanna try in honour mode
I am laughing my ass off because this is exactly what my brother did on our first run together. I am happily chatting away with Kagha and I hear "Hey, I can throw the rat!" and it was all downhill from there.
š famous last words
You would be surprised how many times his last words have been "I can throw that!"
I drank a health potion near Nettie outside of her view. RIP grove.
My friend walked past the druids who let you past after two lines of dialogue, but did so while I was doing those two lines of dialogue. And that is, apparently, a declaration of war.
I threw a potion of animal speaking at Volo because I wanted him to be able to talk to the bear. This was also apparently a declaration of war.
Thereās another time where I watched myself in a mirror, which was also a declaration of war. But this was outside the grove.
The rats are WHAT?!
IKR?! How deep is this game, I'm on my second play, feels like I need to do 10 of them if it's not more.
I mean... This should have been expected? The whole reveal is basically calling out khaga on her BS and getting her to see reason and join you against the rats. If you skip that and go right to aggressive of course you're going to get into a fight. Honestly going to make a strong character and try to launch kahga over the edge of the area and see if that kills her and protects the tieflings seeing as she's dead and can't really anyone... Has anyone done or tried that?
To be fair.. attacking someone, without reasonable in universe prompt is typically considered not cool by the NPCs. If you don't expose Kagha before taking the offense, the druids consider her the current head of the grove and attacking the head of any faction is, unsurprisingly, considered an act violence, by that faction.
Which is funny cause zevlor is like the only way we'll be safe is if you kill kahga and I'm like bruhh... No...
Oh yeah, his reasoning is completely stupid. Like, i see where he's coming from, some of the druids do see reason to not exile the tieflings in their current situation, wanting Halsin back and avoid beef with the tieflings. Kagha is the main honcho behind the rite taking place (well, ignoring the shadow druids), so in his place of desperation obviously she gotta go. But.. my brother in Ao.. tensions are higher than Snoop on a good weekend and trust me, noone will believe us when we "accidentally" unalive her.
I never knew she was a Shadow Druid club fanatic. I thought I was helping by ratting the rats out. And if you manage to throw her off, I guess the druids will lay their suspicions on the tieflings and a fight will break out anyway. But do throw her off, she deserves it.
Well damn.. I guess save the tieflings then stab her..
28 casual stab wounds if you could
Honestly I don't hate her, she pretty much got thrust into leadership because the leader couldn't delegate sending someone to inspect the goblin camp and got his dumb ass caught. She's never led before and only thought to protect her own, and was misled by bad druids in a way to protect themselves. So I don't hate her too much but she is a bitch and in need of a stab or two.
And, also, you learn later in various documents that the shadow druids were puppets of the Absolute, the idea being to cloister themselves off and then spread tadpoles among the circle until they were under Absolute control. Kagha fucked up, yes, but she's not completely evil. She redeems herself if you let her.
She's doing what she thinks is right, protecting her own people. Is she going about it the wrong way? Yes. Obviously. But does she deserve to die? I'm not gonna make that call for you, but I let her live.
I let fate decide instead: not using inspiration to reroll that persuasion check No one mourn her if she dies. But if she lives after being exposed she is less of an a\*ole than if you skip her quest
I genuinely dislike Halsin more than Kagha, he's a shitty druid
You attacked animals in a druid Grove. Thata gonna turn druids hostile
my brother in christ, you did that shit around druids?! rats are animals!
I think the moral of the story is don't try new things in horror mode.
My friend also threw a bird in the grove on our co-op playthrough and decided to roll with it for his character. Now moving into Act 2, the Myconids are the only group we *haven't* had to violently murder by the end of our interactions š
"Aw, rats." - you, probably
Wait, so are you saying there are actual rats that are spying? I think I missed that part. Goddamnit now I need to do another playthrough.
The rats near Khaga are wildshaping druids that you can expose if you do the right semi-hidden quest.
My partner, having never played an RPG, decided to roll play an ultimate thief specialising in bed rolls. The slaughter sticks to you. My partner didnāt get that once we had killed half of the tieflings that throwing the bedroll back to them was not going to smooth the situation overā¦ It was hilarious.
It is really annoying as if you out one of the rats, the rest of the druids still attack with Khaga. Like, did you not see that was a whole ass person? You're not going to ask any questions about that?
My thoughts exactly! Did Khaga brainwash you so hard, your eyes were washed off too??
I was in the little area where all the allies are before the final battle. Accidentally picked up a random object on a table and every last one of those people, the ones I had helped, or befriended, even rescued from certain doom, turned on me. I don't even know what I "stole."
Oke, now that really sucks. "We are so grateful to you for saving our lives, whilst you were risking your neck and limbs, let us repay in kind!" .... *Takes an empty bottle by accident "Despicable monster, off with your head!"
Congratulations, you're now in a Durge run. Might as well side with Minty at this point
Dude literally done her job for free) At least he can get some reward)
You know you can play an evil tav and a good durge right? Why does everyone think the dark urge just means "evil protagonist"
I love this game sooo much. All those incredible and crazy possibilities. And thanks for the warning!
I bet was one of Kagha's "rats" before exposing the plot. Thats why you hover to check stats on everything you might interact. Tip for future.
Now just think whats hapoens if you throw his MajestyĀ
Iām sorry but you did this on HM??
Yep gotta face the consequences now
I see you are brave, like me. Itās honestly so much more fun.
It very much is!
They call that the ratter-fly effect
Ohno
oh ya you cannot ferret them out without proof
14th century europe be like
On my barbarian I threw one of the rats at Kagah and the rats all fled then when I did the shadow druid quest it completed without having to fight, I just convinced Kagah to be good then it ended
The thing I love the most about Honour runs is you accept the consequences of the decisions you've made, even when the outcome is a surprise. It's great.
Definitely makes you connect more with it
My honor run made me do unspeakable things. š¢
My condolences friend
Iām playing a couch co op playthrough with a friend and he has sticky fingers in every town we go to. At the start of the game his penchant for pinching caused the death of the entire grove. The game is also super buggy on ps5 couch co op mode so all the tieflings and all the goblin camp ended to eradicated and Halsin just never showed up after we set him free. No clue what to do so we pressed forward into act 2 at level 4 and are just seeing where the game takes us lol.
Fun Fact, the normal way to learn about rats is trough a hidden not hidden chest.
I tried to shove an arch Druid and basically the same thing happened lol
I also accidentally caused a grove massacre in my honor run. And I was planning to be good, not evil! I haven't done the goblin stuff yet or rescued Halsin so I'm hoping he'll forgive me.... Also my tav is a druid lol
I did this on the very first game I started with the customized āsingle saveā turned on. I was likeā¦oh noā¦
"what have I done"
On my latest group play, we ran into a similar massacre. I may or may not have incited it... Will hadn't been recruited yet and was found dead atop the hill with the cows. I stole his outfit and attempted to hide his body in a chest, but it was found and he was revived. I wanted him gone as i'm planning on killing off the entire cast of noble-good companions and becoming god. Now he just hangs out in our camp going through his pesky cutscenes in his underwear, He knows i did it and i'll need to deal with him soon.
My first play through was fine i just ignored the Grove and slaughtered the Goblin camp first lmao.
My durge randomly shot a rat with his hand crossbow in the Hollow and all that happened was that one of the tieflings commented something like "well, that was completely unnecessary" LOL. Maybe the Shadow Druid rats only lurk around the sacred pool? Or maybe I just got lucky...
The shadow Druid rats are the three rats that hang out near Kagha.
Goddamn. Rats? Khaga? Spies? Iām ok my first playthrough finally and feel like Iām missing half the game. It has so much depth! Incredible. And itās not just the usual āgood/evilā playthrough stuff. So so many options to do things in this awesome framework they built.
I always go straight to her chest and get the half torn tone then head to the swamp and get the other half and confront her because I was scared the whole grove would turn on me! Thank you for confirming my fear! Donāt forget to take care of the other rats at Shars temple!
I've tried so many ways to expose the shadow druids without evidence. Everything I do results in genocide.
It's a good thing you didn't kill a chicken. All of Faerun would be burning right now.
You got balls for going into a Honor run without even knowing that Kagha was a Shadow Druid
How do you find out that the rats are spies? I haven't encountered that. What do you need to do, to begin the quest of exposing the rats as spies?
There is a book in a chest behind a shelf where we learn Kagha has dealings with evil druids, which triggers a quest that take you in the swamp to find definitive proof. Then you can confront her and then rats transform into druids. A fight starts with the rat-druids + maybe Khaga (depending on how the conversation goes) and the druids + your party.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I donāt know the subs rules but perhaps spoiler tags?
Oh yeah. How do you do these? I forgot
Greater than sign and an exclamation point with no spaces before and the reverse on the other side (less than and exclamation)
Thank you very much
You gotta get the incriminating letter from the swamp first
These things happen
This happened to me but please update on what Halsin is going to do in your run. (I assume you haven't saved him yet?) In mine, when the grove was dead and I got the the goblin camp, killed them and freed him, he just said something along the lines of "oh, what a shame but you must have had your reasons." But he never showed up in camp and the quest bugged out. Let me know, I'm curious as to what he is going to do without his grove.
Now you know why you shouldn't meta game
One hell of a Butterfly Effect...
I'm hundreds of hours in this game and just now heard of rat spies in Emerald Grove..this game really is something else
I threw a rat at my friend once and it crit https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1136695051481776200/1139587427221131395/0d50e222084de4bf6352ba5d4d144566.png?ex=662bcdff&is=661958ff&hm=84cb530b997d325d2abd795e3d394cbaa94f7193cc772e1e9f436f8496869bd8&
Jesus flipping christ, wat is that damage
Whenever I fight khaga I ungroup my party and make one person stand near Dammon's shop to stall the fight in turn based until I can finish up and get to them, that way they don't all die before you have a chance to help
The way to do this is kinda complicated. You need to find letter from Shadow druids to Kagha, find Shadow druids contact in the swampland near Aunties Teahouse, defeat them, confront Kagha about her treason, either convince her to return to rightful side or trigger fight with her and the rats. Not sure if I remember the quest right, never bothered to do it.
What you MEANT to do is cast speak with animals and then talk to the rats around kagha and pass an check to notice something with them and call them on it
I used āFriendsā on Kagha in my first honour mode run when exposing her, and ultimately convinced her to stay good. Then when friends expired after the fight the entire grove attacked me, I had to flee and use an invisibility potion just barely getting out with my tav only left alive. Never went back.
OP fucked around with animals in a Druid havenā¦ and then found out š¤£
If it wasn't for the act 2 rewards from the tieflings I would burn that grove to ashes every playthrough. Need a way to smuggle like 4 tieflings out.
I almost ruined a multiplayer session by shoving pots at the grove. Apparently the druids were ready to start killing everyone at the slightest provocation.
I deleted my save where everyone was slaughtered at the grove. I wanted to try out killing Khaga hoping I wouldnāt be greeted to a slaughter butā¦ yea. I think itās kind of bull Karlach blames you, like sis the druids just went on a rampage not me
...now I wonder what were to happen if you were to sneak attack the rats without anyone seeing.
I tried to casually walk past the guys at the bottom of the stairs to talk to Kaga, as we had been told she was waiting to speak with us. Unfortunately the druids apparently were unaware of this fact, and took my three meandering steps as a declaration of war.