Baldur’s Gate 3’s greatest villain might actually be the player

If you pick a specific Origin in Baldur’s Gate 3, then the lore suggests that you might actually be one of the main villains of the story.

In Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2, the main character is revealed to be a Bhaalspawn – a child of the God of Murder. When Bhaal learned that he was prophecized to die, he impregnated numerous women across the Forgotten Realms, passing his divine essence into his children, the Bhaalspawn, so that he might be revived through one of them.

If you play the Dark Urge Origin in Baldur’s Gate 3, it’s revealed that you are a Bhaalspawn. You are not the same as the original Bhaalspawn; however, the Dark Urge was directly created by Bhaal using his own blood rather than through procreating with mortals.

When you start a new save file in Baldur’s Gate 3, you can craft your character from the options available in D&D 5e’s Player’s Handbook. The default Dark Urge Origin is a White Dragonborn Sorcerer, though you can change the race/class combo to your liking.

If you’re the person creating the Dark Urge, then the player could be acting as Bhaal at that moment, crafting the perfect mortal avatar for their presence in the Forgotten Realms.

This only applies to the Dark Urge, as the other Origin characters have vastly different backstories, while the Custom Tav is a blank slate, save for the fact that they’re native to Baldur’s Gate.

The Bhaal player theory was discussed in a thread on the Baldur’s Gate 3 Reddit, with many of the responses being about how Bhaal has a problem with creating attractive player characters and ogling them.

There is a certain strange irony to the story of Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, which is about stopping Bhaal’s revival or usurping his place and making him the protagonist at the start of the next game, even if it’s just during character creation. It could be the developers’ way of saying that the Lord of Murder is back, and his mortal progeny are about to start sowing some chaos.