After what feels like a day’s worth of work, you sit proudly, gazing at your creation. You decided to roll with the paladin class for this playthrough, a noble, holy warrior defined by the oath they swore to uphold regardless of the cost. Your oath? The oath of vengeance. Setting aside your own purity, you vow to deliver justice to all who have committed the most heinous of sins without a second thought. That is, of course, until you do have such a thought. You make your choice, reneging on your oath and becoming a tarnished soul. ‘Oathbreaker’ they call you, abandoning light for darkness.  

Or, at least, that is what the game tells you. 

During my most recent playthrough of the award-winning Baldur’s Gate 3  by Larian Studios, I set out with the intention of picking the most realistic options that would represent me in the real world. This was very different to previous playthroughs where I would pick what I thought my character would do. Admittedly, I picked the paladin class having learned that you can indeed break your oath and that appealed to my early 2000s background of “dark, edgy characters are cool”. But this was not too farfetched as, much like the real world, Baldur’s Gate 3 offers many complex moral choices that are not always as simple as “this choice is good” and “that choice is bad”. Sometimes, the oath you have sworn to uphold is not always the right path.  

However, the breaking of my oath came sooner than expected, taking place in the Goblin Camp in Act 1. I had just rescued the druid Halsin from his plight in the camp’s prison to which he thanked me and requested that I go through the camp, wiping out the three leaders who planned a siege on the Emerald Grove. Halsin’s home was populated by druids and Tiefling refugees who I had grown quite fond of during my journey. The leader of these refugees, Zevlor, had also asked me to do something similar. At this point in my playthrough, the Emerald Grove had been taken under new management by a character called Kagha, a wood elf who had named herself the first druid in Halsin’s absence. Kagha sought to perform the Rite of Thorns to seal the Grove off, no matter the consequences. She also carried a strong disliking for Tiefling refugees, wanting to exile them from the Grove where they would surely be cut down by a pack of bloodthirsty goblins, hence, Zevlor’s request. He understood that the Tieflings are weak and unable to defend themselves on the road.  

“These people need a bit of faith,” I had said to myself. 

Cut back to the Goblin Camp, and my character was face to face with Minthara, drow leader of the Goblin army, member of the cult of the absolute and, most importantly, someone who has committed some grievous sins.  

Prime target for an Oath of Vengeance paladin, one might say.  

During the dialogue, Minthara attempted to peer into my mind to see the location of the Grove that she so desperately wanted. I had let her in. Having learned that the Tieflings trust me, the drow hatched a cunning plan. She wished me to return to the grove, as a friend, and, once she and her merry band of goblins amassed outside the gates, I would simply slit Zevlor’s throat, open the gates and let a massacre take place. The game’s narrator does a very good job of detailing the variety of choices you could make here, as her ethereal voice says:  

    “The fate of the grove’s inhabitants hangs in the balance. Killing the drow here would spare them, but it might be better to face her warband at the grove itself, on familiar ground. On the other hand, participating in the slaughter as she asks may be the perfect way to earn her trust, and access to the cult’s inner circle.” 

The game then gives me four choices, two of which are most important: 

1. I’ll get it done. 

2. You misunderstand. I’m here to slaughter you.  

For a paladin, the choice is obvious. In fact, the game displays ‘Oath of Vengeance Paladin’ in little brackets next to option 2. However, my mind began to wander. Taking on the leadership of this goblin army in the very centre of the lion’s den whilst being vastly outnumbered doesn’t seem like the best option for my health. Not only that, but the Tieflings need something worth fighting for; they need to believe they are strong enough to survive the cruel world of Baldur’s Gate. Plus, we would have a better chance of purging the world of this evil in greater numbers. Of course, these thoughts are not part of the game and are only part of my imagination, but they do inform my decision. I decided to go along with Minthara’s plan until the last moment where, instead of opening the gates, I would rally the Tieflings and reinforce the grove. Plus, I liked the Helm’s Deep feel I got from defending the Grove in this way. I selected option 1. The conversation ended. But before I could move, I was thrown into a new cutscene, and the narrator’s voice returned: 

“A spasm grips your chest. Your strength falters. An emptiness grows within you, paladin. Something has been lost.”  

There was a flash of red, and I was met with a tall knight clad in black and gold armour with an extremely thick, husky Scottish accent. He is called Oathbreaker Knight. 

“You have broken your oath, paladin,” he said. “At the close of day, I will be waiting for you. We have much to discuss.”  

Here is where the already complex subject of good and evil becomes even more blurred in the world of Baldur’s Gate 3. After speaking to the knight, I learned that I am now ‘Oathbreaker’ and that the “light within [me] fades”. The Oathbreaker Knight told me that “darkness will obey [my] summons. The dead will march to [my] rhythm”. Further, my character’s levelling steered away from the Oath of Vengeance paladin class, where, upon each level, I obtain ‘necrotic’ and ‘frighten’ abilities along with other enchantments that effectively allow me to scare my enemies into submission and animate the dead to do my bidding. At level 1, I gain ‘Spiteful Suffering’, at level 3, ‘Control Undead’, level 5, ‘Crown of Madness’, level 7 ‘Aura of Hate’ and finally, at level 9, I get ‘Bestow Curse’. Typically, abilities like these are associated with evilness across a plethora of game worlds, not to mention, the term necromancy is a form of black magic, first spoken in English in the 17^th century. Plus, there are a hell of a lot of antagonists in works of fantasy that own the title ‘necromancer’, such as J.R.R Tolkien referring to Sauron as ‘The Necromancer’, and you only have to take one look at HBO’s depiction of George R. Martin’s ‘The Night King’ as he raises the dead with a dramatic elevation of his hands to know he is the villain. 

Evil, evil, evil.  

To add to this, even my dialogue options are affected by this new way of life. Gone are my stoic, Batman-esque ‘Oath of Vengeance Paladin’ choices, instead, I now have ‘Oathbreaker’ in not so stoic brackets next to options that essentially translate to,  

“You want to murder these innocent NPCs? Count me in.”  

However, should you decide to go back and speak to Oathbreaker Knight (because, well, he looks cool, doesn’t he?) you have the option to learn of his past and how he fell into this supposed darkness.

“I served a noble lord. I fought for him without question or restraint. Where his light shone, my sword followed. In his name, I razed villages, put thousands to the sword. I believed our greater purpose required such brutality; such sacrifice. But his light was so radiant, it blinded me to all else. I could not see the darkness and corruption of the path he led me down. When I finally saw the truth, he would not be reasoned with. So, I ended him. For this, I was called ‘Oathbreaker’.”  

Whilst, in the worlds of Baldur’s Gate and Dungeons & Dragons, paladins do not specifically follow gods or deities, the higher power that rules their oaths and decides to abandon them needs to check its priorities. The story of Oathbreaker Knight is rather tragic. He served his lord loyally until he woke up and saw that the man was not righteous and, instead, displayed all the tendencies one would commonly find in a villain. So, he struck him down, eradicating his evil from the world; and for it, he was rewarded with shadow, branded an Oathbreaker and, as we know, bestowed dark abilities that can disturb the dead from their peace. Yes, I understand as a paladin he committed a punishable error by abandoning his oath to protect his lord, but surely the ends justified the means? Similarly, in fact more so, my choices led to my character being forsaken despite the fact I still upheld my oath by killing the goblin camp leaders, albeit not as soon as the game would have liked me too. Furthermore, I inspired the Tiefling refugees and was deemed a hero by them. Yet still, the dialogue options the game now present to me are representative of a player embarking on an ‘evil’ playthrough.  

One can, of course, choose to repent for their apparent sins and pick up their oath once more, again becoming a holy knight when speaking to Oathbreaker Knight in their camp. However, I refuse to do this. Oathbreaker Knight’s story makes it apparent to me that the so-called good and noble paladin is in fact, not always divine. If choosing to follow a bloodthirsty lord keeps you in a radiant light, then I do not want it. I’d rather live happily in the game’s ‘darkness’ knowing full well I did the right thing. As Oathbreaker Knight says: 

“Regret is for those who would act differently. I feel no such desire”.  

Perhaps all of this was Larian Studios’ intention. Perhaps they wanted the player to think all of this to add to the game’s complexity on the topic of goodness. Or, perhaps, did they simply feel that those players that choose to break their oath will be practising an evil playthrough? I for one am going to take it as an enhancement on the game’s already rich approach to morality, regardless of the fact its coding presents darker options to an Oathbreaker player.