Once you finish choosing/designing your playable avatar in Baldur’s Gate 3, you will be instructed to create a second character the game nebulously refers to as “Your Guardian.” This mysterious figure doesn’t show up again until you are well into the game’s first act, but they are an integral piece of the puzzle that drives Baldur’s Gate 3’s story. Here is everything we’ve managed to dig up about the Guardian in Baldur’s Gate 3.
Who is the Guardian in Baldur’s Gate 3?
The Guardian is one of the many mysteries that presents itself to the player in the opening hours of Baldur’s Gate 3. You’re free to customize the Guardian’s appearance as soon as you boot up the game, but they cannot change their class or stats because the Guardian doesn’t have any. You never assume control over the Guardian at any point during the game’s seventy-five-to-one-hundred-hour primary campaign, but they do play a vital role in one of the many progression paths available to the player.
The Guardian will randomly appear to the player in your dreams whenever you take a Long Rest during Baldur’s Gate 3’s opening act. Unlike every other character you meet, the Guardian tells you NOT to remove the Mind-Flayer tadpole that was painfully inserted into you and the rest of the early-game party members’ heads during the game’s intro cutscene. Instead, the Guardian will insist that the psionic powers the tadpole has given you are a blessing that will aid you in your quest to save the Forgotten Realms.
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The Guardian is essentially a psychic devil on the player’s shoulder, tempting them to embrace your burgeoning psychic abilities and the possibilities they open to you. In this way, the Guardian is an extension of the role-playing dynamic at the heart of Baldur’s Gate 3, and it’s entirely up to the player whether or not to trust them.
Following the Guardian’s advice and refusing to remove the Mind-Flayer tadpole allows you to invest in a unique psychic skill tree that offers bonuses that can be very useful in and out of combat. However, allowing this eldritch magic to take root in your soul will alienate some of your party members. Like so many things in Baldur’ Gate 3, the Guardian will either become a significant presence in your journey through Faerun or a bizarre footnote you encounter briefly and never meet again. The choice is yours.
