When we look at tieflings, we don’t want to say, “Oh, every tiefling is a victim. Those are words I’m always slightly uncomfortable with, because everything’s grayer than that. One thing we are trying to move away from is having these very strict laws of alignment, where it’s good and evil. How it is to be treated as a hero, how it is to be treated as a villain, whether you deserve that or not. We want to look at how it is to be strange in a very strange world, and how it is to be treated in - well, in just about every way. But they’re still probably gonna cut your throat and pick your pockets. In Baldur’s Gate itself … Baldur’s Gate is a place where pretty much anyone can be anything, and no one really blinks, because they’re so used to strange things. We have this world where so many things are possible. Smith: For me personally, I write a lot of tieflings. What spoke out to them in their plight, to you? GamesBeat: It’s interesting you pick up here on the tieflings, because they’re already looked on with suspicion by a number of people. Trying to be good often leads you down darker paths, because you suddenly realize how much prejudice is in the world, how much danger people are in just by being who they are.

It’s a lot harder to be good a lot of the time in our world, because there are so many conflicts going on. Today, we were playing very evil, and evil tends to be quite fun. We’re looking at the events in a very serious way. You get into some of the more intense world-building there. It’s a very traumatic incident, obviously. It’s something that happened very recently to them. The events there - if we spent more time in the druid’s grove where the tieflings are currently hiding out, as you speak to them, a lot of them have a lot to say about what happened. GamesBeat: Descent is really the prologue here. We have a lot to say about the Hells, but not quite yet. But there are more that are coming, and some of them have stronger links to Descent into Avernus as well, and some of them have stronger links to the Hells. Some of the origins stories … you didn’t see every origin today. That’s our link immediately there, but the events that happened in Descent into Avernus are going to come back and haunt people again and again. There’s a huge refugee train of tieflings traveling west from Elturel, and they’re mostly trying to get to Baldur’s Gate. They have devil blood.” They drove them out of the cities. A lot of people turn around and say, “This terrible thing happened.

But the tieflings have been blamed by a lot of people. It was taken to Avernus, and it’s now been returned to Faerûn. Those tieflings have fled from Elturel, and we take the canonical ending for Descent into Avernus that Elturel was saved.

Do you know Descent into Avernus? It’s very strongly linked to our story. But the Hells are very much part of our story. GamesBeat: I saw the icy part, and I was wondering if that was Cania, the Eighth Layer of the Hells, and not Faerûn? Then they go somewhere else, but we’re not going to show that just yet. They start off in Faerûn, and then they fought to the Shadowfell. What part are you going through?Īdam Smith: We’re not going to spoil that just yet. GamesBeat: There’s a mention that the nautiloid chase is going through the Hells. And for more on illithids, their history, and their motivations, please check out an interview I did with D&D lead story designer Christopher Perkins about the mind flayers. This is an edited transcript of our interview.

How a drow may still be evil and still more than you expect.Īnd how goblins see a chance to become more than just cannon fodder for evil masters. How a githyanki and a elf may need to work together to destroy the foul illithid tadpole time-bombs in their brains … and learn from one another, too. How a vampire spawn may overcome his thirst for blood … or revel in it. They want to show the plight of tiefling refugees of a Hells-torn city as they seek hope in a world that’s already predisposed to hate these devil-spawned beings.

Baldurs gate 3 goblin