Karlach is the lovely Tiefling Barbarian, who is all bubbly and full of life. If her friendliness and low IQ banter soothe you, you’ll be pleased to know that Karlach’s romance is fairly smooth to get going. Here’s everything you need to know about Karlach’s romance in Baldur’s Gate 3, featuring triggers, features and more.
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A guide on how to romance Karlach in Baldur’s Gate 3. Image via Larian
How to Romance Karlach in Baldur’s Gate 3¶
For the most part, being able to romance Karlach is fairly easy, at least getting to the point anyway. If you save her and convince Wyll not to kill her, you get many good boy points. Continue to do nice things through Act 1, and you’ll encounter a cutscene during a long rest where she straight up wants to “ride you until you see stars.” As she so eloquently puts it.
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From then on, our task for romancing is to continue her storyline. She can’t touch you because the infernal engine makes her too hot to handle. The way to do this is to gather as much infernal Metal as possible, which you can find throughout the game. Any spares you have, give to Dammon, a Tiefling blacksmith you can find in !Druid’s Grove, Last Light Inn and again later on in Baldur’s Gate.
This also means you need to side with the Druids and the Tieflings in Act 1 if you intend to romance her, as you need Dammon to make the romance possible.
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Continue being a goodie and work on getting Infernal Iron to repair her heart throughout the game. Eventually, you can romance her in Act 2 by speaking to Dammon again.
As you progress through the game, you can also see the romance with Karlach is still there, as you can talk about teasing her in camp and what you’d do with her if you could touch her. Make sure to continue to do good dialogue options to make her relationship rise with you over time to have an even better chance of getting the romances to fire properly. Also, she doesn’t seem too bothered about you engaging in romances with another character while you’re not actually dating, so, feel free to sleep with other characters until you get her infernal engine going. We know for certain that sleeping with Lae’zel as a fling still allows you to tease Karlach in Act 1, for example. But, don’t push them too far if you only intend to romance Karlach, just in case there’s a hidden trigger we are unaware of.
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When you get to Act 2, you can cool her down, and actually begin to romance her properly. If you didn’t cool her down in Act 1, make sure to give Dammon two pieces, as it feels like a romance blocker, when in truth, it isn’t. You can thank this Reddit thread for these ‘bugs or not’ pointers.
From then on, you can continue the romance. You can also get a special date scene in Act 3 where you take her for a meal, as she does love going for a good meal. If you do that, you can discuss more Karlach-related issues, and other general actual romantic options.
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Karlach’s Romance Endings in BG3¶
This section is going into some ending spoilers for her storyline. The romance stuff relates to her condition, which is set up in Act 1, with Dammon even saying it’s unstable. When you reach the end of the game, and have options for Karlach, the romance stuff can either continue, or end, depending on options. We will spoiler tag the remaining content in case you want to find her storyline out for yourself. You’ve been warned.
Karlach Story EndingsShow Spoiler
- Turn Karlach into an Illithid
- Allow Karlach to go to Avernus to survive
- Go to Avernus with Karlach
- Wyll goes to Avernus with Karlach
Karlach’s heart starts to give out when you get to the end game. You get it as soon as you enter the game’s final segment when you engage the Elder Brain. This presents a few options for your end-game choices. When you get to the Emperor, one of the unique options is to let Karlach turn into an Illithid. This allows her to control the brain, and end the game for you. But, doing so stops the romance options as she adjusts to her new form.
However, if you let her be herself, then a few options can happen. When you defeat the Elder Brain and arrive at the docks of Baldur’s Gate 3, Karlach’s heart will finally start giving out. It is here where you can eventually make the dialogue option. You can potentially go to Avernus with her and be with her there, going off as a happy couple. However, if Wyll has been getting good relations with her behind her back, typically if it leads to Wyll’s personal storyline not going back to the nobility of Baldur’s Gate, then he can disappear with Karlach to Avernus, since he’s a borderline a devil anyway. If you were romancing her up to this point, Wyll typically goes to Avernus with her, and you have no option to go with them. So, just be aware of that possibility.
Then you can, of course, send her off, telling her she did a good job, Karlach will then proceed to die, as of the Patch 1 content, at any rate. So, note there are some very romantic endings for Karlach’s relationship you may want to consider to close the game on for role-play reasons.
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