11 New Characters revealed in Baldur’s Gate III?

Beware! While absolutely none of the following is confirmed there is a possibility it contains spoilers for the rest of Baldur’s Gate III (BG3). If you’d rather remain blissfully unaware of potential surprises. I’d look away now.

Method of Deduction:

Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) recently released Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate (BBG), a set of 401 new Magic the Gathering (MTG) cards inspired by the titular city. The cards are a mixture of generic D&D magical items, creatures, spells, features etc. but among them are a number of named characters. While most of these stem from existing properties, such as the Baldur’s Gate game series (including BG3), novels, Forgotten Realms Lore, and pre-written adventures, there are a total of eleven characters that I don’t believe can be sourced. Given that there are no other major Baldur’s Gate novels or properties in production (that we know of) I believe these characters could be from BG3.

Of course, it’s possible that these new characters aren’t representative of anything at all, and have simply been created to fulfill a necessity. For those none MTG players, you’ll notice that all of these character cards are ‘Legendary’, a term that means only one of these cards can exist on your side of the battlefield at any one time. This restriction (while less prevalent in the Commander format- but we won’t get into that) is a means of allowing more powerful creature cards while limiting the ability for you to stack multiples of them against your opponent.

Theoretically, the design of some (dare I say, most) cards starts by determining abilities, stats, and mechanics and then applying some flavour to them. Some of those cards would necessitate the ‘Legendary’ treatment given their ability to run away with the show pretty quickly if they could be easily duplicated. Therefore it’s possible that D&D-esque names were applied as nothing more than a means to an end. Given the number of obscure, only tangentially-related characters already employed elsewhere, plus the number of unused characters from even remotely Baldurian lore, I believe these characters have not been created in isolation.

The Characters:

Merchant in Baldur’s Gate?

Candlekeep is close to Baldur’s Gate, and given it’s prominence in the Candlekeep Mysteries book, a possible location in-game?

We see the Githyanki riding red dragons in the opening cutscene, could this be one of the hunters from that first assault. Possibly Laezel’s mount?

This card (plus a few more) fit into another theory I have about BG3. It’s possible this is a potential companion given that the ‘Shaman’ type in MTG is basically a replacement for Sorcerer when it comes to the D&D sets.

Gloom Stalker subclass for Ranger confirmed? Looks like the kind of character we’d meet in the Underdark.

Drakewarden subclass for Ranger confirmed? The Ranger alterations made in BG3 produced a very enjoyable and viable class, it would be great to see some newer subclasses in action.

It’s a Flumph! Another denizen of the Underdark no doubt.

Dragonborn Bard, possibly met in Baldur’s Gate judging by the background. College of Spirits too if the spectral blue images are an indication.

The alternate art card for this makes it a little clearer that it’s a Dragonborn Sorcerer.

It would have been a fairly safe guess, but the flavour text here confirms Oji is a Way of the Kensei Monk. Interestingly it specifically says “Path of the Kensei”, BG3 dropped the “Path of the…” pretext from the Barbarian subclasses, could they have wound up attributed to the Monk class instead?

Whilst the other cards come from the 361 new BBG cards, Burakos is one of only 40 new cards packaged in the prebuilt Commander Deck products for this set. In this case, he comes from the ‘Party Time’ deck. Of all the cards in this list, this is the most likely to have been created out of necessity for a Legendary card with a distinctive flavour.

Conclusion

Of the eleven cards identified, none seem wholly incompatible with BG3, either in terms of style or likelihood of inclusion within the narrative. In fact some cards, such as Ganax may actually depict characters already seen but not named. It’s possible that just as all of the currently recruitable BG3 companions can be found as cards in this set (sometimes multiple), future companions have already been added to the collection too. Look no further than the all but confirmed inclusion of Karlach to see how there might be other possible companions within the list above.

Probably a companion. Definitely awesome.

Either way, I imagine the likelihood of none of these characters showing up in BG3 to be pretty low. Whether they’re NPCs or companions, enemies or allies, quest-givers or romantic obsession (I’m looking at you Gluntch), the prospect of meeting any or all of these within the game has me profoundly intrigued.

What’s more. I believe this set yields further potential clues for BG3, even adding some weight to a theory I’ve held since very early on in the Early Access (and one I’ll continue to pine for long after it’s proven wrong). We’ll be covering some of those theories in more depth over the next few weeks.

Got an idea of your own? Drop or link your own theory in the comments!