Baldur's Gate 3: House Of Grief Guide (2024)

Your resident cleric in Baldur's Gate 3, Shadowheart, has come a long way from the grumpy, prickly girl you met on the beach in Act One. Whether you've followed the dark path of Shar or the light of Selune, your adventure will lead you to the place where all roads lead: Baldur's Gate.

Nestled within this bustling city is the secret cloister of Shar's most faithful and the secrets of Shadowheart's past. Though the House of Grief knows the sorrows of the people of the city, with Shadowheart in your company, you may come to deliver grief to its inhabitants personally.

Updated January 10, 2024, by Sean Murray: If you're looking for the House of Grief in BG3, this guide will tell you where to look and what to do once you get there. We've also updated it with improved formatting and more links to other helpful Baldur's Gate 3 topics.

Where To Find And How To Enter The House Of Grief

The House of Grief is on the far northwestern side of the Lower City of Baldur's Gate, further westward than the Baldur's Gate Waypoint and entrance into the Upper City. You'll have to cross a small bridge to the humble building on the city's outskirts.

Traverse up a set of stairs into a richly clad, crimson room where a blonde elf is standing behind the counter.

Speak with the elf, Mirie, and demand to be let through. She'll tell you to submit to the mapping.

When your dialogue ends, take her cue and walk into the back room, where you'll find an empty space with a marble bench. Sit on the bench with whomever you wish.

An Inquirer of Grief will appear. Shadowheart will be a key part of this conversation, so allow her to "Go ahead" and speak with the woman on the bench.

After a conversation that reveals the inquisitor to be Viconia, the Mother Superior, a door will open. Interact with the door to enter the Cloister of Shar's Embrace.

Descend past the doors on either side of the next room for now (there will be keys later) and to the very bottom of the stairs, where you'll encounter Viconia on the other side of the grand door.

Choices You Can Make In The House Of Grief: Encountering Viconia

Depending on the path your Shadowheart has taken, your encounter with Viconia will differ greatly.

• If you chose to stop Shadowheart and convince her to walk the path of Selune, the light path, you must fight all the enemies in this room.
• If you chose to allow Shadhowheart to walk the path of Shar, the darker path, you can convince the majority of the Shar followers to join you in battle.

In the case of Shadowheart's Shar path, this fight is a cakewalk. You can apply the tips in the fight section of this guide liberally as needed, though you should not suffer much with as many as ten or more allies against Viconia's five.

Shadowheart's Selune path, however, takes no small amount of persistence and strategy.

However, there is a third option. Instead of facing Viconia, you can decide to side with her and betray Shadowheart. When prompted, hand over Shadowheart to Viconia.

This will cause you to completely avoid the encounter and have Lady Shar's faithful join you as allies in the fight against the Elder Brain. The downside is that Shadowheart will permanently leave your group.

How To Defeat Viconia Devir

The first important detail to know about Viconia is that she reflects Radiant damage back against the party and deals it at twice its original value, making this fight especially dangerous for clerics.

With the addition of the disciples' spam-use of Bone Chill and Darkness, healing isn't easy either. Clerics and paladins, in general, may feel useless in this fight at times. Keeping Shadowheart alive as a cleric will be a struggle.

For this fight, we highly recommend bringing at least one spellcaster with large area attacks like:

• Ice Storm
• Fireball
• Wall of Ice / Wall of Thorns / Wall of Fire
• Chain Lightning
• Cloudkill
• Destructive Wave (Thunder-only)
• Cone of Cold
• Hunger of Hadar*
• Thunderwave
• Shatter

They should also bring Counterspell.

The rest of your party is up to your flavor and discretion, though we do recommend ensuring that any party members with Radiant-damage weapons stay away from Viconia.

The other Sharrans are Vulnerable to Radiant damage. As such, you shouldn't put your Radiant weapons away but instead, be smart in who you target and your reactions and plan to have substitute weapons to switch to later when fighting Viconia.

As you approach Viconia to speak with her, separate your spellcaster just before reaching the dialogue zone to ensure your spellcaster is up high on the stairs and not stuck in the danger zone with the rest of the group.

When battle begins, you'll want to try and spread out your party from the bottom of the steps as much and as safely as possible (Misty Step is great for this). The enemies will spam Darkness on any group you have, rendering it not within your best interests to stay.

When it is your spellcaster's turn, we recommend starting your first turn with Ice Storm. This will both take out your enemies and also create a Difficult Terrain that could knock them Prone or, at the very least, slow down their movement.

See Also

How to Get to the House of Grief | Baldur's Gate 3 (BG3)｜Game8

For this fight, you'll want to focus on everyone except Viconia. Their spamming of Darkness and Beckoning Darkness will deal the most damage to you in the early rounds. Bone Chill provides an extra layer of complication.

Additionally, the high-level Justiciars do a much higher average of damage. Viconia, as long as you do not empty her first health bar, will be in the far less threatening form of her wolf.

Use your spellcaster to run crowd-control on the weaker enemies while your remaining party focuses on the high-level Justiciars.

This will be a long and grueling fight. The best strategies here will be those that:

• Prioritize area-attacks.
• Smartly use targeted Radiant damage.
• Ignore Viconia.
• Spread your party thin.
• Counterspell or target enemies that cast Darkness.

Only once all Sharrans are defeated should you attempt to strike Viconia. She does not resist any damage, so attack her with anything that is not Radiant.

Once her wolf form is defeated, she'll revert to her humanoid figure. She'll have everything at her disposal that a Trickster Cleric would. Therefore, her most dangerous action is Sunder the Heretical.

When she uses Sunder the Heretical, you'll likely lose half or more of your party. Having potions or, if your healer(s) survives, healing spells will be key here. With all the other Sharrans gone, Bone Chill will likely not be an issue (if so, only for one round).

After you've survived her Sunder the Heretical, she'll begin using Channel Divinity in an attempt to go Invisible while recovering health. You can undo this with:

• See Invisibility.
• Volo's magic eye.
• Area attacks like Spirit Guardians (Necrotic).

Whittle down her health until she's knocked out.

What To Do With Viconia And How To Get The Legendary Shield: Viconia's Walking Fortress

Once you defeat Viconia, you must speak with her. You'll be granted a few choices:

• Kill Viconia.
• Spare Viconia.
• Have Shadowheart kill Viconia.

If you spare Viconia, you will not be given any of her items, a large loss in loot and the key you will want to reach the back room.

It does not matter who kills Viconia, if that is your choice. Killing her will grant you a few keys and her legendary shield, Viconia's Walking Fortress.

Viconia's Walking Fortress: +3 AC Legendary Shield. Grants Reflective Shell and Warding Bond Actions. Wearer gains Advantage on Saving Throws against spells and spell attacks. When the wearer is hit with a melee attack, they can use their reaction to deal 2d4 Force damage and knock the enemy Prone on a failed Dexterity Saving Throw.

What To Do With Arnell And Emmeline Hallowleaf

This section contains heavy spoilers for Shadowheart's dual questlines. Proceed at your own peril!As you finish the fight with Viconia, use her key to open the large door in the back of the room (the west side up the stairs and behind the Shar offering statue).

Once you enter the next room, descend the stairs to reach Shadowheart's parents hanging from two magical disks. Approach and interact with them while Shadowheart is in your party.

You will have two options:

1. Kill Shadowheart's parents.
2. Save Shadowheart's parents.

The consequences of this choice change depending on which path you choose.

• If you chose the Shar path, killing Shadowheart's parents sends them to Shar's domain to live in loss and agony. Shadowheart's memory will be wiped.
• If you chose the Selune path, killing Shadowheart's parents turns them into Moonmotes that guide Shadowheart with love.
• Sparing Shadowheart's parents will put her in the bad graces of Shar and leave her with an eternal curse of never feeling emotion, but you'll add her parents as NPCs to your camp.

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What To Do With The Mirror Of Loss

The Mirror Of Loss is in the farthest section of the House of Grief. It is behind the location of Arnell and Emmeline Hallowleaf and down the stairs.

This large, purple device can only be used with a high enough Religion (DC20) and Arcana (DC25) check. Both must succeed. Otherwise, you will not receive any bonuses from the mirror.

After the mirror has been unlocked and its purpose determined, you can give up two points in one stat to gain two points in another. Although this does not seem like a great deal, the penalty to your stat is a curse and can be removed by the spell Remove Curse.

As a result, you can gain a permanent +2 stat bonus to any stat of your choice with no consequence.

Where To Find Nocturne

There are only two rooms worth noting within the House of Grief for their contents (although each room will have special dialogue with Shadowheart you may wish to see):

• The Dormitory
• Night Orchid Cave

The Dormitory is on the north side of the central chamber (where you encounter Viconia) behind two large, wooden doors. Open them, and you'll find Nocturne, Shadowheart's childhood friend, inside.

Regardless of which path you have taken, Nocturne is a non-hostile NPC. You can choose to eliminate her regardless, but she is a trader and can fill Shadowheart in on her lost memories.

If you killed Viconia and the rest of the cult, Nocturne will leave permanently after your next long rest. This means long-resting after Viconia is dead but before you speak to Nocturne results in missing her entirely.

After speaking with Nocturne, you can go to the back of the room and unlock Viconia's chest, as well as browse her bookshelves for important books about Shadowheart. Inside Viconia's chest, you can always find a key to her vault in the Counting House.

The Counting House Vault belonging to Viconia is in the lower section. To access it easily, we recommend you follow the Minsc questline.

Where To Find Night Orchid Cave

A hiding place precious to Shadowheart and mentioned by Nocturne - you can find Night Orchid Cave in the southeastern room of the Shar Cloister's central chamber.

You should notice a wooden barricade on the wall. Use your weapon to break it open and discover a ladder. Climb it.

Inside this cave, the only items of note here are the night orchids. Bringing Shadowheart here will unlockspecial dialogue in passing, in conversation with Shadowheart, and in conversation with Nocturne.

We recommend picking all the night orchids here. Give one to Shadowheart - platonically or romantically. This will instigate special dialogue as well as unlock the special achievement: "To Bloom in the Darkest Night."

Note that this can be done with any night orchid in the game, as early as Act One, as long as you've had the dialogue in which Shadowheart reveals it as her favorite flower.