How To Complete House Of Grief (Walkthrough)

Entering the House of Grief is the final step of Shadowheart’s Daughter of Darkness companion quest in Baldur’s Gate 3. This seemingly innocuous building in the Lower City houses the disciples of Shar, Goddess of Darkness and Lady of Loss. By visiting the Sharrans, players can bring Shadowheart’s companion quest to a satisfying conclusion. However, tough battles and choices await.

[Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Baldur’s Gate 3.]

Baldur’s Gate 3 is all about choices, so you might have different reasons for bringing Shadowheart to the House of Grief. In Act One, players can win her trust and learn more about her, including her goal of becoming one of Shar’s devoted Dark Justiciars. In Act Two, the party can bring her to complete the Gauntlet of Shar and its trials, which has significant consequences for Shadowheart’s companion quest going forward.

Preparing To Visit The House Of Grief

If you chose to free the Nightsong and help Shadowheart turn against Shar and search for her captive parents. However, it’s also possible to convince her to continue to worship Shar. At this point, her reasons for wanting to find the House of Grief are quite different. Regardless of her reasons, the House of Grief can be extremely challenging.

Using one of Baldur’s Gate 3’s best party compositions is an excellent first step. However, it’s important to keep in mind that the party will be facing enemies with specific abilities that can seriously restrict spellcasting. A tanky, melee-focused companion such as Karlach is essential, and you may also want to consider bringing Lae’zel for her superior mobility and high DPS.

We also found Jaheira to be an excellent choice. As a Druid, Jaheira can Wild Shape into an Owlbear, an iconic Dungeons and Dragons beast with high health and mobility, as well as close-range melee attacks and a jump attack that can crush and knock down multiple enemies. She also has useful spells for dishing out area-of-effect damage and creating chokepoints.

How To Find And Enter The House Of Grief

The party can visit the House of Grief in Act Three once they’ve gained access to the Lower City. It’s located in the northwestern corner of the Lower City, close to the Baldur’s Gate fast travel point, as shown on the map above. Outside, you can chat with a few NPCs who visited the House of Grief and emerged with amnesia.

Inside, talk to Mirie at the front desk. She will recognize Shadowheart, and they’ll trade a few pointed remarks about betrayal and treachery. However, she won’t be actively hostile and instead insists that the party submit to the Mapping of the Heart.

It’s possible to attack immediately and put every person in the building to the sword. However, as far as we could tell, there’s no actual disadvantage to doing the ritual. Mirie will lead everyone to a small room and instruct them to sit on the Granite Bench. Any character can sit on the bench, but it’s best to let Shadowheart do it for story purposes.

A strange figure will appear and scold Shadowheart for her betrayal. It’s revealed that she’s speaking to a projection of Viconia deVir, Mother Superior of the Disciples of Shar.

The party can proceed through the passageway that opens up and confront Viconia straight away. However, before heading further down, it’s highly recommended that you explore the Interrogation and Infiltration Training rooms by lockpicking the doors.

This takes a skill check of 15, but there’s plenty of useful loot and some dialogue with Shadowheart that reveals more about her past.

How To Defeat Viconia deVir, Mother Superior Of Shar

Follow the stairs down into the underground chamber, past the sentry. It’s highly recommended you save before confronting Viconia. Players shouldn’t be afraid of save-scumming in Baldur’s Gate 3, and the upcoming fight can be extremely tough. A cutscene will trigger, where the party finally confronts Viconia in person.

Notably, Viconia will offer to let you walk away and receive aid from the Sharrans in the final battle against the Absolute, but only if you give Shadowheart up.

This triggers a big fight with Viconia and over twenty Disciples of Shar – a long and grueling battle even for veteran cRPG fans. The best approach we found was to retreat up the stairs you came down and create a chokepoint at the bottom of the stairs. A well-built Druid can create some problematic terrain using Entangle, Spike Growth, or Plant Growth to slow enemies down, allowing spellcasters to hit them with some of Baldur’s Gate 3’s best spells.

Viconia isn’t too tough alone, so she’s not the main priority. Instead, focus on taking out as many Disciples as possible within a single turn, as they can do a surprising amount of damage across all their turns. Area-of-effect damage is the best way to clear them out.

If you get close to being wiped out, consider using the Divine Intervention ability, which is exclusive to Clerics. Divine Intervention can heal the party, do massive damage to multiple enemies, spawn a legendary magical mace, or provide camp supplies. However, a character can only use it once per campaign, so use it wisely.

Focus on taking out Sharran Fidelians and Justiciar Crusaders first. The Fidelians are fond of casting Darkness, which creates patches of dark fog that inflicts the Blindness effect. Spellcasters can’t fire off magic spells while inside the fog and can’t target enemies concealed inside them. This can seriously weaken any party members relying on spells, so taking out the Fidelians is important.

Viconia will transform into a wolf to frighten Shadowheart and cast the Wayward Heart debuff on her. However, despite having powerful AOE spells such as Spirit Guardians, she’s fairly easy to kill once she doesn’t have any reinforcements.

Once the battle is over, you can speak to her and let Shadowheart ask for some information. Ultimately, she will leave Viconia’s fate in your hands, and you can kill or let her go. If she is killed, make sure to loot her body for some useful items:

• The Handmaiden’s Mace, which sets the wielder’s strength to 18 and deals 1d6 +1 bludgeoning and 1d6 extra poison damage.
• Viconia’s Priestess Robe, which gives the wearer an advantage on Stealth Checks and provides a +2 bonus to all Saving Throws when using Shield of Faith.
• Viconia’s Walking Fortress is a shield that gives the wielder a reaction to melee attacks that deal 2-8 Force Damage and can knock an enemy prone. It also gives the wielder an advantage on Saving Throws against spells, and spells also have a Disadvantage when attacking the wielder.
• Viconia’s Personal Chest Key.

These items are perfect for any Baldur’s Gate 3 Cleric and are worth picking up. Make sure to loot the side areas and rooms. In one, you can find Nocturne, apparently an old friend of Shadowheart’s. She won’t be hostile and will stick around to trade until the party has a Long Rest.

How To Rescue Shadowheart’s Parents

Once Viconia’s fate is decided, all that remains is to find Shadowheart’s parents. The party will need to enter the chamber at the back of the room. This requires a Silver Key, which can be looted from Sharran Fidelian’s body.

Inside, you will find Shadowheart’s parents, Arnell and Emmeline, chained by arcane magic. However, things won’t be easy, as Shar appears to force her formerly loyal Cleric to make an impossible choice.

It turns out that Shadowheart can only free her parents if she chooses to stay loyal to Shar. She has to choose between freeing her parents, and letting them die to finally free herself from Shar’s grip.

The player character has a few choices:

• Encourage Shadowheart to save her parents.
• Encourage Shadowheart to save herself.
• Let Shadowheart make the decision.

It turns out that Shadowheart can only free her parents if she chooses to stay loyal to Shar. She has to choose between freeing her parents and letting them die to free herself from Shar’s grip.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

How To Use The Mirror Of Loss

Deciding the fate of Shadowheart’s parents concludes the Daughter of Darkness companion quest. However, the House of Grief has a few more exciting things. Just beyond where Shadowheart’s parents were imprisoned is Baldur’s Gate 3’s Mirror of Loss. Players can pass a Religion or Arcana check to figure out that they can surrender a memory in return for a stat boost.

This leads to seven choices about which memories to give up. Six options correspond with one of the character’s stats, which will be reduced by two points. However, it’s also possible to deceive the Mirror and offer up a false memory, which requires passing a Deception (20) skill check.

It’s worth noting that you don’t seem to receive any tangible reward from surrendering a memory. It’s possible that surrendering a false memory produces no reward or that this is an odd bug. Regardless, the player can leave the House of Grief and return to their party camp to hear Shadowheart’s thoughts about the end of her companion quest in Baldur’s Gate 3​​​​​​​.