The best thing about Baldur's Gate 3's Dark Urge is that I get to wear a nice murder cape

ONCE AGAIN, SPOILERS. PLEASE DO NOT READ BECAUSE THERE ARE SPOILERS PRESENT. SPOILERS. HEY LOOK SPOILERS.

I'm playing Edders Sheeran in Baldur's Gate 3, a bard with a Dark Urge to lash out and murder largely anything and everything. He doesn't know what causes it, and he doesn't know when the urge might strike. For a first playthrough, it's been a learning experience. Namely, I have learned that friends aren't safe, lest I puncture their guts with my bare fists in the middle of the night.

I thought the urge would only bring downsides (what you'd normally get as a murderer), but I've also learned that it actually has benefits? You get capes in exchange for pulping people! I love capes! Here's to more of them.

In my last Dark Urge Diaries entry, I mentioned I'd butchered the poor Alfira, a lovely bard who offered to join my party. Not only did it make me fearful of long rests at camp, but it also hammered home that the urge arrives fitfully, disrupting your routine when you least expect it. And, I suppose, robs you of a stable relationship with your mates. I mean, I think Wyll and I are close, but I could wake up one day and used his head as a bowl to sup his brain stew from.

I thought maybe the urge would steer me down a stereotypical descent into madness, perhaps hitting me with a flashback where I'd been tormented by a horrible demon and transformed into a sleeper agent (I suppose, this could still come true). Instead, I was visited by a little gremlin man with a nice hat.

The little gremlin man is called Sceleritas Fel and I'd describe him as looking a bit like those turtles from Super Mario Bros but if you crossed them with a steel toe cap boot and a velociraptor. He's my butler, apparently, and he's been looking for me for ages. It was only thanks to my recent murder of Alfira that he managed to find me. Of course, I took the opportunity to ask about my past, only for him to say he couldn't tell me just yet because "our betters" would not allow it. Clearly, there's some horrid higher-ups who've got me on lockdown.

Instead of offering any real information as to why I'm a psychopath and/or potential details on whether I'm some royalty in the mass murderer scene, the little gremlin man gave me a fetching red cape. It's called The Deathstalker's Mantle and it makes me invisible if I get a kill. He referred to me as "Milord," and my murders as "spontaneous little outbursts of joy". And then he basically said, "Keep on trucking and I may present you with more silk products", before warping off to another realm. While I don't often do much damage in actual combat (oh the irony), I am very pleased with my cape. I liken it to a wearable red flag I can wave to and fro as I potter about the realms.

What's my takeaway from the encounter with Scleritas? I am someone who has a butler, and that means I am probably a devilish nepo baby of the greatest murderer in the lands. I might not be looking forward to murdering my good pals, but man, am I looking forward to my next cape. I hope it's green! That'd be nice.