Within the shadow-cursed lands of Baldur's Gate 3, there lies a ruined town once known as Reithwin. Before the area was cursed and plagued by shadow magic, Reithwin was a community much like any other, with a tavern, a temple, and a toll-house on the banks of the Chionthar river. But beneath the surface, all was not well in Reithwin, well before the area was blighted by its curse, and that was due to the presence of the Thorm family.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for Baldur's Gate 3.
Much of the game's second act revolves around Myrkul's chosen, the general Ketheric Thorm, who seeks to take over the world in service of the god of necromancy, and plays a large role in the Absolute's plot. Ketheric and his family once held power over Reithwin from the nearby Moonrise Towers, and their story intertwines with Reithwin's quite a bit. Though the exact details of how Reithwin fell into ruin are not spelled out, clues within the area and the game's story can tell players exactly what put this place into its current state.
Who Are The Members Of The Thorm Family?
A House Of Light And Darkness
The Thorms have not always been antagonistic figures within Faerun. Over a century ago, Ketheric and his wife, Melodia, were devoted followers of Selune, goddess of the moon. They were more benevolent leaders of Reithwin, and their family held positions of power all around town. Ketheric's uncle, Malus, was a surgeon in the nearby House of Hope; his cousin, Gerringothe, was the tollmaster; and his son, Thisobald, was the brewer at the Waning Moon Tavern. His wife and his daughter, Isobel, were involved in leading the town's worship of Selune, though their exact roles aren't confirmed.
The exact relationships between Gerringothe and Thisobald and the rest of the family are nebulous at best. Gerringothe is a Thorm, though her connection to Ketheric is never stated, and it is assumed she is a cousin. Thisobald claims to be Ketheric's son, though Ketheric and Melodia are only referred to as having a daughter, meaning he could have been Ketheric's child with someone else.
The details of how the Thorm family feel from grace are murky, but go something like this: a daughter of Selune, named Dame Aylin, visits Reithwin to grace the town with her presence, and falls in love with Isobel Thorm. Ketheric, who seems to have been less of a devotee to his god than his wife and daughter, is skeptical of Aylin's love, since she is an immortal who will eventually abandon Isobel. But the two form a relationship and, sometime later, Melodia Thorm dies of an unnamed illness.
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This alone drives Ketheric into a maddening grief, but some time later, he also loses his daughter, Isobel. It's implied that she may have caught the same illness as her mother, though Isobel herself admits later on she does not know why or how she died. This is the breaking point for Ketheric, who denounces Selune for letting his family die. He seeks a way to bring them back, and turns to another goddess to do so: Shar, Selune's sister and sworn rival. He allies with other Sharrans and a necromancer named Balthazar, and begins a plot to grant Shar more power.
How Shar's Influence Began To Take Hold
The Lady Of Loss Gains A New Following
Ketheric's first step in his plot is to trap Dame Aylin, the daughter of Selune, whom he associated with his daughter's death. He and Balthazar trick Aylin, luring her into a plane called the Shadowfell and binding her in a soul cage. While Balthazar and Ketheric would eventually experiment upon Aylin, leeching off her immortality, for now, she was simply trapped. Ketheric then amassed an army of Dark Justiciars, elite warriors of Shar, who helped him establish complete control over Reithwin and the surrounding area.
The timeline of how long Ketheric and his army controlled Reithwin is not clear, but seems to have at least been several years, given the construction it must have taken to make things like the secret Sharran sanctuary in the middle of town.
Many of Ketheric's relatives embraced this change: Malus Thorm took to Shar's teachings and practiced sadistic medical experiments; Gerringothe used her toll-house to amass wealth for Ketheric's army; and Thisobald began brewing poisons for Ketheric's soldiers, as well as using his tavern as a way to spy on Reithwin's populus. Because not everyone embraced Shar. There was a secret Selunite resistance in the town, headed by members of the mason's guild, who made secret meeting places beneath their guild and the nearby Last Light Inn.
One member of this resistance was the head mason, who had planned out the construction of Moonrise Towers long ago, and for that reason felt personally responsible for Ketheric's tyranny. Unfortunately, the Selunite resistance was ultimately crushed, as townsfolk sold their neighbors out to the Justiciars and Shar's grip on the land became tighter. It wasn't until outside forces intervened that Ketheric's power was threatened: Harpers and druids from the Emerald Enclave.
A War & A Devil: Ketheric's Downfall
The Collapse Of Shar's Army
The Harpers are a band of heroes who seek to thwart tyrannical plots like Ketheric's, so it makes sense they would stand against him. The Emerald Enclave, meanwhile, saw Ketheric's war as a threat to nature. His alliance with Shar invited shadow magic into the land, which threatened the spirit of the area, which Archdruid Halsin later identifies as "Thaniel." Halsin was part of the war against Thorm, as was High Harper Jaheira. Both can become party members later on, and fill in some of the gaps in this time period.
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The Harpers and Druids worked as a combined force, combating Ketheric all across his taken domain. He had control of Reithwin and an area in the Underdark calledthe Grymforge, and sought to expand his domain all across the Sword Coast. Evidence of their battle can be found throughout the game's first and second acts, but is mainly present around Reithwin, where destroyed siege equipment and innumerable bodies can be found. From what Jaheira and Halsin say, this was a tough war, but one Ketheric eventually lost; he might not have, however, if it weren't for a certain mason.
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The head mason, once a member of the Selunite resistance, seems to have initially survived its destruction. With no one else to turn to, he made a deal with a certain devil: Raphael, the charismatic cambion the players themselves can meet during the story. He asked for Raphael to kill the Dark Justiciars in the Grymforge and the nearby Gauntlet of Shar, in exchange for his soul. Raphael fulfills this wish by enlisting an orthon, named Yurgir, to hunt down and kill the Dark Justiciars. Yurgir and his merregon soldiers do so, killing nearly every Dark Justiciar they can find and effectively hindering Ketheric's army.
The Development Of The Shadow Curse
One Final Blow To The Town
With his forces weakened and two powerful factions working against him, Ketheric was eventually killed. But this was not yet the end of his cruelty, for even in death, Ketheric found a way to exert Shar's will. As his body was placed within the Thorm Mausoleum, it let loose a curse of terrible proportions, tearing up the land itself and cursing it with shadow magic. The undead rose, fueled by Ketheric's hate, and the plants became blighted, twisted versions of themselves, killing all they came across.
While the Absolute's forces would use the shadow curse to their advantage a century later, the magic of it was and is controlled by Shar, who retained power in the area even after Ketheric denounced her.
The druids and Harpers suffered heavy losses before retreating, and they were forced to abandon Thaniel and the land to Ketheric's shadow curse. The remaining residents of Reithwin who had not been killed in the battle fell to the curse, or otherwise fled to neighboring areas. By the events of Baldur's Gate 3, the town was left a husk of its former self, oozing with cursed darkness, sitting beneath the shadow of Moonrise Towers. And that was how it stayed for close to a century, until Ketheric found a new master, and rose from death to start his conquest again.
Custom Image by Katarina Cimbaljevic.
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