Who is Withers? [Baldur's Gate 3]

Today we delve into the deep lore of our skeletal friend, Withers, from Baldur's Gate 3 to try to find out who he is and why he helps the party throughout the game. In doing so, we take a foray into the lore of the Dead Three, the main antagonists of the game, to help us answer these questions. We also learn what the undead do for fun in their free time, which is disturbing but ironic and hilarious.

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Transcript

Hey there, welcome to the Lore’d to Death podcast. My name is Brett and after the overwhelmingly positive response from the last Baldur’s Gate episode, I’m here to bring you another! However, this one is going to be a little different in the way that it won’t be nearly as accessible to those who haven’t beaten the game because of spoilers.

Now, before you turn off the episode because you’re on your fourth playthrough without having beat the game, this is only going to be spoilers for the character Withers, since he is going to be the topic of today’s episode. There are going to be end-game spoilers, but it hardly has anything to do with the plot of the game, just old Withers and one specific cutscene that is centred around him. That being said, if you don’t want any of those spoilers then I would just tune out of this one until you have rolled credits and finished the epilogue.

This is because today, I want to talk about Withers and who he is. And no, I don’t just mean that creepy skeleton man that you rose from a crypt in Act I, but rather who he really is that isn’t explicitly said in the game. Because of that, I just want to give the forewarning that when I reveal who I believe Withers is, there is nothing in the game that explicitly states his true identity, but when I put forth my arguments as to why this is what I believe, there’s almost no denying it. So if you don’t want to know that, then now’s your chance to run. If you don’t mind some minor spoilers about a minor character, then you’re free to stay! I will be name-dropping some characters from Baldur’s Gate 3, but there will be nothing that spoils the main story. But first, let’s talk about Withers’ role in the game.

Usually I would give a spiel about how I feel about the subject I’m talking about before I ramble on, but I’ve given a pretty lengthy description about how I feel about the game in the episode about the Blood War. While it was a little harsh, I just want to say again that my criticisms do not outweigh how much I love this game. I think that, through and through, it’s one of my favourite stories ever presented in a game, and it reminds me of old school RPGs like KotoR and Mass Effect in the way that there’s so much to do, and I am still finding new things after 100 hours. But, that being said, let’s get into the meat and bones of this episode… or just the bones…. Because Withers is basically just bones… anyways…

In Act I, one of the first things that you might have run into right after escaping the Nautiloid crash site is the crypt on the beach. Called the Dank Crypt, this place is home to a number of goodies including, but not limited to, a booby-trapped sarcophagus, plenty of cheese, and a temple that holds a shrine to a God. If someone in your party passes a religion check, they will notice that the insignias hanging around the crypt are those of Jergal, the former God of Death. In the back of this crypt, there is a sarcophagus that holds a mummified corpse that suddenly springs back to life upon your character opening it. As you know, this reanimated corpse is Withers.

With taut grey skin, lifeless eyes, and a nose that Voldemort would be proud of, Withers looks to be nothing more than someone who might have lived a millenia or two. He is adorned with a decorative headpiece made of gold and bandages wrapped loosely around his arms and torso that are covered by a tattered purple robe. He speaks in a gravely whisper and his words seem weighted heavily, often speaking in cryptic riddles rather than outright asking or answering questions. The only time he ever really speaks in a “matter-of-fact” manner is when talking about Gods and divinity, but even when speaking plainly he is still very kindly. I think it’s important to mention his kindness, if but briefly, because it makes his character that much more interesting to me. If you follow a certain path in the game (and I’ll keep this spoiler-free, as promised), Withers even comforts a small child after their parents’ death and helps to set them on their own path. He is even known to throw a great party every now and then, but, again, that’s spoilers. In the grand scheme of things it seems like a small gesture, but I think it speaks volumes of his character.

Speaking of his character, he refers to himself as, “a scribe, a seneschal– a keeper of records,” which is very important to discerning who he really is, and offers many services to the party throughout the game. This includes resurrection of party members, providing hirelings (which are basically just auxiliary party members), and even changing one’s class. This is all done in exchange for gold. And you might be asking yourself, “what does a skeleton need gold for?” and that’s a valid question. It’s so that no one can say that he was helping out of the goodness of his heart or for free, which creates a loophole that we’ll circle back to in a minute. So, while he might seem withered and frail, Withers clearly has some intense abilities that transcend life and death.

And this is pretty much where we venture into spoiler territory for the epilogue and start to figure out who and what Withers is. I just want to say, as a foreword, that his identity isn’t exactly a secret so it’s not like this is going to be some sort of huge reveal. It’s obvious, if you know anything about the universe, but I digress.

After you complete the main quest, there is an epilogue where Withers throws a big party for the crew about 6 months after they finish the main quest and split off to do their own thing. What happens at this party is largely dependent on the choices that you make in the game, so there’s not much of a point in talking about the party itself. However, at the party, Withers makes a toast to the crew and tells them that there may be a time when they are needed again, and they might be called upon once more. Credits roll, and then there’s a post-credits scene where Withers is talking to a mural of the Dead Three, also known as the Dark Gods, the Gods of death and antagonists of the game– Bane, Lord of Darkness; Bhaal, Lord of Murder; and Myrkul, Lord of Bones; all of which we will touch on in this episode.

Anyways, Withers is talking to a mural of the Dead Three where he talks to them in an extremely condescending tone, very clearly disappointed with their actions. Calling them fools and vermin and telling them that there was no way that their plan would go unnoticed by the other Gods. This cutscene makes it exceptionally obvious that Withers knows the Dead Three intimately, and clearly understands the will of the Gods as well. And how does he know all of this? It’s because he is the God Jergal.

Like I mentioned before, Withers is awakened in the Dank Crypt which hosts the Chapel of Jergal, as it is adorned by his insignia on the banners upon the walls. The undead that were guarding his sarcophagus were all designated as scribes, and one of Jergal’s alias’ is the Final Scribe. This is strengthened by Withers describing himself as, “a scribe, a seneschal– a keeper of records”. And whenever a new companion talks to him, he will “record” their name, and strike it from the records” when they die.

Nearby in the crypt, there can be found the Book of Dead Gods, which talks about the Dead Three who were appointed by Jergal. There is another book in act 3, a crumbling journal found in the ancient mausoleum, that describes a mortal’s encounter with Jergal. The account describes his physical appearance as, “masked in gold, his skin fine as parchment”. In this account, he also asks the mortal who woke him, “what is the worth of a single mortal’s life?” which Withers asks the player character upon waking him as well.

If you play as a Paladin or a Cleric, you can pass a skill check that will reveal that Withers has a divine aspect– a reflection of death itself. And who else was Jergal but the former God of Death? Furthermore, if you are a Cleric of Kelemvor, known also as the Lord of the Dead, they will sense something familiar in Withers to which he will acknowledge it and brush it off with some cryptic words as he tends to do.

Furthermore, if you want to step outside of the lore of the game and go into datamined files, Withers’ concept art refers to him as Jergal and his internal game files refer to him as Jergal/Avatar. Now I think that’s actually very interesting. Not because it confirms that he is Jergal, but that they specifically have the word avatar in there. In the DnD universe, a deity will often represent themselves as an avatar in the physical realm. There are plenty of reasons for this, but the main one being that the loss of an avatar does not harm the deity in any way. So if they wanted to personally intervene in a situation, they would often send an avatar which held significantly less power than their true form (but still more power than even the most powerful of mortals), but could withstand being killed so that they were essentially risking nothing in the exchange. Depending on how powerful the deity is, they could even have more than one avatar active at one time, but they could not produce them endlessly or without a cost. Avatars typically took a while to reform after being destroyed on the Prime Physical Realm.

My point is that Withers is likely an avatar of Jergal rather than Jergal himself, but that doesn’t make his identity any less impactful. It makes sense that when he decided that he needed to intervene in the Prime, he would send an avatar to act in his stead so that even if his heroes failed, no harm would come to his true form and the worst case scenario is that he sends another avatar out to finish the job. I’m going to go with the active theory that Withers is an avatar of Jergal, because that just makes the most sense.

I mentioned before how Withers accepts gold for his services, and I wanted to circle back around to that quickly while we’re talking about gods and their actions in the Prime. The same reason that he accepts gold is actually the same reason that he condemns the Dead Three in the epilogue. Simply put, gods did not interfere or begin warring in the Prime because of how much power they hold. They were meant to be revered and worshipped by mortals, but not to be made a king of them. Gods who start interfering with the Prime out of self-interest are begging for all of the Gods in the multiverse to eliminate them, which is why Jergal defies the laws of death for the sake of bringing down the Dead Three. It’s also why he accepts coin for his services. It acts as a sort of divine loophole. If you pay him to resurrect someone, or change your class, then you’re essentially hiring his services so that he can’t be accused of doing it out of self-interest or for free. It’s the equivalent of a lawyer reading the terms and conditions and finding something in the fine text that outlines a legal loophole that they can exploit you with.

Now, I’ve rambled on long enough about Jergal without explaining who he is and why Withers being Jergal (or an avatar of Jergal) is a big deal other than the fact that he’s a God. So, let’s dive into the lore of Jergal so we can get a better understanding.

Jergal was the seneschal of Kelemvor, who we've mentioned before. A seneschal is a fancy word for a steward, or some sort of administrative official. Jergal had many titles over his reign, but was most commonly referred to as the Lord of the End of Everything, which is just as metal as it sounds. He was Faerun’s original God of Death before he eventually retired his position to the Dead Three where he only kept a vague account of the fate of the world as the Final Scribe who would keep records of the ultimate fate of all the dead.

Jergal, in the lore, reads much like how we see Withers in-game. He is described as a wizened and insubstantial creature, mummy-like in appearance with grey, tightly taut skin. Although, he’s also described as being very alien-like somewhere between a humanoid and a praying mantis, with bulbous, yellow eyes and insectoid mandibles as well as a nose and ears indistinguishable from his head, which is to say that he doesn’t have either. He also allegedly touted long, claw-like hands over which he wore a pair of white gloves.

The latter description is definitely not what we see in-game, but perhaps that’s because Jergal’s avatar was made to be a bit less revolting to the average humanoid races in Faerun. I imagine that seeing a mummified skeleton man in a nice robe is a bit less of a culture shock than seeing what is described as the aliens from District 9. By the way, if you haven’t watched that movie, please do. It’s one of my favourites.

Jergal was known to wear a billowing cloak that obscured most of his form that seemed to absorb the very atmosphere around him, and moved as if there was wind blowing even if there was none (talk about being dramatic). The cloak’s outer surface was a gate to the Negative Energy Plane, which is basically the underworld sometimes called the Plane of Death. As expected of a scribe, he would also appear with a quill, some fresh ink, and an intricate (but incomprehensible) script.

While we’re talking about forms, Jergal often appeared not as an alien insect man, but as an old mortal man with a great white beard and sunken eyes. However, he could take the form of any undead creature. When he did, he was able to amplify the form to match his own abilities, unless the undead was on equal or greater power level. So by that, it sounds like he could just possess corpses, unless I’m mistaken. So that makes me wonder if Withers’ body in-game was possibly the corpse of a priest or some figurehead of the Church of Jergal, and perhaps Jergal chose that body to be his avatar. There’s nothing really that supports that theory, but I think it makes an amount of sense. The fact that there were several dead bodies around the crypt that spring to life when you try to access the sarcophagus where Withers is makes it seem like maybe they were performing a rite. Perhaps they knew that Jergal would inhabit the body in the sarcophagus?

But as I mentioned before, Jergal was Faerun’s original God of Death, making him quite ancient. Older than many of the other deities in Faerun. He was around during the time of the Netheril, which if you’ve played Baldur’s Gate 3, you should be familiar with the name at the very least. The Netheril was home to the Netherese who are known for their magic, which we learn about through Gale. These were the folks who decided that they were going to take hold of the fabric of magic, the Weave, for themselves, destroying it in the process. But that’s another tale for another time, for it is far off topic. The point is, Jergal is like… really old.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t really like staying in one place for too long. The same went for Jergal, who, after aeons of doing the same job as God of the Dead, got bored of his position and wished to pass it off to someone else. So he ceded his portfolio of death, murder, and strife to Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul (as we mentioned before). They called themselves the dead three or the dark three depending on who you ask. Bane inherited tyranny and strife, Bhaal became the God of Murder, and Myrkul was the lord of the dead.

What I think is interesting is how that whole relationship happened. It wasn’t that the Dead Three were deities that wanted a change of scenery, but rather they were mortals who sought the path of Godhood, and found it in Jergal. Mortals becoming gods was actually not as uncommon as you might think. Kelemvor was also once a mortal human fighter who became a god after killing the god Cyric, who was also a mortal human thief before his godhood. You might also know Azuth, who was given godhood with the help of Mystra who was also a mortal before the fall of Netheril. There are dozens of mortals who ascended to godhood with the help of another deity, which I find fascinating.

The three adventurers– Bane the tyrant, Bhaal the assassin, and Myrkul the necromancer, made a pact that they would ascend to godhood, or die trying. It was no mistake that they came upon Jergal and took up his mantle, for that was ultimately their end goal. Together, they marshalled an alliance of champions from wizards to gnolls, and gnomes to goliaths. In the Frozen Forest, they stalked their prey, Maram of the Broken Spear, a primordial of the elemental chaos and one of the seven lost gods, whom they felled and each stole a fragment of Maram’s divinity for themselves.

At this point they weren’t quite gods, but they had a bit of divine power to use as leverage. And so, they travelled to the Gray Waste in search of the Castle of Bone. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to guess that this is where our boy Jergal made his home. The three fought through hordes of undead, including skeletons, zombies, spectres, wraiths, and even a lich or two to get there. After defeating Jergal’s undead army, they entered the castle and gained an audience with Jergal who sat on a throne made of bone… the bone throne… no, wait, that’s just wrong.

Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul demanded that they should be the ones to sit on the throne, bickering amongst one another for the title of Lord of Death. Much to their surprise, though, Jergal gave it up willingly. However, he said that he would bestow his power upon one of the three individuals and asked which among them would take the throne. This caused the three to break out into yet another squabble where they bickered and fought about who should be the one to ascend. Jergal, already weary and just wanting to retire, decided that the only way to resolve this matter was through a game of skill.

And so, the three were pitted against each other in a game of skull bowling, and you shouldn’t have to stretch your imagination too far to figure out what that game entailed. Ultimately, the game led nowhere and so Jergal suggested leaving it up to lady luck. He broke off his skeletal fingers and separated the knuckles so that the three could play knucklebones. Sanitation concerns aside, Bane ended up the winner of the game with Myrkul in second and Bhaal in third. Bane got to choose which of the portfolios he would take up, and he (of course) chose tyranny, strife and hatred. Myrkul, as we know, chose to be the Lord of the Dead, and Bane was left with dominion over death and murder. Whether or not that’s what he wanted, that’s what he was left with and the three were ascended to godhood where they reigned for several centuries.

Jergal didn’t give it all up to go on a full retirement, though. He still acted as seneschal to Myrkul, the new Lord of the Dead. But, that’s not to say that he never left his post. He did, on occasion, get up to some shenanigans unrelated to being the steward of death. During the Second Sundering, Jergal was reported to be at the gate-town of Sylvania having a blast and inviting folks to join in a game of bocce ball in an undead club called the Afterparty. But, being the former God of the Dead, the ball was a skull. How fitting, and hilarious.

And then, centuries later, the events of the game happened and there isn’t much to tell of Jergal past that point. As much as I would love to find out more about him, I just couldn’t find much else. After Myrkul, he served Cyric, and after Cyric, Kelemvor.

We could, however, briefly talk about the Church of Jergal and what exactly they did. Their holy symbol, as we saw in the dank crypt, is a skull that carries a scroll in its mouth. Jergal is identified in 5e as being lawful neutral, as would make sense for the God of Death, and so we can assume that his scribes also took on that alignment.

Jergal’s Church is sometimes referred to as the Scriveners of Doom. They are a small, but well-organised monastic order based mostly in places of death such as graveyards, crypts, and mausoleums. The Jergalists would spend their days focused on writing, maintaining, researching, and updating their cast chronicles on the process of death as well as the afterlife. So unlike the followers of Bhaal, Bane, or Myrkul, they were not cult-like in their activities and didn’t do ridiculous experiments, summon the dead, or relish in acts of brutality. Instead, those who ended up in the church were often druids or wizards that had some sort of interest in the process of death, decay, and the afterlife. To this point, the Jergalists would often seek to attain church-sponsored forms of undeath in order to continue their interests beyond their natural life.

Aside from just archiving and studying death, the afterlife, and such, Jergalists would typically pray during dusk. Dusk represents the end of a day, and so is a holy time for them because of its symbolism with the end being a parallel for death. They also had a ritual where, once a year, on the Night of Another Year, the clergy would read every name whose death they had recorded in their scrolls over the past year. After doing this, they would cry out, “one year closer!” referring to it being one day closer to Jergal’s work being done. Kind of macabre, but it fits the bill.

But, that’s all I have for this episode. Jergal is one of the cooler gods in the Faerun pantheon, in my opinion. Maybe it’s because of his nonchalant demeanour, or maybe it’s because he’s a God of Death who was focussed on doing his job instead of trying to strive for more or cause an apocalypse cough Myrkul cough.

So, what did you think? Do you think that Jergal was the best deity to hold the title of Lord of the Dead? Or, what do you think of Jergal ceding his position to the Dead Three so easily? Usually gods are power-hungry, but Jergal seems like he just wants to have a good time.

You can find us online @loredtodeath on your favourite social media, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any questions or suggestions for topics, please send me a message wherever you can find me, or at loredtodeath@gmail.com. I would love to hear from you!

And remember, the value of a mortal’s life is something that cannot be answered easily. You can search within yourself to find the value of your own life, but it’s impossible to put a value on someone else’s. Be kind to those around you, and treat everyone as an equal. I’ll lore you to death in the next one. C’ya!