As you wander around Lower City, there’s a good chance you’ll see a familiar face. Here’s whether you should drink Araj’s Mysterious Potion in Act 3 of Baldur’s Gate 3.
Baldur’s Gate 3: Should You Drink Araj’s Mysterious Potion in Act 3
If you poked around in Moonrise Tower in Act 2, there’s a good chance you stumbled across Araj. Araj is a Drow from a fallen house that specializes in blood. And if you opted to give yours, or even persuaded Astarion to drink from her, you’ll encounter a unique scenario with her in Act 3 in Lower City.
Just West of the Lower City Wall Waypoint is Araj’s house called The Crimson Draught. Stray too close to it, and it will burst into flames. Moments later, Araj will run out the door. You can then speak to her, and she’ll be delighted to find that it’s you.
It turns out that the explosion was the result of her experiments with your blood. She’ll then ask you to drink a potion she made based on the blood. But should you?
Opting to drink the potion that Araj gives you has some interesting implications, both tangible and not. First, those around you will take some fire damage. This is fairly minor, and you can move away from the area of effect to stop your companions from burning.
The second is that you’ll gain the passive Unstable Blood. Unstable Blood means that your blood is now highly flammable and will explode if it contacts fire. That means if an enemy hits you and causes you to bleed, you can set the ground near you on fire very quickly. It’s like having Grease constantly cast.
It’s an interesting gimmick, and depending on your team composition, it can be helpful or a hindrance. Fire, after all, affects your companions too. But if your companions aren’t often beside your player character, it can be quite helpful.
Beyond that, Araj offers an interesting assortment of wares if you agree to sell to her. That includes the Sanguine Explosive, a unique item that can do quite a bit of damage.
As for the intangible implications, Araj is a terrible person. Like, genuinely awful. If you go into her basement, you can find quite a few people she used as experiments. Some of them are trapped in a closet with a giant spider. Others are in bits and pieces.
If you read her journals, you’ll learn that she intends to create an undead army and literally destroy the Drow capital. Once she does that, she’ll rule over an undead hoard. If you read the mail in the Crimson Draught mailbox, you’ll learn that she’s used quite a few people in her experiments, who then died.
So, if you choose not to help her, that makes sense, too.
