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If you’ve spent a couple of hours exploring Baldur’s Gate 3 after your crash from the Illithid ship, you’ve undoubtedly come across this unfortunate gnome tied to a windmill by a bunch of goblins. There are a few different ways you can rescue him—or do the complete opposite and watch him fly off into the sunset (more on that later). Regardless of what you want, here’s a full guide on how to stop the windmill and rescue that gnome in Baldur’s Gate 3.
Finding the Gnome
We assumed you already knew where the gnome was, but if you stumbled across this guide or have forgotten where he is, you can easily locate him by heading to the blighted village not far from the druid’s grove, where you meet Wyll. You can look at the above map for help, note that the village is directly west (left) of the grove, or you can simply head to X:17 Y:416. You can check your current position by looking at the bottom of the minimap.
Dealing with the Goblins
If you’ve never been to the village before (odds are you have if you’re reading this guide), you’ll have to prepare yourself for the goblins and other malevolent creatures that are currently ransacking it. You can either talk your way out of a fight and have them let you pass or kill every last one. We suggest the first option, but it’s not that hard to take out the goblins if you want to. Just be careful of the three big level 4 Ogres, who can easily mess your day up if you’re not careful.
Paying a Toll
If you’re flush with cash, you can pay the goblins a fee, but they will become aggressive as soon as you try and pass by. The fee is also incredibly expensive at 1,000 gold, but you can try and persuade them to lower it to 100 with a DC of 15. If you succeed, they’ll “double” the toll and charge you 5 gold.
As we said, though, they will try and attack you if you attempt to move towards the back of the windmill and turn on the brake to release the gnome, so this isn’t really an option if you’re looking to stop the windmill and rescue the gnome. If you already went down the dialogue path for the toll, you still have the option to use your Illithid power and persuade them to leave.
Rolling to Make Them Leave
That parasite in your head is more useful than you think. It has all sorts of cool and quirky interactions with people in Baldur’s Gate 3. One of those interactions allows you to persuade the goblins to simply leave the gnome—and you—alone. This option will be presented to you whether you ask them to let you pass or if you tell them to leave the gnome alone. This option only has a DC of 2, making it almost impossible to fail—well, there’s still a 5% chance you roll a 1. If you attempt to detect their thoughts, you’ll find they’re scared to fight. You can use this against them and scare them off that way, too.
Killing Them All
If you’d rather wipe these goblins off the face of the earth, you can just kill them. There’s no real downside to it but be warned that there are a lot of them. There are Fezzerk (the boss), 2 Worgs, 3 Goblin Trackers, 1 Goblin Sharp-Eye, and 2 Goblin Devouts. If you already plan on killing them, your best bet is to sneak up on them and catch them by surprise rather than enter a dialogue with them and then attack. Killing Fezzerk should cause the other goblins to flee, so target him first.
Alternatively, bringing him close to death will cause Fezzerk to give up and offer some valuable information. He’ll tell you how to get into the goblin camp undetected, the very same camp where the main quest takes you. You can also get the gold back if you paid him any.
Freeing the Gnome From the Windmill
Now that you’ve either made the goblins leave or killed them all, you can finally free the gnome. Just don’t make the same mistake I did and actually read the buttons before pulling them. Head to the back of the windmill and look for two buttons near the moving gears—but read them carefully. One will turn the brake on, stopping the windmill. The other will release the brake, playing a hilarious cut scene of the gnome flying off into the sunset as the windmill speeds up to Mach 3.
Rescuing the gnome doesn’t give you much. Wyll can potentially get an inspiration point if he’s a member of your party and the gnome mentions that he was searching for a friend who went missing when the goblins captured him. He believes he’s in the Underdark, a higher-level section of the game that you probably won’t explore for at least a few more levels if you’re just getting started with Baldur’s Gate 3. He also offers you the contents of his backpack—if you can find it.
If you “accidentally” kill him, well, then there’s no real downside or upside. You can still pilfer his backpack when you find it. His backpack is located in the basement beneath the windmill. You can see the hatch that leads there in the image above, showcasing the levers. The hatch is right next to the downed wooden beams.
If you’re having trouble locating the backpack in the basement, remember to press the ALT key to highlight items and containers. The backpack doesn’t have much, but the chest next to it has magic boots called The Speedy Lightfeet, giving the wearer 3 Lightning Charges when they Dash or perform a similar action.
By the way!
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