Baldur's Gate 3 is full of secrets and hidden plotlines. With hundreds of books, items, and dialogue routes, there's still so much to the game that many players have never explored even after its final patch. If you think you've uncovered everything about the game, there's probably at least one small feature or use for an item that you've somehow missed.

I've recently hit 400 hours in the game, but I'm far from bored, and there are so many more routes I have yet to go down. I love customizing my own characters, but I've been wanting to try something different, and I'm finally committing to some origin runs. The latest campaign that I've started is a Shadowheart origin playthrough, and I've been reminded yet again that there are countless different ways to obtain pieces of information or complete quests.

The Selûne Statue Isn’t The Only Way To Trigger Shadowheart’s Mysterious Wound

A Slightly Different Variant Of The Cutscene Can Be Experienced With A Specific Item

The vast majority of Baldur's Gate 3 players will be extremely familiar with the short cutscene triggered when Shadowheart's mysterious wound flares up for the first time. When walking next to the Selûne Statue behind the windmill in the blighted village, Shadowheart will immediately recognize it and get a searing pain in her hand, which is later revealed to be Shar's influence to prevent her from regaining her old memories. However, this isn't the only variant of this cutscene, and there's actually another way to trigger it.

Since they are variants of the same cutscene, if you trigger Shadowheart's memories by walking by the Selûne Statue, then you can't repeat it by reading the book, and vice versa.

At coordinates (1, 361) in the Blighted Village, next to the ogres, players can find a bookcase that contains two books, one of which is an "Old Schoolbook." Reading this book with Shadowheart in the party will trigger her hand to ache and cause her to suddenly snippets of her time as a Sharran, and this is a lot clearer when playing her as an origin character. A lot of BG3 players aren't inclined to read every book they come across, especially after their first or second playthrough, so this version of the scene is quite tucked away.

The Blighted Village Mirrors Shadowheart’s Old Hometown

It May Have Been Intended To Be Her Village In Early Development

Shar wanting to keep Shadowheart away from the Selûne statue is self-explanatory, but an almost identical cutscene also being triggered by the schoolbook is interesting. The old book is full of old records of students, but gradually, more and more keep disappearing as time goes on. This aligns with Shadowheart's backstory, since she was also abducted from her village as a child after being raised as a Selûnite. There are also several notes around the village that allude to it being continuously attacked by Sharrans.

Before it was ransacked, the Blighted Village was called Moonhaven. A few people who have experienced this cutscene have concluded that Moonhaven was Shadowheart's home, and one of the children in the schoolbook who disappeared was actually her. However, this seems quite unlikely. Shadowheart is in her forties, while Moonhaven was raided by Ketheric's Sharran forces over 100 years ago. In fact, Shadowheart's main writer softly debunked the theory in a Q&A stream archived on the Jen and Aliona YouTube channel, but mentioned that Moonhaven being Shadowheart's place of origin was considered at the start of development.

As noted by Reddit Ahrimel, the probable reason for Shar intervening in this is that Shadowheart isn't alone in her circumstances and recognizes the similarities, and that it is more common than it seems for Sharrans to target Selunite villages to seek out new recruits. Even though she may not be specifically from Moonhaven, Shar wouldn't have wanted Shadowheart to start doubting her faith. Baldur's Gate 3 is full of tiny details like this, and it's amazing to see that there are still some secrets that I've never seen before, almost two years after the game's release.

Sources: Jen and Aliona/Youtube (57:12), Ahrimel/Reddit