A frustrating scene for your consideration: A paladin leads his people out of a burning camp, holds together the survivors of a massacre, and fights off Absolute cultists not once but twice…and then you just say goodbye? Here’s another: A druid nearly gets an entire grove slaughtered, spends the rest of the story trying to live with the consequences, and the game decides that’s not compelling enough to keep them around. Excuse me?!
Baldur’s Gate 3 is full of moments like this: A great character, an intriguing story, and then no reliable way to learn what happens next. For Mizora — Wyll’s patron devil, the one who granted him his warlock powers — a new mod has delivered a way around that issue. While Mizora technically does hang out in camp, she does so only on her terms — and when you see her, generally, you want to shove her back into whatever pocket of the Nine Hells she’s crawled out of. Unless, of course, you can recruit her hellish talents to support your aims. Now, thanks to the brand new mod Mizora Joins the Party from modder WorldWalker42, you can do exactly that. She’s not the only NPC who deserves an upgrade to companion status. Here are 10 more.
10
Alfira
Why we’re inviting Alfira to camp: One song from her was simply never going to be enough.
Alfira’s a tiefling bard you meet in the Emerald Grove in Act 1. When you meet her, she writes you a song, on the spot, about the story you’re currently living. If this happened to me in real life I would swoon, and, in-game, it has nearly the same effect. It’s a lovely moment…and it’s the entire relationship you get with her. There’s no bard companion in this game, and Alfira is the clear contender to fix this oversight. (Psst: If you’ve always wanted to spend more time with Alfira, absolutely do not attempt a Dark Urge run. This is your only warning.)
9
Barcus Wroot
Why we’re inviting Barcus to camp: He survived three acts of hell and still doesn’t get a spot at the campfire?
Barcus is a gnome you rescue from a burning windmill early in Act 1, if you’re so inclined. After that, his life doesn’t exactly get easier. He’s captured (again), he’s tortured for information about his former friend Wulbren’s whereabouts, dragged to Moonrise Towers, and finally handed leadership of the Ironhand clan in Act 3 after everyone else in charge lets him down. His arc gives him as much story as a companion — he just needs a class to build skills around. After everything he’s been through, he’s earned at least that much.
8
Zevlor
Why we’re inviting Zevlor to camp: He saved his people twice. Then the game just let him wander off?
Zevlor is the tiefling paladin holding the Emerald Grove’s refugees together in Act 1, doing the necessary, not-always-fun job of a leader without actually being elected to do so. If you save the grove and he survives, he leads the tiefling refugees to the city of Baldur’s Gate, a move the game sets up as a big storyline, before Zevlor vanishes from the story almost entirely. Here’s my question (and Reddit’s): If we can recruit Minthara on an evil run, why on earth can’t we recruit Zevlor as the good-aligned alternative? I’ll be by my phone waiting for an answer, Larian.
7
Volo
Why we’re inviting Volo to camp: He talks his way into, and back out of, every disaster in Faerûn.
Volo is the explorer you first meet as he’s getting his head stuck in an owlbear’s nest in Act 1. From there, he only makes more questionable choices — such as confidently giving out incorrect advice, showing up as a camp trader slash definitely trustworthy eyeball surgeon in your camp, and generally being fabulous at talking his way into situations he has no business surviving. He’s not dangerous. He’s also not tactical. He’d almost certainly be a liability in a real fight. But for the goofy, charming commentary he’d add to every disaster you walk into, Volo’s a natural pick for an NPC that’s ready to party.
6
Araj
Why we’re inviting Araj to camp:She wants your blood, your future, and, like,probablynot your death.
Araj runs a stall in Moonrise Towers dealing exclusively in blood, alchemy, and unsettling eye contact. She wants a taste of your blood, specifically. Why? A True Soul’s blood, she claims, holds secrets worth knowing. (This is the exact amount of non-information that is laser-targeted to get me, every time.) She’s tied to the fallen noble house Oblodra, which gives you an entire unwritten redemption arc dedicated to restoring her name. While she never asks to join you — she wouldn’t — her mystery does the recruiting for her.
5
Sazza
Why we’re inviting Sazza to camp: She’s been rescued over and over, and comes back sharper every time.
Sazza is a goblin scout you first run into during the raid on the Emerald Grove. Depending on your choices, you can end up saving her life three separate times, across three different acts — a feat that can snag you an in-game achievement. She’s brash, overconfident, and totally aware of what she brings to the table. Players keep asking for a goblin companion specifically because of her…and also specifically because saving someone that many times without getting to actually keep them around starts to feel oddly personal. (“What do you mean you’re leaving? I just saved you again!”)
4
Kagha
Why we’re inviting Kagha to camp: She nearly got a grove slaughtered. She’s still living with that.
Kagha is second-in-command at the Emerald Grove in Act 1. With that power comes responsibility, of course — responsibility she’s shirking by secretly working with the Shadow Druids against her own people. You can choose to expose or forgive her betrayal, depending on what kind of run you’re going for. Spare Kagha, and she gets a redemption arc that is arguably more interesting than Halsin’s entire story, because she actually has something extremely fresh and visceral to atone for. (Remember, Halsin’s conflict is both centuries old and mostly settled by the time you meet him.) Kagha’s story is happening right in front of you, in real time, and then the game just lets her walk away from it.
3
Popper
Why we’re inviting Popper to camp: Good boy gets all the treats!!!
Popper is a kobold you find at the Circus of the Last Days in Act 3. He’s one of the only performers there who isn’t secretly a doppelgänger. His entire personality runs on devotion to “His Majesty,” a housecat he’s fully convinced is actual royalty, and a steady supply of treats he calls “treatos.” Like Volo, he is not even a little powerful or tactical, and nobody’s pretending otherwise, but do we want the best good boy in our party to give him all the treatos all of the time? Yes, of course we do. Next question.
2
He Who Was
Why we’re inviting He Who Was to camp: He’s dead, vengeful, and clearly having the time of his afterlife.
Deep in the Shadow-Cursed Lands, you can stumble on an extremely unsettling ritual. There’s an undead figure who’s raising skeletons specifically to torment a woman who wronged him centuries ago…who’s clearly enjoying every sadistic second of the process. He Who Was doesn’t get a real questline, just this one grim, memorable scene — and then he’s gone. This might seem like a good thing. It’s not. If you’re on an evil run, your companion choices get pretty thin. Being able to add He Who Was to your party as an unhinged, undead friend instead of watching him vanish back into the fog would fix that problem immediately.
1
Arabella
Why we’re inviting Arabella to camp: She’s a kid with powers nobody saw coming…least of all, her.
You rescue Arabella, a tiefling kid, from Auntie Ethel’s basement in Act 1. She then spends the rest of the story recovering from this trauma in your camp — relatable, makes sense. But by Act 2, she starts manifesting strange, uncontrolled magical powers. In Act 3, she abruptly goes her own way. There is no closure. There are only questions and unrealized potential. Watching her walk off mid-mystery might be the single least resolved thread in the entire game.
Baldur’s Gate 3 didn’t run out of good characters when it ran out of companion slots. This is, of course, a good problem to have, if it’s a problem at all! But it does leave curious, lore-focused players in a weird spot: Even with six great companions ready to recruit, you can still spend the whole game wondering what it’d be to fight alongside Kagha, or to chill for an evening in camp with Barcus. For Mizora, at least, that’s not a hypothetical question anymore. If you’ve been waiting to recruit her, check out this mod — and figure out who you want to nominate for the next NPC turned actual companion, too!
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