Baldur’s Gate 3: How to Find Thaniel’s Shadow in BG3

While making your way through and working with Halsin to remove the Shadow Curse in Baldur’s Gate 3, you’ll discover Thaniel and rescue him from the Shadowfell. Halsin has been searching for a long time to track down Thaniel, but part of him is missing.

One part of Thaniel is here, with you, but there’s another that has gone missing. This is known as Thaniel’s Shadow, and you need to track it down to find it. There are only a handful of places you can find it. Here’s what you need to know about where to find Thaniel’s Shadow in Baldur’s Gate 3.

Where to Find Thaniel’s Shadow in Baldur’s Gate 3

This is one part of the Lift the Shadow Curse quest that you can start in Baldur’s Gate 3. The primary quest has to do with tracking down Art Cullagh, getting him to talk to Halsin, and then working with Halsin to bring Thaniel out of the Shadowfell. Once Halsin and Thaniel are in your camp, you can talk about what to do next.

Halsin wants you to track down Thaniel’s shadow, the one that has been split from him, and track it down somewhere in the world. He offers to go with you and joins your party at this point in your Baldur’s Gate 3 playthrough. After the two of you are in the same party, return to the Last Light Inn, and the search for Thaniel’s Shadow begins. Thankfully, the exact location is not too far away.

For many, the exact location of Thaniel’s Shadow might take time for you to track down. However, it’s the same entity that you encountered to the southeast of the Last Light Inn: Oliver. Oliver is next to the Shadowed Battlefield waypoint, the piece Halsin has been looking for. Make your way to this location with your Baldur’s Gate 3 party and speak with Thaniel’s Shadow while you have Halsin with you.

Before speaking with Oliver, you have to play his game of hide-and-seek. For this encounter, I carefully moved my party around in the turn-based mode and slowly worked through the shadows to beat him at the game. After this occurred, I was able to speak with Oliver and attempt to reunite him with Thaniel.

I had accidentally discovered Oliver well before working on this mission and had not connected the dots that this was Thaninel’s shadow. It wasn’t until Halsin said we were looking for a similar, child-like character in the region that I figured out it was Oliver, and I immediately ran over to his spot.

How to Beat Oliver in Baldur’s Gate 3

Shortly after you speak with Oliver, he’ll disappear, wanting to be rid of you and your Baldur’s Gate 3 party. Unfortunately, he does not want to return to Thaniel. You’ll need to force the two to reconnect together. Thankfully, there’s a portal next to Oliver when he leaves. Go through it, and you’ll start a fight against Thaniel’s family, fighting Wraiths called Daddy and Mummy, including Oliver.

The goal of the fight is to break Oliver’s Nightdome. You can do that in two ways during this Baldur’s Gate 3 encounter. The first is by having a character directly bashing on the shield, and during my fight, I tasked Karlach with doing that. The second way is by defeating the Wraiths and Shadow Friends that Oliver summons during this fight. Both are good methods; doing both will make this encounter much faster.

After destroying the Nightdome and protecting Oliver, you speak with him. You’ll need to convince Oliver that he needs to reunite with Thaniel, who needs to become one again. If you brought Halsin with you in your Baldur’s Gate 3 group, he’ll remind you that Thaniel is a child and needs to be reminded of that. During the conversation, you’ll be able to convince Oliver to become whole with Thaniel again, and the two of them can make friends together.

Once they are together, they return to Halsin in camp to assess everything. You connected the two halves of Thaniel back together, and you finally lifted the Shadow Curse in your Baldur’s Gate 3 playthrough. This will occur at the end of Act 2 when you decide to make your way over to Baldur’s City and advance the story.