Baldur's Gate 3's first background mod lets you play a character that was trapped in a goat's body for a decade

Harvey Randall
·2 min read
A sheep from Baldur's Gate 3 cants its head to one side, as if questioning life itself.
A sheep from Baldur's Gate 3 cants its head to one side, as if questioning life itself.

It's tradition at every TTRPG table to have that one player who rocks up with an absurd backstory: "My bard was raised by mimes in the woods", "my entire family died to a rogue bee swarm", "it's my goal to execute the Forgotten Realm's sickest backflip", that sort of thing.

You can continue this time-honoured tradition in Baldur's Gate 3 with its first full release-compatible background mod, the poetically named "was a goat for ten years", granting it its rightful place next to the pedestrian vanilla background options of "Urchin" or "Soldier".

An image depicting the custom Goat Background for Baldur's Gate 3,
An image depicting the custom Goat Background for Baldur's Gate 3,

Granted, plenty of similar mods made their way into the Early Access, but this is the first stand-out mod after the game released yesterday.

Coded into Baldur's Gate 3 by the heroic NellsRelo, this background actually owes its existence to the UnearthedArcana subreddit, where players share their homebrew content for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition. User _Metabot summoned this fever dream 6 years ago, which memed its way into a respectable 250-something upvotes, and it's now been turned into a mod with their permission.

Under a header that reads: "A what for how long?" NellsRelo gives it to us straight, informing us that we were "A Goat. For 10 Years." Being a goat-brained comes with some perks, though. "Having been a Goat for so long, you know your way around animals, and have become quite athletic, granting you proficiency in Animal Handling and Athletics. You also gain Surefooted, granting you immunity to muddy and difficult terrain."

This, hilariously, makes the background an excellent fit for a strength-based Ranger. No, I'm not even kidding—Animal Handling is a very Ranger-themed skill, while Athletics will let you shunt people around with a good enough strength score. Meanwhile, Surefooted gives you immunity to difficult terrain, which is something a Ranger doesn't get until level 8 in-game.

Since you've traded the bow for the broadsword, ignoring mud and muck to charge your foes is actually really helpful, freeing up a bonus action you might otherwise use to jump over difficult terrain to instead cast Hunters Mark or drink a potion. I can't believe I'm theorycrafting the goat origin story, but here we are.

Regrettably, the mod's missing a few features, such as a custom icon, background goals, and a sorrowful lack of horns or rectangular irises. Maybe you could squint real hard at a tiefling to get the real awakened goat experience. Until then, only you know the horrors of your past, and will have to wait until modders finish tinkering with the game to unleash the goat in your soul.