Quick Links
The Gauntlet of Shar, otherwise known as Shar's Sanctum, in Baldur's Gate 3, is a large and complicated dungeon within Shadow-Cursed Lands. To complete it, you'll need a vast reserve of time, resources, and sheer determination.
Several quests will lead you into this gauntlet's depths. No matter where you're coming from, all roads seem to lead to Shar's Gauntlet. But do all roads lead out? You'll need to carve your path to the secrets held in the dark and trust in, at least, the hands of powers greater than yourself.
Shar's Sanctum Overview
After entering Thorm Mausoleum and completing its puzzle, you'll be brought to Shar's Sanctum. Inside, there are a number of quests you can complete:
- Find The Nightsong
- Kill Raphael's Old Enemy (Yurgir Quest); Break Yurgir's Contract
- Find Thorm's Relic (Spear of Night)
Completing all of Shar Sanctum will require you complete each of these quests to various degrees, gathering Umbral Gems and solving unique trial puzzles.
For the Sanctum, we highly recommend adding Shadowheart to your party.
Gauntlet Of Shar: Completing The First Night Puzzle
As you enter Shar's Sanctum via the floating platform (usable via the crystal on the ground), you'll eventually come to enter a chamber with your first Umbral Gem inside and a statue of Shar surrounded by purple light.
If you near the statue, you will be repulsed back by an invisible force.
Ignore the statue for now and continue to the far right or left side.
There are four chambers in this room at each of its corners. Each chamber is guarded by a trap at the doorway, so disarm the trap before entering.
Inside the chambers, a lever can be found against the wall closest to the Shar statue. Pull it to lower the lanterns outside. There are two lanterns for each lever.
When a lantern is lowered, snuff out the light by interacting with the lantern.
Upon all eight lanterns being snuffed out, a secret path to the Shar statue will be revealed. Toggle off Group Mode and send one person into the path to retrieve the Umbral Gem and reveal the next doorway.
If the secret path to the statue does not reveal itself to you, ensure you are not carrying any lit objects like torches or spell-affected items. Stop casting any light magic you may be wielding.
Facing The Reconstituted Duelist And Justiciars Of Night
As you walk into the next main section behind the Shar statue, you'll be approached by the Reconstituted Duelists. Whatever you say to him does not matter much here.
After a few lines of dialogue, you'll be interrupted by spawned Dark Justiciars. Within this gauntlet, you will need to fight them each time they appear. The Dark Justiciars are not your friends.
Ignore the Reconstituted Duelists and fight both the Dark Justiciars and the vortexes that will continuously summon them.
Dark Vortexes will reappear after being destroyed if the Reconstituted Duelists are still alive, continuing the fight almost endlessly unless all vortexes and justiciars are defeated in the same turn.
For this fight, it is recommended to use Radiant spells, which the Dark Justiciars are vulnerable to. Spells like Spirit Guardians will work tremendously well here.
Use the Reconstituted Duelists as cannon fodder until the fight eventually subsides and all parties are defeated.
After the fight is completed, you will have two directions to follow:
- Left - Shar's Trials, Balthazar, x3 Umbral Gems, Silent Library, Waypoint
- Right - Yulgir, Umbral Gem, Raphael's Quest
We recommend at least going far enough to the left to grab the Shar Sanctum Waypoint for ease of travel.
Yulgir And Raphael Quest
If you choose to go right, you'll first be baited into a trap by a Displacer Beast. You can either follow it into its room or take a back route via jumping at the top of the stairs to the right wing, allowing you to start an encounter with Yulgir on the same level.
When speaking with Yulgir, you'll have three options:
- Persuade Yulgir to let you help him break his contract.
- Persuade Yulgir to kill his minions and then himself.
- Battle and kill Yulgir.
Yulgir is a difficult fight (especially if you begin on the ground), so we recommend trying your hand at the other options before plunging head-first into battle.
Breaking Yulgir's contract will require you to speak with the rats in the marked area of your map and find a Broken Effigy and a book called One Becomes Many (Coordinates: X:-709, Y:-723). Kill the spawned rat and then the Justiciar that appears after to return to Yulgir and finish the quest.
Regardless of how you clear the quest, take the Umbral Gem beside the statue when you're finished, clearing this area.
Balthazar And Thorm's Missing Artifact
After passing the Shar's Sanctum Waypoint, ignore the stairs and enter the far western wing. Once again, you'll come across a large room with the Reconstituted Duelists.
Following a brief exchange, you'll be swarmed again with Dark Justiciars. There will be far more in number this time, and a Justiciar Crusader (a boss version of the justiciars) will spawn in the second wave.
Large area attacks and Radiant damaging spells and weapons will work wonders here. With the justiciars each having an extra attack, you'll want to ensure you keep their numbers down as much as possible.
After killing all the justiciars in this area, you'll be allowed into a secret chamber on the far western side of the room where Balthazar and his cronies hang out. Speak with them.
You can choose to fight them in the room (though this is not recommended for space reasons; you'll get your chance later), or you can accept his quest to find an item within the gauntlet.
Additionally, you can convince Balthazar to give you a summoning bell. Ringing the bell will grant you an extra temporary ally in Flesh, Balthazar's golem brother, to join any single fight in the Sanctum.
The Vault
Although there are two doors you can unlock to leave the west wing into new areas, only the one to the north is worth the resources spent. Unlocking it allows access to "The Vault."
The DC to unlock it is set at a high 30, but a success will grant you access to three chests of highly valuable objects, resources, and artifacts.
Shar Sanctum Trials
Down the stairs from the Shar's Sanctum Waypoint, you'll find a long hallway with two doors on the left side and a set of stairs further down to another hallway with two doors. Between the upstairs doors and the first right door on the lower level, there are three trials.
Sneaking trial; finish trial sneaking without getting caught. | |
Combat trial; fight four enemies that mirror the stats, abilities, and weapons of your current adventuring party. | |
Invisible path trial; navigate a room with an invisible maze path in the dark to the end. |
Each of these trials begins by entering the room and interacting with the Shar offering bowl at the start. Your prize for each trial is one Umbral Gem, totaling three.
Silent Library
Beside the Faith-Leap Trial is the Silent Library and a shortcut elevator you can fix (via a broken lever on the floor that you take up the elevator to repair).
Inside the Silent Library, there are several books with tips to completing the other trials and the sanctum as well as a puzzle to a one-of-a-kind item. These are all guarded by the Librarian and a set of Dark Justiciars.
Defeat all Justiciars and complete the puzzle past the iron doors on the ground floor to access the item. Finishing this room is required to advance Shadowheart's and Balthazar's questlines.
What To Do With The Umbral Gems - Entering Shadowfell
Once you've found all Umbral Gems, you can return to the top of the grand sanctum in the room to the right of the Shar Sanctum Waypoint, facing the top of the giant Shar statue.
In this room, approach the device with the single Umbral Gem inside. Insert one of your gems into the empty slot.
The platform disc in Shar's hand will float toward you. Jump on and interact with one of the crystals on the disc itself.
The disc in this room is known to have errors with registering your attempts to click the crystals on the disc. If you can't interact with it, step off the disc and step back on to try highlighting the crystal again. Jump around, if needed. A save-reset should not be needed - just a little finagling.
Following this disc down and filling in the Umbral Gems in the next device (three in total needed).
This will open the doors to the statue on the other side and the way to Shadowfell.
Facing The Nightsong And Balthazar
Approach and interact with the pool at the depths of the Gauntlet of Shar. After doing so, you'll be transported to a new realm known as Shadowfell.
While in Shadowfell, you will have the Feather Fall status as a Passive Effect. Jump from island to island on the way down to the glowing light at the heart of this area.
Once at the base, you'll encounter Balthazar and the Aasimar known as the Nightsong. You will have two options here:
- Allow Balthazar to take the Nightsong to Ketheric to further his plans.
- Stop Balthazar and kill him.
The Balthazar fight is not an easy one without the aid of a good cleric, so having Shadowheart or another cleric is highly recommended here.
While there are lots of enemies to deal with, Balthazar himself can be dealt with quite easily by Shoving him off the platform and sending him to a gravity-related death.
Allowing Balthazar to take the Nightsong will result in failing Shar's quest and strengthening Ketheric Thorm.
If you stop Balthazar, you will again have two more options:
- Defy Shar (and change Shadowheart's mind, if present) to spare the Nightsong.
- Kill the Nightsong with the Spear of Night.
Regardless of which you choose, this will end the quest and thereby complete the Gauntlet of Shar. When you're done and ready to leave, interact with the portal in front of you to return to the Thorm Mausoleum entrance.