The companions in Baldur’s Gate 3 aren’t the only ones keeping things lively back at camp. Throughout the game you can pick up fellow travelers and even pets like an owlbear cub who really help make camp feel like a home.
You’ll first meet the owlbear cub in Act 1 in a small cave northeast of the Blighted Village. Before you encounter the cave, you’ll find a dog named Scratch whimpering over the body of his former owner. Depending on how your interaction with Scratch plays out, he might join you back at camp later, too.
After talking to Scratch, you can head up the path toward the cave. It’s a good idea to have your party level up once or twice before pursuing the owlbear cub because there’s a good chance you won’t be getting it without a fight.
Say hello to your mother for me
When you enter the cave, you’ll be faced with a fully grown owlbear. She’s protecting her young cub and makes it clear that she wants you to leave immediately. There are a couple of ways to diffuse the situation, like casting Speak with Animals or passing an Animal Handling check, but no matter what you do the owlbear mother insists that you leave the cave.
It’s counter-intuitive, but the easiest way to get the owlbear cub to come to your camp is to kill its mother. She’s definitely a tough creature, and her cub will help her in a fight, but the fact that you’re fighting her four-on-one makes this all pretty easy. All that fighting worked up an appetite in the cub, and it’ll start eating its mother as soon as you kill her.
Leave the cub to its meal, and sometime later it will show up back at your camp. At that point, you can feed it yourself before it runoff. Eventually the cub will get injured and will come to your camp looking for a friendly face. If you heal the cub, it’ll stay at your camp permanently.
Looking into other options
Even though the owlbear cub didn’t seem to miss its mother, I felt a lingering guilt about killing her. The second time I played through Act 1, I decided to leave the cave like the mother wanted me to. I came back later to check in, only to find that she’d been killed anyway, and the cub had been taken back to the goblin camp.
The goblins were planning on using the owlbear in a new version of their chicken chasing game, and I had the option to try and convince Krolla, located just to the left of the camp’s entrance, to let the cub go. Since I was planning on clearing out the entire camp to defend the grove anyway, I decided to leave the conversation and start the violence.
After the battle the cub escaped, and later it showed up at my camp just like it did on my first go-around. Note: you’ll need to ensure the owlbear cub survives the fight outside the camp, so try to form a nice protective circle around it during the battle.
