Thanks to a cocktail of D&D buffs, "5-ton Mega-Karlach" towers over Baldur's Gate 3 in a new peak for tall RPG women

Baldur's Gate 3 karlach
(Image credit: Larian Studios)

Future historians will draw a straight line from the internet's fascination with Resident Evil Village's Lady Dimitrescu and the more recent handiwork of a Baldur's Gate 3 player who used a triple-layered D&D buff sandwich to turn the RPG's beloved fiery companion, Karlach, into an 11,000-pound giant. 

Gaze upon the work of Reddit user lesser_panjandrum, who successfully made Karlach a 5.5-ton giant rivaling D&D's Gargantuan classification. Or as they've dubbed her, Mega-Karlach. 

TIL Enlarge effects can stack. Behold the 5-ton Mega-Karlach from r/BaldursGate3

How did get Karlach get so big? Good nutrition, progressive muscular overload, plenty of sleep, and no I'm just kidding, it's a bunch of magic nonsense. As lesser_panjandrum explains, you can stack multiple size-changing buffs to get extreme outcomes like this. In this case, Karlach's been enlarged by the actual Enlarge spell, an Elixir of the Colossus which has a similar effect, and a quarterstaff which gives the wielder an innate size boost.

All of this puts Karlach at an astonishing weight of 5,005 kilograms, and assuming lesser_panjandrum's custom character is of average height, she looks to be about 20 feet tall. Now, Karlach is already about seven or eight feet tall, and it makes sense that three Enlargement buffs would've roughly tripled her size. But where is that massive weight spike coming from? Granted, it's not like I've ever given Karlach a piggyback ride – dammit all – so I can't say for sure, but she doesn't seem to weigh roughly 3,000 pounds. 

In fact, I've just booted up Baldur's Gate 3 to check: Karlach normally weighs 90 kilograms, or about 200 pounds. Where did those 11,000 pounds come from? Maybe it's bone density to support her newfound size, or something to do with her Infernal Engine being scaled up. Is it like Pokemon evolving? You just gain a ton of mass to suit your new form? Perhaps Karlach is so big she now has her own gravitational pull and it's messing with the weight readings. Or maybe video games just don't have to make sense all the time, especially when D&D is involved. 

Whatever the case, Mega-Karlach might be even more popular than Regular-But-Still-Pretty-Mega Karlach. Predictably, one of the top replies to this post is: "My body has never been more ready." Another player naively hopes "this doesn't awaken anything in me." A third user requests "uppies" immediately. "I volunteer as tribute," says another. Yep, it's a beautiful, normal day in the Baldur's Gate 3 community.  

In case you missed it, Karlach's own actor ran a chaotic playthrough of Baldur's Gate 3

Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.

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