BG3 House of Hope guide

One of the most mysterious and memorable characters in all of Baldur's Gate 3 is the charismatic cambion Raphael. From his magical manor, the House of Hope, he pulls the strings of mortals’ lives from the shadows, always finding a way to strike a deal that benefits him in the end.

Raphael is key to many quests throughout your adventure, not just your mission to defeat the Absolute. He’s taken an interest in the tiefling thief, Mol, for instance, and also has possession of the Orphic Hammer, the only artifact that can free Prince Orpheus from imprisonment inside the Astral Prism.

If you don’t want to help Raphael’s machinations come to fruition and want to take hold of the Orphic Hammer on your own terms, then you will need to find a way into the legendary House of Hope. Then, once you’re inside, the hard part starts: getting out alive.

Be aware: the combat in this quest is extremely difficult and should only be attempted at the max level of 12.

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How to get inside the House of Hope

To get inside Raphael’s House of Hope, travel to the Devil’s Fee occult shop in the northwest of the Lower City. With Karlach in your party, make your way around the shop examining the different artefacts and you will realise they’re the genuine article.

Speak to Helsik the proprietor and tell her you know she’s legit. Sensing a connoisseur. she’ll let you browse the best items she has. She’s got some good stuff, especially for druids, including a hat which buffs your shape shifting charges - an instabuy for Halsin, Jaheira or your Tav.

Grab a few items or a few ever-useful healing potions and then speak to her again. Ask her about getting to the House of Hope and she reveals that she was the one who punched a hole into the vault to steal the Crown of Karsus. She also says that Raphael has many other trinkets related to Karsus.

Ask if you can break into the House of Hope and she asks for a truly ludicrous amount of cash to do so: 20000 coins. However, if you’re silver tongued, you can persuade her to get you in on credit and steal one of Raphael’s artefacts for her collection. She wants the Gauntlets of Hill Giant Strength - agree to grab them and you’re in for free.

How to open the portal to the House of Hope

First, read the Grimoire Bound in Imp Skin.

The incantation reads:

Place that which has no eyes but used to see at the western point of the circle, Two spaces lie opposite that point, Upon the left place that which is cut but cannot bleed, to the right that which smells but cannot sniff, beside the dead remains the aspect of the avariced lord, the circle’s centre shall receive infernal marble.

Use your compass to place the skull on the western side of the circle, then opposite on the left is the cut diamond, to the right the incense, then the coin, then the marble in the middle.

So as you stand in the middle of the circle, skull is on your left, diamond on the right at the top, incense underneath that, then the coin one space above the skull, then the marble in the middle.

With the portal open, the Emperor will try and dissuade you from entering. But when you do anyway, approach the foyer.

House of Hope walkthrough

Hope, an apparition, will appear and you can try to convince her to help. Say you can try and free her and she’ll answer some questions. Usefully, she says the hammer is in the Archive down the hall and past the debtors. You’re then given the quest to save Hope. Once you get the hammer you can use it to smash her chains as well before Raphael comes.

Inside the House of Hope, you will be automatically disguised as a “Debtor”, someone who’s trapped within the Cambion’s manor and allowed to walk around relatively freely, so don’t worry too much about creeping around just yet.

So, you have three objectives: find Orpheus’s hammer for Lae’zel, the Gauntlets of Hill Giant Strength for Helsik and free Hope.

Continue forward and you find yourself in the reception hall Raphael whisked you away to back in Act 1. Speak to the Infernal Mason and it becomes clear that he was the architect that built Moonrise Tower. In an effort to stop Ketheric, he traded his soul to Raphael. Say that you defeated Thorm and the Mason will ask after the Towers at Moonrise. Since you healed the shadow curse, you can bring him peace by telling him Moonrise can once again stand as a beacon of light.

Turn right at the table and at the end of the hall you find a room full of portals. Speak to Hope and she tells you to turn back, but you can speak to Nubaldin in here to learn where the Prison is - down a hatch just outside this chamber. Unfortunately it’s locked for now, but we’ll return here later.

On the inner balcony, you find a note detailing a security breach where someone tried to use the back door on the balcony as a route into Raphael’s study - something to consider.

Further around the central pillar, you see a staircase seemingly leading nowhere. Pass a perception check and you see an inert infernal gem. Roll an easy wisdom check and the gem will fire up, then a more difficult arcana check. If you’re successful, a treasure room opens, revealing 666 gold coins and the Helldusk Helmet, which gives you darksight, invulnerability to crits, increased saving throws against spells, and a unique attack action which frightens enemies. You also find a contract between Raphael and Mol, which you can take to her inside the Thieves’ Guild.

On the left of the feast hall you find the Archive, but Hope will again speak to you outside. During the conversation, you will be able to ascertain that the archivist is in charge of the chamber and you will need to weasel what you need out of them. They apparently fear authority, particularly, if you can pass a persuasion check and portray yourself as Verillius Receptor, a High Inquisitor of Zariel.

Before you enter though, now’s a good time to make use of the outside shortcut into Raphael’s bedroom you heard about in the security breach. Through the door that leads outside next to the study, jump over the crumbling wall and hop across the rocks. Once you reach the study balcony, you need to smash the pot that blocks the way up. Doing so will alert a demon, who you will then need to persuade to look the other way with a surprisingly easy check.

Inside, speak to Haarlep. If you tell him you seek the Orphic Hammer, he asks you to play a saucy game. You can either play along, or fight them.

The safe you need is behind the right-hand portrait of Raphel and you get the key if you play along with the demon.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to give yourself to a devil, you can attack the Incubus. At this point, they will summon six imps to fight alongside them. Haarlep is tricky to take on, because every single time you hit them, they turn into a mote of light with Ethereal Escape, this means you should try and set up hazards to hit them while they’re vulnerable and make the one hit per round you can make count.

However, on defeat, they drop the key to Raphael’s safe, as well as the Helldusk gloves, which are incredible, giving your weapon or unarmed attacks an unqualified 1-6 extra damage with no downside. Because of these you should probably fight Haarlep, they’re just that good of an item.

Inside the safe you find notes that reveal the password to the hammer in the archive: give me my heart’s desire.

Before you leave, use the restoration faucet to heal yourself back to full. You can also steal some nice clothes from the wardrobes around the room.

Back at the Archive door, make a save and barge in. Inside, you see three tempting items: the Orphic hammer, an amulet of greater health and the gauntlets of hill giant strength. You can now either blow the whole shebang, grab what you want and start a violent party, or talk to the archivist and try to be more subtle.

Based on your prior knowledge, you can pretend to be Zariel’s high inquisitor, which should be a simple check with a high-charisma character. You’ll be given an invitation to the boudoir at this point, which you can go back to and gain the password if you haven’t done so already.

To steal the artifacts, you can pass a perception check and disarm the marble plates beneath them to not set off the alarms. However, this is unbelievably difficult.

At this point, pretty much your only option is to blow your cover, whack the Archivist and start the real party. But pretty much whatever you do, you will trigger the alarm once you grab the hammer.

Hope will speak to you and tell you that Raphael is on his way, and you will have to fight through Hell Balls (which should take priority because they deal a lot more damage than the regular imps and debtors) and other baddies to reach the prison on the other side of the House of Hope to reach her.

I’d recommend going around the outside of the House, rather than through the middle because it lets you make a stop at the restoration fountain in the boudoir between the fights.

Down the prison ladder, push the button and speak one last time to Hope before you free her. Remember to equip the Orphic Hammer to someone, then head inside. It’s easiest to focus on ending the fight, then going around to help Hope, but you can send the person with the hammer to destroy the large red stones at either side of her prison if you wish. There’s a unique action in that character’s skill set now which will let you smash them.

Head back up the ladder with Hope, there is a secret way you can climb up some rocks near the top of the prison but it’s easy to get stuck up there.

Visit the restoration fountain again, then make your way to the portal home, where Raphael arrives to intercept. If you wish, you can try and turn Korrilla, but all three of the demons aren’t here to play. If you bested Yurgir once, he will be more amenable to persuasion to join your side of the battle. If you tricked him, it’s a very difficult check indeed. It’s still worth trying though, because he will also join you as a powerful ally in the final battle against the Absolute if he survives.

When the fight begins, Raphael - a level 12 behemoth with 666 health - summons 6 vengeful Cambions to fight alongside him. You need to save your counterspell reactions for Raphael, because he can do huge chunks of damage quite easily. However, with the cambions spamming ray of fire, they’re a big threat as well.

Spam the Cambions down with melee characters that have a lot of attack actions. Then with the Cambions defeated, your attention can turn to the four soul pillars that Raphael draws power from. Destroying them causes him to skip turns in Soul Overcharge. They’re very weak to blunt damage, but can be rushed down with a variety of attacks.

When he’s on the defensive, he will turn into a much bigger demon and start spamming ridiculously powerful fire attacks. Here you will need to make use of Hope’s powerful healing spells. I chose to be a fire myrmidon as a druid during this fight because it meant I could be immune to his fire damage and whittle away with weapon damage, even if he was also immune to my bonus fire damage.

Once you’ve weathered the three turns of a super-powered demon, he’s much more vulnerable to being battered by everyone. Be wary though, as soon as he gets another chance he’ll power back up and spam mega-moves again, so spread out your characters. Have one behind, one to the left of, one to the right etc, otherwise he can do a ton of AoE damage. Yurgir can get caught in these and easily die too, so make a quicksave as a backup if you want him to survive.

After your hard-fought victory, speak to Hope and she is returning to her old self. With that, she deigns to turn the House of Hope into a real beacon of hope in the Hells. You receive the Legendary Gloves of Soul Catching, which buff your unarmed attacks massively, as well as buffing your constitution. On Raphael’s body you find the equally legendary Helldusk Armour which ignores proficiency (meaning anyone can wear it), sets enemies on fire when you succeed a saving throw, gives you fire resistance, and lets you fly!

Before you leave, speak to Yurgir, if he survived. Free of his contract, he can return to his fight. For ultimately breaking his contract like you promised in the Gauntlet of Shar, he pledges his support to you in the fight to come - yet another powerful ally.

You can now leave, but The Emperor isn’t pleased you now have the ability to free Orpheus. Whatever you say, you continue on your journey to take down the Elder Brain.

To finish up your business with Hellsik, you can straight up renege on the deal and say she can’t have the gauntlets if you want - which she’s angry about but doesn’t put up much of a fight.

Alternatively, you can hand them over, which she just accepts and you can still use the shop. Or you can lie and say you don’t have them. It’s a really easy check, but she then says you owe her 20 grand. It’s a ridiculous price, and the intimidation check is also very easy. Resolving things this way means she not only lets you keep the gloves, but also use her shop - easily the most advantageous outcome!