The Thorm family line is quite the lineage in the world of Baldur’s Gate 3. Ketheric Thorm is a major antagonist in BG3, and with his daughter Isobel opposing him, most players forget the less-famous Thorms in the bloodline—such as Gerringothe Thorm.
While Malus Thorm makes his home in the House of Healing, Gerringothe Thorm blocks your path to the Shadow-cursed Lands on your way to Baldur’s Gate. She acts as a tollkeeper across the main bridge to the western section of the Shadow-cursed Lands and getting through her can be challenging if you are unprepared.
Before we get to fight her, we will need to know how to find Gerringothe Thorm.
Where to find Gerringothe Thorm in Baldur’s Gate 3
The first thing you do after getting into act two and entering the Shadow-cursed Lands is find the Last Light Inn for a safe reprieve. Once you settle in, it’s time to find the tollhouse bridge into the western part of the Shadow-cursed Lands. Head to the south of the Last Light Inn and you should find three different bridges that lead to the west. Choose the middle bridge that is still intact and push ahead.
Here, you will find the tollhouse which is covered in roots malformed by the Shadow curse. Head to the top of the tollhouse to find floating skulls and a suspicious figure covered in gold-plated armor. This is the person that once was Gerringothe Thorm. Now completely infested with the Shadow curse, she has lost her mind and is focused on only one thing: collecting toll fees.
How to beat Gerringothe Thorm in Baldur’s Gate 3
As with most battles in Baldur’s Gate 3, the game offers you different options when it comes to taking care of Gerringothe Thorm. Battling can be quite straightforward because you will be locked into combat with her and all of the floating skulls around her. While there is a certain strategy you can follow here, an alternate method also exists.
It is possible to entirely skip this fight using your words. Classes like the Bard should have no problem avoiding this fight altogether using Persuasion while taking out Gerringothe Thorm at the same time. Depending on your character class and the method you choose, the fight will vary. Here is how you can achieve victory with each method.
1) The battle method
This is the more direct method of the two, but it is definitely the harder choice. This is because Gerringothe Thorm has the most health of any boss you have encountered up to this point: a whopping 600 HP. While this might seem intimidating at first, there is a way to quickly whittle down her health, and that has something to do with the gold armor she is encased in.
Most of her health comes from her gold armor, so your first priority will be to destroy it. This can be done using the floating skulls around her. Target the skulls first and when you’re ready to destroy one of them, make sure they are as close to Gerringothe as possible. This is because once you destroy them, they will blow up, dealing heavy damage to Gerringothe’s armor.
Destroy enough of these skulls and Gerringothe’s armor, which makes up most of her health pool, will be broken as well, allowing you to put her out of her misery much easier. Just beware of getting swarmed by the skulls because it is very easy to get overwhelmed in this battle if you aren’t careful with your positioning.
Related: Baldur’s Gate 3: How to solve the button puzzle in the Thorm Mausoleum in BG3
Once her armor is off, the tricky part of the battle is over, and fighting Gerringothe should be much easier. Just don’t take victory for granted throughout the rest of the fight though, as she wields gold as a weapon and deals heavy damage while you’re trying to blow her armor off. Maintaining distance while you bait her into skull explosions is key.
Alternatively, you can just not fight Gerringothe at all and make her do all of the work instead.
2) The persuasion method
If your character has high Charisma, or you have Astarion in your party, you can simply talk your way out of an unnecessary fight. As is commonplace with the Thorm battles, like with Malus and Thisobald, talking to Gerringothe probably produces the most satisfying result of all in this encounter. Head to the top of the tollhouse and let the cutscene with Gerringothe begin.
Make sure you have your most charismatic or deceptive character do the talking here and engage her in conversation. Upon first contact, she will ask you for a toll fee of no specified amount. You can begin by giving her a gold piece and she will ask you for more. If you keep giving her gold pieces, it quickly becomes apparent that she wants all the gold you currently possess.
If you refuse to give her any gold, battle with begin and you can refer to the previous section of this guide instead. If you stick with the persuasion aspect, follow these few steps and you should win.
Related: Baldur’s Gate 3: The Art of Persuasion – wield to your advantage in BG3
- Step 1: Give her a piece of gold and ask Gerringothe what you would get in return.
- Step 2: Wait till she says “You may pass the river, but first you must pay.”
- Step 3: Use Deception and claim that you’re the new Toll Collector coming to replace her.
- Step 4: Convince her to hand over all of her gold to you and that should defeat Gerringothe.
When she runs out of gold, Gerringothe will explode and you win the battle, finishing this encounter without needing to fight.
Regardless of which method you choose to defeat Gerringothe Thorm, you should be able to pass back and forth through the tollhouse with no trouble from this point on. Following this, we recommend heading to either the House of Healing to defeat Malus Thorm or the Waning Moon to defeat Thisobald Thorm on your quest to the Moonrise Towers.
