As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
- Yoshimo's death. Just as bad is the barrage of sad and betrayed-sounding comments from your companions that precede it.
- Farmer Brun's Missing Son. Elderly Farmer Brun asks you to look for his son, Nathan, who went to investigate missing livestock. You go to look for him in the Ankheg's Nest and after fighting your way through Ankhegs, you find his body. You can't take him to get resurrected, he's gone for good. You take him back to his father, who is heartbroken, as he lost not only his son, but will lose his land as well, as he is now too feeble to work. That is unless you choose to give him 100 gold pieces to help him get by. Still, he lost his only son, and will be alone.
- Jon Irenicus's speech to Ellesime at the Tree of Life helped to humanise and add tragedy to a character who up until that point had been unrepentant and sadistic. Even so, Ellesime decides that, despite her love, Irenicus is beyond any hope of saving and that he needs to be put down.Jon Irenicus: I... I do not remember your love, Ellesime. I have tried to. I have tried to recreate it, to spark it anew in my memory. But it is gone... a hollow, dead thing. For years, I clung to the memory of it. Then the memory of the memory. And then nothing. The Seldarine took that from me, too. I look upon you and I feel nothing. I remember nothing but you turning your back on me, along with all the others. Once my thirst for power was everything. And now I hunger only for revenge. And... I... Will... HAVE IT!!
Ellesime: Then I pity you. Would that you had used your stolen mortal years to earn your return to this sacred place... I could have loved you anew as I loved the man you once were. But I see nothing of him here. You are Irenicus. And all that awaits you now... is death. - At the end of Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, if you're in a relationship with Jaheira, her reaction to whichever decision you make is worthy of the name Tear Jerker.
- The ending Where Are They Now stories for party members are often quite Tear Jerker-y. At least, Minsc's "they're together still, up among the stars where hamsters are giants and men become legend". Viconia's romanced ending where her past finally catches up with her and she is denied even the experience of seeing her son grow up by the ever-scheming Lolth and her followers is also liable to make your eyes water.
- Kelsey's romance mod can make players tear up every time. Not helped by the almost sobbing of the voice actor.
- Kelsey. Tree Of Life. "So let me just say this. I love you. I need you. And I am with you until the end." It's voiced. Cue waterworks!
- Kelsey's romance mod can make players tear up every time. Not helped by the almost sobbing of the voice actor.
- The Master Wraith in Throne of Bhaal WILL tear up your romance option, but none came close to utter heartbreaking like Aerie. To wit: he conjured an image of her mother, who proceeds to blame her for getting the latter killed by more sadistic slavers, all because Aerie dared to go missing from her. Aerie may be a little too whiny for her own good, but on the other hand, hearing her completely break down sobbing and begging it to stop is just too much.
- Even worse, when it's the other original romance options doing these things, the only things voiced are the illusions of their loved ones, the victim does not have voice acting. Aerie? Her whole breakdown is voiced, so you get to hear Kath Soucie making her sound completely desperate and in anguish, and goddammit it was that effective to show the trope Break the Cutie.
- In the Tales of the Sword Coast expansion for the original game, the resolution of the Werewolf Island subquest is rather tragic. There is one particular character — the friendliest one in the village and pretty much the only one who doesn't hold your outsider status against you — who you can do favors for such as retrieving a cloak and delivering him/her (depending on your player character's gender) flowers. If you pick the nicer dialogue options, the journal entries reveal that you are becoming increasingly fond of him/her. If you offer to take him/her with you to the mainland to start a new life together, he/she will consider it but ultimately refuse out of fear and lingering attachment to the village. That's sad enough. After The Reveal that the villagers are all dangerous werewolves, he/she helps you to evade them and shows you an escape route. Your new friend and nascent Love Interest still refuses to leave and decides to fight the other villagers to buy time for you — and it's heavily implied he/she doesn't survive. The journal entry covering this ends with the words "...I wish..."
- There is, however, a mod in the works which will allow said villager to join your party in the second game (and even become a full fledged Love Interest). So a nice Fan Retcon on what would otherwise have been quite a Downer Ending.
- Many Bhaalspawns in Saradush don't want anything to do with their heritage and just want to go on with their lives. It's also heavily implied that Bhaalspawns will end up in the lower planes when they die, regardless of alignment and by all accounts, they all die when Saradush is destroyed.
- Speaking of Saradush, delving into Yaga-Shura's backstory is something of a tear jerker all of its own; not because it makes him any less of a monster - if anything it just makes him worse - but meeting his adoptive mother Nyalee is a pretty tragic experience. She explains to you that in life, she was a priestess of Bhaal who adopted Yaga-Shura in infancy. Although Bhaal would have wanted her to kill him as a baby, she raised him as best she could and even helped him achieve invulnerability by cutting his own heart out and placing it in a Soul Jar. He then did the same to her to prevent her from undoing her work; this comes back to bite him on the ass in a big, big way when her shade is only too happy to help you render him vulnerable in exchange for the return of her own. The tissue-wiping starts when she restores her own heart and remembers her emotions, including her lost love for the giant she raised as if he came from her own womb...
"And... there. It be done, a simple thing, it is. The boy's heart is cold, now. As... as cold as his mother's old heart... You... you will hurts my boy, won't you? No... no, what has Nyalee done?! My poor boy, the spawn-child will hurts him! Nyalee must stops him/her!! Come, spirits of the glade! Come, woodsies of the forest!! We... we must protects my boy! My precious Yaga-Shura!!" - Jaheira finding Khalid's corpse at the beginning of Baldur's Gate 2. This is the first time the rather stoic Jaheira breaks down crying. And even if you consider him The Scrappy, it's rather hard to not break down. And to make it even worse, Khalid has his own quest in Siege of Dragonspear where he's trying his damndest to make an anniversary gift for Jaheira. Playing that quest and realizing Khalid's eventual fate can make the gut punch even harder: You now know that both Khalid and Jaheira were Happily Married for a reason!
- A short line from Imoen, after the revelation of her Bhaalspawn status.Imoen: I don't feel like I fit in with the people of the city anymore.
- Brage, former captain of the Amnish guard and an all around decent guy — until he obtains a cursed sword of berserking. The curse drives him to kill his entire family, a merchant caravan (both people and horses), and who knows how many other people in between by the time you catch up to him. If you choose to return him to the Temple of Helm, Brage will be horrified by what he's done (even though he couldn't control it) and say that he no longer wants to live. Nalin, the priest, instead insists he atone for it all. Try talking to Brage after he comes to his senses and you're met with a mix of insane laughter and distraught sobbing.
- Viconia's ending if romanced. It's such a downer that the above-mentioned Edwin romance mod comes with a happier ending for a romanced Viconia thrown in, though it only triggers if the player "redeems her" and causes her to shift to
True Neutral. - Rasaad's endings; all three. No matter what comes, he dies in ignominy, whatever happiness he enjoyed ending with a miserable death. And no matter what happens, Alorgoth gets off scot-free, the vengeance that defined and shaped Rasaad's Character Development left unfulfilled.
- Durlag's Tower... just, the backstory of Durlag's Tower. A dwarven hero builds this home for treasures and family in the late days of his adventures, and then it gets infiltrated by Doppelgangers who systematically murder his entire clan until only he remains. Then Durlag goes mad after slaughtering them because they wore his family's faces as they hunted him! What's more is that Durlag feared dying alone, as his father had. It was his greatest fear and his clan's murderers saw to it that it happened.
- Sanik is a mage who fell in love with the courtesan Claire in the Outlaw Town Brynnlaw, and plans to smuggle her away so he could marry her. Unfortunately Claire's mistress Galvena found out about his plans and sends an assassin to murder Sanik, and there is no way for the player to save Sanik. This is why one popular mod includes the option to save Sanik and give the story a Happily Ever After ending.
- The whole of Anomen's questline, as well as his backstory. Say what you will about the man, but once the truth of his past begins coming out, one can see why he tells such outlandish tales of extreme heroism to impress you, especially if you're a romanceable female. His mother died, leaving him and his sister with their abusive drunkard of a father, he joins the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart in order to become a knight, but grows impatient as he awaits his trial to determine if he's ready or not... and then his questline kicks in when his beloved sister is murdered. After a meeting with his father about it and discovering that he believes it could have been his business rival, the story can go one of two ways... both seeming intent on breaking the man:
- Follow through with murdering Saerk's family and himself to take revenge for Moira's murder. Anomen then fails his test of knighthood and is cast out from the Order. Feeling himself betrayed by the people he looked up to and dedicated years of his life to impressing, he essentially spits on their name and loses everything he once was, becoming Chaotic Neutral in return. And to further drive in the knife? It's revealed that Moira was NOT killed by Saerk at all - Anomen murdered innocent people who, while still vile in their own right, had nothing to do with his sister's death and ultimately failed his knighthood for nothing.
- This also becomes heartwrenching when the man who boasted of grand feats of heroism... starts to scare the spit out of your own party because of just how far he's fallen. Can't get any worse you say? Anomen will now attack party members who dare try to warn him of how dark he's getting. While it sorta makes sense that he would come to blows with Keldorn, who is still trying to lecture him like a squire, but when Anomen will outright try to kill freakin AERIE of all people, just because she was telling him how much he was scaring her and how worried she was about him, then you know the man's hit rock bottom...
- Convince Anomen to simply report your suspicions but otherwise take no immediate action. Anomen's father disowns his son entirely, leaving Anomen with no home to return to, ever. While he does pass his knighthood, it's later revealed that Saerk did indeed murder his beloved sister when he murders his father as well. Anomen then leaves the party and goes to take his vengeance, requiring a romanced Charname to talk him down if they have any hope of saving the romance.
- Follow through with murdering Saerk's family and himself to take revenge for Moira's murder. Anomen then fails his test of knighthood and is cast out from the Order. Feeling himself betrayed by the people he looked up to and dedicated years of his life to impressing, he essentially spits on their name and loses everything he once was, becoming Chaotic Neutral in return. And to further drive in the knife? It's revealed that Moira was NOT killed by Saerk at all - Anomen murdered innocent people who, while still vile in their own right, had nothing to do with his sister's death and ultimately failed his knighthood for nothing.
- The beginning of Keldorn's mini questline. The old Paladin seems all too happy and proud to introduce his family to you, and at first it goes averagely well, seeing his daughters greet their father monotonously but still acknowledging their father. Then they leave him and their mother alone. The mother then starts chewing him out for abandoning the whole family for the sake of his Paladin duties (even accusing you as just some people he converted). Even Keldorn is speechless, and this is topped with the reveal that Keldorn's wife has been seeing/eloping another man, just so their children won't feel lonely and has a father figure. The wife then leaves Keldorn completely devastated, cursing that if this is how it goes, he will be duty-bound to send his beloved wife to jail for philandering and dooming his children with a parentless life, forever hating him for what he will be ordered to. This is the only time the ever-calm Keldorn is on the verge of breaking.
