Key takeaways
- The Waning Moon lies in Reithwin Town, west of the central square, rather than being part of Moonrise Towers or the House of Healing.
- Thisobald Thorm can be defeated without a conventional battle by surviving or falsifying his drinking challenge and letting his own brew destroy him.
- Madeline’s Ledger is hidden beneath loose floorboards behind the bar and is required for Punish the Wicked.
- The back laboratory contains Punch-Drunk Bastard, Ichorous Gloves, research notes and alchemical materials.
- Reading the research notes and passing the relevant Investigation check reveals information about Thisobald’s poison and leads to an outdoor stash containing Corpse Rose.
- The best time to clear the Waning Moon is before entering the Shadowfell, because later progression can prevent completion of He Who Was’s associated quest.
About this guide
Spoiler warning: This guide covers Act Two story content, Thisobald Thorm, the Thorm family, Punish the Wicked, hidden loot, the distillery laboratory and the Shadowfell progression point of no return.
Overview
The Waning Moon is a ruined tavern and distillery in Reithwin Town, part of the Shadow-Cursed Lands in Act Two of Baldur’s Gate 3. It is not a separate town or an independent region. It is one named location within the wider Reithwin Town area, positioned west of the town’s central square and close to the road leading towards the Reithwin Tollhouse. The building is also connected to the riverbank and has several entrances at different elevations.
Before the Shadow Curse, the Waning Moon was a public house and working brewery. By the time the party arrives, it is presided over by Thisobald Thorm, an intelligent undead brewer and a member, or possible created descendant, of Ketheric Thorm’s family. The tavern’s surviving patrons are blighted undead who remain passive until the party turns the encounter with Thisobald into open combat.
The location is small in terms of its quest footprint, but unusually dense in optional content. It contains a social boss encounter with several non-combat solutions, a quest-critical ledger, a laboratory, a recipe clue, a number of magic items, minor environmental storytelling, hidden chests, an attic and an outdoor stash connected to Thisobald’s experiments.
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What counts as the Waning Moon?
It does not include the Reithwin Tollhouse, the House of Healing, the central Reithwin Town square, the Ruined Battlefield or Moonrise Towers. Those are neighbouring or connected locations, not subareas of the Waning Moon. The location guide places the Waning Moon west of the central square and shows its principal connections as Reithwin Town, the Reithwin Tollhouse, the House of Healing, Baldur’s Gate and Moonrise Towers.
Interior arrangement
The building is laid out vertically because the ground level drops towards the river. Some entrances lead directly to the lower distillery floor, while others open onto the upper gallery. The main hall has a bar on the lower floor, large brewing machinery, pipes and cisterns, and a gallery running around three sides of the room. Two broad scaffolds connect the gallery and the lower level.
Named interior areas
The gallery’s second bar is mainly environmental detail rather than a separate commercial service. Do not assume that every visible counter or storefront in the building functions as a vendor.
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Reaching the Waning Moon
The simplest route is to enter Reithwin Town and travel west from the central square. The building is close to the road and can also be approached from the river side. Its unusual elevation means that the entrance you use affects whether you arrive in the main hall, on the gallery or near the lower distillery level.
Suggested route
The order matters because the first conversation with Thisobald places the player character at the bar and can lead directly into the drinking sequence. It is safer to collect the freely accessible items first.
Suggested route
- 01Enter Reithwin Town.
- 02Follow the western road from the central square.
- 03Approach the Waning Moon from the street or river-side entrance.
- 04Before speaking to Thisobald, search the main hall and nearby exterior.
- 05Resolve the Thisobald encounter.
- 06Search behind the bar for Madeline’s Ledger.
- 07Use the key obtained from Thisobald, or otherwise open the rear door.
- 08Explore the laboratory and storage rooms.
- 09Read the research notes.
- 10Follow the revealed clue to the exterior stash and collect its ingredients.
Nearby connections
The Waning Moon is connected in the player’s route network to:
These are neighbouring areas rather than internal subareas. The Ruined Battlefield is especially important because Punish the Wicked begins there, while the Waning Moon supplies the ledger needed to progress that quest.
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Nearby connections
Thisobald Thorm
Thisobald Thorm is the Waning Moon’s master brewer and the location’s central encounter. He is an intelligent undead creature who remains behind the bar and insists that the player character drink with him. His exact family relationship to Ketheric Thorm is deliberately uncertain. The game’s documents and dialogue use familial or religious language, while the broader lore leaves open whether “Father Ketheric” means literal parent, creator or spiritual authority.
Thisobald is not immediately hostile if approached normally. He offers the protagonist his special brew and asks for stories. Refusing him can cause an immediate fight, while accepting opens a sequence of Constitution, Sleight of Hand, Performance and Deception options.
Ordinary inhabitants
The tavern contains several unnamed or generic blighted undead:
They are part of the tavern’s atmosphere and may join the fight if Thisobald becomes hostile. They are not a conventional customer group with a functioning shop or service system. They should be treated as environmental NPCs and combatants rather than vendors.
Other named or notable figures
The Raven is associated with the outdoor surroundings rather than being the proprietor of a separate service. Tska’an’s encounter is conditional and should not be treated as a permanent resident of the Waning Moon.
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Before starting the conversation
Collect the accessible items around the main hall first. In particular:
The surrounding blighted patrons remain neutral until the party initiates open combat with Thisobald. This gives the player time to explore the room, although approaching the bar begins the main scene.
Peaceful solution: outdrink him
The intended non-combat solution is to survive or manipulate the drinking contest until Thisobald consumes enough of his own brew to collapse.
A commonly documented sequence uses Constitution DCs of 14, 16 and 18 for actually drinking. Faking the drink is associated with Sleight of Hand DC 18, followed by storytelling checks around Performance DC 16, with Deception available as an alternative in relevant dialogue. The exact options shown can vary according to character abilities, dialogue choices and the way the scene is entered.
Practical advice
If the scene ends peacefully, Thisobald’s own overindulgence destroys him. This can grant full encounter experience without spending the party’s combat resources and can reveal information about Ketheric Thorm and his relic.
The available approaches include
| Approach | What it involves |
|---|---|
| Drink honestly | Constitution saving throws against progressively harder checks |
| Fake drinking | Sleight of Hand checks to avoid consuming the brew |
| Tell stories | Performance checks after the drinking rounds |
| Use Deception | An alternative route for some story responses |
| Refuse or fail | Usually leads to combat |
Combat solution
If the party refuses the drink, fails too many checks or attacks first, Thisobald and the blighted patrons can become hostile. The fight is more complicated than a normal undead brawl because Thisobald’s brew grants him changing resistances to damage types used against him. He becomes more vulnerable once he reaches a hungover state. Diversifying damage types is therefore more reliable than repeatedly using the same element or damage category.
A direct fight is still perfectly viable, but it has several disadvantages:
Inspiration opportunities
The encounter has several background-specific inspiration opportunities. Verified examples include:
These are inspiration rewards, not separate quests or permanent location upgrades.
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Inspiration opportunities
| Name | Details |
|---|---|
| A Story You Won’t Believe | Entertainer, for passing the Performance checks. |
| I’ve Had Worse | Outlander, for drinking and succeeding on at least one saving throw. |
| Lack of Moderation is Key | Haunted One, for killing Thisobald with his own brew. |
| Safety-Averse Quaffing | Guild Artisan, for drinking the brew at least once. |
| The Best Offence is Virtually Nonsense | Soldier, for killing Thisobald without entering combat. |
| Familicide | Soldier, for killing all three Thorms in Reithwin. |
| Thorm Family Secrets | Sage, for interacting with Thisobald and the other relevant Thorm family members. |
| Tricks of the Trade | Charlatan, for taking and succeeding at the Sleight of Hand opportunities. |
Major items
The magic-item directory for Act Two places Rat Bat, Ichorous Gloves and Punch-Drunk Bastard specifically in the Waning Moon, with the latter two hidden in the rear storage and laboratory areas.
Rat Bat
The Rat Bat is leaning near Thisobald’s bar, at approximately X: -224, Y: -78. It is easy to miss if the player immediately triggers the conversation. Its effect is aimed at attacks against beasts, making it more of a themed collectible than a universally powerful weapon.
Ichorous Gloves
The Ichorous Gloves are in a metal chest in the storeroom behind the bar. They cause the wearer’s acid damage to inflict Noxious Fumes on targets. This makes them useful for characters who regularly use acid spells, coatings or acid-based attacks.
Punch-Drunk Bastard
The Punch-Drunk Bastard is in a chest in the rear laboratory area, near a trapped cage door. While the wearer is drunk, melee attacks gain Advantage and create a small thunder blast around the target. It also deals bludgeoning damage when a melee attack misses, subject to the weapon’s rules.
This weapon is not merely decorative. It is designed for a build or temporary strategy that deliberately uses the Drunk condition. It can become particularly entertaining when combined with effects that spread or exploit intoxication, although the weapon’s usefulness depends heavily on whether the character can tolerate the drawbacks of being drunk.
Major items
| Item | Location | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Rat Bat | Near the main bar | Weapon with an advantage-related bonus against beasts |
| Potion of Angelic Slumber | Main hall chest | Accessible before or around the main encounter |
| Madeline’s Ledger | Beneath loose floorboards behind the bar | Quest item for Punish the Wicked |
| Punch-Drunk Bastard | Locked chest in the rear laboratory area | Particularly relevant to drunk-focused melee builds |
| Ichorous Gloves | Metal chest in the storeroom behind the bar | Adds a secondary effect to acid damage |
| Worn Key | Obtained from Thisobald’s remains or encounter resolution | Opens the rear laboratory door |
| Corpse Rose | Outdoor stash near the barn | Ingredient connected to Thisobald’s poison research |
| Antidote | Skeleton in the outhouse | Minor but easy-to-miss exterior pickup |
Chests and buried containers
The location’s broader loot directory includes several ordinary and buried containers. Their contents can vary according to container type and game state, so they should not be confused with the fixed named rewards above.
The precise difficulty of buried-container checks can vary by source presentation and character modifiers. The location directory records checks of DC 18, DC 10 and DC 16 for the three buried chests respectively.
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Verified container positions include
| Name | Details |
|---|---|
| Rustic chest at approximately X | -197, Y: -89. |
| Wooden chest at approximately X | -219, Y: -86. |
| Wooden chest at approximately X | -218, Y: -45. |
| Buried chest at approximately X | -183, Y: -51, requiring a Survival check. |
| Buried chest at approximately X | -159, Y: -113, requiring a Survival check. |
| Buried chest at approximately X | -238, Y: -87, requiring a Survival check. |
Punish the Wicked
The Waning Moon is central to Punish the Wicked, which begins at the Ruined Battlefield with He Who Was. The quest requires information about Madeline’s actions, and the relevant evidence is found in Madeline’s Ledger beneath the tavern bar.
How to retrieve the ledger
The ledger is not simply flavour text. It is a functional quest item. A documented Perception check around DC 10 reveals the floorboard cache.
Missability
Do not postpone this quest until after advancing beyond the Shadowfell. Progressing past the act’s major point of no return can prevent the quest from being completed. The Waning Moon itself remains explorable in the relevant part of Act Two, but the quest state elsewhere can change.
How to retrieve the ledger
- 01Resolve or defeat Thisobald Thorm.
- 02Search behind the bar.
- 03Pass the Perception check that reveals loose floorboards.
- 04Pry up the boards.
- 05Take Madeline’s Ledger.
- 06Return it to He Who Was as part of the quest.
Brewing and alchemy research
The rear laboratory contains Research Notes by Thisobald. The notes describe his effort to extract a deadly poison from a purple worm’s gullet. His experiments have failed to produce a truly fatal result, and he identifies Corpse Rose petals as the missing ingredient.
The notes cannot be read as an ordinary book in the usual way. Interacting with them triggers a voiceover. If the party passes the relevant Intelligence or Investigation check, the game reveals the location of an exterior stash and marks the information on the map. The source material records a DC 14 Intelligence check for understanding the obscured destination, while walkthroughs describe the related Investigation check as the way to decode the formula.
Outdoor stash
The stash is hidden in a small barn near the Waning Moon. If the party successfully interprets Thisobald’s notes, the dirt mound is revealed. Otherwise, the party can search for it with a high Survival check, documented at approximately DC 21.
The stash contains enough Corpse Rose to support the poison-related crafting interaction. Crafting the relevant poison for the first time can also provide background inspiration for Criminal and Guild Artisan characters.
This stash is separate from the laboratory. Finding the research notes does not automatically place the materials in the distillery, and finding the barn does not prove that the recipe has been learned.
Other Act Two connections
The Waning Moon contributes information and exploration opportunities to several wider Act Two threads:
The Waning Moon is not the main quest hub for all of these. Its importance is mostly contextual: documents, Thorm family information, the ledger and clues about the Shadow-Cursed Lands connect it to the wider plot.
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The building is unusually rich in written and performed lore. Named texts associated with the Waning Moon include:
These documents help establish that the tavern was once a functioning community business rather than merely a monster den. They also show the transition from ordinary hospitality to Thorm family administration, poison research and surveillance under the Shadow Curse.
The Waning Moon: Consignments is particularly useful for understanding the connection between the distillery and the discovery of the Selûnite resistance. The laboratory notes, meanwhile, point towards Thisobald’s obsessive attempts to create a weapon from rare ingredients. The sources confirm the documents’ presence and titles, but not every text has the same mechanical importance. Treat the ledger and research notes as the major actionable documents.
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Other Act Two connections
The outhouse
Near the stairs leading upwards towards Reithwin Town is an outhouse containing a skeleton. Search the body and nearby objects to find:
The exterior key is easy to overlook because the outhouse is not part of the main building. It is worth searching before assuming that every locked door requires a spell, lockpick or quest reward.
The attic
A locked door at approximately X: -187, Y: -53 leads to a small attic. The attic should be treated as a minor architectural subarea rather than a separate location. Its access is tied to the key found near the outhouse.
Missing-pet notice board
A notice board in the front yard contains announcements about missing pets. It is paired with a separate pile of pet collars near the Reithwin Tollhouse. The two objects are deliberately distributed between neighbouring locations, so finding one can affect how party members comment on the other.
The notice board is environmental storytelling rather than a conventional quest board. Do not expect it to function like a vendor, contract system or repeatable activity hub.
Githyanki ambush
A small stone bridge north-west of the distillery can trigger a conditional githyanki encounter. If the party has been marked for death by Vlaakith, a raiding party led by Tska’an may attempt an ambush when the bridge is approached.
If the party has received the Qua’nith Psionic Detector from Voss, it can give an early warning at this location. This encounter is state-dependent and should not be represented as a permanent enemy group inside the tavern itself.
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For a thorough but efficient visit
- 01Enter from the street or river side and note the building’s vertical layout.
- 02Search the main hall for Rat Bat and the Potion of Angelic Slumber.
- 03Inspect the gallery and side spaces before committing to the bar conversation.
- 04Speak to Thisobald with your strongest dialogue character.
- 05Prefer the drinking or deception solution if you want to conserve resources and keep the encounter controlled.
- 06Search the remains for the key and any drops after the scene ends.
- 07Reveal the loose floorboards behind the bar and collect Madeline’s Ledger.
- 08Open the rear laboratory using the key or another appropriate method.
- 09Collect Punch-Drunk Bastard, Ichorous Gloves and the alchemical materials.
- 10Interact with the Research Notes and pass the check to locate the exterior stash.
- 11Search the outhouse, attic entrance, barn and surrounding chests.
- 12Cross the nearby bridge only after preparing for the conditional githyanki encounter.
- 13Return Madeline’s Ledger to He Who Was before entering the Shadowfell point of no return.
Exterior
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Is the Waning Moon part of Moonrise Towers?
No. It is a separate location within Reithwin Town. Moonrise Towers is a neighbouring Act Two location connected by the wider Shadow-Cursed Lands route network.
Do I have to fight Thisobald Thorm?
No. You can defeat him through the drinking scene by passing Constitution, Sleight of Hand, Performance or Deception options. A direct battle is available but is not required.
Where is Madeline’s Ledger?
It is beneath loose floorboards behind the main bar counter. Search the area after dealing with Thisobald and pass the Perception check to reveal it.
Where are the best items?
The principal fixed rewards are spread across the bar and rear laboratory:
Can I complete the area after entering the Shadowfell?
You can often still visit the physical location depending on your current game state, but Punish the Wicked can become unavailable after the Shadowfell point of no return. Complete the ledger-related portion before advancing that far.
Is the outdoor Corpse Rose stash always visible?
Not necessarily. The research notes can reveal it after the relevant check. Without that successful discovery, the party may need to find the dirt mound through a difficult Survival check.
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Sources
- The Waning Moon - bg3.wiki — bg3.wiki
- Thisobald Thorm - bg3.wiki — bg3.wiki
- The Waning Moon – Baldur's Gate 3: Items, Secrets & Key Fights — questcompendium.com
- List of magic items in Act Two - bg3.wiki — bg3.wiki
- The Waning Moon - bg3.wiki — bg3.wiki
- Research Notes (Waning Moon) - bg3.wiki — bg3.wiki