The dead, like animals, provide an entire dimension of the story-telling in Baldur's Gate. But unlike speaking with animals, you won't need any particular abilities or potions or spells or scrolls, just one item within shouting distance of the beach where you begin.

This is a very quick guide intended for people who haven’t tried out corpse-talking yet. If you're like me, once you try it you might wish you'd been doing it all along.

Without spoiling anything, in the same room where you meet Withers, you will find The Amulet of Lost Voices. It looks like any other treasure, but this item makes anybody an ambassador to the underworld for as long as they wear it.

• Anyone can attempt communication with the dead at-will. Social skills aren't needed.
  
• Cast it at the first valid target you see each day, after that any corpse with a message will glow to signal you that they have something to say
  
• Doesn't conflict with any other spells or abilities
  
• The dead do not keep secrets. If they talk to you at all, they hold nothing back.
  
• You might be surprised at what will talk to you from the other side. Mushroom in the shape of a dude? Yup.

The only cost is that someone has to be wearing the amulet, and sometimes you want to wear something else (it isn't cursed, you can switch any time).

If you have the amulet equipped the icon to cast the spell will be on the common tab.

If you only use the custom tab of the toolbar (rock on!), you can drag it on from the skills (k) > common tab.

Technically it's one cast per day with infinite re-casts while you keep the necklace on. That only really matters because after the first time you use it each day you will find the new ability to recast on an extra section of the toolbar that is only visible when there's something to see.

It also means that if you take it off, even if someone else puts it on, it won't work again until you take a long rest.

There are a bunch of reasons why a corpse might not speak to you, but the most avoidable ones are:

• It can't talk because "someone" melted its face off with acid (or fire, radiant, etc.)
  
• It won't talk to you because it's still mad that you killed it

You only get one shot to talk to any given corpse unless you reload. If you think the body might recognize you from that one time when you murdered it, the disguise self spell (or a certain item from digital deluxe) works nicely.

That's all I got. This is just an orientation, not some master class.

Get back to work, flayer-slayer. That's what I'm going to do.

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