#but you have to go from Cazador directly to end-game

[bhaalsdeepbat]

Astarion: Finally, we're catching up on our puppet master. And the hunt ends at Moonrise Towers.

screaming crying throwing up over this line with durge and romanced astarion on my duo run. they both start as puppets, then are free enough of their former masters to make their own choices, then they both have a choice: chain themself to their master or be free.

with durge that's either resist or become bhaal's chosen. If they resist, they're marking to certain death. To be free of Bhaal is to die, and I think they're acutely aware of that. To become his Chosen is to extend the amount of time they live, but they know it won't truly be living, if they live their life in service to another.

with astarion it's to break the cycle of abuse and be more than what nearly 200 years of empathy-breaking hell - Sisyphus pushing up the boulder but make it seducing people, eating rats and insects, night after night, knowing everyone you touch is doomed to die - made him OR unchain himself to everything Cazador did by killing Cazador without ascending, allowing him the safety of his abuser being gone so he can finally start feeling and healing without the ever-present threat of becoming a slave to Cazador again.

Their romanced "bad" endings all require someone to become the other's puppet. If Durge becomes Bhaal's Chosen, they force Astarion back into servitude and make him no more than a puppet after taking over the Absolute to start slaughtering the world in Bhaal's name. If Astarion Ascends, Durge either agrees to the loss of their independence and personhood by becoming a spawn OR the relationship falls apart.

I don't have anything else to say I'm just screaming about this lmao

[lucrezianoin]

Dark Urge and Astarion romance (spoilers for both quests)

So I have a lot of feelings about the Astarion romance route while playing Dark Urge. A LOT. I feel like the two (and in general Shadowheart's personal quest too actually) feel very complementary.

TW for everything involving Astarion's past, and general violence.

Keep in mind that this is going to be a long post and it is going to have SPOILERS for the whole game, till the very end. In general this is a long happy rant about how happy I am about Dark Urge path and Astarion romance together. Also keep in mind that this is about my feelings of the two, not about "which one is objectively the best romance for Dark Urge". This is more of a "please if you liked astarion romance as tav romance him as dark urge too" than a "if you play as dark urge you need to romance astarion".

Also keep in mind this is ONLY about redeeming Dark Urge and their good path! In the post I will only talk a little bit about the bad ending.

General points

In general, I just wanted to talk about the theme of the urges/hunger, the theme of family and escaping from your family, a little bit about the evil choice and the whole theme of rebirth that both characters have quite explicitly. In this order!

Urges

The first point of connection between the two characters is the fact that they are (sometimes) both driven by a certain hunger for blood or violence. As Durge you will be able to see how your companions react to these black outs, and you will worry about it, and Astarion seems to be among the most accepting. Maybe it is just his need to keep on Durge's good side, or maybe it is just the fact that he has experience on it.

In later scenes, Astarion will draw parallels between Durge's experience and his own. If Durge is cursed to succumb to his own urges, then Astarion will directly connect that to the times Cazador's has driven him feral and mad with hunger.

During the extra Durge specific romance scene, Astarion makes another direct connection to the violence in Durge and what he previously did. He does not have a completely clean conscience (that is clear, and not just because of Cazador), and he is not as "good" at making the good nice choice as other companions.

He understands the hunger and losing control over his body more than others, so he can empathize with Durge and what they are going through. He jokes about it, sure, but he is genuinelly worried.

Another option in the dialogue has him saying "If anyone understands an internal voice forcing your hand, I do. But that's not who we are now. We make our own choices, and you made the right one last night." He is the only companion who uses the "we".

Other points of overlapping are, of course, the fact that both characters have gaps in their memories. Astarion because of trauma and Durge because of physical trauma (torture and well, violence). Their past is one of violence, for both of them, and while Durge operated it a little more voluntarily than Astarion, this NEW Durge, the blank state we get at the start of the game... well, in a good playthrough they try to resist their need for violence just like Astarion is resisting his hunger and his thirst for power.

Reciprocal saving

Astarion is literally introduced as a damsel in distress. He is the only companion whose quest NEEDS to be completed before the tadpole is removed or he will become a slave again (other companions might have other consequences, but nothing that cannot be solved after the tadpole removal, and in case of Karlach there is no limit, she is destined to die or return to Avernus). He does need help, he cannot face Cazador alone, so we all know his plan for protection.

The first scene he appears him is literally him asking for help to try and lure the player and get some answers out of them.

As a player with companions characters, we are all used to helping them in their quests. But as I said, Astarion's help is kinda on a ticking clock based on the end of the game... and well, he is the one who is clearly less involved with abilities and fighting. In story, he is the only one who is out of place. Gale is a great wizard and Mystra ordered him to take care of the brain, Wyll is a legendary hero, Karlach is a legendary warrior, Shadowheart is on a mission for Shar, Lae'zel is also a warrior and she will be on her mission for Orpheus soon, Halsin is a powerful druid who wants to break a curse directly connected to the brain etc. etc.

Astarion is... a guy. Who was a slave. By accident he has been chosen by the mindflayers and freed. His only connection with the group is the tadpole, he could not care less about, well, the "mission". His own mission is remaining free and getting rid of Cazador. And he needs the player character for that (we know he is recaptured if he leaves the group).

I could go on a rant about the angst of it all and the power imbalance this create and the fear that surely drives him through act 1, but for now I wanted to talk about this "be saved by the player character" and how with Durge it finally becomes reciprocal.

This is more than "let's help each other on a quest". This is two characters who are on a path of possible evilness and destruction, promising to save each other.

I think some of the imbalance in a Tav's playthrough, where Tav is good and helps Astarion out of their good heart, disappears in a Durge one.

Durge NEEDS Astarion as much as Astarion needs him. Astarion directly promises Durge to save them from becoming a slave to their urges. One of my favourite options as Durge is replying "I will be the person you want to see in me". Because for ALL the complaining, all the times Astarion says he wants power... the person he wants to see in Durge is still someone sweet and kind, a good heart.

You have two possible bad people who end up being each other moral compass and saviors, equally. And I think it makes the story so much richer. Of course, in the case of Astarion it is a direct persuasion check from the player (as long as you make him face the consequences), in the case of Durge is more metagaming, given it is the idea of wanting to be the person Astarion sees in you (and your friends and companions).

Both Astarion and Durge need to be seen for the good parts they have in them.

After the Durge questline, when they refuse Bhaal, Astarion will say "But somehow by your side I still only ever saw you", which echos what he says to Durge (in his romance scene) that he feels seen by them.

Family

For all the violence and the horror, the quests of Durge and Cazador are presented as family. Durge's family was what led them to violence, their father basically cursing them to a life of hate, then they were betrayed by their "sister" and made into a blank state.

Cazador constantly swings between considering his spawns as children or pets/dogs, putting himself in the role of the almost father. The spawns call each other siblings.

While the two families are quite different, they both end up with Astarion and Durge having to make a choice about choosing or refusing the "father"'s power, one to be stolen and the other offered.

You were also both made by them. Cazador often remarks on Astarion being his and being made/his creation. Bhaal directly considers Durge a puppet he made, and if Durge does not agree with his plan then he will make another.

The evil choice

I found it pretty interesting that there is only one quest among companions that have a full on evil choice, and that is Astarion's. Shadowheart's two choices are both painful and very hard to decide upon, Gale's choice of giving back the crown is seen generally as a good choice but it also involves giving back to Mystra who abused her power on him. Karlach, Minsc and Jaheira don'r really have choices. Lae'zel's choice of queen vs Orpheus is a clear path to Orpheus (as in, I think she decides that on her own if she sees him) but the real choice happens at the end, where she has to choose between Orpheus and living for herself - what is the good choice there? Helping free her people or live her own life? Wyll's choice is also hard and almost equal in pain/gain, one is saving his father and being stuck in the pact, and the other is freeing him but knowing Mizora will come for his father again (even if you save him in game). I think it is telling that the choice is hard because Wyll never says he regrets making the pact in the first place, it was a hard choice he had to make.

Astarion and Durge are the only personal quests that have a clear and defined evil ending, and interestingly enough it is similar...

Both glowing in red light while accepting the cursed power given by their "fathers". Both will come out of it with glowing eyes and evil smiles. The bad choice makes them the worst version of each other, as they both failed to be anchor for their good selves.

I really dislike ascended Astarion, and he clearly has a bigger impact on his personality, given Durge is a player character, but I still found it a good parallel, just the fact that these are the two in the party who can be REALLY evil, who can truly go towards the worst possible path. And not a path of "evil together", but a path of domination and reciprocal destruction.

Astarion becomes everything Cazador's was and wants to take control of Durge, and Durge has to follow Bhaal's plan and take control of the brain... which ends up with Astarion just where he started, as a puppet controlled by that person who (as the Butler once said) he should have feared the most.

Rebirth (the good choice)

NOW TO TALK ABOUT MY FAVORITE POINT. Both stories, both quests, end in an explicit rebirth symbolism.

We have Durge literally dying, and being resurrected by another god of death, coming back to life to find out that he has been given a second chance. The urges have gone, they are free, they are a new person forged by the experience they went through during the path to Baldur's Gate.

In the same way, Astarion is also forged by his experiences with the group and Durge, by what they all went through. So much that if the player does not allow him to confront Sebastian and show him that he is driven by fear, that he, deep down, feels compassion for the spawns... then the player will lose the ability to persuade him to stop the ritual.

Astarion is also reborn, so much that we have a whole scene where he writes a new date on his tomb, it cannot be more explicit than this.

In both cases not only the theme of rebirth but of responsibility is stressed. Astarion talks about freedom as a place where he (and his siblings) are responsible for their choices, good or bad. And the same can be said about Durge.

So yes, I think playing as Durge puts so much more into Astarion's romance, because creates an almost parallel path of these two people who could easily become the worst version of themselves, and if Durge pushes to stop their urges, in a good playthrough, they do become each other's anchor and key to break the cycle.

[y-rhywbeth2]

Vampire babbling time: So vampires are split into age categories, and they tend to get stronger with age (although, disclaimer that this is 2e not 5e - it is still D&D lore though. Hooray for home ruling and porting stuff over. Anyway.)

Fledgling: 0-99 years Mature: 100-199 years Old: 200-299 years Very Old: 300-399 years Ancient: 400-499 years Eminent: 500-999 years Patriarch: 1000+ years

It's also notable that this categorisation is used by hunters, not vampires themselves, but the point here is the mechanics of the categories; their strength, dexterity, intelligence and charisma increases over the centuries, they can move with greater and greater supernatural speed, and their regeneration abilities increase as they heal even faster, and you need enchanted weapons to harm them and the strength of the enchantment must be stronger the older they are.

Edit: Oh, and they can also control more and more undead minions. (Their supernatural powers, like spider climb and gaseous form aren't connected to age: They have those from the moment they become vampires and they don't weaken or strengthen.)

Because of this increase of power with age, the vampire pecking order is decided by age; younger vampires are fully expected to fear, obey and revere their elders, who consider themselves entitled to it.

For every day a vampire doesn't feed properly, it drops an "age category". So an "old" vampire who doesn't drink enough blood (12 HP in game terms) will regress to "mature", and back down to "fledgeling" if they don't feed again (which would be the base statblock for vampires and spawn in the monster manual). If they then feed sufficiently (source is irrelevant; animal, human[oid], corpse, bottled, it's fine) then they will be restored to the "mature" category, and with another feeding be restored to their actual power levels. (You cannot starve a vampire below the supernaturally enhanced base stats it started with when it became a vampire (the fledgling stage); if you translated this lore over directly (again, it's not 5e) Astarion being weaker than the average fledgling vampire spawn is the tadpole's fault (which is basically canon))

If a vampire wanted to keep their "children" at the comparatively weak fledgling stage then they'd have a balancing act to do. One can't simply starve a vampire - because then they'd turn into howling rabid corpses trying to drain everything in sight - but if you carefully managed their feeding habits you could keep them "weak" (by vampire standards) without them becoming non-functioning.

As far as the rank and power levels of Cazador's victims go, without somebody keeping them weak;

Yousen and Leon are still fledglings. Dalyria mentions being on the parliament, considering she doesn't seem that rich and the only parliament I know is the Parliament of Peers, she's around 50-ish, and thus a fledgling.

Petras mentions a century, so I assume he's either mature or at the end point of the fledgling stage.

Taking on the headcanon that Violet was taken in Reithwin before Shar wrecked the place, she's 100+, and either mature or old.

Astarion is considered an old vampire. Aurelia seems old and mentions centuries, plural, so I assume she's in that category with him.

[dmbakura]

It's clear throughout the game that he absolutely does not hate the idea of having his own spawn(s) and the ability to control people. He did not "become what he hates". Even without that, there are pretty blatant distinctions between AA and Cazador. Is it healthy behavior for a relationship? No. But again, I think damning someone to a life of never being able to see the sun again, and not being able to go outdoors during the day without fear of literally dying simply so they don't have power is also not very good.

Why did you send this to me? Have I even been arguing this points recently to get this out of the blue? Anyways

[EXTREMELY LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER NOISE]

Nobody argues he isn't an opportunistic power hungry little shit but he actually DOES express relief at not having any spawn post Cazador encounter (if not ascended.) Also he never expresses specific interest in making spawn of his own pre-ascension.

Nobody argues he's exactly 1:1 like Cazador either. There isn't enough story content to say if he'll be better or worse than Cazador in the long run, but that isn't relevant to the cycle of abuse themes present in the story. The ascended ending is the ending where he's unable to move past his fear, and so he consolidates power because that is, from his own perspective, the only option he has to feel safe. Tav enables his behavior, and this leads to the deaths of 7000. He starts emulating Cazador's behavior, right down to the "rules" imposed on him. Within the game itself, there are plenty of dialogue options directly comparing him to Cazador. This is not subtext! This is an intentional parallel that exists in the game for a narrative reason! "Astarion doesn't torture Tav" yeah OK, I'm sure Cazador thought he was a merciful master compared to Vellioth too. Abusers often consider themselves "kind" compared to whoever had power over them, and disparage their victim for being "ungrateful." Hmm. What is Astarion doing in the epilogue where he and Tav have a fight at the party? Subconsciously or not, he does become what he hates. You even acknowledge this is not healthy! Why is it such a stretch to think the writers are intentionally trying to make a point with him? Why does this behavior not exist in the spawn ending? Just THINK for one second.

As for the sun thing. If you value him walking in the sun that much, that's fine. He doesn't seem to though, given he either immediately starts talking about blotting it out and holes up in Cazador's palace (if ascended) or gets over it and fully embraces the dark (if spawn).

There is nothing wrong with ascending him, but my fucking god bro the constant disregard if very blatant themes in his story is fucking crazy. You could have just kept this to yourself and written your own fanfic or post or whatever but you brought it directly to my inbox for some reason.

[whathebeep]

Can I just say like,,, obviously my brain is always thinking about Baldur's Gate 3 and narratively how it could continue for a BG4 (I know I'm getting ahead of myself here) BUT

There's so many characters that could make comebacks in the game and I am so here for it. In my mind, under the cut, here's the top contenders for returning characters (other than obviously Volo, Jaheira and Minsc) (Late game Spoilers included!!)

So first and foremost our fav Archdruid Halsin! The fact that he goes back and rebuilds the shadowlands village and builds it up as a community means so much. It means you could go there in BG4 and meet Halsin, the community leader, the wise Archdruid who runs the orphanage. Whether or not he is actually the leader directly or just a respected community member and advisor to the leader of the town/village (depending on how big it grows) would both be good narrative choices. You could listen in on him tell stories of the adventures he has with the PC from BG3 to the kids. Hell you could probably meet Thaniel while in the area if you're a druid/have a high enough nature skill. There's so many possibilities for this and I adore it so much.

There's a lot of the characters you could also meet there too, who so happened to either have settled down there or are only passing through, visiting an old friend.

Astarion of course you could meet either ending route for him! Either as an adventurer (maybe travelling with Shadowheart?) Or as a vampire lord ruling in Baldur's Gate, out of Cazador's old estate. He would probably keep the vampire secret from you as he's a spawn l, but perhaps if he comes to trust you he'll let you know. Perhaps he'll even direct you to a safe spot in the Underdark to rest your head. Whether or not he tells you it's all spawn would be up to choice. If he's a vampire lord I imagine he'll be very Strahd/Cazador like, and will either want you to be a spawn for him or will want to kill/manipulate you into doing his bidding. Either way he'd probably be a boss fight

Shadowheart as an adventurer as well (again potentially travelling with Astarion, or having settled down) but HEAR ME OUT. I love LOVE the idea of A Selune worshipper Shadowheart eventually returning to revitalize the Selune temple you see early game and starting up a village there. Hells.or even Isobel and Dame Aylin doing that and Shadowheart eventually making a home there.. I'M HERE FOR IT

Lae'zel ofc, but they'd have to have a strong reason for her to return to the material plane. Maybe she would, after defeating the bitch I MEAN Lich Queen.

Gale maybe as an Elminster type character? Like it would be different depending on what ending for him is considered "canon", but either god of ambition or teacher will work super super well for this. He could offer the position of his chosen to the PC cause let's be real that's basically your thing no matter if you're good or evil, or he could be a wise wizard who can give safe advice to you or just bump into you on your travels.

UGH there's just so many options and I love it

[animentality]

There was an Astarion kinny who was trying to insist that anyone who calls the Ascended Astarion ending the "bad ending" is shaming abuse survivors for seeking power after being abused.

I'm sorry, I wasn't under the impression that being abused excuses the slaughter of 7000 people, some of whom you are directly responsible for capturing and enslaving in the first place?

Maybe I'm wrong though, maybe when you're abused, you should then be given the power to abuse others, as financial compensation?

Like Christ.

What a weird ass take.

Why is the ending where Astarion gets to be his own person the "bad ending?"

Why is the ending where Astarion is still a spawn, but at least he's free of all of Cazador's influence, his dreadful blood ritual included, the "worse" ending?

You do realize that the Ascension ritual was an evil ritual, and that only Cazador would even seek such a thing? If you really think that Astarion, before he was forced into eternal servitude, would seek out such a ritual himself and be happy to kill 7000 people that he captured and enslaved, then I'm sorry, girlypop.

But he'd be a piece of shit too. He would be exactly the same as Cazador.

And then you could Ascend him, and it wouldn't make any difference at all, becasue Astarion would have been evil from beginning to end.

Which is why I don't get you people.

You want Astarion to be your uwu PTSD abuse survivor baby with a heart of gold, sad broken wings boy, but you also think he SHOULD kill all of the people who are EXACTLY THE SAME AS HIM?

Abuse victims?

The fuck?

I really hope you, as an abuse victim, don't go around shooting other abuse victims. Especially ones who were abused by the same person as you.

In what world would that be ok?

Not even in Baldur's Gate 3, which openly tells you in both endings, that it is the morally incorrect decision.

Just insane. Baffling.

I'm not gonna argue with Astarion girlies on this one, though.

I don't care.

I wanna fuck Gortash, and unlike you, I don't need to pretend he's not awful.

Astarion, in my mind, is a good person who was majorly fucked up and has room to grow and become better as soon as he's away from his toxic environment. Your weird headcanon that he was always destined to be Cazador 2.0 wouldn't bother me at all, if you didn't go around claiming abuse victims should be able to glock people who make them feel uncomfortable.

And also, I say again.

Don't care if you personally LIKE that ending.

I don't care, it's a video game. I have killed the entire world for Bhaal before, it doesn't mean anything.

I just don't get insisting the Ascension ending is the morally correct ending. You can like it, call it good.

But don't call it... "good."

[alpaca-clouds]

Fantasy and Racism

For those who have not heard about it yet: There is a very racist and queerphobic game mod for Baldur's Gate 3. A mod that basically removes all queerness from the game as well as modding all non-white characters white. All obviously under the excuse of "but that is realistic because medieval fantasy world". Which is bullshit. I talked about it before. But it is bullshit and we all know it.

It is one of the reasons I so rarely engage with a lot of high fantasy media. Because so much of it - especially of course the big franchises - kinda succumbs to this idea of a very white, very straight, very cis medieval period, in which disabled kids probably are also like killed by the time of their birth or get "fixed" with magic.

Of course there is diverse high fantasy out there. But definitely the "norm" for the genre is something else. Now, of course there are works that still work in themes about this (The Witcher most of all), but yeah... A lot of high fantasy media LOVES TO HIDE behind the "oh, but that would be wrong historically!" excuse.

And as someone who is a history nerd, I never stop to get super angry about this. The middle ages were actually fucking queer and there were a lot of people who lived openly queer. We know about medieval trans folks, too - and given the fact that we know about less than 1% who lived during those 1000 years - there were a ton more.

We also know that there were people from Africa, the Arab world and Asia living in medieval Europe. Some of them have come there with the Romans, others have come there for research and trade. (The first European person in Japan, was a Roman, by the way.)

Meanwhile most of fantasy is very unrealistic when it comes to things like how society works or how HISTORY ITSELF works. Like, so much of medieval Europe was directly influenced by how Roman society, Christianity and the indigenous cultures of Europe interacted. But guess what? Most fantasy worlds do not have something like Rome in their background, do not have an institution like the Catholic Church, and also do not have any indigenouity. Your average fantasy world was born with folks having medieval technology and over the next 2000 years are very unlikely to develop past medieval technology. Which is very, very unrealistic. But guess what the folks who whine about gays in their medieval fantasy do not complain about?

And that is of course without going into the most obvious stuff: There were no elves in medieval Europe. There were no dwarves, no halflings, no gnomes, no orcs, no goblins, no dragons, no magic, no... Do I need to go on? And there was also not a big group of people running around raiding some old graves and ruins (which were also trapped with all sorts of magic and what not). And indeed there were no gods that threatened to END THE FUCKING WORLD at least once per decade.

Heck, speaking about Baldur's Gate 3 itself, I am more frustrated that there are not more non-white persons around. Like, the only east Asian character I have interacted with was Cazador as far as I remember, and that... is not really great representation, you know? Like, I would have liked to have another non-white companion at least.

Especially as... Well, Faerûn/Toril is not the real world. So, for fuck's sake. The folks within that world can crossover as much as the IP holders want them to.

I mean, fuck. You know what exists within Faerûn? CHOCOLATE! Something that not only was not available in medieval Europe because the beans grew in the Americas, but something that in the form we associate with it was not invented until the 19th century!

Just, yeah. Fuck people who complain about "historical accuracy", because something is diverse and includes rep. Just fuck them.

[loquaciousquark]

15, 24, 30 for the Tav asks?

15. What motivates your Tav to either embrace or resist the tadpole?

She...well, she never quite embraces it, but she does lean into its power at first! While the idea of having a leech in her brain is horrifying, and she's deathly afraid of the pain of ceremorphosis, she's also extremely used to a narrow view of her own survival. She hasn't looked more than a day or two down the road in over a decade, so it's very much a "if this helps me survive this moment right now, I'll do it happily and deal with the fallout later" thing. She's also half-convinced the prism will fail and the worm will take her any moment regardless, so why not snatch up what she can get? She's going to die any moment anyway; might as well go out knowing she did everything she could to stay alive beforehand.

However, after Myrkul & the early stuff in Act 3, she suddenly starts wondering if they might be able to get rid of these things after all. If she might actually have some kind of future possible after the Absolute and Cazador and everything else. If that's really on the table, she wants to be present for it and not a dribbling husk, so she stops feeding the parasite. She does use what she's got, though, and post-game she does faintly miss exploding people with her mind.

24. What first impression does your Tav give off to strangers?

When she's just been orphaned, she's one of those big dewy-eyed tearful kids they use in those horrible fundraising Sarah McLachlan ads. That doesn't last long, however, as she learns how to avoid being noticed in the first place. If she's actually seen, she's usually just looking hunted and desperate as she tries to extricate herself.

Post-game, once she's become better at interacting with speech and honesty and open exchange of ideas rather than petty theft, I think she's much more comfortable being seen in day-to-day life and going to social events where part of the goal is to be perceived. As she and Astarion travel around the continent, I think they play games like "let's pretend to be minor royalty in this new city and see how many balls we can get invited to before they throw us out."

She was brought up well before her parents died, so she's not going to make major crass faux-pas; instead, she's friendly and conversational, but she always has a touch of distance in her eyes. An invisible wall, a little - disdain isn't quite the right word, but a little - impersonal arrogance, maybe. She's with you, but she's not one of you - she's seen things you can't dream of, and she doesn't really mind if you feel it. I think it's more pronounced the more expensive the society is, for whatever that's worth. She certainly feels more at home in the gutter, even if she'd die before going back there again.

30. What are your Tav’s intentions/goals after the end of the game?

Get Astarion his ring, first and foremost. Once that's settled, they travel everywhere they can get passage. They've both been trapped in Baldur's Gate for so long, even if their raw years are disparately dispensed, and she wants to see everything the world's been hiding from her! The Underdark, the City of Splendors, Calimshan deserts, the Moonshae Isles, Evermeet, Marsember (the City of Spices! it sounds so beautiful until they get there and it's all misty swamp and haunted bogs), Cormyr - beaches! (which they both hate because it's TOO SUNNY and TOO SANDY) - basically anywhere they can get a portal or a road to. They're not hoofing through the woods anymore if they can help it.

I do think Tav splits the money among the companions left behind (so no shares to Wyll, Karlach, or Lae'zel directly, though she takes out some accounts at the Counting House for them and starts accruing interest in their names), and she uses her connections with the Counting House & the Thieves' Guild to start building some portfolios of her own. She never wants to be in a place where she has to think about money ever again. (I think she carries letters back and forth from Wyll to his dad, & Wyll gets his dad to get her in touch with one of the city's trustworthy financiers to help her get all this started.)

Between all that they visit Lae'zel in the Astral Sea for like a week, and when they come back both of them are like, "WELL that was fun let's never do THAT again," but they do visit Karlach and Wyll in Avernus quite often! I think they bully Helsik into opening the portal for them the first several times, but they don't like being dependent on her or the location, so they steal a very hefty supply of the rare materials (esp. the infernal marble) and a copy of the exact rites, along with contact info for more supplies in future, and they repurpose one of the portals in the House of Hope to open to Gale's tower in Waterdeep. (I don't think they tell him ahead of time.)

At some point they figure out how to extend Tav's life, but that's way down the road. Also I think she starts a Thieves' Guild with the tiefling kids that's secretly an orphanage/pipeline into gainful employment.

[lucrezianoin]

You know what, good job Astarion for seducing your way into becoming a love interest in the party, because he's literally the only one whose quest has to be competed pre-tadpole removal but is not necessary for the tadpole. And a horrible ending is there waiting for him if you don't complete it.

Wyll's quest has two open endings, but both are shown to be impossible choices. Whatever you choose, you will have to face his father to stop the steel, it is also directly connected to the fact that the duke is important for the city.

Gale's investigation of the crown is not necessary in story. It's his curiosity, but nothing bad happens to him if he studies the crown after it fell into the water. Same wutg Shadowheart. He what is horrible and heartbreaking but it could be completed after the tadpole removal (if I imagine the story in a canon way, it makes me sense to me).

Haslin is directly involved with the resolution of act 2, and if you do not cure the land he stays there to keep trying.

Karlach has literally no solution but her main quest is about facing Gortash and killing him, which is one of the main plot points of the game. Same for Lae'zel who, one way or the other, will end up facing Orpheus and the Queen.

Jaheira is also directly involved by being a leader in act 2, and her quest in act 3 is mainly about finding Misc. If you don't find him, nothing happens to her. If you find him after the tadpole maybe he's even freed from the influence and easier to rescue.

But Astarion needs to have his quest completed pre-tadpole. There's no other solution. There's a line in the file where he says "cazador won, I'll never get rid of him", so I wonder if that happens if you don't complete his quest pre-ending.

But yeah, with the fact that they are in baldur's gate, there's no way cazador is not going to find him unless he runs quickly while your character kills cazador.

[omgkalyppso]

I've been thinking of eventual post-canon vampire Étoile.

The Pale Elf spoilers. End Game BG3 spoilers. If you open this and it's too long for you, you can press J on desktop to skip it.

Étoile did not ascend Astarion but I am brainstorming / working on a fic where he rips Cazador's throat out with his teeth while he's stabbing him to death so we get Astarion (and his six siblings) as vampires.

Either two, or twelve, or a few hundred years in the future depending on what I settle on, Étoile would eventually be made a vampire. I have a lot to consider with a fucking town of undead to manage (I'm sure Étoile grew up on the outskirts of a village of 400 and like. wtf. the numbers) (I've been reading about the populations of Waterdeep and Baldur's Gate and calculated Cazador's diet*).

The more immediate problem for Étoile is Raphael, who has the Crown of Karsus.

I need to decide whether Everything Happens At Once as it does at the end of the game. Does Karlach really start burning up right after Astarion? Does Étoile really have to choose between mourning, drinking with Shadowheart or facing Florrick and official business? Or can we spread this out over a few days? Does Raphael's message come to them that very first night? Or is it a week later? A year? Raphael says he's going to be coming to knock on their door "soon" - does that mean next? Does that mean within the week? Does that mean after a decade? How many planes or how much of the material plane should I imagine at risk or destroyed before Étoile has an effective solution.

What-if's are fun = like what if there's no solution? What if saving the world from this is someone else's journey and my short-lived hero dies or finds themself alone and abandoned? But that's not fun for a fic concept / full exploration to me.

Possible solutions for Raphael include:

Following in Gale's footsteps and making a plea to the divine. Becoming Auril's champion, if not her chosen. Either so that she will award Étoile with armor fit to fight a demi-god in the hells, or so she will be able to send them directly to Raphael so they don't have to go traipsing through the hells to get to him - regardless of whether she could summon them back. Either to provide her the Crown so she could freeze it in her frozen collections where she keeps natural phenomena, artworks and artists in ice for her to admire, with the risk that she would freeze Étoile as well in the end. Or to provide her the Crown to wear or to absorb, to return to her a piece of her that she's lost — reclaiming her previously stolen power over snow storms, even though she's abused this before.

.

Dishonoring Karlach's memory and making a pact with Mephistopheles or Asmodeus. Mephistopheles has had the Crown before and kept it hidden away, and Asmodeus has long been the Archdevil Supreme over the divided Nine Hells, either would likely be cunning enough to take advantage of the situation. And otherwise compelled enough to insult Raphael so specifically as to make (even) a (temporary) ally of his ... not rival. Pet project. Infatuation. This is especially fun if Mephistopheles feels slighted by not inheriting 7000 souls due to the way The Pale Elf resolved. If Étoile thought they were about to be betrayed after Raphael's defeat, they could put on the Crown, go to another plane, and die under the weight of it, only to be resurrected and mocked by "Withers" for stumbling so much on their path, "although being only mortal, it was always going to be so." Multiplying their survivor's guilt.

.

Asking Gale who already hates them to do the impossible and the ultimate blaspheme against his Goddess: If the Crown of Karsus - and the Karsian Weave - was constructed, could he create an equivalent to destroy the original? And why would he do this when they could have given the Crown to Mystra to begin with? And if he did do this, why would he involve Étoile in any capacity? In private, Étoile offers to hold him, as they should've held Karlach, in her last moments. They will allow him whatever revenge he chooses, if only he applies his mind to this for as long as he's able. Gale finds a way to detonate the Crown in the same way he managed to accidentally do the same with the Orb during his first encounter with the thing. They have a magical barrier / ward / shield that they don't expect to survive the blast, and when the Crown detonates, Étoile uses Warding Bond on Gale in solidarity / for good measure, but the like-magic instead starts siphoning / tearing the Orb from Gale's person, until his soul and the Orb are both outside of himself for a brief moment until the Orb tears away as if magnetically drawn to the Crown, and in the instant it happens, a portal to another plane opens beneath them, dropping them into another world, safe from the destruction they've left in the Hells. Gale's alright. I think Rolan would come on this adventure too.

.

We don't deal with Raphael. The Blood War is neverending and Asmodeus is going to swat him like a gnat.

.

We don't deal with Raphael. He was being coy. He comes by for tea and sex twice a season.

.

In any scenario where Étoile and Raphael face off, I will delight in writing / imagining battle dialogue. Étoile would absolutely throw in Raphael's face that he had needed them to get the Crown because Daddy put it up on a high shelf.

Once Raphael messages Étoile his warning, I think Étoile would lose it. They may have even included in Raphael's pact that he couldn't bring the Crown back to the material plane, but that doesn't stop his armies or hellfire. It just sets the stage for where they'd have to fight, if I decide that Raphael couldn't come back to the material plane for some reason -- because he won't be parted from the Crown, if it won't come back then neither will he.

But Étoile would worry about the fires and sun-situation in the Hells, they will worry about their responsibilities to facing this. They will want to be continuing with Astarion into the Underdark to organize the vampire spawn. They will want to be able to hope for that life after they've dealt with the latest insanity. They would try to convince Astarion that they need to part ... but they wouldn't be half as convincing as he is.

Astarion would propose that there could be a person among the seven thousand who has dealt with devils before, and may have advice. He will accuse them, after all their promises and all his honesty of feeling safe with them that they'd leave. He would argue in favor of his abilities and his perspective, his knowledge of the situation and Étoile's dwindling number of available allies, that he is capable of being an effective resource against Raphael's threats.

Étoile would presume to argue that Astarion's siblings and the vampire spawn won't tolerate them coming and going, and Astarion will declare that they will have to. Unless they want to be overrun with infernal portals and an even more inhospitable landscape — any source of blood, human or animal, would be at risk if Raphael starts throwing his weight around.

When Raphael is dealt with in some way, and after at least a year, but probably more like 6 at minimum of settling into whatever routine looks like for the vampire spawn (alliances with Wyll as Duke Ravengard, with the Sword Coast at large, perhaps with another plane or two, maybe even with some peoples of the Underdark), Étoile would be overdue for a journey home to see their mother.

Either this would be the first of centennial visits (at the very least) over the next few centuries (Aranea only has so many years left in her), or it would be the last significant visit before something irreparable was broken between them. Whether this is the first and last visit where Étoile visits as a living creature, or whether the last visit is far in the future, during that visit, their mother, Aranea, can see this will be A Last Time just by looking at her child. And she will throw a fit.

She's so angry. Heartbroken. Trying to convince Étoile to see it as a manipulation (while not truly believing this) and asking Astarion not to kill her child.

Aranea is concerned for two specific things: The first is death, whether as transformation or otherwise. She's not concerned that her child could "live" for centuries, but that Étoile would die before her. This is death. It's death and no one would be able to talk her out of that or around it. Astarion has a grave. It's death. She doesn't want her child to die. Her second concern is vampires' various weaknesses. The thought of someone exposing her child to sunlight in a day or in a millennia and to die a second time, in such a potentially horrible way, or to be driven to madness by years — and to seek an end because of it— She wouldn't want this for Étoile, nor Astarion but that ship's sailed; she can only console against what has yet to pass.

But Étoile only wanted to see her once more, the decision's already made, no matter the dread Aranea's outburst puts in Astarion. And when Étoile is briefly dead, whether in Aranea's house or in Auril's temple, they are laid out as if for a wake by the hands of whichever two servants or companions followed them and Astarion to this cold mountain. Aranea has locked herself in her room, stoic but inconsolable. Astarion stays with Étoile — right up to the moment where they wake, and he has to face what he's done.

He cannot hear their heartbeat, he never will again. Their natural scent lingers on their packed clothing, their pillowcase in another room; but their body too will forever have that 'whiff of undeath' as Shadowheart put it. The warmth of their body is muted and lost. Étoile's coloration has changed so that any who looks upon them will wonder if they don't know, that there is something unliving about them. They will have no reflection, no sunlight, and the unending, inescapable thirst. They may not even sound the same with fangs in their mouth.

They did not suffer as the vampire spawn in Cazador's care, but for all their suffering, Astarion could at least convince himself sometimes and often that Cazador was the monster, and— And now he's done this. He's taken something that can never be given back, and in a way he's even taken it from himself. Every vampire he's ever known has tried to hurt him, has been duplicitous and selfish and— Will Étoile inherit these traits too? Is their emotional heart as dead as their true one? Will he be as instinctually repulsed by them as he has been by nearly all other vampires?

When Étoile sits up, Astarion runs to a closed door, it hardly matters where, he cannot face Étoile though they call to him from the other side.

I just need a good contrast to how ascended Astarion is awed by his own power the beauty of the player character as a vampire spawn.

I was telling a friend that I was gaining new perspective for how Dr Frankenstein must have felt in the horror of the birth of his creation. What horrible misery, what glorious life, what inerrable pain - woe, success! No longer was his creature his ambition, now they were the same.

Astarion doesn't use some of his deepest terms of endearment for a while, and of course Étoile is understanding — but also afraid, offended, hesitant. There's an adjustment period, even though Astarion doesn't choose to control them once he can, doesn't delay longer than it takes for the subject to come up (1 day) to allow them to drink from him for full vampirism.

Meanwhile none of Astarion's siblings have the hang ups he has with regards to Étoile as a vampire and they tease and delight in how Étoile not only represents them in public, they've been folded into the clan.

I've assigned the vampire siblings ages and past careers for those who weren't explored in canon. I have headcanons for vampire spawn oc's who are part of their little society. My favorite is Anastasia. Only a week turned by Leon, she has a son and does not wish to go to the Underdark arguing that she is not starved as the others are, that she is still in full control of her mind and her ambitions. She helps develop their Council of Twenty. Wait, let me back up: many of the vampire spawn and all of the vampire siblings agree early on that they don't want to refer to themselves or for outsiders to call them the Szarr Clan or Cazador's Spawn; but there are seven vampires now, and to choose a name between them for all to agree to go by could easily come to insults and battle and abandonment; but they all know Étoile for what they've done for them and what they've done for Baldur's Gate. They call themselves House Ienith; which was once the name of a House in Menzoberranzan, and Étoile worries it will upset the drow because that House was disbanded when their mother was a child, but besides risking insults and a lack of allyship, it was discovered that so long as they were not trying to occupy the compound that used to belong to House Ienith, were not claiming authority in drow politics, and recognized that they would never be accepted as their House revived, that they at least weren't enemies. Drow envoys occasionally scout or visit.

Several drow book-keepers are calculating what several thousand vampire spawn could be leveraged for or against.

Anyway! The Council of Twenty of House Ienith consists for some years of the seven vampires (Astarion and his siblings), seven vampire spawn — one from each vampire's subclan as voted upon by their members, four vampire spawn from any vampire subclan as voted upon by all members, a vampire spawn who is a child to ensure that particular group's unique needs are met, and Étoile for whenever they are present. Some are more comfortable that Étoile would be a vampire, and I do think a not-inconsequential number of them would experience some kind of jealousy, either that they couldn't turn a person or twelve that they chose, or that they were not eligible to become a full vampire themself.

I think that the vampires feel some kind of way using their new powers over the vampire spawn, but I do think they have at least 4 Rules that the vampire spawn are magically obliged to follow, and then otherwise a series of laws that they're as beholden to as the population of any mortal city.

I have even more thoughts about their governing structure and Baldur's Gate, etc. But I think I've said everything I wanted to say in this very long post.

I think we should introduce Doctor Dalyria and Araj Oblodra. Dalyria would probably like her as much as Astarion does At First, but then they'd be experimenting in blood magic and possible vampirism treatments like nobody's business.

*So presuming Cazador either also did some of his own hunting or that his spawn brought him victims that were unsuitable for the ritual, I'll say he consumed 8500 victims over 200 years which is 4 people per month. If a vampire (spawn) needs 4 people / boars / creatures of similar size per month to survive then 7,000 vampires need 28,000 animals per month. Sheep in the player's handbook have a cost of 2 gold. That's 56,000 gold per month to feed these fuckers if we're conducting trade; but that's only 8 gold per person, which makes it sound more reasonable. But a person eating the meat - a single sheep should be able to last 6 months, rather than 1 week. There is the possibility that the vampires could sell the meat / partner with butchers in various cities as some number of livestock has got to be dying anyway to feed the mortal populace, but which butchers will work with them, which people will eat meat so close to undead, who will buy dinner from vampires? And could the farmers of livestock ultimately put up with demand? Might have to resort to starting up "vampire quarters" in cities all across Faerûn.

[abyssmarked]

𝐩𝐫𝐞 - 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐮.

what gave her away ? was she too eager ? sometimes nepharia can come on a little too strong, but she’s always posing as a high - end whore for most of these jobs, and high - end whores are expected to be paid handsomely, rich men pay for the most enthusiastic of experiences, usually. perhaps she shouldn’t have sought cazador out, she should have played a longer, more strategic game — she should have let him come to her. she hadn’t been expecting him to be so clever, men typically aren’t known for seeing through her devilish charm, once all the blood flows to their cocks, it’s like they don’t have anything left to power their brains. she underestimated him, and now she’s in a pretty fucked up situation, because she’s been thrown into a…. dungeon ?? yes, a dark, dank dungeon of sorts, and it’s absolutely filthy with small army of feral and hungry vampire spawn.

forced to act quickly, nepharia changes forms, a dark red cloud enveloping her, crackles of electricity popping off of her shrouded, shifting physique. large, pale, fleshy wings emerge from the magical fog, and nepharia shoots up from the dusty floor, thankful this godforsaken place has high ceilings. from above, it looks like there are probably at least 50 vampire spawn in the room with her, all reaching upward with snarling, starving pale faces, trying desperately to climb over one another to reach what neph can only assume is the best looking meal they’ve seen in decades. her black gown fits a bit tighter on her slighter larger form than before, white eyes glowing bright in the darkness of the dungeon. she has limited options. she could use literally all of the energy she can muster to go back to the abyss to her parton empty handed and face his wrath, but no. she’s never failed him before and she’s terrified of what he might do if she does. or should could expel all of her energy destroying all of these creatures, and then having nothing left when she faces cazador again. she’ll surely die.

fuck.

she still has the upper hand in one aspect : cazador doesn’t know exactly what she is. he doesn’t know she has a chance of surviving his hungry spawn. she can’t get any higher, and the way the spawn can still just barely touch the tips of her toes is making her increasingly uncomfortable. she grabs onto some heavy duty metal bars over a blacked out window in the ceiling, mainly for leverage. she holds herself up as flat against the ceiling as she can, tucking in her wings so they won’t be snatched, “i don’t suppose any of you fine specimen are capable of listening to reason, huh ?” she asks, mainly just to break the tension quickly building within her chest as she begins to panic over her choices. she gets nothing but famished snarls in return, “i didn’t think so, but…. it was worth a shot, right ?” she sighs, readying her hand above them as the other holds herself up against the ceiling, so that she can cast a fire ball, knowing good and well that this was going to take a lot out of her. if she really needed to get away later, she could use up the rest of her energy to jump back to the hells before expending too much on a fight she knows she’s going to lose. perhaps her patron would go easy on her, it being her first and only failure, and only if she was facing certain death. but she absorbed an entire life before coming here specially for the occasion, and she tries to reassure herself she should be just fine as the fire grows within her palm, aiming it directly at the horde of hungry spawn trying to reach her.

* closed starter | @vampiheir

[mercymaker]

hello, hello! it’s your giftee for the bg3 exchange <3 i was wondering if you wouldn’t mind telling me more about maleane and astarion?

hey! sorry for such a late reply! 😬

and yes, absolutely!

for starters, i have a little bit of maleane's backstory on her oc page here. and then i also have her general tag where i share thoughts, headcanons and art of her. alongside that, i have a tag for both astarion and maleane as a ship right here. if you want to dig a bit deeper, i have some writing done for them as well, right over here.

i do have quite a bit of lore for them, tbh, so it's uh.. not very easy to summarize them in a nice bite-sized snippet BUT i'll try my best!

personality-wise, they are quite similar. they were both taught to be selfish, they both use deception and charm to get what they want. although they approach that in a different way. mal is more calculated, she's patient, she takes her time to analyze the situation and explore her options until she finds the best strategy. astarion, on the other hand, doesn't have that patience, thus improvises much more. and where the vampire elf relies on his beauty and allure, mal often chooses charm and feigned honesty. she's a chameleon that makes people see what they want in her.

however, as cold and manipulative as they might seem on the outside, it's a completely different story when it comes to their hearts. their love for each other goes directly against their nature. against their habits. the "kill of be killed" approach to the outside world. as they start falling for each other, they realize that they don't want to manipulate, they don't want to deceive, they don't want to hurt each other. they find honesty and softness in the thorny maze of their hearts.

when they first met, they manipulated each other. astarion saw her as a powerful sorcerer, a leader that could provide protection, so he did his best to seduce her. maleane, on the other hand, tried her best to keep the group together, to find out what makes all of them tick, what strengths and weaknesses she could use to her advantage. and that's why she went along with his flirtations, feigning a sweet and innocent crush (all while trying to hide the fact that she never had a partner before, never had intimate relations with anyone) on him. until the lines between their act and their true feelings started to get really blurry.

they end up falling deeply in love throughout the game events, both learning how to navigate a genuine relationship (all while trying to save themselves and the world). they kill cazador, nuke the netherbrain and in the aftermath of the battle, set out to travel the world together. maleane uses her storm magic to protect astarion (and herself) from the sun. it's a grand adventure, where both of them explore everything that was kept away from them. they grow as people, exploring their relationship and sexuality, indulging in each other as well as people they meet on their numerous journeys.

after nearly a century of traveling the world, however, they break up.

maleane has a child named thoriel and ends up living with halsin for a little while. eventually, astarion returns to mal, but it's not the same. they still love each other, but her having a kid to raise complicates things quite a bit. they still try, of course, somewhat settling on her living in the woods with thoriel, while both astarion and halsin visit her whenever they can.

when thoriel grows up, however, she decides to go out on her own grand adventure and encourages her mother to also leave her little cabin in the woods and go see the world with astarion. which is what they do, setting out to, hopefully, find a cure for the spawn's sunlight sensitivity. their efforts, however, lead them into a fight that's more than they can handle and it culminates in above the vaulted sky.

oh, and ages ago i also did a long ass nsfw questionnaire for mal, if you need any of that info for uh.. spice dfsfsdf

[chronicallybloodless]

Heavy to Hold - Chapter 7

Lashing Out

Pairing: Astarion x enby!tav Status: in progress Rating: Explicit (18+ only) Genre: angst/comfort | slow burn Alternating second-person POV Contains spoilers for the whole game basically TW: it's an astarion fic: descriptions of trauma, abuse, sexual violence, etc. | smut | full tag list on AO3 Read from the beginning: AO3 | Tumblr Listen to the Playlist

Any time they looked at you, you felt tangled in knots. You couldn’t figure out what you felt about them or why, much less what to do about it. You couldn’t tell if you could trust them, or if they were truly willing to trust you. It was like a game of chess where you couldn’t see your opponent. You felt like you were in the dark, and that made you uneasy. You were used to being in control in these kinds of situations, even if that control was in service of rather brutal ends.

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Astarion's POV

This is not how you wanted this evening to go. Your head was pounding from unsated hunger—the last few nights had resulted in only small game and you were desperate for something more filling. And of all the times that it could have happened, tonight was when Tav decided it would be a good time to have a talk.

Things were tense between you and Tav, for a lot of reasons.

For one, they spent all their time going around helping people—people they had never met before and likely would never see again. Your whole camp was walking around with ticking timebombs in their heads, and your fearless leader was helping little old ladies and children cross the street. They were wasting precious time, and none of you knew how much of it you even had left. You couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t stay more focused on the group—on you.

Do-goodery aside, there was the matter of your encounter on the beach prior to your abduction—specifically the fact that Tav seemed wholly unaware of the fact that it had happened, and you had no idea why. You had considered telling them about it, but you couldn’t find a way to have that discussion without bringing up a lot of messy questions. They didn’t know what you were, and you weren’t sure they would trust you enough to let you stay if they did. It was too much of a risk.

You still weren’t sure whether Cazador could still influence you or whether he would attempt to recapture you, and none of you really knew what was going on with these tadpoles. Every attempt to find a healer had turned up nothing so far. The seriousness of your situation, combined with the weight of what felt like a secret about the two of you that only you knew, had made it difficult for you to communicate with them.

Any time they looked at you, you felt tangled in knots. You couldn’t figure out what you felt about them or why, much less what to do about it. You couldn’t tell if you could trust them, or if they were truly willing to trust you. It was like a game of chess where you couldn’t see your opponent. You felt like you were in the dark, and that made you uneasy. You were used to being in control in these kinds of situations, even if that control was in service of rather brutal ends.

So, you had been trying to avoid prolonged interactions with Tav as much as possible. That of course was not keeping your mind from dwelling on these questions—or more embarrassingly, your fantasies about your night together that were leaving you frustrated. Avoiding them until you could be more sure of what was going on, and whether they trusted you, seemed more prudent.

Unfortunately, Tav was going to push the issue.

You led them to a small clearing near camp to have their conversation. You were still desperately hungry, and the thought of being alone with Tav in this state was going to make focusing on a reasonable discussion difficult.

“Well, what is so damned important that you felt the need to accost me in the middle of the night?” Your voice came out in a snarl. Not the best start. They were standing directly in front of you with their arms crossed. Their pale red eyes were locked on you, reading every movement you made. You watched them take a deep breath before they spoke.

“What is your problem?” They asked.

“Excuse me?” The question caught you off guard.

“Why do you seem to hate me so much?” The expression on their face showed that they really believed that you disliked them. You felt your stomach drop as you realized that they really didn’t have a clue about what you had been going through, and rather than ask you about it, they were going to pick apart your behavior.

They don’t trust me.

“Hate you?” You stepped closer to them as you tried to decide what to say. The hurt that had been festering in your mind was turning into anger as you realized how far apart your understandings of each other were.

And so you decided to hurt them back.

“Darling, hate is such a strong word, and it implies that I spend my precious time thinking about you.” The words fell from your mouth as night upon night of anguish boiled over. “Believe me, I don’t.”

You could tell from the look on their face that this was not the response they were expecting.

You asked for this.

“I….” Their voice trailed off quietly. “I don’t understand. Why are you traveling with us if—”

“For gods sake Tav,” You were too far in now to pull back. “Unfortunately, I need you and your little collective of misfits if I’m going survive this fucking tadpole. That doesn’t mean I have to bloody like it.”

You hated it, actually. You hated how distracted everyone was with their own problems. You hated how much time you were wasting. You hated the feeling that your only chance at freedom was slipping away.

“That doesn’t explain why you are so hurtful to me specifically.” There were tears building in the corners of their eyes as they spoke, but they held your gaze.

Gods, you could go on for ages as to why you paid more attention to Tav, but there was no way to explain all of that now. To do that, you would have had to open up, to be vulnerable, and in your mind, this whole evening had showed that you couldn’t trust them enough for that.

You needed to come out of this with more control. You searched your mind for something, anything you could say to shake their confidence.

And then you remembered—they had told the others they were just a bard.

“Why does anything have to be about you?” You said with a malicious chuckle. “Gods, you really can’t fathom a world where you aren’t the center of attention. It must be different out here, not having people pay for the privilege of putting up with you.”

You watched as every ounce of confidence left their eyes.

“I…I don’t know what your talking about.” Their voice wavered as they spoke. You had them.

“Oh please,” You scoffed. “Did you really think you were the only one here with a tragic backstory you’d rather not talk about? You don’t hide yours very well, by the way. Maybe some of the others are fooled by the cutesy bard act, but I know that look in your eyes. It’s all an act, every last bit of it.”

They were on the brink of sobs now. A part of you ached knowing you had hurt them, but your instincts told you that you were in a stronger position now. They knew you had leverage—they knew you could hurt them.

“Well, that was an absolutely lovely chat Tav, but I think I will be taking my leave now.” You turned and headed toward the woods, eager to start your search for dinner.

You heard a quiet voice call out behind you.

“Why do you seem so bothered by it?”

“Like I said darling, you aren’t the only one with a tragic backstory you’d rather not talk about.”

Your mind was racing as you moved through the dense forest.

In the moment, it felt like the right thing to do, but now, moving through the forest alone, you realized that it was probably a bad call—a childish impulse that left you more vulnerable that ever. You were sure that they were back at camp now, turning the whole group against you. Perhaps it was for the best. If they weren’t willing to trust you, you were better of on your own anyway.

You weren’t sure why they were so secretive about their work at the brothel, but it was clearly a sensitive topic. Fine. But it struck you as hypocritical that someone so insistent on keeping their own secrets was so keen on digging into everyone else’s business. And that is to say nothing of the secret that you were keeping about Tav, that they seemingly had no awareness of. They had a lot of nerve trying to confront you when you were carrying the weight of that night by yourself.

You were still completely famished, but Tav’s tearful face was haunting your mind, freezing you in place. Cazador’s words echoed in your head—people are beneath us. You remembered why you preferred to keep your distance.

You steadied yourself, assuring yourself that whatever doubts you were feeling stemmed from your weakened state of hunger. You took in your surroundings, looking for any signs of movement. A set of tracks caught your interest, so you moved closer to see what they were.

Bear.

You had never had a bear before. It sounded delicious.

You crouched, blade at the ready, following the tracks. You had followed them silently for a few dozen yards, anticipation building, when the bear’s shape appeared before you. It was curled up, sleeping.

You debated briefly whether your bow might be a wiser move. You could strike from a distance and be out of range in case your first strike was not enough to weaken it. Your hunger told you to go directly for its throat.

You approached the bear with your knife drawn. It hadn’t stirred as you moved closer, and you licked your lips in anticipation.

In one quick movement, you drove your blade into its neck. The bear roared awake. You tried to pull your blade back out for another strike, but before you could dislodge it the bear had risen to its feet.

[aqours-remade]

i earnestly really love New Vegas’ use of beef gates in teh game its one of my favorite details during Act 1 of the story

In Fallout: New Vegas your goal is to follow the trail of the guy who shot you in the head and left you for dead. Said trail ends in the eponymous city, which can be seen clearly from the town you start the game in, and the Honest Hearts DLC starting point is also near there. However if you try to travel directly there, you'll get ripped apart by Deathclaws or stung to death by Cazadores, and lastly there is a slightly "weaker" gate in the form of a dozen Giant Radscorpions if you head into the pass heading north from Yangtze Memorial and making it past that puts you right in front of the aforementioned Cazadores, forcing you to follow the trail properly (which involves looping all the way from the west side of the map down and around counter-clockwise until you reach New Vegas in the north) and grind levels. This entry-level beef-gate can be circumvented by experienced sequence breakers, however, allowing the player to make it to New Vegas directly through the danger zone and skip or put off roughly half of the game's plot.

This, and many other Beef Gates in the game, is due to the principal modder responsible for Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul (one of the most illustrious mods for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion) being a member of the development team.

Interestingly, the game is all too happy to point this out in dialogue, with numerous "DANGER" signs, and even by having a robot chasing you down to warn you of the impending likelihood of disaster, so it is really more of a hint that it is not The Other Game; if you just run and gun and explore instead of soaking up the plot, you will die horribly. In short, being too savvy about the normal M.O. of Bethesda's games, or previous games in the Fallout series, will be your downfall.

Later in the game, one of the Great Khans' sidequests ("Oh, My Papa") and an unmarked quest for Sloan both take you straight into the Goodsprings-New Vegas danger zone, to a limestone quarry overrun by Deathclaws and including an Alpha Deathclaw. However, by the time you're taking these quests, you should be ready to deal with a few deathclaws.

Another major beef gate is Primm Pass, which is guarded by a highly perceptive Blind Deathclaw, with packs of vanilla Deathclaws beyond it in the vicinity of Deadwind Cavern, another of their strongholds. Unlike the above two, you can't sneak or mountaineer your way through, due to unclimbable slopesand the Blind Deathclaw's ability to detect you even when equipped with a Stealth Boy. Like the above, the pass is a straight shot from where you start (Primm) to where you're supposed to be headed (Novac) - the intended, longer method of getting there is circling around south through the Nipton area and following the various roads.

Trying to shortcut from Novac to Boulder City? There's a literal nest of Cazadores along that path. Stick to the road again.

And if you attempt to go straight from Primm to Nipton rather than following the highway or the railroad, you'll run into Jackrabbit Springs, which is home to a group of Super Mutants who can easily curbstomp a low-level player. Mutants also guard Black Mountain, another potential shortcut to Vegas.

A slightly weaker beef gate comes in the form of Scorpion Gulch. The scorpions within said gulch are mostly the weak but deadly Bark Scorpion. However, there just so happen to be Giant Radscorpions in the area, which your newbie gear is unlikely to be able to effectively damage. Ouch.

Vault 22 is blocked by an army of Cazadores (of course), thanks to even more unclimbable slopes. By the time the average player is sufficiently armed to get through, they'll be powerful enough to one-shot nearly every enemy in the Vault itself.

The Divide in Lonesome Road is accessible right after you leave Goodsprings, but you don't have a snowball's chance in hell there unless you're at least Level 20. Same to a lesser extent for Dead Money and Old World Blues, whose access points also appear early in the main questline, Old World Blues especially as it starts at the Mojave Drive-in, just south of Nipton. Although if you do pull it off (which is certainly possible if you're using the gear the Divide gives you), it creates a separate problem: you just gained about 15 levels and have gear more powerful than the rest of the game, and now everything is too trivial to be a real challenge.

[alpaca-clouds]

Tav Avariel | Some Backstory

I want to talk a bit about my Tav, because I love this big dumb idiot so much by now.

When I originally created him, I did not put a lot of thought into who he is as a character. I mostly gave him similar stats to my last DnD character and that was it. But once I really got into the roleplaying of the game... Well. I needed to make him a proper character.

He has a criminal background, yet he goes around helping everyone. And how was it connected to his barding? Also... Look, I know we all love Astarion. We do. But Astarion would also not be the easiest guy to have a relationship with. Especially for someone who very much falls into the "good" alignment. So... Why the hell would this guy fall for him?

So, have some backstory discussion, if anyone cares.

CW for violence against children, child abuse, slavery

Being a little anarchist myself, I obviously know quite well that you can be a criminal, but also be good. Because you can be a criminal for doing the good things the law does not want you to do. So I decided that Tav is a bit of a vigilante. A mixture of Robin Hood and Batman. He is the kind of guy who steels from the rich to give to the poor, but also the guy who will stab some evildoers to death, if need should arise.

And a bit like Batman with his Bat-Family, my bard Tav very much has a bard-family. Other bards, who work together with him and very much are his found family.

The big thing I the got to was, to make him the exact opposite of Astarion. While of course my Tav is simply a mortal human, he has his own trauma. As a child his village got raided by goblins and as far as Tav knows, his parents got killed. Tav got taken prisoner and sold in Watergate as a slave. This was of course a bad thing to start with, but got only worse, because he ended up in a brothel that served only the sickest bastards. So people who were into the really bad things (including children).

Tav escaped when he was about 15. Together with three others. It was not a planned escape, but rather a very desperate attempt. They hid out in some wagons, without knowing what they were, finding out later that they accidentally hid out at a circus. But the circus took them in and hid them.

And here is where Tav is the exact opposite of Astarion. Because while Astarion came out of his trauma with the idea of: "Nobody came to save me, so fuck everyone else who needs saving," Tav came out of it: "Nobody came to save me, so I guess nobody will save other people, so I am going to be the one who has to do that!" Which is why he ended up becoming a vigilante.

Technically speaking he did not directly become a vigilante. He stayed with the circus until he was about twenty and had at least partly transitioned (he is trans). He first travelled the sword coast for a bit, doing just a bit of normal heroics before settling in Neverwinter, where he tried for a while to use his talent with people to influence politics for the better.

This ended in a total desaster, though. And had him and a certain elven noble (Kantei) flee the city in the middle of the night. They travelled together for a while - but ended up in Baldur's Gate when he was 25.

Tav made friends with two bards there, who let him even stay with them until he found a place to stay for himself. And this is basically when he started out to become a proper vigilante together with the elf he escaped Neverwinter with, and those two who helped him. They did collect two other people along the way.

As such they did a lot of little heroics. Be it with the stealing from the rich, or be it hunting down criminals in the city. They definitely also at some point started to investigate the entire Bhaal murder thing, because that would not have escaped their attention.

They might at some point even investigated some of the disappearings linked to Cazador - but never made the connection that Cazador was the one responsible

Now, my Tav has a fairly low intelligence (INT8), though I think that more than anything represents that he is uneducated as fuck - and also has issues focusing on stuff. Less because stuff like ADHD and more connected to trauma.

A big thing with him is, though, that he... well, again, his entire take-away was: "I was not saved, so I need to save everyone else". But that gets at times into very self-destructive behavior. He will very willingly throw away his life to save other people. And he also in general does not share his own trauma, because he does not want other people to worry about him.

He also believes to a very unrealistic degree that if you are just nice to people, people will be nice to you in return. Which is also why he will not kill anyone as long as there is another way to solve a situation. (It is also why in my stuff I have Gortash survive.)

Something I plan on playing with is, that Astarion thinks that Tav is so very well put together, because his way of coping with his issues in the exact opposite way to Astarion - making it very invisible to Astarion.

And yes, the reason Tav falls for Astarion is, because he sees a lot of himself in Astarion and his sadness.