#Szarr Palace

[inaconstantstateofchange]

Hellish Landscape: Art in the Szarr Palace

The other day my friend and I were running through the Szarr palace on multi-player, and found this elaborate painting which neither of us had ever noticed before. It is in the cursed guest room where you can find the body of Victoria, on the wall directly to the right of the door as you walk through.

If you use Alt or hover your mouse over the painting, it reveals that it is titled Hellish Landscape. And that title could not be more accurate, because what it is depicting is the Descent into Avernus.

The winged figure at the top is none other than Zariel, recognizable by the flail she has in place of one hand. Behind her, that glowing circle is the Companion, the second sun that burned above Elturel for 50 years, before it turned into a portal that tore the city through into Avernus. Elturel itself can be seen below both the Companion and Zariel.

What is particularly interesting, in in-universe terms, is how quickly this painting was made, relative to Elturel's fall.

Another question it raises, based on the incredible detail of it all: who made this painting, what was their connection to Elturel or the Hells, and how did it come to be occupying a sole guest room in Szarr Palace?

Note: The lighting in Szarr palace is truly abysmal, so I took the painting to Sorcerous Sundries for a clearer reference. Here it is in its original position.

ETA: This painting can also be found in the secret vault behind the inert gem in the House of Hope.

[morimox]

Sinister door 🐁

[cchickki]

the "second" most satisfying thing they've done together apparently

[azotho]

Cazador… he pretty much looked like evil vamp Majima to me lol I thought I was playing Yakuza 0 suddenly when I confronted him finally🦇🩸

[bunderbye]

🦇 Buldar's Gate 3 inspired T-shirt based on the Szarr Palace. 🦇

Anyone who knows me, knows that when it comes to wearable merch, I typically like things low key enough that you can easily wear in public, and lucky for me, my friend had an extra sample.

So I was able to try out a fashionable BG3 T-shirt design! How exciting!

🦇 Model is: @ buttons_creates (on Instagram)

🦇 T-shirt Details: Because this is a sample, this shirt is the only one, however if enough people were interested in it, I would consider opening up preorders. (Until then, thanks for looking!)

[guiltknight-gaming]

Baldur's Gate 3 | The Dark Urge | Episode 70: Szarr Palace

[chilljustacat]

Baldur's Gate 3 locations 21/?

[swirlmup]

Part 4/4 of The Magistrate!

Part 3 here!

Part 1 here!

Thanks for reading everybody! I hope you enjoyed!

I speculated a lot with myself on which of the principle spawn I thought might've come before Astarion, but eventually I decided on Violet because she's slightly more unhinged than Astarion, and that made me believe she likely endured a few more years of torture than him. Plus various tidbits of research suggesting that vampires tend to prefer the taste of their own race(she's also an elf like Cazador and Astarion), and the means by which Cazador would have his principle spawn collect prey(seduction, and what's more archetypically disposed to seduction than a female?). Thus, here we are lol.

[astarions-wife]

UHHHH wake up besties, new Vellioth lore just dropped???

[plushrodan]

Wait… WHY DID CAZADOR WAIT FOR ASTARION TO DO THE ASCENSION?

If anyone who bears the scars can be sacrificed, why did he bother trying to get Astarion back? Couldn’t he just yoink someone off the streets and rewrite the scars onto them?

Unless… he was an idiot and didn’t write them down anywhere else. He did all the editing and revising on Astarion, not thinking to make another copy!

(Tell me if I’m wrong)

[hammerikaika]

❤️🤍

[citymiddled]

did you guys know that, well, the cruelty is the point

[aladaylessecondblog]

the life you knew before (good tav/gortash pt. 4)

Previous chapter here

Banter, and sex (obviously). Enjoy :)

---------------------------------------

Tav stood, mind off like a shot. Cazador she had seen several times in the eight months she had been Duchess Gortash, and somehow it had entirely slipped her mind to talk to him about...the situation.

How, how could I forget about CAZADOR?

The same way you forgot about ME, my dear, returned Astarion's voice in her head.

"Lord Szarr," Tav gave a slight curtsy, "A pleasure to see you. I almost didn't recognize you, so rarely do I see you outside your palace."

"And so rarely do any see you outside the city."

"True enough," she replied, "I've had so much to do...but I have had rather a...taxing day. I found time in nature and with...old friends...a better prospect than remaining behind stone walls."

Cazador did not respond to that, but took a step forward and looked down on the gravestone.

"Were you--"

"Who is this Halsin?" he interrupted and gestured at the carving atop the headstone. "Don't tell me Astarion went and wed himself to a bear."

"A druid...he did love to stay in his wildshape much of the time. Were you...familiar with Astarion?"

She hated to pretend it, but she also knew it was a good idea to act as though she did not know what he was. For now.

"Perhaps we might call him a bastard son, for certainly he acted like one. Running off like a slave, cavorting with--animals..."

Is he daring me to say something?

Cazador then turned those eyes on her. "And you say you loved him."

"I--did, yes. Before I met the Archduke, of course." She looked at the gravestone and gave a soft smile. "It was strange how long it took to earn his trust. He was running from something, I think."

"He always was a fearful sort. I assume you were the one to bury him? The one to make this gravestone?"

Tav took a deep breath before she answered. "I was, yes."

"Quite frankly, it surprises me that you would bother."

His voice was so severe; it made her think she'd done something wrong. She resented the feeling, but tried to keep her tone polite.

"Every man deserves a proper grave," she replied evenly. "I did not know him long, but...for that time, he was..."

It had started with wanting him, as she was sure he had intended. Then it had become oh-so-much more, and now...now, she didn't know.

She bowed her head just slightly.

"One might think you are unhappy in your marriage, if you pine so over a dead man," Cazador said then. "I cannot think the Archduke would approve."

"He knows of this...former romance. And he knows--" Tav gulped just slightly before going on, "--he knows, really, that 'tis he who holds my heart now. It is just that every so often...I think of the past, and what might have been."

"A life in the trees amongst the beasts is not fit to be lived." The sternness had a slight edge in it now, "You are lucky to have the Archduke to show you that there is more to life than speaking to those who have nothing to say worth hearing."

"It would have been good enough for me. My poor pale elf could have used a few colorful flowers in his hair."

With that she turned and began to walk away.

(The spawn who had been holding the umbrella over her head seemed to tense; she actually saw his eyes widening into fear when she looked.)

"I wasn't done speaking to you," Cazador said.

"I was done listening." It was out before she could stop it.

"One might think badly of a lady who makes so free with those above her."

"The only man above me is the Archduke, Lord Szarr. Unless you have plans to ascend to a crown."

She turned back briefly.

"One never knows what might happen," Cazador said in a darker tone, "I am surprised, you know, that you have so sharp a tongue. I expected nothing like this from so subservient a woman."

"I am such to my husband and no one else."

It was the last thing she said to him as she walked away. There was a strange thrill and yet a fear with it when she heard Cazador seething.

-----------------------------------

"Someone's been acting up today."

Tav had been standing by the window, staring out at the ships passing on the water for nearly an hour when she felt Gortash's hands on her hips.

"Your lady is only feverish," she said quietly, "An illness she caught tending to the needs of the people..."

"Of course she will require several days of rest to recover. After all, her loyalty is well known...and anything that could make her say such terrible things in earshot of others, well..."

It was easy, so easy, to relax into his touch. To gently cover the hands that slid forward and around the bump of her belly and feel...well, she didn't know what she was feeling. But she couldn't think that it was wrong anymore.

And even that fact was not scary any longer.

"When are you going to grow angry?" Tav asked after a long silence. "Throw something, perhaps...or have me locked away for making you look foolish?"

"Is that what you think of me?" Gortash's voice was softer than she had yet heard it. "I wasn't lying when I told you that you had nothing to fear from me."

Please... She gulped softly and begged silently, as she had been begging for months now. Stop being like this. Like someone I could...

To distract herself Tav looked out the window. The sun was setting in brilliant reds and golds, with a single dark ship passing on the horizon.

"You were a decision I made in haste, and I presume the same could be said from your position. But must you keep yourself in this state of agony? I'm sure you don't wish to be there." There was the lightest of grips at her belly. "And it's certainly not good for the child."

Deep breath.

She thought of Astarion, the first time he was comfortable participating in the lovemaking with Halsin. The first time she had woken up with the two of them. The last smiles she'd seen from either of them.

Then...

Then those thoughts turned to Gortash. The dances she had with him at the wedding, the smiles he gave at balls later on...the way he went about showing his interest. He was for every appearance a perfect gentleman...except in the bedroom, where he did things that made her weak in the knees. Where he left her wanting only to push her to greater heights of desire.

And where of late she slept beside him more often than not.

Tav opened her eyes and saw that the ship on the horizon was gone.

"You have not been what I expected," Tav replied, "Everything since the tadpole has been an endless series of unpleasant surprises. I could scarcely lay down my head without being woken by some problem, some fight...and then...then I lost everything."

Where was this coming from? Why was she saying all this this? She hardly knew. Her emotions were a horrible typhoon centered around the calm that he'd created. She had now been his wife longer than she had ever been with Astarion or Halsin...and there was a space shaped like him forming in her mind.

"I'm afraid to be at rest." she added "Because when all is quiet..."

She waited--waited for some mocking, some cutting remark she was sure was coming. But none did.

Deep breath.

"The nastiness comes out. My poor bride, dealing with so much...and alone. You really needn't do that. After all, how well can you help me handle this city if you are so burdened?"

"I didn't know whether I could trust you then...and now...and now..."

"We should lay down," Gortash said, "Clearly, you're in need of rest."

Tav relaxed and allowed herself to be lead to her bed, and was glad when he joined her. Even more so when she realized he was clad as he had been that first night, with one difference--this time, he wasn't wearing the gauntlet. Just that pair of black trousers...

"Something set this off," he said gently in her ear. "I want to know what set it off."

"I..." she took a deep breath as Gortash reached a hand up to stroke at her face. "I visited the...the grave, and...there's something--someone you should know about. I was...afraid to mention it because he's..."

"Did he harm you?"

"No, but...he could be dangerous to you at some point soon. I forgot all about him with the...the uh...what lead to my marrying you."

She was glad. So very, very glad, that he was really listening to her right now.

"Cazador." Tav said, "He was...Astarion's...sire. A vampire...and one of the most abusive pieces of shit I've ever heard of, if the way Astarion acted was any indication. I had been planning to deal with him--"

"Unsurprising," Gortash replied, "The man was always odd and reclusive, and while I had my suspicions..."

"And I may have upset him by not...paying him what he saw as his due. He's planning some sort of ritual..."

Here she explained what she knew of Cazador and his plans for ascension, and while Gortash quickly began to look more severe, at least he didn't vent any of that potential anger on her.

"I must inform the guards about that. Noble or not, I'll not have him steal what I've worked so hard for." He smirked slightly and pressed a brief kiss to her lips. "And I'll not have YOU risking either your life or my heir's by going after him."

"I've helped imprison Mizora--the former patron of the Grand Duke. I've assisted in the killing of a cambion..."

"Really, now."

"Raphael never stood a chance. Foolish man...and very stupid, too, telling me he had something I wanted, and by extension where to find it WITHOUT taking his deal."

There was something in Gortash's face then that she had never seen before.

Shock.

"I...presume...that you are not talking about th--"

"Raphael of the House of Hope, the one who wanted me to hand over the crown to him so he could become king of the hells or something along those lines."

"And you are...quite certain...that he is dead?"

"Certain as the sunrise," Tav replied. "He'd been a smoothtalking pain in my ass for too long for me NOT to kill him."

A pause...and then, from nowhere--one second, Gortash was laying beside her, looking her in the eye. The next, his lips were on hers and he was moving over her.

"Eager," she got out quickly, and when he let her break for air she added, "Aren't we?"

He didn't answer. There was a pause, and then, in rather an awkward dance she reached down to pull up the hem of her gown as his hands moved down to rid himself of his trousers.

"Off," he demanded, once he was bare before her, as he tugged her gown up and over her head. He yanked off her underclothes and moved atop her, planting another hot kiss on her lips.

Tav returned the kiss, and awkwardly shifted beneath Gortash as she spread her legs for him. And despite the awkward maneuvering due to her swollen belly, they contented themselves like this for several minutes.

He seemed to want to say something at one point--but then apparently thought better of it, and settled for pressing his hard cock against her wet heat and thrusting inwards a moment later. Tav groaned, and reached up, wanting to hold SOMETHING. Her hands ended up on his shoulders.

"Please," she said, meeting his eyes, "I want--"

It was what usually excited him. Her begging, pleading to be fucked, yet somehow this time, she didn't need to say any more. He drew back and pushed forward in rapid thrusts that were pushing her high already from how deep they were hitting.

More, more, MORE

Tav's nails clenched at the skin of his shoulders, and her knees squeezed at his sides as his hips rocked against hers. Gods above, how badly she suddenly wanted to kiss him again!

But there would be none of that, only the repeated invasions of his cock, spearing and spreading her around him as he vented whatever in the hell this was.

"More," she moaned softly, "More..."

She needed him now, wanted to feel him within her, to be reminded of what passion lay behind that dark smirking face of his.

And he was going to give it to her.

Gortash's thrusts grew faster and faster still. He braced himself with one hand and lowered his face, only just far enough away from hers to prevent a kiss. But she could see it now, the expression, the desperate need for her, the agonizing pleasure he felt as the climb begin.

It was like he wanted her to see his ecstasy, to witness what he was drawing from her.

"Harder--"

It sparked suddenly, unexpectedly, and Tav forced herself to keep that eye contact as the pleasure seized and burned through her body in rapid wildfire.

"Oh, gods!"

She moaned for Gortash, let him hear her pleasure, let him see the look in her eyes as she let go. It lifted her high, so high, so achingly keen, and then dropped her back into the warm sea of the afterglow.

Faster, and faster still. She was still sensitive but he was thrusting hard, lust driving him onward with no coherent thought or reason other than fuck. She bore with it, bringing her heels up to dig into his ass and encourage him to go deeper still.

No moment of hesitation appeared, as sometimes it had since first they had been married.

Tav kept his gaze, and it was exhilarating. He was close, so close, and for once she was focused solely on that, on seeing his pleasure, taking it in in every sense of the word.

On an inward thrust, as he sheathed himself entirely inside her, it struck him. His cock pulsed and he went empty inside her in three warm waves of lusty heat that rose threatening to drown him.

Gingerly, Gortash withdrew from her and curled close, as though all the troubles of the world melted away with his head on her chest.

For all his scolding that she needed to relax, Tav realized--as she raised a hand to tangle its fingers in his hair--that this was the first time she had ever seen him do so.

[traggalicious]

OKAY SO

I love how spooky Cazador’s Palace is, dark, bat-filled, eery. Steps seem to echo and every move seems to attract hidden eyes. Everyone could be an enemy. But. Everyone here is more afraid than you are, manic with terror, trembling and pacing. Those who believe in Cazador’s shit believe it so desperately, with only a thin veneer of true trust in it. They *need* this to be true. The multitude of people you see or read about in their journals are desperate to leave, planning, plotting, and ultimately you know. Leon’s daughter was eaten. We killed the ones that came after us. Yes, in self-defense but weren’t they also doing this in self-defense too? They were tortured, isolated, manipulated, by a fucking rat bastard of a man who wanted more power and was willing to kill for it. These people were enslaved and cazador fuckin. I bet he relished in it. I hate him so much. That palace makes me *sick*, which it should. It feels like a facade, like something rotting around you. Worse, it feels like it will take you with it.

And Astarion’s interjections from time to time, about the fuckin kennel, about the dormitories, about the script on the door. It all just. Yeah. It feels horrible. Well done.

[shatouto]

random OC ask: what is something about your OC that people wouldn't expect from looking at them?

what are the preconceived notions people might form or have formed about them? how does your OC respond to those notions?

well solli looks a bit like a typical horror movie ghost and just gives off unsettling vibes in general esp bc he stares at people. so most people don't expect him to be really polite and gentle and also kind of friendly? he's not like, chummy, but he's articulate and relatively talkative if you bring up a topic of interest. he looks so weird and off-putting but he's actually sweet

i don't think solli really minds that much? he's always been aware that he was brought up in a weird way, but he's fairly unconcerned with what strangers think of him. he would be very apologetic if he realizes that he's made someone uncomfortable; but if people are just being nasty to him for apparently no reason then he'll just dip lmao

his loved ones' opinions of him are the only opinions he cares about (especially astarion's regard obviously)

thanks for the question!!

[angeryvoidchild]

Beautiful and amazing Kay, OC and tav that belongs to @stvrmgeist . Dad of the group, smiling proudly, because Gortash fell down the stairs. It may or may not be her doing. You'll never know. Vierna's near and they are as likely culprit. If not more likely.

Backstory for the drawing: I bet Sfinks how much the stuff I stole from Cazador is worth. Two rules: I don't sell magic items or books and we don't count coins. Who's closer wins. I bet 2,1k, they 2,5k. So 2,3k and less is my win, above theirs. 2 360 gold. The stakes was drawing each other's tav, so there she is! (And yes, I did have an advantage. Still lost. Stole almost everything that wasn't nailed to the floor or too high to reach)