#bg3: elendris

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finally got astarion's confession (after the drow, I wanted to finish his personal quest first but I was failing at killing yurgin and really needed to level up first <3). I picked the "we don't have to have sex anymore, don't worry" option but my favourite one is definitely the open your brain one. hugs are nice and everything but no I am weak to the broadcast your feelings straight to their brain thing.

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tagged by @invinciblerodent and thank you so much for the tag, it was super fun and a great break for today!

tagging @margridarnauds, as I think pairing songs with kissy-picrew (using this one) sounds right up your alley!

also all under the cut, because. well.

I still haven't found the perfect song for them as a couple but I have found the perfect song for when gale tried to blow himself up, and then to achieve goodhood and then TRIED TO BLOW HIMSELF UP THREE MORE TIMES, LOVE OF MY LIFE YOU GOTTA STOP DOING THAT

The perfect song for two men riddled by insecurity issues who just need to fully believe each others' Anywhere you go, let me go too / Love me, that's all I ask of you

(And the lines Let me lead you from your solitude and Say the word and I will follow you are a nice bonus. If Caradoc being Raoul and Gale being Christine means that the Phantom is Mystra, then so be it).

I have actually a whole folk song playlist for the two of them, especially because there are so many folk songs about someone called William, like SO MANY and some of them are SO appropriate but I have a soft spot for this one which is a version of the beauty and the beast (or the loathly lady) trope. tl;dr monstrous lady comes in his house and because King Henry is *that *noble and good he lets her eat all his favourite animals *and *sleeps with her, she becomes a beautiful maiden and in some versions also brings all the animals back to life

Also I like the ambiguity of the ending where imho it's not exactly clear how the curse broke BUT IT DID and now King Henry has the world most beautiful woman as a reward for being so good and noble.

Wyll gets a redeemed Bhaalspawn instead but that's probably how Mister Wylliam "I wanna get married and have children. Let's get engaged and then go to the Hells to slay demons together for the foreseeable future" Ravengard likes it.

Aaaand it's this one:

Now that Patch 6 lets them be together even if she wants to fly away on a dragon it's less tragic for me to figure out their ending but the way the male singer is hoping she'll live another day and he will be by her side (And if she doesn't have the will/But it seems the whole world does I'll stay because/ *I will be the man my father never was) while she tells the gods that if they touch him they WILL pay (But to a woman by the end you'll kneel and plead/'Cause I'm more than what my mum told me to be*)...

So the main problem with these two is that Elendris' doesn't really care about anything except the ones he loves and Astarion really should NOT be trusted with that influence on him until his character development kicks in *and they are both painfully self aware of it but *also don't really know how to stop it before it goes too far. And that's why they sent themselves to the Underdark so they can figure it out while helping people. And maybe develop some morals.

I assume some level of this will always exist in their relationship and for some reason this is the song to express it:

I like the self awareness of the couple in the song, the joy in love and being loved in this way and also we're like an odd pair of shoes / One slightly stylish and one slightly plain / One for the nightlife and one for the rain does sound like something Mister Astarion "UGH" Ancunín would say.

Last but not least, for my old veterans with trauma:

There is a version with English lyrics here, it's a love song about how the other person is the only one who truly understood them and I love that the chorus says "By looking for you in this world, I got to know it and I gave it to you". It truly fits Ves'i'ran background of having being promoted/kicked out of gythianki society due to how obviously "sentimental" he is and having spent decades as a ranger in Faerun, learning to love it while being unable to just stop being loyal to an absent queen because otherwise what's the point of everything.

Halsin instead gets "In recent years I have lost more than one friend / I lost myself plus a few lighters / Life gives and then it takes/ That's why I'm afraid to be near you"

There was probably something more thematically appropriate but I like italian rap. Sue me.

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Ooh, I'd love to hear about #19 and #23, for any and all characters you'd like to talk about! :)

!! In a desperate attempt to keep this short, I will do #19 only for the three Tavs that have actually appeared on my blog and #23 only for Caradoc because he is the one I have most material on.

19. Any memories that stick out to you/your Tav about their life pre-tadpole?

Caradoc:

Around a year before the tadpole, it’s technically night but the birds are already singing outside, he’s drunk at the bakery his best friend works at. Their other close friend Kava has just left Baldur’s Gate like every summer to collect new material, new tales and new songs. Like every summer they are deeply aware that this might be the year she doesn’t come back. He’s looking at Felix, a Deep Gnome who almost was a Paladin but instead ran from the Underdark all the way to Baldur’s Gate, where he is now putting a fourth tray of bread in the oven, like every other night.

Caradoc wonders aloud how it must feel to love something so much you keep almost dying for it. Felix just snorts and says almost dying for things is vastly overrated. In his personal experience, their life would not be better if they almost died on a daily basis. His boss might suck but it is way better than a Duergar slaver. Or a Drow.

Caradoc doesn’t say anything because it’s four in the morning and he is drunk as hell and he doesn’t know how to explain that he is a Tiefling and a Wild Sorcerer and he loves his family and he loves his friends and his community and he even loves his job and he knows he is lucky but sometimes. Sometimes. He would like for his life to not be just about keeping his head down and getting from one day to the next.

Elendris:

Forty years after his marriage, ten years after his divorce, ten years before the tadpole, he is working alone at his workshop on a special sword he has been obsessing about for months, he is tired and sleep deprived and accidentally hits his hand. He drops everything immediately and as he is healing himself and feeling relieved that it’s nothing serious he remembers that before his wife used to heal him herself and take him to bed. He is one hundred and forty years old and she left because him because he is incapable of love. He will die alone.

Cedric:

It’s not a specific memory, but a promise. His parents died when he was around six, he ran away from the orphanage he was in when he was around nine and after a year of living on the streets he was taken in by a dragonborn druid who took pity on him and started training him. And he loved it - he liked that it made him feel close to his wood elf father, he liked that when he was a crow no one thought he was a girl, he liked that someone cared and he especially liked that his master was going to go back to his grove with him. It was a promise of a place where everything could be well and he could finally belong. 

Then his master was robbed and murdered in the streets when he was thirteen and his choices were being a criminal with money or an honest man without it, which is not really a choice. The grove is not a promise anymore - just a dream. They would not approve of how he is using Silvanus’ gifts anyway.

23. Share any hcs/anything you want to say about your Tav’s backstory

Caradoc is a Mephistopheles Tiefling from his father’s side and while the details got lost during the way, they are pretty sure The Ancestor Who Fucked Up was a wizard in Thay (who then, presumably, was using his Tiefling children as slaves). Because when I read Mephistophele I think Faust.

While Caradoc was happy being Just Some Guy he did sometimes feel bitter about the fact that having to not “stand out” wasn’t exactly a choice. First, he is a Tiefling. Second, he is a Wild Sorcerer. Third, he is poor. There is a reason he learnt to bullshit like a pro.

Caradoc has three parents! His biological parents are both Tieflings and moved to Baldur’s Gate specifically so their children would face less discrimination and they could find a community with other Tieflings and similar Others. His human father is a ranger and gave him his surname and his name. The official story when they attract unwanted attention is that his human father is living with them because he is a dear family friend who lost a leg during a job. 

Caradoc’s best friends before the tadpole are a Deep Gnome called Felix who left the Underdark “Because it sucks” and a dragonborn bard called Kava who moved to Baldur’s Gate to pursue her calling. He and Felix are also roommates. He can’t wait for them to meet his new best friends from tadpole times.

Caradoc’s contacts in the city aren't useful when it comes to defeating the Netherbrain but they are amazing after the battle is done. He can get the rest of the Tiefling refugees out of Wyrm’s Crossing and his friends don’t have to be homeless (although Felix had a heart attack when his best friend reappeared after going missing for weeks with a wizard and a vampire in tow). 

He really likes dancing and he and his friends regularly went to a specific tavern in his neighborhood for it. He sometimes day dreamed of doing it with a partner but he never really fell in love before the tadpole. Gale is in for a treat.

He never told Wyll until Act 3, but like. Fuck the Fists. Little Caradoc did not have a good time with the Fists.

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I ACCIDENTALLY CLICKED ON ASTARION WHILE LOOTING THE CORPSES OF GLOBIN CHILDREN SO NOW HE PROPOSITIONED ELENDRIS FOR SEX IN FRONT OF EVERYONE AS WE ARE COVERED IN BLOOD

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Yes. You're curious - your eyes are lit like raging stars. You want what only I can give you.

I really don't think this is what is going on here, Mizora.

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Elendris: You've had a very lucky escape. Your date was a vampire. Lorna Esthelian: A vampire? No... he wasn't... was he? But then... why am I still here? He could have had me by the neck any time he liked... Astarion: Mother may I. I'm positively starved

I try to finally finish Elendris' playthrought and five minutes in I am reminded of his horrible taste in men.

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Do you have any tavs and if so tell me about them!

Hi! Thank you so much for your ask and sorry if it took me a bit, I had to grab screenshots and make sure I did not write way too much.

Without further ado, these are the main three featured on my blog as they are the ones I got at least to Act 2 with:

Caradoc Howell

My main and favourite Just Some Guy. He’s a Wild Sorcerer Mephistopheles Tiefling who works in a grocery shop near the Upper City where he does a bit of everything but mostly errands and “special orders”, aka anything rare or difficult to find in the Lower City that is not really illegal - think less “rare poison” and more “my master wants pheasant for dinner what the fuck am I supposed to do now”.

Basically, what if your Tav was Just Some Guy working at Aldi.

As you can imagine everything after being tadpoled was absolutely wild to him but he got through it by the power of Having Worked In Customer Service his Charlatan background. He even got a delightful husband out of it! Whose ex is the Goddess of Magic. It’s fine. They are both Just Some Guys (Who Saved The World) now.

And who regularly go on adventures for anything Gale really needs for his research with their friends. And Arabella, who might or might not be a Chosen of Silvanus, keeps crashing at the tower. And Lae’zel definitely got them to the Astral Plane for a visit. And Gale is doing an impressive job of teaching Caradoc how to use his magic and now he is way better than he was when they fought the Netherbrain.

But still! Just Some Guys!

Elendris Galaadon

A Sun Elf who discovered his love for blacksmithing when he was fifteen and never turned back. He disappointed everyone in his House by moving to Baldur’s Gate to learn from dwarves and gnomes and also getting married at barely one hundred year old to another one hundred year old elf. Look, it was True Love!

They got divorced by the time they were one hundred and fifty and he came out of that thinking that he was fundamentally broken and truly incapable of loving anything except his craft and his workshop - and his people who work there. Everything else can go fuck itself. He spent twenty years barely getting out of his workshop until he got tadpoled.

He is now learning that caring about others is Good, Actually, if nothing else because if he doesn’t it might have repercussions about people and things he does actually care about. His morality is still a work in progress as we reach Act 3 and his decision to not ascend Astarion is still mostly motivated by the fact that he really likes children (including children that are vampire spawn) and he really loves Astarion and doesn’t think that would have made him actually happy. Oh and killing seven thousand people is bad, they say.

Cedric (no surname because he forgot)

Cedric’s parents died when he was around six, he run away from the orphanage when he was seven and got extremely lucky to be noticed by a Dragonborn Druid who immediately took him in when he saw him talking with the local cats. They were supposed to move together to a groove outside Baldur's Gate once his teacher's work in the city was done, but he got murdered when Cedric was sixteen.

Since his only skills were healing, talking to animals and turning into a huge wolf, he fell into criminal work. The fact that he is now one of the kind of people who probably murdered his parents and definitely killed his teacher does not escape him and he is now a pretty closed off and apathetic twenty five year old.

Being tadpoled has been a blast and not only because he gets to turn into a cat and jump on everyone’s lap (especially on Lae’zels).

And the rest

Those are the main six Tavs I developed playing around the character’s creator or with my other Tavs’ backstories. Very quickly: 

Ves’i’ran is a Gythianki ranger that after a rite of passage gone Very Wrong got to spend all of five minutes in the Astral Plane before being sent back to Faerun to scout for mindflayers activities and ships. He wants to be loyal but he also has very much been going native. Also the only woman he ever loved was probably murdered when she tried to flee to the githerai.

Illiambaste is an ex-Eilistraee acolyte turned Assassin Folk Hero after she found out the full story behind her father’s escape from Menzoberranzan. He risked everything to bring her with him when he escaped and she wants to live up to his example.

Kava and Felix are Caradoc’s best friends back in Baldur’s Gate and now it’s their turn to get tadpoled! Kava is a Bard who takes her profession and her duty as storyteller and collector of tales Very Seriously and who takes pride in her found family of various contacts and networks all over the Storm Coast (and beyond!) (she's definitely not doing any spy work on the side!). Felix is a Vengeance Paladin who grew up in the Underdark and decided that enough was enough when he and some of his people got kidnapped by the Duergars to be slaves. Once rescued he booked it to Baldur’s Gate where he became a baker because he has terrible insomnia so what does he care about working nights.

Havelock is a noble Half Drow Cleric of Selune born of an illicit affair between a patriar and the eldest daughter of a Matriarch who did not need more males so they immediately shipped him back to Baldur’s Gate thinking maybe they could get some future political leverage out of it. His father did look after him but there is no love lost between them and high society was not kind to him. His father’s wife however always loved him and she is the one supporting his political career. He had quite a temper when he was young and did punch one nobleman in the face when he was fourteen (now he would simply blackmail them into submission). 

Finally, my Cleric of Kelemvor. She loves fighting. She is very fucking tall. I don’t know yet why it’s so important to her that everyone is granted the peace of eternal sleep. 

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But also it's gonna be extremely funny when Astarion finally sees Elendris' shop because I assume not knowing how blacksmith shops work he didn't like, really realise what Elendris' situation was and he was bracing himself for idk, a shed, and then it's actually quite nice, in the Upper City and he has three apprentices and two clerks plus a kid who is there "on probation".

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My brain helpfully reminds me that if Elendris was a Very Good Blacksmith, although deeply antisocial and only going to Guild meetings he actually cared about, then at some Cazador bought weapons from him (he wouldn't even have seen the guy unless he paid for a special commission) and for all he knows Cazador used weapons crafted by Elendris' own hands on Astarion.

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he did it. he SMILED.

sometimes I can see why people would say he is handsome.

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despite hitting on elendris he has absolutely ZERO approval with halsin but orin kidnapped lae'zel. i am gonna assume after skulking around in camp and seeing his life choices, orin rightfully got worried elendris would have not bothered showing up otherwise

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Well instead of Astarion I got a scene with the Guardian, which incidentally looks exactly like Elendris' ex wife, so HE IS DOING FINE GUYS

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I really like how the wrote the "meh to idc to idk to lovers" in the game if Astarion remains a Spawn (also RIP to everyone who played their character as being in love with Astarion from the start that is so much heartbreak I can't even imagine RPing) and I like how they make it clear that Astarion's journey is just, like, starting so he also doesn't know and he's also looking forward to find out.

It also makes it very interesting when imagining how his relationship with Tav is gonna change as he finds out more about himself. Like is he gonna be jealous once he feels like he can feel and express that? Is he gonna be worried about the possible monotony of life getting to them once there is no drama and trauma bonding them together? What if they can't find a cure to let Astarion walk under the sun? What if Tav gets tired of living in the Underdark?

In my specific case he is with Elendris who was also on an "idk to lovers" arc of his own while getting over The Divorce Of Doom for good and that's bound to get to Astarion simply because it's another imbalance in their relationship and he always worries about that. Also it's probably tempting to involuntarily compare things and then instead of idk, wondering in his own time if he even wants to get married now Astarion has to wonder if he wants to get married and if yes what if Elendris doesn't and if Elendris does what if Astarion doesn't and oh god. And also he runs into his ex wife at some city event and he doesn't care Elendris and his ex wife hate each other but he can't stop wondering and also clearly he loved her enough to marry her and talking about children with her so clearly...

(Obviously all of this would be solved in like two minutes if he just went and talked but he's feeling things for the first time and he wants to process them for himself first. Also by this point he probably realised that Elendris tends to let him do what he wants if it's harmless - by Elendris' standards - so he wants a more impartial opinion at times. )

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This time around I got Astarion's siblings attempting to kidnap him at camp which is good because Elendris is gonna need that conversation about how the way Astarion couldn't disobey any of Cazador's order and he knows because he tried since Elendris might be a huge bitch but he does like children. Like a lot.

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AND NOW LAE'ZEL SAID I CAN USE THE SUPER SPECIAL SILVER SWORD

Astarion your arc 3 romance arc better be good

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also no other tav+guardian combination I will ever make will ever be as good as making the guardian look like elendris' ex wife. yeah love turned to hate and you think she destroyed something inside you without even trying (probably) and maybe you wanted to kill her but now you can't for practical reasons and like maybe. maybe you don't. maybe you were both very wrong for each other