#'he helped save the world from the illithid empire'

[ryttu3k]

#love how when Gale gets gently told an idea won't work he's like “but what if I made it work” in the dumbest way possible #sorry bud can't do a lecture for your class I'll die of engine failure #oh that's fine I'll just take myself and my room full of other people's children to hell #such a big beautiful brain it'd be a shame if he used it (tags by sodapopseagull)

Gale Being Completely Unhinged During the Epilogue

Apprentice *bursting into the Blackstaff’s chambers*: Sir, I apologize for the intrusion, but it seems that a portal to Hell has been opened in Professor Dekarios’s classroom—

Blackstaff: What?! None of his students are advanced enough to have done that!

Apprentice: …

Blackstaff: Oh, my god

[writtenmisfits]

Name: Astarion Ancunín Age: 249 Race: High Elf, Vampire Height: 5'9" Gender: Cis male Preference: Pansexual Class: Thief Rogue/College of Swords Bard

Verses

Baldur's Gate/DnD (default) - This is Astarion's default verse and unless specified for the other verses, this is where his interactions will take place. - Astarion Ancunin was once an often times ruthless and very arrogant Magistrate in Baldur's Gate, until one night he was attacked by a band of Gur for a ruling he made against their kind. Saved by the Vampire Lord Cazador Szarr, he has been serving his Master for nearly two centuries, bringing him delicious little morsels for dinner while subsisting himself on a diet of rats and other small creatures. But now, he has the chance to break free from his Master's reigns, thanks to the hitchhiker occupying his skull after being whisked away into an illithid's nautiloid. The parasite might have it's drawbacks, but it does come with a few bonuses, including walking in the sunlight and a freedom from his Master's influence. What he will do with that freedom while also dealing with this Cult of the Absolute will remain to be seen. - This mostly follows canon from the game, though I write my Astarion with a lot of influence and lore pulled from the DnD one-shots with Neil playing him.

The Witcher - This verse may change and very depending on the interactions, but this is the basis for placing Astarion into the world of The Witcher. - Astarion is a high vampire who lives in the mansion of another, more powerful high vampire, known as Lord Cazador Szarr, a vampire who has amassed a mercantile empire. He also uses blood addiction to control a number of other vampires, Astarion included, using them to do his dirty work and bring in poor and unsuspecting souls to his mansion. What his Lord does with these victims, he doesn't know, but after decades of servitude and torment, he is ready to seek out any means necessary to do away with his Master and find himself freed of his addiction.

True Blood - This verse is primarily based on the show, and may change and very depending on the interactions, but this is the basis for placing Astarion into the world of True Blood. - Astarion Ancunin is the very definition of a blood-sucking lawyer, one who works exclusively for the American Vampire League. It is his job to defend vampires and humans alike who are being unfairly treated by the courts in relation to vampire rights, at least the cases that the AVL deem important. He's recently been sent to a small little town in Louisiana to help with some legal matters concerning a few humans and vampires who've found themselves in hot water with those who don't support vampire rights.

Verses are subject to change, be removed, or added. Updates will be announced. If you have questions about a specific verse, please feel free to ask.

[wolffyluna]

I'm having feelings about my Tav.

[End game bg3 spoilers ahead]

So, end game spoilers ahead: My Tav started out as a weak, scaredy-cat Sorceror who was very... not quite 'fuck you got mine' but definitely self centred, because she did not feel like she had the skill/resources/safety to keep anyone else alive, let alone help people.

When she got tadpoled, she actually got noticeably more altruistic, because oh hey, if she does this she might die? and if she dies she will have died helping people and not exploding in a shower of squid! sign her up!

and then she meets the Dream Guardian. Who told her she was under its* protection and she had an important part to play in saving the world from the Absolute.

* I am using it not to insult it, but because it is a mind flayer and likes that fact about itself, and all other mindflayers appear to use it.

||and with that 🐛 safety net and backing of someone more powerful, and in general getting exp and becoming a very scary mother fucker herself, she became increasingly heroic. She also became increasingly philosophically devoted to big-F Freedom. The problem with the Absolute was it would make everyone un-free, and that's the worst thing possible! She cared about freedom before-- she was the tiefling child of human parents who found this shameful, she spent her childhood on a very tight leash to 🐛 prove she wasn't inherently evil and that her parents ''''could handle her well'''', and this is a big part of why said scaredy cat became an adventurer, because she wanted out that badly. But as she gains power, as she gains confidence, she went from 'caring about only her own freedom, because how else she could she even do anything for anyone else?' to caring deeply about freedom for everyone, with the unwarranted confidence to take on a space faring squid empire.

and the dream guardian encourgaed this! it was very useful to it to have an ally that cared about freedom as an end, who saw the Absolute as a awful moral wrong that must be stopped at all costs, instead of something that needed to be dealt with to remove the tadpoles. It knew that that sort of higher goal meant it's ally was more likely to go through with the thing. and it encouraged her '...yeah, I can take that' confidence, because it needed an ally that would actually. you know. try and fight the Absolute instead of running away to die in a cave somewhere?

and this would have all worked out, if Tav did not find out one of two things: 1. The Dream Guardian is a mind flayer. (Which she doesn't take as a betrayal, as such, but did make her pity it, which was not the reaction the Dream Guardian *wanted* or *found useful.* Like, a lot of it's 'you should become an illithid for strategic reasons!' came across not as strategic advice but 'victim of tragic accident tries to convince you that only having one arm is cool and useful because otherwise it would have to admit it's life sucks'

and. she cared about freedom in and of itself. she believed she could take on literally anything given prep time. The Dream Guardian had gone to efforts to make her this way.

So she saw that and went. 'No. We can find another way.'

Which was! not! acceptable! to the Dream Guardian! because no, really. if you let Orpheus out he will *kill you* and also you will then lose your best shot at defeating the Absolute, what the fuck *no*and their relationship. both became closer-- because she learned more about the Dream Guardian and it's past-- and also just got worse and worse-- because pity and dislike of the other's goals on philosophical grounds is not... a good basis for a relationship.

there was a lot of 'why are you taking dangerous actions to help you free Orpheus. you don't want to free him, and trying to *steal a Hammer from a devil* is a self evidently awful idea! stop it!' meanwhile Tav is going 'nah, I can take Raphael' and being *annoyingly right.*

and then it comes to the final confrontation. Tav has the hammer to break Orpheus' chains. The dream guardian tries one last time to convince her not to do that, trying to do that will kill her in two different ways--

-- but she won't budge. There's someone in chains in front of her, and her friend Lae'zel has a hammer to fix it. And then Orpheus can help free more people. She can take the Netherbrain the hard way as well as the easy way.

and the dream guardian-- in a fun mirror to how Tav was at the beginning-- the main thing it wants is *to survive*. It hates the Absolute, it hates being it's thrall. But it would much rather be a live thrall than a dead hero. It turns coat and joins the Absolute.

Tav and her friends defeat it. Tav and her friends defeat the Absolute as a whole. Tav ends a hero, and ends up joining the fight to continue Orpheus' legacy and bring down an additional space faring psionic empire (the githyanki)

And she only became the sort of person who could do this because of the Dream Guardian. And that's... bittersweet. To have all the good parts of you shaped by someone who betrayed you.

especially because-- she can see how it was *scared*. and she pities/sympathises it for giving into that terror, because she would have, in the beginning. until *it* showed her she was powerful and brave and it was worth trying to do something that might get her killed to keep everyone free.