#bg3 astarion scars

[downbadspanishlad]

I know I'm most certainly FAR from the last person to say this, and it's likely not much of a hot take anyway, but I feel like folks really need to lay off the people who choose to get tattoos of Astarion's scars.

I completely understand not wanting to get a tattoo like that yourself, but some people really seem to forget:

1. Elves aren't real.

2. Vampires aren't real.

3. Astarion, as lovely as he is, isn't real.

Tattoos are very personal, and the people getting tattoos of his scars likely have their own personal meanings/sentiments behind getting them. I've seen some victims of SA who have gotten tattoos of his scars and explain it as their own sort of medusa tattoo and view his scars as a personal symbol of survival, which is an incredibly beautiful, powerful, and VALID thing. I'm sure there's other people out there with their own equally valid ideas of what Astarion's scars mean to them, too.

It's perfectly okay not to want such a tattoo for yourself. Getting a tattoo of Astarion's scars is just something that might not be for you (it's not really something for me either), but that doesn't mean anyone needs to harass or judge the people who DO like the idea of it for a tattoo.

And to further emphasize the importance of understanding the fact that Astarion isn't a real person, I think it's important for us to remind ourselves that, if he WAS a real person, then it'd be weird for us fans to love him in the way that we do given the fact that he has described himself as someone with a "casual relationship with murder." He's killed so many people that he doesn't even remember everyone he's killed.

Does this mean I'm saying it's bad to like Astarion? Absolutely not. In fact, I'd be a huge hypocrite to even suggest that. No, what I'm really saying is that we can't pick and choose which parts of his story to take seriously.

I appreciate just how lovely and chill the BG3 fandom is, but the issue of harrassment over this is quite ridiculous and incredibly harmful (though harassment is also just awful in general). I've seen a crap ton of harrassment directed towards people who get tattoos of Astarion's scars AND towards the tattoo artists who do those tattoos for those people. It's really lame and toxic behavior, and it really needs to stop.

To the people with tattoos of Astarion's scars (and also the people who like the idea of getting it done for themselves), you guys are valid. Please don't let randos online bully you into feeling bad about it (and I sincerely hope each and every one of you guys are doing well).

To anyone who still finds the idea of getting a tattoo of his scars distasteful or wrong, that's fine. You're entitled to feel however you feel about it, but PLEASE, just leave people alone if you have nothing nice to say to them. Your entitlement to have the feelings you have about it does NOT = entitlement to harass people.

[pustotsvit]

ancient language, speak through fingers the awful edges where you end and I begin

[astarionancuntnin]

I will NOT stand for this astarion erasure

[malacandrax]

hm hm hm much to think about.

Bloodweave doodles!

Astarion hasn't had the opportunity to explore or indulge his own tastes before. Very inspired by @zigraves fics especially this one! (18+)

[snacobie]

Hug him…

[sailorgundam308]

Ok I tired myself.

[deandraws]

Made a PNG transparent file for Astarion's back sigil. Venture forth and create, fellow artists.

[scp-4999]

"Better astarion/gale/wyll/etc" mods where they're just de-aged and/or stripped of their unique designs, die die die a thousand deaths

[bloodlessdarling]

Some unimportant ramblings ⬇️

I’ve been looking at this face everyday since October but somehow I’ve never noticed until now that the bite scar isn’t just the two fang holes, you can see the whole fucking imprint of Cazador’s upper front teeth. Ouch!?

And that little scar next to his lips, only visible under some specific angles? Yeah, they didn’t have to add that… I appreciate it but now my standards are through the roof. <- that really is a glitch but my standards are still high.

The details level never ceases to amaze me. Incredible. Just incredible.

How exactly am I supposed to move on from this game?

And they made his lips look as smoochable as possible?? Hello??!

[preciouslittle-bhaalbabe]

TINY LIP SCAR?????

[iizuumi]

i feel totally normal about him

[dmbakura]

"allow me to alleviate this pain"

[minglisabeth]

Alright my fellow Astarion simps. I couldn't find a PNG reference of his scars to potentially show my tattoo artist so I traced his scars myself.

HMU if you need a higher quality file

[loquaciousquark]

Cazador's Ritual Runes, Translated

Inner: AMPLIFY + HIM + FLOW + EMPOWR [sic] Middle: WE OFFER THE FORCE OF LIFE Outer: WE GATHER HERE TO INVOKE THE POWER OF BLOD [sic]

Mephistopheles can't spell for beans.

(Detailed analysis & conjecture regarding this text, the Rite of Profane Ascension, & Astarion's translated scars under the cut.)

The second ring was the easiest, as the characters are very similar to Latin letters and clearly read out "WE OFFER THE FORCE OF LIFE." Characters were now known for C, E, F, H, I, L, O, R, T, and W. It wasn't clear yet if there were cases.

I was struggling with the first ring, though after decoding the second, I could get a likely "_M_LIF_ + _IM + _LOW + EM_OWR". Guessing the character for P, Y, and A based on context gave me "AMPLIFY + _IM + _LOW + EMPOWR", but I had doubts over the first characters for words two and three. I suspected they would be HIM and FLOW, but the H and F characters didn't match the H from the second ring's "THE" or the F from "AMPLIFY". Also, "empower" was misspelled, which made me pause.

Abandoning those for a moment, the third ring mapped well onto "WE _ATHER HERE TO I__O_E THE _OWER OF _LO_". Ruling out known letters which were not present, I could guess "WE GATHER HERE TO I__O_E THE POWER OF _LO_", but again the P from "POWER" was not the same as the P from "AMPLIFY" in the inner ring. However, it was very, very similar, and nothing else fit, so I committed, now suspecting there were capital versions of some letters included in the text.

At this point I went digging for resources. I found a copy of an Infernal alphabet on the Forgotten Realms wiki, and while it looks like the typeface Larian used is a bespoke creation for the game rather than a 1:1 copy of this alphabet, the letters for lowercase G, N, K, B, and D were nearly identical. Y (from AMPLIFY) also matched perfectly, confirming that earlier guess. This gave a clear "WE GATHER HERE TO INVOKE THE POWER OF BLOD."

This resulted in: AMPLIFY + _IM + _LOW + EMPOWR WE OFFER THE FORCE OF LIFE WE GATHER HERE TO INVOKE THE POWER OF BLOD

Looking at the wiki for capital letters, the only ones I could find which might reasonably fit the _IM missing character (assuming the Larian alphabet was based off this wiki typography) were A, B, H, O, T, V, and Y. Of those choices, only AIM, HIM, TIM, and VIM were words, and as cheesy as Cazador is, I couldn't imagine him saying AMPLIFY TIM FLOW EMPOWR. Given the alternatives, HIM was the only choice which made sense.

I went through the same process for _LOW, but this character seems unmatchable to me. By far it looks the most like the E from the Infernal alphabet, with maybe a capital Y being a distant second. However, ELOW and YLOW are certainly not words, and absent all other comparatives, the character in question does resemble a fancy F. Barring other languages, FLOW with a capital or unique F fits best.

AMPLIFY + HIM + FLOW + EMPOWR WE OFFER THE FORCE OF LIFE WE GATHER HERE TO INVOKE THE POWER OF BLOD

I did double-check the texts available in Cazador's mansion just to make sure this hadn't been translated elsewhere (after I'd done all the work, of course), and the only written text of relevance is from the Black Mass scroll you find near Vellioth's skull. It reads:

The Rite of Profane Ascension Oh, piteous dead! Oh, ravenous dead! Immortality is your gift, but darkness is your prison and hunger its gaoler. The Rite of Profane Ascension will release you. Walk in the sun. Suffer not from hunger. Grow your power beyond anything you imagined. A pact has been made with the Lord of Hellfire. Deliver unto him seven thousand souls, each bearing an Infernal mark, and you shall be free of your chains. You shall know true power. Deliver the souls. Speak the words. Ecce dominus, Has animas offero in sacrificio, Nunc volo potestatem quam pollicitus es mihi.

The Latin translates (as best I can tell with my incredibly weak Latin) to:

Behold [the] Lord, I offer these souls in sacrifice, I want the power thou hast promised me.

Which is interesting, but not clearly mapped to the Infernal above. Then I started wondering what relationship Astarion's scars have with all this, but thankfully, someone else has done the work here!

Astarion's scars have been transcribed and translated in a wonderfully detailed Reddit post by northpaw_s in 2020, but the salient points are that they appear to be in a mishmash of mangled Latin and Romance languages ("Infernal") and read:

Hoyc inferiu non iurare per igneu Naec virba loquor Eoai mundo muoat

Which appears to roughly translate to:

This soul swears no oath by fire Nor words does he speak In the realm of death

This makes sense if it's a fragment of a contract. I suspect the other spawn's scars are all identical to Astarion's for game mechanics/development reasons, but it'd be wild if they did have minor differences to complete the rest of the phrases! I know the scars don't show on their backs they way they do on Astarion's outside of the moment of the ritual, but it really does make me wonder if there's a complete text of the poem in some writer's documentation somewhere.

Anyway, what did you do with your Thursday night?

[iizven]

"What in the hells...What did he do to me?"

[snacobie]

My stats look like this: [BLOODLESS, -1]

So his can look like this: [HAPPY, +1]