#tav: Cassiopeia

[theworldwalkersdiaries]

✨ Rainbow of Tieflings ✨

All images made with Crowesn's fantastic Tiefling Maker, found here!

♥️ Red: Kit Druid, Circle of Spores he/him, queer Tav. Romancing: Karlach

🧡Orange: Pax Monk, tbd he/him, queer

💛Yellow: Sunshine Bard she/her, lesbian

💚Green: Persistence, "Persi" - "The Wild Rose," or "Rose" Bard, College of Swords he/him, gay Tav. Romancing: Wyll

💟Teal: Hope Multiclass, street brawler. Guild member he/him, trans, queer Tav. Romancing: Gale

💙Blue: Devotion, "Dev" Paladin he/him

💜Purple: Winter Ranger, Beastmaster he/him, gay-leaning bi Tav. Romancing: S!Astarion, Halsin

💖Pink: Peony Warlock, double-pacted (it's complicated) all pronouns, excluding "it"

🤍White: Cassiopeia Cleric of Selûne she/her, queer Tav. Romancing: Shadowheart

💔Grey: Perdition, "Perdi" Draconic Ancestry Sorcerer he/him, ?????? Durge. Undredeemed Romancing Minthara; A!Astarion (separate endings); Redeemed Romancing S!Astarion

🖤Black: Callidus, "Cal" Wizard, Necromancer he/him, NOT TO BE TRUSTED

[sankttealeaf]

been playing too much baldur's gate 3 lately and i fear it has infected my brain!!! if u see me writing for any of these characters no you dont (you do. im down bad for that goddamn vampire man) (my type in men are "sad and pathetic" (and fictional but shh we aren't thinking too hard abt that)))

[sewerdad]

Liking Baldurs gate 3 without being able to draw is like being an angel without it’s wings

I am in hell

[ciph3rrr]

forget me not

my bg3 tav, cassiopeia. she means so much to me<3

[alpaca-clouds]

Astarion Family Headcanons

Just wanted to share some of my headcanons on Astarion's family. No real basis in canon, other than: Well, they should be still alive, because they are elves.

His parents were mostly married for family politics reasons. His mother is a very demure woman, who will rarely speak up on things. Meanwhile his father is among those high elf supremacists (because let's face it: high elves are all in all pretty shitty). It was also his father who pushed Astarion to become a magistrate, for other political reasons. Because his father did like to play Baldur's Gate politics.

We do have a somewhat official age for Astarion by now, which implies that he was around 70 years old when he died - so in elven terms, he still was a minor. (Though given that the age came out fairly recently, in my fics I still go with the old stuff of him having been 39 when he died.)

He also had a little sister. Cass (Cassiopeia). But while Astarion was always very eager to please his father, she was not. She was the one rebelling.

When Astarion "died", it absolutely shook his family. His parents started arguing a lot more, because his mother was grieving for years. Something his father considered as "weakness".

Cass ended up leaving the family before she turned a hundred years old, and became a druid following Chauntea further up north.

Meanwhile Astarion's mother left Baldur's Gate about fifty years after Astarion's death, moving further down the Chionthar to a smaller village.

The father ended up leaving for Neverwinter in the end. (Which, yes, also means that my Tav has probably met the father - though he never made the connection.)

But yeah, the reason nobody took care of the grave was, that his family had left Baldur's Gate.

[darethshirl]

ASTARION SMUT PART TWO HERE WE GOOOOO this took me a freaking month to finish and I know everyone and their mom has already done the graveyard sex scene but!! here's my cake offering as well! 🥰

title: so long to this wretched form pairing: Astarion/Female Tav rating: Explicit words: 3,237 tags: Smut, Sexual Content, Semi-Public Sex, Hand Jobs, Orgasms, intrusive thoughts during sex, Angst and Fluff and Smut, POV Astarion (Baldur's Gate), astarion's sex issues, Happy Ending

summary:

Cassiopeia huffed, her patience clearly fraying. She took her hand back and crossed her arms. “Do you just want to fuck on top of your own grave?” she demanded. “Is that what this is about?”

“Well, maybe I do want to fuck on top of my grave!” Astarion shouted, gesticulating wildly. “Maybe I need to take all those years of shit and suffering and give them the send-off they deserve, and maybe the only way to start my new life is to literally fuck my old one into the ground!” He stopped to catch his breath—when had he started panting? “So, are you going to help me?” he goaded. “Or are you going to leave me to do it all by myself?”

--

Astarion’s ambitions for the night don’t go as planned. Cassiopeia improvises.

Read on ao3!

[bhaalbomb]

♡Helena lore post♡

𖤣⚘𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼⚘ 𖤣⚘𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼⚘ 𖤣⚘𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼⚘ 𖤣⚘𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼⚘ 𖤣⚘𖡼𖤣𖥧𖡼⚘ 𖤣⚘

˚₊‧꒰ა❤︎໒꒱ ‧₊ Life in WaterDeep ˚₊‧꒰ა❤︎໒꒱ ‧₊

(post-tadpole/post-game)

(TW - trauma, ptsd, miscarriage, postpartum, prejudice mention)

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❀ Helena and Gale get married about two months after post-game, due to Gale’s mother rushing to plan the ceremony. (She didn’t like that they live in wedlock.) Their wedding was large with over 200 guests in attendance (all from the Dekarios clan)

❀ Upon meeting Helena, Tara was first suspicious of her. After about a week, the two had warmed up to each other.

❀ Helena goes by “Leena” after the events of Bg3, although all of her legal documents say Helena. She prefers to be called Leena among friends and loved ones.

❀ She kept in contact with most of the companions after the events of Bg3. Mainly ShadowHeart, Astarion, and Halsin. She also kept in contact with my friend’s tavs (Mimo and Lalith).

❀ Gale and her have their first baby after being married for three years. They named him Fenrick (spelled untraditionally but a traditionally Elven name) “Fen” Eos (Eos meaning dawn). They decided to have his middle name dawn because they had him after three miscarriages. Gale and Helena have a second child two years after having their first, naming her Malwyn Cassiopeia (named after a constellation). Six years after their second child they have an oopsie baby- naming him Corry Orion.

❀Helena frequently has nightmares and still struggles with memories of who she was in the Bhaal cult. She was also convinced when they were struggling to have children that this was her divine punishment for her years of murder. She felt as if even though she was not of her father anymore, that her body was still forcing her to be a child of murder.

❀ Helena struggles with PTSD from the events of Bg3 and from being indoctrinated by the Bhaal Murder cult for years. She frequently wakes up from night terrors and gets dissociative at the sight of blood, at times.

❀Helena struggled with postpartum depression after Fen was born to the point Gale had to spend some time away from the academy to help her with their new baby. She felt afraid that she’d harm him, despite not having dark urges and being free from Bhaal’s gasp.

❀ When she moved to WaterDeep she had zero local friends. The first local friend she made was a necromancer history professor by the name of Professor Aroas. He happens to be a constant thorn in Gale’s side at the academy. Professor Aroas likes to gossip with Helena sometimes while Gale is working late hours at the academy or spending time at in his tower office. Gale was jealous at first, but learned that Professor Aroas prefers the company of men and is not interest in his wife

❀ Since Helena is half-drow, some people in WaterDeep have acted prejudiced towards her. Her children, especially her boys who inherited her gray complexion, are not immune to this either. Their eldest was bullied by a few children he went to school with at a young age, evoking her fury - as well as Gale’s who showed up to the children’s school once because of it.

❀ Helena is also outed as a Bhaalspawn about two months into her and Gale’s marriage. Some people were intrigued, while others were cautious. Some of Gale’s colleagues even expressed concern about her visiting on academy grounds directly to Blackstaff Safahr- despite not being under Bhaal’s influence any longer.

❀ Helena plants a beautiful garden of herbs/spices and flowers she uses to curate teas and potions. Her favorite flower is lilacs/lavender bushes. She is also a fan of white roses.

❀ One of Helena’s favorite events in WaterDeep is the Fair Seas Festival because she gets to enjoy some of Gale’s seafood cooking (he does special dishes for this specific festival) this happens in Ches 29 - Ches 30 (March 29 - 30)

❀ Helena’s favorite holiday is Lliira’s Night - hosted on the 7th of Flamerule (equivalent to July 7th) because she gets to go to the Cynosure Ball and partake in festivities related to partying and having fun. Masquerade of Liars is a close second Marpenoth 30th (October 30th) - pranks and pumpkin carving ;)

❀ Helena often makes tea brews for people she loves and as gifts for her friends.

❀ Her and Gale share tea in the mornings before he goes to the academy, and talk about sappy romance novels (Helena begrudgingly got him into them).

❀ Helena and Gale live a relatively peaceful life up until they’re old. Helena is the first one to pass between the two, due to unnatural causes.

~~~~~~~~ More to add but this is what you’re getting for now——————-

[hellionsheart]

I can feel myself slowly shifting back into bg3 mode but I'm holding off on playing it until patch 7 drops (or if I get into the play test) but!! here's what I'm planning

restart Cassiopeia's playthrough- a mixture of mods and updates messed up her save so I was planning on starting again with her anyway but the new Alfira stuff is the motivation I needed to actually do it

I want to give Adeline a whole redesign and restart her playthrough too but that's pretty low on the list

finish my evil durge playthrough and maybe an evil tav? I don't enjoy playing evil as much but I wanna see the new endings in my own game, the struggle

continue my Karlach origin run and maybe start a Gale one too

also really looking forward to the new photo mode and making some new gifs

[feytouched]

6, 9, 23 for lyra asks? ( . ̫.)

ahh tysm for the ask bb!!

6. what is your tav’s favourite childhood memory?

whenever her mother (cassiopeia, a human moon druid of a nomadic moon circle) stopped by to visit lyra and her father at the shrine to the dancing goddess. cassiopeia took her on hunts and taught her her first cantrips, and to young lyra these fleeting moments of bonding were incredibly precious.

9. what was your tav doing when they were taken by the mind flayers?

she and hadrian (tiefling paladin, part of her former adventuring party) were split from the rest of their group, gathering supplies at a market town before leaving on an escort mission for a nobleman they’d been hired to protect. ironically, they’d be headed to baldur’s gate. afterwards, lyra hoped against hope that hadrian might have made it out alive too, but unbeknownst to her he was one of the less fortunate victims of the abduction.*

* (side note. hadrian was the model for her dream guardian. i want to play a hadrian run where lyra is his guardian sooooo bad. the AU where he lived instead of her...)

23. what are 2-3 songs that your tav would relate to?

[pulls up my hour-long lyra playlist]

bitter water by the oh hellos, especially this one verse... lyra asked her companions to bury her beneath the sussur tree if she were to fall, so the antimagic field would prevent her corpse from being raised by necromancy. also excellent lyra x astarion material overall

blood upon the snow by hozier & bear mccreary. this bit in particular speaks to how her more ruthless and violent side reconciles with the ways of nature, but also.... leaves her tired. she didn't ask for any of this :') it makes me think of older, weary lvl20 archdruid lyra.

wolf by first aid kit. no specific bits, just the whole thing feels very relevant to her backstory & her struggles during this adventure.

indulge my tavposting & ask me stuff about lyra!

[ciph3rrr]

using the magic mirror update to give my girl slight stress grey hairs. cassiopeia has been THROUGH it and deserves a physical change<3

[sankttealeaf]

1, 3, 11, 28 for rue!! (also 30. this is a statement.)

hehe ty <3 answering these Secret OC Asks

1) Does your OC have a voice claim, if so who?

rue is scouse /j

she has tav 4's voice canonically! i cant really think of any others that match the Vibe i have for her. slightly posh, well spoken, a darling to listen to. i guess vex'halia from critrole also has a similar vibe to rue's voice.

3) What song describes your OC?

SO MANY. gonna list a few of my faves

i bet on losing dogs - mitski

family tree - ethel cain

ptolemaea - ethel cain

the warmth - paris paloma

11) What was your inspiration for your OC?

honestly? i had ZERO inspiration for rue when making her. i wanted to keep her as blank as i could because i knew that the dark urge origin was different backstory-wise compared to a tav so i didnt want to come up with traits & a backstory to then have it be contradicted.

she came to life when i started writing about her mostly. and when i discovered the prayer for forgiveness my mind latched onto that and the potential relationship between her and gortash

i'm kind of bad at having pre-determined inspirations for video game ocs. my first (and only) tav cassiopeia didnt have a solid backstory until act 3 and then... ive left her there. girl i am so sorry

all i know is that i wanted religious trauma, for her to have bloody hands and to kiss gortash (maybe)

28) What clique would they be in? (Draw them in the clothes of said group!)

my mind is TORN. part of me wants her to be like, hot and popular but i know she would be the weird outsider who has odd interests and is off putting (she's just like me fr)

30) My OC and your OC are friends. This isn't a question. I'm not asking. (How do they respond?)

rue would love ophelia. but we both know this.

[darethshirl]

finally, another astarion oneshot!! here comes the act 2 angsty fluff 👀

title: take me under, take me home pairing: Astarion/Female Tav rating: Teen words: 6,047 tags: Angst, Romance, Fluff, Kissing, POV Astarion (Baldur's Gate), Astarion's Past Abuse (Baldur's Gate), discussion of suicide, some Karlach moments, can be read as a standalone, yes this is a tav and not a durge. yes she’s still a bloodthirsty weirdo. it happens

summary:

The silence stretched. “Are we going to talk about it?” Cassiopeia asked.

Were they? Should they? Astarion watched her bare, golden-skinned arm, the way it rose and fell in time with his own breathing. When he finally spoke his voice came out hoarser than he’d expected. “Would you have made me do it? If we weren’t…” Here he made a vague gesture with his free hand, somehow encompassing the both of them, the bedroll, the air they shared. “Involved?”

—

Act 2 romance. The confrontation with Araj Oblodra, and its aftermath.

Read on ao3!

[darethshirl]

alright alright act 3 tavstarion here we goooo 👀

title: so long to this wretched form pairing: Astarion/Female Tav rating: Teen words: 4,738 tags: Fluff, Angst, Astarion's Trauma, POV Astarion (Baldur's Gate), no reader/second person pov, Post-Cazador Szarr Boss Fight, astarion's siblings make appearances, Evil Tav (Baldur's Gate), I won't tell you if astarion ascends or not you'll have to read and find out 👀, can be read as a standalone

summary:

Astarion came back to himself in increments, reality returning sensation by sensation—his breathing unsteady in his lungs, the hair on his arms pebbling from the cold. He looked up, and there past the corpse in front of him and the detritus of battle stood Cassiopeia, a still, unwavering figure. Her face was a smooth mask; her cool eyes colorless, unreadable. Astarion had no idea if she disapproved or not.

He realized he didn’t care. He’d made his choice, and the only approval that mattered was his own.

—

Act 3. The confrontation with Cazador and its aftermath. Astarion makes a decision.

Read on ao3!

[darethshirl]

introducing my (Cool, Evil 😌😈) tav in this blog, both for my own reference and perhaps for future fic exchanges if there are any?? 👀 check under the cut for more information and screenshots

Name: Cassiopeia

Race: Elf

Background: Noble

Class: Sorcerer (Wild Magic)

Alignment: Chaotic Evil

Skills: Persuasion, Deception, Perception

Romance: Astarion

some more screenshots 👀

Act 2 look 👀

Act 3 look 👀

[sankttealeaf]

QUESTION 4 FOR THE BG3 ASKS

4. Do you remember in which order you recruited your companions? Which companion introduction would have felt the most familiar / like home to your Tav / Character?

for Cassiopeia, i think it went Shadowheart -> Astarion -> Gale -> Lae'zel -> Karlach -> Wyll

as for feeling the most familiar, Astarion pulling a little scheme to get her to do something for him definitely reminded her of playing a con to get someone's money. rogues gotta stick together!

for wyll i actually triggered the cutscene where he talks about what happened at waukeem's rest before i got his introduction scene at the grove. i also didn't realise where any of the other companions were for the longest time so for the first two / three hours of my playthrough it was just cas and shadowheart and i was wondering why i kept dying in the crypt so many times

for Rue it went Shadowheart -> Astarion -> Gale -> Wyll -> Lae'zel -> Karlach

she definitely felt a sense of familiarity of Gale's introduction. she may not remember much but she knows how chaotic her magic can be and has a feeling there's been several times she's found herself in less than ideal situations because of her magic.

[sankttealeaf]

Hello there - I was wondering when did you first start liking durgetash? How did you get the inspo for your story? ps Im a huge fan ❤

hi anon!! thank u!! <3

the thing that dragged me headfirst into the depths of durgetash hell was the prayer for forgiveness! i went into the dark urge playthrough knowing very little! (started rue's run in early september but only got around to actually playing her in early october! (act 3 was lagging so bad on my first playthrough i needed to jump ship to simpler times)

seeing other peoples interpretations of their durge & gortash got me thinking a little more about rue & gortash and what they couldve been like! i went into rue's playthrough knowing i was going to romance gale and went woah, theres some similarities between the two there. rue has a type!

(fun fact: my first tav playthrough & the beginnings of my durgetash era overlapped so when i got to meet gortash as my tav, cassiopeia, i was only slightly taken in by him. did not trust him at all, though. stupid man)

i think i love the tragedy of it all. no matter what relationship your durge has with gortash, its still one of closeness. and to have someone you worked hard with ripped from you, only to return now wanting to destroy everything youve made? thats gotta hurt.

as for my fic it kind of started as a series of one shots i started writing, never really with the intent to publish them! i wanted to work out how rue acted before the tadpoling and how different she was then!

the original plan was just a collection of moments shared between rue and gortash throughout their time together. back then rue was still called rue, i hadnt given her another name to further separate her life before & after being tadpoled. i also really wanted to make little letters and notes that you find in the game to go along with the writing. however i only ever made gortash's initial request for a meeting.

(as u can see below. i thought it was a cool concept. no idea how i wouldve fully executed it though)

then it sort of spiralled from there! what if rue and enver were friends as kids? what if they keep finding each other over and over again? what if they always fall to the same fate? i love tragic romances, friendships that are doomed to fail, relationships that can only end one way, so it was very fun to explore all this with them!!

the title was originally a title from a one shot i started writing about them. i think the phrase "let sleeping dogs lie" is very them - after all, why disturb what is a peaceful alliance? why ruin it by admitting feelings or saying words they shouldnt? also dog imagery & rue go hand in hand (despite me saying she's cat coded)

i had key events planned from the start that i wanted to happen, the main thing being how rue lets down her guard over the course of their friendship & how that becomes her downfall!

i also wanted to use this as a way to not only explore rue and gortash, but rue and orin, too!! it meant i could write in their povs, get into their brains and work out why they do what they do! i love villainous characters and finding out the root cause behind their actions (im currently running a curse of strahd dnd game and did the exact thing for strahd - writing up his motivations and intentions to give me better access into his headspace & why he acts like he does!)

at the start i never really intented to publish it on ao3. i added the little prologue after writing the second chapter, and then i decided to bite the bullet and post it! i made this account to share my writing, why not do that!!

im still a little in shock at how many people have enjoyed reading it & especially how many people love rue. ive never written any oc x canon before so it was a little scary putting her out there for the world to see!! sometimes i get that little voice in my head that goes "gr. youre being cringe" and i have to bap it away before it can rot my brain. im allowed to have silly characters and make them kiss other characters - no one can stop me!!

this got a little longer than i intended, but thanks anon!! <3 i hope this has been a lil insightful about the behind the scene of my very chaotic brain behind this fic! its all ive been thinking about for 6ish months now (oh gods)