#velioth

[blackbyrenflowers]

Hot take but Cazador is one of the best and most interesting villains in the game (at least of the more "personal" ones) because he's a "regressed" version of one of the main characters. He's Astarion if he was never freed of his bonds by the parasite. He's Astarion if he never met Tav/Durge or any of the other origin companions. He's Astarion if he never realized cruelty wasn't the only way to protect yourself. You can directly compare Ascended Astarion to how Vampire Lord Cazador acts, but even spawn Cazador was pretty much in the same boat as Astarion was during their respective periods of slavery.

Also the quote "what is family, if not the monsters we are obliged to love?" is just an incredibly raw line about abusive families.

[gradientdescentthreads]

Day 61 COMPLETE. At 2 ft tall, this is the largest embroidery panel I’ve ever done, clocking in at over 250 hours. Every stitch was a delight. There’s nothing quite like drawing something into reality stitch by stitch over months, spending hours on every line; it feels like a kind of magic. I’m gonna miss having this at my hands every day. I’ll have to settle for merely having it up on the wall.

As always credit goes to @barbatusart for the original art & thank you SO MUCH for letting me do something just slightly insane with your work. This panel is from barbatus’ De Rerum Natura found here, go check this cool shit out at the source if you like what you see here.

Final project notes and random musings below the cut

The biggest challenge with a piece of this size is maintaining consistent tension. I failed at this HARD. Only time will tell how much it shows once it’s stretched and framed.

Tension is most consistent towards the center of the frame - my mistake was getting a frame just exactly the same dimensions as my work. Pretty sure this is solvable with a larger frame. Unfortunately I might have to actually build it myself to go any bigger than the one I already have. Oh well, off to the wood shop!

This art style was sooooooooooooooo good for embroidery and varying from 1-6 strands of floss absolutely paid off with the subtle variations in line weight I was able to achieve

And one less technical note: Every project I do, I walk away learning some new skill. Staring at the same piece of art for 3 months straight will really get you thinking hard about what one specific line communicates or how a few little dots make the whole thing jump into motion. All that is to say that I got a lot out of this one.

But actually the biggest thing I think I’ve walked away with is the confidence to sketch/sew my own art. I made a bunch of little test projects in preparation for this piece, really just small-scale doodles to experiment with one aspect or another of the construction plan. Somewhere in there a light went on saying “hey look you too can make art” which, I’m not gonna lie, had truly never occurred to me as a thing that I could do. An obvious revelation, I know, have patience with me y’all. But I made them, and not only that but I liked them, and they made me feel happy to make. So we’re just gonna keep on doing that and see where it goes.

[juimondraws]

Lineage- a family portrait~ I cannot get these three out of my head! (artistic nudity under the cut)

Should I make this a phone background for my patrons?

[gradientdescent-does-it-all]

Sewing Journal: In Which My Embroidery Projects Become Increasingly Unhinged In Scope, Scale, and Content

Oh boy oh boy, I’m really excited about this one, y’all. After that series of smaller-scale experiments, I’ve finally pulled it all together to set up this fabulously visceral, gory panel by @barbatusart into the embroidery project that I’ll be doing off-camera for the next 2 months of Zoom calls.

In case it’s not clear from the picture, this thing is BIG. Like, 2 feet tall “big”. And although I can generally fit the embroidery frame onto my desk just off-camera, my coworkers have gotten used to knowing I’m always sewing just-offscreen and are in the habit of asking me to show what I’m doing. So I, uh, may need to keep a decoy project on hand to show them. Showing this one to my colleagues may qualify as ‘oversharing’.

If you wanna watch the daily progress pics of this one, I’ll have ‘em up over on the side blog @gradientdescentthreads . And if anyone’s interested in the combination of quilting and applique that went into setting this up, check it out below the cut!

Ok so this project started by slightly editing the original comic panel to pull out just the black and white line art into one layer, and the geometric color blocks into another. The original image used color sparingly so this wasn’t a very difficult task. I then printed both out to the exact same scale; these form the basis for the 2 layers of patterning that went into the overall composition.

Cutting up the print-out of the background was an easy route to a quilting pattern.

…And then, heart-breakingly, I cut up that nice quilt panel, using the paper print-out of the foreground as a template. Taking the lessons I learned from my smaller test projects, I used double-sided iron-on interfacing both to reinforce the fabric as well as attach it to the white underlayer cleanly. Then I got busy with a washable marker and a light box to trace the design. Finally, since the colored fabric was too dark for me to see through the light box, I printed out one final version of the design onto Stick-n-Stitch and overlaid it onto the red and black areas.

Why not save the time and just use Stick-n-Stitch for the entire design, you ask? Well, purely personal preference, but I feel like hand-tracing a complicated design helps me understand it better, kind of a dry run for rendering it in thread next. And also drawing those big gnarly teeth is just FUN.

[halsinningiswinning]

So, continuing off this idea.

We know Shang Tsung wouldn't hesitate to use the faces of Cazador's spawn and staff to mess with Cazador. Few are free from his mischief after all.

He can adopt the fighting style of anyone he wishes, I'm sure he would have little trouble with coping a face or voice. If he could acquire a soul that had met Velioth at some point in their life, he could probably get close enough to Velioth to seriously fuck with Cazador.

Would Cazador snap in the moment? Perhaps he can keep his cool long enough to deny Shang a chance to see him seethe, but that would inspire more pushing. How much could Cazador take? Or, most likely of all in my opinion, would Cazador simply delight in a chance to make his old master bleed once again?

I don't even care who would win the fight, it would be hot as fuck to watch regardless.

(For the record, I think Shang Tsung would win 9 out of 10 times. He regularly threatens gods and titans, Cazador loses a fight to the Scooby gang. They are not the same.)

[maegalkarven]

Like the entire fucking playthrough with Gale in your party is just:

"I think I'll kill myself."

"No."

"Now it's time to kill myself."

"Gale, NO."

"This is it. The Netherbrain. Don't follow me, for this is where I kill myself and save everyone."

"NO."

So isn't what he wants??? Shouldn't we let him have it? It's his decision, it's his CHOICE.

Except it isn't.

And Astarion's choice to ascend isn't HIS as well. It was put into him by Cazador and the things Astarion learnt from him, the person Astarion was molded into the same way Vellioth molded Cazador.

Except with our (the party's) support Astarion can learn to be something else, someone else. And he does.

[sadist69]

Even Velioth got into the background

[barbatusart]

I don't know if it was intentional, but I liked the alternation between high pain and isolation as punishment.

Lady Szarr says that 20 years of isolation was a mercy,so was probally constaint pain her punishment,probably Velioth thinks 11 years in a pike with at least pain and not stay in solitary is way way better,and then later Cazador is like damn I'm way better Astarion just have to lay in a tomb for a year.

If you look at the notes of vampires before Velioth there are few who manages to live past 100 years lol,cazador managing to live 216 years is a miracle.And I think the spawns (at least donella,cazador and vellioth,nothing prevents the others from not having been killed by other true vampires or adventurers) are like yeah I am gonna be way more lenient cause of course my master was killed by one of his spawn,what he did expect.

But they are stuck in a cycle of abuse that will never stop, cause no matter how lenient you are in your punishments...you are still punishing them lol.

Astarion says that the biggest threat to a vampire is another vampire, not a bitch. The biggest threat is that spawn that hates you because you torture him 24/7 and have forever to think of a plan to kill you.

i adore this ask so much & im so happy that the little threads im weaving are getting noticed this early on hehehe. ascended astarion would probably flay his next guy alive & then make him walk around as darkman like an asshole for 30 years. and like come to think of it we have no idea what kinda wringer cazador put the other spawn through, and he did leave like 7k spawn in a 5’x5’ cell for 2 centuries so like. guy got some weird concepts of “better”

[kittenintheden]

Astarion's slutty forarms in that camp outfit of his? I am looking ... oO Also he is hilarious, the number of times I've thrown myself away bc of some out of the blue, unhinged comment he made ...? He is a silly guy with no concept of an inside voice and I love it. Goofy little cat man.

Also his character growth makes me go all misty eyed and emotional I wanna smooch his face, I'm so proud, don't get me started on how in the spawn route he ends up rejecting all of Velioth's stupid rules and how that makes me feel bc I could go and write a novel on that. Happy Birthday!!!

you and me both babe T_T

and he is SO funny. unintentionally sometimes, yes, but also he's got some zingers in there for sure. cunty mccunterson, but also that sort of person who quietly does something to show he cares. like leave the body of your enemy on your doorstep. and when you ask, he's like, "yeah that's weird how'd that get there. anyway."

thank you!!

[y-rhywbeth2]

My trip to Baldur's Gate: Vampire the Masquerade AUs has haunted me all day.

-

The Dead Three aren't going to translate neatly and should probably be split into different characters covering different aspects of the originals. The Clan of Death is the neatest fit for them overall, but they don't all fit. The Giovanni fit Bhaal best (the Endless Night is basically his ideal, then there's the family money, the fucked up family shit). The scholarly bent of the Cappadocians with the aesthetic of the Harbingers of Skull is Myrkul and followers. Myrkul and Bhaal are too tied to death and undeath, if you take them out of here you lose something. Bane, frankly, is Ventrue with a splash of Lasombra; which does take us out of the box and the succession thing. Luckily their antediluvian is dead as hell as far as anyone can tell, so that's free real estate.

Withers is a fragment of Cappadocius; 'retired' and his one church/clan split in three (they might be pawns though god knows who of); mostly forgotten in the modern nights; seems benign on the surface and then you look closer and he's the world's least trustworthy motherfucker. Jergal has never schemed to eat Ao's soul as far as I know, but I sure wouldn't put anything past him.

Failing that he's the Capuchin... assuming those two are so unrelated, although I'm pretty sure the Capuchin is Lazarus.

-

Haarlep is hosting the succubus club. I will overlook how much it annoys be that 5e stopped the succubus being strictly tanar'ri for the bit.

-

Durge: Extremely low generation Giovanni neonate... or Baali, if you want to go ultimate edgelord. Enjoys the principle of Taboo in their necromancy work too much.

Gale: Has an Oblivion-tainted chunk of Mr 'I Can Totally Eat God's Soul and Replace Him' in his chest, so Cappadocian, I guess. Formerly awakened, but he ignored his avatar when it warned him not to touch The Thing and here we are.

Astarion: World's Worst Tremere Wants Dark Thaumaturgy. So he doesn't have to actually study hermetic mysticism to get the rewards of blood sorcery. And also to be free of the pyramid. Cazador should not be a regent, but alas, he won his certamen against Velioth. And also diablerised him. And made a pact with an Archduke of Hell.

Shadowheart: Setite by faith, Lasombra Abyss Mystic by lineage. Is actually kinfolk to the Children of Gaia, but she neither knows that nor would it help her to know that in any way.

Karlach: Abandoned Gangrel fledgling is taken in by Kind Older Vampire who is Going to Show Her the Ropes and Definitely Not Scheming; This is heart-warming and definitely not going to be tragic. (The horns and tail are permanent frenzy mutations).

Wyll: I got Toreador vibes over here. He's got an insanely high humanity rating, but Mizora's a diabolist and Wyll's caught in the net. Haven't decided whether Mizora or, if I stretch, Ulder is his sire. It's probably Mizora.

Lae'zel: Still thinking on that one, but I do get Sabbat crusader vibes. Ventrue antitribu? I think that fits. She's had heavy modification from a deceased Tzimisce pack mate.

[nightmarist]

I’ve always loved the idea of calling sired vampires one’s “children” but love it so much more as a symbol of the cycle of abuse in Astarion, Cazador, and Velioth’s bloodline

[illithiddies]

I just finished a campaign on an Astarion origin run where I'd:

Refused to tell anyone in the game about his vampirism whatsoever, for as long as physically possible

Refused to learn about the ritual or scars whatsoever, for as long as physically possible

I really just wanted to see exactly how many failsafes the game would have about this and what would happen if you skipped all of them.

So anyways here's how that went. (Spoilers obviously)

One of the earlier things I noticed that was pretty cool is that the "tell your companions you're a vampire" dialogue option seems to change, somewhere between Act 1 and 2. It's approval based! Don't know the exact trigger but it's somewhere between 10-70 approval to get the second version.

Version 1:

Version 2:

The way it works is kind of interesting. It adds a Charisma check in the second version, whereas if you fail the check you just get the Version 1 dialogue again but slightly bitchier.

The conversation that you get when you out yourself by biting someone doesn't change at all throughout the game.

If you enter Act 3, the game continues to keep it a secret up until the moment you leave camp and load into Rivington for the first time, during which the game will retroactively add a journal entry to Astarion's quest acting like he already told everyone a long time ago. If you approach the spawn or bite someone or do anything else it's all treated as if the companions already know. The game pretty much will not let you experience Act 3 with your companions not knowing he's a vampire. Boo.

So, in conclusion for keeping the vampirism secret: Not really any cool new dialogue and doesn't work past the end of Act 2, not super worth it honestly. But extremely funny for flavor.

As for the scars and ritual: I'd heard a couple early rumors that reading the Necromancy of Thay added knowledge to the ritual in Act 3, so I avoided it.

I also:

Ignored the Gur hunter in the swamp

Declined Raphael's deal to understand the scars in act 2

Ignored the trance scene he's given afterwards to potentially understand the scars on his own

Refused to talk to the spawn in Act 3

Refused to talk to the Gur encampment

Hurried through the lower city/etc without long resting so the spawn wouldn't come to the camp

So by the time I actually made it to the palace, Astarion had essentially no idea that he was actually being hunted by Cazador, had no idea that his scars meant anything, and had no idea that any form of ritual was taking place. He was just showing up to kill Cazador.

When you go up the ladder to enter the palace, you're immediately met with one of his guards asking why you're not at the ritual so he first learns about it there. There is probably away to skip it but I didn't bother. You're able to ask what the ritual is for. I ignored it.

In the palace, if you talk to any of the palace attendants they ask why you're not at the ritual. You can ask them what the ritual is. I ignored it. Godey probably has some dialogue about it if you talk to him, but I just killed him anyways.

Finally, in the actual ritual chamber, there's a scroll in Velioth's chambers that'll explain the ritual. I ignored it. Went through the dialogue with Sebastian and ignored any of the dialogue options explaining what it was.

So finally, finally, if you make it allllll the way to Cazador, you can approach him with absolutely no fucking clue what he's doing.

There's two opportunities to ask him about it, but they both lead to the same dialogue.

But doing the rest of the scene, honestly nothing is different whatsoever. You can still ascend and nothing is changed.

So, in conclusion for going into the ritual blind: You don't need to do a single thing in this game to enable the ritual, apparently. At least for an origin save, I don't know if it's the same for a companion Astarion. You don't need the Necromancy book, the Velioth scroll, or to kill Yurgir or anything. It's basically all flavor text. So if your end goal is to ascend, unless you're RPing you don't have to worry about missing out on certain events.

You don't really get any cool new dialogue for skipping out on learning about it either, aside from a few various people getting to explain it to you for the first time.

[gradientdescentthreads]

Day 57 little close-up here to show the difference between two-strand vs three-strand fill. The eye is 2 strand floss and consistent, very short stitches. The face is 3 strands with longer stitches and more stitch length variation. You’d think 2 vs 3 strands is a small difference, but overall I think it makes for a noticeable if subtle difference in texture.

[lucrezianoin]

Here are Astarion's comments in Cazador's scripts (Velioth's rules, the diary, the list of names) if Astarion has no idea about the ritual.

[halsinningiswinning]

In the battle against Cazador, he doesn't comment on the party outside of a few lines when you leave Astarion at camp, but I wonder why.

There's a good chance it's because he's so close to his victory, and already such a lethal threat, that he doubts anything could stop him. I don't think that's why though, it stems more from the fact he doesn't see Astarion as an independent agent.

Cazador's dialog and diary make it pretty clear that it's not just malice that makes him treat his spawn like unthinking pawns. He genuinely doesn't see them as actual people. He can remember being a spawn after all, and how exactly he got the upper hand on Velioth isn't made entirely clear to us.

He has no reason to actually think Petras understood what was happening with Astarion, after all, they can be tricked. Cazador 'made' Astarion, surely he'd feel their connection be severed in some way, like a leash going slack.

Astarion's friends don't matter because Astarion can't have friends. That would imply Astarion can think and feel for himself and can want things for himself, it just doesn't compute.

[runes-menagerie]

👤 (Sky or Astarion)

How about both :P

Send 👤 and I will write more about an NPC in my muse’s life

Heimerdinger

His long life combined with his separation from those he rules over as part of the council have contributed to him having a rather skewed sense of time and what is a reasonable about of time for something to be done in. This is seen most keenly when he tells Jayce and Viktor they need to spend another decade on research before introducing something new with Hextech. Sky has received similar treatment with her research into ways to use plants to combat the pollution effecting those in Zaun using plants. Implementation of her findings is often delayed years due to the Yordle's insistent on taking unrealistic amounts of time on researching new ideas.

Cazador Szarr

He wasn't always an abuser although from a young age he was raised with a rather twisted sense of morals due to his family being vampires for generations. It was only under Velioth's thumb that all traces of softness were beaten out of Cazador. Repeatedly and cruelly. This shaped how he would eventually treat his own Spawn, continuing the cycle of abuse that had likely been going on for generations going back possibly thousands of years by the time he attempts the Rite of Profane Ascension.