Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Astarion and Sebille

Now I'm really confused lol. I wonder whether it is just an inconsistency or the rules of what a vampire is are more complicated than I thought

Again the game is still early access and the storyline could go way beyond our estimations, for all we know Wyll could become a hags apprentice! Gale could suddenly decide he wants to go butt crazy and murder the party, Shadowhurt could stop being a kill joy and Lazel... shes perfect nothing needs changing.

Astarion could start hoarding squirrels.

Or even worse! He could start breeding and herding them.

Actually there there is a moment in true resurrection where you are given the option to remain dead. The hag's threat -- I'll kill you and then raise you and kill you again -- isn't a real one because you can say "no, dead is working out for me, thanks for asking". So mechanically this would be like the remove curse moment with lycanthropy etc -- werewolves can reject their cure. So when the moment comes -- stay a dead vampire or fallow the light and again as weakened moral -- would be the symbolic moment when you decide to live new life or let the character move on.

Or Astarian could return as an evil mortal eager to get bitten again . . .

And @Phea is right -- Jander Sunstar is an exception -- but you are also right its a contradiction in the rules. In 2nd ed elves couldn't become vampires at all. Sunstar got the DMs at TSR to agre violate two rules so he could tell his story 2nd edition was full of contradictions.

If your choices are either you to die (in which case I have no idea what happens for you, especially if you are a vampire) or you live... Not much of a hard choice unless I'm missing something.

I think it really depends on a character. It's super hard to stay good if some evil guy makes you his vampire slave - which happens to almost every D&D vampire, maybe except for Strahd (who btw was rather evil as mortal too, at least shortly before he became a vampire lord) - but it's not impossible. I think rules reflect character's nature, not force such person to become someone else after the transformation.

Either there are rules or there are no rules... I guess FR lore is so vast and extensive and so many people wrote stories in this world over so many timelines, that there has to be inconsistencies.i guess I assumed being a vampire in FR is similar to being a vampire in Buffy - you lose your capacity for good and become a (sophisticated) child with 100% id ruling you.

I don't know happens in 5th either. In 2nd you would be destroyed -- you don't actually have a soul, just the tainted shadow of one and the taint would return to the negative material plane (or become a vampric mist under certain conditions). In 3rd you would be claimed by Orcus or Vesharoon but I dunno if anyone has decided with 5th.

5th has lots of "legends differ" descriptions so my guess would be that its another "up to the DM" decision.

I think it was the same in 3e, being undead was the same as having your corpse desecrated, so you had to do more than just resurrect them. I get the impression that the FR cosmology wasn't interested in asking or answering these questions.

Larian if Astarion doesnt have an army of squirrels and wages war with Cazador

WHAT. IS. THE. POINT!!!

There is Jander Sunstar in 5e "Descent into Avernus", he is a good character still, and vampire, if memory serves right. So at least they've kept this exception without retconning AD&D novel canon.

What? Then how could Bodhi turn Aerie? Obviously the rule violations go back quite a way.

not to mention Bodhi herself

Technically she wasn't an elf anymore, though. Somehow.

I guess she chose to love a mortal instead of get on the last ship...oh wrong one.

One thing I have realised and it might be wrong but you never know,
Is that some companions might change their alignment depending on the path your PC takes, (obviously theres some approval and disapproval involved)

But speaking specifically about Astarion and they way he reacts to your choices in both versions of the party has me wondering about how much the PC will effect the origin characters!

For instance


It just has me thinking, if that is the case then it would be interesting to see how much you can either corrupt or "redeem" the companions!

No, you're wrong. He says he never thought about it, and now that it's happened, it makes him sick. He hates it. It's hard to say anything about origin because we don't have (official) access to the characters.

Obviously hes not going to jump in and be "hey I know I used to be a serial killer before but now that I did this one good thing I'm going to stop my evil ways and become a hero"

It's going to take time, (I rewatched his dialogue at the party and yes I was wrong) but it kinda felt like he might warm up to "saving lives" as long as he gets a better reward in the end I guess, but you never know I could be reading it wrong.

There are rukes but rules existing creates dramatic opportunity to break them. So vampirism is inherently corrupting but because of that there will always be hero characters who stay pure/fight their evil selves by sheer force of will or self-sacrifice. Because those are more interesting to read and write about and writers are suckers for drama.

It's funny because the only thing I get from Astarion is that he wants to be free. He doesn't want power for the sake of it, he wants power to stay free from Cazador. Astarion didn't want to be a vampire, he just wanted to live, but that didn't work out because he was enslaved.
I honestly don't think Astarion is chaotic. He spent 200 years essentially being grounded without having any fun, being used as an object and his personhood completely ignored. The reason why he comes accross as chaotic is because he positively revels in the freedom that the tadpole provides. That's why he wants to keep the tadpole, he thinks it's the guarantor of his freedom.
Now I'm willing to agree that he falls a little bit on the evil side of things, but all things considered, Astarion's story is ripe for a redemption arc. I mean the man just escaped a living hell by going through another hell (literally). I think he really just wants out of all this chaos and oppression and tries to stay on top of all this mess.