Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Astarion Quest and Paladin Oaths

So, the choice that appears to have broken my oath is to choose not to kill all of the spawn in Cazador's dungeon. I can kind of see the thinking here- undead are something the Oath of Ancients disapproves of, so there's some issues with turning a huge number of spawn loose. The thing is, the only alternative on offer was to kill all of them.
Now, I feel pretty confident in saying that straight up murdering 7000 people who have, to the best of your knowledge, committed no crime at all, is also a pretty grotesque violation of the Oath of Ancients- as a general rule the mass murder of innocent people seems pretty seriously against any of the available paladin oaths. And it's not like I'm required to kill any and all undead I see- I've been travelling with Astarion (while knowing full well he's feeding on people, because I see him do it in fights) and Withers all game, and there's never been an issue with my oath. So this one genuinely felt completely out of left field.

To be fair Withers isn't actually an undead, he just looks like one, he's actually a God named Jergal, who gave his divinity to the Dead Three out of boredom, Withers was kind of like Ryuk from Death Note, a death god who gave mortals powers in order to get some entertainment out of it with Bhaal basically being the Light Yagami in this situation.

Killing 7k people who are as much victims as anything else isn't something most would be able to stomach I agree.
However I alwas kill them on my run simply because the idea of 7k starving vampire spawn running around in the underdark - with all those ways to the surface - screams another apocalyptic scenario to me. I can't see the 6 siblings being much use in stopping them from rampaging madly hunting for food as they are only spawns themselves.

Astarion himself, and his siblings, have had many years to learn to deal with their hunger from Cazador controlling them. They have been in society (when hunting for Cazador) and have got used to dealing with their hunger when presented with a banquet. The spawns haven't as there was no need for Cazador to bother, they were safely locked up, so they have just been left with the pain of the hunger and no experience in how to deal with it.

It seems better to kill them and prevent a vampire apocalypse but obviously its just my opinion and the game leaves it entirely open to interpretation.

I have no idea what happens if you just leave them imprisoned by the way, which was an option I had, but I assume that leaves it to the Gur to kill them - they certainly won't release them either as killing vampires is pretty much what they do.
Killing them yourself means the Gur don't have to kill their own kids (something the Gur leader thanks you for in a roundabout way as she says you have done them a kindness).

Since they are mostly reasonable and have Astarions siblings to take care of them, they might actually lead a pretty decent life in the Underdark. Of course, it all could go south, but I have a hard time killing children and poor sobs like Sebastian, who begs for his life basically.

I don't see how even a vengeance oath paladin would be okay with killing thousands of people who are the victims of a vampire, have done nothing wrong that you know of, and from your experience with Astarion you know spawn at least can control their hunger. It's the whole thing where the "correct" decision for a paladin is to massacre thousands of people who are the *victims* of a monster that bugs me.

Honestly, it feels incredibly irresponsible to just unleash 7k hungry vampire spawn on the world. However, that does not justify murdering 7k innocents (or even one innocent, tbh), so for me they had to be spared. If I can see that Astarion deserves to be spared, and can survive without drinking blood from non-consenting people, then every single one of those other swawn also deserve to be spared, and they can survive in the same way.

That freeing the spawn breaks the Oath of the Ancients is, to me, an indictment of that Oath. It says that the Ancients dedication to light and life is less because those things are inherently good and more because they are Our Things. "We" are alive, and we are dedicated to those values. The Others are not alive, so they should be destroyed, no matter how innocent and victimised they are, no matter how much goodness they still possess in their hearts.

I chose Vengeance initially because I was basing my PC on a tabletop character I'd played, who was dedicated to getting revenge for her mother's apparent death. (I designed the Guardian based on the mother, whoops.) My PC's behaviour ended up being influenced by Wyll a lot, so she became more and more merciful as the game went on. It came as a huge surprise to me that she never ended up breaking her Oath. Vengeance allowed me to pick merciful choices, because punishing X character would have only been punishing the lesser evil, not the greater.

Anyway, back to the spawn. To me, the seriousness of the situation is such that we should be doing way more than just abandoning them to their own way. I mean, the Gur act as guardians of a kind, but there aren't that many of them. If we release those spawn (as we should), it should become our life's mission to help them make their way in the world.