I was disappointed with the palace too. It was very obvious that a big part of the place was missing. Also, Astarion has nothing to say about
Velioth's lessons even if he's the one interacting with the skull.
The dead kid:
use speak with the dead, she'll tell you what happened. There's also Dalyria's journal somewhere.
Leon's special treatment can be explained with Cazador liking to mess with them. Keeps him in fear of losing the privileges and keeps the other spawn jealous.
As for things written by Cazador,
there's a journal somewhere, I forgot where exactly, where he gets increasingly mad about Astarion being missing.
I do remember Cazador's little journal now that you mention it, but I was hoping for just...more? I guess? Something to let me see a glimpse of him as a character and not just having to do with the Ascension? and
I did do Speak to Dead on Victoria, so I don't know if it used to be different and she actually talked to you but when I tried it it just said 'This corpse has nothing to say' which was irritating because I not only learned nothing I wasted a Speak to Dead scroll on it.
My main confusion with Leon is the timeline of him. I would fully believe that Cazador did the privileged room set up to mess with them, but how did Leon get so good at being Spawn of the Year if he'd only been a Spawn for a few years at most? Which he couldn't have been more than that if he had a 10 year old mortal daughter? And I would have liked to see journals or something from the other Spawn with their thoughts on that, or just anything about who they were and their thoughts on things. I know there was a few things sprinkled here and there, but if anything they just left me with more questions than answers. And as other people pointed out, for being this affluent Vampire Palace it was weirdly small and the fact that I could only get into it by getting up on a wall was... unique. Like, does it not have a front door? And why is this 'Palace' so.... dinky? I know the answers all boil down to 'lack of time' and 'cut content' but if they're still planning to add things in later patches I just think this is a place that could really use some attention and TLC. Even if it is just in adding notes and journals to find to piece it all together.
