Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Astarion's corrupt past. Astarion is not like a cake, it's like an onion.

What about Astarion's past as a corrupt magistrate?
Only Digital Artbook, which is great, but beyond that it's foggy.

Article review of the demo BG3 by Rob Zacny:
"A disgraced nobleman who used his position as a local magistrate to serve a vampire clan by feeding them prisoners, he was eventually too corrupt even for them and was effectively sent to serve as the personal slave of a powerful vampire."

'Baldur's Gate 3' Tries to Capture the Chaos of D&D Gone Horribly Wrong
February 28, 2020
Presentation Baldur's Gate 3 demo by Swen Vincke

Apparently, the Swen Vincke quote was from here, but I haven't looked it up in full.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYSqQuqCAZI

Current information:
"Two hundred years ago, Astarion was a corrupt elite of Baldur’s Gate with a taste for power and a hunger for eternal life. It wasn’t long before these desires became a nightmarish reality. "
Baldurs Gate 3
Digital Deluxe Artbook
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He was definitely a magistrate once upon a time. We find out in the swamps after we meet the hunter. There's no point in lying now.

He chose a career of power, a magistrate. He was young by elf standards. He was going to move up the ladder.
I think he was trying really hard to bang Baldur’s Gate. Weaving intrigue and trying to get more power, wine, gold and glory. The vampire clan doesn't hire just anyone.

Now Astarion doesn't remember his eye color. I wonder such an important moment that indirectly affected his slavery to Casador he remembers?
Or perhaps remembers old notes that say that 200 years ago prisoners were strangely disappearing. And the sentences in court were sometimes, (despite his young age), too harsh. Because putting more behind bars (young, tasty thieves, for example) would mean more food for the vampires and more reward for Astarion.

I want this prequel incredibly badly. Or an investigative quest.

It'll probably warm the Earth for sure after it, but it's fun for me.
I'm gonna fry sausage on a fork like the gargoyle from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Because it's a brilliant.

I certainly won't love Astarion as a character any less, only more.
It's a terrific moral conflict and an interesting philosophical theme about fate, punishment, and mercy.

Courage is something that is sorely needed right now.

Baldur’s Gate isn't My little ̶p̶o̶n̶n̶y̶/vampire spawn, is it? Don't get me wrong. I love Rarity.
It's just DnD, BG3 is Dark Fantasy.

Astarion is not a fairy tale prince.
Many are already writing his dark side is a mask.

It's certainly fun&cute to see how people want to fix:

Medieval, pale, noble, dangerous, decadent, corrupt, power hungry, magistrate, hedonist, racist, lookist, elf, rogue, undead, neutral-evil, vampire spawn who got slaved, escaped the cage and wants everything in the world.

Fix/cure and play patty cake with him in the evenings. Well, you're a Dungeon Master, okay, if you like sweets. I rather prefer spice, the old school love-obsession, vampiric decadence from the villain.
Ascension exposed by some as a non-Astarion, sort of a potato on legs, and not evil part of Astarion's own canon-personality, such as it is. And going from neutral-evil vampire spawn to evil vampire Lord, Ascended, btw he's a pretty new creature after that, interesting to learn more.

I met Astarion on the beach when he literally had a dagger to my throat, was making pro-slavery comments about gnomes and humans, (and it's a pity what the scene in the mushroom colony was removed), and was generally hungry for slaughter. And power wanted, even as a living elf.

What a magnificent evil trickster.

Can we please have more attention and care, it's quite needy, to those players who just love its inner, wild, dark, charming mess.

Maestro, Stephen Rooney, are you there?

I'm not the only one interested in his backstory. Seeing his dark past and\or side (as a spawn too) will be a gift.

It's kind of risky when there's so much attention focused on BG3. (Maybe later?) But for example, Jaime Lannister pushed a kiddo off a tower with one hand.

I realize Larian has a lot on their hands, Minthara, patches, Epilogues.
It's just…

Please, pretty please

D&D in general is pretty dark, Half-Orcs were the byproducts of r*pe at one point until WoTC retconned it, it made perfect sense why they retconned it since it's a touchy subject to begin with, I kind of see Astairon as Namek/Android Saga Vegeta, like while on the side of good, he retains most of his evil and ruthless nature, that fits Astairon, like he's not evil but more like he's evil leaning neutral,

Because of the titIe I kind of want to make a Shrek joke about Astairon, I present Shrekstairion like imagine Astairon is still a hot vampire elf but now listens to Smash Mouth and lives in Swamp, it's like Goosestairon all over again.

It would make his character more interesting to be sure. I think, I had a conversation with him about that topic, but not that deep. I guess, you have to have him with you in certain quests or play as him to get the whole depth of it. I never believed him about how Cazador found him - there had to be a backstory to it.

I like both versions of him, but I think the current one fits the game the way it is now better.

And Cazador seems to have chosen his spawn by some criteria. I'm sure he enjoyed taking their lives away from them.

There's nothing new about his past if you play as him or take him literally everywhere.

Oh yes, his backstory offers so much potential.
How this arrogant elf, hungry for power and gold, ends up with the rats.
who gives up his own body to help someone else achieve the power he desires. Who has completely forgotten himself through torture and fear.
this makes his ending in the game all the more interesting. Is he now seizing power or has he understood that power doesn't make happy?

I could easily imagine this as a comic.
I have all the Witcher comics and would be happy to see more white-haired men comics.

(sry if bad english here, blame Google translator.)

While I do find Astarion's (cut?) backstory intriguing, and I wish they'd worked with the idea that was introduced and seemingly forgotten that his death was a deliberate setup (the PC can point out to Astarion that Cazador just happening to show up seems super coincidental, and in the same conversation Astarion says that Cazador works through proxies and usually has several layers of plans going on)...

...I think making him that outright evil from the start damages the cycles of abuse theme his story currently centers around. The very deliberately illustrates the process of victims becoming their abusers, when in this case Astarion would start out as an abuser and I suspect that's why it didn't make it in the final game. To clarify - Astarion was always a bad person and we can infer from several things in the release game that he was a terrible magistrate. But there's a difference between 'spoiled noble who didn't care who his decisions hurt as long as he got to enjoy prestige and power' and 'selling prisoners to vampires for the promise of becoming a vampire himself someday.'

So I'm... curious but hesitant on this. I really wanted to explore more of Astarion's past as a magistrate, and I wish Cazador had been shown as more of the powerful lateral schemer he was suggested to be. But I'm much fonder of a spin like 'Cazador bought out Astarion's career and bribed him into doing increasingly reprehensible things, and Astarion went along with it because his life was great and why should he care about other people's problems' than I am in wholesale resurrecting 'Astarion wanted to be a vampire from the start and everything that happened to him afterwards was pretty much karma.'

Granted, it'd be a fun layer on how much he hates the human servants in Cazador's household that sought him out willingly (because Astarion is a huge hypocrite and that'd be the best case yet), but I just think it breaks the core theme of his story if he was already exactly that bad before Cazador got his hands on him.

It was so obvious that Cazador set it up, because it's not like he took random walks in dark alleys, he has spawns for that. But then it went nowhere.


Yeah, writing a story about the cycle of abuse and then saying "he asked for it" is not a good idea for obvious reasons.

Sorry, I'm a bit confused, did I do something wrong? I posted my topic in Suggestions & Feedback.
Because the description:
Thoughts on issues, ideas/requests, cheese, praise and anything revolving what you hope to see Larian do/not do.

I have an idea and I especially request and hope that what Larian will or will not do, whether for example in the DLC will Astarion reveal his dark past and give his dark side, information with a quote, this is not a discussion and theory. Please how do I get back into Suggestions & Feedback? Who do I contact? I'm pretty ignorant of this forum. Should I just repost the topic? Was there a repetition?
Or then I'll come back later with more specific offers, probably in what dialog and how and where the little notes of the silver magistrate's evil deeds should lie.

Well, if they move it back, I'm all for it.

For me, Astarion is and character not only a survivor, a victim and cycles of cruelty. But also, a predator, a tormented one, who has so many ambitions and desires. They are inward, strong and tempting.

He wants to be the strongest predator in Faerûn - "Lord, King, Master." We can still see this in the game.

So what the theme is centered on is not carved in stone. It's just in the crowd. Everyone has to interpret it their own way.

His story also illustrates: "the theme of Desire".
Few people talk about.

This elf's desire for not just enjoyment, than he has, a taste for power a hunger for eternal life (Digital Deluxe Artbook), its drove him to alliance with the vampire clan (it doesn't say that in the artbook, where else would he look for eternal life?), transformed into the vampire spawn of a sadistic master (and this is here) On his way to the top, he fell. Really, really hurt.

Now the squidwards have helped him up. What's he doing? He wants to try again, "he doesn't just want to survive, he desires for his triumph," quote. He's a fighter, and he fights for himself in a very bloodthirsty way - this makes him a character with gray morals. And the vampire spawn, remember neutral-evil, is even more bloody.

The theme of Astarion's desires is extremely interesting to me. He wanted eternally young and power, but he didn't want rotten rats. That's kind of the point! Even if it is karma, should it be so cruel? Why? Is it?
So his background working great for me right now, too.

Absolutely agree with you about Cazador.
We don't have the upper city where Astarion lived, nor do we have more information about the magistrate.
Neither do we have Cazador as an ally. Dathaminer stuff. (I saw it somewhere, no link, so I'll stipulate, but I willingly believe it)
It's a pity he such a bad-cartoon villain. Many ones wants to see him as tabouret. Cazador is smart, and he should be.
There's a theory, that Astarion betrayed Cazador very badly and it makes sense why he enjoyed torturing him so much. And the fact that Astarion was selling prisoners made him laugh even louder. There's a moral issue in that too. My opinion: it's bad to torture someone for 200 years, even if they sold criminals and betrayed you. See? It's a good theory. But we don't have an upper city.

In this regard it's still very important to understand the author, what he was writing, what he was inspired by, what kind of figure Astarion is, given the descriptions I listed in the post, all of which are canon nowadays, you can see that the character was written as something very controversial, bold. And charmingly dark.

Sorry, non-English speaking there may be errors, I use DeepL.

You can be a terrible person and a victim of abuse.

But writing a story centered with the theme of the circle of abuse with that flavor can be tricky in a game due to player choices unless you put enough contents to fully draw the picture: a complete upper city/Cazador arc with a lot of dialogues to interact with it. Fully resolve the whole Gur/Astarion/Cazador incident. Let Astarion face his past wrong doings instead of brushing it off like how the 7k spawns are none-issue no matter his choice/feelings about it.

There's no way Astarion was a good person before he was turned. From what little we know of it. But given he doesn't even remember what colour his eyes were before he was turned ... it makes me wonder how much he really remembers and how much he just made up.

It could be blue, violet or green with gold specks, since those eye colors are only ones available to high elves in the lore.

Would like to see some photo editing to see which eye color looks best and go from there.

I'm disappointed there's so little magistrate background information about Astarion in the game. If the Upper City was not cut maybe we could have found ways to dig into his past and help him recover his memories. I hope Larian gives us a definitive edition of the game, restores cut content and expands things.


Precisely! There's so much more to him than just his survivor and victim story. The expanded magistrate background would have nicely fleshed him out. He had a life and desires before becoming a slave, but somehow some people only see him through the lense of trauma and treat him like a lost, sad little kitten cinnamon roll who needs a motherly/fatherly protector Tav and can be magically "saved" and "fixed" merely through the power of their love and that it's all he needs and wants in life.

Yes, Astarion was always intended to be a complex, and beautiful, and terrible character.
Astarion as a character who spins the moral compass.

"Newbon and Larian Studios writer Stephen Rooney didn't want Astarion to be interpreted as simply the 'traumatized' character, Newbon said. They wanted him to be as complex and layered as a real person. Trauma was simply one part of his story, yet it informed many of his behaviors" Link

Stephen Rooney is a very neutral, and even modest Maestro.

Some see themselves in Astarion and his story.
Some twist it quite a bit.
What's happening now? 1- A person will enter a fandom. 2 - He will be told: Astarion is a traumatized character and that's why he's like this, he needs to be fixed.

He's not broken, he's layered.

Neil is a public person, he gets a lot of attention, he tries to remain correct and supportive.

The fact will never change is the Stephen Rooney character. His words above all others.

Considering how much noise there is about the trauma topic right now... I just hope it will at least end at some point. And doesn't affect the author...
And Stephen can speak openly, more loudly and without looking at public opinion.
Will bring back Astarion-onion, which is a neutral-evil onion trickster.

That would be hard cause he also states that his hair turned white. So it's more then likely he also had a different hair color.

His skin also would of Paled as well. It's quite possible Astarion as an High Elf looked very different from Astarion as a Vampire Spawn.



I agree with everything you say here. Astarion isn't a broken person needing someone to fix him.
Did what happen to him shape him? Yes.
Has it cause trauma? Yes, but Astarion himself can see that and he wants Vengeance.
He wants Power so no one else can ever do what Cazador did to him and he doesn't care how he gets it.
He even tells Tav as much and Tav has the power to stop him from becoming Cazador or let him become Cazador.

Astarion's evil magistrate past would enrich this character so much. Ex abuser combined with victim is a fascinating topic. Being just a victim is a bit boring narrative choice in my opinion.


No, he doesn't. He only says he doesn't remember his face since it's grew fangs and his eyes turned red. Nothing about hair. It's a headcanon from tumblr that he had different hair color.

Oh your right. Lmao. I watched this scene just yesterday my brain must of just added it in. I don't use subtitles. and I don't have tumblr.

He takes everything from Cazador but I wouldn't say he becomes him. He's power hungry, manipulative and possessive but Cazador's cruelty is a threshold he doesn't want to cross and he gets very upset if he's compared to him. Besides, he had other experiences than Cazador, he learned how to have allies and not just servants. The ritual removes the drawbacks of being a vampire that Cazador was tormented by. He already proves he's different with how he interacts with consort Tav in a whole new way than how he was treated as a spawn.

Consort Tav becomes his Slave. Willing or Not. If you let him turn you. Astarion becomes Cazador if you let him. You say he wouldn't go as far as Cazador's cruelty but if you let him do the Ritual in the end he will.

Will he though? Even if he resembles him in some ways, no one is ever the same person as someone else, everyone has their own personality. He has more freedom than Cazador did and can have someone by his side who actually cares about him. Even as a spawn Tav is able to influence him.
In cut epilogues all he does with Tav is either travel the world or enjoy living in their palace and in both scenarios they throw wild parties.