I Got Curious About How Astarion Looks In Moments When The In-game Camera Doesn’t Show Him. And When

Kneel

"I HATE Ascended Astarion..."

(People are so afraid to face the truth that they came up with a headcanon about losing his soul, which was completely debunked by the developers.)

This scene has always broken my heart, but the mod helped a little — at least now I can comfort him.

For dragons are fire made flesh, and fire is power.

The idea of creating a coat of arms and heraldic symbols for Ascended Astarion has been growing in my mind for quite some time. Every self-respecting vampire lord should have their own emblem — especially someone as ambitious as Ascended Astarion.

At the center of the entire composition, I envision the sun — a crucial symbol that runs through his entire narrative. He ascends and no longer fears the daylight, transforming the vampire’s greatest curse into a triumph. He proclaims himself the Sun King, and in the epilogue, he holds the title of Sunwalking Regent. To make the solar disc the emblem of a vampire is truly bold, provocative — and entirely in his character.

Astarion: This is it. The hopeless dream dreamt by all of my kind.

Against the backdrop of the sun — a red dragon. In the finale of the game, Astarion wears a magnificent outfit adorned with an embroidered red dragon, and to me, this image feels deeply symbolic. The dragon is a representation of power, destructive force, and ambition.

I also want to mention legends from A Song of Ice and Fire, like this one:

«A trader from Qarth once told me that dragons came from the moon,» blond Doreah said as she warmed a towel over the fire.

Silvery-wet hair tumbled across her eyes as Dany turned her head, curious. «The moon?»

«He told me the moon was an egg, Khaleesi,» the Lysene girl said. «Once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and cracked from the heat. A thousand thousand dragons poured forth, and drank the fire of the sun. That is why dragons breathe flame. One day the other moon will kiss the sun too, and then it will crack and the dragons will return.»

The evil chromatic dragons in D&D are primarily united by their greed and egocentrism. They have an insatiable thirst for wealth, which permeates all their actions, plans, and manipulations. These dragons are convinced that worldly treasures rightfully belong to them, and therefore they claim others' riches, disregarding all others whom they consider guilty of "stealing" what is theirs. Dragons are not interested in commerce and do not seek to use their wealth for trade; they accumulate treasures solely for the sake of possession.

Every chromatic dragon considers itself the most powerful being, worthy of ruling over all. A central element of each such dragon’s worldview is the firm belief in their inherent right to dominate and control.

Red dragons are among the most arrogant and the most greedy for treasure:

«No other dragon comes close to the arrogance of the red dragon. These creatures see themselves as kings and emperors, and view the rest of dragonkind as inferior. Believing that they are chosen by Tiamat to rule in her name, red dragons consider the world and every creature in it as theirs to command.» © Monster Manual (2014)

It's nice to see this symbol — recognizable, almost archetypal — appear on the clothing of my favorite character in the game's finale.

And you, consorts… how do you envision Lord Astarion's coat of arms? What symbols, in your opinion, should be on his banner, and what motto?

Is there anything you can share there? He loves wool and socks or something.

Newbon: Yeah. There’s a thing where Astarion always checks his nails when he is trying to just dominate people. He dismisses them with a head turn, usually to the left. He does this to put people in their place, to make them acutely aware that he’s in control.

Actually, one thing I can tell you—the base pose that he has, which is this very upward movement, arms open—that was something that we experimented with. That was actually a combination of myself and Josh Weeden, who’s one of the directors on the game. We came up with that together. They wanted a unique base pose. The footing is different from everybody else’s. But then I added this sort of open arms up and his head up, looking down his nose at everybody.

So the reason that his head stands like this is a psychological thing. He thinks everybody else is beneath him, so he looks down his nose, which is why the head is slightly angular. That is a very particular habitual choice that we made to inform more about the character. Literally, I look down my nose, and that’s why his stance is like that.

I think there are a couple of other characters that have unique base poses, but most have the same base pose. He’s one of the unique ones.

Neil Newbon on Ascended Astarion

Neil: I do love the fact that I got to create kind of two characters in one.

Blue Owl Medic: I was just thinking that. Yeah, you did.

Neil: So now that the game has come out and the whole thing, we can talk a little bit more freely about the game. No real spoilers, folks, because obviously people are still playing through it, which is amazing, including me. But there is an ascended Astarion, which people probably know, as well as an unascended Astarion. I'm not going to go into details of why, although it is all over the internet, but anyway.

But one of the fun things that I got to do with the directors and the writer as well, with Stephen, and also the other writers that contributed towards Astarion, [is that they] wrote this ascended storyline. And so, when I came across that, I realized that 'Oh, his voice probably changes as well, because his whole status changes and his whole situation changes and his power changes.' So I got to do something else, because that would also be an easy way to switch between one and the other.

And so I decided that, well, I've always talked about Astarion being very theatrical. So what if Astarion's unascended spawn is theatrical, and ascended Astarion is operatic, and I use that as a sort of launchpad. So that one is theatre, one is opera. So the two are the same kind of things, but essentially… Do you know what I mean? It's like that kind of thing.

I offered that up to the directors and they really liked it. Kirsty Gilmore was the first person who I tried it with. I think it was Kirsty Gilmore, who is an amazing director. I'm pretty sure it was her session I did the first Lord Astarion and we set the tone there. And that was really cool.

BOM: And I don't know if that was your choice, but he also holds himself differently.

Neil: Yes, he does, he definitely holds himself differently.

BOM: He stands way more upright, his chest is a little more out

Neil: Yes, that's status. That's all Laban work. We're just using completely different status shift changes as well. So whereas he has a lot of flow and all that kind of stuff and it's theatrical and distracting--it's always 'look over here and don't see how I really feel' with spawn Astarion.

With Lord Astarion, we talked a lot about the idea that the cover is now off completely. So that you see him at his most terrible, and it's completely honest and he doesn't have to pretend anymore. So he loses a lot of the flamboyance and the fun of the theatricality, which is all a distraction anyway. That's all distraction so you don't see how he's hurt and damaged and his vulnerability. Lord Astarion doesn't need that anymore. So we just thought, okay, now *mimics taking off a mask* it's off. He doesn't need to pretend, he doesn't need to do too much. It's all about the status and that kind of stuff.

It was a really fun experience to take a character I've been doing for a long time and then flip it. And that was, again, brilliant writing by Larian, brilliant storytelling by them all and brilliant ideas. So yeah, it was really fun.

--from Neil's February 1, 2024 twitch stream

A few months ago, I created a new Tav, Evara, to go specially with Ascended Astarion. I didn’t think but I really fell in love with their story and I like this couple as much as the one formed by Lyra and Spawn Astarion.

I wanted to do something simple and cute for my first fanart of them, referring to the parallel made in the game between Astarion and red dragons. They are known for wanting more and more, being pretentious, believing themselves above all forms of life and to watch jealously over their treasure... Doesn’t that remind you of a certain vampire Lord ? 🙃

The fact that Astarion calls his love « my treasure » is not a coincidence and I love to see how the developers have really thought of everything ! So here is the vampire ascendant and his most precious treasure... I pity anyone who would try to steal it 🫣

Ascended Astarion and how he's not like Cazador

The vampires bride

Would Astarion renew the bite? Discuss. ♥

One of my favorite personal headcanons is that my Dark Urge chooses to become Astarion's spawn to deprive Bhaal of any claim over him. He chooses to give himself to his beloved rather than become a tool of an indifferent deity that uses its Chosen as mere means to achieve its goals. «Wither thou goest, I will go, and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people; and because I have no other god and never will, you shall be my god.»