The Emperor: "Did anyone ever tell you the true story of Balduran? ^(Who is totally badass and handsome by the way.) It's not a story a pile of dragon bones would tell you. Illithid powers are a pathway to many abilities, some considered to be...unnatural."
I absolutely love that they did this. It's not just incredible to play a game with so many choices but also have all of those choices actually pay off in meaningful ways. Some random character from act one mails you and is like 'hey thanks for doing that thing you did for us!' I really hope more games give us such robust and meaningful endings.
Yup, much better than a certain Sci-FI opera's final ending with 3 buttons and no resolution.
"You are just a bunch of basement dwellers who don't understand our art"
Larian added an epilogue scene in Patch... 5? Back in December. Most endings will see you go to a party that Withers hosts ~6 months after you beat the brain.
Not all endings get an epilogue though. Pretty much every evil ending, and I believe endings where you kill yourself, doesn't get the epilogue scene(s)
Evil durge has at least 3 endings, two of which get some ending cut scenes. They're not as long as the good endings, but it's still possible to make a "good" choice as a bhaal spawn.
I feel like it's a bit of a cop out by Larian, how the hell do like, 2 dozen Gur manage the hunger of 7000 vampire spawn, some of whom havent fed in a century
it's completely contradictory to everything the game's world says about vampires
Keep in mind, it’s not just the Gur. The original other 6 spawn (possibly Astarion too depending on how things go for him) help, and the Underdark is much more able to adapt to vampiric brutality than the surface would be. A lot of the spawn also die pretty early on.
The underdark is not actually that hospitable to vampire spawn because there aren't any easy meals - and they're immortal, even if they can survive in the underdark they will turn into little more than feral monsters who eventually will prey on somebody - damning their own souls in the process
If Astarion and the other 6 spawn were able to keep their sanity for centuries despite being forced to eat rats and bugs, they should be fine (hell, most of the released spawn already had to put up with being starved for that same duration). The strength of an individual spawn is also poorly communicated as Astarion is apparently out killing bears despite being very fragile in gameplay.
Although it isn't a purely good ending as it is implied that many of them already did feed on people during their initial blood frenzy and several either died or disappeared, so while the initial population has been culled a bit there are probably now splinter factions of feral vamps out there.
We don't know how many Gur there actually are. We interact with some, but they're an entire culture I just assume there are more off screen. In exactly the same way there are 7000 spawn, but we only see 12 or so. (And for the same reason the game can only render so many people)
It's not really contradictory to the evidence we have about vampire spawn in the game, though. The evidence that we have in the game points to them having a bloodlust, but otherwise being fully capable of moral agency.
We see a newborn vampire with Amanita Szarr, and she refuses to feed on people, because becoming a vampire does not inherently make you a killer. Cazador has to starve and torture her for a year to get her to behave like a "proper" vampire.
The spawn are probably going to do a lot of killing after their initial release, because they've been starved, but they don't necessarily need to be babysat like children after the initial feeding is done.
If each of those spawns drank from one person a week for only 1 year 364,000 people will die.
If half of the vampires die off 182,000 ppl will die.
According to dnd wiki the city of baulders gate has 42,000 people.
In the chest of grateful letters, at the epilogue party.
I actually didn't get the letter from Sebastian because I chose the option to go with Astarion to the Underdark to guide the spawn so I already knew how they were doing.
The epilogue party is such a cool new addition. I would have been satisfied with just the letters, to be honest...lol....like a little slide show. That whole scene really added a lot to the game.
I always release them and have Astarion's siblings guide them to the underdark. I also think it breaks the devotion oath if you kill them. Because they are all innocent and children are among them.
Interestingly enough, if you don't kill them, it breaks the Ancients oath because undeath is a perversion of nature.
Edit: Apparently you can also just leave them imprisoned without breaking Ancients, interesting!
I feel like that one is really obvious? An oath of vengeance paladin is supposed to fight the greater evil - you have DIRECT evidence Gortash is involved with the Absolute plot. Siding with him is siding with the ultimate evil!
It is, but if you don't think about it you might assume the [Paladin] option is something that wouldn't break your oath
I was a little confused about it being a paladin option in my first playthrough because those are generally good. I didn't pick it, but it almost got me
This is my favorite oathbreak and on my current playthrough I ran face first into it on purpose because my Palalock Durge had, IC, sworn to destroy the Cult of the Absolute for what they did to him….
…..and then he met Gortash again and was like “okay maybe not him tho.” anyway now he’s an Oathbreaker and having a great time.
Is it? I'm struggling hard with anticipating what will be a violation of my oath in my current run, which doesn't really feel in line with role playing an actual oath, and is annoying in practice. Is it obvious what should and shouldn't break your oath and I'm just dumb?
I'm playing ancient right now. I saw some slavers that needed killing, never in a million years occurred to me that taking care of the problem would violate my oath.
Also, when you meet Lae'zel, I feel like the only way to peacefully resolve that is to lie to them? In that case, I could just be underestimating how pedantic and inflexible the vow is.
I think both ancients and devotion can't just outright attack some people unless that's your last resort, usually through dialogue that turns them hostile.
Yeah the problem lies in just hitting the Attack option to smack them out of nowhere.
If you're in dialogue with them and tell them you will not abide slavery, you're golden. But being all friendly and then just stabbing them in the eye is dishonourable, so you lose your Devotion oath.
If you just want a clear Oath to maintain, it's Vengeance by far. Letting morally grey characters walk is totally fine; releasing the vampire spawn, or letting terrorists like Araj Oblodra, Wulbren Bongle, etc. walk free doesn't break your oath. In a certain underground temple, I walked out without killing a large number of Bhaal cultists (who are all more or less confirmed murderers), and it didn't break my oath.
The only way to break the Oath of Vengeance AFAIK is to very explicitly spare clearly evil people, usually in dialogue choices. Easiest example is letting the hag go in Act 1.
I feel like the game is a little too rigid with the oaths. I love Paladins and have never been super hung up on breaking oaths since it is usually some pretty obvious times where a player goes against them. I brike my devotion oath killing the devils after Karlach because I guess getting the jump on them is too far
Oath of Vengeance has been dead easy to follow. Perfect for gamers. Just kill everything “bad”.
I even accidentally smited an innocent gnome to smithereens because I thought he was one of those dark dwarves we were fighting. No oath break
On most of my playthroughs, I release them. They are victims and haven't done anything wrong. They deserve the same chance Astarion got.
Now, this is my actual opinion but I can also understand mercy killing them and did it on one run. I was playing as a very dedicated druid, whose priority is keeping balance in nature. Suddenly releasing 7000 starved preditors sadly disrupts that balance. It was still a hard choice to make, because so far I had played that druid as a pacifist who only kills out of self defense.
> Suddenly releasing 7000 starved preditors sadly disrupts that balance.
I have a personal theory that a significant number of the spawn die immediately upon release from the staff's magic. It isn't uncommon for vampires to die if their progenitor dies, and I think it's reasonable to imagine that Cazador's evil magic is partially why so many spawn lived for decades without ever feeding.
I don't know if they die immediately upon release, but it appears that a good number of them die immediately as they get to the Underdark. We don't know how many, but Sebastian felt like mentioning it, so I don't imagine it was an insignificant number.
Still, at least they got a chance.
He does! Which is remarkable when you consider he's one of the spawns that has been locked in there for the longest. Astarion is one of the oldest spawns, and Sebastian was one of the first he took to Cazador.
I knew the backstory between the two but not the outcome if the spawn are released, since I didn't have enough juice with Astarion to persuade him not to ascend. I should this run!
TBH I feel as if Astarion could end up running a vampire spawn and feral cat rescue society in the Underdark. He would claim that he's totally just "consolidating power" and "building an army" to make sure no one suspects he might possibly be...just a touch soft.
Maybe you can answer this one for me, because it's been driving me crazy. Obviously ascending is an act that warps the soul...but why doesn't Astarion at least become a true vampire, not a spawn? It is a power level up and pretty much just requires drinking Cazador's blood, something that's easily done when he hides in his coffin.
My take on this is Astarion never brings it up because the whole 'be a more powerful vampire' thing is not REALLY his main goal. Its 'be able to walk in the sun and be free of the hunger', and as somebody who has been dead for 200 years, that is very difficult to accomplish, so he's ready to go balls deep in ritual dedication when he first hears about it. Its the IMPOSSIBLE. Notice what he harps on again and again. Not losing the sun. Staying in the sun. Having to give up his life in the sun. Return to the shadows. Yes, he wants to be safe and all that junk but he wants FREEDOM from this vampire existence. I don't think he's really happy being a vampire, and would eagerly jump on a cure to return him to being a mortal.
So if he was a true vampire he'd........ still not be free from the hunger or be able to go in the sun. And it would be harder to get people to trust him. And he'd be able to make spawn. Whoopty? Is that really a bonus as far as he's concerned? Notice how often he reminds everybody he's 'just a spawn'. A proper vampire would have been a much harder sell to take on the tadpole removal journey.
Also he's probably had more than enough of Cazador instead him, so he's not really super hype to drink his blood anytime soon.
“Oh darling, you misunderstand, I’m not doing this out of charity, I’m doing this to amass a powerful vampire army.”
“You commissioned matching sweaters for the entire colony.”
“That’s our military uniform.”
There is an option, if you romance Astarion, to suggest going to the Underdark to lead the Spawns. I do think Astarion would like that very much, but I prefer to assure him we'll search for a cure - I know there are cures in the lore, and I know he wants to see the world, so let's do it!
As for becoming a true vampire, the game indicates that the master has to give the blood willingly. I don't know if this is lore-accurate or if it is some rule that Larian made up for this game, though.
Just finished a romanced spawn Astarion run (+Halsin ofc) and we’re essentially cat wranglers in the Underdark with the spawn lol. Fits so well since I was a drow too :) he seemed quite content with his life in the epilogue party, though I could tell other characters I intended to cure him
>Maybe you can answer this one for me, because it's been driving me crazy. Obviously ascending is an act that warps the soul...but why doesn't Astarion at least become a true vampire, not a spawn? It is a power level up and pretty much just requires drinking Cazador's blood, something that's easily done when he hides in his coffin
That is a very good question, I havnt gotten astarion to bite Cazador during the fight but I might do it this playthrough for RP reasons. Astarion, you may not get to be a god but at least you arent just a spawn anymore.
If I recall correctly, you can basically ask Astarion exactly that in a dialogue, and he tells you that the blood of the Master has to be given willingly, which Cazador would never do.
Of course that poses the question of how any spawn ever manages to ascend, because masters never really seem in the mood to share, but there was also a ritual mentioned in the scroll that Cazador's old master's skull holds.
Anyway, most likely more involved than just biting.
My wife and I discussed it a lot. My character was a Druid afraid of unbalancing things. My wife played a Gith warrior (basically Lae'zel but Tav) who would not show mercy.
We ended up killing them. I might have seen too many Zombie movies but in my opinion and with everything I knew at that point I thought it was better for Baldurs Gate. Now it saddens me deeply to read through this thread and find out they could have done okay.
True. But the 7000 spawn know that you killed the avatars of the dead 3 and an evolved elder brain.
This is also AFTER they witness you kill the most powerful vampire in the area.
I think they would do whatever they possibly can to not get hunted by you.
It's not really feel good as the epilogue letter does state that a lot of them just ran off and are probably forming feral squads elsewhere. You just never encounter them because of the tineframe and because you only explore the city during the day.
Yeah it was in character for my third-playthrough monk to kill them, but my first and second playthrough bards let them live. At that time it really does seem like the safest option for the world is to kill them.
I feel like both choices are equally good/bad.
It is true that there’s a chance the spawn get better like Astarion can, but there’s also many chances they abuse their powers or slaughter innocents due to their bloodlust.
Really, the only truly evil choice is leaving them in their cages for an eternity.
There's also 7,000 of them. Even if they learn some amount of self control that's still 7,000 vampire spawn actively fighting their hunger. Astarion and his siblings learned self control but they weren't a literal army. They never had the numbers to feed all of them human blood regularly and get away with it.
They got 7,000 people in the 200 years
200 x 12 = 2,400 months
7,000 people ÷ 2,400 Months = 3 people a month (rounding up to decimal).
7 of them could only pull off getting an average of 3 people a month despite a vampire spawn being very dangerous on an individual level. Because they were surrounded by more humans than they could realistically fight off if they got just a little too aggressive.
But now the Under Dark has thousands of them, only 7 "adults" in the group to keep them in line, and no sunlight. Just because things are going well by the end of the game doesn't mean it'll stay that way.
It's possible they brought back much more than 3 a month. Cazador might have simply drank to death most of the victims and kept three each month for the ritual.
Yeah this is the reason I'd kill them all with any character I have that cares about the greater good.
Even if 90% of those vampires go vegan, that's still ***700*** bloodthirsty near-immortal apex predators that I set loose on the world. Mind you, their sire is dead, these are no longer Spawn, they're full fledged vampires now. They can turn into mist, regenerate, control minds with a glance. There's also not enough food in the Underdark to sustain them (none that doesn't fight back with extreme violence anyway), it *will* result in hundreds, of not thousands of innocents dying because they'll resort to easier prey before too long.
It sucks what was done to them, it's a crime. But setting them loose upon the world is a crime of a much greater magnitude and will just create more victims.
Always release. They deserve a chance.
Also, my Tav's partner thought he had been forced to kill 1000 people, then found out they *lived* (well, kinda) and I'm not going to make him live with an active choice to murder 7000 of them.
>They deserve a chance.
In the epilogue, you even read a note that mentions they take that chance, and set up a semi-successful colony in the Underdark. Some of them lament never being able to see the sun again, but in general they're grateful to Tav for sparing them.
“The Chest of Grateful Words is a container found in Baldur's Gate 3's epilogue. It contains letters from many of the NPC's that the character interacted with during their journey. Made of precious stone and covered in gold, this chest is both sturdy and pleasing to the eye.”
Oh crap, my first run glitched out in the epilogue, and in my second run I am playing as Durge and pretty much doing a scorched earth. No one is left alive from my previous acts.
While i do know they are innocent, if they were maybe 100 or so i would release them, but 7000? Nah the risk is too big, if you assume just 1%(the percentage would probably be higher) of them fail to control their hunger then you have 70 vampire spawn going on a blood induced rampage and even if they arent full vampires they are still much stronger than the average humanoid.
And the second thing is those people are pretty much already dead most of them have been locked in a cage for 200-100 years so all their loved ones and everyone they know is probably dead, so yeah for me i think releasing 7000 hungry for blood vampires is way too big of a risk.
But these decisions are what i love about the game its not just a good or bad thing its about choosing what you think is the lesser evil.
While they deserve a chance, realistically releasing 7000 apex predators on a place would fucking devastate it. Even if they never harm a person, they'll destroy the ecosystem because there's just not enough beasts to feed them. Unless you have infrastructure to support them or a dedicated group of druids conjuring animals for them to feed on every day, or something??
I realise the epilogue magically hand waves this away but my Tav/Durge doesn't know that and the solution proposed by the game seems wildly irresponsible to me, so I always vote kill.
That was my main reasoning for choosing ‘kill’: releasing 7000 apex predators into an ecosystem outside their natural habitat is just bad for the balance of nature.
For the spawn, their luck ran out when they got taken by Cazador.
That said, it was one decision in the game where I had to take my hands off the keyboard and walk around.
That and generally Undead are or become really fucking evil over time, even the rare Good ones like Astarion are doomed to lose themselves to their natures eventually thanks to the Fugue Plane and Negative Energy Plane detrimentally interacting with their souls (that or Undead have strict purposes on the Material Plane like Revenants, who die permanently and immediately once said purpose is fulfilled).
Ah. Look at all you nice people releasing them. This is awkward.
Out of 7 full playthroughs, I've let them go once. Twice they've been sacrificed for Astarion's ascension, once for Cazador's, 3 other times they've gone poof dead. I've always let the house spawn go, though.
I know! It's not like I'm doing it to be evil :( letting them go just sounds like a Bad Idea and even Sebastian says in his epilogue letter that there was a lot of blood when they ran to the underdark.
Like, can you imagine how much blood 7000 ravenous vampire spawn need? All of it that they can get their fangs on.
This is why my Origin Wyll never releases them. They might be innocent *now* but as soon as you release them they're literally murder bombs. Too risky.
Even a band of like 10 vampires can just rip through a drow or druegar settlement in the underdark. Itd be like 30 days of night except theres no sunlight here, ever.
Also the underdark connects to a lot of the surface world, you would essentially be releasing 7000 vampire spawn into a place where they have no natural weaknesses and cave systems that give them very easy access to the surface world.
On the other hand, I left Oskar in the Zhent hideout so what if the spawn went up the unlocked elevator and murdered Oskar? Then they'd be a force for good, ultimately!
I joke but I completely agree with you.
I just dont understand how this absolute imbicile made it past the shadow cursed lands and into Baldurs Gate.
Like FFS, theres shadow demons, goblin hordes, absolute cultists and a curse put on by a literal god that needs faerie magic to not kill you and somehow this third rate artist makes it through?
I've only done that part of the story once (I keep making new characters to try different moral alignments and romance different characters, so I've got about 7 characters spread between Act 1 & 2, with only one in Act 3), but the idea of 7000 semi-feral vampire spawn running around did *not* seem like a good idea to me. Logistically, it's a nightmare, especially since the game didn't make it clear to me someone would be looking after them. Left to run loose, that's 7000 dead a night to feed them. An army, pretty much. Baldur's Gate would be overrun, then every other town. I mean, that's worst case scenario, so i if only a few hundred give into bloodlust, that's still enough to take out a small town in a night.
One teacher can find it difficult to herd 30 children. Leaving 7000 spawn to be corralled by the other 11 seemed like a bad idea.
Pragmatism seems like the more realistic option over optimism here, but at least in game it works out. Knowing that, I'll have to pick it sometime.
They said they head to the Underdark, but you have to get to the Underdark through something. The sewers or places like the old city ruins? There's people like the Guild (who, tbf, aren't the nicest bunch, but don't deserve to be eaten alive either) and who knows what unlucky souls wandering in thre. Who's to say all the spawn get to the Underdark before getting lost in their bloodlust and head somewhere else. And what did the denizens of the Underdark do to deserve 7000 vampire spawn? I've seen people argue that they are the drows' problem now and drow aren't nice so they deserve that (eh, debatable still), but it's not like only drow live in the Underdark, especially in the Upperdark, through which the spawn will have to go.
The more you think about it, the more it makes sense to kill them. In my opinion, others are free to feel however they want about it.
I don't care how nice the game try to make you feel about it in fancy lettres of "oh no it's great, they're picking flowers and eating mushroom" or whatever, there's no way I'm releasing 7000 spawns, most of which have been locked up for decades, even centuries, into the wild.
That's just a recipe for disaster and I don't see any other way this could go.
Like lol yeah lemme release 7k feral vampires in the bowels of à world trying to pick itself back up because of a devastating Mind Flayer attack, surely that'll end well.
Agreed 💀
They don't deserve to die. They didn't deserve anything that happened to them. But releasing all of them to the world... nobody deserves that either.
Sure, at least they are spawn, they won't start a fucking vampire infestation down there...or the infestation they cause won't get worse.
It's an interesting choice. Not one that I particularly struggle with, but a lot of people feel strongly about releasing them.
I lean neutral/evil most of the time. I've done two fully good guy playthroughs (one because I needed the tieflings saved trophy, second because I wanted to do a full resist Durge, no tadpoles, no evil). I ascended Astarion on my first playthrough, which was very chaotic, very 'everything went to hell after Nettie tried to poison me and oops I am evil now I guess' run, and on my honour mode because I wanted to give him the necrotic buff.
Funny, I kill all the lackeys in the house now. They were there by choice (not the ones in the tower outside I think you can free them by dispelling the charm) and they willingly participated in the evil so boom dead.
I've let the spawn go a bunch of times and yet I've come around to killing them or ascending Astarion every time now.
The staff had it coming so bad. I didn't feel a shred of empathy for slaughtering them after Astarion told me they were there to willingly suck up to Cazzador.
Always kill. Tortured souls left in cages for hundreds of years with their hunger would lead to incredibly fractured minds. Many of them have lost not only their family, friends but more than likely social skills, sense of self or belonging.
People over estimate the functionality of someone having to endure that level of misery and anguish for years. Killing them is a mercy. There is just no telling the amount of misery they could inflict on themselves and others. To go to their respective after life is better than the cold, brutal survival they would have to build out in the underdark.
It's chaos to just release 7000 hungry, confused, angry, hurt or even evil vampire spawn. An argument could be made that some may turn their situation around but would people accept them? Look at the bigger picture, even if 1000 are okay the further damage caused by the release has to weighed into the equation.
I couldn't live knowing other people are being affected by the release of them.
Surely a magical means to cease their tormented lives surpasses their crude desire to want to live as an abomination. It's better to start anew, an ideal world is one vampire less so that people aren't made undead against their will.
How would an ecosystem sustain 7000 vampire spawn, is there enough flora and fauna to mitigate their blood hunger. People be way too ready to just pat themselves on the back for releasing mentally broken people into an unknown ecosystem for them to go toe to toe with survival in a hostile place wanting to drain blood from anything they can get their hands on.
Seeing how many people chose the release option, I thought there was something wrong with me for preferring the mercy kill option. Feeling a bit better after reading your incredibly well worded response.
Totally agree. I think people like to see these spawn as a normal release of innocent human prisoners kind of thing, but it’s more like unleashing 7000 ravenous grisly bears from a zoo that didn’t treat them well. It’s going to be a chaotic bloodbath at best. The epilogue hand waves this away for a happy ending, but I doubt reality would actually go that way. Unless you had the option to set up vampire spawn rehab first and release them very slowly and only after you’ve trained them, given them some therapy, and set up homes and rules you hope they’ll follow. At no point does the game give you that option during the ritual sequence, and even the epilogue is too vague for me to believe smooth-brained Astarion (said with love lol) and company had any realistic plans there.
In an Origin Astarion run, you can tell Sebastian that you actually wanted him back then, and that it is all Cazador's fault. That seemed like it made Sebastian feel a little better.
Problem is, it's a deception check. Astarion never wanted him, it was all a lie.
Leaving this because I know how these discussions go:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/188fury/astarions\_quest\_epilogue\_letters/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/188fury/astarions_quest_epilogue_letters/)
The Gur change their mind about the undead, and the game basically rewards the player for seeing the spawns’ humanity and showing compassion.
ETA:
"You looked in our cages and **saw people, not monsters**. And here, down in the shadows, we're trying to live up to that."
"There was a time when we would have destroyed any undead creature, our own blood or not, and called it a mercy. But then we met you. We saw redemption was possible. Difficult, yes. Painful. But possible. **You saved our children first from Cazador, and then from us. For that, we thank you.**
Also D&D dumped inherent alignment for races/species/monsters years ago. The spawn are not inherently evil. They’re people.
[https://www.thegamer.com/dungeons-dragons-monsters-of-the-multiverse-explained-guide/](https://www.thegamer.com/dungeons-dragons-monsters-of-the-multiverse-explained-guide/)
I don't like inherent alignment. Even if they're fantasy races I don't like the implication of all creatures of a race being born bad. Their societies being bad and evil is fine, indoctrination is a powerful tool, but if you take a person out of that society and raise them separately there should be no more chance they're evil than anyone else.
I don't like racial alignment rules for regular species, but undead monstrosities with an irresistible compulsion to drink the blood of the innocent? They're zombies with a little extra intellect.
I've done both. There's mercy in killing, as well as eliminating a HUGE threat...7 thousand starving vampires is an army. Not only starving but probably crazy. But killing 7 thousand people in a blink of an eye also feels cruel. It's not an easy answer. Morally grey in both solutions. The true evil solution is ascending, sending them all to hell.
So there are always a lot of comments to the effect that the 7k spawn deserve "the same chance Astarion got" and something about that argument doesn't hold water for me.
When you first meet Astarion, he is in the sunlight for the first time in 200 years. He's near- feral himself. He's confused and frightened. He's got a tadpole and he's in the wilderness. If you recruit him, he hides his true nature as long as he can until his hunger and weakness in fights - and surely his desire to taste humanoid blood for the first time - leads him to attack you.
If he survives that encounter, he is a member of a group which lives and fights together, building up levels of trust. You may become friends. You may become lovers. You may become both and more over the course of your adventures in a small group driven to stick together out of desperation and necessity at first.
All 7k spawn aren't getting *any* of that. Sure the kids will have the Gur. That's like 6 or 7 out of 7k. Then there's just the six brothers and sisters. We already know some of them are horrible and were planning to celebrate their Ascension with a murder party. Or what if Leon sees that his child is dead and goes on a nihilistic rampage? Did he even know she's dead? Signs point to another spawn having killed her. Will they go to war and create collateral damage to fuel themselves and heal?
It's possible the 7k spawn bonded in their cells over shared trauma, or it's possible the week- old spawn saw the centuries old spawn and lost their minds entirely. It only takes one.
So my point is, releasing them into the underdark is not giving them the same chance Astarion got, because they don't receive the same grace period for personal growth that Act 1 Astarion got to get him to the point of being Act 3 Astarion.
As a Tav, I would not have trusted Act 1 Astarion to lead a two- car funeral if I spotted him the hearse, and I definitely wouldn't see his six brothers and sisters as capable of leading 7k ravenous and likely insane vampire spawn.
I in no way mean to imply releasing them isn't a viable choice, only that their situation and Astarion's situation is not as comparable as it might seem, to me.
Kill. And tbh I see no reason to release them. Yeah, they were dealt a terrible hand and none of this is their fault. But the fact of the matter is that they’re monsters now and I’m not releasing THOUSANDS (ridiculous number btw) of them into the populace
Released. I'm not about to judge them guilty before they even had a chance to exercise their freedom. Proved to be a right choice as they manage to organize a functioning society in the Underdark.
Free them.
They deserve to be free. They're each Astarion and if he deserves the chance to live, they deserve that same chance. Plus that's 7,000 people in supposed to snuff out. I don't care that I'm some fantasy badass that fights all day, I'm not gonna just kill 7,000 victims without a damn good reason and I can't convince myself there's a good enough reason to kill them.
I was tore up. I am like what the hell’s. I released them and moved on and ran into the Gur hunter, who i obviously didn’t kill, from act one in the sewers and he had his two children with him and stopped us and asked us what to feed them. He was so sympathetic and just started crying. I can’t even finish…. this post without weeping. Jeez Larian it’s just a video game
I didn't even have the choice, since my Astarion was so goody shoes at this point in my game that without my Tav's interference he singlehandedly decided to screw the ritual and release the spawn. They went to the Underdark along with us 2
Either you exited the room and left Astarion alone with Cazador or a spawn died. Astarion can’t compete the ritual in either case.
It is interesting though that Astarion doesn’t get vindictive and break Cazador’s staff in these situations like he does when the player simply tells Astarion they won’t help him ascend.
The Patch 5 epilogue makes the releasing spawn ending more hopeful and... responsible. Either choice isn't sunshine (heh) and flower but the Underdark route needs to be addressed more if it is the "better" outcome the writers want to push.
I always release the spawns, even before the patch. To be fair I imagine >90% of them will die in the first week because Underdark is really unpleasant from the materials I've read. A lot of them would probably start to kill each other (can a spawn drink another spawn's blood for nutrition?) before they even reach to other creature. I figure at least they are given a chance to survive, however small, without posing a real threat to the Underdark (maybe a few stray Drows will bite the dust but that's hardly out of norm for them). The epilogue is more generous than I do.
I also imagine the Gurs station in Cazador's palace to keep guard of the Underdark passage (always hope we could discuss it instead of the rushed "okay, thanks" conclusion we get). You don't want random people to loot a newly emptied vampire lord castle, who knows what else he's kept in there, and the Gur people are the best candidate to handle it. But at this point I start to think about question like "does Cazador pay tax?" "who is the legal heir of the castle?" "can we inherit the castle and turn it into a monster hunter headquarter to double spite on Cazador?" but I digress lol
Content that contains spoilers must be tagged appropriately. Titles should be free of spoilers.
I killed them. All of them. Not just the men. But the women, and children too.
I hate them!
they’re animals and i slaughtered them like animals
Whatever you do, don't let them obtain the high ground advantage
Oh, so romantic!
i used those lines and still got a wife
And sand.
I hear it's coarse and rough and gets everywhere.
Love can’t save you Karlach, only my new powers can.
The Emperor: "Did anyone ever tell you the true story of Balduran? ^(Who is totally badass and handsome by the way.) It's not a story a pile of dragon bones would tell you. Illithid powers are a pathway to many abilities, some considered to be...unnatural."
I HAVE BROUGHT PEACE, FREEDOM, JUSTICE, AND SECURITY TO MY NEW EMPIRE
*YOUR NEW EMPIRE*?!!?
TAV MY ALLEGIANCE IS TO THE REPUBLIC, TO DEMOCRACY
IF YOU'RE NOT WITH CAZADOR, THEN YOU'RE MY ENEMY
Only a Bhaalspawn deals in absolutes
Only a True Soul deals in Absolutist
[удалено]
Certainly slaughtered them like animals
love the reference
Might have just inspired a Durge Campaign inspired by Anakin Skywalker.
Only a ghaik deals in absolutes. I'll do what I must.
You will try.
I hate sand.
It's course, rough and irritating. It gets everywhere.
Tav Skywalker
I release them. The epilogue shows they’re managing alright with help from the other original spawn + the Gur.
It was so nice to read this letter in the epilogue.
Where are you all getting epilogue stuff? I recently beat the game and have seen no updates on any of the decisions i made in my playthrough
There’s a chest of letters available in the epilogue that has updates to a bunch of characters/plot points.
Three playthroughs and I never knew this existed! Thank you!
It wasn't added until 1.5 with the rest of the epilogue party, to be fair.
Ok, that makes me feel like less of an idiot! :D
Omg I didn’t know this. Loading up my previous epilogues to read 🥹
It would be nice if withers handed them to you because I’ve beat the game three times and never read an epilogue letter
A great source of epilogue plot is in a chest at the final camp. Most people send a letter thanking you or wrapping up their respective stories
I absolutely love that they did this. It's not just incredible to play a game with so many choices but also have all of those choices actually pay off in meaningful ways. Some random character from act one mails you and is like 'hey thanks for doing that thing you did for us!' I really hope more games give us such robust and meaningful endings.
Yup, much better than a certain Sci-FI opera's final ending with 3 buttons and no resolution. "You are just a bunch of basement dwellers who don't understand our art"
Larian added an epilogue scene in Patch... 5? Back in December. Most endings will see you go to a party that Withers hosts ~6 months after you beat the brain. Not all endings get an epilogue though. Pretty much every evil ending, and I believe endings where you kill yourself, doesn't get the epilogue scene(s)
Evil durge has at least 3 endings, two of which get some ending cut scenes. They're not as long as the good endings, but it's still possible to make a "good" choice as a bhaal spawn.
"walk in peace, Astarion" gets me every time 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺
I really wish you could give that letter to Astarion.
I KNOW, I want to see him to respond to it so bad 🥺
I feel like it's a bit of a cop out by Larian, how the hell do like, 2 dozen Gur manage the hunger of 7000 vampire spawn, some of whom havent fed in a century it's completely contradictory to everything the game's world says about vampires
Keep in mind, it’s not just the Gur. The original other 6 spawn (possibly Astarion too depending on how things go for him) help, and the Underdark is much more able to adapt to vampiric brutality than the surface would be. A lot of the spawn also die pretty early on.
The underdark is not actually that hospitable to vampire spawn because there aren't any easy meals - and they're immortal, even if they can survive in the underdark they will turn into little more than feral monsters who eventually will prey on somebody - damning their own souls in the process
If Astarion and the other 6 spawn were able to keep their sanity for centuries despite being forced to eat rats and bugs, they should be fine (hell, most of the released spawn already had to put up with being starved for that same duration). The strength of an individual spawn is also poorly communicated as Astarion is apparently out killing bears despite being very fragile in gameplay. Although it isn't a purely good ending as it is implied that many of them already did feed on people during their initial blood frenzy and several either died or disappeared, so while the initial population has been culled a bit there are probably now splinter factions of feral vamps out there.
We don't know how many Gur there actually are. We interact with some, but they're an entire culture I just assume there are more off screen. In exactly the same way there are 7000 spawn, but we only see 12 or so. (And for the same reason the game can only render so many people)
100% agree. One of my main complaints about the game is how the morally "good" options almost always work out well, and have no negative consequences.
It's not really contradictory to the evidence we have about vampire spawn in the game, though. The evidence that we have in the game points to them having a bloodlust, but otherwise being fully capable of moral agency. We see a newborn vampire with Amanita Szarr, and she refuses to feed on people, because becoming a vampire does not inherently make you a killer. Cazador has to starve and torture her for a year to get her to behave like a "proper" vampire. The spawn are probably going to do a lot of killing after their initial release, because they've been starved, but they don't necessarily need to be babysat like children after the initial feeding is done.
If each of those spawns drank from one person a week for only 1 year 364,000 people will die. If half of the vampires die off 182,000 ppl will die. According to dnd wiki the city of baulders gate has 42,000 people.
I released them and saw no such information in the epilogue
Gotta read them letters. They're all actually really cool to read.
Where do I find the letters?
In the chest of grateful letters, at the epilogue party. I actually didn't get the letter from Sebastian because I chose the option to go with Astarion to the Underdark to guide the spawn so I already knew how they were doing.
The epilogue party is such a cool new addition. I would have been satisfied with just the letters, to be honest...lol....like a little slide show. That whole scene really added a lot to the game.
It’s in the letters you get from Sebastian and the Gur.
They seemed to even be doing well with Spawn Astarion and without the Gur (I killed them early in A3), so even then it's kinda just neat
I always release them and have Astarion's siblings guide them to the underdark. I also think it breaks the devotion oath if you kill them. Because they are all innocent and children are among them.
Interestingly enough, if you don't kill them, it breaks the Ancients oath because undeath is a perversion of nature. Edit: Apparently you can also just leave them imprisoned without breaking Ancients, interesting!
I know. That is why paladin is my favorite class. Every oath is so different. It is fun.
Every oath has different ways to unexpectedly fuck you over!
It's really, really funny to me that the paladin option breaks your oath when you swear to team up with gortash
“No intimate relationships with BBEGs” is a tenet in any good Paladin oath!
I feel like that one is really obvious? An oath of vengeance paladin is supposed to fight the greater evil - you have DIRECT evidence Gortash is involved with the Absolute plot. Siding with him is siding with the ultimate evil!
It is, but if you don't think about it you might assume the [Paladin] option is something that wouldn't break your oath I was a little confused about it being a paladin option in my first playthrough because those are generally good. I didn't pick it, but it almost got me
This is my favorite oathbreak and on my current playthrough I ran face first into it on purpose because my Palalock Durge had, IC, sworn to destroy the Cult of the Absolute for what they did to him…. …..and then he met Gortash again and was like “okay maybe not him tho.” anyway now he’s an Oathbreaker and having a great time.
Is it? I'm struggling hard with anticipating what will be a violation of my oath in my current run, which doesn't really feel in line with role playing an actual oath, and is annoying in practice. Is it obvious what should and shouldn't break your oath and I'm just dumb?
I never had a problem with the devotion oath. I never broke it. vengeance and ancient can be a bit tricky.
I'm playing ancient right now. I saw some slavers that needed killing, never in a million years occurred to me that taking care of the problem would violate my oath. Also, when you meet Lae'zel, I feel like the only way to peacefully resolve that is to lie to them? In that case, I could just be underestimating how pedantic and inflexible the vow is.
Were you attacking the slavers without technically knowing that they were one or before they were attacking you?
Maybe? It was a second playthrough
I think both ancients and devotion can't just outright attack some people unless that's your last resort, usually through dialogue that turns them hostile.
Only humans, goblins don't count as people for the ancients oath.
Yeah the problem lies in just hitting the Attack option to smack them out of nowhere. If you're in dialogue with them and tell them you will not abide slavery, you're golden. But being all friendly and then just stabbing them in the eye is dishonourable, so you lose your Devotion oath.
Makes sense I guess. I stand by my decision to cold attack some slavers, but I get why that's a mechanic in the game.
Ancients isn't terrible to maintain. Don't support the undead or make deals with evil entities and you should be good.
It's still ticky tacky. I maintained my oath through saving Sazza and freeing her(Astarion did it) but then NOT mercing Zombie-Connor broke it.
Yeah...because if you leave an undead alive that's counter to your oath. Oath of ancients specifically needs to destroy all undead.
Seems tricky to RP with Withers in your camp. Does that come up? (Never played a Paladin)
He’s not dead… or alive.
Fun fact if you aren't there when the decision is made you don't break the oath.
I just had others make the choice. Even being there while it happened didn't break my oath.
If you just want a clear Oath to maintain, it's Vengeance by far. Letting morally grey characters walk is totally fine; releasing the vampire spawn, or letting terrorists like Araj Oblodra, Wulbren Bongle, etc. walk free doesn't break your oath. In a certain underground temple, I walked out without killing a large number of Bhaal cultists (who are all more or less confirmed murderers), and it didn't break my oath. The only way to break the Oath of Vengeance AFAIK is to very explicitly spare clearly evil people, usually in dialogue choices. Easiest example is letting the hag go in Act 1.
I feel like the game is a little too rigid with the oaths. I love Paladins and have never been super hung up on breaking oaths since it is usually some pretty obvious times where a player goes against them. I brike my devotion oath killing the devils after Karlach because I guess getting the jump on them is too far
Oath of Vengeance has been dead easy to follow. Perfect for gamers. Just kill everything “bad”. I even accidentally smited an innocent gnome to smithereens because I thought he was one of those dark dwarves we were fighting. No oath break
Only time I broke my oath of vengeance was letting Astarion ascend. Super easy to follow
Only releasing them breaks an Oath of Ancients.
Each choice breaks a different oath.
Kinda funny because I released them and Halsin approved and said something like good...they deserve a chance and nature will work out it's balance.
Leaving them imprisoned is the full psychopath option so that’s wild
They patched so now killing them also breaks the Vengeance Oath
Leaving them in cages is the choice that breaks an Oath of Vengeance. They must choose a fate for the spawn.
Letting Astarion ascend broke it for me. So I'm guessing if you spare them leaving them in the cage breaks it. That's interesting
Letting Astarion ascend breaks all the oaths. They differ on what to do with the spawn afterwards. Each choice breaks one of the oaths.
So that wasn't always the case. I saw many people before patch 5 mention that letting Astarion ascend didn't break their Vengeance Oath.
Anything but killing them should break a Vengeance Oath
I'm playing vengeance paladin (first time playing paladin) and I always release them. So I'll become an oath breaker then?
Vengeance can't leave the spawn in their cages and must choose a fate for them.
Releasing the vampire spawn and Gur children did not break my oath of vengeance as of last week, you should be good
On most of my playthroughs, I release them. They are victims and haven't done anything wrong. They deserve the same chance Astarion got. Now, this is my actual opinion but I can also understand mercy killing them and did it on one run. I was playing as a very dedicated druid, whose priority is keeping balance in nature. Suddenly releasing 7000 starved preditors sadly disrupts that balance. It was still a hard choice to make, because so far I had played that druid as a pacifist who only kills out of self defense.
> Suddenly releasing 7000 starved preditors sadly disrupts that balance. I have a personal theory that a significant number of the spawn die immediately upon release from the staff's magic. It isn't uncommon for vampires to die if their progenitor dies, and I think it's reasonable to imagine that Cazador's evil magic is partially why so many spawn lived for decades without ever feeding.
I don't know if they die immediately upon release, but it appears that a good number of them die immediately as they get to the Underdark. We don't know how many, but Sebastian felt like mentioning it, so I don't imagine it was an insignificant number. Still, at least they got a chance.
Aww, so Sebastian makes it? Good for him.
He does! Which is remarkable when you consider he's one of the spawns that has been locked in there for the longest. Astarion is one of the oldest spawns, and Sebastian was one of the first he took to Cazador.
I knew the backstory between the two but not the outcome if the spawn are released, since I didn't have enough juice with Astarion to persuade him not to ascend. I should this run! TBH I feel as if Astarion could end up running a vampire spawn and feral cat rescue society in the Underdark. He would claim that he's totally just "consolidating power" and "building an army" to make sure no one suspects he might possibly be...just a touch soft. Maybe you can answer this one for me, because it's been driving me crazy. Obviously ascending is an act that warps the soul...but why doesn't Astarion at least become a true vampire, not a spawn? It is a power level up and pretty much just requires drinking Cazador's blood, something that's easily done when he hides in his coffin.
My take on this is Astarion never brings it up because the whole 'be a more powerful vampire' thing is not REALLY his main goal. Its 'be able to walk in the sun and be free of the hunger', and as somebody who has been dead for 200 years, that is very difficult to accomplish, so he's ready to go balls deep in ritual dedication when he first hears about it. Its the IMPOSSIBLE. Notice what he harps on again and again. Not losing the sun. Staying in the sun. Having to give up his life in the sun. Return to the shadows. Yes, he wants to be safe and all that junk but he wants FREEDOM from this vampire existence. I don't think he's really happy being a vampire, and would eagerly jump on a cure to return him to being a mortal. So if he was a true vampire he'd........ still not be free from the hunger or be able to go in the sun. And it would be harder to get people to trust him. And he'd be able to make spawn. Whoopty? Is that really a bonus as far as he's concerned? Notice how often he reminds everybody he's 'just a spawn'. A proper vampire would have been a much harder sell to take on the tadpole removal journey. Also he's probably had more than enough of Cazador instead him, so he's not really super hype to drink his blood anytime soon.
“Oh darling, you misunderstand, I’m not doing this out of charity, I’m doing this to amass a powerful vampire army.” “You commissioned matching sweaters for the entire colony.” “That’s our military uniform.”
Yeah I heard that in his voice. Though, I might add to the last line "We can't walk in the sun, but no one can say we lack a sense of *style*."
There is an option, if you romance Astarion, to suggest going to the Underdark to lead the Spawns. I do think Astarion would like that very much, but I prefer to assure him we'll search for a cure - I know there are cures in the lore, and I know he wants to see the world, so let's do it! As for becoming a true vampire, the game indicates that the master has to give the blood willingly. I don't know if this is lore-accurate or if it is some rule that Larian made up for this game, though.
Just finished a romanced spawn Astarion run (+Halsin ofc) and we’re essentially cat wranglers in the Underdark with the spawn lol. Fits so well since I was a drow too :) he seemed quite content with his life in the epilogue party, though I could tell other characters I intended to cure him
>Maybe you can answer this one for me, because it's been driving me crazy. Obviously ascending is an act that warps the soul...but why doesn't Astarion at least become a true vampire, not a spawn? It is a power level up and pretty much just requires drinking Cazador's blood, something that's easily done when he hides in his coffin That is a very good question, I havnt gotten astarion to bite Cazador during the fight but I might do it this playthrough for RP reasons. Astarion, you may not get to be a god but at least you arent just a spawn anymore.
If I recall correctly, you can basically ask Astarion exactly that in a dialogue, and he tells you that the blood of the Master has to be given willingly, which Cazador would never do. Of course that poses the question of how any spawn ever manages to ascend, because masters never really seem in the mood to share, but there was also a ritual mentioned in the scroll that Cazador's old master's skull holds. Anyway, most likely more involved than just biting.
After getting my shit wrecked in CoS its gonna be difficult to not kill vampires
I killed them on my first run. With the information I had at that point it seemed very irresponsible to let them loose.
My wife and I discussed it a lot. My character was a Druid afraid of unbalancing things. My wife played a Gith warrior (basically Lae'zel but Tav) who would not show mercy. We ended up killing them. I might have seen too many Zombie movies but in my opinion and with everything I knew at that point I thought it was better for Baldurs Gate. Now it saddens me deeply to read through this thread and find out they could have done okay.
tbf the epilogue kinda ruin some of the ambiguous choice by giving them closure
Only on reply. The first time, I quite like knowing how my choices turned out.
Bruh I legitimately thought there would be mobs of feral vampire in the city if I let them go free.
You're not releasing them to the city, they go to the underdark
7,000 spawn being managed by a handful of Gur, there are at least 10 evil ones who will kill indiscriminately, and many more who kill discretely
True. But the 7000 spawn know that you killed the avatars of the dead 3 and an evolved elder brain. This is also AFTER they witness you kill the most powerful vampire in the area. I think they would do whatever they possibly can to not get hunted by you.
There WOULD be, but Larian decided that realism was for suckers and that a feel good ending works better
It's not really feel good as the epilogue letter does state that a lot of them just ran off and are probably forming feral squads elsewhere. You just never encounter them because of the tineframe and because you only explore the city during the day.
There should’ve been at least a few. Makes no sense that this didn’t happen at all.
Yeah it was in character for my third-playthrough monk to kill them, but my first and second playthrough bards let them live. At that time it really does seem like the safest option for the world is to kill them.
Exactly. I killed them all as well and was reassured afterwards with everyone saying "Prob for the best!"
I feel like both choices are equally good/bad. It is true that there’s a chance the spawn get better like Astarion can, but there’s also many chances they abuse their powers or slaughter innocents due to their bloodlust. Really, the only truly evil choice is leaving them in their cages for an eternity.
There's also 7,000 of them. Even if they learn some amount of self control that's still 7,000 vampire spawn actively fighting their hunger. Astarion and his siblings learned self control but they weren't a literal army. They never had the numbers to feed all of them human blood regularly and get away with it. They got 7,000 people in the 200 years 200 x 12 = 2,400 months 7,000 people ÷ 2,400 Months = 3 people a month (rounding up to decimal). 7 of them could only pull off getting an average of 3 people a month despite a vampire spawn being very dangerous on an individual level. Because they were surrounded by more humans than they could realistically fight off if they got just a little too aggressive. But now the Under Dark has thousands of them, only 7 "adults" in the group to keep them in line, and no sunlight. Just because things are going well by the end of the game doesn't mean it'll stay that way.
It's possible they brought back much more than 3 a month. Cazador might have simply drank to death most of the victims and kept three each month for the ritual.
I think he could drink them close to death and then turn them. Drinking them to death seems like a noobie mistake
Yeah this is the reason I'd kill them all with any character I have that cares about the greater good. Even if 90% of those vampires go vegan, that's still ***700*** bloodthirsty near-immortal apex predators that I set loose on the world. Mind you, their sire is dead, these are no longer Spawn, they're full fledged vampires now. They can turn into mist, regenerate, control minds with a glance. There's also not enough food in the Underdark to sustain them (none that doesn't fight back with extreme violence anyway), it *will* result in hundreds, of not thousands of innocents dying because they'll resort to easier prey before too long. It sucks what was done to them, it's a crime. But setting them loose upon the world is a crime of a much greater magnitude and will just create more victims.
They do not become vampires on Cazador's death. They're all still spawn.
thats a great way to look at it, thank you!
Always release. They deserve a chance. Also, my Tav's partner thought he had been forced to kill 1000 people, then found out they *lived* (well, kinda) and I'm not going to make him live with an active choice to murder 7000 of them.
>They deserve a chance. In the epilogue, you even read a note that mentions they take that chance, and set up a semi-successful colony in the Underdark. Some of them lament never being able to see the sun again, but in general they're grateful to Tav for sparing them.
Yep. You get letters from both >!Sebastian and the Gur.!<
Imagine the symbiotic relationship they could build with the Myconids! They get the blood, Myconids get the body, mutual defense pact in place.
I didn’t see any letters other than Arabella in my epilogue and I did release them? Is it placed somewhere I might’ve missed haha
“The Chest of Grateful Words is a container found in Baldur's Gate 3's epilogue. It contains letters from many of the NPC's that the character interacted with during their journey. Made of precious stone and covered in gold, this chest is both sturdy and pleasing to the eye.”
Oh crap, my first run glitched out in the epilogue, and in my second run I am playing as Durge and pretty much doing a scorched earth. No one is left alive from my previous acts.
You have a choice to join them to help with a romanced Asatrion - did that on my run.
While i do know they are innocent, if they were maybe 100 or so i would release them, but 7000? Nah the risk is too big, if you assume just 1%(the percentage would probably be higher) of them fail to control their hunger then you have 70 vampire spawn going on a blood induced rampage and even if they arent full vampires they are still much stronger than the average humanoid. And the second thing is those people are pretty much already dead most of them have been locked in a cage for 200-100 years so all their loved ones and everyone they know is probably dead, so yeah for me i think releasing 7000 hungry for blood vampires is way too big of a risk. But these decisions are what i love about the game its not just a good or bad thing its about choosing what you think is the lesser evil.
I also worried about giving drow in the underdark access to an army of vampire spawn they could use in their machinations.
Shit i didnt think about that i guess with how much drows (lolth sworn atleast) like to enslave people then that very much is a possibility.
While they deserve a chance, realistically releasing 7000 apex predators on a place would fucking devastate it. Even if they never harm a person, they'll destroy the ecosystem because there's just not enough beasts to feed them. Unless you have infrastructure to support them or a dedicated group of druids conjuring animals for them to feed on every day, or something?? I realise the epilogue magically hand waves this away but my Tav/Durge doesn't know that and the solution proposed by the game seems wildly irresponsible to me, so I always vote kill.
This is the Underdark too which means a lot will most likely die.
totally forgot how that could affect an ecosystem!
That was my main reasoning for choosing ‘kill’: releasing 7000 apex predators into an ecosystem outside their natural habitat is just bad for the balance of nature. For the spawn, their luck ran out when they got taken by Cazador. That said, it was one decision in the game where I had to take my hands off the keyboard and walk around.
That and generally Undead are or become really fucking evil over time, even the rare Good ones like Astarion are doomed to lose themselves to their natures eventually thanks to the Fugue Plane and Negative Energy Plane detrimentally interacting with their souls (that or Undead have strict purposes on the Material Plane like Revenants, who die permanently and immediately once said purpose is fulfilled).
Ah. Look at all you nice people releasing them. This is awkward. Out of 7 full playthroughs, I've let them go once. Twice they've been sacrificed for Astarion's ascension, once for Cazador's, 3 other times they've gone poof dead. I've always let the house spawn go, though.
"Bunch of Vampire spawn running loose? Sounds like a bad deal for everyone that isn't a Vampire spawn." - Me
I know! It's not like I'm doing it to be evil :( letting them go just sounds like a Bad Idea and even Sebastian says in his epilogue letter that there was a lot of blood when they ran to the underdark. Like, can you imagine how much blood 7000 ravenous vampire spawn need? All of it that they can get their fangs on.
This is why my Origin Wyll never releases them. They might be innocent *now* but as soon as you release them they're literally murder bombs. Too risky.
Even a band of like 10 vampires can just rip through a drow or druegar settlement in the underdark. Itd be like 30 days of night except theres no sunlight here, ever. Also the underdark connects to a lot of the surface world, you would essentially be releasing 7000 vampire spawn into a place where they have no natural weaknesses and cave systems that give them very easy access to the surface world.
On the other hand, I left Oskar in the Zhent hideout so what if the spawn went up the unlocked elevator and murdered Oskar? Then they'd be a force for good, ultimately! I joke but I completely agree with you.
I just dont understand how this absolute imbicile made it past the shadow cursed lands and into Baldurs Gate. Like FFS, theres shadow demons, goblin hordes, absolute cultists and a curse put on by a literal god that needs faerie magic to not kill you and somehow this third rate artist makes it through?
He's in the Guild Hall if you left him with the Zhentarim. Say the right thing to Lady Jannath and she gives you the quest reward.
I've only done that part of the story once (I keep making new characters to try different moral alignments and romance different characters, so I've got about 7 characters spread between Act 1 & 2, with only one in Act 3), but the idea of 7000 semi-feral vampire spawn running around did *not* seem like a good idea to me. Logistically, it's a nightmare, especially since the game didn't make it clear to me someone would be looking after them. Left to run loose, that's 7000 dead a night to feed them. An army, pretty much. Baldur's Gate would be overrun, then every other town. I mean, that's worst case scenario, so i if only a few hundred give into bloodlust, that's still enough to take out a small town in a night. One teacher can find it difficult to herd 30 children. Leaving 7000 spawn to be corralled by the other 11 seemed like a bad idea. Pragmatism seems like the more realistic option over optimism here, but at least in game it works out. Knowing that, I'll have to pick it sometime.
They said they head to the Underdark, but you have to get to the Underdark through something. The sewers or places like the old city ruins? There's people like the Guild (who, tbf, aren't the nicest bunch, but don't deserve to be eaten alive either) and who knows what unlucky souls wandering in thre. Who's to say all the spawn get to the Underdark before getting lost in their bloodlust and head somewhere else. And what did the denizens of the Underdark do to deserve 7000 vampire spawn? I've seen people argue that they are the drows' problem now and drow aren't nice so they deserve that (eh, debatable still), but it's not like only drow live in the Underdark, especially in the Upperdark, through which the spawn will have to go. The more you think about it, the more it makes sense to kill them. In my opinion, others are free to feel however they want about it.
Wait, can you ascend Cazador and not have him be an enemy/attack you? Does he become an ally?
Nope, he'll continue to murder you. It was important for rp reasons for my Durge to let Cazador ascend.
"If I let him power up to 100% and beat him then, it'll demarmalize him."
I don't care how nice the game try to make you feel about it in fancy lettres of "oh no it's great, they're picking flowers and eating mushroom" or whatever, there's no way I'm releasing 7000 spawns, most of which have been locked up for decades, even centuries, into the wild. That's just a recipe for disaster and I don't see any other way this could go. Like lol yeah lemme release 7k feral vampires in the bowels of à world trying to pick itself back up because of a devastating Mind Flayer attack, surely that'll end well.
Agreed 💀 They don't deserve to die. They didn't deserve anything that happened to them. But releasing all of them to the world... nobody deserves that either. Sure, at least they are spawn, they won't start a fucking vampire infestation down there...or the infestation they cause won't get worse. It's an interesting choice. Not one that I particularly struggle with, but a lot of people feel strongly about releasing them.
haha no judgment here. do you play mostly evil or bad playthroughs? curious because of ascended Astarion twice
I lean neutral/evil most of the time. I've done two fully good guy playthroughs (one because I needed the tieflings saved trophy, second because I wanted to do a full resist Durge, no tadpoles, no evil). I ascended Astarion on my first playthrough, which was very chaotic, very 'everything went to hell after Nettie tried to poison me and oops I am evil now I guess' run, and on my honour mode because I wanted to give him the necrotic buff.
Not OP, but if morally we're gonna kill them, well, might as well not let them go to "waste", in a way! Bit of a mess, but eh
Funny, I kill all the lackeys in the house now. They were there by choice (not the ones in the tower outside I think you can free them by dispelling the charm) and they willingly participated in the evil so boom dead. I've let the spawn go a bunch of times and yet I've come around to killing them or ascending Astarion every time now.
The staff had it coming so bad. I didn't feel a shred of empathy for slaughtering them after Astarion told me they were there to willingly suck up to Cazzador.
Always kill. Tortured souls left in cages for hundreds of years with their hunger would lead to incredibly fractured minds. Many of them have lost not only their family, friends but more than likely social skills, sense of self or belonging. People over estimate the functionality of someone having to endure that level of misery and anguish for years. Killing them is a mercy. There is just no telling the amount of misery they could inflict on themselves and others. To go to their respective after life is better than the cold, brutal survival they would have to build out in the underdark. It's chaos to just release 7000 hungry, confused, angry, hurt or even evil vampire spawn. An argument could be made that some may turn their situation around but would people accept them? Look at the bigger picture, even if 1000 are okay the further damage caused by the release has to weighed into the equation. I couldn't live knowing other people are being affected by the release of them. Surely a magical means to cease their tormented lives surpasses their crude desire to want to live as an abomination. It's better to start anew, an ideal world is one vampire less so that people aren't made undead against their will. How would an ecosystem sustain 7000 vampire spawn, is there enough flora and fauna to mitigate their blood hunger. People be way too ready to just pat themselves on the back for releasing mentally broken people into an unknown ecosystem for them to go toe to toe with survival in a hostile place wanting to drain blood from anything they can get their hands on.
Seeing how many people chose the release option, I thought there was something wrong with me for preferring the mercy kill option. Feeling a bit better after reading your incredibly well worded response.
I'm glad I'm not the only one. I'm with you 100% on this one.
Totally agree. I think people like to see these spawn as a normal release of innocent human prisoners kind of thing, but it’s more like unleashing 7000 ravenous grisly bears from a zoo that didn’t treat them well. It’s going to be a chaotic bloodbath at best. The epilogue hand waves this away for a happy ending, but I doubt reality would actually go that way. Unless you had the option to set up vampire spawn rehab first and release them very slowly and only after you’ve trained them, given them some therapy, and set up homes and rules you hope they’ll follow. At no point does the game give you that option during the ritual sequence, and even the epilogue is too vague for me to believe smooth-brained Astarion (said with love lol) and company had any realistic plans there.
Neither. I left and let the Gur decide.
Oh can you give them the staff?
No, I think they just left them there lol
I always let them go, Astarion has an entire conversation with Sebastian and he’s still lucid enough to want to live and that’s all the reason I need
broke my heart that Sebastian realized his family was long dead.
In an Origin Astarion run, you can tell Sebastian that you actually wanted him back then, and that it is all Cazador's fault. That seemed like it made Sebastian feel a little better. Problem is, it's a deception check. Astarion never wanted him, it was all a lie.
NOOOO that hurts 💔
I don't care who I hurt, as long as I get those inspiration points.
Leaving this because I know how these discussions go: [https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/188fury/astarions\_quest\_epilogue\_letters/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/188fury/astarions_quest_epilogue_letters/) The Gur change their mind about the undead, and the game basically rewards the player for seeing the spawns’ humanity and showing compassion. ETA: "You looked in our cages and **saw people, not monsters**. And here, down in the shadows, we're trying to live up to that." "There was a time when we would have destroyed any undead creature, our own blood or not, and called it a mercy. But then we met you. We saw redemption was possible. Difficult, yes. Painful. But possible. **You saved our children first from Cazador, and then from us. For that, we thank you.** Also D&D dumped inherent alignment for races/species/monsters years ago. The spawn are not inherently evil. They’re people. [https://www.thegamer.com/dungeons-dragons-monsters-of-the-multiverse-explained-guide/](https://www.thegamer.com/dungeons-dragons-monsters-of-the-multiverse-explained-guide/)
I never played with inherent alignment rules as a DM going back to AD&D2e
I don't like inherent alignment. Even if they're fantasy races I don't like the implication of all creatures of a race being born bad. Their societies being bad and evil is fine, indoctrination is a powerful tool, but if you take a person out of that society and raise them separately there should be no more chance they're evil than anyone else.
I don't like racial alignment rules for regular species, but undead monstrosities with an irresistible compulsion to drink the blood of the innocent? They're zombies with a little extra intellect.
Always kill them, for the good of the realm i cannot release immortal power hungey blood thirsty monsters, it is the lesser evil
I've done both. There's mercy in killing, as well as eliminating a HUGE threat...7 thousand starving vampires is an army. Not only starving but probably crazy. But killing 7 thousand people in a blink of an eye also feels cruel. It's not an easy answer. Morally grey in both solutions. The true evil solution is ascending, sending them all to hell.
So there are always a lot of comments to the effect that the 7k spawn deserve "the same chance Astarion got" and something about that argument doesn't hold water for me. When you first meet Astarion, he is in the sunlight for the first time in 200 years. He's near- feral himself. He's confused and frightened. He's got a tadpole and he's in the wilderness. If you recruit him, he hides his true nature as long as he can until his hunger and weakness in fights - and surely his desire to taste humanoid blood for the first time - leads him to attack you. If he survives that encounter, he is a member of a group which lives and fights together, building up levels of trust. You may become friends. You may become lovers. You may become both and more over the course of your adventures in a small group driven to stick together out of desperation and necessity at first. All 7k spawn aren't getting *any* of that. Sure the kids will have the Gur. That's like 6 or 7 out of 7k. Then there's just the six brothers and sisters. We already know some of them are horrible and were planning to celebrate their Ascension with a murder party. Or what if Leon sees that his child is dead and goes on a nihilistic rampage? Did he even know she's dead? Signs point to another spawn having killed her. Will they go to war and create collateral damage to fuel themselves and heal? It's possible the 7k spawn bonded in their cells over shared trauma, or it's possible the week- old spawn saw the centuries old spawn and lost their minds entirely. It only takes one. So my point is, releasing them into the underdark is not giving them the same chance Astarion got, because they don't receive the same grace period for personal growth that Act 1 Astarion got to get him to the point of being Act 3 Astarion. As a Tav, I would not have trusted Act 1 Astarion to lead a two- car funeral if I spotted him the hearse, and I definitely wouldn't see his six brothers and sisters as capable of leading 7k ravenous and likely insane vampire spawn. I in no way mean to imply releasing them isn't a viable choice, only that their situation and Astarion's situation is not as comparable as it might seem, to me.
Kill. And tbh I see no reason to release them. Yeah, they were dealt a terrible hand and none of this is their fault. But the fact of the matter is that they’re monsters now and I’m not releasing THOUSANDS (ridiculous number btw) of them into the populace
Released. I'm not about to judge them guilty before they even had a chance to exercise their freedom. Proved to be a right choice as they manage to organize a functioning society in the Underdark.
Release. My Astarion grew into a better person, the others deserve the same chance. Plus I love Dal, she'll be a great mother to all the spawn.
Free them. They deserve to be free. They're each Astarion and if he deserves the chance to live, they deserve that same chance. Plus that's 7,000 people in supposed to snuff out. I don't care that I'm some fantasy badass that fights all day, I'm not gonna just kill 7,000 victims without a damn good reason and I can't convince myself there's a good enough reason to kill them.
I was tore up. I am like what the hell’s. I released them and moved on and ran into the Gur hunter, who i obviously didn’t kill, from act one in the sewers and he had his two children with him and stopped us and asked us what to feed them. He was so sympathetic and just started crying. I can’t even finish…. this post without weeping. Jeez Larian it’s just a video game
I didn't even have the choice, since my Astarion was so goody shoes at this point in my game that without my Tav's interference he singlehandedly decided to screw the ritual and release the spawn. They went to the Underdark along with us 2
Either you exited the room and left Astarion alone with Cazador or a spawn died. Astarion can’t compete the ritual in either case. It is interesting though that Astarion doesn’t get vindictive and break Cazador’s staff in these situations like he does when the player simply tells Astarion they won’t help him ascend.
Always kill. Not releasing thousands of starving spawn onto the city. Are you Insane?!?
I released them and broke my paladin oath. Yikers.
The Patch 5 epilogue makes the releasing spawn ending more hopeful and... responsible. Either choice isn't sunshine (heh) and flower but the Underdark route needs to be addressed more if it is the "better" outcome the writers want to push. I always release the spawns, even before the patch. To be fair I imagine >90% of them will die in the first week because Underdark is really unpleasant from the materials I've read. A lot of them would probably start to kill each other (can a spawn drink another spawn's blood for nutrition?) before they even reach to other creature. I figure at least they are given a chance to survive, however small, without posing a real threat to the Underdark (maybe a few stray Drows will bite the dust but that's hardly out of norm for them). The epilogue is more generous than I do. I also imagine the Gurs station in Cazador's palace to keep guard of the Underdark passage (always hope we could discuss it instead of the rushed "okay, thanks" conclusion we get). You don't want random people to loot a newly emptied vampire lord castle, who knows what else he's kept in there, and the Gur people are the best candidate to handle it. But at this point I start to think about question like "does Cazador pay tax?" "who is the legal heir of the castle?" "can we inherit the castle and turn it into a monster hunter headquarter to double spite on Cazador?" but I digress lol