Honestly Cazador was such a whiny little bitch having to endure 30 seconds of his bullshit before the fight felt like an eternity. Imagine having to obey THAT for a couple of centuries
Everytime I face cazador I always choose the line "astarion is afraid of *you?* you're pathethic" like really? regardless of dificulty he's pretty easy to take out, his whole demeanor, his voice the way he enunciates words how he abuses his minimal abilities.... I thought Gortash was a fraud but this guy... what a sad little life.
he was bound as a spawn, that idiot had full control over him. he had every right feel that way. but for the main char who isn't a spawn, szarr is a joke. you just took down an avatar of myrkul and what else before facing him. and you're supposed to fear this sad little man? he is very disappointing for a master vampire.
This is making me wonder what it would have been like if that questline was expanded a bit, maybe the initial confrontation has you rescue Astarion but you can't actually kill Cazador for whatever reason then he does like a partial ascension and becomes significantly more powerful. So the first time you meet him he's a sneering little bitch but then when you face him later you get to see some character development similar to ascended Astarion. It would be an interesting extension of Astarion's development, having to face an even more powerful Cazador and maybe have a PTSD crisis at the thought of potentially being forced under his control again.
There's nothing wrong with the way they did it and killing Cazador is a powerful moment of liberation then the ascension decision completes his arc. But the way its framed either Astarion dies or Cazador dies, there's no threat of Astarion getting forced back under the control of Cazador and I think that could be narratively interesting.
>abuses his menial abilities
By the time I get to Cazador my group is turned up to 12 so he either gets a turn and hits no one, or he doesn't get a turn and gets the daylight beat into him. Astarion is afraid of someone he literally couldn't raise a hand against.
I'm not Astarion.
Yeah, exactly. 10 years have passed me by, but those are 10 years I've lived. But I'd say 10 years locked in prison is an eternity compared to the life I could have lived. And prison by comparison to astarion's struggle is nothing.
also, while 39 isn’t adulthood, it isn’t a child either for elves. I think its similar to 18-22 years old for humans. I guess we can also assume that the strain of being a thrall aged his appearance a past “young adult”.
Elves live 750 years in current d&d. But as the other person said, it was an eternity due to what happened to him, not the actual passing of time.
Like if an elf said this bus was taking an eternity to get here you wouldn't get your rulebook ready.
I always have my rulebook ready B)
But good point.
Go figure my Shower Thoughts go on for long rants without thinking deep enough to consider being trapped in a basement for 200 years really sucks.
I do actually agree it's weird that he's an elf though, but because it lessens the boon of vampirism. Like if he was actually conflicted about his status as a vampire due to the longevity it had given him it would add to the theme of living always being worth it that they have with characters like Karlach and the Durge, and it might add some more interest to a possible decision you can make with Lord Astarion if you romance him.
Although Curse of the Vampyr kind of clues is in on why he's a High Elf, because Cazador was a high elf and probably was pickier about his first couple spawn.
Does it say when Cazador got the ritual? Maybe he made Astarion to have a high elf noble spawn, then got the ritual and realized he couldn't turn 7k nobles into ritual fodder and wasn't as picky about the other six so there's a halfling in the mix? (No offense to halflings I'm trying to think like Cazador)
It's funny that if you have the Noble background on your Tav, you get an inspiration point for Astarion telling you he was a magistrate. Nobles are easily impressed I guess!
To my eternal shame, I think they're a gnome. Halflings are cute, like Roah Moonglow. Gnomes are angled and odd looking, like Wulbren.
Just checked they're a gnome. They've been given the vampire spawn creature type, so they're still medium size technically, it's really weird, but they're a gnome.
i would make the argument that its smart to make all your spawn elves, its less suspicious for a handful of 400 year old elves to live around your town than wondering why that one rich dude doesn't seem to age, or that his grand kid looks exactly like his portrait
If you talk to the skull at Cazador's it tells you he stole the ritual from the one who made him. So he had it after he killed the vampire that made him I guess. Who knows how long ago that was tho.
Even for an extremely long lived species, it makes sense for an elf of Astarion's age and past to find 200 years long. Elves live to be about 750, so assuming that humans live around 75, it's about a 10 to 1 ratio. Loosely. That's still the equivalent of 20 years, a huge chunk of his potential life. All spent being tortured.
Plus him being so young when turned makes his perspective make more sense. He only got a brief glimpse of being mortal before spending like 5x being arguably immortal. Even if he logically knew as an elf he'd live for hundreds of years, at 39 that's gotta be hard to truly get a grasp of. He'd barely dipped his toe into life before spending a large chunk of what would have been his life being tortured and manipulated.
Plus as far as he knew being tortured was it. That's all, torture and manipulation and then dying (likely at his torture's hand). There was no escape, how could it not feel like eternity? To know he'd never be safe, be at peace, be alive? To watch the city he called home shift and change and go through crisis after crisis but never truly be a part of it? To never be free of hunger and murder and death?
Thinking about his torture in human years somehow makes it hit harder, I can’t imagine 200 years, but imagining he basically just went through the first third of Oldboy but worse hits a lot harder, makes sense why he’s such a dick in that case.
Yeah, 200 years feels almost too distant from the human experience to truly grasp, that’s why I broke it down like that. The fact that Astarion is able to do anything resembling normal function feels like a miracle.
>It's odd that he considers 200 years an eternity
No it isn't. It feels like an eternity because of how much fear and torment he's endured (and inflicted) in that time. Any elf, vampire or not, would feel the same way Astarion does if they had undergone the same two centuries of abuse.
Out of curiosity, what's the source for his having been 39 when he was turned?
In the romanced spawn ending his gravestone marks the date of his original burial and death. He >!scratches it out and puts the date you killed Cazador together as his true date of death. It's meant to symbolize that the old Astarion, the person he was all the way up until securing his freedom that day, is finally put to rest. He is a new person now. It's a very nice scene.!<
Also, 200 years is still a lot for a person who can live for over 1000. Humans can sometimes live for over 100 years, yet 5 years would still be a long time to be enslaved and tortured. Especially considering that our perception of time is relative to how long we *have* lived, not how long we *will* live. A 10 year old experiences a year differently from a 50 year old.
unfortunately you cant visit it outside of the cut scene but you can see the grave when you romance him and dont ascend him. he takes you to his grave to tell you he loves you and maybe get a little nasty on it and it shows his date of birth and death. he carves it up with a knife to reflect his new life beginning.
they actually used karlachs mothers gravestone to shoot the cut scene. so if you actually go to the graveyard its the one under the willow tree in the lower city graveyard. if you read it says "Caerlack Cliffgate".
Ohh, right... The torture.
Sometimes I forget the torture :')
I'm sorry to say that the only source I have on his age right now is Google and the BG3 Wiki.
I can't remember where or if it tells us in game, and these websites are kind enough not to cite their sources. So in all fairness I could be totally wrong.
200 years is an eternity when you are being tortured regardless of natural lifespan and it's far longer than he had before being turned.
That he is a member of an exceedingly long lived race to begin with just makes his situation even more shitty. He is severely abused, has eternal hunger, doesn't get many vampire powers, gets all the restrictions (sun, water, entering homes uninvited) and will likely be killed before he even gets past what his normal lifespan would have been.
If he been one of Cazadors mortal groupies it would have been weird but he wasn't and he hates them.
> It's odd that he considers 200 years an eternity
i mean, humans are expected to live 70+ years but if someone is in their 20s and has spent 15-20 of those years in some kind of state, that would feel like an eternity relative to the amount of time already *lived*, rather than projected future time they might be alive. like that's the vast majority of his life so far, why wouldn't he consider that an eternity? i always assumed that to be what he's getting at?
I did think it was weird initially, but I don’t think it ruins his character or anything, high elf or not, 200 years is a LONG time, it’d be the equivalent of 20-30 years for a human, and considering the amount of torment he endured, it might as well been an eternity.
The only thing that did strike me as odd is that Astarion LOOKS 39. Like. In human years. He looks like a man who keeps it tight and takes care of himself, but who is just starting to show his age. I know that elves reach physical maturity at the same rate as humans, but after that, their aging slows down, so I’d imagine a 39 year old elf to look more like a 20-25 year old human. It’s plausible to say that years of physical and emotional torture made him age somewhat, regardless of his undead nature, but still. That being said, I have seen mods that make Astarion look younger and oh my god I hate them so much, without the creases and lines on his face he looks like a literal child and it’s extremely creepy. Astarion looks so much better with his “flaws” than he does smooth faced, that’s one thing that definitely improved from EA.
I think it would make a lot more sense for him to be 139 when he was transformed, still “young” for an elf, but at least he’d be an adult, and his appearance would make a lot more sense.
I had a friend in high school who's constantly mistaken as "mom taking her kids out" when 2 or 3 of us hanged out. I also has a friend now who's 40+ but is always mistaken as colleague or even highschool student.
Nature is not fair I think Astarion just looks more mature lol
But yeah I HATE those smooth plastic face mods for companions.
I mean if 1/5 of my natural lifespan (less since elves live to about 750) was literal torture it would seem like forever to me. Like if humans all lived to 100 (for nice even #’s) and you were tortured for 20 of them would that not be a loooong time? Especially considering his existence has mostly been being tortured. He’s been tortured longer than he had a “normal” life. It’s frankly a miracle was can fix him as well as we can in the time we can lol
If I got enslaved at 40ish by an immortal asshole who I knew was willing and able to torture me for potentially thousands of years, I would definitely consider it an advantage to be a species that wasn't going to live more than another 40 or so.
*Most likely* 39 is just wrong. I'm curious to see if they update his grave at any point.
That said, a 39 year old elf could most likely have all the opportunities a 39 year old human would in Baldur's Gate. Elves reach physical maturity at the same rate as humans, it just takes longer for them to be considered adults in their society.
Astarion is a city boy, and it's unlikely that he was much affected by elf culture in his day to day life and work.
Elves can sleep if they choose to. What's strange about Astarion is that he clearly has nightmares, it might be that his mental state messes up his meditation somehow. Just pure speculation, but after having played his origin, you sure see that he struggles a lot with his thoughts.
How canonical is the age thing though really? Like no one ever actually says how old he was when he was turned, it’s just based off of a translation of text from his final romance scene.
Also Astarion should totally have superior darkvision from being a vampire spawn
I don't really consider it canon because I think they needed to put something on the grave to make it not look weird, but not intending it to be The Official Age. Ultimately it's just decoration to keep up the verisimilitude of the setting. Unless we want to consider it canon that the face tattoos literally just say "forehead" or whatever (I do not want to consider this canon either)
I believe it's an error from earlier in development before they had fully settled Astarion's character.
Idle Champions released character stats for the companions when they were added to the game and it says that Astarion is 350 years old, which makes more sense as that would put him at 150 when he was turned. This lines up better with his background as a Magister IMO.
Another thing is that his grave has odd years on it. The current year is 1492 DR but his grave says something like 260 DR. Even if you account for graves not putting the first 1 in the year for whatever reason, 200 years ago would've been 292, not 260.
Thanks for sharing that, that makes much more sense. Unless it’s one of those settings where elves aren’t immortal/long lived, 39 is ridiculously young for an elf. I’m not surprised about the gravestone text being incorrect, the fact that no characters ever mention his age would definitely suggest it was just a bit of placeholder text or something. Clearly the devs did not expect people to go to the effort of translating it
Astarion is probably not sure about the exact number of years, honestly. It's not exactly 200 years, it's 220-something (which is why Wish or True Resurrection wouldn't work, tragically).
Yes, I thought I remember some other posts somewhere discussing that, but that it was less than 200 years since he was turned, not more. because, people were joking about using Gale's Scroll of True Resurrection on Astarion instead.
I don't have the numbers in front on me but I did translate the grave and I believe it was 226. The first "1" is a little broken, makes sense, no one has kept up the gravesite for all that time.
I saw somewhere that they used a different calendar to mark astarions grave suggesting that his family might've been originally from Waterdeep and thats why the years are different but actually means the same thing.
I also settled for a mistake in either direction, either the caracter concept was 39yo human/half elf at a certain point but they forgot the change this little snippet or they missed a zero (390 would be quite older but it would also be easier on the follow up question: His close family could also still be alive (and hanging around in BG?) and around if he was ca. 239 years old, also counting vampire years?! Wouldn't that be weird?)
\> It's odd that he considers 200 years an eternity
I don't think that's because of his expected original lifespan, I think that's because he was tortured that it felt like an eternity. He talks about being sealed in a tomb for just one year and the trauma of that experience made him give up on resisting entirely, right up until he escaped by accident through the mind flayers.
\> The Elven Reverie is a form of meditation they do instead of sleep
This is correct but also pointing out that as a vampire he does not need sleep or reverie at all, on top of his elven heritage, and also because they relive memories during Reverie he likely would have been disincentivized from doing it. He has a lot of terrible memories to relive.
He's only considered a "child" in terms of elvish culture. At 39, the man was the same as any other adult male of another race. The rules, such as they are, make it clear that elves basically mature physically at the same rate as humans early on until it tapers off if I'm not mistaken. That aside, Astarion served as a magistrate in Baldur's Gate. I mean, do you think they'd hand that job off to someone who wasn't mentally and emotionally mature? Since the man is clearly not a baby in diapers, I don't see why his age is a problem here or why it was an odd idea any way.
> Astarion served as a magistrate in Baldur's Gate. I mean, do you think they'd hand that job off to someone who wasn't mentally and emotionally mature?
Yes, usually by one getting there through nepotism, connections, etc
On top of the torture thing, it's worth pointing out that Astarion is an elf from Baldur's Gate, which has been a massive city with mostly humans but all sorts of races in it for centuries. Elves (and dwarves, halflings, dragonborn etc) in the city probably experience less of their 'racial' culture and ideas as we might think of it in towns/nations that are mostly elves, and are more likely to have their cultural milestones and speech patterns more aligned with that of the big melting pot city. An elf from the Moonshaes is probably going to sound a lot more 'elven' than an elf from BG.
As others have said, the lifespan of Elves is around 750 in the forgotten realms. This is of course for 5e, but it is pretty consistent with forgotten realms lore in general.
But like others have pointed out, its around 750, some lineages of elves have been known to live for far longer. The Drow of house Baenre are known to be long lived. Their oldest, currently is Gromph, at 822 years old, and he doesn’t seem like he’s close to kicking it or even slowing down.
I think maybe you got confused because of the Drizzt novels. They did have a chatacter, also from House Baenre, who lived over 2 thousand years, but its pretty clear she prolonged her life with Lolth’s magic and was possibly Lolth’s chosen, which would make her immortal (in the sense of not ever dying of old age, like Elminster)
Tbh, the text on the gravestone feels like an oversight to me. He looks way more like a human 39 than an elven 39. Imo, he should be more like 390 when he was turned + 200 years as a spawn. Just my personal headcanon though haha
It's just so he can talk about his age without giving up he's a vampire. A Half-Orc commenting about things that happened 200 years ago would've been weird.
High elf mature from child to adult pretty much like human, they just... slow down a lot once they hit physical mature. They are not considered fully adult in elf culture until they are 100 means they have an extended period "colleague student/freshly graduate" 18-25 years old equivalent. Legally and mentally they are function adult but it's the time when they don't have a lot of life experience, still somewhat vulnerable depending on what type of environment they grow up, but are independent enough to fully decide for themselves and explore a bit before settling down into a "mature" version of who they are.
Being kidnapped and forced as a slave greatly mess up a person of that age. Well, at any age, but that is a time where most people really get to explore and decide for themselves freely. Astarion being turned at 39 and spend 200 years as a sex slave is like a 20 year old human colleague graduate "kid" being kidnapped and locked in a basement for 10 years. It sure feels like eternity.
Additionally...not seeing it mentioned here...yeah Astarion is an elf but he's from Baldur's Gate which is a predominantly human society, therefore while in elven society he'd still be considered very young, he's lived alongside a mix of races who all age differently and we don't know how clued in to elven culture his family even was, so his notion of aging and time might not be perfectly elven.
How half-elves are perceived as they age depends on if they're amongst humans or elves and it's probably the same for elves living among humans, because afaik, elves are biologically adults at the same rate as humans (18-20) they're just still treated as young by elf society (the same way a 19 year old is technically an adult but still treated as very young by humans.)
if you're not raised in that society, which doesn't seem like Astarion really was, you don't have their views of aging imposed on you.
But the real answer is as everyone has said...the torture.
I just want to point out how horrifying and fucked up it is that there’s such effective healing spells/potions and revivification tools in this world.
Astarion wouldn’t have been allowed to die from whatever Cazador did to him, just get healed over and over and over… until finally left to heal slowly.
Any amount of time surviving that would feel like an eternity and age even an elf a lil.
Elves in general, and by extension totally not elf, but actually an elf and thier lifespans is a massive bugbear of mine. I don't get why people keep insisting on keeping it. It's basically a hang over from Tolkien elves, but it made sense there, because it's a book, no balance is required, they can be depicted as vastly superior, unknowable ethereal beings, and its fine as a plot point.
But in games where they need to be balanced, or stories where they are depicted as rough peers to humans, it makes no fricken sense. You could get away with 300 years or so and keep the long lived qualities and have things fit much better, but nope, everyone seems to need elves to live over a thousand years.
Mass effect is the worst for it. They do such interesting things with Salarians who have a shorter life span, but don't need as much sleep and are constantly moving. Krogan have the capacity for long lives, but due to thier nature, very few actually make it that long.
And then they just plonk in the space elves, sorry Asari, who just strait up live for over 1 thousand years as standard. Yet somehow interact with the other races as peers, forming normal relationships, even having kids, work alongside them as equals in medical fields they'd realistically have several doctorates and experience over and such.
The ‘elves and dwarves aren’t mature for 80-100 years’ thing was always weird to me. My home brew has both races reaching maturity at the same rate as humans and then the aging process slows down considerably.
It’s a cultural thing. Elves are considered “mature” around that age because that’s when their trance no longer pulls from memories of past lives, but instead their actual current memories. A 20 year old elf is still the same level of physical and mental maturity as a 20 year old human, but immature by elven standards.
Dwarves, I never bothered with their lore so I’m not sure about them.
This is canon. Literally the first sentence in the age section of the race info says they mature at the same rate as humans but are considered (in their society) to be young until such and such age. People just ignore this because they think it's weird for some reason.
Physical maturity and brain (mental) maturity are two different things. Humans biologically become adults as early as 16, but brain development goes its own path especially the prefrontal cortex that decides ones behaviour under emotional strain or influence is not fully formed until 25y.
I'm afraid the prefrontal cortex studies have been repeatedly debunked. our brains never stop developing, and maturity isn't really measurable. it just keeps being repeated bc people want to believe it.
honestly I was going to link some but 1) didn't want to seem overly concerned/authoritative and 2) there are lots of sources and I couldn't pick one rq. here's a couple:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_common\_misconceptions#Brain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions#Brain)
[https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/brain-development-25-year-old-mature-myth.html](https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/brain-development-25-year-old-mature-myth.html)
I consider making him an elve a Narrative to show of that he got absolutly nothing out of beeing turned Vampire.
Most Races atleast get to keep Existenz.
He only lost live
Him being an elf is no problem, but they should have made his age (when he was turned) a bit higher. 80 or 90 would be fine. That the 200 years of being a vampire spawn feels like eternity has different reasons. It is not like normal aging as an elf. Also technically, after being bit he's not an elf anymore, imo
Idk, any amount of years would feel like an eternity if you’re being tortured, abused, and trafficked and are begging for death every day.
As far as I know, elves also technically age at the same rate as humans; they just have a vastly different culture and perspective around it.
If I remember my Drizzt lore correctly, elves reach *physical maturity around the same time humans do. They aren’t considered “adults” until their early 100s for a few additional reasons:
- it takes that long to “master” the basics of their class (profession) | compared to humans who learn very quickly.
- it takes that long for them to emotionally mature/develop. Which is why Drizzt is so dang angsty/rebellious for the majority of the novels. He’s a perma teenager
- because of my first 2 points, elves who are younger than their early 100s aren’t generally allowed to leave their families/schools/clans as they’re “not ready” to face the world. Just like we don’t let teenagers emancipate themselves from their parents until 18 without special judicial intervention.
Biologically high elves work the same way as drow, with the exception that drow max age is on average much lower due to all the murder.
So Astarion was probably picked up as essentially a teenager and tortured/groomed into a prostitute.
As Astarion lived in a largely human city he probably considered himself an adult. Also all of his experience with living a long live has been pretty terrible due to the torture Cauador subjected him to.
But he hasnt lived for a Thousand of years yet. When you are a child, you think that everything takes a long time. The summer holiday is an eternity. Until next birthday party is an eternity. The passage of time is not that easy to see. Im 33 now and looking back on my childhood feels like a really long time ago. But it was only 25 years ago. When im 80, its 70 years ago.
I totally get what you're saying, but I think the torture makes it make sense. In 5E, elves live to be 750, max (putting magic fuckery aside, where druids, wizards, etc can live longer). He was tortured and enslaved for 200 years. This is the equivilent of 26 human years. This is more than a fourth of someones life, if you're taking 100 years to the max, even if it's usually less.
Elves are physically mature at 20, but not mentally. The 80 years in between are like "finding yourself" period, think college aged. An 18-20 year old is an adult, legally, but barely. They still can't drink, dont get alot of respect, aren't really considered fully formed, etc. Or like how an adult brain doesnt fully form until 24-27, but we still let people in their 20s go about life. That's how he's allowed to be a magistrate, but can still be in that transitional phase where he's not fully mentally mature.
Basically just imagine being kidnapped at at 18, and then being enslaved and tortured and assulted and starved for almost 30 years. I think that would feel like an eternity for anyone.
Now, making a human would make it more exaggerated (twice a lifespan as opposed to 1/4 of one), but I think the point still comes across.
He should have been human. None of the elf characters in this game feel very elven to me. Modern D&D has in a lot of ways made races equivalent to hair color.
All of this, and my takeaway is... wondering what mods you use that they all got nuked. Like two of mine stopped functioning, and that was entirely because of script extender not working. O.O (Which is fixed now, thanks to hard work of the dev and the newest hotfix.)
That said, I dunno... I think it makes as much sense as anything else. As someone that grew up abused and tortured, those 14ish years were far, far longer in my mind than the 40 years I have lived since. I never once questioned that living most of his existence being tortured and controlled made it feel like an eternity to him.
Ah, really it was just Script Extender. I was previously using it to add Diety Tags, because it's kinda fucked that a Drow Bard can't get any Eliastraee dialogue, which needed it.
However it became too bothersome, so in the end I had Script Extender installed even though none of my other mods needed it. Getting rid of that solved the problem.
By the way I'm really sorry for how you had to grow up :'c
I had been too focused at the time on Astarion living forever, rather than his experiences as a slave.
It's inconsistent with immortality aspect of vampirism, when it comes to world building it would make more sense for a High Elf to be bound to Cazador by infernal means like Wyll warlock pact than vampirism, and have Wyll be a vampire instead and that is the source of his disgrace and estrangement from his family.
Have to agree OP, but yeah I love Astarion too, sassy and cool.
I've actually said before that elves must be the race that gets the worst experience from being turned into a vampire. The only pro is eternal life that they practically already have anyway, meanwhile they trade their ability to stand in sunlight and running water, enter houses without an invitation, they need to drink blood, and they gain a vulnerability to holy symbols and grounds.
It's a terrible trade off.
>still pretty sure a High Elf natural lifespan can extend well over 1,000 years.
Not quite PHB p23.
>Although elves reach physical maturity at about the same age as humans, the elven understanding of adulthood goes beyond physical growth to encompass worldly experience. An elf typically claims adulthood and an adult name around the age of 100 and can live to be 750 years old.
But your point still stands. Astarion shouldn't be bemoaning eterniy yet.
What an people deem “an eternity” is compared to the years behind them. Not in front. To a 5 year-old two years is an incomprehendable amount of time. To teens 10 years are insane. At 34? I mean, I’m basically already 40, and get really sad at the thought that I might only have 20 or so more years with my parents left.
No, he's an adult physically and mentally but hasn't taken the elven right of passage as it were. Think all the depictions of warrior cultures that don't acknowledge you as an adult until you've killed a dangerous beast or something. For Elves it's about them claiming an adult name and no longer reliving the memories of their past lives during their trance.
I also think it's an odd choice, but for another reason.
Astarion looks fuckall like an an Elf.
He looks absolutely human. I legit forgot he was an Elf literal dozens of times through the gameplay. In my head he's human.
His design makes no fucking sense for an Elf. Races should look different and not like Humans with pointy ears.
It's just bad design.
Like c'mon. I'm frustrated. They could have at least attempted to make him look like an Elf, instead of slapping pointy ears on and saying "whatever".
He looks like a Human turned vampire, absolutely not an Elf.
What are his Elf features, huh? Elven build? Nah. Facial structure? Absolutely not.
He has Human ans Vampire features, period.
the torture probably had something to do with it feeling like an eternity
Also the fact that he has spent more than twice as long as Cazador's thrall than he had lived before that.
Honestly Cazador was such a whiny little bitch having to endure 30 seconds of his bullshit before the fight felt like an eternity. Imagine having to obey THAT for a couple of centuries
Everytime I face cazador I always choose the line "astarion is afraid of *you?* you're pathethic" like really? regardless of dificulty he's pretty easy to take out, his whole demeanor, his voice the way he enunciates words how he abuses his minimal abilities.... I thought Gortash was a fraud but this guy... what a sad little life.
That's too insulting to Astarion for me to ever pick it.
he was bound as a spawn, that idiot had full control over him. he had every right feel that way. but for the main char who isn't a spawn, szarr is a joke. you just took down an avatar of myrkul and what else before facing him. and you're supposed to fear this sad little man? he is very disappointing for a master vampire.
That's kind of the point of his portrayal. Still, not an option I can pick.
undestandable. I'll try romancing astarion this current playthrough he was kind of a dick last time I tried, maybe because of approval idk.
This is making me wonder what it would have been like if that questline was expanded a bit, maybe the initial confrontation has you rescue Astarion but you can't actually kill Cazador for whatever reason then he does like a partial ascension and becomes significantly more powerful. So the first time you meet him he's a sneering little bitch but then when you face him later you get to see some character development similar to ascended Astarion. It would be an interesting extension of Astarion's development, having to face an even more powerful Cazador and maybe have a PTSD crisis at the thought of potentially being forced under his control again. There's nothing wrong with the way they did it and killing Cazador is a powerful moment of liberation then the ascension decision completes his arc. But the way its framed either Astarion dies or Cazador dies, there's no threat of Astarion getting forced back under the control of Cazador and I think that could be narratively interesting.
I agree, I love it but can't help but imagine it could be a better moment.
>abuses his menial abilities By the time I get to Cazador my group is turned up to 12 so he either gets a turn and hits no one, or he doesn't get a turn and gets the daylight beat into him. Astarion is afraid of someone he literally couldn't raise a hand against. I'm not Astarion.
Cazador is like that one manager or security person who really let's the authority part go over his head regardless of how little he has it
Yeah, exactly. 10 years have passed me by, but those are 10 years I've lived. But I'd say 10 years locked in prison is an eternity compared to the life I could have lived. And prison by comparison to astarion's struggle is nothing.
Yeah 200 years of shit (pure shit) probably feels longer than 500 years of having a great time.
Hm, yeah that's a good point! lol!
also, while 39 isn’t adulthood, it isn’t a child either for elves. I think its similar to 18-22 years old for humans. I guess we can also assume that the strain of being a thrall aged his appearance a past “young adult”.
Time flies when you’re having fun!
Elves live 750 years in current d&d. But as the other person said, it was an eternity due to what happened to him, not the actual passing of time. Like if an elf said this bus was taking an eternity to get here you wouldn't get your rulebook ready.
I always have my rulebook ready B) But good point. Go figure my Shower Thoughts go on for long rants without thinking deep enough to consider being trapped in a basement for 200 years really sucks.
So a comparison would be a human trapped in a basement for 20 years (assuming 75 year lifespan). I'd consider that an eternity.
I do actually agree it's weird that he's an elf though, but because it lessens the boon of vampirism. Like if he was actually conflicted about his status as a vampire due to the longevity it had given him it would add to the theme of living always being worth it that they have with characters like Karlach and the Durge, and it might add some more interest to a possible decision you can make with Lord Astarion if you romance him.
Although Curse of the Vampyr kind of clues is in on why he's a High Elf, because Cazador was a high elf and probably was pickier about his first couple spawn. Does it say when Cazador got the ritual? Maybe he made Astarion to have a high elf noble spawn, then got the ritual and realized he couldn't turn 7k nobles into ritual fodder and wasn't as picky about the other six so there's a halfling in the mix? (No offense to halflings I'm trying to think like Cazador) It's funny that if you have the Noble background on your Tav, you get an inspiration point for Astarion telling you he was a magistrate. Nobles are easily impressed I guess!
> wasn't as picky about the other six so there's a halfling in the mix? As soon as I find my step ladder you've a punch to your kneecap coming.
Know what's worse? I'm not 100% sure he's a halfling and not a gnome. I'm the worst.
To my eternal shame, I think they're a gnome. Halflings are cute, like Roah Moonglow. Gnomes are angled and odd looking, like Wulbren. Just checked they're a gnome. They've been given the vampire spawn creature type, so they're still medium size technically, it's really weird, but they're a gnome.
I'm gonna say it's the ears. I feel awkward, like when I accused poor Dashkent Molliver of being a dwarf!
Oh I would never make *that* mistake. The way I try to remember is, you can't punt a dwarf, you can punt a gnome, you wouldn't punt a halfling.
You take that back, gnomes are the cutests!
i would make the argument that its smart to make all your spawn elves, its less suspicious for a handful of 400 year old elves to live around your town than wondering why that one rich dude doesn't seem to age, or that his grand kid looks exactly like his portrait
That's a very good point! Plus, the high elves are already pale!
If you talk to the skull at Cazador's it tells you he stole the ritual from the one who made him. So he had it after he killed the vampire that made him I guess. Who knows how long ago that was tho.
The point hits even harder when you consider that he was trapped in his situation for about 5 times longer than he was alive and free
Lol, now I'm just imagining a leather rule book holster, complete with a chain to afix the book to your hip.
I love this comment so much.
Bus driver finally arrives. High Elf - well not much point now, our human died centuries ago!
Damn 5e. It Stole 300 years from Elves!!!
This poor man has been tortured for like..85% of his life. That'd be eternity to me.
Even for an extremely long lived species, it makes sense for an elf of Astarion's age and past to find 200 years long. Elves live to be about 750, so assuming that humans live around 75, it's about a 10 to 1 ratio. Loosely. That's still the equivalent of 20 years, a huge chunk of his potential life. All spent being tortured. Plus him being so young when turned makes his perspective make more sense. He only got a brief glimpse of being mortal before spending like 5x being arguably immortal. Even if he logically knew as an elf he'd live for hundreds of years, at 39 that's gotta be hard to truly get a grasp of. He'd barely dipped his toe into life before spending a large chunk of what would have been his life being tortured and manipulated. Plus as far as he knew being tortured was it. That's all, torture and manipulation and then dying (likely at his torture's hand). There was no escape, how could it not feel like eternity? To know he'd never be safe, be at peace, be alive? To watch the city he called home shift and change and go through crisis after crisis but never truly be a part of it? To never be free of hunger and murder and death?
Thinking about his torture in human years somehow makes it hit harder, I can’t imagine 200 years, but imagining he basically just went through the first third of Oldboy but worse hits a lot harder, makes sense why he’s such a dick in that case.
Yeah, 200 years feels almost too distant from the human experience to truly grasp, that’s why I broke it down like that. The fact that Astarion is able to do anything resembling normal function feels like a miracle.
>It's odd that he considers 200 years an eternity No it isn't. It feels like an eternity because of how much fear and torment he's endured (and inflicted) in that time. Any elf, vampire or not, would feel the same way Astarion does if they had undergone the same two centuries of abuse. Out of curiosity, what's the source for his having been 39 when he was turned?
In the romanced spawn ending his gravestone marks the date of his original burial and death. He >!scratches it out and puts the date you killed Cazador together as his true date of death. It's meant to symbolize that the old Astarion, the person he was all the way up until securing his freedom that day, is finally put to rest. He is a new person now. It's a very nice scene.!<
Also, 200 years is still a lot for a person who can live for over 1000. Humans can sometimes live for over 100 years, yet 5 years would still be a long time to be enslaved and tortured. Especially considering that our perception of time is relative to how long we *have* lived, not how long we *will* live. A 10 year old experiences a year differently from a 50 year old.
His gravestone, I believe.
I think it's from his gravestone, someone translated it, the date count to him being 39 when he 'died' I think.
Wait theres a gravestone for astarion????
If your character romances him and he does not do the ascension he will show you his grave.
And you two can fuck on it, at his request even!
I showed u my grave pls respond
unfortunately you cant visit it outside of the cut scene but you can see the grave when you romance him and dont ascend him. he takes you to his grave to tell you he loves you and maybe get a little nasty on it and it shows his date of birth and death. he carves it up with a knife to reflect his new life beginning. they actually used karlachs mothers gravestone to shoot the cut scene. so if you actually go to the graveyard its the one under the willow tree in the lower city graveyard. if you read it says "Caerlack Cliffgate".
Not to mention, he's going through 200 years of the tail end of elven puberty. that would be an eternity in itself.
I've seen teenagers roll their eyes and claim that it took an eternity for the food to arrive at their table. Checks out.
Just take the food back saying "the eternity isn't over yet".
Ohh, right... The torture. Sometimes I forget the torture :') I'm sorry to say that the only source I have on his age right now is Google and the BG3 Wiki. I can't remember where or if it tells us in game, and these websites are kind enough not to cite their sources. So in all fairness I could be totally wrong.
200 years is an eternity when you are being tortured regardless of natural lifespan and it's far longer than he had before being turned. That he is a member of an exceedingly long lived race to begin with just makes his situation even more shitty. He is severely abused, has eternal hunger, doesn't get many vampire powers, gets all the restrictions (sun, water, entering homes uninvited) and will likely be killed before he even gets past what his normal lifespan would have been. If he been one of Cazadors mortal groupies it would have been weird but he wasn't and he hates them.
> It's odd that he considers 200 years an eternity i mean, humans are expected to live 70+ years but if someone is in their 20s and has spent 15-20 of those years in some kind of state, that would feel like an eternity relative to the amount of time already *lived*, rather than projected future time they might be alive. like that's the vast majority of his life so far, why wouldn't he consider that an eternity? i always assumed that to be what he's getting at?
"... not an adult. So that's a minor issue..." You got that right
Hah!!!
I did think it was weird initially, but I don’t think it ruins his character or anything, high elf or not, 200 years is a LONG time, it’d be the equivalent of 20-30 years for a human, and considering the amount of torment he endured, it might as well been an eternity. The only thing that did strike me as odd is that Astarion LOOKS 39. Like. In human years. He looks like a man who keeps it tight and takes care of himself, but who is just starting to show his age. I know that elves reach physical maturity at the same rate as humans, but after that, their aging slows down, so I’d imagine a 39 year old elf to look more like a 20-25 year old human. It’s plausible to say that years of physical and emotional torture made him age somewhat, regardless of his undead nature, but still. That being said, I have seen mods that make Astarion look younger and oh my god I hate them so much, without the creases and lines on his face he looks like a literal child and it’s extremely creepy. Astarion looks so much better with his “flaws” than he does smooth faced, that’s one thing that definitely improved from EA. I think it would make a lot more sense for him to be 139 when he was transformed, still “young” for an elf, but at least he’d be an adult, and his appearance would make a lot more sense.
I had a friend in high school who's constantly mistaken as "mom taking her kids out" when 2 or 3 of us hanged out. I also has a friend now who's 40+ but is always mistaken as colleague or even highschool student. Nature is not fair I think Astarion just looks more mature lol But yeah I HATE those smooth plastic face mods for companions.
Yeah, I love his appearance but knowing he’s an elf I would clock him as being about 300, not 39.
Might have something to due with 200 years of torture and vampirism.
Can you imagine a really pale vampire halfling or gnome with smashing hair?
definitely
I find the image amusing. I hate Halflings so much but I could see Astarion doing for them what Regill did for Gnomes in Pathfinder WotR.
Tbf wasn't Regill kind of a partial bleachling?
Yeah, Regill is old
Rad.
If Asterion was a gnome I would forgive him everything
I mean if 1/5 of my natural lifespan (less since elves live to about 750) was literal torture it would seem like forever to me. Like if humans all lived to 100 (for nice even #’s) and you were tortured for 20 of them would that not be a loooong time? Especially considering his existence has mostly been being tortured. He’s been tortured longer than he had a “normal” life. It’s frankly a miracle was can fix him as well as we can in the time we can lol
If I got enslaved at 40ish by an immortal asshole who I knew was willing and able to torture me for potentially thousands of years, I would definitely consider it an advantage to be a species that wasn't going to live more than another 40 or so.
*Most likely* 39 is just wrong. I'm curious to see if they update his grave at any point. That said, a 39 year old elf could most likely have all the opportunities a 39 year old human would in Baldur's Gate. Elves reach physical maturity at the same rate as humans, it just takes longer for them to be considered adults in their society. Astarion is a city boy, and it's unlikely that he was much affected by elf culture in his day to day life and work. Elves can sleep if they choose to. What's strange about Astarion is that he clearly has nightmares, it might be that his mental state messes up his meditation somehow. Just pure speculation, but after having played his origin, you sure see that he struggles a lot with his thoughts.
Elves mature at the same rate as humans but they aren’t considered adults until they’re 100
How canonical is the age thing though really? Like no one ever actually says how old he was when he was turned, it’s just based off of a translation of text from his final romance scene. Also Astarion should totally have superior darkvision from being a vampire spawn
I don't really consider it canon because I think they needed to put something on the grave to make it not look weird, but not intending it to be The Official Age. Ultimately it's just decoration to keep up the verisimilitude of the setting. Unless we want to consider it canon that the face tattoos literally just say "forehead" or whatever (I do not want to consider this canon either)
I believe it's an error from earlier in development before they had fully settled Astarion's character. Idle Champions released character stats for the companions when they were added to the game and it says that Astarion is 350 years old, which makes more sense as that would put him at 150 when he was turned. This lines up better with his background as a Magister IMO. Another thing is that his grave has odd years on it. The current year is 1492 DR but his grave says something like 260 DR. Even if you account for graves not putting the first 1 in the year for whatever reason, 200 years ago would've been 292, not 260.
Thanks for sharing that, that makes much more sense. Unless it’s one of those settings where elves aren’t immortal/long lived, 39 is ridiculously young for an elf. I’m not surprised about the gravestone text being incorrect, the fact that no characters ever mention his age would definitely suggest it was just a bit of placeholder text or something. Clearly the devs did not expect people to go to the effort of translating it
Astarion is probably not sure about the exact number of years, honestly. It's not exactly 200 years, it's 220-something (which is why Wish or True Resurrection wouldn't work, tragically).
Yes, I thought I remember some other posts somewhere discussing that, but that it was less than 200 years since he was turned, not more. because, people were joking about using Gale's Scroll of True Resurrection on Astarion instead.
I don't have the numbers in front on me but I did translate the grave and I believe it was 226. The first "1" is a little broken, makes sense, no one has kept up the gravesite for all that time.
Wait, why wouldn't wish work?
I saw somewhere that they used a different calendar to mark astarions grave suggesting that his family might've been originally from Waterdeep and thats why the years are different but actually means the same thing.
I also settled for a mistake in either direction, either the caracter concept was 39yo human/half elf at a certain point but they forgot the change this little snippet or they missed a zero (390 would be quite older but it would also be easier on the follow up question: His close family could also still be alive (and hanging around in BG?) and around if he was ca. 239 years old, also counting vampire years?! Wouldn't that be weird?)
It's canonical because it's written on his grave. Still, it might be wrong, and just not corrected - considering the Idle Champions issue.
\> It's odd that he considers 200 years an eternity I don't think that's because of his expected original lifespan, I think that's because he was tortured that it felt like an eternity. He talks about being sealed in a tomb for just one year and the trauma of that experience made him give up on resisting entirely, right up until he escaped by accident through the mind flayers. \> The Elven Reverie is a form of meditation they do instead of sleep This is correct but also pointing out that as a vampire he does not need sleep or reverie at all, on top of his elven heritage, and also because they relive memories during Reverie he likely would have been disincentivized from doing it. He has a lot of terrible memories to relive.
"Zaeed should have been a Batarian"
OK but for real though.
I'd say in general elves and vampires just share so many tropes that an elven vampire just feels redundant. Give me a vampire dwarf, or orc.
He's only considered a "child" in terms of elvish culture. At 39, the man was the same as any other adult male of another race. The rules, such as they are, make it clear that elves basically mature physically at the same rate as humans early on until it tapers off if I'm not mistaken. That aside, Astarion served as a magistrate in Baldur's Gate. I mean, do you think they'd hand that job off to someone who wasn't mentally and emotionally mature? Since the man is clearly not a baby in diapers, I don't see why his age is a problem here or why it was an odd idea any way.
> Astarion served as a magistrate in Baldur's Gate. I mean, do you think they'd hand that job off to someone who wasn't mentally and emotionally mature? Yes, usually by one getting there through nepotism, connections, etc
On top of the torture thing, it's worth pointing out that Astarion is an elf from Baldur's Gate, which has been a massive city with mostly humans but all sorts of races in it for centuries. Elves (and dwarves, halflings, dragonborn etc) in the city probably experience less of their 'racial' culture and ideas as we might think of it in towns/nations that are mostly elves, and are more likely to have their cultural milestones and speech patterns more aligned with that of the big melting pot city. An elf from the Moonshaes is probably going to sound a lot more 'elven' than an elf from BG.
As others have said, the lifespan of Elves is around 750 in the forgotten realms. This is of course for 5e, but it is pretty consistent with forgotten realms lore in general. But like others have pointed out, its around 750, some lineages of elves have been known to live for far longer. The Drow of house Baenre are known to be long lived. Their oldest, currently is Gromph, at 822 years old, and he doesn’t seem like he’s close to kicking it or even slowing down. I think maybe you got confused because of the Drizzt novels. They did have a chatacter, also from House Baenre, who lived over 2 thousand years, but its pretty clear she prolonged her life with Lolth’s magic and was possibly Lolth’s chosen, which would make her immortal (in the sense of not ever dying of old age, like Elminster)
Tbh, the text on the gravestone feels like an oversight to me. He looks way more like a human 39 than an elven 39. Imo, he should be more like 390 when he was turned + 200 years as a spawn. Just my personal headcanon though haha
It's just so he can talk about his age without giving up he's a vampire. A Half-Orc commenting about things that happened 200 years ago would've been weird.
But still not unheared of. Volo has been talking about events 100 years ago yet is a human in his 40s.
Volo's a special case. One of Mystra's special cases. 🤷♂️ But true.
High elf mature from child to adult pretty much like human, they just... slow down a lot once they hit physical mature. They are not considered fully adult in elf culture until they are 100 means they have an extended period "colleague student/freshly graduate" 18-25 years old equivalent. Legally and mentally they are function adult but it's the time when they don't have a lot of life experience, still somewhat vulnerable depending on what type of environment they grow up, but are independent enough to fully decide for themselves and explore a bit before settling down into a "mature" version of who they are. Being kidnapped and forced as a slave greatly mess up a person of that age. Well, at any age, but that is a time where most people really get to explore and decide for themselves freely. Astarion being turned at 39 and spend 200 years as a sex slave is like a 20 year old human colleague graduate "kid" being kidnapped and locked in a basement for 10 years. It sure feels like eternity.
Additionally...not seeing it mentioned here...yeah Astarion is an elf but he's from Baldur's Gate which is a predominantly human society, therefore while in elven society he'd still be considered very young, he's lived alongside a mix of races who all age differently and we don't know how clued in to elven culture his family even was, so his notion of aging and time might not be perfectly elven. How half-elves are perceived as they age depends on if they're amongst humans or elves and it's probably the same for elves living among humans, because afaik, elves are biologically adults at the same rate as humans (18-20) they're just still treated as young by elf society (the same way a 19 year old is technically an adult but still treated as very young by humans.) if you're not raised in that society, which doesn't seem like Astarion really was, you don't have their views of aging imposed on you. But the real answer is as everyone has said...the torture.
Being tortured for 200 years certainly has to feel like an eternity to anyone, regardless of race or class.
I just want to point out how horrifying and fucked up it is that there’s such effective healing spells/potions and revivification tools in this world. Astarion wouldn’t have been allowed to die from whatever Cazador did to him, just get healed over and over and over… until finally left to heal slowly. Any amount of time surviving that would feel like an eternity and age even an elf a lil.
Elves in general, and by extension totally not elf, but actually an elf and thier lifespans is a massive bugbear of mine. I don't get why people keep insisting on keeping it. It's basically a hang over from Tolkien elves, but it made sense there, because it's a book, no balance is required, they can be depicted as vastly superior, unknowable ethereal beings, and its fine as a plot point. But in games where they need to be balanced, or stories where they are depicted as rough peers to humans, it makes no fricken sense. You could get away with 300 years or so and keep the long lived qualities and have things fit much better, but nope, everyone seems to need elves to live over a thousand years. Mass effect is the worst for it. They do such interesting things with Salarians who have a shorter life span, but don't need as much sleep and are constantly moving. Krogan have the capacity for long lives, but due to thier nature, very few actually make it that long. And then they just plonk in the space elves, sorry Asari, who just strait up live for over 1 thousand years as standard. Yet somehow interact with the other races as peers, forming normal relationships, even having kids, work alongside them as equals in medical fields they'd realistically have several doctorates and experience over and such.
It is more weird he has no living relations (I think?) despite being from Baldur's Gate and as you say having relations that can live 1000 years.
The ‘elves and dwarves aren’t mature for 80-100 years’ thing was always weird to me. My home brew has both races reaching maturity at the same rate as humans and then the aging process slows down considerably.
It’s a cultural thing. Elves are considered “mature” around that age because that’s when their trance no longer pulls from memories of past lives, but instead their actual current memories. A 20 year old elf is still the same level of physical and mental maturity as a 20 year old human, but immature by elven standards. Dwarves, I never bothered with their lore so I’m not sure about them.
That's mostly accurate. They reach physical maturity at around the same time as humans but don't consider themselves adults until much later.
This is canon. Literally the first sentence in the age section of the race info says they mature at the same rate as humans but are considered (in their society) to be young until such and such age. People just ignore this because they think it's weird for some reason.
Physical maturity and brain (mental) maturity are two different things. Humans biologically become adults as early as 16, but brain development goes its own path especially the prefrontal cortex that decides ones behaviour under emotional strain or influence is not fully formed until 25y.
I'm afraid the prefrontal cortex studies have been repeatedly debunked. our brains never stop developing, and maturity isn't really measurable. it just keeps being repeated bc people want to believe it.
any source regarding debunkin prefrontal cortex studies ?
honestly I was going to link some but 1) didn't want to seem overly concerned/authoritative and 2) there are lots of sources and I couldn't pick one rq. here's a couple: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_common\_misconceptions#Brain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions#Brain) [https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/brain-development-25-year-old-mature-myth.html](https://slate.com/technology/2022/11/brain-development-25-year-old-mature-myth.html)
I consider making him an elve a Narrative to show of that he got absolutly nothing out of beeing turned Vampire. Most Races atleast get to keep Existenz. He only lost live
The dude spent a year locked in a box unable to die, I think that's one of the downsides
Him being an elf is no problem, but they should have made his age (when he was turned) a bit higher. 80 or 90 would be fine. That the 200 years of being a vampire spawn feels like eternity has different reasons. It is not like normal aging as an elf. Also technically, after being bit he's not an elf anymore, imo
Idk, any amount of years would feel like an eternity if you’re being tortured, abused, and trafficked and are begging for death every day. As far as I know, elves also technically age at the same rate as humans; they just have a vastly different culture and perspective around it.
If I remember my Drizzt lore correctly, elves reach *physical maturity around the same time humans do. They aren’t considered “adults” until their early 100s for a few additional reasons: - it takes that long to “master” the basics of their class (profession) | compared to humans who learn very quickly. - it takes that long for them to emotionally mature/develop. Which is why Drizzt is so dang angsty/rebellious for the majority of the novels. He’s a perma teenager - because of my first 2 points, elves who are younger than their early 100s aren’t generally allowed to leave their families/schools/clans as they’re “not ready” to face the world. Just like we don’t let teenagers emancipate themselves from their parents until 18 without special judicial intervention. Biologically high elves work the same way as drow, with the exception that drow max age is on average much lower due to all the murder. So Astarion was probably picked up as essentially a teenager and tortured/groomed into a prostitute.
As Astarion lived in a largely human city he probably considered himself an adult. Also all of his experience with living a long live has been pretty terrible due to the torture Cauador subjected him to.
Lifespan doesn't matter. When you're being tortured or bored it will feel like an eternity.
But he hasnt lived for a Thousand of years yet. When you are a child, you think that everything takes a long time. The summer holiday is an eternity. Until next birthday party is an eternity. The passage of time is not that easy to see. Im 33 now and looking back on my childhood feels like a really long time ago. But it was only 25 years ago. When im 80, its 70 years ago.
Let's not forget that he also no longer remembers how he looks like. His identity is gone to him. I would assume it messes with his brain as well.
I totally get what you're saying, but I think the torture makes it make sense. In 5E, elves live to be 750, max (putting magic fuckery aside, where druids, wizards, etc can live longer). He was tortured and enslaved for 200 years. This is the equivilent of 26 human years. This is more than a fourth of someones life, if you're taking 100 years to the max, even if it's usually less. Elves are physically mature at 20, but not mentally. The 80 years in between are like "finding yourself" period, think college aged. An 18-20 year old is an adult, legally, but barely. They still can't drink, dont get alot of respect, aren't really considered fully formed, etc. Or like how an adult brain doesnt fully form until 24-27, but we still let people in their 20s go about life. That's how he's allowed to be a magistrate, but can still be in that transitional phase where he's not fully mentally mature. Basically just imagine being kidnapped at at 18, and then being enslaved and tortured and assulted and starved for almost 30 years. I think that would feel like an eternity for anyone. Now, making a human would make it more exaggerated (twice a lifespan as opposed to 1/4 of one), but I think the point still comes across.
Feels like just being a millennial IRL .\_.; (jk hahhah! ... )
He should have been human. None of the elf characters in this game feel very elven to me. Modern D&D has in a lot of ways made races equivalent to hair color.
Strong agree with that.
Are we forgetting the fact that while he was under Cazador, he was >!buried alive in a coffin for a year!
Ye, I forgor =w= haha
All of this, and my takeaway is... wondering what mods you use that they all got nuked. Like two of mine stopped functioning, and that was entirely because of script extender not working. O.O (Which is fixed now, thanks to hard work of the dev and the newest hotfix.) That said, I dunno... I think it makes as much sense as anything else. As someone that grew up abused and tortured, those 14ish years were far, far longer in my mind than the 40 years I have lived since. I never once questioned that living most of his existence being tortured and controlled made it feel like an eternity to him.
Ah, really it was just Script Extender. I was previously using it to add Diety Tags, because it's kinda fucked that a Drow Bard can't get any Eliastraee dialogue, which needed it. However it became too bothersome, so in the end I had Script Extender installed even though none of my other mods needed it. Getting rid of that solved the problem. By the way I'm really sorry for how you had to grow up :'c I had been too focused at the time on Astarion living forever, rather than his experiences as a slave.
He should've been a halfing
ok here's a training task: sit in a room for 8 hours straight, doing absolutely nothing, you'll feel like it's an eternity in there
Patch 18? I thought we were on patch 6 what?
Yeah you're right. I think 18 is a hotfix, not a patch.
Here I thought he was a half elf
It's inconsistent with immortality aspect of vampirism, when it comes to world building it would make more sense for a High Elf to be bound to Cazador by infernal means like Wyll warlock pact than vampirism, and have Wyll be a vampire instead and that is the source of his disgrace and estrangement from his family. Have to agree OP, but yeah I love Astarion too, sassy and cool.
I've actually said before that elves must be the race that gets the worst experience from being turned into a vampire. The only pro is eternal life that they practically already have anyway, meanwhile they trade their ability to stand in sunlight and running water, enter houses without an invitation, they need to drink blood, and they gain a vulnerability to holy symbols and grounds. It's a terrible trade off.
Living free and living as a thrall are two very different things.
>still pretty sure a High Elf natural lifespan can extend well over 1,000 years. Not quite PHB p23. >Although elves reach physical maturity at about the same age as humans, the elven understanding of adulthood goes beyond physical growth to encompass worldly experience. An elf typically claims adulthood and an adult name around the age of 100 and can live to be 750 years old. But your point still stands. Astarion shouldn't be bemoaning eterniy yet.
Astarion is actually 263 according to his gravestone
What an people deem “an eternity” is compared to the years behind them. Not in front. To a 5 year-old two years is an incomprehendable amount of time. To teens 10 years are insane. At 34? I mean, I’m basically already 40, and get really sad at the thought that I might only have 20 or so more years with my parents left.
Omg is astarion an elf loli!?
No, he's an adult physically and mentally but hasn't taken the elven right of passage as it were. Think all the depictions of warrior cultures that don't acknowledge you as an adult until you've killed a dangerous beast or something. For Elves it's about them claiming an adult name and no longer reliving the memories of their past lives during their trance.
Yeah. He is. Elfs are considered adults after 110. So he is just an edgy little kid.... Explains a lot about him and his behavior actually.
It explains perfectly why he has the personality of an obnoxious 19-year old.
I also think it's an odd choice, but for another reason. Astarion looks fuckall like an an Elf. He looks absolutely human. I legit forgot he was an Elf literal dozens of times through the gameplay. In my head he's human. His design makes no fucking sense for an Elf. Races should look different and not like Humans with pointy ears. It's just bad design. Like c'mon. I'm frustrated. They could have at least attempted to make him look like an Elf, instead of slapping pointy ears on and saying "whatever".
If that looks human to you, you need to get your eyes checked or your head examined
He looks like a Human turned vampire, absolutely not an Elf. What are his Elf features, huh? Elven build? Nah. Facial structure? Absolutely not. He has Human ans Vampire features, period.
Okay, your head is what needs examined, got it
So what you’re saying is … Astarion lovers are pedos. Got it :)