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Baldur’s Gate 3has done a powerful job of propellingDungeons & Dragonsto a new phase of public consciousness. New and returning players coming out of Baldur’s Gate may wish to see a continuation of the characters' adventures and write new stories beyond the end of the game.
Astarion is one such character, with a strong albeit polarising presence in the game’s fandom. The broody vampire managed to capture and break many hearts among the fanbase and people who played as him may also enjoy including him as a legacy character present in tabletop campaigns, the same way a former PC might be used.
Flexible Canon Or Specific Version
Due to the nature of Astarion as both a playable character in the game and a NPC that players are able to strongly influence through dialogue, there are multiple ways his story can end in Baldur’s Gate and this will determine what role an NPC version might take.
The version of Astarion found in a player’s epilogue may be an ascended vampire with an army of thrallsora rogue mindflayer who instigated a Githyanki civil war.There are a few ways of approaching this flexibility:
Solution
Consequences
Events from his backstory are treated as canon butthe events of Baldur’s Gate 3 have not happened.
This gives you a very specific and stable version of the character to create stories out of, but also one that the players familiar with him will know the least about.Astarion prior to the game was a thrall with very limited agency and this means he will be a very different character to the version most people traveled with.
A specific version of the plot of Baldur’s Gate 3 happened.
As a DM you will need to make the authoritative decision that one ending is canon within your game. You might negotiate this with your players by discussing what decisions people made at key points of the story (whether he embraced mindflayer transformation for example).
A vague version of the plot to Baldur’s Gate 3 happened, butno specific details are mentioned.
This allows some degree of the best of both worldsbut still requires you to make certain decisions(whether he is a mindflayer or ascendant vampire being the big two as these cannot be easily concealed). This approach also allows you toavoid spoiling events of the game to your players, by not making specific references to the events of the game.
In all three cases the information the DM holds as canon may not be publicly known to the extent that unrelated adventurers (such as the player characters) know the full details.
What Role Should An NPC Astarion Play?
Astarion’s role as a non-good character in Baldur’s Gate, along with the potential to nudge him closer towards evil or good mean that different versions of his character can play very different roles in a tabletop game. This gives you options as to what role you want him to play:
Role
Antagonist
An ascended vampire with thousands of thralls is a threat able to change the fate of the Forgotten Realms. Such as character could easily take on therole of a campaign’s main antagonist.
Quest giver
A good way of including favourite characters without letting them steal too much spotlight from the players is to have them as quest givers. An Astarion after the events of BG3 may be searching for analternate cure to his sunlight sensitivityoreven his vampirism.
Mentor
Retired player characters are well suited to becoming mentors to a following generation of adventurers. Choose an area that it makes sense for Astarion to be a mentor in, such asthievery, vampire lore,orillithid psionics.
A mentor does not need to be specifically training one of the PCs but may just be an expert the PCs have on hand, similar to the contacts provided by backstories such ascriminalandcourtier.
DMPC or supporting party member
DMPCs refer to PCs controlled by the dungeon master. They can be difficult to pull off well since the DM is playing both parts of the character and the world responding to them, drawing away the spotlight from the players.
DMPCs work best in asmall partywhere there are some skills the party does not have but needs somebody to do, such ashealingorcrafting. An Astarion DMPC might handleintrigue related skill checksin a partylacking a rogueorbardthat is able to handle the task.
What Level Should an NPC Astarion be?
There are several considerations to make when constructing the statblock for an NPC based on a former PC.
A general adage among Dungeon Masters isto not give character levels to anything you aren’t willing to let your players kill.
NPCs not intended for the players to fight against or alongside are often not given full statblocks for this reason, even if they canonically would be able to fight: A DM might note their modifiers for several important skills they have, or a few spells they would have prepared but not give them a definitive statblock.
For Astarion, those relevant skills could be related to his backstory prior to the game or to the class the DM gave him while playing.
The Digital Deluxe version of the game comes with prebuilt character sheets of each of the origin characters at level one.These can be used to help make certain decisions about how they may function as NPCs.
Astarionisproficient in deception, history, acrobatics, perception,andpersuasionwhile being havingexpertise in sleight of handandstealth. These skills translate well into a Mentor or Quest giver NPC but doesn’t work well if you plan to use him as an antagonist, when the characters will eventually have to fight him.
As an antagonist or other NPC that will appear regularly in combat, you will want to create a more traditional statblock. As an antagonist you’re able to give him a greater number of vampiric powers that would have been unbalanced to give to a level one PC in the video game, along with their associated weaknesses.
While perhaps not on the same level as Strahd Von Zarovich,other vampire stat sheets can give a good indication of what powers a powerful vampire would have access to:
Some groups may want a higher level ally or mentor to be closely involved in the adventure, but others will prefer otherwise.
The extent to whichhigh level NPCs are interactingwith the world around the playersis an important topicto bring up in asession zero:Some players willfear it undermines the narrative stakes of failureordefeat if high level NPCs are closely following the party.
