Application
Jan. 23rd, 2022 05:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
good_tastePLAYER NAME: Spider! Hello, I'm already here. This is an app for a second character.
CONTACT: plurk: PaleAntiquarian, discord: CellarSpider#9984, cellarspider
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Our fantastic friend and fellow player, Britt!
CHARACTER: Astarion
CANON: Baldur's Gate
CANON POINT: Several days into the events of Early Access, as of Patch 19. Astarion hadn't bitten anybody and hadn't been revealed as a vampire yet. The party was preparing to go to the goblin camp.
BACKGROUND: Astarion is a high elf and citizen of Baldur's Gate, from a noble family. He worked as a magistrate in the city government. One night, a group of men assaulted him over a ruling he'd made that day, viciously beating him and leaving him to die. He was found by the vampire patriarch Cazador Szarr, and offered the choice to be bitten and become one of his vampire spawn. Astarion accepted rather than face death. This brought him under Cazador's complete mental control.
Unable to resist the vampire's will, Astarion was kept as a slave for two hundred years, until one day he was stolen away by illithids. They placed one of their tadpole-like young in his skull, a process that usually ends with the host agonizingly transforming into a mind flayer within days. This fate was seemingly forestalled when the illithid's ship took an unscheduled detour through literal hell before crash-landing on the coast a few day's journey from Baldur's Gate, killing the mind flayer crew. This tossed Astarion out onto a bright sunny day, which should have burnt him to a crisp within seconds.
But for some reason, it didn't. Huh.
Now freed from Cazador's control for the first time in centuries, Astarion is absolutely focused on keeping things that way, and also finding some means to control the illithid tadpole. Preferably before it eats any of his brain. Astarion joins up with a group of fellow tadpole-infested misfits, each with their own secrets. Over the next few weeks, the group searches for a cure, and begins to learn about a mysterious deity called the Absolute, worshiped by a cult headed by fellow infected.
Over the course of their journey, Astarion's true nature is revealed to the others, he learns more about how the tadpole has changed the rules of his vampirism, and he gets the first warning that his master isn't going to let him go so easily. His ultimate goal: kill Cazador Szarr, and drink his blood to become a full vampire. Supremely powerful, feared, and, most importantly, free.
ABILITIES | POWERS: As a vampire spawn, Astarion would normally have all of the drawbacks of being a vampire, with none of the strengths. But thanks to the horrible alien brain parasite that wants him alive, he can walk in sunlight, and enter houses without permission. Cool! However, running water still burns like acid for some reason, he doesn't show up on reflective surfaces, and he needs to consume the blood of living creatures. It doesn't have to be the blood of sapients, but he very much prefers it. He also has a tendency to become giddy or drunk after, well, drinking blood.
As a high elf, Astarion is a bit more innately magical than the average denizen of Faerûn: He can decide each day which wizard's cantrip (basic spell, the list is available here.) he wants to cast, and can then do so at will. He can see in dim light as if it were day, and can't be magically forced to sleep. In fact, he doesn't sleep at all--the only rest he needs is about four hours of meditation per day.
Players can further choose Astarion sharpen his magical skills to become an Arcane Trickster, which sees him drawing from a wider pool of sneakier spells. He can only cast these a limited number of times per day. The full list is here.
The strange illithid tadpole in his skull can also provide further magical benefits: He can fight back against psychic intrusion. If he ever encounters another person who is marked by the Absolute, he can control them. And if he ever runs into another infected person, he can read their thoughts, but doing so opens him up to being read in return. It's also helping him be more sneaky: Twice a day, he can create an inky black patch of shadow, which no light can enter. While he can't see within it or into it, neither can anybody else.
PERSONALITY: Good lord but this man has a Personality, with a capital P. You'd think his backstory would all add up to an entirely serious and sad character, but you would be wrong. This man can be an utter, joyful disaster, albeit with some very, very sharp edges and sore spots.
First and foremost, Astarion hides what he is under a thick layer of flirty, foppish behavior. And it's not just an act, he really is just like that. However he will use it defensively to make himself seem less threatening, or to deflect people's interest from things he doesn't want to talk about. Like, say, 'why did you sneak off in the middle of the night?' or 'why is this corpse completely exanguinated?' Ideally, he'd rather most people see him as just a charming man with good hair.
Still, Astarion really is deeply traumatized by the two hundred years of abuse he was subjected to. He has triggers that can make him lash out at others, regardless of how supportive they might try to be. Or he'll sometimes fall back on fawning or placation to protect himself, especially around subjects that weren't safe for him under Cazador's control. It's difficult for him to approach these subjects. Still, he does seem to have an honest desire to be known and to connect with others.
His past leaves him with an obsessive desire to acquire enough power to ensure his freedom and one day kill Cazador. He's the only one out of the protagonists that initially doesn't want to remove his tadpole. If it's gone, he'll likely be forced back to being a tortured, starving puppet, never to see the sun again.
But! He's also sometimes given to impulsive decision-making, just for the fun of it. Don't tell anybody about the party's tadpole problem. But wait, no--tell the crazy old potion-seller everything. Help some goblins break into a druid grove, but killing their leaders is just as good, too! Indulge in your power! Cause a little random chaos! It'll be hilarious. It's unclear whether he's always been like this, if he became like this over the centuries, or it's his reaction to newfound freedom. In any case, he doesn't feel 'good' or 'evil' have anything to do with his behavior--good people never set him free, but the mind flayers did, in the course of carrying out their own desires. It's a hedonistic worldview, and he'll indulge accordingly.
While it's not technically a part of Astarion's personality, it's also worth briefly describing the behavior of the illithid tadpole. Because it is sapient to some extent or another, and its personality clashes with Astarion's in some notable ways. Illithids psychically control and consume other sapients, and they believe these acts are gifts to their victims. They are in fact dependent on controlling others. An adult illithid without thralls will often become depressed or otherwise unstable.
Thus, the tadpole sees Astarion's relationship to Cazador as something normal, possibly close to ideal. When it tries to reach out to him in his dreams, it takes Cazador's appearance. This is, understandably, intensely triggering for Astarion. Despite this, Astarion still uses its powers for his own benefit. He's used to bad deals like this, and he's going to wring all the use out of it that he can.
SAMPLE:
Where were you when it happened, people were fond of asking. What little shred of mundane life turned into a Historic Moment by sheer coincidence?
Honestly, he hadn't been paying attention when it happened. And when it started happening, all other thoughts were pushed aside in favor of Oh dear gods that's a giant tentacle. How. WHY. Oh shi--
And then a period of unconsciousness, followed by A mind flayer? How can my luck be this abysmal? What's it got in it's hand? Oh. No. No no nono--
And then more unconsciousness, slipping in and out of lucidity with a brief stopover at Where is this ship going? Where in the Hells--oh. Oh fuck I didn't literally mean it--Why is there a brain crawling around?!
And then unconsciousness took another bloody encore when the ship crashed and he was finally torn free of the horrible, moist pod he'd been trapped in, and he stumbled blindly through acrid smoke and into--
Sunlight.
And honestly, he was too stunned to even think that one through for a while.
He wasn't dead. He should be. It was the very definition of a beautiful sunny day. Instantly lethal. But he wasn't even singed. Either he was wildly hallucinating, or he was out in the sun.
Marveling over the impossibility of it all would have to wait. He had a horrible little parasite in his head. He was free--no time to enjoy that yet either, if this monstrosity had crashed anywhere near Baldur's Gate, Cazador would send someone after him. He'd always been useless with pathfinding, ranger nonsense, and he hadn't left the city in two centuries. That trip through the literal Hells could have taken them halfway around the world, or dropped them a few miles down the road.
And, just to make everything that much more delightful, he could hear shrieking from inside the wreck. No, wait--he couldn't hear anything. Something had bypassed his ears for the sole purpose of screaming like an furious chalkboard. Crouching low and moving up to a vantage point, he watched as two of those brain-creatures threw themselves at...
He'd seen that face. That one had been wandering free inside the ship, following the brain that had skittered past his pod. Relations had soured since then, apparently. But still--they'd been trusted. Probably a thrall. Mind flayers had thralls, didn't they?
The figure paused over the squashed bodies of the brain-creautres, catching their breath, looking up towards the hole in the side of the ship. They were going to head this way next.
Well then. That gave him an opportunity to capitalize on. He retreated once they looked away. They'd looked tired, but they were armed. There weren't any fantastic hiding spots to ambush them from, although... Those bushes could hide something smaller. Hypothetically. Like a brain with legs.
He drew his knife, falling into a ready stance, waiting until he saw his target come into view below him.
"Hey!" he yelled. "I need help!"
Not his best performance, but it would have to do. If he could just draw them in close enough and get their back turned, then the rest would be easy. He could interrogate them, find out what those horrid things had done to him. Then cut their throat.
Spilling a little blood sounded incredibly appealing...
INVENTORY:
- A short sword and dagger
- A crossbow, and [mumblemumble] bolts. The game doesn't track ammunition unless it's enchanted.
- A set of thief's tools--lockpicks, etc.
- A trap disarming kit
- Four health potions
- A well-made set of clothes that double as padded armor. Some of the gold embroidery is slowly unraveling. Pity him :(
- The Necromancy of Thay, a book set with a really spooky face on the cover, gripping a large amethyst in its teeth. He can't actually read it, though--the spirits in the book talk too loudly for him to concentrate. He can sense that whatever's in it is deliciously dark, though. The only known spell that can be read and learned from it (as far as the plot's gotten) is Speak With Dead, though Astarion hasn't gotten that far.
- ...does the tadpole count as being in his inventory? Does your skull count as a pocket?
NOTES: Starting with some vampire basics: By D&D canon, vampires are undead. While that may alter how events in the game affects Astarion, the tadpole in his skull is not undead, and it's already shown the capacity to defy what's conventionally possible.
Astarion needs blood. He can hunt on his own or sneak a nibble while somebody's asleep, but he'll starve unless he gets a fairly regular bite or two. He probably can't take an artificial substitute either: as he explains it, he needs the life essence that the blood represents. The blood of sapients is the best supplier of that. I do recall seeing that Kaneki's got some arrangements to solve his own similar requirements. I'd be happy to take advantage of the same, though he won't volunteer that information to the caravan NPCs. ...He's not super hiding it though, he has sharp teeth, red eyes, and the bite scars on his neck peek out from under his collar sometimes. He mostly skates by on the fact that the sun isn't a problem for him.god he's such a beautiful moron sometimes
Also, as mentioned before, he can't touch running water without suffering burns. If we end up in some place where fording a river is required, he needs some way to avoid touching the water.
One more thing about the tadpole--Astarion doesn't know it yet, but the tadpole has been magically altered to produce its strange powers, and to resist removal from the host. Surgery? Failure. Powerful fey magic? Failure. Deal with a devil? He doesn't call in the contract yet, indicating he's got no idea what the literal hell he's supposed to do to hold up his end of the bargain. While normally death of the host would cause a tadpole to flee the corpse, player characters can die and be resurrected within the course of gameplay, and they remain infected.
IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot-heavy could be fun! I'm sure the spooky book has some potential here.
CONTACT: plurk: PaleAntiquarian, discord: CellarSpider#9984, cellarspider
HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THE GAME?: Our fantastic friend and fellow player, Britt!
CHARACTER: Astarion
CANON: Baldur's Gate
CANON POINT: Several days into the events of Early Access, as of Patch 19. Astarion hadn't bitten anybody and hadn't been revealed as a vampire yet. The party was preparing to go to the goblin camp.
BACKGROUND: Astarion is a high elf and citizen of Baldur's Gate, from a noble family. He worked as a magistrate in the city government. One night, a group of men assaulted him over a ruling he'd made that day, viciously beating him and leaving him to die. He was found by the vampire patriarch Cazador Szarr, and offered the choice to be bitten and become one of his vampire spawn. Astarion accepted rather than face death. This brought him under Cazador's complete mental control.
Unable to resist the vampire's will, Astarion was kept as a slave for two hundred years, until one day he was stolen away by illithids. They placed one of their tadpole-like young in his skull, a process that usually ends with the host agonizingly transforming into a mind flayer within days. This fate was seemingly forestalled when the illithid's ship took an unscheduled detour through literal hell before crash-landing on the coast a few day's journey from Baldur's Gate, killing the mind flayer crew. This tossed Astarion out onto a bright sunny day, which should have burnt him to a crisp within seconds.
But for some reason, it didn't. Huh.
Now freed from Cazador's control for the first time in centuries, Astarion is absolutely focused on keeping things that way, and also finding some means to control the illithid tadpole. Preferably before it eats any of his brain. Astarion joins up with a group of fellow tadpole-infested misfits, each with their own secrets. Over the next few weeks, the group searches for a cure, and begins to learn about a mysterious deity called the Absolute, worshiped by a cult headed by fellow infected.
Over the course of their journey, Astarion's true nature is revealed to the others, he learns more about how the tadpole has changed the rules of his vampirism, and he gets the first warning that his master isn't going to let him go so easily. His ultimate goal: kill Cazador Szarr, and drink his blood to become a full vampire. Supremely powerful, feared, and, most importantly, free.
ABILITIES | POWERS: As a vampire spawn, Astarion would normally have all of the drawbacks of being a vampire, with none of the strengths. But thanks to the horrible alien brain parasite that wants him alive, he can walk in sunlight, and enter houses without permission. Cool! However, running water still burns like acid for some reason, he doesn't show up on reflective surfaces, and he needs to consume the blood of living creatures. It doesn't have to be the blood of sapients, but he very much prefers it. He also has a tendency to become giddy or drunk after, well, drinking blood.
As a high elf, Astarion is a bit more innately magical than the average denizen of Faerûn: He can decide each day which wizard's cantrip (basic spell, the list is available here.) he wants to cast, and can then do so at will. He can see in dim light as if it were day, and can't be magically forced to sleep. In fact, he doesn't sleep at all--the only rest he needs is about four hours of meditation per day.
Players can further choose Astarion sharpen his magical skills to become an Arcane Trickster, which sees him drawing from a wider pool of sneakier spells. He can only cast these a limited number of times per day. The full list is here.
The strange illithid tadpole in his skull can also provide further magical benefits: He can fight back against psychic intrusion. If he ever encounters another person who is marked by the Absolute, he can control them. And if he ever runs into another infected person, he can read their thoughts, but doing so opens him up to being read in return. It's also helping him be more sneaky: Twice a day, he can create an inky black patch of shadow, which no light can enter. While he can't see within it or into it, neither can anybody else.
PERSONALITY: Good lord but this man has a Personality, with a capital P. You'd think his backstory would all add up to an entirely serious and sad character, but you would be wrong. This man can be an utter, joyful disaster, albeit with some very, very sharp edges and sore spots.
First and foremost, Astarion hides what he is under a thick layer of flirty, foppish behavior. And it's not just an act, he really is just like that. However he will use it defensively to make himself seem less threatening, or to deflect people's interest from things he doesn't want to talk about. Like, say, 'why did you sneak off in the middle of the night?' or 'why is this corpse completely exanguinated?' Ideally, he'd rather most people see him as just a charming man with good hair.
Still, Astarion really is deeply traumatized by the two hundred years of abuse he was subjected to. He has triggers that can make him lash out at others, regardless of how supportive they might try to be. Or he'll sometimes fall back on fawning or placation to protect himself, especially around subjects that weren't safe for him under Cazador's control. It's difficult for him to approach these subjects. Still, he does seem to have an honest desire to be known and to connect with others.
His past leaves him with an obsessive desire to acquire enough power to ensure his freedom and one day kill Cazador. He's the only one out of the protagonists that initially doesn't want to remove his tadpole. If it's gone, he'll likely be forced back to being a tortured, starving puppet, never to see the sun again.
But! He's also sometimes given to impulsive decision-making, just for the fun of it. Don't tell anybody about the party's tadpole problem. But wait, no--tell the crazy old potion-seller everything. Help some goblins break into a druid grove, but killing their leaders is just as good, too! Indulge in your power! Cause a little random chaos! It'll be hilarious. It's unclear whether he's always been like this, if he became like this over the centuries, or it's his reaction to newfound freedom. In any case, he doesn't feel 'good' or 'evil' have anything to do with his behavior--good people never set him free, but the mind flayers did, in the course of carrying out their own desires. It's a hedonistic worldview, and he'll indulge accordingly.
While it's not technically a part of Astarion's personality, it's also worth briefly describing the behavior of the illithid tadpole. Because it is sapient to some extent or another, and its personality clashes with Astarion's in some notable ways. Illithids psychically control and consume other sapients, and they believe these acts are gifts to their victims. They are in fact dependent on controlling others. An adult illithid without thralls will often become depressed or otherwise unstable.
Thus, the tadpole sees Astarion's relationship to Cazador as something normal, possibly close to ideal. When it tries to reach out to him in his dreams, it takes Cazador's appearance. This is, understandably, intensely triggering for Astarion. Despite this, Astarion still uses its powers for his own benefit. He's used to bad deals like this, and he's going to wring all the use out of it that he can.
SAMPLE:
Where were you when it happened, people were fond of asking. What little shred of mundane life turned into a Historic Moment by sheer coincidence?
Honestly, he hadn't been paying attention when it happened. And when it started happening, all other thoughts were pushed aside in favor of Oh dear gods that's a giant tentacle. How. WHY. Oh shi--
And then a period of unconsciousness, followed by A mind flayer? How can my luck be this abysmal? What's it got in it's hand? Oh. No. No no nono--
And then more unconsciousness, slipping in and out of lucidity with a brief stopover at Where is this ship going? Where in the Hells--oh. Oh fuck I didn't literally mean it--Why is there a brain crawling around?!
And then unconsciousness took another bloody encore when the ship crashed and he was finally torn free of the horrible, moist pod he'd been trapped in, and he stumbled blindly through acrid smoke and into--
Sunlight.
And honestly, he was too stunned to even think that one through for a while.
He wasn't dead. He should be. It was the very definition of a beautiful sunny day. Instantly lethal. But he wasn't even singed. Either he was wildly hallucinating, or he was out in the sun.
Marveling over the impossibility of it all would have to wait. He had a horrible little parasite in his head. He was free--no time to enjoy that yet either, if this monstrosity had crashed anywhere near Baldur's Gate, Cazador would send someone after him. He'd always been useless with pathfinding, ranger nonsense, and he hadn't left the city in two centuries. That trip through the literal Hells could have taken them halfway around the world, or dropped them a few miles down the road.
And, just to make everything that much more delightful, he could hear shrieking from inside the wreck. No, wait--he couldn't hear anything. Something had bypassed his ears for the sole purpose of screaming like an furious chalkboard. Crouching low and moving up to a vantage point, he watched as two of those brain-creatures threw themselves at...
He'd seen that face. That one had been wandering free inside the ship, following the brain that had skittered past his pod. Relations had soured since then, apparently. But still--they'd been trusted. Probably a thrall. Mind flayers had thralls, didn't they?
The figure paused over the squashed bodies of the brain-creautres, catching their breath, looking up towards the hole in the side of the ship. They were going to head this way next.
Well then. That gave him an opportunity to capitalize on. He retreated once they looked away. They'd looked tired, but they were armed. There weren't any fantastic hiding spots to ambush them from, although... Those bushes could hide something smaller. Hypothetically. Like a brain with legs.
He drew his knife, falling into a ready stance, waiting until he saw his target come into view below him.
"Hey!" he yelled. "I need help!"
Not his best performance, but it would have to do. If he could just draw them in close enough and get their back turned, then the rest would be easy. He could interrogate them, find out what those horrid things had done to him. Then cut their throat.
Spilling a little blood sounded incredibly appealing...
INVENTORY:
- A short sword and dagger
- A crossbow, and [mumblemumble] bolts. The game doesn't track ammunition unless it's enchanted.
- A set of thief's tools--lockpicks, etc.
- A trap disarming kit
- Four health potions
- A well-made set of clothes that double as padded armor. Some of the gold embroidery is slowly unraveling. Pity him :(
- The Necromancy of Thay, a book set with a really spooky face on the cover, gripping a large amethyst in its teeth. He can't actually read it, though--the spirits in the book talk too loudly for him to concentrate. He can sense that whatever's in it is deliciously dark, though. The only known spell that can be read and learned from it (as far as the plot's gotten) is Speak With Dead, though Astarion hasn't gotten that far.
- ...does the tadpole count as being in his inventory? Does your skull count as a pocket?
NOTES: Starting with some vampire basics: By D&D canon, vampires are undead. While that may alter how events in the game affects Astarion, the tadpole in his skull is not undead, and it's already shown the capacity to defy what's conventionally possible.
Astarion needs blood. He can hunt on his own or sneak a nibble while somebody's asleep, but he'll starve unless he gets a fairly regular bite or two. He probably can't take an artificial substitute either: as he explains it, he needs the life essence that the blood represents. The blood of sapients is the best supplier of that. I do recall seeing that Kaneki's got some arrangements to solve his own similar requirements. I'd be happy to take advantage of the same, though he won't volunteer that information to the caravan NPCs. ...He's not super hiding it though, he has sharp teeth, red eyes, and the bite scars on his neck peek out from under his collar sometimes. He mostly skates by on the fact that the sun isn't a problem for him.
Also, as mentioned before, he can't touch running water without suffering burns. If we end up in some place where fording a river is required, he needs some way to avoid touching the water.
One more thing about the tadpole--Astarion doesn't know it yet, but the tadpole has been magically altered to produce its strange powers, and to resist removal from the host. Surgery? Failure. Powerful fey magic? Failure. Deal with a devil? He doesn't call in the contract yet, indicating he's got no idea what the literal hell he's supposed to do to hold up his end of the bargain. While normally death of the host would cause a tadpole to flee the corpse, player characters can die and be resurrected within the course of gameplay, and they remain infected.
IF ACCEPTED, WOULD YOU WANT A PLOT-LIGHT OR PLOT-HEAVY CUSTOM INTRO? Plot-heavy could be fun! I'm sure the spooky book has some potential here.
