Recently got asked how I draw astarion's hair so I made a quick guide.
Break it down into pieces: the little forehead curl, the big swoop, the pieces in front of the ears, and the back part to fill it all out. It doesn't need to look exact. Just vibe it.
As an end of year present (and because I won't be able to bring u anything new until next week), have that one comic I posted for the VIPs a while back
Inner: AMPLIFY + HIM + FLOW + EMPOWR [sic]
Middle: WE OFFER THE FORCE OF LIFE
Outer: WE GATHER HERE TO INVOKE THE POWER OF BLOD [sic]
Mephistopheles can't spell for beans.
(Detailed analysis & conjecture regarding this text, the Rite of Profane Ascension, & Astarion's translated scars under the cut.)
The second ring was the easiest, as the characters are very similar to Latin letters and clearly read out "WE OFFER THE FORCE OF LIFE." Characters were now known for C, E, F, H, I, L, O, R, T, and W. It wasn't clear yet if there were cases.
I was struggling with the first ring, though after decoding the second, I could get a likely "_M_LIF_ + _IM + _LOW + EM_OWR". Guessing the character for P, Y, and A based on context gave me "AMPLIFY + _IM + _LOW + EMPOWR", but I had doubts over the first characters for words two and three. I suspected they would be HIM and FLOW, but the H and F characters didn't match the H from the second ring's "THE" or the F from "AMPLIFY". Also, "empower" was misspelled, which made me pause.
Abandoning those for a moment, the third ring mapped well onto "WE _ATHER HERE TO I__O_E THE _OWER OF _LO_". Ruling out known letters which were not present, I could guess "WE GATHER HERE TO I__O_E THE POWER OF _LO_", but again the P from "POWER" was not the same as the P from "AMPLIFY" in the inner ring. However, it was very, very similar, and nothing else fit, so I committed, now suspecting there were capital versions of some letters included in the text.
At this point I went digging for resources. I found a copy of an Infernal alphabet on the Forgotten Realms wiki, and while it looks like the typeface Larian used is a bespoke creation for the game rather than a 1:1 copy of this alphabet, the letters for lowercase G, N, K, B, and D were nearly identical. Y (from AMPLIFY) also matched perfectly, confirming that earlier guess. This gave a clear "WE GATHER HERE TO INVOKE THE POWER OF BLOD."
This resulted in:
AMPLIFY + _IM + _LOW + EMPOWR
WE OFFER THE FORCE OF LIFE
WE GATHER HERE TO INVOKE THE POWER OF BLOD
Looking at the wiki for capital letters, the only ones I could find which might reasonably fit the _IM missing character (assuming the Larian alphabet was based off this wiki typography) were A, B, H, O, T, V, and Y. Of those choices, only AIM, HIM, TIM, and VIM were words, and as cheesy as Cazador is, I couldn't imagine him saying AMPLIFY TIM FLOW EMPOWR. Given the alternatives, HIM was the only choice which made sense.
I went through the same process for _LOW, but this character seems unmatchable to me. By far it looks the most like the E from the Infernal alphabet, with maybe a capital Y being a distant second. However, ELOW and YLOW are certainly not words, and absent all other comparatives, the character in question does resemble a fancy F. Barring other languages, FLOW with a capital or unique F fits best.
AMPLIFY + HIM + FLOW + EMPOWR
WE OFFER THE FORCE OF LIFE
WE GATHER HERE TO INVOKE THE POWER OF BLOD
I did double-check the texts available in Cazador's mansion just to make sure this hadn't been translated elsewhere (after I'd done all the work, of course), and the only written text of relevance is from the Black Mass scroll you find near Vellioth's skull. It reads:
The Rite of Profane Ascension
Oh, piteous dead! Oh, ravenous dead!
Immortality is your gift, but darkness is your prison and hunger its gaoler.
The Rite of Profane Ascension will release you. Walk in the sun. Suffer not from hunger. Grow your power beyond anything you imagined.
A pact has been made with the Lord of Hellfire. Deliver unto him seven thousand souls, each bearing an Infernal mark, and you shall be free of your chains. You shall know true power.
Deliver the souls.
Speak the words.
Ecce dominus,
Has animas offero in sacrificio,
Nunc volo potestatem quam pollicitus es mihi.
The Latin translates (as best I can tell with my incredibly weak Latin) to:
Behold [the] Lord,
I offer these souls in sacrifice,
I want the power thou hast promised me.
Which is interesting, but not clearly mapped to the Infernal above. Then I started wondering what relationship Astarion's scars have with all this, but thankfully, someone else has done the work here!
Astarion's scars have been transcribed and translated in a wonderfully detailed Reddit post by northpaw_s in 2020, but the salient points are that they appear to be in a mishmash of mangled Latin and Romance languages ("Infernal") and read:
Hoyc inferiu non iurare per igneu
Naec virba loquor
Eoai mundo muoat
Which appears to roughly translate to:
This soul swears no oath by fire
Nor words does he speak
In the realm of death
This makes sense if it's a fragment of a contract. I suspect the other spawn's scars are all identical to Astarion's for game mechanics/development reasons, but it'd be wild if they did have minor differences to complete the rest of the phrases! I know the scars don't show on their backs they way they do on Astarion's outside of the moment of the ritual, but it really does make me wonder if there's a complete text of the poem in some writer's documentation somewhere.
Some notes and dialogues from the area before meeting Sebastian and Cazador (from the datamined dialogue).
You can find the previous posts here
ROOMS
The comment Astarion makes when he enters the bedrooms has guests written as "guests". Given he says our I suppose this was specifically for the victims he took.
Regarding the Chamberlain, we know that his partner killed herself after finding him poisoned (he poisoned himself but should still be alive, in theory). The dialogue files have a dialogue/narration for the lover who was actually a werewolf:
She drank the potion that seemingly (probably) stopped the Chamberlain's vital functions.
BALLROOM
First of all... if you speak with the dead you find out a bit about the party in the ballroom, and apparently Cazador really was obsessed with physical beauty.
CELLS
There is no particularly interesting note in the meeting with the Gur children, but I thought it was interesting that they can comment on how cold they are. I thought vampires and spawns felt no cold, but apparently, they do. Another interesting dialogue I think was cut from the game or at least I did not hear it, but one of the prisoners in the cells say:
The note says "as if about to get beaten" which implies that Cazador visited his spawns in the cells now and then, at least to torture them.
Near the cell you can also check the rules, and the list of names for all the prisoners. Ascended Astarion actually "smugly" thanks all the victims who died for him to ascend:
CAZADOR
Some bits that i found interesting in Cazador's fight or generally about Cazador... one is the fact that a servant will comment on Cazador having rages, and if you remember that is also what Cazador says of Astarion, to mock him (asking the player if he had ever seen Astarion's fits of rage).
While Syrin here is talking about Astarion, I do not think they are referring to the knowledge that Astarion has fits of rages, but that Cazador had (otherwise they would say something like "will he still have rages").
Another small note about Cazador, to get a feeling of what he thinks of Astarion:
(also the note to "I will ascend" says that Cazador leans forward and whispers it in Astarion's ear, which we do not scene in the scene but would have been quite cool).
In the Astarion playthrough, he can ask Cazador to beg to not be killed. And the note says that Cazador really does not believe that Astarion will kill him. That is probably why he seemed to calm.... he really though Astarion would not harm him:
If you pass the intimidation, there is a line with the note "Cazador is starting to doubt", and then Cazador will actually beg by trying to convince Astarion that he saved him, he gave him eternal life.
In another option in the dialogue we also have Cazador complaining about Astarion's prattle and his voice, saying that that is the reason why the other spawns hate him:
I talked about some of the other stuff before, but here some more interesting things listed:
in the game Yousen is bugged, but in the files he actually says that he has been one of Cazador's spawns for 60 years (you can talk to the spawns if you kill Cazador without Astarion and each has a dialogue, you can see it here)
Cazador will tell Astarion to straighten up ("do not slouch before me, boy") and the devnotes say that Astarion does it
In the Astarion game, if you do not intimidate Petras after killing Cazador he will actually threaten Astarion
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