#dalyria

[raoneven]

Astarion and his siblings 🩸🖤

[toon-topaz]

Victoria and her strange family

[wellen-katze]

A fun show - bg3 Astarion comic

I really love drawing Astarion and Petras fighting. I imagine Petras making constantly stupid decisions and Astarion getting more and more pissed by it haha

I hope you enjoyed!

[meanbossart]

What is your take on Astarion's relationship with his siblings?

I have put unreasonable amounts of time into thinking about what the dynamics were like during Cazador's reign in that house. I mean, imagine sharing the same tasks, bedrooms, and general experiences of abuse and duress with the same people FOR TWO HUNDRED YEARS. That's absolute madness. If any of you have had experiences with co-living with family under stress for any extensive amount of time, you know very well the levels of emotional 4D chess-ing that tend to take place as a result. You end up distributing so much frustration and anger around and often onto the very same people you will ultimately seek comfort from - this is that situation but blown up to impossible proportions.

So, "strained" doesn't really do justice as a descriptor here. I believe the family had a dynamic, ever-evolving hierarchy within itself, years-worthy of time where the spawn shifted alliances and made "cliques" within themselves - rebels would evolve into pushovers and trusted friends would turn into snitches. You had endless amounts of drama within the group and flies on the walls would witness them cut each other's heads off one day and sob into one another's laps the next.

Naturally I think all of them were resistant to the concept of being a "family" at first, but it's pretty much impossible to not develop family-like ties throughout that long of a period. Following Cazador's death, I believe there would be further splintering within as some want to maintain said ties and others are eager to cut them - seeing both their siblings and the relationships themselves as yet another painful reminder of what Cazador imposed upon them.

I think Astarion falls into the latter category. If he had his way, he would never see, speak, or think of his brothers and sisters again. And while the sibling nomenclature is a deeply-rooted habit, he doesn't think it holds any legitimacy whatsoever (whether or not that's the case in his heart is another matter).

Dalyria (the moon-elf physician, whom I have come up with a story, personality, background and motivations during several long showers that might not necessarily line up with yours, so, if anything of what I'm about to say seems pulled out of a hat, it's because it was) is the opposite. She has grown attached to the constant presence of her siblings and taken a mother-goose role upon herself. With the Exception of Leonard and Violet (more on that later) she has decided they are her responsibility and wishes the group would stick together.

I like to think that there's a lot of history between those two in particular. Obviously, the interactions between Astarion and his siblings are very brief, but It's enough to run with. Dalyria shows a lot of concern and understanding towards him and even pleads when he threatens Petras' life - again, I think she did a lot of trying to pragmatically keep the peace among them and genuinely grew attached to a few - Astarion being the main one of said few. You even get the smallest hint of a on-and-off intimate relationship with the way he derisively calls her by her nickname.

Also, Astarion very occasionally showcases enough emotional maturity that I could see him latching onto the one other person around who seems to have her wits about her, but he's still flawed enough that Dalyria can think of him as a younger sibling that needs her care. Not to mention that, to me, she demonstrates a penchant for moral superiority and a dash of a machiavellian outlook, based on her diary and her completely unapologetic initiative to kill a child on the small chance it would lead her to a cure - not any child either, but Leonard's child. I can totally see Astarion sympathizing and gravitating towards someone like that.

Which brings us to the rest of the siblings - I would wager that, at least by the end of it all, Leonard and Violet were the odd-ones out. As it tends to happen within any tight-knit group, when one succeeds by stepping over the others (even if the reasons for it are justifiable) that brews a lot of resentment and eventual exclusion. Leonard not only did that, but he apparently still held onto hope of future and family outside the Szarr house; wheter or not everybody wanted out, I think a us-versus-them mentality is unavoidable under those circumstances, and Leonard was looked down upon by the others in their respective ways for what he was trying to do.

Violet just seems like she had gone a little cuckoo to me. We get very little about her, but when I think of an adult woman playing childish pranks on her roomates while you are all stuck in what's essentially a human trafficking ring... I think of a person who's either just a very silly breed of evil or who has lost touch with reality, and the latter is more interesting, imo. I think no one liked her, not only because she was a nuisance but also because she became completely emotionally untouchable. I think both Violet and Leonard are spawn who did not survive long after they were all freed.

I'll stop here before I ramble on for another 8 paragraphs about Aurelia, Yousen and Petras (Oh Petras, my beloved), but, yes, suffice to say that I believe it was kind of complicated LOL

EDIT: Not me calling Leon "Leonard" this whole post. Sorry buddy, you look like a Leonard.

[faunsnoctuary]

Sketch request of the vampire spawn Dalyria from Bluesky 🦋🩸

[lottavilja]

New short fic: Sweet Choice of Mine

“I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality.” – Frida Kahlo

Plot summary:

Astarion has been a criminal his entire life. Sick of committing only petty crimes for his boss, Cazador Szarr, he desires to become one of the big players. A name on a list is the ticket he has been waiting for, and he has one month to make sure his target bites the dust. An easy enough job because Astarion has an excellent killer instinct.

The Thorms are one of the wealthiest families in Baldur’s Gate. Since the miraculous recovery of their daughter, Isobel, a couple of years back, the Thorms have become loyal Shar worshippers, convinced that the goddess put her protective wings over the woman. Now someone put a death warrant on the older sister, Sylva.

But things rarely are as they seem, and what appears like an easy kill for the professional assassin turns out to be a greater challenge. More so when the line between hunter and prey increasingly blurs up to the point when both are left with one final choice.

Notes:

The story is a modern, no-magic AU, taking place in the city of Baldur’s Gate. A well-working transportation system, the metro, exists. Both the police (Fists) as well as the crime syndicate use bladed weapons. Heavy weapons and firearms don’t exist. The whole pantheon of gods and goddesses exists, but Faerûn is mostly a secularized state. Religious groups are called sects by the common people. Apart from these details, the world is mostly like ours. You will find names, places, and even things taken from the D&D universe, but they will be altered accordingly.

The disease mentioned in this fic is completely fictional. Any similarities to actual diseases are purely coincidental.

This story is born from suffering. It is shaped both by grief and a strong will to live. If I had to reduce the whole fic to three tags, they would be angst, comfort, and romance, though the first part of the story will be mostly angsty. I didn’t rate the fic, though if you expect porn, you should not linger. There will be sexual content, slightly explicit (one chapter), but the focus is not sex, it is intimacy and shared grief. I hope that this little fic will be as comforting and fulfilling for you as it was for me when I wrote it. Thank you for sharing this moment with me. Since the narrative is completely finished, I will upload regularly. There is also a Playlist for the songs I choose for each chapter. Here is the link.

First chapter on AO3 here.

[astarions-wife]

Okay so looking at the facts, Astarion says he was “one of Cazador’s first” spawn, which makes sense considering it was ~200 years prior, which puts this at 1294 for his turning. However he says “one of” which implies he wasn’t the very first, meaning one of his siblings was before him.

Through the game, we can rule out a few of his siblings as being first. Leon canonically has to be the last, as I doubt that Cazador brought another spawn into the mix during the last 10~ years. Leon has a human child, that he had prior to vampirism, and with both the favorite spawn ledger, and Victoria’s appearance, we can assume she’s likely between 8-10 in that general range. The favorite spawn ledger goes for (six) years, with Leon being 5/6, and Violet taking one year. This can easily imply he has only been a spawn for six years, and also says that given Victoria’s appearance, she was probably only 2-4 when brought to Cazador’s palace, but that’s a story for another time.

Pale Petra’s tells Dalyria in the inn that it’s been “a hundred years of eating rats”, so he was probably turned in the late 1300s, judging by this. Dalyria on the other hand was a physician to the Parliament of Baldur’s Gate, and given that the medical group she speaks of wasn’t founded until the early-ish 1400s, it’s likely that she was found during this time period.

This leaves three: Yousen, Violet, and Aurelia. Now I highly, highly doubt that Yousen was the first of the spawn. A gnome is an odd choice for a vampire spawn in the first place, so he likely wasn’t the first. This would leave Violet and Aurelia, although given one of my previous posts about Violet (found here), Violet likely wasn’t the first—the shadow curse was founded in the past hundred years if I’m not mistaken, and considering the evidence seems to lead her here, she was probably around the same time as Petra’s, perhaps a bit before.

This leaves Aurelia as the first spawn, which makes sense to me. She seems the most anxious, the most scared. She’s the only one who truly, truly begs you for help if you talk to her once Cazador is gone, and centuries of trauma would do that to anyone. Therefore, my ranking is as follows, in order:

-Aurelia

-Astarion

-Yousen

-Violet

-Pale Petras

-Dalyria

-Leon

I know their ages are different, but timeline wise this puts Leon as the youngest, and Aurelia as the oldest—which it doesn’t mean anything, but it’s interesting to think this, considering they’re the original two who are sent after Astarion at the Elfsong Tavern.

As always, this is completely in theory! Only a few of them have concrete evidence, so let me know if I’m missing anything—and feel free to use this for writing or lore as you see fit!

[michanvalentine]

I disagree with Astarion's observations on Petras

About him being an idiot I mean

Sure, he's not necessarily a bright spark, nor smooth & suave like Astarion

But

Petras isn't dumb, he's just in denial!

He's bought into Cazador's narratives, specifically "We're a family" & "You will ascend with me"

Because, if Petras were to see the reality of his situation, it would drive him to despair & hopelessness

Denial can be one hell of a coping mechanism

I do think Petras gets a lot less sympathy & understanding from the fandom than he deserves sometimes

Honestly? I don’t think Petras is exactly a brainiac, lol. BUT! That doesn’t mean your point about him being in denial is invalid! The two things aren’t mutually exclusive — in fact, they’re not even directly related. Quite the opposite.

Focusing solely on “Petras is an idiot” prevents us from noticing all the layered implications behind Astarion’s confrontation with his siblings. Context matters. Past experiences matter. Their mental states — both of them — matter. Especially in this case. There’s a lot to consider… and a lot to analyze! Yay!

So, let’s start with context. We know all the spawn are actively looking for Astarion, who somehow managed to escape Cazador’s grasp. We also know Cazador “motivated” them in his own way — though we don’t know exactly how often or how cruelly. And of course, we know he dangled the prospect of ascending together in front of their faces.

That alone provides meaning: “I’m enduring all this pain, all these humiliations, because there will be a reward at the end.” Freedom. It’s an incredibly powerful motivator.

Now, Astarion escapes. He gets free. Right in front of them — while they’re the ones left behind, still enduring the master’s wrath, partly because of him. I think that pisses Petras off — a lot (and not just him). Especially in a group that’s always been trained to tear each other down over even the smallest scrap of favoritism.

In this toxic dynamic, Astarion is the “arrogant spawn” — but also the weak one. The one who, after being buried alive for a year, stopped rebelling and simply obeyed. No more defiance, no more fight. And yet, with his peers? He never backed down. He kept acting like a smug bastard, maybe even a bully. Because he needed to. That arrogance was his armor — a hard outer shell meant to look strong while he crumbled on the inside, just like the others.

We can even imagine a past where Astarion taunted Petras about his intellect, played up the idea of him being dumb, just to make him feel smaller. But that doesn’t mean Petras is truly or irreparably stupid. Any excuse would’ve done the trick. The point wasn’t truth — it was power.

Power — whether wielded or endured — is an omnipresent dynamic when it comes to Astarion and vampires in general in Baldur’s Gate 3. Naturally, the one holding true power is Cazador, but his spawn — desperate, starved, and dehumanized — would do anything to taste even the faintest trace of it. To be able to manage even a crumb of that power, however fleeting. Just enough to regain some semblance of validity. “I exist too. I matter. My presence has an effect.”

Personally, I’ve always felt that during Astarion’s encounter with his siblings — and here I’m focusing in particular on Dalyria and Petras — all the old family dynamics come rushing back at once. Facing his brothers and sisters again, Astarion undergoes a kind of emotional regression, slipping right back into those familiar, dysfunctional patterns. Patterns the others, by the way, never left. By now, after centuries, they’ve become a sort of conventional language between them — twisted, but familiar.

And honestly, the way Petras and Astarion speak to each other suggests to me that Petras might have been Astarion’s “favorite victim” — the one who was easiest to bully, precisely because of his limited intellect. I put victim in quotation marks because it’s important to remember that in this context, they’re all victims — all of them ready to tear each other apart over the tiniest scrap of attention or power.

I’m also certain that, at times, alliances formed between them — temporary, bound to break, yes — but still, I believe every spawn had a sibling they preferred, and conversely, one they looked down on the most.

That’s where I think Petras and Astarion fit in. Their rivalry and mutual disdain seem to exist at an extreme — with the added tension, for Petras, that Astarion is clearly much more cunning than he is.

Within this climate of underlying tension unfolds the very encounter we’re discussing. It’s also worth noting that Dalyria seems to be the sibling with whom Astarion gets along better. This is especially evident when playing as Astarion — there’s a sense of mutual respect between them. Dalyria is even willing to trust him, particularly if you choose the right dialogue options — so much so that she actually asks Astarion to save them, all of them.

This, in turn, greatly irritates Petras — the brother who seems to despise Astarion the most on a personal level. He remains firmly attached to the idea of “family” and to Cazador’s empty promises, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

So when we analyze Petras’ behavior, we can’t ignore these foundations. It’s not just about stupidity. It’s about years and years of learned behavior, of indoctrination carved into them through fear, suffering, and the constant need to fight for survival — not only in the physical sense, but mentally too. Preserving one’s mind becomes a form of survival in a context like this.

And in that moment, the one trying to open Petras’ eyes is the very same brother who — for years — was a conniving bastard to him. So… why should he believe him?

On the other hand, Astarion, the sibling once seen as weak — and who’s now slipping back into old family dynamics — can’t wait to flaunt his new condition in front of the others: free from Cazador, immune to sunlight, finally in a position of overwhelming superiority. And god, does he love it! After centuries of rats and groveling at someone’s feet, it’s a feeling he’s desperate to experience to the fullest. Even better if he gets to do it in front of the bastards who mocked him, judged him, made him feel weak and unworthy.

And again — I say all this without assigning blame, because in this context, they’re all victims, each doing what they can to survive. The situation itself is so toxic that it brings out the worst in all of them.

So, let’s circle back to Petras. Saying he’s in denial — that his mind simply cannot conceive of a world other than the one Cazador, the true and only abuser, promised him — is not only accurate, it’s also entirely separate from intelligence.

Even the smartest person in the world could fall into that kind of psychological trap.

Trauma bonding is a psychological phenomenon that occurs in abusive relationships, especially when cycles of punishment and intermittent “kindness” or rewards are present. The victim becomes emotionally attached to the abuser — often as a means of survival — and begins to interpret control or domination as care, or even love.

That’s exactly what we see in Petras. He repeats Cazador’s mantras — “We’re a family,” “We will ascend together” — not because he’s foolish, but because these beliefs give him a sense of structure, purpose, and hope within a system that would otherwise be unbearable.

When reality is too painful, denial becomes a functional coping mechanism. It allows him to preserve a fragile identity and avoid psychological collapse.

Accepting the truth — that he has no agency, that he’s been groomed and used for centuries, that Cazador never saw him as anything but a tool — would be devastating. So Petras clings to the illusion.

I’d also like to offer another possible reading of Astarion. Astarion has just escaped that system. He’s angry. He’s raw. He’s trying to redefine himself outside of that web of domination.

So when Astarion sees Petras still clinging to the narrative — still echoing Cazador’s language about family and loyalty — it triggers not just anger, but also fear. Fear of where he might have ended up if he hadn’t managed to escape. And a fear that he’s not really as free as he wants to believe.

In trauma recovery, it’s common for survivors to project unresolved feelings onto others who remind them of their past selves. This could be another reason why Astarion’s bitterness toward Petras is so sharp. He’s not just disgusted by Petras — he’s disgusted by the part of himself that once believed Cazador’s lies too.

And in a twisted way, Petras represents safety. Predictability. The devil you know. That’s terrifying for someone like Astarion, who is desperately trying to reinvent himself.

In this readings, when he calls Petras an idiot, it’s not only about Petras. It’s also about how Astarion sees his former self.

I don’t want to go too far or overstate things… but there may also be a component of survivor’s guilt here. We got a glimpse of it when he first talks to Tav/Durge about his brothers and sisters, saying: “And now that I'm gone... I don't know... I pity the other six.”

Astarion escaped. He was “chosen” to ascend. He gained power, freedom, options. Petras didn’t. That disparity stings — and it’s easier to cope with that guilt by blaming the one who stayed than by mourning the systemic cruelty that kept him there.

So, even if the fandom often treats Petras as comic relief or a footnote, he is arguably a narrative foil to Astarion: someone who never broke free, who still lives inside the story Cazador wrote for him. And that makes him tragic, not pathetic.

He shows us what could have happened to Astarion if things had gone differently — or what might still happen if he doesn’t process his trauma with care.

Because — let’s not deny it — whether he’s aware of it or not, Astarion has internalized many of Cazador’s “lessons”, though unlike Petras, they tend to push him toward retracing his master’s footsteps, rather than clinging to him.