would love to see more asian astarion thoughts/art if you're comfortable sharing!
I am always down to talk about my asian headcanons, anon. Been waiting for someone to ask honestly
I will admit, my head canon for Astarion started out as just projection and spite for fucking Cazador being the only asian character in bg3. Then I started actually thinking about it in serious and I thought it would be really neat storywise too. The drawings above aren’t too related to my headcanon of Asian Astarion, I just wanted to draw him in Joseon fashion.
I specifically imagine Astarion having roots in Koryo, official dnd’s equivalent of Korea (and not just because I’m korean, I swear). So he’s born and raised in Baldur’s Gate but his family is Koryoan by blood. Meanwhile Cazador is implied to be from Kozakura, official dnd’s equivalent of Japan. And paralleling real life, Koryo and Kozakura have bad blood between each other due to the latter always trying to invade the former, and their people despise eachother with Kozakurans thinking they are just inherently the better race and Koryoans thinking they’re just fucking assholes. Wotc was not subtle in drawing from their inspiration whatsoever.
ANYWAYS. I think it would strengthen the dynamic and add another layer to Cazador and Astarion’s relationship; where Cazador’s view of Astarion as lesser has a nationalistic flare to it. Maybe one of the reasons he made Astarion his spawn was because sadistically he wanted to dominate someone of Koryoan heritage and flaunt his status as the ‘superior’ Kozakuran. Maybe he would take pleasure in wiping Astarion’s memory of even being Koryoan. Imagine the angst where among other things, Astarion has also lost his cultural identity to Cazador. It would be an interesting detail for sure.
This has been my ted talk advocating for Asian Astarion, thank you 🫡
