As a casual Dungeons & Dragons player, I only ever had a loose grasp of the lore that shaped the Forgotten Realms. I’d dabbled in tabletop since 2019, but there was little more than my imagination and a few friends to anchor me in Faerun. Truthfully, I approached D&D less like a seasoned player and more like a frustrated theater kid with too much dramatic energy and not enough rules knowledge: a mix that didn’t always serve anyone well at the table. That changed with Baldur’s Gate 3. Something clicked. Suddenly, all the scattered bits of lore and mechanics I’d half-understood fell into place. Larian Studios’ magnum opus made the world of Dungeons & Dragons feel tangible, alive, and, above all, personal.
Like many fans swept up in the game’s success, I found myself diving into D&D sourcebooks with new purpose. From the Player’s Handbook to Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, I wanted to see the bones of the system that had brought Baldur’s Gate 3 to life. But as a horror enthusiast and lifelong devotee of all things vampire, no book called to me quite like Curse of Strahd. Ravenloft’s gothic dread and the ever-present tragedy of its vampiric lord felt instantly familiar. Its pages dripped with despair and hunger. But to my surprise, it wasn’t Strahd von Zarovich I kept thinking about. It was Astarion.
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Drawing Comparisons Between Curse of Strahd and Baldur’s Gate 3’s Astarion
Curse of Strahd offered premises I adored: a bored vampire lord ruling Castle Ravenloft, cursed hamlets where no one can enter or leave, and an engaging call to action for a party that often gets distracted by numerous side quests, monsters, and characters to encounter. It’s a campaign module designed to test players not only with grueling combat but also with moral decay. At the thumping heart of that gloom stands Count Strahd von Zarovich.
Strahd is a creature whose immortality curdled into obsession and patterns that repeat themselves. He is elegant, noble, and utterly damned. What struck me most about Curse of Strahd wasn’t its monsters, but its mood—the oppressive dread of power misused, land corrupted, and the overwhelming threat of an unstoppable monster. And as I read, Curse of Strahd’ s dread made me think of Baldur’s Gate 3’s Astarion. That’s not a good thing.
Strahd and Astarion: Vampires of a Feather
It may seem strange to compare Strahd and Astarion at first glance. One is an overpowering vampire lord whose tenants are nothing more than fodder, while Astarion is a vampire spawn at the mercy of a sadistic master. They could not be more different, with perhaps only their undead nature to connect them.
One of Baldur’s Gate 3’s most important decisions comes in Act 3: whether to Ascend Astarion or not. An Ascended Astarion would become a Vampire Ascendant, the first vampire of its kind in the Forgotten Realms. Effectively, Astarion would become more powerful than Strahd. This fate inherently makes comparison easy:
- Tragedy Preceding Terror: Both Curse of Strahd and Baldur’s Gate 3 explore the loneliness of monstrosity. They dare to ask what happens when power isolates rather than liberates. But where Strahd’s story ends in eternal stagnation, Astarion’s ascension hints at something even crueler: a man who wins his freedom only to lose his soul.
- Metaphoric Dead Ends: CoS teaches D&D parties that every victory comes at a cost. Watching Astarion embrace his new dominion felt hauntingly familiar, echoing Strahd’s illusion of sovereignty in Barovia. Both men believe they’ve escaped their cages, only to realize they’ve built grander ones around themselves.
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Emotional Whiplash: Curse of Strahd aptly gives the D&D BBEG a backstory to make players pause and sympathize with him. As a vampire lord driven to madness by the love he had for a woman he attempted to entrap, players get the opportunity to see some semblance of human emotions behind the threat, although perhaps not endorse his actions driven by entitlement.
- Baldur’s Gate 3 does something similar, but dials it up. BG3 presents players with a Rogue that is snarky, vulgar, and self-important. But somehow, the game makes you fall in love with him as you see this front being nothing more than a mask he wears for sanity. But how you fall in love with Astarion can be ruinous, as you might watch him become the monster he dreaded.
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Curse of Strahd Made Me Happy I Did Not Ascend Astarion
Reading about Strahd brought Ascended Astarion to mind. Both characters embody the seductive yet destructive allure of power turned into tyranny. They are men who endured control, literal or obsessive, and fought for their freedom, only to become figures of nightmare. Witnessing Strahd’s dark world—the shadows, servitude, and tempting cruelty—felt like seeing one of Astarion’s worst possible endings on a tangible scale. It made me realize that the true horror of Ascended Astarion isn’t his fangs or strength, but how quickly ambition and the need to survive can transform into domination.
What We Don’t Know is Even Scarier
And as I examined Barovia's endless night and its curse, I could not stop thinking about what Baldur’s Gate 3 left unexplored. Although BG3’s Epilogue introduces Astarion as the lord of the former Szarr Palace who indulges in bacchanalia, he is only in the early stages of his political influence. And as his power grows, inevitably, there would be someone in Baldurian circles who could truly corrupt the city to no end. Barovia felt like a mirror to what Baldur’s Gate might have become under Astarion’s reign. It would be a city run by someone characterized by hunger, vanity, and a loneliness that no amount of worship could soothe.
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If Dungeons & Dragons has taught this vampire expert anything, it’s that its vampire lords cannot love. They can only hunger. Strahd’s endless pursuit of Tatyana, doomed to fail again and again across lifetimes, is not affection but obsession wrapped in centuries of grief. He mistakes possession for devotion, control for care. Each time he finds her reborn, he believes he can finally keep her.
When I think about Ascended Astarion, I see the same shadow flickering beneath his charm. For all his newfound freedom and confidence, he mirrors Strahd’s fatal pattern. In the “best” ending for Astarion's romance, if you've ascended him, Astarion names Tav his consort. It is a title drenched in reverence, yet bound by disbalance. It’s not a partnership. It’s a coronation, gilded and eternal, with the kind of tie that feeds rather than frees. Where Strahd marries to eventually discard, Astarion immortalizes but consumes.
Thinking About Astarion While Reading Curse of Strahd Made Me Emotional
I can’t help but feel something tender in this entire tragedy. Because beneath Astarion’s hunger is the memory of a man who once wanted nothing more than to walk in the sun. The cruelty of his horrid moral ending doesn’t erase the beauty of his potential redemption. Maybe that’s why Curse of Strahd made me so emotional about him: it reminded me that even monsters crave warmth. It is a twisted, inexcusable warmth. But it is warmth.
Astarion and Strahd both prove that power cannot resurrect what’s been lost, no matter how divine or damned its source. But while Strahd remains trapped in his curse, Astarion’s story—the players'—ends with choice. Maybe that’s the mercy Baldur’s Gate 3 gives us that Curse of Strahd never could: the chance to walk away before the hunger wins.
Baldur's Gate 3
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 96 /100 Critics Rec: 97%
- Released
- August 3, 2023
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Larian Studios
- Publisher(s)
- Larian Studios
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- RPG
