Astarion/Cazador choices: Good or Evil?

[Ichthyic]

So, how did people consider the moral choices here. There are 3 distinct choices:

1. You let Astarion take Cazador's place in the ritual. IMO, this, oddly enough, has Astarion making an evil choice for himself, but a GOOD choice for the prisoners, since they are mostly feral spawn with little hope of controlling themselves after being starved for decades.
2. You do an insight check, and discover Astarion doesn't really WANT to be Cazadon, so you talk him down "off the ledge" so to speak, he cancels the ritual, frees his bretheren, and frees all the prisoners. This is the GOOD choice for Astarion himself, but a quite evil choice for freeing 7000 ravening vampires. He knows that they will not be able to resist the thirst after being imprisoned for so long, underdark or not.
3. You stop Astarion from ascending (good), then tell him to destroy the 7000 prisoners. This is the most debatable, but really this is the best moral choice for a "good" run.

I think 3 is the best overall choice because Astarion tells you repeatedly that those 7000 prisoners are feral, and would very likely not be able to control themselves at all. so, very unlikely to follow his bretheren to the underdark, and also very likely to cause a lot of mayhem. This is reinforced by what the Gul tell him afterwards if you do choose to free them. But, there IS the argument that Astarion himself had to choose, and thus you are removing their "freedom to choose".

So how do others see this choice?

[Orion Invictus]

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

I'm gonna be the dissenting opinion here. I think 2 is the best (meaning "most good", but not necessarily ideal) option. Those people do not deserve to be destroyed after being tortured for centuries. They're victims of Cazador, just like Astarion.

but what about their inevitable victims? remember these are 7000 vamps who are basically, in Astarions own words, feral.

Yes, but some - perhaps many or even most - will be able to control themselves. Should we murder all of them, including those who won't harm anyone, because of those who will harm people?

Moreover, neither we nor Astarion know for a fact what will happen. We'd potentially be killing 7000 people who would never harm another person just because they might. Sorry, but I don't believe that to be good.

[Orion Invictus]

Originally posted by Staryu:

By the way, off topic, but I have been thinking about this. Astarion says he and his spawn siblings have to go out and seduce people to bring back to Cazador. In another conversation Astarion says he has bedded thousands and thousands over the 200 years. Buuuut... if you take the 7000 feral vamps and divide them among the 7 spawns, they have roughly turned 1000 each? And 1000 victims split over 200 years equals like 5 victims per year? In my ears that doesn't sound so bad?

It would if you were one of those 5.

[Stevey The Ex-Eevee]

Originally posted by Argonaut:

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

then you never got to this point, and thus have failed to provide a response worth noting. thanks for playing, bye.

It was worth enough that you had to quote me and reply to me directly :)

I got to this point repeatedly while fully digesting and understand both Astarion and Cazador's stories but I still also know the lore and how these things work in the forgotten realms. All vampires are objectively evil and allowing them to continue to draw breath is objectively morally reprehensible whether you like them or not.

The only moral choice is to purge the unclean.

alignment hasnt been a thing for a long while and if anything astarion shows you how ridiclous "becoming a vampire makes you instnatl evil" is, he's a victim of abuse and capable of GREAT change.

[Elizabeth]

One thing a lot of people newer to D&D settings don't realize is the setting we're in... in most settings, setting 7000 vampire spawn loose would indeed be a very dangerous thing. If they lost control of themselves, they could do a lot of damage even without the ability to ever become full vampires. However, this is set in Forgotten Realms... NOTHING is a threat in FR. The entire plot of the game is zero threat to the setting beyond some localized deaths and disruption, and a group of spawn that started causing trouble would be deleted from existence with a snap of the fingers from any of the hundreds of level 20+ DMPC's written into the setting. Letting them go is such a low-risk move here that you may as well give them the chance to put what they can of their lives back together.

[DizzyD]

Originally posted by Staryu:

Originally posted by DizzyD:

Option 1 is really REALLY bad. Astarion becomes an unwitting minion of Mephistopheles, and Mephistopheles gains an infernal Legion 7000 strong. If he continues on with his plans from NWN: Hordes of the Underdark, he will use them to invade Faerun and turn it into the 10th circle of hell.

I know nothing of lore outside of this game, but when asked directly Astarion says the contract with Mephistopheles has been fulfilled and is therefore not under his command?

Which is why I used the word 'unwitting'. Mephisto owns Astarion the same way that Zariel owns Wyll if he keeps his contract with Mizora. They won't interfere as long as the person is living on the Material Plane, but as soon as they die, their soul gets collected.

[WeirdWizardDave]

Its a gray area.

[Ichthyic]

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

but what about their inevitable victims? remember these are 7000 vamps who are basically, in Astarions own words, feral.

Yes, but some - perhaps many or even most - will be able to control themselves. Should we murder all of them, including those who won't harm anyone, because of those who will harm people?

Moreover, neither we nor Astarion know for a fact what will happen. We'd potentially be killing 7000 people who would never harm another person just because they might. Sorry, but I don't believe that to be good.

there is zero support in game to suggest that anything but VERY few of them could control their urges. show me ONE character that thinks they can. Not even Astarion does!

[✙205🍉🐆→]

I wanted Asterion to ascend, but Leon of the NPC was hostile, so now Asterion runs away from the sun, hides in the sewers and eats rats. Damn you bugs!

[Orion Invictus]

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

Yes, but some - perhaps many or even most - will be able to control themselves. Should we murder all of them, including those who won't harm anyone, because of those who will harm people?

Moreover, neither we nor Astarion know for a fact what will happen. We'd potentially be killing 7000 people who would never harm another person just because they might. Sorry, but I don't believe that to be good.

there is zero support in game to suggest that anything but VERY few of them could control their urges. show me ONE character that thinks they can. Not even Astarion does!

The spawn Astarion speaks with, in the cell.

And I would take anything Astarion says with a grain of salt, given his real feelings and motivation.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

Astarion/Cazador choices: Good or Evil?
So, how did people consider the moral choices here. There are 3 distinct choices:

1. You let Astarion take Cazador's place in the ritual. IMO, this, oddly enough, has Astarion making an evil choice for himself, but a GOOD choice for the prisoners, since they are mostly feral spawn with little hope of controlling themselves after being starved for decades.
2. You do an insight check, and discover Astarion doesn't really WANT to be Cazadon, so you talk him down "off the ledge" so to speak, he cancels the ritual, frees his bretheren, and frees all the prisoners. This is the GOOD choice for Astarion himself, but a quite evil choice for freeing 7000 ravening vampires. He knows that they will not be able to resist the thirst after being imprisoned for so long, underdark or not.
3. You stop Astarion from ascending (good), then tell him to destroy the 7000 prisoners. This is the most debatable, but really this is the best moral choice for a "good" run.

I think 3 is the best overall choice because Astarion tells you repeatedly that those 7000 prisoners are feral, and would very likely not be able to control themselves at all. so, very unlikely to follow his bretheren to the underdark, and also very likely to cause a lot of mayhem. This is reinforced by what the Gul tell him afterwards if you do choose to free them. But, there IS the argument that Astarion himself had to choose, and thus you are removing their "freedom to choose".

So how do others see this choice?

I do not think he really has a choice while being part of your party. Based on the dialogue it seems though he is soft and would go with the 2nd, wheras that was always kind of a weakness of his. But again: he never had much choice to begin with. If you see him as someone "with the mind of the child" it makes sense the best choice he actually wants is you making the choice for him.

[Quacksalber]

You can also fail to convince him and he leaves for good in a strop.

The option I picked was to do nothing with the prisoners. The vampire hunters can deal with them - it's their job after all.

There's no good choice here, they are all bad, and the obvious option is completely missing, i.e. Astarion bites Cazador to become a proper vampire since he hates being spawn, minus doing the ritual which makes him insufferable if you let him do it. This game loves not giving people the obvious choice. I think this is the most annoying thing about it.

[Quacksalber]

Originally posted by DizzyD:

Option 1 is really REALLY bad. Astarion becomes an unwitting minion of Mephistopheles, and Mephistopheles gains an infernal Legion 7000 strong. If he continues on with his plans from NWN: Hordes of the Underdark, he will use them to invade Faerun and turn it into the 10th circle of hell.

I wouldn't call it unwitting. I'd call it the game treating us like the player and Astarion are dim to not think of it. This really annoyed me. Also, I don't remember the details, but surely Cazador signed a contract. Astarion did not, so logically it should not work - also because Astarion is spawn and not a proper vampire - details are super important in the devil deals -so all that should happen is that the devil gets his part of the deal. We should be able to discuss all this with Astarion and he should have the obvious option to bite Cazador. Instead we get a bunch of stuff that makes no sense.

Originally posted by Staryu:

By the way, off topic, but I have been thinking about this. Astarion says he and his spawn siblings have to go out and seduce people to bring back to Cazador. In another conversation Astarion says he has bedded thousands and thousands over the 200 years. Buuuut... if you take the 7000 feral vamps and divide them among the 7 spawns, they have roughly turned 1000 each? And 1000 victims split over 200 years equals like 5 victims per year? In my ears that doesn't sound so bad?

He probably killed a bunch of them, though, right? That's what Astarion thought he was doing.

[The1Kobra]

It is a complicated situation, ethically, more so because the lore on Vampire Spawn isn't always clear. In 3E, Vampire spawn are always evil. And you have Astarion who is a pretty nasty person and is clearly Chaotic Evil, however he is capable of some degree of empathy later on which, should normally be beyond a 3E undead who are normally incapable of any degree of character growth or development. So already, some of the known lore is challenged. (I don't know the 5E lore, which is what is being used).

Further complicating the matter is actually how paladins react to this. Particularly Oath of the Ancients, and Oath of Devotion. Both are pretty staunchly lawful good oaths.

But there is a difference in how they handle this:

For Oath of the Ancients, releasing the Vampire Spawn causes a fall, because you are unleashing unnatural undead to destroy the natural order and cause harm. Something that goes against the Oath's principles. The correct solution for this Oath is to kill all of the Vampire Spawn.
However, for Oath of Devotion, killing all of the Vampire Spawn causes a fall, because despite them being (presumably) evil undead, they're by in large, innocents, even children, and no one's given them a chance to try and be better. And if you've kept Astarion around, you know he can be at least somewhat better and capable of empathy. In this case, freeing them because of helping innocents is the correct solution for this Oath.

It does present an interesting moral challenge, for sure.

Edit to add: Astarion becoming the Vampire Ascendant is /definitely/ the unambiguous evil choice though. 7000 Sacrifices? Infernal ritual? Yeah, Unambiguous evil here.

[w.f.schepel]

IMHO, any choice that ends up in killing 7K people/vampires is evil. You just can't argue it is a good choice to deny these people/vampires the choice what to do with their (un)life. To be a vampire does not equal predatory behaviour on humans.

[Jackdaw Mask]

I mean 7k vampire spawn in underdark in Forgotten Realms wouldn't really be that big deal because of amount of horrific ♥♥♥♥ in underdark, it'd be basically just tuesday there