Astarion is one of the characters that come with his respective companion quest, The Pale Elf, in Baldur’s Gate 3. You and this vampire may differ in appearances and habits, but you both have the parasite infesting your heads. In his case, he will think that the parasite is connected to his vampiric weakness, e.g., sunlight.
Your first encounter with Astarion will come into play at the Nautiloid Crash site in BG3. He will request you to kill a devourer after accepting his request. You will find this deceptive vampire with a knife at your throat instead.
However, you can pass the persuasion checks and persuade him that you are not his enemy. Your parasite instinct will bond with him, and he will become less aggressive towards you.
This way, he will also be able to see your experiences and learn that any other Deity influences you, not his enemy. After that, he will calm down, and you can add him to your party.
Once you do that, you can access companion quests related to Astarion in BG3, including the Pale Elf. This will be divided into two parts: first, you must figure out the meaning of the scar on his back by completing Raphael’s (The Devil’s) quest.
Then you will have to embark on another quest to assist Astarion in killing Cazador and decide the outcome of the ritual.
How to complete The Pale Elf in BG3
The first thing you need to do before you can get and complete this quest is recruit Astarion to your party. Doing this, start the Pale Elf quest in Baldur’s Gate 3. Your encounter with Astarion is dangerous as he will come towards you to suck your blood.
If you help him by allowing him to suck your blood, he will start to respect you. You will quickly gain Astarion’s approval rating in Baldur’s Gate 3. However, this interval of allowing him to drink your blood will be followed by some persuasion checks (DC: 5,7,15). You will need to pass these successfully to stay alive and limit the amount of blood he practically extracts from your body by drinking it.
This way, Astarion will open up about his past to you through dialogues. You will learn that he was resurrected by being turned into a vampire by a Vampiric Deity called Cazador in BG3. Since his mind is also affected by the Illithid Parasite, he thinks that the vampire’s weaknesses are related to it. After this dialogue session, he will leave for a while, so you can go and meet with him later.
Meet Astarion at Camp
You will get a request from Astarion at the camp and find the person he is looking for at Last Light Inn in Baldur’s Gate 3. You can get here quickly by following the main quest line to complete the companion quest. Then you will find this person again outside the Thorn Mausoleum, located on the north side of the House of Healing.
Inquire about the Scars on his back
However, how the Pale Elf quest in Baldur’s Gate 3 appears to you might differ. We were playing the Tiefling in our case. Choosing this specific race for this quest will give you some insight into the scars that voice on Astarion’s back. After the romance scene with him, you will get a dialogue Tiefling option about the infernal writing on his back.
Astarion will laugh it off at first, but finding out about the scars will trigger another scene where he will try to figure out what they will depict in BG3. He will try to figure that out by touching his back; you can offer to help him and read what it says.
When you try to decode the writing on his back, you will notice these are simply words. These will talk about oaths and the fires below. But you won’t understand the word as they are fragments and also a piece of a larger text.
Upon further questions, Astarion will have no idea what the word means, but he knows these are valuable to Cazador in Baldur’s Gate 3. This makes more sense now why Cazador wants him back so badly. All this will lead to Astarion’s quest, The Pale Elf, in Act 2, where you must assist this character throughout the companion quest in BG3.
Meet with Astarion again
Once you have progressed into the Shadow Cursed lands in Act 2, you should see that Astarion wants to talk to you. He has been thinking about what Cazador carved into his back. Furthermore, he has also decided to meet the devil (Raphael) to figure out what the words mean in BG3.
Here you can ask him whether Cazador also carved runes into any of the other spawns. To which Astarion says yes, they all got the same treatment.
Find the Devil Raphael
Finding Raphael can be a pinch as this devil will appear out of nowhere in this companion quest. I found him at the Last Light Inn area while following the main quest line in Baldur’s Gate 3. There Raphael will be playing chess with another NPC. After a little back and forth with the devil, he will turn to Astarion, who will ask him to tell him the meaning of the scars on his back.
Raphael won’t answer him there, instead saying he will think about it and disappear. Now you need to find this devil again, so you need to travel to the Thorn Mausoleum in BG3. After traveling north of the house of healing, you will meet Raphael again. You can review some dialogue options with him, and you will have to pass a persuasion check (D:10) to make him reach the point.
Complete Raphael’s task
The devil will state that another infernal is inside, but this is an Orthon named Yurgir. So the first part of Astarion’s companion quest in Baldur’s Gate 3 will involve you working for the devil.
The deal will be to kill this Orthon in exchange for translating the scars on Astarion’s back. At the Camp, you can talk to Astarion about Raphael’s quest, and there he will answer that he trusts the devil.
Now you must head inside the Mausoleum and find Raphel’s target Yurgir the Orthon. So long story short, you must solve the first puzzle to access The Gauntlet of Shar.
Then you will want to head north past another puzzle and then simply go east from that place in BG3. There you will see the Displacer Beast running ahead of you. A cutscene will play in which Yurgir will point his crossbow at you from above.
How to defeat the Orthon Yurgir in BG3
This will be a brutal fight if you do not use your persuasive abilities in Baldur’s Gate 3. The Orthon will surround himself with many minions, plus the displacer beast.
The intelligent way of efficiently completing the Pale Elf quest in BG would be to try to get him to kill as many of his allies as possible. Here I use a character from my party with high charisma so I can get to pass the roles more easily. In short, Yurgir will do most of the hard work for you by killing his minions in Baldur’s Gate 3.
To talk with Yurgir to enact your plan, you should go through the bottom and not come in through the back. If you do, he will fight you, and there will be no talking. To make him kill all his allies, you have to get him to recite his contract, which is a song.
Pass the insight check and then persuade him that the lyrics are a trick. This can be done by passing the persuasion check (D:16). This way, Yurgir will order his minions to kill each other. To make him kill his displacer beast, you must persuade him that his beast has also heard the song.
Now all that’s left is to persuade Yurgir by passing a persuasion check (D:21) to kill himself so that you will complete the contract and be reborn in an Avernus as a free Orthon in BG3. If you fail the check, you can simply kill him as well.
Meet with Raphael again
Then you can meet Raphael at Long Rest in Baldur’s Gate 3 and tell him you have completed his contract. To which the devil will let you in on the secret on Astarion’s back.
Cazador is trying to make a philosopher’s stone become a new kind of being known as the Vampire Ascendent by sacrificing all those vampiric spawns alive. This way, he will not need a parasite to protect him from the sun.
Meet with Astarion to discuss the ritual
Astarion will realize they must take the fight to Cazador and stop him in BG3. Afterward, you can return to Camp and ask Astarion about Cazador’s ritual. After some dialogue, you will hear Astarion say that he wants Cazador’s plan to work in his favor turning him instead into a vampire ascendant.
He is developing a power-hungry nature with the fear of being born as a slave. No one will force him to do their bidding if he gains that power.
Inquire about Cazador’s whereabouts
You can ask about Cazador’s whereabouts from him, and you will learn that this noble is present at the Grand Palace at the hills of the gate. Cazador is a master of secrets, according to him, so you need to go directly to the Szarr Palace next to Baldur’s Gate 3. He will belittle Astarion as always, and after a series of dialogues, you can fight against Cazador and his minions.
Defeat Cazador in Baldur’s Gate 3
You must first deal with his lackeys (minions) to defeat him. This way, you can target the Sarcophagus next, where Cazador will retreat to heal himself. Open that up and keep attacking him. After a while, both Astarion and Cazador will fall, and you will be left with the decision in BG3.
You can either help Astarion in dealing with Cazador or refuse to help Astarion in this matter. The outcome of selecting either of these options will vary as well.
Option 1: Help Astarion
If you choose to help Astarion, he will enact Cazador’s plan on himself while baiting Cazador for his sacrificial position in BG3.
You will need to use the Illithid parasite to look at Astarion’s back and assist him in carving the same symbols on Cazador’s back instead.
This way, he will sacrifice Cazador, complete the ritual, and become a more powerful being known as the Vampire Ascendant.
Option 2: Refuse to help Astarion
If you refuse to assist Astarion, he will still make sure to kill Cazador. So after he does that, you can persuade him by completing the persuasion check. This way, you can cool down his anger towards you and make him realize that completing the ritual would mean taking more vampire lives.
I use the Woe Staff to rescue the other spawns trapped in the cells in that area. Because of doing that, I gain the favor, and they will aid me during Act 3 of Baldur’s Gate 3.
Remember here that whatever option you choose, the outcome will be the same in the case of Cazador. If you disrupt the ritual in the first place and kill Cazador instead, you will then have to fight an enraged Astarion.
This will mean that you will have to kill him, and in that scenario, you won’t get the Woe Staff, as he will break it in BG3. Ultimately, by helping out Astarion, you will complete The Pale Elf quest in Baldur’s Gate 3.
Baldur’s Gate 3 The Pale Elf rewards
As a reward for helping Astarion in killing Cazador, you will end up receiving the following items:
- Woe Staff
- Rhapsody Sword
| Rewards | Effects |
| Woe Staff | Allow you to deal: Bludgeoning damage (4 to 18), Necrotic Damage, Spell saves DC and Spell attack rolls, Grants you some HP, and +2 Weapon Enchantment. |
| Rhapsody | Allows you to deal: Piercing Damage (8 to 13), Bleed Damage, Save spell DC for every enemy, and +1 Weapon Enchantment |
