#dndvampire

This post contains the complete set of information; I'll post smaller bite-sized (heh) bits as extracts from this, but for those of you who want it all in one place, here you go.

This information is all from the Van Richten's Monster Hunter's Compendium, Volume One.

As a forever-DM and convicted lore-monger, few things are as galling as to read the propagation of discussions and misinformation regarding vampire brides and grooms (or, my personal favourite, that mentioning canonical facts of the lore is "abuse apologism"). There won't be any pontification here about any similarities between any in-game events and the relationships/processes described within; I'm going to save that for another post if people want to hear my thoughts about it (as there are many).

I've had a number of tags I've missed for WIPs and Last Lines, so consider my paying my debts at once with a longer bit. Thanks to @pursuitseternal, @nw39, @rubyeyebabybat @ghost-of-a-dream-girl and probably a few others (AHHHH SORRY) for the tags <3.

Chapter 4 (?) of an as-yet-unreleased-sequel-to-an-AU...

“I still can’t believe you’ve done this,” she heard a warm, mid-alto voice saying, just outside the closed door to the office. It sounded just to the side of “teasing,” full of almost-good humour, but exasperated nonetheless. “You’re insane.” It also wasn’t nearly as muffled as it should have been at the distance it was. Vampiric senses were… interesting. “I’ve been and been called worse. Besides… I do think you’ll like her.” The door clicked open, and Kythreen looked away with a jerk, trying not to seem as though she’d been intentionally eavesdropping. Then she looked back, not too eagerly, if curiously. There was an outrageously beautiful, long-haired woman a pace ahead of Astarion, and immediately there came an electric jolt of insecurity and jealousy, for she knew, too, from the pallor and lack of an audible pulse, that this woman was also undead. Had he turned her, too?

“Well, don’t just stand there. Introduce yourself, dear. Make friends, or whatever,” Astarion was saying, and gave his companion a collegial pat on the shoulder, nudging her into the room and following after her. “I—” The woman – a half-elf, by the looks of it, was frowning at Kythreen like there was something perturbing about her appearance – or confusing. “Hi,” she said, a bit haphazardly, distracted, then her red eyes were back on Astarion’s, all but accusing. “This—this is her?” “The very one. Isn’t she perfect?” Skin-tight black silk and silver clung to the woman’s body as she moved, and she approached cautiously, like she thought Kythreen might be a wild animal liable to lash out, rather than a person. She tried to smile, in response, to be friendly, but she felt just about as confused by the reaction as the other woman looked. She didn’t look any different than she ever had, not really… “Where did you say you ‘found her,’ again?” “Shadow’s End. You know how the Reithwin barony is nowadays…” “You just… found her? What, wandering around in the forest like a nymph while you were taking in the natural beauty of the landscape?” “Not exactly, no. She was chained up in a cave, waiting for me.” A smirk. “Waiting for you,” she repeated. “Why do I doubt that?” “Oh, trust me,” he said, and there was piercing, savage glee in the words. “She really was waiting for me, and in ways you’d n—" To Kythreen’s great relief, the woman interrupted what was likely to be a series of humiliating revelations to have a stranger discover. “So. She was for one of your…” Her nose wrinkled, and Kythreen had the distinct sense that disdain was one of her most commonly expressed sentiments. “She was intended to be a sacrifice, yes.” It was clipped, the most recent end of what might have been a very, very long-running argument. The other woman rolled her eyes, and then she just stood there for a moment, the disgusted look morphing into a thoughtful frown as she studied Kythreen. There was something earnest about it, like she was seeking the answer to a complicated and thought-out riddle. “But I know her,” the other woman finally said, more to herself than either of them. “Knew her.” “I’ve never met you,” Kythreen said, finally having a decent enough excuse to jump into the conversation around and about her. “I’m quite certain of it.” The dark-haired woman finally looked at Astarion, the confusion visibly melting and leaving behind a core of astonishment. She entirely ignored what Kythreen had just said, which made her glower, feeling rawer and more petulant about it than she ought to have. A vampire’s emotions. They’d been fun, in a way, up until this conversation. But wild, passionate affection and vindictive, productive rage, and the joy of sexual bliss were… positive things. This flash of temper, however, was not. “You remember what I told you, back then? That Lae’zel hadn’t freed me from that pod, and that was why I hated her?” “Hard to forget. And then you railed about it a little more, too. Every day, for a month.” “But someone did free me.” “I’d nearly forgotten, but… yes. A dr—” He cut himself off abruptly, and there was a flare of something in his eyes, voracious as fire. “Yes. A drow girl,” she was saying. “Who then, after she’d met me not an hour earlier, then took a flaming sword through the heart for me. But I don’t remember her name,” she added miserably. “Us might,” she said, incomprehensibly, seemingly more to herself than either of them. “I never thought to ask. Why would I? Not that the name alone would mean anything…”

Pulling from good old Van Richten's as per usual around here...