#soulknife

When I first started playing the game, I wasn't new to dnd but I was new to the mechanical side of it. So I really didn't put much thought into the rogue thing, I was like "well I guess he's kind of roguish" and moved on with my day.

But it's been itching at me since I've gotten a better understanding of the mechanics of the game and learned more of the various subclasses, so this is me scratching at that itch.

First off, let's look at his backstory, or at least what he gives us, pre-Cazador. Noble background, magistrate in the city.

That's kind of about it.

That brief background doesn't particularly scream "rogue" to me. There isn't anything in that job description that would fit any typical rogue traits, and we're given no further information to suggest where he would've gotten training in any kind of fighting. It could be possible he picked it up during his Cazador tenure, but that's never been a good enough explanation for me. Most of what he was doing in that time was charisma-related, just like what his previous job would have required. All of the other companions are practically experts in their field/class before the tadpole, and yet I can't picture Astarion holding a bow and arrow before the start of the game.

So in that very minimal backstory and what we know of his character, we can pick out a few things.

Charisma stat: As a magistrate and vampire spawn, a higher charisma stat would make the most sense. He has a charlatan background as well, so we know he was some form of conman. Again, this is best expressed by a high charisma. For him to have a base charisma is assinine. Some people like the 8 charisma, as it could point to his vampiric charm making up for terrible social skills. While I like this thought, a magistrate would also require a hefty charisma score, so we're back to square one.

He's a pompous asshole. I don't believe that he would want to work very hard at mastering something. I really liked the idea of him being a wizard of some kind, because of how he always seems to have his nose in a book, but I ruled this out because if he wasn't immediately casting fireballs, there's no way that asshole would be pushing through basic spellwork. He's just too lazy for that in my opinion.

We have to talk about that 8 strength score. There is no way this man has lifted a single weight in his whole life, let alone a sword. Whenever he takes his shirt off and I see a six pack of abs, I point and laugh at my computer. So we can rule out most martial classes, rogue would be the only martial class that would make a lick of sense in this category.

Alright, with that out the way, let's narrow down our big classes based on that information. We're looking at mostly either a charisma based class, an innate gifted class, or a non-martial class (excluding rogue). So the classes that I could potentially see him in would include bard, sorcerer, rogue (thin-ice), and warlock.

Now, bard is a very popular choice to re-spec him into for a reason. Given what we know about him in canon, a college of lore bard would make the most sense. It's a charisma based class, and the schooling of a lore bard would line up with his noble background. Non martial and non combative, it's a support class which works great for him. Bard is the best canon backstory class for him in my opinion.

Sorcerer and warlock could be fun and could spin his backstory a slighty different way, and while I like both of them, they aren't the most intriguing to me personally, I think they could be fun.

That leaves us back on rogue. I know, I said I didn't like rogue for him but let me cook.

The soulknife subclass.

If you don't know what the soulknife is, it's a psychic rogue with innate psychic abilities. The defining class feature of of the soulknife rogue is the ability to wield psychic daggers, which are incorporeal and don't leave any marks. They also have telepathic abilities and other psionic boons.

This next part is just my specific headcanon in regards to what I would add to Astarion's backstory to incorporate the soulknife subclass.

Picture this: I see soulknives as a noble blooded trait, think of mistborn if you've read that at all. It's not talked about in the open because most people think its strange and scary, but the government finds them useful. A psychic assassin that can kill with no trace? Heads of state are going to be ON THAT.

Anyway, that's my way of saying that I think Astarion would be a middle-tier unsuspecting lawmaker by day, and a government-trained assassin by night, gathering intel on any warring factions and taking out anyone who would be considered a threat.

That would be my addition to his lore that I just think would give him an added layer of depth and could be really fun to play with.

If anyone felt inspired by this please let me know and if you happen to write anything about this concept TELL ME I WANT TO READ IT. I for one will be writing him with this added in for anything I write in the future.

Thanks for reading!