What Avvar Mage Training Tells Us

What Avvar mage training tells us

Not enough people talk about the Avvar, which is a shame because they have some amazing history and practices. I find the way they handle mages to be especially enlightening and based as fuck.

So I made this post to summarise it!

In the above video, I captured two conversations with the Augur of Stone-Bear Hold, and Sigrid - the mage-in-training who went into a self-imposed exile. I'll summarise what mage training looks like for the Avvar, and then delve into the implications.

Augurs are the spiritual leaders of the Hold, but are not necessarily mages - though they often are.

Spirits are called 'gods' by the Avvar. The Avvar do also have named gods, and these appear to be particularly powerful spirits.

Mages among the Avvar bind themselves to a spirit in order to be trained - i.e., they become 'abominations' in the eyes of the chantry, which Dorian confirms in the video. This occurs at a young age, in Sigrid's case when she was a child.

The spirit becomes the mage's trainer. Years later, when the training is done, the mage releases the spirit in a ritual which requires only a small sacrifice (like a bird) and a vial of lyrium.

If a mage cannot release the spirit, then the situation is handled carefully. In Sigrid's case, she just didn't want to say goodbye to a good friend. She goes to the Augur after this, and he confirms that they are working on helping her overcome her loneliness.

If the reason is they are truly incapable of releasing the spirit (they are 'weak', though it's unclear what this means), then the Hold and spirits watches over them to prevent them from growing 'sick'. The Augur implies that if the mage does sicken and endangers themselves or the Hold, they are euthanised and pass away peacefully in their sleep. He says it is a very sad event.

What are the implications of this, then?

Reversing 'possession' can actually be really easy. We knew it was possible from DAO, but now we see that it need not require a massive amount of lyrium or blood magic. If the 'possession' does not happen in a state of extreme desperation/distress (which the Circle and Templars love to put mages in), then reversal is simple.

Mages who cannot release the spirit might 'sicken' - and I suspect that's what they tried to show with Anders. What 'sicken' means is not clarified by the Augur, but from our Anders experience we can piece together that the Augur means they grow mentally and physically unwell. But even this can be prevented or mitigated with proper care.

It appears to be very, very rare that mages among the Avvar turn into the types of abominations we fight in the games, because the Augur never even mentions it happening.

So, in conclusion: The Avvar treat their mages with the most humanity and compassion of everyone, resulting in very few instances of violent abominations.

(Note: tbh I have no idea wtf the Dalish mage training is like because the games contradict themselves even within the same clan, so I can't really draw comparisons to the Dalish, unfortunately.)

Baldur's Gate III | ▶ dev. Larian Studios

Gale: Go, indulge in the frivolities - they're good for the heart. And mine will be all the lighter, to see you enjoying yourself.

Yep. It's settled. I'm definitely romancing Gale next. His affection for Tav is so clear and so constant, he cares about them and their wellbeing so damn much and he makes no effort to hide that! I also really like that he has feelings for Tav even if you're trying not to flirt with him; I mean, most of the party will proposition you at one point or another, but with Gale it feels much more like an actual crush than just attraction. With most of them it feels like "I like and respect you, want to fuck about it" (also I suspect from posts I've seen that Astarion is manipulating me with sex and declarations of affection, it's fine though) with the actual feelings coming later but Gale seems to genuinely be head over heels for Tav even at this point, even with me trying very hard not to flirt with him; I really want to see what it looks like when I actually am trying to romance him from the start.

okay this episode of code switch podcast on race in dungeons and dragons (and fantasy as a genre more broadly) is mostly all stuff i talk about here all the time but the specifics surrounding gary gygax the history of d&d/rpgs was new to me and really made it clear how it’s just like. oh you really don’t have to connect any dots you don’t have to extrapolate or read between the lines it’s just right there huh

also sidenote i know this is something i never shut up about but honestly the amount of harm jrr tolkien did to fantasy as a genre (and obviously, you know, real life people of color) by constructing the modern conception of orcs as, in his own words, “squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types” … truly immeasurable. literally imagine what we could have if the foundations of this entire fucking genre hadn’t been built on white imperial fantasies about good and evil and wanting to be able to guilt-free dream up scenarios where they could massacre hordes of some inherently evil subhuman species to save the world

There's one convo with Astarion that's one of my favorites that I haven't seen mentioned or discussed yet happens (I assume) if you have high approval with him but play a good-aligned character. (This is at 60+ approval, start of Act 2.) It's probably because it's not a romantic cutscene so it doesn't get mentioned as much as the others (or because he's racist in it and some of y'all don't like to acknowledge that he has character flaws), but I think it's vital to his character and to explain his early relationship with a good-aligned Tav.

I would like to break it down a little, step by step. Because we are all cringe here.

First, he claims to feel a connection between Tav and himself, and the reason for this is because he believes he's identified "ambition" in Tav (and I'll explain why he's wrong later, but that's mostly headcanon territory, so we'll ignore it for now).

But, there's also clearly something holding Tav back from realizing their full potential, which is their naivete.

"Just that you ... have a big heart. You like doing what's right."

(The animations and voice acting here make him look and sound so fucking condescending, 10/10.)

However, Astarion doesn't tell them this is wrong, or that he disagrees. He implies it's a flaw, but doesn't state it outright. That's dangerous territory, see, and might predispose them to get defensive and reject what he has to say next.

No, he tries (and fails in my case, but it's cute that he tries, bless him) to manipulate Tav by appealing to that big heart of theirs.

"So I was thinking, what would be the right thing to do when we get to Moonrise Towers? When we come face-to-face with whoever is controlling the parasites in our heads."

"I'm just saying there's an opportunity here. If we can control the tadpoles, we can keep ourselves safe and liberate the world from this evil."

See what he's doing? You like doing what's right, so what would be the right thing to do? We can keep ourselves safe. Liberate the world from evil.

It's very blatant, but he's trying to appeal to Tav's good nature by framing his questionable ideas as something that will benefit the greater good, something that's morally righteous that they would agree with.

And of course, it's incredibly funny when you ask how he thinks you'll do that, and he fumbles and admits he's not a "details person," but it's also revealing.

He thinks he's found in Tav ambition, when all he's actually found is ability. Tav exercises power proficiently, while Astarion does not. If he had the authority they have, he'd let ambition drive his actions, which is why he assumes that's what drives Tav when they exercise their power. A good-aligned Tav has very little ambition, I'd argue, but they have plenty of opportunity to exercise their power, which they do when their hand is forced.

So what Astarion is saying is, in effect, hey, you have power, I have ambition. Will you please use your authority/ability to do what I want? Here's how it'll totally be for the greater good, I prommy.

This is brilliant writing, and I really applaud Larian for managing to walk that fine line of making Astarion so sympathetic while he's literally trying to manipulate the player character. Because when I first got this convo, my thought was both "wow, I adore how blatant and terrible his manipulation attempts are, it's kind of endearing" and "he's so terrified, it's genuinely quite tragic."

If we control the tadpoles, we can keep ourselves safe. This works only somewhat as an appeal to good-aligned Tav, because it could also potentially sound very selfish, especially if Tav is the self-sacrificing sort. So notice how, when he says "liberate the world from evil", it sounds kinda tacked-on, an afterthought designed to bury his main goal, which is keep "ourselves" (i.e. himself) safe. Like, yes, this will keep us/me safe, but if you're not into that, then it'll totally help the world, too! It doesn't quite work, because he still sounds ironic and like he doesn't believe they'd be liberating anything from any evil (work that 10 Charisma, boy), but that's the intent, I think.

Does he want power for power's sake? Yes. Is he gleefully powerhungry? Absolutely. But he's also fucking terrified, and that slips through just a little bit, even behind the smug and confident facade.

He's trying to get Tav, whom he's seen exercise their power over others, to lend some of it to him, so that he may never fear anything ever again.

All of this from a short, smug convo where he admits he's too stupid to figure out how to fulfill his dreams of world domination.

God tier characterization, 10/10.

what i love about bard!tav/gale is what beauty means to them. for gale, magic is art. for bard!tav, art is magic. if you push a more evil route, one of the many things gale laments are his hands - that something that used to create beauty was transformed into tools for heinous acts. there's this intersection of how bard!tav and gale want to see the loveliness and good of the world, and how they continue believing in it is thru the act of creation. bard!tav thru song, poetry, and all forms of art, gale thru the wonders and dreams magic can make real