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Tav is still a child when he realizes there’s something very different about him, compared to the other children.
For one, he’s sickly; weak and perpetually hungry, even when his aunt hatefully gives him as much food as she can afford. His hunger always abates, but it roars back to life before the hour is done; it’s as if the food serves well enough to fill his stomach, but does nothing to provide him nutrients he actually needs.
Another hint is his sensitivity to sunlight; both his late mother and his aunt boast a tan complexion that seems to glow under the sun, but Tav is pale and drawn and his skin reddens under barely an hour under the sun’s light. His aunt always scoffs at the sight, and gleefully tells him it must be a trait from whatever wretch of father he has. Tav is too young to understand the disdainful tone of his only living relative, but it’s like this:
When Tav was born, his mother died. That would’ve been fine, if she hadn’t already been but a corpse by the time she managed to escape from whatever horrible hostage situation she’d been in, according to his aunt. She’d returned, beaten, bloody and bruised, with telltale signs of abuse between her thighs, barely a husk of a human. She’d lived long enough to birth him, then expired.
His aunt despises him. Tav takes it in stride, as much as he can as a young child, until one of the other children asks him why he’s named after people who don’t have names. Tav doesn’t have an answer, and when he asks his aunt, she says, “Because you are an unwanted child.”
When Tav is eleven, he’s tall enough and strong enough to pin his aunt to the table and drink her dry.
When Tav is fourteen, he’s learned well enough to read that he figures out what he is.
A dhampir. A creature stuck with one foot in mortality and the other in vampirism.
His aunt was blonde, human, round-faced with blue eyes. So was her sister. So Tav’s pretty sure that his black hair, green eyes, pointy ears and sharp features belong to his vampire father.
When Tav is eighteen, he realizes that whoever his father is, he’s done some terrible things to his mother. He doesn’t know what to do with that information, so he elects to abandon Baldur’s Gate altogether and pretend it’s none of his business.
Now that he keeps himself relatively well-fed – and thanks to generous mercenary contracts that provide him the opportunity to kill for gold – Tav realizes there’s something other than half-vampire blood running through his veins – there’s magic. He’s a sorcerer, a bit of a chaotic one at that, but it’s power he won’t say no to, not when it affords him the option to defeat his enemies without spilling any of their blood. He may have a more regular supply of blood, nowadays, but his poor upbringing makes him cringe whenever it’s wasted on whatever dirt or stone surface it drops on, and his newly-built sense of pride stops him from getting to his knees to lick the floors clean.
For a while, Tav wanders and works when he can find a contract that appeals. And when he feels at his best is when the nagging thought comes up that he wants to know.
He feels… guilty, he supposes, about his aunt’s death. About his mother’s, even. Tav knows that his mother’s death wasn’t even his fault, but he feels bound by a sick sense of karmic justice and the knowledge that if there’s anyone a vampire lord might not expect, it’s a wayward half-human son.
It’s with this thought that he returns to Baldur’s Gate, a decade after he left, seeking knowledge in every place he might find it. The more he learns about vampire, the sicker to his stomach he gets. But one thing becomes clear: someone must have helped his mother escape, because there is no way she would’ve been able to do so by herself.
Vampires, by nature, are solitary creatures. They have to be, if they’re to keep their hoard of power to themselves; it doesn’t mean that they don’t have others doing their bidding. Vampire spawn, Tav learns, are likely the method by which his father receives regular meals, which means there have to be some wandering around Baldur’s Gate, gathering prey. It’s probably how his mother got herself unfortunately involved.
Tav has no idea where to start. A reasonable first step would be to identify the Vampire Lord of Baldur’s Gate, and if The Curse of the Vampyr is to be believed, he wouldn’t be hiding in the disgusting sewer system. He’s likely a noble, or fashioned himself as such, and it’s with that thought that Tav directs his attention to the nobility of the city.
It’s what draws him to Enver Gortash. On paper, he fits the bill; he’s relatively new to the patriar scene, and he’s pale and black-haired enough that it might make sense that Tav’s his son. Except, he realizes immediately after meeting the man, he’s not an elf, and he lacks the expected fangs, and Tav’s looking for a fanged elf. Still, Gortash is a reasonable start, and Tav agrees to be in his employ after unintentionally killing an assassin before his blade had time to strike the patriar.
Gortash is… an interesting sort. Tav likes him. He’s pragmatic, logical, and ruthless – which means Tav gets plenty of meals, and sometimes even some good conversation, during Gortash’s quieter nights. Gortash figures him out quickly; there’s some fascination in his voice as he regards Tav, and he tells him that he’s likely the first dhampir in Baldur’s Gate in recent memory.
Gortash makes Tav his bodyguard. It’s probably on purpose, Tav thinks, when one of his first duties is to guard him as he meets with other patriars, for that is where he sets eyes on Lord Cazador Szarr.
He’s struck by their resemblance. Save for the colour of his eyes, the bluntness of his teeth and the shape of his ears, Tav is a dead-ringer for the man, and Gortash smirks a little when he notices Tav’s surprise. Cazador himself doesn’t notice. It makes sense, if he isn’t used to seeing his reflection in a mirror on the daily, though Tav sincerely doubts the pompous arse doesn’t have at least five portraits of himself up in wherever his mansion is.
Szarr – his father, and isn’t that an odd little thought – doesn’t come alone, either. There’s what Tav can only assume are two spawns flanking him on either side, dressed in similar finery as their master. Unlike Szarr, both of them react to Tav, wide eyed and surprised, though they say nothing. Tav, at least, is grateful that his preferred hairstyle is different to his father’s; where Szarr wears his hair long and straight, Tav prefers his short, shorn unevenly with bangs occasionally falling over his eyes when he leans his head too far forward. It makes him feel a little safer to hide his gaze from the probing eyes of the spawn – Dalyria and Leon, Szarr says when he introduces them.
When Tav and Gortash return to the patriar’s home that evening, he’s still reeling from the meeting. Gortash turns with a knowing, savage little grin, and goes to ask him something, before a nearly-naked, white-skinned, white-eyed woman fucking bleeds out of the wall and holds a blade to Gortash’s throat. Tav is stunned when Gortash merely rolls his eyes, and accuses this Orin of being a cantankerous bitch (Tav’s words; not Gortash’s) and look at what you’ve done now.
Tav can’t figure out if he’s lucky or unlucky, at this point. On one hand, Gortash likes him too much to immediately kill him upon the discovery of his connection with Bhaalspawn; on the other, Gortash’s compromise is to put a tadpole in his eye and control him like a puppet.
Tav realizes that Gortash’s love language is something he’d much rather have gone without, thanks.
His ambivalence about the whole thing only goes further when he realizes that whilst dhampir apparently have enough inbuilt psionic resistance to figure out he’s being puppeted, it’s not enough to stop said puppetting.
Which is what finds him in Moonrise Towers, ordered to keep an eye on Ketheric Thorm and ensure the other Chosen of the Absolute (or, more likely, Myrkul – Orin called Gortash a Banite, she herself is a Bhaalspawn, which leaves only one of the Dead Three up for grabs) goes along with his role and succeeds in finding something called an Astral Prism.
Ketheric Thorm doesn’t care about his orders. He wrests control of the funny little tadpole and marches Tav all the way to a temple of Shar, where a creature called Balthazar works to secure Ketheric’s hold over his immortality. Tav’s not sure when he became the main character in a tragicomedy one would watch in a shitty little park in Baldur’s Gate, but he’s pretty sure some higher powers are laughing at him. Personally, Tav doesn’t find it very funny.
Then, oh, then, someone else appears in the temple of Shar, and Tav has a feeling his luck is about to change. The second they’re in eyesight, the hold his tadpole has on him slackens and Tav is able to shake off the remainder of his orders.
They’re a motley crew, Tav notices. Their leader seems to be a wizard, if the judgmental way he looks at Balthazar and the ridiculousness of his robes provide any indication. Then there’s a dark haired lady who scowls at all of them like they’ve personally offended her. There’s another, bigger lady, a tiefling who burns so hot Tav thinks she might burn his eyebrows off if he stands too close. And to round them all out, there’s a shorter, skinnier figure at the back, silver-haired, pale-skinned and red-eyed – that’s the one Tav focuses on, because when they lock eyes, he rears back as if slapped, and his eyes widen in what looks like fear.
Tav blinks back at him. Then spots the fangs, and oh. A vampire spawn. His father’s vampire spawn. Why would one of Szarr’s spawn be doing here? And, judging by the lack of tell-tale glow from his eyes, uncompelled?
It doesn’t end up mattering very much, because Balthazar sends them on a suicide mission to make pretty with the remnants of Shar’s disciples and gain access to the Nightsong. Tav rocks on the balls of his feet and tries to clear the tadpole induced fog in his head, before the wizard says this:
“You have resources. We’ll need some help if we’re to do this.”
And Balthazar sighs like he’s being asked the impossible, and nods his head to Tav.
“Take him,” he says, “he’s good in battle and he’s of no use to me here.”
Tav could say no. He could dig his heels in and reveal that, fuck the tadpole, I don’t have to listen to your blasphemous ass anymore.
He could also go along with it and try his luck with the newcomers.
So he pretends to acquiesce, nods his head sharply at the other like he was wont to do under the tadpole’s influence, and basically runs out of there. Except it’s not a run, it’s a very fast walk, and he definitely keeps his head up while he does so.
They’re barely out of Balthazar’s eyesight when his new friends turn on him. Tav barely has enough presence of mind to Misty Step out of the way of a dagger in his back, and he perches on one of Shar’s dilapidated columns.
“No, no!” he yells, “I can help you! Better yet, you can help me!”
He probably should’ve said those things the other way around, but, well. His brain still hurts as the tadpole wriggles behind his eye.
“Give us one good reason why we shouldn’t blast you off that perch of yours,” the tiefling says.
“I’ll give you several,” Tav hisses down at them. “I know what you’re looking for, first off. Second, as much as I hate Balthazar, he’s right, I’m good for battle. I’ll fucking murder anyone that’s in your way. And, thirdly, and probably most importantly, is that I don’t want to be here, and for some lucky reason your presence makes the tadpole in my head shut the fuck up and let me think for myself!”
It’s the last part that gives the group pause. It doesn’t last for long, but it’s something.
“He’s lying,” the black-haired woman says accusingly, “none of the other tadpoled people we’ve come across have had any reaction to the Prism.”
“The Prism?!” Tav exclaims. “That’s why they’re looking for it!”
“Pray tell,” the wizard begins, and he seems the most likely to not attack unless given reason to, “why you seem to be less affected by the tadpole’s control?”
Tav shrugs and grimaces. “Virtue of my ancestry, I think. Do you, uh, know what a dhampir is?”
The wizard’s eyes light the fuck up. “A mix between a vampire and a mortal? It’s a very rare condition; I thought dhampir didn’t exist.”
Tav shrugs again. “Well. Here I am. I’d wager my, condition, as you put it, affords me some degree of psionic resistance; not enough to fight against it, but good enough that I’ve spent the last month or something screaming at this fucking beastie behind my eye.”
“A… half vampire?” the spawn asks hesitantly, his eyes sharp and gaze focused intently on Tav. Crouched as he is over the half-column, Tav can only attempt a clumsy bow and hope they don’t shoot him when he’s not looking.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” he says. “I’m Tav. I’m fourty-something years old. I like long walks on the beach and I prefer my steak rare.”
“Oh, good,” the black-haired woman says, “We’re back to the half baked vampire jokes.”
It doesn’t take long for Tav to be convinced that, yes, it’s safe to drop down from his perch, and that no, he won’t be stabbed or thunderwaved into a chasm for his trouble. He hesitates when he sees the look in the spawn’s eyes, but he figures, one-on-one, he could probably win that fight.
The dark-haired woman, Shadowheart, barely introduces herself before she stalks determinedly into one of Shar’s trials. Gale, the wizard, explains that she’s a cleric of Shar and she’s been waiting for the chance to prove herself before her goddess for a very long time. Then, the tiefling that’s on fire introduces herself as Karlach, and grins at him so blindingly that Tav has to blink out white spots in his vision. Astarion is introduced next, and he’s neither as friendly nor as welcoming as the other two, but Tav shrugs his shoulders and doesn’t blame him.
“So, Tav,” Gale begins once it becomes clear that it’ll take Shadowheart some time to be finished with her trials, “I must admit, I find myself very curious as to details of your – dhampirism? Could it be called that?”
“Call it whatever you want,” Tav tells him. “What do you want to know?”
The wizard’s eyes glimmer with excitement and he pulls out an empty scroll and a magical quill out of his pack. “Gosh, what a fascinating opportunity! Dhampirs are rarely studied, you see, so if you wouldn’t mind, starting from the beginning?”
Tav eyes him oddly. “From my… birth, you mean?”
“Precisely so!”
Tav hesitates. “It’s not pretty.”
“Ah, my friend,” Gale says, and Tav thinks he’s pretty quick to call him a friend, “these things seldom are.” Gale’s other two friends pretend not to be interested, but Karlach is very evidently leaning around Gale to peer at Tav and Astarion freezes from where he was fingering a page in his book.
Tav sighs. “Well. I was born in Baldur’s Gate. My mother didn’t survive the birth. I was raised by my aunt. She said that my mother disappeared for about two or three weeks, then reappeared at their family home, and that she wasn’t in a very good state. I don’t know the details, but from what I gathered, serious assault was very likely involved.” Tav shrugs, and his fringe drops in his eyes. He blows it away.
“Would it be safe to assume,” Gale says carefully, “that your conception wasn’t entirely consensual?”
“It would be unsafe to assume otherwise,” Tav replies with a grimace.
Gale hums, and scribbles something in scroll. “What about your diet? What can you tell me about that?”
“It’s mixed. When I was a kid my aunt used to give me normal food, but I was always sickly, and it never satisfied.”
“Aha! And did you figure out what was missing?”
“Yes,” Tav says dryly, “it got pretty clear pretty quickly once I was big enough to tear my aunt’s throat open and drink her blood.”
A pause, and Gale looks at him uncertainly, before he steels himself and continues scribbling in his scroll. Tav thinks he’s very nonplussed at his homicidal confession.
“And how about now?”
“As I said, mixed; I need both. If I only drink blood, I start losing weight and get physically weak. If I only eat food, my magic goes away and I lose my reflection.”
“Ah!” Gale exclaims again. “So you do have a reflection?”
“Yes,” Tav replies. “It gets fuzzy when I’ve gone too long without blood. When I was a kid I didn’t have one at all, and my aunt used that as evidence to accuse me of devilry.”
Gale hums for a few seconds as he scratches all the information down into his scroll. “Does the sun affect you?”
Tav thinks. “I’m… not sure. I don’t know if it’s the half-vampirism, or just regular sensitivity. I get sunburned, pretty fucking quickly. Less so since the tadpole,” he says, “but put me in the sun for half an hour and I get red as a tomato.”
“Could be the pallor of your skin, then,” Gale assumes. “How about your appearance? Do you take after your mother?”
Tav scowls outright now, and says, “No. I – no. I can only assume I look like my, uh. Father.”
There’s the sound of paper being ripped, and Astarion swears. Tav cringes. And then, “You’re Cazador’s son,” Astarion spits out, and brandishes his weapons at him.
Tav gets to his feet and puts his palms out in a conciliatory gesture. He debates feigning ignorance, but he’s an idiot, not a liar. “I – yes, I probably am. Sorry?”
“Oh, you will be,” Astarion purrs, before he’s tackled by Karlach. Judging by the lack of the smell of burned flesh, Karlach’s probably not hot enough to burn the spawn’s skin.
“Down, Fangs!” she chides.
“Let me up, you beast – “ Astarion rages and kicks against the tiefling’s hold.
“A child is not his father!” Gale tells Astarion in a tone that sounds like he’s lecturing him. “If anything, you should consider him a sibling – “
Tav thinks this is a bad thing to say, judging by the borderline feral look in Astarion’s eyes.
“Maybe he’s adopted,” Karlach offers, and that only makes things worse.
“Alright, alright, stop!” Tav intervenes, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “Fine, yes, I am Cazador Szarr’s son. No, I’ve never interacted with him. No, I don’t think he even knows I exist. And yes, I’d like to keep it that way, unless I’m plunging a stake into his heart. Let him go, woman, I can defend myself!”
Karlach lets him go, but not before throwing him a very put-upon expression. From the floor, Astarion glares at all of them, but at Tav specifically. He doesn’t look like he’s in any hurry to attack again, so Tav hesitantly relaxes the set of his shoulders.
The silence that falls on them is thick and awkward, though, and Tav’s mouth opens to fill it before he thinks better of it.
“I saw him,” Tav confesses, “once. I was working for a patriar, not too long ago, and I think he engineered the meeting on purpose, given that he knew what I was. I – it became pretty fucking clear who he was, considering I see his face in the mirror every day.” And oh, Gods, Tav’s rambling now. “He seemed not to know, but he had some other spawn with him, who had – well, kind of the same reaction as you, Astarion, and I don’t know enough about the mechanics of compulsion to know whether they told him or not, but anyway, you can imagine I wasn’t well pleased to meet daddy dearest –“
“Shut,” Astarion says, “the fuck up.”
Tav’s jaw snaps closed, and after a moment of consideration, he shrugs helplessly.
Astarion slowly gets up, his eyes flickering across Tav’s form before he heaves a sigh and rubs the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Well,” Astarion says dryly, “you’re nothing like him, at least.”
“Thanks,” Tav says, before he realizes it’s probably not a compliment.
It’s good enough for Astarion, though, who spares him a disgusted glance and shuffles back to his book. He ignores them all as he cracks it open, but Tav can tell by his tense posture that he’s not reading a single word of it. Gale clears his throat.
“Well! Quite a lot of excitement,” he chuckles, and Tav throws him a flat stare. “You mentioned something about a patriar – how did you get yourself into this mess, anyway?”
“I left Baldur’s Gate a while back,” Tav says, “but once I figured myself out, I got real pissed off. So I decided to come back and, uh, track down my parentage, as it were. I found a patriar who seemed to fit the bill. Have you heard of Enver Gortash?”
“Gortash!” Karlach hisses suddenly, and Tav’s a lot more afraid of her than he is of Astarion. He jumps back a little. “That little fucker had me fucked up all the way to Avernus!”
Ah. Tav understands now. He nods emphatically. “Yeah, he got me fucked up, too. Once I figured out he wasn’t the vampire elf I was looking for, he employed me. Then, the meeting with Szarr happened, and then, I was unlucky enough to witness a meeting between him and a Bhaalspawn. It’s when he decided to give me this funky little friend,” and Tav points to his right eye “and sent me off to Moonrise, and, well. Here we are.”
“A… Bhaalspawn?” Gale asks, hesitantly.
“Yeah,” Tav affirms emphatically. Then pauses. “Wait. You didn’t know?”
“Know what?” Astarion asks.
“The Absolute is a plot devised by the Dead Three’s chosen,” Tav says, “Gortash is Bane’s, Ketheric’s Myrkul’s, and the Bhaalspawn… well. That’s self-explanatory.”
The three of them stare at him in befuddlement. Shadowheart takes that moment to reappear.
“The first trial is done,” she says, and her eyes shine with pride. Then she sees their expressions. “What did I miss?”