This article contains Spoilers forDragon Age: The Veilguard.
Comparisons between 2024’sDragon Age: The Veilguardand 2023’sBaldur’s Gate 3were inevitable. Both are fantasy RPGs reviving a popular franchise after a several-year hiatus, and both tell the story of a ragtag group of individuals thrown together and forced to battle against gods. However, there’s another, perhaps more surprising, similarity betweenBaldur’s Gate 3andDragon Age: The Veilguard.Both feature a romance path that culminates in a choice dealing with humanity, mortality, and the nature of life and death-and, potentially, conclude with characters consummating their love in or beside a grave.
Veilguardplayers exploring gentleman necromancerEmmrich Volkarin’scharacter story will find themselves encountering a scene that hearkens back to the companion quest of fan favorite vampire Astarion fromBaldur’s Gate 3.Both Emmrich and Astarion are faced with a choice - gain true immortality and power at a great cost, or remain as they currently are. In both cases, the player is ultimately allowed to make this choice for the character, and it affects future scenes featuring them.
Emmrich And Astarion’s Choices Explained
Over the course of his companion quests,Emmrichlearns that his former Mourn Watcher colleague, Johanna Hezenkoss, has experimented with necromancy to an extreme degree. By extending the research on his own, Emmrich is able to determine how to achieve immortality by becoming a lich. When his skeletal assistant, Manfred, is potentially destroyed, Rook must help Emmrich decide if he will pursue lichdom or return Manfred to un-life.
Astarion, similarly, learns throughout the course ofBaldur’s Gate 3about a dark magical ritual that can turn a vampire into a “Vampire Ascendant,” a being of immense power able to walk in the sun and command legions of spawn. His choice is to disrupt this ritual, allowing no vampire to claim the “Ascendant” power, or Ascend himself - and, as in Emmrich’s case, he allows the player input on his decision.
The Outcomes Are Arguably Similar, But Treated Very Differently
Keeping Astarion a spawnand resurrecting Manfred result in similar dialogue where the characters assert that they are happy with who they are, and would prefer being with the player and their friends over having ultimate power. The opposite, however, is not the case.
Choosing to make Emmrich a lich or Astarion a Vampire Ascendant involves the character changing fundamentally, gaining a different appearance and an increased amount of power. However, there are several key differences between how the characters' choices to embrace immortality and alter their being are handled by their respective games:
Ultimately, both stories are powerful and poignant, touching on the nature of humanity, whether immortality is worth it, and what it truly means to be alive. Emmrich’s story, however, is an unambiguously happy one where magic prevails, and he is ultimately satisfied with either outcome - a refreshing alternative to Astarion’s dark fate should he choose to seek power.
