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galedekarios · 7 months

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Oh wait now I’m curious what the backstory reasons behind Alton’s physical design are! He’s very handsome and I crave the oc lore.

thank you so much for asking about altonaufein. i really truly do appreciate it a lot! 🖤he's the favourite of my bg3 ocs.

his development and growth as a character is mostly tied to his hair and how he presents himself, so this is what i focused on for my choices throughout the game:

altonaufein was born as the third child but first son to matron ithrana of house hlarahel, a younger brother to his eldest sister nadriina and the second-born iraeae.

house hlarahel of ust natha has produced a long line of powerful clerics in service to lolth so altonaufein, with his natural talent and inlination for both the divine and the art of combat, was trained as a cleric to aid drow scouting and raiding parties:

this is how his hair would have looked then--perhaps even longer as the cc allows us--white hair worn long and open, symbolising lolth's demon webs, her reach and control on her drow, despite altonaufein's dreams of a bright moon hanging in a dark sky he has never seen.

i will put the rest under a cut because a) it's very, very long so sorry in advance and b) because it deals with some very heavy themes so if you aren't comfortable reading, you absolutely do not have to!

(cw assault/rape, cw mind manipulation, cw enslavement, cw drow society in general tbh)

drow society is a matriarchal society, where male drow are considered lesser, and it functions under a particular set of rules:

"The cruelty and injustice of Drow society are utterly familiar because they are constants, from the womb onward. Drow mothers punish and manipulate from the start, and Drow women rule each household. Typically, nobles are divided up into houses which jockey for position in the city, and each noble house is headed by a cleric of great skill. A wise matron mother will have several cleric daughters to ensure that her line and influence continues, but she will watch them carefully. Inheritance is passed through daughters, with children ranked in importance by gender, and then by age. A matron will guard against her eldest daughters and pit all of her children against each other to ensure her own survival." "Drow children are not coddled. They are raised together and sent to schools with high standards of conduct. Drow children are trained to compete with one another and to show no mercy. Some children do not survive the intense childhood games." "The Drow are infamous for their torture practices, as well they should be. Among the elves of the beginning times, they were the first to experiment with the sensation of pain. They have honed torture into science and psychological treatment. Drow parents will punish their children with pain and humiliation in very tactical ways. Drow students are publicly punished in front of their fellow students and class clowns are rare (although pranks for which no one was apprehended are remembered by Drow students as legends of a sort). Drow adults are not all masters of torture, but they have seen enough pain to know how to make others hurt. Not all Drow use physical pain as their modus operandi. A good many are adept at humiliation and terrible mind games. Some slaves are so broken mentally that all they can do is concentrate on the task at hand. Some Drow actually do not like to put forth the effort that torture requires and would rather kill someone than waste their energy. The worst punishments are said to come from those closest to Lolth - the yochlol and the clerics. They are whispered to be divinely inspired."

these are the circumstances that shaped altonaufein as much as it did nadriina and iraeae, who, in the tradition of house hlarahel, are both striving to become powerful priestesses of lolth in their own right, seeking to inherit control of the house from matron mother.

drow house politics are insane and it's all encouraged by lolth. lolth wants to determine who of her followers are worthy enough to be supported by her, so all drow have to pass a test of faith, a trial of lolth.

after altonaufein foolishly (he truly did love--in a way that drow are capable of--his sister iraeae and confided in her visions that spoke not of lolth or a great spider swallowing the world, but of a moon, shining bright silver.

iraeae felt conflicted. she, too, loved her brother in her own way. of course that weakness was what made her realise what she had to do: weed it out. so she told not only nadriina, but her her mother. it was then decided that altonaufein was not simply to die.

they would not further shame their own house like that. instead he would be put through his trial of lolth, to weed out that weakness and corruption within their own ranks. should he die, he'd be a sacrifice to lolth, should he live, he would prove lolth's favour to their house and advance them further in ust natha's society.

altonaufein with that was sentenced to undergo the test of strength. power and resourcefulness, whether or not the subject is strong and clever enough to defeat a powerful foe. the test is only fulfilled by a battle to the death between the test subject and another, stronger person, sometimes a creature.

the fight is usually difficult, and the test subject often has to expend all their resources to survive and vanquish their foe, who must be slain: the more brutal, the longer drawn out the fight, the more you've suffered and the more your foe has suffered, the more it will satisfy lolth.

altonaufein earned his first brutal kill like that. he had just reached maturity.

nadriina had hoped he would die. winning the trial had garnered favour and attention. a strong male could be just as dangerous as a scheming female. she devised a plan with iraeae to ensure that they would not be threatened and, with that, iraeae passed her own trial of lolth: chwidevbrii, or the test of betrayal.

it's a punishment that strikes particularly deep. trust is a distasteful concept to drow, though they understand that sometimes it does happen and is even necessary. to rid themselves of this, to succeed at this test, the drow must betray someone who has garnered her trust or in whom she has placed her trust.

mentors, teachers, leaders, friends, family members. as long as there has been a solid connection of dependence made in the past. the relationship between master and slave or servant does not count; the goddess knows that no betrayal can happen in such a relationship. it is simply a slave. the drow must utterly destroy the other drow in a way that allows her to advance in some manner. the method is not important: blackmail, slander, torture... magic. in the end, the victim must die or be thoroughly disgraced and dominated. usually, the victim is murdered by the drow herself, commits suicide, or is killed as a result of the drow's action.

so what better way to show to her goddess that she is a true drow, that she is worthy, what better way than to serve the house than humiliating and dominating someone who was once a little brother.

drow females are able to take over the mind of a male drow just like that, with a spell, akin to a thrall. all thoughts are gone, all will is gone. your mind is not your own anymore.

iraeae did just that: after he was beaten, whipped, mental and physical defences exhausted, the spell on altonaufein took hold and, as perhaps a final "kindness" in her utter triumph, altonaufein was discarded in ust natha's dark underbelly.

ust natha has a tavern. to entertain both those lusting for blood, for sport, and for more carnal pursuits. altonaufein still remembers szordrin and sondal, the keepers of the tavern. their taunting faces. mind gone, he and others were kept in a cage. he served there for a while. to fight. to please. to be of use. to those who asked. to those who had power or gold. for battle. for pleasure.

he was there, under that spell, until it broke: iraeae dead by her sister's hand. betrayed just like altonaufein had been by her. altonaufein doesn't remember how long it lasted, remembers only parts of it: the many hands, more than hands, the pain. he remembers fighting. other drow. other prisoners. the surface. running. the moon. fever. then nothing for a long time again.

and finally, karl:

karl is an ilmater cleric, a part of a small settlement built around a modest church of ilmater that, unknowingly, is very close to an entrance to the underdark.

during one of his patrols with another of the settlement, karl found altonaufein: delirious with fever, malnourished, ravaged by old wounds that never truly healed, hair tangled.

any other man might have killed the defenseless drow, thinking it to be a ruse, or perhaps to put him out of his misery, but karl is an ilmateri through and through, for better and for worse, and so he shouldered this suffering and brought altonaufein to the temple. he was tasked with caring for him. and watching him.

so karl came to care for the drow: he cleaned and dressed his wounds, sat by him. tried to talk to him, engage him in moments of clarity and despite the obvious language barrier. karl, an ex-soldier and deserter, was forced to fight for his homeland cormyr against sembia. he saw a lot of cruelty during that war. a lot of violence, both in battle and outside of it. in the villages and cities that were torched and conquered and pillaged. he saw a lot then and sees a lot of it now in altonaufein, who survived a different kind of war.

as for altonaufein himself, he tries to settle into that new life, tries to come to terms with what he remembers of his old one... it was incredibly violating. he remembers only snippets. moments. sudden movements and motions, that send his heart racing.

the clearest memory is a hand gripping his hair so tightly, pulling and guiding. it's not anymore, but he still feels it.

he hasn't brushed it or touched it since his rescue, it's a tangled, matted–and it’s also something that hasn’t escaped karl’s notice.

altonaufein goes to cut it with the only blade he could find (stolen and kept on his person from one of the meals karl had shared with him).

(ilmater clerics and priests are good and nice, but they are also no fools who would give a drow access to sharp weaponry. kindness goes only so far, even here, no matter how much karl vouches for altonaufein.)

so altonaufein begins to cut it with a dulled blade and it goes about as badly as you'd imagine: it's hard to do, it hurts, and the strands that he manages to cut are choppy (which is the least of his worries). he still manages to hurt himself simply by the virtue of hard he is trying and how badly his hands are shaking with it.

karl would find him, take one look at him and leave, coming back with honeyed tea to soothe frazzled nerves and a sharper blade, one of his own. he drinks the tea first from the little teapot, pouring himself one cup and another for altonaufein, to show him it's not poisoned or meddled with. he had noticed how skittish altonaufein was with things he hadn't seen being prepared.

they sit there for a while before altonaufein, too, calms enough to drink his cup, and it is only then that karl begins to speak, voice soft but clear.

he takes up the sharp blade, lets it rest on his hands just so, where altonaufein could reach out and take it at any time, and tells him of what could happen: he could leave the blade with altonaufein and he can try again, but karl would prefer it if he could help, clean the cuts and nicks and heal them, and help altonaufein cut his hair.

altonaufein looks at him for a long time, searching his eyes, still holding onto that dull blade as a last defense, but there is no deception in karl, none at all. only that strange kindness that he has come to associate with the human.

it was one of many, many small gestures, things, that karl did for altonaufein that made him trust karl. trust him enough to at first take food and drink from him, later to help fix injuries like this one--and finally, to let him cut his hair.

he turns his back on karl--even though the human might not realise fully how meaningful that truly is--so he can do as he had said he would. and karl does. he keeps his word.

time passes and altonaufein settles into his new life, bit by bit. he helps with that he can at the temple and the settlement: repairing fences, caring for the animals, the harvest, building and repairing things.

he still wears his hair short, but here and there, he allows it to grow just that bit longer than it had been for a long while now:

and it's this way when the settlement is attacked and he is captured on the nautiloid.

on his journey to find a cure, and to find karl, he meets another human, just as kind as the ilmateri. one who knows the goddess behind the light and moon he had dreamed of, prayed to, albeit not knowing just how to, and gives her a name that altonaufein had not known until then: eilistraee, lady silverhair--and a close friend to the man's own goddess, mystra.

this bond between them, beginning with a moment of connection, grows ever closer and brighter.

through them, karl and gale, with them and alongside them, altonaufein begins to heal and helps them heal in return, begins to find his purpose and helps them find theirs:

he is a cleric of eilistraee. he can be more than a tool for bloodshed and violence.

he's not kulg llarzoran ithrana qualla hlarahel (his designation as a male of his house). he's not auflaque (dog) as he was called during his captivity. he is simply altonaufein and that's what he is to gale, to karl and the friends he has made.

settling in waterdeep with them, altonaufein joins the promenade and its leader trelasarra zuind. to help others as he had been helped.

🖤

#i am SO SORRY this got so long #idk where it came from but #there you have it #the alton lore drop #i love my drow son a lot #and why it lowkey hurt me when people made disparaging comments about the hair i picked for him #ch: altonaufein #ch: gale dekarios #ch: karl eifers #otp: a soul that steels my own #otp: battered and wrecked i come to you first #vg: baldur's gate 3 #series: baldur's gate #meta: mybg3 #bg3 spoilers

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