Astoria is a hereditary witch, meaning that her magic is not only innate, but inherited, rather than learned. Both her mother's and father's lines are witches.

  SCARS    Most notable are the small wear-and-tear scars on her hands, wrists, and arms from having cats for most of her life, as well as general magical experimentation, fighting, and training; scar on her left elbow from a compound fracture; small childhood scar on her right palm, from digging her nails into and scratching her palm when she’s anxious; thick scar on her back, just below her right kidney, from a stab wound; long, thin scar across her neck—the result of a slit throat which she survived; long, thin scar from between her eyebrows, over her nose and to her jaw  PIERCINGS    Healed tongue ring.  TATTOOS   

⸺  Biography

 WARNING  The following includes reference to historical genocide and state-sponsored violence, as well as discussion of modern-day child abuse, captivity, physical, sexual, and psychological abuse of an adult, and murder.

 THE GRIM FAMILY  survived. Genocide at the hands of the imperial Russian court in 1864, the following diaspora that led them to the mountains of France or bustling cities in Romania—they rebuilt, setting down new roots and building a future in the aftermath of brutal and violent oppression.And so they adapted, as they must. In Bucharest, the Cherkesov family found community among the Romanians there, finding commonality with the Catholics there who sought to care for their neighbors. In Annecy, the Grims were determined to preserve what they could, recording memories and culture and the old gods alike. So, too, did their magic adapt: the Cherkesovs dedicated themselves to the magic that was the lifeblood of the Catholic church, and the Grims founded a vineyard which thrived with each passing year.When Eskindar Grim traveled to Bucharest on business, he found Ileana Cherkesova, drawn to her as if... well. As if by magic. And when they married, returning to Annecy to build their family on the vineyard, their magic changed again, strengthened by so profound a connection, more potent than the holiest wine.
 THE DONNELLY FAMILY  can trace their lineage at least to the late sixteenth century, when Clan MacDonnell took Dunluce Castle. Donnelly magic is less common in its descendants than many other lines, though the magic, when it appears, is powerful, often showing an affinity for water and weather in the bearer. The Donnellys by and large ignore that they gain their power through the family's patron: the banshee of Dunluce Castle, Maeve Roe, who knew that the sea was treacherous when she escaped during the storm that killed her, her beloved at her side in the small boat they hoped would carry them to freedom.It's rather inconvenient for a coven determined to pretend they're "good witches," shying away from the less pleasant and palatable aspects of their power: the blood, the bones, the flesh, the sacrifice, and above all, death. running away from something doesn't mean it ceases to exist. And so Maeve Roe waited for a Donnelly witch who might be willing to unlock their innate potential, who might not be so afraid to look death in the eye and greet it as a friend.
 THE MORAN SIBLINGS  were present for the joining of these families, unaware at the time of the power that would result. Traveling with their stepcousin, a Donnelly witch who left for the continent to try and get distance from his troubled marriage, they encountered a woman in Bacău, Romania, running from her demons, seeking to understand a fracture in her own family. The affair was brief but passionate, and as Charlotte and Oliver watched, Brennan Donnelly and Veronika Grim fell in love.

Astoria Grim spent the first seven years of her life under the care of an absent mother and a devoted nanny. Often left behind in Bacău with her nanny while Veronika traveled, building a career as a photographer, she eventually settled in Annecy when she was taken in by her grandparents. She relocated again at 14, this time to live with her godparents in London, where she remained until she left for university.(Her father had gone back to his wife, determined to make things work when he realized that all the passion in the world hadn't made for a partnership. Her mother had not forgiven him, and as a result, kept the existence of their daughter a secret. Astoria has never quite forgiven her mother for this. She doubts she ever will.)The Morans had no interest in a child. What they wanted was a tool. A witch born to the Grim and Donnelly lines was a witch born with incredible potential, and it was the union of her natural talent and her ever-growing ambition that made Astoria powerful. They spent the next three years training her, their methods becoming ever more violent as time passed, in the hopes of creating a weapon where a girl had been.They succeeded. The weapon turned back on them. A few months shy of her eighteenth birthday, bearing the evidence of years of abuse, a shaken Astoria contacted the police to report her godparents missing. After initial questioning, she was released, recognized as a victim, and her uncle moved to London to remain with her while she finished her education. The Morans' bodies were never found, and no one in the family would have dreamed that a witch with Astoria's power had used something as mundane as poison to kill them. That she'd added plenty of new human bones to her collection of magical materials was, perhaps, strange, but nobody was willing to ask the question, no doubt afraid of the answer.She went to Dublin, next, and she found her father there by chance; he welcomed her with open arms, stunned by the revelation but devoted to his daughter from the start. Though she became close with her stepmother and half sister as well, the rest of the Donnellys were less enthused, and their suspicions rose when Astoria's power became evident. They suspected that her role in the Morans' disappearance was greater than she had reported, and when she proved particularly adept with the forbidden art of death magic, she was placed on trial by the coven.It was a surprise to no one when she was exiled, banished from Ireland for the rest of her life. The real surprise was that magic left with Astoria, the family's banshee patron choosing to remain with the only witch in the family willing to pursue death magic.She returned again to London, taking a job as the personal assistant of an Italian diplomat. A rising star and political darling, Ezio Avano eventually took his young assistant for a wife, and for four years after their unexpected wedding, Astoria remained in the public eye, only ever seen alongside her husband. When he died suddenly, struck down in his prime by a coronary embolism, she remained visible only until the funeral, at which point she disappeared. If the coven in Dublin thought anything of a death linked to Astoria—particularly, the death of a member of an old witching family—they didn't investigate.All the better for Astoria, who wanted to put it behind her. A tell-all interview with Ezio's housekeeper in London was slated for publishing, but mysteriously went nowhere. If it had gone to print, it might have come out that Astoria spent most of her time in the house, car keys and laptops and phones kept out of her reach. It might have come out that when Astoria called for help after her husband collapsed, the paramedics found Astoria handcuffed to a piece of furniture, bloodied and bruised, surrounded by the evidence of violence. It might have even come out that the housekeeper was paid a tidy sum to forget what she had seen, as were the medics at the scene who found her before the police arrived.No one helped her as a child. She helped herself, now.She moved once more to upstate New York, where she bought an old house and several acres of land. The folks in town said the place was haunted, but she loved it. Loved the way it creaked in the wind, loved the shadows that flickered across the windows, loved the distance from town. She opened a new age shop, hired employees. Bought a house in New Orleans, and then another in Oxford, so she could split her time. Traveled often and well, going back to Europe regularly, meeting the most interesting people.It depends on who you ask, really. Her neighbors say she's a friendly sort of woman, strange and a little off-putting at times but pleasant enough. (Their kids say she's a witch.) Her private clients, who tend to purchase higher-end items alleged to have real magical abilities, say she's reliable and discreet.She says she's free.

⸺  Biography

  GRIMHOLD   The traveler came with the winter’s first snow in the lowlands. Ill-prepared for a journey, the traveler was certain that he would die when the storm hit and the winds raged, and he tucked himself into the mouth of a cave and waited for the weather to settle or death to find him, whichever came first. But it wasn’t death that found him that night, but a woman, her hair black as ink and her eyes, the color of soil after rainfall, were full of mischief, and she introduced herself as Veronika, daughter of the Thane of Grimhold, and she promised that she would bring him to safety. He had never known much of the Avvar, but what little he had been told was cast aside as he was welcomed warmly as a guest of the Hold. As he recovered, he forgot, day by day, of the wife and daughter waiting for his return, and when Veronika slipped into his bed each night, he greeted her enthusiastically, and he was sorry at each sunrise to see her go. After a few months he was recovered, well enough to make the journey back to his home in Amaranthine, and he said his goodbyes—even to Veronika, whom he had come to love—knowing that this strange, wonderful chapter of his life had come to an end.Veronika did not tell him, as he gathered his things and kissed her sweetly and promised that he would remember her always, that she was carrying his child. The girl was born with her mother’s brown eyes and her father’s red hair and a strong little fist, and Veronika’s father did not argue when she turned the infant over to him, already disinterested in motherhood; while Veronika returned to the hunt, and eventually left the Frostbacks to travel for years on end, Astoria grew under the watchful eyes of her grandparents.She was a clever girl, and her affinity for magic arrived when she was young, as she washed in the river and made incredible shapes for her grandmother’s amusement. And when the water began to whisper to her and tell her secrets, the Augur began to look after her as well, certain that she had been chosen to take his place someday, determined to provide her with the instruction and education she needed. For thirteen years all was well, and she trained, and she thrived—and then, in the days after her fourteenth birthday, Astoria’s grandmother succumbed to a sudden fever. The news of her death spread wide, and nearby Holds sent representatives to pay their respects: while Aleksi, Thane for three decades, had kept Grimhold in a state of peace through alliance and negotiation, it had been Ilona’s fearlessness on the battlefield that kept them safe and untouched.It struck Astoria as strange that her grandmother would pass so quickly when she was so healthy, but she buried the thought in her grief and tended instead to her grandfather and to their Hold. In Veronika’s absence, Astoria completed the ritual hunt to complete Elin’s funerary rites, and she sang the prayers with the Sky Watchers to guide her grandmother home, into the loving embrace of the Lady of the Skies.She remembers meeting friends of her mother's, cousins of her father, before she completed the hunt. They had come to the Hold in Veronika's stead, and told her they were her godparents. She remembers Elyse holding her hand as she sang and Everard guiding her back home, as they would remain guests of the Hold indefinitely in their shared grief.Her memory fades after that.She was told, in the aftermath, that for a year, she was held under Elyse’s control, imprisoned by blood magic. She remembered little of the early days, only that in her rare lucid moments, she was often in pain. As Elyse’s power over her waned, perhaps due to a natural resistance building at the constant exposure, she learned to mimic the state of captivity, and she listened. If she asked questions, Everard wasted little time in disciplining her. She pieced together, despite her fractured memory and consciousness, that she was being used as a tool of assassination, and that she would be commanded to kill her grandfather so that the siblings could take control of Grimhold.She killed them both the night before they intended to attack, boiled their blood in their veins. And when she was found sitting beside their bodies, waiting for the sun to rise, she looked more alive than she ever had. Frightened, battered, bloodied, but alive.  AMARANTHINE   No one completed a ritual hunt. No one sang to the Lady of the Skies. No one left out the bodies to be taken to Her domain. The bodies were left to rot and Astoria returned to her training, determined not to allow her suffering to define the rest of her life. But it was easier said than done—her hands shook, she was quiet, she cared less and less for her own safety. The Augur feared for her well being, and when he asked if she thought she was ready to be possessed by a spirit and taught to control her magic in this way, as every other mage had done, she panicked, and she refused, certain that she could never, would never, be under another’s control again.At a loss for how to help her feel safe again in the Hold, Aleksi finally asked if it might be time for her to travel to the lowlands for a time with her mother. Cautiously optimistic that she might find her father, and that if she did, he would want to be a part of her life, Astoria agreed, using the information the Morands had shared with her to win her trust. She found him in Amaranthine, a noble with a wife and a daughter and an estate and an entire life about to be upended, and Astoria would have changed her mind and returned to the Frostback Mountains had he not seen her and recognized her at once.He held her and he wept, and when she told him of what she had suffered, Brennan Donnelly begged her to stay in Amaranthine with him, to take the chance to heal. His wife agreed to the suggestion at once, determined not to allow her renewed grief at the reminder of her husband’s betrayal to harm a child in need. Astoria settled into a new home, a new family, a new name, dropping the byname and shortening her clan name to Grim. As Lord Donnelly’s illegitimate daughter she would not inherit a title or land, but as Brennan’s long-unknown girl she was cared for, warmly and tenderly, much as her grandparents had cared for her.She was given one condition for her residency in Amaranthine: that she hide her magic at all costs, for fear of being taken to a Circle. It was easier than Astoria wanted it to be, and she found, bit by bit, that her magic was harder and harder to reach, largely buried beneath the pain of her experiences.City life suited her. Nobility suited her. Her father and stepmother, Siobhan, taught her courtly graces and all the ways to break rules without getting caught. Her sister, Rowan, taught her to mix potions and poultices, and to bind a wound. As she was introduced to other noble families, she found herself growing fond of them. Her visits back to the Hold were rare, but treasured, and as she turned away from her magic, the song in the water became more insistent, more demanding.And soon enough, the song broke free. The magic burst free of her in a tempest that killed a Templar trying to contain her. When the Templars came for her, the Donnellys had to be restrained, threatened with arrest. It was the sole stain on their otherwise good reputation—for Brennan's natural daughter to be a mage, and a violent one at that! Even as other nobles whispered at his expense, they shared their sympathy, particularly those in Redcliffe. After a year in Kinloch Hold, she managed an escape, though it was short-lived.She posed an unquestionable threat. To make her Tranquil would have consequences; to keep her so close to her family would encourage more escape attempts; to do nothing would no doubt lead to the inevitable destruction that came with an untrained and terrified mage. And so she was sent to Kirkwall instead, in the hopes that Knight Commander Meredith would be able to shape her into something less explosive.Sixteen months in the Gallows nearly destroyed her. The attention of a particular Templar kept her safe from the others, but not from him. But Astoria was patient; she knew from experience that if she waited, she would find a chance to escape, and so she did. A particularly violent encounter provided an unexpected opening. The Templar's suppression of her magic faltered. He was found dead hours later; other Templars whispered that his blood had been boiled in his body, but the Knight Commander was swift in shutting down such rumors.Four Templars were sent to hunt Astoria down in the city. All four were found dead. She left a trail to suggest that she had returned home to Ferelden, and instead cut her hair short and darkened it with dye and made no effort to hide the scars left behind.Every year she said she would leave. Every year she found a reason to stay in Hawke—her friend, her champion. And when the Chantry went up in flames, when Meredith was finally destroyed, when the family she had built over the last seven years fell apart, Astoria went on the run.And it wasn't long before Astoria found the Grey Wardens.

⸺  Kirkwall

  RECRUITMENT    Violent conflict within the Gallows makes news in Kirkwall. The whole of the city is put on alert: a dangerous apostate and suspected maleficar has escaped the Circle after slaughtering the Templar responsible for her care. Hawke and the team are made aware, and given the chance to hunt the apostate down, either to free her or to turn her in.Astoria can be found in Darktown. When reaching her, she is in the midst of killing the last Templar on her tail, beating him to death with a rock after being exhausted of her mana. She does not appear to be a blood mage, nor does she seem to be a danger to anyone who is not a danger to her.When asked, she explains the truth: she killed the Templar abusing her, and anyone who tried to take her back, knowing that to be brought back would mean Tranquility or death. If Hawke tries to bring her in, she will escape and flee to Orlais. If not, she will remain in the city as an available companion, living in a small and threadbare apartment in Lowtown and regularly offering her assistance.  AS A COMPANION    Astoria's quests center around her freedom: she is determined to avoid capture (and, inevitably, Tranquility or death) by any means necessary. Her gifts throughout the game are things for her home—books, writing supplies, a tea kettle. Quests based in conversation mostly have to do with finding her place in Kirkwall, both as an apostate and as an Avvar who has been so far removed from her home and her culture.In each Act, Astoria is in danger of recapture: in Act I, from the Templars whom she kills before she is recruited; in Act II, from a bounty hunter hired by her abuser's family to hunt her down and turn her in to the Chantry; and in Act III, from a Templar specializing in hunting and putting down mages.Her major conflict is whether to leave Kirkwall, or to stay. Hawke can attempt to turn her in, at which point she will flee, throughout the game. If her friendship or rivalry are not high enough by the end of Act II, she will leave Kirkwall with the Grey Wardens after defeating the Arishok.She approves of decisions she deems practical and in service to a larger goal, typically mage liberation. She disapproves of sentiment getting in the way of a goal, and of actions taken in support of the Templars, though she is largely indifferent to the Chantry. She gets along best with Isabela and Varric; she likes and respects, but does not always agree with, Merrill, Anders, and Fenris; and she openly distrusts Aveline and Sebastian.  GENERAL    Mage. Specialized as a spirit healer, experimenting with blood magic in private. As she is trying to hide her magic, she appears to strangers to be a rogue, and she fights with a pair of knives fashioned to replicate Avvar designs (such as the Sacrificial Dagger from the Cult of the Sky quest in Mark of the Assassin.) Favors plain leather armor, often dyed dark.  APPEARANCE    Astoria makes an effort to keep herself somewhat disguised during her time in Kirkwall. Given that she has a prosthetic eye, when the Templars believed she was without an eye entirely, and that she has new scars across her face with which the Templars would be unfamiliar, she is already at something of an advantage. During her time in Kirkwall she keeps her hair cut short, and the curls are damaged enough to appear more like waves from being frequently dyed dark brown. Because she was denied access to any sort of cosmetics in the Gallows, she regularly lines her eyes in heavy black, and wears dark lipstick. Returning to a healthy weight after being regularly denied food as punishment in the Gallows also helps to make her appear different.  SKILL TREE   

⸺  The   Veilguard

  CHOICES   

  COMPANIONS   

  ALLIES    Astoria makes an effort to max out her support with all six factions, though she does show the Grey Wardens unique favor and support. She develops a deep affection for the Antivan Crows, despite having very little respect for the organization as a whole, and if unromanced will relocate to Treviso after the end of the game to settle there and eventually become the new Governor, with the Crows' support and at their behest.  GENERAL    Mage. Specialized as a spell blade, continuing to heal and use blood magic. Primarily focused on ice magic and necromancy. No longer attempting to hide her magic, she uses the Timeworn Mageknife and an orb (cycling between Chilled Grasp, Veilsong, and Stormosphere), and will occasionally use Veilseeker the rare times she needs to use a staff. Wears a replica of Hawke's armor until the fall of Weisshaupt, at which point she begins to wear the Reinforced Regiment Leathers.  APPEARANCE    After joining the Grey Wardens, Astoria began to grow her hair out again; it is now at its natural color (copper red) and texture (3A-type curls). She's grown it out to her waist and tends to keep it tied back in a braid, and sometimes pinned up, when fighting. She still uses some cosmetics, and makes absolutely no effort to hide any of her scars or tattoo.  SKILL TREE   

⸺  Timeline

 1362 DR  Veronika Elindotten, a devout Bhaalist and daughter to the Thane of Grimhold, falls pregnant after a vision in which she is told that she will bear His second coming. Initially honored by her role in bringing about Bhaal’s return, she becomes more and more frightened by the implications of such a role as time passes. 1363 DR  Astoria is born in the height of summer in the Spine of the World to the Avvar tribe of Grimhold. Her mother leaves as soon as she’s well enough, refusing to tell anyone who her child’s father is, and disappears. Her grandparents adopt her and raise her alongside their son. 1363-1377 DR  Unaware of her divine nature, Astoria’s grandparents, Aleksi and Elin, raise her as a normal child, albeit one with a surprising capacity for anger and violence. She is taught to channel such urges into productive activities such as hunting or training, and discovers a particular gift for magic. At seven, she begins her training as a druid, with the intent to become the Hold’s augur, or archdruid. 1377 DR  Less than a month after her fourteenth birthday, Astoria’s birth mother returns to the Spine of the World, bringing with her a pair of siblings from Baldur’s Gate. Elyse and Everard Morand, Bhaalists who had introduced Veronika to the faith during her travels fifteen years before, meet Astoria. Astoria plans to confront Veronika for her abandonment, but finds Veronika missing by the time she reaches her. Grieving and angry, Astoria loses control, and in her rage kills her adopted family: her mother, her father, and her brother. Elyse and Everard find her and promise to explain everything, and to take her to her father. 1378-1382 DR  The Morand siblings bring Astoria south to Baldur’s Gate, training her as they do, trying to sharpen her instincts. She learns that she is a Bhaalspawn, shaped from Bhaal’s own flesh and given life with His blood, and that her training has been quite neglected. Their solution is a vicious one, and they begin training her to fight, shifting her focus away from magic entirely. Their training becomes more and more violent with time, and twice, Everard kills Astoria—first by drowning, later by slitting her throat—so that she might understand murder all the more intimately. 1382 DR  At eighteen, Astoria feels her first Urge since killing her adopted family, and she kills Elyse and Everard before making her way into the sewers, using their severed heads to gain access to the Murder Tribunal, led by vampire Ezio Avano. She is made an Unholy Assassin, and begins her training in earnest. 1384 DR  Astoria is made a Priestess of Bhaal, and the head of His temple. Only the most devout know that she is a Bhaalspawn. Beautiful and terrible, she becomes increasingly popular over the next seven years, and begins questioning her role in Bhaal’s plans—specifically, whether or not she can survive them. During this time she becomes particularly close to one Bhaalspawn as strange as she is, whom she calls Khal'abbil, and whom she considers her only true family. 1391 DR  After refusing a direct order from Bhaal Himself by rejecting the resurrected Sarevok Anchev’s return to the Temple, the Murder Tribunal acts on Bhaal’s instruction to punish and humble her. Ezio Avano, as head of the Tribunal, takes on the task, and attacks Astoria late one night, turning her. She wakes as a vampire spawn, held captive by Avano in the cellar of his home. She remains his captive for the next 27 years.
 1391-1418 DR  While his captive, Astoria is routinely starved and beaten in an attempt to make her more obedient, with Avano refusing to give her his blood and make her a vampire lord until he has shaped her into the perfect child of Bhaal. Over the nearly three decades, Astoria tries everything to escape, killing her way free any chance she gets, only to be chained in the cellars again. After her third attempt, she determines that the only way to escape is to make Avano lower his guard. She becomes his lover (more realistically, his victim), trading sex and affection for greater freedoms and protection. During one of the events she attends as his “wife,” Astoria finds and kills her mother, returned to Baldur’s Gate. 1418-1482 DR  After a particularly violent assault from Avano, Astoria—empowered by her Urge in a way she has not been since before she was turned—kills him. Again, she takes his head to barter her way into the Murder Tribunal. She declares herself its head by rights, revealing her divine nature, and informs the faithful that she intends to lead her Father’s temple. She kills anyone who challenges her, and styles herself as Our Lady of Endless Hunger. 1482 DR  A chance introduction to Enver Gortash, the Chosen of Bane, leads to Astoria’s first real friendship outside of the Temple. 1482-1491 DR  Astoria’s relationship with Enver deepens, and she falls in love with him. The two begin a physical relationship, and Astoria only becomes more attached to him, grateful for someone who views her as an equal. After years of partnership, including heists in the Hells, they locate the Crown of Karsus and steal it from Mephistopheles himself, and enter into a partnership with Myrkul’s Chosen, Ketheric Thorm. 1491 DR  While in Moonrise Towers, Astoria is summoned to the oubliette below the tower. There, she finds Orin, disguised as Enver; Orin attacks her, stabbing her repeatedly before opening a hole in her skull, through which she inserts a mindflayer tadpole. Astoria is left outside the necromancer Kressa Bonedaughter’s quarters, and Kressa finds her and keeps her as a pet, experimenting on her over the course of the next nine months.  1492 DR  After nearly a year of vivisection, experimentation, and torture, Astoria—barely responsive, injured nearly beyond repair, and suspected dead by Enver and Ketheric both—is moved to a nautiloid by the necromancer Balthazar. When she wakes in a restoration pod, alive but suffering the aftereffects of her torture and tadpoling—namely, a near-complete loss of her memory—she fights her way free and begins a partnership with several other survivors, who become her dear and beloved companions. She eventually kills Orin, rejecting Bhaal in the immediate aftermath, and dies at His hand. After three days, she is resurrected by Jergal, and in the process of her resurrection made a Vampire Lord.

⸺  Druid

  SUBCLASS    Circle of the Crow, based in part on a homebrew found here.  POWERS & ABILITIES   

⸺  Warlock

  SUBCLASS    Hexblade. Pacted to the Raven Queen.  POWERS & ABILITIES  

  RECLASSING    Astoria breaks her pact to the Raven Queen in Act II, after meeting He Who Was. Due to her pact, and the way it changed her over her years as a Warlock, she can only see and access magic from the Shadowfell, and works entirely with the Shadow Weave. She reclasses as an Artificer (Alchemist).  POWERS & ABILITIES  

⸺  Timeline

 1362 DR  Veronika Elindotten, a devout Bhaalist and daughter to the Thane of Grimhold, falls pregnant after a vision in which she is told that she will bear His second coming. Initially honored by her role in bringing about Bhaal’s return, she becomes more and more frightened by the implications of such a role as time passes. 1363 DR  Astoria is born in the height of summer in the Spine of the World to the Avvar tribe of Grimhold. Her mother leaves as soon as she’s well enough, refusing to tell anyone who her child’s father is, and disappears. Her grandparents adopt her and raise her alongside their son. 1363-1377 DR  Unaware of her divine nature, Astoria’s grandparents, Aleksi and Elin, raise her as a normal child, albeit one with a surprising capacity for anger and violence. She is taught to channel such urges into productive activities such as hunting or training, and discovers a particular gift for magic. At seven, she begins her training as a druid, with the intent to become the Hold’s augur, or archdruid. 1377 DR  Less than a month after her fourteenth birthday, Astoria’s birth mother returns to the Spine of the World, bringing with her a pair of siblings from Baldur’s Gate. Elyse and Everard Morand, Bhaalists who had introduced Veronika to the faith during her travels fifteen years before, meet Astoria. Astoria plans to confront Veronika for her abandonment, but finds Veronika missing by the time she reaches her. Grieving and angry, Astoria loses control, and in her rage kills her adopted family: her mother, her father, and her brother. Elyse and Everard find her and promise to explain everything, and to take her to her father. 1378-1382 DR  The Morand siblings bring Astoria south to Baldur’s Gate, training her as they do, trying to sharpen her instincts. She learns that she is a Bhaalspawn, shaped from Bhaal’s own flesh and given life with His blood, and that her training has been quite neglected. Their solution is a vicious one, and they begin training her to fight, shifting her focus away from magic entirely. Their training becomes more and more violent with time, and twice, Everard kills Astoria—first by drowning, later by slitting her throat—so that she might understand murder all the more intimately. 1382 DR  At eighteen, Astoria feels her first Urge since killing her adopted family, and she kills Elyse and Everard before making her way into the sewers, using their severed heads to gain access to the Murder Tribunal, led by vampire Ezio Avano. She is made an Unholy Assassin, and begins her training in earnest. 1384 DR  Astoria is made a Priestess of Bhaal, and the head of His temple. Only the most devout know that she is a Bhaalspawn. Beautiful and terrible, she becomes increasingly popular over the next seven years, and begins questioning her role in Bhaal’s plans—specifically, whether or not she can survive them. During this time she becomes particularly close to one Bhaalspawn as strange as she is, whom she calls Khal'abbil, and whom she considers her only true family. 1391 DR  After refusing a direct order from Bhaal Himself by rejecting the resurrected Sarevok Anchev’s return to the Temple, the Murder Tribunal acts on Bhaal’s instruction to punish and humble her. Ezio Avano, as head of the Tribunal, takes on the task, and attacks Astoria late one night, turning her. She wakes as a vampire spawn, held captive by Avano in the cellar of his home. She remains his captive for the next 27 years.
 1391-1418 DR  While his captive, Astoria is routinely starved and beaten in an attempt to make her more obedient, with Avano refusing to give her his blood and make her a vampire lord until he has shaped her into the perfect child of Bhaal. Over the nearly three decades, Astoria tries everything to escape, killing her way free any chance she gets, only to be chained in the cellars again. After her third attempt, she determines that the only way to escape is to make Avano lower his guard. She becomes his lover (more realistically, his victim), trading sex and affection for greater freedoms and protection. During one of the events she attends as his “wife,” Astoria finds and kills her mother, returned to Baldur’s Gate. 1418-1482 DR  After a particularly violent assault from Avano, Astoria—empowered by her Urge in a way she has not been since before she was turned—kills him. Again, she takes his head to barter her way into the Murder Tribunal. She declares herself its head by rights, revealing her divine nature, and informs the faithful that she intends to lead her Father’s temple. She kills anyone who challenges her, and styles herself as Our Lady of Endless Hunger. 1482 DR  A chance introduction to Enver Gortash, the Chosen of Bane, leads to Astoria’s first real friendship outside of the Temple. 1482-1491 DR  Astoria’s relationship with Enver deepens, and she falls in love with him. The two begin a physical relationship, and Astoria only becomes more attached to him, grateful for someone who views her as an equal. After years of partnership, including heists in the Hells, they locate the Crown of Karsus and steal it from Mephistopheles himself, and enter into a partnership with Myrkul’s Chosen, Ketheric Thorm. 1491 DR  While in Moonrise Towers, Astoria is summoned to the oubliette below the tower. There, she finds Orin, disguised as Enver; Orin attacks her, stabbing her repeatedly before opening a hole in her skull, through which she inserts a mindflayer tadpole. Astoria is left outside the necromancer Kressa Bonedaughter’s quarters, and Kressa finds her and keeps her as a pet, experimenting on her over the course of the next nine months.  1492 DR  After nearly a year of vivisection, experimentation, and torture, Astoria—barely responsive, injured nearly beyond repair, and suspected dead by Enver and Ketheric both—is moved to a nautiloid by the necromancer Balthazar. When she wakes in a restoration pod, alive but suffering the aftereffects of her torture and tadpoling—namely, a near-complete loss of her memory—she fights her way free and begins a partnership with several other survivors, who become her dear and beloved companions. She eventually kills Orin, rejecting Bhaal in the immediate aftermath, and dies at His hand. After three days, she is resurrected by Jergal, and in the process of her resurrection made a Vampire Lord.

⸺  Warlock

  SUBCLASS    Hexblade. Pacted to the Raven Queen.  POWERS & ABILITIES  

  RECLASSING    Astoria breaks her pact to the Raven Queen in Act II, after meeting He Who Was. Due to her pact, and the way it changed her over her years as a Warlock, she can only see and access magic from the Shadowfell, and works entirely with the Shadow Weave. She reclasses as an Artificer (Alchemist).  POWERS & ABILITIES  

⸺  Druid

  SUBCLASS    Circle of the Eclipse, based on a homebrew found here.  POWERS & ABILITIES   

⸺  Main   Verses

  MODERN    : time and location flexible. non-magical universes. shipping: open. default with @wakesleft.Professor Astoria Grim, the sole member of the newly established folklore department at the university, is a curious sort of woman: a young widow who never speaks about her past, an academic who moonlights as a novelist, a wanderer who's never settled for long before settling here. Rumors can't touch the truth: the multiple homicides in which she was a person of interest, the countless scars explained away as accidents and childhood mishaps, the intensity with which she will protect what's hers.  VAMPIRE    : time and location flexible. lore based in the vampyr game. shipping: closed. exclusive with @wakesleft.Freedom did not come easily; it was hard-won, paid for in blood (only some of it hers) and careful, clever planning. Once a patient at Charenton, a French asylum, in the mid-nineteenth century, Astoria Grim was reported dead after the particularly brutal murder of a doctor. Years later, Astoria Thorne moves among the wealthy and the powerful of London, making a living as a medium (or, at least, as a very convincing actress) until she's found and turned by Emmrich Volkarin. She finds that vampirism suits her in both her thirst for knowledge and her penchant for brutality.  WITCH    : modern. location flexible. shipping: open. default with @wakesleft.A solitary witch with a carefully hidden history, a necromancer and an alchemist, a thief, a murderer. Astoria Grim—known to some as Astrid Vogel, and others simply as Rook—is rumored to live in a (deeply haunted) farm house in upstate New York and operate a small occult shop, which acts as a front for the theft and sale of magical artifacts. Well-known for her willingness to take dangerous jobs and her excellent results, Astoria's primary drive remains unlocking true immortality. Variations available for crossovers with the Atlas series, the Immortal universe, Supernatural, True Blood, and the Vampire Diaries universe.

⸺  Crossover   Verses

  ALL SOULS    : primarily book-based. shipping: closed. exclusive with @montclair.Born in 1436 to an Italian noblewoman and her unnamed lover, Astoria Grim comes to represent everything her family has always valued: magic, power, and ambition. After the death of her grandmother, Astoria steps in as de facto matriarch for the family, helping her grandfather run the household until she is kidnapped and kept in a thrall by the vampire Ezio Avano, whom she kills to save herself from his abuse. When his family demands action, she is spellbound by her coven and banished from Venice, left without protection as the vampires hunt her down.  BALDUR'S GATE 3    : durge verse primary, tav verse secondary. shipping: open.RESIST DURGE. Battling the often overwhelming influence of Bhaal, and the ever-present hunger of vampirism, Stori fights desperately to regain control of herself from everything that threatens her, from her father to the tadpole.
TAV. A warlock in service to the Raven Queen, Stori wakes disoriented and in pain in the wreckage of a crashed nautiloid. Livid at the violation of the tadpole and the threat of not having control over herself, Stori will do whatever it takes to save herself.  CRITICAL ROLE: EXANDRIA    : based primarily in the legend of vox machina & comics, with stream influence. shipping: open. default with @xbadnews.Lady Astoria of Grimhold intended to remain as the court mage serving under her uncle, her second sight and her devoted service to the Raven Queen helpful in securing her power. An unexpected attack in the dead of night took everything from her: her magic, her connection to her patron, and even her life. When she awoke a vampire hours later it was to silence. Now, nearly a century later, she is known best as Astoria Grim, cursebreaker and academic, as she tries to find a way to repurpose the curses she untangles to get access to magic again.  DC & MARVEL    : primarily comics-based. shipping: open.Astoria is a witch with a particular skill for necromancy, though she keeps this very, very quiet. In the aftermath of a disastrous marriage to a man more interested in a possession than a partner, newly widowed Astoria relocates to a major city in the hopes of starting over. Professionally, she helps to manage one of the most extensive (and eccentric) collections of magical artifacts in the country; and as a woman accustomed to getting what she wants regardless of the obstacles in her way, she is (perhaps too often) involved in less legal sales of artifacts she’s obtained herself or that she’s fencing for friends.  DRAGON AGE    : based primarily in da2 and da:tv. shipping: open. default with @wakesleft.The daughter of an Avvar woman and a minor nobleman, Astoria leaves her Hold as a teenager in the hopes of seeking peace and healing after a tragedy—only to find nothing but violence and chaos. Held as a prisoner first in Kinloch Hold, and later in the Gallows, her next taste of freedom is in Kirkwall, under Hawke's protection. More than a decade after the chantry explosion, Astoria—now a Grey Warden and a blood mage, trying to find a way to slow the ravages of time and the blight—is found by an old friend, and when Varric asks her to help him hunt a god, she immediately agrees. Origins & Inquisition verses available with plotting.  GRISHAVERSE    : primarily book-based. shipping: open. affiliated with @tmiina.A Fjerdan Tidemaker with an unexpected skill in manipulating the body as well, Astoria flees Djerholm at nineteen, when she’s betrayed to the drüskelle. She crosses the border to Ravka, leaving dead drüskelle in her wake. From here, Astoria can be placed in one of three settings: as a member of the Volkvolny’s crew, as a loyalist to the Darkling in the Second Army, or as a member of the Dregs in Ketterdam.  STAR TREK    : primarily based in TOS and TNG. shipping: open.Youngest daughter of the Seventh House of Betazed, Astoria Grim joins Starfleet in the hopes of becoming a diplomat. She quickly discovers a talent for espionage, however, thriving in cultures where lying is possible and skilled at even the most simple forms of manipulation. Emboldened by the presence of humans, Astoria instead becomes an intelligence officer, rising to the rank of Lieutenant quickly and often masquerading as entirely harmless—and, occasionally, entirely human.  STAR WARS    : shipping: open.She doesn't talk about her childhood—about the red mists of Dathomir or how she learned magick high in the mountains at her grandmother's knee, the cousins who took over her training, and the violence she endured. She doesn't talk about escaping at eighteen, sneaking aboard a smuggler's ship, or about his death at her hands when the violence continued. Instead, Astoria Grim—now a smuggler in her own right—shares gossip and discusses politics, and talks about the price of doing business. More than anything, she tries to talk her way out of the messes she gets herself into every chance she gets.