Astarion's Ascended Transformation

About the Mod

I wanted the ritual scene to have more visible consequences for my own angel of vengeance themed origin-Astarion run, so I made this mod. My aim was to make his Ascended form look extra vampiric, partially inspired by D&D’s OG pact-forging vampire, Strahddy Strahd von Zarovich.

The changes to his appearance will occur during the ritual scene if the ascension path is chosen, or if this mod is added to a save where he has already ascended. His pre-ritual and unascended appearance will be unchanged.

The changes are:

- Glowing and pulsing ritual scars

- Glowing eyes

- More fangs (extra top and bottom sets)

- Very, very small edits to his face to create more prominent shadows in harsh lighting

- More visible veins to make his skin appear more translucent

The mod also adds his custom head, eye colour and skin tone to character creation so they can be reapplied if his appearance is edited with the magic mirror after the ritual scene. The eye glow will only work if the head you’re using has a compatible eye material - if it doesn’t, they will look the same as his vanilla eyes.

Installation

Recommended install with BG3MM.

Uninstalling this mod mid-playthrough is not recommended and may cause issues. If you want to try and uninstall it anyway after he has transformed, you should use one of the mods that unlock the magic mirror for use by companions to restore his original appearance before doing so - the changes will not automatically revert when the mod is uninstalled.

Compatibility

This mod will be incompatible with mods that edit any of the following:

- Astarion’s character visual resource entries

- Astarion’s head or eyes

It may or may not be compatible with mods that edit other aspects of his appearance, depending on how the other mods are structured. It is compatible with VT mods that override his body textures directly, such as my Astarion's Dancer Body mod.

To make sure the visual changes display properly in cutscenes that change his clothing, this mod also overrides the timelines of the ritual scene and his act 3 romance scene (LOW_CazadorsPalace_RitualRoom_PostCombat_OM_Astarion_AOM_COM_OOM.lsf and CAMP_Astarion_SD_ROM_BlackMassAftermath.lsf).

If you have other mods that edit either of those scenes you can use load order to prioritise which mod's changes you see by placing the version you prefer lowest in your load order, but his appearance change won't display properly during those scenes if you aren't prioritising this version. The appearance change is the only edit this mod makes to those scenes.

This mod is not mac compatible due to it containing custom shader f