Eagle-eyed Dungeons and Dragons fans have spotted a fresh reference to everyone’s favourite Baldur’s Gate 3 vampire, hidden away in the game’s new Monster Manual.
Astarion is featured in the 2025 edition of the Monster Manual – or at least, a quote from him is – as spotted by Baldur’s Gate 3 fans on reddit (thanks, GamesRadar).
“Darling, you are simply delicious,” Astarion says, atop the Monster Manual page detailing Vampire Spawn (medium or small Undead, Neutral Evil). And this isn’t the first time Astarion has popped up in official D&D lore either.
Astarion previously popped up in the official D&D Player’s Handbook (2024 edition) as seen in an eye-catching piece of artwork for the daylight spell.
Here, Astarion can be spotted tucked away in the bottom right corner, unafflicted by the spell’s effects which have begun to burn up all his vampire spawn brethren. (Astarion canonically is immune to sunlight, thanks to the handy plot device of having his illithid tadpole in his brain).
Last year’s handbook did not specifically confirm it was Astarion in the artwork, but ENWorld later got acknowledgement from the illustration’s artist that it was an official appearance by the character, the rights to which are owned by D&D maker Wizards of the Coast.
Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian has now wrapped up work on the game with one final patch that added in Xbox Series S splitscreen support. The studio has now begun work on its next game, but it won’t be Baldur’s Gate 4 or anything at all to do with D&D. Still, it’s highly likely we will see a new entry in the series launch at some point – even if it is from another developer.