Before Astarion ever crawled out of that grave with a knife and a grievance, he spent 200 years serving a vampire lord who treated him like furniture. Now you get to read about it.
Baldur’s Gate 3: Astarion arrives Sept. 29, written by T. Kingfisher, the award-winning, New York Times bestselling fantasy author. The book is a prequel, set before the events of the 2023 game, and it follows the High Elf through his years of servitude under Cazador Szarr.
That’s a bold choice of subject. Astarion’s backstory is the part of him the game doles out in fragments, mostly through his own unreliable deflection. A novel has to sit in it.
Larian’s own writers are in the room
Stephen Rooney, senior writer on Baldur’s Gate 3, consulted on the project to keep it consistent with the game’s lore and world-building. Which matters more than it sounds. Tie-in fiction lives or dies on whether the people who built the world signed off on what you’re reading.
And if you’d rather hear it than read it, Penguin Random House Audio is publishing an audiobook narrated by Neil Newbon, who won Best Performance at The Game Awards in 2023 for playing Astarion.
Newbon reading Astarion’s worst years in Astarion’s voice is the kind of casting that writes its own press release.
Four books in 2026, and this is only the start
The novel is part of a new collaboration between Wizards of the Coast and Random House Worlds, built around the game’s lore and characters. Random House Worlds plans to publish four titles under the initiative in 2026, with plans for 2027 and beyond to be revealed later.
The publishing push already started. In July, Clarkson Potter released Baldur’s Gate 3: The Necromancy of Thay, a blank grid-paper notebook that reproduces the in-game item. It’s got foil stamping, an embossed skull on the cover and illustrated “clasps” to keep its unholy contents out of the wrong hands.
In August, Ten Speed Press put out The Official Baldur’s Gate 3 Coloring Book, with 40 black-and-white line drawings of characters, settings and creatures from the game, illustrated by Jaki King.
Yes, there’s a cookbook, and yes, some dishes are romanceable
On Nov. 3, Ten Speed Press publishes A Feast for a Tenday: The Official Baldur’s Gate Cookbook by Andrew Wheeler. It’s 65 recipes organized by course and camp location.
Dishes meant for sharing get labeled “Romanceable.” Somebody at that publishing house knows exactly who they’re selling to.
The game that swept everything is still expanding
None of this is happening in a vacuum. Larian Studios’ 2023 RPG, set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, was the first game to win Game of the Year at all five major award ceremonies.
Back in February, HBO announced plans to develop a series set after the events of the game. It’s called simply Baldur’s Gate, and Craig Mazin, who worked on Chernobyl and The Last of Us, is at the helm.
Read it, watch it, play it. The Sept. 29 book is the one that scares me a little, though, because Cazador’s house is not a place the game ever let you linger. Kingfisher has to.
