Baldur's Gate 3 changed a whole lot during development. We saw some of that on early access, with Karlach and Wyll especially, but of course, the game was in development long before Larian showed it off to the world.
Now, we have a glimpse at one of the earliest character drafts we've seen yet. Larian CEO Swen Vincke just shared a screenshot of a 2018 design doc on social media, outlining brief notes about Lae'zel. Here, we can see that her backstory changed quite a lot, as her story would have initially seen her chased down by her former "classmates", presumably from Crèche K'liir.
Vincke shared this in response to a fan showing off their incredible Lae'zel cosplay. It got Vincke reminiscing on how far Baldur's Gate 3 - and Lae'zel in particular - has come from their initial concepts.
Some aspects of her character stayed exactly the same, even her name. So, she was always going to be an evil-aligned Githyanki fighter called Lae'zel who doesn't fare from Faerûn, but aside from that, it was all very different.
Astarion was, at one point, a Tiefling during development.
One of the notes reads: "This Gith is being pursued by...
