#And with that info i pretty much could work in some templar plot to get their hands on the sword

[sirenalpha]

I think there are two aspects of the first Assassin's Creed that I like about it that are kind of unfair advantages it has just by its nature as the first of the series

the mystery aspect of its plot and the cleverness of the framing device when it comes to narrative dissonance

something I've noticed over time as I've played more and more games is that I prefer games with a mystery aspect to the plot, for other mediums like books or movies it's enough if I'm like I need to know what happens next, it doesn't have to be a mystery, but with video games, the ones I enjoy most are the ones where I'm like something is up and I'm going to find out what

and ac1 has that to its advantage as you don't know anything about its world at all, it can make the Templars into a mystery plot you have to unravel assassination by assassination while hunting around as Desmond to figure them out in the modern time line as well as trying to figure out what the Piece of Eden is

and once that info is out there you can't take it back for later games, like yeah you have new Templar plots to figure out and there's more about the Pieces of Eden to discover but you still already know who the Templars are and what an Apple is

and frankly the rest of the series doesnt really try to have that much mystery not to the extent the first does with the big bad reveal

as for the framing device, I like when games at least try to tackle the narrative dissonance of dying and coming back to life again, like you can have a good game if it doesn't and you just live, but I like it

and the animus is a pretty good one in my opinion, I think it's clever and takes advantage of video games as a medium

why can you come back to life? Because all the combat is being performed by someone who is already dead, they just didn't die here, you did it wrong and have to do it over

so your health isn't health it's how closely you follow what they did in real life so if you go back to doing what they did of course you recover

and the heads up display isn't what they actually saw in real life it's because you're using a machine, and there's no display outside of it

it's not perfect because you do get button prompts as Desmond outside of the animus and it should probably be first person rather than third or actually use the security camera angles the game uses occasionally but it covers a lot of the dissonance the stuff that is most game-y and you see most frequently

as it's the first of the series a lot of effort and care was put into making it work and be believable whereas later in the series it can be taken as a given, it's no longer clever because it's not new

and that's why it annoys the shit out of me when they added medicine you can take to increase sync like I get if they wanted it so Ezio could be injured and it is acting as hp but fucking hell don't break your own game logic immediately with the sync actually acting as both health and sync, that was an opportunity to be clever that they didn't take if they wanted to have both injuries and keep the synchronization rate, they could have found some other solution but didn't they just break one of the things that resolved narrative dissonance because it's easier and convenient to the player to easily up sync

[dent-de-leon]

I’ve seen you blogging a lot of Dragon Age (and a lot of other ppl I follow too, honestly) and I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about it. It seems pretty cool!

oh ya sure!! oh boy this is gonna be a lot lmao,, but,, Dragon Age is an RPG by Bioware–they also made Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic, in case you’ve heard of those–and the DA series are easily some of my favorite video games. They go super in depth with lots of lore and there’s tons of world building,, I’m embarrassed by the number of fantasy Elvin words I know and I can tell you way too much about the history of fake countries cause that’s where I’m at lmao,, 

To try and summarize: the first game is called Dragon Age: Origins, and the focus is very much on fleshing out and playing through a backstory that you handcraft for your PC. You can be everything from an elf trying to reclaim their lost history, to a privileged human of the ruling nobility, a sheltered mage that’s locked away from the rest of the world for “their own good,” a dwarf just trying to survive whose always been a fighter at heart–skilled enough to champion a tournament, and so on. I played the City Elf origin and it just about killed me. 

The appeal here is you can start with various different branching paths and backstories, all of which culminate in your character becoming a Grey Warden. Essentially, DA has these monstrous sort of demonic creatures called darkspawn and usually they’re very disorganized and attack at random. But sometimes there’s a more powerful demon that can connect to them and control them as a kind of hive mind; they become a more organized army force, and spread a “Blight” and its taint wherever they go–it causes sickness and a long suffering death, makes the land completely uninhabitable, lots of bad shit. There’s only been four Blights before Origins, so they’re pretty rare, usually centuries apart. 

In the event of a Blight, the only thing that can stop the lead demon and its army is a Grey Warden. They’re a,, supposedly “neutral” party in political affairs; they’re meant to be an outside force from other armies and they aren’t divided by nations or anything, if you’re a Warden, you’re a Warden everywhere. So they’re also kinda above the law. Wardens can requisition land and resources, forcibly recruit condemned criminals and high ranking nobles alike–“anything to stop the Blight.” They’re elite warriors, and the only ones who can actually sense the darkspawn. That’s because they’re already tainted by them. You drink some darkspawn blood,, probably you die, but maybe you don’t,, and if you survive,, congrats!! You’re in the Wardens. Forever. You can run, but they’ll probably find you. There’s really no running from the fact that the taint will get you eventually in a few decades though. In Origins you end up being one of the only two surviving Wardens left to defend the country of Ferelden during the Fifth Blight–you have to travel the country, gather allies, try to prove you’re not a war criminal, save the whole world, and don’t forget to pet your dog :’) 

Dragon Age 2 is a lot simpler to talk about with all that context out of the way–you’re Hawke, a Ferelden refugee fleeing from the Fifth Blight. The Warden saves the world and everyone throws a big party just as you’re getting settled in your new city. Kirkwall is…a lot,, real creepy place. Maybe it’s that it used to be the center of the Imperium’s slave trade and is still called “The City of Chains.” Maybe it’s all the centuries of blood magic and death that’s seeped into the walls. Maybe it’s those architecture plans you find for the city that point out it’s been built in the shape of one big magical glyph. But there’s something weird there and the whole place is incredibly unsettling. Way more demons crammed into one city than most of the country combined, templars ready to turn on every mage in sight, there’s a lot happening in that one little place. 

I always say that other Dragon Age games are more about the player, but DA2 is really about your party members. It’s your companions’ stories–Hawke is sort of this unsuspecting bystander that just gets dragged under by all the city’s malevolent machinations. And ultimately–accidentally, so very unfortunately–they wind up at the very epicenter of it all. Maybe it’s about Hawke, a snide, sarcastic refugee just trying to provide for their family and take care of their friends. But it’s probably more so the story of a quintessential Byronic antihero tortured by his past and sparking a war for mage freedom, or a charming pirate captain in search of her mysterious lost treasure and who knows more about the city’s supposed “invaders” than she lets on. Or the silver-tongue dwarf with a love of telling stories, and a penchant for extravagant lies–the narrator of it all, and entirely unreliable. 

At its core, DA2 is about mages and templars. The mages typically being locked away in towers known as Circles because they’re seen as “too powerful, a danger to themselves and others,” etc. They’re guarded by knights that work for the dominant religious order known as Templars. Only the Templars frequently harass and systematically abuse the mages in their charge instead of “protecting” them. Ultimately, it’s also about betrayal and redemption, how far someone can go before they’re beyond redemption, etc. 

DA2 always hits this very melancholic note that neither of the other games quite reach. I think it’s because Origins and Inquisition are very grandiose in scope and scale,, you’re a chosen hero,, you’re saving the world,, the player is incredibly empowered. But in DA2, it really does feel like you have no power. Like you’re just trying to scrape by and look out for the people you care about. Like everything keeps going wrong no matter how hard you try to help, like you’re a failure to your family and somehow lost your friends. DA2 is confined to a single city and so much smaller in scope and scale, but the little glimpses of intimacy that you do get from that unique experience really hits you in the end.

Lastly, there’s Inquisition. You can choose your player’s race like in Origins, but you don’t really get to play out your backstory or anything, you’re just kinda thrown right into it. Inquisition is very go big, so everything is big–lots of exploration, lots of questing, LOTS OF DRAGONS,, THIS GAME IS IMPORTANT SOLELY FOR THE 13.5 DRAGONS YOU GET AS OPPOSED TO THE 1-2 IN EVERY OTHER DRAGON AGE GAME,, SERIOUSLY LACKING ON THE DRAGON PART THERE HONESTLY IT’S KINDA FALSE ADVERTISING,, but yeah I’d say DAI is the most like an open world sort of deal,, very classic high fantasy like Origins (though not so brutal or grisly like Origins), very You are the Chosen Savior stuff,, big departure from Hawke running round the sewers 

DAI builds directly off the previous games and decisions players made in them, but it’s also actually very easy to jump right into with no info on prior games. I’d say it’s also the most user friendly, and it’s probably better for new players to start with it to see how they like the world. Combat and mechanics in Origins can be very tedious, and parts of it just haven’t aged well. DA2 is easier mechanically, but much more punishing and harsh with its consequences. DAI is very forgiving by comparison, and you won’t accidentally get party members killed for the calls you make. And while DAI is very lore heavy, I think it’s the perfect place for newcomers to kind of run around and try to explore the living breathing world crafted from that world. 

The essential plot is that you’re following on the heels of the Mage Templar War, and rogue members from the Chantry (church basically) are looking to upstart the Inquisition again, a huge military organization that waged holy wars back in the day. You end up accidentally being in charge of everything because, and I quote, “You killed everyone who was in charge.” Oh yeah, there’s also demons tearing open rifts from their world into yours and you’ve been blessed/cursed with a magic mark on your hand that makes you the Only One who can close those rifts and save the world. Build your army, get drunk with your friends after slaying dragons, dance with your partner after usurping the empress at her own ball, try not to get torn to pieces by the magic in your own hand, get good at reading tarot cards, and maybe don’t romance the Elven God of Trickery on your first (heartbreaking) play through,, 

Lastly, there’s actually a fair amount of queer characters in DA, which is pretty cool. And a lot of them are romanceable partners for your character, so you can definitely play a queer PC. So,, off the top of my head–Bi characters (and romance options): Leliana and Zevran [Origins], Fenris, Anders, Isabella, Merrill [DA2], and Josephine [Inquisition]. There’s also Iron Bull, and he’s a pan character who’s romanceable in Inqusition. Dorian is gay and romanceable, and Sera is a romanceable lesbian, both also from Inquisition. Krem is a trans man and Maevaris is a trans woman, the former is a side character (and best friend of Iron Bull) in Inquisition, while the latter only appears in supplementary sources like comics, but she does get mentioned from time to time in Inquisition as Dorian’s close friend. Oh! Also--Solas and Josephine’s routes in Inquisition don’t culminate in a sex scene, so lots of people headcanon them as asexual. And you can also swing Dorian’s romance so it doesn’t have a sex scene if you wanna romance him but kinda play an ace Inquisitor, which is cool! Sorry for the long rant lmao but uhhh, I hope this helps?? :’)

[therealdragonnerdagain]

This is a retired gaming blog, blah, blah, blah. But I wanted to post this.

So I was playing Skyrim (Vilkas is a crappy follower -- Farkas is better) and for some reason, I started thinking about how I made that Loghain post about two (?) years ago and how Dragon Age fans misunderstood it.

I remember having some fans attack me, astonished and self-righteously outraged that I was "defending" a racist slaver. Meanwhile, other fans approached me in a friendly manner, shocked that I had apparently killed Loghain in the game even though I pitied him. These two groups were both under the impression that I liked Loghain, which was . . . utterly baffling to me.

It occurred to me that these fans must've been very young, because they were still thinking with a very black and white mentality. To them, pitying Loghain was equal to liking him (except it's not) and explaining why he did what he did in Origins was somehow the same as condoning his actions (again, it's not).

If I recall correctly, the purpose of my post was to recount Loghain's sins in a list where I explained why he committed each one through codexes, letters, and info I'd gathered in the game (working with Howe, Anora's schemes, etc).

Also, keep in mind that I always tended to write such posts after having taken my meds and right before going to bed, so they were often incoherent, drowsily written nonsense.

So ironic that I was accused of ableism while too out of my mind to write a decent post due to a medication for my MENTAL ILLNESS.

So ironic that I was accused of racism and condoning slavery, only to have my accuser turn around and make racist insults at me.

But whatever. Back to Loghain.

I think Alistair summed it up best when he said that people like Loghain and Anora think they're the only ones who can get anything done. Loghain thinking he was the only competent and trustworthy person in all of Feralden is half the reason Feralden nearly burned to the ground.

Yes, I pity Loghain. But, no, I don't like him. He's an asshole and I've never had a playthrough where I spared him (especially since I played elves so much).

I pity Loghain because he has PTSD and his wild paranoia was sad to watch. He truly believed Cailan was going to marry Celene when he clearly wasn't (something Inquisition and The Masked Empire only further proves -- Celene is queer, power-hungry, and in no way willing to marry a man) and if you take Loghain back to Ostagar, he rants and raves about Cailan's "betrayal" wildly. It reminds me of mentally ill people I knew personally.

So, yes. I pity Loghain because he is a broken soldier. And how could anyone have helped him? Thedas doesn't "do" mental illness well. As I mentioned on another post, Cullen is probably the first templar in (recent) history to open a rest home for broken soldiers.

What was more, Loghain had too much power. There was no one to stop him in the heights of his paranoia. Even Cailan couldn't do anything because he needed Loghain's help against the darkspawn.

Also, Anora would probably never speak to Cailan again if he sent her father away. I believe Cailan really loved Anora and was never going to marry Celene. Eamon (so high on having the king's ear) kept telling Cailan to find a new wife, and Cailan kept telling Eamon to mind his own business. So Eamon's letters, combined with the complete businesslike letters from Celene about an "alliance" both led Loghain -- in his feverish brain -- into believing his son-in-law was casting Anora aside, when nothing was farthest from the truth.

If you pay attention at Ostagar, Cailan is clearly annoyed by Loghain but can't be rid of him. I wouldn't be surprised if he suggested having Loghain retire to a chantry somewhere, only for Anora to become upset with him until he called it off. Remember, Anora practically worshiped her father.

Also, yes, I enjoy understanding the reasons why Loghain did what he did. That's because I'm a writer and I enjoy knowing the entire story. That does not mean I condone Loghain's actions.

I recall fans sneering on me for talking about gray morality and how the Gray Wardens were called GRAY WARDENS because gray morality is the entire theme of Dragon Age.

The fans were sneering on me because they thought I was using "gray morality" to excuse the elven slave trade. Only I wasn't. I never said it was right or necessary to sell the elves off to Teviner. In fact, it was completely unnecessary (when is slavery ever necessary?). And given the fact that my favorite Gray Warden was Kalian (and my second favorite was Mahariel) it was downright infuriating. (Kalian's father almost gets sold.)

Also, it wasn't Loghain that sold the elves. It was Howe, as theorized in another post of mine. Howe led a massacre against the elves after Tabris killed Vaughn, and when that wasn't enough to cow them, he used bio warfare and slavery to be rid of them. In fact, he did just about everything that has been done historically to people of color in real life -- why in FUCK would I excuse or condone this???

David Gaider stated on BSN (I believe the thread is gone now with the rest of the forums) that Loghain didn't even know what was happening in the alienage until you wave the slaver documents in his face during the landsmeet.

Loghain wasn't given a short stick by the plot. He was written wonderfully. He was written just well enough that you could pity him and hate him at the same time. And he felt very human. And very real. More real than Coryphshit, anyway.

Loghain had a full story arc with multiple outcomes. It's pretty much everything a fictional character in a video game could ask for. He wasn't given the short end of anything, in my humble opinion.

Even though Loghain wasn't directly (but was indirectly) responsible for the slave trade, he was still responsible for a lot of seedy shit. He was responsible for Uldred. He promised a man -- a slave -- his freedom, only to go back on that promise, which led to Uldred committing suicide by giving his body to a demon and wreaking havoc on the tower: the real Uldred was dead by the time the Warden arrived.

Loghain was also responsible for Redcliffe but couldn't be bothered to manipulate the Dalish into his control. No, they were already destroying themselves in a neat little plot about how the writers think white people aren't responsible for modern day oppression or whatever.

Anyway.

It's supposed to be ironic that Loghain depises the Gray Wardens and yet acts just like them, committing atrocities to do what is necessary (or what he THINKS is necessary) but not what is right. It's almost like the game was building up specifically for him to become a Gray Warden. Especially if you read the books, you can see what I mean. (The same kinda goes for Solas, though he's just a Loghain-expy anyway.)

My point is, fans of the game are too young to grasp its more mature themes, which reach beyond simple black and white ethics. Dragon Age: Origins is a world were nothing is black and white and nothing is supposed to be simple (again, not "condoning" slavery. Slavery is pretty simple: it's wrong). It's a world full of anti-heroes who do bad things to save the day.

Again, Howe wasn't doing something "necessary" in selling off elves, so I'm NOT talking about him when I speak about gray morality. I'm talking about Loghain, who firmly believed he was doing the right thing at Ostagar, even though he really wasn't. Loghain firmly believed that saving his troops and pulling them out would protect Ferelden, even if it meant sacrificing thousands of lives -- just as Solas believed sacrificing all those people on the mountain by tricking Corypheus into opening his foci was necessary to save his own people.

As a side note, it kind of pisses me off that Patrick Weekes wrote that segment for Solas where Solas talks about the battle at Ostagar being not so black and white. He tries to make it seem as if Loghain's actions could have actually been right in some way, but anyone who's paid close nerdy attention knows that Loghain was clearly WRONG. I believe this was done mostly to honor the player's interpretation but . . .

If Loghain hadn't barred the Orlesians from entering Ferelden, then pulled out his own troops, Ostagar would not have happened. Period.

During the first act of Inquisition, you can actually get in a fight with the quartermaster at Haven about Ostagar. It's another example of Patrick's Weeke's shitty writing, where he tries to get an emotional reaction from the audience by appealing to the player instead of the Inquisitor. He basically has no idea how to write for a video game and instead writes like this is a novel. 

The Inquisitor has no reason to care so passionately about Loghain and Ostagar, while those of us who played Origins do. Yet the Inquisitor is so angry, they act as if they were there (because we were there) when they really shouldn't give a fuck. This is immersion breaking, also stupid, and Weekes uses this method to pull us into the story emotionally multiple times throughout the game: Morrigan's introduction where the Inquisitor is smiling at a dangerous stranger as if they know her, the popular and much loved Teagan being a jerk in order to play on our feelings (and again not the Inquisitor’s feelings), etc.

Loghain wanted desperately to keep the Orlesians out because the war against Orlais had left him paranoid and suffering PTSD. Orlesians raped his mother and killed his father. Orlesians mounted the heads of his family and friends on pikes. Orlesians made his life a living hell.

And it was so, so easy to blame everything on Cailan once he was dead, wasn't it? But I don't think Loghain was really even blaming Cailan out of power-hungry maliciousness: he actually believed Cailan was a stupid child (Calian's name even means child) and would forever see Cailan through the "father filter."

Loghain has a Fade nightmare that was cut from the game and buried in the game files. In it, he is trapped with child!Cailan in the Fade and is bogged down by guilt and anger. He will always see Cailan as a child and will hate himself for killing him, even while still hating Cailan.

Yes, Loghain hated Cailan, possibly because he was the child of Maric and Rowan, Rowan being the woman he loved. He believed Cailan was a little boy who wanted war and had miscalculated the battle, when in fact Cailan was pretending to want war to keep his troops in good spirits (Wynne confirms this). Cailan knew they were going to die at Ostagar thanks to Loghain -- this is why he sends you and Alistair to the tower. I think he might have even known Loghain was sabotaging the tower.

Again, all of this is mentioned in Return to Ostagar. Nothing about Ostagar was "morally gray" as Solas (and Patrick Weekes, who apparently doesn’t know the story) would have you believe.

And yet, while Loghain's actions were very wrong, he was also not the mad, evil, cartoony villain Alistair saw him as.

Loghain was a sick man who believed he was doing what was right: THAT is what makes this situation morally gray.

Also, Loghain's an asshole because he's racist. I recall one playthrough he called my Mahariel a wild elf, insinuating that she was worthless because she was Dalish. And even though he worked with the Dalish in the books, he and Maric never really treated them like people. The elves fought in the war to liberate Ferelden and then got all of nothing for it and went right back to being socially, religiously, economically oppressed (correct me if I'm wrong). Sounds a bit like the Revolutionary War, huh?

All those nobles at the landsmeet screaming about how Fereldens don't believe in slavery, as if oppression ends at whips and chains.That entire scene at the landsmeet was very realistic, actually. How many white people today think people of color aren't socially, economically oppressed and that oppression ended with slavery? They'v got freedom and don't even know what it is. But if it was suddenly taken away, they would know. Oh, they would know. 

This grimdark crap is why I enjoy breaking the theme by playing a Warden who is not an anti-hero but a hero. Which means that Loghain always dies in my games because a hero would kill him, while a pragmatic anti-hero would make use of him.

The fact that Dragon Age: Origins is grimdark is what makes playing a shining hero so great. Dagna's line about the Gray Warden "It was a time of darkness, she was the only light" was perfect because of this.

I loved playing a hero who saved the day without resorting to pragmatism. I loved it simply because the real world doesn't work that way, and I wish desperately that it did; I wish that people could just be good for once.

I loved playing a hero and having Loghain realize my character was everything he should have been and everything he could not be. (Again, it's the same with Solas and a good, morally upstanding Inquisitor.)

That being said, I also believe a "good" Inquisitor would let Blackwall live. I believe the difference between Loghain and Blackwall is that  while one has a chance to overcome his own darkness, the other does not. Loghain never goes on a killing spree again should you let him live, but he also has to live in misery the rest of his life. Frankly, I always viewed his execution as a mercy kill. And if you defeat him in combat, he pretty much asks you -- with a content smile -- to kill him.

The point I'm trying to make, what I'm getting at is this:

I suddenly understand why series with more "mature," thought-provoking themes like Dragon Age and Mass Effect have been dumbed down and watered down into childish, cartoony, bullcrap.

The fans are too young to get it.

That's not an insult. It's just the truth. We're all naive and inexperienced at least once in our lives. That's the very definition of youth.

Look at Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World. The first game -- while still a bit ridiculous, adolescent, and cliched -- at least has more mature, thought-provoking themes, situations that leave you questioning if you did the right thing. The second game is a bunch of adolescent whining, cringey cliches, and utter nonsense.

Dragon Age: Origins went from characters with depth, meaningful choices, and interesting npcs to Inquisition, the light-hearted, bubbly, bland, cliched, MMORPG/Skyrim wannabe, where your choices don’t matter and your own followers treat you like shit long after you’ve befriended them -- but only if you’re Dalish.

Mass Effect went from the same deal (mature themes, blah, blah, blah) to watered down . .  . everything. Tactics, choices, any seriousness or depth was all replaced with button-mashing combat and campy comic book drivel (yeah, I went there). Though don't get me wrong: at least the combat for Mass Effect was fun across all three games.

It's like the writers went, "Fuck it. The audience wouldn't appreciate or grasp mature themes anyway!" and gave us a bunch of cartoonish, ridiculous shit.

I wish they’d stop. If young fans don’t get it, then they don’t get it. Why change your games when the audience is still the same?

[han100894]

Assassins creed Girl Genius AU

So I saw the Assassins Creed movie last Saturday. I wasn’t exactly dragged there but I didn’t really want to go either, in the end it was okay. But it did get me thinking on the universe. And like always on a possible Girl Genius crossover.

(Discalimer in that I saw the movie and have seen (and played a tiny bit) of one of the games (the one where Ezio first starts as a full main character I think?) So I’m cribbing off of the idea but filling in blanks with my own ideas.)

Things I thought of:

I imagine this world in basically the GG universe, with the whole Templar and Assassins thing added on top like icing on a cake. The exception being there are no hives, Lu is trying to take over using Pieces of Eden. Otherwise the mad science, Klaus’ Empire, Skifander, ect are all similar though they get there in slightly different ways.

Lu/ and the Order are all Templars, taking away free will and all that. Probably Templars back to the Storm King (I mean yeah in canon he probably at one point was an okay dude, but even then as a king in the 1600 I doubt he was all that great.) who in this verse is probably pretty bad (but unlike Lu may fully buy into making the world a better place instead of direct I just want power.)

Lu’s reincarnations as Queen of the Dawn may actually be all her ancestors? Maybe some kind of really weird bleed effect after she starts experimenting with the animus. Maybe this is what tips Lu over fully, all her personalities bleeding into one? I imagine Lu’s the one who made the machine.

Tarvek and Violetta are both born into it. (Violetta thematically better for Assassins but family wise she’s stuck. She’s basically a Templar Assassin at the start. Smoke Knights maybe being the Templars try and making Assassin like fighters?) Neither of them are happy about this, though years of brainwashing has had some effect. Tarvek doesn’t really support the whole using Pieces of Eden thing (at the beginning mostly as there are multiple pieces and he realizes how easily it could be turned against him.) he learns they both too, at slightly different speeds of course. Plus Tarvek kind of likes the idea of managing to become Storm king without them.

Skifander is part of the assassins, a specific branch probably. Considering their swords in canon, I’d say their trademark would be hidden blades, but the blades are bigger and hidden on top of the wrist. (To do this a metal sheath is lays along the forearm, making it impossible to bend their wrists back as a safety precaution from stabbing their own hands and giving it the support necessary. It’s slightly less hidden as the under arm ones.)

They may know a little bit more on what exactly the Pieces of Eden are than most fractions, as Ashtara may be one of the ”gods” like Juno and Minerva. (I admit I know little about that topic in the creed universe.) And they are her chosen people. If so the War Goddess of the Dyne is also one of the gods. (I call her Din this may is totally is be a reference to LOZ.)

Klaus is a first generation assassins (Family stayed out of others business after all) converted by Zanta (and maybe the boys, more on them below.) When he came back from Skifander he lost contact with the creed, mostly because they were convinced he had switched over. He had not. He keeps a look out for Pieces of Eden, but honestly at the start has very little info about what the heck is going on.

Lu gets a hold of a minor Piece of Eden that lets her control one person, uses it on Klaus?

Gil is fun, because he’s technically not as assassin though his father told him about them (maybe, not sure about this) and only kind of knows what’s going on in the background of everything else. He’s also interesting because as far as the world knows he’s only has one assassin and so in the long run isn’t really vital to put him in the machine and yet secretly on his mother’s side he has generations of assassins ancestors that probably know a lot of secrets.

Doesn’t stop Klaus from putting him in the machine briefly at one point to basically give him a Klaus bleed for some reason (Maybe? haven’t actually plotted anything out, maybe a legit scenario for that doesn’t come up. its how it would work in this uni though)

Heterodynes are neither Assassins or Templars, but considering their stance on mind control and free will (plus the boredom of having no people to fight because anti-violence), they have almost always been friends of the Creed (especially since the Assassins are not exactly upstanding citizens, if the Heterodynes helped them keep free will safe they didn’t really care what else they did.) They trusted the Heterodynes disgust of mind control to the point they entrusted many Pieces of Eden to them for safekeeping knowing they would never use them, which makes Agatha a hot item in that by searching through her past lives they could find out a lot of secrets. (More on her later)

They never became a part of the Creed though largely because the Heterodynes look after them self and their people foremost. Their people never became part of the creed because it’s impossible for them to put anything above the Heterodynes in their loyalty and the Creed would not accept that. But there are still creed allies in the people of Mechanicsburg even today.

Bill and Barry are interesting. I could see them becoming Assassins, a showcase in how they are so different from the previous Heterodynes in how they see the town. On the other hand, the fact their father was allies with the Assassins as well as the fact the Assassins have sat back and watched their family for the generations do horrible things, i’m not sure how they would take that. I’m conflicted but kind of lean to them being assassins and sort of leaving the town behind because of that. Mostly for convince (easy to get Klaus in, showcase of difference from other Heterodynes, lets Barry be the one to have convinced the order Klaus is Templar now, etc)

Agatha is fun in that she was probably born to be Lu’s new body while Klaus Barry was born to be used in experiments to find Pieces of Eden through his life. But KB died, so Agatha was the next best thing. Though before that, in hope of regaining their “goddess” Agatha got put through the machine with the plan of basically forcing her to live out everyone one of her Mother’s line and turn her into Lu part 2 (As that’s how Lu basically went Other.) But since Agatha wasn’t in the machines willingly (Unlike Lu had been) it shot her out after only some of Lu’s memories, but left her with a Lu bleed.

(Maybe not sure of the above?)

Things happen and Lu comes back anyway. There is an attempt to get knowledge from Agatha on where Pieces of Eden are (Possibly leading her to see bleeds of Heterodynes. (Her father? Syn? (Probably not as it has to be direct ancestors and Syn probably wasn’t), ect).

And then more things happen that take me away from what I’ve thought of for now.

(Actually have a version of this Au which merges with my Soulmate/mark AU that one day maybe I’ll talk about but it has so much fanon Skiff religion and spirituality in it that will never be canon that I haven’t done so yet, where instead of going back through “genetic memory” the Animus basically looks at the lives of prior reincarnations, meaning not connected by genetics a lot of the time… I personally like this one better but so much background to explain to make it make sense. *Sad face*)