#Daylen “Rook” Mercar

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BELLARA D:

I am not mentally prepared for this questline again. :(

Bellara immediately throwing her arm up to stop Rook from doing anything here, aw.

(It doesn't make up for the lack of a hug option, but Rook takes her shoulder or elbow a few times during this sequence either protectively or reassuringly, which is sweet.)

D:

She's so upset during this whole scene.

D: That line always breaks my heart a little bit.

Got back to the Lighthouse and was once again sad at the lack of a "hug Bellara" option, but Davrin was hanging out in her room and trying to help.

He said it seemed like her brother was mixed up with the wrong crowd and she said, "Yeah. I still don't understand."

:( :( :(

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oh. ooooh. OOOOOOH!!!!

I was trying to figure out some ways Neriah could exist in worldstates where Loris was never taken to the Circle and I started to think...

For this to work, Day can't have been taken to the Circle either.

So what if he's another potential Rook?

What if I make him my Shadow Dragon Rook?

Imagine how juicy the Treviso/Minrathous choice would be, especially considering Neriah would have probably been raised by Day in the worldstates (like, would Loris save his people, or would he think of the daughter he never got to see grow up?)

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Rook talked to Lucanis and got verbally stabbed. Ow.

Lucanis: *has multiple knives just sitting out*

Yikes. (Rook was all "This is ominous...Something bad, I take it?").

Wow. Hate that.

He's off to Treviso to hunt down Zara.

Rook: You don't have to face Treviso or Zara by yourself, Lucanis. You can count on me.

Which, naturally got an very icy response of "I can? That's good to know."

OW.

(That's way worse than Neve's "I don't expect you to show up for Dock Town, Rook.")

Lucanis is still not convinced ("You don't need to do this. But it will make for a smoother operation...."). So, off to Treviso to find Zara in a chantry.

I am so never saving Minrathous again. (Sorry, Neve).

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WEISSHAUPT TIME let's goooooo

here's hoping non-Warden Rook keeps it together and Davrin doesn't end up being the only person who's relatively calm during this mission

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Neve is correct!

Rook's line about picking Minrathous because the Venatori taking control would make things worse is perfectly fine for a non-Shadow Dragon Rook - and perfectly fine depending on whatever your headcanon is for a Shadow Dragon Rook - but I got that line with my guy and immediately went "Yeah, no, that's not the real reason."

Fought the dragon (fire spells were not very effective! Daylen definitely knows non-fire spells but is gonna start branching out a little more) and went back to Treviso.

D:

Lucanis is so upset and I (and Rook) kind of wish he'd get mad about it. Maybe yelling would help.

Briefly took a break from being sad at Lucanis being sad to bask in the SHEER UNMITIGATED GLEE at the Shadow Dragon option that popped up.

I KNEW that line about the Venatori was such nonsense, Rook.

This is so much worse than Tarquin getting mad if you save Treviso.

Then Viago asked Rook to get help from the Wardens and Rook was all "yes, but they'll probably be busy with the gods."

:(

Aw. Rook told him they were fine. Neve asks something similar - "Treviso's all right? Lucanis?" - if you save Treviso. (Really liking Neve's romance and I'm sure I'll really like Lucanis's romance, but my Grey Warden gal/Davrin and Neve/Lucanis continues to be my canon.)

So! I know what choice I'm going with on all my other playthroughs! It is not this.

And then the game dropped an ice staff, which really kind of added insult to injury.

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Team meeting time, oddly enough with half the team missing and Harding wandering in looking for Rook at the end like she didn't know what he was up to. So presumably this was really a "check in on Lucanis and Davrin at the same time" meeting.

I was really concerned that not saving Treviso would somehow mess up Lucanis and Davrin becoming friends, and that doesn't seem to be the case.

Aww, Bellara.

Daylen is definitely convinced that his "drag Lucanis and Davrin along together through the Wetlands for days for some bonding over killing darkspawn and investigating the Cauldron and generally having to hike through a swamp for days without killing each other" plan has worked.

Rook: Sounds like you're getting along now. Better than before, at least.

Lucanis: Typical Warden.

Okay, so dragging Lucanis and Davrin along together through the Wetlands for days mostly worked.

(With my Warden gal, Lucanis followed up the "typical Warden" jab at Davrin with "Ah. No offense" at her, which was pretty funny.)

Davrin: If we let that getting in the way of stopping the gods... Lucanis: We won't. We cannot.

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Neve consistently having a positive reaction to all the funny options I've been picking with Daylen does wonders for their chemistry; I think the only times I've picked a non-funny one were when I just liked the other dialogue better (the "Good things happen, Neve" in the wisp hunt scene eeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEE), not because of any sort of negative reaction from her.

Tried to pick a funny option with Davrin earlier and it pretty much bounced right off him.

Tried to do the same thing with Lucanis and it bounced off him too (to be fair, it was during a Lucanis-is-stressed-about-Spite convo and I picked it with some trepidation and was all "oh, yeah, that's fair" when he didn't think it was funny).

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Very curious to see how Neve's lock-in scene goes (I'm a little spoiled for the kiss bit but. I could have guessed there was a kiss considering how Davrin's lock-in scene went).

Given what Aelia's like and Neve being a noir detective (and the kidnapping of the Down Town residents later, which feels like it's specifically aimed at Neve), Daylen's lucky he doesn't get kidnapped and end up either dead or in Aelia's horrifying little blood magic puppet show later.

On a meta level, this doesn't happen because he's the protagonist (and the various logistical issues with unceremoniously making an Rook who romances Neve unavailable for that quest would have been a mess for the devs) and in-universe it's probably because he moves around too unpredictably to catch and Aelia can never tell when he'll be in Dock Town and so she just gives up on the "kidnap Neve's boyfriend plan" and sticks with "kidnap Dock Town residents."

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Got through Weisshaupt!

Got some banter near the end of the boss fight with Davrin that I'd totally missed last time.

Rook: Davrin, we're never gonna forget you.

D:

Davrin: Just make it count! I can only die once!

Then I had to reload my Warden gal (and nope, lines don't change if Davrin's been flirted with) to see if I could get it - it seems to trigger when the archdemon's on very low health, after Rook yells for Lucanis (at least when he's not in the party).

The problem is that it's very easy to take the archdemon from "very low health" to "dead" and then miss those lines entirely.

This bit was funny - I'd hadn't gotten this line yet.

Davrin, literally about to die: I must bust my friend's chops about him not fighting quite as well as a Warden

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Met Tarquin and Rook was immediately greeted with "And it's 'Rook' now, I hear."

Obviously on a meta level this is so NPCs can call the player character something other than "hey you" (which I appreciate). Up for debate who calls Rook "Rook" in-universe (aside from Varric and possibly Harding) rather than by their first name or last name.

Antoine and Evka and the other Wardens didn't bring up the name change last time (I decided that my Warden Rook is some variation of Warden Lilya Thorne rather than Rook to her fellow Wardens), so I was surprised to see somebody bring that up.

Anyway, Tarquin followed that up with "I thought you'd be gone for good" (thanks a lot) and ended the conversation eventually with this:

So Tarquin's not exactly thrilled.

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Arguing in the Fade, round 2:

"Solas remembered that you accused him of wanting to destroy the world." SURE DID.

XD

Rook: Okay, this is among the reasons nobody likes you.

:D

Switching it up this time! Daylen - unlike my Grey Warden Rook - did not immediately snap into I'm-Varric's-second-in-command-so-now-I-have-to-be-in-charge-while-he's-out-of-commission mode because the Shadow Dragons don't really seem to have that same sort of military structure.

OW.

I don't think that concept even entered Daylen's head, honestly.

Rook: I didn't say I was afraid.

:D

Daylen was all "how'd you know that" and I suspect the real answer was "because Solas is in his head" but Solas is all "you helped Varric pursue me for the better part of a year and it would have been foolish not to learn about you." (Or both are true).

Rook: Then you know I'm not interested in a fancy title. But when something needs doing, I do it.

More talk about the blight, the lyrium dagger, etc - interesting playing a Rook who is less concerned with the blight than my Warden Rook.

ARGH.

Definitely going for the trick dagger ending.

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Aww, a lovely chat with Bellara.

Rook walking in on Bellara writing a romance serial while going over what she's written out loud is funny every time.

I fiddled with picking the funny option and was so horrified at Rook quoting what she'd written back at her that I had to reload immediately. XD

Rook: Not sure what it was, but it sounded pretty good. Bellara: Oh! Really? Well. Thank you!

Aw.

Bellara: Neve found me more serials. I've read them. All of them. Multiple times.

I'm so mad that Bellara never gets to meet Varric; they would have really liked each other.

And aw, go Bellara!

I do love what they've done with conversations in this game; everyone gets to move around a lot more rather than just standing and talking.

Rook: "Interesting" is certainly a word we could use.

XD

Bellara's all "It works! You're fighting ancient gods and everything! And also the rest of it."

Aw.

I suspect this pep talk was motivated by Rook's "I'm making this up as I go" comment to her earlier.

He said being around being good people/a team helps; she was all "yeah, the Veil Jumpers taught me that."

Bellara: Like you do. With all of us.

She's so sweet.

Bellara: So keep being that kind of person. One everyone can look up to.

Which is a little daunting, but given the previous "you're doing great" parts of that speech, this whole pep talk was a nice thing for him to hear.

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Oh, hey, random Rook's-a-Minrathous-local banter.

If I have one beef with the Shadow Dragons, it's that none of them go "hey, Rook!" at Shadow Dragon Rook or act like they know him except Tarquin and the Viper (and then only somewhat).

Unless I've missed random NPC banter, which is entirely possible.

Neat!

Fortunately for Rook, he's definitely gonna drop back into relative obscurity after this aside from being, you know, a Shadow Dragon and married to Neve.

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Running around the Lighthouse and Treviso and the Crossroads before things go bad:

Bellara was delighted both that Neve found the ending of her serial and by how it ended.

:D

Someone tries to get Lucanis out of the pantry, round 2 (Rook tried earlier).

Which was a little at odds with the party banter I got where she threatened to shoot him if Spite took over.

Lucanis went "Ah. You don't have that enchanted barbed arrow because you think it's pretty" and Harding was all "it is pretty! *description of the arrow*"

Wow.

Later Lucanis was all "Teia told me you were fearless; threatening me to my face proves it" and Harding said no, she was afraid of what he is.

Oof.

Lucanis chatted a little with Neve about him getting broken out of prison and he wasn't expecting a Tevinter mage to show up and then added "Let alone two of them" since Rook's a Tevinter mage. :D

Running around a Solas memory and Rook was all "okay, let's act like Spirits of Disruption like the memory thinks we are" and got this:

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Ooo, fun fellow Shadow Dragons chatting with Neve! A bit of fellow mage dialogue in there too, I think.

Rook having the same faction as whoever the love interest is adds a lot of built-in camaraderie to the romance; it's lovely. (Excellent for friendship with that particular companion too, if you're not going for romance). Grey Warden Rook + Davrin is excellent and Shadow Dragon Rook + Neve looks to be headed that way too.