#Dragon Age II Exalted March

[silver-horse]

Yeah. It’s possible that this storyline and these characters were originally written for the next game and they reworked it and turned it into a tv show because they didn’t want to throw it away entirely.

It has happened before. There was a DLC for Dragon Age 2 called Exalted March which was cancelled. So they reworked parts of that story to make it fit into the third game. (For example even the wedding dress in DAI was originally designed for DA2, Hawke would have been able to marry their love interest.) And I think I read somewhere that some of what was planned for Inquisition was delayed and will be part of the fourth game. So this seems to be a trend.

Did anybody else also got the feeling that Dragon Age Absolution kind of uses the heist theme that was rumored to be DA4 (code named “Joplin”) plotline before they changed their minds?

[dalishious]

Let's discuss one of the most divisive characters in the Dragon Age fandom; specifically, the single action that makes him so divisive.

Full transcript below:

Anders is a very divisive character. Most people either love him or hate him. Personally, I lean towards loving him, as I think he is very interesting and has a lot of qualities in a character I find appealing. I also think he is overall a good person. That is not to say he is without faults, just that I believe his merits outweigh said faults.

The most divisive part of his character boils down to one specific action he takes at the end of Act 3 of Dragon Age II; the Chantry explosion. There is a large part of the fandom that believes this action entirely defines him, choosing to ignore the rest of his part in the whole game. But anyone actually paying attention to his character beyond this single event, and the setting in general, would know that Anders blowing up the Chantry does not exist in a vacuum. There is a reason the quest is called “The Last Straw”; it is the last effort of a desperate man in the face of oppression.

Anders spends the entirety of the game up to “The Last Straw” working to help mages and protest the Chantry’s abuse peacefully. He works with the Mage Underground to help people escape from the Gallows. He writes his manifestos demanding an end to the oppression of his people. He tries speaking with the Grand Cleric. And not one bit of it makes any monumental change, because no one in power will listen. Despite all efforts, he still witnesses the mass increase in the use of the Rite of Tranquility, on mages who have passed their Harrowing even; this is supposed to be against Chantry law, but no one has stopped it from happening. He witnesses raids on the families of mages, and the formation of what is called “Templar Death Squads” harassing Lowtown inhabitants who sympathize with the mages. None of this is secret. The citizens of Kirkwall are well aware of these abuses, and many of them are vocally against it. But the Chantry doesn’t care about that. They only care about maintaining the status quo of control and domination. This is fully demonstrated by the Divine sending Leliana to warn Elthina that the Chantry is considering an Exalted March on Kirkwall, because in Leliana’s words, they fear the threat of a mage uprising is the biggest danger to Thedas since the Qunari invasion. Elthina even somewhat defends this, saying that even if it will harm innocents, the Divine’s first duty is to “protect the faith”.

Anders tried peaceful measures to protest the Circle’s abuses. Orsino tried peaceful measures to protest the Circle’s abuses, too. But these peaceful protests are met with worsening conditions, not the betterment. At the beginning of Act 3, as in before Anders even gets his magical bomb ready, Knight-Commander Meredith has already gone above Elthina’s head to request the Right of Annulment directly from Val Royeaux. It is established in Dragon Age Origins that a letter is all it takes to grant permission to slaughter every single mage in the Circle, when Greagoir writes to Denerim for the same request. Another example of no actual investigation prior to granting this Right is from the Magehunter shield item description in Dragon Age Inquisition, which states that it wasn’t until after the Right was conducted and all the mages were slaughtered, that the Seekers of Truth discovered the Annulment was used to cover up the mass murder of mages that had already occurred before permission was granted.

Backed into a corner, Anders lashes out in the only way he can think to force change. The fact that Meredith had already sent for the Right of Annulment means in all likeliness, Anders saved lives by acting when he did. This allowed the mages the opportunity to fight back and for some to escape.

Is Anders a murderer? Yes. But so is every single character in the Kirkwall party. Even Sebastian has killed people in his quest for revenge against those who murdered his family—how does that separate him from Anders doing the same against those who are torturing, mutilating and killing his people? The Chantry is not innocent. Elthina is not innocent. She is a perpetrator at worst and enabler at best of systemic oppression. It is within her power to oppose Meredith—as Grand Cleric, she is in fact the only person with any power to do so in Kirkwall—but she chooses not to. The only action she takes is to silence Orsino’s right to speak publicly. It makes perfect sense to me for Anders to target her.

Why did Anders choose to target Elthina by blowing up the Chantry itself, though? The out-of-universe reason I believe, is simply that the developers wanted to trigger a gut-punch reaction to Americans with the imagery of an exploding building. BioWare is very centrist, and has a strong history of making “both sides are wrong” arguments out of oppressors versus the oppressed. The goal of making Anders do this is to turn off the player’s brain enough to place doubt in the mages and think Templar Order might be right even a little, despite all evidence to the contrary. The in-universe reason is just that between the two targets, the Chantry and the Gallows, attacking the Chantry had less collateral damages to mages in Anders’s view, I suppose? But it’s hard for me to put reason behind this when it’s so overshadowed by outside influence that feels less organically part of the plot and more shoved in for the sake of pushing their centrist agenda. What really drives home for me that it’s an agenda is the fact that post-Dragon Age II, they keep adding more to what happened. First they increase the death toll way beyond anything actually suggested in the game, then in Trespasser they even write a codex entry saying the explosion changed the shape of the Kirkwall harbour, somehow. I can’t help but find it at least a little amusing, and look forward to hearing how actually, the explosion unleashed another Blight upon the Free Marches next.

If you want to call Anders a terrorist, fine. I don’t give a shit, because I can think of so many real life people who have been called terrorists by the government for standing up against colonial enforced inequality, to the point where I question the very meaning of the word. But I ask you go do it somewhere else, because I’m kind of tired of the fandom debate over The Chantry explosion controversy. I’ve said my piece, and I’m confident about my opinion. More confident than BioWare is able to sway me otherwise, that’s for damn sure.

[wretchedelights2]

31 Days of Dragon Age: Day 08

Oct 08 - Favorite Origins lore/codex entry

Forgive me for spamming like 3 of these all at once, I fell behind because I can't keep up with a daily prompt thing to save my life.

[prompt list]

My favourite Origins codex entry is the lil' nugget of Thedas history found in entry #76 - History of the Circle.

I've added the full text of the codex under the cut, but the short version is that during the divine age, the chantry decided to relegate mages to glorified matchsticks, their only duty keeping the candles and lamps of Thedas' chantries lit. Naturally the mages thought that was super lame, so they rebelled by snuffing the sacred flames of the cathedral in Val Royeau and barricading themselves in the choir loft. In response, the divine tried to order an exalted march on her own cathedral. After 21 days of negotiations, allegedly shouted back and forth from the choir loft, the mages were allowed to form a circle of magi.

To me it's just really fucking funny how mundane the whole thing is. No summoning of demons to fight for independence. No templars slaughtering mages wholesale. Just some grumpy mages in a choir loft holding the chantry's sacred light sources hostage.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that nothing is more successful at inspiring a person to mischief as being told not to do something. Unfortunately, the Chantry of the Divine Age had some trouble with obvious truths. Although it did not outlaw magic—quite the contrary, as the Chantry relied upon magic to kindle the eternal flame which burns in every brazier in every chantry—it relegated mages to lighting candles and lamps. Perhaps occasional dusting of rafters and eaves.

I will give my readers a moment to contemplate how well such a role satisfied the mages of the time.

It surprised absolutely no one when the mages of Val Royeaux, in protest, snuffed the sacred flames of the cathedral and barricaded themselves inside the choir loft. No one, that is, but Divine Ambrosia II, who was outraged and attempted to order an Exalted March upon her own cathedral. Even her most devout Templars discouraged that idea. For 21 days, the fires remained unlit while negotiations were conducted, legend tells us, by shouting back and forth from the loft.

The mages went cheerily into exile in a remote fortress outside of the capital, where they would be kept under the watchful eye of the Templars and a council of their own elder magi. Outside of normal society, and outside of the Chantry, the mages would form their own closed society, the Circle, separated for the first time in human history.

—From Of Fires, Circles, and Templars: A History of Magic in the Chantry, by Sister Petrine, Chantry scholar.

[jackdawyt]

Today I’m breaking down the newly-revealed story of Dragon Age 2’s cancelled expansion that would’ve acted as a precursor to Dragon Age: Inquisition, planning the events of Dragon Age II’s sequel more accordingly, whilst giving our player-protagonist Hawke a good farewell.  

The DLC was called “The Exalted March” and was canned because of Inquisition’s scope, and the team’s shift to the Frostbite engine. Thanks to BioWare’s Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development book, we have an in-depth look at this cancelled Dragon Age II DLC with concept art and detailed plotlines to follow.  

I’ve already broken down the Dragon Age 4 related-secrets discovered in this book in my last news update, so I recommend you checking that video out for the latest on the next Dragon Age’s current project. With that said, let’s take a behind-the-scenes look at Dragon Age II’s planned, and unfortunately cancelled final-DLC.

“The Exalted March was a cancelled expansion to Dragon Age II meant to bridge the gap between the events of DA II and the planned sequel, Dragon Age: Inquisition. The expansion focused on the fallout from Kirkwall’s explosive finale, with Corypheus serving as the villain.”

“After the end of Dragon Age II, when Meredith turns into the big red lyrium statue, she basically infests Kirkwall and you end up with what actually ended up being the red templars taking over Kirkwall and being essentially Corypheus’s army, Dragon Age II cinematic designer John Epler says.”

“To stop him, Hawke recruited various factions, having to choose between groups like Isabela’s Felicisima Armada and the Qunari at Estwatch, forcing the hero to split loyalties and risk relationships in the process.”

“It was supposed to bring Dragon Age II’s story to an end,” lead writer David Gaider says. “And it was supposed to end with Varric’s death. I was very happy with that, because all of DA II was his tale. The expansion was supposed to start at the moment Cassandra’s interrogation of him ended in the present. And we finished off the story with Varric having this heroic death.”

“it tied things up and would have broken so many fan hearts, something the writers on Dragon Age notoriously enjoy. But between a transition to the new Frostbite engine and the scope of Dragon Age: Inquisition, the decision was made to cancel the expansion, work any hard-to-lose concepts into Inquisition, and in the process, save Varric’s life.”

“Concept art for The Exalted March explored new areas previously not depicted in the Dragon Age universe, with costumes that reflected next steps for familiar characters. Varric was going to war. What would he wear? With Anders (if he survived Dragon Age II), the plan was to present a redeemed Warden.”

“A character that vaguely resembled Sera in Dragon Age: Inquisition was first concepted for Dragon Age II’s expansion content.”

“The writers sketched out plans to end the cancelled Exalted March DLC with Hawke having the option to marry their love interest. This included alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian if players opted not to wed. There was even a wedding dress made for Hawke. The assets found its way into Inquisition, donned by Sera If she marries the Inquisitor, or the Inquisitor if they marry Cullen. The dress can also be seen in an ambient NPC wedding after a chain of war table missions.”  

“The destruction of a Chantry was explored in concept art as it might have happened in Exalted March. This idea would carry to the beginning of Inquisition.”

While its bittersweet uncovering the story of this canned DLC, especially with the planned send-off having Hawke potentially marrying their love interest, and witnessing the explosion of the Conclave first hand as a cliff-hanger leading into the next game. I’m very grateful that BioWare revealed the development secrets of this cancelled DLC to the public.  

I respect Dragon Age II a lot, it’s a title that was given way too much flack by the mainstream considering it was created within 9 months of production, and had one of EA’s lowest budgets for its creation. Yet despite that, the game stands on its own two feet with a 40+ hour story, new protagonist and a roster of remarkable characters that join the journey.  

“Dragon Age: Origins had the longest development period in BioWare’s history. Dragon Age II’s was the shortest. Production of Dragon Age II officially lasted just nine months, while the team was still supporting live content for Origins.”

One of the biggest reasons behind Dragon Age II’s “different” narrative was the fact that the developers were working insane hours, with zero time for rewrites and revisions, meaning that the first drafts conceived for stories and characters were often the final outcome.  

In light of that, David Gaider felt that the cast of Dragon Age II were some of his favourite Dragon Age characters to date, he believed that the game had some of the best writing throughout the series.  

“As we were writing, I realized there was going to be no oversight – that everything was going to be a first draft. Because nobody had time”. David Gaider says. “I sat down with the writers and I said: ‘Look here’s the conditions we’re working under. A lot of what we’re putting out is going to be raw. We’re not going to get the editing we need. We’re not going to get the kind of iteration we need. So I’m going to trust you all to do your best work.’”  

In summary, Dragon Age II is a remarkable feat, and doesn’t deserve the harsh criticism in my opinion. I adore the characters, narrative beats, and lore introduced in Dragon Age II that have been fundamental to my personal enjoyment of Dragon Age.  

While, it would’ve been nice to have this DLC finalised for Dragon Age II. There are many fundamental aspects of Inquisition that would be completely different if this DLC wasn’t canned. For example, Varric would be dead, having no appearance as a companion in Inquisition... Just thinking about that as a reality - that’s not a world I want to live in at the moment.  

So, while it’s sad that this DLC never came to be, there are (at least) a couple things, like Varric’s life, that we can be happy about, regarding “Exalted March’s” cancellation.  

[felassan]

Dragon Age development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

Some really tasty factoids here.

Cut for length.

Dragon Age: Origins

The continent of Thedas was at one point going to be named Pelledia, a name initially floated by James Ohlen

“Qunari” was a temporary name that ended up unintentionally sticking, much like “Thedas”

Mary Kirby wrote the Landsmeet. To this day, nobody understands how it works, except possibly her. If she’s “really really drunk” she can explain how it works. There’s as many words in it as Sten’s entire conversations put together

Concept art for Thedosian art - as in in-world art - draws heavily on Renaissance-era portraiture, the Art Nouveau movement, religious styles and media like stained glass, and favorite pieces from the golden age of illustrations in the early 20th century

Andrastianism in-world (art-wise) is depicted in wildly different methods depending on who in-world made the art in question. “One religion, 3 different lenses”. There’s the Chantry take, the Orlesian take and the Fereldan take; each with its own different interpretations, different mediums and different stories

The stained glass images were drawn by Nick Thornborrow for DAI, to decorate religious spaces in that game “and beyond”

irl Viking art influenced Ferelden

Greek and Italian art influenced Orlais

The book also had other insights into and anecdotes from the development of DAO, but I’ve transcribed them recently as they’re essentially the stories DG has recently been relating on the awesome Summerfall Studios DAO playthrough Twitch streams. (On those streams he provides dev commentary while Liam Esler plays through DA. The ones with DG are currently once every two weeks. Check them out! Here’s a calendar where you can check when the next one is) Instead of repeating myself I’ll just provide the link to the first transcript. From there you can navigate to the subsequent parts. Note these streams are ongoing. At this point I will also point you to a related post which is cliff notes of the Dragon Age chapter in Jason Schreier’s book Blood Sweat and Pixels.

Dragon Age II

DAO had the longest development period in BioWare history. In contrast DA2 had the shortest

Initially DA2 was going to be an expansion to DAO. A few months in EA said “Yeah, expansions like these don’t sell very well, so let’s make it a sequel.” So it suddenly became DA2 and they had to make it even bigger, although they still only had 1.5 years of time in which to do this

Production of DA2 officially lasted only 9 months, and at the time the team was still supporting live content for DAO! They finished development that January after the design team crunched all the way through the holiday period that year. Then it went to cert 9 times

The limited time they had is why the story takes place mostly in and around 1 city, and over 7 years (so it was temporal, rather than over physical distance, because a more expansive world would have taken more irl time to make)

They had no time to review even the main plot. Mike Laidlaw pitched the idea of 3 stories taking place at different points in the PC’s life, tied together by Varric’s recollections of events. DG rolled with this and made 1 presentation on the idea. This presentation was then approved and off they went

As they were writing DG realized that there was going to be no oversight and that everything was going to be a ‘first draft’. “Because nobody had time.” He sat down with the writers and said “Look, here’s the conditions we’re working under. A lot of what we’re putting out is gonna be raw. We’re not going to get the editing we need. We’re not going to get the kind of iteration we need. So I’m going to trust you all to do your best work.”

Looking back, DG has mixed feelings on DA2. “A lot of corners were cut. The public perception was that it was smaller than DAO. That’s a sin on its own.”

Despite this he thinks DA2 has some of the best writing in the series, especially character-wise. The DA2 chars are his favorite

The pace with which production progressed may in some ways have helped. “When we do a lot of revision, we often file away [as in buff off] some of the good writing as well. Somehow DA2′s whirlwind process resulted in some really good writing”

The pace meant chars landed on the writers in various stages of completion. For example Isabela was fairly defined due to appearing in DAO. In contrast Varric at the start was just that single piece of widely-shown concept art

Varric was conceived as a storyteller not a fighter. His skills are talking and bullshitting. Hence the question became, so what does this guy do in combat? The direction was to make him as different as possible to Oghren, so not a warrior. He couldn’t be a dual-wielding rogue in order to differentiate him from Bela. But you can’t really picture this guy with a bow. “For a dwarf, it would probably be a crossbow. We didn’t have crossbows, or we only had crossbows for the darkspawn. And they were part of the models. We didn’t have a separate crossbow that was equip-able by the chars. They had to like, crop one off a darkspawn and remodel it. And that became Bianca” (quote: Mary Kirby)

“Dwarven mages are exceedingly rare.” [???]

If DAO was a classic fantasy painting, DA2 was a screenshot from a Kurosawa film or a northern Renaissance painting. (Here Matt Rhodes was commenting on art style)

John Epler: “In any one of our games, there’s a 95% chance that if you turn the camera away from what it’s looking at, you’ll see all kinds of janky stuff. The moment we know the camera is no longer facing someone, we no longer care what happens to them. We will teleport people around. We will jump people around. We will literally have someone walk off screen and then we will shift them 1000 meters down, because we’re fixing some bug.” John also talked about this camera stuff in a recent charity Twitch stream for Gamers For Groceries. There’s a writeup of that stream here

Designing Kirkwall pushed concept artists to the limits of visual storytelling, because it has a long history that they wanted to be present. It was once the hub of Tevinter’s slave empire, so it needed to look brutal and harsh, but it also then needed to feel reclaimed, evolved, and with elements of contemporary Free Marches culture

The initial plan was for DA titles to be distinguished by subtitles not numbers, so that each experience could stand on its own rather than feel like a sequel or continuation. (My note: New PCs in each entry make sense then when you consider this and other factoids we know like how DA is the story of the world not of any one PC). Later, DA2′s name was made DA2 in a bid to more clearly connect the game to its predecessor. For DAI they returned to the original naming convention. (My note: so I’d reckon they’d be continuing the subtitle naming convention for DA4)

DA2 was initially code-named “Nug Storm”, strictly internally

The Cancelled DA2 Expansion - Exalted March

This was a precursor to DAI

It was meant to bridge the gap between DA2 and DAI

It focused on the fallout from Kirkwall’s explosion, with Cory serving as the villain

Meredith’s red lyrium statue was basically going to infest Kirkwall and it would end up [with what would end up] the red templars taking over Kirkwall and essentially being Cory’s army

To stop him Hawke would have recruited various factions, including Bela’s Felicisima Armada and the Qunari at Estwatch, forcing Hawke to split loyalties and risk relationships in the process

It was meant to bring DA2′s story to an end and end in Varric’s death. DG was very happy with this because all of DA2 is Varric’s tale. The expansion was supposed to start at the moment Cassandra’s interrogation of him ended in the present. “And we finished off the story with Varric having this heroic death.” It tied things up and would have broken many fan hearts, something BioWare writers notoriously enjoy. But between a transition to the new Frostbite engine and the scope of DAI, the decision was made to cancel EM, work any hard-to-lose concepts into DAI, and in the process save Varric’s life. DG has talked about the Varric dying thing before

Concept art for EM explored new areas previously not depicted in the DA universe, with costumes that reflected next steps for familiar chars. Varric was going to war, what would he have worn? With Anders, if he survived DA2, the plan was to present a redeemed Warden

A char that vaguely resembled Sera in DAI was first concepted for EM. This fact was mentioned near this concept art (see the female elf) and this concept art of Bethany with the blond bob

The writers sketched out plans to end it with Hawke having the option to marry their LI. This included alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian if the player opted not to wed. There was even a wedding dress made for Hawke. This asset made it into DAI (Sera and Cullen’s weddings in Trespasser). The dress can also be seen in DAI during an ambient NPC wedding after completing a chain of war table missions

The destruction of a Chantry was explored in concept art as it might have happened in EM. This idea ended up carrying over to the beginning of DAI. (My note: Lol, the idea that DA2 could have had 2 Chantries being destroyed in it 😆)

World of Thedas

Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby started with “a disgusting little dish called fluffy mackerel pudding”. In the middle of DAO’s busy dev period one of them (they can’t remember who) found a recipe online for this, scanned in from a 70s cookbook. “I don’t understand why it was fluffy. Why would you want fluffy mackerel pudding?” MK says. “We loved it so much we included it in a DAO codex.”

This led them to create more food for Thedas, full recipes included, like a Fereldan turnip and barley stew from MK and SC’s Starkhaven fish and egg pie. The fish pie became Sebastian’s favorite. “To me it made sense for it to be fish pie because a lot of the Free Marches are on the coast”, SC says, “It was something that was popular in medieval times, so I thought, let’s make a fish pie! I looked at medieval recipes and I concocted a fish pie which I fed to my partner, and he was like ‘This is not terrible’”

For WoT the whole studio was asked to contribute family recipes which might have a place in Thedas. SC adapted these to fit in one Thedosian culture or another, including a beloved banana bread that localization producer Melanie Fleming would regularly bake to keep the DA team motivated. “Melanie’s banana bread got us through Inquisition”

DAI

It says part of DAI takes place in or near the border with Nevarra [???]

This game was aimed to be bigger than DA2 and even DAO in every conceivable way

The first hour had to do a lot of heavy lifting, tying together the events of DAO and DA2 while introducing a new PC, new followers etc in the aftermath of the big attack. DG rewrote it 7 times then Lukas Kristjanson did 2 more passes

DG: “Our problem is always that our endings are so important, but we leave them to last, when we have no time. I kept pushing on DAI: ‘Can we work on the ending now? Can we work on the ending now? Can we do it early on?’ Because I knew exactly what it was going to be. But despite the fact that it kept getting scheduled, whenever the schedule started falling behind, it kept getting pushed back... so, of course, it got left til last again.”

“The reveal of the story’s real antagonist, Solas, a follower until the end, when he betrayed the player”. “Solas’ story remains a main thread in Inquisition’s long-awaited follow-up” [these aren’t DG quotes, just bits of general text]

Over the course of development they had 8 full-time writers and 4 editors working on it. Other writers joined later to help wrangle what ended up being close to 1 million words of dialogue and unspoken text. While many teams moved to a more open concept style of work for DAI, the writers remained tucked away in their own room, a choice DG says was necessary, given how much they talked. All the talking had a purpose ofc as if someone hit a bump or wall in their writing they would open the problem up to the room

As writing on a project like DAI progresses, the writers grow punchier and weirder things make it into the game. This is especially the case towards the end of a project (they get tired, burned out)

Banter and codexes require less ‘buy-in’ (DG has talked about this concept a few times on the Twitch streams) from other designers. DG liked to leave banter for last as a reward because it was fun. Banter begins as lists of topics for 2 followers to discuss. These may progress over time or be one off exchanges. One banter script can balloon to well over 10k words. “The banter was always huge because we were always like, laughing, and really at that point, our fields of fucks were rather barren, so we would just do whatever”

The bog unicorn happened pretty much by accident. It was designed by Matt Rhodes and was one of his fav things to design. They needed horse variations and he had already designed an undead variant which was a bog mummy [bog body]. irl these are preserved in a much different way to traditional mummies. When someone dies in a bog their skin turns black and raisin-like. The examples we know of tend to have bright red hair for whatever reason. It’s a very striking look and MR wanted to do a horse version of this as he thought it’d be neat. 5 mins before the review meeting for it he had a big ‘Aha!’ moment, quickly looked up a rusty old Viking sword, and photoshopped it through its skull like that was how it died. “And I was like, ‘I just made a unicorn. Alright, in it goes!’” It got approved. “So we built the thing. It fit. It told a little story”

With the irl Inquisition longsword, one of the objects they tested its cleaving ability on was a plush version of Leliana’s nug Schmooples

The concept art team explored a wide variety of visuals for the Inquisitor’s signature mark. It needed to look powerful and raw but couldn’t look like a horrific wound. In some cases, as cool as the idea looked on paper, they just weren’t technically feasible, especially as they had to be able to fit on any number of different bodies

Bug report: “Endlessly spawning mounts! At one point during development, Inquisitors could summon a new horse every time they whistled, allowing them to amass a near infinite number of eager steeds that faithfully followed them across Thedas. “You could go charging across levels and they’d all gallop behind you,” Jen Cheverie says, “It was beautiful.” Trotting into town became an epic horse siege as a tidal wave of mounts enveloped the streets. Jen called it her Army of Ponies”

The giants came from DA Week, an internal period when devs can pursue different individual creative projects that in some way benefit DA. They also had a board game from one of these that they were going to put in but they didn’t have time. It’s referenced though. It was dwarven chess

Josie’s outfit is made of gold silk and patterned velvet, with leather at her waist. She carries “an ornate ledger” and she has “an ornamented collar sitting around her neck, finished by a brilliant red ruby, like a drop of Antivan wine in a sunbeam”

Iron Bull’s armor is leather. His loose pantaloons and leather boots give him agility to charge

On DAI in particular, concept artists took special care to make sure costumes would be realistic, at least in a practical ‘this obeys the laws of physics and textiles’ sense. “While on Inquisition, we thought about cosplay from a concept art perspective. Given how incredible a lot of [cosplays] are, I now am not worried about them. In fact in some cases in the future I want to throw them curveballs like, ‘All right, you clever bastards. Let’s see if you can do this!’”

2 geese that nested on the office building and had chicks were named Ganders and Arishonk (it wasn’t known who was the mom or the dad). Other possible names were Carver Honke, Bethany Honke, Urdnot Pecks, Quackwall, Cassandra Pentagoose, the Iron Bill, Shepbird, Garroose, Admiral Quackett, Scout Honking, HChick-47 and Darth Malgoose

Bug report: “The surprising adventures of Ser Noodles!” DAI was the first time the series had a mount feature, meaning this had a lot of bugs. A lot of the teams’ favorite bugs were to do with the mounts. There was a period of time where the Inquisitor’s horse seemed to lose all bone and muscle in its legs. They had a week or so where all quadruped legs were broken. It was a bit noticeable in things like nugs and other small beasties but the horse was insanely obvious. “The first time we summoned the horse [for this] and started running around, the entire QA exploration room just exploded with laughter.” Its legs flapped around like cooked fettucine, leading testers to lovingly nickname it Ser Noodles. At galloping speeds the legs almost looked like helicopter blades, especially when footage was set to classic pieces such as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries

For DAI the artists were asked questions like “What would Morrigan wear to a formal ball? Can Cassandra pull off a jaunty hat?”

On DAI storyboarding became the norm. John Epler: “Cinematic design for the longest time was the Wild West. It was ‘here’s a bunch of content, now do it however you want’, which resulted in some successes and some failures.” Storyboarding gave designers a consistent visual blueprint based on ideas from designers, writers and concept artists

Quote from a storyboard by Nick Thornborrow (the Inquisitor going into the party at the end of basegame sequence): “Until Corypheus revealed himself they could not see the single hand behind the chaos. A magister and a darkspawn combined. The ultimate evil. So evil. Eviler than puppy-killers and egg farts combined.”

A general note on concept art:

In the early stages of any project, before the concept artists are aware of any writing, they like to just draw what they think cool story moments could be. It’s not unusual for the team to then be inspired by these and fold them into the game as the project progresses

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

[lesetoilesfous]

Chapters: 1/6 Fandom: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Anders/Fenris (Dragon Age), Isabela & Fenris Additional Tags: Sebastian Critical, anti chantry, Past Abuse, religious trauma, Religious Imagery & Symbolism

Summary:

"A great hymn rose on Valarian Fields gladly, proclaiming: Those who had been slaves now were free.” - Canticle of Shartan, 10:1, from The Dissonant Verses.

Elves are born farther from the Maker's light than humanity, and it is for this reason among others that Divine Renata I called for an Exalted March on the Dales. As a slave in Tevinter, Fenris was never given the privilege of faith, taught that his tongue was too low to sing the prophet's verses.

But Fenris is a free man now, searching for new faith. One that has space in its philosophy for elves, and slaves, and criminals. One that has space, even, for him.

This is a story about Fenris' relationship with Andrastianism, and the way that Sebastian Vael attempts to prey on his trauma. It is about abuse and institutional corruption, prejudice and freedom.

It is, of course, about revolution.

I am extremely excited to share with all of you this little fic about faith and freedom and revolution. I love it very much. Here’s an excerpt from chapter 1 to whet your appetite....

Anders unabashedly looms over the Seneschal, who glares at him for at least thirty seconds before apparently making the decision that it isn’t worth it, as he backs off and away. Anders turns to Fenris, wrinkling his nose. “You alright? Apparently the Seneschal has an elf fetish.”

Fenris’ skin crawls, but he nods and drinks more of his wine. “Fine. Where is Hawke?”

Anders hums, rubbing a hand over his freshly clean shaven chin as he does so. The shave has taken a few years off him, but Fenris finds himself almost missing the stubble. “Yes, I was wondering that. I haven’t seen him. Think he was doing something with the Duke’s son?” Anders looks down at Fenris and waggles his eyebrows, and abruptly Fenris remembers why he hates him. “If you know what I mean.”

“Must you be so willfully crass, mage?”

Anders’ eyes glitter with his amusement as the sky above them flushes pink with the sunset. “Only in polite company.”

Again, Fenris feels a laugh bubbling up in his chest, and again he fights to contain it. Again, he sees Anders’ eyes fall to his mouth, and watches a smile curl on the mage’s lips as they do. “Admit it: out of everyone at this party, the only person you actually want to speak to is me.”

Fenris huffs. “I would speak with Hawke.”

Keep Reading on Ao3

[wizardofozymandias]

Inquisitor as a Companion: Nessa Lavellan

Thanks to @little-lightning-lavellan​ for coming up with this template idea! This was a great writing exercise. Putting most of this under a cut because it’s really long. (Portrait of Nessa by @m-m-m-myysurana​) 

You have selected Nessa Lavellan to join your party!

Race: Dalish elf

Gender: Female

Class: Mage (pyromancer)

Specialization: Rift Mage

Background

Nessara “Nessa” Enasalas Haranal Lavellan  (born 9:02 Dragon) is a Dalish mage, scholar, and diplomat from the Free Marches. Prior to adventuring, she trained as First to the Keeper of Clan Lavellan. She is a companion and a potential romance option for a male Inquisitor of any race. 

The daughter of Clan Lavellan’s Hahren and a Rivaini Dalish merchantwoman, Nessa was raised with a love for stories. As soon as she could read, she devoured her clan’s small library and begged for more. Her father indulged her as much as he could, purchasing any promising tomes from travelers who were willing to trade with the Dalish. Nessa’s mother taught her all the languages she had learned in her travels across Thedas. Growing up, Nessa became close friends with Maelin, the First to Clan Lavellan’s Keeper. She was fascinated by his magic, but showed no talent of her own. 

When she was old enough to be apprenticed, Nessa was assigned to the Clan’s Craftsmaster, who taught her to incorporate the stories she loved into her work. Nessa learned a number of handcrafts, such as woodcarving and leatherworking, as well as how to create arms and armor. She would often emboss images from Dalish legends onto the leather armor of the Clan’s warriors. 

One of the traditions of Clan Lavellan was to send the young clan members who were almost ready to receive their vallaslin to visit one of the human settlements in the Free Marches for two weeks. The tradition helped uphold relations between the Dalish and the city elves and allowed the young adults to experience city life. In 9:19 Dragon, just shy of their eighteenth birthdays, Nessa and Maelin were sent to Tantervale.

On their last day in Tantervale, Nessa and Maelin were approached by a family who begged them to take their eight-year-old son out of the city. He had recently come into his magic and his parents feared he would be taken to the Circle. Nessa and Maelin attempted to escape with the child, but the templars ambushed them outside the city. In the violence, Maelin and the child were killed. Upon witnessing their deaths, Nessa released a blast of fire magic that immolated the remaining templars. She was found by her clan a week later, wandering dazed in the woods. Once her grief had passed, Nessa devoted herself to studying magic and eventually was appointed First to her Clan’s Keeper. 

Before leaving her Clan, Nessa used her place as First to further diplomatic relations between the Dalish, humans, and city elves. She also established a respectable traveling library of Dalish lore and history that welcomes anyone who wishes to study. Care of the library was passed on to the Clan’s Hahren before Nessa left to further her study on elvhen history and legends. 

Involvement

Dragon Age II

If imported from a World State where the Hero of Ferelden is a Dalish elf:

Nessa learns that the former First of Mahariel’s Clan is in the Free Marches. Hoping to create an account of the Hero’s life, Nessa travels to Sundermount to speak with Merrill. Hawke encounters Nessa in Act 1 during Merrill’s recruitment quest Long Way Home. 

Upon entering the Dalish camp, Hawke will find Nessa arguing with Keeper Marethari about Merrill. When approached, Keeper Marethari will wave Nessa aside in order to speak to Hawke. Speaking with Nessa afterward will begin the side quest The Hero’s Legacy. Nessa will explain her intent to write about Mahariel. This opens dialogue options about Dalish history and the Hero of Ferelden. 

Nessa will attempt to accompany Hawke to meet Merrill, but Marethari will intervene. Upon returning to the Dalish camp, Nessa will introduce herself to Merrill and invite Merrill to return with her to Clan Lavellan. Merrill will refuse, saying she no longer has a place among the Dalish. 

In Act 2, once Merrill’s companion quest Mirror Image has been completed, the sidequest Reconnection will become available. Merrill mentions that Nessa has written to her. Hawke can encourage Merrill to write to Nessa or tell her to give up on the Dalish. 

If Merrill receives Hawke’s encouragement:

Merrill will later mention corresponding with Nessa. 

If Merrill is romanced: 

One of Nessa’s letters to Merrill will appear on Hawke’s table. It thanks Merrill for her help in documenting Warden Mahariel’s life and indicates that Nessa is seeking the account’s publication. 

Dragon Age: Inquisition 

If the Default World State is used or imported from a World State where the Hero is a Dalish elf:

Nessa Lavellan can be recruited during the quest Address the Chantry in Val Royeaux. She appears in the crowd near the podium. When approached, she will admit her surprise at learning the Inquisition has risen again. Nessa will also mention that she is visiting the University of Orlais, seeking a publisher for her book on Warden Mahariel. 

If the Hero is not a Dalish elf: 

Nessa will introduce herself as a scholar seeking admission to the University of Orlais. 

If the Inquisitor is a Dalish elf:

Nessa will be pleased to see another of her people in Val Royeaux. This opens an elf-specific dialogue tree in which the Inquisitor can ask Nessa about their Clan. To a non-mage Lavellan, Nessa explains that she gave up her place as First of her Clan in order to further her research into elvhen history. 

Regardless of the World State, the Inquisitor can recruit Nessa or have Solas ask her to join the Inquisition. If Nessa is not recruited at Val Royeaux, she will appear again in the Jaws of Hakkon DLC, working alongside Colette as an assistant to Bram Kenric. She can still be persuaded to join the Inquisition with a special dialogue option (either as an elven Inquisitor or with the History Knowledge perk). 

Trespasser

If the Inquisitor is in a relationship with Nessa:

In the two years since Corypheus was defeated, Nessa has remained at Skyhold to finish cataloguing the library and working on the research that she and Solas were assigned. An optional wedding cutscene is available at the Winter Palace. 

If the Inquisitor is friends with Nessa: 

She has spent the past two years in Orlais collaborating with Collette on a book about Lindiranae, the last of the Emerald Knights. She encourages the Inquisitor to visit her at the University of Orlais. 

If Nessa is in a relationship with Solas:

She will mention her fruitless attempts to find him. After the Inquisitor’s encounter with Solas, Nessa will rejoin the Inquisition as an Agent. 

Quests

Dragon Age II

The Hero’s Legacy (conditional)

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Acquire Research Materials (war table)

We Are the Last Elvhen - companion quest

A Well-Stocked Library (war table)

Emma Ir Abelas [“Now I am filled with sorrow”] (conditional, Save Clan Lavellan failed) 

Vir Lath Sa’vunin [“We love one more day”] - romance quest 

Approval

As a Dalish mage, Nessa is most inclined to approve of Inquisitors who support mages and elves. She supports free thinking and exploration, rather than restrictive institutions. She generally approves of Inquisitors who are willing to explore new magic, accept apostates, and speak with spirits. Because of her past traumatic encounter with the Templars, Nessa strongly distrusts the Chantry and believes their hold over mages should be broken. She supports any decisions that weaken the Chantry. Pious Andrastian Inquisitors may earn some disapproval from her until they’ve gained her trust. 

Nessa is diplomatic, philosophical, and compassionate. She approves of decisions that offer mercy to those who are hurting, as well as those that seek the best compromise in difficult situations. Inquisitors who are open-minded and empathetic will find it easy to earn Nessa’s respect.  

Approval Gained: 

Complete In Hushed Whispers and recruit the rebel mages.

Recruit the Grey Wardens during Here Lies the Abyss.

Gain enough court approval (85 or more) to have Florianne de Chalons arrested during Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts.

Choose the Public Truce or appoint Gaspard and Briala to rule together during Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts.

Allow Celene to be killed at the Winter Palace.

Spare Abelas and the Sentinels during What Pride Had Wrought.

(Elven Inquisitor Only) Drink from the Well of Sorrows

Approval Lost:

Conscript the rebel mages.

Side with the templars by completing Champions of the Just.

Make Alexius tranquil during his judgement.

Exile the Grey Wardens during Here Lies the Abyss.

Reconcile Celene and Briala during Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts.

Complete The Spoils of Desecration in the Exalted Plains. 

Kill the pride demon during All New, Faded for Her.

Kill the Sentinels during What Pride Had Wrought. 

Romance

Nessa may be romanced by a male Inquisitor of any race or class. Nessa is cautious about relationships and it takes several attempts to begin a romance with her. Her romance is unlocked after gaining friendly approval with her, flirting with her consistently, and completing her personal quest, We Are the Last Elvhen. 

If neither Nessa nor Solas is in a relationship with the Inquisitor: 

Nessa may enter a relationship with Solas. 

Combat Comments

Low Health

“Mythal enaste!”

“Someone help!”

“Not today!”

Companion falls

(Inquisitor): You’re not allowed to die here!

(Inquisitor, if romanced): Don’t you dare die on me, vhenan!

(Cassandra): Hang in there, Cass!

(Dorian): Don’t leave me, Dorian!

(Solas): Hold on, Solas! 

(Solas, if romanced): Stay with me, vhenan!

Enemy killed

“May the Dread Wolf take you!”

“Ma halam!”

“To the Void with you!”

Location Comments

Arbor Wilds

(Seeing the Temple of Mythal) “I had no idea there were places like this left in the world. I’m so lucky I get to see it.”

(While Solas and Morrigan are arguing over the Fen’Harel statue) “If anyone would like a Dalish scholar’s perspective on this, feel free to ask. No? Keep arguing then.” 

(Examining the murals in the Temple) “Mosaics. They look like glass. I’ve never seen art like this done by my people. How old must this temple be?”

Emerald Graves

“So beautiful and so sad. All the places my people lived are haunted now.”

“The Emerald Knights rode here once. I wonder what they saw then.”

(Encountering the elven murals) “Looks like the Emerald Knights had some interesting ideas about proper armor.” 

Emprise du Lion

“Whose idea was it to drag me to this gods-forsaken snowdrift?”

“My frostbite is getting frostbitten!”

Exalted Plains

“This is where Lindiranae fell. The air feels full of ghosts.” 

“So many wolves. Fen’Harel certainly keeps close watch on this place.”

Hinterlands

“If I see one more gods-damned bear, I’m going home!”

(Seeing the dragon near Dusklight Camp) “That’s a lot of fire. I wonder if this is how the templars feel when they see me coming.”

Lost Temple of Dirthamen 

“What a shame it’s too dark and damp to take notes in here. I hope I don’t forget anything!”

(Looking at one of the altars) “Are those. . .body parts? This can’t be right. This is no ritual of Dirthamen.”

(Upon completing the ritual) “And. . .it’s a demon. Guess I should’ve expected that.” 

Companion/Advisor Comments about Nessa

Iron Bull: Did you know she used to be a blacksmith? Still hits like it, too. I asked her to spar with me once. Knocked me flat on my ass!

Sera: She seems like she’s all elven glory and shite at first. Y’know, “my people’ve suffered forever and I won’t shut up about it,” but really she’s a lot of fun. 

Cassandra: Nessara is a very headstrong woman. I cannot say I will ever agree with her views on the Chantry. But she has proven to be a loyal companion and a good friend. 

Cole: Hungry, like a fire. She seeks wisdom to heal wounds older than her. Their deaths weigh on her still. 

Varric: Buckets? Don’t let that pretty face fool you, she’s got a tongue that’ll scorch you worse than those flames of hers ever could. Good thing it takes a lot to get her mad. 

Josephine: Mistress Lavellan is an amazing woman. It is a shame the University of Orlais has not admitted her yet. She will make a fine scholar. But for now, I am thankful to have her here at Skyhold. Her knowledge of the Dalish will be a great asset, I believe. 

Vivienne: It is a shame her studies could not have been furthered in a Circle, where she might have had access to more materials and better teaching. But she has a good chance to achieve her ambitions now, and seems ready to take that advantage. 

Solas: Lavellan has a keen intellect and a surprising talent for magic. I fear she may pride herself too much on those things. 

Solas (if romanced): She possesses a rare strength of spirit, valuing wisdom and kindness over wealth or power. This world would be a far better place if more followed her example. 

Dorian: Nessa? An absolutely brilliant woman. If good sense prevails at the University of Orlais, I suspect she’ll be running the place in a few years. Although “good sense” and “Orlais” hardly belong in the same sentence. 

Cullen: If you ever play chess with her, take my advice: treat her like any other opponent. I tried to be a gentleman and let her win once. She caught on and gave me the soundest tongue-lashing of my life. 

Trivia

Nessa’s greatest fear is failing her people.

Varric nicknamed Nessa “Buckets” after watching Sera douse her with water while Nessa demonstrated a fire spell. 

Having trained with her Clan’s Craftsmaster, Nessa is a talented woodcarver and blacksmith. She likes discussing carving with Blackwall and smithing with Dagna.

Party banter suggests that Nessa is more comfortable around spirits than most Dalish elves, having grown up with her mother’s stories about Rivain.

[degenerate-perturbation]

Chapters: 22/32 Fandom: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening, Dragon Age II Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Female Amell/Female Surana Characters: Female Amell, Female Surana, Anders, Velanna, Nathaniel Howe, Oghren (Dragon Age), Justice (Dragon Age), Sigrun (Dragon Age), Varric Tethras, Isabela (Dragon Age), Male Hawke (Dragon Age) Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Self-Harm, Blood Magic, Prostitution, Drowning, Wilderness Survival Series: Part 2 of void and light, blood and spirit Summary: Amell and Surana are out of the Circle, and are now free to build a life together. But when the prison doors fly open, what do you have in common with the one shackled next to you, save for the chains that bound you both? 

Loriel’s routine was by this point quite well-developed.

She woke at dawn, with the sun. Usually the light was enough to rouse her, but in case it wasn’t, she had a timed rune of frost under her bed set to go off half an hour after sunrise. On the rare occasions that she was inclined to laze in bed, it was enough to get her out of it.

Breakfast would be waiting for her, and it was never late. Loriel did not micromanage. Things in her Keep were done correctly the first time, or they were done by somebody else. Her breakfast varied little. One egg, hard-boiled; porridge, salty,  never sweet; fruit, whichever seasonal. She could draw some energy from the Fade, but repeated use of blood magic attenuated her connection to the Fade enough that she still needed to eat. Someday she would look into eliminating that need entirely, once her other obligations were met. She would eat on a balcony as the sun rose, less out of a desire to see the day begin, and more out of a removed knowledge that some sun was necessary for her health. Someday she would fix that flaw as well, but for now, if she had to waste time eating, she could at least get that out of the way while she was at it.

Within a quarter of an hour she would be at her desk. A stack of letters would be waiting there. She would skim them; few really required a personal response. The ones from Avernus, she put aside to deal with later.

When she finished with that, she would indicate for her seneschal to enter. Her name was Brigit; she was bright-eyed and fervent, relentlessly competent, utterly indispensable. She was most of the reason the Keep still functioned at all. She would be waiting outside the door, a cup of tea in hand. The tea—bitter, biting, oversteeped—was Loriel’s one indulgence. She would drink it and listen to the daily report. Brigit respected Loriel’s time, and began with what Loriel cared about—first, had there been any sign of the Architect? Second, had any Wardens begun to hear the Calling?  And third, had any been killed?

There was never any sign of the Architect. Most of the Wardens at Vigil’s Keep were far too new for the Calling. But every once in a while, there would be deaths. Loriel would ask for their names. She forgot them as soon as she heard them, but it was important she hear them.

The rest of the half-hour was an abbreviated exchange of questions and instructions. If there was anything that absolutely needed Loriel’s personal attention, Brigit would ask for it—but few things did. People needed or wanted the entity known as the Commander of the Grey, or the Arlessa of Amaranthine, or the Hero of Ferelden. Loriel held those titles by an accident of history; she had no personal characteristic that suited her for them.

Then Loriel would hand off any letters that needed replying to. Brigit could mimic her hand and her signature easily enough, and Loriel received far too much correspondence to deal with it all herself.

With the business of rulership out of the way, Loriel would descend to her underground chambers. She would work for ten or twelve or fifteen hours. If she tired early, she would sit and read. She avoided falling asleep underground—it was too disorienting. Each day she ascended, changed into the clothes left for her freshly laundered well in advance, cleaned her teeth, and slept. Once a week, she would bathe, whether she needed it or not—the alternative was to forget to bathe entirely. She did not bother to fall asleep naturally—there was a simple spell for that, and she saw no reason not to use it.

Her research went slowly. But it went.

And so the clockwork of her life ticked on.

tck

The work itself was going better than it had. 

Her methodology was much like her daily routine—plodding, relentless, as bland as it was efficient. She followed procedure, did what needed to be done, even if she had no appetite to do it. Her reams of close-written notes were meticulous to the point of exhaustion. She lived and breathed rigor. Almost everything she tried failed, and each failure was a step closer to success.

Eventually—something would work. 

A dim awareness fluttered in her mind that the bright scalpel of her mind was now little more than a crude cudgel, but what did it matter that she wasn’t brilliant? The work still got done. 

Her underground lab had grown from a single rough chamber to a warren of interconnected tunnels and specialized chambers. The Underkeep stretched nearly as far as the Keep above. In one room, the vastly expanded lab space, tables of glass devices and cabinets of reagents. In another, her library, swollen with tomes both common and rare, with her own notes and manuscripts and diagrams. Another room stood lined with cages holding dozens of creatures subject to her experiments—rats, it turned out, reacted very much like elves and humans to the Blight, and they bred fast. Lines of entropy enchantments lined their cages, keeping them in stasis until it was time for them to be of use. An underground stream provided water, wrested from the depths of the earth and channeled through pipes of stone. All of it climate controlled with her elegant runes. It was never too hot or too cold, never too wet or dry; no mold, no pests, no sunlight, save that which she made herself. 

And below that, another tunnel, deeper than the other, longer, and layered with more protections; it lead to the Deep Roads. She ventured there; sometimes for some purpose—to collect a sample, to check for deliveries from her friends beneath the earth—but most often simply to sit in the dark, to feel the miles of stone pressing down on her, and be empty of thought and of feeling and being. 

tck

One of the few reliable reasons that Loriel ever left her Keep was when she went to see Avernus. Letters passed between them frequently, almost entirely of a technical nature—what reagent could be used to evoke such and such reaction? What were the best ways to keep blighted flesh preserved for study? Where were the most promising leads to follow up on to search for lost Tevinter literature on the subject?—But often letters weren’t enough. So once or twice a year, Loriel would gear up and make the journey to Soldier’s Peak. She would stay there for a handful of weeks, making aggressive collaborative progress with Avernus until both their tolerances for other people dried up and Loriel returned to her Underkeep.

“I see you are still being unreasonable about human subjects,” Avernus sniffed on one such occasion, while they both watched a cauldron boil in silence. 

This was a frequent subject of complaints in his letters. “I see no reason in deliberately poisoning a well. Do you imagine the work would go faster if I was driven from my fortress with torches and pitchforks?

“Torches and pitchforks, hmph! As though peasants with torches and pitchforks are any threat to you.”

“Peasants, no. A Chantry army of Templars? A new Exalted March?”

“Do not tell me you still fear Templars. If that were truly your chief concern, you would not have let so many join your Order. ”

He was baiting her, and it wasn’t going to work. “I do not need to fear them to understand what is prudent, what is necessary, and what is not. The work will continue as it has.”

“And in the meanwhile, your Wardens will continue to die, because of what amounts to self-interest, hm? Because you fear the consequences of a little risk? Because you do not like to think of yourself the way you think of me?”

Bait. This was bait. She was too good to fall for bait. But Maker, Avernus could be really irritating in person. 

“I am working with you to cure the Calling,” Loriel said evenly. “To save my wardens from a terrible fate. What sense would it make to sacrifice their lives in order to save them?” 

Avernus snorted. “Very well, child, suit yourself. At your age I felt much the same.”

Something in the way he said child— not a word he often used for her, a word he clearly used now because he knew it would enrage her—sounded so much like Irving that she nearly lost control of herself. Who in the void did he think he was? If not for her grace, his desiccated corpse would be enriching the soil by now. She could have killed him when they’d first met. She could kill him now, if she wanted.

The old bastard watched her with a defiant, mocking eye, daring her to try. She could, couldn’t she? She was younger, faster, and yes, stronger. For all his experience, she had the more raw power to throw around. They had both seen battle, but his battles were a century old while hers were fresh and bleeding—and she’d bested him before. Granted, she hadn’t been alone then...but she was stronger now. Yes, she could kill him—

But the old blood mage was all she had.

“My title,” she said crisply, turning her eyes back to the slowly boiling cauldron, “is Commander.”

He rolled his eyes at her, and asked how her experiments with draconic gall had gone, and they spoke no more of it that day.

Avernus wasn’t all bad. He could be a cantankerous, amoral, belittling bastard, but he was clever, and not the worst to talk to. Sometimes he would be taken aback by her original ideas, rendered silent and thoughtful by her insights. Sometimes she would make a remark that seemed to her perfectly obvious, but which would send him consulting his notes and tomes, muttering under his breath. Each such instance left her smug and glowing for hours. Avernus never rendered praise—which she preferred—but this was better.

Pathetic, that she cared what he thought of her. And she did care. Commander or not, intellectual equal or not, she was his pupil. Avernus had plumbed depths of magic yet unknown to her, and his mind held secrets it would take her years to extract. And whatever his faults, he never lied, not about anything.

How badly she had wanted to please First Enchanter Irving as a child. How much she had lived for his praise, for his assurance that she was so bright, so special, so different from the other children. How pathetic he had looked when she had saved him from the Fade, how much she had hated his mealy-mouthed supplications to his Templar master. Each time she remembered it, she coated the memory with a fresh layer of poison.

Loriel was no fool, and she had no love for self-deception. She knew exactly what Avernus was, and what he was to her. But he, at least, was honest.

tck

Before she’d found Brigit, Loriel had managed intelligence of her keep with a network of enchanted crystals. Padding invisibly around her own Keep like a thief in te night would never have served for long. The crystals studded the halls of the Keep in unassuming braziers and in decorative sconces, transmitting everything that they saw and heard to a circle of polished silver in a dedicated chamber in the Underkeep. Crystals had special properties of resonance and purity that made them excellent for conveying sound. The real challenge had been getting crystals in a size and index that suited her. They didn’t occur naturally often enough to be worth harvesting, so she had had to figure out how to make them herself, with heated water and powdered minerals and careful spells of entropy to control their growth. It was finicky business; large enough to work, small enough to not be noticed, of just the right purity. The key was blood—her blood, connecting the network to the mirror and to herself. 

The next problem was how to limit the flow of information. The Keep was just too busy to monitor all at once. She’d had the thought to fix it by keying the crystal network to particular activation words, to keep from picking up on discussion of that evening’s dinner—but even then, it was too much. Loriel had lost hours to the mirror, hypnotized by every irrelevant word and image it sent. On bad days, it was all she did.

Three chief things Loriel learned from her mirror:

First: The kitchen girl she’d so thoughtlessly forced to forget her on the first day of her new life was never quite the same afterward. She often cried for no reason, couldn’t remember whole weeks of her life, and she didn’t know why. Her dearest friend—a scullery maid—would comfort her, let her weep into her shoulder, assure her that no, she wasn’t mad, that she needn’t give herself over to the mercy of the Chantry, that surely the Maker would send relief soon. 

Loriel regretted making her forget. She would not have done it, had she known it would break her mind. But neither did she indulge her guilt and shame. What a waste that would have been. Of course Loriel had hurt her—was that not entirely expected?

She knew perfectly well what she was. 

Second: Nearly everyone in the Keep she ruled feared her. Some hated her, some revered her, some loved her, but everyone feared her. 

That Loriel was a maleficar was not exactly an open secret. The new recruits didn’t know, and the old recruits weren’t sure or bold enough to tell them outright.

But oh, there were rumors.

Some seemed convinced that she had died long ago—that her seneschal had killed her, usurped her position, and only pretended to take her directives (after all, how long had it been since anyone had seen her? On these occasions Loriel occasionally made a point to appear briefly in the great hall). Others asserted that Loriel was the usurper, that the old commander had grown too popular and beloved and had planned to betray her, and so Loriel had betrayed and killed her first. Another version had it that Loriel kept the old commander imprisoned somewhere in the depths, chained up and tormented with blood magic. And that was well related to—

Third:   People still spoke of the old commander. Anytime something went wrong— the old commander never would have allowed this. The old commander would never have allowed the patrol schedule to change so inconveniently. The old commander never would have stood for substandard breakfast offerings. The old commander wouldn’t have tolerated this. The old commander would have kept us safe. The old commander cared. Many in the Keep were very confident on what exactly the old commander thought and felt about any subject on the sun you could care to name.

The first of Vigil’s Keep wardens were the worst about it. They gathered together some nights to play cards and drink, just the three of them, and the old commander would come up. Anytime the three of them met, Loriel would be there, too, invisible, intangible, unwanted. It was almost an addiction. Oghren would tell embarrassing stories from back during the Blight, and insist that he’d taught her everything she knew about fighting. Velanna always looked vaguely angry when this happened, but she listened anyway, and even asked questions, and many times Loriel caught her suppressing a genuine laugh. They’d wonder where she was, what she was doing. Sigrun would crack a forced smile and say, probably having a great time without us. They’d laugh. They’d miss her.

Loriel had never heard anything so insulting in her life.

In the end, the crystals turned out to be a mistake. It had been a fun project, but a wasteful one. One day she shattered the viewing mirror. If she really needed it, she could always make a new one, but for now, she was done. 

You couldn’t spend your life entranced by what you couldn’t have. You just couldn’t.

Anyway—she'd found Brigit by then. Brigit ran things better than Loriel could ever hope to. If Brigit made a popular decision, the Wardens all agreed that perhaps they were on the right track after all, with the Hero of Ferelden at the helm and all. If Brigit made an unpopular decision, the Wardens muttered that the old commander would never have stood for it, and if the Hero of Ferelden knew what was happening she would surely put an end to it.

Loriel herself rarely thought of the old commander. She had too much work to do.

tck

The first to go was Oghren. It had been for his own good. The Wardens had only ever been an escape for him, an excuse to wallow in his own refuse and avoid the wife and child he had been too weak to face. Well, no more. Loriel waited until he was sober, or as close as he ever came to it, to break the news.

“Go home, Oghren,” she’d told him. “Or don’t. Lay down in the gutter and finally drink yourself to death, if that’s what you really want. You can go wherever you want, but you can’t stay here.”

He’d sputtered, protested. Demanded to know why, and why now . Weren’t the Wardens supposed to take any old sod? Didn’t she have any respect for their long friendship? He’d kept an eye on her since she was naive little mageling fresh out of the Circle (now that was a funny joke) and now she was really just going to get rid of him? Just like that?

"Just like that," she confirmed, unmoved. “You don’t belong here. You have a family.”

He swore at her, so luridly that she was almost impressed. And then he calmed down. He called her a sodding waste of space, but his heart wasn’t in it. 

She made arrangements to have him taken care of. Supplies, escorts, whatever he needed. She wasn't a monster. She tried to be good to her people, when she could. She hoped he really did go back to his wife and child, though both their names escaped her at the moment. Of course she hoped for the best for him.

But she never did end up following up, and whatever became of Oghren Kondrat, Loriel never learned it.

tck

What was really surprising was how long Sigrun stuck around.

Loriel had assumed for years that Sigrun’s presence in her life was just on the verge of ending. They hadn’t been on good terms since the Dragonbone Wastes, and these days Loriel was not on good terms with anyone at all.

And even if Sigrun was too loyal and true to simply desert, she was foolhardy. She fought like she didn’t care if she died, because she didn’t. Each morning when Brigit recited the names of the dead, Loriel waited and waited to hear Sigrun’s name. That she’d died saving a fellow Warden, or charging a group of darkspawn to give the rest of her squad time, or that she’d simply not returned.

But Sigrun was still here.

How fitting for a dead woman to haunt her Keep, one who continued not to die. If Loriel didn’t know any better, she might have even thought that Sigrun missed Oghren, though Maker only knew why. If Loriel didn’t know any better, she might have even thought that Sigrun missed her, in some strange way. Of the original Wardens of the Keep, Sigrun was the only one who occasionally knocked on Loriel’s chamber doors, tentatively calling out her name and even waiting a few minutes before giving up. 

As though Loriel would tolerate her pity.

She hated to think of her. Hated to remember that she was still there at all, accusing Loriel of wrongdoing just by existing, even though she had no right at all to judge her. Hated to remember how much of herself she saw in the dwarf when she first saw sunlight.

Finally Loriel could take it no longer, and had Sigrun transferred to the Warden fortress in Orlais. Sigrun made only a cursory attempt to say goodbye, and within a blessed month, she was gone. 

tck

Velanna was the last to go.

Velanna was not her friend. She had never liked her, and tolerated her solely because Loriel represented something that Velanna wanted—justification for what had happened to her sister. But she had understood her, in her own way. For that reason alone Loriel half-expected her loyalty.

Even so, it was not altogether surprising when it happened.

Unlike the last time, Velanna did not succeed in barging through the door. The weave of enchantments on the door was far stronger than before. And Brigit was there to intercept her.

“I said, let me through. I know for a fact that she’s in there—you were just about to go in yourself. You go in there every day, I’ve noticed.”

“I am sorry, Warden, but the Commander expressly forbids visitors who have not been cleared beforehand. If you like, I can make your request today during my daily report.”

“I don’t think so.” A burst of unfamiliar magic rattled the door. Loriel was mildly impressed. It wasn’t anywhere near enough to get the job done, but that she had managed to affect it at all was impressive.

“Alright, fine. You don’t need to let me in but I know that you can hear me, so you are going to listen, whether there is a door in the way or not.” A furious inhale. “Has some demon taken your mind and driven you mad? You are not the woman I agreed to follow.” False. Velanna had never agreed to follow her at all.

“For what purpose do you exile your friends and surround yourself with enemies? Are you ignorant or foolhardy that this Keep is now full of Chantry fools and their attack dogs?” True, but flawed. Yes, the Vigil had a great deal more Chantry-faithful, as well as former Templars, in its employ, than before. But all Ferelden was full of Chantry fools and their attack dogs. All Loriel did was permit them the opportunity to die in the name of some higher calling.

“You aren’t doing any of this for us. You care nothing for us, if you ever did. Are you even trying to cure the Blight? Perhaps you are not!”

False. Loriel was trying. Of course she was trying.

“And if I am wrong—if a lick of what I have said is not true—then open this door and call me a liar to my face, you wretched cowardly betrayef." A beat.“Well?”

It sounded like Velanna really expected her to respond to any of that.

Loriel heard a final frustrated slam against the door, hammering footsteps, and then silence.

After a time, Brigit entered, trembling and hiding it. She alone had the enchanted, invisible ring which allowed the wearer to enter.

“I apologise deeply, Commander,” she whispered. “She overpowered me with magic. I was paralyzed.”

“I’m very sorry you had to experience that, Brigit,” Loriel said flatly, not looking up from the letter she was reading. “No lasting harm done, I trust?”

Brigit collected herself and inclined her head. “No harm done.”

“Good. Then, if you might proceed with your morning report…”

Velanna disappeared that day, and didn’t return. When no one had seen her in days and it became obvious that she had deserted, Brigit pressed the issue during the morning briefing. “Do you wish her hunted down and brought to justice?”

By the ever-so-delicate crease between her eyes, Loriel guessed that this was certainly what Brigit wished.

“No. It won’t be necessary.” She paused, considering. "But if she ever tries to return, do not let her."

[ourdawncomes]

Trespasser Headcanons

i. The Exalted Council

The Exalted Council is one of the most difficult point of Thora’s journey as Inquisitor, pitting her morals against her own desires. She arrives firm in her belief that the Inquisition should persist, both out of the opinion that its existence was beneficial to the people of Thedas and the fearful question of what she would be if it didn’t exist.

She advocates for its persistence through most of the early days of the Council, although there are cracks. Bann Teagan’s remark about their continued military presence in Crestwood does make her consider the length of its influence, and if it has a reason to maintain it. Had the qunari plot not tangled things, she may have offered to withdraw troops from their bases across Ferelden and Orlais, save those who were merely her allies (such as the Blades of Hessarian). As it stands, she never had the chance.

Speaking of the qunari plot, it serves at first as a justification for why they’re here. If not for them, it would have gone undetected, the whole of southern Thedas sundered in one swift, decisive action courtesy of the Viddasala.

The moment Thora changes her mind about the fate of the Inquisition is in the last scene before she sets out for the Darvaraad. Her doubts about their military presence in Ferelden and Orlais, the fact that as she locked steel with the qunari she realised how little she wanted to fight, coupled with the Inquisition’s deception and infiltration by qunari agents— who were they protecting? Thedas, or themselves?

More information cements her decision to disband the Inquisition. Her promise to prove Solas wrong, she feels, will be easier accomplished when he knows less about her activities, and she’s worked underground before (quite literally). That, and she wants to let go of the past while encouraging Solas to do the same.

One final piece is the fact that the Inquisition can only persist as an arm of the Divine. Thora isn’t blind, she knows the Inquisition was started by the Left and Right Hands of the last Divine by her orders, but through her influence as Inquisitor the order was turned, at least in part, from these roots. Dalish elves, Stone-led dwarves, Avvar, spirits, and the faithless all joined their cause, and Thora herself was not orthodox Andrastrian. They welcomed mages as equals, established places within Skyhold for non-Andrastrians to practise their religion, and generally acted like no Andrastrian organisation had acted before, save Ameridan. Thora has a great deal of respect for Divine Victoria (Leliana), and supports her policies quite vocally, but she couldn’t accept being the arm of any Divine. She would’ve turned down the Maker himself, had he asked. It would feel like a betrayal of what she had created, and she doesn’t know where it would go after she stepped down.

ii. Reunions*

In the years since Corypheus’ death her relationship with Sera, while never hostile, strengthened. Thora takes Sera’s offer on becoming a Jenny, when offered. It strikes a more favourable medium for her, going forward.

She’s not sure how to feel about being Kirkwall nobility, now, but the Cadash’s place on the Merchants Guild will be a boon for her family. Not long after Trespasser she returns to the Free Marches and her half-sister Sylvi becomes House Cadash’s representative in the guild.

Cassandra’s congratulations for a non-existent proposal makes Thora a little sad that (if she’s in a relationship) she’s not already married. It’s something she starts to regret more and more as it looks like she’s going to die.

The greatest contrast between first meetings and the Trespasser reunion is between her and Bull. She’s openly suspicious and a little hostile of Bull during his recruitment, but doesn’t feel it’s her place to turn down a group of mercenaries as respected as the Chargers. By the time of Trespasser a lot has changed between them and she’s glad to help the Chargers surprise him for his birthday.

Hearing Blackwall’s Thom’s stories about his atonement to his men and the chance meetings with prisoners makes her cry.

Almost all of her companions (even Solas, although his is much sadder) receive reunion hugs, the definite exceptions are her advisors (she and Cullen never establish that sort of rapport and she sees Josephine all the time) and Leliana, who may have to wait until they’re in private. Some hugs are bigger than others.

When the time comes to step through the final eluvian, she does so hand-in-hand with Ian ( @theshirallen ), another person who she became much closer to after the defeat of Corypheus. Her reunion with Solas is alongside Ian, and overall it’s even more emotional and tearful than in the game.

I’ve written more about her reasons for choosing to spare Solas in the past and I won’t repeat them in detail here, but in short: Thora has shown mercy and offered reason to everyone she was able. As her best friend Solas is shown the same mercy. That, and she’s not certain that simply defeating him and moving on would be the right option for the world. What she learns in Trespasser makes her question if the Veil should exist, and if there are other ways to dismantle it. Her motivations are more than her affection and love for her friend, and if something happened to Solas in Dragon Age 4 she wouldn’t stop looking for answers.

* None of these are set in stone and open to individual interpretations.

iii. Investigating the Qunari and More

Thora kills as few people as possible through the events of Trespasser. Having drank from the Well, she’s able to speak the password which grants them safe passage through the Dread Wolf’s Sanctuary, she spares the former Templar qunari, and tries to reason with the Viddasala the moment she gets the chance. Thora has never had a stomach for killing, but by this point she’s so tired of it.

This may seem contradictory for a woman who is advocating for the existence of and her place at the head of a military organisation, and in many ways it is, but as Inquisitor Thora was able to choose non-violence far more often than she ever was as a Carta agent. The mercy she showed in the Carta was often illegal (saving the lives of runaway mages) and always risked her own neck (if the Dasher found out, she’d be the one to pay). As Inquisitor she was able to recruit and connect with people, saving the lives of innocents and her enemies.

She discovers the secret room in the Deep Roads and finds out the elves minded Titans. Eventually she puts the pieces together and realises the focus, and therefore her Anchor, were powered by a Titans death.

Thora finds the pieces needed to figure out Solas’ true identity without him telling her. She suspected him of being an ancient elf in the time after his departure, but didn’t think much more of it. So much of what she saw and heard from him through the course of their friendship, coupled with the clues, causes her to come to the realisation at the final fresco.

The Anchor throughout most of her time with it didn’t cause her pain but numbness, moments where her fingers felt like they had pins and needles or that it didn’t exist at all. Any issues were attended to by Solas and, in his absence, Ian. Only Ian, Cadri, and any love interest are aware of her situation, although she may downplay it to the latter two for their peace of mind. The last few days with it were almost impossible to bear, and while as a Beserker her companions grew used to Thora’s cries on the battlefield, they’d never heard her scream like she does on the last assault on the Viddasala’s forces.

Solas’ retrieval of the Anchor dissolves her hand and part of her forearm, but it’s an uneven and painful process. The rest of it is amputated by Ian up to the elbow.

[5lazarus]

BTV-Artober 2020, Day 31: The Inquisitor

And we are done. Dragon Age Artober, done on the nightmare challenge, finished, even on time. I’ve written at least 45k for these four fests, and at least I got most of them done! Day 31, the Inquisitor: Imladris Ashallin Lavellan, in her own words. If you liked this, check out the other prompts at Overheard at the Hanged Man, the story she debuts in called Fen’Harel’s Teeth, or the Solavellan stories called The Domesticities.

I am Imladris of Clan Lavellan, the halla woman’s daughter. I write this account for my daughters, who will grow old and raise their children, if they so choose to have children, without me. I write this with the understanding that this will not replace the role I should take in their lives, but with the hope that it will give them comfort as the earth begins its easily.

I was born before the Fifth Blight to Baranduin of Clan Lavellan in the Wycombe Delta and Ashalla Hawen’s daughter, who had been raised in the lost Dales, what the Orlesians call the Exalted Plains. I was the second daughter and greeted the world two whole minutes after my brother Revas. My father Baranduin spoke Common, Sindar, and Dalish fluently, and worked an alliance with the various Rivaini and Antivan merchants travelling through our rivers. For this, he incurred the ire of the Duchy of Wycombe. My mother was Dalish, from the Dales, and cared for the halla. She was Second for the clan, and had willingly allowed Deshanna Istimaethorial to take her place. My mother had a temper that made her unfit for the peacekeeping necessary for guiding one of the largest settled clans in northern Thedas. We lived grounded, in the city whose name I share, in a forest laid twain by the river Baranduin. My father took me with him in his trading missions, as part of his aravel, and from him I learned my languages. When I was twelve, and reached the year of my magic, the templars stole my sister Halla’den from us, and brought her to the Kirkwall Circle. Keeper Adahlfenor forbade us from fighting, fearing escalation from the Wycome ruling family. That same year, the Duchess married Antoine of Jader, a favorite of the then-empress Celene of Orlais. With him came his prejudices. Landed Dalish was unthinkable, so he did the unthinkable. He ordered his chevaliers to cut down every elf marked as “Dalish.” Every member of Clan Lavellan with vallaslin perished over the course of that red week, but for Deshanna Istmaethorial and my older sister Ashara, who were visiting our cousins in the Dales. The children of Clan Lavellan scattered. Some went to the Wycombe alienage. Others spread across the Dalish clans of Rivain and Antiva. My sister Ashara, my brother Revas, and I went our father’s friends, a Rivaini couple named Paolo and Francesca. Their son Luis, also known as the Mouse, had a son by my sister named Samahl. They protected us as best they could through the repression that followed. When I came of age Deshanna Istimaethorial, who had been living hidden within the Wycombe alienage, approached and asked me if I would be willing to take the vallaslin. I chose to be branded with the All-Motherl’s promise of justice and vengeance mixed. My brother, who had been lingering amongst the dwarven workshops, took June’s. He married Olivine of House Cadash in a splendid ceremony, the first Dalish wedding performed since the Harrowing. Deshanna asked me to become her First and we travelled through the Free Marches searching for our scattered siblings. We led them back and established the Friendly Homes, towns in the ashes of the old, from before our lost parents. For this at the Arlathvhen the Keepers gave her the title Istimaethorial, or Sylaise, the Hearthkeeper and mother of us all. Clan Zathrian is prone to mythologizing and their First Lanaya said that we were the living embodiment of the story of the Slow Arrow. The Dalish have an old story, not too much different from how it was told in Arlathan, that a village once asked Fen’Harel for a favor. They were being hunted by an awful monster, they said, and they needed him to hunt it. The Dread Wolf agreed, but as always his promises were kept rather literally. He shot a single arrow into the sky and left. The monster--in our case, let us call it colonialism--returned and killed all the elders. When it had finally ripped the last to shreds, the arrow finally fell from the sky and killed the beast. It had let the elders die but spared the children. In that way, Lanaya said, we must not be beholden to the old ways and let tradition kill us. We needed to adapt. And I said we needed to fight back. That Arlathvhen Briala of Halamshiral approached the Keepers with a proposal. Her Empress had won a bet, allowing an elvhen student to each department of the University of Orlais. Briala wanted the Dalish to be represented. I was selected, because of my languages, and because of my magic. I would never be unarmed, and I could always defend myself--though I was told I needed to hide it as best as I could. I moved to the alienage of Val Royeaux, under the roof of Manon, a labor organizer, and found myself a job at a local bakery. The night before my first day of class, a man came falling through my roof. I was too shocked to be angry at the plaster covering my bed. He scrambled up, drew himself to his full height, and told me, “I suppose you’ll be wanting a discount on the rent.” His name was Mahanon, and he was a student of music, also covered under Celene’s bet. He had been experimenting with acids to melt the face of the lions of Valmont flanking the alienage, and the recipe proved too strong. We soon refined it. In our third year Mahanon and I decided to liberate the coronation stole of the old Dalish kingdom, the Dirthaveren, from the University of Orlais. We would have gotten away with it if we hadn’t decided to write a song about it. We spent six months in prison, were promptly expelled from the university, and were encouraged to leave as quickly as possible. I went home to Wycombe, and Mahanon followed me. Our daughter Mathalin followed soon after, and Mirwen six years after that. We devoted ourselves to creating a united front of elves and apostates and mages across the Free Marches, and founded an organization named Fen’Harel’s Teeth, after an entirely apocryphal story (so I am told) about one of the ways the Dread Wolf’s followers would torture the opposition. We rallied our communities to demand our land back, a safe and respected place to worship, schools of our own, and absolutely no taxation without representation. In Kirkwall, Ostwick, and Wycombe, we helped lead a dockworker’s strike. When the Blight struck, Clan Lavellan opened its Homes to Ferelden refugees, and we hunted the slavers back. My brother was taken, and we tracked him all the way to Minrathous, where his bond Olivine gambled and won him back. There was never any doubt. The dice were loaded. When we returned to Wycombe, we made one fatal mistake, and took rooms at an inn that owed money to the Carta. The Duke’s men broke in and seized us. They killed my husband. I escaped prison with the help of a Chantry sister named Lucie. Three years later the Dalish decided to send me to the Divine Justinia II’s conclave to end the Mage-Templar War. I was to petition her to release all Dalish captives immediately to my custody, for them to be repatriated. We did not expect her to even consider the request, but a symbolic attempt at reform was deemed necessary. Instead of political maneuvering, I was caught in the blast as the darkspawn magister Corypheus unlocked one of the last surviving foci of the Evanuris, and the rest is history that you already know.

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Unification Church / Family Federation  of America turned into a political machine – Allen Tate Wood

▲ Allen Tate Wood in the front of the line

In the summer of 1969 the Unification Church in America had no more than 6 or 7 centers with a total membership numbering around 150. During that summer Neil Winterbottom, from the national headquarters in Washington D.C., visited the commune. He was English, about my age, bright and well read. He seemed more dynamic than my compadres in Berkeley.

He suggested that I should come to the headquarters in Washington. I came back East to Princeton, N.J., to visit my family, whose skepticism about my new found religion only strengthened my commitment. Their suggestion that this group might be a front for Korean neo-fascism was preposterous. I did not tell them then that I knew Moon was the Messiah. Time was short. The world had to be saved. I had found my work at last.

Washington D.C. – Capitol Of The Archangel Nation

I arrived in Washington D.C. for the second Freedom Leadership Foundation conference. Neil Salonen, who in 1975 was Moon’s right hand man in the United States, was ordered by Moon in the summer of 1969 to found the Church’s anti-Communist movement in this country and to name the organization the International Federation for The Extermination of Communism. Salonen set the Freedom Leadership Foundation as the American Branch of the IFEC. On paper the FLF exists as a nonprofit, non partisan educational corporation whose stated objective is to educate American Youth about the dangers of Communism. From its inception FLF was funded by the Unification Church. At this stage in the movement’s development, the general membership was politically unsophisticated. The idea of a political arm was new and the purists in the movement who believed that a Church should have nothing to do with politics voiced strong opposition. It was pointed out to them that the church in Japan and Korea carried out extensive anti-Communist political programs and that it was the “master’s” express desire to begin political work in the U.S. Thereafter opposition to political work was seen as infidelity to the Master.

In the fall of 1969 FLF launched a public relations campaign against the October 15 and November 15 Vietnam Moratoriums. Unification Church members went full steam into the political operation as well as stepping up the usual witnessing and teaching of the Divine Principle. From this perspective my paid job in the office of Congressman Frank Thompson Jr., democrat from New Jersey, certainly appears odd. “Thompy” was known as an opponent of the war and supported Gene McCarthy for President in 1968. While my “boss” on the Hill was making stronger statements than ever against the War in Vietnam, after hours I was in the streets leafleting for the Master in support of it. In the fall of 1969 and the winter of 1970 Salonen scouted the hard-line anti-Communist groups in D.C. The fruits of his labor were winning the friendship and support of several influential men, including David Martin, the late Senator Dodd’s foreign affairs assistant (later a member on the staff of the Senate’s Internal Security Committee), Dolph Droge and Sven Kramer, Nixon’s special assistants on Vietnam and Charles Stephens, an independently wealthy man in his early thirties, who devoted a good deal of his time to promoting aggressive war policies through ad hoc groups of his own creation on campuses throughout the country. In the fall of 1969 and the spring of 1970 I worked increasingly with FLF.

Partisan Political Activity

In March of 1970 Salonen stepped down from the Presidency of FLF as a result of internecine conflict between himself and W. Farley Jones (then President of the Unification Church in America). Salonen was sent to Colorado to cool off and I was made President of FLF. It was not until a year later that I discovered that my sudden promotion over the heads of my superiors was a result of the leadership’s conviction that I could “easily be controlled,” and that my clean cut American good looks and the gift of gab made me an ideal front man.

In May, Charles Stephens and I, with coaching from David Martin, formed a political lobby group called “American Youth for A Just Peace.” I called Unification Church members from all over the country to assist in a lobbying campaign in defense of Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia and against the McGovern-Hatfield and Cooper-Church bills to limit American involvement. We ran several full page advertisements in the Washington Star and Washington Post, defending military aid to Cambodia, signed with my name as chairman. As a result the South Vietnamese Embassy invited AYJP members on a VIP tour of Vietnam. Eight Unification Church members, Stephens and two of his associates and I flew to Vietnam on August 22, 1970 for a ten day visit crowned by dinner with South Vietnamese President Thieu in the Presidential Palace in Saigon. While we were in Saigon, the Cambodian government invited us to visit Cambodia. We spent five days there. General Lon Nol gave us an audience.

We appeared on CBS national television evening news. Walter Cronkite transported the audience at home in the U.S. to our group digging a fortification ditch around the perimeter of Phnom Penh. Shovel in hand, I begged for more military aid for Cambodia in its struggle against communist aggression. The CBS correspondent described me, I remember, as a spokesman for a group of young Americans who had come to Southeast Asia to “find the facts.” The South Vietnamese government paid for our round trip air fare with the explicit understanding that we would use the information we gathered to fight the Peace Movement on U.S. campuses and to generate support for the war. We were given royal treatment. At each stop the red carpet was rolled out. In Cambodia when we disembarked from the plane there were several thousand people waiting at the airport to greet us. A double row of 100 school girls was holding red roses. I felt like Lord Jim.

We left Cambodia and flew to Japan to visit the Japanese Unification Church and to participate in the World Anti-Communist League’s fourth annual conference held in Kyoto. That was followed by a mass rally of 25,000 people in Tokyo at the Budokan Sports Palace. The WACL conference was sponsored by the International Federation for Victory Over Communism, the political arm of the Japanese Unification Church. Delegates from 53 nations attended. The American delegate was Senator Strom Thurmond and the honorary chairman of the conference was a prominent Japanese industrialist, Ryoichi Sasakawa.

Meeting The Shogun

Sasakawa was a fascist youth leader in the 1930s. The Japanese Unification Church proudly told us that Sasakawa had helped create the Japanese Kamikaze program and that he had been instrumental in the Hitler Tojo pact. Sasakawa was convicted as a class A war criminal at the end of World War II and spent several years in jail. In 1975 he was the president of 13 major Japanese corporations, including the largest ship building company in Japan. He is also head of all Japanese karate schools. Sasakawa, on a visit to the Korean Unification Church, told church members that he was “Mr. Moon’s dog.”

After the WACL Conference we visited Unification Church centers in Japan. They were awe-inspiring to all of us. Then there were approximately 3,000 dedicated young followers who lived in Church centers for 20 to 100 members all over Japan. Seventy percent of them were involved in full time fundraising by selling flowers on street corners 14 hours a day. The rank and file members lived on a diet of rice and bread crusts. Church centers usually consisted of two large rooms with several smaller rooms adjacent. The large rooms served as separate men’s and women’s sleeping quarters. Anywhere from 10 to 50 people would sleep on tatami mats on the floor in one of the larger rooms. The center leader had a room to himself. The atmosphere in these centers was one of rigid military discipline and self-denial. All the Japanese martial virtues were harnessed and focussed on the molding of a group psyche whose sole object was to exalt Moon.

At The Feet Of “The Master”

After 17 days in Japan, seven of us flew to Korea to meet Moon and to visit the Korean Unification Church. We were housed in the dormitory of one of Moon’s Anti-Communist training centers, inside the walls of the Unification Church’s air rifle factory, about an hour and a half drive from Seoul. Now, after praying in his name for 16 months, I was finally to meet the “Master”. From our window in the Anti-Communist training dormitory we saw Moon and his wife approaching across the dry mud field separating the dormitory and the air rifle factory. I, with the others, ran out of the building and raced across the muddy yard to greet them. I saw a dark haired, heavy set man whose receding hairline accentuated an already ample brow. He was wearing a white peasant tunic and dark trousers. He looked as he did in his photographs but older and heavier. His disciplined movements and compact body conveyed a sense of coiled power. Moon shook hands with each of us, smiling broadly. I saw, as he turned sideways in front of me, a large piece of red wax in his right ear. I treasured this excrescence as a sign of his humanity.

My Mission

During my visit to Korea in October I was given a private audience with Moon. I was ushered into a lounge adjacent to his private quarters above the main church building in Seoul. We sat opposite each other on a plain rug separated by a black lacquer table inlaid with two finely worked mother of pearl dragons. For an hour he instructed me on various matters. The only interruption was the arrival of a messenger, a Korean man in his forties who prostrated himself at Moon’s feet before addressing the “Master.” Moon said to me, “You have a great responsibility. It is your job to initiate the work of winning the academic community in America to my side.” Further he said, “The allegiance of the scholarly community is a vital key in my plan to restore the world. Since universities hold the reigns of certification for all the major professions and since universities are the crucible in which young Americans form their basic attitudes and life directions, we must forge a path toward influencing and ultimately controlling American campuses.”

Moon held the Japanese Church up to us as an example of the true pattern of serving the Messiah. It was his intention to shame us into greater fervor and zeal, and his tactic was largely successful. The relative impotence of the American church in comparison with the militancy, power and organization of the Japanese Unification Church was a source of humiliation to us all. Moon told us that he could not come to America until we had significantly increased our numbers, demonstrated a higher level of personal sacrifice, and achieved greater organizational unity. On our return to the U.S. we brought intimations of the future directions of the movement in America.

I returned to the U.S. on October 6, 1970, in time for an early morning press conference with AYJP co-chairman Charles Stephens. Between October and December Stephens and I spoke to civic groups in Washington, issued a bi-monthly tabloid to congressmen and senators, and did all we could to beat the war drum in the nation’s capitol. AYJP was staffed entirely by Unification Church members.

This is an extract from  My Four and One Half Years with The Lord of The Flies 

Allen Tate Wood on Sun Myung Moon and the UC

Minions and Master

Mis Cuatro Años y Medio con el Señor de las Moscas .   por Allen Tate Wood

__________________________________________

Bo Hi Pak declared he was leaving the UC and tore up his membership form in a top leader’s meeting in Korea

__________________________________________

World Domination – Sun Myung Moon’s many attempts ended in failure

Robert Parry’s investigations into Sun Myung Moon

Sun Myung Moon: The Emperor of the Universe, transcript and links

Sun Myung Moon – Emperor, and God

FBI and other reports on Sun Myung Moon

United States Congressional investigation of Moon’s organization

Politics and religion interwoven

The Resurrection of Reverend Sun Myung Moon

Why do so many evangelicals continue to deny that Biden won the election?

The forgotten figure who explains how Trump got almost 74 million votes – The Washington Post

The Tragedy of the Six Marys website

[dalishious]

Do you know if there are any andrastian-specific names like names of some important figures or something similar to names like Christopher/Christian in Christianity?

Andraste’s family:

Brona - Andraste’s mother

Elderath - Andraste’s father

Halliserre - Andraste’s half-sister

Gilivhan - Maferath‘s concubine

Isorath - Andraste’s son (biologically Gilivhan’s)

Eviron - Andraste’s son (biologically Gilivhan’s)

Verald - Andraste’s son (biologically Gilivhan’s)

Ebris - Andraste’s daughter

Vivial - Andraste’s daughter

*Excluding Maferath, because “his name is now synonymous with betrayal” as WoTv1 says, and no one would ever name their child that

Andraste’s friends/allies:

Ealisay - Andraste’s close childhood friend who would sing with her

Havard the Aegis - Maferath’s “shield-brother,” was stabbed by Maferath but he survived to carried Andraste’s ashes back to Ferelden

Cathaire - Commander of Andraste’s armies in her uprising

Justinia - Andraste’s friend and fellow slave, supported her war with the Tevinter Imperium

Hector - Lord of Andraste’s stronghold in Nevarra, murdered trying to defend her from Maferath

*Excluding Shartan, because his canticle is dissonant and also elven, and Hessarian, because while he is credited as “Hessarian the Redeemed” and counted among Andraste’s Disciples, Dorian mentions his part in the Chant is still of controversy and often forgotten.

Known Divine Names:

Justinia

Joyous

Ambrosia

Galetea

Innocente

Beatrix

Amara

Theodosia

Rosamund

Hortensia

Renata

Faustine

Clemence

Victoria

(Divines must chose a new sacred name upon election. Why these names are sacred, I don’t know, but given Justinia is a name from Andraste’s story, I’m just guessing all of them are as well?)

Known Anointed (equivalent of a Saint):

Hector - See above

Kordillus Drakon - Founder and first emperor of Orlais, and founder of the Chantry

Calenhad Theirin - Founder and first king of Ferelden

Clothilde of Crechy - A warrior renowned for defending the innocent, she led protests against the tyrannical Baron of Rosfort's taxes on the poor, was arrested but then released by the Divine

Ser Mhemet - A Rivaini templar who led many ‘victories’ against the elves in the Exalted March of the Dales

Deverina - Sebastian and Elthina mention the Kirkwall Chantry has bones of “the martyr Deverina”; though not outright stated to be Anointed, given this is what the Catholic church does with bones of Saints, I am assuming she is one

Joffrey - Like Deverina, the codex entry mentioning him says his skeletal hand is kept in the Chantry of Ghislain

—————

SOURCES:

Dragon Age: Origins

Dragon Age: II

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Codex entry: The Sermons of Divine Renata I (DA:O)

Codex entry: The Legend of Calenhad: Chapter 3 (DA:O)

Codex entry: Thedas Calendar (DA:O)

Codex entry: Statue of Blessed Brother Joffrey of Ghislain (DA:2)

Codex entry: A Nutty Affair (DA:I) *warning for transphobia

Landmark: Hector in his Time of Dying (DA:I)

Item description: Shield of the Anointed (DA:I)

Item description: Mhemet's War Hammer (DA:I)

World of Thedas vol 1

World of Thedas vol 2

[ao3feed-handers]

The Paths of This World

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/xBAoVRU

by Ashura

Knight-Commander Meredith is gone. The Circle in Kirkwall is disbanded, the Chantry destroyed. Julian Hawke, first mage to rule in the Free Marches since the Tevinter Imperium, knows the eyes of all the south are on him. Aided by good friends and a few surprising allies, Hawke tries to rebuild the city, prevent an Exalted March, head off a war with Starkhaven, and protect the lover who started the whole thing - at least long enough for them to be reunited.

Words: 9366, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Series: Part 10 of Few Against the Wind

Fandoms: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Male Hawke (Dragon Age), Anders (Dragon Age), Varric Tethras, Isabela (Dragon Age), Female Tabris (Dragon Age), Female Warden (Dragon Age), Zevran Arainai, Aveline Vallen, Cullen Rutherford, Carver Hawke, Dragon Age II Ensemble, Hawke's Mabari (Dragon Age), Fenris (Dragon Age), Merrill (Dragon Age)

Relationships: Anders/Male Hawke (Dragon Age), Zevran Arainai/Female Tabris

Additional Tags: Custom Male Hawke (Dragon Age), Mage Hawke (Dragon Age), Templar Carver Hawke, Mage-Templar Dynamics (Dragon Age), Grey Wardens, Post-Canon, Established Relationship, Romance, Action/Adventure, Blue Hawke (Dragon Age), Mostly Diplomatic Hawke, Past Hawke/Isabela (Dragon Age), Past Fenris/Hawke (Dragon Age), Past Anders/Karl Thekla, Mages (Dragon Age), Templars (Dragon Age), Tags May Change, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Not all tags happen yet, I'm just putting the smut in the main story this time

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/xBAoVRU

[fomagranfalloon]

BioWare's Mike Laidlaw on the cancelled Dragon Age II Exalted March expansion.

[villainanders]

This blog post from 2011 really hits on a lot of things I feel like we are not thinking about 11 years later and after we’ve seen DAI’s handling (or non-handling) of the end of DA2.

Reading this now feels like. Kind of wild (I originally found this blog because people were talking about how crazy it was to see Anders Dragon Age, fucked up sewer wizard and Blorbo From My Games, compared to Osama Bin Laden), but I think we really miss a lot when we don’t consider the influence the war on terror had on this game. Like I said in my tags, I’m really not in a position to say whether this was handled *well* (or, rather, whether the bones of the idea were any good), but I do think we’re largely missing the point of DA2 by not acknowledging the intention to evoke a context that many players were going to have very real world feelings about and make them consider a perspective that actively disturbs their preconceived moral instincts.

This bit at the end of the blog hits on some stuff that still frustrates me with fan discussions of the Last Straw, in addition to the game’s framing of what happened:

That’s how I tried to explain this action to myself. I was committing one evil to fight a greater evil, but that moral calculus doesn’t sit well with me, and as it turns out, the real world sometimes gives answers that video games can’t come up with. As the Arab Spring shows, there are better ways to effect change than terrorism. You don’t need to kill innocent people to spur others to rise up against dictators. Sometimes that happens naturally by itself. And that’s something that Dragon Age II doesn’t address.

I’m not saying that I’m angry that the game covers the issue. It’s actually pretty damn brave of them and the team at BioWare broaches the subject better than Infinity Ward did with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. But if it’s going to do this, BioWare should cover all the angles. Players see the terrorist act, but the developers gloss over the results of it. Players hear that mages are uprising elsewhere, but they don’t see the ground level results. They don’t see the Chantry rubble or the families of innocents Anders and Hawke killed. If there is more DLC, BioWare’s team should address this. They can’t glorify Hawke without letting players see the personal consequences of his actions. That’s where BioWare triumphed and failed in its ending and I’m hoping they have a way to amend it.

It’s a shame because I think if the Exalted March DLC had happened/if DAI had more seriously focused on the mage rebellion, there would have been so much room to explore this further. But, well, it didn’t lmao and I think DAI’s framing of DA2 has influenced how we see the game in a lot of ways that I don’t think applied to its original intentions.

Perhaps a longer post incoming later but despite Dragon Age’s infamous centrism and the general bungling of DA2’s climax, DA2 is a game that really actually does want you to consider whether Anders was right. I don’t think the writers think he *was* right, but a lot of energy is put into creating a situation that is 1) undeniably an act of terrorism and 2) meant to make the player seriously entertain with the idea he may be right and create space for a reasonable player to side with him. And this is like. Far and away the most interesting thing about DA2 imo

[daughter-of-the-prophet]

Known Divines

Known Andrastian Devines

Justinia I: The first Divine. Appointed by Emperor Kordillus Drakon I in 1:1 Divine. Chose her name to honor the disciple who recorded Andraste's songs. Before her coronation, she was the only female general in the Orlesian army. She was known as the "Warrior-Priest" and her version of the Chant of Light has survived with few changes to the present day.

Ambrosia II: Reigned during the Divine Age. Wanted to order an Exalted March against her own cathedral after protesting mages barricaded themselves inside.

Hortensia I: Reigned in 1:99 Divine. Named the Glory Age.

Renata I: Reigned during the Glory Age. Declared the Exalted March of the Dales (2:10—20 Glory). Ordered the establishment of Alienages afterwards. Also ordered the destruction of all Chantry art in Orlais depicting elves, save a single original mural of Shartan with his ears docked. (An un-besmirched copy exists at the University of Orlais.)

Galatea: Reigned during the late Glory Age. Was a commoner who was elected after the electorate became locked in a gridlock. In 2:83 Glory she granted the Right of Annulment to all grand clerics to purge any Circles of Magi ruled to be irredeemable.

Innocente: Consecrated the newly constructed Grand Cathedral of Val Royeaux In 2:99 Glory and declared that the Chant of Light be sung continuously there so that Andraste's message would always be heard by the faithful. At the start of the next year, she declared the Towers Age in honor of the twin towers of the Grand Cathedral.

Amara I: Reigned in 3:41 Towers. Established a Conclave that declared the Canticle of Silence to be too reminiscent of propaganda supporting Archon Hessarian's actions, and was not sacred enough to remain a part of the official Chant of Light.

Joyous II: Reigned in 3:86 Towers. Her issue being with the Maker's second commandment, she attempted to bring Tevinter in line with Orlais, declaring all members of the Tevinter clergy heretics when they refused to comply. This proclamation led to the schism in 3:87, during which the Tevinter clergy completely broke away from the Orlesian Chantry and named their own Divine. Died in 3:99 Towers.

Beatrix I: Elected in 3:99 Towers. Named the Black Age. Declared an Exalted March against Tevinter, although the actual invasion was delayed for 40 years due to the devastation of the Third Blight.

Clemence I: Reigned in 4:46 Black. Commissioned the writing of the Litany of Adralla.

Justinia II: Reigned in 4:99 Black. Named the Exalted Age.

Hortensia II - Died in 5:16 Exalted.

Rosamund: Elected in 5:16 Exalted. Died in 5:71 Exalted. Born Lilette Montbelliard, a granddaughter of Queen Asha Campana. Lilette was groomed from birth by Divine Hortensia II to be her successor, and at the age of 20 she became the youngest Divine in history. Reigned for 55 years and was well known for the large quantities of erotic art and literature in which she was featured.

Amara III: Elected in 5:71 Exalted. Died in 5:85 Exalted. A sister of Emperor Alphonse Valmont, Amara III's election was controversial because of her close connection to the Emperor, and the fact that she had never even attained the rank of Revered Mother. Was known as both a tyrant and a sadist who enjoyed bonfires fueled by the bodies of maleficarum. Eventually died under suspicious circumstances, leading her brother to commission a witch hunt to find her killer, to no avail.

Theodosia I: Reigned in 5:99 Exalted. Named the Steel Age.

Theodosia II: Gave birth on the steps of Val Royeaux's Grand Cathedral in front of a crowd of devout Andrastians. Was removed from her position shortly afterward for violating her vow of chastity.

Hortensia III: Reigned in 6:99 Steel. Named the Storm Age.

Faustine II: Reigned in 8:99 Blessed. Planned to declare the Sun Age, but abruptly declared the Dragon Age instead after a high dragon rampage occurred.

Beatrix III: Reigned in the beginning of the Dragon Age. Died in 9:34 Dragon.Used the templars to pressure the Viscount of Kirkwall. It is stated that she held the office for almost 50 years which however is conflicted with the reign of her predecessor.

Justinia V: Elected in 9:34 Dragon. Died in 9:41 Dragon.

Victoria: Elected in 9:42 Dragon.

______________________________________________

Other Andrastian Divines 

These Divines cannot be placed chronologically or their existence has been implied by the names of other Divines (for example, there could not have been a Justinia V without a Justinia III and IV), but no other information is provided about them.

Amalthea I

Amalthea II - Created the Conclave of Cumberland to determine a canonical version of the Canticle of Andraste.

Amara II

Ambrosia I

Aurelia

Beatrix II

Clemence II 

Faustine I

Hortensia IV

Joyous I

Justinia III

Justinia IV

______________________________________________

Known Imperial Divines

Valhail: The first Imperial Divine. Elected by the Imperial Chantry in 3:87 Towers.

Urian Nihalias: A magister who became the Black Divine in 9:27 Dragon after a coup against his predecessor.