#bc im pretty sure that the chantry makes it seem like Templars need a lot more lyrium than they actually do

[pupkinpumpkin]

Anytime I replay DAI and I get to that first conversation with Vivienne back at Haven, I take a long inhale Everytime she asks what I think about doing with the mages.

Like I know my Inky has not thought about this too much. She just knows her clan, but I think about it constantly and no answer I am offered is good enough to assuage my long rant that I yell at the computer for like 8 straight minutes before I choose the Mages Should Be Free line and get the inevitable Vivienne Greatly Disapproves

I love Vivienne a lot, I do, even with the differing political views, but Jesus Christ girlie pop never ask me that question again because I will go off Every Single Time

[jamiedodgerart]

hey i marathoned da2 over the course of a week at @1500birds‘s house and drew a lot of stuff for it. there’s info in the captions but im gonna talk more about him under the cut (spoilers for all of da2)

this is mal hawke! (short for malcolm, he was named for his dad.) he’s a rogue

mal’s pretty purple, his emotions are behind 7 layers of jokes but he’s very dedicated to his family. he took his role as eldest sibling seriously- haha, no, he teased the shit out of carver and let bethany climb irresponsibly tall trees with him, but he did really care and look out for them. he was kinda lowkey a highwayman before the blight- probably did some poaching, robbed a few rich merchant vans, stuff like that. gambled and got drunk a lot.

blight happens, ogre smushes carver. in the moment, his mother blames mal. and although later she apologized and forgave him, he never forgot, and never forgave himself.

(aveline killed the ogre btw. mal was taking care of grunts, halfway across the field)

he joined the smugglers when they got to kirkwall. it wasn’t too far from what he did before and he wasn’t keen on going out of his way to harm people. he was good at finishing fights, though, and he gained a reputation for it over his year with the smugglers. it got his family into the city, and for that it was worth it.

mal got along REALLY well with varric, merrill, and anders (whom he later fell in love with. more on that later) he didn’t always agree with aveline, but they were still close, and he really didn’t get along so well with isabela or fenris. ah well. he tried to be friends, tried to help, but it didn’t work out.

he almost took bethany to the deep roads. almost. but as he was planning who to take... well, out of the game, my friend bran spilled the beans and said something very bad would happen if i did. EDIT bran said i got that part wrong and that i figured it out myself, which i forgot, and ordered me to clear their name. official statement: bran kept that secret. so mal had a really bad gut feeling and took merrill instead. bUT SHIT, SHE GOT CAUGHT BY THE CHANTRY INSTEAD OF DYING. i GUESS that’s better. but still, mal blamed himself for not being there to protect her.

so apart from lingering guilt, mal’s doing pretty well in act 2. hes got a relationship going with anders, hes financially stable, bethany’s doing pretty well, considering, he’s got a cool house- oh and kirkwall’s headed towards possible war but that’s nothing new, is it. 

a bit more bg on mal hawke: he’s real fond of compromises. in his mind, there’s always a way out, always a third option. he’s pretty pro-mage, bc he did grow up w two mages in his family and never really learned to fear magic, and later because he spent a lot of time with anders, whose enthusiasm for mage rights is kind of infectious.

that third option thing? a really bad philosophy to have in kirkwall. why are people so polar. have none of you ever heard of nuance

anyway can’t remember a whole lot more bc this post was supposed to be done and posted in june, when i actually played, but his mother is murdered. because he wasn’t there/because he didn’t get to her fast enough/because he didn’t solve that mystery in time/because he screwed up. so guess who he blames (it’s himself)

so amidst mal’s grief the whole city is going to shit, because the qun won’t fuck off and isabela stole a book. mal asks if she’ll please give it back, because Everything Is Going To Shit, This Is The Best Resolution We Have, and she refuses bc if she does she’ll be in deep shit herself, and runs off with it. damn. so mal fights the arishok, wins, and decides hes had enough of kirkwall’s shit for a little while and takes a long-ass nap.

three years later, kirkwall’s going to shit again, because it just can’t keep it together. come on, kirkwall. the templars and mages are fighting, and everyone expects mal to have some kind of authority on the shituation. he doesn’t bc hes literally just some guy who happens to fight good that everyone seems to think has a handle on things. he asks meredith and orsino if they could maybe chill out for two seconds but of course they don’t because this is kirkwall and nobody knows how to chill in kirkwall except varric. mal ends up supporting the mages

anders asks mal for help with getting un-possessed. mal 100% wants his bf to not be possessed anymore, bc it’s getting scary, so he readily helps out getting the stuff anders needs. but. it’s a little fishy. look mate i know the qunari are the only ones who know what gunpowder is rn in history but you’re asking me for saltpeter and i dont think you’re supposed to ingest that. anders is like ok, i did lie a lil bit, but there’s a point to this- and mal’s pissed! bc anders lied to him! but agrees to help a little more

so that’s how mal ended up chatting with the grand cleric about the shituation and how there’d probably be an ok solution if people just sat down and chilled out a little, while anders set up the charges to blow up the chantry and escalate the whole thing to hell tier

as you might expect, mal’s hELLA PISSED when anders blows it, not just because he lied, not just because he took advantage of mal trusting him, but because now the templars are going to, yknow, kill every mage, so mal’s remaining family (bethany, and merrill, bc she counts as family too) are in danger, and at this point mal doesn’t have a lot of family left to lose. he tells anders to gtfo before he kills him.

aveline, varric, and merrill stick with him, and fenris leaves to join the templars. later on, they fight. mal doesn’t WANT to fight, and makes an attempt to hash out some ending that didn’t involve one of them dead, but fenris isn’t having any of it. he’s not a fan of mal never wanting to make a straight decision on anything, and forces him to make a choice: die, or fight and kill his former friend. 

fenris dies.

the remaining boss fights continue as expected- bethany rejoins the party, orsino panics and goes full corpse-monster, meredith goes nuts and full lyrium-monster, the mages and templars are left without leaders and if things weren’t on their way to hell in a handbasket they sure are now. mal decides it’s time to retire, and never set foot in kirkwall the hell city again. 

hes got a cabin in the woods, living out the lumberjack life and drinking away his problems

[thanatologyy]

da2 primer for a friend read at your own risk

One of the staples of bioware games is that your decisions and relationships with characters effect the course of the story. So if someone dies and you think “that seems a little out of nowhere” then its probably bc you messed something up (unless youre into the whole killing your friends thing, i wont’ judge)

sorry this is so long im so sorry fuck im just really excited also theres SO MUCH IN THESE FUCKING GAMES and i dont remember what is and isnt explained in the first and second games.

The world of dragon age is called Thedas. The time is counted in ‘Ages’ its called the Dragon Age because people thought dragons were extinct but they're making a comeback. 

the map is split in half, Orlais on the left side, and Ferelden on the right. lots of cities i wont explain. Orlais is basically frace, Ferelden is england. all of the DA games mainly take place in Ferelden.

Mabari - doggies! you can have one in da:o AND da2

humans - you know what these are

elves - dont really like shoes (see: not so brief elf history)

dwarfs - live underground. they all have american accents for some reason

qunari - big tall horned scary but also beautiful ppl. their culture is something like EXTREME COMMUNISM like everyone is assigned a job and no one knows their parents or falls in love its like a city of robots. few ever leave their homeland and when they do they're either taking something over, spies, or “Tal Vashoth” (ran away) they fallow the laws of the “Qun”. They live on Par Vollen, a tropical island.

The Maker - Basically god, but he abandoned his naughty children

Andraste - The makers wife. theres a whole ton of lore behind her but all you need to know is shes basically jesus and like jesus people love to misinterpret her teachers for their own stupid agendas.

Chantry - equivalent of medieval Church system u know they rule everything and they kinda suck save for a few good people.

Mages - they have magic but bc ppl see them as a threat so they lock them up in these things called “the circle” for their entire life. ppl are afraid because 1. ahhh magic bad 2. mages can easily become possed by spirits and become ‘abominations’=big scary demons

Templars - bad. dont side with them just dont. theyre in charge of watching over the mages every moves. They are tasked with killing them if they turn into abominations. there is a long history of them constantly abusing, raping, and dehumanizing mages. some of them are good but not good enough to stop the bad templars.

Tranquil - Mages who were lobotomized. basically if they arent useful or pose too much of a risk, templars astral project into the fade and kill the fade version of said mage and basically this ruins their connection to the fade that all people (esp) mages have and turns them into emotionless void people that no longer have magic. you meet one pretty early in da2.

Blood magic - as bad as it sounds. makes you susceptible to being posessed bc im pretty sure to use blood magic you have to make a deal with a demon.

Apostate - a mage that doesnt live in the circle, this is illegal and templars hunt them down. 

The fade - i dont know how to explain this besides its like the upside down from stranger things. magic comes from here and people go there when they dream. you cant physically go into the fade its some astral projecting shit.

Darkspawn/The Blight - every once in a while darkpawn (baddies) come from the fade or the deep roads (where the dwarfs live) and funk shit up. theres the main bitch thats this huge fucking dragon and only grey wardens can kill them (this is what you do in da:o) and it ends the blight

Dalish elves - Elves that live in the wilderness to preserve their dying elven culture, have face tats that represent their gods. They constantly travel to avoid being killed and rarley interact with humans. 

Not so brief Elf history (we find out most of this is wrong in the 3rd game but heres what everyone thinks happened) - once long ago all elves had magic and they ruled thedas. they worshiped their gods (elven pantheon) in peace ect. then the naughty humans (called Shemlen by elves) came and suddenly the elves lost their immortality. The humans (specifically tevinters (theyre the naughtiest)) waged war on the elves and somehow won and their city crumbled killing lots of ppl. The ones who werent killed became slaves. after a while people are like “this sucks!” and come andraste. Andraste was a human slave in tevinter (bad place) and lead a revolution that freed the elves. her husband eventually killed her bc the maker loved her and he was a little jealous. so them the elves were free and just chillin for a couple centuries i think until the Chantry loves andraste and the maker SOO much that its A Little Annoying and feel the need to spread “the chant of light’ to every race in Thedas. Of course the elves still like their gods so theyre like “uhhh no thanks” and the Chantry is like “uhhh fuck you?????” and a big war happened where more elves were killed and taken as slaves and lost their entire culture in the process. Eventually slavery is illegal in thedas besides Tevinter. but most elves are servants and very discriminated against. so much in fact that they either live in alienages, separated from the main cities (City Elves) or live in the wilderness, constatly moving and wandering around so they dont get killed (see: Dalish Elves) 

tl:dr: elves are treated like shit 

da2 is set shortly after the blight that you end in the first game as a grey warden, i think this is explained in the first hour or something. the character you play in the first game will be refered to as “the hero of ferelden”

if you have any questions that arent explained in game hmu babe