#cousland's would be morrigan

[flashhwing]

after all that part of me wants to just play amell anyway. but my amell would probably make pretty much the same decisions as fabian, just circle mage flavor and romancing someone else. cousland would be a bit more ruthless, less likeable, and an apostate to boot. you know i love apostates

[the-prima-vista]

If I die, it will be with honor.

[hnnny]

Frederick's adventures, DLC edition

[nvaderxim]

I remember someone once said Edric was like a loyal mabri who imprinted on Morrigan, and seeing his face in that comic I felt it's probably one of the best descriptions of Edric XD

I think I'm the one who said that ages ago hahaha

LISTEN

this man has oozing rizz

I mean look at how pretty he is

but yes

he is, indeed, a loyal mabari when it comes to Morrigan

[kiivg]

.Nightmares in Camp.

[lavampira]

ngl I think I might change gabriel to my canon warden 🧍‍♀️

[a-gay-bloodmage]

Day 8: Hike 

(Alistair & Andrea Cousland)

Andrea Cousland is the Arl’s daughter. She’s not supposed to be hiking around the muddy Ferelden countryside like a common soldier. On their way to Orzammar, Alistair asks one too many questions.

[manfred-volkarin]

still don't know if anders was hearing the false calling during the events of DAI btw. Hawke's warden contact mentions that "every warden in orlais" hears it and says he hears it too...but you're in eastern fereldan when he says it????

so is it every warden in southern thedas? (so anders would hear it too) every warden in orlais and it follows you if you leave? (so anders wouldn't hear it)

[hahren-tabris]

I'm trying to get screenshots of Alistair's new hair for the mod page and this is the first time I've played DAI with a worldstate where the HoF (Aelon in this case) didn't romance him. And the fact that he vocally disapproves of the Warden doing the Dark Ritual, calling it a "dark path" (above), while justifying his own participation in it as a means to end the Calling and save the life of his loved one if he's romanced (below) is making me!!! chew the on the walls!!!!!!!

[tuxedo-rabbit]

Honestly, it sucks that switching your romance halfway through the game can mess up the companions' comments on it BUT. It made the difference between how the party treated Gertrude & Leliana vs Gertrude & Zevran SO funny

Like despite Gertrude continuously saying they were wrong and she wasn't in any sort of relationship with Leliana yet (they flirted ONCE for context), Alistair and Wynne were so nosy about it.

Alistair had a couple very "you two are so cute together <3" comments and Wynne lectured Gertrude for getting into a serious relationship as a warden and putting Leliana in a position to get hurt or whatever.

And then she started flirting with Zevran openly, all the time, and zilch, nothing. They're having heartfelt conversations about their tragic backstories, obviously sleeping in each other's tents, but this time the two camp busybodies are like "I see nothing, I hear nothing, I choose to believe this is not happening!"

And then they go to Denerim for the landsmeet and, for some reason, I get the "What are your intentions with her >:l" banter between Alistair and Zevran THREE TIMES IN A ROW!! (obvs, a glitch but also, very funny)

Like, okay, I get it, you guys don't like that Gertrude is with Zevran. JEEZ.

[anti-eluvians]

#imagining alistair trying to teach anyone anything is hilarious though#'yeah you just kinda do it like- MAKER NOT LIKE THAT- anyway no you're fine yeah go on'#i imagine the hygiene standards between different origins is pretty wild too#aeducan would be pretty uptight about potential blight contamination as would mahariel i imagine#ditto i imagine for a circle mage who has up until that point lived a relatively confined existence. terrarium animal.#but tabris??????? brosca?? i dunno man. i just don't know.#cousland is honestly a wild card to me. it could go either 'extremely uptight military brat' or 'blithely scattering gore around#and has to be reminded that not everyone is a grey warden now

actually come to think of it

Did the origins gang have a decontamination regimen after dealing with darkspawn? Alistair and the Warden might be immune to the taint, but the rest of their entourage sure as hell is not.

I know they weren't traipsing into camp leaking who knows what kind of cursed bile/ichor everywhere. Surely. Surely they cover that in Grey Warden basic. ....

..

right.

right?

[shewolfofvilnius]

Making Ser Jory's kid Rook is the best OC I've ever made

(If you've seen me post relentlessly about her on bluesky or reddit no you haven't)

If you've EVER played Dragon Age: Origins, one of the most memorable moments takes place early in the game. Your character has just traveled to Ostagar, where you'll formally join the Grey Wardens. You meet two recruits, one is the rogueish cutpurse Daveth, while the other is the former knight Ser Jory, formerly of Redcliffe and now of Highever (remember that bit.)

Jory is responsible for the first major tone shift of the entire franchise, when the previously affable Duncan, billed in all six origins as an at least moderately heroic type, pulls out his blade and kills Ser Jory when the knight refuses to drink Darkspawn blood (seems sensible), having either been misinformed or otherwise woefully naive about what being a Warden means.

The entire thing is grim - and your player character can even tell Alistair and Duncan how fucked up that was after the fact. Most importantly for THIS story, however, is something that Jory mentions twice including right before he dies: He has a wife back in Highever, who is due to have a baby.

Highever. The same Highever that gets raided and sacked during the Human Noble origin by Arl Howe's forces. The same Highever that sees every family member of literally anyone even vaguely connected to Teyrn Cousland either killed or worse.

But presumably, there were at least some survivors, folks who were able to flee. Even in canon world states where they don't join the Wardens, both the younger Cousland sibling and their mother Eleanor cut a pretty wide swathe of damage through the castle before being overwhelmed. The carnage almost assuredly let people flee, we see it in the human noble origin!

Maybe, just maybe, one of those people...was Jory's wife Helena. Who winds up fleeing Highever aboard a cargo ship headed for Tevinter. A cargo ship that winds up getting run aground and attacked near the battlefields Ventus by the Qunari, right as Helena is due to give birth. Worth noting: Thie last part of that is not even fanciful headcanon, it's Shadow Dragon Rook's canonical biography. They mention it to Tarquin before the Act 1 Choice.

and by the time of game events, a certain Legatus Mercar is ready to talk with Maevaris, Dorian, and the Shadow Dragons and has begun expressing equalist sentiments, at least privately? How would they know what Legatus Mercar thinks privately? Well, in a Shadow Dragon run, for one thing because his child is standing right next to them.

Having Rook be Rory and Helena's kid, though, opens up so much storytelling potential. Like the time Rook refuses to go along with the commanding First Warden (also from Rivain like Duncan)'s orders and nearly draws her own weapon on him:

Seem familiar?

Now imagine a bit later, when Morrigan meets her and immediately realizes there's something haunting familiar about this woman leading the attack against the gods. She even reflexively questions Rook's intelligence for a moment.

Later still, at Weisshaupt, when Rook - in this case now already armed with the knowledge that there was a Warden at Ostagar who she looks uncannily like - finds the chalice, finds records from the Fifth Blight while they're escaping to the dragon trap through the library.

drama.

It's been such a fantastic story so far and I'm only at Act 2. There's even an inversion of Flemeth's "sadly irrelevant in the larger scheme of things" line with Morrigan as she reveals the Mythal fragment in the Crossroads. Framed with a shot of a building that has a vague resemblence to the Tower of Ishal in the background with more swamp-like elements in the Crossroads.

At the same time, growing up as a girl in Tevinter has meant multiple stark differences between her and her father. She's a Shadow Dragon, so clearly she's invested in the liberation of slaves and servants. She's interested in equality, and although human, has likely experienced at least two forms of prejudice herself (being a non-Mage in Tevinter, and yes, being a she from a Tevinter military family when we know the Tevinter military has a long history of excluding or diminishing women). While her biological father is noted for having rather...sheltered and inhibited beliefs on the capabilities and stations of elves, dwarves, and yes, women - there's none of that with her.

...to the point that in her world state, she's CLEARLY in love with an elf. And while Jory ran off to chase glory and danger with the Wardens leaving Helena behind, when trouble comes for Bellara, she squares up and stands to protect her - even when that trouble is Bellara's own brother (and the ancient elven wannabe-god manipulating him)

but ultimately, the apple didn't fall entirely away from the tree.

Listen to the thing about Helena that Jory says hooked him in:

and who is Rook smitten with?

You know good and damn well Rook melts into a puddle every single time Bellara looks at her. Her vallaslin is literally designed to accentuate her eyes. Rook might be Mercar's daughter, but in at least one specific way, she is definitely Jory's kid.

Anyway, I just think my OC's neat and felt like yapping about her on here.

[thewardenisonthecase]

Something very dear to me in DAO, when it comes to Sten and then Qun is that, unlike the next games, it doesn't feel like the Qun is portrayed in that much of a negative of a light?

Sure, some of its issues are still adressed. Sten will ask 'how are you a woman if you fight' to leliana, morrigan, wynne and a female warden, and it highlights the gender roles in the Qun, but considering that if you play as a female warden you get ask/told again and again that there aren't a lot of wardens or that people are surprised you're a warrior (cof cof howe mentioning its unusual that bryce would train a female cousland as a warrior cof cof) i don't have much complaints with that. it is what it is. And at least, you can stand up to Sten when he says those things.

I think the only time i was like 'ok that is fucked' was when Sten brought up how the Qun treats its mages, because even when he talked about how everyone under the Qun has a role, he doesn't talk in a way that makes you feel like this is some sort of extremely bad and rigid thing. In fact, Sten makes the argument that its better because then people don't have to spend their life trying to fit in into something they're not (and lowkey, Wynne expressed similar sentiments when she talks about that it's better to embrace the role/destiny that the Maker gave you than fighting against it).

But what really drives home to me about home to me is that, at some point, Alistair asks the Warden how they feel about the other companions and when talking about Sten, there's a possbility for Alistair to say that, in the way Sten talks about the Qun, it doesn't feel as vile as the chantry makes it out. And you gotta keep in mind that Alistair spent a good portion of his life living in the chantry, so for him to say that, for me, is a big deal on how the Qun is portrayed through Sten.

I think about this a lot because I honestly was like wow, besides a few things, the Qun seems lowkey to be pretty good until we got to DAI and there was the whole thing with re-education, and hunting tal-vashoth (which, its adressed in DAO, but i feel like they were much more subtle about it). Like heck, even in DA2, I don't think the Qun itself is portrayed that badly, because 1) the Arishok doesn't do shit to Kirkwall until he's provocked like 3 different times and 2) Kirkwall is a shithole, so when he talks about the city, he lowkey makes sense.

Idk. I really liked how the qun was handled in DAO because of Sten and his perspective, and then in DAI and DATV I was just going 'yikes' most of the time.

[viamutationis]

OH GREY WARDEN, WE'RE REALLY IN IT NOW.

ID in alt text, notes and oc infodump under the cut! PLEASE ask me about them they're my new babygirl of the week

Yeah. Ben-Hassrath Cousland is wild, I know. This was one of those 3 am thoughts that became a beloved oc and now they're my canon protag. Basically: She was being trained to be House Cousland's left hand to spy within the noble courts and intercept threats to her family's rule, and a large part of that meant being covertly sent to Orlais to train as a bard. Buuuut the bardmaster she studied under was an undercover Hissrad, and she wound up being converted to the Qun by her. Teenage Laurentia was in a spot where, like every kid, she was questioning the Andrastian beliefs she was raised with and all the unfair things she noticed in her society, so she was very open to the Qun.

Her role once she was sent back home was basically just to send reports detailing the inner workings of the Ferelden nobility and to be aware of any Tal-Vashoth activity in the area. Pretty benign shit, and the former task is what she was doing for her family anyway. Still recruited by the Wardens the normal way, via Duncan doing his "come with me if you want to live" shtick after the fam dies. None of the Blight Crew find her out save for Leliana, because Leli knows everything. She only reveals it to Sten just as he's about to hop on a ship back home LMAOOO.

They're genuinely very compassionate and sweet. A lil whimsical. Highly loyal and protective. Very lawful good (emphasis on lawful). It's a weird sort of internal reconciling - they are genuinely kind to most people and love listening to others' issues and helping them out. It just so happens that this makes them an excellent spy, because they're exactly the sort of person people feel comfortable opening up to, and they see no issue with passing relevant information on to the powers they spy for. The kindness is genuine, but it's also a tool, if that makes sense. Their duty comes before any attachments. On that Master Coercion grindset.

No romance because they're aro, but they do have a little homoerotic espionage cat and mouse goin on with Leliana (singing campfire songs and trading stories and braiding each others' hair included). They get along with all their companions besides Morrigan and Oghren, and even Morrigan is more just.. cordial passive aggression.

They exist in the same worldstate as my Orlesian Warden-Commander Gavriel! He's a veteran warden who joins them on the road after Lothering because his ass snuck into Ferelden to help the Wardens solo, and then he'll later become the WC while they become Arlessa because they have more political experience and he has more military experience.

They generally make the nicey nice choices, albeit not where magic is concerned, and even then it's purely out of an abundance of caution. They do NOT annul the Circle, they do that secret third option where you tell Greagoir there could still be blood mages so he puts the mages into quarantine and Wynne still joins you but the game counts it as siding with the Templars. They let Isolde kill Connor, rip lil dude. (Not like they have a choice, they would rather that than the blood magic anyway, but they kill Jowan soooooo.) Besides that, all nicey choices. Bhelen on the throne, Anvil destroyed, Zathrian reconciles and everybody lives, Ashes are not tainted, Loghain recruited, Alistair and Anora rule jointly, Gavriel and Morrigan know they'd never agree to the Dark Ritual so they do it behind Laurentia's back and nobody dies lmao.

Small notes on their disabilities: Wynne was the healer that did their cleft lip surgeries as a kid!! Their last surgery was when they were 6, so they do remember her :D & their hearing aids are lyrium-infused lazurite, the runes are all enchantments that combine to make it collect and amplify sound like an actual HA does. I love bullshitting magic technology.

Their mabari is named Princess, because they got her when they were 10, okay.

[ahsokastarwars]

I didn’t know there was a 30 tag limit, interesting thing to learn

pick the companion ur warden is closest to, not including their love interest of choice!! there is no "other" or "multiple" or "it's complicated" option by design, u have to pick ONE companion. if you have multiple wardens, just pick for one of them and tell me abt the others in the tags

[falondin-suck-my-ass]

Something something hope and all that-

Sometimes DA: Origins is about grief. Sometimes its about joy.

It's journey of people with nothing less to loose.

Where can people go?

Sten claims he would be killed.

Leliana is running from her past.

Zevran would be killed by the crows.

Wynne is already dying.

Shale doesn't know who they are.

Alistair calls it duty.

Oghren doesn't have much waiting for him.

Morrigan has only the words of her Mother.

And your Warden. The Warden. Be it Tabris, Mahariel, Surana, Cousland, Aeducan. Is their journey not one of grief as well?