#dreadwolf leak

[thorinoakenbutt]

Dreadwolf leak thoughts and predictions under the cut. Spoilers ahoy, so take care!

so I'm sure absolutely none of these are original thoughts and that's ok, but I want to work through some that I've had about what we know of Dreadwolf so far anyway

First of all, I'm definitely in camp Rook Is The Protagonist. The Red Book that the devs have occassionally teased in the past had a rook and a wolf head on it, so...yeah I think its safe to say that's our new player character. I don't think it'll be their real name, not in a Hawke type situation at least, but more along the lines of being a code name similar to Leliana's agents in the Inquisition. Like how Charter's real name isn't Charter, we'll be Rook.

I also don't think that the classes are getting replaced like some folks are thinking. At least, I hope not. Sure, Tevinter = Mages, Wardens = Warriors, and Crows = Rogues would make sense in a broad sense but it'd be a bit lame. And we know, after all, that the Wardens have all within their ranks and Last Flight introduced a Crow who was also a mage. Meanwhile I feel like it would be interesting to be able to explore an Origin from Tevinter that doesn't revolve around us necessarily being either an Altus or Laetan. And then there's the mysterious 4th faction as well, who are potentially the Veil Jumpers.

Anyway, forcing you to play as a Warrior if you want to be a Warden would be lame imo but I think I'd be able to come around to the idea if that ends up being the case.

I've also seen a couple people being dismayed that we allegedly have one central hub but like...that's been every game so far lmao?? Origins had the camp, Awakening had Vigil's Keep, 2 was a little irregular but I think the Hawke Estate counts, and Inquisition had Haven/Skyhold. Those were all main hubs, you know?

I'm also personally chill with the game being more of a hack and slash rpg though I know they aren't everyone's cup of tea. I like God of War and the Witcher series though so I'm willing to give Dreadwolf the benefit of the doubt that it'll still be a fun experience. It's fair if people are dismayed by the news, though. My wife is absolutely not a fan of playing that genre.

[felassan]

this post is under a cut in case anyone would consider it to be DA:D spoilers, as the things it mentions came from the leak a year ago (spoiler warning for link) that included screenshots and a gif of the game. (the things this post mentions are therefore not new information and this does not reference a new leak)

I'm just thinking again about Rook (which seems to be the PC's name or title) and the imagery conjured by the name. ◕‿◕ this post is just speculation and overanalyzing for fun. also this post is a now-finished draft from my draft section from a while back.

I think it would work as a surname (like "Hawke") or a codename (think Leliana's spies and contacts such as "Butler", "Farrier", "Butcher", "Charter", etc although these are all professions that end in "-er" or "or" iirc). it could also be a title (like Warden, Hero, Champion, Inquisitor, Herald) or a nickname - like maybe it's short for "Rookie", it's a Varric-assigned nickname and it references how the DA:D PC is the newest member of the team after he recruits them?

I think it sounds catchy, and cool - it's snappy and short, Hawke-like in this way. and it sounds like the kind of name a spy or secret agent might have in a fantasy, superhero or sci-fi-type setting.

a rook is a black bird, Corvus frugilegus, a member of the corvid family. rooks have been perceived as vermin and nuisances by people in the past, and persecuted due to this. they bear a resemblance to their crow and raven relatives, both birds which have a large cultural footprint and lots of symbolism in areas such as folklore and art. Hawke obviously also had a bird motif going on from their surname and associated art pieces. corvids also bring to mind the Antivan Crows (assassins, thieves, & spies), reminding of the stuff about how in this game the PC may be trying to operate under the radar, and the reporting on a previous iteration of DA:D which had the game concept as being focused on spies and heists. rook plumage is inky black, bringing to mind darkness and shadow.

from the bird angle, a "rook" sounds neat opposite a "wolf" imo. wolves are obviously another animal that have large footprints in culture, myth and folklore. in the natural world there is symbiosis sometimes between wolves and corvids when hunting/feeding. there are lots of photos of wolves and corvids together.

a colony of rooks is called a rookery. of course, the fortress of Skyhold has a rookery. it's from there that Inquisition Spymaster Leliana operates (operated) sending her black birds on missions with letters and messages to her many agents and spies throughout Thedas. what if Rook is one of Leliana's... "rooks"? a spy or agent of the remnants of the Inquisition.

A rook is also defined as "A cheat or swindler; someone who betrays" [noun], "mist, fog" [noun] and "to cheat or swindle" [verb]. it's also a type of trick-taking card game. these sorts of things bring to mind a rogueish, stealthy aspect, and the shady, shadowy dealings and card-game played in Minrathous Shadows.

a rook is also a chess piece. they're castle-like (since "rook" can also mean a castle or fortification) and usually have their top in the shape of a battlement. they can move in any direction along a rank or file on a chessboard on which they stand (horizontal/vertical, not diagonal). they can also do the "castling" move. in history, rooks have also been called towers, castles, rectors and marquesses. in chess, each player starts the game with two rooks at opposite ends of the first rank. chess itself is a game of strategy and tactics. "the chessmaster" as a trope is a character type who manipulates events, tugging on strings and moving 'pieces' into place on a metaphorical chessboard. [Solas' DA:I dialogue about his past, like the one he has with Sera about cells of spies/agents, hark to this]

in the castling move,

"Castling is a move in chess. It consists of moving the king two squares toward a rook on the same rank and then moving the rook to the square that the king passed over. Castling is permitted only if neither the king nor the rook has previously moved; the squares between the king and the rook are vacant; and the king does not leave, cross over, or finish on a square attacked by an enemy piece. Castling is the only move in chess in which two pieces are moved at once."

castling rules often cause confusion, even occasionally among high-level players. historically the move has its roots in the "king's leap", of which there were two forms and which arose in part it seems due to increasing importance of king safety as other pieces were given increased powers through time as the game developed. "the king would move once like a knight, or the king would move two squares on its first move. The knight move might be used early in the game to get the king to safety or later in the game to escape a threat." basically it moves the king away to safety and the rook to a more active position. there is also kingside castling and queenside castling. I wonder, symbolically.. is Rook more the king's rook, or the queen's rook? (reminds me of the Left Hand and Right Hands of the Divine hh). who or what is the king in this hypothetical analogy? the World of Thedas itself? as a castle or fortress.. Rook is the bulwark against what's to come? [over-thinking ik ik, tis just for fun hh].

by now we're all familiar with the chess game Solas plays in banter dialogue with Iron Bull during DA:I. in the in-world chess game, rooks are called towers. Solas moves his right-hand tower once. at a later point in the game, Iron Bull's "Arishok" piece takes Solas' left-hand tower, getting a check and leaving him feeling triumphant. Bull asks Solas wth he is doing as Bull takes Solas' remaining tower. "Your last tower, by the way". Bull, a spy and liar himself, bears down on Solas' pieces "with his full army", thinking a win is in sight. Undeterred, Solas executes a few moves in a sneaky plan and entraps Bull in a checkmate, winning the game after sacrificing various pieces to enact his plan.

rook also brings to mind the Tower tarot card and its meanings. it's associated with sudden, disruptive revelation and potentially destructive change. it connotes danger, crisis, sudden change, destruction, higher learning, and liberation, as well as adversity, calamity, deception, ruin and unforeseen catastrophe. reversed, it connotes things such as negligence, carelessness, apathy and vanity (vanity.. pride). in this depiction of the Tower tarot, lightning strikes from the sky, striking a crown (hubris) off the top of a tower and setting it alight as people fall from the tower to their doom. this imagery and the upright meanings of the card bring to mind the sudden massive change Solas seeks to bring about (destroying the Veil), the revelations and liberation for some that it might bring, his identity as Fen'Harel Lord of Tricksters (deception) as well as the destruction he seems to think the Veil destroying action will cause ("as the world burns in the raw chaos"...). the 'Tower scene' has also already played out once before in Thedosian history, when Solas created the Veil and sealed the Evanuris away, leading to the fall of Arlathan and its wonders. in modern Thedas, Morrigan and Flemeth (as well as possibly some side 'prophecy' type things) both allude to a big change coming to the world.

in DA:I, the Tower tarot card is ofc none other than Solas' ending card, if he is not romanced. in the DA:I version of the card, we see Solas, cloaked in a dark robe and holding a mage staff under a half-moon or eclipse. darkness seeps from his shadow, stark against the orange sky, and blends with the giant black Dread Wolf, looming ominously and open-mouthed above him with its many eyes. (the Tower tarot card Solas scene is later referenced in DA:D promotional art and DA:D-era in-world murals). it makes sense to have assigned this to Solas given the above discussed meanings of the Tower tarot card, but it's a verrry inchresting choice imo to then give "Rook" as a name/title for the DA:D PC.

and most inchrestingly, there's the symbol from the front of Mark Darrah's mysterious Red Book. this mysterious red book shows "a flaming rook" on the cover. the book was an internal guide for developer and publisher eyes only that summarized the vision for DA:D, in its Joplin iteration. we know that the Joplin project has since been revised to an extent that it was the newly codenamed Morrison instead, but the red book is known to still contain plenty of ideas likely to appear in DA:D. most pages of the book remain highly classified. it's the symbol on the front that's of most interest to us though for the purposes of this post. there is a castle, tower, or rook, like a fortress or the chess piece. above the tower, a fire burns, reminding us of the burning tower from the Tower tarot card imagery and what that symbolizes, as well as Solas' "world burning in the raw chaos" line from Trespasser. inside the fire is a wolf, the Dread Wolf, in a now very-familiar and repeated motif in DA:D art, merch, murals, teasers etc. whatever else "rook" may connote, it feels like it's not an accident at all that the PC's name is apparently "Rook", given this depiction of a fiery rook and the Dread Wolf together.

what do you think? ^^

[kwyoz]

the fact mostly everybody is upset with the style of the new trailer and im just like YIPPEE

[thatrandombystander]

DRAGON AGE 4 GAMEPLAY LEAK??????

Link to reddit poster + text about it

Link to the images + one gameplay gif

Gameplay seems to be moving away from the sort of top-down, semi-tactical style of previous games, and more towards action RPG. "Hack n' Slash" is used a descriptor but that's a very particular kind of gameplay genre, so I'm just going to settle on "action". Might be good. I play Dragon Age for the characters and RPG elements, so as long as I don't dislike or get frustrated with it, I'm fine with a gameplay change

This player seems to be a Grey Warden, and the gameplay sequence was set at the Grey Warden fortress of Weisshaupt. (Weisshaupt is in the Anderfels, but it's pretty close to borders with Tevinter). I would guess that playtesters would likely be given an earlier part of the game, so this might be the opening quest. (have seen some speculation that we might be able to choose our start like in Origins, but that seems baseless speculation at the moment)

This build of the game seems to be at least a few months old so it's certainly further along, but I'm definitely not expecting to see Dreadwolf this year. Also, the graphics are clearly not finished. Don't base any judgements about that from this

I think I had some other points but I'm blanking. Feel free to offer any other observations or insights.

[jaykingingram]

Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, but it’s just a sad wolf who is dreading having to make a phone call or get groceries.

[anneapocalypse]

"So there was a controversy that caught me a bit by surprise. When the leak occurred that we were doing qunari as a playable race, there was an immediate backlash because the assumption was that we would only have male qunari. This was never the intention, but because the news was coming out through a leak, it was missing necessary context about the fact that we were doing male and female qunari. So we actually had to get ahead of this, or try to regain control of this narrative at PAX, because the narrative out there was that we were going to put out a game with male-only qunari, which was never the case. So one thing I would say is if you're getting news through leaks, chances are that you're going to be missing a piece of context. Sometimes that's going to mean that you're misinterpreting the news that you're hearing."

--Mark Darrah, Dragon Age: Inquisition - PAX 2013 (Mark Darrah Reacts)

[lethalhoopla]

The new trailer has injected hype straight into my veins (rip everyone who is tired of Varric narrating trailers feat. Solas, but I'm a sucker for both) and the art is just gorgeous as always so I took screencaps - figured I'd share in case anyone else wanted them!

[biancadavri]

cadash: what do you mean spared that's the exact opposite of what i've hired you to do

da:d dwarven protagonist: it's just that he's really not that bad once you get to know him :) maybe all you guys need is a good talk

cadash: he tore off my fucking arm?

solas (in this scenario he's wearing heart-shaped sunglasses, that one Precise Dwarf Bravery t-shirt and sipping a fruity drink through a silly straw): oh my god here you go making everything about you again

[thorinoakenbutt]

It's really interesting to me that they've changed the wording around the DAD protagonist from hero to leader. It could be as simple as wanting to diversify things, like

DAO = Hero

DA2 = Champion

DAI = Inquisitor

DAD = Leader?

Though I'll be curious how we get there, especially with the theory that (this implies the Rook from the leak is the PC) Rook is a multifaceted name. The chess piece, the corvid, a shortened form of 'rookie'.

Varric said in one of the previous teasers that they need someone Solas doesn't know and will never see coming, so I wonder if "Rook" is going to be a total nobody at first. A rookie in that we might not be tied to any organization at first, because by DAD, Solas would be familiar with all of them. Granted it'd be just as easy to be a rookie of any of the teased groups that will be important.

With the Crows, you could be a (relatively) new recruit with very few jobs under your belt. With the Wardens, it's possible we could be put into a Thom Rainier/Blackwall situation. Or a brand new Lord of Fortune with designs to become a famous treasure hunter.

[homiest88]

Me reacting to the Dragon Age and Mass Effect 4chan leaks I am just straight laughing. Even though I post about Baldur’s Gate 3 a lot I am a huge fan of Dragon Age and Mass Effect. The leaks has a bad summary on what Dreadwolf is. Q2 2025 release date which I don’t think it’s happening because of GTA VI releasing possibly in Q2 2025 and Bioware and EA doesn’t want to compete with GTA VI. And the biggest reason why it’s fake is because the leak states that the gameplay of Dreadwolf is similar to Inquisition even though previous accurate leaks states that Dreadwolf’s gameplay is similar to God of War 2018. Also the big one is the playtester claims they are a Bioware Ambassador but a Bioware Ambassador manages the Bioware store not playtest. So yeah this Bioware 4chan leak is laughably bad and fake.

[felassan]

let's talk a lil bit about the new Thedas Calls teaser and the new blog post, in relation to revisiting the DA:D leaks from around 10 months ago (potential DA:D spoiler warning for those last 2 links, as well as for under the cut below):

(I won't be posting the images and gif themselves from that leak here, not directly. here and here are some previous posts of mine talking/speculating about those leaks so that I don't repeat myself too much. and here is my DA:D spoiler tag in general in case it's of interest to anyone to browse or anyone wishes to blacklist it. also, the usual set of disclaimers that accompany all leaks applies - might not be real, unable to verify, games change a fair bit between development phases and final release, take with grain of salt etc).

okay, so really in this post I am just looking to tie the new teaser&blog info with that leak.

the new teaser indicates Weisshaupt as a location we'll be visiting in DA:D, seeming to confirm the leak, which shows the possible Player Character, Rook, and their companions including Davrin fighting through Weisshaupt ("Weisshaupt" can be seen in the top right text).

the new teaser implies something bad has happened to Weisshaupt (see bottom paragraph in that post) and when the 'Speaker 2' Warden character speaks their line, we hear the roar of battle, a battle cry, the clang of weapons etc. I wrote elsewhere that Speaker 2 (who insists that Wardens don't hide in their castle, they fight)

sounds like a hardened fighter, a seasoned commander. he is speaking when he’s about to be attacked, or in a pause in battle

and in the leak, text shows that Rook has the objective "Defeat the darkspawn", and shows them fighting through Weisshaupt in combat with darkspawn. this is not the worst of it however - per the dialogue there's "worse than darkspawn on the way", and the walls won't hold it back. we see Rook fighting what looks like those red lyrium-affected darkspawn creatures. Could the thing that is worse and on the way be the cause of the "tremors in the Anderfels" described in the blog post, or one of the "risen gods" mentioned in the teaser? I feel like if you squint, in some of the images from the leak, there looks to be the silhouette of a great beast in the background, maybe a dragon.

this location in the leak, also noted as Weisshaupt, looks to be this location from the teaser, just from a different angle/position on that 'level'. it has the same night-time, lighting, dark atmosphere, rocky cliffs, cloudyness, ruined buildings/structures, ominous feel, vaguely green tint etc.

the blue dome in that location also seems to show up as an asset in the Rivain segment of the teaser.

apart from the red lyrium darkspawn, the red lighting here in the leak (and potentially the reference to "Spawn Boils"), as well as the ominous spreading tendrils in the leak images in general, bring to mind the red lyrium-esque glow in part of this shot from the teaser.

the leak describes Rook as a "Level [x] Grey Warden" - interesting considering the prominence of Grey Wardens as a highlighted faction, locale (via Anderfels and their HQ), 'Warden Speaker' in the teaser and all. (remembering also the speculation that Warden is a potential background of some kind for the PC)

I also wonder if the big door with griffons on it in the leak is what looks to me like a door/gateway covered by the suggestion of red lyrium in the teaser. I feel like if you squint you can just about make out the pattern of the engraved griffons' wings on it, or those rayed lines from the bottom half of the door. (or is this just me seeing things hh?) in the leak the characters are trying to hold the door shut and there's no red lyrium on it. I guess they fail and it becomes tainted by red lyrium and destroyed/grown over or something, or the dragon etc that I presume they're trying to keep out, does end up busting through, with the walls around it becoming destroyed too. (easily done by a dragon, magic, red lyrium or stuff magic-warping bc of Fade shenanigans etc)

According to sources that spoke to Tom Henderson's Insider Gaming, "It’s understood that you’ll be able to move from your hub to missions by passing through a mirrored portal." I know the games have always had Fast Travel all over Ferelden as in DA:O or all over Ferelden and Orlais as in DA:I etc. and it's a game, so you don't really need an explanation for jumping around travel-wise due to gameplay-story segregation. the mirrored portal obviously sounds like an eluvian though and to tie this to the new teaser, with so many different locales shown across vast swathes of northern Thedas - Anderfels, Tevinter, Antiva and Rivain at least - I have to wonder again if the PC and their companions are travelling around these many different countries and across such distances via eluvians. I wrote elsewhere,

moving from a hub to missions through eluvians was exactly what we did in Trespasser from the Winter Palace, and it worked really well. Trespasser’s setup was really enjoyable. it was a fun mechanic that helped explain fast travel and apparent teleportation. it also allowed for travelling to places all over, from the Deep Roads to ancient elven ruins to places in-between the waking world and the Fade - a variety of handcrafted places to explore still but with a tighter storyline threading through them, as opposed to open-world that felt like it was probably mandatory to include during development because of other games on the market like Skyrim and AC, but which then struggled to be filled with meaningful content to fill the space and in which that struggle was apparent. I’d be down for that. I’m just daydreaming and speculating wildly now for real (bc it’s fun) but we could travel all over Thedas that way. We did that in [previous DA games] I know but you know what I mean?

at the very least from the new teaser we now know we're travelling to at least 4 different nations in DA:D. :>

Some leak-text on Reddit also accompanied the gif and screenshots from the leak. it again mentioned the darkspawn attacking Weisshaupt. as I wrote at the time, this "explains why Weisshaupt looks wrecked", now it seems like we are also seeing this in the new teaser (wrecked Weisshaupt). it seemed to confirm the influence of red lyrium also, mentioning that some of the enemy darkspawn "have red lyrium attacks", and confirmed the attacking dragon. I wrote at the time

The dragon is also Concerning.. like. Darkspawn attacking, with a dragon involved. That sounds like a Blight and an Archdemon. Is this the Sixth Blight? is it a Red Lyrium Blight? I'm reminded of this concept art. also HELLO?

not sure about a 'red lyrium Blight' / 'sixth Blight' exactly per se, but what it reminds me of again is the Anderfels blurb from the new blog,

ᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ꜰᴀʀ ᴡᴇꜱᴛ, ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ ɢʀᴇʏ ᴡᴀʀᴅᴇɴꜱ ᴘᴀᴛʀᴏʟ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀɴᴅᴇʀꜰᴇʟꜱ. ᴛʀᴇᴍᴏʀꜱ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ᴄʀᴇᴀᴛɪɴɢ ᴅɪꜱᴛᴜʀʙᴀɴᴄᴇꜱ ᴏꜰ ʟᴀᴛᴇ. ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ᴄᴀᴜꜱᴇ ɪꜱ ᴜɴᴋɴᴏᴡɴ. ᴜᴘᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅɪꜱᴛᴀɴᴛ ʜᴏʀɪᴢᴏɴ, ��� ꜱᴛᴏʀᴍ ᴏꜰ ᴏᴍɪɴᴏᴜꜱ ɪɴᴛᴇɴᴛ ʙʀᴇᴡꜱ ᴀɴᴅ ᴅᴀʀᴋᴇɴꜱ ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴋɪᴇꜱ.

as in, the contents of the leaks sure sounds like this 'storm of ominous intent that darkened the Anderfels skies' has now struck, and hit Weisshaupt.

In the leak it was noted that

"The objective is to fight through the Darkspawn to get to the library, but as you are doing so there is also a big ass dragon attacking from above. And the dragon creates occasional environmental and traversal hazards. It ends once you reach the library, close the gates, "and then come face to face with the dragon. It appears you are then supposed to try and chain the dragon up, but it ends before the player completes that."

(I said of this, "I guess the big lever we see has something to do with trying to chain the dragon up.") I feel like here in the new teaser we can see some hints of occasional environmental and traversal hazards, like lightning strikes (some dragons have lightning / electricity abilities right? like Vinsomer from the DA:D codex they shared with us), broken bridges and different places where we might have to jump to, hang from, or climb onto etc (and the leak had also mentioned that jumping returns). I also feel like, perhaps the ring-things in that shot from the new teaser have something to do with the chain-system mentioned in the leak, where it seems that you're supposed to then try and chain the dragon up. the leak also said that

"Basically, buildings and whatnot are all modeled and textured but the skybox itself is very dark and makes it seem as though the entire fortress is underground, although it is clearly not. I suspect the skybox could contain some giant world event, similar to the Breach, they hadn't finished."

given that in the new teaser Weisshaupt still looks dark, it seems like this was intentional? and likely due to the attack on the fortress and whatever giant world event may be appearing in the sky[box] that was theorized to being something similar to the Breach (and in that concept art of Weisshaupt).

[slecnaztemnot]

hi!! just reading through your dragon age leaks compilation (bless you btw), you mention "Companion 3 might be black elf who appeared in some concept art." -- can you point me toward the concept art by chance?? I've been trying to track it down but I'm striking out

Hi,

the concept art was in one of the "making of" videos produced by Bioware.

Here is the link:

I also compiled the most important pics here in my speculation about the companion line-up:

The black elf is the one who appears in several concept arts and has been mentioned by 2 different (?) alleged leakers. In the Behind the scenes video, there is a black voice actor called Ike Amadi, who is voicing character named "Darvin".

At this point I am pretty sure he is our companion. I think he will be a warrior, though mage is also possible. Most likely Grey Warden, since in the video, the character shouts "For the Wardens!"

Hope this helped!

[brightaxe]

i've been anticipating dreadwolf for so long that i no longer have any real expectations from the game. all i have is a single request. please please please let varric finally be romanceable.

[zevsarainai]

imagine complaining about the UI of a game that's still in alpha.... couldn't be me

[misculenica]

Dreadwolf Speculation - Protagonist + Companions (Part 1 - long post)

Let me start by emphasising that this is purely my own speculation given what we've seen in the trailers, teasers, concept art, and the most recent leak we've had regarding gameplay (curtesy of reddit about a month or so ago). Feel free to disagree, propose your own speculations, and most of all, enjoy the freedom of deliberation!

Part 1 - The Protagonist.

I propose that the new protagonist of Dragon Age is called Rook.

A rook, below a wolf, as seen a few years ago. Mark Darrah tweeter images of this red book back around... 2017/2018 (I think this time period, I'm not a twitter person). This is pretty significant in my eyes, given the recent leaks from reddit that triggered the memory of this image.

This is a cropped still from one of the leaked images of the early alpha gameplay.

There's a character called Rook (and we'll talk about Davrin in Part 2...), confirmed - I completely believe these leaks are real. Given the significance of the rook image above, back from 2017ish, I feel like it'd be odd for a companion/side character/even a notable character to have such prolific imagery... So that stands to reason, the next main character will be Rook.

But let me give you a brief overview of a rook;

a rook is a piece in chess; it may move any number of squares horizontally or vertically without jumping (oh maker, bioware, please), and it may capture an enemy piece on its path; additionally, it may participate in castling (castling is a special move between the rook and the king that both gets your rook into play and shields your king via a switcheroo, basically (poetic given how Rook will swap places with the Inquisitor against Fen'Harel - it's actually really interesting ((I swear)). It's the only time in chess where you can move 2 pieces at once, and where the king can move more than 1 square!). The rook is sneaky, fast, and good for infiltrating the enemy and forcing them to move.

I also find it interesting how you start chess with 2 rooks... Perhaps that will mean nothing, but perhaps not....

Now, let's consider a rook; the bird;

A rook is a very sociable/gregarious member of the Corvus family (crows, esssentially), who are rarely found by themselves. It should also be noted that wolves and ravens have a distinct but unusually friendly/symbiotic relationship (ravens are also of the Corvus family) - I just think that's neat, considering the dread wolf.

I really like the bird symbology - especially having a previous bird protagonist (Hawke, of course!).

; Leliana also keeps corvids as her messengers. (wait... red book with a rook.... red rook.... where have I... Ohh)

Hahaaa.... I'm not done!

See those black feathered arm flaps? Am I connecting the dots? (You ain't connecting shit, Nae)

I suppose you all are thinking the same/similar thing; this is an antivan crow.... this is maybe zevran.... No. It is not. Why is it not? Let me pull up the evidence; concept art (soo reliable).

Please note, the anitvan crow to the left - ready to grab the palanquin holder- servant guy. And on the right, at the front... The character from above - similar in design, but the crow lacks the arm wing flapy-dealies. Let me zoom in on them both so you can see.

Alright, they are rather similar in design. But the right looks much more like the wine drinking guy. (Note that the one on the right looks male, and the one on the left looks female - could that imply these 2 are the male/female variations of our next protagonist? Or... Is this the 2nd rook on the chessboard I mentioned? Is the other rook going to dieee??? Tin foil hats for everyone!).

That's all I currently have on the protagonist! Hope you got as much out of this as I did!

Part 2 - Companion;

also;

[miyku]