#future dread

[felassan]

EuroGamer: 'BioWare knew the deepest secrets of Dragon Age lore 20 years ago, and locked it away in an uber-plot doc'

Original creator David Gaider on how "some of the big mysteries are being solved".

Rest of post under a cut due to length and possible spoilers.

"As I write about the secrets hidden in Dragon Age's mysterious Fade, and as I uncover some of them playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard, one question keeps rising up in my mind. How much did BioWare know about future events when first developing the series more than 20 years ago? That's a long time, and back then BioWare didn't know there would be a second game, which is why Dragon Age: Origins has an elaborate and far-reaching epilogue. Why lay so much lore-track ahead of yourself if you don't think you'll ever get there? But look more closely at Origins and there are big clues suggesting BioWare did know about future Dragon Age events. There are obvious signs in the original game, such as establishing recurring themes like Old Gods and the Blight and Archdemons. But there's also Flemeth, Morrigan's witchy mother, who's intimately linked to events in the series now - more specifically: intimately linked to Solas. Does her existence mean Solas was known about back then too? There's only one person I can think of to answer this and it's David Gaider, the original creator of Dragon Age's world and lore. We've talked before, once in a podcast and once for a piece on the magic of fantasy maps, where we discussed the creation of Dragon Age's world. And much to my surprise, when I ask him what he and the BioWare team knew back then, he says they knew it all. "By the time we released Dragon Age: Origins, we were basically sure that it was one and done, but there was, back when we made the world, an overarching plan," he says. "The way I created the world was to seed plots in various parts of the world that could be part of a game, a single game, and then there was the overall uber-plot, which I didn't know for certain that we would ever get to but I had an understanding of how it all worked together. "A lot of that was in my head until we were starting Inquisition and the writers got a little bit impatient with my memory or lack thereof, so they pinned me down and dragged the uber-plot out of me. I'd talked about it, I'd hinted at it, but never really spelled out how it all connected, so they dragged it out of me, we put it into a master lore doc, the secret lore, which we had to hide from most of the team.""

"This uber-plot document was only viewable on a need-to-know basis, he says, and only around 20 people on the team had access to it - other senior writers mostly. And even though Gaider left the Dragon Age team after Inquisition, and then eight years ago BioWare altogether, meaning he didn't work on The Veilguard at all, he believes - by looking at the events in the new game - his uber-plot lore "has more or less held up". That's impressive. What's even more impressive, or exciting, is that back then he also envisaged a potential end state for the entire Dragon Age series - a point at which it would make no sense for the series to carry on. "I always had this dream of where it would all end, the very last plot," he says, "which I won't say because who knows, we could still end up there. But the idea that this uber-plot was this sort of biggest, finite... That the final thing you could do in this world that would break it was there as a 'maybe we would get to do that one day'... There was just the idea of certain big, world-shaking things that were seeded in that arc, some of which have already come to pass, like the return of Fen'Harel." You've read that correctly: the idea to have Fen'Harel, also known as the Dread Wolf, reappear, was seeded all the way back then, way before Inquisition - the game in which he does actually reappear. But the concept for Solas, as a character who was Fen'Harel in disguise, was a newer idea. "That spawned from a conversation I had with Patrick [Weekes] and a number of other writers," Gaider says, "as an idea of 'what if you had a villain that spent an entire game where he's actually in the party and you get to know him?' Now, the god version and his larger role in the plot, yes that was known, but not that he would be presented as a character named Solas." Fen'Harel being known about means the other elven gods were known about, which means all of that stuff Solas reveals about his godly siblings - that they're not gods at all but evil elven mages he locked away behind the Veil - was known about back then too. "Oh yeah," Gaider says. "Everything that Solas tells you [at the end of Inquisition DLC, Trespasser]: it's all part of that original uber-lore - that was all in our mind." But why have so much lore if you're not certain you'll get to ever realise it? Well, to create a believable illusion. By creating an "excess" of lore, as Gaider describes it, Origins made Thedas feel like an old and believable place. A place with history, rather than a Western set that was all facade and no substance."

"BioWare also did something canny with the lore it did relay then, too: it shared it through the voices of characters living in the world, making it inherently fallible. In doing this, Dragon Age veiled its truths behind biases. The church-like organisation of the Chantry proclaims one truth, while the elves and dwarves proclaim another. Sidenote: you can experience this yourself through different racial origin stories in Dragon Age: Origins. This way, there's no one, objective, irrefutable, truth. "To get the truth, you kind of have to pick between the lines," Gaider says. So even though elven legends are coming true through the existence of Solas and The Veilguard's antagonist gods, it doesn't mean that's the one and only truth. There's truth in what the Chantry teaches and what the dwarves say, he tells me, which ignites my curiosity intensely. BioWare has also been tricksy in how it's rubbed out the lore the further back in time you go. "In general, the further the history goes back, we always would purposefully obfuscate it more and more," Gaider says - "make it more biased and more untrue no matter who was talking, just so that the absolute truth was rarely knowable. I like that idea from a world standpoint, that the player always has to wonder and bring their own beliefs to it." It leads into a founding principle of Dragon Age, which is doubt - because without it, you can't have faith, a particularly important concept in the series. It's where the whole idea of the Chantry's Maker comes from and with it, the legend about the fabled Golden City - now the Black City - at the heart of the Fade. This is the very centre of the lore web, and, I imagine, it's close to the series endpoint Gaider imagined long ago. All secrets end there. Did Gaider know what was in the Black City when he laid down Origins' lore? That's the question - and it startles me how casually he answers this. "Oh, yeah," he says. "What was in the Black City: that's the uber-plot. I knew exactly. "Was it as detailed in the first draft of the world?" he goes on. "No. I had an idea of the early history because that's where I started making the world. So the things that were true early-early: I knew exactly what the Black City was and the idea of what the elves believed, and what humans believed vis-a-vis the Chantry - that was all settled on really early. Then I expanded the world and the uber-plot bubbled out of that.""

"Gaider shows me the original cosmology design document for Dragon Age: Origins as if to prove this - or rather for the game that would become DAO. The world was known as Peldea back then. I can't share this with you because I see it via a shared screen on a video call, and because Gaider doesn't want me to, mostly because the ideas are so old they're almost unrecognisable from what's in the series now. But I can tell you it's a document that's just over a page in length, and that there's a circular diagram at the top showing the world in the middle and the spirit realm ringed around it. And on that document is reference to the Chantry's beliefs about a God located in a citadel that can be found there. Gaider says BioWare knew about Fen'Harel (the Dread Wolf) 20 years ago when it was developing Dragon Age: Origins, and that he'd one day reappear. The Fade wasn't known as the Fade back then, either, but as the Dreaming, because it's the place people go when they dream - an idea that lives on still. And if that sounds familiar to any fans of The Sandman among you, it should. "I'd say The Sandman series was probably fairly prominently in my head," says Gaider. "I liked that amorphous geography that was born from the psyche of collective humanity. I'd say yes, if I was to point at something specifically, that's probably where the very first inspiration of it took root." It's a lot to take in, but it reinforces the admiration I have for Dragon Age. Just as I have when hearing about the creation of my other favourite fantasy worlds, such as A Song of Ice and Fire, I begin to understand the magnitude - and the deliberateness - of the plotting that went on. I wonder if one day the Dragon Age series will end in the way Gaider first imagined, albeit slightly altered by the many other pairs of hands shepherding it along now. What a curious feeling it must be to know, so many years in advance, where things might go. Where that end is, I don't know, but I do know we'll take a significant step towards it in The Veilguard. After all, we're coming into contact with gods who were there at the recorded beginning of it all. "Yeah - we have access to people who can tell us the truth from first-hand experience," Gaider says, "although again, it depends on what the writers did with it. But if they continued the tradition of Dragon Age, you never know for sure if Solas is telling you everything, or what you're learning is the entire truth. "But yes, some of the big mysteries are being solved. I mean, will they one day definitively tell you about the Maker? Will we crack the big mysteries of the world and just make them answered finally? And does that ruin one of the central precepts that Dragon Age is founded upon? Maybe," he says. "Ultimately, that lore, when you make it big and you hint at it and hint at it and hint at it, it becomes a Chekhov's Gun of sorts. Eventually you got to pony up.""

[source]

[tinnilil]

Future Shiemi AU sketches from streaminggg

[hattiestgal]

Little Pocket's beach episode!

Been too long since I've drawn these two and I wanted to draw them in some beach attire! Riley is absolutely only going to dig the biggest hole they can

[merakiui]

mera!

i heard you’re back into azul after the skully take over!

i have an azul magical girl thought i thought you’d like hehe >:)

hear me out..

azul x darling in place of kuro sensi and irina in the shed scene… HEHEHE azul’s tentacles sprouting out of no where and latching into darling and massaging her out of no where! oh no!

maybe it’s magical girl darling who’s pulled into the school’s supply shed in gym in a surprise attack!!

maybe he’s apologizing profusely telling darling how he can’t control it (if he’s unmasked) when he knows full well that he’s mastered control of his other limbs at the ripe age of 3 under the sea.

or if he’s masked up, his tentacles sliding under her pretty hero costume as he mockingly comments how tense she is. “of course she is with his tentacles poking and prodding her everywhere!!

https://youtu.be/IhlkokQHaxU?si=s1kpez0sCx_jcYGn

(scene in question in case you haven’t seen assassination classroom, HIGHLY RECOMMEND)

maybe they go further than azul mischievous tentacles intensely massaging her back and shoulders and they decided (“on their own” he says in a tizzy) that she needs a more thorough massage then before and know just the spot to hit.

one time when in vacay i was trying to get a massage but i fell asleep on the beach hours before and got sun poisoning 😣😣 hope darling’s massage goes well lol!!

loved the skully posts 💕

- phantom anon

AAAAAAA ASSASSINATION CLASSROOM MENTION IN 2024?!?!?!??! I LOVED THAT ANIME SO MUCH WHEN IT WAS AIRING WAAAAA!!!!! Floyb's VA actually voices Karma,,, hehehe. Do with that information as you please (assassin Floyb and koro-sensei tako...... do you see the vision!!!!)

Omg the shed scene....... after the recent manga update I am even more insane about his tentacles. OTL villain tako giving his magical girl a massage that is borderline erotic.......... waaaa powerless in his grasp, so all you can do is grit your teeth and try not to moan because WOW he is surprisingly good at easing the tension in your shoulders and rubbing out any knots in your back...... and ohhh where is that one tentacle going,,, the one prodding between your thighs!!! >_< you'd call him a pervert if you could get the word out, but all that really slips out are gasps and little breathy moans,,, and Azul just insists he has no control over this!!! Really, he'd stop this at once if he could (lie)!!

Hitting that perfect spot inside you and you're trying to threaten him (you'll cook each of those tentacles of his into takoyaki, you swear!!!!), but the tentacle pistoning in and out of you is melting all coherent thoughts.... massage so good both inside and outside that you're stumbling out of the supply shed in a daze,, sucker marks printed all over your body. 👁 👁 next time you see that stupid villain you're killing him dead!!!! >:( (or maybe not... that "massage" keeps you up at night with all kinds of thoughts. <3)

[cherrytraveller]

blood like soap it washes away your innocence.

Twitter || Ko-fi || Instagram

[nthflower]

Cuno should join Hardie boys in the future not RCM btw my unpopular hot take opinion thingie.

[thesweetnessofspring]

Katniss actually said that if not for the existence of the Games and Panem's shitty state in general, that she, at 17 years old, could possibly be married and pregnant. Full-on teen mothering it with her dandelion in the spring if Panem could chill out for a sec and stop killing children. And then she proceeded to fantasize about Peeta and his child safe in the meadow. This thought alone gave her one of three nights of restful sleep without drugs post-Games during the series (the other two being when she was in Peeta's arms).

And yet when the Games did end permanently and Katniss indeed went ahead and married/committed to Peeta and had a family with him at about 30 years old, some people still did a surprise Pikachu face and complained it was out of character.

WHAT MORE DID SHE HAVE TO DO TO FORESHADOW THE ENDING?

[fetusbaconegg]

Newlester Spoilers

I think Berdly isnt dead. Damn theres goes one of the few good things the game had going for it

[arlathen]

it's funny that andrastianism was right but like a thousand years too early. like no a god and his (once?) mortal beloved didn't inhabit the golden city but. they do now.

[verflares]

i miss her so bad (botw/totk zelda)

[timebones]

Love the dual imagery of the old woman. How she represents both the previous generations that dealt with Mad Jack the first time, and the current generation worrying what their future will be. Will the older version of me look on me kindly? Is that even the older version of me, does that person even survive? Or is it only the past, silently watching us walk into destruction?

The old woman appeared after the the circle was broken, yes, but also after Ruby became aware of her own mortality due to the Doctor’s slip of the tongue.

As a representation of the previous generations, the woman is distant and offputting. Not even the oldest folks in the pub are worried about Mad Jack anymore, and when Ruby tries to bring other people in, tries to let those now-dead generations speak, Ruby becomes the problem.

She’s left to embark on this (in retrospect) decades-long mission virtually alone, getting involved in politics, taking calls, holding coats, pulling every strategic lever available to her even if it means working for this terrible man. She has to, because she’s one of the few people who fully recognize the danger he poses.

And both the past and herself-from-the-future are watching.

[felassan]

Sylvia Feketekuty on Bluesky: "Hey everyone: sorry I've been quiet on here. Was busy with a big decision, namely deciding to leave BioWare. I'll really, really miss working with everyone there. But after 15 years, it just feels like a good time for a break. (If/when I've got something noteworthy lined up, I'll mention it here!)" [source]

[falmerbrook]

Not to be too corny but the new year has got me thinking and I really appreciate this blog because this is pretty much the only site/community/fandom where I don't stress out over posting every single thing I post, afraid I'll be shit on for... something (my brain is very good at coming up with hypotheticals). I know, I know I'm way too sensitive and i shouldn't care about what others think and the internet isn't real so it doesn't matter etc. etc. but unfortunately I just don't know how to get my brain to work like that. I mean, I'm still too afraid of being cringe to draw/write/yap about everything I'd hypothetically like to, but I've been way more social and open to posting my thoughts on here than I've ever been before, and it's made me more confident online overall. So thank you all for being so welcoming and chill!

[dreadfutures]

Done with the designs of Ixchel and Solas's Winter Palace Peace Talks outfits.

I have a piece in mind for Ch 72, after the fight through the alienage, but I needed to figure out all the layers of their outfits first.

Kicking myself for all the details in Ixchel's. Every single time I draw it.

[solasyoulittleshit]

rereading Dead Pasts and Dread Futures by youworeblue before Veilguard and I just lol'd at this line

Ixchel Lavellan is being very prescient here lol

Meanwhile in DA:TV --

Great fic by a great author, if you're a newer fan or one of the few who haven't read it I linked it above!!!

[thelasthippie]

Paint your future. Maybe will be a value painting 🎨🖌️