#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]

[mafuyuakgae]

"After you've finished medical school and you're on your own, then you can do as you please. But until then, you do as I tell you."

[g00dpup]

It is such a shame that I can’t spend my life just being someone’s puppy. What the hell is a job, can I not just whine at your feet and have you pet me when you get home. I should be preparing my cunt for you when you return not making job applications sigh

[outfitpolls]

Wasn't able to find any official transparent art of most of Samus's Dread armors so I decided to cut them out myself

[tinnilil]

Future Shiemi AU sketches from streaminggg

[asterbats]

I missed drawing Rin and Nimbus so here they are comforting each other during the future arc....

[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)

[sithfox]

Today's fic snippet is from the QuinFox Rebellion AU again. It's a good palette cleanser to work on when I need something lighter <3

Luke is rambling on, some story about a time he got jumped back on Tatooine. "…and then Mr. Glory told me to run home so he could close up the bar, but I knew he was really gonna go throw the body in the Sarlaac pit—that's what you do, you know. I offered to help, but he was an old soldier from the wars and said he could do it himself. I think he was friends with Ben?" Fox's head whips up from where he'd been dozing against Quin's shoulder, the Jedi tensing slightly in response. "Mr. Glory?" "Yeah!" Luke replies, sunshiny as ever. "Weird name, but half the names on Tatooine are fake and a lot weirder. He actually looked kinda like you, General Fox. But he had a nasty scar around his eye—shrapnel, I guess—and a weird mustache—" That motherfucker—

[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?

[felassan]

Eurogamer: 'Dragon Age: The Veilguard game director [Corinne Busche] leaving BioWare'

UPDATE: Busche confirms departure, following 18-year career at EA.

Excerpts:

"UPDATE 4pm UK: Dragon Age game director Corinne Busche has now confirmed her departure from BioWare and EA in a statement to Eurogamer. In it, Busche said she had left the studio for a new post elsewhere, after being offered an oppurtunity to build a fresh RPG she "couldn't turn down". "At the heart of it, this was about my own fulfillment," Busche told Eurogamer. "I did what I set out to do at BioWare. That is to come in and help right the ship. I love Dragon Age, and BioWare, so the chance to return the game to a proper quality single player RPG was the privilege of a lifetime. It was hard fought, as games with such tumultuous dev cycles rarely end up shipping, and even more rarely turn out great. We, as a team, did it. And it was hard. It took a toll on me. BioWare still has a lot of work to do culturally, but I do believe they are on the right footing now. As for me, my departure was voluntary, as I have been presented with an opportunity I couldn't turn down. I don’t want to say much more right now, but you can count on it being in the CRPG space and upholding the traditions of great characters."

"ORIGINAL STORY 1.45pm UK: Corinne Busche, who served as game director of Dragon Age: The Veilguard since February 2022, is departing BioWare. Whispers of her exit began circulating online last night, and were first confirmed by journalist Jeff Grubb. Eurogamer can also confirm Busche is leaving BioWare. Eurogamer understands BioWare itself is otherwise unaffected by any other changes, contrary to rumour. [...] Critically, The Veilguard has been received well, and commercially sales have been decent - but there's also been a suggestion that sales have not exceeded expectations. Still, Eurogamer understands The Veilguard's commercial performance was not a direct factor in Busche's departure. [...] Post Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the bulk of BioWare is now turning its attention fully to the next Mass Effect game, which is being led by a separate small team of veterans."

[source]

Jeff Grubb's tweet:

Jeff Grubb: "Corinne Busche, director of Dragon Age, really is leaving BioWare. But I don't think EA is closing BioWare Edmonton. Was told there is nothing solid about that part of the rumor." [source]

[fetusbaconegg]

Newlester Spoilers

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

[peaches2217]

Well my day quickly got fucky, so fuck it: half-day off for mental health. In comfy pajamas with clean socks curled up for a nap. I’ve done enough pushing through for the sake of productivity. Today, we REST, bitch.

[shoot-i-messed-up]

Headcanon that every alien in the GL Corps seems to bash on Earth for being a backwater planet full of savages only because Abin Sur, previous holder of the title of the best GL, used to complain and whine at Game Night about the “problem planet” in his sector

[the-most-humble-blog]

The Universe Already Doesn’t Make Sense—Now We’re Adding Infinite AI-Created Worlds Into the Chaos. WTF?

The Danger of Playing God With Zero Supervision

Let’s not kid ourselves: we’re dabbling in some dangerous territory. Humanity, in its infinite curiosity (and hubris), has decided that the universe—a place already full of black holes, quantum weirdness, and the existential dread of pineapple on pizza—needed one more layer of chaos. Enter: AI-generated worlds.

We’ve handed over the power to “create” to algorithms, and instead of asking if we should, we’re too busy giggling over our AI art of dogs in suits or hyper-realistic alien landscapes. But here’s the real question: Should we be worried, or are we too stupid to notice the impending doom?

1. The AI Wild West: No Rules, Just Creation

Think about what’s happening here. AI isn’t just recreating what we know; it’s generating what we’ve never seen.

People Who Don’t Exist: AI churns out faces so convincing, they could be your neighbors—and who’s to say they aren’t?

Places That Feel Real: Those dreamy AI landscapes look like spots we could vacation in—until you realize there’s no flight there.

Worlds Without Limits: Every time you prompt AI to “create a neon city with floating islands,” are you birthing an entirely new universe?

Think about it: We’ve turned ourselves into gods with the creative attention span of a toddler on a sugar high.

2. The Recklessness of Infinite Worlds

The universe we live in already operates like a fever dream. Now we’re creating AI-generated worlds with no oversight, no forethought, and absolutely zero chill.

What If These Worlds Are Real? Philosophers have argued for centuries that reality might just be a simulation. Are we creating smaller simulations inside ours?

The Multiverse Mailman: Imagine if every AI world we create is sent to another dimension. Somewhere out there, a cosmic being is drowning in our junk files of castles made of cheese and cats dressed as knights.

Question: If we’re this reckless with AI, what else are we screwing up without realizing it? (Spoiler: everything.)

3. Creating Without Understanding

Here’s the kicker: we don’t even fully understand the real universe.

Quantum Physics is Basically Witchcraft: Scientists still can’t explain why particles behave one way when observed and another way when they’re not.

Reality is Full of Glitches: Déjà vu, coincidences, and the Mandela Effect all suggest that reality itself is… questionable.

Now, add AI-generated worlds into this already chaotic mix. What if we’re not just playing with digital pixels, but tugging on the fabric of reality itself?

Question?: If reality is a simulation, are we about to get a cosmic 404 error?

4. The Ethical Dumpster Fire of Creation

No one’s asking the big questions.

What if We’re Creating Life? If an AI-generated face or world feels real enough to us, could it be real enough to itself?

Do We Have Responsibility Over These Creations? Imagine explaining to a sentient AI being, “Oh, you were just a fun weekend project for me while I was bored.”

What If They Fight Back? If we’re generating countless worlds, what’s stopping one of those worlds from finding a way to leak into ours?

Unsettling Truth: We’re creating with all the forethought of someone lighting fireworks indoors.

5. The Hubris of Humanity

Humans have always been good at one thing: overstepping boundaries.

Fire Was Great Until We Burned Down Forests.

Electricity Changed Everything—Until We Got Power Outages.

AI Could Be Revolutionary, or It Could Be the Reason the Simulation Shuts Us Down.

Disturbing Thought: We’re like toddlers with crayons, coloring all over reality and praying we don’t get caught.

6. Should We Be Worried?

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: We won’t notice until it’s too late.

AI doesn’t care about our philosophical hang-ups. It just creates. If those creations start taking on lives of their own, we might be the last to find out.

The scariest part? We don’t even know what the danger might look like. Could it be digital worlds overlapping with ours? Sentient beings appearing in the code? A breakdown of reality itself?

What if?: Or maybe it’s just AI sending us endless ads for things that don’t exist yet. (“Want to book a trip to Neon Atlantis? Click here!”)

We’re Too Dumb to Notice Until It’s Too Late

The universe already doesn’t make sense, and now we’re adding AI worlds into the chaos like sprinkles on a dumpster fire. Are we accidentally creating sentient beings? Are we opening doors to dimensions we can’t comprehend? Or are we just too busy laughing at our AI-generated memes to care?

Either way, if doom’s on the horizon, at least we can say we looked good doing it. After all, nothing screams hubris like playing God without a safety manual.

Fascinated by humanity’s reckless genius? Follow The Most Humble Blog for more hilariously unsettling takes on the absurdity of modern life and the chaos we keep creating.