#it might depend on inquisition? is calpernia still around if you sided with the mages?

[mageknife]

lucanis says about zara renata “there might be a higher ranking venatori somewhere, but if there is i don’t know them” and then you kill her really early in the game. lucanis is probably not right about her being the highest-ranking venatori but also it has me thinking. what is the power structure of the venatori? they followed corypheus and now the evanuris but like. of mortals. who organizes them. are the various venatori magisters in charge. is aelia in charge. i don’t remember

[adlegend21]

Dalish Sera and how awesome it would’ve been.

Disclaimer: I love Sera, she’s one of the sweetest romances in DAI and I bring her everywhere on every Inquisitor. 

That said, I think it would’ve been a great thing if Sera had been a Dalish elf, with the intention of showing a POSITIVE light on the Dalish for a change. So here’s my meta for the concept of Sera Lavellan.

For starters, she’s brown like her concept art, and maybe she’s got a Mythal design for her face tattoos, maybe in a shade of green. She’s a hunter from Clan Lavellan who, like in the Lavellan origin, sent her to spy on the conclave.

Sera’s there even if Inquisitor Lavellan is chosen by the player in which there’s some unique dialogue of her staying there to make sure the shem didn’t do anything funny to Lavellan while they were unconscious. For non-lavellan Inquisitors, she’s fighting with Solas and Varric and Varric stays behind after his intro and you meet him back at Haven.

Sera provides the exposition for Clan Lavellan, they were near Kirkwall after Anders blew the chantry and they fought bandits, rogue Templars searching for mages, and eventually made their way to the conclave because of how important it was and that’s why Sera (and Inquisitor Lavellan) are there.

Also Sera’s still a lesbian only love interest, not changing that, don’t need to, but she’s still good friends with male Lavellan’s, even more so if they’re a rogue because they were a team of hunters.

She and Cassandra don’t get along because she feels Cassandra is too keen to make The Herald of Andraste a thing (even more hostile if Lavellan) and pushes for Lavellan to be called The Herald of Mythal (hue hue hue for later in the game) in banter.

She and Solas don’t really get along either because it shows how he feels pity for the Dalish due to his “studies of the fade” but eventually with some input from the Inquisitor in banter and conversations with Solas they can become amicable.

Her beef with Vivienne is mostly due to her being a court member of Orlais and how she doesn’t use her power to help as many people as she can despite being a mage and she counters Vivienne’s dismissive opinions on anti-circle rhetoric, openly chastising her for saying Dalish ship off mages into the wild if they have too many, DOUBLEY SO for Mage Lavellan’s saying how revered and respected mages are in Dalish culture and how she should really broaden her horizons when it comes to magic instead of being so defensive of the chantry rhetoric.

Sera is a big proponent of Clan Lavellan’s actions of helping people. They helped people in the free marches, they helped people in Northern Ferelden, and she’s staying with the Inquisition to help people (even if Lavellan isn’t there) and that leads into the mission IN WYCOME that's set up on the war table where (stop the purging of Wycome's elves) becomes the playable mission.

In the Fade the Nightmare preys on her fear of losing her clan saying something along the lines of “Your clan is weak without you Sera (and Inquisitor Lavellan) how do you know they will be there when you return for them?” and her tombstone is “losing her culture to humans”

For Wicked Eyes and Wicked hearts, if she’s brought she’s announced as “Sera Lavellan, Master Hunter of The Dalish Clan Lavellan” if you complete the Wycome mission before she’s announced as “Sera Lavellan, Master Hunter of Dalish Clan Lavellan of Wycome” and the Nobles comment on her status in ambient dialogue. She also mentions Leliana personally giving her pointers on the game so she doesn’t let her hatred of the Nobles get in the way of the mission. She GREATLY APPROVES of having Briala control Gaspard and mentions to Briala that she has the support of Clan Lavellan for non-Lavellan Inquisitors and for Lavellan’s she has a war table quest to forge an alliance with Briala’s people and Clan Lavellan.

And of course, What Pride had Wrought, she and Morrigan clash because, even as a Hunter, Sera has incredible knowledge of Mythal and her practices, often talking over Morrigan to explain things to non-Lavellan inquisitors, and shifting the conversation to Lavellan saying the exposition.

When it comes down to the well decision (she approves of sparing Calpernia by telling her of Corypheus’ plot btw and killing Samson) she actually is a choice if she’s in the party. Her vallaslin is for Mythal and she feels that the well belongs to the Dalish. She greatly disapproves if a Trevelyan takes it but the post-mission conversation can be used to get some approval back and she just disapproves of Morrigan takes it. She Greatly approves of Lavellan taking it and is neutral on Cadash and Adaar.

If Sera takes it then she’s the one who mentions Morrigan and Keiran going into the Eluvian so she’s present at that Mythal reveal, if Morrigan is alone she’s a require companion on going to the reveal and naturally she is over the moon to meet FleMythal who says she (and Inquisitor Lavellan) “Do the People proud and have come far” making her the happiest Elf this side of Thedas to have the approval of one of the creators.

For Trevelyan’s they can explain to Sera why they chose to take the well and regain some approval, mages have an easier time because they can say that the Well’s knowledge will be used to help mages throughout Thedas and Sera will be okay with it.

Sera’s cutscene conversations show her kinder side and her ambient dialogue shows that she gets along with the elven members of the Inquisition really well, some were even rescued by her in the chaos.

Her romance is flipped and it’s easiest to romance her with Lavellan’s as they’ve got history together as opposed to it being the hardest. The Hardest romance path is Trevelyan because of Sera’s grudges against human nobles, less so for Mage Trevelyan’s because she’s aware of the plight of circle mages. Adaar’s are still easy because she saw a few female qunari in the free marches and still goes “woof” for them. Trevelyan gets a special conversation where Sera wants to know if they really love her or if she’s just an elf they want to have sex with and Trevelyan can soothe her fears on that in the conversation as well.

She is also the ONLY person with a quest post-Corypheus defeat where, with high approval, or a Lavellan, you get to meet the Clan in a social space like Val Royeux when Wycome is saved as opposed to the earlier quest to save it.

If Sera is not romanced by The Inquisitor she has a few things that happen. She flirts with Cassandra in banter after Haven but gets shot down. In Ambient dialogue from Leliana, her agents let on about Sera having a crush on her to which Leliana shoots her down if romanced in DAO and if not then she’s on the fence about it before Sera gives up. Dagna mentions getting a gift from Sera to welcome her to the Inquisition. Josephine even visits Sera while the two have tea together in the tavern and go on a date if neither is romanced but nothing comes of it. Ultimately if unromanced Sera and Charter become an item in Trespasser.

Speaking of DLC’s Sera is amazed at Ameridan being an Elven Mage and she has dialogue where she asks him questions to get his exposition. The post story convo with The Professor auto selects revealing that Ameridan was an Elven mage if Sera is present because she won’t allow you to lie about him being a human noble (why would you anyway???)

She also talks about dealing with Darkspawn during The Descent in her travels with Clan Lavellan, even having a funny story about doing so with Inquisitor Lavellan.

Also, Tempest Specialization is revealed to be Elven in origin, something she learned from the Keeper and the NPC for the specialization is another Elf from her Clan Lavellan (that makes THREE) and Sera approves of Cadash, Adaar, and Lavellan’s taking it, but is neutral on Trevelyan’s depending on her approval with them.

Sera is IMPOSSIBLE to remove from the Inquisition. She will not leave because the Dalish need her as a voice for change in the world and you cannot tell her to leave. Her disapproval scene is her chastising you (gotta screw over the dalish clan in the exalted plains, get clan lavellan destroyed, take the well and tell her off as Trevelyan, conscript the mages, and banish Briala and keep Celene on the throne or something along those lines) and saying that after you defeat Corypheus that she hopes the dread wolf takes you. speaking of the dread wolf.

Sera has a crisis during Tresspaser. When it's found out about the Evanuris being mages that held slaves and warred upon each other and that Fen’Harel punished them, she doesn’t know what to do about it. It calls into question everything the Keeper taught her, but after the initial shock, she wants to know more. She’s furious after going to the library because of the last words of the Elves you hear when the world falls apart because the fade is beyond the veil, and she wants all the answers behind everything that happened and Lavellan can agree with her on that.

This changes Trespasser just a bit because Solas welcomes the entire party you bring with you to the final conversation with various pieces of input. He reveals that he is Fen’harel, the Dread Wolf, and Sera is stunned. The Dread Wolf was around her the entire time and she didn’t know, but Solas says it’s by design. He feared her wrath and wanted to help, and after meeting mythal he commends both Inquisitor Lavellan and Sera because they changed his opinion of the dalish from when he woke up. He still has the goal of returning the world to its previous state and to everyone’s surprise Sera agrees with him and takes the option from the Inquisitors response to agree with him, though he denies her because he sees the anger in her desire to join him and he takes no pleasure in what must be done whereas she might. He takes the Anchor from the Inquisitor and tells the party not to follow (he also give you back your gear) and you return to make your decision of the Inquisition’s fate.

Sera’s epilogue slides have her return to clan Lavellan with the news of fen’Harel’s return and the truth about the elven gods and it leads to the first major meeting of Dalish Clans across Thedas so that they as The People can decide what to do going forward.

So that was a long piece of writing and I may make some addendums down the line, but so far, that’s how I would have done Dalish Sera