#like everyone died during the Broodmother fight

[lunafeather]

I am finally FREEEEE. I remember now how much I hated the Deep Roads more than the Fade

The Anvil of the Void can get fucked, that is all

[haledamage]

5s for your Cousland?👀

Essentials: 5. What do they specialize in within their class?

in the DAI/DA2 style where you can only choose one specialization, Cait is definitely an assassin! in DAO where they let you choose a few, she was assassin/duelist/shadow. basically, she's just very good at stabbing people

Life: 5. What religion were they born into? Do they still follow it?

she was raised Andrastian, as I imagine most nobles were, but I'd put her firmly in the "agnostic" camp. She believes Andraste existed, there's historical proof of that (plus she, y'know, found her ashes), but she isn't sure she believes that she was really the Maker's prophet, or even that the Maker really exists. but she does believe that faith can be a powerful thing on its own, so she's willing to give the benefit of the doubt

Life: 10. Have they ever been seriously injured? What was the outcome?

Caitie gets seriously injured a lot, actually. she's a rogue that thinks she's a warrior, and tends to throw herself head first into fights. good thing she knows so many competent healers. but two in particular stand out:

she almost died in the Landsmeet duel from blood loss. Loghain nicked an artery just above her elbow while attempting to disarm her. She still carries the scar from it (and so does he, because she returned the favor)

she also almost died to the Archdemon, but not in the traditional Grey-Warden-who-kills-the-archdemon way, more in a thrown-off-a-building-by-an-ancient-blighted-dragon way. she wasn't even conscious when Loghain killed it (though everyone still gives her credit for it. which she hates)

Party: 5. Did they do companion quests? What were the outcomes of those?

she did all her companions' quests (because I'm a completionist), and to mostly positive outcomes iirc. she tried to choose the peaceful solution as often as possible (though she did kill Flemeth. and Taliesen, but you don't have a choice there)

Codex: 5. How do they feel about darkspawn?

she doesn't really feel anything about them. she doesn't hate them for following their nature, she doesn't feel sorry for them. she was a little skeeved out by the broodmother, but mostly because of the circumstances surrounding her creation. she doesn't really feel anything about killing them either, it's just part of the job; they try to kill her, she tries to kill them first, may the best man win.

Codex: 10. Are there any animals they have a particular love or hatred for?

she loves her mabari, Byron. he's the bestest boy and fiercest Grey Warden that ever lived, obviously. she really, really hates giant spiders, but that's mostly due to the Overwhelm ability

Origins: 5. What did they think of Flemeth?

she hates Flemeth for the abuse Morrigan suffered at her hand, and for trying to manipulate her into lying to her friend. If she knew Flemeth was still alive, she'd hunt her down and kill her again

Origins: 10. What was their nightmare in the Fade during Broken Circle?

Cait was back home in Highever. Her family was dead, but they didn't seem to know that. They were all walking corpses, talking to her like nothing had ever happened.

Origins: 15. Who rules Orzammar, Bhelen or Harrowmont? How did your Warden make their decision?

Bhelen. Cait appreciates the changes he wants to make, especially those to the caste system and the way casteless are treated, and she isn't bothered by his ruthlessness or ambition

Origins: 20. How did they deal with Loghain?

she spared him and recruited him into the Grey Wardens. Cait's a practical woman, and knew more Wardens was better than less, and she doesn't have any illusions about the kind of people that the Wardens recruit or about what it means to become one. it's a death sentence the same as any other, it just takes a little longer

in two of her three "canons", she and Loghain become very close friends. in the third one, they become lovers and she eventually marries him. so, y'know, not the worst decision she's ever made ;)

Origins: 25. How did your Warden resolve Warden’s Keep? Stone Prisoner? The Golems of Amgarrak?

oooh, it's been a while, let me see if I remember.

I know for Stone Prisoner, she recruited Shale and helped her regain her memories and they became friends. if Shale's in a good mood, she might even admit it

Warden's Keep, she killed Sophia Dryden and spared Avernus, let Avernus continue his research (but ethically), and I think she drank the blood potion thing. what's a little blood magic between friends?

I think I've only done Golems once because it was really fucking difficult, but I know I completed it and that I hate Harvesters so very, very much

[astalkingirin]

Alright, Awakening thoughts, they were long so let's put it all on tumblr instead of in more transitory form. I feel like this is something I'd regret but also I don't use tumblr as tumblr so maybe not.

Gross terrible dwarf wasn't that terrible actually for the part of the game he's mandatory but I did ditch him immediately so he was never around the rest of the female companions which is probably why. His banter with the guys is okay, probably because neither of them had any buttons for him to push. I'm still sad I didn't accidentally kill him by staying at the city, though. And why would an alcoholic with a compromised liver do better at the joining ceremony anyway?

I did so much worse at sucking up to everyone this time, because I was trying to continue playing the Warden I'd established while last time I built my personality around someone it made sense to be friends with these guys. As a city elf, I was sympathetic to class issues and generally forgiving of mass murder as long as you promised to not mass murder later unless you really needed to, BUT nobles are assholes and mages are scary and I totally do not regret killing that kid. That dovetailed nicely into gameplay because I was running through the game with minimal strategy/party management, so any time there was an enemy spellcaster I just sprinted at them to deal with it personally and a whole bunch of time I killed the guy only to keel over from curse of mortality.

As a result, I got along best with Sigrun. "I ruined this person's life but I had no choice!!!" Of course you didn't the dwarves are SO MEAN they betrayed me twice over (also they poisoned my sister) and also fuck da police and really you did her a favor by getting her to come to the surface where people are only awful some of the time. I gave her half the alcohol I was still carrying on me from last game. I'm actually not certain I maxed out anyone else. Also, all of her prickliness was for people trying to start conversations with her, and you can't really do that, so she was only cranky and unapproachable to everyone else. Relatedly, I found the whole thing about "hey the casteless took up arms to defend this place!!!" to be deeply uncomfortable and the people who said fuck it, let's make a break for the surface had the right of it. Like yes, they did prove they weren't worthless - but you shouldn't be sacrificing yourself covering the retreat to prove you're not worthless to the people who insisted you were worthless in the first place and left you behind to die. (Also I really can't buy they "accidentally" "forgot about" the casteless during the evacuation. A city's worth of dwarves don't accidentally sneak out of anywhere.) Pick up the weapons to do a fighting retreat toward the surface, let those assholes slow down the darkspawn with their deaths the way they meant for yours to. And relatedly NO SIGRUN JUST DITCH THE LEGION OF THE DEAD YOU OWE THE DWARVES NOTHING! You love the surface! You love everything about being up here even more than you hate everything about being down there, at the very least get yourself killed fighting forest demons or something instead of the deep roads.

Anders just has no standards, so even though my responses to everything he said were along the lines of "mages are scary" and "sounds fake but okay" he was just really grateful I didn't hand over my healbot to someone challenging my and my entire organization's authority (after I had previously murdered the last assholes to try that). I think the problem was that my character is forgiving of actual crimes but cranky about lying while he comes off as someone scared to tell the truth. If he just said, "I think mages should get to kill people!" I'd be all "lol cool I also enjoy murder" but he kept trying to argue they weren't dangerous as the underpinning for his argument so I kept responding with "are so!" So I guess the other half was that he wasn't enough of a killer because I got on great with straight up assassins. I am still not over that you give him shiny stuff to make him like you. What is with mages even. How are you shallower than Zevron. Anyway, I feel bad because everything about him was so sad. It's like he'd lost his inside voice during solitary so now he just babbles whatever's in his head out loud and tried to cope by sounding like he's doing it on purpose as a joke. I don't feel like there's anything my non-mage Warden could ever do to really change anything about that, though - sure, he's grateful for whatever you do for him because he has such awful expectations, but it's for the same reason I can't see him believing I'd do anything more than what I demonstrated. It's not like Morrigan where her low expectations are because she's had limited human interaction so she's willing to accept new data points. Also I would like to throw my hat into the bloodsplattered ring - Anders didn't kill the Templars, because he wouldn't lie if he had. He didn't do anything at all because magic is so bad and they're here to keep him from doing any of it, right? After they were dead, he engaged the darkspawn, which explains why it was such a close thing.

Got on well with Nathaniel once he accepted I was right to murder his dad and take all his stuff (still mad BECAUSE TORTURE CHAMBERS NATHANIEL was not an option), and honestly, he barely even put up an argument before then, he was just mildly huffy no matter how nasty I was about it. Nathaniel is just so much a people-pleaser. Actually, that seems like a thing for the rogues. He made a good stab at friendship with Sigrun that got rebuffed for class issue reasons, then came back for a strong second try by saying he totally understands class issues suck. I'm so sad he rebuffed Anders' one attempt at finding common ground because Anders rejects all overtures coming from other people I could see. Also, like, maybe you could have someone ELSE get those phylacteries, Anders? Maybe a person who not only can't be tracked by those things but can straight up turn invisible? And whose entire skillset is based around sneaking into places?

Justice was creepy as fuck A+++++ I only regret I didn't get more of Polite Spirit In Rotting Corpse trying to talk to people. Also, that bit about the lyrium song was very intriguing, especially since it not only came up with the darkspawn, but the Mother seems to think going to the Fade is tied to hearing it.

I only had Velanna on my side for a bit because I was trying to keep the same people in my party but I thought it was hilarious that even if you make no real effort to be convincing she's just like "huh, a split second of self-reflection is enough to make me realize this does all seem like a total setup, whoops!" Then I went straight to the city so she was still in my party and we went to the merchants to tell them I'd dealt with the problem and she was sooooo uncomfortable. Like, not remorseful so much as embarrassed she'd screwed up so bad. Also she was spamming some spell that changed her skin so it was like she was trying to hide the whole time we were there but ineptly because she was no longer in a forested environment and it was as hilarious as every picture of animals failing at camouflage ever was. I realize this is not supposed to be seen as part of her characterization but that's what I love about videogame canon.

The actual plot...I don't know really. So the Architect wants to free darkspawn, but also he said nothing about making it so the darkspawn stop killing everyone and I don't know how I'm supposed to believe his claim he didn't want to kill the Wardens when there is one alive one left, but with broken legs who dies when I find him. And I'm on the side of blights being good for precisely the reason he points out, they kill off massive numbers of darkspawn. (I think it'd have made sense for the reason this Blight was weird is related to the fact there's been a longer than usual time between them - that means the darkspawn population should be much higher.) If he was talking about peace between our peoples, that'd be great, but no matter how many chances I gave him to say that, he kept avoiding the subject. I let him live mostly because my Warden generally let anybody live who wasn't actually in combat with her, and I feel bad about how I overruled my companions and their completely reasonable WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK opinions on that.

I guess it makes sense that waking up as a broodmother would make you way more likely to go crazy, so it really wasn't any more misogynistic than the initial setup already was, but it still meant there was this whole gendered conflict between the rational man of progress and the crazy woman whose feeble mind broke under the strain. And given the Architect was supposed to be unique, why did he have to be a guy anyway? Given the darkspawn are all getting born of regular race females it’d be plausible that a female one might be more lucid, maybe it’s a more successful clone compared to the male form.

(Why does it make total sense that someone can completely transform into an enormous flesh lump and asexually churn out billions of monster babies by magic, but only if they have a regular uterus first? Men are the ones who produce huge numbers of gametes forever if we're being "realistic".)

I actually really loved the shortness of it - the one thing that actually did bug me about Origins was that, although they did have the one big early event, I kept crisscrossing the map doing sidequests so it took me forever. Having fewer total things makes me less able to fritter away my time and so makes it feel like there's a real time limit, and it also made me stress less about completing sidequests properly since redoing it wouldn't be such a trial. Plus the limited party is less painful when it's actually conceivable to replay the game over and over with different people.

I like the idea of having to choose between the city and the keep, but I don't get why killing a few darkspawn to allow evacuation wasn't an option. It'd be one thing if I had to pick initially to stay/go, but I already walked all the way to the city, I can spare five minutes before setting it on fire. Somehow I'm suddenly at the chantry and people are talking about staying and me routing the darkspawn and geeze, you guys wouldn't let the refugees in because your city was too good for them, I didn't actually mind this place burning down. It seems like the point of tension is supposed to be about saving the city itself (the jewel of the region, etc) vs the keep itself, so I don't think it'd have been too much of an issue to have a third option of letting the people escape and getting to the keep slightly later for a harder battle or something.

I wish there was more talking. I accidentally killed the mages because I accepted the quest to find out what it was and then they started attacking me. Also did I really murder people over moonshine because of a prank letter? It seems like there's mostly the option to resolve things peacefully when that's obviously a bad idea, like with the demons and darkspawn. Maybe I wouldn't have kept letting demons gallivant all over the countryside if I had more of a choice about if I wanted to turn every band of mooks into chunky salsa. (Game could also have used a system where resolving things peacefully didn't cheat you out of leveling and items in return for nothing at all.)

[shadow-and-mist]

The Story of Tamag

- Genesis War: Betrayal of Bitreegl, the Story of Tamag.

During the sacred era of Genesis and Restoration of the Seven Stars, the Titans had to fight with the Enigma that had been long corrupted every land in the galaxy. Being warriors of the Conservant, Bitreegl and Sorandall siblings, creations of the mighty All-Seer Reshega were responsible to clear all the evil in progress.

…But the evil had its roots deep in the worlds of the Seven Stars. It was not an easy task to purge the planets, especially the Arreth which was the center and mainplace of the Enigma.

Sorandall, being the Warrior of Just and Order, did not hesitate to use his legendary sword “Bright” which was forged in the heat of the war by the Dermonn, Shaper of the Worlds and Blacksmith of the Gods.  The sword have accomplished a lot,  almost vanished all the nasty deeds on the terrain. While his twin brother, Bitreegl, which is famous for his Mind and Reasoning did not hold anything he had under his hands. Together, they claimed victory and served the empty, yet ruined Seven Stars to the hands of other Æsir and the Conservant.

Only a small group of Enigma had managed to escape to another microcosm. The Æsir were delighted, celebrating their triumph; but they missed on something that stroke right when it was most unexpected.

In the legendary Genesis War, Bitreegl was corrupted by evil schemers of the Enigma. With time, he felt that he was losing his reasoning and mind, which were all he standed for in the first place. He prefered to keep it to himself, hidden in the shadow of the conversant light they believed in.

After his brother, Sorandall created Taivas, which were responsible of the Skies and Elysium for Arreth; Bitreegl had assigned his job to create the other aspects. First of all, he created Valtamare, who was the Lord of the Ocean and Arreth, and then the furious Roshegii, whose job was ruling the Underground and Tamag. Knowing that he is getting worse every single day, he decided to create the Dragon Arbiters, with Chroma the Dragoon as their leader, to stop him if he ever tries to harm his family or the world they’re building.

Within time, the situation of Bitreegl went much worse. The other Æsir, especially his twin brother was aware that something was wrong, something troubled Bitreegl, but they never managed to reach him in the darkness that consumed his mind.

At some point, Bitreegl started to give orders to Roshegii, his creation to spawn an infinite amount of devil behind The Gates of Tamag, preparing for an attack to be unleashed whenever he wished. Reshega the All-Seer, alas his title, saw the growing hatred of his beloved creation, Bitreegl and tried to talk to him for one last time. Bitreegl did not confess or surrender, instead, he tried to kill the Reshega, but his twin brother Sorandall managed to stop him.

It’s been said that the struggle between those two siblings have moved from the very Æsir to the every generation of the Arreth. With Bitreegl, betraying and escaping after trying to kill a member of Pantheon, had been exiled to behind The Gates of Tamag. Septhemer have bonded the fallen Æsir’s fate with the Tamag, and creating the Bell of Darkness in Arreth to trap the dead in the boiling layers of the hell. Therefore he and all the dead, except Roshegii were trapped in and unable to leave the so-called Doors of Hell.

Since their creator went mad, Valtamare, Chroma and Roshegii were left in an ambiguous situation. They and their champions were confused, they didn’t know what to do. Bitreegl, using his creation, Roshegii, ruler of the Tamag as a minion, have reached to Valtamare and Chroma in both endless oceans and skies. Valtamare then realized that her brother, Roshegii was also corrupted by the same evil that their creator had been suffering from.

Valtamare and Roshegii have fought for the things they claimed as right; Roshegii have spawned hundreds and thousands of demons to fight with Valtamare from the underground, the ground shake like it never did before. The waters of the mighty Æsir flowed over the mountains and consumed the land, created rivers, seas and lakes on the united grounds. The fight ended almost scoreless, although it created an unceasing whirlpool in the oceans, which, even Valtamare or the Æsir couldn’t control.

Roshegii was tired, rather weak when he went to see Chroma. Somewhat he realized that Chroma was also suffering from the curse, having a trouble ruling all the Dragon Arbiters that were belonged to her. Roshegii did not fight her, instead, he took control of her to rule all the Arbiters, eventually causing to turn Seven Arbiters into symbols of Seven Deadly Sins that started devouring all the life on Arreth.

Bitreegl, instead of using Roshegii as his messenger, have created the Wings of Fury, an organization of birdfolk that could travel freely between Tamag and the Arreth, carried the messages and commands of Bitreegl to everyone that followed his evil plan to take over the world and give it back to the hands of the very Enigma that he himself once fought against.

During the Great Age, where heroes and champions were on a rise, Bitreegl’s plans behind the doors have given it’s first sprout. The champions of Sorandall and Bitreegl, respectively named Merqos and Buratros were Ancient Elf twins, almost one of the first creations to live in the Arreth. Enigma have started attacking Arreth once more along with evil Dragons, and Buratros, being blurred by the Wings of Fury and Bitreegl’s plans, have rang the Bell of Darkness in exchange of power, which released the evil and Bitreegl himself from Tamag. Merqos, seeing the Arreth is going to perish; have sacrificed both himself and his whole family including Buratros to restore the Bell of Darkness to its former peace, which is known as Sacrifice of Merqos in the books of history of mankind. It lead to Arreth’s map became scattered around, gaining its current shape. After this, the Envoy and Champions have imprisoned the evil Dragon Arbiters in the Dragon Temple way above the land, where it was impossible to get in or out for the mortal.

Enigma’s presence have been put on hold with those seals for centuries, centuries filled with evolution of ancient races, gnomes and dwarves waking up, also humans gaining their independence. During this time, Bitreegl and Roshegii have formed the Tamag into two big layers, named as Kazhan and Hell. The Hell is the dimensional place that is believed to be the home of the evil that people reached after their death, while Kazhan is the layer that has the throne of Bitreegl, along with Roshegii and his champion, Zereda.

The world was in tranquility for a long time, until an Ancient Sorcerer named Arafaturazs rang the Bell of Darkness in exchange of the ability to control fire, which was considered as the rare and infinite arcanum. By ringing the bell, he received the power of fire, but lost his mind and flesh. This also caused The Gates of Tamag to be opened once again. Having the greater power and nothing to lose, he attacked the Ancient Council and killed many Sorcerers except Phelpos and Azshemon. They were the only ones left being capable of sealing The Gates of Tamag, yet no matter how many times they tried, they failed against the evil. Phelpos, the leader of Ancient Council have signed a sacred treaty with Bitreegl. It was known as “Deal with the Devil” and according to it, Roshegl, also known as “Satan’s Religion” was going to be spread all over the world and The Gates of Tamag was going to stay open forever, in exchange for leaving the mortal world harmless. Azshemon, who was Avatar of Rama in that period had known that Bitreegl’s terms were a set-up for a further chaos, therefore he was against the treaty and died fighting against Bitreegl himself.

In the Reign Age, the human Queen of Arizasa, named Dominic Rhapsody have opposed the treaty and with the help of another Avatar of Rama, Sheera, they have killed Arafaturazs that was sent to kill them and sealed The Gates of Tamag once again. Dominic Rhapsody then have assigned her fellow three giants to protect the Bell of Darkness, giving the giants the title of “Guardians of the Bell.” Arafaturazs had chosen to be worthy to go to Kazhan, being the first human-born to reach the halls of Bitreegl.

Years later, champion of Roshegii, Zereda, the Broodmother of Demons that lied infinite eggs in the floors of Kazhan have managed to get past the sealed Doors of Tamag with the help of Bitreegl, started a big war against the Arreth. This action was known as “Demonspawn” and affected all the living.  Many people have lost their lives, and many heroes have lost their spirits and control over their body and mind to the hands of Zereda.

The war took months, but in the end a Hansp priest of Arizasa, named Elitia have entered the battleground with his team. Together, using their unique arcanum later to be named as “Holy Light” by people, have defeated the Zereda, and then rest of the Demonspawn. After this event, Elitia became the new king of Arizasa with the title of “Son of the Gods”; which quickly raised the religion of Hansp into one of the most believed religions of the world. Also, after this war, the calendar was changed into “Elitian”, starting with the year one after the year the Demonspawn have ended.

Since then, the evil is being kept sealed in the pit and their situation is unknown. The religion of Reshegl is still known and popular although it’s not welcomed in many places. The world is in hands of the humans of Arizasa, who are against their unknown foes, Enigma and the devil lurks behind The Gates of Tamag.