#like literally the ‘oh no he’s got’ squidward meme happens in my head

[melhekhelmurkun]

Sometimes characters/men I’ve looked at before with no interest other than “oh cool person” just suddenly… appear on my radar and join the ever growing list of obsessions I have

[simonjadis]

Previously, on Dragon Age

I wrote a summary of all of Dragon Age (pre-Inquisition) off of the top of my head, including contents from a couple of novels, for a friend of mine

it’s 18 pages but here you go

Previously, on Dragon Age (pre-Inquisition Summary)

Backstory:

It is said that long ago, the humans who formed the early Tevinter Imperium grew jealous of the land and magic of the ancient elves and their city of Arlathan, so they used blood magic and demons to fuck up Arlathan forever and made those elves into slaves. The Imperium is one of my problematic faves. With the elves defeated, Tevinter expanded and conquered most but not all of the other human tribes.

The dwarves had their underground kingdoms and underground highways called the Deep Roads and they were just sort of that squidward suntanning meme about it all.

Later, some magisters, who are just fantasy senators who are all mages, decided: “Hey, you know how the Fade is the world of dreams, the realm of spirits, and it's also the source of our magic? Let's go there.” So they used a stupid amount of slave blood and lyrium—which is a blue substance that's mined and can be bonus fuel for magic, just like blood—to go into the Fade physically trying to go to this one tantalizing “golden city” in the Fade that's unreachable in spirit form, which is how normal mages who aren't The Most use the Fade. Anyway, it was a disaster. These seven magisters, who had been trying to serve their slumbering dragon gods by doing this, came back as super gross tainted creatures called darkspawn. The darkspawn went underground, wrecked shit for most of the dwarves, and came up with a horde of darkspawn.

This was called the First Blight and it wasn't as fun as it sounds. The darkspawn weren't content to just be directionless asshole monsters, and instead dug up—and tainted—one of those sleeping old gods that the Tevinter Imperium worships. So you've got this big-ass fucked up dragon with god-level powers, whatever that means, and it's also infected with the darkspawn taint. Oh, and even when the army works to fucking kill it, it just respawns, like it's the main character. So eventually, some clever folks came up with grey wardens, who are sort of inoculated against the taint, and because of Reasons they can kill an archdemon (fucked up dragon god).

Unfortunately, it turns out that having a live reenactment of The Return of the King right in the middle of your expanding empire is terrible for the economy. So the Tevinter Imperium was weakened. Oh, it's worth mentioning that they have good relations with the dwarven kingdoms in general, but most of those huge dwarven cities are just full of darkspawn and dwarf ghosts and obligatory video game spiders now.

However, a woman in Ferelden, which was never fully tamed by Tevinter—it's sort of old-timey Fantasy Britain, so picture Mud And Dogs And Freedom—named Andraste was like “hey this would be a great time to marry a warlord and to become Fire Jesus.” She's sort of inspired by Joan of Arc but she's just Fire Jesus. Anyway, she invented monotheism, which always ends well, and her warlord husband led their barbarian hordes to fight back against the Imperium. Also some elves helped because she promised to free the slaves. Eventually, her husband betrayed her (cue the “Judas, no!” vine) and she got burned to death, but the Archon who ordered that to happen put her down with a sword to be merciful. So large portions of southern Thedas, which is the continent where this is set and THEDAS is literally THE Dragon Age Setting, were suddenly freed from Tevinter thanks to barbarian hordes and a weakened Imperium.

That was like a thousand years ago.

There were some more Blights. The Fourth Blight was centuries ago and an elven twink named Garahel killed that Archdemon but honestly his sister was cooler.

Andraste's religion, the chantry, is super racist against elves and even led a crusade (“exalted march”) against the elven homeland because Bad And Naughty Non-Human Polytheists Must Be Cleansed. The Imperium still exists but they're stuck in the past and still have slavery and lack forward momentum tbh. But at least they're a magocracy. The chantry reveres Andraste but technically prays to the Maker, even though there's zero evidence that the Maker exists. In general, the chantry doesn't like mages and essentially owns all non-illegal mages who have to go live in internment camps called Circles, which are like Hogwarts if you had no choice but to go there and could only leave with special written permission and also if you were watched at all times by guards with special anti-magic powers. Templars are awful. Mages who don't go there or who escape are called apostates and technically they're supposed to be arrested but a lot of the time, templar squads hunt them down and kill them because that's easier.

Mages, it's worth noting, can be possessed by spirits and demons from the Fade. If they are, they're normally considered to be abominations which are dangerous and templars then kill them. But also, every Circle mage has to pass something called the Harrowing which is when they deliberately trap you in the Fade with a demon that will try to possess you. If you want to opt out, they make you Tranquil, which robs you of your magic and also your agency and emotions and dreams. In some Circles, templars use Tranquility on mages whom they view as political troublemakers. So that sucks. But some of these internment towers are nicer than others, I guess.

These days, the Tevinter Imperium has its own chantry which is very mage-friendly but otherwise worships the Maker. The biggest religious moment for them is when their Archon (mage-emperor) put Andraste out of her misery. Just about everywhere else follows the southern chantry, which is more anti-mage.

The Dalish elves are just the sad Trail Of Tears elves and they're regarded with suspicion and move from place to place to avoid human settlements. They worship the elven gods. Most elves live in cities, howeer, in ghettos called alienages, and they have a few distinct traditions but for the most part they're expected to worship the Maker—but aren't allowed to be part of the clergy or anything, heavens no.

Dwarves in the dwarven kingdom of Orzammar (one of only two cities that endures) revere their ancestors and believe that the Stone guides them all. They also honor paragons, which are just really good dwarves that did neat stuff one time. Surface dwarves generally “lose their Stone sense” and some may even follow the chantry.

Then there are the Qunari, who live mostly on this island north of the Tevinter Imperium. They want to conquer everyone and make them follow the Qun, which is their absolute garbage religion where everyone's life is planned out for them in advance. Even the leaders don't have real choices; they just live their lives according to what the Qun demands of them. Qunari believe that there's just one choice—whether to exist or not. People they conquer who won't yield are given a substance that turns them into drooling laborers. Qunari regard mages as dangerous things (literally call them saarebas, for dangerous thing) and use them as weapons instead of as people. They kill non-qunari mages because they consider them too dangerous.

Qunari refers to both the race of tall, gray horned giants and also to the adherents of a religion. Incidentally, they only arrived on Par Vollen a couple of centuries ago, after the Fourth Blight, so they're not super familiar with darkspawn. They immediately tried to conquer everyone, and they have some deadly technology like cannons to make that a real threat. But the opposition was a bit much and they don't like that people seem to want to die rather than, uh, become enslaved to a book, so they decided to back off but it's clear to everyone that they're just biding their time. They're still at war with Tevinter, though, and the two keep juggling who controls the island of Seheron.

Qunari who leave the Qun are called Tal Vashoth and it may be that the tall gray horned people as a race are called Vashoth but that's not clear, in game or on Twitter and maybe not even in the writer's room.

Aside from Tevinter and the Qunari, the most powerful nation in Thedas is Orlais, which is just Fantasy France. They're very into Andraste, there. Also, big into anti-elven racism. And pastels.

The only non-Andrastian humans seem to be certain people in Rivain, a city of people with brown skin and a lot of pirates. And, of course, the Avvar, who are sort of Fantasy Vikings and still follow the same polytheistic faith that pretty much all of Ferelden and the Free Marches once followed.

DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS

It's 9:30 Dragon, so 930 years since the foundation of the chantry. The Fifth Blight has begun at the southernmost point of Thedas, in a part of semi-uncharted Ferelden known as the Korcari Wilds. You're in Ferelden.

If you pick the mage origin, you can be an elf or a human (Surana or Amell is your surname), and you go through your Harrowing and help your disaster friend with his bid to escape the Tower. That doesn't go so well but you get recruited to the Grey Wardens because you're the best apprentice mage there.

If you pick the non-mage human origin, you're a Cousland, part of a powerful noble family in Ferelden. Your brother leaves to help the king as he prepares to confront the darkspawn. Your father is due to leave soon. Thankfully, is good friend Voiced By Tim Curry has arrived and will be accompanying him. Everyone goes to sleep and you can even do a gay hookup, but surprise! Voiced By Tim Curry isn't so nice and his troops attack the castle while so many troops are away. You and your battle-mom and your pet dog (super-intelligent mabari hound) murder your way through a whole bunch of people but, like, your sister-in-law and your nephew are murdered and your dad's dying so you join the Grey Wardens. Your mom also dies but she probably kills a lot more people before the end.

If you pick a Dalish elf, you and your friend go into a ruin in the woods and there's a tainted mirror and, whoops, the only cure is to be a Grey Warden.

If you pick a City elf, you're getting straight-married in an arranged marriage when Vaughn Urien comes by because he's a disastrous garbage guy who wants to rape some elves since elves don't have rights. He kidnaps the bride (which might be you) among others. Whether you're the bride or the groom, you're like 90 pounds of pure murder, so you kill a whole bunch of humans and free the women, but one might be dead. Also, the groom dies if you're the bride. You're arrested and then a Grey Warden is like “this elf is great at murder, you say?” And he conscripts you to join the wardens.

If you pick a dwarven noble, which I saw once, your rude brother is murdered by your smart brother, who frames you for it, so you have to be cast out in the Deep Roads to die fighting darkspawn. But a Grey Warden comes by and recruits you.

If you play a dwarven outcast, who live in the slums of Orzammar, I don't even know. You do some dwarf crimes? Dwarves can't be mages.

ANYWAY, a warden named Duncan has recruited you to join the Grey Wardens. He takes you to Ostagar which is a semi-ruined fortress way to the south where King Cailan and Teyrn Loghain are waiting. King Cailan is like a Ken Doll with long hair. He seems to be a beautiful idiot whose father was a hero and, gosh, he'd love to do some hero stuff too. Teyrn Loghain is literally just Scar from The Lion King but less sexy. Loghain is his father-in-law. Also, Cailan and Queen Anora have zero kids.

There is literally a strategy meeting where Cailan says “It will be glorious” and Loghain says “Yes, Cailan. A glorious moment for us all.” So that's great to hear.

You're the warden recruit and you're paired with a couple of redshirts who are also warden recruits. You're paired up with Alistair, an awkward 20-year-old virgin jock whose heart is as big as his penis.

You do some minor quests and you fight darkspawn for the first time and they're awful. You get to cure a sick dog. Also, you meet Morrigan (a shapeshifting mage voiced by Claudia Black) and you even meet her mom, Flemeth, who's voiced by Kate Mulgrew and is clearly more powerful than she seems. Anyway, you head back and you go through the Joining. Duncan tells you that you have to drink a concoction that gives you the taint but in a safe-ish way, but half the people who drink it die. He tells you that you must “master your taint,” and I've seen this scene two-dozen times and never not snickered. Both redshirts die. But you're a warden now.

Now it's time for the Battle of Ostagar, which sure looks cool but, uh, doesn't go so well. The wardens are massacred. The king dies. Whoops, did Loghain forget to charge forward when he got the signal? He sure did. Half the army just opted out of the Battle of Ostagar, which is hard to sell as a strategic retreat because of his ominous dialogue earlier.

The Battle of Ostagar did feature some survivors who were with the King's army, but most were massacred. Or dragged underground by darkspawn.

During all of this, you're the one who braved a tower full of darkspawn and faced an ogre boss fight with Alistair and two new random guardsmen redshirts to light the signal that fucking Loghain ignored because he was too busy being prepared for the coup of the century and for the murkiest scam.

In the end, though, darkspawn burst in during a cutscene and just riddle you and Alistair and (gasp!) the redshirts with arrows. But then you wake up . . . in Flemeth's hut. You're totally healed. You're also naked. Life's like that sometimes. Anyway, Morrigan jokes that her mom transformed into a giant bird and plucked you and Alistair from the tower, which is probably a half-truth. Flemeth also healed you and Alistair. Flemeth is powerful enough that her magic can somehow keep darkspawn away from her house. I have no idea how she casts with Whoopi Goldberg spell but she's very powerful and clearly more than just a mage.

Flemeth sends Morrigan, who is a delightful goth who's still understandably bitter about having been homeschooled, along with you and Alistair. If you either chose the Human Noble Origin and got a dog that way or if you did the Cure The Dog stuff at Ostagar with one of the other origins, you find that this dog imprinted upon you and escaped the carnage. You can even name this dog. Remember the disaster mage friend from the Mage Origin? His name was Jowan. My Surana Warden names her dog Jowan.

Alistair is still sad about Duncan, who was his mentor or substitute father figure or whatever. Morrigan quotes the wise words of Gillian Anderson: I don't feel sorry for men. Anyway, you guys go to a village called Lothering and you see how news of the disaster at Ostagar is impacting people. There are refugees everywhere. The local lord abandoned his holding because it seems likely that the darkspawn horde will strike there next. People aren't sure that this is a proper Blight, because nobody's seen the archdemon, but Grey Wardens can sense it and you even see it in your dreams a couple of times. You do some quests in Lothering. You also find out that there's a bounty on surviving grey wardens, because they “betrayed the king,” according to Loghain. You're joined by a bisexual fwonch redhead named Leliana who is super into Fire Jesus but ALSO super good at murder because of her Mysterious Past. She believes that the Maker sent her a dream to tell her to help you. Sure, Jan. You can also recruit Sten, which is technically a rank because Qunari don't have names. He's in a cage. He also doesn't have horns because horns are too hard to render with helmets it's a rare trait to be naturally hornless and is akin to being a redhead in humans.

Leliana has been working for the chantry for a while but hints that her pre-chantry skills will help her kill folks. Sten wields a big ol' sword. Alistair discovers that the man who raised him before shipping him off to the chantry, Arl Eamon of Redcliffe, is sick and that knights have been sent to find the Fire Jesus version of the holy grail, which is just Andraste's ashes, for a miracle cure. As you leave, you rescue a couple of dwarves, one of whom is a savant at adding runes to weapons and the other of whom is a merchant. They'll follow you and show up at party camp from here on out.

You have Warden Treaties so you can go and remind factions that they're obligated to help you, but there's a smart order in which to do them. I'll just go with that.

First, you go to the Circle of Magi in Ferelden, which is on an island tower called Kinloch Hold. There are stat power-ups here that are more helpful in early game than later in the game. You want to secure the help of the mages, natch, but you get there and find out that, whoops, a Senior Enchanter named Uldred isn't as nice as his name makes him sound. So Uldred led a small rebellion against First Enchanter Irving and the other Senior Enchanters because of some deal that Loghain was making with Uldred. Long story short, whoops, a little bit of magic fights turned into a Demonstravaganza and the whole tower is a mess with abominations running all over. The templars are ready to use the Rite of Annulment which is when they kill every mage, including the children, but they need reinforcements to do so. You go in and you find Senior Enchanter Wynne, a Wine Grandma and skilled healer, protecting a bunch of apprentices and other survivors. She insists on going with you to cleanse the tower so you have to shuffle someone out of your party to accommodate her. You kill demons, a few renegade blood mages, abominations, possessed corpses. Then you get to a sloth demon who lulls you all to sleep so you do the Lost In Dreams thing but, if you're a mage, the Fade is your bread and butter. You do some simple puzzles and you get some permanent stat upgrades and you rescue your friends from some dreams. Alistair has a happy boring family life because he's just a golden-hearted jock. Wynne is like “oh no! All these apprentices are dead and it's my fault. Woe is me.” Morrigan's dream is just her not being fooled even a little bit and yelling at her spirit to at least do a better job if it expects to make her believe that she's at home with her mom. So you escape from the dream and the sloth demon's dead now and you keep on going. You kill some mind-controlled templars.

At the end, Uldred has a bunch of mages captured and he tortures them until they accept possession and become one of his fellow abominations. Uldred sees you and after some Villainous Dialogue he turns into a Pride Demon. You kill him until he dies and then First Enchanter Irving and the others are free and are like “yeah sure we'll help against the Blight but, um, first we need to clean up this mess.” There were some other survivors hiding in wardrobes and stuff so it's not like the Circle's all dead.

You leave and you'll notice on your map that Lothering has now been wiped out by darkspawn. Then you go to Redcliffe because not only is Alistair's other surrogate father figure sick, but he could be helpful in raising political support from the bannorn (lesser nobles; in Ferelden, it's the king, then the teyrns, then the arls, then the banns) against Loghain. And you guys are fugitives. Speaking of you guys being fugitives, there's a random encounter in the road where some lady's like “oh no! Help!” and it's a trap. And the leader of that trap is an assassin—a blond elven murdertwink named Zevran Arainai. You kill the fuck out of these would-be assassins but then there's a cutscene and Zevran's like “oh fuck you're scary; can I join you? I was literally bought by these assassins as a child and have never had any choice about this and also they'll kill me for failing, but you seem good at killing them, ALSO I'm bi and hella good at sex things.” Beyond his sluttiness he's basically Puss in Boots from Shrek. So yeah, you can recruit him.

Alistair will tell you that, whoops, it might come up, but while he knows Arl Eamon and views him as a father/bother figure, his actual dad was . . . King Cailan. The dead one. He is, in this and most other circumstances, just Smiley John Snow.

Then you're in Redcliffe and, whoops, the town is besieged by the undead each night. “But where are they coming from?” you ask. From Arl Eamon's castle. There are some quests you can do in town in the day to help everyone get ready. At night, everyone will be locked in the chantry while you fight off the undead outside. The fighting lasts a while but, I mean, they're just corpses with weapons so you kill them. Personally, I always kill Lloyd, the owner of the local tavern, because he's rude and he gropes his waitress Bella, who's very pretty and nice. You have to intimidate Lloyd into joining the fight, then make sure that he's caught in one of your area of effect spells. Anyway, you saved the day, but they all thank the Maker that they lived.

Then you sneak into Castle Redcliffe via a hidden passage through a windmill. Inside, the arl's son is possessed because it turns out that he was a secret mage and the arl's wife, ashamed of this, didn't want anyone—even her husband—to know. So she hired an apostate to tutor her son in magic. That apostate was Jowan. And, as Jowan tells you when you find him, Loghain, whom Jowan only knows as the war hero from years ago, learned of it and hired Jowan to poison the arl. The arl fell ill and the arl's young son, Connor, struck a deal with a powerful Desire Demon to keep his father from dying. That demon is now running amok.

From this point, you have a number of choices. You can, um, just kill this kid, if you want. You can have Jowan sacrifice the kid's mom to use blood magic to send you into the Fade to face this demon. Or you can ask the Circle mages, who owe you a favor, to help send you into the Fade. (Technically, if you're not a mage, you control a mage like Morrigan to do the Fade bit). So, the Circle sends you into the Fade. If you're playing as anyone but yourself, you kill the Desire Demon. If you play as yourself, you can also strike a deal. She can teach you blood magic, which unlocks the blood magic school for all mages in all future playthroughs. You can even save, make that deal, and then reload and choose a different boon. Anyway, her deal is that you don't kill her and she'll fake her death, making it seem that you've cured Connor's possession. And that she'll then come back one day.

But even after you save Redcliffe, the arl's still sick. And everyone seems really sure that the ashes of Fire Jesus are going to help, even though that sounds extremely fake.

If you haven't done so already, this is a great time to get Shale.

You buy a control rod off of a random merchant, which sends you to Honnleath, a lovely little town that's been overrun by darkspawn who are busy murdering the inhabitants. In the center of the town square is a “statue” posing like that guy saying “ART” in The Iron Giant. You kill some darkspawn and then you find where the survivors are huddled behind a magical barrier in the workshop of a dead mage. The survivors are glad that you're there, but this little girl has gone deeper into the Magical Experimentation Basement and everyone who tries to go after her has been killed by magical defenses that didn't seem to notice the girl. You get to the end and fight a Desire Demon named Kitty who's possessed the girl. You tell the guy that his daughter's dead and he gives you the activation code for the golem while you leave him alone in his grief. You still saved everyone else. Anyway, you awaken Shale, who is absolutely wonderful and I cannot emphasize that enough.

Shale hates pigeons because everyone would if they've been stuck in statue form for 30 years. Shale refers to everyone as “it” and “the its.” Shale is big and strong and made of murder and, as you later find out, was once a dwarven woman who was sacrificed to give life to a golem. In fact, she volunteered.

Okay, so after some side quests, you head to a quiet little horror movie village called Haven where nothing is fine.

Technically, there's some intrigue and shenanigans beforehand with some people trying to kill you that tips you off that Haven is a sub-optimal vacation destination, but once you're there, that becomes much clearer. You hear a child's horrifying nursery rhyme that sounds an awful lot like it's about luring a traveler to his death. You go into a house and there's blood on an altar and Morrigan says that it's human blood, and she would know. You go into an inn and make some purchases from the innkeeper, which is good, because as soon as you try to sneak a look into the back room, where there happens to be a Redcliffe Knight who's been tortured and murdered, the guy attacks you, which closes the store. Once you leave the inn, the cultists all drop their act and you kill them a whole bunch. Then you go up to their version of a chantry, which isn't any worse than a regular chantry but it does feature some bad dudes whom you kill.

In a secret side room in that chantry, you find this huge nerd named Brother Genitivi who writes about his nerdy travels because he loves geography and anthropology and stuff. He's injured but he comes with you and helps you enter the Temple of Sacred Ashes where Andraste's remains are allegedly interred. Leaving him to study what it feels like to have frostbite in a ruin at the entrance, you go in, killing cultists and some other things, including ash wraiths. You even kill some young dragons, which are like wolf-sized, and some boy-dragons called drakes, which are more like the size of polar bears. There are lots of traps and there's lots of treasure, and eventually you talk this cult leader named Kolgrim into escorting you to the Temple.

See, Kolgrim worships “the risen Andraste,” which is just a high dragon that he's decided is Andraste 2.0. Haven apparently was once just the regular sort of Andrastian cult before Kolgrim's ancestor went through a dragon phase and everyone got on board or died. Well, Kolgrim wants you to mix the ashes with dragon's blood from Andraste II, but the Temple's guardian won't let him or his followers pass. This is the easier route, and he even persuades the dragon to let you guys pass through her valley.

You have to chat about your feelings with a dumb ghost (the guardian) before you enter the temple proper. If you have Oghren with you (he's a consummate dwarf in the worst ways; picture Yosemite Sam with an axe), he will comment that he can feel lyrium throughout the temple, and that maybe it accounts for why stuff here is so strange and magical. The Guardian may have been some sort of Spirit of Faith or even a Spirit of Compassion who assumed the role of a devoted person when he died, but that's just speculation. There are some magical trials that you have to pass, such as Fighting Yourself, Solving Riddles, and Getting Naked. All important tenets of Andrastianism, surely. At the end, you find an urn with a dead lady's ashes in it. Since pouring the dragon blood into the urn has some less fun consequences, you really want to avoid doing that and just take a pinch of the ashes. When you leave (and there's a great XP bonus bug here, at least on PC, that you can exploit from here on out to level up quickly if you need to), Kolgrim is unhappy and tries to kill you, so you finish killing the cultists.

You can kill 2 Andraste 2 Furious here if you like, but it's probably better to do so later. High Dragons are a lot.

Oh, Brother Genitivi is totally excited to tell the whole world about this find. If Morrigan is with you, she will point out the obvious—that the chantry is likely to try to use this to leverage even further influence and power over the land. Genitivi cannot be convinced to stay silent, but you can murder him, which I have done every time.

You head back to Redcliffe and it turns out that what Morrigan calls “digging up the bones of a madwoman” was somehow the right call, as it does enable a healer to restore Arl Eamon to health. He's like “sure I'd love to help you against Loghain but you need to finish your treaty stuff.” Oh and he names you Champions of Redcliffe, which would be cool for a normal person but most people forget when they're listing the Warden's eventual titles.

Leliana has a personal quest to kill Marjolaine, her former lover who trained her in murdersinging (sorry, the bardic arts). You do that.

Morrigan has a quest for you to kill her mom, because she's discovered that Flemeth lives forever by possessing her “daughters” and Morrigan would like to keep her body, thanks. Flemeth knows why you're there but decides that she's going to make you work for it, even though she says that she'd be interested in seeing what Morrigan will do with her freedom. Then Flemeth turns into a dragon and you have to fight and kill this dragon without Morrigan's presence. All things considered, this if Flemeth going easy on you.

Your romance should be progressing pretty well at this point, and you may have even banged one companion and moved on to another at this point. If she likes you, Morrigan will give you a willpower ring that will let her find you if you're in danger. Leliana will probably have done something nice but I've never done that romance. Zevran gives you an earring that he took off of some hot guy he murdered as an assassin. Alistair gives you a rose and also his virginity.

Okay, so now you go to Orzammar, the dwarven city. It's one of TWO surviving dwarven kingdoms. There used to be, like, 12, or a similar archetypal number, but the darkspawn ate got rid of them. Orzammar was the only officially known one, but there's another called Kal Sharok that we've never seen in game except in text form. Kal Sharok has some serious goth vibes to it. Also, they hate Orzammar because Orzammar survived by cutting themselves off before it was too late back when the darkspawn first starting ruining things for everyone.

Anyway, Orzammar. There's political strife there because the old king is dead. There's currently a political battle between the late king's son, Bhelen, and the late king's trusted adviser and friend, Lord Harrowmont. Harrowmont is a traditionalist, but Bhelen is a populist who also murdered his own brother and framed his other sibling, leading to that sibling getting sentenced to death. The fandom has a bunch of opinions on this.

When you first enter Orzammar, you see a scuffle between loyalists of these factions, and some Bhelen Bros do some killing. Not a great first impression. Long, long story short, you have to Stop All Crimes in Orzammar and also fight as a gladiator on Harrowmont's behalf to give him a boost to try to make him king. Which is great, but Bhelen pulls some nonsense, so the dwarven Assembly that chooses the next king is deadlocked so they need a Paragon—dwarves revere ancestors and The Stone but they also revere their equivalent of Nobel Prize Winners even if they're shitty people. So Harrowmont says that he'll give you all of the help that you like . . . when he's king. But he can only be king if you find the Paragon to break the Assembly's tie.

Oghren, who is just drunken dwarven Yosemite Sam but he's voiced by Zeb so it could be worse, is married to Paragon Branka, who's been missing in the Deep Roads for years. So he insists on coming along with you.

I should note that no one should bring Shale too far into the Deep Roads (ancient darkspawn-infested highways, but don't worry, there are also giant spiders) because certain choices may lead to Shale fighting you. Also, in Orzammar itself, there's a dwarf who wants to open a chantry in Orzammar, a place untouched by Andraste-worship, and I consider it an oversight that the devs did not give players the option to tip him into some lava. There are some other people who ask you for favors.

Two of the best rings in the game are in Orzammar. One is the Key to the City and you get it by nerding out with codex entries. The other is Lifegiver and it just really, really helps your health in a way that no ring has since then. You can also visit Dust Town, where outcast dwarves live. You have to, in fact. It's even worse than regular dwarf places.

Speaking of worse than dwarf places, the Deep Roads. You go there and they're horrible carverns full of monsters. Darkspawn, giant spiders, and these things called deepstalkers that are shaped like little dinosaurs but are really just horrible worms with limbs. But while the Circle Tower was filled with stat boosts that make you more powerful, the Deep Roads make you rich, bitch.

You go through a number of thaigs, which are smaller dwarven settlements that they refer to as “like colonies.” But of course they're full of monsters. Also some ghosts? But dwarf ghosts. Ultimately, you find out how darkspawn are made, and it's awful. Every darkspawn that you see was born from a human or elf or dwarf or even qunari with a uterus who was dragged underground and turned into a big ol' Body Horror Ursula that can spawn thousands of darkspawn in her lifetime. So you kill the one that you meet.

Then you find Paragon Branka. It turns out that she's an evil lesbian who left Oghren behind but took her actual lover, but ended up sacrificing the people with her so that the women would be made into broodmothers because, despite being a genius, she was unable to get past Paragon Caridin's traps that protect The Anvil of the Void, which is used for the lost art of creating golems, the ultimate anti-darkspawn weapons. She wants to use it to reclaim territory long since lost to darkspawn. You fight your way through the traps because it's kind of a puzzle but mostly just a murder-puzzle, and then you reach the Anvil. At this point, you meet Caridin himself, who is a giant steel golem and he's like “hey so I invented this a long time ago, but you have to murder a dwarf to make one, and after we plum ran out of volunteers, the king at the time started sending prisoners and his political enemies and I got weirded out so he had me made into one but, whoops, he didn't make a control rod for me.”

This is why you don't bring Shale: Shale will help Caridin, and personally, I always side with Branka even though she's a nightmare, because recovering the lost art of making golems seems worth it. It's not like there's any shortage of bad people in the world and the Warden slaughters hundreds of people anyway; this is just a more practical use for those lives.

Once Caridin is dead (when you get back to camp, you pick the lie option with Shale), Branka's like “hell yeah” and makes you a crown for whichever king you like. She gives zero fucks about politics. You come back, turn in a bunch of quests, and Bhelen and his Bros make a fuss so you kill them real good. Harrowmont is crowned and you're honored forever. Harrowmont makes it clear that he knows where his bread is buttered, and he pledges the dwarven support against the Blight. So now the mages and the dwarves are ready to help.

You head to Warden's Keep, which is where you learn some neat old history and make some choices. Personally, I befriend an ancient blood mage warden named Avernus who's amazing at summoning demons but not so great at controlling them. He helps you and you get a potion from him that gives you some DLC powers but mostly I just like him.

This is probably a good time to swing by Denerim and visit The Pearl, their best brothel. For some quests (long story) but also to meet Isabela, an important character and also one who knows Zevran very well. They are two peas in a pod and she's a delight and you can have a threesome with her and Zevran. Or her and Leliana. Or her and Alistair if Alistair has been hardened. Anyway, it's great, and Dragon Age 2 will remember that if you import this save.

There's some Denerim stuff to do but mostly it involves fighting Rundown Backstreet Boys, and you head to the Brecilian Forest to find a clan of Dalish elves. They're nomadic, and they're led by Tuvok from Voyager who was also the principal on iCarly. He's kind of grumpy but he's 300 years old, which is very unusual for elves who live human life spans. But since they say that elves were once all immortal, they figure that he's just, like, reclaiming his roots better than most. Somehow. Anyway, he's the Keeper of that clan so he's both mage and leader. Turns out that these elves are fighting some Big Sexy Werewolves. Eventually, Principal Tuvok gets you to promise to kill Witherfang, the boss wolf. There's a whole lot of nonsense in the forest including an entire set of Haunted Evil Armor that you can earn but it's not that great tbh. Wynne's old student is hiding in the woods also. You learn about the elves and the Creators, their small pantheon of gods whom they worship but they believe that they were sealed away by the Dread Wolf, their trickster figure who's regarded as a sort of devil but still honored. Oh, the Dalish have tattoos. It's worth noting that this is not the same clan as the Dalish Warden's, if that's your origin.

Also, there's a guy and girl trying to find love, and you can play matchmaker. You can also bang one or the other. You can bang one and play matchmaker. Video games are great.

So, you go into an old ruin where the werewolves are like “yeah okay we'll take you to our leader.” Yeah, they talk. Swiftrunner does most of the werewolf talking because he's the sexiest.

A naked planet lady spirit with POWERFUL Tilda Swinton energies about her is Witherfang, but they call her The Lady Of The Forest. She reveals that Principal Tuvok cursed some humans centuries ago by binding the spirit of the forest with blood magic and linking that spirit to a curse. So he turned a local spirit that was mostly just chill and, like, “hey look, trees” into a naked plant Tilda Swinton who is basically the horcrux to the werewolf curse. At the same time, Principal Tuvok (whose real name is Zathrian, btw) is also a horcrux to the curse, which is why he's lived so long. You fight him but you force him to lift the curse in the end. These werewolves, descendants of the bad humans from 300 years ago, are turned back into wildly less sexy humans. Tilda dies (really she just returns to her former state, maybe in a lesser form). Tuvok dies. The elves are chill about it though since their own people who were infected with the werewolf curse are cured.

So now the Mages, the Dwarves, and the Dalish Elves have pledged their support. But you need the human majority to form an effective army against the looming darkspawn threat, who by this point have razed like half of Ferelden. Oh, you can stop by Ostagar for some Closure and some cool gear too. It's snowier now.

Now it's time for the Landsmeet in Denerim. You go to the Arl of Denerim's estate where you learn that Queen Anora, Loghain's daughter and Cailan's widow, is being held captive by Arl Tim Curry so that she can't oppose her father's plans. Tim Curry has been doing Loghain's dirty work because he's a fucking monster, and Loghain's been giving a stupid number of titles to him.

Anyway, Anora's maid offers you some guard uniforms so that you can sneak in to see Anora, but, fun fact: you can't call the guards if there are no guards.

By this point you're an absolute nightmare to fight. My Warden uses blood magic to immobilize and damage entire rooms, then roasts the immobilized victims. It's a delight. The entrance to the torture chambers is in Tim Curry's bedroom, so that tells you a lot. You find a guy name Riordan who is a fellow warden from Jader (in Orlais, fantasy france). He's naked and not up for helping yet so you keep on killing some folks. You resolve a couple of quests while here, then you kill Tim Curry. It's what she deserves.

You rescue Anora, but then Ser Cauthrien, Loghain's warrior lady, comes with a small goddamn army to arrest you. You can apparently surrender but literally why would anyone ever surrender? Ser Cauthrien is a goddamn nightmare to fight; they should have just sent her against the archdemon she could fucking solo it. Anyway, her escorts die in fire and blood super fast, but she takes a while longer, but I always have two healers for this so you take her down in the end. Then you meet Anora back at Arl Eamon's.

Two things happen there. One, Anora tells you that her dad is doing some fucked up scheme stuff in the alienage, which is the elven ghetto. Two, you guys need to think about how you want the Landsmeet to go. For most players, the Best Ending is going to involve marrying a hardened Alistair to Anora. She's super competent, he's both nice and of royal lineage. A perfect combo.

Now you go the alienage, where there's a “plague.” That plague is in fact just a cover for some slavers from Tevinter to bring in new elven stock. They are paying Loghain a tremendous amount of gold to fund his civil war (not everyone was chill with him usurping the throne, natch) in exchange for who knows how many slaves. The elves figure that something is wrong but it's under the guise of a “quarantine” and they're elves, so it's not like they have rights.

But might makes right, so you show these “healers” your permit (it's murder) and then you kill your way through and free the slaves who were just about to be shipped off. That cuts off Loghain's flow of gold and also it's a thing that you COULD bring up at the Landsmeet, but the human nobles won't so don't.

Okay, so it's the Landsmeet. This can go down a few ways, but the best thing is to mention selective things after having curried favor with the right nobles during your Denerim shenanigans. Denerim is just the capitol city, if I didn't mention it. So one noble will be like “yeah Loghain had my brother tortured” and while Loghain will blame things on Tim Curry, it doesn't look great for him. Anora also puts him on blast.

At this point, it becomes clear that Loghain is paranoid that this is all an Evil Orlesian Plot because like 30 years ago Orlais had invaded and were shitty to Ferelden. Well, Orlais is under new management and Loghain is just a dick.

The Landsmeet votes, and Loghain wants to duel. If you're marrying Alistair and Anora to each other, you should do the duel. Only if you're planning to marry Anora (as a male Cousland) should you let Alistair duel Loghain, as Anora is fine with deposing Loghain but a little squeamish about marrying the dude who cuts off her dad's head.

Just as you're about to behead Loghain, Riordan comes in and is like “oh we have the stuff to do the Joining, we could make him a warden??” And the game let's you say no but doesn't let you yell obscenities at Riordan for even saying something so stupid to you. Because Loghain was a hero once but he's, um, the worst.

Like, Zevran tried to kill me, but only once, and that was before he knew me. I have limits on how many times you can try to kill me, and all of Loghain's attempts were after meeting and speaking with me. Avada Kedavra, bitch. (Keeping Loghain alive has various consequences and I don't want to get into it)

So after Loghain's beheaded, everyone makes haste to prep to fight the darkspawn, which involves rallying the bannorn at Redcliffe. You fight some darkspawn there, but it's not the main horde.

In the mean time, Riordan is like “oh by the way, Warden and also Alistair, whichever one of us kills the archdemon will also die, that's the only way to keep it from respawning.” So fuck. But then you go back to your room, and Morrigan is there because she's WONDERFUL. Anyway, she did know this all along, but she knows a magic sex ritual referred to in the fandom as the Dark Ritual. If a Grey Warden knocks her up that very night in this ritual, she'll conceive what the fandom calls an Old God Baby. Basically, the zygote will bear the taint (even though wardens can't usually reproduce at all), and when the archdemon is slain, she can draw the no-longer-tainted soul of the tainted old god into her womb and create a healthy, non-tainted child with the soul of an Old God. “Some things are worth preserving.” I agree but also I'd never turn down Morrigan, so I do it because I make good choices.

If you're a lady warden, you have to talk Alistair into it, which is just delightful. He and Morrigan don't get along but he takes one for the team.

So, after this, everyone marches for Denerim, where the darkspawn horde has headed. Denerim's seen better days. It's on fire. The archdemon is there, and it looks like a fucked up dragon with, like, some kind of spiky cancer? It's not good. It breathes purple fire which is honestly goals, though. Riordan manages to damage the dragon's wing during the battle, but then he dies. Alas.

But his sacrifice makes the archdemon need to land on the top of this huge-ass fortress, so you just have to murder every darkspawn in the city and the every darkspawn in the fortress until you get on the roof, where you fight the archdemon.

Your recruited allies are fighting along with the human army, of course. You can call for help on the rooftop. Personally, I call the mages because they're my boys. Anyway, you do eventually kill the archdemon. You can choose in advance who should do the killing blow, and if you didn't do Morrigan's ritual, that person dies. Yes, you can order Alistair to die.

Then there's a celebration. You can ask for a boon from King Alistair (I always ask for the teynir of Gwaren, which was Loghain's but he's dead now). Sten is going back to Qunari lands and Shale is planning to adventure with Wynne.

DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS: AWAKENING

Gonna keep this one extra brief. Like, six months after you ended the Fifth Blight in like a year, where most last decade at least, some new talking darkspawn show up in Amaranthine, the former arling of Tim Curry, which Alistair has granted to the Wardens. You head over to take over and the castle is under attack, which is honestly kind of funny because you killed an archdemon six months ago and you haven't gotten LESS powerful since then. Awesome Lady Who Will Die helps you fight, and you encounter Anders, an apostate mage who's a talented healer, and Oghren, who for some reason couldn't just live his dwarf life and had to show up in this fucking expansion, who's decided to become a Grey Warden.

So you kill darkspawn and you encounter one of these talking darkspawn which is unsettling, because that's not normal for these things. Once the castle is purged, Anders and Oghren take the Joining and so does Awesome lady Who Will Die, but she doesn't make it.

Oh, remember Arl Howe (Tim Curry?). Well, he had a son named Nathaniel who is real good at archery and sneaking, and he tried to break into the castle to kill you before you even arrived. He's under the impression that his dad was killed for, like, political reasons, and not because his dad was a fucking monster.

In a creepy forest, you meet Grey Delisle As An Angry Elf Mage and recruit her because she's trying to find her sister. You meet the Architect, a weird darkspawn spell-caster whose design is unique and who seems like a huge nerd. You even get the impression that he means well. But he does not join you, for sure.

In a haunted fucking swamp called THE BLACKMARSH there was this awesome Orlesian baroness who lived there but was Bathorying it up to stay young, and she cursed the whole place, but to be clear it was already called THE BLACKMARSH, fuck. This is the place where you find out what a BLIGHT WEREWOLF is and I cannot emphasize enough how absolutely unacceptable that is to me. You fix all of that stuff but it's still THE BLACKMARSH. Here, you met a spirit named Justice (it's literally an embodiment of Justice) that eventually possesses the corpse of a fallen Grey Warden.

By this point, it's clear that there are two factions of intelligent, “Awakened” darkspawn. One works for something called The Mother, the others work for The Architect.

You go into the Deep Roads (ahhhh) to an abandoned thaig that was used for making certain types of special golems back in the day, but is now full of darkspawn of course. You meet a member of the Legion of the Dead, a group of dwarves who hold a funeral service when they join because they exist only to fight darkspawn. Her fellows were slaughtered and she ran and feels weird about it but you let her join you and she becomes a Grey Warden, too.

During all of this, you're making political decisions and sitting in judgment and shutting down a rebellion by local nobles and doing some city quests in Amaranthine proper. (Amaranthine is on the northern coast, by the way)

Well, The Mother's forces attack the city and it's awful but you kill them. You go to fight her, and you can let the Architect help you. I can kill him but . . . eh. Oh, by the way, he can fly.

The Mother is a broodmother who was once human. The Architect “awoke” decades ago and was like “hmmm, why are other darkspawn so fucking dumb?” And he discovered that he could make them drink Grey Warden blood and it would give them awareness and, like, personhood. But when he tried it on a broodmother, who was not born a darkspawn but made that way, she was full of agony because she could no longer “hear the song.” So she's just being awful and lashing out.

(lots of things, from certain mind-control magic to lyrium to the call of the old gods, is referred to that way)

It is revealed during the final fight against The Mother that the Architect accidentally caused the Fifth Blight when he tried to safely awaken that Old God without tainting it but accidentally tainted it in the process. Shucks.

You kill The Mother and the day is saved. Again.

DRAGON AGE II

Remember the (doomed) town of Lothering that you visited in Dragon Age: Origins? Well, there was a buff af person named Something Hawke there who had younger siblings (twins) named Bethany and Carver. Bethany is a mage, Carver hits stuff with a sword, Hawke can be male or female and any class. No matter which Hawke you choose, they're a ridiculous disaster.

(Mine is a male mage)

The Hawke family's mages (your dead dad, Bethany, and anyone with a mage Hawke) are all apostates. Bethany and Hawke have never seen the inside of a Circle, and they've all hidden in plain sight in Lothering for all of their lives.

Carver is a buff warrior guy but he has a huge and arguably well-deserved inferiority complex from being Hawke's baby brother and, let's face it, from not being a mage in a family that has mages.

Bethany is absolutely darling and extremely easy to get along with. Just, like, be nice and don't oppress anyone.

The game stars with all three siblings and their mom (Leandra) fleeing from the Blight back in 9:30 Dragon. Darkspawn are on their heels. You fight mostly hurlocks, but then you run across a Big Strong Ginger Woman named Aveline and her husband, who is a templar but he's too Dying of the Blight (contamination caused by darkspawn blood) to care that Bethany and perhaps Hawke are mages.

Unfortunately, you guys eventually fight an ogre, and darkspawn got a redesign after Origins, so ogres are no longer quite as sexy as they once were. Anyway, if you are a warrior or a rogue, the ogre murders Carver. If you play a mage, as I do, Bethany gets murdered before your eyes, which is why I waited a year before playing DA2.

You also have to euthanize Aveline's dying husband because otherwise he'll either die super slowly or, more likely, become a ghoul which is just a tainted person who feels compelled to serve the darkspawn. It's gross.

Then even more darkspawn attack, but then a big ol' dragon flies in and roasts them and then shapeshifts and it's . . . Flemeth! She's no longer dressed like a poor old lady but like someone's slutty battle-grandma and it's amazing. Flemeth talks to you for a bit and then makes a deal with Hawke—you take this little necklace that's Totally Normal to Keeper Marethari of a Dalish elf clan that's near Kirkwall, since you guys are headed to Gwaren to catch a refugee ship to Kirkwall (a city-state in the Free Marches, which is north of Ferelden across the Amaranthine). In exchange, she'll escort you across Ferelden, incinerating any darkspawn that give you trouble. That's one hell of a deal.

You arrive at Kirkwall, which still has huge statues of slaves in anguish everywhere. The city was once the center of the Tevinter Imperium's slave trade, and it is full of yikes. The city's Circle is on an island fortress called The Gallows where slaves were broken, so the mages are, uh, not living their best lives. Like, there's no such thing as a good internment camp, but this is probably the worst one. It's gonna come up a lot.

So, you're a refugee, and there are plenty of people in Kirkwall who are like “Ferelden isn't sending their best. They're sending crime. They're sending drugs. They're rapists” etc so the gates are shut. But your mom's whole reason for coming here is because she's from Kirkwall, and she's like wait I have a brother who lives here and his name is Gamlen. Well, Gamlen is no longer a noble even though their whole family was. He is in fact a a gambler, which has to be where his name originates, right? So he lost the Amell Estate (her maiden name was Amell, the same surname as a human mage Warden) and he lives in a little hovel in part of Kirkwall that's called Lowtown. So basically, you make a deal to work as either a smuggler or mercenary for one year to get into Kirkwall and to get a Fantasy Green Card. Oh, and you're working off some of Gamlen's debts in the first place. Nice uncle.

Fast-forward one year, and it's the beginning of Act I. You're done working off your debt, but you're like “wait . . . I need a job, fuck.” You, your sibling, your mom, and your mabari hound (not a companion character this time, but an NPC whom you can summon into battle as a battle pet) are all living in Gamlen's little hovel. However, a smooth-talking dwarf character named Varric Tethras, recognizable for lacking a beard but having chest hair instead, has a proposition for you. He and his shifty, President Business brother are going on a Deep Roads expedition, and by now, Hawke has worked up a reputation for himself while Carver has impressed fewer people. Classic Carver. So he says that if you become an investor, you can come along and split the reward. Oh, Varric has a Super Advanced Crossbow straight out of, like, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.

If you've played The Witcher, Varric is just the gem fusion of Zoltan and Dandelion. He's a dwarf who talks too much. But he's also good at business. He's a surface dwarf. Very likable.

Well, you set about trying to make money. One thing that you also need is to contact a rumored Grey Warden in town. By this point, the Blight has been over for months and the legend of the Hero of Ferelden has spread to the local NPCs. You go into Darktown, old mining tunnels and sewers beneath the city where the homeless live, where a rumored Grey Warden apostate mage has set up a clinic to heal the needy. It's Anders, from Awakening!! He's a little—a lot—more serious, now. He still loves cats. Also, remember the spirit of Justice? He lives inside of Anders now, but it's voluntary.

You also recruit a pirate named Isabela. She's my favorite companion in DA2 because she's a treasure. Her ship crashed in Kirkwall a while back . . . around the same time that the Qunari shipwrecked and Kirkwall just gave them a walled off part of the city by the docks to live. Hmmm.

Aveline now works for the city guard, making her ideal for Kirkwall/Brooklyn Nine-Nine comparisons, and she'll help you with her sword and shield. She's great.

You also end up going to visit the Dalish to fulfill your end of the bargain. You recruit Merrill, from the Dalish Elf Origin Warden. She's the Keeper's First (apprentice) but Keeper Marethari is sending her away because she keeps trying to restore what the elves have lost, and Marethari doesn't trust Merrill to not fuck it up and doom them all. Which is unfair, because Merrill is WONDERFUL.

Merrill helps you fulfill your deal with Flemeth so she takes the necklace up to this cursed as fuck mountain and Flemeth pops out of the necklace. It was a horcrux. Remember when you “killed” Flemeth in Origins? Surprise bitch. Anyway, Flemeth has some vague things to say to both Hawke and Merrill and then she just jumps off the mountain and turns into a dragon to fly back to Ferelden to do whatever it is that terrifying dragon-witches do for fun.

Merrill, by the way, is a blood mage. Which is to say that she uses blood to improve the power of her spells and to perform some spells that an ordinary mage cannot do. Good for her.

You also recruit Twink Wolverine. He's a brown-skinned elf with platinum blond hair and lyrium tattoos all over his body which gives him special powers and he lost his memory as this special magical metal was implanted in him but now he can kill people by ripping out their hearts.

You get a quest from a handsome blue-eyed fellow named Sebastian, but he is arguably the least fun person that anyone has ever met in their lives. He'll join your party in Act 2. He was noble-born and he used to be a huge Party Slut but now he's dedicated to the chantry but not entirely a part of it he just really likes Grand Cleric Elthina but he's torn because his family back in Starkhaven (another city-state in the Marches) has been murdered so he's like Do I Love Fire Jesus More Or My Responsibilities???

You reclaim the deed to the Amell Estate, which by the way was never Gamlen's to sell he's just a little shit. Your home was bought by slavers because it's connected to an extensive wine cellar that they could use to smuggle captive slaves out. How nice. Anyway, that'll be great once you have money again.

Eventually, you amass enough gold to buy in to the Deep Roads Expedition. You get to choose which characters come with you, which is great, except that your choices are actually pretty limited. First of all, Varric is coming along, so there's your rogue. Anders is a Grey Warden, so it only makes sense for him to come along, and he'll be very important later. Finally, your sibling. If Carver stays behind while you spend weeks underground, he'll join the templars. Ostensibly to protect you from within, but really because his life is directionless and he's, bless him, stupid. Worse, if Bethany stays behind, she will be captured by templars and brought to The Gallows. The game does not dance around how absolutely appallingly awful the lives of the mages are there. Better for her to risk her life in the Monster Tunnels than get carted off to Sexual Assault Island. If you bring a sibling to the Deep Roads, you absolutely must bring Anders.

On top of those very practical reasons for taking a Varric-Anders-Carver squad, Merrill is used to living in the woods and Isabela gets claustrophobic and Aveline has a real job. Fenris could come, sure, but you'd have to leave someone behind and that sucks.

So, you explore for a while, and Varric's brother, President Business, is grumpy about everything. After a lot of exploring, you guys find a room with a curious red idol. President Business takes it and locks an old, rock-solid dwarven door to trap you guys in so that he can reap the profits. His name is Bartrand by the way and anyway he sucks. So you guys have to find your way out, which means a lot of fighting and nonsense. You do find some Big Treasure so that's cool, but not as cool as living, so you need to make it to the surface.

Unfortunately, Carver starts to get sick towards the end. The darkspawn taint. Not wanting him to die, Anders will guide you to some Grey Wardens and you persuade them to take him and give him the Joining before it's too late. But Carver leaves your party. By the way, DA2 is actually evil because when someone leaves your party, they just take all of the equipment that you were wearing, so you'll want to save often and, when the time is right, just strip Carver of his weapons and equipment.

So you return to the surface without your twin but you, um, hope he lives. But you're rich, bitch. President Business has fled, presumably with his riches. And you now have lots of money and move into the Amell Estate, which is now the Hawke Estate. Your mom is happy-ish. Honestly, the game was rushed, but I wish that the interior of the estate had been less symbolic because it's only like three rooms. You go into similar buildings elsewhere in Hightown and they're huge and nice and have courtyard gardens. Anyway, that's all fixed in Dragon Age Inquisition. And in our imaginations.

Act 2 begins, and you can get Sebastian to join you. He does Archery for Fire Jesus. The big issue this time around is the Qunari. They're still here. It's been three got dam years and they're still just loitering in that one part of the docks. Fuck. Also, the Viscount's son Seamus is almost certainly getting fucked by one and the Viscount is just like “look it's fine that he likes Big Horned Bois but it looks bad because the Qunari aren't Andrastian.” This bitch Sister Petrice also keeps trying to rope you into doing “good stuff” but surprise, it's bad stuff. Anti-Qunari sentiments are riding high. Seamus dies. Petrice dies. There are other shenanigans.

In Act 2 you can finally romance people. After three years. The timing of things in this game is odd and also Fenris is extremely difficult to romance for no good reason. He, by the way, is still on the run from his former owner, a Magister who gave him his tatoos. Again, Fenris is literally just Twink Wolverine on the run from Weapon X. Fenris, Isabela, Anders, and Merrill are all bi romances. You can choose whomever, but feel free to headcanon a beautiful poly thing going on with all of them. Sebastian, by the way, is a chaste romance for a female Hawke who sides with templars. Mind you, this isn't an ace romance, this is explicitly an “I'd love to bang you, I would, but Andraste doesn't want me to be happy” arrangement.

The biggest event is that a magical serial killer (for whom you've searched before) kills your mom. His name is Quentin and he cuts off her head and sows it onto a Frankenbody and is like “ah, yes, finally I've made my perfect wife” and so you have to kill him and then your frankenmom has a few moments of agonizing awareness as she dies in your lap. Fuck this.

By the way, Gamlen visits sometimes but he doesn't even live in the estate with you. Lol.

There's some other stuff. Hawke cleans the streets (murders thugs) on behalf of the Friends of Red Jenny, a mysterious organization for whom The Warden also once did a favor. Hawke explores the Wounded Coast, earns a stake in a mine called THE BONE PIT by killing the problems that arise there, and enters the Fade to help a young Dreamer mage. Those are mages who are just super good at Fade stuff. You help some mages with freedom stuff. There are also some Tal Vashoth (ex Qunari) hanging out beyond the city but some of them are up to no good because they've never been allowed to make choices before and aren't making good ones.

You help Isabela recover something from a former acquaintance, and then she leaves you. But she's wonderful and can do whatever she likes.

At the end of this Act, you have the unenviable task of making a demand of the Arishok. Because these qunari who have washed up here, though they haven't explained why they're here, are there with the head of one entire branch of their government. The Arishok is the head of the Qunari military, though of course he's every bit the slave to the Qun itself as everyone else. When you insist that he turn over some criminals, he's like “you know what? I guess it's time to murder everyone” so the Qunari go on a Big Horned Boi rampage and kill lots of guards. In the end, Hawke and Aveline and the templars and mages fight their way to the Viscount's Keep, where the Arishok has taken the Viscount's head. They're planning to forcibly convert the entire city-state but, if you think about it, they didn't have the numbers to hold that forever. It seems like the Arishok, who like all Qunari believes that existence is the only real choice, was committing suicide because he'd failed on his real mission: to retrieve the Tome of Koslun. Since the rules prevented him from returning empty-handed but he was losing his damn mind in Kirkwall, he waited for an excuse and went for it.

Isabela comes back and gives him her secret prize—the Tome of Koslun, which she had stolen to begin with and that's what she had when she and her Qunari pursuers were shipwrecked during a thunderstorm. She lost it and the Arishok didn't have it so they were both in limbo. Anyway, now Isabela's like “here's your fucking sacred book leave please, look at me I'm responsible!!” and Hawke's heart fills with joy but the Arishok is like “cool also we're taking Isabela we're gonna, you know, torture her until she dies or joins the Qun probably” so he and Hawke (if Hawke has earned his respect, which he has) will duel and it is TERRIFYING but you win eventually. You get declared Champion of Kirkwall just as Knight-Commander Meredith of the templars comes in. She's like a combat Jessica Lange if that makes sense. You can basically see the Kill Bill sirens going off in her head as she sees you getting celebrated by the nobles. She's the head of the worst group of templars in all of Thedas, so she's about what you'd expect. She's less openly sinister than some of her subordinates, because she seems like a true believer. More of a Mike Pence than a Ted Cruz, if that makes sense.

Act 3 technically has a lot of content (you see Carver again, now a Grey Warden—you also saw him during the Qunari thing—and you see Nathaniel Howe, also a Grey Warden) but it feels like it goes by faster than the previous two. This one is all about Mages VS Templars. Obviously, people are welcome to RP any kind of characters they like. Maybe one who would oppress innocent people for political capitol or whatever. But this isn't a “gray morality” situation. Literally one group is imprisoned for being born because they are, as people, potentially dangerous. The other group isn't a law enforcement group, they are literally just internment camp guards, with a side of a-youth-pastor-who-is-also-a-cop.

There are a couple of big DLCs, however. One is Mark of the Assassin, where Felicia Day thoroughly explores the Uncanny Valley as Tallis, an elf who serves the Qun. She wants you to join her on a HEIST. And Hawke is like “sure! Fuck rich people!” but Hawke is a rich people. Anyway, you go to Chateau Haine to a big ol' party by a fancy Orlesian noble, but this chataeu is in the Vinmark Mountains so it's still in the Free Marches. You're genuinely a guest. You seduce the host's son so that Fantasy Felicia Day can get some keys or something. There's a wyvern hunt. You fight some little gremlin things called ghasts that come up so little that you wonder if they're canon or just something that Hawke hallucinated. But in Inquisition, Blackwall mentions them in a bit of party banter, but you only hear that if you voluntarily take Blackwall to many places, so . . . I sure didn't hear the line. I just know that it exists. It turns out that Tallis lied to you, and this Heart of the Many thing isn't a gem, it's a list of Qunari sleeper agents throughout Thedas and your host is planning to auction it.

Now, fuck the Qunari, I'm fine with that, but she says that some of them are just retired. And technically, Iron Bull would be one of them, so whatever it's fine I guess. You fight some Tal Vashoth but also kill your host.

The other DLC is more Plot Important, because you and Carver are both being targeted by mercenaries who want to kidnap you because, like the Red Cross, they need your blood. Unlike the Red Cross, they're probably not a shady organization that can't seem to account for the donations that they receive. They're just straightforward kidnappers.

Anyway, some Bad Dwarves hired them to kidnap you, and these dwarves have lost their got dam minds and also have been drinking darkspawn blood to deliberately taint themselves because they've been hearing the call of some entity. You end up helping an old Grey Warden named Larius or something like that. See, Malcolm Hawke, your dead dad, was once kidnapped by Grey Wardens and forced to reinforce some old blood magic seals on a magical prison. No Grey Warden could do it. So he did and they let him leave. Now, these bad guys need your blood to break these seals. To solve this, you enter the prison level by level, discovering in the process that the reimagined darkspawn known as genlocks in DA2 are less like squat little hurlocks and are now more like magic-resistant gorillas. Yikes. Anyway, there's another Grey Warden faction in play but it doesn't matter. You reach the end and there's a unique-looking darkspawn who, in his dreams, had been trying to draw you to him. He was imprisoned during, like, the First Blight by Wardens in this special magical prison. His name is Corypheus, and he says that he was one of the Magisters Sidereal who entered the Fade in the flesh and found the Golden City empty, and felt tricked and betrayed by the Old Gods. He had been High Priest o Dumat. Now he's just super confused. He does get his wits about him and fight you, and it's one hell of a fight, but then you kill him. Then you see Larius walking away with a sinister smile for the camera. So, you know, that's fine.

Back in Kirkwall, the mages-vs-templars thing is even more intense because Meredith is the worst. Did I mention that Cullen, from Ferelden, is part of Meredith's group of templars? He's super anti-mage at this point because of what happened in Ferelden and he actually says “mages are not people like you and me” to Hawke. First of all, awful. Second of all, hilarious when speaking to a male Hawke. Anders has been doing Underground Railroad stuff which is more and more popular as the treatment of mages gets worse and worse.

Oh, and there's a haunted house where President Business was for a while. Varric has his brother, driven mad by the red lyrium idol, sent to a sanitarium, but it's clearly dangerous stuff and left a house feeling haunted.

Long, long story short, Meredith tightens her fist even further (all mages are confined to their rooms at all times, basically, and more and more are made Tranquil every day, it seems). But First Enchanter Orsino feels that he has no choice but to go along with it because otherwise she'll just kill him and maybe everyone else. Well, this is when Anders blows up the chantry with Grand Cleric Elthina, who's just sort of letting all of this play out instead of taking action, inside. Anders' goal is to force the mages to fight off their oppressors instead of going quietly to either die or to continue to live like this. Anders then offers to let Hawke kill him. You totally can, but my Hawke is always like “lol know I just wish you'd told me so that I'd know that I was helping you, but I get it.” Sebastian wigs out and vows revenge but literally who cares.

Meredith declares the Rite of Annulment, which is when you kill every mage in a Circle, including the children. Anders is not and never has been part of the Kirkwall Circle but that's hardly the point. You all go fight to defend the mages. There's a stupid thing where Orsino turns into a boss fight because EA felt that they needed another boss battle, but that's dumb. Anyway, you fight off Meredith and then you learn that she purchased that red lyrium idol from President Business and had it fused to the hilt of her sword. Templars use regular lyrium to fuel their anti-magic powers, but red lyrium clearly has different effects.

Meredith is the final boss fight, and her sword makes her tough to fight. It also lets her animate some nearby statues. Sure. She turns into a red lyrium statue at the end. Yikes. You guys can leave on Isabela's ship.

Varric has told all of this to his interrogator, Cassandra Pentaghast, a Seeker who answers directly to the Divine. Cassandra meets up with Leliana, who also works for the Divine, perhaps partially out of wlw solidarity. They're looking for the Champion of Kirkwall (Hawke), but just like the Hero of Ferelden, he seems to be missing.

DRAGON AGE: ASUNDER

A novel. In it, Wynne's son who is a mage and spirit healer like his mom (from whom he was separated as an infant because the templars are the worst) is in the White Spire, the #1 Circle of Magi situated in Val Royeaux, the capitol of Orlais. Unfortunately, there have been mysterious murders said to be carried out by some sort of Ghost Twink. Turns out, it's a boy named Cole and he's not invisible, he just makes people forget him. But Rhys, Wynne's son, remembers him. Everything is stricter now because of what happened in Kirkwall. So, a brief summary:

-Cole the Ghost Twink is a spirit who took the form of an abused boy mage who died because templars literally forgot that they'd locked him up in his cell. The spirit didn't know how to help him so it just became him. It's been killing people who want to die, which is a huge bummer.

-the Divine secretly ordered a Tranquil to investigate whether or not Tranquility could be cured. It can be

-Grand Enchanter Fiona, Wynne, and Shale help start the Mage Rebellion, which spreads all across Thedas and includes the knowledge that Tranquility can be cured. Shale personally smashes the phylacteries that templars would be able to use to track down mages when they leave.

-the Templar Order and the Seekers leave the chantry because they feel that the Divine is too soft on mages

-a nice templar (relatively) named Evangeline falls in love with Rhys. She gets killed but Wynne, who held a Spirit of Faith in her ever since the Bad Events in the Ferelden Circle during the Blight, transfers that Spirit of Faith into her to save her. Wynne dies but Evangeline lives.

-the current Lord Seeker is planning to crush the mage rebellion. Cole kills him. It's what he deserves.

DRAGON AGE: THE MASKED EMPIRE

A novel. Empress Celine is Orlais' ruling lesbian and she encourages art and scholarly pursuits and enlightenment. She, too, dreams of expansion—like any responsible ruler—but she wants to do it with diplomacy and alliances and the economy instead of just smash-stabbing. Briala is her elven spy chief and also her lover since they were both young. Her bodyguard is Ser Michel de Chalons, a skilled swordsman obsessed with honor and harboring a “terrible” secret. Her rival is her cousin, Grand Duke Gaspard, and he wants to Make Orlais Great Again by conquering Ferelden and Nevarra and beyond.

Michel's “terrible” secret is that he's, gasp, of elven lineage. Biologically, half-elves are just humans. This is meaningless but Orlesian culture is ridiculous and humans are even more ridiculous.

Briala's mentor for many years has been a mage named Felassan who is himself a spy and, despite his tattoos that would indicate that he is Dalish, really doesn't seem to be Dalish at all.

Well, Gaspard outs Celine's relationship with Briala, which causes a scandal. He then ambushes her and her forces while she's vulnerable, but does not succeed in taking her. Eventually, Briala, Celene, Gaspard, Felassan, and a couple of others are separated from their armies and go on an adventure through an eluvian, an ancient elven mirror. Gaspard is honorable but, like, having a code doesn't make you a good person, dude, it just makes you lawful evil. However, Briala and Celene have a falling out, Michel betrays Celene because of his own dumb honor code, and a Dalish clan gets wiped out by a demon named Imshael who insists upon being called a “Choice Spirit” instead of a Desire Demon. There's some really cool magic and lore stuff in this book and I strongly recommend it.

Anyway, Celene makes it to safety, but without her bodyguard or her lover/spymaster. Briala gets control of the Eluvian network (well, part of it) and plans to use it to instantly move groups of elves from place to place to make things better for her people. (Celene has gone out of her way to be pro-elf, by the way, largely from Briala's influence)

Felassan tells Briala goodbye and goes and sleeps and enters the Fade. An unidentified entity approaches him and asks if he got the access to the eluvians. He replies that he did not, by choice. The unidentified entity kills him instantly.

So there's an Orlesian Civil War going on and the elves are capitalizing on it (or trying to) during the Mage Rebellion and also there are some Other Shenanigans.

PS: at one point Imshael possessed a Dalish mage named Mithris. She appears in Inquisition, like many of these characters. But not Felassan because he's dead.

And that's what you missed on Glee.