#lucanis is going to have to deal with a mage going through a crisis of faith

[eeriemothz]

I do love how everyone whos planning to romance lucanis has went "mm yes, the mage killer will kiss a mage."

[fangsandfeels]

"Everyone gets along because there is a threat", yadda, yadda, yadda.

Bullshit. This is not how real scenarios work and it has never been.

russia is a global threat right now, but the world can't decide between sucking its dick and politely asking it to stop because the mere thought of confronting russia makes it shit its pants. The very few countries who scream into the void, warning about russia and telling people to wake the fuck up are ignored and viewed as crazy doomsayers.

This is how real crisis looks like. Nobody works together against a threat because people are spineless cowards who would rather throw their neighbors under the bus than fight. Nobody learned anything from history lessons, books or survivors.

The only difference in a fantasy game is that NPCs end up having more spine and moral principles than real people.

But in Veilguard, everyone gets along because they have NO reasons not to.

Davrin has no real reasons to beef (if you can call it that) with Lucanis because he is a Grey Warden. He knows where Grey Wardens take their conscripts from. He knows that Grey Wardens regularly recruit mages who are a lot more likely to get possessed if they're not careful. Working with an assassin who knows friend from foe isn't the worst thing ever. One subtle warning about taking action if demon takes over is enough.

Taash has no reasons to antagonize Emmrich aside from horrible writing.

Neve gets along with Bellara because writers gave Bellara a happy childhood with her family and turned Dalish artifacts into Apple store gadgets, while refusing giving Neve any nuance as the citizen of Tevinter.

Emmrich gets along with everyone because he is generally a kind and well-mannered person who doesn't like to stir the pot.

Any companion who could have had a sharp edge, got that edge ripped off and a cartoon band-aid slapped on.

Never doesn't deal with people who don't know about Shadow Dragons (and they probably shouldn't know much because when you work against a powerful government who wants to destroy you, you shouldn't show off), so she constantly has to deal with the fact that people assume she is a noble or a slave-owner because she is from Tevinter; that they don't know that she had to literally fight against being enslaved herself because in Tevinter mages who refuse to use their power to dominate others are turned into slaves as well.

Bellara isn't conflicted about working with humans, especially Tevinter humans at all. She seems to never have dealt with oppression her whole life and she is super quick to write off Cyrian as evil even though there are clear SIGNS that he was tricked and controlled by the Forgotten One. But no, she never thinks "He is still there, I can save him, I won't lose him again", she goes straight to "Oh nooo my brother is dead to me".

Emmrich doesn't get burdened by people reacting to him and his sincere intention to help with fear, because of all the sinister rumors revolving around necromancers and Nevarra. He isn't hurt by people assuming that he loves death and things dying. If even he openly admitted that he is deeply terrified of death, they wouldn't have believed him.

Harding isn't burdened by the revelation she learned and what to do with it. Should she storm her way to the Orzammar? Should she talk to fellow surface dwarves and reconnect them with their history? Should she never breach the subject because the truth hurts and it's too much pain, too much anger to live with - and maybe she shouldn't let other dwarves go through it?

We don't even have a party divided on what to do with Solas (kill or talk it out)? Even though it's logical to have companions who are convinced that Solas has to die and those who think that he is misguided and can be convinced to stop.

Also, there are NO companions whose background, viewpoints and attitude would rile other companions up. We have no controversial characters whose interactions with the crew Rook would have been forced to intervene in unless they want their team to start throwing hands with each other.

We could have had Imshael - to give EVERYONE a reason to worry, and argue, and have conflicts. We could have had an ex-Venatori Calpernia bashing heads with Neve, Bellara, and Emrich. We could have had a Qunari spy who'd make Lucanis' dagger-arm itch.

If writers didn't forget about the Architect, we could have had an intelligent Darkspawn companion Davrin could be losing his shit around.

Or heck, we could have had a former red templar who got partially (magically?) reversed from their mad state and is now not a mindless beast, but still is on a borrowed time, probably needed due to their strength, but barely tolerated by anyone.

Who is fanatical, mostly because they have to believe they made a noble sacrifice, that it all was for the greater good -- because the truth scares them to their core. Who gives Lucanis shit for being an assassin and abomination, who bashes necromancy, and mages, and talks about purity, while downplaying their own actions as "Yes, these are my sins, but they are for the better world, and I would be proud to die for that world unlike you heathens who would rather ruin it than repent for your flaws". The kind of companion you'd initially want to do nothing with, but who can reveal an entire gallery of fucked up contradictions and trauma if you decide to keep them around.

However, writing such companions takes skill, courage, and requires absence of greedy corpo "we don't want to scare away new players with all that moral nuance" thinking.

[invinciblerodent]

Oh, I really am going to have to play two warriors in a row, huh.

Emmrich confiding in someone about his fear of death, only to then realize that that person, once again, has been kind of more dead than most the whole time, that's just... ah, that's just so delicious. Tristan's whole Deal with him, and their kind of push and pull, the whole undead/necromancer old man yaoi bit, is going to be so dang interesting to roleplay.

(I find myself not really minding that my "possessed non-mage" thing was actually done in-game with Lucanis, because I feel like I can kinda then use Tristan as a counterpoint to him. As someone who's been through the whole crisis part of it all, the "by all accounts I should be dead" parts, and just... has been existing like this for like... over half his life, actually.)

(I'll probably just bump up the difficulty, and go at it with a sword and board warrior again, tbh.)

[lorspolairepeluche]

3, 14, and 23 from the 30 rook questions :)

3) Race and subclass?

Rio: Human (elf-blooded), spellblade! Candy: Dwarf (also elf-blooded), assassin. Korbl: Dwarf, slayer. Irri: Qunari, Veil Ranger. Whit: Human, Champion. Kyr: Elf, evoker.

14) What hobbies does your Rook have?

answered here!

23: What do they do after an absolute crisis? (answered via examples)

After [why can't i do spoiler bars on here it's 2024 come on people], once everyone was assured they were going to be okay, Rio disappeared. For a few hours, not a single one of the Veilguard could find them, not even the other Rooks. Lucanis finally cautiously ventured into Rio's bedroom further than sticking his head in. His soft call of, "Rook?" was answered by a minute shift in a pile of blankets and a soft noise. After some careful, gentle digging, he found them burrowed beneath, curled around a pillow, eyes red from crying. They dissolved into tears again almost immediately, burying their face in the pillow and managing, through sobs and hitching breath, "I thought -- I thought I'd be trapped there forever. I thought I'd never see a-any of you, ever again."

After Treviso, after fighting off a blighted dragon, Candy had drunk three people under the table in the worst bar left standing in the city before Viago found her. By the time Rio found her at Viago's instruction ("She refused to leave with me. I was called some very creative names before I retreated. Perhaps you will have better luck"), she had nearly drunk herself under the table, and still she snarled at them.

After returning from Blackthorne Manor once again, Korbl immediately headed to Neve's office. He locked the door, went right to her, pulled her down by the lapels, and kissed her soundly. Then he pushed her back to sit on her desk, knelt, pulled down her leggings, and -- Well. He showed her a very good time, didn't he? (Later, he wrote his mum a letter, and he spent some time alone in the eluvian room, since it was the lowest room in the Lighthouse and lit gently by the mirror's glow.)

After killing the Butcher in Treviso, Taash was the one to find Irri when they smelled someone drenched in fear. They found him in the midst of a panic attack, hardly able to breathe. They'd seen stuff like this with Karash before, when he thought too much about the war. They worked to talk him down as gently as they could. They'd have gone to get someone better at this, but they thought he shouldn't be left alone. He finally started to come down from it, but before he was fully calm, he blurted, "If it touches me, you have to kill me. Before I become that. I won't. I can't become that. Promise me you'll kill me if the blight gets in me. Promise." (They promised.)

After Weisshaupt, Whit wasn’t seen or heard for a while, save for the impacts of their fists on the punching bag in their bedroom. Anyone who tried to check on them (Irri first, then Rio, and finally Taash) was met with a curt, “Fuck off. I’m dealing with it.” (Taash stayed anyway, quietly doing push-ups and sit-ups until Whit asked to box them, and after that, bandaging their knuckles. Taash never asked Whit to talk about it.)

After fighting the blighted dragon off from Minrathous, Kyr stayed behind. It wasn’t until they were back at the Lighthouse that the others realized she wasn’t with them (which, since Kyrie Mercar is a woman who makes her presence known, was extremely odd). Instead, she hurried frantically through Shadow Dragon hideouts in a more panicked version of what she’d always done after a hard fight or getting bad news or getting hurt. She looked for Thais. (Thankfully, Kyr found her. Thais was badly wounded, but Kyr managed to get her to the Lighthouse and beg the other mages for help healing her. Though Thais would never see out of her right eye again, she stayed with the Veilguard, and Kyr continued to seek out her sister after bad days and crises.)

rook questionnaire