#warrior warden

[thewardenisonthecase]

Stars

Alistair x F!Cousland Warden

Read on AO3

Summary: On their path to Denerim, Anneliese Cousland and Alistair watch the stars, as they reflect on their journey.

A/N: This is very short but its something that had been on my mind for awhile. Everytime I go back and replay the battle of ostagar i get this terrible sad feeling because of how things went down. I didn't have much to go with this but yeah.

word count: 873

It was one more night until they reached Denerim, after once again protecting Redcliff and gaining the titles of Champions. 

One more night until she would be faced with the enemy. 

One more night until they hopefully ended this Blight for good. 

Anneliese Cousland had found a nice spot, a little further away from camp, to sit and look at the stars. 

‘Even when everything changes, at least the stars will always stay the same.’ she would tell herself. 

Anneliese should be asleep, but there were too many feelings inside of her to allow for a good night of rest. 

It was not doubt - she had faith that they would be victorious. The dwarves, elves, mages and knights were ready. After all the work she had done to help those people, they were finally returning the favour. After all she had lost…she had come too far to lose at the end. 

It wasn’t anxiety either. Anneliese always knew it would all come to this, ever since she awoke in Flemeth’s hut, even if at times the path ahead was obscure. For a moment, her determination had wavered. They were not getting anywhere near an end and it only seemed like they kept finding problems.

Fittingly, it was in the Deep Roads that she had found the strength she needed. Seeing the Archdemon flying overhead had reminded her of her duty. She would see this battle through, no matter the cost. 

What she felt that night was not anxiety, nor doubt. No, it was the old beast that gnawed at her heart ever so often. The old beast called grief. 

After the attack on Castle Cousland, she thought all she could feel was grief. For her parents, for her brother’s family, for Iona. But she had spent too long mourning them. She lost her home but there was still a Ferelden to save. 

No, her grief tonight was for-

“There you are.” She heard Alistair’s voice as he walked towards her and sat down. “I thought I was gonna have to sleep all alone tonight.” 

When she didn’t reply, he frowned. “What’s on your mind?” 

“Ostagar.” Anneliese hugged her knees, as she continued to look at the stars. “Do you realize it’s been a year since…well, this all began?” 

“I think Wynne mentioned it once or twice. Why?” 

She sighed. “I don’t know, I just feel…we were all different people then.” She looked at him. “Does that make sense to you?” 

“I think it does. I mean, I was just a bastard being raised to be a templar and now…now I’m going to be king of Ferelden.” He let out a heavy sigh. “At least I’ll have you with me.”

Anneliese gave him a small smile and placed her head on his shoulder.

“I keep thinking about that night, before the battle. All those men talking about how it would go. I remember Duncan saying there would be an Archdemon and Cailan doubting if this was even a real blight.” 

“How wrong they all were.” Alistair said, solemnly. 

Even after so long, Duncan’s loss still hurt him - much like her family’s still haunted her. At least, they had recovered his shield, something to remember him by. 

Anneliese closed her eyes. She couldn’t stop thinking about that night. The two of them had complained when they were sent to light the signal. They were young and stupid and they wanted to join in the real fight, not knowing what would happen. Duncan had said he wanted no heroics from them. 

Look at them now. Wherever his soul went, if Duncan was watching, would he be proud of what they achieved? Did he think they died in the Tower? 

“I think we were all a bit foolish back then. No one could imagine what would happen.” She whispered. “Ostagar feels like a lifetime ago.”

“That’s what Loghain said.” 

“I hate to agree but in that regard, he was right.”

After a moment, Alistair said “I think he was, too.” 

Silence befell them again. Even if Morrigan’s ritual worked, there were still a number of different ways that they could be slain in battle. They could be betrayed again, the darkspawn could overwhelm them. Maker, even the Archdemon could prove to be too strong. 

If they survived, they would never be the same. They would be heroes. They would be Queen and King, husband and wife. They would go down in history, whether they wanted to or not. Anneliese could not make sense if this was what the Maker had intended for them all along. 

Once, she felt she was still a girl, wearing a soldier’s facade. Now, she would go to the battlefield as a woman. She wondered if Alistair felt the same, and part of her believed it so. He was still just one year older than her. 

She sighed heavily, leaning more into Alistair’s shoulder. He covered the hands on her knees with his, as he gently placed his head on top of hers. She turned her gaze to the sky once again, feeling the gentle breeze of the air on her face. 

There were many doubts about what tomorrow would bring but for nothing, they would sit in silence and watch the stars. 

.

Thanks for reading! If you liked this fic, please consider reblogging it and leaving a comment, they're extremely appreciated!

[itseghost]

the captured! quest was so funny that i actually drew multiple things at once

[eliphasgraham]

I absolutely love playing an Aeducan warden because. What are the odds seriously. Not only two very young warden managed to survive Ostagar and end the Blight but they just happened to be the heirs to the thrones of Orzammar and Ferelden. The rich are actually saving the world it makes no sense

[kiivg]

.ngl Davrin came out of nowhere and just hehehehehehhehe 👉👈😳💕.

[loustica-lucia]

Heroes of the Dragon Age

An animation I've made for Dragon Age Day 2023, featuring my main Warden (Alyssa Cousland-Theirin), Hawke (Eleena Amell Hawke) and Inquisitor (Sulevin Lavellan)!

It's to this day one of my best artwork and I thought I should share it here too! 90+ hours between the original sketch, outfit design, the rough animation, rotoscope, inking, flat-colours, background shading and even the audio :')

Interested in the process? I detailed it below since it was my first time doing something like that:

I would like to start by saying I'm not a professional animator!Everything you've seen here is the result of experimentation and a lot of practice to learn and understand how 2D animation works.

My first idea started in May 2023. I just finished rewatching DA Absolution for the X time, and wanted to analyse why I loved the intro so much. (Even after countless rewatch, I never skipped it once.) I was inspired to study it with my main three protagonists!

Then came the first test with Alyssa Cousland-Theirin, my Hero of Ferelden! I tried to understand which part to separate for the animation. Mainly the hair and cape because it flows a lot more than the rest! If I recall, my first idea here was to make her counter flame attacks (?). Then, as the camera turns around her, I tried to add a grid to know how the camera would work around it.

I ended up making the clip longer, so she could position herself to the further left and leave space to the two other protagonists.

Now it was time to try to animate Sulevin Lavellan, my Inquisitor. I really kept that quick doodling style just to capture the vibe without putting too much time/effort into it! The background would be static to contrast with Alyssa's. I also loved the idea of a rogue sneaking!

Instead of working on Eleena Amell Hawke, my Champion of Kirkwall, I went back to Alyssa and started working with Clip Studio Paint 3D models (this entire animation has been done on the EX version of the software!) It helped for rotoscope animation and maintaining likeness! That's when I got the idea to make the background swirl around the character to let the eyes be guided by the rest of the screen!

After a couple more hours, I planned the entire animatic with 3D models and quick doodles! I finally found a cool pose for Eleena Hawke, which was honestly the hardest of the three to imagine for some reason? I tried many other poses but ended up picking an animation from the game!

This whole time, I was studying a bunch of background ideas and how studio Red Dog Culture House (who made Absolution) work! Thankfully, they have a YouTube Channel where they shared some BTS content so I could analyse it!

Then, I simplified my character and their original designs in the style of the studio! These outfits are how I imagine them after Trespasser. Alyssa as the Queen of Ferelden, looking for a cure to the Calling, Hawke following Fenris to Tevinter & Sully as a Red Jenny Inquisitor!

The idea for Sulevin's animation actually came from a piece I doodled on a live stream, when I was drawing pose studies and turning them into finished artworks haha As for Alyssa, I wanted to draw the fight that got her facial scars!

Once their designs were ready and the background ideas too, I made the rough version of the animation! Basically a sketch done on top of the 3D models to add the details, staying pretty rough just to capture the idea and movements.

Then it was time to start the lines! I decided make a folder per frame, so I could separate all he main elements and draw them one by one. It helps keeping the likeness of a character in the different frames without having big "jumps" between frames! In fact, every parts were coloured differently to recognize them, and then I used vector erasers and masks (Ah yes, the entire lineart is done in vectors of course! It's easier to adjust and save time when working on similar frames!)

At first of course, everything overlaps! But I find it easier to draw too much and erase after, just to make sure everything is coherent in each frames! The cool thing about CSP is how you can change the colour of the layers in one click! So all the coloured lines turned into black in one second, and I could reverse it just as quickly to double check!

Then I started working on Sulevin! I made a blue line to mark where her feet were, as the sketch in the background wasn't perfectly straight! (Like Sulevin's sexuality 🤭😂) The silhouettes were very quick to do, but I had fun adding more & more details as she came closer to the foreground!

I really wanted to add that little dagger trick, but I remember it required me to change the pacing of Eleena's apparition, as it was recovering her arm too quickly! I had to change the pace of multiple frames quite a lot during the project, to make sure the flow was right! For Eleena, most of her animation remained around her arms and the staff itself, as magic would be the most difficult part! That way each character has their own focus: Alyssa has a very animated background, Sulevin got the grappling hook and Eleena the ice!

Then it was time to start adding colours! Just like for the lineart, I separated every colour on it's own layer, so I could easily adjust the colours later if needed. I added one colour at the time, going through all the frames, and then another colour!

I made full palette tests with the colours I would use for their background at this point, checking if the details remained readable! Alyssa was the most challenging in terms of clothes, because I made her a very detailled armour! I had to simplify the Theirin heraldry, vectorize/redraw the Cousland, and make a brush for her cape's pattern!

Once I was done adding the flatcolours, I started the background, and oh boy it was a wild ride. For the cave, I painted multiple tests. I imagine was to use CSP panorama tools, which transform a texture into a 3D sphere, so each corners must match to look good. Sadly, it made the background very blurry, so after hours of testing, I changed ideas. Instead of the random fire balls (?) I originally imagined for Alyssa, I made three simple frames of a Rage Demon to attack her.

I ended up using the cave as a repeated pattern to make it turn 360° around the character. For Eleena, I mixed inspiration from the comics, Dreadwolf & Absolution, using warm colours matching Hawke's signature red. Just like I made the cave very grey/blue to match Grey Wardens. For Val Royeaux, it was more complex because I wanted to make it green, matching the Inquisitor's signature green. But bright green couldn't work, and the original colour during day time was blue/white/gold. So I added more leaves, played around the design a bit! After adding the rage demon, I made the shading! It was surprisingly easy and quick to do now!

I clipped a white layer on the flatcolours to not be distracted by the colours, and made thin lines to separate the light/shadows, then simply filled everything with the bucket tool! Then you set the layer to multiply and remove the white layer, and you have celshading shadows! Now the character looks out of the picture, so I added layers of blue in color burn, saturation and substract blending modes to make her look like she's in the right setting! Of course, I did the same with the other two, giving Hawke a red overlay and Sulevin green shadows!

Then I added the details, it went from white irises, to sword/staff smears to earrings and smaller finition that goes on top of these layers. To add the lights, I simply selected the shadows and reversed the selection! Using warm and cold tones to create contrast with the purple/bluish shadows! I also added more ambient light layers for Alyssa to reflect the Rage Demon fire. Now it was time to add ice magic! My first attempt had too many frames, making it look weird! Sometimes it's better to lower the frame rate to make things less bumpy!

Then I downloaded some cool ice brushes on CSP assets that made it look less like blue magical flames! But when I covered the screen in ice, I realized "Oh wait, I could make a cool transition from the ice, to blue lyrium turning red?"Red Lyrium truly links these three games and The Veilguard somehow! I spent the next hour painting over the idol and putting it in a black background, with lyrium and then the golden Dragon Age title text.

For the SFX, I used free youtube libraries sounds & "Darkspawn!" comes from the violent human female voice set (iconic for ""Can I get you a ladder? So you can get off my back!"😂🤭) After editing all that, the animation was finally done!

Here's the final math:

About 15 hours for the sketching/rough/animatic phase, 30h for the lineart, 25h for colours, 10h for backgrounds, 5h for details & 5h for music & SFX, for a total of 90 hours. Aka the same amount of time it took me to finish Baldur's Gate 3 the first time lol

If you have any question regarding the animation or the softwares etc. do not hesitate to ask, I'll do my best to answer!

[shn-art]

"In War, Victory. In Peace, Vigilance. In Death, Sacrifice."

Valeria Thorne

[paunchsalazar]

Dragon Age origins companions

[too-many-lavellans]

Emyr Tabris

Alienage Conscript, Veteran of the Blight Champion Berserker

[absyntheartref]

── Dymitr Amell, Battle of Denerim, 9:31 Dragon ──

"When I was sixteen, I won a great victory. I felt in that moment I would live to be a hundred. Now I know I shall not see thirty." - King Baldwin IV, Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

[swemtpotamtam]

"On wings of hope, you rise up through the night Higher, oh higher Carrying our song Cradled fast within your arms That its chorus might ring for all!"

(Masayoshi Soken - Endwalker-Footfalls)

[beetnik-jay]

Lyassandra Cousland

[crows-of-buckets]

Arcane warrior being a specialization in dao is so funny considering the mage origin. Guy who has never stepped foot outside a tower left to join the wardens and is now regularly decapitating men. 10/10 no notes

[mayhemforlace]

Rook Thorne: Master of Negotiation

[postnuclearwar]

Dragon Age!Dungeon Meshi au where Marcille is just a straight up blood mage

[ellie-shy]

Sorry to interrupt your scrolling to present my Warden Rook :

Thank you! Have a nice day!

Lucanis you lucky bastardo

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Skophos Maze-Warden

Artist: Jason Rainville TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link