#what happened after the fall of corypheus?

[invinciblerodent]

Listening to Vows & Vengeance again after having played Veilguard kind of puts this (already ominous) part of the first episode into a little bit of a new context. [Spoilers ahead.]

And even when I listened to this the first time, this fit into the context of Trespasser perfectly (when all we knew was that he's seeking to bring down the Veil and bring back the harmonious world he remembers, nothing more specific than that)- but in retrospect, and knowing what we do about the Evanuris now, this part really spells out that Solas is not seeking a reform, or the good of elves (or dwarves, or anyone), in doing so.

By his own admission, he never was.

I think this is one thing on which I've seen people give him what I think is way too much credit: Solas' goal, in his own words even, never was to make the world better.

It was always to make it what it once was, which he merely believes to have been better.

He calls it a reckoning, a punishment of misdeeds (those of the Evanuris? maybe also his own?). He seeks to bring back ancient Elvhenan (from before the Evanuris' rise to power? before the war against the Titans? before everything?), to restore the perfect world of unity between spirits and mortals (were there mortals, besides the dwarves then? would him succeeding do anything for, or even to the dwarves?) that exists only in his mind now, and his views and goals have always been regressive, by virtue of simply being what they are.

He calls his goals a regeneration, like he's cutting back a dead plant (didn't he call present day Thedas something like "a world of Tranquil"?) to give new growth, healthy growth, the opportunity to live- but what he very conveniently neglects to acknowledge at every given opportunity is that the branches he's been working to hack down are alive.

In Veilguard, he says to Rook that he had plans to "minimize the damage", the loss of life. But now that I'm looking at as complete a picture of him as we'll ever have... I genuinely struggle to imagine that those plans had any intention at all of actually preserving the living, or if it's just another clever half-truth we're meant to interpret as him intending to preserve life, just based on how different Solas' own definition of the living seems to be. (Yes, he's seeking to preserve life. But who exactly right now has what he considers a life, seems to be up for a little bit of debate.)

... An extra tidbit that I find interesting in this is that this whole exchange happens in a cave in the Silent Plains, which is the site of the ending of the First Blight, where Dumat fell. Dumat is presently believed to have been the dragon thrall of Dirthamen, god of Secrets, the first of the trapped Evanuris to fall, and Corypheus, whom Solas entrusted with the Orb of Fen'Harel in Inquisition, was a High Priest of Dumat.

I don't think any of this can really be a coincidence. There's got to be something weird going on in the Silent Plains.

[dragonagesb]

This is one of my favorite moments with Varric

[ir-abelas-vhenan]

I'm always interested in analyses that portray a romanced Solas as a predatory hee hee trickster god manipulating a young and impressionable Lavellan into falling for him and if that's your world state go ahead and live your truth b/c it's frankly none of my business, but I sincerely think there are those who forget that for a lot of people, a romanced Lavellan is (with all due respect to my own Solasmancing Inquisitor Rielle Lavelllan) batshit crazy. Having her boyfriend turn out to be a wolf god is honestly the least of her problems but oh boy is she unafraid to become one to fix this mess.

This is a woman who woke up in a dungeon with a glowing hand, figured out she could fix the world, and thought "fuck it, it's not like I'll have anything else better to do if Corypheus sticks around. Also. Everyone here kind of looks like they want to kill me, so maybe I'll stick with the protective powers that be for a minute." And then all of five seconds later she gets her hand snatched by a sketchy elven apostate who knows exactly what to do with her shiny new powers and cannot stop himself from having a Mr. Darcy level hand-flex after he lets it go (in my heart and soul this happens just out of the camera's gaze) and goes "hmm maybe there's something to be said for this world saving thing."

This is a woman who brought an entire fucking avalanche down on herself and three of her closest friends (and I do mean closest as in physical proximity, she doesn't know these people who are looking at her like she's Thedas' Next Top Idol) because even if it killed her it was the proper middle finger to send to the wannabe god bringing his army tap-dancing down the mountain pass towards her on the one night she had scheduled off to celebrate finally taking a W.

This is a woman going Take 2 Electric Boogaloo on waking up with no idea where she is and learning she was successful in spite-dragging herself up a different fucking mountain in a blizzard. Except now everyone is fighting wait nope now they're Kumbaya-ing a song Andraste's Herald should really probably be familiar with whoops, oh thank God, time for a side convo with the same apostate who's been trying to turn her entire life into a history class only for her to dive in headfirst (much to his initial abject horror) and get that good good discourse she needs since she can't go around arguing with everyone else like she wants to. "The orb is ours." You know what? Of course it is. But if they need the world saved from an elven oopsie, who better to right things than an elf? Fuck it, we ball.

This is a woman who misses being close to nature and goes positively feral at Skyhold, yeeting herself over balconies and banisters and turning the ancient fortress into her personal parkour playground because she's got energy to work off and shit to do, and if the path of least resistance to hunt down everyone she needs to talk to is coincidentally the same path that will absolutely wreck her knees by the time she's sixty, that's just how it has to be.

This is a woman who finds herself back at Haven with a man she's found it possible to be unfetteringly unabashedly herself with and thinks, "hey, maybe there could be more than the flirations we've exchanged over heated discussions and philosophical deep-dives, maybe I can have just one smooch as a treat." And when she feels her slowly unfurling passion reciprocated only to be shut down? She resolves herself to fight for this fledgling love and all the fade tongue that comes with it. This is a woman who gets the tiniest glimpse of what a retirement plan might look like after this whole saving the mortal world thing and buys all the way in.

This is a woman who has Grey Wardens to save from themselves, an empire trying to self-cannibalize, and still finds the time to go rescue a spirit because she, as a fellow comrade caught up in this mess, knows damn well that no innocent deserves to suffer if she can help it while she's got this insane amount of power she never asked for. And if that happens to lead to the man she feels safe enough to nap on the library couches with confessing at last the feelings she knows he's been smothering beneath his all-too-collected surface? Yeah, she'll take that W.

This is a woman who gets absolutely blasted head-over-ass into the fade and goes "honestly things were going a little TOO well." This is a woman who sneaks a peak at the closest fears of the companions she's come to know and love and goes "not on my fucking watch." This is a woman who sees that the man she forces herself to learn the old language for, her vhenan, fears being alone more than anything in the entire knowing world and resolves herself to ensuring it never comes to pass.

This is a woman who gets the opportunity to shape the government of a straight up country and runs around collecting wooden fucking halla in a palace full of elven servants with no time to dwell on that particularly cruel irony because out here it's scheme or be schemed. This a woman who collapses against a balcony railing after putting out some of the sickest literal and metaphorical dance moves The Game has ever seen, resigned to bear her ever-increasing burdens alone, only to find her heart and his horrible horrible hat extending a hand, promising her that if he is not alone, then neither is she.

Like, do you feel me here?

And then he dares to think something as sudden and damning as the truth is enough to keep her away? The queen of tough conversations and tougher choices? No, no, dear readers who have made it this far into my descent into madness.

Inquisitor Lavellan is a master-class in encouraging the odds against her to fuck around and find out. She is a rift-mending false-god-bashing politcally savvy terror upon all of Thedas. Solas (and all of the living breathing world) is lucky she took time out of her busy schedule to notice the way his smile softens when talking about spirits or appreciate the fluidity of his form when they're obliterating venatori out in the field. This man cradled her cheeks in his shaking hands, looked into weary and wide eyes and called her beautiful, and had the audacity to steal her heart before trying to peace out and take it with him.

If she's got to track down a real god this time and frog march him into the fade to reclaim both her heart and the future she fought for because all he wants to do is launch himself like a meteor towards achieving his greatest fear, if she has to spend hours lecturing him on the sheer audacity of his ass while spirits float by and realize they're grateful they never had the chance to take on a body and subject themselves to a verbal lashing this brutal, if she has to do cartwheels around him while dropping all sorts of sweet nothings in the language she is now quite proficient in until he gets it through his luminous gleaming skull that when she said "var lath vir suledin" my girl meant it? Then that's what she's going to do.

"I wish it could, vhenan."

Oh it's going to, buddy. Buckle up to get wrecked, to get absolutely loved and cherished you fool, because Inquisitor Lavellan is not the Dread Wolf's prey, she's his hunter.

[hyperbali]

After the final battle against Corypheus, Jeanne Amell's newly reunited and fairly eccentric family - herself, Nathaniel Howe, their daughter Dejana, Morrigan, and Kieran - were quick to leave Skyhold, sensing trouble brewing on the horizon.

For several years, they traveled the expanse of Thedas together, the elder three doing their best to raise and mentor their children - and adding yet more to the brood.

In 9:47, when Dejana was a young teen, the family stopped over in a fairly remote part of the Free Marches. Deja, as was her wont, wandered off to explore on her own, finding an ancient and rather foreboding ruin. She was almost drawn into it by a mysterious impulse - and deep inside, she found a most unusual tome.

Though Flemeth is gone from the world, vestiges of her power yet remain; not enough to command or possess, not anymore, but enough to shake. Dejana's head felt as though it were about to split from a sudden onslaught of light and heat and pain--and then all went dark...

Jeanne, realizing she'd not seen her daughter for several hours, sent Kieran to find his sister. When he came up empty-handed, the adults delved into the search. Hours turned into days... then weeks... then months...

Dejana Amell has not been seen again since.

-

In the meantime - a traveler happened upon an unconscious Deja that very eve, thinking they'd found a lost and alone child. When she woke at their camp, she couldn’t remember who she was beyond her given name, or how she got there. Still, she's always been a smart girl - and clearly brimming with magical power. Such things have their potential.

Option One: Dejana De Riva - Spellblade

Madeleine De Riva had been on her way back to Antiva after a successful assassination in Orlais. Though not exactly the nurturing type, she recognized just what a mage with some fairly impressive swordsmanship could be capable of - with the right guidance. She took the girl with her back to Antiva City, and so began the young future Crow's unforgiving and often quite dangerous training.

Option Two: Dejana Ingellvar - Death Caller

Zophiel Ingellvar, a rather accomplished necromancer of the Grand Necropolis, had been returning from an excursion to meet with what remained of the seers of Rivain. They had always been quite shrewd, pragmatic, and perhaps more than a little bit of a schemer. With the girl practically radiating dark magic with barely a blink, they knew it would be best to bring her back to Nevarra. Some of the elder necromancers might have had an issue with it, but, well... nothing some creative memory spells couldn't fix...

Option Three: Dejana Laidir - Evoker

Meenah Laidir, a Lord of Fortune with a fairly obscene reputation and following of her own, had been hoping to shake off hot pursuit from Kirkwall's city guard by way of the Vimmarks after a heist gone awry. Getting stuck with a tag-along had definitely not been part of the plan, but when the girl startled at a noise in the woods and practically called down a firestorm, what opportunist would have been stupid enough to turn up their nose at that? The rest of the crew certainly didn't seem to have any problem warming up to her, at least!

-

Even as the world seems to be falling apart yet again in its latest disaster, and an ever-rebellious Dejana pushes at every boundary and authority she can, she struggles to regain the person she once was. Senses trigger fleeting memories - the smell of warm perfumes, the low hum of an old Fereldan folk song... but still, she tries to stay focused in her newfound life.

But for the voice in her head, the wizened and wicked cackle ever ringing in her ears, and the sudden incredible compulsion she feels once more to get herself involved when she hears whispers of the Dread Wolf...

[fenharelsfang]

The Wolf's Heart (1/5)

The world was awash in a sea of blood, a crimson tide of red lyrium, the Blight, and the shadow of the forced solar eclipse. The smell of smoke and rotting flesh choked the air. People screamed in the city below the Archon’s palace. Darkspawn and other unholy creatures of the Blight stalked the streets, slaughtering anything in their path. Malevolent spirits flocked to the weakening Veil like moths to a flame, possessing any mage desperate enough to invite them in. The fear of death was a very strong motivator. In the sky, a monstrous Archdemon and a six-eyed wolf the size of a dragon fought a battle that shook the very heavens. Meanwhile, a swarm of Antaam soldiers and Venatori agents stormed the city and marched against the makeshift army of Grey Wardens, Veil Jumpers, Lords of Fortune, Antivan Crows, Mourn Watchers, Shadow Dragons, and Inquisition agents, all led by Rook, the man who inadvertently started these unfortunate chain of events.

All was not lost, though. They had successfully defeated and killed Ghilan’nain and now only Elgar’nan stood in the way. Well, Elgar’nan and Solas.

“Honestly, it doesn’t surprise me,” said Rook. He and the rest of the faction leaders were gathered around a grand oak table discussing their next steps. Neve Gallus, recently freed from Elgar’nan’s clutches, revealed to them that once the tyrannical god was defeated, the last of the Veil’s bindings would unravel and it would come crashing down. “Tearing down the Veil has been his goal since the very beginning. He already betrayed me once. It’s his whole schtick.”

“I’m still blown away by the fact that archdemons are just dragons bound to a bunch of magical elves and there were two of them flying around out here,” Warden-Commander Cousland remarked with a whistle. The effects of being a Grey Warden for the past twenty years had taken its toll on her. Her once rich auburn hair had dulled to light grey and dark purple bags sagged under her eyes. She was close to her Calling. The song of the Blight was getting difficult to block out. All those years of searching for a way to free Grey Wardens from their burden amounted to nothing. This last ditch effort to seal the Blight behind the Veil was her only salvation. She prayed it would be enough to quell the corruption in her blood. Once done, perhaps she could finally go home to her beloved King for good and enjoy their twilight years in peace. “And I thought my Blight was bad.”

“... I think I preferred Corypheus,” Hawke confessed, face ashen. She was still haunted by the horror the red lyrium she unearthed had unleashed. Now Varric was dead and Solas used blood magic to trick Rook into thinking he wasn’t. That was sick and twisted. The tale of the Evanuris needed to end and she’d be there to write that final chapter. It would end with their death.

“If anyone can stop Elgar’nan and Solas, it is the individuals gathered here,” Morrigan proclaimed with an air of confidence. She had met each of these heroes, these paragons of light and hope, and helped steer the tides of fate so that they would succeed.

“We know how to beat Elgar’nan,” Rook said. “Solas will take care of his archdemon and, when he does, we’ll throw everything we have at him. It’s what happens after that concerns me.” He looked to Neve, her blood-red eyes sending a shiver down his spine. Ugly black veins pulsed at her temples and black blood dribbled down her chin. She was inexplicably connected to the Blight now, able to feel it and, to some extent, control it. “We need a plan to stop the Veil from falling.”

“The Veil is tied to the ancient elven gods,” Morrigan said. “‘Twill not be a simple matter to find a suitable tether once they are gone.”

“Then let’s tie it to Solas,” Rook suggested. “He’s an elven god and the only one that will be left.”

Inquisitor Ellana Lavellan, standing further down the table next to Morrigan and Dorian, clenched her jaw at the suggestion. Rook didn’t speak highly of the Dread Wolf. It was understandable, really. He had been used and betrayed. Varric was gone, truly gone, and now Harding was lost as well. She could see vengeance coiling around his heart like a viper. That same righteous anger radiated off of Hawke as well. It was horrible, but she … she wanted to defend him! This wasn’t the Solas she knew, the one she fell in love with. They hadn’t seen the softer shades of him: his kindness towards those who were hurting or the way he lit up like a delighted child when speaking about the Fade. He wasn’t so different from them. He had his virtues and vices, his quirks. They didn’t know the elf who detested the taste of tea, the elf who painted beautiful murals on the walls, who could play chess in his head, who had a secret love of romance novels and music. Only she had that privilege. Everyone else who knew the truth of him was gone.

Solas, what have you done?

“You are correct,” Morrigan continued, pulling Ellana out of her troubled thoughts, “but you will need to draw his blood with the lyrium dagger to bind him and I doubt he will approve of the idea.”

Rook smirked, a dangerous glint in his eyes. “I can be very persuasive.” A sigh. “But it will be risky.”

Emmrich cleared his throat. “What about this dagger we made while you were trapped in the Fade?” he suggested, sliding the fake dagger across the table. It was nearly identical to the ritual dagger strapped to Rook’s side. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands. There were no reverberations of magic threaded through it like the real one. “Odds are,” Emmrich continued, “Solas will need to do something else to complete his ritual. This dagger looks identical, but–”

“It can’t cut through enchantments like the real thing,” Rook finished.

“The backlash of such magic will render him helpless,” Morrigan remarked, glancing briefly at Ellana.

Taash stepped forward. “Uh, are you sure you want to try a bait-and-switch on the Dread Wolf? You know, the god of lies and trickery?”

The leaders gathered around the table all seemed sold on that idea. Trick the trickster. Poetic justice. Ellana had been quiet for too long. She may have been speaking to the void, but her words needed to be heard. “Is there a chance, any chance at all, that he’ll listen to reason?”

“Speaking from the heart, Inquisitor?” Morrigan asked. Her smile was sad, sympathetic to the Inquisitor’s plight.

“How could I not?” Ellana protested. “None of you know him as I do. Well, perhaps you do, Morrigan, sort of. The rest of you don’t. You’ve only ever seen the Dread Wolf. I’ve seen the man beneath all of that. If given the chance–”

“We’ve given him plenty of chances,” Rook said. “And he wasted them at every turn.”

“Not every turn,” Lavellan argued. “He saved you and the Dalish elves from Elgar’nan. Even though he was free from that Fade prison, he still worked with the Shadow Dragons and helped protect them from the Blight. He wants to help. It’s all he’s ever wanted to do. His heart has never been in this plan to tear down the Veil. He just … he feels like he has to do this to make up for everything that happened in the past. Everything that he did for her, for Mythal. If I can talk to him–”

“Varric tried to talk to him,” Rook said. “He died for it.”

Ellana’s heart was a stone in her chest. Her throat tightened and she closed her eyes. “I know.”

“You already tried to talk him out of it before and he took your arm for it.”

Her fists clenched and her bottom lip trembled. “I know.”

“This isn’t a fairytale, Inquisitor. You can’t solve this with the ‘power of love’.” Rook struck the table with his fist, startling Ellana so that she opened her eyes to meet his fiery gaze. “He’s too stuck in his ways. He can’t change. Actually, it’s not even that – he won’t change. Not for you. Not for anyone.”

“Rook,” Bellara said, resting a gentle hand on his arm. “That’s enough.” She had been watching the Inquisitor slowly crumble under Rook’s words and it hurt. Ellana’s struggle to save the man she loved mirrored her own trials with Cyrian. In the end, he redeemed himself, though he paid the ultimate price for it. Bellara didn’t know the Inquisitor well, but she didn’t wish that same fate on her.

Ellana glared at Rook with angry, tear-filled eyes, but she said nothing. They were good points, she wasn’t going to deny it. It infuriated her all the same. She wanted to see Solas. Ten long years she had gone without him and she needed to see him to know for sure that he was too far gone to be brought back. From what she heard, he wasn’t. He couldn’t be. She had hope that she could reach him, she just needed one more chance.

“You have options,” Morrigan interjected. “And you can make your choice when the time comes. For now, we have Elgar’nan to deal with.”

“Right,” Rook said. He let out a slow breath to simmer the boiling anger inside of him and rubbed the back of his tense, aching neck. The Inquisitor was a legend. She saved the world from a darkspawn magister and his archdemon. Thedas owed her a great debt. He never imagined someone so powerful, who made choices that determined the fate of the world could be so naive. He noticed how young she looked and began to think that maybe it wasn’t the fact that she was an elf. “Elgar’nan is in the Archon’s palace above us. We’ll all climb the tendril as soon as the archdemon is taken care of. Stock up on supplies and say your goodbyes. It’s time to end this nightmare.”

Rook was the first to leave, stalking off to check in with the faction leaders to get an update on their forces. Warden-Commander Cousland followed Davrin, no doubt burning with questions about a living, breathing griffon at his heels. Hawke disappeared into the next room to meet up with Isabela. It had been years since they’d seen each other. Most of the other members of the Veilguard left to their own factions to say goodbye to the friends and family they had made over the years. Many of these people would not be returning after this battle. Already their numbers had thinned in the first assault on the city.

Ellana meandered over to the fireplace. Morrigan watched her for a moment, poised as if ready to say something, but then thought better of it. She gripped the amulet around her neck, a sending stone, and left to a far corner to update her son on the situation. Kieran was safe, as safe as he could be with the world ending as it was. He wanted to join her, but this was a mission she needed to undertake on her own. Besides, if Elgar’nan had the power to sense the soul bound within Kieran …

Dorian joined Ellana by the fireplace. He noticed her biting her thumbnail, tapping her foot restlessly against the stone floor. Tears still shone in her eyes.

“You still love him, do you?” he asked. “After all these years?”

Ellana closed her eyes and lowered her hand. “I will always love him. He’s who I belong with.”

Dorian sighed. He reached out an arm and wrapped it around her shoulders, pulling her into his embrace. “What am I going to do with you?”

They stood there for a while, staring into the fire, each consumed by their own thoughts. Ellana leaned her head against Dorian’s shoulder. She had missed him. Even with the sending stones, being so far away from him was difficult. He was her rock. When everything was falling apart, he had been there for her. The Inquisition disbanding, Solas leaving her that fateful night in Crestwood and then again after defeating Corypheus, her clan exiling her when she told them the truth about the Dread Wolf … Dorian was there to keep her going. He was her very best friend.

“Dorian, when this is over–”

“I know.”

She lifted her head off of his shoulder and stared at him with wide, surprised eyes. “You do..?”

“My dear, I could see it all over your face at the meeting.” He smiled at her, tears shimmering in his own eyes, and brushed a strand of hair out of her face. “And though I don’t believe he will ever be deserving of you or understand why you could love that stubborn, prideful egghead, he makes you happy. And you deserve all the happiness the world can offer.”

“Dorian…” Ellana sniffed and wiped at the tears that had slipped down her face. She felt a soft handkerchief being placed in her hand and wiped at her eyes.

“Don’t start crying, you soft-hearted fool. You’ll make me cry, too, and I refuse to be reduced to a blubbering mess.”

Ellana laughed and leaned up to kiss his cheek. “I’m going to miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too, my friend,” he replied. They held each other for a long moment and when they finally separated, Dorian left to meet with Maevaris.

Ellana stood alone in that room, facing the fireplace for a moment longer and trying to formulate a plan. She would find some way to get to Solas first so they could talk, before Rook took matters into his own hands. As she turned away, she nearly collided with Neve. The mage was staring at her, still as a statue. Her black eyes pulsed with an unnerving intensity and a sinister smile spread far too wide across her face.

“Oh, Neve,” Ellana said. She tried to remember Neve’s real face beneath the corruption. Hopefully this was temporary. Something seemed … different about the mage, though. “I’m sorry. Did you … need something?”

Neve chuckled darkly as she slowly began to circle around Ellana as a predator would its prey. “So, the Dread Wolf has fallen in love,” came a voice that was definitely not Neve’s. It was male, high-pitched and gurgling as if blood filled the lungs. Her irises were a thin white ring against a black backdrop, mirroring the eclipse outside. “And with a mortal, no less. This is interesting news indeed.”

Ellana took a step back and felt the flames of the fire licking her back. Neve matched it. She was cornered and though she had never heard the voice before, the realization came over her all the same. “Elgar’nan,” she whispered.

Her cry for help was cut short by a fleshy tendril erupting from a blighted portal in the ground. It wrapped around her throat, strangling her. She threw out her gauntleted hand and the fire within the hearth snaked around it before jettisoning out at the tendril. The gauntlet was a true marvel of engineering, created especially for Ellana by her arcanist, Dagna. It acted as a staff would, focusing her magic. The tendril shrieked as the flames burned into its flesh. Footsteps and startled voices sounded elsewhere in the building, heading to her location. Another tendril burst forth to trap her body in a vice-like grip.

“Inquisitor!” Morrigan cried out as kicked open the door to the room. Lightning crackled from her fingertips and arced out towards the abominations. The acrid smell of burning flesh made Ellana’s eyes water. She felt the relief of loosening limbs and thrashed about wildly to escape. Morrigan’s attack wasn’t enough, however. More tendrils sprouted from the growing portal around them, wrapping around the Inquisitor further. Dark spots danced in her vision as the air left her. She struggled desperately against the tightening garrote. The whispers of demons promising her the strength to free herself from this horror roared in her mind like thunder, but she fought against them. Slowly, she began to sink into the portal, its red glow casting sinister shadows on her face.

More allies showed up. The Warden-Commander hacked at the tendrils with her dragonbone greataxe, but they sprouted new growths with each strike. Dorian joined Morrigan in a magical assault of lightning and fire. Even Rook struck at the tendrils with the lyrium dagger. It proved to be the most effective weapon against the aberrations. The prison that contained the blight from which they originated was created by that weapon. Pieces fell to the ground in squelching thuds before disintegrating into ash. Instinctively, they coiled tighter around the Inquisitor's body. The last thing the heroes saw was the Inquisitor’s fearful eyes as she was dragged through the portal into the earth.

“Ellana!” Dorian cried out. He slammed his fists against the stone floor as if he could crack it open. “We have to help her!”

Rook stormed up to Neve, still possessed by Elgar’nan, and shook her viciously. “Where have you taken her?!”

The black sclera faded back into white, her irises glowing red once more. Neve blinked. She looked down at Rook’s hands gripping her arms, fingernails digging painfully into her skin, and then around at the people gathered around with their weapons drawn. “Ow, Rook, that hurts! What’s going on? What happened?”

Bellara ran up to her, shocked at Rook's increasing anger. “Elgar'nan possessed you for a minute there. He must be connected to you through the Blight. The Inquisitor is gone. He kidnapped her.”

Neve blanched. To have that horrid creature violating her body like that made her sick. Was that how Lucanis felt when Spite was forced into him? She patted Bellara’s hand to let her know she was okay. Sensing her distress, Lucanis came up beside her and held her hand.

“Damnit!” Rook cursed. He turned to the others, all staring at him with expectant eyes. “He must have taken her to the Archon’s palace.”

“Why would he take the Inquisitor?” Davrin asked. “If anything, I thought he’d kidnap you, Rook.”

Dorian paled as realization dawned on him. “He overheard us…”

“What do you mean?” Rook asked.

“Ellana and I … we were discussing her past relationship with Solas. Elgar’nan must have heard through Neve. He’s going to use her against Solas.”

“Well, shit,” Hawke muttered. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“It shouldn’t mean anything,” Rook said. “I’m sure he thinks it’ll stop Solas from killing his archdemon, but we all know it won’t.”

“Do we?” Morrigan asked.

“Don’t tell me you believe she’s more important than his end goal.”

“It is not a matter of whether or not I believe in his love for her. Solas was a spirit. He is guided by his emotions and he has not seen the Inquisitor in many years. It will, at the very least, distract him. All Elgar’nan needs is an opening, for Solas to let his guard down and he can end the Dread Wolf. Solas is not bound to an archdemon. He is mortal. It only takes one well-placed strike.”

Rook began to pace back and forth in front of the fireplace, hands on his hips, brow furrowed. “Then we need to get up to the palace as soon as possible. We need that archdemon dead and it’s too fucking big for us to kill it alone.”

“We’ve got other problems,” said Strife as he jogged up to the distraught group with Isabela and the Viper in tow. “Elgar’nan’s army is amassing just outside. Our forces can hold them off while you climb up.”

So they would have to face Elgar’nan with less forces than they planned. That did not bode well, especially if Solas was somehow taken out.

“It’s fine,” Rook said. “The Veilguard can handle Elgar’nan. Just make sure those forces stay here on the ground.”

“We will,” the Warden-Commander promised.

Rook turned to his team. “Let’s do this.”

[americankimchi]

dragon age veilguard review: spoilers for the entire game ahead

alright now that it's been a few days and i've had time to 1) get over the honeymoon phase and 2) really think on the game beyond the emotional high of the endgame mission/endgame choice, i can finally type this up

my final score for this game is 8/10, if you just care about that part and wanna skip the rest.

preface, i've only finished one playthrough as an elf mage grey warden, and played every companion/region quest*/side objective to completion**.

i played it on the underdog difficulty and it took me ~74 hours (i left the game open and went to do something else a few times, so it should probably read closer to ~70). this is a screenshot of the final auto-save after i beat the game

veeery long review under the cut ✌️

*exception being minrathous since i picked treviso instead, so the region quests got shafted

**didn't find all the chests or all the collectables, but i got close. also, i missed neve's first companion outing because i forgot to do it prior to the minrathous/treviso choice and didn't realize recruiting davrin was a cut-off point. aside from that i finished every quest i could grab my hands on.

OKAY SO i want to start this off by saying that i thoroughly enjoyed this game, enough to want to replay it again (i currently have two concurrent playthroughs as a dwarf shadow dragon and a human antivan crow going) and will probably be modding it to high heavens once that boat gets sailing, and that i believe it deserves that 8/10 score with all my heart. it was a great time.

that being said.

DIALOGUE REACTIVITY BASED OFF CHARACTER CREATION:

anyone who plays dragon age veilguard and only veilguard is getting a very surface level experience of what thedas is/has to offer culturally. i'm saying this because the excuse being "this is tevinter, why would it be the same as the southern half of thedas" isn't enough to explain a lot of gaping holes in the game's setting.

for instance, i played as an ELF MAGE GREY WARDEN in the middle of TEVINTER during a massive catastrophe brought about by the returned "ELVEN GODS"

having played all the games prior to dav, i did so because i knew that there would be

high tension with my PC being an elf in the notoriously cruel-to-elves country of tevinter, the old empire of which caused the fall of arlathan, and who enslaves elves to the point of it being a huge story beat for a previous companion (fenris)

a mage in a magocracy, where the script is flipped between mages and templars as compared to the south which recently went through years of a mage-templar war

a grey warden - their relevancy in thedas ended around 10 years ago due to corypheus basically tricking them all into hearing their calling, and 22 years prior veilguard during the fifth blight. at the beginning of the game, being a grey warden is more of a coincidental occupation than a narrative beat like it is in origins, but there's always something going on with the wardens so i picked it as a 'i'll pick this to experience the game first and then go for what i suspect is the best narratively relevant origin for my second playthrough' option

of the three descriptors, ELF/MAGE/GREY WARDEN, which do you think had the most story-relevant screen time?

that's right.

the grey warden one.

i won't say that there was nothing about being a mage, but i can remember probably on one hand where the option to chime in as a mage was relevant to what was being spoken about. (a conversation about spite, a conversation about scout harding's new abilities, and if there were more they weren't memorable enough for me to recall off the top of my head) which was fine on paper if you don't know anything about dragon age's entire deal wrt mages. i believe the only real mention about tensions between mages and templars happened in minrathous when we met up with neve's templar friend rana. i think the line reads something like "oh templars are just here to make sure the magic doesn't go out of hand. we don't even take lyrium like our southern counterparts" and then the game moves on to other things

which is crazy considering just how seriously the mage vs templar conflict was being leaned into for the previous three games, enough to the point where i was getting absolutely sick and tired of hearing about it. well the monkey's paw curls a finger because not only did i not hear about it, it felt like it never even happened.

TO BE FAIR: we're playing in tevinter (and antiva. and rivain. and the hossberg wetlands. and—well, you get the idea) and there's a general air of tevinter snooty superiority when they consider the 'south', so perhaps it wasn't fair for me to think "oh, they'd talk about it right? they'd bring it up more than once", but my being a mage seemed to just not even register for any characters in tevinter. not that i wanted them to roll out the red carpet or anything, but i can't remember a single moment where an NPC was like "oh right, you're a mage too". maybe they did, and i just don't remember it. but it didn't seem to matter at all.

but alright whatever, if we want to write that off as being "we're in tevinter. that has no bearing on circumstances here because it's a MAGOCRACY" fine i'll let it slide.

but the fact that my being an ELF didn't seem to be a Huge Deal when in tevinter threw me for a fucking loop. was there some sort of massive societal upheaval in the ten years between dragon age inquisition (dorian: i thought keeping slaves was fine as long as you treat them well) to veilguard (i found a single codex entry of a letter where dorian says "hey guys. we should stop keeping slaves. like genuinely what the fuck is wrong with us for even doing that in the first place") but the fact that NOBODY SEEMS TO BLINK AN EYE at my rook's elven heritage. ESPECIALLY since the main antagonists of this game are ALL ELVEN GODS seems like a wildly missed opportunity to introduce some tension. UNJUSTIFIED TENSION, but tension nonetheless.

the wardens had a lot of content, which both surprised and delighted me thoroughly. i'll never speak a word against them of course, and i did love how it showed that the wardens were here to do a job, and not play nice about it. the first warden was, in my humble opinion, one of the best characters in the entire game. annoying, gruff, called my rook warden basically the equivalent of a stupid rhino in a china shop not knowing what's best for the wardens/their oaths and impulsive in a way detrimental to everyone in his surroundings. literally one of my favorite lines happens when he and rook are beefing in the middle of the cobbled swan:

like. that was so satisfying.

the fact that the first warden isn't a villain, he's actually a fantastic grey warden. he'd sacrifice himself to kill an archdemon, and in fact "steals the glory" for himself. like was he an asshole during that exchange? yes, but it's undeniable that he was going to his death voluntarily and with a grim fervor. that's peak grey warden. nobody can say he'd ever shirk his duty. his character flaw was that he's a terrible leader, has the military tactics of a damp slice of toast, and generally doesn't inspire his subordinates to feel any sort of true loyalty to him. see here where my rook aggressively relieves him of duty and after a tense exchange where it seems like combat is about to start, evka saves the day by taking charge. and she does take charge pretty quick. nobody seems to really oppose the real quick promotion.

and then it's back to business as usual. archdemon trapping, anyone?

which was a problem i had with other factions in the game, namely the antivan crows. like yes, not every group is a monolith sharing the same ideals/morals/etc. but having played dragon age origins close to two decades prior where a massive point of contention was between zevran and the crows and the trauma that came from his upbringing as a crow... to then get thrown into treviso to see that the house we're dealing with is a bunch of leathery robin hoods was an unexpected turn. like. guys? weren't they villains? why are we all relatively good people (barring illario) here??? if anything, i thought that there'd be more politicking and backstabbing (literally and figuratively) but everything here seems kinda...... harmonious in comparison to whatever the fuck house arainai was doing. i might have missed a codex entry (i didn't read them all) explaining why the tonal shift happened, like maybe someone somewhere wrote about how house arainai imploded post-fifth blight when a crow went, well, rogue, and exposed the crows for the literal torture they put CHILDREN through, but nothing. like the game straight up lets an NPC whose name escapes me form a new house composed OF children at the end. like. what........ this isn't neverland, why are we forming the lost boys with knives here. hello??

on the other hand, i feel like the wardens had more options to expand on the fact that uh. yeah. grey wardens don't come from great backgrounds. like when you could conscript the mayor of d'meta's crossing much to everyone's displeasure, or the first warden actively being an obstacle to real progress (but not a villain! just extremely blind to the real dangers!), etc. etc. still not great in terms of "we employ literal murderers and criminals of every kind so we can toss them in the direction of darkspawn as a literal meat shield for thedas" but at least it's something.

but i digress. back to the point:

felt like the amount of dialogue options i had where i could bring up my warden expertise not only outstripped the mage/elf tags, but was so prevalent that sometimes it felt like the game was specifically catered to me being a grey warden. this is obviously just because i haven't played enough of the other origins to really feel out how much content they have in comparison, and it's partially just because of how obviously biased i am towards them as a group, but the FLAVOR of being a grey warden was present wherever i went. we'll see how well this opinion holds up after i finish my other two playthroughs.

THE COMBAT:

genuinely the best combat in the series. the fact that you can dodge-roll and more importantly PARRY in this game is an unexpected boon that i can't praise bioware enough for. the abilities themselves are smooth, the detonations provide a nice chunk of damage AND crowd control where you can just unload, and the damage types/weaknesses being a genuinely relevant part of the game to the point where if you have a lightning abilities/weapons equipped and you're facing down a hoard of antaam, you're going to have an extremely bad time*.

* on higher difficulties. i've heard on lower ones that it doesn't matter and you can just brute force your way through the game

i will say the "quick recovery" doesn't feel quick at all, even if i'm hitting the button for it frame-perfect, i can still get knocked down as the animation for quick recovery is going off, which was annoying. would've liked the i-frames to have saved me from getting turned into paste by the three ogres punching me down at the same time but alas.

also, they tend to target you even if you have a warrior (davrin/taash) on the team. unless you're actively casting taunt, they will run past your party members to hammer down on you. which was. annoying.

STILL I LOVED THE COMBAT, i went spellblade as a mage and my build was absolutely disgusting at the end. with a combination of fully stacked out duration+strike abilities, arcane bomb stacking abilities/weapons, and not even glancing at the other two trees for the majority of the game, i felt like i was a rogue that could conveniently cast chain lightning. it was crazy fun.

but also a steep learning curve. mythal took me 17 entire real life minutes to beat. LMAO.

i love that you don't need to restart the game if you want to play a different subclass, you can just refund your skill points and explore the game to your heart's content that way. not that i did, i picked one tree and stuck to it the entire game come hell or high water (or a lightning resistant high dragon 10 levels above me) and i had a blast with it.

THE STORY (THE EVANURIS, ROOK, & VARRIC):

hooooo boy. okay. this is going to be about the MAIN STORY ONLY, companion and region specific stuff will be in its own section later.

the writing for the main story was actually pretty enjoyable the further along in the game i got. every single main story mission was an incredibly cinematic experience; my favorite being the siege at weisshaupt mission—but only because it's kind of hard to quantify the endgame section as a 'mission' when it felt like an entire act on its own.

the amount of personality rook has was a breath of fresh air, and the voice acting for male british rook (alex jordan, who also coincidentally voices my favorite character in wuthering waves: jiyan♥) was SOOOO good. every line delivered felt like it matched the scene's energy/the personality i picked, so the flow of dialogue felt natural enough to be part of a tv show or movie.

although i do wish there was more option to be a little bit more of a bitch. a little rat bastard. not evil because i don't think dragon age would ever let you be evil in the way owlcat games lets you turn into a literal swarm of bugs consuming all (including companions) in its path, i thought there'd be a chance to be like. well. a little mean to people. i can be rude, but not mean. if that makes sense.

i do feel that rook was done a disservice by not having a hawke-like session 0 where we can see, precisely, why they're already so attached to varric and scout harding, but maybe that was left on the cutting room floor. i'm not a fan of tell don't show, so the game telling me "hey remember when you and varric did this thing that we're not going to actually show you" was pretty annoying. i wasn't expecting a dragon age origins-type prologue segment where i move through the world as a warden pre-veilguard, but i do wish we had like. a short cutscene flashback sequence or something to really immerse myself into the character. like let me put my shoes on before i start running the race!

still though rook felt really present in the story. like they slotted really nicely and smoothly into the leadership position which. i mean yeah who else, right? even though they did have plot armor in the sense that i didn't really understand (in-universe) why ghilan'nain and elgar'nan didn't just squish my rook into a pulp and scrape the dagger off the smear he became every time they came face to face... i suppose we wouldn't have a game, otherwise lolol

moving swiftly on, the boss fights felt appropriately built up to, and never did i feel like i was woefully unprepared for the task set up before me (although i must admit i was slightly taken aback by the three-headed hydra at weisshaupt. delightfully so, but it did stunlock me for a few seconds sjkhfj)

from the prologue -> endgame, i suspected something was off about varric once i realized "hey, how come nobody's talking to him anymore?" while the answer of "varric is actually a manifestation in rook's mind caused by solas trying to mold him into someone who could replace solas in the fade prison he crafted" was admittedly beyond the scope of what i came up with:

1. everyone in this game is a monumental asshole (funny, but disappointing narratively)

or

2. he died but bc he died next to the fade magic + we live in the fade now he's just a ghost only rook can see?? (true, but to the left)

i didn't really consider solas had a hand in it which is funny as hell considering. well. blood magic was mentioned at the very start of the game by solas himself

the reveal was very satisfying, and on my current playthroughs it's very entertaining to see everyone (especially solas, but my companions too) very carefully skirt the subject of varric's death by speaking about it in terms oblique enough that everyone in the know understands it as 'varric is fucking dead' vs. rook's manipulated memories understands it as 'varric is laid up in the infirmary'

the evanuris were very well designed, ghilan'nain being a creepy flesh centipede woman with tentacles and blight covering her head to toe was genuinely one of the most refreshing villain designs i've ever seen. elgar'nan was comparatively boring, but considering his whole deal is to be the elven god of tyranny having him just be a conventionally attractive man was a statement in and of itself.

their boss fights were standard, elgar'nan's being the easier of the two specifically because i wasn't trying to haul my ass through waves of darkspawn, but even ghilan'nain's wasn't that hard either considering all i really needed to to was burst some blight growths and could fully ignore the darkspawn if i wanted to. i had more trouble fighting the demon of desperation in minrathous than i did the story boss fights, but that was a trend for most games i feel. the side objectives containing the optional, harder fights and the mandatory quests softening the blow from the main story bosses so the player can get through them at a steady pace.

i do feel like the majority of the story was well written, but suffered greatly from pacing issues brought about by the format of the game itself. while there was a steady pressure brought about by the urgency needed to stop them from crafting the red lyrium dagger, the fact that i could just wander about the world picking up and completing side quests at my leisure before tackling the broader problem at hand did have me slightly confused about how long the game's time frame really was. i think it takes place over the course of a few months, or maybe a year total? if it was mentioned, it went straight over my head.

though i suppose that's a problem most RPGs have—the risk of allowing the player to have agency in picking what to do next means that. well sometimes they can spend hours trying to pick up every collectible while minrathous burns in the background.

though i did wish there was more dalish presence in a game focusing around the elven gods. like i know the veil jumpers are in the game as a faction but. they don't really feel dalish. they just feel like a bunch of archeologists who happen to be elves. a bit of a disappointment, there. also, they were constantly imperiled by something which really put a damper on the "we are also a competent group of people" vibe that i got from pretty much everyone else. the dalish aesthetic was just that, aesthetic. the veil jumpers being posted up in arlathan forest just seemed like they were there due to their occupation and not their heritage. bellara goes into it a little bit through her quest line, but i don't know. there wasn't that sense of unity and closed ranks the way it felt in da:o and da2. the less we speak of the dalish in da:i the better.

as for solas himself, i'm positive that the way you speak to him reflects his demeanor to you over the course of the game (i picked every aggressive/stoic option i possibly could, and the results i got were extremely entertaining; i have so many recorded videos of rook and solas duking it out but due to size constraints i haven't uploaded them anywhere ajkjdj) but at one point they went from "actively antagonistic" to "actively antagonistic but with begrudging respect"... on the side of solas. my rook was extremely honest about hating him every step of the way. extremely honest.

still, i loved how the game kept track of the progression of their relationship. the way every time a new talk with solas started i'd see a little "yeah last time you kept yelling at each other so we're keeping that energy" popup on the side of my screen. the way rook and solas could constantly. well i don't want to call it 'banter' because at every given point my rook would call him out on his bullshit and solas would strike back with a precise cut deep enough to bleed, watching them snipe at each other so aggressively vs. what i suspect is a much softer and more amicable conversation if you go the more diplomatic route was nice to see.

during endgame, since i completed every side objective (the solas's regrets chain of quests + the mythal encounter/fight) i had the option to:

deceive him by giving him a fake prop of his dagger

convince him to stop (unlockable by doing the aforementioned quest chain)

fuck it we ball; 1v1 me right now you bald bitch

obviously, i threw aside all other options and went for the 1v1. when i say i was HOWLING WITH LAUGHTER watching my rook go "I BEEN WAITING FOR THIS" and throw a haymaker to the face........... /wipes tear. it was beautiful. and then my rook STABBED HIM IN THE GUT, SEALING HIM INTO THE FADE FOREVER??? ten years i waited for this. ten YEARS. HALLELUJAH.

though it is very funny after all those years of seeing posts like "UMMM ACTUALLY THE VEIL SHOULD COME DOWN" and then the game is like "nah. that shit stayin up for a while" like kjHDJKLSHGFJK

anyways. i enjoyed stabbing him and watching him get yoinked into the fade. i'll do the merciful ending eventually but i had to do it to him at least once.👍

THE COMPANIONS:

though obviously i have a few characters who i enjoyed more than the others, i did like all of them!!

taash's questline was very good in terms of the cultural aspect (i can relate to feeling torn between two worlds) but the gender identity was somehow both heartwarming and. extremely awkward. it felt a little bit like watching an intro to gender studies 101 powerpoint presentation. like i suppose it was to explain the concept of being nonbinary to people who've never considered gender beyond what color cake to buy for a baby shower, but it did have me raising an eyebrow a few times. not in a bad way but in a very "this is obviously catered to people who don't know a thing about it, and i appreciate that bc it serves as a nice jumping off point for people to really get to know more, but it is a little clumsy in execution". i think my favorite scene for taash is when they're with neve in the dining room talking about how "nobody REALLY likes being a woman" and neve's just there like. oh. you sweet summer child. JKHDSKLAGHFGJ THAT WAS SO GOOD!! but i think the strongest part of their character arc was them trying to figure out who they are in relation to their cultural identity. especially the bit where they fought with their mom about it alllll the time. like where my second generation kids who don't really relate to their ethnic background at!!!!! RISE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!

the way i had to google if i was first or second gen. apparently it's "first to be natively born in a country = second gen" so i'm going with that

and the scene where they're screaming "TAMAAA" when shathann dies...... bro i teared up. i ain't ashamed about it. that was heartbreaking af.

still uh. it was kinda funny (read: eyebrow raising) that a character whose entire arc is coming to grips with multiculturalism and a break from the gender binary..... ends up being presented with a binary choice on whether or not to pursue their connections to their qunari heritage or their rivaini roots. like uh. guys. guys??? why do we have to pick??? aint the whole point of multiculturalism is that it's. uh. multicultural??? i suppose you could argue that it's the "oh you're just supporting taash into embracing a specific part of their culture, you're not really telling them to abandon the other!" but like. eh. EHHHHHHH. it didn't FEEL like that. esp. when it's presented as an either-or scenario.

THEIR PARTY BANTER WITH LUCANIS WAS THEEEE FUNNIEST SERIES OF LINES. i love those two together omg. and taash + scout harding!!! wagh!!!!

EDIT: i was gonna add a section abt the lords of fortune for taash's segment but forgot. which is very on brand bc they were forgettable at best and invisible at worst throughout the entire game. i don't want to say that they were irrelevant but like. uh. yeah. 💀💀

neve. neve neve neve. has hands down the absolute worst voice acting in the entire game. like i'm sorry to say that every single line was monotonous and genuinely lacking in any real connection to the words being said. i have to wonder if the voice actor for neve isn't used to working in a booth and more on camera, because truly with every line she spoke i became more and more disinterested with the conversation. the concept of a mage detective in the depths of minrathous rooting out corruption sounds so compelling, and it was, but unfortunately any deeper connection i could've forged with neve was hamstrung by the fact that i was bored to tears by the voice acting. even the conflict generated between my rook and neve due to him picking treviso (an obvious choice for a warden. they were going to blight the waterways) fell flat. because the lines were delivered flat. disappointing, considering how interesting the content of the game she features in is. like the sequence where i'm running through run-down ruins with NPCs tethered by their own blood jetting out of their bodies as they function as living speakerphones for a blood mage hell bent on revitalizing minrathous in her own twisted way. that's sick as hell. it WAS sick as hell. i loved every second of that. i just didn't love neve's voice acting. a shame, bc i was really excited about her pre-release. :(

scout harding's questline confused me not because of the content, but because it felt like this should've been a separate game entirely?? like why are we discussing the tranquilized titans and their horrific half-dead, half-dreaming state solely through the lens of a companion quest? why aren't we visiting orzammar or kal-sharok for more than 2 minutes and talking about the fact that the lyrium they've been mining for centuries is the blood of their ancestors?? like it's mentioned once or twice, but only during side-quests. like the solas's regrets quest chain or scout harding's companion quests. like isn't this a huge deal? why are we slotting this into a game about the elven gods?? the reveal that the evanuris essentially genocided the titans in order to craft their own bodies is a tale of horrific violence and violation and we........ just kinda. don't talk about it? after scout harding's quest is over? and the fugliest armor set known to man is unlocked? (toes. why does her armor have TOES.)

i did appreciate the fact that the game let us tell her that her anger was justified bc like. ngl if i learned all that and then the only option presented to me was to forgive the fuckers that did it i think i'd go crazy.

aside from that weirdness, scout harding is bestie. i love her. sorry that i KILLED HER OFF THOUGH!!! WHAT!!! okay unironically though i love that. i love that you can PERMANENTLY kill someone off. it adds depth. it adds STAKES. i wish more people would've died at the end. like bellara just being. fine? after being trapped in blight for who knows how long was baffling as hell. like she's not FINE but she's not dead. crazy stuff. how does being a warden sound bellara. u got a swift career change ahead of u. my rook's a warden tho he'll put in a good word for u dw

SPEAKING OF BELLARA. her questline was sad as hell but also like. how many times am i going to deal with cyrian bro like why couldn't we just knock his ass out. i know for the plot he has to keep going back to his evil masked ghost overlord anaris but like. eh.

his death scene was very sad though. bellara :((

CYRIAN UNMASKED LOWKEY....... KINDA FINE THO..... 👀

same as scout harding's i wish bellara's whole thing had more to do with the dalish. NOT THAT IT WASN'T I MEAN IT WAS ALL ABOUT BEING DALISH but it was more veil jumper than anything. man the veil jumpers were disappointing. just a faction built to fumble at any given chance. the only competent person is bellara and she's on the squad........... whole faction just fell apart without her 💀💀

bellara is my cutie pie bestie babygirl though <33 im so excited to romance her WAUGHHH even if i hate her hairstyle like girl what the hell is that on the back of your head!!!! they had to nerf her otherwise she'd be the Perfect Companion 😔💞

emmrich was sooo sweet. literally just an amiable old man on a journey to help his friends and students and his BONE SON!!!! SKELETON CHILD....... manfred my love......... unfortunately i did honor manfred's noble sacrifice and help emmrich into becoming a lich but like. that shit. feels like it should've been saved for post-game, somehow?? like in the veilguard equivalent of a trespasser or whatever. like what do you mean we just have an immortal lich companion just chillin. just vibin outta the necropolis. is that allowed?? are there other liches outside the necropolis???

???

the drip is immaculate though ngl. he easily clears everyone else's veilguard outfits <-she has only seen half of them due to only having the one finished playthrough

i didn't really use him much outside of his companion quests + fighting undead, so i don't know much about him with regards to party banter. sorry emmrich ;-;

davrin was. oh my goodness. have you ever seen a man so beautiful. the soulful brown eyes. the jawline strong enough to cut diamond. the EXPOSED CHEST. GOOD HEAVENS..... /SWOONS

literally the dreamiest dragon age companion ever like im sorry he clears literally everyone else ever made. and i say that even with zevran existing in the universe. (if silver fox zevran had at any point showed up in this game this opinion would swiftly change.)

i didn't romance him and i regret it bc i feel like there would've been something to the whole brothers in arms -> you and i are the only two people on this team who perfectly understand each other; you and i are dead men walking but we go to our blighted graves with grim smiles and clear eyes; should the calling come for one of us, it will end up claiming two, etc etc—unfortunately you recruit lucanis first and i didn't pivot 🫡

THE ONLY COMPLAINT I HAVE FOR DAVRIN: his entire arc focuses around assan. not JUST assan, like assan is the conduit through which davrin works through a lot of stuff, but it feels like. well i don't think there was a single scene where assan wasn't there. which makes sense because GRIFFONS. MY GOD. THEY'RE BACK. but also. i feel like if davrin had some space from assan in like a single mission/quest/etc. it would've been good. absence making the heart grow fonder and all. like i'd kill and die for assan but like 60% of the way through davrin's arc i was lowkey getting tired of it all being about our favorite bird son.

lucanis.... lucanis lucanis lucanis. he's the one my rook romanced and uh....... i'm gonna be honest. i wasn't really feeling like i was in a romance at all until the very end of the game. there's a line where lucanis was like "that's what i love about you" or whatever and i was like. huh? what? when was this established? i don't think we ever had a conversation or an event that would lead to this conclusion??? did i skip it? did i forget??? taps game is this thing on???

like i'm not saying the romance was BAD. (aside from some questionable animation choices. like why was lucanis standing so close to my rook like BACK UPPPPPP 😭😭)

all of the romance scenes were sweet and enjoyable and full of typical Bioware Cringe Romance Lines™ (affectionate) (honorary) but it did feel a little like. 80% of the game we had tepid to mildly reciprocal reactions to any of rook's flirtatious dialogue choices, and then when i got the choice to lock in the romance for lucanis it's like. OKAY HIT THE GAS, BUDDY! IT'S TIME TO FLOOR IT. 0->100 in an instant. i love a slowburn, but this was less of a slowburn and more me silently watching a mile long fuse burn up for like 60 hours until it thunderously explodes all at once.

unrelated but why does rook not have a bed in his room. why is it just a couch. they were suckin' n' fuckin' on an ancient elven la-z-boy in the fade. amazing stuff.

ASIDE FROM THE WEIRD PACING ISSUES I EXPERIENCED (hopefully it wasn't universal) THE ROMANCE WAS SWEET. 10/10 WOULD RECOMMEND

as for his personal character arc. why the hell did lucanis become first talon??? like speaking as someone who found out post-game that he straight up SAYS in his tevinter nights short story that he doesn't want to be first talon. at no point in the game did i think "yeah this guy is fit for and desires a position of authority" like um. viago is right there. i could see the argument if treviso was blighted (don't know if teia and viago survive that; i saved treviso in my playthrough) but like. VIAGO (AND TEIA!) ARE RIGHT THERE BRO...............

him not killing illario is whatever i can understand not wanting to have the blood of family on your hands. it's the becoming first talon that's crazy. although i suppose the whole filial duty to caterina angle........ but since when was the antivan crow org following the right of primogeniture??? WHATEVERRR

also. antivan crows?? are not a moral organization??? what happened between da:o --> veilguard. why are they all robin hoods. weren't they child slavers who mercilessly tortured them into becoming assassins. there's an argument for "oh that was just house arainai" but i was expecting more morally gray/amoral assassins for hire and less "TREVISO WILL BE FREE. DOWN WITH TYRANNY" like huh???? are we red jennies all of a sudden. are we shadow dragons. whats goin on here.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

wow that's a lot. girl has a phd in yaponomics fr. at the end of the day, veilguard is a good game. i mean, i'm playing again it right now on nightmare mode this time. (CALIVAN'S FIGHT.......... WHAT THE FUCK................ i didn't die to his little minions OR to his pride demon summon i kept dying to his fuckass sextuple cast magic missiles that get spammed constantly like BRO CAN YOU RELAX. CHILL BRO CHIIIIIILLLLLLLLLL IT'S NOT THAT SERIOUS!!!!!!!)

i think this game could easily make space for a few more DLC, something like trespasser or mass effect's citadel DLC. hopefully they do because the epilogue slides were PITIFUL. PALTRY. and dare i say? PATHETIC. the romance slide for lucanis and rook being a single line of dialogue that they split between them. i was gobsmacked.

dragon age i say this because i love you and i have loved you for so long and will love you forever: BRING BACK WORLDSTATES. PLEASE. I DON'T NEED A MASSIVE CALLBACK. I DON'T NEED CUTSCENES. I WOULD BE CONTENT WITH THROWAWAY DIALOGUE. WITH A CODEX ENTRY. A LETTER SENT IN-GAME. PLEASE. BRING BACK WORLDSTATES AUGHHHH

although i don't think it'll matter bc if i'm reading those hints right we're going across the sea in the next game to deal with the uh. what was it called? something storm?? that the qunari were running from or whatever???? so i dont think anything we did here in thedas matters. it'll be like me:a except. you know. dragon age.

WAIT. PAUSE. THIS GAME HAS A SECRET ENDING??? <-SHE JUST GOOGLED "DRAGON AGE STORM"

FOR FUCK'S SAKE. WELL THAT'S ON THE TO-DO LIST NEXT THEN.

anyways i love this game. 8/10 would get my ass beat by the demon of desperation and its 5 billion summoned minions again 👍

[galadrieljones]

Gala! I need to hear all your thoughts about seeing Solas again!! (When and if you’re willing to share ofc) ☺️

Omg. Honestly, I don't know. It's been so long, and in so many ways, I've moved on completely, but also, like, no. I will never move on lol. It seems I will probably need to go back and replay DA:I this summer, which is perfect, because I'm just about done with Death Stranding, and this will be a great way to pass the time between now and the Fall (at which point Daryl Dixon season 2 also starts so idk how I shall survive the inundation with characters I love--I will just have to find some sort of balance LOL). I really do need to brush up on the lore and try to even remember what was happening, and also get back into Sene's POV, because I do believe the Inquisitor is going to make an appearance in this story, and I am very excited for that but also very anxious. I do actually trust Patrick Weekes to give closure to the DAI fans and Solavellan shippers, particularly knowing how hard he worked to give us that notorious "COLE GREATLY APPROVES" moment in Trespasser 😭 Tbh though, I'm just not sure entirely what that will look like. I'm nervous!

I will say that I am really very happy to see how Solas is portrayed in this scene with Varric. He's actually nowhere near as cold as he seems at the end of Trespasser. He seems much more reluctant than he did back then, like he legitimately doesn't believe there's a better way. He doesn't seem evil or beyond repair. I wonder if that's because he's spent so many years alone, plotting, and it has actually served to soften him. In those first two years, after Corypheus, it's clear he was able to scrub his experience with the Inquisition from his heart, but most likely what he's learned is that it was merely a cosmetic fix. The connections he made back then are still with him, and seeing Varric again bubbled them up to the surface, even if only briefly.

I won't lie when I say that I actually really did not like the reveal trailer at ALL, which came out a couple days ago. It gave me like, Fortnite vibes and I was really concerned, because I've been out of the loop and not paying attention to the development of the game at all. Like this came completely out of left field for me, and then the name change...yikes. BUT the gameplay trailer fixed all of that. The game looks dark, gritty, and EXTREMELY fun. I love that they will start us out with Varric and Harding. I love them both so much, like old friends I haven't seen in such a long time. It filled me with warmth when Varric tried to reason with Solas, because that is EXACTLY what Varric would do, and even just hearing his voice, and Harding's voice, and of course Solas's voice, it made me tear up. I cannot wait. I am SO excited!!!!!!!!

I'm also really excited to reconnect with some of our old crew on here. I know lots of us are still around to various degrees even as we've all dispersed to different fandoms and real life circumstances for years. But Solavellan was my first real ship and Dragon Age was my first true fandom, and in my heart, we and our Lavellans will always be the GOAT. 💫

HOW are you feeling about all of this @bearlytolerant??????

[idolbound]

I know I joke about the lyrium addiction a little but in all seriousness, the Chantry truly leashes those who take up the Templar oath, knowing that it has addictive properties, and the longer they use it, the harder it is to come off it and survive. Not only is the Chantry the most powerful acting religious institution in Thedas, but it has a strong military arm, full of many who are religious zealots, serving to control (and in some cases, eliminate) mages. Some do enlist without necessarily having that as their intention, rather looking to protect people as opposed to kill them for existing (and, I will argue, that was Meredith's intention, given how she saw what happened with her untrained mage sister, and how many people, besides their family, died as a result -- her desire for power and control over the Gallows and mages in Kirkwall developed later, once she ascended the ranks and was able to make changes to the existing system).

In this way, Templars are at the mercy of the Chantry, which is, in turn, at mercy of the lyrium supply. Without adequate supply from the dwarves mining lyrium, the Templar Order faces destruction, and rather quickly. Every knight is an addict, only able to access their magic-suppressing powers because of their access to lyrium. While I do believe it would not be an instantaneous loss of power, given how much drugs do require a withdrawal period to be removed, it would gradually cripple the Order's ability to control and counteract the magic of mages directly.

And so, this supply is crucial, and without it, templars would fall (and we saw this, with the limited supplies during the Mage-Templar rebellion after the events of Kirkwall and into the timeline of the Inquisition, and how templars turned to red lyrium sources under Samson and Corypheus).

For Meredith, who never consumed red lyrium, but was nevertheless under its control (hearing its 'song'), Meredith was, by and large, addicted to power. Already a life-long (regular) lyrium addict and already paranoid because of her childhood trauma and resultant Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, she sought out anything that could give her an advantage over the perceived growing threat against the city of Kirkwall that she needed to stop; the idol made her paranoia worse, and in my opinion, made her experience auditory and visual hallucinations - she was never able to tear herself away from it, or understand that after 3 years of being in its presence, it was driving her mad.

While we do not know who exactly connected her to Bartrand Tethras, (and there are even more implications now, after the information we learned from the post-game slides in Veilguard) we do know that she spent a "great deal" of coin to pay for the idol, and then to have it fashioned into a great sword. She believed, in my view, that this would give her greater power and control over the situation. If regular lyrium could suppress magic (and do it powerfully so in the hands of experienced Templars like herself), then red lyrium could grant her powers above and beyond what she had (without knowing the deep secrets that the Idol itself held within it, or what the impact of the blight had on the lyrium itself).

Ultimately, the two-fold of addiction - to lyrium and to power - is responsible for Meredith's fall from grace. It is a never-ending desire to seek out fulfilment, paired with existing issues that have created the perfect storm; she slowly but surely unravels, but it is the Chantry explosion that acts as the catalyst to her insanity, taking the most extreme option available through invoking the Rite of Annulment in the name of justice for the people of Kirkwall (as justification), to then, in the end, seeing the Champion (regardless if they helped her and the templars, or if they sided with the mages) as the betrayer or the last person standing in her way of true ascension to controlling everything.

Addiction is at the heart of Meredith's tenure as Knight-Commander, and it is what brings her to her end.

[imdoingaokay]

R!Companions If The Inquisitor Dies

(A/N) I like angst. Sowwy.

I’m a Cullen girlie so I started thinking of what he would be like if his Inky died and… I made this.

Also, I want to say that, without The Inquisitor, I genuinely don’t think The Inquisition would last that long. And I don’t think it’s because The Inquisition would lack leadership or anything, I think it would lack the draw or the figurehead that would garner the support needed to maintain it. So it’s kind of implied that the Inquisition disbands. 

It is also implied that this all takes place a while after Corypheus is defeated… Except for Solas’ part (hehehehe)

TW: Death, descriptions of death, burning and burying (idk maybe you’re claustrophobic), and more sadness.

Major Spoilers

Sorry again, love you pookie bear

Blackwall/Thom Rainer: Blackwall watches The Inquisitor fall, he tried to shield them, but it all happened too fast, far too fast for him to realize what was happening. He’s rushing over to his friend as fast as possible as if that’ll prevent them from dying, but once he sees how limp The Inquisitor is, even he knows that his friend is dead.

His only comfort is that their death was quick and hopefully, painless. He’ll throw himself into the drink for a little while. Just for the period of time right before and after The Inquisitor’s funeral. Afterward, he stays with The Inquisition for some time. He does what he can, making the adjustment.

He leaves much later, whether to the custody of the Grey Wardens or himself, but he never forgets his friend, never forgets what they did for him.

Romanced, he’s rushing over to his lover, scooping them up in his arms while he pulls them away. He begs them to open their eyes and pleads with the Maker to not take them away… not yet. But when the battle is over, and the rest of the party sees Rainer and The Inquisitor, it’s obvious that their friend and his lover his gone.

He drinks for a bit longer than he would if he was just a friend, and is less able to help around Skyhold. With what little he is doing, he feels like a coward, but he simply can’t will himself to get up and help. 

Eventually, he’ll leave like he would before, but as he watches them burn or bury his lover’s body, he realizes that a part of him will be locked away in his lover. He’ll still be him, but he’ll be unable to show the same love and devotion to anyone else.

Cassandra: Cassandra is immediately slicing the bastard who killed her friend, and with a quick swipe of her blade, the offender is gone. She still turns to her friend and attempts to wake them, but after feeling for their pulse, even she realizes that her friend is dead. She solemnly waits for the rest of the group to gather around and help her transport her friend's body back to Skyhold, as is most likely the one sending the letter to Leliana of the Inquisitor’s death. Initially, she thinks of taking the role of Inquisitor, only to immediately reject the idea. However, she continues to work tirelessly to help the rest of The Inquisition deal with the death of their leader, but it’s hard. She also tries to help the lover of The Inquisitor, but even though she tries, she can’t seem to find the right words to comfort them. She’s struggling too, The Inquisitor was her friend as well.

Romanced, she’s immediately dragging her lover away, crying out for them, but even she has to accept that she has lost another lover.

She does everything she would if the pair wasn’t together, but she officially swears off love. No one else can measure up to Regalyan or her Inquisitor. And with her focus now on the Seekers and The Inquisition, Cassandra finds herself unable to focus on things like love.

Cole: He knows immediately that The Inquisitor is gone. It doesn’t help, of course. All he does is shout for his friend, but once the battle dies down, Cole watches the rest of the group gather around the motionless Inquisitor. Cole whispers that their friend is dead, which potentially leads to some angry words being thrown at him, depending on who is present.

He stays around Skyhold, mostly helping those who grieve The Inquisitor. He spends most of his time with The Inquisitor’s love interest if they had one. He finds his efforts fruitful, as some of those he attempts to help accept it far easier than some. But the ones that don’t accept his help, Cole knows they need it the most. So he sends others to help instead, people willing to talk to them, and comfort them. Part of him feels The Inquisitor’s spirit from far away, and he hopes they aren’t too upset with his antics.

He’s just trying to help, after all. Kind of like The Inquisitor.

Cullen Rutherford: He hears about it right after Leliana, a letter attached to a bird flies through the hole in his roof and down the ladder right to his desk. He absentmindedly opens the letter, where he reads frantic, scrawled words that culminate in some of the most dreadful words he’d ever read.

“The Inquisitor is dead.”

He rushes over to Leliana, who is already speaking to Josephine, and all three retreat to the War Room where they begin to discuss what the next steps are. Cullen does his best to put on a brave face, he does what he can to provide some sense of stability, but he’d be a liar if he wasn’t struggling himself. The Inquisitor seemed so… invincible, so strong, how were they able to survive so much and then just… die? It didn’t make any sense.

The most Cullen is able to do is send a prayer to Andraste, asking her to give The Inquisitor a safe journey to The Golden City, they deserved that much.

Eventually, Cullen will head home, to his siblings in South Reach, where they will accept him with open arms. Cullen continues to live on, spending time with his family, teaching his nephew chess, and sending letters to his friends in The Inquisition. He sets up a clinic for former templars and even gets a Mabari down the line.

But most importantly, he keeps on living.

Romanced, he was just thinking about them. He was sitting at his desk, musing over some paperwork while his mind drifted to a few days ago. He was laying in bed with his lover, while they clung to his chest, asking for reasons not to leave on this trip. He had laughed, petting their hair gently as he said “You have to go, my love.”

He watched them sigh and get up, their hand still lingering on his arm, “I love you” they had whispered. 

“I love you t-”

“Cullen.” He heard, Leliana standing in front of his desk. He smiled for a moment, about to greet her, but her furrowed eyebrows and deepened frown told her there was nothing to smile about. Her next words were careful and gentle, but still, they got their point across. “I’m afraid that The Inquisitor perished in the ensuing battle.” She said, watching Cullen’s face morph into something unexplainable. He furrowed his own brown and opened his mouth as if he was about to ask what kind of joke this was, but as he saw the painfully sympathetic look on Leliana’s face, he knew.

He moved so suddenly his chair fell backward, he could barely look at the desk where he and his lover had-

“We need to discuss… the next steps…” Cullen shook his head, his breathing becoming rapid, all he could hear was his own heartbeat, that and the singing of…

“Perhaps we should-” Leliana began, only to watch Cullen pass by her. But with every step he took, he felt his legs slowly become heavier and heavier until he all but collapsed on the bridge that connected the battlements to the rotunda. Leliana quickly followed after him, attempting to comfort him. His head hurts, and he can’t seem to stop hearing the agonizing sound of the lyrium, calling out to him.

Somehow he gets into his bed, unable to work for the rest of the day. When his lover’s body comes back from wherever they were sent, he’s in a bit of a better place. Maker, it crushes him if he sees that they were still holding onto his coin. He prays that they won’t go too far, that they’ll wait for him on the other side, and that somehow, they’ll be there when he dies. He begs them not to go too far, that he’ll be with them soon, that he loves them, and he’ll never forget them. 

It takes more time, but eventually, he finds himself back in South Reach, where he opens a clinic for templars and lives his life. But even then, he waits for the day when he dies, the day he can finally see his lover again.

Until then, he’ll keep living.

Dorian Pavus: Shoots the bastard as soon as he sees his friend fall. Dorian surrounds The Inquisitor with a shield and tries to feel for a pulse. But their body is still and limp, Dorian knows what has happened. 

He attends the funeral, out of respect, and out of a sense of loyalty. But he can’t bear to watch the body be buried or burned, Maker he can’t watch. He’ll leave, deciding to focus his energy on Tevinter rather than The Inquisition, which is something he planned, but he had wished he would have more time before he had to return. He misses his friend every day and hopes that whatever afterlife they’re in, if they are in one, hopefully, they’ll save him a seat and a glass of wine for when he eventually kicks the bucket.

Romanced, he cries out, rushing over to his lover. He’s in denial as he tries to heal his Amatus, begging them to open their eyes. He pleads with the Maker, begging them to take him instead. He gets angry right after, angrily shouting at them “Why didn’t you get away? Why didn’t you run to me?” He has to be pulled off, has to be taken away from his lover’s body, as he begins to sob into his lover’s armor. It’s painful to watch, but nothing more painful than what Dorian feels.

As his lover’s funeral draw near, he throws himself into wine. And intends to drink himself to death, but then he gets sent a letter from another Magister, Maevaris.

He tells himself that he’ll keep living, at least, for The Inquisitor’s sake. But he’ll never love again, because he’s too busy, and because no other man will ever be the same as his Inquisitor.

Iron Bull: He shouts for his friend immediately, destroying the poor sod who killed The Inquisitor before they can desecrate the body further. Bull has seen many, many dead bodies, but he never imagined one day seeing The Inquisitor. Of course, he’s imagined the necessary steps of subduing The Inquisitor if they ever tried to betray him out of nowhere, but he would never imagine them like this.

He attends the funeral of The Inquisitor and tries to figure out what the next step is for him, for The Chargers. 

He’ll leave eventually, as his place was by The Inquisitor, but with them gone, there’s no need for him or his crew. He goes out drinking with The Chargers before they leave Skyhold, and he invites the rest of the inner circle, encouraging them to tell stories of The Inquisitor’s antics. It turns into a more pleasant night than anyone expected. When he leaves, he hopes that he left the rest of his friends with more positive memories than sad ones.

Romanced, all he can get out is a weak “kadan?”

He doesn’t cry, not yet, not here. He waits until he’s back in Skyhold, where he sits in the tavern, unable to stop thinking about the way his lover fell, the way their hair looked, their mouth, their eyes… Maker, their eyes. All of a sudden, he feels a hand on his shoulder and looks up, seeing Krem. It’s a simple “You okay, boss?” But that’s all it takes for Bull to let lose a torrent of tears. He clings so tightly to the dragon tooth necklace his lover gave him that he thinks he might break it. Krem and the rest of The Chargers comfort their leader the best they can, but everyone realizes that there isn’t much that can be done, as the love Bull held for his Inquisitor was far deeper than he ever described up until that moment. But The Chargers will be there for him. It’s Krem that makes the comment that The Inquisitor isn’t really gone, as the dragon tooth still is with Bull, 

“Which means something, doesn’t it Boss?”

Bull can’t help but agree, Krem’s right. The Inquisitor hasn’t left him, and he hasn’t left them either. Even when he leaves Skyhold with the rest of The Chargers, he hasn’t left them. They’re always together.

Josephine Montilyet: Josephine has the heavy task of informing the general public and the nobles of the Inquisitor’s death. Her friend’s death hurt, but she was relieved that her amount of work seemed to distract her from the heavy amount of pain she felt. She’ll leave eventually, but not without saying goodbye to her friend during their funeral. She ends up back in Antiva, working to see that her family’s business is upheld, especially after all the work her friend had put into helping her restore her family’s fortune. Platonically, she takes The Inquisitor’s death the best out of everyone but it also helps that she wasn’t present for her friend's death in the first place.

Romanced, she was not expecting it. She was minding her own business, scribbling down a letter for some high-ranking noble in Ferelden. Then all of a sudden, Leliana walks in, solemn and quiet. Leliana allows Josephine to send her a letter before Leliana asks Josephine to take a walk with her. After all, Leliana thinks her friend deserves some privacy before she hears the news. So Leliana ushers an oblivious Josephine into the War Room, where Cullen was already waiting.

Everyone could hear Josephine’s anguished cries from any corner of Skyhold. Josephine clings to Leliana, unable to support her weight as her mind tries to picture her lover in various different positions. Her mind immediately goes to what she will say to the nobility, to the chantry, but Leliana hushes her diplomat, claiming that she’ll take care of it. Josephine doesn’t want her to, but she can’t seem to get out any words in between her sobs.

She moves back to Antiva fairly soon, once all is taken care of. She begins to focus more so on her family and their trading business, potentially using this as an excuse to avoid any marriage proposals given by other nobles.

Leliana: Aside from those in the direct party, Leliana is the first to find out. She’s the one to tell Josephine, Cullen, and the many soldiers and spies under her. She prefers to be the person who tells The Inquisitor’s lover if they don’t already know, and she watches them crumble or slowly slink away, unable to truly cope with the news.

She spends time praying, asking why The Maker would take someone like The Inquisitor away when the world still needed them. 

If Hardened, she realizes she will get no answer, and furiously draws away from The Maker, deciding to spend less time praying and more time doing, as The Maker has yet to hear her pleas so far. 

Softened, she’s more kind to herself, she believes that The Maker must’ve taken The Inquisitor back because it was just their time, that it had to be, some good reason… that’s why Leliana has lost someone yet again… That has to be it.

Sera: Watching Inky crumple has her tearing her attention away from whatever they’re fighting. She calls out for help, and attempts to wake her friend, but to no avail. As the battle dies down, she watches as the rest of her friends gather around her. Sera’s confused, after all, The Inquisitor isn’t supposed to die. Not yet. They’ve survived so much! Haven, nobles, that dragon… how… how do they just… die?

She cries at camp, after hiding from everyone else. She feels ashamed of her tears, it takes the sight of someone like Blackwall or Varric to cry for her to feel less bad about her tears. And even then, she still hides them away.

She doesn’t stay in Skyhold for long, unable to attend her friend’s funeral. She believes it’s stupid to hold a funeral for someone when there’s work to be done, so she leaves. She gets back to work as a Red Jenny and never looks back.

Romanced, she cries out. She shakes them, kisses their face, anything to get them to wake. For one moment, she wishes she had magic to heal the wounds her lover had. It’ll take at least two people to drag her away from her Inky, and even then, she’s kicking and screaming. She’s reminded of her dreams where she watches her lover die, she’s reminded of her Inky kissing her cheek and saying in such a stupid voice “I’m not going anywhere”

That stupid liar! That stupid, perfect liar! Why would they lie to her? Why would they say they would never leave when there they were, gone?

She stays for the funeral before leaving, she thinks her lover deserves that much. But even then, she���s only there to say goodbye, which she doesn’t even say. It’s more of a “see you soon” if anything. She carries the memory of her lover with her, which is good enough for her.

Solas: Solas watches his friend stumble, Corypheus was recently killed, the orb destroyed, and his friend… who weakly falls to the ground. He’s torn between leaving and staying. On one hand, if he leaves, he’ll avoid the tormented look of agony The Inquisitor’s friends and lovers will hold. But they might also think that he was the one who killed them. But Solas can’t bring himself to leave, so he goes to his friend’s side. They’re gone by the time he catches them, and Solas quietly wishes that The Inquisitor didn’t have to die. He watches his friend’s inner circle climb the stairs and listens to the heartbreak that follows. While his friend’s body is carried away, Solas slips away and disappears, in hopes nobody will care or notice he’s gone. He continues his quest to tear down the veil, and with seemingly nobody to stop him, he seems to be well on his way.

Romanced, he rushes immediately to his lover’s side, but the moment he reaches them, his Inquisitor is gone. It isn’t relieving, watching his ex-lover die, the one person he expected to keep him tethered to the idea that this world may still deserve a chance. He leaves once the body is carried away, and continues his journey, but he is so much sadder. Because, at least if his vhenan was still alive, he could see them in his dreams. Now, all that he sees is their body, as if the spirits of the fade are taunting him with his failures. He hopes, in a way, that he’ll come across his lover’s spirit somewhere, so he can apologize, so can confess everything. But with the vastness of the fade, with the low probability of it all, Solas comes to the conclusion that perhaps he doesn’t deserve such closure, he just wished he could give that to his vhenan instead.

Varric Tethras: He doesn’t realize they're dead at first, focusing more on the hordes of enemies he’s dealing with. He shouts out that The Inquisitor is down, but that’s about it. Eventually, when the last of their enemies are taken down, Varric gets a chance to realize what the fuss is all about. When he hears the suffering cries of friends or potentially a lover, Varric realizes what happened. He hangs his head and lets out a quiet “shit” before turning away, unable to look. 

He sticks around Skyhold, helping the Inquisition the best he can before he sees he’s overstayed his welcome, which is when he returns to Kirkwall. Every once in a while, he gets reminded of The Inquisitor’s death, and how… maybe if he had noticed faster, they would still be around.

Romanced, he notices much faster. Previously, he had made a joke that he was actually unable to take his eyes off of his lover, so watching them crumple in the middle of the battle really caught his attention. After a few bolts from Bianca, he rushes over to attempt to revive his lover. Once it registers that his invincible Inquisitor is dead, he’s struck with a terrible feeling of helplessness. He holds them tightly and gives a quick prayer to Andraste or the Creators, someone who could potentially save them. But as his friends gather around him, even Varric has to come to grips with reality.

He’s more introspective in the coming days, staying close to his lover’s body as if he’s waiting for them to spring up and claim some elaborate prank. But as their body burns or is covered by layers of dirt, he accepts that it’s over.

He’ll never really get over the person that helped him move on from Bianca, the person that made him feel like he was the best version of himself. And he’s okay with that. So he just does what’s needed. As with the friendship route, he’ll stick around for a little while, and then return to Kirkwall. But every day that passes, until death finally takes him, he’ll wish for the comfort of his lover, his Inquisitor, once more.

Vivienne: She watches The Inquisitor fall, and quickly rushes over to them. A ward here, a healing spell there, she attempts to revive her colleague, but when she checks for a pulse and feels nothing, she sees that her efforts were for nothing. 

Vivienne is a great help to Skyhold and whoever The Inquisitor’s lover is, even Sera finds Vivienne around to kindly help her through her grief. Vivienne also helps The Inquisition during its more vulnerable stage of healing after The Inquisitor’s death. Once she believed her work was done, she’d eventually return to the fancy courts of Orlais, but not without being prepared to defend the late Inquisitor if anyone dare disgrace their name.

[daitranscripts]

Skyhold Conversation: Here Lies the Abyss

Warden Loghain

Skyhold Masterpost Related Quest: Here Lies the Abyss

The PC can speak to Loghain up on the battlements.

Speaking to Loghain before the Western Approach: Loghain: If we wish to stop my fellow Wardens, we should get to their ritual tower in the Western Approach.

Speaking to Loghain after the Western Approach: Loghain: Did Hawke tell you? We tracked Erimond to Adamant Fortress. Idiots. So devoted to their own cause they abandoned all common sense.

—

Loghain: Yes?

1 - Dialogue options:

Investigate (after Western Approach): How did this happen? [2]

Investigate: How did you join the Wardens? [3]

Investigate (after Western Approach): Tell me about Clarel. [4]

Investigate: What do the Wardens know? [5]

Investigate (Hero of Ferelden survived): What of the Hero of Ferelden? [6]

General: Goodbye. [7]

2 - Investigate: How did this happen? PC: How could the Wardens do this? What did the Warden-Commander tell them? Loghain: Clarel said we were making the hard decisions necessary to fight future blights. Wardens do what is necessary to stop the darkspawn. We’re the only ones who truly can. It’s a burden few can imagine. Although, with that mark on your hand, perhaps you can. [back to 1]

3 - Investigate: How did you join the Wardens? PC: I heard something of what happened in Ferelden. How is it you weren’t executed? Loghain: When your mistakes are public, everyone feels they have the right to a personal apology. In the final hours of the Blight, the Wardens were shorthanded. They needed every soldier they could get. The rest of my life will be my penance.

Dialogue options:

Special: Why are the Wardens after you? [8]

[Back to 1]

8 - Special: Why are the Wardens after you? PC: How did you end up an enemy of the Wardens again? Loghain: When the Calling began, I searched as much as anyone for an answer. I protested the rituals, but faced little resistance until I began to investigate the death of Corypheus. The Warden mages branded me a traitor and attacked. When I defended myself, Clarel ordered my death. [Back to 1]

4 - Investigate: Tell me about Clarel. PC: I’d like to know more about Warden-Commander Clarel. Loghain: I have served under her since coming to Orlais. She seemed fair before, dedicated. Perhaps that was the problem. I, more than anyone, know the cost of too much dedication

Dialogue options:

Special: Is Corypheus controlling her? [9]

[Back to 1]

9 - Special: Is Corypheus controlling her? PC: Do you think Clarel is acting of her own volition? Loghain: The Calling does not control minds, and I doubt Clarel could fall to Corypheus without others noticing. Whatever mistakes she makes, she makes of her own accord. Hopefully we will learn more in the Western Approach. [back to 1]

5 - Investigate: What do the Wardens know? PC: Corypheus was imprisoned by the Wardens, right? So they must know who or what he is. Loghain: Secrets are a habit with the Wardens. One that’s cost many lives. Some knowledge is too dangerous to share. I knew little of Corypheus, and that was more than most. No one thought that knowledge could be vital. [back to 1]

6 - Investigate: What of the Hero of Ferelden? PC: You said that Clarel was Warden-Commander. I thought that the Hero of Ferelden led the Wardens. Loghain: There is more than one Warden-Commander. Each oversees a region, most often a single nation.

Loghain (HoF rules with Alistair): The [person] you speak of was Warden-Commander of Ferelden, as well as queen consort to Alistair. Loghain (HoF rules with Anora): The [person] you speak of was Warden-Commander of Ferelden, as well as prince consort to Anora. Loghain (HoF does not rule Ferelden): The [person] you speak of was Warden-Commander of Ferelden.

Loghain: [They] disappeared some time ago. It is possible [they] joined the rest of the Wardens, although I cannot say for certain. [back to 1]

7 - General: Goodbye. PC: I’ll talk to you later. Loghain: Of course.

[fanfoolishness]

With what happens with Varric… I’m almost wondering if it’s not kinder if Min Hawke has already died. 😢

She had such a hard life, I’m not sure I want to put her through losing Varric after only admitting her feelings to him in Inquisition. I’ve never written it out, but they get married shortly after Corypheus falls; Varric becomes Viscount and I’d hoped she’d have a quieter life after all her losses, as well as getting trapped in the Fade and then rescued by Varric. Being in the Fade caused her to develop magic she didn’t have before, as well as leaving Varric with a faint ability to dream (in my storylines). Perhaps that exposure to the raw Fade for weeks before her rescue left her more insubstantial, less able to withstand illness or age.

Maybe if she died 1-2 years before DATV, it would explain why Varric was so passionate about putting something right — without the fear of leaving Hawke behind if he got killed. Perhaps if she knew she was fading, she might have even given him the push to face up to the guilt they both still felt about Anders, as well as Varric’s guilt for giving Bianca the thaig all those years ago, and to *do* something about it. That might also explain why Varric was so eager to take Rook under his wing and support them — seeing the shadow of a young Hawke before the world got too badly to her.

It would also fit with him telling Rook he’d had a good run; he had already gotten to love and be loved by Hawke, and they had had years together. Not as many as he’d wanted, but more than he deserved. But with Hawke gone, and Rook taking up the mantle, Varric knew that he could rest.

I don’t know. I just feel like for once, Min deserves to not be the one to grieve. 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[a-shakespearean-in-paris]

“Rook ascends because of competency, not because of a magical macguffin”

So this was a quote from the new game informer article about DAV, and honestly…that’s what I loved about the Inquisitor.

The inquisitor is the inquisitor because of sheer dumb luck. The character you select just happens to be the one that overhears Corypheus during the ritual. It truly could have been anyone who grabbed the orb—you just selected the person that happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Because of their resilience however, partly because of more sheer dumb luck (falling through a tunnel during the avalanche after corypheus’s assault) they are made inquisitor. It was an interesting curbing of expectations of the chosen one narrative that we don’t typically see.

I’m glad the Rook has a different background than the inquisitor, but I don’t agree with the simplification of the inquisitor’s role. It’s one instance of pretty clever and meta writing in my opinion.

[brocflowers]

I must confess, I still believe.

“Do you believe I’m the Herald?” Slowly, carefully, Varric lays down his quill.

[AO3]

Tags: Inquisitor!Anders AU. Varric POV. Vanders. Religious themes. UST. Men exhibiting various behaviors.

Title from Baby One More Time by famed 20th century poet Britney Spears.

Word count: 3267

-

“Good, you’re awake.”

Varric looks up from the paper as Anders approaches, stops directly in front of him, just the low table between them. His hair is loose, clean but clearly slept in. It falls in his face, pools a little at his shoulders, casts funny shadows against his features even as it catches the red-orange of the firelight at the same time.

His eyes are bright. Not quite wild, but getting there. It’s nostalgic in a way that Varric really does not like. Keeps him bound up and tight, waiting for danger, for bad news.

“Something I can do for you, Inquisitor?”

Anders opens his mouth, closes it again. Varric thinks that it throws him off sometimes, being addressed by the title. It's part of the reason he keeps using it.

“What are you writing?”

“It’s-”

“Do you believe I’m the Herald?”

Slowly, carefully, Varric lays down his quill.

“I might’ve heard something about that.”

“That’s not-” he sounds frustrated, then seems to swallow it, “I’m not asking what other people are saying, Varric, I’m asking you. Do you believe I’m Andraste’s Herald?”

Varric can’t begin to explain how little he wants to answer that question.

“Anders-”

“Don’t dodge the question, just answer.”

“You’re really putting me on the spot here. I mean, it’s kind of an awkward question to just-”

“Varric.”

He should just lie. He lies all the time. It’s easy for him, like writing, like breathing. There’s no benefit, that he can see, to telling the truth here.

He wonders why he isn’t lying, even as the words are coming out of his mouth, he wonders what in the world is compelling him to be honest.

“Yes?”

Anders blinks slowly, as if he can’t believe what Varric’s saying either.

“Ah, maybe. Probably.” He sighs, shifts in his seat. He feels terribly… watched. As there are a lot more eyes on him than there really are. Why isn’t he lying? “I mean, shit. Either you’re the Herald or you have impossibly bad luck.”

Anders gives a short, skeptical, humorless laugh.

“What? Think about it. After everything that happened in Kirkwall, everything that happened before Kirkwall, you end up at the Conclave, you survive the Breach, an Archdemon, Corypheus, for a second time, you’ve got that fucking thing in your ha-”

“So that’s your argument? I must be Her Herald, because it’s not reasonable for me to be this unlucky otherwise?”

“Yeah, yeah I guess that’s what I’m saying.”

His expression is unreadable, the lighting makes his eyes seem unusually dark, and it makes Varric want to squirm. Crawl out of his skin. Run a mile. Something.

After a moment, Anders pulls a nearby chair closer, then falls into it heavily. He sits loosely, leaning back with his hands joined behind his head, knees open. He doesn’t say anything, but looks at the tabletop between them, thinking. 

It’s like Varric isn’t even there.

He picks his quill back up, but he doesn’t do anything with it. Just watches Anders watch the table. It reminds him of the old days, the two of them across the table from each other, not talking, deep in separate thoughts. 

Except the Hanged Man was always loud, even upstairs you could always hear people, always feel them nearby. Took a lot of the pressure off of one-on-one conversations and non-conversations alike. The great main hall of Skyhold, in comparison, is dead quiet, empty except for the two of them and the wooden scaffolding, and thousands of pounds of rock. Stone hewn straight from the mountain it sits on

Varric swallows. The stuff that Skyhold is built of is old. Really, really old. He pretends he doesn’t notice, can’t feel it, but he does. It's like a humming, almost, but silent. A noise that isn't a noise. It makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up, fills him up with restless energy and makes him want to pace, to press his hands against the stone walls or- or, to lick them or something. Fuck if he knows. It’s weird for his stone sense to bug him like this. Practically unheard of. Other dwarves got the itch, the feelings you just can’t shake, the Call of the Stone, but not Varric. He figured that, because he grew up on the surface, because he wasn’t religious in the dwarven sense, he never would. And now he doesn’t know what to do with it, how to cope, how to make it stop.

Anders’ shirt hangs loose in the front, open enough that Varric can see the scar low down on his ribcage. The length and width of a broadsword blade, it parts him down the middle, carves his body into a symmetrical right and left half. Varric’s seen the matching exit wound on his back. It’s higher up, closer to his shoulders. Evidence of the blade’s angle, that the blow started low and was then thrust upwards into him, scrambling his organs, barely missing his spine.

It always makes Varric feel a little sick, if he thinks about it too long, and he tries not to, tries to keep his eyes up but they keep getting drawn back down to that thick, faded line of scar tissue. It’s not something you’re supposed to survive, being cut open like that, split nearly in half. Anders shouldn’t have made it long enough to tell him about it, shouldn’t have lived long enough even to see the wound close, let alone heal and scar.

Anders has a lot of stories like that. Things he shouldn’t have survived. Sure deaths that could be prevented only by a miracle. But he did survive them, every single one, and here he is, alive and warm and breathing, eyes bright as he watches the fire, hair disheveled and falling in his face. Varric wants that to mean nothing, wants all of it to just be a- a funny series of coincidences. But deep down, he just can’t convince himself of it. 

Anders drops his hands into his lap, turns his head from the fire to Varric. He looks tired.

“I didn’t let you finish,” he says, softly, “what are you writing?”

“I’m not, it’s paperwork.”

“Yours or the Inquisition’s?”

“Mine. Ruffles is doing all that other stuff.”

Anders hums, leans foreward to put his elbows on the table, chin resting on one hand.

“Right,” he says, then sighs, “I suppose I should’ve known that.”

“Big organizations have learning curves, especially if you’ve never actually been part of one. You’ll get there.”

“It does change everything, doesn’t it?”

“What does?”

“Me being- everything that happened before, who I was, what I did in Kirkwall, it means something different now. If I’m the Herald, that changes everything.”

“I mean, not everything.”

“A lot, though.”

“It does change a lot.”

Anders heaves a big sigh, runs both hands through his hair, pushing it out of his face, holding it there behind his head.

“You want a tie?”

“I’m fine,” he says, dropping his hands and letting his hair fall loose against the back of his neck, his shoulders. It’s longer than it was in Kirkwall, Varric wonders if that was intentional or just something that just happened, because he forgot to keep up with it, “now what?”

“For you?”

“Yeah. What do I do now?”

It seems like a genuine question. Like if Varric told him what to do, right now, Anders would actually do it.

Varric throws his hands up, lets them fall heavily back into his lap.

“Fuck if I know. Anders, I don’t even know what I’m doing still here.” Deep breath. “I never, I mean I never officially joined the Inquisition. I don’t know how to do this… disciplehood thing. I’m a businessman, I’ve never really followed a chosen one before.”

He meant it to be… comforting, almost. Camraderie-building. You and me, Anders, we’re in the same boat. Out of our element, figuring it out as we go. But Anders just stares at him for a moment, expression blank, eyes slightly wide, as if Varric had just reached out and smacked him.

“Disciplehood,” he says, as if he’s choking on it, “Maker, Varric.”

“What?”

“Is anyone- no one else is calling it that. Varric, I haven’t heard anyone else- are people saying that?”

“That they’re disciples?” 

Anders nods. 

“I mean, no.” Varric admits, “Not in those exact words, but that is what’s going on, isn’t it? I don’t think there’s any other word for that.”

And he knows a lot of words. And he’s tried on a lot of them, but none of them seem to really fit and that’s- that’s the one he keeps coming back to. Maybe Anders is right, maybe that’s not what it is for anyone else. But its starting to feel like it has to be that way for him. If he’s really going to do it, really going to join the Inquisition, really going to commit then, well…

And he is committed, now. The letter went out this morning, Mal should get it within the week. Should be back in Ferelden less than a week after that, assuming she is where he thinks she is. The fact that he even considered bringing her into this is a mark of, something. Something more than he's usually willing to give. The fact that he actually told her to come and that she will actually likely be here in two weeks' time is…

He hopes he’s doing the right thing. Fuck. He hopes that he’s not making a mistake with this one. That he isn’t in over his head. Because this isn’t something he can backtrack, something he can escape easily. Once you say that someone is divinely touched, the very first time you follow along with them on that basis, put the lives of people that trust you in their hands on that basis…there’s no taking that back.

“I wasn’t expecting this from you.” Anders says, quiet and serious, eyes on the table, “That’s why- I was just laying upstairs, I was trying to sleep and it just hit me all of a sudden. I believe it. I actually believe it. I mean I still don’t- I still don’t remember anything, but I believe that- that it’s possible. That that could really be what happened. That I’m- and that’s why I came here. I needed to be talked down or- or something. To be told I wasn’t that special,” he laughs a little, in a half-hysterical way that Varric wishes wasn’t so familiar, “and I figured… I figured that if anyone was going to do that it would be you. You were always good at talking me down, you- I thought I’d come here and ask you and you’d say “no, no. Really Anders, Andraste’s Herald? You? Be serious.””

He looks up.

“But you believe it. You think it too.”

It’s not a question. Varric’s mouth is dry when he swallows. He goes over a couple of responses in his head, dismisses most of them, settles on his fifth choice. It’s the most dismissive, it’s barely even a response at all, but it’s also the least… earnest, choice. The least incriminating.

“Was that voice supposed to be me?”

“It was.”

“Anders, that was terrible.”

Nothing for a second, a beat, then Anders’ face splits into a closed-mouth grin, like flesh parting under a blade, like something soft making room for something sharp.

“Sorry,” he says, sarcastic, almost fond, “It’s been a while, I’m out of practice.”

His eyes crease around the edges when he smiles. They always did that, but it’s more pronounced now that he’s older. The lines are deeper.

He wonders if it was like this with Andraste. If the people traveling and fighting with her ever looked over and thought- and had it hit them how human she was. How flesh and nature her body is. If they ever thought: here is fire in too small of a bottle. In his mind’s eye he imagines Ealisay or Brona, Maferath even, sitting by the savior’s side and looking over and thinking: this is a woman. I have known her for many years. Mortal years. I see the places on her face where she is aging, I remember when they were young.

Maybe it wasn’t as hard for them as it is for him. Because they doubted less or, because She had never done something so big it couldn’t be fully forgiven. Maybe the weight of history did not hang so heavy on them.

Then again, Maferath clearly had his opinions.

“You should go back to bed,” he says, in the same nudging, coaxing, quiet voice he used to use on him back in Kirkwall, when he would keep himself up late into the night or for days at a time. Head too full of the nightmares he never talked about, or else his whole body too full of light and sparks and frantic energy for him to rest, “it’s been a long couple of days.”

Anders makes an odd face. Varric supposes you could call it smiling.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Varric has always suspected that he’s maybe not quite as subtle as he thinks he is, but he hates being reminded of it nonetheless. He wonders if Anders ever resented it, his poking and prodding and mother-henning. The sideways manipulations. He never said anything, and Anders has historically been the sort to not keep quiet if he felt condescended to, but that's no guarantee of anything. There were other factors involved, things that would understandably affect what Anders would and would not say. Money, to pick one example. And-

Varric shakes his head. The only way to know would be to ask. And he doesn't intend on asking.

Anders sighs deeply, like he's about to stand, and Varric, assuming that's the end of it, reaches again for his quill. There's a relief, in knowing the conversation is over now. That it will just fade out of both their memories, at least in a functional sense, and they'll never speak of it again. Just like so many other late-night conversations that came before.

"I missed you."

The pointed tip of his quill punches straight through the cheap parchment, splitting the numbers beneath it.

"What?"

"I missed you," he says, and it's just as baffling to hear the second time.

Varric realizes that he was hoping that Anders would say something different, if Varric made him repeat himself. And the look on Anders' face suggests that he can tell.

 "I know how it sounds but, in a way, I'm glad that things worked out the way they did. The idea that we would never see each other again it… weighed on me."

“Weighed on you.”

“It made me sad.”

Varric doesn’t know what to say to that. He feels like he’s losing control of the situation, like he’s standing on uneven ground. What do you say to someone who you only half-believe to be a prophet? What do you say to someone who can’t be forgiven, when he says that he missed card nights in your room? What do you say to fire in too small of a bottle?

What does it say about Varric that he almost said it back?

It’s all just so absurd. He wishes that Anders had chosen to say nothing at all, and left him out of it. Kept it to himself. He wishes Anders hadn’t forced him to think.

“Maybe I’m pushing my luck here,” Anders says, “maybe this isn’t fair for me to ask but- I don’t need disciples, Varric.” 

(Don’t say it, Varric thinks, please don’t say it.) 

“But I could use a friend.”

Varric is losing control of the situation. He is in over his head. Maker-sent, god-touched, herald, that’s one thing. Friend is quite another.

And what does it say about him that he can half-believe both, but only the second one is hard to say? That only one of them makes him ashamed, makes him feel guilty? That he’s so much more disappointed in himself for one than the other? 

Anders’ hand rests on the table, palm-up, long fingers slightly curled in a way that’s almost inviting. He doubts that Anders had done it on purpose, but that doesn’t change the fact that his instinct is to reach across the table and grab it. Squeeze his fingers tight until it almost hurts them both and say of course, of course we’re friends. Blondie, when have we never not been friends?

Because that’s what he would’ve done in the old days. Because for reasons he doesn’t understand and doesn’t think he’d like about himself if he did, some part of him really wants to just forget. That it all happened, that it was real, that he’s angry for a reason. If he doesn’t remind himself not too, he forgets, his head slips back into the good years and stays there. If he doesn’t constantly remind himself, it all just slips away.

He stares at the open palm in front of him, the small pale scars and the calluses. It would be easier to forget. To stop fighting his instincts and let it happen. He resents Mal, for half a second. Resents that spending all these years with her has forced him to think about what is right, and not just what is easy. What he doesn’t have to repress or handwave to be able to live with.

The Inquisitor’s hand closes.

“Nevermind,” he says, “no hard feelings.”

He stands, looks almost embarrassed.

“Goodnight, Varric.”

“Goodnight.”

Anders leaves him, finally, and for some time after he’s out of sight Varric just stares vaguely in the direction he walked off in. He’d say he was thinking but the truth is, there’s not a single thought in his head. All empty, dark, ringing with the non-sound of ages-old mountain rock.

He tries to finish his paperwork and fails. He’s tired, and the words bleed together, the figures melt into meaningless piles of numbers. He forces himself to bed eventually, tosses and turns there for a while because, despite the ache in his eyes and the heaviness of his limbs, he just can’t get comfortable.

And then, right before finally drifting off, he has what he can only describe as an epiphany. A moment of wild clarity.

And because he’s a much more polite man than Anders is, he decides that it can wait until morning.

                                                     *

“I’m your friend, and I’m in this with you for as long as it takes to finish it. All in, one hundred percent,” he takes a deep breath, “and I don’t forgive you. And I never will.”

Anders sort of… relaxes. He honestly seems more relieved by the addendum than the original statement. 

Varric is never going to understand how his head works.

“That’s good to hear.”

For you maybe, he thinks, but he doesn’t say it.

Hawke’s coming, he thinks, but he doesn’t say that either.

He’ll tell Cassandra first. Get that out of the way and Maker knows she’ll tell Anders for him. Two nugs with one stone.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, Inquisitor, I have to go give the Seeker some bad news.”

Anders raises a wary eyebrow at him. He looks more put together now, a little tired, but very sheveled. Fully dressed, for one thing, hair pulled back and up, features catching the sunlight and casting a completely different set of shadows than they were by the fire.

Different and the same.

“Bad how?”

Varric grimaces.

“I mean she isn’t going to be very happy about it.”

[explodingchantry]

What pisses me off most about trespasser is that it's good. As a replay it's less exciting than when it first came out and the fandom was hit with those earth shattering discoveries - but the last stretch of the dlc still holds up. It's the only time I care about my inquisitor because not only are they actively dying but we feel it. This is adequately integrated within the gameplay with the anchor meltdown. By the last stretch, when you're chasing the qunaris through arlathan forest - you're basically a walking bomb. All those times the inquisitor stumbles and falls and yowls in pain, having to keep an eye on your anchor building so you can explode it at the right moment... It's exhilarating. It's genuinely engaging gameplay. Not only that, but at this heightened stress state, you actually get to express actual feelings as the inquisitor. Their anger and exhaustion feels so real. I love those dialogue choices. This on top of the political drama - it all feels like an overwhelming threat. It's brilliant.

I wish this was what we felt during the main game. I wish we felt that danger, threat, exhaustion, and desperation. But we don't. Because throughout inquisition we keep winning. We're never truly in danger, even when haven falls. Can you imagine if bioware had brought out such engaging gameplay for any of our altercations against corypheus? How much scarier he would have seen?

And of course the worst part is that it's a fucking dlc. Dao's ending stands on its own without awakening. Da2's ending stands on its own without any dlc because none of its dlcs are meant to happen after the ending of the game. But Dai is useless without its dlc, without trespasser. It's fucking embarrassing to have had to pay extra for not just an epilogue, but an ending. It pisses me off so fucking bad that it's so integral not just to dai but to everything that came after. Genuinely a joke that the only good piece of video game design and storytelling is in a dlc that should have been main game and that took a WHILE to even come out. Absolutely ridiculous.

[shivunin]

To Build an End

(Cullen/Emmaera Lavellan | 1,524 Words | No warnings)

It was finally over. 

When they left behind the ruins of the temple, they were not precisely where they’d been when they’d left the others behind. Varric had climbed from the dust and broken rock with her, both of them leaning unsteadily on each other until they could find Dorian and Cassandra. She ached to her bones, from the tips of her pointed ears to the blistered toes tucked into her boots. Her hair had come loose at a critical moment in that last push toward Corypheus, she’d lost a glove somewhere in the sky, and she had watched her friend vanish into the mountains. 

All was not well—all would not be well for quite some time. Regardless, it was over. 

“Send a raven,” she told Lace when they found her missing scouts at last, limping close enough that the croak of her voice could be heard. There was a half-collapsed wall to her left and she leaned hard enough against it that she worried she would send the second half of it toppling into the abyss. 

“Already sent, Inquisitor,” Lace said. She cleared her throat and saluted, her eyes shining with the last of the Rift’s magic. “He’s really dead, huh?” 

“Dead as I could make him,” Lavellan said. She thought of Hawke, of her assurances that Corypheus had been killed before. 

Would they see their enemy again? Would he find some other doorway, some other crack to slip through into their world? She could not know. She did not know what happened to a body when it was scattered through reality and unreality at once. Perhaps she had merely fragmented him into several wholes and he would return to them as a legion of Coryphei. Perhaps he was simply and entirely dead. 

Lavellan didn’t know that, either. She knew only that she wanted badly to be held, to be clean, and to sleep, not necessarily in that order. 

But first: the mountain.

“Is everyone well enough to ride?” she called, her voice cracking in the middle of “enough.” 

Cassandra, who had carried the unconscious witch from the ruins, made a displeased sound somewhere behind them. 

“Except for Morrigan,” Emmaera amended, and squeezed her eyes shut when another pang gripped her leg. She would drink a potion in the saddle and that would fix it enough, but—they could not wait. Their people needed to see them well, and soon. She did not want another search party scouring the mountains for her body. The memory of the snow, of the cold after Haven’s fall echoed in her thoughts now. 

No. No, they needed to go now. 

“I suppose we’ll make it if we’re in some sort of hurry,” Dorian puffed, pressing both palms to his knees. “I suppose I rather agree that I wouldn’t prefer to hang around here at this particular moment.”

“Good,” Lavellan said, tucking her errant hair back behind her ear. She thought of the path up the mountain, of the ones waiting for her there. 

She thought of Cullen, who would surely be beside himself while they waited. When she came to him, his hair would gleam gold in the torchlight and he would smile at her and—and she needed to see him now. 

“Quickly then,” she went on, whistling for her hart. “Up the mountain to Skyhold—to home.”

|

It was finally over. 

Over a year of pain and devastation, personal losses and private triumphs, and it was over at last. Corypheus was dead. The Breach—Cullen had checked it so many times he’d lost count—was gone, too. The rest would be a logistical nightmare; they might have united disparate groups for the sake of this battle, but the unrest that had been seeded in these past months would not be quelled when the sky was sealed shut again. There were still rifts out there, still people who needed the Inquisition’s help, but—

It was done. 

Even now, as the crowd of the Inquisition’s allies and soldiers waited with eyes on the gate, there was an air of celebration below. Someone had rolled a barrel of mead into the courtyard from the Herald’s Rest and tapped it. Mugs had passed from hand to hand, but the advisors had all abstained out of duty and decorum. Cullen thought Josephine might have benefited from a stiff drink; it was surely not visible from below, but she’d worried her quill to bits with nervous fingers. He could relate. It all felt too easy to be safe. They had thought themselves victorious before, hadn’t they? Haven yet lay half-buried under snow for his follies. 

If he had a choice, he would be pacing the gates below and waiting for her—for their return. Leliana’s messengers had been clear: the ruins had fallen, but the Inquisitor had climbed safely from the wreckage. She lived, she walked under her own power, and now he had only to wait. 

Cullen knew patience very well; he had learned it at the end of a blade and without countless repetitions. If necessary, he could call upon a dozen verses of the Chant to still his itchy fingers, his anxious feet. Maker willing, he would not need them. Maker willing, she would climb the hill and step through the gate any moment now. Any moment—

“Peace, Commander,” Leliana murmured. Cullen, who’d been tapping the hilt of his sword with increasing vigor, stilled his fingers. 

“She is near,” Leliana went on. She looked so impassive, only the faintest hint of a smile tucked into the corner of her mouth. “Only a few moments more.” 

“Truly?”Josephine asked, scribbling furiously. “Maker have mercy; I do not know if the catering will be ready. And the decor—”

“It will be fine, Josie,” Leliana murmured, stepping closer to her friend and resting a hand on the ambassador’s shoulder. “You’ll see.” 

“Are you certain that—” Cullen began in an undertone, but Leliana was already shaking her head. 

“Have you come to doubt me after so long, Commander?” she said, but she was still smiling. That was a good sign. He knew better than to anger their spymaster. 

Cullen gestured sharply, shaking his head. 

“Of course not! I only—”

The sound of horns cut off the end of the sentence, which was fortunate. Leliana knew precisely what he and Lavellan were to each other, but they had not acknowledged it publicly yet. It was a sign, perhaps, of how unsteady he felt that he hadn’t even considered less telling words. I only wish to see her again, to hold her safe—a sentiment that he felt keenly, but need not explain to Leliana. Neither Leliana nor anyone else here needed to hear such things. The only one who really needed to know was—

The Inquisitor strode into the courtyard below and their people erupted into cheers. Her armor was badly singed, but the burns showed worst in her hair. Her neat braids were gone. Instead, her hair fell in thick waves to her waist on the left. On the right, where her armor was most badly singed, it ended abruptly just above her elbow. Soot smudged her face and her gait was uneven. Her friends followed in her wake, each acknowledging the crowd in their way, but he did not look at them. His attention was entirely for her, assessing what little he could see from atop the stairs. 

It was useless. Cullen was too far to discern much more. He had to hold still instead, had to present the correct face for their people, but—was she hurt? Was she hiding some injury beneath the burn marks and the armor? What had killing Corypheus cost her beyond what he could see? Cullen knew all too well the cost of a fight, the toll it took on one’s mind. It was not something he wished her to understand as he did. 

This war had already cost her so much; what more had she lost this evening? 

When she rounded the stairs at last, Emmaera’s eyes found him first. Cullen needed little more assurance than that: she met his eyes, green to gold, and smiled. 

Well. Well, then. 

Cullen held his composure long enough to bow for her as the other advisors did, but then he had little choice but to let go. What did it matter if everyone here knew that he loved her? What did it matter if they saw how she opened her arms to him, how she tucked her face into his neck, how he returned the gesture without question or hesitation? 

“I am well,” she told him, half-laughing. The crowd roared even louder beneath them, but he could hear her clearly nevertheless. “All is well, Cullen. Creators, but I am glad to see you.”

“And I you,” he told her, careful not to hold too tightly even though he was loath to let go. When he’d embraced her, he’d tucked his nose just beneath her ear. Hidden under the smell of metal and blood and char, he caught the faintest hint of the oil she used in her hair. 

Lavender—sweet lavender and his love, safe and returned to him despite all the odds. 

And—it was finally, finally over.

[dragonagekeeper]

Blackwall / Companion Polls / Dragon Age Inquisition Polls

See quest and choice descriptions from Dragon Age Wiki/Keep below

Revelations is a companion quest for Blackwall in Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Blackwall has left the Inquisition. It appears to have something to do with the impending execution of a man called Mornay, one of the soldiers responsible for the Callier massacre.

Travel to Val Royeaux next. The execution is taking place on the west side of the Summer Bazaar. Just as Mornay is about to be hanged, Blackwall interrupts the execution, and informs the crowd that he was responsible for the murdering of Callier family. His real name is in fact Thom Rainier, a former captain in Celene I's army and Mornay's former commanding officer.

After this the Inquisitor can access the Val Royeaux Prison in order to speak to Rainier and learn more details of his past.

They have a chance to question Rainier. He reveals his true past as a captain in the Orlesian army, his part in the massacre of the Calliers, the circumstances of the real Blackwall's death and his assumption of his identity. When he learned that Mornay had been captured, Rainier couldn't let him take the fall for his crime.

Didn't go after Blackwall

The Inquisitor did not investigate Blackwall's disappearance.

Trespasser Epilogue:

If the Inquisitor never discovered Rainier's deception, he will not be present at the Winter Palace. Instead, a letter reveals that Rainier left the Inquisition six months after Corypheus' defeat and turned himself in for his crimes. His current whereabouts are unknown.

2. Blackwall remained imprisoned

The Inquisitor elected to leave Blackwall behind bars after discovering his deception.

3. Blackwall left prison as Rainier

Blackwall was released from prison, and his true identity was revealed.

Blackwall is pardoned and now openly lives as Thom Rainier, pledging his future to the Inquisition.

Trespasser Epilogue:

Rainier spent his time tracking surviving members of his old company so he could apologize to them and help them rebuild their lives if he could. After the events of the Exalted Council, Rainier traveled across Thedas to give hope to the condemned and the forgotten. In the deepest pits and prisons in Thedas, he found the good in people. By showing faith in those who had none, Rainier lifted them up and made them better than they were.

4. Blackwall left prison as Grey Warden

Blackwall was released from prison, but sentenced to undergo a proper Grey Warden Joining after completing his work with the Inquisition.

Blackwall will be judged by the Grey Wardens after Corypheus is defeated.

Trespasser Epilogue:

Rainier eventually survived his Joining and went on to become a Grey Warden stationed in the Vimmark Mountains. He reports to Warden Stoudenmire who is conducting an ongoing investigation of the Vimmark Prison. He is expected to return to the Wardens after the events of the Exalted Council. After the events of the Exalted Council, Rainier goes to Weisshaupt fortress to pledge himself to the Grey Wardens for good. In the years that followed, he was seen faithfully carrying out the duty of the Wardens and helping others along the way.

5. Blackwall left prison as false Grey Warden

Blackwall was released from prison, and the Inquisition covered up his deception.

Blackwall will impersonate a Grey Warden in the service of the Inquisition.

Trespasser Epilogue:

He will remain serving the Inquisition and pretend that he is a Grey Warden. He will be at the Winter Palace but a letter would reveal that the Grey Wardens at Weisshaupt have realized this deception and are requesting him to be released to the Grey Wardens. Later dialogue at the Winter Palace reveals that Blackwall has undertaken his Joining however his name remains 'Blackwall' instead of 'Thom Rainier'.