#ya put the beckett in the bioware and mix it all up

[badass-at-fandoming]

Since Matt Mercer and Erika Ishii's are performing in Dragon Age: the Veilguard, I thought I'd share my little daydream about Beckett-in-Dragon-Age AU.

Like, I could just moosh Vampire: the Masquerade - Dark Ages and Dragon Age lore together, or handwave a portal connecting World of Darkness and Thedas, but what if Beckett was homegrown in Orlais?

Beckett is a tower mage in Orlais when the Third Blight hits. Like other mages, he's brought out out to defend his country, and eventually he's captured by darkspawn.

The darkspawn bring him underground, and the Archdemon Toth deems him too valuable to eat. Instead, he's watched over until he transmogrified into a ghoul and kept around to provide magical healing to his "brethren."

Because he wasn't forced above ground again, he survives Toth's demise and is cut loose. Traumatized by his experience and hanging on to his shreds of humanity, he wanders the Deep Roads.

With the "song of the Old Gods" on low volume, the darkspawn are more chill, and Beckett can actually talk with Emissaries. He starts to see the darkspawn as a race under mind control and begins studying the effects and properties of the taint. Also collecting random McGuffins and cool artifacts from dwarven thaigs

Inevitable, as if called there, Beckett finds the resting place of the Architect, tries to wake him, and succeeds when he dribbles blood in the Architect's mouth. Beckett catches him up on hundreds of years of history. The gentle waking connects to why the Architect has no memories of his mortal life and is able to resist the Call of the Old Gods.

Together the two nerds scholars study the darkspawn as a people with unique physiology and culture. When they can, they try to free/let escape ghouls and captives to prevent the creation of new Broodmothers.

Beckett consents to becoming a darkspawn proper, and, under the Architect's eye, he becomes an Alpha Emmissary. Who is very beautiful by darkspawn standards.

Beckett's transformation backfires because it degrades his personality and intelligence. The events of The Calling happen and are still a clusterfuck, even though their goal was a more reasonable slow integration and in alliance with the Gray Wardens. They call off the experiment. Utha, like Beckett, becomes riddled with blood thirst.

With Utha on their team though, new possibilities appear. Her blood restores Beckett to himself. He and Utha start taking little trips to the surface, explore around, and report their findings to the Architect. Beckett learns new types of magic, including how to Shape-Change into a wolf. Utha mellows under the sun. They wear cool masks because I say so. Cue more Indiana Jones style nonsense adventures on the surface AND in the Deep Roads. They Cannot Be Contained. Beckett figures out that if he feeds off Utha's blood regularly, he looks and feels more human. The taint within functions like a Kindred's Beast, basically. See, I eventually made it vampires, y'all

Wanting to spread the love and stop the horrors, the trio hatch a plan to free the darkspawn from the Song of the Old Gods. By which I mean, what if every darkspawn is a vampire waiting to happen. There's lots of Ups and Downs. See Mother. Many darkspawn would prefer the erasure of the self and surrender that mind control gifts, rather than the reckoning of reality.

This plan is going so badly that the Architect wonders if liberating darkspawn one by one (and preventing Broodmothers) is truly viable. He convinces the other two to wake Urthemiel, who would be a massively powerful addition to their team. Beckett woke the Architect up all fine, so surely this will go well!

It doesn't. Fifth Blight time.

During the Blight, the trio hunker down and do their very best to ignore the giant fucking dragon. Beckett spends the time asking the Architect one million billion questions about dragons.

Which leads us to Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening DLC! Instead of the Withered, the Warden-Commander meets a more suave Beckett, who doesn't attack the Keep or bring an army lol. The first encounter goes softer and smoother. Beckett answers every question, but is smug and Orlesian about it. Truly, they really need this alliance with the Wardens to Work because otherwise the Mother is going to crush them to itty bitty bits.

A Bigger deal is made that the Architect, Utha, and Beckett triggered the Fifth Blight. Do these scholars deserve a second chance after such a massive mistake? Should they be left to their own devices, or should they be under close Warden watch, or should they be killed? Instead of dropping that tidbit about starting the Blight, the Mother drops that they've been killing Broodmothers (which she would view as bad, but the Wardens would view as good, I think).

If the Warden-Commander doesn't kill Beckett, Nathaniel Howe tells Hawke that good thing their expedition is going now, because otherwise that "smarmy old Emmissary" would have gotten the treasure first. Which in itself would be hilarious because Beckett would take one look at that Idol and think, "wow, that is CURSED" and cast fireball

Yeah, this is what happens when I read tie-in novels.