worlds-of-thedas

Latest Posts by worlds-of-thedas

three fools does not make a wise man i fear

they said it couldn't be done etc etc [x]

I’m replaying the Jaws of Hakkon dlc and it really has me mulling over the sheer loneliness of our Inquisitor’s situation.

The Hero of Ferelden gained their title and status after they had already bonded with their companions and stopped the blight. Hawke is known for their dysfunctional polycule/found family. Rook is in the same boat.

But the Inquisitor became a symbol before they even had a chance to really get to know anyone. Every other protagonist leads a group of companions, meanwhile the Inquisitor leads a political and military force. Sure, they still become close with some of their companions and advisors, but everyone constantly reminds them of their status as a holy symbol and how intimidating and unapproachable it makes them.

You can literally tell Varric, Mr. Friends-With-Everyone, “I don’t need a disciple, I need a friend” and he’ll reply “If you knew how intimidating you are, you wouldn’t make it sound so simple”. Imagine how isolating it must be to keep hearing that.

The world is in great peril, and you are the unlucky protagonist who must save it! Spin this wheel three times and get your Dragon Age party that you're stuck trying to save it with.

Feel free to reroll repeats. Most are companions, but there are also a few companion-adjacent possibilities. You can assume that you as the protagonist have a basic level of combat competency even if you don't in real life, so don't worry about yourself

Cultural Views and Interactions with Spirits Across Thedas

The cultures of Thedas have vastly different relationships with spirits, shaped by history, faith, and tradition. While some societies embrace spirits as allies, teachers, or even deities, others regard them with suspicion, fear, or outright hostility. These views often reflect each culture's relationship with magic, the Fade, and the Chantry's teachings.

Broadly speaking:

Northern Thedas tends to demonstrate more openness and integration with spirits.

Central Thedas is likely influenced by both Northern and Southern Thedas, resulting in an amalgamation of cultural beliefs.

Southern Thedas is heavily influenced by Chantry doctrine, enforces stricter separation and suspicion. 

The significant exceptions, such as the Avvar tribes and the Dalish elves, whose unique spiritual beliefs set them apart.

Then, we have the Circle of Magi.

Northern Thedas

Tevinter Imperium

Cultural View: In Tevinter, spirits are seen as tools, allies, and occasionally even advisors. Magic and spirits are deeply integrated into society, and the Chantry's warnings are largely...interpreted differently than southern Thedas in favor of practical application. Tevinter mages will often bind spirits and compel them into service.

Key Spirit Interaction Example: In DAI, Dorian speaks openly about spirits with respect, showcasing Tevinter's pragmatic—if morally gray—approach to spirit magic.

(source: Tevinter, Spirit)

Rivain

Cultural View: The Rivaini people, heavily influenced by their Seers, view spirits as part of the natural and spiritual order. Spirits are seen as protectors, teachers, and sacred presences.

Interactions:

- Seers: Rivaini hedge witches, known as Seers, communicate directly with spirits. Southern Thedas believes that Seers often allowing themselves to be possessed willingly for the benefit of their communities. However, in the codex entry ‘Riviani Seers and Spirits,’ Taash notes that the Seers aren't possessed at all. The Seers simply open themselves up and share their body. - Spirit Amulets: Seers craft "Amulets of the Unbound," magical talismans that protect spirits from blood magic and binding rituals. - Spiritual Integration: Spirits are welcomed into villages and trusted to guide important decisions or provide aid in crises.

Key Spirit Interaction Example:  During Taash's personal quest, a Rivaini Seer allows a spirit to speak through her rather than fully sharing her body. The spirit, having spent considerable time around the Ancient Qunari, respected the Qun's beliefs about possession but still wished to offer its assistance.

(source: Rivain, Spirit)

Antiva

Cultural View: The Fade Codex is theorizing that it appears that in Antiva, spirits are neither overtly worshipped nor deeply feared but are instead accepted as a natural part of the world. The Antivan people generally remain untroubled by the occasional presence of spirits.

While Chantry teachings are widely followed in Antiva, they seem less rigid compared to the stricter interpretations in the South—likely a result of Antiva's origins as a nation founded by pirates and mercenaries, who valued pragmatism and adaptability over dogma.

Key Spirit Interaction Example: The Treviso marketplace, there are spirit cats lounging around, which reflects Antiva's relaxed approach to spirits, to some degree.

(source: Antiva, Spirit)

Central Thedas

Nevarra 

Cultural View: Nevarrans have one of the most unique relationships with spirits in Thedas, deeply intertwined with their cultural views on death and the Fade. Spirits are seen as natural caretakers of the dead and necessary intermediaries between the mortal world and the afterlife.

The Mourn Watch (an elite group of Mortalitasi) avoids using the term "demon." Instead, they refer to what most of Thedas would call a "demon" as a "maligned spirit."

Interactions:

- Mortalitasi Mages: These spiritual leaders interact directly with spirits, often guiding them in rituals surrounding death and the Fade. - Guardians of Tombs: Spirits are sometimes bound to tombs or structures, protecting the dead and ensuring the Fade remains undisturbed. - Rituals of Passing: Spirits play an essential role in guiding souls to their rest.

Key Spirit Interaction Example: In DATV, we see a number of different interactions in the Grand Necropolis regarding spirit interactions. Such as benign spirits being placed in skeletons to help with the upkeep of the building, Curio and Keepsake helping with the return on Manfred, etc.

(source: Nevarra, Spirit)

Southern Thedas

Ferelden and Orlais

Cultural View: Both Ferelden and Orlais follow strict Chantry teachings, viewing spirits with fear and suspicion.

Interactions:

- Spirit interaction is largely confined to the Circle of Magi and heavily monitored by Templars. - Any uncontrolled interaction with spirits is viewed as dangerous, with possession considered an abomination.

Beyond the Chantry's Reach: The Avvar and Dalish Spirit Traditions

Avvar

Cultural View: The Avvar revere spirits as "gods," integrating them into their culture, mythology, and daily lives. Spirits are not merely distant entities but active participants in Avvar society, deeply interwoven with their survival, rituals, and spiritual guidance. Unlike the Chantry's fear of spirits, the Avvar see them as powerful allies deserving respect and proper rituals to maintain harmony.

Neither the Chantry nor its Templars are welcome in the Frostbacks, as Avvar rituals often involve spirits speaking through their casters—practices the Chantry would deem heretical. However, the Avvar are deeply aware of the dangers of spirit interactions and have developed rituals to safeguard against corruption and possession.

Interactions:

Augurs – Spiritual Leaders: 

The Augur, chosen from the hold’s mages, serves as a mediator between spirits and the hold, interpreting omens, guiding rituals, and advising the Thane. They appease spirit gods through ceremonies to protect the hold and drive away malevolent spirits. Augurs allow apprentices to host spirits temporarily, teaching mages patience and control over their magic. If an apprentice fails to release the spirit through ritual or risks corruption, they are quietly executed to prevent harm.

Spirit Bonds:

Spirits actively participate in Avvar life, guiding warriors, aiding mages, and protecting the hold from harm. These bonds are built on respect and reciprocity, with spirits offering blessings, wisdom, and strength in return for proper reverence.

Combat and Spirits:

During ritual combat, spirits are drawn to Avvar warriors, enhancing their reflexes, strength, or endurance. This bond resembles the connection seen in Spirit Warriors, with warriors embracing spirits as sacred allies in their battles.

Ritual Safeguards:

The Avvar use structured rituals to ensure spirits do not linger in mortal hosts or become corrupted. These traditions, developed long before the Circle of Magi, reflect a deep understanding of spirit behavior and the Fade.

Spiritual Duties:

Augurs also prepare the dead for the Lady of the Sky, interpret omens from nature, and preserve the old songs and lore of their people.

Key Spirit Interaction Example: In DAI, Avvar shamans openly invite spirits to aid their people, fostering deep trust and cooperation. Warriors receive spiritual blessings during combat, and mages learn magic through spirit guidance, reflecting the Avvar's balanced and structured approach to spirit interaction.

(Source: Avvar, Spirit)

Dalish Elves

Cultural View: The Dalish hold a deeply cautious view of spirits. While they do not inherently view demons as evil, they see all spirits as wild and dangerous, comparable to untamed animals.

Interactions:

- Dalish mages are expressly forbidden from using spirit magic, as spirits are considered unpredictable and inherently risky. - Felassan's Insight: The Dalish believe demons are not evil but are dangerous if treated carelessly. - Merrill's Perspective: In DA2 Merrill reveals that the Dalish believe "there's no such thing as a good spirit."

Key Spirit Interaction Example: Merrill's attempts to interact with spirits and her controversial use of blood magic highlight the tension between Dalish caution and the pursuit of knowledge.

(source: Dalish, Spirit)

The Circle of Magi: Doctrine, Control, and Spirit Interaction

Spirit Healers

Cultural View: Within the Circle of Magi, Spirit Healers represent a unique and often controversial branch of magical study. These mages form bonds with benevolent spirits—typically those embodying fortitude, compassion, hope, or faith—to channel restorative magic that far exceeds the capabilities of traditional healing spells.

While the Chantry acknowledges the value of Spirit Healers, particularly in times of war or crisis, the Templars remain deeply suspicious of their practices. Spirit Healers walk a precarious line in the eyes of the Circle, seen as both invaluable assets and potential risks, as their reliance on spirits is viewed as dangerously close to inviting possession.

Interactions with Spirits:

Benevolent Bonds: Spirit Healers summon and form connections with spirits of compassion, hope, or fortitude, persuading them to lend their power to heal wounds, restore vitality, and alleviate suffering.

Spirit as an Ally: The spirit does not typically cross the Veil fully but instead channels its power through the mage, acting as an ally rather than a master or servant.

Advanced Healing: While standard healing spells can mend physical injuries, Spirit Healers can cure grievous wounds, cleanse diseases, and even stabilize those on the brink of death with their spirit’s aid.

Role Within the Circle:

Desirable Yet Distrusted: Spirit Healers are highly valued for their unparalleled healing abilities, especially in times of war, plagues, or crises. However, their reliance on spirits causes them to be monitored closely by Templars for any signs of corruption or possession.

Rare Practice: Few mages pursue this path due to the intimate bond required with a spirit and the risks associated with such relationships.

Templar Suspicion: Templars remain wary, fearing that the line between collaboration and possession is dangerously thin for Spirit Healers

(source: Spirit)

Thread: Sylvia Feketekuty on the influences of Emmrich and the Mourn Watch

The rest of this post is under a cut due to length and possible spoilers.

Sylvia Feketekuty: "I think I've gotten to most people’s questions, and I promised I'd talk about influences on Emmrich and the Mourn Watch before wrapping this up. So here we go! It took me while to figure out Emmrich's character voice. I'm happy with where I landed, but he was a tough one. A few books helped me out. MR James' Collected Ghost Stories (1890-1930) My favourite ghost stories of all time. James excels at building dread, at writing people finding strange things in books, or around the corner, or in the old lane at night."

"He was also an antiquarian and a scholar at Cambridge. I wanted Emmrich and the Watchers to feel formal, but not like they were from another epoch. James’ language, polished by a rich academic career, was an excellent benchmark for 'older, but not ancient'. E.g.: if using contractions was appropriate for James' time, it was appropriate for Emmrich. It freed me up, mentally speaking, to deploy them whenever they improved cadence or flow. Thomas Ligotti's Songs of a Dead Dreamer Fellow Ligotti fans may already be thinking Emmrich doesn't really share the philosophy underpinning Ligotti's work, and they’re right. However!"

"Songs of a Dead Dreamer is filled with fantastical imagery that’s a bit lusher than that found in Ligotti's later works. It was really good at bringing to mind the kind of moody, expansive dreamscapes I think our necromancer mentally occupies. It’s from a different book (Noctuary), but Ligotti’s “The Spectral Estate” also merits a mention. If you plunked it down in front of Emmrich to read, he’d know exactly what it was on about. The Romantic poets (or any poetry on similar themes: overpowering swells of emotion, the grandeur and awe of nature, love and loss and grief.) Palgrave's Golden Treasury was usually in reach."

"If I was in a jam, or psyching myself up for a scene, sometimes I’d read a few poems to get into the proper head space. Or just for the pleasure of it. Poems are great! Please take a link to Shelley's "A Dream of the Unknown", one of my favourites. [link] I also read a few books by morticians and funerary directors. A friend lent me Smoke Gets in your Eyes and From Here to Eternity by Caitlin Doughty (probably the most famous mortician on the internet?) I also checked out Nine Years Under: Coming of Age in an Inner-city Funeral Home by Sheri Booker."

"These books were full of lessons about how people react to death, how different cultures treat it, how anger and grieving express differently but come from the same wellspring. Very humane looks at how we deal with loss and other people. Moving on to non-books: My First Cadaver, a podcast of stories from medical students and medical professionals."

"I listened to a few episodes My First Cadaver, and there were some incredible tales in there. Gross (I could never be a doctor) but incredible. And I was struck by was how much students working on donated cadavers got attached to them. I can’t remember if it was in MFC or not, but there was one story about a medical student introducing his date to the cadaver he was working on like she was a beloved aunt. It was very sweet! Peter Cushing in Horror of Dracula (1958) and The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) These films are filled with handsome costumes, ominous sets, and the oversized passions I associate with gothic melodrama. Cushing's perfect in them."

"His portrayals of Van Helsing and Baron Frankenstein are brisk, determined, obsessive, and brimming with energy; they’re scholars who are experts in their field, yet still men of action. They felt like natural touchstones for a professor suddenly called to grand adventure. I also ended up reading Cushing's memoirs. In a bit of strange synchronicity, there were similarities between his life and traits I'd already decided to give Emmrich. Cushing came from a working-class family, had an intense phobia (his was of the dark), was vegetarian, and so on. I'd had no idea."

"(Humans tend to pattern-match, but it was a little eerie.) A side note: I've seen people speculate Emmrich was based off of Vincent Price. There’s a bit of the good Mr. Price in there, but Cushing got to play more heroic roles than he did. He felt more right to me. A second side note: did you know Vincent Price was a gourmand who loved to entertain? He and his wife Mary put out a beautiful cooking book, A Treasury of Great Recipes, filled with warm and charming commentary. If you're interested in that kind thing, highly recommended!"

"One influence when I was pitching the Memorial Gardens to the rest of the team was Swan Point cemetery in Rhode Island. It's where Lovecraft was buried, and like many a Weird Tales nerd before me, I was curious and wanted to see it."

"I wasn't prepared for was how lush the plants and flowers were, and how beautifully landscaped everything there is. Swan Point is a historical burial place, and also a carefully tended garden and arboretum. It stunned me. I'd never been in a cemetery like it. Emmrich complains about Hezenkoss making him play complicated wargames when they were students, and that one in particular had three separate rulebooks."

"I've seen people guess whether I was referencing D&D or Warhammer 40K. D&D was formative, and I know a frankly embarrassing amount about WH40K at this point (No regrets. Necrons and Admech 4-ever.*) But the origin is even sillier. *Why yes, Mechanicus 2 IS my most anticipated upcoming game. I used to own the first edition of a board game called Mansions of Madness, and was supposed to learn the rules so I could lead my friends through it. But come the day, I’d procrastinated, and was running short on time."

"Fantasy Flight's previous game in the same vein was Arkham Horror, and AH is not a simple game. But I remember being hopeful, as I peeled the shrinkwrap off, that maybe MoM would be easier to learn than AH. Have streamlined rules, or fewer things to remember. Then the top popped off, and three separate rulebooks fell out and slithered to the floor. (The DAV game’s not meant to be MoM, but the absurdity of that moment stuck with me.) (It's not the game's fault, by any means, that I was unprepared, and the session went as well as it could have with me flipping through the books going "Okay wait...hold on...I think that was here...no, wait.") The Nevarran hazelnut torte recipe is actually a family recipe from my grandmother, on my father's side. I’m beyond delighted people have actually made it. (Our recipe uses metric measurements, but the DA style guide uses imperial, so I was worried about the conversion. Looks like it went okay.)"

"On my mother's side of the family: my grandmother cooked and cleaned for a living, and my grandfather was a butcher. He passed away before I was born, and my grandmother when I was very young. So I gave Emmrich’s parents those professions as a little nod to the grandmother I only knew very little, and the grandfather I never met at all. I would’ve liked time with them both. And to end on a lighter note, "Ever thought of becoming a hat person?" is an extremely oblique reference to a line spoken to one of gaming's greatest characters: Murray, the demon skull from Curse of Monkey Island. (Curse is the first Monkey Island game I ever played, and therefore my favourite.)"

"Small bonus: here’s the music I listened to most while working on Emmrich and the Watchers. Some of it probably only makes sense to me, some of it seems thematically obvious. (I don’t have Spotify so best I can do is an itunes screenshot.)"

"Not on the screenshot because I changed PCs halfway through, but I also listened to a lot of music from Cryo Chamber, a great dark ambient label. [link] And their sister label, Cryo Crypt, which does "Dark Fantasy Dungeon Synth." [link] And also Allicorn IS on the screenshot but I think I've listened to his stuff on every game I've worked on by now. [link]"

[thread source link]

---

Bonus: follow-up comments and exchanges -

User: "I KNEW the torte was somebody’s family recipe!!" // Sylvia: "My only regret is that the icing was originally a stove-boiled icing made with eggs and chocolate and butter emulsified together. I couldn't get it working, however, these past few years. I think we lost some crucial part of the steps when trying to write out a clean copy. So I went with ganache for the game, because I didn't want to print something that didn't work, and I've used ganache myself. It's good! But I'm going to try to replicate the original again one day." [source, two] // User: "I noticed that sometimes, ingredients doesn't react the way they used to and part of that is probably due to some "industrial" changes in the recipe for ingredients like chocolate or butter to cut the cost of making them, imho. It's sad because it means we lost a very specific way to do things..." // Sylvia: "Yeah, that was the first thing a friend who bakes a lot suggested. I wonder if I was a victim of "Buttergate" when Canadian cows were being fed so much palm oil butter was harder to spread as a result. After a long search, I found a local place that makes butter that actually tastes good, which is an incredibly sad sentence to have to type out." [source, two]

Sylvia, re: Vincent Price being a gourmand and his cooking book: "It's extremely cool. My library had a copy and I remember it being pretty big, too." [source]

User: "I was following this thread and I'm delighted about all of these facts and information. Thank you for sharing!" // Sylvia: "Aw thank you! And thanks for reading, it was nice to unpack all the stuff kicking around my mental attic." [source]

User, re: MFC: "Sorry to post again but this one got me- my mom is a doc, and i remember her telling me stories of the cadaver she worked on (evidence of different surgeries she had, the cancer she had, etc), and mom always ended her stories saying how thankful she was to her. It really does stick around." // Sylvia: "No need to apologize, I liked hearing about your mom's reaction! It's exactly what I kept hearing and reading about, a sense of reverence for the gift." [source]

Sylvia: ""The irony that I had to convert the measurements back to metric" Haha. I tried to get as close as I could. Here's the written down metric version of the cake batter. It's an older recipe so I had to try to guess what a "knife tip" ended up as." [source]

A user on the torte being a family recipe: "Oh my gosh 🥹 that makes it all even lovelier!" // Sylvia: "Thanks! I was really excited to share the family recipe, it's a bit of work but it's one of my favorites." [source]

A user under the post about MR James' Collected Ghost Stories: "So you're probably the one behind the mysterious bronze whistle, I take it?" // Sylvia: "Haha, guilty. Cameron Harris, our editor, helped me figure out a phonetic guide to the latin. (If it fails anywhere it's very likely my fault.)" [source]

User: "As an avid Emmrich lover & someone trying to write some Emmrich POVs in my Emrook fanfictions, I can not thank you ENOUGH for this wealth of info / music inspo to go off of" // Sylvia: "Thank you! (Seriously though some of those songs probably only make sense to me, they're not all thematically on point, but some are. Hope you enjoy!)" [source]

User: "As another "needs a million hours of droning ambient music to write" writer I appreciate these greatly" // Sylvia: "We both have good taste! 🎶" [source]

User: "Thank you for writing out this list!! Peter Cushing makes so much sense as an influence. I love the variety of media here, it gives me so much new stuff to check out!" // Sylvia: "Thank you for reading! If you do check out some of this stuff, hope you enjoy!" [source]

Sylvia: "thanks so much, and for reading the thread! It was fun to write." [source]

User: "Thank you for sharing these books!I was looking for a good ghost book" // Sylvia: "Thanks! Hope you enjoy James. "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" was the first story of his I read and I'll never forget that experience." [source] // Sylvia: "I just love the mood James could create, so much." [source]

User: "ELECTRIC SIX MENTION" // Sylvia: "My greatest favorites, now and forever." [source]

Sylvia: "Please archive away, I am intent on deleting the account eventually but it'd be nice to know people could look this stuff up later if they're curious. (Future generations need to know which Atrium Carceri tracks I listened to!)" [source]

User: "Amongst many things, not the least of which is the gratitude and delight of having your fantastic insight into the writing process of Emmrich, my grandmother’s hazelnut torte is fantastically close to the Nevarran version which was a delightful discovery." // Sylvia: "Ah now nice. I assume she was also central/eastern European then? I suspect it was a popular recipe at a certain time." [source]

User: "As an ex-mortician turned game writer, this was a FASCINATING read!" // Sylvia: "Haha, I definitely took inspiration from morticians! (Thank you for checking it out, that thread got long)" [source]

[thread source link]

You say that gamers should buy something else if they don't enjoy a series or franchise. But to me, this is contradicted by you also saying that gamers would rather get angry instead of leaving. I don't get what you are saying here. Are you implying that gamers are too incompetent to find something else?

It's not contradictory at all. What people should do and what they want to do are often not the same, usually because it is easier and feels better to do what they want rather than what they should. My friends tell me they should go to the gym and exercise regularly, but they want to play games on the couch. They aren't incompetent, they knows how and why to go to the gym. They just don't want to, in large part because it is easier and more pleasant to play games on the couch than it is to go to the gym and exercise. Going to the gym and exercising regularly requires significant effort and actual action on their part. Staying home and playing games on the couch requires significantly less effort and action.

It is a similar situation for gamers entrenched in a franchise. The franchise is familiar and comfortable to them. They've already played it a long time and generally liked it. When things go sideways, it's easy to complain and get angry. It's easy to post angrily and make memes. However, the chances of getting a positive response to these complaints is practically nil. It often takes weeks, months, or even years to address the issues that players complain about if the dev team chooses to do so at all. In the meantime, there are new games regularly getting released that may serve a player's needs better than their current franchise du jour. Trying and playing a new game will achieve better results than complaining and doing nothing. However, this requires more significant effort and action on the player's part - they have to get the new game, install it, try it, learn the new foibles, and see if they like it. If they don't like it sufficiently, they'll have to repeat the process. Instead, complaining about the game they were playing and used to like is much easier and requires almost zero effort. The path of least resistance is often the most popular.

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Frequent Questions: The FAQ

David Gaider: "It occurs to me, after reading posts getting it spectacularly wrong, that there are a lot of misconceptions over how game studios organize and, in particular, who makes the actual decisions about what ends up in your game. Much of it is by folks who don't *try* to get it... but not all, surely. I'll explain it a bit, but a big caveat: I'm going to talk in generalities and roles. Actual titles vary (a lot) from studio and studio, and the bigger a studio is the more segmented their departments (and thus management) is going to be. Even so, most studios, big and small, kind of work the same. To start, you're going to break your devs up into at least three groups: design (what is the game? how does it work?), art (what will it look like?), and engineering (making it go). There can be a lot of cross-over and some departments that don't fit into a project structure (QA, Marketing, etc.)"

Rest of post under cut due to length.

"There's going to be someone in charge of these groups - these are usually called "leads" or "senior leads". The actual title varies. The Design Lead could be a Lead Designer, for instance, or it could be a Creative Director and a Lead Designer is what they call someone further down the chain."

"These leads all report to a Project Director, someone who's job it is to manage the project as a whole. Now, this part gets a little dicey. Depending on the studio, this role can be anything from more production-oriented (they control the schedule) to an outright auteur who micro-manages everything."

"More importantly, it's the PD who hands down the project goals to the Leads: the strategic goals, the needed features, the shape of it all, etc. The Leads then figure out how their department is going to tackle those, and work with each other. If the Leads conflict, it's the PD's role to solve it. How much autonomy or ownership those Leads have is, like I said, really up to the individual PD and that studio's culture. Even in the case of a PD who has a lot of authority over the project, however, they still report to the studio leadership (unless it's the same person, like in a small studio)."

"The studio leadership is going to be giving the PD their marching orders, often in the form of those strategic goals. If there's a publisher involved, that's where the studio leadership is likely getting those goals. The PD, then, ends up being the person who has to negotiate with everyone above."

"What does this mean? If the studio or publisher has concerns about the project, they're calling in the PD to explain. If the project needs more time or resources, it's on the PD to explain to them why and how and when. If there are a lot of layers above the PD... yes, it's a looot of meetings. So while the PD is managing up, the Leads are managing down. With big projects, that means managing the "sub-leads"... those in charge of the individual sections of their department. It'd be unmanageable otherwise, and the bigger the project the more of these there are going to be."

"What does this mean? Well, let's look at the way BioWare broke up Design (as of 8 years ago, anyhow). Design consisted of Narrative Design, Level Design, Systems Design, Gameplay Design, and Cinematic Design (who worked in tandem with Cinematic Animation, which actually fell under the Art Lead)."

"The sub-leads are handed their goals by the lead, and work out how they're going to produce their particular corner of the game and also, more importantly, how they're going to work with each other. Conflicts between sub-leads are handled by the lead, as are ANY conflicts with other departments. What conflicts could there be, you ask? Dependencies, for one. "I can't do X until Y is done, but Y is someone else's job". Or scope. "We need 20 doodads but the sub-lead said they only have time to make 10, what now?". Even outright differences in vision. Big projects means room for a LOT of egos. If you think this is easier with a smaller (or indie) project, the answer is "yes, but not really". The roles are still necessary but often get combined into one person. Or outsourced, and someone still needs to manage the outsourcing. Things fall off over-full plates. It's a different kind of hard. Anyhow, the point of all this is: the further you go down the chain, the smaller the box you can play in is. The less you have actual say over, and even then that say is subject to being overridden by ANYONE above... and must still play nicely with the needs and goals of the other departments. You also need to keep in mind that projects are constantly in flux. Problems that were thought solved need re-solving. The team falls behind schedule and scope needs to change. You are constantly in a dance, within your tiny box, trying to figure out sub-optimal solutions that cause the least pain. And there will be pain. Shit rolls downhill, as they say, and when the project encounters big issues that means those high up have the sad job of figuring out how to spread it out and who can afford to take the hardest hit. If you're that one, you take it on the chin and you deal. This is the job. Lastly, I'll re-iterate: not every studio works this way, exactly. The roles exist, sure, but are not divided up so neatly or as easily identifiable. Even so, this should give you an idea what "lead" and "sub-lead" mean... and perhaps help you imagine what it's like existing further down the chain."

[source thread]

Chronological Timeline of Dragon Age Media - From "Stolen Throne" to Veilguard

A timeline I put together for my own personal reference, which I figured I'd share. It does not include every single piece of Dragon Age media (for example, it doesn't have all the short stories Bioware has put out or some of the older comics) but it's got all the big ones.

These dates are either taken from the timeline found in the first volume of "The World of Thedas," surmised from evidence within the stories themselves, or in a few cases provided by the writers and creators.

Events listed under the same year are not necessarily listed in chronological order, as it's often not clear in which month specific events took place.

9:00 Dragon

The events of "Stolen Throne" (novel)

9:10 Dragon

The events of "The Calling" (novel)

9:22 Dragon

The events of "Dawn of the Seeker" (animated film)

9:30 Dragon

The events of DA:O begin

The events of DA2 - Prologue

9:31 Dragon

The events of DA:O conclude

The events of DA:O - Awakening (DLC)

The events of DA:O - The Golems of Amgarrak (DLC)

The events of DA2 - Act 1

9:32 Dragon

The events of DA:O - Witch Hunt (DLC)

9:34 Dragon

The events of DA2 - Act 2

9:37 Dragon

The events of DA2 - Act 3

~9:31-37 Dragon (exact dates unknown)

The events of DA2 - Legacy (DLC)

The events of DA2 - Mark of the Assassin (DLC)

The events of "Redemption" (web series)

9:38 Dragon

The events of "Silent Grove" (comic)

The events of "Those Who Speak" (comic)

The events of "Until We Sleep" (comic)

9:40 Dragon

The events of "Asunder" (novel)

The events of "The Masked Empire" (novel)

9:41 Dragon

The events of DA:I begin

The events of "Last Flight" (novel) begin

9:42 Dragon

The events of DA:I conclude

The events of "Last Flight" (novel) conclude

~9:41-44 Dragon (exact dates unknown)

The events of DA:I - The Descent (DLC)

The events of DA:I - The Jaws of Hakkon (DLC)

9:44 Dragon

The events of DA:I - Trespasser (DLC)

The events of "Knight Errant" (comic)

The events of "Deception" (comic)

~9:44-45 Dragon (exact date unknown)

The events of "Blue Wraith" (comic)

9:45 Dragon

The events of "Dark Fortress" (comic)

~9:44-51 Dragon (exact dates unknown)

The events of "Tevinter Nights" (short story anthology)

The events of "Absolution" (animated series)

The events of "The Missing" (comic)

The events of "Vows & Vengeance" (podcast)

~9:52-54 Dragon*

The events of DA:V begin

*From what I could find, there is conflicting information from different devs as to the exact year that Veilguard begins. If anyone has newer information or an official answer, please let me know.

Part 4: On logistical concerns and dread anticipation.

Hello!

This is part 4 of a series of posts in which I closely examine the letters my character received from the Inquisitor across Veilguard, and talk about the strategic and political implications of what we see within them.

I strongly suggest reading parts 1 and 2 and 3 before proceeding with this one, they contain vital context!

Part 1 can be found here!

Part 2 can be found here!

Part 3 can be found here!

This part is going to be much shorter than the others, because there's not a lot of strategic intel in it. Instead, it sets a tone for what we are currently dealing with, and on a design level functions as a heads up to players that this is a window in which we can attend to unfinished business without worrying so much that everything is burning to the ground actively.

As I will go into further in Part 5, this letter marks a turning point in the Inquisitor's relationship with Rook. They now regard Rook as an equal and peer, and I cannot state emphatically enough that that is terrible news for Rook as a person who lives in Thedas.

That's a big, "Sorry buddy, you're one of us now! RIP to your personhood, you have to be the one who keeps everyone together and can ill afford to show doubt to your allies lest it have devastating consequences on the outcomes of this fight."

The tone of the letters gets much more personal now. The Inquisitor is comfortable talking about the struggles they are dealing with - like needing to herd cats in keeping the alliance together, and the work that needs to be done to fix any issues that arise.

What we DO get here is alarming: where are the Darkspawn? In the last part I talked about the concerns I had surrounding the consequence of Ghilan'nain's morale collapse, and this little fragment heightened those to a fever pitch. "[Seeing] very little of the Darkspawn" means that they are being gathered, likely underground. That takes time, and is horrifyingly concerning. It indicates that when we next see them, it will be in far greater numbers than were previously being dealt with.

I'm no longer accepting the notes being handed to me it's fine. Everything is fine. [Everything is not fine.]

We also get confirmation that the Antaam are almost entirely gone from the mouth of the Waking Sea, which will be freeing up trade and troop movement pathways.

Mention of fighting the Venatori in the west rather than Darkspawn means that we can anticipate that these fights are happening in Orlais or on/along the border.

Using the map with its marks from part 3, I've circled the outermost areas I expect those victories to have taken place in the green lines, bearing in mind the previously stated lack of cooperation between the Orlesian forces and the Ferelden-based alliance. Any space cleared provides opportunities to stockpile supplies, to salvage and hunt. It's a deeply needed opportunity.

However.

This is a dangerous time, even as it grants us some breathing room to operate as Rook and to relax a little as players. As I expect most are familiar with, the time before an uncertain but known to be extremely stressful event is often the worst. Anxiety can rise, imagination can wreak havoc on mental health, and irritability can also shoot up. It is little wonder that this is the letter where the Inquisitor talks about some friction in the alliance.

And no matter how much you prepare for it and indeed the longer you have before disaster, when shit does hit the fan, the worse it will feel.

Could haves, would haves, should haves will all run rampant. It's a time in which we can expect to see acts of desperation, desertion.

We'll get into that in Part 5.

On the importance of morale, the opportunism of Empire, and the value of supply lines.

This is part 3 of a series of posts in which I closely examine the letters my character received from the Inquisitor across Veilguard, and talk about the strategic and political implications of what we see within them.

I strongly suggest reading parts 1 and 2 before proceeding with this one, they contain vital context!

Part 1 can be found here!

Part 2 can be found here!

With that said, I will get into it:

Morale is critical to sustained conflicts. Underestimating this is lethal, and Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain clearly understand its value per the last letter.

They have been concentrating on symbolic attacks as well as strategically significant ones, often weaving these together with devastating effect for the South, as outlined in the last letter.

In this one, we see how critical Rook's actions will be for the outcome of this entire conflict: because we goad Ghilan'nain into making mistakes. And we do this via hits to her morale.

For all the strategic value of her victory at Weisshaupt, it pales to her in the face of the loss of her Archdemon. That's her baby, her perfect creation. The mother of monsters mourns her daughter. We reminded her immediately that she is now mortal, which is another devastating morale hit.

When we take out her blighted dragons at Hossberg it only compounds. She is overcome by her anger and grief, a situation so dangerous for them that it prompts Elgar'nan's direct intervention to soothe and retrieve her.

The war against the Evanuris will not and cannot be won in a numbers game. Both sides are keenly aware of this. Our attacks are instead personally targeted and blisteringly effective.

We see some of that in the course of playing, but it is driven home additionally very firmly here.

As the letter makes clear - to the people of Thedas, this is not just Rook's victory, this is a victory for the Wardens, who desperately needed a win to demonstrate that their Order was not robbed of power and agency in the wake of the Fall of Weisshaupt.

Hossberg sends a message: we will survive, we will endure, and we will win and rebuild.

And not just here, in this victory, either - as we progress through the game this is driven home thematically when Antoine tells us that flowers will bloom again there. No matter how bad it seems, some form of life will cling on.

Morale is everything, and this victory has encouraged enlistment in the overall struggle. The stakes are clear: we will fight together, or die alone.

However. Empires, are Empires.

Empires tend to die alone. Imperialism isolates you from everywhere that isn't another Empire, and while collaboration does happen, and is happening here, there is a constant friction when two expansionist Empires are rubbing up against each other.

We see here confirmation of the speculation from part 1: the Venatori are on the ground and providing direct military aid to the Orlesian rebels and their forces. The taking of Val Royeaux is a significant blow, and one that grants naval access to the Free Marches, which seems to have been immediately made use of by launching attacks eastward.

While they could make use of the overland route I've put on here for good measure, there's not much meaningful opposition to controlling this stretch of the Waking Sea. Attempting to take Kirkwall is the next move in stepping up aggression.

It is another goal with multiple strategic purposes and morale consequences.

To the people of the city, which finally had reconstructed under Varric's tenure as Viscount, the attacks threaten what they have just regained and would create desperation, which we all know historically goes great in Kirkwall.

To the Venatori, taking the City of Chains back would be a significant morale victory and affirmation of Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain's 'commitment' to their cause. Reclaiming the ancient powerful sites of Empire would do a lot to bolster their political influence back home, and also be a blow against the Shadow Dragons - regardless of what their current status is.

Kirkwall is the source of almost all the trade that flows between the Free Marches and Ferelden. Take it out? Ferelden is completely isolated, and the additional morale hit from this realization and starvation tactics will begin to also do their work.

If you take Kirkwall, you have consolidated naval control up to the mouth of the Waking Sea, with the Antaam intended to be performing a pincer here to lock down control of the coastlines. I'm being handed a note, we'll get to that.

Meanwhile, Orlais is dying on the hill of standing alone. We can see in the Trespasser DLC that regardless of who is in control, tensions between Ferelden and Orlais flared again when it came time to talk about what to do with the Inquisition. It is a substantial concession for Ferelden to send any military aid to Orlais, but its rejection is to be expected.

To an Empire that is governed with revolving door betrayals and power plays, accepting help and coordinating tactics with a former territory is an unacceptable display of weakness, and the sending will likely be regarded as a display of opportunism from Ferelden, rather than genuine solidarity in the face of the current existential threat.

After all, it would be opportunistic for Orlais to send aid to them, no? As it was in Inquisition? Why would this be any different?

The Inquisitor also points to the generational trauma of the war directly here, just to further drive it home. But this is a systemic cultural barrier that even an hypothetical edict from the Divine herself would not be able to overcome - the work has not been done to enable it too. All of this, incidentally, is why we will be working with the Shadow Dragons rather than appealing to the Magisterium directly. The vast bulk of Magisters have nothing to gain by working with us, and all of them have everything to lose. What support we get can only come through underground channels, lest it risk a complete purge, and depending on our actions that can occur as it is. Empire is often a game of sunk cost, and we cannot expect meaningful aid in overthrowing a corrupt system from the vast majority of those who are personally invested in it.

I have been handed the rest of the note. Again, our work up in the North is critical to the stability of the South.

I've marked with red X's the locations we know for sure are almost entirely out of commission at this point: Denerim, Orzammar, and Val Royeaux. Kirkwall is being harried, and so was Ostwick, so those are circled in yellow.

The Felicisima Armada historically close ranks when under attack by outsiders, and our work in Rivain and Treviso provides ancillary support to the overall fight against the Antaam, sowing division between two of their leaders and dividing their attention back down to the warband level.

The Armada's work draws the Antaam away from the mouth of the Waking Sea, opening up supply lines.

Per volume 1 of The World of Thedas, pages 72 and 82, we can also get a sense of the likely situation.

I've circled Treviso in yellow as well, since we know it is having a bad time. I saved Treviso in this run, so I don't know if anything changes at this point if Minrathous has been prioritized - but it's use in this situation is limited regardless while the occupation continues. Llomerryn and Estwatch, circled here in magenta, are stronghold locations for the Armada. Taking them would require significant commitment of resources and a well oiled logistics network, and I expect attempts are being made.

Even with begrudging Venatori aid, however, we see at this point in the game there are substantial cracks, as Rook's and the faction's efforts popping up all around the North are dividing attentions and interrupting supply and disrupting morale there. The Antaam cannot take to the open ocean, which means they have no choice but to travel up the coast, getting harried every step of the way.

As the Inquisitor points out, it's much needed relief. But this is also a dangerous moment, because we have driven our enemies to desperation that they cannot afford to wear on their sleeves.

After the loss of the Archdemon and the two Blighted dragons, Ghilan'nain and Elgar'nan need to consolidate their power and reassert their divinity and right to rule, or else they risk losing control of the Venatori and the Antaam. That means they need another major symbolic victory, and that means another act of targeted terror. I was!

Very frightened at this point!

That wraps up this round!! I'm glad these are being enjoyed, they are fun for me to write out.

On the pitfalls of relying on myth and historic, faded strength during an international emergency.

Part 2 of a series of posts talking about the letters my first character received from the Inquisitor during the events of Veilguard, and why I am very excited about them and personally really enjoy what they have to say about the political and strategic situations in the South.

I am going to strongly recommend that you read part 1 first, especially if you find this post in isolation! I go into a lot of context there that sets the stage for this one.

However long this series winds up being, in the final post I will wrap up how I feel the letters tie into the overarching themes of both this game and the series as a whole, and my feelings as a narrative designer on how Bioware used these letters to thread an impossibly small needle. If I make any lore mistakes, my apologies! But I'm mainly going to be talking about strategy and political ramifications here.

So!

The first letter, with a load bearing middle paragraph, told us a lot about the starting position of the South, in particular, of Ferelden and Orlais, during the events of Veilguard.

In that paragraph, it evoked a LOT of history. Both in-world historical events prior to the games, and of our actions within each title.

The second letter, received after the fall of Weisshaupt, is even more densely packed than the first. I'll be presenting it in chunks and going through it bit by bit as a result.

From the title of this letter, it sets the tone. The fall of Weisshaupt, capitalized as The Fall of Weisshaupt, reflecting that this is an event of immediate major consequence in the now and historic record.

Weisshaupt, as a fortress that was constructed in the First Blight, and that has never fallen in all that time, is a location shrouded in legend.

Before we can go through this letter, we need to consider the circumstances in which it was built, and why.

To do that, we need to consider the first Grey Wardens. Per the codex entry from Origins of, The Grey Wardens, the original Wardens were former soldiers of the Tevinter Imperium. Their lived experience had been nothing but endless war and Blight, and they met in the newly constructed Weisshaupt fortress to discuss their options. Per World of Thedas, p. 156, Weisshaupt was built in an area strategically close to Tevinter, but not hit as hard by the Blight.

In a time when the Blight had been an omnipresent reality for 90 years, that's a very significant starting position for a new order to have. They renounced their nationality and political ties.

Weisshaupt becomes their base of operations, and while it is a considerably larger fortress, we can consider it analogous to Skyhold in Inquisition in several ways - both in Inquisition itself and in Veilguard.

Per the codex entry gained in Origins, The First Blight: Chapter 4, one of the first if not THE first major victory the Grey Wardens won was at the city of Nordbotten, circled in the screenshot above.

Reports of each Warden taking down 10-20 Darkspawn at a time - a number that seems almost ludicrously low compared to the expectations on them in current Thedas.

But the first Blight, while very long, also saw the Darkspawn divided heavily between their surface and underground activity. There were less of them overall, and they had to cut their way through the Dwarves in order to establish their underground hives that would allow them to become an exponentially multiplying threat.

Over the next hundred years, the first Wardens fought to establish themselves. They made treaties, they established conscription and did not discriminate by race or class or background. In many ways, their actions mirror those the Dwarves took in creating the first Golems, but that's a subject for a different post, maybe.

All of this builds up to saying:

Weisshaupt was critical as a strategic location when it was first used as a base of operations. That victory cemented it as the ancestral headquarters of the Grey Wardens in all the time that follows, but as time marched on it became less and less strategically relevant to subsequent Blights.

Its main value became symbolic - the last refuge, the place to make a last stand. Weisshaupt has never fallen, and while it remains standing, there is hope.

I am being handed a note. It's this note. We can talk about the rest of this note now.

With all that prior context established, we can look at the actions the First Warden takes here with a critical eye. Leaving aside the merit of some of the things he has to say to Rook in the game, when we consider the actual underlying positions that the First Warden holds, he is deeply conservative, and a hardline traditionalist. He is an old soldier, yes, but as has been seen by references to his actions in previous titles and in this one: he is largely a figurehead, caught up in politicking.

As a political figurehead, but one fully on board with the death-cult tendencies of the modern Wardens (obsession with past glory and future heroic, destined death; deeply secretive to its own organizational detriment; rife with paranoia), First Warden Glastrum is faced with a deeply unenviable burden: constant darkspawn activity and multiple Blights across what we can assume is his entire tenure in the position, since no reference I can find is made to his having been a newcomer to the role.

Already quite old, both by normal standards and ESPECIALLY Warden ones, the First Warden displays some irrational behaviours that made me suspect he was actively experiencing his Calling from our first meeting with him.

His fixation on due process struck me as a desperate attempt to seek control in the face of that, and the actions that followed reinforced my feelings that this was a man who wants to cement his own legacy while he still can.

Calling the Wardens back to Weisshaupt is a strategic choice that does not make sense outside of that framework, and it is reinforced as what is probably going on by the Veilguard codex entry: Every Warden's Journey.

Viewed through this lens, and with him experiencing the Calling later confirmed if you reason with the First Warden, we can see that calling the Wardens back to Weisshaupt was less about meaningfully combatting the new Blight, and more about forcing a last stand.

We know that all the Wardens are having a bad time once Ghilan'nain takes control of the Blight. We know, per Dorian, that the First Warden signed off on the plan to raise a demon army in Inquisition, a plan which involved active collaboration with the Venatori. It is not the first time he has approved Glorious Last Stands.

The First Warden is a perfect target to subvert if you are Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain, and the Grey Wardens are a potential obstruction to your plans to consolidate control over the entirety of Thedas.

He wants to do right. He wants to fulfill his duty. He wants to die with honor, and make his mark in a way he has not been able too across the rest of the games, trapped as he is in the role of a figurehead.

And so he calls the Wardens, en masse, back to Weisshaupt. And we all know how that goes.

He concentrates them all in one place, which at this time in history, is a strategically useful location, but not for what we see it used for. Not as a border fort with immediate access to the worst off areas in this new Blight.

Weisshaupt would have been the perfect place to house refugees, and to use as a counterpart to Skyhold in the South. An information and logistics center.

Baiting the First Warden into a suicidal last stand serves multiple strategic purposes:

It consolidates the bulk of the Grey Warden order in a single, isolated location.

It pisses off everyone who currently really needs Grey Warden support.

It denies those people and places Grey Warden support, which as we will go over in the letter has devastating consequences.

It denies the forces in the North a powerful base of operations, as just outlined.

A victory at Weisshaupt is a devastating blow to morale across all of Thedas. It's fall robs everyone of the comforting myth that no matter what happens, they can always fall back to Weisshaupt and know that they will be safe. It sends a message: nowhere is outside of our reach, and there is nobody who can protect you.

We see how this unfolds in the next lines of the letter. The Grey Wardens withdraw, and it results in immediate losses of ground, particularly for Orzammar. It is a betrayal of one of the oldest alliances that the Wardens have, and one that will stoke the isolationist tendencies of Orzammar's ruling class.

If they are abandoned, once again, why should they show up for anyone else? And, indeed, I did not hear of them again until the final letter.

Orzammar has been dying a slow death across all of the games. The humans - and then the Qunari, in the events of Trespasser - have been trying to circumvent reliance on the Dwarves for access to the lyrium trade across all of the games and in the historical record.

There is a horrifying mirroring of the true history of the Dwarven people we learn about in the Descent DLC and the things we learn in Veilguard that we can see in these efforts.

And no matter who we made King, Orzammar has up until now refused to adapt and make the systemic change needed to reverse this slide into obliteration: the abolishment of the caste system. I want to go into the differences between Orzammar's approach and that of Kal-Sharok, but that will have to be a different post I think. Suffice it to say, based on everything we have seen of that city in prior titles, I expected exactly this result. Now Orzammar will have to contend with the same set of circumstances that Kal-Sharok was once forced into:

The unaddressed systemic cultural issues and generational trauma of the Dwarves of Orazmmar led to them becoming increasingly isolationist and reliant on the lyrium trade in order to tend to their daily needs. And without Grey Warden allies, and with their supply lines also affected by the same issues hitting Ferelden, their options dwindle sharply.

And a thousand or so Wardens die at Weisshaupt.

That is a devastating loss. We see what even a pair of Grey Wardens can do multiple times across the series.

With the loss of the Wardens and Weisshaupt both, Ghilan'nain and Elgar'nan can launch the next stage of their offensives. Remembering that aside from being known as the mother of the halla, Ghil is the elven goddess of guides and navigation. We can subsequently intuit that she probably has a very firm understanding of how long it takes to get places, and she has control of the Blight and the Darkspawn - which means she now controls the Deep Roads near entirely unopposed. She's got the subway.

Coordinating an eruption of Darkspawn at historic sites terrorizes Thedas with what the Dwarves already knew: the Darkspawn are everywhere, in seething hordes, and surfacers will reckon with those numbers when Orzammar no longer holds them back.

So!

Per the last letter, the border with Orlais is being harried. The Darkspawn horde at Ostagar appears to have made directly for Denerim - another strong strategic move. Take out the capital, and theoretically you undermine the ability of the nation to organize and field meaningful resistance. Except, here, the less centralized structure of Ferelden society does it a firm favour. As we have seen in prior games, Denerim is not the only key location to locking Ferelden down. Redcliffe is also critical. I'm being handed another note, but that's a problem for future me and for future Ferelden.

The situation in the capital is grim, yes, but not currently totally lost. We have seen how stubborn and determined the people of Denerim are in the face of adversity in Origins firsthand.

Next up is the one part of this that I did not see coming after receiving the first letter - though I should have! I overlooked the implications of the Jaws of Hakkon dlc, having only viewed it through for the first time shortly before Veilguard's release.

When the political process is failing, when the establishments are tearing themselves apart, when civilians lives are on the line and there is an existential threat to everyone: the sorely neglected and othered often step up to provide the most critical support. So it is here, with the Chasind and the Avvar.

Relegated to the margins across all of the games, treated mostly by our viewpoint characters and those we interact with as backward and provincial at best, both the Chasind and the Avvar are substantial and mostly unrepresented groups in the franchise. They also occupy the most outwardly 'hostile' terrain in Ferelden, and know it like the back of their hands.

I got so, so excited when this popped up. The implications of this alliance were the most stirring thing to give me hope for the South. With access to the travel routes and supply lines, as well as remote and well protected territories, the potential to slip civilians out from the noose that Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain are tightening around Ferelden shoots up.

Troops can be moved, and so long as the Blight is contained and harried at by those who at this point have a great deal of learned experience fighting Darkspawn, this alliance marks a potential turning point both in the immediate moment we receive the letter, and in the long-term arc of history that will go on far past the events of the game itself.

It's exciting to me, and I'm excited to also dig into the next letter! As with the last one, nobody else has to like what they've done here, but I think it's great, and I'm really excited to share more of why.

On solidarity, and it's lack, and my raw horror and delight at seeing these missives pop up in my file across the game. This SUPER got away from me, so this is now part 1.

I disbanded the Inquisition in this run, and did not save Minrathous, and have not yet seen if that makes a difference to the content of these letters!

I am aware these letters are a controversial part of Veilguard for a lot of people, and it's fine for everyone to feel how they feel about it! I'm not telling anyone that they are wrong, I'm just offering my perspective on why I really love what they did here, and think it's an excellent way to unite disparate threads while also punctuating the theming of this game, respect the struggles of our previous protagonists, and also realistically represent what we could expect of the disparate nations of the South in the conditions we see in Veilguard.

Some personal context that I don't actually need to share, and you don't need to read, but does inform my perspective on this:

I keep a keen eye on international politics in the real world, have a lot of experience in doing so, and I was one of many disabled advocates who saw the danger of covid coming long before it was declared an official pandemic and started doing what I could with a platform I had at the time to keep as many people around me both tangibly and in an online network sense as safe as possible. I know for a fact that my efforts saved lives. But there were limits to what I could do as an individual, and especially one confined to my bed.

When it came to mobilizing individuals, to getting information into the hands of trusted people in influential positions - eg. librarians - and providing them with the resources to then educate and mobilize their workplaces and social circles, I did great. But the issues I and others faced were systemic, and our effectiveness was limited by this.

With that context said and either read or skipped past, let's talk about the state of Southern Thedas across Veilguard.

So, this first letter from the Inquisitor contains a lot of information, densely packed.

Discussion of Morrigan here alone could be another post, but suffice it to say that this tells us that in the last ten years she has succeeded Flemeth as a guardian advisor of the South, inheriting in spirit (heh) if not in name (yet) the mantle of Ashar'bellanar.

The key part here is that she was very firm with the Inquisitor, more so than Scout Harding is being and Varric had been, that Rook is someone to watch and rely on at this time in history. With her personal context of being a hero of the Fifth Blight, that makes Rook contextually a peer to the hero of Ferelden in her eyes. Which might seem unlikely - but we need to remember that Morrigan was there from the very beginning, when the HoF had no idea what they were doing, and in most worldstates she witnessed them unite the disparate groups of Thedas, including those among the margins, into a powerful (if mostly transitory) alliance to combat and ultimately defeat the Blight.

Her endorsement is invoking all of that history.

Next up: it is established that when Solas began his ritual, the consequences were felt everywhere. We can operate on the assumption that at least some fade tears were ripped open, and that demons escaped and wreaked a wave of initial havoc.

This is backed up by a detail in a later letter, about demons having occupied Skyhold, and by the consequences we see in Minrathous, despite the ritual taking place in Arlathan.

On their escape, the gods immediately began to make their moves, and one of the first is Elgar'nan's overtures to the Venatori, which become consolidated into firm control very quickly due to his appeal as a mythic figurehead for them in their own goals, and the power he promises.

That they quickly become extensions of his will, their original cause nothing more than deluded lip-service, is part of the design, as I have gone into elsewhere previously but will likely do so again in more detail after a few more playthroughs.

When we hear that a splinter group of nobles have made common cause with the Venatori, we can intuit that they will be openly Imperialistic, likely a blend of old guard who still carry resentment around Ferelden's independence and up and coming warhawks. They will be those who resent the declining influence of Orlais on the international stage; who resent the gains that have been made over the years in improving the rights of the elves; and that they will be incredibly stubborn individuals who will insist that Orlais needs no allies and can stand on its own.

They will be those who cry for a return to the glorious past, and who are easily swayed by the promises of personal power to do so, because these are all the traits Elgar'nan selects for when gathering pawns - and they are traits that we have seen on display in many Orlesian's across both the games and the extended media. That's not a unique to Orlais situation, it's a cultural marker of a sunsetting Empire.

No matter who is the sitting Emperor of Orlais from the options we have been able to influence in the past titles, these people would still exist. They would be those who are laughed at and dismissed as toothless relics and hotblooded upstarts in Celene's court, and the hawks that consider Gaspard to be weak and lacking in ambition, while likely forming a core part of his supporter group.

They receive backing from the Venatori - and we know that the Venatori are embedded deeply in the upper strata of Tevinter society, that they have long ceased being a fringe group as they were initially presented in Inquisition - and the writing was on the wall even then that they had already made great strides in entrenching themselves in the halls of power.

So, to have Venatori backing is to have Tevinter backing, at a time when they are for the first time across the games free from needing to devote their military resources to combating the Qunari - and, however deeply reluctantly, are actively working with the Antaam, so we can operate with the belief they are providing logistical support that canonically the Antaam have lacked since they performed their military coup and launched their invasions. This read is backed up across this and the rest of the letters, with discussion of the dreadnaughts and the role they are playing.

We can subsequently operate with the assumption that the Orlesian splinter faction is being provided money, logistical support, political influence (key, given the Game) and potentially tangible military backing.

They waste no time, and specifically target the Royal Guard and the border keeps of Ferelden.

What does this tell us?

It backs up who these people are, and what they want, and we can subsequently intuit the kind of populist right wing messaging they will be using. They launch attacks against the core forces of the current Emperor or Empress, signalling a rejection of the current status quo in doing so. The move against the border keeps is a promise to return to the golden era of expansionism, and one that also serves to harry and divide Ferelden's forces.

In the next sentence, we learn that an initial force of Antaam corsairs are harassing shipping out of Ostwick, and that location is very significant.

It, in conjunction with the coordinated attacks in Orlais, is the first move in cutting off core allied supply lines from the North to the South. We know from prior titles that the ocean proper is not navigable without disaster, and control of the Waking Sea is going to be very important in subsequent letters and how the tide (heh) shifts back and forth.

Immediately, the goal has been to attempt to cut off and isolate Ferelden from international support, replicating the conditions of the Fifth Blight. This, more than anything else at this point in the game, made me very scared of Elgar'nan. We know from the memories that he was a brilliant strategic mind, and that the Evanuris started out as generals.

Man wakes up, glances across the board, probably gets a tl;dr primer from his new associates and as someone familiar with the lines of hard and soft power quickly moves to shut down the biggest threat in the South: those fucking weirdos from Ferelden who keep kicking over the board. It's an excellent call.

Ghilan'nain is not idle either, with her control of both the Blight and the work she is doing with the Antaam. Massing the Darkspawn at Ostagar again is both an excellent strategic move - for the same reasons it was in Origins - and a highly effective terror tactic.

We can intuit that it's a terrible time to exist in Ferelden right now. You've just been reminded of the events of Inquisition and the last time the sky was split open, a wound which everyone has gotten used to seeing above them but healed, and now Orlais is harrying the border and the darkspawn are massing once again at the site of the major historical event that led to mass death and upheaval in the LAST Blight.

Every lever possible to invoke and then beat on generational trauma and create mass panic has been pulled at once. It will divide their forces, it will divide their political system - it's what Loghain was scared of in Origins, but this time it's actually happening for real.

But hey at least we have the Free Marches and Orzammar and the Grey Wardens! [I'm being handed a note, which I will open later.]

The rest of this letter is reassurance from the Inquisitor: all of this fucking sucks, but it's terrible things that the South has experienced before, and as it has in the past, so will it survive it again.

This single letter told me so much, immediately.

All of these situations that they put forth are ones that cannot be fixed by swapping people in and out of chairs in the high halls of power.

The vulnerabilities that Elgar'nan preys on are systemic, cultural issues, reflecting ancient wounds and vulnerabilities. The victories that we can potentially make across the games can breathe within this narrative space, but do not in themselves have enough power to override these core weak points.

Orlais is an Empire. Ferelden is geographically isolated and culturally scarred by the horrors of a brutal occupation by said Empire, by the events of the Fifth Blight, and the blows it received during the events of Inquisition. We know that getting the bannorn to agree on a course of action at the best of times is like pulling teeth, and they may as well have dropped a thousand live bee grenades into an active debate.

It's a brilliant opening move, and it isn't one that invalidates what has come before, but one that preys on the active weak points that we have seen remain active across all of the games. We cannot expect solidarity from Orlais in Ferelden. Orlais cannot expect solidarity from Orlais, because their political culture is one of backbiting, plotting, and endless sabotage: this is a feature, not a bug, to them. It is one that ordinary Orlesians have paid for time and again, and one that will continue to have incredibly predictable and dire consequences.

I was thrilled by this letter, because it lit my brain on fire. I began to consider next moves, what I would expect from each faction involved based on historical context and precedent. As I will get into in later parts, this speculation was rewarded for me, and it's one of my favourite things about Veilguard.

You don't have to like it personally, but I am excited to talk about why I do, and how I feel it reflects the best of Dragon Age's political writing.

Andrastian Statues

The purpose of this collection of statues is to show the Andrastian style depending on the region, the details in it, and how this may or may not influence other statues we saw in game. I also attempt to recollect some interpretations of them, although most of them are mostly based on speculations.

The current post contains the following set of statues:

Ferelden Style: Pre-Divine Andraste, Chasind Andraste, Ferelden warrior protector Andraste, The Maker, The Dwarf [?], Rider Maferath  [?], Masferath Repentant, Hanged Masferath, Other Statues.

Orlesian Style: Rustic Maferath, Hessarian, Andraste; The Orlesian Warrior Andraste, The Stylised Orlesian Andraste, The Orlesian Andraste, The Orlesian Maferath, The Orlesian Havard, and the Orlesian Hessarian; The Weight of War

Free Marches Style: The Free Marches Hessarian, The Free Marches Andrastian Warriors [?]

Unknown Style: The Skull with sword, The Guide, Guardians of the Path / The Watcher.

[This post belongs to the series “Analysis and speculation of Statues”]

Keep reading

fun little details around minrathous

so, because I love little worldbuilding details, I decided to scour minrathous and ended up finding lots of unique assets! some of my favorites below:

1. the viper watching rook from the rooftops

I already dedicated a one-off post to this, but the first time you travel to minrathous after the prologue, you can catch a glimpse of the viper on the rooftops.

2. the viper's wanted poster

speaking of the viper, he decides to meet up with you literally right across from a wanted poster of himself. so far, this is the only copy I've found, so it may be an entirely unique asset intentionally placed there. thanks to caitie ghiil dirthalen's post on the tevene alphabet, I was able to translate the heading as 'reward.' the second line? lorem ipsum lmao.

3. murder by candlehop

you can find this venatori surrounded numerous candlehops in a small locked alcove; I believe there are at least 10 candlehops in the vicinity?

4. serpents, serpents everywhere

unsurprisingly, snakes turn up a lot in the architectural details; you can find them in braziers, gutters, pipes, pillars, etc.

5. the cobbled swan sign

I was absolutely delighted to find out that the cobbled swan - the tavern you visit for several major story beats - has a unique sign. it's so cute :') (and contains another snake).

6. tevinter cuisine

the cobbled swan also offers an interesting look at some culinary staples of minrathous. the calamari and oysters were expected since it's a coastal city, but the scorpion pasta was a surprise...

Now THIS is the biggest glow-up in Dragon Age history

I miss my Awakenings crew. How are they? Are they eating well? Has the Calling started for any of them? Is Oghren's kiddo all grown-up? Is Nathaniel still broody and gumpy? Is Sigrun still taking care of the potted plant you can gift her? Is Velanna writing in her journal? Are any of them missing Anders or even Justice? What about Varel? Is he still around? Are any of them travelling with my Warden to cure the Calling? I want to know, Bioware.

Rook: sooo, i got the lighthouse as a base, this cool structure in the fade. how were you guys adventuring?

Inquisitor: i had a castle in the frostback mountains called skyhold

Hawke: well, we lived with my uncle for a bit and then i had a house in high town of kirkwall

Warden: ...

Warden: tent in a forest

they stopped a whole ass blight. give them the griffon.

DRAGON AGE II + mentioning the hero of ferelden

Types of Possessions in Dragon Age world

Monsterification:

The possession can involve strong emotions but doesn't have to (it depends on the case, as it's hard to assume rocks or dead bodies have emotions, but places within the game can have lingering echoes of strong emotions that make such possessions more likely to occur within such area - spirits will just possess whatever).

It's unclear if such possession needs consent to occur.

The possession can be forced by a third party.

The person that gets possessed gets horrifically transformed.

The transformation can't be reveresed after it happens.

The person is driven mad by the transformation.

The possession can be prevented by Litany of Andralla.

Example: Slavren (DAO), Witherfang (DAO), Olivia (DA2)

There are other types of this type of possession that include objects, animals, plants or even corpses. It includes creatures such as: Sylwans (possession of a tree), Arcane Horror (possession of a mage's corpse), Rock Wraith (possession of a rock), Reverant, Skeleton (possession of a corpse), werewolf (possession of a wolf) and more similar cases.

Puppet:

Person that gets possessed is trapped in the Fade.

Demon takes over the body and wrecks havoc all around, but isn't physically present inside the body of the host (?).

There is no transformation of the body.

The person can be saved by killing the demon in the Fade.

Needs established consent (with demon it will be a deal).

Examples: Uldred (DAO), Connor (DAO)

Teacher:

Person that gets possessed is a living willing host.

It's the opposite of the Puppet - person and the spirit coexist in a type of symbiosis, while the person is taught by the spirit.

There is no visible transformation of the body.

Person and a spirit can be separated via special rituals.

Example: Sigrid Gulsdotten (DAI: Jaws of Hakkon)

Impersonator:

The possessed person is already dead.

Spirit / demon is convinced they're the dead person or posses all the memories of the dead person as if they were them. (Demon may refer to the host as "food" separating itself from the host, while spirit will be confused by the memories of the body).

There is no visible transformation of the body, in fact the body is to some extent preserved thanks to the possession. (In case of a demon there is a second voice hearable when the person speaks).

Example: Sophia Dryden (DAO: Soldier's Peak), Kristoff? (DAO:A)

Revival:

The possessed person is already dead.

The spirit enters the body of the dead person and revives them. It's unclear if the spirit simply ties the soul of the dead person back to their body or assumes the role of said person. (It's quite possible that the spirit could think they're the person that already died or that the soul of the dead person turned into the spirit).

No visible transformation of the body, voice or personality.

No emotional outbursts.

Example: Wynne (DAO)

Merging:

The possessed person is a living willing host.

The spirit and the person merge into one being.

It's not possible to separate them as they're already one.

No visible transformation of the body. (Possible visible veins of the Fade light and change of the voice when the spirit is fronting).

Possible emotional outbursts. (Due to taint corruption?)

Possibly person and the spirit loose sense of selves with time to become a fully integrated single personality.

Needs established consent (with demon it will be a deal).

Example: Anders (DA2), Flemeth (DAO, DA2, DAI)

Note: i wanted to add Cole here, but when I was writing down the criteria I noticed for possession I realized that Cole is a spirit that impersonates the dead person, not a spirit that took over his body. (Correct me if I'm wrong here, because I'm pretty sure he was seen as a free roaming spirit that just looked like a human - like the spirits of the old that could just randomly take on the mortal looking body).

can i say, as i'm playing the veilgaurd, i really enjoy how every game varric's in he has a completely different relationship with each protagonist (not really spoilery under the cut but read at ur own risk)

in da2, him and hawke are BESTIES. they match each other's wit. they flirt (female hawke). they get each other into boatloads of trouble and always get each other out of it. varric never left hawkes side no matter what hawke said or did. they were equals.

in dai with him and the inquisitor, it always seemed like he held the inquisitor just a little bit at arm's length. yes, he was their friend and a part of their inner circle, but he always made it a point to mention that the inquisitor is "larger than life" and is more of a figure of legend than a person. he always gave advice the best he could, but obviously what would he know about being a "herald of andraste". they were not equals, at least if you asked varric.

in datv, he is clearly rook's mentor. any chance you get, he is always hyping up rook's abilities and leadership. making jokes if their feeling on edge. making sure they never doubt themselves. literally, any time you visit him where he's healing, he always has some real SWEET thing to say to you "are you sleeping?" "make sure you rest" "you got this kid". with varric, rook can be vulnerable. "if i hadn't made that choice, neve/harding wouldn't've gotten hurt" and varric makes sure you understand that that wasn't your fault and had to make a choice. they were not equals, at least if you asked rook. but varric would disagree.

(obviously i'm not done playing VG so idk if how i'm interpreting this is accurate BUT ALAS)

i appreciate how varric is seen differently in each game he's in, it makes him always really interesting to watch throughout each game!

yall. in a few days we're getting new dragon age. new companions who will stick with us for years. new narratives to pull at our heartstrings and occupy our thoughts and drive us a little crazy. new banter to delight at, new jokes. new dialogue to pick apart for hidden meanings. new dialogue options that don't match the voiced lines. new locations to explore, new architecture to admire, new flora and fauna to study. new codices to collect. new spells to toy with, new builds to create. new npcs to meet. new outfits to gush over or criticize, to see in fanart over and over again until it's like meeting an old friend. old mysteries to finally solve, new mysteries to uncover and chew on for however many years. NEW LOREEEEEE

what is the walls of darkrown made of? wood?

Avvar lore resources

I might be a little bit invested in a certain part of Dragon Age lore...

Jaws of Hakkon DLC transcript - a transcript of all dialogue lines from JoH DLC, including variations dependent on the Inquisitor's race, previous choices, and quest order.

Avvar history reconstruction - a 7-part series delineating the history of the Avvar tribe

Avvar first names spreadsheet - a thorough list of Avvar first names that appear in canon sources, organized by their real-life origin if possible

Avvar name structure - a detailed analysis of how Avvar names are constructed, including first names, surnames, legend-marks, and clan names

Avvar symbolism - collages of visual symbols related to the Lady of the Skies, Hakkon Wintersbreath, Korth the Mountain-Father

Parallels between Korth and the Titans

Elven roots of the word "Avvar"

Random bits of Avvar lore

no but how popular are maryden’s songs?? i know she’s playing in every tavern we go to but that could be a conveniently identical npc because inquisition didn’t have a ton of models lol

like what kind of notoriety does Scout Lace Harding have? is rook going to feel like they’re meeting, idk, billie jean. eleanor rigby. jolene herself

i think bioware should let the hero of ferelden return but every time they're in a shot they're cut off at the neck like the lady from powerpuff girls

and every time they try to add something to a conversation a dragon flies by roaring so you can't hear what they're saying

One of the craziest things about Dragon Age (and this might help those of you who don’t go here kind of understand what people are yelling about in the coming months) is its lore. But I don’t mean that in the way you’re probably thinking.

I mean, quite literally, the way it presents its lore to you. In picking up notes and books as you go along and sifting through the codex, the game effectively asks you to act as an anthropologist. You’re met with a host of primary and secondary sources, some many hundreds of years apart from one another, written by anyone from the highest Chantry scholar to John Farmer, and you’re meant to constantly be questioning every piece of information you’re given. What biases are present in what I’m reading? What is fact and what is complete fabrication and what is, potentially, a slightly twisted version of a fact? How does one source potentially contradict another? The lore is one giant mystery-puzzle that you get to piece together across three games, and what conclusions you draw are going to be entirely different from someone else’s, and so on.

And yet, the series still does something even cooler than any of that. You realize, at a certain point, that this idea you have been engaging with on a meta-level — this idea that history is biased and fallible, that it’s written by colonizers and conquerers, genocidal racists and religious zealots, that the ability to control historical narrative is the prize you win for spilling the most blood — that idea is one of, if not perhaps THE most important, overarching theme of the series. The way that we remember history — what we remember and what we don’t, and why — and the impact that has on people on a sociological, political, cultural and psychological level, on both a macro and micro scale. It’s the entire thesis of the series’ main villain’s whole motivation.

And there’s gonna be a lot of people that don’t care about all that but me personally it makes me want to gnaw on a cinder block and scratch at my walls

Dalish Political Opinions:

I've been working on worldbuilding regarding Dalish culture and beliefs, as a framework for writing stories more focused on Dalish characters and clans. This is a rough draft of what different clans might believe and practice, and how those attitudes could differ.

The Future Homeland:

Building a Neo-Arlathan: The great city should rise again, as the jewel of the Dalish culture. We'll benefit most from having a single, large city with strong defenses and room for the clans to overwinter.

Reclaiming the Dales: The Dales should be ours. We should have a wide range of settlements from tiny homesteads to a capital city, dispersed and defended so that we can never loss everything in a single siege.

Founding a Third Kingdom: We need to find a new place to live and build a kingdom, bringing the best of Arlathan and the Dales to a fresh slate.

Nomadic Life: the Dalish are best served by continuing to be nomads, with only semi-permanent encampments and small settlements. We are best served by finding better ways to bring wealth with us and defend ourselves while on the move, not putting a target on our backs by having a fixed location.

Religion: 

Literalists: These are the stories we have, which we believe are the truth of what happened. The moral and social rules they lay out should be followed as strictly as possible

Reconstructionists: Our myths may be missing information or misconstrued. What matters is that we act in good faith, keeping to the core tenets, and continue searching for more evidence of our past. The details of the rules are less important than the intent.

Functionalist: it doesn't matter if our myths are true or not. What matters is the fact that they're ours, and they show us what it means to be Dalish. Rules can be discarded entirely if they no longer work for a clan.

Diplomacy:

Non-Dalish Elves:

Isolation: we should have nothing to do with anyone outside the Dalish Clans. In an ideal world, we would have a country all our own that no one outside of the clans even knew existed. The elves of the cities are not our concern.

Expansion: we should actively be bringing non-dalish elves into the clans. In an ideal world, all elves would be Dalish.

Collaboration: We should develop positive relationships with elves outside the clans, without recruiting. In an ideal world, the Dalish would be independent but have friends, business partners, lovers, and allies who were of many faiths.

Dwarves:

Alliance: The dwarves' religious beliefs are perfectly compatible with Dalish beliefs, and both groups specialize in areas the other lacks. We're natural allies, and should seek to strengthen ties.

Non-Interference: The dwarves are not our problem, and there is nothing they can offer us that would make it worth getting involved in their politics or the mess of the darkspawn in the deep roads.

Hostility: The dwarves have never helped us, they've never acted even when it would cost them very little. They have no magic. They're not like us, and they can't be trusted.

Humans:

Hostility: Fuck Orlais, fuck tevinter, and fuck everyone who allies with them. Shemlens can't be trusted.

Strategic Ties: Many, if not most, humans are awful, but individual ones can be trustworthy. Maintaining ties with the morally upright among them will keep us safer than a universal rejection.

Sympathy: We have a great deal in common with the poor and unwelcome of human society. What is done to them, and what they do in response, could make them valuable allies if we approached them in the correct way.

Qunari:

Most clans outside of the free marches don't have an opinion about the qunari. Clans within the free marches range from 'well they scared the shems' to 'and they scared us'. It's expected to be a major subject of debate at the next Arlathvhen

Magic:

Political beliefs about magic can generally be split into two attitudes: enthusiastically embracing it, or accepting it with reservations. (There are a few fringe clans who reject it entirely, and have non-mage keepers, firsts, and seconds, and a few more will allow non-mages as keepers, but they are very rare.)

Political opinions about magic map very neatly to geographic location - the closer a clan's territory is to Tevinter, the more suspicious that clan is of magic. It was the northernmost clans that took the precept of the three mage minimum and decided it would also be their maximum.

Northern clans, if they're sending extra mages away, will travel south to make sure the young mage isn't picked up by Tevinter. Not doing so can result in a clan's leadership being declared illegitimate at the Arlathvhen.

As a result, most non-Dalish are not aware of the variety of opinions regarding magic, and assume that all Dalish clans allow only three mages.

Dalish clans in Rivain, on the other end of the spectrum, pride themselves on having as many mages as possible, to the point that not having a mage available to be a clan's Second is a bad omen and sign of potential disaster. This has, in the past decade, lead to what the Daliah call 'Rivaini diplomacy' - the practice of Rivaini clans sending members to live with clans adjacent to Tevinter, for the chance to adopt any young mages the clans send away.

𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐈❜𝐌 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 unless I'm here by your side. | ♬ ❝ I'm Not A Saint ❞ by Billy Raffoul.