Now THIS Is The Biggest Glow-up In Dragon Age History

A list of potential cures for the Calling, that we know about, that BioWare has apparently forgotten

Andraste's grace: it's not specified whether the flower the kennelmaster has you pick in the Korcari Wilds is Andraste's grace or if the game just needed a one-off asset and decided to reuse one they already had. However, in the dark future in DAI, Leliana is found to have unusual tolerance for the taint, and in DAO she talks about her mother pressing her laundry with dried Andraste's grace flowers, so it makes you wonder. Anyway, the flower stops Barkspawn becoming a ghoul and seems to make them immune to the taint from that point on.

Maric's longsword: he finds it in the Deep Roads and is suprised it isn't covered in the same Blight-rot as everything else - until, that is, he touches the sword to a patch of it and sees it wither away. Whether it's the dragonbone the sword is made of or the runes on the blade is difficult to say, though if it was just the dragonbone then it would make sense for that to be a more well-known property of the material (and would have been an interesting reason for why dragons were hunted to extinction). If Alistair carries it with him, doesit slow the progession of the taint through his body? Does he know its effects, and give it to the HoF to help keep them safer on their journey to find a permanent cure?

That obsidian dagger Duncan finds in The Calling: the dagger belonged to First Enchanter Remille - who also gave the expedition members brooches that accelerated the spread of the taint. iirc the both the dagger and the brooches are made by the Architect with Blight magic, which means the darkspawn magisters have more knowledge of how the Blight works than the Chantry attributes to them.

Whatever the fuck is going on with Avernus: he hasn't managed to cure himself yet, but he's managed to make it to 200 and the Warden can let him continue his experiments if they don't kill him - and he'd be a really useful resource if the Warden later wanted to send him other potential cures for testing.

Dragons: they have an ability to isolate the Blight in their bodies by forming crystaline cysts around the initial infection to stop it spreading. Useful if it can be more widely applied. Also, it's implied that Maric's reaver blood, which Calenhad gained by mixing his blood with a dragon's, is what somehow cured Fiona of the taint, kinda like a reverse STI, BUT in the Deep Roads they went through an area where the walls were coated in a pale, chalky substance suspiciously devoid of Blight-rot and she touched it, so I'm a bit suspicious of that.

Blood magic: makes sense since the taint is a problem that starts with infected blood. There are two major instances in DA canon where blood magic has been used to purge the taint from an object or being (both by elves btw). The first is Isseya using it to draw the taint out of a clutch of unhatched griffon eggs, which she says is only possible because the taint hasn't yet taken over the hatchlings' bodies to the same extent that it had with the adult griffons. The second instance is Merrill purging the Blighted eluvian in DA2. It's insane that Anders - who is a reluctant Warden and who possibly knows the HoF seeks a cure - isn't more excited about this. She literally removed the Blight from a fully tainted object. Since Isseya proved the same can be done with living tissue, it's probably the closest we've come to an actual cure, but since it also took years there's no telling if it could be a practicaly solution for all Wardens

love how in dragon age you sometimes click on a random rock and it tells about some fucked up group of weirdos that lived 5 centuries ago who faced the horrors of the world and died.

𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑐 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑑𝑎𝑠; 𝑟𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑖𝑛 🌻 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑚 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑅𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑤𝑎𝑠ℎ 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑎𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑘 𝑡𝑜𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑢𝑛. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑛, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑚𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝑤𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑐𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑡𝑜𝑤𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑐𝑒. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝐸𝑙𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑄𝑢𝑛𝑎𝑟𝑖 𝑎𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑠 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑒𝑛𝑗𝑜𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑠. 𝑀𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑠 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑜𝑜𝑠 𝑝𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑝𝑒𝑟ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝑙𝑙 𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓 𝑎 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑏𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑣𝑒. 8𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑘𝑠 / 𝑌𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑏𝑒

three fools does not make a wise man i fear

DAI x BG3 matchups I need to see. I’m not good at writing crossovers nor am I clever at all. This is very much non-exhaustive and very much not the end point of these characters’ potential interactions with each other.

Karlach + Sera + Iron Bull

The absolute chaos. The absolute CHAOS. A powerhouse. Putting aside Karlach’s demon heritage aside, she and Iron Bull tossing back tankards and swapping war stories as vets that have been dealt shitty hands but continue to chug along despite it. Karlach and Sera connecting over growing up mainly on the streets and having soft spots for little ragamuffins. Plus they all talk about women’s tits a lot. I feel Sera would find Karlach sexy and funny.

Wyll + Cole

Like Solas and Varric, Wyll would take to Cole because he recognizes Cole’s desire to help others, even if his methods are a bit unorthodox. He would recognize Cole’s soul as gentle and kind, and his efforts to atone for the murders he committed in the Tower as proof of his humanity. He will join the Uncle-Dad Duo and complete the Uncle-Dad Trio. Cole would gravitate toward Wyll’s goodness in turn, and probably tell Wyll that him making a contract wasn’t foolish because in the end he saved a city, and if that was his desire, then he committed no sin in doing so.

Solas + Astarion

The messiest shit can only occur, and my messy bitch self wants to see it. Watch as Solas’s upright and stiff demeanor utterly bores Astarion. Watch as Astarion’s selfishness, penchant for violence, and casual disregard for the well-being of others utterly pisses Solas the fuck off. Watch as Astarion yawns or interrupts Solas’s lectures with a “yes, yes, we get it” or the most dramatic eyeroll and overwrought “ugh”. Watch as Solas and Astarion immediately sniff each other out as liars and schemers from first jump and hold each other at a distance, the tension spiking at random moments early in them knowing each other where the other prods at their falsehoods. Watch as Astarion is dumbfounded by Solas expressing his condolences to Astarion upon learning of Astarion’s enslavement to his master, because how could a man who holds such reproach for him still manage to feel pity? ‘It is not pity, but compassion, which you are at liberty to reject. That is your right as a free man, just as it is my right to feel it.’

In the best case scenario, Astarion calms down eventually, teasing Solas but still treating him like that friend of a friend that you grudgingly admit is useful. I think a part of Astarion would find Solas’s penchant dislike of him funny.

Vivienne + Astarion + Dorian

We are all doomed. The haughtiness will be scarcely contained. Dorian and Astarion are definitely flirting. Fucking? Not sure. But definitely flirting and enjoying killing bad guys, playfully arguing over wine, snickering over Solas’s shabby dress.

Shadowheart + Leliana

Tools forged to serve a religious order? Check. Crisis of faith? Check. Subterfuge preferred? Check.

Lae’zel + Cassandra

Soldiers recognizing soldiers. 🫡 ‘Why are the men around me so annoying.’

Minsc & Boo + Cole

Cole might be able to understand Boo! If not his speech, then his little hamster feelings. Minsc might be wary of Cole for the information that he manages to glean from Minsc’s head, but his unquestioned understanding of Boo would probably smooth that bump in the road, right?

Solas + Gale

A friend remarked that Gale would remind Solas too much of himself (prideful, ambitious) and thus they would not get along. There is that. I think that Gale would get a small smile out of Solas every now and then with his quips, because Solas himself is clearly a fan of banter; Gale would provide more of the energy in the same way Dorian does with his and Solas’s more civil banters. Gale and Solas also both hold a great measure of respect and adoration for magic as a force, an element, a piece of entirety that is beautiful for its own existence. Not simply just what magic can do for them as wielders of magic, but what it is and how it does so much to enhance a person’s understanding and interaction with the world, as precious as sight or sound.

Minthara + Iron Bull

Oh she will have him cowed in a goddamn minute. Oh man. Oh no. ‘Yes ma’am’, ‘no ma’am’.

Minthara + Cassandra

Oh this would be so interesting. Disciplined, serious bulwarks with little time for silly little men—Minthara would share Cassandra’s frustration and lack of amusement with Varric, though Cassandra would consider her suggestions to maim him.

Solas + Halsin + Iron Bull

I see potential here. Iron Bull and Solas already have a dynamic of Iron Bull’s “I have a pretty good idea of who you are, and it’s a liar” toward Solas, while Solas grudgingly respects Iron Bull’s strength and mental acumen in the same way you would respect a very intelligent bear—do not draw attention more than necessary, but stand tall lest it smell fear. Halsin feels like a softer Iron Bull, a mediation between the two. Like Iron Bull, his stature and build belies a thoughtful and sharp mind. Like Solas, he sees everything as connected, feeding into the other as part of a system, and would too feel a sense of loss at magic and mundane being so dramatically split as it is in Thedas—an aberration against what is natural. Also like Iron Bull, he’s frank with his sexuality. I’m certain the two would swap stories over booze. The trio would be arguably the three most mature and experienced in a room in any given situation. Not only that, but Halsin is far more actively in touch with his heart and honest with his feelings than Solas or Iron Bull. The latter two very much care about their loved ones, but with Solas it is under the surface and with Iron Bull it’s mixed up in cultural trappings of romance not being a “thing” in his culture, and thus both struggle with their feelings. Halsin however is very much in touch. There is next to nothing obstructing what his head and heart wants. He listens to his heart and he follows it. Solas and Iron Bull could learn a thing or two from him, tbh

Also I feel like Iron Bull, Halsin, and even Solas have a bit of a brat tamer streak in them so there’s that

Also Astarion would outright reject the notion of drinking Cullen’s blood cuz it smells like battery acid.

One thing origins did is make me a Ferelden nationalist. That's my HOME COUNTRY right there and i want my MABARI. LONG LIVE YHE KING!

I think a lot about the fact that Leliana and Sera were young orphan girls from working class families who were adopted by human noblewomen... how Leliana took to that life like a fish to water and Sera rejected it wholesale: the material excess when others have nothing, having pride in something you didn't earn but were lucky enough to be born into. But Sera being an elf meant her life with Emmald was never going to be the same as Leliana's with Cecilie. The music and etiquette lessons that carried Leliana are harsh reminders of a life that didn't make room for someone like Sera.

They're both religious but their faith leads them to the same conclusion: no one should be excluded based on who they are and no one is without worth. They're rogues who love pranks and teasing their friends, they love ✨️ WOMEN ✨️ and are vocal about it, they're willing to sacrifice themselves and gut their enemies if it means protecting their people. They're steadfast friends and devoted lovers. Leliana learned her archery skills from Marjolaine - a nobleman's sport, a game to mirror The Game, 'I made you, Leliana. I can destroy you just as easily' - while Sera learned by the sweat of her brow, practicing until the arrow hit its mark more often than not and her arms no longer shook. There are no tutors in back alleys.

Leliana forswore her old ways for the ascetic life of a Chantry sister (before taking up arms to defeat the Blight); Sera inherited Emmald's fortune and gave it all away to orphaned children despite herself being hungry and homeless, because Sera is kind and because the knowledge of where that money came from was more painful than the joy of spending it.

Bioware will find any excuse to introduce Morrigan to a game via a set of stairs.

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.

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