Just a BioWare Fan

A Fitting Introduction

With gratitude toward his parents and his devotion to Andraste strengthening his dedication, Cullen had applied himself to his training and absorbed the lessons of his elders. Eight years of assignments in increasingly larger villages had brought him full circle back to the Chantry in Denerim where he was evaluated by the same people that had begun his training.

Along the way he had had occasion to help Templar Hunters find escaped mages. He had guarded children turned in by their families until representatives of the Circle could retrieve them. He’d seen fear paralyze the hunted and felt it pierce his own heart. But mostly he had waited.

He had stood in needless plate to stare across fields and contemplate dun-colored hills. He had guarded wooden chests in which naught but a few coins rattled, all the local farmers could spare to help those with even less. He had listened to the muddled, rambling stories of Templars who could barely raise their swords.

I’ve read from a few of the developers on BioWare’s boards that the Frostbite engine can produce realistic skin tones in the darker spectrum and that they intend to make use of that capability. First, let me say that I can’t wait. I like to make my PCs in a variety of colors but the old engine generally went from “glass of milk” to “badly jaundiced”.

[Sidebar: I adore that SWTOR lets me not only go from grey-white to ebony black but all the primary colors and combinations thereof. I have sky blue, deep green, blood red, and chalk white as well as my humans. It’s agonizing to pick for new characters, but an agony that I enjoy to the hilt.]

Dragon Age 2 did a little better but anything darker than a light tan tended to look odd. However, there’s been a lengthy and intermittently interesting debate about the inclusion of cultural elements from outside medieval Europe which has somehow devolved into a discussion of Africa, genetic phenotypes, and how Isabela can be black.