Just a BioWare Fan

In the universe of Dragaon Age, the Veil that separates the Fade from the rest of the world is not a physical thing, despite references to it being torn and breached. It's more a barrier, like that mages cast in battle, to be dispelled. Even its name implies a thin covering that hides rather than a solid wall.

Consider the codex entry on the Veil which can be found in all three games, giving it more heft as “the devs see the Veil this way and want the player to know it” than the mere conjectural nature of half-blind research would normally carry.

"Regardless, the act of passing through the Veil is much more about changing one's perceptions than a physical transition. The Veil is an idea, it is the act of transition itself, and it is only the fact that both living beings and spirits find the transition difficult that gives the Veil any credence as a physical barrier at all.”

It's a spell that Solas cast, expending vast amounts of power (as well it should require, considering the magnitude of its effects). We don't know the source of that power, whether it was inherent or drawn from people or amplified by his focus or all three. We do know that it had the effect of making everyone half-tranquil compared to the way the world used to be.

Rallying the Troops

In many places Cullen found no Templars at all, though the slaughter was just as bad. Most of the corridors remained empty but Fade creatures had sprung up all through the tower. In some rooms he found mages who had fought against them and died for their pains. Relief at seeing how many of them had resisted this plot which had spun so quickly out of control cut through the grief of seeing the loyal mages sprawled, lifeless and bloodied, in their own quarters.

Every few rooms presented yet another tableau that fueled Cullen’s anger and determination. The appalling waste of life and the proof that the Chantry had been right all along pushed him through his desolation. He used his every reserve to keep moving. Once he’d investigated each room on the periphery he headed to the open central area, one used on each level for a different purpose. The one he hesitated outside held the storerooms, manned by Tranquil who could not be possessed because they had no connection to the Fade.

Cullen stood with one hand on the door, awkwardly holding his sword in his shield hand rather than sheathe the weapon. He reminded himself that any tactician would want to secure the potions and tools contained within so he should expect the worst.

Those of you familiar with the glitterotica pantheon theory for the ancient elvhen gods likely have an image of Falon’Din built up in your heads. For some reason, he’s emerged as the bad boy of Arlathan, a combination of Alex from A Clockwork Orange and Harry Potter’s Voldemort—pointlessly, gleefully, viciously evil and over-the-top powerful.

Yet lore tells us of a softer side to Falon’Din, a deep and abiding friendship, a beautiful love for Dirthamin, his almost-brother and closest companion. What does a pair of gorgeous, morally bankrupt immortal men do? Apparently, in the case of Falon’Din, head canon insists he spends his time complaining about how amazing he is.

I know you’ve all heard someone while about how they’re so sexy or rich or smart that it’s all become so terribly dull,

Solas tells us in Inquisition that he’d approached Dalish camps only to be turned away by foolish mortals too superstitious to entertain a stranger in their midst. I got to wondering how those conversations might go. It turns out they fit perfectly into my Questions series. What a coincidence!

Solas: [strolls into camp] No need for alarm. I am merely a humble mage seeking shelter for the night.
Guard: [aims arrow at his eye] Where did you come from, flat-ear?
Solas: I wander the world, exploring the Fade and learning about history. Perhaps I could speak to your Keeper.
Guard: What’s the name of your clan?
Solas: I don’t have a clan. I am a lone wolf, as it were. [smirks]
Guard: How do we know you’re not an abomination?
Solas: [ponders] I haven’t killed you yet.
Guard: [narrows eyes] You…may have a point. What do you want?
Solas: A meal and a place near your fire to put my bedroll for the night.
Guard: You want me to let a clan-less stranger with no vallaslin into the heart of our camp when everyone is sleeping?
Solas: Hence my suggestion you fetch your Keeper.
Guard: How about you fetch your flat-eared self the hell out of here?
Solas: I admire your caution but I think someone a bit farther up the food chain should make that decision.
Guard: I’ll give you a food chain, loser.

As he listened to his heart a step sounded on the loose scree behind him. He whirled, staff blazing to life as he snapped the blade to ready, and found an old woman standing there, grinning mischievously at him. The rows of studs on her rich armored leathers gleamed in the moonlight and feathers showed black at her shoulders and hips against the rising light. She bore no weapons and stood without fear, waiting for his reaction.

None of this made more than a passing impression on Abelas. It was her hair that arrested his attention. She bore the jutting white horns in which he’d first seen Mythal, though nothing else about her looked the same. Instead of the proud ears echoed by the elaborate style she had a shemlen’s rounded-off nubs. She lacked the glorious decoration with which all the elvhen gods had shown the power and devotion of their followers.

He dismissed all of this as unimportant. None had ever worn their hair thus.

Fen’Harel, often a guest and a dear friend of Mythal, had arrived ashen and furious to sob at the edge of the well, pleading with her to return, to lead him to those that needed her judgment more than any elvhen ever had. Days had passed as the priests milled around the edges of the clearing, distraught and confused, but none had been brave enough to question a god to whom they were not pledged.

His grief had soothed them, somehow. Though everyone at the temple had felt the shock of her death none of them could tell for certain what had happened. Until the god had said it, had boldly stated their beloved Mythal was dead at the hands of another, the priests and sentinels had clung to the hope that she would return. As he had quieted, they had accepted the truth and begun to wonder what would become of them

After a week, Fen’Harel had exhausted the noisiest portion of his grief. He had knelt, slumped and silent, face buried in hands dripping tears, as the moon rose above the pool. The silhouette of a wolf at full howl with three ruby eyes gleaming in its head had been worked into the tail of his long tunic where it trailed between his heels. For a moment Abelas had expected the god to mimic this symbol

At their remove, the priests and guards suffered far less than those at the heart of Arlathan.  They were not, however, immune to the dissolution.  The sentinels had fended off a dozen groups, from bands of slaves seeking asylum to a small army marching under no banner the priests could recognize.  As each gave his or her life to protect Mythal’s Heart the well had grown, from a chalice to a basin to a pool.

Finally Mythal had come a final time.  Abelas, then known by another name, had met with her in one of the forested glades near the temple.  Slaves had brought heady wines and rich cakes, their faces resolutely bent to keep from being blinded by the glittering majesty of their god.  She waited to speak until they were quite alone once more.  Other sentinels had kept guard out of earshot so that none might interrupt their conference.

She’d spoken his name gently, drawing his attention from his contemplation of how pale she looked, how worry shadowed her eyes to a deeper amethyst, and lightly laid a hand on his arm.  “I cannot tell you all that comes,” she said,

I finally bought and played the Dragon Age: Inquisition DLC this past weekend and, I have to say, I’m delighted. The Jaws of Hakkon gives you a big new area with all kinds of brand new goodies, lore, and challenges. Since most people can't even play it yet I thought I'd post my thoughts without spoiling the story for anyone.

When BioWare made the Frostback Basin they took pieces of the most gorgeous areas in Inquisition and blended them. They took the Arbor Wilds and combined the best bits of the Storm Coast and Crestwood into it. There’s a dash of Fallow Mire for flavor and you might find a hint of the Western Apprach in the ruins.

It’s late afternoon in the Frostback Basin and the mountains shade parts of the landscape (until later, when you emerge from a ruin and it’s night with that huge moon from the Hissing Wastes laying a silver glow over the still-active forests.)

The passage through the eluvian brought only a moment’s discomfort.  It hadn’t been pain, precisely, more a dislocation centered on his navel, one that slewed his viscera a hand’s span widdershins and his heart a finger’s breadth to the right.  The twist drove the breath from his body so that he gasped indecorously as he emerged from the blue glare into a diffuse gleam.

Had he been able, he’d have caught and held his breath the moment his eyes adjusted.  On the graveled path before him stood the goddess herself, her flowing gown coated in gem dust so that it glittered and flashed even in the muted light.  It had covered one arm and left the other bare, covered in a filigree of gold chased with bright silver.

The waist had been caught with a wide belt of pale leather on which her symbols had been worked in the same threads that sparkled from his own new cloak.  Her hair had been braided and coiled to lie over the exposed shoulder in tangled profusion while the sides had been tied and lacquered into impressive horns that swept back just shy of meeting well behind and above her head.

Abelas could not recall a time he’d been so afraid.

When he’d strode from the temple that had been the heart of his life in every way he’d had a destination in mind.  Once he’d known the way; he had walked the path a thousand times.  Once Mythal had been alive and her sentinels patrolled a wide swath of the wilderness that protected her home.

Abelas, his name never more appropriate in the anguish of failing in his final and most sacred duty, got no farther than what had been a road before his last, lingering bit of purpose failed him.  What had stretched across miles, shining white stones fitted with precision and arching over the gorge of a rushing river, now lay in rubble and broken spans.

The river had dwindled to shallow, still pools flanking a sluggish stream.  Once-familiar trees, stretching graceful limbs to shade the road, had gone.  A jungle had replaced them, choked with undergrowth and trailing vines that had strangled the trees into tortured shapes.  Yet this was no young forest.  Abelas could see fallen trees with trunks twice his height, their roots long since crumbled from the banks the meandering course of the river had undercut.

I’ve been entertaining myself lately with songs that leap to mind during certain portions of Dragon Age: Inquisition even though they either contain too many anachronisms or just really don’t fit.  To that end, I thought I’d share a few of my head canon songs for entertainment purposes.

First, there’s Van Canto’s cover of Primo Victoria.  It has to be the cover because there are no electric guitars in Thedas.  There aren’t any Nazis, either, but at least we can get the music right if not the lyrics perfect.  If you can ignore the date of the D-Day invasion and hear “Nazi lines” and “Venatori” you might get a sense for why this one pops into my head.

Every time I’m getting ready to go to the Arbor Wilds and throw the weight of my epic army against the forces of evil (as in the Red Templars) I start hearing

Blackwall and Solas have more in common that you might see at first glance.  Both are lonely, guilty men who ran from their respective pasts and come to face the music.  Each has constructed a façade behind which he hides and each finds through their time with the Inquisition that the time has come to tear it down.

We never get a chance to ask Solas how old he is.  BioWare also leaves the reveal that the village he claimed to have grown up in had been in ruins for centuries until after he’s run off at the end of the game.

Our Inquisitor never gets the opportunity to confront him about his history.  When you consider how much traveling he says he’s done, how much distance he’d have to cover, and the fact that he doesn’t have his own freaking horse at the very least you have to question how he’s managed to stay so smooth-faced.

Searching for Hope

Cullen took the time to investigate the novice barracks though he was sure he’d left all of the children in the atrium with Wynne and the apprentices.  There wasn’t much he could have done had he found a young mage cowering in the baths but he couldn’t chance some creature leaping up at his back.  

The bunk beds, lined up in ranks with trunks at their feet, gave him a clear view across the long room.   He found nothing more threatening than balls of dust and the occasional lost slipper or glove and a makeshift ragdoll that had fallen from some poor little girl’s pillow.  Cullen picked it up and tucked it into the bunk beside which he’d found it in the hope that its owner was one of the little ones safe behind Wynne’s barrier.  He prayed fervently to Andraste that they could be reunited soon.

When he felt satisfied nothing lurked in the shadows he left, closing the door behind him.  It went much the same on the rest of the lowest level.  Those who’d lived so close to the main doors had either fled before the doors had been shut or ascended to join the fighting.

So it turns out Alistair’s mom really is an elf and a mage. Scandalous! She was a Grey Warden at the time and when she’s miraculously, mysteriously cured of the taint she heads right for the Circle so she gets a pass on the apostate part, at least. Randy Ol’ King Maric, though, has some ‘splainin’ to do what with the maid that died having another of his bastards about the same time.

Given the sort of battle prowess one presumes she once had, having been recruited to the Wardens in the first place, one would have thought she’d be a great leader for the mage rebellion. She does manage to cement a power base for them with the regent of Ferelden and a safe haven in Redcliffe with one of the most defensible castles in Thedas.

Then, someone whacks her with the stupid stick. Consider the situation, if you would.

As usual, I was reading the BioWare boards and an idea sprang into my head.  You see, it’s never sat well with me, this image of high dragons huddled in caves deep underground.  Dragons fly.  They don’t tunnel.

(Sidebar: Why are they called Archdemons and not Archdarkspawns or Archspawns?  [narrows eyes at writers]  It sounds cooler, sure, but do demons really come into it?)

At any rate, the thought of dragons snoozing so tightly bound and deeply buried that the Darkspawn take centuries to dig it up bothers me.  How did they get there and who put them to sleep?  (Fen’Harel?  Only time will tell, if BioWare ever does.)

What if what the Darkspawn find underground is not literally a sleeping dragon, it’s a magically sealed vessel containing the soul of an Old God?  They let it out and

Keeping the Tome of Koslun in Dragon Age 2 is a dick move. It’s like stealing ancient religious scrolls from the Vatican, running off to Luxembourg, and waving them in the Pope’s face while saying, “Neener neener”…and then killing the captain of the Vatican guards, most of his best men, and kicking the rest of them out of the country. When they’re gone you shove the scrolls in a chest and never speak of them again.

The game, however, did not give you the option of giving the Arishok the Tome without also giving him Isabela. It’s also the one thing Hawke actually achieves in the entirety of DA2: saving Kirkwall from the rampaging Qunari. That lasts for four years and then it descends into chaos after Anders does his thing. Hawke keeping Isabela in Kirkwall in the first place also arguably causes their continued presence and eventual loss of patience so, really, it’s all her fault in the first place.

Hawke’s whole story revolves around damage control, whether that damage accrues to (or from) her family, her friends, Kirkwall, or the mage or Templar faction. I play her like Mr. Incredible: I just cleaned that up! Can’t the world stay saved for, like, five minutes? Every time she turns around there’s another idiot doing something to endanger people and she’s the only one who can stop it.

Tenuous Survival

A lone woman moved among the slaughter near the far door. She looked about her dazedly, dark hair matted and hanging in her face. To all appearances she was having as much trouble believing she’d survived as Cullen was. The mages who had been fighting around her sprawled in untidy, unmoving heaps.

Cullen recognized the enchanter lying just at her feet. His heart sank at the sight of the healer’s body but he picked his way to her through the filth and blood. She lay unmoving, so pale he thought she must have fallen to one of the demons. As he reached her side, however, Wynne sat up, her shaking hand going to her head while she swayed. The other woman gasped, “I thought she’d been killed.”

“As did I.” Wynne’s calm voice sounded wry as ever, weak though it was. She took but a moment to gather herself. “We have to get the children somewhere safe.” She spoke serenely, as though she weren’t sitting among dead abominations and the bloody remains of her friends.

I was pondering recently about the ruined land your Inquisitor finds in the Western Approach.  It’s been centuries since the Darkspawn roamed the lands freely and still nothing can live there.  As the blights of old lasted years the horde had plenty of time to ruin the land.

Since our superstar Warden ended the Fifth Blight in a mere year, Ferelden recovered quickly.  There are still a few references to tainted land but not a horizon-spanning, blasted waste.  One more reason your Warden is awesome—as if you needed one!

In following this trail of thought, however, I suddenly realized that the dwarves have a much bigger problem in reclaiming the Deep Roads than I’d thought.  Also, BioWare has a much bigger lore problem.  The Darkspawn have been carousing down there for a thousand years.

I’ve written in a few places about how deeply The Head and the Heart’s Lost in My Mind moves me. Now that I’ve played Dragon Age: Inquisition it has a new layer of meaning for me. I picture Solas, humming this song as he’s painting the mural of your Inquisitor’s story. I imagine the lyrics running through his mind when he’s talking about or to the Dalish.

Most strongly, I want to see him singing this with Abelas, the perfectly pitched, civilized howl of loss and yearning and hope for moving forward. Solas sings the first two verses and Abelas the third then they burst the hearts of shemlen everywhere with the emotion of the chorus, sung together.

Excepting a minor anachronism the words fit beautifully for a pair of ancient elves embarking on a painful journey out of the past to which they’ve clung for so long.

Nightmares Come True

Cullen’s mind wandered a bit with his aches and boredom. The mages had begun discussing the various fraternities and how best to keep the peace among those factions within the Circle. As the conflicts had amounted to little more than verbal tussles and the occasional thrown punch, they themselves held little interest for the Templars.

The views of the fraternities, however, did, at least the ones obvious about how they chafed at the Chantry’s control of the Circles. As the mages technically governed themselves the Templars could do little overtly but many of the Order found methods, subtle to varying degrees, to encourage those who supported the status quo. The little privileges the knights encouraged the First Enchanter to grant and the more aggressive treatment the others received made the Aequitarians a strong faction, even if they weren’t the strong Chantry supporters the Loyalists were.

The differences fed the restlessness of the Libertarians. They pointed to every perceived inequity, no matter the true source, as further proof of their oppression. Cullen wondered from time to time