#veilguard thoughts

[liaragaming]

Dayum!

[magesforthedas]

Veilguard Faction Ages:

Okay, join me on another “it’s 3am and I should be sleeping, but I couldn’t until I’d thoroughly researched this line of thought!” Minor spoilers for early VG ahead.

Antaam

The Antaam invade Tevinter around 9:44/9:45 Dragon, not on the orders of the Qun. The Qunari the Inquisitor meets in Trespasser are probably Antaam, though idk if it says that? So they could’ve broken away 9:43-9:44?

Edit: friendly commenter shared that there's a letter where it says that Antaam broke off because the Ben-Hassrath refused to continue the operation after the Inquisitor stopped them in Trespasser. So officially 9:44!

Shadow Dragons

The Shadow Dragons started out as the Lucerni, formed sometime between 9:41-9:44 Dragon. When Maevaris Tilani was framed for treason and the Lucerni dissolved, she took them underground and transformed the movement into the Shadow Dragons.

Maevaris says she’s been laying low since the allegations, that her title had been stripped… a Shadow Dragon Rook says they hadn’t heard that, and wouldn’t that had to have happened before the “Shadow Dragons” were even formed, and thus Rook a part of it? So that would be somewhat old news, since before Rook has been away with Varric… Rook doesn’t keep up with politics, I guess😂

Based off the VG codex entries I found (Neve’s notes), Mae was kicked from the Magisterium “over a year ago”, and based on the order of the codex, shortly after this she met Tarquin of the Shadow Dragons, and he was probably working with them then. Then or sometime after, she was recruited; How long has Neve been with the Shadow Dragons?

Best guess: 9:42ish the Lucerni were formed, after Dorian went back to Tevinter, before Trespasser. Sometime between 9:48-9:50 is when the Lucerni were dissolved and the Shadow Dragons were formed; long enough for the Lucerni to start to gain momentum, and make the opposition nervous, which is when they tried to tear it down. Rook would have left with Varric in 9:51, since Veilguard is supposed to be in 9:52 and you were with Varric for a year. Rook probably wasn’t part of the Shadow Dragons right at the start, but it could be pretty close if you take into account the letter found about Dorian reaching out to the Mercar family, who’s head of house was sympathetic to the Shadow Dragons. Rook could’ve realistically been with the group for a few years, or even just a few months, depending on when you think the Shadow Dragons were formed, and when Rook joined. Although, it would make sense that you and Neve haven’t met if she joined just before or after you left with Varric, so that would point to Maevaris being framed around 9:49-9:50.

Veil Jumpers

Bellara says the Veil Jumpers are pretty new, just since Arlathan Forest started getting even more chaotic. I can’t say exactly why, but I feel like in Dragon Age new/old terms, it could have been around for like… 5 years? That would put the date roughly 9:47 Dragon. We know Strife was spying on the Antaam after they took Ventus (Three Trees to Midnight), so around 9:44-9:45? Then later Strife and Irelin were sent to find an artifact in Arlathan Forest, which was when they discovered the magic had gone crazy (Ruins of Reality). Unfortunately, there isn’t any kind of date on that, but it just means we know more was happening before the Veil Jumpers started. So sometime between 9:47-9:50 is likely for their official start.

Lords of Fortune

The Lords of Fortune, upon actually reading my codex entries haha, were formed by Isabela and friends; she’s “been with the Lords since before we were the Lords. Back then it was just a bunch of sea raiders-“

Shathann left the Qun presumably when Taash was quite little, if they “went through a lot of spoons as a baby”. They were taken in by the Lords of Fortune, but a Lord Rook has never met Taash. This speaks to either: A. Shathann and Taash were not immediately taken in by the Lords, or B. Taash is pretty young, and only officially joined the Lords after you left (a year before VG), though Shathann would have been with them for longer.

It doesn’t sound like the Lords were around at the start of Inquisition, as you can ask Varric about her, and he says she went back to the Raiders of the Waking Sea and is calling herself an Admiral, though he doesn’t know if that’s official or a self-styled title. Isabela is a field agent for the Inquisition according to the multiplayer mode, so could she have formed the Lords after that? Either after 9:42 when the biggest battle happened, or after 9:44 when it was officially dissolved/merged with the chantry.

Also side note, Antaam vs Qunari (with notes from Shathann) by Taash, age 14; this was written after the Antaam broke from the Qun. So since that was 9:44, if the note is directly from that time Taash would be 22 in 9:52 (edited for clarity after comment!). After I realized this I found a note on the wiki that Taash is early 20’s, from a developer’s Q&A, which I then found the said Taash is the youngest, early 20’s (close to Sera), Emmerich is oldest in his early 50’s the rest are somewhere around late 20’s/early 30’s.

If Shathann left because of the Antaam splitting from the Qun, then it could make sense for the Lords to have been around just prior. However, Taash talks about the Antaam attacks and how it’s made the Rivain locals scared of them- this could either mean :

Shathann left when Taash was much younger, well before the Antaam split, so possibly around the early 9:30s? The two may have settled into Rivain well before the Lords were formed, and Shathann started working for them possibly in 9:51, since a Lord Rook doesn’t know her either.

Shathann left around early 9:30s, but started working with the Lords soon after their founding, as Antaam attacks on Rivain may have made life more difficult.

Or, less likely I’d think, Shathann left with Taash and started worked with the Lords soon after their founding, so sometime in 9:42-9:46 when Taash was a teenager. It took the Antaam a few years for their attacks to hit Rivain, which is when Taash and their mother started facing more problems.

Assuming Taash did join after Rook left, a year is a short amount of time for all the adventures you hear bits of, but with so much happening it also makes sense.

Grey Wardens

The Grey Wardens, obviously, have been around since the First Blight (Specifically, founded in -305 Ancient), so they’re 1257 years old as of 9:52.

Antivan Crows

The Crows started as an arm of the Chantry in the area around Treviso: The Chant was popularized in Antiva in 1:45 Divine, so it would have been after that. There is supposedly a fair amount of Rivaini culture in the Crows (that’s where the tradition of their tattoos comes from), and the Rivaini-born Queen of Antiva was born 4:30 Black. So it’s possible that the Crows were formed after she came to power and Rivaini culture was more mixed into Antivan, or they could have already been around and that culture was incorporated in later. So they’re potentially somewhere between 500-800 years old.

Mourn Watch

The Mourn Watch are a branch of the Mortalitasi; the Mortalitasi Order was founded by Vitus Fabria, King Caspar Pentaghast’s personal advisor (and a Tevinter mage). Caspar Pentaghast seized control of Nevarra in 2:46 Glory. The Mourn Watch may not have been established right away, and I suppose there’s no way of knowing unless they tell us; was the Mourn Watch established right away, or later, after some kind of corruption or power struggle within the Mortalitasi occurred? So the Mourn Watch is at most 706 in 5:52, potentially younger by a couple hundred years.

ALSO I’ve seen some discussion about when Veilguard takes place; there are notes in the codex dating 9:52 Dragon, so it’s that year (or later I suppose, but I don’t think so) unless we are somehow seeing notes from the future :)

TL:DR my best guesses on Faction foundings and other related dates:

-305 Ancient - The Grey Wardens are founded

1:45 Divine-5:xx Exalted (?) - The Antivan Crows are founded

2:46-2:5x Glory - The Mortalitasi are formed, along with, or sometime thereafter, the Mourn Watch

9:41 Dragon - The events of Dragon Age: Inquisition begin

9:42 Dragon - The conclusion of the event of Inquisition

9:42-9:43 Dragon - Lucerni movement is formed

9:42-9:46 Dragon - The Lords of Fortune are founded

9:44 Dragon - The events of the Trespasser DLC. The Antaam break from the Qun

9:44-9:45 Dragon - The Antaam attack Tevinter cities, including Ventus. Strife is sent to spy on the Antaam

9:47-9:50 Dragon - Arlathan Forest’s magic starts going haywire. The Veil Jumpers are founded

9:49-9:50 Dragon - Maevaris is removed from the Magisterium and the Lucerni are dissolved. The Shadow Dragons are formed.

9:51 Dragon - Rook (from any background) leaves their organization to help Varric.

9:52 Dragon - The events of Dragon Age: The Veilguard begin

So, the Grey Wardens are the oldest, the the Mourn Watch and Antivan Crows are also pretty old. Then the Lords of Fortune, Veil Jumpers, and Shadow Dragons are baby organizations in comparison!

Thanks for reading y’all!

[underthevenadahl]

Okay so. My phone broke so I've been MIA since January. BUT new one now! I have nothing useful to show for my absence except that I finished Veilguard and have had some *time* to sit and think abt it. And boy do i have THOUGHTS

My poor phone😔 lost all my art and pictures on there 😭

Anyways expect a lot of yapping abt veilgaurd thanks.

[citrusai]

i've said it before but i'll say it again i don't think what mythal and solas had was romantic. i believed he loved her, and she cared for him in her own way as well. but i think the way the evanuris refer to him as her "lapdog", her second in command, and the fact that when she releases him she speaks of service, not love, not friendship. she also willingly went with elgar'nan, her husband, down that same path of destruction because she loved him.

she speaks of the moment of when she asked him to bind himself to a human body and turned him into her sword and general. another thing is, throughout the game (and i think taash's reaction to her saying "love" was supposed to be a comedic moment, followed by bellara saying that without physical bodies holding them down life for the elvhenan was different, and love comes in all forms, not just romantic) he & mythal both refer to each other as old friends. there seems to be no fondness left between them, just the history of a god and her general. two people who were friends before that.

i also think it's very clear in inquisition as well, when she refers to him as an old friend. there's some fondness there but it's bittersweet, she has made peace with her choices and moved forward, she has been around to guide and shape the world anew, he has not.

i think her releasing him makes sense. he's traumatized by her death because he was supposed to be the wisest of them all, he was supposed to prevent all of it from happening. instead, in his changed nature he believed that his road was the only road, and through it not only mythal but everyone he's ever known spirit or otherwise had lost their lives. not to mention he basically doomed the elven people as well.

he wakes up thousands of years later, disoriented and horrified. of course he would need not only the person he cares for in this new world, but a person from the old world to say that it is not too late. that his mistake was not his mistake alone. mythal closes that door to the age of elvhenan, she releases him from his sworn duty to her and to her people. he no longer has to avenge, only heal.

[danniruthvan]

So, Morrigan's son, Kieran, could have been conceived via the dark ritual that bound the soul of an Old God to him.

Given that ...[Veilguard spoiler below]

... the Archdemons are thralls of the Evanuris (and not manifestations of them as I had previously thought), does that mean the soul in Kieran was the soul of the blighted dragon Urthemiel or of its master, the elven god June?

Flemeth takes the soul from Kieran if he has it and Solas takes Flemeth's power while Morrigan allows her memories to merge with her. So where is the soul now? If it's a dragon soul, I could see Flemeth just converting it into strength for herself. If it's one of the Evanuris, the implications of that are crazy. Is June part of Solas or Morrigan?

[reagan-the-saunders]

I find it interesting that you get locked out of a romance with Lucanis if you let Treviso fall, but you can still romance Neve if you lose Minrathous.

[blade-of-the-crow]

ok so another thought that’s been running laps in my brain for a couple weeks… when Rook is talking to Varric during the game is it a varric that is based on memory or is it solas’s advice and manipulation dressed up as varric? 🤔

tagged just to be safe

[3gremlins]

"oh sure i'd love to go to the deep roads" said no one ever except me that one time when lace harding looked cute and asked me to come visit the blighted dwarves so she can process the absolute generations of trauma just laid down on her pretty lil freckled face

(tbh the deep roads bits in veilguard are maybe the best possible deep roads of any of the games so far? as in, there's not that much of them and it's actually well lit so i don't feel terribly claustrophobic and don't have to turn up the brightness just to see . i do sort of miss having at least one, sometimes multiple, companions whine about me dragging them to the deep roads and how much they hate caves, nugs, darkspawn, etc.

honestly all the veilguard companions are so good natured, i do kinda miss the ambient bitching you got in previous games like dorian being like "um these are designer boots and you make me walk in the woods with this absolute fashion disaster :stares at solas: like it's just embarassing" or varric whining about nature in general and how he'd rather just be cozy at home. even just the general ribbing between companions working out their shit. like yeah i did drag you assholes out in the woods to fight demons and bears, your whining is music to my ears, please tell me more about how much you hate it here lol)

[circleless]

I know the submarine dragon home base was scrapped for Veilguard - why I'll never understand - but you can see its remnants in the game

The Ossuary? Rook's meditation room with the full wall aquarium?

I think it could have been cool to have the mobile base, maybe one that still has Eluvian portal access. But specifically to have the ability to move bases if you are a distrusting Rook. Changing bases isn't unheard of in Dragon Age after all.

After all is kind of weird to live in Solas's old base while also plotting against him? He's in your head and the fade is shaped by intention and emotion.

On that point though - it could have been interesting if the Lighthouse had instead warped into a (different) Fade Prison.

[garrien-thorne]

"Garrien and the Party Dynamics"

I wanna talk about Garrien's relationships with the other members of the Veilguard, so let's start with Davrin!

Semi long post to follow under the break!

Garrien is largely very blunt and straightforward when "on the job", but he is also generally more "glass half full" as well.

He will try to reassure those around him that "everything is fine. I can handle this, I know what I'm doing.", even if he doesn't necessarily believe it himself.

The only time this mask slips, even a little bit, is when he's back at the Lighthouse. And even more specifically than that, when he is with Davrin (and also Varric, first and foremost.)

He sees Davrin as a brother in arms almost immediately, and trusts him to have his back. As a fellow Grey Warden, he doesn't feel like he needs to be so self assured with him. He knows he can say "Yeah, this is bullshit and it's only gonna get worse from here.", and Davrin will get it.

This isn't to say that the other party members *believe* Garrien when he's in "I have to be the hero. I have to be fearless." mode. For instance, Harding most definitely does not because she's known him for long enough to see right through it, and Garrien knows that.

But Davrin is the first one to call him out on it, and the first time that he does Garrien is extremely defensive, before he realizes that he has a point and he's not being malicious. It's okay, and necessary to voice your doubts (or more frequently just vent the sheer stress and general bullshit that they're dealing with) and that doesn't make you less of a leader, less of a hero, or less of a Warden.

"This is all fucked, isn't it?"

"You're telling me."

"And it's going to get worse before it gets better?"

"*That* is an understatement."

"We're going to fix it anyway."

"You're damn right."

~ from a conversation they probably had in the days before Weisshaupt.

[liaragaming]

Elven hand statues: *all over Arlathan forest*

Elven hand statues: *coming out of those special loot chests*

Elven hand statues: *clutching the cliffs in the Fade prison*

Me: You better explain what is up with the elves and these hand statues, Bioware, or I swear to god...

[trashartgalleries]

I get why people don't like DA Veilguard

To basically sum all this up: I think the game was rated and judged to harsh in certain areas and just enough/not enough in others. I don't think the same love, care, and passion went into this game like the past 3. Lots of wasted potential... 😔

I already had a problem when this game when it was revealed that our choices and actions from the previous 3 titles would matter here. All the connects we made with characters, the outcomes we made happen are now just... gone - nothing... and we now have to put up with/deal with the canon that (I can remember the name of the company that made this game right now) put in

One positive I do have about this game (before i get to the negeatives) is that the story is enjoyable (though, at times, predictable) and the combat systems is fantastic! I like that they combined certain classes together instead of making them separate

After getting pretty far in the game, I agree with a few things people were complaining about

Firstly, I feel like the romances were somewhat... lacking? They didn't have the same feel and story like they used to and most of the characters go straight into flirting with one another even after your character's shown interest. It also takes (or at least it felt like it took) a long ass time for any romance between Rook and crew to happen. I think this might be just me, but you got to get to the good shit a lot faster in Inquisition compared to Veilguard. ... speaking of Inquisition....

Secondly, I like that we get to see our Inquisitor character but I wish both the Inquisitor and Rook got a moment to gush about each other's lovers. It kind of sucks that it's canon that the Inquisitor was a female elf who romanced Solas because I never walked that path in Inquisition... at least not yet (I own the game and the DLC 😈... I miss Iron Bull😔). I wish we could've gotten a little more from the Inquisition side of the game all in all... maybe this just me wanted to replay Inquisition for the 1000th time lolz 🤣😅

Thirdly, Lucanis's romance took too damn long! So long that i started flirting with Emmrich and now he's my husband! I know he's dealing with Spite, but I was putting down flirty hints left and right and all he could think of was Neve 🙄 this is why imma take Neve from him with a female Rook that I accidentally made transgender and I've now decided to stick with it ☕️🧐

Fourthly, everyone being pansexual. As someone who's pan, I usually don't mind seeing this, but dragon age games have always had a wide variety of sexualities. That reputation of the different ways to love another was something that drew me in to this game franchise... but that's not exactly the case anymore. I mean, sure, if you focus more on hooking your party up with one another instead of each other you might get something, but most of those were straight. Harding and Taash were the only lgbtq+ hook up I got to before my Rook got with someone. Really shocked me; especially since the company that made this game claimed to be woke

Imma be real, I feel like Rook needed a few more scenes in his/her/their room getting fucking wasted while dealing with the waves of leadership, depending on the options you choose while talking to Varric

I miss Iron Bull... 😔 and Krem, I miss Krem too... 😔

[citrusai]

rook: why do you have an entire room dedicated to the inquisition and commemorating it bathed in eternal soft light of the sunrise

solas: please leave my fade prison.

[danniruthvan]

What would happen if Lucanis met Zevran?

Would they try to kill each other?

Would they kiss?????

[ilikalite]

So... yeah... I've finished my first playthrough of Dragon Age: Veilguard. This screenshot kinda sums up how I feel right now. I still need to sort things through. But this game is pretty amazing and incredibly aesthetically pleasing and I'm glad I can play again and again and pet every cat I see :D

[fancytrinkets]

It amuses me that Lucanis has two of the same features I've written into my fanfic for my post-Trespasser Inquisitor:

very very fond of Antivan coffee

taking up cooking in a serious way