#I always choose to keep Ali in the wardens

[fernacular]

The mage apprentice and the templar in training 

[tiadres]

30 Day Dragon Age OC Challenge

15. Choices

Tia’s choices in the main quests of Origins, Awakening and Witch Hunt: 

🌹 Supported the mages and did not allow the Rite of Annulment 🌹 Helped Redcliffe prepare and fight 🌹 Saved Connor by sending Jowan to defeat the demon in the Fade, with the help of Circle mages   🌹 Did not defile the Urn of the Sacred Ashes 🌹 Brokered peace between the elves and the werewolves  🌹 Defeated Branka 🌹 Supported Bhelen to become the King Orzammar 🌹 Supported Alistair to become the King of Ferelden, Loghain executed by Alistair 🌹 Accepted Morrigan’s offer 🌹 Dealt the killing blow the Archdemon, survived the battle  🗡 Protected both Vigil’s Keep and the city of Amaranthine 🗡 Killed the Architect 🔮 Did not go trough the Eluvian, and did not attempt to stop or harm Morrigan either

I think a lot of these decisions are very understandable in the light of what I have already told about Tia during this challenge: she wants to support her fellow mages and protect civilians, she is an Andrastian even if her views differ from the Chantry’s teachings, she always seeks diplomatic solutions... Her hardest decisions out of these were the question of who should be the ruler of Orzammar, who should rule Ferelden and whether to take Morrigan’s offer.  The Orzammar situation was challenging because to Tia it felt like having to choose between two bad options: Bhelen was the late king’s son but there were concerning rumors about him, Harrowmont was the late king’s close friend and advisor but he didn’t seem completely clean either. It was a though choice but she ended up supporting Bhelen and feeling kind of dirty for it, but later she was somewhat content upon seeing the progressive changes Bhelen did in Orzammar, such as making it more open to the outside world and making things better for those who had been at the bottom of the caste system.  Tia had not enjoyed having been forced to make big political decisions (especially since officially Grey Wardens are supposed to be neutral), but she soon had to do so again in Denerim. She ended up supporting her love Alistair because she thought he could grow to be a great king and while he was initially reluctant he seemed to get used to the idea and even want it as the Landsmeet went on. After being selected Tia convinced him that he could still keep her around as mistress, so all seemed pretty good on that front. Later Tia has wondered if she should have supported Anora instead because even though Ali did become a great king, it is also a huge responsibility and a stressful position for him. Maybe he would have been happier as a Grey Warden, and then him and Tia could also spend more time together. Also Anora would have surely made an amazing queen. So overall this is the decision Tia has probably regretted or questioned the most afterwards.

As a player I must confess that this is a choice that was heavily influenced by my own meta knowledge of what would happen later: if Ali was a Grey Warden, I would have been forced to choose between him and Hawke in DAI, and I simply didn’t want either to die. So instead I arranged for Ali to be king so I got to sacrifice poor Stroud instead. So while I try to roleplay and go with decisions that make the most sense for my character, this is the one exception. On the other hand it does create an interesting personal conflict for Tia: should she have chosen otherwise? Would it have been better for everyone if Anora had become the ruler instead of Ali? 

I already touched Tia’s mixed feelings concerning Morrigan’s offer in the previous prompt, focusing on the feeling of having cheated the fate even though at the same time Tia was of course happy that both she and Ali could live. Adding to what was said previously, Tia didn’t like the idea of Morrigan having sex with her boyfriend and wondered if she herself had broken a line by persuading Alistair to go along with this plan. Tia does not know what exactly happened during that ritual; a part of her does not want to know and the part that would have wanted to be there to see didn’t get what she wanted because Morrigan didn’t allow audience (or “extra participants”). Tia and Ali agreed to never talk about that night because both of them just wanted to shrug the memory off. What was done was done and Tia got what she wanted so she does not exactly regret having made that decision, but she does feel dirty about it for multiple reasons. So if the Alistair vs Anora-decision is the one Tia questioned the most afterwards, the deal with the witch is one that was hardest and most complicated emotionally. 

Want to do the challenge as well? Here are the prompts

[kinlochhold]

kh mods her game: DAO, Part 14 - Fixes, tweaks and some miscellaneous mods

These are largely mods to repair and restore broken dialogue and plottish things, gameplay fixes and tweaks, with a few small equipment and visual tweaks, and some voice set edits. (Note: Awakening-specific bug fixes are covered here.)

Dialogue/quest fixes, tweaks, and overhauls

The following mods restore, repair, or tweak numerous instances of bugged and broken dialogue and plot flags. All of them can be used together, after making the necessary adjustments outlined in the various ReadMe documents and comparing files to eliminate conflicts. (And so I recommend using manual override versions in all cases.)

Improved Romance Scenes and Fixes - Alistair [mirror] by cmessaz. Even if not romancing Alistair, this is, IMO, an an essential mod, for the many fixes and lore-sensitive tweaks, and the restored Ostagar content.

Morrigan Restoration Patch Dialog Fixpack [mirror] by Terra_Ex. In addition to repairing issues with Morrigan’s dialogue and plot flags, this mod restores several scenes that were fully voiced, but omitted from the released game. (Be sure to grab the campfire texture fix from the optional files as well!) ZDF Dialog Fix - formerly Zevran Dialog Fix [mirror] by ejoslin. Repairs dialogue-related bugs and broken plot flags for numerous NPCs throughout the campaign. Also restores some ‘lost’ banter and fixes the broken epilogue slides.

Magenta Emerald by Jengonthanda. Dialogue, plot flag, logic and script fixes.

Fixed Political Support in 'A Paragon of Her Kind' by firepanda. Overhauls and bug fixes the main Orzammar quest line.

Dialogue Tweaks by Avaraen. Mostly fixes for Leliana and Zevran.

More options for girl Wardens to tell Jory off Removes a (IMO, unnecessary) gender check from a male-only dialogue option during the Joining.

Sandbox Assessment by Ninivekha. Loghain will comment on how pretty all female PCs are, when speaking with him at his tent during the Prelude. Vanity, thy name is Warden! [Not using this.]

Gameplay fixes and tweaks

Again, my preference for modular packages which allow me to choose which files to install (or not).

Just Another Fixpack by ovi187. This large fix pack which deals solely with gameplay bugs is the ‘base’ I build on. It has a modular, manual install, and again, I review each file and omit any components which are undesirable or which conflict with other mods/tweaks.

Dain’s Fixes by dainbramage. An assortment of bugfixes and tweaks.

Tainted Blood Fix by trcvrs. A fix for the Tainted Blood ability which is bugged when by the Dual Weapon Expert passive ability. Second Drain life bug fix by Dread Wolf. Fixes a bug in Return to Ostagar in which a second Drain Life spell line can appear. Critical Hit Chance Quickfix by JOG. Fixes a bug in which the player character has a base critical hit chance of 0.0% while everyone else has 3.0%. (Only needs to be enabled briefly on a per character basis to repair the base value.) Plus Healing Received Fix [mirror] by Dennis Lee. Fixes the vanilla bug in which equipment with the +Healing Received attribute had no effect. The mod can be removed/disabled after all companions have been recruited and ‘fixed’, though leaving it installed has no detrimental effect. (Or Nukenin's +Healing Received Fix, which addresses the same issue.) Dual Striking fix by ultramailman. Fixes the bugged RNG for one of the  Dual Striking animations always resulting in a missed hit. Item Sets Fix by didymos1120. Keeps item set bonuses active, even through party changes and in camp. (Uses EventManager and thus may contribute to buggy behaviour  of certain quests - i.e., Redcliffe zombie battle, Captured! Landsmeet and Broken Circle Fade quests can break, Rescue the Queen disguises may not work.) Nukenin’s Stealing Fix by Nukenin. Fixes a stealing glitch introduced by the v1.03 patch, which made it impossible to steal random items from creatures if the PC had any coin. Also includes a few convenience tweaks (floaty notifications, optional cooldown reduction).

Golem Registry and Shaper’s Life Reward Fix by Dennis Lee. Fixes the bugged rewards of two quests.

Some fixes I’ve used in the past that are incorporated into Just Another Fixpack: Ancient Elven Boots Fix (or Ancient Elven Boots) to add the errant boots either to the Lothering chantry as intended, or spawn them directly to inventory. Gazarath Sword Drop fixes a vanilla item drop bug. (Scroll down to Misc. section for the file.)

Visual and item appearance consistency

Bergens Honor Fix [mirror] by Falryu. Changes the model of the helmet to the appearance used for its icon.

Templar Armour Fixes Unifies the material and tiering of vanilla Dragon Age: Origins templar armour parts, and assigns a model to the invisible templar boots.

WTF, Lyrium Dust? A clumsy hack that recolours the pink-ish Lyrium Dust inventory icon to blue.

Annoyance fixes and QoL tweaks

A Fallen Templar Quest Fix by Freedon Nadd. Logic fixes to Ser Henric’s quest in  Lothering. (Makes the ‘templar’ corpse a knight, and renames the quest to ‘ A Fallen Knight’.)

Dead Templar and Fade Qunari Fix by valerie1972. Fixes inaccurate labels on several templar corpses, and gives the Qunari in Sten’s Fade dream floaty text reflective of their dialogue.

Gloves During the Joining by b-lighted. Prevents the removal of the player character’s gloves during the Joining cutscene.

Tiny Fixes by danexuslurker. A floaty-text consistency fix for Lord Vollney, and a bugfix for the Dalish Camp statue of Ghilan'nain remaining interactive, even after the relevant codex entry has been obtained.

A good nug is a quiet nug by Phaenan. Shuts up Schmooples (and all the other squeaky idle nugs) without any bloodshed.

Power of Blood For All by Dennis Lee. Makes the Warden’s Keep Power of Blood abilities available to companions. (Note this mod merely unlocks the abilities, which need to be enabled on a per companion basis via the developer console and then acquired through the expenditure of talent points.)

Dexterity Light Armor by Noslen. Changes the base attribute requirement for light armours from Strength to Dexterity. (Note the No Helmet and No Armor hacks require a compatibility patch if using this tweak.)

Damage Statistic Fix by RustyBlade. Raises the player Damage Dealt and party Damage Dealt statistical maximum to 99,999,999 and fixes the player’s “Damage Dealt” statistic and “Contribution to Party Damage” percentage to accurately reflect the amounts accrued if/when the player goes beyond the 999,999 damage points.

Statistic Fix - Bosses Killed by Jake Zahn. Changes the “Bosses Killed” statistic to actually count killed bosses (Unique and ‘Orange’ creatures), and shifts non-boss ogre and dragon kills to their base creature group stat.

Rejuvenate Tweak [mirror] by Dennis Lee. Allows casting Rejuvenate on Self. Primarily for use with Advanced Tactics, to avoid a potential situation in which a caster might get stuck trying to cast the spell on Self (as an Ally).

Dragon Age Mutator [mirror] by TheMutator. An external utility that enables various gameplay changes. (I’ve only used the banter trigger, and the Chain Lightning and monetary gain tweaks.)

Voices (and the lack of them) Human Female Cocky Voice by thecatisout. Restores the omitted Female Human ‘Cocky’ voice set to the available options during chargen. Universal Voices [mirror] by Kesaru. Removes the race restrictions on voice sets, allowing any sex appropriate voice to be selected during character generation, with Elf voices designated as ‘High’; Human voices as ‘Medium’, and Dwarf as ‘Low’. (Can be disabled after chargen.) PC Voice Set Edits WIP by cmessaz. Removes a lot of annoying, repetitive battle cries. I toss this in my override at the point when hearing “Desperation is an ugly perfume!” makes me grit my teeth and ball my fists. (I also use the edited voice set for Leliana to keep her from yammering about locks and such.)

Silent PC by JOG. Adds a no-voice option to chargen, for a truly silent protagonist. NPC equipment refinements

Full disclosure: I’ve replaced the next three mods with my own, larger NPC equipment overhaul, but I do recommend them for anyone disinclined to devote hours reviewing and revising character files in the toolset rather than actually playing the the game. (I think they are called ‘sane people’.)

Clothed Prisoners by danscott84. Adds appropriate garb to all those prisoners, dead bodies and other NPCs who would normally be wearing smallclothes but instead turn up nekkid when a nude body replacer is installed. (Note that the Cailan tweak is glitchy, and he’ll probably be 'alive' and idling after the initial cutscene.) [No longer using this.] NPC Equipment Refinement by Ali Bengali. Gives more appropriate armour, weapons and clothing to some NPCs. Optional file to put Redcliffe Teagan in armour. [No longer using this.] True Dalish by Ali Bengali. Similar to NPC Equipment Refinement, but focused solely on the Dalish camps. Some of the alterations it makes are fine, but others seem like changes-for-the-sake-of-change. [No longer using this.]

And a smattering of my own NPC gear tweaks and fixes:

The King is Dead A non-glitchy fix for naked!RTO!Cailan. (He’ll wear noble clothing and stay dead after interacting with his body.)

Better Bannhammer Equips Bann Teagan in all his appearances with consistent and (more) appropriate gear. Also addresses the variations in his descriptive floaty text.

Her Hammer is her… uh… never mind The Proving Master warns the Warden, “watch out for Myaja’s hammer.” But Myaja doesn’t wield a hammer/maul, she fights with a mace and shield. I gave her a hammer with nearly equivalent stats (swapping her Aeducan Mace for Trian’s Maul), and an appropriate two-handed AI package.

Connor isn’t an Elf! Epilogue Fix For all things epilogue, Connor is incorrectly assigned a morph from a random Dalish camp elf boy. I’ve replaced it with an edited version of his vanilla morph, sans the bruising/discoloration and heavy makeup.

Jowan and another different Jowan fix Replaces the morph of Jowan’s doppelganger in the Jowan’s Intention quest, because one Jowan is plenty.

Better Gear for Fergus A lore-appropriate adjustment to Fergus Cousland’s equipment, both in the origin arc, and for the post-coronation/epilogue scenes, replacing his ordinary Heavy Chainmail with the Ceremonial armour set.

A Sword for Ser Donall Ser Donall, the Redcliffe knight encountered in the Lothering chantry, is equipped with a kite shield, but no sword. That seemed… silly, so now he also has a Longsword.

More Believable Fade!Duncan Equips the Lost in Dreams iteration of Duncan with Oathkeeper-and-dagger, rather than a sword-and-shield, with a corresponding alteration to his AI package. (Optionally, buffs Duncan’s rank from Critter, for a slightly more challenging encounter.)

Elfy Ghost!Boy The distraught ghost child in the Brecilian Forest Lower Ruins is human in appearance, despite his babbling in elvhen and the overwhelming evidence in his toolset character file that he was intended to be elven; I’ve altered his morph to be more elfy. Elora is a Mage Elora, the Halla Keeper in the Brecilian Forest Dalish camp, is a mage with a full battery of Primal spells. To reflect this, I’ve changed her attire to the Chasind Robes. Aldous isn’t a Tranquil Aldous, the scholar in the Human Noble origin, wears the robes of a Tranquil. I’ve replaced them with the non-magical, non-religious vanilla ‘Robes’ (or an alternate version which equips ‘Brother Aldous’ with Chantry robes). Ostagar NPC Tweaks (Ser Jory and nurse) Some tweaks to the appearances of Ser Jory (equipping him with Heavy Chain armour) and the Ostagar nurse (replacing her incongruent, brightly coloured noble dress with something more practical). Includes an optional replacement morph for the nurse. Better Mages, Better Templars, WTF Tranquil? (for DAO) A small, modular collection of vanilla equipment tweaks for Templar and Mage NPCs, to address logic and continuity issues.

[tiadres]

Here we go again

I’ve recently made some changes to my canon worldstate - or rather, I’ve decided upon just one world instead of two like I used to have, combining the characters and elements from those that I love the most. And of course I am replaying the series that way! What makes it all even better is that now I have an actual PC that can run all the games smoothly, unlike my poor old laptop which struggled greatly whenever I had two mages in party at the same time in DAI, not to even mention the whole Trespasser ^^” 

I’ve always had a very good idea about my Amell’s personality and story, and the only change I’m making for her now is that while I previously had her and Alistair both stay as Wardens, I’ve decided that instead she’ll arrange for him to be king and keep her as his mistress. This is because A.) I do like Alistair as king B.) This way I won’t end up with having to choose between Ali and Hawke in the Fade, because that is simply an impossible choice for me to make </3

For Hawke I am probably going to change her class to mage instead of rogue like she originally was, since I just love mages and I think it would add nicely to her relationship with Anders. Lavellan is going to have a change of LI; previously she romanced Cullen but I’ve since started to feel like that’s not quite right, and after consideration I’m fairly certain I’m gonna pair her up with Lace! Anwen and Lace would make such an amazing and cute couple, and I am willing to go for that even though we still do not have that “romanced Harding”-tile in Keep >__<

So anyway, I’m excited and full of OC feels :3