#Shokra

[du-hjarta-skulblaka]

Shokra Adaar/Adaariis, qunari saarebas and inquisitor/ tiefling wild magic barbarian/ Draenei arcane warrior, depending on setting :3

[stankhole]

predictions for veilguard romances under the cut. would love to hear what you guys think will happen with the characters

davrin

confident and seems like the type that would immediately flirt back

would use assan playing cute as a way to pick up dates

later you find out the sad reasoning behind why he left his clan & joined the wardens

taash

her wearing armor reminiscent of the shokra-taar/antaam-saar makes me think she’s a qunari still following the qun

she’s initially only interested in a physical relationship and has to work through her upbringing under the qun to become comfortable with a romantic relationship

wants to ride rook’s bones to dust after they take down a dragon the first time

harding

she feels like she has an obligation to the inquisition/rook/varric/whatever organization she’s a part of so she’s initially hesistant to enter into a relationship. she’s been a forward scout for so long she’s used to being all work and no play so when you flirt with her she enjoys it but doesn’t take it too seriously, she’s been traveling with varric recently so she’s used to it after all

she’s also confused because of the magical powers she gains and is afraid of hurting rook since she can’t control them

you help her get control of her magic/figure out where it’s from and you bone

lucanis

virgin

been raised to be a perfect assassin so he doesn’t know what to do when someone shows genuine interest in him

since he was raised to take over as the next talon, he’s used to having his life planned out for him so when he gets the freedom of making his own choices he doesn’t really know what to do

final romance flag is either after he tells his grandmother he doesn’t want to be the new talon or after his cousin finds out he’s not dead

please let him mention zevran, even if just in passing

bellara

sunny and goofball personality, likes to make their lover laugh

very intelligent, a big history nerd and would love to take you to romantic places in arlathan and give romantic ancient gifts

thrill seeker, first kiss scene happens after doing something reckless, be that a veil jump or boss fight

emmrich

grandpa thinks he’s too old for you and you deserve someone younger, but when you don’t back down you realize that peepaw absolutely ~ f u c k s ~

married to his job for the past 30 years, his only friends are his skeletal assistants

manfred will absolutely walk in on you two getting busy at some point

i hope desire demons make a comeback and show up in his story

somehow knows cassandra; is like her 5th uncle 3 times removed

neve

knows what she wants and isn’t going to hesitate if you show interest in her

but will not be fully invested in the relationship aspect at first because of her cynicism. eventually comes around when she realizes how devoted you are to making minrathous/the world a better place

has worked with dorian/ dorian is an informant for her

god bioware please give her a dwarven strap that matches her prosthetic. she’d be unstoppable 🙏🏻

[thedinanshiral]

What's in a name? A (very) simple guide to find your Rook's name.

I’ve seen some people are wondering how some of us already have named Rooks, others have no idea how to get names or which names could be good, and since i kinda overdid it and have 11 Rooks already planned and named i thought i’d share some of my process and drop some ideas. This works for me, but maybe it can help others find their Rook’s name(s).

Keep in mind these are also fantasy names, they don’t have to make sense or have a specific meaning, you can literally make them up. I also take into consideration known naming conventions, for example in Elven we have Solas and Abelas’ names, with specific meanings (Pride, Sorrow) and judging by what Solas tells Abelas, it’d seem ancient elvhen would change their names according to roles or events in their life. Similarly in the Qun, we know their names aren’t names as we understand them but simply descriptors of the role that is assigned to them within the Qun.

It’s probably easier when it comes to human nations in Thedas: Orlesians are likely to have French names, Fereldans to have anglo names, Antivans to have Spanish and Italian names. Tevinter is a bit trickier because it’s based on the Roman empire and Latin is a pretty dead language, but they sure liked to make records so we have names there too.

Elvhen names:

I literally opened a tab with the Elven language DA wiki page and read everything -for the bazillionth time tbh-; DA elven language is a cipher, not a conlang, so feel free to make things up because we don’t have the full cipher -i’m not even sure BW does- .

For Elven names i check the wiki for words that i like the sound of, the meaning of, ideally both. If i feel something is “missing” i may add a letter or combine different words into a new one.

Here are some examples:

Athima, from athim, humility

Atisha, from Atish'an, atisha is peace

Sethena, from Sethen'a or Setheneran, land of waking dreams or where the veil is thin, aka the Fade.

Revaren, from Revas, freedom, and Renan, voice.

Alasan, from alas, earth/dirt, and suffix an, place.

Sulahni, from sulahn, sing.

Samahli, from samahl, laughter.

Vardanehn, lit. Our little joy.

Mir'as, Banal'ras is shadows, implying ras refers to light, Mir is mine. Lit. "my light".

Qunlat names:

Same process as elven, but trying to modify as less as possible, keeping in mind the Qunari are very rigid in their ways and can be very literal as well.

Anaan, victory

Asaarash, rivaini horsebreed used by the antaam.

Kaaras, navigator.

Asaara-kaaras, wind navigator, wind rider.

Saar, dangerous. Saar-asaara, dangerous wind. Saar-meraad, dangerous tide.

Sata-kasi, mauler.

Vattic-kos, vat is fire, tic is cold and kos refers to nature damage, all three words are in reference to damage done with a mage staff. So Vattic-kos could be elemental damage.

Shokra, shok is struggle or war, shokrakar is rebel.

Antivan names:

These were way easier as i’m Latina of Spanish and Italian descent which in this case feels a bit like cheating. I think any Spanish and Italian name could work, these are just some i like.

Vittoria/Victoria

Chiara

Alessandro/a

Stefan

Dante

Aria

Tevinter names:

I literally googled for Latin names for this one, and also checked previous Tevinter characters’ names. Some of this could also work for an Antivan Rook.

Aelius

Amadis

Bastian

Caelus

Camilla

Dena

Dante

Desideria

Ella

Enora

Favian

Fausto, Faustino, Faustus

Gaius

Gloria

Grazia

Klaudia

Laurena

Lavinia

Liberia

Merit/Mérita/Mérito

Remus

Salena

Sarina

Sidonia

Sollemnia

Tatius

Terentius

Tiberius

Urbano, Urbanus

Valentio

Varinia

Viatrix

Virgilio, Virgil

Vitus

Xandros

I’m leaving out the numerals like Primo, Segundo, Quintus, Octavio... check Cesars' names, that could work too. I think you could just search the scientific name of any fauna (hello House Pavus) or flora and pick whatever sounds nice too. Also we recently got a new Magister’s name in the Dragon Age: Vows & Vengeance trailer, Magister Andante. Y’know what “Andante” means? Walking. Magister Walking. Fear nothing and go wild with these names, seriously.

You could also check other cultures and native names, respectfully of course. Here are some guaraní and mapuche names i like, i didn’t modify these at all.

Kerana, guaraní “goddess of sleep”, or sleepy one.

Karai, guaraní, “respectable man”.

Luriel, guaraní, “lord of the wind”.

Amaru, guaraní, “rain”.

Anahí, guaraní, from a legend, the name of a young woman burned at the stake by the conquistadors, after which she is transformed into the flowering tree.

Newén, mapuche, "strength"

Nahuel, mapuche, “jaguar”

Ayelén, mapuche, “laughing”.

Tahiel, mapuche, “hombre libre”

For Dwarven names, i am deeply sorry i haven't decided on a Dwarf Rook yet so i haven't done my dwarven research, but the same process applies: check the canon dwarf names we got so far, if the lore says anything about dwarven naming conventions, if they're a commoner or noble, if there are caste-specific names too, and so on. And if you want to name your dwarf Rook Bob, that's fine too! ( if DUNE can have Paul and Jessica, why couldn't we have a dwarf named Bob?? like i said, go wild, name freely, be happy)

I understand some people don't want to or aren't sure about naming their Rooks until we learn what the different canon surnames will be, and i totally get that, i felt the same way. But i couldn't resist until we got that info so i overdid it, particularly with my Tevinter-Nevarran mage whose name i picked clearly inspired by Cassandra's full name, only for me to end up calling her by the first of her five names that i kinda struggle to remember. So far we've only seen one canon surname, "Thorne", and since surnames are defined by factions, Thorne seems to be the Grey Wardens' canon surname. The elf Grey Warden champion seen in the recent high-level combat gameplay is named Esha Thorne.

I think maybe surnames should depend on what they're now calling lineage (elven, qunari, human, dwarf) rather than on factions, or they could have offered options, one per lineage and one per faction, and let us decide which one to keep. An elf named Thorne sounds a bit odd to me, even if they're a Grey Warden. Will any of my chosen names match the canon surnames? Probably not, but at least i had fun while naming them. My only GW for now is Favian and Favian Thorne doesn't sound bad.

Anyway, I hope this helps those who are a bit lost to find names that works for you and your Rooks, have fun!

[felassan]

Hello, I tried to google it but didn't find anything: can you tell me what "queuen" means from the tag "victory is in the queuen" you use a lot? Thanks in advance ^^

hello! ◕‿◕ oh I'm so sorry haha, that's just me being silly. it's my queue tag, for posts from my queue. it's a play on words on a line from the Qun.

Shok ebasit hissra. Meraad astaarit, meraad itwasit, aban aqun. Maraas shokra. Anaan esaam Qun. (Struggle is an illusion. The tide rises, the tide falls, but the sea is changeless. There is nothing to struggle against. Victory is in the Qun.)

[teslapunk3327]

John Hart forcing Ianto to wear bondage-themed outfits 🤝 me forcing Solas to wear the Shokra-Taar armour.

[elvhenfaer]

I don’t know what’s better, putting Dorian in the Shokra-tar and making him run around with his tiddies out or dressing your Inky in it and know you’re driving Dorian nuts running around with your tiddies out.

[enigmalea]

Arlathan Fic Recs 2024: Fics

Continuing in my @arlathanxchange Recs (and last up) is a few of the fics I've managed to get through so far. There's so many good fics featuring elves that I haven't even read half of them yet. These all managed to make it to my "Will Read Again" list.

Crossed Paths ☆ rating G ☆ Anders/Solas

Hunger ☆ rating E ☆ Mythal/Solas ☆ Vampire AU Mind the tags

Ataas Shokra ☆ rating E ☆ The Iron Bull/Solas ☆ BDSM Mind the tags

I just opened 7 more tabs to read while I was gathering these, so uh... I might be back with more! You can find the full collection here.

All Arlathan Recs: gifts | art | fics

[lazysload]

Venatrix's Adaar modlist for daimod

Head

Skin texture Hair retexture Lashes retexture Eyebrows retexture Makeup Vitaar Hair Other hairs 1 Other hairs 2 Ornamental horns Bigger horns

Optional texture

Black scleras

Body

Custom body models for all races Also body models from the Susi qunari mods can be found in this collection of mods, in the files SOS Qunari sparse freckles & Make-up 

Equipment

Starting gear Inquisitor's pjm 1 Inquisitor's pjm 2 Inquisitor's pjm 3 Shokra-Taar replacer Expanded palette Halamshiral's uniform Mermaid Dress

I hope this compilation makes it easier for someone to be able to mod the game.

[xhashaseed]

ShoKra - by - XhashaSeed https://xhashaseed.newgrounds.com

[ash3]

Why not Shokra-taar?...

[wanderingnork]

T-rex for the dinosaur ask game?

T. rex: a scene I’m really proud of

from the sequel to Patron Saints of Blissful Imperfection:

It’s about half a mile, taking a hard left through dense trees, crossing a stream, and navigating up and down another rise, before they break out of the forest into an open mountain meadow. And there, gleaming in the last of the sun, are dragons. One huge and dark as night, the other a little smaller but glowing gold.

“Two dragons,” Lace whispers, gripping her hart’s reins tight to stop it from bolting.

“She lived,” Adaar says. She sounds stunned. “That’s—that gold one, she’s the Guardian, Mythal’s dragon, she fought the red lyrium dragon for us at the Temple of Sacred Ashes—I thought she died.”

“And the other?”

“Ataashi,” Adaar says. “The Qunari dragon.”

Without warning, Adaar scrambles down off of Misty. She almost falls, crashing into her horse’s side and getting a displeased whinny in return, but doesn’t seem to notice. She throws the reins at Lace and turns, walking straight out into the field. Wading through the grass—only hip-deep on her, it’d be over Lace’s head—Adaar heads right toward the dragons.

Clutching the reins of Adaar’s horse in one hand and the reins of her hart in her other, Lace can’t cover her eyes. She wants to, though. Both of the dragons are watching Adaar. One of them, Lace can’t tell which, is growling, deep enough that it makes Lace’s chest shake. Misty is whickering and stepping from side to side. She’s too disciplined to run, but she sure wants to. And Lace is fairly sure that if one of those dragons comes closer, her hart is going to bolt, training or no training.

“I thought you died,” Adaar is saying.

The gold dragon rears up slightly, looking down at Adaar. Its head alone is three times bigger than she is! One bite and the Inquisitor is going to be mincemeat! The growl gets louder—yep, that’s the one making that awful sound. Its wings spread a little, like a falcon trying to make itself look bigger when it’s mad. The other dragon, its head still resting on its forelimbs, is just watching. Even though it’s huge, even bigger than the gold dragon, it looks really tired. Lace kind of feels bad for it.

Somehow, Adaar is totally unfazed by the gold dragon’s threat display. She stops about ten feet away from the dragons. “Ataashi,” she says.

Instantly the big dark dragon flinches. Lace has never seen a dragon look scared but this one sure does. It lets out a…well, Lace can only call it a whine. The gold dragon snarls.

Adaar holds up her hand and backs away a little. “Maraas shokra,” she says, much softer. That’s the Qunari language. It’s hesitant, like Adaar’s not used to speaking it. Lace has no idea what any of it means. “Um…ebala-kost.”

The dark dragon cocks its head slightly. Then it settles again, head back on its forelimbs. It blinks slowly at Adaar. It understood what she said, whatever that was. And it liked what it heard.

“You should head back to Skyhold,” Adaar says, looking over her shoulder at Lace. In the last light, Lace would swear Adaar’s visible eye is glowing. “I’ll take it from here.”

Oh, Maker. “Are you—are you sure?”

“Yes,” Adaar says. “I’ll be all right.”

Fine. Lace pickets Misty quickly, in reach of the lush grass, and—with some effort and a convenient tree stump—manages to get the saddle and all off. Surely Adaar can get it back on: if she can talk to dragons, then she can definitely put a saddle on a horse. Right? Well, if she can’t, there’s nothing stopping her riding home bareback.

Assuming she doesn’t come home riding a dragon.

Lace takes one more look at Adaar and the dragons as she mounts her hart again and heads back into the trees. Adaar looks so small next to them. But there’s something about her, with her great horns, her shadow stretching long across the meadow to join with their shadows…Lace shivers.

She doesn’t look back again.

[du-hjarta-skulblaka]

Inquisition Bad because if it let me played how I wanted, the inner circle would be a polycule

[heylavellan]

prompt me!!

Things I Write

Highlighted/colored ships are particularly inspiring right now!

Fave Ships: Zevran x Warden, Dorian x Inquisitor, Cullen x Inquisitor, Alistair x Warden, Alistair x Cullen, Dorian x Cullen, Sera x Dagna, Sera x Inquisitor, Ser Gilmore x Cousland, Duncan x Cailan, Lanaya x Warden, Leliana x Warden, Maric x Loghain, Krem x Cullen, Josephine x Inquisitor, Finn x Arianne

Fave platonic ships: Alistair & Zevran, Lavellan & Zevran, Shale & Wynne, Ferelden circle besties (Jowan, Anders, Finn, and mage!Warden), Cousland & Ser Gilmore, Vivienne & Dorian, Dorian & Solas, Sera & Cole

Fave Characters/NPCs: Ser Gilmore, Zevran, Alistair, Sten, Oghren, Wynne, Arl Eamon, Anora, Loghain, Duncan, Jowan, Warden's Mabari, Bann Teagan, Irving, Lanaya, Riordan, Lace Harding, Sera, Dorian, The Iron Bull, Cassandra, Varric, Cullen, Leliana, Krem, Nathaniel Howe

Meet my OCs: Rhiannon Amell (they/she), Ramsay Cousland (any), Elwyn Lavellan (he/they), Shokra Adaar (he/him), Ariadne Trevelyan (she/they)

Prompt Help

anything goes, but no idea what to send? try some of the below!!

magical prompts

injury prompts

angry confessions prompts

battle partner prompts

argument prompts

mcpick two!!

in love prompts

What to Expect

A little bit fruity

As a big ol' fruit, I'm most likely to write my ships as gay or in some other way queer. So if you want something cishet (or want to explore a specific identity), you'll need to specify.

Low spice

I like smut, but by default most prompts won't go beyond T rating. If you want something more, don't be afraid to ask.

No DA2 :(

My laptop is happy to run most games, but the EA launcher believes I am using a virtual machine when I try to play DA2. So no DA2 until I play it, even if I love fenhawke and handers

[icyschreviews]

A Review of Dragon Age: Inquisition

Part 3: Let’s Pad This Review as Much as They Padded the Game

This is part 3 of a multi-part review of Dragon Age: Inquisition. Click here for part 1 and part 2.

You might have noticed that I’ve been talking about this game for a while now, but still haven’t mentioned most of its features. Inquisition tries to squeeze in just about every trick from the triple-A handbook. It’s so bloated it makes a whale carcass look slimmer than a runway model.

Of course there’s crafting and of course it completely useless. There’s an absurd number of crafting materials in the game, most of which you’ll gather just by strolling through the map and smashing the same button. That is, after you’ve installed the mod which gets rid of that annoying pick-up animation. You’ll also want to mod your inventory capacity so you don’t go mad from going back and forth all of the time.

Each material has different attributes which lets you fine-tune your gear, but it’s all pointless down the line. None of your custom creations can compete with unique drops found in quests. I only ever crafted a few Shokra-taar armors just because they look the best on my Qunari Inquisitor, stats be damned. Even though the finest gear is the one you loot, you still need to sift through heaps of hot garbage to get to the cream of the crop. My inventory grooming routine consisted of picking out the purple stuff and getting rid of everything else.

The game has a trading system to take in all of that superfluous equipment. Merchants supposedly sell some good items, but I honestly couldn’t care less. The game has a gag merchant in Val Royeaux who sells you a golden nug for 10k. The item’s ridiculous price tag is a fun nudge at Orlesian culture, but I had so much money by the end of the game that 10k barely counted as pocket change. I could have built myself another fortress across from Skyhold if the game let me.

Skyhold’s Undercroft is home to a couple more workbenches. Herbs are another category of crafting materials which you can use to make potions, tonics and grenades. After I’ve upgraded the regular health potion, I completely forgot about this feature for the next 100 or so hours. I was only reminded of it when I glanced over my leftover achievements.

The game lets you upgrade your garden to be able to grow specific herbs, which is cute considering I bring back sacks of the stuff while the garden only grows 6 feeble plants at a time. There are two more major upgrades to your keep, one to the courtyard and one to the watchtower, both purely cosmetic. You can also change your curtains and other equally insignificant pieces of furniture. The whole system is so painfully simplistic it couldn’t possibly satisfy anyone with a genuine desire for base building.

Dagna, any chance you could customize my toilet seat?

The war table is yet another feature used to stuff this piñata. There are a few things I like about it. The mission blurbs are far away from throwaway placeholders. They actually tell compelling little stories that are going on in the background. You can fail a mission if you pick the wrong advisor for the job. The game lets you guess the outcome by judging an advisor’s estimation and understanding the context behind the mission. I also found the occasional banter adorable. I love how Leliana’s voice comes out of my left headphone while Josephine’s from the right one, as if I was actually standing in the room with them.

That said, real-time missions are an obnoxiously stupid idea. There’s absolutely no reason why any of the game’s mechanics should be tied to a clock. It adds nothing to the experience and just makes you run back and forth from and to the war room. You probably guessed that this was one of the first things I modded. Come to think of it, this game requires an alarming amount of mods just to be playable.

Well anyway, the war table also lets you spend Inquisition points to unlock special perks. Most of these are garbage. Of course I don’t need more inventory slots - a mod already gave me 400. Better deals with merchants, the chance to gather more crafting materials and unique gear are all needless additions to an already excessive system. One perk lets your rogues pick more complex locks which only really impacts a handful of doors in the game. The only useful things are a few combat related benefits and additional dialogue choices. The latter upgrade is great as it unlocks special options in almost every relevant conversation.

If you want to live out your supreme leader fantasies, the game lets you play a judge once after every main mission. The sentences are varied enough, but rarely seemed to impact much other than my companions’ approval. Once you’re done ruining lives, you can climb up the tower and find your research assistant. There you can submit anything new you’ve found about your enemies. Your research assistant will do some quick math in her head and immediately grant you damage bonuses. That’s so nice of her, but why the extra steps? Couldn’t the game have applied these bonuses automatically after I defeated a set number of enemies? I kept forgetting about this feature and thus failed to utilize it as much as I should.

Report, minions!

The UI is mostly a mess, as I’ve already mentioned. It’s barely usable on PC and is missing a bunch of pop-ups and contextual text you’d expect to see when hovering over certain elements. While the menus don’t glitch out with a gamepad, they are somewhat hard to maneuver. There are simply too many menus and sub-menus and not enough sticks and bumpers and triggers to properly cover everything.

You could easily fill a bingo card with all of the issues plaguing the system. E.g. whenever you switch between companions in the inventory screen, there’s this awkward pause before the game loads a character’s model. This problem is also present in the leveling and potions menus, even though the latter doesn’t show any models to begin with. This makes the simple act of flipping through your party a slow and arduous process.

The crafting menus are especially egregious. When creating new gear there’s no way to compare its stats to your current one. The UI elements used to select different kinds of crafting materials are incredibly finicky to maneuver. The tinting menus display the stats of the selected materials even though they won’t be applied to the gear during that particular process.

The only part of the whole UI experience I like are the codex entries. To my delight, Inquisition decided to keep much Dragon Age 2’s art style. Each codex entry has a gorgeous picture accompanying it. I raced over to read new entries just so I could see how a beloved character was portrayed. I only wish that new entries were easier to spot and that the bloody text was properly capitalized.

The most genius aspect of the codex entries is their inclusion in loading screens. Besides tips, you’ll randomly be given a few entries you can shuffle between and read while waiting on the level to load. If I could snub an idea from a friend, this feature could have been improved even more by letting you stay in the loading screen after a level has become ready. You could then finish your piece of reading, press a button to proceed and maybe even mark an entry as read right there on the spot.

A fancy portrait indeed. Too bad he’s dead.

After I beat the base game, I looked over at the list of DLCs and decided to go for Descent - the one I woefully stumbled across while still getting my bearings in Skyhold. It didn’t take long for the PTSD from Amgarrak to kick in. You remember Amgarrak, don’t you? I still wake up in the middle of the night after having dreamt of being smacked by golems.

Why, oh why do Deep Roads missions always have to be like this? Yes, I get it, this is supposed to be thematic. The Deep Roads are a treacherous maze of tunnels infested with all kinds of vermin. Few make it out alive. I understand how a designer might be tempted into clogging the level with enemies thinking they’re honoring the premise, but this kind of design is pure bullshit. Endless waves of enemies don’t promote good difficulty, but breed resentment and frustration. Rage doesn’t even begin to the describe the emotions I went through.

Descent is nothing but boss after boss after boss, after horde after horde after horde… Everyone’s a bullet sponge, even the regular enemies. It takes an absurd amount of time to trim a simple genlock’s health down to zero. Minions spawn indefinitely while a boss is still alive. Enemies only ever spam their deadliest attacks. Archers insta-kill you the moment you step out of cover. Ogres are able to pick you up and keep stun-locking you over and over again. Meanwhile your Inquisitor dances three laps around an enemy before finding a suitable spot from which to smack them.

The pathing is abysmal. I appreciate them trying to be creative with the level design, but it doesn’t help much if I keep getting stuck between stalactites. Getting nudged off a cliff is a regular occurrence. The war table can open up new precipices for you to explore, but Inquisition’s platforming attempts just make me shiver.

One of the few times I died in this godforsaken game was in this DLC. Just before the end of the third floor, you’re tasked with defeating a horde of darkspawn. The horde consists of a dozen or so bosses and endless swarms of minions. The game does not let you save while in the midst of this. It offers two supply caches along the way, one it wouldn’t let me access while being engaged in the final boss room. It also, for some reason, lets you open an optional door with more genlock alphas I certainly did not need in my life.

I barely got myself through to what seemed like the final challenge - two more ogres blocking my way to a new campsite. The game felt inclined to shower me with genlocks and emissaries until no one but Blackwell was left standing. I slew the last ogre, preparing a sigh of relief, only for the game to spawn the final-final boss in front of me. What’s that? There’s no achievement tied to difficulty? Guess who’s switching over to Easy mode.

Or so I thought. I ended up caving under my pride over night and reattempting the section on Hard again. I swapped Dorian for Vicky and used my previous experience to cheese the hell out of the game. Still, the section stretched my patience to its utmost limits. It ended up taking an hour and a half of meticulous micro-management to get myself through it with a few potions and a sliver of sanity left to spare.

Story-wise Descent sets out to answer one of the biggest questions tossed around in the base game. I remember furrowing my brows when Bianca first announced that lyrium was actually alive. She came to this conclusion after discovering that red lyrium was infected by the Blight. Sure, Bianca, but isn’t that a pretty big leap in logic? Why couldn’t organic matter like the Blight affect non-organic compounds as well? It’s all just chemistry down the line.

Before you have any idea it’s driving you towards the source of lyrium, Descent tries to sell you on its big Titan mystery. Even though the mere mention of Titans reminds me of that one anime, I couldn’t seem to care much about it. I found myself significantly more intrigued by Descent’s fundamental premise - plunging into the unknown. There has always been something tantalizing about this concept. The raw curiosity of stumbling through the depths mixes potently with the ever creeping anxiety of accumulating more and more layers of rocks above your head.

The mystery still needed to be solved, so the DLC decided to bend over and barf out an unprocessed heap of information right at your feet. The lore implications are huge, but Decent can barely hold itself together to form a coherent sentence. The final cut-scene is borderline nonsensical and I was ultimately left with more questions than answers. Why should I have to decipher the story from codex entries?

So supposedly Valta got super powers. What kind of super powers? How can she be so sure? After she tells you she’s staying in the depths, you can ask her how she plans to find food and water. She just shrugs. Shrugs, I tell you! Say, Valta, how exactly am I supposed to pass on this information? No one in Orzammar is going to listen to a Qunari, a fake Grey Warden or a bunch of cast-less dwarfs. I might as well announce the existence of lizard people. Maker knows I found enough notes to support that theory.

Good old elevator times.

I spent my time much more pleasantly with Hakkon, although in many ways this DLC is an extension of the base game, both the good and the bad. The Frostback Basin is full of little nooks of interest hidden for you to explore, yet separated by packs of spiders which hound you relentlessly. The Avvar enemies are no less annoying, being nothing more than re-skins of human opponents you’ve fought so many times before. Their mages even chant the same nonsense as the Venatori.

The DLC tries to pull off a few gimmicks, the most bizarre one residing towards the end. To unlock access to the Hakkonite fortress you need to activate ancient Tevinter devices starting from one corner of the map and going diagonally downwards. Some other game might have used this opportunity to make you see the map from a new perspective, but Inquisition just reveals how little thought it put into the level design. There is no clear path from one device to another. A lot of them are located on barely accessible cliffs, so teleporting from waypoint to waypoint is ironically the least painful approach.

On the story side things are much more engaging. Unlike Descent, Hakkon takes its time to flesh out its premise. The Avvar are a fascinating culture whose beliefs and rituals present a clever twist on Thedas’ other religions. Instead of showering you with codex entries or jamming everything into the last few minutes, Hakkon builds up its Avvar through numerous side-quests which steadily fill in the picture. It’s even throws in a few gags here and there, like rescuing a bear and later lecturing it by denying it candy.

I was much less interested in Inquisitor Ameridan’s quest, even though that was supposed to be the through-line of the DLC. I failed to see its importance or be shocked by the final reveal. I already knew the Chantry had a habit of rewriting history to its own benefit, especially if that said history was elven. Even so, I was entertained by professor Kenric’s enthusiasm for the matter. Nerdy Sebastian was not something I knew I needed in my life. Speaking of Kenric…

Scout Harding is by far the secret star of the show. I love how she rose from obscurity to one of Inquisition’s more prominent roles. It shows just how much you can do with a character by carefully measuring conversations and spacing them apart for maximum effect. It also helps that Harding is incredibly likeable and down to earth, being the representative of the common folk who make up the bulk of the Inquisition. Her interactions with Kenric are hilarious - the practical farm girl trying her best to keep a sheltered city boy out of trouble.

Lace, I think I found you a boyfriend.

Trespasser starts off with a bold red warning informing you that this is the point of no return. I have to hand it to the game for making me hesitant to take the leap while simultaneously being completely fed up with it. Most decision-heavy RPGs don’t have what I’d call good endings. I don’t think the narrated slides before the credits are sufficient enough to convey your impact on the story. This is precisely why I found Trespasser’s initial premise so appealing. Two years have passed since Corypheus’ defeat and you are finally able to see what your decisions have wrought.

Catching up with your companions is fascinating. I unironically spilled my tea when Varric announced that he had become the viscount of Kirkwall. If someone had told me back in DA2 that this Lowtown hustler would rise up to take the office I would have laughed. And is that seneschal Bran standing in the background? He looks like he has taken up the bottle, the poor man. It was nice to know that despite his new role Varric still made time to troll Cassandra. You find her fidgeting in a corner over trivial matters, as usual. Some things never change. I snickered when she called “Most Holy” a tyrant. But wait! Is she… wearing pink? Are those little hearts engraved into her armor? Girl, what are you not telling me?

Meanwhile Josephine is as fired-up as she’s ever been, not surprising for a woman who’s been taking a steady dose of political intrigue each morning for the past two years. I like how, if you’ve romanced her, her frustration with the state of the Council seeps in to strain your relationship. Leliana is in her top shady form, eyeing the representatives from her little alcove like a hawk. Way to fill up the sinister meter! Over at the bar, Sera has some surprisingly deep observations about the Inquisition’s future, mirroring much of your spy master’s conclusions. But don’t worry! Now we can throw pies at Orlesian nobles without reviving the reputation counter. Look how far we’ve come!

Oh and Dorian, you heartthrob! You can’t just tell me in a sultry voice that I’m the dearest friend you’ve ever had. No, don’t give me your magic phone number, just break up with me! How am I supposed to go back to my soon-to-be fiance and tell her I’m in love with a Tevinter magister?

On the downside, Bull’s betrayal just made me sigh. As if it weren’t obvious enough from his unwillingness to speak to me at the Winter Palace. I’d like to say I told you so, but I watched more of his scenes on YouTube and now know there is an alternative. Well shame on me for dissing on the Chargers. Guess you can’t push a man aside and not expect him to crawl back to his former masters. On a side note, that “boss” to “bas” transition was a sneaky little touch I would have missed it if it weren’t for the subtitles.

Looking at the initial premise, I was intrigued by the Exalted Council at first. The conflict between relinquishing power and testing the inevitability of corruption is a fascinating one, but sadly left unattended. I was baffled how the game never sat you down with your advisors to try to come to a mutual understanding about the future of our little organization. So many details were left up for debate. Why are we still occupying Ferelden territory? Wouldn’t they be ok with us if we just, like, left or something?

I got even more dissociated from the story when the Qunari plot made its way in. I already mentioned how shoddily the game handles your Qunari Inquisitor, yet these issue are even more of an eyesore in Trespasser. The game has enough common sense to let you speak ancient elvish if you drank from the Well of Sorrows, but not so much when it comes to Qunlet. Leliana has to be your translator as if the Inquisitor was not raised by native speakers.

Despite the threat of a Qunari invasion becoming alarmingly real, the Exalted Council still seemed more interested in bickering over the Inquisition. Even when the assassination attempts were made public, the nobles somehow forgot to point their fingers in your direction. There’s no way past suspicions about a Qunari Inquisitor wouldn’t again rise to the surface. I’m also disappointed the DLC didn’t end with a proclamation of war. The whole Viddasala affair could have been a grave precursor to a global conflict, but the game just turned her into the villain of the week.

Sup, losers.

Gameplay-wise Trespasser is a throwback to the good old Fade sections from Origins. While I appreciate the visuals, I can’t say I was impressed with the level design. Back in Origins, you had to piece your way through the Fade like a puzzle, but in Trespasser everything is regrettably linear. The new abilities are pretty pointless. I wasn’t motivated to go back and unlock any of the previously inaccessible areas. There aren’t even any proper visual indicators to let you know when you’re immune to those bizarre purple flames blocking the way.

I could speak about the new enemy encounters, but I honestly couldn’t be bothered. The entire ending sequence drags on for way too long. I hoped the dragon fight was the last of it, but the DLC just kept rolling past the point of infinity. Speaking of the dragon, BioWare must have realized they overdid their favorite mascot, so they let you bypass the entire battle. I usually like when games let you make story decisions through gameplay, but who the heck thought it would be a good idea to solve a puzzle while being harassed by minions? I didn’t even understand what I was supposed to be doing.

Trespasser uses those overly extended levels to pack as many codex entries as it possibly can. I am a fan of this kind of info dumping as much as Descent’s hastily thrown together cut-scenes, which is to say not at all. I tend to prefer minimalist design, so I found most of the information superfluous and unnecessary. We already know Solas’ identity, so there’s no point building up the anticipation again. At least Trespasser gave me a bit more time to process everything.

The only relevant detail (served by Avina’s ghostly cousin) is that Solas was the one to create the Veil. This is a jaw dropping revelation which almost goes unnoticed. Hold on a minute. If this fact were to be taken at face value, it would shake the foundation of just about every religion in Thedas. Most importantly, it would shatter the Chantry’s carefully crafted visage. Preaching any of this would be condemned as heresy, yet no one even comments on it.

While it was perfectly content to layer more lore about Fen’Harel, Trespasser didn’t really bother to setup how your Mark is killing you. The first occurrence of this is somewhere towards the middle and by the end of the DLC your companions are saying their farewells even though no one knows what’s going on. If this is the path they were going for, I wish they didn’t chicken out and actually killed the Inquisitor. I always though your character’s arc revolved around the concept of self-sacrifice. Letting your Inquisitor die could have been an excellent way to conclude that story - an inescapable tragedy born as a consequence of giving too much of yourself away to save the world.

Ironically Trespasser ends with more slides. Even though Claudia Lee Black’s narration was sorely missing, I still thought they contained a bit more meat than the ones from the base game. The best part actually comes when the credits start rolling. Of course Varric wrote a book about the Inquisition, but what’s even better is that we get to listen to Cassandra read it. I pissed my pants multiple times during this sequence. Bless Miranda Raison and how she’s able to pull off being dead serious while barely containing her inner schoolgirl. Can we start a petition for this woman to narrate an entire audio book? Preferably Swords & Shields if possible.

Here’s you, yeah, still clearing out those optional demon rooms. You must be proper daft.

I write this review in the year of our Lord 2022 and a lot has happened since 2014. At the dawn of the 2010s, EA went all in with the live service model. At the time the concept hadn’t yet matured into what we know today, but that didn’t stop EA from investing into every new form of monetization: loot boxes, micro-transactions, battle passes, elusive pre-orders, you name it. We might be living in a completely different reality hadn’t it been for two things.

First, Anthem. The colossal failure of any live service game usually puts a smile on my face, but the fact that it was BioWare’s neck on the line this time did not bring me any joy. EA has a long and bloody history of sacking studios and, by all things considered, BioWare was counting its last days. That is, if it weren’t for the second thing, a little game called Jedi: Fallen Order.

Bless Respawn and all they’ve done for us in the long run. Most publishers would look at Fallen Order’s success and immediately start thinking of ways to milk the cow, but somehow someone in EA’s endless chain of villainy started exhibiting common sense. People didn’t want the dressed-up scaffolding which were live service games. We wanted rich single-player experiences. So they decided to give us just that.

I think a publisher’s words are worth less than a pile of dog shit, but thankfully actions speak louder than words. The Legendary Edition of Mass Effect proved an undeniable level of quality. Just recently, Need for Speed Unbound was announced - a return to the classic Need for Speed formula fans have been begging for. Respawn is queuing another Star Wars and even poor old Dead Space was scheduled for a remaster. But, most importantly for our story, Dragon Age 4 was reported to have no online features.

All of this would be more than enough to fill my deprived little heart with hope, a hope that would burn bright weren’t this Dragon Age 4 we were talking about. I don’t know of a single other narrative-based game that has reached the fourth entry in its series. Most games which feature heavy decision-making try to trim their runtime as to avoid the exponential complexity that comes with each new entry. Yet here we are, three games in and Dragon Age still hasn’t come close to wrapping up its story.

This makes me extremely nervous. Inquisition has already shown me that it can’t keep up with the same level of detail that adorned Origins and at the same time juggle all of the different paths the players took to get there. I think I’ve been playing games for long enough to know where this might be heading. An even more watered down Dragon Age seems like the most cynical, yet most realistic outcome and one I’d want the least. If we were to judge Inquisition’s scope, I think a much more substantial game could have been made with half the content. A smaller, but denser Dragon Age would make me immensely happy, yet I’m not sure this is what the publisher nor the mainstream audience would be satisfied with.

Another thing that comes to mind, while I’m looking at my wishlist of Dragon Age books and comics, is the reported existence of a BioWare cannon. Continuing the franchise with a particular world state in mind would allow the writers to shake off the weight of the branching narrative and focus on delivering the best story possible. Of course this would breed outrage. I personally value the quality of a game over anything else, so I’d begrudgingly get over my save files if I had to.

All of this is not even mentioning the gameplay. Before EA promised it wouldn’t let the live service plague infect DA4, footage of alpha gameplay circulated the internet. What was shown seemed like yet another Dark Souls clone and, as a Dark Souls fan, I hope to god we let that genre rest in piece already. That said, I’m not sure my desire for Origins’ tactical combat is enough to bring it back from the dead. At least we’ve had enough good open-world games for BioWare’s level designers to take notes.

I’ve already lived through disappointment while playing Andromeda and I never wish to repeat that experience again. Despite everything I have against Inquisition (and as you had the pleasure to read, there was a lot), I still played through it with zeal. While Andromeda left me cold for the world of Mass Effect, Inquisition has me sitting here biting my nails over where this juggernaut might be heading.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a shopping cart full of books and comics to order. Congratulations if you've actually made it this far. Cheers!

I look forward to modelling you in Dragon Age 4, Inquisitor Adaar.

This is part 3 of a multi-part review of Dragon Age: Inquisition. Click here for part 1 and part 2.

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Brooke Lynn Hytes & Shokra - Set Fire to the Rain / Fire (Vancouver Pride, Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, 08/06/17)

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