Finally more Dragon Age for this Inktober, Yaya! :D
Welp, that one's a bit late again, however, I'm honestly glad I took my time here, since.....heh, boi I actually nailed this one XD
Decided to simple plant the PC's of the P&PRPG Inquisition I'm playing with my folks at the war table and simple let them do their thing. Took some inspiration from this gorgeous piece of artwork and simply sprincled some bits of the game's wartable-room into the background. Sou yeah, I think I couldn't present these 4 dorks better in a nutshell than I did here XDDD
Tho let me introduce from left to right:
On the left we have our party's mage Farel. Former Dalish and now apostate (and if I remember right actually the youngest of the party), just as usual facepalming in the background about the attics of his companions.
Sharles here in the middle you probably have seen before (my PC ^__^). Proud Fereldan Rogue from Redcliffe, as usual blubbering random bs. Not sure if he's ranting bout how Orlais sucks, how Dorian is hot or just giving random silly comments about the current topic.
Next to him we have Dolph, our Inquisitor. Snakeoil-Conm- sorry - "totally not shady Merchant" from Orzammar. As usual reconsidering his life choices and wondering how Sharles keeps coming up with this crap XD
And last but not least we have our muscle on two little feet, Borzag. Surface dwarf, Mercenary and master in bitchslapping people with axe and shield, tho currently busy slapping the table while howling in laughter, probably still audible on the other side of Skyhold.
And with that I FINALLY finally now managed to give these four a worthy and proper group picture.
Currently we are approaching the end of our campaign, but I will deeply enjoy these guys while the story still lasts. Feels like we played this campaign for ages, it's an absolute joy tho to revisit Inquisition's plot with that alternative story line ^__^
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Varric Tethras - The Proud Dwarf
So it's not a big secret that the best companion Bioware ever created was Varric Tethras, the lovable rogue, crossbowman, author and handsome Viscount of Kirkwall.
There are ao many reasons to love Varric, but one I don't see much discussed, is the subtle, and contradictory relationship Varric has with his own race, the Dwarves of Thedas.
Varric makes it a point of always putting his seeming disdain for his own people out in the open, always making it clear how much he dislikes the traditional Dwarven culture, wqy of life and so on.
He describes Orzammar, one of the great wonders of the world as cramp tunnels filled with shit and body odor, he never fails to mention how much he hates the deep roads, and he often mocks dwarven pride at any opportunity with his usual wit and charm.
On the surface, Varric might seem like he has a lot in common with Sera and her racist views on all elvhen kind, but that really, really is not the case.
Because under that exterior of seeming disdain, is a man who both understands Dwarven Culture in all it's flaws, but also loves it and hates it in equal measures.
Varric has always made it clear how much he loved the Hanged man, and essentially made his room there his office, his real home away from the uber dwarfish merchant guild.
And do you know what he fills it with?
The dwarfiest architecture you can imagine. Varric has a dwarf table, a noble dwarf chair, dwarven artwork on the wall, and even a dwarven stone bed.
All expensive and traditional stuff which he would have had to had personally paid for to transport into this room out of his own pocket.
Varric for all his harsh words on the Dwarven people, WANTS to live in a home that looks utterly Dwarven.
The most obvious moment that puts Varric's love for his dwaf ancestry on full display is of course the act 2 quest from da2, where he and an insane(temporary lucid) Bartrand has a heart to heart where both puts their real feelings on the tragedy of their situation on display.
Varric chastises Bartrand for in his madness having thrown away every bit of his dwarven nobility and honor on a stupid trinket, and Bartrand ends up begging his brother not to let house Tethras fall with him, in this display of utter madness and dishonor.
The entire thing is a deeply tragic display where the two brothers show that deapite all their differences, they really did love each other deeply, as well as the fact they had a shared love of their ancestry as Orzammar Nobility.
Of course Varric almost never comes out and says it nearly this clearly anywhere else, as showcased in another side quest where you give him back the Tethras family signet ring that Bartrand had to pawn to finance the expedition.
He doesn't come out and say it, instead focusing on the bad aspects of Orzammar in this quest, but unless hawke is rivaling him when he gives him the quest, varric has a huge approval boost in response to getting his family ring back, showing the thing really did mean a lot to him, despite his disparaging it and Orzammar in said quest.
Later, in Inquisition, Varric never misses a chance to badmouth Orzammar and tradition, but he reacts with incredible sadness at the prospect of Orzammar one day possibly falling.
When Solas asks him about Dwarven literature, and whether there is a lot of Dwarven tricksters, varric gives a smartass remark summing it up as Dwarves tend to write how they want the world to be, while humans write how they think the world is, eith the latter being clearly superior.
It's a good scene, but it has a deeper meaning that ties into Varric's deeper views on Dwarven culture.
Varric knows how Dwarves write, because he has read Dwarven liturature, and understands it completely as both a dwarf, a reader, and a writer, and how it in turn differs from human literature.
For all his grumbling on dwarves in Orzammar being obsessed with their ancestors, he himself is the exact same way as shown in legacy when you find the original Tethras and gives him to the stone, able to shortly remember every bit of his own family lore on the spot and being moved to tears by the tragedy of it all.
Varric defends both surface dwarves and Orzammar dwarves against Solas accusation that they have given up against the darkspawn threat, though in his usual way, he makes it out like surface dwarves are clearly superior.
Varric genuinely loves and cares about so much of Dwarven culture and history, and he understands it deeply.
Which in turn also is the reason he genuinely hates so much about it.
Like all of the DA2 companions, Varric has something he is deeply, deeply obsessed with, something that drives him as a person, and motivates his actions through the entire story. The difference between him and everyone else, is that this obsession never reached a conclusion, because Varric doesn't get to actually face it, and confront it.
That obsession is, of course, the Dwarven Merchant Guild.
Varric HATES the Dwarven Merchant guild, and though he uses his regular humor to portray it, in this case it's actually the opposite of the way he will always be critical of the Dwarven people. Because Varric hates the guild far, far more than he ever pretends to hate Orzammar.
Varric always talks of how shitty the guild is, how it embodies the absolute worst parts of dwarven culture, and essentially how it ruined Bartrand from ever being able to function as anything other than a cutthroat businessman. He time, and time, and time again, refuses to interact with the guild, breaks the law hard to not have to participate, and all in all cold shoulders them and their cutthroat culture completely.
There is a very important, significant moment in act 3, that is incredibly easy to miss, but completely recontextualizes varric's entire motivation for wanting the deep roads expedition.
Varric talks about the real reason why Bartrand wanted to go through with the expedition, of how it represented the one chance he had to get AWAY from the guild forever, just by being rich enough he no longer had to deal with them anymore.
Varric portrays it as Bartrand's big wish and motivation, hut it's incredibly obvious if one pays attention that this was a wish the two brothers actually shared, a mutual desire in the world. Which in turn is one of the reasons why Varric is so incredibly angry at his brother when he goes off the deep end due to the idol and betrays them.
Him and Bartrand got into this venture to finally, once and for all get out of having to deal with the worst parts of surface Dwarf society, and here his brother seemingly willingly turned his back on all of that, showing the only thing he ever cared about was pure greed.
In other words, everything both he and Bartrand hated about the Merchant Guild.
Varric hates the Caste system. He hates the division between surface and "regular" dwarves, and he thinks Orzammar's nobility has a collective stick up it's ass. And yet despite all of that, he loves the Dwarves. He loves the idea of nobility and the ideals it is supposed to represent, he loves Dwarven architecture, their grand ability to make shit, and the incredible grit and romanticism about the Dwarves long, unending struggle against the darkspawn.
The only part of Dwarven society Varric has no love for, is the Merchant Guild. It is Orzammar's nobility without anything resembling virtues, nobles who lost their caste, and yet still enforces a brutal hierarchy of blood, and cares for no ideals, no honor, no cause, except for the clink of money.
Varric is such a deep character, and I really wish that in the future, we get to see this aspect of him fleshed out even more.
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