#but then whoops. no you don’t and envy is over her body hopping to climb the social ladder to power

[exhausted-archivist]

I think my favorite demons in Dragon Age are envy and hunger. They operate like ambush predators in a way no other demon does; because they operate mostly outside of the fade.

Envy targets people that it is envious of, that will grant it more power/status/renown. You don’t have to be envious, just of enough significance that it is envious. Which means that no one is safe from this demon. And when it catches you? It will either keep you alive or kill you. But before that, it traps you in your own mind to study you, not the fade, your own mind. A place where friends and such can’t reach you to save you. It adds a whole other dimension of existence to da that is just ripe for expanding on the limits and rules. On top of that, when it takes your traits they’re used in the most extreme form of them to further its goals. Suddenly your good intentions are paving the road of others suffering thanks to the demon wearing your face, at best (in my opinion) your dead and your loved ones deal with the fallout. At worst, you have to recover from the damage, it might introduce new paranoias or repulsion, and that’s a fun little psychological horror element to me.

Hunger though, sure it can possess you. Make you a vampire. But it also doesn’t have to. It cursed you, lays in wait till someone so desperate, so hungry for something like revenge, survival, or power, that it will curse you. Fuel you on your endeavor and feed on your hunger as you infect more and more. Which brings this fun little man vs nature vs man triad that just really I want more of in media.

Nightmare would make the list…if it ever left the fade. Like truly, the fact it can erase memories, haunt you with your deepest fears, feed them? There are so many fun narrative devices that invites. But it sits in the fade, it’s restricted in a way that most won’t ever encounter the massive threat it could be.

But hunger and envy? They’re rare and seemingly stalk about Thedas freely. Picking where they hunker down and who is their victims. Envy based on its own desires and hunger by its own design. I’d like more of that honestly.