#codex-executor

[tinydreamerarsenal]

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Conclusion

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[lizzybeeee]

Someone on reddit posted a pic of the concept art characters from the DATV artbook and I'm just...so tired and disappointed.

We could have had Calpernia as a companion, not even mentioning Imshael.

This clearly shows that they initially - in whatever iteration of the game it is - cared about incorporating aspects of previous games. Imagine having Calpernia, Harding, and Imshael as companions and not having them comment/acknowledge the events of Inquisition! Imagine Calpernia talking and giving insight into Corypheous or Samson, or arguing with Harding in banter! Imagine Imshael talking about Michel deChevin or complaining that the Inquisitor stabbed them! Not to mention the other concept art that had Dorian and Isabela interacting - try making anything like that happen without acknowledging DA2 or DAI!

Can you imagine having all these characters in the game, then having the nerve to drop 'the south of Thedas is blighted and destroyed now lol' in a letter? No!

We live in the worst timeline with DATV - a game that utterly watered down, sanitized, and obliterated everything that came before it. A game that removed all mystery and intrigue, condensing it to "solas and the ancient elves did it lol' - telling us with no gravitas, bluntly stating it with the subtly and care of a fucking dragon in a tea shop. A game that, with no shame, went scorched earth with Ferelden, Kirkwall, and Orlais with the sole intent of clearing the board so that they can cultivate some new IP with the existing Dragon Age name.

What a fucking waste.

[sophohno]

former DA writers/devs leak the black codex challenge 2025

[meglosthegreat]

So... everyone pretty much hated Veilguard's "secret ending", right? Beyond speculation about the Executors themselves, I haven't exactly seen anyone excited about its presence, and for that matter, haven't seen many people talking about it at all.

The closest way I can describe my initial reaction to it was an immediate, visceral disgust. I think I remember uttering at my screen something along the lines of "Fuck off! What the fuck?! Are you fucking kidding me???" and ever since then I've wanted to put into words exactly why it made me feel that way.

For the 88% of you (according to Steam achievement statistics) who didn't see this ending due to not picking up three very specific codex entries by complete chance, you can watch it here. In short, the clip depicts a mysterious voice who sounds suspiciously like Matt Mercer talking about how a group of shadowy figures has "balanced, guided, and whispered" over scenes of villains from the previous DA games, implying that these shadowy figures have been at least partially responsible for all of the bad things happening in Thedas, towards some unknown nefarious purpose.

Now obviously, this sucks. This is hamfisted, unimaginative writing that simultaneously retcons and re-contextualizes elements from DA's past that absolutely no one thought needed further explanation, as well as being exactly the kind of irritating sequel-bait tactics that people have largely grown tired of these days. But why does it suck so much? Why did I feel such palpable distaste for this scene?

For starters, it simply reeks of entitlement, and a lack of respect towards Bioware's own past games. Remember those villains you loved and thought were compelling? Well, their own personal, very complex and thought-out motivations were really just the Executors whispering in their ears the whole time! Loghain making a difficult and calculated decision at great personal cost for a greater good he truly believed in? Executors. Bartrand succumbing to his own greed to the point that he betrays his only family and devolves into a tragic husk of himself? Executors. Corypheus and the Magisters breaching the Golden fucking City??? Executors.

Ignore the infuriating lore ramifications for a second and consider: what do all of these things have in common? They're all instances of complex character motivation; of people in this world doing things for their own reasons that ended up having massive ramifications. In short, they're not events that can be explained easily in terms of black and white morality. And from what we've seen in Veilguard, the current dev team has a serious inability to work with any story elements that do not have absolute moral clarity: the Venatori and the Antaam are Evil. The Shadow Dragons and the Crows are Good. Any nuance; any potential questioning of this duality is quickly explained away or snuffed out.

And that's exactly what they're trying to do, retroactively, with the rest of the series. Having a hard time deciding whether Loghain was right or wrong? Well, worry not, the Executors are Evil and if they were guiding him the whole time, then what he did must have been Evil too! Grappling with how the plot of DA2 was about the inevitable tragedy of a series of oppressive systems reaching their natural breaking point? Well, wrestle no further, for if the Executors were involved then Meredith and Bartrand must've been Evil, no question! What the Magisters did was definitely Not Great, and what do you know, there were consequences for it that they and the whole world very much did pay for. But if the Executors were behind it all, then it was someone else's fault, some Evil power reaching in and making them do what they did, rather than their actions being the result of a horrific series of power abuses done by actual people.

Which leads me to where my initial disgust comes in. Because in a world which has always had core themes of power and its many abuses, actions that have consequences, and the idea that there are no true higher beings; every horrible thing that has ever been done was done by people, the simple act of putting shadowy figures behind key moments in history completely debases and neuters all of those themes. The whole point of Dragon Age as a series up until this point has been to illustrate the complex relationships people and societies have with power, choice, and morality. To remove that link - to place an external force between those characters and their choices - is to rob the series of any meaning whatsoever.

There is a staggering difference between the messaging of a game that tells you ordinary people are to blame for society's wrongs and a game that tells you a secret shadowy faction of evil forces are to blame for them. The former invites thought about one's own society; it has the potential to be uncomfortable and difficult to reconcile with. The latter assures its audience of the fantasy it is couched in. It gives the audience a boogeyman to be angry at, and in so doing deflects any potential for introspection. And that, I think, is the real point of the scene in question.

In a time where our media has become inundated with bland, unchallenging liberal politics, the idea of "cozy" stories have become a growing trend. These types of stories often sport a broad rejection of complicated themes, painful emotions, and nuance, preferring instead to provide a "safe" place to escape to. And with that "safe" space comes a directive not to engage in critical thinking about a work, and not to draw any message from that work and apply it to the real world. Yet this is exactly where Bioware seems to be heading nowadays.

Veilguard has already been faced with heavy criticism about playing things overly safe; removing anything that might be potentially uncomfortable for the player. And the end credits scene is no different. Don't think about things too hard, it whispers to you seductively, in Matt Mercer's soothingly Evil voice. See? The Bad Guys were behind everything, all along.

[aldruiel-scribbles]

Veilguard introduced the foundations of a massive future war against the Titans and they did nothing with it.

The entirety of human, elven and dwarven society (except perhaps Kal Sharok) are sustained by the consumption and mining of lyrium. The only reason Orzammar was able to survive after the darkspawn and the loss of dozens of cities was because they make shit ton of money by selling lyrium to the surface. Humans (and some elves) need it for their mages, enchantments and templars. Lyrium is a vital aspect for their overall survival and the functioning of their institutions.

But now, the Titans have awakened and they (rightfully) don't want their blood to be exploited. And people are going to do what people always do, they're going to fight for their own interests because they can't continue to exist without lyrium. Even if they wanted to change there are no better alternatives for lyrium besides blood magic as a source of power (which is worse). That's the perfect recipe for a war and there isn't a single comment about it or at least one codex entry pointing this out.

THAT would've been a far more interesting premise for a future game than those ridiculous executors (they were already a bad idea even in tevinter nights)

[meganooooooooooooooo]

What is the Devouring Storm?

With this past week's devastating news of post-Veilguard layoffs has pretty much put the nail in the coffin on any future Dragon Ages in the near or far future, if at all, I wanted to discuss what the writers were planning next for the series. Because Veilguard pretty clearly tells you, if you bother to find it. So, going forth will obviously be spoilers, and I hope people who want to make canon-accurate fanworks use this information the way I think the writers intended for us to.

So, the situational post-credits scene reveals that The Executors/Those Across the Sea are finally making a play for Thedas. But why? We've known something has been fishy in Theodas (which is what I like to call The Other Dragon Age Setting) since Origins. But we've never had so much information about what, exactly, might be going on there before.

What do we know about Dragon Age's other continent?

Anyone who has ever tried to travel there has either been turned back or were lost at sea, including Alistair's father, King Maric.

The Qunari travelled to Thedas from there, and were fleeing something. We now know that something is The Devouring Storm, and that they altered their own bodies with dragon blood to try to stop it and failed. Modern Qunari have forgotten this, though they still teach their navigators to watch for it.

In a letter to Bellara from Emmrich, he says the lands across the sea are described as either a verdant natural paradise or full of dead cities.

Aside from The Executors, who are considered little more than a conspiracy theory by most people in Thedas, one other group has made contact: the Voshai. The Voshai are mostly dwarves (but no elves) who used to come to the city of Laysh in the Anderfels to trade. The only thing they came to trade for was magical artifacts, particularly lyrium. There are rumours from the time of the Inquisition that the Voshai have returned to Laysh after a cataclysm in their homeland, but these rumours have not been confirmed.

We know the name of one other place there, Amaranth, but I can't find any more than that.

The Evanuris appear to have used the threat of Those Across the Sea as justification for their tyrannical rule, and at least some of their fear seems to be genuine. In the codex entry "Urthemiel's Shield" it's revealed that the Archon's palace was created at the bidding of the Old Gods (aka the Evanuris) not to shoot at their own people, but to defend against Those Across the Sea.

The Mysterious Circle codex entries describe encounters with Those Across the Sea, both their magic and likely one of the Executors. The Executor's body is described as "changing and shifting" though not in a shapeshifter way, more like their bodies don't know how to hold their own corporeal form.

Notes on a Mystery Substance

Now we come to what I think are probably the most important series of codex entries in the game, Notes on a Mystery substance. There are three of them, found throughout Arlathan Forest.

The gist of these entries is this: Written by the Forgotton One Anaris, it details the discovery of a strange golden substance by one of his subordinates? rivals? (it's not clear but he doesn't like the guy), Atrahel. Anaris runs tests on the substance and finds that provides great magical power but nullifies all other known sources of magic. In fact, he describes it as a "magic that devours all others." Anaris, being an asshole, decides to test it on Atrahel without him knowing. It makes him stronger even than the Evanuris, but alters his personality significantly. Atrahel eventually where Anaris has kept the rest of the substance and consumes it completely. His physical form changes and he essentially becomes the magical equivalent of an atomic bomb, blowing up and destroying himself and any other elves who happened to be nearby. Only Anaris survives, and he runs away before the Evanuris come to investigate.

The Devouring Storm

So, if we take all this information together, I can say with confidence that the Devouring Storm is this magic that devours all other magic. Not only that, but that the Executors have probably consumed all the other magic in that part of the world. And what does Thedas still have a lot of? Magic. Raw magic from the Fade, spirits, lyrium, probably even the Blight. And The Executors not only want it, they probably need it.

This explains a lot of things about what little we know about this part of the world.

The fact that the Voshai are dwarves that have never seen lyrium before would suggest that a. Titans once existed there and b. they have been consumed.

Why the Qunari fled their homeland, their extreme fear of magic, and why they had to make the adaari to fight them. (You can't fight magic that devours all other magic with magic, after all, it only makes them stronger.)

Why The Executors have had a vested interest in the Veil staying intact since the Inquisitor: the Fade would be partially or completely destroyed if it came down, and a not intact Fade is worthless to them. Even if you believe Solas's plan would not have destroyed the Fade (it would though), the Veil would still need to stay up to make it more difficult for The Executors to devour both the Fade and probably the Blight (and who knows what that would do to them).

Why the cities across the sea are described as dead.

If we believe that the many prophecies we've been given are either spirits or sleeping Titans (or both) giving people warnings about this, it explains why: they don't want to get eaten!

Personally, I think this is pretty interesting, definitely much more interesting than the ending credits scene suggests. Does it mean that the Qunari didn't have magic before they came to Thedas? (That would explain a lot). What is a world where nobody at all has access to the realm of dreams like? How the heck are you supposed to fight magic that devours everything?

[teamdilf]

On my current Veilguard playthrough I’ve been collecting any crumbs about the Executors, the Devouring Storm and the Forgotten Ones greedily, like a hungry little mouse. I’m struggling with whether the Executors and the Devouring Storm are related (IE the Devouring Storm is a weapon of the Executors). A few notes:

Those Across the Sea are an ancient enemy. There are codex entries concerning efforts to defend or fight next to them during the time of the Evanuris.

I believe there is a reference to the Forgotten Ones fleeing the continent. John Epler in his AMA confirms that Anaris returned to the Void upon his defeat.

The Fade is often described as a sea. What if the Void is “across the sea”?

Anaris found a substance that devoured magic, building in power and eventually causing an explosion that obliterated people into dust - in her translation Bellara was very clear that he used that word. Anaris needs a body to “find succor in the eye of the storm”. He’s terrified of the Devouring Storm - what if it’s because he found it and knows what it’s capable of?

The Horror of Hormak concerns a substance in a lab belonging to Ghilan’nain that bears some similarities to the substance found by Anaris.

The qunari seem to have been created to fight the Devouring Storm and arrived in Thedas when they were fleeing it. What if they were created by the Forgotten Ones, who abandoned their task, finding safety on the shores of Par Vollen?

Since the Devouring Storm consumes magic, what if that’s why Anaris needs a body? Are the Executors the Forgotten Ones and their followers, who seek to return to Thedas now that their ancient enemies are gone? Side note: I’m convinced Vorgoth is an Executor.

Or, are the Executors what remains of the titans (perhaps the humanoid voices of them that remained after they were sundered?)? If this is the case, that would connect them to the Devouring Storm - they wish to use it to consume the magic of the Fade in recompense for their sundering.

Mythal’s “reckoning that shakes the very heavens” never wound up happening, which is a point of frustration, but what if she never meant that to mean bringing down the veil? What if she has some sort of alliance with the Executors who will act out her vengeance?

I’m running on the theory that the Forgotten Ones are manifested spirits who had their emotion burned away by Elgar’nan.

I’m working on a time travel AU which will position the Executors as the antagonists so I’m trying to get a working theory put together. Solas knows more about the Executors than anyone else, according to the Reddit AMA and he warned Charter that they are dangerous in The Dread Wolf Take You.

[alirhian]

I can't get that frame out of my head because that’s what I thought would be revealed in da4. I knew that there was a reason why the names of the Old Gods were taken from the angelic names and why they were called archdemons.

Blight as ancient something from the Void. Something that sings to others, manipulates, corrupts. Blight that taints the living arousing rage and spite. Old Gods is ancient mystical fallen beings who were seen as divine and were controlled by that power. Blight whispered through Old Gods. This explains why Old Gods went silent after magisters opened the gates of the Golden City and unleashed the blight and why ancient sources say that Dumat not only led darkspawn but created them.

Maker. There was the only scene in DATV about how he might not exist and that Chant of Light is a lie, but it is not that simple, some moments are strangely too well matched, especially spirits, the first children of the Maker, who were jealous of mortals. The whole world is about different songs, Chant of Light, lyrium and blight. Also, the Canticle of Maferath is strange, he felt spite, and then vision of Andraste made him "pure again" because his betrayal was "Maker-blessed". And considering that Andraste saw the Maker in her dreams and she was born when Dumat was killed, too many coincidences.

Maker doesn’t have to be a man who created the world with his hands. It's interesting to think about the Maker as personification of the Fade or as some driving force. Or Maker and blight as different aspects of the same thing, like spirits and demons. Besides, the Abyss is part of the Fade.

And just for thought:

It is unknown what passed then, but over time, the Empty Ones grew to believe that the blight was to be the tool by which the Maker would end all of creation. They preached that it came from the Void, a place of nothing, and that returning to the Void was something to be celebrated because it meant an end to all pain and all suffering. The Empty Ones believed the world to be beyond redemption, and that it was the Maker's will that it be destroyed completely.

Codex entry: The Empty Ones

It’s just cult belief but they were right that the blight came from the Void. If the blight born from dreams of the titans, it’s still a weapon against "creations" on the surface. Although in peacetime dwarves are the ones who suffer the most.

Gaider once mentioned that he wondered if the identity of the Maker would ever be revealed. Even though many of the original ideas were shown in DATV, probably even Executors, I don't think so. Old Gods became high dragons, and blight is “different” now🙄 I wouldn't be surprised if Solas really ends up being the Maker one day (on reddit lol). What a waste of incredible lore and world. I desperately need Bioware's document with all original ideas Gaider was talking about.

[brekkie-e]

Maybe this is a bit unnecessary, but I keep seeing posts that kind of compete on this topic so I wanted to bring it up.

There seems to be a bit of a debate right now going on about whether Veilgaurd got the lore right. And the arguments on both sides seem to be comparing apples to oranges to me? I think it's because simplifying the subject to just "The Lore" is doing a bit of a disservice to the conversation.

I've seen a lot of posts about how people who don't think the lore is right weren't paying attention, didn't read the codexes, hadn't caught on to the foreshadowing. Usually this is in regards to the Titans, Evanuris, Executors etc.

The thing is, I'm running in a fairly critical circle at the moment, and I've not seen anyone bring these points up. From my experience, this is not what people are referring to when they say the game didn't do a good job with the lore. As a long-term codex lover, I was overall really satisfied with all the Big Reveals. Most of them I predicted. I got a lot of enjoyment and vindication out of Veilgaurd in that regard.

The "lore" that I think critical folk are referring to is really rooted in the world building. How the characters and the setting come across. This game acts, by and large, like the Southern Chantry has no hold in the places we visit. Like Cirlces don't exist. The word tranquil never comes up. Crows don't seem to have any skeletons in their closet. I'm not even opposed to them being shown in a brighter light than Zevran painted them. Dragon Age has always relied on narrator bias. But give me something to show that our currant narrators have their own biases. A lot about Tevinter in general falls into this as well. I think about coming into this game as a new player, and if they'd walk away with a solid grasp of the Dragon Age setting with the information they've been given.

Because of this, I don't think it's easy to blanket statement say they got the lore right or wrong because that depends entirely on what you're referring to with that word.

[lizzybeeee]

BioWare: "So anyway, the Executors-"

Me:

[elgar-nyan]

Elgar'nan is an actual god in my headcanon.

Not just like demi-god like the Evanuris are in general, but a force of creation like his "father," the Sun, that Elgar'nan had overthrown.

His "spirit" therefore, doesn't actually have a singular purpose, and I will explain below the read more.

In my headcanon I mentioned Elgar'nan being a spirit of Ambition, and that is still accurate. Ambition is what he's recognized as among the Firstborn. But it is only partially accurate.

This idea of mine was born from the canon that Elgar'nan destroyed a whole emotion and that he canonically embodies three different types of demons during our battle with him (Pride -> Despair -> Rage).

Elgar'nan is "The Spirit," and nobody knows that but him. It is the reason he can take the form of a great dragon, because in actuality, that is his true form. (Great dragons are the physical form of the true gods.)

The Spirit is a god that created the spirits. It was the purpose made for The Spirit by its father, The Sun. I won't go too deep into that here because I wrote it down in my own black codex on Ao3 (which is WIP and not yet ready to be shown actively. It's posted, just still working out some bugs and such).

It is why Elgar'nan can destroy emotions—because he created them. It is why he finds Solas's ideas and assumptions laughable, because it is ludicrous that a spirit of Wisdom thinks he knows more than Elgar'nan. (He definitely doesn't. Fresh perspectives, yes, but the information for it is already known.)

Elgar'nan cannot die. He cannot be shattered. He is not mortal, though he can be displaced. How he subjugated his father (and the other gods) was by turning them into the celestial bodies and tethering their aspects to himself. There is one final god around still causing problems—problems Elgar’nan had been working to correct. Problems that involve the Executors and the Devouring Storm which had been an active threat to him as he worked to prepare the world for it while Solas unwittingly got in his way.

Elgar'nan in my headcanon does lose his lyrium body during battle with Rook, but Rook gets a glimpse of Elgar'nan at his true form just before he possesses her.

And though Rook doesn't actively realize it (and assumes differently, actually), but she witnessed Elgar'nan's real godly spirit form, which sounds like a group of people talking in a room mostly saying the same thing. Some whispers, some louder, some male, some female. The Ambition purpose is the purpose that warped into Tyranny, and that purpose is the loudest and more prominent sometimes, but by choice. Other purposes take the helm sometimes, such as command/authority, justice, vengeance, desolation, etc., etc., etc..

Elgar'nan was the first "Spirit" and made the other spirits by taking copies of himself, because of the limitation that was bequeathed to him by The Sun. He cannot make something from scratch, he has no creativity thanks to his "Father's" design. As such, spirits also lack the same creativity. (Once they got their lyrium bodies, creativity could be achieved.)

To conclude:

Elgar'nan is the god known as The Spirit. The Spirit's circle of influence were emotions, and spirits originally, but after overthrowing the other gods, that circle of influence expanded. Elgar'nan is essentially The Maker (in the second half. The first half of the Maker is The Sun, naturally.)

[euphoniusowl]

Veilguard Foreshadowing (part 1)

After playing Veilguard twice, I've been replaying the other games to look for references/foreshadowing. I finished Origins and think I found a few things. Spoilers for Veilguard (and Origins. And Dragon Age in general)

First up, Gaxkang.

I always assumed the "eyes" meant Flemeth. She does save you at the beginning and since she's a fragment of Mythal, that seemed to qualify as "a very high vantage." Now, however, I think he's talking about the Executors. We see in the Veilguard post-credits scene that they helped push Loghain into his betrayal, so it makes sense that they would be watching the Warden with interest.

Next, the statue from Witch Hunt.

I know that a lot of people, myself included, believed this was about Corypheus but now it seems to make a lot more sense if it's about the elven gods' prison. First, the use of "breached" naturally bring to mind the Breach from Inquisition, which is a giant tear in the Veil. The Veil which was created by Solas to imprison the gods. When Corypheus rips open the Veil, he is, quite literally, breaching the gods' prison. While "the encroaching darkness" and "the shadows will consume all" sort of worked for Corypheus, it makes way more sense if it's about the Blight. The Blight is always described using similar terms. In Veilguard they talk about how the gods only have access to a trickle of Blight but if their plan succeeds they'll have a flood. That sure seems like "the shadows will consume all."

Am I reading too much into things? Maybe, but my brain is 90% Dragon Age lore and I have to do something with it all. I'm sure there's more I missed (I did not read every codex entry in Origins. Who has the time?). For now, onward to Dragon Age 2 where I definitely won't be apologizing profusely and crying every time Varric is on-screen. I leave you with Morrigan and the understatement of the age.

[fenharel]

some of my thoughts after finishing veilguard a couple days ago before i start my second playthrough :)

ok i think its important to note first that the things i was most looking forward too was 1. solas, 2. solavellan, 3. lore. im self aware enough to know that this will have had some influence towards what i expected from the game and what i enjoyed/cared about or not 👍

good

solas: im honestly so happy. my man is finally happy and reunited with his wife!!!!!! my heart feels so full 😭 this game was a solas fans wet dream. absolutely loved everything we got. hunting down regrets and watching old memories. talking to him in the fade. the entire crossroads!!!!!! him shit talking elgar'nan. watching him go trickster mode and imprison rook. fighting the archdemon as the dread wolf!!!!!! i could go on forever. CHEFS KISS TO IT ALL<3333333333333 if anything i wish there would have been MORE im greedy what can i say

solavellan: screaming crying throwing up. i still cant believe it oh my fucking god

lore reveals: i found all the reveals about all our old theories so fun. i didnt like all of them (old gods are just dragons? c'mon.) but overall it felt so rewarding to have picked up on it all. or be totally surprised by something (mythal and solas the reason for the titans and the blight? wow.)

the executors, forgotten and forbidden ones: the next big bads of the next game huh!!!! loved what we got for the most part, the mysterious circle codexes where probably the most interesting in the game. anaris actually showing up shocked me. i wish bellaras brother didnt say "for plot reasons i must die" and actually told us something about him but oh well. im cautiously optimistic about the secret ending for now. what it implied could go either way for now...

main quest: not all of them, but a lot of them were awesome. dare i say some quests were up there with the best main quests in da??? weisshaupt was epic. or the blood of arlathan. every time we get to talk to solas (thehe<3). the final bits. the strong points were so strong that the low points got highlighted a bit too much imo

act 3: by far my favourite act. this was soooo good. the romance finally (?!) kicking it. suicide mission 2.0 stressed me tf out. the varric reveal? send me to the asylum. solas tricking rook? king behaviour i was cheering for him while crying about varric. the dread wolf transformation. the conversation between solas/mythal/lavellan at the end. i basically was in tears throughout half of the thing. couldnt read the credits at all. act 3 was amazing

minrathous vs treviso: i loved this especially with the angst of playing a shadow dragon who failed minrathous. and then the consequences and quest changes this causes throughout the game was really cool. i wish there were more bigger choices like this since it felt a bit flat choice wise besides of this one, but it was amazing.

villains: ghilan'nain and elgar'nan were great. they really felt like the tyrannical gods they were supposed to be. im so glad there was mostly no corypheus-esque cringe. (tho especially ghil had some video gamey lines but sdjkfhjksdf i still love her)

neutral

rook: i dont really care much about rook.. 🙈. mind you rook was certainly not the reason why i wanted to play this game so im sure a second playthrough will make me warm up to them more, now that my head is more free, but it just didnt insta click. rook didnt feel like a real person to me, almost nobody had any (to my taste) realistic reactions towards them. the stakes just were too high for them to get treated this way (nobody is pissed off that they freed the gods? everyone just believes them when they say gods are walking around? everyone just agrees to work with them? nobody cares how rook is doing? or who rook even is? idk.) i didnt like the introduction much either. the shepard treatment didnt work for me here, just believing that rook is fit for the job because varric says so wasn't enough for me. rook also has barely anything going on for them either besides of being the relentless "good guy". we never see them doubt themselves or be fearful or be mean. all the dialogue options are the same as well. its.... boring. anyway i dont wanna bash on rook, i know i'll end up liking them more later. the headcanons will be headcanoning<3

companions: i... don't have strong feelings about most of them? all of them got to me sooner or later, made me cry. but afterwards im still 🤷‍���️ about most. i didnt feel like we get to know them as deeply as we get to know companions in the previous games. i really really missed sitting in the lighthouse for hours and talk to them, ask them about their profession or what they are about outside of cutscenes like in the previous ones. i think that would have helped me click with them faster. i didnt find all companion quests very strong either. the "high stakes" of the main story made some conflicts feel a bit like we can just fix that after the story lol. i did not like the mass effect 2 treatment of them much... (but me2 is overrated anyway sshh dont kill me<3) some companion quests i did find interesting lore wise (bellara, harding) even if i wish that some of them would have went a bit deeper there. anyway i know i'll probably end up loving them all after a couple of playthroughs, this almost always happens to me, dai is the best example.

combat: don't care. this isn't my type of combat, i don't play a lot of super actiony combo dodge dodge block combat games. still hate the limited abilities. at least it didn't feel too clunky on mouse and keyboard and it was "fun enough" to me so thats good

puzzles: i could put them into the bad category but at least they weren't too terrible so i don't want to be too harsh. but i don't enjoy doing them. i dont want to search for a crystal in a bush. i mean i did them all but at what cost. this felt like filler i thought they wanted to avoid by not adding fetch quests???

bad

pacing: this games hardest battle imo. the pacing of the game is... strange. act 1 is way too fast. it feels like we're running and have absolutely no time for anything. (makes sense! didnt work well though). act 2 then drags a bit with all the companion quests, and the mix really drags the progression of the romances as well to a ridiculous degree. at least with lucanis, idk how it is with the others. i love him and i can headcanon to fill in the blanks so i liked his romance, but it does make it seem like nothing is happening for 50 hours for everyone who doesnt like to headcanon around. anyway, the pacing/storytelling felt often not fitting. it was trying to be mass effect in a story that is too complex and the lore too rich to run through it. this felt like the main reason why we just never went very deep into the lore of the factions or new npcs, or learn or see certain things, the complex nature of the crows, or tevinter magisters and their slaves, we are just running all the damn time? we never get to explore certain things that would feel unnatural to come up in a conversation or in some other way because we are limited by the things the story "has time for". or what the devs had time for.

wishy washy writing: not everywhere but in some places and im not used to that in a da game so its a bit baffling. "the blight is different now so thats the reason for x trust me bro" ok....? "the first of my people do not die so easily" = mythal is shattered and lives on, makes sense. but the other evanuris are all dead, even the ones that were "dead" already? why? idk........ i shall stay delusional for now and hope i've missed something in my completionist run that i now in my next run will find somewhere lol. besides of that, the tone and language used by rook and companions is strangely unfitting as well. coloquial words like "it's cool" are frequently used, among other things. it stands in contrast to the writing of the previous games and is often immersion breaking.

limited worldstate: i had hoped they at least commit to it when i heard about this. but then adding little references that could have just been made personal by switching one line just made the reference a bit jarring sometimes instead of exciting. or making morrigan eat mythals memories for the regret quest....really? this could have been the well of sorrows choice, why could they not have just made the inquisitor show up in the crossroads if they were the one that drank from it. this whole choice thing + some other problems ended up feeling like something they didnt really want to do but ended up doing because the game was in development for so long they just had to finally fucking finish it. and it sucks for us.

the veil: why... is it still there? they left breadcrumps of clues throughout the entire series about all the positives it would do if it was gone, even add a damn prophecy, and then just dont do it.... ever perhaps? must the blight really be cured for this? demons forever feared? listen im just glad solas is ok at the end of the day but he could still have had his redemption/healing/forgiving himself moment after destroying it imo.

i wish the inquisitor was more involved in everything :((( the moments we did get made me SO happy but. yeah.

no quicksave and the skip button that ruined my screenshots deserve their own bullet point what the hell

anyway enough yapping!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! overall i loved the game because the stuff i cared about the most was the best aspects of the game sdkjhsdjkf im not ashamed to admit that this is my new solas 2.0 game. ..... <3

[meganooooooooooooooo]

WHOA if you change the decoration in the Lighthouse to the Dwarven one you get a codex entry I have never seen before and it might be the most compelling one about the Executors that I've found so far!!

Update: Now with screenshot for the curious!

[thekingofwinterblog]

So just to shit some more on the executors, and the "reveal" they were behind everything...

Acording to the secret ending, they were the ones actually behind the tevinters breaking into the fade and the golden city.

But from the black codex, we know that the voices that spoke to the Tevinters, and by extention playing the role of their gods, was actually the will behind the blight itself, the song that the darkspawn hear, using it's one, original link to the physical world(The trapped and blighted evanuris', dragons) to orchestrate an escape.

That has some pretty massive lore implications, and frankly would have perfectly explained how the actual dragons aren't actually anything more than empowered High Dragons, if this reveal had actually been in the game... But it also pretty much makes the executors being behind the first breach into the black city and the following blight impossible.

We KNOW who the big player behind the scenes is. We KNOW their motivation. We KNOW how they did it, and through the rest of the black codex we know how the Blight came into existence.

There simply isnt any room for a secret evil cabal here pulling the strings behind the scenes, even if there was motivation to, which is contradicted because what little we do know of the Executors motivations before this stupid slideshow of retcons, is that they were hellbent on actually preventing the veil from going down and unleashing the blight into the world.

[songofamazon]

Adaari powers

So, according to the tablet and then codex entry at the end of Taash's personal quest, adaari do more than breathe fire to fight the Devouring Storm.

Aadari can see the enemy.

I wonder if that is poetic or a mistranslation. Aside from fire breathing, Taash has another innate but unusual ability: their sense of smell.

All of the mentions of the Executors mention their briny smell.

I wonder if the adaari's sense of smell is what helps them locate and fight the enemy, not their eyesight.

Codex entry text transcription:

Taash's New Tablet

I am Taash. I am an adaari--a fire-breathing Qunari.

I am writing this in Trade so people can read it.

Dragon fire made these words show up. Don't trust anything not hidden that way.

Ancient Qunari made adaari using dragon blood. Adaari helped see and fight an ancient enemy.

Ancient Qunari fled to this land from across the sea. They got sick and died.

The enemy will follow across the sea.

Beware the Devouring Storm.

(Neve Gallus figured out how to hide these words behind fire. I owe her drinks at the Cobbled Swan.)

--Words carved on a stone tablet, visible only by dragon fire