#magekiller

[thedinanshiral]

What to read before The Veilguard drops

Yes people, we have homework. In case you missed it, or need to refresh that memory because hey, it's been a while, here's a quick short list of what to (re)read in preparation for this new entry in the series.

Books:

From Tevinter Nights: Down among the dead men (introduces Emmrich and Manfred), The wigmaker job (introduces Lucanis), The streets of Minrathous (introduces Neve).

The Last Flight, last novel released somewhere around DA: Inquisition. Takes the action to Weisshaupt, Grey Wardens HQ, and jumps between that present and the past explaining how the Griffons became extinct during the Fourth Blight. Will explain where Davrin's griffon came from.

Comics:

Magekiller. It's pretty introductory overall, set around Inquisition but it introduces "magekillers" as a job some people do. While in Tevinter Nights Lucanis is introduced as an Antivan Crow seems he's decided to change careers so it can't hurt to learn a bit about it.

The missing. Gives us Varric and Scout Harding already working together, and introduces us to Neve.

Short Stories:

Posted a while back in the BioWare page for Dragon Age day as crumbs to feast on while we waited, and waited, and waited..I recommend reading all of them simply because most people may have missed them and they add to lore and characters that while not among the new companions may still make an appearance and be relevant in Veilguard.

Of course I recommend reading EVERYTHING if possible, it all adds more layers and flavor and we know Solas is in the details, we can't miss a thing, but I think if you're short on time this counts as light reading enough to know where you'll land when Dragon Age: The Veilguard finally arrives.

[esthesiaart]

Lucanis Dellamorte. I am so happy to see him among the companions after reading his story in Tevinter Nights! I loved him and Illario.

[thedaswolves]

My fave Dragon Age comics in one place ❤️

you can read them fully here :)

Update February 2025: The original site with old links I posted is dead. I updated this post with new working links. If you rebloging old post from someone with links that no longer work, refresh and reblog directly from me with the good links!

Magekiller

(Marius, Tessa, Flavius, Charter, Dorian, Leliana, Harding…)

part 1 , part 2 , part 3 , part 4 , part5

Deception

(Olivia, Autumn, Vaea, Dorian, Florian, Teia, Viago de Riva…)

part 1 , part 2 , part 3

Blue Wraith

(Fenris, Vaea, Francesca, Ser Aaron, Marius, Tessa, Autumn…)

part 1 , part 2 , part3

Dark Fortress

(Fenris, Vaea, Francesca, Marius, Tessa, Autumn...)

part1 , part 2 , part 3

The Missing

(Varric, Harding, Charter, Antoine, Evka, Teia, Viago de Riva, Irelin, Strife, Neve Gallus…)

part 1 , part 2 , part 3 , part 4

[rubeau-art]

it's mermay! what about magekiller in Desert Skies?

I wanted to get Lee’s wings into his mer design, so he’s got Manta vibes!

I’d love to explore this one more down the track.

[the-perrepatae]

Why is Lucanis The "Mage Killer"?

Mage Killer means something SPECIFIC in Dragon Age. This is like having a prison warden companion called "The Warden."

We had an entire comic series literally called Magekiller (one word, à la Dread Wolf vs Dreadwolf I guess) about one.

It's not just "anyone specialized in killing mages". It's a very specific person. Marius is sometimes just called perrepatae, or just "the Mage-Killer", because that's who he is.

Or, to put it in Marius' own words...

It ain't just a title you slap onto anyone. Unless Lucanis trained with a perrepatae, then we have some talking to do.

[vaguely-concerned]

nothing makes me roll my eyes quite like people making a big deal out of lucanis being 'the magekiller' while mostly being perfectly chill with mages in his personal life as if that's some huge objective flaw in the writing. like yeah it's his professional specialization not his personality or strongly held ideological conviction or anything. mages are tricky to kill and he's real good at it. that's why they pay him the big bucks. it's like saying a pest exterminator can only do his job if he's motivated by a deep personal vendetta waged against the entirety of rodentkind. the fact that he genuinely treats assassination like his 9-5 is, y'know. half of the whole guy, and this tracks with that wonderfully.

(honestly it's so perfect that the reason he specialized in that is, literally and canonically, that caterina looked over the books and went 'huh. we should diversify our murder portfolio, there's an untapped market here' and assigned it to him. he didn't even get to choose his own murder major, his grandmother decided that for him largely for straightforward economic reasons. dunno what to tell you, crows gonna crow. they're just merchant princes with extra knives at the end of the day, that is exactly why they'd make a choice like that, they're providing a service not going on crusades, even though lucanis manages to carve out some personal satisfaction in taking down especially shitty targets within that. I'm sorry you guys didn't get your angsty enemies to lovers arc or whatever but please understand that that only existed in your head to begin with and also that what we actually get here is infinitely funnier and MUCH more interesting, once you actually engage with the text earnestly. ssssh I didn't say that)

[mrs-gauche]

You know what I would love to see in Veilguard when we're visiting Minrathous?

Remember those magical hologram theaters??

Massive old libraries filled with juicy Tevinter lore??

And gorgeous public baths???

*heart eyes*

[trashwithvariety]

my favorite way to romance in dragon age is playing as a mage and going after a self proclaimed mage hater

I think it's so funny

like "I hate all mages except this particular mage right here and I will not be taking any questions"

hahaha such a fake idgafer I saw you yearning

[mohntilyet]

i’m having illario dellamorte thoughts. what if instead of knowingly betraying lucanis he did it like, unknowingly. idk how this would work but i’m intrigued by what it gives us. illario ‘i accidentally caused my cousin’s death & can never tell anyone’ dellamorte. genuinely grieving. blaming himself. does he take advantage of the year before lucanis comes back?? does caterina still ignore him the whole time?? how different is the canon plotline once rook shows up with lucanis post-rescue…..

anyways i would love your thoughts!!

95% of what i do with illario operates on the idea that he is frighteningly competent so you can see why the way the crows plotline plays out in the game might frustrate me. it’s also this reason why i don’t actually think too much about “illario got lucanis killed, but didn’t mean to do it”, because i like the idea that everything illario does in his life is planned to the second and that he’s too well trained to mess up this badly, if that makes sense. with that being said. 5% of my brain power does sometimes go towards “and what if he just sucked actually” and it was a theory i enjoyed before the game even released. so i have in fact been thinking about this anyway LOL . maybe he tries to honeypot zara, accidentally actually reveals lucanis’ next assassination job, and zara gets rid of him as a ‘gift’. illario is horrified and that gets even worse when lucanis’ body shows up, and he assumes this must be because he spurned zara by leaving her and not having the guts to seize power.

i think we could make his inferiority complex worse. illario’s worst fear confirmed: he is as worthless as his grandmother believes he is, botching something so badly that he accidentally sentences his cousin to death when what he wanted was lucanis just… out of the way for a bit (maybe while he kills caterina. LOL. i still think his resentment of caterina trumps his jealousy for lucanis though those two things are very intertwined its hard for him to differentiate them). so incapable that he got the only person who actually supports him killed, and now he’s dreading the idea of becoming first talon. he doesn’t want first talon without lucanis backing him, and now the only person left is caterina which is suffocating and makes him even unhappier. at least he hadn’t lived through her alone, and now through consequences of his own decisions, illario has no choice but to.

i think that would affect his plans for talon because of how horribly he’d fucked up, and tries to mask it because if he suddenly actually doesn’t want to be talon that would be a red flag for everyone. lucanis coming back would delight him (talon is within his sights again if lucanis comes back!) and freak him out. i think the plotline would actually be pretty similar because of this freak out, so he still shows up to zara’s fight to cover his tracks. lucanis can never know, caterina can never know, because what little faith they have in him will be lost. like he committed fratricide and didn’t even MEAN to😭 ...corpse whispering still happens, and zara is like “ohhh that coward. he can never finish what he started, can he?” + “elaborate.” + “i gave him what he most wanted in the world and instead of being grateful, he ran away.” so lucanis finds out about what happened but feels a mix of “illario, you idiot” + pity because turns out he didn’t even mean for it to happen, and keeps his secret for now, otherwise he’d probably have to kill him.

i also think not meaning to kill lucanis would sour his feelings towards the venatori, who are a reminder of how badly he failed, so the alliance wouldn’t happen. this does mean if the story goes on as it does in canon, he has to take desperate measures another way and kidnap caterina for some other reason but i can’t think of why….. maybe a thing where illario is like “ok. lucanis is distracted by the elven gods. this time i just have to kill nonna for real and then nothing is in my way” and recruits disgraced houses or houses that don’t like caterina to do so? not sure tbh but i don’t believe caterina made it so far without making enemies lol. this would happen post bloodbath + corpse whispering— lucanis leaves his cousin unchecked because while he knows illario didn’t mean for him to die, he has no idea how far he would go to have caterina dead. teia could find out about this and send word to foil the kidnapping and assassination attempt

so ‘murder of crows’ is still about saving caterina, the illario-lucanis fight still happens, but it’s a little more hesitant and lots of “why won’t you just let me kill her? i’m doing this for the both of us”. he’s had to live with being the un-favorite, but never would have thought lucanis would actually pick caterina if it came down to it. with all of his missteps here, i think the final decision (and i think it should be like this in canon anyway) would be to imprison illario or kill him. imprisoning him is just a lot of “i can’t kill illario as much as he couldn’t kill me”, vs killing him as is expected from him as talon, and what he knew he would have to do after finding out about illario's failures. unlike canon, where illario is actually meaning to kill him and can be seen as a 'good crow' despite the sloppiness, here he's like. just bad at everything. the allied traitor houses that went against caterina would also have to be imprisoned or killed. no happy ending at all here, and lucanis still becomes first talon. now that i’ve written it out this is actually probably the worst ending LOL

the above sticks a lot to what is canon to the game (plot points, choices, etc) and i didn’t go very far away from it so it's like canon 3 inches to the left. tho my thoughts on this are not fleshed out* because i think illario works better as an antagonist character that sets things in motion !! not necessarily the villain in a cain-abel story, but a character who opposes lucanis while still not wanting to hurt him. that kind of discipline where he finds a way to get what he wants (first talon) without compromising what he also cares for (family) is so much more fun for me than a man who apparently just loses it and decides to enact a bad plan to get rid of his cousin. if he waited 20+ years to become talon i think he’d be more careful when it came down to it. if i had my way illario would be playing insane 5d chess to rival solas (insert black sails “i once thought that to lead, to be liked was just as good as feared. and that may very well be true. but to be both liked and feared all at once, is an entirely different state of being.”)

[void-bitten-ghost]

"You can be my date"

"BOY YOU CAN BE MY HUSBAND" <- Rook absolutely 1000%

[monpetitchattriste]

I promise I don't have a problem

Me: refreshing A03 for the 12th time in the last hour to see if anymore fics have been posted for my new ship because it's so new and I read everything that had been posted that fit my prefences.

[cosmik-homo]

"who are you romanicng first" this and that. yes i also indulge but:

Who do yall think will be the most fun party comp to have bickering in the background, based on these very first impressions?

[tinkerbitch69]

Hero of ferelden? Champion of Kirkwall? Inquisitor who?

I’m sorry but Vaea & Marius no last name, Tessa Forsythia, Francesca Invidus & Ser Aaron Hawthorne are the real heroes of thedas!

R.I.P. Ser Aaron 🥲

[rubeau-art]

Jax with long hair compels me

[passerime]

Unnamed he/they Rook (bioware pls give me body tattoos and scars please i'm on my knees begging)

[hawkeish]

you can't raise the dead if you aren't cute