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i really do think the combat across dragon age games severely undermines its worldbuilding wrt the danger posed by mages & demons. aside from revenants in da:o, none of them are really… particularly difficult to face? without a single mage or templar in the party you can basically just hack at a mage or demon till they drop and keep it pushing.

so yeah, when a templar character starts going on about the danger posed by mages, the reaction of the average player is just going to be “skill issue.”

there’s no other way to interpret it in the context of the gameplay! especially when you are placed in scenarios like broken circle where all it really takes to annul or subdue kinloch hold is a bit of persistence. compared the deep roads, the combat is a breeze! blood mages? no problem. demons? easy. trapped in the fade by a powerful demon? no failstate, dw about it.

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Every poll on this blog is about fictional characters only. This request was sent to us and we made a poll in response to it. Send any Blorbo-related question you want to our inbox and we’ll make a poll on which people can vote with their own Blorbos in minds

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does everyone else have their like one contrarian dragon age plot decision where your hill to die on is that the unpopular choice is better/makes more sense in-world/creates a more interesting narrative. for me it's sacrificing the chargers for sure qunari bull they could never make me hate you

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if you were going to set an adventure within one city in thedas what would be your pick

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Rip Geralt of Rivia you would have loved wearing a knee brace and taking ibuprofen

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Surprisingly I see a lot of ship art for Bellara with other characters besides Rook and I find it crazy that she doesn’t end up with anyone during Veilguard!! So who do you think should’ve been Ballara’s love interest? 👀 (these are based on the pairings I’ve seen fan art for, but feel free to add more!)

Davrin

Illario

Irelin

Neve

Merrill

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Would be interested in seeing if there were characters that people initially disliked but that on subsequent playthroughs have warmed up to.

If you let me know in the tags/replies which characters they were I might do a poll to see who was the most common!

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as much as I get why lucanis is positioned as the one needed to kill ghilan'nain as the mage killer etc, I can't help but feel like it should've been davrin

like. there's something about the dalish elf with andruil's vallaslin, a grey warden, a monster hunter, hunting down the mother of all monsters, who creates monstrosities with the blight, who was once andruil's beloved.

ghilan'nain created the halla. she still cares for the halla, despite what she's become, despite being unable to create them anymore. davrin cared for the halla under his uncle's tutelage. assan cares for and nurses a sick and dying halla. assan, who's name means arrow in elven, when andruil's weapon was a bow, who's hunting instincts give way to something more protective.

davrin was taught the way of the three trees. it was created by andruil. andruil, the goddess of the hunt, also known as the goddess of sacrifice. davrin feels like a weapon sharpened to make that final sacrifice against the blight, a tool that once drove andruil mad, and has twisted ghilan'nain into something unrecognisable. andruil, blood and force, who loved a mortal for her creations and raised her to godhood.

would ghilan'nain see andruil in him? would that offer something more to her character than just oh she's evil?

the dalish tell a legend of ghilan'nain and a hunter who bested her. maybe it was a prophecy instead.

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Vivienne sounds like the most anti-mage companion in dai just cause they removed other popular anti-mage opinions in your party. You put her in da2 saying" actually is normal Mages can go outside their towers with permission" and the average kirkwall citizen would say she's one step from having mages kidnapping all their childrens

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We will literally never progress past biphobia until people realize that bisexuals in het relationships are still having a queer experience by virtue of being bisexual, we do not magically oscillate between gay enough and too straight. I’m going to maul someone to death.

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Dragon Age II making-of book now available for pre-order!

Hey Dragon Age tumblr, I wrote a book about the making of DA2, one of my all-time favorite games!

It's being published by Boss Fight Books as the 40th entry in their incredible series of deep-dive books into specific video games. It will release as ebook and paperback in January, and you can pre-order it right now as part of Boss Fight's Season 8 Kickstarter (already 200% funded), alongside Legend of the River King and Life is Strange!

Official blurb for the book:

Rushed through development in just a year to capitalize on the runaway success of its predecessor, Dragon Age II's writing team had only a few months to write an entire game before handing it off to voice acting and development. The result was an often ramshackle sequel featuring a smaller world, fewer companions, and repetitive quests—as well as some of the best characters, dialogue, and storytelling BioWare has ever put to screen. Based on new interviews with DA2 writers David Gaider, Jennifer Hepler, Lukas Kristjanson, as well as editor Karin Weekes, author Charlotte Reber tells the wild behind-the-scenes story of how a team at the top of their game made the best of an impossible assignment to create the series’s first fully voiced protagonist, its charmingly unreliable narrator, and a crew of unforgettable party members to bother, befriend, and romance. From DA2’s inception to its mishandled marketing campaign to its volatile reactions from players, Reber’s book raises a mug of ale to the game that was—and the game that might have been.

Pre-order now on Kickstarter!

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unfollowed for speaking my truth again (oghren's the gender & sexually diverse rep you never wanted but have to live with getting)

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also i realize that. with celene as empress in any capacity, bhelen on the throne and anora/alistair (tho more anora than alistair bc she is CLEARLY blond no questions asked(i do think alistair is blond but that doesnt seem to be a consensus lol))). you have 3 world powers ruled by blondes. what is going on

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FUCK mage and elf discourse lets get to the REAL meat and potatoes

if you make your choice based on arbitrary popular opinion i will court your mother. get spicy with it.

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If the notes from VG are anything to go by, Qunari poetry seems to have this very in-the-moment, "blink and you miss it" kind of imagery. Genuinely reminds me of the philosophy behind seasonal haiku but that's my personal pile of comparisons. Anyways Qunari compliments pointing out the little changing aspects of their loved ones' selves? Spotting tiny differences in the moment, observing how grounded they are at any given second?