Tapster's Tavern - For all your dwarven needs !

During the epilogue for the Dwarf Commoner, Rica appears at the celebration and mentions that Endrin is still heir to House Aeducan, even if Harrowmont was made King and Bhelen died.

Wonder whether his character would be more like Bhelen or Rica? I'd like to see Endrin as somewhere in the middle... either a jerk with a heart of gold, shrewd and calculating, but not without empathy or mercy.

I'm not sure how they're handling that, honestly. Bhelen and Rica have a child no matter which race you play, apparently, but obviously the male Aeducan's child can only exist as an Aeducan when the Warden was a male Aeducan AND fathered the child AND went to the trouble of getting him recognized as an Aeducan. He may exist as a default in non-noble stories, but he'd be casteless if his father died in the deep roads. I suspect they're planning to let that one vanish from the story, sadly, because it would be a lot of work to turn him into an NPC who could only appear in a few games. Morrigan's son was an exception because he could exist in any storyline where the dark ritual was accepted, which meant any race/gender storyline.

Having the kid join the Wardens or go to the surface would be a good way to tie up plot threads with the inheritance of Orzammer very neatly, but if DA4 doesn't time skip significantly we're looking at a little 'Ducan that's still in his early adolescence ^-^

If we do get some type of mention I think it'd probably just be some codex information, but seeing someone from Orzammer and Origins again would be cool!

The Dwarves has been released!

No, you're right. Varric even wrote a book in-game poiting out the hypocrisis of the whole situation - I think it's an excerpt of Darktown's Deal, I think you can find it in Inquisition.

Man, I've been gone longer than I realized. Missed the whole BSN shutting down. I'm glad to see the community still thrives so time for me to do major catching up.

First off, GREAT title for the dwarf thread. Well done, Merela!


Was fun to read through all the responses. Personally I favor romances that acknowledge racial differences. It's a nice form of validation when we are playing within a human-dominated story. I often see people asking if different LIs mention anything about race or class choices so it's obviously important to a lot of people. I was leery of romancing Alistair as a dwarf only because I couldn't see why a dwarf would go for a non-dwarf, but it got addressed and made me really appreciate that. So based on that criteria, Alistair and Blackwall are obvious favorites. Iron Bull is good in the sense that everyone's short to him and it is honestly not an issue with him. I know there are a few more, but I have not had time to experience it for myself and others have done a good job talking about them.



I really do hear ya. I remember Leliana getting some hate because she and Alistair hooked up in the darkspawn DLC, which was an alternate reality and had nothing to do with the main game.



I wish I organized my notes better. I love nerding out over small details like this. I think this is a "whatever the writer feels like at the time" thing because stuff kind of changes back and forth over time. There is no hard and fast answer. There are plenty of dwarves saying they DO lose their Stone sense and then there's Cadash in the Descent DLC relying on Valta to be the Stone interpreter and going along with it despite the ability to choose the option to say there's a connection.



And for #2, I don't remember seeing this specifically addressed in-game or by a dev. Hard to say beyond offering theories.


*cries* Deal With It. =/

I cringed throughout sexytimes in DAO because that was just awful to watch, but the storyline was very lovely otherwise. There were some terrific mods by people that were inclusive of dwarves (which is why we must always be nice to non-dwarves because they may have powers we don't -- quite a few modders don't play dwarves so making a hairstyle or outfit or a cutscene is a genuine timesink and can be a thankless task for them). It's because of tmp's wonderful changes to the dwarf romance in DAO that I judge the actual animators for their lack of effort in subsequent games.

Here's the modded romance scene. It starts at 1:42. I cannot find the vanilla scene for comparison, but basically during kisses, the dwarf magically gets taller and it's ALL EXTREME CLOSEUPS WHILE THEY MAKE OUT. Here, Tmp had Alistair kneeling instead for a kiss and everything is done on the dwarf's level which makes it 10000% better.



SO. Pretty much, they make cutscenes for humans first, which is understandable because more people play as humans. And then all the other races follow that template. It's painful to watch the qunari shrink and the dwarf grow. I mean, when Blackwall shows up in the Inquisitor's room, he can easily just sit on the bench while professing his attraction to the dwarf and they'd be face to face believably. The floating stuff is terrible.

And furthermore, they made the dwarf female even smaller in DAI. The dwarf female used to go up to the human male shoulders and be nearly as tall as the dwarf male. Also nearly as wide as the dwarf male. There's no change to the dwarf male model in DAI that I can see, but the dwarf female got shorter and she's half as wide, too. This makes her look like a child in the barn scene with Blackwall and I'm like god dammit, ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS FIX THE APE ARMS.

But you know what? I love playing the dwarves. This is not enough to deter me or make me play a different race. I am not going to avoid the romance story because of sloppy animations. I am a paying customer just like anyone else!



Personally I have a hard time getting into Cadash being a devout Andrastian because of the Chantry excluding them and looking down on them all along. My violent thug wasn't buying it. My rogue played into the act just to grease the wheels and facilitate deals without actually being into it. I do like that Varric is Andrastian because it makes for interesting conversations. Kinda like trying to decide whether to let Brother Burkel start a Chantry in Orzammar or not.



Whatever is interesting and non-human if possible. Nothing wrong with humans at all, but I like different perspectives and playing outside of my bubble. I remember my first MMO ever. I was new to D&D really. I knew elves had pointy ears and that's it. I was intimidated by them. Forget about ogres and gnomes. I didn't know anything about their culture, much less how to play one. So I started off as human and it was just all right. Nothing exciting. Slowly I began to try out other races and the more I learned about them, the more I just loved their approach to life. I don't play elves because I don't vibe with their culture/approach that well, but there are people who LOVE playing elves and I adore their blogs/tumblrs or whatever because they share their passion and I live vicariously through through them. I know that when I share my joy of playing a dwarf, others really appreciate that even if they're not personally inclined to play one themselves. (But they may be more likely to include dwarves in mods!)



Nope. I don't begrudge those who dig it, but nope. I remember one of the Hobbit movies being in production so it made sense why they added it in at the time as a Tolkien homage or something, I guess. But c'mon, if all the races are going to share the equally horrible hairstyles, then share that female facial hair mod with the rest just as well. I just felt it wasn't part of the lore before, wasn't available in DAO, and it just added to the stigma of a short, hairy race. When people do "EVIL PLAYTHROUGHS," they pick a race they don't normally play so they can make uncomfortable choices and not feel attached to their characters. It's usually a dwarf. It's easier to target the race when they have unattractive facial hair, too, IMO. That's why I felt the lady stubble should have been equal opportunity to all races. Well, except for the elves. They have lore reasons for no beards.

All these dorf veterans finding their way home again!

i'm fine i'm fine i-it's just nug allergies :')

If they can get booze out of moss, they can get allergies out of hairless bunny-pigs!

Anywho, been daydreaming about DA4 lately. I hope race selection returns and we can explore Ambassadoria/the underground embassies as a dwarf.

Hell, I hope our Arcanist gets to go to Tevinter at some point. Bet she'd have a blast delving into those archives, unravelling old theories and formulating new ones. And shocking the ruling class, ofc.

Oh, I LOOOOOOVE this.

hello kids yes i am still emotionally compromised by dwarves

From Mark Darrah's twitter post that's blowing up.