Dragon Age: Dark Fortress (Comic)

Some Fenris and DA Comic Questions…

So we got a message from chaotictriumphtale who wanted to ask some questions, and with their permission, we’re listing our answers here, for any who are interested… They wrote:

2 questions, partially related I guess. In the next issue, will we see any more flashbacks of Fenris’s adventures post DA2 or is the story more concerned in moving forward.

Second is, how do you deal with branching canons? I mean, by the end of Inquisition Hawke can be alive or dead, either the Templars or Mage Rebellion could have allied with the Inquisition, in addition to Hawke either being Viscount/an exile by the intro of DAI. It’s a lot of variables + whether or not Fenris was a friend, rival, or even romanced.

To clarify my second question: with all of those possible variations of the story by Trespasser, and with all of these possible fates for Fenris and the rest of the DA2 cast (especially romance vs non romance), how do you commit to one versus another for the premise of your comic? It just seems like a lot of variables to consider Anyways, if you can answer I’d appreciate it! And if it’s too spoilery or whatever that’s fine too lol. Just curious either way.

On a side note thanks for re-introducing nature magic in the comic. Haven’t seen that since Awakening with Velanna.

Okay, so, going through those…

1) In DARK FORTRESS, we catch a tiny glimpse of Fenris between DA2 and BLUE WRAITH. But it’s not a flashback for him. It’s a glimpse of someone else’s past, which intertwined with his.

Sorry to keep it vague, but we don’t want to spoil too much.

2) The branching canon thing is very tricky. We tend to build off of Bioware’s default state. Then we write so as to minimize conflicts with the various other possible world states that exist.

The way Bioware recommends people approach these stories is that the main events in our story are canon. And the details are also canon, so long as they don’t contradict your world state. If they do, then it’s canon but adjusted to fit.

Broad example… if your Hawke killed Anders, then Sebastian is friendly to Kirkwall in Inquisition, so the events of KNIGHT ERRANT play as written. But if he didn’t, and attempted to annex Kirkwall via War Table missions, we know that Varric is still Viscount in Trespasser regardless. So the events are similar - Varric brings Ser Aaron to the party - but Varric and Sebastian’s interactions would be very different as they have a lot more to work through.

So in the case of Fenris, we wrote a story that would work with every world state except one where Fenris is dead. If Fenris was given back to Danarius, then you’d assume that he later escaped again, and killed Danarius in the process. But he’d have a much more hostile point of view about Hawke and the others. And if he were dead, the story would play out with a different former servant of Danarius helping out. Not likely one who was a “Blue Wraith” per se.

Lastly, we were glad to explore nature magic. We missed it too