Blood Magic Blocked forevermore because writers don't want their Heros sullied by it

The thing about blood magic is, it was already fumbled in a pretty big way in the roleplaying department in both games where it was an option.

In Origins, the only acknowledgment we get regarding the use of blood magic will either be a line from Uldred in the Tower, or when discussing the Dark Ritual with Morrigan. Yeah, sure, there's the cut interaction with Wynne, Irving and Greagoir at the end of that quest, but that requires modding to implement into the game, and if I'm being honest, it's really not enough, especially not for a game regarded in the same way Origins is.

2's case is more understandable, given the development time it had, but I have to get into that one too, because a game where blood magic is a central part of the story and setting should have arguably more impactful reactions if you spec into that, especially in a game where you have Anders and Fenris in particular as companions.

Honestly, I can't really say that the door is closed for Blood Mage as a spec for potential future games, but within the circumstances of both past games and what I've seen of the supplementary materials so far, I can't say I'm that torn over the absence of the damn thing either, as far as this game is concerned.

As far as the other specs mentioned in this thread go... some of them seem like baffling absences, some of them are understandable, and others just have me looking at the list of specs for Veilguard and thinking, "yeah I'm just gonna wait to see the actual contents before deciding how I feel about them". I will note that the Slayer spec was referred to as "Berserker" by the ResetEra playtester, who correctly stated way back then that the specs would be tied to factions, and that there'd be a tanky GW spec and a MW spec named "Reaper".

Are you talking about


Because that sounds like doubling down, not clarifying.
Keeping the bad guy stuff bad and the good guy stuff good. Here's that line. I mean, I made the realization that some of the name choices they've gone with were for the newbie idiot players who don't know lore. But this is taking simplicity down to the toddler level.

Your name is ironically fit for this discussion...

When they explained Rook couldn't be a blood mage because they needed them to be able to have Video Calls with Solas' in the Fade, I was disappointed but I got it

This bullshit about it being for the bad guys only is what drives me up the wall

gervaise21 she used blood magic once to help the Griffons otherwise doomed to die from the taint to not die from the taint. But she didn't know how to use it correctly. And then she made up for that mistake later with her life. But no where along the way was she like, Mwuhahahaha blood magic like that asshole in Absolution. And to be clear, we all knew that egotistical narc was only talking up ethics to get in that Templar woman's pants and not actually opposed, he was nuts

So how can the choices of the names, I am assuming you mean the organizational names, be for newbie idiots, when the names in question require some familiarity with Dragon Age lore to understand their importance and their intrigue. The Veil Jumpers. What is the Veil? Are we talking about something for a wedding? Wedding crashers? That is what a newbie would probably think. Or something involving death? Shadow Dragons. OK...Dragons who hunt in the shadows...but they would know nothing of how important the name has to do with the Tevinter Imperium and the potential implications from that. The Lords of Fortune are a bit on the nose I guess, but then the Mourn Watch? And speaking of being on the nose you have always had the Grey Wardens which again are pretty much as straightforward as you can get. They just sound 'cool'. 

Meanwhile the game is still going to be rated M, we have seen that much established in the trailers so far, and the same amount of complexity DA has been known for, the same level of moral complexity, moral grayness, was exhibited in the trailer and the gameplay. So its absurd to think that this has been done in an effort to take the simplicity down to the level of a 'toddler'. Its more likely that they want to do it because the inclusion of such things tends to make things into a binary. The inclusion of blood magic and the evil decisions in Origins has been some of the examples of the least nuanced, least mature, elements of the series. It just enabled players to be evil for the sake of evil largely without consequence that was appropriate to what they were doing in the universe. There is a bit of a theme in the boards around here but the inclusion of blood magic does not prove anything about the game other then you can do blood magic...the existence of evil choices does not prove anything about the game then you can do evil choices...the existence of brothels don't prove anything about the game other then brothels exist. And the same goes on and on for any of these very specific. None of these things make a mature interesting game by itself. Letting the protagonist do these things don't make a mature interesting thing by itself. Its all the gestalt of the whole game, the whole experience, is what makes it interesting. If these things are done well, they can be interesting window dressing to think about and help paint the larger picture of a mature game...but when these things are done poorly, they became determents and distractions to those objections. 

It is a option a stupid option.

There was a drastic vision change from da2 on. These statements just make it clearer.

I don't see it. Maybe we could say a vision change happened since DA O and this does seem to be obvious, a lot of the lore has been 'tightened' since Origins came out especially since Origins was more or less supposed to be a single game and since it was the first game and a lot of issues exist within Origins from a lore perspective, so they did change it...

But this intepretation of Blood Magic is pretty consistent with what we got from 2. It may be used, theoretically, for value neutral positions but it is very hard to maintain that balance given how corruptible it is and how it opens one up to demonic influence and the ability to influence others and demons in turn. This was pretty much the whole point of DA 2. 

Another reason not to give the protagonist access to blood magic: no need to explain why they can't mind control anyone outside of combat, unlike every other blood mage we ever meet.

(In Merrill's case the anwer is easy - she simply would not do that - but it was always a bit odd that the Warden and Hawke were able to use it to force people to fight on their side in combat never to do anything useful in the story.)

To be fair to Isseya, it was the First Warden who really messed things up because he was the one who decided if they could do it with one griffon, why not every griffon that was feeling the effects of prolonged combat against the darkspawn. I seem to recall it didn't just stop the taint spreading in that first griffon but also gave it renewed strength and aggression against darkspawn (which spectacularly backfired with some of the riders when the griffon dived into their massed ranks instead of keeping above them). However, as I explained, she was still making a "blind bargain" when she used blood magic to cleanse the chicks in their eggs, it is just on this occasion it was successful and, as far as we know, did not have a downside.   Remember also that the way she got the original griffons to accept the Joining was by violating the sanctity of their mind, not through cleansing their body.

I actually think Last Flight was reasonable in its depiction of blood magic because it is perfectly true that we don't know enough about exactly how it works (and the writers are likely still out on the issue). DAO implied that it involved doing deals with demons and, from what I recall, you could only learn it by doing a deal with the demon possessing Connor (I don't count the fact that you could later acquire a book allowing this). So, it did seem a bit dodgy to say the least, even if you didn't sacrifice the soul of a child to acquire the skill. I've already said that I can see why a Grey Warden could justify doing this to themselves.

DA2 was where they really muddied the waters, firstly by allowing Merrill to be a blood mage, where from Hawke's comment it is still associated with doing deals with demons, as Merrill freely admits is the case, which carries its own risks with it. Then by allowing Hawke to take the spec, with no one commenting on this or even explaining how you gained the knowledge. I assume Merrill must have taught it to them because either doing a deal with a demon or being taught by an established blood mage do seem to be the only means of doing so. Blood magic does not draw its power from the Fade, so any experienced mage, like Anders for example, would be able to detect this. Justice most certainly would. However, I'll grant you the companions had a very peculiar attitude towards Hawke's more questionable acts. After all, not one of them, not even Sebastian, rejects them if they hand Fenris back to Denarius. Of course, there is an easy way out of this for the Devs as they can say it was just Varric as narrator glossing over any dissent in the ranks and, let's face it, he probably didn't actually tell Cassandra that Hawke was a blood mage.

On balance, from what we have seen in game and from all the associated media, blood magic is depicted as something questionable to say the least, and feared by the majority of people with good reason because of what the mage can do with it as much as how the power is derived. There are things a blood mage can do that regular mages cannot and technically it is outlawed even in Tevinter, although of course most powerful mages there know how to do it even if they don't resort to it. Yes, it has occasionally been used for the benefit of others, such as when a Tevinter mage sacrificed herself in order to boil the blood in the veins of Qunari attacking the city of Marnas Pell, but at what ultimate price? It would seem the Veil was permanently damaged in that location.

Which brings me onto Weakes' original explanation for why Rook couldn't be a blood mage and then why he appeared to change the reason from, it would interfere with their connection with Solas, to it not being appropriate to the hero of this story. The problem with blood magic is the writers have never really come up with a consistent reason for why it works or how it impacts on the Veil and contact with the Fade. If, as Solas suggested, it makes contact more difficult, why are blood mages said to be of increased danger to possession? Why does the spilling of blood in large amounts thin the Veil, even opening a way to the Fade altogether? Why is elf blood more potent than human blood in blood magic rituals when Corypheus maintained this was because of their connection to the Fade? So, I think the real reason they avoided letting their hero use blood magic is that it might have raised some awkward questions for which they don't have answers, particularly if it is the villains' use of blood magic that has adverse consequences in a plot narrative because people would naturally ask, then why not Rook?

honestly I'd argue it's probably the worse outcome.