What did you do today in DA? [Spoilers]

Got up to the battle of the Librarians in Tresspasser.

I do love this DLC. I think its very well written and it does tend to hit all the right spots. One of my favorite overall pieces of media. But there are those who disagree and while I do disagree with the disagreement sometimes it is worth it to keep things in mind just to see how much the arguments hold up or to play what if.

With this in mind I got to the scene after the whole get out of the Deep Roads thing where the Inquisition discusses events going on and then Arl Teagen comes into confront them about what's going on. The 'secret and lies' bit was fair the 'drag us into another war' isn't. I always love the look on Josephine's face there to when responding to the Inquisitor's sarcasm. But then the Inquisitor goes out and confronts the guards and deals with it. Now RPGs they are impossible to do everything, and often limiting options do create interesting possibuilties for the stories they tell...but on then it is interesting to wonder. Because while the Orlesian was a spy, the Inquisition agent also overstepped their bounds and was acting a little untowards so it would've been nice to have an option to displine the guard, or at least say you would, while arresting the Orlesian to.

Though it does always bug me the whole thing with Leiliana and what 'Corypheus' should have done. That is pretty legit bad writing, worse writing in Tresspasser.

Onto the library and the Vir Dithara is quite the treassure trove for Veilguard thoughts given how close we are. Kind of getting a bit long in the tooth to really go for it all but...I do wonder the 'head shapes' do show up in each one of the Eluvians...makes me wonder if the gods have their own areas of the library.

After a couple of months hiatus i`m finally continuing and finishing my Artificer Trevelyan playthrough:

In the Arbor Wilds i performed Mythal`s rituals and allied with the ancient elves, Morrigan was the one that drank from the Well of Sorrows and had a family reunion in the Fade.


Corypheus and his dragon were defeated and the Breach was closed. 


Next stop: Frostback Basin.

Kind of interesting to see sometimes I can get a little...over confident I guess. The Librarians still kind of wrecked me at first and I went in expecting to just dissolve a good bit of a my health bar...my delight turned to despair as it barely moved it along one inch. Or so it seemed. Though I guess there is some what of my fault, maybe something to still consider for future playthroughs when its all great sometimes to go itno stealth and just wreck things, but sometimes the other memebers of the party should be going in first to start things and then Kara goes in to pick things off. Same logic to as starting off with the Full Draw to knock someone out and then Mark of Death, the Full Draw helps ensure Mark of Death hits. Almost case in point to the later fight against Saarabas and the group of Qunari I was making very little progress in getting its health down and then Sera waltzes in all MG-42 style and just dissolved the health...still wonder if I will ever run Kara as a Tempest in the future. I never have obviously but the idea of it.

The cutscene with the debrief at the end continues to have interesting implications for the RP I am at least potentially forging for this go around. So with everything going on to the first thing, the sad bit of RP with the realization that the Inquisition is at least somewhat responsible does put a major crack in the armor of her argument of the Inquisition being needed and a good force. Then the stubbourn idea that they can still do good, because they can, but then SNAP, with the pain and the anger as all this stuff is just boiling over. Kind of funny when the Inquisitor goes full evil boss and then Leiliana appologizes to her over it. Oh and also 'you can fight amongst yourself after I'm...back.' Then Cullen comes to realize he was being a bit of a butt and goes to comfort his new wife. All good stuff. Only thing that is off is the music isn't really any different depending on the version so when you get the super angry version it just comes off as...off.

On the subject of stuff I haven't done before, I think, well I solved that one puzzle in the tower in the Darvaarad, got a belt that allows damage dealt to the companion to be dealt back to the attacker...and re read Sera's journal again and she had more to say. A rather touching reference of 'they will know Kara had (scratched out) has friends'.

Went to Frostback Basin in search for Inquisitor Ameridan final resting place.

Had a lot of fights: an Ice Giant, the Jaws of Hakkon, several demons, many many poison spiders , four deadly Despair demons, scout Grandin and the Nox Morta.




Paid a visit to the Stone-Bear Hold and did a few shores for the friendly avvar, saved Colette, saved the bear. Met a spirit with the memories of Telana, found a shrine and a way to destroy the ice wall in the Tevinter fortress.


Defeated Gurd Harofson (a tough fight turned easy by Hail of Arrows), met Inquisitor Ameridan and ended Hakkon. Told professor Kenric that Ameridan was an elven mage.
Sorcha is now Inquisitor First-Thaw.

We come to it at last.



Always a bitter sweet experience finishing a BioWare game. Especially in this case. I guess that has been the one good thing about the ten year wait. I have had plenty of chance to reply the game over and over and over and over again to really put in the time into my nominal favorite game of all time. But in ten days Veilguard comes out and while this probably is not the last time I will play DAI...but then it could be. But its the last time before I start Veilguard. So there. And it does leave me with a similar feeling of me trying to get through my favorite meal. I am a fast eater here and really often don't savor things. An here I am with Tresspasser, the end of my favorite game, one of my single favorite pieces of media ever...and I know all the steps. I have seen it, so in part it just feels like I am going fast. Too fast. Especially in context that I still have ten days to wait before Veilguard comes out But just over way too quickly. Though I did almost get a party wipe on Saarth 1.0 as Kara, Sera, and Dorian went down very quickly. Cass to the rescue. Which is always fun when THAT happens because I don't know Cassandra or the Warrior skills at all so its really...had to focus in and push through. Also the final thing about this is the music here just rocks so hard.

Though with all this it is a little ironic that the Tresspasser final scene dialogue is a little hinkyl...and so I missed two of the investigate options.

Kara Trevelyan, last time I will be playing my Inquisitor for awhile, this is the version of her which will get imported into Veilguard. Its hard to say sometimes because both of recency bias and the desire to avoid rescency bias so its hard to chose which of my 'children' is my favorite between her, Abigail, and Robert...but on the other hand I do still think she is my most complicated character I have ever created and the one I put the most of myself and what I was going in to...an ironic tradition of what I kind of plan on doing with Oliver to and given some of the thngs that are going on in my life now. All of this is set up to this big thing because rarely do I change major RP decisions like this, but I heard the dialogue for the angry disbanding recently for the first time and it just spoke to me so much more. Both to who I am and who my Inquisitor is. I am not exactly sure if it makes her more complex and or less, but it might be better for her character. Because it adopts what I think is one of my favorite character tropes, sort of double sided character growth. A character who finds something good, something that lets them grow as a person, something that is even what they needed at the time, but something from another point of view can be viewed as a weakness, something poisonous which grows within the heart of the character which corrupts them at the same time as making it grow. I hope I am conveying this concept right. But Kara is someone who because of what happened with her brother (my male Inquisitor from another timeline) hated and despised the chantry. Thought the entire organization was corrupt, evil, and wicked, and that there was no such thing as a good member of the Chantry. But then quickly finds herself in charge of a Chantry organization, becoming the best friend of the Right Hand of the Divine and falling in love with a former Templar. She finds herself growing as a person and becoming more understanding as she forges a mutli faceted team of the faithful and non faithful to deal with a would be god. This forces her to make morally compromising decisions. Stuff, as I have mentioned, even though she 'wins' starts taking more and more from her. She is complicit in the assasination of a ruling Monarch, she gets Wardens and Elves killed, she has to find her way through a great many issues. The Inquisition gave her everything but also cost her everything, made her grow into the woman she is, but gave her a lot of pain to do it. Originally her beginning arc for Tresspasser was one of affirmation. The idea that despire all the harm she has done, the Inquisition has done, and the warnings of the Envy demon that no, they can still do good and move forward rejuvinated working with Divine Victoria. Now though its the realization that its not the Organization that mattered. Indeed that no matter how great the Inquisition is it can also be a place of great compromise and can be corrupted. Its become a beurocracy and beholden to beurocracies like that with a million people cutting it down to size. But as she points out it wasn't organization that made things better. It wasn't treaties and pieces of paper and governmental positions. It was the people behind the organization that made all the difference. And its going to be the people who work to defeat Solas and stop him. Which is a change to the head cannon admittedly, another one, but given the Inquisitor is mandadted to be involved in Veilguard and 'caring' about stopping Solas out of personal responsibility, then that does also flow better.

And if anything this is emphasized by the end credit slides, many of them, but especially by Sera and Dorian's. Being a network of people, Sera being more effective, and being a quasi group of unaffiliated people working behind the scenes with the Inquisitor. Not sanctioned. But trying to make the world a better place.

So yeah I can't wait for Oliver to meet this version of Kara.

And also have to wonder if I ever play Ben again if I should have him keep the Inquisition since its more natural for his character.

Oh and I keep forgetting...new chapter. : www.fanfiction.net/s/14395351/4/Rise-of-Rook

I finished DAI in time (last night), woohoo! My "speedrun" still took 70 hours (did play The Descent, but not Jaws of Hakkon), but that's almost half the time of some of my DAI runs
It was much fun to play an a bit more aggressive Inquisitor. Maybe it's not the last time I played a dwarf either, had much fun with him!

Some things did not really go as I expected, which was a little surprising, but then I saw other cool things instead. It started out with Blackwall not liking me (he actually told me that, never saw it before ), but then he just disappeared when I started Trespasser because I just didn't do a lot for him.
I had hoped to piss off Solas, but that didn't happen either
Dorian was at first a suspicious individual for Edric (he was generally suspicious of people, haha), but eventually Dorian could be trusted.
As suspected, Sera, Vivienne and Cassandra (my party) fit best for this run and they all became friendly with Edric. Varric was also friendly-ish, but didn't get the Wicked Grace scene this time.
Did not do Bull's quest on the Storm Coast and he betrayed me in Trespasser then, also interesting to see for once.

The Josie romance was very sweet, almost a tad too much for my character, but it was nice to see. Had to redo the Temple of Mythal though since her romance had bugged out prior to that and I only noticed afterwards.

Overall I had some really crappy bugs which made me a little upset. I really wanted to have Viv as Divine as I never chose her so far, and it should have been her this time as I supported the Circle a lot. I didn't even do Leliana's quest, but the game still made her Divine. Pfffft.
The Sutherland Company war table missions also bugged out on me on the final mission and I couldn't complete it. Quite annoying.

Also I was an idiot and did the Fade part before meeting Morrigan in the Winter Palace and Loghain and her couldn't meet in Skyhold to have a conversation about Kieran
It was nice though to hear the references to my Warden gal that romanced Leliana recently.

Can't believe it's less than a week until Veilguard!

I was playing a mage to marry Grey Warden Alistair when I found a mod that I might be able to marry Anora as a female. I had to try it out, but that also meant starting a new game as a human noble. The mod also let's a female warden kiss Kaitlyn and Bella. The reaction from the militia was worth it. I also downloaded a mod to change dog to a wolf.  Not only will I try to marry Anora, but I will woo Alistair throughout the playthrough only to dump him at the landsmeet.  Say hello to Lemonie the Warrior.

I finished the game. Sorcha Trevelyan vowed to redeem Solas and disbanded the Inquisition.


The Darvaarad


Dragon`s Breath


The Fight with Saarath


Solas


The End


And i managed to play through all three games just in time for Veilguard  ! Only four more days of waiting...

What's funny, is that my character that romanced Cass made all the major decisions that she disapproved of, but won her over by being considerate of her and listening to her instead of being a jerk.

The fact that this means we can stay together endgame is a convenient bonus. If you romance her and make every decision she likes, she has to break up with you upon becoming Divine.

www.fanfiction.net/s/14395351/5/Rise-of-Rook

Chapter 5 is up...so nowhere near where I want to be if I want to finish it but alas.