What did you do today in DA? [Spoilers]

Well, I see what you are saying, and, yes, I agree, doing a mission for a companion you like is a nice experience. It's just that the companion mission set-up in ME2 really took it to the level far beyond a simple sidequest, intergrating each of the companions story into the main game, and experimenting with the mission designs, so it highlighted what the companion was like, and it was not so much about talking to His Sister or shooting three goblins that took her precious necklace. In the best of those missions it was nothing short of amaze-bond with all the imagination that went into them and resources.... I've never seen it any other game, tbh, so it's like going back to planet Earth, playing DA....

^^^°

First time I played female Cousland, I seduced Iona for fun.

Felt like a right shit when she got murdered answering my door. I always wondered if I'd just stayed out of her pants if she'd survive.

For the first time in eight playthroughs, I gave Vivienne the ordinary wyvern heart. Carathir Lavellan never got along with her, and after reading her alchemy notes he thought she was making some kind of cosmetic anti-aging potion and decided that he couldn't be bothered trekking into a swamp to kill a Super Speshul wyvern for that. And then he found out what it was really for and felt awful. I mean I, the player, know that it makes little practical difference, but it's still terrible to see Vivienne let down her guard for a moment and then not get a chance to say goodbye to Bastien. And now Vivienne's tarot card will remind me of this for the rest of the game . "That's what I do. Fall out of the sky, make bad decisions, and somehow everyone still follows me."

Still, I didn't reload - the decision made roleplaying sense, and I do like to have every possible outcome in some world state or another. (Although there are one or two things I've never managed, like killing Dog in DAO.)

Speaking of stuff I'd never seen before: I had somehow managed to play this game seven times without realising that you can have a long and involved conversation with Gatt while Bull is talking to the Chargers during his personal quest. So now I know more about Gatt's backstory, which is neat. (And also distressing. Ugh, magisters and their elven sex slaves.)

Howe's thugs are pretty thorough, everyone in the castle dies except for the PC.  In the one room, you find Darien's mother murdered and in the other, the bodies of Fergus' wife and son.  No doubt both Darien and Iona also die. 

Oh, turns out you got to make a choice. Once one is confirmed, the other will decline. They are available to either gender though.

For the past two days, have been working on the two DLCs: Descent and JOH. Katriel and her companions completed their mission in the Deep Roads. Working with the Legion of the Dead and the Shaperate, they descended into the area of the tremors. Initially, they had to contend with large numbers of darkspawn. At a certain point, there were no more darkspawn and Shaper Valta discovered an old text from a long-dead dwarven king that mentioned the legendary Titans. Could the tremors be an indication that the Titans have been disturbed? They then encounter a new enemy, the Sha-britol -- dwarves pledged to defend the Titans. In their first encounter with these strange warriors - permanently encased in lyrium-infused armor - their guide, Legionaire Renn is killed. They are armed with equally strange weapons, including one that fires bolts at a rapid rate, somewhat like Varric's Bianca. After descending deeper and deeper and killing numer Sha-britol, they finally reach the source of the tremors - a massive heart-like object. When they get close to it, they are faced with a monstrous stone sentinel that fires a blast of energy at Valta and attacks Katriel and her party. After a fierce battle, they are victorious. Valta awakens, changed. She is now connected to the Titan and explains that the explosion that tore the Veil was what disturbed the Titan, causing the tremors. With its connection to Valta, the Titan had its tranquility restored and the tremors would stop.

Gamer Notes: I like Descent, but not as much as the other DLCs. The end boss fight was lame; this time around (my 2nd PT) all on my team were killed except for Blackwall who simply hacked away at nodes until the fight was over.

I have a mixed opinion about how they've reimagined the Darkspawn. Darkspawn are supposed to be perverse reflections of the races of Thedas: humans, dwarves, elves, and Qunari. In DAO, the Hurlocks were wonderfully ghoulish, especially in the cut scene before the start of the Battle of Ostagar. Now, they seem a bit more bland. In DAO, Gemlocks always looked a bit comical and cartoonish to me. They're still cartoonish and now they've been beefed up to the point that they're bigger than Hurlocks. Aesthetically, the connection to dwarves have been lost. OTOH, Ogres are largely unchanged. Shrieks were a bit too bug-like in DAO; now they look more elf-like. I also think the hovering emissaries are an improvement over the Hurlocks with a hat that we had in DAO.

As to the Sha-britol, an interesting idea in theory, but their armor looks like the outfits from Ghostbusters. And their helmets look like they were designed by the Aztecs or the Incas.

Oh well, I look forward to seeing how they reinvent Orzammar or Kal Sharok. Hopefully those hoodies you see dwarves like Bianca wearing in DAI isn't supposed to be their finery. They looked rather grubby at the Winter Palace...

Lol. Don't worry, she would still have died anyway !

I mainly like having Iona with my warden because it is one more loss for him, a loss more personal except for his parents. I like the idea that he was totally powerless and unable to protect someone  close enough to  him. A lesson he will not forget.  Haha, yeah I'm a sadistic. 

I tried to seduce Dairen too, because I was curious how he would react, what should be his behavior with a male warden. And I was surprised to see him decline my offer. And yet I didn't ask Iona first. I assumed that only a female warden could have a thing with him. 

@filymar : Very pretty elf in her lovely dress. Looove the first pic ( she is hot, not gonna lie ) and the one where she is in armor with a new hairstyle, it fits her ! =)

...say what, now? 

Dammit. Do I need to make friends with Vivienne on a subsequent playthrough??

 In three playthroughs, I did not know this existed. I have done her personal quest each time, and when I talk to her afterwards, she just talks about the election for the new divine. I'll have to try again next playthrough, I suppose.

Hamin had to do some war tabling to start the last few mission before the Arbor Wilds and I wasn't in the mood to wait for the timer. So instead of messing with the computer clock, I loaded up Irabel instead and mucked around in the Hinterlands for a bit. (Might also have created another elf face to try and get that long, slim face look but failing utterly and ended up with a cheeky blonde. But you'll never prove that, so HAH!) 
But yes. Messed around a bit in the Hinterlands. It was fun. 

<< I will kill them all. I will only find rest when I have completely scratched the Howe of the map, extirpated their bulls as carrion worms from all Ferelden. >>

[ So Joruth left the poor Iona, looking for his mother. Thought it was funny for me to imagine and describe the battle I had.  ]
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<< Come on ! Break this fucking door ! The bitch must die and fast ! >> Cried the Howe's officer, swollen with rage, to his men, who were harnessing themselves roughly to the task, swinging repeated blows of axes against the barricaded door, scarcely broken by its solidity. << I'll make her pay a hundredfold for lost time ! >>

In unison the troop of enraged and conspiracy soldiers turned to discover the origin of these terrible growls. In their back had just appeared a shadow, growing, rushed on the scene just behind them. This shadow, after beginning his march under the light of the torches, took the form of an imposing and slim young man,  austere and martial air, with a shield and a sword in his hands. And not the least, he wore a beautiful armor that revealed his belonging to the nobility.

He was not one of them. Rather a potential target, all those able to stand up against their master and his ambitions being all eliminated without the slightest chance and until the last one. The impudent young man stood there in front of them, armed to the teeth and ready to fight the Maker in person if needed, accompanied by his Mabari bristling on his legs, growling, spitting, and ready to melt on their enemies. Anyone equipped with a grain of brain on seeing them, impressive and numerous, would immediately have turned back to flee elsewhere without asking for his rest. But not him, he seemed to have eyes only for the door behind them, that of Eleanor Cousland in front of which they all stood, menacing, equipped with axes. Perhaps the reason for his stubbornness.

In a silky and disorderly clatter of knits, the relentless iron mingled coupled with his supple and controlled movements, the isolated unconscious walked uncompromisingly to meet them, his brown gaze filled with sadness, his face disfigured with an apparent deaf fury directed against them, his eyes swollen as if he had recently cried. His Mabari, as monstrous in size and rage as in appearance, followed him step by step, his tawny eyes reddened by the murderous thirst. Alone and certainly accompanied by a powerful ally against them all, the arrogant young nobleman was obviously quarreling, and the soldiers whistled in admiration at his madness or his courage.

With a ferocity in which a sort of singular detachment entered, Joruth observed these soldiers who were less well equipped than he was, and clasped themselves on their arms under the sudden threat of his bellicose behavior. Without the least fear, the slightest hesitation in their eyes and their reactions however. These assassins were sure and determined, blinded by their morgue and numbers, it was enough for him to read in the eyes of the officer to be convinced of it. And this one to draw his blade to his address and to shout to his boys:

<< Eh, what are you waiting for ? Are you going to tremble before this little piece of shit and his inoffensive pet ? WITH ME ! >>



As the officer rushed hurriedly, followed by his men toward the two disturbances, Joruth and his Mabari also went on the offensive, without waiting for their enemies to come to them. And in full swing, a chaotic melee was created, formed, in perpetual movement, in perpetual evolution !



One of the men attempted to knock down his axe on Joruth, but he regretted it immediately at such a short distance, the sword of his more skillful and lively adversary, snapped his face violently before he could finish his movement , scraping his cheekbones and nose in a vermilion geyser, his head half-cut under his helmet. The knell had sounded for the unfortunate beneath the eyes of his peers. The Mabari had bypassed the disorganized troop by slipping furtively behind his position. And both of them, the human and his Monster in a pincer movement, charged at the same time the remaining soldiers, jostled, compressed.

Assaults and counter attacks, storm of rage among the fighters, stormy melody of grunts, insults and ruthless rattling. Two other men collapsed at the same time in the midst of the chaos, thunderstruck in a flash by the blade of their formidable enemy, while they were embarrassed, intimidated, harassed by the twirling Mabari, constantly moving, maliciously sounding his jaws attheir back. This in order to undermine their confidence, destabilize them, and push them to the fault, to make them always watch over their backs, frightened.





And after a short and brutal exchange with his opponent after the previous death, while the Mabari cut off the leg of his new chosen victim, the young Cousland dodged the weapon directed on his flank, turning on himself, struck savagely the throat discovered by his opponent with a sharp shield. A fatal blow to the enemy that made him swallow his male glottis, made him choke and twist on the ground in an atrocious and slow agony with his hands on his throat. Another rabid was already rushing on Joruth totally elusive and repulsing any assault behind the fortress of his shield which he highlighted with a striking magic.




The last madman who came to him was the furious officer himself who directed the small troop, which had been greatly reduced now. And in duo, sword and shield against axe, the two mortal enemies opposed each other and fought each other in a violent arm wrestling, swept away in a whirlwind of hatred, rage and murderous madness. However, the pathetically face-to-face fight being unequal, Joruth soon ending up with the advantage, sounded with his shield the skull of the disheveled rogue who staggered back, before violently sending his boot to the chest, his opponent overturned, disarmed and breathless on the ground. The Howe's officer, lamentably defeated, was the first to be shaken of that, having never had to fight such an enemy.



<< Have mercy ! have mercy ! >> screamed the leader of the enemy troop, crying, white as snow, pissing in his pants, his executioner becoming as frightening in his eyes as the worst demon, as mortal as the sudden lightning. But the young Cousland, seized with a murderous fury, without any consideration for the words uttered by his victim, like a bloodthirsty barbarian, feverishly planted his blade in his face under the visor of his helmet.



Svear finished the last one collapsed on the ground with a well-placed hook on his carotid. The chanting of the steel came to an abrupt end, the vanquished returned to another world, the conquerors rid of their brood. And a silence finally replaced the metal storm. Panting, emerging victorious from the fight, but not at peace, Joruth surrounded by corpses rushed to the door.

<< Mother ! They're all dead ! It's me, open the door ! >>



- << Oh my son! You are alive ! You are alive ! I'm so happy to know you're alive! >> * kiss, kiss,, kisses, a lot of kisses from his mother, everywhere on his face full of blood. * << You came to me and you saved me! My boy came to me ! I feared the worst ! >>