What did you do today in DA? [Spoilers]

Try this mod:

www.nexusmods.com/dragonageinquisition/mods/986/?

It allows you to open all halla doors with just the 10 halla statues.

Your newest human Inquisitor is cute too!  (Kaylee is my niece's name BTW! )

Stats don't look as good as the AoGE. I always give Cass / BW that axe. So I guess I won't bother with it.



Shucks. Truly? So I guess if it comes to the final crunch, Inq loses.

The chess match I got to find out. I'm running Dorian vs BW all the way in this PT. It'll be Solas and IB in the next, I'll be watching their interaction. Won't be romancing Solas, once is enough.

By contrast, for me, a fight where none of my people fall and where few potions are used  is an indication that the difficulty isn't set high enough! (I guess that puts me on the masochistic side of the perfectionism versus masochism?! )  Maybe your case is best described as "masochistic perfectionism"? 

So, today a lot of things, finished the whole Ostagar arc in nightmare mod, from meeting first the King Cailan to waking up in a bed with Morrigan in sight, totally lost. An important part to me, because I consider it heavily played a role on the character of my protagonist, what kind of man he would be, how he would rise step by step with his important actions and decisions and their consequences for what would follow.

<< In peace, Vigilance. In war, Victory. In death, Sacrifice. This is what it means to be a grey warden. >>



Tears of rage on his face mixing with blood giving him an incongruous red carnival mask in front of the announced defeat announced, his universe destroyed again, even more terrible, while he tumbled into the darkness on the top floor of the Tower of Ishar, submerged by an irreversible wave of darkspawns. Joruth stunned by everything he saw, what he fought.

Ravaged and terribly upset, the young Cousland changed. Faced with all these horrible discoveries.



These terrible losses.




All these scenes of horror and disarming tragedies.





These monstrosities.



Following these surprising encounters.



With so many disturbing secret and dark implications very hardly learned.



Ostagar disfigured him, tormented him. Ostagar transformed him, awakened him. Joruth has gained in determination and maturity what he has lost in humanity and carefree. Never again will he shed tears, his eyes dried up forever, suddenly and extremely enamored however of an intense passion for his mission and of an infinite love for humanity and life that have never been as strong as after having undergone an apocalyptic glimpse of what would await all of them in the near future if no one reacted with the iron fist, implacable ardor, and indestructible altruism that this would require, hardened.



Joruth Cousland, son of a great and noble family of Highever, burning for his ambitions, for his dreams, for the people he loved, provided with a past first buried, now non - existent, was now definitely dead, with everyone else in Ostagar, fainted in the wild. Forgotten his great resolutions of revenge, his hesitations, buried his political and personal aspirations, his memories.

His face, beardless of any wound or scar was only a pitiful illusion, concealing the nameless lacerations engraved in his flesh and soul, responsible of his radical change.Survivor, war veteran, the only banner of a decimated order, the only hope of a whole country which was prey to chaos and dissension, threatened to disappear.



Joruth, the intangible, the inflexible, the pitiless grey warden who never deviates from his path, born from chaos to fight the evil, took his place with all the gravity that imposes itself and all the cruel experiences that are his : Steel, war, suffering, fire, death, torment, the feeling of seeing and witnessing the end of world known and reassuring.






He is now used to them, and will go through the tests without failing. Alistair and he as the last representatives of the Grey wardens in Ferelden, the only survivors of the defeat of Ostagar. The last hope.



The battle continues, never ceased, and will only end with their annihilation or that of the enemy and their main target, the arch-demon. New sanguinary heralds if necessity requires it, the two young men will do everything to amass the necessary energy everywhere, to unite the living forces of the country to carry the fatal blow and to wrest victory.

Ostagar is way behind now. A new man waked up one morning and would rise.

I think I am getting close to the end of Awakening.

Been playing through Kal'Hilor. Because it is a dwarven stronghold, I replaced Justice with Orghen, and Sigrun insisted on coming along, so my party now is all the chars I have not played with, and balanced between species. Two elves, two dwarves. I was a bit annoyed that Sigrun told Velanna that she is the first elf she met, and will judge the race based on her, right by my Dalish Elf. Oh, well. Can't be perfect. The banters are fairily boring, Orghen just hitting on the women, and they rejecting him.

The quest itself is neat, though the interiors are hard to navigate and the autopathing has a hell of a time. I will need to run through it the second time with Nathaniel, to pick all the locks Sigrun can't, so I am thinking to just duo it.

Sigrun has a setup that shows how a rogue is developed into a ranger class, but as nice as dual wielding is with two full-sized weapons, lack of cunning and lockpicking sucks. Good thing the Awakening does not really rely on traps like Origin did.

The game's ridiculously easy atm, everyone is armed to the teeth, and barely take any damage.

Once I am done this quest, I will set up the final party configuration as Velanna, Nathaniel and Justice. I like both Anders and Velanna, but Velanna -just a touch more, plus she does not return in DA2.

Overall, I find myself liking the expansion companions more than the original on the whole. Shale, Velanna, Nathaniel, Sigrun and Justice are more interesting for me with the exception of Sten and Wynne as characters. I do like Alistair, but his plot-role overshadowed him as a companion.

Wow Syv, reading your stuff is intense.

@ Phoray : Thank you, glad you liked it ! 

@ Domi. I love Velanna. I'm glad to see that someone else like her too. It seemed to me that really a lot hated her or at least wanted to slap her face. I was probably the only one who wanted to romance her. Disappointed it didn't happen. I personally like all companions in DAO and DA: Awakening. Obviously some more than others.

As for Joruth, as leader and grey warden, his first decisions in Lothering.



First he met bandits, they tried to ransom him and his small group, he calmly claimed they would not pay, they then threatened him and attacked their group. He could have warned them he was a grey warden, but he didn't. Not specially something he wanted to reveal yet. After losing the combat, their leader asked for mercy, but Joruth refused him this favor. It was a bandit that took advantage of the plight of others , who didn't hesitate to kill refugees who could not pay or didn't want to, there was no way he would let him alive and let him start again elsewhere. He executed him. He deserved his fate according to him and he didn't regret his choice one bit. 



There was also a conflict between a merchant and citizens. The merchant grossly speculated on the price of his products, taking advantage of the distress of the people. In normal times, Joruth would have defended free market and the merchant, each woman and man able to decide for itself its own prices in its own company. But it was no normal time, and solidarity had to prevail over thieves, bad speculators and profiteers.

Joruth gave two options to the merchant, either dropping his prices or leaving Lothering without his goods that he would keep and give to the citizens. The grumpy merchant, without allies finally accepted to remain reasonable with his prices and made peace with everyone. Wasn't a bad guy, just misleaded. Morrigan didn't really appreciate however. For her it was not only normal that those who were stronger take advantage of those who were weaker but she also did not see the need to intervene in small minor conflicts. In spite of that, Joruth was totally satisfied by how the matter ended. He was however intrigued by the witch, this woman who seemed really different from everything he has ever known in his past.



And finally, Joruth fell on Loghain's soldiers in a tavern and they immediately jumped on him, tried to kill him, convinced that the warden were responsible of the defeat of Ostagar and were the real traitors. They didn't give a damn about his words, they attacked first. After the combat, their leader asked for mercy, and the sister Leliana who helped the grey wardens required the same, however Joruth was not willing to let it go, first because these men didn't hesitate to try murdering them without asking anything first, they didn't care about killing innocents.

But also and especially because if he let them alive, they would report everything to their master Loghain about the survival of a few wardens, which is what he absolutely wanted to avoid. Joruth wasn't unaware that the warden were denounced as traitors in the whole country by Loghain, and that anyone who could find and kill one of them would be paid, hence why it had to remain a secret. He needed time and to be free with his movements as long as possible, to carry out his mission without having to worry already about Loghain and his soldiers, so it could be easier. At least until having the support of Eamon, the first big step.

He then simply asked Leliana to prey for them, and then, just after, he killed them. The sister Leliana regretted that he didn't let them live but she didn't blame his decision, she understood and he appreciated that. After a surprising talk with her, he decided to let her join his group, after Alistair and Morrigan.

Finished off Corypheus last night! I still have quite a bit to do - the Hissing Wastes, some stuff in Emprise du Lion, all of the DLC - but at least Carathir Lavellan finished dealing with the main threat.

I'm more excited that I unlocked Sera's high approval scene! Turns out you can still get that scene after the Arbor Wilds, and Carathir agreed that Mythal was not a real goddess. (He might have slightly revised his opinion after meeting Flemeth. But only slightly.) Morrigan got the Well, Sera got her prejudices confirmed, Carathir got bad cookies on the roof, everyone was happy.

Cassandra is the new Divine, so she'll be breaking up with the Inquisitor soon, but I actually like that conclusion to the relationship. (Bittersweet endings are my favourite kind, which is why I'm not really sorry that I let romanced Blackwall join the Wardens or that Dorian goes back to Tevinter no matter what you do.)

I wrote exceptionally long forum posts about Dragon Age. This used up my entire evening. ^^

I'm sorry about Divine Viv. There is only one play through that may end up with her as Divine due to choices for me. Every other time I've played, I've just been irritated at her messing up my good mage ending epilogue slides.

And complaining about our Barbie Dolls clothes is the favorite pastime of Dragon Age. Don't cut yourself out of that tradition

Finally finished Trespasser and boy was the last lap a bear thanks to Trials! I reached the Darvaarad yesterday with my team equipped electricity resistant armor. My team was annihilated the first time we ran into that traitor - Iron Bull! Always one of the squishier companions, he was a real pain here! (Yes, I realize this is the price paid for sacrificing the Chargers.) Next attempt, we take down IB but the team dies while trying to free Ataashi! Ideally, I would put the companions in a safe spot and give them the hold command while Katriel move around adjusting the burners under her invisibility cloak thanks to Ring of Doubt. Unfortunately, HOLD seems to be a command the companions happily ignore, leading to chaos! Third time, I make it through and go through the misery that is the Saarath Boss on Nightmare. I spent hours doing this battle multiple times yesterday always dying when I got him down to the last 10% and he began summoning demons.

Frustrated, I surfed the web and ran into a post where someone said not only was high electricity resistance necessary, but your armor also required a lot of magic defense. I went back to my last Winter Palace save and spent more than a hour crafting appropriate armor and experimented with staves. (Sadly, Katriel had to ditch the wonderful "Skin" armor she had been wearing in favor of - gasp - the Refined Battlemage Mail armor! The lamest mage armor for PC in the DA universe! ) I decided to do the last leg with two teams -- one for the Davaraad and one to take on Saraath. Team one was all guys - Dorian, Varric, and Blackwall. Team two, all the female characters. I did this to get over the problem of not being able to replenish grenades and potions after freeing Ataashi. For mages, this time around I ditched the Staff of Corruption -- a Tier 3 schematic I liked because you could load it up with both barrier and guard penetration -- in favor of higher damage, Tier 4 staves both dropped and crafted. This morning, the new gear and strategy paid off; Katriel and her two teams went through the Davaraah and defeated Saraath in a single run!


Katriel then had a brief, tearful reunion with Solas. Perhaps because of the Solasmance mindset, I couldn't get Katriel to use strong language with him. He seems so damn remorseful about it all, it's hard to get angry with him. The choices given at the end seem a bit ambiguous:

1. You will try to get Solas to change his mind or you will try to stop Solas, even if it means killing him. In the former, what do you do if he continues with his plans? Sit on your hands? (I guess that would be "hand" if you're the Inquisitor...)

2. Continue with a reduced, more specialized Inquisition or disband the Inquisition. Knowing that Solas still poses a threat, how does disbanding the Inquisition entirely make any sense at all? It's not like you're actually given the option of supporting Solas.

As to the epilogue, they mention the Qun disavowing the Viddasala's plot or any knowledge of it. That doesn't seem plausible, especially if you're betrayed by IB, who's a Ben Hassarath agent. They then say that Tal Vashoth in the south suffered as a result. I suppose that would be the case even without IB's betrayal given the Dragon Breath plot in general. Shouldn't the same apply to elves as well? Elven servants in Orlais were active agents of the Qun. Even elves working in the Inquisition were fifth columnists either for the Qun or for Solas. I think this would put an elven Inquisitor in a bad position.

For those who read TME, at least a partial recognition of Briala's connection to the eluvians:


Other thoughts: I like Cole with Maryden, but the initial reunion with IB is very sad in a "Chargers sacrificed" world state. He has nothing to say, he's back to being Hisraad.

Of the three DLC, I put Trespasser on top. JOH is a close second. Descent is good, but not quite as good as the other two.

A couple dumb questions; is it ever addressed why Solas went into a slumber for hundreds of years? Also, for the final meeting, what did you have to do so that the Inky would recognize Solas as Fen Harel right away as opposed to being "an ageint of Fen Harel?" In a world state where you've freed the mages, what's the different between the College of Magi and the Circle of Magi that Viv reestablishes? Does the Circle employ Templars? How would life differ for mages within the Circle as opposed to the College?