i really like arcane bolt which is the basic, fundamental spell in dao that just does moderate single target damage but has a short cooldown so it can be cast repeatedly extremely quickly. we can kind of assume it’s the first combat lesson taught to all mages bc almost all mages start with it including the player character. (actually every mage even briefly playable in dao + the dlcs has it EXCEPT morrigan, fascinatingly. velanna has it so it’s not just circle mages. in my heart that speaks to morrigan’s uniquely isolated and potentially out-of-date education.) it does spirit damage and the similar spell in da2 is called spirit bolt & falls into the spirit tree rather than the arcane one. that makes it super visceral to imagine for me because it seems that what you’re doing to cast that fast, basically, is taking raw fadestuff, not fashioning it into fire or ice or anything, but just throwing it with the pure purpose of an arrow. dragon age magic is about imagination and willpower, about believing something and then using your connection to the fade to enforce that belief on the world, and i love the efficient simplicity of putting absolutely nothing into the world except this is going to hurt. anyway i like to imagine that different mages’ arcane bolts have signature colours i think that would be super cute
