she/her, reached Level 30, this is where I post about Dragon Age This blog also occasionally contains NSFW content (tagged as #lemon) so over-18s only pls. Also DA spoilers. And dogs. Background and sidebar artwork artwork by me
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As The World Falls Down
In the northernmost edge of the Korcari Wilds, in the enclave of an ancient ruin long abandoned to time, the royal army waits encamped to face the ravages of the darkspawn horde, hoping to end a Blight before it can begin. Among their number stands Prince Alistair. Raised to royalty from humble origins, he is determined to make a name for himself at the right hand of his brother, King Cailan. But when the youngest member of the noble Cousland family arrives under the watch of the Grey Wardens, bearing news of tragedy and the scars of past mistakes, it soon becomes clear that another evil is at play, one that - if left unchecked - could bring the country of Ferelden to its knees.
This is the story of the Fifth Blight, and those who ended it.
And check out the rest of my Dragon Age works here
Reblogging with a snippet because I can:
Alistair x f!Hawke | E | WC: 43,500 (Complete) | DA2, Act 3 | Second Chances | Assassination Plot | Grief | Hurt/Comfort | Fast Burn | Fereldan Politics | Exiled Alistair | Angst with a Happy Ending | Flangst
(from Chapter 2: The Bastard)
The whole world lurches. Alistair’s first conscious thought— a muddy question— is whether he’s shipboard during a gale. He’s afraid to confirm it, keeping his eyes welded shut, clinging to sleep for a moment longer.
Unfortunately, he has to take a piss.
He’s met with darkness when he cracks an eye, but knows his rented closet of a room well enough to fumble his way to the chamber pot. He reluctantly throws back the covers, his insides squirming with a truly singular intensity, and shuffles to the exact place the pot is. But the room keeps going.
“Huh.”
Alistair swats an arm out, searching for a wall, a bit of furniture, anything to orient his well-marinated mind. He finds what might be drapes though and gives them a tug, at least enough to let in a beam of searing moonlight. Wincing against it, he squints back into the room.
He’s in someone’s bed chamber, fancier than any room he’s seen in a spell. But a large elaborate vase reminds him of his rather urgent mission. Alistair beelines for it, braces himself against the wall behind it and relieves himself. He hangs there, his guts and brains competing at cartwheels. When he looks up he finds himself leaning against a large mirror.
It’s been a year at least since he’s last seen a decent one and probably for the best. He looks like wyvern shit. Beyond the angry shadows of a battered eye socket, one pupil is blown wide while the other resists, setting his vision askew. His stringy hair could use a wash or three and his beard is a bloody war crime.
Alistair claws together a few wits, enough to take stock of today’s predicament. The bed is mercifully empty. If he had managed to charm some misguided lady he’d like to remember it. At the moment most of the evening is clear as mud, but what he can remember is fairly typical: a scrubby tavern, cheap booze, and traded insults.
He plunks on the edge of the bed to dress himself startled to find his stained clothes neatly folded. He pulls on his breeches and then puzzles over the gaping tear in his tunic. It wouldn’t be the first shirt lost to tavern mischief, but he has precious few and they’re… not here. He balls it up and tosses it over his shoulder.
It can’t be later than four, not with this potent moonlight. When his stomach lurches, he contemplates poking at the back of his throat over that vase, but it rarely accomplishes what he hopes. There’s a hammer and anvil ringing in his ears and his mouth is fresh as a frowzy codpiece. Maybe whoever is hosting him has a bottle of something that’ll take the jagged edge off this hangover.
Lighting the lamp on the bedside table with a few shaky strokes, Alistair then ventures out into the home, shuffling shirtless and shoeless. Halfway to the opposite door the hallway opens into a vaulted mezzanine that overlooks a grand foyer. A dark mass is spread on the floor below and then sends him staggering back against the wall when it yips. Alistair freezes.
A mabari.
It’s been five years since he’s seen one. An unfamiliar mabari is a roll of the dice and he’d never quite been a natural with them. They could smell his uncertainty like an open wound, that’s what Ser Perth always told him. And since there was little to do about the uncertainty, he decided to have little to do with the dogs if he could help it. Mercifully, they gave him to the horsemaster.
Alistair slinks to the back of the house, as well as a man this groggy can anyway, searching for a pantry or a kitchen. If they’d put them in that swanky bedchamber, perhaps they wouldn’t begrudge him a snack.
The kitchen is cramped, hearth and larder and an enormous workbench practically piled on top of each other, little space for the elaborate feasts he’d seen prepared at Redcliffe. A window in the back bleeds moonlight and he peers out to see that the room presses up against a courtyard garden overtaken by polearms and practice dummies.
A half-eaten loaf of levain stares him down on the block beside a crock of butter. Nobody would miss stale bread. The stool beneath him is as sure-footed as he is, listing beneath his weight as he butters a hunk and scans the room for a nip of something potent to ease the bucking of his stomach.
“You look like death warmed up.”
If she weren’t so right, she might have startled him. A woman sways in the grip of his lingering intoxication, leaning against the doorframe with a pair of magnificent arms folded, frank gaze surveying him as she sucks on her teeth. Her dark hair hangs in limp curtains over a rumpled nightshift.
Doubt is his first reaction. He should be so lucky. And yet— he did wake up in someone else’s bed in his smalls.
“Forgive me my impertinence, but— who are you?” he asks, gesturing with the pilfered bread.
“Call me Hawke,” she says evenly. “I brought you home last night.”
Alistair nods like he remembers. “Did we—?”
Her doubtful look kicks him in the teeth. A brutal laugh escapes her. “No,” she says. “No, we did not.”
“Did you— want to?” he asks. He curses his impulse when she cocks her head with a pitying lift of her brow.
“Let’s just say I’ve seen better prospects at the pig farm.”
“Wow,” says Alistair. “I mean I know I’m no prize but wow.”
Her bulwark of an expression breaks, an unruly smile disappearing behind her hand as she scratches her nose. “Well. You stink like it anyway.”
Alistair takes a taunting bite of bread. “I can’t rightly argue.”
“Here,” she says, crossing the room to a cupboard and returning with a fiasco of Antivan wine along with a smaller medicinal bottle. She pours a half glass, adds a splash of the smaller bottle and then hands it to him expectantly.
“Hair of the dog,” she says. Alistair raises a brow, wondering what exactly he’s done to deserve such mothering.
“Thanks.” He takes a swig and promptly coughs, wine and whatever monstrosity she added misting the air. He holds the pungent mouthful of ruined wine with a questioning look.
“That’s a curative. Doesn’t go down easy but it works.”
Alistair chokes it back, wincing.
“What’s your name?” she asks, perching on the stool across from him, tearing her own bit of bread. Alistair averts his eyes from the sheer linen of her shift once he realizes how nicely she fills it. Hawke doesn’t seem the least bit concerned.
“I would have assumed you got that yesterday,” he says into his lap.
Fascinated by everyone's but especially American's desire to give medieval keeps, especially in colder regions, central heating (and I think Winterfell is to blame for this trope, where, to it's defence, the hot springs were not a matter of comfort but survival wrt the deadly fantasy Winter that's not real irl), because I'm always like. okay I know they told you in middle grade that castles were all cold and drafty but like ... no also what
There's generally going to be rooms dedicated to and build for warmth, the living quarters, both for nobles and their servants. This will be the central living tower, or parts of it called a Kemenate (literally 'room with a stove'), the great hall and work spaces around the kitchen. You can put the Kemenate on top of the hall to catch the big fires' and daily living's heat through the wooden floor, but you often can't put wooden stuff on top of the kitchens (that's a fire risk). If you have the money and space, you build a whole separate comfy place for living because you don't have to stay in the most defensible part of the castle all the time. These separate living buildings are also called Kemenate and are often build from wood, cob, brick etc.
People used to wear much more clothes indoors, including while sleeping, and those clothes were much thicker and sturdier than what we largely wear today. Every time you think of how cold those stone walls are, think about everyone wearing a linen shift + two-ish layers of wool on all body parts except hands and head + stockings and shoes + some kind of head-covering. In Ye Old Middle Ages, women are probably wearing a wimple, which is kind of like a modern Hijab in terms of coverage. People wear shifts, socks, and a head-covering to bed.
I think people used to radiators also really underestimate how much a large open fire/tiled stove heats up a room. Also, middle and northern Europe (as well as parts of Northern China) had and to this day have beds and benches build into tiled and cob stoves. Those fuck.
Beds are enclosed so you stay warm in them, either by curtains, in wall niches or with wood. There's also a type of bed that's inside a chest (like a coffin) so you can stuff your stuff inside during the day and put down the lid to use it as a bench. That's also another reason for people to always sleep in groups. Depending on the era, one of the jobs of a lady's maid or a retainer might literally be warming their master's bed. In early times and among servants, people also sleep in large groups in rooms together in general even outside a farming context, often with animals like pet dogs, too, which further warms everything up.
Walls are not bare, cold stone, but covered with a layer of plaster or cob, tiles or wooden panels, sometimes layered, and believe me, this makes such a difference. Source: I lived in a Ye Olde German Farmhouse with 70 cm thick stone walls and flag stone floor and all that converted to modern flats for a while.
On top of that you hang tapestries on the wall, which are not like modern printed cloth but basically wall rugs, sometimes several inches thick, and rugs or rushes (like a light cover of hay) on the floor on top of stone, tile, wooden panelling or a cob floor cover that goes over the heave flag stone. Pillows and blankets on all sitting surfaces, often on top of panelling (in the case of benches build into the stone). The roof of a room is also tiled, panelled or plastered. Upper stories will generally have wooden floors. Stories in a tower heat each other upwards, so the nicer rooms are further up.
The inner stone walls of a castle, even if stone and very thick, will heat up a few degrees in comparison to the outside walls if the castle is continually heated/lived in, and also trap heat inside, and this will make a difference. Inner walls might also be thinner and made of wood, cob or brick. You're defending against the outside, after all.
You put stuff in the windows. Holy shit. Screens of wood, horn, cloth or leather/hide, often treated for extra insulation. Why are these fantasy castles all so drafty.
Like, idk, I know Americans especially can't pop down to their nearby castle museum to have a look around, but even with people who can and do: The castles you'll see, even the ones who aren't 'ruined' are ruins. They're stripped down. I remember touring Norman towers in England, and those places do look dire and are cold because even if they're still standing, they're ruins. It makes such a difference to get to look at a castle that is still lived in, has been inhabited until recently, or has been historically restored where these amenities are preserved. The exact amenities will depend on the era, of course, but they'll be there. The publicly accessible parts of Burg Eltz are a great example to google, especially since I promise you, you have seen this specific castle before. They have pictures on their English language website here, and the German National Geographic has a few further inside pictures here. Seeing a place like that that isn't a ruin with bare, stripped walls, nothing in the windows, no decorations and furniture etc. makes you realise that yeah actually. My characters are probably just gonna go grab a pillow if their ass is cold on the window's stone bench. Blankets are a pretty old technology, humans (elves, dwarves, whatever) can figure that one out.
say what you will but i Do Love alistair absolutely not having it when it comes to letting loghain live and Much less join the wardens. especially because it doesnt come out of nowhere, he has been very open about what he thinks should happen to loghain this whole time
Throughout the history of Thedas, there had been multiple attempts to set the Litany of Adralla to music, both to serve as a memory aid and to have the melody provide a sense of comfort to the petitioner, in addition to the protection from demonic forces the litany itself provides.
None of these compositions have quite managed to rival the popularity of the rather controversial Mother Nicana version, which will be presented to you shortly.
Born in Jader in 7:56 Storm, Revered Mother Nicana was a figure as beloved by her faithful as she was inconvenient to her superiors.
Ever practical, as well as a fierce advocate for following the spirit of the Chant, regardless of the politics of the time, she faced criticism from peers in the Chantry for choosing the original Tevene text as the basis for her composition. When pressed, she simply answered that if she could find a single translation that fit the original's metre, she would consider it.
In spite of this short-lived controversy (or perhaps because of it), this version became popular especially among those who had need of the litany for practical uses, such as the Mourn Watchers of Nevarra.
The following are two performances of Mother Nicana's Litany of Adralla. One was performed by the lay sisters of the Tantervale Chantry. The other was heard sung in Kirkwall's Lowtown by an initial survivor (presumed to have been a minstrel employed in the Hanged Man tavern) of the catastrophic fallout of Anders' destruction of the Kirkwall Chantry in an attempt to protect himself and several others from the demons that surrounded them.
Lyrics (vowels in brackets are those that undergo elision; translation follows):
Auctor meus, miserere mihi,
Auctor mundi, avert(e) iram tuam.
Orig(o) omnis, miserere mihi,
Orig(o) animarum, avert(e) iram tuam.
Andraste, spons(a) Auctoris, audi me,
Andraste, sancta prophetis, audi me.
Redemptrix omnium, exaudi me,
Domina maeroris, exaudi me.
Ne patiamini animas piorum corrumpi,
in hor(a) aterrim(a) adiuvate servum vestrum humilem.
In nomin(e) Andrastes, fiat ita.
In nomin(e) Auctoris, fiat ita.
My Maker, have mercy on me,
Maker of the World, avert Thy wrath.
Origin of Everything, have mercy on me,
Wellspring of Souls, avert Thy wrath.
Andraste, Bride of the Maker, hear me,
Andraste, Holy Prophetess, hear me,
Redeemer of All, hear my prayer,
Lady of Sorrows, hear my prayer.
Let you not suffer the souls of the faithful to be corrupted,
in this darkest hour, aid your lowly servant.
In the name of Andraste, so let it be.
In the name of the Maker, so let it be.
Note: In the English version, "you" is used in the older sense of "you two" or "you all", while "thou" (or rather the possessive "thy") is used for the singular. Therefore, when asking for the Maker to avert His wrath, the penitent is addressing the Maker only. Later on, though, when asking for protection against corruption, they are addressing both the Maker and Andraste.
This distinction is also present in the Latin text.
It really is so weird how none of the non-human companions in DAI let you bond with them about being non-human. The Iron Bull insults Adaar for thinking they’re Qunari, and then when your character claims the Tal-Vasoth title, he belittles you for it.
Solas and Sera insult Lavellan’s culture and religious beliefs, and rejects the player for trying to talk to them about being elven.
And while Varric isn’t as hostile to Cadash as the others are, it is very clear that he harbours his own insecurities and the game doesn’t let you have any lines at all about it, save in the beginning when you are identified as Carta, and that is it. Save some lines about «real dwarves» in Hissing Wastes.
It is just. Such an odd choice. And makes me sad for the non-human pc’s.
Austin Langer was able to interview former BioWare narrative designer Sylvia Feketekuty. She discusses how the teams tackled exposition, pla
there's not a lot in this article but this made me laugh (despairingly)
(One thing I’d like to mention: there was a misconception going around at one point that I wrote all of the codex entries in Veilguard. This is not the case! They were split evenly among all of the writers.)
so. the writers were all responsible for secrets are lies that are true, and golden tevinter scissors, and fahrenheit recipes, and the noble anti-imperialist elf ally antivan crows.... and also none of them could use a string variable for the inq or rook's names :')
The passage that made me the most insane was this:
There’s things you can do to make it more inviting. When I was working on the Lore Glossary with editor Cameron Harris, we discussed with the rest of the narrative team how many terms we actually wanted to define. We limited it to a maximum of thirty. Throwing a bunch of new, setting-specific jargon at people can really overwhelm them. So thirty basic terms to define some of the most important parts of Dragon Age, with descriptions that never went over three sentences, seemed like a good limit.
You're telling me they picked... thirty??? lore terms for ALL of dragon age??? the game series built on lore terms??? THIRTY??? And you made sure to never describe them in more than THREE SENTENCES???
"veilguard is dark!!" they say and then their only examples are dmetas crossing, ghilannain, the blight, and the final battle gore. like girl? dark is going down into the deep roads and encountering a mad woman reciting a poem about watching her fellow dwarves be eaten and fed flesh and forcibly mutated into broodmothers. dark is learning the keeper zathrian's son was tortured to death & his daughter raped before she took her own life in shame and so he bound a spirit to a wolf to slaughter the humans responsible and infect more with lycanthropy in vengeance. dark is being told the only way for you and the love of your life to survive the battle with the archdemon is to make him impregnate your companion so the fetus can absorb the archdemon's soul(and lets not even get into how this can actually be alistair's first ever sexual experience if you DONT romance him). dark is returning to orzammar and learning your best friend could not escape fate like you did and so he becomes just another dead duster. having your entire family murdered before your very eyes and yet you must keep living. being kidnapped and nearly assaulted & killed and having to fight your way out of a mansion full of humans on your wedding day. coming face to face with the missing friend that got sucked into an eluvian and came out twisted and wrong. dark is watching duncan speak calmly and clearly even as he coldly slaughters the coward that refuses to drink from the goblet of darkspawn blood. veilguard is literally dragon age for babies. shut up
I feel like getting that letter from Varric would be the last push Merrill needs to get her Eluvian working again.  Then she’d march into Skyhold, grab both Varric and the Inquisitor by the ear and drag them back into the Fade to rescue her girlfriend. Â
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