"they bicker like old married couple, their clashing personalities provide hilarious dialogue, they give you one of the best armors in the game and they're back to help you in vigils keep"
vs. Briala/Merrill
"Briala and Merrill as a couple would be unstoppable, just imagine. On the one side, you have a city elf who for over half her life has been working behind the scenes to improve city elves' lives and position in Orlais. Who said "And your people are my people, even if they’ve forgotten it. I will work with the Dalish, but only if they help all our people.". On the other, a Dalish mage who has been trying to reclaim elven knowledge and give at least part of it back to her people. Who at the end became part of the Kirkwall alienage and had been helping them during the worst times. Both could learn so much from each other, become better people, understand the other side and put away any lingering prejudice. Together, with working eluvians and ancient knowledge, they could bring a new era for the elves, both city and Dalish. Also, they both deserve to be happy, with someone who will see them as equal and will have aligning goals."
So one of the best minor twists in the original Dragon Age Origins, is the reveal that Herren is a desire demon, a reveal you will only ever learn if you play through the alternate timeline campaign Darkspawn chronicles where the main PC Warden dies and the darkspawn wins.
I love how this one, simple revelation completely turns over everything that the first game tells you about demons and spirits on it's head, something which would be expanded on in later games, but also how it fits in perfectly with everything else shown in the game.
While abominations creates absolute hideous monsters when formed, Desire demon abominations march to a completely different drum, as we see with Connor, where the demon leaves him perfectly physically healthy.
Desire Demons also are the only ones in game who flat out does not need an outside body at all to function, as shown with Kitty not having possessed a cat, but instead taken the form of one.
They also have far more well thought out and logical plan making than any other demons, capable of making plans that could actually work in the long run.
Which brings us back to Harren, the lover and business partner of the genius blacksmith who forges your best blade in awakening, and dragon armor in origins.
Here we see a Demon that has integrated completely into human society, has found an actual relationship with a human that satisfies his needs, and as shown with the way he acts exasperated by his lovers eccentric nature, he has clearly grown beyond the basic nature of a desire demon, into a human who at the end of the day, still retained his demonic powers(as we see in the darkspawn chronicles.
In other words, he is a demon version of Cole, introduced long, long before Cole was a thing.
I love how you can go back to the start of Dragon Age, and realize that they really had figured out the rules of this universe from day one.
My second stab is going to be at Lost in the Fog 😈
Still haven't found the sex. Oh, I'm winning this game (although, I'm actually slowly losing by elimination. I realize this). XD
That's actually a Herren/Wade thing. The beginning is about Herren in his pre-Herren days, striking out to investigate Wade.
Excerpt:
From the Fade, it poked at the man’s dreams. They were annoyingly vague, so unlike the sharp visions of the fade-touched, but it could sense the passion, and beyond that, a void. He was lonely. Promising. Apart, singular, detached from the other mortals around him, making him a vulnerable bit of prey that might keep a demon distracted for a bit. Doubly vulnerable because there was something powerful that drove the man, and in that lay desire.
Which was the demon’s specialty.
Possession, usually the goal, became simply a route this time. There was a different young man it had been observing for some time, a mage, but weak. He had been playing with his small magics since he was a child, always keeping out of sight of others. This made him lonely too, hiding the small flames he produced, the little bits of healing he could manage on burnt fingers. In that isolation was bred the same void where a demon could insert itself and begin the bargaining.
It didn’t take long. A promise of company and understanding, and if the demon didn’t disclose that it was the only one that would provide that company, oh well.
It spent a short time reshaping the body, enough that those who knew it’s previous owner wouldn’t recognize it. The demon had pulled apart enough of these bodies to understand how to put them back together. In this realm, everything was made of smaller building blocks and even those block were made of smaller blocks still. It was different from the Fade where every thought or vision was a complete and uniform thing. There, things could be distorted, rearranged, tortured into corrupt shapes, but never pulled apart in any way that would allow for reconstruction. But here… brown hair turned auburn, green eyes given a rich brown depth, the jaw squared and the body stretched just enough to peek over most of the mortals it passed. Then, before the demon fully inhabited the form in a way that might limit its connection to the Fade and its power, it (constituted?) a pile of gold and silver coins from the items around it. It had possessed enough mages to understand that power in the world wasn’t measured only in magic.
Dragon Age Inquisition AU where Wade and Herren temporarily join the Inquisition at Skyhold.
That's it. That's the AU. You get to see and interact with Wade and Herren again; you get to hear how things are going at Vigil's Keep and Amaranthine; and you get to hear tidbits of your old Awakening companions plus a bit about your Warden before leaving with Morrigan/leaving to find a cure.
Sometimes I just... Okay. Okay. Think for a moment about the lovely new gear you get in Awakening that is made by Wade. Best armourer in Ferelden Wade. And think for a moment about that whole situation from Herren's perspective.
You are now in Amaranthine. Wade does not like Amaranthine because it is cold and the perfectly nice fortress isn't good enough and this is your problem now apparently. But it's fine.
You are working for the same Warden who commissioned all that fucking drakescale armour but it's fine because now they have a whole fortress's soldiers to keep supplied, so clearly they are too busy for nonsense, right? Right???????
Apparently fucking not.
You've just got Wade settled down and at work on perfectly normal armour, and then this fucking Warden comes in.
"Wade, I've got heartwood from a wild sylvan." "Wade, I've got the shell of an inferno golem." "Wade, I've got bones from an ancient high dragon."
Where are they even finding these things.
The heartwood and the golem shell almost make sense but what were the bones of an ancient high dragon doing in a marsh.
Now Wade just has to drop everything to do commission work for this fucking Warden.
Again.
You can't even kick them out or refuse to work for them because they're your primary employer and also it's their house.
Also now the fortress is being attacked by darkspawn.
Being Herren is suffering even in timelines where he doesn't die and/or become a desire demon.
The werewolf can exist on the physical plane as well as the astral one. The main difference is the form, on the physical plane the wolf attributes are mental, consisting of heightened senses and physical strength.
The face and hands may resemble those of a beast.
It is useful to call upon such atavisms when one is in a defensive situation or for physical survival in the extreme cold.
I can recall numerous times when I had undertaken some early will training exercises amidst the perils of an extreme winter which often threatened my own personal safety.
I had to call upon the wolf then just to carry my mind and body to a heightened sense of strength and power.
The werewolf may be invoked with runes or sigils, for which the details are given later in this book.
Werewolves and such creatures have existed as long as vampires.
In France there were "Meneurs de loup” which were said to lead wolves by playing a bone pipe which would echo the music of the dead.
The wolf charmer was by no means a friend of humanity, causing werewolves and servitors to devour any unfortunate soul who walk near them in the night.
In the year 1502 in France there was a peasant named Pierre Burgot who was tending to the sheep in his herd.
From the woods rode three men each dressed in black and deathly pale.
The leader of the men, who called himself Moyset, told Pierre that his men would watch over his herd and give unto him a great fortune if he would obey his wishes.
Pierre agreed and in their next meeting Moyset inquired upon Pierre's religious beliefs.
Upon finding that Pierre was one who accepted Christianity he commanded him to reject Jesus Christ, the holy virgin and his baptism.
Burgot then accepted his suggestions and gave an oath by kissing Moysets' hand, which was as cold as the hand of a corpse.
It was years later when the rider returned and gave Burgot an ointment to smear upon himself.
This act was done along with Pierre's friend Verdun, who smeared himself with this foul smelling ointment as well.
The two became wolves and began to devour other humans.
Moyset sneered at the two and rode off into the night.
The two were captured and executed for their crimes.
In the year 1600 two teenage boys, Jean Grenier and Pierre la Tilhaire went into the dense, dark forest to hunt and gather food for their families.
They were met at some point by a man upon a black horse who called himself Herren or the Lord of the Forest.
He offered the two teenage boys individual power, based on their will alone.
Once they accepted, Herren, with the lips of the dead, kissed each forehead of the two and sealed it by cutting a small sigil in the form of a crescent moon on their thighs.
Herren then gave each boy a wolfskin belt and an ointment.
He then gave to them the verbal ritual of lycanthropic power, the strength and success of which depended on their own judgment and will.
He told each boy to grow their left thumbnail long and in the night of full moon to begin invoking the power of the wolf spirit.
The Lord of the Forest (5) then disappeared never to be heard from again.
The two teenagers embarked upon a great killing spree, eventually being caught and executed for their murderous acts.
Peter Stubb was also a known lycanthrope who lived in Germany in the 15th century.
Stubb claimed that the "devil" had given him a belt made of wolf skin ( 6) , which he would put on and then transform into a wolf.
He murdered numerous people until he was caught and executed as well.
No one ever found the belt made of wolf skin.
This is an excerpt from a German pamphlet spreading the evils of lycanthropy several hundred years ago.
___________
The first part of "Werewolves in the History of Europe" has been completed.
It is followed by the second part
"Werewolves in European History" {part the second}
Adapted from : ( The Book of the Witch Moon )
"Stubb Peeter
A True discourse declaring th
