#irelin

[linka-from-captain-planet]

Bellara x Irelin coworkers to friends to lovers to exes to friends to lovers slow burn

[kibagib]

DRAGON AGE THE VEILGUARD ICONS

INPRNT

If you like my work, please consider buying me a caffè :)

[mapsontheweb]

Ireland and South Korea have very similar shapes.

[blossomhead]

anyone else make a bunch a rooks before playing the game only to later realize half of them look exactly like existing npcs?

[sky-scribbles]

Next up on Things I Liked About Veilguard: the faction leaders. We all know some of the factions and their NPCs did not get anything like the amount of content and character that others did (Strife and Irelin I'm so sorry, I still love you), but sometimes I take a step back and realise how wonderful the stuff we did get was.

I mean - Evka and Antoine. Everything about them is so heartfelt. I hadn't read the supplemental material, but they barely needed to interact before I understood why this sweet, smart guy and this tough, smart woman loved each other. They affirm each other constantly. They respect each other so deeply. They have written letters for the other to take to their Callings: a cipher only Antoine could read. Je t'aime. Je t'aimerai toujours.

I love how Myrna and Vorgoth are introduced, suddenly and unsettlingly there in the Lighthouse. I love Vorgoth speaking in all caps. I love the fact that nobody knows what they are. I love that they raised baby Ingellvar. I love how Myrna is calm and polished while every so often coming out with the absolute wildest shit. They're fun.

The Viper and Tarquin? Top tier. They might be my favourites, just because of how much they have going on. Each of them has a backstory, and you can see exactly how those backstories produced their personalities. Ashur has a secret identity you can piece together from notes and codexes (and it's the funniest identity possible). I love their argument over Ashur's paranoid investigation into Tarquin, because it shows that the world goes on when Rook is not in the room, and the NPCs have relationships that go through ups and downs.

I'm mildly insane over the level of devotion, with Tarquin's desperate letters to the Wardens if Ashur is blighted, begging for a cure Ashur won't take. Him standing over Ashur to defend him in the final mission, or else his devastating reaction if Ashur dies: 'It should have been me!' God, these NPCs are alive. (fun fact: I wrote most of this post, and then Sheryl Chee confirmed these two were written as being in love with each other and stupid about it. I'm so happy.)

Speaking of NPCs who love each other: Teia and Viago, my beloveds. Again, I was coming in without the supplemental material, and I was sold on them so fast. The way Viago tenderly cradles Teia from behind as they mourn Caterina. The way they're so involved in Lucanis's personal quests - they're his family, they're there for him, they love him. I love Teia's fierceness and her heart. I love their banter - so much mutual understanding, exasperation and affection mixed together. 'We know each other too well to be strangers.'

Isabela is as wonderful as she always is - I especially appreciate how her depiction in Veilguard makes it clear just how loving she is. But can we also talk about Rowan? (I don't know if she's technically considered a faction leader, but meh.) I love her poetic speech patterns; I love that she's a scholar who wrote a bunch of codex entires; I love her calm, soothing voice. I love getting to see a Rivani Seer at last. And I love how she'll suddenly turn around and say, still calm and soothing, 'Spirit of Determination: may your enemies die bitter and in pain.' Perfect, no notes.

Strife and Irelin, sadly, drew the shortest straw when it came to being fleshed out in-game. But what I do love about them is their relationships with your companions. I love the tiny detail of Irelin, Bellara's ex, helping her pack for the Lighthouse; I love how she writes to Bellara to beg her to take care of herself, because she still matters to her.

And while I am a profound Emmrook lover, I appreciate Emmrich/Strife so much too. I love their shared curiosity and sense of adventure; I love thinking that Emmrich might give Strife tenderness that his life has lacked, while Strife could help nudge Emmrich toward boldness. I love the idea of two older men who likely think love has passed them by suddenly going, oh. If the Veil Jumpers didn't get a deeper relationship with Rook, at least they got relationships with Rook's friends.

Dragon Age games always give us a fun roster of companions, but honestly? Veilguard got me invested in the non-companion NPCs more than any other game in the series. Yes, there should have been more - but what we got was so much fun.

tl;dr: Faction leaders, my beloveds.

[athenas-only-daughter]

she's so unserious, I love her so much ❤️

[tempesthawke]

given how fast these darkspawn are moving, it's only a matter of time 'til our luck runs out

[flowersforthemachines]

The body proportion values of companions and a selection of other NPCs

Most companions and NPCs don't have unique body models. Instead, they use a set of body proportions defined in their preset files that feature settings similar to what you can see in Rook's character creation screen.

A list of body values for all companions and several NPCs (Solas, Teia, Viago, Illario, Evka, Antoine, Strife, Irelin, Elgar'nan, Rana) and explanations behind how some of those values work is hidden under the read more.

Note: if you are interested in values for any other NPCs, feel free to send requests through my inbox.

Upd March 28th: added Rana and Elgar'nan.

The values below likely represent the proportions in regard to a character's race/body type in the Character Creation (providing that idea is correct, Bellara's height of 0.8 would mean she's an elf of the female body type with the height slider set to 80%).

The following values range between -1 (minimum value, possible equivalent would be -100% in the CC) and 1 (maximum value, possible equivalent would be 100% in the CC): height, thin/heavy, waist width, shoulder width, pelvis width, hips height. The muscular slider is an exception, because it doesn’t go below 0. 

The thin/heavy and muscular slider value are basically just the NPC analogue of the body shape triangle you can use on Rook in the CC. So thin/heavy at -1 would mean that the character has the slimmest possible body frame, and muscular slider at 0 would mean that they have as little muscle as possible.

In addition to the values mentioned above, the character presets also include fields for glute, chest, and bulge sizes, but they are set to 0 for all characters in this post, so they are not included in the listings. 

Oh, and there's the hips height value. Idk what it does ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I tried to do some testing of it with Bellara and Tasash, but didn't notice any difference after changing it in their presets. The values are included for posterity, though.

Bellara

1. Height: 0.8

2. Thin/heavy: -0.5

3. Muscular slider: 0

4. Waist width: 0.2

5. Shoulder width: -0.2

6. Pelvis width: 1

7. Hips height: -0.2

Davrin

1. Height: 0.7

2. Thin/heavy: 0.05

3. Muscular slider: 1

4. Waist width: 0.5

5. Shoulder width: 0.3

6. Pelvis width: -0.6

7. Hips height: 0.3

Emmrich

1. Height: 1

2. Thin/heavy: -1

3. Muscular slider: 0

4. Waist width: 0

5. Shoulder width: -1

6. Pelvis width: -0.4

7. Hips height: 0

Harding

1. Height: 0.5

2. Thin/heavy: 0.25

3. Muscular slider: 0

4. Waist width: 1

5. Shoulder width: -0.1

6. Pelvis width: 0

7. Hips height: 0.1

Lucanis

1. Height: -0.8

2. Thin/heavy: -0.4

3. Muscular slider: 0.1

4. Waist width: 0

5. Shoulder width: 0

6. Pelvis width: -1

7. Hips height: 0.1

Neve 

1. Height: -0.57

2. Thin/heavy: 0

3. Muscular slider: 0

4. Waist width: -0.4

5. Shoulder width: -0.15

6. Pelvis width: 0

7. Hips height: 0.1

8. Heels: 1*

*The heels value is listed only for Neve because she's the only character on the list who has it above 0. Heels value is used to imitate the shape of high-heeled shoes — you can read more about it here. 

Taash

1. Height: 1

2. Thin/heavy: 0

3. Muscular slider: 0.8

4. Waist width: 0.6

5. Shoulder width: 0.15

6. Pelvis width: 0.8

7. Hips height: 0

Illario

1. Height: 0.7

2. Thin/heavy: -0.6

3. Muscular slider: 0.1

4. Waist width: 0

5. Shoulder width: -0.3

6. Pelvis width: -0.3

7. Hips height: 0

Teia

1. Height: 0.2

2. Thin/heavy: -0.8

3. Muscular slider: 0

4. Waist width: 0

5. Shoulder width: 0.507

6. Pelvis width: 0

7. Hips height: 0.3

Viago

1. Height: 0.7

2. Thin/heavy: -0.8

3. Muscular slider: 0.2

4. Waist width: 0

5. Shoulder width: -0.4

6. Pelvis width: -1

7. Hips height: -0.3

Solas

1. Height: 1

2. Thin/heavy: -0.5

3. Muscular slider: 0.3

4. Waist width: 0

5. Shoulder width: 0.2

6. Pelvis width: -1

7. Hips height: 0.2

Evka

1. Height: 0.2

2. Thin/heavy: 0.1

3. Muscular slider: 0.4

4. Waist width: 0.2

5. Shoulder width: 0

6. Pelvis width: -0.5

7. Hips height: 0

Antoine

1. Height: 0.1

2. Thin/heavy: -0.3

3. Muscular slider: 0

4. Waist width: 0

5. Shoulder width: -0.5

6. Pelvis width: -0.6

7. Hips height: 0

Irelin

1. Height: -0.4

2. Thin/heavy: -1

3. Muscular slider: 0

4. Waist width: 0

5. Shoulder width: 0.6

6. Pelvis width: 0

7. Hips height: 0

Strife

1. Height: 0.5

2. Thin/heavy: 0

3. Muscular slider: 0.8

4. Waist width: 0.4

5. Shoulder width: 0.4

6. Pelvis width: 0.4

7. Hips height: 0

Elgar'nan

1. Height: 1

2. Thin/heavy: -0.6

3. Muscular slider: 0.4

4. Waist width: 1

5. Shoulder width: 0

6. Pelvis width: -1

7. Hips height: 0

Rana

1. Height: 1

2. Thin/heavy: 0.1

3. Muscular slider: 0

4. Waist width: 0

5. Shoulder width: 0.45

6. Pelvis width: 0.1

7. Hips height: 0

8. Chest size: 0.4*

9. Glute size: 0.25* - Reminder that other characters don't have chest/glute size values listed because they are set to 0. Rana is built different.