dragon age

help Dragon Age hath consumeth me

playing Origins rn 🫴 I'm a Lelianamancer

The start of Dragon Age Inquisition in a nutshell.

We call it kirkwall fashion

i forget how good varric is in the opening of dai. i like that he goes out of his way to mention to the protagonist that solas—who, we learn later, at this point has been being threatened by cassandra and in general as an elven apostate is in a really dangerous position here—helped them and saved their life. he also goes out of his way to align himself with the protagonist—technically he’s a prisoner, just like you—despite them being basically powerless and there being no discernible benefit to siding with them here. there’s a particular version of a cadash exchange that i love

varric: so, let me guess: fellow surface dwarf, maybe part of the carta?

cadash: what makes you say that?

varric: i can tell a proper orzammar dwarf from twenty paces. also, you have that shifty-smuggler look to you.

cadash: i’m not the only one with a shifty-smuggler look.

cassandra: varric did not destroy the conclave.

varric: that you know of. we shifty-smuggler types can be tricky.

cadash basically throws the line of questioning back at varric, and cassandra finally seems to be almost defending varric. varric did not have to respond to that in the last line by defusing cassandra’s hostility towards cadash and cheerfully accepting the comment that tars him with the same brush as the person under the most suspicion. nor did he have to point out solas’ usefulness or keep an eye on him during the journey up to the temple, turning back to wave him onwards. but he did

idk i don’t have a strong point here i just think looking out for the underdog, and not only that but being subtle and clever about it, using words to manage it when he doesn’t really have any power here either, is some of the true best of varric’s character and i like how it gets shown here

Miscallenous DAI sketch dump

it would be so funny to play a fake trevelyan in dai. trevelyan's carriage ran into an Incident on the road and everyone but one person died so they think "...i could be lord/lady trevelyan for a little bit... probably free food at the conclave" and then suddenly they're expending maximum bluff skill trying to talk Genealogy to josephine

especially funny to romance blackwall and then when he comes clean about being thom rainier it's like "oh my god. that's really bad. and because it's so bad i have something to tell you and you are not allowed to be mad at me about it"

several years later, at the terminal node of an eluvian network

solas: i was solas first

fake-trevelyan, spluttering: i! you! we already did this! cassandra asked if anyone else was lying about their identity and i raised my hand! and you want to go through all that again now!?

Dorian, a known necromancer…

The one school of magical medicine where you do not need to hurry

having to pay for sebastian, the only straight companion in da2, is still funny on its own but I feel there’s also metatextual humor if we take the “varric is narrating this whole thing” to another level

like it’s no secret varric cannot stand this guy so the thought of cassandra piping up like “wait, wasn’t the champion also friends with the prince of starkhaven? you haven’t mentioned him at all”

and varric rolls his eyes so far back into his head he almost gives himself a migraine, then she insists “no, he is! I know I heard this, stop lying to me dwarf!”

he’s like “andraste’s nutsack, fine, but if you wanna hear about him I’m gonna need some financial incentive to jog my memory. he was so boring I often forget he was even there”

“you can’t be serious, are you saying you’ve completely forgotten everything about him?”

“seven sovereigns for the choir boy, seeker, take it or leave it”

oh cass

i wish it was more visibly obvious that cassandra’s interrogation of varric was in the amell estate because i did not pick up on it initially and it’s so deranged

i just thought in the same two minutes about this and then about the rooms that hawke closed up with all their mother’s things untouched and the study where fenris and orana learned to read and the carvings in the stairwell made by a bored isabela’s blade and the damage from merrill and sandal’s experimental mishaps and the marks in the wall where some idiot challenged sebastian to darts and the little hidden compartments stocked with anders’ homemade potions left behind in the haste to leave... i suppose if they were based there then cassandra’s people must have torn right through it looking for clues. or just to put varric on edge

oh people still didn’t know this. i only found out online myself. yeah idk if you can tell during the other shots but it’s most obvious when cassandra walks out at the end, you can see the amell shield up

cassandra’s recruiting tactics suck. if she had just gotten the message to hawke that there was a few hundred gold to loot in this abandoned mine they would’ve been here

Cassandra Allegra Portia Calogera Filomena Pentaghast

DRAGON AGE: INQUISITION 2014, dev. BioWare

My Dragon Age Inquisition character card embroideries all together! Each is 11.5x19.5 cm. Dorian took 73 hours, Cassandra took 89 hours, and Sera took 75 hours.

I wonder which character I'll do next...

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[Image descriptions: Embroidered versions of the Dorian, Cassandra and Sera character selection card from Dragon Age Inquisition.

Dorian holds a book under his left arm while casting magic with his right. There are white glyphs in the air and a white snake running under his cloak and under his arm.

Cassandra sits atop a war horse with Inquisition soldiers behind her. She wears black armour with a gold-trimmed cloak, and the Seeker flag and he cloak stream behind her.

Sera stands atop a slanted tree trunk with her bow held suggestively between her legs, looking at the Skyhold tower in the distance, where the tiny figure of the inquisitor is present in the window. Mountains and turrets make up the background behind her.]