Up next in 10
Matt and Joe are joined by Liz as they dive into what you need to know about the Dragon Age 2 storyline to prepare you for this week's launch of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
They cover the major events and characters of the title as well as the themes of power, agency, and moral ambiguity the game explores. And, of course, the introduction of everyone’s favorite spicy novel writing scoundrel and hilariously unreliable narrator, Varric Tethras.
As usual, spoilers abound.
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[Music]
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hello and welcome to lore W Round Table free for discussion about lore and I favorite media I your host Joe pre one
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of several lore Focus folks from blizzard watch and I've got my stupendous co-host with me today Matt Rossy how you doing today Matt never
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mind me introduce Liz joining us today is uh our our
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editor and chief Liz Harper how you doing today Liz aie I've been I've been playing a lot of Dragon Age for some
0:33
reason I don't know why just you know it's fun you should mention that funny
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you should mention that uh because we are going to be talking about Dragon Age well if you listened to the previous
0:45
episode I mean or the previous Dragon Age episode congratulations welcome back you found us again uh if you didn't go
0:51
back and listen to it then listen to this one we're going in reverse order it's going to be all weird if you don't do it in that order too we're going to
0:57
be talking about oh go ahead I I will say our friend of the site an Stickney
1:02
played these games in reverse order which I still think is a little crazy but that was how she that was how she
1:09
was introduced to Dragon Age so maybe we're just doing this in her honor I I also think it makes a sort of weird
1:15
amount of sense right because if you're playing the most recent one and then going backwards you more likely to
1:23
understand some of the weirder context um you're going to miss some things there's some things that you are
1:29
definitely going to be like oh I wonder where that came from and then when you get there be like oh okay uh but I
1:35
think I almost want to say that I think Inquisition and Dragon Age 2 which we're
1:40
going to be talking about today do a better job of World building as far as a
1:47
game first experience than Dragon Age Origin does um and that might be a
1:53
controversial statement I'm not saying that Dragon Age Origins was bad uh it's just that a lot of Dragon Age Origins
1:59
story existed outside of the game to set up the world so there were two books
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written by David Gator uh as well as uh a comic book set as well that released
2:11
and all of those had a lot of World building that sort of piled on top of it
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and then when we moved into Dragon Age 2 and Dragon Age Inquisition the game was
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more standing on its own two feet and gave you a lot more of the story contained within it versus having to go
2:29
and read like you know the dark roads or whatever um but that's what we're going to be talking about today we're going to
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be talking about Dragon Age uh 2 which is often maligned uh it's it's people
2:41
like to poop on it a lot and I'm not sure people don't like caves same cave over and over again I except here I
2:49
think Dragon Age 2 is the best game in the series I love Dragon Age 2 is the
2:54
best one this is gonna be this is your Dragon Age 2 fans right here but I also agree and I think that part of the
3:01
problem was and and Matt kind of hit the nail in the head before we go into the story stuff and I'm going to let these
3:06
two talk is they've definitely played more recently than I have but I think that was one of the harshest criticisms
3:12
and I can understand that criticism is that you saw the same environment repeatedly and it made sense in terms of
3:18
the story and what was going on with it but from a gameplay standpoint if you were just playing the game it's very
3:25
easy to get tired of doing the same thing over and over and over again even if it's slightly different uh I
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don't think that it takes away from the rest of the game uh I think that the rest of the game is phenomenal despite
3:40
having that one little uh environmental faux paw uh but then again I look at
3:45
Dragon Age Origins and it was a lot of the same environment too when you're in the when you're in the dark roads the
3:52
dark roads are the dark roads right like there's you might get some Dwarven architecture or sorry the Deep roads um
3:58
you might get some dwar architecture here and there but for the most part it's you know a dark spawn breeding
4:04
ground right like it's MH it's the same uh so I think that the criticism was
4:09
unduly harsh but that said I mean which of you wants to start taking us to the
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the uh wonderful opening sequence of uh Dragon Age 2 uh Liz you want to go or
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you want me to uh I'll I'll kick it off and then you can jump in I love the
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story framing of Dragon Age 2 I think you played Dragon Age 2 for the story the game play is maybe not as
4:32
interesting the settings are not as interesting because they are very syy
4:37
but you're here for the story which Dragon Age 2 does a better job of telling a distinct Focus story than any
4:44
of the other games for for a reason because you are a specific character you are Hawk and you're fleeing from the
4:51
blight in Faldon which in Dragon Age Origins is all about the blight in Faldon you are fleeing that and you're
4:58
heading to Kirk wall which was just a terrible idea turns out terrible
5:03
terrible idea but the game is all framed along this idea of veric telling this as
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a story later to Cassandra who we will see in Dragon Age Inquisition and it's I
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I think it's very artfully put together the way they've framed out this game and
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even some of the scenes that you see in the game it's like you're coming from a reli from an unreliable narrator
5:30
so it's you're playing out the scenes as Hawk but sometimes you jump back to
5:35
veric and Cassandra saying that definitely didn't happen and V's like well maybe um I think there's an
5:42
excellent bit of visual shorthand in this uh for that if you are playing as a
5:48
warrior or Rogue Hawk that means Bethany your sister is your companion in the
5:54
intro when when varic is first telling the story she's um there's no gentle way to say this she's like two cup sizes
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larger than she actually is just you know and you later on you realize varic
6:06
is just really drawing attention to that it's like why are you doing this faric
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like and and it just you get Cassandra looking at him and it's just this this moment of just demonstrating you cannot
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trust everything this man says he might not be a t he might not be a liar
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exactly but his relationship to the truth is like a surfer's relationship to
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wave he's not trying to get down into there and you know care about the truth he is
6:35
just trying to ride to the next wave if he needs to throw some somewh you know
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verbal shorthand in there he'll absolutely do it um if he thinks it just will be more interesting if everybody thinks Bethany's hot he will try and
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make Bethany hot and he doesn't have any shame or even really any concern about it and it's it's just a really it's a
6:53
really good way to establish it very fast and you don't have to have people telling you oh you can't trust VAR
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literally just shows you trust and I think it's interesting too because this is this is just the prologue we're not
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even in act one yet right like you you you you get in you have veric talking to
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Cassandra um who is tells the story and this is very clearly Cassandra asks for
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the story of the champion of Kirk wall so kind of already tells you what sort
7:22
of maybe is going to happen uh it starts with a high stress scenario like you just said fleeing from the dark spawn uh
7:29
trying to escape Loring uh and then you know trying to get to Kirk wall because
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that's where Hawk's mother was born um the whole linking up with uh Wesley who
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is uh an injured uh I believe Templar Right Wesley yeah uh to try to in like
7:49
get your uh your chances of getting to Kirk wall improved um Wesley and uh
7:57
Wesley and aene actually aene his uh his wife yeah mhm um and then you basically
8:04
run into I believe I remember the first encounter it was wild right because this is what you're talking about that OV
8:09
exaggeration because you get into that first encounter with the dark spawn uh
8:14
with the ogre right uh it's huge it's like twice as tall as Hawk it's it's
8:20
absolutely it's also like a million darks one and you have all these enormous Powers yes and you're blowing
8:26
stuff up and and then she goes be no no I don't you're not going to get me to believe that a dragon showed up no and
8:33
he's like well you know and then he C he cuts back to a more grounded version of
8:39
the same story well and every I just grounded I'm not saying more accurate
8:44
every time he cuts back it's you the player playing this new scenario that he is narrating I just I just love how they
8:50
frame this out yeah and I also like how they they do the introduction to it too because then you start to see some of
8:56
the tendrils that are sort of tied into Hawk's destiny I guess would be the best way to put it uh because that high
9:02
Dragon uh that suddenly attacks and drives off the dark spawn lands in front of the group and shape shifts into fth
9:09
uh which is uh you know essentially the woman of many years the mother of
9:15
Vengeance Witch of the Wilds uh an very very powerful being uh and mother of
9:21
Morgan yeah but what's interesting is at the time we know fth wasn't wearing that outfit but varic doesn't know that
9:29
because he'd never seen her until he saw her the first time on in Kirk wall MH so
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varic describes her as how she looks after she's resurrected using the Ritual
9:40
from the dish which is interesting to me and I think hasn't is going to have
9:46
consequences in Veil guard I would agree put this way I think that the Elven Gods
9:51
things in Veil guard that we we've already been told are coming it's all part of the story I think they are much
9:57
more dependent on other people's opinion of what they are than we have been led to be to be to believe I mean in this
10:05
game you get so go ahead and keep going Liz in that we should probably say that we know from uh Dragon Age Inquisition
10:13
that fouth is mythol or an incarnation of the Elven God methal that has
10:19
survived all of these years when all of the other Elven Gods most of them have
10:24
been trapped have are have been turning into Arch demons so so this is some
10:30
piece of of Elven history or Elven Divinity that has made it through all
10:36
these years and is still surviving she basically she asks Hawk to take this
10:42
locket she hands him or her into kirkwall to a dish Clan outside of
10:47
kirkwall and the locket turns out to be a piece of her that they have carried
10:53
along and smuggled her into the free marches because uh she she is concerned
11:01
that Morgan may take harsh action against her and she wants to uh have a little bit of insurance and if you play
11:07
Dragon Age Origins you know that's an option Morgan can indeed kill fouth
11:15
yes else to say but the story then from there goes that essentially um Wesley
11:22
dies so comes to the the dark spawn taint uh begs for death essentially from
11:28
you despite protests and then veric cuts the story right like he cuts to your
11:34
arrival in Kirk um so there's a period of time in between that's missing uh
11:39
that he may not know anything about or maybe something that gets explored later and I'm okay KCK one of you two okay um
11:47
I'll go when when you get to see kirkwall for the first time one of the things that's interesting is again still we're getting this get this narrated by
11:53
varic but we also get visuals of the journey as we get you know we're we see
11:59
like you know the sea lashed by terrible storms and there's like a little graphic appearing on a screen and then you
12:05
actually see the boat and it's a tiny little thing even in var's description this is not a huge gallion or anything
12:12
it's a tiny little skiff essentially with a cargo hold absolutely packed full of Falin desperate to get the heck out
12:18
of there and when they get to Kirk wall they're immediately told that they ain't getting into Kirk wall like that is the
12:24
first thing people are told nope we're not letting any of you into the city uh the you know City watch and the and the
12:30
Templars are both working together to just keep you out you are not getting in um Hawke being a person of action
12:38
whoever you chose if you chose to be a mage your I rate brother Carver is with you if you chose to be a a fighter or
12:45
Rogue you have the much more personable although again not as AR describes her
12:51
Bethany um who I actually i' I've always felt really I'm fond of Bethany as a character I think she's really cool
12:57
because she is just you know she just wants to live she doesn't have any Grand sweeping Ambitions or epic you schemes
13:04
she just wants to live you know and to a certain degree it's either of the
13:10
siblings is interesting to watch as they are kind of like reflections of Hawk uh
13:15
and and by being Reflections they are mirror reversed like Carver is desperate to prove himself and to to forge his own
13:23
path and His Own Way Forward Hawke does that without even trying uh Bethany
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wants a normal noral life uh and Hawke doesn't even know what normal is Hawke
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is like oh yeah our old house is full of slavers yeah let's go deal with that so you get in you talk to the guards you're
13:40
like hey if you can call my guard my uncle Gamlin he's he's like a Noble in the city and the GU like Gamblin the
13:45
only Gamblin I know is a weasel who couldn't rub two coins together but I'll go look for him uh foreshadowing um
13:51
after an extended period of time at least a couple of days uh he does show up and Gamblin is like you know uh ra
13:59
your mother is like you know oh this is f been horrible my husband died in the plague and he's like he's like Leandra
14:04
please I don't even know if I can get you out of this this you know Courtyard don't dump all this on me now uh he
14:10
basically reveals to you that he has made a deal and he has two possible groups you can you can deal with uh
14:17
either you can go join a rogue a Rogues Alliance a kind of like smuggling Thief
14:22
Guild type thing I think they called the red the red Angels or the red something I don't remember I can't remember their
14:28
name then again can't remember the other group's name either so but they don't play much of a role in the long-term
14:35
story it's like you do this or you do that yeah basically the point is you can join one or join the other if you join
14:41
one you're essentially making enemies of the other but it doesn't necessarily play into anything like you don't get
14:47
attacked unless you do certain specific things but one way or the other you join one of these two unsavory organizations
14:53
for a year you're basically an indentured servant to these people for a year because they have to pay to grease
14:59
the palms of the the guards to let you into Kirk wall they're straight up paying for you to be allowed in and in
15:06
return you work for them for a year and of course your supposedly Noble family in kirkwall has fallen far from Fortune
15:13
the family home is gone and you are all living in a little Shack in low town
15:18
with your uncle who is kind of grumpy about it not not very happy to have house guests no he he is he is less than
15:26
thrilled uh so that's that's the setup you you you know you you basically say I
15:32
won't let this stop me Q2 one year later and this is important because the structure of the game is basically it's
15:38
a perfect threea play like in terms of it's got three which makes sense considering it's being told by veric
15:45
right yes exactly yeah um the other thing that's interesting is the the the
15:51
meetings of all the characters kind of resonate throughout the game uh in that like varic meet you meet varic and he's
15:58
basically does a good turn and then tells you there is a way for you to solve your problems uh I'm just going to
16:04
go straight into what what's happening after a year you're out of whatever or the red Iron that was the name of one of
16:10
them uh either the red iron or the other group you're you're no longer working for them you are however trying to make
16:16
a name for yourself because you you basically have sort of made a name for yourself people people know who Hawke is at this point after a year of working
16:23
for one of the two criminal organizations they don't necessarily like him but they know or her but they
16:29
know who they are so now you're basically try to to get in on this or expedition to the Deep roads because
16:36
there's two dwarves who are trying to take advantage of the fact that the Blade's over uh and essentially there's a really important reason why this is a
16:42
year later because it's when you get to Kirk wall the original Dragon Age
16:48
Origins is actually still happening when you get out of that oneye service Dragon
16:54
Age Origins Awakening has ended yeah the hero Falon has prevailed yeah and that
16:59
means and and one of the things that means is that the dark spawn have retreated because they have been not
17:04
just beaten once but beaten twice by this person uh and they not only did the arch demon die but a powerful somewhat
17:12
intelligent uh dark spawn called the architect has also been defeated it was
17:18
unique in that it could talk and think and could impart that to other dark spawn uh so no one's sure what the deal
17:24
with the architect is because the architect doesn't remember anything about his life but it's either either it's allied with or destroyed uh I think
17:31
the Canon is that it's destroyed so that all happens then you go into this game
17:37
and you're trying to go into the deep roads to take advantage of the fact that most of the dark spawn have pulled back they've pulled back to the point where C
17:43
sharak which is a Dwarven city is now in contact with oramar for the first time
17:49
in Generations the two remaining Elven City Dwarven cities are in touch they
17:54
don't like each other but they are talking now which they couldn't do before because nobody could get through
17:59
they couldn't send a messenger anyway now they can that's one example of why these two surface dwarves uh varic and
18:06
his brother what's this Bart varic and Bartram they don't they don't get along
18:11
with each other at all like they are varic is enforcing his decision to come
18:17
along on this trip because if bartran dies that's the end of the house essentially whereas bartran does not
18:22
have the same loyalty let's say and we'll get back to that but they're doing this Expedition they're taking advantage
18:27
of the fact that the dwarves know that the dark spawn have retreated to go into the deep roads and find out what old
18:34
Dwarven like Treasures they can find now that the darkspawn Tor has Tor dark
18:39
spawn tide has you know gone out to seea so to speak they're they're taking advantage of the moment bartran does not
18:45
want to take Hawk because bartran knows full well that Hawk is in this for riches and he doesn't feel like he needs
18:52
another guy like that he's got plenty of people to to be yes men and take you know be like rubbing for money he
18:58
doesn't listen to Hawk when Hawk's like look you need me I've actually fought dark spawn you haven't uh and you know
19:04
he doesn't listen but varic interrupts somebody picking Hawk's pocket at just the absolute wrong time where Hawk has
19:10
just been sent Away by bartrand someone picks his uh seals his purse runs and then gets shot with a crossbow bolt that
19:17
doesn't hit him or kill him he just pins him to the Walls by his clothes and then he just walks up to the kid and is like
19:22
holds his hand out until he gets the purse back then he knocks the kid out takes his his bolt back and goes over
19:28
and tosses Hawk is first I I have always wondered about that scene whether this is another scene that veric has made up
19:35
I don't think or whether this is a scene that veric set up in order to get hax's attention I have wondered that I believe
19:42
my bones that that you are right about the second option that is the way the game does not the game does not comment
19:48
in any way but the timing is so coincidental and as Matt said we've already set up that veric has a casual
19:56
relationship with the truth and it's to dramatize so yeah I always wonder when
20:03
we get to that moment and it's like veric did you just did you build your own dramatic moment and like tell this
20:09
guy to pick Hawk's pocket just so you could swoop in yeah I don't know if he
20:14
if he would would have been his Brazen to just tell the guy because then he'd be then it we'd be setting it up for the guy to go but you said but I definitely
20:20
think that he allowed people to know that Hawke would be there with money you know like I definitely feel like that's
20:27
the kind of thing he would do uh regardless bartrand is while bartrand is not being tractable varic has all sorts
20:34
of ideas on how they can convince and what they basically need to do is is rustle up enough gold to become full
20:40
Partners in the Expedition getting an equal share in anything it it it you know brings up Hawke points out if I had
20:47
that kind of gold I wouldn't be talking to you two I would be done already and
20:53
the point is no man you're thinking that that 100 gold is a lot I'm telling you that this this could come out way more
21:00
than that you you need to be thinking big this is not this is not a couple hundred Golds worth of this is this is
21:07
much much much much much bigger so they they make a kind of common cause and
21:12
they begin go ahead one thing is that you know we've introduced Hawk at the very beginning as the champion of
21:18
kirkwall Hawk at this point very much not a champion of Kirk while HW still
21:24
trying to make yeah not a champion of anything he's just trying to get by
21:29
trying to make his fortune in yeah Kirk wall is not a great place it's not it's
21:34
not a place where where someone's going to reach out and help you you've got to help yourself to just hang on there and
21:41
also there's a whole lot of anti-er and I want to say racism but that's not quite right a bigotry because the ferons
21:48
came as refugees and how many times have we seen what happens when people come to another place as refugees how quickly
21:54
people turn on them uh in this game it's very much a big part of it there's even part where as you are searching for one
22:01
of var's uh one of var's rumors that he's looking into is that there is a mage uh in Kirk wall who has maps of the
22:09
deep roads a warden yeah a former or he said they say former Grey Warden but as haul points out you don't get to leave
22:15
it's not like you can quit to be grey wardens he goes well you know whatever uh they go down to to find him one of
22:21
the stops they make on the way is a is a falden woman who is running kind of a charity and as they're leading leaving
22:27
the place they get a you know accosted by a group of Falin who are like you know hey you leave that guy alone we
22:33
won't let you run him out and uh either Hawk's sibling or Hawk themselves can
22:39
say look I am a Falen okay I am not going to run anybody out I need to talk
22:44
to him and then they're like oh oh you're a Falon and that's different uh make her bless the rule of our Queen
22:50
Anora or our King Alistar or both of them uh depending on previous games this is one of the things I find really
22:55
interesting about this game is that it sets up this idea of kirkwall is almost
23:02
it's almost like a proton Knight City from cyberp punk in that it is a place not only is it a place that's terrible
23:07
it's a place where like literally trying to do the right thing and help people can often absolutely mess everything
23:13
up uh and we get lots of examples one of them is when you you go and recruit the
23:21
Mage whose name is Andrew and you last saw him in in Dragon Age Origins Awakenings which means when we do that
23:26
one next time we're going to be talking about the character from this and you're going to be like that doesn't sound like the same guy at all uh and that's
23:32
because it's not he is not the same you want to talk about him Liz I talk about Anders oh boy Anders is if you played
23:40
Origins he's he's kind of a soft boy he loves kittens and that's kind of his
23:46
whole Persona and you go into Dragon Age 2 he some probably bad things have
23:54
happened to him and he's come to help the refugees here Andre has has
23:59
encountered a spirit of justice and merged with it and in Dragon
24:06
Age there's a lot of talk about spirits and a lot of talk about demons more specifically and Anders as the host of
24:14
this Spirit has some interesting opinions in that he thinks he has merged
24:21
with this good spirit and in doing so has corrupted it that now it is a spirit
24:26
of Vengeance rather than Justice and Anders is very interested in the
24:32
conflict between the Mages and Templars in kirkwall it seems that the KN Commander Meredith in town is uh
24:39
extremely harsh on the Mages the Mages are kept in a place called The Gallows which used to be a place where the
24:45
ancient denters brought slaves in through kirkwell it's not a pleasant place but that is where the Mages of the
24:53
city are imprisoned and throughout the game you see Meredith getting harsher and harsher with them and very much
24:59
believes in Freedom from ages that is his that is his cause in this game yeah
25:04
I think just to give you guys an idea of the kind of rap scallions you pick up in this First Act avalene you know already
25:11
she she was your uh she was the person you met in in the uh the wilds and came
25:17
to Kirk wall with when her husband died uh she's now a part of the city guard and she has the quest she has for you
25:23
involve interacting with the city guard and corruption in same uh that's that's the stuff she's doing uh for other
25:30
characters one of them is um a Elvin and I should know his name my God Fenris uh
25:36
his name is fenis he's an elf from tenter who was experimented on by his master who was a mage who basically used
25:43
lium to tattoo him and the lium tattoos on his body give him the ability to
25:49
effectively just move through solid matter what's for those at home explain what if
25:55
they don't know if maybe they're coming into this late would you want to explain what lium is okay quick sidebar um
26:01
imagine if we're if this was a like a a role playing game Source book there'd be a little box going what is lium um you
26:07
know lirium is a lot of things we don't we don't specifically at this time we
26:12
don't know the origins of larium although we're going to learn them in in Inquisition so I'll tell you that one quick there are entities that live
26:19
inside the world of of fetus that are like gigantic living organisms and their
26:26
blood is lium and lium is essentially like raw magic it's like pure
26:31
concentrated magical power uh some people describe it as like a a song made
26:36
into a physical thing others describe it as like magic literally that you can drink uh it's actually originally found
26:44
in a powdery form uh it's actually when you see a liquid version of it that's
26:49
they took the powder and suspended it in a liquid for you to embibe it and lium
26:54
lium is very toxic only dwarves can safely mine it I mean you can't just grab a chunk of lium and hang on to it
27:02
it will kill you yep and that's one of the reasons that the reason that dwarves can do this is because they are
27:07
resistant to Magic and Magic is the thing that the lium is killing you with
27:14
uh Templars who ingests lium gain various abilities to dampen or suppress
27:20
magic but in the process they become highly addicted to it and therefore if you if you kick them out and cut them
27:26
off from lium they very quickly degenerate into like you know people who will live on the docks and just be like
27:32
best desperately begging anyone they can for any kind of help so that they can get more lium and you meet Samson in
27:38
this game and that's one of them so lium I was gonna say and another note is that lium does also exist in the fade um it
27:47
is a cross-dimensional sort of element um but one thing that I think is interesting about it is and Justice
27:54
actually talks about this a little bit in the game as well um that you know know there's a song or a sound that's
28:00
associated with it and some call it the Maker's Call some call it just the song
28:05
um but it only has that when it's on our plane if you're in the fade it does not
28:14
have it doesn't have a song It Doesn't it's it not necessarily a nerd but
28:20
because the fade is such a a a interestingly different place it doesn't have that same resonant quality so
28:27
Spirits don't get to hear music um which I thought was an interesting little thing if you have a discussion with
28:32
Justice that he brings up or they bring up to Kade Kade even talks about in Inquisition Kade will talk about this
28:39
the way that the the the the red lium is a different song yeah and that's you
28:45
know but to get back to fenis lium is the stuff that was tattooed on his body he then gains the ability to move
28:51
through solid matter so he let me let me jump in with one little thing which may
28:56
or may not relate into to this is that in Inquisition one of the things that
29:02
Bianca says to you is that she thinks lium is alive lium is a living thing and
29:08
we've talked about it being the blood of these ancient Titans but it is still
29:14
alive and a living thing and the redium that we first encounter in Dragon Age 2
29:19
is lium that has contracted the blight yes which we only living things can get
29:24
the blight yep and that's an interesting uh little quir that we T later but getting back to fenis uh he basically
29:31
ran away from his master when once he once he realized what he could do uh he he was like well I don't I apparently I
29:38
to got these tattoos so that I could serve your will although I don't remember that but now that I've gotten them and I have these Powers I'm out and
29:45
he runs away and hides in the island of on the island of seson which is currently at war between the canari and
29:53
the tenter they're fighting on seson for control of it um they the native people
29:58
of ceson have have a resistance group called The Fog Warriors that are fighting both of them they want them
30:03
both out of ceson to free their country from the occupation of both sides when
30:08
Fenris gets to Kirk wall he is he's running from his own actions and this is a common theme you're gonna hear this
30:14
again and again uh but he hires he basically sets things up so that Hawke
30:19
will be tipped off that there's a lot of money in a in a house down by the uh the
30:25
the arbor you go in there's no money and you get jumped by these these Bandits then you get jumped by the tender
30:31
slavers uh because you are Hawk you kill literally all of them in a whirlwind of death that nobody could possibly have
30:37
foreseen um it game's really good at establishing and granted again I'm sure that that varic is playing it up to a
30:44
degree but the game is really good at establishing that Hawk is an absolute Gore machine you do not want to be on
30:49
the other side of Hawk it it is kind of almost Charming how how incredibly dangerous this person uh also go ahead
30:57
it plays up the gore and after you have been in a fight you are absolutely covered in blood There Will Be Blood
31:03
splattered on your face and you'll go into conversations that can be very serious and you'll just you are just
31:10
like dripping in Blood and you kind of think okay the guy on the other side of this conversation should be backing away
31:17
from you and doing whatever you've asked but they don't they don't they act like it's completely normal CU Kirk wall um
31:24
but that's how you that's how you end up meeting fenis fenis recruits you to help him uh fight his master you go to the house
31:31
the master is supposedly in but he's already fled so fenis is like fine I'll just take the house he'll come back sooner or later and so that's how you
31:38
recruit Fenris uh you recruit Merill by going to do the the the uh favor for The
31:43
Witch of the Wilds you take the locket to the the dish Camp the dish uh matron
31:49
the one who's in charge is like okay yeah we have we owe her so we'll you can do this but you have to do something for
31:55
me you have to take Merill with you she wants to leave and we she doesn't I don't want her to have to leave and be alone so you take
32:02
her and make sure she's safe and you're like okay I don't know that it's presented quite that kindly but uh she
32:07
presents it that kindly the others don't um but when you find Merill uh the first
32:13
thing you find out from Merill who was a mage is that she was actually in Origins if you played as a dish elf uh she was
32:20
actually in the warden's Clan uh mahariel who is the uh the if you play
32:26
the the Grey Warden in or orins as a dish elf uh your name is mahariel and
32:31
you are one of the people from this specific dish Clan uh anyway Merill is
32:37
like yeah I I disagree with the keeper about some things and I'm leaving and so
32:43
as you would get up there at one point if you bring fenis or Anders this is hilarious she'll do something and
32:50
they'll one of the two will be like that's blood magic and she'll be like yeah what magic is Magic it doesn't matter where you get the power for it
32:57
from and they disagree strongly my favorite part is Fenris in this point goes oh hey don't mind that tiger it's
33:04
not its fault it's going to eat you uh which is just it's a perfect representation of of Fenris is
33:10
relationship to every Mage he meets he thinks they're all tigers going to eat him but he really thinks that about blood Mage and there's an interesting
33:17
thing M Merill is using blood magic uh Bethany is with you she talks about you
33:23
you called something here you called a spirit here to open this path and Merill
33:28
says she knows what she's doing uh and Merill and Andrews have a constant uh
33:34
constant bickering about her use of blood magic and her kind of casual calling of spirits versus his having the
33:41
spirit of Justice inside himself yes and she yeah there's a really good uh yeah
33:47
go ahead Andrew feels like he's justified in this which maybe that's something right in the name yeah but
33:53
there's later in the game they have a conversation and Merill says says I
33:59
always knew that all Spirits were dangerous I'm sorry that you didn't because Anders took this Spirit into
34:06
himself thinking oh this is a good spirit not a bad Spirit that's going to be a demon they're and Merill has the
34:12
point they're all potentially dangerous you don't mix these things and you have
34:18
to be aware that they are all potentially dangerous ironically Merill
34:23
probably agrees more with Fenris on this than either of them is like yeah it's a tiger maybe the tiger will let you rub
34:29
its belly maybe the tiger will help you out or maybe the tiger will kill you it's a tiger like all Spirits are
34:37
dangerous it's a really brilliant moment but with Merill you get to the top not the top you don't actually do this at
34:42
the top you're about halfway to the top when you find an old altar Merill speaks the words of the ritual the locket
34:48
flares up and there's uh fth in her first well I I don't know how to say
34:53
first because you again she's in the she's in the prologue but the first time that any player would you know this is
34:59
when varic would have seen her uh so there she is she explains some things
35:05
incredibly cryptically uh one of my favorite lines though is he she he's like you should turn teach me to turn to
35:10
a dragon that looks useful and she lashed and he goes if only a clever tongue was what you needed uh and it's
35:16
just you know she does make a point that that Hawke is going to do not necessarily good things but world
35:23
shaking things uh and that turns out to absolutely be the case with without Hawk a lot of things that we see in
35:29
Inquisition and Veil guard would never have happened um so that's Merill that's
35:34
how you get to Merill uh you bring Merill back to to Kirk wall you you and Andre sort of have a uneasy friendship
35:41
depending on you know choices you make Andrew is really eager to fall in love with you in the game it's very hard to
35:47
avoid Andrew falling in love with you it's it's interesting this game because BioWare games all have romances of
35:54
course that's a big part of them but in this game it there's no question of
35:59
gender there's not even really a question of whether you like each other
36:04
because you can have a romance that is based on you being very friendly with someone or you could have a romance
36:10
based on totally hating someone you can be either end of that kind of spectrum
36:16
and still have a relationship you can be friendenemies like if you want to use that yeah yeah
36:23
and so some of the relationships are really interesting and I think in all games the characters are what makes the
36:30
game most interesting yeah so um so now basically we've talked about everybody
36:35
except uh we didn't talk about Isabelle yet because she isn't really a member until like late in act one and she you
36:43
don't really find out anything about her until act two but she she's a pirate she was in Origins she's kind of fun uh
36:50
because she's kind of The Stereotype of the she is she is a very Jack Sparrow
36:55
before there was a Jack Sparrow and there's a one point where someone's like you know someone says to her I think
37:01
it's Merl actually says how is it you sleep with all these people um you and she's like I I I ask and it's like it's
37:07
not like they all say yes I've I've been told get away from me pirate hag more times than I can count uh and she just
37:12
makes the point it's just I I put myself out there so you know you you miss a
37:18
100% of the throws you don't make you know so she's she's like a really interesting character she's got a lot of
37:24
stuff behind the surface like you which you will find out about um they all do but but Isabelle is one of the ones that
37:30
really does Isabelle almost encourages people to treat her poorly like one of the one of her strongest relationships
37:36
is with uh avalene who seems to despise her for like most of the game like
37:42
there's the only time you start to catch that avalene does not actually hate Isabelle is when Isabelle is about to be
37:48
kidnapped in act two and and uh A's like oh no you don't you're not taking her
37:54
anyone's going to G to k kick her around it's me you know you're like whoa okay um so the
38:01
relationships between these various characters uh between varic and everybody between Hawke and everybody
38:07
between like Sebastian who is this really really super religious guy uh
38:12
member of the Chantry who decided he could had to rounce his renounce his vows because his entire family has been
38:19
murdered leaving him the only true heir to the the the princedom of star Haven
38:24
the city he's from and he's like technically speaking he's a DLC character yeah but I don't know anybody
38:31
who doesn't have him like you know just everybody everybody got him a pre-order bonus or something there was some yeah
38:38
he was not like which is good because he's a little boring he's very boring tiny bit compared to although he isn't
38:46
entirely boring one of the things that I remember my wife commenting on that I've always thought was interesting was that
38:51
here is a character who is incredibly religious extremely devoted to it it and doesn't
38:59
judge you ever like Haw you can you can be in a relationship with Sebastian it
39:05
will be one where he won't have sex because he is he's he's upfront with saying look we're not married and I've
39:11
I've taken orders I can't be with you like that but I can still love you and
39:17
you know you can go with that if you want to or you can be like look I I require some boot knocking uh and he
39:22
will understanding he'll be like I understand this isn't for everybody there's no judgment from him ever until the very end and the
39:29
thing he's judgmental about you can understand if not necessarily support um
39:35
but yeah Sebastian Sebastian is var's white whale varic can't stop trying to
39:40
break him like he's just he tries to break him for like 10 years and that's the other thing I love about this story
39:45
is the fact that it takes place over a 10e period yeah and so anyway we should
39:51
probably Liz you might want to start doing this we we probably should get into the actual deep roads moment
39:58
um yes so they Hawk does eventually manage to make enough money to buy his way into this Expedition which was a
40:05
terrible idea everything everything in this game is terrible it just that's it uh so they go down into the deep roads
40:11
with Bartram and veric and who whichever companions you take along uh your the
40:17
companions You Take Along will have uh potential impacts on the story you go into the deep roads you search and you
40:24
search you're looking for Treasure everyone here is trying to make their forun bartand spends this entire time
40:30
being an ass to everyone yelling and ordering people around you eventually
40:36
find your way through to this ancient forgotten TIG and you find this Idol
40:41
this red Idol that bartand comes in and Scoops up and he's like mesmerized by it
40:48
he walks out the door and closes it behind you locking you in this room in the Deep roads with his brother yeah
40:56
with his brother uh they're not besties and this is uh so yes you have to fight
41:02
your way back out of the deep roads when you get back to Kirk wal uh barten is long gone he sold off the idol
41:09
everything and you're just like okay well I'm I'm lucky to be alive we grabbed some piles of gold on our way
41:16
out and I'm doing okay but not not super great well yeah and uh I want to throw
41:23
in here real fast just to throw in the some of the story changes like depending on who you bring if you don't if you
41:29
bring neither Anders nor your sibling then it's just a straight run through the Deep roads trying to get out uh you
41:36
you'll find the the treasury of a Dwarven ancient Dwarven City and you know basically far will be like yeah
41:41
we're gonna even richer than than bartron with that stupid Idol uh and that and that's that's what it is if you
41:47
bring one of your siblings but not Andre they contract the blate and die they get
41:52
attacked by a dark spawn and yeah a lot of dark spawn yeah you were fighting a lot of dark Spa down there so yeah they
41:59
contract a blate and die um if you bring both Anders and your sibling uh then
42:05
Andrew will recognize the blight you know because he's a Grey Warden he can sense it and he's like uh I stole those
42:10
maps to find out what a group of Grey wardens wanted in Kirk wall and they should be down here somewhere and he
42:17
will lead you to the grey wardens um depending on choices made in in the first game the wardens could be led by
42:25
either Alistair or Lan but they probably won't be they'll probably be led by a by
42:32
another warden from orlay named stoud uh either way though he basically says look
42:38
you got to take this person they're a great warrior magician and they can help
42:43
you and they can survive if you do it and he's like this isn't a mercy you like if I do this this person's life
42:49
will be changed forever and uh I think Hawk's exact phrase is something like it'll be a life you know and so they
42:56
they do your sibling is then taken and becomes a great Warden of course wardens are sort of immune to the blight so
43:03
that's kind of why you're doing this as a cure but becoming a warden the ritual to join the wardens can also be deadly
43:09
so this is a gamble even now you don't even know if your sibling survived for
43:14
some amount of time it it takes a while before you find out but if you don't now remember if you haven't done any of that
43:20
you didn't bring your sibling at all or you know you and you you left them home when you get back either if you're a
43:27
mage your brother essentially buys you a way out of of being you know suspected
43:33
of being a mage for a while by joining the Templars although he doesn't do it for you he's very upfront with that he's
43:38
doing it for himself he wants to get out from under your Shadow but that's what happens if you are a mage uh if you are
43:45
a warrior or Rogue Bethany is taken to the circle uh against her will but she's like I there's no point in fighting this
43:51
is where Mages go Mages go to The Gallows I've you know I'm I'm tired of running I'm tired of hiding
43:58
you know so it's and it really stresses that it is a hard life to be a mage I
44:04
mean throughout the first game you do hear you know oh Mages are Mages are
44:10
kept in circles it's bad and you uh but
44:15
here you really experience it and particularly if you choose to be a Roger
44:21
Warrior so that your companion your sibling is Bethany you really see how she has suffered how she's kind of
44:28
strained under this life where she has to hide all the time and avoid all the
44:34
Templars and just stay under everyone's radar so yeah in a
44:40
way yeah in a way getting caught for her is almost a relief she it's not that she wanted to get caught but getting caught
44:46
means she doesn't have to hide from you it does mean she has to live on The Gallows which is its own horrible thing but you know it's it's trading you know
44:53
the the potential that things might get better is at least there um but that's so that's the end of act one you lose so
44:59
no matter what happens you lose uh somebody you you lose your sibling who's important to you either to death to the
45:06
great wardens or to you know one of the two opposing factions in Kirk wall um
45:11
your mother is of course Broken uh if your if your sibling dies your mother just collapses in a heap uh if your
45:17
sibling leaves well if it's Carver she doesn't collapse she just kind of stands there and looks confused but if it's
45:23
Bethany again she collapses because Bethany is being taken to the Gallows um then they cut to three years later and
45:30
you're not the champion of Kirk wall yet and I honestly feel like they almost have a you're not the champion of Kirk wall timer going at some points but you
45:37
are notable now you were Rich enough to buy a mance and not just any mans the
45:44
Amel mans which is your mother's family the the the Noble House in Kirk wall that your mother was a part of is the
45:50
AML line and again for for friends fans of Dragon Age Origins if you played a human mage your surname is AEL because
45:59
you are a cousin who was taken uh by the by the Mages and put in a circle I don't
46:05
know why the circle they were put in is in falden it's quite possible they may have been caught attempting to escape
46:10
and get put into a circle there we don't really know but we do know that that's the the ma the the Mage you play if you
46:17
play a human Mage in Origins is uh your is Hawk's cousin so that's another thing
46:23
another little connection that they put in uh which I always thought was kind of cool but do you either you want to talk
46:29
about act two because act two is where the the whole Mage thing starts to really wind up I'm going to say you guys
46:35
can keep going um so in act two I feel act two is mostly about the kunari the
46:42
kunari have come to Kirk wall and they have stayed there they've just they came
46:47
their ship was wrecked and they were at the city and they've been saying yeah we're we're waiting for our ship to come
46:53
back a ship to pick us up but they've just been sitting and well they've just been sitting and there are a lot of
46:59
tensions the kunari are even they're very different and the kunari have been
47:05
sitting they aren't happy to be here either but you find out that they are waiting to get they need to recover a
47:14
relic they need to recover this Relic in order to go home they can't return to paralen without it so they sit and they
47:21
wait and they uh I hope to retrieve this thing um and of course you yeah Hawk
47:29
being Hawk gets into the middle of it gets into the middle of talks with the AOS shck who is the leader of the kunari
47:35
here and you do find out that ah this Relic actually it's something Isabella
47:40
sto the to of kin it's called it's the writings of the original philosopher who
47:45
came up with the cune it's like the Quran essentially so yes you do inv you do
47:51
become rather entangled in this I'm pretty sure this was all an act two am I
47:57
right Matt yeah this is all act two basically what happens for act two to break it down really fast Hawke is now
48:03
rich and Powerful Hawke is asked by the uh the the head of of Kirk wall I forget
48:08
his name VI count of Kirk wall to speak to the canari and try to diffuse the situation uh you go there and he's like
48:15
I have no idea what you're talking about I I don't know anything about this and
48:20
you're like okay some of your people went to the Palace to talk to the Von he's like yeah I thought it was worth a shot but then you know obviously nothing
48:28
came of it you're like yeah I should probably not tell you this but I'm going to your people got kidnapped and he's
48:33
like if anyone else had told me this they'd be dead right now but I'm starting to respect you so I'm going to
48:39
let you try and solve this you go you find the canari you find out that a a
48:44
member of the Chantry and her pet Templar are the ones behind all this and she gets away and the canari get killed
48:53
so you're like okay not good you go back you you talked to the vicount he's like well my son my son has been kidnapped
49:00
please go save him you go find him I think the order might be reversed but these yeah I think the order the order
49:05
is definitely reversed but you go and you find the kid and he's like I wasn't kidnapped the canar is my friend these
49:12
guys that that my father hired murdered my friend and they're like you know shut up or I'll cut your tongue out so you're
49:18
like okay I don't think that's gonna happen so back up and they're like kill
49:23
them and you're like all right kill yeah that happens a lot to Hawk yeah Q Hawk turning these people into Chum uh you
49:29
then take the kid back to his dad the kid immediately gives his dad SASS and later runs off to be part of the C he
49:36
wants to join the canari and be a member of the C I mean it's very interesting this these little moments [ __ ] has a
49:42
role in really sum up the entire thing the kunari have a very different
49:48
religious order than the average person the average andrastian in the three
49:53
marches oh yeah and a lot of people find their their faith the cune in which
49:59
everyone has a role and a place everyone is cared for but they also have to stay
50:05
in their place they have a role some people find that a a reassuring
50:11
certainty and others finding yeah exactly so there actually in addition to
50:16
people who join the cune and like take on the title of viari from the cun there are people who are kunari who have left
50:23
the cune and they just kind of wander around doing whatever and they're called theath or
50:28
talash it's and that that again you saw an inquisition because you you could play as one of them it really comes to a
50:36
head over two uh two escaped two criminals that
50:42
the kunari have taken in they have come to the kunari and said they're converting they want to follow the cun
50:50
and avalene asks you to go uh you have to go convince the AOS shck to let these
50:55
people go you have to do something about this and honk goes and it's like the AOS
51:02
shck has been here for what 3 years six years at this point he doesn't want to be here he wants to get the tomb of
51:08
kaslin back but they haven't been able to so if this point I I think the exact line is I can find the tone more easily
51:16
by sifting through Rubble like he's like I'll just destroy the whole freaking City and then look for the to in in the
51:21
ashes but it's not it's not quite that like he has the I'm not saying he does
51:27
it that's just he's angry at this point but he part of the reason he does what he does is that he says he can no longer
51:34
sit here and look at the injustices in Kirk wall and just wait it out I canot
51:41
yeah I cannot I can no longer stand here and watch the dysfunction yeah because the the two criminals that avalene wants
51:49
to be released to the guards of kirkwell were actually they killed a guard because he had brutalized their sister
51:56
mhm and it's uh and of course the guard never did anything about it they tried
52:02
to report it to the guard and the guard brushed them off and so you see where the AOS Shak is saying you can't have
52:09
these they are viari they have joined us they are one of us now you cannot have them and I can no longer Overlook the
52:16
dysfunction in your society that makes people suffer where people don't have a role and uh yes they throw you out with
52:25
their compound hold on hold I got to put this part in because this is again some of the best storytelling in the whole thing you have options of what you can
52:31
say here but one of my favorite options is when he asks Hawke what would you do Hawke can respond I wouldn't give him
52:37
back and A's like Hawke and he's like you know you yes you see and then he
52:42
talks he's he's talking to Hawk some more and he he does that whole thing he goes how can you live with this chaos
52:49
and Hawk like I like it you know chaos means opportunity I I you know I have I
52:55
would have no role in Society you'd want me to make bread or something that's that's not me that's an absolute waste
53:01
of me and my talents like I like opportunity I like the chaos because it means I have something I can rise
53:08
through and and it's just this brilliant moment of each of them completely doesn't understand the other at all but
53:15
they recognize that they don't understand each other it's it's just really it's really good writing because
53:21
the the Aros shck is an antagonist but the Aros shck is never a Mindless antagonist and not doing anything that
53:27
he does out of hatred although he does get he is really angry we forgot to mention by the way that the count son is
53:33
murdered after he becomes viari uh by the the uh temp by the Templar and the
53:39
the Chantry sister I think the Templar is already dead by that point but the Chantry sister yeah the is dead
53:45
basically the the Chantry has sent him he has joined the cun but the Chantry sister has sent him a letter posing as
53:52
his father to come and meet him in the Chantry and talk at which point she had
53:57
him killed because her entire motivation is that she wants to throw the kunari
54:04
out she wants to start a fight with the kunari and if a member of the faithful was killed coming to the church to
54:12
repent his interest in the cune the people would have to rise up and but she
54:18
is she's only adding to the chaos you see this a lot that people are they're focused on their own goals and they're
54:25
just really messing things up but that's like a that's like a theme right that's a theme that runs current or like
54:31
through all Dragon a motif yeah like straight up Motif here this is like in
54:36
song yep that's Lan in the first game to a t that's exactly what that is I really
54:42
basically we we we're gonna just skip two Hawke fights their way through the city to to try and stop the canari from
54:48
getting to the vi counts uh Palace and doing bad stuff runs into Meredith which
54:53
is your first introduction to Meredith the first time you meet Meredith uh is when you're fighting and then a sarbas
54:59
mage hits you and you're not paying attention and then she uses her Templar abilities to shut him down and kill him
55:05
so now you've met her and she's met you and the two of you are like kind of bantering a little bit but I should I
55:10
should say at this point we kind of missed the part that the canari are rampaging through the city burning and
55:17
killing everything yeah they are fighting to fix this cleansing yes um
55:24
they believe they're cleansing they're they course correcting they're they're they're very focused again they aren't
55:30
angry they aren't they're just it's like they see this place of disorder of chaos and they are going to impose the cune
55:38
they're going to impose order on this place oh and by the way right around
55:43
this time while this is all going down uh just before they go rioting Isabella
55:48
finally confesses to you that she didn't just get Shipwrecked in in in Kirk wall
55:54
she she was running from the canari with their book yeah the tone the to ofin of
55:59
klin which she hid and which is now like all these different groups are trying to
56:05
get it and you basically you can help her or you can tell her no I'm not helping you this is crazy uh if you help
56:11
her get the book back she then runs off with it but if you've got a good relationship with her up to that point
56:16
you don't have to have romanced her by the way because I tested this but if you've got a good relationship with her if she thinks of you as an actual friend
56:23
she will come back if not she's gone just left and that's that's it but the
56:30
there I was going to say there are two options here and it's sort of a moment where like it's interesting because you have two ways that you can play this out
56:36
but it basically always ends with the same thing happening um which is odd for
56:41
for the decision because it feels kind of weighty because you can either uh defend Isabella with like you know you
56:47
can uh essentially uh why can't I think of the the AOS shck you can duel the AOS
56:54
shck uh in One V one combat right and uh
57:00
if you win you know everything go they go away they leave the city Meredith
57:05
shows up and you're named the champion of kirkwall or you could attack everybody and if you win the remaining
57:12
canar leave and Merida shows up and you're named the champion of Kirk wall uh or if I think if you hand Isabella
57:18
over I think they also leave and you're named the champion of Kirk wall so like yeah it's a weird it's a weird thing
57:25
where there are three very distinct different paths you can take um to finish sort of the act two and then but
57:32
it all ends with that same thing which again could be a veric thing go it does have it does have differences in that if you do turn her over or she runs away
57:39
you never see her again if she runs away with the book and doesn't come back she's gone she's not in the game anymore
57:46
if you turn her over to the canari she escapes them but never comes back and you never see her again the only way you
57:52
get to see her again is is either by defending her or no it's the only way you get to see her again is If you
57:59
defend her there and it's really funny is the the canari especially the iros shock won't let her fight on her own
58:05
behalf not because she's not capable of it because they don't respect her she doesn't have any honor in their opinion
58:12
uh you're called you know Basit an that's a title you've you're given by the canari and it literally means non
58:20
canari who's still almost good enough to be canari uh and it literally means boss
58:26
means thing but as the Alit an means more than so it's like they're saying
58:32
you're a thing but you're not you have of Honor Godless they also call all non
58:40
nonari boss they just so that's your kunari or your boss you're a thing yeah
58:46
like Saras means dangerous thing like which Saras are Mages inar that's why
58:52
they're dangerous things all right they're dangerous things they're let's move on to to act three uh go through
58:57
that real quick and then we can talk about the prologue and and take us out of here so uh I'll kick it over to Matt
59:04
to start that if you don't mind okay trying to go for a speed round here because we are kind of running out of time uh act three you go kill a high
59:12
dragon and get a really cool magical suit of armor that you see yourself wearing in various flashbacks before this point uh you go and get a couple
59:20
DLC you probably are doing now one of them means you go and fight a a gigantic evil mage cus remember him he's in
59:27
Inquisition he's very similar to the architect from from Awakenings you go and fight him and you turns out that
59:34
your dad one of the reasons your dad was able to escape Kirk wall was because the grey wardens needed somebody to do a blood a blood Magic Ritual and he does
59:41
one for them boom that's how you got away uh then you you get back to to town
59:47
go ahead Liz I'm sorry in the I mean in the DL with cfus Legacy you actually
59:52
learn a lot of the things you will eventually find later in Dragon Age Inquisition that cfus is influencing the
59:59
mind of wardens that he is a tenter Magister who possibly tried to Assault
1:00:04
The Golden City and failed that he is a dark spawn with control over wardens you
1:00:10
find all of this out right if you kill him there's there's a warden nearby he
1:00:15
can just pop into the warden which is also something you only find out much much later in Dragon Age
1:00:21
Inquisition you only see that for sure you don't you don't know that in Dragon Age you're just like ah I killed him
1:00:27
he's dead good let's call it a day yeah although there's the the person you're talking to at the end gets all Shifty
1:00:33
and talks weird and you're like wa what's going on but he was Shifty from the start he was always pretty Shifty
1:00:40
dark even if it's Jan even janica changes her way she but getting back to it when Hawk gets back to the city
1:00:46
depending on the relationship they have with various people um they can be recruited into a series of missions to
1:00:53
help Anders out or they can be like I'm not doing that sounds sketchy they can find out that their sibling is either in
1:01:00
you know either a Templar or Mage involved in the arguments between those factions or that their their uh sibling
1:01:06
is a Grey Warden your mother got killed in Act Two by a blood Mage uh it's important but it doesn't really have a
1:01:11
narrative part of that but she's gone so basically at this point you are living alone in a house with with uh bodden
1:01:18
feric and his son sandal which we talked about belief for the Inquisition uh they tell you they're going to orlay and so
1:01:24
you're going to be alone unless you have somebody you're in a relationship with living in your house which you might
1:01:29
there's multiple options for that including F you know fenis uh Isabella
1:01:35
uh Merill and Anders can all be people who live in your house and you have a relationship with uh you can't Romance
1:01:42
varic I'm sorry uh you get to the the final fight essentially when meridith
1:01:50
finds out because Andre blows up the Chantry the thing that Andrew asked you
1:01:56
to help him do was ultimately not curing himself of the the bond he has with
1:02:01
Justice like he told you yeah he yeah he was very shiy yeah he tells you oh I i'
1:02:07
I've realized that the binding with Justice was wrong we need to separate myself and him I need these magical
1:02:12
rituals uh one of which is salt Petra so if you know anything about salt salt
1:02:18
peter you're like wait a minute why am I getting this in manure again what happens he Hees makes a
1:02:25
magical bomb hides it in the Chantry and then blows up the Chantry which means he
1:02:31
just killed like one of the few people in kirkwall who doesn't want war and is relatively nice to the Mages yeah Grand
1:02:38
cleric Elena has been trying to step in and keep the peace between Meredith and
1:02:44
the grand enchanter here who is orino uh because they've been at each other's throats uh Meredith keeps crushing down
1:02:51
on Mages demanding more from them putting in more restrictions and mages the I was going to say the interesting
1:02:57
thing about this is before the Chantry blows up uh there is an exchange with uh
1:03:02
a classic character because one of the one of the the Chantry people that you interact with uh is an agent known as
1:03:08
sister Nightingale uh who over the course of it you find out that is
1:03:13
actually Liliana from the first game uh who gives the tidings uh that war is
1:03:21
coming to Kirk wall uh war is coming to Kirk wall is no longer safe Divine justinia is getting tired of this and
1:03:28
she's thinking about exalted marching which soon as she says this and you you
1:03:33
you tell this ttha Al's like I can't leave you think that the exalted March is gonna just come through here and nobody innocent's gonna get hurt yeah I
1:03:40
have I gotta try even harder and then the Chantry blows up right like that's
1:03:45
that that's the big set piece that happens directly after that which there's of interesting things here in
1:03:51
that you have various alliances that you've made some of those people can turn on you here
1:03:56
yeah first off you you have to decide um do I kill Andrew who's been really a faithful loyal Ally but who just blew up
1:04:03
the Chantry go ahead I think we have to speak a little to Andre's motivations
1:04:08
which is he he says that there cannot be peace between Templars and mages there
1:04:14
can be no reconciliation with the terrible treatment Mages have and you're
1:04:21
kind of looking at him here and he's like you just blew up the Chantry you didn't kill a single Templar are probably you just killed a lot of
1:04:28
innocent people in the Chantry plus the only woman who was going to try to make peace and c and protect kirkwall and
1:04:36
it's just he he wanted to make a point that there's no reconciliation he wanted this fight even as
1:04:44
he even he's he's thrown the Mages of kirkwall to their
1:04:49
deaths the Templars of kirkwall that's the thing like one of the things about it too is interesting is that Andrew is
1:04:55
coming from the mindset that you can't you know sometimes there's no negotiation that all the attempts at
1:05:01
negotiating a piece have done is let Meredith continue to do horrible things and get away with it yeah and he makes
1:05:07
the point that what happened to Carl where they branded him even though he passed his harrowing which is a thing
1:05:14
Mages in in this setting have to go through a thing called the harrowing which is they're taken into the fade and
1:05:20
they experience Temptation and they have to resist it and and say no if they don't if they become an Abomination
1:05:26
instead they're put to death but once you've done the harrowing uh if if if
1:05:32
you fail the harrowing but you don't get possessed and turned into an Abomination they brand you with a mark on your forehead that turns you into like a I
1:05:39
forget what they're called like a quiets or something tranquil tranquil thank you you're cut off you're cut off from the
1:05:44
fade you no longer had any emotion you were just a shell you're a magic un at
1:05:50
the time they didn't know there was a cure and there's actually a really interesting bit in this where where when
1:05:56
Andrew flares up into the full Justice you know manifestation Carl is briefly
1:06:02
cured and then he's like no I can feel it fading the reason he's only briefly cured is that it wasn't long enough you
1:06:09
find out later Cassandra was made tranquil all members of the Inquisition
1:06:15
are made tranquil yeah and then The Seekers of Truth yeah The Seekers of
1:06:20
Truth Seekers of Truth so that is the order she was in all of them are made tranquil and then cured in order that
1:06:26
they understand the relationship between the fade and living beings and so this
1:06:33
whole thing come back to Andrew basically blows everything up because he thinks there's only thing that will
1:06:38
happen if they keep negotiating is Mages will stay in Chains because nobody will
1:06:43
will back down from that and he's not necessarily wrong either right like no
1:06:49
he has a point it's just that it's clear that he has gone past the point where he can do any kind of calculus well it's
1:06:55
not even that I mean it it is quite honestly that he's gone from Justice to Vengeance and it's a little bit too
1:07:01
close to home so like all this leads up to and I kind of want to go into the conclusion because this is the setup for
1:07:07
the world state that we we see in Inquisition and that we're uh ultimately going to see in here like into the next
1:07:14
game as well so this is the story that that basically concludes the Battle of Kirk wall everything is done uh
1:07:21
everything that happens with Meredith the blowing up of the the the Chantry um we should let Liz talk we should note
1:07:30
Meredith in the end you can choose to side with the Templars are the Mages and help them out because Meredith declares
1:07:36
the right of annulment she's going to kill everyone in the circle because Anders has done this thing and blown up
1:07:42
the Chantry and you can choose decide with Meredith and say okay let's kill every Mage and kirkwall because one of
1:07:48
them is a really bad guy or you can side with the Mages now no matter what you do
1:07:54
no matter what you do you can try to be friends with either of them and you will fight orino who kind of Desperately
1:08:01
calls on blood magic to become some horrible corpse monster and then you will fight Meredith who uh turns out
1:08:08
Meredith was the one who bought the idol the redium idol from bartrand after he came out of the deep roads and had it
1:08:15
forged into a sword which she has been carrying with her uh red lium has
1:08:21
terrible effects on people it makes you crazy it can make things move around
1:08:26
it's very unpredictable and Meredith has uh been in close contact with the remains of this Relic for some time at
1:08:33
least six years at this point yeah yeah so you have a huge fight with Meredith
1:08:39
where she like makes the statues in the Square come alive and attack you and
1:08:44
it's just eventually when you defeat her she calls on you know the power of the
1:08:51
maker to sustain her through this fight and she is turned into red lium left in
1:08:57
this Courtyard in front of the Gallows she just it's kind of terrifying frankly
1:09:02
effected die yes because we're not even sure if she dies but to to to try and wrap everything up at the end of this
1:09:09
this doesn't stay in Kirk wall the Mages outside of Kirk wall hear that that the
1:09:15
Templars were about to assassinate all of them for one guy's actions and they just rise up all over FAS there's a lot
1:09:23
there yeah there's a lot of that that happens so like and I kind of want to go through this real quick um so like the circle of Magi
1:09:30
is disbanded it's no longer there right like it's gone um the uh all the circles
1:09:36
rise up uh as is the Champions Entourage over time uh and it actually marks the
1:09:43
the important thing here and the thing that I want to get into is this actually marks the beginning of the Mage Templar
1:09:48
War officially this is the official opening Silo of it the Templars also
1:09:54
like they decide we're not going to sit and let the Chantry tell us to to stand down and to to try to calm this we're
1:10:00
going to kill them so they break away from the the Chantry as well and they say you know now the circles have fallen
1:10:07
every Mage is an apostate apostates must die a mage that does not is not under
1:10:12
our control must die and it a huge War breaks out between these two factions
1:10:18
and it's devastating yeah and the the at the end of it where uh Cassandra is
1:10:24
basically veric veric finishes telling the story this is all the stuff that happens afterwards uh and the whole point of
1:10:30
this is Cassandra is trying to figure out what was the spark that ignited the flame so to speak uh and Cassandra finds
1:10:37
out through the storying of this that it is the fault of night Commander Meredith not Hawk uh veric agrees but also points
1:10:44
out that the lium idol uh which wasn't exactly helpful uh and Anders were just
1:10:49
as responsible these were two very unstable elements that came into Collision
1:10:55
and as a result you have your Mage Templar War um it's and again it points
1:11:02
out that the shantry has lost control of every circle of Magi outside of tenter the Templar order has abandoned the
1:11:07
shantry to fight its own war against the Mages uh he's also very surprised at
1:11:12
this point to find out that the Chantry is trying to locate Hawk uh believing that the champion uh as someone there at
1:11:18
the start of the war might be able to help negotiate a peaceful resolution um and then veric explains that he cannot
1:11:24
as he doesn't know where hwk is gone though he is confident that Hulk is not dead uh he just doesn't know where he is
1:11:31
whether that's true or not that's a whole other story because again veric has a very conditional relationship with truth right it's we learn later it's
1:11:40
definit true correct uh veric is released from Cassandra's custody he goes outside to
1:11:45
meet with Liliana who we know has survived everything uh or and then goes over for the seeker's next course of
1:11:51
action uh and their plan is either to find either the champion or or the warden uh because both of those searches
1:11:58
have proven unsuccessful which again this is a seed that feeds into the last the next game
1:12:05
that's coming out right like this is this is why this game is there's so much story there's a lot of stuff we didn't
1:12:11
cover uh there's a lot of there's so much more there's we could sit here and talk about it for another hour uh
1:12:17
especially with all the side quests with all the downloadable content like the Exile PR Legacy Mark of the Assassin we
1:12:23
didn't even get to talk about mer quest line which is very important to the the ideas we we encounter when we see soless
1:12:30
in the next game yeah just there's a ton for all of her statements to Andrew but
1:12:36
I knew Spirits are dangerous uh Merill still learns maybe you didn't know enough yeah and there's just there's a
1:12:43
ton like this game is one of the reasons that it's my favorite uh is that there's a lot of stuff that the consequences are
1:12:49
not escapable yes you you don't necessarily get away all the time
1:12:56
unscathed sometimes things go very badly um although there is also the fact that it can feel kind of like there's a
1:13:03
moment in this game where you have an option to skip a lot of content to get straight to uh your mother who's been
1:13:09
kidnapped by a blood Mage even if you do that if it doesn't help in fact it actually makes it worse because then the
1:13:16
blood Mage that you that had helped you then turns on you and varic kills him
1:13:21
and you're like so so I could have just I could have just not even stopped for you and it wouldn't have mattered so
1:13:28
that's a weird little moment but there's a lot of moments in this story like there's the part where in act three gu
1:13:34
basically calls you a lice covered Refugee and you're like I hope you enjoyed saying that because this is the
1:13:39
last words you're ever going to speak it's just the dialogue is is Punchy the characters are their own people and
1:13:45
sometimes they'll argue with you and you can have the relationships with people I wouldn't say they hate you like Merill
1:13:52
doesn't hate you when she's a rival but she Ely does not agree with you and and
1:13:57
that has that has effects on the narrative it has effects on what happens at certain points so a lot of that stuff
1:14:04
I really think is important for Dragon Age because it's really something that becomes part of the the story in the
1:14:09
next game it it does and this also very important to note that uh David gider was still the lead writer or the the
1:14:17
head writer for this game and after the success of origin and the books you can
1:14:23
tell that this is sort of the moment where uh he was let loose right like it
1:14:28
was the you go ahead do what you want to do um do you know write your story do
1:14:34
your thing make it successful uh and he did right uh it's one of those things
1:14:40
where being in control of that narrative and giving that sort of Freedom really
1:14:45
you can see why this game has so much into it you can see why in at least the
1:14:51
case of a lore watch or from a story perspective or it's just a fan of Dragon Age story why we glom on to it why it's
1:15:00
so good and why if you can get past some of the repetitive scenes uh because of
1:15:05
the back and forth nature of it you get such a huge piece of World building and
1:15:11
it doesn't just set up dragon AG acquisition uh and Dread wolf it also
1:15:16
was the setup point for the role playing game if you happen to be playing that or had the books for it because the role
1:15:22
playing game takes place after this um and like all these story elements are
1:15:27
things that they Incorporated and wouldn't have had otherwise and it would have been a much more bland much more
1:15:33
different experience uh even in a tabletop environment it's a very important piece in that sort of Dragon
1:15:40
Age ecosystem so it's one of those things I will highly encourage you even if you're listening to this if you
1:15:46
haven't played it if you started playing it and then stopped because of that like you maybe thought it was too repetitive
1:15:53
I'm going to encourage you to go back in and give it another shot try it spend
1:15:59
some time with it I think you'll actually find uh quite a bit of it very
1:16:04
very endearing uh and see why I think it is and Matt I believe Liz agrees with me
1:16:10
on this one I believe already stated it it is the superior game to origin and Inquisition just based off of that alone
1:16:17
it's our favorite i' say say better story absolutely yeah um to game gameplay wise Inquisition and uh two are
1:16:24
very similar there's not a lot of difference yeah um Origins if you like
1:16:30
turn-based I'm in charge of everything my characters do play Origins is probably a better gameplay experience
1:16:36
for people I don't like it like I'm I'm we used to we used to joke that Origins
1:16:41
was balers Gate 3 before balers Gate 3 existed because it felt like a 3D
1:16:46
version of balers gate 2 very much so very much so yeah but yeah I definitely think this is possibly this is possibly
1:16:54
the the a text of using the world in the story for the Dragon Age uh Series yeah
1:17:01
but I think I think that's going to do it for now folks uh again uh blizzard
1:17:06
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1:17:52
that folks we'll see you next week [Music]