Tales of the Blight: Aftermath

[Part of my Dragon Age: Origins play through. Spoilers ahead!]

With no one on the throne again, Queen Anora quickly claimed it as her own and held a celebration to honor our victory. I also convince her to strip all lands and titles from the Howe family and give them all to the restored Cousland line, namely to Lord Ferghus Cousland. Yup, my big brother somehow survived and sat out of everything but is a-ok now. I bid him and Oghren, who decided to become a general in the Queen's army, farewell to continue my travels elsewhere with Quickly and Leliana.

In the months that followed the Queen proved to be a good ruler for the people, even providing the Dalish with new lands to settle in but the untrusting elves remained restless there. King Harrowmont didn't fare as well, isolating the dwarves further from the surface. He tried rebuild the Anvil of the Void to catastrophic results and was under threat of an exalted march by the Templars for harbouring free mages. Eventually he was killed by poisoning.

Knight-Commander Greagoir retired and died of old age while Arl Eamon had another gifted child. This one he gave to the newly built Circle of Mages as his wife Isolde died during the birth. As for Ferghus I heard he didn't make such a good lord at all, hitting the drink pretty hard and breaking things left and right. Eventually he left for a different land to become a blacksmith of all things! Well it's been awhile since I've seen him. Maybe I should go pay him a visit?

90%(?) chance of repairs! :P

Here ends the Tales of this Blight. Maybe it will continue it one day.

Tales of the Blight: The Solution to Everything

[Part of my Dragon Age: Origins play through. Spoilers ahead!]

We found ourselves infiltrating the Redcliffe dungeon underneath the castle proper and immediately encounter Loghain's imprisoned man, some blood mage tutor Isolde had secretly hired to teach her son, Connor. Already knowing where this is going I decide to execute him on the spot, much to Morrigan's disdain. Then begins the arduous room by room clearing of various undead and rescuing of still trapped civilians. We also open the castle gates to let in Ser Perth and his handful of knights to assist in the rest of the cleanup though only the named knight actually survives.

In the main hall we find the possesed Connor having turned Ban Teagan into a crazed fool while his mother helplessly looks on. It's not long before he turns all the remaining guards on us before fleeing himself and in the end it is my team, Ser Perth, and Lady Isolde still standing. Ban Teagan while downed, actually survived and was back to normal. The "hard" discussion of what to do came next.

Roll against Paralyzation!

I already knew what I wanted to do. Besides the only other option according to Morrigan required a Circle of Magi - just like the one I had purged. Up the stairs we went killing off more scum and finally facing the demon in combat. When it came time to finally kill it (and the child) Isolde interrupted again, asking for another way.

I reminded her that this was her fault for hiding him from the Circle of Magi to begin with then punched her as strong as I could in the face. Lucky for her I knocked her out. She might have gone insane watching me dismembering the demon child. Alistair certainly lost it. I asked him what he would have done, and how many others would have had to die for the life of one. That shut him up, but he was definitely not happy.

Tales of the Blight: Redcliffe Halloween

For those not actually reading these, I just want to wish you all a Happy Halloween up front! ^_^

[Part of my Dragon Age: Origins play through. Spoilers ahead!]

As we arrive near Redcliffe village Alistair reveals he is actually a royal bastard. As in, the half-brother of the King and probably next in line to the throne. Good to know! I've also taken Leliana in the party instead of Morrigan since Leliana was upset at sitting out of the whole Circle of Magi thing. Besides Morrigan needs her rest after the... extracurricular activities we shared after the tower got cleansed.

Anyway the village is in all sorts of distress as apparently every night, they have been getting attacked by undead forces stemming from the castle, like a more violent version of Halloween where the visitors come knocking for blood instead of sweets!

This is the same castle where I'm supposed to get another ally for the war. We quickly get into quest mode, convincing the smith to get cracking on repairs, hiring hesitant warriors and strong arming stuffy barkeeps into helping out, as well as setting up oil traps, finding missing kids and learning that Arl Eamon (the guy in the castle) might have been poisoned by an agent of Loghain. Sheesh that name keeps cropping up!

I'm in your bases. Manipulating your allies.

Night falls and the defenses are pretty solid, though the barkeep and town mayor are among those that fall. Ban Teagan, the guy in charge and brother to Arl Eamon asks us to infiltrate the castle via secret passage and sort things out. This is right before Isolde, wife of Arl Eamon appears from the castle and desperately asks Teagan to go back with her. While I suspect a trap, he goes anyway trusting that we won't just walk off on him. Tsk. He's right too. Before entering though I swap Leliana out for Morrigan as I think her magic might prove more helpful in the castle itself. I also help fund a few people get the hell out of the village to somewhere safe... which they assume is Denerim. Nothing bad will happen there right?

Tales of the Blight: Cleansed

[Part of my Dragon Age: Origins play through. Spoilers ahead!]

Continuing up the mages tower we ran into some dragonlings that needed to be put down and a few more abominations before reaching the top. There the "boss" blood mage fellow was busy changing other mages into more abominations. Needless to say I had to put an end to that. Niall's magic scroll came in handy as a canceller to the boss's "turn captive into abomination add" technique and eventually we wore him down and killed him.

With the task complete we took the survivors back downstairs to talk to Knight-Commander Greagoir. While all were grateful for the assistance my team provided I couldn't help but suggest that the remaining mages might have been tainted by all the residual evil magic in the tower. The Knight-Commander agreed and invoked the Right of Annulment which "is the right to purge a Circle of Magi that is ruled irredeemable by ordering the templars to kill all the mages within a Circle".

With no more mages left to guard, Knight-Commander Greagoir accepted my proposal of joining the collective army to fight the darkspawn blight and promised his troops for when the time came. Woohoo, one ally acquired! Next stop, Redcliffe - since Alistair keeps whining about it. Well, not as much as being sad whenever someone mentions "Duncan".

Tales of the Blight: I've got the Magic Magic Magic

[Part of my Dragon Age: Origins play through. Spoilers ahead!]

On the road to Lake Calenhad we come across an abomination, a mage tampering with illegal magics, and destroy it. Seems that was the theme of the day as upon arrival at the lake we learn that something is up with the Circle of Magi who live in the tower in the middle of it. After killing some random cultists we rowed out there and were met with the templar guards in a panic, and learn from Knight-Commander Greagoir that the tower has been infested by abominations thanks to the infiltration of blood mages. I offer to help and load up on supplies before the team is locked in with the rest of the horrors.

Not as scary as this.

Surprisingly the next area is quite clear, with some mages having managed to barricade themselves with magic. I recognize their leader, Wynne, as someone I talked to at Ostagar but she recognizes Morrigan to be an "apostate" - a mage outside the Circle of Magi which is almost like an abomination to them. She refuses to let Morrigan exist and while I was keen to see who had the stronger magic her first attack was on -me-. This led to the slaughter of the Wynne and the remaining mages.

With them out of the way we managed to progress higher fighting the true enemies, the explosive abominations, demons (some sexy ones), undead, mind controlled knights (who I had to kill) and blood mages. One defeated blood mage spilled the beans that Loghain promised to help them in their schemes before I executed her. All is going swimmingly well after I learned Morrigan's cool combo of Cone of Cold followed by Stone Fist to shatter enemies. That is until we run into a Sloth Demon who manages to put the entire party to sleep through cut scene magic!