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: People of Importance

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

The assembly of lords at Orzammar listen to the tale of how I sort of killed two of their Paragons and destroyed one of their legendary artifacts and are then forced to swallow that I get to pick who their next king is, regardless of their previous voting. Obviously I chose Harrowmont and Bhelen and his supporters get so upset that they are moved to violence right there and then! After all of them violently die, Harrowmont agrees to assist in the war against the darkspawn. I even convince the Dead Legion commander to do the same.

Damn this thing is heavy!

I take a tour of the palace afterwards and find a poisoned noble lady within. Fortunately she doesn't need some hard to get holy ashes, just reagents and herbalism to sort her out. With nothing left to do here I decide to first visit Denerim again to try finish up any out standing side quests such as getting drake and dragon scale armor constructed, as well as meeting a boss figure of the Antivan Crows assassin group who tries to hire me. Needless to say I make sure he and his cronies do not leave the encounter alive.

Since lots of areas are still closed off to me, I decide to ultimately return to Arl Eamon and get him to call for the Landsmeet and travel with him to his estate back in Denerim. Lots of back and forth, I know! Loghain, his female body guard, and Arl Howe come to welcome us right away in person. After exchanging a few, not so polite or subtle words they leave and it's time to work on uniting the land!

Tales of the Blight: Into the Deep

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

While Lord Harrowmont was happy with the result he needed to swing more voters to him and tasked me to next take down Jarvia's crime syndicate which operated out of dust town. It took a little while to find the entry to her secret lair, not helped by getting attacked by Prince Bhelen supporters, and an even longer while to clear the whole place before finally finding the crime lord and defeating her in what was a pretty decent showdown thanks to her hard to detect/disarm traps.

Harrowmont still needed more though and next tasked me to find Paragon Branka who took her entire clan into the Deep Roads two years ago. The same Deep Roads that the darkspawn are always in... great. Approaching the entrance we are stopped by a drunk warrior named Oghren, Branka's ex-husband, who demands to come along as he has been waiting for the day to search for her. He also claims his knowledge can help track her down so I accept, sending Quickly back to camp to keep Leliana company - and to keep an eye on Schmooples!

Just look at that fiendish face!

It's not long before we run into decently tough darkspawn, shrieks, and raptor like deep stalkers in the winding maze of claustrophobic tunnels. We also start finding bagged body parts which is a bit unsettling. At Carradin's Cross we also run into some of Prince Bhelen's cronies who are a nice change from the numerous darkspawn we've been fighting on the way. Deeper in, the giant spiders, stone golems and dwarven spirits also help break the monotony a little but it still feels really grindy. Actually the spider queen down here puts up a very tough fight, and only through throwing blizzards around the corner do we manage to beat it!

Tales of the Blight: Gladiator

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

Next stop was the Frostback Mountains and the gateway to the dwarven city of Orzammar. After eliminating some bounty hunters on the road we find the gates to the city closed due to the death of their king. There's also a small group of Loghain's men trying to get in to gain favour but while they are denied, my team bearing the Grey Warden treaties are accepted. This causes some dispute and the deaths of Loghain's men.

Upon entering Orzammar I quickly learn about the caste structure of the dwarves, and find that in the dirt district dwarven thugs are just as pathetic as thugs of any other race. After offing a smuggler and catching a strange rabbit-pig for Leliana which she names Schmooples, it's time to get down to the business of sorting out an alliance here and that means expediting putting a king on the throne.

The candidates are Lord Harrowmont, who the previous king expicitly wanted to reign after him, and Prince Bhelen, the actual son of the former king. I'm not really sure at first who to support until I find out that Bhelen's camp wants me to lie for him. By default this means I support Harrowmont and to prove it I take part in the "Proving" arena tournament on his behalf and win the entire contest, including the optional "lesser games" (which are actually harder).

How to beat dwarf warriors: Stand a little to the side. :P