Tales of the Blight II: Blackwall

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

Sounds like legitimate banditry.

 

As the only Grey Warden in the Inquisition, it was no surprise that I'd be the one sent to secure an alliance with the dwarves of Orzammar especially now they've asked for aid with all the recent earthquakes disrupting their trade routes and reopening passages for the darkspawn to pour out from.

Soon enough I made contact with a unit of their "Legion of the Dead" in the Deep Roads. They're a good bunch. Tough in a fight. Fearless. Two of them, Renn and Valta, decided to come along to try determine the unnatural nature of the quakes. Down and down we went, killing darkspawn by the dozens, until we reached a place of darkness that even the darkspawn knew better than to enter.

Renn died there in that darkness, against "pure" dwarves infused to lyrium armor. Valta and I pushed on, found what they were guarding: a lyrium heart which Valta thought to be part of a sleeping titan. Somehow she managed to calm it down, stopping the quakes it was causing. She chose to stay with it, with them, to let me return to the surface. She fulfilled her duty. Orzammar was happy with this result, accepting the Inquisition alliance.

Upon my return, Bull asked how I was still alive. I told him the Maker has a soft spot for fools.

Insight: I didn't realize the Deep Roads is a DLC which means it is WAY harder than other content. From it I learned early on you can actually revive downed companions which makes a rogue's invisibility very useful. Doubly so in that you can abuse enemy leashing, and the fact they don't heal. Fights might take awhile but as long as you can get far enough away to get everyone up, you can make progress.

Tales of the Blight II: Kirkwall Refugees

[Part of my Dragon Age 2 play through. Spoilers ahead!]

With darkspawn coming from all sides, Hawke flees with a handful of other refugees into the wilds and is saved in the nick of time by a huge red dragon, who turns out to be the witch Flemeth. In exchange for delivering an amulet of hers, she helps them reach the harbour where Hawke and the remaining survivors sail to Kirkwall (and not to Dunwall, too many Dishonoreds there) to meet his uncle at the gates. Alas said uncle has squandered the family fortune, so he sells Hawke, his sister Beth, and traveling companion Aveline into a year of indentured service to some smugglers while taking Hawke's mother through the city gates.

One handy time skip later and a year has passed, during which time the Hero of Ferelden stopped the blight. Knowing this is the prime time to enter the Deep Roads (home of the darkspawn) in search of treasure, a dwarf named Varric and his brother begin setting up an expedition to delve below. Hawke is welcome to join if he can front the gold as a partner, and knows this is the opportunity to change his family's fortunes now that he's no longer a slave. With zero coin to his name it's time to look for work, starting with his old friend Aveline - now part of the Kirkwall guard who is so good at her job, she finds proof the current guard-captain a corrupt scum and gets him fired.

Guess who is back to eat more of her daughters?

With Beth, the trio can finally also deliver Flemeth's amulet to the Dalish gypsy camp up the mountain where apprentice in exile Merrill performs some blood magic at a mountain top altar, revealing the necklace was a phylactery. Her spell revives a thankful Flemeth, who transforms again into a dragon and flies off. Since none of this really helps his financial situation, the trio soon head back to the smugglers to look for work - at least this time they'll get paid!

Insight: Inventory space is limited so always sell the junk treasure and buy the bag that increases the holding capacity. Also, geez - what a decrease in quality from Dragon Age: Origins!

Tales of the Blight: The Price of War

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

With 50 Redcliffe Soldiers, 50 Dalish elf archers, 50 Dwarven Warriors and 16 Templars behind me I decide to try clear as much of the city as I can before chasing down the archdemon. The darkspawn on the firey streets are all pretty tough, numerous and later on well entrenched, but we persevere - slaying two enemy commanders before marching up to Fort Drakon, the top of which was where the archdemon was last spotted crash landing after Riordan managed to wound the creature. Alas, the Grey Warden himself did not survive the attempt.

Somehow Leliana managed to squirrel herself back to the entry gate too, just as darkspawn reinforcements were coming in but between her, the handful of Denerim soldiers and Quickly, who had transformed into a mighty beast during his long down time, they are no match and are easily driven back. Leliana then magically made it back to the rest of us in time to storm the fort itself, fighting our way past elite darkspawn until finally reaching the roof.

The archdemon was a beast to combat, but thanks to Arl Eamon, Knight-Commander Greagoir, my archers and emplaced ballista it was brought down easily enough even with darkspawn reinforcements coming to its aid. King Alistair, being the "older" Grey Warden and not actually wanting to be king anyway opted to end the beast by stabbing it in the face. An effective move against pretty much everything! With a big explosion, he and the archdemon died and the remaining darkspawn - now leaderless - fled the city. Victory was ours!

Everyone else up there somehow survived.

Friendly losses incurred were: Riordan, King Alistair, 13 of his Templar brothers, 28 elves, 28 dwarves and all the soldiers from Redcliffe.

*Sorry Rakuno: That was a very short summary to eat popcorn to. :P

Tales of the Blight: Ye Olde Rope-a-dope

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

Since Anora will serve as another divider among the lords which cannot be dealt with right now, King Alistair orders her locked away in a tower for the time being while we deal with the blight. We make one last detour though to rob the Tears of Andraste from the pompous lord who set up an ambush for us last time - a pretty easy task. After anonymously donating the artifact to the chantry we head to Redcliffe to fight the darkspawn horde.

Sure enough the village has already fallen by the time we get there. Despite the numerous enemies present they are all lowish level making it a joy to wade through and slaughter. Clearing the castle courtyard is also just as easy. Fortunately the soldiers stationed there kept them out of the castle proper and soon, all the darkspawn are defeated! It is too early to rejoice though as Riordan, a visiting Grey Warden who I previously rescued from Arl Howe's dungeon, arrives to tell us that the main bulk of the horde is heading towards Denerim and there's no way we'll reach it with our forces in time to defend the walls.

We be clever!

That doesn't mean we're not going to try though, and plan to march at first light. This would be the last night before the great battle. Sharing a drink with Oghren, I learn he loves the surface and intends to find some old flame after our victory. At least he's optimistic!

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: I'll be Back

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

Back at Orzammar we have to execute a few of Jarvia's supporters before finding our way back to the Deep Roads. Thankfully with most of the darkspawn heading topside, nothing here has respawned and it is just a simple task of jogging all the way back to that Brood Mother who stopped us last time. She has no such luck now as we are higher level, better equipped, and literally are exploding with health potions. Morrigan even has a group healing spell now so that fat tentacled thing is toast in no time!

Eventually we find Paragon Branka who is still alive, having spend all this time using her own clan to test the traps Paragon Caridin left to guard the Anvil of the Void, which Branka is obsessed about. She forcefully enlists us too, and after fighting through a ton more darkspawn (because that's not getting old *ironic voice*) I finally reach the easily disarmable traps (for our level) and find said anvil and Paragon Caridin who has now had his soul put into a golem.

For the Emperor?

Turns out this anvil requires the death of dwarves to be put into golems and that doesn't sit well with Caridin or myself, which makes us ally against Branka when she comes bouncing along to try claim it for herself. After she is killed by her ex-husband Oghren, I help caridin to destroy the device by... hammering it? Um. Ok. But not before he fashions a fancy crown to help me sort out the dwarf king issue back at the city. Caridin then offs himself by jumping into some lava. Very terminator.

Tales of the Blight: Not so Simple

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

The only thing left between us and the Urn of Andraste's Sacred ashes is a gauntlet meant to test pilgrims who have come to pay tribute, and boy what scummy tests they are. The first room is one of riddles which is solved easily enough if you listen to the question enough times. Then there's a part where you fight your doppelganger (because Andraste is a sadist I guess) followed by an irritating bridge building puzzle that took me ages to solve.

I hate you, logic puzzle!

Only after all of that do we finally get to our objective, and with a pinch of the sacred ashes in hand we return immediately to Redcliffe and cure Arl Eamon who is brought up to speed rather quickly about all the events that transpired while he was in his coma. He's a pretty cool dude, and is not too upset about me hacking up his demon possessed kid earlier. He even suggests calling a Landsmeet at Denerim to get all the lords to rally together and put an end to Loghain's civil war, as well as putting Alistair forward as king.

I say that's all well and good and to go call it, but he refuses until I use up all the treaties I'm carrying to get more allies. Damn, he means the dwarves doesn't he? Oh well. Without any choice we head back to Orzammar, dealing with random darkspawn forces on the road AND in camp on the way. Looks like the archdemon is starting to think we're a threat if he's sending monstrous assassins after us.

Tales of the Blight: Drama Camp

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

Back at camp the girls are giving me issues and forcing me to pick one over the other ever since I gave that special spell book (earlier found in the mage tower) to Morrigan. Having forced my hand, I pick Morrigan over Leliana because she is simply more useful. The witch is delighted and asks me to slay her mother, Flemeth, next because apparently Flemeth likes taking the bodies of her daughters as a form of immortality. That's nice.

Alistair also shares that Grey Wardens have around 30 years to live after ingesting the darkspawn juice, because well... its poison. The older wardens feel the taint get stronger and thus are drawn to the deep roads to go out killing as many dark spawn as possible. While on the subject he mentions he has a sister in Denerim that he wants to visit before things go bad.

I'm the pretty one!

Meanwhile Oghren is so drunk that he hasn't realized he's no longer in the Deep Roads, and Leliana is broken up for the shortest time before she decides to share an elven song with the party, and then continues to bed me. Wait what? Did I break the game or something? Oh well, not complaining! ;P 

Quickly doesn't care. He's a dog, and he's always happy. :D

Tales of the Blight: Sod the Dwarves

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

Kinda getting sick of all these tunnels and darkspawn now, and as we come across the great bridge of the Dead Trenches where we assist a handful of Dead Legion dwarves cross into the enemy line we see the staggering number of darkspawn marching below - following the call of the "archdemon" dragon (who luckily doesn't notice us despite having some sort of psychic link). The dwarves aren't that keen on helping us find Branka, whose trail leads deeper into enemy territory so it's soon just my squad again making slow progress through the irritating zig zag path.

The design also lends itself to cheap traps like spawning enemies out of thin air to flank you. Fortunately all are triggered harmlessly by my solo stealth scouting. After a lot of effort we finally reach the end and find a crazed dwarf (second crazy one we meet down here) who is going loony from not just eating darkspawn but also her fellow kin. She blames all of this on paragon Branka whose trail leads deeper still. Only one problem, there's a hideous tentacled broodmother boss in the way.

Come to mamma!

Try as we might, we simply don't have the firepower or health potions to shave off the last 5% of her life. Eventually I simply throw my hands up in the air and yell "Sod the dwarves!" and take my team not just back to Orzammar, but elsewhere entirely. I'll just let the short folk vote for their next king and force him to acknowledge the treaty, surely that would be less work.

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: Ruined the Game

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

Urgh. Ruins. So. Stupid. Filled with spiders, undead and traps galore I learned quickly to stealth scout ahead at each room. There are also spirits speaking some sort of dead language, but none of it matters because everything is hostile. Pointless, stupidly long with the only highlight being a small dragon at one section who came with a small dragon hoard.

Eventually we managed to swim into the lair of the werewolves where we had to fight even more of the furry scum. Really? I'm thinking of just wiping them out because of how annoying it was to get here, and how annoying their entire attitude is in general. Just as I kill my, I don't know - hundredth werewolf they finally want to talk. OMG. Fine. I opt to parley and are finally taken to their leader who reveals Zathrien is the one who cursed them. All he needs to do is lift the curse to cure them and his own people.

Conveniently, Zathrien appears nearby to "check on our progress" so we bring him down to talk to the wolves. His lust for revenge is insatiable so I end up fighting him and his foresty summoned allies before he finally concedes. He lifts the curse which kills him AND the alpha wolf, but cures all the infected and returns them to normal. Really? He could have just done that from the start? WTF. Stupid, waste of time mission. Even the random Spider Queen forest encounter on the way back was more exciting.

 

My reaction through most of this.

Anyway the replacement elf leader agrees to honor the treaty and promises their forces against the darkspawn. Man that was annoying though. It's one of those segments that seemed to be long just for the sake of being long, and that is never a good thing.

Tales of the Blight: Assassins

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

With the castle clear we were finally free to see Arl Eamon, still in a coma thanks to Loghain's poison. His wife Isolde was obviously not on speaking terms with me, so it was up to Ban Teagan to suggest I go look for some sacred ashes that might be able to cure him. That was actually the reason most of his knights were away, they were all on a grail ... erm... ash quest. Deciding that maybe one of their knights can do that we go off to do other things (small skirmishes) first like helping some refugees against darkspawn, templars against undead, and Bannorn soldiers against Loghain's troops. Then we walk into an ambush!

Look out for the counter-kills!

A pretty decent ambush with a pretty lure, a good number of skilled enemies and a bunch of well placed traps. Unfortunately for them, my party was simply better. After beating them up I question their leader, an elf assassin named Zevran about who sent him. He openly admits that it was Loghain. Actually he's a pretty funny guy. I decide to let him live by offering him a different job - assassinating Loghain. He refuses because he's scared. Pity. That means he is also useless. After many hours of torture I feed what's left of him and his buddies to Quickly then continue on.

That night Leliana confides that she is actually being hunted by a past acquaintance in Orlais (France?) and that she was an assassin. She also kisses me, despite knowing what Morrigan and I get up to. The next day, what a surprise! Another ambush. Those hunters from Orlais are kind of annoying, so despite Leliana's protests I execute the captives after we get all the information we need from them. The important one being that their employer is in Denerim.

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: Party +3

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

With almost all the tasks done in Lothering we entered the tavern for a well earned pint of milk but are attacked by a handful of Loghain's troops. A red headed girl named Leliana in chantry robes helps defend us in the melee and after I kill off the last of the surrendering cowards she asks to join the party, having had a vision from the Creator telling her to do so. She might be crazy but she's handy with a knife and sort of cute so I take her along. I do -NOT- take along the psycho in the cage outside though.

But I'm hurt in the feels?

It's pretty clear that the big brute Sten could be another party member but for the crime of killing a bunch of good people who nursed his wounds I don't give a shit how much remorse you have. It's unfortunate there is no option to execute him so I just leave him there as darkspawn food. After killing some desperate refugees who were also after the bounty on my head (Alistair's head too), I rescue a dwarven pair of merchants from darkspawn and convince them to get outta dodge.

Apparently they took this as "please join us on our travels" for some reason and are now part of my camp. It's handy to have a vendor and enchanter traveling with us though. After getting bad dreams which turn out to be "communicating with the darkspawn leader telepathically due to the grey warden joining ritual" I chat with the team for awhile, listening to Leliana's stories, learning Alistair is a funny bastard, and agreeing with Morrigan's suggestion that we go directly to Denerim to face our enemies immediately.

Tales of the Blight: All According to Plan

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

Upon arrival at Ostagar I am soon tasked with getting the other recruits, Daveth the rogue, Ser Jory and Alistair the templar (technically not a recruit) together for a "joining ritual". Well, that sounds dirty. First up is a fetch quest of blood of darkspawn, which is easy given the number of the things around, and old papers which we find with swamp resident Flemeth and her daughter who hand them over with no issues.

Back at camp it's stage two - the drinking phase, from a ludicrously huge cup! Daveth goes first and dies. Yep. It can prove fatal. Jory freaks out and doesn't want to drink so Duncan guts him instead. Lucky last I obviously survive and become a true Grey Warden initiate. Would sure be a quick game otherwise! Anyway it's soon time to battle that dark spawn horde and the plan involves the brash, glory seeking King Cailan (and the other Grey Wardens) to lure the bad dudes into position where General Loghain's forces can then charge down their flank. Fool proof!

Alistair and I (*woof!*) ... and Quickly ... are tasked with lighting the beacon atop the nearby tower to signal when Loghain should charge. Only problem is no one actually checked the tower before the battle and when we get there it is crawling with darkspawn. Fortunately a mage of the circle, who I call "Ted", joins us as we fight our way all the way to the top, defeating a towering ogre guarding the beacon fire. With the bacon lit... mmm bacon... I mean... beacon, Loghain gives the order...

Sound the retreat!

Wait did they change the plan on us? Looks like no one told the King either as we get a good view of him, Duncan, and the rest of the "bait team" getting slaughtered. Before we can contemplate what's going on, more darkspawn show up and knock us out. Damn you uncontrollable cinematic battles.

Tales of the Blight: Rail Roaded

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

It's a busy day in my home of Cousland Castle as everyone is preparing to fight the darkspawn (monster things) to the South. There's also a grey warden named Duncan here looking for recruits and asks what I think of that. I shoot him down immediately. Grey Wardens? Please. I'd much prefer to stay in the castle and bed all the visiting ladies and handmaidens, or just maidens in general. After getting my cute but effective war dog (who I name "Quickly") out of the pantry I do just that with an elf lass named Iona but our fun is interrupted when an arrow finds its way into her head.

Why didn't you dodge!?

Our supposed "ally" Arl Howe decided to attack once Ferghus, my elder brother, took the majority of the troops ahead to the battle. With only a handful of defenders it is clear the castle is falling, despite me thoroughly killing all enemy soldiers on the map I can find. Fortunately there's a secret passage to escape the carnage, but only Duncan, Quickly and I make it out alive. Duncan asks again if I can join the Grey Wardens since his other choice sort of died earlier. I strongly tell him again "NO" and then he goes all legal on me enforcing conscription. Way to railroad me dude. I suppose that's still better than the Witcher's Law of Surprise.

And so it's off to Ostagar to fight the dark spawn. Woo? At least Quickly doesn't seem bothered by it.