The Necromancer, Knight-enchanter, And Rift Mage.

Ursula K. Le Guin

If you’re bad enough at DA2, you can imagine that Varric keeps saying “…And then they died” every five minutes, which pisses Cassandra off to no end because it’s a lie, she knows it’s a lie, but he keeps doing it and she gets so into the story that she falls for it every time and just screams in pure rage.

Faraway views (right lens of my binoculars)

oh wait. fun design element, time to read into it too much

so: like the other companions, bull has a few specially-modeled armor designs in addition to his default. here they are.

notice that he's never seen without his giant belt. it's thicker than the ones other characters have, which are mostly just for holding up their pants, and it doesn't sit near his hips. he's wearing it so it wraps around his core muscles, supporting the area between his rib-cage and his pelvis. the way he wears it makes it resemble a back brace, or maybe a lifting belt.

bull is hauling incredibly heavy weapons the size of his entire body around all the time, and for as much as he plays like he doesn't care about his safety, he’s both forward-thinking and already disabled - he wears a leg brace, is missing an eye and some of his digits, probably more he never mentions. the belt he's always wearing is so he doesn't fuck up his back.

Herren the Desire demon.

So one of the best minor twists in the original Dragon Age Origins, is the reveal that Herren is a desire demon, a reveal you will only ever learn if you play through the alternate timeline campaign Darkspawn chronicles where the main PC Warden dies and the darkspawn wins.

I love how this one, simple revelation completely turns over everything that the first game tells you about demons and spirits on it's head, something which would be expanded on in later games, but also how it fits in perfectly with everything else shown in the game.

While abominations creates absolute hideous monsters when formed, Desire demon abominations march to a completely different drum, as we see with Connor, where the demon leaves him perfectly physically healthy.

Desire Demons also are the only ones in game who flat out does not need an outside body at all to function, as shown with Kitty not having possessed a cat, but instead taken the form of one.

They also have far more well thought out and logical plan making than any other demons, capable of making plans that could actually work in the long run.

Which brings us back to Harren, the lover and business partner of the genius blacksmith who forges your best blade in awakening, and dragon armor in origins.

Here we see a Demon that has integrated completely into human society, has found an actual relationship with a human that satisfies his needs, and as shown with the way he acts exasperated by his lovers eccentric nature, he has clearly grown beyond the basic nature of a desire demon, into a human who at the end of the day, still retained his demonic powers(as we see in the darkspawn chronicles.

In other words, he is a demon version of Cole, introduced long, long before Cole was a thing.

I love how you can go back to the start of Dragon Age, and realize that they really had figured out the rules of this universe from day one.

I was going to say… that perhaps you're more concerned with whether or not people talk about what you and I may be doing behind closed doors… than with what we actually are doing.

Source: posted to Twitter just now by Jon Renish [link]

Transcript:

"Terminated BioWare Employees Sue for Better Severance On August 23 of this year, Edmonton video game studio BioWare ULC terminated 50 employees without cause. In most recent court cases of termination without cause, Alberta Courts have awarded at least one month of severance pay per year of service, with the full value of all benefits included; the severance that BioWare offered to these employees was significantly less than this amount. Several of those ex-employees attempted to negotiate with BioWare for adequate severance, but BioWare refused to increase its severance amounts. Seven employees, with an average of 14 years at BioWare, have refused to accept BioWare's low offers, and have filed a Statement of Claim with Alberta's Court of King's Bench, requesting fair severance pay and including a request for punitive damages for what they say is unreasonably poor treatment by BioWare. "In light of the numerous recent industry layoffs and the fact that BioWare's NDAs prevent us from showing any of our recent work on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf in our portfolios, we are very concerned about the difficulty many of us will have finding work as the holiday season approaches," said one of the terminated employees, "While we remain supportive of the game we worked so hard on, and of our colleagues continuing that work, we are struggling to understand why BioWare is shortchanging us in this challenging time." R. Alex Kennedy, counsel for the seven employees, says that even in cases where BioWare has contracts that discuss termination, BioWare may have included illegal provisions: "There are many situations where employers include termination provisions that are not enforced by the Courts," he said, "and I think we see that in this case too. BioWare attempted to reduce its obligation to these employees well below what the courts typically award, including by eliminating benefits from its termination pay - that appears to be contrary to the Employment Standards Code." In Kennedy's opinion, these employees deserve generous severance pay: "These people are artists and creators who have worked very hard and for a very long time in a difficult industry, producing big profits for their employer. Their termination without cause en masse like this calls for a response. Employers here can terminate anyone at any time without cause, but with that right comes a responsibility to the people they put in that situation.""

They're innocent let them go

Can I say something that blows my mind about Varric and Solas’ relationship? Imo Varric was THIS close to actually convincing Solas. we all talk about romanced Lavellan almost getting him to admit everything and possibly give up his plans, but we neeeeddddd to give Varric props like this man was really about to convince a whole ass god (literally named Pride) that he is wrong, that going through with some self destructive attempt at rectifying ur mistakes by destroying the world is Not the proper way to process ur grief, and Varric doesn’t even know he’s doing it. Varric really is the party bard fr the charisma score on this man………..

yes I’m talking about the man on the island banter. Every time I hear it I tear my hair out because VARRIC you almost HAD HIM he was CRUMBLING I just KNOW IT