Dragon Age: Origins, or “Oh, Alistair!”
Warning, this post will contain MASSIVE SPOILERS!!!! If you haven’t played through the game and want to experience it all for yourself, then please please please stop reading now.
So, I only asked for one specific thing this Christmas from my family: Dragon Age: Origins. My mother, who is apparently inept at finding computer games, made me go to Target with her to purchase the game about 2 weeks prior to Christmas. I stood in line, paid for it, even had to get my license scanned because of its M rating. I was hoping that maybe I’d get to have a little taste of it early since I am the one who actually “got it”, but no, I watched as my mother wrapped it up and put it under the tree. I felt like a teenager again, waiting for Christmas so I could go unwrap Chrono Trigger for my SNES, or FFVII for my Playstation. I started counting down days until I actually got to play the game, and not until Christmas. I actually got it on Christmas Eve, and started it that night after the kids went home.
A week and a half later I have beaten this game twice. I can honestly say that it is the best PC game I have ever played. Which is saying a lot considering how much time and energy I have invested in WoW. I would put them on different tiers though. WoW is neverending, there is no personal story for your character outside of what you create for it. You go through the same quests and things everyone else does, you are no different than the other players. Dragon Age on the other hand sucks you in, gives your character a significant role and background, choices you make affect the course of the story. The story and how you can manipulate it, really are what makes it such a great game.
My first run through I went through most of the game blind, I played a City Elf Warrior. Being captured by the Arl’s son, the threat of abuse and rape, it was mildly disconcerting. I found myself pleased when she was standing over the corpse of the man who had stolen her from her wedding, killed her fiance, and ravaged her cousin. It would have been a great start to a terrible and vengeful warden, someone who took the injustices of her people and spat it in the faces of the rest of the world. Instead, I gave her a paladin’s heart. I’ve become a sucker for the noble and good characters in my old age. I find myself wanting to really dissect that. If this had been ten years ago, the moment my character met Alistair, I would have wanted her to cut his throat. Instead, I was enchanted, amused, and genuinely liked him. After looking around the internet for a while, seems I’m not the only one. It got to the point that I experienced something that hasn’t happened with a lot of video games, I had become Seriously Emotionally Invested (A future blog topic!). I knew that they had given me this great character for my character to fall in love with and they were going to take him away from me somehow. If the Baldur’s Gate Series, and Neverwinter Nights series has taught me anything, its that they will find a way to make things end on a sad note. Once I realized this I decided to no longer fly blind. I had to find a way to make a happy ending. Maybe it was me being selfish, but dammit for once I wanted the happy ending. I wanted all the bells and whistles and good things to happen. I wanted to keep Alistair.
I mean the guy had me with “Have you ever licked a lampost in winter?” and “Besides my unholy love for fine cheeses and a minor obsession with my hair, no.” His dialogue is some of the best in the game, if not the most touching at times, and funniest at others. So I set out on my own personal quest for my elf to keep him, keep him from being king, and living through destroying the archdemon. It broke my heart to make him sleep with Morrigan, really it did. But it was for the best right? I tell you right now that little decision is probably going to come back and kick everyone who played the game in the ass in subsequent sequels/expansions. I beat my first run through in about 43-45 hours. We lived happily ever after rebuilding the Grey Wardens.
I started a new character immediately after beating it. A human noble rogue, who didn’t know it when she started in the game, but I was going to make her queen. I could have explored the other relationships in the game, the different ways the game could end for sad and bad. But dammit, to me that queen position seemed the ultimate happy ending. So after about 53 more hours of gameplay, my dear Elissa Cousland, sits on Ferelden’s throne with her King Alistair. I did some things different the second time around though. I saved at key points in the game. I have half a mind to go back this evening, load the game I saved before agreeing to Morrigan’s offer and refusing her, so I can get all weepy when Alistair either eulogizes me, or he sacrifices himself for me.
Its strange to me, really, that I find replay value in this game. Its part story, its part the character interactions. I’m definitely going to be going in with a male character at some point and exploring all the options there as well. I just had to experience all the good with Alistair before I went any other direction in game. I became mildly obsessed with achieving that. The game has done something else though, it has sufficiently lit a fire under my ass to do some fanart. I want to draw my characters. I want to draw Alistair. Hell, I want to draw Morrigan. So keep an eye out here, I’ll be posting it when I get it done. 
A Tale of Two Paladins, Part 1.
The paladins, sometimes known as the Twelve Peers, were the foremost warriors of Charlemagne‘s court, according to the literary cycle known as the Matter of France.[1] They first appear in the early chansons de geste such as The Song of Roland, where they represent Christian martial valor against the Saracen hordes.
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The paladin is a hybrid class with the ability to play a variety of different roles — including healing (Holy), tanking (Protection), and DPS (Retribution). They have auras, blessings and seals that provide useful buffs for other players while withstanding heavy physical damage with plate armor and strong defensive abilities. Paladins are also considered to be holy knights[1] or blood knights.
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The paladin is one of the standard playable character classes in most editions of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.[1] The paladin is a holy knight, crusading in the name of good and order, and is a divine spellcaster. From 1st through 3rd edition, paladins were always of the Lawful Good alignment.
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Prefacing this post is three quotes as you can see. Though it is only about to specific characters I write, I felt a little background on the title they bear would bring my fascination with them to light. I have read Cligès, Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, and Perceval, the Story of the Grail by Chrétien de Troyes, as well as The Song of Roland. These works made me fascinated by the Holy Warrior, the Righteous Knight, and the Chivalrous Hero. Though these characters were bound to their religious beliefs, it was not the religion that fascinated me. More to the fact of their complete devotion to their code, their ideals, more than the works they did for their God.
I’ve started playing Dungeons and Dragons in 1997, it led me to play other table top games similar to it. Mostly I would play a fighter class or a rogue/thief class. Always in the thick of battle these characters were. It wasn’t until many years later, I discovered I rather enjoyed the healing classes, the clerics in these games. I never have played a paladin in a table top game. I was always dissuaded from it because of the alignment restriction, Lawful Good, also described as Lawful Stupid. The paladin was the greater moral compass for any group. Thieves hated them, those of chaotic alignment, even if good always seemed to be chafed by a paladins presence. They were more trouble in a campaign than what they were truly worth. So, I always steered clear even with my penchant for the tales of paladins in Arthurian legends. I could go into the root of the word, and discuss the palatinus, the Imperial Guard of Ancient Rome, but I’ll spare all of you and finally get to the actual meat of my post.
I play a Paladin in World of Warcraft. In this game I am not burdened by the alignment restriction placed upon playing such a character in D&D. The decisions I make in game, have no effect on whether or not my character can continue being a paladin. I love Kasxa, she was the second character I made and actually actively leveled. She is now my primary character in the game. I took on the role of healer with her, a tender of wounds, instead of the Righteous Knight going into the heat of battle.
She looks rather harmless does she not? While the game doesn’t support a way to define your character beyond class, race, and gender, I have found myself developing a rich back story and personal motivations for this character. I have many other characters I play in WoW, but none I have made such an attachment too. Her background involves her brother wanting to become a knight of Lordaeron, her family’s death during the scourge plague, her fostering in the cathedral in Stormwind, her training as a Paladin, and her striking it out on her own. I even fancy that she’ll someday discover that her brother still lives. Well calling him alive is saying a lot. Before the most recent expansion I had determined that her brother had become a Forsaken, an undead warrior. Now it seems more fitting that he would be a Death Knight. It would be such a sweet polarity. I tend to think of the bittersweet moment when they finally meet one another again, and realize who each other are. Of course, I’m not much of a writer really, so these ideas, this background and storyline will probably never see any further details than this blog.
Visually I get somewhat aggravated with gear choices. The items they choose to make specifically for a paladin, never really seem to fit with the idea I have for her in my head. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the crystal power ranger-like tier 5 set (easily seen as my Twitter background), but it just didn’t seem to fit with the idea of a holy warrior. I know its a fantasy game and things will look different than expected. Still it defeats a bit of my own personal immersion into my character. When I show my helm, she looks more like a steampunk militant nun, than a warrior of the light.
In our next entry, we’ll go into Kasxa, only a little bit more, but this time it will be comparing her to my most recent paladin character, Moira, who I made on Neverwinter Nights 2. Until next time, when I can ramble and bore you more!
A Beginning, Let’s Talk Worgen…
So what initially made me decide to create this blog, was the fact that I occasionally go on these WoW Lore related rants on my guild forums. It turns out that honestly the rest of my guild is not as interested in talking lore, or rather they don’t like using the forums for such discussions. So here’s where this blog comes on. I can rant on all these lovely lore speculations or just generally what I enjoy about the things I choose to have in my life.
Enough off topic though, lets get down to the nitty gritty.
Worgen as a possible Alliance race in the next expansion, and why I think it could be lore feasible.
Others have probably had similar musings, honestly I’ve only skimmed over other websites reporting the possibility. So this is my take on things.
Worgen are located in 4 locations in Azeroth, in the northern part of Ashenvale, the Eastern portion of Duskwood, Silverpine Forest, and The Grizzly Hills in Northrend. We can group these 4 locations into 2 groups. The ones brought into Azeroth by the Scythe of Elune, and the ones brought in by Arugal. It is never actually stated (as far as I have looked into it) that Arugal used the Scythe, so for the sake of the speculation I’m going to say he did not.
Now shrug off those Worgen in Ashenvale and Duskwood. We’re going to focus on Arugal’s boys. Compared to the other Worgen in the world, Arugal’s minions (sons) can actually shift between the wolf-man form and human. Pyrewood, the village at the foot of Shadowfang Keep, is actually very friendly with alliance players during the daylight hours, only to become a town of slavering wolf-men at night. Arugal, in his experimentation, seemed to have found a way to control the curse which the Worgen bestowed on men. Right next door to Pyrewood and Shadowfang Keep is the Greymane Wall. The people of Gilneas are considered to be in favor of their isolation. What if they agreed with Genn Greymane’s wall to keep themselves from spreading an infection. Perhaps the denizens of Gilneas were cursed with becoming Worgen like their neighbors. Yes, yes I know this is an old rumor, and has recently been brought up again, but I think it has a valid foundation due to geography and the fact that the people of Gilneas were followers of the Light.
Why bring up that they are followers of the Light? Perhaps during the waking hours of the day, when the people there did not turn into slavering wolf-men they worked to control their curse. Perhaps the holy men of Gilneas were able to free its people from the blood thirst inherent to the curse that afflicted them all. In doing so, it would allow for them to once again venture from their wall, and rejoin the world at large. What about Genn? Well, at this point in the story perhaps Genn has finally passed on and his successor is ready to open the gates finally.
Going back to the people being able to free themselves of the curse, at least that which makes them evil and malicious, I can use an example of the trapper and his wife during a quest in the Grizzly Hills. It’s obvious that the trapper cares about his wife (both are infected Worgen), but he would rather see her and himself dead than to give up information about Arugal. He would rather spare her and himself whatever torture Arugal would inflict on them both for betraying him by allowing them both to be killed. To me that shows that they still hold human emotional attachments, and thus opens up the possibility of willpower overcoming the evil of the curse.
I suppose in the end though, its all a matter of perspective. Do I really think there will be a playable Worgen race in the next expansion? I don’t know, but it sure is fun to think about.
