rachette had a lot of compassion, but only to an extent--willing to give people the benefit of the doubt, let people who make mistakes make up for what they've done. but she also had a pretty strict 'if someone tries to kill you, you kill them right back' policy
ishal went right to redcliffe instead of the circle first bc of how insistent alistair is that arl eamon's support is helpful, and thus learning that he's gravely ill makes that more pressing. thank god there's the suggestion that you can go to the circle to try and get help for connor and kinda lol wish I had actually gone there first now
'I can use blood magic to get you into the fade and you can deal with the demon' actually shut up at this point we might as well just do a child murder. so. like I said thank god someone brought up the circle
ishal would prefer not to kill a kid but has no patience for demons. like these dlc quests, like, I might be missing out on some primo stuff for not even allowing a demon to even suggest to make a deal. just. straight up no time for that you're a demon you get fucked.
I don't recall how rachette felt about demons and blood magic, but she had just. no fucking context for that stuff as a dwarf. that's all new and wild to her.
ishal is a mage who started in a tower and has faced down demons and they are fuckin bad news bears and also if you let one in you you're gonna get your ass templar-murdered
I think my intent with ishal is that he's kind of haughty and prideful but not to a greedy or uncaring extent. he's not as blunt as chette was, bc chette was paradoxically really good at speaking (god bless rogues) but also really blunt with speaking. one of those things where it's like. a difference between the technical gameplay and the personality
ishal meanwhile I'm not planning on putting any points into his speaking bc he's a mage you bet your ass all those points are going into magic and mana and also constitution bc health yes please glass cannon, it's both frustrating and funny that he can't pass a single persuasion check
he also gives everyone his name. he's happy to have people know who he is. chette made a point when introductions are being made of only letting them know she's a grey warden. didn't like giving her name.
but here's another thing that's interesting. you'd think as a mage he'd be against circles, cuz he lived it, and the harrowing and the templar reactions to it are unfair, sure. but also he didn't have any troubles himself in the tower, and blood magic is really shitty, and jowan's an asshole and demons are a menace
jowan was so upset at the thought of being tranquil and it's like, dude, don't be rude to the stock keeper tranquils, they still seem like pretty cool dudes with a hint of personality, why you so god damn rude about it
like no I don't think ishal is going to instaside with the templars and decide everyone inside needs to die--I think he's going to have too much personal connection for that. and it would be slightly hypocritical if he's trying to save an abomination of a child without resorting to child murder, right?
but also I think there's going to be some interesting thoughts he has. I'm trying to decide who to take besides shale bc shale is coming with me everywhere and has so far provided some hysterical commentary. morrigan, probably, bc that's gonna be a real interesting perspective. leliana, maybe, so I can loot things?
like I don't think ishal is going to be naturally against the idea of circles. and perhaps somewhat this is because of being an elf. you know how many safe places there are for elves? holy shit you bet your ass the circle's nicer than an alienage
like my inquisitor wasn't necessarily for or against circles bc being qunari she wasn't subjected to that, that's a whole wild new thing. but she thought the idea of them was neat, thanks to vivienne
god bless kal'vesh it's gonna be hard playing someone not-her when I get to dai. she was such a dumbass. constantly confused about everything going on around her. a blessing. a big beefy brickhouse of a qunari mage with questionable taste in makeup
I don't know what my hawke's gonna be like in this run. anamaria was cool with mages and with templars, just knew that there were bad seeds in both of them and was not a fan of blood magic and thus got REAL fuckin disappointed in orsino
I'm not sure if hawke'll be a mage but probably a rogue and then the inquisitor a warrior just so all my PCs are different from what they originally were
also I think if at all possible I want to have ishal survive. literally the only reason chette died is bc alistair was very against the idea of makin babies with morrigan and while she absolutely no problem could've persuaded him to do that...
it was the choice she made, as a character with a personality, rather than me trying to game the system like letting zevran live. alistair's whole life was fucked up for being a bastard, she's not gonna make him bring a bastard into the world, to be used for a purpose. no. fuck that. she's going to die killing an elder god dragon.
also while feastday gifts good for speedrunning approval and I don't necessarily mind 'cheating'. I'm not gonna do it. bc I tried it and went 'okay now let's talk to everyone--oh I'm sleeping with morrigan now, oh, okay um-'
def killed a blood mage who was begging for her life bc she wasn't willing to help she was just all 'but revolutionaries have to take the first step and andraste didn't write letters to the tevinter magisters'
first of all I'm an elf I don't care about the chant and the chantry save that it runs the circle so, you wanna talk about revolutionaries go talk to shartan OH WAIT he was EDITED OUT OF THE CHANT
shut morrigan down, she didn't technically out herself as an apostate I just said 'no I'm agreeing to help wynne' instead of asking why morrigan hates circles so much. like. yeah no she already made her stance quite clear
the unfortunate thing is I decided not to bring leliana along for the rest of the tower bc I want to bring shale for e v e r y t h i n g so I'm missing out on SO many chests
first time through I just used a guide and I'll probably do that again this time too lol. yeah and once again just straight up didn't even let the desire demon get a chance, just went 'fuck off demon you don't belong in this world'
honestly, the only reason connor is currently alive is bc ishal does not necessarily...want to murder children if there's a chance to save them and then someone said 'well maybe the circle can help' bc fuck jowan and his blood magic
owain the tranquil is still bopping about and he wasn't sure what to do so he just. wants things to go back as they were and clean up the storehouse. fuck you jowan you could've been a chill tranquil. nooo bloodmage instead
saved connor, uh, I should uh. go kill flemmeth but holy shit I think I need a couple more levels for that. I mean fuck zev joins up a couple levels ahead of me
gonna get zev kitted out aaaaand...hm idk I might go to denerim (HEY THAT'S A BAD IDEA BY THE WAY) to find genitivi and get on the urn quest. I forgot...how...fucking long the entire redcliffe quest as a whole is
like you can ask the sisters about dissonant verses, cuz you know ishal asked if there were elves in the chant and they just straight talk about shartan
and one says that the chant was originally written in tevene and because it has to be translated across many languages you get a lot of things lost or muddled in the mix (and makes reference to some really terrible puns in the orlesian version)
which is...eh I mean history is funky and obviously information changes between games, there is certainly a version of the chant written in tevene but it seems more likely to me that the "original" was likely written in a now-dead language or compiled in, say, proto-orlesian
also she said shartan was thrown on andraste's pyre which is definitely not written in the current chant as we know it, he just gets struck down (by arrows) when he pulls his sword to fight for andraste, and his death leads to everyone else throwing down their weapons
but I love the acknowledgement that translations mean different interpretations of the text and the acknowledgement that parts of it can just be stricken due to changing cultural times
the templars touch on lyrium addiction bc the one standing at the door doesn't really know what's going on around him and quotes the chant a lot and his buddy says yeah he knows who he is and how to do his job and that's about it, he should've retired but he wanted to keep serving in his homeland, the lyrium did this to him
'shawna a lot of this stuff can also be found in the codex-' listen I've read them before when I first played this game many years ago same with mass effect, I'm not spending hours and hours doing it again
also there's that guy that wants to Fite you over the whole cailan thing and I just went 'lol okay but what if I just don't show up to duel you since it's not my honor on the line, bye'
I'm sure rachette was immediately like imma fight this fool but ishal's just 'who even are you, you're wrong, I don't have time for this shit', bye felicia
boutta do goldanna and that's gonna be...hoo boy! a thing. (I did do flemeth and did the thing he normally does with demons: immediately go shut up, I'm going to kill you)
I haven't been playing as every day as I have been, but, sten's quest is done, alistair's quest is done, denerim is about as done as it's gonna be, I can teach someone to be a duelist if I want, I bought the rest of the da2 armor pieces and slapped em on sten, aaaaand
hm did a bunch of chanter board quests and otherwise I think my next move is finally going to haven jfc. not sure who I'm gonna bring...shale and wynne and morrigan? shale and...alistair and dog? hm
not leliana, she's gonna be too gung ho and opinionated and man ishal is not. actually a fan of her. not sten bc even tho I did his quest I know he has some Issues with you trudging up the mountain
I also started plugging in all the choices so far into the da keep, because I realized dao doesn't let you log in anymore probably bc...it...old and whatever servers there were prolly shut down a while ago. shame! but at least I know what things are as I pick them
I can't even manually log in through dao. oh well! (at some point I'll have to snap a screenshot of ishal just to upload his tim russ face to the keep so it's not default mcwhiteboi)
anyway fake andraste is dead, zevran is useless oh god I wish leliana and her lockpicking skills were here, zevran is still way more enjoyable as a character, he and wynne are great, shale alas has had nothing to say, and I'm saved before talking to the guardian
okay healed eamon, went back through haven to lockpick almost everything, had some Conversations, morrigan wanted to sleep with me but shockingly ishal's not really about it. I kinda thought he would be but man I think he's gonna romance zev, didn't see that coming. still gotta build that up tho
I brought shale (who used pronouns for the missing elf werewolf wife which shocked me) and zevran (why not!) and wynne (GOTTA have the heals please for the love of god I need the heals)
also once again being anything other than a rogue is awful, I miss rachette how she could disable all the traps, unlock all the chests, and talk anyone down
in theory if I had dumped all my points into cunning shit to boost up coersion to persuade sure that is a choice I could have made but I also would suck at magic at that point
like it's fine because this makes this a more interesting run, a bunch of sidequests I can't/won't complete, other quests turning out differently just bc of that. but also man fuck it
anyway I'm about to enter tha lair of the werewolf and anyway brecilian forest can suck it and I don't know if I bugged the ritual quest bc I can't put the jug of water on the altar for some reason. unless there's another altar somewhere I missed
(one day. one day I will do some kind of bad end run. with all the worst/least popular decisions. or at least I will make a worldstate for dai to load up that is that. fuck the dalish and take the werewolves. choose templars every time. fun shit you don't normally do)
then I talked to morrigan and she wants to give me The Ring and I'm like ?????????? so I gotta turn her down and piss her off a bit bc what are you talking about, in what fucking dialogue option have I ever initiated a romance??
anyway the intent is to romance zevran bc this playful assassin bastard charmed ishal and while I thought he would go for morrigan bc she's fucking great he does not overly like her
to be fair, I accidentally romanced both leliana and zevran with rachette and wynne gave me right hell about it, so I think it's just something about dao that's just. shitty and buggy about romance so
brought leli around to pick all these locks, bought a whole slew of runes and ruined my bank account for it, Enchanted some shit, donated anything below expert, fucked zev, had a few other Conversations, aaaand I'm about to figure out who to take to orzammar
like as a dwarf this shit was all fascinating but knowing there's so much to do down here as an elf to boot is like uuuuugh, but I'll get some interesting shale stuff
and anyway ishal is more of a traditionalist. not...always. he let the dwarf girl go to the circle. but he's not letting a chantry be opened in orzammar (ishal may have been mor or less raised in the circle but he does not Believe in the chant)
the other thing being rachette was all for alistair as king. a good man with a good heart, and even if he didn't want it, he'd make a good ruler all the same
look alistair doesn't want to do it, anora's basically been running shit for years bc cailan was frankly a meathead, and all eamon's got to argue for it is 'we've had theirin blood on the throne for hundreds of years, something something orlais something'
he did ask anora about marrying alistair and she does eventually make the point of 'wait would he even want that?' no. no he would not fair point I'll back you
AND THE ONLY REASON RACHETTE DIDN'T CONVINCE ALISTAIR EVEN THO HER PERSUASION WAS AT MAX WAS BC OF ALL THE BAGGAGE HE HAS...........WITH BASTARDS AND SHIT........... (and given he was king AND they kind of hate each other AND he didn't want to do it)
but she also says shit about 'we can preserve this ancient soul without the taint, wouldn't that be a cool experiment?' and ishal is actually frankly fucking appalled
alistair (naturally why would he not come, isn't he locked in) wynne (gimmie dem HEALS I know I took her along my first run for the same reason) and shale (SHALE GOES EVERYWHERE WITH ME)
like obviously since rachette was not going to be the dick that compromised alistair's happiness even further to make him do the ritual, and he was king, of course I didn't let him do it before
no he didn't kill the templars (...probably) but he was still being escorted back to the circle. he also didn't spring up jumping up and down going OH LET ME BE A WARDEN so. I'm not conscripting anyone who doesn't want to be here
you know how fucking shitty it is to be a mage without a staff? I'm an arcane warrior so I can fully use this sword that was in my secondary slot, yeah, but where's my fuckin staff
MEAT! GOSH WHAT AN AWFUL LOT OFMEATTHERE IS AROUND HERE. GEE I WONDER WHAT ALL THATMEAT'S ABOUT!-demons are kill on sight
and
-fuck blood magic