...Here's the link to the gdoc I'm writing it on because the chances of me ever finishing it are minimal so you might as well see what's there Comments are on, feel free to.
So I briefly played... I think it was some of Origins at a friend's house years ago on her console but spent most of the time on character creation (as one does). I just bought Origins and I'm going to play it. I thought I would mention so here.
I played for a while last night. My character is an elf-version of my fantroll Skisko. My only current self objective is to make decisions that are in character so far. So far I am having many fun.
Can we have a discussion post? I love DA discussion posts. Let's talk about Mage Rights(tm). I have exactly one friend that agrees with me when I say that mages should be watched over. I'm not pro Circle or Chantry, but the way I see it, when you have a group of people that are born with an ability that no one else will ever be able to experience in their lives, it's not at all surprising that the muggle masses are going to be resentful. Tevinter isn't a one-off anomaly; most people like the feeling of being in power, of having more than others. All you need is a small handful of people that are greedy. Add in blood magic and the whole 'consorting with demons' thing, and a small group could easily take over an entire city. HOWEVER, I think the current situation re: mages is pretty fuckin' awful. Killing a mage because they took just a bit too long in their Harrowing? Taking them away from their families for no reason other than being born into magic? That's how you get radicals. Spoiler also anders is a terrorist. I love him, he's one of my favourite characters because of his flaws, but he is a literal terrorist, and it's one of my personal fandom pet peeves that so many people write off the fact that he blew up the fucking Chantry to prove a point.
I think collegiate systems are infinitely better than the Chantry in terms of actually helping stop horrible mage blowups and demonic posessions and the like, and I absolutely despise the Circle as is exists in southern Thedas but I... tend to feel the same way wrt "when you can be born with the ability to randomly summon fire on accident in a barn without knowing until ten people are dead, sometimes people will be justifiably scared". Which isn't to say that, for instance, a horrible barn fire couldn't be caused by a smart child or a mischievous child or any other variation of child and tinder too close together, or that magic makes someone inherently corruptible when demonic possession can happen to non-mages too, but it's a thing that you're born with that you need to learn to control. I think that, as it stands, the way people are taught to control it is very, very flawed, because the Chantry is so incredibly toxic as an institution that it has created an atmosphere where every major country in Thedas adheres, in some way, to those toxic standards. I mean, Tevinter was a deeply flawed empire even before the advent of the Chantry, but the whole practice of using demons and blood magic in secret while accusing non-bloodmages of being maleficars is a practice tied, fundamentally, to Chantry teachings about magic as a whole. The problem with mages is sort of a problem of worldbuilding, I think. At least as it stands now. Because to make any Chantry characters seem like anything other than preachers of a corrupt and failed institution (a thing that I don't really think succeeds because even the characters I like, I like in spite of their alignment with the Chantry and the Circles, not because of it) they had to make the Dangers Of Magic very apparent. So we end up with the Avvar still killing mages that fail their own variant of training, when they're the most tolerant society we see of magic. We get stuff with Dalish clans having different methods for dealing with their own mages, but some of those methods involve death too (especially once, again, the Chantry as a focus needed to feel less evil in comparison.) It's rough and it's frustrating because Mages Rights is a super interesting issue, but Thedas is a goddamn hellscape of plagues, wars, and plague wars, so any forward momentum on trying to make mages people gets recontextualized in the "but because they're people they're also terrible, check out these millions of murders man" way. I fucking love these games but my GOD the politics of the world are exhausting and depressing to live in.
To be fair, they only do that if the young mage imbued with a helper spirit starts going kind of abomination-shaped, but... yeah. At least they're as humane as it's possible to be about it. :/
Guess who's playing Inquisition on his brother's PS4! It's me! My character is a badass flirtatious bisexual Qunari warrior lady, who is starting to think there might be some truth to this whole "Andraste" thing.
or an adhd child w a somewhat resentful older sibling, as it turns out (I was five. my sister was almost ten. she's the one who showed me where the matches were kept. but really, it's dad's fault for leaving us alone to go to the bathroom) edit: basically, my point is children don't need magic to be terrifying. and ppl on the whole are plenty dangerous w/o magic. if mythbusters has taught me anything, it's that you don't need magic to make a fireball
The terrifyingness of mages seems to be a bit overstated, anyway. Yeah, the PC can cast big flashy spells, but it seems like the average mage might have trouble with dangerous magic. Look at Minaeve: she doesn't like fighting, she's not good at it. Her strength is in research. And Tevinter, despite its many, many, many problems, has not actually burned to the ground and doesn't have demons overrunning the streets. Also, look at Rivain. They were doing pretty well for themselves with how they handled mages and spirits; it was the Chantry that had an issue with it because it wasn't their way of handling mages. Rivainis just shrugged and adopted something Circle-like and went on as before (until the fucking templars threw a fit about it...) The Chantry creates its own problems. With Circles they create the conditions for thin spots in the Veil and miserable young people, and keep them terrified of spirits and possession beyond any reason, which leads to some pretty huge gaps in their understanding. They don't know those gaps are there, so they can't protect themselves from exploitation in those directions...
Still having fun, continuously realizing that most of the things I have been spoiled for are after Origins, so I have less an idea of what is going to happen than I thought I might. This isn't a good or a bad thing, just a thing thing. Anyway, I'm glad to have something where "dramatically stabbing one's hand to acquire blood" isn't as stupid as it could be, considering characters are frequently skewered by multiple arrows and they're A-OK afterwards. Other silly thoughts: not that I've come across anything about this yet, but if there's relatively simple remedies for cracked skulls and such, maybe there's similar things for keeping clean/not stinky. Apply lesser cleanliness potion, remove one bodily stink, such as body odor or bad breath.
I am completely lacking in maturity Spoiler: nsfw text I keep fucking laughing whenever someone says "taint" as a noun "submit yourself to the taint" Jesus Christ
I'm a million years behind everything, and had to restart my incomplete da:o game because computer fuckery, but OH MY GOD I LOVE THE DALISH
I haven't cosplayed in years, but here I am, making an Inquisition costume because my friends want to be in the DA parade at D*Con this year.
