Dragon Age Inquisition Playthrough - Now With More Dragon, Less Age

The Inquisition is more popular than ever following Torquemada's public thwarting of an assassination attempt and Empress Celene's subsequent support. Our advisers tell us that Corypheus is officially on the defensive and we gather around the war table, trying to figure out what he might be doing in the Arbor Wilds, where he is believed to be hiding out with most of his army. Morrigan enters the war room uninvited and says we can stop trying to puzzle it out because she already knows. Rather than explaining it however, she tells Torquemada that it's easier to show her, and she leads us to a small chamber near our garden.

Morrigan reveals that she has brought an eluvian to Skyhold, a magic mirror used by ancient elves to travel across great distances. As a Dalish elf, Torquemada is fascinated and happily steps through the portal when Morrigan activates the eluvian. We find ourselves in a still, ethereal plane with other darkened mirrors nearby. Morrigan says only a few remain intact and free of corruption, and she believes one to be in the Arbor Wilds. Corypheus isn't interested in traveling, though. This plane is apparently "close" to the Fade and Corypheus would probably be able to accomplish his goal of assaulting the heavens from here. Now that Morrigan has made her point, we return to Skyhold to see about the attack plans.

"This realm has soothing blue lighting other than foreboding green lighting. Basically, it's the Fade with better feng shui."

Gathering our forces to attack Corypheus in the Arbor Wilds is going to require significant effort (40 power points) so there's time to engage in smaller operations while we muster our strength. Leliana says that her agents may have located the Hero of Ferelden, and we approve an operation to find him straight away. Unfortunately, Amastacia proves to be completely unreliable once again. He sends a letter saying he's looking for a way to solve the Grey Wardens' problem of "the Calling" once and for all. He's pretty sure the solution is at the bottom of this next bottle of Grey Warden conscription wine. He also sends along one of his old belts. The reason for this is unknown to Leliana or Torquemada, but from Amastacia's perspective it was incredibly helpful.

Prior to our appearance at Empress Celene's ball, we got a lead stating that Orlesian factions fighting in the Exalted Plains had stopped reporting in to their respective commanders. Now that the conflict between the Empress and the Duke has been resolved, those armies should have gone home. However, that hasn't happened, so Leliana and Cullen agree that we should investigate. Additionally, Cassandra wants to kill a rogue Templar, Dorian wants to kill a Venatori cultist and Vivienne wants to kill a snowy wyvern, all of which can be found in the Exalted Plains. So, we decide to do what we do best: make a camp in the wilderness and start killing everything around us.

Now, before I go too much further, I want to take a moment to talk about Dragon Age Inquisition's "creative interpretation" of what certain creatures look like. According to my trusty Dungeons & Dragons v3.5 Monster Manual, a wyvern is a large, flying reptilian beast with two wings, two legs and a long tail with a venomous stinger on the end. It's supposed to look like this:

Wyverns resemble dragons and although they're far less intelligent, they're still a threat to lower-level adventurers.

So, I was a little surprised to find out that in Dragon Age Inquisition, a wyvern is an iridescent, flightless, quadrupedal reptilian with no true wings and no tail stinger. It doesn't even remotely resemble a creature I'd describe as a wyvern:

This is just a mutant frilled lizard that's been playing with his mom's makeup.

Anyway, that's how I wound up fighting a high dragon in the Exalted Plains: by thinking it was the snowy wyvern that Vivienne wanted us to kill and not realizing her desired prey was the albino monitor lizard wandering through the marshes. However, since I haven't talked about the dragons in Dragon Age Inquisition so far, this provides a good opportunity to go into detail about what it's like to fight one in this game.

In Dragon Age: Origins, fighting a high dragon (whether it was the one outside the Temple of Sacred Ashes, Flemeth's shapeshifted form or the Archdemon itself) meant you had to watch your party's health closely and keep squishy rogues and mages out of range. In addition to being able to make effective attacks from any angle, Origins' high dragons could deal massive damage to even the best-armored warriors with a grapple attack that left them helpless. A well-placed fire breath attack in the direction of a mage can also turn the tide of battle against you in a matter of seconds. In summary, dragons had to be respected and handled with the appropriate amount of concentration, and defeating one felt like an accomplishment.

In Inquisition, however, dragons are lumbering meat slabs and fighting them is more about attrition than tactics. If you flank one, it will spend two seconds looking at you menacingly before delivering a telegraphed, easily avoidable kick in your direction. Their breath weapon is also preceded by a period of a couple seconds where the dragon inhales deeply and growls a Draconic phrase which translates to, "stand back! I'm charging my laser!" They hit hard, but not hard enough that you have to worry about keeping rogues or mages out of close range. This is especially true if you bring a mage that has invested points in the barrier spell. All you have to do is whittle down their massive health bars to zero before you run out of healing potions. Very little skill is necessary.

Vinsomer can be found on an island in the Storm Coast, after you beat up some Red Templars and steal their boat.

DAI Dragons don't deal well with being flanked... and Torquemada has gotten VERY good at flanking enemies.

The good thing about killing a dragon is the benefits for your Inquisitor, though. You get small quantities of dragon bone (which acts as metal for crafting purposes), dragon scales (acts as leather) and dragon webbing (acts as cloth), as well as any rare trinkets the dragon was hoarding. Your Inquisition also gains power and influence since being a dragonslayer gets you noticed even if an NPC didn't ask you to go out and kill it specifically. There are also at least ten dragon fights to be found in the game, so if you want multiple sets of dragon armor you can count on being able to find plenty of wyrms to harvest the materials from. This is definitely an improvement over Origins, where Wade made you choose between medium, heavy or massive armor and what he produced was the only set of dragon armor you'd find in the game.

Once again on the downside, however, some dragons are more rewarding than others. Torquemada killed the dragons in the Western Approach, the Exalted Plains and the Storm Coast but still didn't have enough dragon scales to make a set of tier 3 armor for herself. That situation changed drastically when she killed a frost dragon in Emprise du Lion though, and got 15 dragon scales from that wyrm alone. Now, I could understand this if greater rewards came from dragons that were actually harder to beat, but for the most part all the dragon battles are basically the same. In the case of this frost dragon, in fact, I found it to be inept compared to the lightning-breathing dragon in the Storm Coast. When the Storm Coast dragon was low on hit points, it used an ability similar to a stoneskin spell that gave it temporary armor to resist attacks. The Emprise du Lion dragon, on the other hand, would take flight to belch cold from above when it was low on health. It can only hit you if you stand perfectly still however, so eventually it will get bored, land, and allow itself to be thrashed.

These tarot cards represent our companions on the character select screen.

Helping Vivienne gives us one where... she spills wine on an old man?

Enough about dragons, though. Back to Vivienne and her poorly-explained bloodlust for genetically mutated lizard monsters. This is one of several quests that your companions give you once they like you enough and you have progressed far enough in the game. Vivienne doesn't explain why she wants the heart of a snowy wyvern but since we were going to kill it anyway along our path of destruction through the Exalted Plains, Torquemada respects her privacy and gives her the heart. She decides to open up to us when we're back at Skyhold, as she takes us to Orlais and the home of her husband, a nobleman by the name of Bastien. He is bedridden with some kind of illness and the heart is apparently a reagent for a potion, which she administers to her husband. Bastien wakes up, briefly, but only shares a final few seconds with Vivienne before dying. Torquemada awkwardly says she's sorry and we return to Skyhold.

Vivienne is clearly shaken by Bastien's death but she remains focused and says she must make sure that all the funeral arrangements are taken care of according to the demands of the Orlesian court. We get a large boost of approval from her simply by being there for her, though. As for our other companions, I've been completing their quests throughout the playthrough but haven't written about them yet since I've been focusing on the main storyline. Here are a few of the more memorable quests in brief:

I have some very rude things to say about "Blackwall" and the horse he rode in on.

After helping Blackwall recover some Grey Warden artifacts, he mysteriously disappears from Skyhold one day. Leliana tells us that he seemed disturbed by news of a pending execution in Val Royeaux. The connection is unclear, but we head to Val Royeaux to see if anyone there has run into him. Blackwall makes his presence known, however, as the execution is getting underway. The condemned man is a soldier who took part in a massacre but Blackwall says it's not the soldier's fault because he gave the order. He then reveals that he is not really the Grey Warden Blackwall, but an Orlesian army captain named Thom Rainier who commanded the troops responsible for the massacre. He fled from justice and was found in the countryside by the real Blackwall, who intended to conscript him into the Wardens. That never happened though, as Blackwall was killed in an ambush while Thom was traveling with him. Thom then decided to assume Blackwall's identity and perform noble deeds in the fallen Grey Warden's name.

Thom is taken into custody by Orlesian authorities, but Torquemada pulls some strings and has him transferred to Inquisition custody. He is then brought before her throne so she can pass judgement on him. Torquemada informs him that he dodged the Grey Warden right of conscription and stole a Warden's identity, so he will go to Weisshaupt to face their judgement as soon as Corypheus is dealt with. Until then, he will continue to serve the Inquisition. Thom claims he never wanted to deceive us but the fact is, he did. Several times. The guy is welcome to hang out in the stables and defend Skyhold in case Corypheus' forces decide to attack, but he can forget about being a party member from here on out.

Iron Bull is sad because he can't look intimidating while attacking people with a dainty, golden poleaxe.

One of our other warriors, Iron Bull, told us a while back that his contacts in the Ben-Hassrath informed him that the Qunari are concerned about Tevinter's new influence in the form of the Venatori alliance with Corypheus. As a result, there's a potential for an alliance between the Qunari and the Inquisition. To start, Iron Bull has arranged a meeting with another Ben-Hassrath operative who will meet us on the Storm Coast to take down a Venatori encampment they've found there. We proceed to the meeting site, and we're surprised to see that our Ben-Hassrath contact is an elf. He tells us that the Venatori have two lookout points that we need to take out simultaneously to prevent them from alerting their friends to an attack. Torquemada and her companions will hit the larger camp while Iron Bull will send his mercenaries, the Bull's Chargers, to take out the smaller one. Once we've done that, the Qunari will be sending in one of their dreadnought attack ships to assault the main Venatori forces. Iron Bull says he doesn't like covering for dreadnoughts because it's always risky, but we go forward with the plan.

Taking down the lookouts is the easy part. The scouts offer no serious resistance to Iron Bull's overpowering assault, especially with Torquemada sneaking around and stabbing them in the back at the same time. Looking to the other lookout site in the distance, we see that the Bull's Chargers took care of their target just as easily. Unfortunately, as we look down at the main Venatori encampment below, we see that a large group of mages have noticed the Chargers, too. The elven Ben-Hassrath tells us the Chargers need to hold that position and draw the mages' attention to keep them from attacking the dreadnought. Iron Bull knows that those mages will tear his company to pieces, though. The elf tells him that the dreadnought takes priority and if he orders the Chargers to retreat, he'll be declared Tal-Vashoth and his life with the Qunari will be over. Torquemada can tell that Iron Bull doesn't want to sacrifice his men. We tell him that we'll deal with Corypheus without a Qunari alliance, and he should have his Chargers retreat. As expected, the mages turn their attention on the dreadnought, which explodes and kills all the mages along with everyone on board the ship. Our elf contact is not happy, especially since he vouched for Iron Bull, and we part ways.

Leliana's card appears on the war table, and doesn't change when we help her.

Apparently, she's really committed to posing nude with her favorite raven.

Last but not least, we were approached by Leliana about a message that was delivered to her, which Divine Justinia had arranged to be sent to her in the event of her death. The letter says that Justinia has an item waiting for Leliana to be retrieved in a Chantry where she used to be a lay sister. Given the significance of the location and the lengths Justinia went to in order to have this message delivered, Leliana is certain that it's very important. So, we travel with her to the Chantry in question during the dead of night, only to find that there's someone there waiting for us. Leliana recognizes her as Sister Natalie, someone she knew from her Chantry life, and greets her warmly but she gives Torquemada a warning glance and slight shake of her head when Natalie's not looking. We continue to play nice though, and eventually find Justinia's hiding place. That's when Leliana's demeanor changes.

She draws a knife and holds it to Natalie's throat, and the sister admits she was sent here by an anti-Inquisition Grand Cleric. Torquemada tells Leliana we don't have to kill her but Leliana disagrees and slits Natalie's throat. She then opens the ornate box that Justinia left for her... only to find that it is empty, save for an inscription telling her to lay down her burden. Leliana incredulously says that Justinia was afraid that she was using her, and the message that the not-Justinia fade spirit gave us about failing Leliana reflected that fear that she was turning her into a weapon. Torquemada says that maybe Leliana should accept this message, but she scoffs and says she really is a ruthless person, and Justinia only freed her by proving that she never needed the Divine in the first place. Back at Skyhold, Leliana is back to planning assassinations and kidnappings with renewed gusto. Torquemada starts to think that maybe Leliana isn't the best choice to become the new Divine.

Vivienne summarized the Exalted Plains quite well, by describing it as a place where she's glad she didn't buy real estate.

As for the Exalted Plains, the region is similar to Emprise du Lion in the sense that it offers plenty of quests but they're all completely unrelated to the main storyline and not very interesting on their own merits. The region is full of Orlesian soldiers who didn't get the memo that said "war over" and Torquemada gets to deliver the bad news that the guy they were fighting for, Duke Gaspard, is the one who lost. Also, there are pits full of dead bodies being raised as undead that we have to set fire to, an accomplishment we celebrate by blowing nearby war horns. Corypheus may or may not be involved... it's unclear whether Venatori mages were raising the dead, or if they were just out in the Exalted Plains putting up "Vote for Corypheus" signs at the time. Either way, we kill them when we find them and we now have plenty of power points to track down his forces in the Arbor Wilds.

So, I didn't get much accomplished with this update, but we did learn a thing or two about the derpy dragons in this game! By virtue of defeating them, Torquemada has a new outfit that she'll show off when she attacks Corypheus in the near future. Unless, of course, Sera asks us to do her laundry for her and we get distracted by a new round of companion quests.