Dragon Age: Origins Playthrough - Ostagar, Part One

With his new recruit in tow, Duncan travels to Ostagar, the forward camp for Ferelden's army that has been assembled to confront the darkspawn. He is greeted at the entrance by none other than Cailan, King of Ferelden. Duncan humbly introduces Amastacia to the king, and the dwarf bluntly informs Cailan he's no king to his people. Duncan sternly suggests that he show more respect, so he blows the king off by saying he needs a nap. Once Amastacia is alone with Duncan, he laughs at what a fool this king is.

Duncan promptly sends Amastacia off on an errand to find junior Warden Alistair and the other recruits before he loses his patience. He also mentions something about a ritual, but the dwarf is more concerned with finding a hot meal. With that, we're free to explore the camp... here are some highlights.

1) The Mabari. One soldier, dressed in light armor, is screwing around with some dogs instead of doing soldier stuff, so Amastacia decides to harass him. The kennel master explains that these are Mabari war hounds that fight alongside the army. One of them is sick from fighting a darkspawn and swallowing some blood earlier, and the kennel master asks if Amastacia knows anything about dogs. The dwarf remembers in that moment that he's a canine behavior expert and agrees to muzzle the dog.

Muzzle in hand, Amastacia enters the kennel and the dog makes no move to attack. So, he stabs it in the face and proudly tells the kennel master the dog isn't sick anymore.

"I WILL COME BACK TO HAUNT YOU, MORTAL FOOL.  WOOF."

2) Loghain's Tent. Many important people are camped in Ostagar who have nothing to do with the Wardens. Teyrn Loghain, an experienced tactician and the Queen's father, doesn't even like the Wardens because their headquarters is in Orlais, a kingdom that was Ferelden's enemy until recently. Naturally, Amastacia goes out of his way to try to get an audience with him.

This goes... surprisingly well. The dwarf has a flippant attitude to both the king's competence and the Wardens' necessity that mirrors Loghain's own feelings, whether he admits it or not. Amastacia thinks he's an all right guy! ...That can't be good.

3) The Hungry Deserter. Tucked in a corner away from the important people are a couple of cages, one of which is occupied. The prisoner says the guards thought he was deserting, but he was really just stealing stuff. So that makes him an okay guy by Amastacia's standards.

He says the guards haven't even fed him, so Amastacia offers to fix that problem. The nearby guard says the only food he has is his own lunch. Persuading him to hand it over fails, so the dwarf buys it off him instead. The prisoner happily offers to trade the food for a key he stole from a mage before he got caught.

...However, upon seeing the key, Amastacia instinctively stabs him and takes it off his corpse. The guard is shocked. The dwarf shrugs and says the prisoner lunged at him. Unbelievably, the guard doesn't question it.

Purely by accident, Amastacia has acquired that hot meal he wanted so badly.

Guardsmen are not typically known for their intellect. Amastacia will continue to take advantage of this fact.

Anyway, once we're done with harassing and stabbing, it's time to find Alistair. He's delivering a message to a mage with free snark to go with it. Amastacia thinks little of this and Alistair explains he'll be accompanying the recruits as they prepare for their Joining ritual. Once again, this mysterious ritual goes unquestioned.

This leads to a dialogue exchange that pretty much tells you all you need to know about how this character interacts with people:

AMASTACIA: "You don't have to accompany me, do you?"
ALISTAIR: "Don't worry. I'll try not to embarrass you."
AMASTACIA: "I look forward to traveling with you!"
ALISTAIR: "Really? ...That's a switch."

 

If you think you're confused now, Alistair, just wait. You ain't seen nothin' yet.

When we get to the Wardens' section of the camp, we meet Daveth and Ser Jory. Amastacia was supposed to talk to them before finding Alistair, but he was... busy. Duncan explains that Alistair and the recruits must go into the Kocari Wilds to gather darkspawn blood. Not suspicious at all. Also, he'd like us to find some important documents in an abandoned Warden stronghold.

Whoa. Hold up, Duncan. If these documents are so important, what are they doing in an ABANDONED stronghold? Huh??

Duncan politely explains that the Wardens didn't abandon the place on purpose. Amastacia has already forgotten what he said, and is off to the Wilds.

Situated beyond the crumbling walls of Ostagar, the Wilds are said to be crawling with darkspawn scouts and barbarians. The first thing we face, however, is a pack of wolves because that's mandatory in RPGs like this one. Some of the wolves even drop potions, another requirement of this genre. This is all here to reassure us we are going the right way.

Continuing down the path, we find the remains of a scouting party with one human survivor crawling toward us for help. Barely able to speak, he tells us darkspawn came out of the ground to attack them. Amastacia yawns and says he doesn't have time for this. When Alistair asks if he's late for a dentist appointment or something, he explains this soldier is good as dead already... and proves his point by stabbing him in the face.

"I did not see that coming," is the only reply Alistair can muster. Amastacia shrugs and says, "I SAID I didn't have time for him, didn't I?"

Moving on, we eventually find our first pack of darkspawn. They look kind of like orcs with necrosis, and don't offer much challenge until the damned magic-using emissaries show up. Suffice to say, there are plenty of opportunities to gather their blood so that part of our task is easy.

We wind our way through the Wilds, pausing only to do some non-sequitur things like summoning a demon by sprinkling some ash on a random pile of rocks. In our defense, an obscure passage from a fairy tale that we found on a dead body TOLD us to! Eventually, we find the ruined stronghold only to find that the chest we're seeking has already been opened. At that moment, however, we discover a more impressive chest, belonging to a woman named Morrigan....

This unimpressed look tells me she's already heard every dry, witless comment that could possibly exist about her cleavage.

 

This raven-haired beauty with the skimpy outfit appears out of nowhere and tells no one in particular that we are intruders in "her" Wilds. Alistair and the recruits speculate that she is either a barbarian or a witch. Amastacia, however, doesn't find her odd in the slightest and politely introduces himself. Morrigan warms to his manners at first but when she mentions the Wardens' documents, he dismisses the possibility that she knows anything about them. The others have to prod him along fo the idea that going with Morrigan to see her mother may not be a waste of effort.

Morrigan's mother is obviously a little batty, so she speaks more sensibly than most as far as Amastacia is concerned. She hands over the Grey Wardens' treaties without a fuss and warns the danger is greater than they realize. With both of our missions accomplished, Morrigan shows us out of the Wilds and we return to Ostagar.