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View Full Version : Campaign Idea: Salvaging the Plot of Dragon Age (spoilers)



Yora
2013-03-19, 08:15 AM
To quote the site that should not be linked to: "They wasted a perfectly good plot!"

I remember playing the first 3 or so hours of the game for the first time and being incredibly excited about what seemed like a really intriguing plot. The King is dead, the Grey Wardens destroyed, the traitor lets the darkspawn horde invade his country, and the legendary Witch of the Wild rescues you in the last moment because she thinks something big is going on and even she might not survive it if it can't be stopped. Rarely did a prolog chapter look so promising.
And then the game never does anything with it.
You just go to four places, which do have their own interesting stories, but nothing to do with the Betrayal and the Darkspawn invasion. And in the end, it turns out that the traitor had no big plan at all. His whole plan was "let the King die in battle and become the new king" and deal with the monster invasion later. At the moment it seems like an awesome story is going to start, it is already over. Except for the four side stories (that make up 3/4 of the whole game), all that happens to the main story after that is that you go to the capital, kick the new king off his throne, and then walk up to the Archdemon that leads the invasion and hit him until he is dead. The End.
What a huge disappointment.

But we are doing pen and paper campaigns here, so we can do whatever we want. And I think I would really like to make something great out of this story hook. Why did Loghaine hand the King and the Grey Wardens over to the Darkspawn to be slaughtered? And what does Flemeth have to do with all that?

For Flemeth, the answer is known if you do Morrigans storyline:
- Flemeth is the only known mage who can absorb the spirit of a demon instead of the demon consuming her soul when she gets possessed.
- When she grows older, she raises a daughter, trains her as a witch, and then steals her body and absorbs her soul.
- She knows that when an Archdemon dies, the soul of the Old God inside it jumps to the next body that has the Darkspawn taint. If the next tainted person is a Grey Warden and not a Darkspawn, the soul of the Warden and the Old God Annihilate each other.
- So Flemeth instructs her daughter Morrigan to get pregnant by a Grey Warden to have a tainted child, then kill the Archdemon and up with a possessed baby and since it has no soul yet, the Old God Soul remains intact.
- Then Flemeth will wait until the baby is born and grown up, and then she will steal the body and absorb the soul of the Old God and all its power. Flemeth is now a God.
That's something you can easily expand into a major campaign.

But what about Loghain, who leaves the King and the Grey Wardens to die in Battle against the Darkspawn horde? In the game, he does not belive the horde is actually a Blight lead by an Archdemon, and so thinks that he can easily destroy them all with the rest of his army at a later point. But that's just lame.
What I would like to have is a campaign in which he knows that the Grey Wardens are the only ones who can destroy the Archdemon and make the Darkspawn horde vulnerable, but he decides to kill them all anyway. And while he is at it, also his own King who is a huge fan of the Wardens.
Why does he want the Darkspawn horde to invade his country and why does he want the Archdemon to survive? That sounds like the setup for a campaign that has both epic battles, mystery, and conspiracy. Unfortunately, I don't have a really good idea either. :smallfrown:

"He is evil" is too dumb. And "he hopes to be spared for his service to the Archdemon and given the country as a reward" is too simple. Does anyone have any creative ideas what kind of cool conspiracy plot could be woven around this?

Winds
2013-03-19, 08:49 AM
How about a reverse of his reasoning?


The king isn't sure this is a blight. Whether it is or not, he's a little too excited to hit the frontlines, given that he has no heir. Add to this his willingness to ally with a country that until recently had occupied his throne. These, as I understand it, are the reasons that the traitor turned traitor.

Now, let's add one more to that. Rather than thinking that this isn't a Blight, let's say the traitor knew it was a Blight, and wanted to use the Ostagar disaster as a way of getting all of Ferelden on board. The traitor now has arguably good reasons for what he did: to preserve the country he fought for alongside Maric. This simple change alters the balance for the rest of the game. Now he has good reasons for what he has done.

For the final tweak, assume one wrinkle: the king survives Ostagar alongside you. Now instead of some bunch of rookie Wardens doing their best to ignore the traitor regent, you have the rightful king alongside you. Suddenly, the traitor is important to the story, because if you can deal with him you have the ruling government actually reinforcing your work rather than idiotically trying to kill the one group that could achieve all their aims. People would still be attacking you, of course...but they would be the traitor's own people, and you have the question of what they, and the regent, will do once it is discovering that the king fights alongside you.

NikitaDarkstar
2013-03-19, 04:01 PM
If you've read some of the codexes (I think these specific ones are found in the Return to Ostagar DLC) you'd also know two more interesting facts. In five years Anora has failed to become pregnant and Arl Eamon, Cailan's (the king) uncle, has been encouraging Cailan to leave her in favor of someone who might be able to give him an heir. And at the same time the Empress of Orlias has gotten friendly, perhaps a bit to friendly towards Cailan. They've at the very least been discussing an alliance, but there might be more going on.

Now of course Loghain would be aware of both the lack of an heir, and possibly have an idea of the rest. Assume he does. Would he simply stand back and watch as his daughter was set aside for someone else? Especially if she's the one who's actually been running the country? On top of that, that "someone else" might be the Empress of the very country he helped drive off? He might be able to accept the first, but an alliance between Ferelden and Orlais? He'd never stand for it, and one through marriage, especially when the Fereldan king is fairly easily manipulated/willing to stand aside and let his wife deal with the politics? Of course not, actual intentions be damned, Loghain would see it as Ferelden getting occupied and enslaved all over again.

I don't think he nessicarily doesn't consider the darkspawn a threat, he does, but he underestimates them. And he wants to get rid of the Grey Wardens in part because they swear no allegiance to any particular country, and they associate with Orlesians (even if only other Grey Wardens), and he needed a scape goat. The Wardens don't ally themselves with any one country exclusively and they were on the battle field, so blaming them is perfect since they're not part of Fereldens politics so letting them take the fall for his own actions is the least likely to cause civil war.

Of course it doesn't help that he has men like Howe around him that are both ruthless, cold-blooded, and more than willing to encourage Loghains paranoia to ride his coat-tails and get more power. It's also possible that Howe was planning to make a power-grab once the blight was dealt with and things settled down. Keep in mind that Anora was imprisoned at Howes estate, and Loghain might be a hero, but he's still middle-aged, if he was to die while fighting the darkspawn and Anora disappeared/tragically died, well the country would need a new king, and who better than someone who's been active in the Denerim politics, currently holds several titles, and was the hero of Fereldens right hand?

Ninjadeadbeard
2013-03-19, 06:05 PM
:smallconfused:

I thought Logain was a good antagonist. Maybe not a "Villain", but certainly an obstacle. He's like Patriot-Macbeth. Thinks his boss is weak, might be cheating on the man's daughter (what am I saying "might"?) and has paranoid delusions about his longtime enemy Orlais making a move against his homeland. The fact that you guys should be on the same side, and the fact that Big L thinks he's the Hero makes him tragic.

Doesn't stop me from gutting him every playthrough, but still.

The Flemeth/Darkspawn plotline definitely could use an overhaul, however. How about:


What if Flemeth took over her daughter's body just before the Wardens/PCs meet her? Now you have a PC colluding with the DM to be the endboss/true antagonist. This eliminates one flaw I always saw in her plan (ie; the flaw was that she lacked control for any time at all).
For each of the four areas you have to venture to to gather allies, we could tie in the Darkspawn threat more closely. Perhaps this Blight is different than others. In one of the DLC's there was a thinking Darkspawn character. Why not implement such a thing here? Have a couple of Dwarves in Orzammar deliberately sabotaging the elections. Have that idiot who started the Mage Civil War be a Darkspawn agent. The trouble with the Darkspawn is that despite being the primary enemies of the game, they aren't featured enough. They need to permeate every part of the game, to hang over the plot like a black thundercloud, or an executioner's axe.
Play up Logain being a little nuts. When he appears in public, he's calm and rational. But if he's alone, or in a temper, he starts calling the Darkspawn Orlesians. Makes him less responsible for his actions and allows us to excuse some of them as "Madness". Hell, if we go all out, have him completely snap at the moot and start calling everyone Orlesian, even his daughter. Then Darkspawn tentacles and spikes launch from his body and we realize he's been tainted AND a sleeper agent. So then killing him becomes a greater tragedy because he never had control over his actions.
The Opportunity to Lose. Let it be possible for the Dwarves to descend into all-out civil war and their civilization meets its final, horrifying end. The Elves could be driven to near extinction by the Werewolves, and the Wolves' disease now controlled by the Archdemon. The Arl of Redcliffe and all his kin and people die ignoble, painful deaths and find themselves reanimated as shambling undead to serve as the Darkspawn's vanguard. A wrong decision in Denerim leads to a purge of the Alienage and the beginnings of a Big-Brother regime under Arl Howe's tyrannical rule.

Just off the top of my head some ideas.

Alleran
2013-03-19, 06:36 PM
The trouble with the Darkspawn is that despite being the primary enemies of the game, they aren't featured enough. They need to permeate every part of the game, to hang over the plot like a black thundercloud, or an executioner's axe.
I thought that they did that fairly well as it was. For example, Lothering? It all seems set up to be a little town that you can use as a base to begin with as you spread out and start fighting to forestall the Blight. You even pick up several party members there.

Then it's wiped off the map by the Darkspawn, and you can do nothing to stop that from happening (and if you didn't get those party members, they're all dead or Schrodinger-Leliana'd). More stuff like that needs to happen, I think. As in, other little towns, maybe even major areas. You can save them if you're in time, but there's also a real chance that the Blight will overrun them outright if you leave it for too long.

It would add an element of urgency to your quest, I think. However, the Darkspawn don't need to be shoehorned in everywhere. Hanging like a thundercloud over the plot doesn't mean they're raining down everywhere you go, so to speak.

Ninjadeadbeard
2013-03-19, 07:05 PM
It would add an element of urgency to your quest, I think. However, the Darkspawn don't need to be shoehorned in everywhere. Hanging like a thundercloud over the plot doesn't mean they're raining down everywhere you go, so to speak.

That's a valid point, but then again I kept forgetting about the Blight while I was off doing those other quests. I think their influence needs to be felt constantly, even if they themselves are rarely seen.

For example, Sauron from the Lord of the Rings. Never seen, never heard in the text. But every single challenge to the main characters is instigated by his actions or mere presence. In the movies it's even implied that the very fact that he Exists is starting to effect reality, making unnatural stormclouds and causing Arwen to waste away.

Not saying we need a God-of-Evil, but there is this Archdemon who could be doing more 'arching'. Having him show up for a second in the Deep Roads was nice, but why doesn't he jump in an screw up your recruitment drive? Even if he didn't mean specifically to ruin your day, or is even aware you exist. He doesn't really ever do anything or show up outside of an irrelevant cutscene until the grand finale, at which point I have long stopped caring about him. Logain was the real, personal threat to me on my playthroughs, and I felt accomplished beating him. I felt nothing beating the Archdemon because...I had no reason to dislike the Archdemon or consider him anything more than a Plot Device.

Actually, a better route than Sauron would be to make the Archdemon more like Darth Nihlus from the second KotoR game. He's your mirror. Your evil opposite, the yang to your yin. The Vampire to your Blackhole (that makes sense in context I swear). He needs to be built up as a God. Not a might-be-a-god-maybe-dragon-gee-I-don't-know-it's-not-like-we-haven't-killed-two-dragons-already-this-week. An actual, factual, tainted, wrathful Deity whose got a baaaaaad hangover and is in the mood to flay you soul with rusty chains and mount the Creator's head on a pike in his throneroom. Real 'wailing and gnashing of teeth' kind of a guy/dragon.

Amaril
2013-03-19, 09:10 PM
:smallconfused: I absolutely loved the plot of the game. While I wish you the best of luck into making something based on it to enjoy--the world can always use more Dragon Age--I can't help but disagree with you on a couple issues.


I thought Logain was a good antagonist. Maybe not a "Villain", but certainly an obstacle. He's like Patriot-Macbeth. Thinks his boss is weak, might be cheating on the man's daughter (what am I saying "might"?) and has paranoid delusions about his longtime enemy Orlais making a move against his homeland. The fact that you guys should be on the same side, and the fact that Big L thinks he's the Hero makes him tragic.

Yeah, this. I do agree they might have made is motivations a little clearer, but then again, he wasn't supposed to be entirely rational. He was going crazy from paranoia and desperately trying to exert some measure of control on the situation by whatever means he could.

As for Flemeth, you have to remember that DAO is just the first installment of a series that I hope will continue for much longer. The whole thing with Flemeth still hasn't been resolved as of DA2, but they've made it clear that they're planning to take her story somewhere important.

Consider Morrigan's warnings at the end of Witch Hunt--all that stuff about finally realizing what Flemeth had really been planning all this time (though she fails to explain to you what that discovery actually included). And the whole ending of DA2--so many were disappointed by it, but I think it's absolutely essential in that it sets the stage for so much of the greater conflict that will form the plot of the entire rest of the series. I know it's really just my guess, but I can't help but suspect that somehow, Flemeth has her hand in this massive Templar/Circle conflict that's about to start, and hopes to gain something from it. I wouldn't be surprised if she turns out to be the main antagonist of the series in subsequent games. At the very least, I'm confident she'll be playing a more important role in the future.

Anyway, like I said, this thing you're making is an awesome idea--I just can't resist throwing in my 9000 cents about Dragon Age, since it's one of my two all-time favorite game series :smallbiggrin:

Alleran
2013-03-19, 10:38 PM
Actually, a better route than Sauron would be to make the Archdemon more like Darth Nihlus from the second KotoR game. He's your mirror. Your evil opposite, the yang to your yin. The Vampire to your Blackhole (that makes sense in context I swear). He needs to be built up as a God. Not a might-be-a-god-maybe-dragon-gee-I-don't-know-it's-not-like-we-haven't-killed-two-dragons-already-this-week. An actual, factual, tainted, wrathful Deity whose got a baaaaaad hangover and is in the mood to flay you soul with rusty chains and mount the Creator's head on a pike in his throneroom. Real 'wailing and gnashing of teeth' kind of a guy/dragon.
I wouldn't go down the yin-yang route, since that sort of implies you to be a whole lot more than what you are. You're a Grey Warden, yes, the last hope of Thedas, yes (you and Alistair or possibly the hidden party member until other Wardens can get to Ferelden, at least, but that'll be giving the Blight a lot of time to rampage around in the meantime), but you're still one person, even one particularly badass person, fighting against a legitimate horde led by a god.

And the Archdemons are, after all, gods. Old Gods corrupted* by the Taint. As I recall, the Old God of the Fifth Blight was Urthemiel, Tevinter goddess of love and beauty. So you genuinely are battling against something a whole lot more powerful than a mere High Dragon (which, while potent, don't have the raw force and will of a god-demon like the Archdemons, creatures that also drive the Darkspawn to the surface in a Blight to begin with).

More appearances from the Archdemon might be nice, I guess, but I'd hesitate about making them too obvious.

* I say "corrupted" without going into much detail on the whats, hows and whys. Considering that Dumat told the Magisters to go to that city, and that they'd find the golden light but instead found it blackened and corrupted by the Taint, and then brought it back to the mortal world, there's something going on there. Especially when you also consider that the Darkspawn are driven by the song of the Old Gods, so there's a direct correlation between Taint and Old God of some sort. And Dumat had to have known what was there. Otherwise, the correlation, telling Magisters to break into the city, and subsequent creation of the Darkspawn makes no sense - Corypheus even emits a similar "song" to the sleeping Old Gods themselves. So much mystery, and apparently the Grey Wardens won't be appearing in DA3 (as in, they won't appear at all) to give any answers. Maddening. I want to know, damnit!

(Really, putting a lot more of the DA plot into the Darkspawn, their origins and so on would probably kick things up several notches, and give several campaign arcs to work with.)


Consider Morrigan's warnings at the end of Witch Hunt--all that stuff about finally realizing what Flemeth had really been planning all this time (though she fails to explain to you what that discovery actually included).
Didn't BioWare, or at least Gaider, say that they weren't going to be doing anything more relating to Witch Hunt, and that it was just for the Morrigan fans?

Ninjadeadbeard
2013-03-20, 03:28 AM
And the Archdemons are, after all, gods. Old Gods corrupted* by the Taint. As I recall, the Old God of the Fifth Blight was Urthemiel, Tevinter goddess of love and beauty. So you genuinely are battling against something a whole lot more powerful than a mere High Dragon (which, while potent, don't have the raw force and will of a god-demon like the Archdemons, creatures that also drive the Darkspawn to the surface in a Blight to begin with).

More appearances from the Archdemon might be nice, I guess, but I'd hesitate about making them too obvious.

And yet, I never got the feeling that it was a God, because they really dropped the ball getting that point across.

I'm not saying it should have come out singing a Broadway Showtune (although that would be friggin hilarious), but rather I want to feel like I'm fighting a Force of Nature. Gods, like all characters, can have personality (unlike the Archdemon), and indeed need one for a player to identify with them at all. The Archdemon either needs to make far more appearances, or become a far more personal enemy of the "Party" before the finale.


Didn't BioWare, or at least Gaider, say that they weren't going to be doing anything more relating to Witch Hunt, and that it was just for the Morrigan fans?

:smallfrown::smallannoyed::smallmad::smallfurious: :smallfurious::smallfurious::smallfurious:

What.

Just....:smallsigh:

Yora
2013-03-20, 04:58 AM
I think you are right with the archdemon being just an undead dragon being more to the core of the problem. He is just the main control unit of the Darkspawn, but not actually an active antagonist.
Comming up with a more elaborate plan for him than "send the darkspawn marching North and kill everything in their path" should make a really big difference. There is a broodmother in the deep trenches, just about 200 meters from where you encounter him. Though the darkspawn must have had broodmothers before the first archdemon was created, maybe those could be given a bigger role. Like the cerebrates of the Zerg in StarCraft.

But what I really would like to have, is a more complex, multi-stage plan for Loghaine to use the darkspawn for his own goals. That the entire plan is "kill the king and take his place" is the biggest letdown for me. I was hoping for some kind of big conspiracy thing. But as it is, the moment the king is dead, his plan is completed and his goal achieved.
But I agree that keeping his ultimate goal relatively basic and simple would be a good idea. Something like handing over the world to an Old God to be his right hand in an empire of terror, or something about demon worship would not be fitting to the theme. Personal interests instead of moustache-twirling evil are much more appropriate and one of the reason why the overall game is standing out.

NikitaDarkstar
2013-03-20, 06:32 AM
The problem for me with the arch demons is that in origins (not going to bring awakening into it because I played it once, and it's an expansion, this information should have been in the original game where you battle the actual arch demon) is that we only for for sure that the arch demons were dragons at one point. There are information on dragon worshipping cults, and we even run into one that claims that Andraste has returned in the form of a dragon, but they come off than more than a little bit insane, and the guardian does point out that the dragon is basically just a beast. On top of that pretty much all information we find on the dragons question if they ever were real gods. Yes they were worshipped but worship does not a god make.

So we're left with a horde of semi intelligent monsters lead by a beast. None of them have personality or background. Well for one exception, the Broodmother. The part were we get introduced to her is downright creepy because we get a feel for what she is and what happened (and will continue to happen) with her, and others like her. But for the most part, no personalities what so ever. Which is fine for the bulk of the horde. But the arch demon? It could have been given something more than just "evil glare" for it's cut scenes. If it truly were a god at some point (or at least a highly intelligent creature used to worship) and it can reach into your dreams, why can't it make some attempts at communicating with the wardens? Tempt them away from their path? Try to cut a deal with them to get them to simply walk away from it all? Just something more than "*Rawr* *glare*".

As for Loghains plans? I still say that if he has his sanity intact/relatively intact he simply can't be working with the darkspawn, it makes no sense. He's simply underestimating them ("it's no real blight", "Loghain seems to think the blight is an army he can out maneuver", "your fascination with these grey wardens...." etc.). They're a force to be reconned with for sure, but not one that can't be beaten by conventional means.

But he's also been at Ostagar for a while when we first meet him, and has been fighting darkspawn. What if he got wounded? Not badly, most certainly not enough to have to quit the field, or to even show it, but enough to get tainted. We've already seen that involuntary taint tends to drive people insane. But if the arch demon has a certain amount of intelligence, what if it is "whispering in his ear" so to speak? Perhaps not dictating his actions step by step, but skewing his perspective enough to make him lose sight of the real threat, make him paranoid and untrusting? Because really, wouldn't the arch demon have so much more to gain if Ferelden is divided and leaderless? Take Ferelden first and get a foot-hold on the surface world, and save as much of it's horde as possible before attacking Orlais (which has far more Grey Wardens). Loghain just happened to have the right mix of personality and personal history to make easy to nudge in the "right" direction without completely breaking his mind and making him obviously mad.

Eldan
2013-03-20, 06:50 AM
I never got far in Dragon Age, as I lost interest at the "get the four plot counters" mark. But Loghain seemed interesting in the beginning, as did the entire court intrigue. So I agree with Yora here.

So, let's see what we know. He's a war hero against the Empire. His daughter marries the King, but seems barren, a grave shame on his blood. The King is getting too friendly with his former enemies.

He sees betrayal. His daughter isn't barren. The king is sterile. The king is also a naive child, under the influence of Orlais and his traitorous advisors. And what about those grey Wardens? They don't serve his Kingdom, or his people. They are everywhere, in the world. Who knows what their politics are?

So, he sees a solution. Let the King and his coterie get eaten by Darkspawn. Become regent.

Then use the Darkspawn to annihilate Orlais once and for all. How does he plan to do this? By allying with someone who can gain control over the power of the archfiend and then the Darkspawn itself. A certain witch.

Yora
2013-03-20, 07:29 AM
Well for one exception, the Broodmother. The part were we get introduced to her is downright creepy because we get a feel for what she is and what happened (and will continue to happen) with her, and others like her.
Yeah, that's another one of those situations. After meeting hespith I was so exited about the new big storyline unfolding. But turns out she is right behind the next door, doesn't say a thing, and you just kill her, without the whole episode never being mentioned again. What a disappointment. Same with Branka. The whole thing could have been a game or even a campaign all by itself, but the game doesn't do anything with the hook and immediately abandons it again.


As for Loghains plans? I still say that if he has his sanity intact/relatively intact he simply can't be working with the darkspawn, it makes no sense.
Certainly not working with them, but trying to use the Not-Quite-Blight as an opportunity for himself by channeling the horde along a path that suits him.


But he's also been at Ostagar for a while when we first meet him, and has been fighting darkspawn. What if he got wounded? Not badly, most certainly not enough to have to quit the field, or to even show it, but enough to get tainted. We've already seen that involuntary taint tends to drive people insane. But if the arch demon has a certain amount of intelligence, what if it is "whispering in his ear" so to speak? Perhaps not dictating his actions step by step, but skewing his perspective enough to make him lose sight of the real threat, make him paranoid and untrusting?
Now that's the kind of idea I was hoping to get with this thread. :smallbiggrin:
That really could be a hook to build a fantastic campaign around. Like Indoctrination in Mass Effect, particularly "that villain" in 2 and 3, not so much the one from 1. (Since the thread is spoiler for DA, let's not mention the twists of ME in detail.)
Giving the enemy the idea "you can manipulate us for your own goals" is a really nice detail that makes for quite intersting storylines.

Andrewmoreton
2013-03-20, 08:00 AM
How about the world is a lost colony of the WH40K imperium, the Archdemons are demons imprisoned by the Inquisition a millennia ago striving to be free. The planet has been cut of by warpstorms foe those same millennia and the last remenants of the Inquisition are the Grey Wardens who have largely forgotten their origins, each of the previous blights the Grey wardens stopped was done by Sisters of Battle who had been sleeping in Stasis between blights but none of them are left.
The mages of course are unregulated psykers which explains why they keep being possessed and their traditions are the remains of those of an Imperial Psyker school from before the fall.
I ran it as a Dark Heresy scenario.

Yora
2013-03-20, 08:33 AM
I am considering using the plot for a quori expedition into Xen'drik. With a Kalaraq creating an army of mind-controlled monsters to take posession of a valley where the quori had a portal in their war against the giants. That would make any monoliths build there much more effective, but the area has to be cleared of drow first. And the kalaraq is using an ancient black dragon as his vessel, spamming mind seed along his way.
But an immortal drow sorceress who knows some ancient giant magic would rather not see that happen and instead use the opportunity to have an easy to trace kalaraq to goble him up for her own power.
Meanwhile the kalaraq invades the dreams of one of the drow chiefs to plant the idea that he might become the ruler of all the tribes if all the other chiefs and shamans are killed by the monsters before he uses their warriors to destroy the monsters.

Ninjadeadbeard
2013-03-20, 07:30 PM
I'm confused. Are we still talking about DA? Or Warfailure 40K?

Just had a thought: The Darkspawn, yeah? What's their deal? That question hasn't really been answered in the games yet, but I have a solution for our needs.

I Am Legend. The Book. Spoilered if no one's read it. The Darkspawn are like the "Vampires", in that they are evolving. In Awakening we can see that there's at least one Darkspawn who's retained his mind. What if, given enough time, the Darkspawn are becoming more intelligent, more "human"? The animal-madness could be a side-effect of the Taint, and if enough time passes, they and the Archdemon will calm down and become as rational as anyone not named Loghain.

GenericGuy
2013-03-21, 01:58 AM
I'm confused. Are we still talking about DA? Or Warfailure 40K?

Just had a thought: The Darkspawn, yeah? What's their deal? That question hasn't really been answered in the games yet, but I have a solution for our needs.

I Am Legend. The Book. Spoilered if no one's read it. The Darkspawn are like the "Vampires", in that they are evolving. In Awakening we can see that there's at least one Darkspawn who's retained his mind. What if, given enough time, the Darkspawn are becoming more intelligent, more "human"? The animal-madness could be a side-effect of the Taint, and if enough time passes, they and the Archdemon will calm down and become as rational as anyone not named Loghain.

That still doesn't change that Darkspawn procreation is based on "tainting"(which from some of the overtones sounds like it involves rape) women until they form into monstrous Broodmothers, and their very presence "taints" the land making plants die. These fact makes the Darkspawn existence detrimental to all other intelligent life on Thedas. Darkspawn are literally like a cancer, yes they are technically a living thing, but they're form of reproduction leads to death of the host/world in this case.

Yora
2013-03-21, 04:13 AM
Well, that could be easily changed for a campaign.

NikitaDarkstar
2013-03-21, 06:46 AM
But why change such an interesting aspect? If they don't do any real harm to anything, and they're becoming intelligent enough to have a civilized conversation with it's a no-brainer to let them live. But if they still have such a dark, destructive effect or their immediate environment, through no fault of their own, and are still becoming intelligent enough to actually reason with... Well, if you're into morally grey and dark games, that sounds pretty interesting to me. They were created as a force of pain, death and destruction, but have started to rise above it. But they can no more completely stop being what they are than you and I can choose to not breathe. So what do you do? At least one intelligent race is probably going to have to die. Or will you try to find some peaceful solution anyway? Will that actually work in the long run? Will they change more if given enough time (as in, not automatically kill everything nearby, and be able to breed through less violent means..)? And so on, and so forth. Personally I find it interesting, but it'd obviously need players mature enough to handle a darker setting.