Spotlight: The Ventosus Tern
The Ventosus Tern is the setting of the opening act of the Dragon Age: Origins standalone module, Shores of Voline. The Tern is a fully-explorable (both above and below deck) merchant ship comprised of over ten areas and teeming with potential friends and foes, allies and lovers, traps and treasure. The voyage begins as you barter passage to Cumberland from the port of Amaranthine. Grab a spot on the floor of the hold (or a bedroll if you're lucky!), mingle with the other travelers and prepare for adventure on the high seas.
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Originally owned by an Orlesian man by the name of Lazslo, the Ventosus Tern was known as Sweet Evelyn's Voice until it was acquired by Ciullo Almedis, a merchant prince of Rialto. The Tern is named for the eponymous seabird with a migration route that takes it from its breeding grounds on the islands that dot the Ventosus Straits south of Seheron to the frozen coasts of southeastern Ferelden, symbolic of the ship's wide trade route along much of Thedas' eastern coastline. As is common practice amongst trade vessels, the Tern is known for taking on what passengers she can carry for a fee.
Once Almedis owned the ship (a prize in a game of Go between he and Lazslo, if the most popular rumors are to be believed), he took liberty in making many additions and changes to the décor, likely as a friendly jab at her former owner. Of particular note are the great carvings of the Tern's namesake at the prow and stern.
The members of the crew, though technically under the employ of Almedis, are fiercely loyal to the ship's captain, Ellis Karn of Antiva City.
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With the Tern, as with the rest of the locations in Shores of Voline, the ultimate goal was for it to stand out. One of the goals of the mod as a whole is to provide a new adventure for players who enjoy the feel of Dragon Age's original campaign. To that end, I'm not planning on having any new classes or abilities.
What!? No new classes or abilities? I'm not playing this dumb mod then!
If it ain't broke...well, you know. And this is a Dragon Age -mod-, after all. I wanted the game to stand out with strong level design and storyline- to feel like a new experience without necessarily feeling like an entirely different game. I found that, after playing through Awakening, I longed for Origins again. The lack of my Origins companions aside, I couldn't put my finger on it for the longest time, but I have finally pinpointed at least one major factor. My Warden was too strong. Nearly every ability in Awakening was over the top and obnoxiously powerful. Even on the high difficulty settings, with my new abilities and god-forged equipment, I was mowing down legions of foes with ease, and that was without abusing the dominant mage spells (*cough* handofwinter *cough*). My Warden on his own was ridiculously awesome, as Zevran might say, my party unstoppable. We tore them apart, as Morrigan often suggested in an earlier adventure. Our foes looked too incompetent, and it was embarrassing, as Lel...you get the idea. This was fun, don't get me wrong- I did enjoy Awakening, but there has to be a reason I only played through it once and Origins five or six times, right? I liked that, despite being a Grey Warden and opposer of evil, I -could- fail. I liked that I felt -human- (or mortal, for those whose characters can't make such a claim
).
Hopefully there are other players like me who will appreciate the vanilla feel of Shores of Voline in terms of the player and his or her party's power, but a little something new in terms of what you encounter and experience. After all, Voline is very different from the rest of Thedas. The barrier is not only cultural but physical- it is a free city with its own laws, customs and history, located quite far out to sea.
With the professional quality of mods out there that I've seen, the bar has been set pretty high, especially considering the fact that I don't have the advantage of a development team. Thus the Tern was born- an opening that I hope will provide a fun and unique experience.
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