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[RunCDFirst]

My final ending for Orzammar wasn't all doom and gloom. Basically, without the Anvil, the only thing Harrowmont could pass was sealing off Orzammar a little more. But to what degree and in what capacity it was never made clear. From what I could gather, the dwarven society just sort of sat stagnated. It seems the Anvil is almost more important than the King.

I, too, was a little disappointed in the lack of options at the end for assisting the dwarves further in the Deep Roads. It seems to me that the best way to stop Blights are proactive purges. This would both strengthen human/dwarf relations as well as weaken the darkspawn horde.

But, alas, the only thing you can do is ask for the Grey Wardens be stationed in Denerim and hope they follow your vision.

[tmp7704]

Fiaryn-Kilif wrote...

You're giving them entirely too much credit. Isolationism is a core part of dwarven religious beliefs/superstition, they fight the Blight on the surface solely because they know that when a Blight is broken there are going to be remnants (possibly a lot of them!) coming straight back down into the Deep Roads.

So how's that an incentive for them to fight on the surface, really? If anything, they should be happy (and to extent some are if i go by Codex notes) when the Blight goes onto the surface -- since it means less darkspawn attacking under the surface. The longer it remains unbroken on the surface, the more time of (relative) peace for the dwarves. Obviously there's the "oh but once the surface falls they'll turn on dwarves" reasoning but note how #1 this is nothing the dwarves don't experience anyway and #2 this logic works perfectly well the other way too -- once the darkspawn is done with dwarves it'll emerge and start burning the surface... and yet it does not make humans to try and fight it underground, save for occasional individuals.

As for humans being unaware about what's happening underground. I'm not buying that, not with ambassadors sitting there perfectly able to observe and report. Unless when killed for a side-quest every now and then, of course.

[Dark83]

fkirenicus wrote...

I've played both the dwarf noble and commoner origins now, and must say I still haven't found any real decisive info on Harrowmont's or Bhelen's policies.
I know that Bhelen favors Rica, but that's about it.

The fact that Bhelen has little regard for the Caste system puts him in my good books, society-wise.

Also, I'm a big fan of The Patrician (Havelock Vetinari) so I don't have an issue with them, heh.

[JamesX]

I think the dwarves that sign the treaty with the Gray Wardens back in the day all understood one very important fact.

The more surfacers the Dark Spawns drag into the Deep Roads, then more Dark Spawns Dwarves will have to face.

And that while the Dwarves are realtively protected against Dark Spawns, under the unifying power of an Archdemon they stand no chance.

Modifié par JamesX, 24 novembre 2009 - 09:55 .

[ComTrav]

I get the impression that the darkspawn surge underground during a Blight (quite possibly as a precursor to a surface Blight.) The presence of the archdemon makes a big difference.



-The army of golems "ended the first Blight" according to Branka. (I'm sure the Grey Wardens have a slightly different version, but it was a Blight that made the dubious morality of creating golems seem necessary.)

-Paragon Aeducan, who fought in the first Blight, commented on the "Paragon of Darkspawn" giving them intelligence and coordination

-In the "last Blight", Orzammer sealed off the deep roads entirely.



And it's unfair to say that that Orzammer is completely isolated from the surface in darkspawn matters as they (like everyone else) has the Grey Warden treaty. (I had the impression that dwarf/Grey Warden relations were pretty warm, as the Wardens were the only surface organization that really cared about darkspawn. Duncan, though, is pretty warmly welcomed in every origin story.)



And in a way, why would they interact with the surface all that much? Have you been to Orzammer? Have you been to Denerim? Which of these strikes you as a city made by a great and powerful empire? Like Ming China, there's no point in interacting with anyone else when you're already the best around. (And like Ming China, that road eventually leads to stagnation.)



After my dwarf noble playthrough, I started a human mage, and one of my dialogue options on meeting Duncan was "Darkspawn? Aren't they a dwarven problem?" It did make me laugh.

[Neil Decurio]

There are several little bits of information that you can get by playing through their quests shifting allegiance a little and such. The way I did it on my recent playthrough was to help Bhelen, approach Harrowmont and work under-cover for him (this leads to you learning about some pretty big evidence), then it ended up with me working for them both, going after Branka. Once that was sorted, I decided who would be king, and since I had sided with Harrowmont and knew how that ends, I decided to go Bhelen this time around. As a secondary note, I think helping Harrowmont mainly will net you the most XP from those quests as you get to go on a little killing spree later. But as a bonus, I did get to fight both Bhelen and Harrowmont supporters all at the same time though, the groups had spawned inside eachother, so double the XP, perhaps I ended up getting more this time than on my first playthrough when I only helped Harrowmont and got stuck with Bhelen's quest all the way until the end.. as I couldn't complete it with certain key figures being dead *cough*bug*cough*.

[Kreidian]

For my city elf it was all about getting as much information ahead of time. You can, as an outsider, still learn much about dwarven society though the many books you'll find around Orzammar, especially in the Shaperate. But it's good to talk to whoever you can, and listen carefully to what is being said.



For example you can learn about the castless and Bhelen's impending wedding to one of them, makes him the clear progressive choice. You can also hear from various people how mired in tradition Harrowmount really is. The Criers in the Diamond Quarter are surprisingly useful sources of information if you learn to "hear between the lines".



What helped me a lot, actually, was listening to my companions as well. In my case I had Zevran in my party when I spoke with some of the representatives, and his comments were most telling.

[tmp7704]

Kreidian wrote...

For example you can learn about the castless and Bhelen's impending wedding to one of them, makes him the clear progressive choice.

From my poking around the dwarf town i've learnt that it was actually pretty normal for casteless (girls especially) to try to woo and marry higher caste dwarves, as that was the only sanctioned way for them or at least their children, out of their status. So it didn't seem to me like any kind of progressive choice as such marriage wouldn't mean anything for the casteless on the whole, but rather like a spoiled noble thinking with his little dwarf at best or playing the girl for a fool at worst... and trying to make some political capital on it on the side.

Of course it could be just prejudice of my city elf speaking, but then she didn't see any reason not to be.

[IPerrin]

vote for jarvia!

[Rugaru]

They didn't actually marry casteless they were concubines, in dwarf society the male children got the fathers caste and stuff while the female children got their caste and all from their mother. Marriages only happen between same castes, but lower castes can have a chance to "move up" by giving a higher caste an heir. If for instance Rica's child had been female then most likely (as was custom) then Rica would have gotten the boot and Behlen would have tried with another.

[Brutus2]

I haven't read all these posts so I apologize if this has been mentioned. I played as a Dwarf Commoner in my first play through and I also was frustrated that both canidates seemed about the same and I could not get any real info about them. In the end I supported Bhelen just because my sister from my origin wanted me to and her kid would be the next heir.



Then I played the Dwaf Noble origin and that is where you really learn more about the two. You find out that Bhelen really did kill his brother and blamed it on his other brother (the PC). The king (your father) found out just before he died and decided Harrowmont should take over instead of Bhelen.



So aside from their political views, Bhelen is a bad dude who murderd and framed his brothers.

[Brutus2]

RunCDFirst wrote...


I, too, was a little disappointed in the lack of options at the end for assisting the dwarves further in the Deep Roads. It seems to me that the best way to stop Blights are proactive purges. This would both strengthen human/dwarf relations as well as weaken the darkspawn horde.
But, alas, the only thing you can do is ask for the Grey Wardens be stationed in Denerim and hope they follow your vision.

In my ending as a Dwarven Commoner after the final battle the Queen asks what she can do to repay me for saving Fereldan and there is an option to request that she sends her army to help the Dwaves fight the Darkspawn in the Deep Roads and she promises to do so.

[ComTrav]

Brutus2 wrote...

RunCDFirst wrote...


I, too, was a little disappointed in the lack of options at the end for assisting the dwarves further in the Deep Roads. It seems to me that the best way to stop Blights are proactive purges. This would both strengthen human/dwarf relations as well as weaken the darkspawn horde.
But, alas, the only thing you can do is ask for the Grey Wardens be stationed in Denerim and hope they follow your vision.

In my ending as a Dwarven Commoner after the final battle the Queen asks what she can do to repay me for saving Fereldan and there is an option to request that she sends her army to help the Dwaves fight the Darkspawn in the Deep Roads and she promises to do so.

Not that I'm campaigning for one candidate or another here, but one of the potential Kings totally screws this up.

Which made me almost tempted to reload when I entered Orzammer and replay the other 50 hours of the game. I give Bioware lots of credit that I even thought about this so I could have a couple of different text boxes in my ending.

[KalosCast]

Fiaryn-Kilif wrote...
I'm guessing you haven't beaten the game yet

Because quite a lot of us in this spoiler-y thread are talking in the context of knowing the epilogues and well...you're giving Bhelen too little credit.

Doesn't he dissolve the council of deshyrs in the epilogue? That's pretty tyranty of him. And regardless of whether he did or not I doubt he would have given up assassinations and bribery, not to mention passing laws the people like only cements his power base that much more.

[Dark83]

Being a good person doesn't necessarily make you a good ruler. A good ruler isn't necessarily a good person. Our own world's history demonstrates that.

What really gets me is how some people seem to utterly fail at understanding the difference between a Blight and just fighting darkspawn. It's in the bloody game. There's hundreds of thousands of powerful warriors who squabble amongst themselves, with occasional raids on civilization from disparate groups. In a Blight, this mass is united into a hive mind. There's a vast difference in threat.

A Blight obliterated the entire Dwarven Empire, leaving two cities. You don't let it wipe out all your potential allies before dealing with it. That's... so stupid that words fail me.

[Iseo Tiakan]

It was tough for me when I played through the second time knowing what kind of politicians I was dealing with. A brave, honorable man with terrible ideas, or an evil, ruthless bastard with good ideas. In the end, if you're playing any sort of "good" character, I don't see how you can do anything but pick Harrowmont. Bhelen pretty much made my decision for me when he told me to kill Branka in the Deep Roads if she wouldn't support him. Not knowing, of course, that killing her would actually turn out to be for the best.



Come to think of it, that's a pretty good parallel for what happens if you make Bhelen king. There's no reason to think that it should turn out well, but he ends up doing more good for the dwarves than Harrowmont could.

[Dark83]

Actually, after speaking with the cripple and the noble in Tapsters, I got it firmly into my head that the caste system was evil, and anything to upset that was a good idea.

[KalosCast]

Iseo Tiakan wrote...

It was tough for me when I played through the second time knowing what kind of politicians I was dealing with. A brave, honorable man with terrible ideas, or an evil, ruthless bastard with good ideas. In the end, if you're playing any sort of "good" character, I don't see how you can do anything but pick Harrowmont. Bhelen pretty much made my decision for me when he told me to kill Branka in the Deep Roads if she wouldn't support him. Not knowing, of course, that killing her would actually turn out to be for the best.

Come to think of it, that's a pretty good parallel for what happens if you make Bhelen king. There's no reason to think that it should turn out well, but he ends up doing more good for the dwarves than Harrowmont could.

Dwarven Noble origin, despite having no reason to want to support Bhelen should mean that you know enough about the ruthlessness of Dwarven politics to know that Bhelen's methods are the only way of getting anywhere.

[soteria]

Dark83 wrote...

Being a good person doesn't necessarily make you a good ruler. A good ruler isn't necessarily a good person. Our own world's history demonstrates that.
What really gets me is how some people seem to utterly fail at understanding the difference between a Blight and just fighting darkspawn. It's in the bloody game. There's hundreds of thousands of powerful warriors who squabble amongst themselves, with occasional raids on civilization from disparate groups. In a Blight, this mass is united into a hive mind. There's a vast difference in threat.
A Blight obliterated the entire Dwarven Empire, leaving two cities. You don't let it wipe out all your potential allies before dealing with it. That's... so stupid that words fail me.

I think Neville Chamberlain called it "Peace in our time."

I was a little dissapointed in the lack of hard information as well.  My city elf chose Harrowmont for no better reason than Bhelen's lackey threatened me when I told him I had to think about his offer.  I didn't care about dwarven society, but wasn't about to take a threat from anyone.

My dwarf noble might support Bhelen, I'm not sure yet.  It depends on how our meeting goes.  Sure, he tried to get me killed, but he made a brilliant move, eliminating the PC and Trian from the picture at once.