I'm not sure there is a mod actually. I checked out the links above and (well, one didn't work for me, but the other) seemed to simply be allowing any race/class to use any weapon. I'd just like that mod for my warrior to be able to use a bow to hunt T1 leather in Haven, but it doesn't give dwarves access to mage spells, just lets them wield a staff (with an animation that apparently resembles whatever their main weapon normally is).
It seem i posted the wrong link the other day.Try this..
Thanks for this- had me chuckling for at least an hour straight off and on... It's just so.. true... That poor kid... but the roller derby girl is cute though. That Goldman quote makes him sound like he's unable to string a full sentence- much less a full thought- together. "So the dwarven, the way we did it, so elves are like, and on and on, yeah."
I know many want dwarves to be cute, but I kinda prefer the "gruffy" dwarf.
I also liked the "gorilla" arms of dwarven women from DAO. Different races should have aspects that make them unique, not so much homogeneously cute and attractive, esp since this usually applies just to the female versions of all races.
Pretty much ever since I realized that beards stubble were an option. I just couldn't get it right with my first dwarf, Helga.
Spoiler
With my new dwarf gal, and yes, that's my little creation, I was going more what I had in my mind as more traditionally dwarven. (I also enjoy the versatility of the game's CC. Even though some people prefer to make similarly attractive characters for multiple playthroughs, the CC is capable of great diversity in facial features) I love those Tolkien concept images form the Hobbit that have bearded dwarf ladies. I hope Bioware expands on the beard options next game, and allows the players to give dwarf ladies Blackwall beards! I want ribbons, and gems to decorate the facial hair, too!
Well, DAO showed that a "gruffier" look can be cute. I'm not really a fan of bearded ladies, but those Google images results were full of cosplay girls who were clearly having fun using their long hair to emulate a beard. I once tried to get a Tolkien fan to prove that LotR lore definitively stated that dwarf girls had beards, and they couldn't produce anything other than a vague allusion or two. Still, I do tend to like stretching the limits of the CC rather than making Barbie girls, dwarven or otherwise- just so they're an interesting character. Miss DAverse just isn't that interesting... One of my favorite DAO creations was Klydia Aeducan whose face isn't glamorous but very full of character, was so fun to play:
Spoiler
The other thing about those long arms on DAO dwarves was what I mentioned before- how they sync up with the animations well. In that way the "evolution" of dwarves as long-armed makes some sense: it allows them to reach targets easier despite being short. My favorite race/class combo was female dwarf DW rogue because the animation was totally badass. I'd started with a male Brosca- lost to time now since I have no idea what he looked like anymore- but when I got to the Provings and fought the DW Adal Helmi, I was like, "I can make one of those all for me??!!" Scrapped him and made Kruklya Brosca. Favorite character ever!
Unlike the short-arm DAI dwarves where they have to jump and reach further to a target, DAO dwarf girls could look like Kruklya above or here where those awesome DAO decapitations looked perfectly executable:
Several options for changing appearance (it made a huge difference in how I felt about my dalish which were almost painful for me to play.) I've considered modding my qunari male rogue to a leaner shape too.
This is the dwarven female broad frame with athletic arms:
It doesn't change her hugely, but her shoulders are in much better proportion to her hips. I don't think the modders can alter their size much more, but at least now, she has the kind of shoulders I'd expect to see on someone whose race is specifically known for upper body strength and crafts like forging. The arm definition is a tiny bit more than I'd prefer, but at least she does clearly have upper arm strength now. I haven't noticed any problems with clipping, but the Blackwall romance scenes, except for the dance, already screw with height so much that clipping wouldn't make it much worse to watch . Even with the mod, I prefer the DAO shapes.
I really have no idea what they were thinking when they redesigned the female dwarves; probably they simply defaulted to something that put her in the same width range as humans and elves for the romance scenes to make it easier for them, sigh. Then widened the hips a little so they clearly had an adult woman's hips...
I don't see why they didn't just glean from DAO dwarves rather than reinvent them the way they did. They got dwarf guys down pretty well IMO- very easy to make a cool male dwarf. It took me several attempts to make a female dwarf that wasn't just awful- can't max sliders anymore without noticeable consequences. I suppose I don't know what the whole romance scene cinematics involve since I seldom pursue those in DA, so maybe there's something there they were building dwarf girls for, as you suggest, but the majority of the time we're actually playing the character isn't in the romance scenes, so I'd say building a model for that portion of the gameplay should be the default. Clipping in a few select scenes isn't nearly as jarring to play through as a whole game looking like a human dwarf rather than a dwarfy dwarf. Not that human dwarves are so bad, it's just that, ya know, DA's lore doesn't rollout with dwarves as short humans. Dwarves are supposed to be a proud race all their own.
Your dwarf girl's body doesn't look a lot different than vanilla, but I'm getting that mod now...
*mod wrangling happens*
OK, she doesn't look any different... Is there something more to do than just "merging" the mods in? Apparently there's something about "meshes" I need to learn... Back to the drawing board...
I don't see why they didn't just glean from DAO dwarves rather than reinvent them the way they did. They got dwarf guys down pretty well IMO- very easy to make a cool male dwarf. It took me several attempts to make a female dwarf that wasn't just awful- can't max sliders anymore without noticeable consequences. I suppose I don't know what the whole romance scene cinematics involve since I seldom pursue those in DA, so maybe there's something there they were building dwarf girls for, as you suggest, but the majority of the time we're actually playing the character isn't in the romance scenes, so I'd say building a model for that portion of the gameplay should be the default. Clipping in a few select scenes isn't nearly as jarring to play through as a whole game looking like a human dwarf rather than a dwarfy dwarf. Not that human dwarves are so bad, it's just that, ya know, DA's lore doesn't rollout with dwarves as short humans. Dwarves are supposed to be a proud race all their own.
Your dwarf girl's body doesn't look a lot different than vanilla, but I'm getting that mod now...
*mod wrangling happens*
OK, she doesn't look any different... Is there something more to do than just "merging" the mods in? Apparently there's something about "meshes" I need to learn... Back to the drawing board...
I don't understand why they insisted on reinventing them myself, I just assume the idea of even non-human women with visible upper body strength upset someone. And I agree that the romance scenes shouldn't have determined the defaults, but I honestly suspect that's what happened (the romance scenes distort heights-you're now not only human in upper body size, but magically human height - I'm guessing it's because they wrote both the scenes to have the woman walking backwards and didn't want to do the work to make it believable for a dwarf---or qunari who shows up shorter than Blackwall .)
The mod doesn't change it in major ways (I understand they can't import meshes, so they have to work with what's already there) but in the vanilla, her shoulders are noticeably narrow compared to her hips. With the mod, her shoulders are wider, and the upper arm mod definitely adds some bulk and definition. That's not the greatest picture because the lighting is dark. Let me see if I can find a vanilla pic for comparison.
Oh, btw, I don't think Tolkein ever actually says dwarven women DO have beards, but he suggests pretty strongly that dwarven women are able to pass as men to non-dwarven eyes (possibly with fake beards) because no one has ever seen one. Which is one of the reasons transforming the women into hobbits honks me off
Edit:
Wider hips, wider shoulders. The modded arms don't show from this angle, unfortunately, but I was aiming for a sense of the width difference.
Thanks for this- had me chuckling for at least an hour straight off and on... It's just so.. true... That poor kid... but the roller derby girl is cute though. That Goldman quote makes him sound like he's unable to string a full sentence- much less a full thought- together. "So the dwarven, the way we did it, so elves are like, and on and on, yeah."
Well, DAO showed that a "gruffier" look can be cute. I'm not really a fan of bearded ladies, but those Google images results were full of cosplay girls who were clearly having fun using their long hair to emulate a beard. I once tried to get a Tolkien fan to prove that LotR lore definitively stated that dwarf girls had beards, and they couldn't produce anything other than a vague allusion or two. Still, I do tend to like stretching the limits of the CC rather than making Barbie girls, dwarven or otherwise- just so they're an interesting character. Miss DAverse just isn't that interesting... One of my favorite DAO creations was Klydia Aeducan whose face isn't glamorous but very full of character, was so fun to play:
Spoiler
OK, she doesn't look any different... Is there something more to do than just "merging" the mods in? Apparently there's something about "meshes" I need to learn... Back to the drawing board...
BTW, I like Klydia a lot! Very interesting face.
Hmm, not sure what you might be doing. Do you have the latest DAI Mod manager, and have you run the merge? Make sure you only have one body type and one arm type for female dwarves in your merge; I think if you have more than one, it messes it up. Otherwise, the difference mostly shows up in scenes where the PJs appear in vanilla games.
Ah, OK- thanks for the link. It looks a bit more involved than I tend to mod these days, but I bookmarked it since I may try it at some point.
I don't understand why they insisted on reinventing them myself, I just assume the idea of even non-human women with visible upper body strength upset someone. And I agree that the romance scenes shouldn't have determined the defaults, but I honestly suspect that's what happened (the romance scenes distort heights-you're now not only human in upper body size, but magically human height - I'm guessing it's because they wrote both the scenes to have the woman walking backwards and didn't want to do the work to make it believable for a dwarf---or qunari who shows up shorter than Blackwall .)
The mod doesn't change it in major ways (I understand they can't import meshes, so they have to work with what's already there) but in the vanilla, her shoulders are noticeably narrow compared to her hips. With the mod, her shoulders are wider, and the upper arm mod definitely adds some bulk and definition. That's not the greatest picture because the lighting is dark. Let me see if I can find a vanilla pic for comparison.
Oh, btw, I don't think Tolkein ever actually says dwarven women DO have beards, but he suggests pretty strongly that dwarven women are able to pass as men to non-dwarven eyes (possibly with fake beards) because no one has ever seen one. Which is one of the reasons transforming the women into hobbits honks me off
Edit:
Wider hips, wider shoulders. The modded arms don't show from this angle, unfortunately, but I was aiming for a sense of the width difference.
BTW, I like Klydia a lot! Very interesting face.
Hmm, not sure what you might be doing. Do you have the latest DAI Mod manager, and have you run the merge? Make sure you only have one body type and one arm type for female dwarves in your merge; I think if you have more than one, it messes it up. Otherwise, the difference mostly shows up in scenes where the PJs appear in vanilla games.
I do have the DAIToolsSuite (v1.0.0.8) which I've set to auto-update Mod Manager (v.1.0.0.59)- all installed and run well after Patch 10- and I know it's working because I have another mod for increasing the frequency of fade-touched mat occurrence that I've noticed working. I just ran the Merge again- says, "Task completed successfully-" so I figure I did all I needed in that regard. (There's an exception noted, but it has to do with the MoreFadeTouched mod, not the "DF- Custom Arms/Body" mods.) Does it not affect appearance when equipped with crafted armor or something? It's supposed to change DF appearance regardless of armor, no? Are those shots of your DF from Skyhold or elsewhere? I tried removing the armor since it defaults to the Beige PJs, but it doesn't look any different than vanilla, unlike the clear difference on your character shown above. I think I read somewhere that there's a mod that causes all armor to take the appearance of the Haven/Skyhold wear (which can then be modded in turn) so that there would be only one mesh to be affected, but I don't know if that's expected for this mod to work.
The change does look better though- I admit. I just wish I could get it to work. The mod page at Nexus mentions a tutorial, so I'm wondering if there's something more to do than just drop the files into Mod Manager and click Merge.
Funny what you said about them making the romance cutscenes more "universal" that way. I thought the whole bit with Alistair bending way down to kiss a DF Warden was part of the charm of it.
Yes- that's what I recall about the Tolkein/DF reference: all he said was that outsiders (already a suspect witness) tended to consider them indistinguishable, not even mentioning beards directly. That could just mean both male and female dwarves are of a similar build or had no discernible gendered behavioral differences. Not sure why people assume so insistently that Tolkien meant DF's had beards...
I like your character's face too. Those determined eyebrows make her look like serious business.
Ah, OK- thanks for the link. It looks a bit more involved than I tend to mod these days, but I bookmarked it since I may try it at some point.
I do have the DAIToolsSuite (v1.0.0.8) which I've set to auto-update Mod Manager (v.1.0.0.59)- all installed and run well after Patch 10- and I know it's working because I have another mod for increasing the frequency of fade-touched mat occurrence that I've noticed working. I just ran the Merge again- says, "Task completed successfully-" so I figure I did all I needed in that regard. (There's an exception noted, but it has to do with the MoreFadeTouched mod, not the "DF- Custom Arms/Body" mods.) Does it not affect appearance when equipped with crafted armor or something? It's supposed to change DF appearance regardless of armor, no? Are those shots of your DF from Skyhold or elsewhere? I tried removing the armor since it defaults to the Beige PJs, but it doesn't look any different than vanilla, unlike the clear difference on your character shown above. I think I read somewhere that there's a mod that causes all armor to take the appearance of the Haven/Skyhold wear (which can then be modded in turn) so that there would be only one mesh to be affected, but I don't know if that's expected for this mod to work.
The change does look better though- I admit. I just wish I could get it to work. The mod page at Nexus mentions a tutorial, so I'm wondering if there's something more to do than just drop the files into Mod Manager and click Merge.
Funny what you said about them making the romance cutscenes more "universal" that way. I thought the whole bit with Alistair bending way down to kiss a DF Warden was part of the charm of it.
Yes- that's what I recall about the Tolkein/DF reference: all he said was that outsiders (already a suspect witness) tended to consider them indistinguishable, not even mentioning beards directly. That could just mean both male and female dwarves are of a similar build or had no discernible gendered behavioral differences. Not sure why people assume so insistently that Tolkien meant DF's had beards...
I like your character's face too. Those determined eyebrows make her look like serious business.
I'm not sure you see a difference while in crafted armor, etc. Of course, I put her in Legion of the Dead armor as soon as they released the Golden Nug so she had the pattern, and that adds a lot of bulk. Oddly, although it only seems to work for the dwarf when the vanilla scene defaults to PJs, my dalish do sometimes seem to show the modded body while in armor. It works for me without having to do anything besides merge, btw, but maybe you have another mod that's conflicting?
Here's the difference with a dalish:
I've been puzzled by the insistence on beards myself; I blame one of the original developers of D&D who got that idea in his head and tried to insist on it...
And thanks! Zhenya's probably my favorite IQ. It's less the eyebrows than her tattoos, though. I picked it because it does have that rather intimidating effect, especially when she looks sideways or up at someone. Here it is up close when she isn't.
I'm not sure you see a difference while in crafted armor, etc. Of course, I put her in Legion of the Dead armor as soon as they released the Golden Nug so she had the pattern, and that adds a lot of bulk. Oddly, although it only seems to work for the dwarf when the vanilla scene defaults to PJs, my dalish do sometimes seem to show the modded body while in armor. It works for me without having to do anything besides merge, btw, but maybe you have another mod that's conflicting?
Here's the difference with a dalish:
I've been puzzled by the insistence on beards myself; I blame one of the original developers of D&D who got that idea in his head and tried to insist on it...
And thanks! Zhenya's probably my favorite IQ. It's less the eyebrows than her tattoos, though. I picked it because it does have that rather intimidating effect, especially when she looks sideways or up at someone. Here it is up close when she isn't.
Ah, yeah, now I see the tattoo. She could be a zerker.
Ironically I only just posted to a different thread how I like the elf model in DAI, but now that you showed me the difference, it does look like elves could stand to have more width without losing their litheness or leanness. I might add that mod as well... But I've tried all I could to get at least some result from the DF model mods to no effect. The only mods I was using other than those were two more that affected only fade-touched stuff, adding a merchant in Redcliffe. I tried Merging with no mods other than the DF body mods, but again no effect. I took before and after screenshots of with and without the mods for body and arms, but they were pretty much identical. Maybe I'll search for that mod that makes all armor into the Skyhold outfit, but like you said- with different armor more bulk shows up anyway. I put the Sha-Brytol medium armor on Kruklya and it seems to hide the proportion issues somewhat.
... I always thought of Orzammar as being a lot like the Late Roman Republic, their society is firmly locked up and kept in check by the casts system and the final sanction of surface exile. Time to time the deshyrs may accept in their ranks a "****** novus", like the senate accepted non patrician members (Cicero for example) to keep the top non patrician class to rebel.
The lowest class are just to preoccupied by making a living to rebel, and I always thought that one of the reason the castless are not simply put to the sword is that their mere existance gives the servant casts a reason to be proud ("we might live in poverty, but at least we are not like living in squalor like these miserables castless") and a cautionary tale in case they start to have funny ideas ( akin to slavery in ancient Rome).
In this kind of society it's nearly impossible to climb the social ladder (but not totaly) but very easy to fall down to the lowest level, so that every member of a cast may have hope to raise as a "New Dwarf" and a great fear of sinking to the lowest of the low as a castless/ suracer.
This can go on for a long time, it's a self sustaining system, the castless are the only one who might want to rebel because they have nothing to loose, but then I guess a good massacre or a non intervention next time the darkspawn attack Dustown and the question is settled. Plus some castless are definitely well off (Carta boss for example) a change in society is a great risk to their business. To come back to ancient Rome, there has been slave rebellion, ponctual, localized and they ended up in slave blood, the largest and most famous being the Spartacus one, that ended up with 6000 crucifiction all along the Via Appia on roughly 200km, there wasn't anymore large rebellion after that.
The changes in dwarven society will come from the surfacers, Orzammar can not survive without them and a dwarven Caesar will want to get acces to the power....
A bit of a necro as a reply, but I finally determined a salient way to address your points. I do agree about the general tendency of rebellions to end up in disaster for the rebels and the community from which they derive. I can't name a single "successful" rebellion in history. They're bound to disaster. They're not qualitatively anything different than a riot since they mostly just drive the oppressed to get violent, and the damage done is mostly to innocent bystanders and the rebelling community itself until the crackdown inevitably follows. As much as I'd empathize with a casteless rebellion, it's inconceivable that it would end up in anything other than what you describe of "settling the question" over the dead bodies of the casteless. I could see the casteless even occupying the Commons area, looting stores, trashing Tapster's, but ultimately the entirety of caste society would turn on them, and they'd be driven into near oblivion, having accomplished nothing, effecting no change.
A rebellion is much different than a revolution, however, in which there would be a goal other than just acting up and expressing hostility against the way things are. An end to the caste system would require a social revolution that involved the majority of society. After all, as much as being casteless is the worst of all fates and a threat to all who resist caste morays, the caste system is killing Orzammar, dividing it before the relentless darkspawn horde outside its borders, and everyone who isn't a noble suffers under it. (And nobles as well, as our DN experiences firsthand.) It's not just the casteless in Dust Town- and certainly not surfacer dwarves making their way elsewhere- who have strong cause to overturn castes, even if leadership could come from there. We're introduced to the cruelty of the caste system with stories like Zerlinda's choice and Baiyzl's predicament, representing only a fraction of those among caste society who would rather not endure the inevitable consequences of caste limitations. There are even nobles like Denek Helmi, possibly others, who openly argue in the Assembly itself against the caste system. So it's conceivable that there could be a social revolution in Orzammar- one that the Warrior caste might even join (given that they'd be quite pivotal)- but that would take a level of political sophistication and vision that the typical carta operative doesn't have- and possibly more than DA writers have. But it would be a reallllly fantastic event to have play out in Orzammar if the writers could manage it, albeit a challenge to do justice to. I mean, dwarves have been languishing under the caste system for eons after all. A dwarven revolution would simply be one of most meaningful narratives to develop in the DAverse, even as the whole Titan collective consciousness thingy looms.
Anyway, just figured your thoughtful post deserved a thoughtful response.
Ah, yeah, now I see the tattoo. She could be a zerker.
Ironically I only just posted to a different thread how I like the elf model in DAI, but now that you showed me the difference, it does look like elves could stand to have more width without losing their litheness or leanness. I might add that mod as well... But I've tried all I could to get at least some result from the DF model mods to no effect. The only mods I was using other than those were two more that affected only fade-touched stuff, adding a merchant in Redcliffe. I tried Merging with no mods other than the DF body mods, but again no effect. I took before and after screenshots of with and without the mods for body and arms, but they were pretty much identical. Maybe I'll search for that mod that makes all armor into the Skyhold outfit, but like you said- with different armor more bulk shows up anyway. I put the Sha-Brytol medium armor on Kruklya and it seems to hide the proportion issues somewhat.
Ah, you're still in Haven. Have you gone to the war table and watched to see if you see a difference there when she's in the PJs?
I thought they went to an unnecessary extreme with the Dalish that I found unpleasant and inconsistent with DAO (though at least they did it to both male and female.) The pics weren't taken quite at the same moment; the actual change is fairly mild - a little heavier overall with arms that look as if they might be something besides bone...
Edit: I should add that a pleasant side effect of the mod for the Dalish was that when she runs, she no longer looks so much like she's dislocating something. It improved the dwarves too, but for the Dalish, it flat looked painful.
I once tried to get a Tolkien fan to prove that LotR lore definitively stated that dwarf girls had beards, and they couldn't produce anything other than a vague allusion or two. Still, I do tend to like stretching the limits of the CC rather than making Barbie girls, dwarven or otherwise- just so they're an interesting character. Miss DAverse just isn't that interesting... One of my favorite DAO creations was Klydia Aeducan whose face isn't glamorous but very full of character, was so fun to play:
I jumped on the bearded lady dwarf bandwagon when I saw the Hobbit "dwarf women" concept images:
I can't say it's canon or anything like that, but I like their ideas, and would like a similar option for DA4.
If the body models mod fixes the premature breast sag, I'm all for it.
Like most here, the DAO dwarven women had pretty much one of my fave figures in-game.
The I don't hate the DAI version, except for the laziness with the breast shape and positioning.
I love vintage bullet bras but this isn't the 1950s... Her nipples are reminding us that there's a rift in the sky to close!
Funny enough, her boobs calm down while seated on her throne...
Calm yo' boobs, Inquisitor! (EDIT: Apparently, the casual spelling for "teats" is banned here..?)
Well, I have to admit (no surprise) that I really hate the DAI body because she isn't a dwarfy dwarf, as Bhryaen put it earlier. I don't want a short human who completely fails even at the cute roller derby queen. I want someone who looks like she might have a passing relationship to the male dwarves. I could forgive the boobs, but breaking the dwarf commoner Origin from DAO? I'll probably still be grumbling about that when they're on DA5...
To be fair, said casteless was born in raised in Dustown and might be the king's sister/brother-in-law...and that beats being sky-touched in the eyes of the Assembly, I guess?
My male dwarf is no pretty boy. But I've taken advantage of the gruffy features and scars that are available. So far the unique dialogue in dwarven ruins have been fun. I wonder what he'll say at Kal Repartha.
I wish Bioware would make a separate game on Dwarven adventures. After Inquisition I'd like to play a surface dwarf who wants to re-colonize Kal Repartha in the Hissing Wastes. After initial help from the Inquisition, and the further excavation with the University of Orlais, it could become a major dwarven settlement that's not created by the Merchants Guild. With lots of stone and precious metals it has potential.
Then these plans would come to odds with Orzammar. While they don't recognize Kal Repartha as a true thaig, or its history with Paragon Fairel, they hate the idea of these surface dwarves discovering any artifacts he created. At the same time they've begun an ambitious plan to take back Darmallion, the glittering city of gold and silver. It's revealed the city was intentionally flooded to keep it out of darkspawn hands. Orzammar intends to drain it, offering to divert that water to the retaken ruins of Coracavus in the Western Approach. But with the plan to re-colonize Kal Repartha they threaten to divert the water elsewhere unless Orlais withdraws its affairs with Kal Repartha.
stop_him, GameBoyish, Bhryaen et 1 autre aiment ceci
WOW, lady dwarf boobies in a love scene are freaking perky! Like blocking the face perky!
Also, clipping textures everywhere, dwarves are often going through things or levitating.
That being said, I still have hopes for a dwarf LI of either gender.
I wish Bioware would make a separate game on Dwarven adventures. After Inquisition I'd like to play a surface dwarf who wants to re-colonize Kal Repartha in the Hissing Wastes. After initial help from the Inquisition, and the further excavation with the University of Orlais, it could become a major dwarven settlement that's not created by the Merchants Guild. With lots of stone and precious metals it has potential.
Then these plans would come to odds with Orzammar. While they don't recognize Kal Repartha as a true thaig, or its history with Paragon Fairel, they hate the idea of these surface dwarves discovering any artifacts he created. At the same time they've begun an ambitious plan to take back Darmallion, the glittering city of gold and silver. It's revealed the city was intentionally flooded to keep it out of darkspawn hands. Orzammar intends to drain it, offering to divert that water to the retaken ruins of Coracavus in the Western Approach. But with the plan to re-colonize Kal Repartha they threaten to divert the water elsewhere unless Orlais withdraws its affairs with Kal Repartha.
Oh my gosh yes! Humans naturally get a lot of content as they get the least bias in their universe and elves have TONNE of new content especially with things about some companions in DAI which are spoilery.
There's so much more to learn about the complex world of dwarves. Did they use to have magic? And a whole lot of unanswered questions.
Also, a great opportunity to introduce dwarven romance...
Oh my gosh yes! Humans naturally get a lot of content as they get the least bias in their universe and elves have TONNE of new content especially with things about some companions in DAI which are spoilery.
There's so much more to learn about the complex world of dwarves. Did they use to have magic? And a whole lot of unanswered questions.
Also, a great opportunity to introduce dwarven romance...
I'm not sure if what the ancient dwarves did could be considered the same class of magic. That worries me because Dragon Age has kept changing its magic skill trees.
The bro/lover being his usual self. I think most of us dwarves are going to have him along the journey.
Varric changed as well from the original art. Funny that line though: "But Bianca here? She's a sucker for drunk, dumb, and ugly." Bianca should've meddled in Oghren's life then instead of Varric's. Oghren has a thing for paragon girls that go awry, after all...
EDIT:
I know- necroing back to Nov '14, but there a lot of good discussions I've been delving through...
I'm not sure if what the ancient dwarves did could be considered the same class of magic. That worries me because Dragon Age has kept changing its magic skill trees.
The continual shakeup of the magic skills tree (and others skill trees admittedly) could make it more rather than less likely that a new tree for dwarf casters might show up in DA4. The whole Valta-getting-magic-blast-power thingy (which she said wasn't magic, I think I recall, but still) does look promising for dwarf mage powers in DA4. They had a spell called Petrification for mages in DA2- wasn't in DAO- that disappeared again in DAI. If there's a dwarfy-notmagic-power for Valta-dwarf-"mages", Petrification does look reasonable- "turn to Stone" and all. If Solas has Mythal power, and Mythal power is what's enabling him to perma-petrify enemies at will, and Mythal power derives from raw magic that lyrium- Titanveins- offers, there'd be a connection. I wouldn't anticipate full access to mage spells for dwarves in DA4 (though *sigh* would be nice), but a tree based on Stone powers- similar to Shale's powers perhaps, but more elaborate- doesn't sound outlandish. At least if the Titan wakes up or starts getting active or something that provides the game-changer lore dynamics for it. Actually the Titan already woke up apparently- thanks to the Conclave rift- but you know what I mean... if it resumes its pre-elf-war tendencies in some way. The Earth Elementalist tree from DAO became a half-tree in DA2 and then pieces of various trees in DAI, so it could become a fully dwarf tree in DA4.
Just a thought that maybe the Titan(s) went numb and silent in order to protect itself or hide dwarves from the elven onslaught. Now that there's no elf attack looming, the Titan might not feel quite so apprehensive about reasserting itself, albeit a bit more tentative about it now. Making our "dwarf mage" DA4 protag into a Titancaster might be one tentative step.
The telemetrics on dwarf players would likely rise too if there were special powers that you could only get by playing a dwarf "magish," particularly if they were quite good in combat compared with "real" magic casters. I recall preferring elves in BG mostly because they were the only race that allowed a triple-class fighter/rogue/thief and had race bonuses to boot. In DA I prefer dwarves just because they're awesome- and DAO's dwarf origins were awesome- but still. Bottom-line folks might venture out of the odd "human comfort zone" with a clear advantage for magic resistant Rock Smash, Earthquake, and Petrification casters.
I could even see them making dwarf class-choices between warriors, rogues, warrior/Titancasters, and rogue/Titancasters, so that they'd simply have access to another tree to augment their usual skills- or make it a specialization that only gets picked up as a specialization by dwarves that venture into an early dwarf origin experience or something.
Ah, you're still in Haven. Have you gone to the war table and watched to see if you see a difference there when she's in the PJs?
I thought they went to an unnecessary extreme with the Dalish that I found unpleasant and inconsistent with DAO (though at least they did it to both male and female.) The pics weren't taken quite at the same moment; the actual change is fairly mild - a little heavier overall with arms that look as if they might be something besides bone...
Edit: I should add that a pleasant side effect of the mod for the Dalish was that when she runs, she no longer looks so much like she's dislocating something. It improved the dwarves too, but for the Dalish, it flat looked painful.
Belated reply- been occupied elsewise... Yes, tried to see if it affected the Haven outfit, but you only see the PJs in Haven on the 3rd time in the War Room (initially being in your regular worn armor in the War Room- what a weird concept), and it's so brief (and at an overhead view) that, if it affected anything, it's really hard to tell in the couple/few seconds while she walks to and from the table. I'll be able to say better when I play her through to Skyhold, but for sure I couldn't seem to make any difference with that mod in her regular appearance wearing armor for the 95+% of the game she's not in the War Room pre-Skyhold.
It's a notable difference on the elf though, even if the screenies reflected separate instances. I'll put those mods in if/when I play an elf female again. Mostly I'm concerned about dwarf girls because that's the playthrough that'll "count." What? My fem-DC was my "canon" DAO PT.
My male dwarf is no pretty boy. But I've taken advantage of the gruffy features and scars that are available. So far the unique dialogue in dwarven ruins have been fun. I wonder what he'll say at Kal Repartha.
I wish Bioware would make a separate game on Dwarven adventures. After Inquisition I'd like to play a surface dwarf who wants to re-colonize Kal Repartha in the Hissing Wastes. After initial help from the Inquisition, and the further excavation with the University of Orlais, it could become a major dwarven settlement that's not created by the Merchants Guild. With lots of stone and precious metals it has potential.
Then these plans would come to odds with Orzammar. While they don't recognize Kal Repartha as a true thaig, or its history with Paragon Fairel, they hate the idea of these surface dwarves discovering any artifacts he created. At the same time they've begun an ambitious plan to take back Darmallion, the glittering city of gold and silver. It's revealed the city was intentionally flooded to keep it out of darkspawn hands. Orzammar intends to drain it, offering to divert that water to the retaken ruins of Coracavus in the Western Approach. But with the plan to re-colonize Kal Repartha they threaten to divert the water elsewhere unless Orlais withdraws its affairs with Kal Repartha.
Great lore scoping there... had to search DAWiki for the reference to the gold-bounteous Darmallon Thaig in the Darmallon Axe description (the axe found in the Emerald Graves, not the Hissing Wastes, mind you). Can't find any other reference mentioning the flooding thingy. Did you invent that or did I miss lore about that mentioned elsewhere? As to Orzammar diverting resources to as far away as the Hissing Wastes, well... priorities closer to home might come first... and Kal-Shirok is much closer, and Kal-Shirok isn't doing much expansion as of late, far as we know. But I like the idea! Better dwarves claim Kal Repartha (despite that wayward sun-kissed dwarves built it) than Vints. And any settlement of dwarves would be fantastic to me, surface or otherwise.
Well, I have to admit (no surprise) that I really hate the DAI body because she isn't a dwarfy dwarf, as Bhryaen put it earlier. I don't want a short human who completely fails even at the cute roller derby queen. I want someone who looks like she might have a passing relationship to the male dwarves. I could forgive the boobs, but breaking the dwarf commoner Origin from DAO? I'll probably still be grumbling about that when they're on DA5...
But, hey, now they've got almost all the race options from NWN: half-orc, human, elf, half-elf (if you count NPCs), male dwarf, and female halfling. haha... heh... No, if they're going to make a dwarf female, I'd rather she look dwarfy dwarf. By DA6 they're totally gonna get the DAO DF back in action.
Belated reply- been occupied elsewise... Yes, tried to see if it affected the Haven outfit, but you only see the PJs in Haven on the 3rd time in the War Room (initially being in your regular worn armor in the War Room- what a weird concept), and it's so brief (and at an overhead view) that, if it affected anything, it's really hard to tell in the couple/few seconds while she walks to and from the table. I'll be able to say better when I play her through to Skyhold, but for sure I couldn't seem to make any difference with that mod in her regular appearance wearing armor for the 95+% of the game she's not in the War Room pre-Skyhold.
It's a notable difference on the elf though, even if the screenies reflected separate instances. I'll put those mods in if/when I play an elf female again. Mostly I'm concerned about dwarf girls because that's the playthrough that'll "count." What? My fem-DC was my "canon" DAO PT.
lol! True, even the cutscenes at Haven are mostly in armor. I'm not terribly good at judging the exact differences, but I do know that I now enjoy watching both the DF and EF running around Skyhold where before I couldn't stand to look straight at them...
I don't really have canon PTs, but Brosca was probably as close as I got.
Oh, speaking of mods, look at the difference a hair mod can make. Aggressive, hardbitten Zhenya went from:
To this:
when I tested out a Morrigan hair mod by Adela. Lovely, but doesn't suit her. I think I'll try it on my Vetra Cadash later, though.
Retour en haut
. Even with the mod, I prefer the DAO shapes.
.)
