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[Bhryaen]

Actually, I don't want them telling me what my PC is.  My dwarf would have never been a criminal.  I hate that and she sits still in Haven.  My elf inquisitor knew nothing about elven history, deleted.  My noble inquisitor is the only one that I can properly head canon, brothers are templars, family supports the chantry etc. 

 

The good thing about DAO was that you were given options and after you picked, you were allowed to play through it which was really great. Hawke is fleeing with her family, which is good but really, you lose one sibling 2 minutes into the game. 

 

So give me a PC that has no history and let me make it up as the game progresses.

See, this is exactly why I liked DAO's playable origin better. In DAI, yes, as a dwarf you're a criminal. No way to get around it without seriously making a stretch of head-canon to pretend otherwise. It's a blank slate of sorts, but it's also rather coldly established at game start. I'm inventing my own backstory despite it, but I don't like the impersonal nature of it and am a bit awash in the narrative as a result. In DAO you could play a hardened criminal as a dwarf commoner or play a character who seriously resents that and actually expresses that sentiment to Leske, then acts on it later. In both games, however, you are forced to be a member of a criminal organization, so that part is the same. Actually I have no problem with them creating a story to tell through my player experience, but there needs to be some way to account for different player intentions so that, yes, you can make up your identity yourself within that story as it carries forward.

 

On elven lore in DAI though, I've just played an elf. They put a lot of elf content in a much later part of the main story, and it's somewhat rewarding. You get to respond as a Dalish elf a number of times, albeit only one way as such. Up until then, however... not so much content to make being an elf much different, much less interesting as such.

[Aren]

I'm more inclined to think that what keeps them from doing it is that not every story may necessarily be well-suited for it, and the multiple class/race options may make some backstories irrelevant. The thing that tied all of the origins together in DA:O was Duncan looking for a recruit to become a Warden and stop the Blight, but Inquisition doesn't really have anything like that. Most of the characters have no serious connection to the mage/templar conflict. Most are just spying on the people there, but don't have any stronger motivation beyond that. They weren't driven from their former lives because of some great calamity or betrayal. The only exception to this is the human mage, who actually had to flee for his/her life from the Ostwick Circle when it rebelled. 

 

Similarly to DA:O, DA4 could share similarities to DA:O in having the new PC be whoever what's left of the Inquisition seeks to recruit to do whatever in Tevinter, but who knows.

well they could have created something to tied up all the origins,such as the future Inq went to the conclave independently for personal reason

(to steal something,to speak with the Divine,to meet a friend there ecc..)

[vbibbi]

Just think of what could have happened had DAI had an actual introduction and character origin. The PC starts at the ToSA and can express their reasons for being there. Each race has the basic reason why they're attending, but the player could express different attitudes about that reason. E.g. a human mage could be there to represent the Ostwick Circle but actually be planning to escape their templar escort and join the rebel mage leaders or provide troop movement information to them. Or they could pretend to be friendly with rebel mages and try to learn some information which would be helpful to the templars or Chantry. Lots of roleplaying options involving the existing dialogue wheel.

 

Then we end the prologue by being tasked to give something to the Divine, find her chambers locked (avoiding making You Know Who look stupid for lax security) and have to find a method to reach the Divine. Just as we enter the chambers, the room explodes and we wake up in the Fade. Then the rest of the game progresses as normal. We still have no memory of what occurred between the temple and our escape from the Fade. Heck, we can even think we ARE guilty of causing the explosion, if we roleplayed as someone trying to sabotage the Chantry.

 

And since everything ends the same way, we don't need to worry about consequences of these choices affecting the rest of the game.

 

I think it would have been more compelling of a story had there been more uncertainty of our role in the temple's explosion. The game proves our innocence pretty quickly and then moves on from there, but it could have been interesting to have our role as the lesser of two evils, that Cassandra is not sure of our innocence but we're the only ones who can close rifts, so for the moment we're on probation as we help bring order. Then, based on our actions we can either prove our innocence to her or increase her suspicions. Again, we find out in the Fade the truth, so it won't affect the main plot, just give some roleplaying flavor.

[Bhryaen]

Just think of what could have happened had DAI had an actual introduction and character origin. The PC starts at the ToSA and can express their reasons for being there. Each race has the basic reason why they're attending, but the player could express different attitudes about that reason. E.g. a human mage could be there to represent the Ostwick Circle but actually be planning to escape their templar escort and join the rebel mage leaders or provide troop movement information to them. Or they could pretend to be friendly with rebel mages and try to learn some information which would be helpful to the templars or Chantry. Lots of roleplaying options involving the existing dialogue wheel.

 

Then we end the prologue by being tasked to give something to the Divine, find her chambers locked (avoiding making You Know Who look stupid for lax security) and have to find a method to reach the Divine. Just as we enter the chambers, the room explodes and we wake up in the Fade. Then the rest of the game progresses as normal. We still have no memory of what occurred between the temple and our escape from the Fade. Heck, we can even think we ARE guilty of causing the explosion, if we roleplayed as someone trying to sabotage the Chantry.

 

And since everything ends the same way, we don't need to worry about consequences of these choices affecting the rest of the game.

 

I think it would have been more compelling of a story had there been more uncertainty of our role in the temple's explosion. The game proves our innocence pretty quickly and then moves on from there, but it could have been interesting to have our role as the lesser of two evils, that Cassandra is not sure of our innocence but we're the only ones who can close rifts, so for the moment we're on probation as we help bring order. Then, based on our actions we can either prove our innocence to her or increase her suspicions. Again, we find out in the Fade the truth, so it won't affect the main plot, just give some roleplaying flavor.

Your suggestion about a little interaction prior to the Conclave event isn't as involved as DAO's origins (I could see making origin choices that do affect the rest of the game somehow), but, yes, even that would've lent the player a strong basis for interpreting their character's identity, motivations, social status and contacts, and pre-start history. It would have been a different sort of vagueness about our own protagonists if we as the players were intentionally kept in the dark only about what sort of deeds we may have committed during our blackout. Instead we're kept in the dark about nearly our entire pre-Conclave existence.

 

Another thing I've come to notice about the vagueness inherent in DAI's origins is that, in fact, there are at least some specific parameters that you're given about your origin. Though you start the game with mostly a blank slate, your pre-Conclave story is ultimately not a blank slate: there are (some) origin story parameters that the game reveals to you through War Room missions that are inevitably game-canon. For dwarves you have an acquaintence/chum named Lantos, an employer of sorts named the Dasher, and you went to the Conclave with a shipment of lyrium. That would've been nice to know (or better to have experienced) as the game started- i.e., rather than getting it only some ways into the game. I already had a head-canon about my character based on the vague origin paragraph prior to the CC screen, but now I had to either scrap it or adjust it to account for information I should've been privy to at game start. Because you don't encounter such information first-hand in a pre-story origin experience and only learn about them through War Room missions, you can actually head-canon something at game start that suits the pre-CC paragraph excellently but nevertheless gets outright contradicted later by the backstory presupposed within each of those War Room missions.

 

For instance, the Cadash origin- very vague at game start like every other. You work for the Cadash crime family, you got sent to the Conclave "as a spy-" all that's established at game start. So I started up a whole story about a character who married into the Cadash House, having been a casteless in Orzammar, had a boss named Boffra and a child named Broska, his wife killed in a raid yrs ago on a rival carta group, just returned from an attempt to shore up a client despite that a lyrium shipment got raided by mages, and Boffra decides to send him to the Conclave in case he'll have some way to help stop the mage-templar war that's bad for business. The head-canon story I wrote was this:

 

Spoiler

Boffra always felt her spine stiffening when Blunchard would arrive and make eye contact without his usual head nod. It felt like his way of putting her signature on the job she'd assigned him, but, just like the last mission she'd sent him on, no signature was forthcoming. "No?"

 

The corner of Blunchard's mouth twitched into a humorless smirk. "You were right. Mages are nugbrains."

 

It wasn't the first time a recent lyrium shipment had been forestalled, hijacked, or otherwise made unprofitable. And unfortunately she couldn't blame Blunchard for incompetence, not after having seen him in action as often as she had. If any of her crew was reliable, he was. The conflict between the mages and templars was making honest- or dishonest- trade unbearable.

 

"So you weren't able to convince them? That's why I send you. You're the one with the strongest persuasion skills around here."

 

Blunchard knew this was mostly a reference to his maul, but he always appreciated recognition for his previous jobs well-done. In this case, that he got any recognition at all was contenting. "There wasn't any persuading to do. The mages took it and ran... to wherever. And we're not getting it back without more than the handful of Boulders I had with me. If it's any consolation, the Temps didn't demand their sovs back... after I... talked with them. But they want a new shipment."

 

"It's not on the carta to polish their marble for them. If they want their product they have to meet us halfway."

 

"Which is what I told them..." Blunchard knew he was going to have "that discussion" with Boffra again, so he just made his position known. "But you know it doesn't look good when we can't maintain our own routes."

 

Boffra wasn't one to accept defeat casually. "We're supposed to send them double the supplies then? That's what you promised them? How do we even know they didn't just kill Carta agents outright and lie about it?"

 

Blunchard leveled his gaze at her with his head cocked. "They'd really risk that with the Cadash House?" He had only become a Cadash from marriage to Boffra's younger sister, Drevli, when he'd left Dust Town so long ago, but that also worked in his favor: his earnestness in representing the Cadashes always appealed to Boffra, if not to her general house patriotism outright. And Drevli's loss was also cause for Cadash patriotism.

 

She had no reply, so he continued, "Besides, I saw the drop point. Temps don't leave blast marks like those. Unless scortched earth and frozen grass are Temp work."

 

Then Boffra erupted, pacing somewhat around the room as if staking territory, "We lost good Cadashes that day! If the Temps think they can simply ignore our losses and demand a new shipment they're as cloud-addled as the mages! We're not just calling it a slip-up and sending them whatever they please. They want the lyrium- they can go get it! We delivered."

 

That was when Blunchard knew he'd overplayed the Cadash-card. Not that he didn't agree with her for the most part, but long-term customers were becoming harder to establish in these trying times, so he saw no good in just stone-knuckling every situation. He tried to back-pedal: "I didn't promise them anything."

 

"Good! Wouldn't have sent you if I thought you would."

 

Blunchard sighed long, unable to put into useful words what needed to be said. Boffra balked at him, "Do you actually think we're supposed to keep sending lyrium to them? Where's their concern for our people? They couldn't care less! Stupid addicts. We can always find more..."

 

"Actually," Blunchard began, more hopeful now that she was the one to bring it up. He slowly pulled a gold Templar icon from his coat pocket and reached out to hand it to her. "They helped us recover all the Boulders' goods and exchanged this personal item for one of ours. If anything, it'll go for a few sovs. They want to keep our business."

 

"Wait a minute. You gave them something from one of our fallen Cadashes?"

 

Blunchard paused awkwardly as his eyes went dead, anticipating the backlash. "Yes."

 

"Yes?! You just gave it away for this pathetic Temp trophy?" She swatted the icon from his hand to send it flying, and he slowly returned his hand to his side. "How could you have possibly done that??"

 

"It was Krevor's beat-up old locket, boss. He has no one back here to give it to anyway."
 

"Krevor..." Boffra was struggling to find a way to make the loss of the locket more significant. Blunchard was hoping she wouldn't find such a way. "What about cousin Narkra? She doesn't want it?"

 

"Narkra pissed in his ale just last week, ser. They weren't on good terms."

 

"Yeah..." Boffra had indeed overplayed her outrage.

 

"And that icon," Blunchard indicated with a head shift across the room toward the Templar icon without taking his eyes from her, "was from their chief officer who died there as well." He just let the facts sink in.

 

Boffra wasn't letting this go. She stared him hard in his stone-dead eyes. "Would you have handed Drevli's locket over to a bunch of sky-addled idiots too?"

 

That was a low blow, even as common as low blows usually were around there. Drevli had been killed a few years prior in a raid on a rival carta's warehouse. The raid was successful, but there had been more casualties than anticipated. It had been deemed necessary by numerous Cadash leaders, including Boffra, because that carta was flouting the Cadash name, brazenly out-bidding clients, and daring a response. Given Boffra's role in the death of her own sister, it made the accusation against Blunchard that much less fair, but his only reply was a fairly muted, "No."

 

"Exactly!"

 

Blunchard waited a moment for her to bask in her righteousness before venturing, "I'd never have given those sodders anything but the broad side of my hammer."

 

"Yeah..." Boffra muttered, still pacing, clearly of a somewhat mixed reaction. They both knew Boffra had never been particularly close with Drevli as it was. "Idiot addicts. If only we didn't need them..."

 

Blunchard wasn't sure how to resolve the matter. The Cadash Carta did need to do something about the lost shipment. He offered, "Maybe that Concrete meeting will make the mages less nugbrained in the future." The term "nugbrain" was Boffra's favorite, so he figured that might make her less hostile... at least to him.

 

"The what? Oh, the 'Conclave' thing," she pronounced mockingly. "Yeah... Wait, no, now that you remind me of it, we're not going to just wait on them to get their nugbrains straightened out. Someone has to go make sure they get sense in their airy heads..." She turned to face him with her eyes narrowed in an expression intended to let him know he was the one who inspired it, "I'm sending you."

 

Blunchard blinked. "Me?" He'd been sent to negotiate all sorts of arrangements for the Cadash Carta, but always something relatively local... and carta-controlled. Such a task seemed loomingly outside his skillset. "How will I-?"

 

"I don't know," Boffra responded dismissively. "Figure something out. But you're going! You figured out how to make nice by giving away Cadash souvenirs to a bunch of Temps, didn't you? Go make the Temps and magical idiots exchange gifts too and call it a draw. I'm sick of this bronto-ass war mucking things up."

 

She was clearly riding him because she figured she was on the high stone, but Blunchard knew she wouldn't be sending him if she lacked confidence in him, so the digs at him didn't feel quite as much like a scolding. "I'll... do what I can."

 

"Of course, you will... Besides, at the very least you can report back immediately however the stone turns..." As Blunchard watched, hoping she was taking time to reconsider her order, Boffra had sauntered over to where the Templar icon had landed on the edge of her desk. She picked it up with as much of a disinterested appraisal as she could feign. "I can probably get 5 sovs for it... maybe 6."

 

Blunchard knew there was no more he could do about it. "I'll do the Cadash family proud, ser."

 

He hesitated a moment- more a rehearsed gesture to leave his boss a chance to get a line in- then turned to leave, barely able to determine a single way he'd be able to live up to his word. As he started to try to piece together how he'd ever even get anyone at the Conclave to talk with him, much persuade them to give up hostilities, Boffra added, passing over his sentiment as if he'd merely intoned an understood edict, "And get an audience with whoever's in charge over there too. Make sure they... understand what we need."

 

Blunchard couldn't help but wonder if she was putting him- and the carta itself- in gravel over their heads, but he was never one to question orders much further than simply how to get them done. He was a heavy- all there was to it, and he had skills. There was only one way he wasn't- with his daughter: "And Broska?"

 

Boffra looked at him with mild surprise, though it was true that she did look kindly on the responsibility he demonstrated for her niece. "What about her? Of course, she'll be taken care of- as always. Why? Worried the nugbrains are going to get you?"

 

Blunchard had been sussed out: yes, he was worried. But all he could meaningfully reply was, "Nah. I'll handle it." And he started toward the door with his usual well-walked composure of determined swagger before setting out on a mission she'd given him, albeit feeling definitively out of his element this time.

 

"Yes... you will." Boffra sounded somewhere between insistent and encouraging. Both knew the long-term consequences of the war on business and life for the Cadash House generally.

 

Blunchard let her have the last word. Boffra always got the last word.

 

I liked the story and was immediately able to take to it with my character and roleplay from it. Then I got to the first origin-specific War Room mission: boom, now his boss is The Dasher, he went to the Conclave as a runner for the lyrium trade instead of strictly a "spy," and he's supposed to have gone with some guy named Lantos who he probably knew fairly well. So my head-canon- for all its nice tie-in's to DAI's plot- now requires abandoning or concocting new story elements for in order to adjust to the new pre-story information that would've been nice to know prior to, like, the story. And there's no telling what new pre-story parameter will be established with the next War Room mission- i.e., and what new contrived plot twist I'll have to concoct in my head-canon to compensate for the new pre-story-related information.

 

Thus in essence- in order to avoid coming up with an unviable head-canon- you first have to run through DAI with zero head-canon regarding your origin- zero imagination- just passively taking in the pre-story that slowly gets revealed to you through non-interactive War Room missions in order to learn what the pre-story parameters are in full. Then in the next playthrough with that origin you can start with a head-canon that won't be contradicted. By contrast it was my first playthrough as a dwarf commoner that endeared me to DAO and to the origin- able to head-canon ably as I went with no gaps in the established pre-story- all the relevant info and parameters not only established at game start but experienced by me the player as the character. I prefer that way...

[Absafraginlootly]

Just think of what could have happened had DAI had an actual introduction and character origin. The PC starts at the ToSA and can express their reasons for being there. Each race has the basic reason why they're attending, but the player could express different attitudes about that reason. E.g. a human mage could be there to represent the Ostwick Circle but actually be planning to escape their templar escort and join the rebel mage leaders or provide troop movement information to them. Or they could pretend to be friendly with rebel mages and try to learn some information which would be helpful to the templars or Chantry. Lots of roleplaying options involving the existing dialogue wheel.

 

Then we end the prologue by being tasked to give something to the Divine, find her chambers locked (avoiding making You Know Who look stupid for lax security) and have to find a method to reach the Divine. Just as we enter the chambers, the room explodes and we wake up in the Fade. Then the rest of the game progresses as normal. We still have no memory of what occurred between the temple and our escape from the Fade. Heck, we can even think we ARE guilty of causing the explosion, if we roleplayed as someone trying to sabotage the Chantry.

 

And since everything ends the same way, we don't need to worry about consequences of these choices affecting the rest of the game.

 

I think it would have been more compelling of a story had there been more uncertainty of our role in the temple's explosion. The game proves our innocence pretty quickly and then moves on from there, but it could have been interesting to have our role as the lesser of two evils, that Cassandra is not sure of our innocence but we're the only ones who can close rifts, so for the moment we're on probation as we help bring order. Then, based on our actions we can either prove our innocence to her or increase her suspicions. Again, we find out in the Fade the truth, so it won't affect the main plot, just give some roleplaying flavor.

 

I really wish they had done this, both DAI and DA2 lack a good beginning pre-main story that allows you to establish who your character is.

 

Even if they don't bring back origins (though I really hope they do), they should at least give us a proper beginning this time, instead of dumping us in medias res.

[vbibbi]

Your suggestion about a little interaction prior to the Conclave event isn't as involved as DAO's origins (I could see making origin choices that do affect the rest of the game somehow), but, yes, even that would've lent the player a strong basis for interpreting their character's identity, motivations, social status and contacts, and pre-start history. It would have been a different sort of vagueness about our own protagonists if we as the players were intentionally kept in the dark only about what sort of deeds we may have committed during our blackout. Instead we're kept in the dark about nearly our entire pre-Conclave existence.

 

Another thing I've come to notice about the vagueness inherent in DAI's origins is that, in fact, there are at least some specific parameters that you're given about your origin. Though you start the game with mostly a blank slate, your pre-Conclave story is ultimately not a blank slate: there are (some) origin story parameters that the game reveals to you through War Room missions that are inevitably game-canon. For dwarves you have an acquaintence/chum named Lantos, an employer of sorts named the Dasher, and you went to the Conclave with a shipment of lyrium. That would've been nice to know (or better to have experienced) as the game started- i.e., rather than getting it only some ways into the game. I already had a head-canon about my character based on the vague origin paragraph prior to the CC screen, but now I had to either scrap it or adjust it to account for information I should've been privy to at game start. Because you don't encounter such information first-hand in a pre-story origin experience and only learn about them through War Room missions, you can actually head-canon something at game start that suits the pre-CC paragraph excellently but nevertheless gets outright contradicted later by the backstory presupposed within each of those War Room missions.

 

For instance, the Cadash origin- very vague at game start like every other. You work for the Cadash crime family, you got sent to the Conclave "as a spy-" all that's established at game start. So I started up a whole story about a character who married into the Cadash House, having been a casteless in Orzammar, had a boss named Boffra and a child named Broska, his wife killed in a raid yrs ago on a rival carta group, just returned from an attempt to shore up a client despite that a lyrium shipment got raided by mages, and Boffra decides to send him to the Conclave in case he'll have some way to help stop the mage-templar war that's bad for business. The head-canon story I wrote was this:

 

Spoiler

Boffra always felt her spine stiffening when Blunchard would arrive and make eye contact without his usual head nod. It felt like his way of putting her signature on the job she'd assigned him, but, just like the last mission she'd sent him on, no signature was forthcoming. "No?"

 

The corner of Blunchard's mouth twitched into a humorless smirk. "You were right. Mages are nugbrains."

 

It wasn't the first time a recent lyrium shipment had been forestalled, hijacked, or otherwise made unprofitable. And unfortunately she couldn't blame Blunchard for incompetence, not after having seen him in action as often as she had. If any of her crew was reliable, he was. The conflict between the mages and templars was making honest- or dishonest- trade unbearable.

 

"So you weren't able to convince them? That's why I send you. You're the one with the strongest persuasion skills around here."

 

Blunchard knew this was mostly a reference to his maul, but he always appreciated recognition for his previous jobs well-done. In this case, that he got any recognition at all was contenting. "There wasn't any persuading to do. The mages took it and ran... to wherever. And we're not getting it back without more than the handful of Boulders I had with me. If it's any consolation, the Temps didn't demand their sovs back... after I... talked with them. But they want a new shipment."

 

"It's not on the carta to polish their marble for them. If they want their product they have to meet us halfway."

 

"Which is what I told them..." Blunchard knew he was going to have "that discussion" with Boffra again, so he just made his position known. "But you know it doesn't look good when we can't maintain our own routes."

 

Boffra wasn't one to accept defeat casually. "We're supposed to send them double the supplies then? That's what you promised them? How do we even know they didn't just kill Carta agents outright and lie about it?"

 

Blunchard leveled his gaze at her with his head cocked. "They'd really risk that with the Cadash House?" He had only become a Cadash from marriage to Boffra's younger sister, Drevli, when he'd left Dust Town so long ago, but that also worked in his favor: his earnestness in representing the Cadashes always appealed to Boffra, if not to her general house patriotism outright. And Drevli's loss was also cause for Cadash patriotism.

 

She had no reply, so he continued, "Besides, I saw the drop point. Temps don't leave blast marks like those. Unless scortched earth and frozen grass are Temp work."

 

Then Boffra erupted, pacing somewhat around the room as if staking territory, "We lost good Cadashes that day! If the Temps think they can simply ignore our losses and demand a new shipment they're as cloud-addled as the mages! We're not just calling it a slip-up and sending them whatever they please. They want the lyrium- they can go get it! We delivered."

 

That was when Blunchard knew he'd overplayed the Cadash-card. Not that he didn't agree with her for the most part, but long-term customers were becoming harder to establish in these trying times, so he saw no good in just stone-knuckling every situation. He tried to back-pedal: "I didn't promise them anything."

 

"Good! Wouldn't have sent you if I thought you would."

 

Blunchard sighed long, unable to put into useful words what needed to be said. Boffra balked at him, "Do you actually think we're supposed to keep sending lyrium to them? Where's their concern for our people? They couldn't care less! Stupid addicts. We can always find more..."

 

"Actually," Blunchard began, more hopeful now that she was the one to bring it up. He slowly pulled a gold Templar icon from his coat pocket and reached out to hand it to her. "They helped us recover all the Boulders' goods and exchanged this personal item for one of ours. If anything, it'll go for a few sovs. They want to keep our business."

 

"Wait a minute. You gave them something from one of our fallen Cadashes?"

 

Blunchard paused awkwardly as his eyes went dead, anticipating the backlash. "Yes."

 

"Yes?! You just gave it away for this pathetic Temp trophy?" She swatted the icon from his hand to send it flying, and he slowly returned his hand to his side. "How could you have possibly done that??"

 

"It was Krevor's beat-up old locket, boss. He has no one back here to give it to anyway."
 

"Krevor..." Boffra was struggling to find a way to make the loss of the locket more significant. Blunchard was hoping she wouldn't find such a way. "What about cousin Narkra? She doesn't want it?"

 

"Narkra pissed in his ale just last week, ser. They weren't on good terms."

 

"Yeah..." Boffra had indeed overplayed her outrage.

 

"And that icon," Blunchard indicated with a head shift across the room toward the Templar icon without taking his eyes from her, "was from their chief officer who died there as well." He just let the facts sink in.

 

Boffra wasn't letting this go. She stared him hard in his stone-dead eyes. "Would you have handed Drevli's locket over to a bunch of sky-addled idiots too?"

 

That was a low blow, even as common as low blows usually were around there. Drevli had been killed a few years prior in a raid on a rival carta's warehouse. The raid was successful, but there had been more casualties than anticipated. It had been deemed necessary by numerous Cadash leaders, including Boffra, because that carta was flouting the Cadash name, brazenly out-bidding clients, and daring a response. Given Boffra's role in the death of her own sister, it made the accusation against Blunchard that much less fair, but his only reply was a fairly muted, "No."

 

"Exactly!"

 

Blunchard waited a moment for her to bask in her righteousness before venturing, "I'd never have given those sodders anything but the broad side of my hammer."

 

"Yeah..." Boffra muttered, still pacing, clearly of a somewhat mixed reaction. They both knew Boffra had never been particularly close with Drevli as it was. "Idiot addicts. If only we didn't need them..."

 

Blunchard wasn't sure how to resolve the matter. The Cadash Carta did need to do something about the lost shipment. He offered, "Maybe that Concrete meeting will make the mages less nugbrained in the future." The term "nugbrain" was Boffra's favorite, so he figured that might make her less hostile... at least to him.

 

"The what? Oh, the 'Conclave' thing," she pronounced mockingly. "Yeah... Wait, no, now that you remind me of it, we're not going to just wait on them to get their nugbrains straightened out. Someone has to go make sure they get sense in their airy heads..." She turned to face him with her eyes narrowed in an expression intended to let him know he was the one who inspired it, "I'm sending you."

 

Blunchard blinked. "Me?" He'd been sent to negotiate all sorts of arrangements for the Cadash Carta, but always something relatively local... and carta-controlled. Such a task seemed loomingly outside his skillset. "How will I-?"

 

"I don't know," Boffra responded dismissively. "Figure something out. But you're going! You figured out how to make nice by giving away Cadash souvenirs to a bunch of Temps, didn't you? Go make the Temps and magical idiots exchange gifts too and call it a draw. I'm sick of this bronto-ass war mucking things up."

 

She was clearly riding him because she figured she was on the high stone, but Blunchard knew she wouldn't be sending him if she lacked confidence in him, so the digs at him didn't feel quite as much like a scolding. "I'll... do what I can."

 

"Of course, you will... Besides, at the very least you can report back immediately however the stone turns..." As Blunchard watched, hoping she was taking time to reconsider her order, Boffra had sauntered over to where the Templar icon had landed on the edge of her desk. She picked it up with as much of a disinterested appraisal as she could feign. "I can probably get 5 sovs for it... maybe 6."

 

Blunchard knew there was no more he could do about it. "I'll do the Cadash family proud, ser."

 

He hesitated a moment- more a rehearsed gesture to leave his boss a chance to get a line in- then turned to leave, barely able to determine a single way he'd be able to live up to his word. As he started to try to piece together how he'd ever even get anyone at the Conclave to talk with him, much persuade them to give up hostilities, Boffra added, passing over his sentiment as if he'd merely intoned an understood edict, "And get an audience with whoever's in charge over there too. Make sure they... understand what we need."

 

Blunchard couldn't help but wonder if she was putting him- and the carta itself- in gravel over their heads, but he was never one to question orders much further than simply how to get them done. He was a heavy- all there was to it, and he had skills. There was only one way he wasn't- with his daughter: "And Broska?"

 

Boffra looked at him with mild surprise, though it was true that she did look kindly on the responsibility he demonstrated for her niece. "What about her? Of course, she'll be taken care of- as always. Why? Worried the nugbrains are going to get you?"

 

Blunchard had been sussed out: yes, he was worried. But all he could meaningfully reply was, "Nah. I'll handle it." And he started toward the door with his usual well-walked composure of determined swagger before setting out on a mission she'd given him, albeit feeling definitively out of his element this time.

 

"Yes... you will." Boffra sounded somewhere between insistent and encouraging. Both knew the long-term consequences of the war on business and life for the Cadash House generally.

 

Blunchard let her have the last word. Boffra always got the last word.

 

I liked the story and was immediately able to take to it with my character and roleplay from it. Then I got to the first origin-specific War Room mission: boom, now his boss is The Dasher, he went to the Conclave as a runner for the lyrium trade instead of strictly a "spy," and he's supposed to have gone with some guy named Lantos who he probably knew fairly well. So my head-canon- for all its nice tie-in's to DAI's plot- now requires abandoning or concocting new story elements for in order to adjust to the new pre-story information that would've been nice to know prior to, like, the story. And there's no telling what new pre-story parameter will be established with the next War Room mission- i.e., and what new contrived plot twist I'll have to concoct in my head-canon to compensate for the new pre-story-related information.

 

Thus in essence- in order to avoid coming up with an unviable head-canon- you first have to run through DAI with zero head-canon regarding your origin- zero imagination- just passively taking in the pre-story that slowly gets revealed to you through non-interactive War Room missions in order to learn what the pre-story parameters are in full. Then in the next playthrough with that origin you can start with a head-canon that won't be contradicted. By contrast it was my first playthrough as a dwarf commoner that endeared me to DAO and to the origin- able to head-canon ably as I went with no gaps in the established pre-story- all the relevant info and parameters not only established at game start but experienced by me the player as the character. I prefer that way...

 

Good point, I hadn't even considered that issue. It really is jarring to have only a basic background and everything else blank slate at the start, even though the character doesn't have amnesia, just selective memory loss. Then later in the game, we get more details on the background, which can potentially conflict with the player's headcanon. It makes for a narrow path to walk to try to roleplay the PC but without violating the source material.

[JadeDragon]

The Conclave should have been our Ostagar. A mutual point where all the origins actually started to focus on the story of the game and introduce the main character and players to the major npcs and factions of the game. There should have been a prologue to the story were we establish ok this is the kind of character we are playing and the future conversations about ourselves could always remain in place because from that point we our furthering to flesh out a character we have already created instead of making it up as we go. Humans could have started in Otswick either the Chantry for nobles or circle for mages, this would give those characters a leg up on the lore and interactions from those groups. Non mage humans would interact with Templars more before hand and chantry members while circle mages interact more with different memebers of the circle and there thoughts on things to come. Dalish elves start out in the forest near Wycome with non mages in there hunter role and mages interacting more with the first. Dwarves could start out somewhere possibly in the middle of setting up a lyrium deal with some Templars and Qunari with there merc squad introducing the players to the lives of tal-vasosth qunari. From that point a small story could occur but overall it leads to getting info on the meeting at the conclave from there Qunari get there orders as bodyguards, circle mages are selected to attend, human noble is selected to rep there house with the chantry, carta get word about it during the lyrium deal and select there spies and dalish find out from word of mouth and also select there spies. But that has all passed and I hope in the future origins will be bought back it was always a major pro in the series and it should return along with race selection they kinda go hand and hand 

[vbibbi]

It feels like Bioware has the need to reinvent each game, and they don't want to repeat gameplay from previous games. So they didn't want to have a clear origin for each background as that would feel too similar to DAO. And they felt starting in the middle of the action set the tone better.

 

I know the multiple backgrounds were a late addition so they didn't have time to implement as much diversity based content, but why hadn't they considered multiple races from the start? It was clearly an aspect popular in DAO and unpopular in DA2.

[myahele]

Yeah, the conclave would've been a great prologue. It doesn't have to be as detailed as DAO prologue, infact everything could still be the same just different dialogue based on who your race.

 

Just the main character wandering the conclave and speaking with folks and then a huge blackout (for spoiler purposes) only to awake in the Fade

[Andraste_Reborn]

I know the multiple backgrounds were a late addition so they didn't have time to implement as much diversity based content, but why hadn't they considered multiple races from the start? It was clearly an aspect popular in DAO and unpopular in DA2.

 

Race selectiion is complicated and time-consuming to implement, and relatively few players use it. That doesn't mean it isn't worth doing, but I can see why they tried out the human only approach in DA2 and planned it again for DAI. I really hope they stick with multiple races going forward, though. (After all, if they start cutting things only a minority of players use, next they'll be getting rid of rogues, female player characters, romances, and the ending of the game ...)

 

I say this as someone who shed a tear of joy when I found out I'd be able to play a dwarf again in Inquisition, but the fact remains that 80% of Wardens AND 80% of Inquisitors ever created are human.

[vbibbi]

Race selectiion is complicated and time-consuming to implement, and relatively few players use it. That doesn't mean it isn't worth doing, but I can see why they tried out the human only approach in DA2 and planned it again for DAI. I really hope they stick with multiple races going forward, though. (After all, if they start cutting things only a minority of players use, next they'll be getting rid of rogues, female player characters, romances, and the ending of the game ...)

 

I say this as someone who shed a tear of joy when I found out I'd be able to play a dwarf again in Inquisition, but the fact remains that 80% of Wardens AND 80% of Inquisitors ever created are human.

 

I'm glad for the inclusion of the choice of race, even though I didn't mind being set with Hawke. It really depends on the story behind the race: I found the Cousland background rather cliche and stereotypical revenge story and my favorite/canon background is female city elf. It's so dark and badass, fighting your way out of a castle after a violent end to a wedding. It's a difficult subject to portray in a game but I thought it was well done and distinctive for the genre.

 

I was completely fine with Hawke only being human, as so much of the story is set around the Amell and Hawke family backstory.

 

The story of DAI does lean more toward human, with the Herald of Andraste most easily being accepted as a human. I think a non-human PC should have had an extra mandatory quest at some point having to deal with the Chantry denouncing a heathen as Herald. Kind of like the cut questline in DA2 for how mage Hawke avoided templar attention for years.

 

The races just felt tacked on at the end of the development cycle, and I wish their inclusion had been from the start, so that more meaningful differences in the world could have been implemented. It is a big drain on resources but if it's done well, it worth a lot more than if it's halfassed. Halfhearted race inclusion isn't going to win any converts to play as anything other than human.