I managed to save the queen and even thought I’ve convinced her and Alistair to marry and affirm their chances to claim the throne. Alistair and I got ourselves captured, bud trough some clever disguises and persuasion, we managed to escape and return to Eamon’s estate. After this, I went to the elven alienage and destroyed a slaving operation which was organized by Loghain. This was all the evidence I needed to get the nobles on my side. The Landsmeet started and, after being cornered, Loghain challenged me to a duel. I defeated him easily and then got the option to recruit him into the ranks of the Grey Wardens. Alistair made it very clear that if I do that, he will be gone, so I chose him and Loghain was executed.

With the nobles on my side and the army assembled, everything was ready for the final assault. The horde went for Denerim and, since the army, due to wrong information, assembled at Redcliffe, when we got back to Denerim, It was already under assault. I managed to kill 2 of the Darkspawn generals and then assaulted the tower where the archdemon was. It was a lengthy battle, but in the end I managed to defeat him with only Alistair and the protagonist left alive. Thanks to Morrigan’s ritual, I survived the final blow and that was it. Game completed! It took me over 60 hours, but it’s finally over.

Not much to say about the game. It’s a standard Bioware RPG. Not as much polish as the older games or Mass Effect, but fun, with a good story and an interesting system. Who knows, I might even return to it one day to complete the rest of the achievements. I recommend the game to any fan of western RPGs.

Again I slack at posting! Sorry about that, I will do my best not to let it happen again. A whole bunch of stuff happened in the game since I last wrote here. First I went to Denerim and reunited Alistair with his sister, which didn’t go as he hoped. Seems his sister is a bit more on the material side, so he ended up promising that he will take care of her. I have also dealt with Marjorie, or whatever the name of Leliana’s old friend was. We didn’t kill her, but she did drop the matter for the time being. After that, I did a bunch of side quests and ended up in brother Genitivi’s house. His apprentice was there and said that the brother went to look for the urn based on a clue he found. After I tried to open a door in the backroom of the house, the apprentice attacked me, so I had to kill him. It turns out the body of the real apprentice was in the room.

The clues led me to a village all the way to the west. As soon as I entered, I realized the villagers are acting extremely weird. A few moments later, they attacked me and it turns out they are cultists, guarding the temple where Andraste’s ashes are kept. After a bunch of fighting, I realized they aren’t really fanatics that worship Andraste, but actually fanatics that worship a dragon posing as Andraste. I had to kill the dragon, and then, after solving a bunch of puzzles, I managed to get some ashes for Arl Eamon.

After curing Eamon, I did an extremely large amount of side quests, which got me an achievement, and then decided to go with the Arl to Denerim and call for a Landsmeet. This is where I am now. The late king’s wife asked for my help in freeing her from her father, so that’s what I will try next.

I managed to get the dwarven girl accepted in to the magic school. Since dwarves really can’t do magic, theory is all she will get, but she seems happy about that, so I’m happy to. After that, I went on to explore one of the locations nearby that I haven’t visited before. I’ve found a soldier that fought with me in the first battle getting killed by soldiers of the local baron or something. Before he died, he told me he hid a key to the king’s chest in Ostagar which contained some important documents. This means I had to return to Ostagar to get those documents. While there, I killed some of the Dark Spawn leaders and managed to recover the king’s armor, weapon and shield, as well as Duncan’s sword and dagger. Alistair wears the armor now, and the dagger went to Leliana. We’ve also found the king’s body and gave him a proper ceremony.

After that, I decided to go explore Soldier’s peak, which is an old Warden fortress. It was haunted by demons, so I had to clear that as well as try to find evidence that the great grandmother of someone I met at the camp was a Warden. I didn’t manage to find any evidence, but my main characters got a few new powers, which also unlocked the Diabolist achievement, and I’ve found a Warden mage responsible for all the demons. He helped us close the portals and stayed there to research more ethical ways to help the wardens.

Even though there was no evidence of Levi’s grandmother being a Warden, we did find her body being possessed by a demon, so we had to kill her again. Levi decided to stay at the fortress and use it as storage for his merchandise. Pretty soon, I will be able to buy stuff from him there. Anyway, I have my own castle now and I think I did most of the outdoor quests that I’m strong enough for at this point, so it’s time to go find a cure for Arl Eamon.

The Dwarves are on my side now. I had to go on a long trip through the Deep Roads to find the paragon Branka. On the way, I solved a few side quests and realized that Branka went a bit crazy on here expedition. I killed a Broodmother, and found Branka close to her goal of finding the Anvil of Void. She tricked me into passing the gauntlet of traps before the Anvil for her and then tried to convince to take the Anvil in spite of the fact that the golems it creates are made from dwarves that have to die in agony. I decided to not side with her, and go with Caridin, the paragon who originally created the golems and was now a golem himself. We defeated Branka, with the help of her husband (which I didn’t want because he sucks as a tank) and, after forging a crown for the new dwarven king, he threw himself into the lava bellow (or is it magma?).

I decided to give the crown to Bhelen, but now I’m not really sure that was the good choice, because he immediately decided to execute the competition. Still, he wants to move the dwarven society forward, and at least he didn’t cheat in order to get the advantage in the assembly.

After this, I left the dwarven kingdom and gave another shot at Flemeth. Off course, I failed so I guess I’m still not ready for that. Next up, more side quests and then maybe it will be time to go to Denerim.

I decided to get the dwarves next. I got to their mountain city, progressed one of the mercenary quests on the way and managed to piss of a messenger from the “king” while entering the city. Seems the dwarves have a problem to, surprise, surprise. Their king is dead and now 2 guys are interested in the throne. I have to pick one of them to support so, after doing lots of exploration and side quests, I decided to go for the younger, “change is good” type of guy. Now I have to get to the Dead Roads and find some noble that is being cheated by the other guy. I’m not exactly sure how far I need to go, but I will see later today.

I haven’t really played today, but I did play some more yesterday, so I should probably write about that. I tried getting the 3 Juggernaut armor pieces, but I could only get one. The Revenants are simply too strong for my group right now. Maybe if I had a proper healer I would be able to do it, but I really want to keep Morrigan in my group, so I will try again later.

Other than that, I went to a village to get myself a golem, so I can add a bunch of rocks to the list of my party members. It seems like an interesting character, but I’m keeping Alistair for now. Also, I went back to Redcliffe to turn in some mage quests and that’s about it. I have yet to decide where to go next.

I finally got back to this game yesterday and I instantly remembered why I love it so much. Most of yesterday, I have been doing miscellaneous side quests which are not really story related in any way, but do give experience and nice rewards. I have also spent a lot of time talking to my party members, which allowed me to unlock a couple of specializations and start some quests.

Today, however, I decided to progress the story a bit. Since the Brecilian forest was on the way to the town where I am supposed to look for the cure for Arl Eamon, I decided to stop by there. Turns out there was a clan of Dalish elves living there and they are under attack by werevolves. Long story short, I went to the forest, done a few minor quests, killed a crazy hermit and freed the werewolves from the curse that was actually caused by the leader of the elven clan. The leader is dead now and the werewolves are back in their human forms, so I’m on my way back to the elven camp. I’m not really sure how this will play out, being the murderer of their leader and all, but I’m being an optimist. Anyway, I had to take a break here, because I have a WoW raid soon. I will continue later tonight or tomorrow morning.

The game is nowhere near to being completed, but I did make lots of progress. I went to the town of Redcliffe to try and get an ally but it was overrun by the undead. They would come out of the castle every night and no one knew if anyone in there was still alive. After repelling one of the attacks, I decided to get in and see what’s going on. It turns out, the blood mage that I helped escape from the mage tower was hired by the wife of the local lord (can’t remember his name) to try and teach his son magic so he could hide his talents and avoid being drafted by the mages. The kid decided it would be a good idea to bargain with a demon in order to cure his father (who was secretly being poisoned by the blood mage) and, of course, all hell broke loose.

Anyway, I had three options. I could kill the kid, sacrifice his mother to enter the fade and kill the demon, or go to the mage tower and ask for help there. Of course, being a really nice guy, I opted for the third option.

Arriving back at the mages tower, I found out it’s being overrun by abominations created by one of the mages in there. I guess blood magic is really in this year. Anyway, I had to clear the entire tower and save the high enchanter. I also managed to get a new party member. This one is a healer so she was extremely useful throughout the tower. After freeing them, the mages agreed to help me save the kid so that’s the next thing I did. It was a bit hard to battle the demon by myself but luckily I had a bunch of potions that I didn’t use since the beginning of the story, so I managed to brute force her down.

Mind you, all of this happened about a week ago (a day after the last time I posted here) and I haven’t been playing since. Actually, the only thing I’ve been playing was World of Warcraft.

I got this for my sister’s husband who is really new to gaming in general, and role playing games especially. This is why he asked me to also start playing it so I can help him if he runs into trouble. I have to say, I did not regret installing it. It’s basically the closest thing to Baldur’s Gate since Baldur’s Gate.  I started with an elven mage. He did the Harrowing, which is something like a final exam for mages, got recruited to the Grey Wardens and managed to almost die in a battle. Basically, this means I got trough the intro of the game, and now the real thing started. I have to go to a few different nations and force them to honor a contract in which they all promised to help out when the Blight comes again. My party is filling up pretty fast. You can lead 4 characters at a time, but I already have 6 in total.

The game itself is loads of fun. It’s not as hardcore as Baldur’s Gate, but there is lots of strategy involved, unless you play at the easiest difficulty level. The quests almost always have multiple ways to complete them, and the lore is rich and interesting. My guess is Bioware is trying to turn this into a franchise, so we can expect plenty of sequels. The more, the merrier, I say!