Dragon Age: Origins, is completed. Loghain is dead, Alistair is the new king, the Archdemon is dead and the 5th Blight has ended.
Six months have passed since the completion of Origins, and peace has returned to Ferelden. It is unknown if all of Ferelden recovered from the Blight.
However… the darkspawn aren’t running back to the Deep Roads like they should be, and have grown into a serious threat. Something else is leading the remaining forces; driving them north. And this is where Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening begins.
Awakening meaning playing the game again and continuing where you left off. Except you can no longer go to the places you could in Origins. You’re now in Amaranthine, on the northeast coast of Ferelden.
You singlehandly stopped the Blight, and became the Hero of Ferelden, and the new Commander of the Grey Wardens. Your headquarters is Vigil’s Keep, which used to belong to your past enemy (if you played as a Human Noble), Arl Howe. Who’s also dead. One of his three sons was caught trespassing at the keep and it’s up to you to decide his fate. If you choose to spare his life he’ll come back and beg to join the Grey Wardens.
You now have shiny new gear too. Sadly, the Blood Dragon Armor set I fell inlove with (not for the stats, but for the dragon on the chestplate) doesn’t transfer over to Awakening.
But how did it lead up to all of this? Determination and help from the trainer I got (amazing it still works in Awakening). For some time I feared I was playing Mass Effect 2 again, as in the fact my companions were mainly neutral to me and I feared they would die later on because I didn’t care to get their attitudes with me on the good side.
But yet, I managed (there’s a part where you get to play who you chose to lead your party members you didn’t choose to come with you). I also managed to save Arl Eamon’s life with the Urn of Sacred Ashes.
I also fought a true dragon, known as a High Dragon, the only one in the game. And what a battle that was. It can chew you in its mouth, tail slap you, knock you on your back frequently. The way it’ll jump around to face its attacker and the Dragon Breath attack it does is epic. But the best part was the epic killing blow scene my player character did. So yeah, the game is situated around the darkspawn, but it does have dragons.
Hell, the archdemon is a dragon and that too was one hell of a fight, yet more extreme than with the High Dragon. We didn’t just have to deal with the archdemon, we also had to deal with the darkspawn. Also a part where the archdemon flew and landed on an inaccessible part, forcing you to use a catapult to get her back over to where she can be attacked again.
But with the archdemon dead, there’s still darkspawn to massacre. But even with my mastery of God Mode I still need help, and I got some. The dwarf Oghren who reappears in Awakening, and a Mage named Anders. Both of them survived the Joining and are now Grey Wardens.
But with me being the new leader of the Grey Wardens, I have responsibilities as well. Such as mingling with guests at Vigil’s Keep who want to see the one that defeated the archdemon.
A Grey Warden’s job is never done, it seems. But I doubt my job is more stressful than King Alistair’s.
I actually felt sorry for forcing him to be king, but I felt it was the right thing to do. He does have royal blood in him, so.. it’s only right he becomes king. But I will miss the fun we had killing darkspawn together.
Yet once again I felt I made the right choice making Alistair king instead of giving the crown to Queen Anora, since she might decide to send her armies after the Grey Wardens after me killing Loghain, for revenge. I never liked that two-faced bitch anyway, especially what she tried to do at the Landsmeet.
Sadly, I think my extremely smelly Mabari War Hound died after the final battle. I decided he should stay back because I didn’t want him to get hurt, and he was killed anyway. Yet I have no proof he died.
Either he died or disappeared, because he’s not mentioned showing up in Awakening. He may’ve died of old age instead of by the darkspawn. Yet, the hound is in some of the standalone (not part of the main story) DLC’s for Origins such as Witch Hunt.
But after an “extensive search” of Ferelden, my guards found him alone and starving. They took him back to the keep and fed him, and informed me that they found my war hound and I ran back to the keep and we were reunited.
Actually, as much as that story seemed cool it never happened. I found a mod that allows Dog to show up in the Throne Room.
I missed him alot and though he lost the name I called him and the battle paint, which both were probably lost after the battle with the archdemon, it’s good to know he’s alive again and safe. I know he can’t come with me but at least I know he’s here.