Dragon Age: Religion and Dialogue

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Since just about every time I've plaid as a Mage in Dragon Age Origins, I just assumed that all dialogue choices where Andrastean (you say "breath of the Maker!" in outrage or "for Andraste's sake!" or refer to the maker in the prayer scene at Redcliffe.) But now that I'm playing as a Dwarf, I have the option there to say "may the ancestors watch over them," which makes me realize that not all the dialogue is set up this way.

The thing is...well, this is better, but it bothers me that as an elf who grew up in an alienage, AND an elf oppressed by the mage-hating chantry, I'd really like the option to explore my heritage, rediscover the Dalish religion, worship the creators and the elven gods, and get dialogue choices that reflect that. You know?

[CharlesPhipps]

I'm kind of with Sera on this, actually.

Andraste converted vast numbers of elves along with humans during her early crusade against the Tevinter and the Andrastrian religion isn't a "human" religion. That's just the racism of the Oralisians at play. But that level of hostility isn't available either. The problem of roleplaying is there's always going to be more options than you want.

Mind you, the issue got addressed in THE MASKED EMPIRE to an interesting extent where Briala found out the Dalish were actually happy the humans were exterminating the elves in Orlais because they hated them THAT much. It caused her to realize City Elves had romanticized the Dalish when they were every bit as bigoted and hateful as humanity.

[Madner Kami]

Mind you, the issue got addressed in THE MASKED EMPIRE to an interesting extent where Briala found out the Dalish were actually happy the humans were exterminating the elves in Orlais because they hated them THAT much. It caused her to realize City Elves had romanticized the Dalish when they were every bit as bigoted and hateful as humanity.

Dingdingding. Now think about the history of the Elves as described by the Daelish, how they lead an immortal live until humanity arrived and corrupted them, how they lost their everlasting life and their realm to that corruption. Something that is easy to sympathize with, especially if you play a Daelish character. Not as magical and mythical as it appeared to be in the first Dragon Age in particular, since it becomes quite clear that the Elves were just assholes back then already, lost a long war due to (likely) arrogance and complacency and, very likely thus inspiring the myth of the corruption, simple infighting. The writing of these subtleties is quite skillful in the DA-series.

[GandALF]

Andrastianism:

-get to sing songs about barbarian Joan of Arc
-Mages get to live in comfy tower
-Battle Popes
-Adherents include Leliana, Cassandra, C-3PO, HK-51 and that one guy at the start of Mass Effect.

Worshipping knife-eared false golds:

-Loser fake gods get imprisoned by dread wolf
-will probably end with Thalmor-type fascism
-Get all your stuff stolen by Tevinters
-practically begging for an Exalted March

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Hey GandALF on a scale of 1 to 10 how serious are you about that post?

CharlesPhipps, I'm not clear what you mean by "I'm with Sera".

[CharlesPhipps]

Hey GandALF on a scale of 1 to 10 how serious are you about that post?

CharlesPhipps, I'm not clear what you mean by "I'm with Sera".

Sera is an Andrastrian and sees no particular cultural connection with herself and the Dalish just because her ancestors once worshiped a bunch of ancient wizard-gods.

The irony being, of course, they are real in Solas and Flemeth.

They also have no particular loyalty to elves, let alone the Dalish who they seem to think of as quaint when they're not being offensive.