Poll: Dragon Age RP Settings

[gritch]

A friend of mine got a hold of a Dragon Age RP game and would like me to attempt to DM a campaign. I've been trying to think of what eras might make for interesting settings and I've quickly come up with just a few options. Below are the poll options in a bit more detail.

Ancient Times 395: Creation of Darkspawn and First Blight. Either right before the actual start creation of the darkspawn or shortly there after. The campaign would eventual end with the players help forming the first grey wardens.

Anicent Times 170: Rise of Andraste, founding of Chantry Campaign would follow the rebellion led by Andraste and the various battles there included. It would end with her death and the founding of the eventual founding of the Chantry.

2:10 Glory Age: Exhalted Marches on the Dales Campaign would found maybe a particular elven city within the dales as the defend again the armies of the chantry or perhaps a particular chantry company on their campaign against the elves.

5:12 Exhalted Age: Fourth Blight, lost of griffins Campaign would follow either the Grey Warden's fight against the archdemon over the course of several years. Eventually ends with the end of the blight at the cost of the griffins.

8:24 Blessed Age: Orlesian occupation of Ferelden Campaign would follow the rebellion led by Rowan, Maric, and Loghain. Eventually ends with the freeing of Ferelden.

Post Dragon Age II Following up after the fallout from the mage's rebellion in Kirkwall. Really sort of left open.

I made these up quickly so there's of course room for improvement but I'd love to hear others opinions on the settings.

 

[DoPo]

Hmm, I've only played Origins and not 2, also I don't have a deep enough knowledge of the lore but personally, I like the Ancient Times 395 setting. I just like low fantasy settings and this has a great potential - if I'm not mistaken, the most powerful mages are wiped out at that point so what you have left is novices/untrained ones and/or outcasts, as well as normal people desperately trying to fight off the new menace. And were demons and the dangers of the Fade a thing before that point? I think the Fade existed but nobody was trying to take over the mages and wear them as meaty body suits but I'm not sure. At any rate, it would be so much fun to play a mage...as in you have to fight off being possessed and you probably also don't know there are things that can possess you. It might be safer to not have mages as PCs at all, I suppose.

 

[Ishal]

Anything that brings back the Darkspawn (in their original DA:O iteration) and lets us explore Tevinter.

Tevinter and the Black City has lots of potential. Plus the rise of the first Arch Demon, Dumat I believe.

Going into a place where blood mages aren't repressed but actively rule of a civilization. Also, I think Tevinter was based on Byzantium.

But yeah, ancient times.

 

[hotdogoctopus]

A bar in the center of the sun.

 

[Lunar Templar]

something less LotR would be good.

 

[synobal]

Of what you have listed either the first blight or loss of the griffins. I personally would like a campaign about the creation of the grey wardens.

 

[Paula Mackiewicz]

Well, we're playing a campaign set after DA2. My friend plays a Kirkwall refugee and believe me, it's comedy gold.

"What are you doing in Wycome?"
"I had to leave Kirkwall. It kind of... exploded."

And I play an apostate mage, everytime we walk anywhere near a chantry her character just has to make a comment. Love it.

 

[Fuhrlock]

Personally I'd say it depends on what people want as their characters, if they have a very diverse in terms of race/class etc a grey warden setting is a means to force them together without it seeming too unnatural. Otherwise if people are happy to stick to one (or mostly one) race you shpuld be fine to use things like the exalted marches or the Orlesian occupation.

Ancient Times 395: Creation of Darkspawn and First Blight. Either right before the actual start creation of the darkspawn or shortly there after. The campaign would eventual end with the players help forming the first grey wardens.

Sorry to be a lore nerd but the first blight was said to have started in 800TE(-395 chantry calender to avoid confusion) and the grey wardens didnt form until approximately 90 years later, so it needs to be a fair bit after the Darkspawn were created. Personally if I were starting from the Darkspawn origins I'd make it a Dwarven campaign based around the fall of their empire and their retreat to Orzimmar/Kal'sharok

 

[gritch]

Personally I'd say it depends on what people want as their characters, if they have a very diverse in terms of race/class etc a grey warden setting is a means to force them together without it seeming too unnatural. Otherwise if people are happy to stick to one (or mostly one) race you shpuld be fine to use things like the exalted marches or the Orlesian occupation.

Ancient Times 395: Creation of Darkspawn and First Blight. Either right before the actual start creation of the darkspawn or shortly there after. The campaign would eventual end with the players help forming the first grey wardens.

Sorry to be a lore nerd but the first blight was said to have started in 800TE and the grey wardens didnt form until approximately 90 years later, so it needs to be a fair bit after the Darkspawn were created. Personally if I were starting from the Darkspawn origins I'd make it a Dwarven campaign based around the fall of their empire and their retreat to Orzimmar/Kal'sharok

Yeah you're probably right about the timeline, I looked them up rather quickly just to get a rough chronological order to them. I would imagine a good amount of the dwarven empire was lost during that first blight. The campaign could take place closer to the founding of the Grey Wardens and it'd be very conceivable for part of it to take place in the crumbling dwarven empire.

Of course one of the people is talking about wanting to run a Qunari and since they didn't come to thedas until later that sort of tosses out this whole setting...

 

[Fuhrlock]

wanting to run a Qunari and since they didn't come to thedas until later that sort of tosses out this whole setting...

Qunari really limit you since they didn't arrive until 6:30 Steel throwing out most of your settings. Infact trying to fit a Qunari into the other settings would be difficult (maybe easier with a Tal-Vashoth?), since they are usually not interacting with the other races outside of coming into conflict with them.

The only other suggestion I have for a setting is to run a parrallel universe style setting of the 5th blight, so fundementally its the setting of Origins but sub out the Warden (or companions if appropriate) with a the player characters and run the story of the game but changing details so people can't use their knowledge of the story to try and get the 'best' result. For example have Jowans 'nice but naive' persona be a facade for a powermad bloodmage who if you let him do the ritual on Isolde just gains power and attacks you (and if you go to the circle to get help connor might cause havoc while you're away) or maybe have the cult of Andraste actually willing to join your forces if you defile the Urn or maybe Loghain doesnt leave Ostagar the battle still goes poorly anyway and Orlais use this as a chance to try and seize Ferelden back attempting to annex it for its' 'protection'. Feel free to ignore that suggestion, it's how I might do it but I'll be the first to admit I'm not the most creative guy.

 

[Fuhrlock]

Double Post sorry

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

I think either of the first two would be the most interesting. The first blight was not at all like the one in Origins. It went on for decades, and the darkspawn overran more than half the known world. Before the Grey Wardens appeared it had begun to seem like there was no defeating the darkspawn, that the end of the world was coming and no one could stop it. It was a time of deep desperation in the face of total extinction. Always a great setting for the development of heroes and the doing of great deeds.

The one I voted for though was the time of Andraste and the fall of the Tevinter Imperium. It is a rather more unique setting than the traditional "rise of the world-destroying evil" scenario. The political and religious circumstances of the time would provide endless opportunities to entangle yourselves into, and it still has an obvious dichotomy to it, with Andraste's followers on one side and the Imperium on the other. That would be a lot of fun to get into.

 

[gritch]

wanting to run a Qunari and since they didn't come to thedas until later that sort of tosses out this whole setting...

Qunari really limit you since they didn't arrive until 6:30 Steel throwing out most of your settings. Infact trying to fit a Qunari into the other settings would be difficult (maybe easier with a Tal-Vashoth?), since they are usually not interacting with the other races outside of coming into conflict with them.

The only other suggestion I have for a setting is to run a parrallel universe style setting of the 5th blight, so fundementally its the setting of Origins but sub out the Warden (or companions if appropriate) with a the player characters and run the story of the game but changing details so people can't use their knowledge of the story to try and get the 'best' result. For example have Jowans 'nice but naive' persona be a facade for a powermad bloodmage who if you let him do the ritual on Isolde just gains power and attacks you (and if you go to the circle to get help connor might cause havoc while you're away) or maybe have the cult of Andraste actually willing to join your forces if you defile the Urn or maybe Loghain doesnt leave Ostagar the battle still goes poorly anyway and Orlais use this as a chance to try and seize Ferelden back attempting to annex it for its' 'protection'. Feel free to ignore that suggestion, it's how I might do it but I'll be the first to admit I'm not the most creative guy.

It might be interesting to try and run it parallel to the fifth blight but I think I'd rather steer care of possible canon just to give ourselves a bit more freedom. It's a wonderful suggestion for changing it up (especially having Connor cause havoc while you're away, that always bothered me in the game) and definitely a good setting idea.

And just because the Qunari main force didn't arrive until 6:30 Steel doesn't mean there was never any Qunari on Thedas. It might be a bit of a sketch but we could assume perhaps the player character is part of a radical group of Qunari that fled toward Thedas from the Qunari homeland or they were a member of a Qunari millitary vessel that got lost out at sea and washed up on Thedas. In DA2 we saw the formation of a radical Qunari group so it would stand to reason similar experiences could have occurred in the past. It's a bit of a stretch but I think I could get it to work.