Dragon Age: Origins/Tropes A To E

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


A

  • Aerith and Bob: The names of the four main types of darkspawn: genlocks, hurlocks, sharlocks, and... ogres. This also applies to character names to an extent. There are a lot of real-world names mixed in with the more fantastic fare.
    • Justified in the codices: Genlocks, Hurlocks, and Sharlocks (labeled in-game by the nickname "Shrieks") are the ancient terms for Blight-mutated Dwarves, Humans, and Elves respectively. But Ogres come from blighted Kossith Qunari, who are newcomers to the region, so Ogres apparently didn't exist until recently.
  • Affably Evil: The Sloth Demon.

"I made you happy and safe. I gave you peace. I did my best for you. And you say you want to leave? Can't you think about someone other than yourself? I'm hurt. So very, very hurt."

  • After Combat Recovery: After combat, health and stamina/mana are quickly restored while fallen characters are automatically resurrected, with injuries that must be treated by either applying wound kits, retreating to the camp, or having a spirit healer in the party in order to remove associated status penalties.
  • All Girls Want Bad Boys: Morrigan, whose approval will rise when the Warden takes the selfish, invidualistic, power-hungry option when presented with a choice of actions. Oghren lampshades this trope when training the PC to be a berserker -- standing around looking mysteriously angry apparently does wonders on the ladies.
    • Leliana can also basically say as much to Alistair.

Alistair: Beyond the fact that he's an assassin who's tried to kill us more than once. No... no, not really. Do women go for that sort of thing?
Leliana: Where I come from they do, oh yes.
Alistair: Huh. Really? I see.

  • All Your Base Are Belong to Us:
    • The Archdemon personally leads its darkspawn armies in a massive attack on Ferelden's capital city in the finale.
    • Earlier, once you've assembled the entire party, your camp is attacked by Shrieks, along with an unpleasant surprise if you're a Dalish Elf.
    • Awakening's prologue involves retaking Vigil's Keep from a darkspawn horde. As well as a second, much larger assault at the end of the game on both the Vigil and the City of Amaranthine.
  • Amazon Brigade: The Silent Sisters.
    • Also a party consisting of a female Warden, Morrigan/Wynne, Leliana and Shale.
  • An Axe to Grind: They come in the one-handed and friggin' huge varieties too!
  • Ancient Keeper: The Guardian. You also have to face three trials to reach the Urn of Andraste he guards...
  • And I Must Scream: The Arcane Warrior trainer, trapped inside a gemstone for untold millennia. At first, he thinks you're a hallucination.
    • Given the Grand Oak's description, most Sylvans fit this as well.
    • In the Wending Wood in Awakening, the Warden can find the Statue of War and the Statue of Peace -- two Avvar brothers, petrified by a Tevinter mage and still aware. The Statue of Peace, who is more accepting of his fate, has been able to "sleep" on and off throughout the years, but the Statue of War's anger has kept him awake for countless centuries.
    • Shale spent 30 years frozen in place in a Village subject to the whims of its inhabitants. And spent even longer inactive in an abandoned Thaig in the Deep Roads, in the pitch black, for over a thousand years and conscious every second. And then there were pigeons.
  • And Man Grew Proud: According to the Chantry, it was men trying to conquer the "Golden City" in the heart of The Fade that first drew the darkspawn, and caused The Maker, their creator deity, to shun them. Though the first thing that caused Him to shun them was when they started worshiping dragons instead of Him. Then they did that, and He shunned them harder. Still later, he shunned them again for the death of Andraste. He is a very passive-aggressive deity.
  • Animals Lack Attributes: The mabari warhounds.
  • An Entrepreneur Is You: Averted (perhaps spitefully, even) in that the prices may vary slightly if at all from location to location, regardless of relative supply/scarcity, and goods will never sell for the value paid for them. Ever. Anywhere. Even if you craft something, you can't even get the value of the raw materials bar certain exploits, i.e. Potent Lyrium potions, but farming those takes a silly amount of time and a lot of loading screens... so get back to shaking down those Money Spiders, twink!
  • Annoying Arrows: To a degree. On the one hand, getting shot with arrows doesn't kill you anymore than getting stabbed or hacked by swords or axes. On the other hand, a properly-built archer can consistently inflict incredible amounts of damage. With a powerful bow, Leliana, Nathaniel, or an archer Warden are reasonably capable of inflicting 25-50% more damage than even two-handed fighters with late-game weapons stacked with enchantments, and this is without resorting to special arrows.
    • Given the way the game scales enemies, it can potentially take a big jump up in difficulty right around the time every enemy archer suddenly learns Scattershot (an irresistible area-effect stun that does strong damage), because until the leveling system teaches them an even higher-tier skill (none of which are nearly as disruptive), they will use it on you as much as possible in every fight.
  • Anti-Grinding: To the extreme. Enemies don't respawn, experience scales upwards so lower-level enemies offer insignificant exp, enemies scale with you, and the level Cap is at 25 so you can't grossly overlevel anyway, random encounters technically aren't random, etc.
  • Anti-Hero: The Grey Wardens' mission statement is to "protect the lands from the Blight, no matter the cost", which is Type III-IV on the sliding scale. They are expected to sacrifice themselves without a second thought. They'll sacrifice others just as easily. Let's just say that no one will look twice at Duncan for killing Jory...
    • In gameplay terms, this means that no matter what action you take, it's the right one if it helps you in stopping the Blight. Hence the lack of Karma Meter.
  • Anti-Magic: The Glyph of Neutralization does this. Templars, who are trained to fight mages, have higher resistance to magic and can dispel status effects and glyphs.
    • Dwarves have a very high magic resistance as well, a trade-off for not being able to use magic themselves.
  • Apocalyptic Log: You encounter two sets of them in Golems of Amgarrak. One of them is written by the leader of the expedition that you came to find, the other by the original inhabitants.
    • And then there's the ominous chant starting with "First day they come and catch everyone" leading up to the battle with Broodmother in Origins.
  • Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Can only choose up to three companions to go with you.
    • Averted during one battle in camp, as well as the first part of the final sequence... but then promptly reinstated from there on out. It's a little less arbitrary then, though, since the party members that you don't take with you defend Denerim's gates from the darkspawn.
  • Aristocrats Are Evil: Several examples. Beneath the dwarves' veneer of tradition and honour lies a Deadly Decadent Court waiting to stab you in the back. In ancient times, the Magisters of the Tevinter Imperium tried to kill the Maker and take His Golden City for themselves and created the darkspawn. When the game takes place, Tevinter is a Vestigial Empire, but its Magisters are still ruthless blood mages. On the other hand, the nobles of Ferelden are decent people, with a few exceptions.
    • As alluded to in conversations with Leliana and the prequel novels, Orlais has a Deadly Decadent Court. Although it is well-known that half the bards and minstrels in Orlais are spies and assassins, Orlesian nobles still welcome them, because outwitting a rival's agent is part of the game aristocrats play.
  • Armour Piercing Question: The conversation between the Dalish Elf and a Chantry Priest at Ostagar.

Dalish Warden: You administer blessings to Elves?
Priestess: Of course. The Maker accepts all those who would hear him.
Dalish Warden: And does he steal the Homeland of those who don't?

  • Arranged Marriage:
    • The City Elf has one. It doesn't end well.
    • Arl Howe tries to set one up between the Human Noble and one of his children. It may just have been to conceal his motives, however, as he is intending for you and your entire family to die that very night.
    • A male Dwarven Noble can meet a would-be fiance on his return to Orzammar. Or a gold digger he knocked up in the origin, depending on your interpretation.
    • The Warden can set one up for Anora and Alistair, among other choices.
  • Arrows on Fire: Coupled with Rain of Arrows during the Battle of Ostagar.
  • Artificial Stupidity: Kiting enemies. Demonstrated here.
    • Sometimes your allies will just stand around in the middle of a battle, not doing anything as whatever large Eldritch Abomination you're fighting pulls your anus out through your nose.
      • Alternatively, one of them will activate their special, secret "rush headlong at the enemy (even if you are an archer and/or it's standing in a fire)" tactical option.
    • AoE spells. If you want to use one, your allies will disobey orders and rush right in to get blasted.
    • The tactics system allows you to Doom It Yourself -- a novel way to transfer the responsibility for poor AI to the player.
  • Ascended Meme:
    • If you pick Harrowmont as the next Dwarven king:

Orzammar Crier: Prince Bhelen attacks assembly and is ignominiously slain, Epic fail!

    • Also, if you support Bhelen:

Orzammar Crier: News of the Hour! Lord Harrowmont arrested, pending execution. Epic Fail!

    • As well as Leliana, while bantering about with her in flirtation.

Leliana: ...I see what you did there.

Sigrun: Ugh. Fail!

    • Also, there's two t-shirts for sale at Bioware's website now, "Morrigan disapproves" and "Enchantment!"
    • In the "Darkspawn Chronicles" DLC, which is the final battle from the point of view of the darkspawn, the final battle is against Alistair and his remaining three companions (Morrigan, Leilana, and the Mabari Hound), as they attack the Archdemon. The dog, which has no canon name (the devs wanted to make it clear that the dog has whatever name you choose to give to him), in this alternate reality is called "Barkspawn" by Alistair, the joker.
      • It's actually a shout-out to a Penny Arcade strip that was released near the original game's release.
  • Aside Glance: Post-Coronation, the ruler of Ferelden (Anora or Alistair) speaks a few words to the Grey Warden, but before they're done, they're addressing the camera directly.
    • Weylon appears to do this more and more as he becomes agitated with the Warden's questioning.
    • When Leliana convinces that the Revered Mother should let Sten go;

Leliana: Thank you, your reverence. Your trust is not misplaced... *Aside Glance*

  • Attempted Rape: Happens to the female guests at the City Elf's wedding. Shianni, the City Elf PC's cousin, isn't as lucky in the 'attempted' bit... It also happens to a female City Elf. It doesn't end well for the rapists.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: Most of the Fereldan and Dwarven nobility. The Fereldan nobles are mostly descendants of barbarian warlords, so combat training is traditional, whereas a dwarven noble needs to be skilled to defend against the assassins that are commonly employed in dwarven politics. Not to mention the Elven Tribes are led by their Keeper, the person in the tribe who knows the most of the 'Old Ways' (i.e. Magic).
    • Typified by demonkind, led by the strongest.
    • Inverted by the Grey Wardens, as their most respected get creamed, while the cadets have to save the world.
    • Averted by most of Ferelden, actually. The King and lords in charge bite the dust rather early, and the bad guys achieve coup by deceit and cowardice. When the player does get a chance to face them, said villains aren't particularly challenging.
  • Awakening the Sleeping Giant: The events of the City Elf Origin eventually caused the entire Alienage to riot.

Valendrian: We are not all so helpless, Captain.

  • Awesome but Impractical: Almost every AoE attack has Friendly Fire. There are no tactical conditions under which you can ever trust companions' AI to use AoE spells or bombs, and the few situations you can lay an AoE trap without your companions stumbling in are still very tricky to set up. One reason Blood Wound is so overpowered is its lack of Friendly Fire.
  • Awesome Moment of Crowning: The player's monarch of choice gets one. The PC also gets one six months later, if Alistair or Anora were persuaded to marry him/her.
    • Whoever you pick to be king in Orzammar gets one as well, and it's really much more awesome than the human one.
  • Awful Truth: Where to begin? In fact, the farther you get into the story, the more you start to wonder if there are any truths you actually want to know. Like you may not survive the initiation process to become a Grey Warden. And if you do, you're guaranteed to succumb anyway in thirty years -- if you don't have to make a Heroic Sacrifice first. And that's only from the main storyline, not even including revelations like those about Flemeth...
    • And what the darkspawn do with female prisoners...
    • And where darkspawn come from...

B

  • Baby Factory: Brood Mothers.
  • Back Stab: If your rogue is melee, rest assured you are pigeonholed into this. (Although it's not entirely bad, given that a Cunning Rogue can kill an enemy faster than the Game breaking mages can.)
  • Badass Army: The Grey Wardens of yore. Even with their numbers considerably reduced today, they still fit the trope to a T, as does the dwarven Legion of the Dead.
    • In The Calling, it is revealed a national secret that when the Wardens were first banished from Ferelden, it took the entire Fereldan military to drive them out. Thousands against less than hundred, and they very nearly won.
    • Also the Warden's Keep DLC mentions that when King Arland's forces besieged Soldier's Peak, they held out for months before the Fortress was breached and even then, the half-starved Wardens still made them pay for every single metre taken.
  • Badass Boast: The Warden has a really nice one if you choose to drive out the leader of the Crimson Oars.

Warden: Hundreds have died in my wake. You're just a number to me.
Crimson Oars Leader: I, um... We... We were just leaving. Yes Oars, we go to the docks!

    • Awakening too;

Warden: "They will bow to my might."
Guard: "Eh... Then it's good to have you here, ser."

      • Although in both these cases, The Warden really isn't kidding. People seem to pick up on that.
  • Badass Creed:
    • The Grey Wardens: "In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death, sacrifice."
    • The Dalish Elves: "We are the Dalish: keepers of the lost lore, walkers of the lonely path. We are the last of the Elvhenan, and never again shall we submit."
  • Badass Damsel: The Female City Elf. Vaughn apparently recognizes this, as he orders two guards to escort you to his chambers, but only after your hands are bound first. Then Soris appears and slides a sword across the floor to you. Cue the reaction of the guards. Oh... sod. You then proceed to slaughter your way through the castle, save the other women taken, and effectively rescue yourself.
  • Bad Boss: One of the Vanguard's talents in the Darkspawn Chronicles DLC is "Execute Thrall", thralls being any darkspawn directly under your command. Supposedly it's for thralls who disappoint you, but there are no repercussions for doing it completely on a whim.
  • Bad Future: The Darkspawn Chronicles DLC -- it lets you re-enact the battle of Denerim from the point of view of a Darkspawn Vanguard (a sort of general-like figure), in an Alternate Universe where the player's Grey Warden did not survive their joining, and it was left to Alistair to follow the quests the player had completed. Alistair almost manages to kill the Archdemon before being brutally slaughtered by the Vanguard.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: In the "Darkspawn Chronicles" DLC.
    • In the Warden's Keep DLC, its revealed that King Arland was such a despised tyrant, even the politically-neutral Grey Wardens agreed to take part in a coup to remove him from power. Arland completely squashed the Rebellion and banished the Order from Ferelden for the next two centuries.
  • Bag of Sharing: The game's inventory system. As demonstrated by the part where the Grey Warden is captured, it's rather awkwardly implemented.
  • Bag of Spilling: A rare single-game example: when freeing Arl Eamon's child from the demon by going into the Fade, you are unable to use Fade Shapeshifting, which you were able to use in another visit to the Fade that could be completed before.
    • Also, characters imported to Awakening lose all DLC items except for those obtained in Return to Ostagar.
    • Strangly, the Specialiations seem to avert this trope: Once you unlock them (through having a team mate teach you, to buying certain tomes, etc), any character can unlock the specialiation once they get an unlock point at level 7 or 14. Yes, that includes a Warrior who never went near Andraste's Ashes with evil intentions learning the Reaver Skill Tree.
  • Bare Your Midriff: The Dalish armor on females.
  • Battle Cry
  • Battle in the Rain: Ostagar
  • The Beast Master: Rogues get a Ranger specialization for this.
  • Becoming the Mask: If you romance Morrigan, then when she proposes her ritual to defeat the archdemon, you can ask her if this is the reason for the relationship. Tearfully, she says her feelings for you weren't part of the plan, and that even after she leaves, she will never forget your time together.
    • This is also true of any Warden that maxes out Morrigan's approval rating. When speaking with a female Warden with 100% approval after retrieving Flemeth's Grimoire, Morrigan actually gets choked up. She tells the Warden that she considers the Warden a friend, perhaps even a sister (if female), and to know that even if she [Morrigan] doesn't always prove worthy of that friendship, she [Morrigan] will always value it.
  • The Bechdel Test: Passes. Even if your Warden is male, the ladies in your party will often discuss things like magic, religion, clothes, and so on if you take at least two of them with you.
  • Bee-Bee Gun: You can either cast a spell with this, or become a swarm of insects via Shapeshifting.
  • Beef Gate: The developers expressed intent to dissuade players from entering areas where level scaling is set to higher tiers, though it's rarely as straightforward as, for example, the bounty hunters just inside Frostback Mountains. These gates aren't insurmountable though, and can be passed with an early effective build and a greater consumption of healing resources, so many players carried on into steepening difficulty without being aware they were supposed to change course for an easier questline. For players who later complained about the difficulty, the developers released a list of areas by gradually increasing difficulty.
  • Bee People: The darkspawn.
  • The Berserker: It's a warrior specialization.
  • BFS: Greatswords. They are about the size of an average human (which somehow doesn't prevent dwarves from carrying them).
  • Big Bad Ensemble: The Archdemon and Logain, as well as Flemeth, not to mention numerous Arc Villains who are mostly Blood Mages and Demons.
  • Big Eater: All Grey Wardens go through this stage. Or maybe just Alistair.
  • Bi the Way: Zevran hits on you, regardless of your gender. Leliana is less direct about it, though it is easy to accidentally stumble into relationship territory without any acknowledgement, which can be quite a surprise when she springs the "I love you." If you are romancing another character (especially if you are a female Warden and didn't know a relationship with Leliana is possible), this can lead to a confrontation where Leliana demands that you choose between the two of them. Meanwhile, the completely bewildered gamer is bumbling through dialogue options that all make him or her feel like a scumbag.
    • Also Oghren's ex-wife Branka.
  • Binding Ancient Treaty: The initial quests upon leaving the framework scenario are based on this, though it's subverted because none of the people that you have treaties with are in any condition to help you until you save them from their current problems.
  • Bishonen Line: Abominations. The weakest ones, Rage and Hunger Abominations, are just monstrous mooks who can't even use magic. The Sloth Abomination looks like them, but it can actually speak coherently and is powerful enough to put your entire party to sleep, sending you to the Scrappy Level. One Desire Abomination, Connor, still looks mostly human, except for the sunken eyes. It's powerful enough to summon more demons into corpses to start a mini Zombie Apocalypse. It can even Mind Control people. Uldred, a Pride Abomination, looks completely human, is able to transform other mages into Abominations using Blood Magic, and his One-Winged Angel form is one of the best bosses in the game.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Although the Archdemon is always slain by the end of the game, it inevitably comes at a price.
    • If Alistair sacrifices himself at the end, it becomes especially depressing if the PC was romancing him. He could also end up being executed by Anora if the player chose to spare Loghain, or if you persuaded her not to, he abandons his position as a Warden and becomes a homeless drunk.
    • This will always happen if the PC was in a romance with Morrigan, or was close friends with her, since she always runs off at the end no matter what. Witch Hunt DLC provides new endings for those who romanced Morrigan, however.
    • If you refuse Morrigan's ritual and slay the Archdemon yourself, rather than have Alistair or Loghain do it, your character will die, and the game ends on a seriously gloomy note with their funeral.
    • There doesn't seem to be any way to get a very good ending for Orzammar, as none of the choices you can make seem to bring a very positive outcome for them. If you make Harrowmont king, he isolates Orzammar from the surface and tightens the oppressive caste system. If you make Bhelen king, he gives the casteless rights and takes back several thaigs, at the cost of turning Orzammar into a dictatorship and sending assassins to hunt down and kill Harrowmont's surviving family just because Harrowmont dared to oppose him. If you decided to not destroy the Anvil of the Void, it results in an additionally very, very negative ending for the dwarves, no matter whom you choose to make king. And if you decide to complete Brother Burkel's quest and open a chantry in Orzammar, it too brings a really terrible end. On the other hand, refusing to do so and bringing Dagna to the Mage Tower will lead, through a series of events, to the Chantry contemplating an exalted march against Orzammar. And that's bad. Fortunately in that latter case, the events of Dragon Age II will likely cut any efforts at organizing an Exalted March short, considering the Templars and Circles are now at war.
  • Black and Gray Morality: Unlike almost every other Bioware RPG game, this one has no Karma Meter. Individual characters will like or dislike you based on personal preference, but the game itself does not judge your actions. You can choose some actions of extremely questionable morality, and some of the moral quandaries you must face are rather complex.
  • Black Magic: Blood Magic is considered this due to its ghastly power source, ability to take control of people (like, say, a king or a noble which Avernus admits he did to help the Grey Wardens in their rebellion long ago), and just being creepy in general. Due to the Chantry's constant preaching against the very real dangers of magic, almost everyone in Ferelden who isn't a mage (and one mage NPC) considers all magic Black Magic. The Qunari have an even harsher stance against magic, and just cut out the tongues and chain to leashes any potential mages born to them to prevent them from ever casting spells.
    • What's important about Blood Magic is that it is pure life force, and can thus provide plenty of energy. And it isn't limited to Mages, either. Anybody can learn how to tap into it, even a warrior (exemplified by the Reaver, who uses a different path, but one which still uses the power inherent in blood as energy). Since it was originally taught by an Old God (demons are the only ones who still remember it in most cases, however), it may not even be evil. The Soldier's Peak DLC introduced Avernus, who had worked out how to change blood as the fuel source for the Taint. And then there are the Chantry Templars, who gain their abilities from the energies within lyrium (apparently - that it is possible to wield what is essentially Templar-created magic without using lyrium might speak to some other source), all without being Mages. Even Spirit Healers can draw power from benevolent Fade spirits to augment their own abilities. While the Fade is probably the easiest source to learn how to use (and the one with the least reliance on an outside source to power one's spells), it's definitely not the only source. Indeed, it might be that anybody could learn how to use magic, as long as they were willing to use something else as fuel (absent a Mage's connection to the Fade). The problem, of course, being that unless you're willing to use your own life force, Blood Magic needs the contribution of somebody else.
  • Black Speech: While it never shows up outside of cutscenes, the appearance of the Darkspawn is frequently heralded by an ominous whispering.
  • Blessed with Suck:
    • Being a mage pretty much means you have a big neon sign reading "POSSESS HERE" in the eyes of Demons. This isn't quite as great a danger as the Chantry makes out, however, so long as you're properly trained. Of course, everyone religious you encounter would pretty much gladly burn you at the stake if they weren't terrified by your powers -- the first thing they usually assume is that you'll turn them into frogs.
    • It's not easy being a Grey Warden either. The first test of your mettle is the Joining: fail it and die horribly. Succeed, and die horribly too -- only this time it takes a decade or two for the darkspawn taint to eat you alive from the inside, eventually turning you into a monster, if you don't commit suicide-by-darkspawn in the Deep Roads first. In the interim, you'll have insane dreams about the Archdemon talking to you: if you're lucky, you, too, may be able to understand it one day! Unless a Blight is happening. Then you can throw yourselves against the Archdemon, hoping to slay it in a process that completely annihilates your soul! Of course, if there's no Blight, that means you basically sacrificed your life and sanity for nothing. Oh, and one more teeny tiny detail: Ever wanted to have a kid? Good luck with that. Don't even think of trying to have one with another Grey Warden. And in this game, the Grey Wardens are composed of two new recruits and are being hunted down as criminals.
    • Being a mage and a Grey Warden makes the disadvantage of each null and void: since you're a Grey Warden, you're free to leave the Circle tower without the Templars hunting you down (legally, at least) and you're even free to learn the forbidden art of blood magic thanks to the "anything that helps us kill darkspawn is allowed" exemption of the Grey Wardens. As for the problem of the taint, as Avernus demonstrates, a mage can cheat with its effect for a couple of centuries. Sure, you're still supposed to risk your life against the Darkspawn, but if you're as broken as the Warden Commander of Ferelden, chances are that nothing short of an Archedemon will pose any threat to you past the first decade or so.
      • And Avernus was able to live for that extra several hundred years while in a near constant war with the demons occupying the same building as him, including the reanimated bodies of his Gray Warden comrades, and the possessed corpse of his former commander. All that, and he seems to have aged about thirty years.
    • Being a Reaver and Grey Warden also nullifies most disadvantages, they cannot die by loss of energy since the taint always provides energy (or they would not have been able to survive the infection with it to become dakspawn), they can steal life force so that the taint would affect them less or even make them immortal, they age far slower because their blood is both darkspawn and dragon. The worst case scenario is once you lost like 500 years of life energy, there is noone around you to slaughter and you transform into something as or even more powerful than a Old God/Archdemon (human) or like The Architect (elf) while still staying yourself with maybe questionable sainity.
    • Being a Grey Warden means you can sense the Darkspawn, giving you adequate warning of when they are near. The downside, that very ability also allows the Darkspawn to find you. Even if you try to run away, the Darkspawn will find you... they always find you!
  • Blood Knight: Qunari, as part of their culture, take pride in their class, so soldiers and warriors want nothing more than to be soldiers and warriors. Also, the dwarven Legion of the Dead, who take dedication of their life to battle to its logical conclusion, and get a head start on the inevitable, by holding their funerals right after they take their vows. Dwarven warriors in general display a positive attitude towards prospects of combat, though it may be more complicated in their case; as victory in battle leads to greater social standing in their profession. And one's degree of social standing is very important to how one is perceived in Dwarven society.
  • Blood Magic:
    • A specialty available to mages.
    • Warriors unlock the Reaver specialization by drinking Dragon's Blood.
    • The Grey Wardens drink a cocktail of lyrium, darkspawn blood, and Archdemon blood at their initiation to gain their unique abilities.
    • In the Warden's Keep DLC, the Blood Mage Grey Warden Avernus figured out how to weaponize the darkspawn taint. One manifestation of this is the ability to spew blood like a firehose at your foes, having roughly the same effect as turning a firehose would on most humans: putting them squarely on their asses.
  • Bloody Murder: The Reaver specializations, as well as the Power of Blood talents you can learn in the Warden's Keep DLC.
  • Bloodier and Gorier: This is possibly the first game to feature persistent blood splatter on character models; it's certainly very visceral compared to other BioWare RPGs. You're going to see quite a bit of it flying through the air, too, moreso if you took a skill which involves weaponizing blood.
  • Body Horror:
    • Abominations. The Broodmother.
    • In Golems of Amgarrak, The Harvester is a flesh golem made from the corpses of multiple casteless dwarves. It grows more powerful by brutally murdering people and adding their flesh to its own.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Alistair reminisces about a Grey Warden named Gregor... Besides being "the biggest man you ever saw" with a beard worthy of a Dwarf (or so you hear), the man could reportedly drink any other Grey Warden under the table, and make Duncan crack up laughing.
    • Oghren counts as one within the party as well, though he's not quite as boisterous as most examples.
  • Bond Creatures: Mabari hounds imprint on a single master until death (either their own or the master's, whichever comes first).
  • Bonus Boss: the Revenants, Gaxkang, the sundered Fade Beast, and any instance of a High Dragon.
  • Boomerang Bigot: There is one mage in the Circle who begs the Maker's forgiveness just for existing. She wants the Templars to kill all mages, as it's the only thing they deserve. Being a mage is a punishment, after all.
  • Boring but Practical:
    • On Normal at least, one of the easiest and simplest ways to take down Bonus Boss Gaxkang is to just have Sten and Oghren beat the crap out of him after mastering Two-Handed Weapon feats, including Stunning Blows.
    • Mages can use Mana Clash to devastate NPC mages. (Even a couple mage-class bosses will go down in one blast.)
    • Spoony complained that he spent the entirety of the game using the Walking Bomb technique and its variants to kill everything but the bosses.
  • Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Courtesy of Anders: All I want is a pretty girl, a decent meal, and the right to shoot lightning at fools.

Warden-Commander: I think you're aiming too low.

  • Breast Plate: Mostly averted/justified.
    • Massive plate armor, which has no difference between male and female models, except in shoulder width, thoroughly averts this trope.
    • Medium and heavy armor, which is made of different kind of mails (splint, scale, chain) justifies it, as the material is supposed to be flexible and could very well be form fitting without sacrificing protective qualities, and they don't show any cleavage whatsoever.
    • Light armor shows plenty of cleavage and plays this trope straight, especially the Dalish armor. It's made of deerskin, bares the wearer's midriff, and offers more protection and flexibility than a full suit of leather armor.
  • Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: You can end the Blight for good... but one of the Grey Wardens has to die. Or father a baby that will steal Cthulhu's soul.
  • Bullying a Dragon:
    • You'd think those punks will know by now that you really live up to your reputation. As the good Sgt. Kylon said at Denerim:

To the Warden: "And people attack you voluntarily?"

    • Lampshaded by the bandits holding Bensley's daughter for ransom after the Warden introduces himself as 'Commander of the Grey'. The savvier ones flee after their leader orders them to attack, and one goes so far as to jump off the cliff rather than face you.
    • You can see it as early as your first visit to Lothering, where you can easily intimidate an entire bandit gang to run away by just mentioning that you're Grey Wardens. Their leader tries to be cocky even after that, but his slow-sounding henchman's constant reiterations about how he heard that the Grey Wardens are "really, really good [at fighting]" take the wind out of his sails really quickly. You can even demand a donation from them to the Wardens. (You can demand too much, refuse to do anything but kill them, or decide to turn in any survivors to the Templars, at which point they figure they might as well fight to the death anyway.)
      • Alternatively, if you've chosen the mage class, you can inform them of this fact. The dull henchman's reaction this time? "I-I don't want to be a toad!"
    • Lampshaded in Dragon Age II. You can meet Zevran, the elf assassin from Dragon Age: Origins, assuming you didn't import a save from that game in which you chose to kill him for attempting to assassinate you. You are given a mission by some Antivan Crows (the order to which Zevran belonged) posing as nobles to take him out, but once Zevran tells you the truth about them, you can choose to team up with him against his hunters. Once the Crows attack you, Zevran will comment that he can't understand why mooks like them think they can defeat people like you and the Warden.
    • The premise of the game is based on this trope, if you are looking for a literal (if corrupted) dragon.
  • Burn the Orphanage: The "Something Wicked" quest.
  • But Thou Must!: If you don't voluntarily become a Grey Warden, you'll be conscripted. The game lets you rail against this.
    • Uldred gives you a choice: death, or be willing host to a demon. With the power you've displayed, you would be, in his words, unstoppable. While most players obviously wouldn't choose the option that turns them into nightmarish demon-hybrids, the three replies available are paraphrased as follows: "Never!", "No", and "I'm all right, thank you."
    • While you can be a quite an asshole as you go about it, you HAVE to stop the Blight, and complete a number of other typical RPG quests to do so -- even if it's not something the type of character you want to play would be particularly interested in doing.
      • Well, no matter how evil you play your character, the whole "genocide" aspect of the Darkspawn's plan is rather negative towards them.
      • On the other hand, the game also gives you a surprising amount of leeway sometimes. Defending Redcliffe against the undead horde? You can absolutely tell the villagers to fuck off and die (the latter quite literally).

C

  • Call a Count an Arl: The titles of nobility in the game are all somewhat unique, aside from "King" and "Queen."
    • This is mostly Phantasy Spelling. Earl (largely equivalent to Count in any case) becomes Arl, whereas Baron and Thegn get mixed and divided into Teyrn and Bann.
  • Call Reception Area: Played very much straight in the Dalish origin.
  • Camera Screw
  • Can't Drop the Hero: Played straight except for one small part where party members rescue the PC (which is itself optional, as you can break yourself out) and another where your party members Hold the Line during the final battle.
  • Career Killers / Murder, Inc.: "The Antivan Crows send their regards."
  • Cast from Hit Points: The mechanic of Blood Magic.
  • Cat Fight: A male Warden daring or unlucky enough to romance both Leliana and Morrigan can expect to witness several examples of very tense moments between the two that end just short of actual violence.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Remember that "Trickster Spirit" you summoned in the Circle Tower? Turns out that may not have been the best idea.
    • If something happened during your origin story, rest assured you will have to deal with it later.
    • Uldred, the psychopathic mage behind the chaos that hits the Circle, makes a brief appearance at Ostagar. He only gets a single line before being shouted down by one of the Chantry's Revered Mothers.
    • You can also meet Wynne while at Ostagar, and have a pleasant conversation with her.
  • Childhood Friends: Jowan and the Warden mage. Presumably an attempt to make the player feel more inclined to go along with his dangerous plan. You can even try to defend him by invoking this.
  • Child Soldiers: The Antivan Crows prefer to recruit orphans for training, though it is unclear whether they are actually employed in assassinations. In any case, many of them die during training, and those that make it out alive are usually completely detached from their emotions or conventional morality.
  • The Church: The Chantry
  • Church Militant: So very, very many. The Templars are an entire order of Church (well, Chantry) Militants. The Qunari also have some.
  • City Guards
  • Class and Level System
  • Clingy Costume: Dwarves who are made into golems can't remove the armour they're given, at least not after the molten lyrium is poured in with them.
  • Combat Medic: While not required, mages can simultaneously become the best healers and damagers in the game.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Rogues. Rogues get skills like Below The Belt and Dirty Fighting. All of the specializations are examples, as well -- Assassins are obvious, bards are the universe's spies, rangers are noted as being happy to use their environment to kill enemies for them, and duelists emphasize speed and defense and quick, lethal strikes.
  • Come with Me If You Want to Live: At the end of every Origin chapter version, the player character is rescued by Duncan from a threatening situation and more or less willingly joins the Grey Wardens. The situation is particularly life-threatening in the Human Noble and Dalish Elf origins.
    • Notably, the other origin stories happen regardless of the origin you choose: Duncan just isn't there to save them...
    • There is a possible exception in the Mage Origin: if you decided to snitch on Jowan and Lily to First Enchanter Irving, you will not be under any threat whatsoever at the end of the quest and Duncan will have to outright invoke the Right of Conscription to get you.
  • Comic Book Time: It's mentioned early by Wynne in a conversation if you're a Mage, that it's been a year since you were recruited by the Grey Wardens.
    • Alistair causes an example of this vicarious of the fact that you can woo him anytime you like, be it at the beginning of the game or practically before the end... that said, the rose from Lothering he will give you as a gift will still be fresh as the day he picked it... back in Lothering, which most players never go back to after the first go and it's destroyed by darkspawn after the player finishes one of their plot missions.
  • Commonplace Rare: Inverted. Dragons are supposedly very rare in The Verse. The current Age was named the Dragon Age because it was preceded by the first sighting of a High Dragon in centuries. If you bring drake scales to Wade, he will tell you that most blacksmiths go their entire lives without ever seeing even one. And yet, by the end of the game, every piece of leather armor on the market will be made of drakeskin. Further, two out of three weapons and pieces of heavy or massive armor will be made out of dragonbone. And by the time you get to Awakening, it will be turned Up to Eleven: leather goods will be made out of dragon wing or even High Dragon hide (even if no one slew a High Dragon in Origins).
  • Compensating for Something: Either Morrigan or Sten can make a crack about this upon first encountering the Tower of Magi.
  • Convection, Schmonvection: Orzammar is full of molten magma; it's underground, after all. Seems to be popular with dwarven cities nowadays.
  • Conservation of Ninjitsu: The Darkspawn are, as a whole, pretty badass and dangerous opponents for the beginning, middle, and later parts of the game. However, once the massive horde assaults Denerim and the Warden's army arrives to fight them, the Warden and his/her team will be killing the various Darkspawn Mooks in one or two hits.
    • Played with. At least half the darkspawn you face in Denerim are labelled as Genlock/Hurlock Grunts… which apparently is synonymous with "One-Hit-Point Wonder".
  • Contract on the Hitman: Zevran will be targeted by the Crows if the Warden spares him. While Master Ignatio doesn't act against Zevran, declaring him to be dead in his eyes, Zevran's old comrade Taliesen will track him down and make him a final offer: rejoin the Crows or die. If Zevran's loyalty is high enough, he will fight against Taliesen at your side. How Zevran's battle with the Crows is resolved depends on whether or not the Warden sacrifices himself/herself. If the Warden lives, Zevran will continue to fight and evade the Crows as best he can while living his life which is apparently canon in Dragon Age II. If the Warden dies, Zevran will return to Antiva and singlehandedly take over the Crows and become their new Grand Master. His epilogue questions whether this counts as a victory or a defeat.
  • The Corps Is Mother: Anyone showing magical talent is taken away from their families and raised at the Circle of Magi. This is ostensibly because mages are vulnerable to demonic possession. The only other option is to become a Tranquil, where you have your connection to the source of your magical powers permanently severed, removing all your emotions in the process.
  • The Corruption: Grey Wardens drink darkspawn blood during their Joining ceremony, which (if they survive) dooms them to a slow death but gives them the power to sense darkspawn, among others.
    • The dwarven scavenger Ruck demonstrates the mental decay of someone living off of darkspawn flesh, and Oghren offers more details on their health decay. This does give them the ability to detect the taint of the darkspawn, including that of the Wardens, and the Warden can reflect on the disturbing implications of Ruck's description of it.
  • Cosmetic Award
  • Crapsack World: Let's face it: It's a fun world to visit via this video game, but none of us would want to live there.
  • Creepy Child: The little boy in Haven. Everything in the Alienage orphanage. Also the girl in Honnleath. Kitty...
  • Creepy Monotone:
    • Done hilariously nonsensically if you choose to let the desire demon (Kitty) possess the girl in Honnleath. Whereas previously both the girl and Kitty had a proper, normal range of expressive intonation, after the possession, the possessed girl suddenly enters a Creepy Monotone.
    • Also touched upon by Shale when asked why it doesn't really act like other golems:

Shale: Should I talk in a monotone? Yes, master. I exist to serve the master. I shall kill for the master and only the master.

    • This is an identifying trait of the Tranquils, regularly Lampshaded.
    • The Sloth Demon has one.
    • Hespith. Especially her poem: "First day, they come and catch everyone. Second day, they beat us and eat some for meat. Third day..."
  • Critical Hit
  • Critical Existence Failure: During your visit/re-visit to the mage tower, you might notice that abominations explode into a party hurting fireball on death.
  • Crystal Dragon Jesus: Andraste, who is basically Jesus + Joan of Arc. There's also a literal dragon named Andraste, but that's not the same individual.
  • Crystal Prison
  • Cutscene Drop: So many times. Particularly annoying considering how much the game talks about tactics and carefully positioning your party members to set up ambushes, only to teleport your Squishy Wizard right into the fray before every major battle. This is highly disruptive of rogue/trapping tactics, as the cutscene trigger exposes hiding characters as all are teleported in from what could be half-way across the map from where the active character is scouting -- for a rogue to expose themselves like this is equivalent to a cutscene throwing the sword-and-board warrior's shield away, and reflects a tactical stupidity that is never even lampshaded in the cutscenes.
  • Cycle of Revenge: The quest The Nature of the Beast requires you to either break or support one of these.
    • Due to Arl Howe's betrayal and brutal murder of most of the Couslands, the Human Noble Warden can decide whether or not to engage in one of these. Later in Awakening, the Warden can follow through on a threat to murder the members of Howe's family in retaliation by executing Nathaniel Howe when he is caught attempting to assassinate the Warden.
      • On the other hand, its entirely possible to avert this, playing the Warden as simply seeking revenge on just Arl Howe himself. In Awakening the Warden can decide to recruit Nathaniel into the Wardens instead of executing him, befriend him and inspire him to redeem his family's name after he realises the extent of his father's crimes. One possible epilogue reveals that Nathaniel even rescues the Warden's brother from bandits and the Howes are returned some of their lands, ending the bad blood between the families.

D

  • Damned By Faint Praise: You can actually kill Jowan with this.
    • And if you do actually say something that's barely nice about Jowan ("Well, he's trying to be a better person, I guess?"), Arl Eamon will say this trope word for word.
  • Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Blood magic.
  • The Dark Side: Demon magics.
  • Darker and Edgier: Origins is already very dark. Awakening darker still. Golems of Amgarrak even more so.
    • Which makes Witch Hunt a bit of Mood Whiplash, what with it being the last DLC, and the return of lighthearted banter between your party members and the assorted Harry Potter references at the Tower of Magi. Also, if you didn't smile at being reunited with your Mabari hound, you have no soul, and it's also the only DLC/expansion with the potential for an unapologetically happy ending.
  • Deadly Decadent Court:
    • Dwarven noble society ain't a very nice place. In fact, it almost qualifies as drow noble society, only reskinned with dwarves. Which, given the mythical origins of drow, is kind of appropriate.
    • Orlesian society is even worse. This seems to be the only purpose to their nobility in the first place. They call it "The Game."
    • Antivan society fits as well. Zevran pretty much spells it out for you.
    • Ferelden is a nobles' republic with elected kings (that have traditionally descended from a single bloodline nonetheless). Thus, under Loghain, to secure the throne requires a mix of intrigue, murder, and brute force.
  • Deadly Upgrade: Joining. Death will come immediately or thirty years later, depends at least partially on luck.
  • Dead Man Walking: All Grey Wardens, due to the Taint.
    • Also, the entire purpose of the Legion of the Dead, to the point of holding a funeral for them when they join up.

"Since we're dead, we can give our all in the fight against the darkspawn. We have nothing to lose."

  • Deal with the Devil: Mage characters can negotiate with a demon for access to Blood Magic in return for allowing the demon to possess a child; though you can renege on your promise by bullying the demon afterwards. In addition, many other demons can be bargained with for various things. Not all of them betray you, either.
    • Incidentally, you can betray many of the demons you make a deal with, with no worse consequences than having to fight with them.
    • And those players who bargained with the demon for Blood Magic, only to feel bad about the cost and reload a previous save, found that Blood Magic was still unlocked, and they could go ahead and make the "good" choice anyway.
  • Death of the Old Gods: The Old Gods of the Tevinter Imperium were struck down by the Maker. Most of the world now worships the Maker and his prophet Andraste, and the Old Gods slumber beneath the Earth until they're awoken, one at a time, to lead the corrupted darkspawn in a Blight. Though one imagines they are not too wild about this arrangement, given that "awoken" means being tainted by the Darkspawn and more or less forced into being their leader. It was the Tevinter Imperium searching for the Old Gods in the first place that caused the creation of the Darkspawn. This version of the story, primarily promoted by the Chantry is at least partly true: according to the former Tevinter Mage (now Darkspawn Emissary) Corypheus in Dragon Age II, he and a number of other Tevinter magisters did in fact enter the the mythical Golden City. However, his account differs from the Chantry's in that when they entered the City it it was already the twisted, blackened hell that can be seen from anywhere in the Fade.
  • Death Seeker: The Legion of the Dead are dwarves who all did something they feel must be atoned for with their lives. The moment they join the Legion. they are considered dead to the rest of dwarven society, and they spend the rest of their lives fighting darkspawn in the Deep Roads. When Grey Wardens sense that the taint will soon overcome them, they follow the Legion of the Dead's example and go into the Deep Roads to die while taking as many darkspawn with them as they can. Most of the Legion have at least some grudging respect for Wardens for this.
  • Deconstructor Fleet: The game heavily deconstructs the "fantasy hero" genre, adding realistic and unpleasant politics and bigotry to the fantasy setting, and making moral choices complicated and difficult. At several points, you have the option between doing what is good and doing what, ultimately, will best help save the world.
  • Deflector Shields: The Mage's Arcane Shield (boosts Defense) and the Arcane Warrior's Shimmering Shield (boosts damn near everything). And yes, you can have both on at the same time. Prior to a recent PC patch, the Shimmering Shield was bugged and didn't drain mana when in use. This was fixed with the patch, but it's still overpowered.
  • Degraded Boss: The very first boss you'll fight is an Ogre at the top of the tower in Ostagar, and it's going to take everything you have to slay him. Later, they'll become a somewhat more regular enemy (though still one of the rarer Darkspawn), especially in the Deep Roads and finale.
    • By about halfway through Awakening, Elite Ogres become an elaborate speed bump.
  • Detachable Lower Half: The Harvester in Golems of Amgarrak.
  • Deus Sex Machina: Morrigan's solution to the Someone Has to Die problem in the endgame involves having the male PC, Alistair, or Loghain impregnating her.
  • Did Not Do the Research: Most of the armor in the game grants extra protection along the left arm. In Real Life, armored swordsmen would more heavily armor the right arm; the left hand held the shield, which could be used to adequately defend the entire left side. The right arm, on the other hand, held the weapon, and using it deflect an incoming blow puts the swordsman on the defensive; hence, greater armor on the right arm.
    • This depends on whether the armor is designed to be used with a shield or not. Warriors who forego shield for extra mobility benefit more from extra protection to left flank, allowing them to use their left shoulder as a makeshift shield if necessary, while keeping their right arm as mobile as possible and rely on parrying with their sword as protection for that side of their body.
  • Difficulty Spike: If you go to a high level area such as Orzammar or Denerim immediately after leaving Lothering.
  • Disaster Democracy: Twice, with the dwarves and humans.
  • Disc One Final Dungeon: Ostagar. It obviously isn't the final dungeon, though. The game is just getting started!
  • Disc One Nuke:
    • If the Dwarven Noble makes certain choices in his/her Origin story, he/she can leave for Ostagar with nearly 30 sovereigns -- a ridiculous amount of money that other characters won't have for a good chunk of the game. The Dwarven Noble also gets a huge discount and excellent resale value from a certain merchant (Gorim) in Denerim, which means even more money. This makes buying the best equipment in the game as soon as it becomes available much easier. The Dwarven Noble also receives a powerful shield from Gorim free of charge that no other character can obtain. The Dwarven Noble is effectively the "Easy" Mode, at least for non-mage characters.
    • Promo items often take the form of various disc one nukes, as they provide all sorts of silly bonuses that are excessively powerful for your character's level. (At least the Blood Dragon Armor will take you a while to get to use due to Strength requirement and expense...)
    • Then there are gearing tricks that can get silly. Give your Mage 16 strength and you can run around Ostagar in a full medium armor set (12 for leather). Add a Stone Skin self-buff (and maybe Rock Salves for overkill) and you will want enemies to attack your mage.
      • This is more of an issue with the mage itself. Especially when choosing the Arcane Warrior specialization, going for heavy armor and adding a few defensive sustainables on top of that, a mage can become ridiculously hard to kill. They can get better defenses and resistances than anyone else in the game, including a sword and board warrior. They can even become quite capable melee fighters, all while having unbelievable defenses, high hit points, and the ability to throw around devastating spells and healing.
    • Any area-of-effect spell on Easy, but in particular the third- and fourth-tier cold spell.
    • Completing Witch Hunt allows the player to bring both the Sorrows of Arlathan bow and Vestments of the Seer robes with them on subsequent playthroughs of the main game. The former is a massively-powerful bow but at least is limited by the dexterity requirements, while the latter is the best set of robes in the game, and has no requirements. A starting mage won't ever be changing clothes unless you opt for the Arcane Warrior specialization.
    • If you complete the Warden's Keep DLC as quickly as possible, then the Warden Commander's armor will be useless by the end of the game (it's Tier 4, when the best armor in the original game is Tier 7) unless a trick to upgrade by either leaving it in the party chest and leaving/reentering Soldier's Peak on console, or by selling it to Mikhail Dryden then leaving/reentering the Peak and buying it back if playing on PC. However, you will get an event in which you recover a meteorite, that you can then have forged into a one- or two-handed sword. Starfang is bar none the best sword in the game, occupying its own tier (which eventually shows up as Tier 9 in Awakening), and you can get it as soon as you leave Lothering.
    • Getting cone of cold, which can be obtained relatively early, gives the mage a power that can even freeze the Archdemon in place. One strategy involving the spell has the player keeping the big bosses and semi-bosses in place while the tank takes on the boss and the rest clean up after him.
  • Dissonant Serenity: Hespith. The result of being broken both by circumstances and Branka's obsession isn't pretty. And she speaks in a highly Creepy Monotone. There's also the fact that she's in the initial stage of turning into a Broodmother.
  • Distracted By the Shiny: The purpose of the Lure traps. Description of the Glamour Charm required to make them:

This minor magical charm captures the viewer's attention and distra... ooo, pretty...

  • Double Entendre:
    • Have you ever licked a lamppost in winter?
      • In Awakening, there's a staff named Lamppost in Winter. The item description says that licking it would not be advisable.
    • Zevran employs this occasionally, when he's not being blatantly obvious.

Zevran: The thing I missed most about Antiva was its leather.
Warden: Is that some kind of euphemism?

    • In romancing Alistair, he will at one point give the Female PC a rose, stating that it reminds him of her. She can reply "Feeling thorny, are we?"
    • There's quite a bit of this in general if you're looking, obviously in Party Romances, but also particularly where the Warden can flirt with or seduce NPCs. (Example of the latter is Isabella in the Pearl. "Can we go back to your ship? I'd love to see what's below deck.")
    • Oghren gets a pretty good one early in Awakening, upon discovering a ghoul equipped with his stolen gear.

Oghren: No one touches Oghren's junk and lives!

  • Doing In the Wizard: If you take Oghren with you on the "Urn of Sacred Ashes" quest, he'll mention the high amounts of lyrium in the mountain and temple, and that the urn's healing properties might be from centuries of exposure. One of many arguments in the game (Morrigan makes a few) that the Maker might not be real.
  • Downer Ending: The overall ending to the main story arc is always bittersweet, but due to there being many smaller Multiple Endings, some specific places or people that you tried to help during the story usually only get this.
  • Dracolich: The Queen of the Blackmarsh, an electro-ghost dragon from another dimension.
  • Dream Spying
  • Drop the Hammer: Mauls are one subset of two-handed weapons, and not surprisingly, they have the best armor penetration ratings. The Chasind Great Maul is one of the most powerful (and expensive) weapons in the game.
  • Drunk on the Dark Side: Maleficars, mages who embraced demon magics, tend to go this route.
  • Dual Boss: Awakening has a few: the Lost and an Inferno Golem, two Dragon Thralls and a Skippable Boss against the Architect and Utha.
  • Dual-Wielding: Rogues and Warriors can do this. Technically, so can a Mage, but it's only really worth doing with the right specialization.
  • Dude, Where's My Respect?: In Awakening, while your position of Commander of the Grey gives you plenty of respect and influence, being possibly queen or prince consort of Ferelden changes surprisingly little in the way you are treated.
  • Duel Boss: Teyrn Loghain at the Landsmeet. Also, a knight challenges you to this when you arrive in Denerim. If you decide to fight him one on one, his underlings will compliment your honor.
  • Dug Too Deep: Inverted / Parody: hidden at the very far end of the ruins in the Dalish origin is a small statue. Clicking on it give the message "A strange statue commemorating the emergence of -- and short-lived trading relationship with -- dwarves, who dug too high and too frugal and struck elves" clicking on it also spawns some skeletons to attack you.
  • Dummied Out: The Human Commoner origin. It was cut sometime during mid-late development, but many bits and pieces from it, including fully voice recorded but unused dialogue, can be found within the game and in the toolset. A Human Barbarian origin was also cut, much earlier.
  • Dump Stat: Magic for non-mage, although potions and the Reaver's Devour ability do get some bonuses from it. Strength, and to a lesser extent Dexterity, for Mages. Constitution and Willpower are sorta dump stats thanks to all the potions you can chug (though Stamina restoration potions don't show up until the expansion for some reason).
  • Dungeon Bypass:
    • Mage origin: When you need to get the form signed, just ask Senior Enchanter Sweeney instead and you won't need to clear out the spiders. (If you do it afterwards anyway, you get potions instead.)
    • Redcliffe: You can just choose to not rescue the village.
    • Redcliffe castle: Kill Connor and you skip a Fade sequence. Although said Fade sequence is actually easier than killing him, and certainly not as annoying as the other one from the Broken Circle quest.
  • Dying Moment of Awesome: Whoever kills the Archdemon gets one, if you refuse the dark ritual.
    • Even if you are a clueless idiot, the part where Sten returns home (If you have enough respect with him) really drives it home. When asked by his people if he met anyone worthy of respect on his travels, he replies "One."
  • Dysfunction Junction: Pretty much every party member you can recruit in this game has a major psychological trauma or three in their past (or in some cases their present). This is how you can tell that Mhairi is a Mauve Shirt: she's not dysfunctional.

E

  • Earn Your Happy Ending: if you work very hard, you'll be able to get one of these. However, there's many other... not that happy outcomes.
  • Easily Forgiven: Rampant throughout the main quest storyline. Count the number of times that, after you have slaughtered your way throughout an entire dungeon of a particular enemy race or group, the leader of that race or group will come out and offer to team up with you. You can even call Father Kolgrim on it when he offers to proclaim you Andraste's champion after you've slaughtered about two-thirds of his followers.
  • Easing Into the Adventure: The point of the origin stories, except for the Mage Origin, which begins with a short dungeon.
  • Easy Mode Mockery: Averted, notable for the reasons: The developers have said that 'Hard' mode was the intended base difficulty for gamers, but that's never suggested in the game or game materials. There are no benefits or penalties for playing any difficulty mode, nor any Achievements related to them, except for in the Golems of Amgarrak and Witch Hunt DLC, which have acheivements for beating their final bosses on 'Hard' or 'Nightmare' modes.
  • Elemental Powers: The primal schools revolve around this.
  • Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Rage Demons (which are made of fire) are weak against ice attacks.
  • Elves vs. Dwarves:
    • Spoofed by Zevran and Oghren:

Zevran: Hello my stocky little friend!
Oghren: Huh. You got small breasts for a gal.
Zevran: Ah. This is where we begin the typical dwarven/elven rivalry, is it?
Oghren: Nahhh.

      • Oghren goes as far as admitting that he thinks Zevran is all right. The elf promptly deadpans that he's got to be drunk.
    • Dwarves might not be rivals with elves in DA, but an elf Warden walking around Orzammar will get a lot of odd comments from its citizens.
    • Also seen in the conflict between the high and mighty cultured Orlesians (described as "painted fops" by Fereldans) and the honorable, salt-of-the-earth freedom-loving Fereldans (described as "one bad day away from barbarism" by the Orlesians).
      • Of course once you realise that Orzammar is in Ferelden, and the Dales were in Orlais...
  • Empathy Doll Shot: There's a doll in the Elven alienage apartments, and its description makes sure to emphasize how well-worn and loved it is.
  • The Empire:
    • The Tevinter Imperium was once this before the first Blight wiped most of their territory out. This is mirrored by what happened to the dwarves.
    • The Orlesian Empire fits this trope the best in the backstory, as it is the biggest and most powerful nation on Thedas and had no qualms with invading and pretty much enslaving Ferelden. They've (mostly) mellowed out by the time of the events of the game, but relations with Ferelden are still a bit rocky. It's his paranoia about King Cailin requesting aid from Orlais that drives Loghain's madness.
  • Empty Shell: The Tranquil are one of the more pleasant versions. Cursed to never feel emotion, the Tranquil themselves do not express any discontent with their condition. They also do not express any other feeling about any other subject. They are conscious and rational, but not capable of "feeling" as emoting beings understand it. If you accuse them of not being people, they merely provide a polite counter-argument.
  • Ending Theme: "This Is War", by 30 Seconds to Mars. Maybe they should have saved this song for Dragon Age 3, considering that the second sequel will most likely deal with the fallout of the war that the Champion inadvertently caused.
  • The End - or Is It?: The last shot of The Golems of Amgarrak is dozens -- maybe hundreds -- of Harvesters escaping the thaig's destruction and scuttling off into the Deep Roads.
  • Enslaved Elves: The elves used to have a highly advanced society and culture, complete with immortality. Then humans showed up, and everything went to hell. Modern elves rank just above slaves in society (and are slaves in some parts of the world), and most don't even know they used to be a powerful race. Even the Grey Warden can do only a little to improve their lot.
  • Entendre Failure: Occurs between Alistair and Zevran during a conversation with Shale.

Zevran: Here, take that templar fellow. Rugged good looks, quick wit, manly shoulders. Just getting him to hop borders is a challenge worthy of the great heroes.
Alistair: A challenge? I'd happily hop borders, given the chance. I've never even been close to leaving Ferelden.

    • There's also this little gem possible for either male or female wardens:

Leliana: But now it's getting late. I think I might... turn in early. I can't help thinking about how soft and warm my bedroll is.
Warden: You don't want to talk to me anymore?
Leliana: Of course I do. You know I enjoy your company. But... it's getting a little chilly, and I prefer to be in my bedroll.
Warden: Well, I shan't keep you.
Leliana: You know, it'd be nice if you came with me.
Warden: What for?
Leliana: So I can show you my collection of pressed flowers... obviously.
Warden: I didn't know you collected pressed flowers.
Leliana: I... don't. Stop pretending you don't know what I want!
Warden: I have no idea what's going on.
Leliana: Ah, the games you play. Listen, I want to spend the night with you. There. I said it.

    • There's also the option to say (in reply to her turning early):

Warden: I'm going to stay up and write in my journal.
Leliana: Oh, maybe you could come into my tent and I could watch you write? "Dear Journal... Leliana has shown much affection for me. Even asked me to come to bed with her, but alas, subtlety is lost on me."
Warden: Wait, what?

  • Evil-Detecting Dog: The codex on werewolves states that mabari became popular in Ferelden due to their ability to sense werewolves, a necessity in an age where packs of werewolves roamed freely across the landscape and anyone you invited into your home could be afflicted with the curse. Dog demonstrates this ability a few times in-game, and not just with werewolves.
  • Evil Empire: Once again, the old Tevinter Imperium had all the brutality of the Romans (that's saying a lot) plus Blood Magic. (The modern Tevinter Empire isn't much better.)
  • Evilutionary Biologist: Suprisingly common for a fantasy setting. Avernus, The Archetect, Zathrian, The Dwarf/Tevinter Mage partnership who built Amgarrak ...suffice to say that once you hear of someone "experimenting" with magic, you know it won't end well.
  • Enemy Civil War: Awakening centers around one between two surprisingly well-organized bands of darkspawn, both of which are attacking the people and Wardens of Amaranthine.
  • Escort Mission: There are several missions where you have to keep NPCs alive to get good rewards.
  • Eternally Pearly-White Teeth: Subverted -- almost everyone, peasants and royalty alike, seem to have yellowed teeth; fairly realistic considering the equivalent technology level.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Zevran mentions that the Antivan Crows were reluctant to take a contract on the Grey Wardens; even in Antiva, the killing of Wardens is considered 'impolitic'. Ignacio later tells a PC who has completed several contracts for the Crows that the only reason they took the job is because they thought Loghain had a better chance of defeating the darkspawn.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Everyone in the game calls you "Warden" and refers to you solely as "the Warden", with few exceptions. Nobody ever addresses you by your first name. (Probably because you get to pick your name yourself, when first setting up your character.) The notable exception being the noble human and dwarf being called by their surname.
    • Lampshaded in Dragon Age II during Alistair's cameo. Bann Teagan says that they should be getting back to Denerim to see the Warden, and as they are leaving, Alistair responds, "You're always so formal. She/He has a name, you know.
  • Everything Fades: Halfway played straight. All bodies fade away into low-polygon bones and junk, which remain when you return. Averted when your return to Ostagar to find the king's body perfectly intact, but that is given a codex explanation: evidently, the Darkspawn taint is so fatal to living things that it kills the parasites that would normally break down dead tissue. (And of course, when you return, it's winter, which would further stave off decomposition.)
  • Everything's Worse with Bears: Bears in the game come in two flavors: black bears and great bears. Considering that there is nothing supernatural about them and that they are not sentient, bears are some of the toughest enemies in the game. This is to your advantage if you play as a rogue and get the Ranger specialization, as you'll be able to summon first a black bear and eventually a great bear. Oh the joys of slaughtering mooks with a bear at your side.
  • Evil Sorcerer: The Tevinter Magisters.
  • Executive Meddling: This and time restraints are the reason Shale's only available via DLC instead of being in the vanilla game.
    • Though the devs were kind enough to include that bit of DLC for free with any copy purchased new. It still served to discourage buying the game used (which doesn't turn a profit for Bioware).
  • Exclusively Evil: The darkspawn (except for the Architect and his followers, who are morally ambiguous).
    • Mostly just the Architect and the Messenger are ambiguous. The Withered and the Seeker are plainly still as evil as they ever were.

Misplaced

  • A Handful for an Eye: Rogues can get an ability to do this as a stun.
  • Lava Adds Awesome: The underground realm of the Deep Roads has a lot of lava, to the point that the dwarves have lava fountains and lava waterfalls as decorations in the same way surfacers might use water.
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