[MOD] Thedas Kings - a Dragon Age total conversion.
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well theres allways conflicts between Movies VS books VS the games considering the lore, but truly its not them to blame to want add something brand new or different prespective
...Which can literally only be expressed to others by complaining; the definition is to express dissatisfaction tbh
1st of I'm glad that you take this so seriously. Because ofc DA is a flawed game with a flawed lore to begin with. DAO was no exception to this rule.
I play the game mostly for the political story aspect of it. The Elves doesn't interest me and their fans was generally very annoying on the Bioware forums with their special little snowflake persona. DAI turn on the elves origin was surpricing, but ultimately deemed necessary for the next games theme according to the developers. That said, the elves were never that interesting and I would have prefered if Solas had just made the disappearance of the elves permanent at the end of Trespasser ("elves disappeared into the woods never to be seen again in any future installment). I just hope we never get to see elves like Fenris ever again. Emo final fantasy styled elves... They just don't add up to the political intrigue between the nobles throughout the game. The wartable is a good example for interesting plot and in DAI I wished I could do those missions instead of picking up elfroot.
And what is the issue of having a matriarchal priesthood? That's like modern catholicism were women can't become priests... are you violently opposed to them never having a female pope too? I think it's interesting. Besides men can take up into the ranks of the templars and the seekers as military defenders of the chantry.
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Flawed lore? Maybe if you purposely ignore everything, sure, you get flawed lore like what Widowmaker posted. Besides that I honestly feel most people intentionally forget that bioware tries to keep a lot of things vague and unexplained (for example, where humans came from). That's not an objective flaw or laziness, that's . Complain about that if you want, but don't dance around it and acknowledge that it's purely a matter of opinion whether that's a good choice.
Fantasy rarely allows for a purely political story. Take ASOIAF - sure, the political story is interesting, but its basically rammed into your head that its irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. I mean, with the existence of the blight from the very beginning, I think its hardly likely the games could just turn into a bunch of politicking.
And why do people hate the elves so much?If you actually expected anything nice from the bioware forums, well, I pity you. It was basically the worst of bioware's fandom TBQH. I also think its a bit odd to hate something purely on account of some people who like it? Imagine if I disowned CK2 because of the stupid incest, child sex, genocide, and so on memes on reddit. I won't, because I'm well aware it represents the worst part of the ck2 fandom.
Oh, but yeah, fenris is a dumb meme tbh
What's the issue with a matriarchal priesthood? The fact that men can't be priests. As part of lore, you are right, its very interesting, but its hardly a justified thing from a perspective within the universe itself. Denying to someone an opportunity solely based on gender (which is SUCH a big spook tbh) is a problem.
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1. It's incomplete. We know nothing more than a handful of bannorns in Ferelden, we don't know what the King holds himself. We don't know the territory distribution in Orlais, or how much of the land belongs to the Free marsher states and how much is no-mans-land. etc. Incomplete. I want to know all of those things. Ofc they won't tell us because they want to continue to build upon the game in future installments and having a rigid well-known world will only limit their room for creativity.
2. And I think its because elves complain a lot. Not everyone are drawn to whiney rebellious people, no matter their cause. Personally I would be fine with there only being humans in the story.
3. Not if the divine intention is to mimmick the prophet Andraste, a woman. So thus the idea would be that women are closer to the maker? Whatever the reason its no different than our own history and I don't see people here complaining that the pope is male as violently. Arguing about it doesn't really sound like actual genuine concern about equality in a fantasy game. I mean, why would you care unless you don't like women to hold power among men.
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I mean, knowing the internet, 'complaining about something' being cause for hate does seem consistent. Ugh. But anyways, with only humans in the story, Dragon Age wouldn't be dragon age - Origins was a subversion of the fantasy genre and its cliches yet it revelled in them anyway. It was basically a parody.
Oh come on, don't imply I'm sexist, I literally just called gender a spook, do you know how many people are going to want to send me death threats now? I do have problems with the Catholic Church being patriarchal, mind you, it's just never really necessary to bring up much and even beyond that I'm not fond of it anyways from its strictly hierarchical nature anyways.
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Ferelden King Holds himself the Whole Kingdom(thats his demense) atleast thats what the Sources of Thedas Tells us, But in reality the king himself holds only the palace and must rely alot on his arls and teyrns, But in times of Loghain the Arling of Denerim was usurped from current arl (arl died at ostagar, son left to rule(sadistic bastard) which was thrown into jail after loghains return) And arl of amaranthine(Rendon Howe) claimed both teyrn of high ever and Arling of Denerim(Denerim still heavily influenced by Loghain so basically his demense also) Loghain solely controlled Teyrn of Gwaren at South Eastern Bercilian Forest to the White River (his banns ruled over there as far as i know) we know enough banns within Ferelden to locate them into the map correspondingly, altough theres around 25% bannorns we have to make up. about orlais, i dont know much doe x3.
about elves, they've been stomped on for long time by humans by enslaving and massacring and demoting their community standing to slums, so that pretty much have right to complain, and i'd love to be one of dalish my self nature close and all that, But yeah i'd still take templars just because their cool armors.
I'd be willing to help, but I have literally zero experience in modding in general - ck2 or otherwise.
It's not that hard to learn if someone is willing enough, simply by looking at how other mods made their changes should give anyone a rough idea of what to do.
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Nothing has anywhere near the level of lore of LotR. But ASOIAF? We know the lore of one continent (the smallest of their continents and not even its entirety) fairly well, at least in the sense that we know their cultures and major historical elements fairly well. This is undermined quite a bit by the fact that most of that continent is a mono-culture with regional feuds — more akin to the difference between the cultures of York and Northumberland than say France and Germany — with the exceptions being the 'Yep We're Scottish' North, the 'Yep We're Norse' Iron Islands and 'Hey We're Spain" Dorne. The Free Cities have very, very little development besides some quirks (Lorathi speech-patterns, Tyroshi dyed hair) and exports. Go further East or further South? Well
Don't get me wrong, I fucking love ASoIaF, I could walk ten feet and grab my well read copy of The World of Ice and Fire; not to mention the Dragon Age series started off as a giant homage to ASoIaF. But ASoIaF's world-building and lore is incredibly weak, and it's incredibly weak for one reason: George Martin is a SciFi Author playing with Fantasy — he's there to tell the story he wants to and the world exists just enough to facilitate that.
You can see in a number of places that the world was neither particularly well designed, nor meant to be much more than background. The Dothraki (Mongols) are meant to pose a serious potential threat to Westeros yet we can by how advanced the weapons and armour of Westeros are that they'd be a nuisance when it comes to raiding but get destroyed in most any battle (Westeros is far more advanced than Europe was during the Mongol Invasion). Slavery is almost omni-present on Essos but is made to be as destitute and horrendous as it is shown in SciFi, and yet Nobles could do to Serfs almost anything they could do to Slaves — the two difference were that Serfs could move elsewhere and Slave Owners had vested interests in actually taking care of their Slaves. The Feudal System they setup simultaneously has a Hierarchy and yet has No Hierarchy. With the exception of Asshai, pretty much every land and culture in ASoIaF is a cardboard cutout of a real world culture.
While Thedas definitely has some strong ties/inspirations from the real world (ie Antiva is Spain/Portugal, Navarra is Austria/HRE, the Free Marches is Italy, etc...), they actually put a lot more thought into how the nations of the world formed and how their cultures developed and interplay. The system of governance of Fereldan, and everything the structure of the Landsmeet tells you and the nobility (ie Power is highly centralized as most vassals answer directly to the King but the nobles still have a huge amount of power in numbers to massively impact the Laws of the Land). Orlais and Antiva on the other hand are extreme-schemers because of how decentralized they are, with the Monarchs ruling over a loose confederacy of Dukes who are roughly as powerful individually as the Monarch themselves.
Or my favourite example of really good cultural worldbuilding: Tevinter! Everything we hear about Tevinter is bad news right? Mages rule over their Slaves with an iron first and use their Blood to empower their spells so that they can push further up in their system. They killed the Prophet and then went on to pervert her testaments. The Mages are rampant, free and doubtless abominations. The Templars, the only people able to keep their Mages in check, are utterly corrupt. Their morals are perverse and corrupt.
It is all exactly as the Chantry, the people in charge of educating the Public say it is!
...And then we meet Dorian, who actually has some knowledge of what's going on there. The Nobles are obsessed with bloodlines and try to keep hidden anything that could get in the way of their dynasty continuing on. Yes there are Slaves but they live like pretty well everyone else, certainly the ones brought in by Slave Raiders and the like have suffered, but most are just people doing their jobs — owned people but people. Blood Magic is a real problem but there are significant factions that actually push against it. The Templars are actually so watered down and corrupted that they can't even Suppress Magic. And yet it seems that by being able to properly educate themselves on Magic — even Blood Magic — without being torn away from their families and told that they're monsters, so few Mages actually become Abominations that it works out fine that the Templars ARE mostly ceremonial.
So as it turns out the Great Tevinter Evil is just as corrupt and evil as any other part of Thedas, just in a different way that the Andrastian Chantry REALLY dislikes.
I realize I am being very long winded in saying this, but the lore behind Dragon Age FAR surpasses the lore behind ASoIaF. The storytelling of ASoIaF is infinitely better handled certainly, but when it comes to the worldbuilding, the cultures, the world, the history and the way these things actually interact it couldn't hold a glass candle to it.
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This.
And I say this as someone who fucking loves certain backstory bits. The Blackfyre Rebellion is one of the single most interesting bits in A Song of Ice and Fire.
Wholeheartedly agree. However, there is a point in Westeros having greater amount of "history" in terms of CK2 set up (who lives where with what CoA owing alliegance to whom), while in DA we have fairly little in that aspect.
On another topic, it's funny that I depict myself Ferelden and Orlais at the inverse: Ferelden as being a land where nobles have massive liberties (most of them only answer to the king and can pretty much control him through the Landsmeet), while to me the Orlesian nobility seems more like French nobility in the times of Louis XIV: deprived of most landed power, and focused in palace intrigue instead.
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And even the Kingship is technically elective. After Maric's disappearance, Bryce could have been King if he weren't such a staunch royalist. Hell, the nobility WANTED him to take the throne. As the Couslands are adored.
This explains all the things. BSN is fucking cancer. Always remember your holy water, rocket-propelled grenade launcher, and Hazmat suit when venturing there for even such small things as looking for posts by David Gaider.
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I love the dedication to the topic. I still argue that DA lore lacks a significant number of people that GOT got. DA lore is still impressive culture-wise, I agree, but we don't know enough family names and GOT is a major name-dropping story which I like.
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But the name dropping is about it. There's no real cultural or well-thought out historical backdrop for the stuff.
Also, Aegon the Conqueror is bland as wheat toast.
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That may very well be. But in DA we only get the names (sometimes not even that) of a noble. Its only first generation since non of their lineage is known. Most of the time the title is only the tier and not of the place they rule. And sometimes its only the family name. If we're lucky the mention relatives, but that's hardly common. Compare that to the vassals of the Lord protector of the North. There we see a ton of names and from where they rule and their extent and what relatives they got along with political marriages. I wanted that for DA.
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I'm not comparing the two as much. I suppose this is just a holdover from a different thread where some people rabidly defended some of the dumber parts of A Song of Ice and Fire by saying 'LOLFANTASYDON'THAVETOMAKESENSE' when admitting the author's faults is better.