Prologue

The basis for this came from me recently replaying the video game "Dragon Age: Origins". If you've never played it, and you have any interest in story-driven adventure games, you should try it out. It has easily the most riveting story of any game I've played, and the action is pretty fun as well. The writers of some parts of the game have wicked senses of humour, and between the character development and the hilarious one-liners, my writing brain perked up after many years laying dormant. As I was playing, I created my character, Elyssa, in my head. In my imagination, and my dreams even, more and more of her backstory came to me. Then there were a few scenes that caught my imagination, either wanting to flesh out the dialogue more than you could in a video game, explore a funny aspect of the story that occurred to me (like trying to do romance in platemail armour), or just because I'm an erotica writer and the game, while doing a better job of it than most, left enough out of the implied sex scenes that I needed to fill in the details. And they left the ending wide open for the expansion, and a sequel, and I needed more closure. So this is really a collection of 'scenes' from the game, as opposed to a complete story written from beginning to end.

I stuck with the story for the most part, and anyone who has played the game shouldn't find this too jarring. I fibbed a little bit on some of the small details where I thought my version was better, and the ending is all my own. Beware of spoilers, if you plan to play the game. I am not trying to write out the entire story as told in the game, but a brief synopsis is necessary for anyone who hasn't played it. So here goes:

In the country of Ferelden, in the land of Thedas, a horde of evil, tainted creatures known as darkspawn boiled up out of the deep roads to assault the surface. Leading the charge is an archdemon – a dragon, intelligent, belligerent, and hungry for conquest. The Grey Wardens, legendary soldiers who exist only to fight the darkspawn, warn the kingdom – a blight is coming. The humans in Ferelden gather an army to push the horde back, but lose a horrific battle when King Cailan and the Grey Wardens are betrayed by the King's Advisor, Loghain. The King is killed, leaving Ferelden without an heir, and precisely two Grey Wardens, Alistair and Elyssa, the two newest recruits.

Alistair is the bastard son of Cailan's father, and by blood is heir to the throne, however he was raised in obscurity due to his illegitimacy, and was sent to the Monastery to train as a Templar. Elyssa was the second child of the Teyrn of Highever; her family was slaughtered and her castle taken because of the same betrayal that killed the king. Alistair and Elyssa are joined by a number of companions as they fight to save Ferelden from the blight. Morrigan, an 'unlicensed' mage (called apostates by the Chantry, the religion in Ferelden); Leliana, a religious sister with a darker background; Sten, a Barbarian from another land; Zevran, a mercenary assassin who failed to assassinate Elyssa on contract to Loghain; Wynne, a grandmotherly healer from the Circle of Magi; and Oghren, a disgraced, drunken dwarf exiled from his homeland. Initially the group travels around Ferelden making alliances with elves, dwarves, mages, Templars, as well as humans. Then they attend a Landsmeet with the human nobility to declare Alistair as the new King. And finally, the combined armies attack the darkspawn directly, along with Riordan, a Grey Warden from neighbouring Orlais, leaving only Elyssa, Alistair, and Riordan to kill the archdemon.

Chapter 1 »