I Have A Mighty Need For Professor Dekarios To Meet Professor Volkahrin, Perhaps Over A Cup Of Tea Or

i have a mighty need for professor dekarios to meet professor volkahrin, perhaps over a cup of tea or a good glass of wine (or two), and passionately talk about their respective fields of magic.

(the only question is if tara would get along with manfred.)

🧙🍷🍷🧙

you can't spell necromancer without romance 😌

Given how much of the immediate backstory to Dragon Age: Inquisition was found in Asunder and the Masked Empire, I think some people might be wondering if any of the short stories, anthologies, or comics are also "homework" for The Veilguard. Obviously, the game's not out yet, so I can't be 100% sure, but here's my best recommendations based on what we know about the characters (done in alphabetical order because why not).

Bellara: She's new! The Veil-jumpers are in a single issue of the Missing, but she's not any of the ones named there. They investigate magical disturbances around Arlathan forest, and that's kind of all we know.

Davrin: Also new! The reason he seems to have a juvenile griffon (or at least, why there's a griffon at all!) is covered in the events of the novel The Last Flight, but it's hard to say how much any of those specifics are relevant to Davrin.

Emmrich: Emmrich (and Manfred!) is in Down Among the Dead Men in Tevinter Nights, and another, The Eternal Flame released during a Dragon Age Day and archived on the wiki. We learn he's a senior member of the Mourn Watchers, somewhat eccentric, and capable of talking to the dead. Also he's got a last name, Volkarin, so that's neat. All of that seems pretty easy to catch people up on in-game. (Down Among the Dead Men is really good though).

Harding: Harding is in the Missing, accompanying Varric on his hunt for Solas. Her buddy-cop-comedy-ing it with Varric is apparent from the trailer. Her apparent magic powers are completely new though!

Lucanis: He and Neve probably have the most backstory in Tevinter Nights of the bunch. Lucanis's story is found in the Wigmaker Job and he's mentioned in Eight Little Talons, both in Tevinter Nights. A Dragon Age Day short story called the Wake seems to have implied that he died, so mayhaps he faked his death? To hopefully set some people at ease, even though he's advertised as "The Magekiller," the mages he's killing are Venatori, so it's all good. I doubt he'd have beef with Neve or Emmrich or a mage PC JUST because they're mages. Also he's got a last name, Dellamorte.

Neve: Neve has a last name too! It's Gallus. Neve is the viewpoint character of the Streets of Minrathous, where she stops a Venatori plot to unleash a giant sealed demon underneath Minrathous. Her story is very Noir-vibes in a fantasy setting. She's also in the Missing for an issue, where she meets Varric and Harding and they work together to help escaped slaves avoid recapture by the Venatori. The giant sealed demon business did feel very "preview of a boss battle" but who can say if it actually is.

Taash: Like with Bellara, Taash herself is new, but the Lords of Fortune have featured elsewhere. They're in a number of stories in Tevinter Nights, as well as in Dragon Age: Absolution. The group doesn't seem to have a formal role, they seem to be sort of "adventurers for hire." Side note though, Ataashi is Qunlat for dragon, so I wonder if that's where Taash got her name.

thinking again about how fucked up it is that bioware revealed that the evanuris aren't actually gods but rather murderers and slavers - but they said they're not gonna confirm anything about whether the maker exists.

the chantry gets so much slack in-game imo as a parallel to the catholic church, especially when you compare it to how the other religions/spiritual beliefs are portrayed.

you get so many companions and sympathetic npcs who follow the chant and believe in the maker and aside from the templars as an institution and a cleric or two they're basically made out to be good when they're... colonizing, forcing assimilation, and demonizing other groups.

outside of velanna and merrill there aren't really any proud dalish characters, solas and abelas make a point of distancing themselves from a dalish pc.

sten is the only qunari companion who continues to follow the qun regardless of player choices.

the avvar are portrayed as basically wild, uncivilized barbarians.

it just seems like most if not all the chantry-aligned characters either have their faith confirmed or held up as the best option despite its flaws. the tone is so often like, "yes the chantry committed genocide but look! mother gisele is helping both the refugee mages and the church-appointed supersoldiers hunting them down and executing them. it's equality! not everyone in the chantry is a bad person!"

A quick rundown of info that we know about some of the companions

A few of the companions that we see in the trailer have been seen in other Dragon Age material! Harding was in Dragon Age: Inquisition, but Neve and Lucanis were in the comics and books. Since I know the comics and books aren't everyone's vibe I thought I would summarize some of what we know from them! There are a few other tidbits from the books and comics too that I think might be helpful in understanding some of the other characters too!

Harding

We know Lace Harding from Dragon Age: Inquisition. She was an Inquisition scout, and we would see her whenever we entered a brand new area. After the events of Dragon Age: Trespasser she travels with Verric in an attempt to track down Solas in Dragon Age: The Missing.

Bellara

I want to mention Bellara here because while she might not be in The Missing, there ARE veil jumpers that Verric and Harding come across while searching for Solas. Veil jumpers are Dalish who help to deal with the disturbances in the veil that are happening in the Arlathan Forest. Rifts have been opening in that forest because the veil is being destabilize. In these rifts anything can happen. You can see your double, you could age rapidly and then go back to the way you were in minutes. Veil jumpers try to contain the threat that the rifts pose. That seems to be what Bellara is.

Neve

Neve Gallus is a Tevine private investigator and a mage. She's in both Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights and Dragon Age: The Missing. Teventer Nights is made up of a collection of short stories, and Neve's is called "The Streets of Minrathous." In that story she investigates a series of murders by blood mages who want to summon a demon said to be sealed under Minrathous that Corypheus had wanted to control. Neve works with some templars to keep the ritual from happening.

In The Missing, Neve works with Verric and Harding. She tells them that Solas has been stealing magical artifacts from the Venatori and freeing their slaves. She reveals that she's part of an organization called "The Shadow Dragons" and they're assisting the freed slaves. When Verric and Harding were with her they found that the elven slaves aren't working for Solas, but they hold him in very high regard. Neve, Verric, and Harding then help a group of slaves evade the Venatori's capture.

Something else that's pretty cool about Neve? She has a visible disability, she has a dwarven prosthetic leg from the knee down!

Lucanis

Lucanis Dellamourte is a Crow assassin, the grandson of the First Tallon (the head of the Crows) Caterina Dellamorte. Caterina is in the Tevinter Nights short story "Eight Little Talons" and Lucanis is in the short story "The Wigmaker Job." He is also in a separate short story called "The Wake." Lucanis is called "the magekiller" because he's often sent on jobs to kill mages. He has a special sense that no one else seems to have, he can feel when a mage is drawing on the veil and when they're going to use magic. He can feel with when the veil is thin as well. In The Wigmaker Job he and his cousin Illaro are sent to Teventer to kill a target, a bloodmage who makes magical wigs. They're sent to kill the mage at his own party, and to get there they had the help of a mysterious elven girl who may have been associated with those who worship the Dreadwolf. While trying to find the right place to kill the mage the assassins are caught by one of his slaves, a terrified girl whose hair seems to have been pulled out by the roots and she begs them to kill the mage. Against Illaro's judgement Lucanis lets her go and tells her to run. By the time the assassins get to the basement they find horribly mutilated elves with their legs cut off and chained to walls. The bloodmage has been feeding them red lyrium to make their hair grow so he can harvest it for his wigs. They find an elven artifact that has been keeping demons away and they destroy it. Lucanis sends Illaro to free the slaves (again, against Illaro's judgment) and help them get away while he kills the mage. He wants to make him suffer for the horrible things he saw being done in the basement. Lucanis kills the mage who has turned into an abomination and he and his cousin escape the city. Because of all that happened Lucanis gains the name "the demon" among the higher ups of Tevinter, and they want to find his weaknesses so that he can be taken down.

In the sort story "The Wake" it's believed that Lucanis has died. His cousin Illaro is grief stricken and has gotten drunk to cope with the loss. Because Lucanis is very much not dead in the Dragon Age: Veilgaurd companions trailer I would say it's safe to guess that his death was faked, for some reason.

Davrin

Well, this is less about Davrin and more about the griffin. In Dragon Age: Last Flight a clutch of griffin eggs are found hidden in a kind of magical status. Griffins are supposed to be very large animals (they were warden's mounts) and the griffin in this trailer seemed to be smaller. I wonder if it's still young? Griffins were used by wardens because they hate darkspawn just as much as wardens do, maybe Davrin will be a kind of ranger-type playstyle?

Emmrich

Emmrich looks to be a Navaran necromancer. People in Fereldan burn their dead because they don't want them to become vessels for spirits. In Navara they don't do that, they welcome spirits to possess the bodies of the dead. It's common for some death mages to have assistants that they have called back from the dead, and necropolises there are very active. You can see that in action in the Tevinter Night short stories "Down Among the Dead Men" and "Murder by Death Mages."