"They Aren't Blighted! Were They Dormant?" "Maybe. They're Beautiful. Much Like You."

“I cannot kill the blight, but I can help to soothe its anger. I will go and seek atonement”

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We finally know which tattoo stands for which faction, thanks to @pinkyjulien's folder!

These were a little bit trickier, but I also wanted to include the full body tattoos. Please note that while the files list Dalish and Veil Jumper tattoos the same way, I felt like it was worth making a distinction between the two of them in this list. You can definitely just read all tattoos as either Veil Jumper or Dalish tattoos, however. Also, pretty sure the devs didn't label them so no one would feel restricted.

elves fleeing the ruined city of arlathan and being welcomed with open arms into cad'halash thaig. the very spirits that stole the lyrium from their gods and used their newfound bodies to tranquilize them, and yet the dwarves said "come to us, we will shelter you". dwarves and elves alike being destroyed by kal-sharok so as to not jeopardize their alliance with the tevinter imperium. somewhere in cad'halash thaig a dwarf and an elf were holding one another when they died. ir sa tel'nal. isatunoll.

the 'vallaslin are sacred to all elves ✋️😔 not just the Dalish' tattoo dialogue is so weird but if I write an essay explaining why I fear I'll combust and die

Them🖤🖤🖤

I just love the identical shit-eating grin that the companions get when you find that naked guard tied to Celene's bed - these two especially.

They're just living for the messy drama and I am here for it.

Kicking the hornet's nest (possibly) by saying I don't really like Manfred's portrayal as a cute gimmicky spirit that is a "research assistant" but all he does is hiss and pour tea and play rock paper scissors. Not when we had Cole and a real agonizing decision of whether to remain a spirit of compassion or become a human. Not when Cole was a fully actualized character and had a REAL storyline and real banter and was trying to figure out himself and his purpose. But most of all, he wanted to help.

Its a huge step backwards in the portrayal of spirits in this game. I mean I have said lots about the status quo and the Veil but this game is just so intellectually incurious tbh. There's no thinking involved or agonizing decision to make where I remember looking up guides on past DA decisions and scum reloading since I wasn't happy with the first decision I made lol.

Would a spirit of curiosity not potentially be the most annoying spirit? I feel like they would be asking 10923482 questions constantly and would've added to a lot of world building and lore instead of comic relief or being sacrificed to another character's storyline.

bioware since 2012: honestly we shouldn’t have redesigned the elves. from now on, regular faces for elves only

me:

I see a lot of posts on here talking about the Solas/Elgar'nan segment in Blood of Arlathan and how it's one of the best scenes in the game, and they'd be right, but I don't see enough people talking about how comically the whole thing is undercut by quite possibly the most poorly-conceived, terribly-implemented looney-tunes-ass sequence in gaming history that surrounds it.

Like you show up with your friends to this Venatori party, and you're like great, we're sneaking in! Time for disguises. How convenient that these Venatori guys all wear hoods, right? Should be a piece of cake if we're all, you know, wearing hoods that would helpfully hide our identities. But no. We all go waltzing in with our whole-ass faces exposed, you know, the group of guys that have been murdering Venatori left and right and who Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain have definitely all seen in person before. Oh, and don't worry about walking into this notoriously racist elf-sacrificing cult if you happen to be an elf! You're only here in disguise so that you can rescue a GROUP OF ELVES THEY'RE GOING TO SACRIFICE but it's ok because you're dressed as a mercenary and not a dalish so it's all good don't worry about it :) :)

Then you get into this fucking party and oh my fucking god it's like they decided to take all of the most comically over-the-top stereotypes of villainy and put them on display. Because why not! The Venatori are all sickos anyway so of course they'd be out here doing sicko things! There's some guys pulling a halla apart with blood magic! There's other guys using slaves as benches! They're all laughing and joking about how EVIL they are, hahaha, how cool is that? The fucking guy from D'Meta's Crossing is here if you don't let him die, because he's a fucked up evil sicko too! You're supposed to be shocked at this hideous display; recoil in horror, even!

And who do you bring with you to help get through this crowd of absolute lunatics? NEVE FUCKING GALLUS. You know, the person so well-known in Minrathous that a Dalish elf living in Arlathan KNEW HER BY REPUTATION. Yup, Neve Gallus with her INTENSELY RECOGNIZABLE PROSTHETIC just waltzes up to some guy and he just lets her in. Because being EVIL also makes you incapable of coherent thought, apparently.

And then. AND THEN. You walk across the bridge where Elgar'nan makes his thought-sounds at you, and YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING PARTY is already there, just hanging out nbd. Also not wearing hoods or any kind of disguises that couldn't instantly be seen through by a five-year-old with amnesia but ok, cool. Why did we bother walking through all those sickos then when we could've just taken the secret back entrance like the rest of them, idk.

But just when you think you've reached peak stupidity, it keeps going. You're now standing there, at the front of a crowd of about twelve people, approximately five feet away from Elgar'nan himself, inexplicably blending in, when the big guy puts the mind control whammy on everyone. Oh no, you think. We've been found out! Here's the part in the plan where things begin to go wrong! NO. Your mage friends SECRETLY PERFORM MAGICAL GESTURES to block the mind control, and then you LITERALLY FUCKING SIDLE OFF STAGE LEFT without ANYONE NOTICING. I should reiterate that at this point, you are still about FIVE FEET AWAY FROM ELGAR'NAN and his fucking ARCHDEMON.

And to conclude this absolute comedy of idiocy, as soon as you enter back into combat mode, you immediately ditch all of your disguises. And of course then, ONLY THEN, Elgar'nan notices you've been there. Cut to the end of the actual good sequence, this dramatic conversation performed by excellent voice actors and written miles better than most other things in this game, and you reach your final prize: about six guys trapped in a little cube. Cool, you tell yourself. This was definitely worth it. You take your fade-to-black teleporter back to the Lighthouse and they're never heard from again.

This was the quest that broke me. This was the moment that all hope for Veilguard finally snapped. I consider myself to be a very resilient person in the face of camp and goofy writing, but this was too much disbelief for my brain to suspend. The mental gymnastics necessary to make this whole sequence make any kind of sense were simply beyond me. Even Solas's dulcet tones could not salvage it for me after that.