Part 68: Bull's & Cull's

Bull's & Cull's

Our last two companion quests.

We get the opportunity to ally with the Qunari, which I immediately go and fuck up because I like the Chargers better anyway. Before Trespasser this was another "just go with whatever you feel is best." I usually side with the Chargers, though I've done both. If you decide to ally with Qunari then Krem and co. get wiped out by the huge (huge here being 6) Venatori force and Bull chucks their ashes over the ramparts instead of getting in a stab-off in a rather emotional scene. You then get some war table missions where Tallis, a character from DA2 DLC does some stuff and you save Denerim from getting blowed up. With our choice we instead get to see Krem still abusing the chair and have some war table missions to use the Chargers where they go do stuff off-screen. In one of the shortcomings of the war table, Denerim is never threatened so there's not even that reason to go with the alliance. Always my reasoning has been that both Bull and even Gatt mention that the Qunari don't really do treaties and/or alliances. They follow the Qun, so the second this alliance doesn't advance their goals they're going to drop it like a bad habit. Then we'd have to deal with Qunari knowing a lot about us, probably having even more people hidden in our ranks, and having to fight them off in addition to whatever shit may end up going on with Tevinter. And now that Trespasser is out, well... I'll cover that when we get there.

Cullen wants to go back on the blue sauce, but we tell him not to so he doesn't. This is something else that didn't really have any ramifications in the base game but is a Very Big Fucking Deal in Trespasser. Kinda nice to see that Bioware finally got away from "in the end your choices don't really matter" with Trespasser, because holy shit things can go differently depending on what you did. The other thing about this choice in just the base game that makes it a no-brainer is that other than our little cutscene Cullen never shows any signs of lyrium withdrawal. If they had him fainting or acting weirdly otherwise it could have made it a tough decision but without that it's only something you'd do if you were playing as an asshole. "Let's see, you're absolutely fine without lyrium but I think I'll have you keep taking it "

And we get a short and rather weird conversation with Solas. He's actually way more chatty if you aren't an elf, though he's still kind of a dick. Particularly if you're playing as a Qunari, where he says he thought all Qunari were savages and he's just so impressed with us for being different. If your approval with him is in the toilet, you can actually punch him during this scene like you were a renegade Shepard. Fun times.

Morrigan shows us her shiny elfy mirror and we get a hint as to why Cory might be headed down south. This is one of those times where you don't get special elven dialogue and it's kind of jarring, especially if you were playing an elven mage. Merrill had one in DA2, it was part of the Dalish origin in DA:O so it's not like these things are unheard of. Butts has no clue, just the same as any other race of Inquisitor.