Official battles are dwarves only. But all sorts of criminal elements, including mercenaries of different races, take part in illegal battles. Remember that there are also mercenaries in Carta’s lair. Carta operates on the surface too, so this makes sense. And what do you mean "unexplained"? They are named as mercenaries so it implies that they were hired.
The Qunari are the only ones labeled as Mercenaries. The others are not as far as I remember. I’ll give you the Carta hiring mercenaries but I think it’s pretty weird for the dwarves to be fighting proving matches with “Arcane Warrior”s and “Blood Mage”s. According to the wiki (https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Proving_Armsman) the unofficial matches are “illegal” but still are participated in by commoner houses and it remains a highly cultural/religious ceremony. I don’t think it really fits the lore for commoner warrior houses to resort to outsiders to fight in their (unofficial) proving matches given everything we are shown about dwarven pride/tradition in game. Not to mention that I believe you find the only arcane warrior in the entire game down here, when they don’t even really exist in modern Thedas. These npcs are definitely unexplained imo even if you want to assume they’re mercenaries. You don’t see a single non-dwarf npc in all of orzammar besides these. It really just feels like the developers wanted to throw some mages in every fight to make the fights more interesting.
Honestly I’m happy to discuss the lore of the game and how to better improve this mod but your message came across as kinda unconstructive to me. If you completely disagree with my choices you don’t have to download it. If even one other person enjoys this mod then I’d say it’s a success in my book.
I agree with you both, actually. That some (read: not all) "unofficial" Provings teams could have hired overworld mages even in Orzammar I find credible, but the fact that the Warden is the one who "re-discovers" the AW spec makes any appearance of it in Orzammar (and elsewhere) a little weird. Yes, this includes the AW in the Urn quest as well. I like the idea but do not need this myself; not at the moment, at least. :-)
I personally do not mind the occasional non-dwarves in with the carta. I think the dwarven carta origin can reference seeing the occasional mage or qunari, and I know a dwarven inquisitor can say they have snuck into Orzammar loads of times through secret paths known only to the carta. So to me there are enough lore reasons for the odd mage to be there as added firepower or some qunari to be there as some menacing muscle. Non mage humans or elves do not really have special reasons to be there though. Not when Orzammar is on lockdown.
I completely agree that non-dwarves should never be inside the proving. That just seems completely counter to what the proving's are about. I think they were trying to make it less odd for a non dwarf warden fighting in the proving's, but non dwarves are supposed to feel out of place in them. From what I could tell the Warden is meant to be a rare exception to the dwarves only rule; because Grey Wardens are so respected in Orzammar.
Thank you for this! Even if it is not exactly what I would do, I would rather have only dwarves in Orzammar than so many non dwarves.
I did structure this mod so that you could for example delete the carta component and still keep the proving conversions so if you’d like to customize your installation that would be possible.
I have to agree that this mod is by no means the “end all” for canonicity but it was something that I personally wanted for my game and wanted to share it for others who would enjoy it. I do think it’s plausible for the Carta to have smuggled in some foreign muscle and magic. They certainly would be in a position to keep “illegal citizens” hidden away too. I also wasn’t aware of the dwarf origin lines that reference these mercenaries so that’s another good argument for them. I’m also not super knowledgeable in Qunari lore but I thought that Qunari and Dwarves did not really get along which is why I thought the Qunari in the Carta was a little strange. Though I suppose the Carta “Qunari” could be from a Vashoth mercenary company, which seems to be a common business for Vashoth here in Fereldan.
7 comments
According to the wiki (https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Proving_Armsman) the unofficial matches are “illegal” but still are participated in by commoner houses and it remains a highly cultural/religious ceremony. I don’t think it really fits the lore for commoner warrior houses to resort to outsiders to fight in their (unofficial) proving matches given everything we are shown about dwarven pride/tradition in game. Not to mention that I believe you find the only arcane warrior in the entire game down here, when they don’t even really exist in modern Thedas. These npcs are definitely unexplained imo even if you want to assume they’re mercenaries. You don’t see a single non-dwarf npc in all of orzammar besides these. It really just feels like the developers wanted to throw some mages in every fight to make the fights more interesting.
Honestly I’m happy to discuss the lore of the game and how to better improve this mod but your message came across as kinda unconstructive to me. If you completely disagree with my choices you don’t have to download it. If even one other person enjoys this mod then I’d say it’s a success in my book.
I like the idea but do not need this myself; not at the moment, at least. :-)
I personally do not mind the occasional non-dwarves in with the carta. I think the dwarven carta origin can reference seeing the occasional mage or qunari, and I know a dwarven inquisitor can say they have snuck into Orzammar loads of times through secret paths known only to the carta. So to me there are enough lore reasons for the odd mage to be there as added firepower or some qunari to be there as some menacing muscle. Non mage humans or elves do not really have special reasons to be there though. Not when Orzammar is on lockdown.
I completely agree that non-dwarves should never be inside the proving. That just seems completely counter to what the proving's are about. I think they were trying to make it less odd for a non dwarf warden fighting in the proving's, but non dwarves are supposed to feel out of place in them. From what I could tell the Warden is meant to be a rare exception to the dwarves only rule; because Grey Wardens are so respected in Orzammar.
Thank you for this!
Even if it is not exactly what I would do, I would rather have only dwarves in Orzammar than so many non dwarves.
I did structure this mod so that you could for example delete the carta component and still keep the proving conversions so if you’d like to customize your installation that would be possible.
I have to agree that this mod is by no means the “end all” for canonicity but it was something that I personally wanted for my game and wanted to share it for others who would enjoy it. I do think it’s plausible for the Carta to have smuggled in some foreign muscle and magic. They certainly would be in a position to keep “illegal citizens” hidden away too. I also wasn’t aware of the dwarf origin lines that reference these mercenaries so that’s another good argument for them.
I’m also not super knowledgeable in Qunari lore but I thought that Qunari and Dwarves did not really get along which is why I thought the Qunari in the Carta was a little strange. Though I suppose the Carta “Qunari” could be from a Vashoth mercenary company, which seems to be a common business for Vashoth here in Fereldan.